CHROMESKULL: LAID TO REST 2 -- DVD review by porfle

(NOTE: This review is based on the unrated director's cut. Originally posted on 9/11/11.)


The tall, skinny, bald guy with the chrome skull-mask, the wicked knife, and the video camera perched on his shoulder like a parrot is back in CHROMESKULL: LAID TO REST 2 (2011) and this time, he's got back-up. 

The last we saw of Ol' Chrome-Dome (Nick Principe) back in the first LAID TO REST (2009), he was lying on the floor of a rural convenience store with his face ripped off and his skull smashed in.  Well, you can't keep a good monster down, so when this sequel picks up right where the last one left off, we see his crew sweep in, dispatch the investigating police, clean up the crime scene, and whisk their boss to an operating room where surgeons labor to save his life and what's left of his face.

It turns out that he's one of those multi-millionaires who can afford to do whatever the heck he pleases and pay people to willingly help him do it, even if that includes setting up an elaborate torture chamber for him (in his chrome-plating factory, naturally) and stocking it with kidnapped young girls.  His right-hand woman, Spann (the ever-popular Danielle Harris) even seems to enjoy her job, as does his main fixer, Preston, who is very well played by Brian Austin Greene. 



Green seems to revel in the Preston role, portraying a borderline psycho who wants to follow in his boss' footsteps by adopting the chromeskull mask and performing his first kills with an almost sexual ardor.  Not only do we get a shocking pre-titles sequence that harkens back to FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2, but we get a little of PART 5 as well with an imitator going around making like the main man.  This not only gives Green a chance to stretch his acting muscles but also gives gore fans a double dose of carnage.

Like a cross between Jason Voorhees and Mason Verger of HANNIBAL, Chromeskull, now sporting a hideous patchwork face, spends his recovery time stalking a new girl to obsess on now that Princess, his previous object of interest, is out of the picture.  Her replacement is Jess (Mimi Michaels), who has an eye disease that's slowly making her go blind.  In one of the film's first startling kill scenes, Jess' best friend is dispatched in imaginatively gruesome fashion and Jess is abucted, waking up in a casket while being taunted by Preston.  Mimi Michaels plays the role to the hilt, screaming very convincingly and emoting her buns off.

Thomas Dekker returns as Tommy (last seen driving away with Princess in the last film) and gets caught up in the whole mess again, this time coming to the aid of Jess.  They both end up in Chromeskull's factory where they witness some of the film's more elaborate kills, including a virtuoso decapitation and a thing with a spring-loaded blade cluster (a chrome-plated custom job designed by Preston) giving another character a really big smile. 

Other death scenes of interest include a nasty disembowelment (with the victim being portrayed by twins in order to achieve a tricky single take), a head sliced vertically in half like a cantelope, the impromptu chrome-plating of somebody else's head, and another impressive single take in which Chromeskull wipes out a number of cops one after the other in gruesome ways.  The gore effects are achieved, as in the previous film, by combining excellent practical effects with some subtle CGI enhancements. 



Speaking of cops, they're a pretty ineffectual bunch here.  Owain Yeoman plays Detective King, who looks a little young to be heading the precinct, and Christopher Allen Nelson (Beatrix' almost-husband Tommy in KILL BILL) is Max, his best detective.  "Best" being a relative term, since the whole squad amounts to little more than kill fodder for Chromeskull.  When they bust into the chrome-plating factory to rescue Jess and Detective King yells, "You're safe now!", I thought, "Yeah, right."  Hot female detective Holland (Angelina Armani) fares no better.

Gail O'Grady appears as Jess' mother and a grown-up Eric Lloyd (of the SANTA CLAUSE series) is billed as "Geeky Lackey."  The actress who played Princess in the first LAID TO REST, Bobbi Sue Luther, is neither seen here (her flashback scenes were reshot with Allison Kyler replacing her) nor mentioned by name (unless I missed it).  

The DVD from Image Entertainment is in 1.78:1 widescreen with Dolby 5.1 surround sound.  Subtitles are in English and Spanish.  Extras include a commentary with director Robert Hall, co-writer Kevin Bocarde, and actor Brian Austin Green, along with a making-of featurette, deleted scenes, bloopers, and a trailer.  There's also a feature which allows viewers to jump to any one of the various kill scenes.  (Stick around through the closing credits for a two-minute epilogue.)

While the film is pretty fast-paced and the additions to the Chromeskull mythology fairly interesting, I prefer the first film with its creepier settings, more enigmatic killer, more likable characters, and more involving story.  This one has none of its dry humor (Sean Whalen and Kevin Gage are especially missed) and the main girl, Jess, is winsome but not really all that interesting.  Still, CHROMESKULL: LAID TO REST 2 is head and shoulders above most of the cheap slasher flicks being churned out lately, continuing the first film's "cavalcade of cool kills" approach with a little style and a lot of enthusiasm.  And Chromeskull is definitely one of the major movie monsters of the last few decades.

CHROMESKULL: LAID TO REST 2 -- DVD review by porfle

LAID TO REST -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted in 2009

"A guy in a mask chasing a girl...that usually works," thought writer/director Robert Hall while thinking up ideas for a follow-up to his '04 debut feature, LIGHTNING BUG. And what a mask--a grinning chrome skull, which fits over the face of tall, lanky, cueball-bald actor Nick Principe. With his imposing stature and graceful, deliberate movements, in addition to being nattily-dressed in a tastefully tailored black outfit, Chrome Skull is one of the most interesting slasher anti-heroes since the 80s. And LAID TO REST (2009) is a glossy, blood-drenched, pedal-to-the-metal throwback to that era.

The chilling titles sequence gives us jagged glimpses of Chrome Skull nastily doing away with several young women. Then we meet our heroine, The Girl (Hall's wife Bobbi Sue Luther in a lively performance), as she wakes up in a closed casket in a funeral home, with no memory of who she is or how she got there. After witnessing the gruesome death of an old mortician (the venerable Richard Lynch) at the hands of Chrome Skull, she flees down the highway until she's picked up by a kindly redneck named Tucker (Kevin Gage, best-known by me as the vile "Waingro" in Michael Mann's HEAT), who takes her home. Tucker's wife Cindy (Lena Headey, "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles", 300) isn't too pleased at first, but soon warms up to the poor frightened woman. Then Chrome Skull shows up and pins Cindy's head to a wall with his knife.

We should probably talk about Chrome Skull's knife for a minute. It's a real doozy--in fact, it makes those things carried by guys like Jim Bowie and Crocodile Dundee look like toothpicks. Razor-sharp on one side, with jagged spikes on the other, the massive chrome blade is perfect not only for slicing and jabbing but also for sawing people's heads off. Which seems to be one of the many hobbies that keep Chrome Skull occupied. We never learn much about what happened to screw this guy up, but with a phallic extension like this, he definitely has a sexual hang-up or two rattling around in his shiny skull.

