Machete Maidens Unleashed! (2010)

Another exploitation documentary, but this time with a twist. This one explores the movies from, and made in, the Philipine’s. Many with the help of the infamous Ferdinand Marcos (he of the wife with many shoes).

Covering everything from the women in prison/cage genre through to Weng Weng (the midget James Bond), but with Roger Corman being the link between each film.

The documentary is pretty much all interviews, and begins with directors, and producers, explaining how it was far cheaper to film the entire thing in the Philippines’s as they could hire everything there. The Philippines’s had a thriving movie industry and had everything at hand, and when they say everything, they mean everything, including the army! Actors, stunt men, demolition experts, you name it it was all there, and cheap, so it made sense for Corman and his directors to film there.

It began with a couple of cheap horror films then boomed into the women in prison genre.

Mentioned 'women in prison', need to show boobs...

Corman got tired of them and thought, ” hey, let’s put black people up front” and lo, the blaxploitation genre began. Next thing you know you have one armed executioners. No, I’m not kidding, there really is a film about a one armed executioner (from 1981)!

Drawing to a close the documentary spends several minutes talking about Apocalypse Now which was shot entirely in the Philippine’s (under Marcos), using the Philippino army and ended up looking nothing like Vietnam!

It’s a great documentary with many funny stories from the actors and actresses who sometimes had a terrible time in the Philippines, but still smile when telling the stories.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Schlock! The Secret History of American Movies (2001)

Schlock! The Secret History of American Movies is a documentary about, as its title suggests, the history of American movies, but not your Hollywood blockbusters, oh no, this is about the history of American exploitation movies.

The documentary begins with the end of World War II, the baby boom, televisions and quite probably the first ‘scream queen’, Vampira, who introduced the viewers to low budget movies on TV. The mid 50′s brought many headaches to Hollywood, not just people watching TV rather than going to the movies, but a law came in to force breaking up the monopoly that the studios had. The ‘theatre divorcement’ as it was nicknamed.

Around this time AIP started up producing low budget movies that put teens in the limelight with rebellion at the forefront. Then Roger Corman appears…

Vampira - the black and white version of Elvira

Corman could turn out films within days on a low budget yet still make a profit, something that AIP quite liked, and so a partnership was formed. Next thing you know we’re getting colour, Corman and Vincent Price. All in one film!

The 30min mark is where it heats up and moves in to sinema. It’s here that exploitation movies came in to their own. Hollywood movies were forbidden to show certain things in movies, but low-budget studios didn’t have the same constraints as Hollywood so they churned out the nudist, nudie-cuties, and then you have Russ Meyer.

Boredom set in and now in the early 60′s the exploiteers were looking for a new niche. Enter, Blood Feast.

The infamous 'Blood Feast'.

Prior to Blood Feast (as one man puts it) ‘no one had ever filmed blood before, or saw anyone die with their eyes open.’ After that came the ‘roughies’ which were the ‘torture-porn’ of their day with men beating women black and blue (in black and white). But when the restrictions on Hollywood are lifted, there’s no niches left for the cunning exploiteers and low-budget independent movies effectively died.

Schlock! is really interesting documentary, there’s plenty of good titbits of info and trivia in here and it’s amazing to see how much of Hollywood is built upon the shoulders of Corman. His films may suck at times, but without him there’d be no Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Robert De Niro, Francis Ford Coppola, Joe Dante, James Cameron… the list goes on. They all worked with Corman, many getting their big break (or starring role) thanks to Corman.

It’s kinda like watching a documentary on the Titanic, you know the sad end is coming, but at least with exploitation films you know it’s not THE end… as one interviewee commented ‘exploitation films are still alive, everything out of Hollywood now is exploitation.’

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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

Didn't really help me out.

