Ultimo mondo cannibale (1977)

...aka: Cannibal

...aka: Cannibals

...aka: Carnivorous

...aka: Horror Cannibal

...aka: Jungle Holocaust

...aka: Last Cannibal World, The

...aka: Last Survivor, The

...aka: Mondo cannibale 2

Directed by:

Ruggero Deodato

Part old-fashioned jungle survival picture, part stomach-churning mondo animal slaughter movie and part standard issue gore-fest, this nasty little import will probably please fans of Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust, even though it still comes off as a lesser cousin and is nowhere near as gruesome, disturbing or thought provoking. Robert Harper (Massimo Foschi) and Rolf (Ivan Rassimov, star of the original cannibal exploitation film MAN FROM DEEP RIVER) are a pair of oil company researchers who stay out on their scouting trip a little too late and have to land their plane deep in the jungles of South America. Spotting some debris from a previous plane landing and other warning signs they shouldn't be there (i.e. human skulls), the men, plus their pilot Charlie (Sheik Razak Shikur) and his companion Swan (Judy Rosly) decide to spend the night inside the plane. Swan unwisely goes outside to piss and doesn't return.

The next morning, the men go out looking for her, Charlie is impaled by a booby trap and Robert and Rolf catch sight of a stone age cannibal tribe feasting on the remains of young Swan. Trying to get back to the plane, the two build a raft and end up crashing by some rapids. Rolf is washed downstream and Robert is left lost and all alone in the big bad jungle to fend for himself. Starving, he eats some (poison) mushrooms, gets sick and passes out and next thing he knows he's being held prisoner by the tribe. They rip his clothes off, flick his genitalia, hoist him up in the air and drop him (thinking he's a bird), throw rotten food at him, deny him water and even piss on him. From his cell he also gets a pleasant view of fire ants slowly eating a stray man's arm off and the tribe killing (yeah, really killing) a snake and a alligator; both clubbed, skinned and hacked up in loving detail. He also catches on to the fact that they are plotting to sacrifice him to a gator god, so first chance he gets, he high tails it out of there, taking along the inexplicably hot and well-endowed native babe Pulan (Me Me Lai, who was also in Man from Deep River, which I'll have to get around to watching one of these days) as his prisoner.

Pulan is resistant at first, but Robert shows her who's boss by leading her through the jungle like a dog on leash, slapping her around a bit and raping her doggy-style. The next day she's a Stepford Wife off the chain and offering him a buffet of raw fish, berries and plant roots on a shiny green leaf. Robert and Pulan eventually find Rolf, leg badly injured and hiding out in a cave, and the three live it up Swiss Family Robinson-style for a few minutes before heading back out to search for a plane. Barely making it through the alligator and snake infested land, the two finally spot the plane and head out toward it, only to be ambushed once again by the tribe. They spear Rolf and capture Pulan and drag her back to the camp, where she's promptly stripped, speared, decapitated, gutted and filled with fire-roasted hot rocks. After all this, Robert finally regresses back to his primitive side and fights back with a venom-dipped spear; showing them he means business by killing a native warrior and gnawing down on a still-beating raw human heart. Will he make it back to the airplane? Or is one of the popular alt titles called The Last Survivor for no good reason?

There's loads of gore and full male and female nudity plus a scene where a snake kills a komodo dragon (it was actually filmed in Malaysia; not South America) and a tasteful scene of a native woman feeding her newborn baby to a crocodile. The Shriek Show DVD has an introduction by Deodato (he claims the natives used in this film were actual natives and that the animal slaughter was added by the producer against his wishes), Deodato commentary and some trailers. The film (originally titled Ultimo mondo cannibale and also known as Cannibal, Carnivorous and Last Cannibal World; the title of this print) claims to be based on a true story.

★★★

Ginî piggu 3: Senritsu! Shinanai otoko (1986)

...aka Guinea Pig 3

...aka Guinea Pig: He Never Dies

...aka He Never Dies

.
Directed by:

