Snuff is a 1976 splatter film, and is most notorious for being marketed as if it were an actual snuff film. Its release contributed to the urban legend of snuff films, although the concept did not originate with it.

The film started out as a low-budget gore film titled Slaughter - although Daughters of De Sade was also considered - which was written and directed by the husband-and-wife grindhouse film making team of Michael Findlay and Roberta Findlay.

Filmed in Argentina in 1971 on a budget of roughly $30,000, it depicted the actions of a Manson-esque murder cult, filmed mainly in silence due to the actors understanding very little English. The film financier Jack Bravman (Zombie Nightmare) received an out-of-court settlement from American International Pictures (AIP) so the latter could use the title for the 1972 Jim Brown action movie of the same name.

Independent low-budget distributor and sometime producer Allan Shackleton took the film and shelved it for four years—but was inspired to release it with a new ending, unbeknownst to the original filmmakers, after reading a newspaper article in 1975 on the rumor of snuff films produced in South America and decided to cash in on the urban legend. He removed the credits and added a new ending, filmed in a vérité style by Simon Nuchtern (not porn director Carter Stevens as is often cited), in which a woman is brutally murdered by a film crew, supposedly the crew of Slaughter. The new footage purportedly showed an actual murder, and was spliced onto the end of Slaughter with an abrupt edit…

Wikipedia | IMDb | Amazon.com

On October 22nd 2013, Snuff was released on Blu-ray by Blue Underground as an extras packed disc, starting out in a limited-edition “blood-red” case available only with the first pressing.

Buy Snuff on DVD | Blu-ray from Amazon.com

“Clever promotion turned this incompetent gore quickie into one of the most controversial movies ever … With virtually no nudity, the incoherent effort works strictly as a spectacle of amateurishly staged violence using animal entrails and crude effects in the style of Herschell Gordon Lewis’ films.” The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Horror

“Now, by today’s standards the gore effects aren’t THAT impressive. However, if I was watching this on a grainy or badly copied VHS I would have shit my pants as throughout the entire sequence both the male and female actors performances make it seem so plausible. See this movie for the history, nothing more.” James Wikes, 42nd Street Cinema

“Snuff is a very dull film which will frustrate the handful of people who actually find the story interesting by finishing before the end. For all the notoriety, it has scant sex and violence – even the tacked on ending is pretty tame – and as these are the only possible elements that would make it interesting, the movie stands as a real test of stamina for viewers. I’d suggest that if you do watch it, skip straight to the last five minutes, check out what all the fuss is about and then find something better to do.” David Flint, Strange Things Are Happening

“It is pure garbage, but quite hilarious garbage. There’s quite a few boobs, toe-cutting, multiple stabbings, finger-cutting, evisceration and a stabbing cross-cut with an woman having an orgasm. If that’s not enough to tempt you consider a scene where “Sutawn” hilariously jumps up on a picnic table and tells a girl to “submit to me and pain” and then two other girls kiss. That oughta do it.” Tucker Battrell, This Coleslaw Makes Me Sick

“Sure, there are sleazy elements that may be enjoyed by some, but in truth, they’re never expounded upon enough to be shocking. The women are beautiful, but even the pervos among us will be sorely disappointed: there are sex scenes, but the camera spends the entire time zoomed in on the actresses’ face like the excised footage of a Warholian stag film.” Midnite Media

“Were it not for that ending and the furore surrounding it, Snuff would surely have been forgotten a long time ago. Beyond the infamy, it’s a stultifyingly average film.”Joel Harley, HorrorNews.net

” … the original movie Slaughter would have been a vaguely passable but extremely forgettable time-waster, with enough blood and boobs to keep you awake even as the film-making left you cold. With the footage added, it becomes something else, and it ain’t pretty.” 80s Fear

” …a trailblazer, a very awful, boring, tasteless and deceitful, trailblazer.” Kindertrauma

Further reading: ‘The Making of Snuff‘ article by Carter Stevens in Filmrage Vol.2 No.10

Thanks to Sick-Films.com for some images and Critical Condition for the VHS sleeves.

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Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers is a 1995 American horror film and the sixth instalment in the Halloween series. Directed by Joe Chappelle from a screenplay by Daniel Farrands, the plot involves the ‘Curse of Thorn’, a mystical symbol first shown in Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers and revealed in the film to be the source of Michael Myers’ immortality. The cast includes Paul Rudd (in his film debut) as Tommy Doyle, a returning character from the original Halloween film, and Donald Pleasence again reprising his role as protagonist Dr. Sam Loomis in his final film appearance. Jamie Lloyd’s appearance in the beginning of the film ties up loose ends to Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers.

The sixth installment is known for its controversial behind-the-scenes history, suffering from re-shoots in production and numerous cuts and arrangements made in the editing room; the workprint of the film, with 43 minutes of alternate footage including a different ending, was eventually discovered by fans of the series. This version, dubbed “The Producer’s Cut” (as it was the original intended version of the film) developed a strong cult following.

Six years after the events of Halloween 5, the “Man in Black” seen throughout the previous movie has rescued Michael from the Haddonfield Police Station and abducted his niece Jamie Lloyd (J.C. Brandy). Jamie, now fifteen, has been impregnated and her baby is born on October 30, 1995. The baby is carried away by the Man in Black who appears to be the leader of a Druid-like cult. Later that night, Mary (Susan Swift), a nurse, helps Jamie escape with her baby whom she warns is in harms way. Michael (George P. Wilbur), in pursuit of Jamie and her newborn, kills the nurse. Jamie and the baby flee in a stolen pickup of a drunk motorist (who quickly becomes Michael’s next victim) and hides at a dark and deserted bus station.

Meanwhile, Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence), now retired, is visited by Dr. Terence Wynn (Mitch Ryan), a character who appeared briefly in the first film and now the chief administrator of Smith’s Grove Sanitarium, who wants him to return. During their conversation they overhear Jamie’s plea for help on the radio after calling into a local radio station, only to be ignored by the DJ Barry Simms (Leo Geter) who is doing a broadcast on the Haddonfield murders…

‘You know you’re in trouble when they stop numbering the sequels; this is the sixth, if anyone’s counting. The unkillable chappie remains unkilled after offing a host of unknown faces on Halloween, only this time he’s egged on by evil doctors and black magic. A series of competently engineered shock moments jollied along by a jazzed-up version of John Carpenter’s original electronic score: slicker than crude oil and just as unattractive.’ Derek Adams, Time Out

‘The film is at its best whenever it treats Michael like an invisible trauma. Director Joe Chappelle infrequently proves that he gets Carpenter’s original Halloween is all about a mythic terror that periodically pops up to remind suburbanites that it’s real. But when he does, Chappelle capably repurposes visual cues used in the first film, like the terror of white sheets hanging out to dry or of a rattling washing machine.’ Simon Abrams, Slant Magazine

Buy Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers on Miramax Blu-ray from Amazon.com

‘ … the picture never quite comes together beyond its efforts to give further shape to the story of The Shape. Most damaging, the film simply lacks scares. The action is terribly routine even in light of a surprisingly strong atmosphere and solid direction at the capable hands of Joe Chappelle (Phantoms). The picture plays with a predictable cadence, with the only surprises coming from the backstory, not the stalking and hacking and slashing and whatever else it is Michael does to his victims. Yet the script is largely poor and the narrative sometimes awkward.’ Martin Liebman, Blu-ray.com

Wikipedia | IMDb

The People Under the Stairs is a 1991 American comedy horror film written and directed by Wes Craven and starring Brandon Adams, Everett McGill, Wendy Robie, A. J. Langer, Ving Rhames and Sean Whalen.

Poindexter Williams, known as “Fool”, is a resident of a Los Angeles ghetto. He and his family are being evicted from their apartment by their landlords, the Robesons. Leroy offers to plan a robbery of the Robeson’s residence in order to get medical care for Fool’s mother, who has cancer, and to get even with them. The Robesons, who refer to themselves as “Mommy” and “Daddy”, live in a large home with their daughter, Alice.

Leroy and his associate Spenser take Fool to the house for reconnaissance, posing as a Bear Scout, but Mommy will not let him in. Spenser, posing as a municipal worker, gains entry, but arouses suspicion with Mommy. When the Robesons leave the home, Fool and Leroy became suspicious when Spenser doesn’t return and decide to break in. Fool ventures into the dungeon-like basement and finds Spenser dead on the floor and a large group of strange pale children in a locked pen.

Terrified, Fool flees and reunites with Leroy as the Robesons return; Leroy is discovered and shot to death by Daddy, while Fool is drawn into another section of the house, where he meets Alice. She tells him that the people in the cellar are the former children of her parents who have disobeyed one of the three “see/speak/hear no evil” rules of the household. The children have degenerated into cannibalism to survive…

“A pretense of social responsibility and most of the necessary tension get lost in a combination of excessive gore and over-the-top perfs… House of horrors includes cannibalism, McGill cavorting around in a leather suit and a blood-crazed Rottweiler. Cartoonish villains quickly thaw pic’s initial chill, in the process trivializing the more serious issues (child abuse, poverty) that might have been raised.” Variety

“Though the new movie has its share of blood and gore, it is mostly creepy and, considering the bizarre circumstances, surprisingly funny.” Vincent Canby, New York Times

” … a fascinating, fairly successful slice of social horror. It wears its political ideals as openly as a George Romero film (though with more subtlety, thank God) as the film rips into the class system ans social inequality in America. The film markedly compares the miserable lives of the slum residents, who live in overcrowded, crime-ridden buildings and are effectively doomed to a life of poverty and petty criminality, with the luxurious lives of those who own the buildings and see their tenants as barely even human, unwilling to be even slightly flexible when they struggle to pay their bills. The film’s contrast between the black underclass of the ghetto and the white upper class – an upper class morally and mentally rotted through in-breeding, it seems – is present throughout the film, though for the most part Craven avoids overdoing it.” David Flint, Strange Things Are Happening

Buy The People Under the Stairs on Arrow Video Blu-ray Disc from Amazon.co.uk | DVD from Amazon.com

