Horror All Nighter

A group of us decided it was a good idea to stay up all night watching horror films. Here's a video of the carnage:

Blood Feast

The notorious video nasties list enforced on the U.K during the 1980’s, supplied horror fans the world over with a collection of must see titles. I’ve recently been working my way through the list, watching movies I wouldn’t have heard of if not for all the unnecessary fuss made about them. As expected, some of these films are atrocious and occasionally challenge the threshold of my trash tolerance and endurance levels. In these instances, the banned list may have retrospectively prevented 90 minutes worth of wasted life, however some of them are very good, and would have achieved greater success if not for the overprotective, domineering silliness demanded by the powers that be. But whichever way you look at it, these films are now highly sought after, and have been immortalized by the very people who tried to keep them from us.

           

Blood Feast, a film directed and co-written by Hershell Gordon Lewis, is commonly known as the grandfather of slasher films. Lewis is widely seen as the first director brave enough to effectively exploit gore, subsequently creating a new cinematic genre in the process. His innovation caused all kinds of controversy within the industry and unwelcome head aches for movie censors, but without Blood Feast, the slasher genre and many others closely related, would not exist.

Before making horror films, the team of Lewis and writer David F. Friedman, produced a series of harmless soft core pornography films. Titles such as The Prime Time, Living Venus and B-O-I-N-G amongst others, became stylistically known as nudie-cutie pictures. After moving on from this genre and into the horror he became known for, Lewis was still quite clearly fixated on the idea of including voluptuous female actors/models in his pictures. Unfortunately, these female roles generally attempted to disguise their lack of acting ability with more makeup and shinier hair, but whilst that might work in a brothel, it didn’t effectively translate to the screen. This idea of placing beautiful semi nude women in grotesque gore fuelled situations, sprouted the term gornography, which I think is hilarious.

In 1963 when this movie was released, character deaths within cinema were very tame. Maybe a trickle of blood would run from the mouth of the victim, or maybe even a hand clasped tightly against a gunshot wounded chest. Herschell Gordon Lewis set out to change that.

Like many directors of horror, Lewis built his films around death and mutilation scenes. These stomach turning images synonymous with Lewis’s pictures, are dwelled on for painstakingly long amounts of time, and just when you think its all over, we see it again. Close ups of organs being ripped out of bodies, heads being cracked open like coconuts spilling brain all over the floor. Then we’d maybe have a different camera angle of the same action, followed by another, and another, and then the first shot repeated but in slow motion. These vicious scenes go on and on, which was in itself an innovation of the time, for no longer would the visual trickle of blood be an acceptable representation of death……. within the horror genre at least. If at any point an audience of these movies couldn’t help but turn away from their screen in disgust, or gag, or wretch, or turn pale from what they had seen, Lewis had achieved what he set out to do.

Blood Feast cannot be overlooked because of its importance within the horror genre, but my one criticism is that of the cast, as most of them were not actors. Used as a means of saving money, or because they looked nice, dialogue between actors not familiar with the art of acting, can sometimes be a bit brutal to watch. But on the other hand, the bad acting and unrealistically beautiful women, somehow adds to the charm of these pictures, and without these potentially negative characteristics, these films may not have emanated that certain unusual air we have become familiar with.

The storyline is strange, focusing on a madman called Faud Ramses who is obsessed with Egyptian rituals and sacrificial ceremonies. In order for Ishtar the Egyptian goddess of blood to be resurrected, Ramses has to acquire certain body parts and organs from young women, and prepare them for a ceremonial blood feast. He also has to sacrifice a young woman at the same time as presenting the finished meal; it’s a bit weird.

I thought a lot of the special effects were quite convincing and very graphic, although the local butcher’s leftovers were quite obviously put into good use during the making of this film. The scene in which a young lady has her tongue pulled out has been executed very effectively, but on closer inspection, I did notice her real tongue discreetly pushing the red gelatin out of her mouth. It worked though; not many horror films can make me feel squeamish but this one somehow managed it. Even though I’m fully aware that the offal and animal organs used do not belong to the victims in the film, the idea of them originating from a living being has a different effect on me.

Blood Feast is a good film but not Lewis’s best work by any means. I’d recommend watching 2,000 Maniacs before this one, just to ease you in.

7/10

The Dungeon aka Dr. Jekyll's Dungeon of Death

The Dungeon,  also known as Dr. Jekyll's Dungeon of Death  directed by James Wood, was originally released in 1979 via video distribution company Magnum Entertainment.

This very unusual film, which comically combines martial arts and horror, is surprisingly very entertaining. James Mathers, who plays the grandson of the original Dr. Jekyll, delivers the role of a mad scientist very convincingly with his at times, unexplainable performance. His acting skills won me over; I genuinely thought that James Mathers was a nutter, especially when in one scene he attacked an ice bucket without reason screaming “Ice, Ice, Ice” as if he was a macabre version of Vanilla Ice. Or when he pathetically fondles his heavily sedated female prisoner Julia, begging her to love him with almost contradictory cartoon puppy dog eyes.

