“What the hell is a Tenkiller?” asks everyone unfamiliar with the state lakes of Oklahoma. Yet one must admit the alliteration of the title Terror at Tenkiller is catchy, and few words sound as ideal a setting for a slasher movie — a thought shared by the thought-challenged college girl at this film’s well-intentioned heart.

Because the busty Leslie (Stacey Logan, in her only credit) is having troubles with her abusive boyfriend, her BFF Janna (Michelle Merchant, ditto) takes Les for some R&R at her family’s cabin at Lake Tenkiller (located seven miles from the appropriately named town of Gore, incidentally). There, they can swim, boat, fish, ski and talk to a redneck in a Beech-Nut cap and dubbed voice.

They also can get in some exercise by fleeing the resident killer, Tor (Michael Shamus Wiles, TV’s Breaking Bad), who plays the harmonica. (Speaking of music, the score is dominated by a cue that sounds like the Casio was unplugged abruptly each and every time.) Even if the murderer’s identity weren’t revealed in the prologue, the character’s name alone would give it away — well, that and the fact that Terror is nearly a three-character piece.

One of the earliest made-for-VHS horror films, Terror at Tenkiller is another low-budget wonder from the Blood Cult gang, this one directed by first-timer (and last-timer, in keeping with the majority of the cast) Ken Meyer. I’m guessing he shot it out of sequence, since Janna’s first bikini top is quite filled out by fake breasts, which subsequent scenes reveal as all but deflated. Strangely, that adds to its charm — free of varnish, but entertaining. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

I’m totally paraphrasing, but the worried and protective dad played by Sean Bean (TV’s Game of Thrones) firmly and completely warns his teen daughter, Heather (Adelaide Clemens, X-Men Origins: Wolverine), “Do not to go to Silent Hill. Never, ever. No matter what occurs, no matter what happens. Dammit, girl, don’t go there. Got it? Don’t. And don’tcha even think it!”

So of course she goes there. I get it; otherwise, Silent Hill: Revelation would be a short. And maybe it should have been.

2006’s Silent Hill is one of the better big-screen adaptations of a video game, mostly because director Christophe Gans (Brotherhood of the Wolf) bathed the creeps in ambience, and let mood do most of the legwork. In this belated sequel, writer/director Michael J. Bassett (Solomon Kane) tries to tell a story about the foggy, ash-snowing town’s inhabitants and their shadowy Order of Valtiel.

However, this is all convoluted to a point of making the audience not care. If it makes total sense to you, I suspect you’re a serious student of the games, in which case will you please put down the controller and take a shower? Your mother’s asked you three times already!

Clemens, a Michelle Williams doppelgänger, walks through the movie with her mouth agape in perpetual shock as she encounters the franchise’s various iconic creatures, which look like a mixture of Clive Barker’s Cenobites, recovering plastic-surgery patients and diagrams from your geometry textbook. Bassett introduces some new ones, ranging from a spider composed of mannequin parts to a tapioca-complected Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix trilogy) as the cult’s leader.

Neither Moss nor Clemens were in the first film. That was fronted by Radha Mitchell (The Crazies), who shows up just long enough for a cameo in a mirror. At least someone was wise enough to heed Bean’s advice. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

It seems appropriate that what ultimately saves this obscure late-’70s proto-slasher is a memorably theatrical performance by T.G. Finkbinder as the title character. That’s right: The Redeemer redeems The Redeemer, but it’s a close call, because one-time director Constantine S. Gochis commits more than his fair share of cinematic sin before the end credits roll.

In a plot that predates the similar Slaughter High by eight years, six assholes are tricked into attending their 10-year high school reunion, only to discover that they have actually been gathered to be fatally punished for their supposed sins against humanity: specifically, their avarice, vanity, gluttony, haughtiness, licentiousness and perversion.

Unfortunately, as written, the victims are all so clearly guilty of their “sins,” it’s hard not to assume the filmmakers are on the killer’s side, which is especially disturbing when you consider that the “pervert” The Redeemer punishes is simply a woman in a normal (albeit clandestine) lesbian relationship.

