WEEK 54: Love Camp 7

Alternate Titles : Camp Special Number 7, Nazi Love Camp 7

Year: 1968

Reviews / Author Comments due: 02/06/2012

DPP Status: Successfully Prosecuted

BBFC Status: Still banned (rejected most recently in 2002)

IMDB: LINK

Wikipedia: LINK

DVD: Not Available

No Trailer Available

---

Feel free to use the comments section of this post to add your own reviews and thoughts about this movie.

The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue - Will's Review

If you've ever wished that zombie movies would give a better explanation as to WHY the dead have risen, you should check out this week's movie; there's a good chance it'll change your mind.

What we have here, is an average, run of the mill zombie movie; neither bad enough to offend the senses, nor good enough to get excited about. In fact, the only things that stood out to me we're the asshattedness of the male lead, and the 'science' of the zombies.



Actually, since I come to mention him, the male lead is arrogant, pushy, sexist, loud, and may or may not be involved in a dodgy antique deal; but he's not the 'evil human' character that's a popular trope in zombie movies - he's not the type to trip you up to save himself from the zombies, in-fact he does help a couple of people out. In a way, he's a perfect allegory for the movie as a whole, being neither likeable enough to get behind, nor loathsome enough that you wish the zombies would finish him off.

And so, to the 'science':

It seems that DEFRA are testing a new form of pest control; they are using 'Ultrasonic Radiation' (so 'sound' then) to interfere with the nervous systems of insects to make them attack each other. Unfortunately, it also makes the babies in a local maternity ward aggressive, and raises the dead. You see, we are told, babies have undeveloped nervous systems, which are therefore simple enough to be affected by the sound and (our hero hypotheses) the nervous systems of the dead live on for a short time, like how when you pic a flower it doesn't instantly die, and these slow nervous systems are also susceptible to the anger inducing noise...

Okkkkkaaayy.

Problem 1: even if the system works as advertised, all you are doing is setting up conditions to build super insects in a few generations time.

Problem 2. If it creates murderous babies (which, by the way, would have made a more interesting focus for the film) I presume it would affect other mammals, birds and so forth.

Problem 3. If the nervous systems of the dead ARE already running, it certainly isn't enough to make them move around, so pissing them of with magic sound rays would turn the inanimate benevolent corpses in to inanimate angry corpses. Which I think we can agree isn't much different in real terms, and certainly doesn't pose much of a threat.

Problem 4. None of this would explain how zombies could create other zombies by anointing corpses' eyelids with the blood of the living. Which (i shit you not) they can.

In future, I recommend that all zombie movies which feel the need to use fake science NOT use dead people (i.e.. 28 Days Later's 'rage virus') or else stick to the time honored babble like magic, voodoo, the wrath of god, passing comets, or a plain old ' fucked if we know'.

Body Count: 12
Boob Count: 1 pair
Animal body count: Some stock-footage of fighting ants, maybe 3 on screen deaths?
Most Memorable Kill: Clubbing with the good doctor,

---

Please use the comments bellow only to comment on this post - to write your own review, please comment on the main post for this movie.

The Living Dead at The Manchester Morgue - Lisa's Review

For this weeks entry, a movie I have actually watched before.  Sadly not one I would wish to watch again but did for my other halfs sake this evening.  It was just as poor as I remembered the first time around.

I won't go into major detail with this review as its midnight and I'm cream crackered, writing an in depth review about something that isn't bad enough to rant about or good enough to want to recommend seems a bit pointless.


This is a zombie movie and a poor one at that.  The basic storyline here is a farm in Windermere has a piece of machinery courtesy of the government being tested on site with a view to eliminate pests, creepy crawlies etc... and how are they going to do this?  By making them turn on each other due to heavy doses of radiation.... You can see where i'm going here I'm sure.....

The leading man is a complete w*****.  He is rude, obnoxious, sexist and just plain bloody irritating.  The leading lady is very easy on the eye but has the screen presence of a wet flannel and acting just as bad.  They come together when she accidentally damages his bike with her mini... women drivers eh?  Then she's stuck with him from there on.  Poor woman....

Due to aforementioned radiation, we start to see zombies (as that obviously is the effect of radiation).  The zombie makeup, behaviour and shuffling was actually quite good, its a shame about the rest of the special effects.  In a word... terrible!  Apart from one axe to the head, which was quite believable, the rest of the effects were something a primary school child could have engineered.  The script may have faired better in their hands also.

