CRUEL JAWS -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

 

 Originally posted on 9/22/20

 

Bruno Mattei's work as a director ran hot and cold, but oddly enough, he was at his hottest when his work was at its worst and most derivative (as in SHOCKING DARK and VIOLENCE IN A WOMEN'S PRISON) because that's when it was the most perversely entertaining.

Whether CRUEL JAWS (Severin Films, 1995) reaches that degree of cinematic heat is up to the viewer whose interests lie in movies that are so bad they're good.  This blatant rip-off of JAWS (and elements of its various sequels and other rip-offs) is loaded with badness to spare, yet even this doesn't always get us through several of the just-plain-boring stretches.

The story concerns an oceanographer named David (David Luther) who arrives at the oceanfront marine park of his friend Dag (Sky Palma) just in time to find out that (1) there's a killer shark on the loose and (2) Dag's about to lose his lease to evil landlord Samuel Lewis (George Barnes), who wants to build a new hotel on the property, unless he can come up with a chunk of cash in 30 days.

 

This leads to one of the film's major setpieces, a windsurfing race with a fat prize that will pit Dag's son Bob against Lewis' son Ronnie, who, incidentally, is the overprotective brother of Bob's girlfriend Glenda.

As you might guess, the race becomes a shark smorgasboard with plenty of screaming and panicking as the shark enjoys the equivalent of a human sushi platter. Not only does the famished fish eat everyone in sight, but he manages to chomp his way through most of the boats in the vicinity as well.

Later, of course, the brave good-guy shark hunters set off aboard their hardy vessel but this time with competition from the bad guys who, as per Peter Benchley's crummy original shark novel, have mob connections interested in the town's real estate. 

Another boatload of youths in pursuit of the shark (with pump shotguns, no less!) muck the whole thing up so badly that they provide the film with one of its most wonderfully explosive moments in which a sizable number of supporting characters blow themselves into fried chum chunks.

While all this is going on, Mattei (under the pseudonym "William Snyder") is having a field day cooking up bad reenactments of scenes from the JAWS franchise with the greedy businessman wanting to keep the beaches open, the frantic sheriff trying to close them, and young people serving themselves up as shark chow while cavorting around in bikinis, having romantic complications, and spouting some of the worst dialogue to ever bend your unsuspecting eardrums.

As for the shark effects, Mattei (who also gave us such films as ROBOWARS and ISLAND OF THE LIVING DEAD) uses a heap of stock footage of live sharks, some of which is pretty well integrated, along with a surprisingly good giant shark head that pops out of the water and often has one of the less fortunate characters hanging out of its mouth. 

The Blu-ray from Severin Films contains an unreleased Japanese extended cut (known as "The Snyder Cut") in its entirety. Extras also include "The Great White Way: A Study In Sharksploitation With Rebekah McKendry", "These Things Got Made!: Interview With Actor Jay Colligan", and the film's trailer.

It all builds to a rather bland finish, with Spielberg's reputation as the number one purveyor of shark-movie suspense and excitement remaining comfortably secure.  But while film fans who strictly limit themselves to "good" movies will find this one easy to avoid, those who love to settle in for a session of mind-warping badness will endure the slower scenes in CRUEL JAWS just to savor its tastier tidbits.



Buy it at Severin Films


Special Features:

    The Snyder Cut – Unreleased Japanese Extended Cut
    The Great White Way – A Study in Sharksploitation with Rebekah McKendry
    These Things Got Made! – Interview with Actor Jay Colligan
    Trailer

CRUEL JAWS -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

WHEN THE WIND BLOWS -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 4/24/20

 

Did you ever wonder what it would look like if THREADS had a cartoon-animated subplot? Or if the creators of "Wallace & Gromit" had placed their beloved characters in the middle of a nuclear holocaust?

Children's author Raymond Briggs conceived such an idea in a graphic novel which a group of filmmakers including director Jimmy T. Murakami (HEAVY METAL, BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS) brought to the screen, thus giving us the entrancingly compelling cinematic oddity entitled WHEN THE WIND BLOWS (Severin Kids, 1986).

Unlike the frantically alarmist apocalypse thrillers to which we're accustomed, this tale of an elderly couple whose peaceful retirement is shattered by nuclear war is quietly, disarmingly genteel.

We first see them enjoying a typical day in their secluded cottage, chatting absently about tea and gardening and such, while news of impending war sparks Jim's interest and motivates him into a mildly industrious fervor of preparation that brings back nostalgic feelings of the Blitz.

Meanwhile, Hilda (whom Jim endearingly calls "Ducks") refuses to entertain the notion that anything could disturb their blissful daily routines, their ability to pop down to a shop for fresh food or other supplies, or their access to telly or radio plays. 

These are the sort of likable, roundly-drawn cartoon characters (they look a bit like cuddly plush dolls) we know from a thousand children's books and movies, characters whose only concerns should be gentle, placid ones such as, say, a naughty bunny rabbit helping himself to their carrot garden.

Here, however, their idyllic lives are disrupted when the harsh, cruel reality of the really-real world ruptures the curtain of their cartoon dimension and leaves it all a charred, smoking ruin with a dark cloud of radioactive fallout drifting through it.

Jim and Hilda are similar to the older couple in THREADS with their lean-to shelter in the livingroom providing sparse protection against the blast and their halfhearted efforts to stock food, water, and other necessities quickly proving inadequate. 

What makes them different is that they continue to behave just like endearing cartoon figures out of a children's story, with Jim remaining a font of quiet optimism--after all, they lived through something similar back when they fought the Jerries--and Hilda blessedly oblivious to the fact that she can't just tidy things up and wait for the milkman to come.

The restraint shown by the filmmakers in not giving in to the usual dramatic overkill makes the encroaching horrors Jim and Hilda inevitably face seem even more wrenching, with their continued devotion to each other through it all especially heartrending as their ordinary storybook lives crumble to dust.

Artwork and animation are expertly done, using a combination of various methods such as cel animation, a bit of CGI, what appears to be some miniature work on the interiors, and the occasional well-integrated live action footage. 

The musical score includes songs by David Bowie, Roger Waters, and others. Jim and Hilda are wonderfully voiced by venerable actors Sir John Mills and Dame Peggy Ashcroft.

The Blu-ray from Severin Films' "Severin Kids" label contains their usual ample menu, including a documentary about the director ("Jimmy Murakami: Non Alien"), a making-of featurette ("The Wind and the Bomb"), an audio commentary with first assistant editor Joe Fordham and film historian Nick Redman, an interview with children's author Raymond Briggs, an original public information film ("Protect and Serve"), isolated music and effects audio track, and trailers.

