THE BEAST IN HEAT -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 6/23/19

 

I guess somebody had to try and outdo ILSA, SHE-WOLF OF THE SS, and director Luigi Batzella does his darndest with the horrendous Nazisploitation shocker THE BEAST IN HEAT (Severin Films, 1977), a film so irredeemably vile at times that some scenes might even make Dyanne Thorne's legendary blonde torture tart drop her jaw on the floor with a hollow thud.

Macha Magall (THE EROTIC ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE, CASA PRIVITA PER LA SS) plays Dr. Ellen Kratsch, a Nazi scientist whose inhuman gene experiments have turned a once-human test subject into a big, hairy, slobbering troll monster (Sal Boris) who loves it when a beautiful naked woman is tossed into his cage so that he can rape her to death in the most horrific and savagely animalistic manner imaginable (and yes, that includes cannibalism).

I forgot exactly what scientific purpose this serves, but we're talking about the Nazis here so anything goes. Which it does, with all manner of other atrocities going on in Dr. Ellen's laboratory involving captured members of the Italian anti-Nazi underground and their hapless loved ones in an effort to dissuade the group from its disruptive activities. 

If you've seen ILSA, just imagine it as a warm-up for what happens in this super-sordid nightmare of depravity which, if you're like me, will have you on edge waiting for the director to cut away to something else, which he doesn't do.

Meanwhile, the deceptively sweet-looking SS sadist (the delicately-featured Macha Magall as the inhuman torturess is a striking study in contrast) presides gleefully over it all and even takes an active part in the sexual torment of various male prisoners.  Giving what is probably the best performance in the movie, Magall's supremely evil villainess is a real piece of work.

While all this goes on, there's actually an attempt to put on a somewhat normal war movie elsewhere in a nearby Italian village where the underground rebels are trying to rescue their innocent women and children from the clutches of the Nazis. 

It's a rather pedestrian narrative that's directed, as is most of the movie, in an entirely no-frills fashion (but with lovely rustic Italian settings) and, despite overripe acting and some comically bad dubbing, features some fairly exciting and well-staged battle sequences that I found pretty entertaining.

Even here, however, there's the occasional overlap with the other half of the movie, meaning that when the Nazis move into town to round up the women and children, we're treated to more horrors (babies used as target practice, young girls molested and executed) while our main good-guy underground hero is hauled into Dr. Ellen's lab to be subjected to her most perversely sadistic seduction. 

And thus we see the schizophrenic nature of the film, with Nazisploitation at its most extreme (it truly wallows in the deep end of depravity) rubbing shoulders with a rather earnest little war movie that even has its cloyingly sentimental moments. 

But it's that incredible, gibbering human warthog of a rape monster that will really separate those who run screaming from THE BEAST IN HEAT and those who settle in to see if they can endure it.




Buy it from Severin Films

Release date: June 25, 2019
Scanned from 35mm negative elements

Special Features:

    Fascism On A Thread – The Strange Story of Nazisploitation Cinema: A new feature length documentary featuring interviews with Dyanne ‘Ilsa’ Thorne, Malissa ‘Elsa’ Longo, Filmmakers Sergio Garrone, Mariano Caiano, Rino Di Silvestro, Liliana Cavani, Bruno Mattei and many more.
    Nazi Nasty: Interview with Stephen Thrower, Author of MURDEROUS PASSIONS
    Trailer

THE BEAST IN HEAT -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

THE LOVE BOAT: SEASON TWO, VOLUME TWO -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 5/29/32

 

Recently I've begun to develop a perverse enjoyment of extremely cheesy 70s and 80s television shows that I wouldn't have been caught dead watching during their first run. Curious to test my newfound ability to withstand anything the likes of Aaron Spelling could launch at me, I was eager to take on one of the all-time undisputed champeens of cheese, "The Love Boat." So as soon as I got my mitts on the new four-disc, 12-episode DVD collection THE LOVE BOAT: SEASON TWO, VOLUME TWO, it was on, baby! DING!

Actually, once you resign yourself to how silly and totally corny it all is, the show isn't that hard to like at all. If you're looking for "Playhouse 90", you're on the wrong boat. And who doesn't want to spend a little time on a cruise ship with a fun-loving crew and dozens of pop culture icons gettin' it on with each other? As one of the first and best of these "Grand Hotel"-style multi-plot, multi-guest star shows, "The Love Boat" is simply a boatload of dumb fun.

The first episode alone features none other than Abe Vigoda and Nancy Walker sharing romantic dialogue on deck with a scenic sunset in the background. Also representing the older set in later episodes are: Ray "Scarecrow" Bolger and Martha "Poli-Grip" Raye as high-school sweethearts who haven't seen each other in forty years; Arthur Godfrey and Minnie Pearl as eloping lovebirds on the run from their overprotective offspring (Elinor Donahue and Warren Berlinger); and Barry Nelson and Nanette Fabray as an empty-nest couple whose plans for a round-the-world vacation are deep-sixed by news of a surprise package.

 

One of the best of the show's December-December flings takes place when rich widow Celeste Holm winds up on the same cruise with her vacationing chauffeur, John Mills, and they discover that they're in love with each other. The awkward situation builds to a romantic crescendo (with that same sunset in the background) which actually has some pretty decent writing for a change, and a couple of seasoned actors with the talent to turn it into something substantial. The director goes in for some tight closeups in this scene because he knows that old pros Holm and Mills are working this material for all it's worth.

