Excision – a disfunctional family portrait. Pauline, a highschool dropout, has a weird fascination for blood and organs and pursues a career in medicine. Grace, her younger sister has cystic fibrosis and is expected to die young. Phyllis, her mother, despises Pauline’s lifestyle and cynicism and tries everything she can to turn her into an all-American girl, while Bob, her father, is caught in the middle. He loves both his wife and his daughters and refuses to take sides permanently. Pauline starts out on two missions: lose her virginity before marriage and save her sister’s life without the use of a hospital. And yes, this can only end bad. Throughout the film, you get to see flashes of what’s going on inside Pauline’s mind. Weird and estranging, but also interesting images. Acting is great, especially by Annalynne McCord as Pauline, she plays the greatest role I have seen her do, really good! The only drawback of this film that it takes almost the entire runtime to get to the climax. Since I was really “hungry” for that climax, it was too long for me. But maybe it’s for the best that the film didn’t continue after said climax. Highly recommended!

Countess Dracula – late Hammer film. Like in most Hammerfilms, the atmopshere and the setting are really well done. Acting is great by some and could have been better by others, but that’s not the prolem of this film. That is the title. The title suggests that this film is about vampires, while there is no vampire in this movie at all. Zero vampires. There is a countess, yes, and she is countess Bathory about whom wild stories went around of her bathing in virgin’s blood, yes, but no vampires. Since there were no vampires, I was a bit disappointed. This is not a horrorfilm, it’s some sort of a drama with some light bloody scenes. If you like Hammer, you can safely give this a spin, just note that this is quite tame and contains no vampires. None.

The Island of Dr. Moreau - the 1977 original this time. I prefer this one over the remake for sure, This one has better music, better acting and a far better atmosphere. The human animals are less cartoonesque, and even a tad more realistic (even though the make-up effects had lesser possibilities back then). Dr Moreau is also less of a freak in this one, more a deranged scientist than a flipped out demi-god, like in the remake. While this is never scary, it is a real classic, and very enjoyable to watch. Skip the remake and go for this one, everyone!

The People Under The Stairs - don't know when I saw this last (turns out to be 2009), but I didn't have many memories of this film. I really enjoyed rewatching it, acting is great, effects are good. A downside is that it seems to be a horrorfilm for kids, with kids in the lead characters and some really kiddy-like humour (a man falling down the stairs - wuhahaha, hilarious!!). The morale in the end is also a bit too much overdone, but it doesn't ruin the film. Not the best Craven film, but certainly not the worst either, upper half, I'd say.

Cape Fear - I remembered this as a horrorfilm, but actually it isn't: it's more a thriller. The horror is only in the stalking part (psycho-horror) and in the final 30 minutes. That final scene I remembered best, although in my mind I connected some things which actually aren't connected in the film. I was amazed by the level of acting, as it is superb: Nolte and De Niro are great, but what a performance of Juliette Lewis! Wow, very good! Music is cool too and nice to see a Jane's Addiction video being played in the background in one scene. I didn't know that band too well back when I saw this for the first time. Highly recommended for everyone.

Mortuary Blues - a very weird Hong Kong film about several people trying to find a treasure, which has been hidden under a pagoda by a group of islanders, who now live off this treasure. The treasure is guarded by a supernatural being, of which some reviews say it's a vampire, some say it's a zombie and some say it's a ghost. It looked like a demon to me and it spawned ghost-like creatures. In the beginnin g of the movie, two guys trying to find the gold are being killed by the demon, but not before one of them could hand over the map by which you can find the treasure to two actresses, who now are gonna search for the treasure together with the teacher who translated the map for them. On their heels are two policemen, who think that the island is a drug trafficking spot. The movie is very Asian in the aspect that it has cultural stuff which I don't get and it has lots of shit and ass jokes, which are just funny for kids. Not really my thing, this kind of film, but if you are a fan of Asian cinema, you might give it a go.

Galaxina - read about this as being a spoof of scifi movies, so I checked it out to see if it would be fun. Some stuff is actually quite funny and reminded me of Spaceballs a bit, but most of the time there aren't many jokes amde and it is just another scifi flick from the early 80s, which is OK in my book, btw. Especially if the lead role is played by a beautiful woman like Dorothy Stratten, who so trgically died at the age of 20 (murdered by ex-husband). The story is not so important, it has aliens, spaceships and shoddy effects, like an early 80s scifi is supposed to have. I had fun watching this, sometimes because of the jokes and sometimes because of the unintended humour. Only for die hard scifi or bad moviefans, I guess.

