Evil Laugh (1986) — Triskaidekafiles

EVIL LAUGH

WRITERS: Steven Baio and Dominick Brascia

DIRECTOR: Dominick Brascia

STARRING: Steven Baio as Johnny Bellati
Kim McKamy as Connie
Tony Griffin as Sammy
Jody Gibson as Tina
Johnny Venocur as Freddy

QUICK CUT: A bunch of medical students help a friend clean up the house they just bought.

THE MORGUE

Connie - A medical intern who is engaged to a doctor. She has a peculiar interest in local tragic folklore, and is a smart gal with a big heart.

Barney - A medical intern who is the prankster to the group. He’s genre savvy and has no time for horror movie bullshit if it’s not on his tv.

Johnny - A medical student who has a crush on Connie, even if she’s engaged to a friend of his. Despite that, he feels like the main character of the movie.

Mark - A medical student who is also into pranks, but not quite as much as Barney. He mostly just likes to mess with Johnny. He’s the big strong guy, not that it does him much good.

Tina - A medical student who is not too bright. She’s the token 80s bimbo, and Connie’s best friend.

Sammy and Betty - A pair of medical students who are the preppy rich people of the group. It’s established very quickly that they’re not friends with any of these people, and see people with less advantages as them as beneath them.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions, and I hope you are having a fine Friday the 13th! This week's movie is another lesser known 80s slasher, called Evil Laugh. I have nothing further to say to set this up, so let's just get into it.

The movie opens up establishing our primary location for the movie; an old abandoned house that will be occupied by some medical students, whose teacher is looking to buy it, and turn it into a foster home for kids.

But for the moment, Mister Burns and his buddy Smithers are getting the house ready for the interns and their doctor friend to come along and use it for the weekend. If all goes well, Doctor Jerry is sure to buy it for his project.

Oh. Um. I guess we should go find another movie.

Messages of "STAY AWAY!" are scrawled over the house and property, as tends to happen with abandoned places. But this feels a little more deliberate and not just kids pranking around.

Smithers has shown up with supplies and food for the group coming by, and Mister Burns tells him to go put them in the kitchen.

That's when Doctor Jerry arrives so he can start getting things ready for his students. He checks out the food in the kitchen, and is disappointed to discover the shop didn't have the bulls hearts or monkey brains he asked for. The gall!

As Jerry is complaining, an unseen figure enters the room, and he directs his anger over the food situation at them. As he's complaining, Jerry makes the mistake of turning his back on the person, and gets a knife in the back for it.

The killer does some surgery on the doctor, and removes his heart. Well see, now you don't need one for your meal! Also, once the killer is done, he lets out the titular Evil Laugh.

We finally start meeting our actual cast, with a group of guys on their way to the house. They're replacing a flat tire, before continuing on their way, but one of them has to take a leak before they go.

Unfortunately, he doesn't see he's pissing on some guy and his girl relaxing down the hill. When they realise what's happening, they chase our cast off into the plot.

There's a few other cars making their way to the house, but while everyone converges, the delivery boy is tied to a chair, and is about to get an up close and personal demonstration on trepanning from our killer.

As the kids arrive, they don't find Jerry, but I'm sure he'll show up for dinner. They hear voices coming from the closet - threatening, grumbly voices. But when they open the door, no one is there. They explain the voices must be coming from the vent, from another part of the house, but they're ultimately never explained in a truly satisfactory way.

They run into Mister Burns who offers the explanation that it's just these old houses settling, and hopes they have a good weekend. But he has to run, his wife is in the car, honking the horn!

As the girls arrive, the boys are milling about, and we establish Barney as a chronic worrier, who thinks everything is a horror movie. To the point where he even namechecks hoping some guy named Jason in a hockey mask doesn't show up.

Well, it IS Friday the 13th.

Johnny wants to greet the girls, but Barney sees the heart on the counter, and wants to get cooking before Jerry goes bad.

Everyone comments on how Jerry still is nowhere to be found, and Barney jokes how Jerry is gay, because the house is filled with hot women, and he's not there! But by my count, there's more men than women...but I digress.

I’m gonna miss you guys when you’re all dead!

