I have always had the wholly holy belief that a Christian-made found-footage film — especially in the realm of diabolical spiritual horror — would be an interesting and entertaining way to preach the message and mysteries of the Gospel … and then I actually saw one, in the form of the barely released movie The Lock In.

The opening crawl informs us that we are watching a home video that is meant only for the judgmental eyes of the board of elders at the First Baptist Church, which might seem like a creepy way to keep this footage under wraps and far from public view, but living in Oklahoma has taught me that it’s how many churches keep their dirty laundry hidden, be it cases of demon possession or, you know, accusations of child molestation.

A group of overly caffeinated teens are on the way to a lock-in at their local church, all hoping to “get crazy” and help a friend possibly kiss a girl. On their way there, however, they stop by an area dumpster and find an old porno magazine; now, as a committed dumpster diver during the first half of the ’90s, believe me, the last thing you want in your hands is trashed porn, with layer after layer of grimy, stuck-together pages, simply dripping with the devil’s country gravy.

Regardless, one of the teens sticks the paper bag-wrapped periodical (which we never see, natch) in a backpack; the guys head to the church where Youth Pastor Chris lays down the rules, including that the place is wired with night-vision cameras, as well as an internet nanny that will alert him by phone if anyone is watching adult videos. Good thing, I guess, the guys brought that magazine … or is it?

The magazine is quickly discovered by Pastor Chris; his solution is to burn it outside as quickly as possible. A few minutes later, however, the magazine is back, showing up again in the backpack. When they try to throw it away, a demonic growl is heard and a garbage can is thrown down the hall. Fearfully moving down the stairs, the teens find themselves in a dark and empty church, and then the forced horror truly begins.

Filled with bad teen actors doing even worse teen improv, most of the film is simply the teens running around the modern church, screaming at one another and, eventually, begging and pleading to Jesus for forgiveness, which, as a Christian film, is understandable. Sadly, my prayers to be interested and entertained when I was watching The Lock In went woefully unanswered, a lament I can fully admit to as a believer in and of speculative Christianity. —Louis Fowler

To celebrate high school graduation, four couples have concocted an utterly monstrous, mind-roasting plan: to spend the night in a furniture store. And not just any furniture store, but Fine Furniture downtown, whoa-ho! John (Sean Kanan, The Karate Kid Part III) even knows the ropes — because Dad owns the place — so it’s going to be totally bitchin’! On the agenda are beer, food and, of course, sex in the showroom beds.

Seeing the maze of mattresses and mannequins scattered across the joint’s multiple stories, Kim (Weekend Pass’ Annette Sinclair, a former Mrs. Bob Seger) suggests an epic, pre-dinner game of hide-and-go-seek. As the film’s title of Hide and Go Shriek confirms, that’s exactly what they do. The title also makes clear that some of the players aren’t going to live to see morning, because a killer is afoot.

The only movie ever directed by one Skip Schoolnik, the obscure Hide and Go Shriek arrived well after the ’80s slasher wave crested, but deserves wider awareness. That has zip to do with the acting, which is loud and bush-league, and everything to do with an ahead-of-its-time reveal I won’t spoil. Despite editing that saps any suspense, the film lands on the slasher genre’s comfort-food side. Giving it a big shove are the effects from Screaming Mad George (Beyond Re-Animator), with an elevator decapitation as a gruesome highlight, and the gratuitous nudity, including a rather hysterical sequence in which Judy (Donna Baltron, Bikini Squad) is so nervous about losing her virginity, yet launches into a striptease act so polished, her upper thighs have to smell like dirty dollar bills.

The idea of horny teens staying overnight in a department store had been done much better in 1986’s Chopping Mall, thanks to that Jim Wynorski pic’s satiric edge. By contrast, Shriek’s laughs are not intentional, what with these crazy kids’ $6 haircuts, Chinese fire drills and Bloom County T-shirts. —Rod Lott

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Nostalgia-amped superfans of Sid and Marty Krofft’s The Banana Splits Adventure Hour from the late 1960s and early ’70s — back when the phrase “Saturday morning” meant something — may be horrified to see what awaits under the innocuous title of The Banana Splits Movie: a honest-to-God slasher movie (and to complain about that is no better than the fanboys whining about girls being Ghostbusters). But in this ready-to-market age of IP revivals, reboots and reheats, it’s nice to see one that doesn’t just thumb its nose at the source material, but urinates on it, too.

In the direct-to-disc flick, the Krofft show exists (albeit under the name of Taft) in the real world of present. Speaking of present, it’s the birthday of young Harley (newcomer Finlay Wojtak-Hissong), a friendless boy who likes to wear butterfly wings while dancing along with his favorite show on TV, much to the dismay of his macho-asshole father (Steve Lund, TV’s Bitten). However, Mom (Dani Kind, TV’s Wynonna Earp) is so supportive that she’s scored the fam tickets to a live taping.

No one in the audience knows the episode being taped will be the last, as The Banana Splits has been axed — fresh news taken not so well by the animatronic foursome, thanks to a pre-curtain programming upgrade. Behind the scenes and at the post-show meet-and-greet, the Splits (Fleegle, Bingo, Drooper and Snorkel) take the frustration of unemployment out on everyone who deserves it, as dictated by slasher-movie rules, which director Danishka Esterhazy (Level 16) clearly delights in depicting — after all, it’s not every day you get to shoot a giant robot lion and dog respectively flambé a pushy parent’s face or saw an Instagram “influencer” in half.