On the flip-side, where things are just plain goofy, we get Ron "Horshack" Palillo as a magician filling in for his brother in the ship's lounge and falling for his pretty assistant (Melinda Naud), who, incredibly, returns his affections. Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara play harried parents who can't get any private time away from their gaggle of brats, including a fledgling Corey Feldman. Roddy McDowell, surely one of the most ubiquitous actors of all time, plays a constantly sneezing dweeb who discovers he's allergic to his demanding bride-to-be Tammy Grimes. We also get to witness the startling sight of "Match Game" stars Gene Rayburn and Fannie Flagg sucking face like there's no tomorrow while her yappy little dog (the specially-billed "Cricket") tries to come between them. And...omigod...Charo. 'Nuff said.

The biggest surprise is that I didn't remember how serious some of these stories could get. We're talking actual soap-opera-level melodrama here. A man (Randy Mantooth) introduces his girlfriend (Cathy Lee Crosby) to his dad (Robert Mandan)...the girlfriend and the dad fall in love...the son blows his top and dad slaps him! Elsewhere, Craig Stevens is a WWII vet wounded on Omaha Beach, suddenly reunited after all these years with the only woman he ever loved (Cyd Charisse), only to find her attached to some young French stud named Francoise. This is classic "women's picture" stuff just like all the studios were churning out back in the 40s and 50s.

 

Even when Sonny Bono guests as Deacon Dark, a ludicrous cross between Alice Cooper and Gene Simmons, it's played mainly for bathos because Sonny really wants to be a lounge singer (despite resistance from his materialistic manager, Arte Johnson). This is compounded when he meets a cute deaf girl who falls for the real Sonny and "listens" to his sensitive ivory-tinking by feeling the vibrations in his piano. Talk about laying it on with a trowel--you gotta love it!

Gavin McLeod plays Captain Stubing, the distinguished and very proper main man of the Love Boat, and it's nice to see McLeod in a successful starring role after all those years as a second banana on shows like "McHale's Navy" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." Too bad he's usually the straight man for his wacky underlings here, since he was always pretty adept at comedy himself. He does get his share of dramatic subplots and sappy love affairs, as evidenced by this hair-curling exchange:

"Hey, hey...eyes as lovely as yours shouldn't be clouded with tears."
"You say the nicest things."
"Only to the nicest people."

Future four-term Iowa congressman Fred Grandy is Yeoman-Purser "Gopher" Smith, easily the biggest idiot on the ship. Gopher takes center stage in some of the silliest stories, as when his supermodel dreamgirl (the always delightful Hayley Mills) comes aboard and he retreats into a Walter Mitty-style fantasy world, or the one in which he overhears a couple of murder-mystery writers (Peter Lawford, Dana Wynter) discussing their next book and thinks they're planning to kill the Captain. Surprisingly, the season finale features Gopher in one of the most dramatic scenes of the whole set when he has an extremely emotional reconciliation with his estranged father (Bob Cummings).

The concept of Bob Cummings and a Godzilla-like Ethel Merman playing Gopher's parents is almost too much to bear, as is the big finale with father and son crooning a comedy version of "Sonny Boy" to each other during the crew's "Talent Night" show. And yet, like everything else that happens on this series, I feel compelled to watch. I guess it's just one of the mysteries of life.

 

As Isaac, the ship's bartender with the chipper attitude and big kid smile, Ted Lange is one of the brightest performers on the show. Isaac is always there to help the passengers get sloppy drunk and to dole out helpful advice when they unload their sob stories on him. I like the episode where Isaac's old friend Reggie Jackson books passage to get away from all the constant fan adoration, only to have his ego crushed when nobody on board recognizes him. But even Isaac has his serious side, which we see when he tries to help a troubled young girl who's a convicted shoplifter by getting her a job in the gift shop. Sure enough, a pair of expensive pearl earrings turn up missing.

Bernie Kopell as ship's medic "Doc" Bricker is another TV veteran who excels at light comedy while also handling some pretty bleak material, such as the episode in which his old surgeon friend (Richard Anderson) is dealing with the loss of an arm in a car crash while his wife (Diana Muldaur), stricken with guilt for having caused the accident, suffers an addiction to prescription drugs. Less turgid and a lot more fun is the time one of Doc's several ex-wives (Tina Louise) hires narcissistic pretty-boy Lyle Waggoner to pose as her new fiance to make Doc jealous.

Lauren Tewes, who, sadly, would later have to leave the show due to her own real-life drug problems, is all winsome and chipper as cruise director Julie McCoy. Her character comes to the fore in one of the set's two feature-length episodes, in which Julie's high-school graduating class has its ten-year reunion on board the ship. This episode is loaded with guest stars and subplots, including a self-destructing alcoholic teacher (Raymond Burr), a wheelchair-bound Viet Nam vet (Michael Cole), his best friend who is wracked with guilt for evading the draft (John Rubinstein), and a heavy-set gal (Conchata Ferrell) who has a fling with Doc until she suspects him of ridiculing her behind her back. Also appearing in this one are Christopher George as a famous TV star and Bob "Gilligan" Denver as the class dork.

Looking cuter than I've ever seen her in anything else, Kim Darby (TRUE GRIT) plays a classmate trying to uncover the identity of a secret admirer within the group's ranks, which gives her an excuse to get romantic with just about all the male guest stars. Julie, meanwhile, shows her ruthless side as she tries to steal handsome disco instructor Michael Lembeck away from a pre-nosejob Lisa Hartman. Much of the episode's later scenes take place during a big disco party, which is typical of the show's obsession with this much-reviled dance craze. There's nothing like seeing a ballroom full of people with absolutely no sense of rhythm boogeying down like a bunch of brain-damaged storks.

