Oh, how delightfully crazed and eclectically varied, was the cinematic reign once held by 'the little studio that could', The Cannon Group. From production to distribution...from relentless vigilantes to shuriken-welding ninjas...from fantastic fantasy-filled adventures to special effects-filled sci-fi spectaculars...from psycho killers to break-dancing 'boogaloos'...from sleazy big-studio knock-offs to Academy Award-winning respectables...Cannon Films...ambitiously led by the exploitatively entrepreneur-driven efforts of Menahem Golen and Yoram Globus...managed to hold their own quite well against the 'big boys' of Hollywood...their inception, their brief, albeit respectable studio run, their eventual downfall...all components in a most intriguing story, which in itself, would make for quite an interesting tale to tell (...and actually WILL, when the long-awaited documentary, "Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films", is unleashed upon the public, sometime next year). And how equally delightful is the relevation that the fine folks at Shout Factory, has picked up a good number of titles from the Cannon Group library...culled from their direct film production efforts, to those of outer circle production sources...domestic and international...which, in their exploitatively idyllic wisdom, chose to represent and distribute. Never one to ignore a 'flavor-of-the-moment' movie trend, Cannon was, of course, quick to ride the late '70's/mid-to-late '80's 'splatter movie' bandwagon, with some of their own visceral & juicy productions and acquisitions...
...man, don't you just hate it when you go into a hospital for what was originally intended to be a routine check-up, and having been told that there's something more seriously wrong with you?? In the 1982 'your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine-as-to-what-the-heck-is-going-on' horror thriller, "X-Ray" (...also known as "Hospital Massacre"), that's the dilemma befalling poor Susan, upon checking into a local Los Angeles-based medical facility...an unusually dark & creepy place, which she cannot seem to escape from, where most of the patients...as well as the hospital staff...put out a most uncomfortable & unnerving vibe (...including an ominous figure in a doctor's smock and mask, who has his own brutal and bloody methods of in-house surgery), and the body count seems to be climbing as fast as an ice-cold rectal thermometer, firmly and without warning, hitting it's intended home. Of course, the last thing that Susan had ever considered, was that being trapped in a darkened-halled hospital, and being pursued by a maniacal killer, has ANYTHING to do with her harrowing, mind-shattering experience, years ago as a young child, where an obsessed rival pre-schooler, having longed for her affections on one fine Valentine's Day, killed her best friend, out of rejection...nah, couldn't possibly be THAT, could it??...
...strikingly beautiful '70's television favorite, and once-Hugh Hefner plaything Barbi Benton, makes for a very intelligent, attractive and quite respectably rendered 'gal-in-distress', in this, her one and only slasher flick (...though, she makes an even...uh, bigger impression in the Roger Corman camp, the following year, with her stint in the 1983 sex, sword and sorcery excursion, "Deathstalker"). However, since the genre-affecting 'strong-woman-in-peril-who-fights-back' (...at least, 'Ripley' strong) has yet to fully take root in the lexicon of horror cinema, Barbi's character is pretty much relegated to mainly a frustrated and terrorized victim, stuck in an inescapable mire of a situation, whereby the harder she fights to get away, the further she gets stuck. The overall uniqueness, which somewhat sets this horror entry apart from others, is it's outrageously rampant use of distracting and misdirecting 'red herrings'...so much so, in fact, that the film amusingly takes on an almost parodic tone. Is the killer one of the hospital's creepy staff?? Is it the wayward drunk, wandering the hallways?? Is it the cold and vindictive-staring janitor?? Is it Susan's slimy ex-husband?? Is it the guy in the elevator, sucking down the drippy Whopper?? Or is it...?? For gore's sake, the kills are fairly brutal, but not necessarily lingering and overly graphic...and the tension & suspense quotient is respectable, if a bit strained...again, due to the rampant 'red herrings'. Overall, one of the more under-appreciated lower-tiered horror entries, which deserves a chance...or at least a second look...
