Spookies Year: 1985 Director: Eugenie Joseph, Brendan Faulkner, Thomas Doran Written by: Thomas Doran, Ann Burgund, Frank M. Farel, Brendan Faulkner, Eugenie Joseph Threat: Sorcerer Weapon of Choice: Black Magic IMDb page:

Other movies in this series:
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Rish's Reviews
I've said it before, and won't ever quit: I love the Eighties.
Did you ever see Night of the Demons? Well, this is the same movie . . . only stupider. A gigantic group of young party-seekers get lost and stumble across a creepy old mansion. Turns out that a creepy old sorcerer lives there and he begins to dispatch the group in creepy old ways. Some get possessed, some are killed by monsters, and a few try to get away. It seems our villain is draining the life force from humans to bring his lost love back to life. A noble goal, except it turns out the beauty resents this act and really hates him. Story of my life.
Wow, this was BAD stuff. We're talking "Small Wonder" lame. It's so poorly directed that you can't tell where people are or if characters are in the same room. The film is very Eighties (featuring an extraordinarily stupid synthesizer score), very cheap, and very stupid. Even as the credits were rolling I started to forget what the movie was about.
There are about twenty characters, each one a stereotype we've seen ninety times before in a movie like this (the punk troublemaker, the creepy occult girl, the slut, the virgin who has a bad feeling about all this, the nice guy, the comic relief stoner/drunk, etc.), but oddly enough, I didn't care about any of them.
There are a couple of farting monsters, which the film is most famous for. If you can call a movie no one has ever heard of and no video stores carry anymore famous.
On the positive side, a thirteen year old boy is buried alive. On his birthday, no less. Later I learnt that the Thuggies were once real and did of unspeakable things.
There was nice zombie makeup and great special effects from time to time, odd in such a crappy movie. There was a REALLY impressive spider woman transformation. It's odd, 'cause most of this film looks like it cost about three hundred dollars, while the F/X look top-notch.
As is usually the case of a film this terrible: a) People on the internet absolutely worship it; and b) It's actually pretty entertaining. The dialogue was so awesome, I had to go back and check to see if it was written by William Goldman or Billy Wilder. For example:
STONER: Well, how do you play? Don't you need dice or something?
CREEPY GIRL: You don't play, a Ouija Board is a tool for communication.
FAG: Communication with who?
CREEPY GIRL: The dead.
GIRL WITH ACCENT: The dead? But they're dead!
I've spoken at length about the bad rap Horror gets from critics and the public in general (seen by many as a less-titilating form of pornography). Sadly, it may be that the people who mock horror movies are thinking of Spookies.
I'd Recommend It To: Aww, go ahead and rent it. If you dare.
Note: Later I found out that "Spookies" was half made from an unfinished film called Twisted Souls, only with an entirely new cast at the same location a couple years later. That explains a lot.
Posted: August 24, 2004

Total Skulls: 20

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc.
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?