Arrow Video Blu-ray Special Features:
High Definition digital transfer of the film by Universal Pictures
Original uncompressed Stereo 2.0 audio
Optional English SDH subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
Audio commentary with star Brandon Quentin Adams, moderated by Calum Waddell
Fear, Freud and Class Warfare: Director Wes Craven Discusses the Timely Terrors of The People Under the Stairs
Behind Closed Doors: Leading Lady A.J. Langer Remembers The People Under the Stairs
Silent But Deadly: Co-Star Sean Whalen on The People Under the Stairs
Underneath the Floorboards: Jeffrey Reddick, creator of The Final Destination series, recalls the lasting impact of The People Under the Stairs
Original Trailer
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Stephen R. Bissette
Collectors booklet featuring new writing on the film, illustrated with original archive stills

” … written and shot without the fear of studio interference, and that shows in the way it gamely switches between playful and menacing tones, action and social commentary – Craven’s exploration of the rich-poor divide making the movie as relevant now as it was in the early 90s. Admittedly, not all of the creative choices work – Fool and Alice’s constant brushes with Prince, the Robesons’ bloodthirsty dog, become grindingly repetitive, for example, and the last third brings with it some glaring plot holes – but it’s a far more interesting, satisfying film than, say, Shocker (1989) or Vampire In Brooklyn (1994).” Ryan Lambie, Den of Geek

“Over the last couple of decades, The People Under The Stairs has shown some staying power in the culture, inspiring a hip-hop outfit of the same name, and it’s distinctly of a time when left-leaning filmmakers were venting their anger over a lost decade. It also affirms Craven as carrier of the Romero torch, a genre director who likes to operate on one more than one level. But there’s a lesson here: You can program meaning into horror, but you have to program some thrills, too.” Scott Tobias, AV Club

“For anyone who likes a good ‘stick it to the Man’ story, or has questioned the hypocrisy of the ‘American Dream’, Wes Craven’s fantastic wry look at how the perfect family life is not always as it seems, The People Under the Stairs, is a must watch. The film which takes the form of a dark and twisted fairytale, not unlike the story of Hansel and Gretel, is compelling and creepy yet still manages to inject humour and optimism into a sometimes hard to stomach subject matter. It is not difficult to see why The People Under the Stairs is such a cult classic, it oozes more originality than you can shake a stick it, is beautifully filmed, and the characterisations of the main protagonists are outstanding.” Stigmatophilia

Wikipedia | IMDb

Chastity Bites is a 2013 horror comedy directed by John V. Knowles from a screenplay by Lotti Pharriss Knowles. It features Allison Scagliotti, Francia Raisa, Louise Griffiths, Eduardo Rioseco, Chloë Crampton, Amy Okuda, Sarah Stouffer, Lindsey Morgan, Laura Niemi and Diana Chiritescu.

In the early 1600′s, Countess Elizabeth Bathory slaughtered more than 600 young women, believing if she bathed in the blood of virgins that she would stay young and beautiful forever. Still alive today, she’s found a perfect hunting ground for her ‘botox’ as an abstinence educator in conservative America, and the young ladies of San Griento High are poised to be her next victims. But will her unholy ritual finally be stopped by Leah Ratliff, a feminist blogger and ambitious reporter for the school paper?

‘Chasity Bites is not just a hilarious, surprisingly effective horror comedy that effectively twists modern culturally trends into an 80s style horror film. Chasity Bites is one of the best horror comedies in recent memory for those with the right pallet, deserving of a place beside The Cabin In The Woods and Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil.’ W.D. Conine, Geek New Wave

‘ …delightfully cheesy horror comedy “Chastity Bites,” which takes a John Hughes high school world and puts a blackened spin on it. … Keep an eye out (metaphorically) for this warm-blooded farce at festivals near you—or maybe the Syfy channel, where it would be a nice fit.’ Elias Savada, Film Threat

‘High school hasn’t been this entertaining since Buffy started killing vampires. Take one part Clueless, and throw in the dedicated female lead that populate stories like Buffy, and you have a taste of Chastity Bites. There’s winks and nods to many of the films that 80s kids grew up on, and you can feel the influence there, but this film manages to be its own beast, and it’s an hilarious one.’ The Film Reel

‘There’s a lot to recommend this little indie horror-comedy, most especially much of the dialogue from screenwriter Lotti Knowles (the wife of the director), which has some biting lines of cattiness that remind me of the aforementioned Mean Girls as well as earlier works like Heathers and some of the better John Hughes movies. Allison Scagliotti makes for a very, appealing heroine, brining to the movie much of what she brings to her character on Warehouse 13: smarts, spunkiness, Geek Girl Chic (and director Knowles is smart enough to let her carry the film).’ Scott Shoyer, Anything Horror

‘has a lot to say about sex, social status and Republicans, but it observes these things almost as superficially as the reality shows it seems to condemn. I guess that’s called parody. And the horror element, which initially teases us with a “Fright Night” kind of quality, eventually fizzles. It’s okay, though. Director John V. Knowles keeps things fast-paced and fun while the blood-thirsty countess takes her sweet time getting down to business. I think if there’s one message to take away from this anti-cautionary tale, it’s not to take things too seriously.’ Michael Parsons, PA/PA Reviews

‘Not only does this bitingly witty independent film poke fun at the vampire horror genre, it playfully turns teen comedies upside down.’ Ken Tasho, Edge Philadelphia

Official website | Facebook | IMDb

The 1970s saw old taboos falling away in the cinema, and few horror film sub-genres benefited from the relaxation in censorship more than the cannibal film. In fact, this is a genre that scarcely existed prior to the Seventies. Sure, horror films had long hinted at cannibalism as a plot device – movies like Doctor X (1932) and others portrayed it as an element of psychosis without ever being overly explicit, and this would continue into the 1970s with films such as Cannibal Girls Frightmare and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre – but no one had really explored the idea explicitly. Some things were just too tasteless, and cannibalism was something of a no-no with assorted censor boards around the world.

Yet the idea that remote tribes in the Amazon or on islands like Papua New Guinea were still practising cannibalism was a common one at the time, thanks to a conflation of suspicion, colonialist ideas, misunderstanding of tribal rituals (such as head hunting / shrinking) and old-fashioned racism. And, if we are to be fair, these beliefs were not entirely without validity, as some cultures still did practice cannibalism, albeit not as determinedly as was often made out. Certainly, the subject was exploited – 1956 roadshow movie Cannibal Island promised much in its sensationalist promotional art, even if the film itself was Gaw the Killer, an anthropological documentary from the 1931, re-edited and re-dubbed, that was notably lacking in anthropophagy, despite the best efforts of the narrator to suggest otherwise.

Buy Cannibal Island on DVD from Amazon.com

Elsewhere, cartoons and comic books perpetuated the idea that any great white hunter who was captured by natives was bound to end up in a cooking pot, and Tarzan movies hinted that he bones the natives wore as decoration were not all from animals. 1954′s Cannibal Attack saw Johnny Weissmuller playing Johnny Weissmuller, fighting off enemy agents in a cannibal-filled jungle.

Hell Night director Tom De Simone’s terrible movie Terror in the Jungle (1968) had a small boy captured by a cannibal tribe and only saved by his ‘glowing’ blonde hair. Worship of blonde white people would be a theme in later, trashier cannibal movies too). Even the children’s big game hunting Adventure novel series by Willard Price had a Cannibal Adventure entry. But notably, none of these early efforts actually went the extra mile – the natives in these films may have been cannibals, but we had to take the filmmakers and writers word for that – no cannibalism actually took place on screen.

In the 1960s, the Mondo documentary would also take an interest in bizarre tribal rituals, and these mostly Italian films would subsequently come to inform the style of the cannibal films that emerged later. Certainly, later shockumentaries such as Savage Man, Savage Beast, This Violent World and Shocking Africa were closely related to contemporary films like Man from Deep River and Last Cannibal World, with their lurid mix of anthropological studies and sensationalism.

One such mondo movie was the 1974 Italian/Japanese Nuova Guinea, l’isola dei cannibali. Tribal scenes from this production – which also includes footage of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip on a Royal visit to the island (!) – were inserted into the zombie film Hell of the Living Dead (1981) to add verisimilitude. It was  later opportunistically released on DVD in the USA as The Real Cannibal Holocaust.

Buy The Real Cannibal Holocaust on DVD from Amazon.com

The cannibal film as we know it now began in 1972, with Il paese del sesso selvaggio, also known as Deep River Savages, The Man from Deep River and Sacrifice!  It was directed by Umberto Lenzi, who would spend the next decade playing catch-up in a genre he pretty much invented with scriptwriters Francesco Barilli and Massimo D’Avak. This film essentially set many of the templates for the genre – graphic violence, extensive nudity, real animal slaughter and the culture clash between ‘civilised’ Westerners and ‘primitive’ tribes.

The film is, essentially, a rip-off of American western A Man Called Horse, with Italian exploitation icon Ivan Rassimov as a British photographer who finds himself stranded in the jungles of Thailand and captured by a native tribe. Eventually, after undergoing assorted humiliations and initiation rituals, he is accepted within the community, who are at war with a fierce, more primitive cannibal tribe.

Co-starring Mei Mei Lai (who would become one of the sub-genre’s stock players), the film is set up more as an adventure story than a horror film, but the look and feel of the story would subsequently inform other cannibal movies, and the scene where the cannibal tribe kill and eat a native certainly sets the scene for what is to come.

Buy The Man from Deep River + Warlock Moon + Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat on DVD from Amazon.com

Made in 1976, Ruggero Deodato’s Ultimo mondo cannibale (Last Cannibal World; Cannibal; Jungle Holocaust) also had the feel of an old-school jungle adventure, though Deodato expanded on what Lenzi had started – this tale of an explorer (played by Massimo Foschi) who is captured by a cannibal tribe features a remarkable amount of nudity (Foschi is kept naked in a cage for much of the film, teased and tormented by the tribe) and sex – including an animalistic sex scene between Foschi and Mei Mei Lai (Rassimov also co-stars). It also featured more graphic gore and real animal killing – the latter would become the achilles heel of the genre, something that even its admirers would find hard to defend. Even if the slaughtered animals were eaten by the filmmakers, showing such scenes for entertainment still left a bad taste with many, and over and above the sex and violence, would be the major cause of censorship for these films.

