30 of 31 Horror Films I've Never Seen 2016: Devil Fetus (1983)

Some films are just so completely insane that they're brilliant.  Trashy? Yes.  Crude? Yes.  Outright offensive? Probably, but in all the best ways possible.  Films like this defy every concept of logic we can think of.  Characters make some of the worst decisions, but the consequences are often hilarious if not totally brutal.  Films like Hausu and Evil Dead or The Visitor all fit this criteria.  Weird, wacky, and bloody.  Heung-Chun Lau's Devil Fetus completely earns the right to be called brilliantly insane.

Set in Hong Kong, a woman buys a strange (and phalic) vase from a market auction and unwittingly releases a demon which possesses and kills her.  Sensing the demonic presence in her body, a priest binds the spirit to her name stone with a warning not to touch it for 12 years.  Of course just shy of 12 years later, the demon is released and possesses the woman's nephew, going on a murderous rampage among the family.

Where do I even begin?  This movie is so crazy that when I watched it in a full theater at The 11th Annual Aero Theatre Horrorthon the entire room was in an uproar.  People laughed and gasped and audibly responded to the insane amounts of gore that we presented on the screen.  The subtitles, many of which seemed really poorly translated, added to the insanity in such hilarious ways that regardless of how much the content didn't make sense, it created a whole extra level of enjoyment.  And it pulls every trick in the book to create it's strange world of visual insanity.

Be warned, this is not by any means a "good" film, but it is easily one of the most insanely enjoyable Horror films I've ever seen.  It was so much fun, I couldn't believe that I hadn't seen it before.  The entire time I kept thinking, that it was like someone took the plot of The Exorcist and then genetically altered it's DNA to bind it with Hausu and through it straight into a Hong Kong incubator, unleashing it upon the world before any of the kinks were worked out.  And it completely worked!  This is one of those movies that I will now likely unleash upon unsuspecting friends (probably after a couple of beers) just to watch their faces twist and contort with chaotic confusion.  That' just how worth it this film is to watch.  Unless, of course, you don't like to ever have any fun.

24 of 31 Horror Films I've Never Seen 2016: German Angst (2015)

It’s not very often that I watch anthology/omnibus films.  For the most part, I prefer to watch feature length films over shorts, but over time I’ve been coming around to format.  To preface, an anthology film is a feature length film comprised of multiple short films by different directors following a common theme.  Horror happens to yield quite well to the result and there have been a number of anthology films released in the last few years.  V/H/S and ABC’s of Death both have taken the format to franchise territory and when Asian Horror was booming during the mid-2000s we had gems like The Three Extremes 1 & 2.  Released last year, however, the triplet of stories that make up German Angst are in a class of their own.

From Director’s Jörg Buttgereit (NEKRomantik, Der Todesking, Schramm), Michal Kosakowski (Zero Killed), and Andreas Marschall (Tears of Kali, Masks) join forces to bring three films about love, sex, and death in Berlin.  To give away much more than that would honestly ruin the experience.

First of all, these films fall into the category of extreme horror.  Shock value is high and taboos don’t really exist.  Buttgereit is the more well-known of the three due to his incredibly grotesque shock films from the late 80s and into the 90s, but Kosakowski and Marschall are unafraid to show just how far they push the limits with their segments.  There is a lot of bloodshed in this anthology and it is almost always squirm inducing.  However, the mood and thematic tone of the films are incredibly poetic, recalling the romantic lyricism of the Silent Expressionist films in the 20s.  Updated for the modern age of course, but anyone with an interest in silent film history will be able to feel it when watching German Angst.

Of the three segments I’m honestly torn.  They’re all so unique and yet they meld so well together.  I think perhaps I found myself squirming more during the animal brutality in Kosakowski’s Make A Wish segment which has a lot of references to Nazi atrocities past and present.  Buttgereit’s Final Girl at first makes one think that he’s toning himself down from his past, but believe me he still manages to push a few nausea buttons.  Marschall’s Alraune is probably the most tension inducing and supernatural of the three and boasts some incredible creature effects.  Each film leads into the next perfectly giving the feeling of the beginning of a day and ending in the dead of night.  There really is something for every type of horror fan in this film, but it is not for the faint of heart or the easily nauseated.

