Chillers (1987)
Reviewed by Geno McGahee
Troma is known for releasing absolute garbage. Their movies have set the standard for bad horror movies, but the law of averages had to catch up with the company. Chillers is not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it is not as horrible as the typical Troma release.
This movie concerns five people, all of which are stuck at a bus station and have to wait for the next ride to come in. As the five people sit together they begin to talk about the strange dreams that they each have had recently. This is a horror anthology with a low budget and some imagination.
The first tale involves a girl, Lindsay (Marjorie Fitzsimmons) that is afraid of diving. She is part of the swimming team and just can’t seem to get over her fear until she meets Mason (Jesse Emery) young boy that helps her conquer it. He was part of the diving team and not only becomes a romantic interest to this girl, but he also coaches her. The problem arises when she sees him dive into the pool and not come back up. She reports it to the coach but when she mentions his name, she is thought to be pulling a prank because that guy has been dead for years. He died in a diving accident. Now, Lindsay is plunged into a world of the dead, harassed by zombies in speedos. This tale is fun to watch and probably the best out of the bunch.
In the second tale, a young boy relives his nightmare of scouting with other kids in the wilderness with an older man that goes by the name of “Wolf.” The true colors of this scout leader come out. He is a killer and is hunting down the children, until they begin to fight back. This tale wouldn’t’ be so bad if it weren’t for the annoying kid.
The third tale is about a woman that falls for a newscaster. She actually calls him and professes her love to him, which prompts him to show up at her place for some loving. The good news is that they seem to like each other. The bad news is that he’s a vampire. The really bad news is that he is the only one doing the sucking in the bedroom. This is a very weak entry and hard to get through.
The next tale is told by a man that has a horrible mullet. He discovers that he has this power to bring back the dead. By concentrating on the obituaries, he can grab people from heaven or hell and they mysteriously appear in his kitchen. He brings back a serial killer that was executed and his brother that had also passed on. This is one of the better tales.
The final tale is from a professor that speaks of ancient spirits invading the bodies of the living and wouldn’t you know it, it happens to one of his students. Suddenly bodies begin turning up dead and the professor has to fight for his life. He has a showdown with the demon in his own classroom as it goes around biting the faces of fat women in class. This isn’t a great tale, but it’s watchable.
Overall, Chillers is a bad anthology. Some of the tales are OK, but none of them show any wit or originality. There are no Twilight Zones endings here. When the tale ends, you say: “Oh, that’s it?” They just end the tales because they really don’t have the writing ability to make it work.
I cannot recommend this movie. If you like anthologies, then you might like this one merely because its different stories packed into one movie, but crap+crap+crap=crap. By Troma standards, this is a 10/10, but since we are not going by their standards, it will not score that highly. And one final point is the ending. It has probably the worst horror film ending of all time. It will make you smash the DVD and/or VHS tape.
Scared Stiff Review: 4/10.
An anthology that is so bad that it’s scary.
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