Sid Vicious wearing a Texas Chainsaw Massacre t-shirt.
25TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION (Vipco)
If you haven't seen this 1974 film you must live in Ulan Bator or some place like that. Everyone's favourite film digitally restored directly from the original 16mm ECO negatives and released in the widescreen format with new surround sound. This version is uncut of course.
Sounds good?
Yeah, it does, but my copy has an annoying picture fault. Sort of a water ripple look to the top/middle of the screen. Don't know if all copies have that, but ask to see a short clip before you buy it. I think the problem is as simple as a low quality tape. It's been released on DVD too, for those of you with more money than sense.
If it's just my copy that's crap, then it's highly recommended. I'll just have to stick to my old Dutch pan-and-scan version.
THE BEYOND - 7 DOORS OF DEATH (Spaventoso films)
The 1981 classic uncut, digitally remastered and released in widescreen.
Set in New Orleans, a girl named Lisa, played my Catrina McColl, inherits the old Seven Doors hotel. She starts to restore it, not knowing that it's built on one of the seven gates to hell. A plummer accidently opens this gate when he is working in the hotel's cellar and the dead start walking the earth.
This dream-like Zombie film is really good, if maybe a bit slow, with a strange sort of mood. It has a few gory scenes but it's mainly based on suspense. One of director Lucio Fulcio's best movies. With this one he really proved to the world that he could make a scary movie without relying on blood and guts only.
Beaufully filmed too, as most of Fulcio's films. Recommended to anyone into horror movies.
And here's a bit of Punk Rock trivia: This is the film that inspired Swedish HC Punk legends Anti-Cimex to write the song Eibon, back in the very early 80's.
(top l-r:) Debbie Rochon, Di Di
Delicious, Mistress Persephone
and (bottom) Melissa.
If you like girls you'll love this movie, 'cause girls, all shapes and sizes, is what is offered here - with the added bonus of some blood, gore and bad jokes. Meant to be fun and it is.
Starring Debbie Rochon and bondage/domination model and punkette Mistress Persephone, this is the story of seven strippers going away for a weekend. A sudden hurricane leaves them confined to the old house they've rented for the holiday. Lurking in the old catacombs under the abandoned town is a leather masked serial killer. The girls hear strange noises and tries to calm down with the usual - tarot cards, showers and lonely walks. Can you guess the rest?
The film has a soft-core-gonzo/holiday-video feel to it which works well in most, if not all, scenes. A bit slow in places and the actual slashings are mostly done off-camera, but it's never boring. High heels, short skirts and dirty talk can get you far, especially when it's done this tounge-in-cheek. The girls giggle, pose and shake their hair, tits and asses. Shameless sexploitation and all the better for it.
There's a small problem with letting strong real-life personalities shine through, as some of the girls come across as predators rather than prey (a good thing in itself). In reality Persephone would have kicked the slasher's ass. I'd like to see this cast play the protagonists in their next film.
Director/producer Mr. Creepo's earlier work includes Driller (1984) and Barely Legal Lesbian Vampires: The Curse Of Ed Wood (1999). Unpretentious hit-or-miss stuff from people who ain't been to no film school but still know how to entertain, and just like punk rock this is DIY and 'learning in public' and a lot of fun. I'm sure it will inspire more people to pick up a video camera and a few buckets of blood. Go on - get it!
A.k.a. Man Behind The Sun 2, this is more like a remake of the first film than a sequel and no-one involved in this one worked on the first. Both films are based on the biological weapons research and experimenting on humans done by the Japanese Unit 731 in Manchuria during WW2. Think a hundred Josef Mengeles with an unlimited supply of prisoners, germs and viruses and you get the picture.
As a lot of cheap horror films this is pretty slow and uninteresting. The sentimental Hong-Kong style love story in it clashes badly with the brutal violence, but it's the only thing that keeps the film together. Basically it's just a number of torture/kill scenes cut together in what looks like random order. Some of the special effects are done pretty well and the film has a very unpleasant overall feel to it, but there's not much of a story here.
The only thing that Laboratory has going for it is the lack of humour and the sheer brutality of the experiments in it. All the torture and murder is done by people who look un-attached and un-affected. No-one is laughing like a mad man or reacts in any other standard mode horror film way. Sort of depressing rather than scary if you know what I mean.
As in the first film, there's a real autopsy scene in it. This time it's a young woman, in the first it's a boy. If my dead body ends up as a special effect in a horror film I hope it's gonna be a better one than this.
For gore collectors (and those of you who get off on autopsy footage) only.
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