Blood Shack (1971)

This is a weirdie, but not so much a goodie, seeing as how its major pitfall is that the shitty director felt like he didn't have enough material to sustain a fucking mere hour-and-ten goddamn minute movie. So, in between the moderately "interesting" shit (I'm being incredibly generous there) is a bunch of boring filler and inane ranch ownership-related bullshit that roadblocks any potential 'action' for endless periods of time.

A failing B-horror actress moves back to her father's ranch in bum-fuck hicksville wherever that is being tended by a shirtless yahoo who keeps warning people about "the Chooper" (the ridiculous alternate title of the film) that resides in a dilapidated house on the property that was cursed by some Indian natives back in the day. The Chooper, apparently, is a monster that hangs out in the shit-shack and kills anyone who dares enter. And, from the looks of it, the Chooper is legit, though it looks more like a retard in a spandex bodysuit and mache mask with a toy sword when a hippie chick decides to the spend the night alone in the house. Of course, she's killed, and the ranch hand disposes of her body.

This is really the best scene we get involving the Chooper - although there are a few others (the sheriff death was pretty funny) - as the bulk of this movie is repetitive voice-over of the main actress talking about how annoyed she is at a local douche who keeps pestering her about wanting to buy her ranch (this comes up SO fucking much that is becomes almost annoyingly comical) and rodeo footage. Apparently, this movie fell short of the desired run-time needed to constitute a "feature", so the director went back and filmed ten extra minutes of bucking broncos, cattle-roping and pointless rodeo shit to pad it out and - believe me - this shit gets DULL. I mean, how hard would it have been to film a couple more "Chooper" scenes where some dumbasses get sword-hacked in the blood shack? Doesn't seem like it would've cost a fortune to do this. Either way, I kinda dug this one. I know, it's boring and schlocky, but there's a weird... charm to it. Most may not feel this way, but if you're into obscure 70s oddities then... maybe "Blood Shack".

Private House of the SS (1977)

Decent enough 'nazisploit' sleazer from Bruno Mattei (credited, directorially, under one of his many pseudonyms) that keeps things pretty low-key, as far as violence, which is never a positive thing in MY book, but the full-frontal frauleins are kept at an abundance, which rules. 

The premise is suitably simple - a guy is ordered to weed out the traitors among the Hitler SS officials by opening a whorehouse with specially trained, captive girls. He starts off with a group of Nazi generals who - once aroused to the point of thinking solely with their dicks - are prompted to spill their guts on how they REALLY feel about their fuhrer, which is less than 'warm'. So after they're hauled in for treason, sights are set on another SS goon with a penchant for being an especially sadistic motherfucker. Pretty much the same shit here, but by this point, the guy in charge of this operation starts getting a bit nutty, thinking HE is in fact the real fuhrer and shit takes even a harder nosedive when word hits that Hitler is dead and the house of debauchery and conspirator-sifting basically does a mass suicide thang...

So, yeah, plenty of nude broads running around, getting mauled by over-the-top Nazi pervs. Again, not much at all in terms of violence or gore and the last 20-minutes kinda started to drag, I thought. I will, however, give this one props for the whore training montage at the beginning - featuring karate exercises as well as sexual marathons involving fat and/or deformed BDSM freaks and dogs. Good stuff. Also, the main guy's performance is pretty crazy and fun. In all, not the best 'nazisploitation' flick I've come across by any means, but for what it's worth, I enjoyed the majority of it. Most of Bruno Mattei's stuff falls somewhere in the in the middle for me and this is a good example.

Sadistic Tragedy of Blue Rose Mansion 01 (2009)

Some bleak SM material out of the Japanese sleaze underground that is pretty fucking boring, overall. Featured are prolonged, unbroken sequences of a young woman being mostly pierced and sewn - with one endless scene of candle wax-play - all conducted by another woman in a dark, fancy, candlelit setting.

