Brain Damage

 I should really start researching directors I like in the horror genre, because I'm a bit tired of running across stuff that I really should have heard of or seen before and wondering why I haven't. Granted it is kinda fun to be surprised by movies that I didn't know existed, but it makes me feel a bit uninformed as well.....But I digress, we aren't here to talk about my horror film knowledge shortcomings, we are here to talk about Frank Henenlotter's superbly bizarre, bloody and hilarious Brain Damage, so let us do that.

  If you didn't know already Henenlotter is the genius behind cult splatter faves such as the Basketcase trilogy, Frankenhooker, and more recently Bad Biology. While his film resume isn't the longest, it houses a good chunk of timeless, genre defining gems. And this movie, despite my lack of prior knowledge to its existence, fits right in to that mould.

  The story revolves around a young fellow who makes a mutually beneficial arrangement with a disembodied brain/alien named Aylmer who happens to very closely in sight and sound resemble a piece of excrement. The deal is that Aylmer will supply the main character "Brian" with intravenous brain altering drugs via some sort of gland he possesses, and Brian in return provides him with a means of transportation to get to his victims, of whom he sucks the brains from. The story is bizarre, as is the way with most of Henenlotter's films, but it works on so many levels. It seems to almost be a parody of the anti drug propaganda of the 80's, but I could be wrong. The acting is campy, but i wouldn't have it any other way. With films like these, to take the acting seriously is almost a disservice.

   This film also wins on the visual front, with that classic eighties filming style and general look that so many classic horror films have won their fans over with. And the gore is just as good, not Henelotters messiest piece of work, but not lacking in any way. Plenty of turd looking brain on brain action, to be certain.

   So, while I may be a little late to the party on this one, I'm hoping some of you are as well. because if you call yourself a fan of horror this is a must see......hopefully you have all got a friend like mine with an expansive VHS who'll let ya watch it, cause that's the best format by far watch this winner on.



tastelessness 6.5/10
gore 6.5/10
must-see-ness 8/10

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer

   This is one of those movies I have no excuse for having not seen until now. The realization hit me as I was watching it that I have been calling myself a horror movie fan this whole time and the fact I haven't seen this film makes that statement a bit laughable. But now that I have, all is good and balanced and my self proclamations of being a "horror movie super fan" can stay unquestioned for a while longer.

   Michael Rooker (Slither, Repo:The Genetic Opera) plays the namesake role in this film to an awkward sense of perfection. I say that because he doesn't quite feel like a true serial killer in that, at times, he's not as creepy as you would expect and, at times, is actually quite charismatic. Not the overblown unbelievable Dexter style of lovability, but just kind of sweet and kind hearted......almost. A good portion of him seeming to be not so bad of a guy can be attributed to him being cast directly alongside Tom Towles (Devils Rejects, Night of the Living Dead -'90) who in his role as "Otis" (such a cliche name for a sicko) plays arguably one of the most morally twisted and disgusting individuals to grace the screen, ever. there really only one other main character in the whole film, that of Otis's sister who comes to live with them out of a need to escape her abusive ex.......not a great decision.

   The story is rather random, which lends the film an extra element of creepiness in that you never know when Henry and his cohort are going to do something sinister. Very abrupt, brutal, unflinching and disturbing are the kill scenes in which nothing is taboo. Rape, torture, murder, borderline necrophilia all find a home in this script. Tastefulness was definitely not on the docket of things they were trying to achieve while making of this film, and it shows.

   The gore factor in this film is subtle for the most part, relying heavily on acting and the intensity of situations to create the horrifying ambiance, but it is here, and, extremely well done for its time. There are some very intimate and grisly scenes in this one.

   If you're a fan of films that involve highly random killings such as The Devils Rejects or Natural Born Killers, then this will be a good flick for you to check out, but to everyone else I would say this, definitely give it a watch, but be warned, it goes to some dark and morally questionable places. That being said though, I highly recommend this film.


tastelessness 8.5/10
gore 6/10
must-see-ness 9/10

  

   
   

I Spit on Your Grave

   Revenge is the name of the game, well deserved revenge I might add. the vengeance oriented genre is a storied one, and this is one of its first (and best) offerings. Setting the stage for 30 some odd years of warranted brutality and murder.

   The story is simple, young, single, semi attractive, New Yorker relocates to some backwards rural town and incites the lust of a group of local sexual predators, said predators then embark on a mission to rape and murder the unaware victim, succeed at their mission (several times within a few hours in fact, yeah there's a lot of rape in this one) and go about their business, unaware that their victim has survived...... Which should not have been all that surprising considering they sent the most 'innocent' (I use "innocent" in the most irreverent of ways due to the fact he was involved in the rape, but his childlike mannerisms made it seem to fit) and dopey of their group to finish her off, if you want something like murder done right, don't send the mental midget to get it done for you. After their discovery of her survival, victim becomes judge, jury and executioner, as is the way with these types of films.

