The world of exploitation film ripped open and laid raw for you to experience. From 70's grindhouse to current underground, it is all here. So ripe you can practically smell it.
NEW YEAR'S EVIL (1980) D. Emmett Alston Cannon Films FULL FRAME - On Netflix Instant This is yet another in the very long line of holiday themed slasher films that were released in the wake of HALLOWEEN. But this is not HALLOWEEN, it isn't even FRIDAY THE 13th. Hell this isn't even GRADUATION DAY!!!
The set up is interesting though. On New Years Eve while the standard end of the year TV show is being broadcast a psycho begins calling the host on the year threatening to kill someone she knows, every hour until the show goes off the air. He starts making good right at midnight killing a nurse in an insane asylum. Somehow the cops get it in their heads that he is killing someone at midnight in each time zone. But that doesn't actually seem to be the case as he works his way back to the hotel of the tired, past middle age sex symbol host.
The movie is too concerned with the melodrama of the Host's kid or her ex husband who we do not see for a large portion of the movie. If it isn't the melodrama then it is long padded scenes of really shitty pre new-wave bands playing during the show. There is actually very little horror on the film.
The movie reminded me a little of VISITING HOURS (1981) as it is clearly a larger budgeted production trying to mine the success of other indie horror films of the time. But where as VISITING HOURS is very aware of what kind of film it is, never afraid to do what it is needed to be both scary and attention grabbing, NEW YEAR'S EVIL tries to be too polite and fails because of it. REVIEW @ Andrew Copp
INTRUDER (1989) D. Scott Speilgel SYNAPSE FILMS. BLU RAY / DVD
Like most every other horror fan my age I discovered INTRUDER by reading FANGORIA's much missed sister publication GOREZONE. They did a controversial cover story on the yet to be released slasher film that sported a really messy and disgusting still of the guy getting his face bisected by the band saw. I have fond memories of going to downtown Dayton on the bus to a book store called WIlkies, buying GOREZONE and reading on the way home. Much to the consternation of the other riders who I am sure did not enjoy such unpleasant cover stories such as that one. I wasn't driving yet, so this had to be around 1987 or so, a couple of years before the movie found distribution. But myself and lots of horror fans were excited by that article, stoked even. The article painted the picture of a slasher film that brought a European sensibility to the proceedings and turned the gore up past the breaking point. But when the movie finally surfaced, that is not what we got.
Instead we got a stylish, but intensely watered down movie that was missing all the gore footage. An R rated slasher film that really satisfied no one involved. The fans were appalled and the filmmakers themselves felt like they were boned. For years the movie was impossible to see unless you went to the bootleg market. There were copies from Japanese imports that were the most complete but looked terrible. Eventually Charles Band put out a lackluster, full frame DVD that at least put a uncut DVD on the market, even if it looked terrible.
So it is like a gift to all horror fanatics who have waited since the late 80's that Synapse have taken the time to properly care for this movie and put out a definative edition that not only restores it to the full uncut edition but have gone back to the original elements to present it in the best possible quality. This is the best this movie will ever look, and it looks gorgeous. Granted it was never a "pretty" movie to begin with, but it finally looks like it was intented, in the proper ratio, with all the colors accurately toned and graded.
For those few not in the know the movie revolves around a crew of young folks working the late shift at a grocery store. One of the young ladies has a psychotic ex-boyfriend who is causing her problems which sets the stage for a tense showdown early on in the movie, so when people start being stalked and killed all fingers point to him. And people aren't just getting slashed, they are getting whacked in the most gory and brutal ways, using the tools of the store, such as the meat cutting machines, hooks and other impliments. The story is amazingly slight, but director Scott Speigel who cut his teeth working with Sam Raimi milks it for the most by ramming his camera into places that no one else would ever think to put it, like inside grocery cars, or inside phones. He cribs lots of his style from the Italian horror masters but makes it work for him, twisting mood where other movies of this ilk generally wouldn't bother. He also has a rather likable cast, especially with his leading ladies Renee Estevez and Elizabeth Cox (who we learn on the disc was dating first time producer Lawrence Bender!) The Detroit crew of Sam Raimi,Ted Raimi and Bruce Campbell all make apparences too.
