30) Phantasm (1979) ***: You know I never gave this flick a shot until now? I guess it was seeing the video store shelves cluttered with sequels that for whatever reason put me off, but man, this one’s a scorcher! Basically there’s a mortician reviving the dead and putting them up to no good, but they kick it up a notch when they reveal the mortician guy’s motives. THE scene with the crazy ball thing is an incredibly sophisticated kill scene, especially for ‘79, and I was just really caught off guard by how overall engrossing and competent this flick is. I don’t know if Phantasm’s underrated or I’m retarded for not paying more attention, but I’ll be taking this one for another spin real soon.
31) Sleepaway Camp (1983) ***: Here’s a cult classic that really lives up to its status, and if the last scene is all you can remember about his one, you’re definitely due for a refreshment viewing. I never really noticed the weirdo sexual overtones and puberty theme at play, probably because the last time I saw this I was in the throes of puberty myself, but that stuff adds a great element to an already competent slasher. Pure entertainment.
32) Crazy Fat Ethyl: Criminally Insane 2 (1987) zilch: I’ll admit that I’m at times a little too lenient with these shot on video efforts, but man, even I can’t hang with this number. Granted, there are plenty of cringe worthy bursts of ineptitude, but the problem here lies in the splicing of the SOV footage from ’87 with hefty doses (like, probably 1/3 of the film’s running time) of the ‘75 original. I guess it does sort of have a punishingly incoherent, borderline surreal quality to it, but the film’s still probably closer to tedious than anything you’d want to watch.
33) Tales from the Crypt (1972) *: British anthology number revolving around a group of people in a weird purgatory type situation sitting around hearing the story of how they got theirs. That may or may not have been a “spoiler,” but whatever, as usual the pleasures from these movies come more from the twists of the individual chapters than the main plot. I’ll admit I kinda spaced out during large chunks of this flick, as I’m wont to do during these straight Brit horror numbers, but the razorblade lined tight hallway scene had me wincing for sure.
34) Skinned Alive (1989) *: Here’s a shot on video zilch budget slasher that relies heavily on a quasi-incestuous serial killing family who insist on delivering a barrage of FULL VOLUME DIALOGUE AT ALL TIMES that would make you think Rob Zombie was at the helm…You know, if the movie was like, way gayer. There’re some lines that are full blown SCORCHERS, though, just total jaw dropping what the fuck moments, and the death scenes are about what you’d expect from an SOV flick. Nothing worth hunting down, really, but I might watch this again at some point.
35) Frozen Scream (1975) *: I watched this a few weeks before getting Nightmare USA, a killer read that suggests, in part, you should treat this movie as a piece of psychedelic surrealism, as if the film portrays an alternate world where people REALLY ACT like this, and sort of look past all the “mad scientist freezing people and turning them into zombies” junk…Well, I guess I’ll accept your challenge somewhere down the line Stephen Thrower, because on first viewing this flick’s fairly typical drive-in fair with an ill shoestring ambient soundtrack that’s just a smidge too lite on the blood n’ tits to particularly move me. I’m willing to give it another shot though, but only because homeboy put the challenge out there.
36) Cemetary Man AKA Dellamorte Dellamore (1994) ***: Wow, here’s a thoroughly enjoyable stylistic horror flick with lots of intriguing characters and surreal passages to keep the viewer enthralled start to finish. I’m usually quick to dismiss the more stylistic flicks, as the bells and whistles tend to lose their charm over time when the style outweighs the substance, but I’m gonna jump the gun and give this one an enthusiastic three stars with hopes this film turns out to be more of an Evil Dead (a stylistic horror film that holds up to multiple viewings through the years) than a From Dusk ‘Til Dawn (which does not).
37) Love Butcher (1975) **: At this point I’m used to, and essentially anticipate inept acting, special effects, dialogue, but this is one of those rare films where the jaw dropping moments come more by way of basic story arch issues than any justifiable budget constraint. If you’re reading this write up, you already know I’m not a stickler for cinematic rules, but I just couldn’t believe the twist this flick’s story took. I mean, the premise is fairly standard, you have this killer with a split personality: by day he’s a mistreated physically and mentally crippled gardener, and by night he assumes the role of accent feigning playboy who seduces then kills the same housewives who browbeat his gardener persona with various implements. SPOILER ALERT (REALLY): They spend a considerable chunk of the film developing the relationship between the journalist who’s “hot on the case” of this sadistic killer and his under attended fiancée. It’s your basic “you stay out of the way, reporter, this is police business” stuff. But then with about 20 minutes left on the clock when the journalist guy realizes not only who the killer is, but that he’s in the house with his fiancé, as the journalist rushes over to save her, he’s intercepted by the killer, and boom, dead. So you’re like, okay, it’s up to the wife to off this guy now, a revenge sort of thing, right? Nope, killer just offs the fiancé just the same. The killer walks away, gets hassled by the cops on the way home, gets out of THAT even…I really can’t tell watching this if the script goes this route to paint this bleak world that doesn’t bend to convention where the good guys win, or if the writer really just doesn’t know how stories are “supposed” to work. Like I said, every other part in the movie is purely conventional borderline hokum, so I don’t know, I’m leaving this one to you, but overall this is really enjoyable drive-in faire with enough carnage and skin to keep it on the right side of camp, even though there is a fill of hamming it up via the killer’s yokel gardener character.
38) Duck! The Carbine High Massacre (2000) zilch: Okay, yes this is a digital handheld camera shot nightmare with the most inane, dragged out scenes, lots of downtime, painfully bad execution on just about every level, but…Well, but nothing, that about sums it up, I guess. But I will say once that direct market delirium kicks in and your mind wanders from the movie and you’re just asking the hows and whys about the motivation of making this movie, and the private lives of everyone involved, it’s a great disorienting effect. Essentially what you have here is a bunch of 20 something Jerseyites spending their weekend making a zilch budget tactless exploitation film based on the Columbine shootings. I would LOVE to read the script for this nightmare, but I kind of refuse to believe there was one. All the “bad movie” staples are present, so going into the details of the unbelievable high school faculty, the absurdly forced “message” moments, and all the ridiculous caricatures of high school archetypes would just be tedious, but I’d be doing a great disservice to my readership if I didn’t take some time for my newest cinematic hero, KENDALL WARD. He’s been in all of one movie, and this is it, but man is it a doosie. His delivery of “The internet is for white folks. I don’t own a personal computer, nor do I care to own one” in “internet class” (the only class the students of Carbine High attend) is one of the best things I’ve ever seen. Every moment this guy’s on screen is cinematic gold, and yes, actually makes watching this terrible, terrible movie worthwhile. To my surprise I actually saw a copy of this on DVD just sitting there in Fry’s. What the hell, there CAN’T be demand for this can there? The video I have doesn’t even have a fucking UPC code. But as easy as it is to dis it, I’m really glad movies like this exist. Talk as much about “underground” or “cult” cinema all you want, but without complete trash like this, without inept outsiders just fucking around with cameras, there is no underground or alternative to mainstream Hollywood worth talking about.
39) Brain Damage (1988) **: Cool late 80’s pscyhedelic horror flick which for all intents and purposes could be considered the true sequel to Basket Case. The seedy NY vibe of Basketcase is still in tact, as are the budget effects that stay just this side of camp. Plotwise you got this weird turdlike-brain-worm-thing, an “Aylmer,” that attaches to the protagonist’s neck and shoots him up with this fluid that puts the guy in an drugged state which effectively makes the dude a slave the the “Aylmer.” The Aylmer has the guy make him cakes and flip records for him all day…Oh no wait, that’s what I’d do with a slave, the Aylmer makes the guy do his dirty work and off various social miscreants. Really basic story, but the cheapo drug trip effects and grimy atmosphere make it work.
40) Halucinations of a Deranged Mind (1978) **: In this flick a man’s being driven mad by the images from various Coffin Joe films. Marins (who plays Coffin Joe) comes to console the man that Coffin Joe is just a myth, which seems to work…At first. Basically this is a re-editing of all the more over-the-top moments of Marins other movies put together as lengthy “delirium” montages. These are all great scenes, and a great concept, but it’s a bit tedious to sit through. It’s still a Coffin Joe flick though, which makes it worth seeing.
41) Women’s Club (1986) *: Some gals get fed up with all the rape going on in their town and decide to do something about it! So what do they do? Chop off some rapist dong, what else? Not as visceral as one of these flicks should be, this one’s probably more suited for the Lifetime channel than the grind house.
42) Creepshow 2 (1987) *: Pretty timid horror anthology, you all know the names of those involved, but I’ve had a soft spot for “The Raft” since I was a youngin.’ The other two stories are a bit tedious and corny, but I dunno, something about being stuck in the middle of the lake with a floating, gelatinous black mass, it works.
43) Castle Freak (1995) *: Don’t remember much of this one. A couple from The America travel to Euroland to check out a castle they inherited. This freaky mutant in the basement starts kills a prostitute the guy brought home, which leads to trouble with local law enforcement. This is a Full Moon jam, but it’s also done by the guy who did Reanimator, From Beyond and, uh, Robot Jox, so expect some decent gore scenes if nothing else…And no, there’s not much else.
44) Alien (1979) **: My girlfriend never saw this, which is more surprising to me than offensive, and I hadn’t seen the movie in years, so why not. This one’s a classic and all, but for whatever reason never really clicked with me in a major way. Not a bad movie by any means, just not one of those big time movies I can go as gah gah for as everyone says I should.
45) Slumber Party Massacre II (1987) *: I think I saw the 75 minute version of this, ‘cause this went by WAY quick. Not a bad thing either, especially for this sort of flick. And what type of flick would that be? Your standard Bangles-esque all girl rock group chased around by a drillguitar-wielding Andrew Dice Clay lookalike slasher. Yeah, as the title suggests, this is basically mindless fun. Not much that’ll stick with you (judging by the cut version, at least), but not a bad way to kill some time, either.
46) Kill, Baby, Kill (1966) **: Okay, I’ve watched this twice and CAN NOT make sense of the plot. Like, not even a skeletal outline. Great ambiance and visuals though, as one might expect from our man Bava.
47) I Dismember Mama (1974) ***: REALLY great flick about a kid on the run from the loony bin who has a real against ANY woman who’s had sex EVER and isn’t afraid to slash his problems away. He befriends a little girl along the way, and the movie sort of becomes the story of how this deranged killer can form a relationship with this innocent girl. If you’re into exploitation think pieces in disguise like The Mafu Cage or Poor Pretty Eddy, you’ll dig this one. I know I’ll definitely be watching a lot more of this this year.
48) Splatter University (1984) zilch: Pretty tedious Troma faire here. No skin and ho-hum slashings leave the viewer paying more attention to how cool these Jersey goombas dressed back in the day than anything else. The film does have a good look to it, to the point where I’d believe it was made 10 years earlier, but rest assured, this is basically a really boring movie.
49) Slugs (1988) *: Not bad stuff here. You got your standard “mutant
[fill in the blank] start killing people because of greedy corporate pollution.” This time around, as you might have guess, the [blank] are slugs, which leads to some pretty far fetched (but nonetheless competent and grizzly) death scenes, and a grand finale that’s logistically absurd. I mean, there’s kind of a glass ceiling for exactly how good these kind of movies can be, and I would even say Slugs reaches it, but I got through the flick without being too bored, which is no small feat when you’re talking a movie based around MUTANT SLUGS.
50) 555 (1988) **: Really grizzly, ugly no budget SOV slasher. This one kept my attention, probably due in part to EVERY woman who’s on screen for even a second getting nude, whether you want her to or not. This is the kind of movie that embraces the ugly, mean spirited nature of its genre and does nothing to make it easy for the viewer to digest. It’s completely mindless, of course, but since when do I have a problem with that?
51) Final Exam (1981) *: I forget the specifics with this one plot-wise, but basically there’s some dude picking off students on campus, for I’m pretty sure no reason whatsoever. Obviously there’s a general mindlessness that goes on with this sort of thing, but I seriously think there’s NO reason behind the killings in this. The characters are surprisingly convincing/entertaining for this type of flick, and there’s tons of straight up homoerotic stuff going on courtesy of “Wild Man,” the muscle headed frat boy. The slashin’ and stabbin’ doesn’t get too out of control, so gore hounds might wanna sit this one out, but if you’re not opposed to the more teen side of horror, or can’t decide between a slasher or cheesy 80’s college comedy and want to split the difference, this just might be the flick for you.
52) Don’t Answer the Phone (1980) **: Another REALLY ugly misogynist slasher filled with rape and women in peril. This one has a pretty intriguing killer, just a really physically imposing figure with some sort of religious issues, I forget what exactly. Sort of a Don’t Go In The Door vibe, and no I’m not just saying that because of the similar titles, but in the way both films profile a killer, but make his killings so grotesque that even though you kind of understand he’s a damaged person, you still can’t identify, romanticize or excuse his actions. Really effective stuff.
53) Schock (1977) **: One of, if not the last Bava flicks, I forget. This is a fucking SCORCHER of a haunted house flick, and you know I don’t usually go for that sort of thing, so hats off to Bava for making a bunch of objects moving by themselves for 90 minutes actually interesting. I’m not one to get legitimately spooked, but one of these scenes, you can probably guess which one it is, had me legitimately scared to walk around the house by myself in the dark. Plenty of slow parts, which kind of goes with this type of flick, but when it hits, it hits hard. Bava goin’ out with a bang.
54) The Stuff (1985) *: Cohen and Moriarty, you know what you’re in for. Lots of corporate America satire, but this guy’s flicks are usually meant to be “fun,” not blood feasts anyways. Not the kind of flick that gets me off, really, but I’ll admit it’s pretty entertaining.
55) Motel Hell (1980) *: This is a pretty decent entry into the rural creep genre. You got this farmer guy whose meats are known county wide as being the best. Y’know, just once I’d like to see one of these movies where the meat’s really good because of the quality of cattle and craft of the butcher, but no, we all know there’s gotta be some sort of scoundlery involved here, and sure enough, Farmer Vincent is snatchin’ unsuspecting motorists and buryin’ ‘em neck deep in some sort of soil while hypnotizing them (for some reason) and eventually using them for his special meats. The real story kicks in when Farmer Vincent gets the hots for some young gal, who oddly enough, reciprocates, and his big girl sister starts getting all protective. There are a few scenes with the buried heads to remind you that that’s what the movie’s about, but basically you’re trying to figure out what’s going on between the brother and sister, the young girl, and the sheriff. It’s a love story, really. Overall, not a bad flick, they stay on the right side of campy and all the head scratching moments that come up when you’re wondering exactly where they were going with this flick are balanced out with pretty straight horror scenes (I mean, dude in pig mask going after a guy with a chainsaw, that’s a pretty strong “center”), so yeah, definitely worth a watch.
56) Dominique (1978) zilch: Here’s a paced, gothic horror number from across the pond. A dude with money is getting haunted by his wife. Some cool effects, and a nice twist, but this ain’t exactly flipping the script on British horror. In fact, this is pretty fucking boring. I don’t know, I might rate it higher if I was in a different mood, but I could live without seeing this one again.
57) The Man With Two Heads (1972) zilch: Seriously painful and boring Andy Milligan Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde retelling. This one sticks to the 30’s Paramount version, which just makes this that much more painful as you’re recalling what a great movie that other one is in comparison. And to make matters worse, there’s not even any sleaze to compensate for the lack of polish. Yeah, Hammer style period pieces are a rough genre to fail at. Big pass on this one.
58) Kolobos (1999) zilch: Those who know me know I have no problem wading in the late 90’s direct market trash heap, but man, this is just retarded. Okay, there’s a group of people who think they’re being randomly selected to participate in some sort of Real World type TV show where everything in this posh apartment is under camera surveillance. You got all these obnoxious archetypes, like the outgoing actress, the aspiring standup comic, and this “damaged” chick who’s always drawing these not-really-fucked-up drawings in her sketchbook that everyone exaggerates as being super gory and fucked up. That chick has some sort of connection to the killer who’s behind the cameras and starts picking everyone off. God, just explaining that plot was tedious, imagine sitting through this thing? Big shock, no one involved in the making of this flick went on to do much of anything else…and they all have really weird names. David Todd Ocvirk? Get the fuck out of here with that shit.
