Hollywood's New Blood / Dark Echoes

The horror-a-thon continues with these latest flicks. The first up was 1988's Hollywood's New Blood. It was clearly one of those direct to VHS movies, with the 80's video camera quality and extremely bad acting. It wasn't great, but it kept me entertained until the end.

The story is about a group of young actors who are up in a cabin in the woods for an acting seminar. One of them tells the others a story about how years ago in that same area, a production company was filming an explosion. They accidentally detonated the wrong house and killed an entire family, except for 3 brothers who were unaccounted for. The accident was covered up, but unknown to them, the 3 survivors are still lurking in the woods, and when they see the cabin is being used, they decide to go on a murder spree and kill the students.

The film zips by at a good pace, and keeps you engaged between the murders, the cheesy dialogue and atrocious acting. The synthesizer music was also very funny, and totally 80's. Not a great flick, but it's fun enough to kill some time.

The next flick I caught, 1977's Dark Echoes, was entertaining as hell!

A small village is being plagued by mysterious murders. The locals are convinced that they're being committed by the curse of an old boat captain who perished 100 years ago when his boat crashed and sunk, killing him and all the crew. The desperate police chief seeks help from an American psychic named Bill, and a local journalist named Lisa. The 3 of them collaborate on attempting to solve the murders.

They soon discover that everyone killed were the descendants of those who found the captain guilty of the boat accident long ago, and brought shame to his family name. Bill and Lisa contact a local witch named Frau Ziemler to ask her for assistance with any knowledge she may have of the remaining descendants, one of which is Lisa. It seems that Frau Ziemler knows more than she initially lets on, and warns them that there is grave danger ahead.

The flick keeps you entertained, between the creepy music, the fun murders (including one person falling off a cliff, one being stabbed underwater, and another being decapitated), the characters trying to solve the mystery, random elements such as Frau the witch (who's an absolute hoot) hosting a bizarre ritual that starts to turn into an orgy, and Bill the psychic who's always drinking. The undead zombie captain looked cool, with his rotting skull face, rising from his watery tomb to kill the innocent. I quite enjoyed this outrageous, odd little zombie gem.

Both these movies are available on YouTube. The quality of Dark Echoes isn't the best, but it's still a very fun watch. If you enjoy old school zombie flicks, definitely check it out!

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