Ghana

The 1980′s brought video cassettes to the country of Ghana (West Africa). With VHS being (relatively) mobile, this made cinemas (relatively) mobile too.

Small scale ‘cinemas’ (ie: some guys with a VHS player, a TV set and a generator) would go from village to village in Ghana showing whatever tapes they could get their hands on.

But, to get bums on seats, you need some marketing. And the chances of Hollywood sending promotional material to Ghana is, well, slim – at best. So, some ingenuity was needed.

The organisers would ask local artists to create a poster for them. The poster would tell people what the film was, but – due to the lack of printing presses and/or technology, the poster would have to be hand painted.

The poster design was pretty much up to the artist and in some cases he probably hadn’t even seen the film so, as you can imagine, some liberties were taken in the poster design department.

The 1990′s brought TV and video to the masses and the mobile cinema was all but wiped out. A lot of the original posters are sought after by collectors. Below, I present to you, some of those hand painted posters and, where possible, the original Hollywood poster.

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Show Spoiler ▼

the first poster for each film is the Hollywood one

Many thanks to kinkyqueen, over at T3, for posting a ton of these posters.

Gotta love that turn of the century style horror box art.

Mike Mendez is one of my favorite film makers, which is a labor of love considering he has only directed 3 true horror films all by himself, and I have to keep checking back on his myspace and imdb waiting for him to pump out something new.  He was responsible for The Gravedancers, which was featured in the first “8 films to die for” horror festival that is still continuing on today.  He also directed Killers, which was a bit of an art house/experimental horror by way of tarantino-esque crime thriller.  While Gravedancers was quite a scary and tense little ghost film, and Killers was strange, surreal and interesting in its own right, his real winner, in my eyes, was a little independent horror film released in 2000 called The Convent.  Mix equal part Night of the Demons 1 and 2 (reviewed by yours truly here and here) with DEMONS, an Italian zombie and demon possession movie, and you have a good foundation for gaining appreciation for what The Convent is all about.  A rag tag bunch of college types go to a much hyped building that was once home to a all girl boarding school run by nun which was the stage for a mass murder by a former student via shotgun and fire, run into a bunch of goth kids looking to summon something from “below” in the same building, and we all benefit from watching the carnage that ensues.  I feel compelled to defend The Convent, since it is one of my all-time favorite “I could watch this at anytime, any day and enjoy it” type films.  It certainly falls into the ever fluctuating cinematic category of “so bad it’s good” or simply “bad-good” for short.  The whole movie has its tongue firmly planted in its cheek, but it is also a tribute to how enjoyable something that is extolling the virtues of a particular genre and time frame of films (teens dying thanks to supernatural happenings and the mid to late 80′s) while still having merit all of its own.  It survives on more than just its nostalgia.  There is almost…dare I say…an art to making a flick that should be (even by the own directors admission) buried and forgotten into a lower-than-cult-level gem that I, and many others on the internet who are scattered about randomly, just can’t get enough of.  That, or maybe I am just a really weird person.  I’ll let you pick which choice you like better.

Looks like someone did all the legwork for me already. Nice.

Besides saying that Convent is merely “fun” or “funny”, one of the best parts about it is how little time it wastes.  It’s like a song with a really good chorus, in fact a great chorus, that just decided to shorten up the verses to about…10-15 seconds in length.  It doesn’t make you “wait for it”, or try to build up suspense or intrigue where there is none to be had.  It is just 70 some-odd minutes (not including the credits)  of payoff after payoff which include nods to Lucio Fulci’s Zombie, and as I mentioned earlier, Night of the Demons and Umberto Bava’s DEMONS.  The humor is definitely subjective, and the impact of many of the lines will directly correlate to how many horror films you have seen and what your idea of good humor is, but even the mis-delivery of some of the more benign lines make me chuckle during every viewing.  The show stealer is certainly Megahn Perry, who gives one of the best “goth girls with all the knowledge of the spooky place the group shouldn’t be breaking into” performances in recent memory.  Closely behind her is Dickie-Boy and Saul, the fumbling, embarrassingly pathetic and pretentious summoners who, by pure accident, actually succeed in turning the abandoned boarding school into a maze of zombie demons and untimely death.  The wacky accents, mannerisms and behaviors they perform will make any outcast from high school watching this cringe with how close to home it hits, since we all either were or knew someone who was only a few good acting and improv classes away from being one of those two characters.  Often times, pointing out the weak link or links in a low-budget horror movie is about the easiest thing to do, but The Convent actually doesn’t have anyone in it who just makes you want to go grab a drink when he or she on screen.  They aren’t exactly the deepest or most empathetic cast of folks ever assembled as far as their characters go, but they don’t need to be.  It would be like watching a rap video and complaining because they are objectifying women.  They all serve there purpose admirably and more importantly fit the roles they are playing.  It’s a win-win.

