A Center For Hope?...Or The Heart Of Hell!

Video Nasty #32

 WHEN THE CREEPING DEAD DEVOUR THE LIVING FLESH!

Zombie Creeping Flesh

1980

 

 

THEY EAT THE LIVING!

Actual title: Virus

Other alternate titles: Night Of The Zombies, Hell Of The Living Dead, Dusk Of The Dead 

NTSC running time: 100:30

Directed by Bruno Mattei (as Vincent Dawn)

Written by Claudio Fragasso and J. M. Cunilles

Produced by Sergio Cortona

Music by Goblin

Starring: Margit Evelyn Newton, Franco Garofalo (as Frank Garfield), Selan Karay, Jose Gras (as Robert O'Neil), Gaby Renom, Luis Fonoll

Body Count: 42...and I probably missed a couple.

Region 0 DVD from Blue Underground as Hell Of The Living Dead.  They've released it on BluRay as well.

BBFC Status

Why it's a Nasty: Zombies, gore, and gratuitous use of stock footage.

What was cut: Hard to say.  When certified for the cinema with an X in 1982, the film ran at 99:13, but the BBFC made no cuts.  Possibly pre-cut by the distributor, Miracle Films Ltd.

Current UK status: Hell Of The Living Dead was certified 18 on January 10, 2002 under the title Zombie Creeping Flesh.

Zombie Creeping Flesh was seized during the Nasty panic, but was not successfully prosecuted.

Above you will find an alternate cut of Virus taken from an Australian VHS.  This version is titled Dusk Of The Dead, an attempt to pass this off as the zombie "origin story" and prequel to George A. Romero's classic 1968 shocker Night Of The Living Dead.  Don't be fooled by the running time - this cut is actually shorter.  Sound off in the comments if you have more info on this alternate version.  (I like the narration cards that run before the opening titles in this version - they add to the comprehensibility of this otherwise incomprehensible feature.)

In New Guinea, the Hope Centre (an industrial complex aimed towards wiping out world hunger) suffers a catastrophe.  Within minutes the scientists are eating each other.  A lone surviving scientist retreats to his office to record a final message.

We join an emergency response team at a hostage situation.  A bunch of 1970s revolutionary kids have taken hostages, demanding that the Hope Centre be closed.  The team (four men dressed much like the SWAT team in Romero's Dawn Of The Dead) break in and kill the terrorists.  Then they head to New Guinea for a secret mission.  They meet up with reporter Lia Rousseau (Margit Evelyn Newton) and her cameraman, who are there to document the strange plague suffered by the natives, natives that Lia is familiar with.  The six head into the jungle to meet with a native tribe...and then all hell breaks loose.

Hell Of The Living Dead (my preferred title, I think Zombie Creeping Flesh is one of the worst titles ever created, Ray Dennis Steckler could have done better) is highly entertaining and almost completely consists of things stolen from other films: the Goblin soundtrack is entirely lifted from other pictures (music from Dawn Of The Dead and Contamination is repeatedly used), tons of stock footage from documentaries about New Guinea is inserted throughout the picture for no apparent reason, the soldiers' outfits are straight out of Dawn Of The Dead, and the story is a mashup of Zombi 2 and Apocalypse Now with a twist of Romero's Dead mythology for good measure.

Performances range from decent to atrocious, with Newton and Franco Garofalo providing the best characterizations.  Newton's Rousseau is believable, if a bit stilted, while Garofalo's turn as SWAT team member Zantoro is gleefully over the top and great fun to watch as he taunts zombies like a coked-up Robin Williams.  The makeup is shitty, the "plot" so threadbare as to be almost unimportant, and boy howdy are these some cooperative zombies.  They seem to attack only when cued to do so, even stopping and posing for the cameraman in one memorable scene.  The SWAT guys can never seem to remember Romero's First Law: SHOOT THEM IN THE HEAD!...even though they are given this information several times over the course of the film.  This is MST3K material.  Get some friends, various intoxicants, mix and match, let the fun begin.

Watch this one if you like movies that are unintentionally funny or just have to have some gore and nothing else is handy.  And if you're a fan of Apocalypse Now you'll probably like this one...even if you might not understand why I say that until the final reel.  Either way, it's great fun and will keep you laughing.  Until next time, be wary of industrial nightmares that claim to bring hope.  They're probably keeping a secret.  I'll help you steer clear of these nightmares.  Because my name's Justin.  JustinCase.

