Street Trash (1987)

This is one of the best gore/comedies of the 1980's. A guy who works at a liquor store finds a hidden stash of bottles in his shop. The drinks are called Viper, and he figures he'll be able to sell them for cheap to the bums in the city. But he doesn't know the drink makes you fucking DISSOLVE. And not dissolve like normal acid, either. It makes you melt into all sorts of trippy colors!

Saying anything else about what happens would just spoil the movie, so I won't go any further. I'll only say SEE THIS MOVIE. If you love TROMA, you'll love Street Trash.

Highly Recommended: The Crazies (2010)

I saw The Crazies earlier today and I'm still thinking about it. It definitely exceeded my expectations... Not that I really had any... I've never seen the original and didn't feel it had anything to live up to. I plan on watching the original soon, and if it's as good as the remake I wont be disappointed.

The only downside was it's reliance on cheap scares at some times. Like 'pop out at your face' or the 'unexpected loud noise' cliche. I also felt that it could have given us a bit more gore to chew on. A lot of the time something violent happens, it's shot from an angle where you can't really see anything. It's the horror equivalent of softcore porn. It's just not as satisfying as the real deal.

The movie's still a blast, and I recommend you see it in theaters while you still can. Hearing people scream and jump when stuff happens is always oddly satisfying.

So go see it. Now.

Anthropophagus (1980)

When I first heard of Anthropophagus, people said it was full of brutal violence. That it was a gorefest. It's one of those movies you have to track down the uncut version to really get the full experience (It was on the Video Nasty list, after all). So I got the complete version and, as you may assume, I went into Anthropophagus expecting gore galore. But what I ended up getting wasn't as gory as expected. Not to say there wasn't any gore, and when it gets gory it gets GORY. There are two or three awesome gags in there, but I was expecting at least ten.

Fucking expectations...

The movie opens with weird circus-sounding music and a couple on a beach. The woman decides to take a swim while the guy listens to music on gigantic headphones while laying on an uncomfortable looking jagged rock. There's soft sand all around him! Why the fuck would anyone lay THERE?



This scene doesn't last long, as the woman is attacked from under the water and the douche with the boombox on his head gets it replaced with a cleaver.


We are then introduced to a group of friends planning to go to an island. A woman overhears them talking about going to the island, and since she's going to visit friends there she wants to tag along. So off they are to the island! By the way, I don't remember anyone's name, they all look the same anyway, so I will just refer to characters as either "guy" or "girl" except for "pregnant woman," "tagalong girl," and "tarot girl" who are the only people I could identify from the others. Most of the time it doesn't matter who's in a scene anyways.

This movie starts off very dry. In fact, most of the movie is dryer than a Sinbad stand-up, but I must persevere! I know there's gore in here, and I must see it!

I'm gonna spare you most of the details on the boring ten minute sail to the island. All that happens is the tarot girl reads the pregnant woman's tarot cards, and says she has no future. This makes her even more apprehensive about the trip she knew would be bad news. Later on in the boat ride she is going through the deck of tarot cards, one by one, and eventually comes to the death card. There's a death card in this tarot deck, just like all other tarot decks? OH MY GOD! IT'S A SIGN!



They get to the island and the first step off of the boat the pregnant woman sprains her ankle. She stays at the boat with her husband and everyone else descends upon the island. They soon find that it is deserted, except for a mysterious woman in black that keeps on evading them. The tagalong girl's friends are nowhere to be found.

Left on the boat, the pregnant woman is soaking her feet in saltwater. When the water gets too warm her husband goes to refill the bucket for her, but is pulled into the water. After a minute the pregnant woman gets up and retrieves the bucket herself, making sure to look everywhere but inside the bucket as she's pulling it up. Then she sticks her foot in and, SURPRISE, there's an H.G. Lewis quality head floating in it!


Awesome...

The group decides to go back to the boat and sees it far away floating in the middle of the water. They somehow rationalize this as being okay and decide to go back into the island, just as we see the pregnant woman's feet as they're dragged away.

The rest of the first day on the island is so boring I forgot what happened (i.e. nothing) and I don't feel like watching it again, so I'm not going to write about it.

