L'assassino ha riservato nove poltrone - aka The Killer Reserved Nine Seats. A not so well known Italo film, described as a Gothic giallo, but more a giallo than a Gothic film. Patrick Davenant, a wealthy man with nothing to do, invites eight of his birthday party guests to visit his theatre, a building which hasn't been used in 100 years. His guests are his wife to be, his ex-wife and her new husband, his daughter and her lover and his older sister with her (female) lover. They curiously wander around the theatre, and while Patrick is on stage sudenly a big wooden beam drops down right beside him. Since the rope has been cut, this is clearly a murder attempt and Patrick of course wants to find out who is behind it. Everyone in the theatre seems to have his or her reasons to kill Patrick, which doesn't make things easier, but does make things more interesting for the giallo fan. Like always, one after the other person in the small group falls victim to the murderer, who wanders around the theatre dressed in a black cloak wearing a theatrical mask. In the end the plot makes a twist and then one more, so the fans can have fun with this film like with so many other giallos. Pretty good film, the setting is nice, the acting is good and the murders are ranging from plain to artistic (especially the lesbian couple meets it's demise in an unusual way). The effects are not that good, the blood is way too red, for example, but that couldn't take away the enjoyment I had while watching this movie. The label "Gothic" is only put there because there is some

Spoiler:

supernatural element in the final scenes

but it isn't playing a huge role in the entire story. Recommended, highly for fans of the genre.

Emanuelle's Sweet Revenge - aka at least seven other English names. Emanuelle is being abused by her husband, so she plans to have him murdered. His helicopter is being tampered with, and while he is flying solo over the sea, he waves goodbye to Emanuelle while she is emerging from the sea (naked on horseback, btw) and then crashes his helicopter into a rock. Now Emanuelle becomes executor of his will, in which he bestowed everything on his daughter. The assassin is not satisfied however, and starts stalking both Emanuelle and her daughter. In the meantime, Emanuelle tries to take over her late husband's business, but is being hampered by one of it's co-workers, who suspects her to be behind the previous owner's death (and rightly so, as we know). Emanuelle has sex in this film of course, first witrh the assassin and later with a colleague of her husband who is on her side. The assassin is a very horny guy, as he has sex with a woman several times in this film, and everytime the orgasm is symbolised by something boiling over on the stove. He also assaults Emanuelle's daughter, but since I watched the British (censored) version, that scene was cut out entirely. Although I always appreciate uncut movies more, I wasn't really sorry that I had to miss a rapescene with a teenager involved. That scene is the reason why this film was infamous for a while. Overall this movie is not really about a lot, and the ending is very sudden (it feels like they stop in the middle of a scene). The sex is not really so special either, so I guess this one is for Emanuelle completists only.

Gappa - watched the trailer of this on "The Night of Bad Taste has risen from the grave" and had a good laugh with it. So when I saw a DVD for sale of this film, I bought it to have equal fun watching the entire thing. I was a bit surprised: on one hand, the film is bad, but not as bad as you could think watching just the trailer, and on the other hand, it has some really crappy effects which aren't in the trailer. The story is about a group of scientists and journalists, which travels to the South Pacific in order to catch some rare animals and exotic plants. They are to be taken back to Japan, where a publisher of a magazine called Playmate (yes, indeed: Playmate) is planning a giant themepark/resort, which is gonna be called Playmateland. The animals and plants are meant for decoration of the park. When the group arrives, they find an indigenous tribe, who warns them for Gappa. Against these warnings, they take a young reptilebird-like animal, just out of the egg, and bring it back to Tokyo. Soon after, the parents Gappa are coming to Japan to reclaim their child. Of course, this has to be done while partially destroying a model of Tokyo. The monsters are of course fought by a miniature army, of which the tiny tanks are the most ridiculous. Fun monsterfilm, with hilarious moments. Recommended for bad moviefans.

Black Samson - nice blaxploitation about Samson, a bar owner who needs to fight off the mob in order to keep his territory and to protect his people against pushers. Lots of action (the stickfighting is quite cool) and OK acting, effects minimal and music OK but nothing special. Enjoyable, but there are better options out there.

