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Movies (Bad)

Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks (1974)

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Frankensteins_castle_of_freaks Zombos Says: WTF (but goes well with crackers. Also, Spoiler Warning! )

“Atrocious lighting, abominable story, ludicrous Neanderthal men dressed in furs and carrying clubs, and thrift store couture from the costume department; shall I go on?”

I folded my arms tightly, waiting for Paul Hollstenwall to counter my argument. I dared him to find a shred of decent creativity or craft in Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks.

“Michael Dunn as Genz, the necrophilic, breast-squeezing pervert,” he replied. “He brings a little respectability to it, don’t you agree?” Paul’s wide, earnest, eyes drilled into me.

“So… you’re saying the small part Dunn plays was a wise career move?”

“Well, it’s not like he can pick and choose from a variety, really. He’s a little person. After the Wild, Wild, West, what else is there?”

I thought about what Paul said. “True. But Genz is a long drop from playing the mirthfully nefarious Dr. Miguelito Loveless. A very long drop.”

Paul leaned back and took a sip of lemonade. We were sitting in the solarium, enjoying the warmth, peace, and quiet, next to the pelargoniums, whose scent of chocolate wafted through the room. Zombos and Zimba were out and about, hence the peace and quiet. The aftertaste of that movie still lingered in my mouth, no matter how much lemonade I drank.

There is no peace or quiet in Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks, otherwise known as Terror! Il Castello Delle Donne Maledette. The plot ignores incredulity, but makes for a perfect accompaniment to crackers when viewed after two or more glasses of Chianti.

Dr. Frankenstein (Rossano Brazzi), using a Walmart-bought laboratory, operates on Goliath, one of two Neanderthal men terrorizing the countryside. The other is Ook, but I’ll get to him in a minute. For now, just sit back, close your eyes, and think about it. That’s right. It’s that awful and dopey. This is the first time I’ve ever used the word ‘dopey’ in a review.

Genz is one of Frankenstein’s assistants, but his habit of feeling up the nocturnal goods, fresh from the grave, gets him into trouble. He’s sent packing, to roam the countryside simmering with revenge on his mind. He and Ook find each other and become fast friends. Ook is the other Neanderthal terrorizing the villagers. Genz teaches Ook all he knows about sexual deviancy, which terrorizes the villagers even more. Even Mexican horror movies don’t stoop this low.

Frankenstein’s other assistants include a lecherous hunchback (“come with me, we go to woodshed!”), who fools around with the cook. The cook looks a lot like the ugly sister, Doris, in Shrek. Their pantry hanky-panky upsets her husband, the clumsy butler, Hans (Luciano Pigozzi). Visiting the castle are Frankenstein’s daughter Maria (Simonetta Vitelli) and fiancé, and her friend Krista (Christiane Rucker), who studies science and becomes fascinated by the savings Frankenstein accomplishes by using all that Walmart laboratory equipment. A portrait with moving eyes watches Krista take a bath, and eyes behind a wall clock’s glass door watches Maria make love to her fiancé. We watch in horror—not the good horror movie kind—as flaccid close-ups, lethargic pacing, and choppy zooms make high-school theatrical endeavors appear to have more carefully arranged production values than this production. The accompanying music sounds mostly like someone gargling throughout the movie. While Frankenstein shows Krista his “accumulator,” Genz shows Ook how to cook meat in Ook’s real man-cave. Gratuitous nudity is provided by Maria and Krista bathing in the man-cave’s natural hot tub, but they act like sisters unfortunately.

Not much heat is generated by the sparse showing of townsfolk, who light the torches to go after Ook when a local girl is killed. When Genz sneaks back to the laboratory to free Goliath, that Neanderthal brute kills the hunchback, the butler, and Frankenstein. I confess I was glad he did that. After Ook grabs Krista—she returned to bathe in the man-cave again—he and Goliath go into smackdown mode. Both smack each other back and forth until Goliath kills Ook. (Note to self: suppress urge to write ‘he does it with a left (h)Ook)’.)

The villagers show up to kill Goliath. Inexplicably, Krista hugs Genz, the homicidal pervert as the movie ends on a philosophical note when someone sums it all up: “There’s a bit of a monster in all of us.” Travelogues have more drama. Watch one instead.

Necrophagus (1971)
A Strange Case of Dereliction

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Graveyard of Horror

“If any of you want to accompany me to the cemetery
you better get ready. I’d like to know who died.”

Zombos Says: Poor

Ripped from the case files of the League of Reluctant Reviewers comes this bizarre interpretation of a horror movie. It is incomprehensible. It is Spanish. It is nonsensical. It is so bad it is as much fun to watch as to belittle. It is Necrophagus, aka Graveyard of Horror, aka The Butcher of Binbrook.  Since the direction is amateurish, the acting wooden and the script confused, one can only conclude that it was Nieva’s Eastmancolor cinematography that won the film first prize at the 1971 Festival of the Cine de Terror at Sitges. (The Overlook Film Encyclopedia: Horror)

“Your hand is shaking Mr. Bolton,” observed Chalmers as he ushered me into the familiar room. He was right.

The weather had turned wetter, chillier, and foggier than was usual for May. That was my excuse anyway. My hand started shaking during the long walk to 999 Transient Street, the club where the League of Reluctant Reviewers hung out. I only come here when Zombos and Iloz Zoc do not want to bother themselves with reviewing certain movies. You know, the difficult ones. The movies normal people feel ashamed to be caught dead watching. Those guys act like critic-wimps sometimes, especially when Paul Hollstenwall is involved.

Man, that guy savors dreck like bears lick honey.

I have taken this trip often enough thanks to Paul, but it is rare for my hand to start shaking. The hand that holds the DVD. It was shaking badly now; almost as bad as when I had brought The Human Centipede to the club the other night. But that’s another story. A real wild one. I must still be shell-shocked from that escapade.

“Perhaps I should take your wet coat and that DVD,” he suggested. He shook the drops off my coat while gingerly easing the DVD from my clenched fingers.

I usually bring the DVD to the Champagne Room myself, but this time I let Chalmers do it. He led the way. The owner of the club, the unseen man with
chalk white hands and a voice as smooth as velvet, sitting in the Chippendale wing chair always facing the fireplace, welcomed me in.

“And what have we tonight?” he asked, reaching out from the chair. “Hopefully, nothing as, shall we say, challenging as that previous movie?” He chuckled, but a little nervously.

Chalmers gave the DVD to him. Both hand and DVD withdrew behind the chair.

“Ah, I see. This should not take too long at all, I think.” A white hand reached out to ring the bell sitting on the small table by the chair while Chalmers escorted me to the small waiting room, where a comfortable settee and comforting drink awaited me. This time Chalmers chose a warm Tom and Jerry
instead of the usual chilled sherry. Good man.

I closed my eyes and let the hot liquid dribble down my throat, and waited for the League of Reluctant Reviewers to once again do their review magic.

 

A mad scientist, somewhat dead and feeding off corpse liquors to stay that way; a gaggle of women prone to hysterics and fits of slapping each other; and a skulking cemetery keeper, Mr. Fowles (Victor Israel), who gives googly-eye stares and never changes his clothes, infuse Necrophagus with
unintentionally humorous melodramatics topped off by an inane story so incoherently told you will need to search Google for understanding it before
you see it.

Even more surprising, you can’t blame Jess Franco or Paul Naschy for this one.

The short of it has handsome Lord Sherrington (Bill Curran) return to his family castle in Scotland (actually shot in Spain) to find out what happened to his wife Elizabeth, who died in childbirth. Sherrington’s brother, a research scientist (or something like that) also happens to be missing. A lengthy
narration at the end of the movie explains what his brother was doing and why he went missing, but at this point, for anyone still watching, it comes too late and doesn’t explain much anyway.

The long of it has two doctors acting rudely and mysteriously; Elizabeth’s frisky sisters and a niece (sorry, no nudity) either pining away for or fainting over Sherrington’s affections; the cemetery keeper skulking around a lot with his annoying pop-eye stare; Sherrington’s fondness for playing a tune—which sounds very much like On Top of Old Smokey—repeatedly on his harmonica.

Yes, a harmonica.

Add a police inspector investigating the brother’s disappearance (at least that’s one possibility for the policeman’s loitering around the castle since no reason is ever mentioned), two Scream-like robed and masked attackers loitering around the cemetery day and night, and another doctor who must be a villain because each time he enters a room, the camera zooms in on his face while zither-like zing-zing-zing musical notes alert us to his potentially
villainous role.

There’s also a fast change of seasons with snowball fights and summer-like greenery mixing together within a time period not more than a week or so long by my reckoning, so that’s fairly confusing, too.

