ninjas-r-cool Reviews

Slow Torture Puke Chamber (2010)

Puke the pain away...

[6/10 · 1 September 2011]

Lucifer Valentine takes quite a bit of pride in having invented a new subgenre - vomit gore. It's undeniably unique, but in saying that I'm reminded of a quote David St Hubbins once made about Nigel Tufnel - "Nobody else plays quite like him. Nobody even tries." That certainly rings true here. The main problem with Valentine's films is that he takes an interesting premise - witnessing the internal visions of a woman during the moments of brain death following suicide - and merely uses it as an excuse to splatter his fetishes across the screen.

So the vomit gore trilogy finally reaches its long-awaited (or maybe not) conclusion and, as I see it, there are 3 options as to how this could play out: 1. The hallucinogenic qualities could be amped up to create an Eraserhead style nightmare. 2. The puking could be pushed to inhuman levels, soaking the screen in a non-stop barfing frenzy. 3. It could be the exact same thing as the other films, with a different title.

Sadly, it takes the third option, although it does head off in a slightly different, darker direction.

The film starts with a spoken disclaimer from star Hope Likens that she agreed to be involved, was informed of the content, signed daily contracts and was given a safe word to be used at any time. Is this just a cheap shock tactic? Sure it is! But hey, when the movie's called Slow Torture Puke Chamber, complaining about cheap shocks seems a little silly. So the curtain rises and immediately cue scenes of Likens being slapped, beaten, choked with a belt, etc. - all very real. Nothing you wouldn't see in your average Max Hardcore flick but still pretty nasty. What follows is a fair chunk of the usual Lucifer Valentine fare - puking blood into shot glasses and then downing them one by one; masturbating with crucifixes and hurling onto Jesus; bloody tampons; pig masks; and of course lots of pissing and blowing chunks.

What sets it apart though is the confessions of self-loathing from the actresses and an even greater focus on degradation than usual. It all culminates in a 20 minute finale involving a pregnant woman, a big knife, a blender and a puking machine named Hank Skinny, that is by far the nastiest set-piece. Sure, it's got plenty of puke and gore, but it's the implications behind what we're seeing that make for a much more pernicious beast - this is the pornography of abuse and there's something quite evil about it. Any sense of enjoyment that might be had from vomit gore leaves the room, making way for something considerably more unnerving.

Certainly gender politics come into play here. A woman pissing on her own face is automatically assumed to be fetishistic porn, whereas a guy pissing on his own face could be put in the new Jackass movie and play in mainstream theatres around the world. But still it's hard to watch the debasement on display here and not think that these women are broken goods. When Hope Likens breaks down on-camera while talking about her childhood sexual experiences with her father, it feels uncomfortably real. If it's not, then she's quite an actress. Either way, I'm not the judgemental type. I'm sure starring in a puke flick is just as cathartic and no less degrading than paying some therapist 100 bucks an hour to pretend to care about your problems. So I say, you go girls! Get them clothes off and puke your guts out to your heart's content. As long as all the barf stays on that side of the screen, then these freaky chicks are alright in my book.

Piranha 3D (2010)

It's got blood, it's got boobs, but it ain't got no bite.

[5/10 · 6 August 2011]

As anyone who listens to Entombed or who's read James Ellroy's The Big Nowhere knows, the wolverine is pound-for-pound the most vicious mammal of all. But mammals are scaredy-cat pussies compared to the rest of the animal kingdom. Anyone who's ever woken up in the middle of the night to find a huge spider on their pillow knows all too well the feeling of involuntary bowel evacuation that often accompanies the sight of one of the more dangerous non-mammalian nature pals that we share this planet with.

Piranhas may just be the most badass badasses of all species. Research has shown that a school of just 10 piranhas can strip a full-grown Tyrannosaurus Rex down to the bone in under 2 minutes, but prior to that they'd also spend several hours giving the T-Rex Indian burns, flushing its head down the toilet and making cruel & questionably untrue comments about its momma's enjoyment of degrading scatological sex acts. Vicious creatures indeed. They don't have wangs, but if they did, they'd almost certainly be expert rapists, terrorising the aquatic avian populations of the world and forcing the females to give birth to hordes of half-breed creatures like the 'pirahnuck' or perhaps the 'swaranha'. Sure, that's speculative, but I'm confident that if I proposed that hypothesis to Stephen Hawking, then he'd drool in agreement and offer me a night of passion with his most attractive female relative as payment for my brilliance.

When a movie was finally made about these ultimate predators, 1978's creatively titled Piranha, director Joe Dante wisely went for the tongue-in-cheek approach. After all, how could one possibly even begin to replicate on film the sheer terror that these killing machines inspire? 1981's Piranha II: Flying Killers went some way to achieving that, by giving the piranhas the ability to fly. Flesh-eating fish with wings is no laughing matter. Sadly, director James Cameron drifted into obscurity shortly after and was never heard from again. So, the big question on my mind was simple: Would the remake go for the campy chucklefest feel of the original, or the ultra-realistic, devastatingly dark vision of humanity under attack that the sequel adopted?

I won't go heavily into plot details because: A. I don't wanna give spoilers; B. You already know the plot because everyone's seen it; C. It doesn't have a plot; and most importantly D. I can't be bothered trying to explain a non-existent plot in a spoiler-free way to people who've already seen it. Suffice to say that when I pressed Play on my DVD player, the movie started. It showed a sequence of moving images featuring actors reading from a script captured on a camera and spliced together in an editing suite. Yep, it's a movie alright. This continued up until shortly after the end credits began, at which point I pressed Stop because I neither know what the hell a 'key grip' is, nor care in the slightest who performed the role. I'm told the Bluray comes with a 3D option, but from what I can gather, this is merely a visual illusion and doesn't allow real piranhas to leap from the television and devour audience members. From a marketing standpoint, that was a wise decision.