59) Vampyre Femmes (1999) **: Now THIS is kind of direct market delirium I live for! Total non-actors caught impromptu on digital handheld camera interplayed with lengthy sub-sub-Cinemax softcore sex scenes that will put you to sleep long before they turn you on. Man, some of these lines are just ABSURD. The fat guy gets the award for best delivery, like, ever. Forget Troma, forget Full Moon, this is my kind of schlock right here.
60) Devil’s Rain (1973) **: Really cool Satanic cult shit here. The DVD says “the most shocking ending of any movie ever” or something like that, and I gotta say, it is indeed pretty freaking great. Ernest Borgnine classes up the joint and skin melting-a-plenty keeps things on the exploitation tip. Maybe a little too paced to be a party flick, but entertaining stuff for sure.
61) Creepy Crawlers (2000) zilch: Bad TV movie. Plays like a “monster of the week” X Files episode but without any characters. Really tedious to sit through. Oh yeah, and it’s about cockroaches doing cockroach things.
62) The Mafu Cage (1978) ***: Killer character study of these two sisters, one of whom has this Jungle obsession courtesy of her anthropologist old man. Her problem comes when she locks up and eventually kills the monkeys she keeps in her cage. Her sister, who’s repulsed by the behavior, obviously, is sick of providing her with the monkey supply, even though it’s about the only thing that pacifies her. While the sane sister’s out on vacation, crazy sister decides to step her game up and move on to humans. I’ve been trying to think of the “message” of this flick for awhile now, something about the thin line between man and animal, but I don’t quite have it yet. It’s a beautiful film to look at, though, and Carol Kane absolutely knocks it out of the park, and it’s basically her engaging character that makes this movie work, not that it’s particularly flawed otherwise, but it’s like Anthony Perkins in Psycho, just the perfect actor for the part who makes the movie “sizzle” as they say. Great, great, great flick.
63) The Mad Butcher (1971) *: Here’s one about a crazy butcher (yeah, who’da guessed?) who got released from an insane asylum just a little too early. His first matter of business was to reopen his butcher shop, but this time the meats would be the cheapest in town. Oh, but I wonder, how DOES he keep the prices so low? Yeah, you can kinda guess where this one goes. Not the best flick, but not the worst. There’s the inevitable parallels to The Corpse Grinders, both in theme and in general Mikels/Lewis American drive in movie feel…Except this one’s directed by GUIDO ZURLI and stars VICTOR BUONO, which makes it roughly the most Italian film ever made.
64) Legend of the Wolf woman (1976) **: Y’know, I’ve seen this flick twice now, a cut version and an uncut version, and I still can’t figure out whether I even like it or not. I mean, it’s a deranged film about a sexually obsessed woman who thinks she’s a werewolf since she’s the descendent of one, and the flick’s just filled to the brim with nudity, so they make it pretty easy to watch, no doubt, but it almost feels TOO easy. Like there’s not much substance beyond the sheer entertainment factor of sleazy exploitation. They even cram in a little rape/revenge bit towards the end just to cover their bases, which as I’ve said, definitely makes for a watchable film, and I wouldn’t call it bad by any means, but am I really that easy to please? Like you just throw in gratuitous bush shots and a stream of consciousness plotline and I’ll roll over for you? Well, maybe I am….Maybe I am…
65) The Attic (1980) **: Here’s a bizarre flick about an uptight, nutty librarian lady who’s under the thumb of her authoritative father and gets progressively crazier as the film goes on, but you’ll be worried more about the mental stability of the film makers than our librarian loonie. You get all these day dream sequences involving the librarian killing her elderly dad, and what can I say, at one point a monkey’s eating a hundred dollar bill for no reason. Totally backwards storyline, too, so by the time you actually get to THE CHILLING CLIMAX in THE ATTIC you’re just like “wait, didn’t the big part already happen?” It’s a great trip, and has that brilliant delirium that only the best bad movies can bring.
66) Return of the Aliens: Deadly Spawn (1983) **: Ooooh, this is a real good one! I think what really took me back was that I didn’t really expect much. I dunno, home strewn alien yarns usually don’t do it for me, especially when you get into the 80’s, but this is just a perfect horror/sci-fi hybrid, one of the rare instances when the two genres work together in interesting ways instead of detracting from each other. More or less you got this giant alien in a basement of a regular American family who tries to bum out everyone’s Sunday afternoon. There are some genuinely chilling scenes (the kid standing silently in the basement with the alien), good characterization (a kid in a horror movie that doesn’t make you want to kick in your TV set? Pinch me!), and a great independent vibe with surprisingly sophisticated special effects. Yep, this one has everything working against it, as I usually hate these claustrophobic settings and it’s rare I enjoy an alien picture, but it works I tell ya, it works! Highly recommended.
67) Murder By Phone (1982) *: Kind of mainstream number that does its fair share of dragging. Here you got a guy with a device that can murder people…through the telephone. Nothing too gory, usually it just amounts to picking up the phone, some head spasms, some smoke coming off the caller and an explosion. Pretty tame, and they put the best death up front, so you can stop watching after the first few minutes, which is courteous, I guess. I like how the crux of this movie is the greedy and corrupt PHONE COMPANY. Not the first people who come to mind when I think “archetypal sinister movie corporation,” but hey, why not.
68) The Mangler (1995) zilch
69) The Mangler 2 (2001) **: Okay, save yourself some time and skip The Mangler. It’s just one of those glossy, non-descript flicks that relies heavily on the “HORROR LEGEND” status of Tobe Hooper and Robert Englund, based on a Stephen King story. Of course any horror fan knows those are some pretty sure fire names to avoid, especially if the film’s smack dab in the middle of the 90’s. It has something to do with an old timey factory machine that’s possessed by the devil and kills people, blah, blah, blah (can we take a moment to appreciate what a by the numbers Stephen King plot that is? Like I said, normal thing gone evil, that’s every other story the guy’s ever wrote. Anyways…), and so logically Mangler 2 continues the story of this evil piece of factory equipment right? WRONG! It’s 2001 baby, you’re in HACKER country now! Seriously, if you’re like me and love watching mid-90’s flicks that are filled with outdated computer jargon and buzzwords like “hacking,” “VR” and “cyberspace,” then my friend, Mangler 2 is the movie for you! Like, I guess these kids get stuck in a high school overnight and try to infect the computer run security system with “The Mangler Virus,” but the virus ends up turning EVERY appliance evil, even washing machines and shit that has nothing to do with computers, and the whole school’s out to kill the kids. There are SOOOOO many retarded moments in this, even in 2001 it must have come off as painfully out of date with all the “hacker” business and bad goth girl caricatures. Seriously, there’s one point where the kids are trying to figure out what to do and this guy just goes “THE MAINFRAME,” for basically no reason at all. Fucking gold! I’m tellin’ ya, you gotta watch these modern direct market disasters, they’re a great source for brain dead cinema.
70) Attack of the Beast Creatures (1985) **: C’mon, who can’t get down with a movie like this? A ship crashes and the passengers get shipwrecked on a remote island…An island of BEAST CREATURES! What are beast creatures, you ask? Basically 12” dolls with long, moppy hair, and minimal articulation that the castaways lift to their necks and shake around to simulate the bloodthirsty brutality of these island natives. Yes, these are really REALLY low budget special effects, and you never quite get over it, but the best creatures are SO minimal that it’s hard to fault the film makers. You basically just accept that the beast creatures are just abstracts, blank pages for you to fill in the terror of your choice. The non-existent budget and community theater acting makes for an irresistible and charming slice of exploitation. I don’t think she’s on DVD, but if you can secure yourself a copy, do it, ’cause it’s worth seeing at least once in your life.
71) The Child (1977) n/a: Saw this, but I don’t think I was paying attention. Not enough to say anything worthwhile anyways.
72) Tomie (1999) zilch: Generic “J-horror.” Seriously nothing worthwhile here. It’s not even obtrusively stylistic, just boring.
73) Futurekill (1985) **: Another one that’s pretty much impossible to not enjoy. You got frat boys that stumble onto “mutant” territory (they’re just nuclear war protestors of some sort…Except for one guy who really is a mutant) and spend the night in what basically translates into a Warriors ripoff as the frat boys try to get back home. You kind of get the sense that there’s about 3 movies crashed into one, but it all contributes to some good mindless entertainment. Oh, and the PAINFULLY obvious theme of “we’re not so different after all” gets officially ridiculous during the dialogue between a “mutant” girl and a “zod” (the mutants call the frat boys “zods” for some reason), when the frat boy goes “all you mutants are the same,” and the mutant responds with “all you zods are the same!” Total brain dead writing.
74) Deadtime Stories (1986) *: Pretty much worthless horror anthology based around “twisted‘ versions of old fairytales (ugh), but it’s not without its highlights. The Three Bears story has some pretty palatable moments of horror/comedy, and overall the film isn’t nearly as droning as you’d think it might be. Oh, except for the title sequence, that shit goes on for days. It doesn’t hurt that the accompany thing song is WRETCHED.
75) House of the Dead (2003) *: Well, it’s a videogame movie (one I‘ve never played, I should probably mention), so there’s kind of a glass ceiling on how good it can get. Still, you want corny rave scenes (in 2003? WTF?), some lite nudity and lots of zombies getting shot, along with scenes from the videogame itself spliced in for flavor? Well, here it is. I kind of have a hard time taking the time to even comment on watching this movie, but, y’know, it’s better than most mainstream modern horror, be they based on videogames or not.
76) Ghost Ship (2002) zilch: What the fuck am I doing with my life? Oh wait, I gotta give respect for the opening death scene in which everyone on the deck of the ship gets cut in half with a wire. Pretty brutal. You can stop watching after that.
77) To Die For 2 (1991) n/a: I think I was arguing while this movie was going on, so I didn’t catch what was going on. I doubt I missed much, though.
78) Nightwish (1989) *: College professor gets some students to go along with him to a supposedly haunted house and run some psychological experiment, but the doc flips the script with the help of his goon henchman and the college kids now gotta fight for their lives. There’s an attempt at the surreal where the viewer isn’t supposed to know what’s real and what’s fantasy, but you pretty much know how its gonna end well in advance. Not much to say with this one, it’s okay, but didn’t really leave an impression.
79) Watchers II (1990) zilch: Let it never be said I’m not willing to dig to the depths of the worst shit on the planet to find a fucked up/shitty movie. This was a failure, of course, but hey, they can’t all be Attack of the Beast Creatures or Mangler 2. There is an utterly hilarious scene where this monster (seriously, don’t ask me where that fits in, I might watch these movies but I’ll be damned if I’m gonna retain any information) trashes a convenience store and some Lassie as fuck moments with a super intelligent dog (yes, dog genius content).
80) Venus in Furs (1969) ****: Absolutely perfect haunting supernatural number. I’m of course heavily partial towards Franco’s film style, and like most people, I have to agree that it’s pretty impressive what the man can do when he takes his time. Not that I have problems with his rush jobs (I’m an unabashed Lust for Frankenstein fan), but a flick like this, which falls way closer to art house than erotic horror, has such a lasting effect. I had to watch this one a few times the same week just to get it out of my head, and it still hasn’t worked. I initially thought the film was way more surreal and impressionistic, but on repeat viewings it has a pretty basic plot: guy witnesses a girl get murdered in a fit of hedonistic passion, and the girl comes back to kill everyone involved, but just plagues the mind of the guy who witnesses. Pretty basic stuff, but Franco just uses it as a jumping off point. Lots of swank settings and a smokin’ jazz/psychedelic flavored soundtrack make for a perfectly decadent atmosphere. Did this one have a soundtrack? I’d buy it for the title theme alone. I really can’t recommend this enough, one of the best movies, horror or otherwise, I’ve seen all year.
81) Perversion (1979) **: Hmmm, I’m not quite sure how to take this one. I usually go ape for anything with Xe’s name attached to it, but this one left me kind of limp. On the surface you have a fairly standard revenge piece about a rich sadist who bites off a girl’s nipple, beats the rap in court, but still shows off the nipple around town. The girl’s reputation is shot, while the sadist lives it up. As with most of Marins films, the pleasure comes from the characterization of the villain and exactly how far Marins lets him(self) get away with. This time around instead of the cruel and philosophical Coffin Joe we get a brutish, upper class neuvo-rich type, who the viewer despises for his garishness as much as one fears Coffin Joe’s maliciousness. Marin’s antagonist sneers at the women who are still attracted to him because of his wealth, despite his bloated stomach, which he runs his hands over to accentuate. The result is an effective and biting portrait of class, sexism and injustice in Brazilian society, but I think Perversion’s melodramatic, flat characterization approach is best suited for the “good vs. evil” theme of Marin’s Coffin Joe films, while the bargain basement psychedelic and avant garde techniques of his 60’s films are sorely missed here. Not a bad film by any means, but it definitely drags at times and is nowhere near the demented genius of Marins’ more celebrated works.
82) Yeti (1977) **: Here’s a real shoestring budget abominable snowman flick about a prehistoric giant thawed out and brought to the bourgeoning metropolis that is…TORONTO! Those adverse to b-movie cheese had better stay away, but if a rampaging frost giant (with a soft spot for children) and blue screen-a-plenty sounds like time well spent to you, then you could do worse than this disaster.
83) The Hand (1981) **: Not a bad thriller here, kind of “adult,” but there’s a cool, claustrophobic, Jack Nicholson in The Shinning feel, and it’s a very engaging film. As for the plot, a cartoonist loses his drawing hand in a driving accident around the same time his wife leaves him, and it’s a fairly standard “downward spiral of dementia” from there as he blacks out, drinks more, and becomes more isolated from the world. There’re some interesting enough auxiliary characters, and like I said, this is an overall very watchable movie for all its lack of raw, exploitative elements, so if you need a break from slashers and schlock, this might serve as a nice palate cleanser.
84) The Demons (1972) **: Can’t say this one left much of an impression on me. I mean, it’s Franco, it’s “nunsploitation,” but really, that IS all that need be said, because it’s exactly what you’d expect his take on the micro-sub-genre to be. I don’t know, I think I need to watch this one again, because this just felt pretty rote to me.
85) The Being () *: Tame, but watchable low budget sci-fi deal with enough blood to appeal to horror sensibilities. A few jaw dropingly shitty moments, such as the alien ripping a guy’s head off while driving in an abysmally dark car (don’t worry, you see the head back on a few frames before the car crashes), and a few great yokels here and there, but an alien who never shows more than hands and a closeup of his face ever now and then isn’t an alien you really need to devote too much time to. Lite American exploitation, worth a watch, but nothing you should go out of your way to see.
86) School’s Out () zilch:
87) Drive In (2000) zilch: Fucking TEDIOUS modern direct market garbage about a “mentally handicapped” deformed (I think) kid who grows up next to a drive in, thus being exposed to reel after reel of violent horror films whenever he goes in his backyard. All the drive in footage is violent scenes from various Troma movies, so that should tell you how deep the film makers’ knowledge of cult horror goes, which is also reflected in how tepid the movie plays as a whole. There’s some really pointless back story on some of the drive in attendees, but you still don’t care as the film fuelled ogre crashes the party and starts offing the movie goers car by car. Perhaps the film’s greatest weakness is that it can’t tell if it wants to be straight slasher or pure schlock, so it settles for this really taxing middle ground that’s sure to disappoint fans of either extreme. Big snoozing pass on this one.
88) Freak (1999) zilch: I’m tempted to give this a one star, because it’s actually a fairly competent flick for being straight to video and housed in a CGI blood-soaked cover, and I kind of admire the attempt at making a paced horror/drama with an actual plot as opposed to the mindless exploitation you expect from low budget trash. But still, a boring flick is a boring flick, and despite the scant moments of genuine suspense, the attempt to develop a relationship between the kid and her sister (or whoever) as they go on a road trip, and way more back story on the mentally deranged “freak” than the freak itself, this one still fails to leave a lasting impression, or even keep the viewer in their seat. So congrats to the film makers for taking the high road…You still failed.
