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Hitch-Hike

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Hitch-Hike (Italian: Autostop rosso sangue), also known as Death Drive and The Naked Prey, is a 1977 Italian crime/revenge film directed by Pasquale Festa Campanile. It stars Franco Nero and Corinne Cléry as a couple in a troubled marriage, and David Hess as a fugitive who takes them hostage. The distinctive musical score was composed by Ennio Morricone.

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The minimal plot is largely a three character work-out revolving around two of the most familiar faces in genre cinema, Hess and Nero, with Cléry having appeared in Just Jaeckin’s The Story of O and shortly to star in the hugely entertaining The Humanoid  and go stellar in the James Bond film, Moonraker. The picking-up of an innocent-looking stranger leading to violence and death was nothing new and continues to inspire many film-makers.

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There are several factors which set Hitch-Hike apart from films of a similar ilk. Firstly, the stunning backdrop of the Gran Sasso mountains of central Italy, beautiful but unfamiliar and remote-looking enough to suggest attempts at escape are likely to be futile, all expertly shot by cinematographer, Franco Di Giacomo, a veteran of gialli Four Flies on Grey Velvet and Who Saw Her Die? It is reminiscent of the Spanish locations used for so many Italian-made westerns and the film has many similar qualities, with revenge, loot and a slightly cyclical plot involved. Secondly, the remarkably strange dynamic between the characters. Though Hess (playing Adam Konitz) has no redeeming features, an act he had mastered in Wes Craven’s classic The Last House on the Left (1972) and would repeat in Ruggero Deodato’s House at the Edge of the ParkNero (playing journalist Walter Mancini, often referred to mockingly as ‘Martini’ by Konitz) is similarly spiteful, an alcoholic wife-beater who frequently sexually assaults Cléry’s character, Eve, who for her part, puts up with the abuse and ultimately does little to discourage the two male suitors; it’s difficult to truly sympathise or root for any of them, not a negative simply an interesting conceit.

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There are twists in the tale with the protagonists running into the two other fugitive members of Konitz’s gang (both engaging in a homosexual affair, causing Konitz to launch into a cliched rant but allowing Mancini to meditate that maybe the ideals of their lives are what they are all missing) and later into a group of hippy-ish motorcycle-riding teenagers, both questioning the viewer further as to who the most evil character is and indeed to question their own morals. Cléry gets obligingly undressed and the violence – regularly threatened – and when unleashed, especially in the case of two cops being shot, is shockingly succinct.

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Nero sports one of his most luxurious moustaches and plays his role magnificently, as rotten in many ways as Konitz but with recognisable everyday issues. He had broken his hand (allegedly punching a cantankerous horse!) whilst filming one of the last great Westerns, Keoma, a fact which led to his sozzled character taking a drunken tumble over a tent peg in Hitch-Hike to explain the bandage. He had recommended Hess to director, Campanile after they both worked together on the TV movie, 21 Hours at Munich. Hess plays his part with typical sleaze and an unrelenting menace, securing his place further as one of the screen’s greatest villains. Cléry too is well cast, alluring yet difficult to warm to, both victim and tormentor to the two vile male characters.

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Campanile had come from a background of filming far lighter dramas and particularly specialised in the sex comedies which were rife in European ‘sinema’ in the late 60′s and 70′s, of particular note, When Women Had Tales (Quando La Donne Avevano La Coda), which saw him working with Hitch-Hike‘s musical composer, the legendary Ennio Morricone. His score is a difficult one to enjoy as a stand-alone piece but works well in the film, offering sparse percussion and angular plucked guitar to draw out the tension in an agonising manner. It also features a recurring pop song, ‘Sunshine’. It’s always fun to hear Morricone tackle the mainstream, his dislike of pop music is well documented, though it’s clear he understands the necessary dynamics and always delivers something entertaining; what starts as annoying eventually becomes a real earworm.

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Despite some disappointingly intrusive poor dubbing, Hitch-Hike has aged very well and is a rattlingly good film, as well as a showcase for two of film’s greatest character actors.

Daz Lawrence

Uncut trailer as Death Drive at Daily Motion

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Cannibal Holocaust

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Cannibal Holocaust is a 1980 Italian cannibal film directed by Ruggero Deodato (House on the Edge of the Park) from a screenplay by Gianfranco Clerici, starring Carl Gabriel Yorke, Robert Kerman, Francesca Ciardi, Perry Pirkanen and Luca Giorgio Barbareschi. Cannibal Holocaust was filmed in the Amazonian rainforest with real indigenous tribes interacting with American and Italian actors and follows on from the director and scriptwriter’s Last Cannibal World (1976).

NB. Before scrolling down further please note that there are images in this posting that reflect the subject matter and content of this film and are therefore not suitable for younger horror fans. If in doubt, please click away now. Thank you.

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Led by New York-based anthropologist Harold Monroe (Kerman), a team is assembled to search for a missing film crew who had ventured deep into the Amazonian rainforest to film a documentary about tribes still practising cannibalism. Assisted by local guides, Monroe ventures into the unknown and meets with members of the local Yacumo tribe who it seems were greatly upset by the film-makers whom he is seeking. Later meeting with the warring Yanomamö and Shamatari tribes, he gains the trust of the former by immersing himself in their culture, only to find the best they can do to help him find his friends is show him a pile of bones and some film cans.

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After securing the tapes by taking part in a rather unpleasant cannibalistic ceremony, he returns to New York to view the tapes and try to piece together what has happened. We learn that the documentary, titled The Last Road To Hell, though veiled under the pretence of being a thoughtful study of ancient rites and culture, is an appalling catalogue of brutality on the part of the Americans to stage footage for maximum effect back home. As such, we see scenes of rape, amputation, the burning of an entire village and numerous scenes of animal cruelty, all with the intention of gaining an appropriate reaction from the tribes to make their film ever more sensational. The final reels show a sudden turn in events, after gang raping a female member of the tribe, they later find her ritually impaled as a punishment for ‘her’ crimes. However, she isn’t the only one to face trial, the cannibals seeking to avenge her fate by hunting down the film crew in merciless fashion. As the final reel finishes, Monroe wonders aloud, just “who the real cannibals are”?

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Though, quite rightly, hailed as the benchmark and indeed the last word on the cannibal sub-genre, Cannibal Holocaust was far from the first venture into jungle brutality. The Richard Harris-starring A Man Called Horse (1970) had appeared a decade earlier and, even as a mainstream feature, alerted directors to the potential for shocking but fact-based films as serious money-makers, though earlier explorations in the pseudo-documentary field, classed as ‘mondo films’, beginning with Franco Prosperi and Gualtiero Jacopetti’s 1962 film Mondo Cane (A Dog’s World), had seen many film-makers cutting their teeth using sometimes outrageously exploitative footage.

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It wasn’t until Umberto Lenzi’s 1972 film Man from Deep Riverthat the genre took off, with Italy firmly leading the way. Deodato’s own (excellent) Last Cannibal World (aka Ultimo Mondo Cannibale/Jungle Holocaust) appeared in 1976 to exceptional box-office results. Sergio Martino’s The Mountain of the Cannibal God even featured ex-James Bond bombshell Ursula Andress in the lead role, despite the graphic content, a sure sign of the bankability of the cannibal boom.

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With the success of Last Cannibal World and the backing of German investors, Deodato and his producers, Franco Palaggi (whose credits also include working on A Fistful of Dollars) and Franco Di Nunzio (who also produced Deodato’s grimy, relentless House at the Edge of the Park) scouted South America for suitable locations, eventually settling on Leticia in southern-most Columbia, despite the remoteness meaning that getting there involved arduous trekking and boat trips. Armed with a screenplay by the prolific Italian writer Gianfranco Clerici (The New York Ripper, L’Anticristo, Last Cannibal World) they assembled a largely unknown cast but one which spoke English, both establishing a certain amount of credibility in terms of their background and making the film more saleable to foreign markets.

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By far the most famous name was Robert Kerman who had made quite a name for himself in the adult film industry using the pseudonym R. Bolla. His most well-known role was in one of the most iconic films of the 1970s, Debbie Does Dallas, though his career in the field stretched well over 100 films. Continuing to act, though hampered by his hardcore career, he has since appeared in Cannibal Ferox, Airport ’79 and even a minor part in Sam Raimi’s Spiderman. The only other member of the cast to have had any sort of career not completely overshadowed by their role in Cannibal Holocaust is the Italian/Uruguayan Luca Barbareschi, who entered politics as part of Silvio Berlusconi’s government in 2008 and gained more notoriety in a filmed exchange with a journalist which resulted in the reporter being knocked out by Barbareschi.

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Though Deodato has claimed that the shocking, visceral nature of the film and its dynamics are a commentary of events in Italy during the early 1970′s when the Red Brigade launched terrorist attacks in an attempt to bring about a revolutionary state through a destabilised country, this echoes slightly of many of his retrospective assertions about the film to paper over accusations over his allegedly tyrannical methods of direction. What is clear is his adoption of  Cinéma vérité techniques which used methods including provocation and staged scenarios in order to portray a ‘truth’ and realism to their films; these has already proved popular and successful in the mondo films of the 1960′s and 1971′s. The pops and crackles on the viewed footage (filmed on 16mm to add to the authenticity) in New York and the scratched frames add a genuinely convincing edge due to action.

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Adding to the documentary feel is the oft-discussed violence and cruelty inflicted upon animals in the film, ranging from shrew-like fluffy creatures (actually a coati), a large spider, two monkeys (the lopping off of the head required two takes), a tethered wild pig and perhaps most notoriously, a turtle who suffers a protracted death for no other reason than to prompt revulsion and disgust from the audience. Deodato’s views have mellowed significantly over the years, indifference changing to ‘but the locals ate them afterwards’ to complete rejection, re-editing the film to excise the footage in 2011. Recollections from the cast, particularly Kerman who objected throughout the the animal deaths (and also Perry Pirkanen, who apparently cried after the turtle scene, a strange paradox considering his apparent on-screen glee). Viewed over 30 years later, these scenes are still amongst the strongest and most stomach-churning in the whole of the horror genre.

