In the late 1970s to early 1980s, it seems like you couldn’t pass an intersection without seeing the original pop-up shop: some guy selling velvet paintings propped against his van. Remember those? 

Good. Now cast aside all assumptions of reality and imagine the dude’s entire inventory were worth half a million bucks. Now imagine the perfect person to broker that sale were Tara Reid. Now you’re prepared for Art of the Dead, from writer/director Rolfe Kanefsky (The Erotic Adventures of the Invisible Man).

The gaudy and gauche oils at this horror movie’s necrotic heart depict the seven deadly sins as represented by animals. All come from the brush of the appropriately named Dorian Wilde (Danny Tesla, Attack of the Unknown), who looks like a cross between Frank Zappa and a haberdashery. Wilde’s septet of “masterpieces” — at best, they scream high school art class — is in high demand, despite making people go nuts upon gazing. The prologue illustrates just how, with a cameoing Richard Grieco (Halloween Pussy Trap Kill! Kill!) slaughtering his family.

After outbidding others for the cursed collection, members of the Wilson family find out its downside fast. The goat painting makes Mom (Jessica Morris, Reel Evil) so horny, she fucks a goat — or an NBA-mascot facsimile of one. The snake artwork makes Sis (Cynthia Aileen Strahan, TV’s The Offer) give herself a boob job — using the torn-off breasts of her bully. The frog one makes her brother (newcomer Zachary Chyz) paint the nude body of a sex worker (Sarah French, That’s a Wrap) — with words like “WHORE CUNT SLUT BITCH.” 

Too much? But but but I haven’t even gotten to Wilde creating canvases from the skin of a prostitute! And paint from her blood to match! It’s like Ray Bradbury’s legendary short story “The Veldt,” but with 100% more demon-tonguing.

Yes, Art of the Dead is completely preposterous in premise, yet I can’t deny the appeal of its gimmick. Luckily, the film puts you in the proper frame of mind upfront with the credit “a Rolfe Kanefsky flick,” rather than “film” or “movie” or “picture” or another Pauline Kael-friendly synonym.

Even if it hadn’t, is anyone in danger of taking this Mahal Empire production seriously? If so, then they’re not paying attention to the auction worker who drinks from a hose until his belly literally explodes. Or the priest with a milky eye. Or the twin kids turning into giant snails. Or the snakes earning credits as “Hisser” and “Pumpkin.” —Rod Lott

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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

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First things first: I have no idea why The Pumpkin Karver chooses to misspell its own title. It’s about a carver who moves to a small town named Carver, with nary a K in sight.

That’s where clean teen Jonathan (Michael Zara) moves with his big sister, Lynn (WWE Diva Amy Weber), for a fresh start. See, a year earlier, Lynn’s asshole boyfriend, Alec (David J. Wright, TV’s Sons of Anarchy), pulled a mean prank on Halloween night by donning a truly creepy pumpkin mask, locking Lynn in her garage and coming toward her with a knife. Thinking it real, Lynn screamed, and Jonathan ceased carving his pumpkin (not a euphemism) to save his sis by fatally stabbing the guy. Sucks to be Alec.

Anyway, a year later, they pull into Carver, where the population hovers around 666 — enough for the local teens to have a blowout kegger and dress in their best Austin Powers costumes. Jonathan is smitten by Lynn’s single friend Tammy (Minka Kelly, Blackwater Lane), even though she wears a beret and says a lot of things that could get you thrown into special ed.

Threatening to snuff out their burgeoning love is that Jonathan is forever tormented by visions of Alec in the aforementioned mask. (Let us pause to note the Slipknot-esque visage on the movie’s cover thankfully appears nowhere.) Worse, someone is killing the partiers — and, in the cases of obnoxious, toga-clad Pauly Shore stand-ins Spinner (Alex Weed) and Bonedaddy (David Phillips), not soon enough.

With the victims’ faces sporting a gourd-ready rictus, are these murders the work of a resurrected Alec? Or perhaps the weird old pumpkin farmer (Terrence Evans, 2003’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) who shares his expert karving carving techniques and tools with Jonathan? (Whoever it is, props for choosing a theme and sticking with it. And adding the shoved-in-mouth candle? Chef’s kiss.)

If the internet is to be believed, Robert Mann’s movie served as something of a gateway horror for impressionable tweens and early teens in the era of straight-to-DVD trash proliferation. I can see why. With its Halloween-driven storyline, pumpkin-patch backdrop and slasher setup, The Pumpkin Karver is practically built to court and foster viewers’ growing nostalgia, clouding how silly it actually is. I gained little from watching, but I don’t regret the experience, either. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

In Justin Benson and Aaron Morehead’s first film, Resolution, two friends retreat from society to an isolated rental property so one of them can get sober. Things don’t go as planned. Now, a decade later, make the duo sisters and you have the synopsis for Jack Dignan’s Puzzle Box, an Australian found-footage horror pic.

Kait (Kaitlyn Boyé, 2019’s The Furies) is the addict brought to a beautiful, multistoried home in the middle of the woods by her sis, Olivia (Laneikka Denne in her feature debut). Olivia camcords the events to document Kait’s rehabilitation.

Once darkness engulfs the sky, the house inexplicably begins to “glitch,” as stairways extend and doors lead to new hallways and unexpected rooms, like a B&B Backrooms. Seconds before the siblings are separated, Kait takes possession of the camera. Turning on its night-vision mode, she attempts to escape from this labyrinthian nightmare, only to be chased at every turn by some bleeding, shrieking woman (Cassandre Girard, Dignan’s After She Died).

Initially, that’s a neat bit of freakery; after 10 straight minutes of it, not so much. Following a slight breather, Puzzle Box returns to it yet again. In essence, Dignan not only rides that one-trick pony like a thoroughbred, but toward the Triple Crown. Put aside any hopes of the movie transcending its found-footageness. It follows the template established in 1999 by those three nosy youngsters in Burkittsville, to-the-camera confessional included. As the house’s hosts’ notes taunt, enjoy your stay! —Rod Lott

Father doesn’t know best in The Beast Within. That’s because every full moon, he turns into a werewolf, requiring him to be chained in the British wilderness to keep his loved ones safe and sound.

Eternals’ Kit Harington headlines as Noah, the current owner of the gosh-darned generational curse. “I am a coward and I am a monster,” he says to his 10-year-old daughter, Willow (Caoilinn Springall, Stopmotion), who’s begun to suspect as much anyway. Kids these days be smart.

With Within, documentarian Alexander J. Farrell (Making a Killing) makes a move to fictional features. This first attempt is inauspicious, however, being laboriously paced and predictable; regarding the latter, when the script introduces Willow as suffering from life-or-death breathing issues, you know Farrell’s doing so to establish Chekov’s oxygen tank. With intended scares overly dependent on either the eye-through-keyhole variety or the just-a-dream conceit, the movie plays too conventionally.

And not conventionally enough, where the werewolf is concerned: rarely spotted outside of shadows and, when he is, clearly built in cash-deficient CGI that belies the beauty of the West Yorkshire forest. Either way, we’re left wanting more. Like the scene with the splinter plunged underneath one’s fingernail — at least that, we feel.

While The Beast Within is not a remake of 1982’s same-named raping cicada movie, maybe it should be? —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.