Curse of the Living Corpse (1964)

In 1894, a millionaire is placed in his crypt after he is believed to be dead. At the reading of the will, his family is given instructions as to how to maintain his body in case he is not dead. They do not carry them out and he rises from his tomb to enact ghastly punishment.

The Good

Del Tenney double billed this with The Horror of Party Beach and by far is this the more stronger of the two. It is a bit of a more modern take of the Old Dark House genre that fueled most of the 30’s cheap fair. Some thing that wasn’t quite seen at the drive in at the time. It’s a very nice bridge between the two. This is also Roy Schnider’s first movie. He and a great cast he worked with also made the movie riveting. It was very well acted.

Comparing Curse with Horror, you have to wonder what went wrong. I think Del Tenney is used to directing more stage like performances and wasn’t as familiar with outside shots or how to film under a deadline at the time. Plus, I think working with a better cast helped him out a lot as well.

The Bad

The pacing was a bit awkward. It would rev up for a minute then slow down again. While sometimes it was for build up, the rest was totally unneeded. It also was getting a bit predictable towards the end.

The DVD!!!

This is the other half of the Del Tenney Double Feature disc. Like Horror, It has awesome cleanup on the visuals and audio content. The feature also comes with a Del Tenney commentary track and a trailer of the movie.

Conclusion

If you get this disc, watch Curse first before Horror. You feel a lot better if you did. Both are great in their own way. definitely for the boring day.

3 stars.

Horror of Party Beach (1964)

Radioactive waste dumped into the sea resurrects and mutates dead bodies. The living dead rise from the sea and feast on unsuspecting youths of a seaside community.

The Good

This movie’s got it all! Beaches, boobs, bikes, pajama parties, monsters, music. This film might not take itself seriously, but it’s an awfully lot of fun. This movie also gets right down the point during the first five minutes. Amazing!! By the time it’s to the fifteen minute mark, I’m really into it.

Very fun feature.

The Bad

Where to start….plot holes as big as Swiss cheese. Some one dimensional characters that disappear all the sudden. Audio tracks sometimes don’t sych up and is noticeably spliced in. Hokey science. Continuity problems, middle age folk acting as teens and Tina can’t act like a drunk slut even if her life depended on it.

Yes folks, it’s so bad, it’s good.

The DVD!!!

This is one half of Dark Sky’s Del Tenney Double Feature disc. The video and audio is really great. It surprised me how clear the movie looked and sounded. Extras include an interview with Del Tenney himself as well as commentary on the movie. You also get a trailer and some visual material as well.

Conclusion

This a fun little movie that is sort of a guilty pleasure of mine. Check it out if you have free time or you want to make a long day shorter. This is a good cheesy movie.

SODIUM!!!

2 and a half stars.

Bijou Special: Rob Zombie’s Halloween (2007)

After being committed to a state mental institute for 17 years for killing most of his family, a psychopath returns to his hometown to finish the job.

The Good

I think Daeg Faerch did an awesome job as young Mikey. He had that ability to switch from an innocent loser to a psychopath in seconds. Probably the best actor out of the bunch. I think this was punctuated in the scene where he beats the living shit out of the school bully.

The Bad

Sweet Cthulu, where to start….

While I do understand this is a remake…re-imagining…whatever, certain elements need to be intact or added to the idea to keep the movie at least scary as the original was. With The Thing it was the wide expanse of Antarctica and open isolation. The Fly had that chilling subtext of terminal illness during the era of AIDS. If we were to remake Halloween, what it needed to cover was the idea of…swift quick, feel good techniques creating a monster. How gated communities and social drug regimen could create a killer. Zombie does not do this. He forsakes the subtext to make a generic slasher movie.

I think it’s safe to say that after three movies, Rob Zombie’s major flaw is writing. He’s too in love with exploitation elements to properly write a script. You can see it in the first part of the movie clearly. And yes, while the first part seems to hold a bit of interest, the whole movie goes downhill in the second half. He needs someone to hold his hand and to help him convey his messages a wee bit clearer. Maybe even be a leash to tighten when he gets too far.

The second half of the film was just so god damn frustrating. It reminds me of this little habit my brother used to have when singing songs. He’d sing at least a bit of the song and then get to what he thought was awesome. Rob takes the build he has in the first half and just totally squashes it in the second. He takes what he thinks are the best scenes out of the original and just scatters them while trying to add his own flavor into horribly bland scenes.The difference is, I can’t backhand Zombie when he does that.

What really bothers me is that I can’t recall a single thing that happens in the second half other then the stuff lifted from the original. That’s really sad.

Conclusion

If you’re a fan of Horror, don’t go see this movie. If you have friends who are into horror, stop them at all costs and if you know somebody who thinks this movie was good, stage some sort of intervention because clearly they need help.

In the spectrum of remakes, this movie is just above TCM: The Beginning, but waaayyy below Night of The Living Dead ‘92.

