29 Jul 2012

WEEK 63: Revenge of the Boogeyman



Alternate Titles : Revenge of the Bogeyman, Boogeyman II, The Boogey Man 2, The Boogeyman 2, Bogeyman 2
Year: 1983
Reviews / Author Comments due: 04/09/2012 Reviews put on hold while original version is sourced.
DPP Status: Removed from list July 1984
BBFC Status: No entry exists on the BBFC Website, The Redux version is currently available rated 18, although even this seems not to be listed with the BBFC.
IMDB: LINK
Wikipedia: LINK
DVD: Not Available (Note that the currently availbale Directors Cut / "Redux" version is a very different film)




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

28 Jul 2012

Prisoner of the Cannibal Gods - Will's Review

It's hard to believe that this one is older than most of the other cannibal movies on the list (I believe only Deep River Savages is older) because it seems to borrow elements from most of them; in reality it seems that the similarities are either coincidental, or the other movies each 'borrowed' their favorite parts from this one, stoping short of lifting the plot wholesale.

Either way, I could pretty much write an outline for one of these things in my sleep by now...

Up front we are told that our leading lady's husband went missing while out exploring the jungle, after failing to get help from the local authorities, she recruits someone who already knows the jungle and, with 2 of her and her husband's friends, they go of to find him.

The encounter a primitive, but friendly tribe, who are subsequently attacked by a war-like, cannibalistic tribe, who happen to be based in the area that our hero's need to search.

Along the way we see many scenes of animal cruelty and killing (both real and simulates) and plenty of stock footage of animal-on-animal violence.

Our characters are predictably captured and held, and they manage to work in a rape and a castration.

Seem familiar? Yeah, thought so.

To be fair, there are touches I haven't seen elsewhere - one thing I did like was that as the film progressed we discover that not all of outlets leading characters are necessarily what they seem to be, and some may have their own  motives for heading into the jungle.

The obligatory ritual is different here too - it involves our heroin being tied up and anointed, and then ignored while the tribe go into a sexual frenzy - a frenzy show to us in three separate acts (totally seperate, there is nothing an any of the shots to suggest that the rest of the tribe are even present, although they are supposedly all in the same cave); a couple have sex, a tribes woman (very graphically) masturbates, and a guy fucks a pig (the pig is far more interested in eating a nearby plant and seems happy to ignore the idiot pulling his tail and dry-humping him).

In the end though, we've seen it all before, and far too much of the film is spent walking around and cutting to animals killing each other; distressed monkey aside (I really did hate to see that - even though it was just nature doing what nature does*) it's mostly a very dull movie.


*UPDATE - It has been indicated that even this was staged

BODY COUNT: 11
BOOB COUNT: 4 Pairs
ANIMAL BODY COUNT: 16 - mostly real.
MOST MEMORABLE DEATH: Midget brains!



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.

Prisoner Of The Cannibal God - Lisa's Review



*** SOME SPOILERS***

So, another Cannibal movie in our list.  I thought we had exhausted them all with the passing of 'C', but nope, here's another entry.

This movie left me a little cold.  Not for the obvious hatred of close-up scenes of animal deaths (which this movie contains), but because I found it so monumentally dull.  To be fair, I think unless I adore or hate a movie, if its somewhere in the middle, it is very much dependant on my mood how I will find it.  Maybe on a different day, I would feel this one 'wasn't too bad'.  I don't think I would ever go as far as even describing this movie as 'good', but I found reaching the end of this one a bit of a struggle as I had absolutely sod all interest in how it ended.

The basic premis is, our main female character Susan (played by Ursula Andress) and her brother Arthur set off on an exhibition to find Susans' missing husband.  She brings an ex colleague of her husbands (Prof Edward Foster) who seems to have an idea where he could have gone.

After what seems like a sh*t load of red tape and needless scenes of them getting permisson to go, what follows is stereotypical jungle wandering.  We are also treated to the mandatory high maintenance, helpless female to frustrate any ladies who may be watching. The characters are all pretty one dimensional (mostly arseholes) and played out very obviously.  The acting is not the worst I've seen, but does appear wooden in a lot of places.
Interspersed throughout the movie are inserted scenes of animal deaths, which seem to have no place in the movie.  They are nothing to do with the storyline, were not needed and add absolutely nothing.  In fact they just leave you feeling a bit sick to the stomach and make you want to reach for the remote and turn it off entirely.  What makes it worse is the very obvious setting up of the worst scene of a python devouring a live monkey.  I persevered, just to see if this movie improved any.  Sadly it did not.

