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Reviews
Antropophagus (1980)
Enjoyable horror gore-fest
Anthropophagous (AKA The Savage Island, AKA The Grim Reaper)
So many variant spellings of that word - I've gone with the one on the Blu-ray cover. Nice to own a fully uncensored copy of this infamous Joe D'Amato movie (foetus and intestines-eating fully restored!) - one of the most notorious of the UK 1980s video nasties. It's a simple premise: a group of young holiday makers arrives on a remote Greek island, only to find it deserted. Soon isolated and unable to leave as their boat has drifted out of reach, they have to make do and settle in one of the abandoned houses for the night. As a storm hits the island members of the group start to fall foul of a cannibalistic killer.
The opening scene is very obviously inspired by the opening death from Jaws - and does it pretty well. In fact the whole movie is better than some give it credit for; scenes of the deserted town, surrounding woodland, and a rundown cemetery build a nice creepy atmosphere; the acting is okay (Mia Farrow's late sister, Tisa, is the lead; the rest of the cast are Italian, apart from Czech-born spaghetti horror/sleaze goddess Zora Kerova); it's well-written, by D'Amato and 'George Eastman' (AKA Luigi Montefiori - who plays the killer), and D'Amato's direction is pretty tight (if it's true it was all first-takes, kudos to all involved). Of course, the main thing people come for is the gore - and it delivers pretty well, even if some of it doesn't quite convince today. Special mention for Eastman's menacing bad guy - at 6' 9" he's pretty memorable! Unusually for an Italian horror of the time, there's no sex or nudity (not even from Kerova!). If you like this sort of thing it's a solid watch. 7.5/10.
Morte sospetta di una minorenne (1975)
Bizarre mixture of genres
Director Sergio Martino is probably best known these days for his gialli - and this is marketed as such, but it's actually more of a 'police procedural'. An undercover 'loose cannon' cop investigating organised crime in Milan is contacted by an underage prostitute who wishes to pass on information. They meet, but she quickly becomes aware she has been followed and flees to her boarding house. The mysterious figure she was fleeing from tracks her to the boarding house and kills her. The cop makes it his mission to go after the people who were pimping her, in the hopes of closing down their operation and finding the killer. This leads him to a network of underage prostitution, and before long he's up against prominent bankers and businessmen, and connections with kidnapping and drug dealing, as more prostitutes are being killed.
It's a strange film. The subject matter is gritty, and killings by razor and knife are graphically shown. Yet at times it goes full slapstick, including one of the most bizarre car chases I've ever seen, where the occupants of a Citroen 2CV actually pull the doors off their own car and throw them at the pursuing vehicle(!), and (in the course of a ridiculous amount of collateral damage) a bicycle gets hit, resulting in the cyclist riding just the rear wheel like a unicycle, whilst a pedestrian gets knocked over twice, spinning on his head like a breakdancer each time he hits the ground! That said, it's a good story, and the performances (especially those of Claudio Cassinelli as the cop, Lia Tanzi as one of the prostitutes, the always reliable Mel Ferrer as a Police Superintendent, and Roberto Posse as the killer) are excellent. There's also some impressive stunt work, as well as a pretty good Goblin-like score (by Luciano Michelini). 7.5/10.
The Secret of Seagull Island (1982)
Suffers from so much material being cut
Despite sounding like an Enid Blyton adventure, this Italian/UK co-production is actually a murder/mystery. Originally made as a TV series called simply Seagull Island, it was later released as a feature film, with the whole five episodes trimmed to a 1hr 42 mins runtime. Barbara - an English woman - receives a letter from her sister, Marianne, asking her to travel to Italy and meet her in Rome. When Barbara arrives she finds Marianne has booked out of her hotel unexpectedly, leaving no message. She enlists British Consul Martin to help search, and discovers Marianne may have travelled to Naples with English ex-pat millionaire David Malcom. However, Marianne is blind - and recent unsolved murders of other blind women lead Barbara and Martin to fear for her safety.
The three leads are British - Jeremy Brett (David Malcolm), Prunella Ransome (Barbara), and Nicky Henson (Martin). The rest of the cast are almost all Italian, with several faces/names familiar from genre/exploitation films of the 70s and 80s. The basic story's not bad, and the leads are good. However, it suffers badly from having so much material cut, leaving some continuity not making sense (e.g. Characters suddenly changing location), as well as dialogue obviously having been removed within scenes. Still, Brett manages to be as riveting as ever (four years later he would become immortalised as arguably the definitive Sherlock Holmes). There's very little gore (although we do get a pretty convincing shot of an eyeless corpse weighed down underwater by a concrete block), and almost no nudity. However, the stunning underwater photography deserves a mention, as does the score (by well-known UK TV theme composer, Tony Hatch). 4.5/10.
