Cinema Sewer - Vol. 2

If you’ve read Cinema Sewer before, or have Volume One (which I reviewed right here) then you’ll know what to expect in Volume Two. As it says on the cover: ‘the adults only guide to history’s sickest and sexist movies‘.

The book begins with an article on Colleen Brennan (porn star) and flows effortlessly to some disturbing info on Leonard Schrader. After a couple of entertaining ‘toons we get an article on ‘bong babes’. Hint: it involves bongs, babes, and asses. An interview with Lee Caroll is followed by a brief article on sick comics. Always a good thing.

In fact, looking back on it, there’s a lot of porn in Volume Two. Not that I’m complaining. Although Mr. Bougie does come a cropper after watching one of the Kit Kat Experiment movies.  :D

The article on roller derby took me back to my childhood when I used to watch it on Saturday night on cable here in the UK, man it was funny. This was pre-WWF days remember.

I’ve tittered many times over the (many!) farting preacher videos, but never realised who he was until now. Sometimes referred to as pastor gas we learn that he was more of a schister than anything.

Also liked the interview regarding the possibility of Thriller 2 (a sequel to ‘They Call Her One Eye‘, aka: Thriller). Although, the review of the Fleshlight wasn’t good for my imagination. You can imagine yourself how Robin *ahem* ‘tested’ out the *ahem* ‘unit’.

Robin’s ’25 Best Movies Adapted From Comic Books’ may cause some controversy (Akira should have been higher on the list methinks), but they’re all solid entries.

At 186 pages (not including the awesome index) this is a wealth of sleazy information. Get it! These volumes combined make it a veritable encyclopaedia of filth. Hoorah!

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Volume Three (as I write) is up for pre-order, so go get your copy today!

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.

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.

A Bigfoot hugging dynamite over a woman tied to a table and a headshot of George Kennedy. Why do I do this to myself?

Here’s how I imagine the pitching of Demonwarp went.

Pitcher- “So we wanna make this horror movie, because horror is hot right now and we can make money”

Studio person- “Oh really?  What’s it about?”

Pitcher- “Bigfoot…and aliens and zombies and a religious fanatic and titties.”

Studio- “Did I hear you say titties?”

Pitcher- “Yes sir.  We wrote down a basic synopsis on these cocktail napkins.  We figure instead of trying to have one great idea, we would just rip-off a ton of other ideas and come up with about 5 half-baked mediocre ones.”

Studio- “These all sound like different movies.”

Pticher- “That’s why I brought this air cannon with me.  We can just shove all the notes into the cannon, and fire it into the air everyday before we shoot.  We will then get one of the hooke…I mean actors to go pick some of them up randomly and then film what ever is on the napkin.”

Studio- “I stopped listening after Bigfoot and titties.  Here’s some money.  Oh, and George Kennedy owes me a favor, so I can get him to star in it so you have at least one credible star.”

And thus, Demonwarp was born.

Even Bigfoot was confused when he saw Demonwap.

Usually, I break down a movie in 3 important sections, and talk about them at reasonable length in order to give you a feel for the movie with spoiling it in the event you actually take my humble recommendation and see it.  Today, that plan is being thrown out the window.  Demonwarp, with all its rampant gearshifts and subplots, is fun of the highest order.  And by high I mean, you really should be 2 bong-loads deep before you even consider hitting play.  Those who prefer the booze may get a kick out of this, but I theorize that the patience, heightened tolerance, and ease of amusement that comes along with the more docile of recreational drugs would help greatly.  The movie starts out with some religious dude walking with a horse (why isn’t he RIDING the horse?) when a meteor hits quite close to him.  He, showing great rationalizing and logic skills, immediately feels compelled to dub this the Second Coming, and then we don’t see him again until the end.  Then George Kennedy gets his daughter abducted by Bigfoot right in front of him in a cabin, THEN some 20 somethings come up to the same Cabin in the middle of bumfuck nowhere and start getting killed.

