OZPLOITATION TRAILER EXPLOSION -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 3/15/14

 

As all movie fans know, there's nothing more kickass than a collection of movie trailers!  Unless, of course, it's a collection of trailers for rom-coms or Merchant Ivory films.  Those don't get described as "kickass" very often.  But you know what does?  Ozploitation flicks!!!  So you know what would be a really kickass trailer collection?  OZPLOITATION TRAILER EXPLOSION!!!

This 2014 DVD from Intervision doesnt literally explode, of course, but there may be times when you'll think it is, or that your brain itself is exploding from the overload of pure, unadulterated exploitational trash-cinema goodness that you're subjecting it to. 

It's a delirium-inducing cornucopia of drive-in fodder that offers ample evidence that the Australian film industry was a beehive of activity back in the glorious 70s and 80s, with directors such as the great Simon Wincer ("Lonesome Dove", "Quigley Down Under"), actor and Rick Wakeman album narrator David Hemmings, the prolific Colin Eggleston, and even Peter Weir and Bruce Beresford manning the director's chair.  (If the production could afford a director's chair, that is.)

The three things that best transcend a low budget are sex, horror, and action, so these trailers fit snugly within those categories.  "Sexploitation and 'Ocker' Comedies" ("ocker" meaning "consisting of broad and uncultured Aussie stereotypes") gets the ball rolling with a string of low-class and often painfully corny flicks that are as twangy and hick-ified as "Hee Haw."

Barry Crocker and Barry Humphries give us the rowdy musical "The Adventures of Barry McKenzie" (with a young Peter Cook) and its sequel, "Barry McKenzie Holds His Own", guest-starring none other than Donald Pleasence as Count Plasma the vampire.  Graeme Blundell, who went on to play Padme's father in deleted scenes from "Attack of the Clones", stars in a couple of "Alvin Purple" romps about the sexploits of a nerdy-looking chick magnet who is given this valuable business advice: "There are openings everywhere for the right man!"

"Plugg" offers the gorgeous Cheryl Rixon along with some really bad cop hijinks, while Susannah York and Trevor Howard find themselves ensconced in a dreary-looking period costume farce called "Eliza Fraser."  The trailers for "Fantasm" and "Fantasm Comes Again" feature a too-close-for-comfort view of John Holmes' trouser snake while giving us teasing glimpses of favorite 70s porn stars Candy Samples (as "Mary Gavin"), Uschi Digard, Roxanne Brewer,  Rene Bond, and Rainbow Smith. 

In addition to the slapdash and gleefully vulgar comedies are nudge-nudge wink-wink mockumentaries such as "The Love Epidemic", which exhorts viewers to have sex while warning them of V.D., and "The ABC of Love and Sex Australia Style", which we examined in detail here.  All serve as naughty looks at what was considered shocking in "Strine" society in those days and, like the comedies, are brimming with a multitude of boobies and great gobs of softcore sex. 

The ubiquitious Jack Thompson ("Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence") plays the no-nonsense, ultra-manly "Petersen", who takes no guff and tells people to "get stuffed."  Arthur Dignam of "Dead Kids" (aka "Strange Behavior") co-stars, but it's the welcome sight of a topless young Wendy Hughes who makes this trailer interesting.  Thompson turns up again (and again) in "Libido", which offers the usual sexual situations with a lurid and melodramatic leer. 

Much of this material seems to be the same kind of stuff that turned up as late-night filler on the Playboy Channel in the 80s.  Like most of OZPLOITATION TRAILER EXPLOSION, I'm not sure I'd care to actually sit through some of these films yet their trailers provide non-stop entertainment in handy capsule form.

Moving on to "Horror and Thriller",  we get another staple of Aussie cinema that was either well-done or utterly gosh-awful in seemingly equal measures.  Roo-doo potboilers such as "Outback" and "Night of Fear" appear to represent the latter, while something called "Inn of the Damned" ("in the tradition of Hitchcock!") manages to boast none other than Dame Judith Anderson in what is known as "slumming" with a capital "S." 

Returning to sex-comedy territory is "The Night The Prowler", about a woman named Felicity who turns the tables on her nocturnal rapist and becomes a sex-starved prowler herself. "End Play" mixes two brothers, a secluded country house, and a pretty young hitchhiker to give us something that is, the announcer warns, "terribly, terribly wrong."

Reprenting the best of low-budget Australian horror cinema are the trailers for some familiar faves.  "Patrick" tells of a comatose man who may be causing chaos on a subconscious telekinetic level.  "Thirst" is a story of modern-day vampires, while "Dead Kids" is the richly compelling horror thriller by filmmaker Michael Laughlin which stars Michael Murphy, Louise Fletcher,  Fiona Lewis, Dan Shor,  Marc McClure, and Arthur Dignam. 