Masayuki Kuzumi

Rick Steinberger, sitting at a desk and directly addressing the camera, intros telling us this is "reality captured on film," and makes sporadic visits to tell us all about the mental state of the main characters in this gory/blackly comic mock documentary short (with a run time of about 40 minutes). Poor put-upon Hideshi (Masahiro Satô) slaves away all day at an unrewarding computer job. His boss and manager put him down, he's slammed with paperwork, office stud Elvis Nakamura (Shinsuke Araki) is after the girl, Kyoko (Eve), he has a crush on and the job is so uninspiring and boring it's starting to effect both his physical and mental well being. Sometimes he spends days alone in his cramped one-room apartment, where he plays guitar, chain smokes, talks to himself, watches TV, draws faces on his feet and puts on his own puppet shows (!), throws a ball around, plays darts, etc. The voyeuristic camera-work looking into Hideshi's humdrum daily life is done in the style of stationary b/w surveillance cameras and is clever for the time. Already suffering from depression and thoughts of suicide, Hideshi takes a razor and slashes his wrist. Though it bleeds at first, it quickly stops. Hideshi also feels no pain at all. He also feels little when he sticks a pen through his arm, takes a butcher knife and cuts off his hand and even slashes his own throat. Somehow, he can't die. Immortality's a bitch when you're a disturbed suicide case, huh?

.

Not satisfied with mutilating himself without a captive audience, an increasingly insane Hideshi invites Elvis over to his apartment. Elvis also brings along Kyoko, who waits in the car. Soon after Elvis enters, Hideshi sticks a triangle ruler through his head, cuts open his stomach and starts pulling out his organs (intestines, stomach, bladder, etc.) and flinging them all over the place. It all leads up to a rather silly and nonsensical conclusion. Don't expect the how and why of Hideshi's immortality to be addressed, either.

The gore effects, as usual for this series, are sometimes impressive. However, since this one's mostly played for laughs, the effects are more amusing than disturbing. Furthermore, there aren't as many gory moments of note here, as in other entries. There is some brief T&A, one part is put in slow motion and the music is stolen from Lamberto Bava's DEMONI (DEMONS). It's the third in the series and was preceded by GUINEA PIG: DEVIL'S EXPERIMENT and GUINEA PIG: FLOWERS OF FLESH AND BLOOD (both 1985). As far as I know there were three more official films to follow.

★★

Rituals (1977)

...aka: Creeper, The

...aka: Ils était cinq

...aka: Rituals, il trekking della morte

Directed by:

Peter Carter

.

Every year, five doctor friends organize a vacation somewhere so they can get out an enjoy nature. This year it's a fishing trip deep in the Canadian wilderness. Trip organizer D.J. (Gary Reineke) provides all the provisions and has an airplane fly them 15 miles from the nearest town and orders the pilot to come back in six days to get them. After being dropped off at their location, the guys talk, fight and enjoy a few beers by campfire, but someone seems to be watching them. The next day while they're sitting on a dock fishing and dipping their feet in the water, someone sneaks into the campsite and steals their boots. D.J. told them in advance to bring extra shoes, but no one listened to him. Now he has to trek back through the woods to a dam (that they see is located nearby on their map) to try to get some shoes for his friends. D.J. takes off leaving the other four there, but isn't back to camp by nightfall. That same evening someone leaves a strange and horrifying effigy with a freshly-killed deer's head centerpiece and snakes. The next day while the guys are taking pictures, a tree branch full of angry bees is thrown in their direction. The guys panic and run. All but one of them fall down a hill and into the river to dodge the swarm of bees. The fourth, Abel (Ken James) mysteriously ends up dead. The other three guys; compassionate and level-headed war vet Harry (Hal Holbrook), reactionary and self absorbed Mitzi (Lawrence Dane, also one of the producers) and D.J.'s alcoholic gay brother Martin (Robin Gammell), decide they need to try to get to the safety of civilization as soon as possible.

.

The three make their way up river looking for the dam as tensions flare, suspicion falls on each member of the group and crucial decisions must me made, particularly after one of them steps on a bear trap hidden in the rapids, becomes seriously wounded and must either be carried for the rest of their journey or left behind to die. Whoever is hunting them down also leaves some clues behind, including military medals and some X-ray scans dating back to the 1940s. It's a good movie (with more than few echoes of the 1972 classic DELIVERANCE); professional cast, decent characters, great Canadian scenery, some plot surprises, a few well-placed shocks and a menace wisely kept off screen until the very end of the film, though the resolution itself has been seen before.

Unfortunately, the movie seems to be in the public domain right now and no one has stepped in to release a decent copy. Mill Creek's DVD release is obviously taken from the censored TV print (which was released in 1980 under the title THE CREEPER) and though much of the film takes place in the daytime, the night scenes (including the finale) are so dark they're hard to make out much of the time. Some of the violence has also been removed. About 11 minutes in total are missing from the version I saw. Regardless, it's well worth your time.

