Herschell Gordon Lewis – Godfather Of Gore, Part VII: 2002-2008

March 19, 2017, 10:49 am

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15 June 1929 – 26 September 2016

"He seen somethin' different. And he done it."

A seminal force in the world of trash filmmaking, he is considered the inventor of the modern gore film. (In theory, a position he holds with David F. Friedman, but when the partnership ended Friedman's true interest proved to be sexploitation.) To use his own, favorite words: "I've often compared Blood Feast (1963) to a Walt Whitman poem; it's no good, but it was the first of its kind." And a truly fun gore film, too — which makes it "good" in our view.

Unlike Blood Feast and his "better movies", many of the projects he worked on are unbearable cinematic experiences; but more than enough of the others are sublime, otherworldly, like the best of Ed Wood, Juan Piquer Simónor John Waters. Were it not for innovators like him, A Wasted Life probably wouldn't be.

One of the truly great has left the building.

Go here for Part I: 1953-60.
Go here for Part II: 1961-63.
Go here for Part III: 1964-66.
Go here for Part IV: 1967-68.
Go here for Part V: 1969-72.
Go here for Part VI: 1973-98.

Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat

(2002, dir. Herschell Gordon Lewis)

Suddenly, three decades after The Gore Gore Girls (1972, see Part V), HGL suddenly came out of the woodwork and once again sat in the director's chair again. We saw and reviewed the result; the title above is linked to our typically verbose review. Blood Feast 2 was fun enough… and, yes, we would watch it again.

Lewis claimed that throughout those three decades (during which HGL accrued a fortune as a junk mail specialist), this or that person always approached him with the suggestion that he return to direction, to which he would more or less say something like "You put the project together, and I will [for money]." Jacky Lee Morgen finally did, with a script by some unknown named W. Boyd Ford that Lewis made numerous "suggestions" on; one assumes many were taken. Over at The Daily Public, Lewis gushed, "Now, for Blood Feast2, I was — The Director! I sat in — The Director's Chair! I could watch the action on a television monitor! So if there was a microphone in the picture, I fix it, instead of seeing it that night in the rushes. Big difference — I even had an assistant director, if you can believe it. I never worked less and had a better time. […] It [Blood Feast 2] was released to DVD in two versions, the rated-R version [missing most of the gore] for Blockbuster, and the special edition for everybody else. Those who might rent that movie at Blockbuster will wonder, 'What is this all about? All you have here is a bunch of mediocre acting'."

The Worldwide Celluloid Massacre, a site not known for easy praise, liked the movie, too: "Thirty years after film-retirement and forty after the first Blood Feast, and Lewis has still got it. The only things that have changed are the gore effects, which are more extreme and convincing, but the entertaining mix of camp, splatter, silly comedy, politically incorrect humor and mediocre acting are all served on a bloody platter as before. Ramses the Third (J.P. Delahoussaye) re-opens his grandfather's shop and is worshipping Ishtar in no time, vigorously collecting the ingredients for a blood feast by slicing, chopping, mincing, skinning, and eviscerating the local bimbo models who prance about half naked and provide the caterer with kidneys, fingers, brains, livers, etc. An eating machine and idiot serve as the local bumbling policemen, and John Waters makes an appropriate cameo. Hit-and-miss campy splatter comedy with extreme gore."

Trailer:

Hunting for Herschell

(2003, dir. Robert Hooker)

Herschell Gordon Lewis goes meta and plays himself in this independent and unknown digitally shot regional no-budget horror movie, seemingly the first and last and everything of director Robert Hooker. (Ditto, it would seem, with scriptwriter Jarrod Canepa,* who also played one of the lead roles.) Little can be found online about Hunting for Herschell, and the "official website" no longer works: "The website you are looking for, www.huntingforherschell.8m.com, has been disabled due to billing issue."

*According to DVD Talk, Jarrod was involved with another HGL project that never saw the light of day, Herschell Gordon Lewis' Grim Fairy Tales in its originally intended format. In an interview at Love It Loud, HGL said that "The Uh-Oh Show is the new title for Grim Fairy Tale." Jarrod does not seem to be part of that project, which we will look at in a month or two.

The most common synopsis of Hunting for Herschell found online comes from the imdb, where it is credited to Erynn Dalton, who plays a newscaster in the flick: "It's a story as American as apple pie. Two star-struck boys write a screenplay to honor their great idol, a famous filmmaker who is visiting their small town. They do everything in their power to show it to him, including sneaking into events the filmmaker is attending, posing as caterers, and even brutally murdering anyone who gets in their way. OK, so maybe it's not as American as apple pie, but that's exactly what happened to the famed Godfather of Gore, Herschell Gordon Lewis. The ink on the newly written screenplay was barely dry when 24-year-old Thomas Montero (Jarrod Canepa) and Eddie Gagliano (Ford D'Aprix) began their relentless rampage throughout South Florida, leaving in their wake a cast of cookie-cutter victims perfect for any horror movie. In a gesture of almost divine irony, Mr. Lewis literally uses religion as a defense making him one of the most unique Bible-Thumpers in history."

In regard to the film, in an interview the "73-year-old Fort Lauderdale millionaire Herschell Gordon Lewis" gave to the Miami New Times, HGL said, "I thought the whole thing was a joke. They asked, 'Would you object if we did this?' How do you answer something like that? How many people who are still alive have a movie made about them? They actually had a script calling for me to be in it. […] I am not going to rain on their parade. They are extraordinarily serious about this project, and who could ever jump on people who are serious about what they're doing? Especially when it's about me!"

HGL even appeared at an occasional special (and local) screening, going by what the Sun-Sentinelsaid about the movie: "Hunting is a dark comedy with amateur amputations, strewn intestines and even a meat grinder, and it was all made possible by Lewis, a Fort Lauderdale resident who will appear at a screening of the film tonight at Cinema Paradiso."

Chainsaw Sally

(2004, writ & dir. JimmyO)

Herschell Gordon Lewis acts in this horror flick from "the First Family of Indi Horror", playing the "kindly hardware store owner" Mr. Gordon. Another guest appearance of note in the movie: Gunnar "Leatherface" Hansen (4 Mar 1947 — 7 Nov 2015) as Chainsaw Sally's Daddy.

The interview conducted by Nic Brown of JimmyO (aka Jimmyo Burril) over at B Movie Manreveals that director "JimmyO didn't start out making films though; he started with children's musical theater. Then he had the idea to combine his love of horror with his desire to create something for adults to enjoy too. Thus was born [the stage show] Silver Scream, his musical homage to classic horror films. To help promote Silver Scream, JimmyO and his wife April created a 'hostess' to appear at conventions and on the internet to help gather interest in the film. Little did they know at the time that Chainsaw Sally would become an internet favorite and eventually spark her own film!" (But before Chainsaw Sally got her own eponymously named movie, Silver Scream saw the light of day as a direct-to-video feature-length music film in 2003.)

Chainsaw Sally

Teaser Trailer:

Dr Gore, who asks the pertinent question "Why didn't Chainsaw Sally get topless?", gives Chainsaw Sally a score of "2 out of 4 psycho Sallys". He also explains the plot as follows: "Chainsaw Sally is about a girl and her chainsaw. Sally (April Monique Burril) has had a tough life. Her parents were killed by a roving gang of madmen. This incident scars young Sally for life and blossoms her into the bloodlust crazed Chainsaw Sally. She takes on a shy librarian persona for cover. No one will suspect! Chainsaw Sally likes to rip and tear into anyone who is rude and obnoxious. Talkative library patrons, snotty ice cream girls and foul mouthed guys in bars all get to taste Sally's blade. A rich guy (David Calhoun) rolls into town to try to sell his property which houses Sally and her equally twisted brother (Alec Joseph). Will Sally allow someone to sell her psychotic homestead? Not bloody likely."

The Video Graveyardlikes the flick, saying: "In the small town of Porterville, […] Sally and Ruby kill off anybody who happens to piss them off — or try to take their home away from them. This gives the makers plenty of opportunity for various death scenes, but apart from a few bloody moments in the finale (involving a chainsaw and gross use of formaldehyde), it seems like the murders are cut fairly short — which may be one of director JimmyO's various nods to the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1973 / trailer) […] But I will admit when a womanizer gets a sparkler in a very uncomfortable place it certainly was creative. Chainsaw Sally is certainly a demented ride and it's filled with quirky characters and dark humour. I had a fun time with it even if a few minor problems did spring up. The main things holding this back from outright greatness (it'll still be a cult favourite, mark my words) is the fact the movie is a bit loosely structured and the script never really develops its set-up of having Sally and Ruby being deranged cannibals — sure, we're given flashbacks to their parents murders […], but a build-up to their nuttiness might've been cool as well."

Chainsaw Sally

Trailer:

Chainsaw Sally went on to spawn an internet series, The Chainsaw Sally Show, episodes of which have been edited together into two movies, The Chainsaw Sally Show (2010) and The Chainsaw Sally Show Season 2 (2012). It seems, going by the poster below, an animated series is currently in the works.

Horror Business

(2005, writ & dir Christopher P. Garetano)

A video documentary that seems to divide the (non)masses of the few who have seen it, HGL is one of the "established" talking heads sandwiched somewhere between the newer, currently (and probably forever) unknown talking heads upon which the documentary actually focuses.

Trailer:

Film Guinea Pigpoints out that Horror Business"serves as a quick way to help raise understanding (if not appreciation) for the horror B-movies of the twenty-first century. […] [P]ut together in true guerrilla film fashion by director Christopher P. Garetano. […] Garetano's doc certainly conveys the exuberance (if few new craft insights) of the low/no budget end of the cinematic scale. […] Perhaps more than anything, Horror Business acts as a primer for those who wish to be introduced to a few of the more recent players in the micro-budget film biz. (I'll admit it's sometimes painful to refer to these works as 'film' when they are not only shot on video but REALLY AWFUL looking video with amateur porn-flic lighting to boot. However...)

Movies Made Mesays: "The subject at hand in this documentary is independent movie-making, and to be more specific, independent horror movie-making. Telling the stories are a mixture of the truly independent guys who most of you probably haven't heard of as well as a handful of the bigger names in horror. […], [H]onestly, there's no real subject to be found. The independent guys talk about how hard it is to make a movie, they question their own motives for continuing in the business, and they discuss their own movies for a while. […] [T]his material felt less like a documentary on horror in general and more like something that should have been included as a bonus feature on their latest DVD releases. A solid ninety percent of the material is simple behind-the-scenes stuff mixed with 'Gee, it's really hard to make a movie with no money!' and 'We need more drive-in theaters' observations, and while I won't disagree with those statements, they didn't make for a very interesting time in front of the tube. You may be thinking that the 'name' appearances could make this film worth watching, but that wasn't to be as each of the involved men only received a few minutes of screen time […]. Everyone involved is fun to listen to and it's obvious that everyone knows what they're talking about, but when you try to extract some real information from what they're saying, you either come up empty or realize that what they're saying is completely obvious. In my humble opinion, this film was a failure."

Among the impassioned featured are Dave Parker, whose 2000 movie The Dead Hate the Living!we totally hated; David Gebroe, whose flawed but intriguing Zombie Honeymoon(2004) is definitely worth a gander; and Rodrigo Gudiño, a man who might yet become a name, and whose short film The Facts in the Case of Mister Hollow(2008) was our Short Film of the Month for July 2016.

2001 Maniacs

(2005, dir. Tim Sullivan)

Filmed at the "living history" town of Westville, Georgia. Thirty-seven years after the release of 2000 Maniacs (1964, see PartII), HGL's early gore masterpiece — and one of his personal favorites — got the remake treatment. HGL never saw the remake, it seems, and was not part of the project; his former partner David F. Friedman alone of the two got any credit, as co-producer. Three years later, in 2008, HGL had the following to say about the remake at The Daily Public: "Someone remade it [2000 Maniacs] in 2005 as 2001 Maniacs, which may have missed the idea. I haven't seen it, but I'm told it's somewhat more polished and somewhat more mean-spirited than the original. I can't imagine anyone coming out of 2000 Maniacs and saying, 'This is for real.' I can imagine them coming out of 2001 Maniacs, based on what I'm told, and being somewhat downcast at what they've looked at."

His opinion aside, over at imdb, which probably pretty well reflects the tastes of the masses, the current approval ratings (date: 23 Jan 2017) of 2001 Maniacs is 5.4/10 (10,575 reviews) verses 5.9/10 (3,369 reviews) for 2000 Maniacs — no big dif, in the end. And while 2000 Maniacsnever had a sequel, 2001 Maniacs was followed five years later by 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams (2010) — same director, mostly new cast, noticeably lower budget. (We'll look at it later.)

Trailer to

2001 Maniacs:

As far as we can tell, 2001 Maniacs was the feature-length directorial debut of Tim Sullivan, an active man in the field of horror film (producer, actor, scriptwriter, whatever). His first directorial project, proudly credited to "Timothy Michael Sullivan", is the 1985 Christmas horror short A Christmas Treat, which we just haven't yet found ourselves willing to choose as a Short Film of the Month, even when the season might've call for it.

Tim Sullivan's

A Christmas Treat:

The Science Fiction, Horror and FantasyReviewhas the plot to 2001 Maniacs, which Sullivan co-scribed with regular co-scribe Chris Kobin: "Three male college students drive to Florida for Spring Break, intending to spend the time partying. They and several others on the road are directed by a detour sign to take a different route and end up in the Southern town of Pleasant Valley. They are welcomed by the locals who are in the midst of the town's Guts and Glory Jubilee. The three guys are tempted by some of the hot-looking women, while the girls from one of the other cars are wooed by local guys. However, this is only an opportunity for the locals to lure the travelers away and kill them."

As can be told by the above, the adult Joe Schmoe victims of the original were, in accordance to modern dead-teenager film expectations, converted into (over-aged) sex-hungry college students. And in accordance to changing times, the Northern fodder is no longer lily white but also includes an Afro American (Mushond Lee as "Malcolm") and Asian American (Bianca Smith "Leah").

Over at the Worldwide Celluloid Massacre, where 2001 Maniacs is labeled "Of Some Interest" on their Gore & Splatter list, they say: "A campy homage to Herschell Gordon Lewis's classic splatter movie featuring good ol' Southern hospitality […]. Campy, over-the-top death scenes ensue with gleeful sadism, wisecracks and creativity, including death by acid, horse-quartering, smashing under a huge bell, impalement and others. Despite the campy, over-the-top sadistic approach however, the actual gore is borderline conventional for modern movies of its kind, with only about two scenes of extreme splatter."

Among the various faces of note: Peter Stormare (of Clown[2014]) is there briefly as Professor Ackerman — ctch the name? — to introduce both the fodder and explain the movie's nominal theme ("those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it"); character actress Lin Shaye (of Dead End [2003 / trailer] and Snakes on a Plane[2006], among many films) as Granny Boone; an uncredited Bill McKinney (of She Freak [1967 / trailer], among many movies) as the Chef, Christa Campbell (of Day of the Dead[2008], Mansquito[2004], and Lonely Hearts[2006]) as the Milk Maiden, and Robert Englund (of A Nightmare on Elm Street 2:Freddy's Revenge[1985], Wishmaster[1997], Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer[2007], and Zombie Strippers[2008]) as Mayor George W. Buckman — a huge improvement over Jeffrey Allen's take on the character found in the original movie.

Many years prior to his apparent retirement last year, Dr Gore, whose favorite scenes in the movie were the lesbian ones — "Ahh, kissing cousins. Would any movie about maniacs in a Southern town be complete without them?"— was very succinct in his opinion of the movie: "It's hard not to like 2001 Maniacs. It's nowhere close to being a horror film, but the maniacs enjoy causing bodily harm so much that their sick bliss starts to get infectious. 2001 Maniacs treats anybody getting violently killed as the most hilarious thing you ever saw. Bodies are mutilated with great joy. It does not skimp on the red stuff."

And wimen get nekkid — a rarity in the exploitation movies of the naughts.

Death's Living Room

(2006, dir. JP Wenner)

OK, we're stretching things a bit by including this short: its only connection with Herschell Gordon Lewis is that he is one of those given "Special Thanks" during the final credits. Why or for what, who knows. If you go to JP Wenner's website — click on his name above — HGL is also quoted as saying (in regards to the short itself) "It's Zen like." Uh, is that a complement? View and decide for yourself.

The Wizard of Gore

(2007, dir. Jeremy Kasten)

"Based upon the motion picture [of Herschell Gordon Lewis]." The fourth feature film directed by the very busy neuvo horror meistro Jeremy Kasten, whose feature film directorial debut, the low budget flick The Attic Expeditions (2001 / trailer), is an interesting WTF horror film. The Wizard of Gore was scribed by Zach Chassler, who also worked with Kasten on three other projects: Thirst (2006 / trailer), The Dead Ones (2011) — a lost film? — and The Theatre Bizarre (2011 / trailer).

Trailer to

The Wizard of Gore:

Varied Celluloidhas the plot: "Edmund Bigelow (Kip Pardue of But I'm a Cheerleader [1999]) writes for his own magazine, a little 'zine that focuses on the strange and the unusual. Ed travels through various seedy parts of town trying to find new forms of amusement to entertain his audience with. He finds just the perfect oddity in Montag the Magnificent (Crispin Glover of Willard[2003]). Montag has a show nightly in a seedy warehouse [for] only those privileged enough to have run into his personal geek (Jeffrey Combs of Re-Animator[1985], Castle Freak[1995], and Sharkman[2005]) […] and been given a business card. The show is your average magician's routine, until Montag brings a girl from the audience up on stage. In one instance he lays her behind a curtain of smoke and mirrors, then begins to saw her apart and pull out her intestines. Ed is struck in the audience and begins to leave along with everyone else — however, the lights come on and there the girl is back on stage as if nothing had ever happened. […] After repeat viewings of the show Ed's bones are creaking and the girls in the show are all showing up dead in the exact same fashion that they were killed on stage. What is Montag's secret and how dangerous will this become?"

Trailer to

But I'm a Cheerleader (1999):

Video Vistawas not impressed, blasting "The film's primary problem is that it is dull. […] The problem is that the second act is spent endlessly re-staging the same trick as the protagonist returns to the show again and again hoping to work out the magician's secrets. Once the director gets bored with this, we are dragged through some tiresomely sub-Philip K. Dick plotline involving mind-control drugs that can force you to see whatever the person administering the drugs wants you to see. This sets up a rather tedious hall of mirrors as we move from considering the nature of the magician's trick to the nature of reality itself as the trick seems to involve not just murder on stage but a huge conspiracy of murder, sadism, slavery and prostitution. Under the special effects and the Goth posturing, The Wizard of Gore is a film full of paper-thin characters. The film's standout personalities are undeniably Brad Dourif's scenery-chewing Vietnam veteran chemist, and Crispin Glover's preposterous, ranting stage magician, but […] Kip Pardue and Bijou Phillips are utterly vacuous as the male and female leads […]."

Last Movie Review on the Left, however, disagrees, saying: "This is one of those rare occasions when the remake surpasses the original. The performances are pretty good, and it is helped by the fact that there is actually a plot, however confusing it may be. This one is definitely worth hunting down."

According to imdb, "The bulk of this film was shot at the Park Plaza Hotelin Los Angeles". We mention this only because the building, which we had a room there for about a half year in the 1980s prior to taking a flat in the Bryson, is one of our favorite structures in the City of Angels.

Three years after making The Wizard of Gore, Jeremy Kasten, like HGL, was one of the talking heads found in American Grindhouse [2010], which we look at later.

Book of Lore

(2007, dir. Chris LaMartina) 

"This film is copyrighted. Don't be an asshole."

 

The mind boggles. The (imdb and others) give Herschell Gordon Lewis credit as being the uncredited voice on a Bingo record. Where or how it fits into the plot of this low budget flick from the Baltimore-based regional horror filmmaker Chris LaMartina, we have no idea. Hell, we never even knew that there were "Bingo records"— wouldn't the same card win all the time?