We learn throughout the movie that Susan's reasons for coming on the expedition aren't as originally stated.  She has no concern whatsoever for her missing husband, in fact if anything, she has utter disdain for him.  She is in it for entirely selfish reasons, as is the accompanying Professor Foster, who was taken prisoner by natives years ago and wants to exact revenge.  We also have an explorer Manolo who joins the party part-way through... yet we still wonder where the cannibals are?

We trundle through the movie wandering when something of any interest is going to happen.  Even the death of Foster, who loses his footing while climbing a waterfall is a kind of 'meh' moment.  Arthur also dies as they reach their destination and Manolo and Susan are taken prisoner.  This is where we see the body of Susans husband who the natives are worshipping as they believe to still be alive due to the ticking coming from his geiger counter.

They decide Susan is a goddess.They tie her up, strip her naked, smear her in mud and afterwards dress her in a very elaborate, beautiful (and very light coloured given the dirty surroundings) costume.  Manolo is tortured.

I won't spoil the ending, but I would be surprised if anyone who no interest in a naked Ursula Andress or who isn't on a 'Nasties completion task' would have got that far.

In conclusion, not one I would watch again or recommend.  Seemed to have a much larger budget than the other cannibal movies on this list and had some great cinematography, but all that was at the expense of good acting, effects and keeping your attention.

Big fat Meh from me.


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22 Jul 2012

WEEK 62: Prisoner of the Cannibal God




Alternate Titles : Slave of the Cannibal God, Primitive Desires, The Mountain of the Cannibal God
Year: 1978
Reviews / Author Comments due: 28/7/2012
DPP Status: Removed from list May 1985
BBFC Status: Passed with almost 2 min of of cuts in 2009 (cuts made by distributor prior to submission - the Current version, listed as "uncut" by the BBFC, is only 20s longer than a previous version, which had 2m6s of cuts)
IMDB: LINK
Wikipedia: LINK


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

Possession - Will's Review


I honestly have no idea what to say about this movie.

If asked what it's about I'd be forced to answer with concepts, rather than plot points; it's about duality, divorce, resentment, madness, betrayal; so many things that I could probably list them all day, and still later think of some that I missed!
Filmed in Berlin, with an international cast (including a young Sam Neil) by a polish director, it at times has the look of a French art house movie, at time it borders on German expressionism.

By rights it should be a mess; but despite being utterly unfathomable on the story front, it remains totally compelling.

If I had to compare it to anything, I'd say it was like Cronenberg and Lynch had re-worked Alien and Kramer vs Kramer into one movie.

Not a movie I can fairly describe, much less review, it is however one that I can recommend, as long as you can handle 2 hours of mind bending.

The opening credits, sadly, contain a spoiler; giving credit in large letters to something that we don't even see in the first hour or so of the movie, but when it does show up, it is very well done, and you can see why it warranted a place in the opening credits.

If you enjoyed Videodrome, Naked Lunch and Eraser Head, I'm sure you'll find something to enjoy here.

And suddenly: car chase.



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21 Jul 2012

Possession - Lisa's Review

*** SPOILERS ***

This weeks movie is going to be very, very hard for me to review.  Mostly because certain aspects were so confusing.  That aside, I did think it was an incredibly well made movie and it does warrant at least another watch.

We see a known actor for a change, in a young Sam Neill (Mark) returning from work to his beautiful wife Anna in Berlin.  The movie is shot right beside the Berlin wall which I don't think is accidental in any sense given the division throughout the movie between the husband and wife.  It almost feels like the director is trying to show the unseen by giving the incredible emotion of this movie a solid presence.  The hard, cold concrete and stark scenes set in Berlin convey their relationship wonderfully.