The next thing I remember is the tagalong girl and a guy investigating a noise in the basement of the house they're staying at. (I don't know who's house it is either, I guess since the island was deserted they instituted the finder's keeper's code.)

They find out the noise is just a kitty playing piano! That's not threatening at all, it's downright adorable! They use this drop in guard to actually do something in the movie, thank god. A blood soaked woman shoots out of a barrel and stabs the guy in the back. This was so out of left field it actually made me kind of jump! Congrats on that, Anthropophagus.



It turns out she is the tagalong girl's friend from the beginning of the movie. For some reason the cannibal spared her, but she's traumatized and terrified of him finding her. Also, she can "smell when he's coming." Yeah... I swear I didn't make that up.

Next thing you know she's sniffing him out. He's close, and she can smell him. So the guy that got stabbed walks around the house looking for him when he hears her scream. He rushes back to the room, and nobody's there. So I guess he just chalks it up to her being insane and leaves to keep searching, locking the door behind him. As he closes the door it is revealed that the cannibal is hiding behind it, and he is one scary motherfucker.


After he fumbles with the lock he goes after the cannibal, but is easily overpowered. He ends up getting his throat bitten and bleeding to death.


Mysteriously, he lets the girl go unharmed again. I remember thinking I'm gonna be pissed if there's not really a huge maniac on the island eating shit and it's just this skinny bitch. Thankfully, that wasn't the case.

I forgot to mention that the tarot girl ran away in the middle of the night in a jealous rage that the guy she likes tried to kiss tagalong girl. Not the brightest idea with a fucking killer on the loose.

Anyways, the next morning the group finds a mansion on the island that apparently belongs to that mysterious woman in black. Remember her? Well, it doesn't matter since she hangs herself right when they get to the house. We never even hear her speak. What the fuck is the point of having her in the movie?


After this are the best parts of the movie. One of the guys decides to investigate a crypt and finds who other than the pregnant woman! And she's alive! But not for long, as the cannibal soon appears in the crypt. What follows is the goriest thing in the film... or in most films.

First, he stabs the guy with his own knife. Then he turns his attention to the pregnant woman. As he chokes her he slowly puts his hand under her dress, reaches into her vag, and pulls out her fucking fetus! Holy shit. This is what I'm talking about. There's even an umbilical cord still attached!


Do you see that shit?

In reality it's only a rabbit, but it looked so real that D'Amato, just like Deodato with Cannibal Holocaust, was questioned about the authenticity of the scene. That is just fucking ridiculous. Like they're really gonna kill a woman and eat her fetus on camera. That would take enormous dedication as an actor... Get a fucking grip.

So, that fetus scene is what all the talk is about. It's a shocking scene, but I just wish there were more gory things in the film.

In the mansion they find an old diary that describes how this monster went from eating food to eating people. He was stranded on a life raft with his wife and ginger son. His son died, so he decided he wanted to eat him. His wife wouldn't let it happen and he ended up accidentally stabbing her, making him wail out an epic "NOOOOOOO!"



Directly after the fetus scene the cannibal appears in the mansion. He chases the tagalong girl and her friend up to the attic, but turns back after he finds he's locked out. Then like, thirty seconds later he breaks down through the roof. You don't even hear any footsteps! Rope and pulley? Spiderman's climbing abilities? Teleportation machine? You decide.

Anyways, he grabs tagalong's friend's head and kills her, but not before tagalong gets a shot on him with a pickaxe, making him fall off of the roof.


Then, for some reason, she goes to look into the well. OOPS. The cannibal's in there! The rope gets caught around her hand and she's hanging in the well with him chasing up. This is a pretty good scene that made me feel anxious.



Then once they're out, he has a hold of the rope. Everything seems lost when one of the guys shows up and gives him a pickaxe to the stomach! This is the other gory scene. After he gets axed, his intestines start falling out. What is a cannibal to do in this situation?...

EAT THEM MOTHERFUCKER


Like that's a surprise... It IS on the poster after all...

