Houseboat Horror (1989) - Horror Slasher

Houseboat Horror (1989) - This Australian artifact from the eighties is a straight up copied from every slasher that came before is a romp in the Outback aboard houseboats. The film starts with some movie crew people driving to a lake so that they and others can meet up for a job filming a rock video. There is some playful dialog and the pick up of a hitchhiker. Her purpose is to be the first victim of the killer after getting the ride. She walks through the woods to her boyfriends camp to find him dead and then for the first time of many we see the killers feet and lower legs. The scene means nothing to the movie since the premise of why the killer is doing what he is doing is not yet known and why the poor camper and his slow running girlfriend are the first to die is a mystery. She runs from the killer who walks after her and amazingly keeps up until he captures and kills her. It really is a remarkable feat. It is like he is on a walking sidewalk while she is running in place. The killing are just to get to the credits and the wonderfully bad music. An opening scene like this in this type of film is to set up that it is a slasher film, but we learn later that the motivation for the slashers killing really has nothing to do with the first kills. It is strictly a trope to set up the film before showing the opening credits.What we get next is a bit of a mess with a whole lot of characters being introduced, or at least shown on screen while we get a bit of the story for why they are there. There is a "rock" video that is going to be shot by this large group so we have all the people in the cast to get this done. The manager and musicians, a couple models to dance in the video, costume and makeup people, hangers on, executive and girlfriend, camera crew, so many in fact you can't really get to know any of them. They all gather up and take four houseboats and several other craft out on the lake to the site they plan to shoot the video. Oh and don't worry you will not get the pleasure of missing the music video. On the way to this though we get the a bit of story about the tragedy of the last video shoot on Lake Infinity. A couple years before a poor kid was burned very badly by a callous movie crew, it was a horrible event. What made it worse was the murder of the movie crew after the accident. Then this film throws in a high musician who for no reason spouts the following "if ??? blada??? was in he would have said exactly what I said. The Theory of Relativity, the theory of forms, the continium concept, Aldus Huxley is The Partridge Family, pan dimensional." Can someone please explain why this is in this movie.I understand why the grumpy guy in the car was reading Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In the late eighties that book was all the rage, I, the Soresport, read it myself. I was hoping for a tie in, in the film. You see the story is about King Arthur and his nights feasting and they are rudely interrupted by the Green Knight, who challenges the King to a contest, Arthur can strike him one blow and in a years time the Knight gets to return the favor. As an honorable servant Gawain volunteers to strike the blow in the Kings place as it would be expected. He does and lops the head off the Green Knight, whose headless body retrieves his head and he says to Gawain to seek him out in one year for the return blow. The story continues as Gawain gets to the house of the night, his morals are challenged repeatedly while he stays at the Green Knights castle and he reasonably stays honorable, but the final evening he is offered a way to live but in taking it it will be known that he has been dishonorable. Fearing for his life he chooses dishonor only to be spared by the Green Knight to live with his shame. This seemed like a great story to build the slasher around but unfortunately writer Ollie Martin and Director Kendal Flanagan were not going to do that.Instead we get the straight up story in which the killer is quickly revealed through close up of his scarred hand to be the burnt person from a couple years before. He hates film crews now and is ready to rip through our cast. The cast is too large for the film so there are plenty of POV shots as the killer stocks crew members. A hatchet to the head here, a stabbing there it is all part of the long drawn out couple days on the lake. Finally when the survivors start running into bodies the pace picks up. Our killer stalks a couple while they search the nearby abandon farm, his farm with his crazy sister in fact, in this is one of the more creative kills of the movie. The killer who has weapons all over the freaking place kills one guy and then since he apparently used that very effective weapon up, takes a horseshoe to stab through the eyes of the next kill. In fact it seemed every time the killer needed a weapon it magically appeared. He find a harpoon gun just laying in the open on the houseboat. Then wanting to kill the guy on a skidoo he finds a pipe laying in the boat and hurls it perfectly through the guy. There is a nice effect where he slices a guys head in two, for 1989 I though it was pretty good. Still the whole exercise was way on the nose and the music really exactly what you would expect from the time period and the slasher genre.There were some things that were amusing, besides the clothes that is. The giant cell phones or as one character called it "The walk about phone thing." I liked the attempt at showing nudity as a trope of this kind of film, but unfortunately like most other things the makers did it really was second rate. Then there is this scene where the killer while looking into a fire flashes back to his incident of burning, later in the final scenes he is lit on fire by the survivors and what do you know, they used the exact same footage. I also learned what is worse than the douche who brings a guitar to a party, a guy who brings his drum. The ending does have a final girl but because the film started with so many characters and none were particularly flush out; there was not a real sense of urgency in seeing her survive. We hardly knew her so when she gets to the final scene who cares if she is the last. Actually she is not the last either, there were a few characters that go off to town on the second night and miss all the killing. When they arrive back they are invited back to the abandoned farm by the killers crazy sister. Just too many people in the end to really make it work.
Rating (3.8) 5.0 and up are recommended.