Alien Arrives On Earth!

Video Nasty #31

YOU CAN FEEL THEM IN YOUR BLOOD!

Contamination

1980

A NEW PLAGUE ON EARTH WILL COME FROM THE STARS!

 

THEY INVADE YOUR BODY...CONTROL YOUR MIND...BLOW YOU APART!

NTSC running time: 95:14

Original Title: Alien Arriva Sulla Terra

Other alternate titles: Alien Contamination, Toxic Spawn

Directed & Story by Luigi Cozzi (as Lewis Coates)

Written by Cozzi & Erich Tomek

Produced by Claudio Mancini

Music by Goblin

Starring: Ian McCulloch, Louise Marleau, Marino Mase, Siegfried Rauch, Gisela Hahn, Carlo De Mejo

Body Count: 16, plus a rat (fake) and a big scary monster.

Availability: Region 0 DVD from Blue Underground.

BBFC Status

Why it's a Nasty: Exploding bodies with lots of gore.

What was cut: Not a frame, the film was not submitted for classification until...

Current UK status: Contamination was passed uncut with a 15 certificate on March 10, 2004.

UK Availability: Region 2 DVD from Anchor Bay

Once again, I've got something a bit more involved than a trailer.  Put on your tinfoil hat, wrap yourself in a blanket, and make sure your windows are locked.  Shortly after the success of Ridley Scott's Alien in 1979, the knockoff artists in the Italian film industry (bless their thieving hearts) made at least two unofficial sequels to the US sci-fi hit.  One was Ciro Ippolito's Alien 2: Sulla Terra (available on DVD in the US as Alien 2: On Earth), which hit Italian screens in April of 1980.  Four months later the other, Luigi Cozzi's Alien Arriva Sulla Terra (which translates to Alien Arrives On Earth) hit Italy's cinemas under a title insisted upon by producer Claudio Mancini: Contamination.

New York City: an abandoned freighter is reported to the police.  A team on a helicopter lands on the ship and brings it in to dock.  NY cop Lt. Tony Aris (Marino Mase) leads a medical team onto the ship.  They wear hazmat suits and search from stem to stern.  They find several corpses, corpses which appear to have exploded.  The hold is filled with boxes, each one bearing the logo of a Colombian coffee company...but they don't contain coffee.  Each holds a handful of large green egg-like spheres.  The team picks up one that's rolled under a pipe.  Heated, pulsating, and emitting an ominous breathing tone, the egg explodes...and so do the bodies of most of the team.  Only Lt. Aris survives.

He's taken by the government, decontaminated, and placed in isolation.  Col. Stella Holmes (Louise Marleau) and Agent Young (Carlo De Mejo) get his statement and track the "coffee" shipments to a warehouse across town.  When they attempt to stage a raid, the shady characters in the warehouse commit suicide by alien egg - a single shot to one of the hundreds of these things scattered on the floor causes the silent thugs to explode.  What the hell is going on here?  Who are these people?  And what are they doing with all these eggs?  Col. Holmes enlists the help of Commander Ian Hubbard (Ian McCulloch), the only person to have seen these eggs before...in a cave on Mars!

Hot off the success of his previous film, Starcrash, Luigi Cozzi wanted to make another sci-fi film and he found his inspiration in the 1979 US smash Alien.  Working out of the same production offices as another 1979 hit, Zombi 2, his producer urged him to pick up the same cast, though the only star they were able to secure was McCulloch.  (It's interesting to note that Zombi 2 also opens with a derelict ship sailing into New York.)  Cozzi wanted Caroline Munro, who he had just worked with on Starcrash, as Col. Holmes, but he was thwarted again by producer Mancini, who wanted someone "older and ugly" (Cozzi's words), so Canadian Louise Marleau was cast instead.  (And let's be fair here, Marleau is no beauty queen but she's far from homely.)

Unlike Alien, the chestbursting effects are overly gory (which is tons of fun) and nothing comes out of the people except their guts - they just explode for no reason!  There are some action movie elements (again at the behest of Mancini) as well, and the film clips along at a good pace.  Not too long, not too short, Cozzi really did a good job.  The score is by the always-incredible Italian prog-rock combo Goblin, and highlights Fabio Pignatelli's bass playing.  You can't go wrong with Goblin, they're just amazing.

