Archive: Author: Darren Gaskell

That’s Nasty! Night of the Demon (1980)

Posted on by Darren Gaskell

In 1983, the Director Of Public Prosecutions published its first list of movies which were tagged with the tabloid-friendly label of Video Nasties. These cinematic outliers were deemed to have to power to deprave and corrupt and, if the title in question had been successfully prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act of 1959, any dealer stocking it could be fined or jailed. In one case, involving Romano Scavolini’s Nightmares In A Damaged Brain, one of its distributors was sentenced to eighteen months in prison (eventually reduced to six months on appeal, but sheesh).

It was a heady time, driven by moral outrage, framed as a battle for the very soul of the United Kingdom, and the seventy-two films that appeared at one time or another on that DPP list attained a level of notoriety their filmmakers never expected (unless, arguably, you were Umberto Lenzi). Thirty-nine remained banned, thirty-three were dropped from the list. All of them became must see items, of course.

As the memory of those crazy days fades and those of us who lived through the Nasties era scratch our heads and wonder what all of that hysteria was about, did those movies actually threaten the fabric of society as we knew it? Let’s take a look at another…

NIGHT OF THE DEMON (1980, dir. James C. Wasson)

*** THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS ***

Professor Bill Nugent (Michael Cutt) takes four of his students on an anthropological field trip into the woods of Northern California with the goal of proving the existence of Bigfoot. Also tagging along is Carla Thomas (Shannon Cooper), a young woman whose father was found dead in those aforementioned woods and suspects his murder was carried out by the legendary creature. It didn’t just do for Carla’s dad, either, as several other brutal, unsolved killings have been attributed to the hulking brute, despite local police dismissing this theory as nothing but a hoax. Of course, the expedition is going to go horrendously wrong…

The initial UK video release of Night Of The Demon, courtesy of Iver Film Services (“The professionals at Pinewood”), featured a rather uninspiring cover picture of a moonlit night, so it’s strange that anyone gave this a second glance when it came to calling the video cops for offensive content. Ah, hold on, what was the text on that front cover? “Warning – this film contains scenes of extreme and explicit violence”. Yeah, fair enough, that would do it.

James C. Wasson’s flick stayed on the DPP list for the duration and only resurfaced in 1994, when the BBFC imposed a minute and forty-one seconds of cuts to various violent moments along the way, including some intestine flinging and, in a flashback that most viewers will remember, a biker stops for a roadside wee and has his dick ripped off in glorious colour. In subsequent years, British channel Zone Horror broadcast the uncut version and in 2022 it landed itself a decent Blu-ray treatment complete with second disc of extras.

The story kicks off in a hospital, as a masked, doped up, seriously injured Nugent proves surprisingly clear in the speech department, considering it’s been mentioned that the bottom half of his face has been burned off. Still, let’s not allow medical facts to get in the way of a preamble, as our narrator is told to begin at the beginning – that’s actual dialogue – and warns that those horror stories you heard about in the forest are true. On with the gory slaughter!

At this point, I feel it necessary to point out that as gruesome as the killings are, they’re undermined slightly by the strawberry sauce colour of the blood and often undercut further by the low wattage emoting on display. Following the pecker punishment dished out to the biker, he staggers back towards his transport saying “No!” and “Oh no!” as he sprays the surrounding area with claret, seemingly in about as much pain as he would be had he banged his elbow.

As Nugent’s party takes a while to make their way through the wilderness and uncover the clues leading them to a woman known as Crazy Wanda, their trek is broken up with previous tales of Bigfoot’s killing spree, which amounts to a series of ridiculous shorts as it bumps off not only our unfortunate motorcyclist, but a couple in a van, two Girl Scouts (in apparel bearing the legend “Girl Scouts”) and a woodsman who gets offed with his own axe.

The van sequence is particularly amusing in that it’s splatter free, but it creates an opportunity to crowbar in some T&A as the imaginatively named Van Lover and Van Lover (I’m quoting the end credits here) get not very hot or heavy before the monster drags the bloke out of the back of the vehicle and then hauls him onto the roof for no other reason than to have the terrified lass hear all of the external banging (as opposed to the unsexy internal banging) and then die of fright, as her beau takes what seems like ten minutes to slide his face a tiny bit down one of the windows.

Nugent’s description of these deaths appears to lean towards terms such as “horribly mutilated”, but in general there’s not a great deal of horrible mutilation going on until the climax of the movie, at which point the pieces fall into place as to Crazy Wanda’s role in the proceedings and Nugent’s posse, plus the Prof himself, are trapped in a cabin which is set upon by Bigfoot. This leading to sweeping reductions in the remaining cast as folks are on the receiving end of saw blade, pitchfork, broken glass and hot plate violence.

At the time of Night Of The Demon’s release, there weren’t all that many movies featuring the potential existence of Bigfoot, let alone one that leaned into mean-spirited violence with such abandon. The wobbly thesping doesn’t do the drama any favours, but there are still a few genuinely disturbing moments, particularly during the Crazy Wanda backstory, gleaned from a spot of hypnosis which turns out to be one of Nugent’s many talents. It’s a shame that, when it comes to his list of skills, realising he’s wandering into a death trap wasn’t one of them.

As for the monster, the design has just enough of the uncanny about it to be disconcerting while still possessing recognisably human qualities. It’s a bit of a shame that it doesn’t look all that convincing up close, but most of the mayhem from the hairy executioner is observed at a distance, which throws the focus on the destruction of the many idiots who blunder across its path, rather than an unnerving but practically-limited face design which doesn’t move much. There’s also a red-tinged “Demon Vision” POV which looks a bit like the opening titles of the ITV Thriller series without the fish-eye lens, but there are no Devil Hunter-style eyesight problems hindering the pursuit of the next unlucky victim.

Undemanding slasher fans might get a kick out of this urban legend retooled as body count pic, especially as Nugent’s newbies are by turns bland and stupid enough to not trouble the viewer one bit if they become sasquatch fodder. They blather on about nothing much and then react to dire threats by moping about and showing so little initiative that it’s amazing they didn’t wander off a cliff long before their confrontation with the backwoods beast. There’s even a spark of coy romance, as a couple of characters brush fingers across a chess piece. Look, they’re touching fingers! They’re talking about going to Hawaii! Isn’t that cute? Well, maybe to some, but at that moment I couldn’t wait for Bigfoot to show up and put both them and the audience out of their misery.

To be fair, there’s no sentimentality when it comes to how the plot deals with most of the characters in Night Of The Demon and that includes someone like Carla, who would normally survive to the end having already lost someone to the Big Bad. Spoiler: not here, although she dies in relatively unspectacular fashion. It’s Crazy Wanda who gets the pass at the end, sitting placidly in her rocking chair as everyone else in her cabin gets taken out or, in the case of Nugent, given a crispy coating and ending up being declared criminally insane, as his detailed account is dismissed as the ramblings of a madman.

Considering the claims made on behalf on some video fodder in the 1980s, at least Night Of The Demon makes good on its promise of explicit violence and it’s not difficult to see why the BBFC wasn’t keen on allowing the unexpurgated version to foul the rental shop shelves given the rampant hysteria of the time. Nowadays, as with a number of the Nasties, it’s puzzling to see what all of the fuss was about. The bloodthirsty bits mostly come across as daft, not helped by some of the least convincing reactions to being grievously injured you’re likely to see. My personal favourite is the “AH! OH! WHOA!” combo as Van Lover 1 is killed in rubbish fashion.

Night Of The Demon is sporadically, effectively weird, but the performances and frequently clunky writing ultimately scupper what could otherwise have been a minor indie treat, especially as this plumps for a cryptid menace rather than the era’s penchant for yet another nutcase with a knife. The Stuart Hardy score, which veers between light jazz flute arrangements and unorthodox, honking stabs of synth, matches the overall feeling of familiar, almost banal ground being covered in the main, but frequently giving way to something odder and darker. Even the end credits are peculiar; a mix of fonts and caption styles which use various, inconsistent portions of the screen – only the top third in one case, which makes me wonder if they ran out of folks to shout out or remembered a few of them at the last minute. But hey, we’re not here to pick holes in closing titles and if it’s gore you’re after, this may provide fleeting satisfaction. However, keep in mind that extreme violence of a 1980 vintage may not be the extreme violence you would expect of today.

That’s Nasty! Mardi Gras Massacre (1978)

Posted on by Darren Gaskell

In 1983, the Director Of Public Prosecutions published its first list of movies which were tagged with the tabloid-friendly label of Video Nasties. These cinematic outliers were deemed to have to power to deprave and corrupt and, if the title in question had been successfully prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act of 1959, any dealer stocking it could be fined or jailed. In one case, involving Romano Scavolini’s Nightmares In A Damaged Brain, one of its distributors was sentenced to eighteen months in prison (eventually reduced to six months on appeal, but sheesh).

It was a heady time, driven by moral outrage, framed as a battle for the very soul of the United Kingdom, and the seventy-two films that appeared at one time or another on that DPP list attained a level of notoriety their filmmakers never expected (unless, arguably, you were Umberto Lenzi). Thirty-nine remained banned, thirty-three were dropped from the list. All of them became must see items, of course.

