Mondo Holocausto

Alien from the Deep (1989)

2011-03-19T02:01:00.000-07:00

Director - Antonio Margheriti

It's been over a year and a half since my last serious review. And I really use the word "serious"...well not seriously. Watched this movie last night and felt compelled to put it up on the Mondo. It's a great (terrible) movie and from a new DVD releasing company that should be brought to more people's attention. Also it's suuuuuuuuuch a shitty movie, so it's right at home here. Boom.

The box promises what looks like a super cool mega robot/alien hybrid with a huge ripper-claw capable of puncturing the soft DVD case and destroying your brain. What's actually given to the viewer is (no joke) a full hour of pure misery and then a kinda sorta alien thing shows up. I will from here on out judge a persons survival instinct well if they tell me they've sat through this whole thing. You will be cool. Um, I'm going to skip the plot breakdown as it is completely dumb and just move on to the good stuff.

(Marina Giulia Cavalli AKA "Julie McKay" actually American and actually a total babe)

Babes. Not a lot of female characters here. Actually you wanna get real? I believe there is only one female on screen in the entire movie. There are a ton of extras, and a lot of shitty characters that offer up either meaningless dialogue (Charles Napier drops in for a head scratching appearance. Awesome.) or they get killed off really fast, but make no mistake none of them are women. I guess no other chick is hot enough to star opposite Marina Giulia Cavalli as she is just a complete fox and makes me wish I had known about her sooner. I haven't seen her in much else before this but oh my god. She's super hot, and other than that she total sucks in this movie. Disclaimer. She does not get naked in this flick, but she does have a Red Shoe Diaries in her credit so there is hope. I will report back as needed.

The movie has an overwhelming Bruno Mattei vibe to it. It looks like one thing (cool) and gives you something completely opposite (crappy). A good chunk of it takes place in the jungle. The effects are just so god awful as is the music. So it would make sense that Franco Gaudenzi would be the producer here, having produced some of my absolute favorite Mattei flicks. Not a usual for Margheriti but interesting to note none the less.

(she was touched by that...uh..alien claw thing! quick, to the "decontamination chamber!" leave the white shirt on!")

So the best thing about the plot is how the alien aspect just completely sidetracks from the main (real) plot of the movie. The first two acts of the movie go along and it's pure italio-jungle adventure. Think Massacre at Dinosaur Valley ( 1985), or Cozzi's brilliant Contamination (1980) with a dose of environmental terror ala the Spanish/Italian co production The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue (1974). Throw in an Alien (1979) rip-off for the last 30 minutes of the movie and now you've seen it.

And when I say Alien rip-off I mean two idiots running around an E-Chem biological complex (abandoned rock quarry) fending off a big claw that pops up from the ground from time to time. It's seriously not even an alien, it's a claw or...arm for the whole bit until the last five minutes when it finally mutates into a totally fucking rad gigantic alien that is obviously hoisted up by a crane and fought off by a yellow forklift (couldn't afford a powerloader). As soon as it gets good, it gets over and the credits are rolling. It's pretty rad.

(it's sooooooo crappy looking)

So One Seven Movies put this out, and it's a part of of the initial four DVDs they've released this quarter. Hell of a way to start up a DVD company in my opinion. This isn't their first rodeo though, One Seven was started by a founding member of the No Shame/MYA DVD folks, so you get the idea. I picked up another one of theirs, The Sins of Madam Bovery (1969) mostly for Edwige Fenech, but it was cool to see this new company put out some good exploitation/euro erotica that otherwise would not have been released here. So thank you, One Seven Movies.

(AUGHHH THIS MOVIE IS NOT AS GOOD AS ALIEN! LET'S ROCK! THIS TIME IT'S WAR!)

If you see this movie you'll be mad at me so just read this, watch the trailer and you'll be good. Oh yeah there are two, count em TWO shower scenes in this movie.

RIP Antonio Marghereti.

5/10

Chopping Mall (1986)

2009-10-05T01:16:00.000-07:00

Director - Jim Wynorski

The glory days of the video cassette, when video stores had the curtained "back room" and the 3-B's (blood, breasts and beasts) reigned over the horror video market. A time long since forgotten. Chopping Mall perhaps one of the best examples of the time. Eye catching bloody box cover art, a big time VHS company logo on the side, and a "R" rating on the back. What kid wouldn't see this on the shelf and not want to rent it? That was the case for me anyway as a youth when it comes to Chopping Mall.

You don't need to know the plot. It doesn't matter, all you need to know is that killer robots have sparked to life and are killing (...chopping, if you will) a group of kids who work in the mall and are partying there after hours. Kelli Maroney (Night of the Comet 1984) leads the "star" power as the wholesome chick who is not like her whoreish friend/co-workers. She just finds love after the mall has closed it's gates with a dude while they watch b-movies with each other. The romantic sub-plot gets blown to bits as heads start to explode off, and throats are slit by hands of the new security bots roaming the shopping center.

(the last precious moment before death...by laser from a killbot)

Now, I know what you're thinking...mechanical killers and a mall, sounds gaytarded, and you'd be very wrong. This is hands down the Citizen Kane of killer-robot-run-amok-in mall-vs. teens-exposed breasts-propane bomb films. This isn't your parent's malfunctioned-robot-massacre-in a mall movies. That's a fact. This is the end all be all.

(Johnny-5 is a bitch)

Chances are you've seen it, as it has cult status, but if you haven't I highly suggest it. Mindless action, some good gore, a head explodes, there are naked chicks, and (of course) a shit load of killer robots who have a taste for stupid shit teens. Keep your eye out for the use of 80's movie poster art, and while your at it check out director Jim Wynorski's other movies (Busty Cops, The Breastford Wives, The Da Vinci Coed, and House on Hooter Hill) as they're also of high caliber and should not be missed.

Classic flick right here.

10/10

Combat Shock (1986)

2009-08-27T00:18:00.000-07:00

Director - Buddy Giovinazzo

"Makes you want to slit your wrists..." - William Lustig (Director of Maniac)

Anyone who has read this dumb blog (...anyone? no?) knows that I love 1980's New York in any kind of movie. This could be the definite scum trashterpiece NYC flick of all time.

Frankie is an unemployed Vietnam veteran living in Staten Island with his nagging wife, and deformed, always-crying-baby. His child is deformed due to Frankie's exposure to agent orange in 'nam. Frankie struggles to get out of bed to face his harsh reality. The unemployment line is longer than expected, the eviction notice is on his door, his friends are junkies shaking him down, and he owes money to everyone on the street. Frankie's life is complete shit, he can't catch a break and everyone is out to get him. He's a nice guy, just beaten down. A series of flashbacks from the war show him on his own in the jungle as he is forced to do things to children to save his own life. He is captured and put into a POW camp for years and years.

("I see it all so...clearly now")

All of the horrors of war stick with Frankie, but the hard part wasn't over. His life afterwards is what pushes him over the edge. The movie hits like a boot to the teeth, it's bleak, sad, and unrelenting in it's pessimistic direction, and it never lets up. Underpasses, cockroach filled apartments, and the cracked sidewalks of New York City paint the backdrop. It's awesome, it's harsh, but it rules. Child hookers, crackheads, pimps, violence, all rolled up in one block of Staten Island. This isn't a romp, nor is it light hearted. It is, however, a pretty rad, albeit art house version of 80's New York. Think somewhere between Taxi Driver (1976), Eraserhead (1977) and the obvious precursor to Van Bebber's urban nightmare epic Deadbeat at Dawn (1988). The greatness of the flick is it's ending, there is nothing "shocking" until the ending. It just drags you through a day in the life of this dude, and then bam it smacks you in the face. You can kind of see it coming but it's such a good way to end the movie. Perhaps the saddest part of Frankie's existence is after he is rejected from the unemployment office. He stumbles back out in his ghetto to a phone booth to try and reconcile with his dying father whom he had a falling out with some years prior. Needless to say his father isn't going to loan him any money, so Frankie turns to crime. He's too much of a nice guy to be well suited for the gig, but goes through with it anyway. Again, that doesn't end well. He hits bottom pretty hard. Get through the first 90 minutes, you'll watch his grasp on reality slip every step of the way. It's tight.

The real gem here is the new 2-Disc Tromasterpiece DVD that Troma just put out. There is the theatrical cut of the movie that you may have seen before (with commentary by the director and Jorg Buttgereit the director of Nekromantik this was the audio track on the old Troma DVD release), and there is the 9 minute longer director's cut that was shown at film festivals in the late 80's under it's original tittle American Nightmares. I watched the Director's cut, it's good, it drags a bit but that's the point. The second disc has great, great bonus features including a new documentary on the influence, outrage, and impact the movie had. Watch as dudes like William Lustig, Jim Van Bebber, and John McNaughton gush on how much they love the movie. It's cool, it's cool to hear Van Bebber talk about how people called Deadbeat... a rip-off of this and acknowledged how different they really are. 8 short films and music videos find their way onto the disc, a new interview with Buddy Giovinazzo, Lloyd Kaufman and Buddy talk about the flick in another feature from a film festival. Another cool interview is with Rick Giovinazzo (star and brother of the director) about the movie. Some fun stuff like classic locations are shown what they look like today. Nerd stuff basically.

The 2-Disc is worth picking up for the great bonus features. If you liked the Dark Sky Films Van Bebber box set then this is just like that and you'll dig it. I really dug the movie, I'm glad we got it in at the store. I threw it up on the new release wall and some people have rented it already. One dude was really bummed on it. Oh well.

7/10

Unhinged (1982)

2009-08-06T03:31:00.000-07:00

Director - Don Gronquist

What a pile.

Portland, Oregon makes a slasher movie. Three chicks on their way to a rock concert get in a car accident in the middle of nowhere, they wake up to some total weirdo spinster taking care of them. They hang out at this weird ass mansion where an old lady reigns over in a strange anti-male kind of regal authority. Virtually no plot follows as the three girls are killed off, kinda sorta, way too far into the movie. Why were so many stalk and slash 80's flicks fixated on gender issues and retarded people? Insensitivity in the 80's I suppose, but seriously some weird stuff going on. A bevy of homosexual/transgender/whatever hang ups ensue this mediocre slash flick. Some good scenes here and there, minimal gore, and a rad synth soundtrack make this just tolerable enough. I'm not even going to get into the specifics as this movie sucks so bad, but I will post some highlights ala Joe Bob Briggs.

Drive-In Totals:

1 nude scene within the first 5 minutes
2 shower scenes
1 scythe swipe death
Tard Fu followed by headshot
1 claw hammer-face-combo
1 tranny
30+ machete stabs to a girls face

(Booya, told you about the hammer smashed face.)

All in all a pretty low body count (4), and you keep waiting for the gore since this is a "video nasty", and you keep waiting for the gratuitous nudity. While they never really come, when bits of it do show up (shower scenes/scythe throat slash) you get pretty excited. I was talking to my friend John while watching this, discussing how the "classics" are classics for a reason because they're good. When it comes to slasher flicks there is nothing new under the sun, the reason why you've never seen this movie is because it's not very good. Watch Black Christmas (1974) instead if you must, you'll get more out of it with the creepy pervert angle and the stalking/slashing.

(The 80's trend of girls wearing sports jerseys to bed needs to continue. This is post showering together by the way.)

My VHS copy was purchased at the Westside Mini Mart on Tieton Drive in Yakima, WA. It's the Lighthouse Home Video (?) release, the box art is fucking rad and the box is cut up and put into a clam shell case. The blurbs on the back are pretty cool; "Hideous! Just what the market needs." and "Gore lovers will wallow in it!" and there are pictures of all of the death scenes in the synapse. I don't know much about Lighthouse Home Video, but this was put out in 1983 in it's "Unrated" cut, so I have some faith that this isn't the censored version and I don't want to buy this on DVD to see if there is anything different. A cheap ploy back then was to rate something as "Unrated" when in fact it was the R cut, the same can be said for today's crap with "Unrated" slapped on the box.

3 dead teenagers, 1 dead special needs dude. 1 bad movie.

4/10

Escape From Women's Prison (1974)

2009-07-31T18:39:00.000-07:00

Director - Giovanni Brusadori

"They're Bustin' Out!"

I'll say.

Four political prisoners escape from the big house, high jack a charter bus full of 18 year old tennis playing chicks then it's a home invasion on the judge who put them behind bars. The jailbait is locked up in the basement, but they're in mini-skirts and naturally the tops start flying off. The tough convict broads go about raping any and all other females and males in this fancy mansion, run around with guns, use foul language, and so on and so forth.

It's nothing special, girls with armpit hair take back their freedom while beating the shit out of dudes all the while their shirts are off. Other chicks get smacked around, again just tons...tons of rape. Suddenly the movie turns into a hostage kinda flick, a dude pisses his pants, the girls get even more naked, and of course a dude gets fed dog food by one of the bad ass chicks.

This is a weird movie. It saw a DVD release as a double feature disc, paired with Deported Women of the SS (1976) and it's pretty much only lived on in that format for while. I however tracked down this VHS copy at Ron's Coin and Book in Yakima, Washington last week. That place is where I first bought Fulci's Zombie 2 back in middle school, it's an institution and I can trace back a lot of my life through that crappy store. Anyway the VHS is just awful, there is a high pitched "hummmmm, weeeeeee, hummmm" throughout the entire god damned movie but I couldn't not watch this great piece of cinema. This is the Videoline VHS, and in a twist of fate the "Crazy Mike's Video" sticker is still on the tape with the 2612 W. Nob Hill address (one of the 2 video stores in Yakima that I grew up going to about once a week. I've been working at one of the only surviving Crazy Mike's Video stores for the past 4 years here in Bellingham, WA) and if they used our color coding system the orange dot on the tape indicates this video would have been found in the "Drama" section at the Nob Hill store. Ha. Probably rented really well there.

It's not exactly a Women-in-Prison movie as it is a tough chicks kind of movie. There aren't any prison scenes it mostly takes place at this mansion. It's really bad, but if you're looking for gratuitous nudity, absurd editing ("GET BACK HERE! Me? I'm Hungry" aaaaaaand fade to black? What the fuck?), and some decent girl on girl fights/soft core then this is really the movie for you...and me. Only bummer is the run time, it's 100 minutes. No thanks. Cut and dry movie, you get what you get, hence why this review is so short. More movies of this ilk should be like this.