In its own remarkable way, WHEN THE WIND BLOWS is one of the darkest and most disheartening of the post-nuclear nightmare tales. It's like watching Wallace and Gromit slowly withering away from radiation poisoning, and, worst of all, Wallace finally realizing at the point of dying that there may never, ever be any more cheese.


Buy it from Severin Films

Special Features:

    Jimmy Murakami: Non Alien – Feature Length Documentary About the Film’s Director
    The Wind and The Bomb: The Making of WHEN THE WIND BLOWS
    Audio Commentary with First Assistant Editor Joe Fordham and Film Historian Nick Redman
    An Interview with Raymond Briggs
    Protect and Survive: Public Information Film Designed to be Broadcast When a Nuclear Attack Was Imminent
    Isolated Music and Effects Audio Track
    Trailers

WHEN THE WIND BLOWS -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

BLOOD & FLESH: THE REEL LIFE & GHASTLY DEATH OF AL ADAMSON -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

 Originally posted on 4/22/2020

 

Filmmaker Al Adamson made a lasting name for himself by creating lurid low-budget exploitation movies with that indefinable "so bad it's good" greatness that many strive for but few achieve.  A well-made documentary about his lively career would be interesting enough, but even more so if his personal life ended on a note that was way more fascinating, mystifying, and downright creepy than any of his actual films ever came close to being.

BLOOD & FLESH: THE REEL LIFE & GHASTLY DEATH OF AL ADAMSON (Severin Films) is that documentary, and it's well-made indeed. It's tricky to construct a documentary with just the right balance of talking heads and informative narration, along with movie clips and other audio-visual elements, while maintaing our interest to the same degree as a fictional narrative, and this one does so in a way that's utterly involving.

Any collection of clips from Adamson's films would be fun to watch, and here we get plenty of footage from such trash classics as "Satan's Sadists", "Horror of the Blood Monsters", "Brain of Blood", "The Female Bunch", "Blazing Stewardesses", and of course what some might consider his magnum opus, the immortal "Dracula vs. Frankenstein."

These are augmented by interview clips with the most important players in the Al Adamson saga, including (besides Al himself) such familiar names as Vilmos Zsigmond, Russ Tamblyn, Fred Olen Ray, Gary Graver, and many others who offer a wealth of personal stories about working with a man whom most remember very fondly, some with gratitude for helping them begin successful careers in the film business.  (Celebrated cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs also started out with Adamson.)

Best are the stories of Adamson's endearing eccentricities and his devotion to making films not to win awards but simply to entertain the masses, using his imagination and ingenuity to overcome meager budgets and resources that would severely daunt other struggling filmmakers.

His exploits in the field serve as a primer for others wishing to follow in his footsteps and are scintillating stuff for those of us who simply love hearing about such adventures.

Adamson's efforts to knock together these films, usually offering his cast and crew valuable experience rather than money, also include the fascinating field of promotion and distribution in which such commodities were sold to the public in whatever form and by whatever means would be most exploitable.

Thus, a film about outlaw bikers might, if trends suddenly changed, be transformed through editing, reshoots, and a new title into a horror or crime thriller.

Conversations with Oscar-winner Russ Tamblyn are fun since he takes an amusedly lighthearted view of his association with the B-movie maven. Like many stars persuaded to participate in these films, Tamblyn was a big name on his way down who was happy for the work since Hollywood was no longer calling. Others included the likes of John Carradine, Kent Taylor, Broderick Crawford, Yvonne DeCarlo, J. Carroll Naish, and Lon Chaney, Jr.

The latter two joined Tamblyn for what may be Adamson's most celebrated classic, "Dracula vs. Frankenstein", which underwent drastic thematic changes during its creation (the original script didn't even include the title monsters).

Dealing with an alcoholic Chaney and a wheelchair-bound Naish, with his noisy dentures and inability to remember his lines, are just two of the interesting elements of this film's production.I had the pleasure of seeing it on a double bill with "Horror of the Blood Monsters" back in the 70s, a movie-going experience that I still treasure.

Long-time producer and partner Sam Sherwood adds invaluable personal knowledge of everything including Adamson's devotion to his wife Regina Carrol, a blonde bombshell who starred in many of his later films until her untimely death from cancer, and a strange project he undertook concerning UFOs and aliens which Sherwood believes was discontinued under shady circumstances involving the government.

But most mysterious of all are the circumstances surrounding Adamson's death, the details of which are fully explored in the film's final third and have all the morbid fascination of an Ann Rule true-crime book.

Even the director's previous association with Charles Manson and his flaky followers at Spahn Movie Ranch pales in comparison to the story of his disappearance from his desert home and the following investigation which uncovered a grisly fate that's right out of a horror movie.

The Blu-ray from Severin Films consists of not only this film but a bonus feature, Adamson's 1971 sleazefest "The Female Bunch" which co-stars a hard-drinking Lon Chaney, Jr. as well as Russ Tamblyn and Regina Carrol.  Pieced together from the best available elements, the print has a delightful grindhouse feel.

The disc also offers some irresistible--one might even say essential--outtakes from the documentary including an in-depth look at Adamson's western movie star father Denver Dixon, Russ Tamblyn's mysterious melted TV, some more creepy stuff about Charles Manson, and a promo reel for that eerie, unfinished project about aliens and UFOs.

Regardless of the man's gruesome demise, however, what lingers most for me after watching BLOOD & FLESH: THE REEL LIFE & GHASTLY DEATH OF AL ADAMSON is his joyous devotion to making exploitation movies and, we discover, his delight that after many years they were still being enjoyed and even revered by fans old and new.  That many of his most fervent fans include the very people who knew him best is a testament that this documentary so richly conveys.



Buy it from Severin Films

Special Features:

    Outtakes – The Cowboy Life Of Denver Dixon, Russ Tamblyn’s Melted TV, Manson & Screaming Angels, and The Prophetic Screenplay Makes Gary Kent Testify
    Beyond This Earth Promo Reel
    Trailer
    BONUS FILM: The Female Bunch
    The Bunch Speaks Out
    THE FEMALE BUNCH Trailers
 

BLOOD & FLESH: THE REEL LIFE & GHASTLY DEATH OF AL ADAMSON -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

THE ASTROLOGER -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

(This is a repost of the original review.)

 

Although writer-director James Glickenhaus may be known for lively cult action flicks like THE EXTERMINATOR, he cut his filmmaking teeth on a talky but intriguing low-budget thriller called THE ASTROLOGER, aka "Suicide Cult" (1975), which he now refers to as his "student film."

Based on a novel by his father-in-law John Cameron, it's the story of a brilliant government agent named Alexei (Bob Byrd in his only film) who applies modern scientific techniques to the ancient art of astrology and, with the help of advanced (for the time) computers, can predict the course of an influential person's life in order to alter their future and create new outcomes.

