aka Splatter Blackjack
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
There's an old saying about two dollar hookers, I'm not sure what it is but I guarantee it applies to Will MacMillan's shot-in-L.A. trash fire. Less than ten minutes in and we've already been treated to nipple play at gunpoint, swastika chin tattoos and facial disfigurement via cheese grater. All of it shot like some sort of new wave nightmare and carrying the atmosphere of being tucked in with a urine soaked blanket made of steel wool. This is the world of Cards of Death and once you take a peak, you'll never be the same. A police captain breaks into a warehouse, obviously tracking down something. That something is a scuzzy piece of shit named Hog. Hog and his gal catch the captain and tie him up. The forced nipple play comes in at this point and when the captain proves to be one tough mutha-trucker the cheese grater is put to work. Hog's next step is to drop off a package full of the captain's bits and pieces at the police station. Already investigating eight murders in eight weeks, a detective now takes it personally because the fingers, nose and ear not only belonged to his boss but also his friend. The cop goes to the captain's artist son, Billy, to let him know the bad news. Billy wants in and since this is some kind of garbage-stained hellscape, the cop decides it's a good idea to bring him along on the case. Questioning various low level hoods and prostitutes, Billy is eventually able to get an invite to an underground card game. The same card game his father was looking into. The focal point of the whole damn thing is the card game. There's goofy procedural antics in the background but it all comes back to the card game. There's a half-million dollar pot but the catch is if ya lose, the winner has 24 hours to murder your ass. The masked players sit in a small smoke-filled room where cocaine and hookers are passed around. Hog, his girl and some weird pissant butler (?) guy run the game (with Hog either dressed up like a gutter punk or a 1940s gangster and sometimes some weird amalgamation of both) and dump the bodies of the poor fuckers who lose. Now you're all caught up. We get brief introductions to some random losers (a deadbeat husband with gambling problems, a priest with a heavy debt) and sure as shit they end up losing for the final time when they come to Hog's table. The cops finally figure some shit out and begin closing in on Hog and his scuzzy operation... but they need to hurry the hell up because Billy has just come to play and Hog has already figured out who he is. Debauchery is infused into every frame of this low-budget odyssey. When the out of place humor isn't leaving a bad taste in your mouth, you're drowning in some of the most realistic prostitutes you'll catch this side of an hourly rate motel. As soon as you're beginning to suffocate on a nihilistic fugue, you're treated to some wall crushing shenanigans that belong in a 1940s serial or an impromptu exotic dance number from a stripper who was probably found in the back of a phone book. That's the glory of Cards of Death, it's everything you want it to be and somehow nothing you ever wanted at the same time.
⭐️⭐️
Ambitious, pretentious and ultimately boring “anthology” from the madman behind the superior Cards of Death. The first story titled The Black Veil runs nearly 75 minutes and carries a hazy dreamlike vibe that would have played well on film but only works to confuse things since its shot on video. In 1888, a recently widowed woman travels to Paris to see her schoolmate, Justine. Her friend is now starring in the infamous Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol. Suffering from severe headaches, Justine has become addicted to laudanum thanks to the creepy-ass actor/show runner Demetrius. There’s also a coven of vampires (I think) or some likewise evil headed by Brinke Stevens. Meg attempts to cure her friend using hypnosis and all hell breaks loose. Confusing and sleep-inducing, the whole damn thing is mostly forgettable outside of some intriguing camerawork and the always welcome Stevens. It was also nice to see Cards of Death’s Hog again. The second story has an insufferable photographer bitch about things and ramble some bullshit about dragonflies. This ultimately leads to him hooking up with a mysterious big-breasted woman and getting himself murdered. Brinke Stevens shows up here as a model and radio dj... sure, whatever. Poor acting and an overly artistic streak sink whatever good graces the viewer had.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Small town boredom and a rapid fire imagination merge into a flawed but magically bizarre Florida SOV nightmare. Logic is left behind almost from the get-go and we’re dropped headfirst into a world of skateboarding, punk/thrash culture, non-sequiturs and (of course) death. Paul is a kid who loves skateboarding. Charles is a kid who loves sitting in his house and watching TV... having murder fantasies about his girlfriend. He also watches the lives of people he knows on the same television and none of them look like they’re ending well. But back to Paul. Dude skateboards and this draws the attention of some chickadee he has no interest in. Her interest gets her fuck-buddy jealous and during a late night beer-and-pot-filled drive, he sees Paul skateboarding home from a party. He and his friends attack and Paul manages to use his karate skills to fight them off. Of course, when he goes to grab his board, he’s run over by some weirdo in a car... it seems purposeful but who the hell knows. They dump poor Paul’s body and in almost no time at all, a mad doctor and his lady find Paul’s corpse. They drag him to their lab and bring him back to life. Paul wakes up bandaged and in pain, he kills the doctor, screws his left foot into his skateboard deck and ties a fencing mask over his face. Now, revenge shall be his... but that’s not even it. In between the familiar plot thread is a world comprised of live music performances, a religious nut weapons dealer, Florida heat so humid you could cut it with a knife, television clips, “the butt people”, 7/11 and a revolving door of characters that barely register. It’s a splatter film that doesn’t give two fucks about the splatter and is far more comfortable wallowing in absurdism. Charles Pinion crafted a near perfect bit of arthouse trash, refreshingly different and dangerously close at any moment to becoming pretentiously boring. The balancing act doesn’t always work but fortunately it creates some atmospheric weirdness when it does. Killer soundtrack.
