Mondo Cane (1962)

"Mondo Cane" is, of course, known as the granddaddy of the 'shockumentary' sub-genre - having paved the way for much harsher and exploitive 'reality'-based films that were to follow; most notably, the "Faces of Death" series. I've said before in past reviews for movies of this ilk that these types of flicks really aren't my 'thing'. Like a lot of others, I grew up with a total fascination for the Faces/Traces... videos and would gleefully seek out and absorb the shameless montages of real-death morbidity, but have long since grown out of it, especially with the advent of the internet. I'm still down for the occasional run through Liveleak or Bestgore for some gruesome jollies, though.

"Mondo Cane" may have sparked this death-junkie titilating trend, though it's got far less 'shock appeal' than its later copycats. It's laid out in a pretty straight-forward, anthropological showcase of a wide range of countries and cultures and how they live and behave. Obviously, some of what is shown in the film can be considered provocative - namely, the animal abuse/killing, which takes up a good portion of the movie where different food preparation customs are explored in various regions of the world. From a tribe bludgeoning pigs to death to the force feeding of ducks (and tribal women!) to the butchering and consuming of dogs in Thailand - this shit will definitely get under the skin of animal lovers, however, I didn't find it displayed as anything more than harshly honest, National Geographic-esque footage as opposed to intentionally 'exploitive', disrespectful, feather-ruffling 'trash' intended as mindless shock-value. Based on how this material is presented, I actually ended up liking "Mondo Cane" more than I expected - having heard that it was "tame" and "boring", though someone expecting mangled corpses being dragged from grisly highway wrecks to the tune of Napalm Death or Mortuary may very well find this disappointing. And, to be fair, there's quite a bit of "Mondo Cane" that IS pretty dull. A whole segment in Australia involving life guard training felt immensely out-of-place and a gym in L.A. where elderly fat women are doing yoga was dumb. Not to mention "man hunting"... Still, there was enough interesting shit, overall, such as some shitty tribe that throw their dead in the ocean which has turned sharks on to human meat, making them total killing machines so the dumbass locals get their revenge by hooking the sharks and stuffing poison sea urchins down their throats, thus inducing a slow, agonizing death for their deadly aquatic foes. There's also some crazy Spaniards who protest some religious ceremony by running around in Daisy Dukes and cutting their legs up with glass and an Asian "death room" that sick people are locked in to die while their relatives have a giant feast in the other room.

So, yeah, there's enough bizarre shit to sink your teeth into if you're down for checking out the original "Mondo movie", which, again, is a far cry from the novelty 'shock-docs' that were to follow. Gotta say, I didn't mind this one a whole lot. It's something I don't see myself ever watching again, but for a one-and-done, it's well worth it and actually comes across as somewhat educational.

The Psychopath (1973)

"The Psychopath" (aka. "An Eye for an Eye") was the film that Joe Spinell had planned to remake as a follow-up to his slasher masterpiece, "Maniac" in the mid '80s. Unfortunately, Spinell passed away suddenly and all we are left with is an 8-minute demo 'taste' of how amazing the film would've been, titled "Maniac 2: Mr. Robbie". Had that entire film been made there's no doubt it would've been a massive improvement of "The Psychopath", though I can't say this one isn't without its charms for what it's worth.

The moptopped, man child host of a kids puppet show TV program and all around friend to the community youngsters, Mr. Rabbey, is noticing that some of the local parents are mistreating their little ones. This realization sparks a rage that is even more intensified as he performs for kids in the hospital and sees the injuries and irrevocable mental scarring caused by parental abuse. He is soon pushed over the edge when one of the towns kids goes missing and turns up dead at the hands of his sadistic parents. So Mr. Rabbey ushers up some vigilante ass-whooping on these scumbag parents...