This comes in handy when Alexei and his "zodiacal" associates somehow--don't ask me how, but somehow--figure out that we're due for another virgin birth like the one 2,000 years ago, only this time the result may be a messiah of evil. (Sort of a "Rosemary's Baby" type of deal.)

Glickenhaus cuts back and forth between Alexei and a sinister cult leader named Kajerste (producer Mark Buntzman) who lords it over a gypsy blood cult that may be directly involved in the rise of such a horrible creature.

To this end, Kajerste has taken an interest in Alexei's own wife Kate (Monica Tidwell), a virgin who shares the exact same astrological template as the Virgin Mary herself.

As the director now freely admits, all of this is presented via long dialogue passages, during which Byrd's ability to reel off whole paragraphs of intricate exposition in a semi-naturalistic manner is impressive.

Even former Playboy playmate Tidwell, whose acting abilities are limited to say the least, manages some pretty unwieldy dialogue (in her distinctive Louisiana accent) when Kate finally divulges the secret of her past to an astonished Alexei.

Breaking up the film's many talk-fest scenes are snippets of Kajerste's followers engaged in their infernal ceremonies, intercut rather tastelessly with newsreel footage of what appear to be actual mutilated bodies. (This footage is jarring, to say the least.) 

Somewhat resembling one of Bruno Mattei's jungle flicks, these scenes allow Glickenhaus to stretch his creative skills visually while amping up the suspense level when, at about the halfway mark, one of Alexei's female agents is caught trying to sneak into Kajerste's camp on what she thought was a secret mission.

What happens next shocks the film out of its lethargy and sets us up for a much more involving second half seasoned with the requisite amounts of nudity and violence.  Yet just as the story still seems to be building, the film ends abruptly on a unresolved note that may leave some viewers hanging.

Despite its shortcomings, THE ASTROLOGER is a fascinating look at a novice director's determined effort to create a sophisticated sci-fi/horror tale laced with both intriguing ideas and visceral shocks. For many fans of genre filmmaking on a shoestring budget, the attempt itself should provide engaging entertainment.


Buy it at Severin Films

Featuring a 4k Scan From the Director’s Personal Answer Print
Music by Brad Fiedel (Terminator series)

All-New Special Features:

    Sign of the Times – James Glickenhaus on The Astrologer
    Monica Tidwell Remembers The Astrologer – Interview With Actress Monica Tidwell
    Tales From the Set – Interviews with Filmmakers Brendan Faulkner and Frank M. Farel
    Zodiacal Locations – The Filming Sites of THE ASTROLOGER
    Suicide Cult Reversible Cover

THE ASTROLOGER -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

THINGS -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 7/8/11

 

While one review hails THINGS (1989) as "a movie that defines what 'cult' really is", you'd be quite accurate in saying that this low-budget, straight-to-VHS Canadian gorefest also defines what "100% brain-rotting crap" really is. 

There's no denying that this is one of the worst excuses for a movie ever made.  It's one of those films whose status as either "so bad it's good" or "totally unwatchable dreck" depends entirely upon the charity of the viewer.  That said, though, if you catch it in the right mood--as the film's many fans apparently did--you can have an awful lot of fun watching it.

Shot on Super-8mm by high-school pals Andrew Jordan (co-writer, director) and Barry J. Gillis (co-producer, co-writer, star), THINGS is the story of a man named Doug Drake (Doug Bunston) who seeks medical help when he and his wife Susan are unable to conceive a child.  Unfortunately, Dr. Lucas (Jan W. Pachul) turns out to be a giggling, sadistic psycho who takes time out from torturing people in his dungeon of horror (the torture scenes are amateurish-looking but extreme) to impregnate Susan with a monster fetus.



Later, Doug's brother Don (Gillis) and his friend Fred (Bruce Roach) drop by Doug's secluded cabin in the backwoods of Toronto for an exciting evening of drinking beer and watching TV.  Suddenly, Susan gives birth to a creature that looks like a cross between a chest-burster from ALIEN and a giant cootie.  The thing begins to multiply at an alarming rate until the house is crawling with them, plunging Don, Fred, and Doug into a nightmare of insect insanity and gratuitous gore. 

While all of this sounds exciting, it isn't, and the most interesting thing about the film is the bizarre and illogical behavior of its main characters.  After Susan's horrific death (during which actress Patricia Sadler is unable to suppress a smile whenever she's on camera), Doug's initial grief quickly gives way to lighthearted prankishness and an overall "who cares" attitude, in addition to a concern that his nice shirt has been ruined by Susan's gushing blood.  Don interrupts the somber mood with a gruesome campfire story at the kitchen table, while Fred wonders what kind of cool TV shows are on. 

Characters appear and disappear seemingly at random--we don't even know Doug is in the house with Don and Fred until there's a sudden closeup of his butt, after which he disappears again.  The total lack of basic storytelling skills forces us to decipher what's going on in almost every scene, even down to figuring out whether we're supposed to find certain drawn-out sequences funny, suspenseful, or scary.
 


There seem to be several deliberate attempts at comedy throughout the story, but the serious and funny elements are so equally stupid that it's hard to tell.  I laughed out loud when the dog got killed, and I don't even know why.  Other scenes are equally amusing for unknown reasons, such as the part where Doug and Don are searching the bathroom for bug-monsters and find one perched on the toilet, and then each of them insists on using the bathroom anyway. 

Much of the running time is padded with shots of them wandering around the house with their flashlights, trading goofy dialogue and doing things that don't make sense.  When they finally go down into the basement to change out some fuses, a sudden bug attack results in Don bludgeoning Doug with a club.  More excitement ensues when Fred finds an electric chainsaw and goes commando against the critters while Don wields a power drill as though he were building the world's most insane birdhouse.  The film's most hilarious moment ("I'm still alive!") is followed by a surprise visit from none other than the gleefully insane Dr. Lucas, after which things just go totally whacko until the film abruptly ends. 

THINGS supposedly cost around $40,000 to make, but I can't imagine it costing any more than forty dollars.  A sizable chunk of the budget ($2,500) went to 80s porn goddess Amber Lynn, who consented to appear as a TV news reporter making intermittent appearances throughout the film.  Reading her lines cold from a cue card held way off to the side, Amber doesn't come off too good here.  This is irrelevant, though, since her presence is mainly an excuse to use sexy pictures of her in the advertising.  The film's only nudity comes in the first scene, in which a woman (a real-life hooker who appeared under the condition that her face not be shown) strips naked while wearing a devil mask that makes her resemble a deranged Ed Wood.



