Flavours of the Month: December 2017...

Joe D'Amato goes Beyond The Darkness, room for improvement for The Walking Dead, and second chances are just some of what's been setting the tone of my December 2017...

Click "READ MORE" below to see this month's looks, sounds, vibes & flavours...

Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi - quick review (spoiler free)...

What's it about?
After destroying the Star Killer base in the previous episode, the remnants of the Resistance are on the run with the New Order pursuing them, their total destruction within Supreme Leader Snoke's evil grasp. Meanwhile, Rey meets the mythical Luke Skywalker and gains new experience with The Force as Poe Dameron's rogue sense of rashness is challenged by General Leia Organa.
Who would I recognise in it?
Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Daisy Ridley, Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Laura Dern, Benicio Del Toro, Andy Serkis, Lupita Nyongo', Domhnall Gleeson, Anthony Daniels, Gwendoline Christie, and more.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
Episode VII blew the doors off the box office, but was criticised for hewing too closely to Episode IV in terms of story and structure, and the death of an iconic character ruffled a few feathers. Episode VIII, meanwhile, treads more of its own path and enacts a few bold choices that are surprising for a franchise this old and financially important ... and, of course, the most ardent complainers of the social media world are still whining...

Click "READ MORE" below to continue...

Live Like A Cop Die Like A Man (Ruggero Deodato 1976) DVD Review

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“What are we coming to when they let common criminals join the police?” Ruggero Deodato will perhaps forever be inextricably linked to his notorious grand guignol video nasty Cannibal Holocaust, but the famous Italian director tried his hands at numerous genres. He dabbled in gialli with the likes of The Washing Machine, for instance, albeit in the 1990s long after the movement's heyday in the 1970s. Indeed, three genres ruled supreme at the Italian box office – the aforementioned gialli (bloody murder mysteries), sex comedies, and crime films (generally referred to as poliziotteschi), and it is in this latter category that Deodato produced one of his finest films. Live Like A Cop, Die Like A Man (what a fantastic title!) is an ultra-charged poliziottescho that knows no bounds of shame, as tough-as-nails coppers take on the dangerous world of crime...

Click “READ MORE” below to continue the review and see more screenshots…

The Walking Dead: Room for Improvement...

BE WARNED: the following contains spoilers for The Walking Dead up to (and including) the mid-season finale for Season 8.

Also: excuse the length of this article, but I have broken it down into segments. Bear with me.

Call this an 'open letter' or a train of thoughts written down or whatever you fancy, but suffice it to say The Walking Dead has caught some flack in the last couple of years and made some missteps. Here I address some of the bad - as well as landmark moments of good - that the show has represented on screen, with a few possible fixes. TWD is one of the best shows on television, but there is room for improvement...

SEASON SEVEN WOBBLES

The seventh season of AMC's thunderously successful zombie show caught a lot of flack. Some balked at the violence in the première episode, although to be quite honest, what were they expecting?! Having your head smashed in with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire is going to leave quite a mark. Did they forget the geysers of blood that gushed from slit throats in the season five première? Or how about the countless scenes of flesh eating, zombie slaying, bullet-spraying carnage that has been a staple of The Walking Dead since the get-go?

The main criticism of the seventh season however, was with the overall structure and pacing. All too often major characters went absent for several episodes at a time as Scott Gimple and his writers opted to focus on one contained story after another. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. The first half of Season 7 sums up the issue quite well: after the Lucille-swinging première (one of the finest episodes of TWD's entire run) we are introduced to The Kingdom, Sanctuary, and then Oceanside all within five episodes – each with a procession of new characters whose names, faces, and allegiances we struggled to remember. Basically, it was too much to take in and our long-running show started to feel unfamiliar. Although, I will say that 7x02 – the introduction of The Kingdom – was a very good episode, handling Shiva and King Ezekiel perfectly (especially how Carol – and we the viewers – were clued-in to the real Ezekiel by the end of the episode).