Trailer:

The plot, as found on Amazon: "Twenty years ago, in the town to Latonsville, a notorious serial killer known as 'The Devil's Left Hand'” kidnapped eleven babies and left local police stumped. When Rick (Aj Hyde) discovers his girlfriend has been murdered in the same grotesque fashion as The Devil's Left Hand crimes, he begins a quest to unravel his town's unspeakable past. Using a cryptic encyclopedia of local murders called The Book of Lore, Rick and his friends race against time to unlock the secrets of the past."

And what does the fake news say about his film? Well, B-independentsays: "There's so much to enjoy in Book of Lore that it would be easy for me to continue singing its praises, and I haven't even started on the wonderful Mario Bava-osity of the stylized visuals or the various visual metaphores and devices symbolic of Rick's journey. This j-horror giallo hybrid gets so much right that it's hard to figure out why so many people get it all wrong. Everything I want in a horror is right in LaMartina's worn and mangled composition book: tension, scares, chills, and a well told story that's full of deliriously creepy twists and turns."

Buried.comshares the view, claiming this "Hardy Boys investigating The Blair Witch" flick "is a well-written, well-shot, well-acted feature that's extremely ambitious considering its non-Hollywood budget. If you want to see a good example of a recent 'Do-it-Yourself' horror movie, here it is. Highly recommended."

American Swing

(2008, dir. Jon Hart and Mathew Kaufman)

All Moviereveals the focus of this documentary: "Plato's Retreat — New York City's most notorious, 1970s-era sex club. The year was 1977: the city was in the suffocating grip of a heat wave, nerves were rattled due to the energy crisis, and the social unrest was growing. But when the sun went down over the city, the nightlife flourished. The discos were packed, cocaine was all the rage at Studio 54, and over at CBGB the punks were smashing it up. Inspired by the open sexuality in gay clubs all across town, Larry Levenson hatched the idea to open a club where people could have sex freely, without shame or threat of lawful consequences. […] There were no inhibitions at Plato's Retreat, as highlighted by the numerous vintage clips showing the swingers paradise in its heyday. But while the city ultimately failed in their efforts to pass ordinances that would close Plato's Retreat, the club flourished until the closing of its doors on New Year's Eve, 1985, an erotic casualty of the growing AIDS crisis. […]."

Full film:

HGL was involved with this documentary about the rise and fall of Larry Levensonand Plato's Retreat? Was he a talking head revealing a secret past and the true inspiration behind his1968 suburban swinger's film Suburban Roulette? (See Part IV.) Not really: The title track to that movie, which Lewis wrote, was used at the start ofAmerican Swing— so the link to Lewis is indeed as thin as the documentary is interesting.

Of the film, Shock Maniasays: "Larry Levenson's story has finally been told, albeit in a judiciously filtered style, in American Swing. The basic outline has a classic 'rise and fall' ring to it. Levenson was an average joe whose sexual appetite caused him to chafe under the yoke of 1960's, family-oriented American attitudes. […] Thus, Plato's Retreat was born in 1977. This members-only swinger's club quickly became the talk of the town and, after being publicized via a voyeuristic press, became an international destination for the sexually curious. […] American Swing is a blast while you are watching it. Documentarians Jon Hart and Matthew Kaufman weave together an easily-digested narrative from a series of talking-head interviews, including Levenson's family & friends, porn scenesters like Al Goldstein and even law enforcement officials. The smoothness of the narrative is further enhanced by well-chosen archive footage […] It's witty, eye-opening and fun. Unfortunately, holes in the narrative pop up if you look a little closely at the historical events. […]Despite such omissions, American Swing remains an entertaining portrait of a unique place and time in American cultural history. It may dodge the more difficult elements of its chosen subject but the film does succeed in conveying the unique vibe of Plato's Retreat and what endeared it to its fans. The full mystery of Larry Levenson has yet to be revealed but this will suffice as an opening salvo. At the very least, you won't be bored."

Retardead

(2008, dir. & writ. Rick Popko & Dan West)

Another film from the non-master filmmakers who brought you the direct-to-video MonsterTurd (2003 / trailer)! In fact, this flick is sort of sequel to that enjoyable masterturd. The bad guy of the earlier flick, Dr. Stern (Dan Burr), returns to be the same bad guy doing new nasty stuff in Retardead. And what does Herschell Gordon Lewis have to do with the movie? Well, he's there invisibly as the person who does the opening narration — good enough reason for us to take a quick look at the direct-to-video movie.

Trailer:

I Like Horror Movies, which thinks that Retardead "is the kind of B-movie gold that Horror fans search tirelessly for", has the plot: "The feature picks up immediately where MonsterTurd left off, with the conniving Dr. Stern narrowly escaping his own demise from the city sewers. Stern takes on a new position at the school for the gifted in town, and administers an experimental serum to its special needs children that gives them a heightened intelligence. Unfortunately for Butte County, the drug also has an unforeseen side-effect that turns his test subjects into the retardead! […] Dan and Rick use crude and idiotic humor in a brilliantly dark and twisted way that is always sure to offend. […] When it does come time for the horror, Retardead spares nothing in the gore department! The bloody special effects are top-rate for a low-budget feature, with plenty of flesh-ripping and gut-munching goodness to please the fans."

Depressed Press, however, watched Retardead as part of a home-triple-feature alongside Dahmer vs Gacy (2011 / trailer) and Zombie Driftwood (2010 / trailer), and wimped out, saying: "I've sat — in a theater — through every Ed Wood movie.   Hell – I even finished (again in a theater!) Starship Troopers 2 (2004 / trailer).  Student projects?  Watched them.  Ultra-low budget?  Check.  Foreign art films… with subtitles… in black-and-white?  No problem! But I could not sit through these. I tried. I really did. I suffered through at least half of each hoping that something redeeming would occur. Nothing did."

Jello Biafra — a much rarer face in films than that other former punk icon of the early 80s, Henry Rollins — appears for seconds as Mayor Anton Sinclaire. We mention this only as an excuse to present one of his better cover versions, below, Love Me I'm A Liberal (written by Phil Oaks [19 Dec 1940 – 9 April 1976)], 1966).

Love Me I'm A Liberal:

Living Dead Lock Up 3: Siege of the Dead

(2008, dir. Mario Xavier)

The third part of director Mario Xavier's 3-part "Living Dead Locku Up" series, this seldom screened 50-minute-long direct-to-video no-budget flick was preceded by the even less seen direct-to-video no-budget home movies Living Dead Lock Up (2005) and Living Dead Lock-Up: March of the Dead (2007). All three were projects were co-written by some guy named Mike Hicks who, like Xavier, stars in the "movie". According to the all-powerful imdb — and as indicated by the credit shown in the crappy trailer — HGL appears somewhere in this no budget project, which we here at A Wasted Life have yet to see. Have you seen it? No, not many people have… But you can get it at Amazon, where "When sold by Amazon.com, this product will be manufactured on demand using DVD-R recordable media. Amazon.com's standard return policy will apply."

In his book The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia, Vol 2: 2000-2010, author Peter Dendle bothered to write: "For this third and final outing of Xavier's unwatchable Living Dead Lock Up saga — which is actually just the second half of  two-part sequel — there are CGI zombies to look fake alongside bad actors who have been doing that all along. Xavier bravely leads his adulating cohorts in a final stand against zombies in a hospital. […] All we see is characters running back and forth in hallways. […]."

A Cheap, Crappy Trailer:

More to Follow … Eventually

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Short Film: Le Noeud Cravate / The Necktie (Canada, 2008)

March 28, 2017, 10:11 am

≫ Next: Biohazard (USA, 1985)

≪ Previous: Herschell Gordon Lewis – Godfather Of Gore, Part VII: 2002-2008

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Here's a semi-melancholic little tale, dabbed with a dash of horror, from the French-speaking northernmost of the Americas, written and directed by Jean-François Lévesque. Lévesque, born in Saint-Gabriel, Quebec, Lévesque is now Montreal-based, but other than that we know naught.

The short is an interesting mixture of animation styles, and it reflects an experience that most people have in their life: the erasure, if not eradication, of one's joys and dreams by the meaningless drudgery of the modern working world. Will it kill you, as it does so many others?
But as the film points out, don't lose all hope: it is never too late to rediscover that which made or makes you happy — you just need to wake up again. (Wakey-wakey.)

Biohazard (USA, 1985)

April 6, 2017, 6:47 am

≫ Next: The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (Canada, 1976)

≪ Previous: Short Film: Le Noeud Cravate / The Necktie (Canada, 2008)

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The name Fred Olan Ray is familiar if not legendary to anyone mildly interested in the B-films of the 80s and 90s. Had he been around 50 years earlier, without doubt he would've been a staple director of Poverty Row along the lines of William Beaudine (15 Jan 1892 – 18 Mar 1970) or the oddly less-reviled (and familiar) Sam Newfield (6 Dec 1899 – 10 Nov 1964), for Ray makes his movies quick and cheap and, one could assume, were it not for Biohazard's post credit sequence, with but one shot.

And speaking of the low budget programmers of Poverty Row, when watching this movie here, we couldn't help but think of the Bela Lugosi flick The Corpse Vanishes (1942 / trailer), directed by another forgotten B-flick director, William Fox (9 March 1895 – 30 June 1958), if only for the fact that we recently screened that now-ancient second-feature cheapie. But as different as Fox's film is from that of Ray, there are some similarities, the biggest being that both are basically nonsensical sci-fi horror films. In The Corpse Vanishes, a "mad scientist" (Bela Lugosi) uses science and the "fluids" of virginal brides to keep his wife alive — sounds like science to us — and, in Biohazard, a government scientist uses a psychic and scientific equipment to pull objects to Earth from other dimensions or maybe space. Plots ridiculousa extraordinarous, one and all.

Needless to say, like the plots, the acting of both films is equally noteworthy as terrible. And then there is the matter of budget — neither film had one — and the use of over-the-hill stars: The Corpse Vanisheshas Lugosi, Biohazard has Also Ray and Angelique Pettyjohn, not to mention an appearance by the totally forgotten and unrecognizable Carroll Borland (25 Feb 1914 – 3 Feb 1994), a visually iconic influence of yesteryear in her final film appearance. (She played Bela Lugosi's mute daughter in Mark of the Vampire[1935 / trailer] and thus influenced the look of everyone from Vampira [11 Dec 1922 – 10 Jan 2008] to Lily Munster [Yvonne De Carlo, 1 Sept 1922 – 8 Jan 2007] to Elvira. We would call that influential.)

What sets the two movies apart, however, aside from 43 years and B&W vs. color and the B&B — breasts and blood — of the newer movie, is the time length. The Corpse Vanishes, as a second feature, runs a brisk 64 minutes, unpadded, and as slow and idiotic as it is, it zips by quickly enough to not overstay its welcome. That cannot be said of Biohazard, which in its essence is a color second-feature filmed at a time when there were no second features and thus, at 80-odd minutes in length, with padding, both drags and overstays its welcome — extremely, and that despite some naked rib cushions, light gore, and the fact that at least 10 minutes of the running time consists of both funny and unfunny bloopers intercut into the final credits. To say that Biohazard is a total snoozer is a bit of an understatement: the direction is much closer to being petrified than just static which, added to the dark cinematography, non-story, and thespian inability, makes it a bit hard to remain awake through the whole movie.

Which doesn't mean it isn't occasionally laughably entertaining, for films this bad generally do at least offer an unintentional laugh or two or three, and Biohazard is no exception in this regard. Nothing about the story really makes sense or logic, from the start to the end, and too much comes across as superfluous: the opening scene of two guys lost in the desert, obvious padding; the death of the guy "fixing" the wire in the desert, inconsequential to the tale and obvious filler; a secret underground laboratory doing top secret experiments but protected by one soldier (with a non-military standard haircut), obvious budget deficiency; interlude with neighbors and bathtub, obvious attempt to up the titty-quota… the list of occasionally entertaining flaws goes on and on and on, but the timespan between them also seems to go on and on and on, which definitely subtracts from the light laughs.

 

In Maitland McDonagh's book Filmmaking on the Fringe, Fred Olan Ray actually and inexplicably seems somewhat proud of what, in the end, comes across a bit like a student film. He reveals that, unemployed after shooting Scalps (1983 / trailer), he "put together"Biohazard while working at a lab doing the edge-coding of dailies, and mentions how he found Angelique "stripping at the Body Shop" down on Sunset — at a time when stripping was not yet seen as a reflection of New Feminism. And though it might not look it, the lab scenes were shot using the leftover sets of the spaceship from Roger Corman's Android(1982 / trailer),*which we remember perhaps incorrectly as a sweet movie. And while Ray states that Biohazard "was the first time we had done something that came out looking like a real movie," wethinks he doth overestimate too much.

*Sets, in turn, originally cobbled together from Corman's sci-fi sleaze classics Forbidden World (1982 / trailer) and Galaxy of Terror (1982 / trailer).

It is perhaps worth noting, at a trivia level, that Ray's then 5-year-old son Christopher donned the plastic suit to play the pint-sized killer alien. As for the rest of the actors, Aldo Ray is unrecognizable and probably breathed a sizable sigh of relief when he finally left the set. Mentioning his work with F.O.R. in an interview over at LeBeau's Blog, Aldo once said, "He'd give me $1000 in cash, pay my expenses, and I'd do a day's work. Somebody showed me one of his cassettes — 'starring Aldo Ray'— but it was just a one-day job.... I needed money at the time, and Fred knew I needed a buck, so I did it. He exploited me, yeah, but I was ripe for it."

And so was Pettyjohn, obviously enough: although she did already have a minor list of cult-worthy films to her resume at the time of Biohazard — including Hell's Belles (1969 / trailer), The G.I. Executioner (1971 / trailer), The Curious Female (1970 / trailer), Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1968 / trailer), and Jim Wynorski's Lost Empire (1984 / trailer) — by the time of Biohazard,she had also occasionally paid her rent by sucking sausage and playing salami sandwich in titles such as Titillation (1982 / NSFW), Stalag 69 (1982/ NSFW), and Body Talk(1984). Oddly enough, however, as the psychic Lisa Martyn, one of the main roles, she never gets fully naked, though her nipples do say "Hi" over the top of her bra during and after a man-mauling-mammeries scene; at the supposed age of 42, she still looks oddly MILFy despite her typically horrendous wig. Pettyjohn proves to the best actor of the movie, which really isn't saying all that much, but her entire presence is seriously damaged by her horrendous wig.

Still, to give the best feature of the movie credit, Biohazard does have a wonderful WTF ending times two. It's a shame that everything else leading up to it is poorly made and dull. Pacing was obviously a concept the director did see necessary to incorporate in his movie, but then, as the bloopers reveal during the final credits, everyone involved seems to have known that they were in a pile of shit, so maybe he didn't care.

 

Biohazard was followed ten years later by the non-sequel Biohazard: The Alien Force (1995 / trailer) known to be of equal non-quality. We won't be watching that one.

The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (Canada, 1976)

April 14, 2017, 3:55 am

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"You should see the way the fire lights up your hair. All yellow and gold. [coughing] Such lovely hair."
Frank Hallet (Martin Sheen)

1976 was a busy year for Jodie Foster, at that time a child actress previously known (if at all) primarily for her television work. Alone in that bicentennial year, she flickered across the silver screen in five movies: the forgotten Echoes of Summer (1976 / snore), the perennial kiddy flick Freaky Friday (1976 / trailer), the extremely odd Alan Parker movie Bugsy Malone (1976 / trailer), Martin Scorsese's early classic Taxi Driver (1976 / trailer), and this low-key thriller, a film that Foster herself is known not to particularly like. Much like Alice Sweet Alice (1976 / trailer) two years later, which also sold itself as an "evil kid" flick, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane seemed to be playing in every drive-in theater in the US when it was released.

The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, however, is not just some updated take on the classic Bad Seed (1956 / trailer) formula. Adapted for the screen by Laird Koenig from his novel of the same name published two years earlier in 1974, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane is pretty much anything but a horror thriller about an innately evil and homicidal little girl, despite featuring a pubescent girl that commits homicide. Rather, it is far more a psychological thriller about a young girl forced by those she should be able to trust — adults, be it her deceased father, the landlord or the landlord's adult son — to undertake extreme measures to ensure an independence and lifestyle she knows and wants, and was arguably perhaps even trained (brainwashed?) to desire by her dear, departed daddy. 

Some Background Music as You Read –
Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op 11
 (Piano: Claudio Arrau):

In that sense, the true "monsters" of the movie are the adults (seen and unseen) of the movie, and here we would include her own father: whether one has a child of exceptional intelligence or not — and unquestionably Foster's character Ryan appears to be a kind of rudderless child prodigy — a parent who teaches their child to go over dead bodies to maintain independence is a failed parent, possibly far more so than any alcoholic tart out for an inheritance…

But is he worse, one can't help but wonder, than a manipulative child molester like Frank Hallet (Martin Sheen), who is only interested in finding a new under-age receptacle for his body fluids? (In connection to this, it must be said that it is extremely odd and very 70s that a movie that presents a paedophile as the villain would also include a gratuitous nude scene of a 13-year-old. True, the stand-in for Foster for that scene was her 21-year-old sister, but the scene nevertheless drips of hypocrisy, especially since it could have easily been filmed in such a way that one needn't see that even a supposed 13-year-old can fail the pencil test.)

At the beginning of The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, there are already two dead, though we see neither death: Daddy Lester Jacobs has committed suicide, leaving his daughter to fend for herself alone.  She, in turn, only wants to be treated like an adult and live her life as she sees fit — which means alone at home, parentless, and not going to public school — and will go over bodies to do so, a reaction less adult than psychotic, and short-sighted in that she never considers what lies ahead after the buffer (financial and rental) that her father set up is gone. And though she tries hard to maintain the pretence that he is alive, a variety of adults continue to invade her space, including  her manipulative mega-bitch landlord and town mover & shaker Mrs. Hallet (Alexis "Ice Princess" Smith of The Two Mrs. Carrolls [1947 / trailer] and Split Second [1948 / trailer]), who basically forces herself to discover the body of Ryan's greedy-tart mother and, in her panic, causes her own death. A pointed change from the novel: when adapting the screenplay from his own book, Laird Koenig altered the circumstances of Mrs. Hallet's death, the first on-screen, removing it from Ryan's hands and making it an accident, thus ensuring that the young girl remains a bit more sympathetic than she probably would have had she been presented as 100% calculating killer. And somewhere along the way, she does manage to gain one's sympathy — to an extent.

A tightly scripted little thriller with of few characters, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane is immensely intriguing but nevertheless skirts the unbelievable more than once. A murderous 13-year-old, in the end, is easy enough to swallow — perhaps even more so now than in 1976 — but the idea that no one in a small town other than the two evil Hallets ever notices that Ryan doesn't go to school doesn't cut it, nor is it easy to believe that Ryan's eventual significant other Mario (Scott Jacoby of Bad Ronald [1974 / trailer]*and Return to Horror High[1987 / trailer]), gimp-legged or not, would: 1) be so willing so quickly to assist her in destroying evidence and hiding bodies, and 2) be such a master at disguise and acting that he could fool a policeman (his own cousin) into believing that he's Ryan's father, Lester. Easier to believe, considering the time of the movie, is that a known pedophile like Frank Hallet (Martin Sheen of Badlands [1973 / trailer],Truth or Consequences, N.M. [1997 / trailer] and Spawn[1997 / trailer]) could, perhaps, remain a free man.

*Ranked #90 in David Hofstede's book What Were They Thinking? The 100 Dumbest Events in Television History, Bad Ronaldremains a pleasant memory to all those who saw it as a kid.

Speaking of the policeman, nice guy Officer Miglioriti (the singer, pianist, and songwriter Mort Shuman [12 Nov 1936 — 2 Nov 1991], co-writer of Viva Las Vegas, Sweets for My Sweet, Save The Last Dance For Me and others) is less a real character than a broadly acted joke. Amidst all the low-key characterizations that populate the movie, he comes across totally out of place and seriously rips the viewer out of the film's rhythm whenever he appears. His sitcom-level performance is a glaring and unconvincing contrast to both that of Sheen, who is so oily and disgusting that one could easily believe he isn't acting, and Foster, whose distant, aloof performance catches her character perfectly, right down to when the first cracks appear after letting Mario enter and become part of her hermetic existence.

