Death Race

I was a little reluctant to look at Death Race, it had a couple of bad things going for it; firstly it was a re-make of a 1975 movie called Death Race 2000 which absolutely bored me to tears, and secondly the appearance of the incredibly dull Jason Statham. What made me change my mind I hear you cry? Will it was what in my opinion was the unusual casting of Ian McShane (best known from the long running BBC show Lovejoy). Add to this the fact that it's directed by Paul W.S. Anderson who made one of my favourite movies Event Horizon, the big question of course is were my initial gut instincts correct.

In the near future, 2012 to be precise the population burgeons and economy dies a slow and painful death, businesses close and it seems everyone is capable of turning to a life of crime. In order to furnish her pockets with cash, and to make use of the increasing amounts of prisoners in her prison Hennessey (Joan Allen) creates the reality TV sports show Death Race. In Death Race prisoners must race against each other in a three day, three event race. If a prisoner wins a race five times he is freed, given a full pardon in fact, if he loses, well it's best put that the losers don't get to discover the reality of losing, the only way out of Death Race is first across the finish line, otherwise your bound to be in the morgue.

Frankenstein (David Carradine reprising his role from the original movie) is the champion that all the viewers love to see, 90 million viewers in fact; Hennessey's pockets have never been so full. The problem being that after four matches Frankenstein finally breathes his final breath, dying in the prison hospital from severe injuries on his forth successful race. This leaves Hennessey with a problem, but luckily due to disfiguration Frankenstein could be replaced; the trouble being the only man capable of racing as well as Frankenstein is hard working family man Jenson Ames (Statham) who is sadly for Hennessey on the wrong side of the prison walls... What on earth can she do about that?

Death Race is a real no-brainer of a movie, a traditional action packed blockbuster; the sort we got so familiar with towards the end of the 1980's. There is nothing much to think about, a pretty shocking grasp of reality, and some poor judgement choices in the way the story goes, but what does this matter to me, I loved it. Death Race is the same sort of fun packed nonsense we all saw and loved in movies like Robocop. It's bloody, it's violent, but the time passes by like the blinking of an eye. The storyline overview I gave you to open this review quite literally takes you no more than five minutes into the movie, rather like real life racing it's so fast paced that there is no time to think about anything else. Once you allow yourself to be submerged into the world that is Death Race there is no coming out until the end credits roll.

Statham, and I have to hand it to the guy delivers the second movie in a row of his I have to confess enjoying, the first being The Bank Job. Now I really enjoyed The Bank Job, a sort of thinking man's (or woman's) action movie, but that does not even hold a candle to this, unless of course your one of those anally retentive souls that concerns yourself with realism, and accuracy. If we wanted realism and accuracy why go to the cinema or watch a DVD? Get outside and see reality for yourselves! For those that like to take your action with a pinch of salt, this is the place to be and as a much as it pains me to say it, I could see no other actor filling the shoes that Statham delivers here.

But forget Statham, he is the little fish, it was McShane that drove me to see the movie, and what a great job he did keeping me in it. As Coach, McShane is the engineer on the car that Frankenstein buys, engineer and trainer, and a very quick minded, and quick mouthed character too. He is the Mr. Miyagi, the Apollo Creed to Rocky, in fact he is every great action characters rock. This is a thousand miles away from Lovejoy, and the unusual casting of this star I believe has secured McShane the start of the career this very talented actor deserves.

There are a whole huddle of villains in the movie Machine Gun Joe (Tyrese Gibson), Pachenko (Max Ryan), and Gunner (Jacob Vargas); but none of these are any competition for Joan Allen's Hennessey. Hennessey is the hardest and most ruthless female villain of a movie for years, changing the rules as she sees fit and ending the lives of those that cross her for the sake of it. Hard to believe that this is the same Allen who played Veronica Guerrin (Renamed Sinead Hamilton in When The Sky Falls), or the loving wife in the Ice Palace. There is nothing gentle about Hennessey, and the smiles and female methods of seduction fool no-one here. You can almost see the enjoyment in her eyes as she clearly loves to be bad.

It's inevitable that Death Race will be criticised and mocked, it will get rotten tomato awards, maybe a Razzie; but if your want, nay need a bit of light relief and a teleport back to the movie making style of the 80's then this has the power to be your big Autumn Blockbuster.

No Man's Land: The Rise Of The Reeker

If my name were David Payne, sorry now the slightly more hip Dave Payne, I would be reading this with a little baited breath. For two years ago just prior to the movie Reeker's UK release I wrote a scathing review of the movie. Dave took considerable offense at this and threatened the websites I published to with the full weight of Fox/Pathe unless they removed the reviews I had written. Imagine, an internet nobody such as myself threatened with such action, however I stood by my guns and two of these websites allowed me to repost my review having previously been forced to pull them down. Things have changed since then, and it was the actions of Dave Payne that actually made me more confident to continue to write, review and literally make my living from the practise because when the words of one little person can make one of the world's biggest movie companies shudder, then I must surely be doing something right.

Reeker was a highly successful low budget movie, released in the UK under a stream of big hype, while I absolutely hated the movie, I do have to hand it to both Dave and Tina Illman (AKA Tina Payne) they pulled an amazing con trick, and must have achieved high profits from this movie. I guess with this in mind it was with no surprise that Dave and Tina would try to to replicate their success and this leads us on to...

No Man's Land: The Rise Of The Reeker

Beginning in 1978, the movie shows us the roots of the killer known as The Reeker, and allows us some insight into why the character smells so bad. And I have to commend the director here, this is rather like the original Reeker a fantastic opening, to what promises to be a good movie.
Promise however is a deceitful thing, and I did think to myself at one point that I really was going to enjoy this movie. But suddenly after much promise things went bad, I would go so far as to say worse than the original, now I appreciate that a sequel is rarely as good as the original, when the original is so bad where on earth is the story to go?

