Chillers (1987) — Triskaidekafiles

CHILLERS

WRITER: Daniel Boyd

DIRECTOR: Daniel Boyd

STARRING: Jesse Emery as Mason

Marjorie Fitzsimmons as Lindsey

Laurie Pennington as Sharon

Jim Wolfe as Ron

David Wohl as Conrow

Gary Brown as Scoutmaster Bob

Jesse Johnson as Billy Waters

Thom Delventhal as Tom

Bradford Boll as Nelson Crowder

Kimbery Harbour as Gloria and Ixpe

Michael M. Martin as Hunter

Mike Frasher as Ron's Brother

QUICK CUT: A group of people pass the time at a bus station while they wait for their connecting bus.

THE MORGUE

Mason - A little kid who thinks nothing is scary, but is scared of wolves in the woods.

Lindsey - A young woman who wants to be a swimmer, but isn’t actually very good at it.

Sharon - A young woman who wants to be loved, but trusts the wrong men.

Ron - A young man who just wants his brother back, but should be careful what he wishes for.

Conrow - A not so young professor who just wants to teach, but has to banish ancient gods.

No one's gonna save you from the beast about to strike

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! August comes to a close, and that means it's time for a little anthology film. This year, it's a Troma flick called Chillers. The back of the DVD claims this to be "one of the most horrifying movies ever made." Let's see if there is any truth to that at all.

Oh, before I go any further, the entire credits is done in the same hand drawn claw and muscle type font as the title card, and it's kinda awesome. It just might be the best thing about the movie. Ohh yeah, brace yourselves.

But following that, the movie opens up in Ohio, the REAL horror, at a remote bus station. A group of people arrive on one bus, to make their connection. The bad news is, they missed the bus, and the next one at 6. And since there is no hotel or restaurant nearby, they just have to sit and wait.

They meet another group of travelers who are stuck waiting, two of whom are asleep. And as they sit there, we delve into the sleeping woman's mind, to pass the time with a story.

Our first tale takes place at a swimming pool, and we spend a lot of time just kinda, swimming around. HORRIFYING!

The sleeping woman, Lindsey, is an aspiring professional swimmer, but she keeps hitting the wall. Literally. She befriends one of the other swimmers, who wants to be a pro diver, and he gives her some pointers.

Swimmer dude keeps trying to get her to try diving, but she has a fear of heights, and gosh, I wonder where this could possibly be going?

Lindsey gets ready to leave, and sees Billy take another dive, but never come up. Everyone scrambles to help him, assuming an accident, but they can't find anyone.

Once things calm down, she explains that she saw Billy dive into the pool, she's sure of it, but no one thinks that is very funny.

Because Billy? Has been dead the whole time! Great, so this is the Swimst Sense.

Lindsey storms off, sure of what she saw, and not wanting to be ridiculed. She then sits around staring wistfully for a few minutes. HORRIFYING!

But Billy does eventually pop up, and as you can see, he's a little more obviously dead this time. Lindsey is caught by surprise and slips, cracking her head on the edge of the pool. Great. The first death of this movie is by complete accident.

She slides into the water, and bursts back out, and just to cut to the chase, she's essentially in the land of the dead. Billy is also there, making fun of her 'taking a dive'.

He begins to gesture around the pool to some of the other dead folk there, and all their tragic accidents. Great, this must be the short film Night Swim was based on.

The feeling when you've got a nagging thought, but can't quite place it.

I can at least understand how this could be, if not scary, a bit unsettling. Even if it is a little hammy and scenery chewy as every dead person gets a moment to try and impress the situation upon Lindsey. The gore effects aren't terrible.

But even then, it's a whole lotta sitting around, swimming, talking, and then a few minutes of OooOOOo, Spoooooky.

Anyways, Lindsey wants none of this, and the Drowned chase her into the showers. Is this what they do for eternity? I guess you gotta find your jollies somehow, once your dead.

We all float down here, Lindsey...largely due to this being a swimming pool.

The dead people approach Lindsey and...IT WAS ALL A DREAM! as she snaps awake in the bus station. In Ohio. Which again, is probably worse. And fair warning, this is the formula for the movie right here.

Everyone consoles her as she wakes up from the boring...er, horrifying nightmare, and make sure the audiences knows that each and every one of them ALSO had a nightmare last night! Well, except Professor Justin Long, he vociferously insists he had no such thing. A spoiler: he did.

Would you like to hear the other dreams?? Well, too bad, because you're gonna.

Now we dive into the nightmare of the kid in this group, and he's off with his knockoff boy scouts wannabes! Camping! HORRIFYING!

Where is Jason Voorhees when you need him?

While the kids pitch a tent, their scoutmaster Bob, who reminisces about being called "Wolf" back in the day, just sits there and delegates.

Eventually, a foul mouthed hunter shows up to at least makes this interesting for a few seconds. He confronts "Wolf" and insists this is HIS land, and he wants them gone!

Unfortunately, this is a national forest or whatever, and the group intends to stay. "Wolf" also tells the group that you gotta stand up to bullies. Most likely, he'll just go away.

