Subspecies (1991)

For those of you who don’t know 88 films let me explain really quick. If you are from Europe (like me) it was never easy to buy movies from full moon’s gigantic back catalogue, the reason being that you needed to order from the American website which had expensive international shipping. 88 films noticed that there was a market for that in Europe (and UK specifically) and does not only distribute but also create new cover art (reversible sleeves).

Why do I explain this? Easy, I have right now some subspecies and puppet master dvds released by them lined up for reviews.

First up is Subspecies, a direct to video vampire movie that will be released on Blu-ray and dvd on 18/03/2013. I am reviewing the dvd version of the movie.

• Year of release:1991
• Director: Ted Nicolaou
• Genre: Fantasy, Horror
• IMDB Page

The movie starts with one of the greatest sight ever to behold, Angus Scrimm in a great white wig. Angus (with top billing no less) is a vampire king with two sons. Angus (or king Vladislav if you like) has a bloodstone which we later learn drops the blood of saints and is only for “good” vampires. Radu (Anders Hove) , the evil vampire brother, kills his father to get control of this relic.

We then meet up with three female history students, Mara, Michelle and Lillian. They are specializing in medieval history so they meet up in Romanian (Transylvania of course) to do research about traditions and superstition in the small town of Prejmer.

They meet up with Stefan, the good vampire who helps them to combat Radu, who does not goes down without a fight. There are people turning into vampires, vampires caught in a net, people get staked, a louse sword fight and more of that cinematic gold that one expect from a real vampire movie.

Plotwise there aren’t any big surprises, but it never was planned to have a strong story anyway. The movie does has some other things going for it. First of all this was the first American movie filmed in Romania, and it shows with some very nice, traditional scenery and a lot of locals in background roles. And second it uses a lot of traditional ideas about vampires. Radu’s vampire makeup is a perfect example how a vampire should look. It looks like an updated version of Nosferatu with the long fingernails, creepy but not over the top. They also use local folklore like a dance festival combining with the unearthing the grave of the undead.

The name subspecies is actually for the smallest stars of the films, stop motion monsters made by David Allen and who are actually some sort of minions from Radu. The stop motion might dated now (and probably looked dated back in 1990) but I got a real kick from it. I love stuff like that.

The movie is of course not perfect, but in the words of the director: “Its still camp, but it’s good camp”.

 

The video quality on this dvd is the best looking the film has ever been, but don’t expect any miracles though, you can’t expect perfection from a movie that was made over 20 years ago for a low, straight to video budget. The audio track is just a simple 2.0 that sometimes sounds a bit hollow.

Besides a lot of full moon trailers there is an audio commentary, some cast interviews and the “videozone” included. 

The interview with the cast has some tidbits of information about Subspecies  V.

I can’t compare with the Blu-ray release but if you want a dvd version of Subspecies, this is the version to get. 

Next time, the sequel.

Score: 7/10

Lilian (la virgen pervertida) (1984)

Something else this time, a Jess Franco adult flick (or is it?)

• Year of release: 1984
• Director: Jesus Franco
• Genre: Adult
• IMDB Page

Lilian has the honor to be the first Spanish xxx movie. While Jess Franco was filming this flick Spain changed it porn laws making it legal to shoot a porno. Franco, always the one to seize a sleaze opportunity then decided to just shoot some hardcore porno scenes to include with his already shoot footage making this the first Spanish porno. And if you watch the movie you can definitly tell what scenes where shot afterwards and added back in.  If you take away those scenes their is a well directed movie to be found somewhere underneath.

The movie starts with Antonio Mayans (Robert Foster) finding a naked, passed out girl (Katja Bienert) laying unconscious on the road, after trying to help her, the girl tells here story (all in flashbacks). She was invited to live with a couple (Emilio Linder and the beautiful Lina Romay) in wat seemed like a good deal. Meanwhile though the couple abused all of their "guests" in different ways, a local bar was used as the meeting point for these kinds of people. Doubling as a sort of brothel. I'll save you the details on what kind of acts she had to do. After hearing this Antonio decides to take the law in his own hands and goes out for vengeance.

In the movies defense, Katje Bienert is looking great here, she doesn't do any hardcore scenes (they are def. filmed afterwards) eventhough she is naked for the title scene and the opening scene.

Bienert has also stated that she has no recollection of being in a porno, Jess franco shooted some scenes with here and the way he works is that he just make a movie around that. Of course not paying Bienert or the other actors who appeared in the movie.

