The Exterminator (1980)

One of the better exploitation films from my youth was The Exterminator. I still remember his catchphrase of “If you’re lying, I’ll be back”, so when the remastered directors cut surfaced, I had to see it. Fast forward to December 2011 and here it is, in all it’s bloody gory glory. The story is a simple vigilante story: When John Eastland’s best friend, Michael Jefferson, is mugged and left permanently crippled, he decides to do something about it. Jefferson had saved Eastland’s life in Vietnam and now it’s time for Eastland to get revenge for his friend. Using his old Army gear he sets out on a crusade to clean up the streets of New York using the name “The Exterminator.” [IMDb]

The movie starts out with our two main characters escaping a Vietnamese attack. Yep, you guessed it, they’re Vietnam vets. I should stress here that it’s rather well done for a cheap film. There’s some big, and I mean BIG, explosions, plenty of fire and a fair bit of gore, ie: a decapitation, when the Vietnamese are demanding information. I haven’t seen this film in years and wasn’t expecting the decap, so when it happened it totally unexpected and, for the time, very well done, FX-wise I mean.

Now THAT's a gaping wound!

Our main character (played by Robert Ginty) is down and saved by his sidekick. Once air lifted to safety we see them working at a meat market. Mr. Ginty walks in on a robbery and is, again, saved by his cohort. Unfortunately for his cohort he’s later attacked by the robbers and is left crippled. It’s here that our man has been (as the cover says) ‘pushed too far’.

Immediate +1 for having a flame thrower!

After hunting down the guys who crippled his war buddy, our man goes after various other scumbags who cross him in various ways. Needless to say, most of them end up worst off.

Why yes, it is a man (in chains) dangling above a giant meat grinder.

I remembered it fondly as a fine exploitation film of the vigilante era and was hesitant to watch it in case I spoiled some fond memories, but even now, 30yrs later it’s still a cracking good film.

The beheading is an excellent effect, others are your bog standard blood splats and what-have-you. The acting is good, but there’s absolutely no funny parts to this movie. Not a jot. On the bright side though, there are some nekkid b00bs.

We're offering a BOGOF today, Sir. Look at some fine female boobs and you get to see some man boobs absolutely free!

I highly recommend this fine vigilante film if you’re in the mood to see scumbags getting their comeuppance, and it has a good ending. Now… should I watch The Exterminator 2 next, or the original Death Wish? Hmm…

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

P.S. I love you guys  & gals.  Give mad props to the author of this on youtube if you dig it.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61RJGQcG_sM&feature=player_embedded

Hausu (aka: House) - 1977

I’ll tell you right now, and up front, this is one weeeeeird film! It’s part haunted house movie, part love story, part horror, part comedy and part 70′s children’s TV (you know, when they used to do the really jerky stop motion stuff?).

Hausu (or, House to us English speakers) has a plot (of sorts) that goes a little like this: Oshare (Gorgeous) is excited about spending summer vacation with her father, until she finds out that his beautiful, freakishly serene girlfriend Ryouko would be going as well. Oshare decides she will be going to her aunt’s house in the country instead. She brings with her her friends from school – Fanta (who likes to take pictures, and daydreams a lot), KunFuu (who has very good reflexes), Gari/Prof (who is a major nerd), Sweet (who likes to clean), Mac (who eats a lot), and Melody (a musician). However, the girls are unaware that Oshare’s aunt is actually dead and the house is actually haunted. When they arrive at the house, crazy events take place and the girls disappear one by one while slowly discovering the secret behind all the madness. (taken from IMDb)

I will say this though, even though it was shot in the 70′s the colours in the film are amazing. Its bright colours reminded me of The Wizard of Oz where the colours are really bright and vibrant.

The film starts with two school girls who act like lesbian lovers, rather than best friends. One returns home to find her pops is about to drop the bombshell that they’re still going on holiday, but he’s bringing his new girlfriend with them. The daughter isn’t amused, goes to her room and begins talking to photos of her now dead mother. Very odd.

Oh, did I mention that she changes from her school outfit to her dress just by twirling? Yeah, this chick thinks she’s Wonder Woman or something… that caught me off guard, had to rewind to check if that really did happen. And it did!

After a quick sing-song, a man falls down a set of stairs, gets his ass stuck in a metal bucket, moves around for several seconds in jerky stop motion before using the telephone with the bucket still attached to his posterior. No, seriously, I have evidence:

A man with a bucket stuck on his ass with a small child drumming on it.

Next the girls are on a bus and  showing photos to one another which begins a series of old style movies explaining the relevance of the photos. Once they get off the bus though…

Note the backdrop behind the girls, that's for the next scene.

