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Samurai Resurrection / Makai tenshô (Japan, 2003)

May 5, 2016, 6:52 am
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What came first, the chicken or the egg? When we finally meet our Great Creator, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, that is a question we plan to ask.
In the case of Samurai Resurrection, however, what came first is easier to figure out. This live-action film here came after the once-popular video game Samurai Showdown, which shares both characters and plot points, but before both there was the original film version of Makai tenshô from 1981 (trailer), a semi-cult film that still enjoys mild popularity, and somewhere amidst them all there was the animi two-parter, Ninja Resurrection (1997 / trailer). All, however, are inspired or based on the 1967 historical novel Makai tenshô by Futaro Yamada (4 Jan 1922 — 28 July 2001), which, in turn, was inspired by the Shimbara Rebellion (17 Dec 1637 — 15 April 1638), in which over 37,000 Japanese Christians lost their life, and the last words of the subsequently beheaded 16-year-old leader of the rebellion, Amakusa Shirō, who supposedly claimed "I shall return after 100 years and take my revenge."
And that is what he does in Samurai Resurrection, returning as a revenge-driven ghost who has turned his back to god and, with the assistance of his equally evil female ghostly cohort, sets out to destroy the Shogunate. Luckily, the legendary samurai Jubei Yagyu sets out to stop him — otherwise, there would be no tale to tell.
Like so many movies, Samurai Resurrection is neither a truly good movie nor a total turkey: its good features evened out by its bad, the movie floats somewhere in that nether region of movies that are okay to pass the time with but definitely don't deserve searching out. In fact, if you consider that this movie was released the same year as Takeshi Katana's much better The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi (2003 / trailer), then this movie suddenly becomes rather second-rate, despite its attempts to be epic.
In turn, however, one might argue that Samurai Resurrection is so much better on a technical level than the similarly supernatural low-rent samurai two-parter released the following year, Werewolf Warrior I [2004] and II [2004 / trailer], that it could be considered first-rate… Perhaps, but Werewolf Warrior is so psychotronically bad that it is actually way more fun than Samurai Resurrection.
Like most Asian sock-em chop-em films — be they Wuxia, modern gangster, Chanbara, or art — the storyline of Samurai Resurrection sometimes gets a bit convoluted and discontinuous, a problem exacerbated by the average westerner's difficulty in differentiating the [for us] odd-sounding names. Additional clarity is perhaps enjoyed by Nippon natives due to their probable familiarity with the legend-relevant details and general history of the various characters; one assumes that those of the Land of the Rising Sun can say "Oh, that's so and so!" long before people of other nations stop scratching their heads. Indeed, that Yagyu Jubei Mitsuyoshi (Kôichi Satô of Sukiyaki Western Django [2007 / trailer]) is the hero would've been clear to any Japanese native, as he is legend, but we spent much of the beginning assuming that he, with his lazy presence and bad hair, was just some peripheral character doomed to die soon. (It would seem, however, that his bad hair is a cultural tradition, as all trailers to other film versions of the tale that we've looked at reveal the character to always have the same haircut.)
But even unfamiliarity with names doesn't explain general big surprises like one good girl's sudden unmasking as a (good) evil spirit, jump cuts that suddenly place characters in totally new situations (like when the good girl, last seen in prison, is suddenly escaping on a horse with her father, last seen kissing the floor), the total disappearance of another girl (whose escape from prison we seem to have missed), and familial interactions that defy the logical (Japanese dads seem extremely willing to embrace evil just so they can fight their sons).
That Amakusa Shirō (Yôsuke Kubozuka of Ichi [2008 / trailer] and Tomie: Replay [2000 / trailer]) is so much older than is historically correct is permissible artistic license, even if his sudden embrace of evil is, well, sudden, despite all the slaughter. The how and why the idolizing babe Clara Oshina (Kumiko Asô of Pulse [2001 / trailer], Casshern [2004 / trailer] and Kaidan [2007 / trailer]) goes evil is left to the viewer's imagination, so let's write it off to love. And while the costumes in general are top notch, it would be an understatement to say that the costumes worn by two baddies tend to instigate more sniggers than they do inspire dread.
Though Samurai Resurrection might be lacking in some aspects, the movie nevertheless often excels in some of its visuals and big scenes. The opening recreation of the Shimbara Rebellion is well staged and appropriately full of indiscriminate slaughter; most of the fight scenes are well shot and satisfactorily executed; and more than once the scenery is simply beautiful (the fight scene at the seaside field of swaying grasses combine both). One of the best scenes, of course, is the movie's only breast scene in which a babe (so beautiful that she even raised our sudden and heretofore non-existent male Caucasian "Asian fetish") lay on a table for a prolonged period of time — only to CGI into an evil resurrected samurai. (An unexplainable aspect of the movie is that young, beautiful girls are required as to host — and die — for the mostly male samurai resurrections.) To destroy female beauty like that not only reveals that Amakusa Shirō is truly evil, but also explains his campy taste in clothes and hair.
We would admit that we found the ending mildly aggravating, in that special way that horror filmmakers who simply just don't want to truly let the ending be incontrovertible tend to annoy us. (Wes Craven was big on that.) Still, for all its flaws, Samurai Resurrection doesn't exactly suck, not even in a micro-penis sort of way; nevertheless, for a film that obviously tries to be an epic of sorts, it comes across in the end more like an edited-down movie version of a big budget TV mini-series. It's passable, both in the sense that you can watch it if you want, or not bother. The decision is yours.
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R.I.P.: Simon Newby

May 17, 2016, 6:02 am
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11 April 1961 (Long Eaton, Derbyshire, England)
to
13 May 2016 (Berlin, Germany)
Here I am on sunny Mallorca, and the delayed news has arrived that an old pal of mine, Simon Newby, has died. The news is not surprising, as his eventual death was general knowledge to friends and family since last summer when he threw a big party in Berlin to see everyone he knew at least one last time: Simon, who had one of the most comfortable, deep, and attractive British voices I've ever known, had terminal esophageal cancer.
Simon was among the first people I met here in Berlin when I came on vacation 30 years ago (never to leave), and our paths crossed again and again and again during projects, at parties, on the street or in the subway, at art openings in my gallery, at other friend's places, in my Schräbergarten, everywhere. We generally even had each other's current telephone number, but he was more a long time pal than a truly close friend. As with most people he knew, our friendship had its ups and downs, but unlike some it was retained all through the years despite the various phases our lives went through and an occassional disagreement; despite his often unbearable Britishness and my annoying Americanism, we usually enjoyed each other's company. Enough so that I, for one, always made the point of catching his attention if our paths crossed somewhere. (Something that only sounds notable if you live in a place like Berlin, where not seeing each other in plain sight is a well-practiced and highly refined art form.) Thirty years is a long time, and thirty years is how long we knew each other. In Berlin, he leaves behind a big, strapping son named Jake, his significant other Ute, and a lot of friends.
Wherever you are, Simon, I hope you aren't resting in peace as much as you are having a damn good time. I am among many people who will miss you.
A selection of his past projects. Most parts were relatively small, and there are surely projects that I overlooked. TV shows are not included.




A Father's Revenge
(1988, dir. John Herzfeld)
Plot "After their daughter is kidnapped by a terrorist group a family are left to wrangle with the criminals for her release whilst she is used as a pawn in their political game. As the time ticks by, her father must take matters into his own hands..."



Die Millennium-Katastrophe —
Computer-Crash 2000
(1999, dir. Anders Engström)
Aka Apocalypse.com. A movie with Jürgen Prochnow, so probably perfect for a "Bad Movie" night; Desmond Llewelyn's last film appearance before his death (he was the original Q of the Bond the films).



Der Tanz mit dem Teufel —
Die Entführung des Richard Oetker
(2001, dir. Peter Keglevic)
Aka Dance with the Devil. Simon played a "British Police Officer". Based on the real-life kidnapping of the Richard Oettker, the current CEO of Dr. Oetker. 
To quote Wikipedia: "On 14 December 1976, the 25-year-old student [Oetker] was kidnapped by 34-year-old Dieter Zlof, a Slovene-born mechanic who locked him into a crate and linked his feet and wrists to manacles that gave electric shocks if he screamed or tried to break out. While Oetker was 1.94 m tall, the crate was 1.45 m long and 70 cm wide. In the early hours of 15 December, a loud noise sparked a near fatal shock that broke Oetker's thighs and two of his ribs as he thumped against the crate. His screams prolonged the shocks by ten seconds, and the pain was such that he briefly longed for death. He was freed for DM21 million, the highest ransom then paid in Germany. The abduction had lasted 47 hours by the time he was found [...] on 16 December. Zlof was arrested on 30 January 1979 on circumstantial evidence. Though he pleaded not guilty, he received the maximum penalty, fifteen years in prison, on 9 June 1980. In May 1997, Zlof, who had buried the ransom in a forest around 30 km southeast of Munich, went to England to swap mouldy banknotes worth DM12.5 million for usable money. The rest had mouldered away in its cache. He was re-arrested, served out a two-year sentence, and confessed to the kidnapping in a 1997 autobiography which was written by his barrister’s wife. [...] The 2001 film Dance with the Devil is centred on Oetker's ransom. It stars Sebastian Koch as Richard Oetker, Tobias Moretti as investigator Helmut Bauer (in the film he is named Georg Kufbach), and Christoph Waltz as Dieter Cilov. Zlof's name was altered for legal reasons."



Beyond the Limits
(2003, dir. Olaf Ittenbach)
Simon is super fun — and gay — as Mortimer in this Ittenbach bloodbath; we only ever saw the first tale of the two, one night at Simon's after too much wine and smoke. We enjoyed it greatly. Simon's on the poster below at the right.

Rated as "Of Some Interest" over at TheWorldwide Celluloid Massacre, Zev Toledano says: "A graveyard caretaker tells a reporter two connected tales of violence that revolve around a mysterious heart. The nonsensical first takes place in modern times and involves some organized criminals, assassins, drugs, money and a brutal home invasion where an insane killer [Mortimer / Newby] slices, hammers, chops, shoots, amputates and carves all the house guests. The second takes place in medieval times and involves an inquisitor who is trying to make use of the heart with the aid of some manuscripts and the torture and death of faithful innocents. The body parts and splatter fly again, the swords and axes making mince-meat of a dozen characters. Bottom line: the plot is too thin, the acting is pretty bad, the cinematography and direction are good, the gore effects are superb. Ittenbach has lost his disquieting rough-edges and has made a sleek looking bad movie with gore."



V for Vendetta
(2005, dir. James McTeigue)
Simon plays a "Tube Station News Poppet", and, in real life, didn't have an affair with Natalie Portman. Quick Reviews says: "Often compelling, highly topical 1984-inspired sci-fi thriller truly excels for nearly 75% of running time before succumbing to mildly derivative climax. Natalie Portman, free of Star Wars universe, displays impressive range opposite Hugo Weaving's charming masked enigma. Provocative political commentary (occasionally verging on anti-American) raises thought-provoking questions about government power and control by fear. Imperfections aside, an intellectually and emotionally satisfying action movie."



Blackout Journey
(2004, dir. Siegfried Kamml)
Simon plays a "British Music Producer". The plot, as given austrianfilms.com: "Schwechat Airport, Vienna 1985. Mio and Valentin's parents are killed in a terrorist attack. The brothers are separated and raised in different foster families — in 2004, reunited by fate, they attempt to cope their childhood trauma." The trailer reflects the plot as explained. (Not!)



Die Hitlerkantate
(2005, dir. Jutta Brückner)
Simon plays a "British General". Title translates into The Hitler Cantata. The plot, as given at Amazon: "Ursula (Lena Lauzemis) is obsessed with Hitler, who for her is a lover, father and god. She uses the relationship with her fiancé in the orchestra and becomes an assistant to the well-known composer Hanns Broch (Hilmar Thate), a former communist. Broch is given the honour of writing a cantata for Hitler's 50th birthday. In the loneliness of a Finnish countryside, Broch gets nearer to Ursula until Broch's Jewish lover turns up."







