One of the precious few genre films made by Japan’s Shochiku production studio, The Living Skeleton is a good one. The ghost story begins aboard the Dragon King, a ship carrying gold bullion, which makes it a natural to be robbed by a gang of ugly-mugged, well-armed pirates. It is, and one of its passengers, the young woman Yoriko (Kikko Matsuoka, Bushido), is raped and killed.

Three years later, Yoriko’s identical-twin sister, Saeko (also played by Matsuoka), has an uncanny feeling that her sibling is still alive. She believes it so strongly that her fiancé (Yasunori Irikawa, Samurai Spy) accompanies her to scuba-dive at the spot of Yoriko’s would-be watery grave. There, they discover a number of skeletons floating together, chained at the ankle bones — the film’s most memorable image. Then things get weird.

The Living Skeleton represents the lone directorial outing of Hiroshi Matsuno, which is world cinema’s loss because he proved himself quite adept at the camera. Several shots within the black-and-white picture impress with innovation even by the standards of today, especially those starkly framed by the sunglasses of the lead pirate, one side of whose face looks to have burnt into strips of jerky.

Although occasionally too dark (in lighting, not subject matter), the mood created by Matsuno makes up for budgetary shortcomings most evident in the use of rubber bats and toy boats. Be forewarned of an uncharacteristically jazzy score that blares! blares! blares! as shocks appear onscreen; Matsuno’s odd revenge tale of the supernatural — or is it? — comes prepackaged with plenty, so get used to hearing it. —Rod Lott

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Things aren’t going so well on opening day of the Memorial Valley Campgrounds. A construction worker dies; the roads aren’t finished; and the discovery of a dead dog in the well has tainted the water supply. (“I ain’t never seen anything like this,” says a worker as he pulls out the canine carcass, apparently having never driven down city streets in his life.) Still, the camp owner (Blood and Black Lace‘s Cameron Mitchell, in a “check, please” cameo) insists the camp open.

His Dartmouth-student son is there to help (but how smart can he be, wearing sweaters on Memorial Day weekend?), much to the chagrin of the barrel-chested, hooch-hitting park ranger. They’re given hell at every turn by the ragtag bunch of campers, including motorcycle gangs, horny teens and a fat kid. But it turns out there are even bigger troubles afoot: a killer teenage caveman’s on the loose!

Yes, with Memorial Valley Massacre, you’ve stumbled on an incompetent mix of Friday the 13th, Eegah and Meatballs. The script is poor, the direction a notch below that and the acting even farther south. But how can you beat slutty chicks who like to dance in the rain or aged bosomy women with names like Pepper Mintz? Well, you can always throw in a teenage caveman! And how can you beat that, huh? —Rod Lott

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Newspaper ads for The Nest got my attention in ’88, depicting a giant cockroach mounting a busty blonde in her bra and panties — sold! Even then, as yet uneducated in Roger Corman’s business practices, this Honor Society high schooler was smart enough to know that odds were, neither that beast nor those breasts appeared in the finished product.

They don’t. Disappointment likely would reign even if they were.

Still grieving over her mother’s death four years earlier, Beth (Lisa Langlois, Happy Birthday to Me) returns home to the New England island town of North Port — just in time for the Fish-a-Whack Festival! But this burg has bigger fish to fry: cockroaches — hissing, killer cannibal cockroaches that can take a man’s arm clean off in seconds.

The townspeople could turn to Beth’s dad, the mayor (Robert Lansing, Empire of the Ants), for help, but he’s partly to blame, being in bed with the corporation whose experiments resulted in the superpowered roaches. Their only hope is Beth’s ex, a second-generation sheriff (a blank Franc Luz, 1988’s Ghost Town).

Even on a Corman budget, I’d expect a full-length feature to out-creep that one segment of Creepshow in which the bugs so memorably got E.G. Marshall’s tongue, but The Nest is unable to rise to the challenge. Director Terence H. Winkless (Bloodfist) works in a few fun gore scenes, most notably in a cat-cockroach hybrid that solidifies The Nest‘s intent as a throwback to monster movies of the Atomic Age. However, here-and-there moments fail to bond into a interest-held whole. —Rod Lott

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One of the horror anthologies that popped up in the wake of HBO’s success with Tales from the Crypt, After Midnight emerged from the unreliable talents of Jim and Ken Wheat, sibling scribes of The Fly II, The Birds II and one of those made-for-TV Ewok movies. As you’d expect, this is equally lackluster, but worth a look for omnibus nuts.

A college psych class headed by a freaky professor (Ramy Zada, Two Evil Eyes) provides the framework, as he has students tell each other stories of fear. First up is a couple stranded on an out-of-the-way road; for help, they go to a spooky old house. Second is a pointless tale of four high school girls out for a night on the town, only to end up menaced by a greasy gas station attendant and his ferocious dogs (which end up tearing Tracy Wells, the sister from TV’s Mr. Belvedere, to pieces).

Marg Helgenberger (TV’s CSI) stars in the final story, of a late-night answering service employee on crutches who’s receiving threatening calls from a psycho (Righteous Kill’s Alan Rosenberg, who became her husband). As is clearly evident, the Wheats don’t know how to end any of these stories, although the first one offers a bit of gore to compensate.

After Midnight isn’t terrible, but — wait, yeah, it is, but for some reason, I’ve seen it a few times and wouldn’t mind it again. —Rod Lott

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After a couple of comedic entries, the killer-doll franchise returns to its horror roots with Curse of Chucky, the sixth of the series. Voiced by Brad Dourif, Chucky mysteriously is shipped to the home of a tortured painter (Chantal Quesnelle, Bruiser) who takes care of her paraplegic, 20-something daughter, Nica (Fiona Dourif, who’s Brad’s daughter, but good enough to avoid charges of nepotism).

Chucky quickly does away with the mother, which prompts an influx of family members for her funeral … and, unbeknownst to them, theirs. Nica’s vampish sister, Barb (Danielle Bisutti, Insidious: Chapter 2), wants to sell the house and send Nica to assisted living, so you know she’s not surviving. Barb’s precocious daughter (newcomer Summer Howell), however, is another story. The kid does great with lines like, “Chucky says life’s a bitch and then you die like a stuck pig.”

Directed by series creator Don Mancini, Curse of Chucky boasts a nice tie or two to the 1988 original, Child’s Play, bringing the 25-year saga full-circle. Brad Dourif even gets to appear in human form for the first time since the start, in flashbacks that make him look less like serial killer Charles Lee Ray and more like The Room mastermind Tommy Wiseau.

Mancini’s decision to avoid humor almost entirely pays off, again making Chucky an object of fright, not funnies. Several sequences are calculated to make the most of audiences’ fears of dolls that move, much less kill, and despite the occasional overflourishing camera movement, they click with a gory goodness. If only Mancini knew how to bring the thing to a close; Curse is stuffed with about four endings, and to top it off, there’s another awaiting at the close of the credits. —Rod Lott

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