gore

The Washing Machine aka Vortice Mortale (1993)

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directed by ruggero deodato
eurogroup film/esse c1

Only epistemologically a horror movie until late in the proceedings, this noirish sexcapade does eventually manage to induce a chill or three … but most viewers will hardly care, as the goings-on are so dementedly entertaining. Caveat: the preceding clause may imply traditional male viewers, as this video concerns three maybe-sisters who are attempting to outdo one another in the femme fatale sweepstakes, and who are not at all shy about employing all of their, er, assets. Technically a giallo, the whos, wheres and whats revolve at the drop of a hat – and there are actually plenty of hats, no kidding. A very amusing, very ’90s erotic thriller, filmed in Budapest a little over a year after Soviet withdrawal concluded.

“What’s happened to the people in this country? They used to respect our authority. Hmm, I’m beginning to think political change isn’t always so positive.”


why did i watch this movie?

I was prowling for a ’90s title per some questionable aggregator, and it didn’t occur to me I was stacking up Italian pictures.

should you watch this movie?

I’m not often one to note symbolism, so you might get more out of this flick than I did in that respect. Either way, it’s loony fun, keeping in mind above admonitions.

highlight and low point

This feature builds in intensity and insanity as it rolls along, perhaps culminating in a drugged-dream sequence with melting faces, mixed identities and misinformation … but perhaps not. To wit, this early establishing assessment:

“In a jealous rage, you have a fight with your boyfriend. Then your sister tells us he was violently murdered. It’s to your benefit there’s no corpse to be found … but then again, we’re dealing with the hallucinations of an alcoholic.”

rating from outer space: B+

I corpi presentano tracce di violenza carnale aka Torso aka Carnal Violence (1973)

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regia di sergio martino
compagnia cinematografica champion s.p.a.

When you select una giallo for your viewing pleasure, you might reasonably expect a stylish (and quite possibly stylized) engagement, with at least a veneer of sleek sophistication, plus of course sex appeal and suspense and suspicious activity in some proportion. This offering from “Island of the Fishmen” regista Martino tries to achieve most of these, failing for the most part to derive much brivido, lacking as his film is in that other important category, any actual story. While it’s not uncommon for the whodunit part of these films to conclude with headscratchers, this time around the unveiling of the culprit provokes mostly confusion as to the identity of the character. Once he’s placed, it scarcely suffices to validate the operation. In addition, little is done to asperse alternate potential perpetrators, although at least one other excellent option is extant. È quello che è.

why did i watch this movie?

I’m kinda a sucker for gialli, although they often irritate me. Their air of absurdist mystery always beckons, however.

should you watch this movie?

If you’re in dire need of visions of nubile actresses either in spogliarsi or in vestaglia – or in moda 1970s chic, for that matter – you might appreciate it.

highlight and low point

Well, the title translates to “The bodies display signs of carnal violence,” and that may be my favorite thing about this flick … even though it’s kind of misleading in and of itself. What appear to be squalid ruins host some sort of bacchanal. An extended section where our unknown malefactor decides he needs to hacksaw the corpses of three of his female victims, which action was unimportant to him with prior unfortunates, is typical of this feature’s scattershot approach.

rating from outer space: c−

Mardi Gras Massacre (1978)

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written, produced & directed by jack weis

It takes a special kind of vision to make a tribute or hommage to a notoriously fly-by-night production such as Herschell Gordon Lewis’s Blood Feast by seemingly attempting to replicate that movie’s infamously wooden acting, but such is the attention doted upon this awesomely ’70s affair. I mean, one of the characters obviously reads his lines from the important papers he carries, just as one did in the original. Now that’s dedication. This picture is also replete with practically nonstop boogie music, a lot of which kinda sounds not unlike disco variations of Steely Dan’s oeuvre. Oh, and buckets of sleaze, don’t forget that. Practically every other scene features strippers or naked prostitutes; if the latter, they’re subject to the sacrificial ritual that is deliberately repeated, step by step, each and every time. Now that’s dedication.

why did i watch this movie?

