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Cannibal ferox (1981)
Not worth the controversy and not a great movie.
I had heard a lot about this apparent 'shocker' and was very curious as the U.K DVD was actually cut by 7 minutes 6 seconds!!! So I tracked the U.S uncut DVD down to view and was not to impressed. I expected a really gory really good piece of film and it had 'apparantly' been banned in 31 countries so I was wetting myself when I got the uncut DVD and expected a masterpiece....but I was wrong! So about the film.....
Just because you say you're banned in 31 countries doesn't make it so. I decided that it was time to cut through the hype on this movie and fired up the DVD player as soon as this gem arrived in the mail. This was released back in the early 80s here in the United States as Make Them Die Slowly and achieved something of a reputation for being a vile piece of trash and is not that vile but it is a piece of trash but not perhaps for the reasons many believe. There's this girl who goes down to the Amazon with her brother and her best friend so that she can find proof that cannibalism never has occurred and is in fact just a cruel myth. How do you prove a negative? Let's say she goes down there and doesn't see any cannibalism. What does that prove? Only that on that particular day at that particular time she didn't see any. They get there and drive around and their jeep gets wrecked so they have to hitchhike through cannibal country. The movie also periodically shifts back to New York City where some drug deal has gone bad and everyone is looking for Mike Logan (have you tried the Amazon?). Mike Logan is some goof who runs drugs with a buddy of his and they're hanging out in the Amazon looking to steal emeralds from the natives. The three hikers run into Mike and his buddy who has been wounded by the natives. Mike spins some bogus tale about how they were attacked by the natives for no good reason. Then they all go back to the village. This is where the logic of this film completely turns to crap. The only thing Mike would see from me after telling his story is my ass-end heading in the opposite direction of that village! But our three young people think that taking a little R&R in this village would be just grand. They get there and the old people in the village just give them dirty looks and they all wonder why and wonder where all the young villagers have gone (don't worry they'll be back!). Then Mike's pal begins to die and spills his guts (figuratively, he literally does it in a little bit) about what really went down. It turns out that Mike is a psycho who gets all jacked up on coke and does some crazy stuff. He wants emeralds from the natives, but they don't have any so Mike ties one up to a stake to see if can't jog this dude's memory. Then Mike gets a little out of control. He cuts this guy, digs his eye out with his knife and then castrates him (oh, and we call that, "the first castration scene"). Then he leaves him there to die. Natives are unamused. The warriors back from the jungle and they seem a bit put out about Mike's enthusiastic questioning of their fellow native. So Mike and the three of them are taken prisoner. Mike is tied to a stake and he gets castrated. Then the cauterize it so he doesn't die (now that was considerate). Then they get taken down the river for some reason and the anthropologist's brother decides to make a break for it. He gets a spike in the leg and then runs into the water nearby. He gets munched on for awhile then stumbles out of the water and begs the warriors for help. They respond by shooting him with a poison dart and he buys it. Overall, there's probably about 6 or 7 gore scenes that mostly take place after the 50 minute mark in the move. The rest is just bad acting, terrible dubbing, and worse music. This movie is not worth its controversy now a film like cannibal holocaust is and is excellent at the same time!!!
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Bloodeaters (1980)
A typical low budget student movie
Forest of Fear (U.K title) made its way on to the British list of infamous video nasties. GOD KNOWS WHY!!! To top that it is still banned in the U.K today. There is nothing disturbing about this movie, it is so unbelievably low budget, cheap gore, crap acting and an incoherent plot.... but I loved it!!! Anyway the story......
The film opens (blown up to 35mm from 16mm by the way) with two men stalking through the woods. They open fire on a woman washing by a makeshift camp, shooting her in the throat. Suddenly the men are attacked and killed by a group of hippies.
It turns out that the two men were Federal Officers (rather trigger happy ones at that) and the hippies are marijuana growers (unusually ruthless ones compared to how Weed cultivating hippies are normally portrayed) who have come to pick their illegal crop. Not hearing from the two Federal Officers their boss, with help from a young John '"Martin" Amplas, orders the whole area secretly sprayed with a new Herbicide to kill off the crop. And if the hippies get in the way, well that's just their hard luck.
