Something odd is happening in the tiny town of Galesburg, Illinois (actually a convincingly rural Auckland, New Zealand), and it’s up to local police chief John Brady (frequent Robert Altman collaborator Michael Murphy) to figure out what’s going on. There has been a string of grisly murder of late, all seemingly committed by different individuals. One corpse is discovered in a field dressed and mocked up to resemble a scarecrow.

John begins to suspect a research lab at the nearby university might be involved, but what he doesn’t know is his son, Pete (Dan Shor, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure), has signed up to be the latest guinea pig for the lab’s bizarre mind control experiments, conducted by the suspicious Gwen Parkinson (Fiona Lewis, Innerspace). Will Pete become the next murder victim, or will Parkinson’s experiments turn him into another killer? Louise Fletcher (Exorcist II: The Heretic) and Marc McClure (Superman) also star.

Released as Dead Kids in its native New Zealand and elsewhere, Strange Behavior serves up a unique blend of sci-fi-horror intrigue and slasher-grade kills. There’s also a suspenseful scene involving a hypodermic needle to the eye that will make viewers squirm, as well as a knife-wielding maniac in an oversized Tor Johnson mask. All of this set to a mesmerizing electronic score by Tangerine Dream.

Director Michael Laughlin co-wrote the screenplay with Bill Condon, who would go on to have a successful Hollywood directorial career, helming Gods and Monsters, Dreamgirls and a pair of Twilight films, among other works. The pair would reunite two years later for Strange Invaders, which involved aliens and was the second in an intended “Strange” trilogy, the third of which sadly never came to be. —Christopher Shultz

Get it at Amazon.

Much of the promotional material for A Return to Salem’s Lot features the caped, grotesque figure of Barlow, the head vampire from Tobe Hooper’s adaptation of the Stephen King novel ’Salem’s Lot. Fans of that 1979 TV miniseries will be disappointed to learn, however, that Barlow does not actually appear in the sequel, which strays pretty far from King’s source material.

Written and directed by Larry Cohen, creator of satirical horrors It’s Alive, Q: The Winged Serpent and The Stuff, among others, the film teases a few interesting ideas about the origins (and symbolism) of vampires in society, but never fully ties these concepts together.

The plot follows anthropologist Joe Weber (frequent Cohen collaborator Michael Moriarty), who must look after his troubled, foul-mouthed yuppie son, Jeremy (Ricky Addison Reed, in his only onscreen role). The father and son decide to restore a house left to Joe by his deceased Aunt Clara in the little town of Salem’s Lot, Maine.

They of course quickly learn that the townsfolk are all vampires, led by Judge Axel (Andrew Duggan), and they have a proposal for Joe: Study their ways and create a “Vampire Bible” to formally introduce the oldest race of creatures to the rest of the world. Joe appreciates the anthropological implications of this proposal, but isn’t sure about helping the bloodsuckers out.

Meanwhile, the vampire children of Salem’s Lot, primarily Amanda (a young Tara Reid), tempt Jeremy with a life of eternal youth, and a crusty Nazi hunter (cult director Samuel Fuller) comes snooping around town. Will Joe and Jeremy choose evil over good, or will they “do the right thing” and fight the vampires?

Ultimately, the film isn’t sure what the right thing is, and thus, neither is the audience, leaving viewers more confused than ponderous. On top of this, A Return to Salem’s Lot is neither scary nor funny, making it a rather tepid entry in Cohen’s otherwise outstanding body of work. —Christopher Shultz

Get it at Amazon.

Who doesn’t love a good old fashioned evil kid movie? From bona fide classics like The Bad Seed and The Omen to “trashier” fare like Bloody Birthday and the underrated Devil Times Five, there’s just something special about seeing prepubescent boys and girls slaughtering those around them.

Situated somewhere below the line of quality and good taste is Mikey, which bears the tagline “Remember, Jason and Freddie [sic] were kids once, too,” which lets you know exactly what kind of movie this is. Though it never gets quite as violent as the films in those franchises, the intent is clear: We’re here to see a psycho child off people in increasingly creative ways.

Mikey never really gets as creatively brutal as it could, giving audiences a movie that no doubt ran mostly uncut on basic cable back in the ’90s. Starring as the titular bad boy is Brian Bonsall, known primarily as the youngest Keaton child on Family Ties and from the Disney fever dream Blank Check. The audience is tipped off pretty quickly that Mikey is disturbed when he kills his entire foster family within the first 10 minutes.

He claims an intruder committed the crimes, and is hurriedly placed with another couple, played by John Diehl and Mimi Craven. The question then becomes: How soon will little Mikey kill again? We don’t have to wait terribly long, as the boy soon becomes obsessively infatuated with his friend’s older sister (Josie Bissett, All-American Murder), and plots to get rid of her boyfriend the only way he knows how. Ashley Laurence of Hellraiser fame plays the boy’s teacher, the only adult who knows something about Mikey just isn’t right.

If you’re looking for a frank exploration of child psychology and patterns of violence, don’t look here. Also, don’t look to Mikey if you prefer that good triumphs over evil in your entertainment, because you won’t find any of that here. Watch this movie only if you’re in the mood for some pure-grade schlock wrapped up in a nasty, 90-minute package. —Christopher Shultz

Get it at Amazon.