The Video Dungeon

Hello there my video nasties, and welcome to The Video Dungeon

Here are some tags to make your browsing experience more tolerable. Several have no posts right now because there are a lot of posts in the queue and I’m just setting this up ahead of time.

First, and most importantly, Recommended, these are the movies that I actually suggest going out of your way to watch.

Watch full hosted movies at The Video Dungeon on YouTube!

Now Showing: Solent Night, Bloody Night

Subgenre

Body Horror

Cannibals

Clowns

Found Footage

Hauntings

Monster Movies

Natural Horror

Occult

Slashers

Zombies

Setting

Amusement Park

Apartment Building

Camp

Desert

Haunted Attraction

Hospital

Hotel

Island

Jungle

Island

Movie Studio

Movie Theatre

Rural

School

Store

Swamp

Vehicle

Wilderness

Rating

1/10 | 2/10 | 3/10 | 4/10 | 5/10 | 6/10 | 7/10 | 8/10 | 9/10 | 10/10 

Release Date

Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958)

A fairly standard sci-fi monster movie, most notable for the aforementioned monster being a giant lady. The story of a scheming lecherous husband trying to get his wealthy wife out of the picture is a lot more coherent than a lot of its contemporaries; but unfortunately, the lack of budget causes the actual 50-foot woman aspect to be mostly restricted to the exciting conclusion. Normally this is a case where you could blame the special effects technology of the time, but The Amazing Colossal Man handled not only the effects, but also the narrative aspect of depicting someone growing very big significantly better, a year earlier. All that being said, is it a bad movie? No. If you want to watch a movie about an unstable cuckquean who gets revenge after growing very large due to exposure to a very large mean from space, this movie scratches that itch very well. Just don’t expect the quality of Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1993).

Zombie Death House (1988)

One of those movies that seems like it wasn’t originally supposed to be a horror movie, but then someone added some horrific elements at the last minute to make it one. The story of a Vietnam vet who gets framed for the murder of the crime boss’ mistress he’d been fooling around with and sent to prison where he engineers a riot and uses to opportunity to get even… and then just for good measure a virus gets loose that turns people into unstoppable killing machines. 

Overall it’s not a bad movie, it just feels at times like the whole “Zombie” part of the death house was an afterthought.

Cure of the Swamp Creature (1968)

As a made-for-television remake of Voodoo Woman (1957), Curse of the Swamp Creature is ostensibly a monster movie, but one of those monster movies where the monster doesn’t actually appear until the final ten minutes and doesn’t really do anything. Basically it’s your standard “Mad doctor in an isolated location,” but even for a remake, once that doesn’t really so much to distinguish itself from the rest in any way beyond how derivative it is of those that came before it. At least it has some alligators.

The Astro-Zombies (1968)

Another one of those films—like Plan 9 from Outer Space or The Giant Claw—often given the title of "Worst movie ever," by people who haven't actually seen it. In reality, it is a fairly unremarkable late-60s sci-fi horror affair, mostly notable for inspiring a Misfits song and featuring bad girl icon Tura Satana.

House on Haunted Hill (2024)

From the writer and director of Camp Blood 4 and 5, a movie so cheap and scammy that it makes the two worst Camp Blood films look almost legitimate by comparison. Basically about twenty minutes of footage meant to be a 70s TV special investigating the events of the real movie, padded out to an hour with commercial breaks every few minutes that are mostly just slideshows of shitty AI-generated images. However, despite half or more of the total runtime being taken up by these commercials, they’re still repeated at least five times each. Whatever budget may have existed was clearly spent entirely on cameos by Brinke Stevens and Victoria Price, who now have to live with this stain on their resumes.

Sorority House Massacre III/Hard to Die (1990)

Continuing the oddity of this series, Hard to Die/Tower of Terror/Sorority House Massacre III was made—once again to reuse sets—is an actual sequel to Sorority House Massacre II—or “Nightie Nightmare” as it was called before being turned into a sequel in name only—but attempted to distance itself from the previous film by releasing under multiple non-Sorority House Massacre titles.

As a film, it is an amazingly thorough retread of Sorority House Massacre II, featuring some actors returning as the same characters—and one as a different character. And at times fully recreates scenes from the previous film exactly. And the most hilarious part, being an actual sequel you might expect that they would summarize the events of previous film with some clips… and no, what they actually did in this real movie, was re-reuse the exact same same clips from Slumber Party Massacre as they did in the previous movie, with another voice over from the same character—who reasonably should have been in that flashback—giving another completely different backstory—presumably because Sorority House Massacre II wasn't actually done yet. Leading to a very weird scenario where several of the actresses from Slumber Party Massacre have now portrayed three different characters with the same footage.

