Reviews

LADY AVENGER starts off with a young man and his girlfriend who have been kidnapped and tortured by a group of faceless individuals. The man has his throat slit and the woman (who we later find out) has her eyes cut out. Cue cheesy 80s rock music (I love this stuff). Maggie, who is the deceased's sister, is in prison for drugs. She is allowed to leave for her brother's funeral with one of the prison guards to ensure she doesn't escape. Well, she does of course (otherwise there wouldn't be a movie!) and goes after the thugs who murdered her brother. She visits her brother's girlfriend Maria in the hospital to find out some information. Maria's mother is there and doesn't help Maggie much other than give her a headache. She blames Maggie and her brother's life of drugs for her daughter's disfigurement. Slowly, along with the aide of her boyfriend, Maggie manages to find out who slaughtered her brother and gets revenge...boy does she ever. Grenades, blow torches, baseball bats, and guns are her favorite arsenal of destruction. LADY AVENGER screams the 80s (my kind of film), features lots of bloody violence, Michele Bauer showing us the goods, and action to keep you entertained for much of the short 80+ running time. A few scenes drag on...but if you hang in there it's a pretty decent effort. Recommendable though my personal favorite DeCoteau film would be SORORITY BABES IN THE SLIMEBALL BOWL-O-RAMA, which is a cheese classic in itself.

Holy Crapola-fest Batman! Dear God I haven't seen something so utterly bad, so awful, so mindnumbingly ATROCIOUS in all my years! This is pitiful. Just plain pitiful. I've seen dozens and dozens of schlocky, snooze-inducing, inconceivable messes of film but man does BOARDINGHOUSE take the friggin' cake! NEVER have I seen a film where it ACTUALLY hurt me to sit there and watch it! Ok, now that I'm done with my unnecessary banter...let me explain to you the award winning "plot" (LOL!). A man (who is really awkward looking) rents a house for sale and places an ad in the paper for "women 18-25 not attached and beautiful". Naturally, a bunch of fun lovin' 20 somethings show up. Throughout the movie they whine, moan, and complain...occasionally showing up in various states of undress (isn't that a MUST in 80s exploitation??). All fun aside (yeah, right) a poltergeist moves into the house to brutally butcher, chop, mutilate, and murder our adorable girls. These murder sequences are indeed quite gory, but I'll be damned if they were done by anyone who is, at the very least, a competent (and that's saying a lot) fx artist. Take one scene in the beginning of the movie for instance: This poltergeist creature (or whatever you wanna call it) uses some kind of mind control to force a guy to literally disembowel himself. It is night at first, but when the camera goes in for the close-up to show the guy graphically pulling out his intestines it is in broad DAYLIGHT! It's SO noticeable. I won't even mention the fact that the "guts" are simply just sitting at the bottom of his tucked-in shirt for him to grab out...the fx get worse. I can't remember how the movie ends since it's been awhile (or maybe I suffered brain damage), but much of the film we're lead to believe the main protagonist is the one responsible for the ghastly murders. Did I mention how awkward looking he is? Oh yeah, guess I did haha. Up and coming fx artists might want to take notice on how to do really cheap, amateurish make-up and blood. That's the ONLY good I might see coming from this film. Had it not been SOV, the script revised a bit (ok, a lot), cut out the boring/annoying stuff...it would've STILL only been just tolerable! At best!

Oh yeah, I failed to mention this is all filmed in "Horror-Vision". Gory images follow an annoying UFO-like sound, or a poorly done, computer effect full of bright colors with a black-gloved hand on the screen (??) to warn viewers with a weaker stomach. Cool concept...none of which is done right. Don't let gutter trash like this take up 80 some mins. of your life. I regret it.