Anyway, Tucker is now on the run with Princess (his nickname for the mysterious girl) and along the way they pick up a geeky nerd named Stephen, who's played by the very familiar and funny Sean Whalen (THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS, TWISTER). They take refuge in the funeral home, which is troublesome for Stephen since his mother just died, and even more troublesome when he sees her head floating toward him in the dark. After a lot of running around from place to place, and a lot of doing stupid stuff that people in slasher movies always do, the three finally end up barricaded in a small grocery store with a couple of rave-bound party boys named Tommy and Johnny (Thomas Dekker, Johnathon Schaech). But they can't keep Chrome Skull out for long, and before you know it he's in there making mincemeat out of anything with a heartbeat.

This is the kind of eye-popping, knuckle-baring slasher flick I was looking for back in the old days whenever I'd trudge to the latest FRIDAY THE 13TH crapfest or rent yet another piece of dreck like THE BURNING or THE PROWLER, ever hopeful that the next one would actually turn out to be worth watching. With LAID TO REST, Robert Hall has taken the old formula and done it up with all the bells and whistles--state-of-the-art gore effects from his own renowned makeup studio Almost Human, a sharp script that lovingly reprises all the old cliches while giving us a few new twists, a top-notch cast, and a cool monster who videotapes his kills with a shoulder-mounted camera (an element which will later provide clues to Princess' mysterious origins). Hall proves himself a very capable director, and the cinematography, done with a Panasonic HPX-3000 high-definition 1080p camera in the AVC Intra Mode (I don't know what any of that means, but it sounds awesome), makes this one of the best-looking indy slasher flicks you'll ever see. Hall's own band Deadbox contributes to the exciting heavy metal musical score.

Extras include an enthusiastic audio commentary from husband-wife team Hall and Luther and the half-hour "Postmortem: The Making of Laid to Rest", a very entertaining and well-produced documentary. There's also a look at "The SFX of Laid to Rest", a few deleted scenes, some funny bloopers, and a trailer.

This isn't "torture porn" as much as an homage to the classic stalker-slasher era with suspense sequences punctuated by sudden, flabbergasting death scenes. It's the kind of gore effects that you used to see featured in big full-color spreads in Fangoria magazine, but when you went to see the movie you'd find they'd all been snipped into almost subliminal split-second flashes to avoid an "X" rating. Not in this unrated director's cut, however--everything's as horribly graphic as the most avid gorehound could hope for. Almost Human studios specializes in realistic-looking dead bodies, which are abundant in the aftermath of Chrome Skull's homicidal activities, and they also give us some of the most shocking kill scenes ever created. These are done with good old-fashioned makeup FX (one death scene even uses bladders) which are augmented by CGI to create some pretty convincing carnage. The most jaw-dropping (literally!) effect comes fairly early as one guy gets Chrome Skull's blade right through his cheeks, which our whimsical hero removes by taking the top of the guy's head off. Yikes! If that sounds intriguing to you, then you really should check out LAID TO REST. If not, then I would advise you to stay as far away from this movie as possible.

LAID TO REST -- DVD Review by Porfle

THE LAST HOUSE -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 11/23/15

Described as a "psycho-sexual thriller", THE LAST HOUSE, a.k.a. "Breath of Hate" (2015) wants to be deep and maybe even a little avant-garde--in addition to being violent and perversely sexy--but doesn't quite have the finesse to pull it off.

CLERKS' Jason Mewes (ZOMBIE HAMLET, SILENT BUT DEADLY) is Ned, a lovesick schlub trying to convince his hooker heartthrob Love (Lauren Walsh, MEET THE SPARTANS) to quit the business and be his one-guy gal.  But when Love finally goes to her pimp to serve notice, Sonny (Jack Forcinito, SILENT NIGHT, ZOMBIE NIGHT) strongly insists that she go on one final job with two other hookers to a swanky mansion where a wild sex party is to be held.  Reluctantly, Love agrees.

Bad idea, since we've already seen the three psychotic squatters occupying the mansion do away with a lady realtor (SLEEPAWAY CAMP's Felissa Rose in a brief, thankless cameo), and it's obvious their idea of "party" will prove unpleasant for the three unsuspecting working girls.

There's Cleb (Ricardo Gray), an excitable young black dude whose "crazy happy" mood, we're told, must be seen to be believed; Selma (Monique Parent, THE PERFECT HOUSE), a wickedly dominant sex bomb; and "Hate" (Ezra Buzzington), the oily, enigmatic, and endlessly verbose ringleader of the tawdry trio.  Once this dubious situation gets into full swing, THE LAST HOUSE becomes a round-robin series of sexual trainwrecks. 

Cleb, we discover, likes cheerleaders.  In fact, he thinks they look good enough to eat--literally.  He's also partial to heating up half a canteloupe in the microwave and then making love to it AMERICAN PIE-style, and when these two scenarios are edited together the confusion is compounded when Love suddenly shows up and starts hacking away at him with a butcher knife.  Or does she?

Meanwhile, some of the film's kinkier deeds are performed in the upstairs bedroom when Selma has her way with the other hooker in a mistress-slave scenario that includes spanking, toe-sucking, and other sleazy sex stuff that skirts the boundaries of "softcore" before turning baseball-bat violent and, for me anyway, baffling.

But the most perplexing part comes when we watch our heroine Love in an increasingly troublesome tryst with "Hate", which starts out creepy and just gets worse, until he starts to live up to his name and she finds herself in grave peril. 

Which sounds straightforward enough, but is anything but because this film, remember, wants to be some kind of sleazy art film with its jumbled timelines and rambling monologues. 

Despite his on-the-nose moniker, Hate reminds me mainly of an evil David Spade--not very menacing, even when his true nature starts to bleed through.  The story gets progressively strange as characters die, live again, kill, get killed, etc. and we see a variety of flashbacks, flash-forwards, dreams that foretell the future, alternate outcomes, and other timeline-fiddling. While all this is going on, Ned is busy trying to track down Love by haunting the strip club where she works and going head to head with Sonny.

Jason Mewes handles his role well enough but it's Lauren Walsh as Love who's the real standout here.  Monique Parent is meant to be wickedly sexy, which is something she could do without breaking a sweat.  As Hate, Ezra Buzzington gets an "A" for effort although I never found the character as intriguing or mysterious as intended.  Jack Forcinito is sleaze personified as the pimp Sonny, whose main concern is his miniature pet turtle. 

The DVD from WildEye Releasing is widescreen with Dolby Digital sound.  No subtitles.  Bonus features consist of a writer and director commentary, deleted scenes, a Cinemayhem Film Festival director interview, and the film's London premiere at the Gorezone Film Festival.

While some members of the cast double as prolific porn stars, THE LAST HOUSE is more thriller and less sleaze than the synopsis might lead you to believe. I didn't find it all that thrilling, either, but I must give the filmmakers credit for trying something different. 

