SNUFF

Snuff Movie Review

There's an interesting story or two to this movie--not IN the movie, which is a train wreck, but more in the making of this film...or films, if you will. In 1971, married couple Michael and Roberta Findlay made a movie titled The Slaughter. This movie was basically a retelling of the Charles Manson Family's slaying of Sharon Tate, but shot in Argentina with a bunch of actors who couldn't speak English, so the movie was shot without sound and the voices dubbed...poorly...in post. The movie was (rightfully) shelved for four years. Producer Alan Shackleton, having caught wind of the urban legend of the existence of snuff films (a movie where an actual murder is committed specifically for the movie), took the 1971 film, added 10 minutes to the end of it, and renamed it Snuff. This story doesn't end there, however. Shackleton had the movie shown in a theatre in Times Square in Manhattan, hired a bunch of fake protesters to trump up excitement and controversy over the film, and made about $100,000 a week for the three weeks the movie played there.

"You with me so far?"

So the question has to be asked: was there ever any real reason to be concerned with this movie? The answer is a very hard no. After sitting through The Slaughter, itself holding little merit besides having that awesome early 1970's grindhouse look to it, we get the final 10 minutes, which is what was added on years later. In this scene, we see a movie crew, implying everything we just watched was, in fact, a movie, and all fake. We then see the crew attack and kill one of the actresses. It is this part of the film that is the alleged "snuff" portion, but it is so clearly fake I can't imagine anybody--straight, high, drunk, or otherwise--ever mistaking this for being a real murder. The special effects used in this part of the film are arguably worse than in the rest of the movie, and believe me when I tell you that's saying something. I credit Alan Shackleton for the success of his publicity stunt, but as movies go, there is really nothing to see here.

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 3

Snuff Movie Trailer

DEMON WIND

Demon Wind Movie Review

Cory (Eric Larson) gathers up some friends to visit a farm he has inherited. Once there, they find a mysterious building, demons, dense fog, witchcraft, and some other bits of weirdness, It seems as though the creators of this 1990 movie just thought about a bunch of stuff they had seen in other horror flicks and decided to throw all of it into the same film to see what will stick. Aside from everything I have already mentioned, we also have really cheesy early-90's special effects. We have the gratuitous nudity scene. We have the flashbacks. We have not one, but two magicians, and one is even some sort of karate man. We have the "it was all a dream" bait and switch. There's a creepy kid. There's a creepy doll. We even have the old guy at the gas station who knows everything, warns the youngsters not to continue to their destination, but they ignore him and press on anyway. Honestly, I could go on all day. For as hard as they try with all of this, none of it really works (though there is a part of me that always delights in seeing the special effects from this era).

Awesome!

The gore is minimal, the demons pretty much all look the same, and the demon voices...oh God, the demon voices! If you can pull off a good demon voice naturally (which I can--it's one of my few worthless talents), it makes for a good addition to a horror movie. When you take somebody doing a poor demon voice, then further mess it up by distorting it, it can sound awful, and for the life of me, I can't think of a movie I have ever seen that had worse demon voices than this one. The voices are so garbled at times you really can't make out what the character is saying. There's nothing interesting at all pushing the story along, the acting is abysmal, the action is boring, and the comedic elements are not even mildly amusing. Near the end of the movie, one of the characters cries out "Is it over? Is it really over?" and I responded out loud "I hope so!"

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 3

Demon Wind Movie Trailer

ORGY OF THE DEAD

Orgy of the Dead Movie Review

A couple (Pat Barrington, in her final film role, and William Bates) find themselves in a graveyard where, one by one, several topless undead chicks dance for The Amazing Criswell and a dollar store Vampira (Fawn Silver). Bargain bin Wolf Man and The Mummy capture the couple and punish them by tying them up and making them watch the rest of the dancing. That’s it—that’s the entire story in this nudie cutie flick, but man, is there ever really so much more to it! The “story”, as it were, was written by Ed Wood of Plan 9 from Outer Space infamy—this alone makes it worth checking out! The dialogue is obscenely awful, but tragically limited, as at least 90 percent of the movie is the women dancing to largely dreadful music with occasional reaction shots from Criswell, Silver, the couple, and the moronic Wolf Man and Mummy, who are here for comic relief—naturally, their funniest moments are very unintentional. Sadly, Wood didn’t direct this gem—that job fell on Stephen C. Apostolof, who certainly made Wood proud with the cheap set, questionable shots, and especially the driving sequence, which switches from day to night frequently. The acting is...well, there’s not a lot of it, but Criswell is probably the best of the bunch, which speaks volumes to the ineptness of the rest.

"I predict he's about to make fun of you more"

Bates is so bad he’s outstanding, and Silver is just bad. Barrington pulls double duty, also appearing as one of the dancers (see if you can pick her out). Speaking of the dancers, they may be the most interesting element to this movie, and no, it’s not for the reasons you’re thinking. Each dancer has their own individual story, which is what their costume and dance are based on, so that is actually fairly cool. Let’s be honest—speaking strictly on a technical level, Orgy of the Dead is a horrendous movie; however, if you are into movies that are so bad they're good, you will love this one. I had a blast watching it, and really, isn’t that why we watch movies in the first place?

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 7

Orgy of the Dead Movie Trailer (Warning: This does contain nudity)

FALL BREAK (aka The Mutilator)

Fall Break Movie Review

Ed (Jack Chatham) goes a little mad after his wife is accidentally shot and killed by their child. Years later, Ed, who apparently delights in killing anything breathing, stalks his son and his son’s friends. This is a rather run-of-the-mill 1980’s slasher flick that focuses more on the methods of murder than any sort of story or character development--not that you expect a lot of character development from a slasher film, but you usually get at least some of it. Unfortunately, there’s not a ton of gore to make up for it either, though the end is a bit bloody. The acting is beyond rough here, especially from Morey Lampley as Mike—1980's horror featured a lot of really bad actors, and Lampley may be the worst of them all.