Some folks didn't like that Team Rick were under Negan's thumb. “Just kill him already!” they screamed, which was ironic considering that if they did that then it would be the exact same case of 'rinse & repeat' that the most ardent complainers accused the show of committing, when comics readers know that All Out War is an entirely different conflict to what we've seen before with the likes of Woodbury, Terminus, or even The Claimers. To be fair to Gimple & Co, a little patience was required from the audience – drama and tension aren't derived from getting what you want immediately, after all! You don't enjoy the thrill of getting the gang back together in 7x08 without going through a period of separation and subjugation. Resolution can't come five minutes down the road, or even next week!

Let's fast forward to Season 8 and how the structural problems were being faced head-on according to Scott Gimple, Greg Nicotero, and the cast as they headed into Comic-Con 2017. Now, certainly, there have been some structural improvements compared to the seventh season: We've not gone for long periods of time without seeing certain characters generally, although, yes, Negan, Michonne, and Rosita all went missing from the screen for three or four weeks in 'viewer time' (likely because of scheduling issues and the other commitments of a popular and in-demand cast). Meanwhile, the propensity to focus too much on a single “A Story” at the expense of any “B” and “C” stories taking place with other groups in other locations has been limited in Season 8A – but they can definitely go further...

Click "READ MORE" below to continue **SPOILERS UP TO 8x08 AHEAD** ...

Moment Edition: The Walking Dead 8x08 Memes...

Find more Walking Dead memes here.

Click each image for FULL SIZE.

Click to Enlarge: Feel the burn...

Click "READ MORE" below to see the rest of this week's memes **WARNING: HUGE EPISODE SPOILER AHEAD**...

Awkward Eugene Edition: The Walking Dead 8x07 Meme...

Find more Walking Dead memes here.

Click image for FULL SIZE.

Just the one this week. The last couple of episodes have skewed more towards setting up the mid-season finale, but it was good to see that a couple of questionable decisions last week were paid off here.

Click to Enlarge: Should've gone for the fist bump...

Flavours of the Month: November 2017...

Space bums, dimension-jumping duos, voices from the past, and A Sideline In Vengeance - just some of what's been setting the tone this month...

Click "READ MORE" below to see this month's looks, sounds, vibes & flavours...

Weenie Talk Edition: The Walking Dead 8x05 Memes...

Find more Walking Dead memes here.

We're into the second half of Season 8A now, and All Out War continues apace. This was a really good episode - so much going on - a very satisfying watch. Numerous pairings of characters faced off with each other with so many implications teased, setup, or averted (for now), plus the paranoia of a potential power vacuum (like the crumbling of a nation behind the Iron Curtain) made for much tension and entertainment. Quite possibly my favourite episode of the season thus far.

Click each image for FULL SIZE.

Click to Enlarge: Weenie talk all over the shop...

Click "READ MORE" below for the rest of this week's memes...

Tales of Times Square: The Tapes (podcast)...

Recently I came across a new podcast called Tales of Times Square: The Tapes, which details the sleazy world of New York's old Broadway before the Disneyfication of the area occurred in the 1990s. The podcast takes the form of old cassette tape interviews with various figures from the era, from big time adult stars to well-known denizens - colourful characters and behind-the-scenes raconteurs - all of whom were interviewed for Josh Alan Friedman's superb book Tales of Times Square (available from all good stockists - I highly recommend reading it).

Punctuated by music, reminiscences, and background details from Friedman himself - along with some new tales that were never published in the book (on account of the statute of limitations, you can't help but wonder) - each episode is a brisk and fascinating detour to a version of New York's theatre district that once was. The release schedule seems to be weekly on Wednesday/Thursday. Find more info on the podcast HERE.

Cold Blooded Beast (Fernando Di Leo, 1971) Blu-Ray Review

Find more exploitation reviews here.

“How nice to be sent to a famous loony bin!” Straddling the lines between the gialli thrillers and softcore romps that were so popular with mainstream audiences in Italy during the 1970s, Fernando (Milano Calibro 9) Di Leo's skin 'n' kills movie Cold Blooded Beast (otherwise known as Slaughter Hotel) features a bevy of beautiful women inflagranti and in peril, as well as Werner Herzog's notorious performer Klaus Kinski…

Click “READ MORE” below to continue the review and see more screenshots…

Sharyl Edition: The Walking Dead 8x03 Memes...

