Ah, the movie that birthed my interest in the dark recesses of Japanese cinema. Of course, compared to some of the stuff I’ve seen, this is G-rated material by comparison, but hey, we all have to start off somewhere. I first heard of it around the same time the remake was about to come out, when my girlfriend at the time told me that this was a remake of a Japanese film. Shenanigans, I said, but she proved me right by playing it on a shitty third generation VHS, and I tell you, it scared the hell out of me. Now, the remake is pretty damn good as well, in fact I’d say it’s one of the few that get it right, however I believe the original is superior to the remake, and I’ll tell you why.
For starters, Hideo Nakata’s directorial style is more grounded in reality, and is not interested in making a stylish music-video type film the way Gore Verbinski did. Yes it’s flat, but that’s what sells it: you feel as if you could be there when the shit goes down. The story is very episodic, with the characters moving from one point to the next in their quest to destroy the cursed tape, or at least try to get away from it. The movie references many horror movies from the past, like the ghosts coming out of the TV (Poltergeist) and the well that carries the corpse of a young child (The Changeling). Acting-wise, both movies are very flawed. Nanako Matsumina is way better than Naomi Watts, who I’ve never been a big fan off except for in Mulholland Drive, while the two boyfriend characters are both dull as hell. Although in the original, the boyfriend is a lot more irritating. He seems to know everything before anything even happens! I know he’s a psychic, but geez this is ridiculous! Both movies also have the same gaping plot-holes and irritating moments: why does that stupid bitch show her boyfriend the videotape, when she suspects already that it’s cursed? I would have bitch slapped her. Then again, the remake does have a kamikaze horse, and it is pretty cool.
Of course, the one scene we have to compare from both films is the sequence featuring the little girl coming out of the well. Sadako/Samara is one truly frightening creation, a really scary ghost that dates back to Japanese tradition, with characters like the Snow Witch that are basically representations of female wrath, something that the Japanese don’t like to fuck with. I’m going to have to go with the original again in this one, since it relies more on genuine camera tricks and different props than having to rely on style and CGI to create what looks like a cartoon. Besides, the face Samara makes before she kills the boyfriend is hilarious. “Look at me, I’m mean, grrr”. Give me a break, what is this, Popeye?
So in conclusion, these are two very good stories that, even when flawed, have interesting ideas and pretty frightening imagery, although personally I will have to go with the original for having a darker edge, more realistic cinematography and, of course, because it’s the original. They both receive my thumbs up.
In a small Southern town of the United States, things go terribly wrong when a biological weapon is accidentally set loose on a laboratory and everyone inside is trapped, and turning into insane vicious killers. Among the trapped is security guard Joanie Morse (Kathleen Quinlan, Apollo 13), her husband, Sheriff Sam Morse (Sam Waterston, from those always-playing life insurance programs) goes in with the help of one of the original scientists (Jeffrey DeMunn, The Blob and The Hitcher) and FBI main man Major Connolly (Yaphet Kotto, Alien and Live & Let Die) come in to try to help, before the insane infected people in the laboratory are let loose and destroy their society.
This was one of the last movies in that great cycle of horror films to come out in the first half of the eighties, and features a similar look and production value to the films of the time. Director Hal Barwood is mostly known for directing and writing videogames for LucasArts, particularly those featuring the Star Wars and Indiana Jones characters. This movie often feels like a video game, with it’s entrapped surroundings and characters having to solve scientific puzzles, formulas, having to go through secret doors and such, almost like a precursor to today’s survival horror games. The performances are strong, from good actors as you can see above. They all have great chemistry with each other, although I must admit that I felt that Sam Waterston looks a little, well, lost. Other actors, such as Jeffrey DeMunn (The Thing) and GW Bailey also show up. Surprisingly, GW Bailey is not playing a cop in this film (he was in those awful Police Academy movies) and here plays a scientist, a ‘typhoid mary’ type character who spreads the disease first. They all did a great job.
