Suburban Psycho Horror Collection

Shock-o-Rama Cinema

Web: http://www.Shock-O-Rama.com

This set is a selection of four bloody horror films set partly at least in the suburbs. This is not an area normally known for murder and terror, but most of the films make quite a good job of it. The sheer normalness of the areas gives it an extra touch of horror – these people could be your next door neighbours.

Suburban Nightmare

Charles and Deborah are the all-American family. They seem perfectly normal apart from their habit of killing people for food. As a Sociology Professor explains at a dinner party, people will not get involved despite screaming, plastic bags dripping red liquid being buried in the backyard and chainsaw sounds in the middle of the night. In the few cases the incidents are reported it is as a domestic disturbance, not a serial killer on the loose. They currently have a young girl tied up in the basement and Deborah is torturing her for fun until the next big meal. She apparently wasn’t taught not to play with her food.

Deborah has a problem, though. She is a not-quite ex-alcoholic and she is losing control. Her angry outbursts are alienating her from Charles and they get to the point where one of them will have to die, even though they still love each other. There is also one other person who can bring down the wrath of the law onto them.

Psycho Sisters

Years ago three sisters were kidnapped and beaten by a group of college boys. One girl died, another was raped, the third, Jackie, was so badly traumatised that she has spent the intervening years in a psychiatric institute. Now she has been released.

Her sister Jane has not been wasting her time. She has been conducting her own reign of terror against the college boys in the town and her count is now over thirty murders. Jane wants her help to keep going. Jackie is guided by the spirit of her dead sister who disapproves but Jane’s strong personality makes her hard to resist.

Although the girls are now being hunted by the local biker gang (they killed two of its members), the police, and a zealous magazine manager, no one yet knows that there is more than one killer and that they are female. The suspicion is growing, though.

The inevitable happens and Jackie falls in love. The spirit of her sister agrees with this. Jane will have none of this so there’s going to be a showdown with even more blood. Naturally.

Skin Crawl

This story should be called Attack of the Clichés. It is not the best story in the collection. For a start we have seen the plot hundreds of times before. In the 1700s – 1800s three young, attractive witches live in their house in the forest. They are set upon by the local Puritans who rape and kill one of the girls. She casts a spell to protect her descendants against men before she dies.

It’s now modern times and the descendant of the dead girl is married to a cheating husband. He gets his jollies by having his mistress dress up as the cliché “naughty schoolgirl”. To get her money they arrange his wife’s murder. The curse is activated, the wife’s body rises from the dead and the usual killing spree follows as she takes revenge on all those who harmed her. Her husband is overcome by remorse, but it’s too late. He can’’t quite work up the nerve to shoot himself so the ghost of his wife helps him by pulling the trigger. Death by cliché?

It’s only just adequately acted – the cast doesn’t have much to work with - but the pace is very slow. Since we already know what the outcome is going to be I found myself thinking a few times “Come on, get on with it”. It is not particularly bloody nor are the participants psycho enough to make it very scary.

Drainiac

Now this is more like it. Elementals, water spirits, infest the plumbing of an old house. They attack their victims with green slime, turn them into red bloody slime, then suck them down the plughole. Julie and her unlikable Dad have just moved into the house. While her father is in town some of her friends come over to help her clean up the house.

The water spirits go on the rampage.

An old man, Mr Plummer, believes he can exorcise the house but the spirits and monsters may be stronger than he thought.

The spirit effects and monster makeup are well done. The plot is, for this type of film, reasonably intelligent. Since it takes place in the country and there are no real psychos in it then including it in this collection seems strange, but it is a good horror film in its own right.

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