The Exterminator - 1980 revengefilm. In the opening scenes, a group of soldiers is being held prisoner in Vietnam. They are being tortured for intel, and one of them is beheaded (looks quite gruesome). They escape and years later, two of these soldeirs work together in a softdrink company. When one of them is being mugged, resulting in him being paralysed permanently,the other one is going on a rampage to get his revenge. He gets the taste of it after his first kills, and he starts to clean the streets of New York as a vigilante, using flamethrowers, meatgrinders and other inventive weaponry. The police hunts him down because they don't want him to interfere with the normal course of justice, something the guy (soon nicknamed "The Exterminator" by the press) finds lacking. The best part of this film are the kills, the acting and the dialogue are atrocious at times, and the effects are OK-ish. There are several goofs for the bad moviefans to spot (equipment, crew, incorrect sfx, etc) so enough to enjoy, but this is not a film to remember.

Scarecrow - this very unoriginal title is from a Syfy film (or at least it made me think it was a syfy film) which is not even that bad for a change. Of course the story is pretty predictable, the charcaters are a bunch of cliches and the monster does what monsters usually do, but I enjoyed this one a little better than most crap coming from Syfy. The scarecrow is actually a pretty cool monster, with nice skills in moving around and surviving the most brutal attacks. A legend says that a supernatural scarecrow is haunting the grounds of a certain farm which is on the "to be demolished"list, and a teacher has the brilliant idea to have his detention stuydents do the cleanup there. Of course they run into the legendary scarecow who slashes them open in original, but badly looking (cgi blood, eeew) ways. Beating this creature is pretty hard, especially when not everyone in the group has the same idea on how to accomplish this. Many dumb acts by the characters spoil the fun a bit (or spur it on, depending on your pov), like turning on a gigantic mowing machine and then keep standing in front of it until something pretty predictable (and bloody) happens. Nice brainless entertainment, if you have 80 minutes to kill.

3-Headed Shark Attack - yes, it CAN get worse! In the shark exploitation frenzy which we are experiencing lately, this new installment boggles the mind even further, although, if you have seen films like Sharknado, Sand Shark or 2-Headed Shark Attack, nothing will surprise you anymore. The bad stuff: again, many dumb actions by characters, like staying middle deep in the ater when a shark is around, I mean, you want to get eaten? Then this is the way to go! Also, way too many people are prepared to die for total strangers and want to play the hero by doing something useless in which they will get killed. The good stuff: many nice babes, in enough bikini time. The scenes where all the heads of the shark get something to eat, and the axe surfing scene is hilarious. The ending is too much over the top and the version I watched (a TV show apparently) stopped in the middle of a scene. Not that I was longing for more, though. The final scenes were dubious at best, because the way the shark gets beaten is, well, a bit of a letdown. I still have Sharknado 3 to watch, but I need a little break now.

Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla - not the 1974 film, but the 2002 one. The story refers to the original Gojira from 1954, because Mechagodzilla is built with parts of the skeleton of that Godzilla. A taskforce is made to construct Mechagodzilla, and another one to handle it in battle. The battles are quite cool and in the first one there is a nice twist, making more battles possible. The drama aspect lays thick on the story again, as does the morale. Ok Godzilla film, one of the cooler ones from the 00s.

Creep - a cam film, which gave me the creeps fron time to time. Aaron is on his way to a one day job, for which he will get 1,000 dollars. He doesn't know what it is but soon after his arrival he finds out that he has to film Josef for one day. Josef tells him that he needs the film because his unborn son could get to know him that way, since Josef himself only has a few months to live. A bit surprised, Aaron continues filming, even in awkward situations like Josef sitting in the bathtub, acting like he is bathing his unborn son. Josef is a bit weird, that much is obvious but after a while Josef turns out to be a bit morecyhan "a bit weird". Not so much a horror as a thriller, this film, even though it mostly shows only one person at actime, gave me the chills in everal scenes. I guess the fact that it could actually happen, helped to make me feel uneasy. This is the strongpoint of the film, together with the acting. The setting is a tad boring and there is no score. The ending is quite ok too, it comlleted the film in a fitting way. Unusual film, recommended.