Douchebags getting out of a jeep. I think we all know where this is headed.

Mendez stretches the minuscule budget to give us more bang for the buck than almost any of the major studios horror contributions this decade.  We get some great looking gore and fantastic kills, which flip-flop between homages to famous gore scenes (like the eye scene from Zombie) and original creations (like a the cheerleader face rip complete with zombie cheers and dance moves).  We also get some really throw back style glowing green eye contacts, black-light trickery, and flourescent blood that makes for great plasma splashes and squib explosions.  The directing is pretty much in observer mode, which is fine and dandy to me considering I like when a horror movie lets the action in front of us do a majority of the talking without to much in the way of distractions from flashy or overly stylish and pretentious camera work.  There are some “Evil Dead” style reverse shots, especially right when the malevolent spirits arrive for the first time, but it’s quick and all in good taste and doesn’t come off as a detriment.  The demons also have this crazy stutter step walk that they do, which can be played for laughs as well as creep factor, and works both ways depending on how you want to see it.  The soundtrack, featuring a cover of “Dreamweaver” and “You don’t own me” works well hand in hand with the intentionally cheesy and bombastic score that only strengthens the good time vibe that runs through the whole picture.  There’s a few exterior cgi scenes are laugh out loud bad, but seeing as how bad they are, I like to see them as jokes instead of budget restrictions.  The editing is quick, and almost ferocious at times, as the movie speeds by at its gloriously rapid pace.  I am a firm believer in the idea that only a handful of movies ever made should top a 90 minute run time, and The Convent has shown me that almost every horror film should run about 85 minutes, including the credits.  There’s a lot to like here, visually and aurally, if you’re a big fan of more modern takes on proven old school formulas.

Give me this over cgi any day of the week, twice on Sundays.

The Convent has drugs, stereotypes, demons, huge laughs (both intentional and unintentional), a likable cast of actors, Adrienne Barbeau (Swamp Thing, Escape from New York, The Fog), Bill Moseley (Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, House of 1000 corpses, The Devils Rejects), and ever a cameo from timeless rap artist COOLIO.  If that isn’t enough to entice you, then I am clearly out of touch with what passes for great, shameless, unabashed, old school throwback blood and guts movies.  As a sidenote, the dvd for this flick has not one, but two commentary tracks, both of which are hysterical as they basically rip their own film apart.  There is also a “gore on demand” feature which gives you a random kill scene for your viewing pleasure.  It’s like it was made just for me.  Get possessed today.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Hey Ronnie, our dates have arrived!

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Now playing: Foo Fighters / Monkey Wrench
via FoxyTunes

The tag line you don't see on this dvd cover is "Everybody Fights", which is one of my favorite tag lines of all time.

Junk has one the most most memorable tag lines I have ever seen, which is “Everybody Fights.”  It’s simple, to the point, and sums up everything this gem is all about.  Junk tells the story of a military experiment to raise humans from the dead with a neon green serum called DNX, which of course was “terminated” due to subjects being resurrected in the form of flesh hungry monsters we affectionately know as zombies.  After the research is “stopped”, the United States military, operating from a base in Japan, moves the science project to a restricted and abandoned building in the middle of Japans countryside.  When some shoddy jewel thieves decide to use the same building as a meeting point for an exchange of some recently stolen goods with a Yakuza gang, things become quite hectic when the dead harbored there accidentally get exposed to some remaining DNX.  What follows is 90 minutes of pure fun full of references to zombie film royalty such as Zombi 2, Re-Animator, Evil Dead, and The Beyond.

