{"id":25999,"date":"2025-06-22T19:07:59","date_gmt":"2025-06-22T19:07:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mattshorroraddiction.com\/?p=25999"},"modified":"2025-06-22T19:07:59","modified_gmt":"2025-06-22T19:07:59","slug":"fade-to-black-the-last-horror-film-watchers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/matt.doppiavvu.it\/?p=25999","title":{"rendered":"Fade to Black, The Last Horror Film, Watchers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Fade to Black<\/strong> – 1980, US, 102m. Director: Vernon Zimmerman.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Last Horror Film<\/strong> – 1982, US, 87m. Director: David Winter.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watchers<\/strong> – 1988, Canada\/US, 91m. Director: Jon Hess.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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FADE TO BLACK <\/em><\/strong>(1980) <\/em>Movie lover and perpetual screw-up Eric Binford (Dennis Christopher) grows tired of being everybody’s punching bag\u2014although, frankly, he deserves it\u2014and switches careers from stock boy to serial killer. Eric’s first victim is his wheelchair-bound aunt, who he pushes down a flight of stairs after she destroys his film projector showing Henry Hathaway’s Kiss of Death<\/em>. Eric adopts the personalities of his favorite movie characters (Cody Jarrett from White Heat<\/em>, Count Dracula, etc.) and goes after those who make his life hell, including a brutish coworker (Mickey Rourke), and a stuck-up prostitute who embarrassed Eric for a lack of funds. In the film’s most ridiculous scene, Eric embodies the personality of James Cagney from the gangster film Taxi<\/em> by driving around in a 1931 Pontiac and mowing down a room full of people with a Tommy gun and quoting, “You dirty rat!” How a flake like Eric obtained a working Tommy gun is anyone’s guess. Fade to Black<\/em> is supposed to be a comedy but it’s too derivative and silly to be funny, and comes off as refried junk food for those with short attention spans. C<\/strong>–<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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THE LAST HORROR FILM<\/em><\/strong> (1982) <\/em>Vinny Durand (Joe Spinell), a delusional, movie-obsessed cab driver, travels to the Cannes Film Festival, where anyone who gets in the way of his dream of making a horror movie with actress Jana Bates (Caroline Munro) meets an untimely death. A pompous director gets his head cut off after denying Vinny access to Jana. A producer is trapped in a screening room and hacked to pieces with a hatchet. Vinny finally gets a hold of Jana, but she manages to escape and runs into the streets where hordes of pedestrians cheer on what they believe is a publicity stunt\u2014which causes Vinny to stop and bow to his “audience.” The Last Horror Film<\/em> is a slasher movie but it’s also a self-reflective parody that satirizes not only the horror genre but Hollywood and fame, and does it fairly well. While abundant, the splatter isn’t quite up to par with Maniac<\/em> (1980)\u2014Last Horror Film<\/em> was apparently promoted in parts of Europe as Maniac 2<\/em>!\u2014but there is a gruesome disemboweling, courtesy of a chainsaw; an appropriate gore-filled ending to this fun, if not entirely convincing, spectacle. B<\/strong>–<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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WATCHERS<\/em><\/strong> (1988)<\/em> A genetically modified humanoid designed for killing escapes from an experimental laboratory along with its psychically-linked dog. The creature smashes into a barn and mauls a farmer to death while the golden retriever runs into the arms of a teen (Corey Haim), who hides the dog not only from the monster but from the secret organization tracking it. The humanoid hunts Haim to a high school and slaughters a teacher and custodian\u2014the “watcher” has a penchant for gouging out its victims eyes\u2014before the local police wise up to the sight of mangled bodies and bring out the shotguns. The stone-cold tracker (an appropriately cast Michael Ironside) of the creature is so hellbent on keeping the experiment a secret that he cuts the sheriff’s throat with a shard of glass for asking too many questions. Haim holds up in a woodsy shack with the pooch, and acts as if he’s in a Rambo <\/em>movie by tossing homemade grenades and Molotov cocktails at the beast (the makeup for which looks like a shag rug glued onto a baboon mask). Mildly entertaining, but only ever slightly. Oscar-winning screenwriter Paul Haggis (Million Dollar Baby<\/em>) had his name credited as Paul Freed after removing himself from Watchers<\/em> during the 1988 writers strike. C<\/strong>+<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fade to Black – 1980, US, 102m. Director: Vernon Zimmerman. The Last Horror Film – 1982, US, 87m. Director: David Winter. Watchers – 1988, Canada\/US, 91m. Director: Jon Hess. FADE TO BLACK (1980) Movie lover and perpetual screw-up Eric Binford (Dennis Christopher) grows tired of being everybody’s punching bag\u2014although, frankly, he deserves it\u2014and switches careers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-capsule-reviews"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/matt.doppiavvu.it\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25999","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=25999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/matt.doppiavvu.it\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25999\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/matt.doppiavvu.it\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matt.doppiavvu.it\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matt.doppiavvu.it\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}