Satan’s little helper is a relatively new (2004 ) film that takes place on Halloween and looks to combine its own brand of irreverence and humor while working within the vague confines of a slasher picture.  The only problem is that it jumps around from idea to idea so much that the narrative becomes so muddled and disjointed the film is barely watchable a majority of the time.  Satan (who may actually be Satan or just a ruthless serial killer in disguise) is befriended by a young naive boy who is under the impression that his addictive video game, aptly titled Satan’s Little Helper, is something of a tutorial for how he should behave on Halloween.  Instead of going down the obvious path of a troubled and properly bullied young boy who uses his new monstrous friend to exact revenge, we get an hour and a half of scenes that all seem like they are ripped out of different movies with each of them just as out of place and incomprehensible as the last.  For all its tragic flaws, the spirit of the season and moments of pleasure do rise to the surface at times, but it feels more like an accident when this happens, instead of an intentional result.

If he was a pirate for Halloween, he wouldn't have this ninja problem.

Besides the plodding, meandering pace that drags everything about Satan’s Little Helper down, the acting is probably the number one culprit when pointing the finger of blame as to why this movie is, at times, completely insufferable.  Dougie, the little kid around which the story revolves is painfully annoying, and not in that charming, youthful way that countless other movies had gotten away with.  His big sister is also way to uneven and over the top and barely serves the basic of purpose of being the “attractive girl” in the movie.  The mother of those two children is just about the only one in the movie I didn’t want to see get run over by a truck, but that was more by default than anything.  Satan (see below) doesn’t speak at all, and his mime-like moves are novel at first, but quickly become just as awkward and played out as almost everything else the movie offers up by the 45 minute mark.  From a production standpoint, the film is more than serviceable with nice lighting and video quality, but that seems like a moot point when you factor in how little it does to elevate the watch-ability of this turdburger.  It is strange at times, and delightfully so, but just making a movie to be weird isn’t enough unless it has a traditional or time-tested narrative backbone to prop it up once the gimmicks wear off.  The villain is creepy enough, but seeing as how the highlights of any good slasher-esque film should be the eventual deaths, it is shocking to find that there are only something like 2 or 3 on screen deaths, and all of them are absolutely abysmal in quality, creativity, and execution.  I’m ok with some off screen and implied slayings, but when you do finally pull the trigger on showing us a murder, it should at least be mildly impressive, even if you have to copy the idea from another flick.

Satan has a sense of humor. Too bad this movie didn't.

It’s a shame that I decided to re-watch this film before I reviewed, because that is truly 95 minutes of my life I will never get back.  I have certainly seen worse films, and I reiterate the fact that there are moments where it all comes together for Satan’s Little helper and you see what could have been, but those moments are so few and far between that most won’t get to see them because they will be switching dvds to another, better film.  It doesn’t feel amateurish, or overly self-indulgent and self-important.  It just feels like a bad film that isn’t quite bad enough to be fun on a “this is so shitty it’s genius” level and it absolutely isn’t good enough to be recommendable to anyone but the bravest souls who want to say they have seen it all when it comes to Halloween framed pictures.  There just aren’t enough tricks up Satan’s sleeve to make this a treat, and there are times where I’d rather be biting into an apple with a razor blade in it instead of  sitting through the second and third acts.  You’ve been warned.

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

Oh, hey Jesus. Yeah I know, even you couldn't save this flick.

Ghostwatch

As you can see, they put a ton of effort into the dvd box art.

Who knew the Mexicans pumped out some horror films in the late 80′s and early 90′s?  Well, I guess it should have been obvious that they did, but up until now I can’t remember seeing many that were worth remembering or writing about, that is until I watched Grave Robbers of course.  Robbers isn’t something you necessarily write home about, but its cheesy charm, above average gore, and unintentional humor make it a descent way to lose 90 minutes.  The movie takes places somewhere near Mexico where a graveyard is the home to a victim of the Spanish Inquisition.  The victim was a devil worshiper who was killed with a gigantic axe to the chest when he was caught in the act of trying to impregnate a virgin and bring about some kind of crazy devil spawn that would probably ruin a few peoples days.  When some tomb-sackers stumble upon the catacombs hidden beneath the graveyard, they are pleasantly surprised with all the gold and jewels they find, until their greed gets the best of them and they remove the sacred axe from the Satan guy’s chest cavity.  Now, with the axe removed, Satan guy is on a quest to finish the ritual he started all those years ago after being so rudely interrupted during his initial attempt.  Part slasher film and part supernatural ga-ga “stop the guy before he undoes the world with his generic demony bad stuff”, Grave Robbers managed to keep me entertained enough to not turn it off, despite being in another alnguage and having to put up with some wonderfully poor subtitles.