Hey George. Proud of this one?

So by about 30 minutes in, a fair amount of the cast had been kidnapped or picked off, and we’re starting to wonder “Um, isn’t there like 2 acts still left in this film?”  Act 2 consists of Bigfoot going ape-shit, stalking nameless characters in the woods, and killing them in incredibly grisly ways, which is where a gorehound, such as myself, gets a few moments of pleasure from watching heads getting ripped off and bear trap arm removals.  So, this is all fine and dandy and then…a zombie walks by one of the characters.  Yup, a zombie.  Like they had just stumbled onto a different movie set.  I almost crapped my pants.  This is going beyond even some of the Italian “throw every cliche and niche concept at the wall and see what sticks” films.  So now we got Bigfoot, and aimless zombies who are uninterested in human flesh, but seem to be gravitating toward a cave.  What’s in the cave?  You don’t care?  Well goddamnit, I’m going to tell you, because I had to know, and now so will you.

Surprise! Alien Spacecraft!

SURPRISE, aliens are in the cave, and turning the humans they capture into Bigfoots to scavenge the woods for electronics to rebuild their ship.  Also, the leader Alien eats the fresh hearts of the recently captured, removed from live victims by the religious crazy from the first scene, before turning them into either zombies that will do its bidding, or Bigfoots to…do its bidding. kill people at random and steal car stereos.  You figure at some point, the movie would make an attempt at having someone…anyone explain the general plan of the Alien or why/how this is all happening, but no dice.  In the tradition firmly established by the earlier parts of this masterpiece, shit just happens, and I respect that.  So after blowing up the cave, a guy and a girl escape.  They then are in a bed together at the edge of space and time, evidenced by the fact the room is just an empty black hole except for the bed and the headboard. The guy wakes up gasping for air, and the woman comforts him, all while they are being closed in upon by a Bigfoot and some of the zombies from the cave.  Then he wakes up gasping for air AGAIN, and his girlfriend is a zombie.  You don’t think they would do it a third time do you?  Fuck yes they would.  He wakes up, gasping for air a third time, this time alone in the bed, and looks right into the camera and then…the credits roll.  How the Academy didn’t honor this, I will never know.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go convince my friends this is a great movie and make them watch it.

‘Till Next time.

Love,

Alex

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Just chillaxin' with my bros, bro.

Whole lot of awesome going on in this here poster.

Contamination is one of the many films that were made during the 80′s that tried to stake its claim in the immensely popular xenophobia/sci-fi market that Ridley Scott and Dan O’Bannon gave birth to when they unleashed Alien upon unsuspecting viewers in 1979.  What followed was, essentially, a full decade of a happy marriage between rapidly advancing film technologies and an unabashed mainstream and underground obsession with all things extraterrestrial.  It is no wonder that the absolute best of the best of sci-fi emerged during this time period, from the existential and profound, to the spine-melting and downright horrifying, and even the shamelessly cheesy and fun.  Contamination, if you couldn’t tell by the poster, falls squarely into the third category I provided, but that doesn’t make it an awful film, just one you should take with a few tons of salt.

The plot (yes, there is one) in this obviously Italian, quasi-Alien knock-off is that we (human kind) have apparently successfully visited Mars some time ago, and there were some eggs there along with a pretty bad ass creature.  Somehow, some douche bag has managed to get the eggs here to Earth, and seeing how the eggs, under the proper amount of heat and humidity, can explode and spray deadly ooze that burns people like acid and makes their chests explode, this is certainly not a good thing.  In true movie fashion, the first place they are to be delivered is a New York Harbor, which is lovingly shot from a helicopter during the opening credit sequence.  After some tense sequences and one dynamite boo scare aboard the sea vessel containing a large shipment of the deadly eggs, a New York cop, a government agent, and the only remaining crew member of the expedition to Mars must find and stop the man responsible for attempting to unleash a plague of tummy-busting sacks of goo unto the world.