Peter Weir's "The Last Wave" stars Richard Chamberlain in a nightmare of supernatural evil.  Sigrid Thornton looks great topless in "Snapshot" while being menaced by Vincent Gill and propositioned by "Thirst" star Chantal Contouri.  "Nightmares" is as lurid a horror-slasher flick as they come.  A personal favorite of mine, "Roadgames" (1981), stars Stacy Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis as a truck driver and a hitchhiker on the trail of a highway serial killer. 

Of the three categories featured here, perhaps "Cars and Action" is the one the Australians do best.  Ever since "Mad Max" roared through American drive-ins and cable TVs there's been a string of imitations and outright clones of it and its superior follow-up, "The Road Warrior", which really set the standard for white-line mayhem. 

The same cast members keeping turning up too--not the least of which is probably the busiest man in Oz cinema, Bruce "Gyro Captain" Spence, who seems to be in damn near everything in this collection.  "Mad Max"'s ever-popular "Goose",  Steve Bisley,  heads sci-fi action-thriller "The Chain Reaction", which has its own incredible car chases, crashes, and stunts. 

More automotive vehicles are destroyed and stunt drivers endangered in the hair-raising "Stunt Rock", "Stone" (the guy flying off a cliff on a motorcycle is a stunner), "Fair Game" (another beleaguered woman turns the tables on her antagonists), and the mind-boggling "Midnight Spares" with, you guessed it, Bruce Spence. 

Judging by their trailers, these films are jam-packed with the kind of stuff that makes Quentin Tarantino's "Death Proof" look like a fender-bender.  I can only guess at how wide-open the stuntman trade must've been in Australia during that era.  Some of them seem to be risking life and limb with utter abandon. 

Elsewhere, Alan Arkin does a funny turn as a washed-up superhero in "The Return of Captain Invincible."  "Terminator" rip-off "The Time Guardian" stars Dean Stockwell and Carrie Fisher.  Jimmy Wang Yu goes up against erstwhile 007 George Lazenby in "The Man From Hong Kong." 

There are would-be spaghetti westerns such as "Raw Deal" and Dennis Hopper (in a series of horrible fake beards) as "Mad Dog Morgan."  Aerial thriller "Race for the Yankee Zephyr", with Ken Wahl, George Peppard, Lesley Ann Warren, and Donald Pleasence, is directed by David Hemmings ("Thirst") and features some of the most exhilarating helicopter photography I've ever seen. 

"Attack Force Z" is a mercenary shoot-em-up with Mel Gibson, Sam Neill, Olivia Hussey, and John Phillip Law.  Getting short shrift here is Nicole Kidman's teenage debut,  "BMX Bandits", whose brief trailer seems more like a TV spot.  Peter Weir's "The Cars that Ate Paris" (1974) is just as nutty and stunt-packed as it sounds, and yes, Bruce Spence is in it.

Among the other luminaries popping up here and there in this collection are Broderick Crawford, Judy Davis, Robert Powell, Jenny Agutter, Tom Skerritt,  and James Mason, along with frequent Ocker faves such as Frank Thring and Briony Behets. 

The DVD from Intervision Picture Corp. is in anamorphic widescreen with Dolby Digital mono sound.  No subtitles or extras.  The picture quality is about what you'd expect from a bunch of forty-year-old trailers (give or take a decade).  Running time is 165 minutes.  Many more trailers besides those mentioned here are included (65 in all).

If you're not in the mood for a sit-down meal but fancy a snack tray of sex, horror, and violence goodies, then Mama always said you should try OZPLOITATION TRAILER EXPLOSION.  Because even though you never know what you're gonna get, you can be sure it'll be chock full of fine Strine cui-sine.

OZPLOITATION TRAILER EXPLOSION -- DVD Review by Porfle

GRINDHOUSE TRAILER CLASSICS -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

 Originally posted on 9/5/2014

 

The most recent movie trailer compilations I've seen have been theme-oriented--namely, the self-explanatory OZPLOITATION TRAILER EXPLOSION and VIDEO NASTIES: A DEFINITIVE GUIDE--which is as good a way to watch a bunch of trailers as any.

But as demonstrated by Intervision's new DVD release, GRINDHOUSE TRAILER CLASSICS, you don't really need any kind of an excuse at all to watch a bunch of trailers, just as long as they're shamelessly exploiting the most down-and-dirty sex, violence, horror, and gore flicks that ever snaked their way through a hot projector.

