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The Chill Factor (1989) / The Falling (1986)

 




The first flick in my double feature was a late 80’s supernatural horror tale about an evil spirit that terrorizes a group of friends.










The story begins being narrated by the main character, now much older, recounting the events of an incident that took the lives of her friends. Jeannie, her fiancé Tom, his sister and her boyfriend, and another married couple are on a winter snowmobiling vacation. After getting drunk, Tom and his sister’s boyfriend, Chris, make a bet on who can win a race. They all go up to a remote location called Black Friar Lake for the race. Tom ends up badly injured after his snowmobile crashes, and since they’re so far out from civilization, they decide to shack up in an abandoned camp lodge. One friend named Ron decides to ride into town to get help, while the group waits and cares for Tom. They find a strange, ouija-like board called the Devil’s Eye and start to play with it. This causes them to unknowingly unleash evil spirits of a Satanic cult that once held rituals there, and one by one, they begin to get stalked.














The movie takes a little time for the supernatural shenanigans to kick in, but once they do, it’s an enjoyable cheese fest. The bad acting, especially by the lead actress, is what keeps you from taking any of it too seriously, turning what could have been a potentially creepy premise into corny schlock. Some of the cheesy lines in the script don’t help, either. There’s some decent blood and gore, and the climax ends with another snowmobile race, with the heroine desperately trying to escape her demon possessed fiancé. If you’re a fan of those fun 80’s b-movies, then this will be right up your alley. I streamed it on YouTube, though it’s also available on Tubi.













The next one, also an 80’s horror sci-fi tale, had a lot of good elements, but the script and cast kinda ruined it.





A space station launched into orbit by NASA in 1973 crashes back into Earth, in a small Spanish town called Duarte, bringing back alien microbes that were found on the moon. 3 youths, Michael, Samantha and Damon, are vacationing in the area in their RV. They soon find themselves attacked by alien infected citizens, and eventually partner up with a scientist who knows about the outbreak, and assist him in finding an antidote for the infection and to escape the town.
















The movie has some really good gore effects, with pulsating flesh exploding and releasing alien creatures from the infected hosts’ bodies. Most of these scenes are top notch, which is a shame, because the rest of the movie is too goofy that it ruins any potential suspense. Had the script chose to take itself more seriously, and leaned into the paranoia that the alien infection caused, it could have been a minor classic reminiscent of Carpenter’s The Thing. Instead, we get too many silly scenes of the youths acting goofy, giving the movie a more light-hearted, comedic tone. Any sense of danger is ruined by their cheesy reactions. The script has them say too many foolish things and get into idiotic situations that jar harshly with any horror elements. I found the characters simply annoying, and not in a fun, so-bad-it’s-good b-movie way. Interesting premise, bad execution.















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