La Brecha - The Devil's Clock (2006) Horror

La Brecha - The Devil's Clock (2006) - Following along the lines of the last review Farmhouse is La Brecha, a ultra low budget production from Mexico where a quartet of 20 somethings who get lost on the way to the ocean and end up in a quiet village that is not quite what is seems. This particular picture is so off the map that it currently does not even show up on the greatest collection place for movie information, IMDB. In fact finding out production information for this film was a bit difficult pretty much the DVD cover or if you see it through Netflix (mail) will you have any real information. The beginning of the film shows a family running through a green filtered forest, so it must be night. The little girl of the family keeps falling and eventually the parents leave her behind. A creature grabs her and crushes her head, but if you think you are going to see gore think again, this is such a low budget venture that a quick flash and everything is gone. It is the next day and the father from the group is seen walking in the hot Mexican sun with bloody hands. He attempts to flag a car down but it runs him over. This is the set up for the film, but unfortunately it is not the set up for the film. In fact it has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the movie all it is for is to introduce the idea of a pursuing creature that in the scene you only see.
After this start we meet our couples Joselo (Antonio Aguirre) and Karina (Anna Cepinska), and Mariana (Suzet Villalobos) and Daniel (Victor Hernandez). They are heading off together to go to the ocean for a weekend. They unfortunately get lost and end up tired and irritated with each other, so decide to stop in a small pueblo for the night. To their surprise the place seems totally deserted, except for one strange guy named Nicolas (Alejandro Camacho). There is a cool little effect that is used by director Jose Carlos Gutierrez to give the impression that he is of supernatural origin. He tells them of the legend of the curse town clock. It is always stuck at 12 o'clock but if the time changes it is telling the time when someone will die. It all has to do with the clock maker's suicide but really it is just a plot device to have a story to tell. Really all this movie is, is this really bad premise. There seems to be no character development other than revealing bad behavior of three of the four character with Mariana really not being a bad person.
Writers Jose Carlos Gutierrez and Josue Hermes do a somewhat poor job not thinking through his concept before getting to shooting. I am naming them writers even though information on this film is sketchy so I apologize if I get anything wrong. Sure the characters have their flaws and have done questionable things. Joselo and Daniel are actually going to the beach not just for a vacation but because they have stolen money together and want to be away from the heat of their crime. Daniel and Karina have been having sexual relations since Christmas even though Daniel is with Mariana and Karina is with Joselo. Poor Mariana seems to get the lousy end of the deal as she sees Daniel as the love of her life.
Eventually our character see the clock change times and then each has a turn dying or getting sick or being to tired to get out of bed, it is all not so clear, finally though the last character talks with Nicolas and we learn that this village is not so different than the farmhouse in the film Farmhouse. It is less than satisfying and the whole experience is probably better off avoided. The experience of watching this film of course.
Notes on actors: Alejandro Camacho seems to be a hard working actor in Mexican television and is currently on the television series Para Volver a Amar, of the actors in the film he seem the most skilled and it is probably not surprising the oldest.
Anna Cepinska is probably more famous for being a Miss Venezuela and Miss World before doing a spread she did in the Venezuelan version of Playboy magazine in April 2008 than for anything else. So in this end this is just not a passable film, not enough is done although it is not without value.
Rating (3.1) 5.0 and up are recommended in the Zombiegrrlz system Skip It!