If you can make it past the startling cover pic of a severed female zombie head with blank, demonic eyes chowing down on a dismembered hand--or are, in fact, lured in by it--you know this is your kind of entertainment. What you're in for during the next 129 minutes is fifty-five stomach-churning, mind-warping trailers for the kind of titanic trash that kept grindhouses and drive-ins in business back in the 60s and 70s.

Here, you get all the good scenes smashed together (it seems like every trailer was a "red band" trailer in those days) and liberally garnished with some of the most purple prose ever to gush from the mouth of an overheated voiceover guy. In fact, you're in for a letdown if you actually see some of these flicks after checking out the trailers.

After the classic "Prevues of Coming Attractions" bumper to get our nostalgic juices flowing comes the first selection, the infamous double bill of I DRINK YOUR BLOOD/ I EAT YOUR SKIN. Another double feature, BLOOD SPATTERED BRIDE and I DISMEMBER MAMA, is heralded by faux news footage of police dragging a man out of the theater after the films have driven him berserk.

Next comes Tarantino favorite SWITCHBLADE SISTERS followed by Barbara Steele in the women-in-prison classic CAGED HEAT. (Paul Frees fans will recognize his dulcet tones in the voiceovers.) The lurid EYEBALL ("You may not live to see the end of it!") is followed by the even more twisted Ed Gein-inspired DERANGED with Roberts Blossom.

More kill-crazy caged women and soapy shower scenes follow in THE BIG DOLL HOUSE with beauties Pam Grier and Roberta Collins and the less-than-beauteous Sid Haig. Then comes statuesque blonde Dixie Peabody on "a roaring rampage of revenge" in the biker classic BURY ME AN ANGEL, which my older sister took me to see at the drive-in when I was a kid. (Thanks, sis!)

LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, which I really don't like, gives way to another Tarantino fave, THE STREET FIGHTER with Sonny Chiba, and the grandmammy of all Nazisploitation flicks, ILSA: SHE WOLF OF THE S.S. starring the gorgeous Dyanne Thorne (who will later turn up in ILSA: HAREM KEEPER OF THE OIL SHIEKS with Ushi Digard and Joyce Mandell).

Also on the maniacal menu: Bernie Casey as DR. BLACK AND MR. HYDE, DON'T OPEN THE WINDOW, rappin' Rudy Ray Moore as THE HUMAN TORNADO ("I got a dong as big as King Kong!"), the skin and sadism of CAGED VIRGINS, "angels of vengeance on a massacre marathon" EBONY, IVORY, AND JADE, and the mind-boggling boobs of Chesty Morgan in the Doris Wishman sleaze-tacular DEADLY WEAPONS.

And that's not even the first hour. More titles include TORSO, THEY CALL HER ONE-EYE, DEATH SHIP with George Kennedy, Richard Crenna, and Kate Reid, MASTER OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE, HOUSE OF WHIPCORD, THE THING WITH TWO HEADS with Rosey Grier and Ray Milland ("A white bigot's head on a black soul brother's body!"), and David Cronenberg's early horror shocker THEY CAME FROM WITHIN (aka "Shivers").

There's a lot more, but you get the idea. The DVD from Intervision is in anamorphc widescreen with Dolby Digital sound and English subtitles. A gallery of grindhouse poster art is accompanied by the gorgeous Emily Booth hosting a featurette entitled "Bump 'N' Grind."

But it's those gloriously sleazy, lurid, and credulity-straining GRINDHOUSE TRAILER CLASSICS that make this a must-see for anyone who enjoys a good wallow in cinema's most celebrated sewage.

GRINDHOUSE TRAILER CLASSICS -- DVD Review by Porfle

THE TRAIL OF DRACULA -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 11/1/16

 

 

You know him...you love him...you want to know all about him.  And when we follow THE TRAIL OF DRACULA--a 2013 documentary now available on a brand-new DVD release from Intervision--we pretty much get the whole story, and more, about our favorite bloodsucking Transylvanian count, who just happens to be one of the most famous fictional characters of all time.

Writer-director David Mitchell has put together a history of the D-Man that's chock full of historical drawings, photographs, and film clips.  To augment the visual aspect of the story, we hear it told in exhaustive detail by a number of authors, historians, film critics, and other people who are both knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the subject.  

The story begins at the beginning, with the birth of vampire folklore in Middle Europe and tales of vile undead creatures who stalked the night feasting upon the blood of the living.  Then we trace the evolution and refinement of the vampire character into a more suave and sophisticated figure, thanks mainly to writer Bram Stoker and his novel "Dracula."