In addition to those already mentioned, this collection's incredible roster of guest stars includes Phyllis Davis, "Hollywood Squares" host Peter Marshall, Barbara Rush, Elaine Joyce, Bobby Van, Carol Lynley, Hans Conried, Dr. Joyce Brothers, Ben Murphy, Donna Pescow, David Hedison, Juliet Mills, Telma Hopkins, Debbie Allen, Maren Jensen, Dennis Cole, Samantha Eggar, Paul Burke, Arlene Dahl, James Dobson, Leslie Nielsen, Jill St. John, and Charlie Callas. Ken Berry and Beth Howland star in one of the show's most moving segments about a woman who is trying in vain to be accepted by the daughters of the widower she's just married. Howland, of TV's "Alice", is particularly good here.

Aside from the opening titles and some of the stock footage used on the show, the picture quality here is pretty good. The DVD image is 4.3 full-screen with Dolby Digital sound. English and Spanish subtitles and closed-captioning are available. Each episode comes with its original promo, which is the set's sole bonus feature.

By the time I got to the final episodes of THE LOVE BOAT: SEASON TWO, VOLUME TWO, I was actually looking forward to the next sappy romantic adventures aboard the Pacific Princess. Not only that, but I caught myself singing along with the theme song! Aaron Spelling strikes again, and another hapless TV junkie winds up with a Gopher on his back.

THE LOVE BOAT: SEASON TWO, VOLUME TWO -- DVD Review by Porfle

ALL THE SINS OF SODOM/ VIBRATIONS -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 9/25/17

 

Hardly as lurid as the title suggests, ALL THE SINS OF SODOM (Film Movement Classics) is pioneering sexploitation filmmaker Joe Sarno's visually seductive offering of forbidden sex-infused drama to inquisitive film audiences in the still-restrictive world of 1968 adult cinema. 

It's the work of a filmmaker who's already a master of exceeding the limitations of his budget and resources by sheer talent and imagination alone, crafting a quietly gripping story that takes place almost entirely within the confines of a New York photographic studio with a cast you can count on your fingers and backdrops often consisting only of artfully-lit walls ("limbo sets" as he called them).

Sarno's story is simple, giving him plenty of room to flex his creative skills.  A photographer named Henning (Dan Machuen) seeks a female model who can convey a kind of primal seduction, both evil and hypnotically compelling.  He thinks he's found such a girl in Leslie (Maria Lease), but although her sweet, bubbly personality causes him to fall for her, she ultimately lacks the qualities as a model that he's so desperately seeking.

Enter dark, mysterious Joyce (Sue Akers)--sort of a cross between Raquel Welch and Gina Gershon--referred to Henning by his sisterly agent (Sarno's real-life wife Peggy Steffans) due to what she recognizes in Joyce as an inner core of wanton, narcissistic sexuality and irresistible animal magnetism. 

Henning will be ecstatic over what he comes to regard as the perfect model for his project, teaming her in steamy photo shoots with Leslie, but won't see it coming when Joyce eventually reveals herself to be a negative force in the lives of both him and everyone else she comes into sexual contact with--including the hapless Leslie and another female model, both helpless to resist Joyce's eerily seductive influence.

Much of this takes place in a shadowy world in which the simple studio often looks like something out of a David Lynch fantasy.  Sarno, who disliked hardcore porn, pushes the limits of what would be known as "softcore" or "hard R" while still making each erotic sequence a valid part of the narrative rather than a story-halting intrusion. 

Sex between Henning and Leslie early in the film is in his brightly-lit bedroom and is stark and functional.  Later, under Joyce's wild, earthy, and perhaps even evil influence, the action is strewn with inky shadows and emanates a sort of fever dream quality as various combinations of participants seem helplessly trapped within Joyce's web of desire.

Sarno displays an instinctive eye for shooting the most exquisite arthouse stuff, seemingly without even trying. His cameraman Steve Silverman's razor-sharp, low-budget black-and-white photography here is gorgeous--moody, evocative, dreamlike (the print is beautifully restored from an unearthed original negative)--and Sarno directs with both a confident expertise and a sublime simplicity.  Even when his scenes only involve two or three actors in a stark set, they're a visual indulgence.

He fully exploits the abilities of his actors, who perform their roles here with surprising subtlety, sensitivity, and depth.  This is especially true for likable Maria Lease ("Leslie"), who would go on to have quite a career in movies (DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN, HORROR OF THE BLOOD MONSTERS) and TV on both sides of the camera.

Sarno's dialogue is terse, realistic, rarely overplayed.  He could definitely go big and loud (VAMPIRE ECSTASY, SIN YOU SINNERS) or comically colorful (CONFESSIONS OF A YOUNG AMERICAN HOUSEWIFE) when he wanted to, but this time it's all about taking in faces and moments and losing yourself in them. 

You'll see the ending of ALL THE SINS OF SODOM coming, but it's no less effective for its inevitability, nor is the journey there ever less than a rich cinematic treat for the adventuresome viewer.

Sarno's VIBRATIONS, made earlier the same year as ALL THE SINS IN SODOM (1968) and using the same interiors, isn't quite as dark and serious, but it's a delightfully engaging watch with plenty of sexual angst nonetheless.

Somewhat lighter and brighter (except for some lush bedroom scenes which give us that shadowy look with its stark contrasts and artful compositions), Steve Silverman's black-and-white photography is crisp and beautiful and positively gleaming with a nostalgic late-60s glow.  