L'iguana dalla lingua di fuoco (1971)
Underwhelming giallo curio
Italian/French/West German co-production, directed by Riccardo Freda, and starring Anton Diffring, Luigi Pistilli, and Dagmar Lassander. When two women connected with the Swiss Ambassador to Ireland (Diffring) are found murdered in Dublin, the police investigation is hampered by the Ambassador invoking his right of Diplomatic Immunity. To try to get round this the senior investigating officer unofficially recruits the services of retired 'loose cannon' cop John Norton (Pistilli). But as Norton attempts to unravel the truth (including forming a romantic relationship with the Ambassador's daughter (Lassander)) there are further murders which hint at the possibility of more than one killer and more than one hidden agenda.
Unusually, this giallo is largely set in Dublin. Even more unusually, it was actually filmed there. Anyone who's visited the Republic of Ireland knows it has spectacular coastal scenery, and the movie certainly makes use of that. The cast are pretty good (Diffring is his usual excellent, cold, condescending b@stard) and the basic idea is okay. The drawback is that the finer details are confusing as hell (I watched a video essay on the film afterwards and was relieved to see I'm not the only one who thinks so). It really is a tangled mess. Even when all is revealed at the end (largely by way of an exposition dump from Diffring), it's still a muddle. In fact Freda was so unhappy with the finished film he had his name replaced with the pseudonym 'Willy Pareto' (Freda also apparently wanted Roger Moore for the detective role; I really don't see any way Moore would have taken this).
The unusual setting and Diffring make this worth at least one watch (I don't see me ever revisiting it). There's a fair bit of blood and gore, violence and nudity. 5.5/10.
La notte che Evelyn uscì dalla tomba (1971)
Fun cross-genre mystery
The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave (AKA The Night She Rose From The Tomb, AKA Evelyn Raises the Dead)
Italian hybrid giallo/gothic horror, directed by Emilio Miraglia, and starring Anthony Steffen, Marina Malfatti, and Erika Blanc. Lord Alan Cunningham (Steffen) is released from a mental institution after suffering a breakdown following the death of his wife, Evelyn. On his release, to help cope with his loss, he entices strippers and prostitutes to his castle and murders them. This novel therapy isn't enough, so on the advice of friends he remarries. But as Cunningham and new wife Gladys (Malfatti) adjust to married life, strange occurrences soon have Alan suspecting that Evelyn may have returned from the grave, angry at his remarriage. At the same time, members of Alan's family who live on the estate start to be murdered by an unseen killer. However, Alan's fragile mental state leaves him in no condition to deal with either situation, and events both natural and seemingly supernatural escalate.
Bizarrely, around the half-way mark the film asks us to start rooting for a guy who we know murders prostitutes. The normal response would be 'well, he's got it coming', but here they try to paint him in a sympathetic light - as though his belief that his late wife was having an affair somehow justifies what he later did. Still, it's a fun film. It really leans into the gothic aspect - although set in then present-day 'England' (but clearly actually Italy), it has neglected castles, storm-lashed graveyards, cobwebby family crypts, a seance, creeping shadows, a haunting portrait, and ghostly figures at the windows. However, Miraglia's crafty inclusion of strippers and hookers ensures the requisite amount of sex/nudity for the giallo side of things (shoutout to jaw-dropping genre favourite Erika Blank as the top-of-the-bill 'exotic dancer')! Absolutely worth a watch. 7/10.
The Turning (2020)
A Muddled, Boring Mess
Another adaptation of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw. There have been good ones, and not so good; sadly, this is one of the latter. Director Floria Sigismondi gives the impression of having seen James Watkins' The Woman in Black and James Wan's The Conjuring, without actually understanding what makes them work. A director can have all the CGI, all the dimly lit corridors, all the barely glimpsed figures in the world - but if they don't have 'an eye for the creepy' it doesn't work. Chilling ghost stories that get under your skin are hard to do. Every flesh-creep has to be earned; they won't come automatically just because you've turned the lights down and put an out of focus figure in the background. As for the cast, young leads Finn Wolfhard and (especially) Brooklynn Prince are very good, and Barbara Merten (as the house keeper) is excellent. Mackenzie Davis' governess on the other hand is annoying and remarkably ineffectual. Killruddery House in County Wicklow, Ireland, is a suitably spooky location - but it's wasted here. I recommend watching Jack Clayton's classic The Innocents, or Mike Flanagan's The Haunting of Bly Manor mini-series instead. 4/10.
