Z is for Zombies

Happy Halloween! It used to be a tradition at this blog to each year take a look at a particular movie monster and talk about movies where they appeared. I never got to do the Zombie one, partly because everyone knows which ones are the good ones. George Romero's Dead Trilogy, Return of the Living Dead, 28 Days Later, Shaun of the Dead and the like. I would've liked to do top 10 more obscure zombie pictures, but never had the time to do enough research. But now I can talk about Italian zombies!

Most of the best Italian zombie movies use the walking dead pretty sparingly, as in Lucio Fulci's The Beyond. But that's not to say Romero's Dawn of the Dead wasn't really popular, and a major influence that showed how to do effective thrills on limited resources. Italians never really bothered with the light social commentary (we have Demons movies for that), they just liked the zombies as a cheap way of showing blood and gore. So, let's take a look.

Zombie Flesh Eaters (Zombi 2, 1979)
Director: Lucio Fulci

The grandaddy and best pure zombie flick Italians managed to do was marketed as a straight-up sequel to Dawn of the Dead (also known as Zombi). Fulci had the idea of doing a horror movie set on a remote island even before the premier of DotD, but relented in adding New York scenes in the beginning and end that can be seen of tying to Romero's film. One thing to note is that Italian films seem to have a better tie to the origins of zombie mythology in the voodoo culture... but use it mostly just to have insensitive depiction of natives and their savage ways. Zombi 2 is not the worst in this regard, it came later with movies that cashed in both the Cannibal movie craze and zombies, such as Zombi Apocalypse (a.k.a. Dr Butcher, M.D.)

Fulci's film is a rollicking good adventure, starring an adventure seeker named Peter West (Ian McCulloch) and a spunky reporter Anne Bowles (Tisa Farrow), who embark on a dangerous mission after investigating a mysterious boat in New York's harbor. Fulci had an excellent eye for set-pieces and planty of them linger on in your memory forever after seeing them, even if they are only tangentially related to the plot. The best among them are an incredible fight between and underwater zombie and (a real) shark, and a woman's eye being slowly pulled towards a sharp wood splinter (eat your heart out, Un chien Andalus).

 

While the zombies in Romero's movie were just cartoonish actors facepainted blue, here they are actually very creepy looking, wormy and worn-down corpses. I think the scene of the dead rising from their gravces is exceptionally creepy, with Fabio Frizzi's incredible score creating the necessary chills. Fulci's best skills are as a visualist, and this film started something of a golden age on his filmography (which we will take a closer look at soon enough).

★★★★

Zombie Flesh Eaters 2 (Zombi 3, 1988)
Dirs. Lucio Fulci, Bruno Mattei, Claudio Fragasso

A lot of unrelated films were sold as "Zombi 3" during the 1980's, but by the end of the decade, the aged Fulci was also lured to do an actual sequel. But the collaboration with the screenwriter Claudio Fragasso didn't work out that well. Due to creative differences, Fulci was let go and Fragasso finished the film with his regular collaborator, Bruno Mattei. Fulci later called the movie as made by "a bunch of idiots".

I think Fragasso was trying to do a more ambitious version of his previous movie, Zombie Creeping Flesh (more on which below) and he needed Fulci's visual eye to achieve this. The end result is actually pretty okay entertainment, even if it's pretty easy to spot the visually nice and athmospheric scenes as being done by Fulci, and the cheaper shots by the Mattei/Fragasso team. Tonally they can't even keep up with what the zombies can do, whether they can run, wield machetes or even speak... at... a.. very.. slow... rate...

A deadly virus gets loose from a research center and the military is employed to stop the spreading throughout Pacific Islands. There's also a group of rich dorks on a holiday that are on the way of the zombies. There's a lot of characters to follow, but never mind, most of them are zombie food anyway. There are some very memorable scenes, as one sees a zombie head fly out of a refrigerator and another a zombie baby burst out of its mother's belly, like a scene from Alien. The entire film is hosted by a radio DJ, who, in the end, is revealed to be a zombie himself. SURPRISE?

There are two other movies that are usually told to be official Zombie Sequels, After Death (1989) and Killing Birds (1988). Both are cheap, cheesy and not terribly exciting in any way, though the first one has a voodoo cult and ninja-looking masked zombies, and the latter some zombie birds attacking people in the vein of Hitchcock (although so does Zombie 3). So that's enough of them at this point.

★★★
 

Zombie Creeping Flesh  a.k.a. Hell of the Living Dead (Virus, 1980)
Dirs. Bruno Mattei, Claudio Fragasso

 

This cheapo Virus movie presents something Mattei always excelled at; marrying two very unrelated movies. As a deadly zombie virus takes over a military research center, most of the movie follows a group of soldiers of fortune travelling around Papua New Guinea. The film used mondo movie footage from Akira Ide's movie called L'isola dei canibali, and stole the score from Dawn of the Dead and Buio Omega. It's so shameless one has to give the edge out to it when compared to the more sleek Zombi 3.

But for a film made on such a shoe string budget, it had some ambitious gore scenes such as tearing out a woman's tongue and then grabbing the brain through the mouth with eyes bulging out. Also rare for a Mattei film, the plot moves along surprisingly briskly and keeps surprising the viewer. Of course, most of it is driven by the characters acting like total jerks or making the dumbest decisions the entire time. 

 One has to love Fragasso's ear for dialogue:
"Up your ass. Lt. Mike London, Shit Creek. The year is now."

★★★ 1/2

Burial Ground (Le notti del terrore, 1981)
Dir. Andrea Bianchi

For my money, however, the silliest of Italian cash-grab zombie pictures is this one, which tries to match Fulci's zombies in their creepiness, but just ends up having worm-faced mummy guys crawl out of flower beds and slowly stumble to grab the nearest overacter screaming their lungs out. Burial Ground is something of a morality take, as a swinger's weekend of debauchery in a secluded mansion takes a violent turn.

There's some very fucked up things going on in the family, particularly with the 12-year-old Michael (Peter Bark) who doesn't want to die a virgin so he tries to achieve his long-time dream and nail his own mother before the zombies get to him. It's one of the Italian films that uses the legendary Etruscan people as a source of ancient terrors, but neglects to include much of actual Etruscan culture to go with it. Nevertheless, we get a healthy amount of zombie monks, too.

It's a great film to watch during boozy nights with friends, as the actors themselves seem to be quite relaxed as well. I love how when cast member become zombies, they seem to be quite happy with the development.

★ or ★★★★★

Three laughs: Dead Heat

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of the quality of the filmmaking. In fact, it might be even harder to create unique trash that keeps surprising you than most "quality" films with which you know what you are going to get. It certainly is an even better pleasure to watch them. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you just can't believe what the film is showing to you, scene after scene. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.   

 ★ or ★★★★★

Three laughs case file #41:
Dead Heat (USA, 1988)
Director: Mark Goldblatt

How about a reanimator / buddy cop action parody made by Shane Black... 's brother? Well, ok, Terry Black isn't quite as droll a writer of the quips, or creator of ingenious action setpieces, but he has plenty of the same essence that takes you a long way. And it has a GREAT concept for a flick from the golden age of VHS. So, even though Dead Heat isn't quite as good a horror-comedy as you would want it to be, there's still plenty to enjoy, from truly weird effects work to major plot twists the kind you won't see in your run-off-the-mill action movie.