Find more Walking Dead memes here.

Couldn't think of any for last week's episode, but did this week. Enjoying Season 8 so far, off to a good action-packed start with plenty of moral murk to sink your teeth into. Digging it.

Click each image for FULL SIZE.

Click to Enlarge: Cockroaches and Politicians in the post-apocalypse...

Click "READ MORE" below for the rest of this week's memes **MINOR EPISODE SPOILER AHEAD**...

Return to "Vengeance"...

The last time I worked on "A Sideline In Vengeance" (a conspiracy thriller screenplay) was over a year ago. Naturally, in that time I've been doing a lot of writing - what with For Want Of A Nail (currently in the editing stage - and I've seen the rough cut), as well as Murder at the Grindhouse (out of which I've also crafted a 'TV pilot' screenplay in the last few weeks).

When you come back to something you wrote a while back you invariably find new changes to make. When I last set eyes on the script I had no further ideas on how to work it - I'd gone as far as I could at that point in time. Now, though, it's a different story. I've got a list of tweaks I want to make - but first: the red pen comes out!

Where once was cleanly printed pages, now lies a wash of red ink (sometimes it's nice to be able to refer back to to editing process in this 'analogue' way, something which you lose when editing a document ... this way you get to see your mental process around your writing). I'm picking my way through the script line-by-line making initial changes and generally hacking out dialogue that I thought was necessary at the time, but now no longer need. It'll be interesting to see what happens to the page count when I apply all of these initial 'red pen on the paper' changes and cuts. More on this as-and-when...

Flavours of the Month: November 2017...

Rogue cops, dessicated ghouls, beautifully restored horrors, and wandering the wasteland - some of what has set the tone of my October 2017.

Click "READ MORE" below to see this month's looks, sounds, vibes & flavours...

Fast & Furious 8 - quick review...

What's it about?
Dom's gone rogue! Yeah, right - but there's a very good reason for his apparent switching of sides, as the word "family" continues to be flung about with gleeful abandon. A cyber terrorist hatches a plan to take control of the world's nuclear weapons, and only our favourite family of gear heads can stop them - in a series of flashy cars and insane action set pieces!
Who would I recognise in it?
Vin Diesel, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Jason Statham, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Kurt Russell, Charlize Theron, Scott Eastwood, Nathalie Emmanuel, Helen Mirren, and several more.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
The formula of family and vehicular excess is beginning to show signs of MOT failure, but there's plenty of life in the old girl yet...

Click "READ MORE" below to continue...

Wonder Woman - in review...

What's it about?
The original superheroine finally gets her day in the realm of big budget blockbusters. This is the origin story of Diana, Princess of the Amazons, the warrior birthed of the Gods, who encounters mankind for the first time against the horrifying backdrop of World War I as she seeks to put an end to Ares, the God of War.
Who would I recognise in it?
Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Robin Wright, Danny Huston, David Thewlis, Connie Nielson, Lucy Davis, Ewen Bremner, and others.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
It triumphed at the box office and was a critical success story (almost predictably so after the orchestrated clickbait bullying that Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad both received, pitched like some kind of Damascene conversion for DC) - but how does Wonder Woman sit outside all of the initial media interest and flash-in-the-pan obsession with box office numbers? The answer to gaining more female superheros in the genre is to create new, female superheros, not to lazily do an arbitrary bit of stunt writing to ask "what if this guy was a gal?" - because, if you really think about it, how insulting is that to everyone?

Newcomers to comics are disappointed to find that new releases aren't reflective of the hugely popular Marvel movies, while swapping the sex of an established character is a slap in the face to everyone. Not only is it a lazy move on the part of the writers and head honchos of the franchises, it also makes the suggestion that women aren't worthy of having their own custom-made superheroes. Furthermore, the binary sex-swap makes the insulting suggestion that women are incapable of enjoying male superheroes and that men are incapable of enjoying female superheroes, and that both can't find role models in the opposite sex - quite simply, that is utter bullshit.