 

It's Stoker, we find, who is responsible for devising many of the modern variations of the ancient folklore as well as giving the character his birthplace (Transylvania would forever become known as Vampire Central).  The documentary also touches upon the influence upon the character of a certain Vlad "The Impaler" Tepes, or Vlad Dracul, a Romanian folk hero whose countrymen regarded his association with the evil Count to be rather less than flattering.

While the first half of THE TRAIL OF DRACULA is definitely interesting, it's a bit dry and "History Channel"-like compared to the second half when we finally delve into Dracula's many film incarnations.  That's where this documentary really comes to life for me, with a wealth of clips from early adaptations such as Murnau's incredible silent epic NOSFERATU starring Max Shreck, and of course arguably the greatest version of all, 1931's DRACULA with Bela Lugosi.

Many of the sequels and offshoots from the 30s to the 70s are covered, of which there are literally hundreds ranging from drama to Gothic horror to low comedy to, finally, pornography (DRACULA SUCKS, SEXCULA).  

Scenes from the original trailers are used whenever possible, giving us tantalizing glimpses of such films as DRACULA'S DAUGHTER with Gloria Holden, SON OF DRACULA with Lon Chaney, Jr., Bela Lugosi's Columbia outing RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE, Universal monster rallies HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and HOUSE OF DRACULA with John Carradine as the Count, and Francis Lederer's excellent turn in the role in THE RETURN OF DRACULA. 

Lesser and sometimes obscure examples of the sub-genre include David Niven as OLD DRACULA, Andy Warhol's BLOOD FOR DRACULA, THE VAMPIRE LOVERS with Ingrid Pitt, ZOLTAN: HOUND OF DRACULA, Al Adamson's abominable (but fun) DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN, drive-in favorite BLACULA, 7 BROTHERS MEET DRACULA, LADY DRACULA, Jess Franco's VAMPYROS LESBOS, and several more.

Special attention is paid, of course, to Hammer Studios' game-changing Dracula series starring Christopher Lee in what many feel rivals Lugosi's immortal interpretation of the character. 

Hammer's heavily atmospheric and relatively lavish 1958 adaptation of Stoker's novel, DRACULA (known in the U.S. as "Horror of Dracula") sparked a phenomenon that made a reluctant horror superstar out of Lee (as well as his frequent co-star Peter Cushing, already known as the new Dr. Frankenstein) and led to a lucrative, highly popular series.

Sequels would include BRIDES OF DRACULA (without Lee, but excellent nonetheless), DRACULA: PRINCE OF DARKNESS, TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA, DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE, SCARS OF DRACULA, THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA, and DRACULA A.D. 1972.  The films would gradually decline in quality with each installment until finally the cycle had played itself out. 

The DVD from Intervision is in widescreen with 2.0 sound. No subtitles.  Extras include audio interviews with Christopher Lee and Francis Lederer and video interviews with director Werner Herzog talking about his NOSFERATU remake with Klaus Kinski and BLOOD FOR DRACULA's ever-charming Udo Kier. 

My favorite bonus feature is a collection of all those wonderful trailers referred to in the documentary.  There are dozens of them--a full 94 minutes worth--ranging from DRACULA '31 and on into the 1970s.  Not just a bonus, this collection is equal to a full-length companion feature.

The uninitiated--those poor, mundane souls--may not get much out of THE TRAIL OF DRACULA.  But those of us who are devoted lifelong fans of the Count, no matter which incarnation of him may be our own personal favorite, will find plenty here to sink our fangs into.    

THE TRAIL OF DRACULA -- DVD 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

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

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

THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 1/24/11

 

 

Incredibly prolific Spanish filmmaker Jesús "Jess" Franco has a devoted following, but the uninitiated might be puzzled as to why after watching THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF (1973).  It's not an awful film, just exceedingly bland.

Montserrat Prous plays Melissa Comfort, an heiress who has been paralyzed from birth.  Plagued by a recurring nightmare in which she wanders the darkened mansion as a little girl and witnesses the violent death of her late father (Franco himself in a cameo role), Melissa is placed in the care of eminent psychiatrist Dr. Orloff (William Berger) by her aunt, Lady Flora Comfort. 

It soon becomes apparent that there's a plot against Melissa which may involve members of her own family, including her Aunt Flora, step-sister Martha, and perhaps even Dr. Orloff himself.  Melissa is aided by faithful servant Mathews (José Manuel Martín) and a concerned neighbor, pop star Sweet Davey Brown.  But when people around her start dying off one by one, it may be only a matter of time before she's next.  The question is--who's really doing the killing?

