The Gruesome Twosome is a 1967 American splatter horror film, produced and directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis and written and co-directed by his then wife, Allison Louise ‘Bunny’ Downe. The film stars Elizabeth Davis (How To Make a Doll), Gretchen Wells and Chris Martell (Flesh Feast, Scream Baby Scream).

In downtown Florida, dear old Mrs Pringle (Davis) runs The Little Wig shop, a small boutique which is doing a roaring trade amongst the local college students who are indulging in the latest craze for fake hair-dos. Handily, Mrs Pringle lives in the house adjoining the shop, along with her retarded son, Rodney (Martell) and her stuffed wildcat, Napoleon. Ever benevolent, Mrs Pringle rents out a room in her home to homeless students, welcoming the prospective tenants with a friendly chat and usually a helpful saying to live your life by (“I always say…don’t I, Napoleon?”).

Alas, when the guided tour of the dwelling commences, the unlucky girl (it’s always a girl) is shoved into a side-room in the wig shop, whereby they are quickly dispatched by the lurking Rodney who is a dab hand at scalping – the resulting mop of hair becoming part of the steady supply of incredibly realistic hair-pieces Mrs Pringle is selling.

Despite three girls going missing in quick succession, there is surprisingly little fuss on campus where the girls spend seemingly all their time listening to ropey jazz on the radio. In between jives, wig shop recommendations and boyfriend squabbles, one girl, amateur sleuth, Kathy (Wells), is sufficiently concerned about yet another missing friend that she sets off to investigate the wig shop for herself. After being treated to a tea and Napoleon welcome, Kathy too gets to meet Rodney but even dotty Mrs Pringle realises that she has attracted rather too much attention. Will Kathy’s boyfriend and the police get there in time?

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The real challenge to enjoying The Gruesome Twosome is to get beyond the first five minutes – rather like a bad skit on an album, there is a truly awful intro involving two talking be-wigged heads, neither funny nor contributing anything to the story. It’s also interesting to consider other horror films made in 1967 – Quatermass and the Pit, Corruption and The Fearless Vampire Killers to name but three – H.G. Lewis seems utterly oblivious to the rest of the world, even with a raft of horror films already under his belt, he has effectively ploughed a completely unique furrow and has picked up no influences on the way. Rather like the work of Andy Milligan, this is either a blessing or a curse, depending on your tolerance of trash cinema.

The acting is of a uniformly outrageous standard, Davis having rather an Edith Massey quality, something so far beyond acting that it becomes a unique art-form. The best performer, apart from the static Napoleon, is Martell, a gurning mute who survives several silent sequences of him playing with wool or his new toy, an electric carving knife, with a surprisingly satisfying degree of accomplishment. Martell is the only ‘breakout'; star from the film, with several more acting roles, a spot of assistant directing (Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things) and also a couple of stints as a production manager (Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things) under his belt.

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There appears to be some confusion by the filmmakers over when the film is set – it seems peculiar that during the Summer of Love, the college girls would sit in their rooms listening to beige jazz, then frolic to surf guitar on the beach, all the time competing with a slightly flatulent orchestral score. Of course, a parade of luxuriously-coiffeured youths being desperate to put even more hair on their heads requires a little bit of forgiveness from the audience too. The fact that not even the basics make any sense is part of the charm, you need to approach H.G. Lewis fare with an utterly empty brain.

On the subject of brains, not a drop of red is spared in the film, the scalping, disembowelings and stabbings being of the lingering kind, just long enough for the unlucky actress to blink whilst playing dead. The effects are a real treat, though naysayers are keen to point out the lack of realism that presumably they detect in the rest of the film – that’s not to say that they’ve had any more money spent on them since Blood Feast, four years earlier. The 74 minute film is not without genuine problems – it stutters from the wig-chat beginning, through unnecessary girl gossip to an odd caper involving the school caretaker being mistaken for the killer because he buries bones for his pet dog to find.

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The Gruesome Twosome is not in the Two Thousand Maniacs! league, the narrative, though fun, ultimately has nowhere to go and the padding only highlights this. Rodney features far too infrequently, being both fun and engagingly menacing, his mum grabbing most of the limelight. The film was made towards the end of Lewis’ series of splatter films, the previous being Color Me Blood Red, indeed only The Wizard of Gore followed which could truly be classed in the same category, before his return to the genre, thirty-some years later.

As an example of trash cinema, this is a required watch, rated as one of H.G.’s own films, it deserves a far better reputation and is perhaps the most overlooked of his horror films.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

Herschell Gordon Lewis on Horrorpedia: Blood Feast | The Gore Gore Girls | The Gruesome Twosome | Monster A- Go Go | Two Thousand Maniacs! | The Wizard of Gore

Buy A Taste of Blood: The Films of Herschell Gordon Lewis book from Amazon.co.uk

Cast:

• Elizabeth Davis as Mrs. Pringle
• Gretchen Wells as Kathy Baker
• Chris Martell as Rodney Pringle
• Rodney Bedell as Dave Hall
• Ronnie Cass as Nancy Harris
• Karl Stoeber as Mr. Spinsen
• Dianne Wilhite as Janet
• Andrea Barr as Susan
• Dianne Raymond as Dawn Farrell
• Sherry Robinson as Lisa
• Barrie Walton as Neighbor Lady
• Marcelle Bichette as Jane
• Tom Brent as Neighbor Man
• Mike Todd as Mike

 Buy The Godfather of Gore documentary on DVD from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

Buy The Eye-Popping Sounds of Herschell Gordon Lewis CD from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

Buy The Godfather of Gore Speaks book from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

Wikipedia | IMDb

Comic artwork by Tony Moore

Tucker and Dale vs Evil - promoted as Tucker & Dale vs. Evil – is a 2010 Canadian comedy horror film directed by Eli Craig from a screenplay he co-wrote with Morgan Jurgenson. The film stars Alan Tudyk, Tyler Labine and Katrina Bowden.

Tucker and Dale vs Evil 2 is reportedly in development…

Plot teaser:

A group of “college kids” are going camping in the Appalachian mountains. While at a gas station, they encounter Tucker and Dale, two well-meaning hillbillies who have just bought the vacation home of their dreams: a run-down lakefront cabin, deep in the woods. On Tucker’s advice, Dale tries to talk to Allison, but because of his inferiority complex and appearance, he only scares her and her friends.

Tucker and Dale arrive at their decrepit cabin and begin repairing it. Nearby in the woods, Chad tells a story about the “Memorial Day Massacre”, a hillbilly attack which took place 20 years ago. The college kids go skinny-dipping where Tucker and Dale are fishing, and Allison, startled, hits her head. Tucker and Dale save her, but her friends think she was kidnapped.

When Allison wakes up in Tucker and Dale’s cabin the next day, she is initially scared but befriends the two hillbillies. The other college kids arrive at the cabin to save Allison from her “psychopathic captors”, and Chuck runs away to get the police. While Dale and Allison are inside the cabin, Tucker angers some bees and frantically waves around his chainsaw, which the college kids misinterpret as hostility. They scatter through the woods, and Mitch accidentally impales himself on a broken tree. After finding Mitch’s body, Chad persuades the others that they are in a battle for survival…

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Reviews:

“What keeps this so amiable is that it honors the simple pleasures of bloody horror without really vilifying anyone: screenwriters Morgan Jurgenson and Eli Craig devise most of the grisly deaths as elaborate slapstick mishaps. Aside from the good cheer, however, there isn’t much to distinguish this from the low-rent slasher movies it parodies; if you’re not a fan of the genre, you’ll likely find this pretty thin.” Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader

First time director Eli Craig gets that troublesome mix of horror and comedy dead right, aided in no small part by having charming leads and a central joke that’s original, smart and, above all, funny … As with most single-joke movies the plot runs out of steam, but it’s still a fun and memorable ride.” Phelim O’Neill, The Guardian

“At its heart, it’s really just a one-idea premise stretched out to feature length, but the lovable duo of Tudyk and Labine and an endearing layer of sweetness under all the blood make it a fully enjoyable comedy of (t)errors.” Keith Staskiewicz, Entertainment Weekly

“Tucker & Dale vs. Evil is an immensely likable horror-comedy and easy to recommend, but also full of missed opportunities. While movie has terrific performances and is certainly filled with more than its fair share of gore and mayhem, its repetitive nature does detract from the overall experience.” Cinema Blend

“A salutary, very funny and pleasingly moral movie”. Philip French, The Observer

Choice dialogue:

“You’ve gone hillbilly on me, Allison. Now I’m willing to forgive you but you’re gonna have to pay!”

Cast:

• Tyler Labine as Dale Dobson
• Alan Tudyk as Tucker McGee
• Katrina Bowden as Allison
• Jesse Moss as Chad
• Chelan Simmons as Chloe
• Philip Granger as Sheriff
• Brandon Jay McLaren as Jason
• Christie Laing as Naomi
• Travis Nelson as Chuck
• Alex Arsenault as Todd
• Adam Beauchesne as Mitch
• Joseph Allan Sutherland as Mike
• Karen Reigh as Cheryl
• Tye Evans as Chad’s Dad

Wikipedia | IMDb | Facebook | Image thanks: Imp Awards

Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol (French pronunciation: ​[ɡʁɑ̃ ɡiɲɔl]: “The Theatre of the Big Puppet”) – known as the Grand Guignol – was a theatre in the Pigalle area of Paris (at 20 bis, rue Chaptal). From its opening in 1897 until its closing in 1962, it specialized in naturalistic, usually shocking, horror shows. Its name is often used as a general term for graphic, amoral horror entertainment, a genre popular from Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre (for instance Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, and Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi and The White Devil), to today’s splatter films. The influence has even spread to television shows such as Penny Dreadful.

Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol was founded in 1894 by the playwright and novelist, Oscar Méténier, who planned it as a space for naturalist performance. Méténier, who in his other job had been a chien de commisaire (a person who accompanied prisoners on a death row), created the theatre in a former chapel, the design keeping many of the original features, such as neo-Gothic wooden panelling, iron-barred boxes and two large angels positioned above the orchestra – the space was embellished with further Gothic adornments to create an atmosphere of unease and gloom. With 293 seats, the venue was the smallest in Paris, the distance between audience and actors being minimal and adding to the claustrophobic nature of the venue. The lack of space also influenced the productions themselves, the closeness of the audience meaning there was little point in attempting to create fantastical environments, the illusion shattered immediately by the actors breathing down their necks – not that there was any room on the 7 metre by 7 metre space for anything much in the way of backdrops.

The Guignol from which the theatre and movement took its name was originally a Mr Punch-like character who, in the relative safety of puppet-form, commentated on social issues of the day. On occasion, so cutting were the views that Napoleon III’s police force were employed to ensure the rhetoric did not sway the masses. Initially, the theatre produced plays about a class of people who were not considered appropriate subjects in other venues: prostitutes, criminals, street urchins, con artists and others at the lower end of Paris society, all of whom spoke in the vernacular of the streets. Méténier’s plays were influenced by the likes of Maupassant and featured previously forbidden portrayals of whores and criminality as a way of life, prompting the police to temporarily close the theatre.

André de Lorde

By 1898, the theatre was already a huge success but it was also time for Méténier to stand to one side as artistic director, a place taken by Max Maurey, a relative unknown but one who had much experience in the world of theatre and public performance. Maurey saw his job to build on the reputation the theatre already had for boundary pushing and take it to another level entirely. He saw the answer as horror, not just the tales of the supernatural but of the realistic, gory and terrifying re-enactments of brutality exacted on the actors, with such believability that many audience members took the plays as acts of torture and murder. Maurey judged the success of his shows by the number of audience members who fainted, a pretend doctor always on-hand to add to the pretence.