It features one of the final screen roles of Vincent Price, Keye Luke from Gremlins, and although the main pair isn't the most recognizable or generally even likable, they grow on you and the viewer wants to see the knuckleheads, if not succeed, at least uncover some weird shit. And to do a lot of wonton damage around town, and giving total disregard for human lives they may wreck. They may insult their corpses on the way out, as well.

Detectoves Mortis and Bigelow (Treat Williams and Joe Piscopo) run across bank robbers, and general nuisances of stiffs that can't seem to stay dead. There's a bigger plot going on as Dante Laboraties have some bigger plans than to simply resurrect the dead. And you can't keep our heroes down, since the same techniques that bring their adversaries to life also work on them...

At the very least for this time, it's a film that allows the phrase "the only good cop is a dead one" some consideration from the both sides.

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. The film opens with a scene of a crew of jewel store robbers on a heist. When our heroes arrive, they do the normal cop routine of starting fire before asking too many questions. But they soon realize the robbers actuallu can't die from simple gunshots. To get rid of them, one  has to be exploded, one run over with a car.

Cut to the key element of every cop action film: a pissed-off police captain yelling at the renegades for destroying everything around them. But at least they get results, man.

2. I like a sudden appearance of a gnarly monster man, especially as there's been a long while of exposition and getting to show the machinery that is used to bring people back to life. That's why it's a great joy as an obese biker zombie comes walking across an aisle to wrestle our heroes. It also gives the pleasure of seeing Treat Williams being knocked into an asphyxiation chamber and killed (he gets better).

3. One of the greatest special effects scenes comes from a scene best described as Big Trouble in Little China meets The Thing. In a Chinese butcher's shop some electric shenanigans bring meat to life. It means honking duck heads, wrestling with a pig carcass and getting an alien-like slab of meat to the face. As a coup de grace, there's a headless bull torso out to get our heroes. Best believe they make quips out of all of these!

"Zombie duck heads. What a concept."

D is for Demons! Demons!

Last month I missed out on doing any posts about Italian genre cinema, but October gives us the perfect time to catch up. And unholy monsters from hell gives us a perfectly seasonal adversaries to base a blog post on. In the late 80's, demons started to get the spotlight zombies used to have with a couple of fresh-faced directors.

Demons (Démoni, 1985)
Director: Lamberto Bava

The son of Mario Bava, Lamberto, started out as a assistant director in his father's films, but got to start his own directing career from the late 1970's onward. In the early 80's he was a ward of Dario Argento, who produced and co-wrote this 4th-wall-breaking movie to him. The artist also known as John Old Jr. considers this to be his best movie and probably is not wrong there.

Shot in Berlin, a group of different people have won a ticket to a film premiere in a brand new movie theatre. The showing is to be a horror movie that has effects never before seen on the big screen. The event soon turns to a nightmare as it turns out the group is trapped inside the theatre and blood-hungry demons start slaughtering them one by one. 

The film can't be said to be entirely serious. It has a sense of irony of having one of the cinema-goers be a blind man. Also the main theme from the soundtrack is probably the craziest composition Goblin's Claudio Simonetti ever did. But the film has a good eye for set pieces, a decent budget that paid for a lot of really expensive effects and a willingness to forget about certain details, such as the plot, in order to get going. The younger Bava never could quite match his old man's style, but still he was gifted as a creator of suspense and putting unique visions on screen. Not to mention gore, that comes bountifully. It was not actually a preference of Bava himself, so I expect Argento had his fingers in the game.

If there's a downside to this coked-up fever dream it's that Demons basically work too much like zombies, in that they can turn people into one of their own kind. That's why the apocalyptic ending seems way too familiar from plenty of zombie movies, Italian or otherwise, that show the disease spread to the entire world. But that was the 1980's when people had a common fear of an illness bringing about the end of the world.

★★★★

Demons 2 (Dèmoni 2... l'incubo ritorna, 1986)
Dir. Lamberto Bava

Like the Die Hard films, it seemed the Demons movies also were going to be set on bigger and bigger settings. This one sees an entire high-rise become a battlefield when Demons attack! This time they won't step out of the movie screen, but come from your TV sets standing in the most sacred places of your own homes.

The film has a new set of stock characters with their flimsy character arcs, or just colorful deaths. It feels the script is even more haphazard than the first one as a lot of set-up is just forgotten along the way. It's not bad, but it all just feels so uninspired. Almost all good ideas of the movie were already done in the first one.

There's still some points of interest in this. Fans of architecture in Italian films may get a kick on how the film moves between different apartments. It's critiques of modern living and entertainment are also somewhat similar to the mayhem seen in Gremlins 2 four years later, but it doesn't really go far enough into these to reach the same dizzying heights.
 

★★ 

The Church (La chiesa, 1989)
Dir. Michele Soavi

 Along the way, Argento had a falling out with Bava, opting rather to work with his own second unit director, Michele Soavi. The man also called last great giallo director had debuted with Stage Fright.  Reportedly, Soavi thought the Demons films to be "pizza shlock" and wanted to make a more sophisticated horror movie rather than a continuation. Still, his second film was sold to some audiences as Demons 3, as well as his next movie The Sect as Demons 4.

The Church is interesting in just how Catholic it is. Past bloodletting done in the name of the Church comes to haunt modern librarians and priests trying to work in a building built on the blood of innocents. In Italy in particular, it seems a lot of the most bitter agnostic attacks against the power of religion came from horror movies, which is probably why they were seen so subversive back in the day.

 
Soavi digs a hole for himself by having a too good, brutal and savage prologue set in the Crusades. The opening scene reads like something out of the catalogue of Paul Verhoeven, another critic of the violence done by institutions. But after the opening, the film lulls in athmosphere a bit too long. The Church itself with its dark corridors and ominous statues is a very nice environment, but after enough camera drives and crash zooms where scarcely nothing happens makes the audience groan for the movie to roll along. At this point Soavi wasn't that skillful in building up tensions, part of the reason being that his characters are always so paper-thin as to be boring to follow.

The film's music is an odd cocktail of Goblin, Keith Emerson and some Philip Glass compositions that seem to be taken straight out of Koyaanisqatsi. It's a good measuring stick on how Soavi has problems establishing a clear thoroughline for the film. Visually, though, it's very striking with magnificent effects work by Sergio Stivaletti. The gore and creature scenes in particular are nasty and memorable, so the film has plenty to offer for fans of Soavi's style, even if the film as a whole somewhat creaks at the seams.

★★★
 

Cemetary Man (DellaMorte DellAmore, 1994)
Dir. Michele Soavi

Since we are covering double D's, I have to throw in also Soavi's probably most popular and unique movie. Loosely based on the fumetti comic Dylan Dog, Dellamorte Dellamore is a kind of unique little gem in the horror comedy genre, a sort of match between the general skewed worldview and sense of humor of Danger: Diabolik and the hysterical antics of Evil Dead 2.

Rupert Everett plays a lonely but cynical cemetary groundskeeper Francesco Dellamorte who has a surprising amount tof work on his hands. The cemetary turns the dead back to life after three days so he has to make sure the zombies stay underground. But the lovelorn young man can't help to fall for either widows or corpses of  young women, which is harder to combine with his line of work.