Gatti rossi in un labirinto di vetro (1975)
Absolutely ridiculous - but a lot of fun!
Eyeball (AKA Red Cats in a Glass Maze)
Italian/Spanish co-produced giallo/slasher, written and directed by Umberto Lenzi, and starring John Richardson, Martine Brochard, and Andrés Mejuto. A group of American tourists are on a bus/coach tour of Barcelona. However, before long female members of the coach party are being picked off by a mysterious figure dressed all in red when the party stops for sightseeing attractions or overnight stayovers. But the women aren't just being killed; the left eyeball of each victim is gouged out - sometimes prior to death. The lead detective retires in one week, and is keen to solve the killings before he leaves, whilst the rest of the party just try to survive.
The plot of this is actually bonkers, the number of red herrings is ridiculous, and the murderer's motive is one of the most utterly stupid ever - none of which stops it from being a load of fun! The cast are good (plenty of faces from other Italian genre films), there's a lot of blood plus severed eyeballs, all the nudity you'd expect from a 1975 Italian exploitation film, and a good helping of so-bad-it's-good dialogue. Having said all that, unlike with a lot of these films, the plot - whilst insane - is at least followable (often with these you end up abandoning any hope of coherence, and just watch for the crazy spectacle). Real OTT fun. Oh, Bruno Nicolai's funky score - bizarrely at odds with some of the carnage - deserves special mention! 7/10.
Gritos en la noche (1962)
Early Franco gothic horror
The Awful Dr. Orloff (AKA Screams in the Night, AKA The Demon Doctor)
Spanish-French horror film written and directed by Jess Franco, starring Howard Vernon, Conrado San Martín, and Diana Lorys. In the early 1900s a string of beautiful women are abducted from Paris nightclubs. As police investigate they become suspicious of one Dr Orloff, a former police surgeon. It transpires that Orloff has a daughter who was hideously disfigured in a fire, and he is abducting women in order to use their skin from various bodyparts to repair his daughter's appearance.
Regular Franco collaborator Vernon plays Dr Orloff, San Martín plays Police Inspector Tanner, and Lorys plays Tanner's fiancee, Wanda - a beautiful ballet dancer, who decides to do some amateur sleuthing to help her husband-to-be, whilst offering herself as bait. The three stars are very good - but the biggest impression is made by Ricardo Valle as Morpho, Orloff's lumbering, bug-eyed, blind, mute assistant (where the heck do these mad doctors find them?)
Filmed in black and white it has a real gothic feel; the story goes that Franco showed potential backers a copy of Hammer's The Brides of Dracula, saying he could make a similar film "in the same vein, but with a different style". Some influence shows; although this isn't a vampire pic, Morpho strides around in a full-length cape, biting women on the neck and carrying them off, whilst Diana Lorys has a real look of BoD's Yvonne Monlaur. The plot is also very like that of Eyes Without a Face, made just two years earlier (the same year as The Brides of Dracula). Franco produced two versions of this; one with some shots of female (topless) nudity (the common version today), and one without, for places with stricter censorship.
As Jess Franco's first horror film (also often cited as the earliest Spanish horror film), and proof that he could actually be a good storyteller when he wanted to, this is well-worth a look. 7/10.
Virus (1980)
I enjoy Italian horror - but this was dreadful!
Hell of the Living Dead (AKA Virus, AKA Night of the Zombies, AKA Zombie Creeping Flesh)
Directed by schlockmeister Bruno Mattei, and starring Margit Evelyn Newton. TV news reporter Lia Rousseau (Newton) and her crew arrive in Papua New Guinea to investigate an accident at a top secret research laboratory. Soon afterwards a team of commandos arrive; they recently neutralised a terror threat at an embassy and believe the disaster at the research lab may be the work of the same terrorist organisation. When they discover that the accident released a chemical which has turned all the lab workers into bloodthirsty zombies, Rousseau and her crew join forces with the commandos and eventually escape the complex. As they make their way through the surrounding New Guinea jungle they realise that the chemical has reached that area, which is now teaming with zombified indigenous hunters. As Rousseau and the others try to fight their way out they start falling victims to the zombies.
Nearly everything here is bad; acting, direction, story, dialogue, makeup... One reviewer at the time said, 'the possibility of a subversive subtext involving Third World victims corrupted by scientific research was truly buried here in an orgy of flesh chewing and vomiting, as well as dialogue that beggars belief' - which still makes it sound better than it is. The score by Goblin is good, but even that's cobbled together from pieces they wrote for other films; and whilst there's plenty of gore, it's so badly done. Newton being very pretty, the (second hand) Goblin music, and some unintentional laugh-out-loud moments scrape this a 3/10.