6/10

Creepozoids (1987)

2009-07-06T02:14:00.000-07:00

Director - David DeCoteau

Filmed with the panache of a Cinemax "late night movie" and the production budget to match, Creepozoids is the epitome of late 80's verging on the advancement of 90's movie making (lighting and costumes looked like a 90's soap opera basically) crappy movie. This was right around the time where the video market was getting flooded and VHS manufacturing companies like Lightning Video, and Paragon Video would actually start to finance film production. This isn't the case with Creepozoids, however this is just a reference point as to where this kind of stuff was coming from. Over saturation, quick to make, cheap to make, garbage...and it totally rules.

(Sweet foreign VHS box art and sleeve)

It's the future. World War III to be exact, and five army deserters have bailed on the big one to try and seek refuge in the wasteland that is the USA. Nuclear fallout has ravaged the landscape (er, what looks to be an underpass of a freeway, one of the few exterior shots in the whole flick) and acid rain comes pouring down at a seconds notice. The army dorks stumble upon a seemingly uninhabited warehouse where they decide to hold up for a while. Hey it has running water, hot showers (shower scene time), food, and supplies. Might as well stay for a while. Only the catch is prior to these brainiacs showing up some scientists were pressing random buttons and mixing different colored liquids and made a monster thing that lives in this place. Ruh roh.

Linnea Quigley (Trash in Return of the Living Dead 1985) does a shower scene or two and then the movie just turns into a third rate, ultra low budget Alien rip off. Pretty sweet deal. The laughable creature effects are part of this movie's charm, the thing smashes through the recruits one by one and sneaks around in the dark. The genius of the flick is that it was no doubt all filmed on a couple of sets, in probably just a few weekends, which provides for a stale yet claustrophobic setting (one of which I'm sure was intended but only half delivered since the movie is pretty bad). The humor is intentional? Who knows? The score is goofy. It also has a runtime of just about 70 minutes. The length of which I feel all movies should be.

(Boom. Shower scene.)

Things I've learned from Creepozoids? That Linnea Quigley was in a movie called Robot Ninja (1989) that I really, really, really want to see based on tittle alone. The director, David DeCoteau did in fact direct soft core early-90's porno for channel outlets like Showtime and Cinemax! It all comes full circle now!

(Giant rat...'cause...well why not?)

If you're a fan of the Italian's post nuke stuff, if you liked Alien and want to see what that movie could have been like had it been filmed in a warehouse with a bunch of community theater actors in it, then rent this. If you're a fan of movies like Hell Comes to Frogtown (1987) or Bruno Mattei's genius Rats: Night of Terror (1984) then rent this. I thought for sure my DVD copy was a bootleg, having bought it for way cheap at a recent horror convention, but after digging around I was wrong. It's just a terrible transfer with awful pixilated box art so beware if you are looking to buy it. Watch it with friends. Eat a pizza. Count how many times the alien/baby thing gets lost looking for the guy at the end...seriously it goes on forever. Building "tension" no doubt. Also one of my favorite movie posters, classic 80's cheese.

7/10

Amazonia: The Catherine Miles Story

2009-05-16T03:41:00.000-07:00

Director - Mario Gariazzo

Just a not good movie. Lower level cannibal flick. Not nearly as bad as Papaya: Love Goddess of the Cannibals (1978) or other Jess Franco flicks, but really not good. This came in used at the local record store down the street, and I couldn't not buy it. I have been meaning to check this one out ever since reading Jay Slater's brilliant book Eaten Alive!: Italian Cannibal and Zombie Movies (my bible basically over the past 2 years, and I highly suggest reading it if you have the slightest appreciation for anything exploitation related. Well written, funny, poignant, and all with precise research. Truly great reading.) and being curious about it as it's chronologically one of the last true Italian cannibal movies. I guess after Deodata and Lenzi's war was over, so was most of the genre, the stragglers remained, this included. Needless to say I'm morbidly curious as to the late entry nonsense that goes into an already despicable sub-genre of movie making.

Let's start it out that one half of the Mondo Cane team helped make this movie. That was my first raised eyebrow in the intro credits, spotting a "Prosperi" is a clear red flag (or in my case a "rad, what am I getting into now?" feeling) as he is responsible for the strange occurrence of pseudo "shockumentaries" that had their own little niche in the 60's to the 80's. Think Faces of Death but to a grand (dare I say, well done?) degree. Anyway this is a total piece of shit dude, who makes a living on the exploitation of women, animals, and anything else that can bleed or scream on camera. He also had a helping hand in the awful shlock-fest Last House on the Beach (1978), just a notorious dude who I kind of respect. Only he makes terrible movies.

(Kinda got something...right there...good. No, I got it.)

Movie kicks starts with a blow-dart fest and right into a double decapitation-a-thon in the first few minutes. Ok, points are awarded to the Amazonia team. 18 year old Catherine Miles, played by pretty much unknown Elvire Audray (Scorpion With Two Tails 1982, and equally un-watchable Ironmaster 1983) watches her parents get their heads chopped off by blood thirsty savages whilst on vacation in the Amazon. There she is captured and turned into a slave by the tribe.

Audray gives a terrible narration throughout the entire movie, as she describes the horrors of the jungle life she had to be a part of for over a year. The torture, the savage rituals, the complete nonsense garbage plot twists, the cardboard-looking-alligator attacks, the stock animal cruelty footage from old Mondo movies spliced, all of it well documented in a nails on the chalk board running monologue from this chick. The soundtrack is awful too, trying to imitate the main themes of Riz Ortalini's brilliant Cannibal Holocaust score as best as possible only failing so, so, very hard.

(Talk about a real "head case", am I right? Women, I mean...they're not like us guys.)

She falls in love with the suspected murderer of her parents, a brown dude with a terrible Ramones wig and a penchant for head hunting, come to find out he didn't kill her family. The guilty party get their revenge at the end, I wont spoil it for you. The revenge is pretty cool, lots of decap. Before the good stuff, some jungle dudes fight each other one guy is just naked, the other in a loincloth. Pretty cool. Nothing gay about it. Audray's vacant stares (er, her "acting") watch onward as the dudes kind of roll around together, pretty weird scene, not gonna lie. The girls don't "loose" their virginity in the traditional sense in this primitive tribe, why would they? No when they reach the certain age they get the ol' wood stick insert, that just kind of clears it all right up, and now the women are ready for little cannibal making. Again, pretty weird.

Oh yeah, and there is like a ton of female nudity in this movie. Can't really hate it too much, it's like she's never clothed for the entire running time. Good looking out. Skip this, watch the other big 7 cannibal movies. This is bottom of the barrel stuff. Still kind of sweet though.

5/10

Cat In The Brain (1990)

2009-04-10T00:40:00.000-07:00

Director - Lucio Fulci

AKA - Nightmare Concert

These kinds of movies shouldn't exist in the 1990's. The time was over, the passion for the genre was gone, times had certainly changed. New York's 42nd Street was being cleaned up, video stores were now reigning king, the days of the grindhouse, the sleaze infested gutters of exploitation theaters were pretty much gone. The directors, the actors, the production companies, now fallen kings to be forgotten for a long while in the politically correct 1990's, the progressive crappy barren wasteland of the 1990's. Fulci dies, Soavi makes the last "real" Italian zombie movie, Argento relegated to TV made movies and complete crap, Carpenter gets soft, Romero makes nothing but irredeemable waste. Italy forgets and moves on. America gets over flooded with cheap direct to video horror.

Dark times. You could say this is Fulci's last "good" movie. I'd say he peaked at The New York Ripper (1982), but that's not to say I don't like the utter trash he put out post-Ripper. This included. Cat In The Brain is a strange one to peg down. Fulci plays (...wait for it), an Italian horror director named...Lucio Fulci who in the midst of making a movie starts loosing his mind. Suddenly he is haunted by the images of his old films and his dreams start to seep into his reality. A killer is on the loose in Italy cutting up victims in the same fashion that Fulci dreams, or has killed in one of his old movies. Is it his own paranoia, or is it actually happening. Think Fellini's 8 1/2 (1963) only ten times dumber. His shrink stalks him, is weird to his wife and other nonsensical stupid things happen. The plot moves along, Fulci looks old as dirt and kinda "getoffamylawn!" if you ask me, but who cares there's like ten decapitation scenes and plenty of naked chicks. Gross naked chicks, but I won't shake my fist at it.

(Guy behind him just so very unamused)

For all of it's faults (and there are plenty, most of the gore scenes are made up of stolen footage from other people's movies), there are some high points. The movie is soaked in the red stuff. Every other minute something is rotting away, or a little kid gets chainsawed, or a hooker gets knifed up. The creepy old guy factor is just...astonishing. Nothing grosser than a zoom in on an old dude's lips as he licks them while he spies on a girl taking a shower. Just kinda bums you out when you look around and you're watching that go down at 4am and you're in your bed alone watching this piece of shit movie.

("acting")

It's kind of a bummer though that soooo much footage was used from other movies. Fulci picks from his own movies, Ghosts of Sodom (1988), When Alice Broke The Mirror (1988) and some others...without permission of course. Bloody Psycho (1989), and Andrea Bianchi's Massacre (1989) are also shamelessly ripped off. So chances are you've seen the coolest gore scenes in Cat... so that sucks.

Enough about the movie itself, let's talk about the discs. Grindhouse Releasing (the same great company that put out the new versions of The Beyond, Pieces, Cannibal Ferox, etc.) put out a gorgeous 2-disc a couple weeks ago, and you probably already know that, because you're reading this and like I have probably been anticipating this release for the last year or so. The lenticular cover is cool, but just a little insert, and it's rare something like 1,50o or so put out. They love doing that crap. The real gem here though is Fulci's Q&A at Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors fest in 1996, just three months before his death. There are no sub-titles for this however which would be great because it's very much a low-quality video camera and some douchey translator kinda-sorta translates Fulci's bullshit. There he talks about how Wes Craven ripped off Cat In The Brain in Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994). Oooooookay, Lucio, yeah fucking right. Some other great interviews where homedude goes on and on about how Italy hates him, and how he doesn't get the respect he deserves and about how he's so full of himself for being great and blah blah blah. The nonsensical ravings of an old lunatic basically. It's rad.

Rent it, buy it if you feel like supporting an awesome DVD company like Grindhouse Releasing. It's got gore by the bucket load, it's got Fulci being a huge weirdo, and cool packaging.

7/10

Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971)

2009-03-22T03:20:00.000-07:00

Director - Dario Argento

Finally. Finally available in America on a gorgeous DVD transfer. Throw away your VHS bootleg that you bought for 50$ at a horror con, the very same that I tried to watch but gave up about half way through because the video quality made me want to die. Argento's final entry in his "Animal Trilogy" is here, thanks to the great folks at MYA Communications, it only took nearly half a decade to get here but hey no big deal. Dario's directorial debut was the first of these animal movies (all sharing a theme of an animal or insect in the title), The Bird With the Crystal Plummage (1970), then the follow up and under rated Cat O'Nine Tails (1971) and finally this one. When asked why it had taken him so long to go back to the giallo (Italian thriller genre, spooooky) homedude said that this style of movie was being relegated to b-movie productions with rip-off titles and plots. Dario obviously referring to Lucio Fulci's brilliant A Lizard in a Woman's Skin (1971) and Don't Torture a Duckling (1972) was kind of a prick. He fumbled around doing Italian TV stuff for the mid-70's, and then got around to Deep Red in '75. Speaking of his TV stuff, he started doing a "Hitchcock Presents" kind of show called Door Into Darkness where he had great directors of the day (Luigi Cozzi and the like) present and show off some cool and not so cool episodes. MYA Communications just put this highly sought after show out on DVD as well. It's dece.

(the much cooler VHS cover art. Severed eye-ball=rad-all-the-time.)

Anyway, Four Flies... is pretty crappy at times. By far his most "far-out-70's" movie, it's about a drummer in a swinging rock band who is kind of a little shit, who is involved in the accidental death of a stalker of his. Photographic evidence comes up, and the kid is now black mailed to an extent and pestered by the masked photographer. The plot gets kind of goofy, and very 70's, and super convoluted. Argento has always had snappy, humorous dialog in his movies, but this one had that and comic relief in the role of a homosexual private investigator. Kind of an odd choice, but whatever. The kid gets a gun to protect himself from the constant badgering and bullying from the masked person who is messing with him. The big reveal is at the end, and as per usual I not only didn't really see it coming but I was left going, "wait...but...what? How is it that person?", but it works I suppose.

Not really a bad movie, but not my favorite of the 3 big animal movies. While I like Fulci's swinging 70's giallo, and some other ones like it, this one didn't really capture it well, it just came off as cheesy. Go figure. However there were some cool points going for it. Ennio Morricone's soundtrack was rad, more rocking than his usual jazzy crap, the editing was weird and cool. Scenes spliced and put together really weird, the narrative would jump around but the voice over would keep it together. Kind of cool, very much in it's infancy of things to come. It's beautifully shot, the camera is sleepy and smooth. The ending clues with the "four flies" across the grey velvet is really, really, really cool and clever. It's a good watch, not a lot of thrills or scares, but some good suspense and the best car chase Dario ever filmed.

(The peroxide blonde Mimsy Farmer, super hot. Total fox. Kinda looks like a dude sometimes...don't read too much into that.)

I'm just glad MYA is around right now putting out these weird and hard to find movies. They don't even have a website yet, so it's kind of shrouded in mystery. I get the feeling they're picking up where No Shame DVD left off when they went out of business. I just picked up Sergio Martino's Scorpion With Two Tails (1982) on DVD from this company. Very cool, excited to watch more weird stuff that they put out. Rent this if you are a completest, or if you're interested in seeing Argento's early stuff, or if you are a giallo nerd like myself.