That is fundamentally what the movie seemed to be... the portrayal of a relationship downward spiraling faster than is can recover from and the breakdown of the characters.   It is a very uncomfortable movie and has scenes which are very difficult to watch between Mark and Anna, including a horrendously nasty physically abusive scene between the 2 of them.  Also as a parent, I found the presence of their son and his neglect by Anna after Mark has left their home very uncomfortable.  The characters seem to be emotionally unhinged and self involved to the extreme, concentrating on how everything effects them with Anna even having no concern for her own son.

In our storyline Mark discovers his wife has been unfaithful after she asks for a divorce.  As the movie continues, it becomes clear he has too, but that seems unimportant and the concentration seems to be very much upon Anna's infidelity.  In fact, the movie seems to concentrate very much on Marks feelings and portraying things from Marks point of view.  Any scenes which are meant to be from Anna's perspective seem incomplete confusing or contradictory.  Her personality was very hard to make sense of.  I wasn't sure if this was a deliberate thing to add to the mania and to hint towards the complexity of women who can be almost impossible to understand or whether it was an oversight on behalf of the director.

Mark hires a private detective to follow Anna.  This is where the confusion started for me in earnest.  There is a man/octopus thing (very convincingly put together btw) that Anna is sleeping with.  It develops more and more throughout the film by eating body parts it seems, fed to it by Anna.  One very odd and lingering scene shows Anna making love to the 'thing' and repeating the word 'almost'...  The detective and his partner are murdered by Anna when they find out too much and she feeds them to the man/octopus?  While this is happening Mark starts to date his son Bobs teacher, a 'good' version of Anna , called Helen (played by the same actress) who has her 'kindness' visibly displayed by brilliant green eyes.

A scene which deserves a mention in the movie is Anna's mental and physical breakdown in the Subway.  It is quite lengthy, VERY uncomfortable (I think because its so raw and human) and very well executed and culminates in her sitting on the concrete with blood running from her head and what looked like a mixture of blood, pus and urine coming from between her legs.  Again, I didn't quite understand this part but visually it was very dramatic and effective.  She makes a comment about the episode being her 'loss of faith'.

The ending of the movie is very confusing but mind blowing.  I won't completely spoil it, but the man/octopus reaches its final evolution into a doppelganger of Mark.  Helen is left in the appartment with Bob and the Doppelganger.  The same 3 physical beings are we started with fundementally.

This movie will probably leave you with more questions than answers and feeling a little confused, but if you watch it, you would have to admit that its a very powerful, dark,ominous and disturbing movie with phenomenal acting  from the leads, moreso Isabelle Adjani.  You certainly won't have seen anything like it before.

Thumbs up from me.



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15 Jul 2012

WEEK 61:Possession



Alternate Titles : The Night the Screaming Stops
Year: 1981
Reviews / Author Comments due: 21/07/2012
DPP Status: Removed from list September 1983 following Jury Trial
Satus: Passed uncut in 2010
IMDB: LINK
Wikipedia: LINK
DVD: R2 uncut







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

14 Jul 2012

Nightmares in a Damaged Brain - Will's Review

You know how the saying goes; Another week, another forgettable (though not entirely terrible) slasher with the word nightmare in its title!

This week, our leading man goes by the name of George Tatum and has spent an indeterminate amount of time in some kind of experimental medical facility, where he is the first person to be declared successfully cured of psychopathy by a state of the art technique.

His being 'cured' however, leaves me with 2 questions; who does he regularly wake screaming from a dream about an axe murder, and why are the guys who run the facility so worried about his escape near the beginning of the movie?

MINOR SPOILERS
A reasonable person might be inclined to think that someone who frequently dreams about a couple engaged in a light bondage session suffer coitus interrupts by way of an axe, while a young boy looks on, might not be all that stable. A reasonable person would be right!

And so Tatum  makes a beeline for a family which is so clearly his own (it's supposed to be a surprise when we find that out - it isn't) killing anyone he encounters.

There's a hint that Tatum 's rehabilitation might be part o some sinister government programme, but as this may have given the movie a point of interest, the idea is quickly dropped.

The Italian influence is obvious in this one, even though it's an American movie, unfortunately the galioesk feel that is played over the opening scenes is quickly dropped in favour of a more typical low-rent post-Halloween stalk an slash, albeit a slightly confused one.

Forgettable but not utterly terrible.

Body Count: 8
Boob Count: 1 Pair
Most Memorable Death: Quit Ice-Picking on me!



