The DVD:
Presented in a cardboard slipcase with each disc enclosed in its own mini-keep case, the second in Brentwood/Troma's Toxie's Triple Terror boxsets contains a wealth of weirdness. From killer crotch claws to spooks that shoot laser beams out of their eyes (pew! pew!) this collection of oddball entries into the world of independent horror runs the gamut of ridiculousness. Individually, we are treated to the following straight-to-video features:

EVIL CLUTCH (1988) – a.k.a. Il Bosco/"The Woods" (original title)
Cindy and Tony are taking a much needed vacation in the Italian Alps when they run into a couple of queer ducks. The first is Arva, a vulture-like vixen who claims she was attacked in a local cemetery. When Tony checks it out, he senses an uneasy "spirit" in the graveyard. Dropping the drama queen off in her village, they next come across the writer, Algernoon. Taking the paramours on a picturesque walk through the town, he tells them a creepy tale of death and the living dead. He also claims the surrounding locale is known for housing a horrible coven of witches who've lived, unhindered by the outside world, for decades. Hoping to get a little camping in, the lovers make for the highlands. Their newfound friends follow them. Algernoon warns them that everything is not what it seems. Arva offers them an abandoned house in the middle of the woods as safe overnight sanctuary. Little does our couple know that the affable female is a craven creature with a strange monster's claw protruding from her pubis. With a zombie slave at her disposal and a chamber pot filled with paranormal poo, this weird wench wants to place our sitting duck duo under the control of her Evil Clutch.

From the description and the title, it is a sound wager that director Andreas Malfori watched Sam Raimi's Evil Dead a few dozen times before creating this inspired swipe of the aforementioned "demons in the forest" film. Mixing in all manner of witchcraft, monsters, zombies, malevolent plant life and possessed household objects in a thick stew of strangeness, Malfori borrows the Steadicam POV work made famous by Spidey's celebrated savant and tries to recreate the feeling of impending doom such shots inspire. Sometimes it works. Other times, it's just fancy photography. But the cribbing doesn't stop there. Looking to fellow perplexing piasan Lucio Fulci for narrative logic (always a good place to locate storyline sense) Malfori piles on the improbabilities to create a completely original cosmos of evil. The bows to such baffling movies as The Beyond and The City of the Living Dead are endless: Scenes fail to connect; characters change personality at the drop of a jump cut; there is a flashback-forward fantasy scene that turns our heroes into a murdering maniac and a putrefied corpse seeking revenge; and the overall tone is one of grim confusion and morbid curiosity. Thankfully, Malfori also borrows another Italian trait familiar to fright fans – GORE! Evil Clutch is loaded with the kind of gruesome, over-the-top blood bathing fright aficionados have come to expect from those Mediterranean masters of the messy macabre. Indeed, perhaps the sole reason to sit through the puzzling prologue that makes up the vast majority of Evil Clutch is to see hands smashed, heads torn off, brains exploded and bodies bubble and liquefy. The glorious grue during the showstopping finale will more than make up for the lumbering moments directly lifted from other films. If it proves anything, Evil Clutch shows that when you lay on the corpuscle carnival, your average horror fan will forgive almost anything. Score: 3.5/5

CHILLERS (1987)
A group of bus patrons are stranded at a strange station in the middle of the night. As the discussion progresses, each describes a particularly nasty nightmare they've had recently. One girl recalls a trip to a haunted swimming pool. A young boy talks about his camping trip with a psychotic scout leader. A guy tells of the time he could bring the dead back from the grave just by wishing it so. A lonely spinster informs the group of her run-in with a vampire anchorman and a college professor reveals the story of an ancient warrior spirit that demanded human sacrifices. After finally finding a motor coach that will take them on to their final destination, they learn that they have been waiting all along for a one way journey to ...HELL! Each of the stories they told was actually the truth of what happened to them. Apparently, all the individuals here died of embarrassment after making a really lame anthology film calledChillers.

The first real dud in the start of the Troma reissue machine, Chillers buries the belittled cinematic concept of the anthology once and for all. Fashioned around a group of hideously unattractive travelers (one guys looks like a replicant Gabe Kaplan and pronounces college, "cowage") each of whom has a night terror to travail us with, these vile vignettes are hardly the stuff of classic horror. Most don't even meet the basic omnibus standards for scare or shock endings. "Swimming Pool from Hell" overstays its welcome with one too many trips to pun-filled waters (the number of liquid inspired deaths gets downright dumb after a while). "Camping Trip from Hell" is one pedophile short of a NAMBLA fantasy as a shirtless crackpot camper chases little boys around their pup tents, talking about getting to know "the wolf". Ewww! The two most mundane entries in this excuse for short filmmaking come next. The "Newspaper from Hell" sequence, in which our hero raises the dead by slamming his hand against the obituaries, is all set-up and no pay off and the "Anchorman from Hell" is one of those Anne Rice like attempts to sex up the vampire saga with ersatz sensual silliness. Our last offering, the "College Course from Hell" is just plain confusing. Part Indiana Jones, part Incan psychic surgery, this story of a resurrected demon with a diet healthy in heart on its mind, is confusing and anti-climatic. Daniel Boyd, who gives new meaning to the concept of a triple threat, wrote, produced and directed this tepid Tales from the Darkside with an under developed imagination and an over developed sense of cinematic self. He does deliver a few good gore moments, and the occasionally bizarre dialogue spewed by the non-stars is good for a camp cackle or two. But this overripe cheese whiz is mostly witless and wandering. When the creepy cover art is more macabre than the movie enclosed within it, you know you're in for some real flaccid frights. Score 2/5

