SAVAGE HARVEST /1981/ d: Robert E. Collins

Ok folks, here it is... my very best favorite Vault pick EVER!

This movie...this gorgeous, fantastic, crazy fucking movie... is the bomb-diggity. Let's break it down: A pride of big cats terrorizes an American family on their plantation (?) in a remote part of Kenya. See, the lions, tigers and panthers (oh my) are hungry because a drought has killed off all those yummy gazelles they used to snack on. So, following the Giant Feline train of logic, they move on to the other white meat, i.e. people. Because it's the Seventies, there's no cell phones. On top of that, the short-wave radio is shot and the family van is on blocks. With no hope of rescue or escape, the family barricades themselves in their opulent home, struggling to survive the savage onslaught of... uh, savagery!

There are some of the most insane animal attacks I have ever witnessed in this film. The animal trainers should be commended if they aren't already dead from mauling. There's one scene where a fucking lion jumps outta fucking nowhere, swats the maid, and then drags her off screaming BY HER FACE! Gah!...gives me the willies just thinking about it! And then, dude... AND THEN a fucking lion sneaks into the house through the fucking CHIMNEY! And then eats the husband of the maid who just got eaten!!! Fucking incredible!

The best part is the last reel. The family knows that time is running out... they have to get out of that house! Their only hope is to get to the car left behind by the poor, unfortunate soon-to-be-lion-shit soul who was met with a most savage end! In one of the smartest things I've ever seen anyone do in any movie, they build this cage-like MacGuyver contraption to protect them from the savage fury of cats gone wild! Fucking incredible, yet again!

I don't know what else to say, this movie fucking rules! The lions, the MacGuyver Cage, the savagery, Kenya... this movie has it all! Where else can you watch a boozed-up Tom Skerrit protect his estranged family from a pride of pissed-off, man-hungry big cats? Fucking nowhere! And it's not just the gimmicks... this is an incredibly well-made movie. You can feel the heat of Kenya, the stink of blood on the dusty ground, the mind-melting tension of man against nature! I'd like to meet the director of this film and shake his hand. Job well done sir! This film deserves much better than eigth-generation VHS copies sold on eBay.

I've actually been hesitant to write about this one because I love it so much, and I know some cocksucker Hollywood type who gets his "ideas" from trolling sites like this one is gonna steal my beloved SAVAGE HARVEST, bastardize it for some shitty update, and force me to go on a murderous rampage ending badly for everyone involved. If only Quentin Tarantino or Sage Stallone would rescue this one from obscurity, or even worse, the taint of a piss-poor, watered down remake. I can only lobby and hope until my fingers are sore from typing so passionately! This movie owns with a capital "P". Hunt this one down if ya know what's good for ya, fuckers! - Jsyn - 2/06

HELL NIGHT / 1981/ d: Tom DeSimone

Hell Night? Hell Yeah! I always wondered what one does after being possessed by the manifestation of all that is, and always has been, evil in the physical, meta-physical, and even uber-physical realm of existence… well if you’re Linda Blair you go to college! But it’s just her luck that what should have been a run-of-the-mill, roll-in-the-hay, frat-boy-sorority-hussy-mixer-getaway-weekend turns into a teenage-beware, blood-filled, crossbow-shooting, knife-in-the-head massacre in the classic, eternally underrated, early 80's masterpiece Hell Night.

Murdering evil takes a slightly less universal appeal in this cut-and-dry (no pun intended) 80’s slasher classic, but it embodies all that we loved to fear in those early and, oh so crucial, developmental years. The un-f’en-known child freak locked away in the basement by our, errr, “his”, psychotic overbearing mother! (Can anyone call Freud? I need a couch and a Gin & Tonic). As the nubile (and naked) bodies start to pile up, this turns from a thriller to a blood bath and the screams are, ummm, to die for (I think I may have meant that pun). I defy anyone to get that final drone of the car horn (as Blair passes out, head against steering wheel, waiting for that night from hell to end,) out of their heads for weeks. With slash turning to pure unnecessary snuff in these last few horror years I would urge any one discovering the genre to NOT miss this late-October-rainy-Saturday-night-must-see. Especially if you still haven’t heard all the horror stories about your fraternity’s hell night, this is guaranteed to make you wish to only see a goat when you arrive! - written by Guy Kush - 2/06