Bay of Blood

6th Sitting:

Bay of Blood AKA Twitch of the Death Nerve AKA Bloodbath AKA Carnage AKA Chain Reaction AKA about another 25 titles that I can't be bothered to type..., 1971, 81 mins (PAL): Successfully Prosecuted

Kev's blog - Right, when we started this we intended to do one film a week and we are clearly starting to fail this objective, but we promise we will keep this going - we are committed to this ridiculous task and by God we will see it through even though it now means that I can't spend any money on buying what most people would consider to be decent films as I track down this mixed bag of weirdness, watching these things so that, for the most part, you don't have to.... but it just might take a little longer than 72 weeks... it feels like we've already been doing it for half the year and we are still only now sitting down to our 6th film...

So, following a spate of grainy low budget oddities, we thought it was about time we treated ourselves to something with, dare I say it, a bit more class - and we've been allowed up from the basement to Jason's lounge as well, so we almost feel like normal film fans (we're starting to sell out!!!). We are watching the Another World Entertainment's 1.85:1 anamorphic Region 2 DVD of Mario Bava's excellent Bay of Blood, which as you can see has several alternative titles (look it up on IMDB if you really feel the need to trawl through the list of, and I do not exaggerate, 30 AKAs).

I am actually not well versed in the films of Bava, but his shadow and influence looms long and dark over horror films of the 70s and 80s. The only film of his that I had seen previously to this one is 'Danger Diabolik', which is non-horror and very beautifully shot, colourful, stylistic and entertaining, as is Bay of Blood.

The basic premise for the movie is that there are a lot of people who live in and around the bay of the title being violently knocked-off by somebody. If you have ever seen Friday 13th (part 2 in particular) you will recognise both the type of setting and at least a couple of the methods that, we can politely say, were a major influence on those films. In general this film is widely accepted as the Grandaddy of the modern slasher movie and, particularly compared to some of the other films on the DPP list, although still shot on a very low budget it looks like it's been made by, gasp, a proper director with an artistic and ambitious drive!!! Shots are put together so that they actually look like someone cared about them, using colour placement to great effect, whether it's the red furniture dressing the set of the first death, or the fantastic yellow dune buggy driving under trees with yellow blossom, stopping to let out one of the teenage girls who accidently (yeah, right) 'flashes' her yellow knickers from under her mini-skirt as she climbs out of the vehicle (am I reading too much into this...?). Although made in 1971 it still has quite a '60s feeling about its look and tone, colours are vibrant and shots artistically composed, but the violence is actually pretty nasty when it occurs and definitely effective (my favourite is the bill-hook in the face - ouch!!!) In the first few films we haven't really worried about our inclusion of spoilers in our write-ups, particularly as we see ourselves as sort of 'taking one for the team' as we watch these titles, but some of the films do deserve a bit more respect and a recommendation that you should check them out for yourself and this is one of those cases. There's a touch of Hitchcock about Bava's little yarn and it keeps the whos and whys of the killings neatly tucked away until the reveal near the end of the film. Also like Hitch', there is an undercurrent of black humour about the piece and the couple of more over the top characters are knowingly so and don't distract you too much from the film.

Although an Italian production, Bava shot the film with the actors speaking English dialogue which was then overdubbed by voice actors, there is an Italian language version but don't feel obliged to track it down for the sake of any kind of 'world cinema' authenticity. One of the elements of the film that does mark it down as Italian cinema is a great soundtrack - excellent music and score from Stelvio Cipriani, with sparingly used fuzztone guitar stabbing in just when it counts, lovely!!!

So basically, if you're into your gore and slashers and want to see one of the key moments in the development of the genre, treat yourself and track a copy of this down - but make sure you get one with a decent print, there has recently been a UK uncut version released on Arrow, but a quick read down some of the reviews on the Amazon UK website indicates that the DVD authoring maybe hasn't provided the depth and vibrancy of colour that Bava films seem to demand.

There we go then, we've had something that although an official 'nasty', has been a great and enjoyable viewing experience with more than a few moments of visual beauty and artistic endeavour, I can't quite believe it and I have a horrible feeling our next one won't be in quite the same realm...

6 down, 66 to go.....