89) She Freak (1967) *: Basically a note-for-note Freaks ripoff, but without, y’know, THE FREAKS. Oh sure, you have a dwarf, and a few glimpses of a bearded lady or whatever, but the most of the action takes place behind the scenes as a conniving small town waitress gets in with the head carnie (she’s got big aspirations, folks), then two times him with some tough. They scheme together and off the head carnie, then the chick takes over, but doesn’t quite treat the freaks with the respect they deserve, and so they do what they gotta do and mutilate our small town waitress friend for the grand finale…Which is actually pretty awesome. Yep, dopey stuff all the way, but entertaining nonetheless.
90) Dead and Rotting (2002) zilch: Utterly braindead direct market schlock. Are you ready for this turd of a plot to enter your reality? Okay, so these guys fuck with this retarded kid, which is normally a GREAT idea, except the retarded guy is the son of a witch. The witch exacts her revenge by sprinkling some dust on the guys, which makes ‘em sick or something. So leave well enough alone, right? Nope. The guys hire some thugs to throw a brick through the witch’s window or similarly fuck with her house. But they get there and are like, fuck it, let’s just boil her cat (?!?), which, oops, was her retarded son in cat form. Okay, NOW the witch is pissed, so she starts plucking off the original three guys and the two thugs. Following this perfectly logical story progression? Good, ‘cause the only important or somewhat redeemable aspect of the film comes when the last two survivors of the witch are on the road trying to figure out what to do. One of the guys suggests going to the police, but the other shoots that fucking moronic idea right down, reminding him “WITCHES ARE LIKE GANG BANGERS” (and yes that is a direct quote), and that when you get in to trouble with one you have to take matters into your own hand. So though I can’t recommend anyone see this film, it does have one important lesson to teach which no other film has the balls to bring to you, and that lesson is yes, witches ARE like fucking gang bangers. Take it to heart people.
91) Nightmares Come At Night (1970) *: Not a bad flick by any means, but very barebones Franco. Not much beyond the skin and perpetually bummed looking Euro babes. I think I’m kinda jaded at this point, and if I hadn’t seen as many Franco flicks as I’ve seen I might be more impressed by this “sexual thriller” revolving around a lesbian stripper couple. As it stands it’s just kind of a background flick.
92) Night of the Demon (1980) **: Holy shit, this one’s a face melter. Everything’s going normal, just your standard Bigfoot number, complete with college kids going into the woods and interviewing some rural creeps about their encounters with the Bigfoot. Seen Return to Boggy Creek? Then you know the score. BUT, things take a sharp turn to crazyville every time a death scene comes up and it’s like, 10x more brutal and over the top than more slashers at the time. For instance, you get a dude getting wielded around in a sleeping bag and impaled on a branch, freaking girl scouts having their hands forced into stabbing each other over and over again, and, yes, a dude whipping out his dong to take a waz, dong fully exposed, getting it ripped off and bleeding profusely from his crotch. These death scenes are total mind blowers, not only for their extremity, but because, like I said, they’re totally out of step with the tone of the movie. This is the stuff that keeps me digging through hundreds upon hundreds of hours of VHS slime, these disorienting moments of sheer exploitation delirium that lie beneath the unassuming veneer of an average low budget Bigfoot flick.
93) Incubus (1981) *: Pretty tame stuff revolving around a cop investigating a string of mysterious murder/rapes. The only real kick comes from the cop describing the victims every time. I swear, it’s like they thought they could get away with mentioning “sperm” and “semen” about a hundred times with nobody noticing. Not a bad flick, really, I got through it fine, but nothing too memorable either. I mean, really, it’s a movie about a fucking demon who rapes and kills girls, it should be way more explicit than it is.
94) Horror of Dracula (1958) **
95) Dracula Has Risen From The Grave (1968) **
96) Taste The Blood of Dracula (1970) **
97) Dracula 1971 AD (1971) **: Got all these as part of some bargain basement repackaging and watched ‘em all in a row, so a lot of these blur together, but they’re all great and classy Hammer productions, all quite entertaining. I gotta give it to Taste The Blood… and Dracula 1971, though, for the Dracula resurrection rituals in those two. In my mind all Satanic rituals are EXACTLY that cool.
98) Innocents from Hell AKA Alucarda (1978) **: I seriously started freaking out when my man Jeff gave me this vid, ‘cause the cover/title, but then I realized it was just Alucarda under a different name, which is still cool, but I thought I was in for some next level Euro cult obscurity. And I like Alucarda and all, but I’ll admit I’m a bit immune to S&M sleazefests like this at this point. It’s definitely a good exploitation flick by all means, but, as with Legend of the Wolfwoman, I couldn’t help but feel like the film was just making it too easy for me to like.
99) Holocaust 2000 (1977) *: Not too bad Omen ripoff with an evil, scary nuclear power theme. They kind of run the point into the ground, and it does get a bit ridiculous (yes, okay, his son is the devil, yes, the power plant is the beast of Armageddon, we got it, you don’t need to do these lengthy voiceovers relaying all the facts, have some faith in your audience for chrissakes), but overall this is a pretty enjoyable flick, though a wee bit on the adult side for your average gore fiend.
100) Mutant (1984) *: Not quite boring but definitely mindless yarn about some city slickers who wind up in a hick town and find themselves smack dab in the middle of a toxic waste spawned corporate zombie conspiracy. Pretty heavy handed stuff on the EEEEVIL nuclear waste front, which is always a wee tacky, but whatever, it’s a watchable flick.
101) Sorority House Vampires from Hell (1998) zilch: Rob Zombie as fuck nil budget horror comedy about…Who fuckin’ knows. I guess there’s a lot of skin in this, but not nearly enough to make up for the lengthy incoherent spells. Even the charm of digital video couldn’t save this mess.
102) Finis Hominis (1971) ***: This flick finds Marins starring as Finis Hominis, a mysterious man who many see as a prophet come to show man the correct way to live. My favorite scene involves “Finis” wandering into a hedonistic den of hippies, who go out of their way to show Finis what free spirits they all are, in hopes that he might grant them some of his insight. The hippies speak of peace and love, but as Finis throws out a big bag of money, the radicals reveal their true nature. Like Hellish Flesh, this one keeps you strung along ‘til the very end when Marins hits you with the big punch line. In fact, Marins finds a unique rhythm throughout the film, focusing on a subject or action to the point of confusion, and yes, I’ll admit it, at times even boredom, but then revealing his purpose, giving the viewer a sense of satisfaction they wouldn’t find without that extended dwelling on a sequence. The man is a master, and as evidenced by Finis Hominis, can make a powerful film even without the stylistic, surreal techniques of his Coffin Joe films.
103) Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) **: Classy Brit horror about a phantom of the opera type, presumed dead, who exacts his vengeance on the nine doctors he holds responsible for his wife’s death. The death scenes follow biblical plagues, and are pretty inventive, but far from exploitative or explicit. Yep, a competent grown folks thriller with all that stuff like plot, character development, acting, etc. It’s good to take these in every once and awhile.
104) Vampires (1998) zilch: John Crapenter’s Vampiles (of shit). But, y’know, “duh.” From Dusk Til Dawn definitely did more harm than good.
105) Death Mask (1998) **: Ah, now this is that “one in ten” slice of schlock that makes watching all those direct market 90’s flicks worthwhile. It’s totally implausible, absurd and ridiculous, but has the feel of a train right before it goes off the tracks. This deformed carnie who sculpts masks and displays them as a circus attraction (???) gets really miffed one day after getting mocked by some art critics (y’know, the kind who take the time to pick on carnie art), so he takes the advice of a sympathetic female coworker (cocarnie?) and heads down to the old witch at the swamp’s place to strike a deal. She pricks his finger and makes him make a blood pact that he’ll give her her great ancestor’s skull (or something) which he has for some reason in exchange for the ability to make the most beautiful mask ever. AND I’D LIKE TO SEE WHAT THOSE ART CRITICS HAVE TO SAY WHEN THEY SEE THAT! The important part is after leaving the witch’s place the girl is giving the guy shit for whining after getting his finger pricked by the bone, and the guy tells the girl not to make fun, and that “pain hurts me.” Yes, that is a direct quote. “Pain hurts me.” Thank you direct market gods! Don’t worry, the girl reassures him that “you can’t catch AIDS from no chicken bone,” and a bunch of other stuff happens, like the mask the guy makes kills whoever looks at it, but who cares, ‘cause your mind will still be working on “PAIN HURTS ME,” and how one managed to a) commit that line to paper, b) convince an actor to deliver it with a straight face, and c) let the film go through the entire editing process and keep that gem intact. So yeah, great stuff, must see all the way.
106) The Oracle (1985) *: Girl gets fucked with by supernatural forces and some hired killers.
It’s all part of an elaborate plot, but after 15 minutes I knew this wouldn’t live up to the awesome cover art, so I just kinda spaced out.
107) Vamp (1986) *: Very, very teeny horror/comedy about some horny college kids (and token nerdy Asian) who find themselves in a strip club in the sleazy side of town which happens to double as a vampire haven. How to survive the night…Luckily Grace Jones is like, the coolest person alive, otherwise this would be a total loss. Not the worst, you’ll be able to get through this no problem, but you won’t necessarily feel good about it.
108) Night Ripper (1986) *: Hopelessly obscure 80’s SOV about a killer on the loose. But who’s the killer? Well, you’ll be too blown away by the wretched acting and botched lines to really care. Unfortunately, that’s kind of all this one has going for it. Not really enough of those ugly, unflinching death scenes that make the best SOVs work, but there is one really interesting stabbing that just cuts to the knife after it’s been inserted in the victim, but doesn’t show the knife actually penetrating. Kind of a reverse Psycho shower scene, a sign of the times I guess.
109) It’s Alive 2 (1978) *: I think I was looking at stuff on the internet with my girlfriend while this was going on, but I realized Michael Moriarty wasn’t involved, and since he kinda made the 3rd one for me, I’m not convinced I missed much.
110) A Darkly Noon (1995) **: Freaking Vigo, how could I diss this? Well, it is a pretty forced, stylized Twin Peaks ripoff, but, y’know, VIGO. So watch it.
111) Death Bed (1977) **: Well, this flick’s reputation precedes itself…Unfortunately? I dunno, this is a great demented, surreal genre bender, but I knew that before I put the DVD in, so all the movie’s warped qualities were all anticipated. You couldn’t call this film “hyped” by any means, or say its reputation is in any way undeserved, but I only wish I could have gone into the film fresh, expecting inept schlock and having all the film’s idiosyncrasies take me by surprise.
112) 976 Evil 2 (1992) *: A sequel mindless enough to live up to the tantalizing title of the original. The plot revolves around a pervy principle who has the hots for some student chick and uses some sort of cosmic evil that’s bestowed upon him whenever he needs it to kill some people in order to get closer to the girl. There are some concessions to the movie’s own b movie status, such as a Roger Corman/Joe Bob Briggs poster, but the movie doesn’t really slip into self conscious camp, thankfully. Like I said, pure mindlessness, take it or leave it.
113) Slumber Party Massacre (1982) *: For whatever reason I was under the impression that this was some sort of feminist think piece, as the only thing you ever hear about this flick is that it’s a slasher directed by *gasp* a WOMAN, and thus all the voyeuristic shower scenes are supposed to be ironic or satirical or something. Like I said, that’s just the stuff I heard, but it did cause me to watch the film with a more critical eye, for better or worse, and I gotta say, that outside of the power drill chopping at the end as a symbol for castration, and maybe some rape themes, this played like a straight mindless slasher to me…Which I obviously have no problem with. Like, was there ANY background information given on the killer, any story whatsoever? Worth watching if you’re a “genre enthusiast,” but again, I’m not really seeing the supposed feminist or satirical nature of this flick.
114) Critters 2 (1988) *: THE MINDLESSNESS CONTINUES! Pure schlock entertainment here. Space bounty hunters and the god Eddie Deezen alone would have made this film time well wasted, so the dopey, carnivorous fur puppets are just an added bonus for me. Also worth noting: “CHEEEEEEESEBURGERS! NO BONES!” Yeah this has kid appeal, and is about as much a horror flick as Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, so fans of brutality can sit the one out, but if you’re entertaining a mixed crowd this is a good braindead background flick.
115) Season of the Witch (1972) ***: Not gonna lie, I wasn’t expecting much from this, as I’m not a big fan of Crazies, so I assumed the antebellum period between NOTLD and Martin was a wasteland, but fuck, this is a gem right here. This is sort of an examination of witchcraft in suburbia. Not so much a horror film…It’s hard to describe. Of course there’s the cultural shift theme you see in all Romero’s work from this decade with the “swing” factor and all, but there’s something much greater than the sum of its parts going on with this film. I think it has to do with the really likeable and convincing characters. This is one of those idiosyncratic low key 70’s American exploitation numbers a’la The Mafu Cage, Poor Albert and Little Annie, Poor Pretty Eddie, etc., but of course the Romero factor makes this a bit more noteworthy to horror fans. Great stuff either way, though.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Sunday, March 9, 2008
2007 part 1 (with intro)
Okay, I managed to review every horror film I saw in 2007, working backwards, in 2008. It’s taken me a few months and been an overall tedious process, but here they are in all their hazy glory. A lot of these are first impressions, so we’ll see what changes over time.
365. Gothic (1986) **: Fucking bizarre tale of Mary and Percy Shelley’s “year without a summer” trip to Lord Byron’s place in Switzerland which spawned Frankenstein. It’s not so much bizarre in content (though there is an overload of stylized techniques that’s more jarring than anything else), but the fact that you’re watching key literary characters running amok in some low budget Vestron home video. Unique idea, I guess, but the end result is more style than substance.
364. Night of the Living Dead (30th anniversary edition) zilch: “Hey, let’s fuck up this stone cold masterpiece with a bullshit midi soundtrack and some nonsensical side story that fucks up the flow of the movie?” The new sequences add nothing new and just frustrate anyone who’s see the orig. Who gave the go ahead for this?
364. The Strange World of Coffin Joe (1968) ****: An absolute revelation, start to finish. A horror anthology like only Marins can do. The first story is fairly typical faire about a doll maker, his 4 daughters and some bandits. That Marins can take a fairly standard story like this and make it sizzle with sex and his very unique film style is a true testament to the man’s craft. The next bit has no dialogue, but it’s important to note that Marins’ films have some of the best scores you can hope to hear; very raw and primitive atmospheric soundscapes. I’m sure the bulk of the score is recycled stock sound effects, but in a way that’s the essence of Marins’ work: making a low budget effect as effective as possible. As for the story, it’s about a deformed balloon carrying hunchback (similar to This Night I Will Possess Your Corpse’s Bruno) who pines after a beautiful woman. The woman dies, and the hunchback eventually has his way with her. It’s a grizzly subject, but at the same time because of the technique there’s a certain beauty to it all, very emotionally evocative indeed. The next short is the real meat of the film, where “Professor Oaxiac” (Caixão backwards, duh) expounds upon Ze do Caixão’s world philosophy on a talk show later more prominently featured in Awakening of the Beast, which is essentially that “instinct” (primal instinct, the id, if you will) is the ruling force of man, and that love, hate, spirituality, etc., are just masks man uses to hide his true nature. Ze—er—“Professor Oaxiac” eventually lures a dissenting panelist on the show back to his house and subjects him and his wife to a “burlesque show” of various subjects whom he’s converted to their “true selves.” Ze eventually subjects the couple to these experiments in a brilliant reworking of the Genesis myth, eventually proving that love, and by extension human emotion, doesn’t exist, and we’re all primitive animals inside. That there are no repercussions for Ze’s philosophy, or the necrophile’s actions in the 2nd segment, makes for a truly unique and diabolical film experience. There’re really no words that can do this man’s films justice, and I really can’t recommend his movies enough.
