⭐️⭐️1/2
From the psychopath who “blessed” the world with Ogroff comes this butt-numbing slice of rambling insanity. Mustachioed mad scientist, Dr. Roll (Jean fuckin’ Rollin), performs brain surgery in his body-part-littered and boobytrapped lab/dungeon. He’s shot dead by some cops and his son is sent to live with his uncle (Rollin, again) in New York. That boy grows up to be Herbert East (ahem), a stocky and psychotic young man who works at his uncle’s mental clinic. He’s a sociopath following in the footsteps of his dead father, much to the chagrin of his financially floundering uncle. East is up to no good in the clinic’s basement, assisted by Karl, a hunchbacked imbecile. A presidential candidate suffers a heart attack during the cheapest debate you will ever see and Herbert snatches his brain from the morgue. He has a plan to transplant the politically savvy brain into the skull of a young millionaire’s son, creating the perfect candidate. His uncle wants in on the brain transplanting glory and has a bargaining chip in a special formula to prevent host rejections. Of course, things don’t go as planned and the cops are closing in. The dead come back, a cat is cut in two and banality intersperses with insanity like a dementia sufferer just watching the rain from a rest home window. There’s no-budget dismemberment, power tools used for surgery, buckets of gore, kickball decapitation, William Lustig suffering Maniac Cop nightmares, and the same banality that made Ogroff a trek to get through but also made you stand back and say “well, that was certainly different.”
⭐️⭐️1/2
That old mummy shambles again, this time under the control of John Carradine who has orders to collect the body of Ananka and return her and Kharis to Egypt. Unfortunately our white-bread hero is dating the reincarnation of the dead princess and Carradine takes a shine to the beautiful young woman. Plenty of mummy action serves to distract from the bad acting and boring characters. Carradine isn’t given much to do but he can mug with the best of them. There’s a dog named Penis (most likely Peanuts but I’ll be damned if it sounds like that) and a surprisingly downbeat ending. Ya could see the series was running out of steam.
⭐️⭐️
Fearing for her adopted daughter’s safety (she’s been having dangerous sleepwalking episodes) Rose decides to take her girl to the town she only mentions in her fugue state... a place called Silent Hill. Her husband Christopher (Sean f’n Bean) is not that keen on the idea but Rose goes on and does it anyways. She runs into a suspicious cop (Laurie Holden, rocking some hella-tight leather pants) who ends up following her and pulling her over. Not one to be deterred, Rose hits the gas and zooms her way to the abandoned ghost town. Barely avoiding a collision with some wandering creep, Rose loses control of her car and knocks her dumb self out on her steering wheel. She wakes up to find her daughter missing and herself trapped in the creep-ass town of Silent Hill where ash falls like snow and some very unsettling beings call home. Sean Bean searches for his family with detective Kim Coates as it looks like his wife and daughter have vanished off the face of the earth. Meanwhile, Rose stumbles across various awful things and is pursued by a sect of religious nuts who have somehow managed to survive the horrific hell on earth Silent Hill briefly becomes when the sirens wail. Of course, there’s some awful secrets at work and more than a few unhappy endings playing out. There’s an excellent soundtrack, a lack of logic fueling the nightmare scenario and a giant sword-wielding freak called Pyramid Head. Atmospheric and severely flawed, there’s a good... even great film in here somewhere. Unfortunately, outside of the atmospherics and some cool creatures, there ain’t much else to bring on the recommendations.
aka Monster Shark Attack aka Double Head Jaws
⭐️⭐️⭐️
A semester at sea for a bunch of college jackasses goes sideways when a hull breach forces them to explore an atoll while their ship is repaired. The professor and his gaggle of idiots wander around while his wife, Carmen Electra (classin’ the joint up), sunbathes. Worse than their ship taking on water, is the giant two-headed shark circling the island, chowing down on the dinks whenever it gets the chance. Of course, the atoll is sinking, so time becomes pretty damn important. Brooke Hogan is way more likable than I thought she’d be as the only collegiate given any substance (however minimal that might be) and we get one memorable asshole character. The usual lower end of the spectrum cgi and immobile giant shark heads that the victims have to throw themselves at like Bela Lugosi scuffling with a giant cephalopod get plenty of screen time. Digital blood flies, rubbery body parts float and ya have to resist the urge to get up and slap the hell out of a majority of the goobers on your TV... but most of them get eaten, so I’ll throw that in the “win” category.
⭐️⭐️1/2
Another dumbass wanders alone in an infamous haunted house and, just like every other dumbass before him, finds nothing but trouble. This time the man is Australian so we get to hear "Who's there?" in an Aussie accent. Author Phillip Muirhouse decides to release a DVD of a paranormal investigation at the Monte Cristo to coincide with his new book. The house has a terrifying history and Phillip has to wait around by himself for his crew. He decides to do some investigating and comes face to face with the evil presence on the estate. There are some genuine chills provided and the found footage style is pulled off perfectly fine. You've seen the same thing played out before but, all kidding aside, it's not the worst the subgenre has to offer.
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Enjoyable Italian chiller takes place near the end of the 15th century and opens with the burning of a wrongly accused woman for witchcraft and the death of Count Humboldt’s brother, Franz. Before the flames engulf her she swears that the count and his son will die before the next century hits and the feudal village shall know the horrors of the plague. The woman’s eldest daughter Helen (Barbara Steele) comes to Count Humboldt claiming to have evidence of her mother’s innocence but it does little good as the count molests her while her mother burns. She threatens to tell of his adultery and ends up thrown to her death in a nearby waterfall. The youngest daughter, Lisabeth, is raised within the grounds of the castle and when she comes of age she gains the unwanted attentions of the Count’s vile son Kurt. Not only is he a piece of shit who uses his powers to get what he wants, he is also responsible for the murder of Franz and therefore the execution of the innocent woman. As the surrounding village succumbs to the horrors of the plague, a grave containing the ashes of Lisabeth’s mother is struck by lightning and a skeletal corpse regains flesh and movement. Soon after, the mysterious Mary (Barbara Steele again) arrives at the Humboldt home and the royal family is royally fucked. Cobweb-strewn crypts, plenty of skeletons, secret passages and candle-lit wanderings are the name of the game as vengeance is mete out in a needlessly complicated fashion. There is a slight drag but it all ends ever so deliciously with that scumbag Kurt burnt alive in a giant effigy of death.
aka Clouds
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Extra sleazy Filipino horror film fixates on sex until its violent and downbeat climax. Jake, a recovering drug addict and screenwriter, journeys with his filmmaking friends for some location scouting. Looking to rest after a long day of traveling, the group rent an old house from a grieving father who recently lost his daughter to a murderous trio of rape-happy tourists. The dead girl’s angry and horny ghost begins to slowly possess the film crew leading to a bit of sex and ghostly shenanigans. The father knows what is going on and attempts to quell his daughter’s path of vengeance, especially on the innocent youngsters renting his house. On top of possessing, the spirit can also resurrect her own body (which her Dad keeps propped up in her locked bedroom) and uses it to seduce the mentally fragile Jake. This leads to a MacGruber-like sex scene where Jake’s sneaky friends film him getting down with the lovely young lady but when they play it back it’s just footage of the bare-ass young man humping empty space. Thoroughly bizarre from its schizophrenic beginning to its “it was all a dream... or was it?!?” ending, Alapaap is well worth the hunt. There may be better films where a woman burns half her face off with a hairdryer but I doubt those films also contain a dog molesting and then murdering a young woman.
