ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE: REDEMPTION -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 10/30/11

 

Director Ryan Thompson took a bunch of his favorite things about movies, mashed them all together into a low-budget, high-energy conglomeration, and called it ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE: REDEMPTION (2011). 

In a by-now standard vision of a dystopian post-nuclear future, good guys and bad guys battle for what's left of the ravaged world.  Knox (Johnny Gel) escapes from the marauders, a group of ex-military scavengers led by brawny psycho Rome (Jerry Lynch), and is taken in by the benevolent followers of Moses (Fred Williamson).  Former soldier Knox proves himself worthy of their trust and becomes a valuable member of the group while eventually winning over tough girl Sarah (Alicia Clark) who initially hates him. 

After the marauders attack their encampment and kidnap whoever they don't kill, Knox must lead his new friends Robert (Joseph Scott Anthony) and Lucas (Tommy Beardmore) into the bad guys' fortress-like cathedral hideout on a desperate rescue mission.  In order to help compensate for being vastly outnumbered, the heroic trio cleverly manipulate a roving horde of zombies into becoming their unwitting allies.



The fact that the zombies themselves seem to be guest stars in their own movie is explained by director Thompson in the making-of featurette.  "We decided right away we didn't want it to have anything to do with the original ZA film," he reveals.  "I really wanted to do a post-apocalyptic movie... with zombies in it."  Thus, this sequel often comes off as a poor man's "Mad Max" flick which also owes a lot to ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK and various other grungy action movies.  (Anthony's character even seems to morph into Snake Plissken before it's over.) 

During the many action setpieces that take place throughout, the emphasis is on gunplay and physical combat between the human foes, with the zombies eventually butting in and turning the tide in favor of the good guys.  While the staging and choreography often appear rather shoddy, these sequences are done pretty much as well as can be on such a low budget and tight schedule, with plenty of action.  The CGI blood splatter and muzzle flashes are particularly good, and some of the not-so-hot digital effects can be overlooked. 

The undead look pretty convincing, with several of the "hero" zombies displaying above-average makeups.  Straight horror elements are few--we never even get the usual scene where someone dies and comes back to life--but there's one moment that's as shockingly horrific as anything you'll ever see in this type of movie.  During a good old fashioned zombie shoot-em-up scene midway through the story, we also get the classic bit where an unlucky individual gets disemboweled and feasted upon by the ravenous undead.  More such mayhem ensues when they intrude en masse upon the final free-for-all battle and get in on the fun.



As for the acting, the skill level fluctuates wildly among the cast although all are enthusiastic performers.  Old pro Fred Williamson comes off best, as you might guess, making the most of both his dialogue and action scenes.  Johnny Gel is adequately "cool" and heroic as Knox and co-stars Anthony and Beardmore hold up their end well.  As Sarah, Alicia Clark's winsome looks help compensate for her lack of acting talent (especially when clad in a slave-girl outfit a la Princess Leia in RETURN OF THE JEDI) and her climactic catfight with villainess Angelique Sky is fun. 

The most hilariously arch performance comes from Jerry Lynch as Rome, who tells Sky in one scene: "If I want your opinion, I'll rape it out of you!"  He's so wildly overwrought in the role that he makes DAY OF THE DEAD's Joe Pilato seem mild-mannered in comparison.

The DVD from Pacific Entertainment is in 16x9 widescreen with Dolby 5.1 sound and subtitles in English and Spanish.  Extras include a genial commentary track with Thompson, Gel, and co-writer Matthew O'Day, a "making-of" featurette, deleted scenes, image gallery, and trailers.  Be sure to stay till the end of the closing credits for a final tag scene.

While ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE: REDEMPTION suffices as passable grade-B entertainment, it still must be appreciated mainly on a "so bad it's good" level, and if you can't do that then this is definitely a movie you should avoid.  But if lively little low-budget flicks are your thing, and you can appreciate the efforts of indy filmmakers doing what they can with extremely limited resources, you should have a pretty fun time with this.

ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE: REDEMPTION -- DVD Review by Porfle

AUTOMATON TRANSFUSION -- DVD Review by porfle

 

Originally posted on 2/27/08

 

"Every generation has a horror film that defines its culture" says the trailer for AUTOMATON TRANSFUSION (2006). "This is that film." I don't know if I'd go so far as to agree with this--there are certainly some other noteworthy contenders for that title--but I will say that for a horror film that was shot in nine days for $30,000, it's a dazzling feat of low-budget filmmaking.

Admittedly, the story doesn't matter a whole heck of a lot. It's about a bunch of teenagers whose drunken house party in rural Florida is interrupted by hordes of homicidal, flesh-eating zombies, and their frantic efforts to reach the possible safety of the school while battling the bloodthirsty ghouls every step of the way. Stock characters include a cool guy, Chris (Garrett Jones), his popular girlfriend, Jackie (Juliet Reeves), ditzy blonde cheerleader Simone (Kendra Farner), Lance, the conceited jock (Joel Hebner), a nerdy loser named Tim (Rowan Bousaid), and Scott, the black guy (William Howard Bowman).

As writer/director Steven C. Miller and producers William Clevinger and Mark Thalman tell us in their informative commentary, their goal was to set these elements in place as quickly as possible and get the blood-spurtin', gut-chompin' action going full-blast, which is exactly what they did. This movie doesn't let up once the zombie attacks begin, never slowing down long enough to get boring or let us think about how dumb some of the dialogue is.

The young performers are all good, and while there's no character development to speak of, each gets a chance to display enough genuine emotion here and there to keep the movie from descending to a farcical level. It's also thankfully free of the jokey self-awareness that has become such a cliche' ever since SCREAM came out. AUTOMATON TRANSFUSION has its lighter moments, but it isn't infused with a lot of lame attempts at comedy.

The gore is plentiful and expertly done, as well as being imaginatively staged. This is due in no small part to the participation of Rick Gonzales, who worked with Tom Savini in DAY OF THE DEAD and has many subsequent film credits. There are some awesome set pieces here that would fit right into a more expensive film, including one character getting her jaw ripped off (yowch!) and a startling fetus-removal scene that's pretty jaw-dropping in itself. People get their their throats torn out, their heads and limbs ripped off, and their faces eaten. In turn, the zombies get theirs via hammers, axes, shotguns, chainsaws, and even a golf club here and there. Gorehounds won't be disappointed.

The rural setting in Florida conveys an effective sense of isolation. There's also a sequence early on in which Chris, Scott, and Tim drive to the city to see a rock concert, only to find it empty, and these scenes are very effectively done. Director Steven Miller did a consistently amazing job with such limited time and resources to make a movie that looks a lot better than it cost. His handling of extras is also good, resulting in a zombie army that is always convincing in its wanton lust for blood. Miller directs their attacks in much the same way Zack Snyder did during the opening and closing credits for his DAWN OF THE DEAD remake, with a lot of quick shock cuts and shaky camerawork.

My biggest gripe, in fact, is that Miller's use of shaky-cam often goes way too far in these scenes, often making me want to grab for the Dramamine. If you suffer from motion sickness, the gore in this movie might not be the only thing making you feel like throwing up. Otherwise, though, the direction and cinematography are very capably done.