The only thing I enjoyed about this movie was the Irish police sergeant.  Some of his quotes were classic and he made me giggle more than once (unintentionally).  I did enjoy him though.

I didn't care how it ended I just wanted it to end and it didn't disappoint with its ridiculously predictable ending.

I've wasted my time watching this, not only once, but twice.  I urge you not to do the same.

---

Please use the comments bellow only to comment on this post - to write your own review, please comment on the main post for this movie.

WEEK 53: The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue

Alternate Titles : The Living Dead, Don't Open the Window, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, Breakfast at the Manchester Morgue, Zombi 3

Year: 1974

Reviews / Author Comments due: 26/05/2012

DPP Status: Removed from list April 1985

BBFC Status: Passed uncut in 2010

IMDB: Let Sleeping Corpses Lie

Wikipedia: Let Sleeping Corpses Lie

DVD: Uncut UK version

---

Feel free to use the comments section of this post to add your own reviews and thoughts about this movie.

Late Night Train - Will's review.

I don't usually discuss the movies with Lisa until reviews are both written (or at very least until we've both seen it) but I texted her twice about this one; After I'd seen it "This week's movie is 'Last house' [on the left] with a Train instead of a forest...", and before that, while still watching the movie, "If something were to happen in one of the movies that I know is going to piss you off royally, would you prefer to be forewarned, or remain spoiler free?"*

Because of that first text, this is going to be a short review, because of the 2nd, I'll be running off to witness Lisa's outrage as soon as I'm done here.

[spoilers follow]

So, We have 2 naive girls traveling alone for festivities (this time it's Christmas, rather than last houses' birthday), Who meet a gang consisting of 2 men and a woman, wind up anyone with them and get raped and killed; the gang ends up at the parents' home, where they are made welcome, the parents find out their daughter is dead, the gang realizes where they are, the parents realize who thier guests are, and a swift and unsatisfying revenge ensues...

When I said this movie is a lot like last weeks, I really wasn't talking broad strokes!

The rapes of the girls are handled well again; they are horrific and NOT for titillation (see boob count) and the attacks are, if anything, even nastier than the ones in last week's movie (The virgin is deflowered with a knife!) BUT in one of only two major deviations from Craven's movie,  the woman was not originally part of the gang (which leads us to Lisa's presumed rage)

You see, before out 5 characters transferred to an otherwise deserted train, our male antagonists had already met out girls on a rather busy train... on that same train, one of the guys rapes a rather well-to-do woman....

You see, he follows her into the toilet, pushes her against the sink, and molests her, but then just before it becomes actual rape...

She consents, fucks him, and joins the gang.

Really.

Now, it turns out that she's as psychotic as the guys (possibly more so) but the point is that, in that scene, a sexual assault, not a role-play; and actual (in the context of the movie) sexual assault is portrayed as pleasurable, and leads to consensual sex.

In a move passed uncut in the UK.

Despite the fact that the BBFC say "a scene of rape or assault in which the attack is portrayed as, or appears to be pleasurable, desired or desirable and in some cases inconsequential is likely to be cut."

Whether it should be cut, I'm on the fence with; at the end of the day it's fiction, but I find the contradiction interesting.

There's one other deviation form the plot, right at the end, but since it's the only part of the film NOT spoiled by watching last week's movie, I'll leave that alone.

So anyway, If you didn't like Last House on the Left, If you did like Last House, you probably still won't like this, because you've seen it already.




Meh.


Boddy Count: 4
Boob Count: 0
Most Memorable Death: Don't Jump from Late Night Trains.





*She opted to remain unspoiled.

---

Please use the comments bellow only to comment on this post - to write your own review, please comment on the main post for this movie.

Late Night Train - Lisa's Review

*** Spoilers ***

If you are a regular reader (are there any?) and are reading this review, you could be forgiven for wondering if you have been here before... as in last week.  This movie IS 'Last house on the leftt' with the forest being replaced by a train.  The actual similarties are uncanny.

Here we have the same 2 naive girls Lisa and Margaret, who board a train to spend Christmas with Lisa's parents.  Its all very steady and plodding along, I'm getting rather bored and very irritated by our female stars who are doing nothing to ingratiate me to them.   Throw into the mix a couple of one dimensional thugs (who we are introduced to as they mug Santa!).  Of course the same 2 guys make their way onto the same train with Lisa and Margaret.  Initially they help the guys hide from the ticket inspector in the loo's but grow steadily more  wary of them due to their changing behaviour and aggression.

