Reviews

His name's Lothar, sometimes Gustav, or any other name. He sells appliances that are supposed to help against tumors and whatever else may ail you. It's a scam, and when Lothar, the pick-up artist who never runs out of perverted things to say, hits it off with Maria, a nurse, it's not just for the sex, but also so he can get addresses of patients whose families are perfect targets for his scam. But this is the least of Maria's problems as Lothar has a very contagious sexual disease: his sperm eats through every rubber and leaves you with some very nasty and finally fatal bodily, well, dysfunctions...

One of the few serious German entries into the horror genre this movie is not the sex-horror trash film you might expect but rather a Cronenbergian nightmare - the sterile surroundings of the clinic, the operating procedures, the theme of rather weird physiological diseases (you could say there's a "new flesh" theme here), the weird apparatuses the male main character Lothar, aka Gustav, lives off selling - all that is reminiscent of my favorite director. Other than that, it has its own style, changing from rather realistic to surreal. The actors are good - Dominic Raacke is the definitive German schwein and has a lot of great dialog. Natja Brunckhorst (Christiane F in the movie of the same name) is a believable heroine, if you will. Michael Greiling is good as the sort of dry doctor you'd expect in, again, an early Cronenberg movie.

This brilliant German (though it's set in Switzerland) alpine horror movie claiming to be based on a Swiss legend was pretty much reviled as pure exploitation by German critics; even though there's no sex or violence at all in the first two thirds of the movie, in which - by means of beautiful cinematography, good acting and an interesting portrayal of the pseudo-Christian and later pagan rituals of the Swiss herders- a menacing and surreal atmosphere is built up. Sukkubus is really creepy; the alps - usually portrayed as romantic and beautiful - seem menacing here; not a place you'd want to visit. This may be one of the reasons Sukkubus was so maligned, as the alps - the only real tourist attraction in great parts of Switzerland, Austria and Southern Germany - are pretty much always background for kitschy romances and not slightly perverted horror flicks (if you've seen only one of those hundreds of awful alpine romance movies often made in Austria, you'll probably agree it's actually those movies which are horrific and revolting).

All in all, it would be unfair to say Sukkubus is pure exploitation; it's a beautifully crafted (assistant director: Christoph Schlingensief, though I don't know how much input he had), surreal and entertaining fable which should be at least an underground cult classic today (shamefully it's not; it's not even well-known in Germany ans never been released on DVD), because there's one thing you can't deny: There certainly is no movie out there like this one! And how many B flicks do you know that can claim the same?

While there's a lot of haters out there I never quite understood why they didn't save their anger for the truly stomach-churningly awful Alien(s) vs Predator movies. Maybe it's because while Alien 3 was watched by fans of the original and the sequel, those AVP movies were mainly aimed at a barely-sober teen audience who couldn't care less for the originals and who think that Paul W Anderson is the new Stanley Kubrick... Anyway, Alien 3 is more than just a stylish exercise for David Fincher (it's certainly better than what Fincher's up to nowadays): it's a tight, very dark and suspenseful sci-fi flick that features a great ensemble cast of character actors. All this can be said about the (superior) original, and it's certainly closer to Alien than to Aliens - which is a good thing, because what happens when you try to top Aliens' action and over-the-top characters can be seen in the later 'sequels'. I also liked the story about Ripley being stranded on a planet with only hardened male criminals; it's not just the same old story all over again. I've always seen this one as a very solid end of a great trilogy and still like to pretend it was the last one. I do believe if it came out today it would be much more appreciated - as the state of sci-fi movies and sequels in general has much deteriorated since Alien 3 originally came to cinemas.

The second in a trio of Brian Yuzna-directed early-90s sequels to 80s horror classics, this one stands out - as particularly uninspired. Bride of Re-Animator was a decent direct sequel, continuing the story where it ended in Re-Animator, while Return of the Living Dead III surprisingly re-animated a left-for-dead franchise with a new story bearing only some connections to the original (and missing its humor). Both of them were B-movies, sure, but they had good ideas, the weird make-up effects that Society, Yuzna's freaky debut, made him known for, and lots of B-charm of their own. Why Yuzna even bothered with the trite SNDN series I don't know - probably it started with a late-night call like this: " Well, that last Silent Night Deadly Night movie did OK, so if you have anything which we could somehow distribute under that franchise, we'll do it." The only thing that connects this one to the others is the character of Ricky (this time it's the great Clint Howard in one of his lamest performances) who's shot-to-goo brain has healed remarkably well in just one year. Well, the bum he plays may as well be named Ron or Gerald - and probably was before they tried to make some unnecessary connection with the SNDN series. The story is uninteresting from the start, the acting is bland (the unknown Neith Hunter probably got the lead because she was willing to do the slime-trenched nude scenes) and yes, there's Yuzna's trademark scenes involving Screaming Mad George's body melt effects which are fun as always, but they are few and short, hardly worth the wait. As there's hardly any Christmas connections either, this one doesn't even qualify for a Trashmas video night in the holidays.

I doubt loads of people watched out for yet another santa sequel after Part 2, known as one of the worst slasher movies ever - not bad in a subgenre where there's tight competition. So why bother doing another unwanted entry in the Ricky story? Or bother watching it? Well, personally I thought that with Richard Beymer from Twin Peaks as a mad scientist and Bill Moseley (who's had sort of a comeback lately but was probably working for free food when this movie was made) as reanimated Ricky it could only be so bad. Well, right now it's almost Christmas, so can I be blamed for wishing for a cinematic miracle? Back to reality: Beymer doesn't do anything with his clichéd character, and Moseley tries to keep a straight face wearing that fun glass head top (supposed to keep his reconstructed brain from falling out!), just looking evil and hardly uttering a word. He's rather slow and fragile than dangerous-looking, yet the bad supporting cast (including Laura Herring in an undemanding 'girlfriend-for-the-breasts-shot" role) are in panic. The blind girl doesn't act as tough she's blind, but as though she's über-stoned. Her bad 80s-haircut victim of a brother behaves absurdly, not even caring when someone he's supposed to love gets killed. There's boring flashbacks galore (and that after SNDN2 was trashed for its use of flashbacks, though they don't take up half of the movie here) and the murders are mostly tame or off-screen; so this isn't even of interest to undemanding gorehounds. Silent Night Deadly Night 3 - better watch out and rent a better movie!