LEATHERFACE (2017)

  Just like with Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN remake the brilliant idea here is to delve into the origin story of a movie villain that doesn't need a backstory. By 2017 there had already been 4 sequels to the original film(with really only Part 2 being entertaining and Part 3 already using the title of LEATHERFACE!), a terrible remake and then a prequel to the terrible remake so I guess a prequel to the original film would be just the perfect thing to add to the confusion of this series timeline. I'm not exactly sure how you make a movie that has bloody chainsaw killings, necrophilia, a good bit of blood and gore with a group of mental patients on a kill-crazy rampage so boring but they somehow managed to do exactly that. It's probably due to the fact that I never really cared about anyone in this film or what was going to happen to them. Our main character, besides young Leatherface(who they try and fool you with who exactly he is), is so non-descript that it was hard to sympathize even when she was in peril and that's the problem with every other character too. Now I'm stuck with the knowledge that Lili Taylor is Leatherface's mum and that just don't seem right. 

DEVIL STORY (1986)

                                                    "Fuck the mummy!" 

 This is one of the wackier movies I've seen in a while. What we got here is a French horror flick that starts off like it's going to be a slasher gorefest(something along the lines of OGROFF also from France) featuring a mutant Nazi killer before it then turns into a fever-dream involving a possessed horse, a mummy(complete with bride), a black cat(that gets tossed around in various scenes) and an old murderous hag. Director Bernard Launois seems fairly incompetent with his repeated act of cutting to the same scenes over and over again but somehow he did manage to make 6 previous films before this one so I guess someone believed in him. Obviously this is for real hardcore aficionados of low-brow trash cinema only. 

CHAINSAW SALLY (2004)

 The only reason I bothered watching this was to see Leatherface himself(Gunnar Hansen) and The Godfather of Gore(Hershell Gordon Lewis). They both only show up briefly but Gunnar gets to swing a chainsaw around poorly so I guess that's something to see. You can also see a bunch of pointless gore scenes including a gal getting acid funneled down her throat until her insides spill out of her asshole into a bucket. Just brilliant! Somehow there were multiple sequels to this in the form of 2 shot-on-video series and one episode of an animated series so apparently gorehound weirdos must have been thrilled by this one.

 

HATCHET (2006)

                                                          "Your nipples are dumb!"

  Kane Hodder plays a very Jason-like killer in this attempt to emulate 80s slasher flicks in the 2000s. This is about as basic as any of these movies gets and feels like a real waste of time when it's all over and done. You do get some very gory death scenes(at least in the uncut version I watched) that I think are mostly done without CGI but I'm not sure I cared much about anybody in the whole movie. Somehow this was popular enough at the time to warrant 3 sequels. I guess when you compare it to other horror flicks from this decade it's not any better or worse than most of them. 

 Robert England has a small role before getting offed. 

                                                     The retro-looking poster!:

STAGEFRIGHT: AQUARIUS (1987)

 One of my favorite dumb Italian slasher movies! By this point in Italian cinema they had, for the most part, given up on making good giallos and went for ripping off their dumber American counterparts, the slasher film(which of course were themsleves just more stripped-down versions of giallos(which were souped-up iterations of Hitchcock mysterious(oh, it's all just one big circle of influences!!))). Here we get a lunatic wearing a big ol' owlhead mask weilding various instruments of destruction including knives, a drill, a needle and a chainsaw that he employs on a group of very stupid actors and anyone else in his way. It's about as dumb as they come but if you like laughing at stupid actors meeting gory deaths check it out. AKA SOUND STAGE MASSACRE

Known in France as BLOODY BIRD which is the perfect title for this.

 

                         Known in many places as just AQUARIUS: 

ROBOT NINJA (1989)

 I had pretty low expectations going into this superhero movie but was pleasantly surprised by director J.R. Bookwalter's dumb but super gory tale of a horror-obsessed comic-book artist/nerd who kinda/sorta gets to live out his fantasy of fighting crime. You can certainly tell that this was directed by the guy responsible for THE DEAD NEXT DOOR since some zombies show up in a dream sequence, limbs get chopped off, eyes are gouged out, wounds gape open, rape occurs and blood flows copiously in one of the grossest superhero movies I've ever witnessed. Bookwalter himself claims that this is his worst film but I think I personally dig it more than his more well-known debut film. Robin from the 60s BATMAN TV-show(Burt Ward) and scream queen Linnea Quigley show up to add to the schlocky goofy feeling of it all. You mileage may vary depending on your tolerance for cheesy violence.