Simplicity in set design and story is again the order of the day as Barbara (winsome Maria Lease again) moves into a small New York apartment to pursue her fading ambitions as a poet while earning money typing up manuscripts for other frustrated writers. 

Complications ensue when her irresponsible, oversexed sister Julie (Marianne Prevost) shows up looking for a place to stay as well as some action--including rekindling a long-ago incestuous relationship (a subject Sarno would revisit years later in CONFESSIONS OF A YOUNG AMERICAN HOUSEWIFE) that the reserved Barbara now wants no part of.

Meanwhile, buzzing noises and moans of sexual pleasure emanate from the apartment next door, which, according to mousey landlady Edna (Sarno's wife Peggy Steffans again), an enigmatic young woman named Georgia (Rita Bennett) is renting to use as a storage room. 

But it turns out she's using it for intense sexual escapades (with the help of some fast friends including a big, noisy vibrator) which will just naturally come to include hot-to-trot Julie and then, after much agonizing and soul-searching, the timid but love-starved Barbara herself.

Acting honors once again go to Maria Lease as her sadly neurotic Barbara character is put through the emotional mill, no thanks to her perverted fun-girl sister.  She yearns for a normal love life, perhaps with her nice neighbor who's paying her to type up some of his literary tripe and has expressed romantic interest (which slutty sis promptly derails). 

She's pretty much matched by Marianne Prevost as reprehensible but perversely amusing sister Julie.  ALL THE SINS OF SODOM alumni Dan Machuen and Sue Akers return as two of the girl next door's adventurous sex partners, who end up treating the ever-willing Julie like a brand new ride at Disneyland. 

VIBRATIONS has more sex scenes than ALL THE SINS IN SODOM--a lot more--and they're way steamier.  Eventually, the bits of story between them become shorter and shorter until finally the sex scenes themselves become the story.  I'm not sure if the way things turn out constitutes a "happy ending" per se, but it's poetic justice for the sisters.  Especially Julie, who definitely gets quite a buzz out of it all.

Bonus features:
"All the Sins of Sodom" commentary by Peggy Steffans-Sarno
Interview with Director, Joseph W. Sarno
"Vibrations" commentary by film historian Tim Lucas
"Vibrations" mini-commentary by Peggy Steffans-Sarno
Collector's booklet featuring liner notes by Tim Lucas
Trailers from these and other Sarno films

www.filmmovement.com

All The Sins of Sodom Trailer

Vibrations Trailer

ALL THE SINS OF SODOM/ VIBRATIONS -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

TEENAGE GHOST PUNK -- Movie Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 4/12/17

 

The word "lightweight" is usually used in a deprecating way, but in the case of TEENAGE GHOST PUNK (Midnight Releasing, 2014) I don't think anything weightier would've worked.  It would be like dumping an entire pint of ice cream on top of a Twinkie instead of a tasty dollop of Cool Whip.

The Twinkie, in this case, is a pleasant little tale of a displaced family: recent divorcée Carol (Adria Dawn), nervously re-entering the workforce in a new town; teen daughter Amanda (Grace Madigan), angst-ridden about leaving her old school and friends; and kid brother Adam (Noah Kitsos), a prematurely intelligent, erudite little wiseacre who enjoys getting on his big sister's nerves. 

What they don't know is that the neat little two-storey house they're about to move into is already inhabited by the ghost of Brian, a teenaged punk rocker who was electrocuted back in the 70s while playing guitar on the roof in the rain and has been unable, or unwilling, to "move on" since then.

 

At first, there are a few weird POLTERGEIST-type occurrences--rooms found in disarray, silverware spelling out words, bumps in the night--that Carol blames on the kids, but nothing really scary.  It's just lightly, comically spooky stuff because this movie isn't trying to scare us as much as it just wants to be lightly comical.

In fact, the funniest thing about TEENAGE GHOST PUNK to me isn't the ghostly stuff, but rather some of the secondary characters such as Squatchie (Jake Shadrake), a clumsy, extremely hirshute fellow student of Amanda's who keeps trying to get her to go out with him, and Carol's new co-worker Barry (Darren Stephens), a conceited jerk whose constant come-ons are delightfully annoying and groanworthy.

And then there's faux medium Madame Lidnar (Lynda Shadrake), recommended to Amanda by their new neighbors, a mixed-race gay couple who are both named Steve.  But best of all are a ghost-hunting group known as SPIT (Super Paranormal Investigation Team), a funny take-off of shows like "Ghost Hunters" where excitable team members creep around in the dark, jumping at shadows and "hearing" things. 

 

For me, the film's biggest giggles come when this gaggle of idiots are loose in the house or giddily explaining why all their equipment has an "X" in the name (because an "X" makes everything sound cooler).

Naturally, Amanda will eventually form a simpatico relationship with Brian (and his friends, who all hail from different time periods but are equally stuck in the limbo between two worlds) that helps compensate for her recently being dumped by her old boyfriend. 

There are the usual complications when Carol doesn't believe Amanda's ghost stories and blames her for various manifestations, and a twist or two that are so obvious that we must be intended to figure them out in one second flat.  But we know it'll all work itself out by the end because this movie has "happy ending" scrawled all over it.

 

It's all pretty smartly-written and acted in a way that makes even the less interesting scenes watchable, and writer-director Mike Cramer handles it all adeptly.  Still, by the time Amanda's Halloween party arrives--in which all ghosts will be visible to the living and all secrets revealed--the story has begun to lose some of its steam.  But by now it's as comfortable as an After School Special and remains easy to take until the upbeat fadeout.

