The Loved Ones (2009)

This is what comes out if you crossbreed Jeffrey Dahmer, Carrie and the Overly Attached Girlfriend meme. It is not neccessarily a good thing.

There is Lana, Lara, Laura, Lorna or something, who asks Ben to go to the school ball with her, and learns that Ben is going with his girlfriend Holly, Molly or Hailey. This leads Lana-Lara-Laura-Lorna’s dad to kidnap Ben, play school ball at home for his daughter, and this results in the attempt to drill a hole in Ben’s head and boil his brain with hot water to make him “one of them”. “Them”, in this case, is Laura-Lorna’s mother (?), a zombie-like creature who apparently already underwent this procedure. And possibly the cannibal freaks living in the basement.

So far, so good. It’s not such a bad premise to have a deranged teenage girl creating a braindead homecoming king. However, this movie tries too hard to be smarter than such a story allows. It begins with Ben killing his father in a car crash caused by a bloodcovered boy standing on the road. This boy turns out to be the brother of the goth metal chick Ben’s chubby stoner friend takes to the actual school ball. And the son of the (seemingly only) cop searching for Ben after he fails to pick up Holly-Molly-Hailey. This subplot adds absolutely nothing to the story. Chubby Stoner and Goth Metal Chick add some awkward sex’n’drugs scenes that are irrelevant and not even neccessary to get a higher rating. The torture scenes involving Ben are perfectly enough to qualify this movie as something between mild torture porn and rape’n’revenge with a male victim.

The stupidity highlight reel shows Ben trying to escape by climbing on a freaking tree, and the kidnapper duo throwing stones at him until he falls down; the incredible coincidence of a perfectly functional flashlight just happening to be in the basement when Ben is thrown in there, and the rather random incest implications that just scream “we’re working down a list labeled CONTROVERSIAL THEMES”.

Famous Last Words: Nice try, but nothing more.

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Bloodletting The Death Factory (2008)

This movie has several interesting things going on; a real concept or script obviously not among them. According to IMDB, this movie is about a guy who invites internet pervs to a snuff show, but then kills them instead of the innocent victim. Sounds good to me, but that’s not the actual story of the movie. Said guy is not a Jigsaw style vigilante; he’s a religious zealot killing in the name of god (or something) with the help of his idiot brother Sid and his failed science experiment mutant sister Alexa (a crossover of 5th Element costume leftovers, X-23/Lady Deathstrike and drug abuse). And his snuff website “Gorehouse” is also not a fake to bait pervs, it’s a very real trading place for them.

The pervs who came to see the snuff are also not all pervs. Actually, the main character, “Massive 9”, is the heroine of the movie; a grieving mother who lost her daughter to one of the real pervs – a pedo guy called “Rubber Love” who attends a snuff event for undisclosed reasons. “Massive 9” went undercover to find her daughter’s killer and this thirst for revenge obviously clouded her judgement as she happily traded other snuff movies to get credibility for her identity.

Early in the movie, there’s an element I really like: the introduction of characters via reality show style screens with their names, aliases and likes/dislikes. It’s easily the most entertaining part of the entire movie. “White Manson”, a nazi rapist and “Black Johnson”, a slave trader, stick around for a bit. The rest is more or less decoration – man-hating call girl “Slutty Baby” is there to engage in a pointless lesbian scene with clichee goth domina “Gretel” while clichee goth slave “Hansel” gets slaughtered by Alexa somewhere else; same for anarchist wannabe bomb terrorist “Cockmaster”.

This somewhat entertaining part of the movie abruptly ends when “Massive 9” kills “Rubber Love” early on. After that, the script got lost and what we get are various people dying by the hands of mutant Alexa while trying to escape the warehouse they are in. Somewhere down the road, “White Manson”, the neonazi with the most pitiful tiny swastika tattoo in movie history, admits that “Rubber Love” only bought the snuff tape of “Massive 9″s daughter and he made it. Meanwhile, the zealot guy running the show lost control over his idiot brother; then there’s some confusion if Alexa got killed or not, then “Massive 9” gets injected with… I don’t know, the stuff that made Alexa a rabid cannibal mutant and consequently turns into a rabid cannibal mutant, too. Then she kills everyone else except the idiot brother. Then, seriously a minute before the credits roll, a group named “The Boys” appears at the warehouse and shoots everyone. The end.

