The bad seed of Cathy’s Curse — a French-Canadian rip-off of The Exorcist, The Omen and/or Carrie — is young Cathy Gimble (Randi Allen, in her lone industry credit). Immediately upon moving with her parents into Dad’s childhood home, little Cathy becomes possessed by the spirit of her aunt, who died as a child in an auto accident.

Thus, the snot-nosed brat starts doing things that all grade-schoolers do: moving things with her mind, channeling demon voices, trying to poke out the eyes of playmates, killing her nanny, willing worms to appear on your food, causing hallucinations of snakes and spiders, chiding elderly alcoholics, cursing like a sailor and asking for fruit snacks every five minutes. (Okay, so I made that last one up.)

Because it’s all so nonsensical (oh, and French-Canadian), the film by Eddy Matalon (Blackout) comes across as fairly funny. There are no true scares to be found within it, but I will admit to having a lifelong creep-out to scenes of dolls that move, and damned if Cathy’s Curse doesn’t have a couple of those. —Rod Lott

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Having spent more than a decade in the realm of music promotion, I say with experience that receiving shitty, unsolicited albums is all part of the job. Rob Zombie’s The Lords of Salem gets that right. Where it veers from reality is that one such package — left at reception for late-night radio DJ Heidi LaRoc — triggers mass hallucinations upon listening. (Possible timely exception: One Direction.)

Letting the needle drop on the satanic-looking slab of vinyl from The Lords, the dreadfully dreadlocked LaRoc (Sheri Moon Zombie, 2004’s Toolbox Murders) is plagued by memories involving the sacrificial rituals of a coven of witches. Strange goings-on increase exponentially at her apartment building, where a supposedly unoccupied room down the hall is alight with unspeakable activity.

Even with all its intestines-pulling, blood-puking and full-frontal nudity, Salem marks a step up the maturity ladder for Mr. Zombie, who shows more restraint in the aggro department than any of his previous films, especially his pair of Halloween remakes. The trade-off is that it doesn’t radiate the pervading sense of menace that House of 1000 Corpses and its more intense sequel, The Devil’s Rejects, possessed in proverbial spades. Armed with a strong eye, Zombie makes up for it in visuals, particularly in the nightmare/flashback sequences; he’s really a terrific director and designer.

Although certainly confined to a limited range, Mrs. Zombie holds her own as the film’s anchor. She’s surrounded by many a horror vet — Ken Foree, Meg Foster, Dee Wallace, Michael Berryman among them — who actually contribute to the project, rather than rest on the stunt casting you see in so many lesser movies. By the same token, Bruce Davison (X-Men) invests in his role with as much sincerity as he does prestige pictures. Salem is more than artful enough to deserve that, even if we know Zombie can — and will — do better. —Rod Lott

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Since 1982’s Slumber Party Massacre worked so well for producer Roger Corman, he not only wrung sequels out of it, but commissioned Sorority House Massacre as well. It’s basically the same concept, only not as much fun; still, you’d slip it a roofie. It’s also basically just John Carpenter’s Halloween, if instead of babysitting, Laurie Strode joined the Greek system.

Considering pledging Theta Sigma Theta, the quiet, Peter Pan-haired Beth (Angela O’Neill, Vicious Lips) stays the weekend at the sorority house — the kind of only-in-the-movies sorority house that appears to have about four members, one of whom decorates her room with a giant Smurf piñata. Beth has no clue that she once lived there with her family, whose members big brother Bobby (John C. Russell) slayed years ago.

Coinciding with Beth’s weekend tryout — thanks to telepathy — Bobby escapes from the state mental hospital, as slasher villains are wont to do. Stealing weapons and a station wagon, he makes his way to Theta Sigma Theta. Meanwhile, an orderly tells the cops exactly whom to look out for: “I’d say he’s 6 foot, 190 pounds, blue eyes, real pale fucker.” Meanwhile, the girls demonstrate their sisterhood in a gratuitous clothes-trying-on montage scored to what sounds like a Mike Post reject.

First- and last-time director Carol Frank clearly paid attention while serving as an assistant for Slumber, because she took the Sorority gig seriously and plugged in all the slasher genre’s necessary elements: blood, boobs and … well, that’s about it. Although she tried, one need not be paying full attention to see how padded her movie’s mere 74 minutes are; let’s just say Beth has lots of slow-moving nightmares.

Speaking of padding, it’s more than a little disappointing that not a single female in Sorority House Massacre comes close to approaching the sex appeal of its poster model, Suzee Slater (Savage Streets). Theta Sigma Theta must be that one house on campus with a stellar GPA. —Rod Lott

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Bearing more than a passing resemblance to the Mickey-Hargitay-goes-bonkers B-fave Bloody Pit of Horror, Piero Regnoli’s Italian erotic-horror number The Playgirls and the Vampire plunks five easy-on-the-eyes dancers and their Norman Fell-esque chaperone in a spooky castle during inclement weather.

The castle’s host, Count Gabor Kernassy (Walter Brandy, Island of Lost Girls), is all too willing to have these lovelies shack up at his place for the night, but warns them not to leave their rooms under any circumstances. Doing as women do, however, one ignores this piece of advice and gets bitten by a vampire. The next night, she’s already become an official member of the undead, sporting sharp new teeth as she walks around in her birthday suit.

With not much to do, the four remaining gals practice their dance steps, but each in a different style, reminding one of that rehearsal scene in A Charlie Brown Christmas. One decides to break out into an impromptu striptease. You’d think their goofball manager might take advantage of his position, but he’s perfectly happy sleeping next to a girlie magazine that he props up on a pillow and calls “Sweetheart.”

In the underground-catacombs climax, Count Kernassy and the vampire duke it out, with the latter becoming impaled on a conveniently wall-mounted spear. Via the magic of cheap animation, he degenerates into a skeleton — easily Playgirls‘ coolest scene. Only a smidgen less talk and a helping more of nekkid vampire chicks could make this obscure, black-and-white tale more fun than it already is. —Rod Lott

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Once you’ve electrocuted a woman through her nipples and sucked brains through a straw, what do you do for an encore? Blood Bath, the sophomore movie of Joel M. Reed, director of the rightly notorious Bloodsucking Freaks. As extreme as that phlegm film was, Blood Bath stands on the opposite end of the spectrum. It’s even rated PG, which should give you a good idea at how successful it is as a horror anthology: not.

The great character actor Harve Presnell (Fargo) is unrecognizable as a fright-flick director who states on set his utter disbelief in the supernatural, black magic and fate. That night at dinner, his cast members share stories to convince him otherwise. Nary a single tale is worth the time; the third is notable only for its appearance by future sitcom star Doris Roberts (Everybody Loves Raymond).

The first follows a professional killer on his unbeknownst-to-him final hit; the second, a henpecked novelist who wishes to disappear into his own fiction to escape his shrew of a wife, who gets off Blood Bath‘s lone amusing line from their marital bed: “I am not one of those cheap, immoral swingers who work in accounts receivable!”

The aforementioned third segment centers on an unscrupulous businessman locked in a vault with an African-American ghost who looks like he leapt off the poster of The Harder They Come. Finally, a Wonder Bread-white master of kung fu infuriates his shaolin masters by opening a supermarket; Reed stages martial-arts sequences as well as a pre-K class could Pippin. The entire project is dull and incompetent — a tough sit that disproves that ol’ showbiz adage of, “Any movie that ends with a rampaging goat boy can’t be all bad.” —Rod Lott

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