And the alien!  What we see at the finale isn't anything like Giger's sleek black creations, it's a lot more gooey and green.  What it really reminded me of is the squid-monster in Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons' Watchmen comics, and I found it a little scary.  The animatronic beastie wasn't to Cozzi's liking and he used careful editing to maximize the effect.  I think it worked, I was not at all comfortable while that fucking monster was on screen.  More discerning viewers might laugh, but screw them, it's nice to get a scare from a monster in a B-movie, most of them are schlocky compared to the monster in Contamination.

Interestingly, several of the cast members appeared in other films that ended up on the Video Nasty list: Ian McCulloch starred in Zombi 2 (Nasty title: Zombie Flesh Eaters), Marino Mase features in Dario Argento's Tenebre, Gisela Hahn in Jesus Franco's El Canibal (Nasty title: Devil Hunter), and Carlo De Mejo appeared in Lucio Fulci's Quella Villa Accanto Al Cimitero (The House By The Cemetery, see Video Nasty #3), as well as appearing in Fulci's Paura Nelle Citta Dei Morti Viventi and John Shadow's Microscopic Liquid Subway To Oblivion.  (Who is John Shadow?  I finally know, and will have more about it on this page in the near future...but in the meantime you can read my piece on the subject in Bloodfeast Inc. #17, a great zine published by Cleveland, Ohio DJ and horror fan Mike Salamone.  Look them up on Facebook and send them money, it's killer and worth more than the $5 cover price.)

So if you're in your helicopter and someone asks you to check on an abandoned boat, make sure you wear a hazmat suit, and don't touch anything!  You couldn't get me on one of those.  I'll be here where it's safe.  Because my name's Justin.  JustinCase.

They Removed The Tumor...And Her Sanity!

Video Nasty #30

Killer Nun

1979

 

 

FROM THE SECRET FILES OF THE VATICAN!

Original Italian title: Suor Omicidi

Also known as: Deadly Habit

NTSC Running time: 86:47

Directed by Giulio Berruti

Written by Berruti & Alberto Tarallo, from an idea by Enzo Gallo

Produced by Enzo Gallo

Costumes and Wardrobe by Albert Tarallo

Starring: Anita Ekberg, Paola Morra, Lou Castel, and Joe Dallesandro

Body Count: 5

Availability: Region 1 DVD from Blue Underground

BBFC Status

Why it's a Nasty: Gore murders, mostly, but the "blasphemous" tone probably irked people as well.

What was cut: When submitted for classification on March 11, 1993, 13 seconds of cuts were made to a pins-and-scalpel murder sequence.

Current UK status: The cuts were waived for the next submission on April 19, 2006.  Killer Nun now holds an 18 certificate for the uncut version.

UK Availability: Region 0 DVD from Shameless Entertainment.
Killer Nun was seized, but escaped prosecution.

Hope you have a bit of time to watch that video up there, because that's not the trailer.  Grab some snax, lock your door, take the phone off the hook, and enjoy the show.

A veiled nun (we don't see her face) kneels at confession, telling the priest she cannot forgive the man who wronged her.  He tells her she has fallen from grace.  Who is she, and who will she not forgive?

Sister Gertrude (Anita Ekberg) seems at first a bright and cheerful nursing nun, but we soon see that she's having some problems.  After the removal of a benign brain tumor, she's become addicted to morphine and her behavior has grown increasingly erratic.  She berates her elderly charges, smashing one poor woman's dentures in a fit of annoyance.  The patient passes away later that night.  Sister Gertrude has one close friend, her roommate Sister Mathilde (Paola Morra), who works to protect her and professes her love as the women lie nude in their cell.  When Sister Gertrude's physician won't give her any morphine, Gertrude steals jewelry from the dead patient and goes into town to get the drugs herself...but first she captures a man.

Back in the convent, a man is brutally beaten and thrown from a window while Gertrude is nodding out on her morphine high.  Could she be the killer...or is someone trying to frame her?