363. The Doctor and the Devils (1985) **: Really well done period piece about a zealous anatomy doctor (Dr. Rock) who pays some derelicts (Broom and Fallon) for fresh bodies to dissect, going against the academy’s policy. The doctor kind of knows, but doesn’t want to acknowledge the fact that said derelicts are killing the people they’re bringing him. The film succeeds in conveying both the madness of Doctor Rock in his goals to advance medicine and the economic desperation of Broom and Fallon’s world. Well layered and executed all the way through.
362. The Fog (1980) *: Fog rolls in. There’re killers in the fog. You get stabbed. And there’s lots of downtime in between. A well executed film, but didn’t really leave me feeling anything.
361. The Kiss (1988) **: A really religious mom dies and her supermodel sister moves in. Only problem is: SHE’S A WITCH! Very “cheesy” very “80’s,” some okay death scenes, an evil cat (“FUCK YOU FELIX”), but nothing to really make you go nuts.
360. Prom Night III (1990) zilch: Horror comedy that kind of plays as a slasher parody, which by 1990 was a subject that was doing a good enough job parodying itself. Plot? Uh, some ghost chick is haunting a high school and makes this AVERAGE (a point PAINFULLY stressed) teenager do her bidding by boning him behind his goody two shoes (and living) girlfriend’s back. Dude eventually gets in over his head as you might imagine, and the body count rises. For a “fun” movie, this wasn’t very fun to watch, and dragged pretty hard.
359. Diary of the Dead (1976) *: It’s a shame, because the acting and overall execution isn’t too bad on this one, but the basic premise is just fucking retarded. Okay, so this husband and wife live with the wife’s stingy mom who doesn’t like the husband and is an overall bummer. The husband gets it in his head he’s gotta kill the old broad, so when she invites her presumably equally naggy old friend over who dies of a heart attack while the mom-in-law’s asleep, the husband SOMEHOW figures he can pass the dead friend off as the mom-in-law and then he can kill the mom-in-law and get away with it. Okay (???), so he calls for an ambulance, saying that his mother-in-law died, but at this point the real mother-in-law wakes up and dies of a heart attack, so he’s got two dead bodies, has done nothing illegal, but decides he’s still gonna pass the mom-in-law’s friend off as the mom-in-law for some reason, and bury the real dead mom-in-law (who he didn’t actually kill, remember) in his backyard. The film goes through the motions of him ineptly covering his tracks and different people suspecting him of doing whatever, but at that point you really just don’t care what happens to the guy at all, ‘cause he blew it from the start. Like I said, surprisingly decent execution on everyone’s part, but when the “criminal” hasn’t really done anything wrong it’s hard to care one way or the other what happens to him.
358. The Changeling (1988) **1/2: Decent post-shining haunted house piece. I generally can’t get behind that motif, but it’s saved by some genuinely creepy scenes (skeleton hand in the well, cool old timey wheel chair) and a fleshed out story about a wrongful heir to a fortune. Good stuff, but a bit, uh, mature for my tastes.
357. Ganja & Hess (1973) ****: One of the best I’ve seen all year, no doubt. I saw this first as Blood Couple and was floored by the radical afrocentric reworking of the vampire motif, but Blood Couple puts the horror aspect at the forefront, whereas the original version (the directors cut, roughly ½ an hour longer) Ganja and Hess draws more attention to Bill Gunn’s fantastic technique, and the characters are decidedly less “vampyric.” The score (more phenomenal psyched out atmospheric soundscape stuff) interplays with the characters in a really effective manner, and the monologues are PERFECT. There’s a very free, borderline Paul Morrissey approach to the dialogue, where you get the sense that Gunn just started filming and let what happened happen, but when you realize that the monologues play a crucial role to the development of the plot and characters, its clear that the opposite is true and these segments were heavily scripted and directed, and it’s the skill of the actors and directors and material that makes these segments feel so natural. It’s painful for me to watch such exquisite delivery of dialogue, and then watch newer dialogue heavy flicks like Kevin Smith or Tarrentino’s stuff where the lengthy monologues come off as unnatural and take the viewer out of the film. If they could do it right in ’73, why not now? Fucking frustrating, especially considering the relative obscurity of Gunn’s career. Anyways, Gunn essentially uses the vampire myth as an allegory for the dominance of Christian culture over the African identity, and shows the potential for using something an unassuming as a horror movie to convey broader social issues. Obviously he wasn’t the first film maker to utilize this potential, but he did it in such a unique and effective way as to merit the awe of anyone who actually cares about film.
356) Diary of a Madman (1963) **: You’d go bonkers if Vincent Price was your inner voice too! Some cool effects in this, like all the floating stuff and the morphing of the clay, but this just ain’t really my bag. Very “psychological” and Poe-esque, and basically over my attention span.
355) Parasite (1997) zilch: If you’re doing some modern day no budget digital video bullshit don’t think you can pull the wool over our eyes with a serious plot and act like nothing’s wrong, okay? Some witch has the hots for some Irish professor dude (a scientist who has no faith in the supernatural, of course) and slowly begins the process of ruining his life through magic. You can guess the rest, but probably shouldn’t waste your time. Respect for having an all grown up cast, but the biggest challenge of doing a low budget movie is making it work for you, not aspiring to be some middle of the road forgettable pap like this.
354) Candyman 3 (1997) zilch
353) Candyman 2 (1995) zilch
352) Candyman (1992) *: Alright, so I lined all these up and made a night of it. What a fucking retarded “franchise.” It’s like they started out trying to buck all the slasher clichés (no mask, no gratuitous nudity/sexism, *gasp* HE’S BLACK!), but of course falls into the biggest slasher cliché of them all, which is a bunch of nonsensical sequels. The first flick is good enough for a PC horror movie: chick calls on Candyman, Candyman kills people close to her thus implementing her as the killer, chick dies trying to protect a kid Candyman’s after, and becomes the new Candyman. Whatever, at least it’s a story. The second flick tries to expatiate on the Candyman myth, how he was an educated Blackman who got killed in the south for having a fling with a white lady (which they said in the first one, and was good enough), but he was also the secret granddaddy of some white lady, and he kind of wants to fuck her or something…I dunno, it’s all really confused, really. Like, take Freddy Kreuger; he’s got a crazy burnt up face and gnarly claws, and if you go to sleep, he’s gonna cut you up. Pretty simple, right? Candyman, it’s like, he was stung to death by bees, so if you see bees around you know he’s coming, but his face isn’t stung up or anything, really he’s just a smooth looking brother, and also he has a hook ‘cause his hand was cut off, oh, and he comes if you say his name in the mirror, but he might not kill you, he might just kill people around you and then you gotta worry about the cops…Oh, but he also might just kill you…With bees…Or that hook. But if you’re related to him, uh…He wants you to come with him? Where? I dunno, it’s fucking stupid. Way too cluttered.
351) Reflections of Evil (2002) ****: Okay, this isn’t really a horror movie, but I bought it solely based on the title which sounded like a horror movie, and the fact that it was $2 and had no description on the case whatsoever, thus further enticing my curiosity. In reality Reflections of Evil is a modern experimental, borderline outlaw independent film funded, produced, directed, staring, edited and released by my new favorite modern filmmaker, Daniel Packard. It’s hard to nail down an exact “plot” with this film, as Reflections floods the viewer with a barrage of seemingly nonsensical scenes, but basically Packard plays a sugar addicted street person hawking watches to everyone he passes (but never makes a sale), lives with his nagging mom and eventually is sought after by his sister who may or may not be alive. There’re a lot of flashbacks and psychedelic effects, but what makes Reflections so effective isn’t its surreal passages, but the very REAL feel of the film. For instance, the scenes where Packard walks the streets and is perpetually getting in verbal confrontations with everyone he passes, missing busses, and gaining layers and layers of clothing and pairs of headphones translates to one of the most effective translations of Southern California street life you’re likely to find on film. Modern mainstream entertainment (namely film) is routinely parodied through the juxtaposition of the comically slovenly Packard with various film glossy film advertisements like Miss Congeniality decorating the confrontation riddled streets, and there are of course the segments from other films and television lifted (stolen) for effect. The segment filmed at the ET ride at Universal studios with Spielberg’s voice MERCILESSLY overdubbed is my favorite of the “most certainly copyright infringement” segments. Basically this is a true independent vision laced with heavy doses of comedy derived from a satirical contempt for modern culture and a completely idiosyncratic technique. Must be seen to be believed!
350) Bandh Darwaza (1990) ***: Excellent “Bollywood” horror production from the Ramsay brothers, who are supposedly the masters of this sort of thing. I’d love to see more of their flicks. In Bandh Darwaza a wife who can’t get pregnant turns to “the black mountain,” which is sort of an evil cult with a Dracula-esque figurehead, who gives her a child (she sleeps with the Drac guy to get knocked up, so it was likely the husband’s retard at fault, but whatever) on the condition that if it’s a girl, she has to give the brat to the black mountain. It is, of course, so to break the deal the family has to kill the Drac dude so that they can keep the baby. And that’s just the first ten minutes or so! The bulk of the story takes place in modern times and centers around the current woman of the family who’s kind of a “bad girl” (I mean, she’s Dracula guy’s daughter, what do you expect) and pines after a local dude who’s not feeling her. She eventually gets lured back to the Black Mountain to get some hoodoo to cast on her would-be beau, thus bringing the very cool Dracula guy back in the mix. The movie’s a bit longer than the average Western horror flick, clocking in at 145 minutes, and is complete with comic relief, lots of faux-martial arts, some heavy borrowing from popular American films of the time, and of course song and dance numbers. All that might add up to a kitsch novelty film if it wasn’t for the fact that there’s a really great atmosphere and cheap spooky aesthetic, very much reminiscent of old Hammer horror. If you’re a castles and fog type (and I am), this film delivers in spades. It is, of course, such a radically different and refreshing approach to horror that it’s tempting to get caught up in the “exoticness” of it all, but I really feel like this is a great horror film in its own right. Mondo Macabro has a 2xDVD set with this and the excellent Purana Mandir which should whet anyone who’s curious’ appetite for more Bollywood horror.
349) Video Violence (1987) **1/2
348) Video Violence II (1989) **1/2 Two cool SOV (shot on video) “classics” on one DVD! As an ex-video clerk, there’re a lot of jokes that I found a lot funnier than the average person (“people only ever want to rent the new releases!”), and I did see VVII when I was a youngin,’ but I think anyone who’s a remote fan of 80’s slashers can appreciate this somewhat outsider take on the genre. The basic plot--City folk open a video store and country folk start acting awful funny when the city folk start making a stink about someone dropping a snuff film in the return box--is a transparent vehicle to move from death scene to death scene as more snuff tapes get discovered. The death scenes aren’t your Savini faire, that’s for sure, but basically this is the type of flick where you just gotta get down with the vibes, which are fucking phenomenal. These are truly independent films with the purest of intention: to entertain, and maybe make some money. You can tell everyone involved is enjoying themselves, and I can honestly say there’s a better story and more interesting theme (the strange phenomenon of sleazy horror vhs at the time, which this film gleefully acknowledges it’s a part of) than you’ll find in your average big studio slasher sequel. Speaking of sequels, Video Violence II is a great coda to the first film that actually acknowledges the events of the original Video Violence (kind of rare in the horror sequel game) and has lots of callbacks for people who’ve seen the first movie. It also does a good job at erasing any shades of doubt the viewer might have that the people in charge of these are doing anything but having a good time. I’d say both these films do a good job at poking fun at a genre while still providing enough sex and violence to alienate anyone who’s not already on board. Great stuff.
347) Cutting Room (2006) **: Zero budget slasher that knows exactly how shitty it is. This is for-the-fans-by-the-fans trash that gets off through sheer lack of pretension alone. Should you put an iota of effort into seeing this? No, but I found a copy of the “Fatal Femmes” 2xDVD that has 6 movies (this included) for $5, and I can honestly say I got my money’s worth and was far more entertained and felt better as a person watching this than any modern, slick looking, mainstream horror flick. There’s also a preeeeetty lurid female masturbation scene that I got to give the filmmakers credit for. Most films of these type hold off on the sex in favor of fake blood, but this dude goes there, respect.
346) Up For Rent (2006) **: Another part of the “Fatal Femmes” 2xDVD, which is a bunch of Z E R O budget digital camera joints, this one being a horror anthology centering around a realtor going over all the terrible stuff that’s happened in an apartment that’s, yep, “up for rent.” There’s a jealous and kinda crazy girl who offs her boyfriend for presumed infidelity, a run-of-the-mill serial killing, and the best segment, “Wannabe Deadly” about a dude obsessed with being the word’s smartest serial killer who’s really inept. There’s some legitimately funny moments in that segment when the guy has his fantasies about how a murder will work out and be received by the press, and how it actually happens. Again, this is GARBAGE as far as any technical aspect of filmmaking is concerned, but if you’re into the spirit of people just making movies and not being held back by budget constraints or any sort of social norm of what constitutes a “good” movie, then this is a fine example of how enjoyable a barely competent independent genre picture can be.
345) I Am Legend (2007) *: I dunno, is this a horror movie? IMDB says it’s an Action / Drama / Fantasy / Horror / Sci-Fi / Thriller, and there are rampaging mobs of zombie things so….Yeah, I’ll count it. So is it good? Oh, god no. The film’s premise—Will Smith is the last guy on earth and is trying to find a cure for a plague that’s wiped out Manhattan—is far too dark for standard blockbuster fluff, and it’s handled in too goody-two-shoes a way to be a dark fluff film, like 12 Monkey or Fight Club or something. That’s the problem in a nutshell, is this flick’s so PAINFULLY middle of the road (homeboy uses Shrek and Bob Marley to illustrate his points…Way to go over the heads of NO ONE) that I can’t imagine anyone REALLY likes or dislikes this flick enough to even remember it in a few years. I mean, they got my $10, so they win, fine, but at least do a good enough Hollywood razzle dazzle job that I don’t spend the whole time scratching my head over plot holes and wondering why I should care about this character at all. It’s slick enough to take up two hours and not make you walk out of the theatre, so watch it or don’t, your life won’t be affected either way.
344) Boggy Creek II (1977) zilch
343) Return to Boggy Creek (1982) zilch: Holy shit these were painful. I had to watch Return to Boggy Creek in two sittings and go to a friend’s house to watch Boggy Creek II because I didn’t have the faith in myself that I could sit through it without fast forwarding or slitting my wrists. A bunch of hicks and Bigfoot, who fucking cares. If you must, go with Return to Boggy Creek (the second in a trilogy, which concludes with Boggy Creek II…Huh?), ‘cause the attempts at the authentic Cajun accents are good for a cheap laugh at least. The big time suspense in Boggy Creek II is they get chased into a house by a dog…Oh, and the girls get the jeep stuck in the mud and have to *gasp* READ THE MANUAL (don’t worry, it’s in the glove box) to figure out how to work the four wheel drive! PG rated fun for the whole family, if your family’s a retard.
342) Demonia (1990) **: Later Fulci flick with two killer death scenes (dude getting split in half and a bunch of cats killing an old lady), a crucified nun, and not much else to keep your interest. Canadian archeologists go searching for ancient Greek artifacts, inadvertently fuck with some cursed dark ages shit and local yokels, and you can guess the rest. It’s an okay flick if you go for this sort of thing.
341) Terror and Black Lace ***: Oooh, I liked this one! Really cool Mexican thriller/horror flick about a possessive husband and his wife who live on the top floor, a music historian with a hair fetish who lives beneath them, and 3 independent women types who live below him. The technique was exceptional, and there were moments of genuine suspense as well as really unconventional plot development. The things you expect to happen don't really happen, but not in an arbitrary "TWIST!" kind of way either. In fact, I think it might be the film's lack of gimmicks that made it so appealing, actually; there's not a lot of blood, there's not a lot of nudity, but there's enough of both to maintain that certain luridness which makes these kind of movies work. Absolutely phenomenal genre picture which I highly recommend.
