“Welcome to Potters Bluff, a new way of life.” So the sign reads as you come into town. Some photographer from out of town is on the beach, snapping pictures of seagulls, the beach, the ocean and what have you. As he’s snapping around, he comes upon a pretty hot blonde, and they strike up a conversation. He starts snapping pictures of her and BAM! Boobie alert!

You’d think that this would be a fortunate turn of events for the shutter happy “Freddy” (not his real name) but actually this appears to be the last time ol’ shutterbug gets a little, er, HOT under the collar if I may be so bold. Being that he gets the shit kicked out of him by the locals wielding shovels and crowbars right before he’s burned at the stake. Get it? HOT under the collar? Heh heh. Damn people! Work with me here.

Actually shutterbug is only the first of many brutal murders that are perpetrated by the strange townsfolk of Potters Bluff, and strange thing is the weird mob takes pictures of the victims before, during and after they’re mangled. Even more strange is that we find the previously murdered victims are now back as members of the strange mob the next time someone is dispatched.

Sheriff Dan is wondering what the hell is going on in his “postage stamp” sized town, many strange things are afoot, his wife (Melody Anderson, who I’ve always thought was way cute since her role as Dale Arden in Flash Gordon) is acting strange, as a matter-of-fact everything is strange, and this adds to the viewers confusion and makes the movie that much more compelling.

Altogether this 1981 horror flick plays out kind of like a Stephen King story, small little New England town, really strange shit going on that most of the townsfolk is involved in, it just felt like King’s work. The movie can get a little slow at times, but there are only a few scenes where this happens, and it doesn’t take too long to pick back up. For the most part, the movie is very suspenseful and mysterious. I remember when it came out, it was widely talked about for a few of its more disturbing scenes, in my circle of horror buffs it was referred to as “that movie with the huge needle in the eyeball.”

To the movie’s credit, the screenplay was written by Dan O’Bannon, the genius who brought us great movies like Alien, the B-17 story in Heavy Metal, Return of the Living Dead, Lifeforce, Total Recall, Alien3, Screamers, Alien Resurrection, and the upcoming Alien vs. Predator. So this dude’s got a pretty impressive resumé. Add EFX by Stan Winston who’s done makeup EFX on Terminator 2 and 3, Edward Scissorhands, among others and you’ve got a pretty damn good horror flick!

Only the aforementioned glimpse of some damn fine breastesses as far as nudity, and the gore quota is filled with a guy burned to a crackly crunch, the (shudder) needle scene, a torn off arm, fisherman hack –n- slash, a boulder to the head facial remodel, followed by an awesome mortuary facial reconstruction, a nasal administering of hydrochloric acid, and a disembodied heart.

The ending is pretty predictable, but the filmmakers throw in a few little twists and turns so there are some pretty good surprises you won't see coming and you don’t completely figure out the ending. This makes it more than a worth while watch.

You’ll usually see this one classified as a zombie movie more often than not, and I’ll submit it as such, but the “monsters” aren’t zombies per se, that is, they're not the Romero'esqe or Fulci type rotting corpse zombies we all know and love, but they are the living dead nonetheless.

8 out of 10 Unbeknownst acts of necrophilia