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

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

SHOCKING DARK -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

 Originally posted on 5/22/2018

"So bad it's good" has a new name, and that name is SHOCKING DARK (Severin Films, 1989), a mind-rotting Italian sci-fi/horror fever dream from director Bruno Mattei and writers Claudio Fragasso and his wife Rossella Drudi.

As Drudi admits in an interview included on the Blu-ray, she and Claudio were hired to pen a direct rip-off of James Cameron's ALIENS and TERMINATOR, which would be released to theaters in time to cash in on Cameron's own upcoming TERMINATOR 2 (in some countries, they even used the same title along with copycat posters).

The main difference here, besides the rock-bottom budget, is that Mattei's film is set in scenic Venice as well as a genuine nuclear power plant, complete with control room, endless hallways, and massive machinery surrounded by walkways.  It's a goldmine of found locations that add immeasurably to the production values. 

Not that this makes SHOCKING DARK look like a lavish or even competent effort. The film is laughably bad from start to finish, with subpar performances and some really poor dialogue (some of which is lifted right out of ALIENS), and the big, scaly creatures that menace our heroes aren't far removed from the ones that stalked THE HORROR OF PARTY BEACH.

And yet these very qualities are what make it such an involving experience.  The story is about a future Venice that's so polluted it's uninhabitable, and a research company called Tubular that's working to solve the problem when something goes terribly wrong (something involving monsters, that is) and all contact with them is lost.

Enter this movie's version of Cameron's colonial marines to venture into Tubular's vast underground system of corridors, laboratories, etc. and try to sort things out along with a brainy civilian, Dr. Sara Drumbull (Haven Tyler), who will be our official equivalent of Ripley.

Part of the fun of SHOCKING DARK is spotting all the other equivalents, such as the female marine who reminds us of Vasquez, other soldiers who remind us of other ALIENS characters, and the Newt-like little girl Samantha who latches onto Sara (even though the actress playing her appears to be far past adolescence).

Last but not least, there's the member of the group who is secretly a robot (or "replicant") and will eventually stalk Sara and Samantha through the compound like a Terminator as the familiar countdown to self-destruct ticks away. 

Whole scenes are copied, as when Samantha asks Sara, "Why do monsters exist?" during an intimate moment, right before they get locked in a lab with two of the slimy buggers while the traitor in the group turns off their surveillance camera.  Earlier, victims of the initial attack are, as you might guess, found cocooned.

Things don't really take off until the final third when all the stalking and counting down to self-destruct begin.  As a recorded voice reels off the elapsing seconds, Sara chugs through a series of Ellen Ripley/Sarah Connor moments until finally there's a rather unexpected time travel finale involving the one and only set built specifically for the movie. 
 
SHOCKING DARK is one of those movies that's sort of beyond criticism since the worse it is, the more fun I have watching it.  It's sincerely, almost creatively bad.  The filmmakers set out to entertain, and in their own colorful, flamboyantly inept, and wholly inadvertent way, they pretty much did just that.


Buy it at Severin Films

Special Features:
Terminator in Venice – An Interview with Co-Director / Co-Screenwriters Claudio Fragasso and Co-Screenwriter Rossella Drudi
Once Upon A Time in Italy – An Interview With Actress Geretta Geretta
Alternate Italian Titles

SHOCKING DARK -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

VIOLENCE IN A WOMEN'S PRISON -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

 Originally posted on 4/19//2018

 

Not one of Bruno Mattei's more extreme works, nor even his most vicious "women in prison" film (THE JAIL: THE WOMEN'S HELL beats it handily on that count), VIOLENCE IN A WOMEN'S PRISON, aka "Caged Women" (1982) still manages to entertain thanks to the usual exploitation elements and some relatively outstanding moments.

The former, not surprisingly, includes plenty of sadomasochistic mayhem between butch female prison guards and their hapless prisoners, gleefully joined by a  monstrous warden and her sadistic club-wielding lieutenant.

Much nudity and softcore lesbian sex ensues, though I found most of it thoroughly unerotic.  Still, no women-in-prison exploitation flick is complete without indulging in such hijinks, and Mattei (directing here once again under the pseudonym "Vincent Dawn") delivers same with his usual rough-hewn panache.

This is also true for the obligatory gross-out stuff, especially when the new inmate (beautiful Laura Gemser in her signature role as "Emanuelle") is confined to solitary and attacked by slimy, ravenous rats. 

