FEMALE TEACHER: DIRTY AFTERNOON (1981)
D. Ketchitaro Negishi
IMPULSE PICTURES/SYNAPSE FILMS
2.35-1
Anamorphic
Number eight in the Nikkatsu Erotic Films Collection from Impulse pictures treads on the potentially hazardous "horny teacher" sub genre with quite unexpected results. What appears to be a simple, and pretty normal, sexploiter ends up being something altogether more serious.
A High School Teacher named Sakiko (Yuki Kazamatsuri) gets a call during sex from the police station. One of her students is in big trouble. She heads down to find waifish Sueko (Ayako Ota) being held for prostitution. They have a frank conversation as to why Sueko likes sleeping with strangers and part ways. But Sakiko begins to care for the girl and does some research on her backgroud, when she isn't nailing her own boyfriend that is. But in digging up the past, some memories that she would prefer to be buried come to the surface. Sakiko remembers being raped at a construction site by a guy with paint thinner on him (from huffing it). She begins to obsess over the rape and how it has affected her current, somewhat loveless relationships.
SPOILERS AHEAD
But Sakiko discovers that the person she fingered for the rape and had put away is most likely NOT the person who did it. Seems someone else was raped after this man when to jail for a short while. She also discovers the person whom she did put away is Sueko's disabled father. Soon a bond forms between the woman and the Father as he slowly goes crazy.
Though the plot line is undeniably sleazy, the film itself, especially for a Nikkatsu Roman Porno title, is very restrained. There is a lot of nudity and sex, as to be expected, but as the movie rolls forward it becomes more and more of a straight drama. The rape angle is just there as a plot device and soon put to the wayside so the story of this crazy old man and his new female friend can unfold. It really is a cross generation love story based in guilt and shame.
As to be expected with these Synapse produced discs, the picture and subtitles are impeccable. There is some useful liner notes from our friend Jasper Sharpe as well.
Review © Andrew Copp
ADAM CHAPLIN (2010)
D. EMANUELLE DE SANTI
AUTONOMY PICTURES /NECROSTORM FILMS
1.78 HD
This is Italian language, low budget gorefest is pretty damned impressive. Sure the story lack in a few areas, and there is zero characterization on board for most of the leads. But it makes up for the faults with boatloads of style, and more bloodshed than any recent movie I can name. It is like a LOONY TUNES movie with action and gore effects.
Writer, Producer and Director Emanuelle De Santi stars as the title character. A musclebound brute of a man (who has no past) who is avenging the death of his girlfriend. His girl was killed my monster/mutant/gangster Derek -Giulio De Santi (all the characters have deceivingly normal names) when she was late with money owed to him. Derek and his two sons set her on fire in a convincingly unpleasant sequence. The opening credits roll over her being wheeled into the hospital and worked on, her entire body one crisp and molten wad of skin.
So Adam has not quite willingly called up a Demon that lives inside his back that helps drive him to find revenge. This demon also has given him supernatural powers that make him able to do things like punch a guy so hard he breaks though the cement wall, a half mile outside the building, sending him landing on, and destroying the car the villains are in. When Adam Chaplin hits someone their face explodes, gore showers everything. If someone tries to look at the demon their eyes burn out of their heads.
Imagine the gore of DEAD/ALIVE being met with the brutality of STORY OF RIKKI and you are in the ballpark or ADAM CHAPLIN. I have no idea what the budget for the film is, but I know it is low, extremely low. But the production value is up on screen, the stunts, fights and special effects are all top of the line. Watching the final fifteen minutes where the main character lays waste to dozens of people, all I could keep thinking was "what could this guy do with a larger budget?"
Highly recommended. Right now it is doing a scant few theatrical engagements but will be hitting USA DVD very soon. If you see a chance to see this, jump on it.
Review © Andy Copp
SUICIDE (2003)
D. Raul Heimrich Yvonne Wunschell
TROMA
S.O.V.
This shocker from Kosovo has been sitting on my shelf for the better part of 8 years. For whatever reason I have never gotten around to watching it until now. There is not much plot to it, a couple are wandering around video taping suicides for their death website. At first just through word of mouth, then as news of the site grows they get more and more people asking them to come witness their death. The more self inflicted killing they see the more tempted they become to lend a helping hand for the sake of good footage. Leading to a final death that is truly shocking because it is so fucking difficult to see where the special effects are.
