Gun Woman (2014)

"Gun Woman" is a pretty fun revenge flick. Sort of a Japanese take on "Thriller: A Cruel Picture", I'd say, mixed with a little "Oldboy". Throw in a healthy dose of gore and sleazy subject matter and you've got a recipe for prime entertainment...

A sadistic, raving lunatic wrongly accuses a doctor of his father's death and expresses his acrimony by raping and killing the doc's wife and leaving him hobbled. Some time later, the doctor's elaborate method of vengeance is ready to be sought, which involves purchasing a young female junkie and molding her into an incredibly efficient assassin. Next, she is to pose as a corpse to infiltrate a necrophilia den out in the desert with a disassembled handgun sewn into her body.

As you can probably imagine, this one delivers on a range of 'goods'. Gore, rape, corpse fucking, cannibalism, fight training montages... The overall concept is well executed and fully embraces a "classick" B-movie/'exploitation' quintessence - involving some decent gore; most notably a 'dry run' on the effects of blood loss conducted on a helpless girl and, of course, the climactic showdown with our bloody, naked heroine. It also wraps up with a decent enough 'twist'. "Gun Woman" is a fun, nutty revenge/action/sleaze joint well-worth checking out.

Krampus (2015)

I ended up digging "Krampus" a bit more than I thought I would. I was initially a little 'put off' by the comedic factor I had been hearing about, but seeing as how I enjoyed "Trick 'r Treat", I figured it'd be worth seeing what else that director had up his sleeve. Turns out, the guy has a definite knack for holiday horror flicks.

Based on some Christmasy folklore, the Krampus is a demonic take on St. Nick that drags to Hell the loved ones of those who lose their xmas spirit. A young boy throws out his letter to Santa after being bullied by visiting relatives during the holiday season, thus ushering in the Krampus and his sack of evil creatures to whisk the family off, one by one...

Just an all-around cool Christmas horror flick, I thought. The humor/horror ratio is well balanced, if not keeping to a more serious, 'creepy' tone, overall. Definitely steering clear of the dreaded "spoof" territory which I was glad to see. The atmosphere is strong and the creatures are unique looking - the Krampus especially looking pretty badass. Wasn't too crazy about the evil gingerbread cookies, but, in the scheme of things, it didn't bother me too much.

In all, "Krampus" isn't a 'game changer' as far as the genre goes, but it's easily the best thing I've caught in the theater in a while and is your best bet if you're feeling 'festive' this holiday season and are in the market for an entertaining little flick. Recommended.

Destricted (2006)

My only real interest in checking this out was for the contributions from Larry Clark and Gaspar Noé - two film-makers responsible for past work I hold in rather high regard. "Destricted" is a collection of 'arthouse'-porno shorts that's supposedly meant to 'blur that line' between 'art' and smut. For the most part, it's about as pretentious as it sounds. I guess I'll just give a brief run-down on each film. Note - the U.S. version I have is different (and slightly longer...) than the UK release, which contains a few films swapped from my version.

First up is "Hoist" - directed by Matthew Barney of the "Cremaster" series. You got a three-and-a-half minute close-up of a twitching, unclipped cock gradually getting hard. Cut to a work crew uprooting a tree. Then, the guy whose dick we saw earlier (listed in the credits as Blooming Greenman...) is inside some machinery with a radish up his ass, rubbing his dick on jizz-covered mechanisms until he's erect.

Next one is called "House Call". This one just looks like someone stuck a camera in front of a TV playing a '70s porno and set it to eerie music...

This is followed by "Cooking" which, like the previous film, was the work of a one-time film-maker. A chick blows a guy with a crystal dick until it turns into some kind of gelatinous mush. She then pisses into a bunch of glass vases. Afterwards, he fucks her with a new crystal dick, which she ends up pulling off and smashing. She then feeds him his crystal dick shards and her piss. Then he shits onto a plate and she eats it. It ends with her graphically shitting out a new crystal dick and it's happily ever after...

Up next is "Green Pink Caviar". A woman licks various colors and consistencies of liquid and slime off of glass as the camera is positioned under it. And this goes on for 8-minutes.

Followed up by "Scratch This" - another vintage porn exerpt that someone tampered with and tried to pass off as an 'art film'. This one shows an all girl three-way, only each frame of their faces and holes has been scratched out...

On to Larry Clark's segment, titled "Impaled". Clark holds a casting call for male porn actors. He interviews a bunch of innocuous dullards who talk about their sex lives before settling on some scrawny skater wuss who wants to pop his anal cherry with a chick. Out of the vacuous porn girls he gets to choose from, he picks an insatiably horny 40-year old and they shoot their scene.

Next is a very short animated film by Cecily Brown which features painted images of sex and 'money shots'.

Lastly, is Gaspar Noé's "We Fuck Alone" - easily the best and most harrowing of the set. The film alternates focus between a young man and woman in their separate bedrooms getting off to the same porno. She's using a teddy bear, while he uses a blow-up doll. He seems to be having a much harder time gaining any satisfaction from his masturbatory aid as he finds different positions for the doll and eventually starts 'degrading' it with a gun. A jarring strobe effect is used throughout the whole thing...

All of these films sucked except for the last two - with Noé's being the stand-out piece. But even THAT went on a bit too long, I thought. Clark's addition (the only one with any dialog...) was a disappointment and incredibly dull. The others were just pompous attempts at unarousing 'artistic/shock' material or just lazy reworkings of retro-porn. I feel like "Destricted" was a missed opportunity that could've benefited from the involvement of better film-makers.

Salvation by Blood (2010)

"Salvation by Blood" is a decent short that follows a very basic perception of the doctrine that most perceive to resemble satanism. Clearly, the film was well shot and featured some solid film making techniques with some surprisingly convincing make-up effects...

The movie starts with an unseen prisoner being interrogated by a by-the-books looking cop before we drift into the convicted man's backstory. After meeting a nice girl and kicking off a wholesome relationship, the man finds himself enveloped in her family of satan worshipers, thus transforming him into a 'knight in Satan's service'. This evidently leads the satanic couple to proclaim their devotion to the Dark Lord by sacrificing two Christians in his name. A home invasion ensues, along with rape and murder...

For a 37 minute flick, I found "Salvation by Blood" to be decent in the form of isolating key aspects that I found passable. The editing and camera work looked good and, as I said, the effects were cool. That said, I didn't find anything all that spectacular about the film. It certainly wasn't "My Sweet Satan", in any regard. I didn't quite understand the comic book panel scene transitions and the overall motivation involving satanic belief was shallow and unconvincing. You can do worse than "Salvation by Blood", but I wasn't all that blown away...

Eat the Schoolgirl (1997)

Primo, sleaze-packed Japanese-horror goodness here, folks. Not the best movie, in terms of story by a long-shot, but if hateful nastiness is what you're after then you can't go wrong with this lil' gem...

A couple of young, perverted psychos who work for a violent porn producing yakuza, get their "jollies" indulging in their sadistic 'kinks' at the expense of helpless women. Things such as jerking off on stab wounds, killing chicks while dressed as a schoolgirl, and, at one point, one of the guys disembowels a girl. While all this is going on, one of them has a hot, naked angel in his apartment for some reason...

"Eat the Schoolgirl" - aka. "Eating Schoolgirls: Osaka Telephone Club" -  is a strange flick with an almost 'artsy' slant at times, but keeps the 'fun stuff' rolling at a good pace. Plenty of mean spirited gore and sexual violence on tap - including the aforementioned jizz-covered wounds and a pretty 'rough' gang rape (topped with a beating and diarrhea shit...). Definitely one for the lovers of more 'extreme' films. Check it out!

