Movie Review: Maximum Shame (2010)
Teacher: Carlos Atanes

Students: Ana Mayo, Marina Gatell, Ignasi Vidal, Paco Moreno, Ariadna Ferrer, David Castro, Eleanor James

High School: Fortknox Audiovisual

Study Guide: www.carlosatanes.com

I first became aware of Carlos Atanes’ third feature film Maximum Shame because its cast included, among others, the British scream queen Eleanor James, whom I really enjoyed in films such as Colour From The Dark and Forest of the Damned. I was even fortunate enough to meet her on the sets of Unrated – The Movie and Karl The Butcher Vs. Axe. Elle’s scene in Atanes’ movie, however, is rather short and weird… and to be honest it didn’t help much to aid my viewing pleasure of what’s most likely one of the strangest, most fucked up and unfortunately least entertaining flicks I’ve seen in quite some time.

If I understood correctly, the film tells the story of a husband and his wife who somehow end up in a nihilistic parallel world, which is basically an abandoned warehouse or factory. Stranded in that awkward scenario, the two lovers try their best to escape the cruelty of that place’s eccentric ruler, the so-called Queen, who gets kicks out of torturing her lackeys by poking them with sticks, eating cakes in front of their hungry eyes or singing to them in a shrill, annoying voice.

And as stupid as it sounds, that’s basically all that happens in Maximum Shame… the Queen moves from one room to another and performs strange and slightly disturbing actions on her helpless victims. Every now and then the trite sequence of humiliation and torture episodes is spiced up with a weird musical interlude, but that does hardly make the movie any more fun to watch… in fact, it only makes it more annoying. Sorry guys, but as much as I enjoy indy movies in general and as much as I would have loved to write a raving review for this flick in particular, Maximum Shame is definitely one film I could have done without. If you’re a total sucker for S&M aesthetics or a fan of totally senseless films, you might even find a weird reason to get some kicks out of this flick. But if you’re just a normal guy like me who’s got a weak spot for good old-fashioned horror movies, you sure as hell don’t wanna waste 80 minutes of your precious time watching a flick that looks as if it had emerged straight from xHamster’s Femdom section.

No Grade

Starring: Emily Boresow, Eric McGrane, Meg Saricks, Sally Spurgeon
Written & Directed By: Patrick Rea
Grade: C+

Indie horror director, Patrick Rea, has shown great promise through his darkly dramatic collection of short films. They have style and substance, slowly built up to explore an unexpected yet all encompassing personal horror. His feature, Nailbater, shows much of this same promise. It has great atmosphere, production values, and performances. Still, it felt like it fell short of the potential it held.

Nailbiter follows a family on their way to pick up the father who has been away fighting in the army. On their way they hit a horrible storm and have to find shelter. They end up breaking in to a cellar in a nearby house. Before long it becomes clear that getting out of there won’t be nearly as easy with the creatures that lie outside.

The acting and dialogue was really great. I appreciate that they built up the characters so we cared about the turmoil they were going through the rest of the film. The mother was a recovering alcoholic, yet she wasn’t the typical dead beat mother. She seemed genuine and ended up being a strong character. Even the young girls were, perhaps even more so. They were unique and had realistic dialogue.

The oldest daughter was one of the strongest points of the film. Even when her mother was understandably falling apart she was there to pick up the pieces and force her mom to get a hold of herself and keep fighting. Meg Baricks gave a great performance. She showed the tragedy her character was going through as well as charging her with a necessary ferocity. She proved herself to be a fighter and perhaps the more maternal one. They have no idea what they’re up against, but that is no reason to give up.

Most of the film takes place in the cellar, where they are alone and trapped. One of the younger girls are beaten by some sort of unknowncreature that is lurking around the entrance. It’s soon revealed that there might be a connection to the family that lives there and the town as a whole. There was a lot of tension and suspense building up through the plight to escape, but the issue was more what was holding them in there. There was an original premise behind everything that was going on, but I really wish it would have explored more. The creatures aren’t really utilized. They are enticing and impose a threat on our protagonists, but we aren’t given enough origins, purpose, or just what this supernatural connection is that fuels them. If this was developed more, the film could have been much more stimulating.

WARNING: If you don’t like spoilers, do not read any further. This review is gonna be full of them. I’m sorry, but that’s just how I roll.

SHRIEK OF THE SASQUATCH is about a couple, Julie and Nick, who are on some kind of road trip and run afoul of good ol’ sasquatch. The film starts out with a photographer taking pictures of this hot chick in the woods when he suddenly spots something hairy and humanoid off in the distance.

From here on out the movie is a series of encounters with squatch bumping into people and knocking their heads off. It finally gets interesting when Nick accidentally runs over a poodle in the middle of the road (An effect that looks like a stuffed animal with guts strewn all over it). Nick and Julie discover a flyer for the missing poodle at a diner, and try to locate the owner. They finally bump into an old biker who knows the dude and who points them in the direction of his house. When the couple arrives they learn the man is dead, and that the squatch who did it is still lurking around the home. An inevitable encounter ensues, boyfriend is gutted and munched, and chick is bitten, but manages to flee into the woods.