Who took my Goddamn axe? FUCKKKKKK!

So we get predictable 20 something hi-jinks, with one group being tomb raiders (like Lara Croft, but without pixelated boobs) and another group of chirpy gals who are going out into the nearby woods to do some avian photography.  There is a priest, the hero cop old guy, and some other meatheads who are all lambs for the eventual slaughter, and that’s about it.  Apparently, once you’re outside of Mexico proper, all towns have a population of about 18 people, despite cars being parked everywhere in the streets.  In their defense, the acting seemed palatable, and when the translation was legible and on point, some lines of dialogue weren’t actually half bad.  But who am I kidding, we all just want to see people get cut down in their prime and a mummified disciple of El Diablo run amok before meeting his over-the-top end, right?

Good thing plastic surgery is dirt cheap in Mexico.

In that case, you’re in luck.  There are some nice scenes of gore, many people die, and right as it is about to get dreadfully boring, it wraps things up with some quick editing which spares us the arbitrary “driving to the bad guy’s hide out” scene like we don’t already know the hero will make it in time.  I have to give props though to Ruben Galindo Jr. who, despite having a name that should belong to a major league baseball pitcher, manages to actually create some snazzy little scenes out of what is so obviously a fairly modest budget.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cringe. GO AWAY! Sounds official enough for me.

If you’re in the mood to see how the Mexicans throw down some gore, or if you want to see what a supernatural slashery film is like when you combine it with some hysterical subtitles, Grave Robbers is your bag.  If you need some extra incentive, the awakened mummy guy is wearing wrestling tights in the third act during his fight scenes.  I believe my work here is done.

P.S.  This movie can be watched on Youtube for free.  Just do some searching for both the American and Spanish titles, and voila! trash on demand!

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Built tough. MEXICAN tough.

Woman just got deadlier, if that's even possible.

Jake West is quickly becoming one of my favorite British” horrody” directors (that’s a word I made up for horror comedies, do you think it will stick?).  My love affair began when I saw Evil Aliens (review forthcoming) and has now been cemented by his latest offering Doghouse.  Where Evil Aliens was a splatterific sci-fi horror mash-up that simultaneously payed homage to and poked fun at a dozen or so movie conventions we all know, love, and loathe, Doghouse sees West moving in on profound territory, the same way that Shaun of the Dead saw Frost, Pegg, Wright mature in their ability to both stir up nostalgia and unbridled fun while coating their narrative with a unique sentiment about the nature of companionship, both friendly and romantic.  West takes a more controversial approach however, borrowing some notions about the bonds that are shared between a group of 20 something guys, while pitting them against a village mostly populated by women that have been the test site for a particularly sexist government experiment that turns women in rabid cannibal zombie-types who crave the flesh of men only.  Finally, a horror film without a “Final Girl.”

Sorry guys, she's married.