A scene which initially REALLY pissed me off was the first sign that our bad guys are scum when one of them attempts to molest a rich female passenger in the train toilets.  The reason for my disgust is the woman is about to get raped but decides she is actually quite enjoying it.  I mean COME ON!!!!   My disgust later turned to a nodded Hmmmm as this females character is uncovered.  She makes the 2 bad guys look like 'Bert & Ernie'.  This is one good thing I would say for the movie is that her character is well and truely one of the most depraved, remorseless, sick female characters on film I have ever watched.   Unusual to see this and there should be more of it to be honest.

So, our 2 girls change train when we have a stop due to a bomb scare but they find the 2 guys and their new female 'friend' onboard the same train.  They force their way into their carraige and the nastiness well and truely commences.  I'm not going to go into full detail, but needless to say its not nice and I did not enjoy watching it.  What I would say though that most of the horror is implied and left to our own minds.
The attacks are brutal, violent and obviously sexual as you can tell a mile off that is going to be the emphasis in the movie.  We have the innocent virgin (as in LHOTL) and we keep flitting back to Lisas parents preparing for the girls arrival for Christmas in high spirits (again much like the parents in LHOTL for the birthday party).

What is rather shocking is how much the attacks are pushed by the new female member of this little gang.  She seems to be the sick mind behind it all.  There is the stereotypical humiliation, stripping, rapes, abuse and violence.  Another passenger is even pulled into it all when he is caught watching some action, but he manages to run off.

One girl is so terrified, when she manages to escape into the toilets, she throws herself from the train and ultimately to her own death just to get away from them. There is also a VERY uncomfortable scene with the other young girl (a virgin) being 'broken in' with a knife.  She dies from blood loss and they throw her body and possessions out of the train.

As with last weeks movie, the gang 'coincidentally' end up in the home of one of the murdered girls parents (I won't bore you with details) and again, like last week an item worn by one of the gang members gives the game away and we have the start of the revenge of the parents.

Frustratingly AGAIN, like last week it just doesn't cut the mustard.  It isn't satisfying.  It wasn't enough for me.  This movie spends an age setting it all up and the revenge of the parents is over in a heartbeat, whats more is that the blonde nasty cow gets away with it all as she claims the guys tried to atack her too!  Wheres the justice in that?  What was the point?  We are left wondering what is going to happen to her at the end of the movie.

I wouldn't say this was a bad movie.  It is LHOTL rehashed and in my humble opinion, it doesn't do the job as well.  I wouldn't say avoid it, but I wouldn't say rush out and see this now!  If you've seen one of these, you've pretty much seen them all.  Change of subject matter please!!!!

---

Please use the comments bellow only to comment on this post - to write your own review, please comment on the main post for this movie.

WEEK 52: Late Night Train

Alternate Titles : Night Train Murders, Last Stop on the Night Train, Don't Ride on Late Night Trains, Torture Train, The New House on the Left

Year: 1975

Reviews / Author Comments due: 19/05/2012

DPP Status: Removed from list March 1984

BBFC Status: Passed uncut in 2008

IMDB: LINK

Wikipedia: LINK

DVD: Uncut all region (R0) UK version - As "Night Train Murders"

---

Feel free to use the comments section of this post to add your own reviews and thoughts about this movie.

Last House on the Left - Will's Review

Another of the "big ones" this week; As David Heiss plays a rapacious scumbag (a character type he will revisit) under the first-time direction of Wes Craven, and we are told (for the first time) to keep repeating; It's only a Movie... Only a movie... Only a movie.



First up; props to Hess, who plays an utterly convincing scumbag, but a very different one to House on the Edge of The Park's Alex - that one actor could play 2 such seemingly similar characters so differently is a great testament to the man as an actor.

Plot wise this falls somewhere in between the 2 Rape-Revenge movies we have already seen, showing us the stalk and attack (and eventual murder) of the victims, as per I Spit on your Grave, but once the attackers find their way (unwittingly) to the home of one of the victims' families, it is they who seek out the revenge, as in The House on the Edge of the Park.

This time around however, far from being an Edge of the Park style stitch-up, our gang realizes who's home they are in before the girls' parents even realize that anything has happened to her; sadly however, this isn't used in the plot in any real way.