Farmhouse(2008) - Horror Torture

Farmhouse (2008) - What writer Daniel Coughlin and director George Bessudo are trying to do in this low budget horror flick from the Alliance Group Entertainment group is difficult to pull off. They are trying through flashback to slowly reveal who are main characters are, how they got to this point and then give a big twist to the current story in the film. What is difficult is that the current story of the couple who drive off a country road when the husband Chad (William Lee Scott) falls asleep. Find a farmhouse with a seemingly kind couple and then find themselves in a nightmare fighting for their lives, makes the slow reveals out of place to the current life or death story at the farmhouse. Combine this with needing to hold back certain information for the big twist at the end and you have a choppy story that does not quite work.
The early scenes before getting to the farm are all the background you need to know why Scarlett (Jamie Anne Allman) and her husband Chad are on the road. They have recently lost a child and that Chad is a timid cowardly ass wipe with a gambling problem, actually the gambling is over and there is a paying off the bookie problem. They head out on the road and the writer had a ridiculous need for Scarlett to point out a 20 hour drive is not a good thing is high lighted by Chad falling asleep and the car hitting a phone box (Steven Weber) because they made a point to tell us it was a phone box) and crashing into a ditch.
The two of course have no cell service and have to walk a ways off through the grape vines to a farmhouse in the distance. When Samael (suddenly appears behind the couple only not 10 minutes into the movie I wrote in my notes "Supernatural?". This because at the farmhouse they get to see pictures of a whole bunch of other couples hanging on the wall. It is a give away that the farmers Samael and Lilith are not what they seem. Then there is the fact that his name which he repronouces for the couple as not Samuel but Sam 'A' el is the name of a biblical archangel who in the Jewish tradition is the seducer, accuser and destroyer, there was reason to believe that our writer Coughlin wanted us to figure it out. By then naming the deaf farmhand Alal (Nick Heyman) I think it is sort of Angel name sounding but who knows. Certainly Samael's wife Lilith was named for the cliche evil woman name in so many films. She is played by the beautiful hard working actress Kelly Hu in a wonderfully sinister performance.
In fact I had no real issues with the acting, Jamie Anne Allman is properly cardboard which was appropriate for a character forcing down the hard life experiences of her life. A person fighting to get through a stage in her life that sucks. William Lee Scott had me wanting to punch him in the face through the television, his impotent and pathetic approach to his situation was spot on. Steven Weber with a sinister sparkly behind his eye was just great going between jovial host to psychotic tormentor in a split second.
What really hurt this movie was the structure, at the farm after Chad accidentally(?) sees Samael banging Lil through their ajar door things go from a helping hand to a stranded couple to a robust torture sessions and attempted escape scenes. The tension of the events is well paced but each time things rev up we cut to another flashback that is just boring filler for our two victims and how they got to this point. It is a real mood killer and just ruins what could have been a great fight for survival.
There are three main torture scenes the drowning one which has such a predictable pathetically unoriginal outcome that this reviewer thought about turning the film off and skipping this review. That feeling was also present when Samael used torturing Alal as a way to get Scarlett to come out of hiding. It was very much predictable and too cliche for anyone who regularly watches horror films. The third bit between Scarlett and Lilith was wonderful gruesome in sound and sight.
Everytime there was some good though it was squashed by the damn flashbacks. Not that some of the information in the scenes were not essential for the big twist in the end. The problem is they were slow and informational and that information was enough for the viewer to figure out the twist before it is announced in the film. This is so fucking frustrating we want to be surprised not lead to solve the mystery ourselves to only then have our guess confirmed. Damn you Daniel Coughlin!
Okay calm down there Soresport... Writing a script is difficult, and you couldn't do it better. Give the poor guy credit and don't get too disappointed when it isn't perfect.
No! No! I instead say to Coughlin what Samael says in his toast to our couple (victims) "May the worst day from your past be the best day of your future."
Closing out let me say that the twist about Scarlett I figured out ahead of time. The escape I expected and the big twist at the end, saw it coming! The last scenes seemed straight off the Syfy channel with effect so silly looking that it ruined the ending. I blame director George Bessudo for that oversite or even the productions company. So no this film will not be recommended.
Rating (3.5) 5.0 and up are recommended, In the Zombiegrrlz system Skip It!

Babysitter Wanted (2008) - Horror Satanic

Babysitter Wanted (2008) - Lets start by saying I thought this film was decent but there were a few things that leave that nagging feeling it could have been better. The pre-credits scene showing the tied up girl with markings on her like you would see on a pig showing the different cuts of meat really blew a lot of what could have been revelation in this film. Instead of letting the audience grow to learn what is to come for characters we get this, then we are suppose to anticipate that fate coming back to the main character. Afraid though it should have been left unsaid and then when we saw it for the first time it would have more impact. That opening scene in which the music was a big driver was disappointing too much mood music and too much reveal all for a tone setting scene that really is not necessary and probably works against the film making everything that happened in that scene have to be explained later in a monologue that then too seems out of place.
The very first scene in the protagonists home we establish that the main character Angie Albright (Sarah Thompson) is a very good girl, she and her mother kneel in front of the home alter praying for her safety as she prepares to head off to school. Community College is such a scary place and she the good Christian girl meets her druggie roommate to set her out of place, to make the character uncomfortable and to establish she is not a girl of means and will have to find some kind of work to make this whole college thing happen. It also gives her a reason to meet her love interest in the film, Rick (Matt Dallas) who scares her by accident while she is on the payphone outside calling home to pretend everything is alright. I guess all that praying and good girl stuff goes out the window when you want to not have your Mom worry so you lie to her. Kids today! The fact that both of these actors are way past their college years is not so strange in Hollywood where often the teens in teen movies are late into their twenties. Here though they are in the early thirties playing 18 and 19 there is something not really right about that. Sarah Thompson I remember as Eve on the television show Angel how she ended up in this role must be a story. Not that she is not young looking but she is like 32 years old.
When she takes a number from the babysitter wanted sign on the school billboard there is a strange scarred guy (Monty Bane)watching her from the distance, we know this because besides seeing him the music gets very menacing queuing us that we should worry for poor Angie. In fact the music by Kurt Oldman is one of the larger problems with this film, it is too overstated, more like you would get on a video game to create mood than on a film where is should be an accompaniment. I got the feeling that Kurt didn't trust the film he was seeing to have the tension and shock it needed so he created a score to compensate for it. Unfortunately it is so over bearing at times, often giving away the action or creating its own moments instead of trusting the film that it was a distraction. It is also a dark movie, meaning the lighting is purposefully set low, it ads to the mood I suppose but make sure you watch this on a large decent quality television to really be able to see what is going on.
Angie is followed by scarred guy for a good deal of time while she heads out to the isolated farm to meet the Stanton Family, Jim Stanton (Bruce Thomas) doing his best Bruce Campbell, its strange I said it out loud and then on researching the actor I see that he played in Army of Darkness as one of the mini Ash characters. He was a fine enough actor but I kept thinking of the Bruce Campbell whenever he was on the screen. Violet Stanton (Kristin Dalton) and son Sam (Kai Caster) who always wears that cute little cowboy outfit and does not say much. They seem like a nice enough family and Angie takes the babysitting job. Thus the setup is done and the film actually starts and we learn that all the religious crap from the beginning actually plays a role in the outcome although a tangential one. Violet shows Angie that little Sam is on a special diet so if he wants a snack it should come from the marked containers. Since we were bludgeoned by the opening scene we can guess what the special diet is can't we? So is the point since we know and Angie doesn't that it should create a negative feeling in us, or anticipation that OOH Boy when she find out she is going to be appalled. No because when she finds out she is watching a young woman being quartered and sliced and diced and that trumps the feeling she may have had about Sam's dietary uniqueness.
The recap on the Netflix envelope gives away the part of the movie plot as the night of baby sitting goes horribly wrong. The scarred guy plays "When a Stranger Calls" and eventually gets into the house. This part of the film Angie does a lot of things right, she has been in contact with her boyfriend and he is on the way. She has been in touch with the police and the chief is coming out to have a look around. She just is too far out there in farm country for them to arrive in time to help with the scarred guy. When Angie gets the drop on him she quickly discovers that her nightmare has just begun. Paraphrasing but that is the idea and what takes place. I don't know what the message of this film is other than hey be careful taking baby sitting jobs they can be at the devils house and then all kinds of bad shit can happen. People aren't who they seem to be and the story ramps up big time with some gruesome violence and a less than satisfying ending. Overall this film sort of works although this viewer would prefer the much better and slow burn "House of the Devil" these kind of opinions though are really about style preferences, this one could be just what you are looking for. There are some plot points in that I am not sharing here, so that anyone who wishes to see this won't have it spoiled by me. It has more action and gore and really if you are a lazy viewer the music will tell you every emotion that is required for each scene, you really won't have to decide for yourself if you are scared. Its that what we all really want?
Rating (4.9) So close! in the Zombiegrrlz system Rent it! but be warned.