Final Contract: Death on Delivery
(2006, dir. Axel Sand)
Simon in another unnamed extra role in a film generally seen as a turkey. The plot, from Beyond Hollywood: "[...] There isn't a whole lot of story to Final Contract. To wit: American delivery hunk David (Drew Fuller) is in Berlin, Germany working at his Uncle's business. He has a crush on college-bound co-worker Jenny (Tanja Wenzel), but can't bring himself to tell her, even though she feels the same way and is just waiting for him to make the first move. David gets into all sorts of nutty trouble when he picks up undercover cop Lara (Alison King) during a wacky car chase. [...] Except it turns out that Lara is not a cop after all, but a notorious contract killer who is in Berlin to off three government witnesses to something-or-rather. She has already dispatched two unfortunate souls, and has conveniently framed the second body on David, who had gone to bed with Lara the night before and is seen carrying the tools of Lara's trade. Now the cops, led by the unfathomably dense Hillman (Ken Bones), are after our hero, believing him to be the culprit, and the only person who can help David is — Jenny?"



Chain Reaction
(2006, dir. Olaf Ittenbach)
Aka Olaf Ittenbach’s House of Blood, Chain Reaction, House of Horrors, Zombie Onslaught.Simon in another Ittenbach film, playing "Arthur Palmer"— the Lionsgate release was cut get to get an R-rating, as would be expected of an Ittenbach film. 
Plot, from Terror Hook: "Dr. Douglas Madsen (Christopher Kriesa) is on his way home from work one day when his car collides with a prison bus, setting off a horrific chain of events. The four surviving prisoners, one of whom is severely injured, take the doctor hostage and flee into Canada. There, the group finds refuge in a mysterious, isolated house inhabited by a very strange family..."
Still of Simon from Severed Cinema.



Elementarteilchen
(2006, dir. Oskar Roehler)
Simon plays "Hammet" somewhere in this screen adaptation of Michel Houellebecq's novel Atomised aka The Elementary Particles. A serious film.
At imdb, fippi2000explains that the "movie focuses on Michael (Christian Ulmen) and Bruno (Moritz Bleibtreu), two very different half-brothers and their disturbed sexuality. After a chaotic childhood with a hippie mother only caring for her affairs, Michael, a molecular biologist, is more interested in genes than women, while Bruno is obsessed with his sexual desires, but mostly finds his satisfaction with prostitutes. His pitiful life changes when he gets to know the experienced Christiane (Martina Gedeck). In the meantime, Michael meets Annabelle (Franka Potente), the love of his youth, again..."


 
Tatort: Liebe macht blind 
(2006, dir. Peter Fratzscher)
Tatort Intro:
Simon has a tiny speaking role as an American tourist alongside a common friend of ours Priscilla Bergey, as the female fellow tourist. This TV movie is an epsiode of the German television tradition Tatort, a weekly crime movie with revolving main characters that has been broadcast since 1970. The intro sequence above has remained the same since the first broadcast. This episode featured the Berlin team of Stark (Boris Aljinovic) and Ritter (Dominic Raacke) — that's them above — and I've rather forgotten the plot... but then, the Berlin episodes were never all that exciting. (Sorry, Boris.)
The title here translates, literally, into Loves Makes Blind.



U-900
 (2008, dir. Sven Unterwaldt Jr.)
Simon plays a "Pilot" somewhere in this comedy starring one of Germany's favorite and least funny comedians, Atze Schröder.
Plot, at imdb, from the American FilmMarket: "It is the year 1944 and World War II is not over yet. The Germans want to send their last available submarine, the U-900, on a secret mission from Toulon to Warnemuende. Atze pretends to be the legendary Lieutenant Commander Roenberg. But the crew gets suspicious when their commander starts issuing unconventional orders."



Hilde
 (2009, dir. Kai Wessel)
Simon plays a US military policeman somewhere in the background of this movie, a bio pic about Hildegard Knef, "one of Germany's biggest post-war stars". (See: Die Mörder sind unter uns[1946].)



Ein Dorf schweigt
(2009, dir. Martin Enlen)
Simon plays a "Sergeant"— I'd say that's a side view of him in the photo above (copyright Katherine Böhm). The title more or less translates into A Village Keeps Silent.



Look 4 Them
(2013, dir. Tom Dokoupil & Otmar Hitzelberger)
Simon plays "Barent"— going by the trailer, he's either the bad guy or the mistaken innocent. The plot, as give at imdb and on the poster: "How far can you go, when you fight for the right cause? Does the perspective of the greater good justify kidnapping, violence or even murder? Four naive eco-activists are drawn into a cascade of increasing violence when trying to save the coast of Normandy from a nuclear pollution hazard. "



World of Leem
(2015, dir. Maren Courage)
First Impressions of the World of Leem:
Simon plays "Jeff Cornell, M.D." in this movie about which I could find nothing, other than that it features someone I knew in the past here in Berlin, John Keough, whom I don't think Simon knew (beforehand) and is totally all over the trailer above. Simon pops up at 2:29.

Goodbye, Simon.
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Zombie Honeymoon (New Jersey, 2004)

May 24, 2016, 7:21 am
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A low-budget film that gets an A for effort, Zombie Honeymoon is not for everyone. One thing for sure, steer clear if you think that, due to the film's slightly ridiculous title, what you have in your hands is some sort of zomedy like, dunno, Fido(2006), Zombieland(2009), Dead & Breakfast(2004), Idle Hands(1999), Dead Snow(2009), the sorely underrated Dance ofthe Dead(2008), the sorely overrated Doghouse(2009), or even Zombeavers(2014).

True, there are few dryly humorous exchanges and situations — our biggest laugh was at the great outfit worn by the travel agent Phyllis Catalano (Maria Iadonisi), which once upon a time (the 80s) was LA high style — but Zombie Honeymoon is not first and foremost a comedy. And if you're expecting one, the movie will sorely disappoint you and you could well fall asleep while watching it (as, indeed, did one fellow watching the movie with us).
So what is Zombie Honeymoon? Like, duh! It's a zombie flick! Independently made, of course. And, on a plot level, it's fairly easy: on their honeymoon, a young couple is attacked by a zombie and as the vegetarian husband Danny (Graham Sibley of Robotropolis [2011 / trailer]) slowly transforms into a gut-muncher, the concerned and loving wife Denise (Tracy Coogan of Dark Woods [2010 / trailer) has to come to terms with the changes in her husband.
 
Within this simple conceit, director David Gebroe (who also wrote the flick) touches upon a variety of themes, including that of how (to quote Robert Burns) "the best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang oft aglay". (Really: if you have dreams of one day surfing in Portugal, of getting stoned alongside a canal in Amsterdam, eating a pizza in Napoli, or whatever, do it now 'cause you really could be dead tomorrow. [A side note: considering how many people we know who have died this year, we concur heartily with this concept — which is also why about this time next year we'll already be living on Mallorca.])
Another theme present is that which is echoed by the closing song of the movie, a cover version of Tammy Wynette's classic love song Standby Your Man: to what extent do you stick with your man when you love him? Personally, we are of the opinion that, in Zombie Honeymoon, Denise sticks to her man way too long — as did most of the women you read about if you ever decide to look up "couples who kill" or read Carol Anne Davis's already out-of-date book of the same name. If you get down to it, Danny might not be the one doing the killing — at least not most of the time — but her compliance to the act, her decision to stand by her man, her inability to overcome her love for her husband, also plays a huge role in the eventual death of multitudes of people, including some good friends.
In the end, Denise might be way better looking than, say, Myra Hindley, but her hands are just as bloody with death as Myra's and/or Danny's. (Literally: she not only cleans a blood-smeared bathroom before guests arrive, but she plays a hand in the killing of the travel agent). Naw, sorry, when it comes to standing by your man (or, as the case could possibly be, woman), our sympathiesdefinitely didn't lie with Denise when we caught this flick. Understanding her would be like siding with the beaten women who stays with the wife-beating man — and we can't do that. Hello: things won't and don't get better.
True purists of zombie lore, be it of the quick or the slow, might take some umbrage at the liberties taken in Zombie Honeymoon. The infection, for example, is not "death = quick transformation" but rather a slow conversion, and the infection is not transmitted through body fluids (like spit and sperm) but, as in the "demonic zombie" flicks Demons I(1985 / trailer) and II (1986 / trailer), through zombie-upchucked bile. Others, like us, might find the relatively groovy surfadelic music by the MelTones totally incongruent to most of the scenes in which it is used, regardless of how good it might be.
Not from Zombie Honeymoon,
but by The MelTones —
Return of the Surfin' Headhunters:


We had a few other bones about the movie, but before we slag off too much, it must be said that if the movie works at all it is because of the acting. True, the opening scenes are a bit clumsy, but as the film progresses Tracy Coogan does as amazing job portraying the emotionally-torn Denise, while Graham Sibley as the slowly zombifying Danny, in turn, also manages to do a good job at remaining likeable as the movie progresses. His part, however, never demands an as convincing exploration of emotional depths as does Coogan's; one could easily image her going on to bigger and better things, were Zombie Honeymoon not already 12 years old.
But the good acting aside, Zombie Honeymoon is, in our humble opinion, a movie destined to be forgotten and probably never rediscovered.
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Short Film: Meat Me in Plainville (USA, 2011)

May 29, 2016, 8:20 am
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Meat Me in Plainville from Greth Productions on Vimeo.
OK, here a low budget film that could possibly be described as a black comedy were the ending, well, not so black. WE found it on io9, where they explain "[writers & directors] Greg Hanson and Casey Regan channel an older B-movie aesthetic for their short horror film Meat Me in Plainville. After all the livestock in America die off, cannibalism becomes legal with unexpected consequences. Despite being apparently set in the 'future' year 1994, Meat Me in Plainville debuted in 2012 at the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival.* It takes its conceit and turns it into something akin to a zombie movie where anyone could be a flesh-craving monster."
OK, so let's place the film in an alternative reality where, well, the government can't be trusted. (Wait! Isn't that our reality, too?)
The acting is variable, the story effective and well thought-out, the ending an open and bleak downer. We liked it, and so will you. Enjoy.
* Puchon aka Bucheon — it's in Korea (South).
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Sorority Row (USA, 2009)

