MY CALL: Sorry. But there’s not enough gore, bad movie antics or weirdness to make this worth your time for all its long boring sections. Not when there are so many other great, weird, shocking, provocative Asian horror films out there. Still, it wasn’t regrettably bad, and might make for a solid Bad Movie Tuesday. MORE MOVIES LIKE Japanese Hell: You want crazy bonkers Asian horror? Let’s try Mystics in Bali (1981; aka Leák), The Boxer’s Omen (1983; aka Mo, Black Magic 4), Seeding of a Ghost (1983; aka Zhong gui) or Lady Terminator (1989). ASIAN HORROR REMAKES: For more horror remakes, I strongly favor The Ring (2002), Mirrors (2008), The Grudge (2004), The Uninvited (2009) and Pulse (2006).
To save her soul, the mysterious Miss Enma (Michiko Maeda) offers Rika (Kinako Satô; Exte: Hair Extensions, Strange Circus) the opportunity to see Hell so she may avoid the sins that may lead her to such a fate. Guided by Enma’s young ‘non-human’ associate Mako (Yôko Satomi; Maid-Droid), Rika is forcibly disrobed, guided on a walking tour of Hell, and shown Hellbound sinners along with their sins and punishment. The visions of Hell largely amount to a fever dream of semi-nude denizens with disfigured faces twitching among grub-infested corpses.
Almost like an anthology movie, we see sinners’ sins as standalone vignette short films. Afterwards, we witness the infernal sentencing, which (in the case of the first sinner) included having his arm, then his feet, legs and head sawed off by some Yokai Monsters in rubber suits. The budget is humble. But at least everything boldly happens on-screen. This movie is doing its darnedest with the few dollars they scraped together to produce it.
At times, this is deliciously bad. Another sinner’s vignette shows assailants abducting a man and his wife “in slow motion.” But the actors are literally trying to move and even speak “slowly” in real time and are doing so inconsistently and out of sync with each other. Keeping in line with the “slo-mo” acting are the stop motion plastic roaches. We grin at the bad movie antics. But it’s just not doing it for me.
Fair warning, one vignetter features a cult leader who is rather rapey—so there’s that. The cult leader’s sinful story leads into Rika’s sinful inclusion in the cult. It’s a long stretch of very boring scenes that felt like a cult drama with several sexual assault scenes. This was a rough chunk of the film. The vignettes are generally long and soporific. Still, it’s not without its occasional merits. A truly cartoonishly stretchy tongue-removal was the absolute highlight of this movie.
In this remake of the 1960 film Jigoku (aka, Hell), writer and director Teruo Ishii (Evil Brain from Outer Space, Female Yakuza Tale) has cobbled together something which seems to mix very low budget theatrical over-the-top Hell scenes with grounded, normal, boring scenes in reality. The inconsistent result is like the proverbial worst meatloaf ever whose outside is burned while the inside is somehow undercooked—yet we still get to laugh at the mere fact it was served in the first place. Overall, this film featured not nearly as much gore, bad movie antics or weirdness as I had hoped. So it’s probably not worth your time when there are so many other great, weird, shocking, provocative Asian horror films out there. Still, it wasn’t regrettably bad.
Share this post:
John’s Horror Corner: Grave Robbers (1989; aka Ladrones de tumbas), an obscure Mexican horror film that isn’t awful.
MY CALL: I’m not recommending this, but it’s not terrible either. I simply had to see it because I had never heard of it until today. MORE MOVIES LIKE Grave Robbers: For more Mexican horror (or moreso movies taking place in Mexico), consider Demonoid (1980), Dolly Dearest (1991), Cronos (1993), The Ruins (2008), and Hellraiser: Revelations (2011).
This obscure Mexican movie comes from co-writer and director Rubén Galindo Jr. (Don’t Panic, Cemetery of Terror). The themes are all too familiar. Satanic rituals, impregnating women with the Antichrist, Armageddon espoused by the birth of that Antichrist… that old story.
Centuries ago, during his torture-coerced confession for his crimes of attempting to forcibly impregnate and ritual sacrifice a young woman in the name of Satan, a surprisingly muscular cultist (Agustín Bernal; El Ninja Mexicano) curses his Archbishop accuser that he will one day rise again and enact his Antichrist-fathering ambitions upon the daughter of one of his descendants.
Skip to present day, and the lucky girl is the daughter Olivia (Edna Bolkan; Cemetery of Terror) of Police Captain Lopez (Fernando Almada), and she is going camping with her friends on the same weekend that some grave robbers roll into town. Guess whose long-hidden grave they’ll find?