Another moment that goes unused is a brilliantly acted moment where the gang show some silent regret for their actions - disappointingly, this regret is never shown nor mentioned again.

I had mixed feelings about the younger member of the gang, and by extension the fact that he was killed. The lad did deliver the girls to the gang (and with a fair idea as to why they were wanted), but he did it in exchange for a fix - his father (The gang leader) had, we learn, deliberately got his son addicted to heroin from a young age as a method of controlling him.

The parents' revenge, when it does come, is too fast and easy for my tastes, leaving it somewhat unfulfilling. It is possible that this somewhat anti-climactic feel is deliberate; it is made clear at the end of the film that the parents' loss is in no way listened by the revenge, but no matter how clever this may have been from an audience empathy point of view, it doesn't make for a great ending, dramatically speaking.

All in all, not terrible, but not a home run, I still prefer its similarly cast ripoff. (At least that means I'm likely to disagree with Lisa this week)

Body Count: 6
Boob Count: 2 Pairs
Animal Body Count: 0
Most Memorable Death: Ouch - Less teeth please!

---

Please use the comments bellow only to comment on this post - to write your own review, please comment on the main post for this movie.

Last house on the left - Lisa's Review

*** SPOILERS ***

So, a controversial one this week and one I have known about and have never watched as I had been told how difficult a watch it was and how it was probably one best avoided by women.

Well, I have to say I'm not altogether in agreement with that statement.  Yes, it is nasty and parts are horrible but again, like 'Spit on your grave' I felt the repugnant acts were properly and well portrayed in this movie.

The story is basically a young, virginal girl goes out partying with a more 'experienced' if you will friend and they end up being held against their will by a dangerous gang who are passing through the area, while they attempt to buy some cannabis from them.

What follows is the horrible torture, degradation, humiliation and rape of both girls and their eventual deaths.  The portrayal of their experience is horrific, realistic, definately not played for kicks and really hits home the repugnant nature of the gangs boss and his female accomplice especially.  After the death of one girl, the woman in the gang delights in pulling her innards out for the simple pleasure of it.



The movie doesn't end with the girls' death, it leads on to the virginal girls parents finding out what has happened to their daughter when they happen to put the gang up for the night and see a necklace they bought for their daughter around the bosses sons (a rather naive and mentally slow individual) neck.

This is where the movie fell apart for me. I thought the first half of the movie was well executed and quite eerie how it switched between the frivolity of the girls parents preparing for her party to horrible scenes in the forest of what their daughter is going through.  However from the stage the parents find out about their daughters death (and they didn't look sufficiently upset by it for my liking either) it lost its edge for me.

They plan to take revenge on the gang and indeed they do, one at a time, but for me the revenge was too fast, not horrific enough and just not fitting.  There didn't seem to be enough emotion in what they were doing.  Then again I thought it was mighty odd at the beginning of the movie when the father proclaimed how he could see his daughters nipples through her shirt.... maybe they just act differently to normal people... who knows.

In conclusion, I thought the film 'could' have been much better if the ending was longer and better thought out.  If it felt (to use one of Wills terms from another review) more satisfying.  These didn't feel satisfying to me as the viewer.

I would say its definately worth a watch and definately is nasty, but lets itself down by losing its nastiness where it most needed it.

---

Please use the comments bellow only to comment on this post - to write your own review, please comment on the main post for this movie.

WEEK 51: The Last House on the Left

Alternate Titles : Krug & Company, The Men's Room, Night of Vengeance, Sex Crime of the Century

Year: 1972

Reviews / Author Comments due: 12/5/12

DPP Status: Successfully Prosecuted

BBFC Status: Passed uncut in 2008

IMDB: Last House on the Left

Wikipedia: Last House on the Left

DVD: R2 Uncut

---

Feel free to use the comments section of this post to add your own reviews and thoughts about this movie.

Killer Nun - Will's Review

Nunspoitation; A genre that conjures up images of massive lesbian orgies in kinky short habits, or at the very least something like this:

... Unless that's just me?

In any case, there's nun of that here. Just some lame murders (and one cool one) and a plot "twist" that's telegraphed right from the start...

***Spoilers follow***


Movie rule number 1: If a character you assume is the lead keeps talking to someone, but you never actually see their face; It IS NOT the lead character.

Movie rule number 2: If you never see the supposed killer kill anyone, the ARE NOT the real killer.

Everyone knows this, Right?