June 3, 2016, 10:18 am
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If you want to get straight to the review, jump down to the next section, which begins more or less with a red-colored sentence, just above the trailer found further below to the original version, The House on Sorority Row(1983). 
But now, to meander...
In all truth, we have nothing against remakes or "re-envisionings". To use a musical example, take Peggy Lee's definitive version of Fever (song). You know what? A remake: the original version was sung two years earlier in 1956 by the relatively forgotten Rock And Roll Hall of Fame Inductee William Edward John (15 Nov 1937 — 26 May 1968), otherwise known as Little Willie John.
The Original —
His version may have peaked at 24 on the charts and is good in its own way, but it's nevertheless not quite as memorable as Lee's version or, for that matter, the insane Boogaloo version by La Lupe (song), or the unjustly forgotten 1961 exercise in stereophonic sound by The Three Suns (song). One might argue that some songs — like Fever — can't be made badly, but this is not true, as is proven by the sterile, lifeless version Madonna made, which is the prime example of an unneeded — and worthless — remake (and we say that as former Madonna fans).
Madonna (circa 1993)—
she may still look human,
but she kills the Fever anyways:
Other songs where the remake is good on its own or better than the original? Dunno, how about: Cake's version of I Will Survive (song) to Gloria Gaynor's (song)? The King's version of Come As You Are (song) to Nirvana's (song)? Urge Overkill's Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon (song) to Neil Diamond's (song)? Amii Stewart's Light My Fire (song) to The Doors' (song)? Texas Lightning's Like a Virgin to Madonna's (song)? The Boss Hoss's Hey Ya! (song) to Outkast's (song)?
Texas Lightning's
Like a Virgin:
OK, you might argue that remaking music is not the same as remaking a movie. But, hell, let's not forget that John Houston's The Maltese Falcon (trailer) was actually a masterful remake of 1936's Satan Met A Lady (trailer), which in turn was an abysmal remake of Roy del Ruth's acceptable The Maltese Falcon (1931 / first 2 minutes). And then there's the "classic" and creaky Bela Lugosi version of Dracula (1931 / trailer), which, while not necessarily a remake of the unauthorized silent version of Bram Stoker's novel from 1922, Nosferatu (full movie), is nevertheless substandard to both the Spanish version made at the same time starring Carlos Villarias and the Hammer version from 1958 (trailer). James Whale's Frankenstein (1931 / trailer) is likewise way better than the first version from 1910 (full film), while the Hammer's version, The Curse of Frankenstein (1957 / trailer), is a good film in its own right (but let us pretend Kenneth Brangan's operatic version from 1994 [trailer] was never made). Likewise, virtually any given Rialto Edgar Wallace film is superior to virtually any given earlier English-language version, and even the fluffy Ocean's Eleven (2001 / trailer) is definitely an improvement to the original, fluffy Ocean's Eleven (1960 / trailer). We could go on forever...
Of course, in all honesty there are dozens of remakes that or definitely not better or even suck in comparison to the original versions — The Mummy (1999 / trailer) and The Mummy (1959) to The Mummy (1932), Vanilla Sky (2001 / trailer) to Abre los ojos (1997 / trailer), The Time Machine (2002 / trailer) to The Time Machine (1960 / trailer), Shutter (2004) to Shutter (2008 / trailer), Detour (1992) to the masterpiece Detour (1945 / full movie) — but be what it may, nothing is sacred, and as far as we're concerned remakes are OK, though we could get ourselves excited about the pointlessness of Gus Van Sant's version of Psycho (1998 / trailer), but then, being pointless was the whole point of the project in the first place. In the end, however, when it comes to movies, we ourselves actually prefer re-envisionings.
Which brings to the point when we stop meandering — which we actually only did anyway as an excuse to present a couple of songs we like and a few we hate — and get to the actual topic at hand, the movie Sorority Row, a "re-envisioning" of the low-budget slasher from 1983, The House on Sorority Row.
Trailer to the original
The House on Sorority Row (1983):
The original might be a sacred cow, but in all honesty, we never liked it all that much in the first place, so we figured a remake couldn't be any worse. But, in truth, we can't help but wonder when is a remake a remake or a re-envisioning, and when is it simply a movie set in the same milieu or about the same topic? Are all modern college-set comedies Animal House (1978 / trailer) remakes/re-envisionings? Are all end-of-the world movies a remake/re-envisioning of the now-quaint and first disaster movie, Deluge (1933 / scene)? Are all love stories in which one side dies in the end and leaves the other one alone broken-hearted remakes/re-envisionings of Love Story (1970 / trailer)? (Which, we are sure, is not the first film to use its plot.) Are all body-count films actually a re-envisioning of And Then There Were None (1945 / trailer)? (Which, actually, is not even the first body-count movie — the earliest we can think of off the bat is Terror Aboard [1933], but since one knows from the beginning which human is doing the killing, perhaps it doesn't count as a real body-counter in the modern sense of creative kills by an unknown or unnaturally superhuman killer.)
Sorority Row, noticeably, neither shares the title of 1983's The House on Sorority Row nor, if you get down to it, does it share that movie's plot, motivation, or twist. (Yes, both movies are based around a prank gone wrong, but even the victim of the prank isn't the same.) All the two films really have in common are sorority girls and dead bodies, something both films also share with a lot of other films out there. Sure, one or two characters share a name and there's an occasional visual or verbal reference in Sorority Row to The House on Sorority Row, and yes the original scriptwriter/director Mark Rosman does get a credit, but we're still talking about two completely different films here. And you know what? When it comes to dead-sorority-sister films, were it not for the tacky 80s appeal and blood, Sorority Row would qualify asbetter-made than The House on Sorority Row.The girls are sexier, in any event.
Directed by Stewart Hendler, who brought us Whisper (trailer) in 2007, and written by Piranha 3D (2010) scribes Pete Goldfinger & Josh Stolberg, Sorority Row is an entertaining and liberal piece of propaganda — we need more of that stuff — that is no more believable than the average slasher but way better made than most. And we give it plus points for having the gonads to show young, well-heeled future Republicans for what they are: self-centered egoists that are so concerned with looking out for number one that they'll go over bodies.
Indeed, have no doubts here: the girls of this sorority — and their douche-bag boyfriends — are indeed the upper crust, the future leaders that will one day lead the country, a point made home at the latest when bitchy Jessica Pierson (Leah Pipes of Fingerprints [2006 / trailer]) has her eye-to-eye conversation with the senator father of her equally egotistical boyfriend Kyle Tyson (Matt Lanter). These are America's finest, and they are all morally and judgmentally corrupt and look out only for number one... followed by number two, the significant other, only in as far as No. 2 remains an acquiescing brownnoser or doesn't get in the way.
In any event, we went into the film truly expecting to hate it simply because we hate the kind of people we thought it to be about — sorority sisters and frat boys — but Stewart Hendler managed to hook us in the first scene if only because he presented what we hate (young, brainless well-to-do and future conservatives) with something we love: a single, minutes-long tracking shot through a extremely loud and active sorority house party full of frat assholes and sorority bitches. Visually, we were so thrilled by the directorial touch — a touch too complicated for a normal, brainless teen horror film — that we not only kept watching, but decided to forgive the typically stupid set-up leading to the disaster that in turn leads to the later bodycount and true focus of the movie.
Here, a bunch of pretty but mostly vacuous sorority girls decide to prank a boyfriend of one of them, Garret Bradley (Matt O'Leary of Brick [2005 / trailer]), because he's a pussy chaser — like, totally overlooking the fact that every guy in the movie except one is a fuck-around. In any event, things go terribly wrong and Megan Blaire (Audrina Patridge) ends up dead at the bottom of an abandoned mineshaft and all the sisters voluntarily or involuntarily swear to secrecy so that their futures don't get ruined by one stupid mistake. And then, as it works in most slashers, a few months later rolls around... and the bodies begin to pile up while you, the viewer, try to figure out who goes next and who's the killer. Neither is all that hard to do. The body count is nine, which is OK but we found a bit low if only 'cause we tend to hate the people in the social stratosphere presented in the movie and thus would have loved to see more of them meet their maker.
OK, we have to admit that another, almost embarrassing reason we like Sorority Row: it has Carrie Fisher (of The 'Burbs [1989 / trailer], Scream 3 [2000 / trailer] and Wonderland [2003 / trailer]) as the housemother Mrs. Crenshaw. We can't explain why — perhaps we simply have a soft spot for survivors with honest mouths — but we always like her in any movie, and only wish she would start making more trash like this and become the female version of Brad Dourif. Here, she wields a wicked shotgun that never runs out of ammunition — until, as to be expected, she's finally in a position from which she can no longer miss the killer.
But to get back to the film. The girls are hot enough, the bitch is a super-bitch, the final girls are mostly the ones that should survive, the slow-motion girl power walk at the end is good for a major laugh, the direction (as indicated by the opening scene) is better than usual, the tension is occasionally rather high, there is some nudity but way not enough, and there are really hundreds of way-worse slasher films out there.We don't really understand why the killer, considering the motivation behind the killings, would bring Megan's body back and hide it in the sorority house, where it logically would be way easier to find than at the bottom of the mineshaft, but then we also find a pimped-out tire iron to be a pretty stupid murder weapon as well.
The deaths of Charlene "Chugs" Bradley (Margo Harshman of Simon Says [2006 / trailer], Rise [2007 / trailer], and From Within [2008 / trailer]), sexy Claire Wen (Jamie Chung of Sucker Punch [2011 / trailer] and Sin City 2: A Dame to Kill For [2014 / trailer]), and asshole Kyle Tyson are way more to our liking.
In the end, in short: Sorority Row is less a remake or re-envisioning than simply a relatively well-made if not occasionally not fully thought-out slasher set in a sorority setting. And as a slasher, it delivers nothing new but does everything well enough to be entertaining — and also functions well as a subversively unobtrusive tract showing the masses just how evil and heartless and deserving of death the well-to-do, future conservatives of the USA are.
(We really can't remember, but was there a single African American anywhere in the movie? Probably not, as since the white mainstream tend to think Black Lives Don't Matter, a bodycounter populated with Black folks being killed just ain't as interested as one populated with white folks being killed — cause, like, White Lives Matter. Guess the filmmakers figured that one Asian American is enough minority for one movie.)
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Berserker (Great Britain, 2004)

June 10, 2016, 9:43 am
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Over two decades ago, a concrete welder named Paul Matthews decided to leave the building trade and together with his siblings Elizabeth, Veronica, Janet, and Peter, form a B-movie company called Peakviewing Transatlantic. Obscure as the firm might be, it has released well over 20 feature-length movies since 1992, if usually direct-to-video.

We had the displeasure if seeing one of Paul Matthews's earliest genre outings, Deadly Instincts aka Breeders (1997), and, truth be told, had we realized that the man who wrote and directed Berserker (2004) was the same man who "wrote" and directed Breeders, we might have skipped this movie. But no, we were seduced by the cheesy Berserker trailer, which seemed to feature time-hopping Vikings and vampires and a cast including three of our favorite B-film regulars, Kari Wuhrer (of Thinner [1996] and Anaconda [1997]), Craig Sheffer (of Flying Virus [2001]), and eternal ham Patrick Bergin (of Highway to Hell [1992]), the last of whom with some gnarly, hilariously fake facial hair. We expected a violently fun, genre mishmash with gore and tits, and what we got was basically a narrative mess that made no sense and often induced sleep.
Some years ago, to the release of Paul Matthews' fantasy Merlin: The Return (2000), Michael Thomson of the BBC wrote in regard to that movie, "It's almost as if director Paul Matthews had accepted a bet to make the worst possible film." We would posit that either Matthews has taken that challenge often, or simply really doesn't give a rat's ass. Cinematically, his eye isn't the worst, even if he doesn't exactly know how to make a scene exciting, but when it comes to the narrative it really seems that either he just doesn't give a flying fuck about his stories and continuity, that he's a relatively incompetent scriptwriter, or both. In Berserker, as in Breeders, the narrative thread is often lost to the viewer, characterization is literally none or reduced to clothing, and actions often defy logic. Perhaps the most enjoyable interlude of the whole movie, for us, is when the good guy and gal, when escaping the bad guys, go to a half-empty disco and, to create a diversion, turn on the fire sprinklers. The whole bit was preceded by "Huh?" scenes and was followed by "Huh?" scenes, so the end effect overall was never excitement or suspense but mostly giggles or confusion.
One might describe Berserker a colorful mixture of genres: action, Viking, fantasy, war, adventure and, dunno, romance (maybe). But to do so would be too kind, for more than anything else the film is simply a disjointed and confusing mess with a half-baked plot. The actors don't do too bad, perhaps, but even the film's most one-dimensional performance (Nick Boraine turn as Clifford) is much too good for the turkey it's in.
Not that Berserker starts off too badly: the opening scenes of ancient Vikings and valkyrie vampires are sort of fun in a cheesy, gory way and indicate that the movie might be good for a few laughs, especially since Patrick Bergin's Viking king Thorsson really looks like he hates every moment he's on screen and the good guy Barek (Paul Johnsson of Wishmaster II: Evil Never Dies [1999 / trailer]) is sort of hunky. And then there's also Wuhrer as Brunhilda. (Yummy — three-way, anyone?) But the little that the beginning of the movie promises is quickly proven to be a lie. (Sounds like an ex-girlfriend of ours.)
Barek, by the way, is the Viking son of Thorsson and, in turn, the brother of Boar (Craig Sheffer). The latter, after being bitten by the vampire valkyrie Brunhilda, runs off to join the Berserkers when Barek steals Brunhilda, whom Boar sees as his gal. Daddy Thorsson, however, needs the help of the Berserkers to ensure his thrown, but after the Berserkers keep their end of the deal struck, he proves untrustworthy. This angers the god Odin, and he revenges himself by making the movie fall completely and confusingly apart. Were it not for the plot description of the movie we found at the Peakviewing Transatlantic website, we would've been hard placed to explain the how and why of the movie's entire second half, which takes place in contemporary times.
In the end, Berserker is all about curses and lifting them, but for us what remains memorable is Kari Wuhrer's turn as the miniskirt-wearing Doctor Anya. (She could take our temperature any time, using any of our orifices she prefers.) Despite some gore and guts and boobs, Berserker is basically a dull and disjointed and disinteresting disaster that should have been a lot funnier than it is. The biggest laugh it brought the night we saw it was when two of the five guys we saw the flick with simultaneously said "Did he shit that thing out?" at the movie's last scene, which basically features the parentless rebirth of Boar.
Berserker is a major fail in all ways; even as a "bad movie" it is more micro-dicky than even simply dicky. But the blame for the film's failure definitely doesn't lie on Wuhrer, Sheffer or Johnsson, all of whom give the movie more than it deserves.
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The Devil's Rock (New Zealand, 2011)