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Nightmares in a Damaged Brain - Lisa's Review

***SPOILERS ***

A little late with the review for this one, my apologies, just completed a relocation back to good old Norn Iron.

Soooo what to 'Nightmares in a damaged brain', well I enjoyed this one.  I can find quite a few faults if I want to be pedantic, but sometimes I like the general 'feel' of a movie and with this one I did.

Our basic storyline is a schizophrenic George Tatum being released from his secure unit due to the supposed success of some new experimental wonder drugs.  It is very clear however from the outset that George is far from cured.  He is obviously being released to commit all kinds of havoc.

The first signs our man is not all well (apart from the fact he's in a mental institution) is his recurring nightmare flashback.  He is obviously very disturbed by this each time he wakes.  As the story progresses we get to see more and more of the scene which gets progressively more gorey and disturbing.  With each 'vision' more havoc is wreaked by George.  I don't know why, but I kind of felt sorry for him.  Wierd I know, but there was something very human about him.

I think of all the wierd places, his humanity is exhibited by his visit to a peep show (on a side note, how interesting!  I had no idea how they worked and was amazed that men can see other men looking in at the same woman... you would think that would put them off). He seems like any man in these scenes and is almost gentle in his approach when the stripper approaches him and allows him to touch her.

The following of George, runs alongside a story of a family and their very odd young son, who has a bit of an obsession with blood and being a little sod.  They are being pestered by telephone calls and the mother is getting increasingly worried about it all.  I think it is meant to be a surprise, but this is Georges family and he is making his way to them all through the movie.  Now I'm not the quickest in the world cracking onto these things granted, but even I managed to grasp this one.

In the finale as George arrives at his family home (wearing a quite creepy mask and carrying a leathal looking ice-pick).  People die.  We also see the entire 'nightmare' played out and we can make full sense of the scene.

Sadly the effects are very poor and I think this movie would have been much better if it had of had a 'less is more' approach.  The blood was fine, but the texture of flesh and skin was all wrong, a beheading was almost laughable and is it even possible for hands to reach for the stump of a neck when the head has gone??    I did enjoy the axe to the head though.

Anyways, that aside.   I did like the movie, the ending and the feel.  I liked Georges character.  Very believable.  The 'like father, like son' angle was quite poignant too.

I am giving this one the 'Lisa Recommends' tag.  You could do worse than check this one out.



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8 Jul 2012

WEEK 60: Nightmares in a Damaged Brain




Alternate Titles : Nightmare, Dark Games, Blood Splash, Schizo
Year: 1981
Reviews / Author Comments due: 14/07/2012
DPP Status: Successfully prosecuted 
BBFC StatusPassed uncut in 2005
IMDB: LINK
Wikipedia: LINK
DVD: Uncut R2





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

7 Jul 2012

Nightmare Maker - Lisa's Review



Bit of a weird one this week.  This movie, like a few other 'nasties' has the feel of a TV movie to me, but the content is most definately not something you would find on TV.  Obsession, incest, homophobia and murder pretty much sum it up.

We focus on teenager Billy, who has been living with his aunt Cheryl since the death of his parents in a car accident.  The movie actually opens with the accident and some pretty ok effects I thought.  A nasty decapitation for the dad  and a roll job and burst into flames for the mum.  I thought the sudden and fast entry into some action bode well for the movie, but we were led onto a completely different movie from then on.

It becomes very clear early on that aunt Cheryl is not all she seems and has rather sinister incestuous intentions towards young Billy.  Given that she has raised him from a very young child and is like a mother to him, this is very disturbing and somewhat uncomfortable to watch.  All seems well in their rather wierd world until Billy starts to live his life to the exclusion of his aunt, intending on going to college (which she does everything initially to dissuade him from) and spending time with a girl from college who seems to have a crush on him.  The very thought of losing Billy from her clutches seems to send Cheryl over the edge of whatever small amount of sanity she possessed.

We cross from disturbed and creepy into completely insane and murderous when a poor TV repair man spurns her advances and she reacts by stabbing him to death.  Billy walks in while she still has the weapon in her hand, still stuck into the victims neck... she immediately claims rape.   A couple of neighbours also call in and witness the gory aftermath, so obviously the police are called in.  Cheryl manages to talk Billy into covering for her to the cops but our cop smells a rat.  Questions are raised as to how Cheryl managed to escape from the heavyset repair man to stab him and he is later discovered to be gay.... so obviously its a bit odd that he would be trying to rape a woman.