Mad Max 2 - nice sequel to te first part. Max meets a weirdo with a gyrocopter and finds a settlement in the middle of the wastelands where they pump oil. This settlement is being attacked by a large gang of motorcyclists and cardrivers who are led by The Humungus: they want the oil. The settlers want to leave their place and take a large tank of fuel with them, but The Humungus is not gonna let them. While he actually doesn't want to, Max is gonna help out the settlers, even with the support of the Gyro Captain. Enough action going on, Max being tough of course and some violent scenes. I was surprised by how gay the gang was dressed, with leather oants with open buttocks, etc. Fun watch, nothing difficult to follow, no brainer. Recommended for being a cool post apocalypse film.

Death by Dialogue - I recently had the chance to buy the box "Toxie's Blood Bank", and it contains ten Troma films, ranging from the 60s to the 90s. This is one of them, and I hope it was the worst one, because man! This was boring. The opening scene is promising, and there are two more scnes worth watching, one around the middle and one in the end. The other 80 minutes are boring, boring, boring. The dialogue is almost without content, that is if you can understand it, because the audio is very muffled, making me crank up the volume to 80 (normal is 56-58), waking up the entire city and almost blowing my surround set when the music kicked in a scene later. Acting is atrocious, but I expected that so it didn't hurt. Bad film, not funny enough for bad moviefans. Again, I hope the other films are better/worse in a funny way.

Mommy's Epitaph - another film from the Blood Bank box and this one was at least somewhat better. The story is about an all-American family which has moved to a new home. The usual trouble with moving ensues, like boxes which have to be unpacked, the teenage daughter who has prolems with adjusting on her new school, etc. But there is also something else: the mother has the uncontrollable urge to kill men. The rest of the family puts up with this, but there are limits, of course. Soon the family gets intro trouble, and it's a question of time until all will be revealed... Acting was OK, effects were good enough, there is plenty of gore but the scenes between the kills are pretty long and sometimes you might start to get bored, but then there is another kill, so only the real impatient won't be able to handle this. Not an hilariously bad movie, but an OK low budget attempt at making a horror flick.

Two more Tromas

Beyond Evil - this one has John Saxon starring and I think that is the biggest name in the entire box. Unfortunately, it is one of Saxon's worst movies. In the opening scene you ge to see a young bride die while she looks at a mansion. Soon after, Saxon and his wife move into the mansion, as a gift from a friend of theirs. Of course we know that the mansion is no good because of the death in the opening scene. When Saxon's wife starts acting up, he wants to leave but she is clinging on to the new home. Because Saxon starts to suspect that she is possessed, he is trying to overcome his disbelief in order to save her. Well, I also tried to overcome my disbelief but it didn't save the movie. Acting was OK-ish, but overall it was too poor to make a real impression on me. The effects are hilarious, though: some classic green beams from eyes, etc. I laughed. Only for bad moviefans.

Nightfall - no, this is not the Isaac Asimov story. This is a vampire film and the acting is quite OK for a change. The story itself is solid enough, but it lacks any kind of originality. It has a vampire travelling in a coffin, victims who turn into vampires themselves, policemen who don't believe in vampires but stil try to solve the "murdercases", etc. Even the cops interact in a cliche manner. Some jokes were nice, the blood is OK, the vampire bites look really fake but all in all I enjoyed this one quite a bit. Maybe the best one in the Blood Bank box so far.

Invaders from Mars - the Tobe Hooper remake of the 50s scifi. I wanted something different, so I went for this one which I had lying around. It's on the same disc as Strange Invaders, but when I bought it I thought it was the 50s film which I had already seen (and reviewed). But since it turned out to be the 80s remake, I gave it a spin last night. The story is followed quite closely (of what I can remember, at least) and again we have a boy losing his parents to some aliens who landed their spaceship in the backyard of that family's house. With the help of the school nurse (played by Karen Black) and a general on a nearby military base he goes to extremes to beat the aliens. This is a bit of a kid's movie, with the kid being the hero and some fight scenes which make you frown unless you are a kid. It's also pretty Cold War, because everything is solved by shooting the hell out of the aliens, who of course want to take your personality away (like a certain opponent of the US back in the day, well, at least according to the US). Effects are done way better, the aliens look cool. If you have kids and want to introduce them to scifi, this could be one of those films.