Aside from the lively commentary track, the DVD's special features include deleted scenes, a couple of cool music videos by Blinded Black and Dancefloor Tragedy, a short film by Miller called "Suffer or Sacrifice", a trailer, and a "making of" featurette that gives us an interesting look at how to make a kickass zombie flick on a shoestring. The movie itself is presented in a matted widescreen format with Dolby Digital sound. As for the picture quality, well...this isn't a Kubrick film. It's shot on digital video, and it looks it.

As in several other films of this nature, we finally discover that the military is to blame for the zombie outbreak--you know, the usual "re-animating the dead for use in warfare" experiments gone awry, and all that--but don't hold your breath waiting to find out what the title means. In fact, don't even wait for an ending, because there isn't one. AUTOMATON TRANSFUSION ends on a cliffhanger with the words "To Be Continued", meaning we won't get to find out what happens to Chris, Jackie, and what's left of the gang until AUTOMATON TRANSFUSION: CONTINGENCY comes out next year. Frustrating? Definitely. Will the sequel be worth waiting for? Well, I wouldn't mind riding this ride again, and finding out what blood-drenched zombie antics these gonzo filmmakers have in store for us next time.

 

AUTOMATON TRANSFUSION -- DVD Review by porfle

THE ANGEL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON: LIVE AT THE UNION CHAPEL -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 2/1/09

 

"I had a dream that this guy was sentenced to death for attempting to commit suicide."

He has a beautiful voice, though it's rarely on key. His lyrics are often stunning and emotionally complex, though they don't always make sense. Each song is deceptively simple and touchingly heartfelt, yet on a technical level he'd probably get kicked out of a high school talent show.

No doubt about it, Daniel Johnston is one of the strangest musical stars of all time. Never heard of him? Just check out his new concert DVD, THE ANGEL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON: LIVE AT THE UNION CHAPEL, and get ready for something completely different. If you're a fan but, like me, have never seen one of his performances in its entirety, then this is your ticket to spend a little quality time in that cheerfully surreal dimension where Daniel lives.

If there was ever a self-made musician, this is the guy. As a kid, Daniel began recording himself singing his own songs of teenage angst and romantic yearning while banging out the music on a piano. Crashing an MTV taping in Austin in 1983 with a guitar and a handful of cassettes, he managed to get himself on TV and lay the groundwork for a growing cult following that would lead to concerts, a record contract, and a seemingly bright future. There was just one catch--Daniel was a severe manic depressive with a tenuous grasp on reality, and over the years his increasingly erratic and irrational behavior sabotaged any potential he had for breaking into the big time.

In my review of the brilliant documentary THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON, I described him as "a Syd Barrett who never gave up his music." These days he's an overweight, graying, middle-aged man who lives with his parents in Waller, Texas, but never stopped writing songs or dwelling upon his various muses. And after being discovered by some local musicians who were amazed to find the legendary Daniel Johnston living in their town, he found himself back onstage.

Recorded in July 2007 at London's beautiful Union Chapel, a spacious yet somehow intimate venue whose stained-glass atmosphere is a perfect setting for Daniel's often spiritual lyrics, the concert features over an hour of his best songs including some familiar oldies that sound better than ever.

With a jovial "Hi, everybody!", he begins by strapping on a guitar and performing "Mean Girls" while artlessly strumming the chords just like he did in the old days. "Mean girls give pleasure...it's my greatest treasure" he sings, still speaking for every awkward, lovestruck teenage boy who ever went down in flames.

Settling in behind a piano for the haunting "Love Enchanted", a song vaguely similar musically to "Hotel California" but with much more emotional resonance, Daniel holds the audience in rapt attention. The solo portion of the concert thus over, various musicians join him for the rest as he simply stands at the microphone and sings while reading his lyrics from a notebook, hands shaking. It can't be easy playing backup for Daniel because he doesn't always stick to the beat, but these guys are good at fitting the music to Daniel's style of singing.

The familiar "Some Things Last a Long Time" weaves a spell that continues through a series of quirky gems such as "Try to Love", "Speeding Motorcycle", "Walking the Cow", and his classic "Casper the Friendly Ghost", about a guy who had to die before anyone gave him any respect. His voice shifts constantly between caterwauling to high, Neil Young-type clarity and is often surprisingly poignant.

All in all, there are eighteen songs about life and love, brimming with vaguely Beatlesque melodies, from a cockeyed point of view that is sometimes disarmingly amusing and often strikes a deep chord with its honesty and perception.

As he sings, I can see flashes of that young kid that still lives inside him. As I once wrote about him, "it's as though the patron saint of guys who sing in front of the mirror took pity on him and made all his musical dreams come true (well, a lot of them, anyway), which is really an amazing sight to behold." Even now, he can't believe it himself--"Are you still with me?" he'll sometimes ask the audience between verses. And they always are.

Surrounded by a band and buoyed by the good spirits around him as the performance nears its end, Daniel's "Rock and Roll/EGA" progresses from a spare little tune into a rousing rocker with some impressive vocals. The beautiful "True Love Will Find You in the End" closes the show. As an encore, Daniel saunters back onstage and sings "Devil Town" all by himself, then waves goodbye to the crowd as they give him a standing ovation.

Director Antony Crofts provides a good no-frills record of the concert with some imaginative camerawork. The sound is available in both stereo and 5.1 surround. The bonus features include rehearsal footage of "Some Things Last a Long Time", plus two more solo songs from the concert, "There is a Sense of Humor Way Beyond Friendship" and "And I Love You So", that didn't make it into the final cut but are well worth having. There's also a post-concert interview with Daniel that finds him happily discussing, among other things, his obsession with The Beatles and his lifelong love for horror movies such as HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN, Hammer films, and his favorite movie, KING KONG.

The way I see it, Daniel Johnston is a seemingly ordinary guy with an inner musical genius trying to get out, but he could never quite get all the way out. So his fans are gladly willing to meet him halfway in order to reap the rewards to be found in Daniel's songs and performances. When he eases into what I consider to be his theme song, "The Story of an Artist", he recalls his parents' long-ago admonition: "We don't really like what you do, we don't think anyone ever will." He says his family's still trying to figure him out. Good luck. I don't think anybody's ever really going to figure this guy out.

THE ANGEL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON: LIVE AT THE UNION CHAPEL -- DVD Review by Porfle

THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON -- Movie Review by Porfle

(NOTE: This review originally appeared online in 2005.)


"It was my fate to become famous. And, uh...also to be damned."

That's just one of the enlightening statements made by the severely whacked-out title character in the kaleidescope of self-revelation that is writer-director Jeff Feuerzeig's THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON (2005). As a study of someone who leads an extraordinary life outside society's norms it's as fascinating a journey as FORREST GUMP, ZELIG, BEING THERE, LUST FOR LIFE, or any of a number of films about individuals whose mental "differences" are what make them great artists or noteworthy people.

But whereas those were fictional (or fictionalized) accounts, THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON is a documentary, and is all the more interesting because this guy is real. That's right, he's really out there somewhere. And I do mean "out there."

Which kinda makes me wonder about myself, because up until the point where Daniel starts exhibiting disturbing symptoms of manic depression, his life story is one I could strongly identify with. He grew up loving comics, cartooning, and music, and was the family jokester who always had his home movie camera whirring away.