The Thing (2011) - Quick Hit

The Thing (2011) - A Quick hit is really an initial impression here at Soresport Movies. We went as a family to this one at the request of my 19 year old daughter who is on break from college. I was not really planning on seeing this in theaters but now I can say I am glad I did. The film is basically a combination of tip of the hat to the original The Thing from Another World (1951) and the later The Thing (1982) in which it share its name and a good deal of its visual style. The original captures idea (used in this) of a group of researchers in the Arctic ( in this case Antarctic) , who discover a spacecraft in the ice. Encased is a creature that they bring back to their labs to study in a block of ice. They then have to struggle with the creature when it gets free. This part of the story is also used in this latest story. It is a nice ode to the original idea and appreciated by this viewer. The second film starring Kurt Russell and made by John Carpenter builds on the idea with the creature being able to assimilate anyone it comes in contact with. It can hide as anyone and wants very badly to get out of the isolation of the pole and into a warmer more populated place. Carpenters film is an excellent horror Science fiction film with great special effects. The current The Thing steals a good deal from the Carpenter version. Of course a lot has changed since 1982 and the special effects are much more compelling grotesque and beautiful in this new version. Although not a perfect film this one has some good things going for it.
The latest film takes place just prior chronologically from the 1982 movie, in that film a dog comes running across the snow with a helicopter in pursuit. That dog of course carried the creature but what happened at that other outpost. It is the theme of the latest version. The main character Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is brought onto the mission by the prestigious Dr. Sander Halvorson (Urlich Thomsen) who does a fine job selling his importants and he dominant position in their relationship. At first intimidated we get to see Kate change from wary underling to competent badass when things hit the fan. This dynamic of the film seemed well thought out and occured naturally enough within the plot conditions of the film to make it believable. I also liked that they did not give Kate a love interest, or a man who would save the day for her. She took some very harsh conditions and events and executed a gameplan of her own devising and maybe came out a winner in the end.

As for the base she eventually leaves behind, well if you saw the first scene from the 1982 versions you know enough about the outcome there. I know when I saw this with the family my daughter was very excited to see if Kurt Russell would make an appearance at the end. You can go check this entertaining science fiction movie out to get the answer.

Rating (6.6) 5.0 and up are recommended in the Zombiegrrlz system GO and See It!