Occasionally effective, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane is less a horror or suspense film than an oddly paced and plotted drama, and while it is interesting viewing, it is hardly imperative. But its open-ended ending is definitely a strength to what is, in the end, an extremely tragic movie. It would seem that no matter what might transpire in the aftermath of the events of the final scene, Ryan is caught in a trap.

Eleven years later co-stars Martin Sheen and Jodie Foster both appeared in Siesta (1987 / trailer), another one of her odder projects.

Short Film: Rotting Hill (New Zealand, 2012)

April 21, 2017, 6:14 am

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Ah! True love! How we all hope to have it. And as this little short reveals, you never know when you might finally find it. Here's 5 minutes of zombie horror romance from New Zealand, a country on our bucket list, that manages to reveal that love and romance isn't dead, even if everything else is.
Rotting Hill is one of 12 short films that Auckland-resident James Cunningham, born 1973, has made to date.  It is "a live-action CGI short film from Media Design School's Advanced 3D Productions. The short was produced in 12 weeks and features 22 digital effects shots. [mediadesignschool.com]" 
The actors: the farmer is played by Bruce Hopkins, whom we can only assume is familiar to us because he appeared as Gamling in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002 / trailer) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003 / trailer). The male romantic lead, named "Garry" according to the imdb, is played by Jason Smith, while the female romantic lead, "Lizzy", is played by Anna Hutchison, recently seen in Wrecker (2015 / trailer) but possibly better known from her appearance in that international hit, The Cabin in the Woods (2012 / trailer).

Herschell Gordon Lewis – Godfather Of Gore, Part VIII: 2009–2010

May 3, 2017, 3:35 am

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15 June 1929 — 26 September 2016

"He seen somethin' different. And he done it."

A seminal force in the world of trash filmmaking, he is considered the inventor of the modern gore film. (In theory, a position he holds with David F. Friedman, but when the partnership ended Friedman's true interest proved to be sexploitation.) To use his own, favorite words: "I've often compared Blood Feast (1963) to a Walt Whitman poem; it's no good, but it was the first of its kind." And a truly fun gore film, too — which makes it "good" in our view.

Unlike Blood Feast and his "better movies", many of the projects he worked on are unbearable cinematic experiences; but more than enough of the others are sublime, otherworldly, like the best of Ed Wood, Juan Piquer Simónor John Waters. Were it not for innovators like him, A Wasted Life probably wouldn't be.

One of the truly great has left the building.

The films below are not necessarily presented in the order they were made and/or released.

Go here for Part I: 1953-60.

Go here for Part II: 1961-63.
Go here for Part III: 1964-66.
Go here for Part IV: 1967-68.

Go here for Part V: 1969-72.

Go here for Part VI: 1973-98.

Go here forPart VII: 2002-08.

The Uh-Oh Show

(2009, writ. & dir. H.G. Lewis)
 

German title: The Splatter Show. Shot in beautiful St. Petersburg, Florida, USA where our parental units once built a beach-front house in the days of JFK, but sold it way before we ourselves even had peach fuzz. But we remember the liking it as wee child.

Over at Punk Globe, the millionaire senior himself explains the movie: "The Uh-Oh Show(originally Grim Fairy Tale) is a blend of off-the wall gore and off-the-wall humor. My intention is to bridge the gap between the usual splatter-film and conventional movies. The plot centers around the ultimate reality show, 'Uh-Oh!' When the network asks for a second show, the wily producer's idea is dramatization of fairy tales … with the endings dramatically changed." HGL even makes a not-to-be-overlooked if uncredited appearance in the movie.

Trailer to
The Uh-Oh Show:

On their HG Lewis page, Worldwide Celluloid Massacrerates the movie as "Of Some Interest", claiming: "This has got to be the only splatter movie made by an 80 year old. Not only that, but it's great fun. [...] For the first 20-30 minutes, this may be his best work, but then it becomes the usual Lewis campy so-bad-its-good stuff. This is a silly satire on TV by way of a game show that dismembers its contestants when they get an answer wrong. A spin of the wheel decides what organ will be chainsawed off by Radial Saw Rex (Broward 'Eclipse' Holsey), and it's time for the audience to cover themselves with plastic. Uh-oh! Don't worry though, they will get their body parts re-attached later, or will they? When the executives decide to take it to the next level, the weary host of the show (Brooke McCarter), and a reporter (Nevada Caldwel) who got her boyfriend's head chopped off in the show, fight back. Think Network (1976 / trailer) by way of Wizard of Gore (1970 / see Part V) and Running Man (1987 / trailer). [...] Kaufman makes an amusing appearance as a pushy pimp with tips for his hookers, Lewis himself appears as a man who tells gory stories to children, and the splatter is over-the-top and all in the name of silly, bad, cheaply provocative fun. We wouldn't want it any other way from you Herschell."

Brooke McCarter (22 April 1963 — 22 December 2015), some of you might remember — but probably not — was the former Ford Agency model who had a sizable part as one of the teen vamps in the "classic" vamp flick The Lost Boys (1987 / trailer) and then sort of disappeared. We imagine Nevada Caldwel is a housewife by now. Broward 'Eclipse' Holseyhas a day job; one wonders if his father was a boxer. The production of the movie is credited to both Film Ranch International, which went on the make gore-heavy Brainjacked (2009 / trailer), and Lion's Kill Productions, which made the documentary Herschell Gordon Lewis and the Making of the Uh-Oh Show (2011).

Trailer to

Herschell Gordon Lewis & the Making of the Uh-Oh Show:

To say that The Uh-Oh Show got limited distribution would be an understatement, and while it has yet to garner a broader DVD audience, most of the few who saw it and wrote about it seemed to have liked it. One vocal exception, however, is Nick Cato at Cinema Knife Fight, who called the movie a "celluloid atrocity". His cohort of the evening, L.L. Soares, was just as unimpressed, and points out something we tend to agree with but would hardly let bother us: "[The] plot twist makes absolutely NO SENSE. They've got a hit game show. So they go on another network and instead of doing another violent game show, which is what people obviously want, they do a fairy-tale show where that annoying corporate slimebag, Fred Finagler, with his sidekick Coco (Lauren Schmier), reads from a book while horror versions of fairy tales are reenacted. What do fairy tales have to do with a game show? Looks to me like Herschell might have started making Grim Fairy Tales, stopped half-way through, and then combined that story with The Uh-Uh Show for some bizarre reason. The two plots have absolutely nothing in common except for Fred and Coco. And if there was a real  Uh-Uh Show, and I was a fan (which I probably would be), I’d be pretty annoyed if my show went off the air and was replaced by a lame fairy tale show!"

Capitalism: A Love Story

(2009, writ. & dir. Michael Moore) 


"I sincerely believe... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies."

Thomas Jefferson
(Deist, Slave Owner & Founding Father)

Considering all the people who have given "Special Thanks" to HGL somewhere amidst the credits of their film projects, is it really all that surprising that one of America's most intelligent, entertaining and divisive documentary filmmakers does likewise? Well, actually, yeah — unless, of course, you consider the fact that as one of the leading experts of "direct advertising", HGL is linked to capitalism far beyond his exploitation movies. In any event, HGL does not appear as a talking head.

Trailer to
Capitalism – A Love Story:



Super Undead Doctor Roach

(2009, writ. & dir. Chad Clinton Freeman)

We watched about half of this short — a bit beyond the green love pillows (Laura Moore) — and almost decided to skip including it here since HGL is but one of many pop, low-culture names given special "inspirational" thanks, but we then we figured, "What the fuck." The star of the short, the director's nephew Derek Houck, who's losing his hair nowadays, went on to play a zombie in Silent Night, Zombie Night(2009).

Full Snore:

Over at Vimeo, they say: "Edited, written, produced and directed by Chad Clinton Freeman, Super Undead Doctor Roach is the story of a scientist obsessed with bugs, becoming an accidental super hero. It was originally a seven-minute 48 Hour Film Project produced in April of 2009. The project, edited by Michael Su, was a runner up for the Las Vegas 48 Hour Film Project Audience Award. Doctor Roachwas then expanded to its 13-minute length and went on to screen at the Arizona Underground Film Festival in November 2009 and played at the bondage convention Xanadu Las Vegas 2010. [...]"

Chad Clinton Freeman, by the way, went on to be an "executive producer" of Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver (2011 / trailer).

Smash Cut

(2009, dir. Lee Demarbre)

We gave this movie a precursory look a few years ago in our R.I.P. career review of the always memorable cult actor David Hess, who plays the lead in this HGL homage. Other names of note include Michael Berryman and HGL (over)actor Ray Sager appearing as the familiarly named Reverend Boone. Our terse entry way back then was as follows: "Another intentional cult film by the intentional cult-film maker Demarbre, who also made the less professional cult film Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter (2001 / trailer).*Hess stars as film director Able Whitman, who will do anything to complete his latest film. Smash Cut also features the eternally hot Sasha Grey— but not enough of her, going by what Dr Gore has to say in his review of the film found here."

Trailer to
Smash Cut:

HGL, in any event, is there: he graces the film as a radio announcer, "Fred Sandy". The movie is also "dedicated to the life and art of" the old guy. Over at good ol'Worldwide Celluloid Massacre, which rates the film as "Of Some Interest", they say: "A pretty good homage to Herschell Gordon Lewis featuring the man himself as the presenter. The story is about a b-movie, gore and horror director (Hess) that breaks after being harshly put down by his audience, and starts creating more realistic gore movies in the only way he can imagine: By creating his own real dead bodies and body parts out of the people he knows and dislikes. The campy, cheap, silly but entertaining feel of the movie is almost just right, the gore at first is surprisingly lacking, but delivers some cheap and over-the-top scenes in the second-half featuring dismembering and eye-gouging."

*As of April 2016, we can never refer to Jesus in any of our texts without drawing your attention to our intensely enjoyable Short Film of the Month, Fist of Jesus(2012). Watch it, now.

Psycho Holocaust

(2009, writ. & dir. Kristopher "Krist" Rufty)

Featuring Raine Brown, the star of the 2013 non-masterpiece, Kung Fu and Titties (trailer), and filmed in Wisconsin, famous for being the home of cheese and a cultural icon, and not much else. Big Falls, Clintonville, Green Bay, and Marion — but not one scene in Plainfield? All locations used, in any event, are less than two hours away from Plainfield as the crow flies. Considering how much the influence of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974 / trailer) on Psycho Holocaust is visible, it's surprising they didn't make a nod to the flick's distant inspiration. (If you don't know who we're talking about, you're a loser. Stay after school and watch the following two movies: Ed Gein[2000] and Deranged[1974], the latter starring Roberts Blossom.)

What Psycho Holocaust might offer is obvious by its title, which is a clear reference to one of the all-time classics of exploitation, Ruggero Deodato's masterpiece Cannibal Holocaust(1980). Deodato, however, had a much bigger budget: Psycho Holocaust's estimated budget was a lowly $20,000 — less than the average amount Trump stole from the students of his supposed "Trump University". (Yep, the Prez you voted in: a thief, a shyster, and he's gonna fuck you over too.)

HGL has but a small function in this film by independent horror author and director Krist Rufty, the second of four movies Rufty has written and directed so far: HGL's voice pops up as a radio news broadcaster —so, in other words: if you didn't know in advance, you probably wouldn't notice.

Women In Prison, which deigns to say "an interesting, if shaky, effort to retread well-worn territory," has the plot: "When six happy-go-lucky youngsters in their late-30s take the mini-van out for a quiet weekend getaway in the sticks they happen upon a trio of Iraq War vets who are, say, creatively dealing with their PTSD. Hijinx (mutilation, torture, rape, dismemberment, near-miss wire hanger abortions, political commentary, necrotic folk art) ensue…"

Trailer to

Psycho Holocaust:

7 Deadly Sins: Inside the Ecomm Cult

(2009, dirs. Michelle Bolvox & Kay Kayos)

A mockumentary produced and starring Alexia Anastasio. Written by Kevin Sean Michaels, director of the documentary Vampira: The Movie (2006 / clip). As far as we can tell, neither director — assuming the names are real — have done anything else since.

The trailer to 7 Deadly Sins: Inside the Ecomm Cult is out there, but not much more. Herschell Gordon Lewis plays a "retired detective" who, going by the trailer, narrates the tail. And how did he get involved in this project? Over at Media Mikes, Mike Gencarelli asked HGL about 7 Deadly Sins and this is what he had to say: "This is a strange one. The folks producing this project — whom I hadn't known before — negotiated a deal with me to appear on-camera, reading pre-written lines. We shot my sequence in about half an hour, in a field next to the building in which I live. I was the only actor for that scene and had no notion that a campaign would be built around my strange appearance. I have to salute the ingenuity of the filmmakers."

Trailer to

7 Deadly Sins: Inside the Ecomm Cult:

HGL's scenes were the only ones shot in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA; the rest were done in Santa Monica, California, USA. According to imdb's credit list, the great auteur Ted V. Mikels also appears in the movie somewhere. (Ted V. Mikels, by the way, died slightly less than a month after HGL on 16 Oct 2016. Mikels's death slipped under our radar, or we probably would've begun a career review for him as well.)

Nightmare Alley

(2010, writ. & dir. Laurence Holloway & Scarlet Fry [aka Walther Reuther])

HGL is given "Special Thanks" somewhere in the credits, who knows why.This movie is not based on William Lindsay Gresham's 1946 eponymously named classic shock noir novel that was filmed a year later with Tyron Powell in the lead (trailer). Naw, this is a piece of low budget regional trash from Arizona featuring seven short segments and a bunch of local bands and music. Over at Horror Society, Walther Reuther nee Scarlet Fry gushes, "It's like Blood Feast meets Pink Flamingos. It provides a debut for a lot of young new talent in very funny roles. [...] If you're looking for meaning, look elsewhere!"

Over at imdb, Woody Andersreveals that "A ghoulish host relates seven macabre stories. Zombie cowboys rampage across the prairie in 'A Fistful of Innards'. An evil satanic rat forces a man to do its murderous bidding in 'Rebellion'. A scummy loser inadvertently sets himself up on a date over the Internet with a vengeful ax-wielding ghost in 'Death Chat'. A slim gal bumps off her jerky husband and feeds him to a gross fat slob in 'Meat'. A homophobic punk dude butchers a gay guy in 'Closet Case'. A fey and pompous artist bumps off his shrewish spouse and uses her corpse for his artwork in 'The Great Damone'. A Jack the Ripper-style killer embarks on a lethal spree in 'Slash of the Blade'."

Trailer to
Nightmare Alley:

Movies Made Me Do Itwas not impressed: "Yes, with its series of awards and praise from the godfather of the American-made splatter-film, Herschell Gordon Lewis, pasted excitingly on the cover, I was expecting some amazing work with no budget to fill my face with sweet, horror-god love. This was not what I got. Instead, I got what appeared to be a series of near-goreless horror-comedy shorts someone kept from posting on YouTube, in hopes of making a movie with them, reaching feature-length and plugging a few unknown local-bands in the mix. In between, we have a fellow doing his best TV series Crypt Keeper impression with interlocking jokes and all, 'telling' us these ham-handed tales of bore. Fuck you, HGL."

Over at Hayes Hudson's House of Horror, Zombie Hayes would probably say "Fuck you, MMMDI!" Zombie liked the direct-to-video anthology, claiming, "I didn't know what to expect when I put this DVD in... the box art and screenshots on the back of the DVD case let me know that this was going to be a very low budget horror film. Sometimes that can be a good thing, but more often than not you end up with a horror film that falls flat. Luckily with Nightmare Alley, we get a low budget horror film that is just as entertaining if not more so than many other bigger budget features."

Crank Up

(2010, writ. & dir. In-chun Oh)

Shot in Seoul, Korea, Crank Up gives "special thanks" to H.G. Lewis — as they do to George A. Romero, John Woo, David Cronenberg, and Clive Barker. According to Korean Film Biz Zone, "During his time at the Korea National University of Arts, Oh In-chun was a prolific short-film maker focusing on genre cinema, including horror, sci-fi and action films. Some of his early credits include A Moment (2010), Crank Up (2010) and particularly Metamorphoses (2011), a 25-minute action film that demonstrated his knack for combining tight action choreography and technique with a droll sense of humor. Soon after, OH got his chance to take a stab at a feature-length project with the comedy horror, Mourning Grave, released in the summer of 2014 (trailer).

In regard to the plot of this short here, over at imdb, they say: "In this film, the victim who is dragged, beaten with a bat, and then beheaded by the killer is played by the director." The short can be watched here at imdb.

The Chainsaw Sally Show

(2010, writ. & dir. Jimmy Burril, aka JimmyO)

In HGL RIP Part VII,we took a look at the Chainsaw Sally (2004) movie, in which HGL had a small part; here, he's merely an "executive producer". In any event, if you wanna know about the movie and its maker, go there. The Chainsaw Sally Show is a DVD of the cult killerette's first season, 11 episodes in all. (It was followed by The Chainsaw Sally Show Season 2 two years later in 2012.)

McBastard's Mausoleumhas the essentials: "Are you fed up with the philistine who takes a full shopping cart through the express checkout lane? What about the one who parks in handicapped spaces? Sally (April Monique Burril) is and she's not going to stay quiet! With the hum of her trusty chainsaw to announce her return, she is picking up where the movie of the same name left off, repurposing the use of power tools for every disgruntled member of society!"

The Worldwide Cinema Massacresays the compilation DVD is "Of Some Interest", explaining: "[…] the executive producer is none other than H.G. Lewis and he definitely makes his mark, especially in the beginning of the series. Somehow he always makes his gore into very fun dumb camp and exploitation that doesn't feel stupid, and he takes the mean sadism out of bloodthirstiness no matter how gratuitous it is. Chainsaw Sally is a serial killer with a goth brother who assists her, and who also cooks her victims, or at least the nutritious ones. She works in a library because she likes books, but had to get rid of the previous librarian to get there. […] Features creative torture and messy killings of people that 'deserve it', with the occasional splatter over-the-top aftermath of intestines and brains, but it's not as gory as you'd expect. […] Altogether, a fun idea with the right people at the helm, although of course limited by its low level of wit."

2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams

(2010, dir. Tim Sullivan)

In 2005, forty-one years after the release of HG Lewis's classic 2000 Maniacs (1964; see Part III), the film was remade without the involvement of HG Lewis as 2001 Maniacs (see PartVII). Five years after that, the direct-to-DVD sequel of the remake, in turn already (partially) existent in comic book form, finally got made — with the same director and writer, a few of the same actors, and HG Lewis as the "executive producer". One person noticeably missing this time around is Robert Englund, who played Mayor Buckman in the remake: absent due to "scheduling conflicts", he was replaced by the less costly cult actor Bill Moseley (of The Convent[2000], House of 1000 Corpses[2003], The Haunted World of El Superbeasto[2009], and more, more, more). It was shot over a 12-day period on location in the not very Southern state of Iowa.

Trailer to
2001 Maniacs – Field of Screams:

The Last Thing I See  explains the plot: "Mayor George W. Buckman […] he has a problem. No Yankee scum are showing up to this year's Guts N' Glory Jamboree, and the folks are disappointed because there is no one to kill. So Buckman does what any good revenge-minded public servant does when his constituency becomes restless, he improvises. If no Northerners will come to the South then they will take the South to them. The Maniacs (in reality there are only eleven, not 2001) pile into a school bus and hit the road. In Iowa they encounter the cast of a reality show called 'Road Rascals' […]. The cast is full of vapid LA socialites who are famous simply for being famous, not from actually doing anything, and their hangers on who want to be famous for their proximity to famous people. As you can imagine, carnage and mayhem ensues."