Mattei (MONDO CANNIBAL, ISLAND OF THE LIVING DEAD) likes to have three or four horrible things happening at once so that he can intercut amongst them for awhile, so we see Laura fighting off toothsome rats while guards molest other unfortunate prisoners and the wardens of the male and female sides of the prison engage in sick, voyeuristic sex games themselves.

We also visit the men's side of the prison where a gay inmate is constantly being gang-raped after his fellow prisoners get worked up watching one of the women exposing herself at a window.  These scenes usually end with a horde of guards descending upon the men in the exercise yard and beating them all senseless with clubs.

All of which takes place within an ideal found location--some kind of sprawling old European castle or something--that adds immeasurably to the film's atmosphere and production values.  An enthusiastic cast also adds to our enjoyment.

Getting there a decade before ALIEN 3, this movie also has Gemser waking up in the prison hospital being lovingly attended to by a handsome, sympathetic doctor who turns out to be a fellow inmate convicted of an unfortunate crime (in this case, the euthanasia of his cancer-ridden wife).

When it turns out that Laura may actually be working undercover to expose the horrific abuses at the prison, and is in danger of discovery, Dr. Moran (Gabriele Tinti) comes up with an escape plan that will generate ample suspense later in the film. 

While that's going on, however, the best moment in VIOLENCE IN A WOMEN'S PRISON occurs when an aging prisoner named Pilar (Leila Ducci), who's so lonesome she keeps a cockroach in a tiny makeshift cage as a pet, takes on the evil head guard after a bloody riot in the day room. 

For two minutes or so, the film raises to a level of greatness that had me in awe.  I had to rewind and watch it again, it was so riveting and exquisitely done.  In fact, it seemed as though Dario Argento and Alfred Hitchcock had dropped by that day for a visit and decided to co-direct a scene just as a lark.

Besides that, though, VIOLENCE IN A WOMEN'S PRISON is your standard Bruno Mattei effort, unpolished and very, very uncouth yet good fun for those who are up for this brand of cheerfully grotesque entertainment.


Buy it at Severin Films

Special Features:
Brawl In Women’s Block: Interview With Co-Director/Co-Writer Claudio Fragasso and Co-Writer Rossella Drudi
Archive Interview With Director Bruno Mattei
Radio Spot
Reversible Box Art


Reversible box art:

VIOLENCE IN A WOMEN'S PRISON -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

IN THE LAND OF THE CANNIBALS -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 12/5/14

 

It's the same old story...senator's daughter gets kidnapped by cannibals in the Amazon jungle, a group of hardened commandos armed to the teeth must go in to rescue her.

But with exploitation director Bruno Mattei (HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD, CAGED WOMEN, RATS: NIGHT OF TERROR, SS EXTERMINATION LOVE CAMP) at the helm--working under the name "Martin Miller"--that same old story has a cockeyed, oddball approach all its own, and IN THE LAND OF THE CANNIBALS, aka "Land of Death", "Nella terra dei cannibali", and "Cannibal Holocaust 3: Cannibal vs. Commando" (2003), will either bore you silly or have you floating on a cloud of bad-movie bliss.

Like his other cannibal epic from the same year, MONDO CANNIBAL, this was shot entirely in the Philipines and actually boasts some dandy jungle locations. It's also pleasantly passable in certain other areas such as nice camerawork, a rousing musical score, and an overall look that transcends what must have been a pretty low budget.

Unfortunately, this culinary curio also displays the usual wooden acting, horrendous dubbing, and richly dumb (but enjoyably so) dialogue that we expect from one of these potluck potboilers.

After we meet the two main characters--brawny head commando Lt. Wilson (Lou Randall) and his surly, know-it-all jungle guide, a local mercenary named Romero (Claudio Morales, co-star of MONDO CANNIBAL)--they and the rest of their trigger-happy team are transported via helicopter into a harrowing jungle nightmare festooned with flesh-eating, poisoned-arrow-shooting natives crawling out of the shrubbery at every turn.

Mattei tries to invoke an ALIENS atmosphere at first with cool-as-ice Romero napping peacefully in the chopper before they all rappel into the bush (an act described as "an elevator into hell") and stiff-necked Lt. Wilson being exposed as a novice whose combat experience has been mostly simulated.

There's also a tough-cookie female commando named, oddly enough, "Vasquez" (Ydalia Suarez) and a no-nonsense black sergeant, Sgt. Cameron (Silvio Jimenez)--as in "James Cameron" for those keeping score. The other two guys, Kruger and Smith, are pretty non-descript, although I think one of them is Irish. Anyway, any in-depth character development that may occur during this story is entirely accidental.