The film has a autumny visuals where it's all shades of brown and grey, down to earth, which contrasts nicely the cartoony aspects of the story and performances on screen. The film has a episodic nature, where it does resemble the comic books it is adapting. Likewise in the amount of sex and violence on screen, although to contemporaries like Braindead, the film seems downright tame.

Not only about the duality of love and death, the film also depicts the longing to escape a small town and its repetitive cycles. Dellamorte goes through the same loops every night, but refuses to learn or to move on. His mute partner Gnaghi (François Hadji-Lazaro) fares better, and genuinely falls in love, albeit to a severed head. The movie, as outrageous a premise as it has and dry humor, is actually in favor of enjoying life and seeing as much of it as one can.

★★★★

Night Visions Back To Basics 3012 Part 1

About two months ago, I was privileged to take part of another Night Visions Back to Basics festival. The intimacy of classic festival years has been paved in way of attendance records, and accordingly, the festival has become bigger and bigger each year. Just because there's such a big number of films to cover, this festival report comes in so late. But as most good genre films are timeless, one should be able read reviews of them anytime. Let's remind ourselves how much fun we had, eh?

Haywire (USA, 2012)
Director: Steven Soderbergh

The festival kicked off with Steven Soderbergh's love letter to ultimate fighter Gina Carano. I've long held the stand that Soderbergh is a competent director with plenty of good ideas in each of his films. However, it seems that he's unwilling to concentrate to do them properly, instead opting to direct two films each year. Subsequently, he has a huge back catalogue of films no one has seen, and even his high profile films lack in substance. Even though it's admirable that such a big director is willing to make a straight action film that unashamedly is built on people getting their asses kicked, it would've paid to stay a bit longer in the screenwriter's room.

As it is, Haywire is a blandly clichéd agent thriller. Carano's agent Mallory Kane is on the run from her former employer. The agency and the consequent womanhunt seem to be led by Ewan McGregor's Kenneth. Unlinear timeline shows flashes from before and after Kane was betrayed. Her mission to rescue a hostage in Barcelona went, as in the movie's title, haywire. In her subsequent job in Dublin her contact person (Michael Fassbender) turns out to be a double-crosser. In current time, somewhere in the American midwest, she confides in the regular-seeming Aaron (Channing Tatum) to borrow his car.

Like said, there are plenty of things to enjoy here, from surprisingly good performances (Carano in particular shows unexpected acting abilities) to several good action scenes. A backwards car chase in the middle of the woods is one for the ages, and Soderbergh can stage a fight between Carano and an A-list actor like a mofo. Pity that in some instances he attempts to do a really distracting editing style that's more an experiment than a service to storytelling (or ass-kicking). I would've liked to see more famous actors get their asses kicked by Carano, with Michael Douglas and Tatum in particular being sad to be left out. But ultimately, as the viewer can't be bothered to care about any of the supposedly-clever twists and turns of the plot, and any scene without any action causes big yawns. Ultimately, the film doesn't amount to anything above average.

★★ 1/2


Bloody Pit of Horror (Il boia scarlatto, Italy/USA 1965)
Director: Massimo Pupillo

But wait, actually Night Visions opened a bit earlier than that, at least unofficially. In the Bar Molotow there was a sunday evening showing of two past NV movies followed by reminiscing of the 15-year-old history of the festival. I catched the later one of the flicks, a delicious Italian exploitation flick supposedly based on the writings of none other than Marquis de Sade.

The Castle of the Crimson Executioner was where a notorious madman butchered heaps of people back in the 17th century. A modern-day photographer decides that the castle's the perfect milieu to shoot sexy pictures for covers of horror novels. So, a group of hot model girls and technical people arrive at the castle that they think is empty. However, the castle is owned by the former actor Travis Anderson (Mickey Hargitay) who lives there with his two bodyguards. The model Edith (Luisa Baratto) used to date Travis, so they are allowed to stay. But then the model crew starts to disappear one by one. The spirit of The Crimson Executioner seems to be bent on revenge and to torture each and every one of them to death.

So all of the (pretty formulaic) plot exists solely as an excuse to show several torture devices and death traps. Having sex-hungry models in your film also allows for some steamy nudity. The budget hasn't really stretched too far, as the violence doesn't seem too realistic and the other special effects are frankly ludicrous. The unconvincing giant spider threatening a girl in her web, only to be tossed away like an American football by the rescuing Adonis, is probably the most memorable of these.

The main bad guy runs around in red tights and generally dresses like the pulp comic hero The Phantom, but without a shirt on, which is also a plus in my book. But the film also has a somehow twisted atmosphere where almost anything can happen. Like all good exploitation, it seems to exist in a delirious border between fact and fiction, reality and fantasy. Even though the end result is lame, it is quite inventive and the actors seem to be having fun with it.

★ or ★★★★★

Red Tears (a.k.a. Monster Killer; Red tears - kôrui, Japan 2011)
Director: Takanori Tsujimoto

Each Night Visions seems to need to have a new Japanese gore flick in its program. This time, for a change, it doesn't come courtesy of Sushi Typhoon. But still it shares pretty much the regular quality of these flicks, which is that they have a couple of amusing splatter scenes but the flimsy plot and the overacted characters are usually quite dire.

Red Tears is both a detective story and a love story as well as a monster-hunting action film. A bunch of policemen try to figure out who has murdered a large number of people by decapitating them and sucking the corpses dry from blood. The young policeman Tetsuo Nojima (Yuma Ishigaki) falls for the shy, beautiful girl Sayoko (Natsuki Kato) who takes care of her elderly mother. But the more efficient and determined elder detective Genjiro Mishima (Yasuaki Kurata) soon starts to suspect that the women have some sort of connection to these monstrous crimes.

The plot develeopment is slow as snail nailed to the ground. Sudden shocks of the plot suddenly thrushing forward wake the viewer up, but can't manage to maintain interest for long. The unrelenting, bloody fight scenes towards the end do a little better job, but rely way too much on bad CGI effects. But the film also has a very black sense of humor which makes some body mutilation jokes quite funny in a Braindead sort of way. Kurata is also awesome. Still, by no means essential viewing.

★★

The Innkeepers (USA 2011)

Director: Ti West

Ti West has an unique vision among modern American horror directors, which is why his films feel like they're a lot better than they actually are. He doesn't dwell on violence, postmodernist irony, jokes, effects or gore like so many of his peers. West's films build very slowly and give a lot of room for character development. It's a shame, then, that his films are so clichéd. One would almost wish he wouldn't write his own scripts, but rather use his directing talent to better someone else's fresher ideas. After the quite good House of the Devil, West has decided to show others how a Haunted House thriller should be made.

Claire (Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy) work at a rundown hotel that's about to get closed. There aren't that many customers so they try to find some ways to keep themselves entertained during long shifts at the reception. They both are interested in the hotel's history, which includes a young bride hanging herself after her fiancée left her at the altar. As amateur ghost hunters they attempt to capture some evidence that the bride's ghost still lurks in the hotel. During the hotel's last weekend they get an old actress Leanne Reese-Jones (Kelly McGillis) as a guest. She promises Claire she can get in touch with the hotel's spirits. But Sara soon finds out she got more than she bargained for.

