Shock 'em Dead (1991) [filmed in 1990]

...aka: Rock 'em Dead

Directed by:

Mark Freed

A lot of things about this video are painfully cheesy, but that's exactly what makes it one of the most entertaining entries in the super-tacky head-bangin' horror sub-genre that rocked the 80s and early 90s! Nerdy and obnoxious aspiring rock guitarist Martin (Stephen Quadros) is humiliated by an up-and-coming L.A. rock band during an audition, gets evicted from his trailer and loses his job at a pizza parlor run by Aldo Ray (in his final role). Thankfully. there’s this local voodoo priestess (played by Tyger Sodipe; a Jamaican actress who is offbeat to put it mildly!) who frequently shuffles up and down the street in full garb and white-face (!) to offer him a chance at fame, fortune and a virtual harem of big-haired babes if he’s willing to sign over his soul to Satan. Martin agrees and after a ridiculous dream sequence features a demonic guitarist with a double guitar, entranced groupies and a demon rising from a casket, awakens in a new house with teased hair, a closet full of leather duds, three busty live-in groupies, supernatural powers and a promising career in a hot new band with hit songs like “Virgin Girl” and “I’m in Love With a Slut.” Unfortunately, he also discovers he must kill people and suck out their souls to maintain his lifestyle. Traci Lords isn't give much exciting to do as the band manager (and despite the suggestive box, she keeps her clothes on at all times), Troy Donahue shows up briefly as a record exec for “Casualty Records,” Karen Russell is a one of demon groupies and former pro wrestler Big John Studd is a cop.

This relic of another era is extremely entertaining, frequently hilarious and has a few interesting ideas to go along with loads of lame music (including what must be the worst version of 'Purple Haze' ever recorded), cheesy effects work and throwaway topless scenes. Great for what it is.

★★★

Shriek of the Mutilated (1974)

... aka: Mutilated

... aka: Scream of the Snowbeast

Directed by:

Michael Findlay

Husband and wife sleaze-hounds Michael and Roberta Findlay did it all. They made trashy soft core obscurities, sex 'n' violence 'roughies', faux snuff films, hardcore porn (both straight and gay) and slasher movies, and here's their contribution to the 1970s Big Foot cycle. So forget all those wannabe horror films like Psycho and The Exorcist, this is truly the one! Four dull-as-dishwater college students (Michael Harris, Jennifer Stock, Darcy -nice glasses!- Brown and Jack Neubeck) are invited by a professor (Alan Brock) to go to a secluded island to investigate reports of a killer Yeti (or, Abominable Snowman). First they attend a happenin' 70s party complete with the catchy non-hit single 'Popcorn' by Hot Butter (which has unfortunately been removed from the Something Weird DVD version). A guy walking in (accidentally) bumps his head on a low-hanging ceiling light. Another professor tells the four students not to go (and explains why in an impossible-to-make-out solarized flashback), but his wife nags him and wants to leave, so when they get home he decides to get back at her by slitting her throat with an an electric carving knife!! He jumps into the bathtub fully clothed and cracks open a beer, when his barely-alive wife crawls into the room, throws in a toaster that isn't even plugged in and electrocutes him!

Meanwhile, the four students ignore the advice to stay home and go to the island, where they are promptly weirded-out by a seemingly mute Indian named Laughing Crow and are stalked, attacked and killed off by an awful white creature that looks more an upright version of The Shaggy Dog than a monster. You can hear its pulsating heart-beat from miles away (!) and its face is blurred out so you can never get a good look. When you finally do get a decent look near the end of the film (see video), it's one of those classic "I can't believe they actually tried to pass that off as a monster" moments. But wait! There's more! The monster is actually (gulp!) a guy dressed up, and the island is home to a flesh-hungry cannibal clan who want the students as their main course. Full of hilariously awful acting, chainsaw-style editing and ridiculous dialogue, this is a laugh riot that deserves a larger cult following than it currently has. More people should see it.

Several of the cast members were also in Invasion of the Blood Farmers (1972); which was edited by Mike and shot by Roberta. On the original I.F.S. video box, there are loads of errors on the write-up on the back, including calling the Indian is named 'Laughing Cow' (ha!) It also has what appears to be a mock Oscar statue on the bottom left corner, which just makes the whole experience that much funnier.