 

TOWER OF EVIL (1972)

  Pretty gory for a British film of this era, this film deals with 2 groups of people who end up an an island, with a tower on it and some caves under it, who end getting murdered one by one. Also lots of nudity and some disfigured monstrous killers. Pretty basic stuff if you've seen any slasher movie but hey this was 1972 and we weren't drowning in those type of films just yet. 

 Retitled and rereleased as BEYOND THE FOG in 1980 after John Carpenter's THE FOG came out to fool people into thinking it was a sequel. AKA HORROR ON SNAPE ISLAND

Known in Mexico as THE TOWER OF HORROR!:

Groovy 70s triple feature with that movie where a mummy tells you sex stories and that BONNIE AND CLYDE on motorcycles flick!:

SLEEPLESS (2001)

  I had thought that I had seen this Dario Argento movie before but I guess not since it all seemed new to me. Not bad for a bloody 2000's giallo by Argento. Definitely better than his previous film that crappy PHANTOM OF THE OPERA interpretation and more reminiscent of his earlier best stuff. You get the expected gore including a gruesome death by a musical instrument, fingers chopped off, a head rolls and lots of stabbings occur.  A hunchbacked dwarf is our main suspected killer, nursery rhymes become a major plot point and somehow Max Von Sydow agreed to be in this! While there seem to be a few plotholes(who exactly called the police at the end?) it's still an entertaining one if you're seen all of Dario's classics already. 

       Super generic trailer because it's the 2000s and everyone has lost all their creativity!:

 

Released in Italy as NONHOSONNO which sounds very Japanese to me but I'm no linguist!:

ALIEN FROM THE DEEP (1989)

  1989 was not exactly the best year for Italian horror(or sci-fi) films and this one really doesn't stand out all that much besides featuring a really bizarre giant monster that consists of a giant claw attached to what might be an alien in a space suit? It's kinda hard to decipher exactly what the creature actually is. In addition to that you get Charles Napier of RAMBO-fame as the main bad guy, quite a bit of gore and an homage to the final scene of ALIENS.  AKA ALIEN FROM THE ABYSS 

ENTRAILS OF A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN (1986)

 I had seen the first movie in this series, ENTRAILS OF A VIRGIN, a while back and recall it being alright. This follow up, which is not really a sequel, ramps things up in the absurdity category. It all starts out like a Yakuza film(a very rape-filled Yakuza film!) before unexpectedly(unless you had seen the first movie) morphing into a monster movie. I guess you could technically call this a rape/revenge flick but it's certainly not your standard example of that subgenre. You get a melty, gooey creature that kinda reminded me of The Toxic Avenger but only if ol' Toxie had a giant monster penis that resembles the Alien baby from ALIEN. A good one for lovers of weirdo Japanese gore flicks if they can manage to make it through the first half. AKA GUTS OF A VIRGIN 2 and GUTS OF A BEAUTY

Our poor rape victim commits suicide(but luckily turns into a watermelon before hitting the ground):

HUMAN PORK CHOP (2001)

  This Hong Kong category III flick is a real downbeat depressing tale of a prostitute(Emily Kwan) who steals from her pimp and then is kidnapped, tortured and made to endure some assorted horrible treatment.  There's shit-eating, human stew, a cute little puppy stuffed in a bag and smashed against a wall, total bodily dismemberment and other various brutalities along the way. Sadly based on a true story(The Hello Kitty Murders which also was the inspiration the same year's THERE'S A SECRET IN MY SOUP). I debated whether I even wanted to watch this after reading a synopsis. I will give the film credit though as being one of the few category III's to not include stupid humour bits to break up the horrific aspects of the story. While you might expect something along the lines of BUNMAN, THE UNTOLD STORY(AKA HUMAN PORK BUNS) this is closer to torture porn and might be even a bit bleaker than that downer classic. I still find it amazing that this came out in 2001 but a lot of Asian cinema is certainly not anything like the p.c. crap we've been forced to endure here in the western world for the last 25 years.