The movie is basically a voyeuristic journey into death and hinges on which vignette is the most effective. It opens with a man walking up a long flight of stairs explaining to the camera the dozens of ways you could kill yourself and why he wont do any of those. He finally is about to jump off the ledge but can't bring himself to do it, running away. And slipping and falling out of a hole in the floor and severing his head on the way down. But it is his nonchalant discussion of suicide that is the creepiest part of the scene. A later scene with two girls in their 20's overdosing on pills is extremely harrowing and grim. The blonde girl keeps swigging vodka and taking more pills only to vomit them up (for real) immediately) while her girlfriend does not get sick, only sleepy and then finally dies. There is a guy who eats a shotgun but they cut away before impact thus blowing the whole feeling and making it too easy to see it is an effect. The guy who injects an air bubble into his vein is quite nasty too. And that one is all just acting. The movie gets all the details right; the ritualistic way each person takes off their wedding rings and watches, the difficulty in getting certain suicides to work, how each person panics at the end when they realize the true fatality of the situation. It is grim stuff folks.
Overall this is really just a freak show, but it is undeniable how effective of a freak show it is. It reminded me of the 70's experimental film TEENAGE WASTELAND in which a realistic car crash aftermath is presented as totally real. The same thing is happening here. Certainly not for all tastes, hell even most tastes for that matter. But the movie achieves what it has set out to do.
Review © Andrew Copp
WE'RE GOING TO EAT YOU (1980)
D. TSUI HARK
MEDIA BLASTERS
1.85
This early entry from Hong Kong wizard boy Tsui Hark is full of energy, kung fu and some splashy gore. But it uses those things to mask that there is very little plot, no scares and tons of goofy comedy in the mix as well. It is as hyperactive as you would expect from this director and equally incoherent. But there is some fun to be had amidst the chaos.
Norman Chu (once again as we saw him as the lead in LEWD LIZARD. No, I did not intentionally have a Norman Chu double feature!) plays special Agent 999 who is on a small island looking for a criminal from his past named ROLEX (Melvin Wong). The island is overrun by mask wearing cannibals under order of the new chief of police. They are killing and eating people and giving a little of the left over meat to the mentally handicapped and poor villagers.
While this is a set up for a no holds barred gore fest, the movie instead chooses to be a slapstick comedy with lots of martial arts. The cannibals all fight with a series of people in long, drawn out, intricate Kung Fu sequences that play more like demo reels for another film job. There is also a strange use of real handicapped and deformed people for bit parts, under most circumstances I would be fine with this, but here they are often used a comedic relief such as the giant transvestite that keeps attempting to rape the various men in the story. It just comes off as poor taste.
If you can turn off your expectations the movie is very fast paced and rarely boring. There is a couple of fight scenes that lead to some splashy gore and yest even a few laughs. But over all it should have been a lot more.
Review © Andrew Copp
LEWD LIZARD (1985) aka CHONG
D. Norman Chu
REALLY shitty bootleg
This bit of total insanity from your friends in Hong Kong is easily one of the most outrageous ideas for a movie that I have witnessed in some time. A total gross out sexploitaion horror hybrid that aims to get a retching sound out of most anyone. Anyone but those with lizard fetishes that is.
The tortured insanity that passes as plot is as follows. A young man (played by director Norman Chu) is spurned by his cute girlfriend because she has run off and married the local Mafiaso. She explains to him that she was more or less pushed into the marriage, but doesn't love his dumb ass anyway. She is much better off now. So while in a major depression our hero is hanging out on the beach and discovers dozens of tiny little lizards. No bigger than your pinky finger these guys are fast and unpredictable. So Chu scoops them up and take a whole bunch of them home. Then suddenly he is peeping on women undressing, taking showers or hanging out at the beach. Why is he doing this? I am glad you asked because I asked the same question watching this filthy movie. He is stealing the panties of unsuspecting ladies. Stopping to sniff them to make sure they are saturated with the love juices of the women he stole them from. Soon it all makes sense as he uses the panties to concoct a potion that he then injects into the lizards (for real, yet another Hong Kong horror that PETA would love) sending the reptiles into a frenzy of pussy crazed lust!
