Archive: Author:

UK DVD Review: Neighbor

Posted on by

Neighbor (2010)
Distributor: High Flier Films
DVD Release Date (UK): 27th June 2011
Directed by: Robert A. Masciantonio
Starring: America Olivo, Christian Campbell, Mink Stole
Review by: Keri O’Shea

Editor’s note: Neighbor has been reviewed elsewhere on Brutal as Hell by Marc – you can check out his thoughts here. Beware of moderate spoilers ahead.

Is there a way of reinvigorating the horribly hackneyed ‘torture porn’ subgenre? For a type of horror film which has had a comparatively short, yet abundant lifespan, it is remarkable how quickly even the most extreme movies have settled into cliché: people tied to chairs, people assaulted with household tools, the menace of facial disfiguration…these things are now as obligatory as longhaired ghosts in the cinema of the Far East or the omnipresent masked killers of slasher flicks. So – and speaking as someone who became immune to excruciating gore on screen at some point shortly after seeing Guinea Pig 2: Flower of Flesh and Blood around fifteen years ago – does torture still have a future? For me, at this point, it can only be achieved by a steadily-building relationship with characters; this doesn’t mean I have to like them, but I have to be able to empathise with them and I definitely need to feel they exist in the first place. No pathos, no point. It is not enough to presuppose that it is ‘subversive’ to swap the obligatory tool-wielding male for a tool-wielding female; it is certainly not enough to conjure up a montage of bloody sequences, especially when the censorship of the most notable of those scenes lessens the film’s bite so significantly. Yet, this seems to be the premise with Neighbor, a film so keen to try to shock that it dispenses with many of the elements which could have helped to make it a success. The film shows its hand almost immediately, introducing us to our killer, where she is and how she operates. We even see as much of her motivation in the first sequences as we’re ever shown. This is a gal who vaguely seems interested in what death means, and that’s all the audience gets: the rest of the film makes little attempt to generate suspense, simply picking off a few of the residents of a suburban area in a bloody fashion before moving on. I felt too distant from the brutality on screen to really care.

The plot is thus: nameless girl (America Olivo) is shown dancing about in her nightclothes somewhere in banal suburbia before finding some folk tied to chairs (natch!) upstairs. At first she’s shocked but you see, she isn’t actually shocked at all, because she’s the guilty party. After this, she’s on the look-out for her next victims, and after a few disjointed murder set pieces in the local area, she espies Doug (Christian Campbell) and his friends. They seem ideal, so she keeps an eye on Doug’s place until it’s a good time to strike. When she does, she ties him up and mauls him in a variety of ways, extending this treatment to anyone along the way who calls in.

In the midst of this standard torture treatment (and it looks as though the British Board of Film Classifications have rejected the infamous penis torture scene which was one of the movie’s chief calling-cards) Neighbor takes an excursion from its linear format to toy with timeshifts and to intimate that it is all a dream or a trip. There is no resolution to these sequences of repetition and (possible) hallucination: during the commentary, director Robert Angelo Masciantonio and producer Charles St John Smith III suggest that they experimented with this as a way of ‘getting to know the characters’ but insist that it is not overdone. Hmmm. If I was being entirely cynical, I might suspect that what we have here is filler, but in any case, you need a sturdy screenplay to withstand this sort of development. It worked in Funny Games USA, but only because the whole film was a well-constructed assault on the concept of home, not a series of gory tableaux in which the audience have little invested. I felt further removed from proceedings by the suggestion that Doug was dreaming (as well as confused by what sort of mushroom trip would be quite that bad!)

Something which is very interesting about this film is its (self-proclaimed) subversive approach to gender stereotypes: I don’t mean simply in terms of casting a woman as the killer, but also in commissioning an audio commentary by a film studies tutor/doctorate-holder. Now, gender in horror is a hot topic of late, and horror itself is gradually being explored by an academic community which had all but ignored horror and genre cinema as grounds for serious study for many years. However, it is all the same still unusual to have an academic commentary on a film like Neighbor. Much of the commentary explores the film along the lines of a film studies lecture: describing potential desired effects of using certain shots, suggesting symbolism behind colour choices in the film, and so on, but it also focuses particularly on ‘expected genre roles’.

So, is Neighbor really a gender-subversive film? I would say no. It suffers from the schizophrenia which is at the heart of much gender-subversive cinema and critique: utterly dependent on stereotypes on one hand and in many ways as reductivist as the stereotypes it wishes to subvert. Neighbor seeks to deliver an ass-kicking heroine because this is unusual, but cannot quite bring itself to give us a believable one: we get, as the commentary reiterates, a woman with a Playboy model body and ‘come to bed’ eyes – i.e. very usual – who can yet crush a man’s windpipe with one manicured hand or beat up a guy as he flails around looking for a weapon (a weapon? Try punching her – you’re twice her weight, fella).  For all the film’s deliberate unstitching of assumptions about The Girl’s gender though, it’s nothing compared to what we’re told about the guys in the film. Being men, their conversation is, we are told, immediately ‘sexual and violent’; men stigmatise other men who are in relationships; men are interested only in tawdry sex; men can’t be trusted with household tasks; men just discuss bodily functions…this eventually feeds into a sort of jubilance, as the Playgirl-bodied actress proceeds to mistreat them. The film tries to question gender stereotypes yet quickly falls back on basic misandry. Whilst I’m not sold on this idea of horror as a gender arena in the first place – horror serves many functions but fairness is seldom a factor – I would have liked Neighbor a lot more if it didn’t rely so heavily on that it seeks to undo (see also: the film’s UK release cover). It makes – it needs – a stack of assumptions of its own.

It isn’t a disaster: I applaud the filmmakers for using make-up effects as opposed to CGI, and a lot of the gory effects are interesting: I’m not staunchly anti-CGI, it has its place, but the film definitely benefits from having real-time blood and guts. Some of the dialogue has a sense of mischief, too. However, there is little to love about this movie. Like Murder Set Pieces – actually, just like Murder Set Pieces – it seeks to shock, but for those of us who want more context for their ‘scenes of an unsettling nature’ it is just another disjointed torture flick, only this time with more than one axe to grind therein.