Stung - a woman is celebrating her late husband with a party, and the catering is being organised by Julia and Paul. What the partygoers don't know, is that the ground of the villa where they are has been polluted for years and now giant wasps are coming out of the ground. What follows is something you might expect: most people get killed. They get turned into wasps. This looks pretty gory. The two heroes stay alive amidst all this violence. There is a "traitor" who gets it. Paul and Julia fall in love. They fight off the queen wasp. They destroy all other wasps. They escape. They have one more encounter with a wasp. They win. The last encounter with the wasp really takes the cake in forms of incredibility, the scene in the nest with all the slime and gore was the coolest (includign a birth of a wasp, yay). The cgi is ugly, but there are some scenes i which I felt they had recreated a wasp and used some "real" gore. Fun, mindless monsterflick. For bad moviefans only, I guess.

Strange Blood - had this filed under /zombies, but it's more a medical horror/scifi. A girl is being interviewed by a cop about a certain Dr. Henry Moorehouse, and thorugh this interview we get to see a story in flashback. The story is that this doctor, brilliant but also a bit of a workaholic (to put it nicely), has genetically engineered a creature which could be the source of a cure which can cure all diseases in the world. Of course, the creating of that cure is time consuming and tedious, and the doctor hires Gemma (the girl in the interview) to help him out. Unfortunately the creature has it's own ideas about it's life, and the doctor becomes sort of infected, messing up his mind. In order to not be eaten by the parasites in his body, he needs blood. A whole lot of blood. Story is pretty OK, the film is carried by the two main actors, who do their job decently. The transformation of the doctor was well done. Although there was a tad too little happening in this film, I wasn't bored or anything. Not great, but enjoyable enough, I'd say.

Indigenous - pretty cliche monsterfilm. A bunch of guys and girls go to Panama to have fun, and when one of the guys gets intrigued by the Darien Gap jungle, he wants to pay it a visit. They are being brought there by a local girl who has been picked up by one of the guys in the group. Her brother (I think it was her brother) tried to warn them not to go, but they did anyway. They have a nice time in a waterfall with a clear spring next to it and when darkness falls, they start hearing noises in the bushes. Is this the famous chupacabra? Is this the reason why tourists have been going missing before? The group is gonna experience a night they will never forget. Buildup is nice, the monster is (almost) invisible for along time, which adds to the tension. The revealing of the monster is also quite nice, as it looks really ugly, and not so much cgi. Acting is tolerable, surroundings look nice with the jungle and all. Ending a bit predictable, so this one is OK if you have 80 minutes to kill, but nothing special.

Apartment 1303 - one of the few titles of which I have seen the (American) remake first and then the original. When I reviewed the remake, I said it would be a while until I could watch the original, and it has been over a year now (but that's a coincidence, actually ). The remake was bad, and sadly, the original doesn't add much. Again, the story (in an apartment the female inhabitants all commit suicide because of a ghost, and the sister of one of them is gonna unravel the mystery together with a policeman) is pretty good, but the film just can't seem to get away from being boring and superficial. The main character (Mariko, the sister of Sayaka) is cute, and she has a nice fight with the ghost, but it is all so very unoriginal: we have seen this many, many times before. There is a cool scene with a ghost prank, but except from that the entire film is going on the "forgettable" pile. I probably will never watch it again.

Savage Sisters - a bunch of girls are on a trip to help out the revolution in an unspecified banana republic. They are gonna steal one million dollars so the revolution will have enough revenues for the coming battle. The revolutionaries have set up a plan to blow up a bridge so the convoy with the money can be intercepted. However, the bandits who were hired to help them out, now double cross the revolutionaries and escape with the money. Now the military and the revolutionaries are after them, and a shady American businessman is also in the game. When the girls get caught, they end up in a prison where a female interrogator is working. She first lets the girls experience what the regime in the prison is like, but after a while she schemes with the businessman and lets the girls escape, so they can get their hands on the one million dollars themselves. Lots of firefights, lots of handfights, many dull jokes and misplaced slapstick, this Filippino actionflick has it all. Don't let yourself be fooled by the cover, though: Gloria Hendry only becomes an ally of Cheri Caffaro and Rosanna Ortiz after half of the movie is already over. Acting is mostly overacting (especially Sid Haig has this as a middle name in this movie), but I had a good time watching this nonsense. For bad moviefans only I guess.