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There have long been rumours that the sex scene between Yorke and Ciardi was not simulated, Ciardi already having been admonished by Deodato for her ‘prudishness’ in not wanting to bare her breasts. Real or not, it is another example of the blurring between fact and fiction which permeates the whole film. Deodato was also accused of under-paying his actors (and not paying the locals at all), as well as dictatorial behaviour throughout the shoot, upsetting and alienating most of the cast at one stage or another. The cast had a clause in their contract which stated that they were to give no interviews nor make any appearances regarding the film for a year after its release, so as to create the impression that they had indeed been slaughtered in the film. This backfired badly (or depending on your viewpoint, worked magnificently) as the authorities, convinced by the animal sequences and incredibly realistic gore, arrested Deodato on counts of not only obscenity but also murder.

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In order to prove his innocence, the very much alive actors were gathered together to appear in a television program whilst many of the scenes had to be explained in great detail to convince the court that no-one was killed during the filming. The most iconic image in the film, that of the raped cannibal girl having been impaled on the wooden spike was revealed to be an actress sat on an obscured bicycle seat with a small piece of wood held between her teeth. It must be said that all the scenes of death and violence within the film remain as incredibly convincing and impressive as the day they were first screened.

The controversy did no harm to the film’s success, taking an alleged $5 million in the first ten days of release alone. Commercial video releases also did a roaring trade, the UK Go Video release being a mainstay of homely video libraries for 2-3 years before the video recordings act declared it prosecutable to rent or sell. It was also banned in many other countries, including Germany, Australia and New Zealand, but bucked the trend in Japan where it became the second biggest grossing film in the year of its release.

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The film’s soundtrack was composed entirely by Italian composer Riz Ortolani, whom Deodato specifically requested because of Ortolani’s work in Mondo Cane, particularly the film’s main theme, “Ti guarderò nel cuore” (also known as “More”). Ortolani was (and still is) known for his rather romantic, sweeping scores, full of large string sections of plaintive melodies. His work on Cannibal Holocaust, perhaps surprisingly, is no different, the main theme being achingly beautiful, a reflection of the stunning settings but a counterpoint to the horrific violence portrayed. The score has become a classic of the genre and helped to elevate Ortolani to the upper echelons of Italian soundtrack composers, his work having since being used by directors such as Quentin Tarantino and Nicolas Winding Refn.

Download: 02-cannibal-holocaust-main-theme.mp3

Though the cannibal sub-genre ran out of steam in the mid-80′s, the influence of Cannibal Holocaust is still felt today, the found-footage theme being used in the likes of The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity, whilst also inspiring directors like Eli Roth — whose current project is the jungle-set Green Inferno — to forge their own careers.

Rather like many of the zombie films of the 1970′s and 1980′s, many films have passed themselves off as sequels to the original film but despite interest from Deodato in his own follow-up, set in an American city, slated to be titled simply Cannibals, this has yet to happen and the film remains as a stand-alone beacon of depravity, gut-churning set-pieces and one of the great achievements of horror cinema.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

Wikipedia | IMDb | Ruggero Deodato

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Buy Cannibal Holocaust uncut on DVD from Amazon.com

cannibal holocaust and the savage cinema of ruggero deodato

Buy Cannibal Holocaust and the Savage Cinema of Ruggero Deodato FAB Press book from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

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The New York Ripper

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The New York Ripper (Italian: Lo Squartatore di New York) is a 1982 Italian giallo film directed by Lucio Fulci. The film score was written by Francesco De Masi, whilst the screenplay was written by Fulci, Gianfranco Clerici, Vincenzo Mannino and Dardano Sacchetti. It was banned in many countries or released as an “adults-only” movie after heavy editing. Whilst most of Lucio Fulci’s other films have been released uncut in the United Kingdom, The New York Ripper remains censored to this day, even for its 2011 DVD and Blu-ray releases. At the time it was made, real-life serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, nicknamed ‘The Yorkshire Ripper’ had only recently been apprehended so Fulci’s film would have been even more contentious had it not been undemocratically rejected by unelected British censors.

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In the grimy but neon-drenched streets of New York, a maniacal killer is discovered to be on the loose after the body of a local prostitute is found dismember by a man walking his dog. Dispatched to investigate is the grizzled, bitter Lieutenant Fred Williams (Jack Hedley) who after visiting the girl’s landlady is given his only lead; the girl had recently been talking with a man who had a voice like a duck. Before the detective can investigate the claims, a woman is viciously attacked and killed aboard a ferry, our first introduction to the killer who not only sounds like a duck but a very famous duck – Donald. Warned by the chief of police (Fulci himself in a not uncommon appearance onscreen) not to reveal details to the public for fear of causing mad panic, Williams learns that the duck-voiced foe has been trying to contact him, leading to film-long taunting by the killing after each victim is slain. Further hideously lurid murders take place and suspicion falls on well-known drop-out called Mickey Scellenda, already convicted for drug and sexual offences and with tell-tale missing fingers. The film introduces us to Fay Majors (Almanta Keller), who becomes the lynch-pin to the case, surviving an attack and confusing the issue by believing the killer is actually her boyfriend. The Ripper’s attacks become ever-more frenzied and increase in regularity but just as the net seems to be closing in on the killer, has Williams got the wrong man/duck?

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Having already covered many genres with often stunning results (the tour de force Western, Four of the Apocalypse, and landmark zombie film Zombie Flesheaters to name but two), Fulci returned to the giallo genre for the first time since The Psychic (aka Sette Note in Nero) but with a far colder heart and with outrageously graphic sexual violence, most of which is shown on-screen, though stills suggest that even the director excised some scenes from even the most intact prints. Containing just about everything that then head of the BBFC, James Ferman, objected to in films, he allegedly ordered the print sent for certification in the UK to be escorted back to the airport where it could be flown to safety, away from sensitive British eyes. The film remained uncertified for cinema screenings and became part of the notorious ‘video nasty’ list. Ferman never let go out of his hatred for the film and several years later in a Channel 4 documentary entitled Sex and the Censors, declared the film ‘irresponsible’.

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The lack of Fulci’s unmistakable gothic template and relocation to New York fills the film with despair and filth (rather like Driller Killer or Maniac) before the killer and his motivations even begin; it’s a film that is utterly without remorse. The sexual attacks are very much just that – accusations of misogyny were flung Fulci’s way as the graphic scenes of naked womens’ bodies seemingly slashed and mutilated under the veil of what can only be described as a very thin plot, rather pointlessly winds its way to a revelation that is the cinematic equivalent of a shoulder-shrug.

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The New York Ripper is Lucio Fulci at his most frustrating. A sometimes gifted artist behind the camera, he resorts to slasher men-as-brutes/women-as-victims sensationalism and crudeness at the expense of a holey plot and unremarkable acting (kudos though to Zora Kerova who appears as a sex-show performer, having previously been hounded in grubby Eurotrash films such as Anthropophagus, Terror Express and Cannibal Ferox - a glutton for punishment if ever there was one!)  and electing to give the killer the voice of a cartoon duck. On first watch this is actually rather entertaining, more due to novelty than genius – repeated viewings show it to be increasingly baffling and desperate. Though other films of the 1970′s and 1980′s were similarly morally dubious and little more than excuse to titillate an easily pleased audience, few do it with such brazen garishness.

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On the plus side, we are given an excuse to listen to a score by Francesco De Masi, usually to be found as the writer for euro-crime poliziotteschi films (Napoli Spara) or Italian Westerns (Arizona Colt). In truth, though great fun and an excellent listen, it’s an odd mis-match to a film that though required viewing for gorehounds, is essentially a ‘greatest hits’of sexist splatter effects with Donald Duck in the background.

Download: 01-lo-squartatore-di-new-york-new-york-one-more-day.mp3

Daz Lawrence

Several of the images come courtesy of the excellent http://silverferox.blogspot.co.uk/

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Undead Pool (aka Attack Girls’ Swim Team vs. The Undead)

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Undead Pool aka Attack Girls’ Swim Team vs. The Undead (original title: Joshikyôei hanrangun) is a 2007 Japanese erotic comedy horror film directed by Kôji Kawano from a screenplay by Satoshi Owada (Cruel Restaurant). It stars Sasa HandaYuria HidakaAyumu TokitôMizuka AraiHiromitsu KibaHidetomo NishidaSakae YamazakiTôshi Yanagi and Kiyo Yoshizawa.

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A laboratory mix-up means that a vaccine is accidentally swapped with a virus causing a high school full of students and teachers to turn into flesh-eating zombies. But all is not lost: New student Aki discovers that the swim team is immune to the plague. With the school rampaged by ravenous monsters, the girls engage in an over-the-top orgy of gory violence to save the day…

Aki, brainwashed and trained (in that order) to become an assassin, is transferred to an all-girl school, just as a virus that turns the young ladies into entrail-twirling zombies has been making the rounds. Everyone – teachers included – are made into gleeful zombies, tearing into necks, chopping off limbs, and decapitating students with metal rulers. Everyone, that is, except the swim team. Turns out the school pool’s chlorine makes them immune to the zomb-virus.

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The cartoonish gore is straight grindhouse stuff and is amusingly entertaining. One female teacher uses stringy guts pulled out of a chainsawed stomach to accessorize her fresh-stained wardrobe. The evil scientist turns out to be doubly so, and faces off with Aki in the end, who’s not too happy about that whole “brainwashing through rape” Japanese technique. Aki, without any clothes worth mentioning, has a secret retribution weapon up her, uh, sleeve.