The idea is really nice, it sounded like a mix of Sadisticum and Saw. I think without the weirdo mutant sister, this movie would have been a lot better. Well, a script wouldn’t have hurt either. As it is, it’s somewhere between faux documentary, random jumps, pointless characters and trying too hard to create a “cult monster” (Alexa) while neglecting the fact that a claw-wielding female killer already exists in the form of Lady Deathstrike.

Took a wrong turn

I have no idea how I made it through the 93 minutes aka eternity that Wrong Turn 4 is. It is a bad movie, and I really hate to say that, considering that Wrong Turn 2 is one of my all time faves and the 2 others aren’t that bad either. Why does 4 suck so much? There are several reasons.

1. I didn’t think it was possible to take 20 minutes with jerks to a new level after Hostel, but it sadly is. Wrong Turn 4 ups the number of jerks present and takes it to a new extreme – 20 minutes with jerks is also called “developing doomed characters” for a reason. The laughable character development this group of… 8? 10? No idea, lots… gets is plain horrible, establishing group dynamics by one-liners (!) and leaving no stereotype out, down to the personal union of token black AND lesbian AND action girl. Actually, I was thankful for that character because I couldn’t keep the white kids apart, as usual. It gets worse once the blond chick is dead and then all the guys die. It’s 4 girls with straight dark hair. Who thought THAT was a good idea? Couldn’t they find a redhead or an asian or someone – ANYONE – not looking like a clone?

2. Saving the best for last was yesterday; today, we fill the 5 minutes BEFORE THE OPENING CREDITS with the best part of the movie. That’s the cannibal trio as kids, locked in a sanatorium, then escaping. Well, that is the best part if you can overlook the incredibly silly stereotype: Every mental hospital’s high security ward has exactly ONE guy watching it, and if he’s dead, the criminally insane (insane enough to only GRUNT and have no way to communicate) can easily take over the entire facility. Because there are no other guards ANYWHERE in the building.

3. So, this movie is somewhere between a slasher and monster horror, I guess. Why bring in the “abandoned hospital ghost movie” chlichee too? Because a simple slasher with monstrous creatures isn’t badass enough? Well, it worked out perfectly fine in 3 previous movies. Fuck that crossover mania.

4. I watch gory movies because, you know, I like… GORE. Until now, Wrong Turn has delivered exactly that. Now, I asked myself after 40 minutes when the hell they’ll even start hunting down the victims. I mean, really, 2 pointless lesbian scenes and another pointless sex scene are more than enough to endure to demand a little of the movie’s actual premise, especially if you also take a prolongued ski trip scene into account. ITS BORING LIKE HELL. Then the gore finally gets going… well, or not. Rarely have I seen so uninspired, boring kills. The one scene worth to mention, eaten alive fondue (Hostel 2 says hi, by the way), stretches like bubblegum under the shoe on a hot day, losing its initial appeal completely. The rest is dumb and repeatative (like 2 pulling bodyparts off with barbed wire scenes, lots of bored/boring stabbing with small knives, and an overly stereotype yet incredibly pointless and ineffective chainsaw scene, or pointless running around with industrial size drills that shouldn’t even work in an abandoned hospital, lacking a power source… or 200 miles long cables).

5. Subtitle ad absurdum. Wrong Turn 4 – Bloody Beginnings. That implies a prequel-ish quality to me – how did the cannibal clan start out? Everything looks right when there are, in fact, 3 cannibal KIDS in a 70ies-like setting. But then, we are suddenly “20 years later”, they are grown up, for some reason still live in the sanatorium (which is a HUGE VICTORIAN BUILDING IN THE SNOWY MOUNTAINS OF WEST VIRGINIA) and – yep, no backstory at all. Not what happened to the other inmates/patients after they were freed from their cells. Not if an investigation took place (hospital looks EXACTLY like before, down to a HAIRPIN still being in the same place), not who the parents were, not if there were more clan members. At one point – after all male victims are dead – I began to consider that this was maybe the beginning and the 3 cannibal guys would capture one or some of the girls to start their clan. It’s hard to inbreed with 3 guys, after all, so they needed women from elsewhere. But no. This slight hope for logic went to hell when they had the chance to capture one alive, and instead used a HUGE INDUSTRIAL DRILL to kill her (in an otherwise unspectacular manner). And the rest, too.

