EVIL LAUGH: PAGE TWO

     As for the rest of the film, well, you pretty much know the drill. It's strictly by the numbers- I mean, it's even got its own butterball Sheriff who turns up to check that everything's OK (why are there no thin Sheriffs in these EVIL LAUGH doesn't scrimp on the red stuff- check out the arse violence on the leftthings?). There's the requisite t&a and splashes of gore as the giggling loon sneaks through the shadows- which includes something of a slasher movie first as some poor schmuck gets a machete through the groin which exits out of his arse- oooh! It also joins SUPERSTITION (1982) as one of the few films which dared to use the humble microwave as an instrument of murder- in this case in a monumentally stupid way (someone has his head microwaved whilst the door is till open!). ... Mind you, gory deaths are something you'd expect to see from a director of the caliber of Dominick Brascia (i.e. he was in FRIDAY THE 13TH PART V: A NEW BEGINNING- hence the Fango cover) ... There is, however, one other thing that sets EVIL LAUGH apart from the slasher crowd and that's the Kevin Willamson patented irony fueled fun- a good ten years before SCREAM (1996) burst onto the scene. If you noticed before that Barney was a little like Randy then you'd be right...

     Barney tries, with little success, to warn the others of the imminent danger they're in. Convinced that Martin has come back for revenge he pleads his case, "Why does that guy in Halloween try and kill Jamie Lee Curtis? ... Why do those dumb kids keep going back to Camp Crystal Lake- letting Jason hack and chop them?" Naturally, he's pretty much ignored by one and all- especially when they have other things on their "Oh, so what you going to do, kill me?"minds... "You're going to have sex?! .. Don't! .. Everytime someone has sex in a horror story they get murdered!"

     To compound that SCREAM comparison, remember the scene in Wes Craven's film where Rose McGowan, thinking that the Ghostface is really a friend of hers dressed up in a costume, teases him saying something about her playing the victim, before actually getting murdered? Well, here there's a similar scene where one of the girls does the same thing with EVIL LAUGH's masked marauder (which is a little daft really as she's just seen her friend get an axe in the forehead!). Sitting on the bed, as the killer approaches, she purrs, "Oh, so what are you going to do, kill me?". With a cheesy grin she offers her neck to black leather gloves of the killer, "Just don't mess up my hair!". As the fingers close Oooh, scary!around her neck she gets impatient with the joke, "C'mon, kill me!", before faking it for a second, "OK, I'm dead..."- and then, only to her surprise, she actually is.

     The great Lux Interior once sang, "I don't knowabout art, but I know whatta like." (from THE CRAMPS fittingly titled 'I Ain't Nothin' but a Gorehound'). I know, by rights, I shouldn't have awarded this little cheeseball two and half stars, I mean, don't get me wrong- it is dreadful. Perhaps it was the booze that coloured my viewing; perhaps watching that cleaning scene in a loop slowly drove me insane. To tell you the truth, I just can't pass up a cheesy good time and this stinker has it all- did I mention the accidental golden shower?

     Recommended wholeheartedly, but only if you're sometimes partial to a spot of the dairy stuff too.


BODYCOUNT 10  bodycount!   female:2 / male:8

        1) Male stabbed in the back and has heart cut out
        2) Male run through with electric drill
        3) Male has throat slit
        4) Male stabbed in gut
        5) Male hacked with machete
        6) Female killed (method unseen)
        7) Male gets a machete through the groin (and out his butt!)
        8) Male gets an axe in his forehead
        9) Female strangled and has neck broken
      10) Male has head microwaved


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