Bloody Birthday (1981)

They're gonna cut YOU before they cut the cake! 

Three kids born on the same day in 1970 during a rare eclipse (when the sun and the moon block Saturn) are out to kill basically everyone who pisses them off. This sentence is a summation of why you should love this movie. Need any other reasons to love it? Okay...

- Patricide with a baseball bat to the cranium
- Sororicide with an arrow through the eyeball
- Billy Jacoby
- Billy Jacoby shooting people
- Perverted 10 year old boys peeping through holes in walls
- (Not downtown) Julie Brown's butt and boobs
- Giant headphones
- Jump rope and garden hose strangulation
- An Eric Estrada poster
- Unsupervised kids playing in a junkyard raging with potential accidents which could cause tetanus

You get the idea.

As these three lil devils reach the age of 10, they lose all ability to feel empathy and basically become raging psychopaths; thus, the relevance of the eclipse. The movie opens with an image of the actual eclipse and a doctor entering the hospital to deliver the three babies. There's commentary and babies crying. Very effective. Jump forward 10 years later, and here comes the sex, people! Two teens getting it on have chosen such an odd location for their sexcapades - an open grave. Da fuq? Needless to say they end up dead in this here grave. The dude gets beaten with a shovel and the girl is strangled with a jump rope. The end.

That's what I love about this movie; it starts with a fucking BANG and keeps going. The movie is perfectly paced with character development and kills, kills, KILLS in GORE GALORE! Ha! Better than Happy Birthday to Me for the many reasons listed above, below, and just the simple fact that even though this movie can be just as contrived and far-fetched, it delivers and there is no one with a skin-tight mask pretending to be someone else when they're clearly not. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Enough about that crap movie, let's get back to the cheezy, sleazy, un-PC gold that is Bloody Birthday!

As the kids plan for their conjoint birthday bash, their teacher informs them that they're not so great and just because they're all born on the same day doesn't mean they're hot snot on a silver platter. Matter of fact, she tries to make them feel like they're nothing but cold boogers on a paper plate, but she doesn't get under their skin. Nah! But she just so happened to pencil her name in on their list of people to kill. Cha, cha, cha!

Our three monsters gather at angelic Debbie's house (Elizabeth Hoy did a great job in her role), they awkwardly stand at the kitchen counter eating after school snacks when all of a sudden, we hear some cheesy cock rock music coming from somewhere in the house. Who could be blasting these tunes? None other than future MTV personality (not downtown) Julie Brown. The boys (Andy Freeman and the amazing, well-known Billy Jacoby) gather 'round the peephole in Debbie's closet to take a peek into Beverly's room as she performs a striptease for herself in a mirror. She strips, the boys watch, and Debbie charges them quarters and dimes. Beverly goes all the way too. We see boobs and butt and then she casually walks around with a soda and a feather boa. Da fuq?! What really makes this scene the ultimate is the fucking song that she strips to. Some macho sounding man grunting the syllables "NAAH NAAAH! NAA NAA NA NUUUUHH! NA NAAA NUUUH NUAHHUU" over and over. I'm sure there are words in there somewhere but the "na na nuhs" are really prominent. I guess with visuals like this you don't really pay attention to the auditory happenings, right?

"All this stripping for myself in the mirror is making me a bit parched"

Before we talk more about the three kids who go on a killing rampage, let's introduce the characters Joyce (Lori Lethin) and her little brother Timmy (K.C. Martel). Timmy is the same age as the three terrors and is quasi-friends with them. Our introduction to Joyce and Timmy goes something like this. She's wearing gigantic headphones and listening to Bozz Scaggs, or someone of the sort, and Timmy is sneaking in through the kitchen window. This, may I add, is the same night the teens in the grave were killed. Joyce questions Timmy's whereabouts. So does Sheriff James Brody (Debbie's dad). Well, not Timmy's exactly, but he does show up in school asking the kids where they were and who the jump rope belonged to. Well, he's not a very observant daddy because it just so happened to belong to our little blonde-haired, blue-eyed angel Debbie. He catches on, then they try to kill him with the ol' "skateboard on the stairs" gag. He instead uses his observation skills and dodges it. Smart man. Only you're about to get whacked from the back, Papa! Lights out for you, daddy-o! Debbie then blandly yells, "Mom! Daddy fell! Mom! Daddy fell". No one in this family is very observant because this happens in front of the kitchen window where Mom was.