But maybe it should be. Whatever possessed Warner Bros. to turn a beloved, kiddie-courting property into R-rated Grand Guignol … well, I’m for it. I’m guessing the runaway popularity of the Five Nights at Freddy’s video-game franchise among grade schoolers — now in high school with more rebellious taste — proved an unofficial factor. Yet from the start of the Krofft empire, the line between their creations and childrens’ therapy appointments has been drawn with the sharpest of washable markers, so it takes only one turn of the screw to reimagine the cute and cuddly as vile and violent. Essentially a two-location picture, The Banana Splits Movie looks flat and cheap, but self-parodic subversiveness and perversity work in its favor. —Rod Lott

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Ladies of Virginia Beach are all atwitter over an unnamed serial rapist/killer terrorizing the community. (Let’s call him Night Killer, since the movie is named just that.) Luckily, he’s easy to spot: He’s the guy in the Toxic Avenger-esque rubber mask with matching rubber hand spouting spiky yellow fingernails long enough to vie for a Guinness World Record. Only if he stood under a neon arrow flashing “GET MURDERED HERE” could he be more identifiable.

His signature move? Punching clean through women’s torsos. Melanie Beck (Tara Buckman, Silent Night, Deadly Night) somehow makes it through a terrifying home-invasion encounter with him, emerging with scraps, bruises and amnesia, but nary an extra hole. After being discharged from the hospital, life for Melanie continues to be a living nightmare, thanks to Night Killer still at large, as well as being stalked — and then abducted and sexually assaulted — by a creepy guy named Axel (Peter Hooten, who donned the cape as 1978’s Dr. Strange).

As a director, Claudio Fragasso (aka Clyde Anderson) is remarkably consistent. However, as other Fragasso films like Beyond Darkness, Monster Dog, Troll 2, et al. raise their right hands and testify, that consistency is a remarkable disdain for reality and rationale — and Night Killer might be his most imbecilic. Nothing happens as it should or would, even when allowing for a moviegoers’ suspension of disbelief. For example — and this is minor, mind you — Melanie reacts to a threatening phone call by looking in the mirror and yanking out her breasts. In fact, it’s just the first of several instances that call for Buckman to bare at least one of them, which accounts for her wardrobe choice of saggy sweaters for easy access; exposure happens so often — perhaps only a single instance merited — that I felt embarrassed for her.

Elsewhere, Melanie lays out a picnic of pills on the shore. In a public bathroom, Axel is forced at gunpoint to strip to the blue banana hammock that passes for his underwear. Seemingly from another movie emerges Blind Vision’s Lee Lively as an apparent stand-in for Donald Pleasence’s signature Halloween role of Dr. Loomis. I’m more than happy to discuss the bonkers twist, but don’t get me started on the choreographer. —Rod Lott

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Love, like or loathe 2017’s It, at least the Stephen King adaptation felt different than the 1990 TV miniseries. The same cannot be said for the Pet Sematary remake, so close to being a beat-for-beat Xerox of the 1989 original that audiences are left wanting a good shake of the toner cartridge. Too bad, because as fondly remembered as that King-penned ’89 film is, room for improvement exists; one flip of the gender doesn’t count.

Casting, however, is a coup. Jason Clarke (Winchester) and Amy Seimetz (Alien: Covenant) make for a personable, believable couple as Dr. Louis and Rachel Creed. Soon after moving to rural Maine with their two kids and a cat named Church, they learn their wooded land leads to a cemetery for childrens’ pets, many of whom become residents after being pancaked on the highway. Just past its gravestones — over that unscalable wall of bramble — lies ancient burial ground imbued with supernatural powers of rejuvenation. Those powers are flawed, which becomes apparent when Louis — presumably inattentive the day in school they read “The Monkey’s Paw” — plants the freshly departed Church there … and Church returns to life as an insufferable, feral asshole in matted fur. When tragedy strikes further, lessons are not learned.

John Lithgow (Obsession) would seem born to inherit and inhabit the role of kindly neighbor Jud Crandall, the kindly neighbor who warns Louis about all of the above, yet aides and abets anyway. Although one of our finest and most versatile actors, Lithgow is not nearly as effective as Fred Gwynne was three decades prior. Perhaps the comparison is unfair, but Lithgow apes Gwynne’s distinctive drawl; before delivering the iconic line of “Sometimes, dead is better,” he dramatically pauses as co-directors Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer (Holidays) push their camera in, as if signaling to a nostalgic audience, “Get those clappin’ paws ready!”

For all the craft and care Team Kölsch/Widmyer has put into giving the new Pet Sematary a shiny coat, it should be more engaging — even mildly frightening (especially since co-scripter Matt Greenberg wrote one of the scariest King adaptations in 1408). The first film’s surefire scare, Rachel’s physically twisted sister, suffers here from sheer overuse and needless extension. This isn’t a bad movie — just unnecessary. Sometimes, less is better. —Rod Lott

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