Giulio Berruti directed this nunsploitation feature under similar conditions to John Carpenter making Halloween: a producer had a catchy title and the director had to do the rest.  Enzo Gallo knew that the well-liked Berruti would be able to secure top-notch talent for rock-bottom prices, so Gallo told him to make a movie called Suor Omicidi and left him to it.  Berruti delivered.  Anita Ekberg (La Dolce Vita, Miss Sweden 1950) is alternately wild, prim, and catatonic.  Joe Dallesandro (Flesh For Frankenstein, other Warhol pictures) comes into the film late and brings his own subtle oomph to the proceedings.  Paola Morra, an Italian Playboy Playmate who had a brief acting career, is the weakest link, but to be fair she was working with longtime actors who knew their craft: Ekberg, Dallesandro, Alida Valli, and Lou Castel all had (in the case of the males, still have) acting careers spanning decades.

Perhaps the most shocking thing about Killer Nun is that it was filmed in an actual convent!  Nuns using drugs, sneaking out for anonymous sex, killing their elderly patients, and having lesbian trysts (offscreen, Berruti chose to leave the lesbian scenes to the viewer's imagination out of respect for Ekberg) are not the stuff that the diocese are likely to condone.  When the church officials requested to review the script, Berruti and a friend knocked out some innocuous scenes in a night and presented the fresh pages as their script.  If anyone happened upon the filming while something salacious was being filmed, the crew would begin behaving as though they were just setting up a shot.  The spectators would get bored and wander off, leaving the production to continue filming.  I believe the technical term for this behavior is BALLS.  Big brass balls.  Guts.  Chutzpah!  To make a movie like this right under the church's nose is audacious and beautiful.  Because this isn't a picture out to ignite any kind of social change, it's just an exploitation film, and a pretty tame one as far as this genre goes.

However, the story was based off of the truth: a Belgian nun was found to have stolen gold and jewelry from her patients, knocking off a few of the more annoying ones in the process.  It's said she'd taken $30,000.  The sex, drugs, and twisted motives were added just because they're fun!

So after you watch it in that little window up there, go buy a legit release of Suor Omicidi.  I'll watch your stuff while you run the errand.  We gotta look out for each other.  Because my name's Justin.  JustinCase.

How Far Will He Go To Cover Up His Crimes?

Video Nasty #29

The Cannibal Man

1971

 

 

WHEN THE BUTCHER GOES BERSERK...

Original Spanish title: La Semana Del Asesino (The Week Of The Killer)

Other alternate title: The Apartment On The 13th Floor

NTSC Running Time: 97:53

Directed by Eloy de la Iglesia

Written by de la Iglesia & Antonio Fos

Dialogues by Dick Randall (as Robert Oliver)

Produced by Vicente Parra and Jose Truchado

Starring: Vicente Parra, Eusebio Poncela, Vicky Lagos, Emma Cohen, and Charly Bravo

Body Count: 6, and a cow.

Region 1 DVD from Blue Underground

BBFC Status

Why it's a Nasty: Because the BBFC freaked out over anything with "Cannibal" in the title.  The gore murders probably helped.

What was cut: 3 seconds of a throat-cutting murder were required for certification.

Current UK Status: The Cannibal Man was awarded an 18 certificate on September 21, 1993.

UK Availability: A Dutch Region 2 DVD is uncensored, the 1993 VHS from Redemption is the 18 cert cut of the film.
The Cannibal Man was successfully prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act, making it one of the DPP39.

First off, the alternate English titles don't describe this film very well.  There is a small amount of implied cannibalism, and only one scene (a very important one) takes place in a 13th floor apartment.  La Semana Del Asesino is the best title for this one.

Slaughterhouse worker Marcos (Vicente Parra) is doing okay for himself.  He has a crappy shack situated in the shadow of new posh high-rises; a young, pretty girlfriend, Paula (Emma Cohen); and his rugged good looks bring no shortage of attention from both women and men alike.  One night, after a sex-fueled date with Paula, they hail a cab to head home.  The cab driver, however, is a blue-nosed conservative who doesn't take too kindly to their heated makeout session in the backseat.  The cab driver kicks them out after a few blocks and demands his three-fifty for the journey.  Marcos refuses to pay and the cab driver (a real freakball) starts beating on Paula.  Marcos clubs him with a rock and the couple escapes.

The next day, Marcos reads of the cabbie's death in the paper and Paula urges Marcos to go to the police.  But this is Spain in 1971 and Francisco Franco is still in power.  Knowing that coming forward will spell his doom, Marcos strangles Paula while kissing her and hides the body under his bed.  Determined to evade justice, more murders follow, the bodies piling up in Marcos' bedroom.  The stench is unbearable.  Eventually he begins carrying pieces of the bodies to work where he disposes of corpsemeat by mixing it in with the beef.