"How dare you!"

Lampley's performance when Mike meets his inevitable fate is so bad you have to see it to believe it--picture Amilyn's death in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the movie, for those of you sadly not aware there was a movie before the television show) but remove the intentional hilarity of it.  There is an unusual amount of comedy in this movie, including slapstick, that seems way out of place but certainly falls under the category of “I didn’t see that coming”...so there’s that. The song at the beginning and end of the movie (and possibly in the middle. I don’t know. It seemed to always be playing, but that could be because it was stuck in my head for hours after I first heard it) is kind of like the movie itself—a bit of a mess and not something you would seek out, but also not something you completely turn away from.

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 5

Fall Break Movie Trailer

247°F

247°F Movie Review

Three friends are battling extreme temperatures as they fight off exhaustion, dehydration, and possible heat strokes. No, they're not hanging out at Orlando's Magic Kingdom Park in August--they're trapped in a sauna. This 2011 movie, incredibly based on a true story, is fairly light on the scares but it doesn't lack intensity. As somebody who lives in an apartment that feels like an igloo (my girlfriend's decision, not mine), the thought of being in a sauna sounds nice--only, you know, not with the three people in the movie.

These three people, to be exact

Horror fans will certainly recognize two of those people: Scout Taylor-Compton of Halloween fame, and Travis Van Winkle, who you know as Trent from the 2009 Friday the 13th remake--I hate that character so much that as soon as I saw Ian, the character Van Winkle play in this movie, I hated him too. Even though Ian never approaches the jerk level of Trent, I still couldn't see Van Winkle as anybody but Trent, and hated him all throughout this movie as a result. I like to think maybe Van Winkle is a really nice dude in real life, and his portrayal of Trent was a wonderful job of acting, but until this is proven to be the case, I will despise him...anyway, back on track. Tyler Mane appears here as well, and seeing he and Taylor-Compton as friends in this movie after seeing them as Michael Myers and Laurie Strode in the Rob Zombie remakes of Halloween reached the far away part of my mind that was similarly weirded-out when Hacksaw Jim Duggan and his mortal enemy The Iron Sheik were busted for drugs while travelling together back in the day.

Say it ain't so!

The acting is fine in this movie, as there's nothing that really stands out as being great or awful. The situation the three characters are in may give you a feeling of claustrophobia, but honestly, with such a small setting, there wasn't a lot more they could do as far as bringing the terror. Still, there's something oddly likable about this movie, and I enjoyed watching it. It felt like a really drawn out Final Destination death or Saw trap, and would have likely fared better as part of an anthology, but as a movie, it was a little better than I expected it to be.

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 6

247°F Movie Trailer

THE GREEN INFERNO

The Green Inferno Movie Review

Eli Roth (Hostel) returns to remind Americans they should never leave their own country. In this one, a group of college students head to Peru to stop a company from bulldozing a part of the Amazon rainforest. What's so special about this particular part of the Amazon? It houses a cannibalistic tribe that has had no contact with the outside world. I'm sure you can gather from my brief description where this story is heading.

"Cannibals?!"

Shot in 2013 but not released until 2015, this relatively low budget film (about five million dollars) flew a bit under the radar, but did get a limited theatrical release. It fared well at the box office, turning a profit, but also faced some backlash regarding the depiction of villagers--I'm not touching that one.

I'm not going to risk making this guy mad

We get pretty much what we expect from Roth--lots of blood and gore, a very slow start before finally getting what we came for, and comedic elements that are way out of place. We'll start with that--at one point, the Americans come up with a plan to get the villagers high, allowing them to escape. Keeping in mind the villagers are cannibals, we immediately see the payoff of this gag.

The entire sequence is absurd, and it takes the viewer further out of the movie. The aforementioned slow build will test your patience a bit, but nothing on the level of the Hostel films. Unfortunately, not a lot is done with the characters in that time--we have a predictably despicable leader of the mission, his predictably mean girlfriend, our survivor girl, and the rest, who are there primarily to add to the body count (not that that's a bad thing). Our lead woman in this one is Lorenza Izzo (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), who, after a bit of a shaky start, does a good job making you care about her character, Justine--she will likely be the only one you care about though. Once it starts, the gore and bloodshed will keep you into this movie as well, even if much of it is a step down from what Roth has brought us before. If you have ever seen Cannibal Holocaust or other similar cannibal villagers movie from the 1970's/early 1980's, you will recognize this movie's nod to them almost immediately...while not a fantastic movie, The Green Inferno is at least more enjoyable than its primary inspiration.

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 5

The Green Inferno Movie Trailer

DEMONIC TOYS 2: PERSONAL DEMONS

Demonic Toys 2 Movie Review

Collectors of toys and oddities and...other people...are stalked by demonic toys in an Italian castle. Coming a full 18 years after the original Demonic Toys, this film, which also crosses over with the movie Hideous!, is a sequel nobody in the world asked for, yet here we are. This Full Moon feature sort of picks up where the original film left off, with a couple of the original toys being restored to their original awfulness--this word actually works well in describing this entire movie. From the acting to the voices of the toys (one of whom is Jane Wiedlin from the Go-Go's) to the special effects to the story itself to the attempts at comedy to the dialogue to the directing to the editing, everything is just wrapped up with awfulness, and not much of it is even remotely entertaining.

I think she's trying to escape the movie

Near the end, we see the toys destroyed, and let us all pray they are never brought back (another installment is teased, but Full Moon has had mercy on us...so far). Unless you are trying to watch every movie Full Moon has ever created, there's really no reason to watch Demonic Toys 2.

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 4

Demonic Toys 2 Movie Trailer