The Hell’s Gate (1989) (Italy)

aka Gates of Hell

Maurizio, a young man from the World Research Organization has spent the last 78 days breaking the record for the longest time underground. He’s about to be pulled up within the hour when he has some unsettling visions of a religious manner. The team monitoring him loses visual contact with him and they receive a frantic phone call from the man, screaming about how “they’re coming for me!” His colleagues decide they have to get their asses down there and rescue the poor bastard. They’re joined by an archivist from the University of Florence and her dink of an associate because she happens to have some maps of the underground tunnels connecting the researchers’ home for the last few months to an abandoned abbey where some bad shit went down. They don’t find him when they get to his makeshift home but they do find some fresh blood, which gets them worrying. The archivist wanders off and finds a burial site while the group splits into two to search the tunnels for their missing man and the now vanished girl. She uncovers the history of the place involving seven monks who were found guilty of witchcraft during the inquisition and came to the usual tortuous end a pact with the devil warranted during that time. Of course there’s a prophecy where the dead monks will return in 700 years to spill the blood of seven heretics. Talk about bad timing. Folks start dropping and they find it impossible to leave thanks to a combination of falling rocks and hellfire. Spears, daggers, an executioner’s ax and spiders are used to do away with the cast. If your idea of a good time is watching a group of idiots run around a cave, being stalked by murderous ghost monks (and if not, what the fuck?) then this late eighties spaghetti nightmare from Umberto Lenzi should hit the spot. Sure, it drags in more than one place but like most of Italy’s late 80s output, somehow it still manages to make me smile.

Slaughter Day (1991) (USA)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A pair of rad buds are forced to fight a recently unleashed ancient evil in scenic Hawaii thanks to the powers contained within an occult book. Said book (naturally, The Necronomicon) has taken possession of an obsessed construction worker named John Jones and transformed him into a nearly unstoppable maniac. Anyways, the buds arrive at an old cabin to do some work and are greeted by a construction worker holding onto his nearly severed hand, screaming to high heaven. The mad man responsible follows closely behind and attacks. They manage to overpower Mr. Jones whilst barely containing their excited laughter. They stuff him in their truck bed and a silly “high speed” fight takes place. Some quick braking sends the madman flying and he runs off into the woods. He then stands on a rock, shouts some stuff in a distorted voice, huffs from a high quality respirator and vanishes… or he would have. He reappears and stands there as you hear the director shouting “KEEP MOVING! GET OUT OF THE PICTURE!” Eventually, he hears his friend over the waves and runs off. It is 100% amateur and 110% charming. That’s a fine summation for the whole fuckin’ experience. The respirator-wearing killer appears back at the job site and (following more cameos by the director’s voice) kills the other workers. He opens a copy of H.R. Giger’s Necronomicon and gets sucked into the book… bending him like a folding bed in the process… it’s wonderful. The two heroes arrive and get supernaturally locked in the cabin. Out pops John Jones from the book (doing his best floating Deadite impression) and after ripping off one of the guy’s hair, he suffers a brutal uppercut to the nuts… it’s all so wonderful. Severed limbs and plenty of fake blood follows. After severing John Jones into several pieces and throwing him in a bag, they try to flee but late arrivals allow the… oh my god… I can’t believe I’m writing this… possessed respirator to spread its evil to two more employees. Did I mention how wonderful all of this is? The evil spreads and our two dudes with attitude just want to get the hell out of town. Mr. Jones resurrects and promises he will have the blood of his enemies. If the SOV aesthetic is your jam, then you’ll be in fuckin’ backyard heaven as a small batch of like-minded goofs do their best Evil Dead impression. I love the audible direction, the lazy title track, the suitably awkward line delivery, the tape degradation, the dropped audio and the enthusiasm pulsating underneath every inch of this damn thing. It’s a mess, a beautiful mess that probably had no right seeing the light of day… but I’m sure glad it did. 

Below are brief reviews of the short films included on the Visual Vengeance (go support them!)  

Slaughter Day II
1989 USA
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Cousins brothers put their heads together back in high school and just really wanted to share their love for the Evil Dead films. Three kids wander over to an abandoned house, behave like idiots and bust open the wrong locked door. They unleash a killer in a military coat and… is it a dust mask… maybe part of a scuba diving kit? The large killer, who is definitely a child in some goosed-up clothes (“It's actually called a goose suit. It's an old circus term. ... He's goosed!”) beats the ever-lovin’ shit out of the trespassers. They fend him off but get locked in the place and attacked by that Sam Raimi frenetic POV shot. Kids were definitely injured in the process of making this homage. John Carpenter’s Halloween theme is used, a wooden chainsaw is passed off as the real deal and the splatter is the right level of charming. It runs 14 minutes and every second of it is a blessing to backyard horror fans.