The cop may smell a rat but he is chasing the wrong person as he believes Billy is hiding something and is to blame.  He also believes Billy is gay, something he has a whole load of problems with.  This is another aspect of the movie that is quite uncomfortable... the homophobic language and derisory manner that gay people are discussed throughout.  It is very clearly from a different time and uses language no director would dare to today.  I lost count of the amount of times 'Fag' was mentioned.  The police have it seems no interest in solving any crime or getting to the bottom of any murder in this movie.  There is an altogether more important agenda for this dirty cop.

The rest of the movie plays out as you would expect with more madness, more violence and death, more incestuous discomforts and more homophobia.  I found it really difficult to stay focused and pay attention without my mind drifting.  Its a sign to me that I'm not enjoying a movie when I have to force myself to pay attention to it.

I wouldn't say I hated this movie, but I personally didn't particularly enjoy it.  It certainly wasn't one of the worst I've seen but I could understand people enjoying this one, it just didn't stand out for me and the only thing remotely different about it was downright cringeworthy.

In conclusion, I wouldn't say avoid it, but I wouldn't say rush out and watch it either.


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Nightmare Maker - Will's Review

I watched this on a couple of days before penning the review, which I now realise was a mistake as it's a fairly forgettable movie, so we'll have to wait and see what comes back to me as I write.

Obviously, it's not Devil Hunter forgettable; I did at least manage to remember the beginning of the movie all the way to the end, just kind of generic and... Meh.


The thing is, in the beginning it felt like it might be fairly interesting: a young couple leave their baby with its aunt while they go on a trip, but die shortly after heading out, when their brakes fail. Cut forwards 15 years and baby Billy (now a young man on the brink of graduation) lives with the aunt, who's more than a little creepy:


Erm... That's your NEPHEW you freak!

Her creepiness goes into overdrive when Billy announces that he's about to win a basketball scholarship to an out if state college; to prove how needed her nephew is, she attempts to seduce the plumber in an effort to frame him for rape, but when he refuses her advances, she looses her rag and stabs him to death - just on time for Billy to come home and witness it.

She ticks to the rape story, claiming that she killed him in self defence, however the police are skeptical as a) there isn't a mark on her and b) the plumber is gay.

To make matters worse, the plumber was in a relationship with the (thus far closeted) gym teacher.

To round of a 'prefect' investigation, the officer in charge is massively homophobic, and instantly decides that Billy was having an affair with the gym teacher, and killed the plumber in a screaming queenly hissy-fit, and that his Aunt is covering.

From here though, it starts to flounder a bit; mainly because the aunt isn't the right type of crazy - you see, if the aunt had developed a taste for murder and went on a spree at this point; inadvertently causing more and more suspicion to fall on her Nephew; that may have made for a decent movie. Alas, not a lot happens in the films middle third. The coach gets shit for being gay, the aunt tries a few things to further sabotage her nephews chances of getting the scholarship, the policeman goes around using the word 'faggot' a lot.

Then things get out of hand, there are a couple more kills, a twist that really doesn't make any sense when you think about it, and the film abruptly ends, pausing before the credits roll to give us a true-story style 'what happened to the characters' text crawl.

Not an utterly terrible movie, but a very VERY dull one.

Body Count: 8
Boob Count: 1 Pair
Most Memorable Death:



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1 Jul 2012

WEEK 59 - Nightmare Maker




Alternate Titles : 'Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker', Night Warning, Evil Protege, Momma's Boy, Thrilled to Death
Year: 1981
Reviews / Author Comments due: 7/7/2012
DPP Status: Removed from list December 1985
BBFC Status: Still banned
IMDB: LINK
Wikipedia: LINK
DVD: Not available




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

30 Jun 2012

Night of the Demon: Will's Review

I hate to rag on micro budget movies, getting a film finished and out there is no mean feat, but for some things there's no excuse; There are plenty of good actors who will work for guild minimum, and a coherent script costs no more to write than, say, Night of the Demon...

