Load up the Netflix queue!
Justin Russell rattles off his 10 favorite period slashers:
1. "Black Christmas" (1974)
“One of the scariest films I’ve ever seen, bar ‘The Exorcist.’ ”
2. "Friday the 13th" (1980)
“The best ’80s slasher franchise and one of the most successful franchises of all time. Parts 1-3 hold up as some of the best and most consistent ’80s slasher films out there.”
3. "Prom Night" (1980)
“Sticking with the traditions of ‘Black Christmas,’ the killer makes his victims known through the use of a telephone. Glorious effects and score with an ’80s look that can’t be beat.”
4. "Girls Nite Out" (1984)
“Again the killer uses the crutch of the telephone to announce to a radio DJ which girls are going to die next. Brilliant use of a bear costume and Wolverine-style claws.”
5. "Pieces" (1982)
“Find it. A demented and confusing film with a killer in black gloves yet again searching for teenagers to saw to bits with a chain saw. Excellent date movie.”
6. "Slumber Party Massacre" (1982)
“An original driller killer thriller! The first film to use a drill as the weapon of destruction. A great film with over the top gore, acting and scripting. Pop some popcorn and enjoy a ride through one of the cheesiest slumber parties you’ll ever see. Don’t answer the door for pizza!”
7. "My Bloody Valentine" (1981)
“Make sure you get the special edition with the deleted footage added back in. The original release is watered down and boring, but with the deleted stuff added in you get a whole new film filled with mayhem and amazing old film stock.”
8. "Motel Hell" (1980)
“An original and disturbing concept of cannibalism in the back country. Check it out for the awesome ending and some great one-liners.”
9. "The House on Sorority Row" (1983)
“Sorority sisters with secrets and one by one they go down. A great slasher film with a horrible house party. It will take you back to the disturbing days of ’80s college life and horrible casting.”
10. "The Prowler" (1981)
“A wonderful gore-filled ride with special effects creator Tom Savini, the legend of the ’80s. An amazing film with kill scenes that will keep you with the remote to rewind again and again.”
SPRINGFIELD — It started with a question most people would’ve answered with a chuckle.
Or it could’ve been answered with another question, like, “And remember the time he stabbed that dude with a corkscrew?”
But whether the following question was intended to be rhetorical — “Hey, remember the time Jason used a harpoon to kill someone?” — Justin Russell had an answer ready.
“He did it in the third one,” Russell said. “And he did it again in the eighth one.
“I know my Jason movies.”
Even though four “Friday the 13th” movies had already come and gone before he was born in 1985, the 26-year-old Springfield native knows quite possibly everything there is to know about ’80s slasher flicks.
He’s seen people die in the most horrific — but quite inventive — of ways.
And now he’s ready to act on what he’s seen.
It’s not as creepy as it sounds.
Russell is actually a charismatic, self-taught indie filmmaker whose cinematic eye has won the attention of a distributor noted for its DVD catalog of cult horror classics such as Lucio Fulci’s legendary 1979 movie “Zombie.”
Like Quentin Tarantino’s encyclopedic knowledge of blaxploitation and Shaw Brothers kung-fu movies, Russell is taking what he knows and is applying it to his second feature film, “The Sleeper,” an homage to all those maniac-on-the-loose-with-a-machete flicks of the Reagan era.
A 2003 graduate of Northwestern High School who now lives in Columbus, Russell recently shot his new movie entirely in Springfield, using an empty monstrosity of a house on North Fountain Avenue near Wittenberg University as his fictional Alpha Gamma Theta sorority house.
“There is a shower scene,” he confirmed. “The classic ’80s shower scene. It’s there. When you see it, you’ll say, ‘Oh, man, he hit every single convention of the ’80s.’ ”
The film — a complete Justin Russell production, right down to the music he’s composing — should be finished by June.
“I thought it would be great to have a killer come in when you’re most vulnerable,” he said, “when you’re asleep.”
He fantasizes, appropriately enough, about showing “The Sleeper” locally at the Melody Cruise-In.
With its use of rotary phones and a Dodge Diplomat police car, this thing is striving hard for a “new retro look,” as Russell calls it.
“I can say I’ve paid the right homage to those films,” he said, “but have made it watchable to a 13-year-old who wants to see a horror movie.”
In other words, it feels old but looks new.
“I like how in the ’80s, the kills are a little fake,” he said, “like you’re going through a haunted house.”
Russell’s throwback approach to horror has found an admirer in John Sirabella, CEO of New York-based Media Blasters.
Media Blasters recently bought Russell’s first film, the gory, ’70s-inspired “Death Stop Holocaust” from 2009, for a DVD release later this year.
Sirabella also came to Springfield recently to visit the set of “The Sleeper.”
“I always like guys who don’t just talk about making films,” Sirabella said. “I’m just impressed by the fact that he’s doing it.”
But when he first saw “Death Stop Holocaust,” he admittedly was “blown away” by what Russell did with such a measly budget.
“He’s definitely a cinematographer,” Sirabella said. “He knows how to shoot.”
For Russell, it doesn’t get much better than having a film distributed by Media Blasters under its “Shriek Show” banner.
“My DVD catalog is all ‘Shriek Show’ stuff,” Russell said. “It gives young guys like myself, who didn’t grow up in that era, an opportunity to find these films.”
With a release by “Shriek Show,” Russell will join the company of the late, great Fulci, his favorite of the Italian horror directors, and the late William Girdler, who wrought forth “Grizzly” and “Day of the Animals” in the mid-’70s.
“He’s perfect for our kind of film,” Sirabella said.
Like a Tarantino project, there should be enough in “The Sleeper” to amuse veteran genre fans and entertain everybody else.
“If someone’s never seen the original ‘Prom Night,’ they’ll think this is the coolest movie in the world,” Russell said.
Contact this reporter at amcginn@coxohio.com.
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