Emanuelle in Bangkok (1976) - Sleaze Adult

Emanuelle in Bangkok (1976) - Joe D'Amato has a long trail of adult sleaze, porn and genre films to his credit. The Italian director worked from his first credit (according to IMDB) "Sollazzevoli storie di mogli gaudenti e mariti penitenti - Decameron nº 69 (1972)" until his death in 1999 with his last credit being Amore & Psiche which came out after his death in 2000. He was prolific with 199 credits to his name as a directo. I encountered him first with some really bad horror films but since have seen quite a few of his less wholesome entries. These films really do fit into one of the focuses of this blog, I attempt to cover many of the things I could not see as a teen in the 1970s and there was that time inthe decade when sleaze and adult films were running in mainstream theaters across the country. The Emanuelle series of films were a stolen idea D'Amato exploited throughout the 70s and early eighties. The idea from a series of french films with a similar name were erotic sex adventures, basically he changed Emmanuelle to Emanuelle and created his on stories with different actors but for sure was taking advantage of the success of the originals. Emanuelle in Bangkok is the first in the series. It stars the beautiful Javan actress Laura Gemser as a photo journalist who also is experimenting with free love. Really the entire edifice is to find ways for Gemser to take her clothes off onscreen. In this film she and sometimes boyfriend Roberto (Gabriele Tinti) are talking about attraction in a restaurant He notices how the men look at her and she how the women look at him. Then bang! right to a sex scene between the two, with no time wasted. The sex scenes are the soft core variety with a bit of frontal nudity on Gemser's part. There is rolling around kissing and the implied oral sex, but nothing too shocking. There is a ridiculous sex theme music that plays every time there is a love making scene where the participants are mutually consenting. It is clear from the conversations Emanuelle and Roberto, that he has stronger feeling for her than she for him. She is not quite ready to settle for one man and he is forced to reluctantly agree that they are going to split for a while. D'Amato show a casualness to sex with multiple partners that was prevalent in the time period, although I thought it was a fading idea by 1976.
Emanuelle travels to Thailand to be the guest of Prince Sanit (Ivan Rassimov) with the hope that he can get her in to visit with the king. He is the most miscast person in the film, an obviously very white man playing a Thai prince. They explain this away by saying that the Thai royal family has been so prolific through the years that everyone in the country can claim some kind of connection to the king. When she arrives at the hotel before meeting with him there is the classic difference between sleaze and non sleaze films. Where in a traditional film when a person wants to take a shower after their travel they generally get to the undressing and you see the dress drop to the floor and the lower legs of the actress. In this film Gemser just strips in front of the camera and the scene cuts after showing her nude, it doesn't really matter if she showered or not what was important was the nudity. It also emphasizes her attitude towards nudity, when she sees the house boy drawing her a bath she doesn't wait for the young man to leave but just takes her clothes off without shame.
Now we could continue to rehash the plot in detail but that really is not the point of the film. Instead lets give a quick synopsis and talk about the themes presented as a way to show nudity. At its heart that is what this film is all about. Emanuelle is propositioned by the Prince Sanit after she tried to bribe him. He suggests they get to know each other better instead of bribes but she is not biting. A bit odd that this one guy is not a turn on for her. There is a strange guy in army fatigues watching her as she goes sight seeing.
She has sex with the female masseuse Gee (Koike Mahoco). She has sex with the house boy at the hotel. She meets Roberto and his friend the obnoxious Americans Jimmy (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart) and Frances (Ely Galleani) and they go on a montage of Thailand's cultural offerings including kickboxing, cockfighting and a strip club where a dancer does a wax and fire show and another does a ping pong ball routine. Emanuelle excited by the show gives knowing glances not at Roberto but at Frances. All of them go back to Prince Sanit's house and smoke opium have sex changing partners through the drug fogged night. I think and I am no expert that much is being made of Emanuelle's inclination to be attracted to women. She is intimate with both Gee and Frances but she is a multi partner person who is not securing any one relationship in her life. She is free to engage in sex with whomever, as Prince Sanit put it she has a unique ability to experience sex in a pure form.
This is going to come in handy in the next couple days when Sanit disappears and Emanuelle is trapped in the empty house by the strange guy and his buddies. When I say disappeared I mean furniture and everything. There are reasons explained later about the Princes relationship with the king. This does not help Emanuelle though; They surround her and then gang rape her. It is a weird decision by director D'Amato in that the filming is them ripping her clothes off and each climbing on top of her in turn but they never take out their cocks. It is like each is taking a turn dry humping her. The princes words echo in her head and she stops struggling and by doing so seems to enjoy the sex and gain the confidence of the assailants. This is so fucking bizarre I can't really wrap my head around it. Really it is just so easy to release from the horror of a gang dry humping? The scene does not fit with the rest of the film where all the sex is respectful and consensual. I think D'Amato was trying to show Emanuelle as a different kind of free sexual spirit who can accept any form of physical interaction, but I think he fails with this sad display. This is just a start in her troubles though...her passport has been stolen from her room...wait! Here I am again giving the nuts and bolts, not what should be going on. Lets stick to romance and sex here, Emanuelle has sex with the airport security guy to get out of the country and to Roberto in Casa Blanca. She has sex with Roberto and his new girlfriend Janet. She and Janet have sex with a group of Arabs (not shown) that was amazing in its stereotyping of a people. She falls in love with Debbie (Debra Berger), the immature but attractive daughter of the US consul. Then Roberto with Debbie watching from the door but refusing to join. Each time there is the theme music by Nico Fidenco overwhelming the tame visuals. Emanuelle opens from a woman who is into free love but after exploring intimacy with women and men together finds herself in love with Debbie and says goodbye to Roberto, I am sure in 1976 very few people went into this film looking for this journey and for them you can see from the above they got lots of nudity and simulated sex. Poor Roberto has a sad tale, he loves Emanuelle and would like them to be together but also likes having other women involved. He not only loses Emanuelle but also his rebound girl Janet, she is never the same after she and Emanuelle spend the night having sex with the eight arabs, I am not trying to be racists just calling them "the arabs" but seriously that is the presented stereotype. She comes back and breaks off her engagement to Roberto.
Debbie grows up a bit through her relationship with Emanuelle and although they too part, setting up the next film by freeing Emanuelle to go States bound in Emanuelle in America. The secondary track for this film is to show musical sightseeing montages in between the sex and nudity. These scenes are of the cultures and city streets of where ever Emanuelle is, Thailand, the middle east an archeological dig each place is explored with silly over the top music and the actors smiling, looking at things and showing interest in their surroundings.
Rating (4.5) 5.0 and up are recommended in the Zombiegrrlz system Skip it!

