Diary Of A Genre Addict

THE MOUNTAIN OF THE CANNIBAL GOD (1978)

2012-05-26T15:25:00.000-07:00

Before Cannibal Holocaust and Cannibal Ferox made all of the dull people angry, and after Deep River Savages got the ball rolling, there came this interesting little movie from director Sergio Martino. It differs from the rest of the flock of Cannibal movies in one major way – it has two actual movie stars in the lead roles.

Unlike the other, more notorious cannibal movies from that era, which featured largely unknown or cult cast members, this one had the talents of Ursula Andress and Stacy Keach top-lining a film in which a band of people searching for a missing man fall foul of jungle natives. There's no documentary being made and no film crew following them, so it plays much more as a straightforward movie drama for the most part, which helps it move along at a steady pace.

However, the abhorrent animal cruelty scenes and the really quite startling gore scenes (when they finally arrive) that feature in the film got the title listed as a Video Nasty. Viewing it uncut now, it still shocks where it always did, but if you take away the real animal shots and leave in the dramatised violence, it becomes one of the most competent and enjoyable of all of the slew of Italian cannibal movies which were made around the same time.

Of course, it features all of the cliches that come with the sub-genre, but they seem slightly less hokey here, thanks to Andress and Keach both playing it straight and not hamming up their roles in a 'hey, we're in some trash!' way.

The film does feature one particularly notorious scene which doesn't involve masses of gore – the scene in which natives strip Ursula Andress naked and gratuitously smear her in paint.

It's scenes like that and the casual stereotypes put forward in the portrayal of innocent natives (and indeed the brutal cannibals) which give the film the seedy air of the exploitation era, but The Mountain Of The Cannibal God plays much more like an action-adventure film than the relentless gross-out films of Ruggero Deodato and Umberto Lenzi.

It's not an all-encompassing genre classic, but it is a better made, better written and better directed effort than the titles which got most of the hype.

DOKKEN: “DREAM WARRIORS”

2012-05-24T14:24:00.001-07:00

This song and music video is the ultimate nexus of the things that I love. It is the meeting point where horror and hard rock/metal worked its way into my soul and took up permanent residence. The song appeared on the soundtrack to A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS, one of the greatest horror movies of the 1980s and definitely the greatest of all of the Elm Street movies.

It also appeared on the Dokken album “Back For The Attack” in a reworked form, but it's this version from the movie soundtrack which I love the most. Everything about it just oozes the era, from the song and production to the band themselves and the movie clips.

So here it is, folks, three and a half minutes which changed my life forever. Hell, the solo by George Lynch in this track is one of the early moments which got me into playing guitar two decades ago. Of course, when this originally came out in 1987 I was far too young to know what it was or have even heard of the band or the film, but when I discovered horror and metal in 1990, I was old enough and impressionable enough to be drawn in and enslaved by the dual majesties of rock and horror.

It's been a hell of a ride ever since, and I'll never change as long as I live. This is what made me the genre addict I am. This film. This song. This video. So there.

JASON X (2001)

2012-05-20T15:37:00.000-07:00

Just when you thought the Friday The 13th franchise couldn't get any more silly, there came this tenth entry in the series. I loved it. It's cheesy, camp, noisy and nonsensical, but it does something which was sorely needed at the time – a different direction for Jason Voorhees and his merry mayhem.

He's not in Camp Crystal Lake this time around, or indeed on earth – he's in space, hundreds of years in the future, and when he is awakened from cryogenic suspension (along with the woman who put him there, played by Andromeda's Lexa Doig), he contineus where he left off – butchering people left, right and centre.

It's a fun film and no mistake, but it feels noting like the previous entries in the series and more like a TV movie (the fact that it also features another Andromeda cast member, Lisa Ryder, gives it the feel of a sci-fi TV series two-parter). That may be something to do with the production values and effects style of the era in which the film was made, as the start of the 2000s was all about slick, bright effect and shiny sets, wasn't it?

The effects and production both look very dated now, but it adds to the charm of the film. Less of a horror movie and more an action/sci-fi movie with some horror elements, Jason X is certainly the most fun Friday The 13th film since, hmm, maybe part 6. How can anyone not enjoy the sight of Jason going up against a cartoonish lady robot, or the sight of the upgraded 'Uber Jason' causing carnage? It's a much less bloody and less serious movie than all of the nine that came before it, and while it's also the least filmic of the lot, it's one of the most entertaining by a very long way.

Like some very colourful comic book clashing with a video game and some Jason fanfic, Jason X is just simple popcorn fun, and should not be taken seriously at all. I don't even really see the film as canon in the Friday the 13th series (hell, none of the sequels really are canon, are they? Jason wasn't even real in the first movie), more as a fun aside to the series it is based on.

Kane Hodder puts in a great performance as Jason and Uber Jason, but the rest of the cast other than the always excellent Lexa Doig seem to struggle a bit with the tone of the script, unsure whether to play it straight or for laughs. Uneven and ridiculous it may be, but Jason X is well worth revisiting, and it's a damn sight better than the bloody remake of the first film. Mind you, that wouldn't be difficult, really.

SHOCK 'EM DEAD (1990)

2012-05-16T09:02:00.001-07:00

A low budget comedy-horror b-movie featuring shred guitar legend Michael Angelo Batio, cult actress/pin-up Traci Lords and lots of visual cheese? Why the hell haven't I seen this years ago? The VHS group I'm part of talked about this film recently and I was foaming at the mouth instantly.

I needed it in my life. There was the promise of shred guitar, bad acting, demons, cheap laughs and Traci Lords doing her best with a lousy script. I was sold. Ebay was visited, and an ex-rental big-box VHS was purchased. Unfortunately, the tape sat on my shelves for weeks due to a very busy period (having a baby kinda eats time a bit...), and I was left gazing longingly at the spine of the box with no idea when I'd get to fire it up.

