Stream Queen 10: from supernatural to slashers

My latest streaming selections include a prison with an unseen presence, a slumber party slasher with plenty of half-naked babes, and a Euro horror film that has it all—a psycho killer, ghosts, and the undead!

INSIDE (2012)

Is it a bad sign if I tell you that the highlight of this film is that it stars sizzling hot Luke Goss, one of the twin brothers from the 1990s boy band Bros? Luke has quite an acting career, including the horror genre: Blade II, Unearthed, 7 Below, The Dead Undead.

If you’re looking for a movie that’s about as exciting as The Blair Witch Project, this is the movie for you. A killer dies by lethal injection. The same night, Goss is incarcerated in that guy’s prison cell. After lights out, Goss strikes up a conversation with his cell neighbor. Before long, they hear horrible shouts of terror. For the REST OF THE MOVIE, they stay locked in their cells, occasionally getting the impression that something might be just outside their prison bars in the darkness.

This causes Goss to spend a good portion of the movie screaming. Once in a while, we are given monster POV to let us know that something is actually preying on other guys in the prison. Finally, it appears that the “demon”—presumably the guy who got the death sentence—comes for Goss. The end.

BLOODLINE (2010)

This Italian horror flick is sort of the go-between of this trio, because it’s a combination of both supernatural and slasher. In fact, I’ve seen complaints online about it trying to do too much and not knowing what kind of movie it wants to be. My guess is that certain viewers don’t know much about what makes Euro horror great—its absurdity! I’d even say that Bloodline is too restrained and could have taken the insanity even further!

The opening scene shows our killer, known as “The Surgeon,” chasing and slaughtering children playing in the woods. Yes! This nasty character even has a gun that shoots syringes!

Years later a journalist is assigned to document the making of a hardcore porno. She happens to be the sister of one of the girls killed at the beginning, and the porno is being shot in a house at the same spot where the murders took place. Of course, the friendly cast of porn stars and the freaky weird director entertain her with sex talk (the movie is all talk and no action as far as the sex goes, despite scenes of them filming the porno). They also bring up the legend of The Surgeon and his need to harvest organs from living people.

It’s not long before The Surgeon is on the scene, claiming victims to bring into his lair, where he—eek!— rips out their organs while they’re still alive! The movie definitely delivers some good gore. On top of that, the female journalist begins seeing a ghost of her sister, there’s a chase through a maze ripped off from The Shining, and…the fricking bodies of the dead porn stars begin coming back to life as raging zombies, while their souls turn into porn star ghosts. Not kidding.

It all makes for one insane and goriffic final scene in The Surgeon’s lair. Like I said, my only complaint is that Bloodline needed more of all this craziness. It kind of feels like the thrills are over after they’ve just begun.

AFTER SCHOOL MASSACRE (2014)

If you love the pure trash that is the Slumber Party Massacre series, this cheesy b-movie might just entertain you, especially since it seems to be a simple mockery of the whole “slumber party” slasher genre, with no intention of scaring anyone. It’s a really smart approach when there’s clearly no budget. Even the house the movie is shot in looks like it’s been sitting around without a single updated since the 80s. Awesome.

The first few scenes at a high school gave me a throwback vibe to the craptastic 80s classic Splatter University, so I was immediately hooked on After School Massacre. I was also immediately hot for teacher—this guy is delicious.

While all the girls seem to flirt with him, one makes an issue out of him friending her on social media, and he’s fired. Snap goes teacher! Conveniently, these hot babes are having a slumber party….

The pre-party includes a MILF (not me in particular, but you know what I mean), her blind date, who looks like a worn out Coolio—which is probably what Coolio looks like these day (maybe it was him), as well as an obnoxious cutie in a tank top who comes over to bust the babes’ balls and ends up being the only guy that stays for the party. His hijinx pretty much epitomize the tone of the film—it’s not a comedy as much as a load of adolescent teen horror silliness.

What makes it work for me (on top of the 70-minute running time) is the female cast. These girls are totally loveable and very natural as they banter about sex and boys before getting down to what we most expect from them. In true slumber party slasher style, they hang out in their undies, shower together, share lesbian kisses, kiss ass, and dance…to an annoying, Auto-Tune hip hop track. Thankfully, the “horror” musical cues are totally retro 80s. Two hard-up guys come to window peep, which provides some early body count, as does a pizza boy. The teacher simply wears a snow cap as a mask and uses a knife as a weapon, so these initial kills are very basic.

The best death scenes are saved for the girls (they all pile on at the end), including a fistfight with one chick to the strains of a faux 80s metal band, death by bobbing for apples, and my personal favorite—oral with a curling iron. While not particularly gory, the kills are very in keeping with the era they are mimicking. And the chase scene with the final girl concludes the movie like a wacky punch line. My advice would be to stop the film there, because the closing credits include a music video with the cast dancing to the hip hop song used in the movie. Cringe.