Non Canon Review: Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

FEBRUARY 27, 2008

GENRE: CANNIBAL, MOCKUMENTARY

SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REVIVAL SCREENING)

One of the first times (possibly THE first; my memory is for shit) I went to the New Beverly was for a screening of Cannibal Holocaust, which if memory serves screened with a Fulci film. This was in like March of 2006, a few months after I moved to LA (and right around the time I finally had some sort of income that would allow me to go to the movies at all). The next month they showed Cannibal Ferox, another one I had never seen. So now, with like 600 movies seen since then, I had a lot of trouble remembering which was which. This is the one that DOESN’T have Giovanni Lombardo Radice, so therefore it’s not as good.

Sadly the crowd was pretty thin (and abnormally quiet – other than mimicking the legendary “Bwyoooooooo!” sound effect from the soundtrack, there was hardly a peep from anyone). And that's a real bummer for this movie in particular, because it’s so goddamn reprehensible, you need a big crowd (preferably a bit drunk) laughing at certain parts in order to enjoy it. Otherwise it’s just sort of an endurance test: can you watch the poor turtle get hacked up without looking away? Or any of the 2 or 3 rapes in the film? How bout the “pregnancy” scene? Etc. In short, it’s far from an enjoyable viewing experience for the most part.

Not that the film is entirely without levity. “He’s just switching reels” is an odd gutbuster, and the little kid running around in the park while our leads discuss the footage is also hilarious. The hauntingly beautiful “love theme” from the film also elicits a few chuckles, but you’re never more than 5 minutes away from another scene that’s just sort of awful.

Granted, the film is loaded with social commentary and the like, so we are supposed to be outraged or repulsed by certain parts of the film (mainly in the final half hour), but there’s little to enjoy alongside of it. Dawn of the Dead (or for a closer example – Diary) certainly have their share of commentary, but the films are still quite fun to watch at the same time. Not the case here – the characters are mostly despicable, the violence is too believable to be “fun”, and the nonstop animal killing is hardly entertainment.

This isn’t to say I dislike the film, in fact I think it’s quite good. But the New Bev is all about having a good time, so having this particular film play to an unusually subdued crowd (which wasn’t the case when I first saw it) had the opposite effect. Bummer.

What say you?

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Cannibal, Mockumentary, Non Canon, Video Nasties,

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Inferno (1980)

FEBRUARY 9, 2008

GENRE: ITALIAN

SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

While I was going through pretty much the entire Dario Argento filmography early on in the Horror Movie A Day oeuvre, I somehow skipped over Inferno, which doesn’t make a lot of sense, since it’s the sort of sequel to Suspiria, one of few I had seen prior to HMAD, and the sort of prequel to his next film, Mother Of Tears, which I got to see some of last year and was pretty intrigued by what I saw. Anyway, I finally got around to it, and while it wasn’t bad at all, it wasn’t up to par either.

One issue I had with the film is that it wasn’t batshit insane like Suspiria, but instead seemed more or less plausible. People had skeletons, died via reasonable means, etc. But at the same time, the narrative was almost non-existent. Just a bunch of folks hanging out, reading and listening to music, and every now and then someone would die. The thruline, such as it is, concerns a book called The Three Mothers. Whenever someone gets their hands on a copy they usually end up dead. Alchemists and witches seem be particularly interested in it.

There’s not even a real lead character. Every time you meet a person you think will be the heroine, she dies. There’s a bland guy who manages to survive til the end, but he doesn’t do very much in the meantime other than remind me of Brian from Prince of Darkness.

Still, it’s pretty fun at times. In one of the many shots of books on a shelf, we can see one simply called “A Book Of Good Poems” (it seems pretty thick for that title to be true though). The subtitles also provide occasional amusement, such as when they cut from Rome to New York and the subs inform us that it’s the same night in April, which is sort of redundant because the scene is simply showing the other side of a phone call. When else would it be? This isn’t Frequency. I also giggled at the score a few times, especially the end title music which had lyrics that sound like “Domino! Domini! Not Suspiriorum!” Sadly, the instrumental score was NOT done by Goblin and thus pales in comparison to pretty much every other Argento film of the period.