 

14 of 31 Horror Film I've Never Seen 2016: Bone Tomahawk (2015)

Westerns are tough for Hollywood.  Don't ask me why, but when westerns come up they're almost always avoided like the plague.  The conventional argument is that they cost too much and don't guarantee a high return.  Until quite recently it seemed you had to work on a shoestring budget in the independent world in order to even make one.  As can be expected, there is still no guarantee of a grand success (though I suppose Quentin Tarantino would disagree with that), but if anything modern Westerns still have a place in the cinema.  Since the greatest thing about Genre filmmaking is the ability to mix and match Genre's together we can finally explore all the horrific and supernatural aspects of Western mythology.  Or, as is the case with S. Craig Zahler's Bone Tomahawk, we can examine the horrifically brutal reality of the danger inherent in all beings.

This film is one of the greatest examples of the "slow burn" story.  It's like the strike of a match, it sparks suddenly and then slowly burns to the end with a magnificently brutal flourish.  After his wife and a local deputy are kidnapped by a tribe of cannibal troglodytes, a cowboy (Patrick Wilson) hunts after them with the Sheriff (Kurt Russell), a gunslinger (Matthew Fox) and an elderly deputy (Richard Jenkins).  If I say anymore it would spoil it so I'm going to leave it at that.  Like a good western, the story doesn't rush to get us to the payoff.  We experience the environment and characters who live in that environment.  Hence, the "slow burn."

This film is so detailed in it's setting that even the dialogue is period correct.  Not for one minute, does it feel anachronistic.  The floor boards creek, the light is motivated, and the horse hoofs are deep.  The journey to get to the cannibal tribe alone takes time and that time is spent showing what such a journey entails, not to the degree of boring details, but to the degree of the physical and emotional toll such a rescue mission takes upon the characters.  We see all the stubbornness that men are capable of, as well as their resilience, and their ability to act quickly.

As a horror movie, the pacing and camera work brilliantly builds tension.  When we finally get to see the troglodytes it is fast, brutal, and oh does it deliver on the gore front.  We're talking cringe worthy, look away, "Oh my god they're not going to show it... HOLY SHIT THEY'RE SHOWING IT!" kind of Gore.  They're pretty terrifying and due to the inbred nature of their tribe come complete with a creepy vocal defect that further likens them to wild beasts or monsters.  The filmmakers are very careful not to liken the tribe to other Native tribes and also quick to point out the foolhardiness of male bravado.  When the gunslinger makes a remark that he's "...killed more Indians than anyone in this room" a Native man replies "That's an ugly boast."  On one level, they're four men on a rescue mission, on another level they represent the different archetypes of thought regarding life in the west.  Together they function as a whole.  Perhaps not for those in need of constant action, but I'll be damned if this isn't one of the best recent Westerns I've seen and a damn good Horror film to boot!

Contracted: 19 of 31 Horror Movies I've Never Seen

Okay, let's face it, some horror movies are just bad.  It's not that they're not trying hard enough, it's that they're trying to hard to stick to one aspect while neglected the others.  They're unbalanced.  It's impossible to make a film that rests solely on it's gore great if you don't make the characters relate-able.  Some films are just all over the place and the lack of focus ruins them.  Such was the case with Contracted.

Contracted is a low budget indie horror telling us the tale of  Samantha who gets drugged at a party and sleeps with an unidentifiable stranger.  At first assuming she's contracted a veneral disease, it progresses into something far worse.  Over the course of three days Sam gets sicker and sicker but continues trying to hide her illness from everyone around her until it's absolutely impossible and her world falls into utter shit.

This movie had two problems going for it: a severe lack of balance, brought on by unbelievable dialogue and situations as well as having a cast of completely unlikable characters.  As I watched the film with my friends the only thing that caused us any bit of recoil were the make up effects and shock gags, but overall, we were completely unimpressed with the characters childish dialogue and situations.

The way I see it, you don't care about someone's death in a film when they've been nothing but a dick the entire film long.  Such is the problem with the lead.  She's selfish, spoiled, and contains zero empathy for anyone else around her.  I get that we're supposed to be worried about her and that she's the victim of the story, but ultimately she brings almost EVERYTHING afterward upon herself willingly.  More than once my friend Patrick yelled: "Seriously?  GO TO THE FUCKING HOSPITAL!" and we all laughed, but were in complete agreement.  Have you ever heard of anyone who's veins are turning black over the course of a day to NOT go to an emergency room?  To make it worse, all she does is go to a clinic, where the Doctor seems more interested in getting her to tell him that she had a one night stand than following up on her actual symptoms.