When Lord Sherrington insists on playing his harmonica and seeing his wife’s body, he’s rebuffed by the doctors and the cemetery keeper. Entering the cemetery at night, he starts flinging dirt at the camera—pretty funny, really—as he digs up his wife’s coffin to find it empty. More dirt is flung at the camera as he digs up other coffins, also finding them empty. The two robed and masked loiterers knock him out cold and drag him someplace where a pulsing mound of dirt has tubes running out of it. He wakes up. Something in the mound of dirt wakes up. He screams a lot and that’s all we see: him screaming a lot.

Director Miguel Madrid’s penchant for close-up monster point of view angles, showing people on the ground screaming and holding up their hands to fend off an attack from the unseen growling something, don’t do much to raise the scares. Needless to say, Sherrington goes missing; but not his harmonica, unfortunately.

Endless scenes with the gaggle of women reminiscing over their lust for him (or perhaps it was his lusty harmonica playing?), berating each other for their lustful reminiscences, or holding hands and looking scared as they go searching for him in the Scottish castle that’s not in Scotland, round out the rest of the 80 minutes or so running time. As well as close-ups of a gloved hand poked into an overcoat’s pocket, moving from room to room, legs walking, and startled faces, punctuated now and then by the first few notes of On Top of Old Smokey or zing-zing-zing music for dramatic effect to complete the tour de force of cinematography on display here.

I’m being sarcastic.

When the monster finally does show up it goes after a girl so it can pointlessly carry her unconscious body in its arms while walking into a hail of police-fired bullets. Scratch one monster posthaste. Devout fans of early 1970s Spanish horror movies will argue Miguel Madrid brilliantly and intentionally fragmented Necrophagus by shooting it non-linearly and then raggedly cutting his scenes to create disorientation in the viewer.

Don’t believe them.

Santa Claws (1996)
Don’t Watch Out For This One

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Zombos Says: Are You Kidding Me?

Disclaimer: Zombos’ Closet cannot be held libel for the loss of precious holiday time or mirth should any reader decide to ignore the numerous warning signs in this review and purchase, open, and view Santa Claws alone and/or sober. By reading this review, said reader releases Zombos’ Closet and its heirs, in perpetuity, from fault, risk, and all future liability or damage that may occur from such viewing.

 

“How long has he been like this?” I asked.

“For the past half-hour,” Glenor Glenda said.

“You should have called me sooner?” I felt Zombos’ faint pulse.

“He said he wanted to watch something different,” said Glenor. “I didn’t know.”

“How can you not know?” I held up the offending DVD, Santa Claws, while admonishing her.

“But Paul Hollstenwall said Zombos asked for it specifically—”

“Paul! So he’s the one to blame for this. The last time he was here he wasted our time with Neon Maniacs. I can’t believe he’d stooped this low. The man is incorrigible; a menace to decent horror fans everywhere.”

“I told Paul he shouldn’t. I told Zombos he should have gone to you first,” Glenor said with tears in her eyes. “But Zombos said it didn’t matter, that he wanted something new, something totally different to watch. He said he was too old to play it safe anymore. He’s been that way ever since his birthday.”

“Well, the damage is done. I hope you’ve learned your lesson,” I said, lifting a brandy snifter to Zombos’ lips. The color was gone from his cheeks. “At least with Paul Naschy movies I have a chance, but this? I’m not sure how to bring him back to sanity.”

Zombos was grayer than usual and his breathing was short and shallow.

“What was that?” I asked. I leaned closer. Zombos’ lips had moved, and a faint whisper caught my ear. “Say again?”

“Nudie-cutie,” he managed to whisper. “I just…wanted…to see…nudie-cuties. My god, it was beyond horrible.” He took the brandy snifter from me and held it in his trembling hands.

“Nudie cu—” Glenor started to say.

“That will be all, Glenor,” I said, interrupting her. “I can take it from here. Thanks!”

She left the room. Zombos slowly recovered in-between sips of brandy.

 

Nudie-cuties, scream queens, bodacious tatas—none of this can save Santa Claws. It’s a movie not to see alone or sober. It stands as the perfect equivalent to bituminous coal: sufficient punishment for any horror fan on your Naughty Horror Fan holiday list. Sleazy synthesized background music, ear-numbing dialog delivered through cereal box acting, and sloppy camerawork all bump and grind together, along with the T and A, in this one shoestring-budgeted movie.

The cinema-train wrecks in the first five minutes when dubious horror overwhelms the night before Christmas cheer, and another young soul is damned and primed for future killing. Director John A. Russo (yes, that guy of Night of the Living Dead fame) mires blue-tinted, mismatched close-ups with a wobbly pan to find little Wayne (Christopher Boyle) sleeping on the couch in the living room. In the bedroom, his mom is frolicking with a naughty man. The man wants to open his present early, but she’s afraid Wayne will wake up. He tells her he spiked Wayne’s hot chocolate with two sleeping pills to knock him out. She smiles and quickly displays her ample stocking-stuffers. Wayne, who apparently dislikes hot chocolate, wakes up and interrupts their sleigh ride. The boy is so upset—though you can’t tell by his acting—easily pulls a loaded gun from a dresser drawer. They plead with him using dialog so bad I also wanted Wayne to shoot them.

He does, they scream, and the years and holidays fly by.

Now free from prison, grown-up Wayne (Grant Cramer) is working publicly as a teacher’s aide and acting privately as a weirdo. When he receives his very own Raven Quinn (Debbie Rochon) life-size—but armless—mannequin from Scream Queen Magazine (a dubious promotional tie-in to be sure), he starts getting all dreamy-eyed as he admires its certificate of authenticity. Now there’s a true collector: I would have been happy with the 12-inch doll.

The mannequin looks nothing like Debbie Rochon, the real-life scream queen who plays the fictional Raven Quinn scream queen. Rochon has arms, killer legs, and a beautiful smile. Apparently the props department did not have enough money for doing a life mold of her, so they used a commercial mannequin’s torso instead, cutting off its arms and adding a black wig. One clever and creepy touch—actually the only clever and creepy touch—has Wayne dropping packing peanuts over the mannequin’s head as they dance. This is as artistic as it gets.

While Wayne admires and listens to his mannequin, the real Raven Quinn picks up her two children from her in-laws—her gallivanting husband’s mother and sister—who chide Quinn on her chosen profession. We learn Wayne lives next door to Quinn and acts like an uncle to her kids. As the kids run off to play, she and Wayne spend the next three hours sitting on the sofa—wait, I’m wrong, it only seems like three hours—proving why movie-making is a visual medium by boring us to death with their inactivity and mindless chit-chat.

For a psycho-teacher’s-aide-horror-memorabilia-collector (no insult intended to any teacher aides who are horror memorabilia collectors), who has the ‘real’ object of his obsession this close, not much heat or psychosis is shown. When Quinn comes on to him, he still doesn’t do anything. No, wait, he does: he goes back to express his love to the armless mannequin.

Then he decides to start killing people.

Just like that.

He goes to Scream Studios and kills a nudie-cutie, but not before she gyrates and completes her important shower scene acting moment; then he goes after the producer, who shoots Wayne at point-blank range. This being a no-budget movie, the blanks do no harm.

Scratch one producer.

Now let me reveal the spoiler. Are you ready?

To kill his victims, Wayne uses a prop from one of Quinn’s horror movies on gardening. I think it the documentary called Fertilizer of the Damned, or Weed Be Gone to Hell, maybe. Anyway, the gardening tool is a puny three-pronged weed-puller. We never actually see Wayne use it. He waves it around, and then there are a few drops of blood followed by a body slumped on the ground.

Let’s move on.

Wayne complains to his stoic mannequin how everyone needs to pay. It’s not clear for what, but he’s certain everyone needs to pay. Meanwhile Quinn tries to get back with her husband, but he’s bedding down with another nudie-cutie, providing ample opportunity for more T and A. With no one noticing the producer is missing, more nudie close-ups fill screen time while “Uncle” Wayne drugs Quinn’s two little girls’ hot chocolates and goes shopping for a Santa Claus suit. Right! That’s the tie in to the movie title. It’s the only tie-in.

More nudie-cutie shower scenes ensue with another potential victim; she takes her shower, she answers the phone, she chats for a moment or two, then she goes back to take a bath.

But didn’t she just take a shower? Who is she anyway?

We don’t find out.It’s just another randy, randomly inserted shower/bath scene with a well-endowed randomly inserted naked woman.

Wayne, dressed as Santa, shows up and kills her. I don’t know why and you wouldn’t, either. He just shows up and kills her. This is the only time he wears the red Santa Claus suit. He spray paints the suit black. Another inexplicable action left unexplained, but I thank god little kids everywhere are spared having a red-suited Santa slaying around without his sleigh.

