Although made in New Zealand, The Tank is set on the coast of Oregon, U.S. of A. There stands a dilapidated house Ben has inherited from his late mother. Since he never knew it existed, Ben (Matt Whalen, Hugh Hefner in TV’s American Playboy) drives up with his wife (Luciane Buchanan, TV’s The Night Agent) and their daughter (Zara Nausbaum) to see the property.

Accessible by movable tile in the yard is a dark, spacious well with nipple-deep water. And, as they come to find, an oily, amphibious, turd-shaped creature with a vaginal mouth baring teeth like stubby needles. As played by circus performer Regina Hegemann in a suit, this thing keeps The Tank from sinking and viewers on their toes; CGI simply would immediately neuter the suspense that writer/director Scott Walker (The Frozen Ground) skillfully builds.

The monster’s attacks are forceful and furtive, sometimes stemming from a crouch like a spider, waiting to pounce. Scenes where characters slosh through the titular tank prove especially effective, as if Jaws were in an enclosed space. Er, let’s make that Jaws 2, lest you read that as a top-to-bottom endorsement. Walker hasn’t built The Tank to perform like a lightning-bolt blockbuster; it’s a slow burn that runs hot when it needs to. Remember, patience is a virtue. —Rod Lott

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If you think the title of The Mummy and the Curse of the Jackals is clumsy, wait until you see the movie. No, really — as the crosswalks for the blind warn aloud every few seconds, wait!

The final film (at least that weren’t X-rated) for Western director Oliver Drake, the tacky Jackals finds archaeologist Dave (Anthony Eisley, The Doll Squad) obsessed with the well-preserved corpse of an Egyptian princess (belly dancer Marliza Pons) with a breastplate apparently made of Cinnabons. Dave asks his pal, Bob (Robert Alan Browne, Psycho III), to lock him inside for the night: “What could possibly happen?” Dave says. “This is Nevada, good ol’ USA.”

Yeah, even though a full moon is out (I see a bad movie rising), it’s not like he’s gonna catch the curse of the jackals.

Dave catches the curse of the jackals. This means his hands turn into paws that appear inflated to 45 psi and he dons the werewolf head from the same year’s sexploitation oddity, Dracula (the Dirty Old Man), which shares writer/producer William Edwards. On his first outing, Jackal Dave slays a couple of cops who scream out of sync.

On the plus side, the princess resurrects! Although her face looks like an unfinished clay sculpture, Human Dave is entranced and informs her of double-date plans: “You better change. Bob and Donna want to have dinner with us,” he says, before teaching her about bras. Meeting Bob and Donna (TV actress Maurine Dawson) at a steakhouse, he introduces the pharaoh’s daughter using the nom de plume of Connie: “She’s not from here. She comes from … back east.”

Meanwhile, a pop-eyed mummy (Saul Goldsmith) in grubby bandages awakens, strangles a stripper, busts through a paper-thin wall, interrupts the steakhouse’s stage show, kidnaps Connie and limps down the Vegas strip without a film permit as onlookers laugh. You’ll relate.

With John Carradine cameoing as a professor and painfully inert flashbacks to 4,800 years prior, The Mummy and the Curse of the Jackals is a howl and a half. That’s in spite of — or because of — slapdash editing and snuff-film lighting that look paid for by a bucket of coins swiped from Marge from Boise at the penny slots. —Rod Lott

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What are you afraid of, asks the horror anthology Hi-Fear. A comic-book publisher poses the question to Natalie (Kristen Lorenz, 2019’s Bliss), a freelance illustrator hired for same-day-turn work. She’s told to draw whatever scares her most, with each round of real-time hot sketchbook action segueing into one of four tales.

First, a virgin is gifted “the Hope Diamond of pussy” for his birthday by friends. However, the whorehouse is staffed with killer prostitutes. Todd Sheets (Final Caller) quickly turns his ’80-style T&A comedy into extended gore, gleefully practical. Next, the legendary Tim Ritter (Killing Spree) turns his camera on a pastor with a bad toupée — and even worse temper — who kills his “jezebel” of a wife. This occurs after a confusing mélange of snake handling, eyeball puncturing and side-boob drug injecting. At least the pastor’s dialogue is far-right riotous: “This is the attire of a whore!”