June 17, 2016, 1:57 am
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"Fuck you, hell-whore!"
Col Klaus Meyer (Matthew Sunderland)

Go figure: for the DVD release in Germany, the powers that be renamed the flick Nazi Bitch — War Is Horror. A title that is far more reminiscent of such classic Nazi torture exploitation flicks like LisaShe-Wolf of the SS (1974 / trailer) than any WWII bunker-set supernatural horror flicks like, dunno, The Bunker (2001 / trailer) or The Keep (1983 / trailer). Be what it may, The Devil's Rockaka Nazi Bitch — War Is Horror has absolutely nothing to do with Nazi bitches but, instead, deals with flesh-eating demons (or, rather, demon). The original title is at least a bit more concise, slightly more playful, and relates to the plot: the rock of the title is an island, the monster of the flick a [female] devil. And while she might be a total bitch, to put it lightly, if she's a Nazi it's only by happenstance — sounds like many people we've met, actually, and not just in Germany.
This Kiwi flick — Is Kiwi a pejorative? Is it the N-word from Down Under? Is it even possible to have an N-word for white folks? — is a low budget WWII horror Kammerspiel(chamber play) with a core cast of three. Everyone else flits in only long enough to die: less time on set, less money spent. And the money saved seems to have been poured into the gore. (Good move!)
The plot concerns two New Zealand soldiers, Grogen (Craig Hall of 30 Days of Night [2007 / trailer], Perfect Creature [2006 / trailer], and The Ferryman [2007/ trailer]) and Tane (Karlos Drinkwater), who on the eve of D-Day are sent a German-occupied British Channel island to create a diversion by sabotaging the Nazi base. (The building they enter is modeled after one on Guernsey, built [in real life] by the occupying Nazi forces of WWII, but the island named in the movie is itself not a real one.) The two manly men find a scene of carnage, and soon only Grogen is still alive, a prisoner of the last surviving Nazi on the island, Colonel Klaus Meyer (Matthew Sunderland of Backtrack [2015 / trailer] and Out of the Blue [2006 / trailer]). But wait! Grogen turns the tables, only to find his totally hot wife Helena (Gina Varela), who supposedly died in a bombing raid, locked in chains in a room upstairs...
No, this ain't no love story, it's about how war is horror and a Nazi bitch — though, in truth, the bitch is more a Demon Bitch (like, 100%) than a Nazi one. (They summoned her, true, but does that make her a Nazi? That's like saying all Trump supporters are racist assholes because he's a racist asshole when, basically, they're just idiots. And not all idiots are assholes, you know.) In any event, the core cast of three carries a relatively tightly scripted low budget horror film (the budget of this flick probably wouldn't have paid the on-set chemicals of the already ancient, similarly titled and extremely dull action thriller The Rock [1996 / trailer]) through to the end. And while nothing truly unexpected happens, the movie is extremely logical and believable in its narrative development (assuming you can accept the concept of demons) and truly keeps you interested until the end. The Devil's Rock might not be an unknown masterpiece — and unknown it is — but it is a wonderfully involving little gore flick that travels an uncommon narrative path: we, at least, haven't seen too many flesh-eating demon films in the past decades. (Zombies, yes; demons, no.) And, damn! That Demon/Nazi Bitch looks hot!
Director Paul Campion — no relation to the New Zealand art house Oscar-winning director Jane Campion of In the Cut(2003) — supposedly mortgaged his house to get the show on the road for his film, and all the power to him for succeeding; we hope he was able to buy a second house, 'cause he deserves it for delivering an obvious labor of love this good, this involving. People have gone onto bigger, greater things with directorial debuts half as good as this one; let's hope he does, too. With The Devil's Rock, he's delivered a well-made, well-acted and tightly scripted movie that jumps hurdles over its mini-budget. The character of Colonel Klaus Meyer is particularly well done, despite the occasionally lost accent: a blue-blooded Nazi, there comes a point when you as a viewer really no longer know whether or not he truly has seen the mistake of calling up an unkillable, flesh-eating demon or whether he's still got ulterior motives. And as for good guy Grogen, though a man with a mission, he comes across as emotionally scared and torn enough that one does occasionally doubt his resolve.
But the true stamp of quality of The Devil's Rock is that it takes a plot that easily could've drifted into ridiculousness or camp (especially with its literally red-hot demoness) and keeps it firmly rooted in serious gore horror. Yep, we're talking bukakke gore here: body parts get chowed down, heads get torn off, blood spurts everywhere — and never once does any of it come across as completely gratuitous. (Face it; a flesh-eating demon isn't going to be concerned with Mrs Manners' tips on social etiquette.)
We went in expecting nothing, and were seriously surprised: The Devil's Rock is everything a truly good low budget horror film should be. It's also definitely no waste of time.
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Short Film: La Dolce Gilda (USA, 1978)

June 23, 2016, 9:40 am
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That Saturday Night Live is an [US] American institution goes without saying. When it debuted in 1975, it was an instant hit. At our junior high in Alexandria, VA, it was often the main topic at school every Monday morning — for the funny stuff, the music acts, and the stuff we didn’t really understand (Land Shark, anyone?). 
We ourselves found the pre-nose job Laraine Neman sorta hot, but Gilda Radner (28 June 1946 — 20 May 1989) was our favourite comedian of the show. Between Roseanne Roseannadanna, Baba Wawa, Emily Litella, her heartwarming nerd characters, and any number of other endearing social misfits, Radner usually kept us laughing more than the various males that garnered most of the limelight. It goes without saying that her early death from ovarian cancer was a tragic loss and made the world a less-funny place.
Among the more drily humorous regularly aired segments of the original year was "Schiller's Reel", which featured the short films of Tom Schiller. This film here, La Dolce Gilda, aired on Episode 17 of Season 3, is one such film. As the short's title makes obvious, it features Gilda Radner and is inspired by the films of Fellini. In all truth, at the time La Dolce Gilda was originally aired, it went over our head: we hadn't even seen our first Fellini film yet (roughly 4 years later in LA we finally saw Satyricon [1969 / trailer] on a double bill with Roma [1972 / trailer]). And now, almost four decades after La Dolce Gilda first aired, we recently rediscovered it on Vimeo and found it both inspired and touchingly melancholic.
As AV Clubnotes,  "La Dolce Gilda [is] a beloved, rightly revered tribute to La Dolce Vita (1960 / trailer) that beautifully replicates the look, sound, aesthetic and carnivalesque madness of Fellini despite being awfully low on jokes. As lovingly written and directed by Tom Schiller as part of his 'Schiller's Reel' collection it's less a parody than a straight-up homage. It's a sort of dual love letter to Radner and Fellini." 
According to the blogspot Life of Brian, SNL replayed the film about a week after Gilda died as a tribute to her. Here it is for you, as our Short Film of the Month for June, 2016.
Tom Schiller's
La Dolce Gilda:

La Dolce Gilda from Angela Layana on Vimeo.
Radner's last film prior to her death, by the way, was the critically panned commercial flop she made with her husband Gene Wilder, Haunted Honeymoon (1986 / trailer). We here at A Wasted Life are some of the few who rather enjoyed the movie, as you can tell by our review of it found here. It is still awaiting rediscovery and reappraisal.
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Circle of Eight (USA, 2009)

July 3, 2016, 4:28 am
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(Spoilers.) Hey! Remember that really miserable Tara Reid movie entitled Incubus (aka A Total Piece of Shit) from 2006? (It's really OK if you don't; we wish we didn't.) That movie's only true claim to fame, other than that it is truly a lousy flick, is that it is the first film production created specifically for the web and available as a direct-to-download movie by AOL. Three years later, by 2009, not only were on-line movies relatively common, but there were even web serials: films which, much like the cliffhangers of the Early Days of Hollywood, were made to be released in instalments ("webisodes"). This flick here was one such series, a Paramount Digital and Mountain Dew production for MySpace, and was subsequently released as a DVD. (There is a high level of Mountain Dew product placement in the movie, but we're not really sure being presented as a liquid that can be used to paint with is really the best way to gain new drinkers.)
We caught Circle of Eight late one night on TV while channel hopping. Had it not been for the intriguing music during the credit sequence (by Mark Mothersbaugh) we probably would've zapped further, but the music kept us watching till the flick began, and then the flick managed to catch our interest and kept us watching all the way to its confusing mess of an ending. We even stuck around for the second ending — yep, the film ends twice: in itself perhaps logical when considering the underlying premise of the story, but nevertheless oddly ineffective and anti-climactic. It also conveys the feeling that the filmmakers were too chickenshit to go with a downer ending. (Though we would also posit that the double ending is actually the production's way of using two of the possible endings that one could interactively vote for on-line. Wonder what the other possible endings were.)
Circle of Eight opens with a confusing montage of scenes that includes police entering a burning building, indefinite things transpiring underwater, and a female body plummeting from a high building into the camera. From there, it cuts to an interminably long scene of babealicious Jessica (Austin Highsmith of Room 33 [2009 / trailer]), full of happiness and life, singing loudly to the music as she drives in circles through downtown LA. A nice montage which, much like those of Lola running in Lola Rennt (1998 / trailer), intercuts areas that are miles apart as if they are next to each other. Finally, however, she parks her car, grabs her stuff, and enters The Dante, a labyrinthine apartment building managed by Ed (John Bishop of Silent Night, Deadly Night [1984 / trailer] and Seven Psychopaths [2012 / trailer]), whose work desk is in the service elevator because, well, it's a groovy place to have your work desk.
Although Jessica has seemingly never before been in The Dante, she has the lease to a huge, loft-like apartment there — a dream flat if you get down to it, but the other inhabitants of the building are all voluble nightmares that like to burst unannounced into her apartment or blather without pause to her in the dark hallways. Everyone in The Dante seems weird, the least weird one being the artist stud Evan (Ryan Doom of The Open Door [2008 / trailer], Red Velvet [2008 / trailer], Circle [2010 / trailer], The Roommate [2011 / trailer] and Most Likely to Die [2015 / trailer]), who would rather paint her with Mountain Dew or press the flesh with her. The place, as dark and shadowy and mysterious as it is, would probably be a cool place to live were it not for the dead bodies Jessica keeps finding and that also keep disappearing. And what is hidden in the storage room, a room she is expressly forbidden to enter? (It's even a contingency on her rental agreement.)
Oh, yeah: she happens to move in on New Year's Eve, and everyone in the building — all eight that we meet, excluding the model-like lesbians needed for the mandatory naked flesh scene that really does nothing for the narrative but does feature some nice if darkly shot tits — are obsessed about that night's party up on the building's roof.
Circle of Eight is a mental mind-fuck film that tends to confuse more than it does make sense, and all the scares end up being pretty wimpy, but for all that (and some occasionally very dodgy acting) the movie is nicely shot and lit and edited and oddly captivating. If movies had older, more-successful brothers, Circle of Eight's would probably be Jacob's Ladder (1990 / trailer), The Attic Expeditions (2001 / trailer), or maybe even Lost Highway (1997 / trailer). It is basically an off-kilter Twilight Zone-like script that meanders beyond clever and creepy or dread to become somewhat incoherent and, finally, almost annoying. Luckily, it remains interesting even when it devolves into the non-sensical, perhaps in part due to the quality of its direct-to-video cinematography and the overall atmosphere that TV director Stephen Cragg manages to create and sustain.
The key to the narrative lies in two philosophical ideas, neither of which truly jell in the movie. The clue, of course, is the name of the building: Dante, as in the name of the Italian dude who wrote The Divine Comedy. The concept of going through hell and purgatory to reach paradise is reflected in the narrative, as it the Buddhist concept of being reincarnated until achieving atonement for past mistakes. In Circle of Eight, it would seem Jessica's reincarnation always starts at the same point (with her driving across the LA river bopping to loud music) and has obviously been repeated in ad nauseum, much to the annoyance of everyone else involved — right down to passers-by and pedestrians. And while we do learn about what she must atone for, we never learn why the others are there, why they are cognizant and she isn't, why the artist love interest (we assume) joins her when she finally hits the jackpot, and why the rest are still around after the lovebirds achieve atonement. (There are many more unanswered questions than these in the movie, but to list them all would take too long.)
OK, the roots of Circle of Eight were an interactive series in which viewers could affect the storyline and access further information and behind-the-scenes stories of the various characters, so probably the webisode viewers had a bit more information at hand than found in the linear storyline of this movie. As written by Dave Brewman and Brian Horiuchi, the former of whom has disappeared and latter of whom went on to write and direct Parts Per Billion (2014 / trailer), Circle of Eight, despite its Circe-like appeal, plays out as if it were based on a script for cheap, low-budget horror movie farted out by David Lynch after a particularly bean-heavy Bob's Big Boy meal following aTwilight Zone all-nighter on the local TV station.
Circle of Eight is good for a gander, but far from being a good movie. Whether or not you like it will probably depend on how much you like well-shot incoherency. We sort of liked it, though it really could've done with less Mountain Dew and more blood, guts, and skin. Had it had more of the last three, the lack of coherency would perhaps not be so noticeable.
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Trailers of Promise: The Black Pit of Dr. M (1959)