Quella villa accanto al cimitero (1981)
Story has a few problems, but good atmosphere and plenty of gore
Supernatural slasher directed by Lucio Fulci, and starring Catriona MacColl, Paolo Malco, Ania Pieroni, and Dagmar Lassander. Norman and Lucy Boyle and their young son, Bob, move into a house in New Whitby, Massachusetts, where the previous occupant - a former colleague of Norman - murdered his mistress before committing suicide. Locals shun the house, referring to it as 'the Freudstein place' - although the real estate office have named it 'Oak Mansion' to make the property sound more attractive. The Boyles find the house in poor repair, with the cellar door locked and nailed shut. There's also a concealed tombstone embedded in the middle of the living room floor, and a local girl that only Bob can see. From their first night the family are disturbed by strange noises which leads Norman to unseal the cellar, and after a few more unsettling incidents he starts to dig into the background of the house and its former occupants. As he's conducting his investigation, people at the house start meeting grisly ends.
It starts off with a great double-kill that reminded me of the opening of Friday the 13th just the year before. The score gives some great atmosphere, and the house with the cemetery right next to it are visually very impressive (all exteriors were shot in New York and Massachusetts). The cast are very good. Story-wise though it's a bit 'first draft'. For example, a big thing is made of locals claiming that Norman and 'his daughter' have visited the house previously - something Norman strenuously denies, adding that he has no daughter, just a son; but this goes nowhere and is never mentioned again. And if I walked in on my babysitter mopping up a ridiculous amount of blood from the kitchen floor, and I asked 'What are you doing?', I'd want a bit more of a response than 'I made coffee'. Likewise, if I caught said babysitter trying to unseal my cellar with a crowbar in the middle of the night, I wouldn't just look at her and go back to bed without saying anything. There are others. But what you can't fault is the gore. Stabbings, slashings, rippings, tearings, hanging on hooks, blood and body parts strewn around... it's all here. 6.5/10.
Nachts, wenn Dracula erwacht (1970)
Could have been much more, but still worth a watch
Directed by Jess Franco, this Spanish/West German/Italian/UK co-production (filmed in Spain and Italy) was the first attempt to film a truly faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel. As such it attracted a good cast; Christopher Lee plays Dracula, Herbert Lom plays Van Helsing, and Klaus Kinski plays Renfield. Lee - who by this point had already played Dracula three times for Hammer - jumped at the chance to play a version of the character as Stoker wrote him; he sports a moustache throughout, and begins the film as an elderly man, only becoming more youthful as the film progresses and he feeds on more victims. He's also given the chance to speak more dialogue taken from the novel. It takes a bit of getting used to seeing Lee's Dracula like this (no cape really jars!), but he's clearly enjoying the opportunity and plays it well. Herbert Lom is a solid Van Helsing, albeit closer to Edward Van Sloan than Peter Cushing. Klaus Kinski makes for a good 'lunatic' (although for some reason he has no dialogue whatsoever). In the supporting cast Maria Rohm as Mina, and the ill-fated Soledad Miranda as Lucy (Miranda was killed in an automobile accident later that year, four months after Count Dracula premiered) are very good.
Franco is admirably restrained; there's zero nudity, and apart from Kinski the performances are kept pretty subtle (even Lee - although that's not to say he isn't menacing when he needs to be). The cinematography is beautiful, and the sets and locations look fantastic. Looking at interviews from Lee and Franco it's clear that intentions were good and hearts were in the right place.
Unfortunately - despite the diverse funding - budget became an issue. A lot of money went on Lee, and as long as he was on-set no expense was spared for the production. What no-one (including Lee) realised was that once he was done and had departed for England the money was slashed to a pittance, whole scenes were removed, first-takes were used, regardless of errors (such as crew/equipment being visible), and effects became pitiable. The runtime was also shortened (all this came from producer Harry Towers, not from Jess Franco). What's left is a shining example of 'what might have been'. It almost seems that for 'every good part there's an equal and opposite bad one' (apologies to Sir Isaac Newton). It's such a shame. Nevertheless, the film still manages to create a strong sense of atmosphere, and the scenes dispatching the vampirised Lucy and Dracula's brides - always essential set-pieces - don't disappoint. All in all I'll still give it 7/10.
