Death Tunnel (2005)

I was excited to see Death Tunnel after being creeped out by Spooked: The Ghosts of Waverly Hills, a documentary the filmmakers made while shooting Death Tunnel. Death Tunnel was shot at the infamous Waverly Hills Sanatorium, notorious for being one of the most haunted places in the United States (see my review of Spooked for more background). Ghosts and things in the dark scare me, so seeing the ghost footage and hearing stories about the Sanatorium in Spooked really gave me the heebie jeebies. I was hoping to get the same effect with Death Tunnel…after all, it was made by the same filmmakers (the Booth Brothers) and was shot at Waverly; what could go wrong? Everything, apparently…

Five girls attend an initiation party called “Truth or Scare” and are selected to partake in a game. All five of them wake up on separate floors of an abandoned mental hospital with bags over their heads. “Five girls…five floors…five hours,” an ominous voice echoes over the loudspeaker. What started as a set-up by frat boys is quickly taken over by the vengeful ghosts of the institution as each hour a girl meets her death. As the clock ticks down, the body count grows as the girls race to find a way out of the massive structure.

This movie is one big sloppy mess. First of all, there is hardly any character development so I didn’t care who lived or died. Secondly, the film doesn’t set up the premise clearly enough. Sure, I could figure out what was going on, but a little narrative structure could have helped instead of throwing the audience willy-nilly into the “story.” For example, what was the purpose of the initiation party? How and why were the girls chosen? What was the point of sticking them all in a mental hospital? They weren’t given any instructions or goals to achieve, were they just supposed to sit tight? Oooooh I forgot, they were supposed to run around in their lingerie (yup, they were all dressed in lacy little numbers, hopefully so their cleavage could distract from their bad acting) and take showers in the nasty and surely germ infested shower rooms. Seriously, who would get naked let alone shower in a long-abandoned, haunted building? The shower scene alone infuriated me with its implausibility and utter stupidity. Yahhh…let’s show some boobies, even though the character’s actions make no sense!

For being filmed in one of the most haunted places in America, Death Tunnel sure is a snooze. There are absolutely no creepy or scary moments anywhere in the film. It felt like a rip-off of Thirteen Ghosts and House on Haunted Hill, just without any of the tension of the two films. The use of jump cuts and flashy editing techniques are an attempt to scare the audience, but don’t succeed. The ghosts are cliché and their back stories are barely touched on. One ghostly appearance focuses on two women, hand in hand, as they walk through the halls naked. Not an iota of explanation is given for these two ghosts. Apparently, two dead, naked chicks are scary enough without having to delve into their back story.

There are some interesting ideas within the film, such as exploring the sordid past of the fictional asylum they are trapped in (which pretty much mirrors Waverly’s past, with a few embellishments). I wish some of the plot points (what few there were) had been more developed, such as the girls’ connections to patients or employees of the asylum. Waverly Hills has many specific ghost stories and I wish that this film had focused more on those to build tension.

The ending was bittersweet to me...on one hand, I enjoyed it but on the other it didn't add up. It just felt tacked on, like the filmmakers realized their film needed a little more weight and quickly wrote it in. Either way, it in no way made up for the rest of the craptastic film.

Overall, Death Tunnel is a squandered opportunity to shoot a horror film within one of the most notorious haunted places on Earth. It’s sad to think that the creepy location of Waverly Hills was so severely misused with this trite, convoluted, cliché mess of a movie. Stick to Spooked: The Ghosts of Waverly Hills instead of this shallow and laughable attempt at a horror movie.

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Terror Train (1980)

Who knew David Copperfield was actually hot when he was younger? I mean, he's not incredibly gorgeous, but still, I was pleasantly surprised by his good looks and intrigued by his mysterious demeanor as the magician in the Jamie Lee Curtis-helmed Terror Train.

Oh, the movie...yes on to that instead of focusing on Copperfield's lustrous head of hair...ahhhh, dreamy. Errrrr...sorry. Well, as you may have guessed by the title, Terror Train is set on a train. The fraternity is throwing its annual New Years Eve party, and this year it's a costume party aboard a pimped out train. They have booze, food, drugs, a dance floor, a band, disco lights, sexy costumes, an even sexier magician, and a killer on board. Uh oh...seems like their pal from freshmen year, Kenny, is back for revenge after what they did to him. As an initiation prank, they made him think he was going to have sex with Alana (Jamie Lee Curtis), but he got in bed with a corpse. Well, he didn't take it too lightly and spent the next three years in a mental institution, even killing a person there. He's now back to kill everyone that ruined his life three years ago.