   There's something about film actors from the '70's that adds an extra ounce or two of creep factor to movies. I dunno what was in the water back then, but people in movies were just naturally scarier looking. I haven't been able to put a finger on what exactly it is about them that adds that element, but the creep factor they lend is palpable in flicks like this. The acting in this is as decent as you could expect from everyone involved, excluding the small minded grocery clerk who almost steals the show with his offerings to the film.... adding tons of hilarity with his ultra silly antics, dialogue and a brain damaged "Gilligan" look.

   Now the gore and violence in this picture is less based on actual visuals and more on psychological impact, with long drawn out rape scenes that border on too much, but at the same time set up the revenge aspect very nicely. And once the revenge aspect comes around it is mild but not disappointing, manual erotic asphyxiation (I dunno if that's a thing, that's just what I thought it might be called when someone else does it for you), a good axing is present along with a scene where she liberates one of the perps members in a bubble bath, making for a red and frothy demise.

   Once again, there is a lot of rape in this film so viewers beware. But, it is a classic film and definitely worth watching if you've got the constitution required.

7/10 tastelessness
5/10 gore
7/10 must-see-ness

Rock 'N' Roll Nightmare

  "Jon Mikl Thor is a bodybuilding champion, actor, songwriter, screenwriter, historian, vocalist and musician." or so his Wikipedia page says, I'm going to question whether or not more than half of those claims are completely true or not. What there is NO question about is that he plays one of the worst/best cheeseball heroes of  1980s Canadian rock and roll based horror films. Prove me wrong, I dare you. 

   This movie is very strange, scenes that shouldn't last more than a moment drag on for what seems like forever, but when it comes down to scenes that actually matter to the development of the story line, they're cut short and confusing, strange use of time management if you ask me, but then again, no one did. The acting is just about what you would expect for a movie that includes demons that more closely resemble muppets than actual hellspawn, bodybuilding/ archangel buttrock front men and dialogue like "Let's see those bosoms ladies, we've got positions to fill around here". But this film is really funny (although I don't no how much of the humor was intentional) and that can go a long way.

   Make-up, there's a ton of it in this film, but not the kind you hope and pray for in most horror films, if you get my drift. Between Jon Mikl Thors sweet eyeliner and the groupies/ band wives there is more foundation and women's make-up products in this one than actual horror face work. But, there are a few good creations, namely the mini "penis demons" as I (and I'm sure many others did as well) dubbed them, and the zombie/demon face prosthetics were pretty great too, despite being way too rigid.

   But all these things aside, the main reason to watch this movie is for the epically horrible ending "fight scene" between Thor or "Tryton the Archangel" at this point and "Ol' Scratch", even if you decide you don't want to see this film, look up the fight scene, it's amazing. They wrestle, Thor sweats, ol' Scratch throws squids at Thor, Thor sweats some more while removing squids from his bulging teats, more wrestling, more sweating and finally Thor/Tryton emerges victorious sending his denizen nemesis to a $11.99 the day after the fourth of July style hell-fiery demise. Pure......genius.

   Ass rock, hard bodies, metal undergarments, the Canadian outdoors, awesome vans and boobs. If you're into ANY of those things, don't miss this film. You will never forgive yourself if you do.

tastelessness 1/10
gore 3/10
must-see-ness 7/10

Poor White Trash II (Scum of the Earth)

  I don't know whether or not to call the fella responsible for this little piece of filth a thief or a salvager, but I do know I wont call him anything close to a visionary. So, the reason this movie poster says "Scum of the Earth" and not "Poor white Trash II" is because it was actually called that before some dude bought the rights to it and changed the name. What about Poor White Trash 1 you ask? Well, story is, this same guy bought the rights to another film from the fifties called Bayou in the early seventies, changed some scenes (with a whole new cast) to make it more shocking and called it P.W.T. I guess when he saw Scum of the Earth he couldn't pass up an opportunity to BUY a sequel. While I'm not quite sure where I stand on the ethics of this kind of behavior, I am sure about where I stand this film, so I'll just get to it.