This is yet another title that I’ve thought about checking out many, many times; this time around I just decided to finally go ahead with it.

should you watch this movie?

I’m not sure how to respond to that. On one hand, it’s fairly fascinating for a number of different reasons, but on the other hand, none of those reasons correlates to anything particularly admirable.


highlight and low point

As the lead weirdo, credit must be given William Metzo for never deviating from his modulated speech and mannerisms, a performance truly reminiscent of Mal Arnold as “Fuad Ramses” in the 1963 precursor. (Did I unfairly discredit the 2016 version, or was it jumping the same claim?) The scenes of heart removal are pretty gnarly. A significant sequence takes place during an actual Mardi Gras parade, and it’s amusing to watch the people who notice the camera mugging for it.

rating from outer space: c

The Mangler (1995)

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directed by tobe hooper
distant horizon/filmex (pty) ltd/allied film productions

You’d THINK that a story about a bloodthirsty industrial laundry machine – Box Office Mojo: “A laundry-folding machine has been possessed by a demon, causing it to develop homicidal tendencies” – would be a premise stupid enough to satisfy most people, but Tobe Hooper apparently wasn’t most people, as it seems it wasn’t stupid enough for him. No, he must have decided – having cowritten the damn thing – that the presentation would have to be dumbed down in order to make an inexcusably brain-dead travesty of a feature. It’s a chore merely to make it past the first couple minutes, which I attest having had to try more than once. Everything looks abysmally fake, most of the acting is atrocious, the embellishments to the plotline of S. King’s originating short story are idiotic, and holy contrivance, Robert Englund’s character. He – it – they … stammering, reduced to, me. Bleah.

why did i watch this movie?

Besides my S. King obsessiveness, I had just finished Hooper’s Funhouse and fumbled my way into the realization that he directed (and cowrote) this crap.

should you watch this movie?

Plenty of terrible adaptations of S. King material are out there, just waiting for you. (Thinner, for example – I couldn’t make it through that one the first time I tried, either.)

highlight and low point

Look, the story itself (which you can read in the Night Shift collection) ends with the industrial speed-ironer wrenching itself from its moorings and stalking humanity, and I’ll grant that would be a difficult occurrence to film. That being said, the animated Mangler at this picture’s apogee is deliriously spurious. The filmic resemblance to portions of Graveyard Shift (story also from aforementioned source) do not lend this production any additional credibility.

rating from outer space: 0

Three on a Meathook aka 3 on a Meathook! (1972)

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written and directed by william girdler
studio 1 productions

Like, wow, man, what a trip. What a far-out trip, man. A meandering picture about a young man coming of age and finding love, about a young woman trying to find her place in life, and their getting together almost by fate … to barely survive the young man’s homicidal father, who’s turned their farm into a meat-processing smokehouse, you might say. AND THE REASON WHY WILL SHOCK YOU! If it doesn’t make you guffaw, that is, especially once the psychiatrist’s psychobabble “explains” the whole affair. Oh, and if you don’t immediately think “Psycho” at the SURPRISE TWIST climactic scene, you must’ve missed it. Seemingly a precursor to Axe or Shriek of the Mutilated or any other semiprofessional production. Hilariously odd at times.

why did i watch this movie?

Didn’t “Chainsaw” and “Dave” mention this title in Summer School, or am I imagining that? Whatever the case,  I’ve wanted to see it for a very long time – since I found out it was a real film.


should you watch this movie?