With an abundance of bare tittays and cartoonish gore, this remake is undeniably fun, but only to a certain level. I'm not one to use the word 'romp' very often, unless I've been asked my opinion of the most erotic movie ever made, and in that circumstance I always add the suffix '-er Stomper'. But even if I were the type who refers to a movie as a 'romp', I still wouldn't use it here. Nor would I call it a 'hoot' or a 'blast' and certainly not a 'doozie'. It's just a slick, dumb slice of fun that passes the time in an enjoyable but unmemorable way. Even in the basic thrills stakes, I'm not sure if it lives up to the original or its sequel.

All up, I'd say this is passable fun. Also, my deepest apologies to anyone who stumbled upon this hoping for an informative review.

Sadomaster Locura General (2011)

Locura General indeed!

[6/10 · 27 June 2011]

A common approach to creating a sequel is to, rather than attack the story from a fresh, new perspective, merely offer a bigger version of the original. Often that's their downfall. But for a filmmaker like German Magarinos, who's single-mindedly devoted to excess, I was hoping for only one thing from this sequel: MORE! More gore, more sexual perversion, more bad-taste humour, more dildos and, of course, more fake moustaches. As the film's title translates as Sadomaster: Total Mayhem, I had a good feeling my expectations were going to be met.

The movie opens on some real newsreel footage of riots spliced with newspaper headlines, with a rather ominous ambient soundtrack to set the mood. Considering the 1st Sadomaster's opening credits featured 9/11 footage set to a death metal song, this was already noticeably classier. Could German have gone soft on us?? Naaah! It only takes a few minutes before the gore starts splattering the screen and it doesn't let up from thereon in.

The story picks up directly after the first film, with the ultra right-wing Argentinian government doing their best to eliminate the country's Jews, blacks, homosexuals and communists. The Sadomaster has defeated all of the ninja Nazis, but soon meets his demise at the hands of a CGI ED-209 look-alike called the Gaykiller 1500. A new group of anarchists arrive to take down the government, but they're just as bloodthirsty and take great enjoyment from butchering people whenever they feel like it. Of course they're no match for a totalitarian regime, so it's only a matter of time before the Sadomaster has to rise from the grave and finish what he started.

In case you haven't guessed by now, Sadomaster: Locura General is not for everyone. For starters, it's really low-budget, to the extent that it makes Peter Jackson's earlier flicks look like... ummm, Peter Jackson's later flicks. But aside from that, the constant display of cheap gore, comic fetishism (gimp masks galore!) and extreme sexual deviancy may be off-putting to some. There's an early scene where the president is being interviewed for a TV program, which concludes with the president's right-hand man mouthraping the interviewer for no reason whatsoever. That's A-OK with me, cause I'm a big fan of surprise man-on-man mouthrape. But if you're the type of viewer who takes a strict stance about man-on-man mouthrape scenes only being used to further the plot, then this movie may not be for you. Obviously, if you're opposed to man-on-man mouthrape scenes altogether, then you'll probably want to give this a miss. Cause there's plenty more man-on-man mouthrape to come.

The general style of the movie itself is very much in the tradition of Splatter Farm - ie, a disjointed series of grossouts and weirdness, rather than any clear narrative. But for me, this works in its favour. More than anything else, it's punk rock attitude that fuels this flick. And there is a certain demented anarchic flair at work when we see the movie suddenly jump from a stripper in a gas mask being spanked to Lloyd Kaufman giving a news report about a giant octopus impregnating half the female population of Manhattan. It's moments like that that remind me of why I watch "bad" movies, because you simply won't find that kind of nutsoid WTFness in any of that Oscar-winning stuff.

For anyone who digs watching micro-budget SOV splatterfests, this is well worth a watch. And for fans of gratuitous man-on-man mouthrape, it's a bonafide must-see. My only major complaint is that there were less fake moustaches than I was hoping for. But then again, I could say that about every movie.

The Last Circus (2010)

Send in those soulful and doleful and schmaltz-by-the-bowlful clowns!

[9/10 · 30 May 2011]

Less than 10 minutes into A Sad Trumpet Ballad, we're shown the spectacle of a machete-wielding clown in a dress striding forth into a regiment of Spanish civil war soldiers, hacking open throats left, right and centre, his big comical shoes taking him forward through the shower of jugular sprays as he keeps on swinging. It's an amazing sequence of brutal, surreal imagery. As a moment of absurd revisionist history, it makes Inglorious Basterds seem overly safe and unambitious in comparison. It's one of the coolest things I've seen so far this year. And it's not even the best part of the film.

After this short prologue, we're whisked from 1937 to 1973 where we find that the main character of the film is the clown's son. He joins a circus hoping to follow in his father's footsteps, but the tragedies of his childhood have left him unable to make anyone laugh. So he becomes the sad clown, destined to continue a life where the jokes are all on him. His counterpart, the happy clown, is as confident as the sad clown is pathetic. A savage brute of a fellow, prone to unexpected violence, he keeps everyone in line with fear. He's also ploughing the sh!t out of the super hot trapeze girl and ensuring she doesn't stray by dishing out the occasional beating. When she takes a fancy to our main character, then these two clowns are set for a violent confrontation. Reeeeeal violent.

So there's a touch of Freaks to the plot, but apparently it's also intended to parallel the events of the Spanish civil war. I know nothing about Spain except that it has nice beaches and inattentive bartenders, so this side of the story went over my head. If I were to guess with my limited grasp of Spanish history, I'd say the happy clown is meant to represent Franco, the sad clown is the Republicans and the trapeze girl is Spain itself. That could be a load of balls though. Fortunately, you don't need to understand it on that level as there's plenty more to enjoy. Let's face it, history is boring as sh!t when compared to psychotic clowns, so put the subtext on the back-burner and just enjoy the show.

