Scared Stiff (1987) ***

What do you get when you hire Mark Frost, the non-weird half of Twin Peaks' creative duo, to write a screenplay for a horror film? Somehow a really weird film involving a haunted house, the voodoo monster-ghost of a slave owner, a singer with poor psychiatrist boyfriend choices, gonzo gore f/x, and some poorly executed computer "graphics". Add in a boy with a desperate attachment to his racist Native American head lamp (which plays nicely into a plot gag eventually), a decent attempt at serious commentary on domestic abuse, and some dream-logic sequences that wouldn't be out of place in another, much better, 1987 horror film, Hellraiser (review), and you have Scared Stiff. It's not a great film by any stretch, suffering (or maybe benefitting?) from a bit of the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach, but it's definitely fun, unintentionally (?) funny, and has some imaginative set pieces.