Fort Worth Star-Telegram from Fort Worth, Texas • 90

i 1 Splatter movies are perfect! for spooky Halloween viewing iwcw israrpteu minutes $5995 extreme violence and gore) This Grand Guignol item from 1982-83 is perhaps the most unabashedly gory arrival on the home-video 11 By JEFF and MICHAEL PRICE Star-Telegram writers There's enough spooky-fun family fare to be found this weekend just look elsewhere in this issue of StarTime for particulars to let us feel free to take our Halloween with the unflinchingly grim seriousness the occasion really deserves We're talking about some after-the-kids-have-been-tucked-in-for-the-night stuff here in a nod to the videomaniacs who prefer their shocks without insulation It-ratings are necessarily a constant here so the squeamish need not apply If your neighborhood video store is paying attention to the calendar it will have stocked up on enough heavyweight screamers to keep you appropriately horrified: titles like Dawn of the Mummy (Thorn-EMI) Videodrome (CBSFox) Zombie (Wizard) Night of the Howling Beast (Super Video) Two Thousand Maniacs (Comet) and Season of the Witch (Vestron) films which vary hysterically from the abysmal to the brilliant but which invariably deliver the goods as far as shock-value is concerned (And no we do not recommend VCI's Blood Sucking Freaks we harbor no respect for filmmakers sick enough to blur the line between disgust and horror) Following are a few extra-special Home Runs chiller choices see if you can't get to 'em before the Halloween stampede: (Whoa one moment before we proceed Nov 9 is just two weekends away and you need to keep an eye on Home Runs and start thinking about your all-time favorite cassette-movie) Afarttn (ThornEMI Video 95 minutes $5995 rated for explicit sexual situations extreme violence and gore and disturbing religious imagery) Here we find a resurgence for writerdirector George Romero whose uneven body of work begins with 19G8's brilliant Night of the Living Dead (Media) dips drastically with Season of the Witch (Vestron) and There's Always Vanilla and The Crazies Code-Name Trixie (both yet unissued in home-vid form) and rebounds with Martin scene But it's also a handily told scare-story which employs splatter effects in a caricatured way to accent a relentless mounting of tension The Evil Dead had less shelf-life than cottage cheese last year at the theaters and for good reason: Big-screen projection makes its special effects look too gruesome to be plausible overpowering the adequate but unremarkable values of acting (by an agreeable cast of unknowns) and tale-spinning (more a grim vignette than a true plot) Fans who bought tickets to see it were understandably disappointed for there are many other such pictures like Zombie and the Halloween and Friday the 13th cycles with more convincing trick photography All The Evil Dead needed as it develops was a turn on the tube Telecine conversion makes the gore effects no less shocking but renders them subordinate enabling the viewer to concentrate more on shivers than on revulsion In video it's less a force-feeding ordeal than an exercise in how-much-can-you-take? (But parents should take that rating with the utmost seriousness) Price: The Maniac (Columbia Home Video 87 minutes $5995 unrated but strong PG-13 or equivalent on account of intense subject matter) A valid argument for re-titling certain motion pictures before they are released to the home-video market Even many retailers whose job it is to know better are confusing this intelligent variant on Psycho with two other Maniacs on the cassette market and both of those are sleazy exploitation pictures Ask for Columbia's 1962 The Maniac (emphasis on the the) with Kerwin Matthews it's a high-intrigue suspenser from Hammer Films the company which is bettor known for its stylish period-piece horror films Price: (To comment to requeit specific reviews andor other video information write to Jeff Cuinn and Michael Price co HOME RUNS Fort Worth Sltr-Talegrtm PO Box 1370 Fort Worth 76102) You say you want cash in a flash at the State Fair? Step right up to MoneyMaker" In Martin (1977) Romero demystifies vampire legendry with respect but gives a vicious ribbing to The Exorcist His title character (John Amplas who'll remind you of rock staractor Sting) is a mild but psychotic youth who fancies himself a modern-day Dracula as a means of rationalizing his passion to kill The aged relative (Lincoln Maazel) with whom he makes his home is a superstitious sort who loves but fears Martin and vows to rout the boy's "demon" at whatever cost The film is tender and brutal by turns a trademark of Romero at his most gripping and its surprising ironies merit favorable comparison with 0 Henry The tale-twisting ironies and the intelligence of the telling though are hardly all there is to Martin which is primarily a splatter film with all the visceral shocks which that term (of Romero's coining) represents The camera does not flinch from the slayings and there is an impalement sequence which makes even the violence of Hammer Films' Dracula series seem tame So expertly rendered is the juxtaposition of delicately lighted cinematography with garish special effects that many portions of the picture are extremely painful to view Spotty theatrical distribution has long kept Martin from a wide audience Its cassette release (by the same company which issued Romero's later Dawn of the Dead in 1983) is most welcome but home-video households must take into account that this is not family-hour fare Price: The Evil Dead (ThornEMI 92 Step right up folks See the amazing MoneyMaker (O CM cc IU CQ I- A UJ 111 7 CC 9 cc LL automatic teller at the I I i razzies aazaes it dispenses cash Derore your very eyes with any card Whv it even hands you a transaction receipt and says hank you The MoneyMaker ATM performs at two convenient State Fair of Texas (V Just look State Fair locations: The Midway entranceexit to the Tower Buildina and at the Pan American Buildinq Concourse in the 7-Eleven mini-store for the ATM symbol above As an extra added attraction MoneyMaker demonstrators will mi CC UJ -J UJ r- I CC I fr-CC be showing you how easy it is to use And giving away free Tote Bags with a handy State Fair location map to help you get around Hurry hurry hurry! Any card is Fair play with MoneyMaker automatic banking Open every day every minute during the 1984 State Fair of Texas Automatic banking with any card Masked Mandible would starve before he'd eat anything cooked in Oklahoma or on the Lower East Side in New York Read his column in StarTime UJ CC fr- (0.