A friend of mine came over and we watched some movies.

Invasion of the Blood Farmers - browsing through eBay for T-shirts, I found this title. Bought the DVD and watched it yesterday. Hilariously bad film! It reminded me several times of Manos the Hands of Fate, and that is certainly a compliment for the bad moviefan. The story goes something like this: two hillbillies abduct and/or kill people and then put some hoses in them to drain them of their blood. This blood then serves as a means to resurrect a woman lying in a coffin, guarded by a krypto gay priest-like vampireguy. There is also something going on with blood multiplying itself making people explode, but you never get to see such an explosion. There are some scientists trying to find out what's the deal with the blood and in the meantime more and more people disappear (although the rate in which this happens is terribly slow). In the grande finale there is a ritual with the woman and the blood, and for some mysterious reason, the coffin with the woman in it has to be transported to some mountain in a forest to execute the ritual. It's all thwarted easily by doing something really simple (one of the scientists arrives in time and throws a reagent on the woman). The end. Well, we laughed a lot. Acting is atrocious, effects are laughable (the dead dog is obviously not a dog, to mention just one of many mistakes), camerashots are a bit weird at times and the story doesn't make any sense. Highly recommended or bad moviefans!

Bare Behind Bars - A Prisão. Brazilian WIP film with all the necessary ingredients: a corrupt and lesbian warden, nude inmates, lots of showering and gratuitous sex, one nice person in the entire guard, a weird nurse who is a nymphomaniac and some light torture. There are mainly women in this film. So much so, that my friend shouted "Hey, a guy!" after some 40 minutes in. There is also a subplot about a rich woman hiring an inmate to do some lesbian action, but those scenes never go anywhere, really. Of course there is a plan to escape, and also a "good ending" with regards to the prison warden, but overall this film was not bringing too muich news to the front. Only some of the sexscenes were a bit over the top in a way I hadn't seen so often before. If you are new to WIP, you can easily take this one as a good example.

T.N.T. Jackson - a somewhat odd blaxploitation film, as it is a hybrid with a martial arts film. Diana Jackson, aka TNT Jackson, arrives in Hong Kong to avenge the death of her brother. Of course she fighhts off hordes of Chinese kung fu fighters and deals with both Chinese and black gangsters in the meantime. There is A LOT of fighting going on, just like you would expect from a martial arts flick. Some of the fights are boring, others are weird, like the famous scene with the lightswitch. Although tis film is pretty short with ~70 minutes, it feels longer and that is not really a good sign. Image quality was low, the picture looked bleached and sometimes a bit blurred. Sound was also very low, I had to crank up the volume on my system to make out what they were saying. An oddity, but not likely up for a rewatch.

Evil Clutch - aka Il Bosco. An Italian 80s flick adopted by Troma. The evil clutch is a sharp claw emerging from a woman's vagina which takes off male crotches like it's nothing. The woman is also a witch, or a demon or something. Then there is a couple on holiday in the Italian Alps, and they meet this woman, without knowing what she really is. Soon, they also meet a weird guiy with a voice machine who tells them what the woman is all about, and from then on the really gory part of the film starts. Although it is quite dark it is not invisible, like some people wrote about this film. No, it is not brightly illuminated, but it is playing at night, so that's quite logical. There are many gory parts, with heads, hands, and other human and non-human bodyparts being chopped off. There is no storyline in this film, but in this last part that doesn't matter as long as you enjoy the gore. Sadly it is only for some half hour, but it is worth a watch for bad moviefans.

The Mack - almost perfect pimp movie. Not as famous as Superfly, but equally well made, maybe even better. Atmosphere really hits the nail on it's head in this one, music is great and there is some grat acting being done here. Especially the title role, the black girlfriend and some of the gangsters play really good. Richard Pryor also has a role, which is cool. The line between underworld and upperworld is crossed many times in this film and that's what I really like. The mob-like murders are also pretty well executed and the background story about the mother of The Mack is touching. Recommended, if you like blaxploitation highly recommended!