"You crazy kids are gonna be the death of me!"

This movie resembles a birthday, actually. Every scene is like a present that you want to open and see what's inside. Timmy gets locked into a broken refrigerator in the junkyard by Curtis, the birthday party scene is epic and complete with Curtis fooling Joyce into thinking he put rat poison in the cake icing, Curtis goes around shooting people including the bitchy teacher, and the fact that they kill so many people in a short span of time is just hilarious. We can't forget Beverly's infamous death scene. Sororicide with an arrow through the eye. Poor Julie Brown!

 "I'll shoot YOUR eye out!"

"Ready, aim, EYEBALL!"

"I'm gonna cut YOU and then the cake!"

Thank you, director Ed Hunt!

Please watch this movie right now! Whether you've seen it or not WATCH IT NOW! It's amazing. Oh, and the ending battle is pretty epic as well as post-battle when Debbie and her mom make a getaway from the madness and change their identities as to not be found. A great little treat at the end before the credits roll. So serve yourself up a slice of cake and watch this kinder slasher. Have fun!

Happy Birthday to Me (1981)

Hide your knives and...Shish Kebabs?!  

With my own b-day coming 'round the corner, I thought I would cover some movies with that particular topic as the theme. The first movie I'm writing about is Happy Birthday to Me, a 1981 teen slasher which was a product of its time. You have happy, bubbly teenagers in a clique with the one standoffish nerdy guy and they're all getting killed off one by one by one. In odd ways might I add. Overall I would say the story line is pretty unique and separates it from other slasher films, but the ending kind of leaves you feeling...well...somewhat cheated. Or that's how I felt. You definitely have to have a suspension of disbelief or else you'll be sitting there cursing the screen to damnation. As usual, if you haven't seen this movie and don't like spoilers, then go watch the movie and read no further.

The movie opens with a girl getting chased down and murdered on campus. Alright! Kills that happen in the first 5-10 minutes in a movie indicate that it will be promising. Right? As she looks at the killer, she is relieved, but not for long because then her throat is slashed wide open. This tells us that the killer is someone in the group that we are about to be introduced to...

Throat slashings galore! 

Ginny (aka Virginia) is our lead girl played by Little House on the Prairie actress Melissa Sue Anderson. We learn pretty fast that there is something unstable about her. Unstable as in bouts of memory loss, signs of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), and strange blackouts. After a little frat party prank at a pub near campus, Ginny and her group of friends take off in a hurry in their vehicles to cross over the double bascule bridge as both sides are lifting up. The car that Ginny is in is the last to go over and it's actually too high for the car to even try and make it over, but idiot driving the car does so, destroying his car in the process and destroying Ginny's brain. Her brain was already kinda fucked up, but it definitely ruined her night. I would have freaked out too, but she freaks out BIG TIME and runs home only to have an argument with her father. A not very interesting one, but at least we learn that Ginny's mom is dead. Yes, now the pieces are coming together.

More pieces of Ginny's dementia start to come together during a science class experiment. Everyone's laughing and having a good time, but not Ginny as she stares at a frog's leg getting zapped with an electrical charge causing nerves to make the dead frog move. This somehow triggers buried memories from a time when she was unconscious, but this is a great way to introduce to us that she suffered some sort of brain damage in an accident a year before and is being treated with different neurological tests to help regain her consciousness. In her flashback, as she sits up from what appears to be an MRI, she stammers the words, "My Birthday"

After this memory comes to her, Ginny tells her therapist, Dr. David Faraday (Glenn Ford) that she is remembering things from her past more and more through visual stimuli (I'm speaking like a true psychologist here, right? Ha!). He informs her that there were tests done on her that had never been done before but the tests were beneficial to her as she is slowly remembering things about her past that she had since forgotten.