INSIDE (2007)

  One of the better examples from the wave of gross French horror films that came out of the early 2000s. This one deals with a very determined lady who just really wants to be a mom and is not above mass murder to accomplish this. It's also a story of revenge but it's hard to get into all of that without spoiling everything. Lots of scissor violence, babies in peril, gun-fu and even knitting-needle-fu that gets the blood flowing copiously. There is a ridiculousness to things though when our killer starts acting like some kind of ninja halfway through the movie and our main victim takes enough punishment to have killed her 20 times and keeps getting up for more punishment but if you can suspend your disbelief enough it's a wild ride. It's too bad these films seem to have stopped being produced(or at least being brought over to America so I can see them) about 15 years ago or so. It was a decent run while it lasted. MARTYRS is still the top(and most extreme) one in my book but if you can handle the gore quotient give this one a look also.

 There was a 2016 English-language remake of this which is apparently a watered-down version of the original and seems especially pointless.

YAKUZA LAW (1969)

  I caught this one recently, right after watching director Teruo Ishii's other insane masterpiece HORRORS OF MALFORMED MEN, and the one-two punch of both of these violent epics has made him my new favorite Japanese director of the moment. This movie starts out with all sorts of bloody torture and assassination scenes portraying various ways Japanese mobsters deal with those they perceive as going against the rules of the Yakuza. It's also an anthology movie told in 3 chapters that spans a large amount of time taking us up to the present day(of 1969 anyway). I know a few American movies were starting to display the ol' ultra-violence but this film takes it to almost-HG Lewis-levels of extremeness. Definitely a good one for fans of violent cinema with a strong stomach for eyeball-gouging, limb-chopping and other various acts of gruesomeness.  

  

                                      Just a small taste of the gore buffet!:

BRIDE OF RE-ANIMATOR (1990)

  Completely unnecessary sequel to the 85 horror classic. Seems to exist just to show off the special FX work of Screaming Mad George, Greg Nicotero, John Carl Beuchler and a whole bunch of other really top-notch folks so I can't take anything away from the film in that department. As far as the plot goes they just kinda redo the first movie with BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN mixed-in so not the most ground-breaking  movie you could hope for. It didn't help that I viewed this movie at a drive-in while some fog rolled in to obscure whatever visuals there were to enjoy so maybe if you watch it at home you'll get more out of it.

  Unfortunately there was another sequel with 2003's BEYOND RE-ANIMATOR.

                                    Known in some countries as RE-ANIMATOR II:

EMANUELLE AND THE LAST CANNIBALS (1977)

  The idea of mixing a softcore sex flick with a cannibal movie is an insane one, so of course Eurotrash legend Joe D'Amato gave it a shot with this and because it's so nuts it's one of my favorites in the "Black Emanuelle" series. It starts out more in the softcore porn vein and then once we leave classic sleazy 70s New York City for the Amazon it delves headlong into more traditional cannibal movie territory. Nipples and vaginas get cut off or open, heads roll and intestines get ripped out and munched on. No skimping on the sex or gore here so it's hard to say anything bad about this unless that's not what you are looking for. 

The lovely Laura Gemser returns, DR BUTCHER himself, Donald O' Brien, shows up and multiple cannibals have a gut-chomping freakout of a time! Classic 70s sleaze!  

Released on video as TRAP THEM AND KILL THEM.

This is either the 10th or 11th movie in the "Black Emanuelle" series following EMANUELLE AROUND THE WORLD and right before EMANUELLE AND THE PORNO NIGHTS. For a more complete list click here.

IGOR AND THE LUNATICS (1985)

  Well this one starts out with a bang as a lady gets sawed in half by a big buzzsaw like in a stupid cartoon. From there we go into Manson territory with the ol' cult leader and his psycho followers get revenge on "the Man" plot. It's supposed to start out back in the 60s but they must have not bothered to tell anyone since just about everyone looks almost exactly the same 16 years later, I will give this a little credit for not skimping on the blood and gore even if the story doesn't always seem to be very coherent. There's also a nonsensical ending featuring the annoying guffawing Igor(spelled Ygor for some reason) character that seems to have been hobbled together with extra footage that was lying around. Good for 80s gorehounds and that's about it. 