July 9, 2016, 3:28 am
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Aka Mysteries from the Beyond. Original title: Misterios de ultratumba. And no, The Black Pit of Dr. M is not an instalment of the campy and fun German Dr. Mabuse franchise.That franchise, if you exclude the first two Fritz Lang flicks, Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922 / clip) and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933 / German trailer),*didn't start until the third Fritz Lang flick, The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse(1960 / trailer). This flick here is one of the many B&W Mexican horror films from the Golden Age of Tequila Horror (the 50s to early 60s).
*Lang, assisted by the long forgotten French assistant director René Sti (13 April 1897—29 Oct 1951), filmed a French version of this film, entitled Le Testament du Dr. Mabuse (1933), at the same time as the German version but with a mostly different cast. We, however, don't really view that as a third, separatemovie.
We stumbled upon the trailer to The Black Pit of Dr. Mwhile putting together our blog entry Misc. Film Fun: Three Dance Sceneslast September. Dance scene #3 comes from the Mexican film Cien muchachas(1957), which was written by Fernando Méndez (20 July 1908 — 17 Oct 1966). Méndez went on to direct a number of B&W Mexican horrors, most of which are unknown abroad (actually, we can't even say whether they are known within their country of origin). While we find all the trailers of Méndez'horror films intriguing, this trailer caught our eye the most. And indeed, the promise the trailer exudes could be merited: The Black Pit of Dr. M seems to enjoy strong approval by all those who have actually seen it. Indeed, on the Wikipedia page of the lead actress, Mapita Cortés, they claim: "Cortés became a sensation in the Mexican film industry during the 1950s, when she appeared in 1958's Misterios de ultratumba("Mysteries of the Afterlife").This movie became a contemporary Mexican classic." [Italics are ours.]
Original Trailer
(in Spanish):
If we are to believe the imdb, "The English dubbed version of this film is believed lost. Please check your attic."
The dearly departed blogspotInternational Walnutwrote the following about the available subtitled print of The Black Pit of Dr. M ten years ago: "By day, Dr. Mazali (Rafael Bertrand) runs an insane asylum. By night, he lashes out at the veil between this life and the next, desperate to contact his former partner, Dr. Jacinto Aldama (Antonio Raxel), who was executed for a crime he did not commit. What follows is madness, tragedy, agonizing violence and the unrelenting horror of infinite damnation. The Black Pit of Dr. M is a masterpiece of Gothic filmmaking punctuated by shocking jolts and beautiful imagery that render it years ahead of its time. It is also a major accomplishment in chilling tone, unsettling atmosphere and wildly inventive storytelling."
Trailers from Hell version (in English),
with commentary by
Darren Bousman:
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The Evil Dead (USA, 1981)

July 18, 2016, 2:00 am
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Actually, when we popped this baby in our DVD player last night we did so with some trepidation. Would this movie still hold up? Is it really as great as we remembered it? Way back when we saw it the first time, in Paris a year or so after it was released, The Evil Dead was a total blast of fresh air. After all the generically faceless and disappointing dead-teenager movies that flooded the market in the wake of Halloween (1978 / trailer) and Friday the 13th (1980 / trailer), The Evil Dead was (despite its generic basic plot) truly something different, and it remained such for years to come. But still, we hadn't seen the movie in over a decade — would we still like it? Well, our fears proved unfounded: now as then, The Evil Dead still rocks! It's the Dazed and Confused of horror movies, still heavy after all these years.
The plot in itself in no way promises anything exceptional; after all, the basic setup of a group of young adults in an isolated wreck of a cabin dying one by one was already so old by 1981 that it was almost a joke to use it. But perhaps that is why Rami decided to do so: the film, as gory and ennerving as it is, is also very much a satire, and as such the antiquated generic plot is entirely appropriate. That aside, Rami does a damned good job at proving that even the deadest of plotlines can be given new, exciting life in the hands of the right person. Indeed, he ended up making such an effective horror movie that the satire is easily overlooked — something he corrected in his later overtly comic remake of his own film, The Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn (1987 / trailer), and its follow-up, The Army of Darkness (1992 / trailer).
Rami really doesn't waste much time in getting the viewer's blood pumping: the crosscutting between the iconic 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 on the road and the p.o.v. traveling shot along the forest floor leading up to the near accident, set to Joseph LoDuca simple but nerve-wracking music, might not end in much of a money shot but it is still one of many small but effective tension-building situations that make the viewer nervous long before the demons start possessing people. That the college students keep going even when confronted by the rotted-out bridge reveals the five to be less than bright — see: Hell No: The Sensible Horror Filmtrailer— but it is the fact that they don't simply turn around when they finally reach the desolate house that reveals one basic truth to the viewer: they gonna die!
That the movie is and looks lower than low budget cannot be argued — love the mashed corn and potatoes used in the final demon-melt scene — but it no way hurts the movie's effectiveness. Indeed, the ragged edges give the movie a rawness that the later remake, for example, totally lacks. OK, the acting is truly a bit questionable at times, but the speed at which the shit hits the fan again and again and again gives you no chance to get critical about such flaws. The infamous tree rape scene is as disconcerting as everyone remembers it to be, and truly moves the film from the realm of horror into the transgressive. One might argue that it is ill-advised or unnecessary, that it is misogynistic, but on the other hand it is also one of the most effectively disturbing and truly horrific scenes ever filmed and, unlike all the contemporary "tentacle horror" coming from Asia, doesn't seem 100% fetishistic. Dumb that it happened to Cheryl (Ellen Sandweiss of Satan's Playground [2006 / trailer]), but had Ash (the legendary Bruce Campbell, young and rather good-looking) or Scott (Richard DeManincor, of the forever unjustly under-appreciated Crimewave [1985 / trailer]) been idiotic enough to wander out into the forest — "Hello? Is someone there?"— there is no doubt that someone's ass would've suffered, and not just from hemorrhoids. Indeed, who knows what Scotty later experienced out in the forest prior to returning to the house to die and convert.
The Evil Dead is well-nigh perfectly constructed, even if an occasional scene or motivation leaves you scratching your head. (Why, for example, doesn't Cheryl get more upset about her possessed hand? And why does she even go outside and wander into the forest? And if the evil dead are released by the tape being played, who or what almost causes the car to crash, makes the swing slam against the house, or possesses Cheryl's hand? Why does the force take so long to finally break into the house and posses Shelley [Theresa Tilly of Stomping Ground [2014 / trailer]?) Nevertheless, attention to detail is revealed in how some of the scenes early in the movie are often echoed or referred to again later: the first scene of Scott walking through the house, for example, introduces many of the props important to the narrative (mirror, wall clock, shed), while the extremely wooden romantic scene between Ash and Linda (Betsy Baker of Witches' Night [2007 / trailer] and 2084 [2009 / trailer]) is echoed later when he's burying her corpse.
Much is often made of Rami's moving camera and tracking shots, which often come across a bit like a Baroque Murnau having orgasmic spasms of "unchained camera technique"; indeed, many of the visuals and camera movements, were they in B&W, would fit perfectly in an Expressionistic silent — including the intercut canned scenes of stock lightning. One aspect of the movie that is continually under-appreciated, however, is the nerve-wracking use of sound and Joseph LoDuca cheap-sounding but extremely efficient music: seldom has an 80s synth soundtrack ever been as effective as LoDuca's tonalities and Gothic flourishes, many of which sound like Dr. Phibes on acid. Cheesy, but perfect.
We've mentioned before, in other reviews, that there are horror movies out there that all true fans of horror must watch at least once in their lifetime. Our personal list would include movies such as Murnau's Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922 / trailer / full film) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925 / trailer / full film), though both are too old now to be very scary, plus James Whale's mid-century masterpieces Frankenstein (1931 / trailer) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935 / trailer) and Tod Browning's uniquely shocking Freaks (1932 / trailer). After Psycho (1960 / trailer), interestingly enough, many of our "must sees" are also low-budget directorial debuts: George Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968 / trailer / full film), Tobe Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974 / trailer), Wes Craven's flawed Last House on the Left (1972 / trailer), Peter Jackson's hilarious Bad Taste (1987 / trailer), and this movie here, Sam Rami's first feature-length movie, The Evil Dead.
Of the last five films mentioned, Craven's is undoubtedly the weakest and Jackson's the funniest (and, oddly enough, the only one yet to be remade), but the most consummate are Night of the Living Dead, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and this baby here. We have no doubt that one day The Evil Dead will also be deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress and will join Night of the Living Dead, Psycho, The Bride of Frankenstein, Freaks, Frankenstein, and Phantom of the Opera and be selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
Till then, we can only say that if you haven't seen The Evil Dead yet, you should: it really is so much better than its 2013 remake (trailer) directed by Fede Alvarez (the director of our Short Film of the Month of December 2009, Ataque de pánico!). Fede Alvarez's updated version is in itself a perfectly acceptable and effective movie — but it's just not as rocking. (In that sense, Alvarez's Evil Dead is very much the first cousin of Tom Savini's version of Night of the Living Dead [1990 / trailer], which never achieves the power and presence of the original, but functions well enough as a competently made update.)
Posters and lobby cards all found on The Wrong Side of Art.
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Short Film:The Facts In the Case of Mister Hollow (USA, 2008)

July 24, 2016, 10:36 pm
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Here's an arty short horror film that overflows with atmosphere. The Facts In the Case of Mister Hollow was written by Rodrigo Gudiño, and directed by him and Vincent Marcone. Rodrigo Gudiño "is the publisher of Rue Morgue Magazine, senior coordinator of the Rue Morgue Festival of Fear National Horror Expo, producer of the Rue Morgue Podcast and co-programmer of Rue Morgue's CineMacabre Movie Nights". His first feature film, The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh (trailer), was released in 2012. 
The Facts In the Case of Mister Hollow has won a number of awards since its release, and it's easy to see why: beautifully made, mysterious, and visually alluring, it is a slow burner that tells its tale in an uncommon fashion. The Facts In the Case of Mister Hollow is a horror film, without doubt, but it is less a traditional narrative than a visual impression that evolves the closer you look, proffering chilling tidbits and clues that offer the semblance of storyline but no hint of a conclusion. It features a certain level of dream logic and visuals, and like many an unpleasant dream (or full-fledged nightmare), it leaves as many questions unanswered as it makes revelations. Enjoy.
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Sonata (USA, 2004)

August 1, 2016, 2:37 am
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(Spoilers.) This obscure "horror" movie is the direct-to-video feature film directorial début of the unknown Ukrainian-born, LA-based filmmaker Boris Undorf, who wrote the script as well. Though initially well-received at various smaller film festivals, where it garnered a respectable amount of awards, Sonata is now more-or-less a completely forgotten film. Unjustly so.
Odd indeed that when Boris Undorf made the movie, he didn't bother writing "Based on a True Story", but then, perhaps he didn't know the true story that his movie closely, if possibly unintentionally, echoes: that of the unhinged Spanish, proto radical-feminist Aurora Rodriguez (23 April 1879 — 28 Dec 1955) and her daughter Hildegart. Aurora was a firm believer in eugenics who, thanks to an unknown donor found via newspaper advertisements, produced her amazing daughter, Hildegart (born 9 Dec, 1914), a brilliant intellectual prodigy who spoke six languages, possessed a law degree, had written masses of articles and books, and become an international leftist leader all by her late teens when, as she tried to become an independent woman and leave her overbearing mother, she was shot to death in the early morning of June 9, 1933,* by that said mother.
* Another date sometimes given online is April 11, 1931.
An intriguing and true tale, filmed prior to Sonata by the Peru-born Spanish filmmaker and actor Fernando Fernán Gómez (28 Aug 1921 — 21 Nov 2007) in 1977 as Mi hija Hildegart / My Daughter Hildegart, and again seven years after Sonata as a short film by Sheila Pye entitled The Red Virgin (2011) — "Red Virgin" being the nickname bequeathed Hildegart while still alive by the popular press.So, though the historical tale was perhaps, possibly, not known to Boris Undorf, let us paraphrase some famous words here in reference to Sonata: "The following is based on a true story. Only the names [and places] have been changed to protect the innocent."
The talent of the young female prodigy of Sonata, named Megan (Nicole DuPort of Cemetery Gates [2006 / trailer], Southern Gothic [2007 / trailer], and Tooth and Nail [2007 / trailer]), is music, and she has spent her life mostly at home under the watchful eye of her overbearing and possessive novelist mother Samantha Fergus (Annie Scott Rogers of No Return (2003 / trailer], Razor's Ring (2008 / trailer], and The Abstracting (2012 / trailer]).
 