6. The acting is plain horrible. This is excused and even appreciated in any amateur and b-trash splatter, but not in a polished Hollywood production that had it’s peek of glory with Henry Rollins in part 2. Sorry, but if you pull out the large ham, you better follow up on it. Not that I expected any big name actors, but at least I expected ACTORS at all.

7. The dialogues are worse than in most b-movies, way worse. The characters act with no logic and are not conistant with ANYTHING. The entire script is an appeal for stricter drug controls because you really need to be on something to find any sense in that.

Famous last words: Wrong Turn did indeed take a wrong turn with that crap.

Short Cuts

Digging through movies I haven’t seen in ages/at all, I came across these in the 2nd January week.

Blood Feast II – All U can eat

The thing that bothers me most about this classic is the title. “all U can eat”. That’s l33t speak before it was trendy. But luckily, the title is really the only thing I dislike. The story is incredibly funny and gory, and though the FX can’t completely keep up with more recent movies, it is still way better than most so-called gore flicks of the past 10 years.

Bloodsucking Freaks

An all-time fave that combines so many of my fave grindhouse elements – caged women, slave trade, sideshow flair and sick torture, along with an almost stand up comic lead duo. What I don’t really get is why this movie is said to be so politically incorrect. The dwarf, for example, is not shown as a mindless idiot who obeys whatever his master Sardu says. No, he’s almost an equal partner – almost because Sardu is the director and Ralphus an actor. But still, he gets his share of fun and artistic freedom, and frequently enjoys the same luxury as his boss. Also, the caged women are almost all white, while Sardu’s dominatrix and her aide are black – that’s very open-minded for a gore flick and completely reverses the ‘token minority dies first’ trope. This movie has been a fave from the first time I’ve seen it, and it will always be.

Wrong Turn I & II

Oh man, how could I ignore them so long? Answer: I got them along with Vacancy I and II and High Tension. I found all of these boring and uninspired, so I didn’t bother to watch Wrong Turn – and then forgot. Now I gave them a chance and they immediately made it into my top list. While Wrong Turn (1) was nice and bloody and didn’t have any lengths, Wrong Turn 2 – Dead End is even better. Not just bloodier, though that certainly applies. I also just love the premise of a reality survival game show turning into the real deal. Bonus points for Henry Rollins as retired marine Dale, who is so badass, he’d technically need an identical twin brother to contain it.

Dead Snow

…made me regret yet again that I never learned any Scandinavian language, because the DVD only features the original Norwegian sound and German, both also as subs. Not really helpful. As much as I love the movie, as much am I bothered by German synchros. I would have watched it in Norwegian with English subs, if there were any. German translations always seem to lack authenticity – the voices seem wrong even if I don’t know the real actors’ voices. Still, a great movie that will always have a special place in my heart. Nazi zombies are simply better than just nazis or just zombies.

Saw II

Easily my fave of the series. Not that hard, as I only consider Saw 1 – 3 as decent and the rest as crap I only watch to rant about it. Mainly watched it because I needed to relax, voice-wise, and it was the nearest DVD I knew had English audio.

Anatomy

After (yet another) failed attempt to watch Salo – The 120 Days of Sodom, I decided to make the test: a German movie in original language. And yes, my theory confirms; the voices sound right, only synchros suck bad. To my surprise, the movie didn’t suck. I hadn’t bothered with it before because I don’t like Franka Potente, which is a reason I dislike a lot German movies. It’s sad but true – we don’t have that many decent actors. One of them was in Anatomy, by the way, Benno Fürmann.

The movie has a few lengths in the middle, but that’s not too bad. It’s actually quite entertaining and features some awesome grotesque plastinated bodies. I hadn’t expected the surgery scenes to be so explicit; kudos.

Salo – The 120 Days of Sodom

Well, I just don’t get it. It’s one of these ‘must sees’, but I can’t get through the full length. Why the hell is this movie so controversial? Why do people claim it is perverse and shocking? It’s goddamn boring! I make 1 hour at best, and then I get distracted by the first fly on the window, hunger, urgent desire to play a video game… anything, if it’s only more entertaining than this. I keep trying, just so I can say I’ve seen it, but I have a feeling I make it through the 235 minutes cut of Caligola before I ever see the rest of Salo.