The Last Cannibal World proved to be a popular hit around the world (it even played UK cinemas after BBFC cuts) and sparked a mini-boom in cannibal film production. In 1977, Joe D’Amato continued his bizarre mutation of the Black Emanuelle series – which, under his guidance, had evolved from soft porn travelogue to featuring white slavery, rape, snuff movies, hardcore sex and even bestiality – with Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals (aka Trap Them and Kill Them), a strange and uniquely 1970s mixture of of softcore sex and hardcore gore, as Laura Gemser goes in search of a lost cannibal tribe. Quite what audiences expecting sexy thrills thought when they were confronted with graphic castration scenes is anyone’s guess, but the film played successfully across Europe and America, albeit often in a cut form.

D’Amato returned to the genre in 1978 with Papaya – Love Goddess of the Cannibals, with Sirpa Lane which, despite its title features no cannibals, in a film that again mixed gore and softcore yet still managed to be rather dull.

Also in 1978, we had the only cannibal film with a big name cast. Mountain of the Cannibal God (aka Slave of the Cannibal God; Prisoner of the Cannibal God) saw former Bond girl Ursula Andress stripped and fondled by a cannibal tribe as she and Stacey Keach search for her missing husband. The starry cast didn’t mean that director Sergio Martino wasn’t going to include some particularly unnecessary animal cruelty and a bizarre (faked) scene of a man fucking a pig though, as well as graphic gore. At heart an old fashioned jungle adventure spiced up with 1970s sex ‘n’ violence, the most remarkable part of the film is how Martino managed to persuade Andress to appear completely naked. Perhaps she just wanted to show off how good her body was 16 years after Dr No!

Buy The Mountain of the Cannibal God on DVD from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

That same year saw an Indonesian entry in the genre with Primitives, also known as Savage Terror. This was essentially a rehash of The Last Cannibal World, but with less gore and no nudity, which resulted in a rather plodding jungle drama. This one is definitely for genre completists only, and proved to be a major disappointment when released on VHS to a cannibal-hungry public by Go Video in the UK as a follow-up to Cannibal Holocaust.

Ahh yes, Cannibal Holocaust. The Citizen Kane of cannibal movies, and the genre’s only undisputed masterpiece, the film would also become the most notorious film in the genre, shocking audiences and censors alike and even now seen as being about as extreme as cinema can go.

The film began life as just another cannibal film, Deodato hired to make something to follow up The Last Cannibal World. But with the relative freedom granted to him (all his backers wanted was a gory cannibal film), he came up with a movie that critiqued the sensationalism of the Mondo movie makers and the audience’s lust for blood, with his tale of an exploitative documentary crew who set out to film cannibal tribes but through their own arrogance and cruelty bring about their own demise.

Deodato’s film effectively invents the Found Footage style of filmmaking, his fake documentary approach being so effective that he found himself facing a trial, accused of actually murdering his actors! Given that the film mixes real animal killing with worryingly effective scenes of violence, all shot in shaky, hand-held style, it’s perhaps no surprise that people thought it was real – even into the 1990s, the film was reported as being a ‘snuff movie’ by the British press.

But there is more going on here than mere sensationalism and sadism – Deodato’s film fizzes with a righteous anger and passion, and makes absolutely no concession to moral restraint. There’s a level of intensity here that is beyond fiction – certainly, the story of the film’s production and reception would make for a remarkable movie in its own right. Almost imprisoned and seeing his film banned in Italy and elsewhere (in Britain, it was one of the first video nasties), Deodato was suitably chastened, and never made anything like it again.

Buy Cannibal Holocaust on DVD from Amazon.com

But despite the bans, the legal issues and the outrage, Cannibal Holocaust was enough of a sensation to spawn imitators. Umberto Lenzi returned to the genre he’s more or less invented in 1980 with Eaten Alive (Magiati Vivi; The Emerald Jungle; Doomed to Die), which managed to mix cannibal tribes, nudity and gore with a story that exploits the recent Guyana massacre led by Jim Jones. This tale of a fanatical religious cult leader had an cannibal movie all-star cast – Ivan Rassimov, Mei Mei Lai and Robert Kerman (aka porn star R. Bolla) who had starred in Cannibal Holocaust were joined by Janet Agren and Mel Ferrer in what is a textbook example of a cheap knock-off. Not only does the film cash in on earlier movies and recent news events, it actually ‘cannibalises’ whole scenes from other films, Lenzi’s own Man from Deep River amongst them. Yet despite this, it’s fairly entertaining stuff.

Buy Eaten Alive on DVD from Amazon.com

Lenzi followed this with Cannibal Ferox (aka Make Them Die Slowly; Let Them Die Slowly), a more blatant imitation of Cannibal Holocaust. Kerman again makes an appearance (albeit a brief one), while Italian cult icon John Morghen (Giovanni Lombardo Radice) headlines a fairly ham fisted tale of an anthropology student who sets out to prove that cannibalism is a myth, only to find she’s very, very wrong. Directed with indifference by Lenzi (who clearly had no interest in theses films beyond a pay check), the film features more gratuitous animal killing and some remarkably sadistic scenes (two castrations and a woman hung with hooks through her breasts), which invariably ensured that the film would be “banned in 31 countries”.

Buy Cannibal Ferox on DVD from Amazon.com

1980 also brought us Zombie Holocaust (aka Doctor Butcher M.D.) in which Marino Girolami opportunistically livened up his Zombie Flesh Eaters imitation by adding a mad doctor, cannibals and nudity to the mix, and Cannibal Apocalypse, where Vietnam vets John Saxon and John Morghen were driven to cannibalism in Vietnam and then go on the rampage in the USA.

Jess Franco entered the genre in 1980 with Cannibals (aka The White Cannibal Queen) and Devil Hunter (aka Man Hunter), but the crudity of the cannibal movie was unsuited to a director more at home with surreal, erotic gothic fantasies. Cannibals was the more interesting of the two – Franco’s intense close-ups and slow motion during the cannibalism scenes add a bizarre, almost dream-like edge to the proceedings, in a tale that mixes a one-armed Al Cliver and a naked Sabrina Siani as the blonde goddess worshipped by the ‘cannibal tribe’. Devil Hunter is a ridiculous mishmash with a kidnapped movie star, a bug-eyed, big-dicked monster and cannibals. Franco himself was dismissive of both films, and they are recommended only for the completist.

Cannibals

Similar to the Franco films (coming from the same producers and featuring footage from Cannibals) is the tedious Cannibal Terror, a French effort that sees a bunch of kidnappers hanging out in a cannibal-infested jungle. It’s pretty hard work to sit through even for the most ardent admirer of Eurotrash. Meanwhile, cannibalistic monks cropped up in the 1981 US movie Raw Force (later retitled) Kung Fu Cannibals but they were only one of the smorgasbord element in this exploitation trash and being a ‘religious order’ rather than a tribe merit just a brief mention here.

After this flurry of activity, the genre began to fizzle out, exploitation filmmakers moving on to the next big thing (i.e. knock offs of Conan and Mad Max). It wasn’t until 1985 that we saw a revival of the jungle cannibal film with Amazonia (aka White Slave), directed by Mario Gariazzo. A strange mix of revenge drama and cannibal film, the movie is a gender-reversal of Man from Deep River, with Elvire Audray as Catherine Miles, brought up by a cannibal tribe after her parents are murdered in the Amazon. Despite some gore and nudity, it’s a rather plodding affair. It should not be confused with Ruggero Deodato’s Cut and Run, also sometimes called Amazonia but which – despite the setting and some gruesome moments – was not a return to the cannibal genre for the director.

More fun was Massacre in Dinosaur Valley (aka Naked and Savage), a cheerfully trashy affair directed by Michele Massimo Tarantini, with the survivors of a plane crash – including nubile young models and Indiana Jones like palaeontologist Michael Sopkiw battling slave traders, nature and cannibal tribes (but not dinosaurs) in the Amazon. Gratuitous nudity, splashy gore, bad acting and a ludicrous series of events ensure that this one is a lot of fun.

Natura Contro, retitled Cannibal Holocaust II but unconnected to the earlier film, is possibly the most obscure of the films in the sub-genre. Made in 1988, it is the final film by Antonio Climati, best known for his uncompromising Mondo movies of the 1970s. It’s surprising then that this is fairly tame stuff by cannibal movie standards, telling the story of a group of people who head to the Amazon to find a missing professor. By 1988, both the Italian exploitation film and the cannibal genre were breathing their last, and the excesses of a decade earlier were no longer commercially viable – the mainstream audience for such films had dwindled considerably, while censorship had tightened up.

Natura Contro

It would be another fifteen years before we saw the return of the jungle holocaust film, and then it was hardly worth it. Bruno Mattei, a prolific hack since the 1970s, had someone managed to keep making films, and in 2003 knocked out a pair of ultra-low budget, almost unwatchably bad cannibal films. In the Land of the Cannibals (aka Cannibal Ferox 3) and Cannibal World (aka Cannibal Holocaust 2) were slow, clumsy and boring attempts to cash in on the cult reputation of Mattei (a couple of years later, he’d make two similarly dismal zombie films) and the reputation of the earlier cannibal movies (needless to say, these are not official sequels to either Holocaust or Ferox). These two films seemed to be the final nail in the genre’s coffin.

But with the reputation of Cannibal Holocaust continuing to increase, and a general return to ‘hard core horror’ in the new century with films like Saw and Hostel, the cannibal film has seen a slight revival. But although Deodato has talked about making a sequel to Cannibal Holocaust, the new films have been American productions, even though they are informed by the Italian films of the past.

Jonathan Hensleigh’s Welcome to the Jungle , made in 2007, channels Holocaust with its found footage format as a group of remarkably annoying treasure hunters head to New Guinea in search of the missing Michael Rockerfeller, hoping to cash in on his discovery. Instead, their bickering attracts the attention of local cannibal tribes, who stalk and slaughter them. There;s an interesting idea at play here, but the characters are all so utterly loathsome that you’ll struggle to make it to the point where they start getting killed.