★★1/2

Revenge of Dr. X, The (1970)

... aka Devil Garden, The

... aka Double Garden, The

... aka Venus Flytrap

Directed by:

Kenneth G. Crane

Let me tell you, Regal did a bang-up job finally bringing this lost classic to video. Not only did they cheaply re-use the box art from one of their other movies, but they also re-used the freakin' credits from THE MAD DOCTOR OF BLOOD ISLAND (1969), never mind the fact that this movie doesn't actually have a naked blonde about to get slashed in it, doesn't star John Ashley and wasn't actually directed by Eddie Romero. It was actually directed by Kenneth (THE MANSTER) Crane and was written by none other than the master himself, Edward D. Wood, Jr., who may have been surprised that his script (called VENUS FLY TRAP originally) ended up being filmed in Japan by the Toie studio. Just like MANSTER, it's a US/Japanese co-production and is laughable on just about every conceivable level. Both films have almost identical endings. The star is former matinee idol and western star James Craig, who delivers the most embarrassing, over-the-top performance imaginable as rocket scientist Dr. Bragan, who we first see sitting at a desk having a temper tantrum about how stupid it is to build rocket bases in Florida. Taking the advice of his assistant, Bragan decides to head off to Japan for a relaxing extended stay, but first stops off in North Carolina to become unnaturally enamored with a Venus Fly Trap plant. He takes it with him to Japan and is greeted at the airport by the delectable young lotus Noriko Nakamura, the very accommodating cousin of his NASA co-worker. During dinner, he demands a huge, secluded greenhouse to conduct his top-secret experiments at and his lady friend knows just this place up the road, to the left and past the nearest active volcano. And whaddaya know, it turns out to be the ideal stomping grounds for your standard mad scientist, complete with a semi-retarded hunchback groundskeeper and a greenhouse large enough to comfortably house the carnivorous plant monster to come. Noriko also convinces the extremely abrasive doctor in her soothing phonetic cue card reading tone to let her stay and help with his experiments.

Like many Wood protagonists, Dr. Bragan is a man obsessed. Usually its with the touch and feel of angora sweaters, but here it's with plant life. During a trip to the beach, Bragan encounters a quartet of topless female scuba divers who help him acquire a rare, poisonous underwater plant. Being the rocket scientist he is, he naturally knows all about botany and splicing together plant species and such, so he combines the two plants together and a la Frankenstein uses lightning to revive the specimen. Bragan keeps it alive by feeding it bunnies and mice, but is still not satisfied that his creation cannot walk, so he sneaks off to the local sanitarium to steal "blood of the human heart" from a topless female patient. Of course, an injection of this instantly makes his creation take baby steps to become the killing machine it was destined to be. To be more precise, a walking Plant Man monster with Venus Fly Trap arms that that the doc has named "Insectivorous." And even though the townspeople eventually show up waving torches in anger, the creature never gets to realize its full murderous potential by only getting to eat a puppy, mangle the groundskeepers face and kill just one stupid village kid who wants to share his doll with the monster. The best the doctor can do during the completely unexciting finale is try to lure it over a cliff by using a goat as bait.

There’s nothing else to really say about this obscure, laughable cheapie. It's full of quotable bad dialogue, so Ed Wood fans can immediately add it to their "must see" list. The monster was Z movie coolness. James Craig, who worked out his schlock movie chops again in 1970 with an appearance in BIG FOOT, gives a bipolar performance that's just plain bizarre.

SBIG

Oblong Box, The (1969)

...aka Dance, Mephisto

Directed by:

Gordon Hessler

Vincent Price is Sir Julian Markham, a sad-eyed 19th Century British nobleman who lives in a semi-reclusive existence in his castle home. But he's not entirely alone, his brother Edward (Alistair [Alister] Williamson), a facially-scarred madman who was somehow mutilated during an African tribal ritual years earlier, also lives in the home. Julian keeps his unhinged sibling safely locked away, until it is presumed he has finally died. But Edward's not actually dead and has mistakenly been buried alive. Uh oh! Julian weds Elizabeth (Hilary Dwyer) and moves on with his life, but Edward, who naturally managed to escape from the grave, is running around going on a throat-slashing rampage while dressed in a crimson velvet hood (the "masque of the red death"?). A flashback reveals that someone in the Markham family trampled over a young boy with his horse and a witch doctor had placed a curse on the entire family. "Special guest star" Christopher Lee (in a gray wig) is Dr. Neuhart, a surgeon who is aided by grave-robbers for his experiments and is subsequently blackmailed by Edward to provide him a place to hide out in exchange for some additional raw material.