Killing Brooke (2012)

I would definitely rank this among one of the shittiest "Texas Chainsaw" knock-offs I've seen. I'll say for certain, I haven't been this flat out annoyed by a film in quite some time.

A couple of newlywed lesbos land a drunken three-way with a twerpy hitch-hiker who happens to be a serial killer. When they want to ditch him later, he kills the less attractive rugmuncher and chases the other one through the woods and to a farmhouse, inhabited by a family of hillbilly killers where they're both held captive...

"Killing Brooke" doesn't contain at least one reasonably convincing line of dialog, an even SOMEWHAT decent gore effect, or any semblance of a fucking POINT. What it does is meander along with innocuous torture scenes and constant screaming. Not only is the screaming too overboard and obnoxious, but it was the incredibly poor sound quality that made it so much more headache-inducing than it should've been, otherwise, this would typically be a non-issue for me (especially, when I'm not hungover...). Fuck, I was constantly having to adjust the volume just to keep my eardrums AND my TV speakers from rupturing. Just some dickhead with a digitgal camera and no sound-mixing skills... In all, there is nothing good about "Killing Brooke". Terrible acting, no atmosphere, shitty effects and a barrage of worthless noise...

The Taint (2011)

If you like a lot of what Troma comes out with, you'll probably dig "The Taint". It's reasonably enjoyable with it's absurd splatter 'gags', offensive premise and constant, infantile dick jokes - granted, you're in the proper mood.

The Earth's drinking water has been contaminated with a faulty penis-enhancement supplement that causes the male population to turn into maniacal, woman-hating killers... with big, jizzing cocks. The film centers around a group of survivors trying to get to a well, apparently containing untainted water...

There's a few decent gore scenes here and there - usually involving women's skulls being crushed with rocks or boot heels. I guess my biggest complaint would be that the pacing is thrown off at a point around the middle when the cause of the woman-hating skull crushers is explained. It goes on a bit too long, I thought, and the gore element slows down. Also, some gym teacher character's back story is explored, which really has nothing to do with the movie's initial set-up. I understand the movie was just going for the all-out"outrageous" factor, but some of it didn't quite 'land' for me. Overall, "The Taint" is watchable and has some entertaining spots with cheezy, misogynistic gore that will at least make angry virgins bust a nut...

The Killer Wore Gloves (1974)

Definitely one of the lamest titles ever attached to a 'giallo' flick (a 'giallo' killer wearing gloves?? Unheard of...) and, plotwise, this one is pretty run-of-the-mill, I thought.

A young woman believes she's spotted her boyfriend in merry ol' London when he is actually suppose to be fighting over in Vietnam. From there, mysterious characters and circumstances arise... involving a killer... in leather gloves! Imagine that...

"The Killer Wore Gloves" isn't awful, though it was a bit too slow and convoluted for my tastes - an issue I find many of the 'gialli' genre entries tend to fall into. Very little bloodshed in this one and the whole 'intrigue' angle at the end was pushed a little too hard and fast which took me out of the film quite a bit. As for the 'high points', the lead actress is sexy and I dug the repetitive, bassy-synth music score. Yeah, not terrible but nothing all that memorable.

Cheatin' (2013)

I'm always hyped up for anything Plympton comes out with and his latest film, "Cheatin'", does NOT disappoint! Hell, this is his best film so far, if you ask me. It's such an even mix of all of his styles from over the years, beautifully incorporated into one terrific piece of animated art.

After saving her life during a freak bumper car accident, a  muscular pump-jockey and an introverted young book wormy woman fall madly in love. They get married and begin the ideal suburban life, though she begins noticing other women putting the 'moves' on her husband. A wedge is driven between them when a vindictive woman - of whom the husband shot down the sexual advances - snaps an incriminating looking (but, actually innocent...) photograph of the wife and shows the hubby. Distraught and suicidal, he decides to engage in a series of 'revenge affairs' at a nearby motel. When his wife finds out what he's doing, she concocts some elaborate plans to get even with him...

Plympton's animation style and temperament have been pretty diverse over the years - ranging from his first feature, "The Tune" - an 'experimental' musical that boggled the mind as to what ONE animator could achieve, virtually single-handedly - throughout his more sophomoric 'sex and violence' phase, with films like "Mutant Aliens" and "I Married a Strange Person". As of late, Plympton has shifted over into a more 'elegant' juncture with his work - with "Idiots & Angels" and his most recent film, "Cheatin'" - using his familiar hand-drawn style with a softer, more... cultured aesthetic, I'd say. "Cheatin'" is easily his most "cinematic" and harrowing film - telling a awesomely dramatic AND funny story through extremely expressive, non-speaking characters and physical, surreal interpretation. While "Idiots & Angels" was his take on the 'noir' genre, "Cheatin'" goes with a more luminous visual 'flair' and a very Italian, operatic emphasis that definitely compliments Plympton's abject love story.

The film also has a lot of 'dark' touches - namely, the character designs, which are often distinctively malformed - almost praying mantis-like with some. There's also some hilarious toon-sex and a touch of violence in spots - though, not quite as off-the-wall as some of his previous works. Also, the ending shifts into a strange science-fiction climax almost out of nowhere, which was interesting...

"Cheatin'" is a masterful, scrupulous piece of timeless animation that further facilitates Plympton's undeniable genius. Check it out!

A Perfect Child of Satan (2012)

"A Perfect Child of Satan" is more of what you would expect from the ever-redundant bore, Lucifer Valentine. At least it's short.

A frumpy goth call girl meets a guy online and rambles about finally meeting him face-to-face in her video diaries. When she shows up at the hotel room where he's at, he beats and chokes her to death...

I really don't have much to comment on as far as this one goes... It's pretty much like all of Valentine's other shit, minus the vomit. Dull with obnoxious editing and sound effects... I'm sure he enjoyed making it, but otherwise, I don't see what the point was.

The Turnpike Killer (2009)

"The Turnpike Killer" started off somewhat promising, but unfortunately succumbed to a few pitfalls around the halfway mark. These particular problems are all too common in these types of 'shoestring' budget serial killer/slasher flicks, I've found.

A bulky serial killer - guided by the voices in his head - is stalking, collecting and butchering women around New Jersey. Of course, they're chicks he deems "whores" and "impure" and all that jazz...

For the first few scenes, the violence and gore is decent enough. The guy who plays the killer is passable, though it's clear that not much personality was written into his character so his 'insanity' isn't all that elucidated. They also provide a little full frontal nudity amidst the terrified, bloody-titted female victims, which is obviously a MUST in MY book. Thing is, the movie starts slowing down about midway through when they start in with the detectives investigating the case and tack on a completely lame-ass ending involving the occult. As far as I'm concerned, the best 'move' with flicks like this is to keep it on track and focus on the killer and his exploits. When you cast your non-actor buddies as detectives in your micro-budget slasher flick, it usually knocks your movie down another notch on the 'amateur scale'. Films like Bill Lustig's "Maniac", John McNaughton's "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" and Gerald Kargl's "Angst" new well enough to keep that shit out of there and focus on maintaining an effective 'flow', centering around the killer and his depravity. Don't get carried away with trying to write in CSI dialog in your B-movie.

Anyways... "The Turnpike Killer" isn't the worst thing I've seen. It just lost it's footing midway and tried getting 'clever' with nonsensical shit. Check out any of the films mentioned above instead.