★ SBIG

La campana del infierno (1973)

... aka: Bell from Hell, A

... aka: Bell of Hell, The

... aka: Cloche de l'enfer, La

Directed by:

Claudio Guerín

A nicely-shot, twisted revenge tale of greed, perversity, incest, small-town hypocrisy and insanity. Release from a mental institution after a three year stint, handsome weirdo John (Renaud Verley) returns to take claim on his inheritance, including a huge castle home, after a short stint working in a slaughterhouse (where we’re treated to the sight of real cows being butchered). His wealthy mother had taken her own life years earlier and now there’s a struggle for control of her fortune between John and his aunt Marta (Viveca Lindfors), who thinks he should be sent back to the asylum. She may be right. He’s obviously sick, but his presence is also fueled by the fact he may have been wrongfully committed in the first place, resulting in a bizarre, uncomfortable anti-hero as central character. For the duration of the running time, John goes out of his way to make life a living hell for his aunt, some would-be rapists (including Alfredo Mayo) and his three attractive female cousins (Maribel Martín, Nuria Gimeno and "Christine Betzner" / Christina von Blanc), more than one of whom he’d been sexually involved with in the past, before being sent away.

John plants bugs in people’s homes (and uses what he finds out as blackmail), terrorizes people with bloody practical jokes (including a memorable bit ripping out his own eyeballs) and eventually resorts to rape and murder, trying to apply what he learned in the slaughterhouse in a memorable sequence. Also playing into things are a prophetic, old wise man who lives on the outskirts of town with his young daughter, the construction of a new bell tower at the local church and a well-played surprise ending. Definitely not for everyone, possibly more so to the traditional horror movie fan, this is slow-moving and low on violence and gore, even though the level of perversity (mainly implied) is pretty high. It's very well made all the way across the board.

In a shocking bit of real-life irony, on the last day of shooting award-winning director Guerín fell to his death from the very bell tower used in this film. To this day no one knows if it was an accident or suicide. Juan Antonio Bardem was then brought in to do the final finishing touches. You need to be careful which version of this film you're getting. The copies on those cheaper DVD multi packs are the heavily censored version of the film and use a murky, dark print. The DVD from Pathfinder Home Entertainment is the excellent quality, uncut print you should try to watch.

★★★

Blood Link (1982)

...aka: Blood Link - Blutspur

...aka: Extrasensorial

...aka: Link, The

Directed by:

Alberto De Martino

Here's a pretty decent horror-thriller (an Italian/ U.S./ West German co-production); some even include this title on their list of gialli. Dr. Craig Mannings (Michael Moriarty) suffers from disturbing, blurry visions of killing women he's never met before. His psycho, impotent identical twin brother Keith (also played by Moriarty), believed to have been killed in a fire many years back, is actually responsible. The two were Siamese twins at one point, were separated and now share a "bond," seeing everything through each other’s eyes. Moriarty is excellent in this dual role. When Craig travels to Germany (home of his brother) the understandably confused local cops pin the murder rap on him. There are some plot holes here, but this movie deserves better treatment (and distribution) that what it's had. It's interesting throughout, well photographed, has a fun (but small) role for Cameron Mitchell (as Bud Waldo, an aging boxer/victim), is full of female nudity (including Ohio-born 1973 Playboy Playmate Martha Smith) and has an Ennio Morricone score. Penelope Milford (not long after her Oscar nomination for COMING HOME and playing the good doctor's girlfriend) and Sarah Langenfeld (Mitchell's daughter) co-star, and Geraldine Fitzgerald and Virginia McKenna both have small roles.

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There's no DVD release for this one yet and the Embassy video release (which came out in 1985) is long out-of-print.

★★1/2

Le notti del terrore (1981)

...aka: Burial Ground
...aka: Nights of Terror
...aka: Zombie 3
...aka: Zombie Dead, The
...aka: Zombie Horror

Directed by:
Andrea Bianchi

Some vacationers show up at a secluded country club, wander into the courtyard an start making out, and a little kid voyeur watches his mom have sex with her boyfriend. Before long, maggot-faced zombies pop out of the ground and attack. These are no regular zombies though, these smarties bust down the door with a battering ram and pretend to be monks to lure people into a monastery! You kill them by smashing their brains just like in the Romero movies. The extremely stupid characters scream and stand around while the zombies accumulate around them. People who are killed are ripped open and have all their bloody guts yanked out and eaten. A maid is stabbed in the hand and decapitated with a scythe. The kid character (Peter Bark) is obviously played by a short and freaky-looking adult (he looks like a mutant horse jockey), and even his dubbed-in voice sounds like an adult trying to imitate a child (see below). In one scene he feels up his own mother (Mariangela Giordano) and says, "Oh momma, I need to touch you! I loved your breasts so much momma!" She's outraged, but when he is killed and shows up as a pasty-faced zombie, she immediately pulls out her breast for him and he bites her nipple off in close-up!