Did I mention the violence yet? One of the main complaints for the movie at festival screenings is that it's "too violent". I don't know what that phrase means, so I looked it up on dictionary.com and it still seemed like pure gibberish to me. From I can gather it means "too much awesomeness". Something like that anyway. But yeah, it's got plenty of nasty stuff happening. Structurally it's messy as hell, constantly changing tone and tightrope-walking between genres, from war movie to historical drama to dark comedy to romantic melodrama. But by the time the final third rolls around, we're into a full-bore, take-no-prisoners nightmare of madness and mutilation - a pure freak show.

Some may be put off by the total lack of sympathetic characters (the trapeze girl in particular is especially unlikeable) or the constant barrage of unpleasantness. But for me, the sheer level of originality and visual creativity more than makes up for any shortcomings. Nowadays, the retro throwback trend has made it fashionable to rape the corpse of post-modernism with nothing more than a lazy wink-at-the-audience to justify the lack of originality, so it's especially pleasing to see a movie acknowledge its influences and then expand on them. Gutsy filmmaking all-round from a director who's willing to push the art-form into territory we haven't seen before.

It's in my top 3 for 2010. Check it out

Marronnier (2004)

Way better than all those other flicks about dolls animated by pond water...

[5/10 · 18 March 2011]

Creepy doll movies aren't really my thing. I like Chucky, but that's mainly because Brad Dourif sounds like the love child of Jack Nicholson and Tom Waits. In general though, I'm not a doll kinda guy. I do enjoy the occasional bad movie however, so it was with that special mixture of trepidation and excitement that I pressed play on Marronnier.

The film opens with a young woman being kidnapped, dragged into a van and sliced up with piano wire. Then it flips to some strange cutesy date that ends with the girl turning into a lifesize doll, much to the dude's dismay. Then there's some fast-motion teeth brushing. 5 minutes in and I don't have a damn clue what's going on, but it's already loaded with ludicrous overacting, bad SFX and totally unnecessary slo-mo and fast-mo. Oh yeah! That's the stuff! Eventually we find out some semblance of a plot which makes as much sense as explaining the colour blue to a blind man by speaking sign language to his guide dog. It's got something to do with a guy who makes a doll from his lover's corpse, then starts making more dolls using an eerie pink iron lung, a sewing machine and pond water. There's other stuff going on too (including MORE sped up tooth brushing!!! Yay!!) but I didn't much care to follow the story too closely. It's complete nonsense obviously, but still it's hard to criticise a movie too harshly when it gives us a random battle-axe vs. sledgehammer duel.

Keeping in line with the tone of the piece is the amazing musical score, which seems to have been composed by an attention deficit 8 year old screwing around with the programmed tracks on an old Casio keyboard. Often the music will change from eerie noise to seductive jazz to chintzy bubblegum pop, all within the space of a minute, with NOT ONE of the styles being appropriate to what's happening on screen. There's a fine line between madness and genius and, for the makers of Marronnier, that line is called the horizon.

I'll finish this review with a question: Are you barber? No. You are not barber. If you want to find out who is barber and why, then you'll have to watch Marronnier. The answer will astound you. Or possibly bore you

Romasanta (2004)

Hey, it's a werewolf! Only without fur. Or teeth...

[5/10 · 18 March 2011]

Supernatural tales that are "based on a true story" tend to bother me. Basically because "based on a true story" actually means it's based on a screenwriter's idea that's based on Chinese whispers that are based on speculative initial reports that are based on superstition. Someone's house creaks and a century later I'm watching balls like An American Haunting. But I was keen to see Romasanta anyway for 2 big reasons. One: It's based on a true story of a werewolf that killed 13 people and we all know that, unlike ghosts, werewolves are real. Two: It's directed by Paco Plaza and I just love movies made by Mexican shopping centres.

To be honest, this one didn't really hold my attention at all so I'll be brief. It's very nicely shot with some lush scenery and a good sense of time and place. There's not a whole lot of blood which is surprising considering it's a period piece **badum-tish**, but there are some good gruesome aftermath shots of corpses shown in various states of post-slaughter rest. One of these moments even shows some dead 15 year old boobs, so any depraved perverts reading should check it out for that part alone. Also includes a few bits of violence toward children and animals which is always welcome on my TV.

Now to the things I didn't like. I don't generally mind when actors play the role of a character not of their own country. I like Sean Connery in The Untouchables, even though he sounds less Irish than I do. But British actors playing Spaniards? Julian Sands is a decent actor, but you know what he isn't? He isn't Senor Manuel Blanco Romasanta and he never will be. Hearing someone who's as quintessentially English as the Queen (the parts of her that aren't French or German anyway) repeatedly referred to as "Senor" is just silly.

Also, I was kind of in the mood for werewolves and the werewolf parts are brief. Really it's just the story of some douchebag murderer. So I suppose the film's title is accurate, as long as the subscript 'The Werewolf Hunt' was intended as Cockney rhyming slang...

Dumplings (2004)

Tasty full-length feature offers a little more to sink your teeth into than the short.

[7/10 · 18 March 2011]

Those who've seen the Dumplings short on the rather awesome 3 Extremes compilation know basically what to expect here. Much as Se7en became known for its "What's in the box?" sequence, this movie has become infamous for "What's inside the titular dumplings?", the answer of which is far grimmer than the severed head of a terrible actress. It's played very well, with the revelation ensuring that many lines of dialogue create shivers and every crackly crunch of a dumpling being munched on inducing squirms in most audience members. Sure, it's a one trick pony, but when the trick involves sledgehammering one of humanity's ultimate taboos, then you don't really need another.