Protective science gear provided by Monty Python.

The biggest name gracing the screen in Contamination is Ian McCulloh, probably best known for his role in Lucio Fulcis splatter opus, Zombi.  As always, McCulloh does what he can to bring some legitimacy to his role, but since our characters are all pretty thin and lacking any true depth, there is only so much he can achieve.  Louise Marleau plays the icy government agent who slowly shows her more human side as the film progresses while doing her best to balance her rigid personality and leaving a little room to be the subtly sexy female heroin.  Marino Mase (from Argento’s Tenebre) plays the NYC cop, and actually looks the part, which is a bit of a shock.  All 3 do what they can trying to bring their uninspired and almost completely surface-only characters to light, but as I learned very quickly with my deep expeditions into Italian effects-driven sci-fi and horror cinema, the characters are, more often than not, just victims or heroes.  The rest of the ensemble are hardly in the movie enough to warrant a mention, but again they fall into the same role of being merely potential victims or scene fillers.  No one really stands out as delivering a breakthrough performance, even though it was clear some of the writing in the scenes was actually well above average.

All the guy in the white lab coat does is push buttons and turn dials. It is laugh out loud funny how arbitrary it is.

Directing is handled by Luigi “Could I have a more Italian Name?” Cozzi, famous for nothing I have ever heard of.  Apparently he also had a hand in writing the story and screenplay, for what it’s worth.  While I may be having fun with the fellow, the directing is actually pretty competent as far as composition and choice of shots, but it is the questionable pacing and abrupt changes in tone and location that really drag the film down from the heights that the opening third of the film was striving for.  We go from the harbor scene, to a science type scene, to an action scene that, like the opening scene on the vessel, does a great job of showcasing the awesome special effects.  Then we get some more science jargon stuff (which I always eat up) explaining and demonstrating the lethality of the eggs and their acid goo.  After that though, the flick seems to be unsure of where to go with itself, and devolves into a uninspired action movie with some sci-fi tension thrown in.  It all LOOKS good, surprisingly good for an Italian film made in 1980, but the pace and constant mood switching threw me off every time I was getting comfortable with where it appeared to be headed.  As far as passing and type of judgement over Cozzis work here, I am more than a little bit perplexed.  Visually, it is a winner, but from a pacing and cohesion standpoint, it leaves a lot to be desired.

Chests and stomachs erupt in slow motion with tons of creamy Italian pasta sauce style blood and viscera.

Effects wise, Contamination finds its ace in the hole.  While underutilized in a movie seemingly driven by the fact that it has a much more hardcore representation of exploding torsos than Alien, when it does happen, it happens REAL GOOD.  Glorious slow motion and long shots of exploding men hang on the screen for much longer than needed for anyone but a proper gore hound.  It is like a wind tunnel is propelling organs and flesh outward, as well as gallons of blood.  Aurally, we are treated to an uneven, but still likable score by Goblin.  To be perfectly honest, I was a little underwhelmed by Goblins work here, as usually they make everything just that much better with their synth mastery and almost dance worthy dreaminess, but here it seemed like Contamination got the leftovers from Goblins jam room floor.  At times it reaches the normal lofty heights Goblin is known for, but most of the time it feels labored, never out of place but just entirely too uninspired and lackadaisical.  The dubbing is what it is, and if you’re at all an Italian film fan, you know what to expect and know how to deal with it.

White Castle hamburgers will do that to ya.

Contamination is fun enough to get a personal green light, but repeated viewings would have to be based on the enthusiasm of any company I had with me at the time.  It isn’t that it’s a BAD film, it just isn’t that great either.  Visually it’s good looking, but the pacing and manic paradigm changes in where the story is headed is certainly jarring at best, and downright frustrating at worst.  The effects are spot on, combining deliciously gory man-splosions (cute little name for it, huh?) with a cheesy Alien Queen and bouncing little jelly eggs, but the Goblin score, much to my chagrin, doesn’t live up to the normal Goblin excellence.  If you are looking for a quick, cheap, and easy in-and-out sci-fi picture with a distinctively un-American flair to it, Contamination is a relatively safe bet.  Just don’t plan to be infected with urge to share this with your friends or add it to your permanent dvd or digital library.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

DO NOT WANT!