As the film progresses, we witness more and more memories coming to Ginny. We also witness more and more of her friends getting murdered. So let's talk about this for a bit as these are the most interesting parts of the movie. First of all, personally, there is no one really likable in this film. They're all really self-absorbed assholes who don't really care about each other. I mean, people keep turning up missing and are gone for DAYS and all they care about are dirt bike rallies, soccer games, and hanging out. Speaking of dirt bikes, here's your next kill. One of the guys has his dirt bike lifted off the ground with the engine going, causing the wheels to spin. Our antagonist appears from behind and you can only guess what's going to happen from there...

Here, let me help you throw in the towel. Or shall I say, scarf?

Good-bye, whoever you are...were, I mean.

Remember the gaping throat wound at the beginning of this blog? We later find out more about that girl. Her name is Bernadette and while Ann (Tracey E. Bregman) and Ginny are pilfering through the standoffish guy's place they think they find her head but it turns out Alfred (standoffish guy) made a bust of her head. This is a great example of the kinda lame attempts of scaring the audience, but at least there's a little splatter on the platter.

Head of the table 

Perhaps the best kill, in my opinion, is the guy lifting weights. Oh, and notice I'm not really keeping up with names here. You don't have to. Like I said, these people are expendable. Anyway, the guy is lifting weights and our antagonist returns once again from the shadows to serve as a spot, but instead the killer moves the bar and leaves the guy with a heavy set of weights on his hands. That's bad enough, but then the guy gets a weight dropped on his crotch while he's struggling to not drop the weight on himself. Needless to say the blow to his crotch also caused a blow to his neck.

Spot? More like spots of blood all over your shirt! 

Okay, so it seems that at this point all I care about are the kills. Well, this is true. Think about it, more people are getting killed but everyone just thinks they're all missing. Are they really this stupid, or do they just not care? What bastards. Makes them out to be worthless characters and it makes the story even less feasible when you think about it. Not even a dance will stop them from wondering what happened to everyone who has turned up missing. Also, they even go out of their way to prank Ginny because they realize that she's unstable. Heartless assholes.

So let's cut ahead to the infamous shish kebab scene. You know, this was of course the first image I ever saw of the film and it never really appealed to me. I didn't even rent this sonuvabitchin' movie until I was around 14 because the box cover made me want to keep passing it up. Upon my first viewing, I thought the film should have been represented better. BUT, the scene is awesome because another unlikable character gets killed. The breakdown: Ginny leaves with a dude from the dance, they sit in front of a fire eating shish kebabs and as she feeds him she jabs him through the back of the throat with the skewer. Yep. That's about all the happens.

Grillin' and killin' 

The next morning Ginny's all groggy like she just killed someone or something.

Or did she?

I might as well just reveal everything and end this blog because this movie is too damn long to really give a proper synopsis. And to be honest I like the movie, but not that much to sit and type for another hour about it. So...

Ginny's mom is a drunk and everyone knows it and throws Ginny a birthday party. No one goes because they are at some other rich kid's party. Ginny's mom, in a drunken rage, drives Ginny to the party and demands they let Ginny join the festivities but they aren't even allowed through the gate sending Ginny's mom into more of a rage driving them onto the bascule bridge we saw earlier in the movie. Here's the significance to Ginny's freak out; her mother drives the car up there and the car gets stuck and then the car falls into the water. Ginny's mother tells Ginny to try and swim to the surface and she does. Whew.

So who has been killing everyone? Ginny? No. Ann. Who's Ann? Exactly! Only she has a skin-tight mask that she wears to look like Ginny and drugged Ginny so that she would black out while Ann replaced her in these silly scenarios. Such as the shish kebab scene. Suspension of disbelief is a good thing right about now considering the actress who plays Ann has huge teeth and her voice changes when her unrealistic mask is pulled off. All of this is bad, but the reasoning behind it all is terrible. Ann killed all of these kids, as Ginny, and sat them all around a table. According to Ann as she talks to Ginny, they are there "to watch you die!". Turns out they're half sisters and she didn't like dealing with Ginny's insanity. Oh, and then Ann tells Ginny that she set this all up to look like murder and then suicide. Even though the other bodies have been dead for days. Doesn't make a lot of sense but it's an early '80s slasher that I can't help but enjoy from time to time even though it really is fucking stupid when you rule everything out.