In a flurry of scenes, it’s Quinn’s turn to start flashing her T and A—but we cut back to Wayne doing?—Nothing, really, so we quickly cut to Quinn’s errant husband returning home to find the kids knocked out on the sofa——And now we’re back with Quinn being nicely naughty with a cuddly stuffed toy—No! Back to the house and a frantic call to the in-laws—Yes! Back to Quinn strutting her assets for the camera; she takes her top off and then—No! We’re back to her husband running over to crazy Wayne’s house—Yes! Back to Quinn playing with her two big, unwrapped, Christmas presents.

So much for building tension (the dramatic kind I mean) as it’s killed during this inane scene and theme shifting. But like they say in those annoyingly loud infomercials, “Wait, there’s more!”

Black-suited Santa Wayne attacks Quinn’s husband, then goes after her. In one last breathtaking struggle—I was excited the movie was almost over—Wayne and Quinn’s husband go hand to hand (more like hand in hand the way the action was staged).Quinn grabs the weeder and plunges it into Wayne.

Finally, The End.

Bring Christmas cheer by leaving this one on the shelf.

Give a tie instead.

Tokyo Gore Police (2008)
What the Hell?

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Tokyo Gore Police

Zombos Says: WTF?

I grabbed Glenor Glenda’s elbow as her foot slipped on the ice water puddling across the Mongolian teak wood floor of Zombos’ study. She composed herself, slid the steaming hot mug of Satan’s Balls back to the center of her serving tray, and properly presented Chef Machiavelli’s frothy and zesty spiced rum-cocoa concoction—splashed with peach-ginger–to our shivering and quite unexpected guest. Our housekeeper waited expectantly as he took a sip and neatified her uniform with much suspicious intent.

“May I get you a blanket…Mister…? Glenor asked.

“Lucifer. Oh, hell, let’s not stand on formality, just call me Luc, okay? You’re a darling, but I doubt a blanket would help.”

Lucifer’s long red tail waved excitedly as he sipped his drink.

“By Tartarus! This drink is wicked bad! And you say your Chef doesn’t use any black arts? Amazing! My three-eyed cook couldn’t find her way round a souffle, even with her two heads. Damn creature burns everything. Ah, this sinful beverage is heating up my rump. In spite of all the fur in my nether region I was going numb down there, you know.”

He winked at our usually flirtatious housekeeper. Glenor giggled.

I cleared my throat. She stopped giggling.

“Oh, jealous are we? You needn’t be.” He winked at me and flicked his tongue in a devilish manner. Glenor clapped her hand to her mouth stifling another giggle. My withering glance at her helped keep it at bay.

I was desperate. “Zombos! Any luck?”

Zombos was standing behind his Carlton House desk, holding the phone in one hand and a thick legal document in the other. Every now and then a few more sheets of paper slipped from the document and fluttered to the floor. He shrugged. “Sosumi is looking into it. He does not know how this could have happened.”

Sosumi ‘Jimmy’ Jango was Zombos’ crackerjack estate lawyer.

Lucifer finished his drink and smacked his lips. I motioned to Glenor to bring another one for our frisky guest. It looked like evening vespers would be well over by the time Zombos found the document we needed.

“What is that Jimmy?” said Zombos into the phone. “It is in Attachment 66? Okay. Okay, I will look for it.” Zombos hung up the phone. “He is almost here. He said to look for—”

“Attachment 66, yes, I heard,” I said.

“Ouch! Oh, you devil!” gasped Glenor with delight.

I looked at Glenor.

“He pinched me,” she said giggling as she hastily left the room.

I looked at Lucifer; he shrugged, smiled, and winked again. I looked back at Zombos imploringly. “Let’s find that attachment pronto, shall we? Did you check the Wooten? You tend to bury things in there pretty well.”

“Of course!” Zombos turned around and quickly opened the doors of his Wooten desk. The two places Zombos relies on to hide, store, or forget things are his closet and his cherished Wooten desk. Since the Wooten desk is smaller than his closet, I figured it would be easier to search first.

“Well, I’ll be,” said Zombos.

“You found Attachment 66?” I asked.

“What? Oh that, no. I found my set of Brasher Doubloons. I was wondering what happened to them.”

“Great, I’ll let Philip Marlowe know. What about the legal document?” My spirits were sinking fast.

“No, I do not see–wait a minute.”

“Yes?”

“I found it!” Zombos said triumphantly.

“Thank god,” I sighed. Lucifer cleared his throat. “Sorry,” I said, shooting a glance his way.

When I looked back to Zombos he was doing the walk the dog move with his gold-trimmed Duncan YoYo. That’s what he had found. I sighed again. There but for the grace of God I thought. Lucifer cleared his throat more loudly and gave me a smoldering stare.

“We really need that legal document…now!”

“Oh, yes, yes. Let me see.” He put the YoYo back and opened another draw. “Here it is.” He held up Attachment 66. “Let me see, now. Jimmy said to check the waiver at the bottom of page 13. Hmm…hmm…not good. Here, you better read it.”

I walked over to Zombos and he handed the document to me. I mentally translated the waiver’s legalese as I read it. Hidden in all the mumbo-jumbo was the stipulation that if the New York Times ever printed a movie review that was favorable toward a movie that I, acting as Zombos’ agent, reviewed negatively, hell would most certainly freeze over. I glanced over at Lucifer sitting uncomfortably on the large block of ice. So that’s why both of them suddenly popped up around midnight.

“But this is impossible,” I said. The New York Times has never given a favorable review to any horror movie I disliked. It’s always the opposite. They never give favorable reviews to horror movies I like, either.”

Glenor Glenda ushered an excited Sosumi Jango into the room. He furiously waved a copy of the New York Times.

“I found it!” he declared. “It’s Jeannette Catsoulis’s review of Tokyo Gore Police.” He unfolded the paper and read the review out loud. “Propelled by geysers of blood and tidal waves of neuroses, Tokyo Gore Police plumbs wounds both cultural and physical to deliver splatterific social satire.”

I was dumbfounded. Had she seen the same movie I had?

“Ouch! He pinched me,” said Jimmy, pointing at Lucifer.

“What?” shrugged Lucifer. “I can’t help it. I like lawyers.”

“It just doesn’t make any sense. This movie is simply not worth all this bother,” I was bewildered.

“Let me see your review for the movie,” suggested Jimmy, rubbing his behind as he stepped to a safer distance. “I can’t give you any reasonable council until I see it.”

Lucifer laughed. “I’ve not had this much nuisance since Daniel Webster stirred up a dickens’ worth of trouble and kicked me out of New Hampshire. Thank the fallen there are forty-nine more states, I can tell you that. And the lord knows I love congress. Wouldn’t be any fun without them.”

“Hold that thought,” I said and ran up to my attic office to retrieve my laptop. Still huffing and puffing after running back down, I showed Jimmy my review. As he read it out loud, Lucifer was enjoying another mug of warm comfort while Glenor made sure to stay within pinching distance. The woman is incorrigible.

Here’s what Jimmy read:

“Within the first half-hour of watching Tokyo Gore Police I realized it was going to be a transgressive tour through the cineburbia of outrageous gore and absurd social commentary, far away from movie Main Street. Surprisingly, it works for about the first half-hour, but begins to take questionable—albeit scenic—detours through RoboCop-styled commercials lampooning Japanese consumerism, Japunk-technorumble filled with bed wetting-inducing Rob Bottin-styled monstrosities comprised of squishy-gooey latex body parts glistening with stringy mucus highlights; and hacked limbs spouting endless geysers of blood saturating everything, including the camera lens. A chewed limp penis, one monstrous erect penis, chip and dip ankle drilling, a golden showering chair with vagina, and pretty women turned into grotesque objects of perverse desire, meld non-stop into arthouse incoherence. This Pachinko parlor’s worth of bright colors and frenzy left me wondering when exactly director Yoshihiro Nishimura let the special effects department direct his movie.”

Jimmy stopped reading and looked at me. “What’s this mean in English?”

“Just read on,” I said. He continued.

“The Scooby-Doo-simple story centers on Ruka (Eihi Shiina), a grown up, silent, and self-mutilating daughter traumatized after she sees her police officer father assassinated. She now works for the police as a special agent. She has issues. Ruka repeatedly slices into her wrists with a razor before going after a cannibalistic Engineer who is dining on his latest victim like a heaping serving of human sushi. Engineers are serial-killing criminals who can morph their wounds into weapons. Using a bazooka, Ruka blasts herself into action as her fellow officers, questionable members of the privatized Tokyo Police Force, are cut to pieces by the Engineer’s newly acquired chainsaw appendage. These opening moments are fun to watch because everything is so seriously over the top and Ruka wields a mean cleavage—with her Samurai sword.