Goremet – Zombie Chef from Hell

Goremet – Zombie Chef from Hell

I’m amazed. There is really a movie that does everything, absolutely everything… wrong. I can’t believe how wrong though, and have no idea where to begin this review…

First of all, it took at least 10 minutes before I got the pun in the title. But that is the only thing I can’t blame he movie for. 70 minutes playtime, and I did have to take a break at 30 mins because my stomach hurt from laughing. Don’t get me wrong, the movie is not funny. We are talking about the manic laughing of a psychopath that normal mortals will never understand; about the urge to giggle in disbelief. The “no way, they *really* did it?” kind of laughing.

Our main character Goza is played by a totally stoned former pornstar past his best years. The problem is, that is not his role. His role is a 600 years old cursed priest who is now a cannibal zombie who runs a beach BBQ restaurant and wears the same hawaii shirt all through the felt eternity of 70 minutes. Decide for yourself what’s worse.

The next problem this movie has is the music. Not the rather senseless mix of country classics, freestyle jazz and organ pipes alone. The sound mix seriously went wrong. If you set the volume so you understand what people say, the music will blow your head off. If you set it so the music does not, you don’t understand a word. Praise the remote control and good reflexes. Anyways, the general feel can easily be recreated at home: Put something like “Braindead” in the DVD player and turn the sound off. Then put the soundtrack from a very very old and very very stereotype Nosferatu rip off in the CD player and turn the volume to maximum. Voila!

Effects are also a major issue. Most low budget movies focus so much on the 2 or 3 gore scenes that they have no money left for a good camera or something essential. Not here. There are not really effects. There are a few plastic limbs with ketchup, but you never see even the attempt of a gore scene. Except for one. And that goes totally wrong, too. A guy boxes off another guy’s head with an uppercut. Or something. Its worse than Violent Shit 1. Its worse than Zombie 90. Reminder: Most effects in Violent Shit 1 were made by intentionally pixelating the scene and in Zombie 90, they had neon pink blood.

Now an attempt to tell the story. And trust me, mine is better than the director’s or the writer’s, and certainly better than any of the actors’ attempts. Goza was cursed by a brotherhood of priests in the late 1390ies for whatever (killing high priest?), and because the brotherhood had the power but not permission to kill him, they made him a zombie. (This does visually not express.) From that day on, he must eat human flesh or he gets a skin disease.

600 years later, Goza kinda likes all that and runs a BBQ restaurant with another priest (?) who is not a zombie, but drinks human blood (he’s no vampire either). A guy finds the ring of his girlfriend in a burger. Then some random people have a party and Goza poisons 4 women. It has no relevance for anything. Then a policeman who never appeared before sneaks through the restaurant and gets killed. And then, we learn that ALL priests of the brotherhood are immortal AND have superpowers. And some decided that it is time to kill Goza and lead the world into the new age. Or something.

Meanwhile Missy, a part time teacher, visited Goza’s restaurant and stole his antique book in the n00bishest way possible. No, the book was never mentioned before. From this book and a drawing in it, she (and everyone else) learns that she is the incarnation (?) of the high priestess.

Another priest goes to battle Goza; not without having an extremly badly performed conversation about saving the world with a random other priest in a park before. Goza appears to this epic battle on a bike and if you now expect the gore to come, nope, sorry. The battle between the priest and the cursed cannibal zombie does not involve any attempts to destroy the head. In fact, the entire battle consists of force chokes. Darth Vader, anyone? Goza wins. With a force choke.

Then he returns to his restaurant because he needs human flesh, but Missy awaits him and finally defeats the monster with the aid of… Oh, you wanna guess? Sure. So here’s the quiz:

The incarnation of the high priestess uses which of the following to defeat the cursed cannibal zombie:

a) axe & hammer

b) bow & arrow

c) scythe & force choke

d) superglue & undefined tool that is probably what wiki lists as “Hot melt adhesive”

YESSSS!!!! The correct answer is d) superglue and whatever tool (used on shoe, so no idea what it really is, it looks like a driller, makes no sounds, doesn’t rotate and obviously also doesn’t do anything to shoes).