Check out Wild Eye Releasing

My Name is A by Anonymous (2012)

The name Shane Ryan didn't register with me until a few minutes into "My Name is A..." when I had to pause to look him up. I knew I wasn't going to recollect fondly and, sure enough, he's the insufferable hack behind the bromidic "Amateur Porn Star Killer" series. From there, I knew I was in for a rough 90 minutes...

This is an attempted biopic of sorts, focusing on the life and crime of 15-year old Alyssa Bustamante who killed her 9-year old neighbor for fun in 2009. The Missouri teen (now in her early-20s...) is currently facing a life sentence for the brutal murder.

The back of the DVD case has a quote from Pick 'N' Mix Flix (never heard of 'em...) that touts, "Think Kids, Gummo, Ken Park...". Clearly, in some inconceivably pretentious way, that's what this guy was going for, but, I must say, I can't think of a less fitting comparison. This movie is a completely aimless mess that never even comes close to exploring it's subject matter, psychological insight or anything of interest - instead, consisting mainly of emo girls sitting around, cutting themselves and making gun gestures to their heads... Constantly! There is absolutely NO development of this girl or her friends or any discernible lead-up to the crime. There DOES, however, involve a range of other characters who are given their own incredibly meaningless, drawn out scenes of hanging out around a warehouse, pulling a shovel out of a dumpster, putting it back, crying, vomiting, etc. There's also a totally random (and equally boring...) Spanish 'music video' (clearly for the sole purpose of helping this chick's singing career...) thrown in, as if the movie wasn't padded with enough tedious bullshit.

"My name is A by Anonymous" is a beyond dull, semi-'found footage' movie that does absolutely nothing with the material it is suppose to be depicting.

Visit Wild Eye Releasing

Gorepump's Sewer of Short Horror #5

It's been long overdue, but here is #5 of "Gorepump's Sewer of Short Horror". To refresh your memory - I do up a couple of my mini-reviews to some mini-movies; short films (horror, arthouse, generally oddball shit...) placed in no particular order or ranking. Some are good, some are total shit. Some old, some brand new. And nothing exceeding 15-minutes in length. There's ten this time, as opposed to last year's eight so ENJOY!

Slash-in-the-Box (2011)

Little generic but well shot short about a guy who scores a vintage jack-in-the-box toy that is haunted by something murderous that lures him and his chick out of bed that night...

Good atmosphere and lighting. Kudos to the crisp production values for an apparent budget of only 2,000 bucks. The premise consists of your basic horror conventions, but works well in this capacity as a 'spooky' short film with a nice gory jolt at the end.

Not bad.

Directed by: Nick Everhart
Runtime: 5 minutes

Forklift Driver Klaus - First Day on the Job (2000)

Was actually going to do this one last time, but somehow it managed to slip my mind. That's fine, cuz it gave me an excuse to watch it again. 

Pretty much everyone's familiar with this German splatter short - chronicling the disastrous first day of a warehouse employee in the 'style' of a corporate training video. A series of deadly accidents take place as a result of Klaus' safety violations, no matter how minor. By the end, limbs are flying, people are cut in half and so on.

Fun stuff. It actually looks like a legit workplace safety video despite the gore, which is cheezy as hell, but laughably entertaining and clever. If you're one of the few who hasn't seen this one, track it down!

Directed by: Jörg Wagner & Stefan Prehn

                                                          Runtime: 10 minutes

Jabberwocky (1971)

aka. Žvahlav aneb šatičky slaměného Huberta - This is definitely one of Jan Švankmajer's strongest, most impressive shorts I have seen. It's based on Lewis Carroll's 1871 poem having to do with the Alice in Wonderland saga and by that I mean it contains the poem read in voice-over at the beginning. The remainder of the film is a cavalcade of surreal stop-motion animation, involving dolls, clothes, knives, furniture, etc - in typically hypnotic Švankmajer fashion.

If 'trippy' animation is your thing, check this out out as well as all of the other Czech film-maker's shorts and features.

Directed by: Jan Švankmajer

Runtime: 14 minutes

Tom Thumb in the Land of the Giants (1999)

This Nick Zedd short plays out like a bizarre movie trailer - showing a kid running around a cemetery - being pursued by figures in gas masks, holding severed limbs. A fiendish voice-over impalpably explains the hellish scenario as it cuts to a one armed guy and ends with the kid crawling in a giant woman's vagina...

"Tom Thumb in the Land of Giants" is quite obviously played for laughs in its absurdity, which makes it a reasonably enjoyable, quick watch. 

Directed by: Nick Zedd

Runtime: 4 minutes

Night Pastor (1998)

This is easily Alex Chandon's least memorable short. It's done in the style of a grindhouse movie trailer for a fictional feature called "Night Pastor", about a gun-toting Las Vegas minister. He jerks off in confessional booths and savagely beats a homeless guy to death before pissing on him...

None of the imagination or creative gore FX of Chandon's other shorts. I got the feeling this one was pretty much slapped together on the fly. Check out "Bad Karma" or even "Chainsaw Scumfuck" for a better (and gorier...) example of his work.

Directed by: Alex Chandon

Runtime: 9 minutes

38/79: Sentimental Punk (1979)

Kren's films are either mildly interesting or downright stupid and "38/79: Sentimental Punk" would be placed in the category of the latter. I have absolutely no idea what this was supposed to be.

All it shows is choppy, fast-motion crowd footage, seemingly looped with no sound at all. I have no idea where it was or what was going on...

I guess some would find it "artistic". I find it to be a typically pretentious piece of 'experimental' shit, courtesy of Kren.

Directed by: Kurt Kren

Runtime: 5 minutes

Sittin' Pretty (1992)

Second part of a two-film animated series that may be the greatest fucking pair of animation shorts ever produced. Baby Elmo and Mr. Olaf first appeared in a fucked up lil' 1989 short, named "Quiet Please", and they return in this slightly more slickly animated toon, "Sittin' Pretty" (not even sure why it's called that...).

Mr. Olaf shows up at the door in drag - disguised as a babysitter - who is left with the adorable infant, Baby Elmo. Olaf immediately shoots the baby in the head and hangs it from a coat rack. He then exclaims, "I'm fuckin' starvin'!" and goes rummaging through the kitchen, only coming up with an endless supply of "fuckin' baby food!". He gets the brilliant idea to chop the dead Baby Elmo up with a machete, grind some of his limbs in a meat grinder and stick the rest in the blender to make his pulverized body into a pie and eat it. The mother comes back, Olaf flees and the mother eats the pie.

Awesome shit! Not as funny as "Quiet Please", but definitely more offensive. I wish Michael Grimshaw had done WAY more of these back in the day. Truly classic. Look for another animated short he did back in the early '90s called "Deep Sympathy", in which a priest fucks a corpse during a funeral. Fantastic!

Directed by: Michael Grimshaw

Runtime: 2 minutes

Honey, I'm Going to Ride My Bicycle (2008)

A guy tells his chick he's going on a bike ride and will be back before dinner. A while later, he comes crawling up the stairs to their apartment with the bicycle seat painfully wedged deep in his anus. His panic-stricken girl tries to pull it out by the bar, but only the bar and a length of his intestines is successfully extracted...

Funny little gross out short, clearly made on a nothing budget and just for a goof. Also, anything involving torn assholes gets my personal stamp of approval.

Directed by: Mirte Eggenkamp & Maarten Prins

Runtime: 5 minutes

Boo (1932)

The best way to describe "Boo" is basically as being the Rifftrax of 1932. 

