Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Not a Love Story: A Film About Pornography (1981, Bonnie Sherr Klein)

This really isn't a film about pornography, but some extremely biased, man-hating, anti-porn propaganda that is intent on portraying the entire 'erotica' industry in an abusive, S&M level light.

A couple of female journalists - one of whom is a stripper fed up with the business - conduct a series of interviews with various figures along the numerous rungs of the smut ladder. Magazine editors, male and female porn actors, peep show performers, club owners, etc. Their goal is to blow the lid off and expose the biz as immoral and, especially, dehumanizing toward women. Yeah, that old noise...

The whole time you're only getting half the story, along with a "strippers are people too" incentive and all kinds of feminist outrage and ignorant bull dyke Nazi-babbling. At one point, one of the dumb broads goes into an BDSM porn booth and comes out all disgusted and disturbed after watching a portion of a video called "Beat the Bitch" and asks the owner if there are any films that show people "making love". Then he offers her some much more tamed down porn and she's STILL bitching about the woman looking like she's being hurt! After that the women take to the streets of San Francisco and start 'soap-boxing' in front of a strip club about the objectification of women, while carefully editing around any guy that happens to come up to sensibly and level-headedly dispute their contention.

So, yeah. "Not a Love Story: A Film About Pornography" barely explores anything other than dense bra-burners thinking that pornography is the root of all evil and that men - a.k.a. the "sole consumers", according these dingbats - are just sick in the head and need some unsexy feminist to come along and change them. In that regard, I'd say this film is certainly worth seeing just because it's so ridiculous, plus they just so happen to throw a LOT of "explicit" material into it so the movie ironically ends up being more pornographic than not. Good job, ladies!

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Drillbit (1992, Alex Chandon)


"Drillbit" is a fun, short, early SOV gore-flick effort from indie UK film maker Alex Chandon (The Sick Room, Inbred). Nothing phenomenal, but for a 30 minute little splatter-punk joint, it's an enjoyable watch...

In a post-apocalyptic future, most of the world has been infected with AIDS which has caused a complete societal breakdown. Then a new drug hits the market that's suppose to be the total cure for AIDS. Turns out, it turns people into zombie-like mutants. A nay-sayer's family is found and brutally murdered by a couple of goons who proceed to kick his ass and pierce his skull with a power-drill. He survives, but the chunk of drillbit lodged in his brain causes him to go berserk and seek revenge against the degenerate stragglers in this crumbled civilization...

The film is VERY cheap looking. No doubt shot on camcorder. Even the text scroll at the beginning is clearly just the kinda shit you could apply manually right on your VHS recorder back in the day. Some of the gore effects are decent. Not GREAT, but passable. There's a strange, 'trippy' scene where a guy transforms into a slimy, puke-spewing creature in the middle of a dance club. Also, a guy gets butt-fucked with a machete and, of course, the stand-out moment that is surly the weirdest, most unexpected thing I could've imagined from something like this... There's a brief moment toward the end where a mutant with a giant, shitting asshole for a head and the biggest, jizz spurting dick I've ever seen is shown devouring a dead woman's entrails. I'd say, just check out "Drillbit" for this amazing "what the fuck!" moment alone! Oh, and Jim Van Bebber does the over-the-top narration that often makes the movie sound like it's just a long movie trailer. I dunno. Anyways, it's some amusing, gory, cheapie shit.

The Bloodstained Butterfly (1971, Duccio Tessari)


By my exceedingly finicky standards, "The Bloodstained Butterfly" is a bit on the erroneously tame side in terms of my particular 'giallo' preference. That's not to say it's a BAD film, overall. Far from it, in fact, I just usually tend to favor the 'harder' forms of this genre, that's all...

Like many 'gialli' films, the plot is a pretty involved and convoluted, but the gist is: a 17 year-old French girl is found murdered in a park while a mysterious man in an overcoat is seen fleeing the general area. From there, the hunt for the killer is on as we follow the forensic inquest and trial of the guy whom they eventually deem guilty of the crime. Of course, after he's locked up, another murder victim turns up. Did they get the wrong man or do they have a copy cat on their hands?