So when we keep cutting between the, admittedly less-than-nunly, shenanigans of morphine-addicted Sister Gertrude, murders committed by nunly hands of indeterminate origin, and a never-seen nun in confessional saying that she "won't stop" "Punishing men" because of "What he did to me" it should be patently obvious that  Gertrude isn't the killer, or the Nun in the confessional.

Anyway, our nuns here work in a hospital (I would call it a retirement home, but just one or two of the patents / inmates aren't old enough) and as Gurtrude starts to loose it (through her morphine addiction) she starts to get less popular with the residents, especially the old lady who's dentures she stamps on in a fit of rage! Sadly, the Hospital envrionment is really only used in one of the kills - in which a woman is tortured by being stabbed in the face (and through an eyeball) with hypodermic needles, while her mouth is taped shut with medical tape, which is not only the best kill, but also the highlight of the entire movie.

Not entirely unwatchable if you have time to kill, but there are a hell of a lot of movies out there I'd see first.

Body Count: 6
Boob COunt: 2 Pairs
Animal Body Count: 0
Most Memorable Death: Accupuncture - ur doing it wrong!

---

Please use the comments bellow only to comment on this post - to write your own review, please comment on the main post for this movie.

Killer Nun - Lisa's Review

Having spent all of my years of education from ages 4-18 in Convent schools and having had my first headmistress be a nun and having been taught by many nuns, I was interested to see this one.

Lets get this straight... an awful lot of nuns are cruel, nasty people.  I'm sure we can hazard a guess as to why.  I went to primary school in the days when 'The Cane' still existed and I received it 3 times at ages 9 and 10.  Once for laughing at a poem I had to prepare to read aloud about a 'Blue Tit' , once for putting a dead bumble bee on a girls seat I didn't like (it stung her on the bum - I didn't know they could do that) and once for copying someone elses work (me bad).  We had 1 teacher in the school who was a nun and the headmistress was a nun.  My 3 canings came from these 2 women. One I learnt in later years was dismissed for cruelty to children.

Anyways I deviate, this is meant to be a review.  I just thought I'd point out that as 'at odds' as the title maybe seems, it could be pretty spot on.  These women are bloody bad tempered.

*** SPOILERS FOLLOW ***


So, we follow a nun through the movie (very slowly) called Sister Gertrude.  Never have I seen a more glamorous, made-up nun in my life!   She has had brain surgery and it is clear all is not well with her.  She is addicted to painkillers and her behaviour just gets increasingly worse.  She is cruel to the patients at the hospital they work at, even almost killing one by withholding essential medication.   While she is reading some rather macabre facts from a book that seems to be about tortures, she grabs and stamps on an elderly patients false teeth which are in a glass.  She thinks they are disgusting.  This is actually very disturbing and I found it one of the most disturbing moments in the movie oddly enough... maybe because it could have been real.  Seemed pretty nun-like behaviour to me.

She goes on to start a relationship with another (much younger) nun who doesn't seem able to keep her clothes on.  She even starts to be cruel to her, commenting on her 'big floppy breasts flapping about' ,lol and calling her a whore, the worst kind of prostitute and forcing her to wear stockings she'd bought as a present.  Scenes obviously to keep the men awake.


She later seduces a man and has, what looks to be pretty rubbish sex with him.  No words are exchanged between them.  She throws some eyes at him, shows some leg, he follows her home, they get it on, he finishes and leaves... so its that simple??  Apparently so!

As the movie continues, I am amazing at how some scenes are dragged out and how slow the story progresses, especially 1 scene of a crippled man crawling up a flight of stairs... it seemed to go on and on and on.  Sadly he met his end when he got to the top, by means of a battering.

The movie seemed to wake up in the last half hour or so with a suffication with cotton for a rather randy old wheelchair bound guy,  a cringeworthy death by needles to the face (including through the eyes), the above mentioned battering of the 'steps' guy and another battering of another poor guy.

I found myself start to feel sorry for Sister Gertrude as we neared the end of the movie.  Like a complete 'tard I did think she was the murderer for quite a way into the movie, until the spate of deaths at the end, when the penny eventually dropped for me.

So what did I think?  Well on the most part its pretty dull and VERY slow in places although it did have some sort of appeal I have to say.

You could do much worse than this one, but I wouldn't rush out to see it.

---

Please use the comments bellow only to comment on this post - to write your own review, please comment on the main post for this movie.