The writer of the majority of the plays during this period was André de Latour (later de Lorde), spending his days as an unassuming librarian, his evenings writing upwards of 150 plays, all of them strewn with torture, murder and what we would now associate with splatter films. He often worked with the psychologist, Alfred Binet (the inventor of the I.Q. test) to ensure his depictions of madness (a common theme) were as accurate as possible. Also crucial to the play’s success was the stage manager, Paul Ratineau, who, as part of his job, was responsible was the many gory special effects. This was some challenge, with the audience close enough to shake hands with the actors, Ratineau had to develop techniques from scratch, ensuring that not only were devices well-hidden but that the actors could employ them in a realistic manner, without detection. A local butcher supplied as much in the way of animal intestines as were required, whilst skilfully using lighting helped to make the scenes believable as well as aiding the sinister atmosphere. Rubber appliances made suitable spewing innards when animal’s were not available and several concoctions were devised to simulate blood, ranging from cellulose solutions to red currant jelly. Actual beast’s eyeballs were coated in aspic to allow for re-use, confectioner’s skills employed to enable the eating of the orbs where required. Rubber tubes, bladders, fake blades and false limbs were also used to create gruesome scenes, though on occasion these did prove hazardous – reports detail instances where one actor was set on fire, one was nearly hanged and yet another was victim to some enthusiastic beating from her co-star, resulting in cuts, bruises and a nervous breakdown.

The actors themselves were not especially unusual – they were performers taking work wherever it came. There were a few stars of note – Paula Maxa (born Marie-Therese Beau)  became known as “the Sarah Bernhardt of the impasse Chaptal” or, if you prefer, “the most assassinated woman in the world”, an appropriate claim for an actress who, during her career at the Grand Guignol, had her characters murdered more than 10,000 times in at least 60 different ways and raped at least 3,000 times. Maxa was shot, scalped, strangled, disemboweled, flattened by a steamroller, guillotined, hanged, quartered, burned, cut apart with surgical tools and lancets, cut into eighty-three pieces by an invisible Spanish dagger, had her innards stolen,  stung by a scorpion, poisoned with arsenic, devoured by a puma, strangled by a pearl necklace, crucified and whipped; she was also put to sleep by a bouquet of roses and kissed by a leper, amongst other treats. Another actor, L.Paulais (real name, Georges) portrayed both victim and villain with equal skill and opposite Maxa in every one of their many performances.  He once commented that the secret to the realistic performances was their shared fear. The actress Rafaela Ottiano was one of the few, perhaps even only, original actors in the theatre to transfer to the Big Screen, appearing in Tod Browning’s Devil Doll (1936).

At the Grand Guignol, patrons would see five or six plays, all in a style that attempted to be brutally true to the theatre’s naturalistic ideals. These plays often explored the altered states, like insanity, hypnosis, panic, under which uncontrolled horror could happen. Some of the horror came from the nature of the crimes shown, which often had very little reason behind them and in which the evildoers were rarely punished or defeated. To heighten the effect, the horror plays were often alternated with comedies. Under the new theatre director, Camille Choisy, special effects continued to be an important part of the performances. Many of the attendees would barely be able to control themselves – if they weren’t fainting, they were quite possibly reaching something approaching orgasmic fervour, private booths being extremely popular to allow some privacy for their heightened emotions. On occasion the actors were forced to come out of character to reprimand more excitable audience members. Some particularly salacious examples of plays performed include:

Le Laboratoire des Hallucinations, by André de Lorde: When a doctor finds his wife’s lover in his operating room, he performs a graphic brain surgery rendering the adulterer a hallucinating semi-zombie. Now insane, the lover/patient hammers a chisel into the doctor’s brain.

Un Crime dans une Maison de Fous, by André de Lorde: Two hags in an insane asylum use scissors to blind a young, pretty fellow inmate out of jealousy.

L’Horrible Passion, by André de Lorde: A nanny strangles the children in her care.

Le Baiser dans la nuit by Maurice Level: A young woman visits the man whose face she horribly disfigured with acid, where he obtains his revenge.

Jack Jouvin served as director from 1930 to 1937. He shifted the theatre’s subject matter, focusing performances not on gory horror but psychological drama. Under his leadership the theatre’s popularity waned; and after World War II, it was not well-attended. Grand Guignol flourished briefly in London in the early 1920s under the direction of Jose Levy, where it attracted the talents of Sybil Thorndike and Noël Coward, and a series of short English “Grand Guignol” films (using original screenplays, not play adaptations) was made at the same time, directed by Fred Paul. Meanwhile in France, audiences had sunk to such low numbers that the theatre had no option but to close its doors in 1962. The building still remains but is used by a theatre group performing plays in sign language. Modern revivals in the tradition of Grand Guignol have surfaced both in England and in America.

Grand Guignol was hugely influential on film-making both in subject and style. Obvious examples include Prince of Terror De Lorde’s works being used as the basis for D.W. Griffith’s Lonely Villa (1909), Maurice Tourneur’s The Lunatics (1913)  and Jean Renoir’s Diary of a Chambermaid (1946). Others clearly influenced include the Peter Lorre-starring Mad Love (1935), Samuel Gallu’s Theatre of Death (1967), H.G. Lewis’ Wizard of Gore (1970) and Joel M. Reed’s notorious Blood Sucking Freaks (1975). More recently, More recently, Grand Guignol has featured in the hit television series, Penny Dreadful. The 1963 mondo film Ecco includes a scene which may have been filmed at the Grand Guignol theatre during its final years – as such, it would be the only footage known to exist.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

We are grateful to Life Magazine for several of the images and Grand Guignol website for some of the information.

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The Mummy can, in many respects, hold claim to being the most unloved of the classic movie monsters – if not, then surely the most inconsistently served. The oft-quoted line from Kim Newman, that the issue lies with “no foundation text” upon which to base the creature, certainly carries some weight, though Mummies had certainly been written about in the 19th Century – notable works include Poe’s short story, Some Words With a Mummy (1850), Conan Doyle’s Lot No. 249 (1892), the latter establishing the Mummy as a malevolent predator seeking revenge, as well as touching upon elements also explored in later films, such as the methods of resurrection and the supernatural control of a ‘master’.

Poe’s tale is rather more barbed, the bandaged cadaver reanimated by electricity and quizzed upon its ancient knowledge (or lack of), a side-swipe at both modernist self-aggrandising and the Egyptomania which had swept through both America and Europe since Napoleon’s Egyptian Campaign of 1798-1801. The fascination of the general public in all levels of society lasted throughout the Victorian era, peaking again when Howard Carter uncovered Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922. This obsession didn’t stop with the collection of Egyptian artworks and an influence on fashion and architecture – it was not uncommon in both America and Europe (though England especially) for the upper classes to purchase sarcophagi containing mummified remains at public auctions and then charging interested parties to a literal unveiling at what became known as ‘mummy unwrapping parties’. Though many of these were under the slightly dubious guise of scientific and historical investigations, the evidence of publicity material listing admission prices for children rather suggests a more obvious parallel of the fascination with freak shows, as well as the ever-popular grave robbing and body snatching.

It is such unbalanced factors which contributed to the Mummy onscreen as such a difficult to pin-down character. Bram Stoker’s 1909 novel, The Jewel of Seven Stars, concentrated on the attempts to resurrect a mummified Egyptian Queen but is full of the author’s own clear obsession with the subject, detailing minute features of objects and environment. Even looking at these three texts, very different perspectives are offered:

1. The curse
2. The resurrection (either via electricity, potion or supernatural means)
3. Love across the ages
4. The exotic nature and history of Egypt

Mummy films are somewhat doomed to pick one or more elements of this and then factor in the very nature of a Mummy – a zombie with bandages with a grudge. Most films dealt with this threat as a singular foe, one with pre-determined victims in a relatively limited environment (either in his native Africa/South America or relocated to a museum elsewhere). Fundamentally, it’s not easy the share the fear of the pursued – the regularly featured greedy archaeologist or treasure hunter clearly would not have many rooting for them, the similarly omnipresent character of the innocent damsel being mistaken by old clothy for his bride from B.C. is often equally wretched.

The first documented films concerning Mummies are 1899’s Georges Melies‘ Cleopatra (French: Cléopâtre), also known as Robbing Cleopatra’s Tomb, which, at only two minutes in length, is pretty much the synopsis, action and epilogue all in one. Despite a false alarm in 2005, no copy of the film now exists, a fate shared by another French film, 1909’s The Mummy of the King Rameses (French: La Momie Du Roi). Though literature was raided for ideas in some of these early efforts, in particular 1912’s The Beetle, based on the Rich Marsh 1897 novel of the same name, the general tone was of mystery, over-egged comedy and slushy drama, the long-lost tombs of nobility and monarchy gripping audiences without the need for too much in the way of ravenous corpses.

1932’s Chandu the Magician just pipped Universal to the post as an Egyptian villain stalked America’s screens with a recognisable actor in the role of the baddy, Bela Lugosi kidnapping all and sundry in a bid to possess a death ray (he later appeared as the hero in the follow-up, 1934’s Return of Chandu). As with so many of Universal’s introductions of classic monsters, many elements of 1932’s The Mummy leeched into films right up to the present day. For first-time viewers, the biggest surprise is the incredibly short screen time of the bandaged one, though the slowly-opening eyes of the revived Mummy is one of the great moments in horror film.

It is as the reawakened Ardath Bey that Boris Karloff spends most of the film; Jack Pierce’s excellent make-up giving ‘life’ to a cadaverous-featured, be-fezzed Casanova seeking his love whom he believes has been reincarnated. The Egypt of the film is populated by aloof and cultured Westerners working in a land of subservient and befuddled locals, including Horrorpedia favourite, Noble Johnson as ‘The Nubian’ and can be seen as a view of a colonial viewpoint of ‘foreigners and their strange ways’, sometimes quasi-religious, at others playing on the public awareness of the so-called Curse of King Tut’s Tomb, an event only a decade prior. Egypt is still as remote, uncouth and dangerous as the forests of Romania and the invented village of Vasaria – the notion that this place actually exists and that tombs were still being uncovered lending an extra, illicit thrill, modern science at war with religious belief and customs. Bey/Imhotep stalks his beloved in a more stealthy manner than that of Dracula, the quick nip on the neck replaced by a rather more sinister, unspoken threat of capture, death and sex, the latter two being interchangeable. This, of course, remains unspoken but presumably an inevitability, Universal instead charging the film with shots of unbridled romance, both in set-design and, importantly, a specifically-composed score by James Dietrich and Heinz Roemheld, the first for a Universal Horror. This was underpinned by passages from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, another nod to Transylvania.

Though a success at the box office, it was a full eight years before Universal unleashed a Mummy again, the 1940 film The Mummy’s Hand not being a sequel but rather a reintroduction of the monster. Universal flex their creative muscle here, rather like 1941’s The Wolf Man, their invented lore (the poem of how a man is doomed to turn to beast) it is a given ‘fact’ that a Mummy can be brought back to life and indeed sustained by a potion of ‘tana leaves’. Evidently aware of the lack of an actual Mummy in its 1932 effort, the studio pushed the bandaged monster to the fore, plot and backstory being secondary to getting him on screen and tormenting people. It was a simple enough conceit that it was this Mummy, Kharis who would appear in the film’s sequels, The Mummy’s Tomb, The Mummy’s Ghost and The Mummy’s Curse, all of which would feature Lon Chaney Jr as the monster, the quality always sinking ever lower but still with Pierce’s sterling work on the costume and make-up, much to Chaney’s chagrin.