Note the backdrop behind them, that’s the backdrop for the next scene. Hide it? Nah. Cut to move it in/out? Nah…

Eventually the girls find the house they’re looking for which is inhabited by some (supposedly) older chick in a wheelchair.

Now that's colours for ya. It's like an oil painting, and the whole film is like that!

From here the girls see spooky goings on and are dispatched one by one. One death includes the now infamous death-by-piano scene:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBatYO_9Yg0

The entire film is that crazy. Honestly.

In this scene Auntie has miraculously recovered, doesn’t need her wheelchair and is dancing with a skeleton:

Not wheelchair ridden any more, she's up and dancing with skeletons!

After several other deaths, two men decide to discuss their likes and dislikes:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnWFhPCNHbQ

And from here on in we get to see a little flash of boobs and an explanation (of sorts!) to explain the strange goings on. But it’s really not enough to explain ALL the strangeness in this film! It’d take another film to explain that.

Oh, wait, I didn’t mention the weird end credits sequence. Heck, I’ll let it speak for its self:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YrJPcMfSfw

Keep watching it to at least the 45sec mark to get the full weirdness of it.

Man this is one weird film! I feel like I’ve been tripping for the past 90mins! If you like strangeness then this is one film not to miss. The plot is nonsense, the acting is OK, the effects are 1970′s (so basic at best) but it’s hard to dislike it!

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars <– giving it a 3 but +1 for the piano and other death scenes.

Srpski film, aka: A Serbian Film (2010)

I’ve reviewed some sick and harsh films over the years (eg: Martyrs, Ebola Syndrome, The Human Centipede etc.) but this one takes the biscuit. In fact, it eats the entire packet and spits the crumbs in my face!

Srpski Film (aka: A Serbian Film) goes places no film should go. Yes, I’ll be hyping this film up and not giving away too many scenes, but where I do explain an OTT scene, I’ll cover it with a spoiler tag. The reason being that you should see this film without knowing the main scenes that make it surely THE most outrageous film ever.

The story: Milos is a former porn star who is down on his luck financially. When he receives a call from his long-time movie actress partner, Layla, he welcomes her call. Apparently she’s heard that a new film director wants to hire Milos to star in his “artistically-designed” porn film for a very generous price. He is easily lured form his semi-retirement by the lucrative offer, agreeing to meet the director in an isolated mansion. As the filming progresses, Milo begins to suspect that the director’s intentions may be darker than mere pornography. As the film begins to devolve into a horrifically violent production, Milos finds escape may not be an option. (IMDb.com)

Sounds like your average torture-porn film, and it does seem like that initially. About one-third of the way in we see some rough (soft-core) porn, all movements and no penises (thankfully!) with some slapping. No big deal for us veterans of extreme horror. The half-way mark is when it all goes haywire. Y’see, poor Milos has no idea what this film he’s starring in is all about, it’s when the director shows him a clip that you realise that this is some sick stuff:

It's not what you're thinking... it's much MUCH worse!

Whatever you’re thinking probably isn’t what happens. If you really want to know, click the SPOILER link below to find out, but I urge you to watch the film and see for yourself.

Show Spoiler ▼

Poor Milos storms out of the showing and heads off in his car. But a hot chick approaches his car and he can’t keep his hands off her. Next thing you know he’s waking up, in bed, covered in cuts, bruises and blood. Oh dear!

She's cuffed to the bed, he has a machete and there's rigor mortis involved. Uh oh!

Now Milos has to piece together what has happened to him. This is shown in a series of flashbacks. As we head towards the end of the film the director has filming Milos in increasingly depraved situations. The main crux of those I shant reveal, you’ll have to watch the movie for them, but needless to say, you’ll either be sitting back, mouth open, saying ‘what the FUCK?!’, or looking away in disgust. One scene in particular which I certainly wasn’t expecting was one involving Milos and one of the directors heavies.

Show Spoiler ▼

And if you think you’re going to get a happy ending, think again. That’s all I’m saying.

Like I said, I thought I’d seen it all, then this ‘thing’ turns up. I’m kinda stuck on rating this one, as if I give it a high rating then I’m saying that I enjoyed what I saw, and I didn’t really! Hours after having watched it, I still couldn’t shake off some of those scenes. But, by giving it a low mark, I’d be dismissing what is, for all intents and purposes a well made and well thought out film. The story is good, it has some good twists, and it’s technically good. So, my score is based on a rating of one being nothing special, to five, with five being outrageous sickness…

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Don’t expect to see this film uncut on any shelves!

