The Machine Girl (2008)
Writer/Director: Noboru Iguchi
Cast: Minase Yashiro, Asami, Kentaro Shimazu, Honoka, Taro Suwa
While seeking revenge on a ninja Yakuza (that’s right, ninja fucking Yakuza) boss’ son for killing her brother, Ami is captured and tortured. During the abuse, her left arm is cut off just below the elbow. She escapes before they get a chance to kill her and takes refuge with a family of a boy who was also killed by the same people. Ami forms a bond with the boy’s mother over the loss of their loved ones and vow revenge on the sadistic crime family.
They fashion a huge machine gun for Ami’s arm stub as well as a chainsaw as a reserve. Once they decide it is time, the two find the Yakuza hideout but bite off more than they can chew when they are confronted by The Mourning Gang; four grieving parents of boys that Ami killed on her initial try at retribution. Armed with guns, martial arts training and hearts full of vengeance The Mourning Gang fight Ami and company to the death. But the mourners are the least of their worries… they still have to contend with *DUN DUN DUUUUUN* Mama Ninja Yakuza!
Review by Greg Baty of The Playground Movie Review
Continue Reading The Machine Girl Review
A pregnant woman named Sarah and her husband are in a horrible car accident in which he dies. A few months later she is released from the hospital just days before her baby is due. Amidst social and political upheaval, she is left by herself to continue grieving and plan for her new life with her child. That night she is alone at home, thinking of her beloved husband, when there is a knock at the door. An unknown woman wants to come in and use the phone because her car has broken down… or has it? She soon reveals that she knows Sarah’s name and that her husband is dead and she wants in the house. But why?
I like to think that I’m a pretty astute movie watcher. Even the most convoluted plots tend to make sense if you watch them intently enough. That is not the case when a movie is just plain shitty. When the story is secondary to say, gore, you had better ba-ring it (imagine me saying that with my pointer finger waving around and my neck making a circle with my head)!
Sometimes when you watch the kind of movies that you and I watch, you may get a little jaded. A little numb. You grow a little cold to all of the sex, violence and gore thrust on you by the seemingly never-ending lot of new Fulci and Miike wanna-bes. It’s OK, it comes with the territory. But sometimes - not often enough - but sometimes a movie and a filmmaker comes along that jars you out of your coma of depravity. Frontière(s) is that movie and Xavier Gens is that writer/director.
A defrocked priest (a completely creepy Jess Franco) is kicked out of the church for being too “harsh” and sent to a mental institution. Shortly after his release, he starts work for a sex magazine writing articles about sadistic sex which he claims to be true stories from his real life. He learns that his co-worker Anna (Lina Romay) stages sexy fake torture and black mass shows with her sexy friend Martine and others for the depraved rich upper-crust.
Oh, boy… if you are a fan of the smutty movies I review you are in for a treat with Schoolgirl Report. I haven’t seen the others in the series (I will remedy that soon) but if they are anything like this one, every exploitation fan should own them. The “teenage” sex, nudity, kink, depravity and perversion shown in this psuedo-documentary is astounding. No, it’s not “hardcore” porn. There is no penetration.
Prelude: A man is given a taste test for a new mango energy drink. He loves it but maybe a little too much. The company has put too much of… something in it and it turns the dude into a hyperactive, murderous zombie gut-muncher!
A few years later: A new guy starts a job at Eco-Elixir, a once successful Earth-friendly energy drink company. He is a part of the street team whose job it is to go to events and promote the juice. He has all of these heady ideas about how he can help the company but doesn’t know that rival company Jock Juice is gunning for them. Everywhere that Eco-Elixir goes, Jock Juice follows and outdoes them.
While not really a horror film Greg Baty’s review of Joe D’Amato’s Nunsploitation flick “Images In a Convent” was just too good for me to pass up!
Soon a after a young woman named Isabella is forced to stay in a convent, weird and evil things begin to happen there. She rebels against the sisters by acting out sexually and starts planning her escape. Then, a man is found injured in the courtyard and is taken in by the sisterhood. He turns out to have plans of his own to defile each and every virgin in the church. An evil spirit tormenting and tempting all of the nuns with sexual desire shows up around the time the man was found. Could he be the human incarnation of the demon? Isabella plans on using the man to help her with her escape, but can she trust him?
hat comes to mind when you read the phrases “low budget”, “straight to DVD” or, my new favorite “shot on DV” about a horror movie? Don’t wanna guess? Fine, I’ll tell you what you think; contrived, badly written, badly acted cheese. And there are not many movies out there that will prove you wrong. Don’t misunderstand; I love low budget cheesy horror if it’s fun to watch. It’s when they take themselves too seriously that pisses me off and “Carver” does just that. I probably don’t even need to tell you the plot because you have seen it a ba-jillion times. But I like to torture people, so here it goes…
Dr. Viktor Vasilienko is a mad scientist who wants to punish “Capitalistic society” for their wrong-doings. He creates a serum called “The Rage” (I know, ironic, right?) to infect humans and turn them into flesh eating mutations. But during his experiments to try and create an antidote, he is attacked by one of his mutants and the monster escapes. After he escapes and dies he is eaten by vultures. The vultures turn into mutants and carriers of “The Rage”.
Published by Greg February 27th, 2008
in MOVIE REVIEWS (ALL) and Movie Reviews 70's.
One day after dropping her new husband Francesco off at the airport, Virginia is overcome by visions of a murder while driving. The vision is of an old woman being buried in a wall of a home after she is killed. She doesn’t think much of it until the arrives at her husband’s villa which she plans to redecorate as a surprise while he is gone. When she arrives and looks around she begins to see objects in one of the rooms that was in her vision.
Neurotic scaredy-cat Victoria is invited to Paris by her fearless, free-spirit sister Carolyn (P!nk) to blow off some steam. She arrives exhausted and overwhelmed by the city but Carolyn wants to take her to an underground (literally) party straight away. The party is being held in the (in)famous underground ossuary beneath Paris that houses approximately 7 million dead bodies called, well, the Catacombs.
Published by Greg February 8th, 2008
in MOVIE REVIEWS (ALL) and Movie Reviews 70's.
Three girls break down out in the middle of the desert on their way to Las Vegas for a gig at a casino. They are rescued by Andre who takes them back to his house to call for help. When they arrive the girls get curious after they see a cougar locked up in a cage next to a huge barn. So they go into the barn and see other girls chained to posts and desperate for help themselves. Andre finds the girls snooping and chains them up in the barn as well.
Deep in the jungle some explorers find and capture a very rare and deadly parasite. They are warned by a tribal witchdoctor of the danger but before they can heed the warning, the female of the group is attacked and the parasite invades her…um, vajinga. As the description on the DVD says, this scene is reminiscent of the first scene in Peter Jackson’s Brain Dead (aka Dead Alive). But I digress…
A group of American friends head off to Ireland to meet an old college chum to camp out under the stars and trip on some famous Irish mushrooms. Obviously you have your stoner, his hippie girlfriend, the pretty girl and her meathead boyfriend, the Irish guy and of course, the good girl who has never done drugs. Upon arrival they are told about what ’shrooms to pick and what they look like. But only 2 of them were told which ones were EVIL!