UK Blu-Ray Review: Dario Argento’s ‘Tenebrae’

Posted on by


Tenebrae (1982)
Distributor: Arrow
Blu-Ray/DVD Release Date: 27th June 2011
Directed by: Dario Argento
Starring: Anthony Franciosa, John Saxon, Daria Nicolodi, Veronica Lario
Review by: Nia Edwards-Behi

It’s possible for Dario Argento’s body of work to be considered as being markedly in decline, post-Tenebrae. Despite some solid films – Phenomena, Terror at the Opera, Sleepless – and some not-so-solid that are still watchable – The Stendhal Syndrome, Trauma – the 1982 giallo perhaps marks Argento’s last truly great film.

Tenebrae sees Argento return to the genre that made him famous after a pair of supernatural horror films, and sees him transplant just a smidge of the gothic sensibility gained on Suspiria and Inferno into the hyper-clinical world of a semi-futuristic Rome. American novelist Peter Neal (Anthony Franciosa) arrives in Italy to promote his latest best-seller, the titular Tenebrae. He is soon contacted by the local police, after the body of beautiful young woman is found brutally murdered, and with pages from the novel stuffed into her mouth. This is the first of a series of murders that closely resemble those featured in Neal’s novel. When Neal begins to receive death threats, he decides to take the investigation into his own hands, and slowly unravels a haunting and twisted mystery.

I’ve never been wholly convinced of Argento’s claim that he intended for Tenebrae to be set in a future version of Rome, but his representation of the city is certainly a bleak and desolate one, making the best use of its rationalist architecture and steering completely clear of all its ancient landmarks. People die in this city, and passers-by barely bat an eyelid. This clinical backdrop is lensed by Suspiria’s cinematographer Lucio Tovoli, but gone are the dark shadows and garish colours of the earlier film; instead concrete and whitewash are starkly and brightly lit.

Tenebrae is a film wholly concerned with doubles, as has previously been written about (see Maitlind McDonagh’s excellent book ‘Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds’). The film itself serves a double purpose, as both tense thriller and subtle parody. The over the top sexism, the gratuitous nudity, the sometimes cartoonish violence all highlight and exaggerate unfair criticisms aimed at Argento’s (and his peers’) films. Within the film, the murders in Neal’s book are replicated by the real life killer, the victims figured as deviant or non-deviant by killer and author respectively. Characters mirror each other too: Anne and Detective Altieri, Anne and Jane, Gianni and Maria, Gianni and Bullmer, Neal and Detective Germani, Neal and Christiano Berti…characters reflect each other, both in their similarities and their differences. Even scenes a viewer expects to see are replaced with their opposite: where one might expect a sex scene, violence takes its place: when Anne and Neal spend the night together, Argento shows us not their coupling, but a flashback to a vicious stabbing of a beautiful woman from the killer’s past. It’s in the body of this woman that this sense of doubling reaches its peak: Eva Robins, the actress who plays the formative woman, was born a man.

There’s a certain sense of doubling or mirroring in the very fabric of the film: if the film seems fake or overly-choreographed, it’s because that’s precisely the purpose. The shoplifter Elsa Manni (Ania Pieroni) perhaps puts it best when she tries to defend her theft by exclaiming ‘it was only a paperback, for Christ’s sake!’ Tenebrae is a giallo both as a film and as a book within the film, and if the giallo is anything, it is violent, it’s sub-literature, it’s trash cinema. The killer in the film takes photos of his victims, and this idea of staged, faked violence is shown at its best in the most bravura and celebrated sequence of the film: the death of journalist Hilde and her lover, featuring a lengthy, apparently pointless and utterly brilliant crane shot around the outside of their apartment building. The murder of the two women importantly ends on the image of a camera’s viewfinder, at once drawing attention to the staged nature of the murders, as well as the position of the killer as an artist who has composed his photos with definite detail. This returns to the idea of the film as a parody: as Argento himself describes it as a sort of ‘joke’ – if critics equate his on-screen violence with actual violence, then here he is, proclaiming the murderer as artist.

Tenebrae’s artistry is beautifully rendered in Arrow’s new HD transfer. Its set pieces, such as the Louma crane shot and the red high-heels flashback look utterly glorious in a clear and stark version of the film. At times, the sound can be a bit problematic, with the soundtrack coming out a lot more loudly than much of the dialogue, but this is really just a small concern. I had feared that the special features on the disc were starting to get repetitive, but my fears were unfounded. The interviews with Claudio Simonetti, Dario Argento and Daria Nicolodi are as insightful as ever. It delights me every time to listen to Nicolodi talk about her work, as she is so frank and so affectionate about it. She describes Argento as a prima donna with a devilish giggle, and it’s a truly lovely moment. A great extra feature included on this set is recording from the partially-reformed Goblin’s live show at the Glasgow arches in February of this year. Playing both Tenebrae and Phenomena, there’s some great band banter in between.

Arrow have possibly out-done themselves with this Blu-Ray set. If Tenebrae marks a downturn in Argento’s own filmmaking canon, I very much doubt the same will apply to a truly great label for genre fans.

UK Blu-Ray Review: New York Ripper

Posted on by

New York Ripper (L’Eventreuer De New York) (1982)
Distributor: Shameless Screen Entertainment
Blu-Ray Release Date (UK): 27 June 2011
Directed by: Lucio Fulci
Starring: Jack Hedley, Almanta Keller, Alexandra Delli Colli
Review by: Nia Edwards-Behi

A maniac terrorises New York City, slicing up attractive young women and taunting the police with bizarre phone calls. The killer has two fingers missing from his right hand, and the voice of a duck. Its combination of mean-spirited violence and gratuitous sex has ensured it a special place in sleaze-cinema history. This new edition of one of the nastiest of Lucio Fulci’s films is preceded by an opening scroll, courtesy distributor Shameless Screen Entertainment. It outlines that this is still a cut version of the film, despite their negotiations with the BBFC. They’ve made great attempts to mask the cut best that they can, and, according to Shameless, this is the most complete version of New York Ripper available in the world. The still-offensive scene that the BBFC refuses to budge on – the death of the prostitute Kitty – is fairly apparent, but Shameless has done an admirable job in editing it so that it doesn’t stand out too sorely from the rest of the film.