“After Ruka does some ice-sculpting with the Engineer’s own chainsaw—using him instead of ice—the remains are brought back to the dirty and dreary police morgue. The hunchbacked, one-eyed coroner with a spring in his step and clothing like one of Hostel‘s housekeeping staff”—

“I love Hostel,” said Lucifer. “I almost died laughing it was so funny.”

—“searches for and finds the key-shaped growth found in every Engineer, which gives them their ability to mold tissue into lethal weapons. Someone known as the Key Man is responsible for mutating people into maniacal killing machines.

“That is as much story as you will get jammed between the dolled-up, blond-haired police dispatcher with her bubble-gum explanations and lively commercials extolling stylish self-mutilating box cutters, in assorted colors, and remote torture family fun for society’s deviants. Prolonged blood-fountain fanboy-favorite gore shocks provide the sticky action and, apparently, the main appeal this movie has for many reviewers and horror fans.

“The piece de resistance is the fetish club an off-duty police officer visits. It defies conventional or even tasteful description (not that many real fetish clubs could be described conventionally or tastefully). Women, grotesquely mutilated, are displayed as sexual objects to satisfy the appetites of the club’s vinyl-clad patrons. The officer loses his head over one woman (guess which head, I dare you), but winds up with a much bigger one. Under the control of the Key Man, he returns to the precinct to show it off to his fellow officers with lethally envious results.”

Jimmy stopped reading. “Does this get any better?” he asked.

“No, the movie doesn’t,” I said.

“I meant your review.”

“Just keep reading,” I said.

“Ruka eventually confronts the Key Man, who tells her the truth about her father’s murder, and reveals those responsible. As she goes after her father’s killers, the Tokyo Police Force goes crazy and begins attacking citizens.

“Not sure why. Not sure the director knew why, either.

“One person is drawn and quartered while others are shot, stabbed, hacked, and (insert your own favorite gore gag or body disassembly gimmick here).

“With little said and much mayhem done, Tokyo Gore Police will undoubtedly become a favored cult classic for some and a Pepto-Bizmol moment for others mostly due to its zeal for incomprehensible distastefulness.”

Jimmy closed the laptop’s cover, tapping it again and again while he weighed his thoughts, then stopped. “I got nothing.”

I slumped into the Regency sofa. Zombos practiced his Double Gerbil move on his Duncan YoYo, and Glenor Glenda busied herself by doing nothing.

“Wait, I have it!” announced Jimmy after a few moments reviewing the documents on Zombos’ desk. “It’s here on page 777, under Rider to Attachment 66, ‘herein to be known as Clause 3, otherwise referred to as the Two-Thirds Clause. If both parties agree to unbinding arbitration, dissolution of prior binding agreements, notwithstanding mutually agreed upon settlements of pre-existing or ongoing issues, will supersede, preclude, and nullify Attachment 66. Whereby the second party, hereafter referred to as Lucifer (also known as, but not solely restricted to, Mephistopheles, Asmodai, Beelzebub, Satan, Belial, Abbadon, and Mr. Scratch)—’ ”

“That’s my favorite,” Lucifer interrupted. “Has a nice inviting and unassuming ring to it, doesn’t it?”

” ‘Mr. Scratch,’ ” continued Jimmy, ” ‘and the first party, hereafter known as Godfrey Daniel Zombos and his dutifully bound executor, Iloz Mordecai Zoc, representing his living and or dead or quantum situated estate, including but not limited to chattel, codicils, bequests and residues and residuals wherever presumptive and inclusive, may reach mutually satisfactory resolution by invoking the Two-Thirds Clause.’ ”

Jimmy read the rest in silence, then said “All right, then. Now we just need to find out what this clause is.” He looked through the papers in his hands. Not finding it, he turned to the papers scattered on and around Zombos’ desk. Soon he was on his hands and knees examining each sheet on the floor and under the desk.

“Damn your souls to Hades with all this nonsense,” rumbled Lucifer. “It’s like waiting for a miracle. Enough of this! Time for the Four Horsemen!”

Lucifer reached into his Loculus.

Glenor Glenda dropped her serving tray and turned pale. I felt my heart suddenly pound against my chest. Jimmy banged his head against the desk in his haste to stand, absently crumpling sheets of paper in his fists as he stared at Lucifer in desperation. Zombos continued to practice his Buddha’s Revenge with his YoYo, oblivious to the impending doom about to embrace us all.

He almost had it, though. “Don’t do it!” yelled Jimmy. “We can
work this—”

Lucifer pulled out a bright red iPod classic. “What’s that you say?” he asked, pushing the earbuds into his
pointed ears.

“Nevermind,” said Jimmy, exhaling. He looked at his balled fists and loosened their death grip on the crumpled sheets.

“The Four Horsemen‘s 666 song is my favorite,” said Lucifer. “I like to crank up the volume on that one. Then again, I like to crank up the volume on everything.”

“Hey, here it is!” Jimmy triumphantly held up a crumpled sheet of paper in his right hand. He uncrumpled it, reading it as he did so. ” ‘The Two-Thirds Clause is described herewith. Should the party of the first part and the party of the second part mutually agree to arbitration by a party of the third part, satisfaction of encumbrance will render null and void all prior commitments, restrictions, and privileges pursuant to Attachment 66. Third party arbitration may be satisfied by agent or agency not associated with, bound to, or administered by either party. Third party agent or agency must show no prior agreement with either party of the first part or their executing authorities, dependents, and antecedents.”

We anxiously waited for the translation.

“It says that if we find someone else who always disagrees with your reviews Zoc, but who would, for this one time, agree with your review of Tokyo Gore Police, Attachment 66 would no longer apply. Of course, it would need to be someone not associated with you, and who has, up until now, always showed the opposite of your opinions and tastes in horror movies.”

“What the devil,” I stammered.

“Yes?” asked Lucifer, removing an earbud.

“No, not you.”

Lucifer popped the bud back into his ear.

“This is impossible. Who are we going to get who has always shown the exact opposite in their cimema taste to mine and whom would suddenly agree with me? It would take a mira—”

“So what’s all this?” asked Paul Hollstenwall entering the room. “I kept ringing the front doorbell. Chef Machiavelli finally let me in.”

Paul waved hello to Lucifer. “Dude, that’s some serious Face Off makeup you got going there. Hexcellent! What are you guys doing? Hey, am I being punked? That would be so awesome.” He looked around the room for a hidden camera.

“Paul, now’s not a good time,” I said.

“Wait a minute. Now I get it. You and Mr. Z are Larpers! Man, how cool is that! Looks like you got some weird sh*t going on. I bet the devil’s in the details , right? Anyway, I was passing by on my way to Jersey to catch Vampire Breakfast Club. I tried to Twitter you but I kept getting that stupid ass whale. Wanted to tell you to forget my tweet on Tokyo Gore Police. Saw it last night. Lame with a capital LAME. I was so disappointed it cooled my beans to zero. Now Drag Me to Hell was awesome.”

A car horn sounded.

“Gotta go before my date gets pissed at me again. Later.”

Paul flew out of the room. A moment of silence followed.

Jimmy looked at me. Zombos looked at his fingers tangled in his Cat’s Cradle. I looked at Lucifer. He removed his earbuds and nodded.

“Agreed! Most certainly, agreed.” He stood up.

Thunder shook the room and the ice block Lucifer was bound to split with a sharp crack, then shattered, sending glistening shards into oblivion.  His massive hooves clattered on the floor as he stretched to his full height, dwarfing us in his spreading shadow floating across the floor.

“The last time I heard a sound so sweetly soothing was when I teased Moses into breaking those two little tablets of stone.” His voice, now unfettered, rebounded off the walls like the echoes in a sepulcher. His eyes glowed brighter than red hot iron.

“Be seeing you,” he said with a nod to me.

His arms and legs erupted into plumes of red smoke as his torso disappeared behind a shower of white sparks. His face lingered for an instant, alone in the air with a chesire-cat’s grin lingering behind. With a wink of an eye and a devilish grin, he vanished in a flash of crimson fire.

Now what did he mean he’ll be seeing me? I thought.

The Mysterious Case of The Blood Shed (2007)

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Bloodshed
Zombos Says: Poor

Although the chandelier was unlit, light from the brightly burning logs in the large fireplace shimmered through its crystals, sending beams of white into the high, dark corners of the ceiling, across the walls, and across the richly carpeted floor. Facing the fireplace stood a high-backed Chippendale wing chair with exquisite cabriole legs. The chair was upholstered in the same deep color as the carpet. A short man briskly entered the room and walked toward the chair.

“Ah, Mr. Bolton, you are early.” A small, stark white hand briefly appeared on the right side of the chair, flicked the ashes off a long cigar, then disappeared. “It must be a serious matter then?”

