LAKE PLACID - 1999 - Director:  Steve Miner

You wouldn't think ANOTHER movie about a big animal on the loose would work, but thanks to great cast and some clever writing it does.  Bill Pullman, Bridget Fonda, Oliver Platt and Betty White star in this thriller about a giant Crocodile that has made it's way upstream to a beautiful New England Lake.  Irish actor Brenden Gleeson (The Butcher Boy) plays the local sheriff who has to deal with the menace.  He manages to steal numerous scenes away from the other actors and the monster itself.  Oliver Platt is the eccentric specialist brought in to help trap the beast.  Platt and Gleeson's characters are simply hilarious as the butt heads at every turn.  Pullman is the Game Warden helping the find the scaled killer, and Fonda is a palaeontologist brought in to study the crocodile, who is obviously out of his territory.  It's fun to have a B-Movie story get the full Hollywood treatment, it makes you wonder why they don't do this more often.
FEAR FACTOR: 6  -   STUPID VICTIM SCALE: 3  -  SFX:  6

LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT - 1972 - Director/Writer:  Wes Craven

Master of Horror Wes Craven's directorial debut is perhaps still his most disturbing movie, in more than one category.  First of all, the musical score is completely dated and downright horrible, but that's minor compared the the sickening images and horrible acts that are performed.  The plot is simple, two young women are abducted by a group of escaped convicts who don't have a brain between them.  It's hard to even right about theses monsters.  They repeatedly rape and brutalized these women, including making one of them wet her pants and perform sexual acts on her friend.  Craven literally rips the emotions from you as you quickly develop a great hatred for the group of maniacs led by "Krug" (David Hess).  I know a lot of critics give this one high praise, but I feel it could be much stronger without the poorly done comic relief.  The two cops on the case are as useless as Roscoe and Enos from "The Dukes Of Hazard", with no real point to it.  This one had a huge impact on the B-Movie scene of the early 70's despite it's short-comings.
FEAR FACTOR: 8  -   STUPID VICTIM SCALE: 5  -  SFX:  2

THE LAST WINTER - 2006 - Director/Writer:  Larry Fessenden

A Creepy film from the creator of "Windego" and "Habit", Larry Fessenden. This time he has a very capable cast led by Ron Perlman and James LeGros. The film is set on a base in Antartica with an advance team sent to explore the possibilities of drilling for oil. The film has a similar closterphobic feel as John Carpenter's "The Thing", even a similar paranoia captures the inhabitants of the base camp. That's about where the similarities end however, this is an entirely different story. There's overtones of the current Global Warming situation, but it's not overly preachy, one can enjoy this as a good Horror story. Like his previous work, Fessenden make you think in this one, it's a bit slow at first but stick with it.
FEAR FACTOR: 6  -   STUPID VICTIM SCALE: N/A  -  SFX:  5

THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE: 1973 - Director:  John Hough

One can't help but be reminded of 1963's "The Haunting" and 1958's "House On Haunted Hill".   Four people are trying to break the spell of "Hell House", a physicist and his wife, a psychic and a survivor from a previous visit, played by Roddy McDowall.   Despite similarities between previous haunted house films, this one stands on it's own and then some.  There were numerous occasions that made me jump, more from sudden noises than downright fear.  The acting is really superb, McDowall plays a rather reserve strange character which is a bit different from what we're used to from him.   His speech to the  group in the beginning why this house is haunted is more than enough to set the roller coaster ride in motion.  The sights and sounds are extremely effective as is the cast rounded out by Clive Revill, Pamela Franklin and Gayle Hunnicutt.  The time period provides the director to get away with more shock than movies similar to this made in previous years.  This one still holds up to today's standards.
FEAR FACTOR: 8  -   STUPID VICTIM SCALE: 3  -  SFX:  6

LEPRECHAUN - 1993

Jennifer Aniston of "Friends" fame stars in this first instalment that features the killer Leprechaun.  This is easily the best of them all as the good gags were used up after this one.  This one is downright funny at times, but as soon as you settle into this as a comedy, they show a grizzly murder... of course it's being done by a three foot tall Leprechaun, but the gore is still fairly graphic.  The plot is pretty much like the fairy tale, pot o' gold, rainbows, etc., but I didn't remember Leprechaun's being such mean little bastards.  This one came out at a time when Horror wasn't really big and more Psychological Thrillers were in the mainstream, but it's wacky and dark humour is plenty entertaining.  There's a scene where they distract the Leprechaun by throwing women's shoes at him... and if you know your Leprechaun's, they're shoemakers by trade, so he felt obligated to literally track each one down and clean it.  Ok, it was a lot more funny in the movie.
FEAR FACTOR: 3  -   STUPID VICTIM SCALE: 6  -  SFX:  5

LEPRECHAUN 2 - 1994 - Director: Rodman Flender

It's not the worst sequel in the world, but it's certainly not the best either.  Warwick Davis (Willow) returns as the little "green goblin", and this time he's in search of a bride... hmmm, this sounds like the route "Frankenstein" took.  Anyway, he's hot on the trail of a lovely young lass named "Bridget" (Shevonne Durkin).  Obviously her boyfriend tries to stop him with the help of his alcoholic uncle.  The settings are different that the first movie, this one is based in a medium sized city.  The jokes are lame, but that's exactly what they're supposed to be, this is almost a parody of villains like Freddy Krueger.  By 94', horror was really in a slump, "Silence Of The Lambs" was a few years before this, and even that movie wasn't true horror in the classic sense.  There just weren't many monsters in the theatres, it was all strait-to-video, and you'd have to say these were as popular as any.  Followed by more mayhem from the "green monster".
FEAR FACTOR: 3  -   STUPID VICTIM SCALE: 6  -  SFX:  5

