Retro Review: Julie Darling (aka Daughter of Death, 1983)

Young Julie (Isabelle Mejias) loves her daddy. A little too much, unfortunately. They spend lots of time together, mostly hunting, and Julie, it seems, is quite a crack shot. After a string of fall outs with her mother (Cindy Girling) which culminates with her setting the teen's pet snake loose, Julie has a strop and puts her headphones on and locks her door. This coincides with her mom getting brutally attacked and raped by the local delivery boy she asked to help get rid of the pet. Just about hearing her screams in the nick of time, she grabs her rifle (every girl should have one) and aims it at her mom's assailant. Dawdling a little too long, and suddenly mom is dead, her head smashed against the wooden floor. Realising she now has her Father (Anthony Franciosa, Tenebre) to herself, she allows the assailant to make his escape.

Father and daughter adapt to live alone, the blossoming teen taking advantage of having the grieving father to herself, even going so far as to consoling themselves by sharing a bed. As time goes on, father  Harold meets a new woman, Susan (the marvelous Sybil Danning) who moves in along with her son. Julie isn't happy with this arrangement, but puts up with it until a chance comes that she must take. Playing hide and seek while the folks are away, the boy hides in the refrigerator that is conveniently lying around their garden, and Julie shuts the door on him. When the parents return, they find him just in the nick of time, and drop the bombshell that they have married. Susan has her suspicions about Julie, and has it out with her in a fantastic scene acted out over a game of chess. Julie must hatch a bigger plan to oust the pair and have daddy all to herself again.

This early 80s piece of nastiness comes (with the "help" of co-writer Maurice Smith) from Paul Nicholas, the director who brought us the best WIP flick, Chained Heat (1983). Although it is a thoroughly entertaining piece of sleaze, there are a few moments that are quite troubling. The homicidal child routine has been done before, many times, and better than this. The troubling moment comes when Julie awakes to the sound of her father and his new wife making love. She opens the door slightly to peek inside, and then imagines herself in the throes of passion with him instead. It's one thing having incest hinted at, or just under the radar, but to go all out and show it takes some balls as a film maker! I'm guessing Mejias was older than her character when she played this, as there is some nudity involved, and the film has not been impounded. The real problem with having this in the story, however is that is never mentioned, or hinted at again. Similarly, Susan has a tense heart to heart with Julie over the game of chess. Basically telling her that she knows she is trying to get rid of her and her son (who we don't see again after he's saved from the fridge) . Yet, a scene or two later, she asks the young girl to help steady a ladder she's working on, right at the top of some stairs! Talk about trust. Talk about a missed opportunity for Julie!  Although there are flaws - some of the younger actors are abysmal - it is a quite effect exploitation film, with plenty of nudity and well put together scenes of violence. The ending is fantastic, so I won't ruin it.
THE UK VERSION ANOMALY

I picked this up for £4 on a UK DVD release by Elstree Hill. They have, of course, got a reputation of putting out shoddy and awful prints on their DVDs, and Julie Darling is no exception. It's probably sourced from a VHS copy, full frame, not even pan and scan. The opening titles are actually "Ulie Darlin" and it's quite muddy and dark. There is a Code Red US release, but it's OOP and costs a lot more than this (although I wouldn't mind hearing the commentaries, as there are one for each of the two main actresses). The back of the box does warn "some quality may have been lost during the transferring process". No kidding. At least it's not as bad as some of their other releases. The real interesting (for want of a better word) thing about the UK release, is it has a PG rating. Considering what I have already said about the subject matter, the fact that there's plenty of violence, nudity (although no front bottoms, sadly) and one "F" word, I was surprised to say the least. After doing a check on the BBFC website, which has a great database search facility, I found not only had Elstree Hill not put the film through the board to get the PG certificate, but the film has NEVER been rated in the UK, making this release completely illegal. I'm pretty sure it would have had a pre-cert VHS release, but it was never rated for cinema or home viewing. Buy it now, kids before they get wise.

Apart from all that, it's a good, solid piece of trash cinema and Sybil Danning's boobs are always worth a look, ain't they? (No disrespect meant, as she is brilliant in this)
6 out of 10

Retro review: Killer Party (1986)

We open on a misty graveyard, and a funeral being held. The overly camp minister is quoting the Wizard of Oz to the mourners, and as they leave - now in daylight and not at all misty - he bids them "try and have a nice day!". One mourner goes back in to pay her last respects, only she doesn't, she curses the dead woman and for that, she is dragged into the coffin by the re-animated corpse within. She is then put, still screaming into the fires of the incinerator.

Only this turns out to be a film at the drive in. Not impressed with her date's wandering hands, a young (very 80s looking) girl goes to get some popcorn. She finds the concession stand deserted. Helping herself, she heads back to the car, only to be confronted with all manor of corpses, mangled and mutilated faces and worse - an 80s hair metal band playing amongst the popcorn!

Double bluff - this is merely a music video being watched by young students. All pre-credits.
After this somewhat shaky start, the film settles into more standard frat house fare, with three girls pledging to get into their chosen sorority, and having to do gross out initiations. Add to this the boys pulling Porky's type pranks, mainly involving getting the girls nude and filming them.
The main initiation is going to be at a party being held at the long closed frat house where a youngster was killed twenty years previous, his grave even being in the front garden of the place. 

Sadly, you have to wait nearly and hour before the titular party and the ensuing body count, but the build up (when the film is not goofing off) is not too bad, with a couple of killings by assailants unseen, and some more bluffs.All topped off with a demonic possession. What's not to like?
Killer Party is one of the many slasher type student films from the 80s, only this has a slightly different pedigree since it was allegedly started in 1978 but then closed down when going over budget, only to be finished in 1984, then shelved for another two years. Apparently the more gory sequences were cut from the film before release, but to be honest, it doesn't really miss them as the level of shocks/gore left in balance out the (admittedly amusing at times) comedy moments.While not going for an out and out spoof, the film walks the line between being tense and titter-some.

 The band in the opening sequence, White Sister, were a hotly tipped band at the time - I even saw them as a support band once - and while the song used isn't their best (instead, check out 'Dancing On Midnight' from their 'Fashion By Passion' album that appeared in Halloween 5) it is by no means terrible. There's much worse music in this film. There's appearances from a couple of actors worth spotting, Paul Bartel (Eating Raoul) is one of the faculty in the college, Jason Warren plays his usual 'fat kid who doesn't get any' like he did in the two Screwballs films, and Ralph Seymour, previously seen in Just Before Dawn and Ghoulies has one of the main male parts.
It's directed by William Fruet, who also made 'Death Weekend' (1976) and 'Spasms' (1983) before heading into TV work on stuff like Goosebumps,  War of the Worlds and Poltergeist - The Legacy.

The film has just been released by the 'Warner Archive' on their (quite expensive) 'made to order DVD-R' range, and actually looks very good. While it's no worse than all the other college kids get slaughtered films out there, but no better either.
6 out of 10