Basement, The: Retro 80s Horror Collection

Released by: Camp Motion Pictures
Released on: 9/13/2011
Director: Various
Cast: Various
Year: The Glorious 80s
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The Movies:

Those good people at Camp Motion Pictures have unearthed a 'lost 8mm film' in the form of The Basement and packaged this heretofore unseen cinematic oddity with a few other fast and cheap camcorder productions and unleashed upon an unsuspecting but wholly deserving world their Retro 80s Horror Collection. Here's a look at what you'll find underneath the awesome 'big box' style VHS packaging!

DISC ONE:

THE BASEMENT:

This never before released 8mm opus from 1989 was shot entirely on location in beautiful New Jersey and directed by filmmaker Timothy O'Rawe. An anthology film, the story begins when four random people walk into a basement, seemingly quite confused as to how they wound up there in the first place. A guy in a mask calling himself The Sentinel appears and tells them that there are here to be judged not for what they've done, but for what they will do. When they ask how they're supposed to know what they will do, the movie launches into four short story segments.

The first segment tells of a woman who is messing around on her husband, Steve, so that she can be with the far hunkier Rick. She decides to get rid of anyone who might stand in her way by tossing them into her swimming pool where they're eaten by some sort of unseen thing that makes a lot of bubbles. She reads a copy of Steven King's Night Shift in her lounge chair and has big poofy hair and crosses names off of her enemies list.

The second story is about a teacher who has recently lost his wife. Together they used to prank the kids on Halloween but as the holiday approaches this year, he's taken on a more mean spirited approach. He fantasizes about shooting up his class and is generally an asshole to everyone until he gets a visit from his dead wife and then later from the spirits of Halloween themselves - and they're not happy with him.

The third story is about a film director who is in charge of the cast of a zombie movie. He's more interested in playing around with the ladies and holding his own casting couch auditions than in making a good movie, much to the dismay of some of the guys he's working with who tell him they worked on 'the last two George Romero dead films.' He does a few lines and parties it up… until it turns out that there's a very real zombie menace to content with.

The last story is of a young writer who just graduated school and who has come into an inheritance which he uses to buy a creepy rundown home that was once the site of some murders. He figures this'll be a great spot to get his creative juices flowing, but after boozing it up with his nerdy friend and getting a visit from his girlfriend, it stars to look like the evil that possesses the house is starting to get a grip on him.

A low budget and horribly acted as The Basement is, you have to be a total stick in the mud not to have a good time with it. The movie features some pretty solid gore effects and the four stories that make up the bulk of the running time are, if not entirely original, plenty entertaining. The film has got loads of late 80s New Jersey charm so look for lots of big hair and moustaches and bad fashions but this all adds to the fun. The bookend segments don't make a lick of sense but it doesn't really matter and the movie even manages to conjure up a few creepy moments thanks to some better than average low budget camerawork. It's a shame that the lighting doesn't compliment things so well, as the dark scenes are really dark and murky but overall this one amounts to a pretty good time.

DISC TWO:

CAPTIVES:

An interesting low budget take on the 'home invasion film' kickstarted by movies like Wes Craven's The Last House On The Left, Captives is very definitely a product of its time but no less entertaining because of it.

When the movie begins, a woman helps her husband get ready for work and then feeds her infant son breakfast once he leaves. Little do any of them know that a strange woman (Video Violence fans will recognize her), a man, and their mentally handicapped accomplice are about to break into the house - but why? It turns out there's a connection to the husband that the wife is unaware of and that she might have been better off never knowing about in the first place. They proceed to terrorize them and live it up in the house, drinking all their booze and trashing stuff, but they shouldn't underestimate just how far a mother will go to save her kid.

Captives is fairly tense for such a low budget film. The performances aren't always convincing (particularly the guy who plays the mentally handicapped character - he's pretty terrible) but the situations and premise work far more effectively than they probably should have. The film's soundtrack is completely awful, made up almost entirely of synth scores and adult contemporary soft rock that doesn't do the movie any favors but Captives manages to entertain. The movie's strongest point is the script which, despite some wonky dialogue here and there, actually has a pretty good twist to it.