There’s also a fantastic scene where a character is “attacked” by a dozen or so cats. I put attacked in quotes because it is painfully obvious that someone is just throwing the damn things at the actor, and clearly aren’t interested in hurting the person since they almost immediately make a break for it (resulting in about 900 more cuts in the scene than necessary). Plus, come on, cats?? Where’s a killer with Arengto’s hands when you need him?? In fact, a lot of the kill scenes in the film, enjoyable as they may be, could be avoided if the characters weren’t so clumsy. One immolates herself by pulling a fiery drape down onto herself, and another falls down in the water and can’t get back up, resulting in being bitten by rats and then nearly beheaded by a crazed hot dog vendor (this is the weirdest scene in the movie, for the record).

Even the non-death setpieces are impressive, especially the beginning one with a woman who is determined to get her keys back, even if it means jumping into a hole in the middle of the floor and swimming around the submerged level below. But that’s part of the problem with the film – the sequences by themselves are pretty great, but they don’t add up to much. It feels at times like 2-3 different films were edited together.

Like all Argento films (except for Phantom of the Opera), it’s worth watching, but I wouldn’t recommend starting with it if you're new to the man. It’s just too average (this is probably due to the fact that it was financed by Fox) for Argento fans and yet still too strange for a casual horror fan.

What say you?

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Argento, Italian, Video Nasties,

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Tenebrae (1982)

OCTOBER 2, 2007

GENRE: GIALLO, ITALIAN

SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

I think I’m about halfway through the Dario Argento filmography now, thanks to Tenebrae (aka Unsane). Also, I’ll use this space to point out I will be adding more tags so folks can find a collection of reviews more easily. I have added Chilling Classics, and now that I have about a half dozen, I’ll be adding “Argento” as well. Hurrah!

This one’s sort of similar to Deep Red, except the main guy is a novelist instead of a musician. And it’s a lot more coherent. In fact, this may be the most logical and accessible of Argento’s films (at least of the ones I’ve seen). The murders aren’t overly graphic (the victims even seem to have skeletons for once), there aren’t too many “Huh?” moments, and there’s even a relative lack of nightmare scenes (the few that we do see are actually flashbacks of a sort). Granted, there are a few things that require the characters to do things for no reason (like when the main character puts his bag down at the airport and walks away), but that’s nothing compared to the utterly baffling nature of something like Phenomena (aka Creepers). The strangest moment in the film is probably when John Saxon, apropos of nothing, demonstrates how stable his hat is by sort of headbanging. There’s also a delightful scene where Saxon laughs at some guys fighting in the background (something that occurs a few times in the film – there’s almost as much background violence as there is murder scenes). Good to know ol’ Chief Thompson enjoys other folk’s misery.

I watched the English dub, which was quite good (I’m pretty sure most of the actors were speaking English). The only time the Americanization is ever evident is in the first scene, where the killer is reading a book that is written in Italian, yet magically translates to English for close-ups. Also, in this scene, Argento demonstrates that when he speaks English, he sounds like David Warner (though maybe this isn’t Argento’s voice, he says it is but maybe he means the Italian dub version).

As always, the music by Goblin (not actually called Goblin here for some legal reason I can’t recall) is fantastic. Hilariously, the characters seem to like it too, as one of them is actually listening to the score on her record player at one point. Another character even yells “Turn it down!” OK, so maybe the movie is a little weird.

The commentary is pretty great, despite the usual gaps I’ve come to expect on an Argento track (since it’s always been like 15 years since he last watched the movie). “She was kind of a whore, right?” someone comments about a particular actress, “A bitch?” And they all get confused at the pop song placed over the credits, which none of them are familiar with, leading to the otherwise unheard of extra feature “Alternate End Credits” which features the song they got so miffed at (as the DVD producers went back and put the right song in for the feature after Argento complained). DVD is not anamorphic, but otherwise it’s a nice little package. But apparently, out of print, hence the lack of an Amazon link. Figures. A rare movie I not only recommend to fans but non-fans as well, and I can't help you buy it. Yet, goddamn Fright Club is easily located for sale! Fuck you, whoever invented moratoriums.