If the lack of genuine horror in the films wasn’t enough, the ever-present comedy or cartoon featuring Mummies again gave the character a persona that was not to be taken seriously. No matter how hard you tried, if you put bandages on a violent, ever-living zombie, there was a danger of farce.

This can be evidenced with attempts such as the RKO-distributed Wheeler & Woolsey film, Mummy’s Boys (1936), The Three Stooges’ We Want Our Mummy (1939) and Mummy’s Dummies (1948) and on to Abbott and Costello’s encounters in Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955), a threadbare affair in both costume and entertainment – comedy often leaned on the fact Mummy is an un-threatening sounding word with two meanings as well as the opportunity to sing and dance in a manner audiences might expect from Egyptians (or not). Bandage unravelling was a given.

It would be two other countries which would rescue the Mummy from the filmic doldrums, at least in sparking an audience’s interest. 1957 saw the release of two Mexican films – The Aztec Mummy (Spanish title: La Momia Azteca) and The Curse of the Aztec Mummy (Spanish: La maldición de la momia azteca), neither likely to win awards for outright quality but giving Mummies in new life in a new environment, the ancient Aztec culture and wacky wrestling superhero (in this case El Ángel) marrying easily with the tropes already laid down by the earlier American films. The films offered enough promise for Jerry Warren to recut, dub and add additional scenes for an American audience. The films were a success in both markets and led to two further sequels, The Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy (1958) and Wrestling Women vs.The Aztec Mummy (1964).

Britain’s bandaged offering, inevitably from Hammer, was 1959’s The Mummy. Here, Hammer borrowed heavily from Universal (again, overlooking the studious 1932 film and cutting straight to the monster-driven sequels) but brought out the big guns; Terence Fisher directing and the double-whammy of Lee and Cushing. For all the film’s faults, and there are several, the film finally gives the monster the strength and terror that his complex evolution and background demands.

Here, Lee towers over the other characters both literally and metaphorically, emerging from a swamp in a scene which should be considered as iconic as any in Hammer’s canon. No longer a shuffling bag of bones, the Mummy here is athletic and merciless, with the strength and stature of Frankenstein’s Monster with the eternal threat of Dracula.

Two of the sequels misfired quite badly, 1964’s Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb and 1971’s Blood From the Mummy’s Tomb yet both have the odd moment of inspiration (the latter’s scenes involving voluptuous Valerie Leon in particular!) but running out of things for the Mummy to do. On the other hand, Hammer’s The Mummy’s Shroud (1967) is instantly forgettable.

Interestingly, Egypt’s own attempt at filming its own national monster feasted liberally on Abbott and Costello romping, the result being 1953’s Harem Alek (literally ‘shame on you’, retitled as Ismail Yassin Meets Frankenstein). Shrieking and gurning abound in a very close relation to the American comedians in their meeting of Frankenstein, the mummy in question being much nearer to the bolted creature.

One of the oddest appearances for a mummy was a narrator – voiced distinctively by Valentine Dyall – for Antony Balch’s 1969 British low budget anthology film Secrets of Sex aka Tales of the Bizarre. A healthy dose of dark humour, plus copious nudity from both sexes, has ensured that there is still a cult following for this eccentric entry.

Grabbing the monster by the scruff of the neck was Spain’s Paul Naschy, never one to tip-toe around a subject. 1973’s Vengeance of the Mummy (Spanish: La vengance de la momia) is gory, lurid and enormous fun, the hacking and head-crushing monster being completely self-governing and with the added bonus of an alluring assistant, played by Helga Liné, though sadly her rumoured nude scenes have yet to surface. Naschy played the Mummy once more, in the all-star monster fest of 1988’s Howl of the Devil.

The Mummy often appeared as part of an ensemble of monsters, giving the film-maker an answer as to what to do with it – from singing puppet mayhem of Mad Monster Party? and 1972’s animated semi-prequel Mad Mad Mad Monsters to encounters with Scooby Doo and rock band KISS, the monster remained an also-ran and supporting character. Though managing to get on screen in Fred Dekker’s The Monster Squad (1987), missing out on the action in comedy horror anthology The Monster Club (1981) suggests his standing in the pantheon of monsters was less than stellar.

The Awakening (1980) was a latter-day attempt at filming Stoker’s novel – though managing to visually capture a sense of antiquity and some pleasing shots of Egypt, it lacks fire and threat and once again a classic monster is reduced to dreary, slow-paced banality. On the other side of the coin was Frank Agrama’s 1981 brutal guts and gusto Dawn of the Mummy, which sees the restless ones reanimated by the hot lights of a fashion shoot. This at least forgives lots of manic running around and a conflict between the modern day and the ancient, gloves off and with little regards to sense or history. The title alone should lead the audience to expect a more zombie-based event and though frequently silly and frayed, largely due to the low budget, it does at least give the sub-genre a shot in the arm.

Later films perhaps tried too hard – 1982’s Time Walker pitched the Mummy as actually being an alien in stasis; 1983’s baffling and boring Scarab throwing Gods, Nazis and scientists into the mix but only ending up with a mess; Fred Olen Ray’s breast-led 1986 effort, The Tomb. None came very close to succeeding in any sense.

The 1990’s was possibly the most desperate time for Mummies worldwide – whether it was the schlock of Charles Band (The Creeps, 1997), the critically-mauled 1998 film Bram Stoker’s Legend of the Mummy or Russell Mulcahy’s flying Mummy of Talos the Mummy (1998), the monster suffered more than most at the hands of those trying to use new technology at the expense of plot and character to succeed. Only in 2002 with Don Coscarelli’s film Bubba Ho-Tep did The Mummy make a meaningful return, pleasing both fans of Bruce Campbell and too-cool-for-school scouts for cults as they happen, as well as horror fans desperate to see their bandaged hero as a tangible threat.

When Hollywood finally decided to throw some money at a reborn franchise, there was to be disappointment – the Indiana Jones-type action of 1999’s The Mummy, as well as its sequels and spin-offs were an exercise in CGI and tame thrills. Speakers were blown, images were rendered but whatever fun audiences had, omitted the scare factor.

2014’s R-rated The Pyramid promises Rec-style horrors and a return, successful or not, to the concept of a straight-forward monster released from its tomb. Further field, Universal have promised/threatened to relaunch their entire world of monsters, beginning with The Mummy from 2016.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

Mummy Filmography: 

1899 – Cleopatra

1909 – The Mummy of the King Rameses (aka. La momie du roi)

1911 – The Mummy

1912 – The Mummy

1912 – The Vengence of Egypt

1912 – The Mummy and the Cowpuncher

1913 – The Egyptian Mummy – comedy short

1914 – Naidra, The Dream Worker

1914 – The Necklace of Rameses

1914 – Through the Centuries – short comedy

1914 – The Egyptian Princess

1914 – The Mummy

1915 – The Dust of Egypt

1915 – When the Mummy Cried for Help

1915 – Too Much Elixir of Life

1916 – Elixir of Life – comedy short

1916 – The Missing Mummy – comedy short

1917 – The Undying Flame

1917 – The Eyes of the Mummy

1918 – Mercy, the Mummy Mumbled – comedy short

1921 – The Lure of Egypt

1923 – The Mummy

1923 – King Tut-Ankh-Amen’s Eighth Wife

1926 – Mummy Love

1926 – Made For Love

1932 – Chandu the Magician

1932 – The Mummy

1933 – The Ghoul

1934 – The Return of Chandu

1936 – Mummy Boy

1938 – We Want Our Mummy

1940 – The Mummy’s Hand

1942 – Superman ‘The Mummy’s Tomb’ (animated short)

1943 – The Mummy Strikes

1944 – The Mummy’s Ghost

1944 – A Night of Magic

1945 – The Mummy’s Curse

1953 – The Mummy’s Revenge (Spain)

1953 – Harem Alek (Egypt)

1954 – Sherlock Holmes ‘The Laughing Mummy’ (UK TV episode)

1955 – Abbot and Costello Meet the Mummy

1957 – Curse of the Aztec Mummy (Mexico/USA)

1957 – Castle of the Monsters

1957 – Curse of the Pharaohs

1957 – Pharoah’s Curse

1957 – Robot versus the Aztec Mummy (aka “La momia azteca contra el robot humano, Mexico)

1958 – El Castillo de los Monstruos

1958 – Dos Fantasmas y una Muehacha (Mexico)

1958 – House of Terror (aka “Face of the Screaming Werewolf,”  Mexico/USA)

1958 – The Man and the Monster (Mexico)

1959 – The Mummy

1960 – Rock n Roll Wrestling Woman vs the Aztec Mummy

1962 – I Was a Teenage Mummy

1963 – Attack of the Mayan Mummy aka The Mummy Strikes

1964 – Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb

1965 – Mummy’s Dummies

1965 – Orgy of the Dead

1966 – Death Curse of Tarta

1966 – Carry On Screaming!

1966 – Mad Monster Party?

1966 – The Mummy’s Ghost (short)

1967 – Get Smart ‘The Mummy’ (TV episode)

1967 – The Mummy’s Shroud

1967 – Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea “The Mummy” (TV episode)

1968 – El Santo and Blue Demon vs. the Monster (Mexico)

1969 – The Mummy and the Curse of the Jackals

Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? “Scooby-Doo and A Mummy, Too” (TV episode)

1969 – Secrets of Sex aka Tales of the Bizarre

1970 – Santo in the Vengeance of the Mummy (aka Santo En La Venganza de la Momia, Mexico)

1970 – Dracula vs. Frankenstein” (aka ‘Assignment Terror, Italy/Spain/Germany)

1970 – The Mummies of Guanajuato (Mexico)

1971 – Blood From the Mummy’s Tomb

1971 – Santo and the Vengeance of the Mummy (Mexico)

1972 – El Castillo de las Momias de Gaunajuato (Mexico)

1972 – Mad, Mad, Mad Monsters

1972 – The New Scooby-Doo Movies “Sandy Duncan’s Jekyll and Hyde” (features The Mummy)

1972 – Dr Phibes Rises Again

1972 – El Robo de las Momias de Guanajuato

1973 – Love Brides of the Blood Mummy

Las Momias de San Angel aka Terror en San Angel (Mexico)

1973 – Vengeance of the Mummy (La vengance de la momia, Spain)

1973 – The Cat Creature

1973  – Chabelo y Pepito vs. los Monstruos (Mexico)

1973 – Son of Dracula

1974 – Voodoo Black Exorcist

1975 – Demon and the Mummy (US TV Movie). A compilation of two episodes from the TV series Kolchak: The Night Stalker: Demon in Lace and Legacy of Terror

1975 – Doctor Who ‘Pyramids of Mars’ (TV episodes)

 La Mansion de las 7 Momias (Mexico)

1978 - KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park

1980 – Fade to Black

1980 – The Awakening

1980 – Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo “Mummy’s the Word” (TV episode)

1981 - Dawn of the Mummy

1981 – The National Mummy (La Momia Nacional, Spain)

1981 – Sphinx

1982 – Secret of the Mummy (Brazil)

1982 – Time Walker

1982 – Scarab

1983 – The New Scooby and Scrappy Doo Show “Where’s Scooby Doo?’