Wonder Woman's history is a long one that pre-dates a vast swathe of rival Marvel's line-up of household names. Gal Gadot wowed in Batman v Superman (with a spine-tingling soundtrack riff to accompany her), and with DC getting a handle on their 'Expanded Universe', it was likely that Diana Prince's solo flick would turn out to be a cracker - and it certainly is. The film finds the perfect balance between DC's ability to 'go dark' (the merciless slaughter of World War I) and a sense of humour, warmth, and compassion...

Click "READ MORE" below to continue...

Glass Houses Edition: The Walking Dead 8x01 Memes...

Find more Walking Dead memes here.

TWD returns with its 100th episode, but rather than make a spectacle from that particular gimmick, it instead gets on with the task of kicking off 'All Out War' with plenty of bang for your buck. Here's three brand new memes for the new season.

Click each image for FULL SIZE.

Click to Enlarge: And for Shiva, my tiger.

Click "READ MORE" below to see the rest of this episode's memes **MILD EPISODE SPOILERS AHEAD**...

Zombie Lake (Jean Rollin, 1981) Review

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“We better face the fact that zombies have declared war!” Originally to be directed by Jess Franco (Sadomania, Oasis of the Zombies), this cheap-as-chips slice of Eurociné cheese was, for many years, disowned by its replacement director Jean Rollin (A Virgin Among The Living Dead). In a remote French town, several years after the end of World War II, something deadly – and bright green – is rising from the so-called 'lake of the damned'. Zombified Nazis, bare boobs galore, and a complete disregard for the laws of continuity dominate this movie, which was destined to be a drinking game only for those with the hardiest of livers...

Click “READ MORE” below to continue the review and see more screenshots…

Flavours of the Month: September 2017...

Seventies New York, difficult second album syndrome, and America's political underbelly - just a few of the things that have been setting the tone of my September 2017...

Click "READ MORE" below to see this month's looks, sounds, vibes & flavours...

Alien Covenant - a quick review...

What's it about?
The crew of a colony ship bound for a new world are woken from their hypersleep early and follow a mysterious, scrambled message to a planet that was once home to an ancient civilisation. Naturally, they encounter biological beasties galore.
Who would I recognise in it?
Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, Demian Bichir, Guy Pearce.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
Prometheus had a few flaws and divided audience opinion. Some loved it, some hated it (I'm in the former camp). Its weighty ideas of mankind's origin and the earliest ancestors of the infamous xenomorph made for grand scale, intelligent sci-fi. With Alien: Covenant, however, Ridley Scott & Co have listened too much to their Prometheus detractors and scurried back to xenomorph territory - despite Scott having previously been quoted as saying that said beastie had been seen enough on the silver screen!

A familiar story unfolds before the viewer as a group of unlucky space explorers encounter grisly ends, but at least Scott hasn't abandoned all his higher-minded ideas. A rich theme of creator/creation antagonism runs throughout (dovetailing with the Engineer/Human relationship in the previous film), even if it skews into 'simply confusing' instead of 'well explained' territory on occasion...

Click "READ MORE" below to continue the review...

#FWOAN - the most difficult shot...

In my previous post I talked about "For Want Of A Nail", the short film that I wrote the screenplay for, and now I'll dig in a little deeper to one particular part of the production: the most difficult shot to capture.

There's an old adage in film making that says 'never work with children or animals', but I think we should also add dominoes to that list, and here's why...

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For Want Of A Nail

I've alluded to a project called "For Want Of A Nail" for a while now on this blog, and finally I can say a bit more about it.

A year-and-a-bit ago I wrote a short screenplay (adapted from my short story), entered a competition, got short-listed, and ultimately my script was picked to be the one that was to be made into a short film by Oakhill Productions (one of their past projects is the award-winning short film All's Well, which most recently won the audience choice award at the Veteran's Film Festival for its portrayal of PTSD)...

Click "READ MORE" below to continue...

Flavours of the Month: August 2017...

A gobby gun-for-hire, saucy space adventures, and Mr Cooper(s) - just some of what's been flavouring my August 2017...

Click "READ MORE" below to see this month's looks, sounds, vibes & flavours...

So begins the editing process...

After leaving "Murder at the Grindhouse" to 'age in the drawer' for a couple of months I've gone back to it in the last couple of weeks to start the first round of tweaking. Rather than going straight to the computer I've opted to go a bit old school - pen on the page...