If you didn’t catch all that, allow to recap briefly the synopsis of our fair tale.  A group of guys, who are generally at odds and different stages with the opposite sex, plan a trip to a village out in the boonies to help a friend overcome his recent divorce.  When they arrive, the quiet village is all too quiet, and they soon realize that just about every man is dead, the military was recently present in the area, and all women have turned in fem-zombies who have a single item on their menu…men.  It is here where West takes his first stand by managing to avoid the obvious misogynist jokes and tendencies by giving our squad of males many quirks and shortcomings which make their battle with the mutated lady things all the more interesting, and more importantly, hilarious.  There’s a comic book store owner/nerd who sees this as an opportunity to live out an Evil Dead like fantasy about locking wits and weapons with the undead.  There is a chauvinist who truly believes he is the universe’s gift to women, while all indicators point to the opposite, and so on.  They are all introduced quickly in the opening montage, which shows in just a few seconds what type of guy they are.  Once the stage is set, and we are all properly introduced to the players, the real fun begins.  West not only has a wonderfully talented cast to direct (the acting is grade A, much much better than even I was expecting, and I already had high hopes for this one), but also a gauntlet of obstacles for them to overcome which lends itself nicely to some ingenuity as far as weapon choice and creation and some very intricate situational humor.  I won’t go into detail here about the ways they navigate through the village while avoiding detection and certain doom, but rest assured you will get a few chuckles at the very least.  The acting is prime, and the pacing is never dull, but if I have to level one legitimate complaint about Doghouse, it would be that the final few frames leave a little too much to the imagination of the viewer.  It doesn’t ruin the film, especially since Doghouse isn’t a horror movie that is fixated on the finish line, it is instead all about the ride their and how fun that is, but a greater sense of absolute closure or…non-closure wouldn’t have been out of place for such a definite, grounded film.  Still, that’s trying to find things to nitpick in an otherwise vast sea of general praise.

You're supposed to hang the clothes up to dry after the person takes them off. Silly zombie women.

Besides being a fan of the interplay of horror and comedy (and being one of the recent masters of the trade), Jake West is also a guru of gore.  Specifically, how to use gore as both a visceral intensifier of violence and slapstick style humor gags.  There are times in Doghouse where the weak-stomached might go “EWWW” at a scene, only to turn around and laugh hysterically at another kill that is played off more like a joke.  West really juggles this well, flip-flopping between the more light-hearted moments and the downbeat serious ones.  His eye for angles and camerawork never gets in the way either, and his flashiest moments are in the first 10 or so minutes, when he plays with filters and stop screens for a while, before settling into observer mode without much interference in the form of trying to being overly fancy or stylish.  The lightning, which looks mostly natural during the daytime and not overpowering at night helps to give the overall production value the sleek, slick, and professional look this film has from start to finish.  As far as audio, I didn’t pay much attention to the score, but when it popped to the foreground, it never felt out of place, which is always a plus.  Cars, decapitations, golf clubs and the like all pack an appropriate wallop and voices are crystal clear, which is a major benefit seeing as how almost all the humor is embedded deep within snappy conversations.  And finally, the gore is great while not being quite copious as I thought it was going to be.  When it hits though, it lands with KO force.

You know exactly where this is going, and yes it's fucking hilarious. TAKE THAT YOU OLD BITTY!

Jake West has crafted himself yet another winner, and the first real return to form for him since Evil Aliens.  The British setting and cadence helps to give this twisted yarn about the war of sexes some much-needed levity and class, something that would have been rather unobtainable on my side of the pond.  West is showing every sign of becoming a more dangerous director in the horror ranks, and Doghouse shows that he has incorporated more lofty ideals and concepts into his already exemplary understanding of the very core values and mechanics of our beloved genre.  He can make you laugh, squirm a bit, and now he is even showing that he can even make you think for a second or two.  Leave the lady friend out when you watch this one (who am I kidding, no one who writes for Midnight Showing or reads this drivel has a damn girlfriend).

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

The roaming gnome is a MURDERER.

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!

—————-
Now playing: Foo Fighters / Monkey Wrench
via FoxyTunes

More tricks than treats, I'm guessing.