And if you were doubting this was an 80s movie, we then slip into a cleaning montage as the kids get to work getting this place ready for Jerry's kids.

Following a whole lot of cleaning and dancing and padding the movie out, Mark decides they’ve played the same song throughout the movie enough, and puts in a different tape.

They realise Jerry's car is now gone, and everyone rushes outside to confirm that yes, it is indeed gone. And they miss the tape reaching it's audio, which is a shame, because it's a rambling evil mess of threats and gibberish.

Hello, Mark. I want to play a game. …Mark? Johnny? Is anyone there? Damnit.

Everyone decides to split up to screw...I mean, turn in for the night. But before Mark and Tina can get too far, Barney plays a prank on them by hiding under the bed and sticking his hand up through the mattress to scare them.

I gotta say, Barney is supposed to be cooking a gourmet meal with exotic ingredients, but she sure does find a lotta time to clean up the house, cut a hole through a mattress, and lay under a bed for a prank.

But somehow, dinner ends up being cooked, they all head to the dining room, and enjoy a nice cup of Joe, some cooked Franks, and heart of Jerry.

Is this what they mean when someone says a bed has Magic Fingers?

Dinner gets interrupted by the local sheriff looking to find the missing delivery boy, but none of them have seen him. As he leaves, there’s a few weird sounds that happen, and they turn to Connie for answers.

She reveals to the group that this building used to be a foster home, and the former owners hired a guy named Martin. Martin was cruel to the kids, and they accused him of molesting them. They eventually admitted they had lied, but damage had been done, Martin snapped, and lived down to their lies, by killing them, and himself.

Barney is ready to beat feet outta there, but the rest of the group aren't gonna be scared off by ghost stories. And no one is willing to drive Barney back to town, so he's kinda stuck there against his will.

Sammy comes downstairs to get something for his sexcapades with Betty, and Barney is still sitting there reading Fangoria. He frantically tries to get Sammy to drive him into town, and yells about how there's a killer coming for them, it never makes sense in the movies, and don't have sex, never have sex, that's when they get ya!

Wow, another Scream before Scream movie. I’m amassing quite the collection.

Finally, Sammy gets his can of whipped cream, and heads back upstairs. Unfortunately, the killer beat him there, and quickly takes care of the snobby, preppy couple.

Meanwhile, Connie and Tina are preparing a bunch of cribs for the future nursery. She gives a bit of her hopes for the future of this place, and also gets into excruciatingly creepy levels of detail about the murders. I smell some red herring being served up.

This is one of the most artfully composed shots to grace these pages in awhile.

Barney chills out in the main hall with a bat, while the rest of the gang gets ready for a pool party. Mister Burns shows up to look at the hot water tank, after Sam called him, and Barney tries to scam a way back into town.

It should come as no surprise that since Burns has to go into the basement to check on the boiler, that he ends up dead. That is the sort of thing that happens in horror movie basements.

Meanwhile, Barney waits on the couch, and finally plays the mysterious tape properly. And oh my gods, it sounds like it was recorded by the samurai ghost from Bloodbeat. And there is a specific thing I never thought I'd mention again.

However, once he hears the gurgly threatening message, Barney flings the boom box away and runs to another part of the house.

Barney ends up in the basement, looking for Mister Burns, so they can get outta there. The killer runs past him, up the stairs, and locks the basement door. So, Barney is going nowhere.

The rest of the students are clueless to everything going on, and continue to try and have varying levels of sexytime fun. Mark and Tina try one more time, after making sure there's no Barney under the bed.

Unfortunately, there is a killer in the closet, and they are both quicky murdered.

Johnny is wandering through the halls after a failed attempt to hook up with Jerry's fiance, and runs into the killer. He gets knocked out, hog tied, and dragged around for a bit.

The killer pulls in a microwave from somewhere, shoves Johnny's head into it, and turns it on to liquefy his brains.

Microwaves do not work like this. And I do not care. This is high absurdity, and the movie is better for it.

Connie is having trouble sleeping through all these murders, and shuffles around the house. She finds evidence of her friends being killed, thanks to giant puddles of blood everywhere. She tries calling the sheriff, but the line goes dead. Also, the sheriff was killed earlier, but I digress.