MONSTER HUNTER is the HALLOWEEN-esque 'sequel' to 1981's insomniac's dream ANTHROPOPHAGOUS. This time around D'Amato brings to us a sense of pace, making Monster Hunter much more enjoyable. The added gore (including an ultra-torturous scene involving an oven) and cool electronic music score is a nice bonus (I caught some music from PIECES in here as well...cool). The story (or lack thereof) brings back George Eastman as our favorite cannibal, this time not on a Greek island, but somewhere in the US being hunted by a priest (of all people). During this, he somehow manages to spill his guts (again, but does not eat them) on an iron fence outside a house. Eastman is taken to a nearby hospital. There, he recovers, kills the doctor (gorily too I might say), hacks up a few others and then returns to the house where he had his 'accident', and proceeds to stalk the babysitter and kids residing there. A bit boring at times (aren't all these italo-gore flix?) but Eastman's presence is over powering and the end involving a 'vegetable' overcoming her disabilities to face the beast is fairly ironic.

TORMENTOR is your typical early 70s giallo. You got your funky 70s tunes, out-of-place comedy, nude women, and a black-gloved assailant bloodily slicing his victims with a razor. The opening scene with the two guys fighting over the telescope-thingie is a riot...notice how much that one guy resembles Jackie Martling of the Howard Stern show? OK, but I'd rather be watching DEEP RED.

I DRINK YOUR BLOOD is one of my favorite films of the early 70s period. The story, while simple, is quite original and very cool. It concerns a group of wannabe Manson hippies who perform the satanic rituals of blood drinking and cutting chicken's throats. The group, who consist of a wide array of characters (including a pregnant woman, an Asian psychic, a mute, and the villainous leader), each have their own personality making the film visually interesting and never boring. It's funny how they all hang together, yet are so different. They roll into a desolate town where the population could probably be counted on my toes and fingers. Grandpa, one of the main characters, tries to control the racket these outlaws are making one night while they are staying in an abandoned hotel. He is slipped LSD and severely hurt (well...duh). The man's grandson decides to exact revenge on these hippies by feeding them meat pies the next morning that were injected with the blood of a rabid dog. They eat them, go crazy, foam at the mouth, and eventually spread their disease to a local construction company. Now all hell breaks loose! Lots of in-your-face, out-of-control violence takes place here. Imagine NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD if you will, in color, gorier, and instead of zombies proposing to be the problem, a group of rabid townies...and you have I Drink Your Blood. Awesome film and worth the effort to seek out.

BLUE PARADISE starts off in the beginning of time when God created Earth and the heavens. Adam, a young man born from a life-sized cocoon, spends his days yearning for a mate to share his time with. He creates a statuesque figure of a woman made with beach sand, but when rain pours onto his creation it reveals a woman underneath (!!!). Don't ask. This is of course, Eve. In a nutshell, she is tempted to eat the forbidden fruit because "she wants a change", from here on out our duo are thrust into obstacle after obstacle facing natural disasters, badly animated boulders, pteradactyls, and even a savage tribe of flesh-eating cavemen! For a film of it's type BLUE PARADISE is rather tame. There's a bit of violence here and there, but that isn't the main focus like so many of these 70s/80s Italian exploitation films. A rather wild experience it is, far ahead of it's time with good direction, tolerable acting, fantastic music, plenty of bright, colorful characters, quirky situations, and quite a bit of comedy thrown in as well - Eve nagging and complaining, the stock footage, the "boulder" scene - LOL! Worth a look for fans of the psychotronic and unusual.

Direct-to-video movies usually suck. Usually. KOLOBOS however was pretty darn good I must say. The bare-bones plot is what we saw almost every week back in the 80s with all those "kids-trapped-in-the-house" movies. In a lot of ways it's a macabre version of MTV's The Real World. The director does KOLOBOS though with style, flair, cool lighting schemes, and a neat (though OVERLY long twist end). There is mucho gore on display for us gorefiends (don't get all excited now) like disemboweling, decapitation, savage beating, etc. and is done in all it's up-close glory. A nice throw back to the old days of horror when it used to be unpredictable, surprising, atmospheric, and full of BLOOD. No classic by any means, but gee at the moment I can't think of anything being made today that's better.