THE LAST HOUSE -- DVD Review by Porfle

Coopers' Christmas (2008): "I Kill Poppy!" (video)

 

This scene from the 2008 comedy "Coopers' Christmas" teaches a valuable lesson: if you're Poppy, you should never let your guard down around Dougie.

(Caution: something violent happens)

Video by Porfle Popnecker. I neither own nor claim any rights to this material. Just having some fun with it. Thanks for watching!

Coopers' Christmas (2008): "I Kill Poppy!" (video)

WRESTLEMANIAC -- Movie Review by Porfle

(NOTE: This review originally appeared online in 2006 at Bumscorner.com.)

Movies in which a cast of young people gets whittled down "Ten-Little-Indians" style by an unstoppable killer are a dime a dozen these days, and the only things which distinguish any of them from the pack are a good story, competent (at least) execution, and a unique antagonist.  WRESTLEMANIAC (2006) gives us a passably good story which is very well executed by writer-director Jesse Baget and a talented cast. 

As for the antagonist--he's a psychotic Mexican wrestler named El Mascarado who was created by evil scientists (using the bodies of three other Mexican wrestlers) and then abandoned in an isolated ghost town after he went uncontrollably, kill-crazy nuts.  Okay, that's pretty unique.

Adam Huss plays Alphonse, a brash, cocky dude with a pimp goatee and a cowboy hat who's hauling three girls and a couple of other guys down to Mexico in a van to shoot a porn video.  Jeremy Radin is Steve, his pudgy cameraman, and Zack Bennett plays Jimbo, a typical stoner-type who's there mainly because it's his van.  The girls include a couple of blondes--the vivacious Debbie (Margaret Scarborough) and the wasted Daisy (Catherine Wreford)--and a sultry brunette babe named Dallas, played by WWE Raw Diva Leyla Milani (recently seen in THE BOYS AND GIRLS GUIDE TO GETTING DOWN), who should be receiving my marriage proposal in the mail any day now.

On the way to wherever it is they're going, they stop at a gas station that looks like it hasn't seen a drop of gas since 1957 and meet a weird old geezer (familiar character actor Irwin Keyes) who warns them not to stop in the haunted ghost town called La Sangre De Dios.  Whatever you do, he stresses repeatedly, do not stop in the haunted ghost town of La Sangre De Dios.  So what do they do?  They make a beeline for La Sangre De Dios.  Why?  Because, as Alphonse confidently informs everyone, a haunted ghost town would make the perfect location for a porn video.

No sooner do they get there, however, than strange things start happening and members of their group begin to disappear.  They do, of course, find time to start work on their video, which gives us a chance to see a scantily-clad Dallas and Debbie making out on the bar of the saloon.  For those of you who are keeping score at home, Debbie gets topless.  Unfortunately, so does Alphonse.  Daisy, meanwhile, wanders off somewhere to throw up and is never seen again.  Jimbo goes looking for her, and is never seen again.  As darkness begins to fall on the spooky old town, it gradually dawns on the others that something may be amiss.

When the hulking, terrifying Mexican wrestler El Mascarado appears and starts coming after them, they realize that something is definitely amiss.  This is when the fun really starts.  Director Jesse Baget does a good job of keeping the old stalk-and-kill formula interesting, with lots of action and some genuinely suspenseful sequences.  There's also a generous amount of gore, mainly because El Mascarado studiously observes the number one rule of Mexican wrestling: when you defeat an opponent, you rip his mask off.  Our protagonists, of course, don't wear masks, so El Mascarado simply rips their faces off instead.   Yowch!  That's gotta hurt!

I'm not into wrestling myself, but I like to see this sort of horror flick done well, and in this case it's done very well.  If you're into both wrestling and horror, you should really get a kick out of this, especially since El Mascarado is played by none other than Mexican wrestling superstar Rey Misterioso.  He makes a pretty intimidating monster, and when the overweight, out-of-shape Steve squares off with him to try and rip his mask off (which, theoretically, will force him to "retire" and leave them alone), you just know it ain't gonna turn out good.  Forget about the ol' Lone Ranger--Jim Croce should've been a lot more worried about this guy.

Did I mention that every time Dallas or Debbie run away from the killer, the camera zooms in for a closeup of their rear ends?  I didn't notice this myself, of course (ahem) but I believe it's mentioned in the commentary track by Baget, Huss, and director of photography Tabbert Fiiller.  This is just one of the spoofy elements that let you know WRESTLEMANIAC isn't meant to be taken seriously--but, with that in mind, it's still a full-blooded, action-packed horror movie that throws most of the current stalker flicks right out of the ring.

WRESTLEMANIAC -- Movie Review by Porfle

VIDEO NASTIES: THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE PART 2 -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 1/30/15

One of the oddest episodes in the history of splatter flicks was that whole business about "video nasties" that happened in England back in the 80s and 90s. Back then, Margaret Thatcher and several other government types were popping their corks over any small-screen (i.e. "video") entertainment that involved any kind of graphic gore, and were using all their legal powers to squelch, suppress, censor, and generally pull the plug on the whole bloody shebang.

We know now, of course, that--to paraphrase Allan Carr--you just can't stop the splatter. In "Video Nasties--The Definitive Guide" we learned about Thatcher's infamous banned list, which spelled out which films were not only officially frowned upon but would be forcibly removed from video stores and destroyed, and their offending owners prosecuted.

With its follow-up, the documentary VIDEO NASTIES: THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE PART 2, subtitled "Draconian Days" (Severin Films 3-disc DVD set), we learn that the story continued for many years afterward as censorship and legal action against the offending horror videos grew stricter and more draconian than ever before, while sensationalistic news stories fanned the flames of public condemnation.

The story focuses mainly on the BBFC--British Board of Film Classification--under the strict rule of board director James Ferman. This group of video watchdogs tirelessly scrutinized the seemingly neverending flow of movies containing the sort of violence, gore, and "sick" themes which, they feared, might be accessible by children even if the videos themselves were purchased or rented by "responsible" adults.

Ferman wielded his censor's scissors recklessly and to such extremes that other members of the BBFC, some of whom are interviewed here, began to question him. But for years, a generous number of horror films were either mercilessly edited or banned outright, which, ironically, made them even more sought-after by avid gorehounds who created a vast bootlegging and trading underground.

While the documentary contains numerous film clips, it's composed mainly of talking head segments featuring various politicians, filmmakers, authors, and other interested parties, each offering accounts of their own personal views and experiences during this era of extreme censorship and artistic persecution.

At one point even David Cronenberg shows up to posit that the censors were just as delusional as the psychos supposedly getting all their ideas and inspiration from horror films. This doesn't seem at all unlikely when the documentary details the time in which the infamous murder of toddler James Bulger by two young boys was blamed in large part on the film CHILD'S PLAY 3.

As with the previous installment, director Jake West does a meticulous job of putting it all together to create an engrossing and informative narrative. Those who enjoy documentaries should have little problem getting into this. Those who don't, however, will probably be bored stiff.