The cast are far better picked this time round, for me the most notable being Desmond Askew who I grew up watching in British kids school drama Grange Hill, here Askew delivers the best performance of the movie as a cocky casino robber, who meets with a rather unfortunate accident in his car, leaving him... Shall we say a little lacking upstairs? The movies Deputy Sherriff Harris is played by Michael Muhney who is probably best known as Sherriff Don Lamb in Veronica Mars. With star of television for 40 years Robert Pine the main cast is iced off. What is amazing, and I'm utterly thrilled about is that David has not tried to chuck the awful Tina into the mix again as is often the case with these sort of movies, instead she manages to stay on the right side of the camera, behind it.

Effects are pretty good; the make-up department really earned their cash here, with some fantastic scenes of gore; there are really good signs that this is not quite as low budget as the predecessor. While the CGI department do fantastic justice to Askew's head.

What I give to Dave is the fact that as a director he does have an incredibly good eye, his scenes are almost perfectly framed, some of the scenes in this low budget horror offering are as good as any big budget blockbuster. With cinematographer Mike Mickens close at hand the capturing of effects, action, and the desolation of Reeker's location is captured fantastically. What Dave cannot do however is work a script to his advantage, rather than let the characters develop as the movie progresses often their opening lines contain a nasty TV movie dialogue that gives the characters life story away, sometimes less is most definitely more. As for the story itself it's a little bit jumbled, Payne struggles to keep the movie franchise fresh by adding new bits, as well as trying to justify just how the Reeker appears, simply through a couple of explosions. There are also a number of "unexplained" incidents that no doubt if Payne was given an open mic on the subject he might imply that maybe "You just didn't get it!" Sadly for Payne this is not The Matrix, or anywhere near that quality. Payne's ultimate and I feel disrespectful final strike involving a child talking about his babysitter not only effectively defecates on Payne's work but gives sad promise that maybe Payne will ridicule us all again by returning to the franchise for a third instalment.

If by some freak incident you happened to enjoy the original Reeker, then I'm sure you will get a certain degree of satisfaction from this sequel, if however you enjoy life then head off out for a walk instead, there are better ways to spend your life than to watch this.

As for Dave, and I know that you'll be reading this, I take my hat off to you; in the previous movie it was pretty much all-round awful, whereas despite the deficits of the storyline you have grown and progressed far more as a director, obviously learning a lot since your last encounter with the Reeker. And while I criticise your work harshly you're a far cleverer man than me, and I commend your devotion to your trade. I sincerely hope that I'll be able to enjoy your next movie.

No Man's Land: The Rise Of The Reeker I suspect will greet European audiences in the form of a straight to DVD product.

Tropic Thunder

Amid a wave on controversy Tropic Thunder opened in US cinemas to a lot of criticism. Firstly there was the issue of casting Robert Downey Jr. To play a black actor, then something nobody expected a protest by disabled people and campaigners over the apparent over the top uses of the term “retard” and the portrayal of people that have disabilities. And when you thought nothing more could happen, the Tom Cruise backlash began, with one of the worlds most recognised actors took on an unusual role, was it good? Or was his performance just plain awful?

After a series of bungles on the movie Tropic Thunder, the final one being a massive explosion of special effects while the camera is not rolling; director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) has pressure put on him movie mogul by Les Grossman (Tom Cruise) to make the movie work. In a conversation with Four Leaf Tayback (Nick Nolte) the hero the movies story is based upon, Four Leaf suggests a controversial way to get the movie made and with realism.

In the middle of the jungle a group of once A-Listed actors led by Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), Kirk Lazurus (Robert Downey Jr.) and Jeff Portney (Jack Black) are dropped off with the movies director Damien to bring the movie in on a lesser budget. Unbeknown to all however, they have landed in the middle of a real war.

Tropic Thunder follows in a string of pretty mid range comedies from actor/director Ben Stiller, the only real laugh in this movie I can’t tell you about; beyond that it’s just mainly Stiller, Black, and Downey goofing off for the benefit of the audience. While it is far from funny though it’s not a bad movie, it’s at times relatively enjoyable but certainly in my view does not fit into the category of comedy; I guess if I had to categorize it I’d create a new one “Drama-With-Smiles”. In respect of story there are no airy scenes where you find that you’re watching for something off screen to happen, it all flows along at a good pace.

You cannot question the money sunk into this movie neither can you question the special effects, which are as great as any big blockbuster movie to fall out of Hollywood over the last few years, think Die Hard 4.0 and the latest Rambo offering and you’re not far off, the movie’s opening effects being some of the most spectacular action effects we have seen in a movie so far this year.

The movies main momentum however is its cast going through the motions in for some very new ground. Robert Downey Jr. Is great as the perfectionist actor who in order to achieve true believability has a revolutionary surgical procedure that turns him from fair skinned Australian actor, to tough talking black American Kirk. His character never fails to please and essentially is the movies biggest star, he certainly achieves just slightly more screen time than the apparent lead Stiller. Stiller rather unsurprisingly turns out his usual one acting style type of performance, there is nothing her to separate him from the Fockers, or anything since. Jack Black is quite literally just there, as a drug addict actor who continues to fall from grace.