Castle of the Walking Dead - Christopher Lee plays Count Regula (and now for something completely different...) who abducts and kills virgins to search for the eternal life elixir. He needs thriteen, but the last one gets away and he gets sentenced to death by quartering. 35 years later his faithful assistant, who was supposed to be hanged, gets him back to complete his elixir. He also wants to take revenge on the daughter of his escaped victim and on the son of the judge who sent him to death. He can do both of these things in one go, but the people he wants to get have some company and they are ready to get the count to where he belongs: in hell! Nice Gothic film which is loosely based on The Pit And The Pendulum, there is also a pendulum scene in it. Atmosphere is OK, the growing threat while approaching the castle in the carriage is obvious, well done. The acting is so so, but it is in a forgiveable state. A bit Hammer-like, but also a tad different than those, I ghuess this one is for the fans of the subgenre.

The Galaxy Invader – another Don Dohler film. This one can be summarized very shortly: a green spaceguy lands on earth and meets some rednecks. They think they can earn a quick buck by catching the alien, and a pursuit follows, complete with shootout. There are also two guys who want to save the alien. The alien looks like a guy dressed up in an ugly suit, the rest of the film is mediocre at best. There are virtually no effects, and since the storyline is so simple, it is also quite boring. Only for bad moviefans, but even they can better pick a different Dohler film.

The Washing Machine - aka Vortice Mortale, a late giallo by Ruggero Deodato. A police inspector investigates a weird case, in which a dead body was found in a washing machine. However, upon arrival there is no corpse to be seen. In the house where the corpse was supposed to be live three sisters who are all a bit odd, and one by one they are hitting on the inspector, who not only has a more difficult task to complete the investigation now, but also has his girlfriend to count with. Bit by bit he unravels the mystery surrounding the vanished corpse and of course we get several red herrings along the way. Then there is a sudden and also a bit ridiculous plottwist and the ending is typical: I hadn't guessed this one as it is pretty far out. Acting was ok, sometimes a bit overdone. Setting was nice, music by Simonetti was good. I can safely recommend this to any Italo fan.

Night of the Living Dorks - aka Die nacht der Lebenden Loser. A German made American highschool drama mixed with some zombie voodoo stuff. Everything about the story is American cliche: the loser who wants the prettiest girl in class (an ugly girl in this film, btw), but she is with the sports hero of the school, so he makes a plan to put a spell on her to make her fall in love with him, but instead he and his friends become zombies. This is already corny to the limit, but the intensity of lame jokes (both quality- and quantitywise) makes it a very tough job to sit through. There were 4-5 ok jokes, so it was not 100% unbearable, but a good 98 is close enough. Some jokes were lost in translation (knowing German helps a lot in this case). Predictable and cliche, the story continues until the equally predictable finale. I was lucky to have a friend over to watch this with me so I had some moral support. Only for drunk watching I guess.

Rude Awakening - short on time, so there goes another Hammer House of Horror episode, number 7. Mr Shenley, a real estate broker, has a starnge meeting with a man called Mr Rayburn, who tells him about a house which is to be sold because the owner passed away. In the house, Shenley sees the dead body of his wife and he hears voices telling him that he shouldn't have killed her. After a while he wakes up and it turns out that it was all a dream, but to be sure he is going to check out on the house. The house is not there, so now he is quite surprised. The next day he gets to visit the house once more, and now it's there again, but it's not for sale, as the owner is still living in it. The situation gets stranger and stranger all the time and each time Shenley wakes up wondering what is dream and what is reality. In the meantime his relationship with his wife is under pressure as he is fantasizing about marrying his secretary. This all plays part in his dreams, too. Atmosphere and acting were very Ok in this one, and although I didn't really like the story too much (it wasn't horror enough for me) it was still quite enjoyable.

The Devil's Kiss - aka La perversa caricia de Satán. Spanish B-movie which has all the "qualities" of such a film. It stars several regulars from Spanish Eurotrash cinema, with Sylvia Solar as the most famous one. The story is quite confusing: it has something to do with a man committing suicide in the past and now his wife is out for revenge and for that she uses a dead body a la Frankenstein's monster, mixed with occultism. To spice things up, there is a weird 70s fashion show and there are some sleazy sexscenes. The setting is nice, an old castle somewhere in France: it adds to the atmosphere, which is also good. Acting is so so, especially some men are acting a bit stiffly. If you don't mind to think "What the hell did I just watch?" afterwards, this one might be for you.