  This film starts out with a bang, not three minutes into it and the victims already been established through the axe murder of her husband.....and then the opening credits start rolling.... to something distantly resembling the Dukes of Hazzard theme song, as she runs desperately through the woods. Pretty bizarre opening credit sequence with that alone. But they aren't even done with you at that point.....she then (in the middle of the credits) meets some bayou dwelling lowlife named "Odis", who creepily offers his assistance and they're off, cue rest of opening credits. For fear of revealing the full story I'll just say the house he takes her to is full of incest, rape, abuse and the like. But are they the ones who killed her husband? Nope, somehow they're "victims" in this too, but deserving ones at least. The killer isn't revealed until nearly the end of the film in a ridicuous but unforseeable twist ending.

  The acting in this is anything but "good", but it is entertaining and the dialogue is great, featuring your usual overblown bayou hillbilly accent done the best by the character "Bo" who is the hilarious borderline mentally disabled son of "Odis", I'm pretty sure he had a broken nose for this film as far as I could tell from the way he breathed, whatever it was...he was funny.

   The violence in this one is really weak as far as the visuals go, save for the axe scene from the films opening. They just sprinkled a minimal amount of blood on areas that are supposed to be wounded and called it good. The shock factor obviously wasn't ever supposed to come from that is what I came to realize as the film progressed. The earlier mentioned rape and rumors of incest.... that's where they getcha.

   While the back story of this movie was trivia worthy and enlightening, I learned barely anything from the actual watching of this film, but then again movies that are called anything resembling Poor White Trash II  or Scum of the Earth usually aren't educational. But the one thing I did learn? Three and a half jars of moonshine makes "Odis" an abusive sunuvabitch.


tastelessness 8/10
gore 1/10
must-see-ness 5/10
  
  

Cannibal Holocaust

 
   I don't have any explanation or excuse as to why it took me so long to get around to watching this film, but now that I have seen it, I see why it's such a cult phenomenon. I can also see why this movie had so much legal controversy surrounding it. Anytime you show rape, ultra brutal murders and the slaughtering of real live animals in anything even remotely resembling a documentary, you're bound to get some negative feedback from authority figures.

  "Exploitation" films at times don't quite live up to their billing, but this film is "exploitation" to the very letter. All of the cannibals in this movie are actual Brazilian tribesmen, hired (for mere pennies I'm sure) by the makers of this film to basically play themselves. Let's just say they do a pretty good job at "doing what they do". But the real stars of this one are the crew of lost filmmakers that have their footage recovered and brought back to the states, revealing their untimely, but certainly well deserved, demises. These people play some wholly disgusting human beings, burning villages, raping and shooting the locals all for footage that they can twist into exciting television blaming all their own misdeeds on rival tribes and editing all their footage to show it as such. Once their fate starts to become clear, if you're not happy they're gettin' their just deserts then you might want to get yourself checked. And get it they do, chopped, raped and mutilated with blunt axes and rocks until they're basically unrecognizable. But the gore in these scenes is fairly easy to deal with being as it so deserved, the scenes that are a bit more stomach churning are the animal butchery, namely the turtle scene. But rest easy, because every ounce of meat was used by the tribesmen on location, so no waste....no foul.

   This movie is smart, it has a good anti-media message urging its viewers to think before swallowing everything the media throws our way. More prevalent a message in today's world even, than in the one that existed in the year this was released ('80).

   The long and short on this one? Get out there and watch it, it's a benchmark in cult filmakking, and created the whole fake shock documentary (the Blair Witch Project, Rec, Paranormal Activity) genre single handedly. If you need more convincing than that, this film is probably not going to be for you.

tastelessness 9/10
gore 9/10
must-see-ness 8/10

Street Trash

     This movie has been sitting in the "Not Available" section of my Netflix queue for months now, making me want to see it worse and worse with every passing day that its status didn't change. Luckily a good friend who just so happens to be a splatter/horror connoisseur and collector had a copy bringing to an end my frustrating streak of failed attempts to watch this film. Was it worth the wait you ask? Abso-f**king-lutely!

    This film is everything I love about eighties splatter shoved into an unintelligible entrail spattered package of bad story lines, hilariously unapologetic dialogue and perfectly technicolored surroundings. There's really nothing resembling a true plot in this film, just a bunch of super entertaining hobos running around trying and failing to not get killed by each other. But it turns out they have bigger problems when the local liquor stores new dollar a bottle bargain hooch starts to melt them into piles of molten flesh looking much more akin to a box of Crayolas than your more traditional melted human. That combined with a grudge wielding cop and a war traumatized murderous junkyard king makes life in this world a bit dangerous for those who reside there, and riotously funny and entertaining for those observing.