It’s the un-credited actors that provide the most interest in the movie. Tom Cruise’s apparent cameo is far from being so, in fact he gets more screen time than Jack Black; the performance however is neither good nor bad, as the slightly overweight Les Grossman, Cruise’s appearance is really quite bizarre, he looks almost like he might be an unknown actor in disguise, trying to play Tom Cruise who in turn is in disguise, anyone who watched Epic Movie will know exactly what I’m talking about. It seems that the watchword for Cruise was stupid, and in the words of Forrest Gump “Stupid is as stupid does!” Cruise exits the movie in the most stomach turning, hands over your eyes disturbing dance routines that really needs to be seen to be believed, thank God he is only 3 months away from Valkyrie a role that will arguably save Cruise’s recent declining career.

Nick Nolte is great as the slightly deceitful war veteran forced into war by accident. While the movies unsung hero is Matthew McConaughey as Speedman’s agent Rick Peck who spends much of the movie back in Hollywood fighting with Grossman to get a TIVO player promised in Speedman’s contract; an issue of ultimate importance to Peck, but one never once addressed by Speedman. There are a series of cameos also that include Jon Voight, Tyra Banks, Alicia Silverstone, Lance Bass, Jason Bateman, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Mickey Rooney, Tobey Maguire and Amy Stiller.

Of the controversy surrounding the movie, the disabled attributes are no worse than anything we have seen before, in fact played down considerably from another Stiller movie There’s Something About Mary. In fact one of the most winning facts of the movie is that this factor is present, as a frequently referenced career downturn of Speedman who’s previous movie saw him play a man with learning difficulties, a sign of our rather pathetic over politically correct world however means that this relatively minor issue will be overplayed by doogooders trying to make a cause up about nothing, sadly its these exact same idiots that eventually as a hole will win over in Hollywood and see movies like this and Something About Mary pretty much outlawed in the future. Of the issue regarding Robert Downey Jr. It’s completely justified and anyone with an issue over this really should get a life, it’s carefully done, and with the maximum of respect.

Tropic Thunder is one of those movies that should you encounter it on a night at home in front of the television you would be relatively pleased, but have to pay out money to see it at the cinema, or buy it on DVD you may well feel robbed. Tropic Thunder is not a great movie, but its far from being a bad one, those wanting to see the old Stiller back however, settle for his continued blows with Larry David in the award winning Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Tropic Thunder is in UK cinemas from 19^th of September.

Otis

Made for very little cash, and aimed strictly at the home video viewing audience Otis is an unusual, often sick, and incredibly funny movie that creates a warped and bizarre synergy between the world of the Saw movies, and popular TV show Desperate Housewives. Having put off watching the movie for a couple of months a recent review caused me to dust off the disc and insert it in my player straight away.

 

Otis Broth (Bostin Christopher) is a bit of a simple man, a man with his head stuck in dreams of the past; most notably the vision that he can relive his missed prom night with head cheerleader Kim. Kim is of course long gone now, but Otis is still feeling deprived. As the movie opens we see a young woman chained to a bed having been subjected to several weeks of abuse in preparation for prom night. Realising that prom night also means that she will have to finally have sex with the overweight Otis, the woman feigns being weaker than she is in order to try and overpower Otis and make her escape. Initially looking like she has the winning hand, the young woman and a lamp fall into a filled bath, it’s curtains for this version of “Kim”.  Not content, and seemingly not the first time Otis has done this, Otis targets Riley Lawson (Dirt’s Ashley Johnson) and it’s not long before she fills the role of the new Kim. But Otis has not been as forward thinking as he likes to believe, can a strange twist of fate turn the lives of everyone upside down?

 

In this intense cheapness of the movie, as well as having the currently successful Ashley Johnson as joint lead the movie also stars Home Alone’s Daniel Stern and To Die For’s Illeana Douglas as the loving parents of Riley, Will and Kate. Comedian Kevin Pollack also stars as Otis’ abusive older brother Elmo. While these are hardly A-List actors, it is blatantly apparent as you sit and watch Otis is the fact that they all command more money than the movie could have been made for, this leads me to the conclusion that they all had great belief or maybe even love for this low budget comedy thriller. What’s more I can see why, appreciating its incredibly low budget, Otis is by far the wittiest movie I have seen for a considerable time, with some pretty harsh one liners that would only come from the mouth of the most prolific sicko.

 

I am not ruining the story (publicity everywhere spills this part of the story) by telling you that Riley becomes the one to get away, but what makes Otis is what happens after she gets away, this is almost where the movie really begins.

 

While compared to Saw in a few places including my opening paragraph, I need to say this is nowhere near so graphically horrific, characters that are enduring torture etc. are never actually seen receiving this, they are only shown after the event. But the wonder in the power of suggestion is that you kind of think you have seen something.

 

A familiar face in the movie, but a name I can’t pretend to have heard of is Jere Burns who plays FBI Agent Hotchkiss; it’s the character of Hotchkiss that really makes Otis what it is. Hotchkiss comes out with some of the most disturbing lines that you can possibly think of, the sort of sickening lines that if you were physically there you would need to bury your head in your hands. Hotchkiss consoles Will, Kate and Riley’s brother Reed (Jared Kusnitz) with witty quips like “We found his last victims behind a dumpster without her tits!”The sort of encouraging conversation you want to hear from the man investigating the case of your daughter disappearance. When asked by a TV Anchor what separates’ Hotchkiss from the rapist murderer Otis, he replies “A Condom”.

 

Granted Otis is not the sort of humour that everyone likes, but if you get the pleasure of seeing unfortunate things happen to people on hidden camera shows, or you enjoy seeing kids getting a good public dressing down by their parents then you are just sick enough to not only watch Otis, but love it.  From the excellent cast, all of whom are incredibly well picked for their respective roles, to the general piecing together of the movies story. For music lovers, the movie has the ultimate 80’s homage soundtrack with all those classic songs that any 30 something will have grown up with.