The Innkeepers starts off relatively mild, almost comedy-like as Claire and Luke talk trash with each other and ward off boredom. What first seem like stock-clearence horror movie characters turn out to be kind of multidimensional in that they have several motivations, background and thoughts going on. The viewer allowing him-(or her-)self to get entangled in their lives and to learn to care for what's happening to them, finds the film more rewarding as a result. The suspense builds up very slowly, and supernatural elements are almost crept in a film that in the beginning seemed very down-to-earth. Even usually cheesy shocker points feel a lot creepier than in your average cheap jump-scarer. But once the final chase and shock-train starts, it all falls to very familiar horror tropes, like going to a dark basement to get trapped. West should work more to keep his film's climaxes worthy of such long buildup. Nevertheless, it's always a joy to see a horror film crafted well and with care. I hope West's next film won't disappoint.

★★★

War of the Dead – Stone's War (Lithaunia/Italy/Finland/USA, 2012)
Director: Marko Mäkilaakso

Here's another fresh new genre film that stems from Finnish mindpower but is actually a multinational production. Mäkilaakso's film is about zombies in the Finnish Winter War (1939-40) and has been on production (shelved) for so long that zombies have gone out of fashion thanks to overexposure in pop culture. But actually I got a real kick out of this film, I liked it a lot better than the more in-your-face, you-should-be-laughing-now -styled Iron Sky. Whether that was the intent of the filmmakers, I honestly can't say.

The American soldier Stone (Andrew Tiernan) fights on the Karelian frontier against the attacking Soviet army, alongside a small group of Finnish soldiers. When suddenly the killed soldiers can't stay dead and keep coming for their flesh, the ragtag group realizes that more sinister powers than the sheer fear of Stalinist gulags is driving the zombie soldiers. The group picks up a Russian soldier Kolya (Samuli Vauramo) on their way to get as far away from the armies of the undead and perhaps also solve the mystery. (Hint: It's because of occultist Nazi experiments)

The film is shot in a dark forest at night, and the editing is so sloppy, it's hard to make out what's happening in the most intense scenes. In the end set in a vast underground bunker system, the editing problems ease out. But by then the film looks like just another amateur zombie film shot in a basement or bomb shelter. The film's flimsy "plot" consists mostly of running away, with some frankly ludicrous character building scenes filling out the time between. But none of those problems matter, because the acting is so goddamn hilarious. The film's Finns have thick accents, reminding the production of some of Mats Helge's finest Swedish ninja flicks. This is probably a conscious choice as Finnish war veterans aren't very well known for their abilities to speak foreign languages. But then again it just raises further questions as to why the hell are they even talking in English anyway. Stone's reasons to fight in Finland's own war are familiar to anyone that has read some cheap Boy's Own war comics. Come to think of it, the plot altogether doesn't probably have a single fresh idea in it (save for one zombie horse/car chase). But it's all made with such deadpan seriousness, that the film tricks the audience into laughing at it's ineptdness. The funniest joke is the one where you can't be sure whether the one telling you it is joking or not. Frankly, I don't want to know whether they were serious or not making this, which is why I skipped the Q&A with the makers after the screening. I remain more satisfied that way.

★ or ★★★★★

The Brides of Fu Manchu (UK/West Germany 1965)
Director: Don Sharp

Christopher Lee was not only known as Dracula in the 1960's. He's also one of the most profilic actors to play Sax Rohmer's fiendish supervillain Dr. Fu Manchu, having done the role five times in his career. Night Visions presented the second one of these adventure flicks, with Douglas Wilmer's Sir Dennis Nayland Smith having to match wits against a nefarious plot to conquer the world once again. Because this is a sequel, the film starts with a frankly baffling (for newcomers at least) and explosive scene set on some Asian mountains where the previous film's ending is undone to release Fu Manchu into the world once again.

This time his plot relies on kidnapping daughters of scientists around the world and locking them in a cage in his secret underground lair. Then he blackmails the scientists to build him the technology he wants, the most sinister being a death ray capable of destroying Great Britain's most notable tourist attractions (and the home of some monarchs as well). He keeps the scientists at bay with his hypnotism skills, which can make even the sweetest of scientist daughters the most ruthless of assassins. Smith and the Scotland Yard must find clues and deduce where on Earth Fu Manchu is hiding before his plans come into fruition.

The film has not aged particularly well and multiple things in it look quite silly from today's perspective. First of all, Fu Manchu as a racial stereotype seems quite un-PC, even if this film doesn't make a big scene out of his heritage, making the villain interested in mythology from all over the world. Second, the film relies quite heavily on technology, which by today's standards looks quite primitive. The limited budget has caused many of the most impressive machinery to be described, rather than shown. Manchu's ninja minions working in a computer room also looks quite stupid. And then thirdly, for a film that's set in the modern times of 1960's, some of the threats and perils the film present seem quite out of their sell-by-date, too. Fu Manchu's greatest death trap is a snake pit, which features a couple of quite friendly-looking pythons. If someone is dropped there, the film soon cuts to the pythons squirming amongst a plastic skeleton. But nevertheless these flaws, it is always a joy to see Lee in a villainous role (even so subdued as here), and the international game of cat-and-mouse is, for the most part, fun enough to follow.

★★★

Star Pilot (a.k.a. 2+5: Missione Hydra; Italy, 1966)
Director: Pietro Francisci

This goofy Italian sci-fi gem owns its logo and title to the Star Wars craze, but it was actually made over a decade before George Lucas' Big Ideas, and re-released during that space craze. In actuality it owes a lot more to the Space Race going on during that time, and American 50's sci-fi movies, which often featured a professor, a couple of quarterbacks and the cute and useless girl exploring brave new worlds.

The plot jumps all over the place. We begin in the 18th century, when a spaceship crash lands in Sardinia. There's really no good reason why this sequence needed to be shown. "Why the heck not" seems to be a recurring motif with a lot of things about this film's plot. In the modern day professor Solmi (Roland Lesaffre), his assistants, and his ravishingly beautiful, but ditzy daughter Luisa (Leontine May) are investigating some strange natural phenomena. They find the crashed spaceship inside a cave, but soon find out that they have been followed by chinese communist spies. But no matter, as they all have to witness the attack and subsequent shut-down of the ship's robots (?!). There are also other ones alive inside the ship, and the whole crew is soon kidnapped by Captain Kaena (Leonora Ruffo). They all are kidnapped and flown out of Earth to fix her race's spaceships and find their way back home.

One really can't say that Star Pilot is a non-stop thrill ride, as there are plenty of frustratingly slow-moving scenes in the film. The incredibly slow-moving spacewalk scenes in particular seem to last for ages. But it still offers such large quantities of cheesy dialogue, baffling plot points and groovy 60's era space fashion (with large boob-windows for the gals), that it's impossible to not love this thing. A woman's place is to fix coffee for the working men, whether they want to drink it or go to bed instead. In the last 10 minutes of the film, there are so many plot twists and turns that the film borders on incomprehensible. But it has a strong anti-nuke message to the world - all the more impressive when considered that it was made before the likes of Planet of the Apes.