Adam Chaplin - very gory movie by Italian director Emanuele De Santi, who is an uomo universale, as he also wrote the story, composed the music and plays the lead character. The best part imo was the music, the acting is forgettable, the writing was pretty easy as there is almost no story and the directing is OK. The plot is, as I wrote, almost non-existent, it is about a guy who summons a demon to go on a revenge spree to get to the killers of his wife. This brings a lot of scenes in which the gore flows abundantly. To my not so pleasant surprise this was mixed with cgi blood, and of course my preference is with the "real" gore. After a while I lost the plotline, but I actually didn't care because this is a goreshow, and it's one of the better ones, especially in recent horror. So if you want blood, blood and even more blood and think that storylines are for pussies, this is your film.

The Ouija Experiment 2: Theatre of Death - worthless sequel to an already forgettable film. This film does what other sequels have done before to my disapointment: they let the cast play themselves, this time in a horrorshow and -weekend. Some of those castmembers are present at a screening of the film, and they also participate in some ghost-tour of the Ritz theater where it all takes place, the film and the "Ouija Ouikend" (ugghh at that joke). Of course at the tour people start dying and when the winner of the weeknd and her friend are the only ones left, they find out what's behind all the disappearances and also behind the haunted house-stories about the theatre. It boils down to some basic rednexploitational BS and it ends with some gore but nothing in this film is interesting, so I suggest to look for gore elsewhere. Acting is only a bit decent at times, but very forgettable for the rest of the film, effects are ludicrous, the cgi portal thingies looked like sh*t. The "ghost" looks like a stray woman living beneath a bridge with one of those rusty shopping carts. Save yourself some 85 minutes and skip this one.

Chappie - from the director of District 9 comes a new movie where certain creatures are being portrayed in a somewhat different way. In District 9 they were aliens, in Chappie they are robots. What's different in this film is not that the robots are being used as a policeforce, it's not very different that a programmer is trying to give them a conscience, and it is not really original that when one robot gets that consciencce, it goes wrong in all thinkable ways. What actually is original, is that the robot "grows up" with a buch of Joburg gangsters, learning to walk the walk and to talk the talk. This leads to some funny scenes and Chappie, the robot, also grows smarter and smarter. He is trying to do good, but he is also being deceived by some of the gangsters so he participates in a heist while he has promised not to do any crimes. Several storylines (the one with CHappie, one with Deon his programmer and one with Vincent Moore - Deon's rival) get nicely intertwined mear the end of the film. It runs for two hours, but there is never a dull moment. Acting is decent, sometimes it closes in on overacting, but it's never too much. Camerawork is done nice, the cgi is great and I will certainly watch this one again. Recommended.

Zombie Cats from Mars - with a title like that, you can't expecta high level production with top[ notch acting and an interesting plot. And indeed: you get none of that. What you do get, is a bunch of unknown actors, some very bad sfx and some cats which are made to yawn or lick their cheeks at the right moment. The story is about a guy who is way too much into scifi, He and his friend witness the invasion of earth, by, there they are: cats from Mars. People start dying because the cats want to dominate our planet, but when the guy finally finds out what's behind the killings (at first everyone thinks a serial kiler is on the loose), nobody believes him. After this cliche, many, many more follow and the final scenes consist 17 cliches sown together. Acting is wooden, gore is few and looks fake, the ats look mostly dumb, the cat doll (yes, there is only one) is very unconvincing, I could go on and on. I recommend never to watch this while sober, only when you are a hardcore bad moviefan.

Sin City 2: a dame to kill for - a very enjoyable sequel to Sin City, which is not as good as that first part but comes so close that it is a must see for the fans. I love Robert Rodriguez, I have said it before and I will say it again: this guy does what I dream of in cinema. The oneliners, the girls, the atmosphere, the violence, the outfits,the cars, etc. etc everything is perfect or nearing perfection. Yes, this is very subjective, but aren't all reviews? My Rodriguez collection has a new gem in it, and if it weren't for those kids films he mdae, I would have had them all by now. Go see this if you like other Rodriguez films, or if you are a Sin City fan. If you haven't seen part one, go see that first. You don't need it exactly, but it is better to have seen it before plunging into this one. Highly recommended.