There's really not all that much more to speak of, as this is just one of those weird fetish 'torture porn' (in the truest sense) "films" that are made for a very 'niche' type. Personally, my 'kinks' don't really coincide with this kind of shit (though it may depend on my mood...), so I mainly just seek this kind of thing out for the 'shock value', though, I must say, this one didn't do much except bore me. Everything just goes on way too long - with the aforementioned wax torture, ornaments being threaded into the chick's back, other types of needle piercing and, of course, the big mouth-being-sewn-shut grand finale. The subject of this abuse also reacts much too nonchalantly - to the point where it hardly even seems like torture. Honestly, the version I purchased came with some porn trailers at the end for shit that looked exponentially better than the snooze-fest I had just suffered through - including one (I forget the title) - where a guy ties up his girlfriend in a basement, fills her mouth with thumb tacks and karate kicks her in the throat. Day-um! Anyways, if you're hopelessly turned on by needle-torture, I guarantee you can do better than this shit.

Female Harakiri: Glorious Death (1989)

It appears that an odd genre out of Japan (figure that) of Harakiri films was a thing for a while so I went ahead and picked up a set of six of them just to see for myself. The only examples of this I've seen in the past are "Paradise Lost: Riding Habit Harakiri" (which is featured on the aforementioned set) and the final segment of "Psycho: The Snuff Reels", which was actually pretty memorable. As far as the first film up, here, it's a total fucking snoozer.

A woman is seen gazing pensively at an army uniform for a long time before we see her kneeling in front of a ceremonial Harakiri blade (I presume that's what it was...). She fondles it for a long time, drags the tip across her bare breasts a bit and finally starts slicing into her abdomen for an excruciatingly long time. Then, she writhes on the floor and dies and the shit ends...

Gore and effects-wise, there's not much to speak of, here. Not much as far as entrails spilling or blood splatter (though some) makes this one pretty weak, boring and uneventful, overall. It just drags and really leaves one (me, at least) unenthralled and disappointed.

Asylum of Satan (1972)

I'm kind of a sucker for '70s movies set in mental hospitals and - throw in some Satan for good measure - and you got my attention. "Asylum of Satan" isn't a good film by any stretch of the imagination and maybe I was just in a good mood when I watched it (which is weird considering I watched this sometime around one in the afternoon, stone sober...), but I kind of enjoyed it more than I feel it deserves.

Simple premise involving a woman who wakes up in a funny farm run by a Satanic cult leader who needs her for a sacrifice, all while her fiance is struggling to gain access to the mysteriously impregnable facility. A few of the other handicapped patients are killed off along the way and we round things out with a paper-mache devil creature...

This thing is cheezy all around - from the shitty looking bugs pulled on fishing line, to rubber snakes attacking a blind chick in a swimming pool, horrible looking fake facial hair and the aforementioned homemade Satan monster at the end. At the same time, it's oddly watchable if you're in the mood to not be too impressed and just laugh at something goofy. Moderately recommended to drive-in trash fans.

Bloodrage (1979)

Early on I had relatively high hopes of "Bloodrage" shaping out to be a pretty gritty serial killer joint, but as time wore on I was more let down by how slow and light on kills it was. Looks like Joseph Zito (credited here as Joseph Bigwood - who should've made this a porno with a pseudonym like that) didn't quite hit his stride until a few years later with "The Prowler" and then "Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter".

A sexually embittered young man kills a part-time country prostitute and, after disposing of her body where he's convinced it'll never be found, he moves out to the mean streets of '70s New York where we hear through some very inconsistent inner voice-over monologue that he can continue to kill, undetected, in these dense, scummy urban streets. Meanwhile, a local rural cop and longtime 'john' of the dead hooker goes looking through NYC for her whereabouts, having prior knowledge that she planned on stripping there as the boyish killer goes on angrily murdering young women.

What few kills there were happened to be fairly mean and misogynistic and there's a decent amount of female nudity to keep things rolling along. Also, Lawrence Tierney has a small, random part as an expectedly gruff cop and I really dig anything set in this era of sleazy shithole New York to some degree. Aside from these moderate 'perks', "Bloodrage" is still pretty dull and the 'action' (kills) were too few and far between for my liking. I DID, however, crack up at this things' totally out-of-nowhere and abrupt ending. Kudos for that! Still doesn't make the overall movie worth one's time, hate to say.