1984 – The New Scooby Doo Mysteries “Scooby’s Peep-Hole Pandemonium” (Maid Mummy)

1985 – The Tomb

1985 – Dear Mummy (Hong Kong)

1985 – Transylvania 6-5000 (US/Yugoslavia)

Amazing Stories ‘Mummy, Daddy’ (TV episode)

1987 – Night of the Living Duck (US animated short)

1987 – The Monster Squad

1988 – Howl of the Devil

1988 – Saturday the 14th Strikes Back

1988 – Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School

1988 – Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf

1988 – Waxwork

1989 – Encounters of the Spooky Kind 2 (Hong Kong)

1990 – I’m Dangerous Tonight (US TVM)

1990 – Tales from the Darkside: The Movie “Lot 249″

1990 – I’m Dangerous Tonight

1992 – I was a Teenage Mummy

1992 – Nightmare Asylum

1992 Franky and his Pals

1992 – Bloodstone: Subspecies II

1992 – I Was a Teenage Mummy

1993 – Bloodlust: Subspecies III (US/Romania)

1993 – The Mummy Lives

1993 – The Mummy A.D. 1993

1993 – The Mummy’s Dungeon

1993 – The Nightmare Before Christmas

1994 – Stargate

1995 – Goosebumps ‘Return of the Mummy’ + ‘TV Mummy’ (TV episodes)

1995 – Monster Mash

1996 – Bone Chillers ‘Mummy Dearest’ (TV episode)

1996 – Bordello of Blood

1996 – Le Siege del l’Ame (France)

1996 – The Mummy (Pakistan)

1996 – Birth of a Wizard (Japan)

1996 – La Momie Mi-mots” (aka “Mummy Mommy, France)

1996 – The Seat of the Soul” (aka “Le siege del Time, Canada)

1997 – The Creeps

1997 – Bram Stoker’s The Mummy aka Bram Stoker’s Legend of the Mummy

1997 – Mummy’s Alive

1997 – Under Wraps (TV Movie)

1997 – 1998 – Mummies Alive! (animated series)

1998 – Legend of the Mummy

1998 – Mummies Alive! The Legend Begins (animated feature)

1998 – Trance

1998 – Talos the Mummy aka Tale of the Mummy

1999 – Ancient Evil: Scream of the Mummy

1999 – Ancient Desires

1999 – The Mummy

1999 – The Mummy (documentary narrated by Christopher Lee)

Mummy Dearest: A Horror Tradition Unearthed (documentary)

1999 – The All-New Adventures of Laurel & Hardy ‘For the Love of Mummy’

2000 – Curse of the Mummy

2000 – Lust in the Mummy’s Tomb

2000 – The Mummy Theme Park (Italy)

2001 – Mummy Raiders

2001 – The Mummy Returns

2001 – The Mummy: Secrets of the Medjai (animated series)

2002 – Bubba Ho-Tep

2002 – Lust in the Mummy’s Tomb

2002 – Mummy Raider

2002 – The Scorpion King

2003 – Mummie (Italian short)

2003 – The Mummy’s Kiss

2003 – Scooby-Doo! Where’s My Mummy? “Mummy Scares Best”

2003 – What’s New, Scooby-Dooo?

2004 – Attack of the Virgin Mummies

2004 – The Tomb (Italy)

2005 – Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century (TV episode)

2005 – The Kung Fu Mummy

2005 – Legion of the Dead

2005 – The Fallen Ones

2006 – Monster Night

2006 – Seven Mummies

2006 – The Mummy’s Kiss 2: Second Dynasty

2006 – The University of Illinois vs. a Mummy

2007 – Mil Mascaras vs. the Aztec Mummy

2007 – Mummy Maniac

2008 – Day of the Mummy (short)

2008 – Mummies…

2008  – The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

2008 – My Mummy aka My Mummy: The Tomb Is a Drag Without Her

2008 – Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior

2009 – Cry of the Mummy (comedy short)

2010 – Creature Feature (adult video features a mummy)

2010 – The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec

2010 – Pink Panther and Pals ‘And Not a Drop to Pink’ (TV episode)

2012 – Hotel Transylvania

2012 – Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption

Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H (animated series features N’Kantu the Living Mummy)

2013 – Isis Rising: Curse of the Lady Mummy

2014 – American Mummy

2014 – Day of the Mummy

2014 – Doctor Who “Mummy on the Orient Express” (TV episode)

2014 – Dummie the Mummy

2014 – Frankenstein vs. the Mummy

2014 – Mummy, I’m a Zombie

2014 – The Mummy Resurrected

2014- Scorpion King 4 – Quest for Power

2014 – The Pyramid

Black Sheep is a 2006 New Zealand comedy horror film written and directed by Jonathan King. The film’s “splatstick“-style was inspired by New Zealand director Peter Jackson‘s movies such as Bad Taste and Braindead. Special effects for the film were handled by Weta Workshop.

Plot teaser:

A young Henry Oldfield (Nick Fenton) lives on a sheep farm in New Zealand, with his father and older brother, Angus. After witnessing his father’s pride in Henry’s natural ability at farming, Angus plays a cruel prank on him involving the bloody corpse of his pet sheep, just moments before Mrs. Mac, the farm’s housekeeper, comes to tell the boys that their father has been killed in an accident. The combined shock of these two incidents leads Henry to develop a crippling phobia of sheep.

Fifteen years later, Henry (Nathan Meister) returns home to sell his share of the family farm to Angus (Peter Feeney). Unknown to Henry, Angus is carrying out secret genetic experiments that transform sheep from docile vegetarians into ferocious carnivores whose bite can transform a human into a bloodthirsty half-sheep monstrosity…

Reviews:

“Writer-director Jonathan King takes swipes at irresponsible scientists but also at daft hippie saboteurs: his message is the obvious one of letting nature get on with it. There are bawdy gags about the usual suspects, including the notorious intimacy between Kiwis and sheep, but the farce maintains a rollicking pace and the performances are more accomplished and likeable than a film of this sort generally musters.” Anthony Quinn, The Independent

“This movie is bloody and gory along the lines of Slither, but it’s done with deliberate humor, spectacular effects and surprisingly, a beautifully written musical score by Victoria Kelly. The actors are all unknowns (here in the U.S.) and I believe this is King’s first full-length feature film. It’s an amazing effort and a credit to them all that they pull it off and make something that is so graphic at times seem hysterically funny.” Sybil Vasche, Screen Rant

“Of course, no film – least of all one about mutant killer sheep – is obliged to “say something”; so rather than criticise this production for its profound disinterest in anything that doesn’t involve grossing out its audience, it would be more to the point to commend it for the energy it puts into achieving that one great goal. Mutilated human bodies abound in Black Sheep: the camera lingers with glee over disembowellings, throat tearings, limb severings and, in the case of Angus Oldfield’s inevitable demise, genital violence guaranteed to bring tears to the eyes of any male viewer.” Liz Kingsley, Cinefantastique

“There are some good jokes, and impressively disgusting special effects, but it’s hampered by wooden acting, abrupt switches of tone, and long stretches of humourless exposition. Shaun of the Dead has set the bar pretty high for this sort of thing; Black Sheep just isn’t nearly as funny or suspenseful.” Andrew Pulver, The Guardian

“Writer/director Jonathan King turns in a highly skilled debut, with amazingly clear editing and a gorgeous use of widescreen, rural spaces. He has an eye for old-fashioned horror, using latex effects instead of CGI, but also turns up the gore for modern audiences. He also has a terrific deadpan comic touch, and the film had me giggling more than once.” Jeffrey M. Anderson, Combustible Celluloid

Wikipedia | IMDb

Day of the Dead is a 1985 American horror film written and directed by George A. Romero and the third film in Romero’s Dead Series, being preceded by Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Dawn of the Dead (1978). Though planned as the final part of the saga, the travails of humankind versus their infected dead continued for a further three films (thus far) and two un-Romero related re-hashes… thus far! The film stars Joe Pilato, Lois Cardille, Sherman Howard (billed as Howard Sherman) and Richard Liberty. Tom Savini enjoys his finest moments in charge of make-up and effects, whilst Romero alumni John Harrison composed the score.

A helicopter circles Fort Myers, Florida, the four passengers on a recce mission for survivors from the zombie catastrophe introduced in Night of the Living Dead and last seen compromising tenement blocks, TV studios and shopping malls in Dawn of the Dead. It is clear from abandoned buildings, cars and debris that the situation has not improved – of note is a newspaper, The Southern Globe, which flutters into view, briefly informing us that the President is missing, the National Guard are overwhelmed and the C.I.A. have no answer to the crisis – indirectly, we are now aware that the zombie outbreak is not confined to isolated pockets of the American North West.

A Hispanic-American male, Miguel Salazar (Anthony Dileo Jr, Monkey Shines, Two Evil Eyes), an unwilling member of a small group of military personnel, uses a megaphone to try to attract survivors. We are also introduced to Jamaican helicopter pilot, John (Terry Alexander, Werewolf of Washington, House III – The Horror Show), radio operative, Irishman McDermott (Jarlath Conroy) and scientist, Sarah (Lori Cardille, daughter of ‘Chilly; Billy Cardille, host of TV’s Chiller Theater), who is also Miguel’s girlfriend. The ‘hellos’ only serve to attract the undead who appear from the seemingly abandoned resort. We immediately learn three things; they have decayed significantly since the previous film; they now make a sound (collectively the wailing is genuinely disturbing); there are an awful lot of them.

The helicopter returns to base, a fenced facility where the remaining humans reside underground in a series of bunkers divided into living quarters, science labs and a cavernous area gated off from roaming zombies. They are immediately harangued by the apparent leader of the group, a member of the military called Captain Rhodes (Pilato, Dawn of the Dead, Wishmaster) for their lack of success, their wasting of helicopter fuel and their futility leading to goading the zombies lined up at the fence. We realise that the camp is firmly divided into military versus science, with John and McDermott representing the average civilian, only making their way due to their technical expertise.

The military faction, Rhodes, Steel (Gary Howard Klar) and Rickles (Ralph Marrero, Tales From the Darkside: The Movie) are sweary, obnoxious and intolerant of the slow results of the scientists and their increased use of their slim resources. The scientists, led by Dr ‘Frankenstein’ Logan (Liberty, The Crazies)  and aided by Sarah and Fisher (John Amplas, Martin, Dawn of the Dead) are a meeker lot but under huge pressure to find answers, lest they become target practise. Unhelpfully, Miguel has been driven half-mad by the apocalyptic events, singling Sarah out for extra taunting and dividing the two groups even further.

Logan largely works alone and when he presents the fruits of his labours, a semi-domesticated zombie he names Bub (Howard, Freddy’s Nightmares), who has developed the rudimentaries of speech and tool-use and even recalls parts of his past life as a soldier but still remains chained for the safety of the humans, Rhodes is monumentally unimpressed, the ‘advancement’ offering no solution to the reversal of the plague.

Daily tasks include the rounding up of zombies for the scientists to experiment on; a task performed with little more than a lasso on a stick and some tricky wrangling in the dark. When two soldiers are bitten during one such venture, Rhodes declares all experiments should end and existing specimens (including stomach-less zombies, those with only a brain attached to their body and mouthless eyes) be destroyed. Worse is to come as both Sarah and Rhodes are enlightened as to Logan’s extracurricular experiments which have necessitated the flesh of Rhodes’ own men to be used as food. He shoots and kills Rhodes and Fisher, the rest cast out into the zombie-infested caverns, with little in the way of arms.