⭐️⭐️
A big-ass crocodile is snacking on humans somewhere in Thailand and this eventually leads to trouble for American (?), Jack, and his wild animal farm. The farm is already running into issues thanks to the next door resort wanting Jack and his farm off the land. An animal welfare agent is called in on Jack by the scumbag resort owner but, of course, love blooms. With the resort shit-bags seeing another method of getting the stubborn landowner out of their way, they start fanning the flames about the croc-violence taking out some folks and pointing the blame at Jack’s farm. Grizzled crocodile hunter, “Croc” Hawkins (Michael Madsen) knows the farm ain’t to blame and is tracking the wild man-eater himself. He’s been hunting the beast for months and lost a leg to it, he also feels a connection to all the victims the crocodile has claimed. Shit cgi, stock footage, an actual crocodile that looks nowhere near as big as the monster it’s supposed to be and a model noggin are combined to showcase the hilarious crocodile attacks. Sure there’s piss-poor acting and butt-numbing lulls but there’s also some wonderfully detestable villains, a crocodile electrocution via toaster and a whole lotta lovely stupidity.
aka Road to Red
NOTHING! YOU EARN NOTHING BUT MY DISDAIN!
A skateboard champion goes missing high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. His abandoned hearse and a surfboard floating on the water is all that a local sheriff discovers. The rumor mill gets to work and talk of an overdose or suicide due to the pressures of his position begin to circle. His guilt-stricken older brother gathers some of the missing man’s friends and they head out on a road trip to restore the good name of the believed-to-be dead skateboarding legend. Bruce finds out what happened to his brother but it’s gonna come at a big cost. Hilariously overblown narration lets us know that our characters are Californians and everybody except the older brother will be dead by the time the end credits hit… two hours from now. Oh boy. This leads to an argument in a bar between brothers about freedom and corporate sponsorship and life and it’s just as melodramatic as the opening narration. Harsh words are said, mostly by older brother Bruce and this leads to Paul driving off angry. Three weeks later and he’s gone. Months pass and when one of Paul’s buddy’s pops back into Bruce’s life with a hilarious story about how Paul was planning to tap virgin territory by working with this “crazy genius” who was developing some “rad new technology” that could bring surfing back into skateboarding. Wow. Now that’s a fuckin’ story! They were also arranging to film a movie about it. This was Paul’s dream and they’re planning on making sure that legacy lives on. All they have to do is sell some weed to get out of debt and finish the movie. Wait… *checks notes*… yep. There’s a drug-selling montage and it’s off they go. There’s also skateboarding and surfing going on. This movie is two hours long. That “crazy genius” (who looks like Geddy Lee if he were a trust-fund baby) is also shown creating his new “rad tech” by smelting… this extended montage is numbing my ass. After ten minutes that feel like a lifetime of fucking montages, the group of unlikable and unmemorable people hop in the hearse and journey to the location of their missing compatriots last known whereabouts… but there will be more surfing and skateboarding before they get there. After 400 hours of montages, melodrama and the kind of music that makes you jealous of Marlee Matlin, they all skate right into a big-ass opening in the earth and these annoying assbags finally start meeting their maker… well, after they do some skateboarding in the huge underground cave they’ve found themselves in and arguing amongst themselves. Nothing is helped because due to the opening narration we already know the worst of these characters makes it out alive… at least long enough to narrate this stupid fucking thing. Fuck this movie. I wasn’t the biggest fan of California before this but now, I hope to whatever deity is up there that I never have to set foot in that fucking place. If you’re a fan of surfing and skateboarding you may enjoy the long stretches of fuck-all but I’m more into the Midwestern sports like drinking and eating brown food so all this had me doing was checking my phone in disbelief that only a few minutes had passed and I wasn’t nearing the end. It’s the cinematic equivalent of being forced to listen to a Red Hot Chili Peppers album and I wouldn’t wish that on my enemies. Fuck this movie and fuck California… I finally understand why everything has been proven to cause cancer there.