Bolton looked down at the ashes piled in the bronze ashtray resting on the oval-topped trestle table beside the chair. He pulled a DVD case from his worn messenger’s pouch. He addressed the back of the wing chair.

“Yes, it’s a serious matter. Seventy-three minutes of bloody hillbilly debauchery that defies sanity, convention, and good people’s decency. Bluntly put, it’s schlock with a capital S.”

“Excellent, I love a challenge!” said the voice, accompanied by a single clap of hands.

From the left side of the wing chair a stark white hand reached out expectantly. Bolton was relieved to hand over the DVD.

“You will find sherry and a polished Stiegel glass by the couch. We will be a short time, I’m sure.”

Bolton removed his overcoat and retreated to the couch in the other room. He sat down, poured the sherry, and waited, as he normally did, for the review that no one else would do; no one, that is, except for the League of Reluctant Reviewers.

 

What are we to do with Alan Rowe Kelly, then? The man is incorrigible. What infantilistic need drives him to dress like an aging, demonic Little Lulu, carry wicked-sharp garden shears, and wreak gory havoc worse than the dogs of war? Why does he find subject matter like inbred New Jersey hillbillies with a penchant for cannibalism and sadistic nut-cracking with pliers—not Walnuts, mind you—gleefully choreographed to the tune of the innocent Little Lulu song (and my sincere apologies to Marjorie Henderson Buell), fit for decent horror fans?

As the grotesque Beefteena Bullion, who dreams of becoming America’s Next Top Model, he charges ahead with a nightmarish blend of over the top
gore, grievous over-acting, and unsavory, outlandish scenes that play parody with too much off-the-wall seriousness. From the shallow end of the genre pool he drags it up with elephant stomps, falling short of delivering unnerving terror or witty black humor.

Yet his compositions are executed with a keen eye for ominous camera angles, foreboding, lingering shots of dread, and the conventions of glistening
viscera, sadism with a laugh, and uncouth characters overstuffing this independent horror.

In sum, The Blood Shed is art-house schlock that will appeal to some, be avoided by most, and provide ample forums for discussion by both.
Given a healthy budget and a mainstream script, no doubt Kelly would be a force to reckon with. But until that time comes, if ever, we must, reluctantly,
direct our critical attention to The Blood Shed.

On the plus side, Sno Cakes (Susan Adriensen) is fun to watch as she and Beefteena chit-chat, sell sour Lemonade, and join in the murder spree with reckless abandon. With her corny drawl, over-done makeup, trashy clothes, and silly hairdo, she’s repulsive yet oddly sexy and funny; a bright spot in this drive-in disappointment.

And it’s not that the acting is bad, it’s more a case of story-telling for the sake of being as outrageous and naughty as possible. Rhyme and reason do not put in an appearance here; not when Beefteena playfully pulls her little stuffed rodent Flapjack on a string as she skips through the woods; or when a local brat is “accidentally” pulled apart in a tug of war; or when dad pulls the shotgun trigger to shoot down airborne squirrels, with comic close-ups of the rigor-mortised rodents lying on the ground, while he and the boys whoop it up.

When the local sheriff’s most important asset is attacked with a pair of pliers, the absurdity becomes more disgusting than put-on-funny. Kelly works this gory theater of blood angle with heaviness throughout, putting The Blood Shed out of the range of parody, satire, comedy, or even serious horror because he doesn’t stick enough with any one of them to make a difference.

Beefteena’s climactic birthday party scene—why is there always a deviant party or wacko dinner scene in these inbred, cannibalistic, hillbilly movies?—with decaying bodies of past victims wearing party hats seated around a festive table, and terrified future victims waking up to the festivity. It’s a mélange of grossness, bright colors, Little Lulu song playing, and humorless torture. The buzz of the electric carving knife while it’s used on the long-suffering sheriff, and Beefteena’s ire at the modeling agency personnel who laughed at her photo session induce nausea throughout this ham-fisted spectacle of tasteless scripting.

Yet throughout this repugnant romp you will find quietly competent cinematography by Bart Mastronardi, who frames each scene with loving precision, making colorful use of inexpensive string lights in unusual settings to cast a deceptively warming palette across scenes of depravity. The resulting dissonance creates a disorienting atmosphere that invites you in, but subtly warns you to stay away.

I heartily recommend you stay away unless you just want to enjoy the scenery. Watching paint dry would be a more productive expenditure of your seventy-three minutes; possibly not as much fun for some of you, but definitely more productive.

Frankenstein Versus the Creature
From Blood Cove (2005)

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Zombos Says: Poor (even with the lap dance)

Disclaimer: The following review is filled with cheap shots, cheesy double-entendres, and puerile, trashy writing. Read it at your own risk.

 

Rain began to sideslip across the windowpanes and the bedroom grew darker. Zombos alternately
draped himself over his bed, the settee, and the cushy leather wing chairs. We were at our wits end, he from a bad cold and the doldrums, and I from wet-nursing him. We had exhausted the claret, the sherry, and now our beloved green fairy—Absinthe—was almost gone. The situation was becoming intolerable. The thunder storm refused to let up, dwindle down, or simply go away.

Glenor Glenda broke up the tedium by bringing in the morning mail, then went about her tidying up ways. Among the bills, personal correspondence, and advertisements (Zombos loves receiving those reassuring adverts about cemetery plots, dirt cheap), there was a soggy package from William Wincler, director of Frankenstein vs. the Creature from Blood Cove.

“Well, it’s in black and white,” I said, unwrapping it. Zombos loves black and white movies. I waved it in front of him to tempt him.

He waved his hand in the air while blowing his nose. I took that for a yes. I popped the disc into the DVD player and poured out the last drops of Absinthe.

“Lap dance special?” Zombos said as the menu choices appeared. “What is that?”

I shrugged and clicked the remote to select it. The both of us were quickly nonplussed.

“My word, I suppose that gives new meaning to the phrase ‘Frankenstein’s Monster,’ ” I said.

“Good lord,” said Zombos, “if Zimba sees this she will pickle me. Quick, select something else.”

The rain was coming down in bucket-fulls by the time we started the main feature. At Zombos’ request, I held onto the remote and positioned myself close to the door, just in case Zimba popped in during one of the numerous ‘talent and asset’ cheesecake scenes. Frankenstein’s Monster and the Creature were not the only
big monsters in this movie.

We watched the Creature, a biogenetically-engineered one, escape the mad scientists’ lair by jogging out the front door and gate, heading straight for the beach.

“Did the Creature just walk out the front door and gate?” asked Zombos.

“Well, no, exactly. Technically, he jogged out the front door and gate,” I corrected him.

Loopy scientists, dressed in their Clorox-white lab coats, drinking coffee after dinner and chit-chatting, decide, on a whim, to go and find Frankenstein’s Monster to continue their experiments now that the Creature had escaped and is sun-bathing on the beach.

They travel to Shellvania, which probably lies next to Exxonia, in the Gulf of Transylvania. Faster than you can say boo! they easily find the Monster in an unmarked grave using their trusty pocket-sized Reanimated-Tissue Traces Finder.

“What in hell is that thing? Is that made out of Legos?”asked Zombos.

“It does look like it,” I said. “Why, just last week at Walmart I saw Lego kits for Star Wars and Transformers. Be easy to make a Reanimated-Tissue Traces Finder, I’d think.

“Amazing,” said Zombos. “In my day, it was Slinkies, Silly-Putty, or Mr.Potato Head.”

While digging up the Frankenstein Monster, a werewolf attacks them, is frightened off, then attacks them again—in broad daylight. After being viciously assaulted, sort of, by the well-groomed werewolf, and shooting it dead, the unperturbed scientists decide to chat on and on about its medical condition. Eventually they go back to digging.

“I would have been hauling ass right about then,” I said.

Zombos nodded in agreement.

“Hey, look, the werewolf is Eddie Munster all grown up.”

We watched the cursed thing transform back to its human shape. “No wonder the werewolf looked like his Woof Woof doll.”

Back in Los Angeles (I wonder how they got Frankenstein’s Monster past Homeland Security?), the mad scientists set to work on brainwashing the Monster to follow only their orders.

What? That’s what mad scientists do.

Meanwhile, Percy, Bill and Dezzirae are off to the deserted beach—where the Creature ran off to—to shoot a photo spread for Kitty Kat magazine, highlighting Gabrielle’s bosomy assets.

“Lord! Now those monsters are scary!” said Zombos.

Getting Creature-is-near vibes, mayhem ensues, sending them hustling back to the Kitty Kat magazine office, but their editor sends them right back to the beach for more photos; which leads to our next saucy and well-endowed model, Beula, making the mistake of swimming topless when danger is nearby. She obviously hasn’t seen Jaws
or even Piranha. The Creature pops up to bore us to death—oops, I meant claw her to death.