★ or ★★★★★

Redneck (Senza ragione, Italy 1973)
Director: Silvio Narizzano

The Italian title of this crime/on-the-run flick means Without reason, which would have been a more fitting. Both titles refer to the mentally ill bank robber Memphis (Telly Savalas), who seemingly portrays some of the most crude stereotypic habits (and the thick accent) of gentlemen from the American Bible Belt. He is also prone to killing a whole lot of people just because he feels like it. Hence, without reason.

Memphis has two partners at a big gig, Mosquito (Franco Nero) and his girlfriend Maria (Ely Galleani). But they botch the jewel shop heist operation bad (particularly because they allow Maria to drive the getaway car). While switching to another car, they don't realize a small boy, Lennox Duncan (Mark Lester), is hiding in the back seat. When they find out, they decide to kidnap him. It turns out that they didn't get much money from their heist after all, which sends Memphis into lunatic rage. Mosquito attempts to save the boy from Memphis's wrath, which makes Lennox idolize him and see him as a sort of a father figure. But since law is on their tail, they need to also trust the murderous Memphis until they can get across the border.

Redneck is as cynical and nasty as Italian flicks come. The attitude towards women is quite misogynistic (just look for the scene where Memphis attempts to hire hookers) and dismissive. It's the sort of film that will show happy German children dancing around the tree and the next moment drown them in a sinking trailer. The film's humor is quite black, is what I'm saying. And a bit odd, too. Mosquito spends time shaving naked in front of a mirror, with Lennox looking admiringly. When Mosquito leaves, Lennox checks whether his penis is as big. The film goes all the way with its craziest ideas, which is also why particularly Savalas' scenery-chewing overacting as a total maniac tends to get tiring. But it's a tough, hard flick with very unexpected plot developments and as such it's very much worth a look.

★★★ 1/2

Dragon on Fire (Guai quan guai zhao, Hong Kong 1981)
Director: Joseph Velasco

The most hilarious moments I've ever had in Night Visions (or really, anywhere else for that matter) have been with several incredibly stupid bruceploitation flicks. It's been a few years since we saw Bruce Lee clones at the festival, which makes it all the merrier that the first full night ended with a flick with no fewer than three of them! Yes, Bruce Li, Bruce Lei and Dragon lee all star in this bonkers kung fu epic. Pity that they are never on screen together.

This is the sort of bargain bin martial arts film that has been created by stitching together leftover pieces from previous films. Or at least that's what some friends with expertize on these films figured. That's why it makes little to no sense and trying to sum the plot reasonably is a fool's errand. There are several Bruce Lee-looking martial arts masters arriving to a small village to save it from ruthless gangsters. Plenty of hijinks ensue. The first half of the film in particular has multiple comedic subplots from running away from the landlord in fast-motion and whatnot.

It doesn't seem to be enough that all the lead actors look like Bruce Lee, the film also deliberately tries to confuse the audience with them. That's why one of the protagonists is named Dragon Young and the other Dragon Hung, which is mentioned in the dialogue over and over again. The third Bruce is Hung's brother and creatively named Bruce Hung. While the first two fight gangsters, he spends most of his time arguing with a Buddhist monk about whether it's OK to beat criminals to death. Surprisingly, the monk seems quite liberal on the subject. My whole view of Buddhism has been shattered! I like how the film is completely unapologetic in its shamelessness and extremely un-PC. Bolo Young makes an appearance and is being called "a large body with a very retarded mind." The fights aren't as bad as the storytelling and the goofy comedy in this one, but aren't that spectacular either.

But these kind of films can only be rated on whether they are boring or not. Dragon on Fire is not boring. In fact, even though the plot makes no sense, people appear and disappear to various locations with odd cuts and it's generally a very stupid basic western plot, the film can pace its humor, action and general insanity in suitable doses and thus it never frustrates the viewer. The end fight does take 20 minutes, but the best tricks are saved for it, and with cross-cutting two fights, the thing works quite well, too. Even if it could use even a little trimming. Talk about finding gold in the trash can.

★ or ★★★★★

The Horrible 00's, Part Deux

More Best Horror Films of the 2000s – The Cursed Number 15 in our ongoing series that just won't stay dead!

 I'm not often dissatisfied with my list type blog posts, but I did have the feeling that last years Best Horror Films of the 2000s was somewhat lacking. Never to back away from a challenge, I did realize there were a lot of other very fine horror films made in the last decade that deserved to be mentioned.

Tonight, Night Visions Maximum Halloween 3011 kicks off at Helsinki. So, to celebrate that and the upcoming Halloween, let me present to you the further top 10 of recent horror flicks:

[REC] (Spain, 2007)
Directors: Jaume Balagueró, Paco Plaza



Found footage horror flicks would've just be forgotten gimmicks in period pieces such as The Blair Witch Project and Cannibal Holocaust if it weren't for this highly innovative film. A spanish news crew happens to be with the fire departement as they are called in on a block of flats. Some rage-infusing disease is spreading among the inhabitants. Soon the entire area is quarantined, leaving the crew stuck inside the building with blood-thirsty monsters. For a modern zombie film, there isn't any tongue-in-cheek humour, just fighting for survival. This sort of film works best in the cinema, because it allows you to feel dropped in the middle of the critcal situation yourself and start to feel the panic. It's a real roller-coaster ride, fast and unrelentless with scares coming in thick.

To be fair, I saw the film's American remake Quarantine first and I kind of like it more, because it allows us to spend a little more time with the characters before everything goes to hell and doesn't have as clear reason for all of the things to happen. If you haven't seen either one, pick that, but if you've seen [REC] alreaady, don't bother. It recreates most of the film in a shot-by-shot fashion.


American Psycho (USA, 2000)
Director: Mary Harron



Bret Easton Ellis' masterpiece novel of the same name must've been one of the most difficult books ever to turn into a film. The novel's first 150 pages follow the sleazy rich yuppie businessman Patrick Bateman as he goes through business lunches in high-end restaurants with his obscenely rich "friends" who he secretly loathes. Bateman notices all the luxury product brands around him and gets insanely jealous if someone's wearing something more expensive than he is. After excruciatingly long scenes of upper-class assholism, it is revealed that Bateman is also a blood-thirsty psychpath, bent on torturing and killing (especially women) in a most violent way possible.

The film, of course, makes this revealation much sooner. It does feel like a quick run-through of the novel's events, but it does manage to reveal the obscenity of having it all. Christian Bale made his first truly iconic performance as Bateman, a guy who can go from charming to petty to a douchebag to a dangerous lunatic in seconds. The violence is also toned down from the novel, but director Harron allows much of it happen off-screen, making the viewer's imagination make the worst out of the scenes. Bateman's paranoia of getting caught is increased, but really the world around him isn't interested in his blood work, and sees no difference in his victims. The possibility of it all happening inside his head is also open. Like the novel, the film offers no exit when the credits start to roll.

Antichrist (Denmark/Germany/Poland/France/Sweden/Italy, 2009)
Director: Lars von Trier



Leave it to Lars von Trier to transcend genre lines. Horror is what this film mostly resembles, even though it really doesn't belong to any genre. It's just pure Trier. I don't necessarily think this is his very best film (altough a number of reasonable people would also argue so), but at least it is his most raw, most powerful and most shocking work. It is a manifesto of his own depression and the feelings of inadequacy, guilt and gloom, and the dismissal of trying to alnalyze them rationally and cold. See, you get a lot more out of this than your generic slasher flick.