For them, discs two and three are just the thing, for they contain trailers for all the blood 'n' guts classics once deemed too sick, horrific, depraved, and just plain evil for sensitive British subjects to handle. The discs offer 82 trailers in all, namely those titles chosen under Section 3 of the Obscene Publications Act which could be seized and destroyed, either from places of business or from citizens' private homes as well.

A great feature of these discs is the choice to watch the trailers one after another, uninterrupted, or to view detailed, informative introductory reviews of each title by a very knowledgeable bunch of filmmakers, authors, and critics.

Some of the 82 titles include BLOOD LUST, BRUTES AND SAVAGES, CANNIBALS, DEAD KIDS, DEEP RED, DEATH WEEKEND, DEMENTED, EATEN ALIVE, HEADLESS EYES, HELL PRISON, LOVE BUTCHER, MARK OF THE DEVIL, MASSACRE MANSION, SAVAGE TERROR, SCREAM FOR VENGEANCE, SUICIDE CULT, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, XTRO, and ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST.

In addition to these, bonus features also include two galleries--the first, covers from dozens of gore fanzines from the era, and the second, covers from all the videos which were either successfully prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act or deemed liable for seizure but not prosecution. Discs are in anamorphic widescreen with Dolby Digital mono sound. No subtitles.

As before, this DVD set's design presentation itself, with its simulated videotape imperfections and "adjust tracking" prompts, is fun for the nostalgic VHS fan. But that's just icing on the cake for VIDEO NASTIES: THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE PART 2, which is rewarding not only for its intensive history of the subject but also for a wealth of trailers that should have gorehounds barking at the bloody moon.



Read our review of Part One

VIDEO NASTIES: THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE PART 2 -- DVD Review by Porfle

VIDEO NASTIES: THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE -- DVD Review by Porfle

  Originally posted 6/25/2014

 

For those unfamiliar with the story, Severin Home Video's new 3-disc DVD set VIDEO NASTIES: THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE should serve as a more than adequate recap of one of the strangest cultural battles ever to take place on English soil. And even if you already know all the information imparted by the collection's first disc documentary, "Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship, and Videotape" (2010), the barrage of trailers on discs 2 and 3 should keep you entertained for hours.

The 2010 documentary, directed by Jake West, begins as the home video craze is heating up in the early 80s. One of the hottest attractions is what would become known as the "video nasty", namely those cheap but extremely gory horror flicks that had many of us haunting our local mom 'n' pop video stores looking for anything with some of that good ol' shock value.

But when societal watchdogs in England such as aging activist Mary Whitehouse noticed that these gruesome films were bypassing theatrical age restrictions and being watched on home VCRs by little kids, something was bound to hit the fan.

With something new to censor, various members of Parliament joined Ms. Whitehouse and an indignant press in stirring up public outrage against the "sadist videos" (which Whitehouse admitted to never having watched) along with some heavy legal backlash. The first step was a widespread confiscation, with 32,000 tapes such as DRILLER KILLER and DEATH TRAP being seized and burned in London's Metropolitan area alone.

As righteous anger over these videos grew, so did the penalties for distributing and renting them, with several offenders paying large fines and even going to jail. Newspapers and police began using the films to conveniently explain all sorts of criminal behavior, accusing them of potentially "corrupting and depraving" anyone who watched them.

It wasn't long before Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher jumped on the bandwagon in order to attain some much-needed moral cred, coming up with a list of 72 banned titles that could get you into big trouble if caught renting or distributing them. This list, of course, became a "must-see" menu for fans of the genre although the films were becoming increasingly difficult to find.

The documentary describes how the banned video nasties got copied and passed around by fans, and how these multi-generation tapes had a fuzziness which helped obscure bad FX and make the images seem more mysterious and realistic. One of my favorite things about "Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship, and Videotape", in fact, is how it delves into the nostalgia those of us from the VCR era still have for those big, clunky machines and often battered tapes that we ran through them.

The documentary--and, in fact, the DVD packaging and menus themselves--display an almost fetishistic regard for VCRs, VHS, videotape imperfections, and other quirks of the medium with which I could strongly identify. There's also a fond remembrance of those hole-in-the-wall video stores that seemed to pop up just about everywhere in the 80s, each of which had its own individual ambience and unique variety of titles both familiar and obscure.

What I didn't like so much about the documentary--and it's a small gripe--is that it leans rather heavily on talking heads (politicians, filmmakers, critics, and other interested parties from the era) and not enough film clips. However, since discs 2 and 3 more than make up for this, then disc 1 can be forgiven for being more of a history lesson than anything else.

Disc 2 features trailers for "The Final 39", or the films that were successfully prosecuted in UK courts and "deemed liable to deprave and corrupt." Retailers and distributors could be heavily fined and even imprisoned for handling these hot-button horrors. The trailers range all the way from something called ABSURD to ZOMBIE FLESH-EATERS, with some of the titles in-between including: THE BEAST, CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, THE DRILLER KILLER, I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, NIGHTMARES IN A DAMAGED BRAIN (I think I rented this under the shortened title NIGHTMARES), and the infamous fake-out SNUFF.

Disc 3 contains trailers for the 33 films that were initially banned but later removed from the "leper list" (as I just now decided to call it). Are they truly milder than the notorious 39 and less likely to turn viewers into gibbering sadists? It's your call as the line-up includes such blood-soaked fare as THE BOGEY MAN, DEATH TRAP, DEEP RIVER SAVAGES, THE EVIL DEAD (that one definitely warped MY mind), THE FUNHOUSE, HUMAN EXPERIMENTS, THE TOOLBOX MURDERS, and ZOMBIE CREEPING FLESH.

The trailers on Discs 2 and 3 can be viewed in all their uninterrupted glory, or with introductions and reviews (some pretty in-depth) from some of the talking heads seen in Disc 1's feature documentary. Cult horror presenter Emily Booth greets us at the start of each disc. Other extras include VHS box art and video logo galleries. The discs are in anamorphic widescreen with Dolby digital sound. No subtitles.

"Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship, and Videotape" is an interesting but slow-moving and occasionally dull account of a fascinating time in British history. Lots of yakkity-yak and not enough video clips slow things down to a creep even though this is a valuable historical document that should be seen by anyone interested in the subject. But it's that collection of "must-see list" trailers that really rates VIDEO NASTIES: THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE a nasty niche in your own video library.



Read our review of Part Two

 

VIDEO NASTIES: THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE -- DVD Review by Porfle

REDLINE -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 12/27/11

 

Sizzling with supercharged action, the simple plot of director Takeshi Koike's sci-fi anime REDLINE (2009) serves as a backdrop for some of the most mindblowing, audacious cartoon animation to ever blaze its way across the screen. 