Some silly-voiced tool does some voice-over narration for "Frankenstein" (1931) and "Nosferatu" (calling it "Dracula"...) that is suppose to be funny. It's not. Maybe for the time it was, but it's incredibly weak, cheesy humor and considerably hard to follow for the most part. The guy talks too fast and his wise cracks and puns rarely make any sense.

Pretty lame...

Directed by: Albert DeMond

Runtime: 9 minutes

Alexia (2013)

Yeah, horror flick about a haunted Facebook page - big whoop. Not my thang, but for 9 minutes of my time and a decent wrap-up I'll give "Alexia" it's dues.

This Spanish short is about a guy who broke up with a girl who ended up killing herself. He keeps tabs on her Facebook and her lovelorn ghost decides to haunt him on her birthday...

It's a well shot little movie and the googly-eyed ghost FX at the end were kinda cool. However, I wasn't too 'into' the - now outdated - "Grudge"-inspired imagery. Still, like I said, for the length and a fairly spooky vibe, it's worth checking out.

Directed by: Andrés Borghi

Runtime: 9 minutes

Thanks for reading. Until next time...

The Human Centipede 3 (2015)

I'm pretty much with the majority on this one - "Human Centipede 3" sucks. I found the first two enjoyable as gimmicky "shock" for the online message board masses with a neat idea from a seemingly self-aware B-film maker. Unfortunately, I think Mr. Six topped out with the second installment, as far as the 'zany' gore goes and got a bit too swept up in his "hater"-directed cynicism this time around. Part 3 just seemed completely phoned in.

The loud, sadistic warden of a desert-based correctional facility gets the idea from his accountant lackey to keep the inmates 'in line' by sewing them all into a human centipede...

... But, before that happens... in the last 10-15 minutes, a lot of non-centipede stuff goes on in an arbitrary, episodic fashion - involving the warden torturing prisoners. An arm snapping; boiling water boarding; testicle removing/eating... So much of the movie is just Dieter Laser screaming unintelligible bullshit at everybody (often nobody...) in his office. When the human centipede (and human caterpillar...) are revealed, that's pretty much it; aside from Eric Roberts having a change-of-heart on the whole thing.

In the same token, one must ask themselves: what can be done with a 500-person centipede that can not or has not been done with the previous 12 or 3-count centipede? I don't know. Perhaps bigger is NOT always better. They kneel in a row and shit down each other's throats - like before - and then the movie ends. In the second film it was more about the 'journey' than the 'destination'. Seeing a rotund wacko collecting people, knocking their teeth out, stitching their cheeks to their o-rings, etc. Babies being killed, barb-wire rape, bugs up people's asses... All the marbles. Needless to say, I think part 3 was a little 'light' on ideas and attempted to compensate for this by just having its lead scream all of his lines and get blown by Bree Olson.

It's a shame the "Human Centipede" trilogy had to conclude on such a lame note. I don't know if it was Six sabotaging his own film out of some kind of spite, a lack of ideas, a joke or a complete accident. I don't know. Fuck, or all of the above. It just seemed incredibly slapped together and weak. Let's hope Six reinvents himself after this.

Barricade (2007)

I wouldn't list "Barricade" as one of the highest on the German-splatter shit-o-meter, seeing as how there are some real miserable excuses for this kind of thing out there. That said, this one is still largely lacking in a number of areas - not unlike the majority of this particular sub-genre...

An effeminate, muscular dullard, his visiting New Yorker girlfriend and equally annoying buddy are camping out in the woods of Germany where a family of crazed, deformed cannibals are butchering hikers.

As you would expect, the acting is terrible which doesn't help to 'pump up' the seemingly endless, shittily written dialog. There is WAY too much of these characters and their unimpassioned "casual" banter that, in turn, makes the intermittent cut-aways to mindless dismemberment feel like a vacation. The gore scenes are occasionally decent, but nothing too exceptional (or even plentiful...), save for maybe the wire cutter nip-snip and titty fisting scene. That worked, I guess. Yet, in the film's 'climax' everything falls apart, resulting in a total mess of incomprehensibly shot, unthought out bullshit. Some would-be 'hero' is clumsily introduced who claims to have been tracking the killer inbred family for almost a year after his family was killed by them, but he's killed off immediately, as are the majority of the psycho cannibals. It was like they ran out of money and ideas so they decided to just shoot the remainder of the cast in the head in the span of 5-seconds just to end the movie as fast as possible. Whatever. There you pretty much have another cheap, plotless waste of time brought to you by ambivalent German gore schlocksters. Don't bother.

Evil Stalks This House (1981)

I'm not really sure what this was, exactly. I know it was a made-for-TV movie that aired no more than twice and clearly fell into total obscurity, but based on the alternate title it's listed under, "Tales of the Haunted", I can't help but wonder if it was part of a series or intended to be. Either way, it's actually a pretty cool flick.

A father and his two young children are stalled out at the side of a back road at night when they are offered a ride to the nearest house, occupied by a pair of elderly sisters and an oafish man-child. Turns out, the father has some dubious intentions with their more valuable belongings and when a farmhand in need of work shows up at their door things get even more fishy...

Jack Palance is in this and is badass as usual and the story has a few unique twists and turns. It was obviously shot on the cheap and on a studio sound-stage so, while it doesn't have a real 'cinematic' visual quality, it still manages to be a relatively fun watch with some decent performances for the most part. You got Palance ripping off a retard and a couple of old bags and surviving a fall in the same pit of quicksand TWICE! I'd say "Evil Stalks This House" delivers as a largely unknown made-for-TV flick.

Zombeavers (2014)

Just because it's a movie called "Zombeavers" and I may or may not have been in an alcohol-clouded state of mind a few nights ago that may or may not have required a viewing choice of a rather undemanding nature. Either way, I watched this. Did it exceed my incredibly low expectations? No. Is it at least enjoyable? Barely.

A container of toxic waste rolls off a truck driven by a pair of idiots and it floats into a beaver dam, turning the little critters into vicious, glowing-eyed zombeavers. More cliches are piled on as a trio of babes arrive at a remote cabin to help get their friend's mind off her cheating boyfriend - who later shows up with the other girls' dimwitted boyfriends to party. Then the zombeavers show up...

As for it's strengths - the cheezy hand puppet beaver effects were kind of enjoyable; there's a nice pair of tits as well as the stand-out scene in which a little dog is sacrificed to the zombeavers. Other than that, it's got gore but it seemed considerably scant seeing as how this is a movie that had very little going for it, overall. Any off-screen zombeaver attack (of which this movie has several...) is unacceptable, as far as I'm concerned. Also, the point in the movie where people begin turning into anthropomorphic zombeavers was just too imbecilic for me, I'm afraid. The stupidity of this film's concept 'jumped the shark' with that shit, but thankfully the end was near.

"Zombeavers" isn't worth a DAM and needed more bloody beaver carnage!

Crazy Murder (2014)

"Crazy Murder" is one of the most ridiculously straightforward, goofy serial killer movies I think I have ever seen. Those looking for a marathon of gross-out material and savage killing will surely get their fill here, but that said, its one-note concept does start running out of steam at a certain point...

The film begins with some on-screen text giving us the skinny on the homeless population and stats on how many of them are suffering from mental illness - shit you've heard before. From there, we meet our "hero" - a severely whacked out bum in an overcoat who runs around NYC senselessly killing random people and demonstrating various types of disgusting behavior, mostly involving bodily functions.