I have to admit the movie puts an original twist on the squatch legend. After Julie blows it away, it mysteriously changes into a naked dead dude implying that sasquatches have more in common with werewolves than anyone could possibly imagine. You can pretty much guess what the final scene is… a chick bitten, wondering delirious in woods…

When I first saw the trailer to this movie on YouTube, I could tell right away it was a low-budget flick, maybe too low-budget even for my tastes, but I still wanted to check it out. It had that appearance of 70s monster movies I like , and I’m also addicted to Killer Bigfoot movies.

In the end, I’m sorry to say this movie simply didn’t work for me. The pluses, yes, there were pluses, are that the two leads are not douchebags kids. They are very likable, and the main chick is hot, and I didn’t like that Nick took a dirt nap towards the end. The other random chicks in the film are just as hot, with the chick that gets her head slammed through the window of her house being the hottest.

The movie is supposed to take place in the 70s, and that era is effectively reproduced. The instrumental score is very creepy and the landscape shots that accompany those moments work as well.

What doesn’t work about the film is mostly the star of the show the squatch himself. All sasquatch movie monsters are pretty much a dude in a suit, but how the monster is filmed is what separates those that work from the ones that don’t. I could tell right away this movie wasn’t going to work when squatch is seen simply strolling through the woods. The camera stays with him just long enough to destroy his mythic nature and make him look way too ordinary; way too much like a man simply donning a Bigfoot costume. Same goes for when the deputy spots him strolling across the road in the middle of the night. He’s just walking, casually, with the suit clearly visible to the viewer.

He’s also portrayed as being no bigger than an average person, when most of the accounts I have read of the creature indicate something that is much, much larger than a human. Yes, there is bad acting, yes, there are scenes that linger far too long, yes, there is a van that gets tipped over that is clearly a model, but for me, all that would’ve been forgivable if more effort was put into the Bigfoot FX.

There is only one effective scene in the movie and that’s when Julie finds Nick dead and the Bigfoot is pulling out his guts and munching on them. Despite the limited FX that was put into the squatch, that scene was edited effectively, with gooey gut pulls and munching sounds.

Since this was an intentionally created throwback to 70s monster fare, the lame Bigfoot FX might have been intentional, in which case I can give this movie a pass, but it’s still not something I could sit through a second time.

The DVD comes out through Retromedia, with a 1.78:1 aspect ratio, and anamorphic. For extras you get 5 minutes of deleted scenes and two trailers, one for SHREIK OF THE SASQUATCH and one for SUPER SHARK.
Oh, and one more thing, never once does the squatch shriek. He should have shrieked before every kill.

Order SHRIEK OF THE SASQUATCH on DVD.

After releasing his magnum opus Mutilation Mile last year, underground auteur Ron Atkins now gives us the release of his long awaited The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell, a story of two psychopaths who meet up in a post-apocalyptic world.

John Giancaspro is Harry Russo, the lunatic that Atkins fans know and love from his films Schizophreniac: The Whore Mangler and Necromaniac: Schizophreniac 2. Cult filmmaking icon Jim VanBebber (Deadbeat at Dawn, The Manson Family) is Terry Hawkins, the psychotic snuff filmmaker that horror fans know from Roger Watkins’ Last House on Dead End Street. Russo and Hawkins are both individuals with pasts plagued by utter madness and human debauchery. The two eventually meet up on their own adventures through Las Vegas that are filled with sex, drugs, rape, and murder. As time runs out for what’s left of humanity in a world ravaged by chaos, the two find themselves on a Wizard of Oz inspired voyage in which they have to find the “N***** of Cause.” As you can see, the movie does not shy away from the offensive one bit as Russo and Hawkins frequently go into insane racist rants where no minority is spared and the degrading and offensive Wizard of Oz spoofs abound with no shame.

The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell is a definite winner and trash classic from Ron Atkins. His outrageous, brutal and depraved styles of filmmaking are put to their best use with the crazy performances by Giancaspro and VanBebber, Heidi Martinuzzi in multiple roles as a prostitute and Russo’s sicko mom, and an appearance by David Hayes as John Wayne Gacy. Ron Atkins even shows up as Jesus himself.

Cuckoo Clocks delivers the gore, the nudity, the sick toilet humor, and the over-the-top and outrageous antics expected from a Harry Russo movie and couples it with VanBebber’s brilliant portrayal of Terry Hawkins to make for one insane exploitation movie experience that will have sleaze fanatics jumping for joy.

The limited edition DVD of Cuckoo Clocks comes in a blue case with an insert featuring artwork by Giancaspro and the movie’s trailer is included as an extra. Go to www.cutthroatvideo.com to order this, Mutilation Mile, and Atkins’ other new sleaze opus Death Rattle LSD.