340) Nightkill (1980) *: Shitty husband gets murdered for money, the wife should call the cops but doesn’t, you don’t really care beyond that point. Everything looks real “Dynasty” too. Whatever.
339) Dead and Buried (1981) **: Surprisingly good Vestron joint with REALLY well done death scenes and an actually well developed story for this kind of movie. The movie starts strong, with a guy getting baited by a chick and burned alive by some fishermen and basically just keeps up the pace. Hobos get slashed up, some dude gets a needle in the eye, and when you start seeing these people walking around again, you know something’s up. You’re not exactly sure why these people are being killed, or why they’re being seen around town, but as the main cop in the flick learns more, so do you, and all-in-all, it’s not as stupid as you might think. Fine film indeed.
338) Purana Mandir (1984) ***: Great Bollywood horror that was supposedly responsible for setting off a sort of “horror boom” in India for a few years. As mentioned in the Bandh Darwaza review, there are a lot of stylistically typical aspects at play that would be out of place in a Western horror pic, such as song and dance numbers and comic relief, but overall there’s a great atmosphere and story that should appeal to any horror fan who favors the older b-movie aesthetic. The plot revolves around a boyfriend and girlfriend trying to break the curse of Saamri, a really cool looking demon who placed a curse on the girlfriend’s ancestors, thus preventing the boyfriend and girlfriend from marrying. The two bring along their friends, the male sidekick being a real mustachioed machismo oozer who spends a bulk of his screen time kicking stuff, and then shit starts to hit the fan; Saamri comes back from the dead, the superstitious country folk try to sacrifice the boyfriend and girlfriend to Kali, and the machismo oozer starts up a racket by capturing and freeing a notorious bandit for the reward money. Again, the flick’s 145 minutes long, so it has time to fit all that stuff in. All the DVD extras say that this is probably the best Indian horror flick out there, so do yourself a favor and dig in.
337) Evil Eye (1974) *: Not much to say here. Pretty forgettable Italian supernatural giallo without enough sex or death scenes to keep me interested.
336) Catholic Ghoulgirls (2005) *: Zero budget schlock centering around campy horror clichés (schoolgirl outfits, zombies, whatever) and a lot of interjections of really annoying “totally 80’s” pop culture references and Kevin Smith style dialogue. Completely horrible, of course, but it’s a bunch of buddies with a camera fucking around, you can’t really be too critical of a film like this.
335) Candle in the Dark (2002) *: Looks like a video a family would make after Thanks Giving. There’s a goody goody girl who’s new college roommate is a “goth,” and since there’s a bunch of vampire murders on campus, the “goth” girl becomes the #1 suspect. I was really hoping the “goth” chick would be more over the top and cheesy, but she’s kind of just dressed like a secretary or something. Unless you’re a fan of zero budget ineptitude, though, you probably won’t be able to watch this. If you are a fan of zero budget ineptitude, this is still barely passable.
334) The Bewitching (2006) zilch: Skinimax style softcore centering about a, uh, witch? Who comes to Las Vegas? And she sleeps with a bunch of dudes, but she’s not supposed to for some reason? The best part is there’s a group of guys, a white guy, a black dude and an Asian, and both the black and white dude get laid by the witch, but the Asian guy gets left out. Such a dick move! And your average uncut Jess Franco film has way more titillation than this, so I’d say this even fails at pornography. This is really THEE lowest of the low as far as just about any form of entertainment goes, so it’s nice to watch a movie like this and think “okay, I’ve officially hit rock bottom as far as what I’ll allow to take up my time.”
333) Awful Dr. Orloff (1962) **: Black and white castles, shadows and fog like only the Europeans can do it. This particular European happens to be Jess Franco, who went on to do some really beautiful avant-garde horror/softcore in the 70’s, but this is a slice of his early straight forward work. The story goes, this Dr. Orlof starts taking girls and using their skin to make his daughter who got deformed in a lab experiment beautiful again. With these kind of movies it’s more about the atmosphere and feel of the imagery rather than the linear plot, though, and this is a great spooky slice of gothic noir.
332) Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) ***: Really beautiful piece of cinema here. Having the opening scenes shot from the perspective of Dr. Jeckyll establishes a great tone, and the execution of the Hyde character is excellent. A lot of the transformation scenes are surprisingly sophisticated for the time and the dynamics of the abusive relationship between Hyde and Ivy are brilliantly sculpted. This is a really great watch, for sure.
331) Prom Night (1980) *: I think this is cannon in the 80’s slasher genre, but I’m not really feeling this one. There’s really not enough blood to make a story like this work, and the mystery killer should be no mystery at all. All in all, this is just a bit too middle of the road for my tastes.
330) Delerium (1979) **: Genuinely entertaining and watchable action/horror flick that starts out as just an average “killer on the loose/copper on his trail” type flick, but eventually you learn that the killer is actually part of a secret group of vigilantes who off criminals who’ve gotten off on technicalities. The psycho killer is an old army buddy of the Telly Savalas-like ringleader of the vigilante group, and, well, eventually everything goes to pot as you might imagine. Great death scenes and an overall cheap grittiness will keep you watching.
329) Shadowzone (1990) zilch: This basically plays like a bad Alien ripoff, which is one of my least favorite genres, up there with Jaws ripoffs. There’s a bunch of scientists in an underground bunker and some dumb portals open, I think a creature gets through, and there’s some secret plot amongst the scientists? I dunno, obviously this is a pretty forgettable claustrophobic sci-fi/horror joint from the Full Moon people. I will say there’re some adequate pre-CGI special effects, which is cool, but not cool enough.
328) When the Screaming Stops (1974) ***: Killer Amando de Ossorio joint based around the Lorelei myth (German folklore, think the sirens) with some pretty grizzly death scenes involving a monster clawing schoolgirls and blind dudes, complete with organs getting ripped out. Lots of, uh, “buxom” Euro femme fatales and an alpha male hunter type who’s trying to kill the monster. I definitely dug this one.
327) Blue Monkey (1987) zilch: ZILCH, ZILCH, FUCKING ZILCH! I wish I could yell that in everyone responsible for this mess’s ears (except Joe Flaherty, I’d just shake his hand). What you got here’s a shitty monster movie about giant bugs in a hospital with a bunch of fucking kids running around being “cute” and some old ladies being “funny” and me wanting to commit “suicide” while watching this trash for 90 minutes. The lighting was actually pretty cool, and if you’re a fan of rubber monsters, this film’s got that, but by and large, ugh, no thanks.
326) Waxwork II (1992) **: Y’know, this really ain’t too bad. It starts with the chick from the first Waxwork coming home after her and her boyfriend just burned down the evil wax museum from the first movie. A crawling hand from the wax museum follows her home and kills her dad in an obvious nod to Evil Dead II, and she has to stand trial, both for the murder and burning down the wax museum. Somehow her and her boyfriend travel through “time” (or more accurately, different movie parodies, including Alien, Frankenstein, a Hitchcock type flick and some fantasy movie and lots of others) trying to prove her innocence by capturing the crawling hand. This is straight to video crud, but I have to admit it’s pretty entertaining crud with lots of tributes to old horror flicks and decent grossout special effects (including a projectile Frankenstein brain), and of course a Bruce Campbell cameo for cred. Not a bad flick to check out if it falls in your lap and you aren’t totally opposed to intentionally “campy” 90’s junk.
325) Demon Keeper (1994) **: Story goes, a bunch of people, some skeptics, some believers, go to a séance at a spooky house with a real medium and a phony one. Phony medium tries to prove himself to the real one and accidentally conjures up this awesome demon who looks like a cross between the devil from Legend and a Mortal Kombat character. I think this is from the Full Moon family, so expect lots of cheesy, but kind of competent special effects and lite T&A. But, also expect a gnarly giant rubber suit demon dude feeling up chicks. Seriously, I’m very partial to satanic imagery in my horror movies, so I just say back and had a great time watching a demon cut up yuppies for 90 minutes.
324) Bleed (2002) *: Typical post-Scream whodunit straight to video slasher, BUT, all the actors involved look like porn people, very LA glam, y’know what I mean? There’re lots of good looking (again, too good looking in an artificial way) naked guys and girls and an overall mean spirited and un-PC vibe, which kind of goes against the teen marketing of your average faux-Scream type flick, so that’s a bit refreshing. Total garbage, but still watchable.
323) Winter Lily (1998) *: This is a really weird Canadian straight to video psychological thriller about a guy who stays at a bed and breakfast and becomes infatuated with the daughter (who may or may not be dead) of the owners through reading her diary. The girl’s mom’s a little off her rocker, and they’re stuck in a cabin in the dead of winter, so things get stranger and stranger as you might guess. There’re a lot of weird incestuous and pedophilic undertones and a very convoluted and clumsy plot and I can’t help but wonder why anyone would want to make or see this movie. I will say it at least attempts to be unique without being cheap and stylistically obtrusive, so it’s not bad for a little indie flick, but not something I’d ever want to see again.
322) Fallen Angels (2002) zilch: Catholic schoolgirls accidentally burn down their school while being attacked by a killer and come with a film crew years later to make a documentary on the fires (which no one should care about, but there are still huge protests outside of the school for some reason), and someone starts killing the film crew and girls. Trite and shitty post-Scream style lite-slasher that can’t possibly appeal to anybody. About the only decent part was watching a bunch of English (possibly Irish) actors fake a US accent. God-awful.
321) Ax ‘Em (’92?) ***: I’ll admit I’m being generous with the three star rating, but this below-zero budget slasher actually plays a lot more interesting than a lot of canonical horror flicks. This is a black filmmaker and predominantly black cast doing more of an updated blaxploitation picture than the socially conscious Spike Lee thing that was more popular at the time. Again, this is REALLY REALLY low budget, as in you can’t hear what’s being said a lot of the time, and there’s about a two inch border around the actual movie; no, it’s not widescreen, the left, right, top and bottom of the film are surrounded by a black border, presumably so the film is more condensed has a higher quality (doesn’t help much, trust me). Large chunks of dialogue are very obviously improvised, including long “doing the dozens” segments (my favorite: “Yo mama so dumb she was in a shoot up and got stabbed”), which gives the film a very loose and freewheeling feel. Uh, large chunks of the plot might be improvised too, as the actual events that transpire are a bit vague. There’re a bunch of black college students spending the week in a cabin, and there’s a burly and pretty convincingly creepy brother in a flannel with a (you guessed it) ax, and you can pretty much guess what happens next. There’s lots of kitsch due to the era of the film, like giant green leather jackets with Mickey Mouse on the back, and a legit “homey don’t play that” line. Oh, you know that bit you’d see a lot in old Apollo standup routines that goes something like “white people are crazy, you seen Poltergeist? If a brother heard a house say ‘get out,’ he’d be out of there, but white people gonna try and stay!” Yeah, you get to see that scenario in action in this flick. Overall, yes, this is a very obviously flawed film, but there are a lot of genuinely funny moments and interesting techniques that hold my interest more than many slicker looking, generic horror films.
320) The Terror (1963) **: Cool spooky Corman flick about a mysterious girl, a mysterious old witch and a mysterious castle. This isn’t a particularly great flick, but you do get to see a YOUNG Jack Nicholson, Dick Miller and Boris Karloff in action, and it’s co-produced by Francis Ford Coppola, so this is a nice slice of Hollywood trivia in addition to being a fun, if not slightly generic, low budget supernatural thriller.
319) The Werewolf of Paxton Hall (1994?) ***: Don’t go crazy trying to find this one, ‘cause I believe it’s a student film that never got mass produced. It’s essentially a black and white half hour tribute to the old European horror style with, yes, castles, shadows and fog and a really well established gothic ambiance. It’s a story about a man who asks his brother, a priest in training, to kill him because he’s been turning into a wolf and killing people. The production levels, costumes and acting are so far above what you’d expect for something like this that it really catches you off guard how good it is. The overall execution is just superb, and it really makes me wish there was an underground of filmmakers who just made completely non-commercially viable black and white European gothic style horror films with little blood and lots of ambiance. It sure would be a lot more interesting than a bunch of misguided digital effects ridden 80’s American slasher throwbacks like you have now. I did some research and I don’t think any of the principle filmmakers for this number ever did anything in movies again, and there’s not even a listing for it on IMDB, so that’s what a well crafted story and atmosphere gets you. If anyone involved in this movie googles this review, hit me with an e-mail, I’d love to talk.
318) The Craft (1996) **: This is probably the pinnacle of PC 90’s teen friendly horror, and in theory embodies everything I should hate, but after throwing it in with a friend of mine for a laugh, I gotta say, this isn’t THAT bad. It kind of plays like a dumbed down PG Dario Argento number, with the CGI not becoming too obtrusive ‘til the end. It’s pretty, it’s clean, it’s safe, but seeing as we’re in a time now where we can look back at the late 90’s post-Scream teen flick trend as a thing of the past, this flick’s a lot less obnoxious than you’d imagine. Oooh, sequel in 2008, that should be a tremendous pile of dogshit, no?
317) Human Beasts (1980) ***: This is a neat little Paul Naschy flick where Naschy plays a ruthless hitman hired by some Japanese insurgents looking to steal some diamonds to fund a revolution. Even though he falls in love with one of the insurgents, he IS still ruthless, so he steals the diamonds, kills all of the insurgents except the girl, and shacks up at some white folks’ mansion in the middle of rural Japan. The place seems like a safe haven at first, BUT IS IT REALLY? Naschy does a great job at developing the family the hitman stays with from kind, to eccentric, to really fucked up. The film delivers in spades all the grit you want from an exploitation flick, and there’s actually an interesting story underneath it all. I’d love a DVD of this though, because the quality of the VHS transfer leaves something to be desired.
316) Dracula Vs. Frankenstein (1971) **: Wow, this is VERY campy, very drive-in, very b-movie, but really fun to watch. The acting is atrocious, and the premise is laughable, but if you’re in the mood for a stereotypically corny b-movie, here you go. Dracula does look legitimately cool, though. Unfortunately my VHS is in EP which got in the way of some great moments for sure. Gotta hunt down a cheapy DVD, I guess.
315) Killer Barbys (1996) ***: As a Franco fanboy, I loved this, but I’ll admit it is pretty cheesy. An actual Spanish rock band Killer Barbies (they sound like a bar rock Ramones with a va-va-voom female singer) gets a flat tire and has to spend the night in the castle of an Elizabeth Bathory type Countess who’s seducing and killing members of the band and their entourage while her rural creep minions do their part in picking off members of the group as well. On one hand the film’s very obviously and heavy handedly an over-the-top camp number, but there are some grizzly death scenes and the Countess looks VERY cool, and of course there’s all the T&A you’d expect in a Franco film, so though this is a “fun” movie, there’s enough legit horror for genre fans to get behind.
314) Neon Maniacs (1986) **: Very “80’s” slasher revolving around some monsters who only come out at night (like neon, get it?) and hack up teenagers. Their only weakness? The impossibly scarce substance known as “water.” Yeah, water. Each monster is a unique and basically arbitrary character, like “The Hangman,” “Samurai,” “the Indian,” etc. Either the filmmakers thought this film would get big enough to merit action figures, or they were sitting around one day trying to figure out how to fit the Village People into a horror movie. It’s crap, it’s camp, it’s fun, why not?
313) Rawhead Rex (1986) **: Here’s a pretty competent and serious horror flick about this giant monster (who thankfully is never directly referred to by the goofy name of the film) terrorizing Ireland. It’s a pretty straight supernatural monster movie and with corrupt priests and a focus on pagan Irish folklore. Not sold? Okay, there’s a scene where the monster’s peeing on a priest, and if that doesn’t get you on board, nothing will.
312) Phantom of the Mall (1989) **: Another cheesy and “totally 80’s” slasher. This might even be the same mall they used in Chopping Mall, actually. Plot? Uh, mall opens up, and there’s this guy, a “phantom,” if you will, who’s behind the scenes watching over everything on closed circuit cameras and killing the baddies in a variety of somewhat inventive but not exactly noteworthy death scenes. Paulie Shore’s in it, too, as if the movie wasn’t kitschy enough as it is.