Sodomaniac director Anthony Catanese’s segment is the shortest, but also boasts the best camerawork, as a young woman is terrorized by a mentally ill homeless man known on the streets as Krazy Killer Karl. Finally, in the most unconventional story, Camp Blood creator Brad Sykes (also responsible for the Natalie wraparound) depicts the making of an indie movie on a mountain where it’s never night. Maybe that cosmic ball of light has something to do with it?

Capping the trilogy, Hi-Fear follows 2013’s Hi-8 and 2018’s Hi-Death. A perceivable improvement over Hi-Death, it still suffers from a decreased story count set by the original’s octet. Ironically, as the Dogme 95-style shot-on-video rules established for Hi-8 have loosened considerably with each franchise installment, overall levels of quality and fun have decreased. —Rod Lott

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Even the most threadbare porno needs a minimum of set dressing. Among the scant accoutrements on the X-rated Tarzan parody being, er, shot in this film is a West African tribal mask. Unknown to all, said item is cursed, having been stolen by a genocidal white man in the late 19th century. Anyone donning it becomes instantly possessed — a setup bearing similarity to 1994’s The Mask, if Jim Carrey’s character were a psychopath who kills co-workers with dildos.

Here, the justifiably evil spirit exacts revenge on anyone who isn’t a virgin — good news for the audience’s surrogate, Mary (Nicole Katherine Riddell, White Sky). Seeking gainful employment to escape life under others’ thumbs, Mary lands this gig after naively answering a classified ad for a fluffer without knowing the job requirements, despite office wall posters advertising such flicks as Womb Raider and Die Semi-Hard — a sitcom-ready premise of har-de-frickin’-har.

Those two sentences alone adequately orient you to the wavelength of Mask of the Devil, a goofy British horror picture from Dogged director Richard Rowntree. Plowing forward with eagerness, it’s full of energy, but also unnecessary stylistic comic-book touches that detract from its greatest potential: to demonize.

I’m certainly not against humor in horror, but Mask of the Devil instantly abandons the sly satirical vibe of its opening: a fake trailer for a coming-of-age, Ken Loach-style kitchen-sinker. All the more appropriately miserable in black and white, the preview is a stroke of genius in an otherwise off-target, drawn-out feature. —Rod Lott

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Fleeing an abusive relationship, Portland restaurateur Kate (Beth Dover) jumps states and lifestyles, volunteering for a three-month stint as a fire tower lookout in the forests of Idaho.

Like a certain big-city, alcoholic writer transplanting the fam to overlook an empty Colorado hotel for the winter, Kate is out of her element, but insistent the silence is what she needs. Until the silence gets the best of her and brings out the worst in her. As a retired doctor in town (Dylan Baker, Trick ’r Treat) warns, “There’s no peace in nature.”

That one line serves as Outpost’s thesis, which writer/director Joe Lo Truglio sees through to its end. Yes, Joe Lo Truglio, the bug-eyed goofball of TV’s The State and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. As his fellow comedians have proved in recent years, from Jordan Peele’s Get Out to Zach Creggar’s Barbarian, funny guys have a knack for cracking the code of horror. I don’t know how or why they do, but to work, both those genres require perfect timing. Lo Truglio proves he has that.

Visually confident and with excellent support from Blood Diamond’s Ato Essandoh and My Friend Dahmer’s Dallas Roberts as Kate’s fellow rangers, Outpost is a pleasantly unpleasant surprise. Even for the desensitized, some scenes of terror land with the force of an ax. Although its ultimate destination is preordained (thanks in large part to its marketing), some of the turns it takes can shock.

Lo Truglio casting his wife in the lead role may have been a budgetary necessity, but Dover more than earns the showcase. Her name unknown to me until now (I never watched Orange Is the New Black), she qualifies as a revelation as Kate, a complicated character who’s believable even when she’s not all that likable. Their movie sure as hell is. —Rod Lott

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