Gettin' It

If your one of those people that won’t watch anything other than big blockbuster movies then Gettin It is certainly not for you, however if you’re a bit more open minded, enjoyed the humour of American Pie, Porky’s or The Lemon Popsicle movies then this 2006 sex comedy is a must. Gettin it is low budget, filmed with handheld cameras, and looks decidedly cheap. But what Gettin It marks isa resurgence of the sex comedy so popular during the 70’s and 80’s, this is the beginning of the wave and you’ll be seeing a lot more like it.

 

Silver is a normal kid, he works in his mum and dad’s takeaway pizza joint as a delivery boy; he is nothing special and quite withdrawn. Slightly unbelievably this rather nerdy kid has a stunning girlfriend called Sheila who wants to wait for the time to be right to have sex; I’ll leave you to decide which part I find unbelievable. Silver however wants sex more than anything, after all his friends are all having sex, none more so than the Virginator (a guy who only has sex with girlfriends, and acquired the name after he named Silver the Masturbator). After an attempt to have sex with Sheila goes terribly wrong after finding condoms in his pocket, Silver is forced into the single life. Deciding to ditch the condoms however causes Silver to discover that they were obviously designed for elephants, and before he has time to bat his eyelids the town is rocked by the news that Silver has a two foot penis, suddenly the towns most desirables are all queuing up for a little “home delivery” but can Silver keep his newfound reputation in tact?

 

The sicker side of me really quite enjoyed this movie, not because it was overly funny, not because it had a gripping storyline, but because it was like a time warp for me, these sort of sex comedies were everywhere in my youth when I was being “dragged” up and if it existed you could pretty much guarantee I had seen it. These movies were often of a very cheap nature, but at least shot on film so they did not look quite as cheap as this offering.

 

Some of the performances in the movie are horrendous most notably Salvatore Crivelo who plays Arturo Silver’s father, an actor who did nothing on screen before Gettin It and at the time of writing after, if anyone’s career has ended as soon as it began its Crivelo’s and regardless of your views of the movie I’m sure all would agree that this is one of the most terrible performances of all-time. 

It’s unlikely that any of the cast you would have heard of least alone Patrick Censoplano who plays Silver, this being said there is a good selection of ex-Playboy models and porn actresses all turning their hand at acting for a change. To be honest the balance of good and bad actors is well matched, luckily it’s mostly the reasonable actors that you have to spend any time with.

 

Gettin It does have a pretty good stab at humour, and to be honest with you it’s not a bad attempt, there are a couple of scenes where you just kind of want to bury your head in your hands, but in a good way. The film does feature mainly old jokes, and borrows heavily from the Patrick Dempsey movie Loverboy which also involved a pizza delivery boy who took more than pizza to his high paying female clientele. I don’t however want to understate this movie or overstate it, if you loved Porky’s then this will undoubtedly appeal to you, there is a certain American Piesque feel about the movie specifically the relationship between Jason Biggs character in Pie, and Silver’s here.

 

Trader Hornee

Back in 1931 Harry Carey starred as Aloysius “Trader” Horn in the movie Trader Horn, this epic African adventure (which later partially inspired the Indiana Jones movies) saw Horn encounter a group of African tribesmen ruled over by a white goddess; who just so happened to be an wealthy American heiress stranded there some years prior. Trader Horn went on to not just inspire the birth of one of modern cinemas greatest heroes, but also struck a chord with adult movie makers Jonathan Lucas and David P. Freidman, so much show that they created Trader Hornee a carbon copy of the movie, but with added humour and of course a little bit of sex.

 

Made in 1970, as an adult movie Trader Hornee (Hornee pronounced Horn the E’s are silent) is a really bizarre offering. For a sex comedy, and one made by adult filmmakers, there is very little “sex” to offend most people. Bridging a gap between the works of the late Russ Meyer and Laurel and Hardy, I’m sure you might already be able to form an image in your mind as to what this movie is like. Featuring Russ Meyers wobbly, disjointed, and often poorly cut filmmaking and the sort of slapstick comedy of Laurel and Hardy, Trader Hornee is an oddball movie that is difficult to compare to any other style I have ever seen.

 

You might well have an image of a mucky, dirty movie; but Trader Hornee is far from this, yes there is nudity, yes there is plenty of sexual reference but what there is little sex. The hero of the movie Hamilton Hornee (Buddy Pantasari) gets plenty of sex, but none you have to see. The movie is incredibly tame and not deserving of the reputation it has, despite being released uncut the movie looks no worse than any Carry On movie, in fact you might find more to offend in those. When it comes to sex the act is quickly breezed over, characters strip down to their underwear before flicking to another scene, upon return to the couple having sex the act is over and they are very much in relaxation time. Even language is tamed down, as soon as a swear word is incoming the actual word is replaced by the sound of a horn or whistle blowing.

 

Watching Trader Hornee I’m reminded of my youth, there is lots of cute stock footage of animals designed to create the impression that the cast and crew are in Africa. Whereas now in nature shows you see the harsh realities of two different breeds of animal meeting, often resulting in death; here you get the impression that all African animals get on like a house on fire, and as if to prove a point a piece of footage shows a chimpanzee and a tiger (both very young) playing happily together, the chimp slaps the tiger on the head before laughing at it. There are lots of lovely moments like this, shot on slightly grainy often orange tinged film stock, it really is delightful to watch, and for older movie lovers like myself it’s a wonderful look back at the past.