Thankfully, my lady and our baby are asleep right now so I've taken the opportunity. I'm glad I did, as this is an absolute treasure of trash cinema, and I'm loving every second. It's about as cheap and tacky as it gets. Visually it looks like it was shot by the people who made Saved By The Bell and California Dreams, while the script plays like the fevered rantings of a randy 14 year old with dreams of rock stardom and consorting with demons.

Stephen Quadros plays Martin, a hopeless geek with dreams of being a rock star. After being humiliated at work, he auditions for a band and is tossed aside for having no talent. Thus, naturally, he meets a Voodoo priestess and makes a pact with her to become the greatest rock star ever. He is transformed into the enigmatic guitar god Angel Martin (looking very much like W.A.S.P. mailman Blackie Lawless), but at a price – he must kill and feed on human souls to stay alive.

In his new life as Angel, he is given a mansion, a squad of scantily clad ladies who are all in cahoots with the demons, massive hair and serious guitar skills (played in closeup by the aforementioned Michael Angelo Batio, who also plays the double guitar-wielding demon).

It's about as scary as a particularly tame Point Horror novel, thanks to cheap glowing green eye effects and some gloopy vomit being just about the only concessions to the horror genre.

With plot holes galore, a budget which would just about buy a Happy Meal, Traci Lords playing it straight as the character of Lindsay and the rest of the cast hamming it up beyond belief, Shock 'Em Dead is a great example of a film which doesn't take itself too seriously, which is good, as it's impossible to take any part of this thing seriously at all.

Still, I have to say it's thoroughly entertaining, and that's good enough for me. Incidentally, I love the fact that Michael Angelo Batio still has the famous guitar he used in the film, amidst his collection of several other double guitars. My hero.

ALICE COOPER: "He's Back (The Man Behind The Mask)"

2012-05-11T16:42:00.000-07:00

Taken from the soundtrack to the delicious cheese-fest that is FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI: JASON LIVES (1986), this is a great example of 80s rock and 80s horror going hand in hand like some kitsch couple in the throes of passion. It's softer than a lot of Alice Cooper's stuff, but it packs a great chorus and is stuffed with movie references. A fun track from a fun, if daft, entry in one of the greatest horror franchises ever.

THE AVENGERS (aka AVENGERS ASSEMBLE and MARVEL AVENGERS ASSEMBLE – 2012)

2012-05-09T14:27:00.002-07:00

Iron Man. The Incredible Hulk. Iron Man 2. Thor. Captain America: The First Avenger. All of the Marvel Studios movies thus far have been working towards this point. The point where earth's Mightiest Heroes finally assemble in order to protect humanity from an intergalactic menace. Has the wait been worth it? Has the build-up of several years resulted in a let-down of a movie or the payoff we have all been salivating for?

Definitely the latter.

Ladies and gents, The Avengers (or 'Avengers Assemble' as it was pointlessly renamed over here), is far and away the greatest superhero movie of the modern age. You can take your gritty, bleak Batman movies and shove them, thank you very much. This is the most successful adaptation of a comics property yet, and it makes for one hell of an entertaining movie.

Absolutely stuffed with big set pieces, cartoonish action and witty dialogue, the film also succeeds in fleshing out the characters and continuing their stories from their respective films very well indeed. It's exciting, funny, loud and moving, and in all honesty it is very nearly perfect.

Director/Writer Joss Whedon has perfectly captured the essence of Marvel Comics with this film. It has the humour, the wit and the scale of the classics as well as the modern age of comics storytelling, while never feeling overly cheesy or camp. The script manages to tie together all of the Marvel Studios movies so far, whilst still dripping with all of the wit and style audiences have come to expect from Whedon's dialogue.

I was impressed with the way in which magical/alien elements have been introduced into the Marvel film universe via the Thor movie and this one, as it feels very much like a natural progression rather than jarring. The main cast have all played these parts before, and do so again here with gusto, but new characters such as Agent Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) also have a great presence throughout the film.

Most of the big players get ample screen time, but due to pacing issues some of Captain America's own scenes were trimmed, resulting in the continuation of his story being a little less brilliant than it could have been (I'm looking forward to the DVD extras, including the scene in which Cap meets up with his sweetheart after 70 years apart). That's a small issue with what is one of the most satisfying, exciting and entertaining big-scale movies to have been made since, well, the Marvel movies which preceded it.

Of course, the star of the whole show has to be Robert Downey Jr's portrayal of billionaire genius and armour-clad superhero Tony Stark/Iron Man. He delivers once again with all of the humour and wit you could want from the character, but also adds some spectacular performances when the character is humbled, or enraged. Thor is something of a centrepiece to the whole film, considering the villain is his brother, and Chris Hemsworth seems even more at ease with the part this time round than he did with his solo film.

The fleshing out of the Black Widow character is another high point, with Scarlett Johansson being given far better material to work with than her scenes in Iron Man 2. Hawkeye, the newcomer to the Marvel movie universe (aside from the glimpses in the Thor film) is a great asset to the team, as well as Jeremy Renner giving him a very human feel, despite his skills. Samual L. Jackson is once again wonderful as S.H.I.E.L.D director Nick Fury, and his understated delivery just adds further weight to a role which in lesser hands would have fallen apart.

Mark Ruffalo needs special mention for his damaged, nervy portrayal of Bruce Banner, aka the Hulk, as he is far and away the finest actor to have brought the character to life onscreen. You genuinely feel for the guy and his struggles with 'The Other Guy'. When he does Hulk Out, we are treated to the best Hulk ever created, looking very much like the comics version of the big green brute while clearly having its facial features based on Mark's. Hulk steals every scene he's in, especially one particular moment while stood beside Thor (watch it - you'll know it when you see it), which is absolutely spot on for the character and the Marvel sense of humour.