But the real stars of the movie are the effects by the newly formed KNB effects team. This was their first film out the gate and even though they had next to no money to spend their really shine. Which made the editing of their work all these years a real crying shame. Which is yet another reason this disc is such a welcome addition to any horror fan's collection as you can finally see these guys innaugral work in all its blood splashing glory. That band saw bisection STILL is one of the most savage, hard to watch kill scenes in any slasher movie, ever.
The extras on the disc are very enlighting to the plight the film went through to not only get made, but that long, hard road to finally be seen uncut. There is a spunky and fun commentary. Speigel has particiapted in lots of commentaries of other films and he is always a delight to listen to, so it is extra fun to get to hear him finally talk about this project that is so close to his heart. He is paired with producer Lawrence Bender who has gone on to produce some of the most profitbale indie films of all time with Quintin Tarantino so his perspective on doing this ultra low budget indie horror is unique and very insightful. The Behind the scenes featurette covers some of the same territory, but has a whole bunch of the other key players involved. So everyone has their say, making for a well rounded and very interesting look at how it all went down. Most interesting to me is how Charles Band ended up with the film and was forced to hand it over to Paramount leaving it to be cut to the R rated. That is the information I think a lot of horror fans will want to know as well. There is a short with bits from the workprint that believe it or not has MORE gore, and also bits and pieces from what has survived from the initial super 8 film that was shown to investors to raise money for the project. One of my favorites a very short bit that has the director of the movie A BETTER PLACE remembering how his angry letter to FANGORA detailing how the movie was cut was printed ended up netting him an uncut tape of the film sent from Scott Speilgel himself! A nice extra for those of us who remember reading that angry letter all those years ago!
So if you even consider yourself a marginal slasher movie fan, or 80's splatter fan you need this set. No excuses, this is the movie that is missing from your shelf. Get it now.
Another offering in the Asian Cult Cinema line
for Synapse Films; this new film from Japan is atmospheric and has
some startling images sprinkled throughout. But unfortunately it is
not the strongest release they have put out from the Far East.
Borrowing heavily from THE RING and other ghost films popular in
Japan then welding them to the the teen slasher cycle that had burned
itself out in the late 90's, GUROZUKA never really comes to life on
its own terms.
The film begins with two twenty-something
young women who find a startling 8mm video tape that shows a Goh
performance that ends with the performers murdering each other. Then these girls and a whole other gang of young
ladies go on a road trip together. They are part of a movie club going to a remote house to make a short film together based on the
rumors of the former club members disappearance. Naturally the killing on the tape and
those missing girls are linked. Soon the ghostly Goh masked killer
from the tape is spooking his (or her) way around the woods and cabin
picking off the girls as they try to figure out how it all fits
together.
The movie is as much,if not more, a teen
mystery, as a horror movie and is surprisingly tame, even once the blood
splattered climax approaches. There is no nudity, and though there is
some violence, it is not particularly outlandish as one would come to
expect from Asian cinema. The set up of the film reminded me a lot
of the movie EVIL DEAD TRAP but never reaches those heights of fear
or delirium. In fact I kind of wonder if this wasn't aimed at a youth
audience in Japan, with the cast of pretty young girls, but extreme
lack of exploitation. If that is the case, the movie works ok, though is a bit on the slow side. If it is intended to be a film aimed at adults, then it is too little to really satisfy.
The film is certainly well made enough,
but as far as Asian horror goes this is kind of middle of the road.
The disc comes with a fun behind the
scenes and a trailer.