I'm all for suspending disbelief, but you can't try and create a story set in realism and not be scientifically realistic on every level.  To make some lemonade out of this situation, the make up effects were quite cringe inducing and I don't know a single person who isn't grossed out when maggots fall from bodily cavities.  Sadder still, the actors aren't bad, they just had terrible dialogue, not terrible like The Room but still unbelievable.  It didn't help that not one of them was likable in any sense of the word.

1 out of 5 skulls.

Humanoids from the Deep: 14 of 31 Horror Movies I've Never Seen

Roger Corman is somewhat of a legend in Hollywood.  His company New World Pictures helped create careers for the some of the greatest American directors in film history.  James Cameron, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Peter Bogdanovich (to name a few) all cut their teeth on Corman productions, in some form or another.  One such director, who didn't quite make it to the spotlight was Humanoids from the Deep director Barbara Peeters.

Peeters was one of two woman who worked consistently in the director's chair with Corman.  She got her chance at directing with 1970's The Dark Side of Tomorrow and followed it in 1972's biker film Bury Me an Angel.  She bounced around various different production gigs at New World, sometimes as a production manager, art director, and second unit director as well before ultimately getting to Humanoids from the Deep after Joe Dante declined.  The film is about a small rural fishing town somewhere up the west coast, they even reference Humboldt County at one point, where there is a tension among the local fisherman regarding a bid to build a cannery in the town.  A native american, Johnny Eagle (yeah, I know), opposes the cannery, while most of town appears to be for it, including a couple of not so subtle racist white dudes.  All of these petty differences are compounded by some dog mutilations, accidents, and disappearances which ultimately leads us to the titular monsters of the story and all hell breaks loose.

The creatures, aren't too cheesy, but are obviously inspired by The Creature of the Black Lagoon, and are still clunky looking buggers who seem to be hell bent on killing men and raping women.  From start to finish the film is a pure exploitation piece, the problem with it is that it's not fun in any way.  Part of what makes these schlocky films live on in the annals of film history is precisely their humor.  This film, has none.  No intentional jokes, no tongue in cheek commentary, and no real point except to "deliver the goods."  I got the sense that Peeters was more interested in the complexity of Native Rights vs White Oppression, but whatever she was trying to say didn't come across. It tried too hard to be a serious horror movie while still being filled to the brim with violence, gore, and rape.

This is what makes it hard for me to watch certain pre-90s horror films and even the modern rape/revenge films make me cringe somewhat.  It starts to become so fetishized that whatever intended statement against said violence is completely lost and we're left with a sick feeling in our stomach and no real revelation, but I'm digressing.  As I said, this is a Corman production from 1980 and this is what you get.  Upon some simple wikipedia research, I found that Peeters originally shot the rape scenes in dark lighting and shadow, which Corman was unhappy about.  He ultimately took the picture from her in post and hired a second unit director to film more explicit Humanoid rape scenes.  Corman also changed the title from Beneath the Darkness to Humanoids from the Deep.  Add these two together without telling any of the rest of the key crew and you get a bit of outrage.  Peeters and actress Ann Turkel asked for their names to be removed from the credits after seeing the changes and Turkel even spoke out against Corman in television interviews.

The film received mostly scathing critical reviews the film still did modestly well at the box office considering it's low budget and it does still have a bit of a cult following.  It includes a great early score by James Horner, and some of the sequences are actually quite good, but none of that really saves it from being anything more than it is: a cheap, Jaws meets Creature of the Black Lagoon gore and rape filled horror flick.

2 out of 5 skulls.

From Beyond: 02 of 31 Horror Movies I've Never Seen!

Last year I watched The Reanimator for the first time.  Blasphemy, I know, especially because I'm 29 and it was one of those films that I used to stare at the VHS Box Art on the shelf of the local video rental for years and years as a child.  I don't know why I took so long to watch it, but when I finally did I realized that regardless of how terrible the dialogue or how flimsy the plot could get, there was a strange quality to it that just grabbed at my visceral side.  I tend to attribute this to the H.P. Lovecraft source material, but I have to also hand it to director Stuart Gordon for his incredibly disgusting interpretation of Lovecraft.  Therefore, it seemed fitting that I should watch his follow up to The Reanimator, the special fx orgasm that is: From Beyond.

The story is about two scientists creating a device that stimulates the Pineal Gland and ultimately opens a gateway to an invisible world full of creatures harking to Rob Bottin's make up fx in John Carpenter's remake of The Thing.  This film is pretty damn gruesome, but that's also part of it's charm.  It was made in an era before computer generated effects had overrun the film making process as they do now and the make up and prosthetic effects are so lovingly crafted that it's easy to ignore the silly dialogue and blatant sexist/racist stereotyping.  Well... almost.