Ann tries to kill Ginny, Ginny kills Ann, and as she stands bloody over Ann's body and surrounded by other dead bodies, she is conveniently caught - making her out to be the murderer. Thanks for the stupid twists and the bleak ending. Ever feel like you've been cheated? I have many times, and this is one of those times.

Keep your ears peeled for a nifty creepy ditty at the end aptly titled "Happy Birthday to Me". Do I hate the movie? No. But it's not one that I throw on often. Come back in a night or two and I'll tell you about the best of all birthday movies. Well, one of them anyway.

The Paperboy (1994)

What is this movie? 

No, really. WHAT is this movie?! Why does it exist? What purpose does it serve? I guess you could pose this question with many films, but seriously, though this movie is entertaining, it is very hard to take seriously mainly because the kid playing the namesake role is kinda goofy with a voice which cracks when he's angry – which is a lot. Puberty is a bitch, but damn did it give this poor kid Hell. So did the costume designer. His outfits are hideous. Though this redheaded stepchild type has some charming moments, he really was the right choice for this part. In the era of The Crush, The Good Son and Mikey, I guess filmmakers were trying to cash in on evil kids – boys in particular. I'm sorry to the other titles, but this one takes the cake. And eats it. And then takes the pie too. Just because. 

I actually rented this movie from a store called Fun Flicks when it was still on the New Release wall. My parents actually paid $3 for this movie because I wanted to see it and my Dad was obviously intrigued because he readily agreed. So off we went with The Paperboy, The Brood, and Spinal Tap in hand (the other two titles were back-ups). What I was about to experience was something...great. Little did I know that this movie would create so many hilarious memories between me and friends and it keeps creating more memories with the more people I show it to. This movie has some hilarious moments, but overall the acting is pretty impressive. It's rare that a child actor delivers in such an intense performance. So… 

Let's start from the beginning!

Meet Johnny McFarley, brilliantly played by Marc Marut. He's a paperboy. In a nutshell, Johnny's mom is dead, his father looks like Don Henley and is always gone (possibly on tour?), and one of the old ladies on his route has a daughter who he has taken an interest in and wants to be part of her family. So what does he do? He kills this poor old lady just so Melissa Thorpe (Alexandra Paul of Christine and Baywatch fame) will return home. When she does, she’s not in the house for two minutes before Johnny arrives holding her bags that he helped himself to out of her trunk. Her and her friend look at him in sheer terror but decide that he’s a nice boy and ignore the fact that he just invited himself inside the house. Actually, we see Johnny inviting himself into their lives all throughout the movie. He even helps himself into the house while Melissa and her daughter Cammie leave on outings. Speaking of this, the first outing they go out on, Johnny walks into the house like he owns the place and puts a baby monitor in a hidden cubby on the wall. This kid is definitely off his rocker.

Here we go again already; Johnny invites himself to ride to the funeral with Melissa in her lush, rented limousine. Well, they actually insist that he rides with them instead of him riding his bike, but he does walk up conveniently while they are getting in. Well planned, Johnny. Well planned. On the ride there he explains to Melissa how his mom is dead, his dad’s never around, and how he “loved” her mom. Judging by the fact that he killed her, and that he looks at her dead body in pure disgust, we highly doubt he gave a shit about her.

This movie has a lot of uncomfortable situations. The first one being when Johnny takes Cammie into the funeral home basement to show her a room full of caskets. As he climbs inside of one he says something to Cammie along the lines of, “My mommy’s dead, can I have yours?” She gets creeped out, the vibe gets creepy, he’s creepy, the caskets are creepy. It’s creepy. To make it even creepier, he makes Cammie promise not to tell he took her down there. REALLY creeeeeepy. His form of a pinky swear is something like this, “Flesh to flesh, skin to skin, tell a secret, die for your sins.”

Creepy.