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Just so you know, this fine film is in Japanese and the version available does not have sub-titles. As if that’s gonna stop you watching it.

Jeff Gilbert, Drinkin’ & Drive-In

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Buy Nihombie! triple-film DVD pack from Amazon.com

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Buy Attack Girls’ Swim Team vs. The Undead on DVD from Amazon.com

Wikipedia | IMDb


Büyü (aka Dark Spells)

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Büyü (aka Dark Spells) is a 2004 Turkish horror film directed by Orhan Oğuz based on a screenplay by Şafak Güçlü and Servet Aksoy. It stars Ece UsluÖzgü Namalİpek TuzcuoğluOkan YalabıkNihat İleri and Dilek Serbest.

The film was a surprise box office success, even though it received very poor reviews and is currently ranked #53 in the IMDb‘s Bottom 100 movies of all time.

A group of archeologists enter a village that is seemingly cursed by its past. They ignore the warnings of the locals, but soon after they arrive, terror strikes. Weird bugs come out of flames to bite Cemil, Ayadan is raped by an invisible force, babies are heard crying in the air, and more unnerving incidents occur. After the unexpected murder by decapitation of Cemil, the group finally band together to try to take on the evil forces lurking around every corner…

Wikipedia |IMDb

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Lady, Stay Dead

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Lady, Stay Dead is a 1981 Australian film written and directed by Terry Bourke and starring Chard Hayward, Deborah Coulls and Roger Ward. Despite being an English-language horror film released at the height of the video boom, the film received only a brief VHS release in the USA and has never – to our knowledge – appeared officially in any territory on DVD.

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Bourke had already directed two films in the horror genre, both, it has to be said, poorly received; Inn of the Damned (1975) and 1972′s Night of Fearconsidered by some to be the first Australian horror film. His third attempt is by far the most successful and despite its meagre budget of around A$600,000 and more than resembling stalking maniac films already released in very recent memory (Don’t Answer the Phone!, 1980) it’s hugely entertaining and deserves to be far more widely known.

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In  the Australian suburbs, wealthy, care-free pop singer/model-type, Marie Colby (Deborah Coulls, perhaps inevitably an allumna of the popular TV series, Prisoner: Cell Block H) lives a life of luxury, pausing only from her lounging around and aerobics to fling insults at those around her. Among these unlucky riff-raff is her spectacularly-bearded and bottle-topped spectacles-wearing gardener, Gordon Mason (Chard Hayward, also to be seen in several television shows, including The Thorn Birds, Babylon 5 and Lost) who is initially willing to accept her anti-social behaviour in return for the sexual kicks her gets spying on her, most disturbingly with the assistance of a rubber doll. This unusual arrangement doesn’t last as during one of her particularly ungrateful rants he takes exception, raping her then introducing her face-first into a large fish tank. A nosey neighbour is duly dispatched, as is her dog – presumably Australian dogs blab to the cops in the same way TV kangaroos do. Unfortunately for Mason, Colby’s sister, Jenny (Louise Howitt) comes to visit and it isn’t long before the whiskery horticulturist recognises the threat she poses but not before local cop, Clyde Collings (Roger Ward, almost omnipresent in Australian films from Mad Max to Turkey Hunt to the 2008 remake of Long Weekend) is on the case.

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With a strange matter-of-factness (possibly driven by the high quota of television actors involved) that elevates it from traditional slasher territory to far sleazier fare (the aforementioned Don’t Answer the Phone! and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer), with the cat and mouse action between Mason and Jenny particularly gripping and satisfying. Hayward is terrifically scuzzy as the psychopathic, sexually deviant gardener, and a warning against beards if ever there was one. It may be sleazy and misogynistic but with a low-body count, the tension is ramped up with carefully plotted threat rather than a catalogue of bloody murders. Overlooked enough at the time, it now has the indignity to not be commercially available at all, a great shame as it’s a fascinating glimpse at the influence of American horror on Australian filmmakers and their particularly rural interpretation of it.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

Related: Australian and New Zealand horror | slasher

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Thanks to Bruce Holecheck’s Cinema Arcana: The VHS Archive for most of these images, some of which came via Tumblr so we didn’t know the original source. Honest!


Gutterballs

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Gutterballs is a 2008 Canadian horror film written and directed by Ryan Nicholson  and starring Dan Ellis, Nathan Witte, Mihola Terzic, and Alastair Gamble.

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Tensions between two rival cliques boil over during an after-hours bowling session and a fight breaks out. When a girl from one of the team forgets her purse in the arcade, she returns only to be brutally raped by members of the other team. The following night, both groups return to the bowling alley. Except this time, they’re being stalked by a deranged serial killer adorned with a bowling bag as a mask and by sunrise, the alleys will run red with blood…

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The film has a total of 625 uses of the word “fuck”, ranking it second (behind the documentary of the same name, about the history and usage of the word) and first in total usage for a scripted motion picture.

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There is a “hardgore” version of the film with 20 minutes of extra footage. The Pin-Etration Edition, a version of the film containing hardcore inserts and limited to 69 copies, was also made available for purchase on the Plotdigger Films website in 2011.

A sequel, entitled Balls Deep, is in development.

Wikipedia | IMDb

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Buy Gutterballs on DVD from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

Buy Gutterballs “Hardgore” version on DVD from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

“A deliberate attempt to make the most extreme, repugnant slasher film imaginable, Gutterballs is a neon-drenched genre offering with all of its exploitative elements exaggerated so far that good taste is left in the dust within the first 90 seconds.” Nathaniel Thompson, Mondo Digital

“If you’re in the mood for a flick with plenty of T&A, a good amount of blood and characters who exist for no other purpose than to die horribly, Gutterballs is right up your alley (pun intended), as long as you can get past the protracted rape scene, of course (that’s why the fast forward was invented).  If you’re looking for something fresh and interesting from the indie horror scene, I recommend you look elsewhere.”   Dread Central

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House on the Edge of the Park

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House on the Edge of the Park (Italian: La casa sperduta nel parco) is a 1980 Italian exploitation film from the Italian director Ruggero Deodato. It stars David Hess, Giovanni Lombardo Radice and Lorraine De Selle and features a musical score by Riz Ortolani. The entire film was shot in under  four weeks, on a very limited budget.

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Degenerate New York mechanic, Alex (David Hess, to some extent reprising the role he played as Krug in Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left) spends his downtime prowling the streets abducting and assaulting, sometimes murdering the local women. A typical day sees Alex and his workmate, the slow-on-the-uptake Ricky (Giovanni Lombardo Radice of Cannibal Ferox, Cannibal Apocalypse and City of the Living Dead), closing the garage for the night, only for a car containing socially mobile yuppie types Tom (Christian Borromeo, Tenebrae, Murder-Rock) and his girlfriend Lisa (Annie Belle, Absurd) who need some urgent repairs on the cadillac. Ricky agrees to help and in no time the job is done – as a way of thanking them for their time, Tom invites them to a party at their friend’s large villa, situated, yes, next to a park. Pausing only for Alex to equip himself with a straight razor, they set off for a night of high jinx.

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Upon arrival, it’s clear that the social and financial divide between the two groups of party-goers is some cause of amusement, at Alex and Ricky’s expense. Ricky is coerced into cinema’s greatest dance sequence and later a game of poker, with some extremely naughty cheating going on. As Alex’s anger continues to rise, he is seduced by Lisa whose sexual advances lead him to the shower, only for her to reject him. His rage is unleashed on another of the guests, Howard (Gabriele Di Giulio), who after a severe beating  is urinated on and then tied to a table leg as Alex announces that he’s running the show now. Despite being outnumbered, Alex and Ricky subject the group to a relentless torrent of sexual and violent attacks, Alex slashing Tom with his razor and Ricky becoming involved with Gloria (Lorraine De Selle from Cannibal Ferox and Wild Beasts) who finds it easy to distract him from his more violent intentions by performing a striptease. Meanwhile, Alex is running rampage, with next door neighbour, Cindy (Brigitte Petronio, The Cynic, The Rat and The Fist) cut to ribbons and the rest of the household lining up to be next. Ricky finally snaps and begs him to stop, only to be disemboweled for his troubles. The worm turns when, rather belatedly, Tom remembers there’s a gun hidden in a desk drawer. Quicker next time, eh?

Sporting a title which revels in the greatest obsession of exploitation filmmakers, houses and the environs thereof, House on the Edge of the Park is regularly compared to The Last House on the Left, primarily because Hess plays a similarly unhinged killer. Hess was singled out for the role because of his portrayal of Krug and was allegedly lured to the part by the promise of half the film’s rights. However, the tragedy and dynamics of the earlier film are shifted considerably by Deodato’s effort, with the rich party hosts being morally dubious and the whole household frankly needing a stern talking to.

The infamous director came straight from filming Cannibal Holocaust and was in no mood to lighten things up, employing hard-nosed writers Gianfranco Clerici and Vincenzo Mannino to sketch out the sense-light/violence-heavy screenplay – and their track record for sadistic sleaze was admirable, with a host of grim shockers under their belt, from Don’t Torture a Duckling to Last Cannibal World and, in 1982, the misogynistic yet mesmerisingly mean The New York Ripper. Despite admitting that he thought the script was ‘too violent’, Deodato went ahead and filmed it anyway, omitting only a ‘bridge too far’ scene involving abuse with a tampon.

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The savage make-up effects by Raul Ranieri, who also worked with Deodato and Hess on Hitch-Hike and on Umberto Lenzi’s Eaten Alive! coupled with an unremitting sexual violence landed the film in hot water in the UK, being rejected for a cinema certificate in March of 1981 and after sneaking out on VHS finding itself on the now notorious DPP ‘banned list’. When it was resubmitted in 2002, it was, ironically, savagely cut by over 11 minutes, essentially all the rape and slashings. The latest cut is still trimmed by 42 seconds of razor mayhem some 33 years on from its initial release.