You THINK from its moniker that it’s a no-wit, lowbrow exploitation fleshfest shamelessly aping any other chop-’em-up, but it’s just kinda an unremarkable crummy movie with a few hints of tentative gore.

 
highlight and low point

Oh, where to begin … the interminable bar scene where we’re treated to the performance of “American Xpress”? The credits for same, which read “singer: EDWARD DEMPLEY”? The out-of-nowhere, fourth-wall-breaking antiwar speech from “Becky”? The excessive establishing shots? The recorder-laden score, also by producer/director/writer Girdler? The fact that the auteur was also responsible for the same year’s equally inspired Asylum of Satan? The boating-and-skinny-dipping scene that leads to our introduction to “Billy”? And how about that fine name for a lead role?

rating from outer space: C+

Texas Chainsaw 3D aka Texas Chainsaw (2013)

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directed by john luessenhop
millennium films/main line pictures

I’ll say this much: before you figure out where this picture is heading – which is about when you might want to stop watching – it’s a fairly worthy successor to the debut, even if its opening completely rips off that of The Devil’s Rejects. Not unlike every other film bearing any relationship to the title “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” – checkered as that past is – it also leaves way too many questions unanswered, questions which needn’t ever have been raised in the first place. Oh! And as it lurches through its climax, it also borrows an extended scene (and attendant manner of grisly demise) from Slaughterhouse. For all that – and I’m including the ludicrous backstory and character development of the newest family member – it’s a gripping watch … at least until our poor heroine gets “helped out” by the police, anyway. After that, it’s just more of the same hot garbage churned out in the name of the TCM franchise by those who won’t leave bad enough alone.

why did i watch this movie?

A clip from it posted somewhere led me to the trailer, which twisted my arm.


should you watch this movie?

Hooper and Henkel’s 1974 success was a serendipitous feat, and nobody seems willing or able to countenance that fact – including them. (They’re two of approximately 137 “executive producers” here.) It’s less perfunctory than the 2003
reboot, for whatever that’s worth.

highlight and low point

This film does not skimp on sickening gore, presented for the most part with exquisite care, so if that happens to be your bag, one indelible scene in particular is calling your name. The resolution of the storyline is a mess, the loopholes and oversights mount alarmingly, and the scattered signifiers of the original seem desperate.

rating from outer space: c−

Uncle Sam (1996)

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directed by WILLIAM LUSTIG
gable productions

You kinda have to admire the chutzpah of a flick that doesn’t even bother to give any sort of reason how or why the titular dead soldier is wandering around killing “America’s” enemies – that’s just how it is. And, really, when you are as uninspired as this picture, why bother going that extra foot. When I stumbled across this title, I found myself wondering how I’d never previously heard of it. Having watched it, I now know: it’s terribly bland. Proceeding in a kind of somnolent daze, everything feels mistimed or disjointed, as if every scene was shot separately and then assembled in postproduction. (It’s doubtful a deeper, more complex story fell victim to budget constraints.) A couple of the killings are relatively imaginative, I guess. From the creative team behind the equally humdrum Maniac Cop.

why did i watch this movie?

The title. Plus, from all appearances it appeared to be a chintzy production with a paint-by-numbers concept. I didn’t even know Larry Cohen was involved until the credits rolled. (He “wrote” it.)

should you watch this movie?

Assuredly so, presuming you have a predilection for really bad acting and general inanity.

highlight and low point

My preferred moment was when it was clearly obvious that multiple Sams were lined up to produce the EERIE effect in a scene where the local teenage lout has gotten wildly off course from the Independence Day town festival sack race but for some reason continues hopping along in the sack instead of taking the damn thing off and, you know, walking or running or something. The prepubescent burn victim in the wheelchair who establishes some sorta psychic link with Undead Sam (also horribly charred) is a close second.

rating from outer space: D−

NOT Joe Biden

Daddy’s Deadly Darling (1984) aka Pigs (1973), etc., etc.

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produced and directed (and likely written) by marc lawrence
safia s.a.

Untangling which of the many edits or releases this particular edition represented of what was intended to be called “The 13th Pig” took me some sleuthing, as this oft-rejiggered should-be cult classic’s tangle of different owners and distributors practically redefines the term “exploitation.” The picture itself wasn’t what I’d expected, either, even if I’d be hard-pressed to explicate exactly what that might have been; instead, this little oddity is a somewhat insightful meditation on mental illness, child sex abuse, codependency, and other fun, happy stuff. Oh, yeah, and multiple bodies get fed to (or are “turned into”) pigs, hence the ostensible original title. Nothing terribly graphic occurs herein until just before this version’s tacked-on coda, but a creepy, unsettling vibe sustains itself via many little details. One big detail: the two main actors were father and daughter, only enhancing the oddity. Ah, the movie business.

why did i watch this movie?