The pre-titles sequence features a qualifying "Yellowline" race in the desert that already makes the podrace from THE PHANTOM MENACE look like a frog-jumping competition.  We meet J.P., who resembles a brawny Ricky Nelson with a skyscraper pompadour and, thanks to his crooked partner Frisbee, has a reputation for fixing races.  Sure enough, Frisbee's in deep with the mob on this one and sabotages J.P.'s car near the finish line, landing him in the hospital.

When some of the qualifiers for the Redline drop out, J.P.'s back in the game along with his heartthrob Sonoshee, a lovely lass with more interest in machines than men.  But the location for the race turns out to be Roboworld, a militaristic society whose leaders are so opposed to the competition taking place on their world (and possibly having some of their military secrets broadcast galaxy-wide) that they declare all-out war against the racers.  In order to win this one, J.P. will have to battle it out against ruthless drivers (including Sonoshee), the entire military force of Roboworld, and perhaps even his own sidekick Frisbee.
 


Fans of non-CGI animation should have a ball reveling in this 100% hand-drawn visual feast, whose creators invested seven years and 100,000 drawings in its making.  Each frame of this dazzling tribute to old-school cartoon wizardry is as insanely detailed as panels from the more extravagant underground comix of the 60s and 70s, and unlike digital cartoons you can see the artists' and animators' hands in every painstaking detail. 

The dynamic, hard-edged drawing style, a eye-pleasing mix of both the futuristic and retro, yields a wealth of beautifully-rendered character designs and backgrounds that are then brought to vivid life.  Surreal touches, such as J.P.'s gravity-defying hairdo and an endless parade of grotesque aliens, rub shoulders with the hard-edged yet wildly-imaginative hardware of cars, spaceships, and other machinery. 

The over-the-top character design (by co-writer Katsuhito Ishii, who also worked on the anime sequence from KILL BILL, VOL. 1 and helped create REDLINE's outstanding soundtrack) goes well with the film's larger-than-life cast of oddballs.  These include J.P.'s multi-armed canine mechanic Pops, the towering cyborg Machine Head, and the various other racers whose bizarre appearance and unique personalities keep things interesting.  Even the crowd scenes are filled with a vast array of colorful "extras."
 


While the plot busies itself with various concerns such as J.P.'s wooing of the reluctant Sonoshee and Frisbee's conflict of loyalties between him and the mob, REDLINE roars to life during its many spectacular action sequences.  The imposing Colonel Votron and his Roboworld army launch a full-scale attack on the racers that begins when they leave the mothership and attempt to land their shuttle vehicles on the planet.  The race itself is a non-stop series of thrilling setpieces which lead to the activation of the Roboworld president's ace in the hole, an out-of-control behemoth known as "Funky Boy" who proceeds to destroy everything in sight.  

The DVD from Anchor Bay's "Manga" label is in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby 5.1 and 2.0 soundtracks in both Japanese and English, with English subtitles.  Extras consist of a 24-minute making-of featurette and the film's trailer. 

Thrilling, funny, and endlessly watchable, REDLINE is chock-full of some of the most visually-stunning racing action and futuristic warfare ever created for an animated film.  Best of all, it's a return to the glory days of hand-drawn animation which, in the words of its creators, offers something new by doing things the old way again. 

REDLINE -- DVD Review by Porfle

BABY BLUES -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted in 2008

 

Whoa--I must say, this movie took a rather shocking turn I didn't expect. When I started watching BABY BLUES (2008) I had no idea what it was about, so I was on the lookout for the usual horror elements to start popping up. The setting, an isolated rural farmhouse in Georgia with a typical family of six--Mom, Dad, two boys, a girl, and a baby--seemed ripe for ghostly occurrences of some sort, or maybe a possession or an axe-wielding maniac. And that scarecrow that keeps giving Mom the heebie-jeebies sure seems like it might come to life at any moment. But the real horror that strikes this family isn't supernatural, and it doesn't come from outside.

I almost hate to give away any more about it, but the pivotal event in the story happens so early on that I wouldn't be able to talk about the movie otherwise. To put it bluntly, BABY BLUES is pretty much inspired by the case of crazed Texas housewife Andrea Yates, who murdered all of her children in one fell psychotic swoop back in '01. (At least, that's what this "based on a true story" story brought to my mind.) The "baby blues" of the title refers to postnatal depression--perhaps "psychosis" would be more apt--which has Mom (Colleen Porch) wandering around with black circles under her eyes while drifting in and out of a state of hallucinatory paranoia. We also see her reading (gasp!) the Bible in her first scene, rarely a good sign in a modern horror film.

Her family, on the other hand, is pretty normal and well-adjusted. Dad (Joel Bryant) is an easygoing lug who unfortunately has to spend much of his time driving a big rig. Jimmy (Ridge Canipe), the oldest, is a typical boy who plays baseball and carries a slingshot. Holden Thomas Maynard and Kali Majors are younger siblings Sammy and Cathy, and bringing up the rear is the new baby, Nathan. Jimmy's starting to notice that Mom isn't quite her usual self lately, but nobody suspects what will happen when she finally flips out during Dad's absence and begins to see her children as vile creatures who need to be severely punished.

I don't know what your tolerance level is for seeing bad things happen to little kids in movies, but BABY BLUES will definitely test it. Mom's breakdown leads to one murder, an attempted bathtub drowning, and various other acts of violence until finally there's a bloody stabbing that may have you picking your jaw up off the floor. After that, the surviving kids run for their lives as the suspense becomes almost unbearable for the rest of the film. Most movies would build up to a sequence this intense as a finale, but this one hits a high tension level about a third of the way through and more or less sustains it till the end.

As Mom, Colleen Porch ably conveys her slow descent into madness and the hysterical homicidal rage that finally bursts forth. There's a great early scene in which, after hearing that a former classmate has scored a job doing the local TV weather report, a haggard Mom stands in front of the bathroom mirror with a bright smile and recites "Tonight will be mostly cloudy, with a slight chance of rain" over and over, until the smile gradually becomes hideous and the phrase itself seems to boil over with bitterness and despair. The kids all give realistic performances, especially 13-year-old Ridge Canipe as Jimmy. He's just about as believably natural as a child actor can get and we can't help but pull for him as he tries to protect his siblings and himself. The authentic Southern accents and atmosphere are also a plus.

The direction by Lars E. Jacobson and Amardeep Kaleka is first-rate as are the editing and the cinematography, which has a rustic warmth in the daytime scenes that gives way to a colder, harsher look later on. Michael Filimowicz's music augments the action well without competing with it.

The DVD is 1.78:1 widescreen with Dolby Digital sound and Spanish subtitles. I watched a screener so I can't comment on any extras, but the promotional info mentions a behind-the-scenes documentary and a trailer.

This isn't about some cool serial killer in a hockey mask slaughtering a bunch of vapid teenagers in delightfully gory ways, and the fact that the setting is so normal and the events so plausible makes it all the more horrifying. Each death is tragic and hurtful to watch, and the suspense leading up to them is dreadful. Impeccably made and intensely effective, BABY BLUES more than succeeds in what it sets out to do, but boy, is it ever hard to watch. And you may suffer from a bad case of postcinematic depression when it's over.