In 2011, there have been very few horror films that have actually delivered the goods. In fact, over the last decade, it has seemed that the best films have been coming from across the pond, most notably from Spain, France, and jolly old England. The English has been exporting plenty of quality programs to American audiences over the last few years spanning from The Mighty Boosh, both versions of the Office and an American remake of Shameless on Showtime to miniseries/films such as Dead Set, Colin, and the new film Panic Button which has definitely lived up to the hype it has had before this review.

The plot of the film involves 4 strangers named Jo, Max, Gwen, and Dave who have been invited onto a private jet to compete against each other to win prizes in a sweepstakes held by Norwegian social networking site All2gethr. At first the contestants are all drinking champagne and remaining relaxed having a wonderful time, but by the third round of games it is evident to everyone that this isn’t a simple competition and that their lives are all in danger.

The crew on the film did a fantastic job on almost every aspect. The acting was superb and while watching the film I was truly drawn in and actually felt the fear the characters were suffering on the claustrophobic jet. The film kept me in suspense and when I thought I knew what was gonna happen in the end, two separate plot twists caught me off guard and added a little extra oomph to the overall tone of the film.

The sad thing about this film is that the characters set themselves up for this because of what they had posted on the internet and for what they had done in the past. It’s the traditional human fault plot device along with revenge and the sense that no one can be trusted.

While my suspension of disbelief was at Saw levels (in fact you could put Jigsaw as the main villain and call this Saw and the ending felt very tacked on and shoved into the film in order to give the contest reason, the film is truly among the best of the year and proves that while a lot of shit is being put into the theaters nowadays, there are still plenty of great independent ventures out there being released all the time.

8/10

“At an Antarctica research site, the discovery of an alien craft leads to a confrontation between graduate student Kate Lloyd and scientist Dr. Sander Halvorson. While Dr. Halvorson keeps to his research, Kate partners with Sam Carter, a helicopter pilot, to pursue the alien life form.”

If you’ve been a horror fan for longer than the last five minutes, the title THE THING should be very familiar to you. It’s John Carpenter’s aliens-in-the-arctic masterpiece, one of the best horror films ever made. And now there’s a different The Thing in theaters. Yet, Universal has been insisting this is not a remake, but a prequel to Carpenter’s Thing.

The producers of The Thing can tell audiences that it is not a remake and still be halfway honest. The dishonest half is likely rooted in market research, showing that audience response to the recent rehashing of genre staples has grown tepid. Wouldn’t they otherwise have given the film a name that somehow indicates it is not simply a remake (of a remake)?

That being said, the movie is not terrible. Weighed against other recent “rejuvenations” of 70′s and 80′s horror films, it holds its own. Some viewers may find the ground between the beginning and the ending a little overly familiar, and newcomers to the story may find it a little slow. But despite a couple shortcomings, at least it’s not the Nightmare On Elm Street remake.

With a film like 1982′s The Thing as an unavoidable comparison point, the issue of special effects has to be addressed. John Carpenter’s take on this story brought some of the most intense and creative special effects to 1982 audiences. Even more than creating one of the most effective senses of isolation and paranoia, Carpenter’s film is hailed for the effects. So fans of his approach to the source material are going to see the new film in part to see the update on the creatures. And what will they see? Well… they will see some pretty conspicuous CGI for the most part, and a handful of decent practical effects. The ideas behind some of the computer animated sequences aren’t that bad in theory, but were botched in practice.

A couple years ago on a Wednesday morning, I sat down in a tiny, almost empty theater, on the highest floor of the IFC Center in New York City. I was there to have an experience I had been looking forward to for months, after relishing in the promo images, the rants of sickened critics, and most of all, the online film community’s obsession with the mad scientist who stitches his victims ass to mouth.

It isn’t that I left the movie disappointed, but just somewhat puzzled. What I had just seen was a slick, well-made, very straight forward film. Mad scientist stitches victims ass to mouth. I had enjoyed it, but that was it; no more, no less. The hype wasn’t wrong, but it had ruined what could have been a beautiful discovery. Imagine sitting down in a theater for what you think is just another slasher film and seeing that happen. Imagine having no idea people are going to be stitched ass to mouth, and then, right in front of your eyes… surgically attached, ass to mouth.

After my experience with The Human Centipede, I strongly avoided exposing myself to any hype on the sequel, not wanting to know a single detail of the debauchery I was about to experience, and this was a good move on my part. Although writer-director Tom Six’s second entry in the Centipede series, The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence), doesn’t come up with anything that quite tops the initial horrible act, it definitely embellishes on it. It’s gross, it’s disgusting, it’s everything that made you cringe in the first film, amped up to the nth degree, times twelve.

And, oh boy, there are going to be a lot of angry, grossed out critics.

Yet after a few days of intense contemplation, I still am not exactly sure what to make of The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence). Part of me loves it. Part of me is highly aware of everything that is wrong with the film.