But it's not all bad for Marcos.  He makes a new friend in Nestor (Eusebio Poncela), an effeminate bachelor with a pet Boxer named Trotsky who likes using his binoculars to spy on Marcos from his apartment balcony.  As the body count rises and the relationship between Marcos and Nestor deepens, the tension never stops rising.  Will Marcos ever pay for his crimes?

La Semana Del Asesino is an underseen thriller that struggles against the constraints of the environment in which it was made.  Franco's totalitarian regime did not take kindly to aberrations like homosexuality, which led director Eloy de la Iglesia to find creative ways to discuss what it meant to be gay in such a repressive and rigid society.  It is no accident that the only time Marcos is seen smiling is when he is with Nestor.  The homosexual subtext of the film is also its core theme, but the heavy artistic censorship in Spain at that time meant that it could never be brought to the fore.  This isn't a mindless killing spree picture - this is a tragic love story about a man who cannot face who he really is.  Marcos' denial of the consequences of his actions and reluctance to dispose of the bodies mirrors his internal struggle against his true sexuality.  He's running from the law as he runs from himself.

There's some gore here and some tame love scenes, but really not much that is going to bother anyone in today's world.  It's a slow-burner and the tension rises until the climactic scene in Nestor's apartment.  The relationship between these two men is the meat of the matter, the murders themselves are a clever cover for what the film is actually about.  It's nice to see a horror film that cares so much about subtleties.  Pay close attention to the dialogue, to the actors' expressions, to the little gestures and things said and not said.  If you like films that make you work for the payoff, you're in for a treat.

So if you've got a crush on a special someone, be careful that they aren't on a killing spree.  It may mean doom...or something more.  I'll keep my binoculars handy to help you out.  Because my name's Justin.  JustinCase.

Diamonds To Hell!

Video Nasty #28

Women Behind Bars

1975

 

NTSC Running time: 80:30

Original French Title: Des Diamants Pour L'Enfer

Directed, Edited, and Shot by Jesus Franco

Written by Marius Lesoeur

Music by Daniel White

Starring: Lina Romay, Martine Stedil, Nathalie Chape, Roger Darton, Ronald Weiss, and Jesus Franco

Body Count: 6

Whippings/Beatings/Tortures: 3

Region 0 DVD from Blue Underground

BBFC Status

Why it's a Nasty: Sexualized violence perpetrated against nude women.

What was cut: Nothing.

Current UK Status: Women Behind Bars has never been submitted to the BBFC for certification, and therefore remains banned in the UK...although it would probably get an 18 uncut if submitted today.

Women Behind Bars was seized, but escaped prosecution.

Shirley Fields (Lina Romay) is the mistress of a local crime kingpin (Raymond Hardy, Romay's then-husband) who has just double-crossed his accomplices in a diamond heist.  Shirley murders him when he returns with the loot, only to discover the stolen case is empty.  She inexplicably calls the police to tell them what she's done.  She's sentenced to six years and is then targeted from all sides by vultures who want the diamonds.  Milton Weiss (Roger Darton) and his associate, Bill (Jesus Franco), are mob guys who want to bust Shirley out in exchange for the loot.  The sleazeball warden (Ronald Weiss) enlists blonde inmate Martine (Martine Stedil) to pry the hiding place out of Shirley with her feminine wiles.  And all Shirley wants is to have a smoke and be left alone...

Jesus Franco, who made about a bazillion sleazy movies, lists this as his favourite of his women-in-prison pictures due to the storyline and performances from his female cast (he was disappointed with Weiss, however.  Franco had hoped to put Austrian character actor William Berger in the role of the warden).  It's an okay movie, not great.  It's the first Nasty I've watched since Night Of The Bloody Apes (see Video Nasty #19) that I felt was disappointing.  There's a scene of a woman being whipped, another where a woman is tortured with electricity.  Other than the fact that they have no clothes on, I don't see where the fuss was.

The best parts of the film are the plot twists (there are a couple) and the performances by Romay and Franco (who had a long-term relationship off screen, Romay dying in 2012, Franco following her less than a year later.  Those close to them said Franco died mostly of broken heart).  Even though Romay was still married to Hardy at the time, you can see the chemistry between she and Franco when they are on screen together.