The latest attempt to revive the genre comes from Eli Roth, who’s Green Inferno is about to be released. The film takes its title from Cannibal Holocaust (one of Roth’s favourite films) and the plot – student activists travel to the Amazon to protect a tribe but find themselves captured by cannibals – sounds like a copy of Cannibal Ferox. Having received positive reviews at festivals, we hope the film is able to capture the spirit of the original movies, if not their frenzied style.

Certainly, we are unlikely to see anyone making a film quite like Cannibal Holocaust again – there are laws in place to stop it, if nothing else. But we can now look back at this most controversial of horror sub-genres and see that they represent a time when cinema was without restraint. As such, they are more than simply films, they are historical time capsules, and for those with strong stomachs, well worth investigating.

Article by David Flint

Related: Cannibal Holocaust | Devil Hunter | The Man from Deep River | The Mountain of the Cannibal God

Offline reading:

Buy Eaten Alive! Italian Cannibal and Zombie Movies from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Nightmare City (aka City of the Walking Dead, Italian title: Incubo Sulla Cittá Contaminata) is a 1980 Italian-Spanish zombie film directed by Umberto Lenzi. The film stars Hugo Stiglitz, Laura Trotter, Maria Rosaria Omaggio, Francisco Rabal, Sonia Viviani, Eduardo Fajardo and Mel Ferrer. Director Lenzi felt the film was not as much as zombie film but a “radiation sickness movie” with hints of an anti-nuclear and anti-military message.

American TV news reporter Dean Miller (Hugo Stiglitz) waits at an unnamed European airport for the arrival of a scientist that he is about to interview regarding a recent nuclear accident. An unmarked military plane makes an emergency landing. The plane doors open and dozens of zombies burst out and begin stabbing and shooting the military personnel outside. Miller tries to let the people know of this event, but General Murchison of Civil Defense (Mel Ferrer) will not allow it. Miller tries to find his wife Anna who works at a hospital as the zombies begin to overrun the city.

Miller and his wife escape to an abandoned amusement park that is also overrun with zombies. The two climb to the top of a roller coaster and are about to be rescued by a military helicopter. Miller then wakes up revealing the whole situation to be a dream. Miller also learns that today he is about to meet a scientist at the airport. When he arrives a military plane makes an emergency landing.

“Nightmare City might be the very first “running zombie” film, long before 28 Days Later and Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead made this the new standard. The film is extremely violent, has quite a bit of gore, and some unintended humor. In other words it’s a cheesy “B” grade horror film, that horror collector’s should have in their collections.’” Eddie Scarito, This is Infamous

” … a wild and bloody exercise in excess. The movie has its fans as well as its fair share of detractors. I think it’s an odd amalgamation of themes and ideas given a much larger scope than normally afforded these movies. It’s neither Lenzi’s best and far from his worst. It’s a favorite of mine and sports a great deal of ultra violent entertainment value for shock seekers and gore mongers alike.” Cool Ass Cinema

“Nightmare City also accomplishes what it set out to do with respect to nudity and gore. The zombies have a amusingly shameless compulsion to rip open the shirts of women before they kill them as well as a weird breast-stabbing (and on one occasion, breast-lopping off) fetish.” John Shelton, Bloody Good Horror

“It’s probably fair to say that Nightmare City will always be known for its particular tics (its militaristic, running weapon-wielding zombies), but Lenzi fully exploits them. His movie might be dumb, but it’s rarely boring, and there’s something to be said for any movie that can transcend its tone-deafness as well as this one. It’s probably the only film that considers the plight of aerobic dancers during a zombie apocalypse.” Oh, the Horror!

“You’ll probably forget the entire movie within a month of watching it, but it’s fun and you’ll get a lot of laughs out of it: terrible acting; zombies standing directly in front of the camera posing; a random dog literally playing with the zombies; the stupidity of the two main characters; the horrible makeup; multiple times people standing still then suddenly jumping into action; woman’s head exploding then in the next shot she’s dead with just a little bloody spot on her forehead; the TV that for no reason explodes into a huge fireball; the completely random harpoon gun and much more.” Dymon Enlow, Happyotter

Raro Video Blu-ray Special Features:

An interview with Umberto Lenzi

Original English trailer

Original Italian trailer

A fully illustrated booklet on the genesis and production of the film

New HD Transfer – Digitally restored

New and improved English subtitle translation

Buy Nightmare City on Raro Video Blu-ray | DVD from Amazon.com

Buy Nightmare City + Hell of the Living Dead bargain zombie double-bill on DVD from Amazon.com

Wikipedia | IMDb | We are grateful to Cool Ass Cinema for a couple of the images above.

WH

The film world in Britain during the early 80s was grim. Most of the grand cinema palaces of yesteryear were, if not already transformed into Bingo halls, falling apart, offering a less-than-enticing combination of bad projection, uncomfortable, dirty seats and programmes which required the audience to sit through endless amounts of commercials and unwatchable travelogues before finally being allowed to see the main feature. With unemployment at an all-time high, people were more inclined to stay home and save their money, watching any of the three TV channels available until closedown before midnight.

Yet, as the decade began, an alternative appeared that would chance viewing habits forever. The video recorder. Although they’d been on the market for a few years, it was in 1980 that the VCR first began to be more than just a rich man’s toy. Although still relatively costly to buy, many electrical stores offered reasonable monthly rental schemes for VCR’s. Seemingly overnight, every household in the country had a video recorder next to the TV and an expensive family night out at the pictures suddenly seemed less attractive when you could choose from a multitude of feature films for the same price and watch in the comfort of your own home, as the number of films available to buy or rent exploded.

Buy The Texas Chain Saw Massacre remastered on Blu-ray from Amazon.com

Most major distributors looked upon home video with suspicion, and were reluctant to release their biggest titles onto this new format when there was still money to be made from theatrical reissues, and so the rental shops which began to spring up on the high street were, for the most part, filled with low budget, independent films from a multitude of small distributors who appeared to cash in on the video boom. And it quickly became clear that there was a substantial audience for the material which the British Board of Film Censors had long fought to protect us from.

Buy I Spit on Your Grave uncut with commentary by Meir Zarchi on DVD from Amazon.com

The more lurid the cover art, the more sex and violence promised by the blurb, the more the public wanted it. Labels like Go Video, Astra, Intervision and Vipco emerged to release films from all over the world, with horror being the most reliable genre. Big hits were made out of films which had barely ever seen the light of a movie screen in the UK and directors such as Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci became as bankable in the VHS world as Steven Spielberg or Martin Scorcese. The video rental top ten was regularly packed with movies like I Spit On Your Grave, The Driller Killer and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

Buy The Driller Killer uncut with commentary by Abel Ferrara on DVD from Amazon.co.uk

Buy Video Nasties: The Definitive Guide on Nucleus DVD from Amazon.co.uk

Some of these were films which the BBFC had banned outright, heavily cut or which stood little chance of being passed if submitted for approval. But there was no compulsory censorship of video, so images that were forbidden in the cinema could be enjoyed in their full gory glory at home. Fledgling video labels were buying up whatever salacious sounding titles that they could find and releasing them without even considering submitting them to the BBFC. And the British public could not get enough of it. Every street corner, it seemed, had a video shop. Even off-licenses, newsagents and petrol stations got in on the action.

Buy Shogun Assassin uncut on Blu-ray from Amazon.co.uk

Unfortunately, this frivolous phase of viewing freedom would not last.

It wasn’t long before rumours started spreading about the open availability of films showing extreme, explicit violence, torture and mutilation. Films too extreme even for an ‘X’ certificate were openly available to anyone, even children. The public could use the slow motion and pause buttons to get maximum perverse pleasure from their video sadism. Worse still, it seemed that Cannibal Holocaust and SS Experiment Camp had replaced balloon benders and clowns as a staple of children’s parties. Not innocent mind was safe from the onslaught of the Video Nasties, a term first used in the trade that would be a household word by 1982.

Once the press had their teeth into the story, there was no stopping them. “Ban the Sadist Videos!” screamed The Daily Mail, outlining the dangers that the uncensored world of home entertainment presented to the country’s moral fabric. Various politicians and pressure groups (not least Mary Whitehouse’s National Viewers and Listeners Association) were quick to take up the cause. Teachers groups expressed concern about the effect on impressionable children, and church groups were quick to complain too. Faced with such pressure, the Director of Public Prosecutions agreed to the first obscenity charges to be brought against horror videos, and soon police forces up and down the country were carrying out random raids on shops, clearing the shelves of potentially obscene material.

As the whole concept of horror movies being obscene was so new, worried video shop owners had no idea which films they would be prosecuted for, so in an effort to clarify the situation the Department of Public Prosecutions issued a list of  “nasties”, based on titles which had been successfully prosecuted or which were awaiting trial. The list would vary in length over the next few years, before settling on 39 movies. In addition to the official Nasties list various local councils had their own selection of condemned videos to muddy the situation a little more. Shops found stocking the forbidden films during police raids – and police raids were a weekly occurrence – faced prosecution under the Obscene Publications Act.

Buy SS Experiment Camp + SS Girls + SS Hell Camp triple-bill DVD from Amazon.com

When their day in court came most video shop owners pleaded no contest to the charges of issuing obscene material for gain in order to avoid a lengthy prison sentence – this meant that many movies were condemned as “obscene” without ever going before a jury, or even being watched by magistrates. Some distributors stopped distributing their horror titles in order to avoid the wrath of the DPP. One distributor was sent to jail for marketing Nightmares in a Damaged Brain, despite the fact that it was not the uncut version he was distributing (as much as the retailers, the distributors often had no idea of which version of a film they’d released and, of course, had no way to know that horror films would suddenly fall foul of the Obscene Publications Act). London based Palace Pictures pointed out the absurdity of travelling up and down the country to defend The Evil Dead – which was released on video in the BBFC X-rated cut version – against various local charges of obscenity, so had the case centralised to a court in the East end of London — where the film was found not guilty. This, however, did not prevent other police forces from continuing to seize the film. An acquittal under the OPA did not necessarily set a national precedent, and local sensibilities would continue to come into play (though notably, a single conviction DID seem to set some sort of precedent, conveniently).