Meanwhile, Miguel has gone completely insane and staggers to the lift-accessed surface, not only becoming food for the undead but allowing the hoards to swamp the whole base. Amid the chaos, the trio of Sarah, John and McDermott aim to reach the helicopter and bid to fly to safety, whilst the remaining military adopt an ‘every man for himself’ approach, with the benefit of arms but the disadvantage of, well, everything else. As time and places to hide run out, one zombie in particular seems to have a score to settle…

It is no secret that this film little resembles Romero’s original vision for the conclusion of his’ Anubis’ trilogy. The intention was to film a far more overtly political film, the politicians controlling a military which had domesticated zombies into something resembling the slaves working the fields of sugar plantations, though rather than farming they were being trained as a weapon of control. Lower echelons of society lived in a dilapidated, drug-filled annexed ‘stalag’, a set-up which more closely mirrors Land of the Dead, Romero’s somewhat ill-fated attempt to finally film his intended story.

Though impressive in scope, Romero’s screenplay, running at an outlandish 204 pages, had little chance of being green-lit, less so when the studio, United Artists, learned that the film was doomed to receive an ‘X’ certificate due to the amount of gore and violence. In 1985, such a certificate was usually reserved for hardcore pornography and severely limited the commercial opportunities of a mainstream film, albeit a horror. The projected budget was gauged at around $6.5million, an amount the studio balked at.

This financial hoo-ha may initially seem unfair; the $55million plus performance of Dawn of the Dead at the box office would, you’d think, appease any fears but the underperformance of both Knightriders and Creepshow left investors wary. Horror was currently feasting on simple concepts; the slasher and the dream worlds of Freddy were big business and required far less in terms of location and set-pieces – Romero envisaged a high action, highly moral film, a risk for an audience that was snaffling up cheap jumps and equally cheap thrills.

Romero significantly pared down the script to a little over a hundred pages but this would still have needed in advance of an extra million dollars to film – there was little option but to jettison the idea and retain only elements – a brief flirtation with filming in 3D was perhaps wisely passed over. The eventual, accepted re-write, a scant 88 pages, required the film to have far less in the way of location and action – a significant opening sequence on water and an ending of all-out war went un-filmed, replaced by a now far talkier, claustrophobic film – brief aerial images of the city hinting at the scope, the tense underground sequences filmed at the former limestone Wampum mine in Pennsylvania, again reinforcing Romero’s philosophy that humans were comfortably the equal threat of the chomping dead.

When filming commenced at the end of 1984, it was clear that the environment of the ex-mine (now a storage facility) was going to problematic – it was dark, cold, wet and the damp meant the equipment regularly malfunctioned, as well as leading to the majority of the cast and crew succumbing to illness. Again, Romero gave budding actors and acquaintances key roles, saving money as well as giving an ‘everyman’ quality to the film – we could attempt to associate with the characters without being taken out of our escapism by the sight of familiar Hollywood actors. Of note, are Pilato, an excellently-realised glob of vicious bile and anger, Howard who is given a thankless task of making a trained zombie believable and sympathetic, without sinking to cheap laughs and Liberty, a character who, more than any other in Romero’s zombie films, gives way more than most exactly what has happened to lead us to this point. Again, Romero opts for lead roles to be played by a woman and a black actor.

Tom Savini was again allowed free reign to make his ideas flesh (rotting or otherwise), the advancements in techniques and technology allowing for grander gore theatre and an ability to give the zombies even more detailed individuality and hinted-at backstories. Sarah bemoans Logan’s lack of scientific breakthroughs at one stage, highlighting that he has barely progressed from “proving theories advanced months ago” – coupled with the existence of the newspaper seen in the first scene, it is clear this episode does not take place too much further in the future than Dawn, though accepted wisdom puts the timescale nearer to five years. This certainly explains the far more decayed creatures Savini presents to us. Two other important pieces of information are given to us by Logan; the estimate of the undead outnumbering survivors by around 400,000 to one and his discovery that the eating of flesh does not nutritionally sustain the zombies.

There are significant implications to the latter two statements, both of which suggest that the best course of action actually lies with John and McDermott – rather like the much-maligned Cooper of Night of the Living Dead who suggests hiding in a locked-up cellar and waiting for help to arrive (he is ultimately proved right), against such insurmountable odds, John’s dream of taking the helicopter and spending his life sunbathing on a deserted island (or indeed McDermott’s of drinking to forget) and leaving the carnage to exist in an alternative world are both realistic and appealing.

Neither the military nor science are proved to hold the answer – lack of ammunition and men mean Rhodes is in a hopeless situation, his anger at the scientists’ lack of progress having a certain amount of justification, though this overspills into the murder of two scientists and the ordered execution of Sarah. Pertinently, the ‘wise old head’ of the film, Logan is eventually revealed to be as insane as Miguel, devoid of ideas but happy in his world where he is as much a self-appointed king as Rhodes. Sarah, the lynchpin between the two, has neither the strength nor the tools to either heal Miguel (physically and emotionally), add anything meaningful to Logan other than criticism or commit to aiding the two to escape until the choice is made for her.

These are all extremely human reactions to an outrageous scenario. The desire to fight or explain away the problem is understandable, though clearly impossible. John echoes Peter’s quasi-religious musings from Dawn but takes it a step further – it doesn’t matter how or where, the important factor is that by sticking around they are under “a great big, fourteen mile tombstone”. Day of the Dead is unremittingly grim (especially compared to the same years Return of the Living Dead), the level of swearing actually being as shocking as the gore, which is quite an achievement, though it’s difficult to believe anyone would logically behave with decorum in such a situation. The confines of the bunker accentuate this to almost unbearable levels, the wider scope of Land of the Dead and its overplayed morals and posturing proving that in this instance, less was actually more.

The film’s score is the work of John Harrison, also known for his scores to Creepshow and Effects, though is probably known to most fans as the zombie who receives a screwdriver to his earhole in Dawn of the Dead. Also featured are Sputzy Sparacino who is the lead singer of Modern Man and Delilah on the tracks “If Tomorrow Comes” and “The World Inside Your Eyes”, the latter closing the movie and causing a certain amount of derision amongst some, the saccharine 80’s soul being ‘unbecoming’ of a horror film. In actual fact, the pitching of an distinctly 80’s sound in a film which is Romero’s final successful social commentary, is quite appropriate – put next to his later nasty, poorly played rock music, one of his most desperate latter-career devices, it’s a Godsend. Harrison’s electronic suites are highly underrated, lengthy and complex but used in the film with great care and subtlety. He just gets away with a comedic “gonk” reference. Just…

The ultimate irony is that the film was indeed the poorest in terms of financial return, grossing $30million at the box office and didn’t even have a flag of consolation waved by many a critic at the time; Roger Ebert gave it a lowly 1½ stars, declaring,

“In the earlier films, we really identified with the small cadre of surviving humans. They were seen as positive characters, and we cared about them. This time, the humans are mostly unpleasant, violent, insane or so noble that we can predict with utter certainty that they will survive”.

Such a viewpoint is unnecessarily pompous – moaning that the characters shout a lot, rather supposes he’d expect cosy-cups-of-tea debate; that they overshadow the zombies, misunderstanding the presented view of the survivors as being a greater threat to each other as much as he said ‘he got’ the retrospectively clumsier representation of consumerism in Dawn. Day of the Dead remains one of the 80’s greatest horror films though stands as a final fanfare for Romero as a director, only 1988’s Monkey Shines offering a glimpse of a filmmaker of huge invention and skill.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

Ghastly – original title: 기생령) aka “Gisaeng Spirit” – is a 2011 South Korean horror film directed by Ko Seok-jin from a screenplay by Kim Yoo-ra. Its stars Eun-jeong Han, Hyomin and Min-woo No.

Plot teaser:

After his parents are murdered, Bin is taken into the care of relatives. He begins to act strangely, the new occupants of his house experience horrific nightmares, and a mystery unfolds as a terrible secret is revealed…

Reviews:

“Ghastly is a very decent and commendably economic entry in the Korean horror genre. Despite its lack of originality, the film effectively brings together its various elements and definitely benefits from an upped gore quotient, making it very much worth the short running time for fans.” James Mudge, Beyond Hollywood

“The ending also leaves something to be desired. While some films do leave open-ended conclusions, those movies also have strong, coherent storylines from start to finish. But since this film has plot holes as large as craters, it doesn’t really explain the most important part in any horror movie: who survives in the end.” Jason Yu, Green Tea Graffiti

“Ghastly did not live up to its captivating opening scene. Technical issues niggled at the film, especially the latter half, as poor filmmaking decisions jarred the experience beyond repair. Questionable casting and basic story line threads were mishandled and it’s a shame when the film had such an interesting base holding it together. Ghastly is one of those films that lingered with me after the credits had rolled as I began to internalise the meaning of events rather than enjoying how they were actually executed in the film.” C.J. Wheeler, Hancinema

“No amount of gore and shock and jump cuts ending in someone gasping and sitting up in bed is worth seeing four freaking times unless you’re eventually going to get to a bloody scene that doesn’t end that way!” My Horrible Idea

IMDb

‘There is a fate worse than death!’

Night of the Living Dead is a 1990 US horror film directed by Tom Savini. It is a remake of George A. Romero’s 1968 horror film of the same name. Romero rewrote the original 1968 screenplay co-authored by John A. Russo

Following the plot of the seminal original film, Barbara (Patricia Tallman: Army of Darkness, Monkey Shines) and her annoying brother, Johnnie (Bill Mosely: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2; The Devil’s Rejects) travel by car to visit the grave of their mother. At the graveside, Johnnie’s taunts of, “They’re coming to get you, Barbara”, are interrupted by not one but two shambling corpses, a tussle between corpse and male sibling leaving Johnnie dead with a cracked skull. Barbara flees but after crashing her car, is forced to sprint to the nearest dwelling, a large, remote farmhouse.

Once there, she finds several previous occupants dead but mobile but is soon aided by another living person seeking sanctuary, Ben (Tony Todd: Candyman; Hatchet). Ben has just about kept his cool whereas Barbara is a gibbering wreck. With the house barricaded up, they are surprised to find five other survivors, Harry Cooper (Tom Towles: Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer; The Borrower; ) and his wife, Helen (McKee Anderson), who, despite the racket, had opted to stay out of sight in the cellar. Also holed-up are their daughter, Sarah, who has been bitten and is out cold, plus young locals, Tom (William Butler: Friday the 13th Part VII; Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3) and Judy Rose (Katie Finneran).

None too impressed at the lack of assistance, it is soon clear that common ground will be hard to find – the Coopers are insistent on locking themselves in the cellar to wait for help to arrive, the others more keen to escape by getting the truck outside to the nearby petrol station and heading for a safer, built-up area. With Barbara, who is starting to come back to her senses, staying to guard the house, the other three set off on their quest, only for a series of mishaps to leave two dead and the chances of escape even slimmer.

Back at the farmhouse, tensions have now reached unmanageable levels, squabbles over the TV and more importantly, gun rights, leaving more injured and the walking dead outside gathering in ever-greater numbers. It becomes a clear choice or fight or flight but unlike the original film, the survivors and the resolution may come as some surprise…

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Such was the farcical nature of Romero’s rights issues with the original masterpiece, it achieved an unwanted notoriety in the industry as a film anyone could release or lay claim to. Under these circumstances, it is understandable that Romero and many of his crew from 1968 felt compelled to throw their own hats into the ring, especially now more respectable budgets and film-making techniques were available.

With Russo out of the way, Romero was able to stay far closer to his original vision, fortunately at a time when he was still capable of being innovative and thoughtful without causing howls of derision. Savini, though fully immersed in the lore of the dead films, was a risk, given that it was his first directorial work but the remake can largely be hailed as a success, though the caveats to this would be the hindsight of truly horrendous horror remakes and how awful Romero’s own directorial additions to the saga are.