The DVD from InterVision is in full-screen with 2.0 sound.  Extras include two commentaries, trailers, Barry J. Gillis TV appearances promoting the film, a cast and crew 20th anniversary reunion, a ten-minute behind-the-scenes look at Amber Lynn filming her scenes, and testimonials for the film including comments by Tobe Hooper (TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE) and Jason Eisener (HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN).  After the closing credits crawl there's more candid footage of Amber Lynn and some outtakes.

The first commentary, an audio viewing party with the Cinefamily, is fun, but the cast and crew commentary is a wonderfully raucous affair during which Gillis' daughter, Victoria Elizabeth Turnbull (who also appears in the anniversary segment), mercilessly mocks the film while a growing air of inebriation seems to prevail.

With camerawork and editing that seem to have been performed by blind people and dubbing that might've been done from across the street--not to mention some of the most delightfully atrocious acting of all time--you might think that THINGS was made by people who have never seen a movie before.  As things grow more bizarre and nonsensical, however, the film begins to look more like something made by aliens who have never seen human beings before.

THINGS -- DVD Review by Porfle

THE MORGUE -- Movie Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 4/1/11

 

A young woman named Margo (Lisa Crilley) is the happy-go-lucky janitor in a big, creepy mausoleum.  She's a bouncy-peppy type who bops around with her earbuds plugged in while mopping the floors and scrubbing the bloodstains off the bathroom wall where a previous mortician recently slashed his own throat.  Lately, though, she keeps having these unsettling little flashes of alternate reality, and for some reason the night watchman, George (the venerable Bill Cobbs), acts like she isn't there. 

Five minutes into THE MORGUE (2008) and we're already starting to see the surprise ending coming from a mile away.  But there's more--a dysfunctional family, including a belligerent dad, a mousy mom (yes, that Heather Donahue), and an owlish little girl, show up because their SUV has run out of gas, and, of course, when you run out of gas in the middle of nowhere, the first thing you do is head straight for the nearest mausoleum.  Minutes later, two more guys come staggering in covered with blood after crawling out of a car wreck.  And with our cast of characters thus established, we now get to see them all trying desperately to contact the outside world and escape from the mazelike mausoleum while some dark figure in a hoodie is chasing them all around with a shovel.  Oh yeah, and whenever one of them tries to talk to the night watchman, George, he acts like they aren't there.  Pretty scary stuff, right?  Ehh... 

THE MORGUE tries awful hard to be scary, but it's mainly just confusing and somewhat tedious.  We see endless scenes of our heroes sneaking out of their safe haven, running up and down the dark halls from the shovel-wielding hoodie guy while trying to get out of the building, and then scrambling back to home base and locking the door.  When Bad Dad and Car Wreck Dude attempt an excursion into town, they keep coming right back to the mausoleum.  Weak "shock cuts" and other earnest but unsuccessful attempts to frighten us abound.  The characters' actions often defy any conceivable logic.  And when the twist ending finally comes, it's telegraphed so far in advance that the whole movie is basically one long twist ending. 

I kinda got an 80s vibe from THE MORGUE, which made me think about how much better even the cheaper flicks seemed back then compared to this.  Some parts also have a faint hint of Rod Serling's "Night Gallery" with a dash of PHANTASM thrown in.  It's nice to see somebody trying to do something different by playing around with the supernatural and slasher genres, but it never really comes off like the filmmakers must've imagined.  The constantly blaring music doesn't help, either.  The lead actors do their best to sell it, with Lisa Crilley (ANNAPOLIS) giving it her all and BLAIR WITCH PROJECT's Heather Donahue adding a nostalgic touch. 

Ultimately, though, the ending that THE MORGUE has been so frantically building up to for its entire running time comes as more of a foregone conclusion than a surprise.  There are a few fill-in-the-blanks shots to explain some of the loose ends, but that's about it.  And without the catharsis of a satisfying twist, it's a real downer.  The thing that makes the "Jordy Verrill" segment of CREEPSHOW stick out like a sore thumb is that not only does the ending lack irony, but Jordy doesn't deserve his awful fate, which is at odds with most EC horror stories.  The same applies to THE MORGUE, which left me wondering what the point of it all was.

THE MORGUE -- Movie Review by Porfle

AUSTRALIA AFTER DARK -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 12/13/11

 

If you're in the mood for something spicy, saucy, and hot, try some buffalo wings.  Otherwise, you may prefer AUSTRALIA AFTER DARK (1975), one of the dullest schock-u-mentaries ever.  It's like cashing in all your boredom points and taking a cross-country bus ride to Yawnsville.

Ozploitation director John Lamond, who would later give us NIGHTMARES (so to speak) and FELICITY, leads us on a MONDO CANE-inspired tour through the down-under of Down Under with this disjointed cinematic grab bag.  Opening with what looks like a poor man's Bond-movie titles sequence (nude blonde slowly rotates against black backdrop as strobe light flashes) and some understandably sad-looking aborigines, we're then treated to a leisurely succession of unrelated vignettes ranging in interest from slight to none, roughly half of which involve naked people. 

Unfortunately, Lamond's lens seems to have attracted some of the homeliest 'roo babes in Ozzie Land like moths to a flame, and some of them brought their butt-nekkid boyfriends with them.  As the monotonous narrator drones relentlessly on, we watch them sunbathing in the nude, swimming in the nude, painting each other's nude bodies, and nuding it up during Satan-worshipping rituals and custom bikini fittings.
 


The low-budget cinematography and painful 70s fashions combine with the meandering narrative to create an effect that's strangely enervating.  A promising drive through the King's Cross district (sort of like Times Square in its sleazy days) leads to a body-painting segment that resembles an old Alka-Seltzer ad.  A visit to a gathering of sado-masochists ends just as someone's being racked up, then segues into a study of ancient aboriginal rock paintings, a tour of the gallows at Old Melbourne Gaol, and an upper-class restaurant that serves snakes and grubs.  It's kind of like watching "History Channel After Dark."

More weirdly boring stuff includes a bunch of beer-guzzling losers in a field betting on a game in which they toss coins onto an outstretched blanket, followed by some waterless boat races held in an arid region (even during this non-sexual sequence, the camera lingers under a stairway and peeks up the skirts of passing girls like a dirty old man).  Then, before we've had a chance to catch our breath, the film whisks us out to the airport to watch planes taxi around for awhile.  It's exciting because this is how jet-setters travel to different places!

After tattling on the inordinate alcoholic intake (52 gallons per person annually) in Australia's Northern territories and showing us more sad aborigines boozing their troubles away, we go to the country's gay capitol, Perth, to witness (gasp) two guys getting married.  This sequence proves once and for all that gay weddings are just as boring as straight ones, and we don't even get cake.  A sexually-ambiguous stripper performs, then a woman talks about all the "saucer craft" that have landed in her field as we see a montage of familiar UFO photographs.