The build up is beautifully handled, the gathering of the Avengers and their various inner turmoils is handled extremely well, and makes for an immensely rewarding rush when they do finally assemble. The climactic battle through the streets of New York between the assembled Avengers, Loki and his Chitauri minions genuinely redefines how action sequences should be constructed for films like this, and of course, there is an extra payoff for the comic geeks during the end credits, when it is revealed who was behind Loki's army all along, and who the Avengers will have to face further down the line.

While some fans would have liked to have seen Spider-Man and Wolverine (and any number of other characters) as part of the team, this gathering of Captain America, Thor, the Hulk, Iron Man, Black Widow and Hawkeye is very, very close to the perfect superhero movie.

TRAILER TREASURES: THE FLY II (1989)

2012-05-05T12:06:00.001-07:00

The sequel to David Cronenberg's 1986 movie version of THE FLY has been widely derided since its release thanks to accusations that it's just a gorier version of the fist film. This is somewhat unfair, but still, the film is nowhere near as wonderful as its predecessor.

However, its trailer is note-perfect. It builds suspense and tension in those opening moments, and then delivers the goods with glimpses of the film which are just enough to get you interested, while not giving the whole thing away.

It's a trailer I have a great fondness for, especially when it hits that famous music cue at the end of the trailer. An excellent trailer for a somewhat lacking film? That's how Hollywood was built, people!

VAMP - Main theme

2012-05-03T14:07:00.001-07:00

This is one of the best pieces of music ever to be used in any 80s horror movie. VAMP is an excellent piece of 80s horror comedy trash, and an early favourite of mine as a genre addict. This tune is performed by the film's star, the cult pop icon Grace Jones, and it's rare as Hell. I picked the film up for a third time this week, so expect a review. Until then, let this stirring tune wash over you. Fans of the film find it impossible not to feel chills at that ghostly main refrain...

METALSTORM: THE DESTRUCTION OF JARED-SYN (1983)

2012-05-01T13:35:00.000-07:00

What the Hell did I just watch? What happened in the 80 minutes which followed some awesome trailers? I saw the trailer for this insane sci-fi flick on YouTube recently and found a dirt-cheap big-box VHS of it on eBay as my interest had been piqued. Well, what can I say about this film? It was worth the price I paid, I can tell you. Hell, I'd have happily paid more to watch this demented, nonsensical, hilarious and silly film. It's so bad that it may very well be amazing.

The plot is so very incoherent that I don't actually think I can do it justice here. Let's see. The film is set in what looks like a post-apocalyptic Earth, which is apparently called Lemuria, and is pretty much the setting of every sub-Mad Max movie ever (mental note- I need to track down another copy of Warrior Of The Lost World sometime). After a girl named Dhyanna sees her father murdered by Generic Sci-Fi bad guy Jared-Syn, a 'Ranger' named Dogen (basically a cross between Han Slo and Mad Max) joins forces with her in order to end the tyrannical villain's reign of terror over the arid wasteland he seems to rule.

Along the way they must face off against the assassin Baal, a half-robotic creature with a mechanical arm which shoots some form of acid (which then causes people to have mad, hallucinogenic experiences before they die), Cyclopeans (typical post-apocalyptic scavenger badass types, but with mutilated faces resulting in them only having one eye each) and assorted ripoffs from Star Wars, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon and numerous other properties.

The film was released in cinemas in 3D as part of the short-lived 1980s 3D revival, and I can only imagine how ridiculous it looked in 3D, as it looks cheap and demented in 2D alone. The bad guy Jared-Syn is collecting magical crystals (of course, why wouldn't he?), seemingly for the sole purpose of setting up the 'climactic' battle, but by the time that scene arrived, I had lost any sense of what was going on and was just letting the film wash over me.

It's a PG rated film, but the level of violence made me check the box a couple of times. A close up of a gory head wound at one point was quite a surprise for a PG movie, but after twenty minutes of this film, anything is possible. Scenes play seemingly at random after about the first ten minutes, breaking off into other scenes at odd points and back again. Everything is covered in fake smoke. Fight scenes erupt out of nowhere and last ages, and when the atrociously superimposed airborne battle hits you, there is nothing left to do but laugh while quaking with terror at your mind being unravelled by what's going on before you onscreen.

Like a loose mix of Krull and Mad Max, with a hndredth of the budget and none of the compelling bits, Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn is an absolute car-crash of a movie. It's awful in every possible way, but it's bloody hard to look away from it. One to watch when drunk or suffering from sleep deprivation. Just don't try to make any sense out of it, or you'll end up naked and crying while dousing yourself with cold baked beans.

I DEMAND SPACESHIPS

2012-04-27T13:42:00.002-07:00

Give me spaceships, cheap costumes and convoluted intrigue. Right now. I don't want gritty realism or perfect special effects, or a cast of great actors. I want loud, silly space adventures filled with cheap alien costumes, characters painted different colours, plots that sound like playtime games and big, stirring theme tunes.

I have been craving old-fashioned sci-fi shows of late, and have thus been stocking up and revisiting things like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Babylon 5, Farscape, LEXX and... Andromeda. Yes, I admit it, I liked Andromeda. Even the first season, with bloody Rev Bem in it.

Shows featuring Kevin Sorbo delivering 'witty' one-liners aside, I have really been craving some spaceship action this week, and as such have been revisiting all of these televisual treats and more. It seems that the age of space-based drama is finally dead, and I miss it. For years on end I was an addict of anything set in space, be it on a ship, a colony or a station. I couldn't get enough of that stuff, and even sat through the bad years of Star Trek: Voyager and Enterprise to get my fix.

Babylon 5 is a particular love of mine I have been revisiting, and despite the clearly dated effects and sets, it holds up very well as a story, and once you are immersed in that world again, it's absolutely wonderful. It has its detractors, but I am most certainly not one of them. Then there was Crusade, the Babylon 5 spinoff which lasted a mere 13 episodes but was wonderful (despite the TERRIBLE music used throughout each episode). Hell, I even enjoyed The Legend Of The Rangers. The Lost Tales was fun to watch, but need more oomph, really. More B5 please!