Insidious (2010) Horror Ghost

Insidious (2010) - Director James Wan and writer Leigh Whannell bring this creepy not quite what you expected ghost story to the screen with mixed results. Wan the director of Saw (2004) and Dead Silence (2007) knows how to create tension in this kind of film and has some very effective bits. It is a story of a family The Lamberts who move into a house that seems haunted. Like all good haunted house stories they establish the haunting a bit at a time. It is obvious they have just moved in from the unpacked boxes. Then there is the kid, one of two young boys in the family named Dalton (Ty Simpkins) comes down to say he does not like his room. Its tough moving into a new house and the little kid is still unsure. This is the kind of start you would expect, except that pre-credit sequence started with frightening music as the camera flows through the house to the creepy faced ghost bride holding the camera. During the credits also it is very clear through the music that this will attempt to be a hair raiser. Now most haunted house stories start this way with The Amityville Horror standing out in my mind, they start with the location, the house and we spend some time with Renai Lambert (Rose Byrne) as she walks around the place. Side note: Who has a furnace in their attic, why is there a furnace that goes on in the attic? Of course the Amityville horror does not work as a example because it opens with a murder in the house and soon after the family moves in there is a scene where the priest is driven out by flies and the voice saying "Get Out!" This film by no means is so over the top. Although in the Amityville Horror there is the kid coming to the parents and saying she wants to go home even though the family are in the new house. Similarly An American Haunting (2005) starts big with an action packed scene of a teenage girl being chased by unseen forces, a terrifying dream, then the film quiets down to build up the ghost story a bit at a time.
So where have we seen the trope of the haunted house before? Well Recently there was The Others (2001),The Grudge (2004), Paranormal Activity (2007) all do the incremental haunting well. This film will take a different twist on the haunting. After its building of the creepy haunted house motif it shifts gears. A bit too fast and without enough setup. That shift is surprisingly against the norm for a haunted house film and welcomed. The bits leading up to it are great though, the false scare in the attic when Dalton falls from the ladder. Creepy sounds while everyone sleeps, and when Dalton does not wake up in the morning the panic of father Josh (Patrick Wilson) is well done. Dalton is in a coma for unknown reasons and the family brings him home to care for him in the long term. Three months has past and the doctors do not have any answers. We have to assume that nothing strange went on in the house while he was gone. When he gets back though boy the weird starts, voices over the baby monitor, faces behind curtains, horror angles of shooting low and from above. The film does a nice job having the haunting stuff primarily effect and isolate Renai, she sees the majority of the oddities. It is this reviewers wish that the scary would have been more frequent prior to the switch over to solving the problem. This also puts the focus away from Josh who plays a much larger part later.
The film gets us thinking that the problem is that Dalton is haunted and then Josh's Mom (Barbara Hershey) comes into the picture. She is the true believer with friends who believe also. I don't want to give away the twist her which makes it hard to describe the plot. A team of helpers similar to the all too famous Poltigeist (1982) arrive and we move towards the inevitable seance scene. I believe this is where the film starts to come apart, moving away from the established plot we head in a new direction and learn new information about Josh that turns the film on its side. The scares are still great because something has to happen to change the Skeptical Josh into enough of a desparate character that he will participate in the final solution.
The final third of the film really didn't work. It is a dreamscape that Josh must navigate because he also has the ability just like his son to enter the "Further", which is the most ridiculous name for limbo that I have heard. Like Orpheus entering hades for a chance to bring his wife back or like Rose Da Silva running around Silent Hill he has to go find his son.
The scary in the Further is freaky and strange with two kinds of beings, ghost who want to get back into this world and the more sinister demons that want in so they can cause everyone harm. The main demon in this film is a Lipstick demon who is all black in skin tone and smears red lipstick all over his face making him look like a lanky Darth Maul. I have to admit that the film started losing me when the psychic Elise Ranier (Lin Shaye) told us about the Further, then when they reveal the information about Josh I was like "okay, whats next", then when he goes looking for his boy and has to confront Darth Maul every is a bit over the top. "Josh follow my voice, follow my voice honey." Fuck that shit. Did the whole neighborhood see the house shaking? Oh the stupidity of those final scenes. When watching this with my daughter I looked over at the end of the final sequence and said. You know this ain't over something came back with him. That way we can all look forward to the sequel. So although there is a fair amount here that can be considered in a favorable light there is also so much more that is suspect. Although this team are correct in thinking there were many films in the horror genre that approached there plot twist but there are a few. Basket Case (1982) broaches the subject, Awake (2007) sort of touches the edges of it. Flatliners (1990) also in a way. This is certainly the best but I am not sure in the end they sold the premise. At least as not as well as Poltigeist did. A final note, whether it was a product placement or just an actors choice to do something while in a scene, Wilson putting skin cream around his eyes was so lame. Really we are now going to have guys skin care products really? So worried about those crows feet that ya gotta slather on some magic cream? Geeze Dude Man Up we all age.
Rating (5.6) 5.0 and up are recommended in the Zombiegrrlz system I would RENT IT!