After the funeral, Melissa invites Johnny over for a barbecue the next day. Oh fun! Only Johnny doesn’t know that he’s about to display his first violent outburst in front of Melissa. Since she was reunited with an old friend, Brian (Carrie’s William Katt), she backs out of the barbecue just as the festivities are about to begin. The hot dogs are ready, the lemonade is freshly squeezed, and Johnny has a clunky video camera taping it all – and then comes Mommy to ruin the fun. Yep! She gets a babysitter named Brenda, who is someone Johnny clearly despises, and breaks the news just as Johnny is bringing the plate of food in. Melissa breaks the news and Johnny breaks a plate in a scene which made me love this movie. In Johnny’s squeaky voice he exclaims, “NO! IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE US! THE FAMILY!” and throws the plate on the steps. This hilarious outburst is then accompanied by an even more hilarious tirade from Cammie where she’s stomping her feet saying, “It’s not fair, we were having a party and now it’s rooooned!!”

Now that everyone has gone their separate ways, Johnny cools off and types up an apology to Melissa on his archaic computer which reads something like this…

“Dear Miss Thorpe,

I’m sorry for misbehaving at the barbecue. I promise to be a good boy from now on.”

Oh geez. You couldn't even hand-write that shit, Johnny? Oh, and before I go any further, let it be known that Johnny apologizes a lot in this movie. A LOT! It would make for a great drinking game actually. So yeah, Johnny goes to the house to leave the note there. While he’s creepily slipping the note under the door, he hears Brenda and her boyfriend, like, “doing it” and stuff. So he spies. Then gets caught. Then he runs away. Something he’s good at doing. The babysitter calls him a fungus. This is irrelevant really, but I think it’s really funny.

Later when Melissa arrives, Johnny spies from the bushes and overhears Brenda telling on him which creates more opportunity for more amazing Johnny quotes. He quietly yells, “Shut up! Shut up! You ruin everything!” and then stands with a pouty grimace. It’s amazing. (Mark Marut, where are you now?!)

The next day Brenda sees him on his bike and sprays him down with a hose. This was dumb on her part, but he’ll show her. See, her thing is to climb the antenna ladder on the side of her house to sneak back in after her curfew and she does so that night. Johnny amazingly unscrewed the top screws of the antenna and safely made it back down. Brenda doesn’t. She falls backward and that’s the last we see of her. She doesn't die, but Johnny proudly announces to Melissa the next day that, “She’s going to be a paraplegic from now on.” Damn, Johnny, thanks for making that grim news seem so casual.

The next morning, at the asscrack of dawn (aka 6am), Johnny is mowing Melissa’s lawn. She, like most people, is trying to sleep and angrily tells him to quit coming and going as he pleases. He apologizes (shot #42 in your drinking game) and storms off like a baby. The next few moments are some of the best in horror history. He goes to his room, slides down the wall, and repeatedly bangs his head on the wall saying, “Dumb boy! God HATES stupid children!” It’s hilarious, but it’s also great acting on Marc’s part and I’m not bullshitting ;)

More uncomfortable moments ensue when Johnny invites himself into Melissa’s house and takes it upon himself to peel some apples for a homemade apple pie. Um…what the fuck? Melissa comes home and rightfully throws a shitfit. Johnny waves a knife and shit gets weird. Even more weird than before. 

This prompts Melissa to talk to Don Henley (aka Johnny’s dad) and tells him that he comes over too much and is an annoying turd. Johnny apologizes AGAIN and his non-existent relationship with his father stays just that. His father gets him some stupid-ass golf clubs and basically just signed his death warrant because Johnny uses them to kill him. Didn't see that coming at all! Ha!

Next up to go is poor Ms. Rosemont (Frances Bay). Johnny finds out that she’s been telling Melissa that he’s a bad boy and Johnny doesn't like this. Before he takes care of her, there’s a scene which bears mentioning. Oh my God, is it amazing. So, the baby monitor which apparently has batteries that NEVER run out is picking up Melissa and Brian heavily making out on her couch. Johnny hears this and runs to the window. He frantically picks up the baby monitor and starts squealing, “NOOOO! NOOOOO!!! NOOOOHOOOO!!!” and throws himself on his bed in agony, writhing around like a complete chode. It’s not like they’re fucking their brains out. Hell, their clothes don’t even come off.