Sure enough the hippies are caught in the spraying and become contaminated. Soon after they start feeling sick and start slavering after meat before turning homicidal!
Meanwhile Forest ranger Tom Cole (played by Director Charles McCrann) takes his Wife, Polly (Beverly Shapiro) and his half Brother on a fishing trip into the woods, unaware that the toxic hippies, with grey faces, sunken eyes and unsightly welts, are stumbling around in classic Zombie fashion butchering anyone they bump into. Oh, and doing a lot of gurgling
.
Charles McCrann has been a busy boy here. He directs, writes, stars, edits and produces! And given this is his first (and only) film it has to be said he does a pretty good job on all fronts. And as McCrann was murdered during the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre, it's nice to be able to say that he left behind a good, solid little horror film that hopefully will live on as an example of what can be achieved with little resources but a lot of effort and passion.
McCrann gets things off to a good start with the ever essential to the plot 'soaping up some breasts' scene. From then on the action moves at a reasonable pace as the various separate parties all have fateful meetings. Very few scenes drag and the ones that do (like a rather peculiar 'nature break' so a young girl and her backward Brother, who are camping with their parents, can grin at some frogs) are thankfully over before causing any real strain on the viewers patience. McCrann spins the sub plots well and very little here does not work. Though one scene where our heroes are trying to escape in their car, but abandon it simply because of one flat tyre, does seem very silly and contrived
I for one, if I was fleeing for my life from a pack of killer hippies, would have driven that sucker on all four rims if it came to it!
Music wise the film is very hit and miss. An effective pseudo-"Halloween" ditty plays other the titles, but from then one it's pretty much a mixture of empty background music and dodgy light comedy cues.
The acting is very up and down, but McCrann does a perfectly acceptable job and everyone else is at least taking the whole thing seriously and delivering the lines with conviction and the hippies all stumble around and gurgle in a totally professional manner. John Amplas (despite what you may read in some reviews) only really appears at the end and is not one of the rabid weed growers. But he does okay in his tiny role. But it is sad to see him, 3 years after his wonderful lead performance in George A Romero's excellent "Martin", relegated to such a lowly support role in such a tiny film.
Tom and Polly come across as likable and devoted to each other (though some of their romantic high jinx, accompanied by comedy flute music, could have been trimmed down), and make for leads that you genuinely care about. The highlight as far as characters go though is the alcoholic crop duster and his nagging Wife. Their less than loving relationship is delightfully summed up when, after he breathes in the Herbicide, the contaminated pilot (all sickly skin and black hollowed eye sockets) stumbles towards her only to be greeted with the following caring words; "By the look of your face I'd say your liver finally gave out"!
The make up by Craig Harris does the job nicely and he who gives us some cheap but effective 'contaminated hippie' FX. Harris went on to have a varied career indeed. Including the FX on that other 'Nasty' "The Boogeyman", playing on the score to Carpenter's "The Thing" and doing sound effects/editing on such movies as "Braveheart", "Back to the Future" and "The Princess Bride".
The gore on display is the most inconsistent part of the film. There are a few choice scenes of cheap 'n' cheesy mayhem (a spurting arm stump after a hand chopping, a knife in the eye, a pretty violent head bashing, a nice blood drooling throat bite and some messy bloodletting at the end) but very often the film cuts away to only show us some slightly bloodied bodies later on, or simply makes do with some blood splashed on the ground to stand in for any actual on screen death. There is certainly little here to warrant it's banning, and it is a far cry indeed from such extreme fare as "The Beast in Heat" and "Cannibal Holocaust" with whom it shared purgatory with.
Rosso sangue (1981)
OK film, should be re-issued!
It is uncertain if Absurd actually is a sequel to Anthropophagus the beast. Many sites will say 'supposed' sequel because there are so many different counters. In Anthropophagus the beast, the Antropophagus beast is is a monster, it does not look like a normal person but in absurd he is just a normal man. Also the Anthropophagus beast is a cannibal but in absurd the killer just seems to murder his victims. Also he was left dead on a Greek island and he turns up in Absurd suddenly in normal clothes and in the U.S. There is no recalls whatsoever from the first movie the priest who is chasing him just says he is a killing machine. The killer in Absurd looks a bit like the beast from Anthropophagus due to the moustache but that is it! Another similarity is it is made by the same directer from Antropophagus the beast. Anaway the story.....