Based loosely on Edgar Allan Poe's "The Premature Burial," as well as several other stories from the author, I've often seen this one written off as dull and too-familiar, which it is at times. But it's also entirely watchable and a quality horror film, thanks in part to a fine cast, convincing period flavor, a decent plot twist near the end and good photography. Some suspense is also built by keeping the killer entirely off-screen during the first half hour and his face concealed until the very end of the film, where it is still only seen in a state of semi-darkness. Price and Lee both have better and more sizable roles than they did in Hessler's SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN (also from 1969, also from AIP and also with costar Uta Levka, who appears here as a prostitute). Rupert Davies also has a role. The full on-screen title is EDGAR ALLAN POE'S THE OBLONG BOX. Michael Reeves (of WITCHFINDER GENERAL fame) was actually slated to direct this one but after his untimely death, the film was taken over by Hessler. Scripted by Lawrence Huntington with additional dialogue from Christopher Wicking.

★★1/2

Il coltello di ghiaccio (1972)

...aka: Detrás del silencio

...aka: Knife of Ice

...aka: Silent Horror

Directed by:

Umberto Lenzi

Carroll Baker continues her long streak of Euro exploitation/horror flicks with this typically convoluted Spanish/Italian giallo from director Umberto Lenzi, who had previously directed the actress in three films in the same genre - ORGASMO/PARANOIA (1968), A QUIET PLACE TO KILL (1969) and SO SWEET... SO PERVERSE (1969). Unfortunately, the film isn't particularly stylish, much of the dialogue is downright atrocious, the played-out plot line offers next to nothing of interest and the pacing is lethargic. It tries to function as a murder-mystery and even throws in some sloppy and confusing flashbacks (that ultimately are pointless), but gives absolutely no clue as to who the killer actually is when it's revealed; just another "let's pull this out of a hat" type of revelation that personally irritates me. In addition to being trite, unfocused and unoriginal, the film is sorely lacking in exploitation elements that could have helped make it more watchable. There's no gore (all of the murders are off-screen), no sex, no nudity, no notable kill scenes and almost no suspense to speak of. Combine that with a lousy screenplay and anonymous direction and you have a film that isn't going to appeal to anyone other than the most dedicated of giallo fans. And that's really too bad, as it's a handsomely photographed production set in some beautiful looking, foggy Spanish village. Now I do appreciate the picturesque outdoor Spanish locales sometimes used in this film, but when it fails at basically everything else, it's hard to recommend it for a few scenic shots of a place you'd like to take a vacation.

Baker stars as Martha Caldwell, a woman who saw her parents die in a train wreck when she was a teen and has been mute every since that traumatic event fifteen years ago. She has to overcome her fears to meet her attractive professional singer cousin Jenny Ascot ("Evelyn Stewart"/Ida Galli), who's just arrived in town for a visit, at a train station. The two go back to the country manor that Martha shares with her uncle Ralph (George Rigaud), who has an interest in demonology and the occult. Later, they throw a birthday party for a young girl in the village. Jenny is stabbed to death in the garage and her body is hidden under a car later that night. Martha discovers it the next day and the police are soon doing their usual investigation. Turns out another young woman had been murdered not too long ago and her body was tossed in a ditch. The police think there may be a sex killer on the loose, but they also realize that whoever murdered Jenny had to be one of the party guests because a security system would have prevented it. Well, unless someone else happened to sneak in... You know, such as a homeless, long-haired, trench-coat-wearing, morphine-addicted devil-worshipping hippie who apparently borrowed the same contact lenses worn by Ivan Rassimov in ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK and seems to pop up out of nowhere at all the right incriminating moments. Since he's obviously filling the too-obvious red herring position, let's get back to the real suspects in this case...

So who was at the party that could have killed Jenny? Let's see... Aside from Martha, her uncle and the little girl, there's Martha's doctor (oh-so-bland Alan Scott), an exotic looking female acquaintance (Silvia Monelli), a sinister chauffeur (Eduardo Fajarado), a maid (Olga Gherardi) and a priest (José Marco). Which one is responsible? There's also a heavy concentration on things having to do with Satanism. The Uncle is obsessed with it (and seems to have chosen his house because it's located next to an old cemetery), one of the flashbacks is of Jenny buying an occult book, the hippie wears a goat head necklace and is a Satanist and there's a goat head painted on a tree in blood at one of the murder scenes... And all that really has nothing to do with the storyline whatsoever, doesn't play into any motive and seems to have been added almost as an afterthought. There's also a bullfighting scene repeated endlessly, a dead kitten, some truly inept police procedural (only some of which can be explained by the finale), a Snoopy necklace and a cool Donald Duck electronic toy. That last thing was probably my favorite bit in the entire movie.