 

BABY BLUES -- DVD Review by Porfle

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

FATHER'S DAY -- Movie Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 2/24/12

 

I didn't know quite what to expect when I started watching FATHER'S DAY (2011), a condition which persisted throughout the entire movie.  Just when you think you've pretty much figured out what it is you're watching, it turns into something a whole lot weirder and several times nuttier.

Written, directed, and starred in by a group of Winnipeg filmmakers who call themselves Astron-6, it's an unashamedly stupid, gore-drenched grab bag of tongue-in-cheek tough-guy action-horror-comedy antics done in the fake-grindhouse style of PLANET TERROR, but with real grindhouse production values and attitude. 

Most nostalgic of all for me, it's presented as though home-taped sometime during the 80s off a late-night cable station called ASTR-TV, complete with promo bumpers, smarmy announcer, and a mid-movie faux trailer for something really, really cheesy called STAR RAIDERS.

The story begins in semi-sane fashion with corpulent "Father's Day Killer" Chris Fuchman (Mackenzie Murdock) raping and butchering dads, including that of gay street hustler Twink (Conor Sweeney).  This repellent character also killed the father of young Ahab and cut out his right eye in the bargain. 

Now grown up, Ahab (Adam Brooks) is a growly-voiced, eye-patched "Snake Plissken" type out for revenge along with his stripper sister Chelsea (Amy Groening), the addlebrained Twink, and a jittery young priest named Father John (Matthew Kennedy) whose blind, aging mentor also met a horrific Fuchman-related fate. 

What follows makes ARMY OF DARKNESS look like a Doris Day/Rock Hudson comedy as this simple revenge flick gets progressively more absurd.  Characters obsess "Monty Python"-style over simple figures of speech, as when Ahab tells Father John that it's time to harvest his maple syrup before it turns bitter and Father John wrongly interprets this as a metaphor for Ahab and his sister Chelsea, after which a confused Ahab spends five minutes trying to figure out why Father John just compared him to a tree.

Twink, meanwhile, begins the film as a deceptively serious character grieving over his dead dad (Billy Sadoo's acting while being murdered by Fuchman is strikingly realistic), making his descent into extreme goofiness even more pronounced.  Elsewhere, Father John's odyssey takes him from a meltdown in the pulpit worthy of Richard Burton on laughing gas (in a scene which may have been inspired by the opening to NIGHT OF THE IGUANA) to a hostage situation in Heaven with the desperate priest holding God (Troma head honcho Lloyd Kaufman) at gunpoint. 

While all this is going on, Fuchman continues his reign of terror complete with a cornucopia of wet 'n' wild gore effects including entrails, exploding heads, and one shocking moment that gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "eat me."  None of this, however, is quite as disturbing as the image of a full-on naked Mackenzie Murdock displaying his eye-watering genitalia and humping everyone in sight. 

Just when you think our heroes have defeated the bad guy and made everything right with the world again, FATHER'S DAY pulls out all the stops and goes totally off the deep end with Ahab, Twink, and Father John descending into Hell to rescue Chelsea, who's been kidnapped by Fuchman to be the bearer of his evil seed or whatever. 

While this may sound pretty horrible, it's all basically just an excuse to ramp up the bizarre off-the-wall comedy to even greater heights (or should I say depths) of calculated idiocy.  Along with even more squishy gore effects, of course.  Oh yeah, and I almost forgot to mention the extreme incest sequence and the buxom, chainsaw-wielding stripper played by my future wife, Zsuzsi. 

As nastily nostalgic as the more expensive, star-studded PLANET TERROR and packed with more grindhouse-verite' style than HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN, the gleefully horrendous FATHER'S DAY will be a riotous romp for some, a nauseating nightmare for others.  You probably know which camp you're in by now. 


Our coverage of the film's premiere

Official website

FATHER'S DAY -- Movie Review by Porfle

WE ARE THE FLESH -- Movie Review by Porfle

(Originally posted in 2017)

 

Sometimes you finish watching a movie and think, "Well, that was weird."  With WE ARE THE FLESH (2016), you may find yourself saying that after every scene.  Maybe even every single thing that happens in every scene.

The premise is simple--a very strange and twisted man named Mariano (Noé Hernández in gleefully-crazed mode) is up to something very strange and twisted in an abandoned building, and when homeless brother and sister Lucio (Diego Gamaliel) and Maria (Maria Evoli) enter the building seeking food and shelter, they enter into Mariano's world.  What follows is complete and utter madness.

Mariano's madness is expressed verbally through his incessant wild-eyed philosophizing, which lays bare the inner roilings of his squirming id.  Since philosophy and madness can be an unsettling combination, this alone is enough to leave us reeling. 

Fueled by endless exuberance and made manifest with a manic industriousness--in which he forces his two unwilling charges to participate--the result is a nightmare of horror and perversion limited only by a wholly unfettered imagination.

What follows is a dizzying cinematic freefall into the most extreme depths of depravity in which such things as incest and necrophilia are only the start.  This is filmmaking on a subconscious level, with no limits or boundaries. 

The abundant amounts of sex and violence are both graphic and grotesque.  In fact, once this film gets cranked up, very little occurs that isn't shockingly, disturbingly grotesque. 

 

Needless to say, this film is not--I repeat, NOT--for everyone.

Eventually I reached a point where I stopped trying to evaluate WE ARE THE FLESH on a technical level--that this is writer-director Emiliano Rocha Minter's first feature film is something of an artistic marvel--and just found myself trying to endure it.  Most of it is very hard to get through, and I couldn't wait for several of the scenes to end. 

Comparisons to other filmmakers come to mind.  I kept being reminded of the work of Spanish surrealist Fernando Arrabal, whose images are similarly outlandish and disturbing, and that of David Lynch during his willfully strange ERASERHEAD days. 

The joyful reveling in the grotesque also reminded me of PINK FLAMINGOS-era John Waters, while some of the imagery that's just plain out-there seems like it could've been conceived by a deranged Stanley Kubrick tripping his head off on LSD. 



Much of the story takes place within a giant fabricated womb, writhing with naked bodies caked in blood and filth and engaged in acts so degrading as to give even the most jaded viewer second thoughts about whether or not they should even be watching.  I began to seriously question if doing so could by any stretch of the imagination be described as "entertainment." 

So there you have it.  WE ARE THE FLESH, whatever else it may be, is a stunningly effective descent into the underbelly of cinema which, depending on your individual tastes, tolerances, and/or convictions, has the power to either rivet or repel. 

As for me personally, I didn't enjoy it, but I don't think I was supposed to.  And I'm a little relieved that I didn't.