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Jay's Blog - Kev’s write up above pretty much covers it. As he said we both felt the need to watch something that had a little more ‘class’ to it this time round. When going through the infamous 72, ones definition of classy can be skewed to quite a considerable extent. Would I watch Bay of Blood after watching say…Das Boot and think it was a masterpiece of pace, colour palette and overall narrative? Well no…I wouldn’t. However watching it after Zombie Creeping Flesh or Mardi Gras Massacre or even Last House on the Left it takes on a level of almost Scorsesean proportions. If you’re like me you may well wonder what all the fuss was about….couldn’t see a great deal of offensive or gory scenes in it. Maybe I’m just hardened to it now since we can see much worse on TV….maybe there has been a moral decline in this Country that started with these 72…MAYBE ‘THEY’ WERE RIGHT TO BAN THESE….MAYBE WE SHOULD BAN EVERYTHING AGAIN….MAYBE BLANKET CENSORSHIP IS A GOOD THING!!!!....or maybe not. Anyway there is a lot to like about Bay of Blood, there is a definite use of key colour palettes in particular scenes (yellow and red spring to mind) and the performances on the whole are good. The storyline is surprisingly easy to follow for an seventies Italian ‘horror’ movie and fairly ambitious for a slasher (perhaps because it was one of the first). The main difference between this film and later efforts that imitated many of Bay of Blood’s ideas, is the motives that individuals have for murder. Some characters could murder for money (what’s left in the will etc), some to save the natural beauty of the bay and some because they’re just weird. The surprising and downbeat ending is also a nice touch that you won’t see coming. Even though I have told you to expect something….you won’t guess.

So next time we’ll be back down in the basement again and it’s time to watch something far from classy…..Nazis anyone?

Don't Go In The Woods

Well due to a variety of reasons we had a wee break in our viewing schedule, sadly, and not without a weird sense of timing, during this break Last House on the Left's star villain David Hess died on October 7th, and our thoughts are with his family and friends. Have a look at IMDB for a selection of David's work (and conflicting information on his age) and check out www.DavidHess.com too.

Apart from Last House, David played a similar role to Krug in Ruggero Deodato's 1978 film "House on the Edge of the Park" (which we will be visiting here at some point) and again in the fantastic film "Hitch-Hike", opposite Italian cinema God, Franco Nero, Hitch-Hike in particular is well worth a viewing. Nobody quite did nihilistic unsympathetic bad guys like David, but for both of us he'll be remembered as the guest star at the horror film festival in Welwyn Garden City who suddenly whipped out an acoustic guitar to do a fairly impromptu run through the hit record he wrote "Speedy Gonzales" and one of the songs he wrote for Elvis Presley "I Got Stung" (I have a feeling he may have also written "All Shook Up" for Elvis too, though I may be wrong), as well as a variety of others including some from the Last House soundtrack. He answered all questions from the crowd about his movies in good humour, but it was when Jason started asking questions about his music career that he really seemed to perk up an extra notch and his love for music was clearly apparent. Although my memory of the whole day is a little hazy (it was at least 10 years ago), I seem to remember that we went and bothered him several times during the day and he was more than happy to have a chat and made time to talk anyone who wanted to have a few words with him. So rest in peace David, you are a legend and my Last House soundtrack cd has been played in your honour as I write this.

Now then....

5th Sitting:

Don't Go In The Woods, 1981 83mins (NTSC): Successfully Prosecuted

Soooo, here we are finally back and we are watching Code Red's region 0, open matt 1.33:1 ratio, 25th anniversary edition of James Bryan's Don't Go In The Woods (it's the US edition, I personally would avoid the UK DVD, as the one I originally purchased seemed to have an authoring fault and was missing the entire music soundtrack which, believe me, is vital to you having any chance of making it through this viewing experience awake). I have to say that writing this I had to double check my facts; it is shocking enough that this could have ended up in the DPP's 72, but to obtain a successful prosecution is just unbelievable....

Basically what we have is a classic four-go-camping-up-a-mountain while somebody offs anybody setting foot on the hillside (and believe me there are a coach-load of ramblers up there to be off'd), while some incompetent hick cops occasionally try to work out what's going on. Make no mistake, it doesn't come much lower budget than this, (although it was shot on 35mm film as opposed to 16mm, and the quality of the DVD print is pretty damn great), but there is something weirdly unique about the viewing experience. The first couple of times I watched this I have to admit that I was a bit tired and had a few involuntary "nod-offs" during the film, so I assumed that the sort dreamy, not quite sure what's going on, did I miss something somewhere feeling that I experienced was due to a few "micro-naps" that I had during the film. Having now seen this for the third time, totally awake, watching it with Jay in his lounge (we thought we'd treat ourselves to a viewing out of the dank, dark basement), I now realise that the film is actually a triumph in accidental mild psychedelia...

After we've seen a couple of quick kills of random walkers, the four main characters head up the mountain - Craig (humourless outdoor puritan camper), Peter (whining funny-boy reluctant rambler) and two boyish girlfriends (we assume), Joanne and Ingrid. The group then, with the occasional punctuation of random deaths of seemingly endless visitors to the area, walk through the leafy green, woody hillside. Sometimes it's night and they camp, then there is more walking, inane banter, more deaths, an occasional cut to the town below and to the (camp) Laurel and Hardy type cops, more walking, sometimes its night again... The abrupt, swift cuts and editing starts to build until you realise that, although it feels like you've been on the hillside for a couple of weeks, you are only 45 minutes in and the intrepid foursome are only supposed to have been there for a weekend.... more greenery, more walking, more nights? ..even Craig seems to have stopped his nazi-esque dictatorial rambling agenda and has started to joke around and forget all about the health & safety advice he was stuffing down everyone's throats earlier on.... what day is it? The simple, single-synthesizer, soundtrack jumps around and loops about in circles, almost in sympathy to the circles the film and its cast is going in, nothing is linear anymore - suddenly, the group (minus Peter who's been allowed to wander off by the increasingly indifferent Craig) is attacked, someone dies, does it become night again? - I can't remember, Peter finds the remnants of the campsite and an injured Ingrid, they find madman's shack, they find their way down the mountain.... Ingrid's in hospital.... thank god, it's over... Hold on, we're only an hour in, there's still 20 minutes to go (is that right? We've been sat here for days....), nooooooooo!!!! Peter's going back up the mountain to find Joanne...... 

The sense of time displacement this film generates, both within the storyline and for the person in the room watching the film, is actually quite staggering, building slowly until you're almost experiencing that dreamtime, when half an hour is in reality only 30 seconds, the repetitive greens, the incessent cuts and editing, the synth wolf howls, you'll be wondering if someone's slipped something in your tea..... Knowing that there were quite a few "kills" in the film I thought I'd do a simple "kill count" - just pop a mark down every time someone got off'd and see how many we got. When I got to the end of the film I looked down to see 15 marks, but as I couldn't actually remember making most of them I can't be sure that 15 is an accurate figure for all of the local am-dram, camp as Christmas, cast who lost their lives to the hirsute and beaded mountain-man responsible.... and was one of those really a wheelchair bound rambler who struggled to the top of the mountain, only to lose his head with perfect comic timing 2 seconds into his taking in of the view he'd struggled so hard to see.... or did I dream that? I just don't know anymore..... and yet.... there's something about it ..... I think I enjoyed it..... maybe we should........ watch again......????

One thing I did feel was that, whereas in something like Last House the violence is delivered in a pretty cruel and nasty tone, the violence in DGITW, although fairly frequent and a bit bloody in places, actually feels pretty mild and good humoured (I think I know what I mean) and delivered with barely concealed smiles from the cast and crew. You can pretty much guarantee that everyone involved in this had a ball and were probably all very nice people, if not terribly great actors or special effects wizards. Prosecuting this just seems petty and unfair, and convicting it? Well now that IS cruel and nasty. I can only think the DPP/Judge/Jury/etc. nodded out during the screening and came to halfway through Cannibal Holocaust and handed out the guilty verdict in their confusion.

Right, you're up Jay..... Jay.....? It's over, you're safe now, deep breaths.....

Oh lord! What the f**k was that all about?.....we’re in the woods, its daytime, its night time, its daytime again, its night time……so are those four fellas that are camping in the wood…or…wait are two of them girls? they don’t look like girls but they have girls names…..who is the bloke in the wheelchair?…..why would you go up there in a wheelchair anyway?….oh hang on…we’re in a van with Dick and Cherry….they’re going to have it off…wait no…..Dicks going into the woods ‘alone’…ok, so he’s dead is he?....oh and I think Cherry is dead now….hey its daytime again….and there’s a man who looks like Dave Lee Travis with some beads on his face…..he’s cross about something……oh he’s the killer…..and who are these people, are they the four blokes / girls or…no I think they are new characters…or are they? …doesn’t matter now as they’re dead…..ah at last we’re out of the woods…we’re in a hospital, its over!...no wait we’re all back in the woods again…..there’s DLT…..there’s one of the blokes and someone else and they’re in the woods…doing……something….and the policeman is fat and the other one seems to be a screaming homosexual who has rounded up more homosexuals to search the woods…..oh hang on! …one of the blokes from the beginning has killed DLT….and …..wait….yes that’s the end. Thank Christ.

 

(Just to note: For a more in-depth and brilliantly written review and background to this and many other odd movies, please check out "Nightmare USA - The Untold Story of the Exploitation Independents" the thoroughly entertaining and informative book by Stephen Thrower on FAB Press.)

Last House On The Left

4th Sitting:

Last House On The Left AKA Krug And Company AKA Sex Crime Of The Century, 1972, 82mins (PAL): Successfully prosecuted

KEV - 
Well, I said it was about time we did something properly nasty and Wes (Scream, Hills Have Eyes) Craven's big screen directorial debut, Last House certainly hits that mark at various points during its fairly tight running time. We are watching the excellent Region 2, 16:9 anamorphic, 3 disc "Ultimate Edition" release from Metrodome, which was the first official uncut UK release. The fact that it took 36 years and several attempts for this film to get an uncut UK release may give you a little indication that it does have its moments.

The first time both Jason and myself saw this was at a film fair about 12 years ago when the film's lead protagonist and soundtrack writer/performer David "Krug" Hess introduced the film and after it had finished exclaimed to the audience of assorted nerds and geeks "Well, I don't know about you, but that still scares the shit out me!" ... hmmm, well not quite David, but it's certainly a bit grimey and uncomfortable and, well, odd.

The basic story, teenager Mari Collingwood lives at home with her folks in a lovely wholesome leafy neighborhood. It's her 17th birthday so she meets her friend Phyllis ,who is a tad less wholesome, to go to the city to see their favourite rock band Bloodlust. In the city they go to Phyllis' old neighbourhood to score some pot (obviously - it's 1972) and run into escaped psychopathic criminal Krug, his fellow escapee Weasel, Krug's girlfiend Sadie and his smack addict son Junior. The fact that the girl is called Sadie and, unusually for films at that time, is not backwards in coming forwards in the upcoming unpleasantness, gives a fair old nod to the Manson family and family member Sadie Atkins, who I think were still on trial when the film was being made. The gang kidnap the girls, taking them in the boot of the car while they go on the run, and end up breaking down. When Phyllis tries to escape they decide to torture the girls for fun in the woods, within spitting distance of Mari's home. It is these sequences that really got the film into trouble, the acting is surprisingly good for a lot of the time, the grim bullying and both psychological and physical tormenting of the girls is pretty damn cruel. Craven says he was influenced by a lot of the news footage coming back from Vietnam at the time, and purposely shot these sequences hand-held and used the same kind of grainy, fast film stock that the news crews would use out in the field, to create an effect that had echoes of real news footage. This kind of technique has been used a lot now over the years (witness the battle sequences in Saving Private Ryan, and Band of Brothers to name just a couple), but Craven was certainly one of the first that I'm aware of to deploy that idea, and with great success.

Well, after the gang have finished with the girls, they wind up going to the nearest house to blag a bed for the night and then realise they are staying with Mari's folks and, unfortunately for them, Mari's parents also put 2 and 2 together and set about taking care of the gang. There is a particular sequence involving Mr Collingwood trying to choose an suitable weapon that will ring a few bells of recognition for those who have seen The Evil Dead and/or Pulp Ficton...

Now, what I haven't yet mentioned is the "odd" part of the film; Craven decided to break up the scenes of violence with other scenes that are basically a kind of slapstick comedy, focusing mainly on the two inept local cops that Mari's parents have called into help following Mari's failure to turn up for her birthday tea. Personally I don't think it works and is kind of clunky. David Hess' soundtrack also lurches around in this manner, veering from poignant folky, singer/songwriter kind of material, used to particularly great effect during Mari's last scene, to the sort of plinky-plonky accompaniment that you would find in a Harold Lloyd film and not always at the most appropriate moments. I dunno, maybe I'm just not adventurous enough with mixing my genres, and maybe the film's overall tone, particularly in 1972, would be pretty nihilistic without these juxtapositions, but on the whole I just find them a bit hard to swallow - a sensation that Mari's mum would know all too well following her lethal night-time encounter with Weasel....

All in all, it's a pretty entertaining, reasonably well acted (apart from some of the older members of the cast), and definitely unique affair. Last House is certainly one of the most infamous titles on the DPP list, it was also one of the best examples of the ingenious marketing of a small, low budget film (one of the most fascinating parts of David A. Szulkin's excellent book on Last House). Originally released as Krug and Company" it did nothing, but distribution company Hallmark swiftly renamed the film and, although one of the film's advertising tag lines betrays the grim elements "Mari, 17 is dying. Even for her the worst is yet to come", it is the fantastic and oft ripped-off tag line "To avoid fainting keep repeating, It's only a movie ...only a movie ...only a movie ...only a movie" that basically got people into the US cinemas in their thousands and lo... a cult classic was born. Now Jason, tell them about the mustard polyester, unnecessary shower scene and conversations about breasts!


JAY - 

When I think of LHOTL the first thing that pops into my head is a mustard coloured roll neck sweater. Not the first thing that jumps to mind for most people who have seen this film I imagine – but for me it was the one thing that somehow burnt itself into my semi conscious. The garment in question belongs to the wonderfully named Gaylord St James who plays Dr John Collingwood in the film. Oddly the actor’s real name is Richard Towers – presumably he felt Gaylord was a more fitting moniker.

Anyway that’s the mustard sweater covered – now for the rest of the film. I thought I would start with the big question….is The Last House on The Left as nasty as they say (or at least said)? Well, the answer is yes…..and no. Without a doubt the scenes in the wood are amongst the most uncomfortable you are likely to see on screen (not seen the remake but I can’t imagine it had the same feel). There is something truly upsetting about the throw away nature of the abuse endured by the Mari and Phyllis – used as play things and disposed of without a second thought. These scenes are not particularly gory or explicit, but it is in the hopelessness of the situation that the horror can be found. Once this section of the film is over and we’re in or around the Collingwood house for the remainder, the film meanders a bit and loses its way – maybe it was just so shocking to see all that previous scenes going on in the bright dappled sunlight of the woods that its bound to disappoint when we find ourselves in at night with killers in the home blah blah blah  The end section of the film isn’t helped by poor acting from Mari’s parents and it falls foul of the other ‘Nasty’ hallmarks of a badly made low budget film with no real surprises. No doubt some (including Kev) may think that’s a bit harsh, perhaps I should keep in mind that this was the first of these kind of films.

As Kev mentioned the bizarre use of Laurel and Hardy style Policemen and plinky plonky Harold Lloyd style music to ‘lighten the mood’ is very off putting and ultimately prevents the film from being a truly shocking experience. There is indeed a pointless shower scene at the start of the film (isn’t there always?), pieces of dialogue that appear to be manufactured to show the actors ‘party pieces’ – Juniors impression of a frog for example and an almost unhealthy obsession with mentioning the quality of the telephone service in the area….all these are the sort of thing I adore about a low budget movie. These are the elements that are not quite right because nobody really knew what they were doing.

In summary then – the first truly unsettling film we’ve seen on our quest (but only the scene in the woods). A final tale for you – if you watch this film you have to agree that David Hess’ portrayal of the lead villain Krug is impressive. He is extremely convincing as a nasty, sweaty, violent psychopath, but in the spirit of ITS ONLY A MOVIE, IT’S ONLY A MOVIE, try and picture him singing the early 60’s novelty song Speedy Gonzales (which he wrote) during the Q and A that Kev and I attended some years back. He was grinning from ear to ear and obviously very happy – a more friendly decent chap you couldn’t wish to meet. Still wouldn’t go in the woods with him though!

4 down 68 to go....

Mardi Gras Massacre, 1978, 92mins

3rd Sitting:

Mardi Gras Massacre, 1978, 92mins (NTSC): Successfully prosecuted

Kevs Blog -  

Well, there we were preparing to follow up the hilarity of Zombie Creeping Flesh/Hell of the Living Dead with something that has maybe has a bit more production/artistic value, or something that properly delivered on the "nasty" part of the video nasty genre and what happens? My order of the very recently released Code Red region 0 dvd of Jack Weis's "Mardi Gras Massacre" drops through the door, throwing all previous plans to the wall.

Now, it was only just as we were sitting down in Jay's appropriately dark, dank basement to watch this dvd that my excitement about the film we were both about to see for the first time suddenly faltered; Wasn't this the fairly appalling late '70s remake/rip-off of the ground breaking genre busting 1963 proto-nasty "Blood Feast" (also on the DPP list)? Yes, it bloody was. For a few seconds my heart sank, that was until the film started and suddenly the team behind Zombie Creeping Flesh were made to look like a cross between Steven Spielberg, Orson Welles and Sam Peckinpah in their heydays and the original Blood Feast seem like Se7en. Yes, here we were again, watching somebody failing to observe the most basic of skills required to direct and edit a film - I mean, even in ZCF we didn't get to see fluffed and tripped-over lines delivered by actors and those takes left in the movie. I can only think that the production was sooooo low budget that they just couldn't afford to shoot more film on a second take (oh how easy those digital filmakers of today have it), or indeed afford to have any kind of post-synch dubbing, judging from the overall sound quality (and this is definitely not because of any low quality dvd authoring). Surprisingly the, albeit one trick, gore effects aren't bad - probably where all the money for film stock and actors went. Still, at least they hadn't had to spend any money on the story, as the "lunatic religious nut, offing women as a blood sacrifice to some obscure god" plot had been provided to them for free by Herschell Gordon Lewis some 15 years earlier.

Anyway, the result another very funny movie that had us howling in disbelief; At least half of the actors must have been friends doing it for free, or maybe just drunks pulled off of the street. Yes the movie is set during New Orleans Mardi Gras, but if you're expecting some kind of celebration of the famous city, or even just a good look at the parades, well you can forget it - they might as well have filmed a wet Easter fete on the outskirts of Luton, certainly not one for the New Orleans tourist board to get excited about..... god, I've not even mentioned the music yet... well, I'll leave that to Jay. All in all, very enjoyable for all of the wrong reasons and, despite some (and I'm being polite here) over long montage moments, it didn't drag its feet too much and there was always something to laugh at within moments of us getting concerned that it was about to get boring.

Interestingly, this film received an apparent outright ban after the DPP successfully took it down and has never seen a release on these shores cut or otherwise since the ban, yet again proving that the moral guardians of the country in the 1980s must have been at the psychedelic mushrooms if they thought that exposure to this would have any other kind of reaction than violent outbursts of laughter. The only way this film could have corrupted anybody is by encouraging writers and directors to make truly awful films and if that was the case, banning it didn't bloody work, because "Love Actually" got made. Actually, that's not fair - Mardi Gras Massacre is a thousand times better than Love Actually and a thousand times funnier - maybe Richard Curtis should take note.

Right, lets do something proper nasty next time, I'm not sure how much more my sides can take...

Jays Blog


Kev has covered it pretty much and there is not a lot I can add - I would like to just mention a few things I found most striking about this film. Firstly the music.....sweet jesus the music!!!! So much of it and so loud. What were they thinking? I can only imagine that after watching back the initial edit of badly lit scene after badly lit scene (that also suffered from some sort of terminal sound quality issue when anyone was trying to speak any dialogue) someone said "what this film needs is a low quality disco soundtrack over almost the entire thing". Someone else then probably said "what just quiet and subtle in the background?" to which the reply was "no, it should be really loud and intrusive".


To be fair the music was the least of the 'crapyness' issues this film had - try a half baked, boring, pointless love story between a drunk hooker and a mildly misogynistic cop. Or editing so poor the same room and almost exact shot would be cut into another almost identical shot but in a slightly different angle (as if they has run out of film one day, gone back in the next day with a sort of 'I think the camera was about here wasn't it? ' approach to finish the scene). Or the oddly tiny desk the 2 cops had to share....like a child's school desk. Or the fact the actor playing the killer waited until he had his 'victims' tied up before giving the actress in question a few extra gropes for good luck. Or the fact he stabbed them in their 'foot of evil'.......I could go on, really I could but I think you get the general idea. 


Rubbish, pointless, badly acted, badly directed, terrible editing......flipping brilliant!!!

3 down, 69 to go....

 

2nd Sitting - Zombie Creeping Flesh AKA Hell of the Living Dead

KEVS BLOG:  

Zombie Creeping Flesh AKA Hell of the Living Dead, 1980 101 mins: DPP Failed to convict

Well, here were go with one of the most (but not THE most) brilliantly inept films on the list (oh thank you director Bruno Mattai)...

We are watching the Blue Underground, region 0 NTSC dvd, anamorphic 1.85:1 ration widescreen, which I think cost me about £4 including postage on Amazon marketplace - without doubt one of the best £4s I have ever spent!!!

Jeepers, well, the original Zombie Creeping Flesh was missing about 14 minutes of footage - I saw a bootleg copy of this version and it was a bit dull, but then all the young me wanted was gore and didn't appreciate lines such as "since when did you start caring about our balls", or something like that. This version is the full dubbed US version, but the thing to remember with half of these sort of films is that often the directors may have been Italian, but they also had their eyes on the US and so shot the films with a view to english language dialogue being dubbed on - Enzo G Castellari (Bronx Warriors, Inglorious Bastards) shot most of his films with the actors speaking in English ready for American/English voice actors to overdub the lines, so let's not get too "World Cinema" on this little trip we're taking....

Anyhoo, what can I say, a film that uses extensive incidental music from other films (including some of Goblin's "Dawn of the Dead" pieces), was done on such a low budget that it seems like over a third of what you are watching is inserts from nature documentaries and mondo footage and yet runs at least 15 minutes too long; a film that seems to have been shot in about two weeks and yet still has the feel that by the end of the shoot no-one knew where the hell the story was going and maybe we'd better just end it tomorrow because we don't actually know what day it is and we might be due to start making another one; a film that has extras that reappear in different roles several times, and yet it still actually does boast a couple of nasty moments and a couple of shocking ideas and mixes genres like a cheap cocktail.... well, all I can say is that, though over long, this was probably one of the most enjoyable ones we'll see, totally ludicrous and awful, but bloody funny and entertaining for all the wrong reasons. Jay could barely believe believe what he was seeing - I could, I'd only watched it a couple of weeks before and here I was sitting through it again! Jay was convinced it was just about the most poorly made and acted film he'd ever seen but, as I pointed pointed out to him, he hasn't seen Cannibal Terror yet...

JAY'S BLOG:
Oh my lord!!!! This film is amazing, not in a 'technical' way, not in a 'display of great acting' way, not in an 'interesting storyline' way ......just in a so very very poor its incredible kind of way.
Its a weird heady mix of zombie and cannibal genres with some sort of attempt at a moral backstory to do with governments wiping out the third world of something - bit confusing and not really ever explained properly. I find it best to just try and ignore the plot in a film like this...it just gets in the way.


There seems to be a cast of about 15 people in the entire film with all them doubling up as various zombies. Whilst I am on the subject of zombies, let me embellish on that aspect of the film for a moment. For a film with the word Zombie in the title and a plot (of sorts) about zombies you would be forgiven to expect some halfway decent looking zombies. Well the zombies in this film are green......that's it, just normal people with green faces....actually there appears to be some white people who are blacked up to look like natives then 'greened' on top.


All in all very enjoyable garbage - particularly the excessive use of documentary footage which the cast are actually meant to act 'opposite' as it were. Best example would be tribal chief in real life footage wandering off camera - then someone who is clearly a different build, age and possible nationality walking onto set to give our heroine (who is naked for no particular reason) a mask that is not even similar to the one the real native is wearing in the stock footage.


I would recommend this film to anyone who loves comedy - Kev and i giggled like little girls throughout it all. One last thing - why do they make the special police force (who are fucking morons by the way) wear such tiny hats? They just kept falling off!

2 down 70 to go...

Nightmares In A Damaged Brain

1st sitting:

Nightmares In A Damaged Brain AKA Nightmare, 1981 97mins (NTSC): Successfully prosecuted

KEV 'S BLOG: 

Initially we thought we'd do the list in alphabetical order, starting with the 39 films successfully prosecuted by the Director of Public Prosecution in the "Video Nasties" witch hunts of '83 and '84 and then doing the 33 that were on the list but that the DPP either failed to get convictions on or just ended up not bothering with. But, partly due to the fact we couldn't necessarily get easy access to all of the films in that order and the fact that my 30th Anniversary edition of Nightmare turned up, we thought sod it, let's just crack on in any random order, I mean Christ, it's a ridiculous OCD thing we're doing anyway, and I haven't seen Nightmare for over 12 years since I lent my bootleg copy to a mate who never saw again (honestly, although fairly entertaining it's neither that offensive or good, so it must have been me) and I'm right up for it soooo....

The copy we're watching is Code Red's (a fine company who's name, like Blue Underground, Media Blasters, Shriekshow and Shameless you are likely to see crop up a fair bit over the course of this endeavor) recent 2 disc, region 0, NTSC dvd. The set contains a staggering 3 different prints of the film (Code Red were keen to make available the best prints they could and were all set to release both the  2008 hi-def master, matted to 1.78:1 widescreen print and the 2005 colour corrected telecine 1.33:1 ratio unmatted version, then at the last minute found a better widescreen telecine print, so threw that in for good measure on a second disc) and this release has been awaited for a couple of years now by devoted fans of this sort of thing. Of the 3 versions we have opted for the 1.33 unmatted full frame version, partly because it is apparently director Romano Scavolini's intended viewing ratio and also, being 1.33 and a bit more of a scraggy print, it also makes the whole experience a bit more like watching it back in the 80s (did I mention OCD tendencies?).

Basically, I liked this quite a lot, although I do have to say that the film does really "weight" the, urm..., excitement at the front end. It's reasonable disorienting (ie confusing) and gory for the first 15 minutes, as a psychiatric patient lurches from nightmare to nightmare, but are we watching nightmares, some things that are actually happening, or flashbacks - who can say? Anyway, as psychiatrists often do, the patient is released having seemingly been a successful trial in some new breakthrough methods of treating psychopaths and he obviously heads straight to New York's 42 street for some great shots of dens of iniquity and some nice seedy encounters with some of the girls who work there... all the usual stuff really and all the better for it, but then when the bodies start turning up and he decides to head back to his family home in Florida...

Enter two idiot generic cops and a fairly dreary middle patch and suddenly you are praying for the potential victims to wander in to the killers path, to the point where I felt like offering to help. Funnily enough, I think my old bootleg may have been from the UK nasty edition as I have read that it was about 10 mins shorter, losing a lot of the exposition and none of the seediness or the gore, because thinking back I can't particularly remember either the cops or the boredom, anyway, gets better when the hilariously slimey, boat-dwelling hippy boyfriend of what looks like to be a sure-fire blond corpse in waiting turns up, nice big gory end as the nutter's background is explained, blame firmly leveled at the psychiatrists for letting the bloke out and we're done. Pretty good, but maybe not quite as much fun as I'd remembered.

In some ways it is fitting that we kicked off proceedings with this, as it is the only film on the list of 72 that someone (a chap called David Grant) in this country went to jail for distributing... terrifying days in the 80s, never mind the millions of unemployed, the loss of industry and the closing down of work and communities - lets blame it all on low budget films and send a small independent distributor to jail for it - the masses are appeased, the Daily Mail has its circulation figures and we're all happy... 

JASON'S BLOG:

 Ok, Kev is the expert on these films - I have always taken an unhealthy passing interest but he's the Don..we're using his collection. Mind you we're using my 'viewing room'. Which to set the scene is little more than 3 old cinema seats from the forties in a dank, dark basement underneath my house with a reasonable sized telly and multi region DVD player. Horrible but fitting!


Ok so Kev was excited about seeing this one....me?....not so much, and I can't say I enjoyed it. I also can't  understand what it was that upset the DPP so much back in the eighties, there was no real sense of dread or bad taste about the film. It did however contain the other hallmarks of a classic nasty - poorly made, confusing and slowly paced. I must admit I am writing this some days on and I am struggling to remember much about it. I do know that I wanted the killer to murder his ex wife by the end of the film...she was possibly the worst mother I have ever seen (and I have seen the ones that frequent Friar Street in Reading!), seeming to go out to see her hairy boyfriend leaving the kids home alone at the drop of a hat. She was impatient with them and full of self pity....so in my mind was prime for a killing. Apart from that I can only remember feeling very confused by the endless nightmare scenes.


Oh come to think of it - it did contain a scene when a kid axes his mother whilst she make loves to his Dad......maybe that's why it was banned. 

 1 down 71 to go....

Why are we doing this?

Me and my good friend Kev have decided to spend one night a week over the next 72 weeks viewing every singe one of the 72 films originally banned on the infamous UK Video Nasty list. I will soon be sharing our views on each film.