You can’t really blame Frogs’ producers for their blatant deception. I mean, there are frogs in Frogs, but they alone aren’t the only animals who turn against the various unlikable characters who inhabit the story. In reality, the film more accurately should have been called Traditionally Harmless Animals Which Suddenly Decide to Attack People Because of Pollution, which I will concede would have been a lot harder to market.

The people in question are a bunch of rich assholes who live under the thumb of patriarch Jason Crockett (Ray Milland, X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes) and who have gathered together on his private island to celebrate his latest birthday. You know Crockett is a bad guy because:
a) he’s rich, and
b) is in a wheelchair, so it’s only natural that he has no problem keeping the bugs away from his estate with a very eco-unfriendly pesticide.

It’s only a matter of time before the local animal population (which admittedly includes a lot of frogs) calls “Bullshit!” on this and starts attacking everyone, including the studly, tree-hugging photographer played by Sam Elliott (Tombstone), whose lack of a mustache is eerily discomfiting.

Frogs manages to avoid being as ridiculous as that same year’s Night of the Lepus, but that’s not a good thing. While watching giant bunny rabbits stalking Janet Leigh is just stupid enough to hold your attention, the same can’t be said for people being hunted by normal-sized fauna. Despite the goofy promise inherent in its concept and infamous poster, Frogs is just plain dull. —Allan Mott

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Whereas 1986’s Sorority House Massacre was serious, Sorority House Massacre II takes the self-aware, scream-queen route. That’s bound to happen when you put Jim Wynorski (1988’s Not of This Earth) at the helm.

So will abnormally large breasts, which makes him the perfect director for such an imperfect project. Who else would have the foresight to place all the cops’ expository dialogue in a strip club?

Five sorority girls buy a new-to-them house for their chapter. They’re able to afford it because the abode has been on the market for five years, what with being the site of multiple murders and all. When they’re informed by the creepy neighbor what went on there, Wynorski cedes screen time to clips from a previous movie … but not the previous movie. Instead of footage from the film to which SMHII is ostensibly a sequel, we see a condensed version of 1982’s The Slumber Party Massacre. Slumber, sorority — slutty all the same, right?

After the girls take showers (Stacia Zhivago, who kind of looks like Laura Dern with double Ds, soaps herself up to squeak-toy noises on the soundtrack), they don lingerie to play with a Ouija board, which reawakens the evil of the home; ergo, the “massacre” portion of the title can come into play.

None of the actresses can act; they’re here to scream and let the camera leer over their bodies. For example, for a simple shot of three of them ascending a staircase, Wynorski chose a lower-than-low angle for maximum ass-cheek exposure. More than the blood that squirts like a ketchup dispenser being squeezed too hard too fast, skin is the most special effect of all in SHMII, from Melissa Moore (Repossessed) to former porn star Gail Harris. Wynorski didn’t need much more that that, except the same ol’ crashed-lightning stock footage producer Roger Corman has used since his Edgar Allan Poe pictures. —Rod Lott

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To the surprise of no one, I Spit on Your Grave 2 tells essentially the same story as its 2010 predecessor (itself a remake of the notorious 1978 grindhouse classic): Pretty girl gets kidnapped, raped and left for dead; pretty girl doesn’t die; pretty girl gets revenge on her captors/rapists. And yet, returning director Steven R. Monroe improves upon it. Who knew this tale was worth franchising?

Just another struggling, aspiring model in the jungle that is New York City, Katie (newcomer Jemma Dallender) is lured to a shady photography studio with the promise of a free portfolio shoot, only to find that the three brothers running it want nudes. She politely declines. Later, one of them makes his way into her apartment, where Katie’s grueling ordeal of degradation begins.

Things get worse when she’s shoved in a box and wakes up handcuffed to a pole in a dingy basement in the siblings’ home. In Bulgaria. Eventually, but not soon enough, the tables turn and an unrated, gory vengeance is hers — the only reason viewers stick around for such exercises in brutality.

Although undeniably unpleasant, I Spit on Your Grave 2 emerges as a stronger film in all respects, with the exception of Dallender’s performance in the third act. Until then, she sells it; at that point, she veers on parody. Whereas the first film pasted elements of Saw atop Meir Zarchi’s original, this sequel borrows liberally from Hostel, culminating in an ending that’s nuts — pun definitely intended. —Rod Lott

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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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