Woe be the fragile young adult with raging hormones who is abused emotionally, psychologically, and physically by those elders they should be able to trust — and woe be those who do the abuse. And Megan's mother Samantha is an abuser, if primarily psychological: the self-written fairytale she has told her noticeably immature daughter virtually every night her entire life, which involves a mother who sews the eyes of her daughter shut when the daughter finds love, reveals the foundation of her abuse. The daughter is hers, and no one else's. But, as one knows from many a fairytale, a Prince Charming often shows up to throw a spanner in the works.In this case, it is the dark, mysterious stranger that Megan meets one afternoon while delivering a basket of fruit … or did she actually even meet anyone at all?
In all truth, we (a group of beer-swilling guys out for bloody film full of laughs) put this one in our DVD player expecting, well, guts and guffaws, and we were seriously disappointed. But, as our rule when watching mystery DVDs is "what goes in stays in till the end", we slogged on tossing out insulting bon mots as we drank our beer and ate our chips and flips. It speaks for the film that, as slow and deliberate as it is, the bon mots progressively became fewer and, about 20 minutes into the movie, Sonata enjoyed the engrossed silence of a group whose filmic tastes generally preclude anything that might be described as "serious". But while we wanted trash, we did indeed get a serious movie — and ended up really liking it.
Sonata is a bit of strange fish. Sold as a horror movie, it is far more an obviously low-budget, slow-burning, and linear psychological drama that meanders, fascinatingly, to an obvious and tragic conclusion. The camerawork, betraying a healthy understanding of the works of Alfred Hitchcock, is stylish but not overt; the pacing languid and the acting variable.All, however, combine to create a tale that gets under the skin as both the expected and unexpected of the narrative get revealed and the inevitable, tragic end comes to transpire.
That Megan is messed up is never a doubt, but her mother is also just as obviously far gone. Thus, after a certain point in the movie there is also little doubt about how Sonata shall end. Nevertheless, the viewer remains intrigued and, once the final credits roll, the overriding feeling that remains is that of regret for Megan and the tragedy that she was literally programmed to be part of. There is a short exchange about a pet canary in the past that serves to reveal that the tragedy had been on the back burner for some time. All that it was waiting for was Prince Charming's wrench in the works.
Sonata is anything but trashy or exploitive; it is a serious labor of love from a filmmaker who displays a lot of promise both as a director and screenwriter. Due to its general lack of speed, however, Sonata is definitely not everyone's cup of tea. But if you like slow burners or films that succeed at becoming more than their parts, you'll want to give Sonata a go. If you can even find it anywhere.
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Der Rächer / The Avenger (Germany, 1960)

August 16, 2016, 12:55 am
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Based on the Edgar Wallace's novel The Avenger (aka The Hairy Arm), the film almost seems like a Rialto production due to the presence of Heinz Drache, Siegfried Schürenberg and Klaus Kinski — more or less the modern Krimi début of all three — but in truth it is the singular German Edgar Wallace film to come from the production firm of Kurt Ulrich, which thereafter avoided the whole genre (let alone Wallace books, the German film rights of which were soon in the firm hand of the production houses of Rialto and/or Artur Brauner's CCC).
Ulrich began as a film producer in 1934, but seemingly took a prolonged break from 1937 to 1950, after which he specialized in mainstream German films such as the popular remakes of Emil und die Detektive (1954 / a scene), Die Drei von der Tankstelle (1955 / a song) and Charleys Tante (1955 / a mambo scene, featuring Walter Giller), plus lots of dramas and an occasional thriller. (His last production credit, as far as we can tell, was a shared production credit with Radley Metzger on the latter's Therese and Isabelle [1968 / trailer].)
In the case of Der Rächer, Ulrich was obviously dealing with something new and not of his abilities — a gothic horror Krimi  — for the final result is disappointing, all the more so for all the chances so obviously missed. Even the on-occasion fine B&W cinematography and the competent acting of most of the cast does little to make the movie palatable, as the less-than-exceptional script is not only terribly paced but blatantly, if unintentionally and ignorantly, racist. (Back then, one can argue, they simply didn't know better, but it doesn't make it any less cringe-worthy.)
The character Bhag (Al Hoosmann, of Tante Wanda aus Uganda [1957 / trailer]), for example, is a creature of another era, a Colonialist era when the black races of Africa were seen as something less than savage, as something sub-human, if not as virtual animals. Likewise, one can only infer that the Malaysian girl kept in a tower — and undoubtedly repeatedly raped — by Sir Gregory Penn (Benno Sterzenbach) is of little true worth as a human, for Penn not only survives the film while other, less-despicable characters die, but he is in no way taken to task or punished for his inhumane and criminal activities. True, the girl does conveniently simply hightail for home when finally free, but Sir Penn also simply walks away free and easy in the end, a silent but sure sign that it's OK to rape women (particularly foreign women) if you want to. Scriptwriter Gustav Kampendonk, who undoubtedly had a low opinion of both non-Aryan races and women and a deeply rooted misogynistic bent, went on to pen the somewhat better Bryan Edgar Wallace movie, The Strangler of Blackmoor Castle (1963 / trailer / full film), directed by Harald Reinle and starring Reinle's then-wife, the always babelicious Kairn Dor.
As for the Czech-born director Karl Anton, he may have been a competent director, but he flatly failed to overcome the material he was given for his last feature film, despite all the experience gathered since his first directorial effort in the early 1920s, whence he moved ever so slowly upwards from such things as the low brow drama Ein Mädel von der Reeperbahn (1930 / title song) and the NS anti-Soviet propaganda dramaWeiße Sklaven (1936 / a song / full film] in the 1930s to such post-war mainstream fodder like the (first) remakes of Peter Voss, der Millionendieb (1946 / first 10 minutes) and Viktor und Viktoria (1957). Still, the argument can be made that his direction is more than adequate, as it occasionally delivers an effective shock; it is simply negated by the offensiveness of the film's less than subliminal attitudes.
Der Rächer starts with a shock, to say the least. A car zooms out into the night and as it whips around a corner, a box is tossed from its window. Two women passing-by sit in the filth and open it and discover the decapitated head of a man. Regrettably, after this wham-bang opening scene, the film quickly becomes talk-heavy and somewhat dull, up until its last scenes in an underground cellar where three of the main characters seemingly face an unavoidable date with a guillotine. In-between, special agent Michael Brixan (Heinz Drache of, among others, Hypnosis [1962] and Coast of Skeletons [1964]) is pulled back from oversees by his boss Staines (Siegfried Schürenberg of, among others, The Inn on the River [1962] and The Hand of Power [1968]) when a civil servant of the Foreign Office loses his head, one of a number of victims of an unknown madman who specializes in decapitating either villains who have escaped justice or people who are terminally ill. (Strange combo, to say the least, but perhaps representative of the scriptwriter's mindset.)
The only clues available lead Brixan to a film production near Winchester, where the beautiful but unknown starlet Ruth Sanders (Ina Duscha, a real-life unknown starlet who was out of the industry by 1963) finagles the lead role from the obnoxious star Stella Mendoza (Ingrid van Bergen of Das Geheimnis der gelben Narzissen[1961]). Ruth continually avoids the amorous advances of the obnoxious, amoral Sir Gregory Penn (Sterzenbach), who is not above sending his savage servant Bhag (Hoosmann) to kidnap the object of his base desires. After coming across a page typed by the same typewriter used for the notes found with the decapitated heads, Brixon concentrates his investigation to the area, even after his main suspect, Lorenz Voss (Klaus Kinski) also loses his head. Breaking into Penn's house one night, Brixon even discovers a Malaysian girl locked in a tower room; oddly enough, he leaves her there. Too many scenes later, Penn and Brixon find themselves handcuffed in the cellar of the true killer and about to be beheaded when Ruth — with Bhag close at her heals — stumbles onto the scene…
Ina Duscha is exotically beautiful, Benno Sterzenbach excels as a truly repulsive man of no morals, and everyone else does a fine job with their material — with the possible exception of Bhag (Al Hoosmann), whose overacting is as embarrassing as his whole character. The script itself is so incompetent that none of the movie's good features help in any way to make the flick any good, despite some nice B&W cinematography and bodiless heads. And while it is true that there is no justice in real life, the inappropriately distributed "justice" of this movie leaves a nasty after-taste: a character whose biggest fault is weakness and greed — Lorenz Voss — has to pay with his life, while a man as repulsive and amoral as Penn can be permitted to survive. In this sense, Der Rächer reflects a fact of life: the rich get away with it, and the poor don't.
Der Rächer disappoints tremendously because it so obviously could have been something good had only it been in the hands of a more competent producer with a more competent team, or at least a more competent scriptwriter. A disappointment of an Edgar Wallace movie, a disappointment as a Krimi, Der Rächer can be avoided and can only be recommended to completionists and then with the addendum: put it at the bottom of the pile.
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Fortress of Amerikkka (USA, 1989)