311) Frankenstein (1984) n/a: Here’s a made for British TV Frankenstein starring Carrie Fisher. I fell asleep halfway through, but my girlfriend says it’s pretty good, despite looking like a soap opera. I guess I’ll have to stay conscious while watching it next time.
310) Mausoleum (1983) **: Here you have a good wife who cleans house, cooks, keeps to herself, but every now and then BECOMES A DEMON WOMAN POSESSED AND TALKS BACK TO HER HUSBAND AND WANTS SEEEEEX!!! I know being un-PC is part of the horror genre’s charm, but I gotta wonder if this writer knew he was showing all his cards here with this old values woman/post-feminist possession bit? With one of the writers, this is his only work, and the other previously did the new waver flick Blank Generation, so maybe the chauvinist undertones are meant as satire? Part of me would like to believe one of these guys was going through a divorce and wanted to make a film that showed the TRUE nature of these “new women.” Oh man, and check out the ridiculously stereotypical “mammy” type made and perverted Mexican gardener. What a sketchy flick! Regardless, this is pretty decent and overall watchable with some okay death scenes and good enough special effects work.
309) Blackout (1985) *: A man snaps one day and murders his family, then gets in a car crash with another man, and the only survivor of the crash has total amnesia. Is he the killer, or did the killer die? Either way, the survivor starts his life a new with the nurse who helped him recover, but there’s a retired police chief who won’t let this case go! Interesting enough premise, I suppose. The best part by far is the curmudgeonly retired cop, Richard Widmark, who spends the movie spouting off faux tough guy lines like “not on my fuckin’ beat!” that translate more like “get off my lawn!” This is definitely more of a “suspense/thriller/mystery” than a horror, but there’s an “inescapable evil nature of man” theme at play here which horror fans will find familiar.
308) Black Candles (1982) **: A José Ramón Larraz (Vampyres) joint about a Satanic cult and all the sex they have. A chick fucks a goat and a dude gets a sword in the butt, all for Satan. This is basically evil softcore with no major plot points, but whatever, good sleaze as far as sleaze goes.
307) Blood and Black Lace (1965) ***: AKA Sei donne per l'assassino. I’m a big fan of MARIO Bava’s work, especially his 60’s stuff, and this is a feast or all things vintage Bava: You got your femme fatales, tons of spooky lighting and ambiance, gritty subject matter, it’s all here. I don’t always walk away from an old Bava flick with the feeling that I’ve seen a great story, and I can’t even remember the specifics of what happened here (it’s a run of the mill whodunit with a bunch of fashion models getting slashed up), but his films always have such ambiance through simple lighting effects and stunning looking actors. Truly a master craftsman making really beautiful films.
306) Nosferatu (1922) ***: Obviously a classic and beautiful looking movie. So many of the sections are iconic and embedded in the public consciousness that it’s somewhat difficult to take this at face value, but it’s a no brainer classic that’s thoroughly rewarding to watch.
305) Nosferatu (1979) ***: This plays like a loving homage to the original with some of the imagery (namely the rats) kicked up a notch for modern viewers. Definitely worth seeing in conjunction with the original.
304) The Hitcher (1986) *: Here’s a not-very-thrilling thriller about an arbitrarily crazy and seemingly endlessly clever and resourceful psycho killer who hitchhikes along a random stretch of highway killing whoever picks him up. When one college aged kid gets away, the movie drags ON AND ON AND ON with the psycho guy kind of stalking the kid and setting him up for murders and just generally putting way too much effort into tormenting the poor kid. I have no problem with ridiculous, far fetched plot devices, and I’m not the “oh come on, that could never happen” type, but when a movie basis its premise on a very real human fear (that a hitchhiker or stranger is out to kill you), the development of the plot should stay in that realm of reality, which this fails at miserably. Improbable twist begets improbable twist to the point where you really don’t care anymore and just want out. I suppose the technical aspects are handled decently, this is a standard “real movie” for normal people, and it is possible to watch it all the way through, I just can’t imagine there’s any reason to.
303) Horrors of the Red Planet (1965) *: Really dated and corny drive in sci-fi fair about some astronauts who get stranded on mars and come across a sort of haunted castle. There’s one VERY cool scene involving the frozen Martian ghost thingies, though, and a fun cheap aesthetic throughout. Fans of older cheesy sci-fi climb aboard, everyone else prepare to be bored.
302) Curse of the Bigfoot (1976) zilch: Oof, this is an epic in bad! The movie starts with a lady doing some gardening who gets attacked by a laughably bad bigfoot monster. Twist, that segment’s just an example of a cheesy old monster movie that’s being shown in a high school classroom. The teacher goes on to talk more about bigfoots to this class full of 70’s Spicoli ass looking stoners, and then you get a bunch of stock footage of the Himalayans and loggers and what have you, which leads to a short segment with some flannel clad hicks and their bigfoot encounter. Thankfully an expert on the subject comes in to set the class straight on cryptozoology (in high school, remember), and the rest of the film is an obviously separately filmed early 60’s teen creature flick that’s supposed to be a story the expert tells the kids about this bigfoot creature, except that after the kids in that story SET THE BIGFOOT ON FIRE, the film ends and doesn’t go back to the classroom at all. This is a giant hodgepodge of shit that fails on so many levels that I have to recommend it to people who get off watching the lowest of the low in old b movies. Obviously I watch a lot of bad movies myself, and even I was impressed at the ineptitude on this flick.
301) New York Ripper (1982) uncut version ***: Seeing the uncut version of this movie is what finally sold me on Fulci. This is an amazing movie, not just because of the gruesome death scenes and gritty atmosphere (but that stuff too), but because it’s just such a bizarre viewing experience as a whole. Juxtaposing this vicious sexual killer with that goofy Donald Duck voice was a stroke of genius, and the ending, even though “good wins,” leaves the viewer feeling as violated and mistreated as any of the Ripper’s victims, and feels almost surreal in its cruelty. For what’s essentially a sleazy exploitation film, there’re just so many layers to the story that the film really merits some attention and elicits so many emotional reactions from the viewer. There are some genuinely brilliant cinematic moments as well, such as the 1st person perspective when investigating one suspect’s apartment, or the straight razor slashing dream, or, my favorite, the scene where the girl’s tied up and realizes she’s in bed with the killer. I’m a pretty hardened viewer and I rarely “feel” the suspense in these movies, but I bought that scene hook line and sinker. And of course there’s lots of sleaze and gore which I feel dutifully fits the grittiness of the subject matter and adds to the overall raw ambiance of the film, and isn’t just for shock value. I was on the edge about Lucio Fulci and giallos in general, but I can honestly say the uncut version of this was a revelation for me. Highly recommended.
365. Gothic (1986) **: Fucking bizarre tale of Mary and Percy Shelley’s “year without a summer” trip to Lord Byron’s place in Switzerland which spawned Frankenstein. It’s not so much bizarre in content (though there is an overload of stylized techniques that’s more jarring than anything else), but the fact that you’re watching key literary characters running amok in some low budget Vestron home video. Unique idea, I guess, but the end result is more style than substance.
364. Night of the Living Dead (30th anniversary edition) zilch: “Hey, let’s fuck up this stone cold masterpiece with a bullshit midi soundtrack and some nonsensical side story that fucks up the flow of the movie?” The new sequences add nothing new and just frustrate anyone who’s see the orig. Who gave the go ahead for this?
364. The Strange World of Coffin Joe (1968) ****: An absolute revelation, start to finish. A horror anthology like only Marins can do. The first story is fairly typical faire about a doll maker, his 4 daughters and some bandits. That Marins can take a fairly standard story like this and make it sizzle with sex and his very unique film style is a true testament to the man’s craft. The next bit has no dialogue, but it’s important to note that Marins’ films have some of the best scores you can hope to hear; very raw and primitive atmospheric soundscapes. I’m sure the bulk of the score is recycled stock sound effects, but in a way that’s the essence of Marins’ work: making a low budget effect as effective as possible. As for the story, it’s about a deformed balloon carrying hunchback (similar to This Night I Will Possess Your Corpse’s Bruno) who pines after a beautiful woman. The woman dies, and the hunchback eventually has his way with her. It’s a grizzly subject, but at the same time because of the technique there’s a certain beauty to it all, very emotionally evocative indeed. The next short is the real meat of the film, where “Professor Oaxiac” (Caixão backwards, duh) expounds upon Ze do Caixão’s world philosophy on a talk show later more prominently featured in Awakening of the Beast, which is essentially that “instinct” (primal instinct, the id, if you will) is the ruling force of man, and that love, hate, spirituality, etc., are just masks man uses to hide his true nature. Ze—er—“Professor Oaxiac” eventually lures a dissenting panelist on the show back to his house and subjects him and his wife to a “burlesque show” of various subjects whom he’s converted to their “true selves.” Ze eventually subjects the couple to these experiments in a brilliant reworking of the Genesis myth, eventually proving that love, and by extension human emotion, doesn’t exist, and we’re all primitive animals inside. That there are no repercussions for Ze’s philosophy, or the necrophile’s actions in the 2nd segment, makes for a truly unique and diabolical film experience. There’re really no words that can do this man’s films justice, and I really can’t recommend his movies enough.
363. The Doctor and the Devils (1985) **: Really well done period piece about a zealous anatomy doctor (Dr. Rock) who pays some derelicts (Broom and Fallon) for fresh bodies to dissect, going against the academy’s policy. The doctor kind of knows, but doesn’t want to acknowledge the fact that said derelicts are killing the people they’re bringing him. The film succeeds in conveying both the madness of Doctor Rock in his goals to advance medicine and the economic desperation of Broom and Fallon’s world. Well layered and executed all the way through.
362. The Fog (1980) *: Fog rolls in. There’re killers in the fog. You get stabbed. And there’s lots of downtime in between. A well executed film, but didn’t really leave me feeling anything.
361. The Kiss (1988) **: A really religious mom dies and her supermodel sister moves in. Only problem is: SHE’S A WITCH! Very “cheesy” very “80’s,” some okay death scenes, an evil cat (“FUCK YOU FELIX”), but nothing to really make you go nuts.
360. Prom Night III (1990) zilch: Horror comedy that kind of plays as a slasher parody, which by 1990 was a subject that was doing a good enough job parodying itself. Plot? Uh, some ghost chick is haunting a high school and makes this AVERAGE (a point PAINFULLY stressed) teenager do her bidding by boning him behind his goody two shoes (and living) girlfriend’s back. Dude eventually gets in over his head as you might imagine, and the body count rises. For a “fun” movie, this wasn’t very fun to watch, and dragged pretty hard.
359. Diary of the Dead (1976) *: It’s a shame, because the acting and overall execution isn’t too bad on this one, but the basic premise is just fucking retarded. Okay, so this husband and wife live with the wife’s stingy mom who doesn’t like the husband and is an overall bummer. The husband gets it in his head he’s gotta kill the old broad, so when she invites her presumably equally naggy old friend over who dies of a heart attack while the mom-in-law’s asleep, the husband SOMEHOW figures he can pass the dead friend off as the mom-in-law and then he can kill the mom-in-law and get away with it. Okay (???), so he calls for an ambulance, saying that his mother-in-law died, but at this point the real mother-in-law wakes up and dies of a heart attack, so he’s got two dead bodies, has done nothing illegal, but decides he’s still gonna pass the mom-in-law’s friend off as the mom-in-law for some reason, and bury the real dead mom-in-law (who he didn’t actually kill, remember) in his backyard. The film goes through the motions of him ineptly covering his tracks and different people suspecting him of doing whatever, but at that point you really just don’t care what happens to the guy at all, ‘cause he blew it from the start. Like I said, surprisingly decent execution on everyone’s part, but when the “criminal” hasn’t really done anything wrong it’s hard to care one way or the other what happens to him.
358. The Changeling (1988) **1/2: Decent post-shining haunted house piece. I generally can’t get behind that motif, but it’s saved by some genuinely creepy scenes (skeleton hand in the well, cool old timey wheel chair) and a fleshed out story about a wrongful heir to a fortune. Good stuff, but a bit, uh, mature for my tastes.
357. Ganja & Hess (1973) ****: One of the best I’ve seen all year, no doubt. I saw this first as Blood Couple and was floored by the radical afrocentric reworking of the vampire motif, but Blood Couple puts the horror aspect at the forefront, whereas the original version (the directors cut, roughly ½ an hour longer) Ganja and Hess draws more attention to Bill Gunn’s fantastic technique, and the characters are decidedly less “vampyric.” The score (more phenomenal psyched out atmospheric soundscape stuff) interplays with the characters in a really effective manner, and the monologues are PERFECT. There’s a very free, borderline Paul Morrissey approach to the dialogue, where you get the sense that Gunn just started filming and let what happened happen, but when you realize that the monologues play a crucial role to the development of the plot and characters, its clear that the opposite is true and these segments were heavily scripted and directed, and it’s the skill of the actors and directors and material that makes these segments feel so natural. It’s painful for me to watch such exquisite delivery of dialogue, and then watch newer dialogue heavy flicks like Kevin Smith or Tarrentino’s stuff where the lengthy monologues come off as unnatural and take the viewer out of the film. If they could do it right in ’73, why not now? Fucking frustrating, especially considering the relative obscurity of Gunn’s career. Anyways, Gunn essentially uses the vampire myth as an allegory for the dominance of Christian culture over the African identity, and shows the potential for using something an unassuming as a horror movie to convey broader social issues. Obviously he wasn’t the first film maker to utilize this potential, but he did it in such a unique and effective way as to merit the awe of anyone who actually cares about film.
356) Diary of a Madman (1963) **: You’d go bonkers if Vincent Price was your inner voice too! Some cool effects in this, like all the floating stuff and the morphing of the clay, but this just ain’t really my bag. Very “psychological” and Poe-esque, and basically over my attention span.
355) Parasite (1997) zilch: If you’re doing some modern day no budget digital video bullshit don’t think you can pull the wool over our eyes with a serious plot and act like nothing’s wrong, okay? Some witch has the hots for some Irish professor dude (a scientist who has no faith in the supernatural, of course) and slowly begins the process of ruining his life through magic. You can guess the rest, but probably shouldn’t waste your time. Respect for having an all grown up cast, but the biggest challenge of doing a low budget movie is making it work for you, not aspiring to be some middle of the road forgettable pap like this.
354) Candyman 3 (1997) zilch
353) Candyman 2 (1995) zilch
352) Candyman (1992) *: Alright, so I lined all these up and made a night of it. What a fucking retarded “franchise.” It’s like they started out trying to buck all the slasher clichés (no mask, no gratuitous nudity/sexism, *gasp* HE’S BLACK!), but of course falls into the biggest slasher cliché of them all, which is a bunch of nonsensical sequels. The first flick is good enough for a PC horror movie: chick calls on Candyman, Candyman kills people close to her thus implementing her as the killer, chick dies trying to protect a kid Candyman’s after, and becomes the new Candyman. Whatever, at least it’s a story. The second flick tries to expatiate on the Candyman myth, how he was an educated Blackman who got killed in the south for having a fling with a white lady (which they said in the first one, and was good enough), but he was also the secret granddaddy of some white lady, and he kind of wants to fuck her or something…I dunno, it’s all really confused, really. Like, take Freddy Kreuger; he’s got a crazy burnt up face and gnarly claws, and if you go to sleep, he’s gonna cut you up. Pretty simple, right? Candyman, it’s like, he was stung to death by bees, so if you see bees around you know he’s coming, but his face isn’t stung up or anything, really he’s just a smooth looking brother, and also he has a hook ‘cause his hand was cut off, oh, and he comes if you say his name in the mirror, but he might not kill you, he might just kill people around you and then you gotta worry about the cops…Oh, but he also might just kill you…With bees…Or that hook. But if you’re related to him, uh…He wants you to come with him? Where? I dunno, it’s fucking stupid. Way too cluttered.