UPDATE: Anchor Bay has re-released the film. Woo!

What say you?

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Argento, Giallo, Italian, Video Nasties,

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Cannibal Apocalypse (aka Apocalypse Domani)

SEPTEMBER 26, 2007

GENRE: CANNIBAL, EXPLOITATION, ITALIAN

SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

One of the great perks of watching a Horror Movie A Day is discovering a movie I knew nothing about (OK, it’s the only perk. This has severely cut into my video game time!). Such is the case with Cannibal Apocalypse. Like many of the movies I watch, it was simply queued on Netflix or Blockbuster because it came up as a recommendation for another movie. So when I began to watch the film, I had no preconceived notions about it. Hell, I didn’t even know what it was about or who was in it. I assumed there would be cannibals, and that there would be some sort of apocalypse.

The film began in the jungle. So I thought “OK, another Ferox/Holocaust ripoff. Fine.” But then they reveal the jungle scene was just a nightmare of John Saxon’s character. A few minutes later, John Morghen (!!!) goes to a movie and bites a female patron, then holes up inside a flea market, killing anyone who tries to capture him. So now I am thinking, “OK, it’s a siege movie with cannibals, sweet!” But no, Saxon comes along and talks Morghen down, and Morghen is taken back to a mental institution. And so on. Usually when I see a movie as old as this, not only do I know the general structure of the plot, but have half the kills spoiled from seeing the trailer, know who survives because they are in the sequel, etc. But here, every time I thought I knew how the rest of the movie would play out, it went off in a new direction (but not in a confusing or crippling way). Needless to say, I had more fun watching this movie than most of the others all month.

The best surprise was how much Morghen was in the film. Usually the poor sod is killed instantly after being introduced, but here he’s got more screentime than anyone save Saxon. A film can never have too much John Morghen, so this was fantastic. His eventual death (I’m not spoiling anything. Come on, the guy NEVER lives) was amazingly well done, considering the time period. I honestly can’t really figure out how it was accomplished, though I have a theory (body suspension - notice you never see the top of his head or an angled view).

Being an Italian film, there is also a hefty dose of ridiculous dialogue. My favorite came early on, as a man says “I always said you should have married me instead. But anyway, speaking professionally...” and then goes on to tell a woman that her husband is nuts. The line is ridiculous enough, but the guy doing the dubbing says it with such lazy nonchalance it becomes a minor treasure in the annals of horrible Italian horror movie lines. Then there’s the usual complete dismissal of any female character (“come here, bitch!” is said more than once, often unprovoked), a hateful old woman, cops who threaten everyone they encounter, etc. All filmed in Georgia for some goddamn reason.

The only downer is the soundtrack. The DVD is in horrendous mono sound, which not only leaves a few lines up to your imagination, but also betrays the great, Goblin-esque soundtrack by Alexander Blonksteiner, who also did House by the Cemetery. Some of his cues are sort of porn-ish (especially the first one, which is totally inappropriate to the scene involving the massacre of a Vietnamese village), but the rest is reminiscent of Dawn of the Dead without being a total ripoff. The lack of remastered sound is all the more baffling when you consider that the film is actually presented anamorphic despite having the rightfully rare ratio of 1.66:1, and there’s also a nice collection of extras, including an hour long recollection from Saxon, Morghen, and director Anthony Dawson (aka Antonio Margheriti). My favorite though, was a text description of all the different cuts made to the film (as well as a few of the dozen or so titles the film has gone by).

I hope the Grindhouse Festival (a monthly double feature in LA that has introduced me to many a Morghen film) shows this one sometime soon; I’d love to watch it again with a crowd. Till then, definitely check this one out, it’s the most accessible of the “Cannibal _____” films of the era.

What say you?

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Cannibal, Exploitation, Italian, Video Nasties,

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Driller Killer

SEPTEMBER 2, 2007

GENRE: EXPLOITATION, SERIAL KILLER

SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK!!!)

This review should be read LOUD!

How can a movie called Driller Killer be so goddamn boring? Come on! This one reminded me of Naked Massacre for some reason, but at least that film, itself no masterpiece, moved along fairly nicely. This one took FOREVER to get to the driller killering and then it moved so fast I couldn’t even understand what was happening at times.