The plot is schizophrenically influenced by two varieties of late seventies popular culture, which makes it really weird. Dr. Jekyll creates a super steroid aggression serum using his grandfather’s research, he then injects the drug into the necks of various no hope serial killers and prison volunteers, before observing the cock fight. Jekyll will blame a victory on years of suppressed aggression if the fighter is of African heritage, or lack of opportunity in a male dominated world if the winner is female.

There is no obvious reason or justification within the dialogue to explain why these experiments are being carried out; there is no sense of progression within the narrative at all. Jekyll has his mentor’s daughter tied up in his bedroom and molests her whilst her father is in the next room visiting for her funeral. Jekyll’s sister touches herself up when anything violent happens, but this may be due to the fact that she has been lobotomized for some reason. It’s like Hammer House of Horror meeting Karate Kid, but they have a chat and a cup of tea and get on really well….. and then the film ends without a satisfying resolution and without any martial arts experts squaring off against any mad scientists.

The film was good because it was bad, because it didn’t really make much sense and because James Mathers is a nutcase.    

            These templates are getting progressively harder to read.

            Stevraa:

            Sam:

            Lee:

  

            

            Tom:

A Blade in the Dark

I managed to gather up a crowd of five for the Slasher Horror premier of Nostril Picker, unfortunately the new DVD player at Dave Short’s house looked as if it cost about £10 and couldn’t read the disc properly. Luckily, I’d brought another Vipco horror along (with secret hopes of watching both) in the form of A Blade in the Dark. I had heard good things about this film and was quite confident it wouldn’t disappoint, or destroy any of the less toughened horror viewers in attendance. Everything was looking great up until that first bit of dialogue intended as an insult.

“Female, female, you are a female”

Being a big fan of giallo, I’ve heard a lot of poor dubs in my time but this one was off the charts. Not only were the voice overs shockingly bad but the translations seemed to be word for word which sounded ridiculous in English.

The plot was interesting (apart from the shit ending) and the cinematography was really attractive but on this occasion, I couldn’t see past the dubs. I was feeling self conscious, worried everyone hated the film I had dragged them out to watch; it ruined it for me.

I printed off some more horror templates for yesterdays viewing. I have scanned them in but some of the handwriting is barely legible so click on the image for a close up.

      Here’s mine and a ridiculous picture:

       Here's Sam's, he didn't write too much but made up for it with his artwork:

        Here's Hattie's angry review:

 

 

       SP's sountrack loving write up (left).  Tom didn't really write anything but a picture can speak a thousand words (right).

     

           

Planets Horror

Here are some horror influenced songs I recorded a few years ago with a band called The Planets. Please excuse the heavily compressed YouTubed audio.

Evil Dead: A song dedicated to one of the greatest films of all time Evil Dead. We released this as a single and made about £50. 

Slasher Horror: When we were told that Sony Playstation were interested in including us on the soundtrack to a game called Motorstorm 2 – Pacific Rift, we really didn’t think they’d pick this one. This song was sent to Canada to be edited, remixed and mastered before appearing on a soundtrack with the likes of Megadeth, Nirvana and Queens of the Stone Age. This is the pre mastered, pre tampered with version.  

Death Trap / Eaten Alive

Death Trap is a story about a mental scythe stabbing killer called Judd, his son Buck who likes to fuck, a crocodile, and some prostitutes.

Judd owns a dirty run down hotel called the Starlight, as well as an imported African crocodile who lives in a swamp facing. This man is an absolute nut case who constantly regurgitates nonsense to himself about “not needing eyes to see” and all kinds of fictitious facts regarding his beloved crocodile. Whenever Judd feels threatened or is put in an uneasy situation, he gets out his scythe and proceeds to slice his problem up, before feeding it to his crocodile. He strangely seems remorseful upon the realization of what has occurred, but in the next instance is as giddy as a child at the mere sight of someone close to death.

In my opinion, Judd has lost his marbles through loneliness and not having anyone to talk to who would listen, which is probably why he confides in his crocodile. But he does love to do drugs and seems a lot more mental and stab happy when he does them. ………………. I reckon he’s just a lunatic and doesn’t need analyzing.

The film is visually beautiful. The combination of unconventional lighting, abstract colour and way too much fog, creates a very unique and unexpected setting for this kind of film. The dialogue is few and far between with Hooper concentrating more on creating a chaotic collage of noise through use of country radio, screaming, mental ramblings and avant-garde synthesized composition to good effect.

The film is fantastic and shouldn’t be compared to Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Psycho, because it is a different film entirely.

7.5/10        

Sam sketched out a quick illustration of Judd and the love for his crocodile: 

Welcome to Nilbog

I recently watched a fantastic documentary celebrating the infamously bad Troll 2.  The aptly named Best Worst Movie, has been directed by the former child star of the film, Michael Stephenson.

The film tells a story of an ever expanding community of loyal, purist, B-Movie fanatics, who live for the poorly acted and badly executed. Stephenson re-establishes contact with the majority of the original cast and asks them to give their own personal, and heavily varied memories of the filming process.

This documentary showed me that I’m not on my own, and that there other people in the world who take great pleasure in watching really bad films. It inspired me enough to dig out my DVD copy of Troll 2  and share its wonder and superlative visual cruelty with two horror colleagues; Sam Clayton and Stefan Pope.