I recommend this one for fans of Jess Franco, fans of women-in-prison pictures, and geeks like me who are watching all the Nasties.  Everyone else should probably take a pass, it's a minor picture from a director who's made better.  Bloody Moon (see Video Nasty #6) was better, we'll see how they stack up against Devil Hunter, Franco's third and final entry on the list.

That's all for now, my friends.  And if you're dating a scuzzbag who needs a good killing, you might want to think twice about phoning the fuzz after you do the deed.  I think it's better to make tracks.  Because my name's Justin.  JustinCase.

Woodslore Won't Save You...

Video Nasty #27

 

 

Don't Go In The Woods

1981

 

 





 

EVERYONE HAS NIGHTMARES ABOUT THE UGLIEST WAY TO DIE.

 



Alternate Titles: Although sometimes referred to as Don't Go In The Woods...Alone!, the final word and ellipsis appear to be nothing more than a semi-tagline mistaken for part of the title.  It was released in Australia as The Forest 2, although the films are unrelated.
Running time: 81:28 NTSC

Directed by James Bryan

Written by Garth Eliassen

Produced by James Bryan, Suzette & Roberto Gomez

Starring: Jack McClelland, Mary Gail Artz, James P. Hayden, Angie Brown, Ken Carter, David Barth, and Tom Drury

Music by H. Kingsley Thurber

Body Count: 16

Region 1 DVD from Code Red is out of print, but available if you're willing to pay for it.  (I should state that I have never even seen a copy of this release, the one in my collection is the 1986 Video Treasures VHS release.)

 

BBFC Status

 

Why it's a Nasty: Excessive and exaggerated sequences of gore.

What was cut: Nothing.  Don't Go In The Woods was never submitted to the BBFC before it was released to home media.

Current UK status: Don't Go In The Woods was passed uncut with a 15(!) certificate on February 7th, 2007.

Don't Go In The Woods was successfully prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act, making it one of the DPP39.



 

So it's been a few years since I've received an ominous package from that benevolent videovore previously referred to in these pages as El Presidente.  I still haven't...but I recently got a package that made me think of his bloodstained Nasties of years hence.

The package was a bubble mailer (for those who don't ship, that's a brown manila envelope reinforced with bubblewrap), which told me right off that I wasn't dealing with a serious tapehead.  What I pulled out made me want to cry: the VHS slipcover had been stripped of its' top flap, then slit vertically down one corner, and roughly grafted onto an oversize black clamshell case with some kind of wide pseudo-Scotch tape with melting adhesive that had already stained the inside of the cardboard.

This tape's been torture murdered, I thought.

Fortunately, that wasn't actually the case.  The box may be a lost cause, but the tape plays like a dream.  It's in incredible shape for an '86 VHS, especially an EP release from a budget video house.  It's also the perfect format in which to enjoy this gem of a slasher, which is long on personality and short on story.

Somewhere in the Rockies, A girl runs through the woods from an unseen pursuer.  She falls in a creek bed, the water turning red as she screams.  A man is enjoying the scenery near the same small river.  He is hit in the face with something, has his arm chopped off (the blood spurting rapidly from the stump), and dies.  Something in these woods isn't keen on having visitors.

Peter (Jack McClelland), Ingrid (Mary Gail Artz) and Joanie (Angie Brown) listen to the camping advice of Craig (James P. Hayden), who comes off as a total knowitall windbag, as the four make their way to a cabin deep in the wilderness.  Peter isn't much for all this nature stuff, which gets him some chiding from the other three, especially Craig, who should take a look at himself and his ridiculous hat before he starts passing judgment.  Meanwhile, more people die in exceptionally gory fashion at the hands of the unseen maniac stalking these woods: a middle-aged photographer, his heavyset wife, and a young female landscape painter who is repeatedly knifed and gouts rich red blood all over her canvas, which she clutches to herself as she falls in slow motion.  She's left her young daughter bouncing in a sling hung from a tree...a sling we see empty after the painter has been dispatched.  What fate has befallen this innocent child?  Will our heroes survive the woods?