    The gore caused by the tainted hooch, or Viper, in this one is much different than most films of its time, they decided to go with a lot of neon colors rather than your usual reds and blacks that you're used to seeing in splatter films of the period. But in no way does it take away from the film, it actually lends a specifically 80's feel to the film that makes it better, in my opinion. And there is some truly awesome traditional gore to round this one out, not that it needed it, but it can never hurt to dump another bucket of body parts on a blood thirsty audience.

   So glad I finally got the chance to watch this film, it was everything I hoped for and more. If you like splatter flicks even just a little bit, get the hell off yo ass and go find this film! You will not be disappointed.


tastelessness 7/10
gore 9/10
must-see-ness 10/10

La Grande Bouffe

  This film will induce heartburn, upset stomach, diarrhea, abdominal cramping and bloating. That's what the DVD package should read on this one, but then again, not everyone who watches this film will be physically trying to keep up with the amount of food being consumed in the film as a few of us were while watching this.

   Four french "gentlemen" on a mission to kill themselves in as short of a time as possible through food consumption.... not your average plotline, but as I say that I realize 1970's French films aren't known for being very generic.

   As you've probably gathered by now, the theme of this one is excess, and oh is it ever excessive. I'm fairly certain the actors in this film had to have suffered at least minor health effects from the amount of calories consumed just in a single scene, much less through the course of the whole film. And within the film itself, the characters they played suffer them aplenty. Everything from hilariously ridiculous gaseous expulsions to diabetic shock and death are among what these french fools suffer through. But it's all in their not very well explained "plan" so there aren't really any true victims in this one. Save for maybe the whores they invite over who witness some rather intense gluttony, but they got paid so whose complaining?

  The truly shocking stuff waits until nearly the end of the film to show up, so this movie creeps along rather slowly for most of its length. But once the ball gets rollin' it's on! A couple of the death scenes in this one are truly fantastic in their overboardness, for fear of ruining them I'll just say that masturbation and flatulation abound. And the combination of food and sex in this film lends it a secondary shock element, that only the French would so openly embrace in the '70's. Well, that's probably an incorrect statement, but it sounded good.

   Like I mentioned, this movie is mostly buildup to a grand explosion (no pun intended) of goofy grossness at the end, but it is well worth watching, and very entertaining. If you like orgys and food, don't miss it!

tastelessness 7/10
gore 1/10
must-see-ness 6/10


 

"SALO" or "120 days in Sodom"

   Buyers and viewers beware: this film is not for the morally upstanding, the faint of heart or mind, or pretty much anyone else for that matter. This movie takes a good portion of all the extreme elements of forced sexual perversity, throws them in a blender, adds a good portion of torture fetishism and makes a bile flavored smoothie out of them expecting you to drink it, which I did, and it tasted awful, really interesting.....but awful.

   There is a really interesting bit of publicity/trivia about this flick that I'm going to assume gave it more staying power than it probably would have had all on its own. The director/writer was murdered shortly after the release of this film (somewhere around 1976), to which most people in "the know" attribute solely to the fact that he created this film. Knowing how the conservative majority thinks thanks in part to my conservative upbringing, I'm thinking this is not a far fetched assumption at all, considering the contents of this little piece of hell.

   The film is set in the post Nazi/fascist era of World War II Italy, where a group of hyper wealthy fascist supporters decide in the wake of the war that they can exploit the local population for their own twisted amusement. Kidnapping a good twenty or so young adults and teenagers to whisk away to their little "love mansion" as I'm going to dub it. That's when things start to get heinously vile. Forced orgies, beatings, human waste consumption (#1 and #2 are both present and accounted for), and extreme physical violence are rained down on the poor victims like some sort of napalm bukkake straight out of Satan's cock. The part that makes this film feel even more disturbing is that it is so well shot and produced, not giving the viewer the luxury of a grainy, easily dismissed, grindhouse or low budget experience. Instead feeling a bit more like the Sound of Music goes to the seventh layer of Hell.

   The acting is well done enough to exude its own brand of creepy perversion to the film as well, featuring a couple of older retired whores who get their audience "in the mood" with grand tales of sodomy and excess. The "audience" consisting of the fascist supporters, who happen to be a few of the sickest weirdos I've seen in film to date, wringing out every last ounce of disgust and abhorrence from me and the others I watched this film with. All in all, they made this film exactly what it was supposed to be, disgustingly shocking.

  I'm going to suggest that no one watch this movie by themselves, because it is a picture that, no question, requires morale support to make it through. And for a good portion of you, just skip it all together. Having said those things, I'll end this with the statement that I'm glad I watched it, but I'm just as glad that it is over.


tastelessness 10/10 
gore 7/10
must-see-ness 6/10