The movie ends with Missy, the high priestess, running the restaurant and a scene where 2 priests drink a beer.

Famous last words: No, I didn’t make it up. Its really that bad.

Difficile est satiram non scribere.

Jungle Holocaust (1977)

Grindhouse has no stars. Grindhouse merely has people that were involved with more than one movie, and for that, you recognize them. But you never actually like them. And that is the great thing about the sub-genre cannibal and camp movies: They have a very high chance that all these people you can’t stand at first sight will not only die, but even die a slow, violent and overall horrible death.

We all know what cannibal movies are about and how the core cast looks. Its usually:

Guy 1 who goes to the jungle for one of the following reasons: anthropologic research, rescue someone for money or personal reasons, buy land/find resources (probably the silliest version), crash with a plane or a combination of these. He usually wears a moustache, has curly hair and is played by Massimo Foschi or someone who looks like Massimo Foschi.

Guy 2 is a friend or fellow scientist of Guy 1. He usually has some survival training or, if Guy 1 is a researcher, acts as the cameraman.

Guy 3 is a local guide or pilot, and regardless where in the world the scenario is set, he is always a latino. There is a 99 % chance he will be the first of the group who dies, and a 1 % chance he only drops the group somewhere in the jungle/on an island and then goes home.

Girl is either the wife of Guy 1 or the girlfriend of Guy 2. In some cases, especially if she is the wife of Guy 1, she is also a scientist.

Jungle Holocaust stays true to that about 50 %. Robert Harper (played by Massimo Foschi) is a… scientist, maybe, who goes to check on a camp his employees have prepared for his arrival in the jungle of Manila. His pilot Charlie, a latino, is not the first to die, but it takes only 15 minutes and its girlfriend who dies first instead. The last guy is a bit a mystery. I didn’t really catch his name, but I think its Ralph. I’ll just go with that. What Ralph really does in this jungle? No idea. He talks about survival training, later he has insights in native languages, and inbetween, he is simply not around for almost an hour.

Anyway, when the four people arrive in the jungle, they find the camp deserted, and of course, the plane is broken and has to be fixed over night. When Charlie’s girlfriend goes to pee, we hear a scream and that is all – she’s dead, and we didn’t see a thing. But who cares? The next morning, the guys go looking for her, and Charlie is killed by a trap… suspected (but not confirmed) to be set by a cannibal tribe.

Robert panics at the sight of a snake eating a waran and runs into the jungle; naturally not the smartest idea, but certainly one of the better choices he makes. In other words, he’s a moron. Three minutes later, Robert and Ralph are completely lost, so they make a boat – within a minute, using nothing but a knife – to go down the river and find the plane. There wasn’t a river anywhere near the landing site, but whatever works, guys. Confronted with a waterfall, they lost control over their vessel and got seperated – another minute later. It will take almost an hour until we see Ralph again.

Robert stumbles through the jungle, finds some mushrooms, and because he’s such a smartie, he eats the one plant with the highest chance of being toxic. Not very surprising he gets sick and when he wakes up, he finds himself captured by a native tribe. However, they are not cannibals. As if the tribe hadn’t confronted us enough with male nudity, they rip Robert’s clothes off and unfortunately he will not wear anything for at least 45 minutes.

He is held in some cave-cage along with an eagle and a tucan (I think its a tucan, its a pretty cool big bird) and wonders why the natives don’t kill him. He finds out – they use the birds as bait for crocodile hunting, and a bizarre ritual that involved hanging Robert under the ceiling of a cave implies they think he is a bird, too. *facepalm* Cargo Cult, alright, but this is a bit too absurd.

After Robert failed to explain the attractive native girl that he just wants something to eat, and she jerked him off instead, he decides to escape before the next hunt. I find it notable that someone is too stupid to make a gesture for ‘eating’ after figuring out one for ‘drinking’ that the native kids understood.

His escape is a total masterplan and he manages it to steal the attractive native girl from a guy who is about to rape her, and also a simple rock. With this bounty, Robert runs into the jungle and after running around with no plan at all, he rapes the native girl himself. Causing her to bring him food and function as a guide. Or whatever, no-one knows where they are going anyways. But somehow, they run into Ralph, who survived with a rotting knee injury in some cave. Robert goes slightly insane, but I didn’t really listen what he was ranting about. End of this discussion is – they continue the way and try to find the plane. Ralph makes it to catch a cobra and poison the tip of Robert’s spear, and later, the trio fights of at least 5 alligators with bare hands. Things look good, until they enter the territory of the cannibal tribe, which is near the plane.

