Translated from Latin, the word “morituris” means “dying.” While watching Morituris: Legions of the Dead, I could feel my interest doing just that, with the passing of each loathsome second.

At a cursory glance, the Italian-born Morituris appears to hold promise, what with creatures looking like the guys from GWAR got a hose-down and a steampunky wardrobe upgrade. And since these armored villains are mute and former gladiators from ancient Roman history, influence of Amando de Ossorio’s Blind Dead series is not out of the question. Such things should be in Morituris’ favor.

Nope. Instead, the debut film from director Raffaele Picchio is terribly, woefully rote, and with no imagination of its own. It’s all about cribbing clichés and regurgitating them into an even less appealing state. How many horror films have we seen built upon a road-tripping car full of attractive young people? Regardless of the number, here is yet another.

We are introduced to the vehicle’s five occupants — three Italian guys who have picked up two Romanian girls — with approximately 20 minutes of dialogue between them. By the end of that, no character names have stuck (if they were shared at all); about all we know is that they are headed to an illegal, late-night rave in the middle of the woods. Once there, the guys turn on the girls and rape them. This somehow wakes the damned, who dispatch the 20-somethings in predictably porno-gore fashion.

There’s so little to Morituris’ bones that Picchio and his screenwriters are forced to pad, doing even more harm to their film. First, the prologue: Presented as some family’s old Super 8 home movies, it baffles because of an illogical POV — just who is shooting this? Second, the B story: One of the rapists has a brother, whom we cut to from time to time as he entertains a prostitute at his house, eventually leading to a scene in which the john borrows a page from Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho and shoves a Habitrail and rodent up his by-the-hour harlot’s vagina, all while 1965’s Bloody Pit of Horror is projected on the wall behind them. What’s the point? I don’t know, because that string ends there. It occurred to me that I’d much rather have been watching Mickey Hargitay — not just as the Crimson Executioner, but in anything — than another minute of Morituris. —Rod Lott

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In the same year they inadvertently made movie history with the troll-free Troll 2, director Claudio Fragasso and predominantly freckled child actor Michael Stephenson went Beyond Darkness. Actually a sequel to 1998’s goofy-ass Ghosthouse, this Italian-financed haunted-house retread bears more relation to the Hollywood horror shows it rips off.

Rev. Peter (Gene Le Brock, Metamorphosis) moves his wife (Barbara Bingham, Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan) and their two tots into a beautiful, spacious Louisiana home. On their first night, they enjoy a dinner of beans, about which their tiny daughter, Carole (Theresa F. Walker), says with glee, “And then you make stinkies!”

The downside to the fam’s newfound Norman Rockwell existence is all the paranormal activity that takes place there, thanks to a witch (Mary Coulson, Lucio Fulci’s Door to Silence) recently executed for murdering several children and swallowing their souls. The unexplained gift that greets them upon move-in day — a swan-shaped rocker, as fugly as it is a satanic shade of black — should have been their first clue. Same goes for the breathing wall, which Carole claims has a blow dryer behind it, not to mention the radio that attacks them. I kinda miss the clown.

What we have in Beyond Darkness is a beyond-shameless pastiche of The Amityville Horror and Poltergeist. When harm comes to the kids, Peter enlists the help of a fellow reverend (David Brandon, Lamberto Bava’s Delirium), a gap-toothed man of God who’s fallen from the flock and hitting the hooch hard after an encounter with the witch on Death Row. And then the film becomes Italy’s umpteenth take on The Exorcist. And then you make stinkies. —Rod Lott

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I realize the lack of originality in referring to Stay Alive as Stay Awake, but hell, does it ever fit! Beyond being free of original thought, this film makes its own case as the dumbest teen-slasher pic to emerge from a major studio in the post-Scream era. In a world of I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, Disturbing Behavior and Wes Craven’s Cursed, that’s really saying something.

Directed and co-written by The Devil Insider William Brent Bell, Stay Alive borrows the chief conceit of A Nightmare on Elm Street — die in a dream, you die in real life — and replaces “dream” with “video game.” Not Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, but the titular “underground” and unreleased game, which pits players’ avatars against 16th-century blood countess Elizabeth Bathory in a spooky mansion. Die during gameplay and you … well, we’ve covered that.

