In A Violent Nature (Chris Nash, 2024) Review

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“Animals don't get too hung-up on reason.” Taking the typical story of a slasher movie and inverting the POV to instead focus on the monstrous killer, debut feature writer/director Chris Nash sets out with a bold hook, but can it be sustained over 90 minutes?...

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Willy's Wonderland (Kevin Lewis, 2021) Review

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“He's not trapped in here with them, they're trapped in here with him!” Nicolas Cage goes into a full-blown 'Cage Rage' against a gang of animatronic mascots in a children's party restaurant. It's like every stressed-out parent's fantasy at a Chuck E. Cheese birthday party – to rip the head off one of those bug-eyed monstrosities during one of their maddening pre-recorded melodies...!

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Dial Help (Ruggero Deodato, 1988) Review

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“I'm expecting an important call – a call that never comes.” Directed by Ruggero Deodato, the rogue journeyman filmmaker behind the notorious video nasty Cannibal Holocaust, this is, put simply, a movie about killer telephones jealously menacing a fashion model – why would you need a longer introduction than that?...

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Chopping Mall (Jim Wynorski, 1986) Review

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“I guess I'm not used to being chased around a mall in the middle of the night by killer robots.” The 1980s was the decade when the shopping mall ruled all from the consumerist dream driving the economy to the food court driving teenagers' social engagement. It was a time and a place that was important in people's lives, something worth protecting, but how best to do that? Perhaps big steel time-locked doors and a trio of roaming robots armed with laser eyes? Gee, I sure hope a random lightning storm doesn't scramble their circuits and result in a slew of corpses … oh, hang on, too late!

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Splatter University (Richard W. Haines, 1984) Blu-Ray Review

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“It seems to me that if you're going to kill someone you at least get to know them real well.” From the director of Class of Nuke 'Em High, Splatter University – otherwise known as Campus Killings – is a cheap as chips horror comedy in which a bunch of reprehensible, unteachable college kids test their new teacher's patience while getting bumped off during the new semester. The trailer and 'back of the box blurb' sell it skilfully, but what's it really like – a forgotten gem, a dropped turd, or perhaps a malodorous diamond?

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Nightmare Beach (1988) Mini Review...

What's it about?
The leader of a biker gang is executed for the crime of murder, but when his body goes missing and rowdy Spring Breakers start turning up dead-by-electrocution, the authorities desperately try to keep a lid on things - but the bodies keep piling up.
Who would I recognise in it?
John Saxon, Michael Parks, Lance LeGault.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
Directed by Umberto Lenzi (Syndicate Sadists, Eyeball) under a pseudonym, Nightmare Beach was one of his last directorial outings - into which he put little effort (as he himself admitted). Coming in after years of slasher movies, this cheap little killer flick - written by Vittorio Rambaldi (with some rushed rewrites by Umberto Lenzi) - proves to be a rather mixed bag. Indeed, just in terms of acting, the movie comes across rather schizophrenic. The ever-reliable John Saxon (A Nightmare On Elm Street) plays a sheriff doing the dirty bidding of a mayor who's only worry is not scaring off tourists (*ahem* Jaws *ahem*), while Michael Parks (Red State) plays an alcoholic doctor/pathologist/pervert, and Lance LeGault (The A-Team) gleefully hams it up as a Bible-clutching priest - all good stuff, but the rest of the acting on-show ranges wildly from under-sold to reprehensible. Mind you, in a movie like this (ideal VHS rental fodder), that's part of the fun...

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Francesca (Luciano Onetti, 2015) DVD Review

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“Through me you pass into the city of woe, through me you pass into eternal pain.” In recent years the 'neo-giallo' movement has grown, moving hand-in-hand with the re-evaluation of gialli from the 1960s, 70s, 80s, as well as the few that were released in the 1990s. Through DVD and now Blu-Ray – distributed by high quality and dedicated labels such as Arrow Video, 88 Films, Shameless Screen Entertainment (plus many more in various markets around the globe) – the genre has gained a whole new audience, with the films afforded lavish restoration and supplemental packages for unparallelled home viewing experiences. With the love spreading for these movies – made by filmmakers such as Dario Argento, Mario Bava, and Sergio Martino (among many others) – it was only natural that new examples of the genre would begin to appear. Masks, Amer, The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears, and Yellow are all examples of this 'new old school' of highly stylised murder mystery – and the Argentinian Francesca (from the director of Sonno Profondo) is perhaps the one which nails the classic style closest of all...

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FREE eBooks for Halloween...

