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REVIEW OF Demon Wind

From oh-the-horror.com

I have a wonderful history with the demonic possession film known as Demon Wind. It all started in the month of May at the age of sixteen, when searching through a flee market, I stumbled upon a glorious desk filled from left to right with video tapes – loads of them! The elderly lady did not know of the treasure she had brought with her that day. Many crime thrillers, a few sex comedies, and of course, horror films! There wasn’t much of a specific genre, but there was enough to satisfy my needs. At the time, I was solely interested in slashers; nothing else. This would be a mistake that I’d regret for a long time coming. I picked up both Silent Madness and Too Scared to Scream. “You like the scary ones, do ya?” the lady asks. Though I felt like saying that horror films don’t scare me, I just nodded. I was getting three tapes for five bucks after all. Then I came upon three more films. I should have bought all three, but at the time, I didn’t know any better. Witchcraft 2, a Charter video tape of Hatchet for the Honeymoon (replacing ‘the’ with ‘a’) and a stylish cover of a Prism/Paramount tape for Demon Wind. Mistaking Hatchet for the Honeymoon for Honeymoon Horror, I took that, not realizing Demon Wind was a lost goldmine of cheese. Thankfully, I now own another tape of the mentioned mozza madness, and life can go on as usual.

After a trailer for the fun-looking vampire movie, Red Blooded American Girl, the film introduces us to 1931. A body is being burned on a cross, and an older woman, Regina (Stella Kastner) at a farm is attempting to block a door, from where beyond, demons try to enter. Her husband George (Axel Toowey) turns into a demon instead, and he kills her. Approximately sixty years later, Cory (Eric Larson), the old woman’s grandchild, and Elaine (Francine Lapensée), his girlfriend, drive up to the abandoned farm. They are accompanied by friends; Dell (Bobby Johnston), Terri (Lynn Clark), Bonnie (Sherry Bendorf of 1987's Slaughterhouse), Jack (Mark David Fritsche), Chuck (Stephen Quadros) and Stacy (Jack Vogel) have all joined Cory in his quest to figure out what happened to his grandparents. Supernatural forces soon make themselves known, and as the group tries to escape the evil farm, they find that leaving is of no use with the fog surrounding them. It’s an air that brings them back to the farm every time they try to leave; something only known as a demon wind.

I was warned. I was told that this was really cheesy, but I did not expect it. The writing makes the characters appear ditsy or cardboard, but on the bright side, they are generally all likable. Dell is the exception. He’s cocky, a tough guy, and rough when it comes to verbal communication. “You didn’t tell me that.” says Elaine after Cory explains to his friends that his father slit his wrists shortly after Cory finally met him. “I know,” replies Cory. Followed by a quick realization in Elaine’s eyes, she calmly looks beneath her. Jack, although present during the demonic events, will ask, “Cory, now what happened?” It’s not hard to believe that this film was also written by the director. Time also changes from what we at first learned in the opening. The owner of a gas station, whose acting is nothing to be proud of, tells the group of friends that, in the drought of 1929, the family who lived in the farm all died, and he was there to witness the bloodshed. Funny how 1931 suddenly switches two years, isn’t it?

Stacy and Chuck are two guys planning to travel all around the world, performing their magic tricks for all interested. What a random hobby for two guys to have, as well as bring with them. These magicians bring along their tricks, including rabbits and doves, just to show off to the gang. In an even weirder scene, it’s Cabin Fever déja vu when Chuck pulls off karate moves with a tin can. These two do add life to the picture, but there’s no denying that these characters are simply present to increase the body count. Halfway through the film, we’re introduced to Willy (Richard Gabai) and Reena (Mia M. Ruiz), more friends of Cory’s who serve no purpose more than to show off a little more gore. Although the tape appears to be slightly trimmed of grue, this is no light dessert. Heads will roll, bodies will ooze, and jaws will gnaw. It’s over ninety minutes, but this showing goes by very quickly. Fashions from the nineties are already showing up, even though this is early on in the decade.