The most unwatchable part of New York Ripper, for me? All the close ups of Jane’s mouth– when she watches the sex show, when she’s molested at the bar. I don’t know why, but something about the way her mouth twitches repulses me. Of course, pretty much every single scene to feature Jane (Alexandra Delli Colli) is repulsive, her character more or less existing in the film for the sole purpose of various scenes of sexual degradation, masked as character back story, prior to a protracted murder sequence. It’s her character that makes the film most troublesome for me, and it’s certainly the film’s treatment of women that has made it so enduringly infamous. An interesting discussion emerges in the interviews on the disc with writer Dardano Sacchetti and Antonella Fulci as to whether or not the film is misogynistic. Sacchetti recalls pissing off Fulci’s daughter by suggesting her father was a misogynist himself, a claim she evidently disagrees with, as she claims that New York Ripper isn’t a film that hates women. Personally, it’s incredibly difficult to defend the film as not misogynistic, but I’d also struggle to accuse Fulci himself of being a misogynist in light of his earlier work.

It’s easy to focus on the film’s treatment of women, given as that it’s the most remarkable aspect of it. As a police procedural the film is prosaic, no twist or turn emerging that, by 1982, would be unfamiliar to giallo fans. The acting is passable enough, though the dialogue is trite at best (having said that, my favourite line is a corker: ‘I’m a prostitute, not your wife!’ as a response to a request for a cup of coffee). Some bravura sequences see an apartment searched entirely from the point of view of one of the police officers, and throat slicing shot from, er, inside the throat; but stylistically New York Ripper can’t match Fulci’s early gialli, and nor does it have the same narrative charm as his supernatural films.

Of course, as far as sleaze cinema goes, New York Ripper is quite the paragon. The high-definition transfer provided by Shameless is great to look at and the choice of English dub or Italian dub is a great feature, even though the subtitles provided for the Italian dub are a little imperfect, insofar as they’re badly punctuated. The film isn’t without its defenders; the booklet provided by Shameless is adapted from Stephen Thrower’s book on Fulci, in which he declares New York Ripper as one of his ‘best’. Thrower mounts a compelling defence of the film as a nihilistic vision of modern humanity, but it doesn’t quite convince me that the film is superior to Fulci’s other work. As far as I’m concerned, the value of New York Ripper lies strictly in its paracinematic qualities, and as part of Fulci’s broader canon of work.

UK DVD Review: Savage Streets

Posted on by

Savage Streets (1984)
Distributor: Arrow
DVD Release Date: 20th June 2011
Directed by: Danny Steinmann
Starring: Linda Blair, Sal Landi, Robert Dryer, Linnea Quigley, John Vernon
Review by: Ben Bussey

Now it’s 1984, knock-knocking at your front door. And would you believe it; the kids are out of control. They’re not going out to the library to study, like they tell Mom and Dad; they’re putting on leather jackets, ripped denim and spandex (or some combination thereof) and heading out to the city streets in search of some action. On one particular night The Scars, a gang of drunk-driving, drug-pushing bad boys lead by Jake (Landi), are cruising in their vintage convertible when they happen to cross paths with The Satins, a marginally less obnoxious girl gang lead by Brenda (Blair). The girls are eager to teach the guys a lesson, and high tempers soon result in high jinks that go a bit too far, with the girls stealing and trashing the guys’ prized car. But that’s nothing compared to how far The Scars take their revenge, cornering Brenda’s deaf and mute sister Heather (Quigley), gang-raping and beating her into a coma. Distraught but none the wiser as to who is responsible, Brenda swears bloody retribution. It won’t be long before more blood is spilled; and when Brenda learns the truth, no power in all creation will stand between her and her revenge. Well, no power but that of her hairspray, stiletto heels and black spandex, at least.

I’ve often pondered that the term ‘guilty pleasure’ might be a tad redundant around these parts, given that by and large our staff (and I daresay our readership) specialise in movies that are gruesome, grotesque and generally depraved. That taboo quality – the sense that we should know better than to watch this ‘crap’ – is a big part of what makes such films so enjoyable to watch. To a large extent films of this kind drive Brutal As Hell, and they’re the bread and butter of Arrow Video. Just take a look at their original artwork to the left. No one is under any illusions here that Savage Streets is a serious, socially conscious expose of youth gangs, sexual violence and vigilantism. Nope, this is 80s trash at its most trashy and its most 80s; a neon-lit, stone-washed urban fantasy that’s full to the brim with power dressing, power ballads, big hair, big tits, blouse-ripping girl-on-girl punch-ups, and motor-mouthed dialogue replete with profanities aplenty.

Passed uncut by the BBFC for the first time (having been trimmed by just over 10 minutes for its VHS release back in the 80s), the excessive tendencies of Savage Streets come as little surprise on learning it was co-written and directed by Danny Steinmann, who went on to helm perhaps the sleaziest entry in the Friday the 13th series: Part V, A New Beginning. Steinmann’s voyeuristic proclivities are even more blatant when watching the film with the director’s commentary, wherein he notes with great regularity “that actress had great breasts” and “I really tried to persaude her to take her bra off.” It’s just that kind of film; close in spirit to the cheap and cheerful Jack Hill movies of the 70s, but with a glossier 80s veneer. Or given that it’s set in high school and cast with actors clearly over high school age (as my lady wife remarked of Linda Blair in a classroom scene, “she looks older than her teacher” – Blair was 26 at the time), it’s like a more down and dirty version of Grease with the songs cut out. With its deluge of quotable trash talk (take John Vernon’s principal telling the Scars to “go fuck an iceberg,” or Blair declaring “I wouldn’t fuck him if he had the last dick on earth”), the most cringeworthy bit of impromptu poetry outside of Tom Cruise in Cocktail, and of course the eye-poppingly garish new wave outfits and hairdos, there are high camp pleasures aplenty to be taken from Savage Streets; and refreshingly devoid of the knowing ironic overtones that tend to impede attempts at similar films today, such as Bitch Slap.

