Taking an analog-inspired cue from the V/H/S anthology franchise, Hi-8: Horror Independent Eight goes even further down the scale of format quality, with each of its eight segments (wraparound included) shot on fullscreen video. Rather than coming from today’s mumblecore world, Hi-8’s contributors herald from an even more lo-fi movement: regional horror flicks shot on video (SOV). If you’ve so much as heard of their work — Cannibal Hookers, Sorority Babes in the Dance-A-Thon of Death, Mulva: Zombie Ass Kicker! among them — you’re predisposed to have interest in viewing this “all-star” experiment.

A typed-on-computer title card warns (read: promises) “overt gore and unbearable suspense”; Hi-8 delivers on exactly one of these, and overall results are scattershot as a pulsating sprinkler with no adjustable range. On the plus side, Tim Ritter (Truth or Dare? A Critical Madness) charts the “complicated” relationship between a wife and her husband, who happens to be a rapist / serial killer. On the minus side, Chris Seaver (Return to Blood Fart Lake) turns in a three-character piece that plays stalker rape for comedy. Ha?

Inconsistency is Hi-8’s only constant: Tony Masiello’s tale of “a lost SOV” titled Bloodgasm has a decent setup and a poor payoff, whereas Todd Sheets (Zombie Bloodbath) follows a radio DJ in an EC Comics-style story with a decent payoff and a poor setup. Among the project’s octet of shorts, the best doesn’t even try for shocks — just laughs. Genuinely LOL-hilarious, it’s from The Vicious Sweet’s Ron Bonk, who simultaneously sends up George A. Romero and 1980s-style action by plopping a Snake Plissken-esque he-man amid an attack of the undead on his Nana’s nursing home.

The entire exercise ends with a list of the eight rules each filmmaker had to follow — only practical effects allowed, wind noise encouraged, etc. — and this should have appeared at the start just to prep the unsuspecting / uninitiated as to what they could expect from the whole of Hi-8. Those not used to SOV “epics” will have a really tough time with it. —Rod Lott

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To the surprise of no well-versed viewer of horror, The Houses October Built refers to the “haunted” variety — in particular, those ramshackle attractions that spring up nationwide in the weeks leading to Halloween, then shutter their makeshift doors until next fall. Houses, however, is no documentary, although it started life that way in its original 2011 incarnation of the same name. Now, that scrappy project has been restructured as a mockumentary, getting slathered with a heavy coat of the found-footage craze in the process.

The story seems tailor-made for that approach, slim as it is: Five friends spend five days in an RV, going from town to town to take in the best haunts the season has to offer. Because they’ve brought a camera, it’s like we’re in the actual spook-shack halls with them: It’s tough to see and not as much fun once you’re inside. They also hit up more inventive entertainment experiences, from shooting paintballs at zombies to patronizing strip clubs where the dancers don masks (not a bad idea, based on the bethonged I’ve seen IRL).

And that’s about it, until this ersatz Scooby-Doo gang gets the itch to track down the not-advertised, not-on-the-map “underground haunt” that’s rumored to make its visitors shart their britches in terror. The question of whether they’ll make it out alive is answered in Houses’ opening minute, so don’t enter this one in search of suspense; the exercise is more about being jolted by SUDDEN! LOUD! NOISES! than any skillful building of tension. While unremarkable and anticlimactic, its mix of fact and fiction makes for a decent time-waster.

The Houses October Built is directed by Bobby Roe, one of the aforementioned five haunt-hunters, all of whom we can assume are playing themselves since they go by their real first names and, lest ye already forgot, much of the 91 minutes comes cobbled from its humble documentary beginnings. (If you can find it, the Best Buy-only Blu-ray contains the full doc as a bonus feature.) Bubbly Brandy Schaefer is our token female and, comparatively speaking, the voice of reason among fellow travelers Mikey Roe, Jeff Larson and Zack Andrews, because there’s always a Zack. (What, no Chad?) —Rod Lott

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Spanish filmmaker Víctor Matellano’s Wax bears more similarity to 1953’s classic House of Wax than 2005’s official remake. With one foot planted firmly in horror cinema’s past, Matellano uses his other to sidestep between the decidedly more contemporary subgenres of found footage and torture porn. There’s room for all — perhaps even too much, as not enough time is allocated to each or any.