Son of Godzilla - I feared that this might be another very silly kid's monsterflick, like Godzilla's Revenge. Fortunately, this one wasn't so dumb. Of course it is still a Godfziallf film, which has many flaws, but at least the actors were trying to take this film more seriously. An science team is investigating the possibilities of changing the climate, in order to make more soil fertile in the world to battle the global food shortage. This investigation takes place on an island where giant mantises live, where Godzilla has an egg hatching and to top it off there is a giant underground spider. The science team solves the climate problem and saves everyone from the mantises and the spider. The end. Simple, but OK monsterflick. There are worse Godzilla films out there, but alsso better ones, like for example the ones in which he is actually a bit scary. In this one it seems like you could take Godzilla home and ask your mom if you could keep it.

Insidious chapter 2 - James Wan does it again, but it starts to get a bit repetitive now. The story of this film continues where part one left off. I really enjoyed part one, that story got to me, under my skin even. This one has more of the same, in one scene I got goosebumps, but overall it is too little innovative in my opnion. It feels more like you are watching the same film again, the characters just do some stuff differently. That's a bit sad, because now I don't feel much like watching part 3, to which the makers of this one have created a large opening in the final scene, which was cliche to the top, btw. On the other hand: you know what to expect so you can just wait until you are in the mood for another Insidious and then go watch it. But still, it felt a bit unsatisfying. I feel that Wan was getting off easy on this one, like he made this on 50% energy. I really hope that part 3 will be the last one and that he will start making new stories, otherwise I might get bored with his films way too fast.

Conan the Barbarian - looking for the Arnold Schwarzenegger version, I came across this one so I tried it out. Of course it doesn't feature Arnie, nor James Earl Jones, but it does have Ron perlman as Conan's faher and Rose McGowan as Khalar Zym's daughter. The introuduction was quite nice and itlooked like this could be something. Shortly after I found out that this film was actually pretty ridiculous and it's ojne of those cases where everyone knows it except the people involved. They kept acting and looking like we, the viewers should take it all seriously. And that, my friends is next to impossible, because stuff is so much over the top in this film that I dare anyone to sit this one out and never think "WTF"?!? They want me to buy this?" One exmple: when Conan is still young, actualy too young, he still participates in some kind of a match/battle where the young guys have to run around a mountain and come back with an egg unbroken. Of course Conan wins this, and not only stays his egg unbroken during the entire run, he also kills a bunch of enemies, bringing their heads back home while he is covered in blood from head to toe. Riiiight. The remainder of the film is more of the same and although some of the action is quite OK, it gets boring after a while. This is not really my genre, but I can have fun with the clumsy attempts at this from the 70s and 80s. This however, is a waste of time.

That is a lot of words for "its shit"

Yeah, I know But I think a review loses it's value if it's just that. I can imagine people want to know why it is shit, so I try to get that across. More shit and something good below:

The Pool - a German production, which is expressed through the aka title: Swimming Pool - Der Tod feiert mit. It's set in Prague, on an international school, a clever means to use actors from various countries all over the world. The exams have been finished, so now it's partytime and the rich kids have found the perfect place to do so: in a luxurious new swimming pool. But, of course there is a killer loose (you know by then because he already has killed two people) and one by one the graduates die a horrible death. Especially the kills

Spoiler:

where the guy gets slashed to pieces and then the girl gets cut in half when she glides down the slide

were nice, the other ones were not so special. The story itself is not really surprising, but since I was expecting a cliche ridden story, that was OK for me. The whodunnit has a nice setup, in which they are leading you to believe one person to be the killer, but then it's someone else. Unfortunately, they emphasize it a bit too much so an experienced viewer will see through it soon enough. Not too good this one, but I have seen worse, too.

The Reef - a boat has to be brought to Indonesia, and the guy who is taking it, has invited some friends over to do some diving around the Great Barrier Reef. After a few days, their boat gets damaged on a reef, the keel is torn off and the boat capsizes. They are out of the flying routes and the boat is slowly sinking, so they have to decide what to do: stay and hope for help in time or try to reach land by swimming across a large part of the ocean. A small group is going to try the latter, but there are sharks in te water, making the trip ten times as hazardous. This is the second "killer animal" film by Andrew Traucki I have seen. I didn't know it while watching, but I thought that one of the actresses was in Black Water so I looked it up and it turned out to be the director instead Like in Black Water, the fear and the anima action are very realistic, the sharks are real, too. The story is based on a real event and all this adds to the atmosphere in which you can really feel the fear of the characters. You don't see very much but that is actually quite scary: long shots of open sea gave me the shivers in this one because you know that shark is there and it will come. I ws gluied to my seat and I'm definitely gonna watch The Jungle from 2013, the 3rd killer animal film by Traucki. Highly recommended.