I really like this concept and the guy who plays Mr. Rabbey does a convincing job in his role, though I still found this movie to be much too clunky in spots. Much of the police investigation stuff and a handful of other unneeded scenes (such as a completely superfluous carnival sequence) slow the pace WAY down at times. The kills are pretty non-graphic, but however, for a PG-rating (obviously, '70s PG is vastly different from today's PG), I'll give it accolades for a baseball bat to the face and an implied death-by-lawnmower. Had the film been better written and directed I feel it would've had the strength to become something of a cult classic, perhaps, though it suffers in too many ways. We should've gotten a better sense of Rabbey's prowess as a television host; which is hardly explored, and even a little background as to why he is the way he is would've been nice. In all, "The Psychopath" (by the way, an odd title as many of us would argue that said 'psychopath' is doing God's work...) is a decent, but flawed rarity that IS worth seeing for its strengths. Would've been great to see what Spinell would've done with it.

Automaton Transfusion (2006)

I picked this one up dirt cheap recently and, despite having heard nothing all that good about it, wasn't totally hating on it right off the bat to be honest. There was definitely some missed potential lingering somewhere within this very low-budget zombie flick, though a few missteps toward the tail end went and killed it for me.

Some high schoolers are on their way to a concert in the city when they are caught up in an undead horde of sprinting zombies... And a house party is caught in the crossfire of this pandemic, as well...

There's really not a whole lot more plot to divulge, as "Automaton Transfusion" is basically nothing more than your standard zombie fare. It was shot quick (and shoddily...) and on an obviously minuscule budget, but contains a few decent gore sequences; namely, the bloody removal of a jaw and the extraction and devouring of an unborn fetus. Several of these scenes managed to win me over, throughout, and I was also digging the lack of humor, seeing as how I find the zom-com shit WAY more played these days than even the serious 'takes' on this particular sub-genre. However, shit falls apart around the end with the extremely forced and contrived explanation as to the zombie outbreak - of course, having to deal with secret military experiments gone haywire. Then, it all goes from bad to worse with the zombies swarming our final two survivors who, in turn, lock and load, but THEN we get a cop-out "To Be Continued"... What?? What had I just sat through, a fucking sitcom?! Not that I'm pissed that a sequel was never made, though... dipshit, finish your fucking movie! That was too much. Had it not been for that I would've deemed "Automaton Transfusion" a mediocre, watchable B-zombie movie. But they dropped the fucking ball. HARD.

Tombs of the Blind Dead (1971)

Figured I was overdue to finally sit down and check out the first entry in the "Blind Dead" series (and, eventually, the rest of the films). I'd, of course, heard numerous favorable opinions on this Spanish zombie flick over the years, but just never quite got around to giving it a watch and, honestly - I hate to say it - this one was a bit of a let down.

Two girls and a guy are on a train heading to a camping destination. The one chick starts getting friendly with the dude - who the other girl has her on - so she decides to bail out of their vacation by jumping from the slow moving train. Where she ends up just so happens to be some ancient ruins where some medieval cultist Crusaders used to sacrifice virgins and drink their blood. Now, they tend to frequently pop out of their graves, stumble around blindly (their eyes were plucked out by crows after they were executed...) and ride around on horseback, looking for more blood. So, when the friends who she ditched on the train discover that she'd been found all dead and chewed up, they start investigating the likelihood of the old, sightless zombie lore.

"Tombs of the Blind Dead" does have some pretty decent atmosphere and the robed zombie ARE fairly creepy, especially when shown on horseback with this ghostly, slowed down kind of effect that I found cool and eerie. So, the overall 'feel' of the film is on point, I have to say. The biggest downfall, though, is the notable lack of sleaze/gore. Based on my own personal hang-ups, '70s Euro-exploit/horror really tends to suffer without the aide of some blood, guts and newd babes and "Tombs..." felt REALLY tame due to such a noticeable absence of these elements. However, I still gotta give it a pass for the darkly atmospheric tone and it's ghoulish blind zombie hordes. If only they'd been a bit more 'active', in terms of gut-munching and flesh-tearing then it's safe to say that this movie would've been firing on all cylinders.