6/10

Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals (1977)

2009-02-20T00:18:00.000-08:00

Director - Aristide Massaccesi (aka Joe D'amato)

Considered by many to be one of the "better, no seriously it's actually pretty good" Joe D'amato movies out there, Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals is just plain awful. How this shares ranks with "the big 7" (think of "the big 4" thrash bands) third-world cannibal movies is beyond me. Massacre at Dinosaur Valley is a better picture than this piece. That says...a lot. Before we get into this, let me say that I've only seen like 5 D'amato movies, and each one I've had to struggle to get through. Think Bruno Mattei, only bad. Like a 3rd rate rip off guy, D'amato is an enigma. If you ever get a chance, there is a brilliant documentary on the Shriek Show 2-disc for Anthropophagus: The Grim Reaper, that sheds some sort of light on this weird dude.

(Tried finding a picture of Gemser with her clothes on, closest I found here. Nice.)

Short and skinny, dude made tons, and tons of pornos and some decent little exploitation flicks along the way that contained more elements of his pornos than they did with the actual genre they were masquerading as. Dabbled in post-nuke stuff; 2020: Texas Gladiators (1982), Endgame (1983). Took the soft-core goddess Laura Gemser to her rise in greatness with half a dozen or so of the Emanuelle movies. Sword & Sandal stuff, you might remember the episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 for "Cave Dwellers" that was actually his sequel Ator 2 (1984). He even made a movie, brilliantly titled, Porno Holocaust (1980) which I've been trying to track down for a couple of years now. So you see the caliber of person I'm dealing with here, dude made his mark on crappy flicks in the 70's, and 80's, and was making movie until he died in 1999. Pretty rad.

Emanuelle... stars Laura Gemser, one of my favorite ladies of the 70's and 80's, as that sassy undercover reporter who bangs tons of dudes and chicks while getting into wacky misadventure after misadventure. This time our story takes her from a insane asylum in downtown New York to the jungles of the Amazon. Story kicks off, she's undercover as a patient in this asylum trying to uncover dirt on patient treatment by the staff I'm assuming. While she's there a nurse runs into her with her breast bitten off, low and behold a hysterical patient from the depths of the Amazon bit her because she was hungry for tit or something, I don't know. Emanuelle investigates in a scene that really sets the tone of the flick. The biter cannibal chick is tied down to a bed, Emanuelle goes in, finger blasts the sedated patient for no good reason, snaps a picture and peaces out. Yes, please.

(Death cam from some stupid nun that just haaaad to go with the rest of the gang.)

The flick gets weirder and more absurd by the minute. The boss at the newspaper allows her to go investigate the "last of the cannibals in the farthest reaches of the Amazon jungle", yada yada yada, she breaks the news to her boyfriend, they bang in what seems to be a trash heap in the harbor of New York. She goes and copulates with some anthropologist dude who decides to tag along for the jungle adventure. They bail to the Amazon and it takes a god damned hour to get to one bit of stupid native savage who kills/eats someone, I can't even remember what happened it was that dull and shitty. There is however killer-cam in this, which pre-dates everyone's favorite Halloween by one year. Sort of a mouth breathing "cannibal-cam", so that's nice.

They meet up with some weirdos in the jungle, for some reason a nun tags along (there is a tinge of anti-missionary Christian work in here that is cool...more or less the nun gets filleted.), tons of stupid shit happens, oh no a big snake, someone shoot it. Cool, there's no on-screen animal brutality, so that's stupid. Not much on the gore front, but there is a cool scene where some chick gets captured by the cannibals, and then the mean spirited might-as-well-be-evil natives cut up her vagina and pull out her lady parts and intestines and stuff. Only bit in the movie that made me cringe, shit was pretty brutal. So that was cool, but still pretty tame. Also, I'm not a zoologist or anything but, and stop me if I'm wrong here, chimps do not reside in the Amazon right? I don't know why I would let something as trivial like that get to me in a movie as dumb as this, but it just did.

Emanuelle rescues some chick by getting naked and distracting the savages and then they take off by boat. Not much good about this one, the lighting is super dark in some jungle-love scenes, it's obviously super racist which is fine but it's not even clever, and the score fucking BLOWS. By far my least favorite of the big 7 cannibal movies, required viewing as it may be, it somehow manages to come up short. Go figure it's a soft-core porn set in the jungle...why I don't like it is beyond me, pretty much a recipe for greatness.

4/10

The New Barbarians (1982)

2009-01-07T04:58:00.000-08:00

Director - Enzo Castellari

A classic in the "pasta-post-nuke" genre of awful movie making in the glory years of the 1980's. I bought this while on a road trip with my friends this last summer and have been salivating at the DVD on my shelf since, so I figured I should probably throw it in soon. This marks my first bad movie of the new year, so thanks to the fine people at Shriek Show DVD for digging up the bones of these awful flicks and letting me watch them with my friends at 4am.

(Amongst the wreckage of a past that once was, lost in the annals of time and the waste of our previous civilization...a hazmat suit for a girl with plastic rack bubbles? God bless it.)

What is there to say about this thing? Another Enzo action flick of sorts with Fred "The Hammer" Williamson doing what they both do best. It's a while into the future (all the way to the year 2019...or 2000 depending on what version of the VHS you got to rent) and obviously it's a world ravaged by nuclear fallout and the subsequent psychopathic marauders of this new wasteland. George Eastman (a vet of these post-nuke awesome-fests) leads these idiotic savages (an obvious metaphor for the Indians of the American wild west) to rape, pillage, and drive around in fucking ridiculous bubble shaped cock pits of what I can only assume are Volkswagen Thing's with battle wear and gun turrets attached to them. They just kind of rock and roll around for a while and find little groups of survivors and then run them over (anyone up for a night of Carmageddon?) or blow them up with "heat guns", or cut them in half with side-mounted spinning blades on their cars. Sounds amazing right? Well...kind of.

(The Scorpion's sweet car and that little kid I want to strangle.)

Ginacarlo Prete (AKA Timothy Brent, who passed away in 2001, may he forever find peace exploding silver spray painted "future" cars and saving the day in his post-apoc heaven) is a kind of mercenary who runs around this no-man's-land helping people out, getting in the way of shit, and just kind of being a total doucher. Dude can't help himself worth shit, The Hammer is there to pick him up and smash some sense into him like ten times in this movie, 'ol Timmy Brent can't even get chicks since The Hammer is too busy stealing the probably infected with nuclear disease chicks that are left from him. He goes around and fights with George Eastman, only to be captured by the marauders and anally raped by Eastman himself....kind of out of left field if you ask me. Dude rape in a post-nuke-Italian movie? I guess just go with it.

("Alma" my post apocalyptic babe crush, huge hair. Huge other stuff. Nice.)

Along the way The Hammer and Prete/Brent befriend a little kid who is a mechanic and all around weird little freak who lives in a trailer (covered in tin-foil and weird lights, because it is the future and all) in what appears to be (one of the much over-used "sets" in a world blown apart by nukes) gravel pit. Make sense? Good. Annnnd why the fuck wouldn't this kid be played by every ones favorite weirdo little Aryan goofball Giovanni Frezza (Bob from House by the Cemetery, and of course Manhattan Baby)? This kid truly frightens me. Anyway, he fixes up The Scorpion's (oh yeah, I forgot, in the future everyone has kick-ass names like "The Scorpion" or "Shadow") sweet ride with a silver skull hood ornament and a new gigantic drill thing to use as a weapon when ripping off The Road Warrior (1981).

(Future Skank. Git 'r done Hammer.)

The Scorpion and Fred Williamson get revenge on the super weird and kinda lonely looking George Eastman in a very western style shoot out. I wont tell you what happens to Eastman, as nothing close to a phallic drill is used to destroy him. I promise I wont spoil anything.

(Best buds The Hammer, and Scorpion hang out by a futuristic looking piece of plastic.)

This is an awesome flick, I'll be straight up. Enzo rips off Mel's Aussie post-nukeness, and it's really fun. For having such a minuscule budget and all that other "film making" crap, they really churned out some amazing stunts, and special effects, and cool costumes. A lot of gravel pits, and not enough burned out remnants of sky scrappers and stuff, but who cares it's Fred Williamson using explosive tipped arrows to blow peoples heads off and stuff. I highly suggest this flick, it may not be the best Enzo movie, but it's miles above some others in the genre. I'm pretty fascinated at this particular little group of Italian movies. The best (or whatever) directors of the time had their hands in post apocalyptic flicks at one point or another, and it's a treat to watch your favorite cannibal movie maker, or giallo maestro blow shit up in a nuclear holocaust.

7/10

Mass Reviews!!!!

2008-10-26T02:22:00.000-07:00

I've gotten behind in a lot of my reviews. This is me trying to play catch up, I'll just post a quick blurb about everything I've watched this October. I hate working at the movie theater because Saw V is playing there and it is full of morons, and I hate that everyone at my other video store job just wants to rent the first four Saw movies. Just throwing that out there.

3) Cannibal Holocaust (1980) 9/10: You've seen it. It's great. My heart beats for Lenzi's Cannibal Ferox so while I believe Deodata's gut muncher is the better film, Lenzi's is my favorite. If anything for Giovanni Lombardo Radice, he really makes it priceless. Riz Ortolani gives me one of my favorite scores as well, I listen to it all the time, I love it. I had the pleasure of watching this at my friend's house with a bunch of good dudes on his projection screen in his basement. Gave it that much more charm.

4) Dellamorte Dellamore (1994) 7/10: Perhaps the last good Italian zombie/horror movie. I prefer Soavi's The Church to it, simply because this one just plain ol' doesn't make much sense. I don't get it. I love Rupert Everett in this though so that counts for a lot. Quite a bit of funny scenes involving naked girls (or one over and over again), and some good bits of gore. Artsy, and weird for me though. Still enjoyable.

5) Jason X (2001) 7/10: Wow. What a glorious piece of shit. I was on a quest in September to watch every Friday the 13th movie, and the last two entries in this awful series snuck into my October viewing. This movie is unreal. I love it. It's outrageous, and in space, and so stupid. It blows my mind that it got made, and had a theatrical run. So shitty. Everything you would want in a Jason movie, only in space and even dumber. Would so rather watch this than some of the earlier movies though.

6) Freddy Vs. Jason (2003) 8/10: Again, finishing this bad boy out. 11 movies of Jason Vorhees. Alright, that's not at all justified. However this movie rules. Pummeling nu-metal soundtrack? Check. Raver kid death? Check. The hot girl from Undeclared, Monica Keena, I've had a crush on for years? Absolutely. Haven't seen this since I saw it at the Uptown theater in Yakima with Marcus and I want to say John was there too. Funny then, funny now. Can't loose. Just wish they would have gotten to this sooner after Jason Goes to Hell because of Freddy's hand cameo at the end of that. Still sweet.

7) Tremors (1990) 10/10: One of my favorite movies of all time, hands down. Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward are an unstoppable combo in this one, just the funniest dudes. When I was little I would play "Tremors" in my back yard with my friends. Very much a nostalgia trip. Watched it at aforementioned friends place on his projector. Which was awesome. I want to be a graboid hunter when I grow up.

8) Maniac (1980) 9/10: Joe Spinell is incredible in this. The effects are fantastic, the classic head shot in particular. Everyone knows I'm a huge fan of New York in the 80's movies. Dirty, filth-ridden, 80's New York. I love it so much. Some great kills in this flick, and a great performance by one of America's most gifted actors. Shame he couldn't complete Maniac: Mr. Robbie. Bummer watching such an awesome talent go un-noticed and under appreciated. This Blue Underground DVD is worth the purchase for the Documentary on Spinell alone. Buy it, watch it, love it.

9) Demons 2 (1986) 7/10: Huge fan of the first one, and I guess so was Lamberto Bava because he surely went with the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" outlook on this one. Same plot basically of the first one. Faster paced, same cool music (The Cult, The Smiths, etc), and more Bobby Rhodes doing what he does best. Screaming nonsensical things and killing demons. I wish Lamberto Bava would do more.

10) The Burning (1981) 10/10: My favorite camp-slasher, could be my favorite slasher in general. So many good actors in this, so many lovable characters, and Cropsy is the best most coolest bad guy. I love the strange scene in the beginning when Cropsy kills the prostitute in her apartment. Grimy scene. My friend John, who I watched this with in the basement projector room with, said it best. "I almost don't want this to turn into a slasher, I just like the wacky camp antics". It's a great movie. Plus the raft scene is great to watch a bunch.

11) The Black Cat (1981) 2/10: Wow. Fulci, what have you done to me? Real low on my Fulci report card. Not as bad as Manhattan Baby but really cutting it close. Stay away from this and watch his amazing early gialli Don't Torture a Duckling, and A Lizard in a Woman's Skin. Those are where it's at. This is not. I'm not afraid of a cat. I would just stomp on it, or smash it, or throw it. Hate it.

12) Last House on the Beach: See Below.

13) The Mother of Tears (2007) 4/10: Shitty I had to watch the R-rated version. Oh well. This movie sucks. Argento is a hack. His daughter is hot, and I think would enjoy my company. Some cool kills. Movie suffers horribly from terrible CGI, and one of the worst end scenes in movie history. Asia, and the naked girls make it barely watchable.

14) Dead Alive (1992) 10/10: One of my favorite zombie movies ever. Great actors, hilarious movie, awesome gore, fun stuff. Watched it with the room mate, Alex, who had never seen it before. I like watching these movies with people who haven't seen them a billion times. My favorite Peter Jackson movie is The Frighteners, so it's a toss up for second place between this and Bad Taste. I love them both too much.

15) Army of Darkness (1992) 9/10: During the previous nights viewing of Dead Alive, Alex and I were quoting Ash a ton because it was late and we were being annoying. So we got in the mood for Ash's most quotable movie. This flick has been a mainstay in my life since I was little and got really into the Evil Dead trilogy. Was lucky enough to meet Bruce a few years ago, and watch him clown on fan boys all night long. Special place in my heart. Quite a few late night viewings at my childhood friend Michael's house on weekends. Lots of food, candy, sodas, and horror movies. His family had a separate TV room far away from the bed rooms. We could be up as late as we wanted, and watch this shit over and over as loud as we wanted. Glorious.

16) Halloween (1978) 6/10: Not crazy about these movies, have never been. I like them for what they are, but I'd much prefer Bob Clark's (RIP) Black Christmas, and of course all of the Italian movies it was ripping off. However, the score is one of my favorites, and the camera is so flowing and pretty to watch move. Not to sound like a "film" dork or anything. Good flick I guess though, watch it every year.