BEYOND EVIL (1980)
Married couple Barbara and Larry Andrews arrive on a small island in Hawaii to start life over. Larry is going to work as an architect for old buddy Del Giorgio. Apparently, the land mass is so small that all available apartments are rented up, so Babs and Lar are stuck shacking up in a 1000 year old deserted mansion that has a shaky, spooky past. Neither of these mature adults gives a rat's patoot about pissed off poltergeists until Barbara starts acting weird – or at least, weirder than usual. She sleepwalks a lot and hears funny noises. She stabs herself in the hand and claims it was an accident. And she spends a great deal of time standing around looking off into the distance like a scullery maid at the seashore waiting for the fleet to come in. Naturally, Larry is concerned, and when his business partners start turning up dead, his warning levels get maxed out. Seeking the help of a local faith healer, Mr. Andrews learns the awful truth: his wife is in a battle for her very soul. Seems an ancient spirit wants to take possession of her person to...well, it's never really explained. Larry must do all he can to rid his wife of the unclean specter, or face a life filled with wickedness that's Beyond Evil

Beyond Evil is beyond hope, most of the time. Dopey and dim with one foot in atmospheric terror and the other in demonic dung, it's the same old story of evil entity possession mixed with unfair housing practices to create an off season realtor's worst nightmare. Director Herb Freed, who seems to have made quite a name in the hack horror business, helms this derivative haunted house spook show with all the flair of a wet fart and can't seem to find a happy medium between a macabre mood and a bunch of goofy green laser effects. Though both John Saxon and Linda Day "Christopher let me out of the house today" George give it the old professional push, in the end they are thwarted by a script that scrimps on the shivers for more meaningless scenes of urban renewal. Aside from an accident in which a worker is crushed to death, there is absolutely no reason for any movie, not even Killdozer, to spend this much time on the job site. Between the backroom financing gambits and the missing voucher funds, a better title for this film would have been Beyond Equity. Yet even with all the bad double exposure effects and the lame as lugnuts legend that begat all the ghost gunk, Beyond Evil can occasionally build up a nice head of scream. Whenever Dr. Solomon, the faith healer, does one of his abdomen-opening acts, the resulting gore in pretty spiffy. And the hillside mansion has a quirky, creepy otherworldy design that's very deceptive to the viewer. But with a narrative that can't quite figure out if it's moving forward or backward and a weak supernatural presence (there is nothing more mediocre than a old fashioned lover spurned) Beyond Evil just can't move past the pedestrian. Both Saxon and George deserved better than to go through the meaningless motions of this barely amusing movie. Score 2.5/5

Aside from the initial idea of the old cinematic switcheroo, all of these films are linked by the concept of demons wanting to dig into corpus and setting up soul shop. Beyond Evil is the most blatant example of Hellspawn with a hankering for a new DNA domicile. While Linda Day George in her prime would be a swell spot to set up some alternative physicality housing, the post-Christopher carcass we see here is a shadow of her former supermodel self. You know it's sad when John Saxon makes a more sexy statement than the haughty has-been Match Game and Tattletales regular. Chillers on the other hand, offers people who never ever had a physical pinnacle. They've reached such an attractiveness nadir that deep drilling offshore oil rigs have yet to contact their level of human fugliness. Each of the characters here are so unattractive, crocked teeth inside barely slit mouths with an almost complete lack of any other recognizable facial features that you'd swear they were the evil entities at the core of the film. Instead, we have to watch them emote and exchange bodily fluids with other vile visages. It's enough to have you hankering for a massive extreme makeover when all is said and done. Finally, Evil Clutch cleanses the palette with the proper balance of bad and blood. It has its Mr. Burns-like beast-woman using her killer coot to turn her potential paramours into zombie love slaves, or something like that. Her possession passion is a little more vague, not really revolving around the take-over of people's persons as it tends to involve some manner of mind meld mischief. While those who fall into her immoral clasp tend to look like refugees from a flour factory explosion, they sure have some handy physical strength (all the better to rip heads right off by the root).