The plot here is solid and mostly interesting for being more of a court-drama than anything else. This certainly is not a "Case of the Bloody Iris" or "Don't Torture a Duckling" (a couple of my favorites) type of 'gialli' flick - but more of a murder-mystery, melodrama. It's more along the lines of "The Flower with the Deadly Sting". Not a bloodbath or sleaze-fest, but intriguing enough if you're a die-hard fan of this genre. I wouldn't put myself in that category, though I do appreciate a well constructed story, but a little more carnage with it typically keeps me more enthralled. Just my own personal propensity for bloodshed. Sorry...

"The Bloodstained Butterfly" is a slow one and not totally my cup o' tea, but, like I said, for 'gialli' completists, it'll probably go over pretty big...

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Vase de Noces (1975, Thierry Zéno)

"Vase de Noces" - a.k.a "The Pig Fucking Movie" - a.k.a "Wedding Trough" - has become rather notorious among the cinema underground as it's been making it's rounds these past few years. Of course, filthy zoophilia-themed movies are something I can never and WILL never shy away from, so I finally got a chance to check it out and, while it's got enough pigs and the fucking of them, I must say it was a little dull for my taste and quite tame considering the standout alternate title...

The whole movie revolves around a retarded farmer who's clearly in love with his pig. As you can imagine, he rails the pig, she gives birth to piglets with a disappointing lack of human-like features (they're just normal piglets) and he attempts to care for them as a "father". There's lots of animal footage - chickens running around and turkey's having sex. Eventually, the farmer starts hanging the piglets, which upsets Mama Pig so much that she drowns herself. The farmer looses his mind entirely and starts jarring, boiling and eating his own feces before killing himself...

So yeah, it's got the 'weirdness' factor and the 'shocking' and 'taboo' elements going for it which I'd say makes it worthy of seeking out if you're into that kinda thing. The shit-eating was the shining moment over the simulated pig fucking, if you ask me. As just an "arthouse" piece, it's got a strangely stimulating 'draw' to it for the most part. However, it does go on MUCH longer than I felt it should have. Perhaps 80 minutes was a bit lengthy for something of this fairly monotone caliber. It got a little tedious around certain points that could've easily have been cut out. Still, while not a total masterpiece, there is a compelling 'tone' to the film in the way it feels almost post-apocalyptic and other-worldly in terms of the landscape and 'one man show' consistency. If you dig strange "art films" and don't mind some boring, overly long bullshit, you should seek out "Vase de Noces". Just don't buy into the hype of it being the "most shocking film ever". Not by a long shot!

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

The Burning Moon (1997, Olaf Ittenbach)

Olaf Ittenbach's "The Burning Moon" is pretty top-notch 'German-gore' in my humble opinion. The premise is utter dog shit, but the amount, and - above all - QUALITY of gore in this one sold me pretty quick...

A teenage junkie punk spikes his vein after his parents leave for the night and goes to his sister's room to tell her some bedtime stories. The first one is called "Julia's Love" and it's about a chick who goes on a blind date with a freshly escaped mental patient psychopath. She ends up finding out who he is and flees, only to have him track her down and slaughter her entire family. The other segment is called "The Purity". Set in the 50's - it starts off with a guy raping a young woman and blowing her brains out. The guy turns out to be the town priest who moonlights as a satanic serial killer. The locals believe that the one responsible for these random acts of savagery is a local farmer whom they beat up and eventually pay to have killed by a local hitman...

Both of these stories aren't all that clever or anything and the second one goes on a bit too long. It's really the nasty gore that's the stand-out allure of this type of shit, anyway. The effects are very good and are kept adequately consistent. Plus, the ending contains one seriously badass and gruesome depiction of Hell that is the total highlight of the film. Cranial mutilations, shotgun suicides, teeth drilling, intestine devouring. It's a fucking gorehound's paradise. Like-minded splatter fans need to seek this one out.

Monday, February 18, 2013

A Lonely Cow Weeps at Dawn (2003, Daisuke Gotô)

I'm not sure what exactly to make of this one. This is definitely one of the weirder 'pink films' I've seen in a while. Just strange...