The best way to describe Demon Wind to a horror fan that has not seen it in one sentence would be to call it ‘A bad version of Night of the Demons’. Entertaining, but bad. Where will you find a minute long clip of a girl on a cliff, pointing a stick at a car driving by? Demon Wind! Where will you find a sixty-year-old skeleton still intact on a cross outdoors, fall down, and still stay together? Demon Wind! Are there any powerful daggers with the energy to stop this craziness, that actually look like dirty icepicks? Yes! In Demon Wind! If anything, you’ll be laughing out loud at the hilarious situations our clueless young adults find themselves in. Bonnie is turned into a doll by an evil little girl in front of everybody, but none of them scream. Not even Jack, her boyfriend. He frowns. No words; no tears; a frown. Then again, this film was never meant to be realistic, now, was it?

A night of spells, impalements, and ‘blue lightning’ special effects, Demon Wind shouldn’t be marked down for plot. Or imagery. Or acting. Or anything for the matter. Accept it for who it tries to be. A fun piece of fromage that won’t be any more or less affected by the number of people in the room watching it. Cory’s dream sequence is another completely off the wall and terribly executed area. He finds himself naked at a gas station, confronting his blood-drenched grandmother, where he screams in such an unconvincing manner that you’ve figured out exactly what you’ve gotten yourself into. The location where Demon Wind is shot is beautiful and isolated. It’s the perfect Prism tape to get a kick out of when you’re feeling down, or perhaps, when you want four-o-clock to come sooner and it’s only two-thirty. It’ll never be known as one of the best of the best, but it’s certainly one of the silliest of the silliest. It has “beer, water, coke and goat’s milk.” Take your pick.

REVIEW OF M.S. 45

From filmschoolrejects.com

Thana (Zoë Lund) is having a bad day. Not only did she wake up as mute and socially awkward as she was the day before, but she also has the misfortune of being raped twice, by two different men, in completely unrelated incidents. Wrong place, wrong time… Thana is essentially the John McClane of rape victims.

The double-barreled assault leaves her understandably traumatized, but instead of going to the police or curling up into a quivering ball Thana picks up a .45 and starts wandering the streets looking for misbehavin’ men.

Abel Ferrara’s Ms .45 has long been considered an exploitation classic, but while it’s often categorized as an early entry in the rape/revenge subgenre only the first half of that is accurate. There’s actually very little revenge to be found here. Instead, the film offers up a violent descent into madness that gives birth to a still mute and even more socially awkward serial killer.

New York City in the early ’80s was a brick and concrete jungle where the streets were lined with a special breed of men whose sole daily activity consisted of nothing more than leering, harassing, and wolf-whistling at the women passing by. Thana and her co-workers face the words and hands of strangers on a daily basis, and Ferrara’s camera catches it all. It’s a man’s world, men are slobs, and Thana has a whole lot of cleaning up to do.

It’s at this point that a rape/revenge thriller would see our viciously maligned heroine face off against successive rapists and killers on her way to the man or men responsible for transgressing against her at the very beginning, but Ferrara and screenwriter Nicholas St. John have something else in mind. A wannabe Lothario attempting to return Thana’s bag? Bang! A sleazy photographer inviting her to his studio for some head shots? Bang! A guy kissing his girlfriend on a street corner and completely minding his own business? Well, you can see where this is going.

The genius here is that while the pieces are in play for a straight exploitation film they’re actually put together in a surprisingly fresh way. The film is essentially free of nudity, and while the two rapes are unpleasant to watch (as they should be) neither is played for unsavory thrills. The style and visual excesses are saved for the acts of violence and can be seen in the staging, overhead kill shots, and wonderfully profane costume choices (namely the one pictured above). The film’s final minutes are a fairly glorious affair too and feature the use of a far from subtle faux-phallus to wonderfully (and intentionally) ironic effect.