But as time went by, it looked as though he would never learn just how to straighten up, buckle down, get a job, and begin to lead a more "well-rounded life" (his mother's phrase during one of her frequent harangues, one of many things Daniel recorded on his tape recorder over the years and an inspiration for an early home movie in which he portrays her as a crazed, rolling pin-wielding harpy).

Although art was a consuming passion, music began to dominate his interests, and he became a prolific songwriter who taped dozens of songs as he sat at the piano and banged out the accompaniment. He gradually imagined that he was actually recording albums on tape, for which he decorated the covers with his own cartoon characters.

Wow...so far, this is my life story, too, except my mom wasn't on my back all the time (although my dad griped at me for not getting a job and for having such a flaky, non-"Dukes Of Hazzard"-type sense of humor). Daniel was even more of a no-account college student than me--I was able to fake my way to graduation--and soon returned home, where the signs of his manic depression began to manifest themselves more and more overtly over time. (This is where our life stories begin to part company--I was never manic).

As his behavior became stranger, he was sent to live with his brother, who evicted him soon after. Then he lived with his sister for awhile before buying a moped and running off to join the carnival. One day a large, hostile carny knocked him senseless for taking too long in the port-o-potty, and Daniel wandered into the nearest Church Of Christ for help while the carnival left town. It sounds like I'm making this stuff up, but I'm not.

Anyway, he eventually ended up in Austin, Texas, where he conned his way into a taping of MTV's "The Cutting Edge", which was covering Austin's burgeoning music scene, and performed some of his songs for a national audience. He soon became a cult figure in Austin and word of his unusual talent began to spread even as his mental problems increased to the point where the people who had to deal with him on a daily basis began to have him committed to mental institutions. Somewhere along the line he started dropping acid, which was pretty much the genesis of his lifelong battle against Satan and the forces of evil.

If this were a SPINAL TAP-type mockumentary instead of one of the most entertaining and compelling documentaries I've ever seen, it couldn't be any more far out. Thanks to Daniel's overriding compulsion to tape-record his thoughts on a regular basis, we get to hear much of the story in his own voice at the time it was happening, which is augmented by dozens of his freaky cartoons that serve to illustrate his mental state at the time.

There are also interviews with many of his friends and associates, including Jeffrey Tartakov, the guy who tried to be his manager for several years and even got Elektra Records and Atlantic Records into a bidding war over him--while he was still in a mental institution--before Daniel fired him for no discernible reason. He finally signed a contract with Atlantic and released an album, "Fun", which sold 5,800 copies. (He was dropped less than two years later.)

His parents also provide many of their own bittersweet recollections and insights, including the time his father was flying him home after a triumphant appearance before thousands of fans in Austin and Daniel suddenly turned off the engine, took over the controls, and sent their small plane spiralling headlong toward earth. His father managed to get back into the pilot's seat and crash-land in a forest. Daniel, who thought he had just accomplished something marvelous, was proud of himself.

In addition to tape recordings and interviews, there is a lot of home movie and video footage to keep this from being anything but a talking-head movie. We get to see Daniel's ill-fated trip to New York to record with Sonic Youth. We see him performing passionately before admiring crowds from Austin to Stockholm, always with the same cracking voice and awkward guitar-strumming that somehow manages to captivate people. And we see him going farther and farther off the deep end, his delusional behavior always returning to sabotage everything that goes right in his life.

Daniel is now an overweight, gray-haired, middle-aged man who lives with his parents in Waller, Texas. He reminds me of a Syd Barrett who never gave up his music. In fact, after being discovered one day by a local rocker who was blown away to find the legendary Daniel Johnston living in his very own home town (he was being attacked by dogs while walking), Daniel is now the frontman for an honest-to-goodness rock group called Danny And The Nightmares.

As for Daniel's music--well, he still sounds to me like a guy singing and playing badly in front of his bedroom mirror and pretending to be performing for an admiring crowd. Which I, myself, might have done a time or two over the years. Only he isn't pretending--he's really doing it, and his songs display a cockeyed lyrical talent that is often surprisingly poignant.

It's as though the patron saint of guys who sing in front of the mirror took pity on him and made all his musical dreams come true (well, a lot of them, anyway), which is really an amazing sight to behold. Only Daniel would argue that it was Satan who granted him musical fame, which is why he is damned, which is why he spends so much time and effort preaching to whoever will listen and warning them to turn away from evil.

"Don't play cards with Satan, he'll deal you an awful hand," one of his songs tells us. But I don't think he's damned at all. Like a somewhat more benevolent Norman Bates, he just goes a little crazy sometimes.


Read our review of THE ANGEL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON: LIVE AT THE UNION CHAPEL

THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON -- Movie Review by Porfle

DEAR MR. GACY -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 12/14/10

 

I've seen several of those direct-to-video serial killer bios that have come out in the last few years, so I kind of expected DEAR MR. GACY (2010) to be cut from the same exploitative cloth--basically a lurid slasher flick marginally legitimized by the fact that it's more or less based on true events.  But this above-average account of college student Jason Moss' ill-advised attempt to get into the mind of John Wayne Gacy, who was then awaiting execution for the gruesome murder of 33 young men and boys, eschews gory sensationalism and takes us on a dark psychological spook ride into genuine fear.

When we first meet Jason, he's an aimless college student whose only real passion seems to be criminology.  The impending execution of Gacy gives him an idea--if he could find a way to contact the convicted serial killer, earn his trust and friendship, and persuade him to open up and perhaps even confess, it would make for a kickass term paper.  Inspired to an increasingly unhealthy degree by the prospect, Jason contacts Gacy by mail and even sends him some provocative shirtless photos to whet his interest.  After a little research, Jason is also able to say things in his letters which are designed to establish a sympathetic, trusting rapport with the killer.

The plan succeeds beyond Jason's wildest expectations, with Gacy becoming his ardent pen pal and even phoning him repeatedly from prison for long emotional chats.  But as the naive, overconfident Jason thinks he's getting one over on Gacy, he's being played like a cheap violin by a master manipulator.  The relationship begins to insinuate itself into every aspect of Jason's life until it finally becomes volatile and threatening. 


DEAR MR. GACY takes its time building up a sense of dread as we watch Jason stupidly get in deeper and deeper, stoked by both morbid curiosity and ego.  He's so naive that the smooth-talking Gacy has him dangling on a string before he even realizes it.  Jason doesn't even hear warning bells when Gacy creepily starts inquiring about his little brother, so sure is he that his "plan" to trick the wily convict into exposing himself is working. 

It's almost funny the way he thinks he's putting one over on Gacy when he hasn't the slightest clue of the massive mind game being played on him for the killer's twisted amusement.  This is especially evident when Gacy coaches him on how to read people and assess their traits and weaknesses in order to assert control over them.  Jason absorbs the information with interest and even tries it out on an attractive girl on campus (failing miserably, of course), oblivious to the fact that the sly Gacy is describing exactly what he's doing to the unwary Jason himself.