 

The term “Random” is one so often heard nowadays and is probably the best term I could ever think of to describe this movie. There are scores of scenes that literally look like they are just done for the hell of it. Often the picture shoots off into a red, purple, orange or blue lens; occasionally it shakes about like the cameraman is at a disco. When the African’s and a group of explorers led by Hornee first encounter each other they all start dancing together even though the explorers believe they are going to end up in the giant stock pot.  And when you think things have got odd enough, how about a man in a white monkey suit stealing gold which is actually a Nazi officer who loves gold.

 

I don’t really think it’s fair to comment on acting, because the movie is obviously all done in the name of fun, characters say things like “Leaping Lizards” with big cheesy grins on their faces, nothing is played straight in this movie. Worth pointing out though is the presence of John Alderman an actor who was once tipped to be the new Clark Gable, had it not been for his addiction with alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes often smoking as many as 100 cigarettes in one day. Instead the actor ended up in B-Movies, and exploitation pictures because of his difficult nature.

 

If you like to sit and watch what is effectively a bad movie, and have a really good laugh in the process then Trader Hornee is a very worthwhile movie to watch, you’ll laugh, and you’ll sit open jawed at the absolute ridiculousness of the whole thing.

 

Grindhouse Trailer Classics

Who would have thought that trailers for movies could become as popular as the real thing? But this is exactly what has happened with Nucleus Films release Grindhouse Trailer Classics. Taking a leaf out of US DVD releases 42^nd Street Forever, a series of DVD’s that bought the power of cult, low budget and niche movie trailers into the homes of viewers, themselves inspired by Quentin Tarentino’s Grindhouse movie.

 

Watching trailers for movies from yesteryear may seem like a strangething to do, but if you’re a fan of classic movies of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s that were far from blockbusters like myself, two hours of Trailer viewing will be right up your street. Grindhouse Trailer Classics opens a sort of vortex to the past, a glimpse at life before the dawn of the multiplex cinemas of Warner, Venue, or Cineworld.

 

The success of this DVD was so unexpected that Nucleus films headed up by film historian Marc Morris and movie maker Jake West are about to release a second volume of this compilation series.

 

To be honest with you, there is not much you can say about a two hour DVD of trailers, however I can tell you about some of the trailers. The combination of trailers varies from horror movies, thriller, soft porn classics, and sex comedies.

 

Switchblade Sisters sees a gang of teenage girls who have a thirst for blood, and a love for sharp knives. Eyeball offers a red raincoat wearing serial killer as they select a series of victims, “No Suspense has ever gone this far” tells the narrator of the trailer. Wes Craven’s Last House On The Left trailer features footage actually edited out of the UK DVD release for the movie, making this a must for fans of the movie. Italian horror movies are well represented with trailers for Torso, Autopsy, Zombie AKA Zombie Flesh Eaters, and Doctor Butcher MD AKA Zombie Holocaust. How about Deadly Weapons a movie about a female assassin who kills her targets by smothering them with her enormous breasts. They Call Her One Eye features Christina Lindberg in the toned down version of this thriller/porn movie that inspired the Daryl Hannah character in Kill Bill. The Thing With Two heads sees the great Ray Milland near the end of his acting days as a head transplant patient whose head has been attached to the body of a black man who gets to keep his head too, the two headed man has a further issue because Ray Milland’s character is a racist. Pete Walker’s House Of The Whipcord offers British involvement to the piece and looks far sleazier than the reality. Fans of the Blaxploitation era will be treated to Truck Turner starring Isaac Hayes best known now as the voice of Chef from South Park, and Pam Grier movies Coffy, and The Big Doll House.  While more modern movies are featured with the appearance of Death Ship and The Perils Of Gwendoline.

 

Among the 55 trailers featured are some trailers never before seen in the UK. Granted watching trailers might not seem like that much fun, but believe me if you have a good sense of humour and a thirst for movie trivia this DVD will keep you amused for weeks.

 

 

Special Features

 

Bump And Grind – A 17 minute documentary presented by low budget horror actress Emily Booth gives you a look and a taste of the effect these low budget movies had on audiences. In between clips for trailers like Wham Bam Thank You Spaceman, Emily tells the story of Grindhouse trailers from their initial conception to their demise at the dawn of the 1980’s after the birth of videotape allowed cinemagoers the opportunity to see these weird movies in the comfort of your own home, rather than in semen stained seats, with audiences that were less than controlled. The documentary is based on the book Nightmare USA by cult movie novelist Stephen Thrower.

 

A series of posters are gathered together for you to get the unique feel of a bygone age, far from the modern politically correct age we now live in the posters could be every bit as shocking as the movies they publicise.

 

Finally there is a list of other movies from Nucleus a trailer for each one is featured the trailers include Between Your Legs, The Ugliest Woman In The World, Gwendoline, Fausto 5.0, London Voodoo, and Death Ship.

Death Ship

It’s been a long time since Death Ship has been seen in the UK, but Nucleus Films Marc Morris and Jake West have pulled another blinder by producing a decent DVD with a scattering of special features and the crispest version of the movie money can buy.

 

Made in 1980 this incredibly low budget horror movie did reasonable business in the American box offices coming second place to the Oscar wining Kramer Vs Kramer. Despite doing good business Death Ship also managed to win out amongst the smaller “cult” theatrical cinemas like the grindhouse or drive in movie style.

 

On his final voyage Captain Ashland (George Kennedy) is showing rookie Trevor Marshall (Richard Crenna) the ropes, rather begrudgingly I should add. Over the course of the night tensions rise as the retiring captain grows increasingly impatient with events going on around him. This soon becomes the last thing on everyone’s mind after the ship is rammed by another vessel and begins to sink. A handful of survivors make it off the sinking ship only to find salvation on a passing deserted vessel, but it soon becomes evident that the deserted ship is the very one that sank their ship, and as time passes by it becomes apparent that the ship wants to kill its new passengers.