It’s like a dirty bit of art-fuck horror, totally sure of itself, and completely devoted to its repulsive tone. Shot in black and white, the film seems completely unaware of the Hollywood norm for movie making. At first glance, one would think to blame it on an unskilled, amateur filmmaking, possibly accusing the crew of being college students. But that’s impossible, this is a sequel, and the original film is the complete opposite; the clinical sterility and slickness that fueled the tone of the first film is nowhere to be found here. The only explanation is: it’s hard to watch, but everything is intentional.

The screenplay is unconcerned with structure, the only character that seems to get developed is the main character, who doesn’t even speak. His name is Martin, and he’s a middle aged mentally challenged man who works as a security guard in a parking garage and is completely obsessed with a movie. He watches it daily. He keeps a scrapbook. And the movie, this is as meta-cinema as it gets, is The Human Centipede.

All other characters are nothing. They are Martin’s problems and Martin’s victims, and they only exist to the viewer in the context that they exist to Martin. Whether or not you are comfortable engaging in Martin’s world is up to the individual. The acting is so over the top and the dialogue is so absurd, the film often comes off like it’s a hilarious parody of itself.

But Laurence Harvey, a newcomer to the horror world, brings so much to the Martin character. He is simply shameless. With merely his face and posture, Laurence Harvey transforms into one of the most disturbed characters ever captured on film. He is so convincing, I began to fear that I wasn’t watching a performance; I was terrified he wasn’t acting. He was Martin. I give Tom Six a lot of credit on his casting choices, both Dieter Laser and Laurence Harvey are unforgettable villains.

Sometimes it gets unclear if Tom Six is channeling Jörg Buttgereit or Olaf Ittenbach, but to be honest, I’m not really opposed to either. The film kind of dances a line between the two, seeming intensely artistic, but without a moment’s notice, drifting into a mindless low budget gorefest. Sometimes it seems pretty committed to the art, but usually it’s much more committed to the gross-out.

Either way, it’s hard to take it seriously. The premise, despite being entertainingly clever, feels a little too self-congratulatory. Six knows just how much hype The Human Centipede received, and he doesn’t hide it, he’s reveling in it. But then again, maybe it’s a brilliant bit of social commentary on the ridiculous accusations that violent cinema causes violence. Thinking The Human Centipede could inspire a regular person to build their own centipede is as ludicrous as claiming that watching a bit of porn drives balanced individuals to violent rape. Maybe it’s totally serious. I just can’t figure it out. It’s ballsy enough to encourage these thoughts, but not stuck up enough to omit shit splattering on people’s faces and a mentally handicapped man knocking out every person he meets with a crowbar.

I think I’ve come to a conclusion. Personally, I loved it. I loved how dirty and cheap it looked. I love that it wasn’t afraid to be risky, to make social statements, and then to show the most disgustingly gory, unbelievable things that Six could think up. It wasn’t afraid to be really stupid, and then really clever. It’s not scared to let you laugh at mental disease, at trauma, at innocent people getting shit in their mouths. I loved how hilarious it is when a character actually screams, verbatim, “He’s going to stitch us ass to mouth!” I love typing ass to mouth! I love Six’s attitude, I love Martin’s big, scary eyes, and his ridiculous laugh. But I will never, ever recommend it to another person thinking that they will come out of it feeling the same way that I do.

But the bottom line is, I will definitely recommend The Human Centipede II to someone if they want to see more ass to mouth. And I’ll cross my fingers that they’re not mad at me later. And I will watch it again. And I will be smiling, and I will be laughing.

Come back to HYB tomorrow to check out my interview with Six and Harvey. There is much more ass to mouth discussion to come!

Eric Stanze has been one of the indie horror scene’s most prominent and influential filmmakers for at least 20 years. His production company Wicked Pixel Cinema has given us low budget wonders such as the 1994 shot-on-video demonic possession picture Savage Harvest, the 1998 Super 8 surreal, experimental art house horror film Ice From the Sun, one of the most disturbing and graphically brutal serial killer movies, Scrapbook, released in 2000 and introducing viewers to frequent Wicked Pixel leading lady Emily Haack, the Severed Head Network short films compilations, and the chilling psychological horror outing Deadwood Park in 2007.

After working to get another new and bigger project off the ground in 2008 which fell through due to poor economic conditions, Stanze and the Wicked Pixel crew stayed at it to give fans of underground horror another grueling and gruesome cinematic experience with little money and used their resources to the best of their abilities. The result has come in the form of their newest feature Ratline.

Ratline stars Jason Christ (director of Savage Harvest 2: October Blood) as a seemingly normal-looking bearded, red haired man who stops along the road to help some folks who turn out to be crazed, murderous Satanists hungry for a human sacrifice. They kidnap him and force him to drive them to a location where they can sacrifice him. Unfortunately for them, it seems they underestimated his strength and he takes them by surprise turning the tables over on them and viciously offs them all in super gory ways.

