Spookies

My review was written in May 1986 after a Cannes Film Festival Market screening.

"Spookies" is a silly horror picture which contains some interesting special makeup effects along with very amateurish ones, presented in the usual package of a group of hapless travelers murdered one by one. It's of interest to undiscriminating horror fans.

Felix Ward, wearing some pretty phony old age makerup, to;ines as Kreon, a sorcerer who is bringing back to life his bride (lovely Maria Pechukas), who committed suicide 70 years ago. He needs human sacrifices and fortunately (for him), two carloads of people lost en route to a party stop in at Kreon's mansion that night. Earlier that evening, a young boy named Billy (Adam Nemser) wandered into the mansion, found a grisly birthday party being held there for him and is scared off by Kreon's servant (Dan Scott) and other monsters.

The nine partygoers with no party play with a vintage ouija board and make dumb jokes but one of them, Carol, is suddenly turned into a monster Linda Blair-lookalike from "The Exorcist" by Kreon and all hell breaks loose. Disjointed film never explains why the survivors don't just jump in to their cars and head on home. Instead, intime-honored, stupid horror film tradition, they split up in ones and twos and search the mansion repeatedly, making for easy victimization.

Film'[s novelty is that the entire cast is wiped out (no last-minute rescues) and the final reel even has Pechukas, showse reanimation was after all the purpose of all the killing, running around for dar life as a neighborhood full of ghouls shamble around and paw at her.

Rule of thumb here is that when makeup is applied to a person's face it's strictly amateur night, while several of the from the ground up (no pun intended) monster creations are well done. Among these goodies are a huge spider transformed from an oriental lady, a grim reaper skeleton with illuminated red eyes, a gill man who probably saw Ridley Scott's "Alien" and several green lizard monsters. Low point is when some imitation clay people (out of "Flash Gordon" but poorly designed) terrorize a busty babe and her boyfriend in the basement, while postproduction amplified sounds of flatulence lamely attempt to make this scene humorous.

Three directors are credited for "Spookies". Brendan Faulkner and Thomas Doran teamed up to shoot the bulk of the N. Y.-lensed picture, originally titled "Twisted Souls", while editor Eugenie Joseph completed the film after there was squabbling with the British-based financial backer.

This is one good horror flick. It really should have a better reputation than it does. Of course, it's silly and stupid... that's part of the fun! One of the things that makes this movie pretty unique is it has many scenes that are pretty serious and intense, while others are laugh riots on purpose and on accident. Perhaps the greatest thing is how creative these filmmakers got with the monsters. They go all out with nearly everything that you can (or CAN'T) think of: zombies, a spider woman, farting muckmen (hilarious!), a cellar hag, lizard monsters, the Grim Reaper, a half-cat weirdo in biker books with a hook in place of a missing hand, a tall, ugly monstrosity with an exposed heart and tentacles, etc., etc. Man, it's wild! There's also demonic possession, and a scene that has much in common with the first (human) possession in "The Evil Dead". "Spookies" also has an interesting story behind the movie: It was begun around 1984 as a horror-comedy called "Twisted Souls". That was unfinished, but they added more stuff in to make the paste-up movie that became "Spookies". Amazingly enough, "Spookies" doesn't look like remnants of separate movies. It was all put together very well, and the results definitely deserve more respect and recognition. I really want to see the uncut version, because it probably has more gore and would also probably clear up confusion about what happened in gory scenes that were obviously cut right out of the US version with an R rating. If "The Evil Dead", Lamberto Bava's "Demons", "Night of the Demons", and others were able to get by with how goofy they are, I think that "Spookies" (a movie just as equally goofy and creepy as any of the others) should be able to also. In my opinion, "Spookies" should be legendary.

Can't really take this one seriously, but definitely worth a chuckle! It just gets weirder and weirder. The concept is overdone, but it could have been a better story. Very goofy.

Someone recently added a trivia comment which says, "Actually comprised of two separate, unfinished films and edited together." This is completely untrue. I wish people would actually read the message board notes before bothering to make such comments. Spookies is comprised of the original Twisted Souls (finished save for some post production work), and new footage added months later (which was NOT from an unfinished, separate film at all, but was footage shot to add into Twisted Souls). I know some of the people who made this film and visited the set many, many times so I know what I am talking about. Where do people come up with these things? I know it has a confusing history, but read the comments from myself and others, it will help clarify matters.

An almost completely impossible film to review since it was so heavily re-shot and re-tooled after its initial production, muddling the original creator's intentions so you're never really sure what most scenes are going for. That said, there are several inventive effects sequences and it's entertaining in a trainwreck sort of way.