TEENAGE GHOST PUNK may come up short for those expecting something with more depth and substance. For me, however, it's like a party balloon--lightweight, but colorful and amusing enough until it pops. 

TEENAGE GHOST PUNK -- Movie Review by Porfle

TRAUMA -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 10/21/18

 

When it comes to horror movies, how extreme do you want to go?  With TRAUMA (2017, Artsploitation Films), Chilean writer-director Lucio A. Rojas (ZOMBIE DAWN, PERFIDY) answers that question for us in ways that will have some viewers gasping with perverse thrill and others scrambling to put as much distance between them and this movie as humanly possible.

Even the first few minutes had me feeling nasty and kind of disgusted with myself for even watching it.  The film opens with a scene of the most vile torture porn imaginable, easily earning its original NC-17 rating (and this is the unrated director's cut).

It will get, if not worse, then just as bad in different but equally horrific ways.  The first home invasion sequence, in which four young women vacationing in a secluded cabin find the world's sickest psycho (Daniel Antivilo as "Juan") and his son at their front door, almost makes I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE seem like a rom-com.

Other atrocities, including a tour of psycho dad's hellish chamber of horrors and its woefully unfortunate captives, take everything that was vile and repellant about TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE and turn the dial to eleven.

And I'm saying this as someone who has been watching extreme horror movies for several decades.  This wallow in utter depravity and degradation is the kind of stuff that movie theater walkouts are made of.

Okay, there's that.  In addition to the almost invasive nature of TRAUMA's horrific images is something else that director Rojas is really good at, which is building suspense.  This is one of those movies that manages to keep us painfully on edge, not just during the torture scenes but in other ways as well.

The survivors of the initial attack must decide whether or not to make their way to Juan's secluded torture chamber in the woods to help a little girl who has been kidnapped by him.  With a near-useless young local cop as their only help, Andrea (Catalina Martin) and the others embark on a rescue attempt that will lead to prolonged, stomach-churning suspense.

Through it all, there's an underlying message about how violence and hatred are passed down from generation to generation, sickness breeds sickness, etc. which we see in flashbacks to Juan's boyhood.  The dead seriousness of the film adds to its effectiveness--there's no distancing humor or satire to make the horror more palatable.

Nor does it have any amusing technical deficiencies.  Rojas' direction is entirely effective, his script literate.  The cast, especially Catalina Martin and Daniel Antivilo, are fine.  Photography (including some sweeping aerial shots) and other technical elements are above-average.

The Blu-ray from Artsploitation Films is in 2.35:1 widescreen with 5.1 surround sound.  Spanish soundtrack with English subtitles.  A trailer is the sole extra.

Gorehounds who like to get as down, dirty, and just plain twisted as possible with their horror movies should definitely check out TRAUMA as soon as possible. Everyone else--you've been warned.  As for me, I'm a notorious "re-watcher", happily viewing my favorite films time and again over the years, but for this one, once is way more than enough.

TRAUMA -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

CANNIBAL CORPSE KILLERS -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 7/25/20

 

CANNIBAL CORPSE KILLERS (Indican Pictures, 2018) enters the undead arena with a dash of "Mad Max", a pinch of Rob Zombie, some spaghetti (western) sauce, and a flashback intro in which a cousin of Sam Raimi's "Evil Dead" book appears and cooks up a passel of the same brand of hell-spawn zombies to terrorize a poor little desert community (and, we assume, the rest of the world).

Into this apocalyptic wasteland comes a ragtag group of misfits who look like they just stumbled out of "The Devil's Rejects" and have cool names like Pike (Dennis Haggard), Ruby (Theresa Holly), cranky old hermit Slim (Chris Shumway), Scar (Katherine Norland), and group leader Boots (Nate Philo). These are the good guys, since they're only interested in survival. (Okay, Pike has a much loftier aim in mind, but that's for later.)

Fortunately for us, this survival includes lots of zombie killing that's bloody, gory, gutsy, grotty, and very action-oriented. The zombies in question are horrifically aggressive, again more in line with Raimi's "hellish speed-freak" model than the simple, shambling reanimated corpses of yore.

The makeups are consistently good, as are such production elements as locations (I kept wondering where they found all these trashed neighborhoods and other decayed desert architecture), costumes, props, and cars.

On the minus side, most of the cast indulge in relentless overacting of the "scream obscenities really loud" and "make spaghetti western faces" varieties, while director Joaquin Montalvan (LEGEND OF THE HILLBILLY BUTCHER) has a loose, freeform style that's sporadically effective.

As with many low-budget flicks these days, there's a heavy reliance on sweeping drone camera shots which take good advantage of the desert surroundings.

As the main characters slowly make their way to a tiny desert burg called Jawbone (first in Slim's van, then on foot), flashbacks from each person's past reveal the reasons why they've ended up as messed up as they are.

(For example, "Scar" had to shoot her own zombie son in the head as he was administering her namesake facial wound.) These brief episodes flesh out the characters and give the story some of its best scenes.

Meanwhile, the Magistrate (Ron Jason), a psycho hick who discovered the book and acts as a go-between for Ava, vile princess of evil (Charlotte Bjornbak) and her slack-jawed minions, waits in an abandoned church as the evil forces prepare to do battle with our heroic good guys.

The final clash on the dusty main drag of Jawbone is more of the clunky fight choreography and nerve-wracking sound effects we've experienced throughout the film, enhanced by more of those nicely-rendered gore effects and cool-looking zombie makeup.

