Shadow Woods: O Pesadelo

Maddy (Louise Lasser! Louise Lasser!) takes her twin, ten year old sons, Terry and Todd, to the drive-in theater for some wholesome movie watching fun. Unfortunately, Terry is a homicidal maniac, who can't resist the opportunity to slip out of the car, and murder someone with an ax! To make matters worse, he blames Todd for the murder, causing him to be locked away in a mental institution. Ten years later, Todd escapes, and heads home, just in time for Thanksgiving.

BLOOD RAGE is another enjoyable slasher film from the sub-genre's heyday. Overflowing with gushy gore FX, 80's fashions and decor, mountainous hair, and a skull-fracturing synthesizer score, it's a perfect slab of blood-drenched cheddar.

Still, in spite of the grisly goings on, the most haunting scene involves Maddy sitting on the floor devouring leftovers. Then, in her horror and grief, she cleans the oven! Vigorously! Drop whatever you're doing and watch this right now...

The gore in this movie surprisingly holds up really well still now. Only ever having seen it once way way back i didn't really remember much about it until watching it on the Arrow video blu ray release. The acting for the most part is awfully perfect for what it is and there's much humour to be had seeing how they get around scenes with the twins in the same shot, their mothers reaction to everything that happens and the girlfriends fantastic searching for the crazed twin as if she was looking for a cat, looking under leaves and combing the ground. Amazing stuff. But that aside some great kills and gore take this up a notch and keep it highly entertaining for me. One to watch for any fan of 80s slashers.

Blood Rage (1987)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Terry commits a brutal murder at a drive-in but blames it on his twin Todd who is sent to a mental hospital. Flash forward ten years and Todd has broken out of the hospital and returns home where more bodies begin to pile up.

BLOOD RAGE was filmed in 1983 but it sat on a shelf for four years before it was finally released without too much fan fare. The film was pretty much forgotten but over the years it has gained a rather large cult following and it's not too hard to see why. Even though I thought the film was pretty bad, there's no question that it contains some rather campy moments at times and the gore level is quite high.

I think it's the gore that most people are going to be coming to the film for. The special effects aren't the greatest thing around and they certainly don't compare to the work of Tom Savini but they certainly have an appeal. It doesn't matter what happens to the victim you're going to see a ton of blood come flowing out. So if they're stabbed, shot or chopped...prepare for blood. There are some creative kills throughout including one poor woman who gets cut in half and another man who loses his head.

The biggest problem with the film is pretty much everything else. The movie is available in three different cuts but I went with the original VHS version that clocks in at 82 minutes. Those 82 minutes feel triple that time because this thing drags so often. Whenever someone isn't getting killed off we're basically watching some pretty poor acting in a rather bad story without much going for it. There's no mystery, no suspense, no humor and not much of anything.

Again, BLOOD RAGE is going to be remembered for its gore and I'd still recommend slasher fans check it out for this reason alone.

A homicidal child blames his twin brother for a grisly axe murder he committed and he's sent away until one Thanksgiving when he's released and the murders starts up at their mother's apartment complex again.

There's a hint of Greek tragedy throughout Blood Rage that doesn't always hit the mark, but you have to admire the filmmakers for daring to make something more than just another run of the mill slasher. If that's what you're looking for, you'll still be more than satisfied, because in it's uncut form, Blood Rage might be one of the bloodiest slashers from this era. Hands are lopped off, heads are split in half, and torsos are torn apart. Louise Lasser also blesses us with one of the great unhinged performances of all time.

"Blood Rage" begins with two twin adolescent boys at a drive-in with their mother on a date; the two slink off, and one of them murders a man in his car. Ten years later, the psycho twin is incarcerated in a mental institution. On Thanksgiving, the good twin and his mother go to visit, but find he has escaped. He returns to the woodsy community where his mother lives and begins carving up residents like turkeys.

Let's face it—evil twins are to horror films what pumpkin pie is to Thanksgiving. It just works. "Blood Rage," a little-known slasher filmed in the early 1980s, knows this, and takes full advantage of the trope. The film fell into obscurity and wasn't even released theatrically until 1987; it made it to small theaters and B-movie drive-ins, and all but disappeared. What's interesting is that the film actually offers all of the hallmarks that genre fans love about these films: a holiday setting, corny one-liners, young adults copulating, and some impressive special effects set to a pounding synth score. You'd think the film would have at least garnered a cult following, but the limited availability of it until Arrow Video's 2015 release prevented it from ever really catching on.

The film is admittedly a mess in areas; some of the performances are hammy and the dialogue contrived, while the pacing is certainly bizarre at times, but for a low-budget B slasher film, these are typically taken for granted, and if anything are part of the charm. Louise Lasser spends the majority of the film boozed out screaming into a telephone and eating Thanksgiving leftovers on her kitchen floor, while her good twin boy searches ruthlessly for his unhinged brother. Bodies start piling up, and elaborate gore effects take precedent over plot development at times. The script overall is vaguely sketched and doesn't completely feel rounded out, and the film does suffer from a frankly nonthreatening villain, but the final act is tongue-in-cheek and well handled.

Overall, the film is a nice slice of eighties slasher pie that somehow got left behind. It's not a great film by any means, but it's also not a bad one when pitted against the genre standards. The ending is rather grim, and Lasser's turn as the mentally destroyed mother is hammy, Oedipal, and at times poignant. In many ways, the film reminded me of "Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker," another eighties slasher that never really caught on, in both tone and thematics. "Blood Rage" is most definitely worth a look for genre fans, and is a hokey, gory effort if nothing else. 6/10.