Director Svetozar Ristovski takes his time building a slowly-mounting sense of dread, keeping things low-key and realistic without trying to make the film overly "spooky."  We fear the seemingly inevitable outcome of Jason's downward slide (which is portrayed perhaps a bit too rapidly) as he alienates his family and his girlfriend while plunging into the depths of paranoia.  A somber cello-based score by Terry Frewer augments the film's downbeat tone throughout.


Veteran character actor William Forsythe (RAISING ARIZONA, THE ROCK) doesn't try to come off as a standard boogeyman.  He plays the character of John Wayne Gacy with seductive yet seething restraint, like a spider weaving its web for the unwary fly, until finally he gets Jason right where he wants him during the face-to-face meeting which the film has been leading up to all along.  This is where Forsythe lets loose and morphs into the terrifying monster we knew was lurking behind that fascade--it's almost like seeing Brian Cox's "Hannibal Lekter" from MANHUNTER unleashed.  The sequence inside the prison visitation room doesn't quite pack the wallop it might have, but it's still pretty unsettling.

Jesse Moss (FINAL DESTINATION 3) is well-cast as Jason and convincingly progresses from an almost groupie-like fascination with Gacy, to his growing addiction to the perverse thrill of Gacy's friendship and confidence, and finally his revulsion and terror as the relationship turns into an inescapable nightmare.  The rest of the cast is good, including Emma Lahana (ALIEN AGENT) as Jason's concerned girlfriend Alyssa and Andrew Airlie ("Defying Gravity") as his dubious criminology professor. 

The DVD from Anchor Bay is in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen and Dolby Digital 5.1, with English and Spanish subtitles.  Also included is a featurette, "The Gacy Files: Portrait of a Serial Killer", in which Forsythe talks with people who knew the man or were involved with his case.

There's no way to know how much of DEAR MR. GACY is strictly true--there's even an end-of-movie disclaimer reminding us that not all of Jason Moss' account, as related in his memoir "The Final Victim", can be verified.  But the story makes for a compelling and disturbing film, made even more so by a sad postscript which reveals that Gacy's malevolent influence may not have ended with his execution. 

DEAR MR. GACY -- DVD Review by Porfle

BRUTAL MASSACRE: A COMEDY -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 7/28/08

 

Although it's been likened to THIS IS SPINAL TAP, writer-director Stevan Mena's BRUTAL MASSACRE: A COMEDY reminded me more of 1993's "...AND GOD SPOKE", a similar mockumentary about bad filmmakers battling their way through a hellish bottom-of-the-barrel production. In that movie they tackled the misguided task of filming the entire Bible on a shoestring budget; here, they're just trying to get through the making of a single craptacular slasher flick alive.

Harry Penderecki (David Naughton) is a low-low-budget horror filmmaker whose previous bargain bin fodder includes titles such as "Fish Who Ate Flesh!", "Bowel Movement", "Saquatch at the Mall", and "I'll Take Back the Ring--And the Finger, Too!" After finally scrounging up enough backing and assembling the most inept cast and crew ever, Harry launches a grueling two-month shoot in the middle of a freezing cold wilderness where everything goes horribly wrong from start to finish.

One thing's for sure, this is definitely my all-time favorite David Naughton performance. He completely inhabits the character of Harry in a wonderfully deadpan way that's consistently right on the mark. I like him better at this age--graying and a little paunchy--than any other time in his career. If he'd started out at this age instead of wasting all those years being young, dancing around drinking Dr. Pepper, starring in failed sitcoms, and being a werewolf, he would already be one of my favorite actors.

The rest of the cast is a delight. Ash's sister Cheryl and girlfriend Linda from THE EVIL DEAD (Ellen Sandweiss and Betsy Baker) are on hand as Harry's frazzled production manager and burnt-out casting director. Ellen's part is bigger and she makes the most of it, her most memorable scene coming when her character, Natalie, tries to empty the filled-to-capacity toilet tank in the location RV and...well, I won't tell you what happens next, but it may be even worse than getting raped by trees. This could be Ellen's "Oscar" moment.

DAWN OF THE DEAD's Ken Foree plays the key grip whose duties increase every time Harry fires someone. Kevin Smith regular Brian O'Halloran plays Jay, the A.D. with ADD. As Harry's loyal East Indian cameraman, Hanu, the diminutive Gerry Bednob gets funnier as the movie goes on. Director Mick Garris and Fangoria's Tony Timpone show up early on as themselves. And playing a (what else?) googly-eyed psycho who may or may not start killing people at any minute is old Leatherface himself, Gunnar Hansen.

At first it didn't seem as though this film was really going to come together. Then, as I got accustomed to its rhythm and low-key approach, I really started to enjoy it. The hilarity isn't non-stop, and there are some slow spots, but just when things threaten to get boring there's another unexpected belly-laugh to goose them again. And as everything grows progressively more bleak and hopeless for our stalwart filmmakers, I almost started to get a BLAIR WITCH PROJECT vibe that somehow enhanced the black comedy.

There's some pretty funny stuff going on here: a key scene is interrupted when the cast and crew discover that they're in the middle of a firing range; after miles of footage is exposed, Harry finds out that his sound man has no idea what he's doing; a group of rowdy local teenagers keeps ruining shots by driving their jeep through them; and the "fake corpse" that Harry's supposed FX expert is secretly laboring on throughout the production turns out to be less convincing than a CPR practice dummy. Aside from this, there are several funny instances of Harry trying to direct his talentless actors through terrible dialogue scenes and ridiculous action.

Of course, Harry's film features the prerequisite blonde bimbos and plenty of boobage. Amy (Emily Brownell) has lofty aspirations both cinematic and intellectual--when asked if she's well-read, she replies, "Well, I read the entire script." Her co-star, the even less intelligent Tanya (Michelle DiBenedetti), has no qualms about exposing her charms on film, reasoning that she's only using what was given to her by God and then enhanced by her surgeon. And as a nod to the kind of flicks this film is spoofing, female characters often find reasons to bend over so the camera can focus on their backsides.

The DVD features 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby 5.1 surround sound. Besides the trailer, extras include several deleted scenes, some of which are really funny (you've got to see Ken Foree and Gerry Bednob furiously wrestling each other to the death in the motel bed that cheap Harry has forced them to share). There's also a behind-the-scenes featurette which is also a mockumentary with everyone still in character, so it's like an addition to the movie itself.

Not on the same level as SPINAL TAP or the other Christopher Guest mockumentaries, with less spontaneity and improvisation, BRUTAL MASSACRE: A COMEDY is still an often giddily funny valentine to low-budget horror fans. It's also the movie that finally, after all these years, has made David Naughton a household name. In my house.

 

BRUTAL MASSACRE: A COMEDY -- DVD Review by Porfle

THE BIG BANG -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 5/19/11

 

A movie that definitely gets better as it goes along, THE BIG BANG (2011) starts out like a shallow film noir imitation and ends up pretty much living up to its title, especially after the science-fiction elements kick in.

Antonio Banderas is private eye Ned Cruz, a world-weary denizen of L.A.'s sleazy underbelly who doesn't especially like his job.  One night a human gorilla named Anton (Robert Maillet) enters Ned's office and hires him to find a stripper named Lexie Persimmon.  Anton's been exchanging torrid love letters with Lexie while serving a life sentence for murder, and now that he inexplicably finds himself a free man, he's determined to hook up with his dream girl.  But what seems like a routine missing person case leads Ned into a tangled web of murder, deceit, and nuclear physics.