An old farmer who is losing his mind to senility treats his live-in daughter in-law as if she were a cow. Not just any cow, however - his FAVORITE cow, Bessie, who was killed along with his punk-ass son who was taking the bovine animal to sell cuz she was too old to milk and got into a car wreck. Now, his daughter in-law and him live together and tend to the fields, though they have an odd ritual that involves her waking up early, going out to the barn, stripping down, getting on her hands and knees and waiting for the old man to come out and do his rounds and try to milk her tits. She doesn't really seem to like it, but she's clearly in love with the old whackjob so I could only assume that she was humoring him by pretending to be a dried up cow. There's also some other creep on a bicycle who's fucking the farmer's daughter in order to obtain the deed to the farm...

"The Lonely Cow Weeps at Dawn" has more of a romantic and "artsy" disposition than being really violent or 'disturbing'. There's a few simulated sex scenes and plenty of nudity. In terms of the story, it goes from being kind of funny in just a completely bizarre way, to extremely depressing all at once. I'm not really sure what to make of it all, but if you're interested in a much more bleak and 'artistically' angled piece of Japanese erotica, than I would say check this one out for yourself.

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Lolita: Vibrator Torture (1987, Hisayasu Sato)


I wouldn't say "Lolita: Vibrator Torture" is the finest example of quality pinku filth out there, though it is undeniably enjoyable for it's total nihilism and unbridled sleaze. You can't expect anything less from director Hisayasu Sato...

A tiny-dicked perv kidnaps young school girls and sexually tortures them to death in a deserted freight container covered in photographs of dead and mutilated chicks. Homeboy gets a serious kick out of stuffing these VERY young looking girls with vibrators, spray painting them and often pouring milk in their mouth and taking pictures of 'em as they spit it out. He then puts them in an acid bath. Eventually, one of his potential victims joins him in luring other prey into his torture room...

In terms of plot, "Lolita: Vibrator Torture" is pretty light. It's mostly just mean-spirited and nasty scenes of sexual degradation involving fuck-toys. At one point, he wipes a girls period blood off the vibrator, onto her tits. What's there not to like, here? It's a dark and vicious little pinku joint that comes with a jovial recommendation.

Saturday, February 16, 2013

We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011, Lynne Ramsay)

I had heard quite a bit about this one and finally got around to checking it out. After all of the praise I had heard for this film and now having seen it, I gotta be honest and say that I expected a bit more...
 
The storyline centers around a woman trying to get her life back on track after a tragic outburst of violence led to the loss of her family and landing her teenage son in prison. She gets a job at a travel agency and lives in a dingy little house that is vandalized and terrorized by neighborhood kids. Clearly, she's the subject of wide-spread ostracism throughout the town in the wake of this devastation. The film frequently cuts to her and her husband raising their first child, Kevin, who won't stop crying anytime Mommy picks him up. As he grows, he seems to get along fine with Daddy, but holds strong resentment toward his mother. Seems, though, that the feeling is mutual. Kevin wears a diaper up until he's 8-years old just to spite his mom, fucks up her art room and is just an all-around disrespectful little shit. As he grows and the parents give birth to a daughter, things only get more and more out of control within their upscale homestead until Kevin finally snaps...
 
"We Need to Talk About Kevin" goes for a more subtle and 'realistic' take on the whole 'evil kid' thing. It's very dilatory and tactful in what it shows and how it handles it's more "heavy" themes that are certainly all-too prevalent in real life these days. That's all fine and dandy, though I just didn't find the way in which they conveyed this material all that deep and compelling. It's just TOO slow and the layout of the story is really jumbled and arbitrary. After seeing this kid's developmental burden on his family and all of his disgraceful acts of meanness aimed at them, I was kinda hoping for a bit of a stronger outcome to this "build". To me, the movie was just missing that big emotional element that could REALLY have left a lasting impression. It just felt thin and we never really get into the minds of these characters as much as we probably SHOULD have. Tilda Swinton is the most interesting figure in this movie and gives a really good performance considering her character seemed underdeveloped to me. And one last thing - what the fuck was John C. Reilly doing in this? Talk about miscast! Sorry John, but even when you take on these big, dramatic roles I'm STILL just seeing Dr. Steve Brule.

So that's just MY take on "We Need to Talk About Kevin". I feel like they pretty much missed the boat with this one...