Dumpings is about a woman who's desperate to get rid of some wrinkles and give her skin that youthly glow in order to hold her husband's interest. Of course, any husband worth a damn would oblige by dropping trou and offering up a batch of the world's most effective face moisturiser, but this guy's too busy with business and shagging women on the side to perform this kindly service. Their relationship is somewhat typical of the phenomenon whereby male wealth and female beauty go hand in hand. It's how we end up with the sugar daddy concept and why we see Donald Trump types marrying fake-tanned, fake-titted models a third of their age; females across the globe striving for ultimate beauty just so they can spread their legs for a guy old enough to be their grandfather in return for a diamond necklace. The sacred bond of marriage has become, in many cases, nothing more than a form of socially acceptable prostitution. I now pronounce you scumbag and whore. Now sign your certificate and start trading services.

So, Dumplings comments on this societal plague that sees a woman's beauty as a quantitative valuation of her overall worth, but it's also about the need to prolong one's youth to the detriment of others, mainly the youth themselves. The idea of leaving a better world for our children has been discarded in favour of a "me first" attitude where scrambling for every possible way to make the most out of life contributes to a legacy that damns the children before they've even left the womb. The Beatles told the baby boomers that all they needed was love, but the baby boomers weren't listening. They don't want love, they want a nicer house. Then they want the car they've always dreamed of, but then they need another car to drive to work. Of course that means they need a new house with a double garage, and while they're at it, why not buy another house as an investment property. The next generation inherits a world where luxuries have become necessities because you can't possibly be happy unless you own lots of stuff, right? Right? So you'd better work your ass off to get those things or else other people will think you're a failure. Screw weekends, that's 2 whole days that you could be working to buy more things. Oh, but make sure you get to the gym at 5 am because you're no spring chicken anymore, and remember your next Botox treatment is on Sunday. Follow that through to its logical conclusion and you have a whole bunch of great looking parents spawning the most spoiled, privileged generation of kids in history who are cutting themselves out of sheer boredom and apathy toward their own self-worth. Future fetuses being masticated between the teeth of superficial here-and-now "happiness", because the human race forgot that all it needed was love.

What does that have to do with Dumplings? Nothing really. Got a little side-tracked. Sorry 'bout that. Incidentally, it's a good movie. You should check it out, even if you've already seen the short.

Seeds of Sin (1968)

Ugly people doin' ugly things.

[6/10 · 23 February 2011]

Unlikeable characters. Seems like that's the one thing many people nowadays just can't tolerate in movies. Well, if you're the kind that prefers their characters to be warm, fuzzy and lovable, then stay right the hell away from this flick. In fact, you may as well just stop reading now. There's nothing you'll enjoy in this movie. Trust me. For here we have an early foray into the seriously unpleasant world of Andy Milligan. A world totally devoid of any kind of positivity towards or from the human race.

Of all the holidays, Christmas might be the one that most revolves around family. Seeds of Sin begins with young wackjob Carol gathering the family together at Mother's house for Christmas lunch. Whilst most families spend this occasion catching up, getting plastered and eating til they can't move, this particular dysfunctional family express their feelings through lies, emotional blackmail and abuse, both verbal and physical. Not to mention that one of them is going around trimming the family tree via electrocution, poison, acid to the face and other atypical Christmas activities. This mob are all spiteful, selfish creatures who utterly despise each other, even the married couples. The only two who show any fondness at all are the brother and sister who've been having sex since they were teens.

Worst of all is the family matriarch, a wheelchair bound lush who constantly guzzles booze, spews bile at the fruit of her loins and breaks stuff in tantrums. Her vile behaviour reaches its pinnacle when she taunts her youngest son about his failed suicide attempt, encouraging him to try harder next time. Almost certainly based on Milligan's own mother, she's one of the most repulsive characters you'll ever see.

No doubt a little taken aback by Milligan's relentless negativity, the producers of the film decided to splice in softcore sex scenes at inappropriate times. Fortunately it's done quite seamlessly. You can barely notice the change in film quality (the porn scenes are actually of higher quality than the film itself). Nor will you notice that the porn involves new actors with little resemblance to their non-porn counterparts. And it's quite difficult to fault the way the movie's dramatic classical score is often cut off MID-NOTE and replaced with stereotypical porno music, complete with groovy bass line and even a touch of wah-wah. Yep, the producers had total respect for Milligan's dark vision. (/sarcasm)

Taken as a whole, this all adds up to quite a bizarro oddity from an era and niche world of filmmaking that we'll never see again. However, if you disregard the crappy porn scenes, you have possibly the ultimate anti-Christmas movie; a vicious glob of hate from one of cinema's most misanthropic miserablists. If you can handle Z-grade movies with a budget in the hundreds of dollars, then maybe give it a shot. Just don't expect to like anyone in it.

The Deaths of Ian Stone (2007)

Okay looking but completely hollow.

[3/10 · 17 February 2011]

Ever do that "Wouldn't it be cool if... ?" thing, where you take a couple different movies and mash them together in your head? Like how cool would it be if the blind dude from Roadhouse was in Way of the Dragon, playing bluesy slide guitar in the Colisseum while Bruce Lee fought Chuck Norris? Pretty damn cool. Filmmakers often think this way too, which is how we end up with stuff like Freddy vs Jason.

The Deaths of Ian Stone is about some dude who continually wakes up in a different life and in each one is hunted by things called Harvesters that feed on his fear. So basically, it's Quantum Leap with the Dementors from Harry Potter. Not a bad concept. For those who don't know, Quantum Leap was this show in the early 90's about this guy, played by Scott Bakula who's that guy who looks sorta like the lovechild of Sam Rockwell and Tim Thomerson, who leaps through the space-time continuum to different places and periods where he has to solve some mystery or help someone out, before leaping again to the next place. It had Dean Stockwell in it too. You know, that mousy lookin guy who's in hundreds of things. Cool show.

