Director: Dominick Brascia
Written by: Steven Baio & Dominick Brascia
Music by: David Shapiro
Starring: Steven Baio, Tony Griffin, Kim McKamy (Ashlyn Gere), Jody Gibson, Jerold Pearson, Myles O’Brien, Howard Weiss, Karyn O’Bryan, Susan Grant
Tagline: “Ten years ago something terrible happened in this house… This weekend it’s about to happen AGAIN.”
“Martin’s back and he’ll scare you… TO DEATH!”
SYNOPSIS
A group of college kids spend a weekend at an isolated old house, which one of their number plans to renovate and turn into a foster home. However, the house was the scene of a terrible crime, and a mysterious killer start picking off the kids one by one, only identified by his evil maniacal laugh.
OPINION
Evil Laugh is an interesting movie in that it seems somewhat like an early precursor to Wes Craven’s Scream trilogy. Coming at the tail-end of the 80s, and thus long after the initial slasher boom, it’s inevitable that the slasher movies of this period were rather more comedic or tongue-in-cheek than those that immediately followed Friday the 13th.
So, it’s no surprise that this movie isn’t so much scary as an attempt at a “fun” horror movie. There’s a few inventive murders (including one death by microwave that’s silly, but no more silly than the stupid add-on to the end of the remake of Last House On The Left). There’s some horror in-jokes, often coming (of course!) from the character who reads Fangoria – the main thing that brings Scream to mind, to be honest. There’s alos some gentle poking at some of the slasher movie clichés that had become well entrenched by the time this movie was released.
However, the low budget and relative inexperience of the cast and crew does show. The movie drags in places, some of the characters’ actions are dumb (without the knowing aspect that made Craven’s film work so well), there’s a terrible time-wasting musical montage while they clean the house and the twist ending is dumb. But, with that it’s quite entertaining and a fair rental if you don’t expect too much. By the way, the reaper figure featured prominently in the marketing materials for the movie appears nowhere in the film itself.
Rating: 
Trivia: The lead actor Steven Baio is probably best known for being 80s TV star Scott Baio’s brother, while director Brascia is best known for playing the fat guy in Friday the 13th Part 5: A New Beginning.
Kim McKamy went on to have a lucrative porn career under the name Ashlyn Gere!
AVAILABILITY
There is a region 1 DVD available, inevitably barebones.
UPDATE: I’m not sure how long this will last or its actual legailty, but the entire movie is currently up on YouTube.
Good movie information on your blog. Thanks