Wes Craven’s My Soul to Take arrives with such a preposterous premise: that seven premature babies born the night of the death of a serial killer grow up as mirrors of his personality. (Granted, the dude did expire at midnight sharp, but c’mon!)

However, his kitchen-sink prologue makes me think the ludicrous nature of it all is intended, like a self-parody that was perhaps two notes too subtle for mass audiences to notice. Scream, it is not — but it is better than what would be Craven’s follow-up, 2011’s Scream 4.

Sixteen years after that over-the-top opening, the so-called Riverton Ripper — he of the cruelly curved blade emblazoned with the word “VENGEANCE” — is back. This time, his targets are those birthday boys and girls, including the asshole jock, the blind minority, the Jesus freak (“If things get too hot, just turn on the prayer conditioning”), the abused misfit and our protagonist, the unpopular and possibly schizophrenic Bug (Max Thieriot, TV’s Bates Motel).

The Ripper is easy to spot: He resembles a prematurely bald Rob Zombie and soup-kitchen hobo. It’s an unsettling and decidedly odd choice for a villain, but the misunderstood My Soul to Take is nothing if not a picture that bops along on its own unusual, discordant rhythms. Love it or hate it, you haven’t quite seen this film done this way before. It’s wildly imperfect, but interesting in its insanity, which is enough for me. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Purportedly based on an Edgar Allan Poe short story, this film is just about as much Poe’s as some scoutmaster spinning tales around a campfire. The Argentine/American patchwork oddity Legend of Horror throws the young Pierre — he of the Elvis sideburns — into a dank prison cell with the wacky-ass, hygiene-neglecting Sidney. This Sidney fellow cackles like a hobo on ripple and has forged an unhealthy friendship with a mouse, predating The Green Mile by a good three decades.

As the two cellmates plot their escape, Sidney entertains Pierre with a story about how ended up in this good-for-nuthin’ place. Switch to a “flashback” (really a dubbed, sizable chunk of another movie altogether, 1960’s Masterworks of Terror) in which a then-strapping Sidney visits his uncle, a clock salesman with a bad eye and a piss-poor attitude toward customer service.

In due time, Uncle Freaky-Eye pushes Sidney to the breaking point, whereupon young Sid smothers the bastard with a pillow. As the cops interview him regarding his uncle’s disappearance, Sidney is driven to a confession by hearing the heartbeat of the corpse. (All ties to Poe begin and end in that one scene.)

Jump back to our prisoners, who have busted out of the joint and seek refuge. Sidney kills a couple of guards who come after them, but to the delight of the audience, does so via the magic of “Magicmation” — a fancy cinematic term for “stop-motion!” At the end, all the people Sidney has killed come back to life and cause him to be impaled in a graveyard. For no discernible reason, the film abruptly ditches the black-and-white format for a splash o’ color. Never you mind — it just makes it that much more of a hoot. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Something Weird Video.

Four years before Kevin Costner got Revenge, John Wayne’s second son got his. You wouldn’t know it from the title, but 1986’s Revenge is the sequel to the previous year’s Blood Cult, thought to be the first feature film made expressly for home video. Both chapters were shot on the cheap in Tulsa, Okla., by director Christopher Lewis, but rather commendably, he doesn’t settle for a simple rehash. Instead, he tries harder.

Whereas Blood Cult was an out-and-out slasher set partly at a sorority house, Revenge is a follow-up investigation of the murders two months later. Mike Hogan (Patrick Wayne, Beyond Atlantis) returns to town after his brother’s homicide by the sheriff’s daughter. His old farm neighbor, Gracie (Bennie Lee McGowan, reprising her stereotypical Okie-hick role in which “killed” is pronounced “kilt”), is pleased as punch at the reunion: “I ain’t seen you since you was knee-high to a grasshopper and sneakin’ in my watermelon patch!”

Herself a fresh widow thanks to that dadgurned there blood cult, Gracie joins Mike to take down them there sumsabitches. A few early scenes excepted, the slasher element is traded for a supernatural one à la Scanners, as members of the blood cult can choke a bitch and/or cause a cerebral hemorrhage without using any physical contact whatsoever. The switch in approach aids tremendously in letting Revenge stand on its own two feet.

That’s not the only change. Production values vastly increased (from Betacam to 16-mm film); they shelled out enough money to get Hollywood legend John Carradine in for a supporting role as an evil senator (redundant); and Lewis clearly exudes more confidence in moving the camera. Unlike the last time, Lewis penned the screenplay, resulting in humorous touches such as juxtaposing a girl’s leg being hacked outside against her friend slicing raw sausage for breakfast. For all the improvements, however, the pacing is slower and Revenge doesn’t taste as sweet. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.