The title – “Pigs,” that is – and given year (which in this case was ’72), along with a brief synopsis, granted me visions of misbegotten bloody backwoods savagery, thematically aligning with whatever tangent I was pursuing.

should you watch this movie?

Well, now that I think I’ve tracked down the director’s preferred version of his movie, I’m planning to watch it again, if that tells you anything.

highlight and low point

As “Zambrini,” Lawrence portrays a cunning expediency in a manner suggesting a deranged hybrid of Michael Richards as Kramer and Christopher Lloyd’s Jim Ignatowski from Taxi. His daughter Toni seemingly perfected the oblivious affect of the dangerously disordered mind. Charles Bernstein’s ridiculous period-perfect pop ditty is a marvel.

And: “It seems as though dead people just don’t have any civil rights at all.”

rating from outer space: C+

Feral (2017)

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directed by mark h. young
rough cut productions

If you check out reviews of this undead-people-eaters-caused-by-a-virus flick, you’d be excused for thinking it’s the worst thing ever. It’s really not, though you may already have guessed that it falls exceedingly short in the “fresh new ideas” department. Unlike many pundits, though, I thought this picture did a pretty good job in sustaining tension – at least for roughly the first half of the picture – but I guess that’s because I found the slow pacing to be effective, rather than, say, boring. I also appear to be in the minority for thinking the relationships between the dwindling band of survivors contributed an emotional basis for the tenor of some of the ensuing action. Nobody else, however, seems to have noticed the least acceptable oversight in this film, that being the questionable endurance and inexcusable motives of the guy who just happens to have a cabin in the woods … with a portentous cellar.

why did i watch this movie?

The trailer made it seem a lot more interesting than it turned out to be. (I suspect I may have conflated it with another.)

should you watch this movie?

For roughly the first half of the picture, I would’ve been inclined to advise just that, but it’s all downhill from that point. Inconsistencies and improbabilities pile up and it embraces standard-issue fare.

highlight and low point

It’s nice to look at, I guess; the camerawork finely burnishes some impressive displays and notes more minor hints as well. The sense of despair could have been more palpable, and for a plot with so few characters it has a little too much trouble not misplacing some of them. The responsible affliction is either a cop-out or a ripoff – your call.

rating from outer space: C−

The Coroner (1999)

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directed by juan a. mas
califilm

An aggressively dreadful straight-to-video experience, this dross somehow didn’t make me start laughing out loud until the 49-minute mark … which was shortly after I began to wonder if maybe I was just imagining what I was seeing, mainly due to an assemblage of such oddly juxtaposed scenes and camera shots and visual styles that I actually voiced the question, “What is going ON?” The very next scene was when the main character revealed herself dressed in cat burglar getup, creeping down the side of THE CORONER’s house to plant some plastic explosives. I shoulda mentioned, she’s a lawyer. Well, by this point she’s presumably a former lawyer, but some vital exposition goes lacking. By the ensuing scene I noticed there was somehow still a half-hour to go.

why did i watch this movie?

It promised to be ridiculously bad. I win?

should you watch this movie?

Once the unintentional comedy really sets in, it’s a hoot, but it requires major tolerance. You could watch it to glimpse the kernel of a powerful concept underneath the incompetence and use that revelation for your own purposes, I suppose.

highlight and low point

How I imagine directors talk actresses into nude scenes for productions like this one: “Hey, we’re making one of the most unrealistic horror thrillers any of the few who’re actually gonna see it will ever witness, and it unnecessarily opens in a strip club, and we’ll need some egregiously pointless sex scenes. You in?” Sadly, this was a tremendous opportunity to make a really disturbing and upsetting statement on multiple levels – if merely by inspiring debate over the main character’s true motives and/or culpability – but instead it’s a rape revenge picture with a flimsy ending given away long beforehand.

Rating from outer space: D−