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Though regularly flagged up as an example of films which are morally bankrupt and can only serve to corrupt the mind, House on the Edge of the Park is unfailing enjoyable, primarily because of the energetic and all-or-nothing performances of Hess and Radice. Their victims are almost a roll call of Italian exploitation faces whose names may escape you but are part of the firmament of 70′s and 80′s grub-core.

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Buy House on the Edge of the Park uncut on DVD from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

The disco dancing scene, whether intentionally or not, is a riot and the fact that all the characters are represent many of the worst elements of society simply adds to the rather cartoon quality of the film, something of an uber-violent pantomime. Though Ortolani’s score is nowhere near as accomplished as that of his masterpiece for Cannibal Holocaust, it is nevertheless similarly inappropriate, raising the question of whether he ever understood the kind of films he was scoring for.

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Before the untimely death of David Hess, plans were underway to revisit the film with a sequel, with both Radice and Hess appearing in some capacity, and Deodato slated to direct.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

Dance along like Ricky!

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House on the Edge of the Park (1980)

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The Seasoning House

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The Seasoning House is a 2012 British horror film directed by Paul Hyett and starring Rosie Day, Kevin Howarth and Sean Pertwee (Dog Soldiers).

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 Angel, a young girl that is forced to work in a house that specializes in supplying young prostitutes to various military personnel. Initially planned to be put to work as a prostitute, Angel instead becomes the assistant to Viktor, who runs the brothel. During the day she is given the duty of cleaning the prostitutes up after their often violent encounters with various men, but at night wanders the walls and crawlspaces of the house. It’s when she befriends newcomer Vanya and witnesses the aftermath of the regular and brutal sexual assaults that Vanya is subjected to that Angel begins to plan revenge, especially after the squad of soldiers responsible for her abduction and the murder of her family arrives…

Filming for the movie began in January 2012 at a disused air force base in London, with the movie being Hyett’s directorial debut.

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“Whilst it never quite manages that little bit extra that might have lifted it from being very good to truly great, The Seasoning House is nevertheless a superior example of modern British horror cinema.” Beyond Hollywood

The Seasoning House is a lyrical, bleak, and deeply wounding exploration  of brutality and inhumanity that cries out to be seen, though some very harsh scenes of violence and rape should see those of a sensitive disposition tread lightly.” Dread Central

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Frog-g-g!

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Frog-g-g! (released in Japan as Frogman) is a 2004 American science fiction horror comedy film directed by Cody Jarrett. When a small US has its water supply contaminated, a United States Environmental Protection Agency agent must track down the cause and the monstrous frog that it creates. The basic monster plot is borrowed from Humanoids from the Deep. It had one week at the box office, and was then released on DVD.

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Dr. Barbara Michaels, (Kristi Russell) from the Environmental Protection Agency arrives in a small US town, determined to prove that the residents are at risk from contaminated water, originating from the town’s biggest employer, Grimes’ chemical plant. After finding mutated fish and hearing tales of ‘tadpoles the size of frisbees’, she confronts Grimes who aggressively refutes the allegations, despite his track record in health and safety issues and warns her not to meddle in his business. Pausing only to conduct a lesbian affair with a local bartender, Michaels takes her findings to the town sheriff, who is similarly displeased that his quiet town is being dragged through the mud by an outsider, not least because his brother-in-law is Grimes. Despite a break-in at her lab destroying all evidence of her findings, lab samples sent back to her base in the city reveal the DNA found to be something frog-like but with an alarmingly close match to humans. So close is the match that the mutated frog has taken to the streets, only being able to reproduce by raping the town’s lady-folk. When Grimes’ own family start being attacked by the creature, the opposing forces finally come to their senses and attempt to track down the beast, who is quickly hopping from the town’s high school football final to an all-girl catholic school…

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Taking inspiration from obvious targets such as Creature from the Black Lagoon, Humanoids From the Deep and Alligator but also the raft of 1980′s horror films which took the dumping of chemical and nuclear waste as the spark for monstrous carnage, Frog-g-g! doesn’t attempt to be a serious horror film at any point and at best could be said to lampoon the exploitation fillms which themselves took events to illogical conclusions. Although a step above Syfy channel fodder, we aren’t quite in head-spinning Troma territory – the tiny budget is wasted neither on acting talent (only Mary Woronov from Silent Night, Bloody Night and TerrorVision has a CV worth investigating) nor the frog monster, which resembles a cheap Greedo fancy dress costume.

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The monster itself makes only brief appearances, a great shame as although the costume is absolute rubbish, he does deliver some laughs and some energetic, as well as gymnastic, sexual activities. The lesbian lead character makes a nice change and despite one mention of ‘Doctor Dyke’ is vilified for interfering rather than her sexuality, although the final act reveals why this has been shoe-horned into the plot. An utterly harmless 80 minutes of fun with a final shot that will make even the most stony of faces crack out a smile.

Daz Lawrence

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Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby

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Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby is a 1976 TV movie directed by Sam O’Steen, and a sequel to the 1968 film Rosemary’s Baby (which O’Steen edited). It has little connection to the novel by Ira Levin, on which the first film was based. It stars Stephen McHattiePatty Duke AustinGeorge MaharisBroderick CrawfordRuth GordonRay Milland and Tina Louise.

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A coven are preparing for a ritual, only to discover that Adrian (Rosemary’s baby), who is now eight years old, is missing from his room. Knowing Rosemary must be responsible for this, the coven members use her personal possessions to enable the forces of evil to locate her. Rosemary and Adrian are hiding in a synagogue for shelter. While hiding there, supernatural events begin to affect the rabbis. However, as they are seeking sanctuary in a house of God, the coven is unable to affect them.

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The next morning, Guy (George Maharis), who is now a famous movie star, gets a call from Roman Castevet. Roman informs Guy that both Rosemary and Adrian are missing and that Rosemary may attempt to contact him. Later that night, Rosemary and Adrian are sheltering in a bus stop. Rosemary makes a phone call to Guy, while Adrian plays with his toy car nearby. As soon as Guy answers the phone, Rosemary immediately issues instructions on how to send her money. Outside, some local children start teasing Adrian and bullying him by stealing his toy car. Suddenly, in a fit of rage, Adrian knocks the children unconscious to the ground. Attempting to flee, the pair are accosted by Marjean, a prostitute who was witness to the incident. Marjean offers them to hide the pair in her trailer…

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“Everything involving Duke and her young child on the run from evil Satanists is cheaply done but automatically fun. Flash-forwarding the “action” years into the future is a mistake that the film should never have attempted in the first place. Lizard-faced Stephen McHattie is well cast as the adult demon seed Andrew/Adrien, but has little to do but act confused. Ray Milland is a great pick to take over for the deceased Sidney Blackmer as cult leader Roman Castevet, but it doesn’t make up for the sinful waste of a downgraded returning Ruth Gordon as wife Minnie, who rarely does more than echo her husband.” Kindertrauma

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“Suffering from such maladies as a psychotic script, some stilted acting, and sub-par special effects (whenever such things are attempted) you may correctly assume that this sequel to Roman Polanski’s 1968 suspense film does not live up to its heritage. What a pleasant surprise, then, to find that this ultra-obscure sequel to a horror classic is a wacky 70s Doom film full of hallucinogenic images and a constantly downbeat tone.” Groovy Doom

“The acting, directing, writing, pacing, and climax where all horrendously bad. There is not one redeeming thing going for the film (and for a laugh, it tries to recreate the famous rape scene from the first film). It’s just sad to watch. Stick with the original, and count your blessings if you haven’t seen this.” Karmic Cop

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Wikipedia | IMDb | We are grateful to VHS Collector for the video sleeve image


Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931 film)

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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a 1931 American Pre-Code horror film directed by Rouben Mamoulian and starring Fredric March. The film is an adaptation of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), the Robert Louis Stevenson tale of a man who takes a potion which turns him from a mild-mannered man of science into a homicidal maniac. March’s performance has been much lauded, and earned him his first Academy Award.

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In a London of fog and gas lamps, capes and canes, kindly Dr Henry Jekyll (pronounced by the entire cast to rhyme with ‘treacle’, correctly according to Stevenson) attends a lecture to his adoring contemporaries where he announces that he has discovered that Man’s very soul is split between the good, the desire to love and perform good deeds and the bad, where Man succumbs to his baser instincts. Whilst walking home through Soho with his colleague, Dr. John Lanyon (Holmes Herbert, The Invisible Man), Jekyll spots a bar singer, Ivy Pearson (Miriam Hopkins), being attacked by a man outside her boarding house. Jekyll drives the man away and carries Ivy up to her room to attend to her. Ivy begins flirting with Jekyll and feigning injury, but Jekyll fights temptation and leaves with Lanyon.

Unable to convince his beloved Muriel’s (Rose Hobart, later seen in Tower of London) father Brigadier General Sir Danvers Carew (the equally splendidly monickered Halliwell Hobbes) that a quick wedding would be preferable to the year he insists upon, Jekyll continues his experiments in his personal lab, waited upon by his faithful servant, Poole (Edgar Norton from Dracula’s Daughter and Son of Frankenstein), eventually developing a potion which he elects to test on himself. Transforming into a quasi-Neanderthal, dubbed Mr Hyde, he continues to swagger around the upper class haunts of Victorian London but with unabashed bravado and bestial relish, gatecrashing the club Ivy frequents and seducing her in an extremely unsubtle manner.

Imprisoning her in her own room at a boarding house, Hyde torments and abuses Ivy but as the potion’s effects wear off, Jekyll realises hid absence has done his chances of marrying Murial no favours, he leaves Ivy temporarily, vowing to teach her a lesson if she attempts anything silly. Convincing his future father-in-law that his absence is completely out of character, the marriage finally receives his blessing and a large party is organised to make the announcement public. He sends Ivy £50 by way of apology, prompting her to visit the mystery benefactor and falling for him once again. Alas, Jekyll has been taking increasingly large doses of the potion and upon having a momentary ‘dark thought’, he again transforms into his alter-ego, against his will, even more hideous than before.