This was Lund’s feature debut (under the name Tamerlis), and while she has no real dialogue in the film the role still requires some emoting. It requires more than she can deliver unfortunately, and while any victim of such horrendous violence automatically earns sympathy it’s squandered through a performance that seems to equate mute with mentally challenged. To be fair, the script isn’t interested in making Thana into a righteous avenging angel anyway.

She tells a co-worker early on (via a handwritten note) that she wishes “they” would just leave her alone, but it’s not long before she stops giving “them” the option. She goes from victim to killer, losing more and more loose screws along the way, and while the original tragedy is never forgotten it loses its ability to act as an excuse in record time. The question then becomes what exactly are viewers left with and who should they be rooting for?

Ms .45 is over thirty years old, but it still packs morally perverted punch that will challenge expectations as to exactly what kind of thrills the film should be providing.

The Upside: An escalating descent into madness; economic script with no unnecessary fat or call backs; fantastic final minutes

The Downside: No time to get to know and empathize with Thana

On the Side: Abel Ferrara plays the film’s first rapist.

REVIEW OF SEVERED TIES

From classic-horror.com

I want to say that Severed Ties is a bad film that's fun to watch, but the problem is that most of the time Severed Ties is just a bad film.

Perhaps the saddest thing about Severed Ties is that it was produced by the Fangoria magazine crew. Fangoria is my favorite horror magazine in that they're not simply a nostalgia rag; they try to present comprehensive coverage of the entire genre, from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to the latest teen screamers opening at your neighborhood Cineplex in a month or two. Severed Ties' producer was Fango publisher Norm Jacobs. It's the only film I've seen produced by Norm, or even promoted by Fango, (such as I, Zombie), but hopefully it isn't indicative of the quality of the others, because Severed Ties stinks.

The premise lies within one of the lesser-known subgenres of horror-"body parts gone wild." Unfortunately, scripter David Casci and director Damon Santostefano (tellingly, neither has gone on to work much after this film) decided to make the wild body part a hand/arm, which is the same body part that has been the subject of this genre 9 out of 10 times, from Thing in The Addams Family to Evil Dead II to more recent films like Idle Hands, all quality works of art, unlike Severed Ties. Also, just prior to the time that production was progressing on Severed Ties, there was another film being made in this subgenre, simple called Body Parts. It is also a much better film.

But despite the unoriginality of the premise (since when did horror films have to be original to be good, anyway?), the idea is actually not bad. Harrison Harrison is the son of a genius biochemist who is about to discover a means of human limb regeneration. He has a scheming mother who wants to use Harrison's dad and his limb regeneration technology for profit only, whereas his dad wants to use the regenerator for more humanitarian purposes. When dad is "accidentally" killed, Harrison takes over the cause. But soon, mom moves in again, this time with her new beau and companion in profit-over-purity, Dr. Vaughan. While fighting over the regeneration serum, Harrison accidentally loses an arm, grabs the serum, and runs off. He ends up living with a motley crew of homeless mutants in an abandoned prison.

Out of generosity to the Fango crew, let's look at the positive aspects of Severed Ties first. The premise has a great Frankenstein subtext, going so far as having Harrison's human test subject be the corpse of a serial killer. The Frankenstein subtext continues throughout the film, and makes an attempt to be a bit of a black comic spoof of Frankenstein ala Frankenhooker. The prison setting is nice, and is a sly way of incorporating a gothic atmosphere for the Frankenstein stuff.

Secondly, the gore aspects are well done, as we should expect from Fangoria. Everything from the severed iguana tails to the more traditional gore to the regeneration serum will make you queasy-as gore should. There is a nonchalance to the gore that always works for me, and there is a darkly disturbing gore scene that results in the most disturbing monster of the film near the end.

Third, not every performance is a disaster (is that a backhanded compliment or what?) and Elke Sommer is also very pleasant to look at. She has great legs and Santostefano goes to great pains to let us know this, possibly hoping that if he does, we won't back out of watching the film so quickly.

