Spine

Spine (1986)

Dir: John Howard (Rope Burn)

IMDB: 3.1 out of 10

Once again I take a journey back to the infamous covers I remember from the local video shops of my childhood. Sadly tonight's film is much more forgettable than it's lame cover art.Not much to say before stepping into this flick other than, I have a fellow victim here with me tonight to watch this trash with me , My buddy and fellow horror fanatic Dave Ferreira. We were craving some horror and something I had not gotten to in my collection yet so a few glances through my vast collection of odd cinema and we ended up on this little turd of a film, So this is partially your fault Dave and thanks in advance, I have a feeling I have not seen this one yet for a reason.

                The film opens up promising with a young nurse bound and gagged before being slaughtered by a Knife wielding maniac. Quickly some detectives are on the case and we learn that this is not the first victim in this series of slayings. Apparently several nurses have been murdered as of late and two things connect these killings. First the spines of all the victims is always left exposed for some reason and secondly the name Linda has been written in blood somewhere in the crime scene. As the detectives put these clues together , the Kenny Loggins look alike strikes again kidnapping yet another nurse and she is swiftly offed in a bland murder scene with more build up with hogties and gags then blood , so it feels that the end does not truly justify the means when it comes to a horror flick as far as body count and gore is concerned.

After a few more victims bodies are found , the detectives on the case manage to find a suspect rather easily after typing in just a few key words into a computer data base. Turns out the killer is a disgruntled mental hospital escapee Laurence Ashton who is seeking revenge for nurses "Killing" his mother and locking him up. Ashton manages to find one of the head nurses in charge of his mother while she was on her death bed and he kidnaps her along with her best friend. While holding the two ladies captive he reveals that one of his eyes was horribly mutilated while in custody at the asylum, Before he continues with the mental torturing of the two potential victims. At this point in the film things have gotten so boring that my fellow horror hound who wanted to help with the review had left the room to take out his frustrations (No need to go into how, let's just say that cops were involved later that night at my house). Some fan of bad cinema you are Dave! Now I am here once again alone to finish off this trash solo. While torturing the two young nurses and revealing his motives we are treated to the most tame and least offensive rape scene ever filmed, So if the director was going for the big shock moment with this attempt it really falls flat completely.  Elsewhere we see the main detective on the case sending out an APB for Ashton seemingly moments before he arrives at the nurses house and lays Ashton to waste before he can off his final two victims. The film closes with a series of text explaining what exactly happened to all involved in the killings , In a really pathetic attempt to wrap things up. It makes things all to clear that this films shoestring budget had run out and they could not afford to even finish up this snore of a film. My question is why make it in the first place? because this is truly a waste of film in my opinion.

Spine is one of those films where you can tell just how awful it is going to be within the first ten minutes of the film. It falls into the category of  just another shot on shiteo slasher cash in that really fails on all ends. I have seen a few shot on shiteo flicks that are decent , however few and far between they do in fact exist. Films like "555" , "The Abomination" and select others however this one is the epitome of the term. Rarely do I come across a film that is truly hard for me to actually get through , especially given the run time of this short flick, but this one really tested my dedication to shit cinema. A lack of gore, nudity,dialog, and all out entertainment value makes this film one of the worst slasher flicks I have ever seen and that in itself is an achievement considering I often seek out z-grade cinema.I cannot and will not recommend this film to anyone , not even slasher completists , as this is one that can be skipped without missing anything at all. Even for fans of shit cinema this is as bottom of the barrel as you can get and I don't mean that in a good way for those of you that know what I mean. Utter waste of time. P.S. thanks Dave for leaving me hanging with this steaming pile of shit by myself, You owe me big time "Tough Guy"

Gore:3
Nudity:1
Story:1
Characters:1
Fun Factor: 1

Overall: 1.5 out of 10