17) Halloween II (1981) 2/10: What a piece of shit. I like that it takes place right after the events of the first one. Sort of the Porky's: The Next Day vibe like that. But yeah, no care ever. Jamie Lee Curtis is asleep in a hospital through most of it. Everybody raves about Donald Pleasence in these movies and I just don't get it. He says tons of dumb over dramatic shit at every turn, and then is pretty much useless everywhere he goes.

18) Dawn of the Dead (1978) 9/10: Watched it with first time viewer (how one goes through life not ever seeing this is beyond me) Alex. He loved it, so it was nice to watch it again. Also one of my life-long most loved movies. When I was a kid, I was obsessed with it. Now I see it's flaws, and it's poor ideas. I hate the zombie effects (with the exception of only a couple), and I hate the pie in the face parts. If you want to give me serious heavy handed ideas, don't give me pie in the face, or blood-pressure test scenes. Movie looses momentum a third of the way through. Soundtrack is on point though, not my favorite Goblin score, but up there. I'll never forget the time I made my Mom sit down and watch this with me as a kid, she was really bummed out on the "shocking amounts of violence" but was otherwise pretty into it. Those were the days. I love my Mom.

19) Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) 10/10: The only Tobe Hooper movie I can really get behind. And for me, personally, one of the greatest American movies of the 70's. Again, nostalgia here. I would quote this movie to my friend Michael as a kid all the time, we even bought the script for this (why on earth would one spend 20$ on a replicated script is so weird to me now, back then it was rad though), and we must have watched it a billion times. We had also watched the documentary on this movie, Portrait of an American Family I think is what it's called. I can not for the life of me track this down, and would kill to see it again! Great movie, the dinner scene still makes me uneasy in the best way possible. Love the Texan wasteland it's shot in. Will always love this flick.

20) Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) 1/10: What the fuck is this? Why is it real? A part of me likes it a ton simply because it is so fucking strange. I get that they were trying to make it a Halloween sort of variety movie franchise. But wow. Hot girl in it though.

21) Torso (1973) 10/10: Movie really does it for me. Every girl in this movie is gorgeous, nearly all of them naked or killed off in an awesome style. Possibly my favorite giallo ever made. I wrote a long winded review of this a long time ago, I should repost it sometime soon on this site. Tina Aumont is the most beautiful girl ever.

22) Antropophagus: The Grim Reaper (1980) 2/10: Wow. So shitty. 50 minutes of waiting for something to happen. Movie just begging me to use the fast forward button. Not much redeeming about this flick besides the big scenes. George Eastman pulling a baby out of a living woman's stomach and biting into the fetus was great, and then him eating his own guts as he died was also cool. Not worth watching the movie though. Piece of shit. However the documentary on the 2-disc Shriek Show DVD is fantastic.

23) The Lost (2005) 7/10: Not a fan of straight to Anchor Bay DVD Jack Ketchum adaptations. However this movie was kind of sweet. The dude who played Ray Pye was awesome. This movie was somewhere between Less Than Zero, and American Psycho. Fucked up kids in middle America do terrible things to each other then it all comes to get them in the end. The flick had a feel to it that I can't describe, I just know that Jim Van Bebber did it better in his short film My Sweet Satan which I highly recommend. The Lost also suffers from some of the worst editing and scene transitions in history, a lot of cringing. Good stuff though.

24) Lucker: The Necrophagous (1986) 4/10: Belgian weirdo flick. I saw it done better in Nacho Cerda's epic Aftermath, and even a little better in the Nekromantik movies. This is ok though. I don't get why they didn't have Lucker talk until the very end of the movie. Made no impact. I don't get why the Directors Cut was like 20 minutes shorter than the theatrical cut. Pointless. However the VHS quality of the DVD transfer added to it's charm, but how much charm can a movie have where some dude finger blasts a dead chick for 8 minutes have? Some sick stomach churning stuff, and then some awful boring tedious shit thrown in too.

25) The Hills Have Eyes (1978) 8/10: Big fan of this and Last House..., haven't seen this in years so it was nice to revisit it. Disc 2 has some great documentaries on it, worth checking out for fans of Wes Craven (ew), or this flick in particular. Good stuff, and even though I'm ashamed to say I liked a re-make, I really have a thing for the Alexandre Aja re-make of this. Good, American fun.

The Exorcist (1973)

2008-10-13T14:01:00.000-07:00

Director - William Friedkin

The Exorcist has gained a very strong cult following since it's release in December of 1973, and justifably so. The film has been named the scariest movie ever made by many horror fans. While, I cannot agree on the fact that it may be the scariest, I can agree that it is by far one of the best.

The Exorcist is a story of possession on the surface, but the sub-plots are what really make this film memorable. Father Karras, an alcoholic priest, struggling with the death of his own mother begins work on the case of a possessed daughter of a movie star, while Father Merrin, fresh off the heels of a religious excavation around the city of Nineveh, agrees to perfom the exorcism with Father Karras.

The movie's terror is not most prominent in the scenes of Regan possessed by Pazuzu, but in the most subliminal and psychological asects of the film. Subliminal imagery is present in many scenes throughout the movie, such as Captain Howdy's face appearing as Regan is tested at the hospital Captain Howdy/Pazuzu's face appearing above the stove as the lights flicker, the face of the Pazuzu statue on Regan's door. The movie dives into the psychology of the human mind too, treating mourn in a realistic way, and even suggesting that mourn can cause a person of even the strongest faith to fall victim to it.

William Friedkin is a very talented filmmaker. The way Friedkin filmed the movie assisted in giving the film a longer staying power, as they film never appears to have any sort of distinct 70's. The choice of music is brilliant, as anyone who has seen this film could agree with.

If you've never seen The Exorcist, but are considering it, let me be the first one to recommend this film. It's not a sarcreligious film, it actually glamorizes Catholicism, something I can not back. If any horror deserved to be a classic, The Exorcist would be my number one on that list. Happy haunting! (Or possessing!)

-Ben South

The Strangers (2008)

2008-10-13T13:41:00.000-07:00

Director - Bryan Bertino

In my last review, I reviewed a certain little foreign gem titled Ils (Them). The Strangers is an American flick that follows a similar formula, but not so similar it should be considered a rip off. The Strangers is about a couple who hit a pothole on the bumpy road of love, and shack up in a beautiful cabin in a nearly desolate location. They are interupted mid-fuck at a tap on the door, a "wrong house." But, alas, as in every horror flick, it's never really the wrong house, and things become quite terrifying quickly. And I don't use terrifying lightly...

For all the bitching I do about American horror lacking substance and chills, I ate shit watching this movie. I was not expecting such a powerhouse of fright. The movie is built around old-fashioned "boo" scares, as I like to call them, mixed with the eerie "silent stalking", or "still stalking" that Michael Myers so proudly brought to the mainstream in 1978. The way the intruders just stood in the dark silently and observed reminded me of the fear I felt when I saw the first few glimpses of good ol Mikey the first time I saw Halloween. As for "boo" scares, the film didn't take the low road and just throw a few in here and there, it actually left me cringing, waiting for the next masked madman (or woman) to pop up.

What I also liked about The Strangers is the oddball casting. Liv Tyler as the lead was a GREAT choice. Liv has a very natural look to herself, no "sex symbol" appeal, and it helped all the more to create a more believable character. Scott Speedman has come a long way since Felicity. Initially, I thought I'd look toward him as a "hunky male lead", as he is the kind of person who would seem to fit that mold, but his performance proved differently. Granted, it wasn't a super deep role, he succeeded in helping me to believe he genuinely cared about the issues at hand. Glenn Howerton's criminally short scene was a great one, with a line or two of comic relief. I praise the casting diretor for the off-kilter casting, because it worked very well in this movie.
Original music was helmed by tomandandy who have done scores for other recent horror films such as P2, The Covenant, and The Hills Have Eyes. Don't let their resume reflect their skills, though. The music set the moods pretty well, and I approve. The senimentality music towards the beginning pushes one foot over the cliff of corniness, however. The use of independent country/folk music was a brillaint move! The fear of impending doom set against such calm, lo-fi music felt mean-spirited. After all, it's quite a mean-spirited flick.

First time director Bryan Bertino was originally just the writer, but took the helm as director before filming began. The man proves his horror credibility, mixing a wonderfully frightening 70's slasher influence with a dramatic storyline without shooting himself in the foot. I'm excited to see what the man has in his sleeve next, and will definitely be on the lookout.

The Strangers is frightening, depressing, and quick-paced. Flaws peak up every now and then. I'm tired of the outcome being given away in the first scene, and a few unrealistic and unexplained occurances were hard to ignore. But I'd have to recommend The Strangers for the horror fan who is not yet hardened to American horror. Those of you who still have faith...

-Ben South

The Last House on the Beach (1978)

2008-10-13T02:06:00.000-07:00

Director - Franco Prosperi

The godfather of the Mondo film does a rape/revenge rip-off flick, and he fails miserably. Taking the obvious cue from Wes Craven's landmark Last House on the Left (1972) and the Swedish Thriller: A Cruel Picture (1974) Franco Prosperi contributes another meaningless "Last House..." copycat movie with no substance, no style, and certainly no meaning.

The movie is a match up of the aforementioned flicks, and a small bit of Nunsploitation thrown in for good measure. The thing is, the nun angle is thrown in to seem more clever, or original, both of which this movie is not. It's a pointless angle given to the audience for "shocks". Not that there is anything wrong with that kind of exploitation in these kinds of movies, it's just that Nunsploitation has the be the most boring and uninteresting sub-genre ever. If it's not at the top of the list of useless pieces of shit, it's working it's way up there.

I'll cut to the chase. Italy's good looking bad boy (aka total doucher), Ray Lovelock (The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue, Live Like a Cop Die Like a Man, etc) is one of three dudes that knock off a bank. On their way out of town their car dies, and they stop at a big secluded house on the beach. The house is a retreat/getaway for a Nun and her really young school students where they are practicing a play of A Midsummer Night's Dream. They bust in there, rape some chicks, be super obnoxious, and make no sense while doing so. A tangent of long drawn out sequences take place where the gang gets booze, feels up the nun, yada, yada, yada. It's awful. It's slow, it's not really "shocking" or as in your face as it's contemporary knock-off flicks. The girls get revenge, but it's not that sweet, it's just fast and stupid.

If you're looking to get into these kinds of movies, the first step you've already taken is probably checking out Meir Zarchi's I Spit on Your Grave (1978) since that seems to be the easily accessible first flick after Wes Craven's little movie. I'd highly suggest skipping this one (unless you're a completest/lonely loser like yours truly) and go right for Aldo Lado's epic rip-off, The Night Train Murders (1975) and of course Ruggero Deodata's House on the Edge of the Park (1980). Those movies, while pretty awful, are rife with nasty un-lovable characters (David Hess, Giovanni Lombaro Radice, etc) and loads of cathartic revenge, and unspeakable torture/degradation. More fun than this piece of slow movie dog shit. One of the only pluses in this one is Florinda Bolkan who is great in Lucio Fulci's first two giallo, A Lizard in a Woman's Skin (1971), and Don't Torture a Duckling (1972) but is pretty stale in this one, still decent to watch.

I will give it to Prosperi for raping a girl to death with a stick in this movie. However he lost me because the scene is in slow motion and is really disgustingly drawn out, past the point of exploitative nonsense and right into fetishistic/perverse territory. What more would you expect from the asshole who made the Mondo Cane movies?

Skip this one. Watch something better. Also I'm pretty sure this is the same Prosperi who did the Mondo movies, but after looking around I've found it might not be? Mystery is still out on who is responsible for this one.

2/10

-Keith

Frontier(s) (2007)

2008-10-07T23:31:00.000-07:00

Director - Xavier Gens

Let me level with you.

Most people now regard George W. Bush as an awful commander-in-chief; a breathing parody of leadership, a puppet for the wealthy. When he says that “the terrorists hate us for our freedoms,” most of the non-retards in the states roll their eyes. We know that he’s bullshitting us.

But you know what? I’m just going to say it right now. Bush 43 gets a bum rap; one that is not entirely justified.

Now I don’t agree with everything he does, but let’s be honest with ourselves. Over the past eight years, the Bush administration (via House reps Robert W. Ney and Walter B. Jones, Jr.) is responsible for inserting a keen, intelligent and delicious sentiment into the national discourse- Freedom Fries and the distrust of the French. And Frontier(s), one of the newest examples of French splatter, may be the most potent justification for Neo-con legislation since 9/11.

Frontier(s), directed by Xavier Gens, is really not a hard film to summarize. During a riot, our main characters get into scuffles with cops and end up having to escape to a run-down hostel somewhere in the countryside- one that happens to be run by evil Nazi cannibals, who subsequently torture and kill them. I won’t spoil anything else, but trust me- you’ve seen it all before.

The main problem with this film is that it’s just a rehash of better works. While High Tension and Calvaire (Frontier[s]’s logical predecessors) may not have been masterpieces, they were well executed and fresh enough upon initial release. But Frontier(s) just came out a little too late. There’s absolutely nothing engaging about it, and the entire film gives you a feeling of sickening déjà vu. Its mediocrity constantly reminds you of better movies, and it could be the greatest free advertising that the Texas Chainsaw Massacre has ever had. There’s really just no point in watching this.

I won’t go into too much film student detail on this one, because it’s irrelevant. With an idea this safe and contrived, even Orson Welles wouldn’t have been able to salvage an interesting picture out of it. This movie substitutes anything that could be remotely terrifying with torture and gore. There’s more to making a good horror film than just pointing a camera at violence, and in Frontier(s), there’s nothing beyond the scope of the screen. You don’t walk away with anything, because the spectacle of torture distracts the unconscious from absorbing any real sense of horror. Fronteir(s) offers almost nothing in between the lines.

And for a film about Nazi flesh eaters, it’s remarkably safe. In fact, the word safe can be defined as “dependable or trustworthy,” adjectives that adequately describe Frontier(s). The filmmakers even had the nerve to try and make it unique with that Nazi cannibal gimmick. Frankly, it’s insulting to think that we’re dumb enough to be distracted by a shiny Nazi ornament in the midst of this torrent of familiarity. It’s putting lipstick (or a brownshirt) on a pig.