And that's about it. The rest of the film is a mess. Even the Frankenstein stuff isn't usually handled right and when Severed Ties goes into Frankenhooker mode, rather than being entertaining or funny, it instead shows you what a genius Frankenhooker director and writer Frank Henenlotter is (please make more films, Frank).

In fact, most of Severed Ties plays like an unfunny comedy. It's more like a really, really bad Saturday Night Live film (as if most of them were funny in the first place). Curiously, it even has Garrett Morris, an SNL alumni, in the cast. Morris turns in one of the better performances, and even that isn't too good. It seems obvious that Santostefano intended Severed Ties as at least a black comedy, but those don't usually work when the film is as good as Porky's minus the jokes. Just throwing in gore and a severed arm with a mind of its own doesn't make a black comedy. Munchies, a film in a similar vein, was funnier and more entertaining than this, and that pretty much stank, too.

In light of this, I can only recommend Severed Ties to horror film completists and those who can watch a film for gore alone, ignoring all other elements that usually go to make an entertaining or good film (say, fans of Fulci or Argento's worst work). Although I'm even reluctant to recommend it to the above because there's a 90% chance that Severed Ties will make you want to burn your Fango collection, and that would be a bigger disaster.

REVIEW OF Death Wish

From joblo.com

We all have movies we love. Movies we respect without question because of either tradition, childhood love, or because they’ve always been classics. However, as time keeps ticking, do those classics still hold up? So…the point of this here column is whether or not a film stands the test of time. I’m not gonna question whether it’s still a good flick, but if the thing holds up for a modern audience.

Home invasion, revenge and vigilante films have long loosely been associated with the horror genre. Often, they work because nothing is more damn frightening than a bunch of psychos running loose in the one place where we all feel safe: home. Recent movie examples that have invaded this haven like The Purge or The Strangers or the upcoming The Equalizer walk that line quite well. What's more interesting sometimes is when the victim is able to seek all sorts of unending revenge. While movies like this existed before 1973, the granddaddy of them all is the one that happens to have made Charles Bronson a star (and made Jeff Goldblum look…odd).

THE STORY: The unlucky wife of pacifist/architect Paul Kersey is murdered while his daughter is brutally raped by a trio of thugs out looking for kicks (damn you Goldblum!). Kersey wants answers, but the police come up short. He’s even mugged days later. His boss sends him on assignment to Arizona, where the change of scenery will do him some good hopefully. All seems well until he happens by a mock Old West gunfight for the tourists, where he comes away with a new understanding of “American Justice.” His Arizona client takes him to the gun range, where he delivers his strong stance on why Americans need guns. When Kersey returns to New York (now with a pistol that the Arizona client gifted him), he starts hitting the streets looking for trouble, or more specifically…vengeance.

WHAT STILL HOLDS UP: First thing first. I love movies that take place in old school New York. Everything always looks and feels cold, intimidating, and brutal. After Kersey buries his wife, the snow drops hard and heavy, making Kersey’s loss feel even colder. The film does a hell of a job showing the frustration of a victim. The man rightfully wants answers, but the cops are lost in their own system. He can’t sit by and do nothing. His daughter has lapsed into a comatose state, and he wants some sort of justice. In the context of the film, it all makes perfect sense.

Now we’ve all seen vigilante movies before, but usually they feel too set or predictable. Even worse, they cast someone in the role where the actor meets the expectations that they bring to the film (like now with Liam Neeson). You expect him to take action. You’d think Death Wish would fall under that trap with Bronson in the lead. The ultimate tough guy. The dude who had one facial expression. The man with the little mustache. But like Stallone in Copland, he found a way to play against expectations, bringing a real sense of humanity to the role.