A couple (Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe) have suffered the death of their firstborn child. They were having steamy hot sex while he jumped out the window. Later on, the couple retreats on a distant cabin to find redemption in their devastating feelings. But when the civilized way to look at the thing runs against the sher forces of nature itself, things are bound to get messy.

Trier's symbolism is a little on the nose here, a little inpenetrable there. Like in many of his work, it's impossible to decide whether he's pulling the collective leg of his entire audience. Yet the odd little film is like none other and its devastating athmosphere more horrifying than in any other film of last decade. The film also needs a little time to grow on the viewer. At first viewing I was disappointed in it, but it has grown on me. Mostly because its haunting imagery will never leave the viewer alone.

Eden Lake (United Kingdom, 2008)
Director: James Watkins

Seemingly normal people, not possessed by any kind of demons or rabies etc. are often the most frightening antagonists in horror films. In this film we have teenage hooligans who have been so spoiled that they grow ever more blood-thirsty when they don't get what they want. A young couple (Michael Fassbender and Kelly Reilly) take off to a romantic weekend in the British countryside but run into these sorts of little beasts. Refusing to allow the obnoxious, loud ruffians to spoil their weekend, they resort to threats, which the teens respond ever more harshly. The teens start to dare each other to step over lines, which leads to real brutalities, while the adults respond the same way. Soon both sides have blood on their hands.

The film's subject is handled with some weightm, as the problem isn't solely with the youth, but in their parents' empty lifestyles and disinterest in their doings as well. In this world, the nice die first. The community doesn't care much for the weak and the wounded, but a dog's death brings great sorrow. The movie's violence is really sadistic, but it can also be really pressuring, not just disgusting. The film is also the first annual Night Visions Audience Award Winner.

House of the Devil (USA, 2009)
Director: Ti West

In the 80's, there was a wide-spred scare that Satanic cults thirsting on innocent blood may hide in any neighbourhood without a trace to the outside. Ti West's film works great as a tribute to both that era's panic-driven news items and the good old-fashioned horror films. College student Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) opts to become a babysitter to an odd family living in the middle of nowhere. She and her sassy friend Greta Gerwig (Megan) are no fools and the girls take off to the house together to avoid any psychopath shenanigans. Yet as it turns out, there is foul play going on and the girls are soon separated and scared.

Unlike many other nostalgic horror directors, West hasn't chosen the campiest and silliest aspects of the 70's and 80's to replicate. The setting, the music and clothing do bring back those times, but not in an in-you-face or over-the-top style. Instead, the film is a welcome return of the kind of horror films that play on having a disturbing mood to them and are constantly one-upping the feeling of paranoia shared by the main characters as well as the audience. The film is created with seemingly small resources, as you don't really need more than a small scratch or a moving shadow to scare the audience if it's played right. So good is the first part of the film that the ending is a clear let-down of panicky running around. It's not that bad per se, as the most obvious clichés are avoided, yet still feels too conventional for a movie that started this good. But as a whole, it is a really spine-tingling work that doesn't explain everything in it through and through.

Open Water (USA, 2003)
Director: Chris Kentis

This minimalistic horror film really divided the audiences. I happened to love it. A scuba-diving couple (Blanchard Ryan and Daniel Travis) are left in the middle of the ocean, when their boat has sailed off. So they just have to float around the ocean, figuring out what there is to do about their situation. And then the sharks come around. When they only need to survive the ordeal, they start to realize how little the daily woes in their rat race life actually matter.

I really like the kind of horror films where the situation is plausible, but you couldn't figure out how you would save yourself in the same situation. This whole scenario scares the living shit out of me, and knowing it's based on actual events makes it all the more horrible. There isn't a single special effect used on this film and its shows in unrelenting realism. Of course, this sort of film is pulled off by the actors and their characters and I must say that I could hope for a little more convincing performances from the main pair. But as a bickering married couple in a jam, blaming each other, they are believable enough. One cares about what's going to happen to them. The stylish ending doesn't spell it out for us viewers, altough there really was no escape at any point anyway.

The Others (USA(Spain/France/Italy 2001)
Director: Alejandro Amenábar



Grace Stewart (Nicole Kidman) lives with her two children, who are sensitive to light, in a large mantion. The Second World War is about to end and Grace is waiting for her husband to return home from the front. He has strict rules for her children, in fear that they hurt themselves by coming in contact with the sunlight. But it seems the house is also inhabitetd by malicious others, who attempt to break those rules, apparently to drive the family out.

The Others is easy to dismiss on these sorts of lists because the sort of filmmaking it represents was farmed to death in the early 2000s and seems like it has run  its course by now. But nevertheless it is a powerful piece of cinema that left an impression me on the only time I've seen it. It is spooky and its mysteriousness tingles the imagination.

Shadow of the Vampire (USA/UK/Luxembourg 2000)
Director: E. Elias Merhige

Horror films are often about other horror films. But rarely do they go as far into that field as here. This is seemingly a drama about the time F.W. Murnau (John Malkovich) shot his classic silent horror film Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des grauens (1922). Murnau is a true perfectionist, wanting to create the ultimate horror film. That's why he has hired Max Schreck (Willem Dafoe) in the lead role. Schreck is, after all, an actual vampire. The death and disappearance of multiple crew members doesn't worry Murnau at all, as long as he gets everything he wants on film. But what to do when Schreck sets his eyes on the lead actress when there is still a lot of film to be shot?

The film's plot is, of course, utter baloney, as Schreck was already an acclaimed stage actor when he was cast in Murnau's film in the real life. But that hardly matters. What matters is that it's plausible. Schreck's vampire is one of the most terrifying in the history of cinema, because it has been shot so it moves unnaturally. It doesn't matter that his make up looks ridiculous by today's standards. The film does a good job depicting the spiralling madness concerning ambitious cinema auteurs. Malkovich and Dafoe make a good lead pair, almost as much at each other's throats as Kinski and Herzog. The film is actually pretty light on actual horrors, but as a mind game, it is quite swell.

Slither (Canada/USA 2006)
Director: James Gunn

If horror films of the 70's and 80's are hard to emulate on the modern day, even harder are the B-movies of the 1950's. But even that wouldn't be difficult enough for director-screenwriter James Gunn. No, he emulates the kind of outrageous B-movie parodies they had in the 80's (as well as work from such horror maestros as Romero or Carpenter in the 70's and 80's). So the end result's a sort of double-parody. No wonder it tanked at the box office. But that was just the fault of the movie-going public, because Gunn's film is actually both extremely creepy and pretty darn funny.

A meteor hits the outskirts of a small American town. It contains parasitic worms that can take over people or turn them into gruesome monsters. Cool B-list actors such as Nathan Fillion and Elizabeth Banks try to salvage the town from the alien rampage and possible taking over the world. As one can witness from the film's awesome poster, there is a strong sexual sense in the penile aliens, and the R this movie got was well justified. But it works as well to parody the sex-hungriness and boozehoundiness of the American midlands. Of course, this doesn't reach the lofty qualities of Cronenberg's Shivers, which has been a major influence, but it is one of the best horror comedies of the last decade that too few people have actually seen.