Buy uncut The Evil Dead trilogy on Blu-ray from Amazon.co.uk

The British Board of Film Censors, who had seen their income drop to rock bottom during the video boom, were quick to back up the dangers of an unregulated system of distribution. The BBFC were soon appointed by parliament to govern the classification of all films to be released on video in the UK. The 1984 Video Recordings Act ensured that Britain would never again fall prey to the immoral whims of smut peddling distributors hungry to make a quick buck. Over the course of the next few years, all unclassified videos would be removed from the shelves of British video stores. By 1988, it was illegal to sell or rent an unclassified VHS tape.

Buy Cannibal Holocaust uncut on Italian Blu-ray (English language option) from Amazon.co.uk

Buy Cannibal Holocaust and the Savage Cinema of Ruggero Deodato book from Amazon.co.uk

Of course, it was not only horror and sex films that were released without BBFC certificates but films from all genres, including even children’s films. Many smaller, well established shops had to remove the majority of their stock, forcing a large number out of business. Many distributors could not afford the high price of BBFC classification for their films — particularly if the censors then demanded cuts, as was often the case. By this time, the major Hollywood producers had woken up to the money to be made from video, and the public increasingly had the chance to take home a recent blockbuster instead of an obscure 1970′s horror film. Most small labels simply vanished. The VRA ensured that it was no longer the little guy making the money from the video industry.

Amazingly, as the hysteria died down, BBFC head James Ferman still felt compelled to overprotect the public from the dangers of violent imagery. Even though they were never on any Video Nasties lists he refused to grant BBFC certificates to numerous films, including The Exorcist, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Straw Dogs. He had various forbidden images such as nunchakus (chain sticks) and blood on breasts, which he considered to be a trigger image for rapists. Although the Video Recordings Act was brought in to combat violent video, he was even stricter on sexual images – female genitalia was forbidden, as was any sex act involving more than two people. “Instructional” drug use and criminal activity would be cut, to prevent ‘copycat’ crime. And of course, most horror films had to be cut. As a result a strong black market grew throughout the UK for pirate videos of uncut horror or sex videos, and a huge underground fan base emerged, with fanzines, books and film festivals keeping the Nasties alive.

Buy The Art of the Nasty book from Amazon.co.uk

Strangely, the British public didn’t seem to mind the nanny mentality, happy to believe that censorship of material freely available in the rest of Europe was for their own good. This belief was encouraged by the tabloids, who were only too keen to stoke up public hysteria by linking headline-grabbing crimes to video violence, be it the Hungerford massacre and Rambo, or the Jamie Bulger case and Child’s Play 3.

Buy Child’s Play 3 on Blu-ray from Amazon.co.uk

However, times change, even in Britain, and with a new millennium came a new maturity. The public no longer seemed overly worried by horror videos – possibly because new bête noires like the internet and video games have taken their place. Once Ferman resigned from the BBFC at the end of 1998, UK film censorship turned over a new leaf.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Straw Dogs, The Exorcist and The Story of O – all considered threats to public safety by Ferman – quickly received uncut certificates. When challenged at appeal over their refusal to pass The Last House on the Left uncut, the BBFC were publicly forced to admit that there was no legal reason for them to arbitrarily cut films that were once banned as Video Nasties – something they had always claimed was a legal requirement they had no control over – and subsequently a lot of the Nasties have now been passed uncut… some with a 15 certificate! With one or two exceptions, Ferman’s immediate successor Robin Duval managed to erase the strict censorship regime which emanated from the Nasties scare and now it is relatively rare for a horror movie to be cut or banned to protect the impressionable minds of the British public.

There are, of course, still exceptions – most recently The Bunny Game has been banned outright, while The Human Centipede 2 was initially banned before finally being released with extensive cuts. But by and large, it is now acknowledged that horror films are not a threat to civilisation. We perhaps shouldn’t be too complacent, given British history and the current moral panic that is once again gripping the country (this time aimed at internet porn, but always likely to mutate as the moralists look to assert control), but it seems unlikely that we’ll ever see a return to the dark days of the 1980s again.

David Flint

Evil Come Evil Go is a 1972 American sexploitation horror film written and directed by Walt Davis (Widow Blue/Sex Psycho) for adult movie producer Bob Chinn. It stars Cleo O’Hara, Sandra Henderson, Jane Tsentas (The Jekyll and Hyde Portfolio, Terror at Orgy Castle), Rick Cassidy (Desires of the Devil), Margot Devletian, Chesley Noone (Angel Above – The Devil Below) and porn star John Holmes (who was also assistant director).

Previously available on DVD via Something Weird Video, the film is re-released on a DVD triple-bill by Vinegar Syndrome on January 7, 2014.

Traveling Evangelist preacher, Sister Sarah Jane (Cleo O’Hara), is hellbent on ridding the world of evil, sex-obsessed men. Taking to the streets of Los Angeles, she quickly befriends a gullible young bisexual woman and the two embark on a mad, sex-filled killing spree…

‘Though the film fails to come up with a satisfactory conclusion, the overlong sex scenes (which are pretty graphic and feature plenty of full male and female nudity) bog things down at times and some of the audio is heavily damaged, most of the humour is on target, it’s in very bad taste and O’Hara is hysterically funny as the deranged Southern Belle.’ The Bloody Pit of Horror

‘When it comes to mixing crazed religious harpies, almost-porno sex scenes and gooey gory murders, no film does it better than Evil Come Evil Go!… It’s another peek into the bizarro mind of Davis, but is competently photographed by Manuel S. Conde and better-acted than his more familiar films (The Danish Connection, Sex Psycho). The violence and sex is a tad more restrained this time around for Davis, but it’s still a sleazy, off-the-wall gem which could have only been made in the 1970′s!’ Casey Scott, DVD Drive-In

‘Although quite bloody at times (with much crimson-smeared bared flesh on display) the violence is not as explicit as the sex. And although there is more bloodshed here than in “Sex Psycho” there is nothing as extreme or gory as that movie’s machete to the neck demise. But once again sex and violence do taboo bed-fellows make so what violence there is seems magnified as a result.’ Beardy Freak

Buy on Vinegar Syndrome triple-bill DVD from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com 

Buy Evil Come Evil Go poster from Amazon.co.uk

IMDb

Blood Rage (aka Nightmare at Shadow Woods) is a 1983 slasher film written by Bruce Rubin and directed by John Grissmer (Scalpel/False Face, 1976). It stars Louise Lasser (Frankenhooker), Mark Soper (Graveyard Shift II), Marianne Kanter (who also produced this and Dark August  in 1976), Julie Gordon and sfx makeup artist Ed French (Amityville II: The Possession, Sleepaway Camp, The Stuff). It is not to be confused with the 1979 film Bloodrage (aka Never Pick Up a Stranger).

Although the film was shot in 1983, it was given only a limited release theatrically in the United States by the Film Concept Group under the title Nightmare at Shadow Woods in 1987. It was released on VHS by Prism Entertainment the same year under the title Blood Rage and this is the title it is now best known by. The Nightmare at Shadow Woods version is missing an early scene where Maddy visits Todd at the mental hospital, but includes a swimming pool scene not found in the Blood Rage version. The Nightmare at Shadow Woods version had a budget US DVD release in 2004 by Legacy Entertainment, but as of September 2011 is out of print.

Plot:

Todd and Terry are twins. They are blonde, cute, bright and identical in every respect, with one exception. One of them is a murderer. This starts one night at a drive-in theater when a teenager was slaughtered in the back seat of his car while his girlfriend watched. Todd is found guilty for the heinous crime and is locked away in an asylum.

Years passed and Terry lives happily with his mother (Louise Lasser), who smothers him with enough love for two sons. All is fine until one Thanksgiving when they receive news that Todd escaped. Terry goes on a killing spree to ensure that Todd goes back to the asylum. His first kill is his mother’s fiancée, when he chops off his arm with a machete, before stabbing him to death. Meanwhile, Dr. Berman and her assistant, Jackie, go out in search for Todd. Jackie meets a sticky end, when he is stabbed by Terry. Dr. Berman also suffers the same fate. Whilst in the woods looking for Todd, she comes across Terry, who cuts her in half with the machete, leaving her to die…

Reviews:

“This fantastic slasher film impresses with some very ballsy gore; everything from bloody severed heads and split open brains to women chopped in half and guys stabbed in the neck with barbecue prongs. While the film doesn’t offer much but killing and running, and I really would have liked some more meat with my potatoes, it still manages to be enthralling and an honest to God stand up and cheer blood bath. This is really all you need in a good slasher movie.” Jose Prendes, Strictly Splatter

“It’s all rather amusing yet somehow cruel at the same time, and it’s this element of mean-spiritedness that runs consistently throughout the film and hurts it to a degree … never quite knowing how to react in certain scenes had me a little alienated and made some of the funny stuff seem almost tacky or inappropriate. And the last scene, while ultimately fitting and not entirely downbeat, still resonates an eerie and disturbing message about parents who show favoritism toward their children, and will leave you with a bad taste in your mouth.” Hysteria Lives!

“While the body count isn’t jaw-dropping, there are still nine impressive kills by Terry that are, shall I say, “gore-ifying.” The acting was all quite good, and they only terrible acting I can really pinpoint is by Marianne Kanter as Dr. Berman, Todd’s doctor. Just look at her acting in her death scene to see what I mean. The rest are all quite good, even if the “mom” character was pretty over the top.” HorrorBid.com

Wikipedia | IMDb

Thanks to Critical Condition for some images above.

Skinless is a 2014 micro $2000 budget American horror film co-written and directed by Dustin Mills (The Puppet Monster Massacre, Bath Salt Zombies, Night of the Tentacles). It stars co-writer Brandon Salkil, Erin R. Ryan (Babysitter Massacre), Allison Egan and Dave Parker.

Skinless will receive an initial theatrical premiere in Cleveland at midnight in the US by Phantom Pain Films on March 8 with other venues to follow.

