Commercially available under the alternate, slightly more generic title of Bloody Movie, Nick Marino’s Terror Night gathers a bunch of D-list has-beens ripe for the dispatching, including Alan Hale Jr., Aldo Ray, Dan Haggerty and Flick Attack Hall of Famer Cameron Mitchell.

But don’t worry — the usual 20-somethings playing teenagers get killed, too.

The murders go down at the abandoned mansion of silent matinee idol Lance Hayward, your rough-and-tumble Douglas Fairbanks type. The star hasn’t been seen in years, so the night before his condemned casa is to be torn down, several young couples sneak onto the property to check the place out. Someone is already there, however, and he dons a different costume from Hayward’s most famous film roles, complete with appropriate prop to kill. Because Hayward played Robin Hood, Zorro, pirates and other swashbucklers, you can expect death by arrow, sword, hook and whatnot.

This is a great gimmick for a slasher movie, making it more original than most — and apparently legally problematic, because with each murder, Marino splices in a few frames from the appropriate old film of Hayward’s. However, since Hayward doesn’t actually exist, the movies tend to be actual Fairbanks flicks, like The Thief of Bagdad.

Word on the street is this is why the 1987 film went unreleased until oh-so-quietly hitting 21st-century DVD. Word on the street also is that Marino, who never directed before or since, had uncredited “help” from one-eyed House of Wax helmer André De Toth and porn director Fred Lincoln (star of Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left).

What we know for sure is this: The kill effects are pretty impressive, and VHS scream queen Michelle Bauer (Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama) ditches her biker leather to run around fully naked. And even if she didn’t, Terror Night deserves to be better-known. Copyright issues aside, it’s the single slasher most likely to be tolerated by your Paw-Paw next time you visit the nursing home. —Rod Lott

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When suspiciously tainted milk kills three wholly irritating women, they inexplicably come back from the dead a few hours later with mysterious decomposed faces and ravenously start eating the penises of oversexed men in rural France. If that doesn’t sound entertaining, then I’m sorry, I can’t help you.

Using the age-old social issue of waste pollution near graveyards as a somewhat acceptable reason for the zombie ladies, there is enough talk about toxic seepage and water tables and possibly fracking to fill a sizable revision of the Kyoto Protocol. But — and correct me if I’m wrong — I don’t remember that document having a spontaneous abortion in a bathtub, like Revenge of the Living Dead Girls does.

Called the “most extreme French gore film in history” by people with far more credentials than I, Revenge indubitably earns that title with as much cheap grue as possible, although I’m not sure who else is really reaching for those lofty goals these days. Like most Eurosleaze flicks, the screen is typically filled with more bare flesh than dead flesh, with mildly confused sex scenes happening every four or five minutes. Add a nonsensical ending that leaves so many more questions than answers and you’ve got a French horror flick that even Jean Rollin probably wouldn’t touch. —Louis Fowler

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With actor Dave Franco casting his wife, Alison Brie, in his directorial debut, one can’t help but wonder, “How much of this is autobiographical?” For their sake of their union, I hope the answer is “none,” because no character in The Rental is what we would call “in a good place,” literally or figuratively.

Brie (The Disaster Artist) and Dan Stevens (The Guest) play spouses Michelle and Charlie, who do the Airbnb thing for a weekend getaway. Tagging along are Charlie’s troubled brother (Jeremy Allan White, Movie 43) and his bro’s good-influence girlfriend (Sheila Vand, XX), who happens to work with Charlie. The house is amazing; its owner (Toby Huss, 2018’s Halloween), much less so — definitely a creep and possibly a virulent racist.

Without getting into specifics that would spoil the film, the house — again, amazing — offers neither the serenity nor the sanity the couples seek. One red flag is the discovery of what appears to be a camera lens embedded in the showerhead. In the process, given the criss-cross-applesauce nature of the foursome, the lines of their relation to one another are bound to be redrawn.