Friday, February 15, 2013

Creep Van (2012, Scott W. Mckinlay)

"Creep Van" is a decent enough horror-comedy. It's definitely full of imperfections and stupid as hell, less-than comical moments, considering it was trying for that kinda thing, but I really didn't HATE it, overall.

A guy takes up a dead-end job at a car wash in Detroit. He's tired of having to take the bus every day and hopes of obtaining his own set of wheels before long. After spotting a "For Sale" sign in the window of a rusted out "rape van" (the kind people are immediately suspicious of upon first glance), he calls the given number, thus securing himself as a target for the psychopath owner of the wicked looking vehicle. The movie is intercut with scenes of the van driver - whose face we don't see until the tail end - killing unsuspecting prey with all of these deadly little gadgets he's rigged his interior with, such as a spiked airbag, tightening seatbelts and a steel guillotine-type apparatus in place of the passenger window...

Some of the kill scenes are alright. People getting cartoonishly crushed in half, as in a certain scene that introduces a punker looking chick who beats the shit out of a fat, pervy redneck that was absolutely POINTLESS. Another chick gets her skull caved in by the sliding van door which was kind of funny and a kinky couple get run down during some freaky fuckin'. Some of the practical effects used were good, but there WAS some stupid looking CG gore that bugged me a little. Again, the humor element is a bit exhausting, over-used and out-of-place at times, which is my biggest gripe. The only thing I found a little amusing was the guy losing his mind over Deep Purple's "Machine Head" album. The Swami Ted character was pointless as well as Lloyd Kaufman's obligatory cameo (although THAT'S nothing new). Ah, you also get a few topless broads thrown in, which was fine. "Creep Van" isn't the worst way to waste an evening, I suppose...

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Mercy (2006, Patrick Roddy)

"Mercy" is a nicely bleak, somewhat "art-film" about a guy who is released from prison after a 20-year sentence. We don't know exactly what he did (though we get a good idea later on), but it's suggested to have been a rather savage crime. As he is forced to re-enter society - he must adhere to his parole by living in a tiny hotel room/halfway house, working a shitty factory job, no drugs/booze and he has to report to a bureaucratic bald asshole for regular 'check-ins'. Standard shit, until he meets a chick in a bar and strikes up a little romantic relationship with her. From there, some bizarre things begin to happen. He starts seeing a sort of apparition of a blood drooling girl with her throat slashed up and, eventually, he starts waking up with parts of his body either missing or fucked up (pinky finger, eye, etc.)... The rest you just need to see for yourself.

Don't expect an action-packed rollercoaster ride out of "Mercy". It's a slow, subdued, "noir-ish" film, though it's well shot, relatively engaging and suitably acted, with a good deal of David Lynch influence. Nothing that's going to absolutely knock your socks off, I'm sure, but I'd definitely say that "Mercy" deserves a bit more recognition than I'm sure it's gotten.

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated (2009, Mike Schneider)

This is kind of an interesting take on George Romero's well-known horror milestone. "Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated" is a compilation of still art, animation and other forms of visual creativity assembled in sequence with the 1968 zombie classic. According to it's description, over 100 artists submitted their work and the styles average out to over 100, as well...

The wide range of mediums include traditional line animation, stop-motion clay animation, rotoscope, flash, panel-to-panel comic-style artwork, computer generated video-game looking scenes. There are paintings, oddly edited re-reenactments, scenes acted out using sock puppets or Barbie dolls. At one point, all of the characters are animated as cartoony looking dogs, which was pretty amusing. Also, in one or two instances, the zombies become Ferbies...

I guess the only problems I had with this were a few reoccurring 'styles' that I simply found annoying and over-used - such as this abstract CGI interpretation. They're like pointy, nebulous shapes with flickering squiggles in them. This pops up WAY too much and it barely looks like anything. Plus, at certain points, the film resorts to using just live-action scenes from the movie with stupid negative or cross-hatch filters over them. I assume this was done to fill up scenes for which they didn't have artistic contributions for because it was FAR from creative.