Gotta love that tagline.

Dellamorte Dellamore (translated to Of Death Of Love, which can then be easily jumbled around to Love of the Dead) is a title better known to most American audiences as Cemetery Man.  Regardless of which title you prefer to adopt for it however, it is a film that is widely considered by horror aficionados as the last great Italian horror film, and in particular the last standout zombie picture in the long lineage of the countries contributions to the sub genre.  While Fulci and his peers were busy pushing the limits of on screen violence and nurturing the inherit apocalyptic nature of the dead coming back to life, writer/journalist/novelist Tiziano Sclavi was hard at work on what we might call a comic book series called Dylan Dog about an investigator who looked into nightmares.  As with anything that is held in even remotely high regard in print, it was loosely adapted for the silver screen.  While that history is certainly interesting, and may even give insight into the wildly surreal and dream like qualities of Cemetery Man, it isn’t vital to enjoying and thinking critically about the movie itself.  What is of utmost importance is the ability to just go with the quite jarring and constantly morphing flow of the picture, allowing yourself and your imagination to free associate the many clues and symbols embedded within the flick, and let your mind fill in the gaps that arise from its sordid and often misconstrued storytelling methods.

Our story is, at its base, one of a cemetery keeper who has not only the nasty chore of burying the recently deceased, but keeping them under the pounds of dirt he shovels on top of them.  See, Francesco Dellamorte (an ironic name that even the character pokes fun at in the very beginning of the film) battles zombies almost nightly, and with his trusty revolver and spade, and the assistance of his near mute helper Gnagi, he keeps the tenants of Buffalora cemetery within the gates by either shooting them in the head, or driving objects through their rotting skulls.  For a horror movie, this is more than enough to justify a standard 90 minute run time, but what makes Cemetery Man  so interesting and open to interpretation is that it is a film with films inside it.  There are love stories for both of our flawed and damaged reluctant heroes (Gnagi and Frances), there is a ingeniously deceptive detective story complete with twist, and then there is the ultimate question that plagues any intellectual viewer of this movie.  Where on Earth, or outside of Earth, is this all taking place?  Before I throw down my loose theories about the messages and mysteries contained within, let me first analyze it as a piece of  horror entertainment.

This is exactly how I open my door.

Cemetery Man leans heavily on the acting of its male lead Rupert Everett, which is a good thing considering he does a magnificent job conveying the many facets of Frances without the movie or the character ever coughing up any major information as to his personal history.  Besides mentioning that he doesn’t read much and never finished high school, we are instead treated to my personal favorite of all methods for establishing a characters motives, values, and even their beliefs.  The method is simply his actions.  His movements, the way he expresses his emotions and treats those close to him, and almost every other behavior all compiles together into giving us a better understanding of Frances, and if you take the plunge and see this movie (or watch it again, which I also highly recommend) you will learn that understanding Frances may be the key to understanding the film as a whole.  Outside of our enigmatic lead, Anna Falchi also graces the screen with her unique beauty, and brings some acting and modeling credentials to the multiple characters she plays, all of whom are cryptically named as “She” only.  She may not be the best actress, and at times it seems like either she is being subtly dubbed or having a hard time speaking perfect English (she is Italian after all), but for what her characters demand, it seemed fitting that someone who is beautiful, but not in a conventional sense, would play those parts.  In particular, I noticed that her eyes and eye make up changed for each of her 3 “shes” she plays, which may denote a change in the film itself, perhaps opening another chapter every time she reappears.  Gnagi, played by François Hadji-Lazaro, also lends a great deal of depth to the set of personalities on screen, and without hardly muttering any words, and not a full sentence until the very end of the picture, manages to serve as the loyal, but sometimes useless, compatriot to Frances.  He is there with him through thick and thin, and seems to serve as a reminder to Frances that even as along as he feels, he never truly is completely alone.  The rest of the supporting cast are all good, but they get nearly as much time and dialogue as these 3 do, which means that I don’t feel the need to elaborate on their fine performances.  But trust me, they are all well beyond adequate, and in the odd case there is someone you don’t particularly like, don’t worry, they will be dead soon enough.