The cannibals steal the native girl and eat her in a rather unspectacular rubber body scene. Ralph is meanwhile delirious. Robert fights off the natives by killing their chief with his poison spear – and then eats his heart. I personally would not consider eating someone I just killed with snake venom, but Robert seems to like playing risk. It works though, and Robert and Ralph reach the plane and can escape the jungle.

Both intro and outro credits state that everything was experienced or witnessed by Robert Harper, and is based on a real story and all. I somehow doubt. No-one can seriously be as stupid as Robert Harper.

Other than that, Jungle Holocaust has an outstanding amount of animal snuff – as if Deodato wanted to break a record. Even for a cannibal movie, its far above average. If only one of these scenes would have been made today, the entire cast and crew would go to jail. Rightfully.

What the movie totally lacks of is… dialogue. Robert is alone with a tribe that has some grunted and screamed native language, so there is really not much conversation. That’s not bad, because the conversations that are there are beyond good and evil, talent, sense and context. In other words: This movie is bad. Bad-bad. Not boring-bad (like Hostel) or unbelievable-bad (like Gormet). Its a complete waste of celluloid and lifetime.

Famous last words: You have to see it to see everything you don’t want to see.

Smiling At Birds

or: “Eaten Alive”.

While cannibal movies never make too much sense, Umberto Lenzi’s ‘Eaten Alive’ set a new standard for complete nonsense. The story is a mix of other more or less popular plots – in the mandatory opening scene (city lights, streets full of civilized Americans, elevator music), a native kills three random guys with cobra poison, then gets hit by a car and dies. As a result, some other random guys start an investigation about these murders and find out that they are related to a purification-back-to-nature cult. The random blonde, Sheila, is involved because her sister probably follows this cult, lead by a hairdo named Jonas, and currently located in the jungle of New Guinea. So she goes there, hires the local Vietnam defector Mark and tries to find her sister. The camp of the cult is deep in the jungle, and surrounded by cannibals. Yadda yadda.

It just gets more pointless as usual because only 50 % of the shown scenes are related to each other. The other half is completely random, and mostly taken from other movies, too. Almost all animal snuff scenes were originally made for other movies, also the infamous castration scene and a mutilation/cannibalism scene.

The related scenes in itself are only so ‘logical’ either. Cult leader Jonas, for example, has a drink that makes people obey him, and only him. Half his cult members, while refusing technology and everything ‘civilized’, wear watches and the camp also has a speaker and obviously a radio or record player.

Then we have a few ‘explicit hardcore’ scenes – according to the backcover. The sex scenes are actually the most unbelievable in grindhouse history. They are not even what the trope ‘Ikea Sex’ describes. They are plain bad and can – each of them – be summarized as “1 minute, woman spreads, man crawls onto her, man comes, done”. This applies to the ritual involving a widow getting laid by her late husband’s three brothers (in this case, all three finish the job within a minute, and that doesn’t mean a minute each) as well as the rape scenes.

However, as bad as the movie is – there are a few notable scenes that are quite nicely done.

Smiling at birds is a very underused yet great idea. In ‘Eaten Alive’, there is a lot smiling at birds. Whenever Sheila, Mark, or anyone else tries to sneak past a hostile person, this hostile person will hear a strange sound, turn around, spot a bird (owl, parrot), smile at it, and move on with whatever they were doing. I especially like the early scene where some cannibals eat a victim, hear the voices of Mark and Sheila, one cannibal looks up, spots an owl, smiles and continues to eat.

Then, the name giving eaten alive scene is surprisingly well done. Sheila’s sister and a native girl get caught by cannibals and eaten alive, including some close ups of mutilations and pieces of flesh. Here is where it paid out to steal all other budget-intensive splatter scenes from other movies.

However, despite all its flaws, this is rightfully a classic of the cannibal/jungle hell movies – because of all these flaws. Its a picture perfect example for cheap shock entertainment, though it would probably be advisable to not watch it right after the movies that were – pun – cannibalized for it.