Oh yeah, the beautiful Linnea Quigley also makes a nice guest appearance - too bad she's in it for a whopping 3 minutes!

They obviously ain't seen BLASTFIGHTER then cuz this is one kick ass flick we got here! Made the same year as his equally lightning-paced film DEMONS, and featuring the exact same Claudio Simonetti score used in MASSACRE IN DINOSAUR VALLEY (a film I highly recommend BTW), Blastfighter is a hot little piece of celluloid. Genre favorite Michael Sopkiw (AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK) is here as the hero who seeks revenge on the redneck bullies who killed his daughter and ruined his life. Also, Joe D'Amato reg George Eastman co-stars doin' what he does best: playing a bad guy. Here, he actually has speaking lines! There's lots of action, a good storyline with a fair amount of suspense and drama, and of course loads of gory violence toward the end. Now, after seeing this, is L. Bava really as bad as most say? I think not. You might be very well surprised.

I saw this a ways back as "SS Experiment Camp 2" hoping this would be good n' sleazy Italian made trash. What I got was bad n' boring Italian made trash. I haven't seen too many of these Nazi SS camp flicks, and this is supposedly one of the better ones...not. To sum up the "plot": It's war, the Nazis are taking over by shooting everyone and everything in town (including a scene that involves a really unconvincing baby) while scientists are conducting experiments on this "Beast" thingie (of the original Italian title). He is nothing more than a hairy, ugly brute of a man who stays locked up in a cage during much of the film. From time to time he is given the pleasure of torturing some poor, hapless nude woman where he then proceeds to rip out their pubic hairs. Sounds like fun, eh? The movie is executed in such a way that even the most vile, offensive things in this movie wouldn't even shock my own grandmother. It's all done very shoddily and uninteresting. Shame really. These SS flicks have never really peaked my interest, and this movie only decreased it. It's hard to find, but my video chain carries it - in the war section.

With a great cast featuring Stuart Whitman, John Saxon, Martin Landau, AND Tisa Farrow this film glides with the greatest of ease. STRANGE SHADOWS IN AN EMPTY ROOM is sort of a cross between the Italian crime/police potboiler and your average giallo thriller. An interesting and fun blend it is. I'd rather not give too much of the film away since it's better going into it knowing next to nothing. Let's just say there's murder, mystery, car chases, blood, funky 70s music, karate-kicking drag queens, and of course your all-star cast! Have fun.

Typical of a D'Amato film "Trap Them & Kill Them" features a lot, and I mean a LOT of nudity and sex. It's a sure fire bet that any film featuring these two ingredients is an instant classic (or a great party tape) but is not the case in this sex n' gore filled cannibal-fest. Laura Gemser reprises her role as the infamous Black Emanuelle and screws a lot of guys and gets naked several times for a good hour or so. And then even when the cannibals DO show up she's still gettin' nekkid. The problem with this film is D'Amato has no sense of pacing whatsoever. Here, the abundance of sex (literally it is scene after scene) hurts the film's flow. There is quite a bit of bloodshed near the film's end, but by then it is too little too late. The gutting was pretty cool though and quite nasty. All in all I'd have to say better than most of D'Amato's output and that's going a long way. A decent flick made better by the fact that I received my copy for free. HA!

"Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers" is one of the best examples of those trashy, cheesy, horror/spoofs of the 80s (Toxic Avenger and Blood Diner would be included in there as well) that I so fondly adore. The movie is short, sweet, and to the point but I enjoyed every excruciatingly bad B-movie moment, which by the way, is accompanied by the corniest one-liners you've ever heard since Freddy Krueger. Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers concerns (what else?) a cult of chainsaw massacring babes who use fresh limbs from their victims to serve to their "master" (I'm assuming this is where Gunnar Hansen comes in). And boy does he look embarrassed. One classic scene involves a nude Michelle Bauer messily hacking up some poor old sap while listening to Elvis Prestley. The look on her face is priceless. Blood, a wooden Gunnar Hansen, laughs aplenty, cheesy rock music, scream queens Michelle Bauer and Linnea Quigley (her shining moment is the "dance of the double chainsaws!") all wrapped into one...don't miss it.