Frances and "She" spending some quality time in the ossuary.

Michele Soavi (who directed another one of my favorite horror flicks of all time, Stagefright), with competent acting in hand, wastes no time in unraveling his surreal and morbid vision.  The pacing of the film is incredible, surrendering the typical pseudo-tension found in most horror flicks for an off-beat but blistering tempo that is always striking you with violence, sex, dark twisted comedy, or a combination of those 3.  Soavi comes off as a fan and student of the Italian Spaghetti horror films that dominated the underground and foreign markets for much of the 80′s, while at the same time balancing the tragic and dreamy mind fuck that is the narrative.  As I mentioned earlier, it seems like there is at least two movies being told at once, with the major determining factor between the two being the night and day cycle, as well as the lighting and the soundtrack changes.  Night time looks amazingly detailed, never suffering from “I can’t see SHIT” disease that I hate with a every fiber of my being.  Soavi also employs some clever POV shots, usually from the perspective of the dead or soon to be dead person in the scene.  It is used just enough to cement it as a legitimate tool in Soavis directing arsenal, but is done with enough restraint to not come off as a simple gimmick.  If you are a fan of European architecture with a Gothic flair to it, the scenes within the cemetery and surrounding area are sure to please you.  The film really shines during the night scenes more so than the day, and it reeks of a perfect unison between director, cinematographer, and photographer, who all seemed to understand how to make scenes not only look beautifully lit and well composed, but dark, eerie, and other worldly all at the same time.  This is without a doubt one of the most visually arresting horror movies I’ve ever seen, and maybe the best to date.

One of the clever POV shots in the film.

While it is commonplace in modern cinema to have sound effects and a inappropriately loud and obnoxious soundtrack or score dominant the dialogue of a film, it wasn’t so common even up through the mid 90′s.  The sound in Cemetery Man will probably sound dated to most, but then again you can say that the sound in JAWS is dated, in which my response to both is fuck you.  Gunshots are clear and sound as if they are being shot from a gun that has been shot many times before.  The soundtrack deliberately switches many times in order to extract or set a mood for a particular scene.  The dialogue also comes off fairly clean, although it could have been more crisp, but we will chalk that up to it not being a production that was not made on an astronomically large budget.  Whatever mild sins may have been committed by the available technology in the audio department are surely made up for by the special effects and visuals ten fold.  The blood and gore is incredibly visceral and strong, and Soavi shows confidence in his splatter man when he doesn’t jerk his camera away from head shots and other grisly images.  Speaking of which, this may be the movie with the most head shots I have ever personally seen, and each one looks more dynamite than the last.  Lighting, set design, filter choices, costumes and make up are all top notch and don’t feel dated or cheesy in the slightest.  If this movie were made in America, you would be able to spot the outdated attire and social wear from a mile away, but since this movie is a European production, the clothes have much more of a timeless and classic feel.  Same goes for the locations.  Beautiful architecture really helps set the stage, and the cemetery itself seems full of wondrous little alleys and coves begging to be explored.  It looks like the kind of movie you want to jump right into just to walk around and explore it.

Goodbye Boy Scout. Send the girls back with some cookies.