 READER ADVISORY – MILD SPOILERS AHEAD.

That said, there is of course a bit of a dichotomy at the heart of proceedings, which is acknowledged in the commentary: for while the film is largely designed to amuse and titillate, the action hinges on a gang rape which (as if there was any alternative in the matter) is really quite harrowing. That it features Linnea Quigley – who went on to become the queen of gratuitous nudity in horror with Return of the Living Dead, Silent Night Deadly Night et al – somehow makes it even more unpleasant for fanboys like myself, as we’re so used to greeting her naked body with a smile. And it’s made all the harsher by the manner in which it is edited, cross-cutting between the rape (which, it should be emphasised, is certainly not played for titillation) and what would otherwise have surely been the male fantasy highlight of the film, a catfight in the showers (pictured – note the two naked girls behind Linda Blair, fighting for no apparent reason).

It’s a curious decision which raises questions about just what message the filmmakers are trying to convey; are the voyeurs in the audience being punished for their voyeurism? Is a point being made about fantasy versus reality; what feminists regard as the violence against women inherent in pornography? Given how the film revels in gratuitous bare female flesh elsewhere, it would seem unlikely, but it gives pause for thought. In a milder way the same is true of Linda Blair’s one nude scene; by contrast with the shirt-ripping catfight action that comprises much of the film’s nudity, hers is a subdued, contemplative moment. I was reminded of Christina Ricci’s nude scene in Prozac Nation; it would seem the intent is to emphasise the character’s emotional state, rather than for the audience to go “oh Christ, I’ve seen that girl in films since she was about 12, and now she’s naked.”

But again, perhaps this jarring clash of serious artistic intent and sleazy excess is part and parcel to that whole ‘guilty pleasure’ thing. As rape revenge films go, this certainly isn’t the nastiest one out there, and if you can stomach the sour parts you may well savour the sweet parts. It’s a hugely entertaining bad girl thriller that should be high on the shopping list for anyone with a lust for exploitation, and given that (as with all Arrow releases) it’s region free I expect fans worldwide will be clamouring to get hold of a copy. And as much as I feel like this goes without saying now, it’s another great package from Arrow. As well as the aforementioned directorial commentary we have two additional commentary tracks with producer John Strong and actors Robert Dryer and Johnny Venacur; interviews with Blair, Quigley, Strong and Dryer; a collector’s booklet written by Kier-la Janisse; and of course’s Arrow’s trademark reversible artwork and free poster. Oh, and also the trailer, which is embedded below; be warned it features extreme close up cleavage, 80s power balladry at its fiercest, and basically gives away the entire movie.

UK Blu-Ray Review: Witchfinder General

Posted on by

Witchfinder General (AKA The Conqueror Worm) (1968)
Distributor: Odeon Entertainment Ltd
Blu-Ray release date: 13th June (UK)
Directed by: Michael Reeves
Starring: Vincent Price, Ian Ogilvy, Hilary Heath
Review by: Stephanie Scaife

I only just recently got myself an HD TV and Blu-Ray player (I know, I know… I’m way behind) so I’m still at the stage of making “oooh” and “aaah” noises every time I watch something on Blu-Ray. For years I kept telling myself that surely it couldn’t be all that different to DVD, but now with hindsight I realise that I was being a fool. So now I have the pleasure of being able to review this brand new, digitally remastered, special edition of Michael Reeves’ seminal cult classic Witchfinder General, and what a delight it is too.

Witchfinder General is based on the novel of the same name by Ronald Bassett and it is a heavily fictionalized account of the exploits of Matthew Hopkins, a 17th century lawyer and self appointed “witchfinder-general” who used civil unrest as an opportunity to profit from rooting out so-called witches and devil worshippers. The novel was adapted for the screen by its young director Michael Reeves and Tom Baker, a long-time friend who’d worked with Reeves previously on The Sorcerers (1967) and it was produced by Tigon and American International Pictures for the relatively small budget of around £100,000.

Set in 1645 in East Anglia, Richard Marshall (Ian Ogilvy) is a Roundhead soldier engaged to a young woman named Sara, the niece of local priest John Lowes. Matthew Hopkins (Vincent Price, giving an uncharacteristically restrained performance) and his assistant John Stearne (Robert Russell) travel around the region executing witches and charging the local magistrates for their “services”. As outcasts in their small village Sara and Lowes are immediately rounded up by Hopkins and accused of witchcraft. When Marshall discovers what has happened he returns home to find Sara traumatised and Lowes dead. Vowing revenge Marshall takes matters into his own hands and, without spoiling the ending for those few who have not seen the film, things end pretty badly for all those concerned.

I came to this film fairly late in life; of course I was a fan of The Wicker Man, but it has only been in the last year or so that I became aware of the rather fantastic if brief period during the late 60’s and early 70’s when the UK produced a number of occult themed horror films – now sometimes referred to as “folk horror”. Witchfinder General was one of the first films to be made that fit into this short lived sub-genre along with Hammer’s The Devil Rides Out starring Christopher Lee and the fantastic, yet often overlooked classic The Blood on Satan’s Claw. These films were an early sign of a major change taking place within the horror genre; they were less camp than the early Hammer films and more realistic than the Universal monster movies that audiences were accustomed to at the time. Not to mention that the levels of sex and violence often proved too much for the flummoxed and flustered BBFC who frequently demanded heavy cuts.