The slasher film as we know it today was entering its golden age in 1981, and James Bryan's Don't Go In The Woods is a superb example of how ingenuity, resourcefulness and courage can result in poorly made, but enjoyable, splatter movies.  The film stock was a batch of leftover ends purchased for $400.  The blood was barbecue sauce and red food coloring.  The murder victims were mostly crew members and friends of the director.  The score by H. Kingsley Thurber, which runs non-stop and is both goofy and annoying, was partially recycled from another Video Nasty, 1975's Frozen Scream, which Bryan had also worked on as a cameraman.  What little story there was is about the same as every forest-set slasher since Twitch Of The Death Nerve: teenagers go to the woods for some freedom, find bloody death and terror.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

The cast were mostly first-timers, and for most of them it was their only turn before the camera.  Popular Texas radio DJ Ken Carter is among the only-timers of Don't Go In The Woods, giving and amusing portrayal of a fat, lazy sheriff who doesn't necessarily believe that people keep disappearing in the woods around his little corner of the world.  Mary Gail Artz counts this as her only on-screen credit, but the same year handled casting duties for Halloween II at the beginning of a long, still-going career in film and TV.  The rest of the cast does what they came to do: act scared and die badly.

There are a few odd moments that detract from the film, most glaringly a sequence where Craig is telling a ghost story but is never seen.  The director has stated that he shot Craig for the sequence, but the film was ruined and unusable, which results in the scene showing only Peter, Joanie and Ingrid listening and reacting to Craig.  The opening murder sequence is also somewhat stilted, with no actions from the killer shown, only bloody water and screaming from the actress, making it the oddest and worst-executed death scene of any Nasty I've watched so far.

Mainstream movie critics (Ebert, Maltin, and other know-nothing clowns) deride Don't Go In The Woods as a miserable failure, but remember my old saying: "If Ebert hated it, it's probably good."  And good this one is.  It's fun, it's gory, and...well, that's about it, but that's enough for me.  I'm still not sure how this one ended up being successfully prosecuted, especially since when finally submitted for classification in the UK it ended up getting a 15 and not an 18 as most Nasties have received when finally approved for British consumption.  The ultra-bloody murder of the painter alone has more gore than Halloween, Friday The 13th and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre combined.  Even bad movie lovers like me have come down on this picture for supposedly bad effects, but I'm not sure they were watching the same movie I was.  Or maybe I'm easy to please.  Either way, there's no denying that the title tune is a classic:

 

 

Word.

 

So that's it.  Get yourself a copy of this one (maybe borrow one before purchasing, you may not like it as much as I did), give it a watch, have some fun and maybe a scare or two.  I'll be sure to stay out of these particular woods.  And I won't go in any alone.  Because my name's Justin.  JustinCase.

Mater Lachrymarum: The Third Mother

La Terza Madre

2007

 

IF SHE LIVES, WE ALL DIE.

Thirty years after it began, Dario Argento released the conclusion to The Three Mothers Trilogy.  And while I may be in the minority, I think it was worth the wait.

Sara Mandy (Asia Argento) is a research assistant who opens a long-buried box containing some weird statuettes and a blood red tunic.  Unknown to Sara, the box contains artifacts belonging to Mater Lachrymarum, The Mother Of Tears (Moran Atias), youngest, cruelest, and most beautiful of the ancient witches known as The Three Mothers.  And with the unearthing of the artifacts, she has awoken.  Demons appear in the research facility, tearing the curator apart in a brutal attack that is exceedingly violent, even for Maestro Argento.  Sara escapes with the help of a disembodied voice in her head (Daria Nicolodi, Asia's real-life mother and co-creator of the Three Mothers trilogy), and away we go.  Mater Lachrymarum dons her tunic and Rome is suddenly an orgy of unhindered, disturbing violence.  Mothers murder their children, random rapes and attacks become the norm, and the churches begin to burn.  The Mother Of Tears is ushering in The Second Age Of Witches.

While neither the most artistic (Suspiria) or most accomplished (Inferno) of the trilogy, La Terza Madre (The Third Mother) is still a satisfying end to the series.  Although the lengthy gap between the second and thirds films notes some changes in style and focus for Argento, he is still able to deliver on the eerie, hypnotic feel present in Suspiria and Inferno, while considerably amping up the brutality.  Indeed, while we remember these first two for their gory setpieces, the violent scenes in La Terza Madre are bloodier, more protracted, and take turns that Argento wouldn't have attempted as a younger filmmaker.  And as the behind-the-scenes footage attests, he still likes to get in on the action (Argento is notorious for playing the killer in his films, albeit only his hands are ever shown, wielding all kinds of sharp implements, in this case a meat cleaver).