Overall, this is a cool concept that artists of different types would surly appreciate. There are some unique 'tweaks' given to various recognizable spots of the classic film and you really do get a good "slide show" of different work - all shown in succession the actual film's audio. Granted, it DOES get a little tiresome well before the end, but it's definitely something worth popping on here n' there when you get bored.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Daddy, Father Frost is Dead (1992, Yevgeny Yufit)


Can't say I really dug "Daddy, Father Frost is Dead" (a.k.a. "Daddy, Santa Claus is Dead") mainly because I just didn't "get" it and it was WAY to slow. It's a Russian 'arthouse' flick that begins with a guy down in some flooded tunnel or sewer who trips and falls into a strategically placed wire noose. A guy and a small boy show up to steal the guy's shit and remove his clothes for some reason. We then cut to a guy who is on his way to meet his cousin. On the way, he frees a woman whom he finds tied up and wrapped in gauze and left by a group of weirdos. He makes it to Cuz's house and meets his oddball family who like to sit around with blank expressions on their faces. There's randoms scenes with a group of people standing around a field... A kid dies and they stuff the little coffin in a wood pile where an old man with a rifle is sleeping... Then the visitor gets roughed up by the group of weirdos who were standing around earlier and the movie pretty much ends on that note...

Not sure what to make of it. All it is, is a mess of random scenes that make up what you would generally perceive as the "artsy" film archetype. No apparent rhyme or reason behind any of it. Weirdness for the sake of weirdness, which is typically fine by me in many cases, although this one just moves along SO goddamn slow! Numerous scenes of people sitting around in silence, staring off into space... Needless to say, I wasn't impressed with this 'experimental' flick...

Monday, February 11, 2013

Terrifier (2011, Damien Leone)

This is a surprisingly badass 20-minute clown-slasher with some great gore effects. Plot is really basic - a chick is driving through the middle of nowhere, on her way to New York, when she stops at a gas station where the attendant is busy chewing out a sinister looking clown who apparently threw his feces around the restroom. The clown appears to leave, but after the attendant excuses himself from giving the woman directions back to the interstate to check on a peculiar noise inside, the chick soon happens upon the gruesome hacksaw dismemberment of the pump-jockey. From there, the killer clown is hot on her heels, murdering ANY potential rescuers...

"Terrifier" is sweet and to-the-point and that simplicity works so well for several reasons: 1. The clown is creepy looking. He's looks evil as all shit! 2. The gore effects are VERY well done and nasty looking. Seriously, if you're just going to make a short, 20-minute horror with obvious slasher fundamentals, the best thing to do is dish out some impressive effects. The ending, in particular, is pretty sadistic and a little on the misogynistic side. If you're looking for a rather vicious little short, than give "Terrifier" a watch.

Cat in the Brain (1990, Lucio Fulci)

"Cat in the Brain" is a nice slice of crazy gore from the veritable horror legend who certainly knew how to bring on the boundless bloodshed throughout his vast film making career: the incomparable Lucio Fulci. This being one of his later films, it's clearly a bit more of a personal undertaking, although it doesn't appear to take itself too seriously, what with the over-the-top nature of the splatter element.

The exalted "Godfather of Gore" not only directed but also stars as himself - playing a seasoned horror director who's beginning to show signs of schizophrenia, thought to be from years of producing on-screen brutality. He ends up seeing a psychiatrist who hypnotizes him into believing that he is a violent serial killer while the shrink, himself, is actually the one out slaughtering unsuspecting people with a switchblade and hatchet. Fulci keeps seeing some whacked out shit, like melting corpse faces and other such macabre freakiness...

As one would expect, the gore is nasty and plentiful. You got throat slashings, face stabbing, a gruesome chainsaw dismemberment and even the grisly chainsaw decapitation of a small child. All shit that'll plump ANY Fulci fan's pecker right away! Aside from the splatter, there's some notably humorous bits such as a woman who is constantly singing, getting choked out with a whip and a Nazi orgy (part of one of Fulci's hallucinations) in which a guy shoots a billiard into a woman's vagina as she lays on the pool table while Fulci yells "Get it in the pocket!". So, needless to say, "Cat in the Brain" - though not Fulci's best, by FAR - is still a hoot and if you haven't seen it, get your ass in gear and do so!

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Happy Hell Night (1992, Brian Owens)

Some serious potential with this one, although it buckles into just another post-slasher bore-fest of the early 90s. Remember that? When the slasher genre had pretty much worn it's self out around the tail-end of the 80s and it was just impossible to get any new franchises off the ground. It never happened for Dr. Giggles and it never happened for Zachary Malius of "Happy Hell Night"...