Once the commandos start nosing around in the jungle looking for the lost senator's daughter and her hapless entourage, things get rather boring (I found myself nodding off a few times) until they begin to encounter different tribes who respond to them with varying degrees of hostility. Mattei tries to shock us with close-ups of wormy, decaying bodies, several having been skinned alive, and people gorging themselves on some really nasty stuff.

What there's precious little of in IN THE LAND OF THE CANNIBALS, surprisingly enough, is actual cannibalism. It's hardly the gorefest that its counterpart MONDO CANNIBAL was, going instead for more of an action-packed shoot 'em up vibe.

Once our heroes locate and abscond with their prize, Sara Armstrong (Cindy Matic), now regarded by her superstitious captors as some kind of mystical creature due to her blonde hair (shades of KING KONG and no doubt scores of other jungle yarns), the film becomes a non-stop orgy of bullet-riddled fun as seemingly hundreds of cannibalistic creeps get mowed down by machine guns and grenades galore.

This furious finale, with everyone trying to "Ged to da choppa!" PREDATOR-style, is all pretty low-tech, no-squibs action--the extras simply pretend to get shot up all over the place and the commandos empty clip after clip into them while dodging arrows and spears. As is traditional in this sort of action flick, we see our favorite characters cut down one by one as we wonder who the final survivor or survivors will be.

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

While taking itself seriously as an action thriller, IN THE LAND OF THE CANNIBALS is the kind of movie that's so dumb, it's almost indistinguishable from a deadpan comedy. Maybe that, in addition to the fact that it's well-made enough to be mildly watchable, is why I managed to derive a few palatable tidbits of entertainment value from it.

IN THE LAND OF THE CANNIBALS -- DVD Review by Porfle

ISLAND OF THE LIVING DEAD -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 3/4/15

 

Penultimate of several films Italian schlockmeister Bruno Mattei made in the Phillipines shortly before his death, ISLAND OF THE LIVING DEAD (2007) bears the usual hallmarks of his filmmaking style--very low budget, very high violence and gore content, derivative script, laughable dubbing and dialogue, acting that's pretty much all over the place, and a general "so bad it's good" dynamic that makes it all worth checking out at least once if you're in the right frame of mind.

Here, working under the name "Vincent Dawn", Bruno (MONDO CANNIBAL, IN THE LAND OF THE CANNIBALS) continues his fascination with cannibalism while segueing back into the Romero-esque zombie genre. But these aren't just your usual stagger-and-munch living dead brought about by radiation or some other science mishap--they're supernatural, ghostly creatures as well, which means that they can do pretty much anything including appear and disappear, change shape, regenerate dismembered limbs, and chomp you like fanged vampires.

After a prologue set in the 1600s in which Spanish soldiers and monks are overrun and eaten, we join a group of present-day sunken treasure hunters whose ship sets ground on the shore of this uncharted zombie isle (after Mattei stages a visually impressive sequence of the ship going off course in a freak fogbank). Still hoping to find vast riches, they enter the crumbling monastery where the bloody prologue took place and, before we know it, are up to their necks in shambling corpses looking for their next hot meal.

In addition to the lush jungle setting, Bruno has found an ideal real-life location to stand in for the old monastery, which gives ISLAND OF THE LIVING DEAD's production values a needed boost. He's also got some talented gore effects people on his team who can churn out loads of the stuff we want to see in a film like this. Granted, it looks cheap because it is. But the hardcore blood-and-guts scenes (including lots of dismemberments and exploding heads) and crowds of zombies in full facial and body makeup (with extras who seem really into their roles) should have gorehounds squirming with delight.

Mattei seems to relish directing these scenes and coming up with fun ways to shoot his undead characters. Some of them are even borderline erotic, which may give the viewer a weird necrophilia vibe. But needless to say, with their piercing neon eyes, mouths full of dripping fangs, and rotting, hanging flesh, you won't want to be cuddling close to any of these ambulatory heaps of detritus any time soon.

In between the all-out zombie attacks, members of the crew have their own individual encounters with the ghostlier denizens of the island. One guy meets a flamenco-dancing woman and decides to join her in a twirl around the dance floor before her inevitable zombo freak-out; another frantic dude meets the ghost of the ill-fated Spanish captain from the prologue, who's looking a tad creepier these days; and my second-favorite character, hyper-bitchy babe Victoria (Ydalia Suarez) finds a "cask of amontillado" that's not quite what it seems to be.