2 stars.

Coming Attractions…

The Monster Squad (1987)

A group of young horror fans receive Van Helsing’s diary that reveals a plot by Dracula and friends to shift the balance between good and evil and to take over the world.

The Good

How can you not say The Monster Squad isn’t good? This movie is like the stuffed animal or the favorite plaything you had when you were younger that you thought you lost but you finally found, bringing you back to a time of happier days gone past.

Another reason why it was good was the combination of being ahead of it’s time and being shown on national cable outlets. Because film audiences didn’t get it, it didn’t do well in the theater, which then fast tracked it to cable, where it was played to thousands of bored eyeballs. Our little brothers and sisters can boast about how they had R.L. Stein’s Goosebumps books and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but we can now hold up a copy of Monster Squad and trump them.

Another great thing about the movie is the Shane Black script. The man is a dialogue genius to almost Elmore Leonard like proportions.

The Bad

There are somethings that stand out if you are taking a critical view of it or your a silly retard taking apart cult movies. There are some plot holes in the movie. Particularly Dracula’s fetish with dynamite. Sure, he could’ve killed the kids with his bare hands, but decided he didn’t want to. Maybe he wanted a challenge and was being a good sport about it. Or maybe he was lazy. Never thought of that did you. Did you.

The DVD!

Oh my god, the two disc set just makes me hard just thinking about it. The visuals and audio are awesome as well as natural. I now can retire my VHS bootleg HBO copy. The first disc has the movie and two commentaries. One with Director Fred Dekker and actors Ryan Lambert, Ashley Banks and Andre Gower reminiscing about the movie and the other is Dekker wit DoP Brian May talking about the technical elements.

The second disc holds an 87min Monster Squad documentary done by Red Shirt Prods. A very awesome job by them might I add. You also have a materials collection, TV spot, movie trailer, Storyboard set up with the movie soundtrack playing, a rare interview with Frankenstein and deleted footage as well.

Conclusion

This DVD set is a must have for fans of Horror, fans of 80’s films and just DVD fans in general. This is really one of the best cultural tomes available out there. I urge everyone to buy it.

4 stars.

A Meia-Noite Levarei Sua Alma (1964)

Ze do Caixao (Coffin Joe) is an atheist mortician who takes pleasure in tormenting the superstitious locals. Mad that he cannot continue his bloodline through his wife, he destroys anyone and everyone who crosses his path in his pursuit to find someone to carry his offspring. his sins catch up with him in the end.

The Good

You minght know this, but this film was way ahead of it’s time in Brazil. Killer Atheists are common place back in the US, but in Brazil at the time, this was some harsh shit. Jose Martins had a hell of a time making this picture. He was giving a 600 meter area to work in. He was only allotted fifteen cans of negative for which two cans were stolen. On top of that, no one wanted to play the controversial character so Martins had to step in and bring his fever dreamed character to life as well. With little money left, they only filmed one outdoor scene and filmed the rest in their tiny studio.

It all paid off in the end. While at first messing with regional censor boards was like playing Wack-A-Mole, always popping up in theaters where it hadn’t been banned yet or the ban had lifted, the film always shown to full houses and propelled Jose Martins into the Brazilian cultural fabric.

What really interested me was how even though there were scenes of violence in this movie, this film was chock full of philosophical violence as well. While to the untrained eye, it looked like a gory fotonovella, Joe was assaulting the very fiber of the Brazilian people’s beliefs every time he opened his mouth.

The Bad

While yes there are some faults to the movie, keep in mind that film technology in the US had not caught up yet in Brazil. While we had all these awesome gadgets and goodies in the US at the time, Brazil was just getting our hand me down equipment. Add to that little money for effects and the crew had to improvise tremendously. Plus it’s a bit slow paced which is surprising seeing as they had to film this thing as fast as possible. There are some plot holes too. I got a bit annoyed that the townspeople turned instant coward every time Joe beat up one guy. It had me shouting at them to bullrush him and at least give him a purple nurple.

The DVD!!!

Fantomas did a great job cleaning this film up the best they could with all the discarded and second hand reels they had to work with. Sure there are blurry scenes, but overall it’s a great transfer. The audio is good to. Sure there is some hisses and pops, but I’m a fan of organic sound, so it didn’t bother me much.

This is the first film in the Coffin Joe Trilogy Box Set. Extras include trailers of all three Coffin Joe films, an interview with Jose Martins about the making of At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul and you also get a kick ass Coffin Joe comic from back in the 70’s. Reprinted and translated in English. The coffin-shaped box also makes a great conversation piece.

Conclusion

For Horror fans, this is truly an underrated and forgotten gem. It’s definitely a movie to seek out and add to your collection. Do not miss out.

For DVD fans in general, this is something you might want to Netflix and look just to see if you like it or not. I do hope you enjoy it though.