Naturally, the majority of the pages now look like an explosion of colour (far more than the above) with new passages written long hand in an accompanying notebook. It's nice to actually apply the changes with a good old fashioned pen, and you get to give your edits their own tweaking - if that makes sense. If you just slap the changes on the document straight away it might be a bit too rushed and you could miss further opportunities to make improvements. Anyway, next up is actually applying those changes to the document itself!

We Should Eat Ice Cream Too (Short Story)

As mentioned in my previous post, "We Should Eat Ice Cream Too" is now available to read HERE. I hope you enjoy it.

Flavours of the Month: July 2017...

Wrestling 80s style, "something weird and strange", southern hostility, and murderous molluscs - just some of what's been flavouring my July 2017...

Click "READ MORE" below to see this month's looks, sounds, vibes & flavours...

The Walking Dead Season 8 Comic-Con Trailer Analysis...

It's that time of year again – San Diego Comic-Con – and, naturally, that means the trailer for the new season of The Walking Dead!

Now, as I've written about before, Season 7 undoubtedly had some problems – however, the show makers have proved in the past that they do listen to fans' concerns and make changes. I've read a few interviews with Scott Gimple (the show runner) where he has stated that not only will the pace of the 8^th Season be ramped up, but the structure of the storytelling will be changed. In other words, aside from the possibility of a flashback episode detailing Negan's back story, the 'isolated episodes showing just one character/story' are out. These stand alone episodes can work in moderation: The Governor's flashback episodes in Season 4, for example, or the episode in which we saw how Morgan came to regain his sanity and find a path to peace, or indeed, 7x02 in which we follow Carol and Morgan as we were introduced to The Kingdom (with a satisfying conclusion at the end, justifying Ezekiel's more outré characteristics).

Season 7's biggest problem was definitely the structure, which made the overall story feel fractured with main characters disappearing for a handful of episodes at a time while the writers played for time in-between the premières and finales, sapping considerable momentum. The low point for all this? Episode 7x06: the Oceanside episode – Tara couldn't carry the weight of introducing the third new community of people inside five episodes after The Kingdom and The Sanctuary. Indeed, the introduction of those scumbag trash pile people (lead by the irritating Jadis) proved problematic for the back-half of the seventh season, too.

Anyway – enough of that, because Season 8 is shaping up to be an exciting thrill ride that will reward viewers' patience. All Out War has been declared and the battles are upon us!

Click “READ MORE” below to see what's what in the Season 8 trailer...

The Night Evelyn Came Out Of The Grave (Emilio P Miraglia, 1971) Blu-Ray Review

Find more giallo reviews here.

“It's not uncommon for a man to do strange things to get his kicks.” The opening companion piece to Miraglia's 1972 gothic-tinged giallo The Red Queen Kills Seven Times, The Night Evelyn Came Out Of The Grave treads similar ground to its successor. Miraglia juxtaposes the old and new worlds whereby the cutting edge design of the 1970s sits amidst a crumbling ancestral home built from stone and sordid family secrets. Riddled with nihilism, this forever-twisting tale of a sadomasochistic fetishist and his not-quite-so-dead wife is soaked-through with moral decay...

Click “READ MORE” below to continue the review and see more screenshots…

George A. Romero (1940-2017) – Rest In Peace

George A. Romero, the man whose name is inextricably linked with the living dead, has passed away. He was – and is – one of my favourite filmmakers, and a great source of inspiration. Indeed, the man and his work are a big part of the reason why I wanted to get into filmmaking in the first place.

The impact Mr. Romero had on me during my formative years cannot be accurately calculated, but it was significant. After initial exposure to his cinematic legend via all manner of references in movies and TV shows to some evidently landmark film called “Night of the Living Dead”, my first real encounter with the man's work was through a magazine article in SFX. We were on a school trip to Paris and had stopped at a service station where a small sub-heading on the front of a magazine caught my eye. I'd recently become aware of Romero's name and his gore-ific Living Dead films, and – at the brink of entering my teen years – these flicks held a mysterious sway over me. They intrigued me, and they even felt somewhat illicit to my young mind. I bought that magazine and devoured the career-spanning article about the man and his work time and again for years afterwards, and I still own that same copy to this day...