I’ve found Blu-Ray shopping to be a veritable minefield, with some companies sticking any old thing onto Blu-Ray merely to enable them to charge a few extra bucks when in reality the difference in quality compared to the DVD is negligible. However I’m pleased to report that Witchfinder General looks and sounds fantastic on Blu-Ray, and is a definite must have for any horror fan. This new edition also comes with some special features that are exclusive to Blu-Ray, including an audio commentary from Benjamin Halligan, author of Reeves biography and filmmaker Michael Armstrong, who had been an acquaintance of Reeves at the time of his death; the documentary “Bloody Crimes: Witchcraft”; an amusing clip from 1984 of Vincent Price giving a charismatic interview on Aspel & Company; the option to watch the scenes that were cut from the original UK theatrical release (although these are of noticeably poorer quality) and alternate opening and closing credit sequences. Other special features include an informative documentary about the life of Michael Reeves “The Blood Beast: The Films of Michael Reeves” which offers some insight into the difficult working relationship he had with Vincent Price; Intrusion: Michael Reeves short film; the original theatrical trailer and a stills gallery.

The disc offers no subtitles, an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, picture format 1080p 24fps AVC MPEG-4, audio Dolby Digital 2.0 mono and the Blu-Ray disc is playable in regions A, B & C and is released in the UK on Monday 13th June.

UK DVD Review: Eaters – Rise of the Dead

Posted on by

Eaters: Rise of the Dead (2010)
Distributor: Chelsea Films
DVD Release Date (UK): 13th June 2011
Directed by: Luca Boni & Marco Risto
Starring: Alex Lucchesi, Guglielmo Favilla, Claudio Marmugi, Rosella Elmi
Review by: Keri O’Shea

There must be a masochistic impulse lurking within me somewhere because a) I am very, very, very burned out on zombie films, and yet b) I actually requested the screener of Eaters: Rise of the Dead out of a selection of other, non-virusy -bitey-post-apocalyptic-scenario movies. Why do I do it? I suppose I’m always looking for the next Day of the Dead, always hoping that a once-beloved genre will rise again (heh) to impress the hell out of me. More to the point though, I’d say, is to ask why indie filmmakers in such significant numbers continue to make zombie flicks. Are they genuinely hoping to make the next DOTD? Are they fanboys/fangirls themselves? Are they swayed by the potential of the genre to allow for severe budgetary constraints? Or are they plain lazy? The fact is that there’s a real glut of walking dead indies out there that just keep on coming, for whatever reason, and the filmmakers have a real job on their hands to make their films workable, notable and likeable.

As for Eaters: Rise of the Dead, much of the plot will seem familiar to horror fans already, although first-time directors Luca Boni and Marco Ristori make a reasonable amount of headway with overlaying ideas of their own. We start out on the wrong side of the Great Epidemic, a virus deliberately spread by an anonymous religious megalomaniac calling himself the Plague Spreader: two zombie hunters, Alen (Guiglielmo Favilla) and Igor (Alex Lucchesi) are in the employ of a research scientist called Gyno (Claudio Marmugi) who sends them out to collect ‘specimens’ in return for their board and lodge. Also installed at their base is a woman called Alexis, Alen’s girlfriend as-was (Rosella Elmi): Alexis was initially infected with the virus and is still ill, but hasn’t yet succumbed to the final stages of the illness. Gyno suspects she’s the key to finding a cure, but to carry on his work he needs more zombies.

Alen and Igor head off on their rounds, meeting along the way: an erstwhile religious painter who uses undead body parts as ‘life’ models for his art, a group of neo-Nazis (who are possibly the campest Nazis I’ve ever seen since…well, the Nazis) and, eventually, other living humans who can shed some light on Dr. Gyno’s ‘benevolent’ experiments.

You don’t have to look far to see the Day of the Dead influence there, so I’ll cut to the chase and talk about what makes Eaters distinctive. The first thing I’d say stands out is the film’s Catholic connection. It isn’t all that surprising in an Italian horror film I know, and of course faith has figured in several examples of zombie horror down through the years, but Catholicism is tackled in a pretty overt way here. Even when the film is being questioning in tone, the Church provides context aplenty for the film’s plot. For example, the plague starts out by affecting women only: we see a news report lamenting the ‘zero birth rate’ before the disease goes on to cause more catastrophic, cross-gender symptoms. When things get desperate, we know about it because we’re told that the Pope has committed suicide (no other figures on the world stage are mentioned). Talk of the ‘annunciation’, ‘sin’ and ‘the inferno’ are in there too, not to mention a demented priest!

So we have a familiar scenario, we have an abundance of religious context…what we also have, actually, is a film with a pleasing aesthetic and a frankly knock-out score. A strong sepia tone is used here, draining the colour out of the film and going some way to belying the budget. The directors have also made sensible use of their special effects, mostly playing to their strengths by using shadow, angle and pace to avoid lingering on the undead long enough to find fault (bar for some close-up shots of some of the best SFX). There aren’t hordes of zombies/infected here, but those we do get to see look pretty good, with some well-executed gore. As for the score – created by Skinny Puppy’s Justin Bennett and Stefano Rossello of Italian industrialists Bahntier – this is stellar, both jarring and oppressive in just the right quantities. As in the glory days of 70s and 80s Italian horror, the score helps to bring the film together.

As to flaws…well, this film is slow. It’s very dialogue-heavy, often to the point of inanity (and Igor especially is peculiarly toilet-focused, using the world ‘asshole’ at every opportunity). All this conversation between the two main characters does little to move the plot forward, and doesn’t help the pace either. The guys ostensibly have one, simple enough task to do – collect some zombies, in a world overrun with the fuckers. This takes them well over an hour, and even then they don’t get it done properly! There is little in the way of connection between the different legs of their errands en route, either, and at times the film struggles to maintain cogency, especially towards its explosive close.

Overall, Eaters struggles with some familiar problems not helped by pitching straight into a saturated genre but there is definitely potential here. Don’t be afraid of Uwe Boll’s name being attached to this (as producer) because I think Boni and Ristori deserve some credit for this as a first, flawed but interesting calling-card.

