Mystery Film: Southern Shockers (1985)

Reader and Classic Horror Film Board member todmichel recently alerted us to a post over at the Cinehound Forum that includes a VHS box cover and screen caps from a previously unheard of omnibus flick called Southern Shockers that was filmed in West Point, Miss., in 1985.

The box in the Cinehound post appears to be from either Spain or Latin America, and presents the film as El Espiritu del Zombie (The Spirit of the Zombie), although the credits are all in English.

For you youngsters in the audience, VHS technology and the color red had an often stormy relationship...

Here's the info:

Director: David Coleman
Producer: David Hopper
Special Effects: Chris Witherspoon
Catering: Marcia Gibson
Cast: Mike Gordon, Robert Harrell, Tom Hatcher, Eric Shusterman (as Preacher Hopewell)


Oddly enough, I spent every summer during the late 1980s in West Point, Miss., and I still have family there. But I never heard of this movie, which appears to be a very cheap, shot-on-video effort. Anyone know anything about this one? If you have information, post it here in the comments section or send me an e-mail!

Trailer of the Week: The Undertaker (1988)

I actually just finished watching this oddball, erratically edited slasher film that was recently released by Code Red (it previously floated around on video as Death Merchant in some quarters). Joe Spinell stars as a murderous undertaker with unhealthy designs on his recently departed female customers. There's lots of sweat, lots of aerobics, and lots of stock footage from The Corpse Vanishes (and The Terror, and Africa Screams, and Scared to Death, and ... Bedtime for Bonzo).

There's not really a trailer available, but I did find this promo reel (there's an introduction by a guy named Beck who provides some background). It's long, a little disgusting in places, and interestingly enough includes some sequences that are missing from the Code Red DVD.

Spinell died just a few months after completing the film.

Trailer of the Week: Scarecrows (1988)

For the life of me, I can't find an English-language trailer for this Florida film, which was shot in 1985 by director William Wesley. So here it is in German AND Spanish instead!

Ozzie and Harriet in the House of Death

House of Death (Death Screams, 1982)
Shelby, North Carolina

When we first learned about the passing of former child star David Nelson, we weren't too surprised to note that most obituaries failed to mention that he had directed the obscure slasher film House of Death/Death Screams. Nelson is best known for portraying himself on the family sitcom "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" along with his parents and younger brother Ricky Nelson. But in the 1980s he directed several films (and TV show episodes), including two made in the South: The Florida film Last Plane Out (1983) starring Jan-Michael Vincent, and House of Death, which was filmed at Earl Owensby's EO Studios compound in Shelby, N.C.



House of Death is set against the backdrop of a carnival, with a shadowy killer offing teenagers. Like that other EO slasher film Final Exam (1981), House of Death suffers from a long, boring stretch in the middle and a lackluster killer with seemingly no motivation. What it does have, however, is former Playmate Susan Kiger and former North Carolina pageant queen Monica Boston. William T. Hicks, who plays the obligatory fat sheriff, was also in Owensby's Tales of the Third Dimension, A Day of Judgment, Challenge, and Living Legend: The King of Rock and Roll. (Thanks to Fred Adelman for the VHS images).