You see, the film starts at the end, and is told in flashbeck, a common enough method, only there are several flashbacks along the way - flashbacks within flashbacks, and while many of the scenes do not feature the main character (the one doing the flashing back) the sub-flashbacks almost all have no survivors, and in one case the guy doing the main story wasn't present when the nested (and witness free) flashback was recounted! So he is recounting the recounting  of a tail which no one could have known about and which he didn't even hear!


That might sound a bit nitpicky - and it might have been, but for the fact that the film is so disjointed that it is at times borderline incoherent. Sometimes chopping a back story into portions and telling out of order is an interesting way to have us share in a protagonist's confusion or gradual discovery, (Memento, A Serbian Film) or to hide an important fact until its reveal would be more dramatic (Sixth Sense) - here it's seemingly done randomly, as the entire back-story would have been better presented in one go as the films second act. It still wouldn't have been a great film (or even an good one) but it would have at least been easier to watch.

Spoilers follow, but I wouldn't recommend you sit through the movie unless you're some kind of freak with OCD that has decided he HAS TO watch the whole DPP list, so I wouldn't bother avoiding them:

Our focus is a group of anthropology students who are investigating reported Bigfoot sightings. It turns out that Bigfoot is real, and once raped a local woman, impregnating her with his mutant offspring. Her father, a priest who witnessed the rape, killed the baby, believing it to be of demonic origin. The woman has lived on her own in a cabin in the woods ever since, and seems to get used in some rape ritual carried out by her late fathers followers, who now worship the Bigfoot. Our students basically emotionally abuse this poor woman and exhume her child's grave(!), without giving it a second thought, until Bigfoot kills all but one of them. The survivor is declared insane.


Effects wise, the deaths are terrible, but the creature himself isn't too bad (for a film of it's age and budget):


It's so patchy and non-linear that it kind of defies review beyond this, So I present an equally patchy and non-linear collection of clips and comments:


Remember that they are in this woman's home:





"Nevermind" ???? NEVERMIND??? Really?


Bigfoot think's he's Jason now apparently 
(He uses an axe on a couple of occasions too):


Best Kill in the movie:
(also the best clip in VNAW history)

Mmmm, those clips make it look better than it is; sorry about that.

AVOID!

Body Count: 13
Boob Count: 1 pair
Dead Animal Count: 0
Most Memorable Kill: see above.


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Night of the Demon - Lisa's Review




*** SPOILERS ***

Well we've got a right stinker this week.  I wouldn't say it was the worst one I've watched so far on the list, but it is definately not one I would ever recommend to anyone else for any reason, other than a desire to complete the nasties list challenge.

Our basic storyline here centres around a very nasty Bigfoot who lives in a forest and likes to go around killing people in various entertaining ways.  Of course there is a willing group of cannon fodder for our monster courtesy of a group of college students (yup... yet again) and their professor who are investigating the truth behind the legend of this particular monster (or Demon if you will).

The movie actually starts by telling you how its going to end.  The professor is in hospital, all bandaged up.  The only survivor of a Bigfoot massacre.  The movie is told through a series of flashbacks, which like another movie we watched recently also made no sense as the person telling the story was not present at all the flashbacks!  Irritating!  Contingency issues is the least of our worries here though.

Where do I start?  The acting in this movie is terrible.  The script is laughable to the extreme, but not in a funny way, more in a 'I can't believe I'm watching this shit' way.  The story is oh so predictable but is full of holes.

One thing which really irritated me about the movie is the way some of the deaths or reactions to them are drawn out.  They in no way change or add anything.  The camera just stays there filming the same scene for aaaaaaaaaaaages.  I could just feel the actor hung upside down with blood dripping down his face, into his eyes and mouth thinking... 'Come on already!!!'   Also there is nothing more irritating than a screaming woman in a horror... jeeeeeeeeez you have your fair share of this here.  I refer to the first death scene which happens to a courting couple who are making love in a car.  The bloke is dragged out and onto the top of the car and murdered out of sight.  His bloody body however falls down onto the windscreen and slithers downwards (as they always do when a windscreen is involved).  The womans reaction was downright ridiculous!  How many ways did the director ask her to react?  Its like her said, 'No, try that again', she did about 20 attempts and they kept them all in!!  This is all while she is completely starkers by the way.  She does pick up something to cover herself with and decides to cover her waist with it....