First off, the main actor in this film is deserving of some kind of award for this performance. For the majority of the movie, they've got him screaming and duck-walking down crowded city streets with his pants around his ankles and blood and shit in his underwear! I understand it's New York City and any local will probably tell you that's about as commonplace as the sunrise each morning, but props go out to this guy for completely shedding his dignity for the sake of this retarded movie.

My problem with "Crazy Murder" is that it just drags on too long. An idea like this would've worked a lot better as maybe a 30-some-minute short, but at 90-minutes it gets much too repetitive and the vile antics start wearing a bit thin. Like they were running dry on ideas so they'd throw in another scene of poop-play. At one point, he's running around smearing "feces" on walls, pay phones and bus stops... Why? Clearly just to fill time. I DID however enjoy his knife/duct tape "superhero" killing spree. Should've been more of that...

So, things that "Crazy Murder" did well: portray the homeless in the most bat-shit, over-the-top unflattering light, accurately depict NYC as a filth-fraught shithole, toss in a few nicely bloody murders and satisfy any visual hankering for coprophagic abasement. Still, like I said, it should've been trimmed down to a more appropriate runtime seeing as how the pacing was 'off'.

Marfa Girl (2012)

Larry Clark continues with his oppressed-Mexican-skater motif after a seven year dry spell with "Marfa Girl", a follow-up to his 2005 film, "Wassup Rockers". It's tells a pretty similar story, which I must say, didn't really 'grab' me that much this time around. I guess I'm more fond of Clark's earlier, more 'daring' brand of film-making which he seems to be steadily gravitating away from with these last few releases that seem a lot more sappy and repetitive. Not to say "Marfa Girl" is shit, but it's definitely one of his slowest movies.

It's a slice-of-life portrait of life on the American-Mexican border for one particular Tex-Mex teenager who encounters unusual situations and characters throughout his rural-based day-to-day life - most notably a sadistic boarder patrol officer with a deep-seated proclivity for sadomasochism. He also hangs out with a group of indignant Mexican low-lives in an electro-punk band - one of whom is a young mother who is desperate to fuck a 16-year old on his birthday and eager to becoming a stripper. There's also a pregnant teacher who enjoys paddling inattentive students after class, as well as a rampant gutter-slut, out-of-towner artist who is DTF no matter fucking WHAT. Things come to a head when the artist eventually joins a drug-fueled group sex session with three of the local border patrolmen - including the white, masochistic officer who has a complete mental breakdown, resulting in a bit of violent turn of events...

While it's on par with his previous feature, "Wassup Rockers", in terms of it being a discernible departure from the more 'taboo' sustained flicks Clark is generally known for, like "Kids", "Bully" and "Ken Park", "Marfa Girl" splits the difference a bit, in comparison with "Rockers", as far as more contestable content goes. It features a bit more sex, nudity, violence, a shot of a hard dick, implied rape and the sexual abuse of a child, though it still remains considerably subdued in comparison to the aforementioned films. Clark is obviously into portraying his Mexican subjects in a more respectable light then he has been known to do with the obnoxious, degenerate wiggers of his past adolescent 'explorations', typically leaving them to fill the spot of the racist villain. This influence of cultural animosity lends a more stilted kind of cinematic basis of the poor discriminated immigrants and the caucasian 'bad guys' in almost a caricaturized simplification. Clark's agenda is getting tiring as far as I'm concerned and I hope to see him return to his more candid roots.

Like I said, "Marfa Girl" was a little thematically redundant after "Wassup Rockers" and, while it wasn't as 'light' as that film, it's a pretty unremarkable furtherance in depletion of Clark's controversial 'edge' that once was. Hopefully he gets back on track with a more abrasive effort in the future, as I will continue to see what he has to offer out of admiration of his cutting-edge potentiality.

The Green Inferno (2013)

Despite his status as an implicit 'one-trick-pony', relying predominantly on the pandering of low rent, fanboy-run social media-based horror "news" outlets who have continually publicized his plethora of ill-fated projects over the better part of a decade, Eli Roth actually managed to complete something and get it released. And, I'll be damned, I was actually somewhat interested in this latest work as it was a departure from the infantile, jump-scare laden, supernatural toilet waste that passes as 'horror' these days, as far as more 'mainstream' releases go. The idea of a NEW tribal cannibal flick hitting the big screen was inherently appealing to me, regardless of the smug douche hackster gracing the director's chair...

A wanna-be activist chick joins up with some environmentalists who travel to the amazon to ambush a crew of corporate loggers with a live-streaming cyber protest. Shit doesn't totally go according to plan (or does it?), yet they still manage to avoid getting their heads blown off by the militia. Their victory celebration onboard their little plane is cut short by a crash that kills about half of them, leaving the rest to be kidnapped by a tribe of people-eating savages who mistake the do-gooders for the "evil" tree choppers. From there, you pretty much just watch the remaining captives get killed and eaten.

So, once you make it through the slow start, involving inane college kid babble and the botched protest, things actually start looking promising. The petrified group of Americans being herded into the tribal village made for a pretty strong and dire looking scene and the first guy to be gruesomely dismembered alive (after having his eyes and tongue yanked from his head and devoured...) was a delectably brutal bit of carnage, courtesy of some convincing and bloody practical FX work. Then, unfortunately, it's pretty much downhill from there with the remainder of the human livestock sitting in their bamboo cell and hatching their hair brained escape attempts in between idiotic scenes that only a frat boy-minded tard like Eli Roth would think fits into this type of movie. Shit like: a guy jerking off amidst bloodshed in order to "keep his mind clear", a chick with cartoonishly explosive diarrhea and getting the tribe high by jamming a bag of weed down the throat of a soon-to-be cooked corpse.

Aside from all this unfunny and out-of-place bullshit, the death scenes following the initial dismemberment are quite weak and ineffective. One of them kills herself in the cage. One demise is entirely off-screen and another involves lousy looking CGI bullet ants. That, on top of Roth's insufferable writing and one of the shittiest 'payoffs' I can recall in quite some time, "The Green Inferno" disintegrates quickly into a  tragically unremarkable and all-too 'traditional' looking horror flick, encompassing a cast of genre stereotypes. I guess I was hoping for a few less punches pulled in the long-run. Granted, it was a safe bet that animal killing and rape-sprees weren't going to 'fly' as far as a studio film in this day n' age goes, but there was ample opportunity for some dick chopping that never played out! And the topic of female genital mutilation is prevalent, but still never comes to fruition... Again, it all comes down to that one stand-out death scene.

On the flip side, is it better than all the other "Poltergeist/Paranormal Activity" shit coming out? Absolutely. Without a doubt. Hell, it's way better than the "Hostel" movies by a long shot and props go out to Roth for at least attempting something like this and pushing as hard as he did to get it released in theaters so I can't bitch too much. I only wish it was more worth the effort and the wait. It's worth checking out for those who appreciate the top dogs of the 'cannibal exploitation' subgenre, such as "Cannibal Ferox", "Man from Deep River" and, of course, "Cannibal Holocaust". It's nowhere near as raw and visceral as those, but when is the last time you saw a NEW jungle cannibal flick?

On a side note of bonus douchebaggery, Roth decided to include the Twitter handles of the main cast and select crew members along with their credit at the end. Good idea since the popularity of social media sites has never been known to dwindle and accounts are never suspended or deactivated. Way to incorporate that timelessness into your movie, asshole. Twitter will surely remain eternally relevant.

Dead in France (2012)

"Dead in France" is a pretty entertaining, dry-humored, Tarantino-esque 'noir' flick.