 

Spanish w/ English subtitles / 80 minutes / 1.85:1

Los Angeles Theatrical Release:
Friday, January 13, 2017
Laemmle's Ahrya Fine Arts Theatre
8556 Wilshire Blvd
Beverly Hills, CA 90211

This title will be released on Blu-ray and DVD February 14, 2017

WE ARE THE FLESH -- Movie Review by Porfle

PLANET TERROR / DEATH PROOF -- Movie Reviews by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 10/21/09. Contains spoilers.

 

If you grew up going to big, dark, seedy movie theaters or rundown drive-ins that showed battered, tattered, spliced-and-diced prints of cheap exploitation flicks--and loving every minute of it-- then Robert Rodriguez' incredibly well-rendered homage to all that great stuff, PLANET TERROR (2007), just might be more fun than you can handle. 

 Originally part of the Rodriguez-Tarantino team-up GRINDHOUSE, which also featured QT's roadkill thriller DEATH PROOF, PLANET TERROR now stands alone on DVD in an extended, unrated version that is pure adrenaline-fueled goofy fun from beginning to end. 

The movie plunks us smack-dab into the old grindhouse atmosphere right off the bat with original "prevues of coming attractions" and "our feature presentation" clips, along with a kickass, spot-on trailer parody for a fictitious flick called MACHETE starring the ever-popular Danny Trejo as a blade-wielding badass for hire. It's only a couple of minutes long, but it contains enough outrageous action clips and gravely-intoned taglines ("If you're going to hire him to kill the bad guy--you'd better make damn sure the bad guy isn't YOU!") to make us wish it was a real movie. (Which it soon will be, apparently--according to IMDb, Rodriguez is preparing MACHETE for an 2010 release.) 

After a vintage clip informing us that the following movie is intended for adults only, PLANET TERROR kicks in full blast with a title sequence featuring scantily-clad star Rose McGowan doing a very energetic pole-dance in a seedy Texas club. Holy G-strings, Batman! I don't know how you'll react, but it got my full attention. Rose is definitely lookin' good these days. 

Her character, Cherry Darling, quits the club in the not-too-likely hope of becoming a stand-up comedian. On the walk home she's almost run over by a convoy of vehicles on its way to an abandoned military base. Here, a shady deal goes down between greedy scientist Abby (Naveen Andrews, "Lost") and a group of renegade soldiers led by Lt. Muldoon (Bruce Willis) concerning a mysterious toxic gas called DC-2. The soldiers, it turns out, have been exposed to the gas and now need to inhale it in measured doses to counteract its horrific effects. But the deal erupts into a bloody gunfight, and before long a cloud of DC-2 is headed toward town. 

Meanwhile, Cherry runs into her old lover Wray (Freddy Rodríguez, "Six Feet Under") in a roadside barbecue joint called The Bone Shack, which is run by the grizzled J.T. Hague (an almost unrecognizable Jeff Fahey). Cherry bums a ride home in Wray's wrecker truck, but they're attacked by some flesh-eating DC-2 zombies who make off with Cherry's right leg. 

At the hospital, soon-to-become-zombies are pouring into the emergency ward, where Josh Brolin is doing his best Nick Nolte imitation as the burnt-out, hypochondriac Dr. Block. Block is preoccupied by the fact that his wife, Dakota (Marley Shelton, SIN CITY) is having an affair with another woman played by "Fergie" of the Black-Eyed Peas, Stacy Ferguson. But he'll have more pressing concerns on his hands when the hospital begins to fill up with pus-spewing, gut-chomping zombies. 

Wray gets hauled off to jail by Sheriff Hauge (Michael Biehn), who has had previous legal troubles with him. The sheriff is J.T.'s brother, and one of the funniest running gags in the film is him desperately trying to coerce J.T. into sharing his secret barbecue sauce recipe with him. But while he's booking Wray for whatever he can think of, zombies strike the police station in force and there's another extremely bloody battle. Wray eventually makes his way back to the hospital to rescue Cherry, ramming a table leg onto the end of her stump in lieu of a more traditional prosthesis. 

The "Lt. Dan"-style missing-leg effects are awesome here, especially when Wray later replaces the table leg with a machine gun/grenade launcher that turns Cherry into one of the coolest warrior women in movie history. Yet another awesome shoot-em-up scene occurs at the besieged, flame-engulfed barbecue joint, where the non-infected survivors have congregated and we discover that Wray is really El Wray. The significance of this is never explained (not only does the film "melt" during the big sex scene, but there's actually a missing reel!) but it's enough to convince Sheriff Hague, who tells his deputy, "Give him a gun. Give him all the guns." 

The survivors' flight down the highway in whatever escape vehicles they can scrounge up is a thrilling sequence highlighted by the sheriff bashing zombie pedestrians to bloody smithereens in Wray's wrecker while Wray heads the convoy on a tiny pocket bike. The finale occurs at the old military base after they've all been detained by Lt. Muldoon and his renegade soldiers. Tarantino turns up as a lecherous psycho who tries to act out his women-in-cages fantasies with Cherry and Dakota, and ends up "getting the point", so to speak. His performance has been derided by some, but Tarantino knows exactly what kind of character he's playing and does it to a tee. (He also gets to perform the film's biggest gross-out scene, and boy, is it gross.) 

The good guys eventually escape from their cells and battle their way toward a helicopter, and not only does everything blow up real good but Cherry gets a mind-boggling opportunity to display her newly-developed battle skills in one of the coolest scenes ever. All of this weird, wild stuff is wrought with all the directorial skills, grindhouse nostalgia, and giddy Monster Kid glee that Robert Rodriguez can muster. Once this thing gets started, it's non-stop over-the-top action all the way, drenched in gouts of fake blood 'n' guts and brimming with all the wonderful 70s exploitation elements Rodriguez can cram into it. 

Stylistically, it's a near-perfect homage, complete with scratchy film, bad edits and splices to give it the look of an old, battered print that's been shown too many times, arch dialogue, and special effects that are well-rendered while being intentionally cheesy-looking. With the DVD's audience-reaction track activated, which to me is the only way to watch this film, it's like sitting in a cheap theater back in the old days. Rodriguez' conviction to go all the way with this concept has resulted in one of the most fun movies I've ever seen. 

The entire cast is outstanding. Michael Parks returns as Texas Ranger Earl McGraw, a character that has appeared in Rodriguez' FROM DUSK TILL DAWN and Tarantino's KILL BILL and is further developed here. Gore makeup master Tom Savini and the original "El Mariachi" himself, Carlos Gallardo, appear as deputies. Rodriguez' twin nieces, Elise and Electra Avellán, play the Crazy Babysitter Twins, who should definitely be in their own movie. And his son Rebel does a nice job as the Blocks' young son, Tony, who loves tarantulas and scorpions but should never be trusted with a gun. 