The ending, however, is pretty sweet, and rescued this one out of the crap label. Like yesterday’s Alone With Her, it’s a downer ending. It’s also given one of the strangest cinematic presentations I can recall. The film fades to red and we simply listen to the climax. More ideas like that that could have made this film worthwhile.

The rest though is as generic as they come. There’s the usual padding, awful acting, nonsensical asides (why is Reno on the roof watching a guy get randomly stabbed?), kills that make little to no anatomical sense, etc. There IS a brief lesbian scene though, so there’s something. We are also given the world’s most over-populated band (there’s a scene where a couple of their back up singers fight some of their OTHER back up singers!!).

This one’s being remade. I am all for it. Remaking films that were good ideas done badly should be a lot more common than it is. I just hope that someone, someday, can make a decent movie out of Vampire$.

What say you?

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Chilling Classics, Exploitation, Serial Killer, Video Nasties,

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Bay Of Blood (aka Twitch Of The Death Nerve)

JULY 24, 2007

GENRE: GIALLO, ITALIAN
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

What do you call it when you’re watching a movie that’s not exciting you that much and you start to wish you were watching another movie from the same director only to find out later that they were both the same movie? There’s gotta be a Sniglet for that.

Such was the case with Mario Bava's Bay of Blood. Once it became clear it wasn’t as great as I heard it was, I began to wish I had rented Twitch of the Death Nerve instead, which I thought was a different movie. Turns out they are the same. In fact, Tim Lucas (who provides those awkward commentaries on the other Bava films I have watched, like Black Sunday) has declared that this film has more titles than any other in history. I don’t doubt it.

I think part of why I was left underwhelmed by the film was due to the god awful presentation it was given on Simitar’s DVD. Not only is it non-anamorphic, it’s not even centered on the screen correctly, so zooming in to make up for the lack of anamorphisity results in some of the top being cropped off and a thin black line still visible on the bottom (sometimes. The film also shifts around on the reel switches). Plus the audio is possibly the worst ever committed to DVD. Even the Mill Creek releases sound better. I had to turn my receiver up to -4 to hear the film. I usually have it around -20, and that’s with the AC going (which was not the case today). And I still had trouble making out some of the dialogue.

And look at this fucking main menu! It looks like it was designed by Miauk. At first I thought the disc had gweeped and was showing me multiple menus at once. Seriously, this disc isn’t worth the urine I sprayed all over it once I finished watching the film. The film may be far from perfect, but it at least deserves a respectable transfer.

The other thing that kept me from loving the movie (I’m guessing it will grow on me, since there was nothing technically BAD about it) was that there was something like 23 killers. For a movie that inspired so many slasher movies (particularly Friday the 13th), I was expecting one or maybe two killers, tops. But I think every character in the film (except for the four random teens who show up and get killed in scenes that were later stolen outright in F13 sequels) kills another one at some point. I kept thinking about that one ending of Clue where Tim Curry reveals himself to be Mr. Body and that everyone else killed the wrong guy.

Gotta love the ending though. The final people (except for a guy named Ventura who just disappears mid-scene) are celebrating their victory, only to be suddenly shot to death by their children, who think it’s all a game. Hahahaha excellent.

Anyway, if you haven’t seen it yet I strongly urge you to wait until a proper DVD release is available. There is no reason anyone should support Simitar by purchasing the piece of shit they released.

What say you?

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Giallo, Italian, Video Nasties,

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House By The Cemetery (aka Quella Villa Accanto Al Cimitero)

JUNE 21, 2007

GENRE: ITALIAN, SLASHER, WEIRD

SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Reward: One (1) new copy of this Lance Henriksen movie called The Garden (I won it from a contest and they sent me two) to anyone who can explain what the fuck is going on at any point during House By The Cemetery. Not since The Demon has a Horror Movie A Day movie baffled AND borderline bored me so much, sometimes even simultaneously.