Not only was this one of the original survivalist horror films and probably inspired the Resident Evil stuff in ways we might not know, but this was also the granddaddy of 28 Days Later and it’s franchise. Hell, we even get to see rabid monkeys fighting and trying to kill each other. This movie is awesome, a truly classic horror movie and comes highly recommended.
I’m not going to talk much about the plot because if I do, I’ll be revealing more than I should. Besides, if you haven’t read Lovecraft, you should stop reading so many of these fucking blogs and go read a book, you illiterate fuck! Anyway, the story is told faithfully and follows it dead on. The cinematography is awesome, it’s similar to every silent movie from the 1920’s with high contrast lighting and truly complicated set design. Probably the most amazing part is Cthulu itself, an awesome stop-motion animation creation that just kicks all sorts of ass. This movie is truly admirable as it is able to create true old school fears without pussying out and being able to make supernatural frights with little to no budget.
This movie is able to be serious and unpleasant without being able to take itself too seriously at the same time, thanks to subtle touches of dark humor. For example, when the kidnappers take young Candy away, they cover their faces with Groucho Marx noses and glasses, and then there’s the scene where they try to buy a handgun but can’t wait the designated days. Still, the movie gets nasty when it has to, including a very realistic rape scene that gave me the willies, not to mention the fact that Candy gets herself buried again and again under the ground, which for me was very unpleasant, since I’m a claustrophobic. Among the actors, there were two main standouts: first Ben Piazza, who plays the only member of the gang who doesn’t have some weird psychotic disorder and has something of a wishful romantic relationship with Candy. Those scenes are excellent, especially considering that Candy has yet to see his face, and amounts to some genuinely nice acting moments. Then there’s Tiffany Bolling, who plays the blonde bombshell of the group. For some reason, she really disturbed me, but could also arouse me because of her long body, beautiful face and blue eyes. Her mental breakdown, topless, on a bathtub, is one of the best moments in 70’s acting, if you ask me.
Then there’s the ending. You see, during the whole storyline, we have a small subplot involving a young blonde boy, who is also a mute and heavily abused by his parents, who is a witness to everything that’s going on between Candy and the kidnappers. When he finds a gun, and decides to ‘play with it’, as you can imagine, it truly becomes one of the most awe-inspiring and shocking endings I’ve ever seen in my life. Only The Wicker Man’s burning finale and Stroszek’s animal-musician ending have been able to leave me with as much shock as the one in this one. This is a true classic of crime and exploitation cinema and is desperately waiting to be rediscovered. It comes highly recommended.
And honestly, that’s the best part of the movie, her costume. The actress who plays the role, Maura Monti, specialized in these kinds of sex-pot roles. The wrestling elements are thankfully kept at a minimum, which gives us a lot of time for James Bond-inspired scenes of investigation, treachery, and even a cool action scene. The third act, featuring the Batwoman fighting the evil fish mutant that was created for the movie, is quite a hilarious fight scene, as the costume is as cheap as cheap can get. It looks like it was rejected from the Kamen Rider TV series.
In the end, it has to be said that this is a very fun comic-book style movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and neither should you. It has action, monsters, and a hot female Bat-Woman who looks hot all the time. Now, if only somebody would dress up like La Mujer Murcielago at the Halloween parties I go to, we’d be in business.
Like I said in my previous reviews, most of these Mexican genre films feel like a little boy playing with action figures, since they literally throw everything but the kitchen sink into the place. As I said, the monsters look ridiculous, particularly the skeleton with the cow skull that is held together by clearly-visible wires. Still, there’s definitely a charm about these characters. There’s even a giant robot made out of, what looks like, recycled aluminum cans. The two Venusian women are played by truly beautiful women. The good one is played by Ana Bertha Lepe, but the interesting one, the evil vampire one, is played by Amazonian babe Lorena Velazquez, who played similar femme fatale roles in films like Santo Vs. The Vampire Women and the female luchadora films like the previously-reviewed Las Lobas Del Ring and The Wrestling Women Vs. The Aztek Mummy. Every time she is on screen, I drool at her beautiful eyes, tall body and incredibly long legs.
