Despite sharing a writer/director, several cast members and even the frickin’ typeface for the posters, Kevin S. Tenney’s Witchtrap is not a sequel to Kevin S. Tenney’s Witchboard, as the publicity took great pains to remind prospective viewers. Whatever its parentage, the name matters not/squat; Witchtrap is a fiendishly entertaining example of 1980s horror: not “good” enough for a theatrical run, but perfect for a weekend’s VHS rental (or Blu-ray purchase, as the case may be today).

Parapsychologist Dr. Agnes Goldberg (Witchboard alum Judy Tatum) scores a choice opportunity to test her ghost-vacuum theory (seriously) when she is hired by Devin Lauder (Tenney) to investigate strange goings-on at the mansion he’s inherited. The 19th-century Gothic abode is haunted by his multitasking Uncle Avery (Witchboard alum J.P. Luebsen), a psychic magician illusionist warlock. Devin would love to make bank renting the place out, but Avery’s ghost — and his accompanying “horrible, ungodly shrieks and moans” — scares people away and occasionally sends them to their death.

Dr. Agnes recruits several teammates to assist, including physical medium Whitney (Kathleen Bailey, 1989’s Night Visitor) and acid-washed video technician Ginger (Linnea Quigley, Tenney’s Night of the Demons). As mandated by Devin, three security operatives tag along to provide protection — most notably the loudmouthed Vincente (Witchboard alum James W. Quinn, having an absolute ball, which sets the proper vibe for viewers). Vincente gets all the great lines, from “You. You are a real Neanderfuck, do you know that?” to “I always knew you were a scumbag, but I never knew how scummy a bag you could be!”

Security was a good call, what with the inverted cross and pentagram-emblazoned altar still assembled in the attic. However, they don’t exactly excel on the job, as team members expire in quick succession, each in a method wholly unique from the one before, but all accompanied by Whitney flailing about in a whip-my-hair combo of grand mal seizure and mind-blowing orgasm as her body channels Uncle Avery’s malevolent spirit; Bailey does an admirable best to sell this peculiar blend of gyrations, but Tenney needle-drops a theme of maddening bombast as if in doubt.

Whether his characters are done in by bullet, vehicle or showered, Tenney clearly relished staging every demise — the very reason films like Witchtrap exist, of course. (Also, now is as apt a time as any to say that Ghostvacuum would make a more fitting title.) The practical effects are standouts even at a cut-rate level, in particular a final scene that recalls Vincent Price’s candle impersonation at the end of Tales of Terror. As with Tenney’s other horror highs, Witchtrap plays like a plastic pumpkin overflowing with Halloween candy, with nary an apple or any other good-for-you alternative in sight. You’d have to be a Neanderfuck to think otherwise. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Based on a Malaysian tall tale, if the credits are to be believed, The Oily Maniac proves Hong Kong’s esteemed Shaw Brothers Ltd. studio didn’t just make historical epics about hitting and kicking. Once in a blue moon — 1976, to be exact — it made a movie about a meek handicapped lawyer by day, petroleum-based monster by night.

And just to make it crazy, part of it takes place at a coconut oil garden.

Danny Lee (Infra-Man himself!) is Ah Sheng Yung, the legal eagle confined to arm crutches and braces, thanks to a childhood bout with polio. He’s quite self-conscious about his disability, bleating “Why am I crippled? Why?” as he beats his useless legs with balled fists. Just as his Uncle Bah is about to be executed for murdering a guy in self-defense, Sheng learns some news about his late father, Bah’s bro:
• Papa was an exorcist and a shaman.
• He tattooed Bah’s back with a spell to protect the less fortunate.
• If the spell is used for other reasons, Bah warns, you die “in a very, very bad way.”

Naturally, Sheng traces Bah’s back on paper, goes home, digs a hole in the middle of the house, gets shirtless, lowers himself in, prays for peace and power, and — voilà! — transforms into The Oily Maniac. (Later switcheroos are brought about by dousing himself in diesel fuel straight from the gas-station pump and taking an impromptu bath in a barrel of tar at a construction site.) With superpowers not dissimilar to Swamp Thing, ol’ Oily looks like a bowel movement with yellow gumballs for eyes and a near-external heart that glows red as it beats. He can liquify into an animated blob — all the better to seep into cracks, slip under closed doors and glide across asphalt while chasing cars. He can regenerate body parts that get sliced off in the heat of battle. He can leap into the air with featherlight ease. And, like Hulk, when he turns back to Sheng, he always comes out of it with britches in place and intact.

Fighting injustice in its various forms, Oily’s first order of business is saving his disinterested love interest, Yue (Ping Chen, The Mighty Peking Man), from attempted rape. Director Meng Hua Ho (The Cave of Silken Web) seems to revel in the sexual ickiness, or if not, he sure amps it up as the film proceeds. Another target is a suspect doctor who specializes in vaginal rejuvenation for prostitutes; Oily drops in on the operating room in a manner eerily prescient of David Cronenberg’s The Fly interrupting his beloved’s abortion, stirrups and all. Outdoing that may be the scene in which a pop-music starlet complains about her botched boob job; as she says, “She screwed it up totally,” she opens her shirt to reveal one gnarly, swollen, purple teat with enough topographic texture to rival a 3-D map of the moon.

I’m not even sure why the movie features a courtroom scene of a Rashomon-esque rape trial, but it does, with the following exchange between perverted prosecutor and perjurious plaintiff:
“Did he touch your breasts?”
“He did.”
“Was it the right one? Or left?”
“Both sides.”

Anyhoo, Oily enters her bathtub through the faucet, inflates like a water balloon, and kills her, so I guess that’s why it’s there. Reason or no, the filmmakers must have been hitting the opium den pretty hard. As if the title didn’t scream as much, The Oily Maniac is so utterly insane, it comes bundled in its own straightjacket. If nothing else, you’ll love this psychedelic pile of comic-book pulp for that reason alone.

Oh, one more thing: If Troma co-founder Lloyd Kaufman didn’t see The Oily Maniac before creating The Toxic Avenger, then someone damn sure told him about it. The evidence is too messy to ignore, your honor. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.