So Ian Stone starts off well with a few different scenarios, all of which end up with the main guy dead. Hence the title. It makes for an interesting first half, but when it should become even more intriguing, it suddenly turns into this rather trite message piece about using the positive power of love to defeat fear. Now despite me being a complete bastard, I'm still open to a positive message, so long as it's handled with some depth. But I don't really appreciate having the whole "Love conquers all" cliché thrown at me and just left at that, as if it's an unarguable fact. The history of love throughout the ages has left a trail of broken marriages, shattered dreams, bruised faces, bullet-riddled bodies and successfully used nooses, long enough to give the slight hint that love might not be this 100% positive force that greeting card companies would have us believe. A positive message is fine, hell any message is fine, just not when it's expressed with zero effort.

Also, the film is set in London, yet many of the characters have English accents. Anyone who's been to London knows that it's populated entirely by Aussies, South Africans and the Polish. The only English people left there are hoodies who speak with bad Jamaican accents. A little realism wouldn't have gone astray.

Overall, the film amounts to a cool concept that completely falls flat on any emotional level. Shame. At least it made me want to watch Quantum Leap again.

The Prowler (1981)

Another day, another slasher...

[7/10 · 15 January 2011]

Not sure why I'm watching so many slashers lately as I've never been much of a fan, but I've still been enjoying them. Thinking is overrated anyway. This time it was 80's classic The Prowler, directed by Joseph Zito who I like to think is somehow related to Frank Zito. It's completely impossible due to Frank being... well, fictional and all, but that's a minor stumbling block and I hope that someday Frank rises from the grave and becomes a filmmaker like his brother.

My DVD of this came under the alternative title of Rosemary's Killer, so first up I'd like to congratulate the distributors for having a spoiler in the title. Dicks! What if I'd watched the first 2 minutes and thought "Gee, that Rosemary chick's nice. I hope she lives!" Luckily I would never think that as I couldn't give a rodents anus who lives in these dumb slashers. I don't even care what their names are, preferring to give them my own more appropriate monikers like Hopefully-a-victim-soon #1, Hopefully-a-victim-soon #2, etc. But still it's the thought that counts. People who care about the characters in slashers might be overly sensitive and a little dorky, but they're still people kinda and don't deserve to have their viewing experience ruined by thoughtless titling. So I'll be a little more tactful and say that in the opening minutes, a female character who shall remain nameless gets killed in a bloody manner, earning the film an early two thumbs up from me.

So The Prowler is indeed a slasher and an extremely formulaic one at that. After the initial murder which occurs in 1945, we cut to present day (1980 that is) to discover that a similar madman is planning on ruining graduation for a load of teenagers. A graduation dance is a perfect setting for a slasher as it allows us to establish up front who's a slut and thus who's worthy of a phallic bladed weapon to the gut. One of the young females in this actually showers... in the NUDE!! Shocking, I know. Some of the women even have the audacity to have big breasts. That's just asking to be killed. The men are just as bad, most of them just acting normal as if they don't deserve to be brutally murdered. They ain't fooling me and fortunately they ain't fooling the prowler either. When the kills arrive, the blood gushes freely and the camera zooms in, almost leeringly, to capture every driplet mid-screen. No cutaways here, folks. Something tells me Ryan Nicholson's a big fan of this one. Of course, this 'more is more' approach is entirely necessary, firstly to create an uncomfortable voyeuristic feel, but also to show the glory of Tom Savini's FX in full detail. Any attempt at subtlety would be a disservice to Savini's expert work.

The killer himself gets about in WWII military garb which, for some, could be seen as somewhat fetishistic. The ladies do love a man in uniform. Experiments have been conducted showing strong evidence that a woman can quite easily bring herself to climax to the sound of troops marching. You know what that means? It means someone out there makes a living watching women masturbate to various soundtracks. Hands up if you wish you'd followed a different career path! Yeah, your hand is totally up right now. One of them anyway.

All up I'd say this movie is like the anti-Halloween. While Halloween focused entirely on suspenseful build-up that led up to some anti-climactic kills, The Prowler has zero suspense but a good pay-off each time. Sluts, dorks, drunks, jocks, blood and boobs - that's about all you can ask for from a slasher and The Prowler delivers exactly that.

Stage Fright (1980)

It's sleazy slasher time!

[6/10 · 15 January 2011]

I've always thought that slashers are a sub-genre that thrives on being trashy. They're ultimately all about the kills so those kills need to be as bloody as possible, and the between-kills moments are essentially just filler so there may as well be plenty of boobage in those parts. A slasher with class is kind of like a pizza with low-fat cheese - better for you, but not as indulgent and a little bit pointless. Fortunately, Nightmares, one of the very first slashers to cash in on Halloween's success (yes, before Friday the 13th) was made by Aussie soft-porn legend John D. Lamond (the strip club guy from Not Quite Hollywood) who knows more than a thing or two about cooking up cinematic junk food.

Nightmares starts with a young girl accidentally getting a peek at her mother having sex (what a slut!), before a car crash where she sees Mummy get her neck sliced open on the broken windshield. Naturally, having a childhood forged in the fires of sex and violence means that she grows up into a woman who can't resist stabbing random people with a huge shard of glass. That's some classic slasher logic right there. Anyway, Glass Shard Stabby-Stab Girl (I can't remember her actual name) gets a role in a play and sets about killing co-stars, director, a film critic and anyone else who happens be near.

One slightly bizarre thing about this movie is that the kills are filmed in a way which hides the killer's identity. They're all first person POV shot, followed by a close-up of a murderous hand clutching a glass shard which strikes down then we cut to the carnage. This approach would make perfect sense if we didn't already know who the killer was, but here it seems a tad redundant. Still, the kills themselves are plentiful and are all suitably graphic and sadistic, including one boundary-pushing murder of a naked woman where we see the whole shebang, blood dripping off breasts and through pubic thatch. It's tasteless, crude, misogynistic - all that good stuff.

