Gory greetings horroryearbook alumni! Welcome to another exciting edition of IT CAME FROM THE MAILBOX, a column where your old pal Brain Hammer reviews whatever random crap the good folks at horroryearbook decide to throw my way.

Timo Rose’s BEAST is a hair-raising horror tale about werewolves. It wastes no time at all and immediately kicks the viewers ass with some nasty gore when a pack of werewolf hunters in Romana are attacked and quickly ripped to shreds. The hunters are members of a worldwide underground organization that collects data on the beasts and tracks them down for slaughter. We then meet a pair of wacky werewolf warriors named Mike (Timo Rose) and Boomer on the trail of a pack in Germany.

We also meet a brooding and intense looking fellow named Alex (Joe Zaso) who had a deadly run in with the beasts and lost his girlfriend in the process. Mike pays his sister Amy (Raine Brown) an unexpected visit one night and Amy is shocked by how cold and unfeeling Alex is when talking about the violent demise of his girl. It doesn’t take long before Amy begins to realize there is something very wrong with her big brother.

Just when that drama begins playing itself out, the shit really hits the fan when Mike and Boomer have a wild encounter with a cracked out pair of rape happy robbers and then stumble upon the werewolves. They barely manage to escape with their lives and have to take shelter in the first house they can find. That house just happens to belong to Alex & Amy, and the hunters quickly take the siblings hostage and try to plan an escape. Seeing Amy’s life in danger is enough to make Alex go crazy with anger and unleash the monstrous secret that had been lurking inside him all along.

I thought BEAST was a cool flick. Timo Rose deserves much credit for delivering the goods and making a kick ass horror flick with plenty of splatter! Timo is a man of many hats. He’s the writer, producer, director, editor, and co-star. He’s also a white rapper who goes by the name King Hannibal! Timo has been making a name for himself in the horror genre over the last few years, and BEAST is his follow up to the equally brutal FEARMAKERS and BARRICADE. Timo is a truly a director with guts, and he happily splashes them all over the screen.

The gore is the star of the show, but the story and performances are also worthwhile. Special attention must be given to actress Yassmin Pucci, who looks fantastic and has a lot of funny lines about hairy King Kong balls. The dvd packaging touts “memorable cameos” by Night Of The Living Dead’s Judy O’Dea, scream queen (and personal punching bag of my drunken and shiftless editor Wil) Monique Dupree, and Gravedancers director Mike Mendez, but I have no idea what any of those people look like and couldn’t care less. One thing the cover gets right is the “sweeping score” by Marco Werba. I thought the score for this film was fantastic. It really added a touch of class.

Now comes the negatives. I thought this flick was overlong and from time to time it was hard to follow. The combination of German and English dialog is not always smooth, and the subtitles do not offer a lot of help in deciphering what the actors are mumbling about. Some of the digital effects are less than impressive, and I thought some of the scenes were too dark looking. The film sometimes tries a bit too hard to be funny, and there is an annoying little whistling theme that always accompanies the hijinks of the two hunters. By the time the film was over I was sick to death of hearing that shit.

Overall, I thought the good out weighs the bad and BEAST has big enough balls to deserve a pat on it’s hairy back. It’s one of the better werewolf flicks I’ve seen in a while, and the splatter alone makes it worth a look for sure. Timo Rose’s BEAST is available on dvd from Cinema Image Productions. The uncut limited edition includes audio commentary, behind the scenes footage, slideshows, trailers and other goodies. Brain Hammer approved!

KILLING ARIEL starts off with a bang as a young boy named Rick sneaks a peek at mommy and daddy in their bedroom one night and gets a steaming eyeful of mommy blowing daddy’s head off with a shotgun before turning it on herself. Things turn even more bizarre when a strange looking naked man suddenly appears from the darkness and begins chasing Rick throughout the house while whispering words of madness. Rick hides out in a closet until he is later discovered by his grandparents.

We than flash forward to the present. Rick is all grown up and clearly not right in the head. We see Rick talking to a psychiatrist about his troubled past. Rick is convinced that the mysterious naked man from his past was not only his mother’s lover, he was also an incubus. The rest of the flick plays out in flashbacks as Rick continues to take a twisted trip down memory lane. Most of the action takes place in 1973. At that point, Rick was happily married with two kids. Rick’s downward spiral begins one night with a sex dream where a demon molests him. This deranged dream apparently triggers a mid-life crisis within Rick, and he promptly dyes his hair to look younger and even buys a sports car.

Rick then crosses paths with a sexy young jogger named Ariel. Flirtation turns into adultery when Rick and Ariel plan a romantic weekend getaway at Rick’s childhood home – the same place where the murder/suicide took place. Ariel proudly refers to herself as a “sex demon,” and Rick has some fun banging her while she screams at the top of her lungs. The fun is short lived of course. It doesn’t take long before Rick begins having a series of hallucinations. The first one involves his wife catching him red handed with his mistress. As the hallucinations begin to get more and more surreal, Rick’s old pal the incubus shows up and starts in with the weird whispers. This causes Rick to become even more unhinged, and in a daze he grabs his trusty shotgun and goes ghost hunting. Rick tries to shoot the incubus but winds up accidentally blasting Ariel in the chest instead.

Rick is horrified by his mistake. In a panic, he wraps Ariel’s dead body in plastic and prepares to bury her in the backyard. Then Rick suddenly wakes up and finds Ariel alive and well and sleeping beside him. The rest of the film degenerates into a never ending cycle of “she’s dead…she’s alive…no wait, she’s dead.” Try as he might, Rick just can’t seem to keep evil Ariel down for the count. Ariel continually torments Rick as he repeatedly shoots her, stabs her, and even chops off her head. Just when Rick thinks he finally has the situation under control, he wakes up and the horror begins all over again. Think “Groundhog’s Day,” only with a crazy guy who can’t seem to kill his annoying demon lover.

I thought KILLING ARIEL was an offbeat horror flick that ultimately gets bogged down with a repetitive flashback story structure. It’s also a bit confusing in places. The acting and special effects were spot on though. I thought the lead actor was fun to watch. You can tell that writer and co-director Fred Calvert had his heart in the right place. The biggest problem I had with this one was the fact that the film endlessly goes around in circles and never really resolves itself. Perhaps if the film was a bit shorter, or if it had a more satisfying climax it could have been a bigger winner.

That said, I’ve seen worse. Compared to some of the other low budget independent horror flicks I get sent to review, KILLING ARIEL is well made and decently acted. That actually makes it more disappointing to me. This could have been a very original and entertaining little horror flick, but I think it falls a bit short of the mark and winds up being just passable entertainment. Not Brain Hammer approved, but it might be worth a rental. KILLING ARIEL is currently available on dvd thanks to the good folks at MTI Home Video.

KEEP THE BLOOD FLOWING!!!