DVD Roundup

A cursory look at three howlers that are for diehard (and hard-up) horror completists only.

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Beyond the Wall of Sleep:

Touted as an H.P. Lovecraft story, this is only a very loose adaptation of the master's prose.

The molasses-like action follows an inbred yokel called Joe (William Sanderson) living in backwoods Appalachia at the turn of the 20th century, who gets dragged into a decrepit insane asylum where he runs afoul of the ambitious young Dr. Edward Eischel (Fountain Yount). Eischel occupies the basement of the asylum, where he uses the patients for his bizarre experiments.

Poorly acted by an otherwise competent cast, Beyond the Wall of Sleep is beyond help thanks to a horrid, murky script, incompetent, frenetic editing, and appallingly bad cinematography.

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Graveyard:

A group of high school students are partying in a graveyard (which just happens to be adjacent to a remote summer camp), when some of them decide to pull a prank on the others. The hoax is so terrifying that it winds up killing the most near-sighted of them. The kid who wore the homemade mask and masterminded the prank, Bobby (Patrick Scott Lewis), gets charged, convicted and imprisoned for the death. Flash forward to some years later after he's out, and reunited with his pals. They think it would be a great idea to get together and revisit the place where their friend died… and guess what? Now somebody else is wearing the mask and seeking revenge.

If that synopsis didn't put you to sleep, you are a more avid horror fan than I. Assuming you have stuck around this long, your only reward for watching Graveyard is low-budget kills given and received by so-called actors whose next line of dialogue is sure to be, "And would you like fries with that?"

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Maid of Honor:

This is a TV chick flick disguised as a horror, complete with an alluring, buxom blonde wielding a knife on the DVD cover. Remember, you can't judge a disk by its cover! Maid of Honor stars Linda Purl as Laci Collins, is a psychotic spinster who's in love with her dead sister's husband, Richard (Linden Ashby). Richard has no idea of his sister-in-law's feelings, so he thinks it's no big deal when he announces his engagement to Nicole  (Shannon Sturges) — then the claws (and butcher knives) come out!

Maid of Honor is not a bad movie per se, and Purl is quite good in her role, but the DVD cover is misleading. There is attempted murder, some death and blood, but the scares are presented more as television-styled suspense than feature-styled horror.

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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson