Hellraiser IV: Bloodline (1996)

Disowned by the director because of the production company's decision to re-cut HellraiserIV: Bloodline, this is still a very underrated part of Clive Barker's macabre saga about the Lament Box and the demons called Cenobites. It has very interesting ideas, a bit more violent than part 3 and a bigger scale where they try to explain a bit more about the origin of the box and what it can make to curious people.

It's hard to deny it's a bit of a mess, and I'm pretty sure we can blame this on the production company who effectively destroyed the original vision of director Kevin Yagher and writer Peter Atkins. They actually tried to do something new and fresh, but someone high up wanted Pinhead in earlier in the movie and decided to fuck up the whole movie when Yagher left and refused to participate in the demanded changes. Good for him, maybe not so good for us - even if his workprint is available in terrible quality on bootlegs and downloading it's of course not the way it was meant to be seen.

But in all honest, the result is quite decent anyway. It could have been a lot worse! What doesn't work is the order of the scenes, which no makes the story fractured and confusing and it takes a few times watching it to fully appreciate the storyline and ideas both those written by Atkins and visually told by Yagher. The best part of the film is the origin story, where get to know the toy maker Le Merchant and how he built the box to a rich, decadent occultist who wants it to invoke a demon - and we all know who's that gonna be in the end? Well, not Pinhead at first, but a beautiful female demon who then we follow through the years until modern time. Everything is told from yet another ancestor in the future, sitting on his mysterious space station trying to once again invoke Pinhead.

Everything is very well made, gory and interesting. The middle part - focusing on the time "now" is good and has some interesting ideas, but feels a bit flat compared to the past and future. The actors is very good though, especially Kim Myers as the wife of one of Le Merchant's ancestors, all played by Bruce Ramsay by the way.

So if the script is a mess, Hellraiser Bloodline at least delivers some spectacular gore and splatter and some surprisingly fine visual effects (not all of course, for example the computer animated hands solving a computer animated box during the beginning of the movie). The highlight is a nice decapitation and a fun sequence where two heads is twisted into each other.  It's not a bad movie, but could have been a sensational sequel - maybe the best sequel of the bunch. But no, that didn't happen - but give it a try anyway. It's worth it!

Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992)

I've been a lifelong fan of all things Hellraiser - but ironically I never read the story it's based on from the beginning. I think it's too late now anyway, I'm more of a non-fiction reader and most of my time is focused on movies and music. Hellraiser 2 is by far the best in the series, but I've always had a very soft spot for Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth. It's the first sign of the franchise going a more goofy and silly route (not as silly as many others, and it always kept some kind of seriousness) and in this movie it means some outrageous technological Cenobites and an unhealthy dose of crappy nineties fashion and music.

The young owner of The Boiler Room, a hip night club for goth kids, needs something new to spend his money on and gets a strange pillar for a couple of bucks. It's of course a cursed pillar, including the Pinhead-demon - who just wants out to raise a little hell again....

Originally it was meant for writer Peter Atkins to direct, but the company thought he had to little experience as a director and asked genre veteran and cult favourite Anthony Hickox to take over the wheel instead. It's impossible to say what could have happen with Atkins doing the directing but I think Hickox, with his usual flair did a pretty good job with a silly script. Maybe he made it more silly with his directing, I have no idea, but the man is a visual genius and always packs his productions with creative camera solutions and colourful characters - so even here. He likes his slow-motion or prankster-style attitude when it comes to on-camera gags and gore (even if it could have been even gorier...).

So even if the style and story is quite far away from what happen in the first and part 2, it still hangs together very good with the mythology - and gives us a clue to what will happen in the very uneven, but also underrated, part 4 (who became an Allan Smithee-movie after the production company took the movie away from its director). I actually like how the story departs from the usual Hellraiser-gloom and dives right into neon-lights and pseudo-goth kids dancing. It's like the filmmakers trying to spoof the fans a little bit, poke fun at the darkness and sadomasochistic themes - just like they did with the fun Hellraiser: Hellworld many years later.

And yes, regarding the CD-cenobite. I need to quote David Zuzelo in his review of Hellraiser: Revelations: "Dear Clive Barker. You signed off on CD FACE, how the hell can you not sign off on this? The checks are probably smaller, but the reputation doesn't shrink any further in my opinion". Yeah, this was regarding Clive Barker's hate of the Revelations-movie, when he's one of the men (aka producers) behind the silliest Cenobite of them all! Money talks. I kinda like the Cenobites in this film It's nice to see some new faces, so to speak, and these aren't bad - even if they seem to make things explode rather than torture people with chains and hooks that much. But they're nasty bitches and that's what we like, I guess.

Hellraiser III isn't exactly a heavy-weight sequel, but it's never boring and delivers some interesting ideas, some gore, some nudity and a nice change of location. Instead of British social realism and ugly mental patients we get young, hot men and women getting torn to pieces. I like that. It feels good. 

Chaw (2009)

There's South Korean masterpieces like Oldboy, I Saw the Devil, Thirst, Mother and Memories of Murder (one of the best films EVER made according to me). Then we have those that never go that far, but lives their own little lives on DVD-shelves the world over. The crazy, trashy, stupid and very entertaining Dragon Wars is one of them. But now we're gonna talk about a really forgotten film, Chaw - who in the US got the ridiculous title CHAWZ. Every distributor in the world wanted creature features from South Korea after The Host, but it kinda never happen. Chaw came and disappeared, which is a damn pity! Why? 'Cause it's a fine mix between monster film and black comedy, with a bizarre twist of Twin Peaks and backwoods-slasher!

Somewhere in the South Korean country side there's a danger lurking in the dark forests. Something that people suspect is a boar is killing animals, stealing apples and now it's attacking humans, dead or alive! A young policeman from Seoul gets involved in the case and soon he and the local police force is leading the hunt together with some Russian and Finnish bear-hunters and some local animal activists! They think it will be an easy mission, but we all know what that means...

This is a lot of fun but maybe only for those already fans of South Korean cinema, because there's not one single American company that would produce a light-weight killer pig movie that runs almost two hours! Yes, this is a full-blown black comedy/drama/monster/action/horror that refuses to pretend it has nothing to say. Instead we're getting a pretty interesting story about a Seoul policeman who gives one ticket to many and is moved to a slack backwoods-town where nothing is happening. Well, until the giant killer boar starts harvesting victims of course.

The comedy is a wild mix between slapstick and subtle satire and every character is given enough time to make us know them, often their more macabre sides - for example the ghastly, ghost-like woman living in the forest and who seems to know more about the boar than anyone thinks, an obviously spoof/reference to all the Asian longhaired ghosts occupying the cinemas for a long time now. I've always appreciated the South Korean cinema for their patience. They stay a while with the characters, they show us their normal life outside the adventures and horrors. We get to know the humans behind the madness. Often centred around families, of all kinds. So even here. Chaw almost starts off like a realistic cop movie by the way, with handheld camera on the streets and a cop trying to cope with his boring job.

The actual boar is a nice-looking creature, a mix between CG and animatronics and most of the time it looks good. There's some wider angles that looks less than good, but I'm one of those that loves SyFy Originals, so this looks good to me. Don't expect much gore though. It has it's fair share of blood and limbs, but it's not especially nasty - and the UK DVD has removed a scene where some animals are killed for real (a scene like that is totally unnecessary and I choose this DVD just because of that). Like many other movies in the same genre there's more than a few Jaws-references - maybe unintentionally, but still there. Classic twists and plots that's been tradition in creature features since the 70's.

Chaw is, right now, dirt cheap at Play.com. It's so cheap it's not even worth calling it a price - and remember that the shipping is included in the price. I doubt they're shipping to the US, but to the rest of Europe shouldn't be any problems - and I think you should give this little piggy a chance. It needs some love, seriously. It's a well-made, often well-written and spectacular fun-ride of pig-madness!

Anguish (1987)

When I was around ten years old my father rented Anguish. One weekend every month I stayed with him and we watched scary movies, just like many other kids with divorced parents. The Swedish title was, apparently, Nakna Ögon ("Naked Eyes") and it seemed like a normal thriller... but it wasn't. At all. I have no memory of us watching the whole movie, but the dark atmosphere and depressing story stayed with me for my whole life... so I felt it was time to get the movie an watch it again, now uncut and on DVD!

John (Michael Lerner) is eye care professional who lives with his dominating mother (Zelda Rubinstein), a twisted old woman who's obsessed with snails and birds! She's hypnotizes him and somehow, real or not, she's communicating with him telepathically through a seashell! Eager to make his mother happy he goes out and kills people and gouge out their eyes in a cinema... until we understand what we're watching is a horror movie being shown in a real cinema! The story jumps to two teenage girls and the appearance of yet another, real, killer entering the cinema to find new victims! The stories on the screen and in the real cinema gets even more mixed up and sure not even the characters are sure what's real or not...

I can imagine how Anguish confused the audiences at the time, those who probably was expecting just another slasher or a normal thriller. What we have here is maybe the ultimate meta-movie, a movie about a movie... or are we watching a movie about people watching a movie about people watching a movie? In a way this reminds me of Giuliano Montaldo's highly original Italian TV-thriller Closed Circuit from 1978, about murders inside a cinema - conducted by one of the characters on the screen! Anguish is both a tribute to the horror films as a deconstruction of fictional horror vs real horror - and what the darn IS real anyway? Who can we trust? Media? Movies? Cops? Our fellow humans? Or are we all in a movie someone else is watching?

There's been a lot of movies-within-movies in genre cinema, for example in Brian De Palma's Blow Out (check my example here), but more or less all of them are parodies, satires, spoofs of horror. Made to make people laugh and not be taken so seriously. In Anguish we have a movie-within-movie who actually is extremely good, and well-made, like it was meant to be its own movie at one point, but then director and writer Bigas Luna decided to turn it all around. Michael Lerner is another one of those brilliant character actors that never became a huge star, but in this film - like everything else he's done - he delivers a perfect performance. Zelda Rubinstein is playing the same character she always played, but she's awesome... and odd. And weird. And really fucked-up. Brilliant casting. They are also the stars of the film, and outshines those in the other wraparound film. A small bonus is American veteran actor Craig Hill in a very small part towards the end, as a doctor. Odd part for a one time very famous actor, but I guess everyone needs to make a living...

As a horror/thriller it works very fine and delivers a lot of nasty scares and blood and some gore. But what makes it unique is the twisted storyline and the even more twisted characters. Also watch out for clues everywhere, not especially hidden ones: for example, the movie they're watching is called The Mommy and is directed by Anul Sagib, which sounds like an Egyptian or something but is just the real directors name backwards. End credits is rolling over the screen at a third cinema, with another audience watching and walking away one by one. Which makes us wonder if everything we've seen was  movie within a movie, which goes really mind-fuck when we're watching it ourselves. I would have loved to see this in a cinema!

Anguish is a masterpiece of Spanish horror. An original treat for us who demands a little bit more and still wants our blood and violence on unhealthy doses!

Miami Magma (2011)

There's a time in ever film geeks life when he just can't write about a movie he's seen - but still wanna share something from it. Miami Magma is a really, really, really stupid and actually quite boring disaster flick starring Brad Dourif in an extended cameo and written by then genius who gave us Savage Planet, MonsterArk and Wrong Turn 4. Personally, but that might just be me, I think a movie about a volcano eruption in Miami should have some disaster scenes... but hey, maybe I'm asking too much?

Anyway, here's the only interesting scene in the whole movie and also my nominee for the STUPIDEST DEATH SCENE EVER. Yeah.

Just a causal day at the tennis court. 

The bearded tennis teacher hits a ball! 

At the same time a sinister crack is appearing in the ground!

The blonde chick hits back! 

Suddenly lava spurts up from the crack!!!!

"What the fuck?"

Swoooosh! TENNIS-LAVA-BALL-KICK! Ultraman! 

"Alrighty, maybe I should...urghhh!" 

A dramatic insert of tennis racket falling to the ground.

"I didn't see that one coming!" 

Nasty flesh wound there, mister. 

NoooooooooOOOOOOooooOOOOooo!!!!!!!

The Super Inframan (1975)

I'm sure no one, not even Eiji Tsuburaya , would expect what was gonna happen after the TV-series Ultra Q (1965) and it's spin-off, Ultraman (1966). No one knew the legal hassle that would follow in Thailand and with Sompote Sands and nowadays even the oldest fart actually believes that Power Rangers is an American only product. But in-between all this Shaw Brothers decided to try their luck in the Tokusatsu-genre with the absurd, crazy and 100 % wild The Super Inframan - with a little help from Japanese cinematographer Tadashi Nishimoto and Ekisu Productions who did a lot of costumes and special effects for Toei during this time.

Demon Princess Elzebub (Terry Liu) wants to conquer the earth and after destroying a couple of cities just to show her power she unleashes a (small) army of monsters, The Skeleton Ghosts and Ice Monsters, to take care of the rest. What she don't know is that Science Headquarters has been working on a secret weapon, Super Inframan - based on the body and mind of high ranking officer Lei Ma (Danny Lee). When the Plant Monster attacks their secret base Super Inframan must get into business fast and soon he and his merry men is fighting rubber monster after rubber monster, all more dangerous than the one before!

The Super Inframan is a fantastic production, carefully copying Japanese shows like Ultraman and Kamen Rider, but still keeping a Hong Kongnese identity with lots of kung fu and a nice cast consisting of - among others - Danny Lee and Bruce Lee-wannabe Bruce Le. Even if it has two scenes with big monsters, this is not the vision with the movie. Instead it's human-sized monsters dominating and having close-up battles with both Super Inframan and his colleagues at the Science Headquarters. The energy is even higher than the Japanese counterparts with tons and tons of fighting and melodrama that takes a new turn every fifth minute or so. It's a very colourful film with imaginative monsters and action around every corner.

What I miss is the giant monsters. Sure, we have the Spider Monster doing a battle with Super Inframan at some desolate place, just crashing a few electrical lines - and the Plant Monster is doing his stuff at the beginning - not to forget the footage of burning and destroyed cities, but that's about it. All the other monsters stay true to their size and seems happy with just lurking in the bushes and attacking our heroes when they least expect it. This doesn't mean it's a cool and awesome movie, but those expecting big monsters should be prepared and ready for a minor disappointment.

This is what I call a movie you should be watching with friends, like almost every form of Tokusatsu p. It's made for being a social movie, something that will be even more enjoyable and brilliant together with other fans of the same kind. It's not a deep story and there's not even an hint of a message (not what I could detect), which is quite nice sometimes. Everywhere it's mentioned that Goliathon (aka The Mighty Peking Man) is some sort of a sequel to this one, and while it's a brilliant and crazy monster movie I never found any really proof for this. It's just a monster movie set in China, just like this one (ah, and once again Danny Lee in the lead - but without using his Super Inframan powers) and I highly recommend you all to watch it - and squeeze in The Oily Maniac if you want an awesome triple feature!

Dinner with a Vampire (1987)

I usually claim Lamberto Bava only directed three really good movies: Demons, Blastfighter and You'll Die At Midnight, but truth be told he's made some other decent movies (and I'm not counting Blade in the Dark to those). One of them is the fun and colourful Dinner with a Vampire, according to IMDB one of four movies made for Canale 5 under the banner Brivido Giallo. Like many Italian horror movies made for TV the gore is less than usual, but often a bit more than American counterparts - and so even here, which makes this ambitious production raise slightly above average.

Jurke (George Hilton) is a famous horror director who also happens to be a 1000 years old vampire. There's just one thing: he's pretty tired of being alive and tries a slightly unorthodox way to kill himself: he hires a bunch of young wannabe-actors for a movie, but instead he invites them over to his castle over the weekend and gives them an ultimate, either they kill him or he will kill them all! Now our heroes must find a way to kill something that can't be killed, before Jurek unleashes himself and his monster army on them!

Dinne with a Vampire has a very light-hearted feeling with a lot of in-jokes, from the obvious nods to Mario Bava and the very cool black & white gothic horror movie the kids are watching (it feels like Lambert put a lot more effort into that than the rest) to small stuff like one of the characters is trying to choke Jurek the vampire with Roman Polanski's Fearless Vampire Killers (written in English on the tape, but changes to the Italian title, Per favore, non mordermi sul collo!, moments later). Another tape visible in the same scene is Black Sabbath!

It's not much of a story but I still think the basic idea is pretty good, or at least works fine for easy-watching entertainment. Not so much to analyze, just a bunch of young actors running around in a gorgeous castle chased by George Hilton in a cape and vampire teeth. That castle yeah, it looks fantastic! Anyone know which castle it is? Here's the exterior:

If I wasn't so lazy I would have taken a couple of screenshots of the interior, which looks like something right out of Suspiria - just without the creative lighting. Layers upon layers of weird patterns and colours. I would get dizzy if I lived there, but I would love to visit the place some day if it's open for the public. What's not working is some of the broader comedy, like the hunchback - dubbed by Nick Alexander doing a Marty Feldman voice. He's not important at all for the story, just some padding to make it a slightly longer movie. Another disappointment is that the monster army hardly is in the movie, just a few seconds at the end and they hardly do anything.

Many years ago, on the page Cinema Nocturna I think, someone claimed that Dinner with a Vampire was completely dry, no gore or blood at all - but it actually has some very nice effects including a wonderful heart-being-squeezed-out-from-a-chest and a graphic melting head (plus a few effects here and there) and the make-up looks very cool, specially in the black & white movie within the movie.

It's clearly visible Lambert enjoyed making this movie. It's closer to the non-horror he likes so much and he had a glorious location to shoot + an inspired George Hilton doing his best to over-act himself into Italian horror movie history. It's worth a watch for you who needs yet another obscurity in the collection.