aka GoreX - Zombie Sex
⭐️⭐️
A mad doctor’s experiments with a new drug spells trouble for three stranded young women when they are forced to spend the night in the doctor’s castle after their car breaks down. His new drug may eliminate pain but has the side effects of an increased sex drive and zombification. With no real morals to speak of, the doctor uses his new guests as test subjects. Hopefully one of the doctor’s servants (Nacho Vidal), who has fallen for one of the women, can get them the hell out before the flesh eating kicks in. There is plenty of cheap gore (mostly confined to an experimental surgery scene in the beginning that goes on and on and on) and some laughably unerotic eroticism. The copy viewed here (a bonus feature on the Toxic Filth Video release of Cannibal Cult) is the edited version with most of the hardcore shots cut out and no subtitles. This means we get plenty of laugh-inducing close ups of peoples sex faces and a produce masturbation scene which mostly consists of the young woman orally pleasuring a banana, carrot and cucumber... so... yay? There is a fun zombie-filled climax that sadly zooms by and some good laughs but holy hell is it a trek to get through.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Liam Gallagher once sang "Backbeat, the word is on the street that the fire in your heart is out." If he had said "Blood Beat" I would still be writing he and his brother hate mail. Blood Beat's heart is burning with fire. The kind of fire brought about by a handle of cheap whiskey and a couple bumps of booger sugar. As it is, Oasis never made my shit list and Blood Beat never became "that one movie the Gallagher brothers sang about." Is anybody better off? Does this opening statement make any sense? Welcome to the wonderful world of Blood Beat! Christmas has come to Wisconsin. More importantly, orgasm-inducing samurai-ghost murders have made the trip as well. Ted, his sister Dolly and his girlfriend Sarah have all made the journey home. His painter mother Cathy and her bearded boyfriend Gary are playing host. We first meet the epically bearded Gary as he bow hunts a deer. Sarah meets Gary as he guts the main ingredient of deer stew. Failed bloody handshakes and general holiday excitement take a back seat to mom's obvious disdain for Sarah. Something is going on and judging by the looks mom gives to Sarah its either psychic tension or severe constipation. Based on all the blue and orange optical effects that eventually manifest, it is the former. Although, I've never had severe constipation, so I may be wrong. Things play out exactly as you would expect them to during a dreary Wisconsin winter. Ted tries, for what seems like an eternity, to bang Sarah while she's settling in to the guest room, Cathy goes super creepy and psychically watches her son try to bang Sarah, ma's hands become possessed, awesomely cheap orange and blue optical effects make an appearance and Ted shows off his rifle around the old Christmas tree. Just your usual winter in the good old Badger state. The cracks begin to widen when Sarah finds a samurai helmet in her bedroom. Her curiosity turns to fear when it magically vanishes from the room. It turns out she is, much like mom, psychic. The fragile reality of this film slowly unravels. Up to this point Blood Beat has been slightly off. It drags a little as it moves along. You figure on it being a weird little film that gave its best yet failed to entertain. Then a displaced Chicago Bears Superfan lookalike shows up. Buckle your safety belt, all hell is about break loose. The appearance of the superfan is the catalyst to the awesomeness of Blood Beat. He shows up and so does the blue light radiating samurai-ghost. The phantom attacks him. He runs and jumps through a window in SLOW MOTION! His death causes Sarah to have multiple orgasms. How is she connected to the blue light specter? Fuck if I know! All I know is we just witnessed the first ever masturbation-triggered ghost samurai attack in Wisconsin history. Blood Beat deserves every accolade because of this fact. After that little segment of Heaven passes you can just sit back and enjoy the brain meltingly confusing climax. More murders trigger more Sarah orgasms, the kitchen attacks Gary with food and a can of TAB, EVERYONE IS PSYCHIC, good magic and evil magic clash, stock footage roles and fucking LASERS happen! When the credits finally hit, the best thing to do is scoop up your brains and get on with your life. Don't dwell on Blood Beat. Don't look for answers. That will only lead to nosebleeds. Just let it be. Gary said it best: "Even the good old boys get fed up." And if that is the one discernible lesson you can take from Blood Beat, then I think we'll be more appreciative people. It's also possible this movie broke my brain and I'm just a rambling idiot. Perhaps we're all better off.