The bonus menu consists of a making-of featurette, an interview with the sound designer, and extended/deleted scenes.

Alternately entertaining and irritating, CANNIBAL CORPSE KILLERS practically grabs us by the lapels and screams "I'm a cool cult film, dammit!" It's one of those doggedly earnest low-budget indy flicks that works overtime to prove how cool it is in every shot.

 
Buy it at Indican Pictures

TECH SPECS

Runtime: 100 minutes
Format: 1:78 HD
Sound: Dolby Sr.
Country: USA

CANNIBAL CORPSE KILLERS -- DVD Review by Porfle

DARK HOUSE -- movie review by porfle

 

[Note: Fangoria magazine teamed up with Lightning Media and Blockbuster for a series of eight horror/thrillers which were available exclusively on DVD, VOD, and digital download Sept. 28, 2010 under the "Fangoria FrightFest" banner. This film is part of that series.]

Loud, obnoxious, and dumb, DARK HOUSE (2009) is like a cross between a slasher flick, a ghost story, and a funhouse ride.  Its 80s-retro vibe even reminded me a little of Tobe Hooper's FUNHOUSE (along with films such as the obscure cult fave SILENT SCREAM), only minus most of the fun and plus a heaping helping of cheese.

The story opens with a little girl being dared by her friends to enter the neighborhood "scary house" (actually, it looks more quaintly picturesque than scary) and finding the bodies of seven murdered children strewn about.  Their foster mother, Miss Darrode (Diane Salinger), is in the kitchen grinding her hands off in the garbage disposal.  She thinks that by killing them, she's just saved the souls of her evil foster children because she is that most dreaded of all horror movie psychos--a religious fanatic! (Gasp!)

Fourteen years later, Claire (Meghan Ory) is, not surprisingly, undergoing therapy, and her doctor urges her to return to the house and confront the fears which continue to haunt her, hoping that she'll regain her buried memories of the event.  Conveniently enough, the members of her college drama class have just been hired by flamboyant horror showman Walston (Jeffrey Combs) to work in his brand new hologram-enhanced spookhouse attraction, which is located in none other than the Darrode house. 

Claire's friends are a sorry bunch of stereotypical kill fodder that we can't wait to see get theirs.  There's Rudy, the arrogant jock; Ariel, the dumb blonde nympho; Bruce, the nerd; Eldon, the black guy; and Lily, the Goth chick.  That's literally the extent of their character development, and from the first moment we see them in drama class "acting out" their true feelings for each other, we hate their guts.  Then Walston flits in to pitch his new haunted house idea to them, and we hate his guts, too, because the wonderful Jeffrey Combs has been given a truly awful character to portray and he tries way too hard to sell it.

The filmmakers tip their hand the moment we enter the house, when a misty black shape can be seen flitting about.  Then we get a demonstration of the holographic attractions, including a psycho clown with an axe, a mad scientist, a dungeon master, various zombie types, and, my favorite, a really freaky-looking young lady with long, sharp fingernails who reminded me of "The Angry Princess" from THIR13EN GHOSTS.  They aren't very scary but are fun to look at as they spring out at us as though we were watching a 3D movie.  (SCTV's Dr. Tongue would love it.) 

Naturally, the malevolent spirit of Miss Darrode enters the computer that runs everything and turns the holograms deadly.  There's not a whole lot of suspense and most of the characters are done away with rather summarily, one breaking her neck from a tumble down the stairs and a couple of others dying off-camera.  The first of the drama students to die (see if you can guess who) gets a mace to the head by that scariest of all horror characters, a medieval knight.  The resulting gore effect is done digitally instead of with good old-fashioned physical effects, which is always a disappointment--you just can't fake a genuine exploding head with CGI. 

The film's main asset is Diane Salenger as Miss Darrode.  She's pretty unsettling at first--an early jump-scare with her insane face shooting toward the camera is a real jolt--but she's overused to the point where all her prolonged screaming and twisty-faced mugging into the camera gets old.  (I'd love to see what a really good Japanese or Thai horror director could've done with her character.)  Before long, the jump-scares themselves begin to feel like someone continually goosing us until the effect is diminished.

Direction by Darin Scott is slick but doesn't quite capture the sort of fun-spooky William Castle atmosphere he seems to be going for.  Things get less dumb-fun and more serious in the final act, when the hidden secrets behind Miss Darrode's murder spree and Claire's amnesia are revealed, although the more we're shown the more confusing things seem to get.  I think I caught most of it but by then the film's dogged attempts to terrify me had become rather numbing.

I watched a screener of this movie so I can't comment on DVD specifics.  According to Fangoria.com, special features will include "a commentary track by Scott and producer Mark Sonoda, the 8 FANGORIA FRIGHTS cable special and the eight FrightFest trailers." 

DARK HOUSE is just diverting enough to be worth watching if you don't have anything better to do.  But you have to go into it the same way little Claire crept into the spooky old Darrode house all those years ago--expecting the worst.

 

DARK HOUSE -- movie review by porfle

ROAD KILL -- movie review by porfle

 

[Note: Fangoria magazine teamed up with Lightning Media and Blockbuster for a series of eight horror/thrillers which were available exclusively on DVD, VOD, and digital download Sept. 28, 2010 under the "Fangoria FrightFest" banner. This film is part of that series.]


Two young couples motoring across the long, lonesome highways of the Australian Outback are menaced by a massive double-sized tractor-trailer rig known as a "road train" (the film's original title) in 2010's ROAD KILL, a fairly effective horror-thriller that takes a different route than you might expect. 