Click "READ MORE" to continue reading...

The Purge: Election Year - a quick review...

What's it about?
Third entry in the dystopian near-future franchise in which America 'purges' its apparent sins by staging twelve hours of unfettered lawlessness once a year. Social divisions are stronger than ever before and there is a rising resentment for 'The Purge' itself, and with a strong contender for the White House vocally opposed to the whole event, the architects of the annual orgy of violence attempt to silence their loudest critic once and for all.
Who would I recognise in it?
Frank Grillo, Elizabeth Mitchell, Mykelti Williamson, and others.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
There are certain gaps in the internal logic of the entire 'Purge' idea that have been there since the beginning, and the previous two films (The Purge, and The Purge: Anarchy) have demonstrated some dunderheaded plotting at times, but after some improvements in the second film it's good to see that the third shows another upwards leap in quality. Not only does the film explore some of the side effects of the annual Purge (murder tourists, roaming body disposal etc), it also proves to be a surprisingly relevant and potent film...

Click "READ MORE" below to continue the review...

Flavours of the Month: June 2017...

Slightly off-their-peak television shows, 19th Century assassins, and creasy bits are just some of what's been setting the tone of my June 2017...

Click "READ MORE" below to see this month's looks, sounds, vibes & flavours...

Evil Ed (Anders Jacobsson, 1995) Blu-Ray/DVD Review

Find more exploitation reviews here.

“I'm just another chunk of meat lost in brain land.” Striking out of Sweden as the blood-soaked antithesis of Ingmar Bergman, Anders Jacobsson's Evil Ed – reportedly made with a budget equivalent to a mere two-and-a-half seconds worth of Jurassic Park – is a frantic and gleefully over-the-top horror comedy crammed to the gills with references to American splatter epics. In some ways it is the ultimate fan film crafted by obsessives of blood 'n' guts cinema, and yet – first appearing in the UK in the dying years of James Ferman's censorious grip on the British Board of Film Classification – when horror was still tantamount to smut – Evil Ed comes as a rebel yell against the Mary Whitehouse types of the world. Hands off our gore, it screams, take your scissors and shove 'em where the sun doesn't shine!

Click “READ MORE” below to continue the review and see more screenshots…

Double Bill Mini Reviews: Under Your Radar Edition...

Anomalisa:
What's it about?
A middle-aged family man arrives in another identikit hotel in advance of giving another motivational speech on yet another whistle-stop tour. Feeling lost and alone in his life, so much so that everyone but him in this world has the same face and the same voice, he's doomed to misery - until Lisa enters his life.
Who would I recognise in it?
David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tom Noonan (all voices).
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
Sometimes the format in which you tell a story can make all the difference, or put an intriguing spin on the material. With "Anomalisa", writer/director Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) teams up with director Duke Johnson to present this very grown up tale of middle-age melancholy in the form of stop-motion animation...

Click "READ MORE" below for the verdict on this flick as well as Kevin Smith's weirdest movie to date...

The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (Emilio P Miraglia, 1972) Blu-Ray Review

Find more giallo reviews here.

“The Corpse That Didn't Want To Die!” Following on from The Night Evelyn Came Out Of The Grave (1971), writer/director Emilio P. Miraglia once again dived into the glamorous pool of the lurid European murder mystery with The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (otherwise known as The Lady In Red Kills Seven Times), a violent clash of morals set against a fractured backdrop where two worlds collide: that of a Gothic castle and that of a modernist fashion house. This is a film consumed with ideas of wealth and the inevitability of hereditary sin...

Click “READ MORE” below to continue the review and see more screenshots…

Flavours of the Month: May 2017...

Dark cinematic delights, the funny side of the apocalypse, and the jewel in the Formula 1 crown are some of what's been setting the tone of my May 2017...

Click "READ MORE" below to see this month's Looks, Sounds, Vibes & Flavours...

Bride of Re-Animator (Brian Yuzna, 1989) Blu-Ray Review

Find more exploitation reviews here.