The 80's was responsible for a number of atrocities like big hair, Reaganomics and Wham's Last Christmas. But it also gave us an abundance of movies like this one that possess that special slasher vibe that only ever really existed during mankind's tackiest decade. Truth be told, it's not a particularly good film but, like an extra-cheesy pizza, it's enough to leave you full and with greasy drool dripping off your chin.

Rabid Grannies (1988)

The most inaccurately titled movie since 'The Greatest Story Ever Told'.

[5/10 · 15 January 2011]

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, there existed a mystical land known as The Early 90's, where there was no such thing as the internet thus no way of finding out if such-and-such movie was any good before watching it for oneself. So a young gorehound like me would rent movies based solely on the coolness of the title and cover. It's a habit that's stuck with me quite a bit. Show me a DVD where the front cover has a pic of a badass looking demon munching on a severed arm, entitled 'Severed Arm Eating Demon Badasses', and you'd better believe I will watch the unholy sh!t out of that sucker without hesitation. Of course, sometimes they turn out to be rubbish but them's the risks. Last night's gamble was 'Rabid Grannies', a movie I've wanted to see for a while because it's called 'Rabid Grannies' and has 2 rabid grannies on the cover.

It starts out with a whole bunch of extended family travelling to their 2 rich old aunties' mansion for their birthday. Quite a varied list of characters they are too - a family of four, a fat slob and his trophy wife, a virgin, an arms dealer, a suave Don Juan, 2 lesbians, a priest... If this lot all walked into a bar, it'd be one hell of a complicated joke. The character introductions are quite lengthy but an early glimpse of boob kept my spirits up, plus I figured hey, large cast = large bodycount, right? So a package arrives from the black sheep of the family who became an outcast when he got involved with a satanic cult. The package is opened, a weird fog comes out and the grannies get infected by some kind of curse.

Now's when things should get good, but I couldn't help but be a little disappointed. For starters, the grannies don't become rabid, they transform into wisecracking demons. 'Wisecracking Demons' is a quality title in its own right, and I would definitely watch that film, but I kinda had my hopes up to see some rabid grannies. I thought there'd be tons of flesh-eating going on too, but there's very little. There's some decent and amusing kills (including a great scene where the demons offer the priest a sadistic ultimatum), but it's fairly light on the gore. One scene in particular was obviously trimmed.

I found out afterwards that the DVD has much of the gore cut out because that's how the filmmaker preferred it. A director who thinks a gorefest is improved by having LESS gore?!? Me and this guy would not get along.

Consider my 5/10 a temporary score, until I eventually see it uncut.

Cujo (1983)

It should have barked in your face, but it ends up just drooling on your feet.

[4/10 · 13 January 2011]

I like dogs. They're loyal. They're loving. They're playful. They have an infectious enthusiasm. And they possess an uncanny ability to motivate us out of a state of bored complacency simply with a nasal nudge to the knee and a look that says "Hey! You! Hurry up and throw me a damn stick, ya lazy bastard!"

But there's a darker side to our furry friends. There always just enough news reports about toddlers mauled by pitbulls to remind us that some breeds of dog were bred for centuries purely to kill. When a strange dog runs up to me, tongue lolling and eyes hopeful, there's a small part of my brain that always expects it to sink its teeth into my nutsack, tear off my testicles and call over all its doggie mates to run a rape train on my mouth while I lay bleeding and helpless. The mere offering of a pat could lead to my destruction by these sweet beasts, clutching my shredded groin and coughing up dog semen; brought low by a species that truly understands that savagery equals power. I'm guessing that everybody has thought that at some point, right? So it makes perfect sense that a dog can make for a perfect horror villain.

Enter Cujo. Probably the most famous flick in the rather lacklustre killer dog sub-subgenre. But sadly, in no way is it a standout of its type. It takes a very mainstream approach so, while it succeeds as a drama, it fails as a horror. It takes the time to establish its characters, but for me that's just 40 minutes of wasted screen time, especially when the emotional elements feel devoid of any real emotion. Oh noes, she cheated on her husband and feels bad about it? Couldn't care less, just get to the canine carnage. Likewise the cinematography is quite classy and ticks all the boxes for a good drama, but it criminally fails to capitalise on the great claustrophobic environment presented.

Admittedly, the sight of a 200 lb St. Bernard covered in blood and mucus makes for quite a fearsome figure. But it's handled so tamely that my deep-seated fears of genital mutilation and face rape remained dormant.

Basically, this puppy has been neutered. It's horror that plays everything safe. Ugh. I can't think of a concept more redundant than that.

Fantom kiler (1998 Video)

Hmm... The plural of 'anus'. Is it anuses or anusii?

[7/10 · 12 January 2011]

Well, it's 9:30 am on a Friday morning, and I'm checking out this boobs 'n blood extravaganza. Life as usual. Watching this shortly after waking up, while munching away on my fibre-rich Sultana Bran, I had the disturbing realisation that this must be how Patrick Bateman starts his day. It's an unsettling thought as he's not really a figure I care to identify with. Not because of the yuppieness and misogyny mind you, but purely because he prefers Genesis post Peter Gabriel. That's just sick!

Fantom Kiler is about... a fantom guy killing people. Yeah, that's about the entirety of the "plot". An early scene sums up the movie fairly well - A woman is walking through the woods. Some branches tear her blouse so she takes it off. The same branches tug at her pony tail causing her long brown hair to cascade down over her heaving bosom. She soon encounters a fence and realises her skirt prevents her from climbing through, so naturally she removes that too. Now she's wandering around the wilderness in just a pair of high heels. Eventually when she gets stabbed to death by our fantom friend, rather than breaking down in soul-shattering fear and pain, she just sort of poses like a Playboy model covered in blood. The rest of the movie is much the same, with a handful of slightly pornographic moments scattered throughout.It's totally ridiculous, but hey if gratuitous nudity and violence is wrong, then I don't ever want to be right.