The look of THE BIG BANG is an uneasy combination of real settings and SIN CITY-style green screen.  This gives much of the film an artificial veneer that detracts from the grittiness and sometimes resembles a chic modeling shoot lit with various shades of neon.  Director Tony Krantz also uses Dutch angles in roughly every other shot, which, along with the candy-coated visuals, gives it even more of an unreal comic-book look.  Cruz's road trip through the desert to New Mexico, where Lexie Persimmon's trail seems to lead, is an eye-pleasing sequence which features one of those classic Burma Shave advertisements as a nice retro touch.



Once we arrive in New Mexico and meet Sam Elliott's character, former surf bum turned billionaire Simon Kestral, the plot takes a more fanciful turn that's more in line with the film's graphic-novel design.  Here, we find that Kestral is obsessed with finding the "God particle" via an immense super-collider constructed beneath his desert estate, with which he hopes to recreate the Big Bang itself. 

The less "fantastical" interrogation room scenes, which frame the flashbacks with Cruz's standard noir-style voiceover, are some of the best.  You really can't go too wrong putting Banderas in a room with the likes of Thomas Kretschmann, William Fichtner, and Delroy Lindo playing hardnosed cops, and giving them plenty of tough-guy dialogue to chew on as Cruz is mercilessly grilled for information.  Fichtner especially enjoys his role as the violent Poley, who hates Cruz with a passion.  Cruz, meanwhile, bides his time and waits for an opening, keeping his story interesting enough to string the crooked cops along while he figures out what they're really up to.

Banderas is solid as Cruz, not too broad or too subtle, and his modern-day private eye has all the prerequisite wary cynicism and cool of his classic counterparts.  Many of his offhand jokes are groan-worthy, but his constant putdowns of the volatile Poley make up for it.  Elliot is well-cast as Kestral, whose unlimited wealth enables him to make his most far-out acid fantasies a reality.
 


Sienna Guillory plays his gorgeous-but-neglected wife Julie and Jimmi Simpson is his flaky chief physicist Niels Geck, both of whom harbor deep secrets crucial to the case.  Autumn Reeser is appealing as perky waitress Fay Neman, a space-case whose passion for physics adds unexpected zest to her sexual encounter with Cruz.  Snoop Dogg and the venerable Bill Duke turn up along the way as a porn filmmaker and a jazz drummer, respectively.

The secret of Lexie Persimmon is revealed in a slickly-photographed suspense sequence involving Cruz, Julie, Geck, and an out-of-control Anton when the smitten gorilla bursts onto the scene looking for his soulmate.  Finally, Kestral's experiment reaches its zenith just as the business between Cruz and the three cops comes to a head, resulting in a wild CGI-laden finale that I found fairly exhilarating.  Strangely enough, the story would've worked even if the sci-fi elements had been omitted altogether, but it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun. 

The DVD from Anchor Bay is in 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound and subtitles in English and Spanish.  Extras include a "making of" featurette, a commentary with Krantz and co-producer Reece Pearson, and some extended scenes.  The original score by Johnny Marr is very good.

If you don't get into the "neon-noir" look and feel of THE BIG BANG you'll probably never take the story seriously enough to care about any of it.  But as a light, often amusing and sometimes exciting action-fantasy with an occasional touch of the old private eye flicks, it definitely has its moments.

THE BIG BANG -- DVD Review by Porfle

BATTLE ROYALE: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 1/25/22

 

With two versions of a controversial, neo-classic Japanese action epic, one version of its  inferior sequel, and a whole extra disc of extras, Anchor Bay's four-disc BATTLE ROYALE: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION is a viewing experience that should keep action fans off the streets and out of trouble for awhile.

BATTLE ROYALE (2000) begins at the dawn of the 21st century in a Japan whose society is falling apart.  With thousands of students boycotting school and youth violence and unemployment at an all-time high, the fascist government "bigwigs" pass the BR (Battle Royale) Act in hopes of curbing juvenile delinquency.  Thus, a graduating ninth-grade class is chosen at random once a year, taken to a deserted island, and forced to fight each other to the death until there's only one survivor.  If more than one person is alive at the end of three days, they all die via their nifty exploding necklaces.   

Hey, sounds like a pretty effective idea at first, but darn if we don't start sympathizing with these troublemaking teens as soon as their school field trip suddenly morphs into their worst nightmare.  There's Shuya (Tatsuya Fujiwara), the cool but troubled kid whose dad hanged himself on the first day of school; his sorta girlfriend Noriko (Aki Maeda), a nice girl who is constantly bullied by the mean girls; Shuya's nerdy foster-home roommate and best pal Nobu (Yukihiro Kotani); and several others who are familiar to us because they're like a lot of kids we grew up with ourselves.  The odd man out here is the mysterious Kawada (Tarô Yamamoto), a former winner being forced to play again although he'll eventually become a crucial ally to Shuya and Noriko.

The classroom scene that sets up the whole situation gets things off to a shocking start with its offhand carnage.  Frustrated teacher Kitano (actor-director Beat Takeshi at his understated, laconic best) has had enough of being belittled, ignored, even stabbed by his students and relishes the opportunity to preside over some official payback.  He indulges his newfound freedom to punish bad behavior such as whispering in class with summary executions, and the exploding necklaces each student wears are demonstrated in grisly fashion when an unruly student dares to mock him.  (An incongruously amusing instructional video augments his lethal lecture.)

As the seriousness of their predicament dawns on the teens, we get the feeling that we're in for some serious mayhem as soon as they're let loose into the wild with their randomly-selected weapons (guns, knives, hatchets, crossbows, etc.) and other provisions.  No sooner are they all out the door than the first tentative attacks begin, with some students' instincts for self-preservation kicking in faster than the less aggressive ones. 

The action then breaks down into isolated skirmishes fueled by quick, startling bursts of violence that are often brutal, while handy intertitles keep us informed of the running death count.  Making things even more difficult are the "red zones", which are regularly rotated and mean instant exploding-necklace death for anyone caught in one at the wrong time.

We quickly get to know various characters and their stories as they gather in pairs or groups--mainly the same couples and cliques carried over from school--in which they feel some measure of safety.  Even in such circumstances, however, the slightest suspicion or wrong move can erupt into a blood-splattered melee, as when a group of pacifist girls barricaded in a lighthouse suddenly go Rambo on each other when their situation takes an unexpected turn.

While the good kids are banding together for safety or, in the case of some enterprising tech nerds, to beat the system, the bad kids simply play the game the old-fashioned way.  The cunning and way-scary mean girl Mitsuko (Kô Shibasaki) and trigger-happy psycho Kiriyama, a sullen transfer student with spiky red hair who is actually there because he volunteered, prowl the jungle picking off anyone they come across like predatory animals.

The action scenes are quick and explosive.  One of the most sustained action setpieces is the lighthouse scene, and even this messy, disorienting eruption of senseless violence is over before we know it.  In a film that's littered with such scenes from start to finish, there's no need for prolonged shoot-outs or gratuitous sadism, and the fact that we know and empathize with these characters enough to root for them gives it all considerable emotional impact.

