Slipped in just before the finish line -
WISHMASTER – Who could forget this blizzard of splattery silliness from the last years of the nineties? Proof that not everything about that decade was a total yawn. Divoff is the fleshly vessel of a Djinn; Bannister finds out what happens when Djinn grants your wish-essss (actually Reggie’s only in it for a couple of mins, I just like pointing him out). A fast-paced cheap thrill as perky as the best shit ghost rides, and probably plays better now than it did in its day.
EDGE OF SANITY – Anthony Perkins is Dr Jekyll / Mr Hyde / Jack The Ripper and seems to have invented crack way before it became Reagan’s pet scourge. 19th cent London is where we’re at, but this is no pea-souper – the director obviously likes Ken Russell and quite often makes things look a bit like a Frankie Goes To Hollywood video. I’d have preferred even more of all that because EOS is ultimately a hack job, it goes for style but it wastes too much time on more ordinary stuff. Perkins is always worth watching, even when he’s trundling along. OK.
THE LEECH – A nice but put-upon priest invites a homeless guy and his other half back to his place when he finds out they’ve got nothing and no one at this most barbaric time of the year. But hang on… is something dark happening that means that people aren’t always what they seem, leading to a possible tables-turned-in-unsuspected-and-messy-ways-including-sex type situation? Watch it if you want to find out. I did, and I liked it, but not a lot. That’s not a reference to anything, but it might’ve helped if the homeless dudes had been played by Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee.
BLOODY MUSCLE BODY BUILDER IN HELL – A Japanese ‘Evil Dead’ fan made this, a 8mm roller coaster set in a haunted house where things are anything but ‘groovy’ for aforementioned bloody muscle body builder and his long suffering girlfriend. An obvious labour of love for you to regard with affection, even though it struggles to get beyond being two people stuck in a room with special effects going on. See, the new year hasn’t even started and I’m already turning into Scrooge.
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