 

I cannot begin to pretend that Death Ship is a particularly good film, there is nothing wrong with either the cast or the special effects, simply the story feels after a promising build up to be a little hollow, amongst the hollow moments however are a few scattered moments that qualify to be classed as movie gems or at least gems in this movie. The biggest flaw I personally feel was that there was no opportunity to form any bonds with any of the characters, gigolo character Nick (Nick Mancuso) is practically nonexistent in respect of his story input, while Richard Crenna spends a portion of the movie with his head in his hands. George Kennedy turns in a dark performance, but again never at any point can you make a connection with the character.

 

The big fault I suspect is that the story was written by Blaxploitation director Jack Hill, then parts re-written by David P. Lewis in order to comply with requests from the producer, director and the budget requirements of the movie. It is quite often the case that too many cooks spoil the broth, and while Hill was at no point involved after the initial screenplay something was most definitely lost in translation.

 

Faults aside there are a couple of genuinely good points, one of the characters has a grisly end in a net full of sharp human remains, while another gets a little too close to the mechanics of the death ship. In with this is a hidden story about the holocaust and a Nazi controlled ship, that just so happens to be the “Death Ship” of the title.

 

Balancing the good with the bad Death Ship sits middle when it comes to rating the movie, I neither loved it or hated it, it’s just average. To be honest with you I have tried to watch the movie over several years and never quite have the patience to watch it to the end, its only real interest this time round was the fact that Marc Morris a master historian in the horror/cult genres does magnificent work when it comes to restoring movies for DVD.

 

While the movie is average the special features on this Nucleus release are far from average, there is an excellent documentary called Stormy Seas which is the best feature on the disc. Stormy Sea’s spends a lot of time talking with George Kennedy, Nick Mancuso, Jack Hill and director Alvin Rakoff. There are some great stories that are discussed, chiefly coming from the mouth of the incredibly interesting George Kennedy, while Mancuso’s comments are kind of cryptic, Kennedy elaborates and adds a great spin to stories. You really get to hear not just about the movie but about the way of life for the actors, both Mancuso and Kennedy talk about the water they are forced to swim in apparently said to carry Hepatitis B. While both talk about the joy of working with the late Richard Crenna (Best known as Trautman in the Rambo movies) and Kate Reid (Who played Aunt Lil Trotter in Dallas). This is not a short five or ten minute documentary as featured on most DVD’s but adecent length documentary nearly 50 minutes in length.

 

Other additions include deleted scenes thought not to even exist that were featured in a Canadian TV showing some years ago preserved from an old Betamax recording. A series of pages from Jack Hills original screenplay entitled Blood Star. There are also a series of trailers not just for Death Ship but for other Nucleus releases. Strange though it might see one of the most interesting special features is a simple page of writing that talks about the preservation of the movie, one thing you get the feeling about with this DVD is that the best stories all took place off screen.

 

Apparently there is also an audio commentary with Alvin Rakoff but to be honest with you my workload prevented me the time to investigate.

 

Death Ship is available to buy online from £12.99.

Who Saw Her Die?

I absolutely adore Italian cult movies; I also rather enjoy the movies that UK based Shameless Screen Entertainment release, but imagine my delight when I discover that one of my all-time Italian thrillers Who Saw Her Die? Is getting a long overdue UK release, not just with a glossy print but with some long missing footage reinserted. It is like one of my greatest dreams come true, and luckily for me those nice guys over at Shameless sent me a copy of the movie to watch prior to its release on the 25^th August, enough to tide me over until the movie is out to buy.

 

Made all the way back in 1972 Who Saw Her Die? Starts with one of the most disturbing openings I have ever seen, nestled in the beautiful snow filled French mountains you see a young girl enjoying herself with her nanny and her sledge. From out of the trees looms a figure of a woman with a veil covering her face. Grabbing the young girl, the woman proceeds to smash her skull in with a stone before burying her rather carelessly under the snow. Moving forward 20 years, we are teleported to Venice in the 1970’s; and the arrival of Roberta (Nicoletta Elmi) who has come to stay with her father Franco (George Lazenby) is about to cause history to repeat itself.

 

The movie is a product of the great Aldo Lado the mastermind behind Night Train Murders, and The Short Night Of The Glass Dolls, Lado is not necessarily the best know of the Italian directors especially to the casual Italian movie viewer, but familiar or not you’d certainly agree Lado’s movies have a certain style about them. Here Lado shows a side of Venice that the Italian tourist board would not like you to see, looking dowdy and dirty you can almost smell the dirty Venetian water, add to this a vision of darkness, rain, fog, and cloud cover that you do not think of when Venice enters your mind. Everything about Lado’s outlook of Venice is dark and sinister and not the image you get with movies like The Talented Mr. Ripley or Nicholas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now even though this is hardly sun filled; on the subject of the Roeg masterpiece I’d go as far as to say that I suspect that Roeg took a little inspiration from this movie as you can easily spot similarities between the two movies, while Roeg painted a harsh image of Venice, Lado’s version is far more extreme and explicit. Now don’t get me wrong, Lado’s vision is not all dark, there are some most beautiful scenes in the movie, for those with a passion for travel, history, and architecture this movie will make you want to visit Venice even more, what is carefully delivered however is the thought “be careful what you cannot see”.