As the memory of those crazy days fades and those of us who lived through the Nasties era scratch our heads and wonder what all of that hysteria was about, did those movies actually threaten the fabric of society as we knew it? Let’s take a look at one of them…

MARDI GRAS MASSACRE (1978, dir. Jack Weis)

*** THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS ***

In New Orleans, a serial killer is picking up women to sacrifice to an Aztec goddess and it’s up to the crack Louisiana law enforcement team of Detective Sergeant Frank Abraham (Curt Dawson) and Detective Sergeant Mayer (Ronald Tanet) to stop the slaughter. Over the course of their investigation, Abraham hooks up with kind-of witness and reluctant lady of the night Sherry (Gwen Arment). Surprise! It’s looking as though she could be next on the murderer’s hit list…

Marketed as an “American Splatter Movie” on VHS by an offshoot of Derann Film Services called Goldstar, it was blindingly obvious what the fate of Mardi Gras Massacre would be once the BBFC got hold of it and, regardless of the stonkingly awful effects and shoddy filmmaking techniques, it received the inevitable ban and would not get a reprieve until 2022, when the uncut version was finally made available on disc. It’s since played in full on television, which gives you an idea of just how shocking it’s considered in these more enlightened times.

The opening ten minutes gives you a fair idea as to what this movie’s M.O. is going to be as a well-dressed john called, ahem, John (William Metzo) calls in at a bar and makes enquiries as to the evilest hooker he can take home. Directed to a woman called Shirley, he negotiates a price of two hundred dollars and the two head for his swanky (well, as swanky as the production budget will allow) apartment, which has its own bespoke sacrificial space.

After showing his apparent kink by tying up Shirley and giving her a massage, things go awry for the poor lass fairly quickly. John disappears behind a curtain and then reappears wearing a weird mask and carrying a ceremonial knife, before going through the process of offering the victim to his goddess. Firstly, he stabs the hand which accepted the money, then he stabs one of the feet which brought her to his place before finally cutting out the source of her evil – her heart – and placing it on an altar.

I will accept that the above description may sound utterly horrific, but when you see the action played out on screen and you witness the abysmal effects work – set to an incongruous disco soundtrack – then the main point of offence is more likely to be that you’ve given up your evening to watch dross like this. The actress involved doesn’t seem especially terrified about her plight, but that’s fair considering she’s clearly breathing after she’s been bumped off.

The ritual/crappy body effect sequence is Mardi Gras Massacre’s central trick and it does not deviate from any of its spirit-crushing detail when it’s repeated twice during the runtime. Yep, considering you’re promised a massacre, you get a grand total of three in the ceremonial kill column, plus one bloodless blade to the guts as John is ambushed by a hapless pimp attempting to steal his money. I think it’s a blade to the guts, but that scrap is filmed in such an undetailed and confusing way that it’s only my best guess.

Considering the fact that Weis’ unenticing mix of slashing and sleuthing plods on for over an hour and a half, there must be something to fill the gaps between the unconvincing gore scenes and has this movie got the subplot for you, as Frank and Sherry navigate their fledging, badly written, astonishingly dull relationship. They go for dinner, they get their own slushy montage, they smooch, they fight, they break up. All the while, the investigation doesn’t seem to be going anywhere and Frank’s oppo Mayer represents the viewer by calmly suggesting that his partner is an arsehole.

Good call, Mayer, for Frank is a gigantic arsehole, looking down on Sherry’s profession even though he’s hardly squeaky clean. If the writing were better, it may have been an insight into Frank’s inability to deal with seeing the worst of humanity day after day. As it is, I’d had more than enough of him well before he decides to slap Sherry because she talked back to him. Having wasted a good third of the movie following around this pathetic excuse for a bloke, I wanted John to switch things up and start sacrificing dickheads instead. This, unfortunately, does not happen.

The eviscerations are nowhere near the most gruesome parts of the movie. That’s reserved for some of the least sexy exotic dancing you’re ever seen as scantily clad women hoof in and out of terribly framed shots and provide further padding for a story that’s already bursting with inessential content. Flubbed lines are left in, some performers are clearly so aware of the camera that their avoidance of its gaze becomes hilarious and that’s before we even get to the technical aspects of this film, with flat, static camerawork and editing of both picture and sound which appears to have been carried out with a pair of safety scissors.

The title isn’t even accurate, either, as John’s “three must die” plans for Fat Tuesday are thwarted by a late in the day rescue courtesy of Frank, who finally decides to pull his finger out and do some actual cop work, although he’s given the vital details of John’s location by a helpful Big Easy barkeep rather than joining any of the numerous dots. Our Aztec goddess worshipper’s plans are foiled and he ends up in the drink following a chase that’s both low on speed and destruction. A search of the water only succeeds in locating that weird mask and John is nowhere to be found. Spooky, huh? Well, no. How about a complete bloody waste of time?

Weis’ previous movie, 1976’s Crypt Of Dark Secrets – also horror, also set in Louisiana – sees a murdered Vietnam vet resurrected by a witch before time-honoured revenge is taken and, although it’s not great by any stretch of the imagination, it’s several notches up on Mardi Gras Massacre if you have a hankering for more of this auteur’s filmography. The swamp setting and the fantasy elements of Crypt work far better than the urban backdrop of this one, hampered by not only the lack of urgency in driving the plot forward, but a dearth of procedural elements beyond some rudimentary questioning of witnesses and a late in the day pounding of the beat, once the forces of law and order have finally realised the killer is likely to strike again – well, duh.

Weis did manage to snag some actual carnival footage and insert his leads into some of the crowds, which adds a little flavour to the final act, but it’s far too little, far too late. It’s also clear that the ultimate pursuit through the supposedly teeming streets was filmed at a totally different time in empty locations. So much of Mardi Gras Massacre feels like filler that, after the first slaying, it’s possibly to tune out at almost any point and pick it up later having missed nothing of any consequence. You could comfortably enjoy a restorative nap during the second act, it’s that lacking in incident.

As a grindhouse quickie, Mardi Gras Massacre isn’t possessed of the imagination, the wackiness or the grimy business that are the stock-in-trade of so many zero budgeted efforts. There’s one idea here and it’s stretched to way beyond breaking point, before the first half of the flick is up. The censor-baiting effects work, as laughable as it is, gave it a level of notoriety it absolutely did not deserve. To anyone being lured in by its previous ban and “Splatter Movie” tag, allow me to advise you that your ninety-six minutes is better invested in thousands upon thousands of other movies. Or, indeed, watching paint dry. If you do decide to go against this advice, you’ll just end up hating Frank Abraham and possibly yourself.

That’s Nasty! I Miss You, Hugs and Kisses (1978)

Posted on by Darren Gaskell

In 1983, the Director Of Public Prosecutions published its first list of movies which were tagged with the tabloid-friendly label of Video Nasties. These cinematic outliers were deemed to have to power to deprave and corrupt and, if the title in question had been successfully prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act of 1959, any dealer stocking it could be fined or jailed. In one case, involving Romano Scavolini’s Nightmares In A Damaged Brain, one of its distributors was sentenced to eighteen months in prison (eventually reduced to six months on appeal, but sheesh).

It was a heady time, driven by moral outrage, framed as a battle for the very soul of the United Kingdom, and the seventy-two films that appeared at one time or another on that DPP list attained a level of notoriety their filmmakers never expected (unless, arguably, you were Umberto Lenzi). Thirty-nine remained banned, thirty-three were dropped from the list. All of them became must see items, of course.

As the memory of those crazy days fades and those of us who lived through the Nasties era scratch our heads and wonder what all of that hysteria was about, did those movies actually threaten the fabric of society as we knew it? Let’s take a look at another…

I MISS YOU, HUGS AND KISSES (1978, dir. Murray Markowitz)


*** THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS ***


When wealthy businessman Charles Kruschen (Donald Pilon) comes home to find his wife Magdalene (Elke Sommer) brutally murdered, he finds himself subsequently accused of the crime and is then put on trial for the killing. However, as the ongoing proceedings in court seemingly reveal a web of deception on both sides, is Charles actually guilty? And is his best friend Gershen (Chuck Shamata) an ally or an enemy?

One of the more unexpected entries on the DPP’s list, I Miss You, Hugs And Kisses (which will henceforth be abbreviated to IMYHAK) nonetheless earns its place in video infamy courtesy of some squishy strikes to Sommer’s bonce – played a number of times from slightly different angles – and the kidnap/attack of a young woman which redefines the word “unnecessary.” At the time, Canadian movies were beginning to break from the shackles of their hitherto worthy content and Cronenberg’s early boundary breakers in terms of sci-fi/horror grue more than likely emboldened those with an eye on overseas markets.

Markowitz’s previous directorial effort, Recommendation For Mercy, also mined controversial courtroom territory and also based its story on real life events. IMYHAK’s inspiration is the case of Peter Demeter, a Hungarian-born émigré to Canada who became a real estate developer. He married Austrian model Christine Ferrari. The couple had a daughter before the marriage hit trouble and Christine was discovered bludgeoned to death in the family garage. Here, Charles flees Hungary and settles in Toronto where becomes a property developer. He marries European model Magdalene. The couple has a daughter before the marriage hits trouble and…well, there you go.