Returning to Ivy’s lodgings, he reveals he and Jekyll are one and the same and after some more brutality, he goes the whole hog and murders her. With Lanyon now wise to what is going on, Hyde inevitably ends up at Murial’s house, attacking her and the rest of the household, killing her father in the process. With the police on his tale, Hyde and Jekyll struggle to come to terms with who holds the upper hand – is it too late for Jekyll to make amends?

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The film was made prior to the full enforcement of the Hay’s Production Code and this should come as no surprise. The film bristles with sexuality, with barely veiled nods to rape and sexual violence and with the two leading ladies revealing plenty of leg and not a little cleavage. When it was re-released in 1936, the Code required 8 minutes to be removed before the film could be distributed to cinemas. This footage was restored for the VHS and DVD releases.

The secret of the transformation scenes was not revealed for decades (Mamoulian himself revealed it in a volume of interviews with Hollywood directors published under the title The Celluloid Muse). Make-up was applied in contrasting colors. A series of coloured filters that matched the make-up was then used which enabled the make-up to be gradually exposed or made invisible. The change in color was not visible on the black-and-white film. The effects are not advanced as those of 1940′s The Wolf Man, nor as ageless as 1932′s The Invisible Man but they are nevertheless remarkable.

A disgracefully uncredited Wally Westmore’s make-up for Hyde — simian and hairy with large canine teeth — influenced greatly the popular image of Hyde in media and comic books. In part this reflected the novella’s implication of Hyde as embodying repressed evil, and hence being semi-evolved or simian in appearance. The make-up came close to permanently disfiguring March’s own face. Westmore later helped create the similarly beast-like inhabitants of Island of Lost Souls.  The characters of Muriel Carew and Ivy Pearson do not appear in Stevenson’s original story but do appear in the 1887 stage version by playwright Thomas Russell Sullivan.

John Barrymore was originally asked by Paramount to play the lead role, in an attempt to recreate his role from the 1920 version of Jekyll and Hyde, but he was already under a new contract withMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Paramount then gave the part to March, who was under contract and who strongly resembled Barrymore. March had played a John Barrymore-like character in the Paramount film The Royal Family of Broadway (1930), a story about an acting family like the Barrymores. March would go on to win the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance of the role.

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When Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer remade the film ten years later with Spencer Tracy in the lead, the studio bought the rights to the 1931 Mamoulian version. They then recalled every print of the film that they could locate and for decades most of the film was believed lost. Ironically, the Tracy version was much less well received and March jokingly sent Tracy a telegram thanking him for the greatest boost to his reputation of his entire career.

The film also makes better use of music than most other horror films of the 1930′s, including the celebrated studio of Universal. Beginning with the portent of Bach’s Fugue in D Minor, it shows Jekyll as an accomplished organist, the soundtrack making use of this diegetic tool. Miriam too plays the piano, whilst Ivy, of course, sings, the musical world of the good in contrast with the guttural grunts and hissing of Hyde. There is also a rare use of song in an early horror film, Ivy’s ‘theme tune’ “Champagne Ivy”, actually being an adaptation of the 19th Century music hall song “Champagne Charley”.

It was to be March’s only role in a horror film, though it was enough for him to claim the Oscar for best actor (tying with Wallace Beerey in The Champ). Though his slightly simpering Jekyll make grate somewhat, his Hyde is a miraculous performance, energetic, twitching and frothing at the mouth with lust and vigour. His almost gymnastic feats in the film’s finale are a thing of wonder. As Hyde once taunts Ivy: ” I’ll show you what horror means!”

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

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BFI Poster for Rouben Mamoulian's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1931)

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Kappa (folklore)

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Kappa (河童, “river-child”), alternatively called Kawatarō (川太郎, “river-boy”), Komahiki (“horse puller”), or Kawako (川子, “river-child”), are a yōkai (a class of supernatural monster) found in Japanese folklore, and also a cryptid.

Their name comes from a mixture of the word “kawa” (river) and “wappo”, an inflection of “waraba” (child).  A hair-covered variation of a kappa is called a Hyōsube (ひょうすべ). There are more than eighty other names associated with the kappa in different regions which include Kawappa, Gawappa, Kōgo, Mizushi, Mizuchi, Enkō, Kawaso, Suitengu, and Dangame. Along with the oni and the tengu, they are one of the most well-known yōkai in Japan.

Kappa are similar to Finnish Näkki, Scandinavian/Germanic Näck/Neck, Slavian Vodník and Scottish Kelpie in that all have been used to scare children of dangers lurking in waters.

It has been suggested that the kappa legends are based on the Japanese giant salamander or “hanzaki”, an aggressive salamander which grabs its prey with its powerful jaws.

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Kappa are typically depicted as roughly humanoid in form, and about the size of a child. Their scaly, reptilian skin ranges in colour from green to yellow or blue. Kappa supposedly inhabit the ponds and rivers of Japan and have various features to aid them in this environment, such as webbed hands and feet. They are sometimes said to smell like fish and, as you might imagine, are accomplished swimmers.

The expression kappa-no-kawa-nagare (“a kappa drowning in a river”) conveys the idea that even experts make mistakes. Although their appearance varies from region to region, the most consistent features are a turtle-like shell, a face resembling a monkey, a beak for a mouth, and a plate (sara), which is a flat hairless region on top of their head that is always wet, and which is regarded as the source of their power. This cavity must be full whenever a kappa is away from the water; if it ever dries, the kappa will lose its power, and may even die, according to some legends.

Another notable feature in some stories, is that the kappa’s arms are said to be connected to each other through the torso and able to slide from one side to the other. While they are primarily water creatures, they do on occasion venture onto land. When they do, the plate can be covered with a metal cap for protection. In fact, in some incarnations, kappa will spend spring and summer in the water, and the rest of the year in the mountains as a Yama-no-Kami (山の神, “mountain deity”). Kappa are believed to speak the Japanese language and be curious about Mankind and their ways.

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Kappa are usually seen as mischievous troublemakers or trickster figures. Their pranks range from the relatively innocent, such as loudly breaking wind or looking up women’s kimonos, to the malevolent, such as drowning people and animals, kidnapping children, and raping women. Victims of the latter crime who gave birth to offspring were said to have buried them alive due to their repulsive appearance.

As water monsters, kappa have been frequently blamed for drownings, and are often said to try to lure people to the water and pull them in with their great skill at wrestling.They are sometimes said to take their victims for the purpose of drinking their blood, eating their livers or gaining power by taking their shirikodama (尻子玉), a mythical ball said to contain their soul which is located inside the anus (don’t shoot the messenger!).

Even today, signs warning about kappa appear by bodies of water in some Japanese towns and villages where there have been historical reports of their sightings. Kappa are also said to victimise animals, especially horses and cows; the motif of the kappa trying to drown horses is found all over Japan. In these stories, if a kappa is caught in the act, it can be made to apologise, sometimes in writing. This usually takes place in the stable where the kappa attempted to attack the horse, which is considered the place where the kappa is most vulnerable.

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It was believed that if confronted with a kappa there were a few means of escape: Kappa, for one reason or another, obsess over being polite, so if a person were to gesture a deep bow to a kappa it would more than likely return it. In doing so, the water kept in the lilypad-like bowl on their head would spill out and the kappa would be rendered unable to leave the bowed position until the bowl was refilled with water from the river in which it lived. If a human were to refill it, it was believed the kappa would serve them for all eternity.

A similar weakness of the kappa in some tales are their arms, which can be easily pulled from their body. If their arm is detached, they will perform favours or share knowledge in exchange for its return. Once the kappa is in possession of its arm it can then be reattached. Another method of defeat involves the kappa and their known love of shogi or sumo wrestling. They will sometimes challenge those they encounter to wrestle or other various tests of skill. This tendency is easily used against them just as with the bow, by encouraging them to spill the water from their sara.

They will also accept challenges put to them, such as in the tale of the farmer’s daughter who was promised to a kappa in marriage by her father in return for the creature irrigating his land. She challenged it to submerge several gourds in water and when it failed in its task, it retreated and she was saved from the promised marriage.Kappa have also been driven away using their aversion to variously, iron, sesame, or ginger. It is possible to distract a kappa by offering it their favourite food (more-so even than child flesh) cucumbers – this has even led to  a kind of cucumber-filled sushi roll named for the kappa, the kappamaki. By carving your name and birthdate on a cucumber, they will steer well clear of you.

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In May, 2014, the British ‘newspaper’, The Daily Mail, reported that the remains of a kappa, shot in 1818, were to be put on display in Japan.

Read the ludicrous story here

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

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Bedevilled

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Bedevilled (Hangul: 김복남 살인사건의 전말; RR: Kim Bok-nam Salinsageonui Jeonmal; literally. “The Whole Story of the Kim Bok-nam Murder Case”/Blood Island) is a 2010 South Korean horror/thriller film starring Seo Young-hee and Ji Sung-won. The film premiered as an official selection of International Critics’ Week at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.

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It is the feature directorial debut of Jang Cheol-soo, who worked as an assistant directoon the Kim Ki-duk films Samaritan Girl and Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring. The film was a runaway hit in Korea, with the box-office returns far exceeding its ₩700 million (US$636,363) budget.

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Plot teaser:

Hae-won is a middle-rank officer working in a Seoul bank. A severe, tense single woman, she is being brought down by the work-related stress and the hypercompetitive environment she finds herself in. Desperate, she takes up an offer from a long-forgotten friend and takes off for a private vacation in Mudo, a desolate Southern island in which she had spent childhood.