Honestly, it’s incredibly similarity to the previous film is pretty much its only notable quality, in a bad way, but also kinda a good way. Despite being set in an office building, it somehow finds a way to get all of the women into a shower, and lingerie, which they wear for the majority of the film. It is the sort of movie where you just have to acknowledge what the goals were, and appreciate the ridiculous means by which they were achieved. Also, somewhat uniquely for a slasher, it ends with a big shootout.

Sorority House Massacre II (1990)

Like Slumber Party Massacre II before it, Sorority House Massacre II takes a supernatural twist. Specifically, the twist of having the killer from the first film return in evil spirit form. But in the weirdest way possible.

This was not made as a sequel to Sorority House Massacre, only released as such after being written and shot in a week in the grand “Let’s make an extra movie while we still have the set,” tradition of Corman Studios. Where things get weird however, is that despite not being made as a sequel to either film, it uses clips from Slumber Party Massacre, but recontextualizes them with a voiceover to serve as an unrelated backstory for this movie. Which creates a very odd situation where if you had seen neither Sorority House Massacre nor Slumber Party Massacre, you could reasonably assume that you were seeing the actual story of the former rather unrelated clips from the later.

Beyond that though, it’s just a bunch of women running around and getting killed in lingerie and occasionally less. Although it does also introduce some comedic elements, but not like, good ones. More like squeaky sound effects when a woman is washing herself in the shower. Overall, if you like tits and blood, this is a movie that contains those two things. If you want more than that… maybe look elsewhere.

Sorority House Massacre (1986)

The first true slasher in Roger Corman’s “Massacre” franchise. Overall more than a little derivative of the Halloween series, but that’s hardly a unique criticism when it comes to slasher films. It does the job, but not too much to write home about. Compared to the Slumber Party Massacre films it has a much deeper story, but a little less fun. It’s also a very dark movie. Not “Dark” as in tone or themes, but dark as in you can barely see what’s going on a lot of the time.

Night of Horror (1981)

As we all know, the best sign of a truly great film is having a plot that is mostly, if not entirely conveyed via long monotonous narration… oh wait, no, that’s a sign of a horrible film. A film like Night of Horror!. As mentioned, the plot is almost entirely told through a reminiscing voiceover, detailing a journey to a cabin the main character and his brother inherited from their estranged father, but also his obsessive attraction to his brother’s wife… who just happens to be able to see ghosts. Which comes in handy when the RV randomly breaks down and civil war spirits emerge from the woods… to deliver another twenty minutes of exposition, but this time in a spooky whisper. Then a little skull relocation and cleanup, and that’s the movie. The plotline with the brothers never goes anywhere, the plotline with the main character lusting after his brother’s wife never goes anywhere. Like the RV, any actual plot only exists to take us out into the woods, then break down without ever getting back on the road before the movie ends.

However, if anything it is notable for having basically been remade into Curse of the Cannibal Confederates… which is only not good, but significantly better than this.

Island of Death (1972)

One of those movies that sells itself on being shocking, and like all movies with that as their sole goal, it more or less ends up just being a series of scenes that happen without any real impact or intent beyond filling up time. Basically just senseless sex and violence as a result of senseless filmmaking, rather than any attempt to say something meaningful.

The Devil Bat (1940)

The kind of movie that requires a very specific audience. If you want to see Bela Lugosi in a contrived revenge murder plot involving aftershave and a scientifically giant bat, this is the movie for you. However, if you don’t like fun I’m sure you can google “Elevated horror” and watch whatever drivel comes up.

Slumber Party Massacre III (1990)

There’s a strange trend in horror movie series where a disappointing second entry is followed up with a spectacular third. Well, Slumber Party Massacre III proudly bucks that trend by being the worst in the series. Unlike part II, which connects itself firmly to the original before going completely off the rails, part III makes no attempt to connect to the original beyond using a drill as the primary massacring tool. Overall adding nothing new to the established formula: girls have a slumber party, some guys show up, people get killed via drill. Or rather they try to add a whodunit angle, but reveal the killer’s identity incredibly early and put almost no effort into the plausibility of their red herrings. They try to give the killer some—very problematic—motivation, but it just comes out of nowhere and does nothing to explain why they would orchestrate a premeditated killing spree. Overall, just more of the same boobs and blood, but lacking the charm of the original, or insanity of the sequel.