Baker's performance is decent. Rest of the cast (also including horror and giallo regular Franco Fantasia as the detective on the case) is so-so. The music score is fair, but not memorable in the least. Kind of like the rest of this film. The version I saw was under the title KNIFE OF ICE and is a good-looking, dubbed, widescreen print.

★1/2

Dead One, The (1961)

...aka Blood of the Zombie

Directed by:

Barry Mahon

Barry Mahon's once-believed "missing" low-budget zombie flick THE DEAD ONE was found a few years back and put on DVD by both Stax Entertainment (under its original title) and Shriek Show/Media Blasters (under the title BLOOD OF THE ZOMBIE). It's certainly nice to see something of historic interest (a rare, pre-NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD 60's zombie flick) now available to the masses. Unfortunately, this unearthed relic is a dull, slow and disappointingly uneventful little film. During a brief opening sequence, a blonde priestess uses voodoo to resurrect a long-haired corpse named Brother Jonas and orders him to "Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!" Then we meet John Carlton (John MacKay) and his new bride Linda (Linda Ormond) just as they are leaving the wedding chapel and heading out on their honeymoon. The two decide to spend their first night of married bliss on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, where at least 20 minutes are spent on things that have absolutely nothing to do with zombies, blood or "dead ones." There's a long sequence of a belly dancer doing her act at "The Dream Room," along with two different jazz/blues bands (The Joe Burton Trio and The Joe Jones Orchestra) performing songs. Finally, Joe and Linda head out toward their new home; a former slave plantation/mansion called Kenlworth, that he's just inherited from his grandfather. On the way there, they find the belly dancer from the club (Darlene Myrick) stranded alongside of the road and decide to let her come along and stay at their place until she can get her car fixed.

Upon arriving at Kenlworth, John, Linda and Bella Bella (yes, that's the belly dancer's name) are coldly greeted by John's bitchy cousin Monica (Monica Davis), who is pissed off about them moving in on what she considers her territory. You'll also recall Monica from the opening sequence; she's the lady summoning the zombie. Now you know why - She wants it to kill Linda, even though she and her hubby make it clear that they have no problem with her also staying there. I also have no idea why Monica lets John off the hook and only seems to want Linda dead, but some things are better left to the imagination, I guess. There are also a bunch of cliched superstitious black men and women lurking about outside. After all, someone needs to beat the bongos, chant and hold torches while Monica screeches her silly dialogue ("Killllll!") during the voodoo ceremonies. The plantation is but a few interior sets, plus a sparsely decorated family tomb (where Jonas resides during the day) and an old slave's quarters sporting voodoo idols and chains on the walls ("You mean they kept them chained up like dogs? Gee, that must have been awful!")

Monica sends Jonas after Linda, but he accidentally kills Bella Bella instead. When they find her lifeless stripper corpse lying on the front lawn, John solemnly notes "She's dead" to which his blushing bride responds "But can't we help her?" During the stirring (not really) climax, Linda ends up trying to hold off the zombie fiend with a pistol, while John crashes the voodoo ceremony and tries stop the madness once and for all. Oh yeah, and for some reason Jonas must return to his musty crypt before the sun rises or he'll evaporate. I guess voodoo just brings out the, uh, vampire in him (?)

The plot itself is passable, but barely enough to sustain a feature film. In fact, if you discount the utterly pointless first 20-25 minutes set on Bourbon Street, it's actually not enough to sustain it, so this film has a serious case of the drags throughout. The acting is mostly awful (especially the women), the dialogue is laughable, very little atmosphere is generated despite the setting and it's both extremely slow-moving and utterly empty (content wise) for a movie that clocks in at less than an hour. One of the only things this really has going for it is the Jonas zombie design, which is surprisingly effective. Too bad we don't really see much of creepy ole Jonas. That's partially because he doesn't have many scenes, but mostly because nearly every shot in this film is a long master shot. The camera never really leaves the tripod on this one, and there are almost no close-ups in the entire film. Actually, I don't recall a single close-up. Hell, there aren't even any zooms. There's also a surprising lack of exploitation considering this is from legendary 'nudie' director Barry Mahon. It's not only flesh-free, but also violence free (bloodless gunshot wounds and the lone zombie victim passes out, is scooped up, carried away and is later just shown dead).

If you pick up the Shriek Show DVD, you'll also be treated to the additional feature VOODOO SWAMP (1962), which is so awful and painfully boring it almost makes this one look good by comparison. Almost.

★1/2