LEPRECHAUN 3 - 1995 - Director: Brian Trenchard-Smith

Quite possibly the most witty and downright funny of the series.  Director Brian Trenchard-Smith doesn't even try to be serious it this one as our little monster shows up in Las Vegas.  There's some hilarious moments, like when the Leprechaun ends up face to face with an Elvis impersonator. The story is based around a teenager on his way to California for his first year of college.  He hooks up with a gorgeous magicians assistant who lets him into the casino he's working in.  This one is completely wacky, there's no other way to put it.  Our young hero "Scott" is bitten by the Leprechaun and actually ends up transforming into a Leprechaun himself.  I don't know if this is part of any legend, but who cares... all the rules are out the window in this one.  Writer David Dubos does some great work here, but he unfortunately hasn't done anything since.
FEAR FACTOR: 4  -   STUPID VICTIM SCALE: 5  -  SFX:  5

LEPRECHAUN 4: In Space - 1996 - Director: Brian Trenchard-Smith

Not only was this one of the dumbest ideas in the history of strait-to-video, it ended up worse than I thought possible.  The idea of a Leprechaun running around a spaceship killing off soldiers IS pretty silly, but it isn't supposed to be taken seriously... unfortunately the writing is simply horrible.  Part featured the writing of David Dubos, this one featured Dennis Pratt and it just didn't work.  In his defense, having a Leprechaun in Las Vegas makes a lot more sense and provides more possibilities than on a spaceship, but still, even potentially good gags and jokes fall way short.  The humor is more for teens and has fairly clean language.  Having Debbie Dunning (Home Improvement) did help matters, but not nearly enough.
FEAR FACTOR: 3  -   STUPID VICTIM SCALE: 6  -  SFX:  5

LEPRECHAUN 5 - LEPRECHAUN IN THE HOOD - 2000

This instalment is a combination of the past Leprechaun movies and "Boyz In The Hood" and revolves around three guys trying to bust out of the neighbourhood with their music.  Ice-T is a bad-ass record producer who years ago had a run in with our little green buddy and by a stroke of luck had turned him to stone and was keeping him in his office as a memento.   It doesn't take a genius to figure out that he get's loose and soon after, the killin' starts.  You get involved with the story of the boys makin' it big and almost forget the little green monster running around.  I must admit, this one has some good laughs as the Leprechaun has become more of a "Freddy" character at this point.   The acting is actually pretty decent here and it's made more for kids with a lot of music and less gore than the others.  There's some serious moments as well and when Ice-T is around, he steals the show.
FEAR FACTOR: 3  -   STUPID VICTIM SCALE: 6  -  SFX:  5

LIFEFORM - 1996 - Director:  Mark Baker

When a NASA spaecraft returns to Earth after being gone for 20 some years on a trip to Mars, it brings back more than it left with.  Soon a group of soldiers and scientists find themselves trapped on the base as they are being infected and hunted down by this "lifeform" that was brought back from Mars.  The story has been re-hashed a million different ways, there's influence of "Alien", "The Thing" and hundreds of other creature-based films.  Normally, this is my kind of movie, but the cast was full of faceless actors who you really don't care about.  Ryan Pillippe plays one of the soldiers, this was before he did "I Know What You Did Last Summer", which essentially made him famous.  Overall, the attacks are predictable and simply not scary at all.  It's very average B-Movie Scienc Fiction Horror, leave your brain on the coffee table and try to enjoy this one for what it is.  Also known as "Invader"
FEAR FACTOR: 4  -   STUPID VICTIM SCALE: 6  -  SFX:  5

THE LOST BOYS - 1987 - Director:  Joel Schumacher

Without a doubt, the "hippest" Vampire flick ever made.  Relative newcomers Jason Patric and Kiefer Sutherland were the  main reasons.  Director Joel Schumacher (St. Elmo's Fire, Flatliners) blends humor, horror and downright coolness in one package.  Corey Haim plays "Sam", and Patric is Michael, two brothers who move to the California coast city of Santa Clara.  Soon afterwards, they realize this place is stranger than they first expected.  Michael starts running with a gang of hoodlums lead by Sutherland, who turn out to be vampires, and Michael is next on the list to join their "blood-gang".  The cast is solid from top to bottom, including Dianne Wiest as Sam and Michael's Mother, Barnard Hughes as their Grampa, and the "Frog Brothers", Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander, and Jami Gertz as "Star".  Look back at the Promotional Poster or the cover of the movie and you'll see a style that became very popular a decade later with the "Scream" series.  Schumacher stays reasonably true to the Vampire folklore while adding new dimensions to the worlds oldest monster.  There's almost as many laughs as their are scares in this one, and time has proven it to be a "Classic".

"You're a vampire Michael... you wait til' Mom finds out about this!" - Sam
"Holy Shit, it's the attack of Eddie Munster!!" - Alan Frog
FEAR FACTOR: 6  -   STUPID VICTIM SCALE: 2  -  SFX:  6

LOVERS LANE - 1999 - Director:  Mark Baker

This "by the books" teen-slasher has a nice look to it, the acting is good enough, but I know that Jon Steven Ward was trying TOO hard to keep you guessing.  As you may have guessed, it's follows your revenge theme where you pick up the story years later.  We know that a couple was brutally murdered on Lovers Lane, and now the killer has escaped from the Mental Institute to reinact the heinous crimes.  The stupid victim scale is through the roof on this one, but credit Ward for still making some tense moments!  He also uses lighting and shadows very well.  It might have been my tape, but the sound was very sporadic, low at times and loud at other times.  If you like slashers, you'll enjoy this one, even though there's some glaring cliches and a couple instances where only "Jason" could have such luck and timing in catching his prey.
FEAR FACTOR: 6  -   STUPID VICTIM SCALE: 6  -  SFX:  6