Halloween (2018)

I let my expectations get considerably high for this sequel (as many did, I'm sure) that stupidly shares its name with the original which is the one thing that continues to really irk me to no end. Seeing what could only be a return-to-form for Michael Myers in that it's playing out as a direct follow-up to the 1978 original and disregarding the first "Halloween 2" - as well as each subsequent sequel - seemed promising enough for what it's worth. After blowing into my local theater and checking out this heavily praised revival, there was really nothing about it that rocked me.

Looks like, after taking six rounds and falling off the balcony back on that fateful night, Michael was whisked off to the 'funny farm' for the next 40-years. During this time, Laurie Strode became a paranoid shut-in - estranged from her family and preparing for that next inevitable altercation with the babysitter killer. Following a visit from a pair of investigative journalists with Michael in the mental facility and, undoubtedly rekindling some of that murderous hostility, he escapes custody while being transferred to a maximum security prison. Conveniently, he gets hold of his old mask, makes his way to Haddonfield and starts offing Laurie's granddaughter's friends. This, of course, gets back to Laurie and she gets to put her years of target practice and home security device amassing to good use on the anniversary of her initial encounter with Mike.

One problem is; I really like 1981's "Halloween 2". Watching it back-to-back with the first film makes it feel like one epic slasher all set on one festively violent night as I find both movies have the same 'feel', overall. Also, people were losing their shit over Mikey and Laurie Strode having their big showdown and, as far as I'm concerned, that would've been truly spectacular if only... it hadn't already been done and - yeah, shoot me - BETTER in "Halloween: H20". I know, everybody pretty much hates that flick and I, myself, am not the biggest fan as it really didn't age well, seeing as how it came out of the mid-to-late 90s, "Scream"-clone period of cookie-cutter, teeny-bopper slashers. Even so, and I'm sure I'm in the minority, but that shit aside, the final skirmish in THAT movie tops this new one, for sure. Jamie Lee going all gun-toting Rambo-granny just struck me as cheesy and such a far cry from anything her character was like in the first film. I'm fine with her coming out swinging 40-years later and capping some rounds into her returning masked aggressor, but this was just way too 'commando' for my liking. Plus, her rustic wooded residence being decked out with hidden arsenals, steal spike traps and lock-down shutters was so over-the-top ridiculous, I couldn't get behind it. I hate to keep drawing comparisons, but something more akin to her character in "H20", which I think was a much better 'splitting the difference' of her virginal babysitter role in the original and ol' Lock-n-Load Strode from this 2018 film.

For the most part, Michael Myers is a joy to watch, as always - making his rounds through Haddonfield and fucking folks up. There's a few decent gore scenes and some cool, unbroken shots following him around. However, I was still getting a strong Rob Zombie-vibe off of him in this one, especially in certain scenes of particular brute-force violence - namely, a bloody head-stomping and rest stop stall skull-slamming; both of which were VERY reminiscent of Zombie's interpretation of Myers and not so much of the shadow-lurking phantom presence he was in Carpenter's film. In fact, we get a LOT of on-screen, up close and personal shit with Michael in this one which works if you're looking for pure slasher content, but not so much if you're expecting something 'spooky' or remotely subtle, as "The Shape" was almost a half a century ago.

So, aside from my gripes and comparisons, this movie IS a well done sequel. It LOOKS good, with some great lighting at times and the aforementioned shots of Michael stalking around town. The classic Carpenter theme music is back in full force, with a cool 'spin' or two thrown in a few times, such as some guitar chugs in a certain scene.

With the exception of "Halloween 2" ('81), this definitely IS the best sequel of the franchise. It's got the right 'feel', for the most part, and it's cool seeing Jamie Lee back in action. Quite a few references to the original, as well as the sequels it's ignoring, which was alright. Had the ending packed a bit more of a punch and felt a bit more 'personal' between our main foes I think this would've definitely capped things off nicely. I just think they dropped the ball having it all take place in a a little house which got a bit daunting and for the fact that it never really provides that "FUCK YEAH" moment you'd expect between Laurie and Mike. In all, "Halloween '18" is good and well worth checking out, though not the definitive wrap-up I was hoping for.