KILLER YACHT PARTY (2010)
D. Piotr Uzarowicz
TROMA
1.78 non-anamorphic
From the name of the director of this flick you would assume you are getting some foreign slasher action. But the first ten minutes are some L.A. hipster insider look at the club scene. Sort of a how to get into a sleaze club and how it works from the inside. That should be the first sign you have been had. Two fresh on the streets of L.A chicks hit the scene trying to party, one "hot" blonde named Lacee and her "plain" friend named appropriately enough Jane. We see how to pay off the door man, how to let the owner of the club grope you for drinks, how the hot guys deal drugs and how it just doesn't fuckin pay to be plain cause in L.A. that means you are a "dog" and you wont get in free anywhere. Somehow the babe still get invited the Yacht party the next day where some dude who looks like a reject from the TWILIGHT Movies is hanging around the sideline obviously waiting to do something nefarious. Not to mention the really pissed off Gen-X drug dealers that were thrown out of the club who are gonna have to get some action of their own. Could be a KILLER YACHT PARTY.OH SHIT!!!
So the whole interchangeable cast end up out on the water on the yacht we later find out is supposedly haunted by the ghost of its owner that was killed in some insurance scam. We get an interminable amount of walking down hallways, partying down, and conversations to convince us that Jane is oh so plain and not compatible because she does things like read books and doesn't want to be int he spotlight. A weird thing is that the movie is chocked full of L.A. styled bimbos but none of them take their clothes off or do their duty to fill the movie with skin and sin. The movie takes itself way too seriously, never committing to being the exploitation movie that it really is. The one very brief nude scene has the gal sitting on the toilet for crying out loud. Well maybe some Troma fans are into that type of thing...
"Oh bitch you is so damn Plain! Your name is probably Jane! see this movie is clever like that!"
It is 47 minutes before the first death scene happens and nothing is shown. At least the first dude to die isn't the only black guy in the cast, that is one of the ONLY clichés the movie doesn't hit. Supposedly this is a slasher movie, or a supernatural thriller, but it spends far more time with characters walking around, or moping about because they are having a shitty night, than it does attempting to thrill in anyway. The movie falls into a very rote pattern of terrible kill scene, then back to the disco party, then more characters walking around looking for a place to fuck, then kill scene, disco, walking around. Repeat. The editing on the kill scenes is so terrible, the dancing so bad and the walking so boring that NONE of it matters at all.
A movie like this needs something special to set it apart. An interesting premise, a memorable killer, or at least a sense of viciousness that makes horror fans want to seek it out. KILLER YACHT PARTY has none of these things. It does however offer a reasonably well mounted production where the cinematography is nicely done, with beautiful lighting all the way around for the entire film. I can at least say that much about it. It is professionally mounted and would look good on, say, cable television. But in the areas where this kind of thing needs to count, the movie falls down more than a toddler learning to walk for the first time. In fact it is a struggle to get through.
One last thought. The final reveal on who the killer is would actually be kind of offensive if the movie around it was better made, but here it is not a surprise at all and just lame.
Day thirteen of the September Exploitation Challenge:
SS CAMP 5: WOMEN’S HELL (1977) D. Sergio Garrone Media Blasters/ Exploitation Digital 1.85
This late entry in the Nazisploitation sub-genre is fairly tame when compared to some of it’s brethren like THE BEAST IN HEAT or even the first ILSA film. In fact the first hour or so of SS CAMP 5: WOMEN’S HELL is actually kind of dull despite the fact it is chocked full of shower scenes and naked ladies. The pacing is just kind of lackluster and languid, never really bothering to grab a forward motion. All the elements are there, the Lesbian warden, the shower scenes, the Nazi experimentation. But the film just is too staid and lush to really have the nerve it needs to be truly aggressive.
"Apparently it was all dancing on the table and fun during WWII."