Not at all stolen from Re-animator. Nope, not one bit.

From the word “Go”, Junk slaps us silly with an abundance of cheese, so much so you’ll probably want to pour a glass of wine to go with your viewing experience.  It starts with a naked chick (I assure you, the breasts are impressive) being injected with DNX (pictured above), which initially proves to be successful.  That is until, the chick kills the doctor and his assistant.  We are then introduced to our bands of thieves, who have names like Akira and Jun.  Whoever wrote this must of really liked Anime, video games, or possibility both.  After a botched smash and grab job in a fancy jewelery store, our thieves contact some shady Yakuza types, let by a guy named Romero (Gee, I wonder where they got that name from).  Within that surly bunch is an Asian dude with red hair.  I’m serious, I can’t make this shit up. I’m going to go ahead and assume that it isn’t his real hair colour.  The cast of characters are brilliantly brought to life with the standard “larger than life” personalities we have come to love and expect in any Asian crime flick.  For whatever reason, the oriental theater of film has a way of making even the most sleazy and paper thin of characters at least distinguishable if not downright memorable, and Junk is no exception.  Think of everyone playing their roles, but then doing caricatures of those roles.

Loreal for men. Nothing says "scumbag Yakuza" like a shitty dye job.

Aside from the fun and lovable characters, Junk propels itself forward into legendary status with a blitzkrieg pace that only increases as the flick chugs along.  It does so by increasing the number of zombies, and keeping the body count blissfully high.  To go along with the ever rising death toll, we are treated to some of the finest examples of old school prosthetic gore seen outside of the spaghetti horror film craze of Europe in the 70′s and 80′s.  We’re talking mammoth squibs, exploding heads, blood spraying out of wounds like fountains and geysers, and hordes gnarly, decaying, lumbering, and gut munching undead.  Junk wears its heart right on its sleeve, not for a moment denying the movies that have preceded it and provided a source for inspiration.  I commend this kind of worship, instead of passing itself off as some kind of new breed of zombie films, it merely takes what the Japanese already do well (in this case, feverishly fast paced and violent crime dramas) and combines it with the lore and novelty of scientifically created zombies.  Besides the absolutely sublime film Versus (actually the first review I ever wrote for this here blog), Junk is the only film I have seen that fuses together the best of what John Woo has to offer in terms of electrifying action with the campy fun that horror has so geniusly made its own.

Aim for the head.

The sound and visuals all reek of cheddar, with some seemingly intentional low-fi quality to the picture quality, and a soundtrack that borrows just as heavily from the techno thumping made popular by films like The Matrix as it does from the Goblin and Tangerine Dream soundtracks of yesteryear that provided and eerie warmth to classics of the horror genre.  It is also abundantly clear that this was made on a moderate budget, and maybe even a shoe string one.  With that in mind, the a sheer amount of on screen chaos becomes even more impressive and a careful eye can see how clever use of quick cuts and editing makes what must have been a small squad of extras come across as a shuffling army of cannibalistic death.  Gunshots and dialogue are all clear as day, even though you’ll spend a bulk of your time reading the subtitles as I have yet to encounter a DVD with dubbing, and don’t really want to.  In short, even its technical aspects sound and look like a love letter to the days where light hearted horror carried just as much as water as the heavier, more psychologically scorching material.

Sexy.

I’ve seen Junk about 5 times now, and have to say that each and every time, it has wowed and entertained me on a level few films ever have.  It’s fun for the sake of fun, it never takes itself too seriously, and it slams its foot down on the accelerator and assumes that you can keep up.  I like moving, heady, and deep films just as much as the next guy, but there is something to be said for slabs of cinema that don’t try to tug on your heartstrings, or scare the living daylights out of you, but instead warm your innards with the joyous beams of light that only a tale of silly Japanese mafia types vs. the recently resurrected can bring.  Junk is a masterpiece of carefree supernatural shoot em ups, a film that you can laugh at and with, and seems to wink right back at you and confirm your suspicions with a giant, shit-eating grin.  Junk is built for speed AND pleasure, and is just begging for you to take her for a ride.  Five out of five stars.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

TOAST IS DONE! Oh wait, that is just that dudes brains...nevermind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I5D6WlFDEA