Overall, this wasn't a horrible movie, but it wasn't very good either. It has a stupid story like most gorefests, but it doesn't have enough gore to qualify as a gorefest. It definitely does have it's moments, but it's just not enough. I surely would have enjoyed this movie more if there wasn't as much hype as I saw for it. This is pretty much just a horror movie with a couple gore scenes that is cheesy enough to laugh at with friends. Go into it with that mentality and you wont be let down.

That's one 'Video Nasty' down, 71 to go!

Highly Not Recommended: The Fourth Kind (2009)

I actually went into The Fourth Kind expecting something worthwhile. At least something entertaining. I tend to like "found footage" movies like The Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity, so I thought this could fit right in with those movies.

Oh, how wrong I was.

If you somehow don't remember from the ad campaign, The Fourth Kind is about psychologist Abbey Tyler (Milla Jovovich). She notices an eerie pattern between her patient's sleep disorders, and comes to the conclusion they are being abducted by aliens.

This movie's just bad. The only thing that's remotely worthwhile are the supposed actual footage clips of her patients freaking the fuck out under hypnosis. But, thinking back, these few moments weren't even THAT good. They're nothing more than a break from the boring story. They brought relief that felt like a godsend at times.

So, pretty much just avoid The Fourth Kind like the fucking plague.

Horror Short: Mama

This is a great short from Andy and Barbara Muschietti.

Universal's gotten wind of it and decided they want to make it into a full film with help from Guillermo del Toro.

I don't know how I feel about that. It doesn't need a fleshed out story. What makes it so good is that you have no idea what's going on. Hopefully they wont fuck it up.

This is just... So fucking good.

The cinematography is awesome. I love how the majority of it is one continuous shot. It makes me feel anxious and claustrophobic.

Just watch it.

Blood Mania (1970)

Blood Mania... What can I say about Blood Mania... Awesome fucking name. Half of the time you're watching it, it feels like a 70's porno, not a horror movie. It could be pretty awkward if someone were to walk in on some scenes. There are a lot of sexual situations in this movie. I mean A LOT.

The opening credits feature a girl who is naked, except for a see through nightgown, being chased through what seems like the world's biggest darkroom judging by the lighting.



The next scene has a naked woman in a bath. Then there's the topless pool scene, and the awkwardly long drugged sex scene. And on and on it goes. Not that I'm really complaining, but it gets kind of ridiculous after a while.

The first scene starts with an old bed bound man waking up from a dream that appears to be of him chasing down and raping some girl. After he wakes up and buzzes his buzzer for an inappropriately long time, he complains about how long his daughter Victoria took to respond. Doesn't seem like the nicest guy to be around.

Next, we meet Craig, a doctor, and his naked girlfriend who's taking a bath. She Invites him to bathe with her, but he gets an important call. It's someone from his past, and it sounds like they're demanding money.


Jump back to Victoria. She has her eye on the pool boy. When he accidentally drops his keys into the pool she makes her move. She goes to the pool and takes her top off, eliciting the reaction any guy would have in this situation.




...Or not.

He gets scared like a little bitch and runs away because, and I quote, "My mother wants me home." Wow...

This is about when I noticed how good the music was in this movie. There's everything from psychedelic guitar to Bossa lounge music. It's a great 70's soundtrack.

Anyways, our doctor arrives at the house, and it was probably a good idea for the pool boy to run away from Victoria cause she tries to fuck him too! If she gets guys to fuck her even half as much as she tries to, she's gotta have something.



The next scene starts with what else other than another sexual situation! Just as Craig and his girlfriend are about to get busy, there's a knock at the door. It's his old friend, and he's demanding $50,000.


In an amazing departure from this movie's previous style, the next scene actually starts post coitus. When his girlfriend asks Craig why he needs to pay the money, he reveals that he used to give back alley abortions. Back before Roe v. Wade, being a freelance abortionist was a big no-no. In fact, I'm pretty sure it still is...

Yeah, there's no fucking way that's legal.



Anyways, he's threatening to reveal his secret if he doesn't pay up. Then, the scene ends with them about to start having sex again.


Jesus. This guy's got stamina.