A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell (1990) - Quick Hit

A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell (1990) - This is a "quick hit" review on a very bad film. To start let me say I love the Troma Studios and some of the movies they have spewed upon the earth. Being a big fan of the Toxic Avenger, I appreciate Troma and its leader Lloyd Kaufman and past stars like Tiffany Shepis and Debbie Rochon. Unfortunately this is not one of the better films. It was ruined mostly by the limited plot. The film written and directed by Brett Piper, has Lea (Linda Corwin) possibly the last woman on the planet fighting for survival in a crazy world of claymation creatures who want to eat her and caveman bad guys with mutant friends who want to mate with her. It is a post apocalyptic world where humans are again very primitive and the creatures large and fierce. At its heart the plot is a love story between Lea and Marn (Paul Guzzi) a hunter with a heart. Getting in there way is the skull headdress wearing bad guy Clon (Alex Pirnie) who repeatedly catches the young nymphoid and eventually gets her back to his lair. He has the help of mutants called the Reptilian Goons ( on IMDB not in the film) they are his army of four or five strong and help thwart Marns attempts to save Lea. The problem is this is the entire plot, it does little develops not a character and really is just poor. There is barely any dialog so it is Lea wandering about, getting captured, getting away, and captured again. Mixed in are fights between the goons and Marn and Clon over her. Then there is the hilarious claymation effects of the dinosaur like creatures that fight each other and every now and again eat a cast member. It does follow a structure and there is a final battle where Marn and Lea reunited and escape.
Rating (1.1) 5.0 and up are recommended, in the Zombiegrrlz system Skip It!

The Last Exorcism (2010) - Horror Exorcism

The Last Exorcism (2010) - You have to like an exorcism film where the people going to deal with the possession are sure that it is a hoax. In this film we have sort of the anti exorcism film. Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian) is a born and bred preacher, his father was a preacher and he became one as a child. In the years that have past since childhood though he has lost his faith. An illness to his wife challenged him and he decided medicine and not prayer was the answer to her problem. I guess both was not an option in his mind and he chose to follow the doctor. This crisis of faith though was not the end of his career though. He recognized that a good show can do more to help people than all the answered prayers in heaven. So Cotton still traveled out into the would performing rituals to heal the true believers. He sees it as bring comfort to them, sure he might be faking when the spirit enters him, sure his sleight of hand tricks might be dishonest but he does not question the results. The people he does this for are comforted and isn't that doing good works? No more he wants the film crew to expose exorcism for what it is, a scam. Sure it appears that the writhing target of the ritual is possessed but Cotton does not see it as a demon. He does not believe in demons, instead it is a disturbed person going through the motions of possession instead of facing the truth of their life.
So when a film maker Iris (Iris Bahr) and cameraman want to follow Cotton around and film him doing an exorcism he is all for it. He shares his attitudes about it and randomly picks one of the many letters from his batch mail to visit. Off they drive to some foreign country where Gods drive in the passenger seat and the church is the focal point of community life. Where whenever anything goes wrong it is the devil's doing and when things go well you are blessed by God; Rural America as it is also known. On the way to the exorcism they stop and talk to some of the fine folks in the area and hear stories of belief in demons and cults in the hills. Cotton is somewhat mocking of those they encounter.
They arrive at the farm of Louis Sweetzer (Louis Herthum) and his family, son Caleb (Caleb Landry Jones) and daughter Nell (Ashley Bell), they are a sad family who have been living in isolation since the death of Louis's wife. He has really withdrawn seeing the world as too dangerous a place. He is so afraid of losing his children like he did his wife that they never go anywhere and he feels abandoned by God. His son is angry and shows that anger right away when he runs into the arriving camera crew. Nell is disturbed and Louis thinks she is possessed by a demon. As proof he says that the cross burns her on touch and Cotton points out to us that a nickle allergy could have that effect. Cotton will test the girl and does so with a trick that makes it appear that when he puts her feet in water and prays over her that the water boils. It is just a reaction to something he slipped into the water.
Expectations for this film is that at this point he will start an exorcism and as he goes through the motions his non-faith will be tested as Cotton sees and hears things that he can not explain away. It will be time to make the nonbeliever a believer and in so doing he will find his lost faith and save the day. Well this movie is not trying to meet our expectations so that is not where it goes. Instead he does his fake exorcism with smoke and mirrors and tells the family to get out more the demon is gone and the crew heads back to their hotel for the night.
This of course can't be the end of it and they are drawn back into the family when Nell arrives in the hotel room. How did she even know where they were staying? It's four miles from the farm, How did she even get there? Her behavior leads them to take her to the hospital and get her some psychiatric help. Since the father thinks this is a demon and the exorcism did not work he will get her none of that kind of help. Enlisting the help of the local preacher seems to be a dead end when Cotton tries it.
Since the only way to follow this story is to follow the ever recording camera crew and Cotton they have to make it back to the farm and Nell. Again you think that everything will lead the now reinforced notion of non-demonic problems back to the Supernatural but again the movie goes the other way. It shows things that could be construed as supernatural but every time you get close to thinking it is the script calls for something to pull you back. It is saying don't believe, hey look at this weird thing, don't believe so that when they get to the twist ending you are like, but "You said don't believe, WTF!" Unfortunately it falls a bit flat at this point and the entire belief in the ending hinges on one little line in an interview earlier in the movie. On top of it we get the somewhat Blair Witch Project ending and the movie feels a bit disappointing.
Overall though I think this movie is a recommend, the acting is good and the physical acting by Ashley Bell is exceptional, even though the 25 year old actress does not really look a passable 16 year old. Although the ending throws a wrench in it the story is reasonable and interesting.
Rating (5.5) 5.0 and up are recommended in the Zombiegrrlz system I would say RENT IT!