UK DVD Review: Karloff in Val Lewton’s ‘Isle of the Dead’

Posted on by

Isle of the Dead (1945)
Distributor: Odeon Entertainment
DVD Release Date: 6th June 2011
Directed by: Mark Robson
Starring: Boris Karloff, Ellen Drew, Marc Cramer
Review by: Nia Edwards-Behi

With a title like Isle of the Dead, you might expect a zombie movie, as I certainly did. However, this RKO picture is something completely different, an unusual and atmospheric setting allowing for a very different sort of monster to take centre stage. General Pherides (Boris Karloff), in the midst of the First Balkan War, takes a trip with a fellow soldier to the island where his wife is buried. Pherides’ tactical decisions are questioned, his decisions deemed inconsiderate of the lives of his men. Arriving on the island, the two men discover that its people are quarantined, but while some residents fear that a plague is rampant, others fear a more supernatural cause of death.

I admit, I had to look up the First Balkan War. The conflict doesn’t feature all that heavily in the film, but rather provides a backdrop for the exploration of two monsters: one human, one not so much. Karloff gives a pitch-perfect performance as Pherides, he’s uptight, weary and mean, but somehow likeable. Maddened by grief and seclusion, Karloff presents a sad, paranoid shell of a man with an understated and sympathetic performance.

Isle of the Dead isn’t a particularly frightening film, but it is highly atmospheric. Like many other Val Lewton pictures, the film is psychologically twisted, presenting fearful characters and tense settings effectively and concisely. Like Lewton’s own Cat People, central to Isle of the Dead is the mysterious female creature, the Greek vorvolakas. A sort of psychic vampire, one of the island’s inhabitants is accused of being such a creature, an accusation she vehemently denies. The vorvolakas is vampiric in a similar way to the wurdulak (an alternative name for the Greek creature being vurdulakas) – this is no Dracula, no Carmilla. There is dread and menace and death in the air. If Thea (Ellen Drew) truly is a vorvolakas, it is an inherent part of her nature, and not something she has chosen to be – just as Pherides’ paranoia and grief are inherent to his.

Had Isle of the Dead used a more traditional idea of the vampire, and a more familiar setting, it might not have been so interesting a film – not that the setting looks particularly like Greece, aside from the occasional costume. The elemental nature emphasised in the vorvolakas is beautifully reflected in the film’s formal construction, perhaps most notably so in a great montage of hands being washed in clear water cutting to a burning ritual fire. The best shot of the entire film might even be the first: a hunched Pherides washes his hands as the camera pans out to reveal the shadows of his men arguing against the tent wall behind him. Establishing a not-quite-right atmosphere from the outset, Pherides’ downfall seems inevitable.

Isle of the Dead is an enjoyable film, not nearly as hokey as its title suggests. Elevated perhaps by Karloff and Lewton’s involvement, Isle of the Dead is the sort of film you need to draw the curtains for. It leaves a slight feeling of unease in its wake, much like the vorvlakas herself.

UK DVD Review: Eyeborgs

Posted on by

Eyeborgs (2009)
Distributor: Momentum
DVD Release Date: 20th June 2011
Directed by: Richard Clabaugh
Starring: Adrian Paul, Megan Blake, Luke Eberl, Danny Trejo
Review by: Ben Bussey

It’s the near future, and the USA is yet again in a state of high alert. Terrorism, crime, disorder and all that jazz have resulted in the passing of the Freedom Of Observation Act, which legally feeds every sound and image from every recording device in the country into a single national security dubbed ODIN; the Optical Defence Intelligence Network, naturally. It’s where the cops and the courts get their evidence. But as well as those old players, there are some new guys on the law enforcement scene; fleets of surveillance robots, essentially CCTV cameras on legs, whose name you may have already ascertained from the title. But how do we know that the images they show are the absolute truth…? And what if… gulp… these little robots didn’t just make videos, but killed stuff too?

Damn, where was this concept about twenty-five years ago? If I could have given one piece of advice to director/co-writer Richard Clabaugh before he went into production, it would have been this: fuck CG, this one has to be stop-motion. The Eyeborgs belong in that same charming, clunky mode of animation that gave us ED-209, the At-Tat Walkers, and of course those big bad brawling machines of Robojox (or Robot Jox, as we in Britain know it, for some unknown reason). For them to be realised via clean, sleek CGI; it just feels wrong, and robs the whole endeavour of so much of its potential charm. Still, it’s very much second rate Sy-Fy movie CGI, so that goes some way to making amends.

However, don’t be fooled by the presence of killer robot eyeballs with spider legs, nor the fact that the lead is played by the guy from Highlander: The Series, nor the presence of a cameo from Danny “I take the bit parts Sam Jackson used to take” Trejo. This isn’t just another dumb-ass straight to DVD sci-fi B-movie; this is a dumb-ass straight to DVD sci-fi B-movie with… another gulp… a social conscience. Not content to give us murderous miniature robosapiens, Clabaugh and company also want to give us food for thought, presenting us with a vision of a possible future which in many respects isn’t too implausible. For of course, like pretty much all science fiction of real value, Eyeborgs is really about what’s happening in the world right now rather than what might happen in years to come. And in these days of media manipulation, the proliferation of surveillance and governments thinking nothing of infringing the civil liberties of their citizens, all in the name of national security, maybe it’s not so unlikely that little robot eyeballs could be walking around on spider legs scoping us out…

It may already be apparent where the real problem lies with Eyeborgs. It hinges on a fairly absurd device, yet aims to tackle serious issues. Is such an approach feasible? Absolutely. Let’s not forget our aforementioned friend ED-209, the star of that impeccable balance of sci-fi spectacle and social commentary that is Robocop. And what a movie Eyeborgs could have been if Clabaugh had taken a more Verhoeven-ish approach; more larger-than-life characterisations, more visceral death scenes, more arch satire. Ten to one says Verhoeven would have taken more advantage of the voyeuristic potential of the premise, too, which Clabaugh only touches on lightly.