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
A therapy group heads out into the vast Canadian wilderness to confront their trauma or something along those lines. Joy is invited by her best friend Carmen to join in on the retreat because she is recently free of her abusive ex. On top of dealing with their metaphysical monsters, something very real and very dangerous seems to be occupying the area… more than your usual native fauna and asshat hunters who usually roam these woods. Joy is convinced her ex has followed them adding even more anxiety to the proceedings. She’s not the only one encountering some high strangeness and odd shit piles upon odd shit. A severed buck head, the therapy group’s leader (Doctor Dunnley) admitting she’s unfamiliar with the area, bad dreams, whispers, bonding and all the other hallmarks of a trek through the Canadian wilds are present and accounted for. There’s plenty of debate if the threat slowly closing in on the group of women is a solid thing or if their own rightfully damaged psyche is playing with them. Why can’t it be both? Likable and believably complicated characters help to keep things interesting in the opening stretch before the movie shows its hand and things get a little wild. Flashbacks play into the present, reality kinda bends in on itself and we learn, yet again, that there’s just some parts of nature you’re better not journeying into. A solid cast definitely benefits this unexpected creature feature. Great monster design, by the way.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
The last vacation I took with "da boyz" was probably 5 years ago. Just a handful of idiots getting drunk till the sun came up and the bonfire was reduced to a lump of smoldering remains. A little fishing, a few gallons of cheap beer and a chance to get away from the people and jobs driving us crazy. We didn't have a care in the world. We also didn't have a Lil' Tony. It was our loss. After the poorly staged murder of a groundskeeper, Blood Lake begins its assault on your idea of vacations. Opening credits roll to the hard rock sounds of Voyager. Bleeding Skull's Joseph A. Ziemba described the music of Voyager as "butt metal". In the history of music there has never been a more spot-on genre label. A traveling montage and Voyager combine to completely turn you off to the notion of Blood Lake being an accomplished 80 minutes of filmmaking. Luckily, we're not here for accomplished filmmaking. We're in SOV country, and I will tell you right now that this country is vast and full of wonder. Grab your buds, bring your babes, and prep your boat. Some prime property for a badass vacation just became available. To quote our hero it's "a real party house". It's actually just his girlfriend's father's lake house but with enough beer, any house can be a real party house. Test it out. It's true. They have their beer and they have their place to drink it in but they have something you never had… Lil' Tony! He's our hero's younger brother and he's a mullet’d piece of shit. But in the best way possible. Lil' Tony has a sex fixation and no filter. Lil' Tony is that person you knew in 7th grade who was always on the hunt for porn and talked endlessly about boobs. Sure he could be annoying but he also had some damn funny jokes. It was the perfect mix of wanting to slap the shit out of him and wanting him to be around because he was completely out of line. This is Lil' Tony and this is his movie. The characters have been introduced and we have had glimpses of the bearded, cowboy boot wearing murderer. The vacationers are doing exactly what they planned on doing. Drinking beer, making sexual innuendos, participating in frat boy humor and experiencing the excitement of unloading a boat... in real time! If you're thinking this sounds boring; don't worry, you're about to be hit with a water skiing montage. And do you know what a water skiing montage means? MORE VOYAGER!!! The kids are feeling good to the sweet sounds of Voyager's "Feelin Fine". After that ends we are not allowed to catch our breath, as we get hit in the face with a game of quarters, also played in real time! Blood Lake doesn’t give a shit. You are a part of this vacation whether you like it or not. Sadly, the party must always end. This party is no different. Two boys that befriended the group of vacationers and have joined in on the revelry and drinking are the first to fall. After water skiing they noticed a fat, bearded man checking out the "real party house". These two skinny wieners somehow managed to scare him off with shit talk. For this, they die first. Slightly inebriated and pumped up about their toughness, they make the mistake of stumbling home. They never arrive. But they do leave us with this small piece of dialogue to remember them by:
Blonde wiener: "Man, next time we come down here we need to bring some chicks with us!"
Other wiener: "Yeeeeeaaaaah. That'd be great. Sure as hell wouldn't be out here fishing."
Blonde wiener "No shit! We'd be diving... MUFF DIVING!"
Godspeed, you angels. Your time on this earth was far too short. Those first murders take place at almost fifty minutes into the runtime. Sure, we saw the groundskeeper get his but it happened off screen and is pretty much forgotten by the time Lil' Tony shows up grinning like the smartass he is. The core group is targeted next and the "real party house" is to blame. Apparently the bearded, cowboy boot wearing fat man is owed money for the sale of the place. Daddy never paid. It's another case of real estate debt leading to murder. Becky (the girlfriend) and Lil' Tony end up hanging from a rope in the shed out back, held at knifepoint. Luckily, our hero comes to the rescue. The struggle that ensues is as exciting as you'd expect from a film where real estate debt is the motivation for murder. More importantly, we learn that Becky is an afterthought when it comes to the safety of Lil' Tony. I can't say I disagree. The supposedly dead killer vanishes and we cut to a scene of a cowboy hat wearing man surveying where the lake once was. Voyager plays over the man walking as the camera shoots the dried up lake from various angles. Before the end credits roll this text appears on the screen:
Dry lake special visual effects by An Act of God
SOV films are to be enjoyed with a certain level of understanding. Some of us find the lack of scripting and "family vacation tape" quality charming. Some of you will not and will probably hit me many times if you tracked down Blood Lake because of this review. I apologize for nothing.