But what confuses the potentially ugly moral stance is the revelation that the killer is actually a priest working as the personal hand of the subtitular Son of Satan. What are we supposed to make of this? Is organized religion really a front for the devil? Is the idea that the victims’ supposed “sins” are so minor and commonplace that any one of us could find ourselves at the mercy of The Redeemer? And why is the adolescent Antichrist busy punishing earthly sinners, instead of encouraging them like a more typical Antichrist would?

Thinking about it all makes my head hurt, but — as mentioned above — the movie’s confused themes are made bearable by the presence of its antagonist, who manages to walk that fine line between campy fun and genuine creepiness. Both ahead of its time and unfortunately retrograde, The Redeemer is a highly flawed, but interesting film that deserves a place in the slasher canon its obscurity heretofore has denied it. —Allan Mott

Buy it at Amazon.

A belated sequel to 1994’s hit Interview with the Vampire, the flop follow-up Queen of the Damned is, to me, the more enjoyable work, because it doesn’t try to be an important, arty film like Neil Jordan’s laborious adaptation. Recognizing the source novels of Anne Rice as purely B-level material — Jane Austen she ain’t — Queen sets out to be nothing more than a B movie.

Stuart Townsend (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen‘s Dorian Gray) takes over for Tom Cruise in the role of Lestat, the ancient vampire who has now become a rock star, singing terrible death-metal songs (penned by Jonathan Davis, the guy behind the terrible nu-metal band Korn). By informing his fans of his bloodsucking status, Lestat has raised the ire of the vampire nation, which seeks to silence him permanently. In making his evil music, he’s also raised the titular queen (R&B singer Aaliyah, who eerily perished in a plane crash before the film’s release) from the dead, and she wants to extinguish the human race.

Queen is more campy than anything, especially with the majority of vampire action given silly ghost-trail effects that cheapen the film. The direction by Michael Rymer (In Too Deep) is flashy and showy, befitting of the piffling material, which grows confusing as it heads toward Act 3. But with bloody bosoms and combustible corpses, who’s expecting Shakespeare?

The end seems to be a direct setup for another sequel, unlikely to surface given this chapter’s tepid reception. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Hollywood set decorator Charles B. Pierce ventured into the directing/producing game with The Legend of Boggy Creek, which takes a docudrama approach to the Bigfoot myth. The influential result is a weird mix of homespun homilies, flattened animal carcasses, more country songs than should be legal and such deeply Southern drawls, it nearly could have made an Academy Awards-qualifying run for Best Foreign Language Film.

Boasting a population of 350, the Arkansas town of Fouke (which sounds close to “fuck” every time it is spoken) is “a right pleasant place to live … until the sun goes down.” That’s because it is home to several stores, two gas stations, a motel, two cafes … and one big ol’, hog-stealin’ sasquatch!

With a poetic lilt that sounds like he should be reciting Rod McKuen verse, Vern Stierman narrates the movie, driving what little story there is: that a monster from the Texarkana swamps roams free. Typical of his voice-over: “Excitement in the community reached a peak when a farmer named O.H. Kennedy discovered these strange, three-toed footsteps in Willie Smith’s bean field.”

However, the oddly G-rated Boggy Creek is mostly, rightly remembered for its re-enactments of sasquatch attacks. Local yokels say things like, “Uh herd sumthin’!” (translation: “I heard something”) or, “Les git outta her!” (translation: “Let’s get out of here!”), and sure as shit, out pops the hairy creature. He’s not picky about who he frightens, either, whether it’s kids playing outdoors in the daytime or some poor sap attempting to move his bowels on a toilet.

The super-indie indie holds a cryptozoological cornpone charm. Pierce took the more traditional route with the belated sequel, 1985’s Boggy Creek II: And the Legend Continues, which deservedly ended up lampooned on Mystery Science Theater 3000. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.