Strip Nude for Your Killer (1975)

Strip Nude for Your Killer (1975) - Nude per l'assassino, Sometimes a film is way too on the nose and that is the basic problem with this killer movie. I would call it a Giallo but in that genre there is a mystery around the plot, there is no mystery at all in this one. The opening scene is a woman, Patrizia (Solvi Stubing) who appears to be receiving an abortion on a table with a doctor in attendance. Since he is all alone you get the sense that this is not an official visit but more of the back alley kind of abortion. When things go wrong and the girl dies of heart failure the doctor instead of reporting it calls Carlo and the two move the body to her apartment to be found and rules a home death. This is the incident that sets the killer off. How do you know? Well in the very next scene we watch the doctor as he drives home, when he arrives a killer in a leather motorcycle outfit and helmet runs up to him and stabs him to death. Like I said it is a bit on the nose. So really the story is not going to be about why the people in the film are being offed but more by who. The killer is completely covered head to foot so an identity can not be made. They are slight in build and can possibly be a woman, or is the film trying to mislead the viewer?
As we learn who the players are, models Lucia Cerrazini (Femi Benussi), and Doris (Erna Schurer) as well as those behind the modelling agency, owner Gisella Montani (Amanda) Photographers Magda Cortis (Edwige Fenech), and Carlo Bianchi (Nino Castelnuovo), Stephano (?) and Maurizio Montani (Franco Diogene) Gisella's husband and really sad sack the mystery is which of them is the killer. There are minor character, Gisella has a lover, a woman who is killed, There is a gay man who knows the killer who also is an early victim. From this we know the killer is definitely at the agency and the build of the killer is that of a woman. So ruled out of the equation is Carlo a built man and Maurzio a fat man.
Working through one killing to the next we quickly and without a lot of trying who the killer could be. Since Magda and Carlo are working together they are eliminated so it really leaves models or the shop owner. Like I said, it is a bit on the nose. Sure there are some side stories to try to throw you off. You learn that Gisella has a female lover who she likes to dominate. She smacks her and yells "You Bitch! You love it don't you." and "You're a big whore." There is connected to this a blackmail scheme that she has to be mysterious about.
You would think that misleading the audience would be the way to go but this film really sabotages this. Everytime someone is going to be killed there is a flash image of the girl in the bathtub. It's like the writer Massimo Felisatti and director Andrea Bianchi thought we forgot over and over again why the killing was happening. Instead of just reminding us though they took the tension out of the film by telegraphing when the murders were coming.
What also is on the nose is the product placement. Throughout the film you will see two products prominently place. First the is J&B Whiskey which is all over this film, then the other is Levi Jeans which appear in posters and advertising so much so that there is a poster for the product above a character's bed.
There are some memoriable bits of dialog in the film so here are a few gems, I liked when Magda was talking about coffee, Carlo wants her to put milk in his and she says "What, you can't ruin good coffee like that." ... "Milk in coffee is like water in wine, both are ruined. That's the truth."
Then there is poor old Maurizio who is constantly trying to get with the models. His pervy pursuits finally look like they are going to pay off when he wears one model down. Doris agrees to having sex with him but he can't perform and she leaves after his crying out. "Oh Mama, mama why does it always end this way." he walks into another room and gets a blow up sex doll to blow up. "Your the only one who can make it happen. The only one." So sad.
Later in the film the police chase a guy down a dark alley and I kid you not after a cursory look into the shadows the cop turns to another cop and says "Forget it he's gone. No way we can find him now." and the other cop says No, too dark." Noe that is stellar police work.
What this film does have going for it is some really beautiful women, I know we at Soresport Movies say that about many of the Italian Giallos, but it is true. Our lead Edwige Fenech is lovely and they spare not an opportunity to have her and the other actresses in this film to take their shirts off. It is part of the genre and the italians apparently like the look of a woman's breasts. So hats off to them at least when the movie is crappy there are beautiful women exposing themselves. I am sure this does little for the women in the audience but at least it is a distraction for me since I pretty much figured out this film about 2/3 the way through.
Whether you choose to watch this or not know there are better examples of the genre out there, Tenebre comes to mind. This film did not really do it for me although there are not many movies that end with a couple in bed where the man is joking about wanting to have anal sex.
Rating (4.8) 5.0 and up are recommended, in the Zombiegrrlz system I say SKIP IT!