aka Black Werewolf
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
UK horror films have always had a special place in my heart. The Hammer horrors of the late fifties and early sixties jabbed there skeletal fingers into my soul at an early age. Curse of Frankenstein, The Mummy, Brides of Dracula and The Gorgon were constantly being rotated in the old VCR. Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing were as commonplace as Vincent Price and Boris Karloff. Not to brag, but I knew who Michael Ripper was before I knew who Spider-Man was. Actually, I don't think one can brag about that. But, as I continued plunging into the world of UK nightmares, the British films of the seventies quickly became my favorites. The fashion, the vernacular, the dreary weather and a general sense of "fuck all" had me going all googly-eyed over the images playing on my television. Pete Walker, Snape Island, and Donald Pleasence all play a prominent role in my fascination with horror films but I'm here to talk about one movie that started my love affair with UK chillers of the seventies.
“This film is a detective story --
in which YOU are the detective
The question is not "who is the murderer?" --
But "who is the werewolf?"
After all the clues have been shown --
You will get a chance to give your answer.”
So begins The Beast Must Die. The only film I know of with an official "Werewolf Break". It already has so much going for it. Classic 70s music (of the porn variety) plays over the opening credits. The music continues to be awesome throughout the film's runtime. We're introduced to Tom Newcliffe as he runs around a forest in a black tracksuit trying to avoid being found by an armed security force. Cameras are everywhere and a man is monitoring all of Tom's movements from a control room. It's your standard super villain control room (wall of monitors, a microphone for barking orders). You know, the kind of room where a Bond villain would watch in horror as his recently explained plans fall apart and Connery or Moore destroy his dreams of world domination. But not to worry, Tom is just testing out his men and security. The sinister European man behind the monitors is Tom's chief of security or monitoring or whatever the hell he's doing in that room. It turns out he has big plans. He's hosting a little get together and all his guests have one thing in common. They all have werewolf-ish skeletons in their closets and Tom wishes to hunt a werewolf. Tom puts it best "On safari or in the boardroom it's all the same. I go after what I want.” Tom introduces himself to his party guests by pretending to be gunned down by his armed-with-blanks security force. I once introduced myself to party guests by firing blanks at them. I think Tom's introduction went over a little bit better. His guests include the Maestro played by Michael "Dumbledore" Gambon. Dumbledore's love interest Davina, Peter Cushing as a werewolf expert, the Criminologist from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and an artist by the name of Paul Foote. Paul Foote is pretty much the personification of what I find so damn entertaining about 70's films. Unkempt hair, glorious facial hair, a fashion sense that defies logic, snappy one liners and a "screw it" attitude. As a bonus, his running skills border dangerously close to frolicking. All these people have been gathered because Tom knows their histories. Cannibalism and murder have followed them all over the world. Hell, our beloved Mr. Foote tried human flesh because he was curious. Tom has a dream, a dream of hunting and finding what no man has ever trapped. He should have tried to snag Sasquatch. I think it would have been far less dangerous. The grounds are covered with cameras and microphones. The borders are all alarmed. They even have something that measures the vibrations of footsteps, so they can tell the difference between a deer and a wolf or a wolf and a man-wolf. Tom has this shit on lockdown. There is no way to escape, as shown by a pretty lame car chase (not Mitchell lame but still lame). The guests get settled in with the knowledge that a psychopath is monitoring them to see which one of them is a werewolf. Still, this would not be the worst party I have attended. An awkward dinner of exposition, courtesy of Mr. Cushing, sets all the rules of "werewolf" in place. A silver candlestick is introduced and a game of "find-the-werewolf" is played. Wolfsbane is lobbed into the mix and yet we still get no indication of who the werewolf might be. Tom acts like a complete asshole and pretty much ruins dinner for all involved. Foote says "Well! If that's dinner... I can't wait for the cabaret!" He's the best. Every guest is hinted at being the man beast. Hairy hands, a lack of bathroom cameras (Tom may be a psychopath but he ain't no pervert), disappearing guests, broken skylights and cameos by one of the most pathetic werewolves in film history all look to further test your skills of deduction. So you best put your largest thinking cap on if you want to figure out who the werewolf is by the time the 30 second "Werewolf Break" hits. You'll be pretty damned embarrassed if you fuck it up, chump. Thirty seconds later, the final night begins and it is the equivalent of a coked-up Patrick Swayze handing out ripped throats to rowdy bar patrons. "You get a mauling! ANNNNNND you get a mauling!" The cast thins out and it becomes a little easier to decipher the identity of our hairy friend. A little twist, sanitary silver bullet tasting, a suicide and Peter Cushing slapping a hysterical woman leave a smile on my face. Yes, the werewolf is a dog fitted into a fur coat but SCREW IT! This movie has so much going for it that it will always get high marks from me. It is very biased but my opinion of the first 70's British horror film I saw will never change. The cast, the dialogue (“If he's your werewolf, I admire his taste in flesh"), and even the shitty werewolf combine to make The Beast Must Die a perfect (by my standards) horror film. I would also like to mention that my wife (who does not care for most of the crap I watch) actually liked this film, it got her interested in other British fright flicks, so make of that what you will.