Surprisingly, director Roman Nowicki handles some of the sleaze relatively stylishly. In the above murder, there's a lovely shot of the moon reflecting off the blood-stained knife and when he wipes off the blood with his black-gloved hands, the image is replaced by the face of his victim reflected in the blade. It's a moment straight from a 70's giallo and adds a touch of, dare I say it, class to the proceedings. Actually, the movie could basically be described as a softcore porn giallo. There's some decent humour in there too. There's a moment where the fantom kiler offers one stark naked would-be victim some clothes because "The mosquitoes will be biting your beautiful breasts. And your tender ass." That's some quality dialogue right there!

Terrifying masterpiece this ain't, but if you're in that kind of mood where you don't give a crap about plot and just wanna see tons of titties and mindless violence then check this one out. I'm quite often in that mood, even at 9:30 am, so I rather enjoyed it.

Oh, and did I mention the close-up anus shots? I've never seen such anal detail in a movie before. If you're a connoisseur of the female anus, then this is THE movie for you.

Un cazador de zombis (2008 Video)

Toro loves the smell of zombie guts in the morning...

[7/10 · 7 December 2010]

Horror is considered by many, not least of which its fans, as a haven for the social misfit. We all know this genre can produce classy films that get those big box office dollars but, much like any kind of extreme or offbeat artform, it tends to have a DIY ethos. Just as the punk movement inspired street kids to pawn their mum's TV and buy a guitar, horror fans often get their hands on a camera and make their own budgetless epics. German Magarinos is one such fan. For a number of years now, the Argentinian director armed only with a camera, a few gallons of fake blood, some pig guts and the will to offend everyone he can, has been making Z-grade gore flicks that make Bad Taste seem like a 100 million dollar Hollywood blockbuster in comparison. This is as underground as it gets.

Un Cazador de Zombis (aka Zombie Apocalypse Now) is about a rather perverted fellow named Toro who's hired by the church to waste zombies. That's all I'll say about the plot because... that's all the plot there is. This is a difficult film to review, because you can't really criticise a movie for something that it clearly never attempts to be. If you're looking for quality acting, 3 dimensional characters and a well-crafted storyline, then you've come to the wrong place. It doesn't even have a reason for the zombie outbreak, but it doesn't really need one as the zombies are really just a coathanger on which to hang the film's many scenes of bloodshed, dismemberment and sexual deviancy. If most viewers aren't already put off by all the butcher shop leftovers strewn across the screen, then the pedophilia and mouth-rape gags should be enough to turn them away. It's not a "good" film by any conventional criteria, but then being "good" is the last thing on its mind.

There is, however, a small but dedicated fanbase for this brand of cheapo splatter and tasteless humour, and fair play to Magarinos for knowing his audience and giving them what they want. Whilst some of the jokes fall flat, there's quite a bit of charm to this gleefully offensive schlockfest. Don't go in expecting to see Dawn of the Dead toppled from its throne as King of zombie epics. Just grab a six-pack and settle in for some micro-budget splattery zombie fun with a nice little Apocalypse Now homage thrown in for good measure. It also deserves mentioning that the whole thing is a noticeable improvement on Sadomaster.

Some day when the real zombie apocalypse strikes and the absurd, slapstick joke called the human race is effectively extinct, we'll all be down in Horror Hell. Wander round in the dirtiest part of town down there and, just down the road from the Shrine to St Herschell, you may stumble across a bar called The Burst Colon. Lloyd Kaufman owns the place. Ted V. Mikels drops in occasionally to tell everyone how lovely they are and give out hugs, but he leaves before things get too lairy. Todd Sheets is behind bar. The Polonia brothers work there as bouncers, savagely mutilating and raping anyone who doesn't at least attempt to start a fight. There's even a big screen TV that plays Cannibal Campout on a constant loop. Here's where you'll find German Magarinos, most likely in the corner, racking up lines of cocaine on a Malaysian rentboy's ass crack. He'll fit right in among this crowd.

Casino (1998)

Category III my ass!

[6/10 · 23 August 2010]

First things first, the DVD of Casino clearly shows that glorious little Cat III triangle which, for a select few of us, means instant bonerville. That, combined with the fact that the legendary Billy Tang directed this, might have you assuming that it's got plenty of the usual good stuff - blood, boobs and hopefully some over-acting mega-sleazoid performing a bit of the raep on a nubile Asian hottie or two. Sorry but there's none of that here. A little bit of violence, but it's all relatively tame by HK standards. I'm guessing that, seeing as this may have been one of the very first Cat III rated flicks released after the '97 handover, the Chinese are excessively strict with their ratings. So anyway, with that out of the way, let's move on to the movie itself.

Casino follows the rise of gangster Giant (played by Simon Yam), as he engages in a turf war with a rival gang over ownership of the local casinos in Macau. Giant is loosely based on a real-life gang boss who funded and produced the film, so it's probably unwise to expect the film to follow the facts too closely. Much of the film involves Giant relating his story to a young female journalist, so there's a mixture of flashback and present day action, but honestly it's quite hard to tell the difference between the two. Present day in this case is 1991, so the movie is in fact a period piece, but never having spent any time in Macau in the early 90's (or ever, for that matter) I can't tell you how accurate it is. There is one moment which cleverly alludes to the time period when Yam sings a karaoke version of the theme tune from Once Upon a Time in China.

Overall, it's a fairly stylish affair with some nice camera-work, moody soundtrack, etc, with a combo of grit and class that comes across as perhaps a halfway point between Ringo Lam and Johnnie To, though sadly it's quite a bit sloppier than either of them. Simon Yam's his usual badass self and is always enjoyable. Hell, I'll watch anything that guy's in, even if he were dancing around in women's underwear. In fact, I've already seen that movie. He's got some good support, including Kent Cheng who continues his perfect streak of never being in a movie in which he isn't at least once referred to as Fatty.