Paura nella città dei morti viventi (1980)
Perfect Halloween watch
Directed by Lucio Fulci, starring Christopher George, Catriona MacColl, Carlo de Mejo, and Janet Agren. During a seance in New York, a medium (MacColl) has a vision of a priest hanging himself in a village churchyard, followed by other 'glimpses' which convince her the dead are about to rise and take over the world. The intensity of her vision causes her to go into convulsions and she collapses. She's pronounced dead, and the police are called in. A reporter (George) hears of the case, and in the absence of any bigger stories decides to dig deeper. Some days later he attends the cemetery where the medium has been buried and hears the sound of a woman screaming. Eventually realising that it's coming from her grave he digs her up and saves her. She persuades him to help her search for the village where the priest hanged himself, a place she knows from her vision is called Dunwich. Eventually they find it and discover the dead are indeed rising and killing the villagers - causing some of them in turn to join the ranks of the undead.
Filmed mostly in the US (with the remainder shot in Rome) this has a fantastically eerie atmosphere (parts of it remind me of Tobe Hooper's Salem's Lot, and John Carpenter's The Fog). The cast are excellent, as is the prog score by Fabio Frizzi. The practical gore effects look great - although the makeup effects are a mixed bag (some underwhelming, some very, very good). Fulci's direction has never been better; the scene where Christopher George rescues Catriona MacColl from being buried alive is one of the best sequences I've seen in any horror film, going as it does from her initial waking-up underground, to the dawning horror of what's happened, then her absolute panic as she screams and tries to claw her way out of the coffin, and finally George's pick-axe crashing through the lid inches from her face.
The very final scene of the film is a notorious, mystifying letdown (coming straight after a terrific sequence with our heroes surrounded by zombies in an underground crypt) but overall it's a great ride. 7.5/10.
Die Schlangengrube und das Pendel (1967)
Dracula meets Tarzan!
The Torture Chamber of Dr Sadism (AKA The Blood Demon, AKA The Snake Pit and the Pendulum, AKA Blood of the Virgins, AKA Castle of the Walking Dead)
Christopher Lee, Lex Barker, and Karin Dor star in a West German gothic horror that plays out like a cross between Dracula: Prince of Darkness and The Pit and the Pendulum. In early 18th century Germany the evil Count Regula (Lee, of course) is drawn and quartered for murdering 12 young women, all virgins, who he killed in an attempt to gain immortality. Before he died Regula swore revenge on two people responsible for his death. Thirty-five years later the unknowing descendants of those two people (Barker and Dor) receive mysterious invitations to Regula's castle, although neither of them know who he is. Also along are Dor's maid, and a priest who was simply catching a lift to somewhere nearby. The local villagers claim not to know of the castle, and when the travellers arrive they discover their 'host' has been dead for years. However, Regula's faithful manservant nevertheless keeps the castle running, with the intention of using the 'guests' to revive the dead count. This he succeeds in doing, but only short-term. Turns out Regula needed the blood of 13 virgins to achieve full immortality; he still has the blood of the original 12 but needs one more - Dor - to achieve his goal. Cue a battle for survival and an attempt to stop Regula's diabolical plan...
The cinematography looks like Mario Bava on his best day, and the gothic castle sets are fantastic. An eerie sequence where the travellers' coach is driven through a dark forest with corpses and body-parts hanging from every tree is the stuff of nightmares. It's a shame the pacing feels uneven at times, and the film slumps a bit during the 45 minutes or so that Lee is missing (it runs an hour and a half, with Lee present for around half of that - 10 minutes at the beginning, and the last 25 minutes or so). Still, Barker makes a credible and likeable hero, Dor is stunningly beautiful (she looks like a cross between Claudia Cardinale and Edwige Fenech), and when Lee does finally reappear it's a lot of crazy fun. 7/10.
Non si sevizia un paperino (1972)
Sometimes described as an 'uncomfortable watch' - but don't let that put you off
Directed by Lucio Fulci, this infamous giallo stars Florinda Bolkan, Tomas Milian, Marc Porel, and Barbara Bouchet. Unusually, the victims here aren't adult women, but children - very young boys. The killings take place in an isolated Italian village where 'outsiders' are a rarity, and when they do turn up they're viewed with suspicion. A series of child murders of course attracts the national press, and with an embarrassingly inept local police force floundering it falls on visiting reporter Andrea (Milian) and former Milan society girl/recovering drug addict Patrizia (Bouchet) to solve the case.