A crazy, demonic-looking priest - imprisoned in an asylum for massacring a bunch of college kids 25 years prior - is accidentally set free by a couple of idiots who break into the prison for a fraternity prank. He runs around on Halloween night - armed with a mini pickaxe - killing party-goers.

There's some kinda demonic tie-in when Darren McGavin shows up, explaining some haphazardly conceived back story that they fail to make clear throughout the entire fucking movie. The kill scenes are moderately gory, but nothing at all special and there's only one scene of brief nudity. The only positive note I got on this is the killer. He looks fucking creepy! That's where the previously mentioned "potential" came into play, but was ultimately lost by EVERY other piss poor execution in the construction of the muddled story. Also, it's just cliche and bland. Don't even bother with this one.

Thursday, February 7, 2013

E.T. - The Porno (1996, Lidko Entinger & Siggi Entinger)


I have no qualms calling this THE most odious, cockamamie porn-parody ever made. Not to mention, one of the least arousing...

First, the "plot": A female E.T. lands on Earth with hopes of learning our customs. She happens to go looking around a Victorian-style mansion where the residents do nothing but bang each other. After peeping in a few doorways, E.T. decides that she wants to get involved... And these people are more than accommodating...

First off, E.T. looks like a mound of sun-baked dog shit that was crudely sculpted into a human-esque shape and fitted around an anorexic porn actress. The costume looks like it was constructed out of garbage bags that had once been filled with excrement then, at the last minute, they ripped a hole around her vagina and nipples so these limp-dicked German guys in top hats could fuck this friendly alien. Speaking of E.T. getting fucked - the visual alone is as unappealing as watching your grandmother gape her pussy and talk about the "good ol' days" - but the sounds it makes are beyond disturbing. It moans like an old, wounded cat being fucked to death. The other sex scenes - the ones NOT involving E.T. - are easier to stomach, but still not all that 'erotic'. They refuse to shed their wardrobe so you've got a lot of awkward, fluffy, Victorian era dresses getting hiked up and creepy, German groaning.

That's basically all I got on "E.T. - The Porno". It's terrible and there is NO reason for it's existence, though if curiosity gets the better of you, like it did with me, than by all means; hunt it down.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Quiet Nights of Blood and Pain (2009, Andrew Copp)

This is a very dull indie-slasher flick from Andrew Copp, who did the tripped out, experimental horror film "The Mutilation Man". Thing is, "Quiet Nights of Blood and Pain" had a relatively interesting premise that was, unfortunately, bogged down by too many obvious budgetary constraints...

I chubby female veteran is home from Iraq and struggling through some post-traumatic stress that an old Vietnam vet is trying to help her through. All-the-while, she is being pursued by another Iraq vet - this one, suffering a much more severe kind of post-war trauma that's actually more along the lines of a full-on mental collapse. He's running around killing people whom he deems a threat to national security, such as some masked rapist punks under a bridge, a couple with an anti-Bush bumper sticker and a school janitor...

The biggest problem with the film is the acting. It's SO fucking bad that I found it impossible to take most scenes - namely those involving dialog - at all seriously. The best of the amateur actors, I'd say, was the bald killer. Also, the amount of gore is quite disappointing considering it's from the guy who did "The Mutilation Man". That film wasn't a major achievement in gore - not in quality, nor quantity - yet I just KNEW that he could've done MUCH better than what was seen in "Quiet Nights of Blood and Pain". However, like I said, the idea behind this was decent, though I just wish some more time had been taken with certain elements. Better acting. Better gore. A lot of the scenes could've been much stronger. Can't recommend it.

Monday, February 4, 2013

The Mutilation Man (1998, Andrew Copp)

In terms of 'experimental' horror/gore films, "The Mutilation Man" is an ample work of surrealist depravity, though nothing all that memorable in the long-run. Still, I typically gravitate toward this kind of dream-like/nightmarish and more fortuitous looking type of film-making style, so I could find it somewhat feasible to appreciate some of the weirdness on display here...