Yet another example of forgettable torture porn, Frontier(s) can be found clogging up shelves at video stores everywhere.

Don’t waste your time.

- Mike P

Them (2006)

2008-10-05T15:10:00.000-07:00

Director(s) - David Moreau & Xavier Palud

Clementine is a school teacher who has moved to Romania with her husband, Lucas. What starts off as a simple night at home together turns into something much worse...

Ils (Them) is a real kick to the human psyche. We do not like to step outside our comfort zone, and when that is challenged, we end up trying to build excuse upon excuse as to keep ourselves away from thinking of the worst possible outcome. This sometimes proves to be a terrible flaw in human logic.

It starts off with a weird phone call. Prank? It must be... Then the music coming from outside. It's probably nothing! Let's just take a step out to see. Then you notice your car isn't quite parked in the same position you left it. By now, you've caught on. Something isn't right. And then it all begins...

Ils is not a typical horror flick by any standards. The film does appear to play on a few horror cliches (the house suddenly turns into a labyrinth, but redeems itself with an abandonment of morals by the apparent deus ex machina character. It's a film filled with eerie atmosphere, a dreadful tone, and quite a few subtle, but frightening sequences.

The soundtrack by Rene-Marc Bini is very on spot. He takes a very minimalist approach, and the music is not used simply for a build up, but for a tone. An absence of music is what really saved a lot of the scenes of violence. The music felt more like an emotion than a soundtrack.

The script, written by co-filmmakers David Moreau and Xavier Palud was very natural, as was the direction. There was not excessive dialogue, and it felt very genuine. The filmmakers take on situational terror with a nice fragility. They're not thrown in and skewed all over the places for a few cheap scares, although you do get quite a few nice scares in the mix.

In conclusion, Ils is a film that the passionate horror fan may enjoy quite a bit. In such a desolate time for horror, we really have to go to the ends of the Earth to find worthwhile flicks, and while this one lasts only 77 minutes, I think it's a fair assesment to say that Ils is the closest we'll get to genuine fright in times to come.

-Ben South

The Midnight Meat Train (2008)

2008-10-05T14:56:00.000-07:00

Director - Ryuhei Kitamura

Midnight Meat Train? More like Midnight "Who gives a shit?" Train. Clive Barker wrote and produced this piece of garbage and some Japanese dude who probably thinks "Ringu" and "Ju-on" are the end-all, be-all of horror movies directed it. If that's not a recipe for failure, I don't know what is.

There was some hubbub over this movie because Lions Gate, a company that will typically fully back any remotely "shocking" movie, relegated this little guy to like 100 second-rate theaters for like a week or some shit. So no one saw it while it was out in theaters and so now it's being shown exclusively on FearNet on OnDemand. God help us all.

So, the jock fiancée from "Wedding Crashers" plays a sniveling dipshit New York photographer who is trying to "capture the city as it really is because no one's ever done it before." Okay…..right. Anyways, he becomes obsessed with this dude he sees on the subway, played by Vinnie Jones, and starts following him around. It all

goes down the shitter from there.

The movie starts out with some promise as it falsely presents itself as a mindless slasher with some mysterious, remorseless killer. And then it tries to go beyond that with some shitty convoluted plot that's so predictable it's embarrassing. It's not scary, it's not exploitative, and it's not entertaining; it just sucks. There are some decent gore moments, but it's overshadowed by the predominantly shitty CG gore and retarded camera tricks. The ol' spinning camera trick may look totally awesome in Michael Bay movies like "Bad Boys II," but here it just looks like a Korn video circa 2000. Not a good look.

Did I mention the shitty nu-metal-ness of this movie? Visually, it looks like "Saw" on a subway train. Take one part Disturbed, two parts Hot Topic, a dash of ICP and top it all off with a camera lens filtered so dark that you can't see a god damn thing and you've got "Midnight Meat Train." Should be reserved strictly for viewing out of sheer curiosity or if you just really hate yourself that much.

-Eric Sanford

[Rec] (2007)

2008-10-03T23:44:00.000-07:00

Hey readers of Mondo Holocausto, tonight's review is coming from Seattle, Washington care of my old room-mate and one of my best friends Eric Sanford. That's why it's written so crapily and the punctuation is so terrible. Looking to contribute a review of your own? Feel free to do so and get me an e-mail at carmack84@gmail.com, enjoy the reviews.

-Mondo Keith

Director(s) - Jaume Balaguero & Paco Plaza

I may never sleep well again after viewing this film. Not to be too hyperbolic about it, but this sucker legitimately terrified me like few films have. [REC] employs the hand-held camera documentary style as seen in films as far back as “Cannibal Holocaust,” and popularized in the 90’s by “The Blair Witch Project” and most recently seen in the disaster/monster movie “Cloverfield.” That said, make no mistake. This is no rip-off film. This is unique, edge-of-your-seat, claustrophobic horror brilliance.

Shit kicks off with introducing a film crew. They’re sort of like “Insomniac with Dave Atell,” showcasing people who work at night, but with an incredibly sexy Spanish chick as the host and some dude named Pablo working the camera. We’re told tonight’s episode will consist of hanging out at a fire station and bullshitting with Spanish firefighters. Host chick starts getting bored, then right on cue the alarm starts blaring and we’re off to an apartment building where some old lady is apparently stuck in her apartment and may be hurt. Sounds benign enough, right? WRONG. The crew shows up and sees many of the residents gathered in the foyer, all freaked out and shit. The firemen go up to the lady’s apartment with a couple police officers. They find the old lady; she’s all covered in blood and won’t respond to them. A police officer goes to try to help her out; she flips out and goes straight for the jugular. Queue massive panic, cop is bleeding like a stuck pig; they scramble downstairs and to stabilize the dude. They try to get him outside only to discover the doors are locked from the outside, there’s a gaggle of cops and government agents surrounding the building and they’re apparently being sealed in for contamination reasons. The shit just repeatedly hits the fan from there. I’ll say no more.

The hand-held camera style works very well for this film. If you didn’t dig “Cloverfield” for whatever reason, give this film a shot because the camera work remains pretty realistic and it creates one of most suffocating feelings of claustrophobia I’ve ever seen on film. Unfortunately, there isn’t a legit DVD release of this film in the good ol’ USA, so you’ll have to download it if you want to see it any time soon. Hollywood has already crapped out a remake called “Quarantine” that will be stinking up theaters soon. Well, it might turn out all right, but the OG is almost always better in these situations.

Big ups to Mondo Holocausto and here’s to one fine October! LET’S PARTY!

-Eric Sanford

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)

2008-10-01T21:34:00.000-07:00

Director - Adam Marcus

The first movie reviewed here that could be considered recent. My first movie into the 90's. The baron wasteland of politically correct horror movies. Long gone are the days of exploitation, and sleaze. However, there is this little gem. Keep in mind I'm only doing this review because of my annual October Horrorthon, I'm going to try to do all of the movies watched this month.

Jason Goes to Hell is the ninth (why the fuck are there 9 of these?) installment of this really hard to get through franchise. This is the first non-Paramount Friday movie, and it's so much better than the last few. Also the first, and only Friday movie of the 90's. I had to struggle through 6, 7, and most of "...Takes Manhattan" which should have been called "Jason on a Boat...then he kinda takes Manhattan during the last half hour", so this was a breath of fresh air. This movie fucking rules. KNB Effects had a field day, the drive-in totals are huge. Tons of brains, guts, vomitey puke monster thing, a couple of dudes melt (ala Street Trash) and some really cool fight scenes.

(I really wish I could find a picture of the melting dude. This is sweet too though.)

I guess this one has a lot in common with Friday the 13th V: A New Beginning (1985) because Jason Vorhees isn't really in it too much. His ghost/spirit/soul/whatever inhabits a bunch of people and uses them as his killing tool. They are def tools. Kane Hodder finally rears his ugly head in the last 10 minutes for a sweet fight out where he finally gets sent to hell...or as it's portrayed here, the dirty lawn in someones backyard. He just gets sucked up through the dirt. Cool.

This movies gore is so over the top it gives it a sort of Dead Alive (1992) feeling, it's really fun and hyper exessive. The amount of naked girls in this 90's horror movie is astounding as well, I was pleasantly suprised. Also the first of these movies to be available uncut, so that's nice. Some not-so-subtle nods and references to Creepshow, Evil Dead, and John Carpenter, so that's sweet. It's def worth a watch. I just wish it was apart of Paramount's box set, but what are ya gonna do. One of the better Friday movies for sure. I also kinda wish they would have made the movie off the original script, "Jason Goes to L.A." in which Jason gets in the middle of a gang war and starts killing tons of gang banger, the bloods have to team up with the crips and then they take out Jason. Fucking monumentaly stoked on that. Bummer.

8/10

Night of the Lepus (1972)

2008-10-01T04:08:00.000-07:00

Director - William F. Claxton

Epic, B-movie goodness. It's the early 70's, and these kinds of movies have stopped being made for over a decade or so, it's this fact that makes me think that Night of the Lepus is not intended to be super serious, but is actually a send up/satire of 50's monster movies. Keep in mind however that this movie is thee shit.

Giant. Rabbit bunnies. Run. Amok.

Yup. It's like the Tremors of it's day, only with rabbits. It's awesome. Somewhere in the American Southwest a bunch of country folk are bummed out because the local rabbit population are, blah blah blah, who gives a shit? Long story short they mess with the rabbits, thus making a super giant-sized bunny gore fest. Giant hares stampede miniature model sets, and people in bunny suits smash the townsfolk, and it's hilarious. It's very much like the classic creature feature's of the past, think Them! (1954) obviously. This movie has a special place in my heart, because it's one of the few flicks I vividly remember watching as a child with my father on TNT's Monster Vision hosted by Joe Bob Briggs. That right there is enough to evoke enough nostalgia to make me tear up. I would spend the weekends at my Dad's house as a youngster, and every night we would stay up late and watch a ton of movies. If nothing good was on the new release shelf at the Crazy Mike's Video on Nob Hill, we would always turn to Joe Bob's Monster Vision on Saturday night. It's then that we saw this classic. Since then, it's been a running inside joke of ours. Giant rabbits, the ole' Night of the Lepus. To this day, he still cracks up about how crappy of a movie it was. Very fun.

Anyway, this is good stuff. I saw that it came out on DVD a few years ago, but couldn't believe my eyes when the price was like 15$...way too much for what should be some bargain bin shit. So today on my lunch break at the theater, I went to Goodwill. There it was waiting for me for 1.99$. Score. Finished up work, took it home, put it in. Stoked. I was a little distracted though since I watched it with a cute girl. So there's that.

October is off to a good start.

Movie gets a 10/10 on the "what-the-fuck-what-a-terrible-idea" scale.

The Big Racket (1976)

2008-08-28T00:54:00.000-07:00

Director - Enzo G. Castellari

"Poliziotteschi" is a fantastic sub-category of Italian movie making of the 60's and 70's. Hardened police stories of crime, corruption, revenge, and loads of violence. Not as infamous as the third-world cannibal movie, or as visually pleasing as the giallo, poliziotteschi still deserves it's place right beside those other classics of exploitation. Most well-known directors of the time had their hands in these movies before they broke it big. Ruggero Deodata, best known for his foray into the ultra-violent world of Cannibal Holocaust (1982) made Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man well before in 1976. Umberto Lenzi took a shot at it in between gialli, cannibal, and zombie movies with Free Hand for a Tough Cop (1976), and Rome Armed to the Teeth (1976). Sergio Martino, and Lucio Fulci both took their fair share when it came to making gritty crime movies as well. However, it was the man himself, Enzo G. Castellari who stands out from the rest for sticking manly to action movies in the hight of his success and offering us the best of the genre. He proves his ability to craft and weave a great, thrilling story, and deliver on action and all the good stuff in boat loads.

The Big Racket is a story about a crime syndicate taking it's hold on Roman businesses, and business owners and the one badass cop to stand against the criminals. That cop is played by poliziotteschi all-star Fabio Testi. The gang is putting a squeeze on all shop owners, industrial plants, etc and offering them protection for a hefty fee. If they don't pay up, the gang beats/rapes/burns them into paying them. Along the way the gang crosses a bunch of innocent entrepreneurs, this is where the movie takes it's turn from fun loving crime drama into terror flick territory. Rape, humiliation, violence, etc. It's brutal but ultimately effective, in that the pay off is that much sweeter when the third "revenge" act goes down.

(his wife raped and burned alive revenge is at hand)

I won't give away too much, but Testi's (ha) character rounds up everyone that the syndicate has done wrong and gets his own posse of hardened, beaten on dudes to stomp out the other gang. The line blurs in it's morality trip, asking the viewing if the means truly justify the ends. The ultimate showdown of bad asses, as they pit violence against violence in an onslaught of rad shit!

Enzo showcases what he has in store next for Inglorious Bastards (scroll down!) in his use of slow motion and graphic squib hits in tense moments of action. I've been in love with Enzo's movies for a while now, and while he may have run out of steam in the 80's jumping into a ton of post-nuke movies, he still managed to make entertaining action movies with heart all the while bearing that Castellari mark. A truly gifted if under rated film maker of the 70's for sure.

While these movies are not uncommon, they are definitely over looked. If you get a chance to, take the lofty endeavor and discover some of these gems! If anything rent them just because they have fucking awesome titles:

Violent Naples
Street Law
Revolver
The Smuggler aka Contraband
A Gun For a Cop
High Crime
Heroin Busters
Violent Professionals
Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man

The Big Racket gets a 10/10...essential viewing.

The Inglorious Bastards (1978)

2008-08-05T16:10:00.000-07:00

Director - Enzo G. Castellari

Animal House meets Saving Private Ryan! This is one of the coolest action movies of the 70's for sure. Not only is the action and stunt work supreme, but it's one of the funniest movies. I kept thinking that it was somewhere between Porky's and Animal House set in occupied France in World War II. If you can imagine that, and I encourage you to do so, then you'll know that this is fucking rad.