Sam Clayton:

:

Stefan Pope:

Both Sam and Stefan really enjoyed the film for its lovability and laughable shitness. Stefan even convinced himself at one point that the film was actually a comedy not meant to be taken seriously, I’m sure director Claudio Fragasso would have something to say about that. Anyway, Sam volunteered to illustrate his own interpretation of his Troll 2  experience, so here it is: 

 

Stefan is a fantastic writer and will be writing a review of Troll 2  within the week, so keep watching this post.

The Werewolf and the Yeti

The Werewolf and the Yeti

Not being able to find a DVD print of this rare video nasty, I was forced to spend a small fortune on an original VHS pre certification copy; I wish I hadn’t.

            A group of explorers led by a man called Waldermere, scour the Himalayas in search for a yeti. The plot instantly gets boring and meanders around aimlessly, very slowly progressing towards the next point of interest. Poor dubs and unnecessary filling scenes don’t help the film’s flow and distract attention spans.

After losing his way and becoming separated from the party, Waldermere discovers a cave which he uses for shelter and refuge. The cave hosts two sexy bitches that somehow have sex with Waldemere simultaneously in his sleep. Flustered and confused after waking up, he explores the cave only to find the two sexy half naked nymphos munching on a human arm; turns out these cum hungry vixens are also cannibals. Then they turn him into a werewolf, he kills a few people and is reunited with his girlfriend.

Realizing he has to put a stop to his werewolf dream, he seeks the advice of a monk……….. and I can’t remember how he gets involved in the plot. Turns out the only way to reverse the werewolf curse, is to find a magic plant from the highest point of the mountain, mix its petals with the blood of his girlfriend, and eat the result.

Whilst all this is going on, Waldermar’s girlfriend’s father and some other bitch, have been captured by someone who looks like a cross between “Aladdin” and “Tong Po” from the Jean Claude Van Damn classic Kickboxer. Word gets out that Waldamere the werewolf and his girlfriend are heading in the same direction, so then they get captured too.

The villain and his gang are the only obstacles preventing a gruesome showdown between werewolf and yeti. Because that’s what the film is about isn’t it? I’ve had enough of fuckin evil Aladdin and his weird back sores, let’s get to the point, let’s get to the reasons why this film was banned and remains banned. These capture/torture scenes are tiresome, and if it wasn’t for the occasional teasing of breast, I would have fast forwarded them.

Thanks to a special werewolf knife given to Waldermere’s girlfriend by the monk, the remaining party are able to escape the wrath of spazzy Aladdin.

Whilst trying to find the petals of a magic plant, they find the fuckin yeti………..but the spectacular battle I’d been hoping for doesn’t materialize, instead we are presented with a pathetic two minute showdown that made me ask myself the question. What am I doing with my life? Werewolf kills yeti, werewolf is cured, credits roll.

Overall, pretty shittty Spanish Monster film 3/10

This has obviously been put on the banned list because no one should have to waste 90 minutes of their life in such a demoralizing manner; this film could quite easily pass 15.

Introduction to Geekdom

Hello and welcome to a blog entirely dedicated all genres of horror cinema. This blog will include reviews, music and video celebrating the genre.

            About six months ago, me and a small group of horror enthusiasts took it upon ourselves to penetrate the swollen gash of the horror genre, viewing the beautiful best and dirty worst available to us. It is safe to say we raped it wrist deep, thoroughly exploring all sub genres known to us including giallo, Japanese, Korean, lovecraftian, dark fantasy and plain old nasty slasher flicks.

Our initial idea was to watch a film as a group whilst answering various questions presented to us on a template. We managed this for two giallo films before time constraints concerning work and bitch related arrangements forced the sessions to become too difficult to conduct. Certain members of the group lost interest assuming all films within the genre were shit and not worth wasting their time on, and so our collective became smaller. The two films we managed to enjoy/endure as a group were The Frightened Woman (which is more of a suspense thriller than a horror) and Watch Me When I Kill (which is more a stale shit than anything else). The completed templates have unfortunately since been lost but I’ve included it below so you can a feel for what we were writing.  

(These were originally in nice boxed columns but copy and paste argued with them)

Horror Club Member:

Title

Year

Director

Nationality

Genre

Budget

Format

Please state your favourite:

Line

Insult

Actor

Character

Scene

Kill (if applicable)

Killers Name / Characteristics / Trademarks

Please describe briefly:

Kill 1

Kill 2

Kill 3

Kill 4

Kill 5

Did you like the film?

Did you lose interest?

Did you fall asleep or leave?

How many times did you complain?

Were you at any point hoping the film would end?

Out of Ten

Plot

Acting

SFX

Makeup

Cinematography

Fright Factor

Overall Rating

Summary:

Watch Me When I Kill destroyed a lot of enthusiasm within the group, but I’d already started to become obsessed with giallo, sneakily watching more and more without them. I loved The Frightened Woman and so I decided to write a song about it using the completed templates as a guide to the lyrical content. Here it is with backing from my old band:

Ill post a review tomorrow!