While not as gory or as violent as I expected, the shock value comes from seeing all these innocent (and not-so-innocent) school kids killing each other in a variety of gruesome ways.  Of course, dead teenagers are a familiar sight in just about every slasher flick from the 80s onward, and there's no more violence here than in the average Jason flick or, say, KILL BILL VOL. 1.  So if you're used to movies like that, there's no need to be braced for any really over-the-top shocks here save for a vicious knife thrust to a guy's crotch (delivered by Chiaki Kuriyama, who played "Go-Go" in the aforementioned Tarantino flick), a severed head, bullet hits and slashings galore, and lots of spewing blood.

Kinji Fukasaku's direction is superb without resorting to a lot of needless cinematic tricks, and the camerawork is also fine.  There's an expansive, full-bodied orchestral score by Masamichi Amano that reminded me at times of Alex North's music for DRAGONSLAYER.  The screenplay by Kenta Fukasaku is finely-rendered pulp fiction that fully realizes its premise and then some.

The director's cut, entitled BATTLE ROYAL: SPECIAL EDITION (2001) is, from what I could tell, pretty much the same movie but with the addition of a few extra scenes.  Several flashbacks of our main characters bonding during a school basketball game (filmed about a year after principal photography) are interspersed throughout the film, and the ending is beefed up with some brief "requiem" vignettes.  My favorite addition is a revealing flashback which gives us a clue as to why bad girl Mitsuko turned out the way she did.



And then, for better or worse, there's the sequel.  After enjoying the first film so much, I was filled with keen anticipation for its follow-up, a feeling that BATTLE ROYALE II: REQUIEM (2003) didn't quite live up to.  It may not be the worst sequel to a good movie that I've ever seen--MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME and EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC are more worthy contenders for that title--but my socks were in little danger of getting knocked off while watching it.

It's three years after the end of the first story, with Shuya now a notorious terrorist waging war on the world's adult population from his island bunker.  We meet a new BR class who will be the first to go into battle under new rules--storm Shuya's island, engage him and his followers in combat, and kill him (with extreme prejudice) within 72 hours.  This time the participants are paired up boy-girl, and if one dies or wanders more than fifty meters away from the other, both collars explode.  All of this is explained to our group of cowering students by a new and much more hostile teacher, Takeuchi Riki, who hams it up with such unbridled ferocity that you wouldn't be surprised if he started hammering nails with his eyeballs.

Instead of the free-for-all competition for survival we got in the first movie, this one starts out as a fun, but somewhat average war flick made interesting mainly because it's a bunch of terrified ninth graders doing the fighting.  The island siege is filmed like a junior version of the Omaha Beach sequence from SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, only with sloppier editing and lots more Shaky-Cam.  It plays a little like something you might see on the SyFy Channel, but with a bigger budget and extra helpings of entertaining violence generously slathered on top. 

(One thing that had me wondering, though--why, if the government wants these kids to take out Shuya, do they continue to make things hard for them with the boy-girl collar thing and by continuing the red-zone policy from the first movie?)

Eventually, of course, we meet Shuya, who now sports a bleached-blonde mullet, has evolved into a brooding, full-of-himself bore with messianic delusions, and seems to be mired in a perpetual state of resentful adolescence.  Apparently, we're meant to sympathize with Shuya in his amorphous battle against "the adults" which he fights by blowing up several skyscrapers (two of which bear a distinct resemblance to the World Trade Center) as the film waxes poetic about how noble and romantic terrorism can be if committed by a cool guy like Shuya.  This, along with some annoying anti-American sentiments thrown in for good measure, constitutes the sort of blobby, self-important political hogwash that bogs the movie down for much of its running time. 

Even when the government sends in its crack commando forces to eradicate the terrorists once and for all (which had me wondering why they didn't just do this in the first place), the furious battle action is diluted by gobs of maudlin sentiment, mawkish dialogue, and some unintentionally funny dramatic touches that may have you either wincing in pain or rolling on the floor laughing. 

Every time one of the "good guy" characters gets mortally wounded, all the intense fighting around them comes to a dead stop so they can perform a dramatic dying speech while Shuya reacts with renewed grief and outrage.  Even at this point we still get the same death count intertitles but by now the "battle royale" concept has been so thoroughly diluted that they only serve to remind us how the movie we wanted to watch in the first place never actually happened.

In addition to the wildly overacting Takeuchi Riki, Shûgo Oshinari also lays it on pretty thick as the the leader of the student warriors, Taku.  Ai Maeda does a nice job as Kitano's daughter Shiori, who volunteers for the BR in order to come to terms with what she believes was her father's murder.  Beat Tageshi returns briefly in a touching flashback that shows his character in a more sympathetic light.  The rest of the performances cover a pretty wide range from good to not so good, with Sonny Chiba doing a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo. 

While it certainly has its share of bloody, shoot-em-up action and a couple of good dramatic moments here and there, BATTLE ROYALE II: REQUEIM ultimately comes across as an ill-conceived, wrongheaded, and sometimes just plain silly affair that qualifies more as a guilty pleasure than the follow-up to a classic.  In its attempts to be an emotionally powerful and thematically grandiose dystopian epic, it teeters precipitously on the verge of embarrassing itself.

Disc four in this collection consists of bonus features for BATTLE ROYALE.  The mostly self-explanatory titles include:

The Making Of BATTLE ROYALE
BATTLE ROYALE Press Conference
Instructional Video: Birthday Version
Audition & Rehearsal Footage
Special Effects Comparison Featurette
Tokyo International Film Festival 2000
Battle Royale Documentary
Basketball Scene Rehearsals
Behind-The-Scenes Featurette
Filming On-Set
Original Theatrical Trailer
Special Edition TV Spot
TV Spot: Tarantino Version

Bonus features are in full screen with Dolby 2.0 sound.  The three feature films are all in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen with Japanese Dolby Digital 5.1 sound and English subtitles.  (BATTLE ROYALE: SPECIAL EDITION also comes with an English soundtrack.)  The packaging itself is exquisite, resembling a sturdy, hardbound book with thick cardboard "pages" that house the discs and contain key photos and artwork from the films. 

For someone unfamiliar with the "Battle Royale" films, I can't imagine a better introduction than BATTLE ROYALE: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION.  And those who are already fans will definitely want to own this cool-looking set, or at least take it for a test drive.  While I wasn't exactly bowled over by the so-so sequel, the original film itself is one that I'll be revisiting at least once a year--right around graduation day. 

BATTLE ROYALE: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION -- DVD Review by Porfle

COLIN -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 11/8/10

 

In what may be the first emo zombie flick, COLIN (2008) gives us a ghoul's-eye view of what it's like to die and wake up as the living dead.  The result is a film that makes us identify with the titular flesh-eater as he wanders through his bizarre new existence and tries to adjust to being an ambulatory corpse.

The story begins as pre-zombie Colin (Alastair Kirton) makes it home through what sounds like utter chaos outside.  He's been bitten in the arm, and we know what that means, right?  To make matters worse, his zombiefied roommate attacks from behind and chomps him on the neck.  Colin subdues him but soon succumbs to a slow, painful death, followed by the inevitable reanimation. 