...but now, it's intermission time, folks (..."Let's All Go to the Lobby, Let's All Go to the Lobby, Let's All Go to the Lobby, to Get Ourselves a Treat..."), followed by previews of coming attractions (..."In a World, Where..." and "...heh, heh, There's a Legend in These Here Parts...")...
...now, much like "X-Ray", our second feature, "Schizoid", produced two years earlier, runs a pretty respectable gamut, as far as 'red herrings' (...helped by some rather unique and unconventional casting...I mean, let's face it: whether he is cast as a 'good' or 'bad' character, genre fav actor Klaus Kinski just LOOKS downright 'scary and villainous'...as well as a tension-enhancing, 'stinger'-fettered soundtrack, which seemed almost to be inspired by a melding of Harry Manfredini and early John Carpenter)...but gladly, overall, not to the point of chuckle-inducing monotony. Playing off much more akin to a 'whodunit'-styled murder mystery, rather than the typical slasher film, the suspenseful sense of misdirection is played off well enough to suggest a respectable measure of unpredictability, in these proceedings, as far as who the killer is. One might even suggest that the director, David Paulsen (...previously of 1979's "Savage Weekend") has attempted here, to emulate the mood, tension and manipulative stylings of the Italian 'giallo', and indeed, genuinely succeeds in that inspired meld, to a reasonable degree...
...someone is stalking and viciously killing the members of Dr. Peter Fales' (Klaus Kinski) therapy group...the weapon of choice: a large pair of scissors. One of the members of the group, Julie (...Mariana Hill, whom this viewer couldn't help but recognize from 1973's chillingly sadistic "The Baby"), writes for an advice column, and finds herself hapless plagued by mysterious and threatening letters, pasted together with newspaper clippings...suggesting that she may well be one of the next victims. Getting right to the point...who pray tell, might the killer be?? Is it the creepy looking handyman (...a young-looking Christopher Lloyd, with 'Doc Brown', just a few short years away)...also a patient in the theorpy group...who hardly hides the fact that he is smitten with Julie, and wants her all to himself?? Might the killer be Julie's ex-husband (Craig Wasson), who still has unfulfilled feelings for her, and as such, is tortured, because in working for the same newspaper as her, he cannot help but see her, all the time. Could our scissor-welding maniac be the good doctor, himself...who has his own complex cache of problems...including, putting things quite mildly, being quite irresistibly smitten to the female patients in the group, whom he is trying to help...as well as having to deal with a rebellious daughter (Donna Wilkes), who feels neglected, and selfishly demands all of her father's attentions, on her?? Or is there something...or rather, someone else more underliningly sinister and motivated, to brutally enact these ghastly murders??...
...in total, a great nostalgic pairing of two respectable and under-appreciated slasher thrillers from a bygone era, on Shout Factory's part...with this viewer's only beef with the DVD/Blu-Ray combo, being that it would be so cool if they'd gone the extra mile, and afforded an option, whereby the two films could be played back to back, drive-in/grindhouse double-feature style, with promos, concession ads and trailers (...a block of Cannons, perhaps) proceeding and sandwiched in-between the feature films (...they made a enjoyably engaging, albeit short-lived effort towards this kind of format presentation, with some of the early Roger Corman double features they released). For the most part, both films, presented close to their original 1:85:1 aspect ratios, are surprisingly crisper and sharper than one might expect, considering the 30+ years' age of the duo; as added extras on the DVD, both films contain short, reminiscence-enlightening interviews...with director Boaz Davidson, on "X-Ray", and actress Donna Wilkes, for "Schizoid"...
...ah heck, the only thing that'd make this an even better 'two-fer' show, is making it a 'THREE-fer' show, with the addition of 1980's slick, albeit raw and visceral "New Year's Evil"...yet another Cannon 'slasher' staple. Hey, hey...come on, Shout Factory...heh, heh, heh...we WANT some 'evil'...NOW!!! And remember...
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