Well, now. Here’s how to make an icky Monday a far better one without doing much at all. My mailbox was stuffed with some nice upcoming release screeners from Arrow Video and MVD so I’ll be socked away checking out some stuff I’ve not seen before as well as revisiting some old friends. Spider Baby actually came earlier than the others, but it’s here just to even out the photo. Anyway, back to the screening room for me. So much for being anything resembling “productive” today.
For those of you who’ve served, thank you for your service. For those of you who remember the late, great Bob Hope doing his part for those who’ve served or want to know what some of the fuss was about, courtesy of MVD Visual here’s a Memorial Day buy that’s not some condescending mattress, car, food or other product not worthy of the holiday. Back tomorrow with some updates.
A funny thing happened on the way to me disliking Island of Death, director Nico Mastorakis’ 1975 horror film headed to Blu-Ray/DVD courtesy Arrow Video and MVD Entertainment Group. That would be I ended up liking the film a lot more than I thought. This is in part thanks to the great special features that include interviews with Mastorakis that show he’s just a genial, creative guy with a long and varied career who’s not at all like any of the vile characters in the nasty and brutal film he made very early in his career. I’d heard about how terrible and shocking the film was and I certainly wasn’t disappointed by the assorted scenes of murder, extremely stereotypical characters and loads of exploitative nudity on display. Yes, the film is a hard to watch experience not for the squeamish or easily offended. But it’s beautifully shot nastiness and at the end of the day, Mastorakis did exactly what he set out to do – make a film that out grossed (and out-grossed) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
There’s nothing here even remotely close in plot or even tone to Tobe Hooper’s seminal shocker. IoD’s story about a pair of unbalanced British lovers killing their way through the island of Mykonos before getting their just desserts is merely a showcase for depravity that’s since been outclassed by more modern horror flicks with far more realistic effects. The director even makes this point in one of the commentaries on the Blu-Ray and it’s easy to toss off a bunch of titles from the top of my head that do indeed go for the gusto and blow this film out of the water. That said, by 1975 standards the catalog of perversions on display here certainly got this film in trouble all over the world. Bestiality, murders by an ingested bucket of paint post crucifixion, a phallic pistol, beheading by bulldozer and more are all on display. As terrifically terrible as these crimes are, some viewers may be more upset that one of the murderers is a hypocrite religious zealot out to cleanse the island of evil in the name of religion.
The fine folks at Arrow Video continue to whip out releases from their UK catalog through MVD to film fans and collectors stateside well worth buying and July’s three Blu-Ray/DVD sets are a nice trio for your library. This time, it’s an odd triple threat of 1970’s Japanese pop style, a bleak Gallic “spaghetti” western and a fun, funky horror film starring a pre-A Nightmare on Elm Street Robert Englund. That video below of Stray Cat Rock: The Collection should hopefully tease some of you into action in the form of adding it to your want list somewhere or bugging someone to get you it (or all three films) as a nice gift.
Well, I’D bug someone to get me all three of these flicks. Hey, I have unusual tastes in films from unforgettable classic silents to a handful of loud, noisy super-budget blockbusters more easily forgotten. I won’t knock your tastes at all (well, unless you still watch “reality” TV with a straight face and actually get upset at every VERY obviously scripted moment better done the first time and not the 500th). Eeek.
How frightening. I’m actually old enough to remember seeing ads for Mark of the Devil in newspapers as a kid and while far too young to see it, wanting to just because of the free vomit bag handed out to viewers. I recall either a cousin or other relative seeing it and showing off their unused bag while they bragged about how violent the film was. Hey, it was after all “RATED V FOR VIOLENCE”… just not by the MPAA. That snazzy bit of marketing was courtesy Hallmark Releasing, the films distributor that packed houses for years during the 70’s and 80’s by retitling all sorts of sleazy to amazing genre movies.
Flash forward maybe a dozen or so years and I finally got to see the movie thanks to a fairly lousy quality VHS tape copy that had a few other horror flicks on it (one of which was Twitch of the Death Nerve, another Hallmark released flick). I certainly didn’t need a vomit bag, but the film’s overall tone and torture scenes did get under my skin (pun intended). Over time, I’d almost forgotten about the film thanks to only seeing it that one time, but thanks to Arrow Video and MVD, here I am back in front of a television with a superior in every way possible Blu-Ray version.
While not as relentlessly gory as more modern horror films, Michael Armstrong’s classic and controversial film is more of a “you are there” trip back in time than a traditional fright flick. Shot in and around Austria, the film’s lush outdoor landscapes are contrasted by the brutal torture segments that won’t have you tossing your cookies at all, but maybe reaching for a pillow to hide behind or stuff in your ears as you avert your eyes from some onscreen nastiness.
When UK-based Arrow Video finally decided to launch in North America this year, it picked a trio of excellent films to kick off what’s going to be a wild run of classics and desired library additions. As all three films arrived at the same time, I had to flip a coin to choose which one to review first and Tonino Valerii’s magnificent 1967 spaghetti western Day of Anger (I giorni dell’ira) won the review draw.
