Turnaround

My Aurum Encyclopedia of Horror describes Turnaround as 'a bloodless Last House on the Left clone'; somebody get me some of whatever they were on when they watched the film. By no stretch of the imagination is this lame '80s teen thriller anything like Wes Craven's gruelling '70s horror classic.

The opening montage of motorbikes and crap magic tricks set to a cheesy pop-rock theme song suggests exactly what kind of film this is going to be: a badly-dated bit of tacky straight to video garbage.

Doug McKeon (from teen sex comedy Mischief) plays Ben, grandson of magician Theo Aitken (Eddie Albert), who has somehow found fame and fortune despite his stage act comprising of third-rate illusions. After Ben and his friends are terrorised by the most pathetic biker gang imaginable, Theo helps the youngsters get even - by rigging his house with magic tricks and luring the thugs into their trap...

This cockamamie plan succeeds in scaring the bejeezus out of the biker hoodlums, who are apprehended by the police shortly after (having identified the gang using their powerful new police computer).

Nobody is raped, nobody is shot, nobody is electrocuted, nobody is chainsawed, and nobody has their tallywhacker bitten off. There is, however, loads of nasty synth/guitar muzak and plenty of hideous '80s fashion.