The film was banned in a lot of countries - some for many years. The murders of children (shown pretty graphically) were obviously a large part of that. The fact that Bouchet's 'party girl' likes to sit around completely naked and come-on to young boys probably got a few people hot under the collar too. That's a shame, because it's pretty good. The make-up and effects are convincing. And it's well-acted by the featured cast (top honours go to Bolkan, who is absolutely terrific as a local outcast/gypsy/witch). There's one killing (of an adult) at around the half-way point, which after more than 50 years is still one of the most hard-hitting, prolonged, gut-wrenching deaths I've seen onscreen.
Watching from a modern-day perspective a first-time watcher now might well guess the killer, but I can't fault the film for that. It is let-down a little by some of the supporting cast (especially the police) bordering on parody, and the actual motive of the killer is pretty ridiculous (although I'd never say it hasn't happened in real life). There are a few other things (I'm sure a big city crime reporter would know not to touch/contaminate crime scenes), but this is definitely a worthwhile watch. 7/10.
Sette note in nero (1977)
Good mystery, but confusing towards the end
The Psychic (AKA Seven Notes in Black, AKA Murder to the Tune of the Seven Black Notes, AKA Death Tolls Seven Times)
Giallo directed by Lucio Fulci before he went full Gore-Meister. Jennifer O'Neill plays Virginia, a woman who has had psychic visions ever since as a child she 'saw' her mother's suicide. Now happily married to a successful businessman, she's living a relaxed, carefree life. However, soon after he leaves for a business trip she begins to have visions of strange disjointed images of people and places, culminating in a woman being bricked-up alive in the wall of an unknown building. She's so convinced the images are real that she consults a former boyfriend - Luca, a parapsychologist. As they locate the building, and then discover a woman's body that has indeed been walled-up, they realise that what Virginia 'saw' wasn't quite what she thought it was; it was actually something far worse.
Fulci is very much in 'Hitchcock mode' here, with plenty of twists, turns, and red herrings (he also co-wrote the screenplay). He gets good performances from the actors (especially O'Neill, Marc Porel as Luca, and Gabriele Ferzetti as Emilio - a shady art gallery owner), whilst the cinematography by his long-time collaborator Sergio Salvati (they worked together 11 times) is excellent. There's also a great score by Franco Bixio, Fabio Frizzi, and Vince Tempera. However, the film suffers in that when the truth behind Virginia's visions is revealed, along with a true timeline of events, it's pretty damn confusing; the gist is pretty-much clear, but the specifics aren't at all. As a result the climax is a little underwhelming. I may feel differently after rewatches, but for now 6/10.
Les gardiennes du pénitencier (1981)
Appallingly bad - and hilariously funny
Naziploitation/WIP flic that's almost entirely made up of footage from three other movies; Hitler's Last Train, Captive Women 4 (AKA Elsa: Fraulein SS) and Jess Franco's Caged Women (AKA Barbed Wire Dolls). The 'plot' involves a former SS officer who escapes to 'somewhere in Latin America' where he becomes the manager of a women's prison. Whilst we get a little more of that in the middle, and some at the end, the rest of the movie is spent on how the women are abused by the guards, relationships between the inmates, and their backstories. All these are actually from different movies; some characters' 'flashbacks' don't even feature the same actresses! The titular wardress spends the whole film strutting about wearing a monocle, khaki shirt, and the shortest shorts imaginable, whilst the escaped Nazi spends a lot of time doting on his model soldier collection; not the first bad guy to be shown doing that - except that these are very obviously those all-green molded plastic kids toys that usually come in bags of about 30.
The music in just about every scene is ludicrously inappropriate (funky jazz score during rape, rolling classical piano during a fight between two inmates). And there's a scene that has to be seen to be believed - actually lifted straight from the Franco film; during one flashback we see an inmate fighting-off her uncle (played by Franco himself) who is attempting to rape her. Eventually she pushes him, he strikes his head, and falls to the floor. The whole thing is in slowmotion, EXCEPT... for some unfathomable reason, instead of filming in slowmotion they actually had the actors PERFORM in slowmotion! This 'impactful' scene is literally laughable - especially when the two players start moving at different speeds! Whilst Franco is still slowmo-ing down to the floor (hamming it up for all he's worth) she's running off at normal speed - in the same shot!
As far as genre expectations go there's a lot of full nudity/sex, and a middling amount of violence.
An awful film - but the laughs made it worthwhile. 5/10.
Shiryô no wana 2: Hideki (1992)
Stylish, gory, but very confusing
Sequel in name only to the Japanese torture/splatter pic Evil Dead Trap (1988) (so, again, not in any way connected with Sam Raimi's Evil Dead movies). Like the first, this plays out like a combination of slasher, giallo, and body-horror.