Hoping to find gold, the group of young grave robbers (including Erika Buenfil; Cemetery of Terror) stumble into the underground torture chamber of the cultist’s demise and accidently resurrect him. Now risen as an undead executioner armed with the axe that killed him long ago, the cultist begins murdering everyone he encounters. Not really sure why. Maybe he’s just cranky from being dead for a couple hundred years.
The deaths are hokey for sure, but they are bloody, flesh-rending and occur on-screen. So I guess I can’t complain. This isn’t really that bad, even if it’s not very good either. Overall this undead killer feels a lot like generic brand zombie Jason Voorhees (or even Evil Ash from Army of Darkness) with an axe and a humbler budget as he mows through a handful of grave robbers, campers and locals. There’s frequent axe-cleaving-face shots. Even with little follow-through, that’s fun to see. I chuckle every time.
There is one particularly memorable death scene in a prison cell when the killer somehow “magically” tears through a grave robber’s stomach as if from inside him. The aftermath leaves a gory gaping hole in his stomach with guts strewn about—a very Lucio Fulci visual.
The ending is more like the finale fight scene in a dark action fantasy movie (e.g., Conan the Destroyer), but with yet clumsier execution. And then the movie is just over. And that’s fine for a breezy 90 minute obscurity that I had never heard of until today.
Share this post:
The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 453: Alligator (1980), Creature Features, and Robert Forster
You can download or stream the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker (or wherever you listen to podcasts…..we’re almost everywhere).
If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome.
Mark and David (@ItsMeDavidCross on Twitter) discuss the 1980 cult classic Alligator. Directed by Lewis Teague, and starring Robert Forster, Robin Riker, and a mutated alligator, the movie focuses on what happens when likable people hunt a genetically modified monster. In this episode, they talk about fighting alligators, swimming pools, and the movies that looked to capitalize on the success of Jaws. Enjoy!
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
You can download the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker.
Share this post:
Quick Thoughts – Grade – A – Barbarian is an absolute delight and It’s been fun watching it become a word-of-mouth hit.
It’s taken me a long time to write a review for Barbarian because I had no clue what to say because I didn’t want to potentially spoil anything. It’s an odd feeling knowing that you really want to tell the world about a movie, but you don’t want to risk ruining anything for people who want to see the film. I remember knowing next to nothing about it and leaving the screening feeling elated because Barbarian is a rare film that offers surprises, scares, laughs, and is truly unpredictable. It messes with established horror rules and has a devious sense of humor that will either infuriate or be welcomed with elation. I truly believe that audiences should avoid all trailers and reviews, and go into it with as little knowledge as possible. Director Zach Cregger (The Whitest Kids You Know, Miss March) should be applauded for making an audacious horror film that leaves audiences guessing and may probably hurt the AirBnB rental market (The Rental didn’t help either)
Just saying “there’s a twist,” or “this movie breaks all the rules,” or “there’s a brilliant tape measure bit” sets expectations, and I believe that warning viewers about a twist gets viewers ready for a twist, and that could wreck their experience because it isn’t a surprise anymore. What I can say is that Georgina Campbell, Justin Long, and Bill Skarsgård are excellent and they clearly understood the cheeky/violent/vicious/funny tone that Cregger was going for. Also, since it’s discussed in the synopsis, it seems fine to say that the opening of the film revolves around two characters realizing that they both booked an Airbnb location for the same days. What follows is a paranoid thriller that becomes so much more than that. You will laugh, jump, yell at the screen (or internally yell at the screen) and leave the theater feeling recharged because you know that movies like Barbarian can get theatrical releases.
The cinematography by Zack Kuperstein (The Vigil, The Eyes of My Mother) is playful without being overbearing, and it’s cool how he finds ways to create tension by strategically framing door frames, or knowing that empty corridors are inherently scary. In a recent interview, Kuperstein said the movie’s look was “Fincher upstairs, Raimi downstairs,” and this makes a lot of sense knowing what happens (Also, Justin Long was in Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell, which is one of my favorite horror films). The two competing looks never disrupt the flow of the movie, instead they help create a coherently discordant vibe that has to be seen to be believed. It’s also cool knowing that production designer Rossitsa Bakeva built an American city on a Bulgarian film studio backlot and did a great job of making the set feel like the Detroit shown in It Follows or Don’t Breathe. I’d love to talk about more production facts but I really just want you to watch the movie, then shoot me a message so we can chat about it. The less said the better! Just know that I love Barbarian and I hope you do too.
Share this post:
John’s Horror Corner: Cyst (2020), a gooey-spewy slapstick horror comedy about a mutant cyst monster.