Slaughter Day III
1989 USA
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
The Cousin’s brothers hone their craft with this third outing in their Evil Dead inspired and adolescence-fueled filmography. The dismembered corpse of the fright-masked madman they took out in the prior entry pieces himself together which is bad news for the two surviving dinks when they decide to return to the house. More abuse to children and teenagers follows. Copyrighted music and out of sync audio is close behind. The bros wake up after the madman poisons them with some hallucinogenic (it looks like he tosses birdseed at them) and have no idea what the hell is going on… they also look noticeably older. An awkward teenage girl appears and begins to seduce the older brother but before things go any further than a smooch, she transforms into our villain. “Special” effects are more “advanced” this time out and the Cousins’ strive for a little more complexity in their storytelling but they lose something along the way. It’s not bad by any means and I enjoyed the hell out of it, it just seems like a little spark was left behind in the purely adolescent prior entry.

Slaughter Day IV
1989 USA
⭐️⭐️⭐️
The final entry on the youthful Cousins brothers Slaughter Day series. Some schmuck breaks into the spot where the fiend met his end in the last entry and is almost immediately consumed. A stranded car brings another dude into the house and into the sights of our monster. It’s the older Cousins brother but I don’t think he’s playing the same character form the other ones because A: he doesn’t recognize the house and B: he is immediately murdered by the respirator-over-the-cheap-Halloween-mask combo we know and love. After his girlfriend follows and gets snatched, the two brothers pull up on the house. There they are. They’re ready for battle and rush in. They hang the antagonist from a nearby tree after dutifully wiping the floor with him but he gets free and goes on the offensive. Low-jack splatter, audible direction, uncontrollable giggles and synching issues make their return and then I think the everything closes before the story actually reaches its end… sure, why not? It’s still a blast and at ten minutes it hardly feels like it’s wasting your time.

Full Metal Platoon
198? USA
⭐️⭐️

Four minute Vietnam film from the Cousins brothers finds four children wandering through the forest, using sparklers to bring gunfire to life and slinging dialogue that may have been copied verbatim from some films they watched instead of doing homework. Chuck Martins, an Asian friend and the exact level of competence one would expect from children playing war is just as silly as you would expect. The thing comes to a close with a stunt that no mother would have allowed and the “actors” slipping into a giggle fit.

Siren (2006) (Japan)

aka Forbidden Siren 

⭐️⭐️⭐️

A writer moves from Tokyo to a secluded island with his teenage daughter and young son. The little guy has some unnamed personal issue and his papa saw a change of scenery as the best way to deal with whatever is making the kid act like a little weirdo. Viewed as outsiders, most of the village does not take kindly to their new neighbors and treats them with either distrust or disinterest. A slightly off woman stops by to welcome them (and like a saint, do the dishes someone left behind) but warns that if the island’s siren starts wailing, you need to stay inside. An opening set in the 70s shows a rescue team searching all over the island for any signs of life but finding only warm food and a lone survivor who has obviously lost his mind. So we know to take the warning seriously. Papa is researching something, there’s something wrong with the daughter, a young island doctor helps out and this pot of spooky water is barely boiling. Father goes missing while photographing nocturnal animals and something starts stalking our young hero Yuki. Her father returns but is acting a little off and something ancient may be taking its sweet-ass time in dealing out some supernatural shenanigans. Yuki has to figure out just what connection the siren has to all the eeriness before it’s too late to do anything about it. Misbehaving centipedes, red-filtered POV, excellent sound design, off putting local customs, a brief flirtation with found footage , mermaid mishaps and some excellent atmosphere do all they can to help but if patience ain’t in you vocabulary, this deliberately paced flick (almost to a fault) will not be for you. Things do pick up when it plays its cards and it may be a bit familiar bit it’s placed into a context which is so different that I refuse to complain about it. Then it spoils everything with a melodramatic and kinda lazy ending. I guess it’s based off of a video game but I’ve never played it… don’t take that personally, I haven’t played many video games.

The Shunned House (2002) (Italy)

⭐️⭐️1/2

Low-budget Italian flick tackles the unenviable task of adapting Lovecraft and somehow succeeds... to a point. Alex, in the process of researching for his new book, drags his constantly smoking photographer girlfriend Rita with him to what remains of the Crossroads Inn. The former lodging house, currently a dilapidated crap-shack, has a history rich with murder and suicide. It’s the handful of unexplainable deaths which has brought Alex to the uninhabitable building and he plans on getting to the bottom of the mysteries. The stories behind each death play out while the research commences and eventually get tangled up in the present day narrative. The short stories Dreams in the Witch House (a sleepwalking mathematician becomes obsessed with the unearthly geometry of his rented room but curiosity only leads to tragedy) and The Music of Erich Zann (a mute composer’s music fascinates a young man but he comes to find the haunting melody works as protection against something from outside our mortal world) work as the meat of the story (along, of course, with The Shunned House) but a few other morsels of Lovecraft slip in as well. The writer and the photographer become part of the nightmare when the house’s evil seeps into their reality. There’s some added tame sex, a prominent female character for each story and the film wisely doesn’t even attempt to bring any of Lovecraft’s impossible horrors to the screen. The eldritch vibe is sustained for most of the runtime but sadly falls apart as the final minutes tick by. It’s not great but it should be commended for being an oddly fascinating film instead of an abject failure.