It's a typical Jess Frenco movie with lots of surreal scenes, a nice soundtrack and lots of weird closeup shots. I have to say that 10 minutes of close up shot of vagina's and penises was an awkward thing to sit through, but what else to expect from the master of akward close up shots.
I need to mention as well that I fast-forwarded to most of the sex scenes, making this a very short flick to watch.


All in all not a great movie, not as a normal movie and not as a porno. But definitely an imported one!
I'm just glad I've seen another Jess Franco movie of the hundreds that I have left to see.

Score: 3/10

Gut (2012)

• Year of release:2012
• Director: Elias
• Genre: Psychological Horror
• IMDB Page

'Gut' is a Psychological Horror movie directed by Elias, who directed the fairly well-known (for a low budget movie) LovecraCked! The Movie. Gut is screened on film festivals all over the world and is planned to be released Oct 26th in New York and other places.

The movie starts with one guy probably choking somebody but we don't see who. Then the title rolls in and we get to see what happened before. An interesting way to start a movie.

So the story is about two friends, Dan and Tom who are colleagues but also childhood friends who made movies together. To renew their friendship Dan invites Tom over to his place to watch a movie, turns out its a snuff film that Dan received from somewhere.

We see that Tom is disgusted by this, while Dan plays it off as a joke.
Slowly Tom gets more and more depressed with his life, he takes no more interest in his family.
At night all he can think about is the snuff film he saw, daydreaming about it and neglecting love to his wife and kid.

The tape itself shows a naked women getting her stomach cut open and somebody putting his hand in there. Hence the title of the movie.

Dan being the bachelor that he is gets a date with a hot waitress, they go back to his place to make the beast with two backs. Later on Dan receives a new snuff movie, this time it turns out the victim is the waitress he slept with. Obvious this now creates a lot of tension since Dan is freaked out and Tom is suspecting Dan. I will not spoil the ending but it's clear to say that it turns a bit in a whodunnit that keeps you guessing even after the movie has ended.

There is some suspense being created during the movie but it takes a while before it starts working. (read as: the movie starts out slow). Until before the murder everything went along quite boringly, the first half hour could be skipped and you wouldn't really mis a lot.

The acting is pretty good, definitely does not feel like a real low budget thriller, and while I did not really like Dan. I think that's more about how the character was written (not very lickable) than because of the actor.
While 'Gut' can be a drag sometimes, if you manage to ignore that there is a pretty suspenseful thriller underneath.
The music is some sort of eerie electronic vibe that does creates some tension and was a good choice, affordable but a bit haunting.

All in all not the best movie from 2012, but if you like low budget films, give it a try.

Score: 5/10 gutted bellies.

Piranha 3DD (2012)

Here is a new bluray review, this time a sequel to the awesome remake Piranha 3D from 2010. Oh right this time its definitely not spoiler free, I will be rambling on about everything. You have been warned.

• Year of release:2012
• Director: John Gulager
• Genre: Comedy/Horror
• IMDB Page

Well I wanted to see this for a long time. I loved Piranha 3D, while being campy and often stupid it has great action, practical effects an was just plain fun. This did not get released theatrically over here so I had to wait till it came on tv to see it.

The movie opens with a Gary Busy cameo that's pretty pointless, he's just put in there because he is Gary Busy, always looking like he's about to snap and go insane.
So the movie opens with them finding a dead cow in a lake who farts out piranha egg and well that should explain most of the movie. Oh right the cow farts to much and instantly explodes making the eggs hatch? wtf indeed.
So Gary's dead now? Nope, he returns and bites one of these fuckers head off.

The prince of craziness

So what can we learn from this opening? Well that the CGI looks pretty awful again.
After the opening we meet "Chet" (played by the great David Koechner), who inherited a swimming pool and decided the best plan for the future is replacing the swimguards by strippers. No ordinary strippers mind you but "water certified strippers." Oh yeah I almost forgot the adult pool, cause nudity worked so well the first time around we have to have as much as possible in the sequel right?
So basically Chet is just being the dickhead of this movie, especially towards or main character Maddy (Danielle Panabaker) but she's being a party pooper anyways. Luckily their is more nudity to forgot the awful dialogs.

"-what are you thinking about?"
"nothing much."
"-Lets take off all our clothes and go swimming."
That has NEVER happen to me in real life, and I have visited pools before.

Their is another stupid scene where young attractive girl A and boy B are in a truck about to have sex. She handcuffs him and in all the excitement he unlocks the parking brake with his foot? Of course the truck starts moving and they end up in the lake. Guess what happens she can't find the key anymore and they both get eaten. It's just too stupid to work.

Let's not forget that Piranha 3D also had a lot of stupid stuff but it still all seemed to work better then here, maybe the abundance of practical effects had a lot to do with it.