The acting is strong in some places, weaker in others.  Asia Argento is not the world's greatest actress, but she handles the role of the terrorized Sara just fine, knowing when to scream, when to run, when to look confused, and when to take a shower.  Israeli actress Moran Atias appears as Mater Lachrymarum (a role originated in Inferno by Ania Pieroni, now retired from acting and too old for the part), a role that calls for melodramatic flourishes and gobs of nudity (she is at most semi-dressed in all of her scenes, the constant nakedness drawing a parallel between herself and the deviant sexuality of her followers).  My favorite performer in the film is of course Udo Kier, the brilliant German character actor (previously seen in Suspiria as a college professor who provides key information to Suzy Banyon, whom Kier's character mentions in La Terza Madre, a meta moment that film geeks like me swoon for).  Kier plays Father Johannes, a kindly priest who again provides our heroine with important knowledge she will need to survive.  All in all, the cast is good, but not quite on par with the powerhouse performances found in the earlier Mothers films.  (Incidentally, one of those cast members recently passed away.  We lost Mater Tenebrarum, Veronica Lazar, on June 8th, 2014.  She was 75.)

The score of La Terza Madre is provided by ex-Goblin Claudio Simonetti and his heavy metal combo Daemonia, although the score he provided resembles Keith Emerson's keyboards n' choir noise from Inferno more than it does the Simonetti-penned Suspiria.  Sergio Stivaletti provides the special effects, a genre veteran who has worked with Argento since Phenomena in 1985, and with Argento's brilliant protege Michele Soavi, as well as sitting in the director's chair himself, beginning with The Wax Mask, a project originally intended to be the first collaboration between Argento and Lucio Fulci (Fulci's death sadly kept that dream from becoming reality).  He pulled out all the stops for La Terza Madre, as eyes, limbs, faces, throats and guts are all ripe for destruction.  Mater Lachrymarum shows no mercy, and neither does Stivaletti.  The Italian theatrical cut was shorn of gore to receive the teen-friendly 14 rating, but these scenes were thankfully restored for the unrated home release.

For a long time after becoming acquainted with the work of Argento, I was convinced this film would never be made.  He had at one point been quoted as saying that Inferno was the end of the series since Mater Lachrymarum does make an appearance, thus making it the only one of the films to feature two of the three witches.  It has been reported that as early as 1984, Daria Nicolodi (co-writer of the first two films and the only person to appear in all three) had written a script for the third film, but this was scrapped, likely contributing to (or because of) the end of her romantic relationship with Argento.  Scripts came and went over the years, until Argento finally hired some co-writers and really focused on making it.  The end result is different in tone than his earlier efforts, being blunt and punishing compared to the ethereal wonder of Suspiria and Inferno...but really, what's wrong with that?  It's still very much Argento: a story that never quite makes sense, elaborate sets, the sense that the characters are all alone, never really a part of the real world.  The biggest differences come from the advances in cinema technology, and the use of CGI in one sequence feels totally out of place.  Practical effects bring more to the proceedings, making the otherworldliness of the Three Mothers stories believable in a way that hokey computer trickery can't.  Thankfully, there is only one brief CGI effect in La Terza Madre and it doesn't take you out of the dream too much.

If you've seen Suspiria and Inferno, you'd be crazy not to watch this one.  If you haven't seen Suspiria and Inferno, you'd be crazy not to run right out and watch them right now.  Cheers to anyone who watches the entire Three Mothers trilogy in one stretch.  And now I bid you adieu, for there is much to accomplish on this Summer evening...like maybe taking in another Nasty.  It's been too damn long.  Maybe it's time for some Nazis.  Or cannibals.  Or something malformed and creepy.  And don't open ancient urns from unmarked graves.  I'll heed that advice.  Because my name's Justin.  JustinCase.

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My dear friends,

It is with a large amount of frustration that I come to inform you that VCR Rebellion will be on forced hiatus for (I hope) a short time.  This action is taken due to circumstances beyond our control.  My personal computer has suffered some kind of cyber embolism and I am lackadaisical about repairing or replacing it.  I write this communique on a terminal borrowed from the lovely and always gracious N. Credible, who has facilitated all ventures thus far.  We humbly thank you for taking the time to check out this page.

My name's Justin.  JustinCase.

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