Turns out he’s a Nazi who worked in a special paranormal investigations unit of the SS that was looking at ways to make a human being immortal and was given the ability to stay young as a result of the experiments. Meanwhile, a couple of runaways (Emily Haack and Alex Del Monacco), caught up in a shit storm of drugs and murder, find themselves on the run from the east coast to St. Louis where they eventually cross paths with the immortal former Nazi who appears to be nothing more than an average young man. As his immortality soon starts to wear off, he looks to continue the experiments started by the SS years ago, which involved decapitated heads and a flag which was hidden away for years. In pursuit of the flag and finishing the work started during WWII, he decides the two runaways will be his best subjects to help him complete his goals.

Ratline is another excellent effort from Stanze and Wicked Pixel which may be their best film yet. Emily Haack turns in another great performance as does Jason Christ and indie horror newcomer Sarah Swofford does a fine job as the caring young girl who provides a place for the runaways to stay. The film is very brutal and gory and delivers some really intense moments. It’s definitely Stanze and company returning to their roots in the realm of gutsy, renegade micro budget horror filmmaking with some great gore effects and nice scenery (the dilapidated cemetery has a very gothic feel to it). Ratline is certainly one of this year’s best indie horror releases and a great sign of things to come from Wicked Pixel.
After dealing with distributors like SRS Cinema, Image, Elite, and Cinema Epoch, Wicked Pixel has now jumped on the do-it-yourself distribution bandwagon as they have released Ratline on DVD to the fans themselves. The DVD contains two audio commentaries, “making of” documentary, deleted scenes, bloopers, and trailers. For more info on this and other releases, head on over to www.wickedpixel.com and order your copy today.

Teachers: Adam Rifkin, Tim Sullivan, Adam Green & Joe Lynch
Students: Richard Riehle, Joel David Moore, Kane Hodder, Laura Ortiz & others
High School: ArieScope Pictures
Study Guide: www.chillerama.com

Do you still remember the heighday of the drive-in cinemas, when hundreds of thousands of American teenagers sneaked out of their bedroom windows at night, short-circuited their daddy’s factory-new Buick convertibles and took their high school sweethearts to the local drive-in, where the two love birds made out on the leather-upholstered backseats while trashy terror flicks like Humanoids From The Deep, Sadomania and I Drink Your Blood flickered across the giant screen in front of them? Well, to be perfectly honest with you, I don’t recall that time at all, because not only was I born too late but also on the wrong side of the ocean to ever have been able to take part in this wonderful era. Thus, I’m always more than happy when I stumble upon a movie such as Chillerama which lives and breathes the reckless exploitation spirit of yesteryear throughout each and every second of its playing time.

While these movies turn the theatre into a loony bin and the screen gets soaked in a gooey mass of gore and body fluids, I can happily sit back in my chair, stuff a handful of popcorn into my mouth and dream of a magical time long past when independent horror films weren’t as timid, tame and polished as they are today and still managed to irritate, shock, disgust and freak out their audiences. And, so much is certain, irritating, shocking, disgusting and freaky are sure as hell attributes that have to be mentioned when talking about a tiny ‘lil scare flick by the awe-inspiring name of Chillerama.

Written and directed by four long-serving and loudly hailed veterans of indy cinema, namely Adam “Detroit Rock City” Rifkin, Tim “2001 Maniacs” Sullivan, Adam “Hatchet” Green and Joe “Wrong Turn 2” Lynch, this unsparing horror anthology is by far the most gross and outraging splatter fest I’ve seen since Troma’s fierce ‘n furious fast food fright film Poultrygeist! Not even five minutes into the movie we already get to see in gruesome close-up how a flesh-eating zombie wife bites off her necrophiliac husband’s scrotum after he dug her up in the cemetery and tried to molest her corpse. And that’s just the beginning, guys… from here on it only gets weirder, wilder and more violent by the minute! Because when our dickless friend shows up at his work at the local drive-in, which is about to show its last monster movie marathon that night, everything goes totally out of hand and all hell breaks loose.

The first movie to grace the drive-in’s screen and make the audience’s jaws drop to the floor in utter shock and disbelief is Adam Rifkin’s Wadzilla, which tells the tragic story of a young man (played by Rifkin himself) who suffers from a genetic defect that causes him to produce not more than a single, solitary sperm whenever he’s aroused. To pimp his tattered manhood he takes an experimental drug which indeed increases the growth of his semen. Unfortunately, he does not produce more sperms from now on, but the one sperm he produces just grows to unnatural proportion and hence he has to get rid of it as soon as he can whenever he feels it swelling in his balls. While he successfully kills most of his apple-sized sperms right after he delivered them, one of the nasty little fuckers manages to escape through the toilet and make its way into the crowded streets of New York City, where it feeds on spoiled Chihuahuas, dumb chicks and horny hobos until it reaches the size of a family home and ultimately sets out to impregnate the only woman in NYC that’s big enough to survive such an erotic encounter of the weird kind: the Statue of Liberty! The Big Apple’s fate looks grim and the only man who can save the city is the fearless General Bukkake (Eric Roberts) who is about to launch Operation Moneyshot, a reckless all-or-nothing mission that will either save the precious lives of the city’s 19 million inhabitants or make them all drown in a deluge of cum!