Arriving at the island, she is warmly welcomed by Bok-nam, with whom she had a close friendship when both were in their teens but whose constant letters she’s since ignored. Life on the backward, undeveloped island is hard, and Bok-nam is treated as little more than a slave by her abusive husband Man-jong, his brother and the local old women. All of Bok-nam’s love is reserved for her young daughter Yeon-hee, with whom she tries to escape from the small, claustrophobic island. But when that results in tragedy, the woman finally snaps, unleashing all her demons, as Bok-nam takes a sickle in her hand…

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Reviews:

Bedevilled really is one of the toughest and most powerful films from Korea in recent years, and is more than deserving of its praise. Anchored by a stunning performance from the talented Seo Young Hee, it stands as a must-see for anyone brave enough to run its emotionally draining gauntlet.” Beyond Holywood

“A remarkably grim film that makes no qualms whatsoever about taking the audience into some seriously dark territory, Bedevilled is not for the faint of heart. While it’s hardly the stalk and slash picture that the cover art might mislead you into believing it is, the movie does absolutely reach a violent and graphic conclusion. What’s harder to watch than that, however, is the build up to that conclusion. What Bok-nam is put through is such a constant living Hell that when she finally does snap, it’s almost as therapeutic for the audience as it is for the character.” Ian Jane, Rock! Shock! Pop!

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“The moment Kim Bok-Nam enacts her revenge and begins her killing spree she changes from a tragic victim to a faceless killer. Why have us suffer with her for so long, if all we get in return is a succession of unspectacular bloodlettings as the payoff? The first hour is so emotionally draining that I can understand the desire to change direction somewhat, but Kwang-young Choi’s previously stellar screenplay simply loses direction. Likewise, Chul-soo Jang’s previously punchy direction becomes pedestrian and dull. It also becomes questionable as to what message, exactly, Bedevilled is trying to make?” DVD Verdict

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Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks

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Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks (originally: Terror! Il castello delle donne maledette – “Terror! The Castle of Cursed Women”) is a 1974 Italian horror film produced and directed by exploitation entrepreneur Dick Randall. It is very loosely based on the Mary Shelley novel Frankenstein.

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The film is also known as Dr. Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks (American video title), Frankenstein’s Castle (British video title), Monsters of Frankenstein, Terror, Terror Castle, The House of Freaks and The Monsters of Dr. Frankenstein

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In a non-specified time in an undisclosed European country, neanderthals roam the countryside, upsetting the local villagers. Seeing an opportunity to rid themselves of their tormentors, they corner one of the brutes (Goliath, Loren Ewing from Devil in the Flesh), evading the tree trunks and rocks he hurls, to bash him over the head and kill him. Leaving his corpse, this is soon collected by some shadowy individuals and taken to the castle laboratory of Count Frankenstein (Rossano Brazzi, slumming it somewhat post-The Barefoot Contessa and The Italian Job) so that he can continue to conduct his unholy experiments. The Count is most disappointed that the other (female) cadaver collected up has been tampered with by his necrophiliac dwarf assistant, Genz (Michael Dunn, The Mutations, The Werewolf of Washington)

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The locals are becoming alarmed – they’re suspicious as to what is going on at the castle and also a tad unhappy that the graves of their loved ones are being robbed. Not for the first time in the film, they are told to go away and stop being silly by the hopelessly inept head of police, played by familiar trash movie face, Edmund Purdom (The Fifth CordAbsurd; Pieces) in fairness it’s a very sparse mob with a touch of the Monty Pythons about it. Elsewhere, Genz has befriended the other marauding caveman, Ook (the brilliant character actor Salvatore Baccaro, aka Sal Boris but here under the worst pseudonym ever, Boris Lugosi) and… if you’ve made it this far, it probably doesn’t matter.

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Some female nudity, comedy caveman grunting, some pervy dwarf action and some endless experiments with the world’s smallest lab set-up, the ending can’t come quickly enough – indeed, rather like the opening scene, when it does come it seems out of place.

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Directed by Dick Randall (here as Robert H. Oliver), best known as a producer of low-budget schlock and horror (The Mad Butcher; Pieces; The Urge to Kill), the film was made in Italy and features many bit-art actors from genre of the time – or more correctly, slightly before the time, many of them clearly having fallen on bad times – also along for the ride are the likes of German stunner Christiane Rücker (Castle of the Walking Dead), buff strongman Gordon Mitchell (Satyricon, Frankenstein ’80), Xiro Papas (The Beast in Heat) and Luciano Pigozzi (Blood and Black Lace, Baron Blood, All the Colours of the Dark).

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The real wonder of Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks is that it conspires against the odds so wilfully to become one of the most painful horror films to watch. As the script is at pains to clarify, the story is broadly speaking that of Frankenstein and so one might assume the hard work has been done… but no, endless, pointless twists, cut-aways, a breathtakingly slow operation (Frankenstein spends longer shaving Goliath’s head than Colin Clive did making two monsters come alive) and some mild hanky panky spiced up with the inclusion of a dwarf and a caveman who communicates through grunts, only serve to make this a harrowing mess.

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Worse still, bad enough that the likes of Brazzi are disgracing themselves but that the film is so bad that even aforementioned Dunn and Baccaro (also seen in The Beast in Heat and briefly in Deep Red), usually arresting and air-punchingly fun in their performances are unable to save this is alarming. The squelchy, grimy score is by Marcello Gigante, better known, and suited, for his work on Italian Westerns. The settings are meagre and rather harbour the feeling that if the camera moved slightly to the left they’d get a decent shot of the car park; as it goes, the gothic flavour is one of the few nearly-ticks.

Picked up by Harry Novak‘s Boxoffice International Pictures and unleashed in cinemas during 1974, the film has not improved with age and is so ponderous it’s difficult to even reappraise it as kitsch. The film found its way onto the home market initially through the likes of Magnum Video and later seen alongside Randall’s far more accomplished production, The Mad Butcherthrough masters of lo-fi Something Weird.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

 

 

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Deadly Strangers

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Deadly Strangers is a 1975 film directed by Sidney Hayers (Circus of Horrors, Assault) and starring Hayley Mills (Twisted Nerve), Simon Ward (Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, The Monster Club) and Sterling Hayden (Venom)

Belle Adams (Mills) has narrowly avoided being raped by a scuzzball lorry driver but runs into travelling salesman Steven Slade (Ward) who is glad of the company and so agrees to get her to her desired destination of Wycombe. Clicking on the radio, in true horror film style, a news announcer warns of a lunatic on the run from the local asylum. After turning off the report before we learn any more details about the escapee, we are soon alerted to the fact that Slade is perhaps not all that he seems – he appears unfamiliar with his own car, struggles to recount personal details and most worryingly, lies to Adams to ensure she misses her train and is stuck with him for the foreseeable future. On the off-chance we have any doubts whatsoever, Ward seems very keen to avoid the numerous roadblocks dotted around the countryside to try and capture the fugitive, blaming his bashfulness on the fact he’s drink-driving (very reassuring).

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After spending the night in the car, Stevens awakes to find Adams has vanished and assumes she’s gone for good – in actual fact, she’s just nipped along to the local shop but Steven’s heightened emotions lead him to drive off at high speed alone. Finding herself abandoned, Adams meets the charming American, Malcolm Robarts (Hayden) who, despite his advancing years, manages to woo her into his car with the promise of dinner (and breakfast). Adams has started to suffer occasional flashbacks to sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her drunken uncle. Stevens and Adams are soon reunited but they are trailed by Robarts who seems to be trying to warn one of the pair of some imminent danger. Failing, he contacts the police as we are forced to contemplate that perhaps Adams is not the damsel in distress we had originally assumed…or maybe she is. Or maybe it’s someone else.

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The film offers us three very clear options; it’s either Adams, Stevens or an unlikely third who is the escaped lunatic. As we are given the entire film to mull this over, the ending can’t be a surprise of any sort, though it’s handled relatively well. Neither of the leads are particularly likeable – this is fine in terms of Stevens (though he does seem to be channelling the spirit of Michael York, somewhat) as he is the most likely culprit, but Adams is not a character we warm to, even having seen the scenes of her younger self being abused. Her primness (though we are treated to an unlikely nude scene) and the lack of discernible threat throughout the majority of the film leaves the film a rather flat experience.

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The introduction of Robarts and one of cinema’s most remarkable beards turns out to be little more than a distraction, offering much but seemingly having a good deal of the role written out mid-way through. The film does reveal a gloriously grotty view of 70’s England, greasy spoon cafes, confused fashions, unconvincing bikers and a hopeless police force all there for us to enjoy. The setting of Weston-Super-Mare, near Bristol, is perfectly unassuming and bland, the every-day community being home to crazy psychopaths being a staple of 70’s British horror and thrillers. The score by Ron Goodwin is unremarkable, a disappointment from a man capable of scores such as Where Eagles Dare and The Day of the Triffids.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

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Man Bites Dog

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Man Bites Dog (French: C’est arrivé près de chez vous, It Happened in Your Neighborhood) is a 1992 Belgian darkly comic crime-mockumentary written, produced and directed by Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel and Benoît Poelvoorde, who are also the film’s co-editor, cinematographer and lead actor respectively.

The film follows a crew of film-makers following a serial killer, recording his horrific crimes for a documentary they are producing. At first dispassionate observers, they find themselves caught up in the increasingly chaotic and nihilistic violence.