"Brutal Sorcery" is a ridiculous tale of black magic, ghosts, and witchcraft. It concerns a young man who is possessed by a witch, acts crazy, pukes up noodles, and delivers line after line of hilarious dubbing. This movie is so absurd I am wondering if it was meant to be a spoof on the Asian black magic films which regularly involve possession, oozing sores, and vomited snakes. The movie isn't too hard to follow but it's been so long since I last saw it I can't remember much. And even if I had seen it just days earlier I probably still wouldn't remember much since this is honestly forgettable garbage. Good for a few inconsistent laughs.

Sitting down and watching my newly bought EVIL DEAD TRAP DVD I was blown away at the scenes that unfolded before my eyes. This movie has gained a huge status over the years and now that it is available on DVD we won't need those crappy bootlegs anymore. I had heard much about the film's reputation and can say I was really impressed. The story is intelligent and well-thought out while the execution was played just perfectly. Evil Dead Trap contains an especially delicious array of gory delights including sliced hands, gouged eyeball torture, impalement by spear contraption, cranium cracking, and neck breaking. This is quite the twisted film and this is ONLY the beginning! The first half is your basic stalk-n-slash story (Japanese style) with one freaky looking killer dressed in a black raincoat. Later, the movie progresses into something a bit more complex, some would say silly, but I enjoyed the move the film made. Let's just say it's something you wouldn't have seen coming. I loved the final showdown between Nami, and...wait I won't tell you, but in my opinion it's one of the best scenes in horror history. Trust me, you will not be disappointed. After all, like most have already said, the director takes a strong influence from veteran Italian horror-meisters like Argento and Fulci and even has some Evil Dead-like camera angles thrown in there. You could even say there's a bit of Cronenberg's genius in here as well ;-) How can you go wrong?

With the name THE ICEBOX MURDERS I was expecting something in the vein of gruesome going-ons and plenty of fake looking, frozen corpses. Instead what I got was a lot of overly talky characters and dull moments. There is absolutely nothing I repeat NOTHING noteworthy in the film. It is slow, boring, dull, and poorly made (adding to your already tiresome state, if you make it all the way through). I kept thinking "OK, something good is bound to happen now" but alas the movie ended and I was completely let down. Even the killer's disguise (when it is revealed) is just ridiculous. I am not even going to mention the acting...you know where I'm going with this. Steer clear of this Spanish bore-fest and watching something Naschy or Franco for your Spaniard fix. TOOLBOX MURDERS this ain't!!

I would consider myself pretty jaded when it comes to extremely violent/disturbing type films but when I watched MY SWEET SATAN today I was completely blown away. It's a short film (about 20 mins.) and stars underground horror-action director Jim Van Bebber as Ricky Kasslin who is a character based on a (supposedly) true incident. It's nothing more than doped up, heavy metal white trash kids who worship Satan and crucify chickens. Sounds like family entertainment, eh? The "stomp" ending really had me gagging and is quite possibly the most intense, sick, and disturbing scene I've ever had the (dis)pleasure of watching! Oh yeah, and talk about that up-close (real) nipple piercing! I was practically squirming in my chair! I don't think I'll be popping this back into the DVD for quite some time....

NIGHT OF THE DEMON is just one of the my favorites from 1980. As far as I can tell this is the only gory bigfoot movie ever made, and it's a shame too. This sub-genre could have been very prolific (ahaha probably not). The story is about a college professor and his students who venture off into the woods looking for the myth that is Bigfoot. The professor tells his students in flashback about the numerous unexplained murders that are being committed (yes, the yokel who gets his you-know-what ripped off is a definite highlight) until they themselves are stalked by the beast. There's also a bizarre sub-plot involving a disturbed woman, who as a child, was raped by the monster; had his baby and was then forced to kill it by her father!