The season for spooky-doings and ghastly goings-on is upon us, and with that in mind how do you fancy a FREE horror eBook for some Halloween reading? How about two free horror eBooks to give your e-Reader a ghoulish glow?

Available worldwide via Amazon from October 27th 2016 through October 31st 2016, you can get yourself a FREE digital copy of "Dug Deep" as well as "How Mr Snuffles III and Others Met Their Maker" (click each link to find out more about the stories).

Simply visit your local Amazon during the promotion period (October 27th through October 31st 2016) and download the book(s) to your Kindle or to your favourite digital device (phone, tablet, etc) or computer by using the (free to download) Kindle App.

Dug Deep - Amazon US - Amazon UK - and Worldwide!

How Mr Snuffles III and Others Met Their Maker - Amazon US - Amazon UK - and Worldwide!

Death Walks At Midnight (Luciano Ercoli, 1972) Blu-Ray/DVD Review

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“I'm telling you the truth – believe it or not!” Utilising much of the same cast and crew as he had done with his previous two forays into the giallo genre, Director Luciano Ercoli's third – and final – giallo film is less interested in murder and mayhem at the hands of a black-clad killer and much more taken with its leading lady. Having been portrayed in The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion (1970) as a free-love nympho, Nieves Navarro (who would go on to spend the rest of her life with Ercoli as husband and wife) advanced up the ladder of gialli's roster of ladies in peril. In Death Walks On High Heels (1971), Navarro is portrayed with love as a far more rounded, yet still sexual being, whose forthright attitude enthrals or confounds the men in her life. However, in what was to become one of her strongest roles, Navarro (aka Susan Scott) kept her clothes on and her fists at the ready for Death Walks At Midnight, which could arguably be considered the 'girl power beacon' of the entire genre...

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Amsterdamned (Dick Maas, 1988) DVD Review

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“Be glad you're afraid – it means you're still alive.” A slasher thriller version of a Dirty Harry movie by way of the canals and 'red light district' of Holland's capital city, Dick Maas' third film combines elements of bloody European murder mysteries with sardonic American police action flicks. Lurking in the murky depths of Amsterdam's world famous waterways is a crazed killer, in what is one of the most uniquely located killer thrillers ever made...

 

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The Sister of Ursula (Enzo Milioni, 1978) DVD Review

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“Terrible things are going to happen, I see blood.” The 1970s were the swinging heyday of Italian 'giallo' cinema with a veritable glut of gruesome and sexy thrillers filling silver screens far and wide. However, by 1978 gialli were becoming a bit worn out – but meanwhile the market for adult entertainment was exploding – and while many of Italy's pulp thrillers flirted with sexuality and eroticism, few straddled the line this side of full-blown flesh flicks quite like Enzo Milioni's The Sister of Ursula...

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Yellow (Ryan Haysom, 2012) DVD Review

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“One Hunter. One Killer.” During the 1970s and 80s it was boom time for Italian cinema, and one of its most popular and enduring creations was the “giallo” film. “Giallo” means “Yellow”, which was the colour of the covers for lurid murder mystery paperbacks. A few cinematic highlights of the genre include: What Have You Done To Solange?, The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh, Tenebrae, and The Case of the Bloody Iris. Such was the effectiveness of giallo, they went on to inspire the slasher film. Come the 1990s however, the giallo movement ground to a halt, but in recent years there has been a resurgence of the form – the 'neo-giallo'. Films such as Tulpa, Sonno Profondo, and The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears have shown that there is still a distinct taste for killers clad in black leather, gleaming razors, and beautiful victims.

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What Have You Done To Solange? (Massimo Dallamano, 1972) DVD Review

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“I want to Enrico, as much as you want to, but not like this.” Massimo Dallamano's What Have You Done To Solange? is the first entry in a thematic trilogy of 'school girls in peril' films, and was followed by What Have They Done To Your Daughters? (1974), and Trauma (1978, aka Rings of Fear). Loosely based on Edgar Wallace's novel “The Clue of the New Pin”, it has weathered the ravages of time to remain one of the finest examples of giallo film-making.

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Silent Night (Steven C. Miller, 2012) DVD Review

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Based on the 1984 slasher film Silent Night Deadly Night, which inspired controversy and parental panic across the United States upon its release, this 2012 remake takes the basic premise – a vengeful killer in a Santa suit slaughtering their way through a small town – and runs with it in a sufficiently different and more detailed direction.