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In modern day Belgium, a small amateur film crew are filming the exploits and philosophical musings of a very ordinary man, Ben (Poelvoorde, A Town Called Panic) who happens to be a serial killer. In between pointing out the intricacies of the local architecture and nature of the chattering classes, he dons a suit and kills people for both fun and profit, however small. Accompanying him on both his killing sprees and visits to his mother and grandparents, the film crew view their subject at arms length, shooting the minutiae of his family life with the same unedited, cold glare as his barbaric and heartless murders. We are distantly introduced to Ben’s girlfriend, who he reminisces about meeting when he was 17 or 18 and she was 10…

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Ben explains, matter-of-factly, that he likes to begin his week by killing a postman (which we duly see in close-up) as, not only does it supply him with a cache of un-banked giros, it also alerts him to potentially rich elderly folk in the area – the elderly being his favourite prey due to their lack of resistance and habit of surrounding themselves with their accumulated wealth. Masquerading as a film crew documenting the lives of the elderly, they enter the residence of an old lady in a tower block apartment and before she can fully answer the first question, Ben bellows in her ear, causing her to have a heart attack. He advises both the crew and the watching audience that his keen eye spotted a bottle of tablets relating to heart complaints on the table as they entered, his observation skills allowing to him ‘save a bullet’ whilst still serving as a perfect opportunity to loot her house. He guides us through the rooms, highlighting the places he finds hidden cash, which indeed he does. He has already taught the crew the science of ballasting a corpse with the correct weight according to the gender and age of the victim, detailing the importance of considering the very old or very young (less weight due to their “porous bones”) and even the optimum amount for a midget.

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The documentary crew become more complicit as time passes – from simply observing, they begin to aid in the killings in small ways (adjusting lighting, helping to bundle the corpses in rugs and throwing the evidence into canals and quarries) and when they run out of funds, Ben returns the favour by offering to pay for the remainder of the shoot, his ego and vanity now truly out of control. We realise Ben is not only hateful of society generally but has special contempt for immigrants and women. When goaded by the reporter, Remy (Belvaux) during what become regular, Bacchanalian meetings, as to why he only attacks the most vulnerable and defenceless members of society, he is greatly angered and suggests they head to the suburbs for a more challenging task.

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Ben’s bravura performance is thrown by the slaying of a young man and woman in their house being interrupted by a small child who witnesses his parents being killed. After a chase in the nearby woods and the assistance of the crew, the child is returned to the house and suffocated. To follow, a ‘standard’ kill also goes awry, one victim fleeing from the car he was ambushed in and taking shelter in a factory. He is eventually shot dead but not before the crew’s sound recordist is also killed in the cross-fire. Incredibly, on the way out of the factory, they stumble upon another camera crew, a virtual matryoshka doll of a film covering a film covering a film. It goes without saying that the new crew and quickly and decisively dealt with.

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Although visibly shaken, Remy is certain his dead colleague would have accepted his fate and that they all realise their jobs come with ‘occupational hazards’. Further footage of his family’s somewhat humdrum problems are punctuated by a house invasion by Ben and the crew, a young couple rudely interrupted in flagrante. Any comedic elements to the film are resolutely trampled upon as the film-makers and subject gang-rape the girl, Ben still offering his thoughts and tips whilst he takes his turn. The pair are later murdered and gutted. Ben’s violence becomes more and more random until he kills an acquaintance in front of his girlfriend and friends during a birthday dinner. Spattered with blood, they act as though nothing horrible has happened, continuing to offer Ben presents. The film crew disposes of the body for Ben. After a victim flees before he can be killed, Ben is arrested, but later escapes. At this point someone starts taking revenge on him and his family. Ben discovers that his parents have been killed, along with his girlfriend: a flautist, she has been murdered in a particularly humiliating manner, with her flute inserted into her anus. This prompts Ben to decide that he must leave. He meets the camera crew to say farewell and in typical manner begins to poetically conclude the documentary with his now well-rehearshed panache but it seems he has made one too many enemies along the way…

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Depending on your viewpoint, it was either incredibly fortuitous or horrendous bad luck that Man Bites Dog appeared within months of Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant and Michael Haneke’s Benny’s Video, all examples of film-makers pushing the boundaries of cinema and being unafraid at the depiction of violence and showing the perpetrators of crime as being essentially unremarkable, often likeable people. Shot in black and white and using only diegetic sound, Man Bites Dog still made a huge impression upon release in 1992, the graphic and unflinching violence made all the more savage by the brevity and simplicity of the kills – although there are few lingering shots, there is no flinching from the murder of neither elderly ladies nor small children. The casting of the film-makers themselves in the main parts – with Poelvoorde as the assassin, and each of his co-writers playing the crew members – helped make this low-budget black-and-white picture affordable, the almost unthinkably low budget of around £15,000 being raised amongst their friends, families and French-speaking Belgian Film Trust. The somewhat blurred lines near the beginning of the film as to whether what we’re seeing is real, film or documentary are mirrored by the crew themselves who forget their intended role as both the charisma of Ben and the thrill of the attacks consume them.

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Unusually, the murders are mostly gun kills, an unusual tack for a serial killer to take (The Town That Dreaded Sundown is another rare example) but the swift dispatch is entirely in keeping with Ben’s view of society and the many expendable groups who blight his life – a black security guard is chastised for ‘camouflaging’ himself in the dark due to his colour. Though known as being darkly comic, it’s not a film you should expect to be laughing at, the absurdity of the premise being a little too close to real life, especially with the subsequent rise of reality television and ever-unblinking news reports of any manner of horrors. It might be reading too much into the film to query how on Earth the faux documentary-makers ever intended to cut the film for actual public consumption.

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Upon release, the film received the André Cavens Award for Best Film by the Belgian Film Critics Association (UCC), played at the Cannes Film Festival in 1992, where it was awarded the SACD award for Best Feature in the Critics’ Week, and went on to win prizes at the Toronto Film Festival and from the French Syndicate of Film Critics. It was a box-office success in its home country, where it out-grossed Batman Returns and was only just held off the number one spot by Lethal Weapon 3. Man Bites Dog was not without its critics, most of them armed with scissors – the film was heavily edited in America and Australia, the film booker for the Tokyo Film Festival fired for simply trying to screen it. It was banned outright in Sweden whilst in France, the poster, originally depicting a baby’s dummy flying out of the assassin’s gun, being replaced by a set of dentures. Perversely, the film was released uncut in the UK.

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The magnificent Poelvoorde went on to have huge success in his native Belgium in rather more salubrious fare and also a lead role in the Oscar-nominated, Coco Before Chanel. Rémy Belvaux never shrank from his enfant terrible tag and achieved further notoriety in 1998 for throwing a custard pie at Bill Gates whilst he was visiting Brussels. Tragically, Belvaux committed suicide in 2006 at the age of only 39 after a long struggle with depression.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia.

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Théâtre du Grand-Guignol – location

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Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol (French pronunciation: ​[ɡʁɑ̃ ɡiɲɔl]: “The Theatre of the Big Puppet”) – known as the Grand Guignol – was a theatre in the Pigalle area of Paris (at 20 bis, rue Chaptal). From its opening in 1897 until its closing in 1962, it specialized in naturalistic, usually shocking, horror shows. Its name is often used as a general term for graphic, amoral horror entertainment, a genre popular from Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre (for instance Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, and Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi and The White Devil), to today’s splatter films. The influence has even spread to television shows such as Penny Dreadful.

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Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol was founded in 1894 by the playwright and novelist, Oscar Méténier, who planned it as a space for naturalist performance. Méténier, who in his other job had been a chien de commisaire (a person who accompanied prisoners on a death row), created the theatre in a former chapel, the design keeping many of the original features, such as neo-Gothic wooden panelling, iron-barred boxes and two large angels positioned above the orchestra – the space was embellished with further Gothic adornments to create an atmosphere of unease and gloom. With 293 seats, the venue was the smallest in Paris, the distance between audience and actors being minimal and adding to the claustrophobic nature of the venue. The lack of space also influenced the productions themselves, the closeness of the audience meaning there was little point in attempting to create fantastical environments, the illusion shattered immediately by the actors breathing down their necks – not that there was any room on the 7 metre by 7 metre space for anything much in the way of backdrops.

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The Guignol from which the theatre and movement took its name was originally a Mr Punch-like character who, in the relative safety of puppet-form, commentated on social issues of the day. On occasion, so cutting were the views that Napoleon III’s police force were employed to ensure the rhetoric did not sway the masses. Initially, the theatre produced plays about a class of people who were not considered appropriate subjects in other venues: prostitutes, criminals, street urchins, con artists and others at the lower end of Paris society, all of whom spoke in the vernacular of the streets. Méténier’s plays were influenced by the likes of Maupassant and featured previously forbidden portrayals of whores and criminality as a way of life, prompting the police to temporarily close the theatre.

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By 1898, the theatre was already a huge success but it was also time for Méténier to stand to one side as artistic director, a place taken by Max Maurey, a relative unknown but one who had much experience in the world of theatre and public performance. Maurey saw his job to build on the reputation the theatre already had for boundary pushing and take it to another level entirely. He saw the answer as horror, not just the tales of the supernatural but of the realistic, gory and terrifying re-enactments of brutality exacted on the actors, with such believability that many audience members took the plays as acts of torture and murder. Maurey judged the success of his shows by the number of audience members who fainted, a pretend doctor always on-hand to add to the pretence.

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The writer of the majority of the plays during this period was André de Latour (later de Lorde), spending his days as an unassuming librarian, his evenings writing upwards of 150 plays, all of them strewn with torture, murder and what we would now associate with splatter films. He often worked with the psychologist, Alfred Binet (the inventor of the I.Q. test) to ensure his depictions of madness (a common theme) were as accurate as possible. Also crucial to the play’s success was the stage manager, Paul Ratineau, who, as part of his job, was responsible was the many gory special effects. This was some challenge, with the audience close enough to shake hands with the actors, Ratineau had to develop techniques from scratch, ensuring that not only were devices well-hidden but that the actors could employ them in a realistic manner, without detection. A local butcher supplied as much in the way of animal intestines as were required, whilst skilfully using lighting helped to make the scenes believable as well as aiding the sinister atmosphere. Rubber appliances made suitable spewing innards when animal’s were not available and several concoctions were devised to simulate blood, ranging from cellulose solutions to red currant jelly. Actual beast’s eyeballs were coated in aspic to allow for re-use, confectioner’s skills employed to enable the eating of the orbs where required. Rubber tubes, bladders, fake blades and false limbs were also used to create gruesome scenes, though on occasion these did prove hazardous – reports detail instances where one actor was set on fire, one was nearly hanged and yet another was victim to some enthusiastic beating from her co-star, resulting in cuts, bruises and a nervous breakdown.