Night of the Demons 2 is quite a handful to attempt to review.  I never would have expected to find the beginnings of the modern marriage between horror and comedy in a sequel to a movie that, while it is a cult classic, just doesn’t stand up to the test of time very well.  But as I watched it, I could clearly see moments where the writing and directing was more than just a bit ahead of it’s time.  Characters like the head nun at the Church school for troubled youths yearns for the old days when she could rap kids over the knuckles with her ruler are funny, if not easy targets.  She even goes as far to practice with her ruler in her personal quarters as if she was fencing with an invisible sparring partner.  Outside of the sometimes silly/ sometimes spot on stabs at those whose lives are solely based on their faith in the almighty sky cop, the gore gags and ever-so-slightly over the top persona’s of the aforementioned troubled youths are almost all played for laughs, with very realistic and timely underpinnings which speak volumes about what types of real-life people the characters in the film represent.  It may not be as heady as I am making it out to be to the layman (in fact, I’m sure this was all accidental…a happy accident though, as Bob Ross would say), but these small touches, which may be just as much a byproduct of the viewer as the film makers themselves, add a lot to a flick that isn’t TRYING to send a messages, but in the process of avoiding it, maybe be doing a better job than many horror films that claim to have some sort of social relevance or poignancy.  Of course, it’s got a plethora of tits (quality 90′s tits to boot, not the plastic looking things we get in horror nowadays), a deliberate but fun pace, and a final third that is filled with more practical effects than a carnival sideshow…and a lesbian demonic possession scene.

Woman of my dreams.

The tone and story of the films are set up rather quickly, and in impressively slick fashion I might add.  The first scene sees to business looking types walking up to the long fabled “Hull House” with briefcases in hand.  The initial thought for many watching will be “I wonder if someone actually owns this massive property, and these people are coming to claim it on their behalf or check the condition of the building.”  Turns out, they are door to door religious spokespeople.  Big fucking mistake coming to that house to preach your beliefs.  Angela, of course, opens the door without actually being at the door, and slides in behind them with her now-patented “glide without touching the floor” maneuver.  She offers them…wait for it…Devils’ food cake, and right as they begin to detect that something may be seriously awry in the house, she slashes them to pieces with the over sized knife she used to cut the cake, finishing it off by scraping some of the blood off the blade with her finger and licking it.  Bless her heart.  Amelia Kincade, who plays Angela just as she did in the first entry, is looking amazing in her role and appears to have even more command of her general menace that in the first volume.  I liken her in these movies to Robert Englund as Freddy in the fact that she really has become Angela for me, and does it extremely well.

And the movie has time to pay a little homage to Nosferatu? ACES!

We are then moved over to establishing our band of teenagers who will be the focus of our story, and their experiences inside the school for kids who apparently are either too good or too bad for public education.  The big “oh my no way!” casting moment is when you realize that Christine Taylor (married to Ben Stiller and featured in almost all of his recent movies in roles of various sizes) is in the movie.  She, as well as everyone else, really deserve a pat on the back for bringing their A-game to the show here.  The funny lines and comedy set-pieces are handled well above-par, and their are no performances that stand out as out of place or gut-wrenchingly bad.  If my eyes do not deceive me, there is a serious throwback 1950′s-60s vibe going on with all the characters and the way they act and are portrayed (and schoolgirl outfits and belief-centric schools are very 1950′s), so much to the point that they are picked up in a heavily modified, but obviously old-timey looking car when they are departing to Hull House for their secret “party.”  I was holding out hope that someone would say to one of the leading ladies that they had nice “gams” or say that the party sounded like a “boss” idea.  The showstopper is Jennifer Rhodes performance as “super-strict religious bitch turned demon killer extraordinaire.”  Many of you will know Jennifer Rhodes from being on just about every TV show in the last 30 years, from Charmed to Matlock, and also starring in Heathers and Slumber Party Massacre II.  Her performance is memorable in a flick already filled with some easily remembered and fun performances.  Good stuff.

Angela is pretty handy with those cutting implements.