Terminator Genesys - surprisingly entertaining sequel in the Terminator series. The story is almost the same as in parts one and two, only this time it starts when the war is almost over and John Connor and the Resistance have won a victory. Skynet sends a Terminator back in time in order to kill Sarah Connor, so Kyle Reese, a member of the resistance and a good friend of John Connor, is being sent after the terminator in order to prevent that and let John Connor be born later. Here the filmmakers made some smart moves to explain why this film is as it is (probably they couldn't get the entire cast of Terminator 1 and 2 to play themselves in this sequel - except Arnie), like Schwarzenegger fighting himself (nicely done and also a pretty fun idea) and Reese ending up in a parallel universe, so he is in a different 1984 than in the earlier films (and therefore the people look bit different ). Lots of action sequences, which start to a bore a little bit when nearing the end, but overall I had some good fun with this film even though it is a bit long (125 minutes). The sound and the imagery are great, acting is good too. I can safely recommend this, it helps to have seen the earlier films. I haven't seen part three myself so I wouldn't know if that is really necessary.

Starve - way too long, cliche ridden and forgettable horrorfilm. 100 minutres full of mediocre to bad acting, boring settings and cliche after cliche work mind numbin g to the point of going mad. So, how bad is it? Well, check this, are you with me, pencil and paper ready? Ok, here we go: bunch of youngsters from the city go to countryside: check. They are in search of an urban legend: ccheck. Local warns them not to go: check. They go anyway: check. They split up: check. Their phones have no reception: check. They are being held in a weird place: check. The fights are predictable: check. The girl turns out to be pregnant: check. The guy breaks the screen in order to destroy the machine: check. The disturbing behaviour is explained by a trauma from the past: check. The main characters survive until the end: check. We have seen this not 100, not 1000 but millions of times before and this brought exactly nothing new. If this was meant as a parody, it failed big time. I laughed zero times. Total waste of time.

Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead - Australian zombieflick which actually does succeed where Starve was failing: on all fronts. I laughed (it had funny jokes), it had originality, acting was tolerable at worst, there was a great looking girl in it and the zombies were OK(-ish). Gore could have been better, though. The doctor character was superb, the other people were also interesting: the film starts out with a background story on the three main characters and this already has some nice humour to it. There are also some 25-30 zombiekills already before these introductions are over. After a while, the guys find out something special about the fumes coming out of the zombies and because of this finding they can save the day (or not, depending on what time it is). Having lost everyone, one of the guys bnow wants to find his sister becasue he feels that she is still alive. On this trip, they encounter not only zombies, but also soldiers working for the doctor. They also turn out to be a menace, but the guys deal with everything in their own way. Very entertaining and quite some originality for a zombieflick. Recommended.

The 13th Unit - aka The Darkness, Rage and the Fury. Low budget supernatural creature flick. Acting is mediocre, the dialogue is not really interesting for the most part, the characters are pretty OK, some of the are actually developed, which is nice. Some others appear to be cool at the start but are then forgotten or dumped without much ado, that was a bit weird. The creature, well, you get to see it only once, a little like in those 50s scifi flicks. It looks slimy, and although I usually love it when you don't get to see anything, only one shot was far too little. The coolest thing about this film is the location: a large underground storage facility. Since I used to be a customer of such a facility myself and I was wondering one day what kind of a cool horrorflick you could make inside of it, I enjoyed this film more than when it would have been set in a forest or something. Unfortunately, location alone is not enough and although I appreciate the effort with next to no money, I don't think I'm ever gonna watch this again.

Final Score - this film had never been released on DVD (at least not in my country), but a few years ago a guy started a crowdfunding project to get a release done. I chipped in, so when it was finished, I received the DVD. I invited some friends over to watch it together for the first time ever. The story is simple: a Vietnam vet played by Chris Mitchum lives in Indonesia. One day his wife gets raped and killed and his son also gets murdered. The rest of the film is the veteran taking his revenge. This involves shooting, knifing and blowing up hundreds of villains and destroying several buildings. The action is exaggerated, the B-movieness drips off the screen: the final scenes are a milestone in bad 80s action! It's a real treat for bad moviefans, with cheesy dialogue, bad dubbing and some wooden acting (and of course the myriad of explosions). We had a lot of fun laughing at and commenting on the film. I'm gonna search for more Arizal films for sure. Highly recommended for bad moviefans.