A bunch of court marshaled US soldiers are on their way to go to prison for either deserting the war effort, insubordination, or stealing and stuff like that. Scum bag bad asses who don't want to be fighting in this war. The cast is lead by, Bo Svenson (Walking Tall 1973), and Fred Williamson (legendary blaxploitation actor and noted Italian action star) and some other cool looking dudes. They're being transported to military prison when their convoy gets attacked by Nazis. The officials get killed, and the deserters escape. From here on out it's a party through the wasteland of occupied France as the gang cracks wise, kill a billion Nazis, find a river with a ton of naked SS girls in it (ask anyone you know and they'll say I love hot Nazis), party, blow things up, and escape an SS castle. It is rowdy. So much fun.

The plot kicks in when the gang accidentally kills a bunch of US soldiers in Nazi disguises. Our gang then takes their place on the secret mission to pretend they're Nazis and hi-jack a train carrying a secret bomb that the Fuhrer has plans for. The gang has two choices, go back to the army and give themselves up, or try to make a break for Sweden and escape. In doing the latter they find themselves in this train hi-jacking predicament. They team up with the French and then jump kick the third act of the film. It's so awesome.

The movie is action packed, never a dull moment to be had. Fred "The Hammer" Williamson steals the show. One of my favorite parts is when he kills a bunch of Nazi's, then gives a Nazi salute to his pals and laughs at the dead bodies. Unreal seeing the blackest, manliest dude of the 70's do that. He also does all of his own stunts in this movie, and believe me when I say they are insane. Jumping off a bridge onto a moving train, sliding down a rope from atop a SS castle over a huge lawn and into the back of a truck. He looks so tough and rad when he does all of these things and maintains his un-lit cigar in his mouth while he kicks ass. The movie has never seen an official release over here, but was available on cut VHS under the title GI BRO with Williamson's mug on the cover.

Enzo Castellari is turning out to be one of my favorite Italian directors. This coupled with his fine poliziotteschi The Big Racket and his post-apocalyptic 80's movies solidify him on top of my list. I would have killed to see him tackle a Zombie movie. He stuck to big action movies for the most part though. He is a very humbled and well composed guy in this Inglorious Bastards 3-disc DVD that Severin just put out. I highly suggest the DVD as it is all encompassing to every aspect of the movie and how it got made.

We'll just have to wait and see if Quentin Tarantino fucks it all up by remaking this for next year. I've heard rumors of Brad Pitt and Leo DeCaprio in the lead roles...I hate Tarantino. Watch this movie though! Essential.

10/10

Eaten Alive! (1980)

2008-07-16T23:30:00.000-07:00

Director - Umberto Lenzi

The pissing contest between Italian directors Ruggero Deodata and Umberto Lenzi really got out of hand in the late 70's and the early 80's. Granted it's pretty sweet.

The story is stupid and a bit confusing. Deodata takes over directing duties on the follow up to Man From Deep River (1972), the project that would turn out to be Last Cannibal World aka Jungle Holocaust (1977) as Lenzi deicded to pass on making a "sequel" of sorts to his cannibal classic. Deodata makes it, does a hell of a job in doing so, and then Lenzi gets jealous of his success and decides he wants to out-do Last Cannibal World so to speak and this is the end result. 92 minutes of poor taste, stolen footage from other well known movies, and what feels like a rush job and cash in on the cannibal craze that he sort of started.

(Sweet German poster art)

The plot is standard, a woman (the busty Janet Agren from City of the Living Dead) goes into the jungles of New Guinea to search for her missing sister (the not-as-good-looking Paolo Senatore). Along the way Agren teams up with usual-suspect-#1 when it comes to cannibal movies, Robert Kerman (Cannibal Holocaust as well as a ton of hardcore porn) the token American, to help find the sibling and be tough and chop shit with a machete and stuff. The strange twist on a rather dull genre is cool, the set up is that the long lost sister is actually now apart of a crazy pseudo-Christian/Pagan cult lead by Ivan Rassimov! Odd choice, but topical I guess (?), being that it mirrors the Jonestown Massacre quite a bit which is pretty cool. So the cult is comprised of white folks who escape to the jungle and use nothing but the land to live off of. Sounds cool right? Wrong! They also have ritualistic rape rituals that apparently go like fucking peanut butter and jelly there too. Cannibal movie regular (probably because she's dark skinned aka thoughtless savage from the jungle, and shows her cans a lot) Me Me Lai arrives and hangs out for a bit. Talk about a sweet cast, that works for the movie for sure.

(Kerman and Me Me Lai watching atrocities off camera...later stolen footage would be inserted)

Anyway, stupid shit happens, our rescue team of white chick from New York and Robert Kerman have to fake like they're in the cult to get the sister to safety, in doing so they get ratted out, escape, almost get killed by some rival cannibal tribe and then end up back at the kooky cult camp place. Some more stupid shit happens, and it's pretty sweet, blah, blah, blah, people get eaten and stuff . The best part of this movie is the stolen footage from a few of Italy's finest/most popular movies! Scenes cut right out from Mountain of the Cannibal God (1978), Last Cannibal World, and even his own movie (!), Man From Deep River, put right into this movie. Ha. What a hack. There are however a couple of effects shots that were specific to this movie's shooting (although obviously filmed on a set rather than in the jungle) which kind of pay off but not really. The gory stuff, and all of the real life animal cruelty is stolen from those other movies.

It's a fun jungle adventure movie, and I liked it quite a bit more than I thought I would. Robert Kerman is great in it, and Janet Agren really steals the show. She is sooooo hot in this, and gets naked (thank God. I swear when I was watching this I said to myself "if the main chick doesn't get naked this movie will suck".) and covered in golden body paint. Guess who eats it hard? Me Me Lai, crazy, didn't see that coming. Chick not only dies in all the cannibal movies she's in, but she's bound to get raped at least once. Class act Lenzi. The third act is fun because the killing and cannibalism begins, and there is a great escape scene involving a helicopter, spears, and Robert Kerman with no safety harness. It's sweet. Ivan Rassimov plays a great insane asshole as the leader of the cult. Tons of people die, and it's got a fun score. Oh and there is a dumb sub-plot taking place in New York with Mel Ferrer (the only dude to ever star in two movies bearing the same crappy name, that being Tobe Hooper's Eaten Alive in 1977 and this one). It's a fun watch, and nearly the final nail in my cannibal movie coffin. I still have yet to see Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals (1977), but when I do get around to that one I'll finally be able to post my report card on all of these crappy movies.

(Janet Agren looking shocked and pretty...how does she do it?)

Def watch this one though, it's sweet. Not nearly as good as Man From Deep River, or Cannibal Ferox but required viewing for sure. Also the Shriek Show dvd is ace as usual.

7/10

Massacre in Dinosaur Valley (1985)

2008-06-25T04:16:00.000-07:00

Director - Michele Massimo Tarantini

Serving as a fine and popular Italian import, the "third world cannibal" film genre has made it's way into the history books, whether this is a good thing or a horrible thing I'm not sure. This is a lost art form, no other directors are willing to sacrifice their reputability and good name to ever grace this kind of film ever again. It's truly a reprehensible, awful good time. Take this little gem for instance.

A classic rip off director who dabbled in westerns, women in prison movies, Conan rip offs, and police drama takes his stab at the cannibal movie. The one catch is, there is not much of a "massacre" nor are there cool dinosaurs or even big scary creatures in this movie. It's like cannibal lite. Even with all this against it the movie comes out on top and totally fucking rules!

(Horrible poster art, but a native is cutting the white girls breast with a bone.)

I feel like 1985 was the year when this kind of stuff was on it's way out, and boy does it show on this movie. Also called "Cannibal Ferox II" this is more of a jungle action/adventure romp, it's awesome. Michael Sopkiw takes the lead role of stranded American, Kevin Hall, he is a mix of Indiana Jones, Han Solo, and Ash from Army of Darkness...except he bangs like 2 girls, and kills a ton of Indians in cold blood, but other than that he's a wise cracking down on his luck dude with nothing to loose! This guy is fantastic in this flick, he acted in 4 movies his whole life. He spent his younger years in Italy as a male model, and was picked up in Sergio Martino's 2019: After the Fall of New York (1983), and Lamberto Bava's epic pieces of shit; Devil Shark, and Blastfighter (both 1984) and then decided this is the one he would bow out on. What an awesome dude.

Anyway, back to the movie. Some funny scenes go down, most of the celluloid is made up of quite a few girls getting naked, and some cool death scenes. A zany cast of characters crash their plane in the middle of the Amazon rain forest, it's up to Michael Sopkiw and a Vietnam vet to keep the survivors alive and make their escape from the blood crazy uncivilized savages (or as the war vet refers to them as "Gooks of the Amazon"...or something like that...wow.) and the dangers of the green inferno. The plane crash is unbelievable, the wacky cast is crammed into the fuselage of a tiny plane that was obviously on a set, it looks like it was assembled over night using kitchen supplies and 80's furniture. Anyway the plane crashes and all exterior shots of the descent and wreck are that of a toy plane...someone threw a fucking little plane into a wet bed of flowers and weeds and called it a day! Throw some slow motion on that and scratch up the prints and we're in business.

(Michael Sopkiw will not only BLAST you but he will FIGHT you too)

Gore hounds will be a little underwhelmed, but there is hope. A dude gets his leg bitten to the bone by piranhas, the chief of the tribe stabs a dude in the chest and tears out his heart and eats it, stuff like that. Funny scenes and stunts of untrained actors swimming with real live crocodiles (or alligators...what am I a zoo keeper?) and really beautiful scenery of Brazil make it good entertainment, z-grade Italian trash as it is. No animal cruelty or anything like that...kinda weak, but cool they went that route.

The best part of this movie is that it really is more of an action movie than a cannibal muncher, as evident in it's third act when Sopkiw and leading lady Suzane Carvalho (who now races formula-1 cars? Yeah, no idea...weird but cool. This was her last movie as well.) think they find refuge from natives they just pumped full of buckshot. Turns out this safe haven is a slave operated jewel mine and shanty town run by a scummy dude who loves to rape chicks, and a crazy/hot Brazlian lesbian who takes advantage of the Carvalho white chick. It's absolute non-sense, but of course shit goes down, slaves are capped off like animals, and a helicopter comes into play...also some TNT gets blowed up real good.

This movie fucking rules, it was mindless fun. A late and fairly obscure addition to the cannibal genre, but a worthy one non the less. I liked it a bit more than a few of it's piers (Mountain of the Cannibal God, Jungle Holocaust namely) simply because it was more fun, I watched some of it with my boy Alex and it was cool, he was into the mass of naked girls he saw in a small amount of time so that doesn't count for nothing. Rent this if you're in the mood for action, adventure, and the degradation of females on screen that sets back the women's rights movement 80 years!

7/10

Nightmare City (1980)

2008-06-18T11:34:00.000-07:00

Director - Umberto Lenzi

Sigh. Good lord. I'm def scrapping the bottom of the barrel in my quest to finish up the main contenders of the zombie movie craze the Italians had in the 70's and 80's. This one fits right up there in the same circle of shit as Hell of the Living Dead, Zombi 3, Burial Ground, and Living Dead at Manchester Morgue. It's just plain ol' awful, but necessary viewing when you're on a quest to watch the worst of the worst.

(Ahhh, see what he did there. He put the title which has "city" in it over a shot...of the city.)

So the guy who's claim to fame is Cannibal Ferox (1981), makes a zombie movie high in it's ecological awareness as it is in it's gore and senseless female nudity. A plane lands in some big city in the US (who are they kidding it's Spain), a bunch of zombies jump out of the plane and take over the folks at the airport. A ton of sub-plots ensue involving a TV reporter and his emergency room nurse wife, a military dude and his sculptor wife, another military dudes family (daughter and son-in-...oh who fucking cares), mindless crap happens at a rapid pace for the duration of the first half of the flick; zombies take over a city, panic, a contamination of apocalyptic proportions, etc. Then Lenzi totally fumbles and gives us a pretty boring third act. By the one hour fifteen minute mark I was looking desperately at the runtime and begging the gods of bad taste to end this fucking movie! The movie plays out for a bit longer, the sub-plots wrap themselves up and the movie culminates in a true act of shit movie making.

The main dude of the movie (Hugo Stiglitz, a Spanish actor whom the Director openly bashes on the special features of the DVD. You know you suck really bad when the director of this horrid, wretched, rotted soul of a movie says you suck.) gets rescued by a helicopter only to see his wife fall out of his reach from the chopper and end up zombie fodder when all of the sudden...GASP! It was all a dream! He wakes up and the movie plays again for about 5 minutes the same fucking footage from the begining of the movie. A circular ending!? Are you kidding me!? It all happens again right after he wakes up from his nightmare...oh wait, "Nightmare"...like, "Nightmare City"! Ohhhhh I get it. FUCK THIS MOVIE!

(oh hey a crappy looking zombie...one of many. Yeah that's it look right at the camera.)

Lenzi obviously didn't know how to end the movie so he just threw on that bit of garbage and called it a climax, and then FIN! What a douche. How this is the same dude made the incredibly under rated and well done giallo Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (1972) is beyond me. I mean don't get me wrong this movie rules, but the difference in his movies are often night and day. Oh well. I would have rather seen Enzo G. Castellari make this movie, like he was originally supposed to. Anyway, the ending sucks, but the first half is sweet. Tons of carnage, tons of mayhem, tons of awful zombie make-up. The best part of this movie is how Lenzi takes every opportunity to get a girls shirt off seconds before she is mauled by a zombie. Bravo, Sir. It makes for a funny viewing, best served with a six pack and a bunch of friends...or alone in your stuffy room at 6AM...either way. Did I mention the eco-friendly message the movie tries to pull off in an attempt to be taken seriously? Radiation poisoning sucks, ok. Mankind is relying too much on technology and at any moment nature could take it all back and wipe us out...hm, deep thoughts here. At one point Lenzi actually compares the zombie contamination to the AIDS epidemic, and he digs his own verbal-grave deeper when he compares this movie with the Tom Hanks movie Philadelphia (1993). Wow. What a fucking douche bag of a dude.

Movie is grade-A trash. Check it out if you are on a zombie movie kick, or a fan of Lenzi, but don't rush out and go out of your way to peep it, it really is awful. Awfully fucking sweet, zombie apocalypse, tons of naked girls, and boat loads of gore. Oh yeah and the zombies run, jump over stuff, signal other zombies, use guns, and stuff...retarded, but one of the first movies to have fast zombies.