This DVD is one of the best Christmas gifts I ever got. Rarely have I had this much pure, unadulterated fun watching a movie. Of course, if you're one of those people who post on IMDb asking puzzled questions like "what's with all the scratches?" or pointing out all the obvious "goofs" and "gaffes", this movie probably isn't for you. But if you're an old-school flick fan who gets what Robert Rodriguez is up to here from the git-go, then chances are PLANET TERROR is an exploitation extravaganza that will be held over for an extended run in your home grindhouse theater.  

 

Having gone ga-ga over PLANET TERROR, I couldn't wait to see the other half of the GRINDHOUSE double-feature he and collaborator Quentin Tarantino unleashed on widely unsuspecting audiences in '07. QT's muscle-car mayhem epic DEATH PROOF, while not as over-the-top awesome as Rodriguez' film, is still a pure, giddy joy that revels in the down and dirty delights of its low-budget inspirations. 

We're first introduced to four lovely young wimmins cruising the Tex-Mex diners and bars of Austin, Texas, yakking endlessly about guys and planning an all-girl party at Lake LBJ. There's the petite blonde, Shanna (Cheryl Ladd's daughter Jordan of HOSTEL PART II and CABIN FEVER), leather-clad tough chick Lanna-Frank (Monica Staggs), sexy Brooklyn gal Butterfly (Vanessa Ferlito), and locally-famous radio DJ Jungle Julia (Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Sidney's daughter). 

Rose McGowan, the star of PLANET TERROR, plays a smaller role here as Pam, Julia's grade-school rival who shows up at the Texas Chili Parlor run by Warren (Tarantino) while the girls are there partying with some horny guys that include a funny Eli Roth (HOSTEL). And, for the record, PLANET TERROR's ever-popular Crazy Babysitter Twins are there as well. 

Also sitting at the bar stuffing himself with nacho platters is the burly, scarfaced Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell), a washed-up Hollywood stuntman who takes an interest in the girls and, through a series of circumstances, ends up getting a lap dance from Butterfly in a steamy set-piece. While Stuntman Mike seems friendly enough, there's something creepy and vaguely dangerous about him. 

But Pam needs a ride home and climbs into his black '69 Dodge Charger, which, as Mike tells her, is so heavily-reinforced for stuntwork as to be "death proof." This, however, only applies to the person behind the wheel, which Pam finds out to her immense regret as soon as they hit the street. 

The first half of DEATH PROOF has the same battered, scratchy, spliced-to-hell look of PLANET TERROR, which should bring back fond memories to anyone who's actually been in a grindhouse or watched a midnight show where the print was as old as they are. For me, the nostalgic joy began in the very first seconds as soon as I heard that awesome bass line from Jack Nitszche's VILLAGE OF THE GIANTS theme, otherwise known as "The Last Race." Then the title, which, for a split second, is "Quentin Tarantino's Thunder Bolt" until the words "DEATH PROOF" are crudely spliced in, mimicking the look of all those cheap films that have been re-released under different titles. Another jarring splice cuts the title sequence short and dumps us into the movie proper. 

 Later, reel changes are clearly heralded by splotchy indicators and one of the biggest moments of the film, Butterfly's lap dance for Stuntman Mike, ends abruptly due to missing footage. This is the kind of stuff that will mean nothing to a lot of viewers, and in fact seems to put many of them off--which is probably one of the main reasons public reaction to this movie has been so divided--but it makes me as giddy as a schoolgirl. 

What happens midway through DEATH PROOF is one of the most thrilling and totally unexpected scenes of recent years--I had to rewind and watch it two or three times just convince myself that this flabbergasting event really happened. Then, after a denouement which features yet another welcome appearance by Michael Parks' Texas Ranger character Earl McGraw, who got his brains blown out way back in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN but refuses to die, the movie blinks forward fourteen months and transports us to Lebanon, Tennessee, where Stuntman Mike is up to his old tricks again. 

This time, we meet four more young women who are in town for the making of a softcore "cheerleader" movie. Rosario Dawson (SIN CITY) is makeup artist Abbie, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead is the movie's cutie-pie star, Lee. Their two friends are hardcore stuntwomen Kim (Tracie Thoms) and real-life stuntwoman Zoë Bell, who plays herself. Zoë's dream is to drive a white 1970 Dodge Challenger with a 440 engine, just like the one in VANISHING POINT. 

 Sure enough, there's a guy in town with one for sale, and before long, the girls (minus Lee) are out for a pedal-to-the-metal test drive that includes a hair-raising stunt called "Ship's Mast" with Zoë sprawled across the car's hood. This, of course, is when Stuntman Mike makes a surprise reappearance, crashing into the Challenger and then trying to run it off the road in a prolonged, stunt-packed pursuit over rural roads and highways. 

 Having a real stuntwoman playing a main role adds to the excitement because we see her face the whole time and know she's really doing all of this dangerous and thrilling stuff herself. Tarantino also uses legendary veterans such as Buddy Joe Hooker and Terry Leonard for the driving stunts, allowing him to indulge his imagination with some of the most incredible set-ups ever filmed. "Adrenaline-charged" would be an apt way to describe this harrowing car chase sequence, all the way up to the truly kooky ending in which the girls turn the tables on ol' Stuntman Mike. 

 The battered-print look disappears in DEATH PROOF's second half, as though we're now seeing another kind of exploitation flick--perhaps the more upper-scale stuff (GONE IN SIXTY SECONDS, VANISHING POINT, et al) that Kim and Zoë like to gush about. One thing that remains consistent throughout the movie, though, is Quentin Tarantino's well-known obsession with female feet. If you're a foot fetishist too, you'll love this movie from the very first frame, as this appears to be Tarantino's substitute for the gratuitous "boob shots" often seen in the usual grindhouse fare. 

There's also an abundance of big butts, gorgeous legs, and stuffed shirts, all lovingly photographed by a gleefully leering QT. Sydney Tamiia Poitier, in particular, proves a highly photogenic focus for such directorial indulgence. I'm not complaining. 

I have heard complaints that much of the girls' dialogue scenes in this movie are too ponderous and not as witty or clever as the "royale with cheese"-type stuff from PULP FICTION. Me, I just like to hear Tarantino's characters talk, even when it isn't all deliciously quotable. These long yakkity-yak scenes also help us get to know the characters before they're subjected to extreme terror and peril by Stuntman Mike. As the crazed highway stalker, Kurt Russell is simply wonderful. Relaxed, jovial, but somehow not quite right, Mike is a great character and Russell is obviously having a ball playing him. 

Tarantino has already wowed the mainstream with RESERVOIR DOGS and PULP FICTION--here he's content to give us old-time, pre-multiplex movie fans like himself a thoroughly entertaining thrill ride down memory lane in a souped-up exploitation flick with a defiant get-it-or-don't attitude. Like PLANET TERROR, the other half of this heartfelt love letter to grindhouse fans, DEATH PROOF doesn't need mainstream acceptance to validate it or make it good. It's critic-proof.

 

 

PLANET TERROR / DEATH PROOF -- Movie Reviews by Porfle