Uh, that was sticky! But before you even find a second to wipe your face clean, you’re already drawn straight into the next festival of the grotesque, namely Tim Sullivan’s lycanthropic musical spoof I Was A Teenage Werebear. Said episode could best be described as a totally fucked up mixture of Grease, Lost Boys, I Was A Teenage Werewolf and Twilight, which is so hilariously stupid that it’s got to be seen in order to be believed. Jam-packed with latent homo-eroticism on the one hand and the most awesomely awful Doo Wopp songs I’ve ever heard in a horror movie on the other, this colorful piece of sing-a-long sleaze confronts us with a bunch of so-called werebears who are sick and tired of living in the shadows of society and hiding their true faces from the humans they’ve co-existed with for centuries… they’re well assured that their time to rise is now and their hard-fought struggle for acceptance sets them up against a bunch of dim-witted high school jocks, who refuse to tolerate a group of fruity werebears among their rows and hence the two embittered enemies fight each other to the last! Limbs are torn off, heads are crushed and bodies are impaled by furry erections until the violent battle finally comes to a thunderous conclusion which only one species will survive!

Survival, however, is something Adolf Hitler (Joel David Moore), the giggly protagonist of Adam Green’s 30s-styled monster movie parody The Diary Of Anne Frankenstein, does not have in mind… at least not for his political enemies! To finally fulfil his fiendish plans and extinct the human race, he steals an age-old Jewish journal which provides him with a formula to build an artificial superhuman from the rotten body parts of the deceased. Unfortunately, the Fuhrer’s creation, a golem-like Super-Jew by the name of Meshugannah (Kane Hodder), is not only a hundred times stronger but also a thousand times more clever than his creator and hence we don’t have to wait long until the clumsy colossus turns against the Nazis and brings death and destruction to Uncle Adi and his gang. Shot entirely in black and white and acted out by a German speaking cast, The Diary Of Anne Frankenstein is a hilariously bizarre homage to the works of gloomy expressionists like F.W. Murnau on the one hand and inapt trash kings such as Ed Wood Jr. on the other. Believe me, you’ll be literally laughing your ass off when Meshugannah bashes Hitler from one fake-looking set to another or when the nazi officer he just slammed to the ground is suddenly played by a black guy after the cut. Like his partners-in-crime, Adam Green perfectly parodies all the lovable little flaws and failings of the horror genre in his episode by carefully carving out each and every one of them and driving them totally over the top!

To round the whole thing off, however, Chillerama still needs a befitting finale which comes in the form of Joe Lynch’s Zom-B-Movie, a demented orgy of the dead that’s literally brimming over with excessive violence, depraved sex and blunt anarchism! The nude-o-meter and the gore-detector both go through the roof throughout this episode and I’m almost a hundred percent certain that even a tried and tested advocate of bad taste such as Lloyd Kaufman or Frank Henenlotter would blush at the sight of a film as fucked up as the nasty-beyond-belief intermezzo Deathication!

Adam Green said about Chillerama that the guys involved in the making of this flick had to finance it out of their own pockets, because right from the start they wanted to make a movie that was so gross and outrageous that no studio would ever greenlight it… and he sure as hell didn’t exaggerate a bit when he said that! Chillerama is a perfect movie for all the fun loving gorehounds, trash freaks, b-movie junkies and rebel rousers out there, who enjoy their fright flicks edgy, daring and totally over-the-top! When I saw that movie at Fantasy Film Fest, the theatre was jam-packed with hundreds of expectant indy film lovers and they all loved each and every second of the film, yelling and clapping at all the right (and wrong) places and giving Chillerama standing ovations afterwards! So, if all the stuff I wrote so far didn’t convince you of the sheer awesomeness of this movie, just rely on the judgement of a multitude of devoted horror supporters who all had a total blast watching a nasty little fright fest by the name of Chille’freakin’rama!

Grade A

[Editor's Note: I would like to welcome our first international contributer Tobias Piwek. I know the movie Super is not horror related, but neither is Christian Serratos in a bikini. Plus Piwek promised me it's violent, and a must see for gore hounds.]

Super is currently available on Blu-ray and DVD in the U.S..