Official synopsis:

“Brilliant oncologist Peter Peel discovers a possible cure for skin cancer in the belly of an exotic parasite. When he tests the cure on himself, his world is shattered and a monster is born. Skinless is a sad tale of madness, murder, monsters, and love.”

Night of the Tentacles trailer:

Thanks to Bloody Disgusting for some of the info above.

WH

Final Exam is a 1981 American slasher horror film. Director and screenwriter Jimmy Huston apparently wanted to go against the norm and decided to feature little on-screen graphic violence. Still, like most slasher films of the 1980s, it was battered by critics and received only a brief theatrical run. Following VHS releases, it was finally released on DVD in 2008 and is available on Blu-ray in May 2014 via Shout! Factory.

Final Exam is referenced in Scream 2 along with other college themed slasher films such as: The House on Sorority Row, Graduation Day, The Dorm That Dripped Blood and Splatter University.

Plot:

Late at night, two college students (Carol Capka and Shannon Norfleet) are busy making out in a parked convertible. Ignoring the girl’s frequent objections, her boyfriend pushes on. Outside, a shadowy man jumps on top of the car, slicing his way through the fabric roof. Reaching inside, the lunatic grabs the young man and pulls him up and out onto the car’s hood. Brandishing a blade, the killer stabs the young man to death.

Sleepy Lanier College is nearing the end of Final Exam week: a frenzied semester cap time of grades, goodbyes, and pranks. As the students prepare for their tests as well as the coming vacation break, little do they suspect a murderer is stalking them one by one. Plain but amiable Courtney (Cecile Bagdadi) is completing her exams and studying hard. Averse to hitting the books, her roommate Lisa (DeAnna Robbins) is busy packing and getting back to the city.

Meanwhile, Gamma Delta fraternity pledge Gary (Terry W. Farren) has pinned his girlfriend Janet (Sherry Willis-Burch)… and paid for it by being treed by his brothers, stripped to his briefs, awash in shaving cream and ice cubes shoved down his underwear. As night falls on Lanier, a freezing Gary hopes his beloved Janet will free him from his humiliation. Untied from the tree by an unknown figure, Gary is relieved, but is stabbed to death by the man that killed the couple in the convertible…

Buy Final Exam on Blu-ray | DVD from Amazon.com

Reviews:

“Whereas so many slashers spend a great deal of time setting up an elaborate and sometimes ridiculous backstory for the killer, Final Exam seems uninterested in the killer as a living human being and instead uses him as a tragic, mysterious force that moves into the lives of those at Lanier College and changes them forever. He’s a perfect storm whose only motivation is carnage and the kind of random maniac that is all too prevalent in real life. The killer actually manages to generate a few decent scares, thanks in part to Huston’s clever direction and Raynor’s minimalistic, yet menacing performance. ” Oh, the Horror!

“In the annals of early 80s slashers, it’s both one of the worst (worst killer ever, for certain) and one of the best (due to its unparalleled levels of unintentional comedy).” Horror Movie a Day

“A few problems keep Final Exam from being a really good slasher. The first half is more of a college drama. The only soap opera elements missing are a pregnancy scare and an outbreak of venereal disease on campus. Killer (Timothy L. Raynor) has no name, background, or motivation. He’s just a big guy with a knife. This lack of character development really robs the film of suspense and tension. The viewer is waiting for a payoff that never comes. Final Exam may not be the most terrifying campus slasher ever filmed but it still manages to be funny and entertaining. Fans of gallows humor will find plenty to chuckle over.” Retro Slashers

Frightmare (also known as Frightmare II, Cover Up and Once Upon a Frightmare) is a 1974 British horror film directed by Pete Walker and written by Pete Walker and David McGillivray (House of Whipcord, Satan’s Slave). It stars Rupert Davies, Sheila Keith. Deborah Fairfax, Paul Greenwood, Kim Butcher, Fiona Curzon, Jon Yule, Tricia Mortimer, Leo Genn, Gerald Flood. Andrew Sachs has a minor role.

Plot:

In an isolated farmhouse, a woman named Dorothy Yates lives with her husband. Dorothy has just been released from a mental institution after it was found she was a cannibal who killed and partially ate at least six people in 1957. Her husband, Edmund Yates was convicted as well but we come to find out that he only faked his dementia in order to remain with his wife. He was a truly devoted husband who loved his wife dearly but really had nothing to do with the actual murders in 1957 and in the present.

Now it is 1974 and it seems as if Dorothy has had a severe relapse. She secretly lures lonely young people to her Haslemere, Surrey home, promising tea and a tarot card reading, only with the session ending with a violent murder and “feast”…

Redemption/Kino Lorber Blu-ray Special Features:

“For the Sake of Cannibalism,” an interview with Pete Walker, by Elijah Drenner

Audio commentary by director Pete Walker and DP Peter Jessop, conducted by Steve Chibnall, author of Making Mischief: The Cult Films of Pete Walker

“Sheila Keith: A Nice Old Lady?” a profile of the late actress, featuring interviews with her former collaborators

Original theatrical trailer

Buy Frightmare on Redemption Blu-ray from Amazon.com

Pete Walker on Horrorpedia: The Comeback | Die Screaming Marianne | The Flesh and Blood Show | Frightmare | House of the Long Shadows | House of Whipcord | Schizo

Reviews:

‘Though Frightmare remains Walker’s best known work, it is arguably not his finest. The pacing is uneven; while the scenes dealing with the main thrust of the narrative are handled with confidence and conviction, there is some padding along the way that detracts from the overall effect. True, the central image of bloodthirsty Sheila Keith is unstoppable, yet the film never manages to be as disturbing as his later The Confessional. The impression is very much of a director still finding his way, gleefully shocking the polite sensibilities of his countrymen but not yet fully confident as a storyteller’. Eccentric Cinema

‘Frightmare certainly seems dated and is admittedly a little rough around the edges in places but it still packs a wallop, even today, and comes highly recommended as what is very possibly Walker’s finest film. And, as a final treat, is topped off with an ending which, on first watching might seem a little abrupt, but is in-fact chilling, unexpected and deliciously cruel; which was to become something of a trademark for its director.
Hysteria Lives!

‘Frightmare is terrifying stuff. Chuck in the usual trapping of an early 70s low budget film (a bit of nudity, crap teenagers, gratuitous violence) and you’ve got a film with something for everyone. Just don’t watch it if you’re feeling depressed already – it might tip you over the edge!’ British Horror Films

“an exceptionally nasty and depressing little movie … One of the first British horror films to match the callousness of the American independents, Frightmare may not be Walker’s best movie, but it remains his most upsetting.” Kim Newman, Nightmare Movies

Buy Nightmare Movies by Kim Newman from Amazon.co.uk

Offline reading:

British Horror Cinema – Steve Chibnall, Julian Petley, 2002, Routledge, New York/London

Making Mischief: The Cult Films of Pete Walker – Steve Chibnall, 1998, FAB Press, UK

Ten Years of Terror – Harvey Fenton, David Flint (Editors), 2001, FAB Press, UK

Wikipedia | IMDb | We are grateful to Critical Condition and Russian site Cult Cinema for some images above

Blood Rage (aka Nightmare at Shadow Woods) is a 1983 slasher film written by Bruce Rubin and directed by John Grissmer (Scalpel/False Face, 1976). It stars Louise Lasser (Frankenhooker), Mark Soper (Graveyard Shift II), Marianne Kanter (who also produced this and Dark August  in 1976), Julie Gordon and sfx makeup artist Ed French (Amityville II: The Possession, Sleepaway Camp, The Stuff). It is not to be confused with the 1979 film Bloodrage (aka Never Pick Up a Stranger).

Although the film was shot in 1983, it was given only a limited release theatrically in the United States by the Film Concept Group under the title Nightmare at Shadow Woods in 1987. It was released on VHS by Prism Entertainment the same year under the title Blood Rage and this is the title it is now best known by. The Nightmare at Shadow Woods version is missing an early scene where Maddy visits Todd at the mental hospital, but includes a swimming pool scene not found in the Blood Rage version. The Nightmare at Shadow Woods version had a budget US DVD release in 2004 by Legacy Entertainment, but as of September 2011 is out of print.

Plot:

Todd and Terry are twins. They are blonde, cute, bright and identical in every respect, with one exception. One of them is a murderer. This starts one night at a drive-in theater when a teenager was slaughtered in the back seat of his car while his girlfriend watched. Todd is found guilty for the heinous crime and is locked away in an asylum.

Years passed and Terry lives happily with his mother (Louise Lasser), who smothers him with enough love for two sons. All is fine until one Thanksgiving when they receive news that Todd escaped. Terry goes on a killing spree to ensure that Todd goes back to the asylum. His first kill is his mother’s fiancée, when he chops off his arm with a machete, before stabbing him to death. Meanwhile, Dr. Berman and her assistant, Jackie, go out in search for Todd. Jackie meets a sticky end, when he is stabbed by Terry. Dr. Berman also suffers the same fate. Whilst in the woods looking for Todd, she comes across Terry, who cuts her in half with the machete, leaving her to die…

Reviews:

“This fantastic slasher film impresses with some very ballsy gore; everything from bloody severed heads and split open brains to women chopped in half and guys stabbed in the neck with barbecue prongs. While the film doesn’t offer much but killing and running, and I really would have liked some more meat with my potatoes, it still manages to be enthralling and an honest to God stand up and cheer blood bath. This is really all you need in a good slasher movie.” Jose Prendes, Strictly Splatter

“It’s all rather amusing yet somehow cruel at the same time, and it’s this element of mean-spiritedness that runs consistently throughout the film and hurts it to a degree … never quite knowing how to react in certain scenes had me a little alienated and made some of the funny stuff seem almost tacky or inappropriate. And the last scene, while ultimately fitting and not entirely downbeat, still resonates an eerie and disturbing message about parents who show favoritism toward their children, and will leave you with a bad taste in your mouth.” Hysteria Lives!