More mayhem ensues as the Creature follows our panic-stricken trio to the parking lot, then to the—I didn’t see this one coming—mad scientists lair. Calling for help by patiently ringing the doorbell, Bill, Percy and Dezzirae are invited inside, only to become prisoners because they’ve seen too much.

By this time, so have we.

Frankenstein’s Monster is sent to kick the Creature’s butt, but instead gets his butt kicked. Mad Dr. Lazaroff (Larry Butler) helps him recuperate. He also receives a  visit from the ghost of Doctor Frankenstein.

“Is that Ed Wood?” asked Zombos as the ghostly apparition appears to Dr. Lazaroff.

“Can’t be, he’s not wearing an Angora sweater,” I said.

“Roger Corman, then?”

“Not dead yet,” I answered.

“Oh, right. It must be old Henry himself, then,” Zombos concluded.

“Story aside, the cinematography is good, don’t you think?” I asked. “The action scenes between the Monster and the Creature lack bite, though. Seems more like they’re having a hissy fit.”

Zombos agreed. “The pacing is non-existent. The camera angles are fair and bosomy.”

When Selena Silver goes into her shamelessly gratuitous pole dance routine in a seedy bar, all hell breaks loose when Frankenstein’s Monster enters. It’s pointless for me to describe how he got there in the first place, or why we’re even there because this whole production is pointless.

“Is that Ron Jeremy?” asked Zimba, standing at the door.

“Why yes, I think it—” Zombos turned a shade paler than he normally is.

I sensed a battle brewing, one more horrific than the cat-fight between the Monster and the Creature. I turned off the movie and hastily left the bedroom.

Wait a minute, I thought to myself as I paused at the top of the stairs, how did Zimba know what Ron Jeremy looked like?

That’s a Wrap (2023)
Needs More Paper and Tape

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THAT_S A WRAP - PosterZombos Says: Poppycock!

Paul Holstenwall, our neighbor and purveyor extraordinaire of bad movies, had brought along That's a Wrap, which launched at FrightFest recently, to show Zombos and me. It had been a while since we were seated comfortably in the cinematorium to watch horror movies, and well, what the hell, I took a chance. Even knowing that Paul, who long-time readers of Zombos' Closet will recall has questionable taste (see one of Paul's misfires here), rarely brings the good stuff.

It had been a long while since I last reviewed a less than stellar endeavor and with IMDb giving this one a 6.7 rating, I felt somewhat safe. I wasn't. I also now know that IMDb ratings don't rate for much. I guess having an extended family, when you're in the business, can be a big help after all. 

"So," asked Paul, "what did you think?" I looked at him. I looked at Zombos. Both stared at me, one beaming with delight, the other just beaming. Like death ray beaming to be precise. I lifted my Lychee French 75 that Chef Machiavelli had heavy-handed with the gin and gulped it down. I confess I held his hand while he poured the gin. I should have held it longer.

…

That’s a Wrap (2023)
Needs More Paper and TapeRead More »

Movie Review: Kids vs Monsters (2015)

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KidsVsMonstersZombos Says: Poor

At 100 minutes, Kids vs Monsters doesn't live up to its title, becoming instead tedious, poorly written, unamusing, and not fetching at all. And you know a movie's bad when I use a word like "fetching" in a review. 

I keep wondering where the 7 plus millions of dollars spent on this (according to IMDb) went. Not even the feckless, irksome cartoon backstories interrupting the less than lively live action (see my comment on "fetching" as it also applies to "feckless") show the expenditure. The two principal sets used–one a monster realm throne room where the rich parents watch their kids being attacked by each monster in turn, and the second, Ms. Gallagher's Reform School, where the kids hang around insulting each other while waiting for each monster to attack them, in turn–show little effort toward original art direction or intentions for originality. 

It's ho-hum from start to finish in spite of having talents like Lance Henriksen, Malcolm McDowell, Richard Moll, and Armand Assante. With the dialog they're given, I'm surprised they didn't roll their eyes more often when delivering each line. The lackluster script ignores the essential character evolution necessary to make this work, and the monsters are laughable in all the wrong ways. Endless talking by McDowell, monotonously delivered, is energy-draining to see and listen to. 

Director Sultan Saeed Al Darmaki and scripter Sarah Daly should have realized they had some monstrous-sized shoes to fill after Monster Squad, Little Monsters, and any number of animated monster movies with kids that have set a baseline for expectations. None of which are met.

The kids include the obnoxious fatty, Bobby (Jesse Camacho), the spoiled beauty queen, Candy (Francesca Eastwood), the depressed goth girl, Molly (Sidney Endicott), the do-good kid, David (Bridger Zadina), the social media girl, Daisy (Anna Akana), and the pugilist, Oliver (Daniel David Stewart). Each of them has disappointed their parents so much, their parents go to Boss Monster (McDowell) to complain and sign a contract with a strong death clause. Boss Monster, who doesn't look like a monster at all, is in charge of all the other monsters that look like monsters in the Monster Realm. We know it's the Monster Realm because McDowell eats up a lot of screen time telling the parents they're in the monster realm. And, of course, we have to listen too.

Henriksen is one of the minions of Boss Monster and assists with more pointless and spiritless dialog in-between McDowell's laborious descriptions of each monster as he introduces them to square off against the kids. One by one. This movie's title is wrong: it isn't kids versus monsters, it's a monster versus a kid. Way too late into the movie do we get any sense of team coordination with the kids actually banding together to fight and protect each other. But that doesn't last long at all and the singular kid versus monster modus operandi resumes. If you're expecting a Monster Squad team up, forget it. This movie doesn't have the nards to make it happen here.

Each prelude to an encounter includes watching a lengthy cartoon backstory for each monster as McDowell explains its life story before we finally cut back to the reform school for live action, or any action at this point. Before that return, however, the parents are also given way too much time to complain and chitchat. And this happens for every encounter. EVERY FREAKING ENCOUNTER.

The monsters are as creatively inspired as the kids. I'm being sarcastic. Among them are Mr. Beet (yes, he's a big beet-headed monster played by Michael Bailey Smith), who punches Oliver to the moon, a Cthulhuish witch who puts the hex on them, for a spell, and a lumberjack Big Foot with a French accent who likes sweets to death. One actually humorous scene has Big Foot in the bathroom as he's interrupted dropping a log. Enjoy it while it lasts. 

In-between the flat back and forth from reform school to monster realm throne room, the fussy Butler (Richard Moll), acts all Lurch-like to provide comedy relief in a comedy.

It doesn't help. After 45 minutes, you'll agree with the person who says "I want more action!"

 A courtesy stream-screener was provided for this review.

Movie Review: Dollface (2014)
Not a Pretty Picture

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Dollface-horror-movie

Zombos Says: Awful

Sadly, Breaking Glass Pictures is perpetuating the horror of Tommy Faircloth's Dollface (aka Dorchester's Revenge: The Return of Crinoline Head) by unfettering it from the festival circuit. Which is not a benefit for discerning horror fans. Case in point: cut every scene with Debbie Rochon and you wouldn't notice she's missing (neither would the story); or eliminate the interminable, witless dialog that wastes most of the movie's time and you'd probably ask for it back because, without it, you clearly see the misfire of maybe-it's-a-slasher, maybe-it's-a-parody, or maybe–and this is what I think– the director and the actors had no clue which direction to take this sequel to Faircloth's Crinoline Head (1995) so they winged it along for an excruciatingly scares-less and humorless ride, botched by all the ad libitum blathering and the monotonous pacing and editing. Whoever the people are who gave this a 7.6 rating on IMDb, and the critics who keep referring to this as a classic 1980s style slasher in tone, they must either be nuts, friends of the director, or want to keep getting screeners.

Dollface is simply not smart enough to be bad, and not good enough to watch, even if, as one blogging critic made note of Faircloth's recommendation, you see it with a buzz on. A full-blown drunken stupor wouldn't help this turkey from getting roasted. The acting? It's passable and hints that, given more hand's on direction and an actual script, would have been much better. The drag queens getting lost while driving to a show and then getting stranded in the woods when their car breaks down? Oh my lord, this was the movie that should have been! Imagine drag queens squared off against a slasher maniac! Or trying to run away in terror wearing high heels! The script would write itself, for heaven's sake.

Instead, we get a little repartee between them, a little teasing screen time with them preening in costume–yes, they're still late and lost in getting to that show– and then they're quickly sliced and diced off camera. Not much happens in frame anyway, so why bother adding more visual efx gags that require more prep? With the most entertaining characters eliminated, we return to the college ones waiting for their turn at being sliced and diced. With them, you really, really, want them to get killed quickly. 