Setting the scene by having Magdalene being bloodily dispatched, the opening credits then play over a shot of her blood and brain matter spilling across the garage floor to first-time composer Howard Shore’s rather decent score. See? Even Academy Award winners can get their starts in disreputable filth such as this. To be fair, most of this isn’t disreputable; neither is it filth. There’s nudity, but there’s a feeling of embarrassment that it’s included, which is very much at odds with the one glaring, grating bit of business involving stabbing and sex in close proximity, which I’m sure didn’t help it one little bit when the BBFC hauled it in. Oh, and there’s a short but button-pressing visit to one of Charles and Gershen’s early jobs in a slaughterhouse. The censors really loved seeing that kind of stuff at the time.

Having said that, were those sequences even included in the original video release of IMYHAK? I never saw this one on tape but, judging by anecdotal evidence, it seems as though the VHS showed signs of being cut in various places. What is for certain is that the re-release, going under an alternative title of Drop Dead Dearest, was missing a minute and six seconds of the most offensive bits, throwing the focus on to the judicial shenanigans and the machinations of Sommer, Pilon, Shamata et al.

Sommer gets the only pre-title credit, but the bulk of the film follows Pilon, and to a lesser extent Shamata, as they work out whether or not the increasingly cruel and calculating Magdalene can be put out of her misery while making it look like an accident, leading to some red-filtered fantasy sequences in which the wayward wife has a concrete block dropped on her head, is bumped off in a hit and run and falls foul of an electrocution in a pool. Whereas these vignettes sound like they’d up the ante in terms of exploitation value, they’re bloodless and, to be honest, a bit daft.

It all kicks off with Charles already in the dock, meaning the bulk of the tale is told in flashback, initially serving up a warning to our accused from his deceased father about picking a woman as you would an apple. Beware, because some are rotten, apparently. Wow, way to go, screenplay. Yes, there’s a general absence of nice, upstanding folk in this, but there appears to be a particular venom reserved for the female of the species, here portrayed as either doting bimbos transfixed by the love of much older men or duplicitous harridans out to take their unfortunate spouses for everything they’ve got.

While the piece has to cast some form of doubt on Charles’ guilt to feed into the drama and have the audience question the reliability of its many narrators, it tends to lean into sympathy for its main protagonist more than it possibly should. The casting of Pilon helps, though, because he seems a wrong ‘un from early on and Shamata is adept at channelling that unsightly, weaselly weakness which Canucksploiter William Fruet used to great effect a couple of years before in the DPP botherer – but ultimately not outright ban material – that was Death Weekend.

Despite the odd bit of grue and occasional, very bad language – the c-word gets a couple of airings – IMYHAK often feels like a Lifetime TV time flier with all of that extra salacious material bolted on in the most perfunctory of manners. Technically, however, it shows far more in the way of competence than a lot of its fellow Nasties, the writing is decent if unremarkable and the performances are solid throughout. Of course, all of those things still didn’t save it from getting its distributors into trouble.

Considering the notoriety and continuing popularity of many of its banned stablemates, IMYHAK is still one of the more obscure titles on the Section 2 catalogue. I don’t remember ever seeing it on the rental shop shelves and doesn’t seem to be the subject of much discussion to this day. The packaging of the Intercity Video tape leans into the mildly titillating as it features Sommer in a wet T-shirt, but there’s nothing else to suggest the upset it would clearly cause whoever it was to dob it in. It certainly didn’t have a front cover featuring some hungry cannibal tucking into intestines, so the offended had to put some work in before declaring it sick and depraved.

The IMDb entry for this suggests that it would pass with an uncut 15 certificate now, but I’m not so sure – I’m guessing whoever wrote that nodded off during the murder/necrophilia bit. These days it might seem weak beer on the whole and the multiple fantasy demises of Sommer are more likely to raise some unintentional chuckles, but there’s still something undeniably weird about the genre and tonal shifts deployed in its sub-ninety minute runtime. There are details which hint that Markowitz was looking to give his subject a little more heft than your standard, law based, movie of the week – the first act’s historical context and downbeat, verbose ending being the best examples of this – but the tawdry moments weaken that argument. You probably won’t be questioning if justice was served as the end credits roll, but you’ll be thinking about the incongruously grubby business on display.

That’s Nasty! The Devil Hunter (1980)

Posted on by Darren Gaskell

In 1983, the Director of Public Prosecutions published its first list of movies which were tagged with the tabloid-friendly label of Video Nasties. These cinematic outliers were deemed to have to power to deprave and corrupt and, if the title in question had been successfully prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act of 1959, any dealer stocking it could be fined or jailed. In one case, involving Romano Scavolini’s Nightmares In A Damaged Brain, one of its distributors was sentenced to eighteen months in prison (eventually reduced to six months on appeal, but sheesh).

It was a heady time, driven by moral outrage, framed as a battle for the very soul of the United Kingdom, and the seventy-two films that appeared at one time or another on that DPP list attained a level of notoriety their filmmakers never expected (unless, arguably, you were Umberto Lenzi). Thirty-nine remained banned, thirty-three were dropped from the list. All of them became must see items, of course.

As the memory of those crazy days fades and those of us who lived through the Nasties era scratch our heads and wonder what all of that hysteria was about, did those movies actually threaten the fabric of society as we knew it? Let’s take a look at another of them…

THE DEVIL HUNTER (1980, dir. Jess Franco)

Model and actress Laura Crawford (played by model and actress Ursula Buchfellner, here credited as Ursula Fellner) is kidnapped by unscrupulous types and squirrelled away in the jungle, where her captors await a sizeable ransom. As Laura is a bankable star, a mission is mounted to bring her back her alive, with adventurer Peter Weston (Al Cliver) given the task. Unfortunately, the jungle is also home to a tribe of cannibals who have a penchant for sacrificing young women to their Devil God (Burt Altman) and Laura’s the type who fits their menu rather nicely…

Jess Franco wasn’t a big fan of cannibal movies; however, they were good for the box office during a short period in the late 1970s/early 1980s and a filmmaker as prolific as Franco didn’t often turn down work – unless it happened to be Zombie Lake, which That’s Nasty! will most likely wade into further down the line. For anyone approaching this one expecting the same level of gruesomeness as such notorious censor upsetters as Cannibal Holocaust or Cannibal Ferox, my guess is those people will be a) disappointed and b) bewildered, though I’m not quite sure in what order.

The Cinehollywood UK VHS release of The Devil Hunter is a much-prized artefact these days, with copies valued at hundreds of pounds at the very least. It stayed on the DPP’s “Final 39” list of movies which were prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act and, with modern eyes, this film being deemed to possess the power to deprave and corrupt would appear to be a pretty daft decision. However, if we rewind a few decades and put ourselves in the shoes of an unsuspecting home audience which wasn’t versed in either low budget horror or Jess Franco movies, the cause of the consternation is less baffling.

Compared to some other Franco films, there is at least some gore here, but it’s realised in the cheapest way possible. The blood is more pink than red, the featured munching on humans ends up being fuzzy close ups of the Devil God chewing on stringy bits of offal in slow motion and there’s a brief disembowelling which is admittedly unpleasant, but also incredibly unconvincing. One of the bad guys has a quick glance down to where he’s about to fall and ends up in a trap full of pointy spikes. A few folks are shot, but display variable effects of having a bullet in them depending on the scene – sometimes they can hardly walk, sometimes they can jog, sometimes they can run, sometimes they forget their wound entirely and go in for a quick snog with one of your fellow crims, as is the case with Gisela Hahn’s Jane.

If the disagreeable spilling of guts wasn’t enough to upset folks, there’s naked flesh aplenty and a smattering of leering, sexual threat chucked in. In terms of capturing both the jungle surroundings and the attractive female cast members, Franco can’t wait to zoom in on the bush. Not so fast, though, as there’s male, full frontal nudity too, as the Devil God lumbers around in the buff, prodigious wanger on display. Totting up all of the possible reasons for offence, The Devil Hunter is very much case of being, ahem, more than the sum of its parts.

One of the companies which produced this head-spinner is Eurociné, who were responsible for the unrelentingly dreadful Cannibal Terror, previously given the That’s Nasty! treatment. It was shot back-to-back with a second Franco cannibal movie, White Cannibal Queen (also titled Cannibals), which also stars Al Cliver and is a source of confusion when folks attempt to remember which one is which. In addition to the double helping of Al, both stories feature blonde women falling into the clutches of a cannibal tribe (the blonde lass in White Cannibal Queen is played by Sabrina Siani). As an aide memoire, Al has the use of both arms in The Devil Hunter but only one in the other flick. Also, Franco muse Lina Romay appears in one of these, but it’s not this particular one. Are we clear? Good.

It’s a good thing we’re clear about something, because it wouldn’t be the plot of The Devil Hunter, which muddles around with the kidnappers trudging through the wilderness and then trying to negotiate with Weston, or kill him and his sidekick Jack. Jack is played by Franco regular Antonio Mayans, who was also in Cannibal Terror and went on to appear in White Cannibal Queen. Cliver was also in key DPP title Zombie Flesh Eaters, Hahn appeared in Contamination…some of these Euro performers should have been on first name terms with the BBFC.

Enough of that; back to the story. A story which is full of people who are, quite frankly, stupid, holding conversations which frequently don’t go anywhere or make the slightest lick of sense. Two of these idiots – Weston’s mate Jack and Werner Pochath’s baddie Chris – are actually scared of the jungle, which makes them a liability from the off. Pochath goes all in one eye-rolling madness from the start, getting hysterical about the heat and humidity before inexplicably calming down for a sec and leaning into the voyage of discovery, right before being killed off screen. His corpse is a marvel, only choosing to drip blood when someone is standing directly below it. Previously, Pochath was front and centre in psycho killer study Blood Lust, which didn’t attain Video Nasty notoriety, but did show up on the DPP’s Section 3 list of somewhat disreputable, but not society-destroying material.

