December Horror Story Part 1: Evil Dead & Co.
20h15, USA 1987
Sequel to The Evil Dead where Ash does not manage to escape the evil from the first movie. Retelling the story only leaves Ash and his girlfriend in the beginning for whatever reason. Ash must now survive another night in the cabin accompanied now by the Professor's daughter, a mechanic, an associate of the Professor, and the mechanic's girlfriend. But the thing in the darkness vows that they will be -- Dead By Dawn.
The legendary surreal masterpiece of strange comedy is the favorite movie of Alejandro Jodorowsky so what comment you need.
21h45, USA 1988
This movie is insane! Shot in Michigan at the height of the direct-to-VHS horror boom in the late '80s, The Carrier snuck onto tape with a nondescript cover courtesy of Magnum but managed to astonish the luckly few adventurous souls who bothered to rent it out for an evening. In a small town called Sleepy Rock apparently stuck in some sort of alternate universe of the 1950s, young man Jake Spear (Fortescue) escapes an attack from a strange beast from the woods. Though he seems unharmed, Jake is horrified to discover that he has acquired a highly unusual contagion that contaminates any object he touches and dissolves anyone else who makes contact with it. Soon the entire town is in a panic, unaware that Jake is the source of their problem as these "red objects" (named become a source of terror that can only be exposed by using cats(!) as weapons to identify them. Clad in plastic and heavy cloth, the townspeople soon divide into two warring factions that threaten to destroy the entire community forever.
Considering the era of its release, you don't have to look too hard to find an AIDS allegory here; the weird plot turn that covers almost everyone in trash bags for the duration of the films only lacks a glove-wearing dental hygienist to drive the full message home here. It's definitely unique though, and one-shot direct Nathan J. White certainly knows how to generate a resonant moment or two out of daylight horrors. No one in the main cast went on to much else, but Forescue makes for an engaging, sympathetic lead; more interestingly, as this was shot around the same stomping grounds from The Evil Dead, it features some of the same names behind the camera including composer Joseph LoDuca, cinematographer Peter Deming, and even some funky sound work from Bruce Campbell!
Give this one a shot; it might become your next favorite unsung treasure, and it's certainly like nothing else you've ever seen before.
