John Carl BuechlerFilmography

Hatchet

Crew: Makeup Special Effects

Actors: Joel David Moore, Tamara Feldman, Deon Richmond, Mercedes McNab, Joleigh Fioreavanti

Synopsis: A handful of college students looking for a good time are thrown into a world of danger in this homage to the slasher film cycle of the 1970s and '80s. Ben (Joel David Moore) has just been given his walking papers by his girlfriend and is deeply depressed. Needing a pick-me-up, Ben and his friend Read More

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Tony Todd, Tracy Scoggins, Vernon Wells, Deborah Shelton, Steve Wastell, Judi Shekoni

Synopsis: Genre specialist John Carl Buechler offers this savage twist on the classic Robert Louis Stevenson tale by tracing the dark journey of a brilliant doctor who is gradually transformed into a sinister, murderous creature. Dr. Jekyll (Tony Todd) has successfully cured a higher primate of a dire heart Read More

The Eden Formula

Crew: Director, Screen Story, Screenwriter

Actors: Jeff Fahey, Dee Wallace Stone, Tony Todd

Ice Crawlers

Crew: Creature Effects, Director, Producer

Actors: Götz Otto, Alexandra Kamp, Karen Nieci, Allen Lee Haff, David Millbern

Synopsis: John Buechler's horror film Ice Crawlers begins with a team of scientists getting information in the Arctic. Their actions awaken some nasty creatures that have been lying dormant for centuries. Now, they are hunting the scientists down one at a time. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide Read More

Vampires: Out for Blood

Crew: Makeup Special Effects

Actors: Kevin Dillon, Lance Henriksen, Jodi Lyn O'Keefe, Vanessa Angel

Synopsis: Kevin Dillon portrays Hank Holten, a detective who has discovered why numerous people have disappeared: vampires are killing off people who frequent the town's rave scene. Holten's work brings him too close to the undead, and soon he has become one of their victims; however, he attempts to use all Read More

Miner's Massacre

Crew: Director

Synopsis: A gaggle of young adults discovers a cache of gold in an abandoned mine. Little do they realize that the vengeful ghost of the long-dead miner (Vernon Wells) protects the hoard with a gaffing hook, pick axe, and shovel, despite the efforts of the sheriff (John Phillip Law) and zany Aunt Nelly (Karen Black Read More

A Light in the Forest

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Lindsay Wagner, Frank Bonner, Edward Albert, Carol Lynley, Bernie Kopell

Watchers Reborn

Crew: Director

Actors: Mark Hamill, Kane Hodder, Floyd Levine, Stephen Macht, Lou Rawls

Synopsis: In this sci-fi crime drama a super-smart canine and a detective team up to thwart a DNA-enhanced killer. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Freeway

Crew: Makeup Special Effects

Actors: Reese Witherspoon, Kiefer Sutherland, Brooke Shields, Amanda Plummer, Wolfgang Bodison, Dan Hedaya

Synopsis: In this postmodern exploitation flick loosely based on "Little Red Riding Hood," the uneducated daughter of a drug-addicted prostitute flees the foster-care system in search of her long-lost grandmother but meets up instead with a serial killer. Vanessa (Reese Witherspoon), a nearly illiterate Read More

The Fear

Crew: Special Effects

Actors: Eddie Bowz, Darin Heames, Ann Turkel, Vince Edwards

Synopsis: A weekend encounter group session goes dreadfully wrong in this campy thriller done in the tradition of an old Ed Wood movie. Richard, a disturbed, but serious student who has been having strange recurring dreams, has just received the go-ahead for his research project. With a group of subjects Read More

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers

Crew: Makeup

Actors: Tom Proctor, Donald Pleasence, Mitchell Ryan, Marianne Hagan, Paul Rudd, Leo Geter

Synopsis: Picking up six years after the events of Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, this competently produced but ultimately disappointing sequel attempts to tie up the uneven horror series' loose ends with a less-than-convincing resolution. This installment opens with Jamie Lloyd (J.C. Brandy) Read More

Carnosaur

Crew: Special Effects

Actors: Diane Ladd, Raphael Sbarge, Jennifer Runyon, Harrison Page, Clint Howard

Synopsis: One of the more popular features from Roger Corman's "B"-factory Concorde/New Horizons, Carnosaur perpetuates the grand Corman tradition of zeroing in on a big-budget Hollywood studio moneymaker, then dashing off a quick-and-dirty poor man's version before moss gets a chance to grow on the larger Read More