The entire project feels lashed together on the fly, with characters seemingly having a memory wipe mid-scene. Take the admittedly grubby sequence in which head kidnapper Thomas (Antônio do Cabo given a post-production, cod, semi-posh English accent) is lusting over a bound Laura. Chris watches on with interest, then he’s told to get out, which he does, but then wanders back in after what seems like several minutes because the scene is still going on with no signs of cutting to anywhere else. By now, Thomas is pawing at his restrained captive, but Chris’ dialogue suggests he is totally unaware of what’s about to happen.

Elsewhere, folks argue, then switch to chit chat, then argue again. Weston asks for “two hundred thou” to retrieve Laura, his potential employers say there’s no way they can pay him that, he reiterates his price and they immediately cave, due to his mastery of the mercenary business. In the first few minutes, a reporter asks Laura of her opinion of men. Her response? “I have no opinion of men. I just love them.” The reporter’s response? “Oh, I see,” delivered with less emotion than if you’d heard those three words from a Speak and Spell.

As the runtime ticks towards the hour mark, Weston and Jack sneak onto a boat where a nearly naked Muriel Montossé supplies a convenient exposition dump for no other reason than: there needs to be a convenient exposition dump. And why not have the aforementioned plot drop delivered with a side order of female flesh? Also, Jack’s rather taken with the girl on the boat – even though she’s helping the bad guys – so a contrived shag is clearly on the cards. Their fun is interrupted by the Devil God, though. He’s got bored of waiting for the tribe to deliver his next meal, so he’s decided to swim out and interrupt Jack mid-bonk with neither he nor the yacht lass even noticing the nude, seven foot tall bloke with the weird eyes until he’s right next to them. Remember the disembowelling I referred to earlier? There you go.

Fair play to the Devil God for not only spotting the boat but getting all the way out to it, as all of his point of view shots in the movie are so blurry that this deity needs an optician. Stat. That could be something to do with the fact that his eyes are, for some reason, a practical effects piece made of plasticine and ping pong balls. This marvel of prosthetic work is viewed in close up far too often, which does not do it any favours and removes any fear which may have been generated by Altman’s imposing physique.

It’s also clear that the optical get-up is almost impossible to see out of, none more so than when the Devil God is swiping his way through the undergrowth like an athletic Mr. Magoo. He’s helped by having his various sacrificial meals tied to a tree, which means he can eventually blunder into them after staring at them from a distance for a while and ultimately deciding to meander in their general direction. Arguably, there is suspense, but it’s more of the “When is this bog-eyed weirdo going to get on with it?” type. And before there’s any accusation of being harsh on those of us without 20/20 vision, I’ll freely admit that I’m also a bog-eyed weirdo. I can’t see for shit.

All of the above suggests that The Devil Hunter is one to avoid but, unlike Cannibal Terror, this is one for the bad movie buff to sit back and soak up. The dubbing is often hilarious, with Jack’s incongruous US Deep South approximation and do Cabo’s haughty Brit stylings taking the awards. The dialogue appears to have been generated by computer, the performances veer between hysterical and apathetic, the effects are risible and, at a hundred and two minutes in length, the tale is bogged down in needless, often action-free face-offs and a long middle stretch in which Buchfellner runs around for an age as the various interested parties try to track her down.

I’m not going to pretend this isn’t going to be a patience tester for many of you, but there’s something oddly addictive about watching a piece of work that feels like it’s about to come off the rails at any moment. That said, the opening sequence, juxtaposing Laura’s media meet-and-greet and subsequent beach frolics with a native woman being caught and prepared for slaughter, shows there’s at least some thought that’s gone into this. Franco knows how to frame those picturesque locations, the soundtrack is surprisingly avant garde and jarring, Fellner is traffic-stoppingly attractive and the clifftop showdown between Cliver and Altman is laugh-out-loud funny. After wrongs have been righted, the final shot doesn’t even have time to linger, bludgeoned by the end credits in a similarly clumsy fashion to how most of the previous events have played out.

The more I watch The Devil Hunter, the more I enjoy it. That’s not to say it’s any good, but the whole enterprise is catnip for those with a deep interest in exploitation cinema. It’s a cannibal film without much cannibalism, an adventure film without much adventure, but in which Jess Franco’s cavalier attitude to logic comes to the fore and there’s a thrill about experiencing something so random and rudderless. You may spend a lot of this film thinking “Why?” but just go along with it and wonder what the home video fans of the 1980s thought when all of this grisly nonsense was lighting up their living rooms.

That’s Nasty! Dead and Buried (1981)

Posted on by Darren Gaskell

In 1983, the Director Of Public Prosecutions published its first list of movies which were tagged with the tabloid-friendly label of Video Nasties. These cinematic outliers were deemed to have to power to deprave and corrupt and, if the title in question had been successfully prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act of 1959, any dealer stocking it could be fined or jailed. In one case, involving Romano Scavolini’s Nightmares In A Damaged Brain, one of its distributors was sentenced to eighteen months in prison (eventually reduced to six months on appeal, but sheesh).

It was a heady time, driven by moral outrage, framed as a battle for the very soul of the United Kingdom, and the seventy-two films that appeared at one time or another on that DPP list attained a level of notoriety their filmmakers never expected (unless, arguably, you were Umberto Lenzi). Thirty-nine remained banned, thirty-three were dropped from the list. All of them became must-see items, of course.

As the memory of those crazy days fades and those of us who lived through the Nasties era scratch our heads and wonder what all of that hysteria was about, did those movies actually threaten the fabric of society as we knew it? Let’s take a look at another of them…

DEAD AND BURIED (1981, dir. Gary A. Sherman)


When visitors to the sleepy coastal town of Potter’s Bluff wind up dead, Sheriff Dan Gillis (James Farentino) returns from the big city to investigate and finds that nothing is as it seems in this outwardly idyllic landscape. Gillis, with his criminology degree and “hometown boy made good” tag, vows to get to the bottom of the gruesome goings on, but the town’s mortician/coroner Dobbs (Jack Albertson) is less concerned with discussing possible motives and more preoccupied with restoring the mutilated corpses to a level of aesthetic beauty that qualifies his work as an artform. At home, things are getting decidedly odd, with Dan’s doting wife Janet (Melody Anderson) disappearing at all hours and always seeming to have an air of knowing more than she’s letting on…

Directed by Gary Sherman, who helmed the superb London Underground chiller Death Line almost a decade earlier, and with Alien scribes Ronald Shusett and Dan O’Bannon on screenplay detail plus FX royalty Stan Winston providing the often impressive make-up trickery, it seems odd that something with the genre pedigree of Dead And Buried should share the same area of DPP real estate with other, far scuzzier celluloid transgressors. Yet here we are, and there it was.

Its bow on VHS wasn’t exactly down to some fly by night, exploitation heavy label either, with it landing a rental release courtesy of the generally reputable outlet which was Thorn-EMI Video. That, however, was no defence against the BBFC once there’d been the inevitable complaints from the amusingly fragile home audience of the 1980s, emboldened by a handful of puritanical individuals to complain about all and sundry.

When I use the term “generally reputable,” it’s worth noting that Thorn-EMI found themselves in even hotter water with another title – Tony Maylam’s shear-happy slasher flick The Burning. Sherman’s spooky tale didn’t cause as much of a ruckus, but it wound up on the Nasties list nonetheless before it was eventually dropped a little further on down the trail. A 1990 release was cut by about half a minute to shorten some of the murdery antics – which included the sight of the alluring but deadly Lisa Blount’s faux nurse sticking a syringe in a patient’s eye – then it resurfaced again just before the end of that decade, at which point those previous cuts were finally waived.

Given Shusett and O’Bannon’s input and given the fact that a certain Ridley Scott movie is inevitably mentioned on the box art, it’s fair to say that some viewers were expecting another round of Alien-style claustrophobic tension, but Dead And Buried is altogether stranger and looser, narratively-speaking, than Scott’s tightly controlled galaxy of horrors. Sherman creates a vivid, otherworldly, small town atmosphere where the close-knit community’s veneer of friendliness barely conceals their coldness to the outsider. As one of the trailers stated, “There’s one way in…and no way out.”

The opening sequence is an absolute doozy and sets the uneasy mood for the rest of the proceedings. Christopher Allport’s photographer is capturing attractive shots of the landscapes when the previously mentioned Blount shows up, seduces the snapper and catches him off guard just long enough for her accomplices to appear out of nowhere, beat the poor guy, throw a net over him and set him on fire, capturing their handiwork on their own cameras.

It’s a startling sequence, made more chilling by the fact that the violence is meted out in such a matter of fact way and there’s no emphasis on gore. It’s possibly this which made some of the video viewing public switch off in disgust, which to me only serves to underline that Gary Sherman is great at delivering memorable horror moments without drowning the audience in gore, although he also knows exactly when to deploy a gruesome special effect.

