The Unnamable (1988);

 I went back to my previous review back in 2014. That was a special Sunday marathon I had. I've have plenty of those in my lifetime. Plenty. 2014 Review

I had watched Slugs (1988) for my creature feature fix, then turned my attention to the Tubi available, The Unnamable (1988), a monster movie in a decaying, cob-webbed house with walls deteriorating, dust caked on the floors and rooms, and creaky doors barely hanging on the hinges. Of course, any Saturday afternoon with those first two films would be ideal for 80s horror nerds like me. I'm still a bit "eh" to The Unnamable, but that torn throat the director hangs his camera on with all the viscera and blood squirting into the actor's face (he has to squint even as he lays there, the character kicking the bucket on some dirty floor in the middle of an upper story of the seemingly abandoned Winthrop house, only there because he and his buddy wanted to get laid with the newest college gals, discovered in a library) is still, to the day, really gnarly. Mark Kinsey Stephenson, as Randolph Carter, literally spends almost the entire film with his attention directly in books. Carter spends what seems like an entire day in the Miskatonic University library, then agrees to follow the persistent fellow student, Howard (Charles Klausmeyer, the real actual hero), to the Winthrop house, only to bury his nose in big books (including the Necrocomicon) found there. So Howard is looking for "the girls" (Alexandra Durell and Laura Albert), who had accompanied two frat jocks (Eben Ham and Blane Wheatley) to the house as part of some sort of "pledge" to get into a supporting sorority. Carter is resistant as he made very clear to Howard's friend, a "science major", Joel (Mark Parra), he would not go poking around in the Winthrop house. Joel, of course, can't help but get too nosy, investigating the Winthrop House to his own peril...he loses his head. Cue the "loses his head...literally". Nothing like an 80s horror film where the corpse of a victim is rope-hanging upside down with the neck wound where a head was once attached is leaking blood into a bowl. I really think that she-creature design is great nightmare fuel. The actress who committed to that role, with the obvious painstaking costume and makeup (and the eye contacts and teeth), deserves a round of applause...Katrin Alexandre really brings out that animal, too. She growls, moves, and covers space as any aggressive creature looking to eviscerate anyone who occupies her territory might. Those claws will burrow into a chest cavity and pull away sinew and beating heart. She'll snap a neck with ease or throttle poor Howard back and forth across the room when he tries futilely to stop her. There is a good arm break and Alexandre sells the pain of that quite effectively. I have to say Alexandre certainly makes the most of her spare time on screen. But Randolph Carter conjures some sort of "tree spell" to make sure the creature doesn't go on some rampage outside the Winthrop house...other than that, though, he is just a bookworm. I think I still feel comfortable with about a 2.5/5. I actually prefer the second film with Maria Ford in the role of the creature as her sexy figure and presence just really light up the screen.