Curiosity of a Social Misfitsays, "2001 Maniacs starring Robert Englund was a great slice of completely over the top and politically incorrect fun.  In fact, it was a great throwback to the 1970s and 1980s slasher movies. Fast forward to 2010, and there's a sequel that was written and directed by the same folks. Personally, I didn't know that this one even existed yet I was excited to check this one out despite the knowledge that Englund himself hadn't returned. After watching this one, I have to admit that I kind of wish I hadn't discovered it existed.  I'm pretty easy going with my horror movies but this one has got to honestly be one of the worst ones that I have seen in a very long time."

In general, the social misfit's opinion is shared by the masses: during our quick search, we couldn't find one website that said anything nice about the movie. So it must be good.

The Gainesville Ripper

(2010, writ. & dir. Josh Townsend)

HG Lewis appears somewhere in this movie that almost no one has seen. It purports to tell the true story of Daniel Harold Rolling (26 May 1954 — 25 Oct 2006), better known as the Gainesville Ripper. A US serial killer, Rolling murdered five students in Gainesville, Florida, as well as three others in Shreveport, Louisiana. Rolling was executed by lethal injection in 2006, and confessed to killing a total of eight people. As we mentioned in Part IVof our RIP career review of Wes Craven, screenwriter Kevin Williamson's script to the 1996 hit slasher Scream (trailer) was inspired by Rolling's murders.

Trailer to
The Gainesville Ripper:

On September 24, 2010, Drew Harwell of the Tampa Bay Timeswrote "Josh Townsend, a Gainesville High School student during the murders, spent $200,000 producing a schlocky horror film he called The Gainesville Ripper. Rolling is played by the star of local barbecue commercials. Townsend feverishly advertised last month's premiere at Gator Cinemas, posting hundreds of fliers downtown and on University Avenue. 'When I went around that weekend promoting it, 98 percent of people I talked to had no idea who Danny Rolling was,' Townsend said. 'I talked to 400 or 500 people.' The premiere was attended by 120 people, half of whom were on the guest list. There was no second showing."

The name of the "star of local barbecue commercials" is Zachary Memos; the name of HG Lewis's part we do not know.

Over at Irate Films, one of the few people we could find that saw the movie, wrote: "[…] I'm afraid that not even a brief cameo from Herschell Gordon Lewis (best known for creating the 'splatter film' subgenre of horror) could save this flick — in the end, it ended up stinking like a rotting corpse."

All About Evil

(2010, writ. & dir. Joshua Grannell)

W.&D. Jushua Grannel "is a popular drag performer in the San Francisco bay area" named Peaches Christ, and also a filmmaker. This feature-length splatter flick is supposedly based on an earlier short film of hers entitled Grindhouse (2003). According to imdb, somewhere amidst the credits of All About Evil"the producers wish to thank HGL"— indeed, the first murder of this movie transpires during a screening of Blood Feast (1963) and not, as one might imagine by the title, at a screening of All About Eve (1950 / trailer).

Horror Honeyshas "The Story": "Deb Tennis (Natasha Lyonne of Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby [1999 / trailer], Die, Mommy, Die! [2003 / trailer] and Madhouse [2004 / trailer]) has grown up watching her father (Robin Calvert) run his beloved movie theater, The Victoria, all while maintaining the dream that she might one day become a star on the big screen. Instead, the introverted Deborah works in a library and spends her days living in fear of her evil stepmother (Julie Caitlin Brown). But when Deb's father dies, she quickly discovers there is only one way to get the old theater back on the map: with her very own special brand of short horror film that features the most convincing murders you'll ever see on screen. Because if there is one thing Deborah Tennis is good at, it's murder!"

Trailer to
All about Evil:

In general, the film has been well received, but over at Daily Film Dose, some guy named Greg Klymkiw was not amused and says, "There are some movies you want to love — especially if you're a lover of movies, and most notably, a lover of genre movies. However, it ultimately matters very little how well-intentioned, how securely the movie's heart is in the right place, how much its filmmaker shares your love for all the same things, the bottom line is always a heartbreaker — if the movie stinks, the movie stinks, and there's not too much else to be said. All About Evil is such a picture."

Herschell Gordon Lewis: The Godfather of Gore

(2010, dirs. Frank Henenlotter & Jimmy Maslon)

HGL gets a whole documentary all to himself! Directed, for Something Weird, by the filmmaker extraordinary Frank Henenlotter, the warped talent that has brought us Basket Case(1982 / trailer), Brain Damage (1988 / trailer), Frankenhooker (1990 / trailer) and Bad Biology (2008 / trailer), among other movies. For his first documentary project, Henenlotter was assisted by the less-renown Jimmy Maslon, the producer or co-producer of such fun stuff as Jackie Kong's Lewis-inspired  Blood Diner (1987 / trailer), her comedy The Under Achievers (1987 / full movie), H.G. Lewis's Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat(2002 / trailer) and the remake of The Wizard of Gore (2007 / trailer).

Cagey Filmssays, "Frank Henenlotter and Jimmy Maslon's Herschell Gordon Lewis: The Godfather of Gore (2010) is an entertaining survey of the career of the man who introduced graphic mayhem to American film back in the early 1960s. Lewis, who really didn't have much talent as a filmmaker (there's more art in Ed Wood's work), began by making 'nudie cuties' […]; with that market saturated, he looked for a new niche and came up with the idea of spilling blood and guts on screen. […] Lewis turns out to be a cheerful and amiable guy […]. And he's obviously held in affection by the people who worked with him back in the day —actors, producers, technicians — as well as admirers like John Waters."

Trailer:

Under the Scares

(2010, dir. Steve Villeneuve)

Under the Scares can be procured over the film's website. This documentary, written by Villeneuve and William Dio, was even nominated for a Rondo; it is the first of a planned series of three — a series that seems to have stalled, as the remaining two have yet to see the light of day. 

H.G. Lewis is one of the talking heads, alongside other people of varying levels of note including George A. Romero (Nightof the Living Dead[1968]), Maurice Devereaux (End of the Line [2007 / trailer] & Slashers [2001 / trailer]), Frank Henenlotter, Lloyd Kaufman (aka Troma Films), Robert Kurtzman (Wishmaster[1997]), Debbie Rochon (Nikos the Impaler[2003 / trailer]), Brinke Stevens (Necromancy[1972]), Trent Haaga and more.

Trailer 1:

As Horror Newsexplains, "The movie discusses the trials and tribulations of making your own film and offers tips on how to get your movie distributed."

Trailer 2:

American Grindhouse

(2010, dir. Elijah Drenner)

Directed by Drenner and written by Drenner and Calum Waddell actually translates into "edited together by": both Drenner and Waddell are productive progenitors of short documentary fillers for DVDs. This feature-length doc is the first of two "feature" docs that Elijah Drenner has made to date, the second being That Guy Dick Miller (2014 / trailer); Calum Waddell has also done dozens of DVD fillers — almost all within the sphere of low culture films of the kind we like. Between the two, enough experience to guarantee a watchable documentary — with HGL present as one of the many talking heads.

Trailer to
American Grindhouse:

TCMkeeps their film description short: "[American Grindhouse] explores the hidden history of the American exploitation film. Despite being an often overlooked genre, exploitation cinema has left an indelible mark on American culture. Here, the shameless and occasionally shocking origins of the genre are revealed as well as its principles and popularity that endure to this day."

DVD Talkadds, "American Grindhouse contains such a wealth of footage and eager interviewees, it's easy to get wrapped up in the excitement of recollection and scholarly dissection, exploring a colorful history of film and motion picture distribution. Drenner assembles an amusing and revelatory documentary, piecing together a line of cinematic influence that every movie fan should take the time to admire. Grindhouse itself goes beyond the monstrous and titillating, revealed to be a vital foundation of moviemaking, carrying a profound influence that deserves the affectionate spotlight this documentary provides."

Narrated by Robert Forster — of many great (i.e., Alligator[1980]) and bad (i.e., Uncle Sam[1996]) and overlooked movies (Outside Ozona [1998 / trailer]) — American Grindhouse is actually best watched on DVD, for all the "extras" ("Outtakes", "Extended Interviews", "Deleted Interviews", "From the Vaults", "The Amazing Colossal Trailer Collection!", "Old Photos You Actually Want to Look At!", etc.) are like icing on the cake.

More to come — eventually.

Organ (Japan, 1996)

May 10, 2017, 6:58 am

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Thank our non-existent god for Wikipedia. If you really don't know what the fuck the film you just saw was about, Wikipedia is normally there to tell you at least the basics. So, after we finished screening our murky DVD of this obscure Japanese "biopunk classic", off to the computer we went to find out that Organ (more or less) tells the tale of "Two undercover detectives, Numata and Tosaka, [who] infiltrate a plastic-covered den where they discover a gang of organ thieves led by the teacher Saeki and his one-eyed sister Yoko (Kei Fujiwara), who are cutting open a victim who is still alive. After a gun battle ensues, Tosaka is captured and Numata escapes. Saeki works at a girls' school where he offers private lessons to teens whom he later harvests for organs. We learn later that Saeki's mother bit off his genitals when he was young and, like his victims, Saeki is now rotting away."

Wow. Sounds intriguing. But it isn't.

Why? Well, assuming that it wasn't the DVD transfer that sucked — after all, it came with a slipcase and "Four Collector's Cards" so it wasn't bootleg or illegal — then the cinematography sure did: often, it was so murky it was like watching a film through a very dirty car windshield on foggy night. And then the acting: when it wasn't stiff, it was silent-film level. Particularly the guy who played Numata would often glare into the camera and pull faces — whether of terror or of constipation we know not, nor for what reason. Indeed, often one is left with the feeling that he was simply following the off-camera orders of someone who decided that something, anything, had to happen at that moment, reason be damned. (That, we imagine, would be director Kei Fujiwara, who does a half-way decent if one-dimensional and occasionally beady-eyed job as the one-eyed villainess Yoko and who, seven years before Organ, directed the indefinitely better B&W sci-fi horror classic Tetsuo: The Iron Man [1989 / trailer below].)

Other problems with Organ are that it truly has too many storylines and too many characters. If the basic thread is that of a policeman searching for his partner, that narrative gets lost often within the tale of the brother and sister — or rather, "tales", as their past is also revealed — and tangents involving corrupt cops, disharmonious family life (do the Japanese really just piss on newspaper in their apartments?), the school situation of the organ-harvesting bio-teacher brother who has a penchant for killing the girls he has sex with (considering his mother bit off his dick as a kid, one wonders how he fucks), a poorly identified twin brother (of the missing cop, who spends most of the time armless and legless and half bio-mass in a box), the various bio-infections and skin conditions suffered by this and that person, and the organ-dealing yakuza. Perhaps if one were to watch the movie two or three times, the various plot lines would tie together in a bow of sorts, however loosely, but the movie is hardly interesting enough to watch once, let alone multiple times.

Like Tetsuo, Organ is more art film than anything else, but whereas Tetsuo has an energy and drive and visual and technical creativity that engages the viewer, Organ lacks everything but for an occasional shocking idea and some bizarre imagery. Suspense is non-existence, as is any form of character identification. As a viewer, you can do little but let the movie wash over you, but even then there is a good chance that the dirge might put you to sleep. (Of the group of five that watched this movie when we did, Organ did exactly that with two of us.) And by dirge, we mean the movie: the music of the music is actually pretty good.

One could, were one feeling forgiving, say that the movie is ever-so-slightly reminiscent of a David Lynch film, but one would also have to add "on a very bad day." There is an obvious penchant for the perverse and the unnerving interlaced throughout Organ, only its presentation is extremely poor and uninvolving. For all its cheap attempts to shock and awe, little remains remembered a few hours later. Organ is, so to speak, an exceedingly unmemorable for a movie that so obviously wants to stick in your mind.

"Biopunk", maybe; "classic", definitely not.

Trailer to a Real Classic —

Tetsuo: The Iron Man:

Nemesis (USA, 1992)

May 18, 2017, 9:21 am

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OK, we admit it: we have a weak spot for Albert Pyun movies ever since we caught his directorial debut, The Sword and the Sorcerer (1982 / trailer), in a double feature with Beim Jodeln juckt die Lederhose (1974 / full movie), complete with Spanish subtitles, at some long-gone grindhouse down the street from Langer's Delion Alvarado. Then and there we knew that we had found a contemporary B-movie master, a director with enough talent to both write an entertainingly trashy script and direct with enough visual flair that the obvious low budget becomes only an added cheesy seasoning. (It also didn't hurt that the move featured both Richard Lynch[12 Feb 1940 – 19 June 2012] and the once-hunkadelic George Maharis, seen below not from the movie, two of our favorite "unknown" actors.)

 

Since then, we've seen a number of Pyun's movies, and while they might feature less breast and fewer cult names and has-beens than, say, Fred Olen Ray, they are indubitably far better directed and way more entertaining, even when the script is as equally lax, acting just as shoddy, and the budget almost as low. (Dollman [1991 / trailer], anyone?)

For a while, Pyun was an extremely active man, churning out as many as five films in one year — in 1992, however, he only released two features: the less-than-commendable experiment, Deceit (final scene), and Nemesis, which has proven to be one of his most enduringly popular and well-received films. Easy to see why, for this flick is definitely one craptastically entertaining cyberpunk flick, even if it does lose its theme somewhere amidst all the action.

Taking a sizable amount of Blade Runner (1982 / trailer) and a liberal dose of Terminator (1984 / trailer), Nemesis is a good ol' fashioned man versus machine action flick set in a dystopian future, one where most of the landscape is either lush or burnt and everyone — including little old grannies — has a gun. Now and then Nemesis poses existential questions about what makes a human "human" and when is one just a machine, but while this theme does raise its hand every so often to let the viewer know it's still there, for the most part this and other themes generally get lost in what is probably some of the most non-stop action ever found in a movie not made in Hong Kong.

OK, we'll admit that our DVD was pretty fucked: hazy and boxed, it looked as if it were copied from some ten-year-old VHS, but even the low-grade quality couldn't take the edge off of some truly great action sequences, explosions, and shootouts — the last all the more ballistic since, in the future that is that of Nemesis, weapons never have to be reloaded and one has to shoot a hundred rounds to hit anything further away than two yards.

Though set somewhere in 2027 — ten years hence, by now — everyone wears 1990s high style. And you know what? It doesn't really look all that bad anymore, especially on the babes: no way would we tell Rosaria (Jennifer Gatti) not to sit at our table, much less would we shoot her dead, even if she did insist that we were nothing but an android. (Women have said worse to us.)

True, she did try to kill our intrepid hero earlier in the movie, but hell: he'd just wiped out her entire team. But at that point in the tale, Alex (the beefcakey Olivier Gruner, of Soft Target aka Crooked[2006]) was a cop on the job and 86.5% human, fully convinced he was doing good for mankind. Only later, after he becomes even less human and suffers an intense case of burnout, does he begin to question his life and work — at which point his old boss Commissioner Farnsworth (the eternally underrated character actor Tim Thomerson, of Fade to Black [1980 / trailer], Cherry 2000 [1987 / trailer], and way, way more) — implants a bomb on his heart and forces him to find his former android handler and lover, Jared (Marjorie Monaghan), who seems to have joined the underground.

In all truth, for all the talk about how "Alex is the best", he sure seems to get shot a lot, and with so many bad guys always so close on his tail and hidden around every corner, it seems odd that anyone would need him to find anyone. But the plethora of non-characters — familiar faces that come and go in the movie include genre faves Brion James and Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa — does allow for a lot of chase scenes, shootouts, stunts, and deaths.

One dispensable non-character who shows up for all of five minutes is Billy, played by a young "Tom Janes" (aka Thomas "Hung" Jane), whom we never see dressed and who spends most of the time displaying his pre-Nautilus butt to the viewer. He disappointed us greatly by not asking, unlike Dolly Sharp aka Helen Woodin a somewhat similar situation in an earlier, more-famous movie, "Do you mind if I smoke while you're eating?"

Needless to say, Jared went rouge because though an android, she found something human within herself. But even as she found her humanity, she lost her form — it is more her "presence", her "soul" you might say, that ends up helping Alex rediscover his humanity, even as her presence raises yet another existential question: to what extent are we ourselves simply due to our memories, and if they are copied, is that copy us? (A question handled with far greater intelligence and restraint in the excellent German sci-fi flick Transfer [2010 / German trailer].)

Nemesis suffers somewhat from its elliptical plot development, which tends to jump about like a frog on a hotplate, and the plethoria characters that come and go. For that, it has hot babes, great locations, and yitloads of well-staged, over-the-top action and explosions, if perhaps one too many chase scenes and shootouts that last too long. Gruner only kicks butt about once or twice — not much for a guy known for kickboxing — but for that he shoots up half the world, which also shoots back. How he ever manages to keep his face and chest as cleanly shaven as he does is beyond us, for he never seems to have a moment's peace anywhere in the movie. Former TV sex symbol Deborah Shelton (of Blood Tide[1982 / trailer]) shows up for a short time as the android Julian to drive the plot forward before going down in a hail of bullets; she has a nude scene and, interestingly enough, her obvious breast implants even serve to emphasize her character, as she plays an artificial human, if one that (like Jared) has discovered her humanity.

Towards the end of Nemesis, director/scriptwriter Pyun* seems to become indecisive about resolution of the flick, for he sticks in a few too many false ones. Nevertheless, Nemesis is great B-movie fodder which, as good B-movie fodder should, goes well with a six pack and chips.

Filmed with alternative endings, the Nemesis we saw infers that the battle against the cybernetic world Alex is now undertaking is still open; another ending, which is tacked on the versions lacking the final Terminator-inspired fight in an airplane cargo hold, infers that Alex won't live long after the final credits. Regardless of the ending seen, the "official" sequels that followed — Nemesis 2: Nebula (1995 / trailer), Nemesis III: Prey Harder (1996 / trailer) and Nemesis 4: Death Angel (1997 / trailer) — occur in a timeline in which Alex (and humans) loses the battle.

Pyun (and another director, Michael Schroeder) also explored the world of Nemisis in other "semi"-sequels, namely: Knights aka Cyborg Warriors (1993 / trailer) and Omega Doom (1996 / trailer), not to mention in the alternative cyborg world of Cyborg (1989 / trailer), Cyborg 2 (1993 / trailer), Cyborg 3 (1994 / trailer) and the yet-to-be-released Cyborg Nemesis: The Dark Rift (20?? / trailer).

*"Rebecca Charles", the credited screenwriter, is merely a pseudonym.

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Short Film: Red Nightmare (USA, 1962)

May 24, 2017, 1:38 pm

≫ Next: Herschell Gordon Lewis – Godfather Of Gore, Part IX: 2010-16 + Addendum

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Original entitled Freedom and You, Red Nightmare is vintage US propaganda ala the Twilight Zone— only instead of Rod Serling, you get Jack Webb.

Made for the US government by Warner Bros, Red Nightmare stars a then-cast of TV Who's Who (most now unknown to the average millennial) and was directed by George Waggner (7 Sept 1894 – 11 Dec 1984), an early actor (his film debut was alongside some guy named Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik [1921 / full film]) who ended his years as a TV director; somewhere in between, he also directed such movies as Man Made Monster (1941 / trailer / full movie), Horror Island (1941 / trailer/ full film), the classic The Wolf Man (1941 / trailer) and, The Climax (1944 / trailer), a Karloff film featuring Turhan Bey.

The plot, as given by Through the ShatteredLens:  "Jerry Donavon (Jack Kelly of Cult of the Cobra [1955 / trailer], Forbidden Planet [1956 / trailer], She Devil [1957 / full film]) and The Human Tornado [1976 / trailer) takes his freedom for granted.  So, Jack Webb shows up and casts a magic spell, which causes Jerry to have a dream about what it would be like to live in a communist society.  In fact, you could even say that Jack Webb gives Jerry a red nightmare! [...] A histrionic but sincere time capsule of what was going on in the psyche of 1962 America."

Scriptwriter Vincent Fotre (14 Feb 1901 – 20 Dec 1975), who had previously conscripted the classic non-classic Missile to the Moon (1958 / trailer), went on to write to the stories cult favs Baron Blood (1972 / trailer) and Night of the Witches (1970 / trailer).