This in spite of the fact that it opens with a really tasteless succession of photos of real holocaust images with the credits super imposed. So the first images we see are piles of human bodies being pushed into pits or ovens reminding us this is a reality based thing. then next we meet a group of women played by actresses all way to healthy to actually be prisoners of war in an actual concentration camp. These gals are being hauled it to be trained to be prostitutes for the Third Reich including a feisty black gal who will become the hero of the story. We also meet a trio of scientists, including one Aryan soldier/doctor who will take a shine to the Black gal, one die hard German scientist and a Jew who is there as a prisoner with his beautiful Daughter (who looks a lot like Anna Paquin). The typical stuff happens. several girls plot an escape attempt that you just know is going to go wrong when they mention the escape route is through one of the ovens that has a crack on the other side.
"This gal made for an impressive hero by the end of the movie. Even if she did do a seductive dance with a banana."
The Black gal seduces said Aryan Scientist with a Booga Booga Jungle dance with a banana tied to her nude waist and he is instantly in love (no I am not making this shit up!). They talk racial politics before and after they have sex, explaining how he feels his Aryan pride because he feels like he is owning her until he will have to kill her on “Victory Day”! Eventually the really angry Soldier (who looks like a cross between Kojack and Vic Diaz from those Filipino movies) tortures a bunch of girls who he thinks helped mastermind the escape attempt. This scene is especially nasty and brutal and really turns the movie around from what was basically a slow going and silly sexploitation movie to a really crunchy, ugly exploitation flick. Heads are crushed, a gal is gutted with ninja claws, fingernails are pulled out and the last girl has her tongue pulled clean out of her head after being whipped! Suddenly we are in the land of no return as This dude starts tearing through the cast, raping/impregnating the Jewish daughter, and causing general mischief.
"This guy is not going to make it very long for crossing this boundary! You can kill thousands
of Jews, and commit genocide, but perform Abortions and your days are numbered!"
Then suddenly the movie takes a shard right turn into Right To Life land as the daughter wants an abortion and her Daddy tries to talk her out of it with a speech about spreading the blood of the righteous to everyone in the world (that doesn’t sound all that different than the propaganda the Nazi’s were selling pops!). When he walks in on her getting an abortion he goes apeshit and tries to kill the doctor! Whoa, I think I know where he goes to church at!
"Suddenly Max Hardcore takes over the directing of the movie."
It all boils to a head with a revolution and the Russians invading, and we get a bit of a history lesson AND a big gunfight too.
"I think this is actually a shot from my friend's basement..."
So all in all, though it starts off rocky, SS CAMP 5: WOMEN’S HELL gains it’s footing in the second half and is worth taking a look at for the fans of this low on the totem pole sub-genre. It is not the best of the bunch by any stretch, but one could do worse too. The disc from Media Blasters certainly looks nice, and has an fun interview and some other Nazisploitation trailers.
DRIVE-IN MASSACRE (1977) D. Stu Segall Chilling Classics 50 Pack Full Frame
The IMDB lists this movie as coming out in 1977 but man it feels like it was made way earlier as this has a real H.G. Lewis vibe. People at a drive-in theater are being killed by a sword wielding madman. Usually lovers (who oddly enough almost never are getting naked and the women seem to always have just announced they are pregnant!) who make the mistake of sticking their head out of the care a little too far, and WHAM they lose their heads. Two bumbling, kinda overweight cops are put on the case (well actually they appear to be the ONLY cops that actually work in all of L.A.) and start investigating the Drive-in. They meet the quirky, perpetually pissed off manager Austin (Newten Naushaus, something tells me that is not this guy's real name!) who wont let them get a word in edgewise between his rage fueled rants. With his loud polyester suits, shiny chrome dome and neatly trimmed beard he is a crazy looking motherfucker anyway, but when he starts ranting and raving about how he never leavers the theater, how he can get out of the projection booth and has to do all the work himself, he has a gleam in his eye of a man truly bonkers. When the retarded grounds keeper named, appropriately enough, Germy (Douglas Gudbye) Austin really looses his shit.
Here he is folks. The BIGGEST ASSHOLE in all of exploitation film history!