Cemetery Man is, or at least was for me, an answer to many wishes when it comes to my beloved zombie sub genre.  It is fast paced,never boring and it combines trippy, almost hallucinogenic visuals with classic elements of European horror film making.  It is unapologetic in its cryptic nature, which some have unfairly dubbed as simply confusing, and it is a startling example of how to try an add depth to something that could have existing solely on its surface values.  If you consider yourself a zombie film fan, or even a horror fan in general, and you haven’t seen this, you should do so immediately.  It belongs within every conversation about horror, especially if the conversation is about classics of the 90′s, and can even be looked at (as I do below, beware though it is full of spoilers) in an analytical sense if you are so inclined to try and figure out what is really happening.  Either way, don’t let this one sit there in your “Yeah, I’ll get around to it” pile.  You’ll learn to Love the Dead.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Fuck, that is an awesome giant puppet.

BONUS THEORIES!

Now onto my theories about the actual meaning and psychology behind the film.  If you haven’t yet watched it, I suggest you do at this point.  Cemetery man at first struck me as a story of a man in purgatory or hell, who is meant to learn about the differences between life and death (see his short talk with the death stature towards the end of the film for confirmation of this) or maybe even life itself while he himself rots in a cemetery where he must “re-kill” the undead.  The “She” character could easily be seen as the Devil, as every time she pops up, Frances sets himself back further from learning anything from his mistakes as he takes the bait on her “love” and pays dearly for it every time.  Outside of a religious context to the tale, there is also the possibility that Frances has a very vivid imagination, and that isolation, besides his friend Gnagi who could ALSO be seen as just an elaborate hallucination, has started to play tricks on his mind to the point where he truly believes the dead rise up from the ground and that it is his job to put down the “Returners” as he so eloquently puts it.  There is also the possibility that whenever night time comes along, what happens during the dark is a dream, and maybe he sleepwalks and acts out his dreams.  Of course, these are all just theories, each one having massive holes in them, and would welcome anyone to help me formulate an airtight meaning to this very cryptic gem I love so dearly and hold close to my horror loving heart.

END OF BULLSHIT THEORIES!

The Devil? Perhaps.

—————-
Now playing: Nadja – Clinging To The Edge Of The Sky
via FoxyTunes

Mmmmmmm....gotta love old school make up effects.

Brain Dead.  The mere mention of that title to any knowledgeable horror fan and images of Peter Jacksons classic gore-drenched zombie comedy rush into their thoughts like a unstoppable tidal wave of nostalgia.  With the title being so synonymously linked with one of the most celebrated and memorable genre pictures of all time, it is with great risk that another film come along and dare to use the same moniker.  Is it possible that a low-budget, independent film can stand toe to toe with a titan of the genre?  Or, is this just a case of someone trying to ensure that they get some press and visibility due to having enough testicular fortitude to use an iconic title linked to an equally iconic film?  Lets explore, shall we?

Brain Dead is the story of of six people, broken into easily distinguishable pairings of two, who for various reasons find themselves either in or passing through a vast, backwoods area of a nameless state.  Judging by the southern accents some of the characters have, I’m willing to guess we are below the Mason-Dixon line, but other than that, I am well and truly lost as to where the hell they could be.  In true genre fashion, location rarely matters, but shelter from the oncoming nightfall surely does.  We have 2 sorority sisters lost while hiking back to their camp, one of which is a feminist, man-hating lesbian who is attracted to the other.  We have 2 criminals, one a hard-boiled murderer and the other guilty by family association, who escape a transport van and go on the run.  And then we have a creepy, sexually deviant, cheating Priest and one of his sheep (a young and attractive girl, no less) who he had brought along.  Some other characters get thrown in the mix, but our main focus is on these sinister six, who all wind up finding shelter from their misfortunes in a fishing shack buried in a wooded area.  It isn’t a groundbreaking set up for a horror film, but it is perfectly serviceable, and we all know that it is what a film does with its beginnings, not the start itself that makes a film worthwhile.

Yes Ronnie, this does go exactly where we both wanted it to!