Things start to heat up a tad when a naked blonde is tied to an inverted cross and boffed by a guy in a fright mask (it's those pesky Satan-worshippers I mentioned before).  A lengthy stretch near the end tries to regain our dwindling attention by focusing entirely on nude women engaged in various activities such as bathing in milk and mud (the latter being a spiritual return to the primordial slime or whatever) and having guys slurp food off their bodies.  Dispensing with the subject of Australia altogether, the narrator then gives us a lecture on what a "fetish" is while a lingerie-clad woman poses.

In the penultimate segment, we meet transvestite oddball Count Cornelius, who is what you might call a "lifestyle comedian."  The Count amuses himself by spouting proclamations ("Beautiful schoolgirls remind me of sexy nuns") and festooning his environment with placards containing "Laugh-In" style one-liners.  Talk about After-Darksville!  The film mercifully draws to a close at last with some relaxing shots of a nude Gina Allen snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef with some fish, as the narrator informs us that she's returning to--you guessed it--the primordial something or other.

After trying to find a way to enjoy this movie--the usually surefire "so bad it's good" deal wasn't working here--I finally realized that a trancelike surrender is required to endure it, much like the educational films they tried to bore us to death with in grade school (only with more full-frontal nudity).  One of the nicer things about AUSTRALIA AFTER DARK is that the score seems to have been gleaned from the same music library used by the better porn filmmakers of the 70s.

The DVD from Intervision is "fully restored from a print discovered in the cellar of the Lower Wonga Drive-In" and is widescreen with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound.  There's an audio commentary with director Lamond and "Not Quite Hollywood" director Mark Hartley, but my copy of the DVD seems to be missing the trailer reel mentioned on the box. 

About as shocking and titillating as a pile of wet socks, AUSTRALIA AFTER DARK does boast a kind of tranquil monotony, and is, in the words of Douglas Adams, "mostly harmless."  Finally making it to the end credits is a catharsis similar to walking out of the hospital after a long stay--you feel weak as a kitten but pleasantly relieved that it's over.

AUSTRALIA AFTER DARK -- DVD Review by Porfle

THE ABC OF LOVE AND SEX AUSTRALIA STYLE -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 12/18/11

 

Ozploitation director John D. Lamond returns to titillate us once again with 1978's THE ABC OF LOVE AND SEX AUSTRALIA STYLE, a by-the-letters primer on "doin' it" that manages the remarkable feat of making sex boring.

Unlike the previous Lamond documentary we talked about, AUSTRALIA AFTER DARK, this one eschews the scattershot approach and focuses on a single subject.  Assuming we know little or nothing about it ourselves, the film opens during Professor Leonard Lovitt's sex education class for kids and invites us to join them in listening to his lecture.  This sequence is done with stop-motion animated puppets and is pretty much the only marginally charming part of the whole thing. 

As the professor starts his projector, the film proper begins with two women in leotards dancing badly around some giant alphabet blocks to an innocuous disco tune.  This gives way to a letter-by-letter journey through the alphabet beginning with "A" for "anatomy", in which we're introduced to the differences between male and female genitalia.  (More on that when we get to the letter "G.")  "B" is for "birth", offering some extreme close-ups of a nursing baby that had me thinking, "Huh?"

 

"C" for "contraceptive" seems to be an excuse for some product placement along the lines of the "Budget Rent-a-Car" shots in AUSTRALIA AFTER DARK, and "D" for "dreams" informs us that people like to dream about sex.  Surprisingly, "E" for "erotic", while managing to define the word, comes up short actually demonstrating it.  An attempt to mimic the "erotic" eating scene in TOM JONES consists of two stiffs staring meaningfully at each other while gnashing chicken, grapes, and bananas in an affected manner.  

Elsewhere, another couple pretend to have oral sex in a movie theater--mainly we just see the guy's face--and then join the "mile-high club" by kissing real hard in an airplane.  Kissing real hard seems to be the prevalent means of simulating the sex act in many of these vignettes. 

"F" for "fun" shows us a couple of people hopping around in a bubble bath.  "H" for "homosexual" is an excuse to indulge in "funny" stereotypes as a bunch of queens camp it up during a gay party, followed by a somewhat more enjoyable lesbian encounter.  "Innocence" is equated with "ignorance" as virginity gets the bird.  The scenario used to illustrate "J" for "jealousy", in which a woman tries to pick up a man in a bar, is intended as a startling role-reversal while having nothing at all to do with "jealousy."  As you might guess, "K" for "kiss" shows various couples kissing real hard.

Onward we slog through the rest of the letters as "love", "masturbation", something starting with an "N" that I can't recall, and of course the big "O" are similarly dramatised in lighthearted but relentlessly dull fashion as narrators Michael Cole and Sandy Gore drone monotonously.  This isn't just a parody of a dry, clinical sex manual--it often comes off as one, even throwing in the occasional comment by some Swedish sexologist who resembles Quasimodo's mom.  For anyone actually trying to get off to this movie, her appearances would be the equivalent of thinking about baseball. 

 

It's hard to imagine this tepid pseudo-educational film appealing to the raincoat crowd, though, or even the "watch naughty movies on cable after Mom and Dad have gone to bed" faction.  Observing various (mainly unattractive) couples acting out the enervating voiceover isn't the kind of thing one might want to use as a sex aid, or see at a drive-in or grindhouse.  So who the heck is this largely unerotic sex movie meant to appeal to?  Even the captive audience of an actual "Introduction to Sex" class would find it hard to sit through.

Aside from a snippet of cuteness here and there (the elevator-sex scene reaches the film's peak of verbal humor by deftly including the words "lift" and "elevate" in the narration), the only interest is in the brief bits of nudity, including, at around the halfway point, some actual shots of penetration. 

However, for any couples desperate enough to be using this film to put a cheerful charge into their love life, up jumps "R" for "rape" to throw some cold water on it with a jarringly out-of-place lapse into grim seriousness.  Lamond cheats a bit by giving us "X" for "excellence", and then "Y" for "you" gives him an excuse to recap the entire film with a montage of scenes that were already dull the first time.  As for "Z"...well, he couldn't think of anything for "Z."  What about "zipper"?  Or "zoo"?  Okay, maybe not "zoo."

The DVD from Intervision Picture Corp. is widescreen with Dolby 2.0 sound.  No subtitles.  There's a commentary with director Lamond and "Not Quite Hollywood" director Mark Hartley.  The box mentions a trailer reel but I couldn't find one.