This was one of those genre films I’d heard about for years but have never seen until this beautifully restored (from the original 35mm Techniscope camera negative) version and it’s very highly recommended whether or not you’re a western fan. Excellent performances all around, some stirring set pieces, excellent art direction and cinematography all wrapped up with a superb Riz Ortolani score that will stick in your head for days makes this one a must-see (and must buy if you’re a collector). Continue reading
Packing in a compelling story that’s part thriller and murder mystery with a supernatural bent into seventy minutes is a tricky thing to do well. Nevertheless, Memory Lane is one of those odd yet impressive little indie films deserving of a wider audience. Director Shawn Holmes gets some decent mileage from his ridiculously small budget of $300, making a flawed yet powerful, emotion packed ride. While the film has echoes of Memento, Flatliners and oddly enough, Groundhog Day, that small amount of money spent doesn’t exactly buy you always stellar acting or prime locations to shoot in.
The cast of eager unknowns does what they can with the melodramatic material, but some are better than others in conveying the dense but compact script. The brief running time means some plot points get slimmed down or booted in the logic balls to make way for story advancement with the clock ticking away. But if you go in with no expectations, you may end up enjoying this one a lot more than you thought. When Nick (Michael Guy Allen), a PTSD afflicted Afghanistan veteran decides to end his life after his girlfriend Kayla (Meg Braden) takes hers, he sees a vision of what looks like her being murdered. Brought back to life by some friends, Nick realizes he “needs” to die again and again in order to find out what actually happened to the love of his life… Continue reading
“The Mold Knows Jack, The Mold Knows…”
Talking about a horror movie about a huge talking fungus being the least oddball thing about it is tricky business. All I’ll say is Don Thacker’s unconventional psychological freak-out Motivational Growth needs to be seen to be believed. And even after you’ve seen it, you’ll probably still think you were hallucinating the whole thing. The film is one of those low-budget indies where the pure craft and ingenuity on display outstrip the meager budget and you’ll probably find yourself hooked in right from the start because you’re hit over the head right away with some truly striking, memorable visuals.
All I know is within the first five or ten minutes of fake TV shows I saw what looked like a fake TV commercial for a fake anime adventure/shooter hybrid game called Starr Mazer. My eyeballs did a double-back flip and I wrote that name down in the notepad I keep nearby for reviews. If it was just animation created for the film, it was a genius move on Thacker’s part. If it was an actual game, well… I had to find out what I could play it on. When I looked up that fake game later, I found that there actually IS an anime adventure/shooter hybrid called Starr Mazer. In fact, it’s also one of Thacker’s many side projects.
But let’s keep the rest of this review about this bizarre, near brilliant film… Continue reading
Blech. So. I’ve been dealing with a bit of a cold and woke up this morning feeling as if I’d swallowed a very large toad who’d swallowed a porcupine. Oh, and that greedy toad wrapped itself in a dried out sponge overcoat with a loofah outer shell. Ouch. Anyway, today has been a Throat Coat kind of day, it’s snowing outside (again, whee!) and that show will turn to rain later, making outside a cold gray sloppy soup to walk around in tomorrow. Did I mention it’s going to snow tomorrow as well? No? Well, just read that last sentence again, please.
The only GOOD thing to happen today was I got a nice package of movies to review from MVD Visual. Thanks, Clint! Let’s see now, I haven’t seen Mark of the Devil in AGES, so that’s up first. Off to get another cuppa Throat Coat, pop a zinc tablet and see if there’s an orange left in the fridge. I was wondering why my usual productivity was way down this past month and I believe it’s this crappy weather not helping my brain much. Boo. Okay, off to see some tortured logic featuring Herbert Lom, Reggie Nalder, Udo Kier and the gang. Back in a bit…
Question of the day (or at least the very second you’re reading this): Would you kill yourself (and a few times at that) in order to solve the murder of someone you love? That’s the somewhat shocking premise of Memory Lane, a thriller coming to Blu-Ray/DVD on March 24, 2015 courtesy of MVD Visual and Wild Eye Releasing.
How’s this for a plot:
“When PTSD-plagued war vet Nick returns home and finds that his finance Kayla has committed suicide, he decides to take his own life, but what he sees in flashbacks moments before he is resuscitated leads him to believe Kayla was murdered. Now Nick must travel back and forth between our world and the afterlife in a search of her killer – but to do it, he will need to die over and over again.”
Memory Lane has already been compared to films such as Memento, Primer and Pi, and that’s some pretty decent company, I’d say. Of course, I’d probably add in references to everything from Flatliners, Jacob’s Ladder and Groundhog Day (minus the humor, of course), but I haven’t yet seen this flick. I want to, though. The premise is intriguing enough to get me to want to sit down with this from start to finish, something not a lot of modern horror-like films do.
"DESTROY ALL FANBOYS!" 