He HATES Germy like the Nazis hate the Jews! Seems they both used to work at the owner's Carnival until he closed it down and turned it into the Drive-in. Germy is so simple he is just glad to have a job, though he misses his geek and sword swallowing days. Austin is still pissed off cause he never quite mastered the sword swallowing gags (But ya kinda wonder if he was doing some other sword swallowing behind closed doors if ya catch my meaning, and I think you do! Oh wait he don't have TIME for stuff like that! He has to do freakin EVERYTHING at this place!). Germy helps the cops peg a peeping tom in the lot who might be the killer so they dress up as a husband and wife to try to spot if he is killing folks, which leads to crazy jokes and some hapless head rolling gore.
These cops are as clueless as Germy here.
(SPOILERS AHEAD)
Eventually Germy has enough of Austin and his nasty spiteful shit and corners him in the projection booth. At the same moment the rather dull cops realize that Austin "Doesn't have to stay in the projection booth all the time, he can leave during the reels!" in one of the most insightful detective moments of these bumblers lives. They rush there to see a silhouette of Austin being gored on the big screen. The ONLY time we actually see the screen I might add! This takes place at the drive-in but we never see the screen or what is playing! But when the doofus cops enter the room they discover both of those crazy cats dead and an on screen legend tells us the killer got away and is in the theater RIGHT NOW! Bwah ha ha ha!!! You gotta love those seventies open ended finales.
He wont be starring in the THROAT GAGGERS porn series any time soon.
This movie was obviously made for about twelve bucks with an eye to capitalize on the success of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE which was heating up drive-in screens all over the US. The gore is plentiful, the dialogue pitiful, and the production design non existent. Most of the direction consists of sitting the camera down and letting it roll, ala the H.G. Lewis approach.
The movie was co-written by George "Buck" Flower who was an exploitation stalwart in the 70's and he gives himself a juice role midway through as the cops think they have found their man in a warehouse. This psycho has a teenage girl hostage and is planning to cut her up with a machete. The movie turns into a whole different film for about ten minutes, but the scene pays off with an incredible revelation and bit of dialogue that is worth waiting for.
She learned the hard way that they were playing DEEP THROAT.
This is seriously fun trash for the seventies lover in all of us.Not on any legit DVD as of right now, but tons of those multi-packs have it sourced from the long out of print Magnum VHS.
The Halloween Horror Challenge continues. We took this in the same day as PONTYPOOL. Quite the polar opposite...
ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE (2006) D. Jonathan Levine Weinstein Company 2.35
This movie has been sitting on the shelf at the Weinstein Company for almost three years now. It has been released all over the rest of the world without problems, so it isn't a content issue or music rights or some bullshit like that. No one seems to really know why it is just sitting there. Except that the Weinsteins are notorious for picking up films and just squatting on them. But after seeing this one, I can't say it is a huge loss to the movie going community.
There is nothing wrong with a slasher movie that is clever. But there is something seriously wrong with a slasher movie that the filmmakers THINK is clever but it is anything but. I can give this one credit for not trying to be one of those post SCREAM bullshit jobs where everyone quotes other movies, and tries to let the audience in on the joke pretending everyone involved is better than the genre. At least it isn't trying to do that. But that is a small favor in the lager cache of things. Slasher movies have never been the smartest genre, but now that they try to appeal to the same teen crowd that watch the kind of shit that is on teen TV, they have sunk to depths of low that scrape the bottom in ways we have never thought possible. This movie is prime example of that.
Mandy Lane in all her pouty glory. All the boys want her you know!