Here's the thing, Gordon obviously loves Lovecraft, pun intended, and the era that From Beyond was rife with neo-exploitation film making.  I can't really say whether or not Gordon is a sexist pig, or even a racist, because I don't quite believe that such issues mattered to him in making the film.  I think the only thing that mattered to him was to make something that both terrified and titilated his audience.  It is an exploitation film in every sense of the word.  You have the blatant stereotypes, sexual tropes, an unfortunately white friendly Ken Foree character (I half expected him to start talking like a minstrel show character at one point because of the way he was playing it), and oodles of violence and gore.

The gore almost outweighs most of the other aspects of the film, but not quite.  Critics and Historians seem to be split about Lovecraft's politics on the subject of race.  In his early to mid works he referred rather disparagingly to non-Anglo characters, but appeared to have softened these views and refocused on greater class issues.  In that sense, if Gordon is merely translating the work, it is possible that he simply ignored the implications in favor of being a true adapter.  However, if he was at all sensitive to these issues, I think he could have done a better job to show that sensitivity.

The formal aspects of the film are pitch perfect.  Excellent camera work, thematic lighting, make up effects, and editing keep the pace going strong and helped to keep my attention. It was just impossible for me not to see Peter being reduced from a strong lead to a shucking and jiving support.  That's what I get for falling in love with horror through the lens of George Romero.

3 skulls out of 5.

What I Mean When I Say "GIALLO!"

For the last few days I've been avoiding watching new films, probably in a subconscious effort to sabotage this blog, which seems ludicrous and is just like me.  To circumvent my own stupidity I submit to you this film from 1973 by Italian director Antonio Margheriti (here credited as Anthony M. Dawson), the name used by Eli Roth's character in the final scenes of Inglourious Basterds.  If you know anything about this period of Italian Cinema, you know it was dominated by a genre of pulpy, murder/mystery, exploitation films called Giallo.  The name comes from the little pulp paperbacks that many of the films are based on which were printed rather cheaply with yellow covers.  Giallo is also the Italian world for Yellow, as it were, so the name just stuck.  Enough history, let's get into Six Deaths In The Cat's Eye.

The story is set in a small Scottish village and follows a series of murders taking place near a castle and the MacGrieff family who dwell in it.  According to legend (in context of the story) when a MacGrieff kills one of his kin the deceased will become a vampire.  All of the murders seem to be witnessed by the family cat which lurks around the film letting the audience question whether or not it is somewhat of an ethereal being itself.

Corringa (played by Jane Birken, mother of Charlotte Gainsbourg), the niece of Lady Mary MacGrieff, is the principal lead of the story.  She arrives at Castle Dragonston where her Aunt and Mother are arguing about the future of the castle.  A dinner scene introduces the rest of the characters, a Priest, a seductive French Teacher, a secretive Doctor, and Lord James MacGrieff (played by Hiram Keller), the supposedly 'Mad' son of Mary.  Motive is set almost immediately for murder but as is a staple of good Giallos, we are constantly made to guess until the climax of the film.  That being said, the film is in no way a typical Giallo, instead having a very Gothic horror feel to it similar to the Hammer Studios pictures of the same era.

One of the things I really like about the film is the atmosphere.  The film makes great use of shadow and motivated light sources.  One light source in particular is an oil lamp with a multicolored hood that throws out an array of red, green, yellow, and blue at a few crucially creepy moments thereby emphasizing the terror (and sometimes eroticism) portrayed by the actors.

Many Giallo's are well known for the exploitative look at sex and violence.  As the years progressed and the technology progressed many of them got gorier and some practically devolved into hardcore pornography.  That is not the case of this film.  While the blood does certainly flow, it is not without a macabre sense of taste.  The weapon of choice in the film is a straight razor to the jugular and unlike a Fulci film the emphasis is not on the tearing open of the neck, but of the blood flying from the wound.  Whether this was due to makeup or time constraints is debatable, but it was quite effective regardless.

While many Giallo's suffer from censorship and long term neglect, this film has been preserved quite well and can be found on DVD in both English and Italian languages.  The English dubbing is particularly interesting because many of the side characters, who were dubbed over, have thick Scottish accents including slang.  One such appearance is of Birken's partner, the late the Serge Gainsbourg, as a Scotland Yard inspector.