"Wolf" also tosses in a few more wolf metaphors, just for good measure. If this went the route of actually having a werewolf, it would be awesome. But instead...

The scoutmaster wanders off to do some stuff, leaving the kids alone with a possibly violent man wandering around somewhere. Expectedly, the kids slowly go missing.

Mason wakes up to find the two other kids tied up, and the hunter hanging from a tree like he's food being kept away from bears.

"Wolf" shows up, half naked, and raving, and he eventually drags the hunter off as a peace offering to the wolves. Oh, and he's a recent inmate of a mental asylum. Shocker.

Mason tries to free the other kids while the scoutmaster is gone, but that makes him angry. Fortunately, Mason has a knife and stabs "Wolf" in the dick...er, leg. Sadly

Eventually, "Wolf" finds Mason hiding in the woods, but fortunately, he gets his arm caught in one of the hunter's traps, giving Mason the time to escape.

He frees the other kids, they get to the Bronco, and are about to drive away, when "Wolf" shows up, and reveals that like his namesake, he too will gnaw off a limb to free themselves from a trap.

Which is when Mason woke up, because...THIS WAS ALL A DREAM!

I saw a wolf scout in the woods with a group of kids, and his hand was missing.

And so the next person starts their dream, and Sharon's sitting around her apartment watching the news. She is clearly smitten with the news anchor, and when she declares her love for him, she even hears him say it back to her.

Sharon doesn't believe what she's hearing, but the voice is insisting that she call him. And so, she finds the station's number in the phonebook, and ACTUALLY calls him. I gotta give her points for initiative.

Ah yes, trying to find a date on Friday night...HORRIFYING!

When she calls the station, Tom gets on the phone, and she introduces herself, asking if they can meet, and insisting she is VERY NORMAL.

But, she chickens out at that point, and hangs up. Which is why when there is a knock on her door, and it turns out to be Tom. She is just as surprised as we are to see him.

See, he found her because well, he's actually not just a teleprompter reader on the tv, he is an honest to gosh journalist. Or, he just looked her up in the phonebook.

He also admits he has felt a connection to her as well.

Wow, Doordash is delivering EVERYTHING these days.

The pair get to chatting, and they hit it off well enough that they start making out on the couch. Which leads to making out and more in the bedroom.

But then...PLOT TWIST! Tom is a VAMPIRE! A vampire newsman, what a shocking development. Somewhat less surprising, this is not a dealbreaker for Sharon. I mean, I get it.

Another vampire shows up at Sharon's apartment, and as she's draining the pizza boy…OF BLOOD you perverts, we learn she is Tom's sister. This is a slightly more awkward situation for Sharon.

I see a window and I want to paint it black.

Sharon might be in love with Tom, but she doesn't like her other new tenant moving in and changing things without asking, and the dead bodies are starting to smell, and...

As Tom sleeps, in a body bag mind you, his sister parties in the living room, so Sharon grabs a...well, it's no stake, it's at best a sharpened plastic comb handle, and stabs him in the heart. Does that even count?

Sharon tries to sneak off, but doesn't get very far. Fortunately, a cop shows up looking for the pizza man. While he barges into the apartment without a warrant, Sharon makes a run for it.

After flying all the way home, she's admitted to a hospital, and up on the tv appears the new local news anchor...TOM!

Which makes her wake up, because...IT WAS ALL A DREAM!

Surprise, bitch. I bet you thought you'd seen the last of me.

The movie cuts back to the bus station, and Mason declares of Sharon's story, "That's not scary." Hey, you said it movie, not me.

But now it's time for Ron's dream, which features him...reading the morning paper! HORRIFYING!

He's kinda bummed by the in memoriams people have sent in, and wishes the parents who lost their child far too young, could have him back...and suddenly the kid appears in his kitchen.

So he calls up the parents, drops the kid off in the middle of the suburbs, and has them come pick him up. And my GOD do I feel ripped off that we do not hear that conversation, because that woulda been SOMEthin'.

How are they gonna explain this?? Thanos snap?!

Ron wonders if his power will also work on the obituaries, and finds someone who died recently that isn't old as shit and would probably just die again immediately anyways. He tells the dude to go off and enjoy his second chance, and sends Nelson on his way.

Following that, Ron continues to test his powers on an old family photo album, to bring back his older brother who died.

Unfortunately, Johnny isn't entirely happy to be reunited with Ronny. I guess because he was at rest, if not exactly at peace, because they imply he wasn't in heaven.

That's when the awkward family reunion is interrupted by Nelson barging in with a shotgun to do some killing, because oops! The reason he died young, was because he was executed for a string of serial killings. Hey, these things happen.

And we'll never know who Johnny was, because like...he's dead!

Nelson wants Ron to bring back more of his friends, but he needs photos or a newspaper, something to bring them back with. There's some scuffling that happens, and eventually, Nelson has John at gunpoint.

Ron does the only thing he can, lays his hands upon the photo of Nelson, and hopes really hard that he will 'go back'.