Bad movie fans will have much to celebrate with the references to past films and other literary works, the sometimes awful dialogue ("Shit!" is the most frequent line), and some hilariously over-the-top performances by our heroes. Main acting honors go to the cute and wildly energetic Yvette Yzon as Sharon, whose pluckiness helps her survive the group devourings suffered by several of her less fortunate cohorts as she earns "final girl" status the hard way.

As so often happens in horror films, Sharon can't just escape at the end--she must go back into the monastery for some inexplicable reason so that she can take part in the film's grand finale. Here, Bruno stages a gore-stravaganza that resembles a low-budget version of Dante's vision of zombie hell. And that squeaky sound you hear is the director stretching the budget tighter than one of those giant Acme slingshots that Wile E. Coyote once used to launch himself at the Road Runner.

The DVD from Intervision Picture Corp. is in 1.78:1 widescreen with Dolby Digital stereo sound. No subtitles. In addition to a trailer and an international sales promo, there's a featurette entitled "Bungle in the Jungle" in which producer Giovanni Paolucci and screenwriter Antonio Tentori talk fondly about their work on this and other films for the late Bruno Mattei. (Bruno followed up this film with a semi-sequel, ZOMBIES: THE BEGINNING, which would be his last.)

While definitely in the lower echelons of low-budget video productions, ISLAND OF THE LIVING DEAD is Bruno Mattei going all out with the resources at hand and coming up with a lively, old-fashioned gorefest that hovers between just plain bad and just plain fun. If that's what you're in the mood for, this is one you can really sink your teeth into.

　

ISLAND OF THE LIVING DEAD -- DVD Review by Porfle

ROBOWAR -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 6/23/19

 

Once again, prolific Italian schlockmeister Bruno Mattei (VIOLENCE IN A WOMEN'S PRISON, ISLAND OF THE LIVING DEAD, SHOCKING DARK) is loose in the Philippine jungle, but instead of cannibals or zombies, this time he's bringing us a slam-bang, bullet-riddled rip-off of PREDATOR, ROBOCOP, and RAMBO called ROBOWAR (Severin Films, 1988). 

This is actually one of his best films (judging from the ones I've seen, anyway), a good-looking production with lush settings, good camerawork, and some action setpieces that really deliver the explosive goods.

These involve a group of top mercenary soldiers who've been hired to go into the jungle in search of someone--or something--known only as Omega One. Mascher (Mel Davidson) is along as an unwelcome "technical advisor", although the others suspect him of being deeply involved in whatever their secret mission is really about and resent him for holding out on them.

The guys are known collectively as "BAM" (or "Big Ass Mofos", to put it euphemistically) and have such distinct and interesting personalities that we get to like them pretty quick.  Scripters Claudio Fragasso & Rossella Drudi (ZOMBIE 4) have given them some amusingly hokey and funny dialogue, the latter often delivered during the thick of battle which makes those scenes even more fun.

These guys are the usual tough-as-shoe-leather types, especially their leader Murphy (Reb Brown, who I know best as TV's first "Captain America"), but even they are aghast when they start stumbling over a succession of bodies that have been skinned, shredded, disembowled, cooked, etc. in some of the best makeup effects I've seen in a Mattei film.

All of which is due to their elusive prey, a mysterious cyborg who looks like he's wearing a black medieval suit of armor and a motorcycle helmet. Since this movie lacks a Schwarzenegger-sized budget, the cyborg's main features are pixelized robot vision and simple laser-beam weapons.  His constant mental chatter with some centralized computer sounds like those "Roger, Roger" drones in THE PHANTOM MENACE crossed with "The Addams Family"s Cousin Itt.

To increase the team's peril, they keep running into roving gangs of bad-guy guerillas who are gleefully massacring all the civilians in the area including the doctors at a local village hospital. 

Getting involved in the fray, the BAMs not only get a chance to blow away lots of these creeps (in what prove to be the film's most badass action scenes) but also rescue the fair maiden Virgin (Catherine Hickland, "Capitol", "Texas"), a jungle doctor who brings out the chivalrous side of these rough-hewn rogues.

Particularly fun is when the good guys descend on Virgin's former hospital, now used as a guerilla headquarters, and all fiery hell breaks loose. These hardcore mercenaries are armed to the teeth with giant machine guns which they shoot with one hand while feeding it bullets with the other, and they love to scream "YAAAAAA!!!" the whole time. 