Red Nightmare:

One can't help but wonder what the Russian-fearing conservatives of yesterday would think about having a Conservative president helped into the White House by Russia. (They'd probably tweet "Sad!"— or maybe, like our Dad, leave the Republican Party after over 60 years.)

For your reading pleasure —

not from the movie:

Herschell Gordon Lewis – Godfather Of Gore, Part IX: 2010-16 + Addendum

June 5, 2017, 2:12 am

≫ Next: Riding the Bullet (USA, 2004)

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15 June 1926 - 26 September 2016 

"He seen somethin' different. And he done it."

A seminal force in the world of trash filmmaking, he is considered the inventor of the modern gore film. (In theory, a position he holds with David F. Friedman, but when the partnership ended Friedman's true interest proved to be sexploitation.) To use his own, favorite words: "I've often compared Blood Feast (1963) to a Walt Whitman poem; it's no good, but it was the first of its kind." And a truly fun gore film, too — which makes it "good" in our view.

Unlike Blood Feast and his "better movies", many of the projects he worked on are unbearable cinematic experiences; but more than enough of the others are sublime, otherworldly, like the best of Ed Wood, Juan Piquer Simónor John Waters. Were it not for innovators like him, A Wasted Life probably wouldn't be.

One of the truly great has left the building.

The films below are not necessarily presented in the order they were made and/or released. 

Go here for Part I: 1953-60.

Go here for Part II: 1961-63.
Go here for Part III: 1964-66.
Go here for Part IV: 1967-68.

Go here for Part V: 1969-72.

Go here for Part VI: 1973-98.

Go here for Part VII: 2002-08.

Go here for Part VIII: 2009–10.

Tonight You Die

(2011, dir. Jim Roberts)

OK, numerous sites list HG Lewis as an "actor" in this super-obscure, low budget gore flick from Ohio filmmaker Jim Roberts who, according to Hellnotes, was (at the time of Nov 15, 2011) "an Electronic Media Production major at Kent State University". But nowhere online does Lewis make reference to this project, nor does he appear in the two trailers we found — but what the fuck, for the benefit of the doubt we'll list it here and supply the only plot description we found, and the only one used anywhere online. 

Trailer 1:

Way back in 2013, Independent Flickssaid, "[...] The sun rose on the campsite, shedding light on the hellish carnage. A young woman's lifeless body was slumped against a tree, slashed open. Her husband lies nearby, in a mutilated heap. The fire flickers, revealing the charred remains of their unborn child. Who would commit such an atrocity? The police are clueless, but someone knows the truth. Fueled by a savage lust for revenge and a brutal appetite for death, they set out to find the killer in a blood-drenched quest for retribution. [...] The acting is so and so, but Tonight You Die makes up with it by its fast and furious pacing, good camerawork and editing, a nice soundtrack and unrelenting violence. Oh boy, this is one violent little flick and most of the stuff is of the realistic nature, gun shots, stabbing, being beaten to a pulp and much much more.This is gloriously gory, some stuff does happen off-screen but there's a lot happening onscreen. The makeup fx ranges from decent to very good. There's no T and A in this.[...] It's a very entertaining, violent and bloody ride with a few twists thrown in for good measure. Highly recommended but it might be hard to locate a copy as it hasn't gotten widespread distribution yet." 

Trailer 2:

Odd that he ("Daydreamer" from Sweden) doesn't make reference to an appearance of the great HGL.

 Death by VHS

(2013, dirs. David Sabal, Jacob D. O'Neal,

and Scarlet Fry [aka Walter Ruether])

Another regional no-budget movie involving the Arizonian Scarlet Fry [aka Walter Ruether]), he who brought you Nightmare Alley(2010; see Part VIII), and friends. Originally entitled Scream Machine, it was renamed Death by VHS when released, not in any way trying to ride on the success of the better-known anthology movie V/H/S (2012 / trailer), which was quickly followed by S-VHS aka V/H/S 2 (2013 / trailer). HGL — and John Waters, actually — are among the many names given "Special Thanks" in the credits.

Horror News, which says the movie is "extremely bad from front to back", has the basic plot of the 5-story anthology movie, which reads as if taken from a press release: "A battered and mysterious VCR… A bevy of lethal videotapes… These are the building blocks of horror in Death by VHS. A mind-blowing descent into madness and death. Five shocking vignettes, designed to take your sanity and devour your soul! Mild curiosity leads to severe consequences when a couple rents a supposedly cursed video cassette recorder. An urban legend renowned for leaving a trail of agonizing and torturous death. Unbelieving, they take the plunge… And another legend is horrifyingly born… Do you dare give fate a winning hand, and test yourself against the hellish consequences of the VHS machine? Insert Cassette Press Play…DIE!"

(Re)search My Trash— which says the movie is "Good fun, really!"— has the plots to the individual segments: "Suburban She Freak: Mary's (Courtney Morgan) face is weirdly disfigured, so she has ordered a beauty potion — that unfortunately turns her into a vampire ... Kim: In a world overrun by zombies, a radio announcer details his experiences of becoming a zombie ... Christmas Krampus: Mom (Tara Carlton) and dad (Rosasio LaMontagne) want to give their son (Jared Leve Squee) away for adoption because he's retarded — but he's got a friend: Evil Santa (Tony Sabal)! Regenerate: Paralyzed Ginny (Ali de Morgoli) suffers from constant verbal and physical abuse by her husband Paul (Walter Ruether), so much so that her best friend Stacy (Katie MacDowell) gives her some untested medication to improve her situation. Before the medication takes effect though, Paul kills Ginny. But the medication does kick in after death and ... Lepus: A man in an Easter bunny costume (Brian Everet Smith) terrorizes the city — so the Sheriff (Tyler Gallant) dresses up as Jesus (and might be Him even) to fight him ..."

Trailer to

Death by VHS:

Slink

(2013, dir. Jared Masters)

HGL gets a "grateful acknowledgment"— amidst a list of illustrious names featuring the best of classic low culture. Including Harry H. Novak, which is why we looked at this flick in Part XV of his R.I.P. career review, where we pretty much wrote: "Aka Virgin Leathers. Jared Masters, the founder of Frolic Pictures, is a 'self-taught Beethoven' who 'was expelled his freshman year of high school for streaking' and now makes independent sleaze horror flicks. That he might give 'Grateful Acknowledgement' to Herschell Gordon Lewis in the credits of one of his numerous flicks is hardly surprising, as Lewis's movies are surely a stylistic and contentual influence of this Young Turk. [...] The plot, as taken from the Frolic Films website: 'After the unexplained death of their Uncle Arlo, Kayla Nunez (Danika Galindo) and her sister (Jacqueline Larsen) venture to his home in the rural town of Wickenhaven. They plan to claim their share of his estate, but their trip takes a drastic turn after discovering that their uncle's house is occupied by a mysterious relative, Aunt May (Julia Faye West), who may be harboring deadly secrets. Complicating matters is the deranged, lust-filled tanning salon owner, Dale (Art Roberts), and his exotic wife, Joan (Dawna Lee Heising), whose business in designer handbags is the backbone to the entire town's economy, and possibly the darkest fashion controversy the world will ever know.'

Trailer to

Slink:

Slink stars younger gals who look like wanna-be porn starlets, older gals who look like former porn starlets and/or plastic surgery addicts (in this regard, 'Joan', photo below, stands out in particular) and a variety of ugly men. The acting of Slink is postmodern bad, the sets cheap and the tale over the top — just our cup of tea, in other words.

But not that of Culture Crypt, which hates the flick, saying: 'Unquestionably, the single greatest drawback to reviewing low budget independent horror movies is that the job requires sitting through the entirety of something like Slink. [...] Gather up some friends and family with nothing better to do and use them to populate a cast and crew, no experience required. That is the starting point for Slink. From there, the filmmaking philosophy is simply to set each scene in a corner of a room haphazardly dressed to resemble something else and let the camera roll on whatever happens. [...] Any way it is sliced, Slink is a mess on all fronts. Performances are painfully embarrassing for everyone involved. Sets look like they were constructed for a high-school stage play. The music is out of place and thoroughly obnoxious. And the ending is one of the worst ever seen. [...]'

"The only complaint at Ain't It Cool News, however, is that the movie ends 'as if the camera ran out of film'. They go on to rave that '[...] though this one feels like it might have been done on the cheap, the idea behind it is strong and for the most part, Slink, though somewhat predictable, plays out pretty masterfully. [...] Basically this is one of those Motel Hell(1980 / trailer) type films where a down-home business makes its business off of the flesh of young women, but instead of Farmer Vincent's fritters, the youthful flesh is made into fashionable handbags, the likes of which Paris, Brittany, and Christina tote to the fashionable affairs [...]. Slink is a pretty tight little thriller with some nice twists along the way in terms of script. The film goes to some dark places [...]. I have to give the film credit for having a very corroded moral core and going to those dank places most horror films are afraid to go. The effects are pretty great and the directing itself does a really good job of maintaining its black tone throughout. [...] Though the evil tanning salon wenches are overly botoxed and siliconed, it fits the tone of the lifestyle the film is lampooning. This is a film about looks over everything else; a comment on the shallow lifestyle we live in, so the gratuitous nudity and NIP/TUCK (2003-10 / trailer) wet dream actresses serve more of a purpose than just window dressing.'

That's Sexploitation!

(2013, writ & dir Frank Henenlotter)

Trailer to

That's Sexploitation!:

Three years earlier, in 2010, Henenlotter made his first documentary, Herschell Gordon Lewis: The Godfather of Gore (see Part VIII). His follow-up documentary for Something Weird was this one, featuring HGL's former partner, "legendary schlockmeister David F. Friedmanin his final movie appearance", as host of a comprehensive historical review of sexploitation. 

How innocent it sometimes was —

Why Girls Walk Home (1929):

As DVD Drive-Inexplains it, "[...] Having obtained over five hours of interview material from a frail, ailing Friedman at his Alabama home in 2011 (it was the last time either Henenlotter or Vraney saw Friedman alive; the producer died just months later), Henenlotter set out to make a doc chronicling the seven-decade evolution and death of the American sexploitation movie, with Friedman's interview as the glue holding together selected cuts from Vraney's vast collection of stag reels, peep show loops, nudie cuties, roughies, sex hygiene movies, burlesque shorts, and white coaters. It took Henenlotter two years to choose material and edit it down for the 136 minute-long That's Sexploitation! (unfortunately, Vraney died unexpectedly before the doc was completed), where it received good notices on the festival and art house circuits in 2013."

The DVD includes three and a half hours of short from the Something Weird vaults. 

Something Weird's

First Video Opener:

Creative Loafing, which calls the obvious labor of love a "highly informative documentary", goes on to explain that "Henenlotter examines the phenomenon of nudies, stag films, burlesque shorts, sex-hygiene pictures and other sordid and sensationalized types of lusty cinema that existed well outside the Hollywood mainstream. Ample clips are shown (including some from such notorious works as Mom and Dad [1945 / full movie], Marihuana [1936 / full movie/ trailer] and The Immoral Mr. Teas [1959 / full movie]), and fascinating facts fly fast and furious. For instance, many of the theaters playing these controversial films offered separate showtimes for men and women; nickelodeons showing nudie reels were often tucked away in the back of otherwise reputable, all-ages arcades; and (according to Friedman) nudist films were popular in Germany during the 1930s since Hitler wanted to show off the supposedly superior physiques of his beloved Aryans. The early clips are often amusing (apparently, smoking pot can lead to such ghastly dangers as passionate kissing), while many from the drug-addled 60s prove to be experimental and bizarre in both form and content." 

Something Weird Video's

World-Famous Opener:

Terror Toons 3

(2015, dir. Joe Castro)

 

We were gonna start this with some obscure joke about how the only difference between Texas and the Chechen Republic is that when Texas gays disappear they go to California, but we'll sort of skip that and get straight to the movie, directed by Texas-born director Joe Castro (that's him below, the one without the wig), who co-wrote the script with his significant other, Steven J. Escobar.

Trailer to

Terror Toons 3:

Cultspeak, an interesting website that none of our computers like (it freezes on all four, or on XP, Windows 7 & 8), describes Joes Castro as "an independent filmmaker/special effects artist who has been working in the industry for over 20 years. His credits includes special effects work on films such as Night of the Demons 3 (1997 / trailer), William Lustig's Uncle Sam(1996 / trailer) and Herschell Gordon Lewis'Blood Feast 2(2002) [Not to mention L.A. Zombie (2010 / trailer), a movie high on our "To See" list.]. […] Terror Toons 3 […] the third installment in filmmaker Joe Castro's madcap gory trilogy. The first film in the series, Terror Toons (2002 / trailer), took the violent nature of classic Warner Bros. cartoons to their natural gory conclusion. The second, Terror Toons 2 (2007 / trailer), drew a lot of its inspiration from fairy tales. This latest installment combines both. The film begins with a segment picking up where Terror Toonsleft off, seeing the resurrection of murderous cartoon villains Dr. Carnage and Max Assassin. It then segues into an interconnected series of updated fairy tales narrated by none other than the Godfather of Gore himself, Herschell Gordon Lewis!"

In the interview found at Cultspeak, Castro talks about how he worked on Lewis's Blood Feast 2: "I think within 10 minutes after arriving on set after getting in from the airport, Herschell and I just hit it off. Somebody was supposed to be stuck with a knife and it was supposed to be protruding out of the skull. I said, 'How big of a knife sticking out of her?' He said, 'Well, what do we have?' I turned to him and said, 'Whatever you envision, that's what we have.' He then knew immediately that we were going to work well together."

And, indeed, Lewis spoke about his involvement in Terror Toons 3 over atRue Morgue, saying: "This is the ancient joke—when Joe Castro says 'Jump', my answer is 'How far?' I love this guy, I love his talent. He's one of the most underappreciated people in the splatter film world, and I'm very, very delighted to be involved in this thing with him. We worked out a situation in which he felt, and I do too, that my position in it would not be that negative of a factor [Laughs]. So, who can say no to that?"

Worldwide Celluloid Massacrerates the flick — as it does Parts 1& 2— "Of Some Interest", saying: "Castro pushes the pedal to the metal for this sequel, going as extremely over-the-top as possible into complete toon-mayhem as the evil toon dimension takes over this world. […] The effects are a combination of mostly very cheap digital effects, some practical effects, animation, puppets and insanity. Everything is distorted and their shape and size keep changing like in a cartoon, nothing obeys the laws of physics, everyone turns into mutated human-toon-monster hybrids, their bodies exploding and distorting in extreme splattery effects […], and all of this with a gleefully violent toon giggling humor. There is not much plot, and it is more about the various insane segments of splattery mayhem, anything-goes fantasy, and random violence, and, obviously, actors act over-the-top while the scenery chews them. Once again, terrible and entertaining at the same time." 

As for "Violent Toons",

We're fans of Happy Tree Friends:

Ballet of Blood

(2015, writ & dir Jared Masters)

Jared Masters, the 'self-taught Beethoven' behind Slink aka Virgin Leathers— see further above — offers another poorly received movie, the credits of which are awash with "In Memory Of's" and "Special Thanks"— the man simply knows and appreciates his influences. Ballet of Blood sounds like the Columbine Massacre by way of Suspiria (1977 / trailer), while the trailer has an oddly Jean Rollins appeal, but we admit that we haven't seen it — few people have.

(Re)search My Trash, one of the few who have, has the plot: "The reputation of a prestigious ballet school is at stake when one of the students, Nisa (Sydney Ray), storms in wielding a submachine gun and injuring the school's prima ballerina, Sylvie (Mindy Robinson) and thus pretty much ending her career, and on top of that making a getaway. But the school's owner Wren (Julia Faye West) and head teacher Delphine (Laura Amelia) do everything to keep the story under lock and key, which includes shipping Ria (Jessica Knopf), the girl who provided Nisa with the gun, away to a mental institution and working the other girls even harder. But of course, an attempted murder like this doesn't just go away like this just because you wish it to, as Nisa hides out nearby planning her next strike, and Ria escapes from the mental institution to reunite with Nisa, and Nisa sees the now heavily medicated Ria as her perfect tool. Among the students of the academy, only Maren (Marla Martinez), a wannabe writer, seems to have an idea what the girls are planning, as she knows what they have been through and writes a novel about it — but she's considered a nerd by the others, so basically her warnings fall on death ears ... but of course, the inevitable is going to happen eventually..." 

Trailer to

Ballet of Blood:

Scream Machine

(2015, dir. Scarlet Fry [aka Walter Ruether])

Another regional no-budget movie involving the Arizonian Scarlet Fry [aka Walter Ruether]), he who brought you Nightmare Alley (2010; see Part VIII) and Death by VHS (2013). In fact, Scream Machinewas the originally intended title for Death by VHS, and like Death by VHS, it's a horror anthology. HGL gets his almost standard-for-a-fry-movie "Special Thanks" in the credits.

Trailer to

Scream Machine:

Fry divides the few who have ever seen one his anthology films. Repulsive Reviewsis one of the nay-sayers: "It's obvious that writer/director/producer Scarlet Fry aka Walter Ruether III is a fan of all things horror and that can be an admirable trait in a filmmaker. However, his film Scream Machine is less of a love letter to genre greats and more of an insult."

Canticle Cinema House, on the other hand, is a yay-sayer: "Scream Machine is a great film that not only is funny but also disgusting. The plot is out there and while not original it gives it a unique spin. [...] Overall the acting was on point to make a rather funny movie. I love the 5 short films that are combined to create one long film because it allowed a more dynamic range of emotions, hilarity, and gore to be shown. The one thing I definitely enjoyed was the sound effects and the music. It added a flair of character to the film. If you get a chance to see this film do yourself a favor and watch it, you will die from laughing."

B.C. Butcher

(2016, dir. Kansas Bowling)

HGL's name is found amidst the long list of those deserving "Special Thanks". Filmed in Topanga, California, USA, and written by Ms. Bowling and Kenzie Givens, as far as we can tell B.C. Butcher is also Ms. Bowling's feature film directorial debut, though she appears to have a load of short-film and music-video credits.

Young filmmakers take note: "At only 17, Kansas directed, co-wrote, and funded her own feature film, entirely shot on 16mm, called B.C. Butcher." Yep, she made her first film at the same age most kids lose their virginity*— impressive. Special guest star: Kato Kaelin, a name no one remembers anymore, unless you're into celebrity true crime. 

* According to TeenVogue, who list as their source as SuperDrug Online Doctor, which used "heterosexualvaginal intercourse" as the definition of virginity loss, the average age of virginity loss for American men is 16.9 years old, and the average age for American women is 17.2 years old.

Trailer to

B.C. Butcher:

Over at Kinky Korner, after admitting that she "thought he [Kato Kaelin] was a super stud and used to rub it out to him during my formative teen years", her hotness Diana Prince (a.k.a. Kasey Poteet aka Kasey Kroft, pictured below) gives the film an honest but positive review: "What do you get when you mix elements of a slasher film, punk rock, Kato Kaelin and the stone age? You get B.C. Butcher, directed by Kansas Bowling [...]. 

"At its core, B.C. Butcher is a simple slasher film; A group of cavewoman, led by the boastful Neandra (Leilani Fideler), tie up, gut and then eat said guts of another cavewoman, all because Neandra suspects her man Rex (Kato Kaelin) is in love with the other woman, but it's actually the B.C. Butcher (hence the title)! Funny thing is, you get the sneaking suspicion that Rex is gay. After that, it's pretty formulaic, but it's in no way a cookie-cutter clone of some other film or boring. One by one the girl's fall victim to the monster (Dwayne 'Not the Rock' Johnson) as he disposes of them. The monster himself is just a buff dude in a mask, which is part of the cheesy, low budget fun, but the biggest shock and surprise was seeing Kato Kaelin show up in a primitive slasher movie from Troma. You all remember him from the O.J. Simpson trial, don't you? Holy shit, am I really that old? [...]" 

The Original Promo:

The B.C. Butcher (PROMO) from Kansas Bowling on Vimeo.