The primary differences are the semi-role reversals of Barbara and Ben, a nice enough device, though Barbara’s transformation from sobbing hysteria to crack-shot marksman and voice of society, literally overnight, is somewhat over-played and hollow. The character of Ben is more successful, less tragic than the original and slightly aloof, a pleasing antidote to the traditional saccharine Hollywood treatment which one may expect. Similarly, Cooper has far more about him and is more dis-likeable than in the ’68 version. He remains fundamentally correct in his decision to keep safe and out of sight, an always pleasing aspect of the first, though Cooper’s self-preservation here makes it more understandable that others may choose the other route. Despite an almost identical role to the original, Mosely is pretty unbearable as the unlucky Johnnie.

There are numerous nods to both the ’68 film and Dawn of the Dead; aside from on-camera appearances from original cast members such as “Chilly Billy” Cardille, again interviewing locals and the original Johnny, Russell Streiner, as the sheriff, we can see the early red neck collectives taking great pleasure in dispatching the shuffling corpses. Allegedly planned for Romero’s version, the ending shows ‘lynched’ zombies strung up in trees for the locals to abuse, a jarring image and perhaps the biggest hang-over to the initial implied criticisms of human behaviour and racism.

There are also hints at the cause of the zombies – a TV broadcast quickly dispels fears that the issue lies with chemical spills, perhaps a dig at John Russo’s work on 1985’s Return of the Living Dead, whilst a photograph of the USS Eldridge in the farmhouse hints at the possibility that the so-called Philadelphia Experiment carried out by the military, may have had some influence. The zombies themselves are superb and reason alone to give this version a chance. It is not only the make-up which elevates them to near the top of the living dead league but their individuality and costumes. The early stages of the outbreak allow for naked zombies, seen in Romero’s original but rarely otherwise, as well as junkies, children and neighbours and family members of the trapped survivors. There is a reprise of the bug-eating zombie, though this is expanded to a ghoul eating a live mouse, one of the only times any film concerning zombies has tackled the fate of other living mammals.

The electronic score by Paul McCollough works best when straying away from attempts at sustained melody and theme and instead creates oily and atmospheric musical vignettes, suggesting gloom without resorting to ham-fisted, obvious cues. The film suffered heavily at the censors, being cut to avoid an ‘X’ rating, the outtakes still not replaced but occasionally shown by Savini at horror conventions.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

‘Everyone loathes a clown.’

100 Tears is a 2007 American independent black comedy slasher horror film directed by Marcus Koch (Rot; Snuff Perversions: Bizarre Cases of Death). It stars Georgia Chris, Joe Davison (who also produced the film), Jack Amos, and Raine Brown, and was distributed by Anthum Pictures with an NC-17 rating. An extended director’s cut was released on DVD by Unearthed Films on 22 July 2014.

Plot teaser:

After being accused of sex crimes he did not commit, a lonely circus clown known onstage as Gurdy (Jack Amos) exacts his revenge on those who unjustly condemned him. The act sparks something inside of him which he cannot stop and now, years later, his inner-demons have truly surfaced. Part urban legend, part tabloid sensationalism… he is now an unstoppable murderous juggernaut, fuelled only by hate.

And worse, when two tabloid reporters (Georgia Chris and Joe Davison) attempt to hunt him down, they find themselves trapped in his warehouse, hunted by him and his conniving daughter (Raine Brown), who already has a deceptive plan up her sleeve. It’s a gory, horrifying fight for their lives with no telling who will emerge alive…

Buy Extended Director’s Cut on DVD from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Reviews:

“The great thing about the movie is that it wastes no time in killing off a whole bunch of people, with our killer clown offing the entire population of a halfway house in the first ten minutes. And this isn’t some off-screen massacre – we see every one of the kills in their splatter-y glory, with numerous beheadings and eviscerations to applaud. It’s a perfect way to start off this sort of movie, but what makes it admirable is that it hasn’t blown its wad – there are still about twice as many on-screen kills to go!” Horror Movie a Day

“I’ve actually been racking my brain all day trying to think of that one tiny speck of coolness I liked about it and I came up with a big fat NOTHING!!! Yes, it’s way over the top gory (which is how I like my horror flicks) with victims getting beheaded, strangled with their own insistence and limbs cut off at every turn. In the first ten minutes alone, eight people get killed in bloody and gruesome ways but the F/Xs are done so badly and that it takes all the fun out of it.” Sfipress

“100 Tears worked because it really had a nice balance of blood-splattering gore and quick one-liners delivered with witty humor …The throbbing techno/industrial soundtrack really added some intensity to the scenes involving Gurdy the Clown as he hacked and chopped his victims with his over-sized meat cleaver in bloody fashion. But, I have to point out that the intro to the film had a very Leonard Cohen-esque sound to it, mixed in with a bit of carnival/circus music” Bryan “Shu” Schuessler, Horror Society

Cast:

• Jack Amos as Gurdy the Clown
• Georgia Chris as Jennifer Stevenson
• Joe Davison as Mark Web
• Raine Brown as Christine Greaston
• Kibwe Dorsey as Detective Spaulding
• Rod Grant as Detective Dunkin
• Norberto Santiago as Drago Villette
• Jerry Allen as Ed Purdy
• Jeff Dylan Graham as Jack Arlo
• Krystal Badia as Jill Bryner
• Leslie Ann Crytzer as Tracy Greaston
• Jori Davison as Roxanna
• Brad Rhodes as Ralphio the Strongman
• Regina Ramirez as Bookstore Patron
• Clayton Smith as Young Gurdy

Wikipedia | IMDb

‘Everyone has nightmares about the ugliest way to die.’

Don’t Go in the Woods – also known as Don’t Go in the Woods… Alone! - is a 1980 (released 1981) American slasher film directed by James Bryan from a screenplay by Garth Eliassen. The film was shot on a budget of $20,000 in the summer of 1980 in outdoor locations in Utah in order to save money on the film’s lighting.

It is one of the infamous video nasties that was banned in the UK in the moral panic of the 1980s. It was finally re-released uncut, with a BBFC 15 rating (!), in 2007.

Plot teaser:

As something kills a hysterical woman, and a bird watcher, four friends – Peter, Joanne, Ingrid and Craig – trek through the wilderness. A tourist is thrown over a waterfall – landing near some oblivious frolickers – and his mother is wounded, and dragged away.

The four backpackers set up camp for the night, and elsewhere a pair of honeymooners are attacked in their van and murdered. The next day, the two couples continue their hike, while an artist is stabbed to death, and her young daughter is taken.

Two more campers are butchered, and while off on his own, Peter witnesses a fisherman be murdered by the killer, a spear-wielding wild man adorned in furs and rags. Peter rushes off to warn his friends, who the maniac gets to first, spearing Craig, and sending Joanne fleeing into the woods. Peter finds Ingrid, and after the two stumble upon the wild man’s cabin, they accidentally attack another hiker, thinking he was the savage. The killer finishes off the hiker, and wounds Ingrid, but she and Peter escape, and eventually reach civilisation, and alert the authorities to the backwoods psychopath…

Buy Don’t Go in the Woods on Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray + DVD from Amazon.com

Reviews:

“Aside from one nasty bit with a bear trap and a sequence toward the end that faintly — and accidentally, believe me — recalls The Texas Chain Saw Massacre in its slow, dread-saturated buildup, director James Bryan’s splatter film is an incoherent mess. An endless parade of victims keeps the fake blood squirting, but the murder sequences are so poorly staged that it’s usually impossible to tell precisely what’s happening. The most frightening thing about this alleged horror film, aside from its bad synthesizer soundtrack, is its pacing. Murder sequences are clumped together throughout the film, leaving a lot of flab in between.” Bryan Pop, DVD Verdict

“Much of the dialogue is priceless – a doctor saying of one of the escapees to the sheriff: “There’s a lot of pressure under that kind of stress and he might… he might become irrational!” The scriptwriter should have won some kind of surrealist award, or been shot – or both! The gore is cheap but plentiful (enough to get it banned in the UK, an accolade it still possess after so many years) and there is always the slightly satisfying feeling that you will (probably) never see anything as awful again.” Hysteria Lives

Buy Don’t Go in the Woods on 88 Films Blu-ray from Amazon.co.uk

” …a lively, ramshackle horror picture with a devil-may-care approach to story construction, and lots of grisly deaths. The story … may lack originality, but it plays the slasher horror game to the hilt and proved to be Bryan’s most visible and commercially successful picture.” Stephen Thrower, Nightmare USA

Buy Nightmare USA book from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

” …fat women huffing up hillsides, nerdy birdwatchers, roller-skating disco-bunnies and swinging couples, all accompanied by perhaps the most grating score of all time (by H. Kingsley Thurber). At the gore is plentiful – if extremely hokey.” J.A. Kerswell, Teenage Wasteland: The Slasher Movie Uncut

Buy Teenage Wasteland: The Slasher Movie Uncut book from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Cast:

• Jack McClelland as Peter
• Mary Gail Artz as Ingrid
• James P. Hayden as Craig
• Angie Brown as Joanne
• Ken Carter as Sheriff
• David Barth as Deputy Benson
• Larry Roupe as Store Owner
• Amy Martell as Artist’s Child
• Tom Drury as Maniac
• Laura Trefts as Doctor Maggie

Choice dialogue:

Craig: [tying Joanne in a sleeping bag] “Now I’ve got you, bitch! Let’s hear you say uncle! Say uncle! Say it, bag of bitch! Say it! Say it, bag of bitch! Say it! Say uncle!”

International titles:

Filo mortal – Argentina

The Forest 2 – Australia (video title)

Perigo na Floresta – Brazil

Le tueur de la forêt – France

Nie chodz do lasu – Poland

Não Vás à Floresta… Sozinha! – Portugal

No vayas al bosque… sola – Spain

Ausflug in das Grauen – West Germany

Wikipedia | IMDb

‘The dead shall rise and walk the Earth’

City of the Living Dead – Italian: Paura nella città dei morti viventi [translation: Fear in the City of the Living Dead], released in the US as The Gates of Hell – is a 1980 Italian horror film directed by Lucio Fulci (Zombie Flesh Eaters; The Beyond; The New York Ripper) from a screenplay co-written with Dardano Sacchetti. It is the first instalment of the unofficial Gates of Hell trilogy that also includes The Beyond and The House by the Cemetery. The film’s haunting score is by Fabio Frizzi and was issued again as a vinyl album in 2013 by Death Waltz Recording Company.

The film stars Christopher George, Catriona MacColl, Janet Agren, Antonella Interlenghi, Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Michele Soavi, Venantino Venantini. Director Fulci makes an uncredited cameo appearance as Dr. Joe Thompson.

Plot teaser:

In New York City, during a séance held in the apartment of medium Theresa, Mary Woodhouse (Catriona MacColl) experiences a traumatic vision of a priest, Father Thomas (Fabrizio Jovine), hanging himself from a tree branch in the cemetery of a remote village called Dunwich.

When the images overwhelm her, Mary goes into convolutions, and falls to the floor as if dead. The police interrogate Theresa, but fail to heed her warnings of an imminent evil. Outside the apartment building, Peter Bell (Christopher George), a journalist, tries to gain entry to the premises but is turned away.

The following day, Mary is buried in a local cemetery on Long Island overlooking Manhattan and Peter visits her grave site. The gravediggers (Perry Pirkanen and Michael Gaunt) leave Mary’s half-covered coffin at the end of their work shift and leave. Soon, Peter hears muffled screams as he reluctantly leaves the graveyard. Using a pickaxe, he frees the screaming woman from her premature burial, but with the axe coming dangerously close to her head as it smashes through the casket lid.

