A real ladies’ man of an author (William Joyce) is convinced by his publisher to hop a flight from Miami to the Caribbean isle of Voodoo, because he thinks the stories of human sacrifices there might make good research for a rip-roarin’ adventure novel. Our writer is not convinced, however, until he hears of the island’s 5-to-1 girl-guy ratio, and he’s all, like, “Homina homina homina!”

Armed with a litany of sleazy pick-up lines (ranging from “What part of heaven did you fly out from?” to the less subtle “We’ve got some dictation to do!”), he soon scores with a blonde bombshell (Heather Hewitt), whose father is a scientist who feeds radiated snake venom to natives, turning them into crusty-faced, bug-eyed zombies. Although our hero quickly dispatches one with a tiki torch to the face, a random Mexican isn’t so lucky, losing his head to a zombie-slung machete.

I Eat Your Skin was directed by Del Tenney, the guy who gave us the legendarily awful Horror of Party Beach, and it shows. You get to see a tube shoved down the throat of a live snake, and when an alarm goes off, you also get to hear someone saying “Whoop!” repeatedly on the soundtrack. Certainly a cheapie like this can’t be scary, but it’s definitely charming in its own Playboy After Dark meets Revolt of the Zombies kinda way. —Rod Lott

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Few films have had such a long and troubled history as Exorcist: The Beginning, the fourth (or technically, fifth) film in the not-so-lucrative franchise. The Reader’s Digest version: Execs so hated Paul Schrader’s cut, that rather than salvage it in editing, they opted to start from scratch with a whole new script and cast. For this, they logically hired Renny Harlin, because apparently, making two movies with Sly Stallone (Cliffhanger and Driven) qualifies you as the go-to guy for psychological horror. And the end result? Not as interesting as that explanation. Mind you, this prequel is not a hoot-and-holler laughfest that was Exorcist II: The Heretic. But neither is it the woefully underrated thriller that is Exorcist III.

Stellan Skarsgård (The Avengers) stars as Father Merrin (Max von Sydow’s character from the 1973 original), in a story about his first face-to-face showdown with the devil. It’s the 1940s, and following a test of faith which he feels he’s failed, he’s no longer a man of the cloth, but a freelance archaeologist. He’s hired to go to East Africa to locate a valuable artifact, being the demon Pazuzu. While there, he finds a Catholic church buried beneath the sand that’s not on any historical record of the Vatican. And buried beneath that? An evil cave!

That’s when all the CGI creatures start attacking. Sadly, Harlin’s idea of a scare is to suddenly make one of these — a crow, a bat, a fly — suddenly appear, accompanied by a loud musical cue. It’ll make you jump all right, but only because your ears have been rendered deaf. A pack of hyenas get the most screen time, but unfortunately, they look as fake as the dog in the Scooby-Doo live-action movies. Just as forced is Merrin’s burgeoning romance with the village’s hottie doctor, played by Izabella Scorupco (GoldenEye). Having forsaken the almighty, Merrin makes a valiant pass for her pants. But no sooner have they locked lips when the bed of a sleeping kid mere feet away suddenly jumps across the floor and shakes violently. Lemme tell you, it’s an erection killer.

I was really only intrigued by the finale, which has Merrin regaining his Jesus powers and using them against a supporting character who’s all Sataned out, looking not coincidentally like Linda Blair’s possessed Regan. But that’s, what, 10 minutes out of nearly two hours? Granted, a few more scenes keep The Beginning from being a total loss:
• Lucifer snaps the bones of various local tribesmen attempting some voodoo-magic exorcism.
• A villager gives birth to a bloody baby covered in live maggots.
• Izabella takes a shower and you see half a booby. —Rod Lott

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Also known as Terror in Toyland, You Better Watch Out and — at least in my book — I Saw Mommy Fucking Santa Claus, the oddball slasher flick Christmas Evil begins on Christmas Eve, 1947, when young Harry spies his father dressed in full Santa regalia getting it on with his mom. This prompts Harry to go upstairs, smash a snow globe and dig into his hand with the broken glass.

Jump ahead a few decades and Harry’s all grown up, now played by Brandon Maggart (Dressed to Kill), a mild-mannered, but ready-to-crack employee at a toy factory. He spends his spare time spying on neighborhood kids with his binoculars and recording their good deeds and misdeeds into leather-bound volumes of Good Boys and Girls and Bad Boys and Girls, one for each year. When he spots the Garcia kid sneaking peeks at Penthouse, he records “impure thoughts” and “negative bodily hygiene” right there along with “pulled Sally’s hair.”

