Scared Stiff (1987)

Director: Richard Friedman

Notable Cast: Mary Page Keller, Josh Segal, Andrew Stevens, David Ramsey, Bill Hindman, Jackie Davis, Nicole Fortier

Scared Stiff was always one of those films that my friends and colleagues would reference, but no one I knew had actually seen it. If they had, they certainly didn’t make a lot of noise about it. This made it one of those films that I was very excited to finally partake in, particularly when it was announced that it would get the Arrow treatment. While the film certainly earns its place as a cult horror film for a variety of reasons, particularly with the ambitiously wild third act, Scared Stiff is not nearly the film that I expected. Between the story and the growing insanity of the what is presented onscreen as the film plays on, Scared Stiff does take a long time to set up its relatively straight forward premise and it never quite finds the proper balance between seriousness and humor.

Doom Asylum (1987)

Director: Richard Friedman

Notable Cast: Patty Mullen, Ruth Collins, Kristin Davis, William Hay, Kenny L. Price, Harrison White, Dawn Alvan, Farin, Michael Rogen, Harvey Keith, Steven G. Menkin

There are some films that take another genre and then embed horror within it. It can be very effective that way and it embraces that wolf in sheep’s clothing kind of cinematic element that can work impressively. Doom Asylum is not like that at all. In fact, it’s probably not too out there to claim it as a sheep in wolf’s clothing. On the outside, Doom Asylum looks like it just might be one of those genuine old school and off beat slasher gems that Arrow Video is known for putting out (see The Mutilator, The Slayer, and Blood Rage all come to mind.) It’s not. On the surface, it’s a slasher and hits all of the elements of the blueprint. In execution though, the film is more akin to a slasher spoof than anything else. It’s meant to be a comedy, naturally, but that doesn’t mean it can even do that well. To its benefit, the film is one that can be seen as a ‘so bad, it’s good’ piece of cult cinema, but even then, Doom Asylum can be a chore to work through.