“This is no longer about just re-animating the dead – we will create new life.” Stuart Gordon's Re-Animator (1985) has, quite rightly, gone down in the annals of cinema as a landmark in horror. Brian Yuzna's 1989 sequel, however, has somewhat lurked uncomfortably in the shadows of its progenitor – but it deserves a re-evaluation, and with this in mind, Bride of Re-Animator reveals itself to be consumed with the idea of unrequited love as it circles the boundaries of necrophilia through the complex entanglement of not merely a love triangle, but a love pentagon...

Click “READ MORE” below to continue the review and see more screenshots – PLEASE NOTE: PART OF THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS (the segment is clearly marked)…

Dr Alien (David DeCoteau, 1989) DVD Review

Find more exploitation reviews here.

 

“One minute I'm standing there and the next thing I know they're all over me like mud on a pig.” Following on from Creepozoids, Sorority Babes In The Slimeball Bowl-o-rama, and Nightmare Sisters, David DeCoteau rounded out the 1980s with this teen boy fantasy/comedy that was also known as 'I Was A Teenage Sex Mutant'. Zany from the get-go, it features deliberately on-the-nose humour, many-an-exposed-set-of-norks, substitute professors in lingerie, and an alien proboscis that sprouts from a college nerd's head to act as a powerful aphrodisiac!

Click “READ MORE” below to continue the review and see more screenshots…

The Void - a quick review...

What's it about?
A police officer encounters an injured and delirious man out in the woods, and rushes him to the nearest hospital - which happens to be in the process of closing down after a fire gutted its basement levels. However, upon arrival, the officer - with a few staff and patients - finds himself surrounded by strange figures dressed in all white with black triangles where their faces should be. Soon things get out of control as hideous monstrosities erupt from dead bodies, unleashing something worse than hell upon the Earth.
Who would I recognise in it?
Ellen Wong, Kenneth Welsh, Kathleen Munroe, and others.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
Written and Directed by Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski, who have worked in various capacities on some of the Astron-6 projects (such as Manborg and Father's Day), The Void wears its metaphysical body horror influences on its sleeve...

Click "READ MORE" below to continue...

Flavours of the Month: April 2017...

The Walking Dead Season 7 in review, comedians doing their thing, and time travellers from Finland - just a handful of what's been setting the tone of my April 2017...

Click "READ MORE" below to see this month's Looks, Sounds, Vibes & Flavours...

Emanuelle and The Last Cannibals (Joe D'Amato, 1977) DVD Review

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“The tribe we are to locate are indeed cannibals – tie up their victims, rip open their bellies, tear out their insides, and eat it.” Joe D'Amato – otherwise known as Aristide Massaccesi – the director of such grotesque delights as Anthropophagous (1980), is unlikely to go down in the annals of cinema history as a master filmmaker with a deeply considered artistic vision. His work may skew towards slap dash schlock, but he got the job done and knew to never play coy: if his audiences wanted devoured innards and boobies flopping about everywhere then that's exactly what he was going to give them – and this is undoubtedly the case with Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals...

Click “READ MORE” below to continue the review and see more screenshots…

The Bogey Man (Ulli Lommel, 1980) DVD Review

Find more horror reviews here.

“The Most Terrifying Nightmare of Childhood is About to Return!” Combining dark themes of childhood trauma with slasher movie tropes, The Bogey Man (or Boogey Man, if you prefer) – a former 'Video Nasty' in the UK – tries to do something original with the genre at a time when the formula was being set that others would blindly follow...

Click “READ MORE” below to continue the review and see more screenshots…

Cuck Edition: The Walking Dead 7x16 Memes...

Find more Walking Dead memes here.

Click each image for FULL SIZE.

Click to Enlarge: Randy Rick...

Click "READ MORE" below for the rest of this week's memes **mild spoilers ahead**...

Flavours of the Month: March 2017...

Dirty coppers, saucy times in Venice, and antics around San Francisco are some of what's been setting the tone of my March 2017...

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Lady Nuts Edition: The Walking Dead 7x15 Memes...

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Click to Enlarge: You have balls ... I like balls.