He stalks out various women that have spurned him, laughed at him or just generally pissed him off and attacks them. Pulling off there clothes in what looks to be a vicious rape. But instead he just dumps a beaker of the lizards onto the ladies and presto! They crawl into the women's underwear and right into the baby ovens.
Soon the ladies are writing around in pleasure as the phantom reptiles go to work. But as the women screech into ecstasy the lizards begin to eat they wear further into their supple bodies. Chu eventually meets a girl he doesn't hate (during one of the earlier scenes he screams out "I HATE ALL WOMEN"!) and they spend a day of happy romance. But she finds a jar of his sex addict lizards and all does not end well for her. Eventually he gets around to tormenting his ex, but some soul searching may be in order.
Frankly the movie is terrible, terrible acting, writing, direction and even cinematography, But what it lacks in coherency or even talent, it makes up for with sheer audacity. I guarantee you have not seen a movie like this one before. If you have you have been sinking into some fetishes that you probably shouldn't.
Review © Andrew Copp
THE BEASTS aka SHAN KOU aka THE BEASTS AND BLOODY TERROR (1980)
D. DENNIS YU
Bootleg
This Asian made horror film is basically I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE meets THE HILLS HAVE EYES in the Chinese outback. The film is gritty, ugly and filled with unpleasant misogyny, but ultimately isn't all that good.
Within the first five minutes of the movie we have witnessed the real slaughter of a wild boar, a mouse and a snake. The movie is nothing if not really mean spirited. A brother and sister decide to go camping a few towns away. It doesn't take long for them to run afoul of the backwoods monsters who are terrorizing the small town. There are four normal guys and naturally one retarded cousin just like in every rape/revenge movie. These guys corner the sister in the woods and gang-rape her in a scene that, while sleazy, is for more restrained than you would expect. Her brother attempts to take on the thugs but they do him in, leaving him bleeding to death at the bottom of a trap/hole.
The sister ends up institutionalized from the trauma, leaving her muscle bound Father to hunt down and kill the criminal who violated his daughter and killed his son.
The problem with THE BEASTS is that the pacing is really all over the place. Nothing of interest happens in the first half hour except a lot of walking around to 80's pop music. Music that they in no way could have had permission to use such as AIR SUPPLY and THE POLICE.
THe last third with the Father taking his revenge has some splashy moments, but all the in between material is very questionable at best. The acting is atrocious and over the top, the cinematography is muddy and ugly, leaving not a lot to recommend. It is somewhat outrageous but ultimateely left me cold.
Review © Andy Copp
RAPE OF THE VAMPIRE aka LA VIOL DU VAMPIRE (1968)
D. JEAN ROLLIN
KINO - BLU RAY
1.78
Jean Rollin is one of my favorite horror filmmakers of all time. But even with that said there are a handful of his films that I have not seen. But these new BLU RAY releases from KINO look to help me resolve that issue.
RAPE OF THE VAMPIRE is Rollin's first feature length movie (His debut film THE NUDE VAMPIRE is not quite feature length). But all his themes are present in this early film. The nostalgic mood, the return to the same beach, Lady Vampires in very little clothing, even his trope of the Vampires are not hurt by the sun if they cannot see it, hence blind vampires can walk in the daylight, is here and accounted for. The film is actually two very loosely connected short films wrapped into one.
The first story deals with four vampire sisters (one of whom was raped decades before and therefor hates men) who live in a villa. Several psych major young people arrive and take it upon themselves to "cure" the sisters as it is believed their Vampirism is actually just a mental condition. It doesn't turn out well for anyone. The second story picks up on the beach where the first one ends and deals with the Queen of The Vampires and her attempts to create more living dead to do her bidding and the scientists she does in during the process.
Even for Rollin the movie makes little to no sense. It is really just a fever dream of eroticism. Incredible, lush photography presents amazing images of naked flesh and bloodlust. The whole thing is like a half remembered dream that makes you smile.
The Blu Ray is absolutely gorgeous, with such clarity you feel like you can reach into the screen and touch the actors. There is some fine extras including a rather long making of, an older intro by Rollin himself, trailers and some fantastic Liner Notes.
Review © Andrew Copp
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