Admittedly, The Phantom of the Opera is among Dario Argento’s worst films. Even still, I didn’t find it to be that bad, even if Joel Schumacher’s musical version of Phantom is better. It’s not like the movies needed another version of Gaston Leroux’s 1910 classic novel, but at least Argento puts his own bloody stamp on things.

The story is pretty faithful to its source material: A man who lives in the tunnels underneath the opera falls in love with one of its young singers, to the point where he’s murder everyone else to see her front and center with the leading part. Argento’s big turn is that his Phantom (Julian Sands) isn’t horribly disfigured and, thus, doesn’t wear a mask. He does, however, have rock-star hair befitting a metal band.

The Christine of his dreams is played by Asia Argento, and she and The Phantom get down and dirty a couple of times. (Once more, it’s a little unsettling to see her disrobing for sex scenes for her father to shoot, especially since The Phantom likes it doggy-style.) The Phantom so wants Christine to star on the stage version of Romeo and Juliet that he assaults the “fat cow” leading lady by clawing deep gashes into her left udder.

In between all the talky-talky that goes on, we’re given scenes of rats feeding on a man’s hand caught in a trap, a decapitation of a man riding around on some steampunk rodent-catching vehicle, The Phantom pulling out a woman’s tongue with only his teeth, and so on. If only it didn’t look shot on video and extremely cheap, viewers would be kinder. After all, they certainly were when Argento visited Opera in 1987, but there was no question that deserved it. —Rod Lott

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Complaints leveled against Children of the Corn: Genesis largely amount to “It hardly has any kids!” Well, good! God forbid a moribund franchise based on a Stephen King story tries to do something different, especially for one as far up as its eighth entry.

After a 1973 prologue pretty much unrelated to the remainder of the movie, married-and-expectant California couple Tim and Allie (Tim Rock and Kelen Coleman) are stranded in the middle of nowhere, thanks to car troubles. A brief walk puts them on the doorstep of rickety farmhouse occupied by the unfriendly Preacher (Billy Drago, The Untouchables‘ Frank Nitti) and his hot, young, European wife (Barbara Nedeljakova of both Hostels).

You know they’re in for the worst night of their middle-class lives because of the “rickety farmhouse” and “Billy Drago.” Soon enough and sure enough, a busted radiator and being unwelcome are the least of their worries. Finding that Preacher keeps a kid captive in a barn out back makes Tim and Allie need to figure out an escape not only for them, but that malnourished tot.

Pay no mind that this is not a prequel as the title suggests, nor that it bears little resemblance to the King tale. Genesis stands on its own quite well, heading into angles of poltergeists and possessions, leading me to believe it would be better-liked if not branded/burdened with the Corn name. However, without it, far fewer would see it. Ah, the Catch-22s of straight-to-video movies, which writer/director Joel Soisson (Mimic 2) can turn out better than most, right down to a cruel-for-a-laugh final shot. —Rod Lott

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An odd bird, this Satan’s Little Helper. Its whacked-out premise centers around college girl Jenna (Katheryn Winnick, Amusement) coming home on Halloween just to take her little brother, Dougie (Alexander Brickel), trick-or-treating. That itself isn’t bizarre; the kid’s newfound fascination with Satan, however — and one totally encouraged by his parents — is.

Dougie tells Jenna and Mom (Pulp Fiction‘s Amanda Plummer, repellent as never before) that’s his Halloween dream is to find Satan and be his assistant for the night, to send people to hell. By sheer coincidence, Satan is in town — he of the horned head and mouth that cannot move — murdering people in brutal fashion. Dougie witnesses Satan’s doings, laughs, befriends him, and asks him to kill Jenna’s new boyfriend (Stephen Graham), who kind of deserves it, once you see the guy in his Pretentious College Theater Major Douche hat.

This gives way to a rollicking, stab-a-rific caper — perhaps even a love story between a lisping child and the demon to end all demons, bonding over harming innocents that include a pregnant woman, a newborn baby, a blind man, Dougie’s own father and many more. An elderly lady gets hanged to death on her porch by Satan, and Dougie, for whatever dipshit reason, thinks it’s the funniest trick he’s ever seen. Ditto for Satan squeezing Jenna’s generous breasts in her Renaissance slut costume. (“I can see your boomies!” says Dougie with a disturbing chuckle.)

Writer/director Jeff Lieberman has never been a great filmmaker (1976’s Squirm made Mystery Science Theater 3000, after all), but with Helper, he’s hackier than ever. I mean that in a good way, however, because the flick is an empty-calorie equivalent to a bag of fun-size Snickers. It’s like no other Halloween movie you’ve ever seen, and while I wouldn’t put it up there with Michael Myers’ ongoing efforts at reducing the population of Haddonfield, Ill., it definitely holds mega-potential for annual October viewing. —Rod Lott

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The Other Side must refer to where the grass is greener, because this sequel is full of manure. JoBeth Williams and Craig T. Nelson return as the heads of the Freling family, now living with her mom after their haunted house vanished into thin air at the close of the original.

Everything’s fine and dandy for a while, until Grandma notices that lil’ Carol Anne (Heather O’Rourke) appears to have extrasensory powers, and a skeletal-faced preacher named Kane stalks the family. Then Grandma dies, and an Indian (Will Sampson) starts camping out in the backyard and making leaves levitate to help protect the family. Inside, Carol Anne gets otherworldly telephone calls on a toy phone; her brother, Robbie (Oliver Robins), is menaced by his own braces; and Dad vomits up a giant tequila worm with huge testicles.

With the aid of Sampson and pint-sized Tangina (Zelda Rubinstein), the Frelings return to the site of their old home and cross over to another dimension, resulting in a ludicrous, laughable sequence, culminating in a return from Dead Grandma as an angel. Williams cries; you’ll laugh.

It’s amazing how something that was mildly disappointing at the time is utter trash today. The original Poltergeist remains one of my all-time favorites, but all of its thrills have been replaced here by Native American mumbo-jumbo, bad acting and wrong turns in every scene. It’s one of the most disappointing sequels in history. Where’s a clown when you need him? —Rod Lott

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Dwain Esper’s Maniac is one of the more notorious early exploitation films, but it’s still dreadfully boring, even at 50 minutes. And while you can cut it a little slack for being from the 1930s, the story still doesn’t make a lick of sense. Maniac is amateurish in all aspects, from the actors (sometimes gazing in the camera) to Esper’s direction (sometimes the performers’ faces are blocked by props).

An old, eccentric doctor and his young assistant are experimenting with formulas to revive the dead. When the doctor wants to kill the assistant and then bring him back with a new heart, the assistant shoots the doctor dead. Instead of shooting him with reanimating juice, however, he holes him up in the wall of the basement and then changes his appearance to look like the doctor so no one will notice his absence.

To help mask the illusion, the assistant-as-doctor keeps seeing patients, including a shy, topless chick and one man who goes mad, kidnaps a formerly dead girl, strips off her clothes and rapes her. Meanwhile, the assistant’s wife hangs out with her friends in their bras and granny panties. The nudity in this must have been shocking way back then; now it’s simply comical.

The high point comes out of no-where, when the assistant grabs a cat and pokes its eye out in graphic detail, admires it (“Why, it’s not unlike an oyster … or a grape!”) and pops it in his mouth. Bon appétit! Then the cops arrive and find the doc in the wall, thanks to the cries of a cat accidentally trapped in there with him, thanks to a storyline swiped from Edgar Allan Poe. Then you get to go to sleep, if you haven’t already. —Rod Lott

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