That's all for this week - it was a good episode, but not particularly meme-inspiring. I think from Season 8 onwards I'll step down a gear and not try to get one for every episode like I've been doing since Season 3 (to appease my completionist nature!), but from Season 8 I'll only do them when something good springs to mind - that's how the best ones usually come about.

Creepozoids (David DeCoteau, 1987) DVD Review

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“More acid, more megatons – it ain't over yet.” David DeCoteau's low budget creature feature has aspirations walking in the footsteps of Aliens (James Cameron, 1986), but let's be honest, those are far out of reach. However, influenced at the time by the last dregs of Cold War nuclear paranoia, Creepozoids – with its bleak world view and gooey practical effects – provides a charming dose of VHS era sci-fi horror. The year is 1998 and World War III has turned planet Earth into a nuked-out husk where nomads and survivors populate the wastelands as the fighting rages on...

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BFF No More Edition: The Walking Dead 7x14 Memes...

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Click to Enlarge: Simon took a shot to the feels...

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Noah Knows Edition: The Walking Dead 7x13 Memes...

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Click to Enlarge: Why, AMC? Why?!

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Killer Workout (David A Prior, 1987) DVD Review

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“The workout will kill you!” Otherwise known as Aerobicide, David A. Prior's (Deadly Prey) late-in-the-cycle slasher flick – and feature début – is perhaps the most unabashedly 'eighties' of them all. Beauties clad in Day-Glo Lycra writhing to terrible pop music in the quest for bodily perfection? Check. Convertible Porsches and muscled-up bros with dodgy hair styles? Check. Conspicuous shots of condoms in the wake of the AIDS crisis that was dominating the decade? Check. Visor caps, frizzy hair, and ankle socks? That'll be a big old check on that, too. In some ways, for good and bad, the 1980s have never left us – not in these specific ways, mind you – but the decade of greed and synthesised music has been back in vogue for a while now. But does that mean Killer Workout is any good? Let's find out...

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In Pieces Edition: The Walking Dead 7x12 Memes...

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We're half way through Season 7B, and three quarters of the way through Season 7 in general. This was a fun episode, it felt a lot like that Rick & Daryl episode from Season 6B in which they first encountered Jesus. Good stuff!

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Click to Enlarge: Tough Luck Rick...

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Flavours of the Month: February 2017...

Music biz excess snuffed out too soon, alternative history meets flying lead, and the guy you send to kill the Boogey Man: some of what's been flavouring my February 2017...

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Smarty Pants Edition: The Walking Dead 7x11 Memes...

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Click to Enlarge: Seriously, Negan, stand up straight - what would your mother say?

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Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (Fred Olen Ray, 1988) Blu-Ray Review

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“What's the matter, chainsaw got your tongue?” Shot in five-and-a-half days over two weekends using borrowed equipment, re-cycled sets, and left over 'short ends' of film stock, Fred Olen Ray's particularly silly comedy horror/film noir spoof Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers – featuring Gunnar 'Leatherface' Hansen as the leader of a buzzsaw-worshipping cult – pretty much does what it says on the tin. Do you want naked ladies of the night hacking up dopey Johns with chainsaws and getting covered in blood? Then step this way...

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Darva Edition: The Walking Dead 7x10 Memes...

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Darva? Sharyl? Diva? Hmmm ... Carol's got some competition.

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I don't know who originated the 'If Daryl dies...' meme, but hat-tip to whoever they are.

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Lessons with Gregory Edition: The Walking Dead 7x09 Memes...

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It's back! Ricky, Margaret, and the whole gang are starting to pull things together ... look out, Negan, the slice capades are in town!

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Click to Enlarge: Gregory sucks, but Xander Berkeley rocks...

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Don't Answer The Phone! (Robert Hammer, 1980) DVD Review

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“RUN – if you must. HIDE – if you can. SCREAM, but … He'll Know You're Alone!” Conceived of before John Carpenter's Halloween blew the doors wide open for the slasher movie craze that swept the horror genre during the 1980s, Robert Hammer's one and only film – Don't Answer The Phone! – is a curious schism between disturbing realism, dark humour, and jumping aboard the killer thriller bandwagon...

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