Whether Blood Cult was the first movie made expressly for the home-video market as it claims does not matter. What does is that the Tulsa, Oklahoma-lensed picture is the perfect example for what shot-on-video projects do wrong and right — mostly wrong, starting with enough padding to rival a Tempur-Pedic mattress.

For example, a college student is horrified to find two chopped-off fingers in her cafeteria salad, and the scene fits into the plot. But what we don’t need is what director Christopher Lewis (son of actress Loretta Young) gives us beforehand: the coed being welcomed by the cafeteria worker; the two engaging in idle chit-chat; the coed selecting the broccoli and meat patty; the worker placing said meat patty on a tray; the coed selecting a diet Coke; the coed approaching the register; the cashier asking for $2.90; the cashier giving her a dime in change; the coed approaching the salad bar; the coed stirring the cottage cheese; the coed opting not to take any cottage cheese; the coed instead choosing your regular garden salad.

It’s all done to fill out a standard story of a black-gloved killer who carves up sorority girls with a glisteningly sharp cleaver and takes limbs as souvenirs. Investigating is Sheriff Wilbois (Charles Ellis, who returned for the following year’s sequel, Revenge), a rotund, elderly fella who looks like a TV pitchman for suspect Medicare supplements, and talks to himself a lot about the clues he finds. We call this “exposition.”

For shooting on Betacam with a $27,000 budget, Lewis achieves some interesting angles and tricks, but lacks in the other areas that carry equal weight, from credible performances to establishing tension. For the latter, witnessing the sheriff chow down on food from Arby’s while on stakeout does not count. Still, Blood Cult certainly is watchable — and not just for being a footnote in film history within the chapter titled “VHS Revolution and the Mom-and-Pop Video Store” — although saddled with the weakness that marks so many SOV efforts: a genuine love of movies that shows through, but not necessarily the know-how to pull one off. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Right from the start, The Night of the Devils is a room-clearer, announcing its intentions to the audience with a nightmarish montage of full-frontal nudity and graphic violence, complete with an exploding head and a ripped-out beating heart. “Don’t like it?” the film seems to say. “It’s best you leave now.”

Indeed, the Italian Gothic horror film from director Giorgio Ferroni (Mill of the Stone Women) is envelope-pushing for its time, rubbing your face in close-ups of unflinching gore and pressed flesh.

Gianni Garko (Devil Fish) literally stumbles into the story as Nicola, an amnesiac brought to a mental institution. Taking up most of the running time, a flashback reveals how he got there: Swerving to miss a woman in the woods, he experiences car trouble, and ventures to a nearby, rundown village for help. There, they keep the windows barred as protection against what plagues the night.

The Night of the Devils draws inspiration from Aleksei Tolstoy’s “The Wurdulak,” a story that also informed the Boris Karloff-starring segment of Mario Bava’s 1963 anthology film, Black Sabbath. The similarity isn’t readily apparent until the flashback begins. Whereas the Bava adaptation feels a little long in the tooth, this feature-length version ironically is the more successful telling. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.