MY CALL: Tapping into the hokey atomic horror of the 1960s, this low budget spectacle should delight fans of deliciously bad cinema. Because it affects many viewers’ enjoyment of even deliberately “bad” movies, I feel the need to disclaim that this movie’s budget is notably low. However, you also get a lot of [discounted] glorious blood and pus and we see a lot of the monster. So adjust your expectations accordingly. MORE MOVIES LIKE Cyst: For more bizarrely, funny and really gross horror, check out Society (1989), Ticks (1993), Planet Terror (2007), BioSlime (2010), Chillerama (2011), Greasy Strangler (2016) or The Seed (2021).
Enjoying the recent fetishization of pimple popping, we meet Nurse Patty (Eva Habermann; Troll’s World, Sky Sharks) and Dr. Guy (George Hardy; Troll 2, Troll’s World) as they squeeze, juice, and prod at a giant infected lump on a patient’s shoulder. The scene includes dousing the nurse in the face with a stream of projectile milky pus. Yeeeeuck!
This movie has plenty of blood, and even more ridiculous humor. The tone is goes from mildly disconnected from reality, to eventually cartoonish complete with mad scientist cackling during uncackleable situations. As much as silliness, this film thrives on shocking squirty grossness—and it gets juicy! If you wince at pimple popping videos, then maybe you shouldn’t even try to watch this.
In order to test a cyst removal machine for a patent committee, Dr. Guy “augments” a pimple on his assistant’s back into a giant festering growth. The demonstration goes horrible wrong, a recently disembodied skull grows limbs and leaps at someone like in Ticks (1993), and before you know it we have a giant cyst monster like the alien beast from TerrorVision (1986) or Invaders from Mars (1986). And while the cyst monster wanders Dr. Guy’s hallways, Guy and Patty have a wild throwdown fistfight. I didn’t expect such a non-horror highlight. Gene Jones (The Sacrament) also delivers some awkward pleasantry as a cyst-afflicted patient.
Tapping into the hokey atomic horror of the 1960s, director and co-writer Tyler Russell’s first horror film is a low budget spectacle for those who delight in the deliciously bad. Because it affects many viewers’ enjoyment of even deliberately “bad” movies, I feel the need to disclaim that this movie’s budget is notably low. There’s a lot of glorious blood and pus, yes, and you even see a lot of the monster. But the more you see the monster, the more you also see the textures and fibers and the like of its fabricated, foam and rubber body. Honestly, I think the effects team and director handled their budgeted monstrosity well. But I also love me some deliciously bad movies!
Share this post:
The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 452: Scream 4, Lemon Squares, and Horror Remakes
You can download or stream the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker (or wherever you listen to podcasts…..we’re almost everywhere).
If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome.
Mark and Zanandi (@ZaNandi on Twitter) discuss the 2011 horror sequel Scream 4. Directed by Wes Craven, and starring Neve Campbell, Emma Roberts, Courtney Cox, Hayden Panettiere (Kirby is the best), and some terrible tasting lemon squares, the movie focuses on what happens when the legacy characters return to Woodsboro and meet a new crew of horror movie fanatics. In this episode, they also talk about horror remakes, hospital intercoms, and the excellence of Kirby. Enjoy!
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
You can download the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker.
Share this post:
John’s Horror Corner: Hatching (2022; aka Pahanhautoja), an emotionally rough Finnish horror that feels as much like a dark contemporary fantasy.
MY CALL: A lovely, twisted fairy tale for lovers of dark fantasy, emotionally challenging content, and gross transformation. MORE MOVIES LIKE Hatching: Another likewise bizarre film comes to mind as a perfect double-feature option… Vivarium (2019). Maybe even Men (2022) as well. For more “family therapy” horror, go for The Twin (2022), Relic (2020), The Dark and the Wicked (2020), The Lodge (2019), Hereditary (2018), Pyewacket (2017), The Witch (2016), Goodnight Mommy (2014), The Babadook (2014), The Uninvited (2009), The Good Son (1993), Pet Sematary (1989) and The Stepfather (1987).
Tinja (Siiri Solalinna) is overly concerned with pleasing her mother (Sophia Heikkilä; Dual), and her mother seems overly concerned with Tinja’s gymnastics competition, her lifestyle video blog, and appearances. Montages from her mother’s blog are suggestive of a very image-concerned way of life. And more than just being a bit superficial, her mother is also having an affair and manipulating her children, placing some of her own moral burden on Tinja.
After putting an injured bird out of its misery, Tinja recovers an orphaned egg in its nest and brings it home to care for it. Tinja’s egg unexpectedly is growing. As her relationship with her mother becomes more strained, the egg grows larger and becomes her source of comfort.