A seasoned hitman with a 'neat-freak' quirk hires a cleaning lady to tidy up his mansion as he goes out on his last job before retirement. While he's gone, she invites over her imbecile, mohawk-sporting boyfriend and the two fuck all over the house and go rummaging around. For some reason, they try renting out the house to some couples whom they just end up tying up and sticking in the shed. While this is going on, a thief tries to make off with 2 million pounds out of the hitman's car and another hitman (woman) - a savage lesbian, to be exact - has a score to settle with the main hitman and is hunting him down. All of these separate characters and their own personal vendetta's or acts of ignorance all end up clashing by the film's climax...

I enjoyed this one quite a bit. Though it was far from a GREAT film, it had a subtle and dark enough approach to the humor element (the standout "funny" scene, to me, being the accidental shooting of a cat which made me chuckle) and a nice spread of goofy characters. A few scenes came along that didn't seem all that necessary, which is probably my main gripe with the film, but overall I'd recommend checking out this amusing piece of UK 'black comedy'.

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008)

For quite a while I've been hearing about this one. Usually from people who are rattling off some of their favorite documentaries - it typically ranks high amongst people's preferences - so I figured I should give it a chance. Luckily, I managed to avoid having the big "reveal" spoiled for me so I think I was able to get the full effect of what "Dear Zachary" was trying to elicit in its rollercoaster of misfortune, although I don't think I was 'rocked' to my core as most were. It IS a very tragic case and I found it very frustrating how a judicial system could fail a family so profoundly.

The less you say about this film, the better, so I'll keep it short. What basically happened was a 28-year old doctor (and the spitting image of Jack Black...) hooked up with some 40-year old whackjob cougar bitch who ended up killing him in a jealous rage after he broke it off with her. During the court proceedings, it turns out she is pregnant with his kid so, while the murdered man's parents are fighting for custody of the baby, an old friend of the dead man sets out to make this doc in order to pay tribute and also show the child what kinda guy his father was...

A shitload of absurd, fucked up interactions and events occur during the period of time this movie was being shot that paints a solid picture of the effects of loss and the helplessness the court system can so easily and callously administer on regular people. I always knew the Canadian government was based in intrinsic incompetency and assbackward laws and policies (not to say the U.S. is a well-oiled machine, by any fucking means...), but "Dear Zachary" shows just how bureaucratic entities exhibit corruption and complete ineptitude in protecting their citizens. How cries for justice can so plainly fall on deaf ears and actually work in favor of cold-blooded psychopaths. In many ways, "Dear Zachary" is a wake-up call to just how freely this can happen and how your door knob-sucking, ineffectual government is completely capable of turning a blind eye and disregarding the safety of it's people (including children...) until it's too late.

The doc is put together very well in detailing the family's relationship with one another and their reaction to these events. It thoroughly tackles each aspect of the ordeal and draws you in extremely well. It's depressing and exacerbating, but it IS definitely worth checking out.

Where Evil Dwells (1985)

Part of the whole 'Transgressive Cinema movement', "Where Evil Dwells" is the supposed "preview" of an originally 2-hour long super-8 punko-horror flick that was destroyed in a fire. It's hard to say if the full version consisted of a more intelligible narrative or was just an extended variant of what currently exists, but based on this 28-minute piece of nihilistic celluloid, I'd bet on the latter...

A series of destructive and sadistic events are introduced as seemingly random vignettes by a killer ventriloquist's dummy (who sounds like Beavis, of "Beavis and Butthead"...). Such pernicious acts involve smashing up vehicles, dangling a life-size dummy off a bridge to fuck with traffic, participating in satanic rituals and a pretty gruesome head stabbing around a bonfire. It all ends with a bizarre depiction of Hell.

So, yeah, it's alright for what it is. If you dig 'experimental' aberration set to a metal/punk soundtrack then check it out. Frankly, I have to be in the right kind of mood to get at all 'into' this kind 'transgressive' type shit, but "Where Evil Dwells" was one of the better I've seen. Again, I'm not sure what the full cut of this was intended to be, but as is, it works as far as this type of 'underground' anarchist punker-flick goes. Check it out for the face stabbing scene.

The Dirties (2013)

As I've said before, I have a weakness for 'school shooting' movies so I generally try to check out anything along those lines. "The Dirties" kept me genuinely entertained, despite the 'mock-doc' style that I hate and has also already been done with this type of thing with the 2003 movie, "Zero Day". That, along with the dry comedic elements in "The Dirties", it all came together surprisingly well, I'd say.

A pair of teenage outcasts are making a parody-infused film project for one of their classes that involves them heroically murdering certain teachers and student bullies (whom they refer to as "dirties"...) around their school. They're forced to cut out the violence and obscenity which gives one of the boys the idea to switch the film over from a humorous action/'crime thriller' piece to a documentary of an actual school shooting, perpetrated by non other than them. As the mastermind behind the plan strategizes for the big massacre, the other kid can't seem to take the project seriously and a rift in their friendship deepens when he ditches out on the plan for the hot, popular girl...

Strong points of the film include the performances of the two leads, which are actually very believable considering an aptitude of 'quirkiness' - although it never goes too over-the-top with it. The pacing is spot-on and the faux-doc method - while pointless, as usual - never really gets in the way, as I far as I'm concerned. The outcome is satisfying while not playing out as the all encompassing bloodbath you may expect. Don't expect anything along the lines of Gus Van Sant's "Elephant", as far as containing a cold, protracted campus genocide, but it's not without an enjoyable payoff. I also liked the less-than-subtle correlation between high school bullies and future authoritarians by having one of the lead teenage aggressors wearing a black T-shirt with big white letters reading "POLICE" in several scenes.

"The Dirties" is another astringent and brazen statement on adolescent bullying that, like William Hellfire and Joey Smack's 1999 post-Columbine (by just a few months...) massacre film, "Duck! The Carbine High Massacre", peppers humor into it's apropos message as a more inflammatory means of shedding light on the repercussions of ongoing schoolyard torture.

Tormented (2015)

"Tormented" was a quick Redbox rental for an evening of disposable drunken viewing a few nights ago, so I wasn't expecting anything short of generic horror drivel. And that's precisely what I got. Thanks again, Redbox... If you've seen any recent 'home invasion' flick, you've surely seen a better version of what "Tormented" is.

After video of her blowing some douchebag at a Halloween party makes it rounds on the web, a humiliated high school girl heads to her babysitting gig at a rich family's lavish estate. That night, she is visited by a trio of creeps in pig masks (one of which is a young kid...) who break into the house and stalk her around the property, while collecting the kids for some kind of illuminati meat-market operation out of their pork truck...

Pretty dull flick, overall. Total knock-off of stuff like "The Strangers" and "You're Next" - just toned WAY down, as far as any violence and tension goes. It's a shame, considering the movie is fairly well shot and had a bit of decent atmosphere going for it, I'd say - though, unfortunately, it fell flat, failing to deliver on any originality, the bloody 'goods' and ended on a very weak note. I can't recommend wasting a buck-and-a-half on this one.

Der Todesking (1990)

Jorg Buttgereit - auteur Germain director behind the Super 8 masterpiece "Nekromantik" and the well-known 1993 serial killer study "Schramm", expressed his versatility well with his most "arthouse" release "Der Todesking". Differing from his bizarre, isolated story lines dealing with ultra-macabre subject matter such as necrophilia and vagina monsters, Buttgereit swapped out the strict "story" aspect for an episodic bit of melancholy film making that still delivers his unique brand of bizarre AND isolated indie madness...