Connie’s got a gun. Whole film’s come undone.

She finds a gun that I honestly can't remember if it was properly set up or not, but it's best to go into these situations armed, so I'll allow it.

Connie can't find a single soul, just mounting gory evidence of their passing. She slowly unravels and just starts shooting randomly at shadows.

She finds the microwave and follows the blood trail from that to the basement, where all her dead friends and even her fiance, Jerry, are waiting.

The children’s hospital got a new microwave.

Connie makes to run for the stairs, but the killer is waiting for her, blocking her path. She is certain it is Martin, and to be fair, she has good reason. With the established lore of the place, it is a fair assumption to make.

But, it's not Martin. And with everyone dead, who could it possibly be? Why, it turns out to be...Mister Burns' wife, whatshername!

She actually manages to shoot the killer, but Mrs. Burns doesn't quite go down. The two fight for a bit, and then we get the villain monologue.

It turns out that Mrs. Burns was actually Martin's mother, and she has been very upset over the neglectful administrators at the old foster home, who were too busy having sex to help him. So she has spent all her time warning people away, and killing those who get too interested.

Huh. Why does that sound familiar...

Anyways, while Mrs. Fauxhees rambles, Barney sneaks up behind her, after she left him for dead, and shoots her in the back.

The two get out of there, and while Barney has been a good genre-aware horror movie fan, and that's why he's still alive, he makes the fatal mistake of not making sure Mrs. Fauxhees is dead.

Because the instant they're gone, she lifts her head , starts laughing...but fortunately she then promptly dies, before continuing to bother people.

"You see, Jason was my son, and today is his birthday..."

But lest you think that's the end of the movie, we jump a few months later, and Connie is taking a shower and listening to some news. There's a knock on her door, and when she opens it, the killer has returned.

Don't worry though, it's just Barney, with another prank! But this sends Connie around the bend, she grabs a pair of scissors, and probably kills Barney as the credits roll.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: This looks really good for a low budget indie movie from the mid 80s. Not as good as a big studio picture, but Vinegar Syndrome did their usual bang up job.

Audio: Solid audio.

Sound Bite: “Oh, so what are you going to do, kill me?... Just don't mess up my hair, okay?” Tina as the killer comes for her.

Body Count: Lotsa bodies, and a definite high percentage.

1 - A little more than four minutes in, and Jerry gets marked in the back.
2 - The delivery boy gets drilled.
3 - Police Chief Cash gets his neck slit
4 - And then the other cop gets knifed
5 - The killer guts Mr. Burns
6 - Mark takes an axe to the face when there's no one in the closet
7 - And then Tina gets choked
8 - Johnny gets his head nuked
9 - Barney shoots Mrs. Borehees
10 - I want to believe Barney got stabbed dead with the scissors.

Best Corpse: As improbable as it is, it has to be the microwave death. So much blood, lots of sizzling and spurting. Just well done. A lot of other deaths are also handled off screen, and a slit throat is almost their signature.

Blood Type - B: And that microwave death is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. The rest of the deaths are solid though, and there’s enough blood that I don’t have a problem with that rating. Without the microwave, I’d prrrrobably go C or C+.

Sex Appeal: Occasional bits of nudity of all kinds.

Drink Up! Any time you hear an Evil Laugh.

Movie Review: While I can’t quite call this a GOOD movie, I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. It’s tongue is firmly planted in cheek, a lot of the humour is on purpose, or knowing genre gags, and while there is plenty of absurdity here, it mostly works. It’s a fun movie, with interesting characters, good deaths, and some shots that genuinely border on art. The plot may be generic at times and nonsensical at others, but they knew how to film it and make good use of the location. Three out of five Jerry’s hearts.

Entertainment Value: It’s a bit padded, with a few scenes there just to drag things out, which brings it down a bit. But Barney’s proto-Randy bits are fun, and he really leans into hysterics. Rightly so, as it turns out! The killer is high camp, and the kills are bloody fun most of the time. It is very 80s, and after this and Hard Rock Nightmare, I wonder if Brascia has issues with the Friday the 13th franchise, the way he keeps dragging them. But I am not complaining. Three out of five cassette tapes.