First off, before the ranting, I must give props to Lucio Fulci. Unlike most directors, including Americans, he chose NOT to fake Massachusetts in North Carolina or Canada, and instead actually filmed IN Massachusetts! Boston and Concord to be precise. I recognized it immediately, and even if I had any doubt, there’s a shot of route 62, an obscure Mass route that no one would know to put in (as opposed to routes 95 or 93, which everyone knows) if they were faking my beloved home-state. Bravo, Fulci!

He also delivers on the title right from the start. Many “House” movies are borderline lying when it comes to their title: House of 1000 Corpses is more like Tunnel Of A Dozen Or So Corpses; that show House is usually at a hospital, and House of the Dead (Boll) doesn’t even HAVE a house! But Fulci delivers in the first scene of the film. We see a House, and it is indeed By a Cemetery. Sadly, the cemetery never factors into the movie. Much like, well, come to think of it, almost nothing in the movie factors into the movie.

No one goes into a Fulci (or any Italian horror) movie expecting 100% coherency. I myself usually only expect around 70% tops. But even by those standards, this movie is fucking baffling. I kept thinking my DVD “remaining time” display was broken, because there was apparently only 2 minutes to go and none of the many plot threads had been resolved. Indeed, some of them never even got really started, just sort of hinted at and then forgotten entirely. The suicide of the professor? The fact that everyone in town seems to remember our “hero”, Norman, living there before with a daughter? The real estate agent giving him and his wife the cold shoulder when they see her in town? The blood-filled mannequin that looks like the useless babysitter character? Why no one seems to notice any signs of a struggle after every “blood spraying everywhere” style death? How a character can drive up to the house when no one’s home, get killed, and not leave her car behind for the owners to discover? The entire conclusion? If you want answers to any of these Microsoft grammar check hating questions, you best look elsewhere. Good luck.

But nothing in the film is as confusing as whether or not the main character is a boy or a girl. Its name is “Bob”, so we can assume it’s a boy, but it is dubbed by what sounds like a teenaged British girl. It is, without a doubt, the worst voice in a movie (dubbed or not), ever. Every time the little bastard speaks, you will want to kill him. I’m not joking. And not that I expect any award winning dubbing when I watch an early 80s Italian movie, but come on! It sounds absolutely nothing like a child, a boy, or even a human being at times. He also has longer hair than most females.

Keeping with the theme(s) of the alleged storyline, none of the post sound editing makes any sense. A shot of Norman calmly walking around the house has heavy stomping (and out of sync) sounds accompanying it. A character is dragged down a flight of stairs and each time their head hits a step we hear what sounds like a shovel being whacked against a large piece of sheet metal. The music is OK though, and there are occasional lines of dialogue that make the whole thing worthwhile, such as "Mommy said you're not dead. Is that true?"

But even Fulci seems to be phoning it in. His direction seemingly consisted of “Just keep zooming in and out”. Worse, no one is on the receiving end of ocular damage. There are a couple of throat slashings and a totally ridiculous bat attack, but that’s about it. Oh there’s also a kill at the beginning (like every other scene in the movie, it has little or nothing to do with the other scenes) where a knife goes in the back of a girl’s head at a 45 degree angle and comes straight out of her mouth. Fine.

Way back, when I reviewed Dario Argento’s Opera, I said that I had seen very few Fulci movies, and that I liked them all, so I was afraid to see more because I was bound to eventually be disappointed. Well, here it is.

What say you?

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Italian, Slasher, Video Nasties, Weird,

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The Funhouse (1981)

JUNE 20, 2007

GENRE: SLASHER
SOURCE: UNIVERSAL HD CHANNEL

I don’t know if I have ever mentioned it, but I really fucking hate Dark Ride. There are many reasons why, and I am sure by the time I completely run out of movies to watch I will have divulged them all. But one reason in particular is that it was a pale imitation of Tobe Hooper’s The Funhouse, which itself was not very good to begin with. If you’re going to rip off a movie, make it better!