A mildly interesting peek at 70s sexual mores and dull filmmaking, THE ABC OF LOVE AND SEX AUSTRALIA STYLE (which, incidentally, has absolutely nothing to do with Australia) pits lots of nudity and some brief scenes of hardcore sex against unrelenting boredom in a touch-and-go battle that left me teetering on the edge of indifference.  Around about the twentieth time some random couple was shown toying with each other's buttons and kissing real hard, I found myself wishing the alphabet wasn't so darn long.

 

THE ABC OF LOVE AND SEX AUSTRALIA STYLE -- DVD Review by Porfle

HELL RIDE -- Movie Review by Porfle

 Originally posted on 9/27/13

 

Is the phrase "Quentin Tarantino Presents" before a film's title a reliable sign of quality?  After watching HELL RIDE (2008), my answer to that question would be, in a word, no.  And in two words, hell no.  If this is any indication, then Tarantino might as well start calling people into the bathroom after he takes a dump so that he can proudly "present" the results to them.

What little storyline there is often gets lost in the seemingly random editing, or is put on hold every time some mangy old biker dudes get their hands on the non-stop parade of salacious silicone babes who seem to infest this flick like tribbles.  What it all boils down to is that way back in 1976, some rival bad-guy bikers called the Six Six Sixers murdered good-guy biker Pistolero's girlfriend, and now, thirty some-odd years later, Pistolero (writer-director Larry Bishop), with the help of fellow gang members the Victors, decides to get revenge. 

I've read that Bishop used to be a biker himself and has firsthand experience with the lifestyle, which seems to add zero validity to this particular project.  Basically what you've got here is a bunch of middle-aged actors who have been roped into a turkey and they know it, so they're just goofing their way through it.  Michael Madsen, who has been known to sleepwalk through films he doesn't take seriously, invests about as much effort in the role of Pistolero's devil-may-care cohort "The Gent" (he wears a tuxedo jacket instead of a leather jacket for some damn reason) as he would if his neighbor pointed a home video camera at him. 

David Carradine, as rival gang leader "The Deuce", is there simply to lend whatever coolness factor he can to his few scenes, while Dennis Hopper comes off as nothing more than a silly old fart.  Even Vinnie Jones as evil, oral-sex-obsessed rival biker "Billy Wings" seems embarrassed here, which may be the film's most noteworthy accomplishment. 

As for young Eric Balfour as the mysterious newcomer Cheyenne, he seems to take the whole thing about as seriously as Bishop, meaning that he's just as arch and stiff a presence.  Nobody,  however, can match Larry Bishop's hernia-inducing attempts to be a badass--at times, he treats the simple act of standing in one spot with such sinew-stretching intensity that we fear he may implode.

The movie is filled with flashbacks, flash forwards, changes in style, changes in film stock, switches from color to black-and-white and back, zoom-ins, zoom-outs, focus fiddling, and most other types of cinematic frou-frou you can think of, but there's no rhyme or reason to any of it.  Bishop's clearly trying to be arty in several sequences, but his visuals look sloppy instead.  And when his character goes out into the desert and takes peyote in one scene, this gives the director an excuse to indulge in the usual meandering drug-trip nonsense with its skin-deep philosophizing.

There are homages to Tarantino's homages, such as a mysterious box whose contents we never get to see, and a POV shot looking up from inside the box that's a miniature version of the way Tarantino shoots people opening car trunks.  There's the jukebox soundtrack, featuring several truly ear-curdling songs.  And of course, there's the dialogue.  HELL RIDE contains stretches of dialogue that might make you wish Jules Winnfield and Vincent Vega had never discussed foot massages or mentioned the words "Royale with cheese." 

At one point Pistolero and his aptly-named girlfriend Nada (sexy Leonor Varela) get into a pun war that includes every possible variation of the word "fire"--she's got a fire that needs putting out, he's got the firehose, she's a fire alarm, he's a fire-eater, etc.  It's a wonder they didn't manage to work "fire ants" into it somewhere.  Later, Bishop starts doing the same thing with the word "business", and you start wishing you could just grab a gun and shoot at the screen like Elvis used to do.

The impression I get from this movie's publicity is that if you liked GRINDHOUSE, you should love HELL RIDE.  But as far as I'm concerned, whatever you may have liked about one is sadly lacking in the other.  Getting the "right" actors together and having them be super tough and spout loopy dialogue at each other doesn't make a good movie if there isn't a decent story and a solid directorial vision.  HELL RIDE's problem is that it thinks it's a cool-as-hell movie to begin with, but doesn't have what it takes to actually be one.

HELL RIDE -- Movie Review by Porfle

MURDERLUST (w/ PROJECT NIGHTMARE) -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 1/14/17

 

One of the joys of movie watching is discovering new (to me anyway) low-budget filmmakers with a knack for turning straw into gold.  Or at least making the straw look better.  1985's serial killer thriller MURDERLUST (like its Intervision DVD companion PROJECT NIGHTMARE) is very good straw. 

Here, two very independent filmmakers--writer/director Donald M. Jones and writer/producer James C. Lane--have joined their noteworthy talents together to concoct a viewing experience which, while not exactly something to write home about, is admirably well-rendered considering that the budget was around $30,000.  That includes shooting on 35mm film, which in the pre-digital days ate up budgets like Homer Simpson going through a box of donuts.

In their script, which was begun by Jones and completed by Lane, Eli Rich (THE JIGSAW MURDERS) plays Steve Belmont, whose activities at the local church (he teaches Sunday School and counsels troubled kids) mask the fact that he's a vicious serial killer in his spare time.

Steve actually leads a triple life, since in addition to these two sides of his personality there's a third--that of a surly working stiff whose real jobs are marred by extremely disrespectful and irresponsible behavior.  When he isn't planning his next kill or being Mr. Nice Guy at the church, he's telling off his boss, trying to cajole his landlord to extend his rent deadline, or soaking his straight-laced cousin Neil (Dennis Gannon) for loans and favors. 

Interestingly, it's the non-serial-killer stuff that MURDERLUST spends the most time on.  In fact, the film is more about how Steve struggles to maintain his everyday life and keep up his clean image at church than about his homicidal activities.  So those looking for blood and gore or a series of graphic, cinematic murders for their own sake will likely find much of this story rather slow going.  Maybe even boring.

But if you get caught up in Steve's story then that should be sufficiently involving.  His standing at church is threatened when a disturbed young girl accuses him of inappropriate touching (of which, surprisingly, he's innocent) and a chance encounter with a fellow member who professes her secret love for him (Rochelle Taylor as "Cheryl") has Steve thinking that maybe he has a chance for a normal life after all.

"Normal", however, just isn't in Steve's makeup, and he keeps returning to what he does best, which is luring women into his apartment or his "creep" van, dispatching them, and then driving them out to the desert to dump the bodies.  (He'll eventually be known by the press as the "Mohave Murderer.")