Son of Darkness: To Die For II

Crew: Special Effects

Actors: Rosalind Allen, Steve Bond, Scott Jacoby, Michael Praed, Jay Underwood, Amanda Wyss

Synopsis: A substantial improvement on its predecessor, this in-name-only sequel retains only a few characters from the original To Die For, standing alone as an effective vampire tale in its own right. The complex plot revolves around the facilities of vampire Doctor Max (Michael Praed), whose stores of Read More

Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go to College

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Though representing a slight step upward in budget from the previous two Ghoulies installments, this is still a rather silly exercise in childish fart jokes and rubbery monster effects. The title critters are mini-demons summoned forth from a demonic chamber pot (seriously!) by the occult-obsessed Read More

Demonic Toys

Crew: Special Effects

Actors: Tracy Scoggins

Synopsis: An early, derivative effort from Charles Band's incredibly prolific direct-to-video outfit Full Moon Productions, this is an undercooked stew of a dozen horror plots, particularly Child's Play and Night of the Living Dead. A tough lady-cop (Tracy Scoggins) is forced to curtail her task of Read More

The Sleeping Car

Crew: Special Effects

Actors: David Naughton, Judie Aronson, Kevin McCarthy, Jeff Conaway, Dani Minnick

Synopsis: In this horror film, after his recent divorce, Jason (David Naughton) takes up residence in a converted railroad car with the intention of finishing up his college education. His plans are soon disrupted, however, when the ghost of a vengeful railroad conductor begins to haunt and slay Jason's Read More

To Die For

Crew: Special Effects

Actors: Brendan Hughes, Sydney Walsh, Amanda Wyss, Scott Jacoby, Micah Grant

Synopsis: The never ending battle between good and evil continues as history's most notorious bloodsucker turns up in modern day Los Angeles in director Deran Sarafian's updating of Bram Stoker's timeless tale of terror. He may have a new look and a new life, but when Vlad Tepish arrives on Los Angeles in Read More

Ghost Town

Crew: Makeup Special Effects, Special Effects

Actors: Franc Luz, Catherine Hickland, Jimmie F. Skaggs, Penelope Windust, Bruce Glover

Synopsis: This interesting fusion of the horror and Western genres involves a modern-day sheriff (Franc Luz) whose search for a missing heiress leads him into the title locale, a frontier-age Arizona township whose residents are cursed with immortality. He eventually discovers that the abductee (Catherine Hickland Read More

Friday the 13th, Part VII: The New Blood

Crew: Director, Makeup Special Effects

Actors: Lar Park Lincoln, Jennifer Banko, Kevin Spirtas, Susan Blu, Terry Kiser, John Otrin, Susan Sullivan

Synopsis: Directed by makeup effects artist John Carl Buechler, the seventh in the long-running, grisly horror series was far from the last, although the climactic fate of its antagonist would seem to suggest a final send-off. Lar Park Lincoln stars as Tina Shepard, a teenager with uncontrolled telekinetic Read More

Prison

Crew: Special Effects

Actors: Lane Smith, Viggo Mortensen, Chelsea Field, Andre de Shields, Lincoln Kilpatrick

Synopsis: Prison guard Ethan Sharpe (Lane Smith) watched as Burke (Viggo Mortensen) dies in the electric chair in 1964. Over two decades later, Sharpe is the warden, and Burke returns from the dead to exact revenge on the wicked warden when the prison re-opens. Two victims drip blood while dangling in Read More

Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity

Crew: Special Effects

Actors: Elizabeth Kaitan, Cindy Beal, Brinke Stevens, Don Scribner, Carl Horner

Synopsis: When a pair of attractive female slaves escape from their captors, they find themselves stranded on a strange jungle-covered planet. While the girls explore their new surroundings, they discover that they are being hunted by the planet's ruler. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide Read More

The Garbage Pail Kids Movie

Crew: Special Effects

Actors: Anthony Newley, MacKenzie Astin, Katie Barberi, Ron MacLachlan, Kevin Thompson

Synopsis: Sometimes kids like to do things to gross out or shock their parents. This is only natural, but many companies exploit this tendency by creating toys to appeal to that childish joy in the disgusting. In the late '80s, a new kind of bubblegum card, the Garbage Pail kids, featuring caricature Read More