The premise immediately brought two movies to my mind upon first viewing.  One is Steven Spielberg's classic made-for-TV thriller DUEL, in which Dennis Weaver plays a harried salesman whose tiny car is the prey for a crazed trucker in the middle of nowhere.  Yet another Aussie thriller, ROAD GAMES, is also set in the Outback and features a trucker (Stacy Keach) and a comely young hitchhiker (Jamie Lee Curtis) in a cat-and-mouse game with a traveling serial killer. 

But just when I'm thinking ROAD KILL is going to be a rehash of these two plots, it decides to go somewhere else entirely.  The two couples--Craig and Nina, and Marcus and Liz, who have a history of jealousy and rivalry simmering below the surface of their fragile friendship--are run off the road by the roaring behemoth just when we think we're at the start of a long chase sequence.  This is the last such scene we'll see until much later in the film when there's one more high-speed clash between truck and automobile.

Climbing out of the wreckage with Craig (Bob Morley) badly injured, they stumble along until they find the road train parked by the side of the highway with nobody in it.  They get in just as a crazy man emerges from the bushes blasting away at them with a pistol, and Marcus manages to get the thing moving.  Lulled by hours of monotonous motion, they drop off to sleep--even Marcus seems to doze at the wheel as the truck continues to rumble onward.  Suddenly it stops, and they awaken to find that Marcus has accidentally turned off onto a side road and gotten them lost.  Or...was the truck acting on its own?

Yes, with our four main characters now stranded in the wilderness, ROAD KILL becomes a haunted truck story.  While a bitterly quarreling Marcus (Xavier Samuel, TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE) and Liz (Georgina Haig) strike out for the main highway on foot, Craig and Nina begin to sense a pervasive evil eminating from those two locked containers.  I'll skip the details of what follows, but it includes possession, betrayal, and the horrific discovery of what's really going on inside that damned truck.  Meanwhile, Marcus and Liz have some pretty shocking experiences of their own before they make it back just in time to get in on the gory fun.

Dean Francis' capable direction (this is his first feature) keeps the suspense pretty taut considering that most of the movie consists of four characters and a truck.  Good performances by the cast help to put over a script that often doesn't make a whole lot of sense (and doesn't really try to), with Sophie Lowe as Nina carrying most of the acting load and giving us at least one character we can identify with who isn't a total jerk.  She even gets to drive that damned truck when they finally get it back out on the highway for the exciting gear-grinding conclusion.

I watched a screener so DVD specs were unavailable.  Fangoria.com lists the special features as "audio commentary by director Dean Francis, a behind-the-scenes featurette, deleted scenes, the 8 FANGORIA FRIGHTS cable special and the eight FrightFest trailers."  One thing's for sure--if the nerve-wracking soundtrack for this flick doesn't threaten to jar your skull right out of your head, you've got stronger ears than I have.

I'm not sure how rewatchable ROAD KILL will be once you've slowly and patiently peeled the onion away from its mysterious core, but that first time was definitely enough to maintain a firm grip on my attention span.  And I now have an interesting new mental image for the term "monster truck." 

ROAD KILL -- movie review by porfle

PIG HUNT -- movie review by porfle

 

[Note: Fangoria magazine teamed up with Lightning Media and Blockbuster for a series of eight horror/thrillers which were available exclusively on DVD, VOD, and digital download Sept. 28, 2010 under the "Fangoria FrightFest" banner. This film is part of that series.]


I didn't know it was such a short drive from San Francisco straight into the heart of DELIVERANCE country, but in PIG HUNT (2008), five friends from the city end up stranded in Yokelvania and running for their lives from homicidal hicks, cutthroat cultists, and a man-eating hog big enough to keep two Piggly-Wigglys stocked in bacon and pork chops for a year. 

When a loony forest-dwelling uncle dies, nephew Johnny (Travis Aaron Wade) inherits some land and the old shack where he grew up.  Johnny and his girlfriend Brooks (Tina Huang) decide to spend a pig-hunting weekend there with three friends--green, trigger-happy Marine Ben (Howard Johnson, Jr.), chubby tenderfoot Quincy (Trevor Bullock), and slacker Wayne (Rajiv Shah).  In the woods, they run into some of Johnny's childhood acquaintances, hillbilly brothers Jake and Ricky (Jason Foster, Nick Tagas), who go along for the hunt.  Jake tells them of a legendary 3,000-pound boar hog named Ripper who supposedly roams the woods, but of course they don't believe him. 

Things turn ugly when the hunters stumble upon a huge marijuana field hidden in the forest.  While Jake and Ricky want to sack up a few hundred pounds of prime weed, Johnny's for alerting the authorities to their find.  An altercation results in death for one of the brothers, and the other, stoked for revenge, runs off to gather the rest of his kill-crazy clan.  The city kids flee to the supposed safety of a hippie commune run by a mysterious stranger (Bryonn Bain) where they find themselves in even deeper hog-poop than before.  Carnage ensues when city dwellers, yokels, cult crazies, and a 3,000-pound surprise guest hog start makin' bacon out of each other.

While lesser hands may have botched such a promising premise, director James Isaac (JASON X, SKINWALKERS) scores a bullseye by mixing gory TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE-style backwoods horror with a wicked sense of fun.  The long build-up of the film's first half explodes into kinetic energy when the hillbilly clan goes into action against Johnny and his friends, racing headlong down dirt roads in their trucks, dune buggies, and motorcycles in the first of several sequences that look like the filmmakers had a ball shooting and editing them.  When they converge on two of the main characters back at the old shack there's a frantic sense of real terror as they scramble desperately to escape the mindless killers. 