While The Rental is ultimately a horror film, it only gets comfortable with that identity in the last 20 minutes. Until then, it treads the thriller waters with the occasional dip of the toe. More attention to the interpersonal drama is paid than expected, which gives a big chunk of the movie an ambling, possibly even improvisational quality. Turns out, there’s a rational explanation for that: Joe Swanberg, the king of the loosey-goosey “mumblecore” movement, is credited as co-writer. His first-draft vibe most affects the middle section, tugging engagement levels downward — having generally unlikable characters (although well-acted) further yanks that chain hard — until Franco finally commits to the frights he so skillfully sets up an hour earlier.

And wow, what a primal, powerful 20 minutes follow, right to a truly chilling montage that overtakes the closing credits. That’s the movie I wished The Rental were for the entirety, and why I suspect Franco’s follow-up will deliver more on that promise. —Rod Lott

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Like Fred Olen Ray’s Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, David DeCoteau’s Sorority Babes at the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama is one of those titles that told a potential VHS renter everything he (or she, but let’s be real) needed to know: Will there be blood? Will there be boobs? Although both concerns were legitimate, answers were not needed, thanks to an unspoken contract of trust.

Tri Delta pledges Lisa (Michelle Bauer, The Erotic Misadventures of the Invisible Man) and Taffy (Brinke Stevens, the Mommy movies) are in the midst of hazing rituals dealt by the paddle-clutching hands of Babs (Robin Stille, The Slumber Party Massacre). The final piece of their initiation puzzle is to break into the bowling alley at the local mall to steal a trophy. Three Peeping Tom frat guys accompany Lisa and Taffy, who happen to arrive at the alley as a punky thief named Spider (Linnea Quigley, Witchtrap) performs a little B&E on the premises herself.

As luck would have it, the six knock over the one trophy containing an imp (played by a rubber monster voiced in an urban patois by — ahem — Dukey Flyswatter, aka Michael Sonye of Surf Nazis Must Die). Uncle Impie, as he’s called, grants each a wish for letting him loose — the most obvious placing Bauer in (and then out of) incredibly sexy lingerie for the movie’s remainder — but his acts of kindness are merely a cover for plans of flagitious intent.

The premise of DeCoteau’s Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama is no smarter than DeCoteau’s A Talking Cat?! — in fact, it may be more stupid — yet the difference between the two is significant, and I don’t mean the 25-year gulf between them. It’s effort and spirit — both of which the 1988 cult classic possesses, to be clear. Today, it’s as if he doesn’t even try, because the free element of fun has disappeared.

For all the production’s limitations, Sorority Babes does so many things right. In typical Charles Band style, most of the movie takes place in a single location, but a bowling alley is engaging. The imp barely moves beyond his mouth, but Flyswatter gives him a personality. Scripter Sergei Hasenecz’s human characters are one-note, but the actors’ performances have gumption. By embracing its trashiness, this early work of DeCoteau radiates a silliness and sexiness that tickle all the buttons video-store exploitation should. —Rod Lott

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Grandma’s gone missing. She lives alone, and the neighbors report not having seen her in days. So her granddaughter (Bella Heathcote, The Neon Demon) and daughter (Emily Mortimer, Shutter Island) make the drive to her home, find it empty and wait. Because all they can do is wait.

When the elderly woman (Robyn Nevin of the Matrix sequels) finally does return, she’s safe, but definitely not sound. In fact, she’s not like herself at all. She’s … different.

One wishes Relic were as well, especially since all three actresses are superb. In her first feature as director, Natalie Erika James demonstrates an assured eye for composition, but I’m afraid the slow-burn story, which she co-wrote with Christian White, is a little too fatigued for suspense to build.

As much as I like the metaphorical use of the matriarch’s moldy and decaying house to parallel her dementia-ravaged brain, the obvious isn’t left alone, so viewers are hammered over the head with it to ensure we get it. We do. —Rod Lott

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