Peter and Mary visit Theresa where she warns them that according to the ancient book of Enoch, the events Mary has witnessed in her visions presage the eruption of the living dead into our world. The death of Father Thomas, a marked priest, has somehow opened a door through which the living dead can enter and the invasion will commence on All Saints Day, just a few days away…

Buy on Blu-ray | Instant Video from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

Reviews:

” …with its nonsensical ‘plot’ randomly constructed according to the illogic of fear, and its grotesque emphasis on physical mutability, fragmentation and decay, it could just conceivably be the sort of disreputable movie the surrealists would have loved.” Time Out

” …City of the Living Dead’s narrative is bland and workmanlike, but it does at least plod along at a solid and continuous pace like the beating drum in Fabio Frizzi’s effective, minimalistic score. That score and every other aspect of the film really come into their own in the big finale; when the location of the portal into hell is discovered and Fulci’s direction is at its most stylish and lively, building up into a final shot that is perplexingly ambiguous.” Matt Shingleton, The Digital Fix

“While usual undead stylish Giannetto De Rossi isn’t along for the ride, these walking corpses are appropriately ghoulish and maggot infested. Their collective, grand rising occurs in one of Fulci’s best set-pieces: a dank, dark, cobwebbed crypt that exudes death. Whereas the barren wasteland of The Beyond is eerie in its vast emptiness, this is terrifying in its claustrophobia. Our characters here stumble into an eternal sea of visceral, violent death rather than a spiritual, soul-sucking demise.” Brett G., Oh, the Horror!

“What Fulci gives us is a collage of images, some of which fit into the film’s story arc, while others simply add to the overall atmosphere of apocalyptic doom. So, a shower of maggots appears out of nowhere, a boy’s head comes into contact with an industrial drill and a woman vomits up her intestines.” Jamie Russell, Book of the Dead: The Complete History of Zombie Cinema

Buy Book of the Dead from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

“The story does verge on the incoherent at times and certainly isn’t as neatly tied together as The Beyond or The House By The Cemetery, but has a rather more dreamlike quality to it. The build up to the slightly anti-climactic ending is somewhat surreal… Andygeddon

Buy Lucio Fulci Collection on Blu-ray from Amazon.com

“City of the Living Dead is saturated with technical exaggeration, teeming with oddball performances and high on its own outrageous contrivances. Elegant cross-fades and superimpositions add beauty, as do a handful of judicious, painterly details, like the petal seen dropping silently from the rose held by the catatonic Mary in her coffin. All these factors coalesce, and the film survives its thin story thanks to the eccentricity of its detail.” Stephen Thrower, Beyond Terror: The Films of Lucio Fulci

Buy Beyond Terror: The Films of Lucio Fulci from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Buy City of the Living Dead on Arrow Video Blu-ray | DVD from Amazon.co.uk

Special features:

• Original Theatrical trailer
• Dame of the Dead
• Live from the Glasgow Theatre
• The Many Lives And Deaths of Giovanni Lombardo Radice
• Penning Some Paura – Dardano Sacchetti Remembers COTLD
• The Audio Recollections of Giovanni Lombardo Radice
• Audio Commentary with Catriona Macoll and Jay Slater
• Profondo Luigi – A Colleague’s Memories of Lucio Fulci
• Fulci’s Daughter – Memories of the Italian Gore Maestro
• Carlo of the Living Dead – Surviving Fulci Fear
• Fulci in the House: The Italian Master of Splatter
• Gallery of the Living Dead

Choice dialogue:

Bar owner: “A few beers and you fellows start seeing ghouls and devils all over the place.”

Cast:

• Christopher George as Peter Bell
• Catriona MacColl as Mary Woodhouse (credited as Katriona MacColl)
• Carlo De Mejo as Gerry
• Janet Agren as Sandra
• Antonella Interlenghi as Emily Robbins
• Giovanni Lombardo Radice as Bob
• Daniela Doria as Rosie Kelvin
• Fabrizio Jovine as Father William Thomas
• Luca Venantini as John-John Robbins (credited as Luca Paisner)
• Michele Soavi as Tommy Fisher
• Venantino Venantini as Mr. Ross
• Enzo D’Ausilio as Sheriff Russell’s deputy
• Adelaide Aste as Theresa
• Luciano Rossi as Policeman #1 in Theresa’s apartment
• Robert Sampson as Sheriff Russell
• Lucio Fulci as Dr. Joe Thompson
• Michael Gaunt as the Gravedigger #1
• Perry Pirkanen as the Blonde Gravedigger
• James Sampson as James McLuhan; Séance Member
• Martin Sorrentino as Sgt. Clay
• Robert E. Warner as the Policeman Outside Theresa’s apartment building

Buy Limited Edition Blu-ray Steelbook from Amazon.co.uk

Wikipedia | IMDb

‘Warning! How much horror can you stand??’

Taeter City – also known as Taeter City: City of Cannibals – is a 2012 Italian action/sci-fi/horror movie written and directed by Giulio De Santi (Adam Chaplin; Hotel Inferno - read our review) for Necrostorm productions. It stars Monica Munoz, Riccardo Valentini, Christian Riva, Wilmar Zimosa, Ortaez Santiago.

The film is being released on DVD in the US by Bayview Entertainment/Widowmaker on February 24, 2015.

Official plot teaser:

The futuristic metropolis of Taeter City is managed by The Authority – a dictatorship that rules with an iron fist. Utilizing a special radio wave system called Zeed, The Authority is able to distinguish criminals from law-abiding citizens; however these special radio waves also alter the demented brain waves of the criminals and force them to commit suicide in horrible ways. A special police force called The Bikers then retrieves their corpses and delivers them to massive slaughterhouses that supply the mega fast food chains with the human flesh products that are needed to feed the hungry masses. The Authority’s hand has managed to keep the citizens under control for quite some time, but a series of unforeseen chaotic events has slowly been undermining their rule…

Buy Taeter City on DVD from Amazon.com

Reviews:

“Taeter City is an action-packed whirlwind tour of a dystopian cannibal dictatorship that’s bursting at the scenes with shocking violence, a retro synth sound track, hilarious English dubbing, amazing home-grown digital and practical effects, and good old fashioned European gore.” Aaron Allen, Horror in the Hammer

IMDb | Official site | Facebook

Nekromantik 2 - stylised as NEKRomantik 2 – is a 1991 German horror/splatter film directed by Jörg Buttgereit and a sequel to his 1987 film Nekromantik.

The film is about necrophilia, and was quite controversial and was seized by authorities in Munich twelve days after its release, an action that had no precedent in Germany since the Nazi era. Today, it is regarded as a cult classic.

On February 10, 2015, Cult Epics are releasing the film on a Limited Edition Blu-ray. Special features are:

• New Director’s Approved HD transfer (taken from the original 16mm negative)
• New Introduction by Jorg Buttgereit (2014)
• Audio Commentary by Jorg Buttgereit, co-author Franz Rodenkirchen, and actors Monika M. and Mark Reeder
• The Making of Nekromantik 2
• Still Photo Gallery
• JB Trailers
• Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
• Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2011) Live
• 20th Anniversary Live Concert performed by Monika M. and Friends – Video (2011)
• A Moment of Silence At the Grave of Ed Gein, Short film by Jorg Buttgereit (2012)
• Half Girl Lemmy, I’m A Feminist, Music video by Jorg Buttgereit (2014)
• Limited edition (5000) copies
• Includes Nekromantik 2 Collectible Artwork by Johnny Ryan & Nekrophilia photo of Monika M.

Buy Nekromantik 2 on Cult Epics Blu-ray from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Plot teaser:

Monika (Monika M.) is a beautiful necrophiliac who lives alone in Berlin. By day she works as a nurse. By night she prowls through cemeteries while searching for fresh corpses. When she reads about the suicide of Rob (Nekromantik‘s Daktari Lorenz) she finds his grave to dig up his body and brings it home.

Mark (Mark Reeder) lives across town and makes his living dubbing porn films. After meeting Monika, romance blossoms and they fall in love.

But all is not well in Monika’s world. Her relationship with Mark begins to falter and she has to make a final choice between loving the living or the dead…

Reviews:

“The film is almost a re-imagining of the first, many similar concepts but approached from a slightly different angle. Whereas NEKRomantik focussed on loss and rejection, NEKRomantik 2 is more about female empowerment and acceptance of strangeness. In both films the man in the relationship loses the game but the focal point of the second is the triumphant female whereas the first was of the breakdown of the male.” Horror Extreme

“With Monika M. in captivating form as the intelligent, but lonely soul in search of that illusive orgasm she, in many ways, can be seen as representative of Buttgereit’s ‘lonely’ male audience, except in the heroine’s case, she doesn’t just sit back watching transgressive films all day, she decides to do something about it. Perhaps this is why male viewers find the film distressing? Why predominantly male/right wing censorship authorities deem the film so endangering to the public? And why feminists have welcomed this subversive piece of trash ‘art’ into their collective bosom? Whatever the reason, Nekromantik 2 stands as one of the most provocative ‘horror’ movies…” Carl T. Ford, Unrated: Cinema of the Extreme

” …uses its comparatively epic running time for a more ambitious and densely-textured narrative. While the corpse scenes are naturally gruesome, there’s a strong surrealist sensibility at work that keeps it more curious than repellent. Apart from the aforementioned seal scene, a depressing and ill-advised attempt to outdo the bunny footage from the original film, Buttgereit strangely avoids any graphic bloodshed or nasty latex dismemberments for most of the running time. Of course, he’s really just saving it up for the powerhouse finale, which amazingly outdoes the Daktari Lorenz’s “climax” from Nekromantik.” Nathaniel Thompson, Mondo Digital

Buy Sex Murder Art: The Films of Jörg Buttgereit from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

“The film tries rather badly to waver between porno-horror and the new wave, like some mutant offspring of Living Doll (1989) and Jules et Jim (1964), even throwing in a witless parody of My Dinner with Andre, though the exploitation bases are tackily covered with surprisingly elaborate H.G. Lewis-style gore and found footage, ranging from seal-autopsies on video to the hardcore that Reeder is seen to be dubbing.” Phil Hardy (editor), The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Horror 

Buy Nekromantik Limited Edition Blu-ray from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

Wikipedia | IMDb

Grizzly is a 2014 US/Canadian horror film directed by David Hackl (Saw V) from a screenplay by Guy Moshe and J.R. Reher (based on the latter’s storyline).

The film stars James Marsden (Straw Dogs; X-Men: Days of Future Past), Thomas Jane, Billy Bob Thornton (Chopper Chicks in Zombietown), Piper Perabo, Scott Glenn, Adam Beach, Michaela McManus, Kelly Curran.

This Indomitable Entertainment/Purple Pictures production has a reported budget of $10 million abd was originally titled Red Machine then Endangered. Open Road Films will distribute in the US. It has been rated ‘R” for: “violence, grisly images, language and brief sexuality/nudity.”

Plot teaser:

Two estranged brothers reunite at their childhood home in the Alaskan wilderness and attempt to mend their troubled past. Together with their girlfriends, they embark on a camping adventure that goes horribly awry when they are relentlessly stalked and attacked by a grizzly bear on a rampage…

Filming locations:

Vancouver, Canada

Wikipedia | IMDb

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood is a 1988 slasher horror film directed by John Carl Buechler (Troll; Cellar Dweller; Ghoulies III) from a screenplay by Manuel Fidello and Daryl Haney.