When the egg hatches it’s somewhat gruesome as a glazed demonic claw frees a gangly bird-like humanoid from its massive shell. Like an evil mutant Muppet, the creature looks great! The monstrosity is asymmetrically disfigured, oddly a bit cute, and has glimmers of human-like mutations (e.g., molar teeth embedded in stacks in the rear beak). It clearly needs, even desires, to be mothered and loved.
There’s something fantastical about the egg’s existence, and how we the audience are to submit that the parents manage not to notice an eventually 3-foot egg on Tinja’s bed. Even with clueless parents, one would expect the plumage or the obvious smell or animal feeding evidence to eventually spark a conversation—but no such threat of discovery seems to exist. All the while, the creature is transforming ever more human—like Jeff Goldblum in The Fly (1986), but in reverse. The process is macabre, but oddly soulful, even if viewed through a twisted looking glass.
Tinja bathes the beast, and even feeds it in the very manner as a mother bird would feed a hatchling. The creature receives the kind of care Tinja likely wishes she received, and the creature acts violently in Tinja’s best interest. It’s a sick love, but it’s one we can instantly understand. Essentially, all of the relationships in this movie are strained. And the most kind relationships are those that shouldn’t be. The film paints kindness as something that never seems to hit its most deserving target.
Very cool visual effects, by the way. Gross, oozy depictions of drool, bodily functions and flaps of flesh are just frequent enough to remind you this is as much horror as dark contemporary fantasy. Most horror attacks you with violence and gore and cruelty, whereas this movie is an assault on your emotions and sense of kindness. The whole experience is weirdly satisfying, yet generally uncomfortable. I realize that may not make sense to you readers… but when you watch it, you’ll get it. It may not pack the emotional gut punch of many A24 releases (e.g., Midsommar, The Lodge, Hereditary, Men), but this is emotional brutality in the neatly folded visage of a Stepford Wives fantasy Youtube Channel.
Can I just say, for her first feature film director and story writer Hanna Bergholm has done an outstanding job! This is a gorgeously made film in all dimensions both behind and before the camera, and both by cast and crew. Strongly recommended, especially to those enjoy truly bizarre dark fantasy with elements of science fiction or horror.
Share this post:
John’s Horror Corner: Black Magic 2 (1976; aka Gou hun jiang tou), an Indonesian Shaw Brothers movie black magic and sultry lady zombies.
MY CALL: If you love Asian shock cinema, then this movie is like an art history lecture—it’s not exciting, but you can appreciate it anyway. The content itself is more illustrative of lines drawn in the sand that would later be honed, bested and perfected by more provocatively gory successors. This movie likely won’t shock you. But you’ll see where those that did found some of their inspiration. MORE MOVIES LIKE Black Magic 2: For yet more bonkers Asian horror, consider Mystics in Bali (1981; aka Leák), The Boxer’s Omen (1983; aka Mo, Black Magic 4), Seeding of a Ghost (1983; aka Zhong gui), The Devil’s Sword (1984), Evil Dead Trap (1988; aka Shiryô no wana), Lady Terminator (1989) and, perhaps, Black Magic (1975).
So, is this your first Shaw Brothers cult classic? Not 60 seconds deep into this Shaw Brothers release and we are treated to a skinny-dipping crocodile attack scene leading into a crocodile hunting and gory gutting scene. Yup, boobs, blood and guts for all. Especially boobs, there’s a lot of that.
Drs. Chi Chung Peng (Lung Ti; The Warrior’s Way, Black Magic, The Legend of Drunken Master) and Shi Chen-Sheng (Wei-Tu Lin; Black Magic, Corpse Mania, The Flying Guillotine) have discovered a pulsating incurable infection which, after much doubt, they can only attribute to black magic.
The malady is the work of the evil magician Kang Cong (Lieh Lo; Black Magic, Super Cop), who raises the dead to serve as his zombie slaves. Kang is a classic cat-stroking villain, literally. Unaware of his evil intentions, our doctor protagonists seek his help and, in turn, Kang sends beautiful zombie ladies to do his bidding. Yeah, it’s as shallow as it sounds… hence the abundant boobs. Did I mention that this ancient black magician remains ever youthful by consuming breast milk? Yeah, it’s like that.
Other than seeing Kang revivify corpses by nailing spikes into their heads, there is some brief disturbing imagery of a monstrous childbirth, a lot of voodoo doll-based death, festering wounds, time lapse decaying corpse shots, and infections with wriggling worms. Needless to say, director Meng-Hua Ho (The Oily Maniac, Black Magic, The Flying Guillotine) was doing his very best to entertain fans of bizarre horror.