Okay, so now that Johnny’s riled up, he’s ready for Ms. Rosemont. Her death scene goes like this: he gets her dog to eat some treats, he picks up her dog, walks into her room, she starts having an asthma attack, he throws her inhaler, he goes out of the room to get his ball bat, and then returns into the room with the dog in a bag and beats the dog to a bloody pulp causing her to have a heart attack. Only, while he was out of the room he switched bags and just beat a side of ribs and ketchup bottles and not the dog. So the dog lives, she dies somewhat natural, and now there’s no link to murder. Good thinking, Johnny. 

The rest of the movie kinda drags. Basically, Johnny tries to kill Brian but he survives. Melissa finally finds out what Johnny wants from her and she tries to placate him by playing along. Shit goes down while she’s in Johnny’s house and she hears Cammie on that goddamn baby monitor (WHO is changing these batteries?!). She thinks Cammie is in the basement but sees the monitor and realizes Johnny placed it in her house. Johnny attacks her with a shovel and starts burying her by his dad (aka Don Henley). Melissa gets away and there’s a bare-knuckle brawl out in the yard just as the police are driving up. Since Melissa is the only one holding a weapon, Johnny whines, “She killed my father and she’s trying to kill me! She thinks she’s my mom, or something!” He is thwarted by the great William Katt who has told the police everything. They drag Johnny to the car and he’s screaming, squealing, whining, pissing, and moaning the whole way, “I HAVE RIGHTS! I WANT A LAWYER!!”

And the film abruptly ends.

Moral of the story? I don’t know really. Don’t trust your paperboy?

If you've never seen this, please do yourself a favor and watch it. I just hope that you find the same enjoyment that I did out of it. Mark Marut should go down in horror history alongside Eric Freeman in epic acting. Hmmm. The Paperboy vs. Garbage Day? It could happen.

Bookworm Wednesday - Videohound's Cult Flicks and Trash Pics!

Hell-o, foul fiends! I'm making this blog a rather quick one since I have tons of exciting work going on over here. Yes, I've begun diving into my work on issue #3 of Evilspeak. I don't have a lot of free time this week to do much blogging, and I regrettably had to miss out on yesterday's TV Terror Tuesday, but the magazine is top priority and as the final touches are being on issue #2, we've [obviously] moved on to #3.

So, with that said, welcome to this week's "Bookworm Wednesday" where I will be talking a little about the thick as fuck, heavy-duty book Videohound's Cult Flicks and Trash Pics by Carol A. Schwartz and Jim Olenski and a foreward by Bruce Campbell. I bought this book while I was working at Blockbuster Video sometime in either 2002 or 2003 and that was the perfect time to pick it up because it pointed me in the right direction on a lot of films. Considering that I had employment at Blockbuster, I had a nice advantage of special ordering movies AND the luxury of a decent discount.

This hefty book rounds up to 872 pages and weighs a TON! Okay, it barely weighs four pounds, but it feels as if you could kill someone with it...and you probably could if you were to drop it off a tall building. I digress. The point is, it's not short of any info on cult flicks, exploitation films, horror movies, and sprinkled in are some mainstream movies which you may be shocked to see made it in. John Hughes' Sixteen Candles for example. I was disappointed that there was a nice salute to Linda Blair but NO coverage of Savage Streets. I mean, wouldn't this book be perfect opportunity to review this film? Oh well, as we all know, nothing is perfect, but sometimes the obvious stuff makes us question things even just for a little while.

There are flaws, there are perfections, there are things that make you go "hmmm?"; but if you like your women, milkshakes, and books thick, then this book is for you! Once you pick it up, you can't put it down. That is the magic with these types of books; it causes a chain-reaction and before you know it you'll be looking to see if certain movies are in the book, or the opposite - you'll be hunting the movies themselves down. So pick this one up if you're ever in need of an almost complete encyclopedia on trashy cinema. And hey, an image of Divine from John Waters' Pink Flamingos made the cover as well as the trademark image from David Lynch's Eraserhead. SOLD! Well, it worked for me at least.

