Pieces (1982)
“Scalps” 1983
Rarely seen but excellent 1983 horror film from Fred Olen Ray. A group of archaeology students go to dig up a Native American burial ground and battlefield. An elderly Apache warns them that the land is cursed by the souls of those who died there and now rest in it. They ignore his warnings and strange things begin to happen that culminate when one of the group is possessed by an Indian spirit called Black Claw and begins to murder the others in very gruesome ways.
Although it may at first seem like one of the many films of the slasher cycle of the early 80s, it is more unique in that it also adds heavy elements of the supernatural to the slasher formula, in the vein of films like “The Evil Dead” and “Superstition”.
This film is loaded with creepy atmosphere as the students trek farther and farther into the California desert. The sense of isolation gives one the impression that they might as well be on the moon they are so isolated. Combined with an unsettling score by Drew Neumann ( who composed music for “Aeon Flux” and “Rugrats”), gruesome gore effects and tight direction by Fred Olen Ray you get a very scary movie that makes even the vast deserts of the south west seem claustrophobic.
One of the great tragedies of this film is that the original negative has been lost. Its not known if it has been destroyed, but hopefully it has been simply misplaced and awaiting rediscovery. When released on DVD, Ray describes in the commentary that he had to reconstruct the film from several different sources, including VHS sources. The film was censored in one way or another all over the world, so many film elements had to be used.
Hopefully the original negative will be rediscovered and the film can be restored to its original uncut and pristine picture as it played in theaters in 1983
“The Slayer” (1982)
An almost forgotten horror classic from the early 80s. An abstract artist that receives her inspiration from dreams begins to have terrible nightmares of a shadowy creature. Her doctor husband, her brother and her sister-in-law decide to go on vacation to a secluded mansion on an island off the coast of Georgia. A sudden storm strands them there. Something else is there with them, killing them one by one. Is it some human killer?
Or is it the nightmare creature… The Slayer…
Hauntingly beautiful score by Robert Folk from the 1982 horror film “The Slayer”.
“It did terrible things! And the more I dreamed it, the more real it became! I’ve created it! And I’ll keep on doing it until it no longer needs me to give it life!”
Sleepaway Camp
Its time for a tale of unconventional horror film geek love!
Deron Miller, the lead singer and guitarist for the rock band CKY, is a huge slasher movie fan. One of his favorite films in the 1983 slasher film “Sleepaway Camp”. CKY’s EP “Disengage The Simulator” features a picture of the film’s main character Angela, played by Felissa Rose.
Miller was given the chance of a life time when he was invited to make a cameo appearance in the sequel “Return to Sleepaway Camp”. There, he met the films star, Felissa Rose.
Miller fell in love with his crush, Rose, and the two were soon married after the production wrapped. They now live together in California with their 3 children.
Love can be just as strange as it can be true!