Blood Feast

(2016, dir. Marcel Walz)

Filmed in Paris, Miami, and Heidelberg, nice places one and all. Imagine that! Blood Feast (1963) gets an official — and serious — remake. Not all that unimaginable, actually, if you consider that 2000 Maniacs (1964) and Wizard of Gore (1970) have also already been remade. But in this remake, unlike the others, HGL "has a skyped-in cameo as Professor Lou Herschell".

Trailer to

Blood Feast:

Bloody Disgusting, like many websites, has what seems to be the press release synopsis: "Fuad Ramses (Robert Rusler) and his family have moved from the United States to France, where they run an American diner. Since business is not going too well, Fuad also works nightshifts in a museum of ancient Egyptian culture. During these long, lonely nights he becomes allured by goddess Ishtar (Sadie Katz) as she speaks to him in visions. Eventually he succumbs to her deadly charms. After this pivotal night, Fuad begins a new life, in which murder and cannibalism become his daily bread. As butchered bodies are heaped upon the Altar of Ishtar, Fuad slowly slips further into madness, until he is no more than the goddess's puppet…"

Regarding Fuad's situation,Severed Cinemastates, "I'd hate to see what kind of murderous visions he would have if he worked in a store selling dildos, maybe of the Egyptian variety?"

But is the new version any good? Dunno — but it seems to be dreadfully serious. As The Terror Timestates, "The tone of this remake and the original couldn't be any more different. [...] The original is a gory, late-night horror party viewing while this remake is played with dread and seriousness while mixing in commentary regarding those who struggle with mental illness and financial hardship."

Robert Rusler, by the way, played the obscure object of desire inNightmare on Elm Street II: Freddy's Revenge(1985), a film often discussed homosexual "subtext"; what we find odd is that for all the discussion on its subtext, no one ever brings up that the subtext is actually extremely anti-gay. (Still, Rusler made a damn fine obscure object of desire.) As for the Mrs. Ramses of the movie, she's played by Caroline Williams, who made her first film appearance somewhere (where?) in the rather entertaining satire Smile (1975 / trailer). More deserving of note is her lead role in the shamefully underappreciated satire The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986 / trailer), a truly funny black comedy. Lastly, the family daughter Louise Ramses is played by the "London-born Australian pop singer, actress and model" and former Playboy Playmate Sophie Monk(34C-24-35), above; she's a rarity among contemporary Playmates in that she is 100% all natural. She can also be found in two other earlier horror movies, The Hills Run Red (2009 / trailer) and Life Blood (2009 / trailer), the last of which we looked at briefly in our R.I.P. career review of Charles Napier.

They Came from the Swamp:
The Films of William Grefé

(2016, dir. Daniel Griffith)

"I don't know why anyone would make a 123-minute documentary about [William Grefe], but I am sure as hell glad someone did. The director of record is Daniel Griffith, who made a name for himself creating featurettes and small-scale documentaries as DVD extra features."

[Johnny LaRue's Crane Shot]

"A fascinating figure in the '60s and '70s drive-in scene often overlooked in favor of his peers, the Florida-based Bill Grefé managed to dip his toes in several trends with a high rate of financial success. Most video collectors know him now through the killer snake favorite Stanley (1972 / trailer) and the immortal Something Weird double bill of Sting of Death (1965 / scene) and Death Curse of Tartu (1966 / trailer), a pairing carried over from their original theatrical engagements. However, he also dabbled in biker films (The Wild Rebels [1967 / trailer]), drugsploitation (The Hooked Generation [1968], also out from SW), thrillers (the bizarro Rita Hayworth vehicle The Naked Zoo [1970 / trailer] and even crazier William Shatner film Impulse [1974 / fan-made "trailer"]), sharksploitation (Mako: The Jaws of Death [1976/ trailer]), and even an early stab at car racing thrills with Checkered Flag (1963 / full movie) and Racing Fever (1964 / trailer)." [Mondo Digital] 

Trailer to

They Came from the Swamp:

HGL was among the talking heads, as were David F. Friedman, Frank Henenlotter and Fred Olen Ray. both William Grefe and a variety of his actors and crew come to word, including Randy Grinter of Brad F. Grinter's classic disasterpiece Blood Freak (1972 / trailer), and American singer and former teen idol Steve Alaimo, who has the dubious honor of having "had nine singles to chart in the Billboard Hot 100 without once reaching the Top 40 in his career, the most by any artist".

Of the "name" actors that worked with Grefe — i.e., Jeremy Slate (who?), Alex Rocco (of Return to Horror High[1987]), Mickey Rooney, Richard Jaeckel (who?), Christopher George, Rita "Yes, I look like I am and I am suffering from Alzheimer's" Hayworth (!), and William Shatner — Shatner is the only one that comes to word, possibly because all the others were dead by the time this documentary was made. In theory, death should've also kept the forgotten character actor John Davis Chandler (28 Jan 1935 – 16 Feb 2010, of Mad Dog Coll[1961] and Moon of the Wolf[1972], among many films) from participating, but the filmmakers dug up a usable interview from 2008.

"Director Daniel Griffith of Ballyhoo Motion Pictures has given Grefé a long overdue retrospect of his career in They Came from the Swamp, not so much a documentary as a 126-minute love letter to Bill Grefé and his work. With interviews and footage, we revisit the glory days of exploitation and low budget films. In the case of Racing Fever (1964), Grefé purchased amateur footage of a fatal speedboat to use in the film, saving a fortunate in recreating such an accident as a stunt. [...] And then there's Impulse (1974), with William Shatner as a sociopathic, leisure-suit-wearing, gigolo who bilks women of their fortunes before killing them. The backstage stories are almost as legendary as the film, with stories like Shatner supposed hanging Harold Sakata, only to realize the stunt rig had failed and Sakata was actually strangling. Shatner grabbed Sakata and held him aloft until the crew realized they weren't improvising." [Hellnotes]

Killer Campout

(2016, dir. Brad Twigg)

Currently in post production, HGL died while the movie was still being made. From the Martinsburg, West Virginia, [independent] director of the mis-titled Milfs vs. Zombies (2015 / trailer) — which shudda bin titled "Moms vs. Zombies"— take a gander of the trailer to see what we mean. Or maybe they simply have a different concept of MILF in West Virginia.

West Virginia. Beautiful state. Drove through a few times. The 9th smallest state with the second-lowest average household income in the US, WV, the 7th most "highly religious" state in the United States, has some pretty good music. As odd as it might sound, WV actually broke away from Virginia — the state where we was born, which is almost as purty — during the civil war to join the Union. And Trump carried it, but enough trivia...

HGL supposedly supplied his voice for something, somewhere in Killer Campout. 

Trailer to

Killer Campout: 

The plot description found online at places like Arrow in the Headsays "Two youth counselors bring a group of emotionally troubled teens deep into the woods for a weekend of solitude and confrontational therapy. The trip turns deadly when the group is terrorized by a cannibalistic hermit with a thirst for blood."

Horror Societysays pretty much the same: "Two youth counselors take a group of troubled teens on a weekend camping trip deep in the forest. The trip turns deadly when the group cross paths with a cannibalistic Vietnam vet who is thirsty for blood." (Hmm; we thought "group" takes singular conjunction of the verb in American English.)

Two other familiar names are supposedly also active in the movie. John A. Russo, co-creator of the classic Night of theLiving Dead(1968), is there as "Burt", says the imdb. After Night, by the way, Russo went on to write and direct The Booby Hatch (1976 / trailer), Heartstopper (1989 / trailer) and Santa Claws (1996 / trailer), among other fun (?) stuff. More obscure is the Baltimorian George M. Stover, Jr., of Female Trouble (1974 / trailer), the masterpiece that is Desperate Living (1977), and The Galaxy Invader (1985 / trailer), among others. At least in the John Waters' films, he always looked his part. Now a retired man, he does a lot of independent films — all the power to you, dude!

All the power to Brad Twigg, too. 

Trailer to

John Water's Desperate Living:

Herschell Gordon Lewis' BloodMania

(2016, dir. Herschell Gordon Lewis,
Kevin Littlelight & Melanie Reinboldt)

"It is a perfect combination of satirical comedy and horror."

Herschell Gordon Lewis

Shot in Calgary, a long way away from Florida. The project HGL was working on when he died: an anthology movie of four episodes, two of which were directed by Lewis, and two of which were directed by Kevin Littlelight & Melanie Reinboldt. 

Trailer:

 

ADDENDUM

 

Doctor Gore

(1972, dir. J.G. Patterson Jr.)

Aka The Body Shop, filmed as Anitra, going by a clapboard seen in one shot. When re-released on video in the 1980s, the movie was given an added introduction by Herschell Gordon Lewis himself. (About which DVD Drive-Inis driven to say: "An alternate title sequence for Doctor Gore [...] includes an introduction by Herschell Gordon Lewis touting Patterson as 'The Master of Gore'. Yeah right. How much did they pay the real Master to say that?")

H.G. Lewis introduces the "lost" film,

Doctor Gore:

J.G. Patterson Jr. is a now forgotten but intriguing regional filmmaker / scriptwriter / film producer / occasional actor / special effects artist, and as such worked with HGL on four of Lewis's projects: Moonshine Mountain (1964), The Gruesome Twosome (1967), She-Devils on Wheels (1968) and How to Make a Doll (1968).

According to Brian Albright's book Regional Horror Films, 1958-1990: A State-by-State Guide with Interviews, Patterson Jr.'s full name was Junius Gustavious "Pat" Patterson, Jr., and he died of cancer in 1975. Elsewhere, we learned that he was the son of Alice Lumpkin and Junius Gustavas Patterson Sr, and that he was born on 11 January 1930 and died in the town of Salisbury, Rowan County, NC, on 30 June 1975. He's buried alongside his wife Juanita Shaw Patterson (1 May 1931 – 30 Sept 2009) at Lawing's Chapel Baptist Church Cemeteryin Maiden, NC, Catawba County.

Doctor Gore is one of Patterson's only two films that he (aside from writing, producing and acting in) directed, the other being The Electric Chair (1976 / trailer), though he supposedly also did assistant directorial chores on Donn Davison's obscure (and obviously lost) movie, Obscenity, Obscenity(1970).

The "music" to Doctor Gore was supplied by the legendary William Girdler (22 Oct 1947 – 21 Jan 1978). At the William Girdler website, they say: "Doctor Gore makes Bill Girdler's cheapest pictures (think Three on a Meathook [1973 / trailer] or Asylum of Satan [1972 / trailer]) look like high art. [...] On the surface, Doctor Gore might seem like a campy good time, what with its 'clear day for stormy night' shots and not-so-special effects that include tinfoil and duct tape. Let me make it perfectly clear: Doctor Goreis NOT a campy good time. Unless you're the type who thinks colon cancer screening is a hoot and a half. [...] To be blunt, this film is pure rot. [...] Originally titled The Body Shop, [...] The Body Shop is said to have enjoyed a limited release in North Carolina (where it was filmed) circa 1974. [...] Friends of Pat remember him fondly as a multi-talented, warm-hearted man who was often hornswaggled by fast-talking film folks. In his day, he was best known for his ability to produce highly effective gore effects for very little money or recognition." 

The Movie's Signature C&W Song,

Bill Hicks and the Rainbows'

A Heart Dies Every Minute:

Balladeer's Blog, on the other hand, seems to appreciate the movie a bit more, claiming that Doctor Gore / The Body Shop is a "Category: A neglected bad movie classic that deserves a Plan 9-sized cult following."

Classic Horrorhas the plot: "Dr. Brandon (Patterson, under his pseudonym of 'Don Brandon, America's No. 1 Magician') mourns the death of his wife, but then reminds himself that he's a mad scientist and he can just resurrect her. Whether he's actually using her body to do it is unclear, but he does try to bring some female to life using his patented Jiffy Pop Method of securing the body under tin foil with duct tape and then switching on the electrical whirligigs. He leaves the microwaves on too long, though, and the body just burns. Oh, well. Hunchbacked assistant Gregory (Roy Mehaffey) just drops the failure in the requisite vat of acid. Brandon begins anew, taking the best parts from different, fresher specimens. Oh boy..."

He finally succeeds and creates Anitra (Jenny Driggers, who went on to appear in Jim Cinque's Night of the Cat [1973 / funky soundtrack]). 

The Original Trailer to

Dr. Gore:

Blood Diner

(1987, dir. Jackie Kong)

Considering we saw this film years ago, we are amazed that we didn't immediately link this prime slice of mid-80s exploiter to HGL's Blood Feast (1963). But then a light went on when we read the following in a talk transcribed at Cinema Knife Fight: "I thought it [Blood Feast II(2002)] was a fun enough sequel, packed with plenty of classic Lewis-splatter and goofiness, although I thought Jackie Kong's unofficial 1987 sequel, Blood Diner, was a much better film." 

Later we read somewhere that Blood Dineractually began as a sequel, but was changed when agreements could not be reached between the original makers and the new ones; other sites, on the other hand, simply claim the film is simply an homage or "inspired by"— who cares, the link is obviously there when you watch the movie.

"We interrupt this program to give you an important news bulletin: A suspect in the Happy Times All-Girls Glee Club slaying has fled the scene and managed to elude the police. He is armed and dangerous, and has been spotted in the West Side area, armed with a meat cleaver in one hand and his genitals in the other."

Radio News Broadcaster 

366 Movieshas the plot: "At the direction of their uncle Anwar (Drew Godderis), a talking brain in a jar, two restaurateur brothers [Michael (Rick Burks, 27 July 1960 – 19 Feb 1989) and George Tutman (Carl Crew of The Secret Life: Jeffrey Dahmer [1993 / full film])] assemble a vessel composed of body parts harvested from immoral women to receive the spirit of the ancient Egyptian goddess Sheetar (Tanya Papanicolas). They are opposed by a pair of mismatched cops (LaNette LaFrance and Roger Dauer) and the owner of a rival vegetarian restaurant intent on stealing their secret recipe.  After many bloody murders, they must complete only the last ritual, a 'Lumerian feast' where Sheetar will take the life of a virgin, along with the attendees at the banquet." 

Trailer to

Blood Diner:

The Worldwide Celluloid Massacrerates Blood Diner"Of Some Interest", claiming it's "Dumb splatter fun wrapped in one of the happiest gore movies ever made."

TV Guide, on the other hand, gives it one star and bemoans, "Although directed by a woman, Blood Diner's consciousness is no more heightened than that of I Spit on Your Grave (1978 / trailer) or Maniac (1980 / trailer). [...] Moreover, director Kong injects the sort of contempt for the original material that ruins most horror satires. There's nothing the least bit redeeming about Blood Diner."

We have to admit that when caught the flick, aside from the '80s LA and the gore and the humor, we really dug all the '80s fashion and found the untrimmed bush, well, extremely noticeable if nothing else. We would watch it again, in any event (the film, we mean).

Director Jackie Kong's other movies include the odd but aggravating bad horror movie The Being (1983 / trailer) and two unmemorable comedies, Night Patrol (1984 / trailer) and The Underachievers (1987 / full movie). Since then, she's not really done anything in the film biz and has reached a level where a fact like "Her mother Anita was a friend of Marlon Brando" is considered noteworthy enough to be added to her imdb Trivia page. Her bio page there seems to be all wrong, and she might currently be a real estate agent.

Blood Diner was written by Michael Sonye, better known as Dukey Flyswatter, who has appeared in an occasional movie, ranging from Surf Nazis Must Die (1987 / trailer) to Bettie Page: Dark Angel (2004 / trailer); he was also a supposed co-scribe of the unbelievably incompetent slice of entertaining shit that isFrozen Scream(1975 / trailer) and did music for the simply crappy indi-horror, The Dead Hate the Living(2000 / trailer).

Blood Diner (unlike Jackie Kong's other three films), was not produced by her then-husband, Bill Osco, better known as the producer of the "first" modern feature porno movie with a plot Mona: The Virgin Nymph (1970), the classic soft-core comedy Flesh Gordon (1974 / trailer), the entertaining and odd Alice in Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical Fantasy (1976 / trailer), and more. Instead, Jimmy Maslon was the man. He later also produced Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat (2002), among other stuff, and co-directed Herschell Gordon Lewis: The Godfather of Gore (2010).

Herschell Gordon Lewis

May He R.I.P. —

and His Films Last Forever.

Riding the Bullet (USA, 2004)

June 12, 2017, 7:16 am

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Some years ago, in 2009, we watched another of Mick Garris's Stephen King adaptations, the miscarriage entitled Sleepwalkers(1992 / trailer), and were moved to scream, among other things, "Director Mick Garris has since made a career out of making bad Stephan King television mini-series, including The Stand (1994 / trailer) and The Shining (1997 / trailer), which is a good reason to shoot him. Until that happens, however, one is advised to avoid this embarrassing piece of shit."

Today, older, wiser, mellower, were we to write that review today it is doubtful that we would be so Gamergateevil in our screed against the director; and perhaps we would even now appreciate Sleepwalkers for what it truly is — a bad film — but we feel little desire to do the necessary re-watch of Sleepwalkers to find out if the latter is true. (So many other bad films out there to see, and so little time.)

Riding the Bullet is of a slightly different caliber than Sleepwalker. In the end, it is also a failure, but at least it is an intriguing failure, and is much more a failure of note than simply a bad movie. But then, perhaps its source material — Stephan King's novella of the same name — is simply unfilmable.* In any event, if the novella is anything like the movie, then it is very much a message book — decipher it yourself: "Nothing seems to last. But the bullet. The bullet is constant. The bullet is always there. You wait in line, that's all. And when it's your turn to ride the bullet, maybe you ride, maybe you run. Either way it comes to the same thing. Fun is fun. And done is done. Nobody lives forever, but we all shine on."** 

*We admit to never having read the book. We no longer read King novels. We admit trying to, again, last year, Rose Madder, but while we did make it through the book we decided we like badly made, crappy movies more than well-written, bad books. Life is too short for the latter. Fun is fun. And done is done.

**We admit to believing more in the direction of all we are is dust in the wind.

Riding the Bullet is a film one wants to like, but can't in the end. Well-shot and well-paced, its most interesting feature — the narrative flip-flopping between reality and the imagined — also causes it to fail.

The credit sequence, while not the most interesting feature, is great: true, the idea of homemovies to provide needed past knowledge might not be new, but it generally works, as it does here, and supplies a wonderfully encapsulated presentation of the past that has made the main character who he is, while also revealing the personality of his mother (the always excellent Barbara Hershey). Also, elsewhere in the movie Mick Garris uses an occasional flourish of the camera that is surprisingly eye-catching and creative — our favorite being the traveling camera that flows over one open coffin and gravestone after the other before getting to the money shot. We also found the opening yawn hilarious: it truly catches just how dull nudity normally is in art school drawing classes. (Anyone recognize the teacher as the doomed, loving Dad in Zack Snyder's excellent remake, Dawn of the Dead [2004 / trailer]?)

Set in 1969, the basic plot of Riding the Bullet revolves around a somewhat whiny art student with an extremely active fantasy named Alan Parker (an oddly unlikable Jonathan Jackson of Venom[2005 / trailer]) hitchhiking his way home on Halloween night to see his mother, who's in the hospital from a heart attack. The baggage he has on his shoulders, other than a small backpack, is that his girlfriend Jessica (of The Tortured [2010 / trailer]) has broken up with him and that he has a recent, failed suicide attempt behind him. (A great scene involving a visit from Death, whose look is modeled after The Seventh Seal [1957 / trailer] but with acne, and some extra goading by female wall murals. The latter could be probably be interpreted on a Freudian level, considering Alan's attitude towards the women in his life.)

It is Alan's active imagination that drives most of the movie. Initially introduced in a quick scene in which Alan berates Alan, Alan's visions soon become extremely corporal and long. Usually one can quickly catch on that a transpiring scene is a fantasy, but sometimes the fantasy segues into reality while, elsewhere, the viewer doesn't know what is real and what is imagined until well after the given scene has transpired. This, combined with the various (we assume) real "adventures" he has along the way — a ride with an incontinent and half-demented farmer (Cliff Robertson of The 13^thChild [2002 / trailer] and Dominique [1979 / trailer]), a car accident in a VW bus driven by a pseudo-hippy, a possibly rabid dog, other people's car accidents, and kill-happy rednecks among other things — results in a disquieting road trip of hellish proportions. 