351) Reflections of Evil (2002) ****: Okay, this isn’t really a horror movie, but I bought it solely based on the title which sounded like a horror movie, and the fact that it was $2 and had no description on the case whatsoever, thus further enticing my curiosity. In reality Reflections of Evil is a modern experimental, borderline outlaw independent film funded, produced, directed, staring, edited and released by my new favorite modern filmmaker, Daniel Packard. It’s hard to nail down an exact “plot” with this film, as Reflections floods the viewer with a barrage of seemingly nonsensical scenes, but basically Packard plays a sugar addicted street person hawking watches to everyone he passes (but never makes a sale), lives with his nagging mom and eventually is sought after by his sister who may or may not be alive. There’re a lot of flashbacks and psychedelic effects, but what makes Reflections so effective isn’t its surreal passages, but the very REAL feel of the film. For instance, the scenes where Packard walks the streets and is perpetually getting in verbal confrontations with everyone he passes, missing busses, and gaining layers and layers of clothing and pairs of headphones translates to one of the most effective translations of Southern California street life you’re likely to find on film. Modern mainstream entertainment (namely film) is routinely parodied through the juxtaposition of the comically slovenly Packard with various film glossy film advertisements like Miss Congeniality decorating the confrontation riddled streets, and there are of course the segments from other films and television lifted (stolen) for effect. The segment filmed at the ET ride at Universal studios with Spielberg’s voice MERCILESSLY overdubbed is my favorite of the “most certainly copyright infringement” segments. Basically this is a true independent vision laced with heavy doses of comedy derived from a satirical contempt for modern culture and a completely idiosyncratic technique. Must be seen to be believed!
350) Bandh Darwaza (1990) ***: Excellent “Bollywood” horror production from the Ramsay brothers, who are supposedly the masters of this sort of thing. I’d love to see more of their flicks. In Bandh Darwaza a wife who can’t get pregnant turns to “the black mountain,” which is sort of an evil cult with a Dracula-esque figurehead, who gives her a child (she sleeps with the Drac guy to get knocked up, so it was likely the husband’s retard at fault, but whatever) on the condition that if it’s a girl, she has to give the brat to the black mountain. It is, of course, so to break the deal the family has to kill the Drac dude so that they can keep the baby. And that’s just the first ten minutes or so! The bulk of the story takes place in modern times and centers around the current woman of the family who’s kind of a “bad girl” (I mean, she’s Dracula guy’s daughter, what do you expect) and pines after a local dude who’s not feeling her. She eventually gets lured back to the Black Mountain to get some hoodoo to cast on her would-be beau, thus bringing the very cool Dracula guy back in the mix. The movie’s a bit longer than the average Western horror flick, clocking in at 145 minutes, and is complete with comic relief, lots of faux-martial arts, some heavy borrowing from popular American films of the time, and of course song and dance numbers. All that might add up to a kitsch novelty film if it wasn’t for the fact that there’s a really great atmosphere and cheap spooky aesthetic, very much reminiscent of old Hammer horror. If you’re a castles and fog type (and I am), this film delivers in spades. It is, of course, such a radically different and refreshing approach to horror that it’s tempting to get caught up in the “exoticness” of it all, but I really feel like this is a great horror film in its own right. Mondo Macabro has a 2xDVD set with this and the excellent Purana Mandir which should whet anyone who’s curious’ appetite for more Bollywood horror.
349) Video Violence (1987) **1/2
348) Video Violence II (1989) **1/2 Two cool SOV (shot on video) “classics” on one DVD! As an ex-video clerk, there’re a lot of jokes that I found a lot funnier than the average person (“people only ever want to rent the new releases!”), and I did see VVII when I was a youngin,’ but I think anyone who’s a remote fan of 80’s slashers can appreciate this somewhat outsider take on the genre. The basic plot--City folk open a video store and country folk start acting awful funny when the city folk start making a stink about someone dropping a snuff film in the return box--is a transparent vehicle to move from death scene to death scene as more snuff tapes get discovered. The death scenes aren’t your Savini faire, that’s for sure, but basically this is the type of flick where you just gotta get down with the vibes, which are fucking phenomenal. These are truly independent films with the purest of intention: to entertain, and maybe make some money. You can tell everyone involved is enjoying themselves, and I can honestly say there’s a better story and more interesting theme (the strange phenomenon of sleazy horror vhs at the time, which this film gleefully acknowledges it’s a part of) than you’ll find in your average big studio slasher sequel. Speaking of sequels, Video Violence II is a great coda to the first film that actually acknowledges the events of the original Video Violence (kind of rare in the horror sequel game) and has lots of callbacks for people who’ve seen the first movie. It also does a good job at erasing any shades of doubt the viewer might have that the people in charge of these are doing anything but having a good time. I’d say both these films do a good job at poking fun at a genre while still providing enough sex and violence to alienate anyone who’s not already on board. Great stuff.
347) Cutting Room (2006) **: Zero budget slasher that knows exactly how shitty it is. This is for-the-fans-by-the-fans trash that gets off through sheer lack of pretension alone. Should you put an iota of effort into seeing this? No, but I found a copy of the “Fatal Femmes” 2xDVD that has 6 movies (this included) for $5, and I can honestly say I got my money’s worth and was far more entertained and felt better as a person watching this than any modern, slick looking, mainstream horror flick. There’s also a preeeeetty lurid female masturbation scene that I got to give the filmmakers credit for. Most films of these type hold off on the sex in favor of fake blood, but this dude goes there, respect.
346) Up For Rent (2006) **: Another part of the “Fatal Femmes” 2xDVD, which is a bunch of Z E R O budget digital camera joints, this one being a horror anthology centering around a realtor going over all the terrible stuff that’s happened in an apartment that’s, yep, “up for rent.” There’s a jealous and kinda crazy girl who offs her boyfriend for presumed infidelity, a run-of-the-mill serial killing, and the best segment, “Wannabe Deadly” about a dude obsessed with being the word’s smartest serial killer who’s really inept. There’s some legitimately funny moments in that segment when the guy has his fantasies about how a murder will work out and be received by the press, and how it actually happens. Again, this is GARBAGE as far as any technical aspect of filmmaking is concerned, but if you’re into the spirit of people just making movies and not being held back by budget constraints or any sort of social norm of what constitutes a “good” movie, then this is a fine example of how enjoyable a barely competent independent genre picture can be.
345) I Am Legend (2007) *: I dunno, is this a horror movie? IMDB says it’s an Action / Drama / Fantasy / Horror / Sci-Fi / Thriller, and there are rampaging mobs of zombie things so….Yeah, I’ll count it. So is it good? Oh, god no. The film’s premise—Will Smith is the last guy on earth and is trying to find a cure for a plague that’s wiped out Manhattan—is far too dark for standard blockbuster fluff, and it’s handled in too goody-two-shoes a way to be a dark fluff film, like 12 Monkey or Fight Club or something. That’s the problem in a nutshell, is this flick’s so PAINFULLY middle of the road (homeboy uses Shrek and Bob Marley to illustrate his points…Way to go over the heads of NO ONE) that I can’t imagine anyone REALLY likes or dislikes this flick enough to even remember it in a few years. I mean, they got my $10, so they win, fine, but at least do a good enough Hollywood razzle dazzle job that I don’t spend the whole time scratching my head over plot holes and wondering why I should care about this character at all. It’s slick enough to take up two hours and not make you walk out of the theatre, so watch it or don’t, your life won’t be affected either way.
344) Boggy Creek II (1977) zilch
343) Return to Boggy Creek (1982) zilch: Holy shit these were painful. I had to watch Return to Boggy Creek in two sittings and go to a friend’s house to watch Boggy Creek II because I didn’t have the faith in myself that I could sit through it without fast forwarding or slitting my wrists. A bunch of hicks and Bigfoot, who fucking cares. If you must, go with Return to Boggy Creek (the second in a trilogy, which concludes with Boggy Creek II…Huh?), ‘cause the attempts at the authentic Cajun accents are good for a cheap laugh at least. The big time suspense in Boggy Creek II is they get chased into a house by a dog…Oh, and the girls get the jeep stuck in the mud and have to *gasp* READ THE MANUAL (don’t worry, it’s in the glove box) to figure out how to work the four wheel drive! PG rated fun for the whole family, if your family’s a retard.
342) Demonia (1990) **: Later Fulci flick with two killer death scenes (dude getting split in half and a bunch of cats killing an old lady), a crucified nun, and not much else to keep your interest. Canadian archeologists go searching for ancient Greek artifacts, inadvertently fuck with some cursed dark ages shit and local yokels, and you can guess the rest. It’s an okay flick if you go for this sort of thing.
341) Terror and Black Lace ***: Oooh, I liked this one! Really cool Mexican thriller/horror flick about a possessive husband and his wife who live on the top floor, a music historian with a hair fetish who lives beneath them, and 3 independent women types who live below him. The technique was exceptional, and there were moments of genuine suspense as well as really unconventional plot development. The things you expect to happen don't really happen, but not in an arbitrary "TWIST!" kind of way either. In fact, I think it might be the film's lack of gimmicks that made it so appealing, actually; there's not a lot of blood, there's not a lot of nudity, but there's enough of both to maintain that certain luridness which makes these kind of movies work. Absolutely phenomenal genre picture which I highly recommend.
340) Nightkill (1980) *: Shitty husband gets murdered for money, the wife should call the cops but doesn’t, you don’t really care beyond that point. Everything looks real “Dynasty” too. Whatever.
339) Dead and Buried (1981) **: Surprisingly good Vestron joint with REALLY well done death scenes and an actually well developed story for this kind of movie. The movie starts strong, with a guy getting baited by a chick and burned alive by some fishermen and basically just keeps up the pace. Hobos get slashed up, some dude gets a needle in the eye, and when you start seeing these people walking around again, you know something’s up. You’re not exactly sure why these people are being killed, or why they’re being seen around town, but as the main cop in the flick learns more, so do you, and all-in-all, it’s not as stupid as you might think. Fine film indeed.
338) Purana Mandir (1984) ***: Great Bollywood horror that was supposedly responsible for setting off a sort of “horror boom” in India for a few years. As mentioned in the Bandh Darwaza review, there are a lot of stylistically typical aspects at play that would be out of place in a Western horror pic, such as song and dance numbers and comic relief, but overall there’s a great atmosphere and story that should appeal to any horror fan who favors the older b-movie aesthetic. The plot revolves around a boyfriend and girlfriend trying to break the curse of Saamri, a really cool looking demon who placed a curse on the girlfriend’s ancestors, thus preventing the boyfriend and girlfriend from marrying. The two bring along their friends, the male sidekick being a real mustachioed machismo oozer who spends a bulk of his screen time kicking stuff, and then shit starts to hit the fan; Saamri comes back from the dead, the superstitious country folk try to sacrifice the boyfriend and girlfriend to Kali, and the machismo oozer starts up a racket by capturing and freeing a notorious bandit for the reward money. Again, the flick’s 145 minutes long, so it has time to fit all that stuff in. All the DVD extras say that this is probably the best Indian horror flick out there, so do yourself a favor and dig in.
337) Evil Eye (1974) *: Not much to say here. Pretty forgettable Italian supernatural giallo without enough sex or death scenes to keep me interested.
336) Catholic Ghoulgirls (2005) *: Zero budget schlock centering around campy horror clichés (schoolgirl outfits, zombies, whatever) and a lot of interjections of really annoying “totally 80’s” pop culture references and Kevin Smith style dialogue. Completely horrible, of course, but it’s a bunch of buddies with a camera fucking around, you can’t really be too critical of a film like this.
335) Candle in the Dark (2002) *: Looks like a video a family would make after Thanks Giving. There’s a goody goody girl who’s new college roommate is a “goth,” and since there’s a bunch of vampire murders on campus, the “goth” girl becomes the #1 suspect. I was really hoping the “goth” chick would be more over the top and cheesy, but she’s kind of just dressed like a secretary or something. Unless you’re a fan of zero budget ineptitude, though, you probably won’t be able to watch this. If you are a fan of zero budget ineptitude, this is still barely passable.
334) The Bewitching (2006) zilch: Skinimax style softcore centering about a, uh, witch? Who comes to Las Vegas? And she sleeps with a bunch of dudes, but she’s not supposed to for some reason? The best part is there’s a group of guys, a white guy, a black dude and an Asian, and both the black and white dude get laid by the witch, but the Asian guy gets left out. Such a dick move! And your average uncut Jess Franco film has way more titillation than this, so I’d say this even fails at pornography. This is really THEE lowest of the low as far as just about any form of entertainment goes, so it’s nice to watch a movie like this and think “okay, I’ve officially hit rock bottom as far as what I’ll allow to take up my time.”
333) Awful Dr. Orloff (1962) **: Black and white castles, shadows and fog like only the Europeans can do it. This particular European happens to be Jess Franco, who went on to do some really beautiful avant-garde horror/softcore in the 70’s, but this is a slice of his early straight forward work. The story goes, this Dr. Orlof starts taking girls and using their skin to make his daughter who got deformed in a lab experiment beautiful again. With these kind of movies it’s more about the atmosphere and feel of the imagery rather than the linear plot, though, and this is a great spooky slice of gothic noir.
332) Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) ***: Really beautiful piece of cinema here. Having the opening scenes shot from the perspective of Dr. Jeckyll establishes a great tone, and the execution of the Hyde character is excellent. A lot of the transformation scenes are surprisingly sophisticated for the time and the dynamics of the abusive relationship between Hyde and Ivy are brilliantly sculpted. This is a really great watch, for sure.
331) Prom Night (1980) *: I think this is cannon in the 80’s slasher genre, but I’m not really feeling this one. There’s really not enough blood to make a story like this work, and the mystery killer should be no mystery at all. All in all, this is just a bit too middle of the road for my tastes.
330) Delerium (1979) **: Genuinely entertaining and watchable action/horror flick that starts out as just an average “killer on the loose/copper on his trail” type flick, but eventually you learn that the killer is actually part of a secret group of vigilantes who off criminals who’ve gotten off on technicalities. The psycho killer is an old army buddy of the Telly Savalas-like ringleader of the vigilante group, and, well, eventually everything goes to pot as you might imagine. Great death scenes and an overall cheap grittiness will keep you watching.
329) Shadowzone (1990) zilch: This basically plays like a bad Alien ripoff, which is one of my least favorite genres, up there with Jaws ripoffs. There’s a bunch of scientists in an underground bunker and some dumb portals open, I think a creature gets through, and there’s some secret plot amongst the scientists? I dunno, obviously this is a pretty forgettable claustrophobic sci-fi/horror joint from the Full Moon people. I will say there’re some adequate pre-CGI special effects, which is cool, but not cool enough.
328) When the Screaming Stops (1974) ***: Killer Amando de Ossorio joint based around the Lorelei myth (German folklore, think the sirens) with some pretty grizzly death scenes involving a monster clawing schoolgirls and blind dudes, complete with organs getting ripped out. Lots of, uh, “buxom” Euro femme fatales and an alpha male hunter type who’s trying to kill the monster. I definitely dug this one.
327) Blue Monkey (1987) zilch: ZILCH, ZILCH, FUCKING ZILCH! I wish I could yell that in everyone responsible for this mess’s ears (except Joe Flaherty, I’d just shake his hand). What you got here’s a shitty monster movie about giant bugs in a hospital with a bunch of fucking kids running around being “cute” and some old ladies being “funny” and me wanting to commit “suicide” while watching this trash for 90 minutes. The lighting was actually pretty cool, and if you’re a fan of rubber monsters, this film’s got that, but by and large, ugh, no thanks.