Scanner Cop - bad spinoff of the Scanners films. A man dies by his scanning abilities going out of control and his son is being adopted by the cop who was at the scene when it happened. When he has grown up, he joins the police and sometimes uses his scanning abilities. The police wants him to help out searching for a mad scientist who is imprinting people with images of cops in order to make them kill policemen. He doesn't want to, because scanning is dangerous (not in the least to himself), but when his partner is killed, scanner cop agrees to cooperate. The hunt for the mad scientist and his Goth sidekick girl is open and it will take a lot of scanning and some more kills before they will get to him. But of course he won't give in so easily! What makes this film pretty funny, is the dialogue and the sfx. Everything else isn't so bad, even though this is a bad spinoff. If you wasnt some bogus scifi, pick this one, if you want a good scanner movie stick with the Cronenberg film.

Alien vs Alien - aka Showdown at Area 51. I knew I had already seen this one, but I was only 100% sure at the junkyard scene, and then still I was wondering if I was mixing things up (there is at least one other film I have seen with an alien or a monster fighting off people in a junkyard. Well, I still agree with y first review: mediocre, TV movie level.

Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster - one of the nice oldies in the Godzilla series that I hadn't seen yet. The story is pretty weird, as you might expect: a princess on her way to Japan is about to be assassinated by blowing up her plane, but right before it happens, she steps out of the plane ina trance and ends up in Japan, predictin g terrible disasters in the near future. Known as "The Prophet" now, she is sought after by the police, the media and the assassins who want to fnish their job. The disasters have something to do with monters of course and after a while Godzilla and Ronan are in a fight, and a meteorite which had landed on a mountain days before is growing and also spawns a monster: Ghidorah. Mothra gets the request to fight this monster, but to be successful he needs the help of Godzilla and Ronan, which they at first refuse to give but in the end of course they are gonna work together and theyd efeat Ghidorah. I love the atmosphere in older movies, their charm really gets to me. Much better than the cgi infested mumbo jumbo of today's cinema (fortunately there are still filmmakers around who use real sfx/gore). Good example of older Godzilla films, if you are interested in the series ad never have seen one you can perfectly start out with this one I'd say.

90210 Shark Attack - lifting on the shark hype, there must have been some people who thought that they could do it too: make a onsensical film with shark in the title and get away with it. Well, I sure hope they didn't, because this sorry excuse for a film is one of the worst attempts at filmmaking I have ever seen (and that really says something, I guess). The film runs for 75 minutes, you can skip the first 5 because they are opening credits and the last 5 for closing credits. Remaining: 65 minutes, of which there are 64 minutes without any shark action. Yes, there are some shots of a few sharks and other fish inside an aquarium, but that's it. The "action" comes from some really badly cgi-d bullshit coming out of a girl's head. In the last 5 minutes it turns out that she is cursed by some tribe because her father killed a shark way back when and now she is killig people with the ccurse. The end. All the rest of the film is utterly annoying chatter between brainless kids who pretend to be students (don't make me laugh there!) and their teacher who is in fact just out for the story of the girl whose father died (and is now cursed, but she doesn't know that). Most idiotic stupid thing I have seen in years for sure. Not even funny for bad moviefans, they should try and get a glimpse of one of the "shark attack" scenes and they they can check this movie off. Steer clear!

Devil's Deal - western horror can be nice, the atmosphere of the 19th century frontier landscapes combined with something supernatural and scary has worked in several films. Devil's Deal is not one of those films. Both tjhe atmosphere and the scares are lacking. The devil is just a guy with a sidekick whose faced has been bandaged. They do duels like in normal westerns (why? He is the devil ffs!) and they never do something spectacular like fly or shapeshift. The humans in the film are not very interesting, one girl has nice looks but that's it. Why the devil has come to the town to collect souls eluded me, but maybe that was because I wasn't watching so closely since this movie was very boring. I didn't even finish it the first time because I fell asleep. Says enough, I guess.