LEXX was a guilty pleasure, too. That show was insane, and not always in a good way, but lead characters Xev and Stanley Tweedle were delightfully different to the usual good guys on our screens.

However, it was Farscape which really got it right for me. The mix of characters, the mix of computer-generated effects and Jim Henson Workshop practical puppets and effects, a multi-layered story which was at once high-concept and easy to understand, a superb cast and a very different production style (it being a joint Australian/Canadian production, if I remember rightly) all added up to a beautiful science fiction franchise which was ended before its time with the lacklustre finale to series four.

Of course, there was sufficient demand for the show to get a proper ending, and as such the miniseries Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars was produced, and ended the Farscape story properly. The only other example of a series coming to such a stylish end is, of course, Joss Whedon's Firefly.

Again, there was a show with a great cast, a great production style and some superb stories, which was cancelled way before its time. In Firefly's case, it only lasted one season, which was criminal. The movie Serenity eventually saw light of day, and capped off the series with a feature film which was both a satisfying climax for the legions of TV show fans and also a fine science fiction adventure movie in its own right. In fact, I saw Serenity before I saw Firefly, and was blown away by the character interplay and the background to the whole mythos.

Stuff with spaceships in it makes me happy, and, dear world, you don't need something to be gritty in order for it to be entertaining. You just need spaceships. And more spaceships.

TRAILER TREASURES: SCANNERS (1981)

2012-04-26T11:09:00.002-07:00

One of my all-time favourite films, Scanners is a beautifully handled mix of science fiction, horror and thriller which still grips me completely. It's dark, bleak and nasty, but utterly compelling from start to finish.

This trailer does what it news to very well, and yes, it features THAT famous shot (or at least part of it). Scanners remains a powerful piece of genre cinema, and its power hasn't been diminished by the awful sequels which followed it. Perfect.

TRAILER TREASURES: TERRORVISION (1986)

2012-04-26T05:29:00.000-07:00

Here's a film I'd love to track down on VHS, if only I could find a copy with wasn't ludicrous expensive. Terror Vision is one of the films I remember seeing on the racks in video shops when I was far too young to rent anything other than cartoons, and I've wanted to see it ever since.

The trailer for it really wasn't what I expected the film to be when I used to glimpse its eerie cover back in the day, but to be honest it looks even more fun. A massive rubber alien who only befriends metalheads? That's about as cool as it gets. The film looks ridiculously fun, in that special way that only tongue-in-cheek 80s horror can really get right. Enjoy!

DOA: DEAD OR ALIVE (2006)

2012-04-20T16:29:00.002-07:00

This film is either a work of unremitting genius or a piece of utter, lowest-common-denominator trash. Possibly both. Based on the 'classic' beat-em-up video game with all the class of a damp wino, the big, glossy movie version is extremely well choreographed, but as a film it absolutely stinks. A bunch of colourful and suitably oddball badasses (mainly pretty girls) are invited to go to DOA island and partake in the ultimate fighting championship – DOA: Dead or Alive. Of course, there is a darker plot at work, too.

Attempting to cram a bunch of character back-stories and sub-plots into one narrative turns the whole thing into a mess, and that's before you consider the dialogue or the acting. Jaime Pressley is the most convincing cast member, thanks to her dry Southern drawl giving her lines some much-needed humour and dryness. The rest of the cast, including Devon Aoki, Holly Valance and Eric Roberts, struggle to keep a straight face while delivering painfully embarrassing lines.

In development, it probably sounded like the greatest movie ever to be made, but the finished product is too slick, too cartoony and too, well, crap to be any use. It has long since been very popular with teenage boys, which is understandable considering both the imbecilic plot and the amount of female flesh on show. It's like a cross between the Charlie's Angels movies and a sugar overdose.

I do like some nice touches in the film, like the use of actual energy-level bars straight out of the games, and the visual nods to the source material. There are some spectacular action sequences and visual effects, but absolutely nothing in the film holds together. An absolute and total mess of a film, awful on every level but the wholly visual, and yet it manages to be ridiculously entertaining as well as just ridiculous.

SPECTERS (1987)

2012-03-24T16:27:00.003-07:00

Donald Pleasance had a wonderful knack of being able to make any old crap he was in seem far better than it was, and Specters is no exception. I found the film at one of my regular haunts (which is soon to be no more, which breaks my heart) in a very cool slipcase cover which echoes the covers to Bava's DEMONS and DEMONS 2, but that may just be the font used on the cover more than anything else.

During excavations in an unnamed place (looks like Rome to me), archaeologists (including Pleasance) accidentally open the gates of Hell, releasing an evil force upon the world. Well, they do eventually, as much of the film feels like a steady build-up rather than a fleshed-out story.

On the upside, there are absolutely bags of atmosphere to this thing, helped along by some clever sound design and an ominous score. The story does feel a tad incoherent (not helped much by most of the cast clearly having been dubbed over to hide the fact most of them were Italian), but it is far from a bad movie. It's a bit disjointed, yes, but on the whole it is a pleasingly old-school scare story which is light on gore and actual visceral horror, but heavy on sinister ambience.

Atmosphere alone doesn't make up for a lack of a story, but there's something about Specters I really enjoyed, even when the catacombs in which much of the action takes place are seemingly overrun with tour groups, explorers and more, all at the same time, just in time for weird shit to happen.

The edit on this copy is weird - there are a couple of scenes which literally cut out, sipping the end of lines of dialogue completely. The thing is, it doesn't appear to have been trimmed due to any issues of content - the scenes are two-headers with nothing sinister or questionable going on, so it just comes across as a drunk editor. In fact, a drunk editor may be the reason the film feels so fragmented. Still, it's worth watching if you're inclined towards oddly unnerving 80s horror. Specters isn't awful, but it's probably one for the completists.

