{"id":23567,"date":"2025-01-19T18:00:30","date_gmt":"2025-01-19T18:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mattshorroraddiction.com\/?p=23567"},"modified":"2025-01-19T18:00:30","modified_gmt":"2025-01-19T18:00:30","slug":"the-mutilator-scream-1981-terror-train","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/matt.doppiavvu.it\/?p=23567","title":{"rendered":"The Mutilator, Scream (1981), Terror Train"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The Mutilator<\/strong> – 1984, US, 86m. Director: Buddy Cooper. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scream<\/strong> – 1981, US, 82m. Director: Byron Quisenberry. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terror Train<\/strong> – 1980, Canada, 97m. Director: Roger Spottiswoode. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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THE MUTILATOR <\/em><\/strong>(1984)<\/em> (AKA: Fall Break<\/em>) An appropriately titled bloodbath filmed in North Carolina and subjected to numerous rounds with the MPAA over its graphic violence\u2014a scene where a young woman is hooked in the groin is particularly gruesome. The woman was the victim of a wacko who lost his marbles years ago when his son accidentally shot the mom with a rifle. Now in college, the son (Matt Mitler) and his friends become the obsession of his demented dad (Jack Chatham), who sleeps in the cellar of his house with an oversized ax and dreams of cutting his son’s throat. Chatham soon makes his dream a reality when Mitler and gang arrive at the house for a weekend of partying but end up on the sharp end of Chatham’s plethora of weapons. The characters are mostly duds, and watching them die in horrible ways is the only benefit the viewer can take away from this Halloween<\/em>\/Friday the 13th<\/em>\/The Prowler<\/em> clone. One of Mitler’s buddies gets shredded with an outboard motor after skinny dipping with his girlfriend. A nosy security guard is beheaded with Chatham’s infamous ax. The killer strings up his prey on meat hooks, building to the obligatory scene where a character stumbles upon his dead friends before getting impaled with a pitchfork. Chatham gets his in the end when he’s mowed down by Mitler’s Cadillac convertible and cut in half. Good makeup effects by Mark Shostrom and Anthony Showe, but not much else. C<\/strong> (Currently streaming on Night Flight Plus and Arrow Player.)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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SCREAM<\/em><\/strong> (1981)<\/em> Campers on a rafting expedition are stalked by a killer after stopping for the night in a ghost town. The characters start pointing fingers at each other with the discovery of the first victim\u2014hung from a noose\u2014but that doesn’t stop more bodies from dropping, which unfortunately for the viewer are in sleep-inducing ways. None of the campers have personalities, so even after being bumped off, their absence is barely noticed. The filmmakers were obviously striving for a Friday the 13th<\/em>-style slasher, but the lack of energy and suspense is clear from the beginning, as are the gory makeup effects typically found in this type of film. While one can appreciate the mystery angle the writers were striving for, the mystery ultimately proves fruitless if there’s no core to its aimless plot, which descends into supernatural territory during the absurd third act. Pepper Martin, the loudmouth truck stop bully from Superman II<\/em>, here plays a loudmouth bully. How’s that for casting? D<\/strong>+ (Currently unavailable.)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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TERROR TRAIN <\/em><\/strong>(1980)<\/em> Freshman pledge Kenny (Derek McKinnon) is used as bait for a fraternity prank and left psychologically scarred by the incident\u2014which involves a stolen corpse. Three years later, the frat brothers and sorority sisters responsible for Kenny’s torment throw a New Year’s Eve costume party on a moving passenger train, unaware a masked killer is in their midst. After a character is dispatched, the maniac steals the victim’s costume, making it seem as if the dead person is still very much alive, and tricking others into feeling their bloody wrath. Surprises are not something Terror Train<\/em> has a lot of, especially when it’s revealed Kenny is the murderer seeking revenge for the aforementioned prank that left him in a psychiatric ward. What this film does have is excellent production values and acting, including Jamie Lee Curtis in one of her better post-Halloween<\/em>, pre-Hollywood roles. C<\/strong>+ (Currently streaming on Roku and Plex.)<\/em>
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The Mutilator – 1984, US, 86m. Director: Buddy Cooper. Scream – 1981, US, 82m. Director: Byron Quisenberry. Terror Train – 1980, Canada, 97m. Director: Roger Spottiswoode. THE MUTILATOR (1984) (AKA: Fall Break) An appropriately titled bloodbath filmed in North Carolina and subjected to numerous rounds with the MPAA over its graphic violence\u2014a scene where a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,12,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-80s","category-capsule-reviews","category-slashers"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/matt.doppiavvu.it\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/matt.doppiavvu.it\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/matt.doppiavvu.it\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matt.doppiavvu.it\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matt.doppiavvu.it\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/matt.doppiavvu.it\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23567\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/matt.doppiavvu.it\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matt.doppiavvu.it\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matt.doppiavvu.it\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}