And thanks to its Mediterranean madness, Evil Clutch is by far the best, most fun film here. Though some will quibble that the movie makes about as much sense as the continued caring for Britney Spears musical career, it is just as malevolent as said ex-Mouseketeers meandering muse. With nods to the inventors of Italian splatter while traversing some novel territory of its own, fans of full-bore gore foreboding will whiz themselves wantonly over this extended chase with bisected body parts monster movie. Chillers also has its moments, mostly when we deal with undead members of the diving team and pedophilic camp counselors. The minute we move over to lonely heart vampire love stories and raising beloved relatives from the dead, the film turns all floppy. While the final twist will be obvious to anyone who's sat through an Amicus Production with its Lin Ye Tang doorway to damnation ideals, the overall presentation is pretty hit or miss. But nothing can prepare you for the failed opportunities of Beyond Evil. With a first class cast, some great locations and enough tropical tone to make for one big bad voodoo daddy of a film, the resulting spook show is just asinine. There aren't enough poltergeist problems foisted upon our hapless couple to get us to truly care what happens. At the beginning, when weird sacrificial statues are falling from great heights and knives are carving letters into a woman's hand, the movie is kind of creepy. But once we let the animated lasers start firing at random (pew! pew!) the entire tone goes cornball. Beyond Evil simply dries up and dies at the end, never really satisfying our desire to see who lives and who dies as we've long since stopped caring.

The Video:
Each film is presented in a pre-DVD, retrograde 1.33:1 full screen sampling that suggests low-end VHS variables. The transfer for Evil Clutch is far too dark to be fair. Some of the detail in the night scenes is masked by the murkiness of shadowy situations, and the overall color scheme tends toward a muted, muddled vision. Beyond Evil fluctuates between decent TV movie mode and aggravating multi-generation dub junk. There are times when John Saxon's comb-over looks positively plush. But more times than not, the nearly solarized visuals violate the laws of digital imagery. And this leaves Chillers, which actually looks pretty respectable. While it's homemade concepts come across even more amateurish in the supposed splendor of the new technology, the image is still clean and clear with substantial detail. None of the movies here will win an award for home theater reference quality, but compared to some of the visual issues in Toxie's Triple Terror #1, the transfers here are a step up.

The Audio:
The Dolby Digital Stereo presentation on each DVD is acceptable, if sonically shrill and rather flat. None of these movies makes an attempt to create outright atmosphere out of its aural attributes, even though Beyond Evil features enough whispered weirdness to drive your speakers to decibel distraction. Evil Clutch has one of those Goblin-inspired symphonic soundscapes that tend to overpower even the most vocal victim and Chillers can't match the mid-80s synth pop score to the overall depth of dialogue to get the combo to gel together. The elements sound like they are at odds with each other throughout the entire running time of the film.

The Extras:
Unlike standard Troma fare that features founder Lloyd Kaufman lewding it up with various toilet humor and sophomoric rants, as well as other bonus content goodies, the individual DVDs here are very bare bones. Two contain trailers, and they are usually not the original ones at that. Both Evil Clutch (which does a great job of spoiling several of the more ghastly moments in the movie) and Chillers contain Tromatized ads, created specifically to spin the movie the way the company was trying to sell it. Evil Clutch looks like Dario Argento's Phenomena meets Nightbreed while Chillers cruises through many of the more bizarre aspects of the awkward anthology's images. Sadly, there is no promo for Beyond Evil. It would have been interesting to see how anyone could sell this combination of haunted mansion and island voodoo witchery. Perhaps with several shots of a shirtless John Saxon (the actor can't seem to keep a top on in this film)? While some may argue that having three movies is more than enough added content for one box set, this overview of Troma's early releases would benefit from some sort of historical perspective or filmography foundation.

Final Thoughts:
Far more a mixed bag than Toxie's Triple Terror #1, this second collection begins to more accurately define the Troma tradition. Never noted for offering the most consistent catalog in the industry, the battery of low budget titles still remaining means that Toxie's Triple Terror #2 will more than likely be the standard bearer for future releases. While there are far more treasures than toadstools out there, Troma has been known to champion a film that flummoxes even the most dedicated follower of fright fashion. Then there are those foreign jobs with joke names like Ferocious Female Freedom Fighters that manage to both disappoint and depress at the same time. Again, it's the old surname vs. reality issue. Something with a title as titillating as Blood Sisters of Lesbian Sin should deliver on the Sappho and the sanguine, not end up some sloppy vampire vomit with hardly any gal-on-gal goodness. If we're promised a fat guy going nutzoid, then nutzoid this glutton better go, or there will be a crowd of cheated b-movie geeks ready to rip out your rectum. Toxie's Triple Terror #2 pledges a great deal of cheesy, campy classicism, but only ends up delivering on about 50% of its promise. Anyone interested in the on-going exploration of Troma's legacy will really enjoy this second set, and its recommended for that very reason. But just like Hell coming to Frogtown, or a visit from the dead next door, you can occasionally judge junk by its overt labeling. Here's hoping for less misleading terror titles in sets #3 - #7

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