The movie revolves strictly around the character of Mandy Lane played by (who to me looks like a poor mans Amber HeardScarlett Johanson minus the boobs). The gimmick here is that Mandy Lane is perfect in every single way. All the boys want to fuck her so bad that they are in solidarity about it and work together to create plans to do it. All the teen girls are so in awe of her that they are all her friends and follow her everywhere she goes. But she is no HEATHERS style conceited snob. No way! She is an angelic, perfect, virgin, shot with soft filters, and slow motion, that is too good for this Earth. And that is ALL her characteristics. All we learn about her as a character is that her parents died in a car crash when she was little and she was raised by her Aunt. That's it. Her angelic beauty is supposed to fill in for her lack of any kind of character insight, which would be fine, if there was a twist in the tail that was so important later on. But anyway, because of her perfection everyone thinks she is the bees knees and do crazy things to be near her, even though she doesn't do anything much at all in response. She has a best friend, who is the class outcast. All the other boys in school beat him up and try to drown him at the local parties (you know homicidal horseplay). So in retaliation he talks to biggest dousche of them all into jumping off the roof to impress Mandy in the movie's most impressive scene. No one likes this emo kid after that though. Well except me, cause I thought it was pretty cool.
Don't get excited kids, this doesn't go where it totally should go!
So six months later all the cool kids decide to go to the Jewish kid's local farm to drink and get high and hopefully fuck the shit out of Mandy Lane. Her buddy is now the school pariah, even she is not talking to him. So he is not invited. They all go up there and three montages of all the kids smoking pot later (I am not kidding) they are off and running wild with someone killing them. Here is the dumb thing though. After two of them are killed, the film totally reveals that the killer is the best friend character (who is also such a dork, that it is really hard to believe he could over power a couple of the other guys). So any sense of mystery is out the window. More time is spent with the drunken shenanigans, the girls bitching and making fun of each other and talking about fucking. There is one boob shot but it is very brief. By the climax of the movie it is clear the filmmakers were trying to make a movie about how this teenager has become some sort of spree killer ala Charles Starkweater or something. But by approaching the first half like a BEVERLY HILLS 90210 episode mixed with a slasher movie it just doesn't work. To do a movie exploring how someone becomes a spree killer, you need to try to include some depth of character. This has NONE. Hell even UWE BOLL'S HEART OF AMERICA managed to get that right. And everyone hates that guy (actually I don't, but most everyone else does). Then they trot out the twists, not one but TWO. Each one negating everything you have seen up to the point before it. So they are not clever, in fact the twists are ANTI-CLEVER. They actually kind of make your head hurt as they go on, sort of like you ate a whole bunch of pop rocks at once and maybe a few of them got stuck in your sinus cavity or something. You can feel your brain cells just popping away...POP...POP...POP.
An example of that beautiful cinematography I was talking about.
Which is weird because this thing is beautifully shot. The cinematography is gorgeous. It was shot in Texas and they picked plenty of beautiful landscapes to use and framed it all wonderfully. Some of the shots would make beautiful still photographs. Just on a visual level the movie is well directed and always nice to look at, though the editing is really weird. There are side wipes used often, sort of like an old TV show, which are really out of place. Then when the kill scenes happen it is like Rob Zombie took over editing. The rest of the movie is edited one specific way, then the kill scenes are edited like music videos, with flash cuts, hyper fast editing, shock freeze frames etc. It is over stylization just for the sake of it and is simply just stupid.
But this is a movie that doesn't even have the guts to fulfill the sleaze that it pertains to want to dip into. For a movie that is about how all the characters want to fuck someone, it is about as chaste as it can get. The characters talk a big game, one character gets an off screen hand-job and blow job. As I mentioned earlier one blond bimbo shows her boobs all too quickly. But that is it. There is a moment where Mandy and the other blond look like they are going to make out, it is even set up as the other girl gives Mandy a pill to loosen her up. But then the filmmakers chicken out completely and have the boys interrupt them. This is that kind of movie. Where it is perfectly okay to show a girl get a shotgun rammed down her throat because she just gave a guy a blow job moments before, but wont show two girls kiss. But boy it will try to look edgy and sexy by talking a lot of crap about sex. It will even show -gasp- girls in their bras showing off their navel rings!!! Oh no! How naughty! One girl even trims her pubic hair, but we don't really see that either.