The gore is ok in places, but it would have been very easy to improve the effects with a little more effort.  Gore includes an impaling on a tree, a ripped off penis when a motorcyclist stops to relieve himself, a throat slitting on a window pane, an impaling on a pitchfork, a disembowlment (this was probably the best one as he proceeds to whip the poor guys innards around the room) and the birth of a half human / half Bigfoot.

So where does the baby come from?  Well our students hear a story that a young woman called Wanda (who has a reputation for being crazy) has had an encounter of the very close kind with Bigfoot where he impregnates her.  Her father (a preacher) witnesses the rape and waits until his daughter gives birth so he can kill the offspring which he believes to be evil.  He's an odd sort, her dad.

Wanda then undergoes a ritualistic reliving of her rape every year by her fathers followers who believe the ritual somehow protects them.  Is it any wonder the girl is a little disturbed?

Our ever understanding students blunder into her home and basically force all this information out of her by way of hypnotism.  When the beans have been spilled, predictably Bigfoot makes an appearance and does away with the cast (I felt a cheer coming on.. GO BIGFOOT!).

Sadly our professor lives to tell the tale in a hospital and we are subjected to this movie.  As always with this kind of experience, everything is put down to 'madness'.

Conclusion?  This is bloody awful.  Avoid.

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24 Jun 2012

WEEK 57: Night of the Demon



Alternate Titles : NA
Year: 1980
Reviews / Author Comments due: 30/06/2012
DPP Status: Successfully Prosecuted
Wikipedia: LINK



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23 Jun 2012

Night of the Bloody Apes - Will's Review

Badly acted, badly directed and edited, with dialogue  translated word-by-word from Spanish with no thought to syntax or English sentence formation, this is a near perfect drive-in or freinds-and-beer movie.


It's also (especially in it open moments) incredibly colorful; in fact between the opening scenes being about a pair of luchadora (costumed female Mexican wrestlers) and the gawdy Eastman color film stock, you'd be forgiven at first for thinking you'd tuned into an old episode of the 60's version of Batman. Strangly though, the plot (and even score) seem to come streight from a Black and White 50's B-movie.


Will The Red Cat's plan come to fruition, find out
next week, same bat-time, same bat channel...

Despite featuring so prominently in the opening scene, the luchadora are rarely seen again - apparently, this film is a remake of (the same director's) 1962 film Las Luchadoras contra el medico asesino ("The Wrestling Women vs. the Murderous Doctor"; U.S. title "Doctor of Doom") - in this remake the gore and nudity is ramped up, but (sadly) it is no longer the wrestler who saves the day, but her boyfriend the police lieutenant. Shame - I think I would like to see a violent version of the wrestler version (WWE Studios, are you listening?)

The plot is utter bobbins; A dotors son has leukemia, and the doc comes to the conclusion that a blood transfusion from a stronger beast (i.e. a gorilla) could cure it; but, apparently, the human heart could not handle such strong blood (!) so a heart transplant will be required too.

With this in mind, the doctor and his assistant kidnap a man in a bad gorilla suit from a nearby zoo and perform the operation. it seems though, that a side effect of the operation is that the patient will periodically change into a putty faced beast and go on murder sprees, because the gorilla heart...  pumps too much blood to the brain... or... something...

Appart from the operations (which uses genuine stock footage of heart surgery) the effects are laughably bad - an eyeball gag seems to utilize porridge, and a 'scalping' is clearly a bald man, who's head has been painted red, having his wig removed.

Aside from having a terrible plot and effects, it's also incompetently edited (why are so many of these things seemingly scored before the final cut) the dialogue has seemingly been translated from the original Spanish one word at a time, using a Spanish-to-English dictionary, by someone who speaks only the former. The result is often hilarious as the actors speak lines seemingly conjured up via Google translate:



It's worth mentioning that the dubbed version have a couple of scenes of extra violence and nudity that were not in the original Mexican version - and these are mostly very obvious; never more so than when a woman has her dress torn at the shoulder when the beast grabs at her and then, after killing her boyfriend, the beast grabs her again and rips the top half of her dress almost completely off while dry humping her. When she escapes and runs to a nearby shop for help, the dress has miraculously heal itself back to its original shoulder tear...