The investigation of the killings is approached in an unusual way, in that we immediately know who’s responsible and the viewer is entertained/frustrated by the fact that Gillis is always several steps behind, obstructed by both Potters Bluff’s info-light population and something far more devastating which the story takes its time to reveal. Farentino, who was more familiar to folks in terms of his television projects – for instance, he played the pseudo Roy Scheider role in the execrable small screen treatment of Blue Thunder but it’s absolutely not on him that the ‘copter’s television outing was so bad – is excellent here, blundering his way through a case where the clues are somehow right in front of him, yet impossible to spot. Anderson, who’d been done slightly dirty by her damsel in distress role in Flash Gordon, gets to flex a little here and delivers by far the most upsetting line in the movie.

Stealing the movie, however, is the superb Jack Albertson in his final on-screen role (he was part of the voice cast for The Fox And The Hound, which is his last credited movie). As Dobbs, he’s comedically cranky, obstinate, sometimes philosophical, sometimes straight talking, taking great delight in pushing Gillis’ buttons and stringing him along for the sport of it. Or is there something more sinister at play? Even for a coroner, Dobbs has a particular interest in the mechanics of death and takes glee in providing obtuse semi-answers that instantly mark him out as a suspect.

With the whodunit replaced by a whydunit, Dead And Buried throws the need for convoluted killer unmaskings out of the window, instead homing in on a number of creepy set pieces where unwitting folk stop off in Potter’s Bluff and very soon realise that’s a very bad idea. Even when you think some of these people have escaped, there’s a disturbing visual cue in the very next scene to let you know they definitely haven’t.

Lower key than its writers’ space shocker or its director’s Seventies subterranean slayings, Dead And Buried seems to be a title which is often overlooked, strangely lacking the inbuilt cachet attached to other, less accomplished works which were handed a ban. This is, in my book, a crime equally as heinous as those committed by the parochial perps here. It’s dripping in dread, with a streak of deliciously dark humour throughout, and it’s easily one of the best movies on the Video Nasties roster.

Reality Killers (2005)

Posted on by Darren Gaskell

Reality Killers (2005) begins with a caption which reads, “This film was mailed to us by an anonymous sender” and the viewer will instantly understand why, as the whole shebang is set up to be a whistle-stop tour of a very twisted individual’s collection of snuff videos. And, according to the IMDb summary, what follows is a series of candid vignettes of horrific intensity which will test the nerves of even the most hardened of horror fans.

Alessandro Capone’s movie serves as an interesting offshoot of my That’s Nasty! series, because it’s a movie which was refused a certificate by the BBFC in July 2024 and hence there’s no UK release from Treasured Films. The film itself is from 2005 and the fact that a two decades-old work caused such a level of consternation at the classification board that it received an outright ban lit up my “ban this sick filth” radar, naturally. As with all films coming a cropper at the BBFC, the overriding question is one of whether the moral and ethical panic is justified.

In the case of Reality Killers, I would say yes and no, not to be contrary or confusing, but because the content is generally much tamer than you’d expect in a movie which has been deemed unsuitable for the British public to view. It’s certainly nasty in concept, but the violence is often carried out just outside the frame or the footage goes blurry at the crucial moment, leaving most of the bloody stuff to shots of the gruesome aftermath. Looking at this from a gore standpoint, there’s far gnarlier stuff out there in mainstream horror flicks, but that clearly isn’t the issue here.

Apart from a very brief flashback which hints at why our central character developed such an unhealthy interest in murder, much of Reality Killers is a procession of threat and torture, with no specific narrative other than watching terrified folks die for dubious entertainment. Despite our collector cutting in at various points to tell us just how excited he is to see all of this carnage play out, the overall effect is numbing.

Shorn of any build up or context, the segments soon become repetitive, despite the differing locations, victims and filming styles. A genuinely effective found footage movie such as Cannibal Holocaust still possesses an incredible power to shock, because we’ve spent time with the protagonists and we’re allowed time for just how hideous they are to sink in before they commit the most appalling atrocities. Here, we have to assume these people are psychos and it’s straight to the destruction, without any framework or backstory to pique the interest.

The BBFC definitely weren’t keen on the lack of counterbalance present in the seventy-five minutes of sadism on display here and, as anti-ban as I am, I can’t say that I disagree with them on this point. Watching folks being abused and ultimately killed over and over again without much in the way of justification is, to be frank, thoroughly depressing and I’m not entirely sure who would genuinely get a kick out of watching this. It’s not truly unpleasant enough to be transgressive, but it’s too focused on obvious button-pushing for it to gain any traction with discerning genre fans.

As to whether Reality Killers could have gained that all important 18 certificate with cuts, any film editor would be confronted with the issue of what you could possibly remove without the remaining action resembling a short. Much of the violence is brief and it’s the emphasis on human suffering that isn’t easily diluted. There’s also an undercurrent of sexual threat in many of the attacks and, despite those elements not being particularly explicit, the combination of sex and violence has always been a sensitive issue for the BBFC and the lack of reassuring resolutions – few of the killers are caught – sets it in a precarious position when considering its fitness for home viewing.

As for “testing the nerves of even the most hardened of horror fans”, I don’t think it particularly tested mine and that’s coming from someone who doesn’t see himself as a hardened horror fan. More often than not, regardless of the fact that some of the sequences are decently shot and the acting isn’t terrible, I was fighting off boredom for long stretches of this. A handful of the short, sharp shocks, such as the bloodless but chilling drowning of a child, are effective, but too many of the reels suffer from over-ripe dialogue and cartoony villains. The biggest offender in this regard is, inevitably, our masked, breathy narrator, who displays such ridiculous, edgelord behaviour that I was rolling my eyes at a couple of points. I get it, you’re evil.

Reality Killers saves its most potent image for the very end, complete with wince-provoking practical effects work, but how many of us are going to make it to that point? Even at just an hour and a quarter, it’s an endurance test and not in the way that, say, a Guinea Pig movie would be. As a twisted take on a portmanteau film, it doesn’t present the requisite variety of tales that would make it work. If it’s to be touted as an item in the extreme horror sphere, it isn’t especially extreme.

And yet, it could all have been a very different, and more contentious, addition to the genre. The final cut of Reality Killers is far different to how it was previously envisaged, initially created as a bizarre game show featuring serial killers and then ditching that premise for a story which centred around a law enforcement officer discovering a cache of snuff movies, one of which featured The Sculptor, the character who became the main protagonist when the law enforcement and investigation angle was also dumped.

The surviving production footage of this jettisoned version is present on the Treasured Films Blu-Ray, including fewer reality killers, but providing far more background detail and a vital, if fleeting, sense of justice as we see most of the perpetrators apprehended and, in the case of the Demon Soldiers episode, appearing in court. In this rough cut, the violence is also drawn out and arguably much more disturbing, particularly in the opening section, which includes some gross post-mortem business that the BBFC would have removed in the blink of an eye.

The project itself is a fascinating one, with Capone given overall directing credit due to his overall mentoring of several fledgling filmmakers brought on board to create their own specific slices of the story as well as helming some of the scenes himself. Of course, you don’t get to know who worked on this because it’s a collection of “real life” murders and hence there are no credits either at the beginning or end. I get that, but it’s a shame that no one gets the kudos, albeit dubious kudos, of contributing to this. There is creativity on display, but most of it is obliterated by the relentless tinkering in the editing suite. If this is an artistic choice to make it all feeling unfocused and unfinished, fair play, but it also has the effect of coming across as a movie that doesn’t know what it wants to be. The story of the making and post-production of Reality Killers is way more interesting than what’s on screen, and that’s unfortunate.

Raindance 2026: Corporate Retreat

Posted on by Darren Gaskell

*** THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS ***

The executives of billion-dollar firm Immaculate Pond Technologies, along with an accidental extra guest, gather for a, you guessed, corporate retreat in order to recharge and refocus. Or, so they thought. It’s not long before their visions of team-building nirvana are hijacked by a vengeful figure from the past who has a few gruesome challenges of his own for this group of cutting edge tech folks…

This film opens with a kitsch tune, sprinkles a helping of twangy surf guitar on the soundtrack and gets down to the business of introducing characters by means of a freeze frame and caption telling the viewer who they are and which job they hold. All of this adds up to more than a whiff of Tarantino in the air and this does generate a promise of snappy dialogue and hyper stylised violence to come. The cast even includes an “and Rosanna Arquette” as grumpy Chief Revenue Office Deborah.

That “and” is worth nothing, because Rosanna gets to give folks the side eye and say a couple of lines before she’s unceremoniously and bloodlessly dispatched, leaving us with a bunch of folks with far less presence than one of the two name actors in the credits. The performers aren’t exactly helped by a raft of issues generated by a screenplay that develops almost none of the protagonists, beyond a quick hello and a single personality trait, if they’re lucky.

As viewers, we’re reasonably certain that abnormal psychology student Ginger (Odeya Rush) will be the Final Girl, because she’s the aforementioned accidental extra guest, having been invited along by boyfriend and Immaculate Pond’s go-to legal douche Cliff (Elias Kacavas). Why is she there? Reasons. Why is someone like Ginger even with Cliff? Again, reasons. In any case, it’s not long before this organisation’s best and brightest are trapped in a remote – well, not that remote when you see a wide shot – hideaway having to fight for their lives.