As is the case with so many Indie films, the acting is a hodgepodge of highly enjoyable characters and actors, and some that are just near insufferable.  I must commend whomever did the casting however, as it is abundantly apparent that the actors who can carry a scene without being highly irritating are the ones who are on screen the most, while the “meh” actors and actress’s are killed off rather quickly, or given smaller much, less important roles.  It shows me that even though they probably had to “work with what they had” they still made the best possible meal with the ingredients available.  Joshua Benton, who plays Clarence Singer, our guilty by association criminal who has a heart of gold and diamond-tipped katana like wit, is the cream of the crop here.  He is given a tremendous, if not a little transparent, personality and always has a great quippy response to anything and everything, with the exception of when he is getting all lovey dovey with one of the ladies.  Andy Forest who is the borderline psychopathic Reverend Farnsworth, makes you hate him from the first minute with his hypocrisy and biblical reasoning for everything, which of course is what his character was designed to do.  The rest of the seedy six that we spend most of our time with are by no means slouches, but their roles aren’t exactly the most challenging of personas to hop into, and thus I will collectively comment on them by saying there is no one who I wished just wasn’t there.  The only actors who I felt a strong dislike torwards were the police officers (and not just because they were cops) and Ranger Sydney, who just didn’t do it for me (but did get naked, so I guess she served a purpose for some viewers).

You got a little something...right above your left eye....yeah just dab a nakpin on it...

Chances are though, if you are down with low-budget indie horror, you have leanred to tolerate a large amount of shitty acting, but you still would like a film to be relatively well shot and paced.  If so, then you are mostly in luck, as Kevin Tenney (his claim to fame is directing Night of the Demons, a CLASSIC if you have yet to see it, see it) tries to work as much magic as he can with the restrictions that are present.  Clever fading edits show quarters rolling of the ground that dissolve right into the spinning wheels of a car tire, and this transition trick is repeated a few more times in the opening half of the film.  The blood and gore, which I will elaborate more on later, is usually shot in broad daylight, a pleasant departure from the normal “shoot in the dark so they can’t see the CGI or terrible make up” mentality.  Tenney’s camera is in observer mode, which isnt a bad thing.  The lens never feels like it has to get involved with the characters, or actively participate in the fight scenes or the action.  It is simply a carefully placed eye by which we see the events unfold, and besides the flash and dash of dissolving scene transitions we see a lot of in the first half of the flick, things are played pretty safely and close to the vest for the last half.  Tenney also avoids “hero shots” and other such Hollywood bullshit, thus not insulting the intelligience of his potential audience.  The directing here is, to use a cliche, solid.

Gonna need a Shamwow to clean up that mess....jeeesh.

The saving throw (anyone get that RPG reference?) of many an indie zombie endeavour  is usually rampant and creative bloodletting.  Due to the independent nature of this film, and many others like it, gore and nudity can be as pervasive and sickening as the filmmakers want it to be, without fear of a studio or executives breathing down their necks and being concerned with public opinion and the MPAA.  Brain Dead certainly reveled in this freedom, as most, if not all, of the kills are absolutely jaw-dropping in their brutality and presentation.  I am usually pretty strong when it comes to seeing people have horrible things done to them, but even I said “WOW” out loud at two of the special effects scenes in Brain Dead, which I of course won’t ruin for you here.  Moving on from the stellar gore and kills, the movie could have been lit slightly better, especially during some of the outside night time shots, and the score/soundtrack was a complete and total wash, except for the inclusion of the Toadies song Possum Kingdom, which I heard playing in one scene.  All in all though, continually taking into consideration this is not a studio backed major production, the technical flaws and shortcomings can be easily overlooked, and don’t condemn the movie to a lower ranking than it would get otherwise.

Kinda reminds of a Nerf Football I had as a kid...