What is in too-great supply are the unruly curls atop the head of journalist Mike (Jimmy Shaw, Lord of Illusions), a dead ringer for Simply Red lead singer Mick Hucknall. Eager for cash, Mike is hired by a TV producer (Geraldine Chaplin, 2010’s The Wolfman) to spend the night — if he can! — in a reportedly haunted Barcelona wax museum. Hence the title and all.

Mike’s still grieving over the murder of his wife and child by kidnapper-cum-cannibal Dr. Knox (Jack Taylor, Succubus) a year prior and — wouldn’t you know it? — the sinister senior surgeon lurks and stalks the halls after hours. In the basement is where the old man carries out his acts of Hostel behavior on his victims (most of them bare-breasted young women), keeping them sedated just enough for them to withstand the pain of being eaten alive as they watch.

Essentially, we have three distinct styles of shock shoehorned into a film that feels like it can’t pay homage to one without placating today’s audiences with doses of the others. Because of that, Wax fails to truly take hold, although it comes close. Still, if you are a fan of movies set in wax museums — and this one takes a meta step to share that pleasure — the film is worth the price of admission, and the feature-debuting Matellano proves himself as a talent to watch. Just don’t be suckered into a rental because of the touting of late Spanish fright-flick legend Paul Naschy high atop the credits; only his voice appears, none of it recorded for this low-budget, high-ambition project. —Rod Lott

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Poor, picked-upon Pvt. Coopersmith unleashes some serious satanic comeuppance on his classmates in Evilspeak, a computer-aided variation on Brian De Palma’s classic Carrie. Orphaned after his parents’ death in an auto accident, Coopersmith (Clint Howard, Ice Cream Man) is the opposite of Big Man on Campus at the military academy where he is so despised by his soccer teammates that the coach actually insinuates they take him out so they could have a chance at winning a game for once.

A loser for life, Coopersmith finds salvation in the form of a dusty tome full of black-magic rituals he seeks to conduct in the comfort of his own dormitory basement. With the help of a personal computer one notch above the power of a Radio Shack TRS-80, he summons the vengeful spirit of Estaban (Richard Moll, aka Bull from TV’s Night Court), not to mention demonic, man-eating pigs. Oink!

The directorial debut of Hyenas‘ Eric Weston, Evilspeak moves surprisingly slow for an exploitation film, but Howard keeps its head above water. His nervous, gosh-oh-golly-gee-whiz demeanor hardly makes for a note-perfect performance, but he’s so believable as the used-and-abused nerd that an introverted viewer really will feel for the guy — both the character and the actor. Evilspeak‘s cult following seems to be a case of overstatement — after all, better possession pictures exist from the VHS era — but we’ll chalk its popularity up to the relatability of the social outcast/underdog. —Rod Lott

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The bad news: At March College, two students have been murdered, including the first-string quarterback. The good news: At rival Lanier College, a fraternity guy realizes, “We might be able to take them this year” in football. The bad news: The killer then makes his way to Lanier.

The worst news: Final Exam is a failed attempt at cashing in on the slasher wake in the wake of Halloween and Friday the 13th. Because the similar campus chiller Graduation Day already claimed the calendar name, writer/director Jimmy Huston (My Best Friend Is a Vampire) goes with an event bursting with double entendre. The wit ends with that title.

Lanier is an institution of hair-helmeted young people, some of whose lives are cut short by the blade of a silent hulk (Timothy A. Raynor, putting in overtime as the film’s fight coordinator) with no apparent motive. To be consistent with that act of lazy storytelling, Huston gives his characters little semblance of characterization. Viewers will be unable to tell who the lead is, simply because none exists.

Although Final Exam may be the only slasher to depict an act of terrorism as a Greek-system prank, the movie redefines routine, standing at the head of the class only to be ridiculed as the worst of its kind. —Rod Lott

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