“While the body count isn’t jaw-dropping, there are still nine impressive kills by Terry that are, shall I say, “gore-ifying.” The acting was all quite good, and they only terrible acting I can really pinpoint is by Marianne Kanter as Dr. Berman, Todd’s doctor. Just look at her acting in her death scene to see what I mean. The rest are all quite good, even if the “mom” character was pretty over the top.” HorrorBid.com

Wikipedia | IMDb

Thanks to Critical Condition for some images above.

Cannibal Ferox, also known as Make Them Die Slowly, is a 1981 Italian exploitation film written and directed by Umberto Lenzi. Upon its release, the film’s US distributor claimed it was “the most violent film ever made”. Cannibal Ferox was also claimed to be “banned in 31 countries”, some of which lifted their bans only recently. It can be considered one of the ‘unholy trinity’ of superior Italian cannibal films, alongside Jungle Holocaust and Cannibal Holocaust.

ferōx m, f, n (genitive ferōcis); third declension

1. wild, bold, gallant
2. warlike
3. defiant, arrogant

In the jungles of the Amazon, brother and sister, Rudy (Danilo Mattei, Anglicised as Bryan Redford) and Gloria (Lorraine De Selle, (Emanuelle in America, House on the Edge of the Park) and their friend Pat (Zora Kerova, appearing here as Pat Johnson, also seen in the likes of The New York Ripper and Anthropophagous) are on a mission to prove Gloria’s assertion that cannibalism is a Western myth. Alas, their jeep breaks down and they encounter drug dealers on the run from New York; Mike (Giovanni Lombardo Radice, aka John Morghen, House on the Edge of the Park, City of the Living Dead) and Joe (Walter Lucchini). It transpires that the pair’s busman’s holiday has developed to bothering the local tribes for cocaine and jewels, not to mention enraging them further by torturing and killing their local guide whilst Mike was high on drugs. This ‘misunderstanding’ has led to the cannibals attacking and leaving Joe badly injured. Regardless, Mike continues to push his fellow travellers to the limit, seducing Pat and killing a native girl for kicks. The locals take exception to this and begin to hunt down the Americans in an avalanche of cruelty from hooks slicing through breasts to castration to good old-fashioned brain chomping. Only one person survives but what state will they be in when the horror is over?

Director Umberto Lenzi (Almost Human, Nightmare City), a stalwart of Italy’s genre films, bookended the cannibal film era, beginning with Man from Deep River in 1972 and essentially closing it here in 1981 (though had helmed the tamer Eaten Alive in 1980). Ferox, incidentally, was re-titled Woman from Deep River on its Australian release. Ferox was pretty much the last word and left the genre with no body part or animal left to mush up. Though remaining one of the most debated films of the sub-genre, there can be little argument that Ferox lacks the cerebral qualities of Holocausts both Jungle and Cannibal, quickly dispensing with the unnecessary introduction to the characters and moving swiftly on to breathtaking scenes of brutality and depravity. Though fully deserving of their demise, the intruders in the jungle are wildly dislikeable (though Radice steals the entire film with his wide-eyed performance – his seduction of Pat includes the touching tribute of her being “a hot-pussy whore”) and it’s difficult not to root for the natives.

As with Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust, accusations of cruelty being meted out on the local fauna were undeniable – a monkey and a pig in particular coming in for some rough treatment. Radice was less than impressed, refusing to take part in the slaughter of innocent animals. It is alleged that Lenzi attempted to convince the actor to join in the killings by asserting that “Robert De Niro would do it” – Radice responded that ”De Niro would kick your ass all the way back to Rome”. Though now dismissive of his part in the film, it is to Radice’s credit that he really throws himself into the role, acting his co-stars out of the rather sparse jungle. It would be reasonable to say that their predicament is far from a jolly holiday, but De Selle and Kerova are incredibly annoying, simpering and gibbering all the way through. Robert Kerman (also known as R. Bolla when appearing in porno films) also appears, briefly, securing his place in exploitation movie history by starring in both Ferox and Cannibal Holocaust.

Whether flimsy of plot or moral fibre, the effects are superb, the work of Gino De Rossi, an effects designer who had begun his career on the likes of Return of White Fang and Napoli Spara! but progressed through the grime of Zombie Flesh Eaters and City of the Living Dead to work on mainstream films such as Casino Royale (2006). The music is regularly credited to Budy Maglione – in fact, it is the work of two people; Roberto Donati and Maria Fiamma Maglione. Donati had worked through the 1960′s in several different pop and R’n'B bands as a singer and guitarist but branched out into soundtracks a decade later. His works include scores to Assault with a Deadly Weapon (1976), Eaten Alive (1980) and Daughter of the Jungle (1982). The brassy, flares-wearing New York theme seems more at home on a poliziotteschi but the main Ferox theme is a doom synth classic – a poor relative of Fabio Frizzi’s glorious melodies but still a fondly regarded one.

Filmed in the jungles of Leticia, the southernmost city in Colombia, the film somehow lacks the feeling of the characters actually being very far away from civilisation – you rather suspect there’s a Pizza Hut just around the corner. Ironically, Radice wasn’t the only person onset to express his disappointment with the film – Lenzi too felt it was one of his lesser works, only a ‘minor film’ – however, his best years were already behind him and this was one of only a few efforts by the director in the 1980′s, all of them being shadows of his former genius.

Ferox is a silly film but it is difficult to have sympathy with anyone finding serious fault with a cannibal film – people get chopped up, animals get a rough deal, we are left with a tacked-on philosophical message – ’twas ever thus and no-one is pretending this is Ben Hur. It is, however, hugely entertaining, perhaps not always for the intended reasons but this is a trivial matter. Ferox is rightly hailed as a milestone in exploitation cinema.

The ‘Banned in 31 Countries’ tagline is an odd one, not least because it is likely to be far higher. The film inevitably suffered at the hands of the censors over the years – the various British release incarnations are listed below, courtesy of the indispensable Melon Farmers website.

Replay first released an uncut version in August 1982. In September 1982 the BBFC unofficially approved an ’18′ video version cut by 6:51s . It was listed as a video nasty in July 1983 and both the cut and uncut versions were successfully prosecuted. The uncut version stayed listed throughout the panic so became a one of the collectable DPP 39′s. However the cut version was eventually removed from the list.

This 18 version pre-cut by 6:51s was submitted to the BBFC in 2000 who insisted on another 6s of cuts for animal cruelty.

Current UK status: Passed 18 with extensive cuts

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

Phantasm: Ravager is a 2014 American horror film directed by David Hartman from a screenplay by himself and director of the first four Phantasm films, Don Coscarelli  It stars Michael Baldwin, Bill Thornbury, Kat Lester and Angus Scrimm. Principal photography has been completed but a release date has yet to be announced.

Press release:

“For the first time in the franchise’s history, a new director is helming the production, one David Hartman. Hartman is a multiple Emmy-nominated animation director, whose work can be seen in such celebrated shows as Transformers Prime and Roughnecks: Starship Troopers. Serious genre fans have long been familiar with Hartman’s edgier output, including two blood-soaked music videos for Rob Zombie (“American Witch,” and “Lords of Salem”), and his illustrations of Steve Niles’ “Strange Cases” for Image Comics.

“I felt it was time to let someone else play with my train set,” noted Coscarelli, who co-wrote the film with Hartman and produced the film under his Silver Sphere banner along with Executive Producer Brad Baruh. “David and I go back to my film Bubba Ho-Tep. He did terrific visual effects on that, and more recently created a wild animated sequence and some amazing visual effects in my most recent film, John Dies at the End. Our aesthetics are in sync and he’s quite an experienced director in his own right,” Coscarelli stated.

“Having worked with Don [Coscarelli] before, and being a huge fan of the entire Phantasm franchise, it was a great honor to do Ravager with him,” says Hartman. “This film is a real turning point in the series. There’s real closure for the core characters that I hope fans will respond to. We were fortunate to shoot amazing new sequences with horror icon Angus Scrimm—he has terrific scenes with Reggie (Bannister) and Mike (Michael Baldwin) that are truly powerful.”

Production on Ravager took place in and around southern California over the past two years. “The Phantasm films have been a guerrilla operation for decades now, totally outside of the studio system,” Coscarelli notes. “We do them for the fans, and I think Ravager will definitely please them. In the past few years several studios have made offers to remake Phantasm with large budgets, but the fans were very vocal that they wanted the original cast to return and finish this iteration of the story with class. And for the first time there’s an extended sequence on the Tall Man’s home world. I know Phantasm fans will be as excited as I am to see it.”

Ravager features Reggie Bannister (a veteran of all five films) in his decades-long pursuit of the malevolent Tall Man, and it finally forces him to confront the mysteries at the heart of the Phantasm saga. The entire original cast is back including Michael Baldwin, Bill Thornbury, Kat Lester and Angus Scrimm, along with some great new characters. Coscarelli allows, “There are also some surprises thrown in that I promise will astonish long-time fans.”

Bunnyman 2 is a low-budget American splatter film. It is writer, editor and director Carl Lindbergh’s sequel to his 2009 Bunnyman film. The film stars David Scott (as Joe), Julianne Dowler, Jennifer June Ross, Marshal Hilton and Joshua Lang (as Bunnyman).

Joe and Bunnyman’s grim torture and murder spree continue in a rural ghost town. Bunnyman indiscriminately slaughters anyone who crosses his path. Meanwhile, Joe is seemingly all too happy to encourage his homicidal behaviour and sells the remains of dead victims as beef jerky in his local store.

However, cracks begin to emerge in the killing couple’s mutually beneficial relationship. As the bodies pile up, including a couple of dozen kids in a school bus, Bunnyman’s uncontrollable body count becomes more problematic. Joe is forced to dispose of yet more bodies, by any means necessary, a problem he exasperates by occasionally joining in on the murderous rampage.

