Frightmare (1974)

Conrad Ragoff is an old school horror actor whose star has fallen so mightily he’s resorted to starring in low budget commercials that parody his most famous roles in film. Even though Conrad may not be a “star” anymore, he still walks and talks like a big time actor, seemingly unbelieving in his descent to mediocrity. He does however, get one more day of glory as the local "Horror Film Society" plans a special evening to honor the old time star. At the reception, all the applause and attention proves to be too much for the old boy and Conrad suffers a fatal heart attack in front of his adoring fans. After his death, several fans in attendance at Conrad’s funeral get the brilliant idea of stealing his corpse from his mausoleum and dragging it back to Horror Film Society Headquarters to party down with the old boy one last time. Problem is, Conrad ain’t in no mood to party folks, he be pissed and ready to massacre the young fools who dared disturb him...or something along those lines.

“Frightmare” is essentially your basic early eighties slasher flick with a supernatural flavor thrown into the mix. The supernatural vibe is the only thing separating this one from a million other like-minded films of the era. Lot's of really bad acting permeates throughout, with an almost zero level of suspense and only the occasional glimpse of a perky boob to maintain viewer interest. The scenes of Conrad stalking his nit-witted prey have really no sense of suspense or tension to them whatsoever. The kills are all of the usual variety such as: death by fire, tongue yanked out, strangulation, and a very hilarious “death by floating coffin” that nearly had me falling out of my chair with laughter. You think that outmaneuvering a big ass coffin that’s as fast as a turtle would not be the trickiest thing to accomplish, I guess it must be harder than it looks. This one is notable for only one reason, everyone’s favorite mad scientist, “Re-Animator’s” Jeffrey Combs gets his first film appearance as one of the annoying and oh so dumb Horror Society kids. He also has the best death scene, getting his head rather messily lopped off by a floating saber in the film’s lone highlight.