Teacher: James Gunn (Writer & Director)
Students: Rainn Wilson, Ellen Page, Liv Tyler, Kevin Bacon, Michael Rooker, Sean Gunn, Nathan Fillion & others
High School: This Is That Productions
Study Guide: www.jamesgunn.com

For as long as he can remember, life’s not been kind to Frank D’Arbo (Rainn Wilson). Beaten by his father, harassed by bullies at school and ignored by just about every girl he’s ever had a crush on, he ekes out a dreary existence as a cook in a run-down, barely frequented diner. The only shining light in his otherwise depressing life is his beautiful wife Sarah (Liv Tyler), whom he loves more than anything else in the world. When she leaves him for an arrogant strip club owner Jock (Kevin Bacon), Frank is crushed beyond repair and willing to let go of whatever tiny bit of self-respect he had left.

However, he doesn’t have time to revel in his misery for long, because the sight of his idol, a bible-bashing superhero known as The Holy Avenger (Nathan Fillion), followed by a divine intervention finally gives the insecure, self-pitying outsider, a new purpose in life… To avenge the bullied!

D’Arbo wears the blood-red costume of The Crimson Bolt and prowls the darkest alleys and most dangerous corners of the city at night, in order to tell crime to shut the hell up! Frank’s energetic new alter-ego doesn’t care whether you’re a child molester, a drug dealer or just an average guy who cuts in line… if you don’t behave right, you’ll feel the skull-crushing impact of his red-painted pipe wrench across your face.

In order to finally bring his nemesis Jock to justice and make the slimy pimp pay for stealing his wife, Frank still needs a little assistance, which he finds in the form of Libby (Ellen Page), a lively comic store clerk craving for recognition and attention. As his sexy and sometimes a bit over-ambitious sidekick Boltie, Libby regfuses to leave Frank’s side and helps him fight crime and injustice at any given occasion.

The crazy-ass situations that Frank and Libbie, erm sorry, The Crimson Bolt and Boltie end up in range from hilariously funny to disturbingly uncanny to wholeheartedly tragic. Quite often we find ourselves confronted with more emotions than we can handle. Within a few minutes, our reaction to the happenings in front of our eyes might change from hysterical laughter to shocked disbelief to disgusted refusal to sincere empathy and just about everything that’s in-between. James Gunn’s rich script and skilful direction, and the dead-on performances by just about every actor in the entire film, certainly are the key ingredients that turn Super into a wild ‘n freaky indy masterpiece you won’t soon forget. The fantastic soundtrack, excessive gore, action sequences and last but not least, the kick-ass comic effects give the film a totally unique look and feel. They all do their part in heaving this extraordinary flick over the edge of greatness making it a prime example of daring and deviant counter culture filmmaking at its very best!

To sum it all up, Super is super-funny, super-violent, super-crazy, super-deep and super-touching in equal shares and while I watched this movie, my eyes filled with tears. Not only because the film’s grotesque and over-the-top humour made me laugh like a hyaena, but also because the misguided but still loveable antiheros tragic yet strangely uplifting fate literally moved me to tears!

Grade: A

Evil Things
Starring: Laurel Casillo, Morgan Hooper, Ryan Maslyn
Written & Directed By: Dominic Perez
Grade: D+

With the age of digital filmmaking and the style and sub-genre of films like The Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity it really makes it so anyone can make a film. Especially with films like these a lack of budget or visual composition can be written off as a stylistic choice. If you can deliver with the content and suspense to back it up this can work wonders. Films that have done this well have been the largest profiting box office films. Even the best within this sub-genre are more the exception than the norm. The norm is Evil Things. It really looks like an unscripted home video. I guess you can say it paints realism, but if there’s nothing interesting to offer it becomes painfully dull and just pointless.

I didn’t dislike any of the characters. I suppose they seemed real enough and the acting was fine. The thing is I didn’t particularly like them either, they were just there. There is so little action or really anything at all going on in this film. For 90% of the film we are just left with the characters and no other cinematic elements. A group of friends are on their way to a cabin in the woods to get away for awhile. On their way there they suspect one of the locals is following them. As the night goes on they forget and have a good time amongst themselves, only to find out he has been watching them the entire time.

The bulk of the film is this group of friends talking amongst themselves and hanging out. There really isn’t a rich enough component involved to make this of any interest. There isn’t all that strong of a build up through suspense either. There’s an instance or two when they realize they’ve been watched, but nothing too noteworthy, especially considering it is a horror film. The climax comes with an attack and chase scene that mostly consists of lights shining through the cabin window and the protagonists running and screaming. By this point I had long since lost interest. Even if I hadn’t it’s so lackluster and anti-climatic that I would have been disappointed regardless.

Films about the walking undead are a dime a dozen. Every Joe Schmo can make a zombie feature length film with his Hi-Def hand-held camera and a modest budget, but this indie ambition in trying to be the next George A. Romero is a false Godsend sent straight from God knows where and seeks what most (ignorant) people crave in horror movies – a good amount of blood and guts. Eventually, the needle in the hay stack will be found, but the agonizing scrambling and digging through endless projects can wear a person down and make their eyes tire of bad taste and boredom. However, a zone lies in between that sole most glorious needle and that vast amount of crap.

