Wow, what a freaky, funky, weirdo movie this is! Maybe I shouldn't have watched it with a bad head cold, drugged up on Dimetapp. But anyway...
The film opens with one of the best psychotic dream sequences I've ever seen in a movie. The Great Martin Landau is here, screaming himself awake in the midnight darkness of the mental institution where he has been confined. Hey, I might have a similar reaction if I'd just dreamed about a pot smoking Donald Pleasence quoting bible verses and eviscerating me a la Eddie Gein and Bernie in the woodshed! From here, the film only gets more surreal.
A new doctor has come to work at the institution where Martin and his buddies are housed, and the occupants of the very disturbed violent ward on the Third Floor don't like him. They've got it in their heads that he must have killed the previous doctor - a man they all liked - to get his job. And now we have established a motive.
A blackout descends as our hero, his wife and his sister are at a concert, where the Sic F*ks are performing. Wow, and I thought the concert scene in the movie "Hobgoblins" was bad!!! These guys are an absurd cross between Gwar and Shonen Knife and were far scarier than the violent criminals who have escaped from the institution, aided by the power outage. They find their way to New Docs house and lay in wait. An obese child molester has a non-violent scene with the doctors daughter that will nevertheless have you squirming and saying "ew" a lot. Jack Palance is under the bed, having a good old time killing the bouncy babysitters boyfriend and then ramming a hunting knife up through the mattress and between her bare legs. And once the family gets home, sister and new boyfriend included, the carnage really begins!
This is a seriously weird movie. I couldn't take it seriously and instead decided to view it as a very black comedy. Maybe it was intended that way, I don't know. It wasn't bad, it was just very strange, with shaky performances by the hero and heroine(s) and strong, unsettling performances by the killers. The statement-on- our-disturbed-and-violent-society ending really had me shaking my head and saying "huh?" wondering if someone had sprinkled my cold medicine with LSD or something. But I have no regrets. The presence of Landau, Palance and Pleasence, more than make up for the sometimes implausible storyline (like, how the hell did the Jason Voorhees masked "Bleeder" just HAPPEN to get in with the mother and sister? It's far fetched to say the least.) I give it 7 out of 10 stars.
The film opens with one of the best psychotic dream sequences I've ever seen in a movie. The Great Martin Landau is here, screaming himself awake in the midnight darkness of the mental institution where he has been confined. Hey, I might have a similar reaction if I'd just dreamed about a pot smoking Donald Pleasence quoting bible verses and eviscerating me a la Eddie Gein and Bernie in the woodshed! From here, the film only gets more surreal.
A new doctor has come to work at the institution where Martin and his buddies are housed, and the occupants of the very disturbed violent ward on the Third Floor don't like him. They've got it in their heads that he must have killed the previous doctor - a man they all liked - to get his job. And now we have established a motive.
A blackout descends as our hero, his wife and his sister are at a concert, where the Sic F*ks are performing. Wow, and I thought the concert scene in the movie "Hobgoblins" was bad!!! These guys are an absurd cross between Gwar and Shonen Knife and were far scarier than the violent criminals who have escaped from the institution, aided by the power outage. They find their way to New Docs house and lay in wait. An obese child molester has a non-violent scene with the doctors daughter that will nevertheless have you squirming and saying "ew" a lot. Jack Palance is under the bed, having a good old time killing the bouncy babysitters boyfriend and then ramming a hunting knife up through the mattress and between her bare legs. And once the family gets home, sister and new boyfriend included, the carnage really begins!
This is a seriously weird movie. I couldn't take it seriously and instead decided to view it as a very black comedy. Maybe it was intended that way, I don't know. It wasn't bad, it was just very strange, with shaky performances by the hero and heroine(s) and strong, unsettling performances by the killers. The statement-on- our-disturbed-and-violent-society ending really had me shaking my head and saying "huh?" wondering if someone had sprinkled my cold medicine with LSD or something. But I have no regrets. The presence of Landau, Palance and Pleasence, more than make up for the sometimes implausible storyline (like, how the hell did the Jason Voorhees masked "Bleeder" just HAPPEN to get in with the mother and sister? It's far fetched to say the least.) I give it 7 out of 10 stars.