Some more examples of the great, smart dialog
"-What's wrong?"
"You think Ashley is prettier then me?"
"-No i never got into girls with big breasts."
"Aww"
So like I said the CGI isn't very good, but hey beautiful girls in a swimming pool are always fun.
And yeah they are, and yeah its stupid that a "water resort" is dangerous now instead of just a lake, but its not the first time a movie took this plot (I love jaws 3).

At least Crystopher Loyd is back, still awesome to just see the guy doing what he does best. Explaining mumbo jumbo and playing it straight.

Ok so something I haven't mentioned yet, at one point one of the girls a baby piranha swimming IN her vagina, and a while later while she has sex she dies and the piranha bites the guys dick off. No mater how much you are in panic who would cut off their dick instead of just cutting open the Piranha? It does gives us the greatest line in the movie:

Early on its apparent most of it is going to be CGI, but we have some practical effects as well:

The first one is awful, the second screenshot looks a lot more fun doesn't it?

So it took 40 minutes for this guy to appear, but its what we all have been waiting for...
The Hoff in his first scene in the picture. To bad he is seen singing, what are we? Germans?


Their is lots fun stuff here to, I know I am sounding a little harsh but I never got bored while watching this..
For example the black Deputy from the first movie (Ving Rhames) is back (in a wheelchair cause fish ate his legs in the first one) and he has gotten a trauma from the events of the first movie. And yes, just like piranha 3D he steals every scene he is in. He's the best actor in the movie. Also he has gotten metal legs, doubling as a shotgun barrel.

Ah but you might be thinking, how did the piranhas get in the pool? Why did you not explain this yet? Does it really matter? No it doesn't but oh well, since you insist. The pool owner (douche mc douche) decided to pump his own water with an illegal well. And it's good because he isn't pumping from the above ground lake, but from a deep underground lake. Do I need to explain more? So now the movie is about half way done and after some people got eaten in the lake the piranhas finally get to the mass killing.

So thats where we are now. Before it wasn't that bad of a watch, just a bid stupid.
But now the movie turns good. To bad we are 60 minutes in. To bad almost all the killing is with CGI effects, partly ruining what could be an awesome scene. At least now Hasselhoff has a fun part being himself being payed to be a lifeguard. He plays it straight and it just works wonderfully.

Time for another idiot quote:

"-whatever happens I want to tell you I loved you since 7 grade."
"I though you where gay?"

Thats a whole separate level of idiotic script. Also right before our damsel in distress gets eaten by a piranha,  that fish gets eaten by a slightly bigger piranha. Thats just such a stupid thing to try for creating suspense. It's stupid because we never saw them eating each other before, especially when there is a delicious human around to eat.
But oh boy do they try and recreate the success of the previous one. Mix gracious nudity with gore, suspense and lots of campy acting. However it does not fully work. But at least we still got a movie that tries and gives us that, its a lot better then most of the asylum movies with piranhas that are out there anyways. So if you have nothing to do, just turn of your brain and watch this. Oh and watch the credits, at least those are worth your time.


Also note that this was shot in 3D and there are some moments where I wish I saw it in 3D for the camp that it would bring to the table. It might be a bit more fun watching this in 3D.
I give it a
Score: 6 out of 10 blood-soaked titties.

Its much more stupid then the first one, less action and more trying to be as good.

David Hasselhoff and the T&A partly do make it watchable. But don't say I didn't warn you.
I hope Piranha 3DD gets a higher budget again.

I'm gonna leave you with what you all came here to see, your new wallpaper of David Hasselhof:

Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies (2012)

Oh wow, a review, after all these years? Whats gotten into me? don't fear, after all this time I was thinking about doing another review, just everything when I wanted to do so something got in my way. I WILL be back to reviewing for this blog again but with a new twist. No more pack reviews but rather just random movies again (which was what this blog became anyways).
If you want to read reviews for something else then movies be sure to visit progressive violence.

But enough of me rambling, onto the review:

• Year of release:2012
• Director: Richard Schenkman
• Genre: Horror
• IMDB Page

What we have here today is a movie called Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies, truly a fanfic come to life. Obviously it's another asylum 'mockbuster' that takes its inspiration from big releases, this time the disaster that was Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

The movie starts with a young Abe Lincoln watching his mother becoming a zombie and his father committing suicide to get spared that same fate.
Abe, being the ass-kicker that he is decapitates his mother and sets the tone for the rest of the movie.

Click the pictures for full size.

Later in life the president leads a team of soldiers to get rid of a zombie menace that has broken out in a fort. Along the way he meets a young Teddy Roosevelt, an old love interest and some more useless no plot people.