We then follow our decomposing protagonist as he stumbles through a series of vignettes designed to give us an idea of what the zombies in all those George Romero movies go through.  Colin seems to have been reborn as a wide-eyed naif rediscovering the world, gazing perplexed at once familiar things which are now just beyond his understanding.  One of the cleverest aspects of the story comes when a couple of seemingly random visual cues spark the wisp of a memory in Colin's mind, and will eventually lead him back to where it all started. 

In the meantime, we watch Colin participate in his first feedings as he and his fellow ghouls chow down on some unfortunate humans.  After chewing a guy's ear off, he dons the earphones which seem to come with it (reminding me of Bub from DAY OF THE DEAD) although he can't remember why.  Later, he comes across the scene of a horrific siege as the dead crowd into a house where some filmmakers trying to shoot a documentary about the current apocalypse find themselves overwhelmed by their subject.  This harrowing scene, which plays like the climax of another zombie flick, is very well done and gives us some good old-fashioned "ghouls attacking en masse" thrills.


One of the women escapes this carnage but soon falls into an even more harrowing predicament in which she finds herself menaced by both the living and the dead.  In another scene, a death squad on the hunt for zombies descends on Colin and some others, and for a moment we almost regard these ruthless attackers as the enemy.  At times, the film easily manipulates us into siding with the ghouls even though the humans' hostility toward them is quite understandable--by the look on his face, the leader of the death squad is clearly motivated by revenge.  Colin, though, is simply minding his own business when the attack comes, even though his business now happens to include eating people.

The most effective sequence comes when Colin's sister and her husband abduct him from the streets and take him home for what amounts to an intervention.  Daisy Aitkens gives an outstanding performance as the heartbroken Linda, desperately showing the bound, snarling Colin some  family snapshots and trying to find a spark of recognition in him.  Shots of Colin clawing at a window as his sister and mother gaze tearfully at him from the other side reach an emotional high point rarely even attempted by films in this genre. 

Reportedly costing a whopping 75 bucks, COLIN transcends the hell out of its meager budget to become one of the most interesting films of its kind.  An obvious homage to the original George Romero films (a newspaper story mentions "St. Romero Hospital"), one can easily imagine this story taking place in England during the events of DAWN OF THE DEAD.  The slow, shambling ghouls are Romeroesque as well--not the vigorous track stars of later films, but decaying corpses whose joints are stiffened by rigor mortis.  (Gore effects are fair, makeup is good.)


The cheapjack camcorder photography becomes less of a problem as the story goes on, especially after a somewhat iffy first quarter or so during which the constant shaky-cam and murky lighting are most distracting.  Although the concept is sometimes more interesting than the execution, writer-director Marc Price displays skill and imagination in several scenes which evoke strong emotion.  Quite possibly, this is the most contemplative and thought-provoking of zombie films.

The DVD from Walking Shadows is in 1.33:1 with Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 sound.  No subtitles.  An interesting director's commentary is the sole extra.  (A 2-disc set with additional material is available.)

After so many zombie yarns about humans trying to evade anonymous hordes of flesh-chomping ghouls, it's nice to see one that offers a totally different perspective for a change.  With a deviously convincing performance by Alastair Kirton in the title role and a story that explores most of the potential of its premise, COLIN is an experience that no zombie film fan should pass up. 

COLIN -- DVD Review by Porfle

HELL TOWN (2015) -- Movie Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 8/10/16

 

Do you ever start out watching something that looks lame at first, but then just keeps getting better and better until finally you end up loving it?  Hey, me too! 

In fact, that just happened to me again today when I watched HELL TOWN (2015), the night-time soap opera spoof hosted tongue-in-cheek style by scream queen Debbie Rochon (MODEL HUNGER, RETURN TO NUKE 'EM HIGH, THE THEATER BIZARRE).

HELL TOWN, according to Debbie, was originally a (fictitious) primetime soap that ran for three seasons, but unfortunately only a few episodes of season two survive (you don't want to know where they were found and what was scraped off of them). 

Thus, we pick up the story in progress at the start of season two and get to know the many characters involved on the fly, chief among which are the members of two families, the wealthy Gables and the lower-class Manlys.

This gets easier as it goes along and our interest rises with the body count, racked up by Old Town's mysterious "Letter Jacket Killer."  The bloodthirsty stalker seems to be eliminating all the former boyfriends of the local high school's popular homecoming princess, Trish Gable (the delightful Krysten Day), a spoiled, ditzy blonde who stands to inherit her father's fortune while eliciting the hatred of her boy-crazy sister Laura (BeckiJo Neill) and jealous rival Chanel Manly (Amanda Deibert), both of whom would love to see her dead.

Trish can't wait to lose her virginity (no, not THAT one...the OTHER one) to handsome stud Blaze Manly (Matt Weight), who's banging Trish's BFF.  Blaze's brother Jesse (Owen Lawless), meanwhile, is struggling with his feelings for Trish's gay brother Bobby (Blake Cordell) while also agonizing over the fate of his mother who lies in a coma at home while being watched over by an unscrupulous nurse (both played by Pleasant Gehman).

In the midst of all this, wrongly-convicted Butch Manly (Ben Windholz), Trish's old boyfriend for whom Laura still carries a torch, returns from reform school to shake things up even more.

If this all sounds confusing, it is--but not for long, especially for viewers who are old hands at watching soap operas.  Not only does this one cover a lot of the familiar bases--one episode even showcases the requisite catfight between two major female characters, while shirtless hunks pop up here and there--it also throws us several unexpected and frequently funny curves that make the show every bit as absorbing and addictive as a regular soap opera.

One delightful nod to the "real thing" is the replacement of a particular actress at the start of episode two (a narrator's hushed voice intones, "The role of Laura Manly will now be played by Jennifer Grace.") This is familiar to any soap veteran, as is the very concept of two main families--one rich, one poor--whose fates are intertwined as they enact high drama and fevered romance amidst a humble smalltown setting. 

 

Horror fans will also appreciate the "Letter Jacket Killer" subplot, which features mild to occasionally-graphic gore and some creative deaths (one of which involves doughnuts). 

What really sells it, however, are the performances, most of which possess just the right balance of deadpan and farce, and the sharp writing of co-directors Steve Balderson and Elizabeth Spear, which often skirts the edges of brilliance and occasionally steps right into it. Even the faux preview for the nonexistent next episode in the series is littered with clever little payoffs that make the finale all the more satisfying.

One possible reason that I ended up enjoying HELL TOWN so much is that I recently watched a soap opera spoof done wrong--really wrong--and this one just seems so much better by comparison.  But it stands on its own as a pleasantly perverse bit of fun that overcomes its shortcomings by being all that it can be. 

HELL TOWN (2015) -- Movie Review by Porfle

MODEL HUNGER -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

 

Originally posted on 7/12/16

 

 

 

There are those movies that appeal to a really wide range of people and can be enjoyed by just about anybody.  And then there's MODEL HUNGER (2016), a stomach-churning horror comedy that certain people will find perversely delightful just as others are wishing they could Drano all traces of its memory from their brains. 

Whether or not you like BLOOD FEAST is a good indicator here, because scream queen and first-time director Debbie Rochon (THE THEATER BIZARRE, RETURN TO NUKE 'EM HIGH VOL. 1, CAESAR & OTTO'S PARANORMAL HALLOWEEN) is definitely channeling Herschell Gordon Lewis in some of the film's more horrifying forays into unrestrained torture-porn gore and depravity.