August 23, 2016, 12:40 am
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So, here we have the sophomoric sophomore feature-length movie of (former) Troma film director Eric Louzil, the man who likes to claim to have discovered Kevin Costner, as Costner's first film appearance, Malibu Hot Summer aka Sizzle Beach USA (1981 / trailer), was a Louzil-produced movie (as is another early film featuring Costner, Shadows Run Black [1984 / trailer]). Eric Louzil went on to direct such famous, culturally relevant projects as Class of Nuke 'Em High Part II: Subhumanoid Meltdown (1991 / full movie), Lukas' Child (1993 / trailer), Silent Fury (1994, with the great Charles Napier) and Fatal Pursuit (1994 / trailer, also with the great Charles Napier), and Class of Nuke 'Em High Part 3: The Good, the Bad and the Subhumanoid (1994 / trailer).
Since 2004, he's done the world a good turn by giving up the directorial chair in favor of the presiding chair of Echelon Studios, which "oversee[s] domestic & foreign film licensing with a library of over 15,000 titles." One would be hard placed to say that his departure from the directorial chair has been noticed — but then, going by Fortress of Amerikkka, which he supposedly also wrote (like many of his culturally relevant projects), one would also be hard placed to call him a talented filmmaker. (A businessman, on the other hand, he does indeed seem to be.)
We caught the "Director’s Cut" of Fortress of Amerikkka, or at least it was so lauded on the DVD cover. It would seem that the director cut the film (and the film script as well, in all likelihood) with dull scissors, for it is a mess of a movie. One of those total turds that leave you astounded that anyone could do anything so bad; but then, were it a smidgeon better, it probably wouldn't be half as enjoyable, for the only joy to be found here is in the total inability that pervades every aspect of the movie, from the script to the acting to the direction to the cinematography — you name it. Fortress of Amerikkka is bad even for a Troma film, and as such is something for true fans of craptastic films … though, oddly enough, it is somewhat boring at times for a movie as bad as it is. (The "main" character has all the charisma of and less acting talent than Stephan Lack in Scanners [1981 / trailer], so any scene he is in verges on interminable.)
In an interview of Louzil found online, he claims that "I made about seven films for Troma. My second was Fortress of Amerikkka. Lloyd put three 'Ks' in it." We are sure Louzil objected. (Not!) To say the movie is the worst Troma movie ever made is tempting, but as there are too many Troma movies we haven't seen to be able to offer such a judgment, let us simply submit that Fortress of Amerikkka is one of the worst films ever made in general. It would make a perfect double bill with Empire of Ash (1988 / full film), a movie we couldn't help but think of when we watched the disjointed, illogical, badly acted & shot & edited & lit & directed mess.
Fortress of Amerikkka introduces characters at the drop of a hat and also has them exit the movie just as quickly, and within the narrative mess that hopes to be a plot there are at least a dozen or more strands that wallow about looking for a reason to be. Little is fleshed out, and that which is doesn't manage to create a sequential plot. One gets the feeling that the movie was once 20 hours long and cut down to its current running time, as so many aspects of the "plot" dangle loosely and limply in the wind, like the dick of a 90-year-old nudist walking down Main Street of a desert town. Yes, the movie is not a pleasant sight ... but it is fun in that road-kill kind of way: something so bad, so terrible, that you find yourself rubbernecking to keep it in view. (Admit it: you'd rubberneck too if you saw a naked 90-year-old strolling down the street.)
The "plot" involves a wimpy wanna-be Billy Jack named John Whitecloud (as Gene LeBrock of Metamorphosis [1990 / trailer] and Horror House 2 [1990 / German trailer]) returning home to "Troma Town" from jail to revenge the death of his brother, killed by the very sheriff (David Crane) that sent Whitecloud to jail. At the same time, a kill-happy troupe of mercenaries (the "Fortress of Amerikka") is camping out in them-thar hills and killing everyone that crosses their path — and, of course, the twain shall meet. Sconced within those two disparate and underdeveloped plotlines are multiple (major, minor, and mini) characters and events that never meet to make a story.
Whitecloud's brother is buried in a cave under a cross (are Native Americans Christian?); Whitecloud hooks up with his ex, Jennifer (Kellee Bradley of Frayed [2007 / trailer]), whose fiancée hooks up with Leslie (Karen Michaels of Death Spa [1989 / trailer]), the nicest set of real breasts of the movie.Back at the Fortress of Amerikkka camp, two black members get it on (she looks good, we gotta say) while there's a catfight between two ugly white gals that ends with the death of one while some Sinead O'Conner wannabe has mini-orgasms shining her rifle. Indiscriminate people die violently at the hands of the Fortress, and between it all porn star Kascha (Caged Fury [1990 / trailer / full movie] and a lot of porn) wanders around smiling and looking lost, letting her discreetly displayed massive and intensely immobile mambos point the direction she is walking — she surely was responsible for more than half the silicon turnover of whatever year she had her set made.
Fortress of Amerikkka is one of those productions that would require ten times the amount of time to list everything that is wrong about the movie than it takes to watch it. Any given scene easily has a dozen fuckups — in fact, the whole film is nothing but a collection of fuckups strung together for the 100-odd minutes of film stock. So, in other words: if you, like us, are a fan of film fuckups so fucked up that they're fun, this visual abortion is for you.
On the other hand, if you are one of those masses of people who expect a vague smidgeon of a similarity of competence in direction, acting, scriptwriting, cinematography, editing, whatever: STEER CLEAR!
Holy Mohammed, though: Kascha has to be seen to be believed. Does anyone really get off on silicone missiles like those? (And we ask that as total breast fetishists.) Or could it be the lips that make our weiner act like that of a 90-year-old nudist? For some strange reason, when we look at her and all we can think of is the movie The Graduate (1967).
Why we think of The Graduate when we see Kascha:
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Short Film: Le Queloune / The Clown (Canada, 2008)

August 29, 2016, 11:16 pm
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Hey! Which came first, the chicken or the egg? We stumbled upon this short film while writing our review to the Eli Roth-produced horror film, Clown (2014 / trailer). But that review ain't going online till next month (September), and it's time for our traditional (since January 2009, beginning with Food Fight) Short Film of the Month. So here you go: a short that is being presented before the review that led to it. (The review to Jon Watts'Clown [2014] you can read later.)
 
There's more than one filmmaker named Patrick Boivin out there, but this Bovine (above) is the Bovine born in 1975, "a film-maker from Montreal, Quebec, Canada, [North America]. In addition to directing, he is often involved in the lighting, editing, animation, special effects and even music in his films. He is not related in any way to Patrick Boivin of the YouTube gaming group Super Best Friends Play, who is also from Montreal." (Among other projects, Boivin did the stop motion for Iggy Pop's video to King of the Dogs and Indochine's video to Playboy.)
Though a Canadian short, Le Queloune was shot in Normandy (that's in France, for those of you shaky on your geography) and stars the great French character act Dominique Pinon (of the time capsule Diva [1981 / trailer], the masterpiece Delicatessen [1991 / trailer], the blackly hilarious Alien: Resurrection [1997 / trailer], and much more) as the clown. The clown in the short, oddly enough, is somewhat visually reminiscent of the one that pops up in more than one Jean Rollins film, as it did in La rose de fer (1973 / trailer). 
The basic plot, as given by Gorilla:"The central character is a children's clown stirred from the grave by Coca Cola and Mentos, and if that's not convincing enough premise to view this one, then paperwork and petroleum prices have beaten your inner-child beyond recognition. The mangled clown, played by rubbery-cheeked Domnique Pinon star of Micmacs (2009 / trailer) [...], escapes his coffin, miffed and puzzled with a throat full of decomposing larynx. In his search for a thirst-quenching beverage he enters a house, accidentally murders its proprietor, performs amateur plastic surgery, and sizzles up human flesh in the kitchen, with a few shallots and a sprinkling of black paper. [...]"
Short Film — Patrick Boivin's 
 Le Queloune / The Clown (Canada, 2008): 

We don't know rightly when, but somewhere along the way Le Queloune won Patrick Boivin a $500,000 contract at Open Film's "Get It Made" Short Film Competition to produce a feature-length film. According to Open Film, "Boivin's winning entry was selected from more than 100 other online submissions. In this production, Boivin returns to his roots in horror movies to re-explore the zombie genre and give the zombie what other filmmakers never have: feelings. [...] The film follows a clown through his transition into a zombie in a manner that is as gruesome as it is funny." On the advisory team of Open Film were the actor icons Robert Duval and James Caan, the latter of whom said, "Boivin's work caught Open Film's eye from the start — a wild ride of artistic, cultural and technical mash-ups that keeps viewers engaged and generates a wide array of emotional reactions."
Check out more of Bovin's fun stuff at his YouTube channel here.
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Clown (USA, 2014)

September 5, 2016, 1:17 am
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Less than five minutes into this movie, a relatively minor character named Denise (Elizabeth Whitmere, of The Watch [2008 / trailer]) states, "I hate clowns." We feel pretty much the same way. We don't suffer from coulrophobia, but nevertheless we have never found them the melancholy- or happy-looking creatures that populate the paintings of Camille Bombois, Walter— excuse us: Margaret— Keane, or the forgotten Chuck Oberstein (buy his work while you still can). We've usually found clowns to be scary and unnerving, maybe demonic or psychotic, like those found in movies as diverse as Spawn (1997), Zombieland (2009), Camp Blood (1999), Killjoy(2000), and Rob Zombie's filmic duet, House of 1000 Corpses (2003) and The Devils Rejects (2005 / trailer). (And that despite having known some professional clowns, all of whom worked primarily in terminal wards. Seriously.) Clowns simply make us feel uncomfortable us — which is why the minute we stumbled upon the trailer above a few weeks ago, we knew we had to see the movie.
Much like, say, Tooth Fairy (2006 / trailer) and Darkness Falls (2003 / trailer), or even more so like Santa's Slay (2005 / trailer), Saint (2010 / trailer) and Rare Exports (2010 / trailer), Clown takes an icon and converts it into a horror movie. (We're still waiting for someone to tackle reinterpreting the Easter Bunny.) Here, we learn that the clown of today is a bastardization of an ancient demon known as the "Klein" (said "clean"), a cave-dwelling creature that ate children in the winter months. Yep, Clown is one of those rare horror films in which kids die — in this case, not just one, but many. (Reason enough to pop this baby in the DVD player the next time your siblings bring their obnoxious kids with them when they come to visit.)
Clown is also one of a sub-genre of horror flicks that is popularly referred to as “body horror”, a term that some claim was coined by the University of Glasgow's film journal Screen in Vol. 27, No. 1, Jan–Feb 1986, an issue devoted to the topic. (Less gullible and older folks might remember that the term "body horror” was already being used to refer to the early movies of David Cronenberg — his classics Shivers (1975 / trailer) and Rabid (1977 / trailer), among others — way back in the late 1970s.) Basically, such films deal with the uncontrollable, unwanted, and unstoppable mutation of one's own body by an invading outside force (vs., say, an outside force simply chopping one's head off with a machete). In such movies, the main character usually remains sympathetic and an object of pity up until the conversion is total (see, among many, any given version of The Wolf Man (1941 / trailer), From Beyond (1986 / trailer), Slither (2006 / trailer), Leviathan  (1989), or the classic bad film The Incredible Melting Man [1977 / trailer]), or death occurs (see, for example, Splinter [2007] orThinner [1996]). Clown is no different, in both senses.
Here, the successful real estate agent but hapless dad Kent (Andy Powers) wants nothing more than make his son Jack (Christian Distefano of Cut Bank [2014 / trailer]), a clown fan, happy. When the scheduled hired clown can't show up, Jack takes advantage of a found clown suit to spring in and ensure Jack's clown-themed birthday party is a success. But the clown suit is not a suit: it is the skin of the demon "Klein", and not only does it no longer come off, but the demon slowly but surely possesses the milquetoast daddy. And daddy is hungry...
What sounds like a joke of a plot works primarily because it is played straight. True, the movie initially has the feeling and flavor of a black comedy, but even before the death of the first child the laughs start getting caught in one's throat. Kent's spiral downwards and loss of self, though initially good for a smirk or guffaw here and there, soon turns tragic, and the bodies begin to multiply.
If the narrative is not truly new or completely unexpected (to give credit: at least two scenes — both occurring in the motel room Kent takes refuge in — were unexpected to us), it is told linearly and economically, without unnecessary frills or cinematic excesses, but more than enough blood and, often enough, dry humor or unsettling horror. Indeed, a few disturbing scenes and interludes leave a nasty after-taste, despite being anything but gratuitous. How far would you go, for example, to save your husband and father of both your son and unborn child? Wife Meg (Laura Allen of From Within [2008 / trailer] and Hysteria [2010 / trailer]) is confronted with this question, in an interlude that is surprisingly uncomfortable on a psychological level. Indeed, though both Kent and Meg are basically one-note characters, they manage to illicit remarkable sympathy from the viewer, which makes the transpiring events all the more tragic and terrible as the movie progresses.
Clown is an effective and professionally made horror thriller that takes a slightly ridiculous idea and evolves from a drily humorous black comedy to an occasionally disturbing if not involving horror film built around the death and destruction Kent’s conversion causes. By the movie’s end, the not totally ridiculous plot offers everything one wants in a horror movie (suspense, fear, shocks, laughs, blood, etc.) and, of course, room for a sequel. We liked Clown, but then, we hate clowns.
Interestingly enough, Clown is one of a small amount of movies that had their origin in the faux trailer fad that followed the release of Rodriguez and Tarentino's Grindhouse (2007 / trailer) double feature (featuring Tarentino's snooze-a-thon Death Proof and Rodriguez's great Planet Terror). A select group, to say the least, as the only others we know of are Machete (2010 / trailer) and Hobo with a Shotgun (2011 / trailer) — though we are sure there're more. Supposedly, in 2010 filmmakers Jon Watts and Christopher D. Ford uploaded their fake trailer for Clown (found at the bottom of this review) with the blurb "From the Master of Horror, Eli Roth", a joke that tickled Mr. Roth's fancy so much that he ended up actually producing a real movie based on the trailer, this flick here. And while we do admit we used to sort of find Mr. Roth bonkable, we're not a fan of his movies (indeed, we hated Hostel [2005 / trailer] so much that we actually haven't bothered ever to watch another of his movies). To put it bluntly: thanks to Clown, we might finally give his other films a chance now — both Cabin Fever (2002 / trailer)* and The Green Inferno (2015 / trailer) do suddenly sound promising again.
Original, fake trailer
for Clown (2010):
* Still, can someone tell me again: for what reason, other than greed, is a film remade after only 14 years? (Cabin Fever, 2016, trailer.) What's next? Reservoir Dogs (1992 / trailer)? It's at least older and features a few dead actors...
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Duel (USA, 1971)

