Punisher: War Zone (2008)

I'm not a fan of action movies, overall, and I know nothing about comic books or Marvel, but "Punisher: War Zone" is a rare one that, surprisingly, I ended up digging quite a bit. I'd say it definitely served its purpose of improving upon that 2004 piece of shit film adaptation of "The Punisher" with John Travolta, tenfold.

Frank Castle, a war vet whose family was violently murdered after witnessing a mob hit, enforces a take-no-prisoners brand of vigilante justice on the scum of New York City. When a prominent mafia figure slips from Frank's grasp and sets his sites on the wife and child of a cop that got caught up in some of Frank's 'friendly-fire', The Punisher pursues it as a personal vendetta...

I guess a bunch of Marvel nerds have voiced their dissatisfaction with the previous "Punisher" movie, thus "War Zone" was made to rectify the previous blunder. I had seen the '04 one a while back since I'm a fan of vigilante flicks and remember it having zero impression on me. "War Zone" ups the violence and scales WAY back on all the back-story and anything that makes Frank Castle anything more than a pissed off killing machine! People are impaled, hacked up with axes, heads explode in barrages of gun-fire... And more! Oh, the blood is flying in this one! Not to say it's the most violent thing ever. Not at all. But hell, for a mainstream action flick... from Marvel! They did alright.

Schoolgirl Report: Volume 1 (1970)

"Schoolgirl Report" was a German 'pseudo'-documentary 'sexploit' series that, I guess, was meant to 'blow the lid off' the sexual exploits of the average teenage girl of the '70s that ever-so terrified the repressed, out-of-touch parent of the time. Upon watching "volume one" of this saga, I must say that it's pretty much a bore.

After a high school girl is caught fucking the bus driver during a field trip to a power plant, a PTA meeting is held to determine whether or not she should be expelled so as not to 'corrupt' the other students. A teenage sex shrink attempts to reverse the concerned parents' and staffs' sex-hating call for action by describing for them a series of 'cases' he's encountered having to do with teenage promiscuity. You have a 17-year old girl giving a 'dirty' church confession, some bratty bitches boned by an authoritarian pool boy and others...

This introduction to the "Schoolgirl Report" series is incredibly slow, monotonous and ultimately very TAME. Yeah, there's nudity and sex, but it's all very light, 'soft-core' and dull. The stories also get repetitive and tend to go nowhere much of the time. Down the road, I may try out a few more entries in the "Schoolgirl Report" series, but for now I'm left quite unimpressed.

The Bloody Video Horror That Made Me Puke on My Aunt Gertrude (1989)

When something really sucks... and I mean SUCKS, it's hard for me to go so far as to call it the worst thing I've ever seen. I've seen plenty of horrible films, but goddamn, I would put this one right up there with one of the most miserable attempts at film-making I've seen.

Something about a guy in a fake beard who makes a snuff film and forgets to take the tape out of the camera before returning it to the video store he rented it from. Following this, the apathetic store employee gets mixed up in his boss' murder and the snuff-maker...

"The Bloody Video Horror..." is a blurry SOV piece of anally regurgitated fecal-coated, limp-dicked abomination with NO "bloody", NO "horror" and I don't recall an aunt Gertrude... The video store set looks was someone's living room, gore is strictly avoided - thanks to a 'milk money' budget - and the 80-minute runtime is heavily padded with meandering dialog that one can hardly hear due to the horrendously crackly audio. Fuck this movie...

Humanoids from the Deep (1980)

Genetically mutated, anthropomorphic tadpole rapists is what I would call a stellar B-movie creature flick conception and, as one would guess, it doesn't fail to entertain!

The residents of a coastal fishing community are being sexually violated and/or murdered by ravenous and horny sea monsters...

"Humanoids from the Deep" does a pretty damn good job of keeping the sleazy creature fun rolling - with bikini's being violently torn off sexy beach-bimbos, followed up on with fierce amphibious, inter-species copulation. There are suitable doses of gore thrown in and the 'humanoid' effects by Rob Bottin (of John Carpenter's "The Thing" fame, of course...) look pretty cool, overall. The 'climax' kicks shit into high gear with a hefty amount of rapey tadpoles storming the town carnival. Good shit. That's pretty much all I got on this one, but I definitely advise popping this thing in over some drinks for added enjoyment. Kudos, once again, Roger Corman!

Waldo the Dog (2010)

"Waldo the Dog" is a strange and twisted "love story", of sorts, that pretty boldly goes about challenging the viewer into feeling sympathy for a rapist. However, it's not done in a 'exploitative' or boorish way, which really helps the film achieve a deeply weighty and tragic resonance.

A guy rapes a chick he's been 'cyber stalking' and falls into a state of self-hatred and regret. Cut to the following year, he is now homeless, non-speaking and constantly wearing a black rubber dog mask. We see his dismal, day-to-day life on the streets as he scrounges for food, willingly takes abuse from random people (seemingly as a means of contrition...), trains at a wrestling gym (where he obviously takes MORE abuse...) and continues to stalk the girl he attacked. When he ends up saving her from being assaulted by some other guys, they develop a friendship as he continues to withhold his true identity from her...

"Waldo" is a film that has its problems, but manages to 'work' really well in a multitude of ways. For instance, the way it's shot almost documentary-style gives the overall aesthetic look of the film a "rawness", without it actually being a faux-doc. There's an authenticity to it's look through the hand-held camera work and the fact that quite a bit of the public reactions to Waldo's presence appear genuine. Another unusual 'pro' is in the film's slowness, which is usually a gripe with me, but I actually found it to be a major strength with this one. The film benefits greatly from the way it takes its time establishing Waldo's dismal, guilt-ridden existence and the odd connection between him and his 'love interest'/prior victim without ever feeling extensively drawn out or groundless. What I felt didn't quite work was the very ending which I thought was too forced and seemed tacked on, needlessly. Seemed like it could've ended more effectively about 5 or so minutes sooner. In all, "Waldo the Dog" is a surprisingly unique and engaging indie- flick. Highly recommended.

Most Likely to Die (2015)

It appears the "Scream"-influence is alive and well... and it still sucks. I put this one on the other night on a whim and managed to stick it out for the duration, despite how miserably bored I was.

A high school reunion of slasher cliches is held at a mansion where a killer in a graduation gown and paper-mache mask starts killing them off, one-by-one. The way in which they're offed is based on their year book, "Most Likely To..." captions...

You know you're in for a real horror 'treat' when you got Jake Busey AND Perez Hilton as your 'stars'. That's right, impeccable casting. Busey, in particular, serves absolutely no purpose but to completely fuck up a scene where the hottest chick in the movie is changing into a bikini in which they keep cutting away to his huge-toothed mug as he's peeping in on her! The kill scenes/gore is mostly lame - aside from someone getting their throat cut and head ripped off which was alright. At the end of the day, "Most Likely to Die" dishes up the same tired, formulaic slasher shit. It's worth laughing at for the choices in casting, but other than that, it's just... there.