Aubrey (Ellen Toland) is the Chief Operating Officer and she’s smart. She’s smart because we’re told she has three degrees. As befits someone with three degrees, when will we see her again? Firstly, if you got that joke, congratulations, you’re old. Secondly, you won’t have too long to see Aubrey spring into action because, after some light sauna torture, the group finds that most of their number has drunk poisoned water and the one what knows science must now whip up a quick antidote, using only those items at her immediate disposal. One of these items is drain cleaner, but it’s obvious that’s just asking to be used incorrectly and no one in their right mind would be injecting that into their fellow man, right? Wrong! It forms part of the cure-all, given the vital catalytic reaction by means of the gold in the wedding ring of Chief Financial Officer Carl (Ashton Sanders).

If that solution, or the ridiculous prop syringe used to administer it, is not going to set eyes rolling, why not have one of those eyes gouged out? Previously punted CEO Arthur (Alan Ruck, getting the “with” credit as opposed to the “and”) is unveiled as the mastermind behind the trials and is lured back by the feisty, psychologically tricksy Ginger to take some of those challenges himself. This leads to a long sequence of spoon delivered ocular trauma that should be memorably nasty, but ends up repetitive to the point where the power of the initial shock is drained completely.

The special effects make-up, by Zoe Stanton and Mike Regan, is skilfully realised, but the characterisations are so thinly drawn that these gory demises fail to have the impact they should. Wanting privileged execs to die only works if these folks have done something genuinely evil, but the story doesn’t reveal any of that kind of detail so these people are basically being slaughtered because of business shenanigans. They ousted someone who, given the evidence on screen, seems no better than they were and the payback is for them to be put through a series of Saw-lite tasks in order to transcend themselves. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but at least Ruck gets to steal the film as a preening narcissist, whose empty pontifications will at least strike a chord with anyone who’s ever had to sit through a presentation packed with buzzwords and soundbites.

The world of the rich, out-of-touch decision maker is fertile ground for a sharp takedown, perhaps more so right now given the current behaviour of certain, prosperous captains of modern industry, but Corporate Retreat somehow manages to miss these easy targets and settles on a one-note mission statement of: These people are awful and they should die. There’s no sly satire, just a fun-free, suspenseless set of ordeals which land smack dab between the uneasy laughs or the horrific spectacle this type of set up demands.

Even though it’s well under ninety minutes when the end credits roll, too much of this is concerningly listless, leaning back on the creepiness of the concept, rather than turning the screw and escalating the nightmare situation. Considering its previous notions of handing dreadful people awful, abstract assignments to achieve an ultimate goal, it all ends in routine fashion with a short scrap and then a shootout, in which all of the muzzle flash appears to be digitally added and guns recoil in a way which no guns have ever recoiled.

Do I want to watch this again, or sit through an hour and a half PowerPoint presentation on company ethos? Unfortunately, cerebral atrophy by slide is looking a better option right now.

Corporate Retreat (2026) receives its UK premiere at the Raindance Film Festival. For more details, please click here.

Raindance 2026: Friday the 69th

Posted on by Darren Gaskell

Hollywood, 1981. A group of adult filmmakers gather to discuss their shift of genres to horror cinema in order to make a well regarded slasher movie, a quick buck, or both. After all, as someone initially points out, Friday The 13th was made for nothing and made a killing at the box office, so why shouldn’t other productions take that formula and spin it into financial gold? There’s a camp, a historic double murder, a mysterious killer and a bunch of innocent folks to be slaughtered. Sounds familiar? If it doesn’t, where have you been all these years?

Written, directed, shot, edited – and many other things besides – by Alex Montilla, Friday The 69th is a micro budgeted feature which wears its genre love and its limited resources proudly on its sleeve. The fact that there’s porno movie gags – sorry, that’s jokes, there’s no one wearing a gag in this – mixed in with a good natured piss-take of an iconic subgenre will satisfy viewers who don’t mind broad humour with a side of smut.

The idea of the table read is a fun one, too, as ridiculously named adult performers such as Rick Moreanus (yes, I laughed, I will not be taking questions) and exploitation-thirsty director Michael Caime (yes, I laughed, I will not be taking questions) are filmed for behind-the-scenes content. Actors worry about being cast as teens, even though a few of them are in their thirties. Producer Ivan Moorehead (smirked, no questions) isn’t happy about Caime’s second draft of the screenplay that has just showed up, but his helmer is focused on getting the most bang for those bucks, which includes enlisting non-grot performer Penelope Flaversham as final girl Judy, and brokering a deal with alcohol purveyors Fierce Whiskers Distillery to up the budget.

The reveal of grizzled Director Of Photography Connor Lingus (see above as to laughter and taking of questions) does not fill the watcher with confidence as to whether any of it will be in focus, but soon we’re away from the pre-production and into the film itself, opening with a 1971-set sequence in which two fishermen meet a bloody end. Fast forward a decade and there’s intros to the group of oversexed, under prepared folks which aficionados will know and love.

The feel of the movie within the movie is nicely handled. Visually, it’s era-appropriate grainy, not always in focus – but Connor looks like he’s gone through some stuff, so let’s not be too harsh – and contains the weird cuts and haphazard editing choices that you might come across (ah, that’s not a good choice of words) in an X-rated flick. The sound occasionally cuts out abruptly or there’s a bizarre overdub. The acting oscillates between overly emphatic and reading from a card, often in the same scene by the same performer. There’s dancing crowbarred into sequences and a pervading promise of T&A, which usually leads to a jump back to the table read and Moorehead bemoaning that such filth wasn’t in the draft to which he contributed. Then again, he didn’t think there’d be a 3D segment either.

The closing credits mention Robert Rodriguez and there’s certainly a lot of the do-it-yourself school of filmmaking to be seen here – plus an almost inevitable “missing reel” caption brought into play just when things are hotting up – but that adds to the overall charm. The effects aren’t especially elaborate or convincing, but this lines up with a slew of 80s knife kill pics which threw very much the same rubbery body parts and weirdly coloured blood across the screen. Of course, as your feature presentation has been mounted by pornographers, there is a death by dick along the way and an interminable, watered down sex scene in a hot tub.

As the bodies pile up, there’s still time to interrupt some vital exposition or give extra flavour to an emotional story about what a character did in ‘Nam via a digression into the premium quality product that is Fierce Whiskers whiskey. Product placement gags aren’t exactly an innovation and this doesn’t quite hit the same heights of stupidity as the similar concept in Return Of The Killer Tomatoes, but the number of times the “F.W.” bottle is prominently in shot or the subject of lavish praise from various characters is good for a few chuckles.

In terms of parodying Sean S. Cunningham’s OG backwoods massacre, Friday The 69th provides just enough nods to its source material, but steers well away from it becoming a scene-by-scene ripoff. When it does lean into the parody, it works well, chiefly when spoofing those infamous few F13 minutes in which Robbi Morgan’s doomed hitchhiker Annie is picked up by the unseen person we suddenly realise is the killer. This is given a jocular gender swap, but retains all of the key suspense beats, right up to the whiteout as they meet their maker. It’s touches like this which demonstrate the thought that’s gone into this under the barrage of one-liners and pun worthy names.

As with any comedy horror, some will appreciate the silliness while others will think it’s far too daft for its own good but, to its credit, Friday The 69th picks a lane and sticks to it, right up to the daft twist ending(s) and last minute requirement for a stuntman. In the final analysis, it’s no more unbelievable than many straight-faced slashers and, like any 80s genre pic with an eye on franchise potential, leaves the door open for a possible sequel.

Yes, it’s throwaway, but that doesn’t mean you won’t have a good time while you’re watching it. A runtime of just over an hour and a half means boredom is unlikely to set in, especially if you’re trying to clock all of the references and stylistic choices. A game cast effectively portrays the dramatic limitations of some actors who make the move from the porn industry without any of it feeling insulting to those folks, although if anyone is thinking of slagging off Marilyn Chambers in Rabid then I’ll be coming for you (again, not an optimum choice of words there).

Montilla gets to be in front on the camera as well as behind, with the director of Friday The 69th playing the director of Friday The 69th at the table read as well as showing up towards the end of the featured movie as a detective. However, those are minor roles and the spotlight is turned on a group of performers who seem to be having a lot of fun bringing this ridiculous tale to life (and death). Amy Letcher gets the most opportunity to show a bit of a range as Flaversham/Judy, but her co-stars make the most of their fish out of water porn stars grappling with their step towards the mainstream.

Of course, not everything lands, but there’s enough going on for the proceedings to hit more often than miss. Slasher purists might turn their noses up and if you’re looking for sophisticated, witty banter then you’re unlikely to find it. However, I thought it was a diverting, breezy little offering, made for a fraction of the budget of its inspiration. Friday The 69th? I’m down.

Friday the 69th (2026) will feature at this year’s Raindance Film Festival. More details can be found here.

Obsession (2026)

Posted on by Darren Gaskell

Bear (Michael Johnston) is a music store employee who harbours romantic feelings for childhood friend and co-worker Nikki (Inde Navarrette), but is finding it difficult to articulate his affection. Mutual friend and workmate Ian (Cooper Tomlinson) thinks that Bear shouldn’t risk jeopardising the current, comfortable situation between members of their easy-going social group, which also includes yet another music store staff member in the form of Sarah (Megan Lawless).

