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...