Despite all the supernatural jazz, the scoring, tone, direction and style give this movie more the feel of a 70s cop movie, like a crime investigation thriller… but with lots of nudity, bewitched women, some horror gore, and some sultry lady zombies.
I’m not sure what I expected here. I guess I was hoping to find the inspiration for The Boxer’s Omen (1983), or something in that vein. I’ll bet this movie felt a lot more wild in the 70s. But… not today, it doesn’t. So for me this was just okay. I guess it was kind of a fun ride to see an early influencer for Asian black magic cult cinema. But oh so tame compared to shock cinema spawned from the 80s.
Share this post:
The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 451 – The Scenes Where A Character Jumps in Slow Motion to Catch Something/Someone Draft
You can download or stream the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker (or wherever you listen to podcasts…..we’re almost everywhere).
If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome.
Mark and Nicholas Rehak (@TheRehak on Twitter) draft their favorite moments that feature a character jumping in slow motion to catch someone or something. In this episode, they talk about the slow motion jumping scenes in Encino Man, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Army of Darkness, Cliffhanger, Guardians of the Galaxy and more! Enjoy!
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
You can download the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker.
Share this post:
John’s Horror Corner: Prom Night II: Hello Mary Lou (1987), a very Nightmare on Elm Street-ish makeover for the classic slasher source material.
MY CALL: So much more exciting than its 1980 predecessor, and more fun, gory and campy like a Freddy Krueger sequel. This was a blast! MORE MOVIES LIKE Prom Night II: First off, I’d skip the remake Prom Night (2008) and even the original Prom Night (1980). I’d avoid even associating this with the slasher subgenre, lest we deviate to the supernatural demon slasher Freddy Krueger… in which case I’d recommend the Krueger sequels A Nightmare on Elm Street parts 2-5 (1985-87; podcast discussions).
From the time we meet her in a 1957 Catholic confession booth, we learn right away that high school prom queen Mary Lou (Lisa Schrage; Food of the Gods II) is no angel. In fact, quite the opposite, and proud of it! When a vengeful prank from scorned boyfriend Bill accidently leads to Mary Lou horribly burning to death, her vile spirit is trapped in the high school basement and her killer eventually grows up and becomes the principal of their high school.
So 30 years later, Principal Bill Nordham’s (Michael Ironside; Still/Born, Extraterrestrial, Scanners, Turbo Kid) son Craig (Louis Ferreira; Dawn of the Dead, Sav IV) is taking Vicki (Wendy Lyon; The Shape of Water, Kaw) to the prom. And when Vicki accidentally opens an old trunk entrapping Mary Lou’s essence, she and Mary Lou become connected.
Director Bruce Pittman (Maniac Mansion) does not come from an impressive horror pedigree. However, from the opening scenes and effects during Mary Lou’s fiery death, I’m inclined to call this superior to the original Prom Night (1980) in overall entertainment value. Despite some expected, classic 80s death scene hokiness, the subsequent kills remain at a superior level to the low bar set in 1980.
With chalk boards turning into gravity-defiant pools of death with drowning arms reaching out, murderous animated bedsheets, a demonic rocking horse with an inappropriate tongue, and what appears to be the Upside Down evil version Vicki’s high school… the nightmarish daydream sequences and evil imagery harken a very strong influence from A Nightmare on Elm Street parts 1-3 (1984-87). The same similarity can be recognized for the death scenes themselves. So whereas Prom Night part I was very much a typical mysterious 80s slasher, part II felt rather clearly like a Freddy Kruegerless Elm Street sequel. Let’s not forget that our vengeful evil spirit was burned to death by the father of our protagonist’s boyfriend, not unlike John Saxon’s relationship with Fred Krueger.
Once fully possessed by Mary Lou, Vicki’s body becomes a vessel of revenge on those who wronged her decades ago as well as a vessel of sultry desire. But this film focuses more on classic Freddy-like shenanigans rather than devolving into a cheap sexy succubus killer movie. My favorite death scene was probably the simplest: the gym locker crush, complete with gooey pink sludge oozing out of the vent! Delicious.
For 80s horror, the pacing is really solid. There’s a lot of good horror action, diversity of effects, and not even the innocent are safe from Mary Lou’s wrath. And yet somehow this movie just keeps getting yet better! The finale has a gore-slathered Mary Lou literally ripping her way out from inside Vicki’s body. So wonderfully gross, it feels like Carrie (1976) meets Demons (1985).
This is the rare sequel that is completely unlike its predecessor and also vastly superior in most every possible way. I really enjoyed this!
Movies, Films & Flix 