Synopsis
The owner of a lakeside resort murders a transvestite. Fifteen years later, the drag queen's spirit comes back and starts killing honeymoon couples.
1988 Directed by Joseph Merhi
The owner of a lakeside resort murders a transvestite. Fifteen years later, the drag queen's spirit comes back and starts killing honeymoon couples.
Ohmygoodness, just when I thought I'd seen all the weirdo cheap arse 80s slashers along comes this supernatural one. It was just hilarious with some really fun deaths and colourful characters especially the pisshead vicar. "It's the newlyweds, what were you doing out there in the bushes, SCREWING? hahaha", "I guess I'll go marry me a couple of new fuckers now hahaha"
Microbudget metaphysical trans slasher!
Years after a drag queen* is killed in a “gay panic” assault, she’s back to haunt/prey/kill her way through her attacker’s newlywed hotel. It’s queer trauma avenging itself, and having a gay ol’ time doing it!
You could read a ”fetishizing our bullies and oppressors” theme into it, or just enjoy the spectacle of our avenging angle cackling in her cheap zombie makeup while picking off straight couples one-by-one. Or love the busybody psychic looking like a late-‘80s Dusty Springfield and acting like Mrs. Roper—she’s a hoot! Incredibly silly and often tacky, this doesn’t care about logic or “realness” one bit, and if you’re in the right fame of mind it’s a lot of fun.
*Jackie…
A small resort that caters to newlyweds is stalked by the ghost of a woman killed by the owner years before. Low budget slasher that has a short runtime and moves quick enough so it never wears out its welcome. It also has enough goofy characters to keep you entertained in between the kills including a man so nervous that he's worried about using the private hottub in his hotel room because someone might walk in and a psychic who keeps freaking out that there's gonna be a car accident, a murder, a break in at her home while she's away. Not one I'll be rushing to revisit but entertaining enough while it was on.
"It's the newlyweds! What were you doing up there in the bushes, screwin'?"
One night in the 70s, Lloyd Stone invites Jackie over to a hotel for a rendezvous and is shocked to learn that Jackie is transgender. After Jackie fights off Lloyd's attempts at violent assaults, she's stabbed to death with an ice pick. Fifteen years later, Lloyd is at the helm of running the Newlywed Hotel resort for married couples. But the undead supernatural body of Jackie returns and makes a promise to Lloyd that everyone who's staying at the resort will die, including Lloyd and his new younger girlfriend.
The Newlydeads has a transgressive and borderline outrageous plot but beneath its trashy shlock lies a wickedly entertaining…
"Her desire for you is the only weapon we have against her."
Amusingly inept. Anyway, I really hate to hold a nearly 30-year-old piece of SOV trash to contemporary representational standards, but this is about the vengeful spirit of a transwoman who was murdered by a man who was repulsed by his own attraction to her. But hey, at least we're not misgendering people! Contains Doug Jones' first credited appearance as a rainbow-mohawked punker.
Questionable ethics and shit ending aside... This was a brutal but also highly inept, campy and goofy SOV slasher... A wild and trashy mix that's hard to ignore.
Snagged a copy on VHS.
It's a shame most of the fun is loaded into the ending 20 or so minutes. Just spread it out a bit more and this could have been an 80s cult classic. Confusing ghost though, looks more like a zombie, but zombies don't shape shift.
My quest to see all the Troma made and distributed films continues!
Watched with Jason.
The Newlydeads is a supernatural slasher released by Troma. With that said, it is pretty good but it is also cheap. There is a scene with a couple in the shower with a pretty funny struggle for a knife. There isn't too much to say about this one but it is worth pressing play if you have Troma Now.
One of those broken, dumb as shit cheapies that really are bad, yet there's enough off-kilter thinking and wacky filmmaking that it musters up great moments for those that spend too much time with trash cinema. Some solid kills, ludicrous plot logic, and enough cracked out characters, such as the alcoholic priest who really is the film's MVP, create enough schlock to help make up for its lethargic pacing and inert plot.
Shot on video, or merely edited on video? I can't tell.
Much more enjoyable and quicker paced than the director's following slasher, Epitaph, this involves a trans woman who is murdered by a man who cannot stand his attraction to her, and 15 years later she returns and kills off the newlyweds staying at the murderer's lodge. It's so silly, so so cheaply manifested and the end vanquishing is not at all a logical conclusion from any angle. But I managed to have a quick and fun time with some of the characters, a few solid kills (the poor impaled timid blond guy, the decapitation and the tree ornament) and a nice punk couple who will be joining us next year for The Newlydeads 2.
...oh. 🥺
This was never going to win any awards, but for a shot-on-video horror flick it’s an absolute masterpiece, seeming to involve actual actors as well as a whole professional crew if the credits are to be believed. Considerably more well-made than I’d anticipated. Not sure how to interpret the gender politics though. Also, baby Doug Jones!
Is this shot on video or is that film? Sometimes it looks like an old soap opera and sometimes it looks like a Todd Sheets movie...
We open with a trans woman showing up at a country motel/lodge. The owner takes a liking to her until he goes to run his fingers through her beautiful blonde hair and the wig falls off. Next thing you know we have a trans ghost haunting getaway for newlyweds.
I was actually expecting the movie to be more offensively transphobic than it was. I'm sure a more capable critic than myself could find it in there but on the surface we just have a man disgusted by his attraction towards her and a woman…