"Der Todesking" displays different characters, places, and mental collapses throughout each day of the week - starting with a man's undisclosed reason for over-dosing on pills in the bathtub which is shown in a dishearteningly voyeuristic manner from inside his drab apartment. The next involves a new guy, picking out an "Ilsa - She-Wolf of the SS" parody from a video store, watching it and shooting his wife or girlfriend in the head as her nagging ass come walking in the door... Next is easily the most harrowing segment showing a man sitting on park bench when a woman shows up. He explains how his wife bleeds during sex and how he is depressed and confused by it. It ends with him shooting himself in front of the woman. Thursday's part is a documentary type 'tour' of a motorway bridge that includes captions of the names and ages of people who have jumped from the bridge over many years... Certainly a haunting scene. Friday is, for me, the least memorable. A woman sees a young couple in the window of a neighboring apartment having sex. She has a flashback of her parents fucking, then receives a letter telling her to kill herself. The next scene is a woman reading a philosophical passage from a book that explains the psychological reasoning behind mass murder. It cuts to a woman strapping a camera to her chest, picking up a gun, and then shooting up a rock concert before being shot and killed, herself. Sunday, the final day, shows a man sleeping on a bare mattress who wakes up in a frenzied outburst and frantically begins bashing his head against the wall until brain damage undoubtedly takes effect... The movie is interlaced with shots showing a decomposing male corpse, via stop-motion animation.

In terms of Jorg Buttgereit's lexicon of film making, "Der Todesking" is probably the one I like the least. That's not to say it is without merit when it comes to Buttgereit's style, though "Nekromatik" reigns supreme for me. "Der Todesking" is, without a doubt, an extremely personal and intimate film that is for sure something you'll remember. Buttgereit's artist influence has been there within each of his films, but this one deals with a much less "horror movie" tone and more of an intense portrait of psychological decline and the various 'drives' behind suicide. It's not an easy film to get a hold of, but if you have the chance, enjoy the experience...

Hayride 2 (2015)

I didn't see the first "Hayride" so I wasn't totally up to speed on this 'saga', but I think I got the gist, despite this sequel clearly being a direct continuation of it's predecessor. Based on it's own merits, the "Hayride" series appears to suck ass.

Again, appearing to pick up where the original movie left off, the survivors of a massacre involving a fat, masked hillbilly with Ku Klux Klan ties, named Pitchfork, are in the hospital being treated for injuries sustained. Pitchfork breaks out of his ambulance with his sights set on getting to the hospital to finish these punks off while, in the meantime, a detective is attempting to dig up some back story on the redneck killer...

Seriously standard slasher formula, here. Actually, the beginning shows a bit of re-cap from the previous installment, which looked quite a bit better in comparison to what I ended up watching. Looked like some decent kills and Pitchfork running around, hacking people up with a chainsaw. Where was the chainsaw in THIS one? Not only is there a no chainsaw, but the majority of the deaths are off-screen, save for a few fairly bloody pitchforkings. The rest of the time characters are sitting around a hospital waiting room, reminiscing about shit and showing boring flashbacks while sappy music plays. The thing was just too heavy on filler and needless character development, considering it's a sequel... to a SLASHER movie.

Can't say I'm tripping over myself to check out the first "Hayride" flick. Should've probably checked that one out first, but circumstances landed the second one in my lap first, so that's that. Pretty weak slasher joint, overall, with a typical looking killer, dull characters/dialog, light on gore and just too conventional. Don't waste your time.

The Guest (2014)

Until recently I never really connected guys like Adam Wingard and his other film-maker buddies - Ti West, Joe Swanberg and whatever others, with the "mumblecore movement". I guess it's mainly due to the fact that I had never even heard of these types of films before, but I looked up some info and apparently it's a subgenre consisting of pretentious, angsty, micro-budget hipster romance comedy-dramas that typically feature improvised, depressive performances. In other words: bullshit. So I guess the "cool" thing now amongst these guys is incorporating some of the "mumblecore" characteristics into their multi-faceted 'horror-thriller' flicks. Generally, looking back, these types of films have been relatively hit-and-miss with me, thus far, but "The Guest" turned out to be a pretty generic and over-rated film.

A soldier, presumably on his way home, unexpectedly arrives at the home of one of his fallen unit members. The dead serviceman's family offers to let the man stay with them and soon enough the guest becomes more and more involved in the lives of the family - dealing with the teenage son's bullying issues, the 20-year old sister's social life and the father's work life... Of course, shit begins to spiral out of control when some 'red flags' go up and a deeper look into the visitor's history reveals some potential threats...

I'd say, while it's very reminiscent of quite a few other movies - namely, Takashi Miike's "Visitor Q" and "Hesher" (which was, in itself, a knock-off of the aforementioned film...), "The Guest" is a watchable enough flick. A little heavy on the 'quirkiness' than I would typically prefer (namely, a bar fight scene that seems to go on a bit too long...), but that's the idiosyncratic "mumblecore" influence rearing it's ugly, genre-contrasting head. Overall, it's a pretty standard type of mainstream'thriller' that's an easy watch if you're in a somewhat easy-going mood, but don't expect anything crazy.

Maggie (2015)

I definitely picked up on the "fresh spin" this one was going for and, while I appreciated it's ambition in mixing up the 'infection/outbreak/zombie' genre a little, it never quite managed to pick up the proper momentum and bolster the strength I think it could've had.

In a near-future setting, a new virus has hit that turns people in raving, zombie-ish lunatics. A farmer's teenage daughter is bitten by one of the infected lunatics, but apparently, the effects of the sickness don't set in immediately so those who are tainted are allowed to go on with their lives while being frequently monitored by the authorities and doctors. Once they've hit the point-of-no-return (everyone else smells like delicious meat and they go crazy...), they are whisked off to some quarantine zone where they are killed. The father is doing his best to cope with the inevitable while his daughter comes to realization that she's quite literally falling apart...

The concept here is a bit different than many flicks of this kind and it plays out as more of a tenebrous drama than a total 'horror' film. There ARE a few scenes early on that are reminiscent of "28 Days Later", involving infected, zombie-like creeps getting roughed up (one scene actually being pretty effective...), but for the most part, it tries to stick with a more emotional human element. Unfortunately, it's not done especially well, considering the characters are bland and particularly hard to 'connect' with, which seemed to offset the movie's essence. Arnold Schwarzenegger tries to pull off a little 'depth' with his character, but he really couldn't carry this film. Stylistically, it looks good - dreary tone; almost colorless, though, in terms of the premise and pacing, it didn't work for me. It was very plodding and left me feeling like I saw a ten minute movie stretched into a pretentious 95-minutes.

"Maggie" showed promise in certain areas, but the delivery was pretty lacking, I'm afraid.

Mr. No Legs (1979)

Seems like a promising concept. A bad guy with no legs killing folks with shotguns that eject from the arm rests of his wheelchair. Sounds like quality 'grindhouse' trash in every sense. Problem is - there's too many goddamn people with LEGS and not enough of the opposite...

A guy who is mixed up in a drug ring accidentally kills his girlfriend so Mr. No Legs and an accomplice kill HIM and dispose of them both. The girlfriend's brother, who happens to be a cop, wants to find out who killed his sister and ends up having to deal with No Legs...

There's a few decent things to point out in this one, I guess. We get a bar room fight sparked by racial tension among two women that involves a tranny and a black midget cheering them on, a legless man doing push-ups in his wheelchair, and a few poorly choreographed fight scenes - one of which includes a sword. Overall, however, "Mr. No Legs" is not as cool as the title makes it sounds, but hardcore fans of oddball 'grindhouse' shit may want to check it out since you'll never see another movie quite like it.