CANNIBAL CAMPOUT:

When home video camcorders became affordable enough in the eighties that the average Joe was able to go out and pick one up without having to put a second mortgage on the home, all of a sudden anyone could make a movie. Sure, it might not be a good movie and truth be told, it doesn't always have to be, but all of a sudden people were able to pick up a camera and record audio and video with one handy machine on a tape. No need for the hassle of going to get film developed, you simply had to plop in a tape and you could record two hours of footage for a couple of dollars.

Because of this newfound accessibility, for better or worse a sort of horror movie underground was born wherein literally hundreds if not thousands of shot-on-video cheapies were being churned out by anyone with a couple of bucks, a group of friends and a bucket of red paint. One of the more successful of these films was Cannibal Campout, a cheap, derivative movie with bucket loads of cheap gore and really bad acting. Proving that everything old is indeed new again, it should shock no one to find that Cannibal Campout has made the transition to DVD, and we can all rest easier now because of it.

Inspired by 'teens in the woods' movies like Friday The 13th with survivalist horror elements borrowed from movies like Deliverance by way of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, our story follows a group of teens/young adults, lead by Jon (played by director Jon McBride), who head out to the forest for a weekend of, as you could probably guess, camping. Unfortunately for Jon and his pals, the Redstone area where they're going to set up camp has recently been the scene of some horrible crimes wherein random people have been eaten by a tribe of cannibals that live in and around the area. This doesn't stop them, however and soon a family of flesh eating lunatics are chasing them around the woods trying to make a meal out of them.

Dumb and completely predictable, Cannibal Campout is full of clichés and is about as suspenseful as taking a dump but, just like taking a good dump, it's somehow rather satisfying even if it is a little messy. First and foremost, what this movie has working in its favor are two key ingredients that a lot of indy cheapies somehow miss out on - genuine enthusiasm and completely wanton gore. These two factors make for good bedfellows and they completely carry the movie (which is important because the acting sure can't do that). As far as the pacing goes, things are pretty decent here in that the movie doesn't take long to get going nor does it overstay its welcome. Stuff happens and it happens quickly, which is probably a good thing as it doesn't give us too much time to concentrate on just how poorly done much of the movie really is. Special mention goes to the guy in the NYHC acid washed jacket with the Cro-Mags logo on the back. The move definitely delivers the gore though, and even has some brief topless nudity.

DISC THREE:

VIDEO VIOLENCE:

A young married couple named Rachel and Steve decide to say goodbye to the Big Apple and move from inner New York to a nice, quiet suburb across the river in the lovely state of New Jersey where they intend to open up a video rental store. Things are going just swimmingly until they start receiving mysterious videotapes which appear to be snuff films, or something akin to snuff films. These disturbing recordings of actual murders unnerve the couple enough that they logically go to the police to report what's happening.

For reasons that will soon be made clear to the young couple, the cops aren't all that interested in what they have to say. Before you know it, Rachel and Steve come face to face with a pair of locals named Eli and Howard, a pair of sinister maniacs that are intent on creating their own snuff film ring. If that weren't enough, it looks like everyone in town is in on it….

VIDEO VIOLENCE 2:

Picking up shortly after the events portrayed in the first movie, this second film finds our two killing machines, Eli and Howard, starring in their very own cable access show. The premise? Essentially, they kill people. They encourage home viewers to play along and send in their own home movies of death and depravity, which the pair gleefully exhibit on the air. That's about it, really.

Shot on VHS with next to no budget and a cast of obvious amateurs, the Video Violence films are pretty horrible. They show some creativity in a few of the murder set pieces but most of the film they feel like poorly made knock offs of better H. G. Lewis movies, 2000 Maniacs in particular. Although the pacing is fairly quick the effects aren't very well done and the acting is about as bad as it can get. The filmmakers earn a few points for some inspired kills but that's about the nicest thing that can be levied against this pair of turkeys. They're not scary, they're not disturbing, and they're not funny, at least not intentionally - for the most part, they're just bad, though not wholly unentertaining.

The very premise of the first film and its sequel is implausible enough on its own but when you throw the poorly sketched out characters into the mix and couple that with the poorly written dialogue (Was it written? Could have been improvised…) you've got a recipe for semi-beautiful disaster.

Video/Audio/Extras:

The Basement was shot on 8mm and edited on tape from the looks of things. It's dark and murky in the night time scenes but otherwise decent enough so long as you keep in mind that this is a low budget movie made fast and cheap more than two decades ago. As far as the other movies, they were all shot on video so you can expect them to look about as good as a decent VHS tape does.