The one thing director Faircloth gets right is the seemingly endless school daze we experience as Professor Paul Donner (Jason Vail) tells his class about Dorchester Stewart, the little mother's boy (Andrew Wicklum) who cannibalized his mom after she died suddenly. Kids. Go figure. Yes, I'm being sarcastic, but watching this scene will remind you of your own school haze and daze and energy-displacement professors slowing everything down to a crawl. Stewart grows up and turns into the serial killer known as Crinoline Head. The professor relates his experience with the sordid affair. Slowly. And more slowly. With an echo. It's impossible that any college class with a professor like that would be so bright and chipper. And attentive. Another reason why I think the actors are better than what's in the can.

A stream-screener was provided for this review. After this, I'm sure I won't be offered many more of them.

The Grapes of Death (1978)
Les Raisins De La Mort

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Grapes_of_death_poster_02Zombos Says:
Have a glass of wine instead.

Seriously, have a glass or two of wine instead of seeing this movie. French directors (that would be Jean Rollin in this case) often have trouble handling the subtleties of horror and science fiction; namely that there are no subtleties.

Instead of a clean and clear message delivered through visual and visceral tension and terror, they’ll pause the camera on a scene until it’s threadbare, insist their characters prattle on and on with soul-searching ruminations, and then have them make interminable philosophical arguments about their predicament, stalling everyone in place while the pace unfolding around them screams for celerity and action. Of course, when you get to movies like In My Skin, the scale tips well past the clean and clear measure and goes sailing out the window, but that’s another discussion entirely. Just recall Alien: Resurrection and you will get my drift.

Here are my review notes in lieu of a more polished review. This movie is simply not worth more of my time or effort beyond compelling you, with sufficient information, to make your own judgement on whether to watch it or not. But if you watch it your crazy.

Review Notes for The Grapes of Death:

(Misc. Notes: Interesting, the IMdB lists a 6.2 rating on this. Wonder what their reviewers are smoking. Wait, they even rate 6.3 for Alien: Resurrection. Must be good stuff. Don’t forget to mention the poster art comes from drfreex.com).

Opening beat on worker being overcome from pesticide used on wine grapes. Told to suck it up and get back to work. He does. Foreshadowing trouble to come. Next opening beat on two young woman traveling on empty train to countryside. They are friends. They talk a lot. Comment on how freaky it is traveling with no one else aboard (aside from the conductor, I guess). No attendants, either (budget saver). They stop at one village. Silent guy boards train. What’s wrong with him? He’s leering. Right. He’s infected. Silent, now violent, guy kills one girl, goes to sit in the car with the other.

Takes a long time for Elizabeth (Marie-Georges Pascal) to notice he’s the silent, leering, crazy type. He starts oozing–what the hell, is that grape juice? Cheesy effects here we come. Great. Finally she gets the message. She runs to find her friend. Finds her mauled to death in the loo (could get fancy here and say train de salle de bains). Elizabeth stops train and runs away.

And keeps running for a long while.

(Note: drawn out sequence here; too much time between  beats. French directors do that a lot. Unless it’s about chocolate, food, or sex, they can’t handle down time well.) Good cinematography of countryside (or is it good countryside lends itself to photography?)

She enters cottage, sees man and woman by the dinner table, pleads with them to help her, must call the police, etc. She’s hysterical, yelling, she needs to phone cops, he pores a glass of wine for her. Woman standing by him is immobile. What’s up? Oh, right, the guy has some creepy looking plastic makeup on his–I mean rotting flesh–showing. He’s infected, too.

Extreme, and unnecessary, close ups splice back and forth between her face and their’s. She’s told to calm down and stay, rest awhile. Sure. She heads upstairs to find a comfy bed. Conveniently open door leads to finding a body in a room. She pulls the sheet away, finds woman with throat cut open. Guy’s daughter tells Elizabeth he’s insane, killed mom. Right. Kind of caught that before she headed upstairs. Erratic beat here. Can we get on with it? Every scene is lingered over too much, ruining the pacing. Were we that obtuse in 1978?

Finally, he acts violently and kills his daughter with a pitchfork. He makes sure to rip open her blouse first to show her ample breasts. Country living I suspect. She was also infected. Interesting. So story point is men and women are infected differently. Also explains why he didn’t kill his daughter before then. Only kills her now because she’s helping Elizabeth escape?

But then he regrets killing his family. Elizabeth runs for it. To the car. He stops in front of the car and insists she finish him off. She does, after thinking it over. A lot. She rams the dinky car into him. (Note: dinky cars ramming into people is unintentionally funny.) She drives around. Comes across another crazy guy, stops long enough for him to thump his head through her side window again and again and again. Long take closeup of his rubber appliance–I mean weeping sores from his infection. She shoots him dead. (Crap, where’d she pick up the gun(?). It had to be in the farmhouse she drove away from. How’d I miss it? After crashing his head into her side window the dinky car won’t start. Sure, that makes sense.

She’s on foot again and walking around (no budget for gas?). And walking around a lot (before the next beat kicks in.) Wait, now she’s running. Waiting for that damn beat!

A twig snaps, she pulls out her gun, a woman comes stumbling towards her, arms outstretched in front. The woman is blind. Seems okay and not infected. Lucie (Mirella Rancelot) has been going around and around since the morning. Elizabeth and Lucie now stroll toward the village, chatting, arm in arm. They take the long way around.

(Finally, the next beat kicks in. This movie screams “edit me!”)

They come across a dead guy, then a lot of dead guys. Lots of time spent walking through the carnage of dead guys. Lucie keeps insisting on knowing what’s happened. Elizabeth doesn’t tell her. Not sure why. Lucie starts screaming “Luca,” looking for him, but then they’re walking again.

(Note: I don’t think there was this much walking in the Lord of the Rings movies, combined.)

Both women hugging each other now as they walk. Finally, they find Lucie’s house. Where’s Lucas (Paul Bisciglia)?  If Lucie pores a glass of wine for Elizabeth I’m going to–wait, Lucas shows up, not looking too good. More infected people show up. They’re not looking so good, either. Whole village must be wine drinkers. Lucie stumbles off on her own, Elizabeth pulls out her gun and loads it. (Wait. Where’d she get more bullets? Crap! I thought I was paying attention.)

Lucie, now walking, with villagers descending on her. Pretty creepy scene. She keeps calling for Lucas. More close-ups of zombiefied faces. Lucie tells them to go away, thinking they’re there to make fun of her. They don’t (go away or make fun of her). She starts walking again, through them.

Let’s see how long this takes before the next beat kicks in. Rollin’s going for a record here, I know it.

Lucas finds her. He’s all weird, starts drooling and laughing. And promptly strangles her with a rope as the villagers watch. Lucie’s screams don’t prompt much urgency from Elizabeth. She does manage to shoot one villager, though, then finds Lucie nailed, topless of course, to a farmhouse door.

Lucas brandishes axe. Really bad special effect of Lucie’s fake head being chopped off her blatantly obvious dummy body ensues–in close-ups, and Lucas carries the head around by its long hair. (Note: Wait a mo, when did Romero do The Crazies? Right, 1973. Rollin must have seen it. This whole rabid village thing is a lot like The Crazies in spirit.)

Lucas chases Elizabeth, head in hand. Villagers stagger after them. She runs away. Again. Then she’s pulled into a house by a blond bombshell. (Note: It’s Brigitte Lahaie the porn actress!) They sit on a couch and chat away. Lahaie pores Elizabeth a drink, too. Can’t beat that country hospitality.

And they chat some more.

We are told the house’s owners are dead, but she had the key, so the house is hers now. Good foreshadowing as to who may have killed them. Really subtle. Hint, hint. Lahaie says the villagers try to get in every night but they can’t (that scenario sounds familiar? –yes, Vincent’ Price’s The Last Man on Earth). Then she changes clothes so they can go out to find safety. Say what? If the villagers can’t get in, they were safe inside weren’t they?

And Lahaie’s acting pretty weird; enough to connect the dots for us, but Elizabeth remains clueless. I sense more running in her future.

Lahaie tricks Elizabeth and the villagers come around. Wow, didn’t see that coming. More close-ups of badly made up infected faces. Lots of prolonged hysterics. Lots of villagers-mingling-around shots to fill time between beats.

La grande femme blonde (as Brigitte “Lahaye” is noted in the credits) soon carries a large torch and holds onto two mean-looking dogs (so what’s Rollin implying here?). More annoying closeups fill time until two guys can drive up in their truck with rifles and dynamite.

Yes! –I mean, of course Rollin has her disrobe to show the two guys she’s not infected. How could Rollin not let Lahaye (nee Lahaie) showcase her assets to the fullest?