While the humor and monster-movie elements are normally a plus, there is a mayor negative that brings the film down for me once in a while, involving actor Eulalio Gonzales. He’s a singing cowboy in the Gene Autry and Roy Rogers kind of way, only a lot more annoying. His humor scenes range from the good, like the bar scenes where he interacts with other cowboys, to the terrible self-deprecating humor. The movie also could have used a mayor editing job, and taken away those terrible, boring songs he sings. They stop the flow of the movie, a movie that could have worked if it lasted sixty-something minutes only. Still, the movie is highly entertaining and cheesy as fuck, and comes recommended for b-movie parties and drunken entertainment.
This sequence is truly mesmerizing, as we see our character, wrapped in bandages, dancing with the girl he loves, to the tune of Love Hurts (the original 60’s Everly Brothers version, not the Nazareth one). It reminded me of those classic monster movies, like Phantom of the Opera and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, where the character is nothing but a misunderstood misfit who wants to be loved. Unlike Erik and Quasimodo, here our lead is able to find happiness, even if only for a little while. He will soon find a mistress that will love him even more: whisky.
The third and final story is more directly based on the works of Bukowski, particularly “The Copulating Mermaid of Venice, California”. Here, Harry and his friend are now full-blow, depressing alcoholics, and in their stupor they decide to take a dead body from a hearse. When Harry views the dead body and reminds him of his first love, he begins to make love to it, much to the chagrin of his drunken buddy. After a night of necrophilia, Harry drives to the beach and walks onto the waters with the corpse of the woman, claiming it’s “too beautiful to bury”. His friend passes out, only to find that both Harry and the woman have been swallowed by the sea. This is truly one of the saddest and most beautiful moments in the history of cinema, as it is able to balance it’s rather unpleasant subject matter with that of true love, in ways that most movies wish they could be. The atmosphere is also very dark, and it’s shot almost like it was a gothic horror film, giving it much more of an edge. The only film I can compare it to is Joe D’Amato’s Buio Omega, which is also able to blend perfectly the beautiful with the macabre.
This movie is simply perfect. Perfect acting, production, the mix of emotions with music, and a third act that will truly shatter your senses and make you question what love truly means. I warn you however, that even if the film has comedic elements, it’s a very sad film about the downward spiral of a man who only wants to be loved. Bukowski fans will get it, and even if you’re not a fan of his, or ever heard of him, you will love this film. It is simply beautiful.
The story deals with a young man who also murders people without any motivation. Men or women, and sometimes dressed as a woman, he just doesn’t care. He eviscerates his victims and makes shish kabob out of them, then ejaculates onto them. Meanwhile, our ‘hero’ is in love with a beautiful phone sex operator that reveals herself and enters his life, a girl who happens to have angel-like scars on her back. Meanwhile, we get to take on the pleasure of seeing another woman, and future victim of our lead, get herself kidnapped by a gang of criminals and forced to take part in a weird porno-snuff film where she is repeatedly raped, forced to gag on a blowjob, then receive an impromptu enema, all in explicit glory. Or, at least as explicit as Japanese films go.
This film is explicit as hell of course, and batshit nuts on the disgusting level. There is a lot of gore, a lot of sex, and yes, a lot of shit and semen. However, there are a lot of elements that make it come out of your typical exploitation film, such as the mixings of different genres. We get a teenage romance element at the center of it’s story (even if it is between an angel and a killer), we have subplots like the one mentioned above with the camera snuff crew, an element of crime, prostitution, and even touches of surrealism (such as the bird toy turning into a real bird if the mood depends on it). Not to mention the narrative is all over the place.
The ending is quite strange. Some people might consider it offensive that a vicious rapist/murderer gets to have a happily ever after with an angel who comes visit him and take him to heaven, but if you are offended, you have to remember that this is a Japanese exploitation film, and all rules are off. The man who directed this film also directed that piece of shit we can’t help but love, Stacy: Attack of the Schoolgirl Killer, but I happen to like this movie a whole lot more, and at sixty minutes, you can’t go wrong.
