Behind the Couch

1988 Dir. William Lustig Innocent New Yorkers are being brutally murdered by a uniformed police officer. As the death toll mounts, officer Jack Forrest finds himself accused of the slaughter. With few friends, powerful enemies and a psychopathic slayer still at large, Jack teams up with hardboiled Detective Frank McCrae and fellow officer Theresa Mallory, to prove he’s not guilty and bring down the killer. You have the right to remain silent… Forever! Boasting a cult-tastic cast of 80’s exploitation veterans including Tom Atkins, Richard Roundtree, Bruce Campbell and Laurene Landon, Maniac Cop has so much going for it. The script, by Larry Cohen, coupled with William Lustig’s bruising direction, ensures the film unravels as an entertaining and riveting suspenser. Cohen has made a career out of subverting normal, everyday things into objects of terror: babies ( It’s Alive ), ice-cream ( The Stuff ), paramedics ( The Ambulance ), and public phone boxes ( Phone Booth ). Maniac ...

1982 Dir. Tommy Lee Wallace When a distraught man carrying a creepy Halloween mask is brutally murdered in his hospital bed, Dr Dan Challis teams up with the victim’s daughter to find out why. Their investigation leads them to the small Southern Californian town of Santa Mira and the bizarre Silver Shamrock toy factory. The snoopy duo soon discovers that the company’s sinister director has a diabolical plan involving ancient Celtic witchcraft, Stonehenge mysticism and booby-trapped Halloween masks to cull America’s kiddie population. Not a sequel in the strictest sense of the term, Halloween III often gets a raw deal from critics and fans of the series. In an attempt to bring something fresh and interesting to the franchise, producers John Carpenter and Debra Hill planned to produce an anthology of films using the Halloween title and featuring different stories set in and around All Hallow’s Eve. As such, Halloween III: Season of the Witch bears no relation to the prior inst...

1986 Dir. Fred Dekker ‘What is this? A homicide, or a bad B Movie?’ – Det. Cameron Night of the Creeps wears its B-Movie status proudly on its sleeve. It plays out like a homage to 50s style sci-fi films such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers , with elements of Night of the Living Dead , Shivers and various slasher movies thrown in for good measure. And Tom Atkins as a hard-boiled and cynical detective!  The opening scenes really succeed in setting the tone of the film as an outrageous comedy horror. Bizarre miniature aliens are battling onboard a spaceship. They eventually flush their unseen enemy out of an air-hatch and into space. It crash lands on earth in the 1950s near a university campus. On what looks distinctly like a Lover’s Lane, two teenagers make out in a parked car. The guy notices the comet and goes to see where it landed leaving the girl waiting in the car. On the radio is an announcement that a psychotic lunatic has just escaped from a nearby asylum. Sure...