A somewhat forgotten folk horror film from Australia, Alison’s Birthday begins with the titular character (Joanne Samuel) playing with a makeshift Ouija board with her friends at age 16. One of the girls, Chrissie (Margie McCrae), becomes possessed by a spirt claiming to be Alison’s father, who warns his daughter not to go home on her 19th birthday, insinuating that something horrible will happen. Moments later, a strong gust of wind invades the room and tips over a bookcase, crushing poor Chrissie to death. It’s as exciting and audacious opening to a film as you’re likely to find.

Things slow down a bit as we jump ahead about three years. Alison’s 19th birthday is a few days away, and she’s been summoned to the home of her Aunt Jennifer and Uncle Dean (Bunney Brooke and John Bluthal, respectively). Seems old Dean’s health is failing, and all he wants is one last family birthday celebration with Alison, who hasn’t been back to her childhood abode in quite some time. Despite her reservations (remember that deathly warning she got at 16?), Alison agrees, and convinces her boyfriend, Pete (Lou Brown), to accompany her.

From the outset, it’s pretty clear everything isn’t kosher with Alison’s surrogate parents. For one thing, a mysterious structure in their back garden resembles a miniature Stonehenge. For another, occupying the room across the hall is a spooky old woman who wears a strange amulet around her neck and likes to watch the teenager sleep. She’s explained away as Alison’s great-grandmother, but Alison remembers no mention of the woman all throughout her upbringing.

If you’ve seen a lot of horror movies, you probably have a decent idea where this plot is going, and by and large, it does, though it does so through the POV of Pete, who becomes a final boy of sorts as he investigates the creepy goings-on while Alison gets sidelined to her bed, having been drugged and hypnotized by the now obviously villainous Jennifer and Dean and their physician cohort (Vincent Ball).

Without giving too much away, the ending to Alison’s Birthday is just as audacious as its beginning, and well worth the wait. The film overall is a solid watch, an engaging, if somewhat flawed, entry into the folk horror canon that remains criminally underseen and underappreciated. —Christopher Shultz

Get it at Amazon.

Remember the beheading from The Omen? Imagine a horror movie that tries to recreate that epic scene for nearly every one of its kills — plus some immolation, face peeling, face melting and bisection for good measure — and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what Beyond the Door III is all about.

If you’re hoping it has anything to do with the original Beyond the Door, you’ll be sorely disappointed, as this is an in-name-only sequel, much like the second entry in the series, which is actually just the Mario/Lamberto Bava joint Shock.

The plot centers on Beverly and her friends, students of an indeterminate age (they look like grad students pushing their 30s, but act like high schoolers) on a trip to a rustic foreign land. They’re traveling to witness a pagan ritual, but little do they know they’re marked to be a part of the ritual, a fact they learn after some creepy villagers lock them inside their cabins and set fire to the structures. All but one of the group escapes and they seek refuge on a train, which becomes possessed by evil spirits hellbent on finishing the sacrificial work.

We learn that Beverly has been chosen to be the devil’s bride because she’s a virgin with a large birthmark on her stomach, as well as some kind of familial connection that is ill-explained. It hardly matters, however, because just as the train literally goes off the rails at one point, so too does the film itself. Any semblance of logic flies right out the window and gets decapitated.

In case it isn’t painfully obvious, Beyond the Door III — also known as Amok Train — is incredibly gory. Come for the special effects, but stay for the general wackiness, which includes some befuddling dialogue among the principal cast, and even more confusing exchanges with police and government officials who do not speak English and whose lines aren’t subtitled, all of which contributes to the fever-dream-like quality of the movie.

It’s the kind of picture you’ll half-remember years down the line and wonder if it was real or just something your brain cooked up after consuming some days-old Chinese takeout you found in your fridge. Fortunately, it’s just over an hour and a half runtime makes it a perfect slice of WTF-ery that won’t eat up an entire night. —Christopher Shultz

Get it at Amazon.