Under the Skin (2013)

"Under the Skin" is a bigger budget sci-fi 'art film' with some pretty striking, phantasmagorical imagery and a hefty helping of a nude Scarlett Johansson. Oh, you heard right! You'll need a drool bib for quite a bit of this flick, guys.

Scarlett plays an extraterrestrial femme fatale who preys upon douchebag Scotsmen she finds on the street while cruising around in her van. She takes them back to her lair - which is disguised as a rundown hovel - where she draws them into an ectoplasmic fluid where their entire body is gradually dissolved except for their skin. Her routine of flesh-preserving seduction comes to a decided halt when she opts out of submerging and de-fleshing a horribly disfigured young man and sets out to explore the world. Along the way, she is pursued by a guy on a crotch rocket whose job is apparently to keep tabs on the condition of her body and it's upkeep and eventually starts up a relationship with a solitary 'bloke'...

Visually, "Under the Skin" is beautiful and uses the dreary Scotland countryside to it's utmost in ameliorating it's reposed and unsettlingly quiet atmosphere. The setting is fantastic and the more surreal scenes are pretty damn memorable and 'trippy'. There's definitely a hypnotic quality to this film that held me, despite very little "action", overall, though mood and atmosphere take center stage here and it works very well in keeping a steady pace. Along with some more nightmarish elements, there's a bizarre 'eroticism' at the forefront that grants us plenty of delectable full-frontal from Scarlett that only enriches the film's aesthetic merit further. The 'artistic' flair that carries this one may not be everyone's cup-o-tea, but if you're looking for a more ornate spin on science-fiction then give "Under the Skin" a shot.

Clown (2014)

I was a bit more entertained by this one than I expected. I guess it's due, mainly, to the fact that it takes the concept of demon clown transformations completely serious. Does that mean it's GOOD? Nah, not really. But a killer clown flick not being totally played for laughs isn't too common. Plus, you thrown in a handful of splattery kid murders and, hell, I'll accept whatever ridiculous clown lore bullshit you can toss my way.

A guy fills in as a last minute clown for his kids birthday party, wearing an old clown suit he found at a dead dude's house. The next day, panic begins setting in when he finds it virtually impossible to remove the articles of his clown ensemble (rainbow wig, red nose, makeup, suit...) as they have adhered, seemingly permanently, to his body. He seeks the help of the former owner of the costume who explains that the only way to intercept the demonic metamorphosis that is taking place is to either decapitate him or feed him the proper number of children...

"Clown" offers up a fairly unique (though seemingly unintentionally goofy...) 'body horror' premise that contains a nice amount of practical effects - many of which are pretty decent - and the crème de la crème: a bloodbath at Chuck E. Cheese! I must say, the kid killing in this one is on par with another psycho clown film, "Sloppy the Psychotic".

So, while I can't say "Clown" is anything all that groundbreaking, but I'll give it props for keeping with a more serious 'tone' in the midst of horror-comedies being the familiar go-to these days - even through all of the silliness and retarded 'clown mythos' - and for having the balls to slaughter little kids. I'm being generous, here, but I'm giving it a moderate rec. Also check out "Stitches" if you dig fucked up clowns.

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

I wound up giving in to the hype surrounding the revival of the "Mad Max" series due to how over-the-top and 'non-stop' people were telling me it was. They weren't wrong. This thing is absolutely packed to the gills with all-encompassing action and visual 'richness'. And... that's really all it sets out to provide it's viewers. Not a bad thing, for sure.

Short form plot rundown: Mad Max, a badass chick and her girl posse are cruising around in a 'war truck' through a post-apocalyptic desert full of pasty goons, lead by a water-hoarding leader...

In all, "Mad Max: Fury Road" works more as a massive visual spectacle then anything else. The character seems to take a backseat to each consecutive 20-minute vehicular incursion (the bulk of the film, needless to say...) and the compulsory focus on arrant feminism. The Max character comes across as unnecessary while being so overshadowed by needless granny biker gangs and Charlize Theron's blandly forced exposition of redemption - the longest instance in which the film 'slows down', I'd say. To give you an idea - at one point, Max runs off into the fog to take care of some 'business'. He comes back after some peculiar noise, covered in blood (not his own...) and we realize that serious ass was kicked... completely OFF SCREEN! Not to say there's any shortage of 'balls-out' action in the film - I just feel they underutilized and over-pussified the supposed primary character in favor of a female dominated 'mold' in which Hollywood feels compelled to adhere to lately. Personally, I'm not attracted to masculine warrior-women. Call me 'old fashioned'...

Aside from that bullshit, "Fury Road" IS some entertaining, old-school escapism. Not entirely my kind of movie, typically, but it's pure visual eye-candy of the mindless, ultra-high-octane sort. Good shit to check out on the big screen, overall.

Snowpiercer (2013)

Had been meaning to check out "Snowpiercer" for a while. I wasn't tripping over myself to do so, but I had heard good things and it sounded like kind of a cool "1984"-style 'thriller' piece and it actually was for the most part without soaring over my expectations...

Set in the year 2031, the Earth has been buried by a new ice age - leaving the small remaining populace to sustain an existence on a massive luxury train that moves non-stop throughout the subzero, post-apocalyptic landscape. Their enclosed civilization has submitted to a bit of a backslide in class segregation, leaving the poor to be housed in the back of the train with no windows, gelatinous protein bricks for food and at the mercy of the sadistic 'enforcers'. When it's decided that enough is enough, the downtrodden come together and start violently making their way to the front of the train.

Pretty entertaining futuristic 'thriller' with a fairly consistent 'flow' of stylized carnage to go along with its surreal premise and visuals. There's a few pretty 'strong' scenes, such as one character's back story having to do cannibalizing babies, a guy's arm getting frozen off and a violent altercation taking place with "Midnight, the Stars and You" playing in the background. So, overall, "Snowpiercer" is an enjoyable, yet reasonably dark dystopian flick. Worth checking out.

Ooga Booga (2013)

Full Moon Features just can't do enough killer doll movies. I don't get it and, needless to say, I've never been a big fan of Charles Band and his hard-on for psycho puppets. The only reason I checked out "Ooga Booga" - there's three, actually - it features Stacy Keach (who rules), Karen Black in one of her final roles (poor woman...) and legendary internet satirist/author, Maddox. So, was it bad? Yeah, but in all honesty, it wasn't as downright unwatchable as I expected...

A young, soon-to-be black doctor is cornered by some crooked cops in a convenience store after having witnessed a deadly armed robbery. The senior cop decides the kid is guilty and executes him - thus, his soul is transferred, via electrical current, into an archetypal, disparate African-modeled doll (complete with the bone in the nose and spear...) he was given. He promptly reconnects with his girlfriend and, with her help, they set out to take down the dirty pigs and the drug manufacturing degenerates working for them.

Obviously, "Ooga Booga" is a typcial, stupid Full Moon flick that shamelessly rips off another black killer doll flick, "Ragdoll" (which just so happens to be another Full Moon joint...), and the Zuni fetish doll segment from "Trilogy of Terror", which explains Karen Black's otherwise needless appearance. Still, Keach is awesome (albeit, washed up...) and I couldn't help but chuckle somewhat at the doll's retarded sounding 'battle cry'. This movie is really something you have to be in the right mood for if you intend on getting through it, but I will say, it's not the worst Full Moon cheese-fest I've seen.