While we're waiting for such scenes to occur (as they often do), the story focuses on former nudie model Ginny Reilly (Lynn Lowry, THE CRAZIES, THE THEATER BIZARRE, CAT PEOPLE, SHIVERS), who was forced out of the business when skinny models began to replace the more full-figured gals such as herself and who now spends her days as a bitter old crazy lady living alone in a house that doubles as a torture chamber and cannibalistic kitchen for the unsuspecting victims she draws into her evil clutches.

Meanwhile, Debbie Lombardo (fellow scream queen Tiffany Shepis, BONNIE & CLYDE VS. DRACULA, DARK REEL, and LIVE EVIL) and her chubby hubby Sal have moved in next door to Ginny, and in no time Debbie begins to suspect the creepy old lady of being up to no good.  Shepis, who's usually a knockout in her various film roles, seems to enjoy playing a rather non-glamorous part this time and comes off well as the emotionally troubled wife with a little too much time on her hands. 

The supporting cast is dotted with quirky and entertaining characters such as Arnold Winters (Michael Thurber), a strangely birdlike neighbor with a thing for Ginny; a couple of ditzy cheerleaders who make the mistake of being invited into Ginny's lair for tea; Ginny's auto mechanic friend Colin, who also makes the mistake of venturing where he shouldn't; and a hapless door-to-door girl evangelist whose chipper virginity drives Ginny to some of her most unspeakably heinous acts of cackling sadism.

There's also a whole extra element of interest in Ginny's favorite shopping-network show, "Suzi's Secret", which is always on her television.  Suzi (Suzi Lorraine of SCAVENGER KILLERS in an obvious fat suit) extolls overweight women to revel in their largeness and buy her exclusive line of roomy lingerie, while plus-size models such as the grotesque Babette Bombshell (a caricature of Divine, if such a thing is possible) writhes provocatively. 

 

It's Lynn Lowry as Ginny, however, that gives MODEL HUNGER its own special top-shelf spot in the annals of recent horror.  She has a field day as the wilted Southern flower whose veneer of curdled gentility hides an inner psycho just bursting to crack skulls and wreak vengeance upon women, whose youth and beauty she resentfully envies, and men, whom she blames for--well--everything else.

Lowry is nothing less than amazing here, delivering a performance that's literally Oscar-worthy (even though she's got about as much chance of being nominated for it as I do).  The more horrific the scene, the more she seems to draw some terrible kind of energy to transform into one of the most gleefully deranged crazy women the screen has ever seen.

Director Debbie Rochon likewise has no reservations about giving fans of extreme sadism and gore plenty of raw meat to gorge themselves on.   The film isn't always particularly polished but has a rough-hewn, no-holds-barred appeal for anyone who likes undiluted horror exploitation with a twisted sense of humor, and is directed with confidence and a measure of style.

The DVD from WildEye Releasing is in widescreen with 2.0 sound.  No subtitles.  Extras include a director commentary, trailer, a music video, a self-interview by co-star Aurelio Voltaire, a supremely nauseating Babette Bombshell video called "Nasty Nibblin'", deleted scenes with Rochon and Troma honcho Lloyd Kaufman, and an Easter egg featuring an isolated music track by Harry Manfredini of FRIDAY THE 13TH fame.

MODEL HUNGER jumps feet first into the deep end of the super-sicko sadism pool, wallows around to its black heart's content, and entertains us while doing so.  Some of us, that is--others, as previously warned, should stay as far away from Ginny's house as humanly possible or risk fainting dead away like Scarlett O'Hara on a balmy August afternoon. 

 

MODEL HUNGER -- 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

THE NEON DEAD -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 9/14/16

In the wonderful world of low-budget indy horror features, you never know what you're gonna get.  With THE NEON DEAD (2015), you get it all--good, bad, funny, cringey, bouncy, and blah--all coming at you like someone just kicked a box of chocolates in your face.

The cast aren't Oscar material, but they're good enough, and funny enough, and...darn it, I like them.  Marie Barker plays Allison Hillstead, a cute blonde who just moved into a large secluded house she inherited and finds out that it's haunted by terrifying supernatural creatures who look like zombies sporting glow-in-the-dark war paint and neon eyes. 

When she calls the number on a business card given to her by Ashley, a passing Wilderness Scout (Josie Levy) who's out stumping for donations but gets all excited by the prospect of seeing real zombies, a couple of losers working in a video store (Greg Garrison and D. Dylan Schettina as Desmond and Jake) hurry out to her house and introduce themselves as freelance paranormal exterminators, conveniently leaving the word "inept" out of the description.

Allison discovers that a previous relative from the 1800s named Drake Hillstead (Andrew Puckett) once invoked deadly supernatural forces to create undead servants to do his evil bidding, and these zombies (Jake keeps insisting that, technically, they aren't really "zombies") are now popping up all over the place along with an equally undead but much more hostile and super-evil version of Drake with bulging lit-up eyeballs and a giant neon smile. 

I stopped keeping up with the rest of the exposition related to this phenomenon and just watched the ensuing cavalcade of undead carnage which began to fill the screen like a whirlwind of hokey horror. 

First there's a hark-back to NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD with our three main characters barracading themselves in the house to repel a zombie attack, only this time there are good zombies inside the house helping them.  (It's a long story.) 

 

Later, things just go totally nuts as THE NEON DEAD tries its best to be a cross between THE EVIL DEAD and the zanier ARMY OF DARKNESS and doesn't quite hit the bullseye.  Frenetic action takes over when Desmond starts sword-fighting with Drake and then takes on a Cthulu-like doomsday creature within a swirling space vortex that stretches the capabilities of the SPFX team. 

Not that this is a bad thing, though--I love to see talented people doing what they can within modest means, and here, the tech artists really get a chance to outdo themselves.  There's even quite a bit of good old-fashioned stop-motion animation which should please fans of that near-obsolete technique (like me) to no end.  In some shots, even the faces of the "zombies" are rendered in stop-motion animation and inserted onto live-action bodies. 

First-time writer/director Torey Haas keeps things sailing along at a fast clip that only drags during a flashback sequence about midway through, and stages the action nicely.  The winsome Marie Barker gives us a befuddled but scrappy Allison, while Garrison and Schettina deliver an amusingly wisecracking Desmond and an endearingly nerdy Jake respectively. 

Comedy kudos, however, belong (in my regarded opinion, anyway) to young Josie Levy in her too-brief role as Ashley the Wilderness Scout, whom Haas lauds in his commentary track as one of the most professional members of the cast. 

Besides this informative commentary, extras on the DVD include several character profiles that play like deleted scenes (they're quite good, too), two short films by Haas, and trailers for this and other films from WildEye Releasing. The feature is widescreen with 2.0 sound.  No subtitles. 

As with any other bag of tasty Halloween treats, THE NEON DEAD is like a bunch of yummies with the occasional yucky mixed in.  I didn't mind, though, and happily gorged myself on the whole teeth-rotting concoction until it was all gone.

THE NEON DEAD -- DVD Review by Porfle