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The actors themselves were not especially unusual – they were performers taking work wherever it came. There were a few stars of note – Paula Maxa (born Marie-Therese Beau)  became known as “the Sarah Bernhardt of the impasse Chaptal” or, if you prefer, “the most assassinated woman in the world”, an appropriate claim for an actress who, during her career at the Grand Guignol, had her characters murdered more than 10,000 times in at least 60 different ways and raped at least 3,000 times. Maxa was shot, scalped, strangled, disemboweled, flattened by a steamroller, guillotined, hanged, quartered, burned, cut apart with surgical tools and lancets, cut into eighty-three pieces by an invisible Spanish dagger, had her innards stolen,  stung by a scorpion, poisoned with arsenic, devoured by a puma, strangled by a pearl necklace, crucified and whipped; she was also put to sleep by a bouquet of roses and kissed by a leper, amongst other treats. Another actor, L.Paulais (real name, Georges) portrayed both victim and villain with equal skill and opposite Maxa in every one of their many performances.  He once commented that the secret to the realistic performances was their shared fear. The actress Rafaela Ottiano was one of the few, perhaps even only, original actors in the theatre to transfer to the Big Screen, appearing in Tod Browning’s Devil Doll (1936).

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At the Grand Guignol, patrons would see five or six plays, all in a style that attempted to be brutally true to the theatre’s naturalistic ideals. These plays often explored the altered states, like insanity, hypnosis, panic, under which uncontrolled horror could happen. Some of the horror came from the nature of the crimes shown, which often had very little reason behind them and in which the evildoers were rarely punished or defeated. To heighten the effect, the horror plays were often alternated with comedies. Under the new theatre director, Camille Choisy, special effects continued to be an important part of the performances. Many of the attendees would barely be able to control themselves – if they weren’t fainting, they were quite possibly reaching something approaching orgasmic fervour, private booths being extremely popular to allow some privacy for their heightened emotions. On occasion the actors were forced to come out of character to reprimand more excitable audience members. Some particularly salacious examples of plays performed include:

Le Laboratoire des Hallucinations, by André de Lorde: When a doctor finds his wife’s lover in his operating room, he performs a graphic brain surgery rendering the adulterer a hallucinating semi-zombie. Now insane, the lover/patient hammers a chisel into the doctor’s brain.

Un Crime dans une Maison de Fous, by André de Lorde: Two hags in an insane asylum use scissors to blind a young, pretty fellow inmate out of jealousy.

L’Horrible Passion, by André de Lorde: A nanny strangles the children in her care.

Le Baiser dans la nuit by Maurice Level: A young woman visits the man whose face she horribly disfigured with acid, where he obtains his revenge.

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Jack Jouvin served as director from 1930 to 1937. He shifted the theatre’s subject matter, focusing performances not on gory horror but psychological drama. Under his leadership the theatre’s popularity waned; and after World War II, it was not well-attended. Grand Guignol flourished briefly in London in the early 1920s under the direction of Jose Levy, where it attracted the talents of Sybil Thorndike and Noël Coward, and a series of short English “Grand Guignol” films (using original screenplays, not play adaptations) was made at the same time, directed by Fred Paul. Meanwhile in France, audiences had sunk to such low numbers that the theatre had no option but to close its doors in 1962. The building still remains but is used by a theatre group performing plays in sign language. Modern revivals in the tradition of Grand Guignol have surfaced both in England and in America.

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Grand Guignol was hugely influential on film-making both in subject and style. Obvious examples include Prince of Terror De Lorde’s works being used as the basis for D.W. Griffith’s Lonely Villa (1909), Maurice Tourneur’s The Lunatics (1913)  and Jean Renoir’s Diary of a Chambermaid (1946). Others clearly influenced include the Peter Lorre-starring Mad Love (1935), Samuel Gallu’s Theatre of Death (1967), H.G. Lewis’ Wizard of Gore (1970) and Joel M. Reed’s notorious Blood Sucking Freaks (1975). More recently, More recently, Grand Guignol has featured in the hit television series, Penny Dreadful. The 1963 mondo film Ecco includes a scene which may have been filmed at the Grand Guignol theatre during its final years – as such, it would be the only footage known to exist.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

We are grateful to Life Magazine for several of the images and Grand Guignol website for some of the information.

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House of the Witchdoctor

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House of the Witchdoctor is a 2013 American horror film directed by Devon Mikolas, his first feature film. It stars newer names such as Callie Stephens (When the Lights Go Out) and Summer Bills as well as actors who have appeared in many horror and genre films over the past few decades, in particular Dyanne Thorne (the Ilsa series, Blood Sabbath) and Bill Moseley (Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2House of 1000 CorpsesThe Devil’s Rejects). The plot sees a group of typical American teens offering consolation to their bereaved friend at her parent’s plush residence, only to find themselves stalked… and even worse.

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Serial nutcase Cliff Rifton (Allan Kayser, Night of the Creeps) has been released from prison and immediately hooks up with his old sidekick, Buzz Schenk (David Willis), both of them eager to pick up where they left off and terrorise as many people as possibly whilst taking as many drugs as possible. After killing his mother, raping a drug dealer’s girlfriend and then torturing and murdering him, new opportunities are sought and their new target is white, middle-class Leslie Van Hooten (Stephens) and her four friends, who manage to evade them on their way to her parent’s well-appointed pad on the outskirts of town, primarily for them all to help her come to terms with the anniversary of the death of her boyfriend.

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An unfortunate series of Last House on the Left-like coincidences lead the criminals to the Van Hooten residence, a stroke of luck they are unwilling to let pass. With her parents away (Mosely and Leslie Easterbrook from The Devil’s Rejects and many Police Academy films) the teens are terrorised by a distinctly 1970’s-style home invasion; rape, torture and dehumanisation all getting a run-out. Before the plot becomes too predictable, the parents return, accompanied by neighbours, Rose (Thorne) and  Emmett (Howard Maurer, Thorne’s real-life spouse and star of two Ilsa films himself, Tigress of Siberia and Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks), as well as assorted locals, all of whom are equipped with a wide array of garden tools and more traditional weapons.

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Down in the basement of the house, true identities are revealed and voodoo wrong-doings require sacrifice and rites, volunteers both unwilling and otherwise already assembled. Will the local deities be appeased or will help arrive in time?

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The home invasion angle of approach doesn’t really date and, if played correctly, is always an unnerving experience, the defiling of both body and property an eternally horrific thought. In this respect, the film doesn’t do a bad job, let down only by idiotic, dislikeable teens behaving in the most sickeningly forehead-slapping daft manner imaginable. The diabolical duo of Buzz and Cliff are played with eyeball-spinning glee and the enthusiasm and appalling satisfaction they gain from their crimes are demented and unhinged enough to be attributed by drugs and society – backstories are left to a minimum.

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Do people still watch horror films just for nudity? Well, those who do won’t be disappointed, though Dyanne remains mercifully clothed. Her role is minimal, as is that of Mosely, despite the pivotal part he plays in the story. As such we are left with the curse of Rob Zombie – a parade of old faces, used poorly, to disguise flimsy plot under the guise of “I know my stuff, me!”. Though a twist is necessary in the film to prevent stale, though graphic sexually violent thrills, the notion of introducing voodoo and spell casting is so ridiculous that it feels like two half ideas half executed.

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The net result is a film which would play well on late-night cable television, particularly for an audience with low expectations, low I.Q. and a penchant for low-necklines.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

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Orang Minyak – folklore

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The Orang Minyak is one of a number of Malay ghost myths. Orang Minyak literally means oily man in Malay.

According to one legend, popularised in the 1956 film Sumpah Orang Minyak (The Curse of the Oily Man) directed by and starring P. Ramlee, the orang minyak was a man who was cursed in an attempt to win back his love with magic. In this version, the Devil offered to help the creature and give him powers of the black arts, but only if the orang minyak worshipped him and raped twenty-one virgins within a week. In another version it is under control of an evil shaman or witch doctor.

According to legend, in the 1960s the orang minyak lived around several Malaysian towns. The orang minyak of the 1960s was described as human, naked and covered with oil (supposedly to make it difficult to catch). However, there were also stories of the orang minyak where it was supposedly supernatural in origin, or invisible to non-virgins, or both. The mass panic has also led to unmarried women, typically in student dormitories, borrowing sweaty clothes to give the impression to the orang minyak that they are with a man. Other defense supposedly include biting its left thumb and covering it in batik.

Reputed sightings of the orang minyak, or events later ascribed to it, have continued with reduced frequency into the 2000s.

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In 2005, there were cases reported of rapists covered in oil roaming around, armed with knives. 

In 2012, the residents in Kampung (Village) Laksamana, in Gombak, Selangor Malaysia claim to have seen and heard the orang minyak around the vicinity of the Pangsapuri Laksamana and Jalan Laksamana 1. The village had been buzzing with sightings of the two paranormal creatures for the last 10 days.

This creature, in its general nature, behaviour and supposed origin would seem to be very similar to the Grease devil of Ceylon.

The legend has appeared in a number of films, including:

Sumpah Orang Minyak (1956), directed by P. Ramlee

Serangan Orang Minyak (1958), directed by L. Krishnan

Oily Maniac (1976), from the Shaw Brothers, directed by Meng Hua Ho

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Orang Minyak (2007)

Pontianak vs Orang Minyak (2012), directed by Afdlin Shauki

Wikipedia


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