A crazy, gory, cheesy B-movie that is worth at least a rental.

Let me first say I am a huge fan of the original TOXIC AVENGER, so I was a bit disappointed to find out that this "big-budget" sequel takes a completely different approach. Not that it was bad or anything but all the stuff that made the original such a classic (the low-budget, cheesy acting, bad gore fx, simple storyline, cheesy rock music, and just an overall politically incorrect attitude) are not present here. TOXIC AVENGER 2 takes itself too seriously with it's half-way decent acting, dramatic music, big-budget, and wait a sec. Troma actually tried incorporating a complex storyline into it too! Also, Toxie's mask was incredibly fake looking and his voice was very wimpy sounding! I can't for the life of me understand why they'd change his voice from being deep and sinister sounding to this now girly voice.

OK so it isn't all bad. Some of the jokes and gags (while forced) did make me laugh a bit and if you see the true uncut version it's loaded with some serious gore. I loved the bad cheesy gore in the first movie, but in this one the gore is both realistic and sickening. Oh and his new blind girlfriend is a lot hotter than the old one (if not goofier too). I was entertained for much of the movie but gimme the original over the sequel anyday.

An absolutely repulsive, vile, sickening film. This one is sure to make you lose your lunch. Never have I felt my stomach churn the way it did when I sat down and watched this Jap gore obscurity. When the mermaid was laying in the bathtub oozing puss and barfing up bloody worms I was shocked at how far the film went to disgust.

Strangest thing is I actually have the urge to watch it again. Interesting.

Let me just say right off the bat this is one of my favorite films. There's just something about it that really holds my interest. From what I can tell this was originally some kind of student project film, hence the ultra low-budget, stupid dialogue (really it's stupid the characters sometimes don't even finish their sentences), shot-on-video title effects, short running time, small (and I mean SMALL) distribution, and the fact that all names associated with the picture are pseudonyms. It's a great creep out movie and definitely gets under your skin. It involves a man, fresh out of prison, who gathers up a group of friends who want to make films like no one's ever seen before. This of course would be snuff. They kidnap some money hungry producers and proceed to torture and kill them right in front of the camera. The roughest scene involved a woman getting her legs chopped off while one of the guy's keeps her alive with smelling salts. I know, pretty cruel to say the least. If you think you can handle it then by all means treat yourself to this winner.

Played with a straight face, Umberto Lenzi's Giallo EYEBALL is a hoot of a film. It actually takes the subject matter seriously which makes it all the more fun. It's terribly made and what's worse is the corny music theme that is played throughout. The film deals with a group of tourists who begin getting brutally knocked off by a garbage bag wearing killer. Oh, and the killer also has a fetish for cutting out people's eyeballs. Sound cool? Well, it's pretty damn funny but much of the film (when people aren't dyin') is pretty slow and makes it quite a chore to finish. If you're a lover of bad B-movies you might get a kick out of this, others will be appalled by the absolutely cheesy intro.

Despite all the positive comments on Mario Bava's 1971 epic slasher film BAY OF BLOOD I found it to be extremely slow and at times just plain boring. BAY OF BLOOD is actually my favorite Bava film so I guess that tells you I'm not much a fan of his work. Yeah, it pretty much kick started the now cliche slasher genre but that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be all that great. The murders are delightfully sick and gory and over-the-top and much of the movie inspires FRIDAY THE 13th but I think I prefer Cunningham's film to this. More for nostalgic reasons than anything else really. I don't mean to completely bash the film since there are some pretty cool scenes in it, I especially liked that twist ending. I guess it'd be worth a look just don't expect anything mind-blowing.