When Nikki loses a favourite crystal necklace of hers, Bear finds himself at a local mystic store with the intention of looking for a replacement. Deciding that presenting someone with jewellery is possibly too much of a statement and possibly too much money, he ends up buying a supposedly supernatural item called a One Wish Willow, with the intention of gifting it to Nikki as a fun but still thoughtful present. Instead, after a little deliberation and self-reflection, Bear decides to take the long shot of using the novelty toy to wish that Nikki loves him more than anyone else.

Bear initially thinks the One Wish Willow’s powers are nonsense, but the shortcut to Nikki’s heart appears to work as she asks Bear if she can sleep at his house, because she doesn’t want to be alone after receiving some bad news about her father. Reluctant to do so at first, Bear agrees, but the fact that she hasn’t exercised a choice in choosing Bear over the bear is about to backfire on our hitherto lovelorn fella in ways he would never have predicted.

Writer/director Curry Barker’s previous project, the micro-budgeted, found footage chiller Milk & Serial, made its home on YouTube and garnered a number of positive notices which made Barker’s move to the big screen both inevitable and more than welcome. Milk & Serial landed in a well-established, arguably tired subgenre and still managed to introduce freshness and unexpected shocks. Obsession takes classic tale The Monkey’s Paw as its base and skews it into an unforgettable, suffocating nightmare of a dependent relationship taken to the extreme, short on jump scares but long on gripping, inescapable terror and fuel for discussion long after you’ve left the cinema.

The film opens with Bear stumbling over his words as he attempts to explain how he sees Nikki as more than just a friend and colleague, but this is soon revealed to be a practice run in a diner, with a waitress acting as stand in for the object of Bear’s affection and Ian supplying less than constructive feedback on the sidelines. Arguably, the death of Bear’s cat Sandy does not help with any kind of preparation for revealing his long-suppressed yearning, but the option to remove any chance of rejection proves too tempting.

Here lies Obsession’s complexity and straightforward genius. Bear suddenly finds himself trapped in a situation where any thoughts of redefining the partnership are met with increasingly unhinged behaviour, but it’s Bear who removed Nikki’s ability to consent. He only has himself to blame when he wakes to find that he’s being watched from the shadows of the bedroom and when his girlfriend doesn’t even want him to leave her in order to go to work (watch for the reveal with the door). I won’t even mention how Nikki chooses to memorialise Bear’s cat.

Barker’s background in comedy plays perfectly into Obsession. As an example, if you’re a fan of the Tim Robinson series I Think You Should Leave, many of the uncomfortable set-ups in that show could easily tilt into unfiltered horror if they were taken to their disturbing apogee. Here, there are sequences that could be mined for their coal black humour, but almost all of the laughs I heard in the screening I attended were of the nervous variety. Barker himself provides an effective voice cameo as a disinterested customer helpline operator, but even those uneasy chuckles generated by Bear’s latest, increasingly desperate bid to find a way out hit an abrupt, ghastly dead end.

Rather than have Nikki launch into Fatal Attraction-style mania from the start, her outbursts and changes in behaviour are sufficiently tempered to cause concern, but also keep Bear thinking that somehow, someway, he will be able to fix all of this, because he’s being worshipped by the woman he thinks was always out of his reach. For different reasons, Ian and Sarah don’t buy the sudden lurch from friend zone to devotion, but neither can quite work out why and, for very different reasons, don’t want to ask too many questions.

Obsession’s sly screenplay is full of loaded lines and astute observations, but ultimately this stands or falls on its performances and Barker is incredibly well-served by a brilliant cast. Johnston’s Bear is described at one point as a “closed book”, suggesting hidden depths, but his portrayal of the character immediately reveals a mass of insecurities, a built-in unwillingness to confront the truth and a bewilderment that nothing is ever his fault, while also skilfully suggesting that maybe this guy has no ambition whatsoever, other than working a job that requires minimal effort as long as he can bask in the glory of having an amazing wife waiting for him at home.

Tomlinson puts in a satisfying shift as the kind of low-key douche we’ve all known, Ian being the sort of guy who’s unproportionally inconvenienced by the slightest thing that doesn’t fit with him being the centre of the universe, whilst Lawless brings a sense of worry for the viewer as a genuinely caring sort who generally ends up as the collateral damage when a group with a close bond comes under unnatural stress (and there’s little more unnatural than the particular type of stress that’s caused by Bear’s actions).

Bouquets, of course, must go to the astounding Inde Navarrette – obviously, the biggest bouquets you can find with a note on each making sure you tell Nikki that you love her so, so, so, so much. Her “disappointed” face is next level unnerving; her smiley face is one of the most alarming things I have ever seen. I was petrified on a molecular level. The unpredictable, mercurial nature of Navarrette in almost every single scene will put the audience in a state of constant agitation, and yet there are fascinating moments at which Nikki seems to get a glimpse of just how worryingly fixated she is without ever being able to control it. Again, we have a showstopping performance in a horror movie and it’s about time the genre gets the respect it deserves. None of this “elevated” bullshit either.

I plan to head back and rewatch Obsession a number of times, because I’m almost certain I missed a number of clever details the first time around due to the fact that I was genuinely terrified for a large proportion of it. What with this and Undertone, 2026 is shaping up to be a year in which I wander out of a screening shaken and, as a veteran horror hound, that’s an uncommonly delightful place to be. Once you catch your breath and level out, of course. It may have a fantastical premise, but you should brace yourselves for some real, grounded fear.

Obsession (2026) is in cinemas now.

New Fear’s Eve (2025)

Posted on by Darren Gaskell

Leslie (Lily-Claire Harvey), Brian (Turner Vaughn) and Moses (Matthew Tichenor) are three friends who work for Hooper Industries and the preparations for the firm’s New Year’s Eve bash are in full swing, despite a general lack of enthusiasm at having to work for the sexist, misogynist dinosaur that is Mr. Dugan (Dave Sheridan). Unbeknown to them, the party is going to be livelier than expected as a serial killer known as The Doctor has upped sticks from his previous kill zone and headed to their home state of Kentucky to continue his kill spree…

Directors P. J. Starks and Eric Huskisson are clearly dyed-in-the-wool horror fans, because their love letter to slasher movies is full to bursting with nods to icons of the genre, whether it’s the bar called Coscarelli’s, characters with very familiar surnames (such as an employee called Harry Warden) or the inclusion of such recognisable figures Sleepaway Camp star Felissa Rose and Scary Movie alumnus Sheridan, plus deeper casting cuts such as Final Destination creator Jeffrey Reddick.

Rose gets to throw herself into the part of the perma-enthusiastic Stephanie, Reddick is actually a bit of a hoot as deadpan, exasperated HR rep Norman Perkins and Sheridan gets to lean into cringe-inducing workplace humour as the boss from Hell and the source of Perkins’ exasperation. The opening act leans into The Office’s style of provoking laughs from viewers while they watch through their fingers; meanwhile, the emphasis on gags which focus on bodily functions and fluids may have some feeling ready for the plague-masked killer to lay into the cast as soon as possible, starting with Dugan. Your wish is New Fear’s Eve’s command.

A lot of people die in this movie. Sometimes in groups. Always in gruesome fashion. The opening sequence, which catches us all up with The Doctor’s previous exploits via a news report, bumps off no fewer than five folks in West Virginia with an accompanying, brisk shot of gore for each. Once it switches to the three main protagonists, there could be a feeling that Starks’ screenplay is going to kick its heels with matey interactions and possible romantic complications but no, there’s just enough time to establish these folks as the guys who are likely to make it to the last few minutes before the kills start up again and rarely stop, save for a subplot involving law enforcement which still manages to include a splattery, Saw-style, multi-victim trap.

It feels as if the creative forces behind this wanted to use as many different implements as possible to cause loss of life and didn’t cross any of them off the whiteboard, so there’s murder by knife, hand drill, axe, cleaver, hand drill, scalpel-loaded crossbow, shears, dildo (yep!), toilet (yep!) and many more besides. Faces are ripped away, throats are ripped out, but nothing feels ripped off despite the constant references, both visual and verbal. The main trio takes time out to namecheck other New Year’s horror movies (Norman J. Warren, your time is now) and there’s even a riff on a joke from Die Hard which is instantly dismissed as being inappropriate for that segment of the holiday season.

New Fear’s Eve’s wafer-thin story may just be a peg on which to hang a series of gory set pieces, but the enthusiasm for the project is infectious, carrying the whole thing through the moments where the performances or the jokes don’t quite hit the mark. It might degenerate into a line ‘em up, hack ‘em down procession of disposable folks who get to show up, maybe say a line or two and then get dispatched in bloody fashion by a psychopath they can’t outrun (or don’t try to), but gorehounds who tuned into such franchises as Friday The 13th or the later Elm Street movies primarily for the body count will find their lust for carnage sated here.

If anyone expected a serious, suspenseful update of costumed executioner tales, I suggest that the title gives more than a hint of this film’s intent and, although blood sprays and guts spill with relentless regularity, the tone is comedic and the violence imaginatively cartoonish. You’ll almost certainly be chuckling rather than chundering and waiting until our featured friendship group finally gets pulled into the mayhem.