Wolf Creek (Australia, 2005)

Director: Greg McLean

Horror genre also likes to play with stupid gimmicks time and time again. It's no wonder the Australian Greg McLean's stripped first feature film was hailed exceptionally good by horror experts around the globe. Seemingly, it's a really back-to-basics horror film. Three young backpackers go on a trip to a middle of nowhere. Their car has trouble. A friendly-seeming stranger offers them help and towes their car to his far-away ranch. You can see how it plays out. But, at the risk of SPOILING the film for those who haven't seen it, the real strength of the film is in the end. McLean refuses to play out to the genre's convictions any more. So whenever we think that a strong, pure heroine is emerging that will survive the whole ordeal, our hopes are shattered. The serial killer Mick Taylor (the wonderful John Jarratt) is so relentless, ruthless and merciless that he will use any chance to off them. People don't do moronic horror movie mistakes in this, they only come unprepared to what Taylor has in his bag. There isn't going to be a purifying catharsis in the end of this film and that's why it feels all the more harrowing.

McLean shoots everything in a matter-of fact way. He doesn't build a threatening athmosphere but rather gives out some magnificent postcard views of the Australian Outback. It doesn't seethe with evil, but all it needs is one apple rotten to the core that can hide very easily in the middle of nowhere.


Bubbling Under: The Devil's Rejects, Dog Soldiers, Hierro, The Human Centipede, Session 9

To Be Seen: Hard Candy, Hatchet, May, A Tale of Two Sisters, Them

Have a Happy Halloween and if you're coming to Night Visions, I'll see you there!

Night Visions Maximum Halloween 3010 report

After missing out on the most exciting biannual film festival in Finland last spring, I wanted to take part of this Halloween's Night Visions festival a little wider than usual. Unfortunately I had a job and a big party to keep me occupied, yet I managed to see quite a large number of festival films. As Night Visions has grown larger, also it's variety of different films has grown. It depends whether this is a good or a bad thing, as many festival goers didn't care too much to have mainstream films like Due Date in the festival lineup. Yet much of the stuff I saw was weird as ever so I won't complain that the festival has lost its cool just yet. In fact, I'm eagerly waiting for April when Back To Basics will blow my mind!

I'll leave a couple of films I saw to be discussed later on in different blogposts. There's too much to write about anyways.

Frank Henenlotter: Bad Biology

The festival had chosen interesting guests this time around. Frank Henenlotter is remembered for the cult classic Basket Case. All of his films I've seen deal with characters that have problems with some mutated part of their own body. His newest film, his first in 19 years doesn't break the trusted formula. Bad Biology is more twisted sex-comedy than body horror, but it's still pretty icky. It deals with two characters: First with a girl with seven clitorises and an hungry man-eating appetite. The second a young man who has trouble from his monstrous-sized penis which seems to have a mind of its own.

This bad-taste parade is shot pretty cheap and it shows. Yet it has a nice aura of just trying crazy ideas together and seeing what fits. The sexual subtext is left pretty thin but it's a fun ride nevertheless. Particularly with an eager festival audience with the author also present with amusing anecdotes.

★★★

Juha Rosma: HARMAGEDON (Suomi 1986)

Jussi Parviainen, Juha Rosma: Harmagedon

Perhaps the biggest highlight of this year's festival was the unforgettable Finlandia Gala of the nigh-forgotten finnish art-action film Harmagedon. Jussi Parviainen is a big name in the finnish theatre circles and he produced, wrote, directed and starred a series of plays in the 80's which starred his own alter ego, Juska Paarma. Harmagedon the film is the conclusion for this series, and it sure goes out with a bang.

Juska Paarma (who had been killed in the previous play) is resurrected to kill everyone he knows with a white shotgun. Thus after his own destruction he will destroy everything he held dear in the world as well. The world is seen in Paarma's point of view - women pine for having sex with him, men either fear him or love him as a hilarious drinking buddy. Even though the film is repetitive, the arty photography, often hilarious script and a cavalcade of 80's finnish actors holds the whole thing together. I particularly love Aake Kalliala.

Maybe even more incredible than the film were screenwriter-star-producer-uncredited director Parviainen's anecdotes before and after the film. After stories about killing a child as a five-year-old, an explosion at the prop factory, surviving the war in Afghanistan and hoping to meet Osama bin Laden, it's a night to remember.

★★★★

J Blakeson: The Disappearance of Alice Creed

This one managed to surprise me! The best crime-film in a while, it tells the story of two men excecuting a kidnapping. And like the best heist films, it makes you almost hope that the criminals get away with it, so well-planned is the crime, however despicable. The film is told with considerable patience, in that it doesn't give away all its cards in the beginning. The starting montage of the criminals silently preparing an apartment for their hostage is intriguing enough.

With a couple of suitable twists that don't feel forced, we get to find out that it actually deals with a power-play. Every one of the characters has some strengthness and weaknesses over the other two. Thus, the film never loses its drive and the viewer keeps on the edge of his seat until the end credits.

HERE BE SOME MINOR SPOILERS, although I try to articulate them as vaguely as possible.

One jackass complained about the ending being too uplifting after the film. I don't think so. A crime always leaves traces and thus no one walks away from the tangled triangual drama intact.

★★★★

Mark Hartley: Machete Maidens Unleashed!

Documentary-maker Hartley continues on the same path than his previous Not Quite Hollywood, this time focusing on B-movies made in the Philippines. I got dozens of MIWS from this, which was probably the intent. So in that, the film fulfills its function. It is always fun to see old clips, even brief ones, but the real meat is the wide array of interviews with fun anecdotes. Unfortunatelly, the focus of the film tends to stray from time to time. If I wanted to hear from the making of Apocalypse Now, I would've watched Hearts of Darkness instead. Also too much time is spent on describing Roger Corman's producing tactics. I would've wanted (nay, NEEDED) to hear more about Weng Weng, one of the greatest actors that ever lived.

★★★

Yannick Dahan, Benjamin Rocher: The Horde

The first dud of the festival. This french crime-film swiftly turns into a zombie film. Kudos for keeping it mostly serious but the problem here is that it's all been done better by oh, so many times. I couldn't care less about any of the characters even if they have been written tension among themselves. There are gleeful moments here and there (cocky cops on a bust get taken down at the first door, the gun-toting old fat neighbour), so that one watches this through without too much pain, but mostly it's just droll.

★★

Seiji Chiba: Alien vs. Ninja

I had a very troubling text message just before the screening of this film. So it tells about the quality of the movie that I was able to forget the threat of my loaned car being towed away, and just sit, watch this and have a good time. The start doesn't promise much. A shitty-looking film is shot with a digital camera at some forest with either wimpy-looking ninjas or annoying comic sidekicks (that ALSO are wimpy-looking) having boring battles.

But once tha Aliens arrive the fun begins. It's obvious that the creatures are copied from the Aliens of Ridley Scott and James Cameron. But with their slimy green rubber-suits and dolphin-like beaks they look kind of cute. Not to mention their tiny offspring. And at the same time the creatures are very blood-thirsty (not to mention thirsty for some boob-grabbing). So we soon get rid of the most annoying chracters and have a good amount of silly WTF-moments. It's a very stupid film, but unashamedly so. With the goofy humour, gratitious violence and interest in female anatomy it is a clear movie for a boy's night out. And there is certainly nothing wrong with that. The audience loved it judging by the applause.