Shifting focus away from those in front of the camera, the directing of Brian Trenchard-Smith plays out like an answer to all my issues with the original Night of the Demons (reviewed here).  The pace is amped up considerably, and the false starts that crippled my enjoyment of the first flick are kept to a bare minimum in this sequel.  The production value is much higher (a side-effect of the 6 or so years between films most likely), and the gore is not only more abundant than in the first, but of a higher grade.  Smith (who also directed some episodes of the 1980′s Missions Impossible TV show AND Leprechauns 3!) knows how to make the last 30-45 minutes of a horror film live up to the check written in the first hour or so.  We get some terrific kills, gore gags that are not only pretty gnarly to look at, but are also laugh out loud funny, and not one, but two full of fights with the “end of level boss” of this title, Angela, with the second seeing her adopt a snake-ish, Clash of the Titans Medusa like form which just about brought me to my knees in a fit of pure fan boy joy.  The music and score selections and creations are fine, but odds are nothing will bounce out at you and send you on a mp3 hunt online.  That being said, aurally, this film is anything but weak, as well as anything but a standout.  Cutting back to Smith though, his directorial style in Night of the Demons 2 can be described aptly as rewarding.  A red herring or two are carried over from the first film, which is nice for those who have watched it and remember it pretty well, and the build up, as entertaining as it is, is really demolished, in a GOOD way, by just how incredibly energetic, irreverent, and blisteringly delightful that third act is.  When was the last time a movie had…

1. An ample amount of top shelf racks sans implants and eating disorders.
2. A nun who practices fencing with her ruler as a substitute for actually being able to whack her students with it.
3. Exploding bodies, body melting, decapitations, breast that turns into arms and kill a man, lipstick capable of killing people, and other wild slayings.
4. Lesbian kissing as a method of demonic possession.
5. Water guns  and water balloons filled with holy water.
6. Disembodied demon-hand crotch-groping followed by a middle finger (see picture below).
7. Half-Snake, Half-Demoness evil lady person.
8. Door to door religious advocates being killed within 2 minutes of the movie starting.
9. Lesbian kiss…wait did I mention that already?  What about the boobs? Oh, I got both already.  Damn
10. Gore gags and blasphemy played for laughs.
11. A severed demon head in a toilet that talks and serves as a really creepy boo scare.

Yeah, I thought so.

Your moment of Zen.

Night of the Demons 2 is a gem among gems, a man among men, and everything that Night of the Demons 1 was ever so close to becoming, but for whatever reason, fell just short of.  From the word go, Smith and company do everything to make sure that the fun train doesn’t come to a halt, and just when you think the bag of tricks is running low, or the tricks themselves are getting stale, Smith propels the flick into the stars, unleashing a cavalcade of humor, violence, gore, and political incorrectness.  If it weren’t 4am when I finished watching this movie, I would have stood up and fucking applauded.  Color me satisfied.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Classy and absolutely pivotal to the plot. Don't judge me monkey.

Guns? Check. Swords? Check. I'm in.

Hellbinders is a low-budget action/horror crossover flick written, directed, and starred in by martial artists and stuntmen who all have some seriously impressive Hollywood resumes.  Ray Park, who plays the European accented mercenary who now operates in the City of Angels, was Darth Maul in Star Wars Episode 1 and Toad in the first X-Men movie.  Johnny Yong Bosch has done stunt work for numerous Power Rangers movies and television series, as well as a ton of motion capture and voice acting for video games in the Resident Evil all the way to some of the latter Final Fantasy games.  Our third and final hero Cain, played by Esteban Cueto, has been an actor who normally plays beefy henchmen in movies such as XXX, Bloodrayne, and The Scorpion King.  Behind the camera, Mitch Gould, Hira Koda, and David Wald have all worked on movies as either stuntmen or actors with some large projects such as Ultraviolet, Domino, Avatar, Rush Hour 3, Serenity, and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End to their collective credits, just to name a few.  It becomes abundantly clear that all three of these men, who also split directing duties of the film, know how to orchestrate fun and propulsive fight scenes, but after sitting down with Hellbinders, I also came away fiarly impressed with their ability to direct a feature length film, especially one that with such a small budget.

Hellbinders is the tale of 3 very different warriors on 3 very different paths through life who must join together to stop Beelzebub from being risen from Hell and whipping up a unholy shitstorm on Los Angeles.  There’s more to it than that, but just go along with it and rest assured that you will be subjected to some picking and choosing about different myths from different religions in order for Hellbinders story to be played out.  The Key here is, that a lot of ass gets kicked, and the ass kicking is extremely fun to watch.  The rest of the tale more or less falls into places around the action set pieces, and is essentially of little to almost no importance.  And that is NOT a bad thing at all.