There are a few red herrings throughout the movie and the killer wears the costumes of his victims so we are never quite certain of the killer's identity. Also, at first the conductor thinks that the deaths are accidents, so there is a delay in looking for a killer. When the search for the killer begins, everyone's a suspect!! Of course, Alana believes that the mysterious magician is the killer, until she finds him in one of his trick boxes...dead! The search is then on for costumed Kenny...but will he get to Alana before she can stop him?

I thought this was a pretty cool slasher, though the cover artwork made me groan a little bit. The movie kept up the pace and never lagged. I also liked the small twists and turns throughout the film, and who can go wrong with Jamie Lee Curtis as Scream Queen?! As for eye candy, there's Mr. Copperfield and a few other cute frat bros in here for ya! This is a fun one and I think it's on sale at Amazon right now, if you wanna check it out.

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The House on Sorority Row (1983)

The wonderful Jason and Hunter of The Terror Trap highly recommend The House on Sorority Row and liken it to a favorite movie of mine, Black Christmas. While I still like Black Christmas better, The House on Sorority Row is an effective slasher flick with a pretty strong story and performances.

The senior sorority sisters have graduated, and now they are packing up and leaving the college and their strict housemother behind. It seems their housemother, Mrs. Slater, has been quite the pain in their bum these past four years. So, even though the prospect of leaving her forever is tantalizing, the seniors decide to stay a few extra days to throw one last party and irk Mrs. Slater one last time.

Mrs. Slater is peeved to the max when she finds the girls celebrating with champagne...she wants them out at once! Every year she kicks everyone out by June 19th and this year she definitely wants everyone out. She talks with her doctor, who wants her under medical care...seems something is a little off-kilter with Mrs. Slater.

Later that night, one of the girls, Vicki, decides to break in her new graduation present (a waterbed) with her boyfriend. Mrs. Slater is up in the attic at the time, amongst toys and children's things, but she still hears them. She rips into the waterbed with her cane, puncturing it and getting Vicki steaming mad. Vicki threatens to get back at her, and oh boy does she ever...

The next morning, the girls plot to pull a prank on Mrs. Slater. Planning and decorating for their killer party also continues. Meanwhile, Mrs. Slater's doctor looks at her x-rays, stating that the trauma she suffered giving childbirth (the first scene that implies she has lost her child) might cause her to snap at any time.

The day of the party, the girls coax Mrs. Slater out by the murky pool and draw a supposedly empty gun on her. She is mistakenly shot, and the girls panic and decide to dump her in the pool.

Needless to say, the girls get killed one by one, all getting stabbed by someone with Mrs. Slater's cane.

I liked how the movie didn't use stereotypical sorority sisters but instead went for variety. The girls were all pretty average looking and each had their own personality. I also liked the changes of scenery. While the sorority house is the main location, the movie uses various other locations as well. The killer's identity, while suspected, is hidden pretty effectively from the audience. At various times, I thought the killer was Mrs. Slater, the blind date of one of the girls, Mrs. Slater's doctor or Mrs. Slater's son. I could not have definitively decided who the killer was before the credits rolled. That was another thing, the beautifully abrupt ending. The audience sees the killer is still alive (unknown to our heroine) but then the credits roll. I loooove those kind of endings! The tension throughout the flick built up pretty well. Ok, ok, not to mention the BAND that plays at the sorority party...oh man what a way to relieve tension!! See it, they are hilarious.

See it cuz I don't want to write anymore -- all I need to say is DECAPITATED HEAD IN A TOILET...

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Black Christmas (1974)

Black Christmas is a cult favorite among horror-lovers. Ooooh boy was this good! It's Christmas time, and in the sorority house all the sisters are leaving to go home to their families. The girls throw one last party, and receive some pretty obscene phone calls. The next day, most of the girls leave for the holiday leaving only a few in the house, along with the boozy den-mother.

One of the girls is missing, though (she was killed the previous night at the party, wrapped in a plastic sheet and placed in the attic)...The police finally get involved after a 13-year-old is found murdered in a nearby park. The creepy phone calls persist as one by one the girls (and others!) are killed.

I fear obscene phone calls so this movie really creeped me out. The killer goes all out with the heavy breathing, the screeching of obscenities, even playing different roles on the phone. Olivia Hussey (she of Romeo and Juliet fame - the Franco Zeffirelli version) is also in it -- she's got to have the best hair ever! Margot Kidder also puts in a performance as the party-hardy head of the sorority.

Watch this movie alone in the dark and see how far you jump when your phone rings - I totally freaked when my phone rang in the middle of the movie!

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Originally posted on Fatally-Yours.com.