BRAIN OF BLOOD -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 4/19/22

 

(BRAIN OF BLOOD is part of Severin Films' "Hemisphere Box of Horrors" Collection along with CURSE OF THE VAMPIRES, THE BLOOD DRINKERS, and THE BLACK CAT/ TORTURE CHAMBER OF DR. SADISM.)


Al Adamson fans who can't get enough of such films as DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN, THE ASTRO-ZOMBIES, and HORROR OF THE BLOOD MONSTERS should take special interest in Severin Films' new Blu-ray release of the 1971 Adamson horror-thriller BRAIN OF BLOOD. 

Originally released by Hemisphere Pictures, it was intended to resemble their quickie Philippines-lensed flicks which had been so successful for them. Adamson managed to pull this off, giving it much the same sleazy, gore-drenched ambience as previous Hemisphere horrors such as BEAST OF BLOOD, MAD DOCTOR OF BLOOD ISLAND, and BRIDES OF BLOOD.

 

Still, it looks and feels enough like his work to please his fans.  Shot quickly and cheaply with a script that doesn't always make sense, BRAIN OF BLOOD ranges from competent (Adamson's staging of the brain transplant sequence is particularly good, and there's a nifty car chase ending in a fiery crash down the side of a cliff) to slapdash, as in some of the later scenes of the monster's pursuit which tend to drag.

The story involves the dying ruler of a Middle Eastern country who plans to have his brain transplanted into a healthy young body. The American surgeon who performs the operation, Dr. Trenton, turns out to be a mad doctor with a dungeon stocked with captive young girls to experiment on and a sadistic dwarf assistant named Dorro who enjoys tormenting them. 

When no other suitable donor body can be found, Dr. Trenton removes the brain (in the film's most gruesome sequence) and pops it into the body of his other assistant Gor, a seven-foot-four acid-scarred galoot with the mind of a child (John Bloom of THE INCREDIBLE TWO-HEADED TRANSPLANT).

This not only upsets the ruler's blonde bombshell wife Tracy (Adamson's own wife and frequent star Regina Carrol) and their associates Bob (Grant Williams) and Mohammed (Zandor Vorkov), but proves disastrous when the confused behemoth escapes from the laboratory and runs loose.

Meanwhile, dungeon captive Katherine (Vicki Volante) manages to shed her shackles, her subterranean ordeal giving the film a bit of a medieval flavor.  She'll later hook up with Bob as they battle the pathetic brain-beast that Gor has become, as two personalities battle for dominance within his own skull.

The cast is terrific, led by venerable stars Kent Taylor (BRIDES OF BLOOD, THE CRAWLING HAND, PHANTOM FROM 10,000 LEAGUES) as Dr. Trenton and Reed Hadley (THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MARVEL, "Racket Squad") as the stricken ruler, Amir.

Also on hand are THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN himself, Grant Williams, plus Adamson regulars Zandor Vorkov and John Bloom of DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN and the aforementioned Regina Carrol. The mad dwarf Dorro is played by genre stalwart Angelo Rossitto (FREAKS).

BRAIN OF BLOOD isn't the most insane Al Adamson movie I've seen, but there are times when it gets pretty darn close.  With such a delightfully eclectic cast and nutty plot, not to mention a 7'4" monster who looks like a jar of Grey Poupon blew up in his face, it pushes the needle pretty high on the fun scale. 


Order it from Severin Films
Order the Hemisphere Box of Horrors From Severin Films

Special Features:

    Memories Of Blood: Interviews With Director Al Adamson, Producer Samuel M. Sherman, Associate Producer J.P. Spohn, Actor Zandor Vorkov, Actor Sean Graver, and Filmmaker Fred Olen Ray
    Partial Audio Commentary With Producer/Co-Writer Samuel M. Sherman
    Trailer
    Radio Spot
    English Captions

Brain of Blood trailer:

BRAIN OF BLOOD -- 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

THE SEARCH FOR WENG WENG -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 12/9/16

 

If you're unfamiliar with Weng Weng, all it takes to remedy the problem is seeing the trailer for the James Bond spoof "For Y'ur Height Only" which kicks off writer-director Andrew Leavold's affectionate documentary THE SEARCH FOR WENG WENG (2007). 

For the next two minutes or so, we see the diminutive Filipino movie star (all 2'9" of him) going through all the familiar Bond motions, such as the gun-barrel sequence and a wobbly-wired imitation of his celebrated rocket pack flight from THUNDERBALL, in addition to all the shooting and fancy fighting (not to mention romancing) we're used to seeing from Sean Connery.

Needless to say, watching the vertically-challenged Weng Weng as Agent 00 doing all this action-oriented secret agent stuff in a spiffy white suit is the very definition of the term "novelty."

It's this quality that prompted the film industry in the Philippines to churn out a number of Weng Weng films in quick succession, one of which ended up in the hands of Australian cult video store owner Leavold in the form of an obscure VHS copy and sparked in him the keen desire to do a film biography of the tiny actor. 

But finding out about him proved an elusive prospect at best, so, Mini-DV camera in hand, Leavold took the bold step of traveling to the Philippines in order to track down anyone he could find who could help shed light on his elusive subject. 

As we see here, he pretty much hit the jackpot, running across not only former cast and crewmates of Weng Weng but the man's only living relative, brother Celing de la Cruz, all of whom are only too happy to share their fond reminiscences.

Sadly, all was not happiness and success for Weng Weng--as we discover, he was taken advantage of by some whom he trusted while never finding the fulfillment in life that a man of normal stature might have. 

Still, as we find in what is probably the most fascinating segment in the film, Weng Weng was a favorite of his country's political royalty, Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos.  Leavold scores a major coup by being invited to the palace by an enthusiastic Mrs. Marcos herself and treated as a special guest to whom she is quite talkative and candid.  (The film's weirdest moment for me: visiting Ferdinand's embalmed body, which is still lying in state for all to visit.)

Of immense importance to him as well, of course, are the interviews with Weng Weng's brother and those who worked with him.  Leavold is able to extract much interesting information with which to construct a picture of the man's life and give us an empathetic understanding of what it was like to be an irresistible novelty to some and a freak to others.

All of this is enhanced not only by nicely-shot interview footage but also with copious amounts of film clips featuring Weng Weng in all his glory.  The films themselves are incredibly cheap and sub-par technically, and I seriously doubt than their plots would be of much interest, so it's nice to simply get an entertaining montage of scenes from all of them which are made more interesting by the knowledge that Weng Weng performed all of his own stunts.  After all, where would they find a 2'9" stunt man to stand in for him?

The DVD from WildEye Releasing contains an informative commentary track from Leavold, a trailer, deleted scenes, an "I Love Weng Weng" music video, and extended interview segments.  There's also a trailer for Leavold's upcoming Doris Wishman parody "Gone Lesbo Gone." 

THE SEARCH FOR WENG WENG isn't just a filmed biography, but also a detective story in which the director, obsessed with his subject, tracks him down as Holmes might track Moriarty.  The result is a true story with equal shares of triumph and tragedy, and an opportunity to get to know this sweetly likable little man who made a big mark on the Filipino film industry while gaining fans all around the world.

THE SEARCH FOR WENG WENG -- DVD Review by Porfle