SPACE MARINES (1997)

2012-03-13T15:47:00.004-07:00

The company name Green Communications and the name Talaat Captain made me very happy at the start of this film, as they were involved with a bunch of Straight To Video gems from the mid 1990s which made up a large portion of my regular rental viewing. This film is no different to those other 90s SF action flicks aside from having a far larger scale to it, which is handled with gusto, albeit with less than spectacular results.

With effects straight out of the Babylon 5 school of Making The Best Out Of Limited Resources (and even stealing things outright – there's a B5 jump gate in the first five minutes!), characters stolen outright from Aliens, a soundtrack ripped off from Starship Troopers, and villains out of some forgotten 80s cartoon, it's hard to take seriously, but if you have a taste for the ridiculous and can enjoy a film even when it's atrocious, you'll love it.

Of course, many will be confused by the title, as it's not about the iconic Space Marines of the Warhammer universe, but rather a bunch of generic marines in a generic future setting going through a generic story about a bunch of badasses fighting other badasses in order to save a dignitary and take back a cargo ship stuffed with a valuable ore. The space battles and human action scenes are straight out of everyone's boyhood dreams, which is where they should really have stayed. Space Marines is big, dumb fun with a tiny budget, and if you're in the mood, it's awesome. If not, then it's hilarious. Either way, everyone's a winner.

CATCHING UP: MAUSOLEUM / THE HIDDEN / XTRO / TENNIS COURT / NINJA DRAGON

2012-03-10T15:48:00.001-08:00

Hey folks. I hate it that I've not been able to post much of late, due to moving house and imminent fatherhood. Thus here is the first of a few catch-up posts featuring the sights and sounds that have been feeding my addiction recently.

MAUSOLEUM (1983)

I picked this up cheap on vintage big-box VHS as the cover art had always seemed amazing. The film itself is good, but it's such a schizophrenic movie that after a while it's kinda hard to follow. Switching back and forth between twisted psychodrama and demonic possession horror tropes, the film has a very weird atmosphere, but ends up being rather compelling viewing.

Starring Bobbie Bresee in the lead role of Susan, a lady who made a pact with a demon in a mausoleum as a child after the death of her mother, the film has some superb scares, but they are mixed in with some cringeworthy elements which are very much of their time (green and pink lighting inside the titular Mausoleum, for example) and some unintentionally hilarious aspects too (Check out the expressions on the odd-jobs/gardening guy).

Mausoleum really does seem to be a film with a split personality, and the irony of it actually being about a split personality/demonic possession actually works in its favour. A jarring but entertaining bit of horror trash, and a great one for fans of films with girls with glowing green eyes. Oh come on, there have to be fans of that. Rule 34, and all that stuff.

THE HIDDEN (1987)

It's been years since I saw this genuine genre classic, and recently found the original rental release at a bargain price at a new location I've found which is feeding my need for vintage horror and sci-fi tapes (and no, I won't tell you where it is – these things are MINE- BWAHAHAHAAAA!). The trailer for The Hidden was on a load of films I watched back in the days of my original video rental addiction, and it was also one of the few films which actually lived up to the promise of its trailer.

Of course, the highlight for many a nerd like me is the gloriously tongue-in-cheek performance from Claudia Christian (aka Susan Ivanova in the Babylon 5 franchise) as a gun-toting, alien-entity-possessed stripper. I mean, stuff like that was written directly or the teenaged loser I was at the time I first saw it, and I lapped it up eagerly.

The film follows Kyle McLachlan as an oddball agent working alongside the police to crack a series of weird murders. Of course, he's - SPOILER ALERT- from space and the murders are being committed by a slimy cock/lobster type thing which inhabits peoples' bodies and turns them into psychopaths, so it's far from your run of the mill cop movie. The Hidden is very-well executed, very well paced, and delivers on every level.

XTRO (1983)

Another film I haven't seen in years, the original XTRO is a far better film than the two shoddy sequels that eventually followed it. The sequels were pretty average rampaging alien movies, but this first film was absolutely bloody mental in places.

The tape I watched of this recently was a completely uncut pre-cert release from the original release, and I must say it very nearly kept me awake that night thanks to the infamous 'women giving birth to a grown man' scene, or the demented scenes of the clown-faced dwarf dancing for the lead character which went on to become a scene involving a life-sized toy soldier gunning someone down with horrifically jerky and realistic movements.

The story may sound pretty standard at first – alien being crash lands on Earth and soon starts to do away with people in a variety of ways, but the way the film is put together is utterly nightmarish and completely unforgettable. Aside from some dodgy performances and a very limited budget, the first XTRO movie is a gem of that era of genre cinema, and a much-loved mainstay of the video rental days. Despite its effect on me that night, I'm really glad to have been able to see a pre-cert copy of it in such good condition.

TENNIS COURT (1984)

Okay, this was a random find. I'd just had on an episode of Tales of the Unexpected on YouTube as I'm currently reading a collection of Roald Dahl's short stories which the series was based on, and came across this rather surprisingly engaging feature-length yarn from the eighties under the banner of HAMMER HOUSE OF MYSTERY AND SUSPENSE.

“TENNIS COURT” is a nicely chilling little story about a tennis court (duh...) which is 'haunted' by a malevolent entity. When a couple arrives at the house where the spooky indoor tennis court is after inheriting it, strange occurences start to come about, and gradually become more extreme until people are dying. Involving a spooky psychic phenomena concept, exorcism, flashbacks to the second world war and British treasure Hannah Gordon being quite marvellous, I was swept away by it and despite its weird premise really enjoyed the film.

It was the final episode of a thirteen-episode series of films, and makes me want to track down the rest of them. If you want to see it for yourself, then the whole thing is available to view n one video on Youtube at the time of writing. It's a great piece of writng and a fine piece of genre television which does come across as a feature film thanks to some clever direction and some sumptuous cinematography. Here's the full film – enjoy!

NINJA DRAGON (1986)

I have a soft spot for the eighties Ninja movies featuring Richard Harrison as an inexplicably Caucasian middle-aged man who is also a master ninja warrior. If you don't know what I'm talking about, these films were legion (I think Richard was in NINETEEN of them), and the work of a certain Joseph Lai and his IFD Arts company.

Basically Lai and cohorts like Goddfrey Ho would buy up failed and unreleased Hong Kong action and crime movies and splice them with new footage of guys in outlandish ninja costumes having epic (and physically impossible) battles whilst acting out a secondary storyline which was vaguely linked to what was going on in the recycled film footage. They were terrible in every possible way, but loved them dearly. I have always loved the audacity of these films. The sheer nerve of the people that put them out is astounding.

Anyway, I picked up a 2 disc set featuring four of these lousy films as I wanted a trip down memory lane, and I wasn't disappointed. No matter which of the four I had put on first, it would have basically been the same film. NINJA DRAGON's vague and half-arsed plot (created solely for the dubbed film that the end product would become) concerns two rival gangs of badass crime types (i.e. each is wearing a Trilby and sneering lots) battling for supremacy over some territory.

The Ninja story nailed on top of the original film attempts to weave some brightly-coloured ninjas having insane fights into what is basically a crime drama, with hilarious results (seriously – listen to some of the voices dubbed over the Chinese actors and tell me they weren't drunk off their tits and laughing the whole time in the studio). The recycled movie makes little sense, but mixed with scenes of what look like middle-aged Power Rangers, it all takes on a demented, dreamlike quality which feel like having your brain flushed out with cherryade. I NEED MORE.

Hmm. I really want a VHS copy of NINJA HUNT, my first ninja film experience from being 14 or so. That was crap too, but just as much stupid fun.

Want to watch NINJA DRAGON? Here you go:

TRANCERS (1985)

2012-02-25T15:57:00.001-08:00

Eighties sci-fi b-movies, when done with gusto and tongues wedged in cheeks, were a thing of beauty. TRANCERS is one of the finest examples of the genre from that era, and while it's cheesy, ridiculous and at times nonsensical, it's also a great piece of trash cinema which has a hell of a lot of fans out there. There's time travel, shoulder pads, Tim Thomerson as the iconic Jack Deth, Helen Hunt in her pre-serious movies days, a stretched budget and even more stretched suspension of disbelief. It's awesome.

Mixing elements of Blade Runner and cyberpunk with time travel (in a manner that really reminds me of Quantum Leap, even though that came later), Trancers tells the story of Jack Deth (Thomerson), a future cop who is hurled back in time (to inhabit a body which looks just like his own) to track down and destroy a criminal mastermind called Whistler, who is able to transform people into zombie-like killing machines known as Trancers by means of weird hypnotic powers.

Deth follows Whistler to 1985, where the villain is tracking down the ancestors of a future council in order to kill them and have the future for himself. Deth leads us (and Helen Hunt's character of Leena) on a thrilling cat-and-mouse chase of an action movie as he faces off against foam-spitting Trancers galore in his quest to overcome Whistler.

The thing that holds the whole bundle of nonsensical chaos together is Thomerson's performance as the wisecracking, ass kicking future lawman Jack Deth, who gets all of the best lines and all of the best scenes. It's a role that should have made him far more famous than it did, but hey, this is a Charles Band movie and we couldn't really hope for more.

Speaking of which, Band's direction is actually excellent throughout the film, taking a limited budget and running with it as best he could. In fact, it feels like a much larger scale film than it is for much of its running time, thanks to some clever use of music, lighting and sound effects.

The climactic battle against Whistler is a bit weird though, as it's not really all that climactic. It just kinda happens, and then the movie ends. For fans of the 80s sci-fi aesthetic, chases, gun fights and wisecracking cops from a dystopian future, Trancers is essential viewing.

For anyone with a taste for high art (what are you reading this for if you're expecting Oscars material?), stay away. This is a movie for us old-school VHS nerds, and we love it. So there. We love the sequels, too. Well, four of the sequels. The series actually went up to Trancers 6, but the least said about that film, the better.

(Which probably means I'll end up sitting through it for your reading pleasure at some point)

FASTWAY - "AFTER MIDNIGHT" from "TRICK OR TREAT"

2012-02-19T15:17:00.000-08:00

I really need to talk to you about the perfection that is the movie TRICK OR TREAT sometime soon. That film remains one of my most treasured titles, as does its awesome soundtrack. A film about a metal fan who must do battle with the demonic ghost of his rock idol? Yes please. I've loved this film for 20 years, and the soundtrack by classic UK metal act FASTWAY just as long. In fact I just sought out a vintage vinyl version of the soundtrack to have framed.

The music video here is for a track from that album, and it's a great slice of raucous 80s hard rock (my particular delicacy). The video is a little odd, due to the hidden bassist and drummer clearly being far too clean cut for the Sammi Curr character and guitarist 'Fast' Eddie Clarke. Ah well. I love the song, I love the album, and I'm going to love talking about the movie for you very soon.

THE DEADLY SPAWN (1983)

2012-02-18T13:40:00.000-08:00

It's hard not to enjoy a movie that has giant, phallic, rubber monsters pulling peoples' faces off throughout its running time. While the script, cast and cinematography are largely dreadful, The Deadly Spawn is somehow brilliant. Originally put out as a blatant cash-in on the original ALIEN, although with a completely different locale and storyline, The Deadly Spawn is a beautifully trashy early 80s horror romp with lashings of gore mixed in with the strangely suburban and low-key setting.

A normal neighbourhood is terrorised by enormous rubber penises with giant, multi-fanged mouths for the entertainment and amusement of the viewer. Of course, they're not actually cocks, but they bloody well look like they are.

