Billy (Alec Nemser) is a 13-year-old runaway who is mad at his parents for forgetting his birthday. While wandering in the woods he finds an old decrepit mansion. He enters and finds that it is decorated for a party. Thinking the party is for him, Billy begins to open the presents on a table. When he opens the first present he finds a head in a box. The head begins speaking. Billy runs away but ends up attacked by a werecat (Dan Scott) and buried alive.
Shortly after that two carloads of young people are driving around looking for a place to party. They come across the mansion in the woods. The driver of the first car is Duke (Nick Gionta). With him are his girlfriend, Meegan (Kim Merrill), and his friends, Rich (Peter Iasillo Jr.), Dave (Anthony Valbiro), and Adrienne (Charlotte Alexandra). The driver of the second car is Peter (Peter Dain). With him is Carol (Lisa Friede), Linda (Joan Ellen Delaney), and Lewis (Al Magliochetti).
Inside the mansion is an old warlock named Kreon (Felix Ward). With the help of his werecat servant Kreon he keeps watch over the corpse of his bride Isabelle (Maria Pechukas). He uses his powers to keep Isabelle’s body from deteriorating by siphoning off the life force of anyone who crosses his path. Now he has nine other people that he can drain off life energy from.
The gang make themselves at home and begins partying. Duke finds a Ouija board. They take turns asking questions. When Carol starts asking questions she turns into a demon and attacks the others. Everyone runs out of the house. Lewis gets pulled underground by zombies. Everyone runs back into the house. Inside the house the group split up looking for a way out of the mansion. What they find instead are farting muck monsters, a grim reaper, spider monsters, a number of other creepy and slimy creations, and a plethora of zombies.
“Spookies” was released in 1986 and was directed by Brendan Faulkner, Thomas Doran, and Eugenie Joseph. It is a horror movie with comedic elements.
Spookies is kind of a silly campy monster movie with really old teenagers that can’t act. What the movie lacks in plot and continuity it makes up for in monsters. The story behind the movie is a bit long and somewhat sordid. The original title of the movie was to be “Twisted Tales” and was created by Doran and Faulkner. Shooting began in 1984. When the film was nearly done the creators had a falling out with the producers. The creators were then fired. The producers hired Genie Joseph to direct more scenes, such as the scenes with Billy the runaway and the warlock trying to resurrect his dead bride. Since these scenes were added later, the actors in the original portion of the movie don’t interact with any of the actors used for the later scenes.
The entire film now looks more like a portmanteau than a cohesive story. What was supposed to be a bunch of teenagers in a haunted house morphed into a bunch of inconsistent scenes with some really cool monsters. The movie isn’t all that great, but the monsters were wonderful.
The house used in the film is in Rye, NY. It was the childhood home of Chief Justice John Jay. Justice Jay was appointed to SCOTUS by George Washington. He served from 1789 to 1795.