Friday, November 19, 2010

It Came From Netflix: The Horror Show

By Eric Polk, host of The Audio Descent.
Released overseas as House III(unrelated to that franchise), 1989's The Horror Show is brought to you by Sean Cunningham, the progenitor of Friday the 13th, and directed by James Issac. This is your basic cat-n-mouse detective pursuits serial killer film, only the twist is the killer is dead!

Seems Mr.Cunningham took a cue from his pal Mr. Wes Craven, and in this film he has his killer ride the lightning, only to come back to screw with the mind of the cop who captured him in the first place(played by b-movie horror actor Lance Henriksen). Needless to say The Horror Show is plagued with bad, late-80s horror/cop movie cliches:bad acting(except for Henriksen), stock serial killer, cop threatening suspect ala pick your favorite 70/80s cop show, etc.

While the psychological aspect between killer and detective is quite good, along with the initial gore scenes, THS is extremely inconsistent, and exposes the flaws that were the late-80s horror films. Worth a single viewing, but nothing more.

5/10

Reminder:Be sure to catch me this Monday night at 6:30 p.m. EST on The Audio Descent from blogtalkradio.com

2 comments:

Franco Macabro said...

I'v always been curious for this movie simply because of its connections with the HOUSE franchiese, I wasnt aware it was available on NEtflix! I'll be seeing it soon to satasfy my curiosity, thanks for the heads up on this one!

Eric Polk said...

Np. Let us know what you think!