FEO AMANTE's HORROR THRILLER

Pop makes it back home just in time for Christmas and gives his son, Billy (Zach Galligan: WAXWORK, GREMLINS 2), the Mogwai. Billy's Mom (Francis Lee McCain: SCREAM) doesn't know what to think of it, and neither does the family dog. Billy names his Mogwai, "Gizmo" (voiced by Howie Mandel: LITTLE MONSTERS, GREMLINS 2), because the little varmint has a thing for mechanical stuff. Then Pop remembers; the Mogwai requires very specific rules.
1. Don't expose it to bright light.
2. Don't get it wet.
3. Don't feed it after midnight.

Do I need to say it? Of course all of these rules will be broken.

Continued at Feo Amante/ Gremlins.

In this film written by Roy Moore (THE LAST CHASE), a sorority house at an unnamed university receives a series of prank phone calls. The girls first refer to the caller as "the moaner," and he delivers a string of obscene phrases that they don't really take seriously. Then, in his most recent calls, there are the screams and gasps of a woman in the background . . .

Also of note is the first person POV of the killer. As he is climbing a trellis and peering through windows early in the film, the viewer is looking directly through his eyes. He then enters the house through an upstairs window and lurks in the attic for some time, descending only for the occasional murder. Later in the film, we watch first-hand as he goes into a brief rage and tears up the attic, and then slowly rocks a corpse in a rocking chair.

Clare Harrison (Lynne Griffin: CURTAINS) becomes the first victim, and when nobody can account for her whereabouts, a 13-year-old girl also turns up missing. A search is begun, but meanwhile the killer continues to stalk the other girls.

Continued at Feo Amante/ Black Christmas.

STAVE ONE.
MARLEY'S GHOST.

Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.

The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.

Continued at Gutenberg.org.