aka Uncle Ray’s Cabin
⭐️1/2
A group of bubbly sorority girls take a little vacation to a family cabin, bringing their boy-toys with ‘em. Unfortunately for our busty and lovely heroines, there’s a few wrenches thrown into the weekend that should be filled with fun, sun, sex and booze. One of those is a recently escaped convict hiding out in the area. The other problem (and a much bigger one to boot) is the company of one of the girls’ cabin-owner uncle. Annoying as the presence of an adult may be, worse is the Native American spirit that has possessed old Uncle Ray and the appetite for blood said spirit harbors. Why is Uncle Ray possessed? It’s a fair question, my inquisitive friend, but hardly important when it comes to a boob-filled horror flick but since you asked nicely, I’ll let you in on it. He’s been digging up ancient artifacts no matter how much local woodsman Tex (Uncle Leo himself Len Lesser) has warned against it. Geeky Sarah (she wears sweaters and has glasses… WHAT A NERD!) is tagging along and is obviously set up to be the hero of the thing… at least that would be the case if anyone actually gave a fuck about any of the characters. Uncle Ray turns into a rubbery monster that looks like it got cut from Spookies, Uncle Leo wanders around the property with a shotgun, boobs are in abundance and the manhunt is on. One helpful good samaritan rambles on about fish after coming to the rescue of Sarah and her friend when their car dies and a biker ex-boyfriend shows up. There’s a lot going on but it still feels like not much is happening. Sure there’s boobs and a little blood but there’s no heart. Throw in the acting prowess of sentient lumber for almost everyone involved and ya got a film better left to obscurity.
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
It all begins somewhere. Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man is my starting point. Rented from Palmer Video (long gone) by my mom and watched with wide-eyed wonder by a very young me, I would forever be a monster kid. The Universal horrors, TOHO's Godzilla series and any other monster film I could get my hands on soon littered the living room. I had found my first love and we'd have disagreements and even a few separations but monster movies were never far from my heart. This would lead to 80's slashers, Italian zombies and whatever the hell Hong Kong would dream up in the 70's and 80's. Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man was the first and has my eternal gratitude for warping my brain and beginning my obsession. Lawrence Talbot was a werewolf. He was killed by his father and has been dead for four years. Sadly, resting in peace is not in the cards for dear Larry. Two grave robbers make the mistake of doing what they do during a full moon. Not tipped off by the lack of decay on dear Mr. Talbot's corpse, one of the grave robbers starts rummaging for whatever goodies he can find. He ends up murdered by a now resurrected Wolf Man. He's a grave robber, so we're happy to see this shit stain cleaned off the earth's underpants. Talbot is found passed out in the streets of Cardiff with a skull fracture. The skull fracture given to him by his father with the help of a silver cane. He is brought to the hospital, and much to the surprise of his doctor, heals at a superhuman rate. Dr. Mannering treats Larry as if he is his only patient. All his time is spent figuring out why this man thinks he is a dead man and, more importantly, why this man thinks he is a werewolf. When Larry escapes, he follows him across Europe because that is how much Mannering cares for his patient. Talbot goes to visit the wise old gypsy from The Wolf Man to figure out a way for him to die and stay dead. She believes there is a Dr. Frankenstein that may be able to help him. Talbot's quest for eternal sleep leads him to a small village and more importantly to the icy grave of Frankenstein's monster. The creature is still alive and seems to be thankful for his rescue from a freezing cold oblivion. Instead of immediately strangling Larry, the creature attempts to help him find his dead creator's journal. Obviously, the brute with a damaged brain proves useless in this endeavor so Larry turns to the only surviving Frankenstein heir, his beautiful daughter. She arrives just in time for a village festival under the belief that Larry wishes to buy her family’s castle. He admits it was a lie to get her out there and starts fishing around for her papa's journal. She refuses but still attends the festival with the man who just lied to her. Mannering arrives in time for the festival and confronts Talbot but that is soon interrupted by the creature that I assume got lonely and wandered into town looking for his flabby new friend. The townspeople grow antsy and a little quick to thinking the only option is murder and Mannering becomes a little obsessed with Dr. Frankenstein's work. He convinces Baroness Frankenstein that he will destroy the creature and he also promises to help Talbot with his whole problem of living. He lands somewhere in between when he tries to feed more power into the creature and does shit-all for Talbot. It all leads to the far too brief showdown between the Wolf Man and Frankenstein's monster. Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man can do no wrong. Digging deeper into it you may find it to have quite the implausible script but what do I care? I just spent a year looking for an Indonesian movie where trees grow out of people in grisly detail. Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man is 71 minutes of pure fun. It's simple, it's got an awesome cast (Chaney JR! Lugosi! Atwill! Frye!) and I am completely biased towards it. Even if it could have used ten more minutes of monster on monster action. Enjoy
⭐️1/2
Paranormal investigators land their dream location and, to the surprise of no one, it turns into a clusterfuck. Although, “clusterfuck” is far too exciting a word for this particular brand of ass-numbing horror. The opening text tells us it’s based on actual events, the history behind the house is the usual local infamy and the shitty black and white footage sprinkled in the opening not only hurts the eyes but the brain. Wooden delivery from the NPIS team starts things off with a complete lack of urgency but I always find it pretty charming. I don’t know. I’m an idiot. A previous owner who sold the place before finishing his remodel warns the team to stay away before the video call cuts out and surveillance footage from the POV of the house (the local kids have a little bravery game where they knock on the front door and run) catches some spookiness. Rambling hijinks do not work to endear this trio of ghost hunters to the audience as they make their trip to the haunted house… they also add storm audio but do not have the budget to throw in any visual effects to actually (even half-assly) convince of bad weather. Probably spent their money of the digital flies which inhabit the house briefly. Awkward human interaction fills out the runtime (sometimes dragged out to ungodly length and featuring plenty of repetition) and the charisma void that is our team of investigators have this shit-film watcher begging for anything to happen to distract the brain. Turns out their doing their investigation on the anniversary of the tragic death of the house’s three inhabitants. A roofing accident led to the daughter’s untimely end (dads, please don’t let your children roof) and her father shot himself soon after. Mama found the bodies, went insane and then hung herself. That’s a whole lotta tragedy and now our trio of sentient lumber are right on time for some lethargically “intense” hauntings. Spider-crawling specters, evp “action”, night vision evidence, cold spot tomfoolery, expected knocking and anything else any ghost flick would need to make sure the filmmakers know that you know they have seen every other ghost flick ever made. All the boredom of an actual amateur ghost hunting trip is magnified by the unfortunate situation of trying to keep your eyes open surrounded by people you just don’t want to be around. It’s very cheap and it earns points in my book for doing what it can with neutered resources but there’s alot working against the good will I naturally dish out to these budget wonders. Minor fun shines in some spots (the climax is unintentionally hilarious) but there’s alot of awful overshadowing those limited rays of light. Somewhere within the sleep state between ignoring your doctor’s orders and crashing after a concussion and zoning out as a cousin you’ve never met goes on about a particularly boring sexual encounter with an imaginary friend, this paranormal investigation confidently shrugs and then craps its pants.
⭐️⭐️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.