The major letdown is the gang fights which are unchoreographed to the point of being incomprehensible - just a bunch of guys randomly swinging bats and knives at anything that moves. The main characters always seem to emerge from these melees almost completely unscathed.

So all up, a 6/10 from me, although I'm a happy camper with pretty much any kind of HK triad action. If you're a Cat III completist then maybe give it a shot. Just don't expect any circular saw dismemberments or surprise sex.

Zoo (2007)

Doesn't quite put the 'best' in bestiality...

[6/10 · 8 May 2010]

Do you love horses? If so, then you'll probably want to check out this documentary, because it's about a bunch of guys who, just like you, love horses. They love the way you can see all those powerful muscles on display, working in tangent to create such a gracious, majestic stride. They love the affectionate nature of these beasts as they nuzzle up to you and blow satisfied gusts of hot air from their nostrils. They love to put their hands against a stallion's testicles and feel the sensual heat emanating from those glorious globes. Most of all, they love all that feral energy when there's a two foot horse-cock jack-hammering away at their insides, sending waves of sexual bliss through every part of their bod... Heeeey... Wait a second. This isn't about animal lovers. It's about perverts! Well, that should make for a much more interesting doco, right? Eh, afraid not.

First up, this movie looks and sounds amazing. It's loaded with beautifully constructed imagery and evocative music, so it's quite a feast for the senses. But that's not enough to make a good documentary. There's a lot of voice-over work from the zoophiles and others, but none of it really offers any insight into the subject matter. Much of it is just these guys talking about how they discovered and connected with other folk with similarly rare sexual proclivities. And they talk about loving horses. That doesn't interest me. Hell, I like horses; I just don't want to have sex with one. And there's never any discussion about the line where this love for animals becomes sexual. So, whilst the whole thing is nice to look at, ultimately it fails as a documentary, simply because I didn't learn a damn thing.

One issue the movie does inevitably bring up is the whole morality of the situation. Let's admit it, the idea of a guy wanting to be boned by a horse is fairly sick and disgusting. But more importantly, it's also really, really funny, so I wasn't too concerned. There's a minor reference involving a horse giving a blow job to another horse, suggesting that these guys trained horses to put on sexual performances for them. That's a touch more worrying but, once again, the mental image of a bunch of dudes having a circle-jerk to some wicked horse-on-horse action is just so damn hilarious that I'm unable to work up any moral outrage.

Fact is, the horses weren't hurt, physically or emotionally, in any way. Are the actions of these guys any more exploitative than training a horse to run real fast so we can all place bets on it? Nope, don't think so. So, if you watch this movie, then enjoy all the sumptuous visuals, but don't judge these guys too harshly because, at the end of the day, they're just harmless perves. Aren't we all?

The Last House on the Left (2009)

No heart, no soul, no guts, no edge... and no Hess.

[3/10 · 28 October 2009]

As a general rule, I don't bother with any of the recent glut of remakes. To me, showing any attention whatsoever to this trend is to show one's support or interest for Hollywood's current disregard for originality and its shameful disrespect towards classic films, particularly of the horror genre. But the Last House on the Left remake was just too tempting to miss. Even attempting to recreate a fraction of the grim, dirty feel of the original is an audacious goal in itself. That coupled with the fact that many were saying that it actually succeeds as a quality rape-revenge film piqued my interest. So it's a shame really that the film is rubbish.

It actually starts off quite well. If there's one thing that grated about the original LHOTL it was those damn comic relief cops that kept popping up and destroying the mood. The remake assures us that this won't happen a second time by quite gleefully murdering a couple of wise-cracking cops in the very first scene. The message is clear: There'll be no joking around this time, kids. Sadly, this isn't the case, and even more sadly the opening scene is one of the few redeeming moments in the entire film. Yep, it's mostly downhill from here on in.

The main criminal decision made with this film is it chooses to have such thoroughly dull cardboard cut-outs for the villains. I don't care that the two girls were basically personality-free, and I'm not fussed that the parents were ridiculous clichés, but at least give us some suitably slimy villains to despise. The character of Krug in particular is just awful. Garret Dillahunt is a decent actor, but he simply doesn't have the sheer hulking, brutish physical presence of the mighty afro'd one, so he should have been given some decent dialogue or something to help make the character his own. No such luck though. In fact, there's not a single line in the entire film that is particularly interesting.

Surprisingly, the highlight of the entire movie is the rape scene itself. Sure it has its problems. There are far too many shots of hands, trees and dirt rather than focusing on the nitty-gritty (I sincerely hope they don't choose this route for the upcoming I Spit remake - 30 minutes of foliage might become tiresome). Plus, although he's balls deep in a 17 year old, Krug appears to be having as much fun as if he were having a tattoo sandpapered from his penis. But overall, it's fairly nasty stuff and nicely creates that disgusted feeling in your gut that one hopes for from a rape scene.

However, the wackiness so far avoided by eliminating the comedy cops kicks in strongly during the revenge portion. Any realism created by the first half of the film is immediately quashed by the over-the-top hijinks and unintentional hilarity that follows. With all the ludicrous character transformations and the people casually being thrown across rooms and through balsa wood furniture, I couldn't help but laugh, and not in a good way. The infamous microwave scene merely serves as an unfunny punchline for what has become one big, long joke.

Basically, this film removes or changes almost everything that made the original such a gritty, gruelling classic. It's an exploitation film with no actual exploitation. Worst of all, in allowing Mari to survive, it removes every speck of gravitas that the final moments of the original had, replacing it with sickening audience-friendly schmaltz.

What's that you say? I should view it on its own individual merits and not compare it to the original? Yeah, maybe. And maybe the producers of this travesty shouldn't have called it 'Last House on the Left'. Because it sure as hell isn't.