One thing I find really creepy is that Victoria still calls her father "Daddy." There's just something wrong about that.

The next time Craig and Victoria meet, she must slip him a roofie somehow because one second she's kissing him and the next he is being woken up naked in bed with her doing poppers. And yes, there's more sex.



Craig explains that Amyl Nitrate is illegal because it can kill people with heart problems. Right after this Victoria says she can get him the $50,000. She doesn't have it now, but she can get it soon. That's a fucking red flag if I've ever seen one. Right after he tells her how to kill someone with a weak heart (i.e. her dad) she says she can get the money.



Apparently Craig is retarded and can't predict that she's gonna kill her father. Even after he's fucking dead he doesn't know it was her until she tells him. God is he dumb.

And her dad had the weirdest fucking death face ever.



After she kills him she checks out her tits in his mirror for some reason. Fucking weird.



What's next you ask? If you really have to ask then there's no way you've been paying attention. Of course! it's a sex scene! Craig's girlfriend secretly calls his old friend to strike up a deal. She agrees to whore herself out to him if he leaves Craig alone. First of all, she's stupid to think he's gonna give up $50,000 for one lousy fuck. But of course he agrees, and he doesn't just have sex with her, he full on violently rapes her.



Then, to put the cherry on top of the rape sundae, when he's done and she's covering herself up and on the verge of tears, he tells her "You were good, but not THAT good." Meaning, just like I predicted, he ain't gonna give up that fifty grand and she just got raped for nothing. There is a lesson to be learned, that is never trust a blackmailer enough to let him put his penis inside you. It wont end well.



Might I also add that this is the last we see of Craig's girlfriend in the entire movie. I kept wondering where she was. After that rape she's a much more interesting character, but she's nowhere to be found for the duration.

So after Victoria kills her dad, she just wants the will to be read and have it be done with. Just one problem though, they need to fly her sister Gail in from New York.

And she's got some weird hair.



And at times looks like Jennifer Morrison (Cameron from House M.D.)




There's only one hiccup in their plan. Victoria isn't getting shit! The will gives all assets to Gail and leaves Victoria with $250 a week! Needless to say, this pisses Victoria off so bad she tries to attack Gail. Craig drugs her up and locks her in her room since she's no use to him anymore. He's gonna follow the money. That means going after Gail.

At this point I realized there's been zero blood in this entire movie. How the fuck are you gonna have no blood in a movie fucking called BLOOD MANIA? It's just like the complete lack of torture in The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism. Makes no fucking sense.

To woo Gail he takes her to the renaissance fair. Whoa, pullin' out all the stops ay? This scene is mostly smiles and sunshine, but these mimes in the fair are the scariest fucking things in the entire film!


Despite taking her to the renaissance fair, Gail inexplicably still has sex with Craig. During the fucking Gail flashes back to the beginning shots of the film. Does this mean that she was raped by her dad? Did he feel bad about that, making him leave her everything? We never find out since the flashback is never addressed.



Victoria sees them playing by the pool and kissing from her window, and she is not amused. She killed her father for Craig and now he's fucking with her sister? She flips shit and decides to kill Gail. IT WAS VICTORIA IN THE STUDY WITH THE CANDLESTICK MOTHERFUCKER!



Finally some fucking blood in this movie! It's brief, but it's greatly appreciated.





Then Craig shows up, finds the body, and cries like a little bitch. He puts the body in his car and goes back inside to talk to Victoria when one of the most random endings in the history of cinema happens.

As they're talking Victoria looks over and screams. Gail is standing in the doorway! IS THAT A FUCKING ZOMBIE? No! She falls and we see it was the blackmailer holding the body up. He does a fucking hilarious pose in the doorway, we get a close up of his smile, and then the fucking movie is over.





...What the fuck?

This has got to be THE funniest ending to any horror movie I've ever seen. I literally started busting out laughing when the guy came out. Fucking priceless.

Overall, I thought this was a great film. I wouldn't recommend it to everyone, but if you love the style of movies from the 70's this is a definite watch. It's got good music, an intriguing story, and plenty of gratuitous nudity. What's not to love?