When that happens to his best friend, young Hutch (Jon Foster, 2013’s Mr. Jones) gathers his fellow gamers for a LAN party to see what’s what. This is where Stay Alive immediately goes off the pixelated rails, as you won’t care about any of his utterly vapid pals and their utterly stupid names — not his brooding girlfriend, October (Sophia Bush, 2007’s The Hitcher); not Swink (Frankie Muniz, TV’s Malcolm in the Middle), who wears a poker visor sideways and upside down because he’s “cool”; and especially not October’s über-annoying sibling, Phineus (Jimmi Simpson, Zodiac), he of the “Who Farted?” T-shirt and mannerisms that suggest a neglected prescription refill for Ritalin. (Upon its release, this film served as my introduction to Simpson, and it made me hate him. I’ve since seen him do great work several times over, but it demonstrates the danger of being saddled with thankless douchebag roles.)

The screenplay by Bell and writing/producing partner Matthew Peterman (Wer) is as predictable as a preschooler’s connect-the-dots worksheet. Every insipid move is a given; every inevitable kill is heralded in advance, like the midnight ride of Paul Revere. At least one of the de rigueur death sequences generates a doozy of a line, delivered in earnest grief: “Hutch, somebody ran my brother down in a horse-drawn carriage. I’m gonna find whoever did it and hurt them.” Neigh. —Rod Lott

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In need of a fresh start, Jennifer (Jenifer Bishop, Mako: The Jaws of Death) moves into the House of Terror to care for the ailing wife of wealthy businessman Emmett Kramer (Mitchell Gregg, he of the chalk-white hair and jet-black mustache). The bedridden Mrs. Kramer (Jacquelyn Hyde, 1979’s The Dark) is suicidal, pissy and cursed with a horrid, unnaturally vertical hairdo that must be coined the Crazy Hag.

With her nurse’s cap tucked atop Princess Leia-style buns, Jennifer diligently goes about her duties, despite her patient’s acid tongue and — speaking of — the creepy mute housekeeper (Irenee Byatt, Bunny O’Hare). Plus, someone is spying on Jennifer in her room through a peephole — perhaps the same someone who stabs her Raggedy Andy doll.

Directed by Gypsy Angels producer Sergei Goncharoff, House of Terror sits on multiple levels of ineptitude. First of all, it presents Jennifer as our heroine, only to abruptly switch gears one-third in and make her a villainess when her ex-con ex-boyfriend (Arell Blanton, Assault of the Killer Bimbos) reappears in her life with a scheme in need of hatching. Second, the film starts as horror and ends as the same, but is pure soap-opera theatrics in between.

Finally, it’s just plain dull, like a plastic knife from KFC. Even with Bishop’s ridiculous facial contortions when she’s called upon to feign shock, not a single scene stands out as memorable — Goncharoff’s lone area of consistency in made-for-TV execution. If you must watch it, at least watch Retromedia’s so-called “40th Anniversary Edition,” but only because it offers a superb digestif in the DVD’s extra feature, Super Horror Trailer-Rama. In keeping with House of Terror’s own misnomer status, this hour-long bonus includes coming attractions from fright flicks, but also numerous movies that fall into other genres, like science fiction and sword-and-sandal. —Rod Lott

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When is not a good idea for a comely college co-ed (Nan Barlow, Day of the Outlaw) to take a road trip by herself to do research for her term paper?
• When her subject is witchcraft.
• When her all-too-eager professor who gives detailed directions to the town is played by Christopher Lee.
• When the inn where he suggests — if not demands — she stay is run by a hundreds-year-old witch.

In a twist similar to the same year’s Psycho, the girl gets killed — in an elaborate satanic sacrifice — halfway through, leaving her feminine brother and knucklehead boyfriend to come looking for her, only to discover the mysteries of the coven. And all this could have been avoided if the girl would have simply kept that ominous trapdoor in her hotel room floor shut! I don’t believe any college girl is this dedicated to academics, anyway — at least not any girl who wears that kind of lingerie.

Unfortunately, Horror Hotel (aka City of the Dead) has no scene that even approaches the shocks or the scares of Psycho, although director John Llewellyn Moxey (Genesis II) does do a credible job of establishing a spooky atmosphere upfront. Maybe it’s me, but the flick might be more effective had it not revealed the plot’s “secrets” in the prologue. —Rod Lott

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