It is the seventh instalment in the original Friday the 13th series and the start of the Kane Hodder era in which he repeated the role of Jason Vorhees three more times. The other leads are Lar Park Lincoln, Kevin Blair, Susan Blu, Terry Kiser (The Offspring).

Plot teaser:

Shortly after the events of the previous film, seven-year old Tina Sheppard witnesses her father abusing her mother, and runs out onto the lake in a boat. When her father tries to retrieve and apologise to her, Tina’s latent telekinetic powers awaken and she accidentally collapses the dock on him, causing him to drown.

Ten years later, Tina and her mother return to the lake at the request of her doctor Dr. Crews in order to face her fear and trauma over the death of her father. Crews tries to incite Tina to use her telekinetic powers through constant persuasion and manipulation, though under the guise of psychiatric care, he plans to exploit Tina’s gifts. After a particularly disturbing confrontation, Tina runs out to the docks and believes she senses her father’s presence in the lake. She uses her powers to resurrect him, but instead accidentally frees Jason Voorhees from his imprisonment…

Reviews:

‘The New Blood certainly moves briskly from one violent set piece to the next; as a result of Buechler’s emphasis on narrative momentum, however, the underlying themes, such as they are, never have an opportunity to breathe. With the victims made even more generic than usual this time around, the result is more or less the kind of slasher film the series’s many detractors accuse films in the genre of being as a whole: an empty-headed slaughterfest, with a bit of negligible human interest to offset the nihilism.’ Kenji Fujishima, Slant Magazine

‘Although the role of Jason isn’t exactly Shakespeare, Hodder turns in a great performance as the hulking, heavy breathing zombie killer.John Carl Buechler’s special effects are great, even though they were heavily edited by the MPAA. Hodder and the special effects are the main reasons to watch the film, since the rest of the cast sleepwalk through their parts and the dialogue is frighteningly dumb.’ Jim Harper, Legacy of Blood: A Comprehensive Guide to Slasher Movies

‘The makeup design this time around is absolutely stunning, and shows an attention to detail that has hitherto been completely absent from any aspect of the Friday the 13th series. Jason really does look like he’s spent a good ten years rotting at the bottom of a lake. His clothes are little more than soggy rags, his skin is greenish and slimed with putrescence, and his bones are visible wherever they lie close to the surface— his ribs, spine, kneecaps, and shoulder blades. It’s when his mask comes off during the final clash between him and Tina that the makeup team’s workmanship really comes to the fore, though.’ 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting

Buy Friday the 13th: The Complete Collection on Blu-ray from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

Censorship:

Several explicit scenes of gore were cut in order to avoid an X rating, including: Maddy’s death, who originally had a sickle jammed through her neck; Ben’s death, which showed Jason crushing his head into a bloody pulp; Kate’s death, which showed Jason ramming her in the eye with a party horn; the original VHS and DVD versions only show a full view of Jason as he aims towards her face, but quickly cuts to another scene before revealing the blood and gore gushing from her eye; we see Eddie’s head hit the floor; a shot of Russell’s face splitting open with a large blood spurt; Dan’s original death had Jason ripping out his guts; Amanda Shepard’s death originally showed Jason stabbing her from behind, with the resulting blade going through her chest and subsequent blood hitting Dr. Crews;

Dr. Crews’s death showed Jason’s tree-trimming saw violently cutting into his stomach, sending a fountain of blood and guts in the air; Melissa’s original death had Jason cleaving her head in half with an axe with a close-up of her eyes still wriggling in their sockets. The boxed set DVD release of all of the films and the single deluxe edition have all these scenes available as deleted scenes in rough work print footage, however the deluxe edition features more additional footage than the boxed set.

Buy Deluxe Edition DVD from Amazon.com

Ghanian hand drawn poster

Cast:

• Kane Hodder as Jason Voorhees
• Lar Park Lincoln as Tina Shepard
• Kevin Spirtas as Nick
• Susan Blu as Amanda Shepard
• Terry Kiser as Dr. Crews
• Susan Jennifer Sullivan as Melissa
• Elizabeth Kaitan as Robin
• William Butler as Michael
• Staci Greason as Jane
• Jon Renfield as David
• Jeff Bennett as Eddie
• Heidi Kozak as Sandra
• Diana Barrows as Maddy

Body Count:

Documentary:

Wikipedia | IMDb

‘It’s their planet now!’

Plan 9 is a 2014 science fiction horror comedy movie written and directed by John Johnson, loosely based on Ed D. Wood Jr.’s original Plan 9 from Outer Space.

The film stars Brian Krause (Sleepwalkers; Coffin Baby; House of Purgatory), Mister Lobo, Matthew Ewald, James D. Rolfe, Aaron Yonda, Matt Sloan, Monique Dupree, John Johnson, Conrad Brooks (from the original), Addy Miller, Sara Eshleman, Amy Hart.

Plan 9 is released in the US by Monster Pictures on 18 March 2015.

Reviews:

‘The whole thing is an affectionate tribute to Ed Wood’s B-Movie milestone. From its infamous flying saucers on wires to the late Bela Lugosi, or rather, Wood’s chiropractor who hid his face behind a cape; it’s littered with references that show just how revered the original is. This one just amps up the boobs and gore and oddly enough, it’s the kid characters that get it the worst, because who cares about being politically correct?’ Ernesto Zelaya Miñano, Twitch Film

Clip:

IMDb | Facebook

The surreal promo video for single ‘Out of the Black’ by British rock duo Royal Blood – vocalist/bassist Mike Kerr and drummer Ben Thatcher – features animated aliens that morph back and forth into live action gas station robbers dressed as a rabbit, a pumpkin, snowman, a heart and an ice cream. The video was co-directed by David Wilson and Adult Swim‘s Christy Karacas.

Buy Royal Blood album on CD + MP3 | vinyl from Amazon.co.uk

Hell – original title: 地獄 Jigoku and also known as Japanese Hell – is a 1999 Japanese horror film written and directed by Teruo Ishii. It is a loose remake of the 1960 film of the same title. The film stars Mutsumi Fujita, Hisayoshi Hirayama, Michiko Maeda, Yôko Satomi, Kenpachirô Satsuma, Kinako Satô, Ryûji Takasaki, Tetsurô Tanba.

Plot teaser:

Sixteen year-old Rika wants to leave a murderous cult but she is sent to Hell where she meets demons and souls who have committed heinous and outrageous crimes…

Reviews:

‘Though indeed graphic in its depiction, there is very little either haunting or life-like. This includes the huge styrofoam mallets wielded by rubber-suited demons, the jello-mud bath apparently symbolizing molten lava, the nude interpretive dances by bare breasted girls intended to convey the convulsions of hell zombies (etc etc etc). Despite the many flaws, however, this film is indeed entertaining, if not solely for the effort it attempts in providing a moral message.’ Scott Futz, SaruDama

‘For fans of Ishii’s previous work Jigoku will be a real treat, albeit a very low rent version of his previous glories at Toei Studios. At this point in his career Ishii was working totally independently on absolute shoestring budgets, so the painfully bad special effects, set design, and acting provide a comic counterpoint to all of the severed limbs, rape, and implied child murder. There are many out there who’ll take Jigoku as an opportunity to spend a night laughing out loud at a bad B-movie…’ Chris Magee, J-Film Pow Wow

‘Unlike in 1960, we quickly move to Hell early in the film – but it’s a tiny set with painted walls, a handful of extras, and only a few demons with inexpressive masks on – the monsters look more like 1960’s Ultraman cast-offs. Also the gore looks unconvincing and home-made. The film seems more preoccupied in showing topless girls and unconvincing sex scenes. It also looks like a sly way of restaging and exploiting the sarin gas attack story without identifying the film as such.’ Mark Hodgson, Black Hole

IMDb | Thanks to Dave Jackson at Mondo Exploito for inspiring this post

Friday the 13th: Halloween Night is a 1994 US shot-on-video short film written and directed by Chris Seaver (Mulva: Zombie Ass Kicker!, Filthy McNasty and its sequels, Terror at Blood Fart Lake, Hi-8 and SexSquatch).

Plot teaser:

A group of male teens are having a Halloween party. Unfortunately, serial killers Jason Voorhees (from Friday the 13^th) and Michael Myers (from Halloween) turn up and murder most of the guests. The party host has to find a way to fight back…

Reviews:

‘Friday the 13th: Halloween Night is awesome. This is what fan films should be. Just some buddies having a good time. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, this sort of fan-filmmaking is dead and has been replaced with slicker, more well thought out films that act as show reels for an effects crew. That’s okay I guess, but I’d much rather watch Chris Seaver and his friends fumbling around in front of a camera and throwing blood over their parents’ bathroom walls.’ Dave Jackson, Mondo Exploito

‘The killings in Friday the 13^th: Halloween Night are gory. Cut throats, rake swipes and knives through heads abound. The characters are pretty indistinguishable. In fact, the guys playing the characters are pretty indistinguishable too. Some have glasses, some don’t. That’s one way to tell them apart. The guy who plays Jason does a good job. Michael looks exactly like someone’s friend dressed up as Michael Myers. There are a bunch of random scenes with guys getting killed. Most of them goof around while it’s happening.’ Dan Budnik, Bleeding Skull!

‘ …an interesting (and confusingly titled) little obscurity that needs to be seen by slasher fanatics who can forgive shoestring budgeting. Whilst technically it’s at the level that you’d expect for $200 (the POV through eye-hole shots are clearly just a mask placed on top of the camcorder) there’s enough cheesy fun to be had by forgiving fans.’ Luisito Joaquín González, A Slash Above…

‘ …packed with over the top acting and some fun backyard gore effects.’ Rotten Ink

Most images courtesy of Dave Jackson, Mondo Exploito

Pernicious is a 2014 US/Thai supernatural horror film directed by James Cullen Bressack (Blood Lake: Attack of the Killer Lampreys) from a screenplay co-written with Taryn Hillin. It stars Ciara Hanna, Emily O’Brien, and Jackie Moore.

Plot teaser:

Three young, beautiful women arrive in Thailand to teach English for the summer, some with noble intentions and some just wanting an adventure, but none were prepared for the massacre that awaited them.

The nightmare begins when their new friends go missing, vivid bloody dreams haunt their sleep and a stolen statue leads them down a dark path into Thai folklore and magic that has been long forgotten. Their situation continues to become worse once they realise it’s not what that is haunting them but who: an eight-year girl, brutally murdered and sacrificed by her family decades ago who wants nothing more than to watch them bleed…

Reviews:

‘We get some real brutal deaths and some great practical effects.  Overall, Pernicious is a film for the real horror fans. If you are looking for a movie theater and popcorn flick then you are in the wrong place. However, if you want something sexy, bloody, and heinous then check this one out!’ Horror Society

‘Pernicious feels like a Japanese ghost story, in the vein of Ju-On or Ringu or any number of others. But at the same time, it manages to pull off a slasher feel as well, kind of along the lines of Hostel or Turistas, but the pretty girls in this movie, the ones in their underwear and covered in blood, play the opposite roles than you might be used to (somewhat, at least). Combining those two subgenres is no easy task, but the scares are here in full force right alongside a good-sized helping of well executed blood, guts, and gore.’ HorrorNews.net

‘Pernicious is a carnival for the eyes; with the aforementioned beautiful women, insane special effects, and haunting Thai setting, you’ll find yourself swept away in the story and in love with your favorite female lead. Sure, there are a few warts, but what it all boils down to is: How much were you entertained? Pernicious is very entertaining. It’s a wildly exciting watch from beginning to bloody end, and you’ll have a lot of fun with the characters and story. Pernicious is certainly worth a look.’ Scott Hallam, Dread Central

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