aka Samhain
⭐️⭐️
On a learning excursion in Ireland with a focus on Celtic and Druid rituals, a group of American university students move into a beautiful cottage on a beautiful lake, surrounded by an ancient forest. It also happens to be the ancient festival of Samhain at the moment. A few days earlier we witness the savage murder of two campers in the area. Chasey Lain (How the West Was Hung and Coed Cocksuckers 14) shows off her goods prior to a violent end and her boyfriend Billy Drago (Jungle Run and Clown Motel) finds her severed in two. Bummer, man. He takes a blow to the head and wakes up chained to a stone alter in the middle of a cave, eventually finding himself roasting on a spit. I think it’s safe to say that this little getaway will not be ending well for our college-aged heroes. An incestuous clan of cannibals (have ya heard the legend of Sawney Bean?) have made their home in an abandoned copper mine nearby and if incest in horror films has taught us anything, it’s that in-family breeding creates giant mutant monsters who can’t feel pain and kill with preternatural efficiency. Karen Douglas (Bobbie Phillips or as I know her, Dr. Bambi from The X-Files) chaperones the trip. Timid Shae has problems fitting in with the college kids, likable Barb (cute Gillian Leigh) is a sarcastic cheerleader, “macho” Steve constantly references horror films (he’s like Randy from Scream but completely unlikable) and then there’s a couple who are also there and kinda horny. Also, Karen’s boyfriend shows up to surprise her. All in all, it’s a good supply of meat for the deformed family of cannibals in the area. The clairvoyant caretaker and his sexy cousin Pandora (Ginger Lynn from Poonies and Between the Cheeks) fill the teacher and her boyfriend in on the sacrificial history of the seasonal festival and warn them to stay inside after dark. This warning goes ignored and the group starts getting themselves eaten. The couple wander off into the woods for some alone time shenanigans and stumble across a dilapidated castle which stands over the old mine. The bodies start dropping in rapid succession following this discovery. Jenna Jameson of Philmore Butts Taking Care of Business fame, shows up as a hiker to get murdered and have her breast implant torn out because of course that happens. There’s also intestines pulled out of a poor guy’s butt (through jeans, so don’t worry), Ginger Lynn kicking some mutant butt (briefly), the inexplicable long survival of the most annoying of characters, a Sawney Bean flashbacks and an ending that makes almost no fucking sense. There’s very little charisma when it comes to the cast which is a damn shame. Ginger Lynn (doing her best Irish accent) and Gillian Leigh fare best but they’re sadly underutilized and we spend most of our time with sentient wood or in Dr. Bambi’s case; someone who doesn’t seem all that happy to be there. The violence is wet and graphic, the inbred threat is from the Wrong Turn school of monstrous (which I’ll never complain about) and there’s more than a couple bewbs. Not high praise but at least that’s something.
aka Black Cloak
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Leslie Nielsen plays Brett Kingsford, a playboy detective and occult expert, investigating a series of Ripper-esque murders in 1890’s San Francisco. The commissioner is left scratching his head as the attacks seem to be animalistic in nature but a talisman left behind at each murder scene points to something more human behind the murders. Suspicion lands on Brett’s best buddy Robert, after a series of blackouts leave him unable to offer any alibi for the time of the crimes and he has a connection to all of the victims. The beast we’ve spotted looks nothing like the soon-to-be-wed Robert but if a Sumerian demon were possessing him, then I suppose that could explain a few things. Robert, convinced that he is the monster and getting no help from Brett, goes to see the mystic Professor Malaki but of course this Malaki fellow may be up to something sinister. Brett plays it cool but he’s working behind the scenes to fish out the culprit and prove his pal’s innocence for the sake of his sanity and fiancée. Disguises, a loyal dwarf butler, and a goofy lookin ghoul bring nothing but joy and a foppish turn from Nielsen is nothing but wonderful. Intended as a pilot but never picked up for series.