Digging Up the Marrow (2014)

Having liked what I've seen from Adam Green, such as his "Hatchet" series - which I'll admit, as I write this, I have not yet seen all of them, but I intend to eventually. I remember liking "Frozen", too, so I was interested in checking out another non-"Hatchet" related film from him. "Digging Up the Marrow" didn't at all sound like it would be up my alley due to the 'found-footage' style and the general premise and it really didn't end up deviating from my initial expectations.

Green plays himself, who receives a package from a guy claiming he can provide proof of the existence of actual monsters. Along with his cameraman, Green shoots interviews with the man who eventually takes them out into the woods where the entrance to the apparent monsters' world is located. They end up capturing one of the elusive mutants on camera and become desperate to come up with more solid evidence, though the guy they're following around starts coming across as more and more 'shifty' and nutty as they go on which makes them begin to question the validity of his claims.

The best thing about this movie is the natural performances from Green and his buddy as well as Ray Wise being all crazy (brought back fond memories of "Twin Peaks"...). There's also a few special appearances from Tom Holland, Mick Garris, Lloyd Kaufman, Kane Hodder and Dave Brockie (in his final on-camera appearance), which was cool too, though it was mostly just done while Green was at horror con's. Once we start seeing more of the creatures things really go downhill. They look stupid and the end was pretty lame. I hope Adam Green stays away from making 'mock-docs' in the future.

Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers (1988)

Who could possibly not enjoy the first two "Sleepaway Camp" sequels? They are just two of the purest examples of shamelessly mindless slasher mush to emerge from the horror-heavy '80s. Huge body count, fun kills, plenty of nekkid broads and nothing even close to a fucking story to impede on any of that good stuff!

It's a few years later and Angela is out of the mental hospital with a full sex change operation under her belt (har har) and is running a tight ship as a counselor at another summer camp. The prudish bitch goes about "sending home" any of the campers who engage in inappropriate activity. Sending home by means of murder, of course.

The great thing about "Sleepaway Camp" 2 (and 3) is that they are total and complete 'exploitation' cash-grabs that merely provide the 'meat-and-potatoes' of the slasher subset. I mean, hell, by the late '80s this kinda thing was dying down in popularity so why try so damn hard to be clever? And there is literally NO attempts at building tension, suspense, mystery or story arcs. We know Angela is the killer from the get-go so there's no big reveal. This may all sound like the makings of a really shitty film, but for what it is and how it doesn't take itself at all seriously, it's a very entertaining and rapidly paced little flick. The kills aren't insanely gory, but a few are cool, like a decent throat slashing, some sluts getting torched alive, a nice decapitation and the best: a camper being drowned in a shit-filled outhouse! In all, I counted 18 kills in about 80-minutes. All slasher hounds gotta check both of these movies out.

Blood Shed (2013)

Total fucking waste of time snoozer. I firmly believe it takes a conscious effort to pull off a concept as poorly as they did with "Blood Shed" so, in that regard, fucking KUDOS!

A homeless guy gets a key from some relative that opens up the family self storage unit. There's some back story having to do with his hot mother making a deal with some kind of voodoo witch before she gets pregnant and her husband kills her and removes her baby. Now, she's back from the dead while her son and some other bums are locked overnight in the storage facility...

I don't know, something like that. There's really nothing interesting going on in this movie, hence, the horrendously slow pace. This shit is DULL and virtually incoherent with not a single likeable or moderately developed character and no gore to speak of. Also, with a title like "Blood Shed" I wasn't quite expecting storage lockers. More like a tool shed or something. That may have lent to my disappointment since tool sheds are vastly cooler than storage units.

At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul (1964)

Coffin Joe just doesn't get enough credit for how ahead of his time he was with his debut film and kick-off to the Coffin Joe Trilogy, "At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul". This is some surprisingly violent and blasphemous shit by 1960s standards and is even cited as being Brazil's first horror film.

José Mojica Marins (Coffin Joe) stars as the undertaker of a small Brazilian village who pretty much revels in being the social misfit of his close-knit community. He looks down on the God-fearing lemmings that he cohabitates with - disregarding their beliefs as weak willed superstition and has no qualms against voicing it publicly. Resenting his wife, who is unable to provided him with a son to carry on his bloodline, he takes a liking to his buddy's chick and goes so far as to kill him in order to get with her. Only this doesn't go totally as planned and more people end up getting killed by him which leads to his soul being damned to Hell.