Trailer:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0zPbwuKANU

Futuristic blood harvesting at its finest

Daybreakers is the latest movie to hit theaters that is looking to stake a claim in the vampire media frenzy that has taken over both the big and small screens.  From Twilight (I need an acid bath every time I so much as type that name) to True Blood, the bloodsucking freaks have been a big hit with audiences looking for dark, but ultimately romance driven narratives injected with some supernatural herbs and spices.  Out of this pit of shallow pandering to the adolescent and deeply delusional, Daybreakers has come forth to deliver a vampire movie with a fairly metallic set of testicles with some brains to boot.  Extracted from the minds of the The Spierig Brothers (who made one of the best and funniest zombie flicks of  the oo’s called UNDEAD, a film I should definitely review for y’all!  Or fuck it, grab it now and watch it, it’s worth it!), Daybreakers throws us into the year 2019 (inferred from that fact that in the film they refer to 2009 as being 10 years ago) where vampires have become to dominant species on planet Earth, and the few pockets of humans who are left are on the run from the vampires military who hunt them down for sustenance.  The humans aren’t the only ones who are fighting for survival however, as it is made clear early on that without blood or a blood substitute, vampires devolve into these hideous, almost zombie like bat humanoid creatures who will feast on anyone or anything that they come across.  This is where Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) comes into play, as he is a brilliant hematologist tasked creating a blood substitute that will eliminate the need for widespread human re-population.  Sprinkle into this mess some interesting, albeit subdued, statements about the Big Pharma culture that is currently present in the United States as well as our military industrial complex and you have a nice little self-contained flick that doesn’t require you to completely shut down your higher brain functions in order to enjoy it in full.  Not to mention, it has a pretty nifty cast too.  Did I mention Willem Dafoe is in it?

Holy shit, they are arming Willem Dafoe. GET THE FUCK DOWN, NOW!

And while I your attention squarely on Mr. Dafoe’s general creepiness (read: AWESOMENESS), let’s take a moment to expand on how the acting helps to make this ride a bit more pleasurable.  Dafoe doesn’t get nearly enough screen time for my liking (although if I had it my way, it would be a one man movie starring Willem Dafoe), but what he does with him time is captivating, especially when you come to realize he ISN’T the bad guy for once.  His character is a southern man, nicknamed Elvis, and I’ll leave it at that.  Trust me, he just about makes it worth the price of admission.  Ethan Hawk, as mentioned earlier, plays Edward Dalton, a man torn by his sympathies towards humans and his obligation to his company and boss to find a solution to the blood scarcity.  Sam Neill is Charles Bromley, the hot shit head cheese of a major corporation that service specific vampire needs.  He also happens to be Dalton’s boss and is quite the motherfucker.  The rest of the cast is relative nobodies, but I found all the performances to be pretty on target in finding a balance between playing it straight enough to make this universe believable, but not overselling it to the point where it gets melodramatic and overly weighty.  There are even moments where some fun is had, and it seems like the Spierig Brothers haven’t lost that goofy and sharp sense of humor that is so evident in UNDEAD.  One thing that seemed to compress the acting was that 93 minute length of the flick, which meant that once the film really got its proverbial engines revved and red-lined, the sprint to the finish felt a bit too fast, and some of the richness of the characters was lost in the mad dash towards the endgame.  This most likely falls into the lap of the producers, studio, and editor however, not the actors and the Spierig Brothers.

Stuff bleeds real good in this movie.

Inside that hour and a half however, the Spierigs flex the muscles only people who have seen UNDEAD know they have.  Not only do they write and direct their movies together, they are also seasoned special effects creators, both of the practical and computer generated disciplines.  Often times, they will combine prosthetic effects and CGI (like in the scene pictures above) to create fairly convincing visuals that don’t look like too phony in either direction.  That being said, this film isn’t quite the gore show that UNDEAD allowed itself to be, but let it be known that there are some downright nasty scenes in this one, and when the blood does flow, it flows liberally.  Shifting from effects to lenses, the Spierigs also craft themselves a nice looking film, complete with lots of sterile looking scenes which paint the vampires, at least initially, as a much more organized and civil spin-off of humanity.  There is a lot of white and blue lighting and tidy organization to the environments the vampires have erected and furnished for themselves over the years, as if being orderly and docile in appearance and demeanor can make up for their savagery and nearly cannibalistic impulses they need indulge in for mere survival.  The film is paced pretty well, with my major grievance being that the finale is just a bit too rapid for my liking.  Some clever camera angles and flashy shots help to round out what otherwise is a pretty straightforward and smartly captured film.  Kudos to the Spierig for finding a middle-ground between the unabashed fun they had with UNDEAD, and the undoubtedly more restrictive world of “Hollywood” film making.

And you thought cocaine was expensive.

