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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Arguably more famous for being the bottom half of a grindhouse-celebrated double bill with Del Tenney’s far-tamer I Eat Your Skin than actually being seen, I Drink Your Blood serves a cautionary tale for hippies who consume intentionally contaminated meat-based pastries. If only one viewer’s life has been saved, this film by writer/director David E. Durston (Stigma) has done its job. Never again, America! You hear me? Never! Again!

“Let it be known,” hippie cult leader Horace Bones lets it be known in I Drink’s woods-based cold open, “that Satan was an acid head.” Horace (charismatic India native Bhaskar Roy Chowdhury) tells this to his small circle of unwashed disciples during one of their nighttime rituals of devil worship, poultry sacrifice and full nudity. When he notices they’re being watched by a local girl, he orders the gang to beat and rape her for her God-fearing curiosity. She lives in Valley Hills, population 40 (down from 4,000 … and dropping significantly further within the next 80 minutes), a quaint and dinky town that plays home to one bakery, one veterinarian and much misery.

When “that gang of savage hyenas” finds itself stranded in Valley Hills due to a broken-down groovy van (which Horace orders his free-spirited followers to push over a cliffside), they choose an abandoned home at random, move in, drop LSD and round up all the rodents they can to roast for hearty, stick-to-your-ribs meals. Take heed, society: These cats may worship pure evil, but at least they’re self-sufficient.

Meanwhile, eager for revenge for the hippie gang’s unholy treatment of his sis, whippersnapper Pete (one Riley Mills, never to act again) spikes his family bakery’s daily batch of meat pies with the tainted blood of a rabid dog. Going from gullet to gut, the bad blood turns the troublemakers into mouth-foaming zombies; the makeup for such is as if the infected guys paused their shaving duties after applying dollops of cream and forgot to finish. It even makes Horace visit a nearby snake farm, where he looses its star attraction: per the sign, a “GIANT BOA KONSTRIKTER.”*

Competently made by Durston, I Drink Your Blood is wholly deserving of its enduring cult reputation. Although the acting overall is lacking, the performances are delivered with such earnestness, you’re willing to overlook those deficiencies. In fact, unlike so many other B movies we watch to test our own tolerance, you’ll find yourself legitimately drawn into its semi-original spell. This is the rare gore film you want to hug, and it will hug you back. That’s not to say it “wusses out”; its initial X rating for violence wasn’t affixed by the MPAA without merit. —Rod Lott

*Flick Attack’s Joke-O-Matic: Pick Your Own Punch Line:
1. Konstrikter? I hardly know ’er!
2. Konstrikter? Dude, I had all their tapes when I was going through my hair-metal phase.
3. Konstrikter? Lemme guess … a dating app?

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Soon after the opening title screen of Jess Franco’s The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein, Dr. Frankenstein (Dennis Price, Vampyros Lesbos) has just gifted his monster (Fernando Bilbao, Mr. Hercules Against Karate) with the ability to speak. This is neither here nor there, because the hulking creature rarely talks in the film, and why should he when there is so much flagellation and fornication to get to?

Not to mention, Dr. F barely gets to enjoy his giant scientific leap for madmankind, as he is attacked and killed, because being “torn to pieces” is hardly survivable. Enter his daughter, Vera (Beatriz Savón, Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror) to avenge his death. Those responsible are the bug-eyed Cagliostro (Howard Vernon, Zombie Lake), a supernatural being with a pubic thatch of a goatee, and his sidekick (Anne Libert, A Virgin Among the Living Dead), a chirping bird-woman who wears nothing but green feathers and metal talons. Like Hitler before him, Cagliostro wishes to establish a new race; using Dr. Frankenstein’s secret rejuvenation recipe, he begins by creating the “perfect being” from body parts of various women he’s had murdered.

Erotic Rites entertains both because of and despite its limitations — or rather, those of Franco. For starters, the film is not always in focus. For another, the spray-paint job on the monster is inconsistently applied and, depending on the angle and scene, appears to be either blue, green, silver or gray. No matter — with science-class skeletons, access to a castle and the buy-in of his regular players (including muse Lina Romay), Franco appears to be having a ball, in a “let’s put on a show” fashion befitting of Andy Hardy. Chock-full of Franco’s trademark full-frontal nudity, the ensuing production is colorful as a comic book — one that would give Dr. Fredric Wertham a coronary he’d never forget or an erection he’d never acknowledge. —Rod Lott

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