Not only does "At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul" have a good amount of anti-God ranting from CJ, but it's also got bloody finger removal, death-by-venomous-spider, rape, suicide, eye-gouging, crown-of-thorns facial disfigurement... This is a dark, angry, rebellious film that's 'statement' and content was extremely fucking ballsy, at least by U.S. standards of the time. I'm not too sure as to the 'climate' of Brazil in the mid-60s, though, based on some 'exploitation' and XXX-material I've seen come outta there a decade or so after this, they're clearly a little more 'out there' and 'kooky' to say the least when it comes to their cinema. Coffin Joe is a truly iconic, badass persona and "At Midnight..." is a fantastic and groundbreaking horror film that - like the early horror works of H.G. Lewis - are essential for fans of more 'extreme' types of films.

Revenge (2017)

The best way I can think to sum up "Revenge" is: "I Spit on Your Grave" mixed with a Coyote/roadrunner cartoon. It's a rape/revenge film that wantonly says "fuck it" to presenting any semblance of plausibility - instead, aiming for the most hysterically convenient series of events and encounters on record.

A wealthy Belgian guy is shacking up with his hottie mistress at a lavish desert home when a few of his Arab hunting buddies show up. They all party and she gets a little 'loose' with one of them during a dance, giving him the wrong idea in thinking that she's into him. When she turns down his advances the next day, he gets pissed off and rapes her while the boyfriend is away and the other friend turns a blind eye. When the boyfriend returns and finds out what happened, she's dismayed by how lightly he takes it and when he refuses to call her a ride home, she makes a run for it. Without going into too much detail, she's attacked by the slimy trio and left for dead, only to survive and exact bloody REVENGE.

Just for living through what happens to her is inane enough, but how she frees herself from the perilous situation is even more preposterous. And a scene in which she cauterizes her wounds with red hot beer can aluminum that brands the logo on her body (not to mention the wound disappears...), I found absolutely hilarious. Throughout the movie - and especially in the final 10-minutes - characters lose SO much fucking blood from rifle gut-blasts, to impalement's, and react no more severely then if they had a pebble in their shoe. Hell, the Terminator expressed more physical anguish then the bubblehead-turned-badass female lead in this film. All this said, I found it impossible not to just accept all this and go along for the entertaining ride that was "Revenge". Clearly, they knew what they were doing in purposely going so far over-the-top with what characters endure that shitting on the movie based on all this would be pretty redundant. I can't say I loved this flick by any means and in no way would it rank anywhere among the rape/revenge 'greats' like "I Spit on Your Grave" or "Ms .45", however, it's well worth checking out for a fun, visually pleasing, ridiculous watch.

Grotesque (2009)

"Grotesque" is one extremely brutal movie. People can compare it to "Saw" or any other American "torture" flick, but what I saw was good old Japanese "splatter" and violence at it's most pure. Think of an extended version of "Flowers of Flesh and Blood" with elements of pinku-eiga.

A guy kidnaps a young couple on their first date and chains them up in a dungeon-like room where he carries out tons of incredibly cruel and gruesome torture - his motive being, simply, sexual pleasure...

Eyeball gouging, testicular impalement, chainsaw amputation, scissor-nipple slicing, castration and more! At one point, the guy's rectum is cut out, hung from a hook and his entrails are pulled out of him! One of the craziest things I've probably ever seen on film. The chick is also rapidly fingered to the point of climax in one truly awesome highlight scene! As you would expect, there is virtually no plot and the gore is constant. If you like sick and sleazy films than you should definitely check out "Grotesque" for some disgusting madness...

Two Evil Eyes (1990)

George A. Romero and Dario Argento collabed on this two part mash-up, adapting a couple of stories from the great Edgar Allen Poe. Both segments are well crafted and display each of the iconic horror film-makers' personal brands of cinematic 'flair'.

The first is Romero's take on Poe's, "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" - about a doctor who hypnotizes a dying old rich man into signing all of his worldly assets over to his gold digging trophy wife who is actually having an affair with said doctor. When the man dies before their riches are secured, they decided to stash his body in the basement freezer until the check clears. Things get spooky, however, when it they begin hearing an agonized voice emitting from the corpse and realize that he was, in fact, under hypnosis at the time of his death, thus, is stuck in a sort of 'limbo'. Things end with the two double crossers getting their comeuppance when the frozen old coot springs to life for revenge...

Argento tackles the classic, "The Black Cat", starring Harvey Keitel as a crime scene photographer whose live-in girlfriend adopts a cat that is less than friendly towards him. When he takes a series of photos of him physically abusing the cat and has them published in a book, followed by the suspicious disappearance of the cat, she gets pissed off and plans to leave him. After catching him trying to kill - what is likely the same cat given to him by a bartender - she freaks out and he kills her and plasters her body behind a wall in the house. From there, he must go about covering it up and avoiding nosy neighbors and police inquiries concerning her whereabouts as he continues to go insane.

Both directors handled their respective stories very well - with Romero's being a bit slower and more subdued and 'ghostly', while Argento's definitely had a bit more of an "edge" to it. Much of the credit, of course, would have to go to Keitel who is terrific as usual. Few actors are as brilliant at conveying anger like he does and this portion of the film has him drunkenly attacking a women, cats, cops... It's awesome. "The Black Cat" is, for me, definitely the stronger of the two segments, though Romero's DID end on a genuinely creepy note, I thought. "Two Evil Eyes" is absolutely one to check out.

Beautiful Teacher in Torture Hell (1985)

Good, solid pinku-sleaze here with a pretty decent plot-twist to boot. "Beautiful Teacher in Torture Hell" begins with two teachers being attacked by a trio of thugs and raped on a rural back-road... The one woman gets the upper hand and roughs them up, securing a safe getaway. She's the new teacher at a high school where she ends up encountering the violent students again and, this time, they force her into a fencing match - not before making her strip - and they wind up catching her on camera. This blackmail leads to her falling into the hands of a few other school staff members who keep her bound in a basement and subjected to all kinds of vile sexual torture. Their motive, typically, is to get her to relinquish her pride and feminine strength...

It ain't the most unabashedly violent pinku flick out there, but it has its suitably strong points in terms of story - not to mention a few erratic methods of degradation inflicted on our hapless female casualty - namely, a series of enemas before sitting her in a big fish tank where she experiences an... aquatic evacuation of fecal 'mist'... The antagonists are nicely demented and well characterized and the attractive lead plays her part strong, yet traditionally destitute. Definitely one to check out.

Drive-In Massacre (1976)

"Drive-In Massacre" is an immensely uneventful proto-slasher that suffers from extensive padding, lame kills and zero character development.

Someone is showing up at a Los Angeles drive-in theater and killing patrons with a sword. The asshole manager refuses to close the place down until the killer is caught so a pair of fat detectives dig in hard to track down the culprit.

Aside from the first two deaths (including an okay decapitation...), there's really nothing all that much to speak of, gore-wise. The movie also never seems to settle on a main character - the closest being the cops who look and act alike, thus making them horribly uninteresting during their very drawn out interrogation scenes with an equally boring former carny retard. "Drive-In Massacre" has very little going for it, but if you're up for laughing at glaringly shitty production value, line flubs and desperate run-time padding, I'd say you can't go wrong. Apparently the movie was shot in four days and it definitely shows...

B.T.K. (2008)

As much as I'm eagerly awaiting a GOOD biopic on the B.T.K. Killer, I can't really say this particular movie was as bad as I expected. Granted, it's a very loose depiction of Kansas serial killer, Dennis Rader's sadistic exploits, though, for what it's worth, I found it quite watchable.

Peace officer, church leader, husband and father of two, Dennis, moonlights around his small Midwest town as a sexual psychopath - stalking and murdering women...

Kane Hodder flexes some surprisingly decent acting chops as the lead all-American family man/sadistic nutjob to the point where I actually almost forgot I was looking at a 6' 4'', Jason Voorhees alum. The stuntman burn scarring on his neck and hands are a tad distracting, however, and they did a shitty job of hiding all the palm trees in many outdoor scenes so there's definitely some production flaws and shit. They also never touch on any sexual violence - of which the real-life Rader was an avid enthusiast of, though, again, this movie keeps the depiction pretty loosey-goosey. It's too bad Rader wasn't nabbed pre-2000. There's a good chance we would've gotten a potentially good movie on his crimes back when First Look Home Entertainment was putting out those well done and fairly truthful serial killer biopics. At the end of the day, "B.T.K." is far, FAR from great, but Hodder isn't bad in the role and a few of the kill scenes are okay. Could've been a lot worse, I thought.

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane (2006)

I'd had "All the Boys Love Mandy Lane" recommended to me here and there for years now and had it in the back of my mind all this time to pick up a copy, but never did. Finally, I ended up spotting it on Netflix and gave it look while, oddly, not knowing anything about the premise. Kinda cool since I typically prefer going into movies 'cold'.

Mandy Lane is a high school hottie who - as the title points out - is desired by basically all the horny teen guys on campus. She has a platonic male friend who is ostracized by his peers after goading a drunk jock with the hots for Mandy to jump off a roof and into a pool and, in turn, missing, and cracking his head open. Nine months after this incident, Mandy is invited - along with some other classmates - to a stoner friend's family's ranch for a weekend of partying. Soon enough, they start getting murdered by someone prowling around the property.

Pretty solid film, overall. It's mainly got a 'thriller' feel with a slight slasher element, though it doesn't take off in that direction like it seems it will with the first (and most 'graphic') killing. I liked this and it kept me relatively intrigued even after the killer is revealed fairly early on. Again, the killer's identity seems predictable at first, but the way the rest of the movie plays out, I believe it wasn't suppose to be UNpredictable. A 'twist' comes at the end which I thought worked well, despite being a little vague. The performances are all strong and the camera work is often interesting. The death scenes aren't anything too 'crazy', but are effective, still. In all, I enjoyed this one. It's nothing incredible, fucked up or Earth-shattering, but I can't find much with it to gripe about.

Junk (2000)

Though definitely not venturing down any new avenues, as far as the zombie sub-genre goes, "Junk" is a thoroughly entertaining, mindless, low-budget Japanese horror flick.

Following a successful armed jewellery store robbery, the thieves arrange to meet up with a Yakuza gang at an abandoned factory to sell off their loot. What they are unaware of, however, is that the factory was being used by a scientist who was experimenting with a serum to bring his wife back from the dead. The shit worked, though it brought her back with a yen for human meat. When gallons of the zombie-juice is unknowingly splashed on a room full of corpses, the uprising soon commences and a U.S. army base is desperate to contain and destroy the chaotic outbreak.

With no shortage of ammo ripping through zombie skulls, some gut-munching, neck tearing, undead tits, military jargon and a leather clad zombie babe - all enough to keep this one fun. It also pulls off just the right amount of light humor while not falling into dreaded, over-played zom-com territory. I'm not a huge fan of zombie films for the most part, though, with its decent (albeit, cheesy...) gore and traditional, 'old school' vibe, I gotta recommend "Junk". It's nothing great by a long shot, but it's an enjoyable, throw-away watch.

Savage Sadists (1983)

"Savage Sadists" is some humorous and sleazy "roughie" material that is bound to provide fans of this kinda thing a worthwhile 40-ish minutes.

A pair of thugs break into the house of a porn distributor, looking for money owed to their crime boss. He happens to be at work, boning one of his female employees, so the goons rape his wife. Right after, wifey shows up at the office and catches hubby pantless - having just busted his nut across the slut's face - and warns him of the men being on their way. He hides under his desk just before they barge in and, in the meantime, go to town, again on the wife, AND the porn chick, plus the guy's secretary. The whole thing ends with the obligatory 'money shots' before the husband snatches one of the dudes' guns and tells 'em he's all 'paid up'...

Lots of extensive blowjobs and a little bit of whipping on tap, along with some very ridiculous dubbing, such as the sound of a doorbell simply being a woman making the sound off-screen with her voice and a prolonged cock-on-face slapping that is clearly just a clapping sound, poorly synced. If you're into these kinds of 'rough', vintage XXXer's you may wanna give this one a look for a quick laugh.