All in a a terible, terible film, that I'm sure would be great in the right crowd, with the right refreshments; Unfortunately, I saw it alone, so missed the chance to experience it for all its so-bad-it's-good glory; it was there, clear as day, but alone it just didn't work. I'll tell you this though; if I ever win the lotto and open that revival cinema I always promise myself I will, I'm showing this movie!

Body Count: 9
Boob Count: 2 Pairs
Animal Body Count: 1
Most memorable kill: I need that wig to survive!!!
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Night of the Bloody Apes - Lisa's Review


*** SPOILERS ***

I read the title of this one and thought 'oh gawd, here we go.  How can this possibly be any good?'.  I slightly shame myself however to admit that I enjoyed this one, BUT for all the wrong reasons.  For me, this one was a 'So bad its good' movie.  I found myself tittering all the way through.  Just when you were getting over the humor of the last cheesy line, terrible peace of acting, awful effect or desperately flawed storyline, lo and behold, something else happens to amuse you!

So where do I start?  The movie is dubbed and is originally spanish.  I speak a bit of spanish (not much admittedly, but the script would have made more sense to me in its original language).  The dubbing is awful and the actual translation itself seems to have no consideration for how it might sound in english, but is rather a crude literal translation of the original language.  That did just add to the fun for me though.

The storyline here follows a surgeon, Dr Kralman and his hapless, limping, gormless side-kick Goyo.  The Dr's son Julio has leukemia and for reasons I could not understand needed gorilla blood to cure him.  This blood however would have been too strong for the human heart, so the gorilla heart had to be transplanted as well.  Sooo what do they do?  They go to a zoo and get themselves an ape of course!!  This is where the only good piece of gore in the movie takes place and that would be because it was real.  Actual footage of real open heart surgery was spliced into the movie.  What perplexed me about it however is how shaky and incompetant the hands of the real surgeon appeared!  I certainly wouldn't want his hands in my chest cavity, thats for sure!
So, the son comes around, but he now has a ridiculous ape face, that looks like its been put on by that brown window putty you used to get years ago (can you still get that?).  He also has an insatiable need to attempt to rape women (I say attempt as he never actually manages that) and murder them.  I think the rape part was just as excuse for the movie to get as many pairs of tits and arse cheeks out as they could as there need be no hint of an excuse for a pair to pop out and Oooops, out they come.  'Oh dear!  I'm running.  I'm not wearing a bra, my boobs seem to have mysteriously popped out of my dress.. dearie me'.   Later followed by 'I've just taken a shower, someone has come to the door.  I won't do what a normal person would and ignore it, or pull a dressing gown on... no, I think I shall wander to the door with a towel wrapped around my front so my arse is hanging out.  Nice look that'.  I also learned that women like to make mundane calls to their boyfriends when completely nude, with NO ulterior motive, Hmmmmmm.

Anyways Nudity covered (mwahahahaha) the next humorous thing was the effects.  We had an eyeball gouging (which would usually have me cringing, I'm not good with eyeballs) but if a pile of fatty looking mash is what's behind an eyeball, I have a lot to learn.  A toupe is pulled off a bald mans painted head (I loved that bit!) and a sellotaped piece of latex is torn away from someones neck.

We also manage to return to the start of the movie where we had 2 women wrestling (although it was clearly big men in the wrestling scenes and not the slim women shown before the fight started).  One was very badly injured and ended up in hospital in a coma.  When our surgeon dad realises what has happened to his son due to the gorilla heart, he decides to remove the female wrestlers heart and transplant it into him.  Here we have another excuse for boobs to come out.  Goyo disposes of her in the hospital furnace but sadly Julio still resorts back to his monkey-boy self.

Nearing the end of the movie, Julio runs wild at the hospital and captures a little girl.  His dad manages to convince him to hand the little girl over and in true King Kong Style, he is gunned down where is stands on top of the roof.  Finally as with werewolves, he then turns back to his normal self as he lies dying, we have some 'Walton-like' music and hey presto, its all over.

Little about this movie is good in the sense that it is meant to, but I still found I enjoyed it and would watch it again with friends.

Watch if you like a good laugh at 'So bad its good' movies!




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