When Daybreakers came to a close, I felt like I wanted to see more from that vision, and that is normally a good thing in my book.  The world the Spierigs have shaped for themselves in Daybreakers is a really interesting one which I wouldn’t hesitate to dive into for a second time.  Granted, the story ends in a way where enough safe assumptions could be made and the book could be shut on the plight of the vampires, but there is enough stuff going on behind the scenes that it made want to see how far the Brothers Spierig could stretch out this idea.  As it stand now though, it is a find piece of quality mainstream horror/action/thriller fare that is very deserving of having genre vets and indie hounds sink their teeth into.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Grindhouse (2007)

Grindhouse is a 42nd Street style double feature comprising of Rodriguez’s Planet Terror (reviewed here) and Tarantino’s Death Proof (reviewed here). Before, after and between the two films are trailers for (non-existent) movies. Both movies, mainly Planet Terror, have added grain to give them that extra 70′s feel.

This review isn’t about Planet Terror or Death Proof, you can read those reviews separately, this is about the package as a whole.

As you can see from the poster on the left, and for the two movie posters, they’ve gone for the grungy tatty look, which I really like. Definitely gives the posters that old look. The films themselves have, like I mentioned, that old look too, most evident in Planet Terror where you can see the vertical lines running down the right side of the screen (in this scene, shown below) with dirt effects added too.

The start of the package is trailers for films that don’t actually exist.

The first trailer is directed by Robert Rodriguez for ‘Machete’ which I reckon looks pretty spiffing and SHOULD be a film!

Someone make this a full film, it looks AWESOME!

Then we’re in to Planet Terror. After Planet Terror we’re treated to Rob Zombie’s trailer for ‘Werewolf Women Of The SS’

I'd still watch it though... Werewolf Women of the SS! Hey, isn't that just Rob Zombie wearing an SS outfit?...

which looks pretty cool, but not as action packed as Machete, and then we get some food ads and another trailer, ‘Don’t', by Edgar Wright which is the typical spooky house thing then ‘Thanksgiving’, from Eli Roth, which if I went to that thanksgiving party, I’d be pretty excited!:

Well, looks like someone enjoyed themselves at that 'Thanksgiving'!

Then Death Proof starts, which is the end of the package.

Like I said, this rating doesn’t include the movies, they get their own ratings, but the double feature idea, old posters, grainy film and fake trailers are a great idea and definitely something that brings back fond memories. I was never in 42nd Street, or in grindhouse theaters, but I grew up renting badly worn VHS tapes of crappy films that began (and ended) with similar trailers, so this I love!

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars <– gets a 4 but with +0.5 for the Machete trailer having topless women.

Death Proof

After the awesomeness that was Planet Terror I was almost looking forward to Death Proof (the second half of the Grindhouse package). Almost, as I’m really not a fan of Tarantino’s films.

The story is your basic killer-in-a-car thing, this time it’s a stuntman in an apparently ‘death proof’ car.

The film starts of as I feared, full of boring dialogue. Three women in a car talking about their boyfriends… for five full minutes. Another fifteen to twenty minutes of bar-room cavorting, again all (uninteresting) dialogue, and it takes about 45 minutes before we get to see any action. Unacceptable in my book. I only kept this film running over my 40 minute limit as I was certain SOMEthing good must happen! Surely!

Nope.

After the initial piece of action we are introduced to four new women and this half of the film is almost a rerun of the first half! Same boring man-babble only this time they end up in a diner, not a bar. Whoopee-fuckin’-doo.

I have to say, this film is an insult to the goodness that was, Planet Terror. Although I can see why this is the last of the two films. Had this been the first film of the double feature, no one would have seen Planet Terror!

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars <– only gets as high as a two because of one scene with a woman face-planting a dashboard.

Midnightshowing.com Presents Alex’s Top 10 (+1) movies of 2009 (In no particular order except for the top 2!) from Alex S on Vimeo.

Coal is the least of your worries

In keeping with the seasonal theme, here is Tales From the Crypt and the quite festive episode they produced in 1989, I believe.  Keep a close eye on the credits, as Fred Dekker (Night of the Creeps, Monster Squad) wrote this episode, and Robert Zemeckis (Cast Away, Beowulf, dozens of other big budget Hollywood movies) directed it, with a who’s who list supplying the producing like Joel Silver and Richard Donner.  Also Larry Drake, the bad guy from the Darkman movies, plays Santa! Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

On with the show, thanks to scary4you who put this on youtube!

(Chopped into three parts…)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHqyMUjOzLk

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOgZk4ZH1LQ

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UeassKRlqE

The only screencap I could give without spoiling the surprise!

Sometimes the children aren’t the only ones who get what they want for Christmas…

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOqhqpBj5GE