BUY THE DAMN THING! I did...!

The Stepfather (1987)

Movies either based on, or loosely based on real life situations can be tricky. Not only because you're watching the movie hoping that they're getting the facts and information as correct as possible, but also because what you're watching was someone's life and you're watching what they've done to others.

The Stepfather is a 1987 psychological horror movie with some slasher film elements loosely based on the life of John List - a man who was imprisoned 18 years after committing a mass murder of his family including his mother, wife, and three children. He was apprehended thanks to the TV show America's Most Wanted which had just started to air at the time. The episode with his case had presented a clay bust sculpture that resembled what he may have looked like at the time and it was accurate enough to have him incarcerated. Though it was never clear what his mental illness was, symptoms bear resemblance to an independent neurotic disorder referred to as depersonalization-derealization syndrome. Bascially, this is where a person feels detached from his or her own thoughts and sometimes even his or her own body.

Maybe John List was diagnosed with another type of mental illness, but you can definitely categorize Jerry Blake as someone who is constantly finding a reinvention of himself by moving from family to family while changing his identity along the way. So who is Jerry Blake? We don't know. He begins in the movie as Henry Morrison. Who is Henry Morrison? We don't really know...
But we have an idea. Well, kind of...

Before a transitional phase...

The movie opens with an autumnal, suburban neighborhood with the camera panning to a nice house. You then quickly get the feeling of bleak grimness as it shows Henry (brilliantly played by Terry O'Quinn) washing blood off his face and hands in the bathroom. He starts out as a bearded man with glasses and soon changes into a clean-shaven man with colored contacts to help change his physical appearance. With packed suitcase in hand, he walks down the hall and straightens up some toys along the way, only for you, the viewer, to soon gaze upon his grisly handy work - butchered children, a slain wife, blood and crooked pictures all over the walls, and furniture scattered around the house. The final of these opening scenes shows Henry throwing the suitcase overboard from a ferry into the ocean to forget the family he was once a part of and has now murdered.

Home is where the hearts are...

A disturbing image appearing only five minutes into the film. 

ONE YEAR LATER

Henry, now under his new identity as a real estate agent named Jerry Blake, has moved on and married a widow named Susan Maine (Shelly Hack) who has a teenage daughter Stephanie (played by the amazing Jill Schoelen). We learn quickly that Stephanie is having a hard time dealing with her father's death and is seeing a psychiatrist, Dr. Bondurant, to help her cope. He suggests that Stephanie give her new stepfather a chance but much convincing is in order for her to do so. Even the new puppy he gives her does not sell him to her; she senses something about him that makes her uncomfortable. You, the viewer, already knows what the hell is wrong with him, but signs with this new family start to show when Susan asks Jerry about his childhood and he says the past doesn't matter, avoiding the subject altogether. 

Introduced next is a man name Jim Ogilvie who is on the hunt for Jerry; his sister was married to Jerry (when he was Henry) and was the wife which was shown murdered at the beginning of the film. Jim wants answers and we watch his progress throughout the movie in intercepted scenes. He runs an article in the paper about his sister's murder and while at a family barbecue that he is hosting, Jerry is handed a newspaper and discovers the article which has been printed. He retreats to the basement to basically throw a maniacal shit-fit and he is unaware Stephanie is down there watching him in a disturbed silence. He turns and discovers her standing there and laughs his temper off as just him "blowing off steam". 

Suspecting him as the murderer after seeing the newspaper article herself, Stephanie writes a letter to the newspaper inquiring about Henry and requests a photo of him. One day while Jerry is checking the mail, he finds the parcel in the mail addressed to Stephanie from the newspaper and throws yet another basement fit. He replaces the picture in the envelope with a head shot of another male and thwarts her potential accusations that Jerry is in fact the wanted killer. Stephanie expresses an almost disappointment to her psychiatrist that she was wrong in her suspicions. By this time also, Jerry has now succeeded in getting her back into school after she had been expelled. Her doctor is still intrigued by Stephanie's notions and schedules an appointment with Jerry under an assumed name, saying that he is interested in a specific house to look at to buy. 