And therein lies the problem with the movie. By the time Alan hooks up the ghost-driver George Straub (David Arquette of Wes Craven's Scream [1996 / trailer] + ad nauseam, Bone Tomahawk(2015 / trailer), Eight-Legged Freaks (2002 / trailer), Ravenous(1999 / trailer), Grey Night / Ghost Brigade (1993 / trailer) and President Evil [2006 / trailer]), he has experienced so much horror that his whole ride with George, including the titular riding-The-Bullet interlude, is rather anticlimactic and ineffective. The jokey film-in-a-film explanation of George's death is actually far more suspenseful and blackly funny than any of the interaction between George and Alan.

Likewise, the subsequent stuff at the hospital after Alan has made his unlucky choice, has its stabs of effective black humor (again due to Alan's active imagination), but is neither very scary nor particularly heart-rendering. Worse, the whole epilogue bit in which Alan goes on to become a Mamma's Boy times ten, is as gag-worthy as it is unrealistic. (Like, why would Ghostly George, an obvious asshole, suddenly be a nice guy and give the two a few more years together?) By its structure — it is used to hammer the movie's core theme over the viewer's head — the epilogue sequence seems probably to have been taken from the source novel, for it strongly echoes Stephan King's inability to know when to end his tale.

So there you have it. The first two-thirds of Riding the Bullet maintains a certain level of unease and originality due to its intermingling of fantasy and reality and occasional visual flare, but in the minute the movie reaches its titular highlight it quickly loses its steam and peters out into toothlessness.

Blade (1998, USA)

June 18, 2017, 11:07 pm

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(Spoilers.) Back in the 1970s, when the comic companies realized that it might be a good idea to create a few Afro-American heroes, Marv Wolfman and Gene Colon (1 Sept 1926 – 23 June 2011) created the supporting character of Blade, the Vampire Killer, for the then-popular Marvel comic book The Tomb of Dracula.(His debut was in issue #10, July 1973, a year and a month after the first Afro-American superhero to have his own comic book, Luke Cage, debuted in Luke Cage, Hero for Hire).

The Tomb of Dracula,ostentatiously a comic about the great Count doing evil in the world of today, was actually almost as much about the numerous people out to make the Count a shish kebab as it was about him and his nefarious activities. Blade was the first of the comic's characters that fit more into the mold of "superhero" in that he was more than just a Joe Schmoe human. (Possibly thinking that it would be a good move to go even more into the superhero direction, Colan & Wolfman later introduced a real superhero, the Count's very own son, Janus, and the comic folded soon thereafter – or at least, we stopped buying it back then; maybe it lasted longer. We were never really a fan of Gene Colan's art,* and the Count's son broke the series for us.)

*About the only artist we liked less than Colan was Afredo  Alcala, and even as a we child we knew that Kamandiwas doomed to being cancelled when he was given the art chores for publication.

Blade's powers and motivation lay in his origin, which director Stephen Norrington & scriptwriter David S. Goyer present in the pre-credit sequence of his movie: Blade's mother is bitten just prior to his birth, he survives due to caesarian section. (Wonder who his wet nurse was.) As a half-human and half-vampire, he is forever driven by a thirst for... Revenge (and forever fighting his "bloodlust," of course). His main power was that he could throw a mean wooden knife and had to walk at night. For the movie, needless, to say, his powers (and bloodlust) have been amped considerably. Despite, or pehaps thanks to, such changes, in terms of comic book movie adaptations, Norrington & Goyer's Blade is up there amongst the best ones made prior to Marvel hitting stride with its contemporary Marvel Universe series.When released, Blade was a noticeably successful updating, if not improvement, of the original character, not least because they filmmakers, not bound by the castrating ball and chain of the Comic Code, wisely went for an R-rating. The movie was also, arguably, the first Marvel film that really didn't look cheap shit.

Dumping the gothic overtone of most vampire flicks, Norrington and scriptwriter David S. Goyer cobbled together a fun, gutsy hormone-driven revenge flick that is equal parts Terminator (1984 / trailer) — or any other film in which the main character keeps coming and coming and coming — and monster film, heavy on computer-generated effects (only slightly more successful but much, much more excessive than those found in Anaconda[1997 / trailer]). Far more an action movie than horror flick, the filmmakers also updated Blade's costume, dumping his old, brown coat and green combat jeans in favor of modern, black, bullet-proof S&M gear, and give him almost superhuman powers (in the comics, as mentioned, he basically threw well-aimed wooden daggers). Respectful to the tradition of Blaxploitation, the movie also owes equal debt to Hong Kong martial arts & bullet ballets. True, none of the fight ballets in Blade ever reach the excessive grace of such films as Peking Opera Blues (1986 / trailer), Black Mask (1996 / trailer), The Killer (1989 / trailer), or any number of other unrelated, top-notch Hong Kong fodder, but they do reveal a better understanding of the genre than most other US-made homages up to that point in time.

Goyer, who also scripted the excellent science fiction film noir Dark City(1996 / trailer), updates the entire concept of vampires, making them less seductive and gothic, converting them into morally corrupt pleasure seekers, super violent egoists that are less erotic than carnal. (OK, this doesn't sound new in this post-True Blood [2008-14] world, but it was sort of new once upon a time.) As in the unbearable turkey Vampirella(1996 / trailer), vampires are everywhere, the older generation as much bloodsuckers as international businessmen, Republicans, World Trade Organization members and, one could image, members of Trump's White House team. (In their society, there is a definite prejudice between the ancients, who were born vampires, and the new generation, who were bitten and converted. The former seem to prefer their food in clean bags of donated blood, the latter gushing fresh from a neck.)

Unlike Vampirella, in which the bad guy is out to create eternal darkness, in Bladethe bad guy is out to release the forces of the vampire god La Magra and convert the entire human population into vampires — rather an idiotic idea, if one considers that that would mean the end of the vampire's food source. As it is, the sheer number of vampires in Bladewould require such a large food supply that it would be impossible for them and their actions to remain unnoticed — unless, of course, one goes for the conspiracy theory that they control the real power of the world (as Blade briefly insinuates at one point when he says that the police "belong" to them). In any event, since Bladeis neither a message film nor badly made, such minor narrative flaws are easy to overlook if one stays for the whole ride.

After the opening credits, the ride begins with Racquel (Nora Louise Kuzma, better known as Traci Lords, she of legendary floppies that once bounced with Harry Reems, among many) leading some innocent dude out to party hardy to a booming techno club located in the backrooms of a slaughter house. His good times go bad when the sprinkler system begins spurting blood and all the dancers around him reveal themselves as vampires, but Blade arrives and slaughters everyone and thus inadvertently saves the guy's party. Great scene.

The burnt remains of the vampire Quinn (Donal Logue of Silent Night [2012 / trailer] and The Grave [1996 / trailer]) get taken to a hospital, where he regenerates and bites Dr. Karen Jensen (N'Bushe Wright of Dead Presidents[1995 / trailer] and Civil Brand [2002 / trailer]) before Blade shows up again. Quinn escapes when the police appear spitting bullets, while Blade splits with Karen in tow. Back at his base, we meet Blade's mentor Abraham Whistler (Kris Kristofferson of For Sale By Owner [1982 / trailer], Payback [1999 / trailer] and The Sailor Who Fell From the Grace with the Sea [1976 / trailer]), a graying, long-haired vampire hunter and all-purpose handyman. The vampire situation of the world is revealed to Karen and from there on Blade is basically one enjoyably excessive series of violence and blood, complete with exploding heads, staked vamps disintegrating everywhere, and deep-fried Jaba the Hut vampire librarians. Karen tags along the way as the strong-willed, female sidekick who is as brave as her balls are big. Whistler dies (at least until the sequel), as do many others, but in the end all's well that ends well and all the bad guys get hacked and staked or sprayed to death (exploding every time).

Strangely enough, though, even during the huge explosion during the big finale, blood always seems to fly everywhere but onto Blade himself. The last scene of Blade in Russia is disappointing, far inferior to the more jokey "alternative ending" not used but to be seen as an outtake on the DVD.

The casting and acting in Blade are top notch all along the way. Snipes is well cast as Blade, and though not as charismatic as he was in New Jack City (1991 / trailer) he does show as much muscle as he did during his hilarious turn as a bad guy in the enjoyable and under-appreciated Demolition Man (1993 / trailer) and tosses his one liners just as smoothly. N'Bushe Wright is excellent as Karen, one fine-looking hot momma, unbeatable and brave in the best Pam Grier tradition, even if she does keep her clothes on all the time (though she does seem to mysteriously lose her bra halfway through the film). Stephan Dorff (ofBotched[2007 / trailer] and Alone in the Dark [2005 / trailer]) plays bad guy Frost as if he were one dangerous, spoiled, and perpetually pissed-off youngster, much the same character he usually plays, only a little more psychotic and blood thirsty. (Actually, every "young" vampire in Blade is played as a dangerous, spoiled, perpetually pissed-off, psychotic, and blood-thirsty youngster — could this be a subtext here?) Kris Kristofferson doesn't look at all as if he went on the wagon in 1976 or like he ever had a facelift, but his age and the wear and tear of his face serve his characterization of Whistler well. Udo Kier, the big-business leader of the vamps, is as prissy as normal but explodes convincingly, while the entire 5 minutes she is on screen Nora Louise Kuzma doesn't flop about her notable areolas but does exude the carnal bitchiness she has patented ever since Cry-Baby (1995 / trailer).

All in all, Blade is a fun film that doesn't pretend to be anything it isn't, and delivers everything it promises and even a tad more. About the only thing the film lacks are bare breasts, but then it never promised to have any. And does well without them.

Short Film: Love of the Dead (USA, 2011)

June 25, 2017, 11:24 pm

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A slow film, but an oddly disturbing one.

This short, a student project from Yale, of all places, is seriously disquieting on too many levels. Not funny; upsetting — a seriously effective (if not affective) short horror that deserves a wider audience than its obscurity gives it. 
Hell, for once, we couldn't even enjoy that the lead guy, Robert (Brian Young), had a hot bod. For that, we wouldn't even say that we enjoyed the movie. But we couldn't stop watching, and probably neither can you.

Back in 2010, when the film debuted, Young rather ingeniously told Yale News, "[Love of the Dead] is a complex film, very different from the regular horror genre. It's a romance and a zombie film at the same time. You don't really see that in this genre very often — nor a zombie girlfriend for that matter." Complex, the film is; a romance, it is not. In fact, the guy is far more an unhinged sexual predator than a romantic.

And now that we have watched it till the end, we need a shower. "Enjoy".

Password - Das Rätsel / L'Ultimo Codice (Italy, 2005)

July 6, 2017, 1:28 pm

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Way back in 2015, among the movies we here at A Wasted Life screened that made our list "Ten Best of 2015"is an disasterpiece entitled Frozen Scream (1975), a cinematic experience "almost Dali-esque in its surreal lack of skill" and "so bad, so incompetent, so unbelievably what-the-fuck that it makes most Ed Wood films look professional in comparison. One is tempted to simply write it off as 'what-were-they-thinking, oh-they-needed-a-tax-deduction' trash, but, in truth, although an unbelievably inept film, Frozen Scream displays an earnestness shared by all those involved that, regardless of the respective lack of talent, makes the viewer realize that the people involved in the project were probably truly serious about it."

All of the above could almost well be said of Password, an Italian no-budget "thriller" that manages to make Frozen Scream seem almost Kubrickian, if not big-budget, in comparison. Passwordis truly an unbelievable, incompetently made piece of cinematic shit that truly deserves its obscurity – were it not for its total WTF ending that invigorates the by then almost comatosely bored viewer to uncontrollable, rolling-on-the-floor laughter. But, regrettably, as left field and wonderfully out there as the ending is, the rest of the movie never achieves any lasting level of the Dali-esque and, instead, wallows deeply within its cesspool of poorly constructed, filmed, acted, told, directed, edited, made crime-thriller clichés.

It is doubtful that this flick has ever been released in an English-speaking nation. (Indeed, one wonders:How did it come to be released anywhere, even if only on DVD?) The only language options on the 20o6 German DVD Password - Das Rätsel as well as on the 2008 DVD re-release as Das Geheimnis ["The Secret"] are Italian and German. This could logically explain why the only English-language site that has yet bothered to write about this piece of filmic excrement is (Re)search My Trash: Mike Haberfelner, aka Michael Haberfelner, who runs the site, is German-speaking. (An assumption made not because of his name, but because his book, Bauliche Angelegenheiten, is available only in German.) In any event, Password is so incompetently written and plotted, and the dialogue so inane, and everything so poorly directed and acted, that it probably doesn't matter if you understand what's being said or not.

The German dub further supports the thesis that Italian films are always poorly dubbed. Here, as normal, not only do the words seldom match the mouth movements, but the characters often seem to be holding separate conversations and any given statement is often inappropriate to the situation in which it is expressed. A bit worse than normal, however, is the occasional total disappearance of any sound at all (sometime mid-sentence) and the fact that some of the one-to-three-scene characters were obviously dubbed by the same person, who attempts vocal differentiation by using almost cartoonish voices. At one point, in a scene which looks to be a cult ritual, the voices are electronically altered to such excess as to be almost incomprehensible. (Funnily enough, at our screening it was the two Americans that ended up clarifying to the three German what was actually being said during this scene: resident foreigners can often understand mutilated mother tongues better than native speakers because the former are relatively used to hearing the language being slaughtered by other foreigners.)

The detailed plot description given at (Re)search My Trash is fully on the mark, unlike the DVD's back cover description, which almost seems for a different movie (the cop coming out of retirement for one lest case in the film we saw, for example,becomes in the DVD description a private detective hired by a mother of one of the missing girls). In all likelihood, certain aspects of the "real" plot of the Italian original version simply got lost in the translation of the dubbed text.

Viewed alone, as in "by yourself", Password is surely not very entertaining, for it never displays any cinematic aspects that in any way transcend film-school or no-budget TV level. A film as poorly made as this one, and as populated with unattractive non-actors as this one, and with as many idiotic plot developments as this one – really: you and your girlfriend get kidnapped, you escape, and instead of going to the police you first shower and then look for her yourself? – is not the type of movie you watch alone. It is only enjoyable when viewed as a beer-swilling group, with each individual tossing out comments to the non-stop barrage of inability with which one is confronted. Only a masochist would spend time on a flick like Password alone and/or sober; for that reason, even the fan of bad film is forewarned to only watch Password, if at all, only as a group. And even then, we would say that the tertiary Ed Wood film noir Jailbait (1954 / trailer), not one of our favorite Wood movies, is a much more entertaining "thriller", if only due to the patina that 60-years have bestowed upon it– and, of course, because Steve Reeves takes off his shirt for a scene. Yummy yum yum.

Password was poorly scripted and incompetently directed by the unknown Gianni Petrizzo, whose only other credit seems to be as a co-scriptwriter of an equally obscure Italian horror movie, Hell's Fever (2006 / trailer), directed by the Italian blink-and-you-miss-him character actor, film editor, porn-film maker [as 'Alex Perry' and 'Alex Williams' and many other names], and director Alessandro Perrella. Literally any film within which Perrella flits by, often without dialogue – including, among others, Lover of the Monster / Le amanti del mostro(1974 / trailer), Alberto De Martino's Scenes from a Murder/ L'assassino... è al telefono(1972 / trailer), The Hand that Feeds the Dead / La mano che nutre la morte(1974 / trailer), Leopoldo Savona's Byleth(1972 / full movie), The French Sex Murders / Casa d'appuntamento(1972 / trailer), José Luis Merino's The Hanging Woman / La orgía de los muertos(1972 / trailer), Dick Randall's Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks / Terror! Il castello delle donne maledette(1974 / trailer), Viva! Django(1971 / German trailer), Colt in the Hand of the Devil /Una colt in mano al diavolo (1973 / trailer), William Rose's The Girl in Room 2A / La casa della paura  (1974 / trailer), Seven Dead in the Cat's Eye (1973), Luciano Ercoli's Death Walks at Midnight /La morte accarezza a mezzanotte(1972 / trailer),  God Is My Colt .45 / La colt era il suo Dio(1972 / music), The Last Traitor / Il tredicesimo è sempre Giuda (1971 / Italian trailer), Four Gunmen of the Holy Trinity / I quattro pistoleri di Santa Trinità (1971 / music), His Colt, Himself, His Revenge / Allegri becchini... arriva Trinità(1972 / music), My Name Is Mallory... M Means Death / Il mio nome è Mallory... M come morte (1971 / German trailer), Coffin Full of Dollars /Per una bara piena di dollari(1971 / trailer), The Flower with the Deadly Sting /Il fiore dai petali d'acciai o (1973 / full movie), Death Falls Lightly / La morte scende leggera(1972 / extract), to name but a few – is surely better and more entertaining than Password.

In any event: we watched Password, so you don't have to.

Misc. Film Fun — Faux Trailer: Mad Feet (2015)

July 12, 2017, 1:01 am

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Fabulously WTF in a fun way. Nico Bellamytook the audio to the trailer of Mad Max: Fury Road (2015 / trailer), George Miller's masterful reboot-cum-sequel of Miller's own earlier Ozploitation classic Mad Max (1979 / trailer),  and synced it to scenes from Miller's animated kiddie flick Happy Feet (2006 / trailer) to create a perfect faux trailer. Enjoy.

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Shameless Self-Promotion

July 18, 2017, 1:49 am

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via GIPHY

Capitalism makes strange bedfellows!
Imagine: an author from A Wasted Life— actually, A Wasted Life's only author, seeing that this blog is a one-person undertaking — is now also writing for some other website, a place called Hermann's, which has absolutely nothing to do with films. Usually. Food is more their thing.
One article there, however, does deal with movies: Ten Food Movies We Like.
OK, none but one of the movies listed are of the type we would usually feature at A Wasted Life— and that one has also been reviewed here years ago — but we have seen them all and do like them. (Our taste is broader than A Wasted Life might lead one to believe.) Check it out...

Maybe, just maybe, they might eventually publish my Trolls 2 (1990 / trailer) review. That movie is a food film, too.

Ten Food Movies We Like 

And whence comes the GIF above? From the classic music video to Peter Gabriel's song Sledgehammer, directed by Stephen R. Johnson (12 July 1952 – 26 Jan 2015. May he R.I.P.) Lots of food in that video.

Dinocroc vs. Supergator (USA, 2010)

July 25, 2017, 11:35 pm

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"I'm telling you. It's aliens! First they go for our animals, then they go for our women."

Roy (Jim Wynorski)
"I've seen your wife. Trust me, Roy; she's safe."
Charlie Swanson (John Callahan)
"I know."
Roy

Way back in the day of Poverty Row, say the 1920 to the mid-1950s, a multitude of low-tier studios (the most famous probably being Monogram Pictures, Republic Pictures, and Producers Releasing Corporation) produced a continuous supply of low-budget and quickly made B-films and second features populated by unknowns, B and C personalities, and stars on the slide, out of favor, simply slumming it or on the rise.

Among the directors of Poverty Row, some like Douglas Sirk (26 Apr 1897 – 14 Jan 1987) went on to respectable fame and fortune; others like Edgar G. Ulmer (17 Sept 1904 – 30 Sept 1972) and to a lesser extent Arthur Dreifuss (25 Mar 1908 – 31 Dec 1993) gained later cult repute as under-appreciated masters; most, like the western specialist Robert N. Bradbury (23 Mar 1886 – 24 Nov 1949) or William Whitney (5 May 1915 – 17 Mar 2002), simply disappeared into obscurity; and others, like the highly productive William "One Shot" Beaudine (15 Jan 1892 – 18 Mar 1970), with around 180 movies to his credit,  and Sam Newfield (6 Dec 1899 – 10 Nov 1964), with over 250 movies to his name, attained eternal infamy as "bad movie" directors.