Jones stages the murder scenes pretty matter-of-factly, without lingering over any of the details or indulging in anything gratuitous.  It's the drama and suspense that occur between these scenes in this leisurely-paced character study that he and co-writer Lane are concerned with.  That, and delivering as good-looking a film as they can for their meager budget.

This is where Jones' knack for solid, economical staging comes to the fore, with the help of a highly capable cast led by the talented Rich as our anti-hero Steve.  Producer Lane also adds his valuable expertise in various technical aspects (camerawork, lighting, sets, etc.) as well as pulling off some beautiful helicopter shots in the desert which he describes in detail in his informative commentary track.

As you can probably guess, Steve's veneer of normalcy comes crashing down around him in the film's climax, as his true nature is revealed to a horrified Cheryl.  Even here, though, the main goal of MURDERLUST is to draw us into its story rather than shock us.

I found MURDERLUST to be involving, if perhaps a bit overly low-key, and was interested to see how it had been put together with such limited resources.  (Watching it along with Lane's detailed commentary is especially enlightening.)  Stalker-slasher fans in the mood to be thrilled and horrified, however, will likely deem it a yawner.



The second film on the disc is Jones and Lane's first feature effort, PROJECT NIGHTMARE, which finally found distribution in 1987 after some of their subsequent films had already been released.

With an even lower budget and a soundtrack in which all the dialogue was looped, the film manages to look better and, in my opinion, present a much more intriguing "Twilight Zone"-esque story.

The brash, outgoing Jon (Seth Foster) and the quiet, introspective Gus (Charles Miller) are two old friends whose camping trip in the mountains is interrupted when a strange, unknown force begins to chase them through the woods.

Seeking shelter in a secluded cabin, they meet Marcie (Elly Koslo), a strangely accomodating woman who not only trusts them implicitly on sight but quickly falls for Gus, whose feelings are guarded but mutual.

After a series of vain attempts to return to civilization, all three eventually find themselves fleeing the mysterious force and end up stranded in the desert.  Several events bordering on the supernatural occur, but after Gus finds his way down into an underground bunker, he discovers the true origin of all the strange occurrences that have been plaguing them.

Up to this point PROJECT NIGHTMARE has been having a ball leading us through a maze of inexplicable twists and turns which it must now labor to explain.  Thankfully, the ending isn't one of those copouts that leaves us hanging, and the resolution to all the mysteries consists of some pretty interesting science fiction for us to wrap our heads around.

Technically, the film is thoughtfully directed by Jones and is rife with great outdoor locations that are well-photographed in 35mm. The underground facility betrays its low budget at times but not really to the film's detriment.

A nightmare sequence early on is quite expertly conceived and edited, ending dramatically with a series of still shots timed to a pounding heartbeat.

With a combination of "Twilight Zone", "The Outer Limits", and, according to Lane in his commentary track, FORBIDDEN PLANET, the story manages to maintain our interest throughout.  This is helped in no small measure by a very capable cast.

Despite playing second fiddle to MURDERLUST on this Intervision double-feature disc (whose bonus features consist of the two James Lane commentary tracks and a MURDERLUST trailer), I consider PROJECT NIGHTMARE the more interesting and rewarding of the two features.  Together, they make for one very worthwhile DVD which I found richly entertaining.

MURDERLUST (w/ PROJECT NIGHTMARE) -- DVD Review by Porfle

DREAM STALKER/DEATH BY LOVE -- DVD Review by Porfle

 Originally posted on 4/4/17

 

In THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY, Clint Eastwood tells us: "In this world, there are two kinds of people, my friend.  Those with loaded guns...and those who dig."  Well, he was half right.  There ARE two kinds of people in the world: those who think shot-on-video movies from the 80s and 90s are unwatchable crap, and those who'd sooner watch one of them than anything that won an Academy Award this year. 

I fall into the latter camp--not completely, perhaps, but mainly--which is why I regarded Intervision Picture Corp.'s new DREAM STALKER/DEATH BY LOVE double-feature DVD with a sort of giddy delight instead of flinging it away with a cry of "ICK!" as some less adventurous individuals might be compelled to do.

Granted, these SOV features are a diverse lot which vary wildly in quality from the above-average (PHOBE:XENOPHOBIC EXPERIMENTS) to somewhere in-between (SLEDGEHAMMER, the first-ever SOV movie) to the downright pathetic (I'm looking at you, THINGS).

But however relatively good or bad they may be, they all share one thing in common--the fact that they're such a renegade, "outsider" form of cinema automatically makes them instantly interesting to a lot of people.

In the case of DREAM STALKER (1991), director Christopher Mills does a competent job with a cast that's unpolished but earnest, and comes up with something that resembles an actual movie.  Some of the photography, in fact, is actually rather nice, especially a gorgeous shot of a car crossing Golden Gate Bridge in the rain. Some of the sound, unfortunately, is the pits. (I'm looking at you, leaf-blower scene.)

Scriptwise, there's some perversely amusing dialogue and a glorious mess of a plot about a budding supermodel named Brittney Marin (Valerie Williams) whose dirt-bike-racing, mullet-sporting boyfriend Ricky (Mark Dias) gets killed shortly after their engagement. 

The increasingly troubled Brittney discovers, through the help of the eccentric Dr. Frisk, that her nightmares about Ricky (in which he tries to run her over with his bike before dragging her down kicking and screaming into his grave) have taken on telekinetic properties.

What even he doesn't know, however, is that when Brittney is asleep, Dead Ricky is able to return to this world, kill anyone who bothers or shows any romantic interest in her, and, in a twist on the old "dream lover" fantasy, make some really yucky nocturnal mookie with her. 

By this time, Ricky's looking a little icky, thanks to a nifty makeup job that makes him look like Two-Face only worse.  He hasn't lost his sick sense of humor, though, bemoaning the breakage of his condom in the zombie rape scene and giving a hapless mortuary worker some serious guff for cheaping out on his burial. 

In desperation, Brittney leaves her hot older-Pat-Benetar-looking mom behind and flees to their vacation cabin in the woods, only to find that it's now right next to a camp for "troubled teens" who are all in their 20s and 30s.  These insufferable post-juvenile delinquents could all use a good Jasoning, but after the chicks beat up on poor Brittney and the dudes try to molest her (by now, this movie has elements of NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, FRIDAY THE 13TH, and I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE comin' at ya) they're all prime fodder for Dead Ricky to wade into just as soon as Brittney goes night-night.

Love-starved Brittney finally drives old Rottin' Rick right over the edge when she shows interest in a handsome new neighbor, Greg (John Tyler).  A nice softcore sex scene with brief nudity (bookending the earlier one between Brittney and a pre-dead Rick) sets up the raucous finale in which everybody gets seriously Rick Rolled, with plenty of blood and gore effects. 