            This snazzy Troma VHS cover makes it look like some kinda Eurotrash action flick!:

THE SAVAGE ISLAND (1980)

  Probably best known as ANTHROPOPHAGUS(but I first saw it as THE GRIM REAPER back in the VHS days, sadly that's the most edited version missing the 2 big shock bits) this is the gory tale of a sorta zombie-like cannibalistic monster running around a Greek island slashing up and chomping down on a group of folks including Mia Farrow's little sister Tisa. George Eastman plays the maniacal creature, and at 6'9" is the perfect imposing figure for such a role. There are a few lulls in the action after the meat-cleaver-to-the-head opening but it more than makes up for that with all the absurdly gory scenes to follow. There's fetus-munching, scalping, neck biting, a severed head in a bucket and plenty of stabbings to go around. It's all topped off when our seemingly decomposing villian gets his guts spilled and decides he's gonna chow down on them. Definitely an all-time video-nasty classic memory! AKA THE ZOMBIE'S RAGE and known in England as THE BEAST.

Known in Germany as MAN-EATER!:

Known in Spain as GOMIA, TERROR IN THE AEGEAN SEA!:

GERMAN ANGST (2015)

  The only reason I watched this artsy-fartsy gore movie is that director Jorg Buttgereit, of NEKROMANTIK fame, was responsible for the first(and probably my favorite) episode in this anthology film. I can't say it was the best thing I've ever seen but it certainly does deliver on the brutality and gore quotient. Deliberately plotless tale of a young gal who castrates and decapitates her tied-up abusive dad. The fact that we don't actually see any of this abuse, and just the torture and death, makes it pretty clear that the constant narration about her pet guinea pig are very apropos. The 2nd chapter is an equally blood-filled story about a couple who are accosted by some toughs and get some help from a magical amulet. This one has some crazy gore-filled Nazi flashbacks and almost non-stop ultra violence. The 3rd part deals with a sex-club with a secret sexy monster-lady or something like that. This one was my least favorite and seemed to drag on. Overall I guess this is worth a look if you just wanna see some gruesome imagery with not a lot of plot to get in the way. 

FACELESS (1987)

  Jess Franco basically rehashes his AWFUL DR. ORLOFF plot here once again. He even gets Howard Vernon to play a character named Doctor Orloff. In addition to the standard searching-for-a-new-face-for-my-disfigured-love storyline this one throws in a bunch of ultra-gory scenes of driller killing, acid-melting faces, scissors in throats, needles in eyeballs and of course faces being peeled right off of living patients. There's also a decent budget and some bigger-named stars than usual for one of these Eurotrash horror flicks including Telly Savalas and Caroline Munro who don't really do much but appear in a few scenes. Helmut Berger is our main evil doctor and Christopher Mitchum gets the heroic detective role. 

 One of the weirdest decisions in this movie is to not bother dubbing the final line, uttered by Telly Savalas, which is integral to the conclusion of the whole plot! I assume this isn't a problem outside of the English version. 

               Known in France, and a few other places, as PREDATORS OF THE NIGHT:

BLOODSUCKING FREAKS (1976)

  I first saw this grimy, gruesome New York City sleazefest when I was around 12 or 13 years old back in the VHS days. It was a pretty scarring experience that left an indelible impression on my young mind. This film exists in a 70s porn-aesthetic world of gruesome misogynistic horror. At the time I thought the inclusion of jokes while horrific scenes involving brain-drilling, decapitations, eyeball-chomping cannibalism and all kinds of various tortures were going on only served to make things even more off-putting. Watching now, as an adult, there's obviously a great deal of black humour and I find the whole thing to be a riot. Director Joel M. Reed takes the basic outline of H.G. Lewis' classic THE WIZARD OF GORE and injects so much debauchery that he created a 42nd Street classic of his own. Unfortunately Reed would never reach these disgusting heights again and would follow this with only one crappy zombie movie  5 years later. Midget star Louie DeJesus, whose Ralphus character is the standout performance here, would go on to appear in a bunch of porn films. 

 This was originally titled THE INCREDIBLE TORTURE SHOW and wasn't given the FREAKS moniker until it was re-released in the 80s. Othjer AKA's include SARDU, MASTER OF THE SCREAMING VIRGINS and THE HERITAGE OF CALIGULA: AN ORGY OF SICK MINDS(video title)

 There are some alternate scenes involving Sardu & Ralphus in some homosexual antics that are included on the blu-ray release. 

"We dare you to keep your eyes open!":