Aki works as a theatre projectionist. She's overweight, not 'conventionally attractive', suffers from low self-esteem, and pretty much withdraws from the world when she's not working. Her only friend is Emi; she's an attractive former pop idol, now working as a TV news reporter. Emi has been covering a series of brutal ripper-style murders of young women. Our sympathies for Aki fade when she suddenly realises that she herself is the killer; some evenings she dresses fashionably - even seductively, and stalks and kills young women, mutilating then in a manner similar to Jack the Ripper. That's all I can say with any certainty, because from then on it's by no means clear how much - if any - of what we see is real... Aki is encouraged by Emi to get out more, and they get into a bizarre love-triangle with Emi's (married) supervisor. Emi gets sexually aroused by the sight of the women's mutilated bodies as she arrives at crime scenes. Aki is haunted by the ghost of a young boy (kind of a forerunner of 'Toshio' from the Ju-On movies), and that same little boy also appears to Emi's supervisor and his wife as the spirit of a child they longed for but never had (???). Gradually, jealousies and rivalries begin to alter Aki and Emi's relationship, leading to an even more bizarre - and incredibly bloody - turn of events.
The movie has been called 'hallucinatory', which is a perfect description. What's certain is that the cinematography is terrific, the performances are all very good, the effects are excellent, and the blood and gore rivals that of the Terrifier movies. Like the first one, visually and musically it's got a very Argento feel to it, with a bit of Cronenberg thrown in. There are two big drawbacks. One is that the whole thing is just so damn confusing; it's hard to get invested in what's happening to the characters when you don't know how much of it is 'real'. The other is that the first half of the movie is painfully slow - thankfully, things pick up. In fact, where I found the first EDT great APART from the climax, with EDT2 it's the other way around; the climax (which lasts about 20 minutes) is a jaw-dropping bloodbath and easily the best part of the movie.
What's great is great, but overall, 6.5/10.
Bad Nun: Deadly Vows (2019)
Unbelievably bad
(AKA Awakening the Nun)
I'm a massive horror and nunsploitation fan - and this fails spectacularly on both counts. It's poorly written, poorly acted, poorly directed, poorly lit, and poorly filmed. No menacing atmosphere. No tension. Laughable makeup effects. Generic boring score. And as for the PC/SJW cramming... All men are bad (killers and adulterers); all women must stick together - banded by their hatred of said men; racial diversity quota - check; gay representation quota - check.
It's not frightening; the one potentially effective scare involving a chair - they blew. Actress Chelsea Greenwood is attractive - she gets this one star. And as I've heard that IMDb discount one-star ratings, I'll award one more - people need to be forewarned just how bad this is.
2/10. Utter, utter rubbish.
Rising Damp: For the Man Who Has Everything (1975)
A Christmas Cracker!
This (from 1975) is the only Christmas special that Rising Damp ever did - and it's a cracker! Poor Rigsby is spending Christmas alone again, feeling unloved and unwanted. Even his attempt to get a kiss under the mistletoe from postwoman Gwen fails. Fortunately (although Rigsby would never admit it!), both Alan and Philip return early from spending Christmas away - and Philip's brought him a Christmas present! This leads to a hilarious mistake from Rigsby and dialogue that ranks amongst the sharpest ever in the show's run. As always, Leonard Rossiter is faultless, and Richard Beckinsale and Don Warrington give their usual fantastic support. One of the top episodes. 9/10.
Hammer House of Horror: Carpathian Eagle (1980)
'Slasher' with a difference
Good performances all round from the featured cast of Anthony Valentine, Suzanne Danielle, and Sian Phillips. Always good to see Gary Waldhorn pop up in these things too. This is basically a mini 'slasher', only instead of the killer stalking the victims, it's kinda the other way around!
Anyone of a certain age who remembers Suzanne Danielle and her sensational body will know from that first rear view of her walking down a country lane that she's the killer. She goes out looking unbelievably hot, waits for guys to hit on her, takes them (or lets them take her) somewhere quiet, and that's their lot. And you get the feeling that poor old Anthony Valentine's cop is a 'dead man walking' from the moment he first meets her. But although it's extremely predictable, it's an enjoyable watch - and Suzanne Danielle's wonderful rear is literal perfection (don't know why she didn't make it bigger - these days she'd at least have a career in low-budget DTV movies). 6/10.