Dolls

Crew: Special Effects

Actors: Ian Williams, Carolyn Purdy-Gordon, Carrie Lorraine, Guy Rolfe, Hilary Mason

Synopsis: Young Judy Bower (Carrie Lorraine) is spending the summer with her stupid, abusive father, David (Ian Williams), and nasty stepmother, Rosemary (Carolyn Purdy-Gordon). On a dark and stormy night, their car breaks down on a lonely road in the woods and they are forced to seek shelter. As they walk Read More

Valet Girls

Crew: Makeup Special Effects

Actors: Meri D. Marshall, April Stewart, Mary Kohnert, Christopher Weeks, Patricia Scott Michel

Synopsis: In this sex comedy, the hope of landing a profitable contract sets two rival valet services, the Fraternity Parkers and the Valet Girls, into competition with each other. In an attempt to outsell their competition, both services offer special bonuses and incentives to their lucky customers. Read More

Demonwarp

Crew: Makeup Special Effects, Screen Story, Special Effects

Actors: George Kennedy, David Michael O'Neill, Pamela Gilbert, Colleen McDermott

Synopsis: Moronic teens vacationing in Demonwood Forest are terrorized by a shambling Neanderthal -- not the director, but a big goon in a fuzzy ape suit who attacks George Kennedy and hauls his daughter off into the woods to a fate worse than death... perhaps to a screening of this movie. As it turns out Read More

Ghoulies 2

Crew: Special Effects

Actors: Damon Martin, Royal Dano, Phil Fondacaro, J. Downing, Kerry Remsen

Synopsis: This pedantic sequel to Empire Pictures' less-than-original Ghoulies was released directly to video and summarily slipped into oblivion. At the outset of this one, the title creatures -- rubbery puppets originally conceived as cut-rate Gremlins lookalikes -- are shanghaied by a priest who intends Read More

The Caller

Crew: Special Effects

Actors: Malcolm McDowell, Madolyn Smith

Synopsis: Malcolm McDowell and Madolyn Smith star in this unusual science fiction thriller. A young woman alone in a remote cabin expects friends for dinner, but instead a man who has car trouble knocks at her door and asks her help in calling for a tow truck. She sees him the next day in the village and Read More

Cellar Dweller

Crew: Director, Special Effects

Actors: Deborah Mullowney, Brian Robbins, Vince Edwards, Cheryl-Ann Wilson, Jeffrey Combs

Synopsis: A quaint, stagebound little horror film from Charles Band's Empire Pictures, Cellar Dweller stars Jeffrey Combs (fresh off his glorious turn as Herbert West in the Empire-produced Re-Animator) as a '50s horror-comic artist who falls prey to one of his own creations -- a ferocious demon he based on Read More

From Beyond

Crew: Special Effects

Actors: Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Ted Sorel, Ken Foree

Synopsis: The production team responsible for the twisted cult classic Re-Animator -- including director Stuart Gordon and producer Brian Yuzna -- returned the following year with this equally depraved (perhaps more so) follow-up, based once again (and very loosely) on the pulp-horror fiction of H.P. Lovecraft Read More

Terrorvision

Crew: Special Effects

Actors: Diane Franklin, Gerritt Graham, Mary Woronov, Chad Allen, Jonathan Gries

Synopsis: The hokey TerrorVision is more an unintentional model of how horror films were made in the early '50s than a trend-setting story about the TV monster who ate them all. When Stanley (Gerrit Graham) goes outside to adjust his family's satellite dish, a living, organic alien Read More

The Eliminators

Crew: Makeup Special Effects

Actors: Andrew Prine, Denise Crosby, Patrick Reynolds, Conan Lee, Roy Dotrice

Synopsis: A touch of comic relief adds to this otherwise predictable sci-fi actioner about a mad scientist (Roy Dotrice) holed up in a remote jungle fortress in Mexico with his time-machine and robotic know-how. He plans on zapping himself back to the Roman Empire to reign as emperor in Caesar's stead Read More

Troll

Crew: Director, Special Effects

Actors: Noah Hathaway, Michael Moriarty, Shelley Hack, Jenny Beck, Sonny Bono, June Lockhart

Synopsis: When a family moves into a San Francisco apartment, an opportunistic troll decides to make his move and take possession of little Wendy (Jenny Beck), thereby paving the way for new troll recruits, the first in his army that will take eventual control of the planet. As luck would have it, the Read More