In addition to Joe’s body disposal problem, the local sheriff becomes suspicious due to the inexplicable disappearance of some of his deputies. The cantankerous cop’s investigation crosses paths with two persistent sisters, who persistently refuse to die at the hands of Joe and Bunnyman…

IMDb entry

Teaser [1080p HD]:

Trailer [1080p HD]:

The success of The ABCs of Death has somewhat inevitably spawned a sequel, ABCs of Death 2 - due in 2014 – as was confirmed at Cannes 2013 via the following press release:

“Producers Ant Timpson, Tim League, and the Wagner/Cuban Company’s Magnet Releasing announced today the production of ABCs OF DEATH 2, a high energy sequel to the 2012 anthology hit that delivers 26 new dark tales from the industry’s most celebrated genre directors. Taking all that was great from the first installment, ABCs OF DEATH 2 aims to be a wilder, leaner, faster paced and even more entertaining anthology this time around, with a new crop of award-winning, visionary filmmakers from around the globe.

In a significant departure from the first instalment, ABCs OF DEATH 2 is expanding beyond horror directors. The sequel’s new roster includes Goya Award winner Álex de la Iglesia (THE LAST CIRCUS, DAY OF THE BEAST); ROOM 237 mastermind Rodney Ascher; Academy Award-nominated animator Bill Plympton; Filipino icon – and Director’s Fortnight inductee – Erik Matti (ON THE JOB, MAGIC TEMPLE); and the founder of Nigerian “Nollywood” cinema Lancelot Imasuen.

Additional confirmed filmmakers include Lithuania’s Kristina Buozyte and Bruno Samper (VANISHING WAVES), Japan’s arthouse provocateur Sion Sono (COLD FISH, SUICIDE CLUB), SPLICE and CUBE’s Vincenzo Natali, indie horror icon Larry Fessenden (THE LAST WINTER, HABIT), THE COLLECTION’s Marcus Dunstan, France’s Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo (INSIDE, LIVID), E.L. Katz (director of the SXSW breakout hit CHEAP THRILLS), twin auteurs Jen and Sylvia Soska (AMERICAN MARY, DEAD HOOKER IN A TRUNK), Israel’s Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado (RABIES, BIG BAD WOLVES), A LONELY PLACE TO DIE’s Julian Gilbey, Brazil’s most controversial filmmaker Dennison Ramalho (NINJAS and LOVE FOR MOTHER ONLY), THE LEGEND OF BEAVER DAM and the upcoming STAGEFRIGHT’s Jerome Sable, and animator Robert Morgan – creator of the BAFTA Award nominated short BOBBY YEAH.

Additional filmmaker announcements, as well as the return of the series’ popular 26th Director competition (which allows one exceptional fan-made entry to become part of the finished film), occurred until November 2013. One of the entries was sent to us direct at Horrorpedia 

“The ABCs OF DEATH was a wildly ambitious anthology that connected with genre fans in a big way, and we’re all very excited about the potential for the sequel,” said Magnolia President Eamonn Bowles. “With talented producers Ant and Tim and the incredible roster of directors assembled, we’re confident that ABCs of DEATH 2 will be even better than the first.”

“This time around we’re all determined to expand the concept to even more hyperkinetic, comically deranged and mortally dizzying heights of how someone can shuffle off this mortal coil,” said Producer Ant Timpson.”

Terror is a 1978 British horror film directed by Norman J. Warren from a screenplay by David McGillivray. Producers Les and Moira Young provided the storyline.

It stars John Nolan, Carolyn Courage, James Aubrey, Sarah Keller, Tricia Walsh and Glynis Barber.

Royal ancestors feel the wrath of the curse of the condemned witch Mad Dolly, who spews forth her prophecy while she is burned at the stake. The victims suffer death by having their heads removed in various fashions, getting their limbs caught in animal traps, knife wounds, and other methods of medieval torture.

Wikipedia | IMDb

“McGillivray’s script is efficient and unobtrusive, its sole purpose is to string together the many delightfully exuberant set-pieces. Warren’s direction is assured and all the members of the cast appear to be having a wonderful time. Particularly praiseworthy is the standard of the special effects, which are especially impressive when one considers the tight budget within which the film was concocted.” Harvey Fenton, Ten Years of Terror, FAB Press, 2001

Buy Terror + The Devil’s Men on DVD from Amazon.com

“The lack of practical congruence between the murders and the witch’s curse isn’t just something that becomes evident in retrospect, nor is Anne’s absence of motive any less immediately obvious. Whatever resolution Terror might offer in the end is unmistakably foredoomed to be total bullshit, if indeed it will deign to offer any resolution at all. That being so, the whole midsection is mere wheel-spinning, and McGillivray, the Youngs, and director Norman J. Warren are all powerless to make it seem otherwise.” 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting

“The ending is mind-bogglingly stupid and pointless, the deaths seem to bear no relationship to the initial curse, and there’s even an appearance by a particularly fat and washed-up ex Doctor Who companion, in the portly form of Michael Craze. If you like your horror short, bloody and daft, Terror is for you.” British Horror Films

“It is unfortunate, though, that Warren’s penchant for marking every climax with excited closeups of mangled and maimed throats – a tendency further aggravated in his Inseminoid (1980) – makes this a cheap and nasty movie.” The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Horror (edited by Phil Hardy, 1997)

Trailer:

Deleted Scene One:

Deleted Scene Two:

Undead Pool aka Attack Girls’ Swim Team vs. The Undead (original title: Joshikyôei hanrangun) is a 2007 Japanese erotic comedy horror film directed by Kôji Kawano from a screenplay by Satoshi Owada (Cruel Restaurant). It stars Sasa Handa, Yuria Hidaka, Ayumu Tokitô, Mizuka Arai, Hiromitsu Kiba, Hidetomo Nishida, Sakae Yamazaki, Tôshi Yanagi and Kiyo Yoshizawa.

A laboratory mix-up means that a vaccine is accidentally swapped with a virus causing a high school full of students and teachers to turn into flesh-eating zombies. But all is not lost: New student Aki discovers that the swim team is immune to the plague. With the school rampaged by ravenous monsters, the girls engage in an over-the-top orgy of gory violence to save the day…

Aki, brainwashed and trained (in that order) to become an assassin, is transferred to an all-girl school, just as a virus that turns the young ladies into entrail-twirling zombies has been making the rounds. Everyone – teachers included – are made into gleeful zombies, tearing into necks, chopping off limbs, and decapitating students with metal rulers. Everyone, that is, except the swim team. Turns out the school pool’s chlorine makes them immune to the zomb-virus.

The cartoonish gore is straight grindhouse stuff and is amusingly entertaining. One female teacher uses stringy guts pulled out of a chainsawed stomach to accessorize her fresh-stained wardrobe. The evil scientist turns out to be doubly so, and faces off with Aki in the end, who’s not too happy about that whole “brainwashing through rape” Japanese technique. Aki, without any clothes worth mentioning, has a secret retribution weapon up her, uh, sleeve.

Just so you know, this fine film is in Japanese and the version available does not have sub-titles. As if that’s gonna stop you watching it.

Jeff Gilbert, Drinkin’ & Drive-In

Buy Nihombie! triple-film DVD pack from Amazon.com

Buy Attack Girls’ Swim Team vs. The Undead on DVD from Amazon.com

Wikipedia | IMDb

‘They pledge themselves to be young, stay young… and die young’

The Initiation is a 1984 American slasher film directed by Larry Stewart from a screenplay by Charles Pratt Jr.  The film stars Vera Miles (Psycho; Psycho II), Clu Gulager (From a Whisper to a Scream; Feast), Daphne Zuniga (The Dorm That Dripped Blood; The Fly II), James Read, Marilyn Kagan and Hunter Tylo.

Wikipedia | IMDb

By the time The Initiation appeared in 1984, the slasher boom was over, at least as far as mainstream audiences were concerned. A few years on from the box office success of films like He Knows You’re Alone, Prom Night and Friday the 13th, the genre had been reduced to second division efforts that could nevertheless make a decent profit through video sales – certainly, I seem to remember seeing this film clogging up the shelves of video rentals stores, never quite looking interesting enough to actually rent.

This second wave of Eighties slashers effectively followed the template laid down by those earlier films, cheerfully trotting out what were already clichéd ideas with their fairly formulaic storylines, and The Initiation is no different. For much of this film, it feels like watching a slasher film constructed by numbers, from the opening synth drone on the soundtrack onwards. A childhood trauma leading to later retribution? Check. Horny teens you look about thirty? Check. An unseen killer? Check. Gratuitous shower scenes? Check. Yet the film does try to offer a little more – not much, but there’s an attempt to add some genuine mystery to the story (though the experienced horror viewer will quickly spot the heavy-handed pop psychology clues) and it at least has a few decent performances, some impressively gory deaths and the odd witty line of dialogue – which is more than we can say for the likes of Girls Nite Out.

Kelly Fairchild (Daphne Zuniga) is one a four sorority pledges undergoing initiation to join Delta Ro Kai house (and please, let sororities and frat houses remain a strictly American phenomena – bad enough we have prom nights in the UK now), involving the girls breaking into what is referred to as her father’s department store – though in fact it’s that popular Eighties horror location the shopping mall. Kelly is plagued with nightmares involving her stabbing her father and a man on fire – and it soon turns out, thanks to hypno therapy from boyfriend and psychologist Peter (James Read), that these are in fact repressed memory. Soon, the past starts to catch up with Kelly as her friends fall victim to a mysterious killer in the empty mall. But who might it be? The escaped looney with unconvincing burn make-up on his face? Or perhaps the schizophrenic Kelly? As I said, anyone who has seen more than a handful of horror movies will probably see the final revelation a mile away.

Of course, for many viewers, much of the fun in a film like this is its immediate familiarity. Characters shouting out for friends to ‘stop fooling around’, false jump scares and a selection of grisly murders are grist to the mill for genre enthusiasts, and I’ll admit that under the right circumstances, The Initiation is probably something of a guilty pleasure. It has spectacularly gratuitous nudity, a couple of unexpectedly graphic killings, a terrible band performing at an unconvincing teen party and a couple of old hands – Vera Miles and Clu Gulager – slumming it… and for many people that’s probably more than enough. But it also has characters who are a little more rounded than you’d expect from such basic fare and keeps its ‘teens’ just on the right side of annoying. Not a great film by any stretch of the imagination, but above average for what it is and certainly a welcome, and unexpected release on Arrow Video DVD in the UK.

David Flint – Strange Things Are Happening