The killer (it MITE be the Anthropophagus beast) is injured on a fence at a family home while trying to brake in. He is taken to the hospital where the doctor operating on him is shocked at his ability to recreate dead cells and dead tissue. A police officer (forgot his name) finds a Greek man who is walking out in the middle of the night in the middle of the road. Later on the policeman is at the hospital and finds the Greek man there. The officer puts the two together and starts asking questions (as the killer also comes from Greece, another similarity from Anthropophagus) about who he is and what he is trying to do. It turns out he is a priest and is here to stop the killer. Meanwhile, the killer awakens, kills a nurse by drilling a whole slowly through her brain, and then pops off for a killing spree. In the meantime people are cooked, heads chopped off, hacksaws through skulls and people are strangled and beaten. This movie would easily make an uncut 18 certificate (appealing to UK readers who films like this are always cut or banned) and is on the list of infamous Video Naties. It has never been re-issued but was released on VHS with an X certificate and is now extremely hard to get hold of.
Read more of my reviews on other horrors and video nasties!!!
Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)
New line had to do it!
OK, let me sum up this film in two words, Bloody Crap! I am a big fan of the F13 series and was disappointed by this failure of the film. I liked the F13, loved part 2+3, could have married the final chapter, thought 5 was o.k, 6 was brilliant then 7+8 not to good. But this is the Halloween III and the Freddy's dead of the F13 series. What really bugged me is final's are suppose to be a important chapter. Freddys dead was appalling and so was Jason goes to hell. It opens with an o.k scene (note Jason looks pathetic in the bits he is in, he looks like a bloody mushroom) were Jason is chasing a woman through the woods. But what he didn't know was that she was really an FBI agent who was leading him into a trap. They blow Jason to pieces which I thought was a little odd. Then one of the stupidest scene in cinematic history occurs. A man is doing an autopsy on Jason and picks up his heart and shoves it into his mouth. mmmm, as much as the heart looked tasty I doubt anyone would suddenly start eating it. So he shoves Jason's heart into his mouth and gets possessed. What the f**K! So Jason jumps from person to person like out of the body snatchers, and kills characters that are not even built up. But there's more, Jason's sister comes out of nowhere (ripping off Halloween). Right remember in F13 when Pamela Voorhees say 'Jason, my ONLY child. Right, she is definitely younger than Jason. Is it me or did Mrs.Voorhees have no f*****g head, so it is not likely she could have another child. There's far too much slow motion in this movie and as I said already Jason looks like a demented mushroom with long hair. You only see Jason right at the beginning and right at the end. No matter how much you want to see this movie just pass it and go to Jason X which is alright. This film ruined F13th series for me and it will for you to. I expected this s**t from a bum of a directer like Adam Marcus or whatever his name is, but Sean S. Cunningham, I'm disgusted with you!
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
pure crap
Crap I have took it upon myself to change the name of this film from season of the witch, to the crapping of the crap. Should be burned Generation of children are going to laugh at how rubbish this film was I actually fell asleep while watching this film. Do not see this film Rated R for rubbish. If you have not seen this film yet than I advise you not to. I mean it does not even contain Michael myers, how can you have a Halloween film without Michael myers. Are people crazy. I cant actually believe that anyone likes this film it makes me angry how crap it was. Resserection wasn't even this bad. Okay I've put my opinion forward.
Halloween: Resurrection (2002)
What happened here???
Okay, it is better than season of the witch, but I would say only slightly. People who cant sleep you no longer have to count sheep you just have to pop Halloween resserection in the DVD player. Halloween is easily one of the best slasher movies ever made. I liked the second too, but the third I hated and I was so angry because I thought Halloween was ruined. When I watched 4 I was happy again, but this one has put me back in that place of pure disappointment. Hopefully the one coming next year will be better. When they bring the new one out, they better make it the last one. Micheal myers should be remembered as a legend, not a dork. Happy Halloween (not this one!)