 

Lado scored well with his leading man acquiring the services of George Lazenby (former James Bond) for a song due to his incredibly high debts (caused due to his dramatic over the top spending while filming On Her Majesties Secret Service), and while Lazenby was criticised for his poor acting on Bond and his lack of sex appeal, he was still a big enough name to ensure that Who Saw Her Die? Got a few more bums on seats in cinemas across the world. I should add that if you thought Lazenby lacked sex appeal before, seeing him naked here is not going to improve your views. Sex appeal or not, this movie does prove that the world was wrong about Lazenby and certainly here he proves himself to be a very capable actor. There is a little more Bond-age here in the casting of Adolfo Celi who starred as Emile Largo in the James Bond movie Thunderball. Celi or rather his character of Serafian a sort of Mafioso boss manages to dominate the entire movie, as a shadowy and untouchable criminal mastermind, a man with fingers in many pies.  Fear not ladies it’s not a male dominated piece and the casting of enchanting Swedish actress Anita Strindberg with her devastatingly striking looks finishes the lead cast off perfectly, an actress who young in her career had already starred in two very successful Italian movies Lucio Fulci’s A Lizard In A Woman’s Skin, and Sergio Martino’s The Case Of The Scorpions Tail; few actresses have the powerful look of this actress, let alone the very capable acting skill as she plays a woman in mourning.

 

I have now seen Who Saw Her Die? A dozen times, and reviewed it now for the third time; what I love about the picture is that there is a wonderful power that the movie has, forget the horrible story of a child killer, and the further sideline of a depraved group of perverts; the movies great talent is that by the time I watch the movie again I have completely forgotten who the killer is, making Who Saw Her Die? A movie that you can watch again, and again. How many movies do you know that feel fresh with each repeated watching? And how many movies grow in power with repeated viewings? I won’t deny the first time I saw this movie I could take it or leave it, but now it makes its way to the top of my list for all-time favourite movies. From its gruelling story, its impressive visual delight by its director Aldo Lado, onto its rather impressive score by Ennio Morricone, this is an all round winner.

 

About The DVD

 

Shameless have again gone out of their way to preserve the movie well, it’s in my view a far superior print to the US Anchor Bay edition released some years ago, and greatly improved by the additional seconds of footage, and English subtitles over a couple of scenes previously un-dubbed and without text translation. At last I get to see what it is the creepy kids are singing about in an Italian variant of “Ring A Roses”.

As you progress through the movie there are a few things I had not noticed before, aided by what appears to be better framing. The movie boasts a 2.0 soundtrack, and a frame ratio of 2.35:1.

 

The cover features a front image of a hand holding a knife above a corpse the cover text reading “Before Don’t Look Now Came... Who Saw Her Die? But Who Will Survive To Tell The Tale?” As has become tradition with Shameless Screen Entertainment releases there is an alternate reverse cover featuring a child like picture with a photo of the character Roberta superimposed on it.

 

There are some trailers on the disc starting with The Designated Victim a release due on the 8^th of September and a movie that has never been seen in the UK before. Strip Nude For Your Killer is a classic Giallo thriller by the director of The Nights Of Terror, another future release is Umberto Lenzi’s long unseen Oasis Of Fear also due out with the other two titles in September. As well as a look at the future there are trailers for Night Train Murders, What Have They Done To Your Daughters, and The Black Cat.  There is also a trailer for Who Saw Her Die? That captures perfectly the magic of this spectacular film.

Of all the releases from Shameless this is by far my favourite, despite my love of The Frightened Woman, congratulations Shameless on bringing one of my all time favourites to DVD in the UK. You can purchase Who Saw Her Die? From the 25^th of August.

Prey (1978)

I recently said to someone that I was planning to watch and review the Norman J. Warren movies, a comment they made in turn made me prioritise these viewings beginning with Warren’s 1978 movie Prey described as “an interesting little film”.

 

Norman J. Warren (probably a director you have either never heard on, or due to the wonders of internet search engines have found yourself here looking for information on the director) made very few movies 10 in fact during his career. During the end of the 1970’s as tastes in movies from the likes of Hammer Studios, little quirky directors like Norman J. Warren and Pete Walker came into their own bringing a very different type of horror to cinema screens, granted it was not all good, but it was most certainly different.

 

Prey is a most bizarre movie, with some of the worst acting I have ever seen in a British movie, and utterly ludicrous special effects, an off the wall story so bizarre that it sounds like your worst dream; combine this with what sounds a drunken old fool on an electronic synthesizer and what have you got? A winning, compelling and hilariously unintentional humour that can, for the open mind make Prey a real favourite for life.

 

Beginning with a couple making out in a car, both of which fall into unusual circumstances; the action soon movies to the lesbian retreat of Josephine and Jessica. While Jessica (Glory Annen) is more your everyday type of person Josephine (Sally Faulkner) is the sort of person that might very well bring a flick knife to a child’s birthday party. Josephine is also paranoid that her lesbian lover might be tempted if she ventures into the outside world by another, so you can imagine her joy when Anders Anders (Barry Stokes) ventures into their isolated retreat. While Josephine wants shot of Anders, Jessica want to help Anders who she believes to be “disturbed”.  But Anders comes complete with baggage, and this baggage causes Jessica to look at things in a different light, while Anders is a terror all of his own, the worst horror has been with her all along.

 

I really don’t know where to start with this film, while the above synopsis of opening events might all very well sound normal, this is far from the case and I’d go as far as to say that Prey is one of the most oddball and unusual movies I have seen for some considerable time.  Think alien cats, lesbians and an oil slick... Now hold that thought.