More running ensues as Elizabeth escapes while the two guys get an eyeful. And more close-ups of faces ogling through their infections wastes camera time. Elizabeth returns with the torch, but not the dogs, gets too close to Lahaye, and they start fighting. The two guys almost shoot her, but realize she’s not infected and Lahaye is the crazy one. Lahaye grabs the torch and blows up the truck and herself.

Which leaves us with the two guys and Elizabeth walking. Again.

(Note: mention the really annoyingly inappropriate score to this movie while they walk. A monkey with a zither could do better.)

Daylight. They pause for a long chatty rest. Continue walking, do some climbing, then chat some more about needing a pint of beer, realize they just missed the New Wine Festival (could definitely use the Song of the New Wine from Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man to liven this turkey up), argue over military bases and nuke plants, and politics (I swear to god this is torture to listen to), and who should carry the lone rifle they have. Obviously Elizabeth should, since she can shoot well and produce bullets when needed. And she looked like such a dainty little thing, too. Go figure.

They finally arrive at a farmhouse. One guy makes a phone call while the other plunders the larder and pulls out the food. Ah, French movies. The two guys drink wine (guess they missed the memo about the tainted wine?) and argue a lot, then agree to disagree. She leaves to stagger around outside. She staggers into the barn. Staggers up the barn stairs. Conveniently finds her friend, Lucien (Serge Marquand), hanging out in the barn. Seems a bit abrupt to have him just appear.

He’s infected. They talk about it. He created the pesticide that’s killing everybody. They talk about that. He’s feeling equally guilty and homicidal. She gets closer to her boyfriend and hugs him, infected warts and all. Ah, the French and true love.

The two guys stop arguing and realize Elizabeth had left. They go looking for her. One of them shoots Lucien dead. She then shoots the two guys dead. One last, long, closeup of blood dripping onto her face as the credits roll. My guess is she became infected, too. The end.

Like I said, just open a bottle and have at it. Forget this one, unless you like smelly cheese with your wine.

Jug Face (2013)
Toby Jugs Are Scarier

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Jug Face horror movie posterZombos Says: Fair

Chad Crawford Kinkle’s monotonous pace for his Southern pottery folk art inspired Jug Face makes for an excruciatingly boring movie with—and I’m definitely not in agreement with other critics on this point—no tension whatsoever because of it. Whatever intended or implied subtexts of mysticism and the effects of stagnating religious fealty that may be tucked into this simple, stretched thin, script are lost while we wait for something to happen. Close-ups of the bubbling pit where backwoods families sacrifice each other to maintain their community’s health, close-ups of Ada’s (Lauren Ashley Carter) big, brooding eyes, and close-ups of those glossy face-bearing jugs made by Dawai the potter (Sean Bridgers), which herald the next sacrificial victim chosen by the omnipresent pit monster, are comatose as the camera moves around them with much more vitality.

Sustin (Larry Fessenden) is the patriarch who easily and righteously slits the throats of his decreed sacrifices to placate the pit monster, thereby maintaining his closed community’s social order and keeping its “well” being intact. Ada upsets the balance when she realizes she’s the next sacrifice and buries the jug with her face on it.

Her incestuous relationship with her brother (Daniel Manche) leaves her pregnant; her unwelcomed arranged marriage to a neighbor’s son (Mathieu Whitman) leads her to deception; and her mother’s crude virginity examination (performed by Sean Young with her usual, limited, cigarette-emotive acting skills) leaves her subservient to the expectations of her community and its rules. Kinkle keeps everything so monotone he never elicits the necessary question we should be feeling to engage our sense of terror: what’s the truer evil here, the pit monster or the community that accepts its demands?

There is also the Tinkerbell ghost, smoking all dark and ominously, popping up to explain to Ada that she’s toast, no matter what she tries to do. Perhaps Kinkle was trying to evoke a folk tale’s worth of supernatural terror with his apparition’s presence, but if you’re looking for terror watch Deliverance instead; that movie’s atmosphere of other-worldliness and alienation is greatly needed here to make Krinkle’s folk art horror concoction upsetting and disagreeable for us.

Much throat-cutting and blood dripping ensues as the pit monster grows angry. Eyes turn cataract-white as the pit monster bubbles up and flexes its annoyance. Hillbilly cult slice-of-life scenes and moonshines distracts us from Ada’s predicament. Although they provide necessary contrast to her dire situation, they disengage us from that tension because of Kinkle’s even-handedness as he doles out each scene with equal tone. The acting is at the correct pitch, but Kinkle never lets his direction open up to generate fear, or despair, or a smidgen of absurdest eloquence through it. Unlike Dawai’s pottery, the story is only half-baked and not fired up to its true horrors of circumstance and entrapment within a stultifying society.

The musical interlude helps redeem the dullness, but it doesn’t last long enough. Jug Face is a 60-minute movie shot in 80 minutes of tedium. It suffers from film festival laissez faire: it wastes time on emotionless visuals and empty character dioramas, and presumes the vacuum it leaves is emotively and intellectually engaging and multi-nuanced. It isn’t.

Dead Before Dawn 3D (2012)
It Certainly Is

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Dead-before-dawn
Zombos Says: Why?

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Not often do words like lame, ill-considered, stupid, not funny, and waste of time come to mind when watching a movie, but they did as I watched Dead Before Dawn, a horror-numbedy from Canada that misfires on both key areas: horror and comedy. Some things really shouldn’t cross the border and this lacklustre paycheck-maker is one of them. Maybe if you had a few tokes before or during this zombie thriller manqué it would be tolerable, but you better have a BIG bong.

Horus Galloway (Christopher Lloyd) runs The Occult Barn (the Magic Box from Buffy it isn’t), which must never close during business hours (it’s not explained why), but no patrons ever visit because no one else is ever in the place except for him and the college-aged instigators (they look really REALLY much older) who will eventually upset the most demonish of demons stashed in the fragile urn capped off by a human skull.  That rests on the top shelf of a rickety cabinet in plain site and without any caveat emptor or protection against slippery hands and the bumbling curious reaching for it. You want foreshadowing done with the subtlety of a sledgehammer? There you go. If that wasn’t enough, a bad dream shows us how Casper Galloway’s (Devon Bostick) father dies just holding it, after he catches Casper not heeding his warning to stay away from it. (Devon Bostick’s acting throughout appears to be heavily influenced by excessive toking, by the way. Just saying.)

Here’s the setup in a nutshell.

Horus implores Casper to man The Occult Barn’s cash register so he can receive his life-time achievement award, in person, from the supernatural occultists’ society. Casper refuses. His mom insists. And after she cuts the crusty ends off his sandwhich just the way he likes, she gets her way and he’s off to confront his fear and man the register. His college friends and the requisite make-fun-of-the-nerd frat pack show up. So does Becky (April Mullen), the girl he has a crush on. She wants to see the urn. She gets her way. They drop it.

Let the curse begin.

The one really smart ploy here (and it’s the only one in this movie so enjoy it) is how everyone starts adding in their variation of what the curse will cause to happen as Casper tries to warn them of impending doom and to please shut up. Here’s what they wind up with: the “zemons” or zombie demons will cause death by hickies, but French kissing a zemon will make it your slave; and the kicker is that anyone they look at will kill himself or herself and turn into a zemon to attack them.

Rather quickly the zemons start multiplying with inexpensive but competent gory results. It starts with a football player impaling himself with the first down marker; then cheerleaders start dropping each other on purpose; Casper’s mom takes a warm bath with a hot toaster, too. Now a zemon, she chases him out onto the street where two hillbillys—yes, that’s right, I did say HILLBILLYS—run over her in their car. One jumps out of the car with a shotgun and says not to worry, he’s carrying it because they just got back from duck hunting. And yes, that’s the height of comedy brilliance achieved in this movie.

I couldn’t tell if the actors were following the script or ad libbing, but one thing I can say with certainty: if they were sticking to writer Tim Doiron’s script they should have ad libbed instead; but if they were ad libbing, they should have stuck to his script instead.

Horus returns to The Occult Barn in time to brain himself with his own award after they look at him, but before he goes all zemon-like, he manages to, cryptically of course, and with much hamming on wry, hint at how to reverse the spell. Like a Goosebumps episode that was written by 500 babboons locked in a stuffy room with iPads and only one charger, Casper with his rolling pin, Becky with her crossbow, and their freaked-out companions armed with lesser weapons, pile into a Winnebago to find the ingredients needed to seal the demon back up and stop the curse. Winnebagos are all the rage for zombie-related trips after one was used in Diary of the Living Dead.

So many wonderfully terrifying and funny horror movies have crossed the border from Canada: Black Christmas, The Gate, The Changeling, and PontyPool; just to name a few.

This movie isn’t one of them.