The scenes where Dr. Bondurant and Jerry are exchanging words become very uncomfortable as you realize Doc lets a mistake slip. He enters the house saying that he's a confirmed bachelor and then lets it slip that he is married. He quickly tries to cover it up by saying he's divorced but Jerry is already filled with rage and beats Dr. Bonderant with a large piece of wood and then takes his car to the edge of a cliff where he places the body in the car and lights the gas tank on fire. The car goes over the cliff and goes up in flames. The next day he informs Stephanie of her doctor's death and tries to be the shoulder that she leans on...but, still she is apprehensive about who Jerry is and unsure that he is a good person. 

"I don't think this house is for you; this house is for a family."

In the next few scenes involving Jim's search for Jerry, it shows Jim going back to the house where the murders occurred. While searching the house, Jim finds a magazine where pages have been removed. In an act of impressive amateur detective work, Jim hunts down the issue of the magazine at a library and finds that  on the pages which have been removed was a list of top cities to raise a family. He traces where Jerry could be in a radius of all the cities and eventually finds where he lives. He stops by and Susan is the one who answers the door and finds Jim suspicious.

By this time, Jerry has already had his falling out with Susan and Stephanie after he interrupts Stephanie and her boyfriend's good night kiss on the front porch doorstep. Jerry opens the door and accuses the boy of practically raping Stephanie and in anger Susan tells Jerry, "I've known that boy longer than I've known you!" This sets off Jerry's switch and there is clearly no turning back for him. In the proceeding scenes, Jerry spends his days removing himself from his current job and finding a new home with a new family to marry into. When he succeeds, then it's time to kill Susan and Stephanie.

After Jim leaves the house asking for Jerry, Susan phones the real estate agency where Jerry works to inform him that someone is looking for him. She is then told by the lady on the phone that Jerry quit several days before. He tries to cover up by telling her that the new receptionist got his name wrong only to fuck his own name up when he confuses his own identity and yells at Susan saying, "Hodgkins! What's to get wrong?". She responds with, "What did you say?" and he eerily spaces out for a moment and says the movie's tagline, "Wait a minute. Who am I here?" She inadvertently answers by questioning him and saying his name which he then is suddenly reminded who he is and thanks her for the reminder as he proceeds to slam the telephone across Susan's face. After knocking her down the stairs into the cellar, he assumes that she is dead and waits for Stephanie to come home.

Jim shows back up at the house and instead of being the asset to Susan and Stephanie that he could be, he quickly gets killed by Jerry who stabs him to death. Stephanie, who was already in the house and upstairs taking a shower is next on Jerry's list. The chase scenes in the house between Stephanie and Jerry are intense and really build up suspense in the film's final moments. In particular, the attic scene has some effective lighting which helps make the dark moments darker. After Jerry falls through the floor of the attic, Stephanie finds that Susan is still alive and is holding the gun Jim possessed when he arrived at the house. Jerry, who was stabbed in the chest by Stephanie with a chunk of the shattered bathroom mirror, is now facing the wrath of Susan who is shooting him from the bottom of the stairs. Stephanie makes the final stab in Jerry's chest which ultimately kills him. Before he falls down the stairs, he looks down at Stephanie and mumbles, "I love you."

"Daddy's Home and He's Not Very Happy" - one of the film's many taglines

Coming to VHS in 1987, I barely remember when this movie was on the "New Release" wall of the movie stores; however, I do remember the first time I rented it and watched it in the summer of 1991. The opening scenes disrupted my enjoyment for my bowl of popcorn and wondered if I should really watch this movie alone in the dark. I didn't shut the movie off. Instead I discovered a movie which provoked some unnerving feelings that I rarely felt before. The movie is near perfect with top-notch performances, a great script, and excellent pacing. It's a classic in horror cinema, but I'm sure I don't have to tell you this. Chances are, if you're reading this blog you already are a fan of this movie. Now go watch it and pop yourself a giant bowl of popcorn. If you're easily disturbed though, maybe hold off the popcorn until the first ten minutes of the movie have passed.