 

The best place to start is with Sally Faulkner, for some unknown reasons this actress still manages to find work 30 years after this movie, and more ludicrously she has acted quite prolifically during that whole period. With her over emphasised words, woody complexion, almost drunken flying off the handle at the least little thing (though her character is meant to be a bit mental), and animated make out scenes with her co-actress; she is the thing about Prey that brings the most amusement giving the ultimate head scratching what the fuck performance, you need to see it to believe it. The slightly better of the two female actresses Gloria Annen pretty much disappeared within 5 years of this movie being made. While Barry Stokes acted pretty much all the time for 10 years after the movie was finished, before disappearing into voice over hell; I’ll say little about the acting of Stokes, because his character is detached from everything we know, so you can’t really tell whether he is a terrible actor or deliberately trying to be awful.

 

In this world of dreadful and not so dreadful acting comes the ultimate predator, a half man half cat creature with the best plastic cat head I have ever seen.  I’m a big lover of plastic cat heads, and this one is really special. In seriousness I do have to question why Warren chose to use this particular head, as I have a suspicion that even 30 years ago this would have been quite amusing. But maybe, just maybe Warren realised this, like many aspects of the movie I cannot help but thing that Warren is having a laugh at his audience. I have not ruined the story when I tell you that the cat head in question belongs to Barry Stokes, because less than five minutes in and you get to see him brandishing said cat head. What is highly contrasting however is that to go with this amusing cat head, you have pretty extreme gore as cat head in place (it only comes out at certain times) rips the throats out of his prey whether it is human or animal.

 

While I’m nudging the word extreme, I must move on rather hurriedly to some pretty risqué sex scenes, both lesbian and straight, fingers go places you know they go but don’t necessarily need to be reminded especially when the finger abuser is Sally Faulkner, it’s a combination you don’t even want to think about, let alone see. I’m rather amazed when conversations of extreme sex come up that Prey does not raise its head along with the likes of Straw Dogs, The Accused, and 9 Songs; maybe it’s because the movie is so far pushed into the “Cult” label that nobody has seen it.  Whatever the case may be this definitely enters the realms of belonging to the brown mac brigade.

 

As the movie enters its third quarter there is the most unexpected, nay indescribable scene which mixes eternal conversations about cats and water, if you can call the thing that Stokes character stumbles upon water. This painful synthesised 2 minute scene/interlude makes for the most hilarious point of the movie. It’s at this very point that I realised that despite the terrible plot, effects, music, and acting that this ridiculous movie had made its way to be one of my all time favourite movies.

 

Prey is available on Region 1 DVD as an individual disc with no special features other than a trailer, alternately in the UK you can obtain it as part of a now deleted box set of Norman J. Warren movies, while the disc itself has no extra editions beyond the US disc, there is a disc of special features. I have based this review off the back of the US disc.

The Tracy Fragments

When the Tracey Fragments hits UK shores I just know that some will consider it a classic, and while I think the story is an important one to tell I hated the style of delivery which left me with the most annoying feeling I had from a movie since the much heralded (but hated by myself) Brick.

Ellen Page who has received much acclaim two years in a row for movies Hard Candy and Juno stars as Tracey Berkowitz, a young grungy style girl who is the brunt of everyone's jokes at school. For reasons unknown until the end of the movie Tracey finds out on the streets looking for her missing brother Sonny who suddenly disappeared without a trace one winter's day.

The movie is told in the style of the movie Memento in that it picks up the story in fits and starts flashing back and forth from the past to the present each time telling a little bit more of the story. What is annoying though is the style of film-making, the mix of the soundtracks and speech that is drawn together from different aspects of the story; I grew increasingly annoyed with hearing "Why would I lie?" and "I love you Tracey Berkowitz!" each and every time the story juts back into time travel mode. On top of this the screen increasingly becomes multi-sectioned often either showing the same scene up to five times from different angles all pieced together in a sort of collage of images, or as different parts of the same story continuing at the same time. While after 45 minutes you get really used to this, during that same 45 minute the result I found incredibly painful; you know that feeling when you have an incredibly bad headache and someone seems to go out of their way to either make noise or talk to you? This is exactly the same way I felt watching The Tracy Fragments.

Now onto the shock, yes its annoying, yes it reminded me of the anally retentive movie Brick, but I kind of really enjoyed this movie once I got chance to adapt to the apparently revolutionary directorial style. Often directors that take this style of filmmaking have a background in music video's but for Tracey Fragments director Bruce McDonald his teeth were cut on popular TV shows like ITV's The Bill, Queer As Folk, and Degrassi - The Next Generation; all of which have no reflection here.

Once you have adapted to the annoying filmmaking you get to look at the story itself, and understand how it all pieces together, and sadly the story is a real tragedy. When I say tragedy I don't mean that it's a bad story, more that it's a sad story that you can see happening in real life when you pick up papers read internet news stories, or watch TV. It's so sad how incredibly misunderstood Tracey is and how she longs to be part of the school cliché without actually wanting to be, if you get my drift; it's more like that teenage rebellion of wanting to belong without admitting to it, and how this longing to belong lands her in an awful lot of hot water, all the time Tracey in her heart being a really good girl, with a strong moral stance and understanding of what is right and what is wrong.

The casting is filled with the exception of Page with virtual unknowns, although some may recognise Julian Richings, who here plays psychiatrist Dr. Heker, but has been used through his working history in roles that demand a slightly unusual look, yes you guessed it I mean ugly.

I won't go onto the music other than to say it's incredibly annoying combination of bad alternative rock styles.

As The Tracy Fragments continued I found myself more and more won over by the film, and troubled by a lot of the movies content. I loved the way it pieces the story together, with each reveal I got that "Ahhhhhh!" bit of satisfaction, that only the most faithfully watched TV shows can usually provide. Art and film students will love it, older people will hate it, but few will deny (if they can stick with it) that its story is something so incredibly common, but never really told in a movie and from that basis alone The Tracy Fragments in my mind deserves some very high acclaim.