3 and a half stars!

Some Coming Attractions While You Wait!

L’Altro Inferno (1980)

After several gruesome incidents, a priest is sent to investigate an abbey suspected to be haunted by a demon. It is there that he finds something worse then demons.

It’s a Bruno Mattei movie. YAY! Say what you will about the guy, even though his movies are sub par, they sure as hell are entertaining. He’s that bag of white cheddar popcorn you have for the first time and you think it’s pretty good enough that if offered, you wouldn’t mind a handful. The Other Hell is that introductory bag of popcorn. This movie has good pacing and an interesting story. Mattei was working with Claudio Fragasso, who was the young buck back in the day. Claudio is known for his entry in the Zombi series as well as his contributions to Italy cinema. The acting is awesome as well. All around talent from Carlo De Mejo, Franca Stoppi who is big in cult cinema. You even got some decent work from Franco Garafalo (Frankie Garfield!) who’s a fan favorite.

I have to be honest with you, this isn’t really highbrow material. You might be saying this isn’t nunsploitation either. There’s no nudity or lesbianism in it. A lot of the story is a couple movies spliced together. Hell, the soundtrack is borrowed from another movie. In fact, Mattei and Fragasso where doing two movies at the time. So you got a bit of a rushed feel to this movie. Some…eh…let’s be honest. All the f/x on this movie was cheap and easy. I mean, you had flickering lights as an effect. How cheap can you get after that?

Media Blasters put out a great DVD of this movie. The audio is great. There is some pops and hums, but to me, that adds to the experience. The visuals are clean and neat. Even though the extras are meager, they are worth it. The disc gives you a trailer and interviews with Mattei and Carlo De Mejo who was an actor of the set. Both were educating and entertaining. So if you want to get into nunsploitation and you’re looking for a starter kit for your collection, this movie would be a fun one to get.

Three stars.

Suor Omicidi (1978)

A Nun who had brain surgery to extract a tumor goes into drug induced hysteria and tortures the patients of the hospital she serves. All while a string of murders happen in the same mental hospital she works in. But is she behind the killings?

Y’know, out of all the nunsploitation films I’m covering, I think this might be the lightest of them all. I mean, it was pushed here in America as a horror, but it feels more like a giallo. The pacing is as slow as a giallo as is the setup of characterization. The characters aren’t ones the viewer could latch on. there’s no reason to hook on to them in some way. It’s like the director Giulio Berruti was about to take off for flight and then he pulled back the last couple feet.

I mean…it feels like I’m sitting in a waiting room. And it affects the actors as well. The film totally desexualizes former sex symbol Anita Ekberg. I mean, yeah, it’s been fifteen years after La Dolce Vida was filmed when this film was made, but any chance to look the least bit attractive is ruined by the conservative directing of Berruti. It’s nice to see these people earn a paycheck, but this movie didn’t feel worth it from anyone.

Blue Underground did a good job with the DVD of this movie. Audio/Video is acceptable. There was a piece of audio missing, but it’s covered by subtitles. Nothing too bad. The extras are OK. It has a poster/still gallery, a trailer and a small interview with Berruti about the movie. The interview is OK as well. Movie collectors should get this if you just have pocket chance or if you don’t feel like bargain hunting.

2 stars.

trailer brought to you by Nunsploitation.net

Alucarda, La Hija de Las Tinieblas (1978)

Two orphan girls journey into an abandoned crypt and suddenly become possessed by an evil spirit. They then dwelve into devil worship and terrorize the convent they call home.

Now first of all, a lot of people like to call Alucarda a derivative and member of the Exorcist line of horror movies. It’s not. What the director, Montezuma, was trying to do was reinvent Dracula and the vampire myth. Instead of the immortal euro trash male with fangs and a real thirst of blood, we got a “heliophobic demon.” possessing two young girls. Even before the party gets started, we are introduced to Alucarda who comes off as somewhat of an emotional vampire who feeds off those around her. It’s a really interesting picture. It was very atmospheric. Great use of locations as well.

What really makes the film work is the actors. Tina Romero really creeps up the place as Alucarda. Before and after being possessed. Someone who feeds of emotions, You can somewhat say she’s a bit bipolar. She plays the character full to the hilt. You also got the great Claudio Brook doing double duty as the good doctor and what could be the villain. I’m not sure. Brook reminds me of some of the Hammer guys like Lee and Cushing. His acting is very natural. You think he’s just part of the film. A true master.

The Mondo Macabro disc is Divine. It comes with a small documentary about Montezuma, a biography, a filmography, a Montezuma interview, an interview with Guillermo del Toro about how Montezuma influenced him, stills and a kick ass trailer. This disc is a fracking treasure trove. The only complaint is that there is a slight hum in the audio. It’s not annoying. just there. But an awesome DVD none the less.

three and a half stars.