Someone on YouTube has also been kind enough to put together a 7 minute long Peter Bark tribute video, so make sure to run over there and check that out if you're a fan...

The photography is dark and the dubbing is atrocious - not just in the matching lips department (see how long you can tolerate the injured leading lady's non-stop whining) - but this has lots of unintended laughs, a few standout gruesome death scenes and better zombies (designed by Rosario Prestopino) than usual. The film wasn't released in the U.S. until late 1985 (yes, it was actually a theatrical release here) and popped up on VHS a year later (the distributor was Vestron Video). It's a pretty easy to find title and all of the versions are uncut. It was known briefly as ZOMBIE 3, a title which was also an alt. title for at least half-a-dozen other films but was officially given to a 1987 follow-up to Fulci's ZOMBI 2 (which was co-directed by Fulci and Bruno Mattei).

★★

Boys from Brazil, The (1978)

Directed by:
Franklin J. Schaffner

Watch what happens when schlock goes mainstream! Investigative reporter Barry Kohler (Steve Guttenberg) has located a slew of Nazi war criminals in Paraguay and soon realizes they aren’t just there to hide out. Leader Dr. Josef Mengele (Golden Globe nominated Gregory Peck) is the evil master-mind behind a plot to kill a bunch of innocent civil servants (“94 men must die!”) from across the globe and resurrect the Third Reich by cloning Hitler’s genes. Kohler makes one last attempt to warn the authorities before he is murdered and gets through to Lieberman (Laurence Olivier), who investigates the claims and finds all kinds of sinister things going on in South America as he pieces together the clues and follows a trail of dead bodies. Director Franklin J. Schaffner and writer Heywood Gould (adapting the Ira Levin novel of the same name) delivered this to us with a surprisingly upscale cast, a plot similar to that of many a Grade-Z masterpiece and a finale featuring acclaimed leads Peck and Olivier in a bloody, ear-biting, face-clawing, rolling-around-on-the-floor fight also involving guns and vicious Doberman Pinchers, this one was unique to say the least.

The film received three Academy Award nominations, including ones for Best Editing (Robert Swink), Best Score (Jerry Goldsmith) and a 12th and final nod to Olivier for Best Actor, who patterned his performance after author and real-life Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal and is quite brilliant in his role here. While he lost the award (to Jon Voight in COMING HOME), he ended up getting an honorary award for his entire body of work that same evening. James Mason co-stars as Peck's assistant, and there are nice supporting turns from the likes of Uta Hagen (THE OTHER) and Denholm Elliott. British horror buffs will also be glad to (briefly) see guest victims Michael Gough as an asshole landlord and Linda Hayden (BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW) as his free-spirited tenant. The impressive all-star cast also includes Lilli Palmer, Bruno Ganz, Wolfgang Preiss, John Dehner, Walter Gotell and Rosemary Harris.

★★1/2

Teen Witch (1989)

Directed by:
Dorian Walker

On her 16th birthday, "Plain Jane" Robyn Lively (who wears glasses and has straight hair instead of frizzy 80s hair to show what a nerd she is) learns from a neighborhood witch (Zelda Rubinstein aka the psychic lady from the POLTERGEIST flicks) that she herself is blessed with with special powers. She uses them to make herself cool and pretty (i.e. she takes off her glasses and breaks out the Aqua Net and spandex), turn her annoying younger brother (Joshua Miller, son of Jason Miller and co-star of the 80s classic NEAR DARK) into a dog and attract the attention of a popular football hunk (Dan Gauthier). In a bit of semi-inspired casting, Dick Sargent (Bewitched) plays Teen Witch's dad. This cheesy, tacky, badly dated supernatural comedy will be hard-going for most non-nostalgic adults and is aimed squarely at the type of pre-teen girls who frequently tune into the Disney Channel. It’s full of product placements to brainwash their little minds and has some hilariously awful dance/musical numbers. I mean the musical numbers are soooo lame. You should really take a look. Really, you should...

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And if you're wondering what could possibly "Top That" (mahahah!) then here's your answer...
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Gah!
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Score: 4 out of 10