Tired of being bullied and used by his co-workers who refuse to get into the Christmas spirit, Harry paints his van like a sleigh and decks himself out as Santa, ready for a night’s spree of gifts and gore. For instance, he gives a bag of fenced goods to mentally handicapped kids, then slaughters a few snobby parishioners outside their church. He entertains at a holiday party, then murders a co-worker while he sleeps. Yes, this Santa’s all about balance.

You’ll spot Home Improvement matriarch Patricia Richardson in a small role as the mother of the porno-loving kid, but Christmas Evil all belongs to Maggart. He’s hilarious and gives it his all. If he showed this to his own daughter, singer Fiona Apple, it’s no wonder she turned out so screwy. The ending to this — the looniest killer-Santa movie of them all — is a real howler. —Rod Lott

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I hadn’t heard anything about La Setta — aka The Sect, The Devil’s Daughter and Demons 4 — before watching it, but I did so simply because it’s an Italian horror film directed by Michele Soavi (Cemetery Man) and written with the legendary Dario Argento. Looking at the cover, I couldn’t tell what it was about. Looking at the back cover didn’t help, either, because it’s in Italian. Yep, this is one of those movies that could be about anything — funny, because I felt the exact same way after watching it.

It’s supposedly about a woman and her relationship to a sect of Satanists. Lots of things happen. There are lots of squirm-inducing set pieces like bugs up your nose, a scary … well, you know, scary things! Aren’t you scared yet? Context? Sorry. It’s all just ingredients — a plot that isn’t for following, but for yanking you from one contrivance to the next.

The acting isn’t any worse than Soavi’s others, but if your lead actress is going to act like an Italian who’s supposedly an American (or whatever the hell’s going on), you’d better surround that person with a plot that will distract me. As for star Kelly Curtis (Trading Places), her name certainly seems American (and she is, being the sister of Jamie Lee Curtis), but she acts and sounds as if she doesn’t quite have a grasp of the English language or has never observed rational human behavior.

None of her reactions to all the strange goings-on seem very realistic. After having an old man die in your house, then your friend is murdered and then comes briefly back to life to try and kill you, there’s no time to relax, Kelly. It’s time to start figuring shit out. —Richard York

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Jeepers Creepers II is a hair better than its predecessor, but a hair better than shit is still shit.

As the film’s opening crawl informs us, the flying, winged Creeper feasts for 23 days every 23rd spring. We begin on day 22 of such a season, when the youngest son of farmer Ray Wise (TV’s Twin Peaks) is snatched up out of the cornfield and carried away. On the next day, a school bus toting a high school state champion basketball team and assorted cheerleaders blows a tire on the near-deserted highway, thanks to the Creeper’s well-aimed special brand of homemade ninja stars.

With nowhere to go, the bus serves as a Hometown Buffet for the hungry Creeper, at first picking off (or up) all the adults, until Wise shows up for some heavy-duty harpoonin’ with his truck-mounted, jerry-rigged Post Puncher 500.

JCII has its moments, but only a precious few, and fleeting at that. This installment gives the monster far more screen time, but it’s simply the same thing over and over: Creeper attacks; Creeper flies away; Creeper attacks again. If we were supposed to empathize with the characters, writer/director/convicted pedophile Victor Salva could’ve picked another group besides cocky athletes. For my money, the Creeper can’t kill them fast enough.

But then, Salva’s camera wouldn’t be able to linger on their shirtless, hairless upper bodies. It’s hard to believe the film’s overt homoeroticism isn’t at least semi-intentional, what with all the bare chests, the multiple scenes of guys peeing together and dialogue like “You want to poke it with sticks?” and “Can’t they just whip out the jack and pump this mutha up?”

I liked Wise, but then again, I like him in just about anything. I also liked Nicki Aycox (Joy Ride 2: Dead Ahead) as the Girl Who Somehow Has It All Explained to Her in Dreams, but then again, that’s probably because she’s the only hot one. But any horror film that delivers such an illogical ending (so chop it up already, whydon’tcha!) and christens its characters with names like “Double D” and “Big K” deserves a flat-out F. —Rod Lott

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