September 12, 2016, 12:55 am
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(Spoilers.) Whether one likes the big-budgeted mainstream compost Spielberg releases every other year is one thing, but what cannot be argued about the man (despite his ever-increasing number of filmic duds) is his understanding of how to make movies. Duel, his first TV film — one of two, if one excludes his Colombo episode, Murder by the Book (1971 / trailer), a rarely screened film-length episode of The Name of The Game (1968-71) entitled LA 2017 (1971 / fan-made trailer), and the even rarer movie-length failed pilot, Savage (1973 / music), before moving into the realm of theatrical releases with Sugerland Express in 1974 (trailer) — is probably the first of his projects to really give an idea of what was to come. For despite being written by the great Richard Matherson, the man responsible for such favorites as The Incredible Shrinking Man (1956 / trailer), The Pit and the Pendulum (1961 / trailer), Die! Die! My Darling (1965 / trailer) and much, much, much more, the success of Duel is arguably due less to the oddly predictable script than to Spielberg's effective direction. (Be what it may, the possibility does exist that the predictability of the story has less to do with Matherson's script than the fact that so many versions of the basic "terrorizing trucker"— or "terrorizing car"— concept have been made over the years that the plot has almost become archetypical.)
Starring Denis Weaver, a man who began his acting career in as the ineffectual motel manager in Orson Welle's great Touch of Evil (1958 / trailer) and is primarily remembered for his 1970's TV persona Sam McCloud, Duel is a visual presentation of road rage gone wild, made years before the term itself was even invented. The nightmare of every car-owning American comes true when Weaver, as the John Doe-like average man named, well, David Mann, an unprepared, unsuspecting and somewhat unsympathetic and wimpy businessman driving a red Plymouth alone across California, is confronted with a murderous truck driver who, for no apparent reason, continuously tries to kill him. Weaver's nemesis takes on an almost unworldly aura in that the large diesel truck is a filthy, old timer of unidentified origin and because nothing more than the arm or cowboy boots of the driver are ever seen.
Aside from the fact that Weaver passes the truck early in the film, the truck driver has no apparent motive for his single-minded murderous intention. Is the driver simply an evil psycho? A killer from hell? Bored? The scene in which the truck helps to get a stranded busload full of obnoxious children started up, however, convincingly conveys that the attack against Weaver is purely personal.

Despite how unsympathetic Weaver is at the film's beginning, Spielberg does an excellent job at getting the viewer involved in his plight. By the end of the Duel, one actually begins to cheer Weaver's character on when he finally is forced to kill or be killed. Alive and alone, tossing pebbles onto the wreckage of the truck and his Plymouth in the raven below him, there is no doubt left that this man's life will never again be the same. The milquetoast is now burnt hard.

True, there are a few small flaws. Billy Goldenberg's music is abysmal, but then, there must be a reason why the composer has seldom moved beyond TV scores. Luckily, the score is used sparingly. Likewise, more than once the viewer is left wondering why Weaver doesn't simply turn around and go home, but after a certain point it is obvious Weaver couldn't turn around if he wanted to. Other small flaws, like self-repairing sunglasses and a nonexistent, forever-unpaid cafe bill also pop up, but the overall thrill of the film easily lets such minuscule mistakes, so typical of rush-job TV movies, be overlooked.

An excellent B flick that doesn't overstay its welcome and keeps you at watching, Duel lives up to its reputation as a good movie ... and extremely excellent TV movie. Originally running at 74 minutes, the film was pumped up to 90 minutes via the addition of a few new scenes — such as when the trucker tries to push Dennis Weaver's car into a passing train and Weaver's phone call home — and released theatrically in Europe. Supposedly, the short story upon which the movie is based is in turn based on a true event that happened to Matherson himself some years previously, when a truck terrorized him on the way home from a golf game.
Now to one day find out whether his lesser-known TV horror movie, Something Evil [1972 / trailer], is any good.
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Airborne (Great Britain, 2012)

September 18, 2016, 9:33 am
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(Spoilers.) There seems to be a theme underlying this independent "horror thriller", and the filmmakers make sure you know it within the first minutes with the voiceover — voiced by the movie's international name "star", Mark "Luke 'I look like I need a drink' Skywalker" Hamill — which points out a universal fact: sometimes bad things happen to good people. And let it be known: if you are a good person, and you watch this movie, your action gives more credence to that statement. For: Airborne is a total piece of feculence, and if you watch it, you are submitting yourself to a bad thing.
The basic plot is so familiar that one can't help but feel that one has seen it before, perhaps on some ancient episode of The Twilight Zone (1959-64) or The Outer Limits (1963-65) or Ghost Story (1972-73) or Night Gallery (1969-73), to name a few familiar examples of the type of TV on which the basic plot has probably been used before. Wherever the plot came from, it was surely done better there. As written by Paul Chronnell (Dude, do the world a favor and give up scriptwriting!) and directed by Dominic Burns (a man best known for being a zombie extra in Cockneys vs Zombies [2012 / trailer] and playing "Alex" in  Strippers vs Werewolves [2012 / trailer]), Airborne is not very thrilling, not very scary, not very suspenseful, not very well acted, not very well shot, not very funny, not very enjoyable, and .... well, think of something that you like to see in a movie, and put the word "not" in front of it. As previously mentioned, Airborne is a total piece of excretion.
And that despite some nice faces that normally indicate the slight possibility of entertainment. No, Mark Hamill is not meant here, as it is generally his voice that can be found in an occasional good movie, not his face. Two less familiar names but more familiar faces that earn some whisky money in Airborne are the character actors Julian Glover (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade [1989 / trailer], James Bond For Your Eyes Only [1981 / trailer], Mirrors [2008], Tom Jones [1963 / trailer], Quatermass and the Pit [1967 / trailer], and Theater of Death [1967 / trailer]) and Alan Ford (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels [1998 / trailer] and Snatch [2000 / trailer]), both of whom must have been desperate for a drink the day they signed the contract for this turkey. Alan Ford in particularly literally phones in his performance, recreating the obnoxious loud-mouthed boss gangster character for which is basically known. (He is surely a one-take actor, because he surely is still in character even when he fucks up.) Gemma Atkinson and her boobs — seen below, not from the movie — are also in the film, but the latter remain covered and thus she makes no impression. (Besides, who knows her outside of Great "I only did it as a protest vote" Britain?) For that matter, no one makes any impression in this movie, other than maybe the guy who bashes his head against a wooden crate until he pulverizes both. He makes an impression and then dies. But that in no way saves Airborne from being a total piece of excrement.
But to give acting kudos where deserved, truly special notice must be given to director Dominic Burns for possibly doing the most unconvincing American accent ever while briefly playing the slightly plump passenger Bob. (Be proud, man, you were like totally convincing as whatever it was again you were. A teacher? Child molester? Weight Watchers representative?) Luckily, as Bob is the first to disappear, one need not suffer his thespian abilities and non-performance long. (One wonders if Dominic Burns shouldn't look elsewhere for employment, like in real estate or janitorial work, for neither acting nor direction appears to be his forte. Weight Watchers representative would probably not be an option, however, going by how his clothes fit.)
One knows that the Airborne is going to strain logic when a motley, tiny gathering of a handful of passengers fly out of an empty airport at which every other flight has been canceled due to an incoming storm and the flight control room has no windows. On board is also a mysterious crate marked "Fragile", and a variety of viable red herrings so that one is not automatically sure: 1). Who the killer is, and 2). That the killer is supernatural.
Yep, Burns & Chronnell have their cake and eat it too by cooking up a narrative that includes both a natural and supernatural force behind the mounting bodycount, but fail to either present or make any of it convincing. (Some things, perhaps, might have made more sense were the sound better, but it is as crappy on the DVD as Airborne is obviously low budget.) Why, for example, after thousands of years, does the evil spirit suddenly get out of the vase it's been trapped in for centuries? Some deaths would literally mean that one character had to be at two places at the same time. The mildly Muslim-looking, sudden-replacement steward (who flip-flops unconvincingly from wimp to manly once too often) is way too cheap a trick, and for his final scene he would have had to be able to walk through walls. The love bit between the good stewardess (Gemma, maybe?) and the not funny good guy (Simon Phillips) is also a bit gagging, but at least good for a giggle. How can it be that everyone and their uncle seem to know how to fly a jumbo jet? And why do none of the shots fired ever go through the target and pop a hole in a window or something? And can planes really fly straight when someone opens the emergency hatch mid-flight? Yep, Airborne is a total piece of shite.
In the end, however, above and beyond the technical and narrative and thespian flaws, the biggest flaw of Airborne is that it isn't interesting, isn't suspenseful, isn't much of anything other than boring. And as the supposed winner of a British Lion Award at the 2012 British Independent Film Festival  — or so it proudly claims on the DVD cover, as you can see, though one could well imagine the claim is a lie — Airborne is damming evidence that: 1). The British independent film scene must be in a bad way; and 2). The jury was populated by either friends and family of the filmmakers or blind, deaf and dumb idiots. (A jury of second- orthird-cousin American Republicans, maybe? It would explain everything, actually.)
In any event, be forewarned:Airborne is truly a slice of cow patty.
Has nothing to do with Airborne,
but let's hear it for Cow Patti:
 
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Short Film: Ghost Burger (Great Britain, 2013)

September 25, 2016, 5:12 am
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Here at A Wasted Life, we love claymation. And claymation plus gore, even better. Way back in Aug 2009, as our "Short Film of the Month" we presented a bloody masterpiece entitled Bloody Date by the Japanese Takena Nagao. Among Nagao's many other claymation gore shorts is another (we thought) unsung gore-mation classic, Chainsaw Maid (2007 / short film). And that short, in a convoluted way, has led us to our "Short Film of the Month" for this month, September 2016, Lee Hardcastle's Ghost Burger.
See, a few weeks ago we noticed Chainsaw Made II (2010 / short film) [and, actually its sequel Chainsaw Babe 3D (2012 / censored film)] floating around the web, both of which use characters from Nagao's short, but are made by Westerner named Lee Hardcastle. (Dunno how much one filmmaker knows of the other, but as they say in German, "That's not our beer.") Personally, we don't find CM II as good as CM I, but it did lead us to searching out other shorts by Hardcastle, and we eventually reached Ghost Burger, perhaps one of Hardcastle's most ambitious projects to date, complete with rounded-out characterization, plot development, and lots of claymation and gore and sick humor. We loved it!
Oddly enough, Ghost Burger is actually a sequel! In 2012, Hardcastle participated in the "independent anthology horror comedy film"The ABCs of Death (trailer), contributing one of the most popular of the 26 shorts, T Is for Toilets (film), about "A little boy [who] is afraid of the bathroom toilet."Ghost Burger— or at least parts of it — are of a sequalistic nature, showing the further "adventures" of the boy, who survived his toilet experience ...
Be what it may, Ghost Burger also stands well on its own as a damn fine piece of goremation. Enjoy!

According to Wiki, "Lee Hardcastle (born January 21, 1985) is a British animator who specialises in stop-motion techniques. He is famous for his handmade independent animations. His work includes original remakes of emblematic 1980s action and horror films as well as parodies of animated series and video clips. His work is known for its violent and gory content." Gory is perhaps an understatement. You can watch more of his shorts at his YouTube page.
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