Meanwhile, Ben stumbles into a scene right out of his most surrealistic fantasy when he comes across about a dozen beautiful naked women lounging around the local swimmin' hole.  I have to hand it to the writers here--this scene really adds that certain special something to the story.  Ben ends up like a shiek in a harem, complete with hookah, and thinks he's gone to heaven.  Hog heaven, that is, which he's about to abruptly discover.

One of my favorite scenes occurs after one of the yokels bursts in and starts blasting away.  As he holds the main cult babe at gunpoint, she plucks a boar's tusk from her necklace and jams it into his eyeball.  Johnny grabs the gun and points it at her, but waits.  As cult-babe is viciously rearranging the hillbilly's face, she glances up a couple of times to make sure Johnny's going to hold off and let her finish before pulling the trigger.  It may not sound like much in the description, but the way it's acted, shot, and edited makes it one of the coolest moments in the film.

And then there's the Ripper.  For most of the film his presence is shown by a JAWS-style POV accompanied by low, throaty growls and brief glimpses of blazing eyes and jagged tusks.  When he finally makes his grand entrance in the final act, complete with a dead bit player dangling from his mouth, the rig that the SPFX guys have come up with to depict this massive pork-orca is so over-the-top outlandish that it's hilarious and impressive at the same time.  CGI would've rendered a smoother, more active creature, but ruined the more satisfying effect achieved by good old-fashioned methods and judicious editing.

I watched a screener so DVD specs and details on special features were unavailable.

A capable cast playing fairly interesting characters for a change helps kick PIG HUNT up a notch over similar films.  (Trevor Bullock as Quincy is particularly good as he reacts convincingly to his impending death at the hands of the hillbilly clan.)  Add to this a sense that the filmmakers are having all sorts of fun making this movie, and you've got a no-holds-barred backwoods blowout that's just as much fun to watch.

 

PIG HUNT -- movie review by porfle

HUNGER -- movie review by porfle

[Note: Fangoria magazine teamed up with Lightning Media and Blockbuster for a series of eight horror/thrillers which were available exclusively on DVD, VOD, and digital download Sept. 28, 2010 under the "Fangoria FrightFest" banner. This film is part of that series.]


With a name like HUNGER (2009), I was expecting yet another vampire or zombie flick.  Fortunately, this is something else entirely--it's one of those "predicament" stories where the characters are placed in a seemingly inescapable situation which slowly degenerates as their desperation grows, along with their hunger.

Five people awaken to find that they've been kidnapped and imprisoned in a dark underground pit.  When the lights come on, they're surrounded by stone walls with the only exit being at the top of an overhead shaft.  Four barrels contain plenty of drinking water, but there's no food.  A clock mounted on the wall is designed to tick off the next thirty days one by one, which, according the attractive blonde surgeon Jordan (Lori Heuring), is roughly the amount of time a person can manage to survive without eating.  It doesn't take long for them to figure out that they are little more than human lab rats in a ghastly experiment. 

With this interesting premise established, L.D. Goffigan's script takes us through the early stages in which personalities are revealed, alliances are formed, plans are made, and escapes are attempted.  Grant (Linden Ashby) is the level-headed older guy who takes charge and immediately sets to work trying to scrape some bricks loose from the wall.  Anna (Lea Kohl) is the mousey girl who's a hair's breadth away from freaking out, and Alex (Julian Rojas) is the insecure loner who isn't far behind.  The one we start to worry about the most right off the bat, though, is Luke (Joe Egender), an antisocial hothead with violent tendencies and a ruthless will to survive.  But we know that any one of them is capable of killing since, as we discover, each of them has killed before for various reasons.

Like a slow fuse, the story takes its time setting up what's to come and letting the situation gradually worsen.  Tension mounts as we wait for someone to snap, which is heightened when one of the subjects discovers a big, sharp scalpel (just right for slicing human flesh) which has been placed in their prison.  Sure enough, hunger trumps humanity and the five captives begin to turn on each other with horrifying results, while those who refuse to surrender to savagery become entrees on the grisly bill of fare--all of which is dispassionately observed by their captor whose motives are revealed through tragic flashbacks. 

Director Steven Hentges displays a talent for keeping all of this claustrophobic interplay consistently suspenseful and involving, allowing the story to unfold in a deliberate and believable manner until it's time for the inevitable bloody horror to begin.  With only one interior location for most of the film and a limited cast, he turns what was probably a pretty small budget into a stylish film that looks good.  Performances are fine, particularly from a low-key, intense Lori Heuring as Jordan and a frighteningly manic Joe Egender, who reminds me of Giovanni Ribisi, as the unstable Luke.  Linden Ashby is ideal as Grant, the authority figure whom we hope can keep things under control, while Lea Kohl as Anna and Julian Rojas as Alex emerge as unpredictable wild cards later on.

I watched a barebones screener so I can't comment on DVD specs.  According to Fangoria.com, extras will include "director’s commentary, behind-the-scenes footage, deleted scenes, 8 FANGORIA FRIGHTS cable special and the eight FrightFest trailers."

HUNGER is a tense, engrossing survival thriller that's all the more disturbing since these aren't zombies lurching around ravenous for human flesh, but regular people who have been driven to madness.  Who will survive, and what will be left of their humanity?  A final battle of wits between the last test subject(s) and "The Scientist" leads to a stirring conclusion which left me fully satisfied.  (BURP!)

HUNGER -- movie review by porfle