 

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The Las Vegas Serial Killer (Wolfgang Schmidt, 1987) Review

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Just like with The Hollywood Strangler Meets The Skid Row Slasher, Ray Dennis Steckler is under the guises of Wolfgang Schmidt and Sven Christian as Director, Cinematographer and Editor of this sketchy 1987 follow-up, which continues in much the same vein as its predecessor.

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The Hollywood Strangler Meets The Skid Row Slasher (Wolfgang Schmidt, 1979) Review

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Wolfgang Schmidt is actually a pseudonym for Ray Dennis Steckler, who is best known for his 1963 movie “The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies”. Steckler had numerous aliases which included Sven Christian – credited here in a dual-role of Cinematographer and Editor – and was well known for working on an extremely low budget (sometimes just a few thousand dollars).

If you're into ultra low budget, down-and-dirty slasher flicks, then you've come to the right place.

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Your Vice Is A Locked Room And Only I Have The Key (Sergio Martino, 1972) Review

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In the year following his masterpiece giallo The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh (1971), Director Sergio Martino returned to the genre with this sordid tale of the Italian aristocracy gone wrong.

“Of course, you'd much rather be drinking from my skull.” Kick-starting under the oil-painted gaze of the recently deceased matriarch of the Rouvigny family, Martino introduces us to the excesses of the Italian aristocracy, housed within a crumbling and hollow mansion. As free-loving guests from a nearby commune enjoy the free booze, and a grope of slave/servant Brenda, the bitter marriage of Oliviero (Luigi Pistilli, The Good The Bad & The Ugly) and Irina (Anita Strindberg, Who Saw Her Die) is laid bare to all without a care in Oliviero's mind.

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Eyeball (Umberto Lenzi, 1975) Review

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Umberto Lenzi is best known for such violence-spewing film fare as Nightmare City and Cannibal Ferox, but as a director who dipped his toe into numerous pools, some of his other work has faded into the background. Lenzi's optic-bothering giallo Eyeball is one such obscure effort.

“The flowers of death? I'm far from ready.” A bus-load of American tourists are in Barcelona to see the sights but, for some, the glint of a raised dagger will be the last image to flash across their moist little peepers. The holidaying ensemble are a motley bunch – the unhappily married Alvarados, a grandfather with his bored granddaughter Jenny, shifty-looking Reverend Bronson (George Rigaud, The Case of the Bloody Iris), letchy photographer Lisa and her lesbian muse Naiba, all leaving secretary Paulette (Martine Brochard) looking positively dull by comparison.

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The Case of the Bloody Iris (Giuliano Carnimeo, 1971) DVD Review...

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With The Case of the Bloody Iris, fans of gialli will experience one of the era's best examples, particularly as it shares much of the same talent as another prime representative of the lurid murder mystery movement – The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh (Sergio Martino, 1971). Both films star Edwige (Strip Nude For Your Killer, Phantom of Death) Fenech and George (My Dear Killer, All The Colours of the Dark) Hilton, while boasting superb scripts from Ernesto (Torso, Almost Human) Gastaldi, and crystalline editing by Eugenio (Oasis of Fear, The Good The Bad and The Ugly) Alabiso. Suffice to say, if you were a fan of landmark giallo The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh, you will be treated to a similarly luxuriant banquet of sumptuous visuals, sinister chills, and otherworldly beauty...

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The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh (Sergio Martino, 1971) DVD Review

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One of Sergio (The Mountain of the Cannibal God, Torso) Martino's earliest films, The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh exhibits a confident grasp of tension-building and exploitable elements, which would be seen just as strongly in his later work (such as the equally superb Torso aka Carnal Violence). This prime example of the greatest the giallo genre has to offer, partly inspired by Les Diaboliques (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1955), follows Julie Wardh (screen siren Edwige Fenech, Strip Nude For Your Killer), the wife of an American diplomat who has been left stifled and unfulfilled by her marriage, and resorts to fantasising about her fiery relationship with the sexually aggressive Jean (Ivan Rassimov, Eaten Alive), who she once again comes face-to-face with when she arrives in beautiful Vienna.

Similar to Torso, The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh kicks off with a first half that is fuelled by frequent sex and violence, with a second half that focuses on the psychological torture of the female protagonist. Ninety seconds into the film and you've already been confronted by bare flesh and a slashing straight razor – the tool of choice for the so-called 'Sex Fiend' killer who is on the loose. During this first half, there's more bared arses and breasts than you can shake a stick at (Martino deliberately shot much of this content so the conservative Italian film censors would have something to edit out – content which has returned for this DVD release, the first-ever in the UK) – and then by ten minutes in we've had four nude scenes.

 

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