6/10

Deadbeat at Dawn (1988)

2008-06-13T01:08:00.000-07:00

Director - James Van Bebber

The low budget genre film is an American standard that either makes or breaks a director. A DIY kind of aesthetic, no money, borrowed equipment, tons of heart, gallons of sweat, horrible community theater actors, and a lot of fake blood. Movies like the Evil Dead, El Mariachi, or Reservoir Dogs took their shot, and enjoyed the mainstream and international success of their labors sparked by bidding wars at films festivals and major distribution deals. When James Van Bebber did it, he was shunned by Hollywood and would continue to do odd short films throughout the 90's, and finally return to a feature length in 2003 with little success or acclaim. It's this type of treatment to an underdog like Van Bebber that has me so fascinated by him. Why hasn't he done more? Why did he make a masterpiece in crime cinema and do virtually nothing else for over a decade?

Deadbeat at Dawn is an ultra low budget and hyper-violent scumbag of a revenge movie. The movie was filmed in Dayton, Ohio in the late 80's, but it's set anywhere that is crime ridden, dirty, and awful. The movie has a universal setting, the worst parts of any town you can think of. Empty project buildings, warehouses lining entire city blocks, cracked sidewalk, broken down cars. The movie is set in an urban nightmare of which the viewer has no escape. It's like watching a Life of Agony, or Biohazard record come to life on screen. Goose (played by Van Bebber himself) is the leader of a teenage gang that rolls pretty deep on Harley's. In between dealing drugs, beating the shit out of rival gangs with brass knuckles, blades, bats, and nun chucks he is a scummy boyfriend to a decent girl. His girlfriend convinces him to leave his shady life behind and start anew with her. Goose leaves the gang, and his rival gang doesn't think highly of that. They kill his girlfriend when he's out selling crank, Goose comes back home finds her beaten to death, wraps her up in a blanket and dumps her body in a garbage disposal unit...true love. The movie is filth. It has a dirty New York City vibe from the late 80's. Strip clubs, crack, headbangers and that sort of feel, it's really awesome.

Goose wanders around after the death of his girl, contemplates killing himself, knocks out his own Dad, gets fucked up and eventually gets back into his old gang against his will to do one last job with them. The old gang (The Ravens), under a new leader, team up with the gang that was responsible for his girlfriends' death, The Spiders, to pull an armored car job. The Spiders double cross The Ravens, and in a The Warriors (1979) kind of feel the stage is set for an all out war lead by Goose to get revenge at any cost necessary.

The amazing thing about this labor of love of a movie, is Van Bebber did nearly everything to get to a finished product. Stunt coordinator, special fx and make up, acting, directing, editing, producing, and fight choreography. All by one dude. Damn. The fights are spectacular, it's like kung-fu street fighting with tons of weapons. The gore is...relentless and in your face. One can look at it as tongue-in-cheek, but it really is a splatter epic. At least the last half is. The acting is surprisingly well executed, the music is sweet, and the stunts are insane. For such a low profile production, things like jumping down a dam, and dangling from a 4 story parking garage with no experience, no supervision, and no safety come at you and shatter your nerves, but it looks phenomenal.

This oozes a long standing American tradition. That if you want to, you can do anything you set your mind to. It's a true inspiration, and a brilliant showcase at just what you can accomplish if you get your friends together, get a decent idea for a movie with a simple beginning, middle, and end. It's a shame Van Bebber hasn't gone on to mainstream success or projects, I feel like with the right budget and ideas this could have been an obvious addition to the names of Scorsese, Tarantino, Raimi, or what have you. His agoraphobic lifestyle, and not embracing the internet to distribute his films, or to update the world on just what he is doing has lead many to ponder drug and alcohol problems. It's easy to see why after watching a movie like this.

I like what Van Bebber had to say about action movies in the 80's that he was into. That the Segal's, or the Chuck Norris' of the day were always fighting the good fight. Taking the bad guy and pushing his face into the cocaine that he was snorting. His take on it was that if a really bad dude was doing this, he would be the anti-hero that was doing the coke and saving the day. That the protagonist would get fucked up, make mistakes and be a human just like any of us. To me that's really cool.

All bullshit aside, Deadbeat at Dawn serves as an example of fine American film making. Dirty, rotten, nasty and just not nice as it may be, this is essential viewing for anyone interested in truly independent boundary pushing movies.

8/10

The New York Ripper (1982)

2008-06-03T05:28:00.000-07:00

Director - Lucio Fulci

"He used a blade. Stuck it up her joy trail, and slit her wide open. He could have done a slightly better job if he had more time. But overall, it was a good, efficient butchery." - Coroner examining the latest victim.

The last credible movie Lucio Fulci would make (if you can call this credible). The late 80's were not kind to him, and certainly not his best work. Actually that depends because as far as god awful shlock is concerned some of his most irreverent and outrageously shitty movies are his late 80's movies, love them or hate them. This movie, on the other hand, came right off the heels and international success of his acclaimed "living dead trilogy", City of the Living Dead (aka The Gates of Hell), The Beyond, and The House by the Cemetery.

A welcome change in pace from the zombie/gore epics he was on a roll with, this a dirty, disrespectful, over the top sleaze fest. Hands down his most un-PC and awesomest movie ever! Filmed on the mean streets of early 80's New York City and focusing on a serial killer slashing up girls left and right, Fulci takes the viewer on an uncomfortable ride through the gutters and alleys of Manhattan. The location for this is awesome because I am a huge fan of the dirty New York era found in memorable movies such as Street Trash or Driller Killer. Just a dingy, scummy, peep-show infested low-life ridden cesspool.

"You women are all the same! A menace to society! You women should stay at home where you belong. You've got the brains of a chicken!"

A cop teams up with a psychologist to track down the infamous New York Ripper who has made headlines in all the newspapers as the next Son of Sam. The ripper uses a Donald Duck voice when taunting the police over telephone, and quacks at it's victims when they get stabbed to death. It's so strange and unusual that I can't help but go with it. Why a Donald Duck voice? Well I guess you'll understand if you make it to the end of the movie, although it doesn't make much sense even then. Usual giallo plot unfolds, but done in a much trashier fashion. At one point a woman is banged underneath a table at a pool hall by some pervert using his foot. Yeah...exactly. Sex show laden 42nd. Street is shown in it's full glory, watch as a girl helplessly gets stabbed in the crotch with a fucking broken beer bottle! God this movie rules.

Ultimately misogynistic, and forthright in it's violence against women, the most infamous scene is when the killer takes a razor blade to a womans breast...then her stomach...cuts off her nipple, and then slashes her face to bits. An outrageously cool scene and top 5 in Fulci gore moments hands down. The killer ducks (ha), dodges, and weaves past the cops, and past the only girl who got away from him who is also on the hunt for him. The cast is great, you'll be able to see familiar faces from Contraband, Escape from the Bronx, Zombie Holocaust, and a handful of other Fulci movies. The soundtrack is a standard swinging exploitation soundtrack that had me at the intro, and the gore is fantastic.

The plot is paper thin, but the atmosphere of New York and the kill scenes make it a really, really solid flick on par with the best of them. This is in my top 3 favorite Fulci. I'm working on a report card of his movies, as I did a double feature with this and The New Gladiators in the same night. I'll post a review of that one later.

This movie rules. A trashterpiece that should be seen by any gorehound, or fan of good movies for that matter. It may not be his most popular movie, but it may be his best.

9/10

Bay of Blood (1971)

2008-05-29T03:39:00.000-07:00

Director - Mario Bava

The obvious predecessor to Friday the 13th, and the groundwork for the slasher phenomenon of the 1980's in the US. So much of this movie has been done in future films by movies made right here at home. We in America have a sense of pride when it comes to our horror movies, we like them with a decent pace, buckets of blood and gore, naked teenagers, and loads of dead people. Picture the setting: A drive-in theater in middle america. It's 1978 and a movie called Halloween has scared teenagers across their parked cars, and have probably gotten a lot of dudes action in the back seat. Blood drips through the enormous screen as the reels on the projector flicker for everyone to look at. None of this would be possible had it not been for this movie. Mario Bava's Bay of Blood (also known by it's more popular name, Twitch of the Death Nerve and billed in many grindhouse theaters and drive-ins as Last House on the Left II) is the maestro's 5th to last movie. All 5 of them being landmark films impacted the world over. The influence of Bay of Blood can be felt even today.

With all that said, this is a pretty crappy movie.

Bay side property is up for grabs, and everyone who lives around this place is going for all they can get. Bava takes us out of the haunted castles, out of the fast paced urban setting, and right into the countryside for this one. The movie starts with nearly 9 minutes of dialog-free acting and suspense. Like most Bava movies it opens with a credit sequence over water, dark, brooding water. A fly hovers above the shallow bay and plops in, surly to be food for some creature lurking beneath. As the movie starts the death of the fly symbolizes the amount of carnage and murder we are in store for. A countess, the owner of the bay, sits paralyzed in her wheelchair and strolls about her lavish house. She is laced in jewelry and is well off by the looks of things. As she pushes herself around she comes to an open doorway where a shadowy figure throws a noose over her head and pushes her wheelchair out from underneath her. The chair goes flying backwards and she is kept up about halfway between the ground and the top of the door. She is helpless to stand up as she is crippled, and struggles for air as her motionless legs grasp for footing that does not appear. She hangs there, and as the wheel on her chair spins slower and slower, her heart seizes and her breathing stops.

(Dead teenager here. Body count on this movie is...staggering)

A cruel, heartless, and brutal intro scene. All free of dialog, as mentioned before. The killer of the countess turns around only to be jabbed in the stomach by a knife. Shit. No one is safe in this one. The brilliant opening scene takes the cake for me, the rest of the movie is slow, and most of the characters and subplots are meaningless. A couple neighbors all have a shot for the property of the bay, all of them go for each others throats. A couple from out of town come in to take it all for themselves. A bunch of teenagers occupy an abandoned cabin/nightclub(?) on a weekend getaway. The body count gets huge as nearly EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER in this bad boy gets offed in a savage killing or two. Sweet. Actually that's nearly all this movie has going for itself. It's a giallo, but more bloody, more gorey, and tasteless. It's sweet. Girls get naked and go swimming. Heads get chopped by machetes, a couple having sex is pinned together as a spear goes through them both and through their bed (Friday the 13th Part II), and a bunch of other really cool death scenes. I like this movie, but as far as pre-slasher gialli is concerned, that one goes to Sergio Martino's brilliant Torso (Bodies Bear Traces of Carnal Violence) in 1973 as it's much more tasteless and ten times more stylish.

(More dead teenagers. A scene ripped off directly in other movies.)

Bay of Blood has a lot to offer though. It's a fun movie with a short runtime. The positives here outweigh the negatives. Only slightly though. A hand must be given for Bava's first time as director of photography since The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963) so it's fun to see how masterfully shot this one is. It should also be mentioned that this is one of Bava's only movies to be filmed with an Italian version, and an English version. Every time there was a scene with dialog the actors would shoot it once in English, and then again in Italian. Apparently the Italian version leaves a better taste in the mouth, as less bullshit is about, and more plot is sifted through with an operatic feeling. I'm curious myself to see it. Bava also has a great time going through scene transitions in a popular french style of editing and shooting makes for an enjoyable viewing.

It's easy to see where everyone ripped off their movies. Bob Clark's Black Christmas (1974) took a little bit here, and John Carpenters Halloween was greatly influenced by it. The 80's basically took this, ran with it, and the rest is history. It's not my favorite Bava, but it's a damn good movie to watch with a bunch of friends/pizza/beer. If you're looking for the origins of horror film, start here with the slasher genre, it's a fun one. The crappy sub-plots, boring characters, and slow third act are really stupid, but get past that and it's party time. Metaphor, foreshadowing, gore, and plot twists abound. The ending to this one is fucking awesome though, I'll give him that. Bava gives us his most literal story telling here, but Blood and Black Lace is so much better!

6/10

Tenebre (1982)

2008-05-29T01:32:00.000-07:00

Director - Dario Argento

Dario Argento made quite a few of his highest regarded work in the 1980's. Phenomena, Inferno, Opera, and this giallo stuck in the middle of all of those supernatural horror movies. A return to the form that Argento picked up where Mario Bava left off, his return to the mystery/thriller. After a couple of years giving us those witch movies, it's time to get back to black gloves, and straight razors.

Tenebre has a plot that has been done in a couple of other Argento movies. An American writer goes to Rome to to promote his new book "Tenebrae". While he is there a woman is brutally murdered with the pages of Peter Neil's (Anthony Franciosa) latest novel shoved into her mouth. A few other creepy murders take place, all linking back to the author. Standard giallo affair from here on out. Flashbacks of the murderers life take place in a sort of point of view. K, got that going on. The police and the author both take on the part of investigators one step behind at every corner. Mhm, alright. A billion red hearings are flagged, is it this person? Is it that person? Yaaawwwn, okay, got it. A ton of girls get cut up, strangled, and generally just all fucked up in the usual way. The thing about Tenebre is, it's a really good movie with a decent plot and cool camera effects. See, we've been there though. This is basically the same plot as The Bird With the Crystal Plummage, and Deep Red. Goofy American teams up with a cop to untangle a web of crap only to be outsmarted the whole time while a big twist ending reveals just who the real killer is. Sigh.

(Woman hating Dario Argento? Naaahhh.)

Tenebre teams us up again with Daria Nicolodi (who was married to Argento at the time I believe), and brings to the fold criminally underused John Saxon, and some other people I don't really recognize. It's a good movie, but I really don't care for anything else besides the brilliant camera work in one particular scene, the epic murder scenes, and the Goblin (only they weren't Goblin anymore) score. The twist ending was dumb and didn't really make sense.

I will rave about the camera movement in the scene outside the house with the prostitute (I think she was a pro), and her girlfriend/room mate. It's just fun to watch, minutes go by with the camera floating around the house from window to window, over the roof and in through a door and to a woman. It all appears to be one shot, and the music over it is choice. Worth the watch just for that alone.

