Director(s) – Alessandro De Gaetano (Project Metalbeast) and Michael A. De Gaetano (Haunted)
Starring – Ron Arragon (Death Blow: A Cry for Justice), Donna Baltron (Hide and Go Shriek), and Dave Elliott (Fearless Tiger)
Release Date – 1989
Rating – 2.5/5
Tagline – “Warning: The Psychotown Surgeon General has determined that television viewing is hazardous to your health!!!”
Troma is a company I hold near and dear to my heart. I was in high school when I came across my first Troma film. I rented Class of Nuke Em High and fell in love. I went back that same night before they closed and grabbed The Toxic Avenger. I fell in love with that one as well.
Those of you not familiar with Troma should feel ashamed. Troma offers up two types of films. The first are the films they produced themselves on a low budget and most are pure entertainment, plain and simple. The second type are the films they acquired the rights to that are produced and filmed by someone not affiliated with the independent company. Most of these films are straight up garbage but because I am a fan I still order the box sets they put out just to collect. I grabbed the Toxie’s Top Ten collector’s tin set over the summer and slowly watched them. This is one of the last three I have yet to see and decided to throw it in. The cover made me think it was a post-apocalyptic film about a gang of punks stalking a town. I was way off.
**Spoiler Alert**The film follows two film students who are working on a class assignment. The lovebirds head off to a town filled with psychics to shoot a documentary about a house the young man’s father purchased and is renovating. However, the towns folk do not want the young man’s girlfriend in town. She too has psychic powers and the locals are afraid she will discover their dark secret.
When some of the locals get too close to the couple they are killed by someone in a yellow raincoat. As the young couple continue to dig the locals become more and more hostile towards them. Their car is vandalized and the battery cable is cut right as one of their friends arrive. While going through the video footage shot from the previous days, their friend is attacked by the figure in the raincoat and is wounded. As the young couple race to discover who is responsible they discover that it was one of the town’s many psychics. She murdered the original home owner and is now after them because the young girl has a psychic link to the home’s past and can discover her secret.**Spoiler Alert**
Troma has provided me many hours of pure entertainment. With that said, Troma has also wasted my time as well. This box set I mentioned before has a lot of garbage in it. The set did include a few great movies while others were horrible. This one walks a fine line between being shit and barely watchable. Most of the film I was often asking myself “why am I still watching this.” However, there was a few scenes that kinda pulled me in.
This one is nothing special when it comes to acting, but I have seen a lot worse. The supporting cast actually did a better job at acting than the lead actors. The main characters are actually hard to like. You want to because you always want to like the main characters in a horror film but the bad story and acting makes it impossible. The story is bad and hard to follow. Not because it is complicated, but because the film has a hard time actually following the plot. The film is vaguely a slasher film while trying to play on the psychological thriller angle. Finally, the special effects are non-existent which makes the kill scenes horrible to watch. I’ve seen my fair share of low budget slashers and I have seen a lot better kills than what this one offers. Overall, this film is slightly entertaining for one watch but nothing more.