Ultimately, the whole thing is played a little too straight for my liking, and as such it falls awkwardly between posts, too silly for serious sci-fi (sorry, SF) devotees, but not silly enough for lovers of DTV trash. Don’t go in expecting much and you won’t be disappointed, but I doubt anyone will be holding this up alongside The Matrix, They Live, Brazil and other such totaliterian nightmare movie classics.

UK DVD Review: Demons Rising

Posted on by

Demons Rising (2008)
Distributor: MVM
DVD Release date (UK): 6th June 2011
Directed by: William Lee
Starring: William Lee, Talisha Battle, Donald A. Becker
Review by: Stephanie Scaife

Billed as an “action-adventure, horror, martial arts, crime drama, cult, vigilante, gangsta flick” Demons Rising is certainly a very ambitious film. William Lee is the director, writer, editor, cinematographer as well as being the main star and he is clearly a man with a vision who has put a lot of effort into this no budget independent film. The end result however is a mixed bag that varies from being unintentionally amusing to just plain boring without ever really amounting to anything, even with its overlong running time.

The plot concerns The Liber Malorum – the book of life and death – that was created by heretic monks to raise the dead and turn the living into demons, thought to have vanished long ago the book has now appeared in Italy. A man named Angelo Montorio has set out to find the book with the aid of Kyle Rush, a thief who specialises in finding rare items. Montorio soon double crosses his partner and disappears with the book having left Rush’s girlfriend for dead following a heist gone wrong. Rush, hell bent on revenge, enlists a former covert operator turned Buddhist monk named Matthias Locke (William Lee) to help him track down Montorio. Meanwhile an elderly woman comes into possession of the book and has turned into a rampaging demon.

The films itself is nothing short of terrible. It looks like a home movie, the acting is wooden, the dialogue is clichéd and clunky, the dodgy camera work makes much of it near unwatchable and the narrative doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It is pretty much exactly what you would expect from this kind of low budget horror film. However, I would feel bad for trashing Demons Rising too much as it is clearly a labour of love for Lee and you can’t deny his dedication and ambition. Perhaps with a budget and some serious editing this could have been something interesting but as it stands it is neither a film I’d recommend or ever want to watch again. 

The DVD is a very basic offering with a 4:3 transfer, DD 2.0 audio and no special features or language options. It is released in the UK on 6th June.

UK DVD Review: Who Can Kill A Child?

Posted on by

Who Can Kill A Child? (AKA ¿Quién puede matar a un niño?/Island of the Damned) (1976)
Distributor: Eureka
DVD Release Date: 23 May 2011
Directed by: Narciso Ibáñez Serrador
Starring: Lewis Fiander, Prunella Ransome
Review by: Ben Bussey

A comfortably middle class English couple, with two children at home and a third on the way, take a trip away from it all. Leaving their existing offspring behind, Tom (Fiander) takes Evelyn (Ransome) to visit an obscure Spanish island, Almanzora. Escaping the hectic coast of the mainland, the peace and quiet they find in Almanzora is at first a welcome relief. But it isn’t long before quiet gives way to too quiet; and even less time before that gives way to outright panic at the shocking truth. Slowly but surely Tom and Evelyn realise the only people alive on the island are the children. And where did all the adults go? Yes, you guessed it… the kiddies killed them all. To avoid the same fate, Tom and Evelyn must fight to stay alive, which may mean kill or be killed. But who can… well, the title says it all.

With (amongst others) Ils, Eden Lake, The Children and F, contemporary horror has seen quite the resurgence of that thorny killer kids subgenre. Narciso Ibáñez Serrador’s film has been cited as pioneering this subgenre, and it isn’t hard to see why. Toeing the line between sleaze and sophistication the way so much European horror of the 70s does, Who Can Kill A Child is as likely to provoke debate today as it was on release. On the one hand it’s a largely efficient, atmospheric and entertaining chiller; on the other hand, it will almost certainly push the boundaries of taste and decency too far for some, even hardened modern fans, for it tackles that one taboo that never fails to set off a red light. Be it Boris Karloff throwing a little girl in a river, or all those things that need not be repeated from A Serbian Film, the suffering of children on film will always cause a stir.

Let’s sidestep that for now, though, and consider the film purely as an exercise in stylised horror. In the DVD extras, cinematographer José Luis Alcaine speaks of the film being inspired by Night of the Living Dead and The Birds; these, plus Assault On Precinct 13 (made in the same year), were indeed the films that I was most reminded of. It’s the same basic set-up: normal people thrown into a very abnormal situation, in which they are under attack for no apparent reason by those they would not ordinarily regard a real physical threat. And as in Hitchcock, Romero and Carpenter’s films, no explanation for the situation is given, and rightly so. In this manner of nightmare movie, the whys and wherefores are of no real importance; all that matters is how the protagonists react, and for the most part the actions of the bemused English couple are believable and compelling, helped by strong performances from Lewis Fiander and Prunella Ransome.

Where the film is more troublesome is in its pretences toward social relevance. If the action kicked off right away with Tom and Evelyn, there would be very little to complain about; however, Serrador chooses to open with a seven-minute psuedo-newsreel, showing real life footage of various regions of the world afflicted by war, disease and famine, subjecting the viewer to numerous genuine images of dead or suffering children. To say that this is utterly gratuitous, crass and exploitative would be quite the understatement. Sorry to dig up the whole Serbian Film debate yet again (though for the record, I completely respect Marc’s reasons for not watching it), but in many respects Who Can Kill A Child is truly guilty of the charge that A Serbian Film has had levelled against it; feigning a socio-political message to justify sadistic content. Spasojevic’s film does not (repeat does not) at any point show children actually being hurt. Serrador’s film does, and in putting this footage front and centre it casts an ugly shadow over all that follows.

