Avidly seeking campy/creepy horror anthology goodness it is always cause for celebration to discover a new collection of vintage televised frights! This exquisitely oddball omnibus hails from Canada, fashioned in the middle 80s, 1985 to be exact, going under the moody moniker of 'The Greedy Terror' or 'Shock Chamber', but whatever the title, stolid director, Steve DiMarco's frightfully freaky, creep-loaded compendium has oodles of low budget charm, winningly eccentric performances, and obscurantist weirdness to playfully prop up its amusingly D. I. Y 'TV Movie of the week' hokiness!
The first sordid tale of prolapsed morality is spryly augmented by the dreamy, skyward synths of Peter Dick as we take a heady, mystical trip into the alchemical flimflam of some spectacularly shady misuse of a magic elixir! How wise was it for nice guy Ron (Russell Ferrier) to administer this nefarious love potion to his thus far reluctant beau Linda? (Jacqueline Samuda) and are the motives of this shifty, bearded purveyor of eldritch potions entirely benign? They frequently say that all is fair in love and war, but perhaps this tawdry tale of love lost suggests that it is time to amend the play book, since there's clearly a case for stricter rules of engagement!
Our weary wraparound narrator continues her oratories of familial woe with a rather bizarre turn as Ray-Ban-sporting city slicker Cameron (Doug Stone) soon unwittingly finds himself murkily embroiled in the skeevey, backwoods machinations of two misfit grease monkeys, finally discovering to his chagrin that the price of beautiful Blanche's (Karen Cannata) strong coffee and home-made pecan pie might be a little too rich for his refined metropolitan blood! In this specifically sinister instance, 'Country Hospitality' comes with a killer 'hidden' surcharge! While the theme to this unsubtle yarn might be a tad too whimsical for its own good, it remains an okay foray into the darkly avaricious hearts of a hokey group of far from okay, double-dealing okies.
Saving the very worst for last, Steve DiMarco's 'The Injection' eerily injects a heroic dose of macabre E. C Comics black humour into his increasingly immoral tale of an especially mercenary medico's rapid descent into penurious despond as this criminally hard up for cash quack evilly concocts a truly maleficent misappropriation of pharmaceuticals for an abject 'get rich or die tryin' scheme that favours the latter outcome!
There is an endearing goofiness to these occasionally lukewarm spooky shenanigans which fitfully lends 'Shock Chamber' a welcome boost of B-Movie lunacy, and while the pleasingly lurid narrative's twists and turns aren't exactly of the refined Roald Dahl calibre, it nonetheless delivered enough deliciously dorky B-Movie delirium! While I appreciated Steve DiMarco's modestly macabre Canadian chiller, it must be said that my acutely warped sensibilities have not infrequently given my hyperbolic enthusiasms a somewhat questionable verisimilitude to cinephiles with a FAR lower tolerance for creaky celluloid misshapes such as this!
The first sordid tale of prolapsed morality is spryly augmented by the dreamy, skyward synths of Peter Dick as we take a heady, mystical trip into the alchemical flimflam of some spectacularly shady misuse of a magic elixir! How wise was it for nice guy Ron (Russell Ferrier) to administer this nefarious love potion to his thus far reluctant beau Linda? (Jacqueline Samuda) and are the motives of this shifty, bearded purveyor of eldritch potions entirely benign? They frequently say that all is fair in love and war, but perhaps this tawdry tale of love lost suggests that it is time to amend the play book, since there's clearly a case for stricter rules of engagement!
Our weary wraparound narrator continues her oratories of familial woe with a rather bizarre turn as Ray-Ban-sporting city slicker Cameron (Doug Stone) soon unwittingly finds himself murkily embroiled in the skeevey, backwoods machinations of two misfit grease monkeys, finally discovering to his chagrin that the price of beautiful Blanche's (Karen Cannata) strong coffee and home-made pecan pie might be a little too rich for his refined metropolitan blood! In this specifically sinister instance, 'Country Hospitality' comes with a killer 'hidden' surcharge! While the theme to this unsubtle yarn might be a tad too whimsical for its own good, it remains an okay foray into the darkly avaricious hearts of a hokey group of far from okay, double-dealing okies.
Saving the very worst for last, Steve DiMarco's 'The Injection' eerily injects a heroic dose of macabre E. C Comics black humour into his increasingly immoral tale of an especially mercenary medico's rapid descent into penurious despond as this criminally hard up for cash quack evilly concocts a truly maleficent misappropriation of pharmaceuticals for an abject 'get rich or die tryin' scheme that favours the latter outcome!
There is an endearing goofiness to these occasionally lukewarm spooky shenanigans which fitfully lends 'Shock Chamber' a welcome boost of B-Movie lunacy, and while the pleasingly lurid narrative's twists and turns aren't exactly of the refined Roald Dahl calibre, it nonetheless delivered enough deliciously dorky B-Movie delirium! While I appreciated Steve DiMarco's modestly macabre Canadian chiller, it must be said that my acutely warped sensibilities have not infrequently given my hyperbolic enthusiasms a somewhat questionable verisimilitude to cinephiles with a FAR lower tolerance for creaky celluloid misshapes such as this!