Shot on the cheap in Las Vegas subbing for San Diego, Holistay is the third horror movie within less than a year about a double-booked rental home. Diminishing returns apply with this limp, unpolished go-round.

Vacationing from Ireland, a couple played by Erin Gavin (Dread) and Gavin O’Fearraigh arrive first to the cul-de-sac property backing up to a golf course. They barely have a chance to christen the bedroom when couple No. 2 enter, L.A.ers played by Gabriela Kulaif and Steven Martini (Major Payne). Within two minutes of meeting, the pairs agree to share the space.

Not consulted for that agreement? “Some weird guy with a hood” standing outside in the dark — aka a druid — and his banshee companion who dresses like Stevie Nicks. Each appearance is akin to encountering a Renaissance Faire attendee overdoing it. Strangely, Holistay sidelines this threat for most of the movie, as our weekenders safari, shop, nap, talk, drink wine, take pot edibles, talk, hot tub, do “epic” hot air ballooning, talk, read Martha Stewart Living, talk, talk more, discuss fish recipes, talk and all too easily forget about their supernatural visitors.

A glorious exception finds Martini’s East Coast goombah character armed and angrily yelling into the night, “Hello! What the fuck are you? Banshee? Bunch of fuckin’ geese? Huh, punk? Goose! I’m from New York! You want some-a-me?” His hysteria is unintentionally hysterical.

Joining the foursome in overall apathy is Holistay’s director, Electile Dysfunction documentarian Mary Patel-Gallagher in her first narrative feature. She turns her script’s subplots — involving an international fugitive and money stolen from an Alzheimer’s fundraiser — into the plot for a bulk of the time, seemingly forgetting about making a horror film until the end. To some degree, I can’t fault her for that, because otherwise, not much of anything is going on. Now that, I fault her for.

At the climax, she offers viewers a twist they won’t accept because it’s a cheat. While I believe Patel-Gallagher has a counterargument at the ready, I rewatched the pic twice and still contend it’s a cheat, because the person/people in question wouldn’t/don’t act that way in private. Which speaks to an even greater problem of characters’ unnaturalness permeating this thrill-free movie — one in which they don’t even unload grocery bags believably. —Rod Lott

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Hoping to launch a new series, NBC did the monster mash with House of Frankenstein 1997, a three-hour movie stretched across two nights. It was not a graveyard smash, nor a ratings one. Nice try, though, peacock — although maybe you should’ve scheduled it before Halloween instead of the week after?

In a marked detour from Universal’s 1944 House of Frankenstein, the titular spot is a hip Goth club, despite looking like the Hard Rock Cafe and Meow Wolf got together without protection and beget a pop-up experience for The Crow. Its proprietor (Greg Wise, Johnny English) has a team in the Arctic Circle looking for the frozen corpse of Frankenstein’s monster to display in his Los Angeles hotspot. Lo and behold, they find it!

However, the mute monster (Peter Crombie, 1988’s The Blob) is alive — alive, I tell ya! — and flees to the L.A. streets, where his facial scars and odd coloring won’t look out of place. He’s saved from homelessness by a kind pal (Richard Libertini, Fletch) who teaches him how to eat Froot Loops.

Meanwhile, Det. Vernon Coyle (Adrian Pasdar, Near Dark) investigates a serial killer dubbed “the Midnight Raptor” — actually a vampiric man-bat whose flight is rendered by director Peter Werner (I Married a Centerfold) in RGB Predator vision. As if that weren’t a full docket, Coyle’s also hunting a man who turns into a wolf, but at least that intros him to a near-victim (Meet the Parents’ Teri Polo) who’s totally DTF.

As scripted by J.B. White (NBC’s Peter Benchley’s The Beast), House of Frankenstein 1997 ends with closure, yet also a clear path toward further adventures the network chose not to take. That decision was wise because even juggling so many balls, the made-for-TV “event” is about twice as long than it needs to be.

The first half is the strongest, with Pasdar and Polo using their likability to overcome foolish dialogue, culminating in a sex scene that’s actually erotic, primetime limitations be damned. The hokey second bides time before pretty much lifting its club-set climactic showdown from the previous year’s From Dusk Till Dawn. As expected, the effects are telepic-chintzy with one notable exception: the makeup for the man-bat. The less said about the werewolf transformations, the better. —Rod Lott

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After playing second fiddle to doomed mentor James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause and Giant, a baby-faced Dennis Hopper landed his first leading role in Curtis Harrington’s independent Night Tide. As Johnny, Hopper’s a naive Navy serviceman spending his shore leave on the Santa Monica Pier. Inside a jazz club, he meets the mysterious Mora. How mysterious? The woman lives above a merry-go-round, calls eating at 11 a.m. “breakfast” and works at the boardwalk’s carnival as a “lovely siren of the sea.” That’s a euphemism for “mermaid.”