A guy with a severely troubled past, spends his days wandering around an assumed post-apocalyptic "wasteland" with a shovel. He has a spot set up where people pay to watch him self-mutilate in a moshpit-like setting. There are frequent flashbacks to his childhood in which he witnessed his abusive, alcoholic father (played by Jim Van Bebber) stomp his mother to death. At one point, he meets a chick who also likes to cut herself up - as indicated by a body full of scars - and they begin a masochistic relationship in which she ties him up, beats him and then hooks these fleshy horns protruding from her forehead up to wires attached to TV's that play grisly footage of murder and mayhem...

That's basically what there is, in terms of the premise. No solid linear narrative to be had with this one. Visually, however, the movie looks pretty good. Shot on 16mm as well as Super-8, the tone and graininess shifts around quite a bit. A few parts also looked like they were shot on video. Not much dialog either - mostly just atmospheric music and clanging and roaring sound effects. The gore effects are plentiful and well done for the most part. For such an indie flick, they obviously put a fair amount of work into certain elements, so if you happen to be into some of the more "artsy" types of gore flicks, I'd recommend checking out "The Mutilation Man".

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Elephant (2003, Gus Van Sant)


Like a lot of people, I find Gus Van Sant to be an extremely annoying film maker, especially with the slapping together of his soporific "Death Trilogy" - three unrelated films in which the director ignorantly mistakes laziness for "artistic". When making "Elephant", Van Sant opted for a cast of totally non-actors (and it shows) and decided to utilize his signature method of continuous walking sequences shot in a single, consecutive take. I get the impression that Van Sant feels quite artistic while shooting these ultra-tedious steady-cam shots, despite how much his self-indulgence makes him look like a huge asshole and total hack. If anything, though, I'd say "Elephant" is the LEAST shitty of the "trilogy", due to the eventual foray into some pretty sensitive subject matter involving a Columbine-esque school shooting.

The plot is pretty depthless. We follow around (literally) different high school kids throughout a seemingly typical day. One kid with an alcoholic dad who tried to drive him to school, a hipster photographer, a group of bulimic girls, a football player, some doggish-looking chick and the inevitable shooters. They take turns being followed around, endlessly, by the camera as they walk around school - no place in particular...

Van Sant kills a LOT of time with the pointless, drawn out steady-cam shots and spends just the last 20 minutes on the shooting, of which, is when the film improved cuz something finally happens, though it still just comes across as meaningless and exploitive. No solid motives are given to the shooter's violent rampage, which Van Sant claims was intentional and I don't doubt that. He's intentionally lazy... The director's take on independent, minimalist film making is very much skewed and one-dimensional, as he clearly just likes to take the easy (and cheap) way out by improvising, but he does it TERRIBLY. When you have shitty unskilled, non-actors improvising, chances are it'll turn out like THIS. Uninteresting and embarrassing to watch.

The only thing I appreciated about "Elephant" is the fact that Van Sant touched on the 'taboo' and relevant topic of school shootings and carried it out in a very unapologetic and almost mean-spirited and offensive manner. That said, if he had actually given the viewer something or someone to connect with, the movie could've possibly been much more gripping. Following people around with a camera for 10 minutes at a time down hallways doesn't constitute 'development', so when they finally start getting blasted by the Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold-type "oddball" students heavily armed with assault rifles, I wasn't all that shocked or affected. Still, "Elephant" IS more watchable than Van Sant's previous movie in the insipid "Death Trilogy", "Gerry". At least this one ends with more of a BANG.

Friday, February 1, 2013

Gorepump's Sewer of Short Horror #2

New batch of 'mini-reviews' of short horror, 'arthouse' and various oddball indie films. Same setup as before: Nothing over 15 minutes. Lot of good ones here...
 
 


Callous Sentiment (2002)

Cool little horror short about a teenage boy who begins seeing mortifying, ghostly spectacles going down in an abandoned, fenced in playground. Things like, a guy butchering his cheating girlfriend with an axe, a chick hanging herself from the monkey bars, a gang-type beating and a body being buried. Ultimately, the kid's sanity begins to curtail as he develops a sinister addiction to the atrocities on display in the empty playground...

Pretty well made short with a simple, yet kind of creative and neat concept and a little bit of violence. Recommended.