Creature from Black Lake (1976)
Okay for low-budget,drive-in fare
One of those B movies that rode the Bigfoot craze in the 1970s. A couple of university students from Chicago travel to Louisiana to find evidence of the Fouke Monster. On arrival they're treated with suspicion by the locals and soon upset the town sheriff. However, hard-drinking trapper Joe (played by the great Jack Elam) saw the creature kill a good friend of his and decides to help the boys out. Eventually they find the monster... Or has it found them?
The tone of this is weird, veering from horror to comedy to 'road trip buddy-movie. Jack Elam is terrific as always. John David Carson and Dennis Fimple (who play the university students) are fine (sadly neither actor made it into old age). The rest of the cast are so-so. Special shout-outs to the lovely Becky Smiser and Michelle Willingham (in their only film roles) as a couple of local girls, and the gorgeous Cathryn Hartt (LEGS!!) as the waitress in the diner (thankfully, she did do more). The monster is at least partially obscured most of the time. Cinematography is good (by Dean Cundey, who went on to work a lot with John Carpenter), and the genuine Louisiana locations are pretty atmospheric, but there's no real sense of tension. 5.5/10.
Relic (2020)
Aussie Horror-Drama Misses the Mark
Good performances from Emily Mortimer, Robyn Nevin, and Bella Heathcote. Good lighting, sets, and camerawork. But poor writing, with stereotypical fractured mother/daughter relationships that offer nothing new, and a story that is far too drawn-out (I love good slow-burn chills, but this goes way past that into 'how much longer to go?' territory). And yes, horror thrives on poor/stupid character decisions, but Jesus. Your aged, infirm mother is convinced 'something' is under her bed, so you look AND SEE A LARGE DARK SHAPE THAT IS OBVIOUSLY BREATHING - but because your mother drops something on your head you have a hissy-fit, don't investigate further and storm out?? YOU LEAVE YOUR MOTHER WITH THE LARGE BREATHING CREATURE HIDING UNDER HER BED?? AND IT'S NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN?? Absolutely ludicrous! 😂 First-time director Natalie Erika James might understand drama, but she certainly doesn't understand horror; for the ridiculously implausible to work, the rest of it MUST be believable - and here it ain't. The positives I mentioned at the start get this 4/10.
Come Play with Me (1977)
For a 'sex comedy' it's a bit light on both
British sex comedy/crime caper with a host of very well-known UK TV names of the time, along with several 'adult entertainment' actresses - the best known of which was easily the ill-fated Mary Millington (she committed suicide just two years later). I remember seeing it not too long after it came out and thinking it was very daring. Watching it now it plays out like an extended Benny Hill sketch but with full nudity (Bob Todd and Henry McGee from The Benny Hill Show are in it); too bad it isn't anywhere near as funny as Benny Hill. There were rumours of a 'hardcore cut' although as far as I know it hasn't surfaced. Nostalgia ('spot the long forgotten face'), a lot of very cute girls, and (especially) Mary Millington get it 3/10.
Silent Madness (1984)
Entertaining one-off slasher entry
One-off 80s slasher. Due to a clerical error a New York mental institution accidentally releases a criminally insane mass-murderer. He'd been incarcerated for 17 years after a series of murders at a sorority house. The institution tries to cover up its mistake, but the crusading Dr Joan Gilmore (Belinda Montgomery) journeys to the sorority house, thinking the killer will return there and resume killing. Sure enough, sorority girls start getting bumped-off, and with the local police being completely inept, it's down to Dr Gilmore and a local journalist to try to prevent more deaths and if possible recapture the escaped patient.
There are actually about 15 kills in this. Within the first ten minutes we get a girl camper with an axe in the back, and a sorority girl's head clamped in a vice and, well, you can probably guess. Later we get nail-gun deaths, prolonged scalding steam in the face, a pretty inventive beheading, and more. The effects are better than a lot of these movies and it's well-shot. Belinda Montgomery is good. Sydney Lassick is entertaining as the can't-be-bothered Sheriff. Most of the rest of the cast are pretty young things who do what pretty young things do in these movies (i.e. Run, scream, and die). There's a moderate amount of nudity and a fair bit of gore. Fun watch. 7/10.
Boys from County Hell (2020)
Lands well as both comedy and horror
Very funny, very bloody Irish vampire comedy-horror (and probably pretty close to how most of us would actually react in the circumstances!). Plays out like a comedy version of Salem's Lot (vampire starts to infest small out-of-the-way town, small pocket of resistance fighters gradually whittled down). No big names, but some very good performances (Nigel O'Neill and Jack Rowan as father and son construction workers leading the fight against the undead are standouts), plus great cinematography, and pretty impressive effects and makeup for what was clearly (but doesn't look like) a low-budget production. Very strong language throughout. 7.5/10.