The Dungeonmaster

Crew: Director, Makeup Special Effects

Actors: Jeffrey Byron, Richard Moll, Leslie Wing, Blackie Lawless, Danny Dick

Synopsis: First shot in 1983 but not released until 1985, this low-budget, amateur fantasy is about Paul Bradford (Jeffrey Byron), a computer whiz who takes on the forces of evil in the guise of Heavy Metal (Blackie Lawless), the leader of an eponymous L.A. band, and Mestema (Richard Moll) the black Read More

Re-Animator

Crew: Makeup Special Effects

Actors: Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott, Barbara Crampton, Robert Sampson, David Gale

Synopsis: Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) is a brilliant medical student who has perfected a green-glowing serum for regenerating life into dead things -- or even parts of dead things. But a corrupt superior, Dr. Carl Hill (David Gale), assumes control of West's experiments and winds up, by ghastly Read More

Hard Rock Zombies

Crew: Makeup Special Effects

Actors: E.J. Curcio, Sam Mann, Geno Andrews, Mick Mc Mains

Synopsis: Essentially a feature-length music video featuring one of the most horrendous, awful heavy metal acts in the history of hairspray and studded leather, this hilarious horror dud involves a band of hard-rockin' boneheads whose concert tour includes a stopover in a hick town where the inbred denizens Read More

Trancers

Crew: Special Effects

Actors: Tim Thomerson, Helen Hunt, Michael Stefani, Art La Fleur, Biff Manard

Synopsis: With the whimsical tagline "Jack Deth is back and he's never been here before," director Charles Band melds Blade Runner, The Terminator, and Jingle All the Way for this low-budget science fiction adventure. The story takes place in Angel City in the year 2247, when enforcer Jack Deth (Tim Thomerson Read More

Ghoulies

Crew: Special Effects

Actors: Peter Liapis, Lisa Pelikan, Michael Des Barres, Jack Nance, Peter Risch

Synopsis: Joe Dante's box-office fantasy Gremlins had barely left American cinemas before Charles Band's B-movie factory, Empire Pictures, rushed out this cheap knockoff. While Dante's film benefited from the director's wry sense of humor and the high-concept clout of executive producer Steven Spielberg, Band Read More

Zone Troopers

Crew: Special Effects

Actors: Tim Thomerson, Timothy Van Patten, Art La Fleur, Biff Manard, William Paulson

Synopsis: This off-beat story combines elements of a science fiction adventure and World War II drama. A platoon of U.S. soldiers are surrounded by the enemy in Italy and are forced to fight their way back behind the lines to their troops. The platoon is populated by the usual characters: "Sarge" (Tim Thomerson Read More

The Deathstalker

Crew: Makeup Special Effects

Actors: Richard Hill, Barbi Benton, Richard Brooker, Lana Clarkson, Victor Bo

Synopsis: Richard Hill is Deathstalker in this sweat-drenched Sword-and-Sorcery romp. Armed with the Sword of Justice, which renders him invincible, Hill takes on main villain Victor Bo. Barbi Benton is the delectable damsel in distress, whose costume budget must have come to about 18 cents. This Read More

Sorceress

Crew: Special Effects

Actors: Lynette Harris, Bob Nelson, David Millbern, Bruno Rey

Synopsis: The action-adventure scenes of unconvincing sword fights, passable martial arts, and other macho displays alternate with the feminine displays of twins Mira and Mara (Leigh Harris and Lynette Harris) in this prehistoric fantasy. Mira and Mara were raised as boys -- for awhile, anyway -- to protect Read More

Forbidden World

Crew: Special Effects

Actors: Jesse Vint, June Chadwick, Dawn Dunlap, Linden Chiles, Fox Harris

Synopsis: Fans of outrageously bad drive-in fare from New World Pictures will find much to love in this bargain-bin science fiction weirdness -- one of several Alien rip-offs foisted on defenseless audiences by Roger Corman's legendary B-movie factory. The plot -- which, of course, is irrelevant to the Read More

The Prey

Crew: Makeup Special Effects

Actors: Debbie Thureson, Steve Bond, Lori Lethin, Robert Wald

Synopsis: As in several other films with this same theme, six young men and women head out for a hike in the woods, unaware that a crazed killer is on the loose looking for victims. About 30 years earlier, a group of gypsies were burnt to death in a forest fire, except for one small boy. Now the boy, all Read More