With such a a weird mix of horror, comedy and general chaos, there's a feel of early Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson to it. There's that kind of anarchic, fun quality that was so prevalent in genre cinema at the time. Take the spawns themselves, for example. These newborn versions of the main beastie look exactly like bruised cocks, sort of a mix between the Alien chest bursters and sex toys.

It's the sort of film you just know was come up with while drunk and laughing. The Deadly Spawn is about as cheap as it gets when it comes to low budget 80s horror movies, but what budget there was is there on the screen and it has to be said that the makers did manage to pull off some very nice effects sequences. In fact, it's down to those sequences alone that the film is so addictive.

Yeah, the gore scenes are hilarious and cheesy, but they're by far the best part of the film. Overall, it has a weird, trippy quality to it, as it's played completely straight even though people are being eaten by massive rubber willies. It's available at a low price on second-hand VHS and DVD, and is well worth your time if you love your horror cheap, nasty and badly acted (i.e. FUN).

BRB

2012-02-18T10:25:00.001-08:00

Life has become kinda ridiculous lately. New stuff very soon!

A FRIDAY NIGHT DOUBLE-BILL

2012-02-03T16:50:00.000-08:00

It's midnight. It's friday night. It's time for a double-bill of classic nasties to wash away the working week and herald the arrival of a beauteous weekend of VHS hunting and proper sleep. Tonight's back-to-back atrocities are NIGHTMARES IN A DAMAGED BRAIN (NIGHTMARE, to my American readers) and DEMONS 2.

Nightmares In A Damaged Brain hasn't had a screening at our place in far too long, and Demons 2 has to follow as this week I picked up classic VHS editions of both DEMONS and its sequel (I already have both on Dvd but the Avatar VHS tapes of them I found were too nice to pass up). I had the first one on again yesterday morning before work (which set me up in a very weird frame of mind for my shift at the day-job, I can tell you!).

The Friday Night Double Bill is something that I rarely get chance to do, and will get even less chance to do soon as we have a baby on the way, so I'm making the most of my man time while I am able to do so. There is an art to getting the setting for the Friday night movie marathon right. There must be s suitable amount of beverage (2 litres of diet cola tonight), snacks (check), comfortable attire (check), a perfect view of the TV (check) and some solitude (check).

My lady is fast asleep, and thus I am able to let the bloke shine through. I've got my feet up at the moment and am watching ludicrously graphic images of people having their throats slit in a classic Video Nasty. The only thing missing it a few bottles of lager, but I was left without enough time earlier today in order to pick any up. That aside, I am in film geek paradise right now.

This situation is able to take bad films and make them seem like masterpieces. Thankfully I have chosen two films I know I love for tonight's session, so there's no risk of me not enjoying them, but even a bad film can be enjoyed in the right setting. Hell, regular readers will be well-versed in how easy it I for me to enjoy crappy films. I really should be doing something far more high-brow, like writing my Magnum Opus or reading some of the million books that seem to find their way into our home (I buy books far faster than I read them), but sometimes you just need a Friday Night Double Bill in all its gory glory. Here's to fitting the stereotype now and again.

UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING (2012)

2012-01-23T14:21:00.000-08:00

The fourth film in the Underworld franchise sees Kate Beckinsale back in the boots and long coat of her trademark Selene character after the sidestep of the third film, the prequel Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans. Selene awakens from cryogenic imprisonment to discover twelve years have passed since the events of the second movie (Underworld: Evolution), vampires and Lycans have been revealed to the world and a massive purge of them has begun, wiping out thousands of each supernatural creature in the process.

Selene discovers that a second prisoner was held captive beside her, the young girl Eve, a hybrid child with a greater link to the film's vampiric heroine than she can initially believe. Selene escapes from captivity and seeks out Eve, and a new battle begins as the remaining Lycans chase them down to take the prize that Eve holds in her DNA.

Underworld: Awakening is an interesting place to take the franchise after the first two films and the prequel, as instead of directly continuing from what has gone before it takes a leap into the near future, which adds a strange dynamic to the mythos and its continuing action. I found it to be thoroughly enjoyable, albeit far from what anyone could call high art. However, going to see an Underworld movie negates expecting more than what you are presented with – i.e. a noisy, action-packed genre movie which is lots of fun throughout its brief running time.

There are some quieter moments throughout the film, the best being those moments between Selene and Eve (the young actress India Eisley, who puts in a great performance considering the duality of the character), but many viewers will be aching to get to the next action scenes. The good thing is, there are plenty of deafening, eye-melting action sequences, but they are well-integrated into the story and help the plot to hurtle along as a satisfyingly breathless pace.

There are mad scientists, underground Lycans, a likeable police officer/sidekick for Selene (Detective Sebastian, played by Michael Ealy), insane battle sequences and the finest production values since the first film. The Lycan transformations have never looked better, and aside from a couple of moments when effects don't seem to have been rendered properly the whole film looks amazing.

The cast is above par for current genre fodder, with Stephen Rea and Charles Dance adding some dramatic weight to a script that could have gone very awry otherwise. The star of the whole thing is undoubtedly Kate Beckinsale herself, as not only is she on top form in her action scenes, she gets to further explore a new side of the Selene character with some very sombre scenes that add a roundness to her persona.

One thing that I must raise: I saw Underworld: Awakening in 3D, and while there are few moments in the action sequences that used the 3D well, for the most part the 3D aspect of the film is utterly pointless, and I felt more than a little cheated by that. I really enjoyed he film, but the 3D almost spoiled it for me. 3D works best in films which have a bright colour palette, not the largely blue/monochrome palette of the Underworld universe.