All things considered, DREAM STALKER may very well be regarded as a classic of its kind.  The horror scenes are generally well-staged, the drama is pleasingly goofy, and SOV fans should find it as restful and invigorating as a good night's sleep. 


The same can pretty much be said for the follow-up, DEATH BY LOVE (1990), which, while not quite as over-the-top as the previous feature, is still one of the better SOV flicks that I've seen. 

Producer-writer-director Alan Grant stars as Joel Falk, a well-known sculptor who's quite a fit, bronzed figure of a man himself.  At least, enough to attract the interest of several equally attractive young women who, unfortunately, tend to turn up dead after hooking up with him.  And not only dead, but drained of blood, with ugly gashes on their throats.

But is Joel the killer?  Or is it the mysterious, unidentified man (Frank McGill) who's always spying on him from afar?  Every time Joel hooks up with a woman, this guy's peering through a window or hedge, seemingly up to no good. 

So...is he the killer, and if so, why does he seem intent on murdering every woman that Joel shows romantic interest in?  

Like DREAM STALKER, this is a decent-looking enough feature to have been shot on video, and it's about as well-directed.  Since it was shot in Dallas, Texas, almost everyone has a thick Texas accent, which, as a Texan myself, I find to be a definite plus.  The acting, as usual, is much more enthusiastic than refined, and in general the movie is technically adequate and more. 

Whether he's killing these women without being aware of it, or his unknown stalker is disposing of them himself for some ungodly reason, Joel earns our sympathy early on thanks partly to Grant's earnest performance.  McGill comes into his own later as his character makes his way to the fore and the mystery surrounding him is revealed. 

This revelation, in fact, turns out to be a dandy of a twist, which I'd be loathe to expound upon here lest I give it away. Suffice it to say, the second half of the story gets a lot livelier and involves some nifty monster makeup.  Also of interest are the copious amounts of lovingly-shot softcore sex scenes throughout much of the running time, accompanied by the requisite smokey jazz music. 

With the help of a couple of likable police detectives, DEATH BY LOVE builds to a suitably intense climax that viewers should find satisfying.  (Be sure to stay through the closing credits for the final sting.) Together with DREAM STALKER, this double-feature DVD from Intervision should prove quite a tasty treat for shot-on-video connoisseurs who just can't get enough of that funky stuff.

Special Features:

Remembering Ricky: With Actor Mark Dias
Dirtbike Dreams: Executive Producer Tom Naygrow
Alan Grant Remembers Death By Love Via Video Skype
Yvonne Aric and Brad Bishop Remember Death By Love Via Video Skype
English subtitles

Release date: 4/11/17

DREAM STALKER/DEATH BY LOVE -- DVD Review by Porfle

MONDO CANNIBAL -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 11/14/14

 

When famous TV personality Grace Forsyte's ratings start to plunge, so does her integrity--leading to a desperate attempt to boost viewership by taking a film crew into the jungles of South America to record the most horrible atrocities she can find amongst savage tribes of (gasp!) flesh-eating cannibals!

Thus, Italian exploitation director Bruno Mattei (working under the name "Vincent Dawn"), responsible for such films as RATS: NIGHT OF TERROR, WOMEN'S CAMP 119, CALIGULA'S PERVERSIONS, and SCALPS, enriches the world of cinematic art with this offering entitled MONDO CANNIBAL (2004, Intervision Picture Corp.), known also as "Cannibal World", "Horror Cannibal 2", "Cannibal Holocaust 2", and "Cannibal Holocaust: The Beginning." Needless to say, it's about cannibalism.

The "Mondo" angle is a bit misleading, however, since this is neither an actual "Mondo Cane"-type documentary nor a mockumentary, although there's one scene near the beginning that looks real enough. Grace (played by Helena Wagner) and her boss, the TV network president, are viewing footage of what's purported to be actual cannibals preparing a corpse for feasting, and it looks like the real thing--disgustingly so--although it might simply be a prelude to a crude cremation.

Still, it's the one part of the movie that you won't want to watch while eating a nice, drippy, all-meat pizza or a steaming bowl of goulash. In other words, it's wicked grotty, innit.

The rest of the movie consists of Grace and her crew on an increasingly wacky jungle adventure filming fake natives running around killing each other with rubber clubs and feasting on the bloody entrails of their victims like a bunch of freaked-out "fast-moving" zombies.

The grossest thing about these scenes (and their rudimentary but fun gore SPFX) is wondering what the hell is that stringy slop the energetic extras are shoving into their mouths with such ravenous glee--it looks like spaghetti mixed with something somebody dug out of a dumpster behind a butcher shop.

Recording all this horror eventually isn't enough for Grace and her gang, who before long are in the thick of the carnage themselves as they attack a village and set fire to the huts, which are filled with screaming natives, while gleefully raping and massacring everyone in sight.

This rampant savagery is a weird and sudden change for Grace's environmental-advocate partner Bob Manson (Claudio Morales)--supposedly the "conscience" of the group--and her technical crew including cute blonde Cindy (Cindy Matic), whose main purpose on the expedition is to add to the film's brief nudity quotient.

Meanwhile, back in civilization, the TV executives (with the sole exception of one gray-haired bigwig with a weak stomach) are, to coin a phrase, "eating it all up" as the ratings skyrocket.

MONDO CANNIBAL is surprisingly competent in the technical department, with some nice location work including lovely shots of what is supposed to be Hong Kong (although the credits state that this was filmed entirely in the Phillipines). One of the funniest parts of the film is the title at the beginning of this sequence: "Hong Kong: Some Mouths Before..."

Performances are fair to, well, fair, but what star Helena Wagner lacks in finesse she makes up for with pure wire-taut intensity. Her efforts and those of the rest of the cast are hampered by bad dubbing and some jarringly dumb dialogue that adds to the perverse entertainment value.

The main drawback is that much of the earlier part of the film is just plain boring. Things definitely pick up later on, however, when the story starts edging its way over the top before spilling all the way over into a bloodbath of goofy gore and even goofier plot twists.

The DVD from Intervision Picture Corp. is in full frame with Dolby Digital stereo sound. No subtitles. The only bonus feature is a trailer.

In case you haven't gleaned as much from my description already, MONDO CANNIBAL isn't exactly the sort of entertainment to accompany your next Martha Stewart-style dinner soirée. But if you're in the mood for some severely whacked-out ultra-gore goodness packed with psychotic sadism and lacking any sense of decency whatsoever, then this should serve as a suitably sordid main course.

MONDO CANNIBAL -- DVD Review by Porfle