 

 

The third of Franco's "Dr. Orloff" films, this is remarkably tame stuff for someone known for his exploitation flicks.  The slow-moving story features the occasional murder, but all are quick and relatively bloodless.  Aside from an incidental glimpse of nudity during one of the killings, there's nothing here that one couldn't find in a standard made-for-TV thriller from the era.

A reliance on handheld camerawork and shaky zooms gives the film a crude look, although it's hardly unwatchable.  Franco does display a few flashes of imagination in his direction and keeps things moving along well enough that patient viewers won't have much trouble sticking with it to the end.  The story itself is utterly predictable and there's little actual suspense until the mildly exciting finale, all of which is accompanied by a melodramatic organ and piano score.

Performances are adequate for this type of movie, though it's admittedly hard to judge the actors' dialogue delivery since I understand very little Spanish.  William Berger isn't all that sinister as Orloff and is, in fact, pretty dull, even when we get a closeup of those titular eyeballs.  Montserrat Prous is okay as Melissa--more interesting, though, are Loreta Tovar and the lovely Kali Hansa as spoiled socialites Martha and Aunt Flora.

 

 

 

As Davey Brown, Robert Wood is notable mainly for his awful 70s wardrobe and insipid singing.  His scenes with Edmund Purdom as Inspector Crosby, in which Davey struggles to convince the policeman that something rotten is going on in the Comfort manor, give the film what scant comedy relief it has.  Franco regular Lina Romay appears briefly as Davey's girlfriend.

The DVD from Intervision is full-screen with Dolby 2.0 Spanish mono soundtrack and English subtitles.  Picture quality is good although that Eastmancolor doesn't age very well.  On my copy, the subtitles disappeared for a few minutes around the 46-minute mark.  The bonus feature is a recent 18-minute interview with Jess Franco. 

THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF is a nice low-budget effort that's fairly painless to sit through if you keep your expectations low.  Just don't expect it to be very sinister. 

THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF -- DVD Review by Porfle

PAULA-PAULA -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 1/29/11

 

For his 209th movie, prolific Spanish director Jesús "Jess" Franco has made what he calls "an audio-visual experience" entitled PAULA-PAULA (2010).  In literal terms I suppose that's an accurate way to describe it, but holy cats, is this thing boring.  You could probably have an equally rewarding audio-visual experience by putting an album on and watching a lava lamp for an hour.

The story begins with a distraught, disoriented Paula (Carmen Montes) being taken into custody, apparently for having killed her friend who was also named Paula (Paula Davis).  Under questioning by a female officer (a briefly-seen Lina Romay), Paula-1 claims not to have done it although she hated her.  Then she lets slip that she has tried to kill her numerous times without success.

Later, we see Paula-1 dancing naked in a room, aware that a young police sergeant is peeking through the door.  If I had to choose a favorite part of the movie it would be this scene, since Carmen Montes is beautiful, has a great body, and isn't moving in super slow-motion.
 

Intercut with this are flashbacks of Paula-2 dancing in an apartment.  She wears a belly-dancer's outfit and undulates in front of a silver mylar backdrop, moving ever-so-slowly as a mirrored split-screen effect turns her body into abstract shapes.  Sitting in a chair in a revealing dress, Paula-1 watches her with fascination.  From this point on, the pace becomes practically glacial.

About halfway through, Paula-1 relates a brief story which will come into play at the end.  Then the two Paulas finally get together for about twenty minutes of mild softcore sex, all in maddening slow-motion that had me struggling to stay awake.  (This is the first film I've seen in ages that literally put me to sleep.)  After some more split-screen effects, PAULA-PAULA mercifully ends pretty much the way we expect it to.

This is the sort of thing you might've stumbled onto a roomful of stoned hippies watching back in the 60s while muttering "wow, man..."  With much of the film's running time consisting of plotless, enervating visuals, I began to appreciate the hot freeform jazz score by Friederich Gulda which plays continuously with no direct connection with the actions onscreen.


The DVD from Intervision is in widescreen with Dolby 2.0 sound.  Language is Spanish with English subtitles.  Extras consist of three Franco featurettes--an introduction to the film, a more detailed discussion of it, and, most interesting, the venerable director's thoughts on the state of contemporary filmmaking.

According to the titles, this is based on Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde story, but it might as well have been based on "Green Eggs and Ham" for all the relevance this has to the film.  Although PAULA-PAULA seemingly aspires to be a cinematic equivalent to its frenetic jazz score, what it basically amounts to is Jess Franco dicking around for 67 minutes.

PAULA-PAULA -- DVD 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