New Fear’s Eve is tropey. Of course it’s tropey, that’s the point. Starks and Huskisson know that our final folks can flee from the menace, but anyone lower down the cast list will stand in place to get annihilated. Guest stars are there to burn brightly and briefly. The killer will appear next to the next target without them noticing. The effects are the show and, more often than not, they’re pleasing and practical. The ending teases a potential follow-up, with the final girl having faced off with The Doctor and…

…ah, now this is where New Fear’s Eve diverts from the usual template, because the tale comes to an abrupt halt and the end credits take the place of where I’d expected a final shock or confrontation. This lack of a solid resolution risks the erosion of some of the goodwill built up over the previous eighty-odd minutes, especially for anyone seeking anything approaching a crumb of conclusion, but there’s an audacity to bringing the curtain down at that point and an eye on extending the lore is a feature of so many genre entries, so I can’t be as mad as I probably should be.

Undemanding, genre-literate and fun, New Fear’s Eve may prioritise sanguinary spectacle over substance but hey, are you here for Oscar-level acting? Don’t pretend you are. We’ve all rented this kind of thing for an untaxing watch after coming home from the pub on Friday nights in years past, so why should we get sniffy about a modern spin?

That’s Nasty! Cannibal Terror (1980)

Posted on by Darren Gaskell

In 1983, the Director Of Public Prosecutions published its first list of movies which were tagged with the tabloid-friendly label of Video Nasties. These cinematic outliers were deemed to have to power to deprave and corrupt and, if the title in question had been successfully prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act of 1959, any dealer stocking it could be fined or jailed. In one case, involving Romano Scavolini’s Nightmares In A Damaged Brain, one of its distributors was sentenced to eighteen months in prison (eventually reduced to six months on appeal, but sheesh).

It was a heady time, driven by moral outrage, framed as a battle for the very soul of the United Kingdom, and the seventy-two films that appeared at one time or another on that DPP list attained a level of notoriety their filmmakers never expected (unless, arguably, you were Umberto Lenzi). Thirty-nine remained banned, thirty-three were dropped from the list. All of them became must see items, of course.

As the memory of those crazy days fades and those of us who lived through the Nasties era scratch our heads and wonder what all of that hysteria was about, did those movies actually threaten the fabric of society as we knew it? Let’s take a look at another of them…

CANNIBAL TERROR (1980, dir. Alain Deruelle)


*** THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS ***


Mario (Antonio Mayans, credited as Antony Mayans) and Roberto (Antoine Fontaine, credited as Tony Fontaine) are two small time criminals who, with the help of a woman named Lina (Mariam Camacho, not credited at all), kidnap the daughter of millionaire Monsieur Danville (Olivier Mathot, credited as, er, Olivier Mathot). The fugitives from justice then hightail it over the border to a safe house to await the ransom. However, their journey is rudely interrupted by a tribe of cannibals (yep, we’re all sick of that happening) and, although our shady trio escapes their clutches, plot shenanigans dictate that this will not be the last time they come up against this bunch of people munchers…

After the Italians proved to be dab hands at the queasy delights of the cannibal-inflected adventure flick, other European folks saw the opportunity to jump on the bandwagon and production company Eurociné thought they’d help themselves to a piece of the human shaped pie. They had three cannibal-related movies in production around the same time, the other two being Jess Franco’s White Cannibal Queen (also known at Cannibals) and The Devil Hunter (also known, at least by me, as What The Hell Did I Just Watch?). Surprise, surprise, both of these titles are present and (in)correct on the Video Nasties list.

Terreur Cannibale, to give Deruelle’s opus its original, French title, shares footage with the aforementioned White Cannibal Queen because Eurociné were fond of cutting budgetary corners. Case in point: their 1981 undead Nazis vs French villagers tale Zombie Lake was offered to Jess Franco, who apparently turned it down due to the lack of money provided for the project. Considering how little cash Franco was able to make a film for, that’s a damning indictment. By the way, my description of Zombie Lake, which also found its way on to the Video Nasties list, makes it sound several times more exciting than it actually is.

Although Deruelle is generally credited as the director of the piece and made an appearance at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival promoting the movie (which I find hilarious), other prints credit Julio Pérez Tabernero as the guy at the helm and some anecdotes suggest that cast member Mathot may have assisted along the way. For the UK release, Deruelle was given the pseudonym of Allan W. Steeve, which is flirting with Alan Smithee a little too much for my liking. Regardless of who was in the director’s chair, Cannibal Terror is, not to put too fine a point on it, shite. I know that’s not a particularly erudite way of describing something, but I think it fits the bill perfectly. It’s shite.

Shite, I hear you say (especially as I’ve just used that term twice)? How so? Pull up a chair, because I have thoughts. The opening seconds do not bode well for the remainder of the runtime, as the jolly, La Bamba-esque stomper of a theme from Jean Jacques Lemeztre heralds the beginning of an, er, cannibal movie. Not the doomy synths of Donati preceding Ferox or the wistful, intriguing Ortolani stylings of Holocaust’s theme, it’s party time on the French Riviera and you’re all invited! Coupled with that, as soon as the English dub kicks in, you’ll be convinced you’re in trouble. What was the point in anyone trying to sync the dialogue properly? It’s all in another language and it wouldn’t have matched up anyway. You’re here for the cannibal stuff, right?

If you are here for the cannibal stuff – and that’s probably the only reason you are – it takes around twenty-five minutes for the tribe to show up and make off with Mickey, a woman who a) takes it upon herself to drive the kidnappers and kidnappee into the jungle and b) is there to provide some first act disembowelling material. The sequence in which Mickey is killed off is risible for a number of reasons: the jungle appears to be scrubland somewhere in Spain; it showcases just how inauthentic – and European looking – the cannibals are; the suspense generated as to her inescapable fate is absolutely zero; and the gore effects come courtesy of what looks very much like a pig carcass that’s been stuffed with various items of offal.

This amateur hour approach to the gruesome moments is likely to be one of the reasons that, although Cannibal Terror made it on to the very first DPP list of Nasties, it was subsequently dropped and when 88 Films finally dared to foist it back on the public in 2003, it passed through the British Board Of Film Classification uncut and without so much as a whiff of controversy. Yes, the original VHS video box cover was designed to emphasise terrifying savagery, but it looked more like a bunch of blokes chowing down on undercooked ribs after participating in a face painting session. In terms of what’s on screen, viewers were far more likely to be offended by the shoddy filmmaking than the amateurish displays of blood and guts.

Likewise, the potentially upsetting scenes in which Mario stalks and then assaults the bound Manuela (Pamela Stanford), the wife of safe house owner Antonio, are so incompetently staged that they wind up being offensive in a different way than they were intended. Manuela can clearly extricate herself from the ropes with very little effort, but instead we’re treated to an extended helping of Mario slobbering all over her and thrusting at an angle which suggests he’s having sex with thin air.

Of course, once Antonio finds out what’s happened to his missus, his feelings of hospitality for Mario and his mates run out very quickly. With equally terrible rope-tying skills, Antonio traps Mario in the same place as Manuela was attacked and then whistles (!) for the cannibals to exact revenge on his behalf and grab themselves an unexpected, all you can eat buffet. Meanwhile, Danville is on a mission as he closes in (very slowly, mind) on his missing daughter. Everyone and their dog eventually wanders past the remains of Mario – not entirely sure why what’s left of him has been abandoned in plain sight – and the rest of the crims are captured by the cannibals. It ends with more unconvincing entrail spilling, the kid is returned to her parents and that sodding piece of jaunty music gets another airing.

Oh, sorry, did I spoil the ending? Let’s be honest, I’ve saved you ninety-three minutes which you would have wasted on watching this. At best, this is a curio for anyone who’s wondering just what kind of material provoked the ire of the censorious. At worst, this is genuinely one of the most awful movies you’re likely to see. All those folks who go to the cinema to watch a technically proficient, decently acted but not especially great movie and then take to social media to pronounce it “Worst. Film. Ever.”? It’s blindingly obvious none of that lot have seen anything of the likes of Cannibal Terror.

It’s highly likely that there was no completed script when Cannibal Terror began filming and that the story was being written as the production went along. I would say that this explains the pacing being off, but in terms of the pacing, there is none for me to complain that it’s off. It’s a grind from start to finish, there’s almost no character development and even fewer surprises as Deruelle throws his disposable protagonists to a bunch of ridiculously realised savages, whose tribe seems more likely to be knocking back a cerveza or two of a weekend rather than carving out a primitive existence in the uncompromising wilderness. They spend most of their time jumping on the spot to the latest jungle sounds and holding spears which are never actually used to stab anyone.

A number of years back, I wrote a blog piece covering a dozen different cannibal movies from Umberto Lenzi’s seminal 1972 subgenre entry Deep River Savages all the way through to 1988’s gore-lite Natura Contro from Antonio Climati. Cannibal Terror was one of the titles I sat through; I thought it was the worst of the lot by some way back then and the intervening years have done little to change my mind. Even if you’re a connoisseur of bad films, this doesn’t fall into the “so bad it’s good” category. It’s just bad. Very, very bad. Cheaply made, terribly dubbed, dreadfully acted and remarkably dull, even the extended scenes of laughably fake gore outstay their welcome and only serve to enhance the paucity of the technical knowhow attached to this production.

This appears to have been Deruelle’s only foray into the horror arena but, outside of this apocalyptically awful waste of celluloid, he made a number of porn films under the alias of Alain Thierry. I can’t say I’ve had the pleasure of seeing any of those, but I’m willing to bet that that most, if not all of them, are more fun to watch than Cannibal Terror. Fill your boots if you have a fetish for badly tied knots. Everyone else, you have been warned.