The lighting in this is weird, but very cool. A different feel from his other movies, but still bears that Argento touch. You can tell its a movie he's made. Tenebrea's literal translation is "darkness", yet the movie is bright. It's almost black and white in it's feel, even the night is lit up. It makes for a pleasurable viewing.

The other part I liked was the infamous axe to the arm scene. The beauty in the violence, the red on white contrast, and the screams from the woman put me in some strange sort of ease. I watched this scene over and over after I finished the movie and realized a bit later that that is pretty weird. It really is pretty though. It's not even a matter of gore, it's beyond that, it's scarlet violence sprayed on a pure background. It's fantastic. I'll post it here.

The movie is fun, I much prefer Deep Red to it, and I'd suggest Argento nerds watch this to finish out his mystery movies. My curiousity is peaked by his current movie simply titled, "Giallo" due out in a couple of years. Again, Dario returns to the genre that he does best. It may not be a genre in which his are the best, but it is his strongest skill.

6/10

Hitch-Hike (1977)

2008-05-20T03:18:00.000-07:00

Director - Pasquale Festa Campanile

Rape. Robbery. Kidnapping. Humiliation. Road trip!!!!!! What a stupid movie. I've been excited to see Hitch-Hike for a while now being a big fan of David Hess (the harshest, nastiest dude from Last House on the Left, and House on the Edge of the Park) and this being the last in his trilogy of truly mean spirited movies. An often over looked classic in trash cinema, Hitch Hike is a campy 70's romp with enough spite and uneasiness to fill a family station wagon's gas tank.

(dead body in plain view in his front seat, and the guy from Last House...sure pick him up)

Pasquale Festa Campanile is in the driver's seat in this one. He's the guy that directed the brilliantly titled When Women Had Tails, this time around he takes his stab at a 70's European staple, the "Euro Terror Flick". Tales of degrading innocent people (women), humiliating people (mostly women), and killing people (women and some dudes). David Hess jumps into his usual role here as the terrorizing bad guy in this bizarre sub-genre. A really, really unhappy couple on a super dysfunctional vacation road trip in the "American West" decide to pick up a friendly looking hitch hiker even just after listening to a radio broadcaster talk about a bank robbery in the area, DUN DUN DUUUUN! You get the idea, Hess hops in, fights Franco Nero (Italian movie legend, and Django main man), molests and harasses Corinne Clery (the Bond girl in Moonraker...h-o-t.) and the three of them set off on a good time.

The thing that sets this movie apart from most schlock of the genre is it's really strange first half. First frame is Nero hunting, and his riffle sight is locked on to a buck in the woods. He goes from the elk to his beautiful wife. He looks on, contemplating killing his wife. Kill the wife, kill the deer, kill the wife, shoot the deer. And then he kills the deer. They chuck the carcass in the back of their car, and almost immediately drunken Nero decides to rape his wife...ON THE ROTTING DEER CARCASS. Bravo, bravo. Wow. And hey it looks like a real dead deer. Probably is. Def is a real dead deer. Awesome. This is literally within the first 5 minutes of the movie. Needless to say I was pretty impressed at this level of sleaze. The couple are not happy, actually the only thing they really do during the duration of the flick is bicker, whine, and fight with each other. A god damned hour and 45 minutes of a drunk Italian bitching at his wife. It grates on all senses.

(front seat folk are going to be bummed out for a good portion of the movie)

The movie delivers some great scenes, and some funny lines, but I think the best part about it is Corrine Clery. She is truly stunning in this flick. Very hot. Her and Hess, he's really mean in that aging hippie/super creep kind of way. My favorite line in the entire movie is when he (spoilers, but who are we kidding don't watch this) double crosses his bank heist buddies, jumps out of a moving truck that they are in whilst it drives off a cliff. Hess looks off camera to the falling truck and as if it were a gun blast from his mouth yells, "BUH BYE FAGGOTS!". Pure class.

Speaking of class, Ennio Morricone classes up the soundtrack a bit, giving his best "American John Wayne, real cowboy music". It's pretty cheesy, not my favorite score of his. This one falls a little bit short for me. It's just a couple personal problems that get in the way for me. On the surface it's a rad, action (kinda) packed Italian exploitation movie. Below, on the other hand, it's a sloppy and frustrating douche of a movie. None of the characters are sympathetic, nor is there any sort of sweet revenge or ultimate pay off. I generally wanted them all to die, because they were all bad people (sans Clery...babe), and they were all very annoying. At one point there is like ten minutes of film being used up while we watch the happy couple try to get their car out of the sand. When you think it can't go on any longer, or serve less of a point, it defies you and spites in your face. The scene just goes on. And on. And...on. Forever. Just the two of them freaking out, arguing, and trying to get the tire out of the ground. Fucking kill me. It's that kind of shit that makes me not love this movie, or even like it a bit. A couple of awkwardly slow car chases and such leave much to be desired.

It's okay for what it is, and in this kind of genre it had better be damn good when it's up against the utter crap that is of similar nature.

5/10

Bitchin

2008-05-07T02:27:00.000-07:00

My dad is giving me a copier/fax/printer thing. I am siked. I think I'm going to have a goal to do a zine based on my love of Italian exploitation by the time of the Bellingham Comic Con in September. I want to make a bunch and give them out for free.

List of shit I want to write and express my love for, either in zine format, or in dumb internet format:

Italian movies
The Drive-In theater boom of the 50's, 60's, and 70's
The VHS boom of the 80's, and the explosion of video rental stores

The Majorettes (1986)

2008-05-05T04:10:00.000-07:00

Director - Bill Hinzman

Who, in the fuck, let Bill Hinzman, the shitty "cemetery zombie" from Night of the Living Dead direct an 80's slasher movie? I will find whomever let this happen, and punch them in the mouth for being such a knob. This movie is such a pile of shit.

John Russo, the horrible human being that he is, co-wrote the classic Night of the Living Dead and then sold his soul to the devil to get his hands into anything that could possibly get him a paycheck. A hack who has exploited the living dead movies to no end. He's the guy that "wrote" this one. Ugh.

("Sis, Boom, Blood. You're Dead!" Oscar Wilde like wordplay for the tagline of this masterpiece in 80's trash!)

The movie is such an epic piece of shit. It's on the coat tails of movies like Slumber Party Massacre and the like. It's pure shlock, of the best/worst kind. Naked high school girls get killed, "one by one", (the original title for this piece of hot garbage committed to celluloid) and a series of red herrings go off only to have a really shitty twist towards the middle of the movie. The best part of this movie isn't the shitty audio track with enough white noise/background noise to distract from the dumbest movie playing, it isn't the "acting" that the 80's-porn-star looking folk accomplish, but it's the fact that the movie completely changes pace around 45 minutes in. The movie turns from boring slasher to boring/shitty action revenge movie. At one point a high school kid is romping through the forest with no shirt on blasting an M-16 machine gun at drug dealers. Yeah. Wow. It's this kind of bizare shit that makes The Majorettes what it is. A complete waste of time. It's not even so bad it's good. However, the kills are pretty sweet, and there are plenty of gross looking naked broads. If you must, order a pizza, get drunk, and watch this with a bunch of friends. Enjoy!

...But really, don't watch this movie.

3/10

Blood and Black Lace (1964)

2008-05-05T02:42:00.000-07:00

Director - Mario Bava

An early entry in the Master of Italian horror's thriller genre, Blood and Black Lace is the grandfather of the giallo. Bava tested this formula in The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963), but really nailed it here. This movie lacks in a strong plot, but what it lacks there it more than makes up for in it's visual aspect. The colors in this movie alone are worth the viewing, as it should be viewed as a work of technicolor art rather than the pre-slasher that it's often referred to. It's no shock that Dario Argento ripped off the lighting and color that he is so famously touted for in Suspiria (1977) right here. This is essential viewing for anyone who wants to get into Italian horror, even though it could be considered a direct rip off or grand homage to the work of Hitchcock.

The movie itself is an obvious plot for this kind of movie. A rash of murders breaks out in a modeling house full of really, really, pretty girls. The killer lurks in the shadows, and in the tree lines as it knocks off it's victims one by one. This is also the flick responsible for the "body count movie" sub-genre commonly found in the 80's. Blood and Black Lace is a sexy thriller with a 5 dead chicks and one dead dude body count. The colors in the movie are truly something to boast about, it's so fun just to look at. Everything is highlighted in primary, bright colors, even the dark itself. Reds, blues, greens, and yellow. The look and feel of this movie make it what it is, and that is fantastic. The violence and all that stuff is sweet too, a girl gets stabbed in the face, another girl gets her face burned off on a stove, and etc, etc. Stylish, innuendo filled death lurks around nearly every corner.

(An old lobby card for one of the maestro's best.)

The cast is great, the mood is great, and the killings are fantastic. I haven't seen nearly enough of Bava's career, but I do know that this is one of my favorites so far. I think it's prompted me to go ahead and purchase Anchor Bay's second volume in their Bava box set series. I hold out hope for a third, but the rights issue for the rest of his films are pretty tricky and I doubt there will be a third. This VCI Entertainment 2-disc DVD is so worth it though, the movie bears repeat viewing, and has a load of extras and some very enjoyable interviews with the cast in present day. Hearing them talk about working with Bava is worth it alone. Below I am posting the first 9 minutes of Blood and Black Lace, but I'm mostly just posting it to have any reader watch the beginning credit sequence. This is my favorite credit sequence EVER! The music is fucking rad, and it showcases the lighting that the movie has to offer. Also, it's just hilarious to watch all the actors sit still and look as though it's a photograph. It's brilliant. If anything just watch this sweet intro, it's the original Italian sequence and I love it.

Great flick, not too horrific, not too slow. The movie is all style and little substance, but that really works for the movie. Watch this with a girl and you'll get laid.

8/10

Seven Notes in Black (1977)

2008-04-29T17:10:00.000-07:00

Director - Lucio Fulci

Fulci's under rated, and over looked giallo about a clairvoyant woman being haunted by visions of a brutal crime scene. Before Fulci made his foray into gore-soaked zombie epics (City of the Living Dead, The Beyond, and Zombi 2), he made one last thinking persons thriller in a, nearly, bloodless fashion with enough suspense and mystery to entice most giallo fiends. His earlier efforts include a mass of acclaimed thrillers, most notably, Don't Torture a Duckling, and the groovy A Lizard in a Woman's Skin. His movies are no short on notoriety, censorship, and cult status. However, Seven Notes in Black (re-titled The Psychic for American audiences) is a strange entry into his movies. Unlike his previous giallo, and stuck somewhere between Argento's Deep Red, and the later works of Bava, this one moves at a fast pace ensuring the viewer gets a good pay off for watching a poetic-like thriller with more scares and atmosphere than blood and guts. This is over looked because it doesn't fit in with his usual movies, but it does stand up to the test of time, and it is masterfully executed in all technical aspects. The camera work alone is brilliant, not to mention great set design and wonderful scenery. Seven Notes in Black is, in my opinion, one of Fulci's best offerings, it's a shame it hasn't made more of a name for itself.

(Other titles include, "The Psychic", and "Murder to the Tune of Seven Black Notes)

The movie opens up with a great scene of a young Jennifer O'Neill watching her mother's suicide from a country away, she sees it all in her minds eye. Later on in her life we find out she is still haunted by visions of death. As her newlywed husband leaves on a business trip, she drives off through a series of tunnels in the countryside. In the blackness of each tunnel her mind goes in and out of flashes of strange visions. Scary stuff passes through the screen, a view of a person being bricked into a hole, as the person's view lays helplessly we see hands come close to the camera and lay down brick and mortar sealing the fate of whomever is inside.

(Jennifer O'Neill, kind of a hot psychic.)

The movie picks up pace and Jennifer O'Neill untangles the web of her visions with the help (and skepticism) of her psychiatrist played by Marc Porel (Don't Torture a Duckling), her sister-in-law Evelyn Stewart (AKA Ida Galli) from "The Case of the Scorpion's Tale", and of course the suspicious police commissioner Fabrizio Jovine (the priest who kick starts the end of the world in City of the Living Dead), and a few other notable veteran Italian exploitation actors. Quite the ensemble cast for such a small movie, you can tell it works for the movie rather than against it.

The cool thing about this flick is that it is very different than traditional gialli of the time. The plot moves along nicely, the score is fantastic, the main theme being seven haunting notes (which recently popped up in a hospital scene in Kill Bill), an open ended if not abrupt ending is the only downfall of the movie. However, by the time it does end you'll be too siked on what a great movie it was to want closure. Instead it lets the viewer decide. The Severin DVD offers a great presentation, with a really cool 27 minute feature on the making of the movie. This flick is fantastic, I highly recommend it. It might not be a usual cup of tea, but it is just cool enough to make it a high rank in my Fulci report card. Plus Jennifer O'Neill is pretty hot in it.

8/10.

Fulci Lives.

2008-04-28T05:30:00.000-07:00

"Mondo Holocausto" is not real Italian. I just kind of made it up. "Mondo" means "world", and I thought it would be cool to have a world wide holocaust basically. It's a really dumb name, that makes no sense I just put the two words together, it's not correct Italian or anything. It just sounds kind of rad.

I had a couple of ideas for the titles, "Video Holocaust", "The Death of Good Taste: 60's, and 70's Exploitation", shit like that that all sounded pretty lame. So I landed on this one.

I watch a ton of really bad movies, I work at a video store, so it's really easy to do so. Someone there gave me the key to the vault (so to speak) as well and let me order basically any movie I want. For a while now I've been obsessed with Italian movies of the 60's, 70's, and 80's. It really feels like that's all I watch now. It's like getting addicted to baseball cards, or pogs or something, you just have to watch them all, have to get your hands on anything you can. It's a strange one. It's a huge phase basically, and I won't stop until I've seen them all. Within this time line there are quite a few sub-genres I'm gaining a lot of knowledge and respect for, which is why I started this thing. My grand scheme is to do this to document, and keep track of, for a (hopefully) greater purpose. A fanzine on Italian exploitation movies. We'll see if I ever get there.

My viewings of cannibal movies, gialli, women in prison/chains, nazisploitation, blaxploitation, post-apocalyptic, euro-terror, and zombie movies as well as a plethora of other sleaze/trash/whatever will all be written about here.

Could be kind of fun.