Today, my friends, will mark the day that this zone will be forever labeled the “buffer zone”. What is the buffer zone you may ask? The buffer zone contains all zombie genre films that are not horrendous and asphyxiate yourself with a rubber toy snake, but don’t necessarily stand out as a “cult classic” as one may say. I have came across such a movie that is directly smack-dab in the middle of the buffer zone and it’s entitled The Final Night and Day.

The scene is utter chaos. An inmate carrier has spun out of control and has stalled by some unknown force. The guards are dazed to what really happened, but intend to make sure every prisoner from the Rubenstein Prison is cuffed and accounted for; the bus holds some of the most vicious prisoners including a cannibalistic serial killer, an entire platoon murderer and a handful of larcenist and thieves. As the guard and prisoners seek help or refuge, they stumble upon a zombie apocalypse in the small town they’re stranded in. Forced to work together, they must band together to make it through what could possibly the final night and day of the rest of their lives.

The way The Final Day and Night plays out could be said to be a near carbon copy of Night of the Living Dead. The beginnings of both films put you right in the middle of the confusion, spurting out “whats”, “huhs” and “ehs?” What may seem like a negative perspective, forcing us into a situation with no background isn’t necessary a film making 101 no-no as it has been done before with, you’ve guess it, Night of the Living Dead. Also, much of the scenes with the undead walking and meandering about the brush, fields and streets does eerily feel shot-for-shot like Romero’s film. Again, nothing to be ashamed about as the scenes still work to the film’s advantage in creating this world of rigor mortis walking life after death dreadfulness.

Yet, as much as I wanted to like the story of inmates and guards working together in finding a safe haven, I couldn’t get seem to look past or overlook the shoddy acting by each actor. Lines seem forced and rushed causing the intense scenes to be appear unbelievable and foolish. Not only did the acting feel cold, but as the story progressed, it went from strange to boring. Once we established that the remaining inmates team up with the guards, a battle for power ensues and then once the power struggle has been settled, a bunch of sitting on their asses happen. A great start to a movie ends with a lame, open ended folly.

Zombies look like zombies. That’s a good thing. The modest budget did well considering the script needs tons of rethinking-to-dos. This amateur project is quite ambitious and nearly well executed until the last half hour or so where the light just goes dim. An A for effort. The Final Night and Day is directed and written by Adam R. Steigert and Stephanie Andrews and released by Deftones Pictures Studios.

Barry J. Gillis, the Toronto based indie filmmaker who brought us the micro budget 1989 Super 8 gorefest Things, which he starred in and was directed by his partner Andrew Jordan with whom he co-wrote and co-produced, has recently unleashed upon the world a project that has been in development for the last 20 years.

Things, a cheesy and gory DIY effort featuring two brothers and a friend trapped in a house with mutant bug creatures, quickly went on to gain much cult status in the world of low budget horror and has become a favorite amongst viewers of ‘80s direct-to-video splatter flicks. Things was just recently released in an extras packed DVD by Intervision Picture Corp. (who also gave us the ‘80s shot-on-video classic Sledgehammer on DVD). To add to your viewing pleasure as you purchase the new DVD of ThingsWicked World, now available on DVD and On-Demand from Amazon.com.

Wicked World is the story of a much-troubled cop (played by Gillis) who finds himself on the blood soaked trail of a psychopath who murdered the woman he loved years ago. The psycho sets out on another killing spree after having been let out of an institution and he narrates the story as we are shown what his life was like in the mental hospital. Drug using teenagers and other unfortunate foes fall prey to the maniac’s homicidal ways as the cop, with some rather dark moments in his past still lingering on in his mind, remains determined to track down and kill the psycho if it’s the last thing he ever does.

While Things was a rather comical film which was made all the more enjoyable by all its cheesy acting and laugh-out-loud dialogue, Wicked World paints itself as a more serious movie. Does it succeed in what it aims to be? Well, that’s something most viewers can decide for themselves. For the most part, the effort and dedication that was put into it is what really matters. With it being obvious that Gillis was working with very limited funds and considering that the film took a long time to complete, it’s easier to forgive some of the shortcomings involving the technical factors, effects and whatnot, though some may find it hard to tolerate.

While some of these issues may have you at first feeling like you can’t take it seriously, as it moves along the film does gradually get better and there are a few good gore scenes (if you can get past the CGI blood in some parts). One thing that I found interesting was how the killer in the flashbacks is narrating the story and it appears he’s making up what happens next as things move along. That does give the film a rather surreal dreamlike quality and the ending is pretty good. Wicked World, if you can get past some of its technical problems, can be enjoyable for what it is considering the effort and dedication put into it and the fact that it took 20 years to complete.

Also featured at the beginning of the movie is a trailer for Gillis’s next feature The Killing Games, which appears to be a very brutal underground effort done very much to the liking of fans of extreme horror. It even has a reference to the Nick Zedd short film Police State.

For more info on Wicked World, Things, etc., go to www.things1989.com