And he does! But then Ron himself fades out...because it turns out the newspaper was dropped on the family photo album, and when he laid hands on the picture of Nelson, directly underneath was a picture of Ron himself, so he too "went back". Which raises questions I'm not even gonna bother with.

But then it's back to the bus station because...THAT WAS ALL A DREAM! And once again, Mason makes sure to tell us this movie isn't scary. Y'know, if you bill yourself as a "most horrifying movie ever," I advise NOT having a character constantly undercutting your point.

The station attendant tells the group that he got another that's gonna come and take them to the next station, to make their connection, and move this plot along.

And now it's time for the professor's dream, because he DID have one, gasp surprise.

Listening to college lectures...HORRIFYING!

It opens on Conrow giving a lecture about Aztec civilization, and their god Ixpe, who could be willed to inhabit someone and wreak havoc.

He then teaches the class the incantation to summon Ixpe, and that in no way can go horribly wrong.

Later that night, it goes horribly wrong when one of the girls recites the chant, and is taken over by Ixpe.

Those three words every man wants to hear.

Ixpe kills the students's boyfriend, which gets the attention of the cops, and Conrow has a dream within the dream, of the Ixpe possessed girl seducing him, and at least THAT'S less of a nightmare.

But rather than actually do something interesting, we sit through more college lectures about the Aztecs, because why not?

Ixpe is in the class, and she stands up to correct the professor on his historical inaccuracies by trying to murder the entire class.

At least, I wish that's what happened. That would've been funny. Instead, Ixpe just growls a bit and kills one person. Maybe two.

She's not possessed, this is just how exhausted you look in college.

Fortunately, the professor happens to have the exorcism ritual, and reads it out, weakening Ixpe until the cop shows back up, and shoots the posessed girl.

Ixpe's final act though, is to rip out Conrow's heart, but...IT WAS ALL A DREAM! so he's fine.

But now that everyone has told their story, and Mason AGAIN says it's not scary, and dude, look. I don't necessarily disagree, but at least this one had blood, and claws, and monsters, and Mola Ram doing his thing.

Um, anyways, now that the stories are all done, the bus is here, and everyone gets on board. And hey! The bus already has a bunch of passengers! It's filled with everyone who died during the dreams!

AND THE BUS IS GOING TO HELL! Which is definitely where this movie deserves to be going.

The movie COULD end here, and that would be bad enough, but Mason runs off the bus, and tries to wake up the sleeping passenger we saw earlier at the station, when the movie began. But it is revealed...IT IS "WOLF!" He’s been here the whole time!

This is all so much, that Mason...wakes up, back home, because THIS WHOLE MOVIE WAS A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM.

And if THAT wasn't bad enough, Mason turns to the camera to say, finally, "Now THAT was scary!” Well, no it wasn't. Eat me.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: It looks okay, but it’s not great.

Audio: A lot of the sound is pretty bad. Chunks of dialogue between Sharon and the newsman are drowned out by music and other stuff. The bus station sounds like they just set a mic in the room and recorded them all.

Sound Bite: “I love you, newsman."

Body Count: Aside from no one dying because this was all a dream, what we do get as ‘deaths’ are not half bad, in number and quality.

1 - Seventeen minutes in, and Lindsey just...trips and falls.

2 - The hunter gets killed off screen

3 - The vampire kills the pizza delivery man

4 - Vampire Tom gets staked

5 - I assume the sheriff was killed by Tom's sister.

5 - Student gets killed by the returned Ixpe

6 - Ixpe claws off a student's face

7 - I think another student is killed too

7 - The girl possessed by Ixpe is killed

8 - Before she dies, Ixpe rips out Conrow’s heart.

Best Corpse: I’m partial to Conrow’s heart being ripped out.

Blood Type - C+: The blood is few and far between, but when it shows up, it’s in decent amounts, and the makeup is decent. It’s not great, but it’s got a good style to it.

Sex Appeal: Nothing memorable, but there is a lengthy steamy scene with Sharon and Tom.

Drink Up! whenever Mason reminds you this movie isn’t scary.

Movie Review: To put it bluntly, this definitely does not live up to the moniker of “one of the most horrifying movies ever made”. It does manage some respectable vibes, but for the most part it’s a lotta mundane stuff between actual horror. But I will give the movie this, the ideas themselves aren’t terrible. There is some genuinely creative or unique ideas. Vampire newsman? The dead return from newspapers? Fun stuff! But it’s all so quick, and also so dull, it just fizzles. The wraparound sequence does it zero favours, especially when one of your characters is constantly undercutting the already dull stories. But good ideas and all right makeup effects only get you so far, and that is two out of five cub scouts

Entertainment Value: I’ll give the movie this, it has a lot of camp, and kinda leans into it. Whether that was on purpose, accident, or design, at least keeps things entertaining. The dead pool goers are silly, “Wolf” is camp as hell once he reveals his darker nature, Nelson is over the top in his demands…but again, to get to the silliness, you have to sit through people staring at swimming pools for minutes on end, or setting up a campsite. Too little, too late, two newspaper obituaries.