Throughout the set the audio is on par with the video in terms of quality in that it's far from perfect but it's acceptable enough when you take into account the low budget nature of the productions. Dialogue is generally clear and the score and effects don't sound half bad. Don't expect any alternate language dubs, subtitles or surround mixes here, all we get are the plain vanilla mono tracks, but they do the trick even if it's rather unremarkable. Note that The Basement doesn't feature live sound, it looks like it's been dubbed in post, which gives it an extra weird vibe similar to Things.

The Basement disc starts the extras off with a commentary with cinematographer Michael Raso and John Fedele who was both a cast and crew member. The pair discuss how the film was directed by a college friend and go on to explain some of the trials and tribulations of making the film and attempt to explain 'what the fuck is happening.' It's a pretty active track that doesn't take things any more seriously than it needs to, but which manages to give some good information on the back story of the movie.

Up next are The Basement Outtakes (6:48) which are basically just a bunch of random clips and snippets that didn't wind up making it into the finished version of the movie. Some of this material is obviously cutting room floor footage, other snippets are just bits and pieces of the cast goofing off.

The Basement News Segment (5:51) is an amusing vintage news cast clip where a reporter visits the set of The Basement and interviews director Tom O'Rawe and cinematographer Raso about what the film is all about and why they choose to shoot it in Jefferson Township, New Jersey. The effects guy is also interviewed and talks about how much fun he had.

The Meadowlands Showcase TV Section includes three episodes of a public access show that Raso and Fedele worked on together from 1988 through 1994. The episodes included are: Halloween Take Over (which includes optional commentary from Raso and Fedele); The Long Road to Karaoke; Long is the Night. These are pretty goofy shows that feature bad comedy sketches, music videos (the Halloween episode wisely includes the Cramps' Garbage Man video!) and various parody bits.

Rounding out the extras on the first disc are two Tim O'Rawe short films: Vengeance (4:03, a gory cautionary tale/revenge story shot in a department store parking lot!) and Say No To Drugs (9:50, starts out in a creepy graveyard before a massacre takes place in a house covered in old movie posters - plenty gory!), animated menus and chapter stops.

Captives gets a commentary with Mike Raso and editor Joel Cobeck and director Gary P. Cohen which starts off with an interesting run down of the accomplishments of Cobeck and Cohen, both of whom have done quite a bit more than just crank out a few cheap 80s gore films, Cohen in particular who has quite an extensive theater resume. Of course, they also cover the making of Captives, how it was restored for this DVD, why the various cast members wound up in it, the gore effects, the script and more.

The Cannibal Campout carries over from its previous DVD release a commentary track with co-director Jon McBride. Though the film was made awhile ago, McBride's memories of the movie are pretty sharp even if he tends to meander a bit with his talk and lapse into moments of silence. He talks about the locations where the movie was made, and he covers some of the gore effects used in the picture as well as going into a fair bit of detail about how the cast was assembled - it's a good, generalized talk about how the picture came together.

The main supplements on the Video Violence disc (which is identical to the previous DVD release) arrives in the form of a pair of audio commentary tracks, one for each film, with director Gary P. Cohen and a few of his moviemaking cohorts. He covers the production history, casting and effects and it's reasonably interesting as there is a fair bit of jovial interplay between the participants. They all seem to have had a good time working on the project and if you dug the films, you'll probably find these two tracks worthwhile.

Aside from the commentary tracks, there's also an on camera video interview with director Gary P. Cohen entitled Violence On Video. Cohen talks very highly of his strange little movies and who doesn't seem to appreciate the criticism that these two movies have received over the years. It's moderately interesting if you're a fan of the films, and if you're not, neither the commentary tracks nor this interview will do anything to change your mind. A few trailers and some animated menus close out the disc.

And if that weren't enough, while we don't get any liner notes we do get a copy of The Basement on a red VHS tape for your VCR enabled viewing pleasure - a nice and appropriately campy touch! And how cool is the Vince Evans artwork on the front of the packaging?

The Final Word:

While you can't say any of the movies in this set are 'good' in the traditional sense, you've got to admire the creativity and work ethic behind these low budget cheapies. On top of that, they definitely do not fall short on entertainment value or unintentional comedy. Mix that up with frequent gore, occasional brief nudity and a lot of extras and this set comes up a winner. Good stuff!