⭐️⭐️1/2
I won’t be able to tell you the how and the why, because I don’t speak Japanese and there’s very little information available on the old interwebs (at least at websites I’m comfortable entering), but what we have here is a J-Horror flick with the added caveat of blurred hardcore sex. You can pretty much add “I assume” to any plot outline I layout in this review. A letter brings a small film crew to a rundown house in order to investigate a haunting. They capture night vision footage of their crew member, who spent the night in the house, seemingly fucking nothing but air and they unravel the sad history of the house with the help of a psychic. The spirit shows up and things get dirty. The spirit is the flexible pale and black-haired ghost that comes standard with these kind of flicks... of course, this one enjoys wieners and noisy masturbation as much as terrorizing. It’s like The Grudge but with all the paranormal blowjobs and sloppy sex we had wished made it in to that movie. A haunted 69 and a squirt-heavy exorcism will have you asking just what the hell you’ve gotten yourself into. The female crew member gets possessed and is also “exorcised” by the creepy psychic. That’s about it. If blurred sex is your bag, you could do a lot worse but with most things of this flavor, it gets boring once the initial shock wears off.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
A small group of British soldiers are entrusted with finding a team of archeologists about to unearth a tomb without the permission of the Egyptian government. The soldiers (and the wife of the head archeologist) arrive just in time for the desecration of a pharaoh's tomb and the unleashing of a horrible curse that turns one of their team's party into a dried-out blood-drinking ghoul. The jaw-droppingly sultry Zira Rodann steals the show as a mysterious Egyptian woman who may know what the hell is going on. A completely fun cheapjack horror flick never overstays its welcome at a brief sixty-six minute runtime.
aka Black Magic 4/Zombi 10/Mo
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Any proper review of this film (at least from someone with the limited writing capabilities of myself) will sound like the ravings of a mad man. So remember, no matter what you read here, I’m fine and my mind is still (somewhat) intact. A dirty Thai boxer cripples another fighter from Hong Kong when he attacks him from behind after he’s already lost the match. The now paralyzed man sends his brother, Chan Hung to Thailand to get some revenge. Plans for a fight in the boxing ring are made and then things get SUPER complicated. Apparently Chan Hung was brothers with a Buddhist monk in a past life and said monk (the sorcerer slayer from Bewitched) was murdered by a pissed-off black magician, angry about said sorcerer slaying. The monk was close to achieving immortality but the poisonous magic (delivered via spider bites to the eyeballs) fucked up his chances. The bad news is; if he decays away, Chan Hung will die too thanks to their past life connection. The good news is that Chan Hung can fight the black magician and restore the immortality to the slain monk. With proper training Chan Hung does just that. The messy battle involves plenty of chicken guts, alligator skull attacks and even a struggle with a severed head. Chan returns to Hong Kong where he immediately breaks his abstinence vow and that causes a whole other shit storm. There’s more sorcerers and plenty more curses thrown about which leads to Chan coming back to Thailand and eventually heading to Nepal to collect golden ashes. Rotten food is consumed, people regurgitate most of it, worms are everywhere and a super hot sorceress is resurrected by stuffing a corpse in the gutted body of an alligator. It’s a wild time and it feels like three movies stuffed into one. If you can stomach the high ick factor you should have a great time with this Shaw Brothers classic.
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Ygor (Bela Lugosi again, somehow surviving the bullet wounds suffered in Son of Frankenstein) is forced to flee from the Frankenstein castle when the villagers decide to blow the damn thing up. Before he flees, he stumbles across the body of Frankenstein’s monster (now played by Lon Chaney JR), well-preserved from his fall into the sulphur pits. A chance lightning strike brings him back to full power and he and Ygor make their way to a neighboring village to find Frankenstein’s other son, Ludwig. A well respected neurologist with a lovely daughter (beautiful Evelyn Ankers), Ludwig at first denies Ygor’s demands of help but when that dastardly broken-necked fiend threatens to spill the beans on the good doctor’s heritage, Ludwig begrudgingly agrees to assist where he can. Soon the monster is within the halls of Frankenstein’s chateau and laboratory. At first planning to destroy the monster, Ludwig has a chat with his father’s ghost and decides instead of destroying it, he can swap its criminal brain with a normal one. Aided by his former mentor (now colleague after a past mistake) Dr. Bohmer (Lionel F’n Atwill), he sets out to succeed where his father failed. Ludwig plans on replacing the brain with that of his recently slain colleague but Ygor has other plans... plans to get his brain out of his broken body and into the body of a powerful giant. Flashing lab equipment, horror legends and a quick pace make for a rollicking good time. Lugosi has fun with Ygor and schemes with the best of ‘em. Atwill is also at his conniving best as the bitter surgeon, seeing a way to regain his former glory.