This looks like the selection scene from an old arcade game. "Insert Coin. Select your Warrior."

The first thing you will notice is that Hellbinders borrows quite liberally from Sin City with its constant comic book panel transitions between scenes, similar to what Angel of Death (click here for my review!) did.  While Angel of Death used the device as more of sprinkles on top of its stylish action mafia movie cake, Hellbinders uses it as often as it does bullets nd dialogue, which is to say A LOT.  I wasn’t quite sure how an overload of shots in panels and multiple panels on screen all moving was going to sit with me, but damn me  if it didn’t work better than I originally anticipated.  It really helps to move things along, because the directors can show you, in essence, 3 scenes at once, provided the scenes don’t have much or any dialogue in them.  As a transition mechanic, it is slick and sexy, and helps to firm up the lighthearted and fun vibe of the whole picture, while paying homage to the directors and video games that I am sure had influenced them in the past.  Outside of the snazzy comic book panels, the lighting is just as heavy-handed and inspired by comic books.  Heavy reds, purples, and yellows help to give a larger than life feel to the 3 combatants.  CGI is used heavily for blood splashes and a few other scenes, but taking into consideration the budget restrictions, I can’t fault them for resorting to a cheaper method of getting the job done.  Plus, it isn’t all that intrusive and it helps to give the movie more a coin-operated arcade feel that it certainly seemed to be shooting for.  The flick moves quickly, and as I mentioned before, is built entirely around when the next person is going to get their skull caved in, which is exactly how action, in particular low-budget action, should be constructed from the ground up.  The trio of directors pass with flying colours, and I would love to see what they could produce if they had the money to produce a more daring and full-fledged adventure with any or all of these actors returning to work with them again.

FATALITY! FLAWLESS VICTORY!

It would be asking a lot for anyone to have high hopes for the acting in a movie starring, written and directing by a handful of stuntmen, but let me assure you the acting, save for a few melodramatic and over the top moments played for laughs, is not at all cringe-worthy.  Ray Park is electric as Max, and you just want to see more and more of his slick, suave, and sophisticated persona walking, talking and shooting at all times.  Johnny Wong Bosch is also splendid in his role as Ryu (there is no doubt that in my mind that there are video game references littered in this movie.  C’mon, Max AND Ryu?) the honorable assassin who has a bit of a shadowy past (when does a ninja ever NOT have a shadowy past?).  Cain is just as enjoyable, but not nearly as featured as the other two, as the 800 year old Templar Knight who is a beefy pugilist determined to obliterate the orbital bones of anyone possessed by a demon.  Removed from our big 3 “stars”, the supporting cast is all well and good, but they smartly kept in the backround where we can enjoy quick flashes of their prowess when needed to further drive the movie along and nothing more.  The writing deserves a pat on the back too, because it gets some of the history of the Knights Templar right, and Ryu and Max have some wonderful moments of banter and conversation.

"Remember when I cut that guys head off 20 minutes ago?" "Yeah, that was badass. They got great coffee here, don't ya think?"

After counting up all the cards on Hellbinders, I can safely say this is something I would show to a lot of disgruntled action fans who miss the days when people just had to kill people because they did/are planning to do some bad shit.  No giant robots, no Aliens, no shady government corporation or wrestlers pretending to be actors.  Just some humans possessed by demons who are trying to Earth-birth one of the worst demons in the underworld, and three characters ripped straight from late 80′s beat-em-up arcade games who feel obliged to utilize their unique skills in order to kill a whole hell of a lot of people and prevent aforementioned bad things from happening.  The directors knew what they were working with and pushed with their best feet forward with the comic book inspired panel transitions, great fight choreography, and some very likable, in not stereotypical, heroes in cool outfits firmly planted in the foreground.  Turn off your mind, and drop in for some fisticuffs because Hellbinders delivers.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtEyk0Ti1r4

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