But my opinion was based on a TV version I had seen when I was like 13. So I decided I owed it to myself, and… well, just myself I guess, to watch it again. But 13 year old me was right: it’s really not that good. After a mildly clever opening that homages Halloween and Psycho, there is absolutely NOTHING going on in this movie for about an hour. And not in the ‘build suspense’ type of way – there is not even a hint of danger. In Halloween (which this movie apes in more ways than two), Michael was constantly around, taunting his victims, freaking Laurie out… here, if you cut the last 30 minutes or so out of the movie, you wouldn’t even know what the fuck genre it was. For the bulk of the running time, it’s just scene after scene of four painfully generic kids hanging out in a carnival. Well, technically three kids and one guy (the stupidly named Cooper Huckabee, playing a character with the even stupider name of Buzz Klemmet) who’s at least 30. “Let’s go see the magician!” they say, and go there. Nothing happens. Then they go to a strip show. Nothing happens. And so on. Finally, as almost sort of an afterthought, a deformed freak kills a couple of them.

And this clown never really appears.

I place the blame entirely on Larry Block. In fact, I tend to blame him for a lot of things, but here at least it makes sense: he wrote it (and his only other screenwriting credit is the 1990 Captain America movie. You know, the one with the Italian Red Skull). Hooper’s direction is inspired (there’s a great crane shot from the funhouse going up to the whole carnival, and some nice use of the 2.35:1 frame throughout) and the actors aren’t all that bad. And Gunther is certainly a memorable entry in the deformed slasher canon due to the horrifying makeup (and unlike Cropsy or Ben Willis 2.0, we actually SEE his makeup for most of his scenes). But the script just plain sucks. You know something’s up when the writer of the novelization (a guy by the name of Owen West, who you might know by his pseudonym of Dean Koontz) had to add a ton of backstory and flesh out everything just to make it worth his while. Some folks believe the movie is actually based on his book, since the movie appears to be a stripped down version of it. It also makes more sense that a movie would be based on a Dean Koontz novel than it does that Dean Koontz wrote a novelization for a shitty Tobe Hooper movie.

The editing also leaves much to be desired. A character gets impaled through the belly, but he’s framed in such a way that we can’t see that. Nor have we seen the sword. And they just hold on him going “ughhhhhhhhhhh” for about 20 seconds before they finally cut in a shot of the sword protruding from his gut. Other scenes are almost all master shots, and several other scares are totally botched because they don’t cut to reactions or anything, instead they just hold forever on the same shot for like 30 seconds or so. It makes Unbreakable look like a Michael Bay film.

It’s not a total loss. Along with the aforementioned highlights, there is a 5-10 minute chunk where this movie is everything it should be. One of the guys, a clone of Halloween’s Bob, gets killed (finally) and the other three go running off. Then they stop, and suddenly one of the funhouse cars starts rolling toward them with someone inside. It’s creepy as hell. Then Buzz swings an ax at the figure in the car, and it turns out it’s the Bob clone! It would have been better if he wasn’t actually dead yet, but oh well. Then there’s a nice little chase that leaves the Lynda clone dead. But after that it’s back to fairly stupid nonsense, like when Final Girl refuses to back the fuck away from the not-really-dead killer, giving him a wide open window for his usual final attack.

And the funhouse is WAY too extravagant for a traveling carnival. Two floors, multiple rooms, an office… how the fuck are they going to pack this thing back up when it’s time to move on to Shelbyville? Granted, one of the REAL traveling carnival funhouses would be impossible to film in, since they are the size of a trailer and feature nothing of interest. There’s a fantastic Simpsons gag where Lisa and Bart ride on one and at one point a skeleton drops down and makes a mooing sound. It’s the most accurate funhouse of its kind ever depicted on-screen.

However I must give Block SOME credit: there are some nice deviations from standard slasher rules, especially for ones of the period (1981). Final Girl (Elizabeth Berridge, who resembles the lovechild of Jessica Harper and Allyson Hannigan), while still displaying some of the usual ‘bad feelings’ and some mousiness, still manages to find time to smoke pot AND show her breasts. Then again Laurie Strode smoked pot too, and maybe Hooper just told Berridge to take her top off (they’re just making out anyway) so maybe Block doesn’t deserve credit after all.

In fact, no, I know he doesn’t, because he still wrote a movie with a fucking Italian Red Skull.

What say you?

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Slasher, Video Nasties,

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