When they aren't fighting, ROBOWAR becomes one of those steamy slogs through the jungle where every turn might yield a poisonous snake or a perilous booby trap.  They're being stalked by the cyborg the whole time, but surprisingly he turns out to be much less of a threat than one might imagine, and certainly nothing on the level of the famous "Predator."  Still, he's a fun character and there's a cool final-reel twist regarding his origin.  

There's enough amusingly odd characters and shoot-em-up fun to make ROBOWAR one of Mattei's most entertaining films, whether you're in it for the sci-fi stuff, the gore, or just the trigger-happy military maniacs gleefully shooting up everything in sight while screaming "YAAAAAA!!!"



Scanned in 4k from the original negative
Street date: June 25, 2019

Special Features:

    Robo Predator: Interview with Co-Director/Co-Writer Claudio Fragasso
    Italian Rip Off: Interview with Co-Writer Rossella Drudi
    Violence She Wrote: Career Interview with Screenwriter Rossella Drudi
    Robo-Lady: Interview with Actress Catherine Hickland
    Papa Doc’s War: Interview with Actor John P. Dulaney
    The Robowarrior: Interview with Actor Jim Gaines Jr.
    War in the Phillipines: Interview with Actor/Stuntman Massimo Vanni
    Catherine Hickland’s Behind The Scenes Home Movies
    Trailer

ROBOWAR -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

THE OTHER HELL -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Definitely the bad-vibes movie of the year so far (for me, anyway) is Bruno Mattei's 1981 dreary nunsploitation shocker THE OTHER HELL, which, despite being laughably inept at times, is also drenched with oppressive atmosphere and some truly demented imagery.

Here again is one of those tales of a nunnery gone bad--in this case, about as bad as it gets. It's infested to the gills with all manner of dark forces and blasphemous activities, including a really weird dungeon laboratory where embalmings and disembowelings are performed by cackling maniac nuns. 

Things get to the point where an old priest is sent to investigate, and, upon failing to turn up anything via his traditional methods, is replaced by the younger, more forward-thinking Father Valerio (Carlo De Mejo), who believes that true evil doesn't exist and is merely the result of psychological malajustment.  (Boy, is he ever in for a shock!)

I won't go too far into the story but suffice it to say that Valerio encounters some mighty weird nuns, including a shifty-eyed Mother Vincenzia (Franca Stoppi), who runs the place and seems to be hiding some rather deep, dark secrets, and another young nun who's had such a terrifying experience in the bowels of the convent that her hair's gone gray and she's in a vegetative state. 

Some of the other nuns tend to totally freak out from time to time, which arouses the young detective-priest's suspicions to the point where he decides to give the place a full shakedown from top to bottom.  It's at that point where he crosses the line and becomes a target for all the malevolent forces at work (including a strange, ghostly-looking nun who creeps around with her face fully obscured by a veil). 

Typical of Bruno Mattei's work (including ISLAND OF THE LIVING DEAD, THE JAIL: THE WOMEN'S HELL, and MONDO CANNIBAL), THE OTHER HELL is directed in a kinetic but unpolished style (co-writer Claudio Fragasso handled much of the directorial chores as well) that often bursts forth with startling and extreme images.

These unfortunately include Mattei's tendency to show real animal cruelty, as when a chicken is beheaded in closeup, and of course the obligatory maggot scene familiar to so much of Italian horror cinema. 

Mattei's found locations are an invaluable asset to the film's production values, with most of the action taking place within both an actual former convent and a palace, both of which are quite impressive.  Adding to the spook factor are scenes which take place in a genuine catacomb in Italy which serves as a mass tomb and is stacked with thousands of skulls and bones. 

(Not adding much is a soundtrack featuring Goblin music not written for the film which sounds good but is totally inappropriate for most of the scenes it's used in.)

It's here and in the aforementioned dungeon laboratory that the story's climax takes place, which is deliriously over-the-top and comes on like a wave of brain-rotting horror that may leave you reeling right up until the very last jolt.

The Blu-ray from Severin Films is in 1080p full HD resolution with English, French, and Italian 2.0 sound and English subtitles.  Severin once again comes through with the extras, this time with a commentary featuring Claudio Fragasso and "Freak-O-Rama"'s Federico Caddeo, an interview with actress Franca Stoppi, archive interviews with Mattei and actor Carlo De Mejo, and the film's trailer.

For me, this was one of the most feel-bad flicks I've seen in quite a while, and when it was over I almost felt like I needed to take a long, hot bath in a tub of holy water.  But for fans of Bruno Mattei, nunsploitation, and totally whacked-out horror flicks in general, THE OTHER HELL will probably be right up their really, really dark alley.

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THE OTHER HELL -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle