Skinned Alive (1990, Jon Killough)

I saw "Skinned Alive" many years ago as a cherub-cheeked rental store prowling youth and remember hating it. I think I was initially put off by the incredibly low-budget tone of it, as well as the goofy, slap-stick humor it was laced with. This time around, however, I admit that I enjoyed it much more than I expected. Perhaps I'm becoming more retarded with age and it's affecting my taste in film...

It's centered around a three-piece freak family of traveling tanners who pluck people off the roads of rural Ohio and remove their hides for their leather business. When their van breaks down, they are offered a place to stay at the kindly mechanic's house while it's repaired. Their new digs don't seem to hinder their ongoing hunt for human skin and it's business as usual...

Not sure why, but I liked this flick more than I probably should have considering I hate pretty much everything that J.R. Bookwalter has been a part of and I've just generally become more 'picky' about micro-budget horror over the years. "Skinned Alive" IS stupid and full of idiotic humor, including cringe-worthy cartoonish sound-effects and incredibly cornball over-acting, which DID get annoying at times. Still, there's enough effort put into the splattery gore effects - not to say they aren't cheap looking as all hell - but it all helps to keep the movie rolling along at a decent pace. Plus, the whole failed incest angle was kind of amusing. I can't recommend this one, seeing as how I can only assume most people would hate it, but if you're into trashy, ultra-indie gore flicks then pick yourself up a copy.

A Climax of Blue Power (1975, F.C. Perl)

This happens to be one of the more story-driven 'roughies' out there - consisting of a bit more character depth then you might expect from this type of nasty and violent '70s porno. It all comes together fairly well if you enjoy very gritty XXX-ploitation.

A power-hungry security guard poses as a police officer in his down time in order to rape/sexually degrade women. During his "off duty" hours, he witnesses a woman murder her abusive husband in their home and becomes obsessed with bringing her to justice so he'll be accepted by law enforcement - or so he assumes. It all leads up to an exceptionally bat-shit crazy ending...

The acting is surprisingly decent and the overall concept is interesting and well executed, for the most part. You get a good 'spread' of hardcore scenes, involving a massage parlor three-way and some harsh strap-lashings and rape. And it's topped off with a car chase, so it's safe to say that "A Climax of Blue Power" does NOT disappoint on all accounts if you happen to dig this golden era of sleazy 'roughie' filth. It's not the best or most fucked up of it's kind, I must say, but still well worth checking out.

Screeched (2006, Dustin Diamond)

I could give a fuck about any celebrity sex tape out there - especially one starring the guy who played Screech in the early 90s teen shitcom, "Saved by the Bell". That said, how can you possibly stay away from this type of shit? A former child star wash-up engaging in a POV three-way with a couple of sluts - eh, what the hell... Unfortunately - but not surprisingly - this thing sucks HARD...

So it starts with Screech talking to the camera about fuck-knows-what before cutting to him in a bubble bath with his presumed girlfriend. She fumbles with his dick under the suds while they discuss what they're gonna have for dinner (for what had to have been 10+ minutes) and the scene cuts off right before they supposedly have sex. Next, we shift over to the setting in which the rest of this abomination takes place - a hotel room following a bachelorette party. Apparently, these two whores are serious Screech groupies who crave his dorky pud. An ungodly amount of time is spent with Screech rifling through her sex toy gifts before the two pudgy (yet passable) prostitutes start fooling around. The one idiotic bitch attempts to put a condom on Screech's below-average size prick for no less than five minutes, the women sixty-nine a bit, there's some double-sided dong ass play and then it ends with a "dirty sanchez".

First off, Screech admitted in interviews that this shit was staged, using a 'stunt cock' and that he did it merely to cash in on the celebrity sex tape craze initiated by brainless bimbo/uber-slut, Paris Hilton. So this fucking retard fakes a sex tape and releases it himself, completely misunderstanding the voyeuristic appeal of the "genuinely" leaked sex videos. What you have here is a self-absorbed douchebag Jew-faced has-been who made a video of himself simply not shutting the fuck up for 52 minutes. All he does is yell "Duuuuuuude!" and "Yeah! That's what I'm talkin' about!" while watching the two dykes chew carpet. His attempts at humor and witty improv are beyond irritating and so cringe-inducing that it becomes unwatchable VERY early on. "Screeched" has all the porno appeal of one of those childish "Girls Gone Wild" gimmicks that just so happens to star a totally pathetic, directionless former-star fuck up whose resentment towards the industry that spit him out would undoubtedly lead him to bar stabbing in Wisconsin.

Deliver Us From Evil (2014, Scott Derrickson)

Can't say I needed another example of just how stagnant 'mainstream' American horror is these days, but it looks like I got one with "Deliver Us From Evil". This was another one that I had no intention of ever viewing, but it was around - via Redbox rental, as well as some fine Tennessee bourbon - so I figured "what the hell". Yeah, it pretty much epitomizes everything wrong with this kind of bland, Hollywood horror shit of recent years...

A Bronx cop and his partner begin uncovering a demonic entity brought back from Iraq by a couple of G.I.'s. One is a professional painter, the other a wife beater and the third turns up dead. They end up possessing a woman into tossing her young child over the wall of a lion's den and there's something to do with The Doors' music, which was lost on me...

It's basically the same shit you've seen a million times. I've never really been a fan of movies about demonic possession - having always found flicks like "The Exorcist" to be highly overrated. I'm not able to buy into the concept enough to find it 'scary' or 'disturbing'. And like everything else these days, it's "based on a true events"; apparently found in a book written by the now retired New York cop portrayed in the film. I'm sure no 'cinematic liberties' were taken... Ha. Overall, "Deliver Us From Evil" is more supernatural-horror fodder for the 'popcorn crowd', featuring an abundance of cliches, such as the seasoned NYPD cop who doesn't spend enough time with his family, the overly hip priest, and a chick with chapped lips crawling around on all fours and speaking Latin. It also must be said that this movie is 90% close-ups of Sony technology. It actually gets distracting! Boring, WAY too long and WAY too typical. Avoid.

ReGOREgitated Sacrifice (2008, Lucifer Valentine)

I've expounded on my overall opinion of Lucifer Valentine's works before, so I'm going to keep this one relatively short. "ReGOREgitated Sacrifice" is the second installment in the gimmicky 'vomit gore' trilogy and it's the exact same thing as the other two flicks it is sandwiched between...

...And, once again, there is no story. The film is, again, simply a rapidly edited compilation of scenes featuring the one-note film-maker's adoration for seeing crack whores puke and piss on each other.

Like "Slaughtered Vomit Dolls" - which I will admit I found fairly interesting upon my initial viewing before I did my five minutes of research which was all it took for me to conclude that Valentine is a monumental douchebag and self-obsessed liar - "ReGOREgitated Sacrifice" would have hacked it better as a 5-10 minute short. Only, it clocks in at an incredibly SLOW 65-minutes (feels like 2 hours...) that consist mostly of drunk/stoned, haggard prostitutes hanging out in hotel rooms and spewing bile everywhere. You also got a lesbian three-way, featuring a pregnant woman, a fake snuff scene or two and a few prolonged sequences of excessive gore. Speaking of which, the gore is the only redeeming aspect of this piece of shit. Namely, there's a pretty gruesome disembowelment and the complete mutilation and desecration of a severed human head. They should have focused on that and cut out all of the other boring bullshit seeing as how they had a pretty decent FX crew at their disposal.

So, yeah, if you're 13-years old and find vomit and piss SHOCKING, then you'll definitely fit right in with Lucifer Valentine's fanbase and eat this shit right up. Personally, I've seen a LOT of fucked up fetish material so puke drinking doesn't have the strongest effect on me, honestly. Also, I'm not a Nirvana fan...

Cannibal (2013, Manuel Martin Cuenca)

"Cannibal" is a very slow-paced and non-graphic Spanish serial killer-drama film. Due to the little bit of info I had picked up prior to viewing this one, I wasn't entirely caught off-guard, though I must say, it ended up being a pretty unremarkable undertaking...

A highly introverted tailor takes to stalking and kidnapping women, whom he transports to his secluded cabin in the mountains where he butchers them for their meat. Keeping his freezer amply stocked, he dines solely on these human gobbets. He ends up falling into a casual relationship with the hot floozy neighbor chick, who goes missing one day after coming to his apartment for help. Her sister soon shows up looking for her, to which he offers his help - thus, their awkward liaison is sparked.

The performances are solid - namely the Carlos character, played by Antonio de la Torre - whom no background is given for, but you can only assume he has the old classic serial killer/cannibal-syndrome of never wanting a woman to leave him, of which, the intimate act of cannibalism satisfies. Speaking of cannibalism, the film doesn't expound on the topic much - just showing Carlos butchering a chick off-screen (just showing her leg and some blood-flow) at the beginning and failing to capture a skinny dipper later on. The movie plays out as more of a "pastel" conceptualization of a serial killer/cannibal lifestyle, with really no violence or 'horror' elements. That's all fine, but I felt that the movie missed it's mark with the painful tedium it demonstrates. I normally have no problem with 'character studies', but "Cannibal" just moved WAY too slow and amounted to way too little to appeal to me. It's well shot and acted, but the whole cannibal element was underplayed and is virtually meaningless in the long run. This movie could have left all that out and still have been the same, as far as I'm concerned. And it would have forced them to have picked a more fitting title...