Of all the film noirs I have seen, this has to be one of the most psychologically complex and dark I have seen, hell I’m shocked it was actually produced by a major studio. The lighting accentuates this, of course. Jacques Tourneur and director of photography Nicholas Musucara had worked together in Cat People, and it shows as both films are lit for creating horror and suspense, even in a dramatic setting. Still, one thing that separates this from other film noirs, more than any other, are it’s settings. For starters, we get to see the dark, grimy streets of the city, and we see everything about them, from the crime to the trash to call girls and gambling and drinking, showing a dark underworld where nothing and nobody is safe. However, these images contrast with the beautiful small city and country home, brightly lit and with a more cheerful demeanor, reflecting the main character’s moral choice between past crime life and beautiful love life he could have.
The acting is flawless. To me, this was the film that put Robert Mitchum on the map as one of the best tough guys in Hollywood. His character is morally ambiguous, having a seedy and evil past but at the same time having a soul and an internal moral conflict. He also kicks a lot of ass, and has mayor balls considering he’s dealing with some pretty dangerous people. Kirk Douglas always played bad guys in his earlier movies, and personally I think this was his best period, with the exception of the movies he made for Vincente Minelli. Jane Greer, as Kathie, is quite the hot babe, with blacker-than-black hair and an icy look. I’d fall in love with her, too. To sum things up, this is a very impressive film filled with suspense, action, and a lot of psychological torment in it’s underbelly, and comes highly recommended by yours truly.
CAT III fans might be disappointed with this film, and I wouldn’t blame them. Even if it is as sexually explicit as most CAT III films, it’s also one of the less bloody and gory ones, with the full violence only coming out at the end of the film. Still, I believe that if you give this film a chance, you’ll find out it’s a pretty well-written, well-done film. Tang directs with his usual realism, with only in the fight scenes do we see any sort of exaggeration. His lighting is flat and true, without the usual psychedelic touches that are in his other films like the superior Red To Kill. Still, with this kind of story I’m glad they kept the realism up front, making the story less hard to swallow and at the same time, more horrible. The acting is excellent, with Hugo Ng being sympathetic but tough, and after all he’s gone through, you really can’t wait to give it to his brother. His brother is played by Ka-Kui Ho, who specializes in these types of sleazeball characters, like he did when he played the father in Daughter of Darkness. And of course, we get the Daughter herself, Lily Chung, playing Jenny, an Australian girl in love with To. She’s as vulnerable and loveable as in her other films, but sadly her character is pretty small and shallow and isn’t as memorable.
There is a lot of sex in the film, with Lily Chung showing off her beautiful, perfect body the way she always does. Sadly the film is too long, with over-drawn sex scenes that just lose my interest after a while, since it’s obvious that they were placed there for reasons of padding. This movie could have been sleazier, and if it had it would have been better, it’s still a pretty decent movie however and comes very recommended.
Now don’t get me wrong, these four old men know they made a mistake, they’re not evil or anything like that. Besides, the fact that they’re played by some legendary screen actors. Dancing man Fred Astaire (not dancing, by the way), Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Melvyn Douglas and producer/actor John Houseman all give powerful performances, particularly Astaire who we see most of the running time and gives free reign to his dramatic range, something he was never able to do in his dancing comedy musicals. Looking at him I wondered why we never were able to see more sad, dramatic work from him, since he was a great actor in everything he touched. Other than Astaire, the main piece of casting belongs to the beautiful Alice Krige, here playing the tormented ghost woman. She is able to be dramatic, scary and sexy, something she’d put forth in every role, from the bitch in Silent Hill to the Borg Queen in Star Trek.
The film is set on what looks like a New England town in the winter, bringing that eerie Lovecraftian vibe into the storyline. The cold, harsh weather reflects the cold, harsh vengeance being given by the beautiful Alice Krige, and it sets up the mood perfectly. The makeup effects here were done by Dick Smith, the man who gave us the possessed girl in the Exorcist, and when Krige shows up in full-on rotting mode, it’s pretty gross. Sadly there are some very dated optical effects that kind of take you out of the movie, but still, I consider this to be one of the top 10 most underrated ghost films ever made, and I think it’s better than Poltergeist. See it!