Still, Who Can Kill A Child is hardly unique among films of its time for taking certain things a little too far, and if we can accept or at least overlook this pretentious excess there is still much about the film to appreciate. It’s stood the test of time better than many of its era, conjuring a genuinely tense and bleak atmosphere, and for the most part it is intelligently written and performed. Bypass your good taste faculties for a little while and you might just enjoy yourself. And the DVD Eureka have put together will do a nice job of putting it into context, with interviews with Serrador and Alcaine from the 2007 Dark Sky region 1 DVD.

UK DVD Review: Dead Hooker In A Trunk

Posted on by


Dead Hooker In A Trunk (2009)
Distributor: Bounty Films/Eureka Video
DVD Release Date: 23 May 2011
Directed by: Jen Soska & Sylvia Soska
Starring: Ricki Gagne, Jen Soska, Sylvia Soska, C J Wallis
Review by: Ben Bussey

If I’m not mistaken, I’ve never written a second review for the same film at Brutal As Hell. I’ve given my own take on films that have been previously reviewed, and done follow-up bits and pieces on my own reviews, but I’ve never attempted to fully re-assess a film within the 800-1,000ish words that generally constitutes a full length write-up round these parts. But I’m doing it now. Not because my feelings about the film in question have changed all that radically since the UK premiere at Ghouls on Film in February 2010; but more because, in the time that has elapsed since, it has become abundantly clear that the Soska Sisters really do mean business, and that they are here to stay.

Allow me to put my initial viewing of Dead Hooker In A Trunk in context; after all, as I’ve noted before the circumstances under which we see a movie have a tremendous impact on our interpretation, and oftentimes we don’t acknowledge this enough. Well, back in February ’10, I’d had it up to my bloodshot eyeballs with microbudget DV horror. Why? Because I’d been given so much of it to review in the months before, screener after screener dropping through my letterbox, and the vast majority of it was absolute horseshit. I know Marc in particular prides this site as being heavily pro-indie filmmaking, ‘punk as fuck’ and all that, and philosophically speaking I wholeheartedly concur; but seriously man, some of these fucking films… take a look at any given title released under the Brain Damage label. Taste of Flesh, Fist of the Vampire, Bachelor Party in the Bungalow of the Damned. It’s one thing to want to fly in the face of mainstream convention; I can respect that. But it doesn’t hurt if you actually have the first clue about what constitutes good filmmaking, which so few of the people behind these lo-fi flicks seem to. These weren’t so bad-it’s-good movies, they were so-bad-you-are-tempted-to-gouge-your-own-eyes-out movies, and they left me with a very low tolerance for the tell-tale signs of microbudget filmmaking: shaky DV photography, fuzzy sound, incoherent editing, incompetent actors. (Is Dead Hooker In A Trunk guilty of all of these? No; some, but not all. Bear with me, I’m getting to that.)

And so, to Ghouls On Film. The opening feature, Slaughtered, pretty much ticked all the boxes for bog-standard microbudget horror: poorly assembled and executed, and worse still painfully derivative. Coming off the back of that, my expectations for Dead Hooker In A Trunk were kept in check. So when the movie started, I had the kind of Pavlovian response Keri spoke of in her Red Canyon review, noticing nothing at first but the shaky, murky image and muffled sound, and as such immediately supposing the film to be just ‘another one of those.’

The difference here, however – and the thing I should have paid heed to from the get-go – is how Dead Hooker In A Trunk does not adhere to a set format the way the bulk of microbudget horror does. It isn’t five kids in a house. It isn’t another zombie, slasher or Blair Witch wannabe movie. It’s more grindhouse, yet it doesn’t ape a 70s aesthetic as most do. Bad girls on the run versus cops, drug gangs, pimps and psycho killers; sure, it’s not a unique premise, but it’s not one we see too often, particularly at this level of indie-filmmaking.

As I said of the Soska Sisters’ efforts in my first review: “They may be trying a little too hard here, but that’s a minor offence considering so many no-budget indies of this ilk don’t seem to try at all.”

I maintain there’s plenty about Dead Hooker In A Trunk that doesn’t really work. It’s overloaded and feels overlong, even at 85 minutes; its incessant quirkiness and expletive-ridden dialogue tends to feel contrived, and at times works against the film overall. But, as repeat viewing makes clear, there’s so much about it that really does work. There aren’t too many microbudget films I could mention that boast action sequences as well-conceived and brilliantly realised as those here. There really are moments where, even with repeat viewing, you can’t help but gape and wonder how the hell they did it. Also, while blood-drenched torture scenes may be ten a penny these days, how many of them play out to the dulcet tones of the Beach Boys?

And then there’s the central cast. One of the key problems with most of the indie horror I’ve so derided here is that they tend to be cast with either charmless buffoons who are presumably friends of the director, and/or talentless pretty people whose only redeeming quality is their willingness to disrobe on camera. Not so here. Ricki Gagne, CJ Wallis and of course the Soskas themselves are genuinely charismatic performers; people you enjoy spending an hour and a half with. It is their charisma as individuals, and overall chemistry as a group, that will bring people back to watch this movie over and over. And their work is all the more impressive when you consider all but Gagne were doing multiple jobs on the film; the Soskas multi-tasking is established, plus CJ Wallis was one of the principal cinematographers, as well as editing the film and composing and performing the music.

This DVD from Bounty/Eureka is a pretty good one for repeat viewing and fan indulgence. The sound and picture looks to have been cleaned up a fair bit, and with two commentaries, behind the scenes footage and deleted scenes, all the trailers and a (regrettably brief) interview snippet with Carlos Gallardo – and, as the directorial commentary makes clear, El Mariachi and Robert Rodriguez’s book Rebel Without A Crew were a major influence on the Soskas – pretty much all the bases are covered. And as the Twisted Twins themselves excitedly announced on Facebook, Amazon UK sold out its initial run within 48 hours. Yes, the fanboys/fangirls are out in force already.

Their upcoming second movie American Mary is, I think I can safely say, one of our most anticipated films of 2011. Once that’s in the can and on the screen, we shall see if the Soskas can deliver on this early promise. Either way, they’ve made a debut feature that, for all its flaws, really does stands apart; that’s a rare thing, and worthy of celebration.