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
A lovely opening and stellar main title reveal leads to a more urban setting than we are used to when it comes to our Deadite adventures. Estranged sisters reunite at recently single mom Ellie’s Los Angeles crumbling apartment complex. The eccentric kids are ecstatic to have their aunt Beth back in their company with her stories of worldwide adventures and a lifestyle they can only dream about but her recent pregnancy reveal has her shook. The sisters have some drama and Ellie’s life ain’t going much better as her husband is now “parenting” from afar and their home is set for demolition, leaving them with no sure dwelling. These real-life personal issues are gonna have to take a number and head to the back of the line because an earthquake has just opened up the ground in the apartment’s parking garage and revealed a long-sealed bank vault. Ellie’s son Danny goes to explore and comes across some very old vinyl records (he being an aspiring DJ has him scooping them bad boys up) and a room containing what looks to be a sarcophagus surrounded by religious paraphernalia. Uh oh. The old journal he pulls out of the busted artifact is covered in bugs which should be a good sign you have entered into the wrong kind of fantasy adventure. But, kids are stupid… especially teenage boys. Granted, he thinks it may be worth something which will help out the family but he cuts his finger trying to open the damn thing and blood seems to grant him access. Uh fucking oh. His older sister is rightfully freaked the fuck out because the illustrations inside are definitely something nobody should be viewing. Danny then throws the uncovered record on the turntable and plays it. Naturally, it’s a recording of a sermon involving the reading of a rare artifact… the Book of the Dead. It’s… pretty fucking awesome. Ellie is unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when all Hell breaks loose and becomes a vessel for a very old evil. The family and a small batch of tenants still occupying the newly condemned building find themselves trapped and unable to make contact with the outside world as brutal violence comes down like a storm of shit. A game cast brings sympathy to their characters thrown into a situation so many levels of fucked up it just seems unfair. Alyssa Sutherland is excellent as Ellie and manages to pull off believable mother as well as horrifying antagonist. Also great is Lily Sullivan’s Beth, forced to become a protector to her family when mama becomes something abominable. The unheard of likable teenagers and a delightfully odd pre-teen fill out the cast. There’s some unsettling visuals to go along with the intense gore and heavy physical trauma (I’m sure plenty of mental trauma too) that keeps the cringe-inducing violent heart of the series alive. If you can go in and quiet that nagging voice comparing everything to what came before, you can have yourself some fun… or you can keep your head firmly lodged up your own ass screaming about the good old days and complaining about creativity as you praise the Terrifier series. Up to you. We get some delightful nods to the inspiration and Bruce Campbell’s voice on the vinyl recording. A very good time that tends to lean a bit into simplicity but it’s no major hinderance. Extra points for giving a horrifically splendid tip of the cap to Doré’s Archane’s Punishment.
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
An animal rips apart a resident of a small rural town in Maine and it’s dismissed as a random bear attack but a freelance journalist on hard times thinks it may be something else. Well, his journalism sense is a-tingling after his conversation with the town sheriff raises some suspicions. Sniffing a story, Max ropes in his hesitant research partner and photographer, Harriet, and they begin to look into things. Odd tracks are found in the nearby woods along with a deep burrow and Max’s coroner ex tips him off that things are a little bizarre when it comes to the recovered corpse. More townsfolk meet savage ends and the mayor wants a tight lid kept on things… as is tradition. The coroner sends her report to a wildlife expert and when the signs point to the culprit being reptilian, the facts begin pointing to something of unknown origin and their small Maine town is now in the middle of the creature’s migration pattern. With what looks like an upcoming hibernation, the duo realize they’re working against the clock. Max and Harriet have an excellent chemistry adding a nice level of authenticity to the intriguing investigation and winds down with a nighttime hunting trip for the creature which will provide a few answers and a few more corpses. What a pleasant surprise. It plays out like one of those failed pilots that were released as TV movies during the 70s just with somewhat better monster effects and more violence. It takes its time at nearly two hours but mostly kept my attention thanks to characters that feel lived-in and enough of the small town atmosphere which I love in my monster movies.