Poverty Row is long gone, needless to say, crumbling like dust once the chain-theater distribution system was broken, television appeared, and the major studios began making A-budget B films. For a long time, the almost cookie-cutter, scrappy product of the studios and directors like Sam Newfield was simply no longer needed.

Today, however, thanks to advent of DVD releases and the plethora of channels populating contemporary cable TV, "poverty row" has almost been reborn; perhaps not as a location — most of the studios of the past were all located on Gower Street in Hollywood — but definitely in regard to cheap, cookie-cutter product (admittedly with a bit more knowing irony than in the old days) from a "house" and some truly productive director.

The Asylum, of course, is a prime example of a highly productive "house", as is SyFy Films, nee Sci Fi Pictures, of the SyFy Channel, while Charles Band’s Full Moon, though almost venerable in age by now, is somewhat less fecund. (Roger Corman stands in the heavens above them all, of course, the Holy Deity of contemporary non-major production houses.)

Among the current directors vying for the sobriquet "One Shot" are David DeCoteau (of Creepozoids [1987], Blonde Heaven  [1991] and Retro-Puppet Master [1999], among many) and Jim Wynorski, the director of Dinocroc vs. Supergator (and, among other stuff, Vampirella [1996]), and whom Paste Magazine, on their list of "The Best of the Bad", already refer to as "the 'sleaziest' director on this list". (An oddly placed appellation, seeing that DeCoteau, who is likewise on that list, actually made hardcore porn movies, whereas Wynorski has yet to go further than soft-core.)

Much like the horror films of Sam Newfield — The Monster Maker (1944) being a prime example — invariably featured a stupid story, a "name" actor, a bad man & minions, a monster, an ape, cheap special effects, and a girl & guy, movies from SyFy Films invariably feature a stupid story, a "name" actor, a bad man & his minions, cheap special effects, a girl & guy, and one or more monster animals (or, quite often, mutated monster animals).

And Dinocroc vs. Supergator is no exception, though it does feature a larger bodycount and intentional humor, if not irony. (The latter reflected, for example, in such truly subtle touches as the casting of two people, MILFy Dane Delia Sheppard, seen somewhere further below from some nude pictorial, and the plump Jeff Rector, both with accents from different countries, as sibling scientists.) The "name" actor of Dinocroc vs. Supergator  is a whisky-swilling David Carradine, in one of his last roles (supposedly a one-day job) before proving, like Michael Hutchence, Albert Dekker,* and Vaughn Bodé before him, that erotic auto-asphyxiation is a dangerous way to blow a load.

*Maybe Dekker was actually murdered, if only accidentally.

Carradine's minions in Dinocroc vs. Supergator include Victoria (Lisa Clapperton), initially presented as an ass-kicker but, ultimately, totally incompetent, and a crew of mercenaries that quickly become dinocroc or supergator food. Some lean, hunky dude named "The Cajun" (Rib Hills, whom we wouldn't mind seeing naked) is originally introduced as a minion, but he quickly if inexplicitly turns good guy.

The monsters are of course the titular ones, created by science, which both escape at the same time and have insatiable appetites. They are the prime example of the cheap special effects that populate the movie:  unconvincing CGI that ensures that the monsters can never be taken seriously and every death, no matter how "bloody", is funny. Still, whenever one or the other chomps down on somebody, our eyes go all misty due to happy memories of such mid-century, non-Poverty Row, cheesy, stop-motion classics like The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953 / trailer).

And though a lot people who you think will die, don't — the two guys who run into the deserted hotel and hide behind the counter, for example, though their survival looks more like something was cut from the DVD release than anything else — a lot of people do: aside from those previously mentioned, other deaths include dozens of people at the science complex, a honeymooning couple, two running blondes in bathing suits,** a photographer, a bus driver, diverse tourists, the lead heroine's father, and more.

**A scene that would have been so much funnier had it been two naked running blondes.

Basically, almost anyone introduced as a character agitating outside the core nucleus of three heroes — a nucleus that includes, aside from the Cajun, the girl & guy, Cassidy Swanson (Amy Holt, seen further below in her itsy bitsy teenie weenie non-yellow polka dot bikini, and in Sharkansas Women's Prison Massacre [2015 / trailer]) and Paul Beaumont (Corey Landis of Camel Spiders [2011]), who of course become a couple — die. The most extraneous of all victims are probably the filmmaker Chaz (Michael Bernardi) and his two bikini brunettes, Bimbo 1 (Aurelia Scheppers) & Bimbo 2 (Brandi Williams), whose entire introduction and presence is only the lead up to the punchline of a joke.*** 

***A scene and joke that would have been so much funnier had they all been naked.

For all the funnily unconvincing CGI deaths, Dinocroc vs. Supergator plays out pretty much just like the typical second feature movie of yesteryear. The equally insipid story, full of illogical developments and coincidences and filler, barrels along to a specific time length as quickly as possible, injecting an event or laugh anytime the goings threaten to get slow. Many of the stupidities are nicely ironed out by ironic dialog (a prime example is the verbal exchange between Paul and the Cajun when it comes to blowing up tunnels). The acting is generally OK, and even where it is truly abysmal — the Concierge (Jerry Hess) is particularly noteworthy — it remains painlessly funny enough to be passable for a movie of this caliber, and some of the actors (the heroic trio, for example) actually project a level of appeal that makes them likable and the movie a tad more fun than to be expected.

On the whole, nothing about Dinocroc vs. Supergator is particularly memorable or "good", but then it is probably a bit unrealistic to expect anything "good" from a movie entitled Dinocroc vs. Supergator. But it does offer some nice scenery, some good laughs, and it flies by quickly enough. It is basically a kiddy film, perfect for the pre-teen, for whom one assumes, hopes, it was made. Non pre-teens can enjoy it when in the right state of mind.

Perhaps it should be mentioned that Dinocroc vs. Supergator is a sequel of sorts of two previous Roger Corman productions, Kevin O'Neill's Dinocroc (2004 / German trailer), with Charles Napier, and Brian Clyde's Supergator (2007 / trailer), but as neither of those movies really has anything to do with this movie other than the respective titular monsters, the fact is immaterial. Another immaterial fact is that an extended sequence of Dinocroc vs. Supergator is set at a deserted resort on the Hawai'ian of Kaua'I, which, supposedly, according to the tour guide (Tamie Sheffield), was used as the location for Roger Corman's She Gods of Shark Reef (1958 / full movie).

As some reptiles are known to be able reproduce asexually, the last scene leaves open the possibility of a sequel — one hopes with nudity.

Short Film: I Live in the Woods (USA. 2008)

July 31, 2017, 3:52 am

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God is Dead! Long live the New God!

Were this short not already nine years old, we would be tempted to say this is some obscure, symbolic reflection of the current state of the American presidential office. But  nope. It's just a quick and violent, mostly stop-motion short full of surreal violence. Sort of like the current state of the American presidential office.

Over at Daily Film Dose, they hit the nail on the head with their description: "[Max] Winston's stop motion/live action quickie about a wildly violent hillbilly punk is told with the energetic momentum of a Road Runner cartoon, and a fresh Henry Selick meets Terry Gilliam meets Sam Raimi style. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any throughline whatsoever other than the random bombardment of manic energy, pace and bloodsplattering gore. [...] Proceed with caution."

We see a throughline. It's a symbolic reflection of American politics.
As for caution: Fuck that — throw caution to the wind. (But always use condoms.)

I Live in the Woods!from Max Winston on Vimeo.

Tremors 2: Aftershocks (USA, 1996)

August 9, 2017, 9:37 am

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Way back in 1990, Kevin Bacon, deep in a career slump at the tender of age of 30, bemoaned the fact that he was "doing a movie about underground worms!" Bacon's career eventually revived itself — thanks, in part, by taking the Shelley Winters approach and moving into character parts — and that movie about underground worms, Tremors(1990 / trailer), went on to become a cult classic (despite its initial less than spectacular box office success).

Today, Tremors is one of those ageless movies that even still works on every level. A modernized version of the typical Jack Arnold monster movie, but with way more humor, the cast, acting, and direction and story are all dead on. It is a movie worth watching, and one that many people (like us) are always happy to watch again.

It is probably the slow-cook success of the movie that resulted in the six-year span between the Tremors and Tremors II: Aftershocks, the first of four direct-to-video/DVD franchise flicks, a short-lived TV series of  13 episodes in 2003, and yet another direct-to-DVD sequel due next year (not to mention a TV series reboot being developed for Kevin Bacon). Six years isn't much, however, in comparison to the 21 years it's taken us to get around to watching the first sequel. Was the wait worth it? Well, we've seen worse, we've seen better. (Were we a teacher, and the flick a term paper, we'd give it a solid "C".)

For whatever reason, Kevin Bacon didn't return for Aftershocks, but the always likable Fred Ward did. Direction was taken over by S.S. Wilson, who co-wrote the script to the first movie and this one with his regular collaborator Brent Maddock. Basically, they took the original story from Tremors and tweaked it a little and made Tremors II: Aftershocks, adding only one truly original idea: evolution. Thus, the underground "Grabiods" beget the "Screamers"— they, in turn, go on to beget "AssBlasters" in Tremors III: Back to Perfection (2001 / trailer), but we won't get into that.

Whereas the ending of Tremors infers that that the three core characters — Valentine McKee (Bacon), Earl Bass (Ward) and Rhonda LeBeck (Finn Carter of Sweet Justice [1992 / trailer]) — ride off to fame and fortune, by Aftershocks bad contracts and bad investments have brought down-on-his-luck Earl back to Nowheresville, struggling to make a living from ostriches. (Valentine, on the other hand was busy filming, dunno, Apollo 13 [1996 / trailer] or maybe Murder in the First [1996 / trailer].) 

As luck would have it, Petromaya, an oil firm down in Mexico, is having its own difficulties with the carnivorous Grabiods, and through the power of money ($50,000 for each dead Graboid) they convince Earl to go down across the border and solve their problem.

Through the kind of contrivances scriptwriters think up when they need a specific character, Earl ends up partnering with Grady Hoover (Chris Gartin of Friends and Family [2001 / trailer]), a man of similar intellect and character as Valentine (imagine if Valentine had been a city slicker instead of a country bumpkin). Along the way, a romantic interest is introduced — this time around for Earl — in the form of geologist Kate 'White' Reilly (Helen Shaver of Amityville Horror [1979 / trailer], The Believers [1987 / trailer] and The Craft [1996 / trailer]), and then Perfection's survivalist Burt Gummer (Michael Gross of all the sequels) joins the show. And then: evolution.

OK, the dialogue is funny and the characters likable if barely sketched or clichéd, but the whole movie comes across pretty much like a weak second brewing of the same teabag of your favorite tea: it echoes all that you loved in the first brewing, but it just doesn't cut the mustard. And that is the problem of Aftershocks: we have seen it all before, not only that but done better, so it fails in general to interest even though it is professionally made. If you have seen Tremors, Aftershock just comes across as completely unnecessary, if not a bit dull and uninteresting. In turn, it well made enough that if you have never seen Tremors, and you can get past the jokes (visual and spoken) that build upon the first movie, Aftershock will probably mildly entertain the child within you. 

Also, the bodycount is surprisingly low for a horror movie, comedic or not. In Tremors, about nine or ten people (of varied nationalities) went to meet their merry maker in ways funny to tragic, while in Aftershock the death toll is a measly three men, all of whom are Mexican. (Do we detect a certain level of subconscious racism here?) For the life of us, we couldn't figure out why the screenwriters didn't at least do away Grady, who for all intents and purposes is an expendable character. Hell, he doesn't even return for Tremors III or V: Bloodlines (2015 / trailer). (As Tremors IV: The Legend Begins [2004 / trailer] is a prequel, it at least makes sense that he's not there.)

As for the titular monsters, most of the killings of the Graboids & Co. are reduced to scenes of flying guts and debris, which always seems to land just where the main characters are located and nowhere else, or CGI effects instead of any amazing old-school special effects, so there ain't much thrill there either.

Tremors II: Aftermath is like virtually any major American beer: it leaves no aftertaste, but has no punch even as it seems oh-so-fondly familiar. As a movie, it is not terrible, but not great: it's a faded, less-colorful rehash of the first film that sits smack-dab in the middle of perfunctory. But at least it has laughs: laughs go a long way, baby.

Killer Angels (Hong Kong, 1989)

August 17, 2017, 1:37 am

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This flick is the first of two on a cheap, German double DVD entitled Megaforce 1& 2, which we bought alone due to the wonderful cover art: with its big-boobed white babe with Farrah Fawcett hair (could it be Ronda Jo Petty?) and macho male Caucasians bearing big guns, we imagined something trashy along the lines of Juan Piquer Simón's Dirty War  (1984). (Indeed, the cover art of both DVDs seems to be from the same talented illustrator, whoever that might be.)

Little did we suspect that the seriously whitewashed cover art totally obliterates the fact that the two films, Megaforce 1 & 2, are actually from Hong Kong and at least the first film more or less features an entirely Asian cast. (The "more or less" are two minor Caucasoid bad guys who show up briefly, one played by Mark Houghton, seen below, who is also to be found somewhere in Knock Off [1998 / trailer] and Fight to Win [1987 / German trailer], among other films.) Not that that matters, as a bad Hong Kong flick is more often than not as good as or better than a bad Spanish one.

Pop Megaforce 1 in the DVD player, and suddenly a title card informs you that the movie is actually called Urban Force 1. Later, should one decide to do a little research on the web about the movie, one learns that neither title is the "real" title, and that the movie is actually Sha shou tian shi, aka Killer Angels— and Megaforce 1 and Urban Force 1 are later, possible bootleg titles. (My god! Ebay sells bootlegs!) And finally, one discovers a trailer (embedded far above) revealing that the film even has an English dub out there somewhere. The dialogue doesn't seem any better than in the German dub, though.

In any event, under any title, it must be said, the movie is a truly fun discovery, and definitely whets the appetite for Megaforce II one day, though it is doubtful that the latter is in any way a "real" sequel.

But then, sequel, prequel, schmequel: who knows where Killer Angels itself actually stands. Killer Angels is merely one of a mass of interchangeably titled "angel" movies that poured out from Hong Kong in the late 80s and early 90s, a series of girls-with-guns flicks the exact order and titles of which is possibly known to no one for sure. But all, if one is to accept what James Ursini & Dominique Mainon say when talking of the beautiful Moon Lee in their entertaining read, The Modern Amazons: Warrior Women On-Screen, are modeled after the TV series Charlie's Angels (1976-81 / trailer) — though one might argue the true roots go all the way back to Ted V. Mikels's The Doll Squad (1973 / trailer), with the iconic Tura Satana), where the women kicked ass way better than the angels of TV, even if the directorial and acting skills don't surpass Saturday morning kids drama level.

Moon Lee, by the way, is one of the three ass-kicking women of this film, Killer Angels, and undeniably the lead. According to Ursini & Mainon, she initially gained notice in the first and classic Mr. Vampire(1985 / trailer) — definitely a movie worth seeing — but only gained true Hong Kong fame with "her watershed film Angel (1987 / trailer?) and its sequels. In the Angel films, she played a character named after herself: Moon [...]. Although Moon's character looked deceptively innocent, she could be tough and vicious in a fight, even utilizing the traditional male weapon of nunchakus."

Here, in this German release of a probably typical Angel film, she is  neither called Moon nor does she use any nunchucks, but she and her fellow angels definitely kick, chop, shoot, and kill as well if not better than any man. (Sock it to them, baby!) And all the while not only do they have to fend off the sexist statements and behavior of the men around them, but their prime 80s outfits stay clean and their makeup doesn't smear, even after being thrown up in the air by nearby explosives. (Had they only shot a scene in nighties! Oh, wait. Was that sexist?)

Speaking of outfits, look at the accessories: Why do none of the eyeglasses worn by any of the women, including their team leader (Pui-Kei Chan of Tai tin hang do: Sat hing / Brother of Darkness [1994 / full film] and Hei hai ba wang hua / Brave Young Girls [1990 / fight scene]), have any lenses? Was hip once upon a time to wear glasses without lenses? Could be: after all, those ugly-as-sin, baggy, above-the-belly-button jeans that gave everyone big, ugly, misshapen butts — male show dancers included — were hip once, too. Beanies, on the other hand, can never be cool enough. They always look charming, as they make any woman look like a brainless, harmless, sweetheart — even as she machineguns men dead left and right, or shoots some bad-ass, leather-clad hitwoman (Nadeki Fujimi aka Takajo Fujimi of Crystal Hunter [1991 / trailer]) in the back.

The plot is a string of clichés, but little time is given to the viewer to consider the logic of the events. As put together by longtime Hong Kong scribe On Szeto, whose unsung career seems to have spanned from 1954 to 1992 — he wrote, among others, fun stuff like  Mo / The Boxer's Omen (1983 / trailer), Gu / Bewitched (1981 / trailer), Che dau che / Hex vs. Witchcraft (1980 / trailer), Che yuen joi che / Hex after Hex (1982 / trailer), Du gu / Brutal Sorcery (1983 / full film), and more — Killer Angels / Megaforce 1 / Urban Force 1 is a string of familiar plot elements and scenes also found in any number of other movies. As uncreative as they might be, put together in such as excess and at such a speed, they work well and are immensely entertaining. Szeto seems very much to have written his script with the assumption that if you can't original, then at least be a fast barrage. A smart idea.

Killer Angel opens with a string of killings conducted by Michael, a hitman for the mob (played by the great Chia-Hui Liu, of too many movies to mention, including Kill Bill: Vol. 1 [2003 / trailer], Kill Bill: Vol. 2 [2004 / trailer] — you see him in both trailers — and the film that made his name, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin ([1978 / trailer below]). Soon thereafter, the gangster Chen shows up, supposedly with "a list of names"— the McGuffinof the movie — and in short order he is under the protection of the three angels. For whatever reason, Yau Li (Moon Lee) goes undercover at a local nightclub owned by the big bad guy of the movie, Godfather Chu Chung-Seng (Ka-Yan Leung of the Surreal masterpiece The Miracle Fighters[1982 / trailer], Jiang shi pa pa / Close Encounters of the Vampire [1986 / full movie],  Wui wan ye / Out of the Dark [1995 / trailer], Yong zhe wu ju / Dreadnaught [1981 / trailer], Yi tin to lung gei: Moh gaau gaau jue / Lord of the Wu Tang [1993 / trailer], and Long fa wei  / Drunken Dragon [1985 / full film]). She does a music number and she and Michael get sort of romantic and there's a lot of shooting and fighting and a lot of people die and a white slavery ring gets busted and then the movie ends

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978) —

original trailer:

Seriously, it is doubtful that there is ever more than a few minutes between any given action scene anywhere in the movie. True, the film looks oddly cheap around the edges, but still, Killer Angels barrels along like an out-of-control Fiat Palio with a Porsche engine. Between the violence and deaths and plot twists and laughs both intentional (like Yau Li's job audition) and unintentional (like Yau Li's job audition), one hardly has time to breathe. Killer Angels is simply good, stupid, fun stuff with good fight scenes and lots of bodies, including a few unexpected ones. One of the best fight scenes, interestingly enough, is the last one, especially since it looks like the man knows what he is doing but has often gone on the record that he knows absolutely no martial arts and merely imitates what the fight chorographers show him. Hats off to you, dude!

Director Chin-Ku Lu, who seems to have been around since the 70s as an actor, director and scriptwriter of Asian exploitation films — some films of note include The Holy Virgin vs. the Evil Dead (1991 / fights), The Death of Bruce Lee (1975 / trailer), and Wu lin sheng huo jin / Holy Flame of the Martial World (1983 / trailer) — isn't exactly the most creative of directors, but thanks to the speed of the narrative his occasionally haphazard direction is in no way a flaw. One occasionally wonders whether he or the editor is the true force behind the narrative, but whoever it is, Killer Angels works well as a truly entertaining if slightly cheap-looking piece of mindless, fully-dressed-girls-with-guns fun. Recommended.

Killer Angels (1989) —

Moon Lee killcount: