Honourable Mention: Spookies

It’s difficult to know exactly what to make of this 1986 film. Directed primarily (in the credits) by Genie Joseph, the director was building upon work from an unfinished work called Twisted Souls that was directed by Thomas Doran and Brendan Faulkner.

Twisted Souls was the story of a group of people who end up at a house (one with a cemetery as its front lawn) and find an Ouija board. One of the group, Carol (Lisa Friede), becomes possessed (with noticeable fangs, by the way) and the film morphs into a version of Evil Dead without the style and cult appeal of the more famous film. A variety of villainous monsters, including a lawn of zombies, farting “muck men” and some stop-motion creatures try to get the kids.

Linda and Duke

I say kids, but at least one of their number, Peter (Peter Dain), was treated like he was the “straight laced one” but looked old enough to be the rest of the cast’s dad. I should also mention bullish leader of the group, and the one who landed them at the house, Duke (Nick Gionta). His brash form of Bronx machismo was difficult to take with any degree of seriousness given that he seemed to have squeezed himself into one of Michael Jackson’s stage costumes. Of course this was only part of the story.

Billy's Birthday

The film was incomplete and shelved until additional footage was shot and stitched to the film. This involved the cadaverous character Kreon (Felix Ward) who has kept the body of his love, Isabelle (Maria Pechukas), preserved in a coffin for seventy years, luring victims to the house in order to preserve and raise her. This is one of the possibly vampiric aspects as Kreon suggests that he has sacrificed the youth of so many to keep her preserved. In main his victims are now the Twisted Souls kids. He does lure Billy (Alec Nemser), a runaway, to the house before they arrive and host a fake birthday party followed by burial alive – so much for Billy.

Kreon's son

The primary vampire element seems to be Isabelle and Kreon’s son (A.J. Lowenthal). Now, just when and how they had a son is not explored. When she is revived she is aware of him and so the suspicion is that it was before she poisoned herself to escape Kreon – she may be his love but the feeling is not reciprocated. The child (who may be over 70) is a blue faced and fanged thing in a cowl. They talk of him killing but, as he wasn’t in the footage of the original film, this does not happen and so the child does very little in film.

drained by the spider

The final aspect to mention is the Spider Woman (Soo Paek), who lures Rich (Peter Iasillo Jr., Street Trash) off from the others in the house and he’s not suspicious that the woman – who claims to be trapped like them – knows his name. When back at her lair she morphs into an actual spider, whilst he is stuck in a web, and then sucks him dry. Given Rich’s involvement this was certainly meant to be a scene in Twisted Souls.

And that’s it – the mention is primarily for Kreon’s son, just because he looks like a child vampire. The film is nuts but not particularly watchable nuts. The imdb page is here.