★★★ 1/2

RED (c) 2010 Summit Entertainment, Di Bonaventura Pictures

Robert Schwentke: RED

RED is a big ensemble action movie, and thus must be compared to the recent The Expendables. RED is better. But it is by no means a perfect movie either.

Like The Expendables, your enjoyment of RED depends largely of how much you get a kick out of the actors on screen. And I for one love more old, crazy character actors than wrestlers and other muscle stars, even though I love 80's action films with all my heart. In addition to leading Bruce Willis, you'll get John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, Brian Cox, Morgan Freeman, and a couple of smaller parts I don't care to reveal yet, even though they are found on the cast list. And all these actors seem to have a genuinely good time - for once they get to shoot guns instead of doing boring drama. Except for Bruce who has a boring romantic subplot - that at least happens among all the action and not bizarrelly stopping it a'la The E-movie. Without the cast, or even with just Bruce, the film would be sort of a lacklustre spy thriller, even if it has a few truly kickass sequences (most of them are found in the trailer). But Malkovich and Cox in particular always bring a smile to my face, even with some lesser material.

One thing that really bugged me about this film was the use of music. It was way too generic and comedic and always too loud. I get that RED is supposed to be an action comedy, but the makers should take a page from the ZAZ filmmaking: Everything is much funnier when done with a straight face. Without the wink wink -attitude this could've been an even greater action film. But I still enjoyed it a lot.

★★★

Pasquale Festa Campanile: Hitch-Hike (Autostop rosso sangue)

Here is a just about perfect sleazy italian thriller to play at an all-nighter. About as sleazy as you can get Franco Nero plays a wife-beating sleazebag, who gets kidnapped by even bigger scum. There is no good, or even shades of grey. Everyone in the film is either bad or ugly or even badder and uglier (on the inside that is). The film quality is suitably dirty-looking for a film like this as well.

Like The Disappearence of Alice Creed, the story doesn't flow from start to finish like you would expect it. A couple of suitable twists take the story into all new layers. The film is about as nihilistic as can get, yet it isn't hard to watch as action and outrageous sequences follow each other. Even the notorious rape scene feels like a parody of the one in Straw Dogs. Yet you won't be walking from the film with a happy-go-lucky attitude, that's for sure.

★★★★

Frank Henenlotter: Brain Damage

And here we are back with Henenlotter. Brain Damage rivals Basket Case as his magnum opus. He told that he poured a lot of his own experiences with cocaine into this film. It sees a young man getting connected with euphoria-causing brain parasite, which seeks to kill a lot of other people. This is not a subtle film by any mens, but Henenlotter keeps adding up the shots nicely and keeps the pace comical enough but not turning into a huge farce at any point. Both the scenes with carnage and scenes of drug-euphoria are done extremely well. But it still feels a little padded and the acting is very bad indeed. Elmer the parasite is a likeable villain with a sweet voice and one wonders why he hasn't become a bigger pop-culture icon.

★★★ 1/2

Todd Phillips: Due Date

Who doesn't love a good road trip movie? Todd Phillips, the director of Road Trip, returns to the genre with a dream pairing of Robert Downey, Jr. and Zach Galifianakis. Both are considered some of the funniest actors in Hollywood today.

It is mostly thanks to its leading men that the viewer keeps up with the story. The crazy hijinks of the film are usually not particularly funny and sometimes outright annoying. Not to mention obvious at certain points. For instance, who among the audience doesn't get what is going to happen to a coffee jar full of a dead man's ashes the minute the topic is discussed? A couple of rewrites should've worked wonders. Particularly Galifianakis's character is close to being so utterly, life-threateningly moronic that it's nearly impossible to like him. The actor saves what he can, but is still not my favorite comic sidekick. Downey Jr.'s character's rage towards him is meant to show the character to have some anger issues, even though he's acting mostly pretty reasonable given the circumstances. Towards the end the hijinks get so crazy, this overplayed comedy works better.

Actually Due Date is one of those comedies like Knocked Up that's about the main character growing up and adapting to boring mediocre family life. At the beginning RDJ is shown to not get along with children and even though his methods of handling a problem child are hilarious, they are hardly good parental advices. But during the road-trip with a huge man-child he learns to suppress his anger towards simpler people and thus is allowed to enter the family life.

How sweet, but there are dozens of better road trip / buddy comedies. Here's waiting for The Hangover 2.

★★

Noboru Iguchi, Yoshihiro Nishimura, Tak Sakaguchi: The Mutant Girl Squad

I loved Tokyo Gore Police back in the day, but Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl bored me. The modern japanese gorefests have plenty of sick ideas, but they work in such a fast pace, it can get tiring. The idea behind Mutant Girl Squad is that three different directors have taken each a part of the same story to direct. It brings some new joy to the project, even if it is a bit hit-and-miss.

A teenaged girl finds out on her birthday that she's a half-mutant. Her mutant parents get killed so she joins a secret society of mutants to take revenge on humans. This much I understood about the plot. It may be getting tired, but I was lost after the first part. The second part is the most boring and confusing one, but at least the best ideas are saved to the end. So we get to see an adrogyn Astro Boy-copying mutant, a girl who has a chain saw coming out of her ass and a girl who has katanas coming out of her tits. It's extremely bad taste, but it's the sort of film where you can't help but love the never-ending madness that's put to the screen uncompromisingly. I had fun with this one in the end.

★★★

Yun Je-gyun: Haeundae: The Deadly Tsunami

Yet it didn't get any better from there. One of my happiest Night Visions -memories was the screening of the bonkers chinese catastrophy film Super Typhoon a year ago. The ultimate film for preaching trust in the authorities was a suitable send-off. The Korean catastrophy film is a lot more boring one. Bad South-Korean films are usually packed with both horrible comedic bits and overdone melodrama. One should've guessed this would be too. Laughs were few and the film follows the basic Roland Emmerich plot too closely without doing this so over-the-top that one would have fun. Okay, one dog gets kicked and some people electrocuted. But I digress, I slept through most of this shit.

★

Ken Wiederhorn: King Frat

I had to question my sanity of paying money to see the final film, which is more than usual in Night Visions. A bad, bad, BAD Animal House rip-off is so tasteless, I wondered why more people weren't vomiting on the floors. King Frat barely has any plot at all, more than the hijinks of the most awful fraternity on campus. Seriously, these people make the Animal House boys look like Christian role models. Most of the humour is based on farts, boogers, burping and various other body fluids. One particularly idiotic scene sees a beautiful blonde accidentally starting to have sex with a guy in a gorilla suit in an ambulance (dont ask, I didn't understand it either) and then getting miraculously stuck. The scenes end suddenly and flowing in an order which makes me question the sanity of even the editor of this thing.

The theme is an odd ear-worm with a sweet lady-voice singing too fast about all the Fratboy hijinks for me to catch the lyrics. The theme has been playing in my head ever since, partly because not 5 minutes pass in the film without the fucking song. So all in all, it wasn't even so bad it was funny. It was so bad it made me and everyone else in the theatre feel very uneasy. That may be why it was certainly worth a view.

★