Spookies (1986) - A movie that has mud men with fart noises

[PS1gamenwatch]

Remember that 1986 movie Spookies?

It was a regular on USA Saturday Nightmares

The plot follows a lost kid and a group of partying teenagers finding an abandoned mansion and becoming trapped inside as a warlock tries to sacrifice the group with the intention of using their vitality to keep his wife alive. It has a lot of monsters such as zombies, mud men, The Grim Reaper of all beings. It wasn't always meant to be like that, it was originally conceived as a movie called Twisted Souls. Twisted Souls was being edited when creative and legal issues between the producers and the financial backer prevented final post production work (final editing, scoring, post-effects, etc.) from being carried out. The original Twisted Souls footage directed by Faulkner and Doran consists of all the travelers who arrive in two cars and all the monsters and effects they encounter within the house. The monsters include: the demon ouija girl, the muck men, the spider woman, the snake demons, the hallway demon and the Grim Reaper. In 1985, the financial backer of Twisted Souls hired Eugenie Joseph to direct more footage, which was pieced together with the finished footage from Twisted Souls to create Spookies. The added footage by Joseph features an entirely different cast and includes all the footage of the boy looking for his birthday party, the man in the tree, the cat-man, the old magician, the girl in the coffin, zombies, the witch in the basement/cave and the little blue boy. This site shows everything that went through production:

https://thedissolve.com/features/oral-history/788-the-strange-saga-of-spookies/

This is a tale nobody wanted to be told. It’s a cautionary tale about an obscure 1980s horror movie cobbled together from work by two separate groups of filmmakers working on the same set with two totally different casts. There’s also a savage businessman, crooked real-estate dealings, betrayal, madness, death, ex-Green Berets, ex-porn stars, and one of the founding fathers of the United States. As originally conceived, the film that became Spookies attempted to subvert hoary haunted-house tropes by bombarding its party-going human characters with unique monsters: a possessed witch with a glowing brain, Muck Men bursting from a wine-cellar floor, a Hallway Demon melting a lady with his electric tongue, and a hideous transforming Spider Woman who literally sucks a man dry. When the financier took the film away from its original makers, he handed it over to a second director who inserted scenes of a Crypt Keeper-type sorcerer, a cat man, a half-dead bride, high schoolers dressed as zombies, and a little boy having a haunted birthday party. The result is a checkerboard pattern alternating between passionate artistry and mercenary moviemaking, although even the original filmmakers would be the first to admit that cinema didn’t exactly lose The Magnificent Ambersons here.

In my opinion, I wish they stuck with what they originally planned, as bad as this movie was, I believe it could have been another Evil Dead.

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

Are those zombies/mummies farting?

Also, I love the early 3D graphics in the intro video.

 

[Y2K Baby]

Das' raciss.

 

[TheScooper]

Oh baby its good to see somebody else knows about it I also recomend
Rejuvenatrix a 1988 film with a similer concept as The Wasp Woman but better.
Apperently the directors still have the orginal Twisted Souls footage and wants to release it.

 

[PS1gamenwatch]

Oh baby its good to see somebody else knows about it I also recomend
Rejuvenatrix a 1988 film with a similer concept as The Wasp Woman but better.
Apperently the directors still have the orginal Twisted Souls footage and wants to release it.

Didn't know that. A few years ago, someone on youtube did a fan edit/rough fan reconstruction of the film and what the actual movie may have been like:

 

[TheScooper]

Didn't know that. A few years ago, someone on youtube did a fan edit/rough fan reconstruction of the film and what the actual movie may have been like:

I remember watching that, if remember correctly the only reason we haven't had a proper release for both versions is because the rights are in limbo. I can see Scream Factory releasing a Blu-Ray with both versions.

 

[PS1gamenwatch]

James Rolfe reviewed this some years ago:

 

[BrunoMattei]

Surprisingly fun creature flick.

 

[PS1gamenwatch]

I remember back in the IMDb forums, someone gave the original ending, not sure if it was legitimate or if it was a rumor or fake but it was like this:

“Two of the three characters un-age, the girl in blue doesn't because of her previous wound by the grim reaper. The three all escape the house, which starts to go up in glow of white light - melting all the tombstones and sucking in the flying ghosts who were keeping everyone trapped in the house. There were no zombies, just flying ghosts.
the explanation of what the corpse may be holding, was cut out of the earlier scenes in the film.
After the house and ghost vanish in a storm of supernatural force, two of the characters remain alive as the sun comes up.”

 

[BrunoMattei]

I remember back in the IMDb forums, someone gave the original ending, not sure if it was legitimate or if it was a rumor or fake but it was like this:

“Two of the three characters un-age, the girl in blue doesn't because of her previous wound by the grim reaper. The three all escape the house, which starts to go up in glow of white light - melting all the tombstones and sucking in the flying ghosts who were keeping everyone trapped in the house. There were no zombies, just flying ghosts.
the explanation of what the corpse may be holding, was cut out of the earlier scenes in the film.
After the house and ghost vanish in a storm of supernatural force, two of the characters remain alive as the sun comes up.”

I like the current ending more with all the zombies and that kick ass oldschool zombie makeup.