First the good parts, there is a one-liner in this flick that in all honesty needed to be in this movie, if Lincoln after decapitating a zombie, shouting out "Emancipate this!" doesn't get a chuckle out of you I'm afraid you're better off never watching anything asylum ever.
The actor who plays Abe needs to be mentioned, Bill Oberst Jr, who you will know from euhm, lots of movies nobody saw, looks like the real deal. He's doing a terrific job playing the president. During non zombie scenes you can believe you are watching a real drama instead of an asylum knockoff.

The movie gets a bonus point for its ending. A nice surprise that almost redeems itself (but not really). Because there are lots of bad parts. All the non fighting parts are quite
boring, and sometimes the glued on beards can feel a bit too fake at times.

There is a scene in the end where one guy just walks through gangs of zombies without really getting attacked. He can just push them to the sides without trouble. How boring can you make these zombies? There is never real tension, the non zombie scenes are boring and the zombie scenes themselves are more ofter not then well.

Also if you have zombies already as the enemy, do you really need another subplot with people from the south getting in quarrels with lincons gang and whatnot.
And I understand trying to get this movie to feel like oldie times with a low budget, but does everything needs to be in sepia?

This would have been great as a musical.

But everything being said and done, its still one of the better asylum movies, it can stand on its own, has an awesome lead actor and has a nice catchphrase. And lets be fair if you are going to watch Lincoln fighting mystical creatures this year it better be this one. Its the better one, but thats not saying much. It's also the most enjoyable asylum movie that I have seen in a while, but again not really saying much. Give it a chance if you want to.

 Let's go mister Black (yes that's his real name).

Score: 5/10

 
Buy from amazon.com: Abraham Lincoln vs Zombies [Blu-ray]
Emancipate this!

Top 5 "exploitation" movies that I have seen of 2010

5) Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl
They say a picture sais more then a thousand words, so here you go:
Not convinced yet? What if I told you that the director is Yoshihiro Nishimura?
I thought so.

4) Rampage
An uwe boll movie that isn't a terrible movie. Definitely the biggest surprise of 2010.


3) Rubber
No this is not a PSA for safe sex, its a strange french horror comedy that had me loughing out load several times during some of the weirdest moments I have seen on film.
More an arthouse comedy then a real exploitation picture, but I still like to put it in the list (it is my list after all). Seen this on a filmfestival, and glad I did cause it doesn't get shown a lot around here.


2) Piranha 3D
Christopher Lloyd singlehandedly makes this a must watch movie. Besides him there is blood, guts, nudity, humor and lovely winks to the other piranha/killer shark movies. This movie is not for everyone. If you don't like gore, naked women or killer animal movies, you're best bet is to stay away.

1) Machete
I loved this false trailer that was shown for Grindhouse. I was heavily expecting the movie when I first heart about the news. Especially since they got everyone from the trailer to play their part.
The movie itself turned out to be a little les action oriented than the first trailer, but it is still a must see, giving new popularity to grindhouse flix.

Top 5 worst movies of 2010

Note: I haven't seen all movies released this year, only movies that where released over here in 2010 count.
5) Zot van A. (2010)
There are a few romantic comedies that I like, this is not one of them. It's not funny, has a predictable plot and some of the more weaker acting I have seen in a big budget movie.
I'm sure there were worse romantic comedies out this year, but lucky I wasn't forced to watch those.

4) Tekken (2010)
A video game movie is almost never good news, and the same holds true for this crappy action movie. Didn't have high hopes for it so it wasn't a real disappointment.
On a positive note it is still better then Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li released in 2009.

3) The Other Guys (2010)
Will Ferrell how low have you sunk. This movie is a comedy with one little problem, it's not funny. It would have worked if they removed the beginning and middle part and changed it into something good. Then only the ending would have sucked.

2) Get Lamp (2010)
I like text adventures games, so it would be normal to assume that a documentary about text adventures games would be an interesting watch for me, but you would be wrong. This movie is aimed at nobody but the maker himself. I can't find a single redeeming feature in this documentary, they hardly even mention the games. This is just a boring movie, especially if you like to be entertained.

1) 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams (2010)
I like the original movie by Gordon lewis, I kinda enjoyed the remake for what it's worth. I hate the sequels to the remake. It diminishes the other movies, it doesn't make sense, and it just a big, stinking pile of crap. This time the cannibal village is on the road with a circus show. Murdering some stereotypes. Sure there are some good gory scenes, but they are not really enjoyable this time around.

Runner-ups:
Data Night, Frozen, Despicable Me.