The longer the sailor courts Mora (Linda Lawson of William Castle’s Let’s Kill Uncle), the more Johnny suspects she may be an actual mermaid. After all, she’s skittish and vague about her background, and followed around by a witch (Marjorie Cameron, subject of Harrington’s The Wormwood Star). Then there’s the matter of Mora’s boss (Sherlock Holmes film series veteran Gavin Muir, in his final big-screen appearance) warning Johnny that dating her is literally dangerous, what with the dead boyfriends in her wake.

The first full-length movie from iconoclast writer/director Harrington (Queen of Blood), this is your basic story of boy meets girl, girl might have a smelly fish tail. Causing barely a ripple upon release, the black-and-white SoCal Gothic is revered today as a masterpiece of mood — recognition no doubt accumulated from its longstanding residence in the public domain.

So dreamy is Harrington’s visual spell, any shortcomings — like the phony arms of the octopus Johnny wrestles — tend to fall from a critical eye’s line of sight. Numerous examples of true art can be found among this rinky-dink production’s frames. Although Night Tide is streamable in color, don’t; seriously, it kills a considerably intoxicating vibe. —Rod Lott

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Poor Veronica Lake. The Hollywood icon starred in Preston Sturges’ classic Sullivan’s Travels, burned brightly opposite Alan Ladd in several films noir and earned screen-siren status thanks to That Hair. Yet her career ended as no one anticipated: looking 20 years older than she was, applying maggots to the screaming face of Adolf Hitler.

I speak of the ignoble Flesh Feast. Despite the title, it’s not the doing of H.G. Lewis; if it were, it wouldn’t be so forgotten. Flesh Feast is, however, the first film for writer/director Brad Grinter, who soon enough served up an even bigger turkey — in more ways than one — with Blood Freak.

Lake’s Dr. Frederick uses the aforementioned maggots as the Botox of the day. By manipulating the color spectrum or some bullshit like that, she’s able to make the larvae munch on that savory human skin, effectively de-aging her patients.

While most of the movie takes place in a house — Dr. F does her magic in the basement, as her lady clients bunk upstairs — but begins at an airport where some poor schmo in a phone booth is fatally stabbed by the end of a passing janitor’s mop.

Confused? You should be. It all ties to Dr. Frederick’s arms-dealing boyfriend, which is how the flaccid Führer eventually gets involved. Cadavers are stolen. Limbs get sawed. Corn liquor is suspected. Don’t try to wrap your head around it, because I don’t believe Grinter bothered to. This thing is as scrambled as eggs in a Category 5 hurricane. Let’s put it this way: It sure could use a turkey man-monster.

At one point, the good doctor is asked what a noise was, which she explains away with, “Oh, just alley cats and trash cans.” The same applies to Flesh Feast: That racket? Why, p’shaw, it’s nothing. Pay it no mind. —Rod Lott

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Part of the Crown International Pictures library, Terrified is one of those movies where 30-something teenyboppers carry a flashlight and ask “What was that?” In other words, I dug it, even though there’s not much to it.

Rumors abound of a ski-masked maniac haunting a nearby ghost town and committing various felonies and misdemeanors. He’s also known to make people lose their minds, turning them “into a slobbering oyster.” And yet the script gives characters wonky reasons to go check the place out, especially at night. A college student (Rod Lauren, Black Zoo) is writing a midterm on fear .. and gets some firsthand learning! A hostess (Tracy Olsen, Journey to the Center of Time) just wants to talk to caretaker Crazy Bill … and finds him impaled to death on spikes!

In his final directorial gig, Lew Landers (1935’s The Raven) wrings all the mileage possible from the ghost town setting. With rotted floors and flooded rooms, its wooden buildings function as traps for our madman’s unlimited use. His all-black balaclava presages several slashers, from 1978’s The Toolbox Murders to 2009’s The Collector, but don’t go looking for gore.

Terrified’s lack of names in the cast (the biggest, Denver Pyle, comes fifth-billed as the sheriff) should work to its advantage, but the killer’s identity is simple to surmise. —Rod Lott

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