Directed by: Vincent Grashaw
Runtime: 13 minutes



Adoration (1987)

A dude invites a chick over to his place for a date. She kind of looks like Elaine from Seinfeld. Anyways, they have dinner, he makes her read some poetry into a really huge, old reel-to-reel tape recorder. While she does this, he shoots her in the back with a rifle, then proceeds to fondle her corpse and dismember her...

Pretty morbid little short. It's shot kind of like a faux-snuff film, showing the guy setting up the camera and often moving it around while you hear the constant whirring of the film. The effects of the dismemberment aftermath are pretty realistic as well. Well done.

Directed by: Olivier Smolders
Runtime: 15 minutes


Cottonmouth (2009)

"Cottonmouth" is quite a nightmarish little flick, based off the graphic novel by Steve Bissette that I have never read or heard of until seeing this short recently...

A gang of corpsey, demonic-looking women stitch shut the mouth of a man responsible for the distribution of toxic tampons that lead to the death of a young girl on her first period.

While it was alright on a visual basis - with good make-up effects and interesting lighting and colors - "Cottonmouth" was still much too vague to really interest me all that much. I kinda needed a little more than what the 7-ish minute run-time gave me. Maybe I'll have to check out the comic at some point.

Directed by: Christopher P. Garetano
Runtime: 6 minutes




10/65: Selbstverstümmelung (1965)

Pretty decent short from Austrian 'arthouse' film-maker Kurt Kren. Much like his other work, this one has no plot - just relying on it's visual merit and nightmarish weirdness.

A guy is laying in a room and writhes around in paint or some kind of slime. He eventually gets a bunch of razor blades stuck to his face and then starts clamping his eyelids with an eyelash curler and slicing them off with scissors...

It's not bad. The imagery is kinda cool and grotesque and the editing isn't as rapid and confusing as many of Kren's other shorts.

Directed by: Kurt Kren
Runtime: 5 minutes


Harvey (2002)

"Harvey" is just a cool fucking short horror film, starring Nicholas Hope from "Bad Boy Bubby". You got a guy peeping through the mail-slot of his front door at the chick living in the apartment across the hall. He breaks in while she's in the shower and it's revealed that the entire left side of his body is completely missing, right down the middle. After abducting her - and a bit of a time-lapse - we see that he has removed the right side of HER body and attached it to his. They try having dinner and co-existing, but she's adamant about removing herself from him...

For such a brief little film, the effects are surprisingly GREAT. For 2002, the CGI is pretty top-notch and it looks fucking SICK. If you're looking for crazy horror shorts, than check out "Harvey".

Directed by: Peter McDonald
Runtime: 11 minutes

At the Suicide of the Last Jew in the World in the Last Cinema in the World (2007)

This very short little flick had me smiling just cuz it is SO fucking accurate! Or, at least, it WILL be very soon. David Cronenberg plays a guy who is despairingly preparing to commit suicide in the men's room of the very last movie-house in the world. As he slips that single bullet into the clip, two presumed TV reporters are narrating the live coverage of the man's eventual self-inflicted demise in a gleeful, media-vulture-type fashion...

The more time that goes by, the more relevant this 3 minute short will become, I believe. The idiotic news anchors in the film say at one point that, basically, it's a GOOD thing that the theater is soon to be demolished because there is no need for cinemas anymore and that it's currently full of garbage, hence Cronenberg has to kill himself in the restroom since it's the only place with enough space. Check out this cynical little piece of truth.

Directed by: David Cronenberg
Runtime: 3 minutes

Mama (2008)

This is the short film that the 2013 Guillermo del Toro-produced feature was based off of. It's about 3 minutes long and doesn't really have a conclusive story - it's more of just a 'scene'.

Two young girls are rushing to escape their house because "Mama is back". Mama is a staggering, ghoulish, scraggly-haired broad who comes running at them from behind a corner...

If you've seen the full-length movie, you'll surely recognize this portion since it was remade for that. However, I actually found it much more effective here than in the feature. The CGI is kept to more of a minimum and Mama doesn't roar like a Tyrannosaurus Rex. The sound effects are much more subtle here, yet her movements are pretty fucking creepy. Still, part of me is wondering if there was actually a little more to this, since no plot is established and it really DOES seem like a fragment of something a bit longer. Anyway, you can find it online. Check it out.

Directed by:
Andrés Muschietti
Runtime: 3 minutes