The Three Direct-To-Video Horror Films Directed By Christopher Lewis (Loretta Young's Son) Triple Feature:
Blood Cult (1985)
Combination of slasher and devil worship film. Students get chopped up at a college and parts of their bodies are removed. Medallions with the image of a dog are left with the victims. The daughter of the long-in-the-tooth sheriff on the case works in the college library, and very quickly finds one of those helpful books about occult stuff that show up in these films. It seems that the cult devoted to the dog demon Caninus has a ritual where they take all those random body parts and put them together to offer as a sacrifice. Severed fingers show up in he college cafeteria salad bar, which seems careless of the cult.
Meanwhile, a dog belonging to a married couple of farmers is killed. This leads to a stakeout with the sheriff and his daughter's boyfriend (very much an obvious red herring) during which they witness the cultists, dressed in monk robes, do their thing. However, this might be a dream or something, or at least the sheriff's actions aren't influenced in any way by it. It's confusing. We eventually get our Shocking Twist Ending, which is no shock because we received a very heavy hint about it during the cult ceremony that may or may not have happened.
Shot on video, and it sure looks like it. A cast of unknowns. Moves pretty slowly and doesn't make a lot of sense.
The Ripper (1985)
Famed gore special effects expert Tom Savini is The Ripper, but only for a few minutes at the end of the film. Starts with a scene of a woman in Victorian London getting out of a cab in Whitechapel, for no apparent reason. The Ripper gets her. Surprise! This was just a visualization of what a college professor was describing as Hollywood's vision of the Ripper. He teaches a class called Famous Crimes on Film.
Among the students are a horror movie fan, his girlfriend, and an obnoxious comedy relief guy. The fan keeps bugging the professor, reminding him that The Conqueror Worm is on TV. (References are made to other Vincent Price films. House of Wax and Theater of Blood. However, when we hear what is supposedly The Conqueror Worm on the TV, it bears no resemblance to the historical drama also known as Witchfinder General, but is instead something about a giant worm monster.)
Professor has a dance teacher girlfriend, which gives us an excuse for a sequence in which her students practice their art. It's pretty much a music video.
Long and slow story short, professor gets a ring supposedly worn by the Ripper from an antique shop. He falls asleep and, apparently, becomes the Ripper. Women get killed. At the very end, he becomes Tom Savini, with yellow eyes but no British accent, as the real Ripper. We get the final showdown between the fan (whose girlfriend was one of the victims) and the Ripper.
Also shot-on-video, although it looks a little better. Shamelessly padded with the music video and a woman buying a clock in the antique store, etc. The barely present Savini gets top billing.
Revenge (1986)
The direct sequel to Blood Cult! In fact, it starts right at the Shocking Twist Ending of the first film, and has a plot that would be very hard to follow if you hadn't seen its predecessor. Shot-on-film and looks a lot better than the above movies. A couple of famous names, too.
The brother (Patrick Wayne, John's son) and sister of the boyfriend of the sheriff's daughter from the first film show up after he is killed. She gets killed pretty quickly, in a supernatural way that reduces her to ashes.
Remember the married farming couple whose dog was killed? The husband gets killed. The wife and Wayne becomes amateur detectives. The sheriff is now insane, but provides clues in his babbling way. At some point, he made a list of names of local folks, which helps the investigating pair.
The audience knows what's going on right away. The cult has lots of prominent members, including John Carradine as a U. S. Senator.
In an oddly amusing discussion among Carradine, the dean, and the German-accented doctor who is our main antagonist, they talk about the expense of the dogface medallions and monk robes for all the new recruits, the fact that some cult members just like killing and aren't really into the dog demon worship, and the fact that the dean doesn't even believe in Caninus. (That dooms him.)
It all leads up to a confrontation between our two heroes and the cult during a ceremony, in which the sister who turned into ashes is reborn as some kind of zombie and Carradine turns into some kind of monster. Then we get a Shocking Twist Ending that makes no sense at all.
More professionally made than the other two films but more confusing.