The Dark Eyes of London (1939) (UK)

aka The Human Monster/Dr. Orloff/Dead Eyes of London 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Single men with no families are turning up dead in London. The only connection is insurance policies provided by the mysterious Dr. Orloff with the beneficiary being a home for the blind administered by Professor John Dearborn. Orloff also treats the blind on the premises if they become ill. Scotland Yard’s Detective Inspector Larry Holt investigates the strange deaths and gets some assistance when the gorgeous daughter (Greta Gynt) of a recently drowned man arrives in London to look into her father’s passing. A Chicago police lieutenant on a learning expedition is also helping out with the case and providing banter with the no-nonsense detective. The supposedly benevolent Dr. Orloff (sure, Jan) is played by Bela Lugosi and the supposedly blind Professor Dearborn bares more than a striking resemblance to the not-so-good doctor and it’s looking more and more like shenanigans are afoot. They have to do with the two men who are actually one man and an easily manipulated deformed brute he has in his employ. A solid Edgar Wallace adaptation benefits from Lugosi pulling double duty and being wonderful. I’m also a sucker for fast-talkin’ cops and platinum blondes… but I’m old fashioned like that.

The Cutting Room (2015) (UK)

aka The Hallowed/Media Studies

⭐️1/2

The labyrinth of tunnels under a sleepy town hold an incredibly disturbing secret. Three Media Studies students working on their end of the year project put themselves in mortal danger when they dig into the disappearance of a local girl. Raz (taking the annoyingness of found footage cameramen and placing it in-font of the camera), Jess and Charlie start their project with a focus on cyber bullying and their teacher points them in the direction of a runaway by the name of Rosy Clarke who ran off after being cyber bullied. This draws the attention of some strange masked figure who we saw getting up to some violently awful shit in the opening. Charlie receives a message supposedly from the missing girl and the police let her know that it’s from a sick prankster who has been sending the same texts to the family and friends of the missing girl. Allegations of grooming, kidnapping and another missing girl with a similar story have the trio thinking they’re onto something bigger than expected. After further investigating, they end up at an abandoned army barracks hidden away in the middle of the woods. Because dummies are gonna dumb, they make their way inside and run into a couple sinister folks. Shockingly, they make it out of there alive. Unshockingly, they don’t count their blessings and keep on scratching that curiosity itch. It doesn’t end well. Sorry. Spoiler. It’s found footage… you’d have figured that out anyways. It’s not as annoying as some the others of this vintage and every actor seems at least capable but it doesn’t really offer much of anything new. The Tunnel provides better tunnel action (you’d hope so, carrying that title) and there’s a slew from psychological serial killer shaky-cam flicks more worthy of your time… Creep, Poughkeepsie Tapes, Megan is Missing, etc. Hell, bullying was even dealt with in the far more interesting Unfriended. Poor film didn’t even stand a chance… or maybe I watch way too much found footage.

The Haunting of Sarah Hardy (1989) (USA)

⭐️⭐️1/2

When she was just a little girl, Sarah Hardy witnessed her insane mother commit suicide shortly after her father’s passing. Fifteen years later, the newly married Sarah (Sela Ward) moves back into her mother’s giant waterside estate, The Pines, with her husband Austin. It doesn’t take long for her to start hearing mama’s voice, receiving strange phone calls from the dead woman and experiencing different levels of troubling supernatural tomfoolery. Has her mother come back from beyond the veil to torment the pretty young woman or is there something more grounded in reality and way more sinister afoot? If Morgan Fairchild were hanging around anywhere near my husband, I’d assume there’s some scheming afoot. I don’t care if she’s been my friend since grade school… it’s Morgan Fairchild. Fairchild is a soap star named Lucy and seems to be concerned about her bestie but, again, it’s Morgan Fairchild. Sarah begins to worry she’s going insane like her mother (something she shares with Lucy) and she reaches out to her old friend Alan (who is now a psychiatrist and still has some romantic feelings for the young woman) for some help with the anxiety of history repeating itself… not to mention all the crazy shit she’s experiencing. A miscarriage following an encounter with a knife-wielding (possible) spectral mother pushes things over the edge as depression joins Sarah’s anxiety/insanity dance. She asks for a divorce, worried about what she’ll be putting her husband through. She listens in on a phone call Austin makes and gets a little suspicious he’s up to something. Of course he is and of course Morgan Fairchild is his partner in crime. They want everything she has and they plan on staging her murder to look like a suicide. When Sarah vanishes before they can stage her suicide, a suicide note has them thinking she’s done the job for them. An empty vial of pills found on the beach has everyone thinking she went out just like her mother. We know better and we also know that turnabout is fair play. TV movie thriller isn’t anything new but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable. Think an updated episode of Thriller and you’re in the right ballpark. Terrible ending, mind you.