Amityville 6/Amityville 1993/Amityville – Face of Terror
Expectations should definitely be kept in check but I’m not sure what the hell one would be thinking when watching another entry in the lunatic Amityville series… this one with a title that relies on clock humor. The dad from Monster Squad brings home an antique clock harboring an evil entity from the Amityville house and sure as shit that time-telling nightmare begins altering time and reality in his household. So just to keep things straight: the house served as the harbinger of evil in the first three outings, followed by a lamp, a confessional booth and now a fuckin’ clock. I swear, these Amityville films are wild. Anyways, papa got his hands on the thing after tearing down the old haunted homestead for a development and now it’s fucking up his life. A neighborhood dog attacks him, bringing about a nasty injury and forcing his ex-wife to stick around the place. His extreme mood swings are concerning and the son’s elderly neighbor friend warns of the new evil in the neighborhood. Loud ticking and sketches of the old Amityville house do very little to terrify and son Rusty gets blamed for arson and vandalism. Mom’s new psychologist boyfriend is a chooch of the highest order and deserves anything bad that happens to him. Dick Miller makes a cameo, Stephen Macht has some fun and a whole lotta nothing happens as the evil plays around with everyone. There’s reflection groping, infected leg wounds, bad acting and the realization that the clock belonged to a French necromancer who ate his students… makes sense. It gets a little fun as it draws to a close and embraces its dumbass plot but it is a slog getting to that point. Nita Talbot is wonderful as the tough old broad who knows a thing or two about the supernatural and ends up getting impaled by a cartoonish stork that falls off of a diaper delivery truck. That’s a thing of beauty right there, man… and fear not, those standard Amityville plumbing issues make an appearance.
aka Amityville 5
⭐️1/2
A priest is murdered in a confessional and the booth ends up stored in the basement of the rectory. Twelve years pass and the rectory is now for sale. Seeing dollar signs, an insufferable psychiatrist named Marvin scoops it up to renovate and make a profit off of. He drags along his psychic wife, his restaurant owning buddy and a newly married artist friend to help with the fixing up and share in the investment. Yeah. It doesn’t go well. Extremely boring entry in the Amityville series only picks up in the final 15 minutes when a possessed Kim Coates walks around the crap-shack in a murdering mood with his face half burnt. The heroine is plagued by nightmares (or are they visions) and the mystery of the murdered priest is solved to nobody’s relief. The whole thing is pretty much the equivalent of a shrug. The dilapidated house is a pretty cool set and I’ll always welcome the presence of Mr. Coates. The flick takes place in the town of Amityville but has nothing to do with that damn house so there’s your connection. There’s a lame dog attack, a kooky old lady with a glass eye who should have had a larger role and plenty of chitchat. You’ll spend most of the time rooting for the annoying idiots to bite it (especially that ass Marvin) but when they do it’s all so underwhelming. Just like this damn movie. Damn.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
The death of a young girl at a slumber party is blamed on one of her friends. The cops, and any other level-headed adult, are correct in dismissing the claims that a demon by the name of The Crooked Man was summoned and murdered the little lady. As someone who has been to a few 12-year-old girl’s slumber parties, they usually end in at least one death. So, twelve-year-old Olivia is sent away to whatever facility holds twelve-year-old girls who accidentally summon a demon which kills their friend and then vanishes leaving said twelve-year-old girl to look super guilty of the crime. Six years later and Olivia is released from the loony bin. She returns to her hometown to the usual sideways glances and suspicions that are to be expected from her former besties and the disbelieving masses. When bodies start dropping, she’s an obvious suspect but she knows that monster from her past ain’t finished. She’s aided by a hunky cop who has the hots for her and doesn’t think she’s insane. There’s also a mysterious man named Milo (Michael Jai White!) who is following her because he knows there’s something evil and supernatural taking out folks and will be able to offer up some much-needed answers when the time comes (MICHAEL JAI WHITE INFO DUMP!). The janky-ass spirit is a simple and effective design, looking spooky enough to be moderately memorable and the digital alteration to give him his jerky movements ain’t completely distracting… they also ain’t afraid to show his ugly ass a bunch… something I will always appreciate. My dude Marco Rodriguez is there as Olivia’s papa and Dina Meyer is hanging around as the overprotective and stern mother of one of the girls (Alice) who was at the sleepover all them years ago. Alice is now an overacting shut-in thanks to mama’s caution. She is also playing her character like a pre-teen trapped in a sickly twenty-something’s body and gets to deliver a completely out of character (and left field) one liner before blowing up her own house. Olivia’s other former friends are all bitchy and begging to get slaughtered, so it ain’t hard to keep yourself interested in the proceedings… even after they quickly come around to the claims that a boogeyman is murdering everyone connected to the sleepover. I remember rolling my eyes and dismissing this son of a bitch when it aired almost a decade ago, but there’s been a couple hundred Tubi brain-melters since then and now I have to say, it’s way more capable at entertaining me than all them years ago. Hilarious stupidity brings a smile or two, like the scene where Olivia and her friend try to warn their former babysitter that she’s in danger. They go to the club where she’s performing, frantically make their way in and then stop to watch her perform and sway a bit while smiling and commenting just how good she is. I guess it wasn’t that important to warn her but she does cut her set short after seeing the evil spirit in the audience and then dies nastily after in the backstage darkness. Bummer. I guess I find shit like this way more charming now that I’ve watched college dopes without any discernible talent make lazy basement slasher films that are full of pretension but lacking any ambition or charm. It sure is stupid but it’s my kind of stupid so I’ll call it a win.