That quibble aside, I had a blast watching Selene and Eve ripping Lycans to pieces and making stuff explode. Money well spent. Incidentally, the soundtrack album is amazing, but you'll struggle to hear any of it during the movie aside from the end credits. The trailer:

Lacey Sturn of Flyleaf - "Heavy Prey" from the soundtrack to UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING:

BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS (1980)

2012-01-22T07:13:00.000-08:00

One of the most blatant Star Wars rip-offs in history (only really topped by the 'Turkish Star Wars' which actually sole footage from George Lucas' masterpiece), Battle Beyond The Stars is a delirious fever dream for anyone well-versed in 70s/80s TV. I mean, this thing has John-Boy from the Waltons (Richard Thomas) in the lead as Luke Skywalker-lite, George Peppard (Hannibal from 'The A-Team'), Robert Vaughn ('The Man from U.N.C.L.E.') and even John Saxon ('A Nightmare on Elm Street' 1,3 and 7 and many, many more titles) amidst its cast.

A young man must gather a motley band of adventurers in order to do battle against the evil forces of Sador (Saxon), the Darth Vader/Palpatine type character of the flick, from blowing up the peaceful planet of Akir.

Really, all it is seems to be an excuse to rip off Star Wars and every sci-fi cliché in the universe. From the way it's shot and edited (look out for all those diagonal wipes!), the score, the characters, the effects, everything is stolen from something else. The plot is basically The Seven Samurai all over again, but in space.

Everything is lifted directly from other properties (I even spotted a rip-off of the TARDIS console in there), and it really is a million times worse than the film I remember seeing on TV when I was a kid. No wonder I liked it so much back then- there are plenty of lasers, lingering model shots of spaceships, clear-cut good guys and bad guys and lots of explosions. As a more mature viewer now though, it's unintentionally hilarious.

Some of today's favourite WTF moments have included noticing the automatic doors on one ship sound EXACTLY like Darth Vader's breathing, and the sheer nightmarish quality of Sybil Danning's costume (a somewhat crude and revealing mix of Barbarella and Thor!).

There are Jedi-style aliens, cheerly androids, an Empire-like legion of villains, stormtroopers, rickety starships and derring-do galore. It's loveably awful for the most part, and just plain awful for the rest of it. The best thing to do with this film would be to cut out every single scene apart from the space battles fought between (admittedly well-created) model spaceships. Those scenes are fun, if woefully cheap.

John-Boy looks bored throughout the film, as do most of the cast apart from George Peppard, who seems to be having a blast playing what is essentially a gay cowboy version of Han Solo. Battle Beyond the Stars is passable enough entertainment, but for all the wrong reasons.

Actually, my girlfriend has been sat beside me and glancing over at odd scenes here and there throughout the film. She described it thusly: “It's like the people who made it went to a sci-fi supermarket and stole everything from every aisle.” Well said.

RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD 3 (1993)

2012-01-18T00:37:00.000-08:00

We all have our favourite zombie movies, don't we? For many it will be perennial classics like Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD, and quite rightly so. While I do love that flick, my two favourites have to be Shaun of the Dead (2004) and this one here, Return of the Living Dead 3 (1993). This film is dear to my heart as I saw it at the height of my addiction to VHS rentals from Metro Video in Sheffield, my old stomping ground.

There is something about this film that works extremely well. While it lacks the gonzoid brilliance of the first or the slapstick comedy of the second, it has a unique atmosphere and fascination for me. Really a sequel in name only (as well as the inclusion of the Trioxin chemical that brought the dead back in the first two), it was directed by none other than Brian Yuzna and is pretty much a perfect horror film to these eyes. The budget was clearly limited, but the production doesn't suffer from the lack of a massive wad of cash. If anything, it makes it work even better.

ROTLD3 concerns a military operation to use a new form of Trioxin to animate the dead and turn them into zombie soldiers. The son of a Colonel and his girlfriend Julie (the awesome Mindy Clarke) discover what's going on (they originally believe that animals are being experimented on and set off to disrupt the operation). In the chaos that ensues, a zombie outbreak kicks off and soon Julie is infected with the Trioxin (by her boyfriend no less – he gives it to her after she is killed in a motorbike accident).

She begins to transform, but amidst the bloody mayhem as zombies begin to attack a nearby town, Julie discovers she is able to hold on to her humanity by causing herself pain. Thus begins her transformation into a horrifically modified half-zombie version of herself, covered in shards of broken glass, nails rammed through her hands, her body pierced and mutilated to the point that she looks like a Cenobite from the Hellraiser movies.

It's a shocking and shockingly effective visual, and she is electrifying once her metamorphosis is complete, becoming almost a zombie superhero as she battles against the undead while fighting off her own cravings for brains. Yuzna's direction makes the most of a decent cast and a tight budget, and Return of the Living Dead 3 leaves the viewer satisfied on many levels. There is plenty of gore to be found, but there's also a compelling story and enough tension and thrills to maintain interest for 90 minutes.

The film's third act is brilliant, and a near-perfect example of low-budget horror moviemaking at its best. Evocative of an era very dear to me, I like to think that it isn't just nostalgia that colours my opinion of this film. I really do think it's one of the greatest zombie movies ever made. Now, I want some braaaaaaiiiiinnnssss.....

TRAILER TREASURES: CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1979)

2012-01-17T14:49:00.000-08:00

Ruggero Deodato's CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST is genuinely one of the most infamous movies of all time, and quite rightly so. Depending on your viewpoint, it's either a very knowing and well-constructed swipe at the media and our attitudes to other cultures, or it's a vile, gory and unsettling exploitation movie with some truly nasty gore. Personally I'd say it's a bit of both.

This trailer is fascinating - while it gives you glimpses of the violence, the gore and the sleaze aspects it also does give you some of the chilling atmosphere of the film thanks to the use of the music, which recurs in the movie. That music, swaying, pleasant and almost romantic, gives the shocking visuals so much more power than they would otherwise have.

So wherever your opinions may lie regarding the film itself, you've gotta admit the trailer has some power. Here it is.

Full review of this notorious video nasty COMING SOON!