In order to be able to, in confidence, recommend Brain Dead to anyone, I would first need to ask a few qualifying questions.  Do you enjoy low budget horror and can you tolerate all that flaws and quirks that come with it?  Do you appreciate great looking, over the top gore?  Do you like full frontal female nudity or can you at least tolerate it?  If so, Brain Dead may be for you.  It is a competent and fun zombie flick, full of some actually funny humor and some great gore as well as a surprising climax that I should have seen coming a mile away, but somehow didn’t.  Perhaps the greatest sin Brain Dead has committed, and it did so by no fault of its own,  was that it was released in 2007.  Had this movie seen the light of day in the 70′s,80′s, or even the 90′s, it probably would have been met with open arms by a large cult following and maybe even the horror community as a whole.  But in the Internet age, where everyone expects movies to be able to stand up to bigger budgets productions with computer special effects and years of pre and post production, Brain Dead may, much to my chagrin, be lost in the shuffle.  Here’s to hoping it enjoys a better fate than that.  Oh, and Peter Jacksons Brain Dead (a.k.a. Dead Alive for us Americans) is the better film.  Thought I had forgot about my opening, didn’t you?

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvDhZ15EA5s

Even the print is blue

I didn’t know when I started my foray into horror writing three months ago that I would be going through my own lifetime wish list of movies to watch, but here I am again. I’m not the most technologically advanced of humans, so it took me until this year to get a copy of Cocksucker Blues. I heard about this movie ten years ago, when I was at the height of my Stones fandom, but of course couldn’t find a copy.

Now, I was excited when I watched Gimme Shelter the same year I first heard of Cocksucker Blues, so excited I watched it all by myself, at my trailer in the flatwoods 30 minutes from town then I called up my best friend, said, “you have to come out here right now and watch this movie.” So he did, and a religious experience was had.

That gives you some idea of what I have, as Ferris Bueller said about Cameron losing his virginity, built up in my mind as the be all end all of human existence. If I liked Gimme Shelter, surely I would love love love Cocksucker Blues. I mean, it is banned to this day, except for the filmmaker’s allowed yearly screening. This was supposed to be the sacred relic of sleaze! Especially the fabled groupie/roadie gangbang on an airplane, a flying airplane I believe, although no one on the plane as it turns out would have noticed if they had boarded them all on in New York, shut the door, opened it, told them they were in LA, and put them out. The twist to this scene was to be the Stones playing musical accompaniment. Well, there’s Mick with some kind of maraca deal and some guy playing a tambourine while a couple of two-pump chumps get it on with two girls for less than two minutes. Ta Daaah!

I know I do go on about being from the South, but believe me when I say that the only dialogue in the entire movie that I understood was a southern girl talking about how she always wanted to meet Keith because she had seen him on TV with an earring made out of a tooth. No one else in the film at any time said anything intelligible apart from a man called Marshall who gave a rambling explanation of the genesis of the title song. The soundtrack didn’t go with the action and the action was stream-of-consciousness. Don’t try and tell me that was for artistic purposes, not when I just saw a woman eat a heaping tablespoon of cocaine. I’m not kidding.

I saw the Rolling Stones on tour in 1989 and they sounded better than they did on this tour, which was for goddamn Exile on Main Street! Their supposed best album (I prefer Let It Bleed, but what can you do.) The only thing that shocked me about this film, other than how boring it was, was the large amount of footage of Mick and Keith actually hanging out together. Oh, and Mick Jagger needed a dollar bill to roll a joint. You would think he would have been a pro by then.

If Motley Crue had made this movie in 1992, they would have showed it at the multiplex with an NC-17 rating. That guy in the cancelled American show “Life on Mars” was pissed cause he got sent back to 1972 and 1972 was supposed to be so hopeless compared to our time. Well, send me back to 1972, honey, if this is the most shocking thing you got! I don’t know if the world got uglier since then, or if we just hear about it more, but things sure seem more hopeless now.

I give it 2 stars, and one of those is because raise your hand, we got to see some titties. And the other is because I like typing the word “cocksucker” with impunity.

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

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