326) Waxwork II (1992) **: Y’know, this really ain’t too bad. It starts with the chick from the first Waxwork coming home after her and her boyfriend just burned down the evil wax museum from the first movie. A crawling hand from the wax museum follows her home and kills her dad in an obvious nod to Evil Dead II, and she has to stand trial, both for the murder and burning down the wax museum. Somehow her and her boyfriend travel through “time” (or more accurately, different movie parodies, including Alien, Frankenstein, a Hitchcock type flick and some fantasy movie and lots of others) trying to prove her innocence by capturing the crawling hand. This is straight to video crud, but I have to admit it’s pretty entertaining crud with lots of tributes to old horror flicks and decent grossout special effects (including a projectile Frankenstein brain), and of course a Bruce Campbell cameo for cred. Not a bad flick to check out if it falls in your lap and you aren’t totally opposed to intentionally “campy” 90’s junk.
325) Demon Keeper (1994) **: Story goes, a bunch of people, some skeptics, some believers, go to a séance at a spooky house with a real medium and a phony one. Phony medium tries to prove himself to the real one and accidentally conjures up this awesome demon who looks like a cross between the devil from Legend and a Mortal Kombat character. I think this is from the Full Moon family, so expect lots of cheesy, but kind of competent special effects and lite T&A. But, also expect a gnarly giant rubber suit demon dude feeling up chicks. Seriously, I’m very partial to satanic imagery in my horror movies, so I just say back and had a great time watching a demon cut up yuppies for 90 minutes.
324) Bleed (2002) *: Typical post-Scream whodunit straight to video slasher, BUT, all the actors involved look like porn people, very LA glam, y’know what I mean? There’re lots of good looking (again, too good looking in an artificial way) naked guys and girls and an overall mean spirited and un-PC vibe, which kind of goes against the teen marketing of your average faux-Scream type flick, so that’s a bit refreshing. Total garbage, but still watchable.
323) Winter Lily (1998) *: This is a really weird Canadian straight to video psychological thriller about a guy who stays at a bed and breakfast and becomes infatuated with the daughter (who may or may not be dead) of the owners through reading her diary. The girl’s mom’s a little off her rocker, and they’re stuck in a cabin in the dead of winter, so things get stranger and stranger as you might guess. There’re a lot of weird incestuous and pedophilic undertones and a very convoluted and clumsy plot and I can’t help but wonder why anyone would want to make or see this movie. I will say it at least attempts to be unique without being cheap and stylistically obtrusive, so it’s not bad for a little indie flick, but not something I’d ever want to see again.
322) Fallen Angels (2002) zilch: Catholic schoolgirls accidentally burn down their school while being attacked by a killer and come with a film crew years later to make a documentary on the fires (which no one should care about, but there are still huge protests outside of the school for some reason), and someone starts killing the film crew and girls. Trite and shitty post-Scream style lite-slasher that can’t possibly appeal to anybody. About the only decent part was watching a bunch of English (possibly Irish) actors fake a US accent. God-awful.
321) Ax ‘Em (’92?) ***: I’ll admit I’m being generous with the three star rating, but this below-zero budget slasher actually plays a lot more interesting than a lot of canonical horror flicks. This is a black filmmaker and predominantly black cast doing more of an updated blaxploitation picture than the socially conscious Spike Lee thing that was more popular at the time. Again, this is REALLY REALLY low budget, as in you can’t hear what’s being said a lot of the time, and there’s about a two inch border around the actual movie; no, it’s not widescreen, the left, right, top and bottom of the film are surrounded by a black border, presumably so the film is more condensed has a higher quality (doesn’t help much, trust me). Large chunks of dialogue are very obviously improvised, including long “doing the dozens” segments (my favorite: “Yo mama so dumb she was in a shoot up and got stabbed”), which gives the film a very loose and freewheeling feel. Uh, large chunks of the plot might be improvised too, as the actual events that transpire are a bit vague. There’re a bunch of black college students spending the week in a cabin, and there’s a burly and pretty convincingly creepy brother in a flannel with a (you guessed it) ax, and you can pretty much guess what happens next. There’s lots of kitsch due to the era of the film, like giant green leather jackets with Mickey Mouse on the back, and a legit “homey don’t play that” line. Oh, you know that bit you’d see a lot in old Apollo standup routines that goes something like “white people are crazy, you seen Poltergeist? If a brother heard a house say ‘get out,’ he’d be out of there, but white people gonna try and stay!” Yeah, you get to see that scenario in action in this flick. Overall, yes, this is a very obviously flawed film, but there are a lot of genuinely funny moments and interesting techniques that hold my interest more than many slicker looking, generic horror films.
320) The Terror (1963) **: Cool spooky Corman flick about a mysterious girl, a mysterious old witch and a mysterious castle. This isn’t a particularly great flick, but you do get to see a YOUNG Jack Nicholson, Dick Miller and Boris Karloff in action, and it’s co-produced by Francis Ford Coppola, so this is a nice slice of Hollywood trivia in addition to being a fun, if not slightly generic, low budget supernatural thriller.
319) The Werewolf of Paxton Hall (1994?) ***: Don’t go crazy trying to find this one, ‘cause I believe it’s a student film that never got mass produced. It’s essentially a black and white half hour tribute to the old European horror style with, yes, castles, shadows and fog and a really well established gothic ambiance. It’s a story about a man who asks his brother, a priest in training, to kill him because he’s been turning into a wolf and killing people. The production levels, costumes and acting are so far above what you’d expect for something like this that it really catches you off guard how good it is. The overall execution is just superb, and it really makes me wish there was an underground of filmmakers who just made completely non-commercially viable black and white European gothic style horror films with little blood and lots of ambiance. It sure would be a lot more interesting than a bunch of misguided digital effects ridden 80’s American slasher throwbacks like you have now. I did some research and I don’t think any of the principle filmmakers for this number ever did anything in movies again, and there’s not even a listing for it on IMDB, so that’s what a well crafted story and atmosphere gets you. If anyone involved in this movie googles this review, hit me with an e-mail, I’d love to talk.
318) The Craft (1996) **: This is probably the pinnacle of PC 90’s teen friendly horror, and in theory embodies everything I should hate, but after throwing it in with a friend of mine for a laugh, I gotta say, this isn’t THAT bad. It kind of plays like a dumbed down PG Dario Argento number, with the CGI not becoming too obtrusive ‘til the end. It’s pretty, it’s clean, it’s safe, but seeing as we’re in a time now where we can look back at the late 90’s post-Scream teen flick trend as a thing of the past, this flick’s a lot less obnoxious than you’d imagine. Oooh, sequel in 2008, that should be a tremendous pile of dogshit, no?
317) Human Beasts (1980) ***: This is a neat little Paul Naschy flick where Naschy plays a ruthless hitman hired by some Japanese insurgents looking to steal some diamonds to fund a revolution. Even though he falls in love with one of the insurgents, he IS still ruthless, so he steals the diamonds, kills all of the insurgents except the girl, and shacks up at some white folks’ mansion in the middle of rural Japan. The place seems like a safe haven at first, BUT IS IT REALLY? Naschy does a great job at developing the family the hitman stays with from kind, to eccentric, to really fucked up. The film delivers in spades all the grit you want from an exploitation flick, and there’s actually an interesting story underneath it all. I’d love a DVD of this though, because the quality of the VHS transfer leaves something to be desired.
316) Dracula Vs. Frankenstein (1971) **: Wow, this is VERY campy, very drive-in, very b-movie, but really fun to watch. The acting is atrocious, and the premise is laughable, but if you’re in the mood for a stereotypically corny b-movie, here you go. Dracula does look legitimately cool, though. Unfortunately my VHS is in EP which got in the way of some great moments for sure. Gotta hunt down a cheapy DVD, I guess.
315) Killer Barbys (1996) ***: As a Franco fanboy, I loved this, but I’ll admit it is pretty cheesy. An actual Spanish rock band Killer Barbies (they sound like a bar rock Ramones with a va-va-voom female singer) gets a flat tire and has to spend the night in the castle of an Elizabeth Bathory type Countess who’s seducing and killing members of the band and their entourage while her rural creep minions do their part in picking off members of the group as well. On one hand the film’s very obviously and heavy handedly an over-the-top camp number, but there are some grizzly death scenes and the Countess looks VERY cool, and of course there’s all the T&A you’d expect in a Franco film, so though this is a “fun” movie, there’s enough legit horror for genre fans to get behind.
314) Neon Maniacs (1986) **: Very “80’s” slasher revolving around some monsters who only come out at night (like neon, get it?) and hack up teenagers. Their only weakness? The impossibly scarce substance known as “water.” Yeah, water. Each monster is a unique and basically arbitrary character, like “The Hangman,” “Samurai,” “the Indian,” etc. Either the filmmakers thought this film would get big enough to merit action figures, or they were sitting around one day trying to figure out how to fit the Village People into a horror movie. It’s crap, it’s camp, it’s fun, why not?
313) Rawhead Rex (1986) **: Here’s a pretty competent and serious horror flick about this giant monster (who thankfully is never directly referred to by the goofy name of the film) terrorizing Ireland. It’s a pretty straight supernatural monster movie and with corrupt priests and a focus on pagan Irish folklore. Not sold? Okay, there’s a scene where the monster’s peeing on a priest, and if that doesn’t get you on board, nothing will.
312) Phantom of the Mall (1989) **: Another cheesy and “totally 80’s” slasher. This might even be the same mall they used in Chopping Mall, actually. Plot? Uh, mall opens up, and there’s this guy, a “phantom,” if you will, who’s behind the scenes watching over everything on closed circuit cameras and killing the baddies in a variety of somewhat inventive but not exactly noteworthy death scenes. Paulie Shore’s in it, too, as if the movie wasn’t kitschy enough as it is.
311) Frankenstein (1984) n/a: Here’s a made for British TV Frankenstein starring Carrie Fisher. I fell asleep halfway through, but my girlfriend says it’s pretty good, despite looking like a soap opera. I guess I’ll have to stay conscious while watching it next time.
310) Mausoleum (1983) **: Here you have a good wife who cleans house, cooks, keeps to herself, but every now and then BECOMES A DEMON WOMAN POSESSED AND TALKS BACK TO HER HUSBAND AND WANTS SEEEEEX!!! I know being un-PC is part of the horror genre’s charm, but I gotta wonder if this writer knew he was showing all his cards here with this old values woman/post-feminist possession bit? With one of the writers, this is his only work, and the other previously did the new waver flick Blank Generation, so maybe the chauvinist undertones are meant as satire? Part of me would like to believe one of these guys was going through a divorce and wanted to make a film that showed the TRUE nature of these “new women.” Oh man, and check out the ridiculously stereotypical “mammy” type made and perverted Mexican gardener. What a sketchy flick! Regardless, this is pretty decent and overall watchable with some okay death scenes and good enough special effects work.
309) Blackout (1985) *: A man snaps one day and murders his family, then gets in a car crash with another man, and the only survivor of the crash has total amnesia. Is he the killer, or did the killer die? Either way, the survivor starts his life a new with the nurse who helped him recover, but there’s a retired police chief who won’t let this case go! Interesting enough premise, I suppose. The best part by far is the curmudgeonly retired cop, Richard Widmark, who spends the movie spouting off faux tough guy lines like “not on my fuckin’ beat!” that translate more like “get off my lawn!” This is definitely more of a “suspense/thriller/mystery” than a horror, but there’s an “inescapable evil nature of man” theme at play here which horror fans will find familiar.
308) Black Candles (1982) **: A José Ramón Larraz (Vampyres) joint about a Satanic cult and all the sex they have. A chick fucks a goat and a dude gets a sword in the butt, all for Satan. This is basically evil softcore with no major plot points, but whatever, good sleaze as far as sleaze goes.
307) Blood and Black Lace (1965) ***: AKA Sei donne per l'assassino. I’m a big fan of MARIO Bava’s work, especially his 60’s stuff, and this is a feast or all things vintage Bava: You got your femme fatales, tons of spooky lighting and ambiance, gritty subject matter, it’s all here. I don’t always walk away from an old Bava flick with the feeling that I’ve seen a great story, and I can’t even remember the specifics of what happened here (it’s a run of the mill whodunit with a bunch of fashion models getting slashed up), but his films always have such ambiance through simple lighting effects and stunning looking actors. Truly a master craftsman making really beautiful films.
306) Nosferatu (1922) ***: Obviously a classic and beautiful looking movie. So many of the sections are iconic and embedded in the public consciousness that it’s somewhat difficult to take this at face value, but it’s a no brainer classic that’s thoroughly rewarding to watch.
305) Nosferatu (1979) ***: This plays like a loving homage to the original with some of the imagery (namely the rats) kicked up a notch for modern viewers. Definitely worth seeing in conjunction with the original.
304) The Hitcher (1986) *: Here’s a not-very-thrilling thriller about an arbitrarily crazy and seemingly endlessly clever and resourceful psycho killer who hitchhikes along a random stretch of highway killing whoever picks him up. When one college aged kid gets away, the movie drags ON AND ON AND ON with the psycho guy kind of stalking the kid and setting him up for murders and just generally putting way too much effort into tormenting the poor kid. I have no problem with ridiculous, far fetched plot devices, and I’m not the “oh come on, that could never happen” type, but when a movie basis its premise on a very real human fear (that a hitchhiker or stranger is out to kill you), the development of the plot should stay in that realm of reality, which this fails at miserably. Improbable twist begets improbable twist to the point where you really don’t care anymore and just want out. I suppose the technical aspects are handled decently, this is a standard “real movie” for normal people, and it is possible to watch it all the way through, I just can’t imagine there’s any reason to.
303) Horrors of the Red Planet (1965) *: Really dated and corny drive in sci-fi fair about some astronauts who get stranded on mars and come across a sort of haunted castle. There’s one VERY cool scene involving the frozen Martian ghost thingies, though, and a fun cheap aesthetic throughout. Fans of older cheesy sci-fi climb aboard, everyone else prepare to be bored.
302) Curse of the Bigfoot (1976) zilch: Oof, this is an epic in bad! The movie starts with a lady doing some gardening who gets attacked by a laughably bad bigfoot monster. Twist, that segment’s just an example of a cheesy old monster movie that’s being shown in a high school classroom. The teacher goes on to talk more about bigfoots to this class full of 70’s Spicoli ass looking stoners, and then you get a bunch of stock footage of the Himalayans and loggers and what have you, which leads to a short segment with some flannel clad hicks and their bigfoot encounter. Thankfully an expert on the subject comes in to set the class straight on cryptozoology (in high school, remember), and the rest of the film is an obviously separately filmed early 60’s teen creature flick that’s supposed to be a story the expert tells the kids about this bigfoot creature, except that after the kids in that story SET THE BIGFOOT ON FIRE, the film ends and doesn’t go back to the classroom at all. This is a giant hodgepodge of shit that fails on so many levels that I have to recommend it to people who get off watching the lowest of the low in old b movies. Obviously I watch a lot of bad movies myself, and even I was impressed at the ineptitude on this flick.
301) New York Ripper (1982) uncut version ***: Seeing the uncut version of this movie is what finally sold me on Fulci. This is an amazing movie, not just because of the gruesome death scenes and gritty atmosphere (but that stuff too), but because it’s just such a bizarre viewing experience as a whole. Juxtaposing this vicious sexual killer with that goofy Donald Duck voice was a stroke of genius, and the ending, even though “good wins,” leaves the viewer feeling as violated and mistreated as any of the Ripper’s victims, and feels almost surreal in its cruelty. For what’s essentially a sleazy exploitation film, there’re just so many layers to the story that the film really merits some attention and elicits so many emotional reactions from the viewer. There are some genuinely brilliant cinematic moments as well, such as the 1st person perspective when investigating one suspect’s apartment, or the straight razor slashing dream, or, my favorite, the scene where the girl’s tied up and realizes she’s in bed with the killer. I’m a pretty hardened viewer and I rarely “feel” the suspense in these movies, but I bought that scene hook line and sinker. And of course there’s lots of sleaze and gore which I feel dutifully fits the grittiness of the subject matter and adds to the overall raw ambiance of the film, and isn’t just for shock value. I was on the edge about Lucio Fulci and giallos in general, but I can honestly say the uncut version of this was a revelation for me. Highly recommended.
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