Bronson brings the depth. We feel his pain when his wife dies, and for once, I believe the character when he says he’s a conscientious objector even when I know Bronson had already starred in about 100 movies where he shoots somebody. When he decides to exact revenge and clean the streets, it effects him. The first time he knocks a mugger stupid with a couple rolls of quarters, he suddenly doesn’t become a tough guy. He’s hands shake. He’s nearly shits himself. And he swings around the sock of quarters like a maniac back in his apartment. It's even worse the first time he shoots a guy. The point is Bronson doesn't play the role like an action hero. He's a man trying to do something. To make his wife's death have meaning. (He even shoots a very young Denzel Washington.)

WHAT BLOWS NOW: Like any old movie, there’s always things that date it. Like clothing, music, style. Or Bronson's very odd little mustache. It's really weird. Just look at it for a while. However, probably two specific things blow about Death Wish today.

1) They made four B-movie sequels that lacked everything that made Death Wish a classic. The stories got cartoonish, and poor Bronson just kept looking older. The sequels only dilute what made this thing work. It's like looking back at the Rocky films. The first one is masterpiece, but it's hard not to think about him in Rocky V at the same time.

2) The genre itself. Hell, the vigilante story has been done so many times that this flick can’t hold the impact it once did. And that sucks. It obviously plays dated (it’s officially 40 years old now), but too many movies have used the exact same formula with lesser success. From the Punisher to Death Sentence to Taken, only so many can be made. (Actually, Taxi Driver is probably the best of the genre, no?).  

THE VERDICT: I also couldn’t help myself and read some comments about Death Wish, trying to understand why anyone would completely dislike it. I could understand if some folks just couldn’t get into a 70’s flick. However, it’s the politics that ends up being divisive. Some claim it’s a pro-gun film. Some claim it’s right wing bullshit. Some claim its making fun of liberals. Whatever. I don’t care about the political message. I care about the entertainment value, and Death Wish still has plenty of it. It's not the best movie ever made, but it could be the best of the vigilantes. Bronson would've made a hell of a Punisher. 

REVIEW OF MIND RIPPER

From oh-the-horror.com

Rarely is it ideal for a film’s reputation to precede it due to production or distribution shenanigans. So it is with Mind Ripper, a 1995 effort that would have been completely relegated to the dustbin of time if not for the shameless efforts of its producers to rebrand it as The Hills Have Eyes III in some territories. It’s not a new trick, obviously, but this is the sort of thing that had been much more common years earlier, when drive-ins and grindhouses ruled the day. Something about this particular attempt strikes me as more brazen, especially since any connection to The Hills Have Eyes is so tenuous. Aside from beginning life as an actual sequel before its screenwriters went in a different direction, just about the only thing Mind Ripper has in common with Hills is the presence of executive producer Wes Craven and a desert setting. Otherwise, it’s pretty disposable junk that I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t even bother talk about, so point one to the producers, I guess.

You could make the argument that Mind Ripper also vaguely echoes Craven’s preoccupation with institutions and science gone haywire. In this case, nuclear testing is replaced by government scientists performing biological experiments to create a superhuman out of cadavers. Their newest specimen is “Thor,” (Dan Blom) a suicide victim they stumble upon in a nearby forest, and the situation quickly (and predictably) goes south when they reanimate the corpse. Confused and righteously pissed off about being awakened from the dead, he embarks on a bloody rampage just in time to be reunited with Stockton (Lance Henriksen), the former lead scientist who scraped him up off the ground to begin with. After leaving the project in disgust, Stockton is has returned out of guilt to make things right with his family inexplicably in tow, which I suppose also helps it to earn whatever connection it has to The Hills Have Eyes.

Criticisms of these exploitative tactics aside, Mind Ripper isn’t a completely awful movie so much as it’s simply a forgettable one (and one that you don’t want to watch with heavy eyelids, I might add). I am never one to dismiss any film that involves a mutant cannibal going wild on unsuspecting assholes, so it’s not as if Mind Ripper is without an obvious appeal. On this front, it delivers well enough, at least initially: there’s plenty of impalements, flesh-ripping, and brain-eating once Thor busts loose and savages what’s left of the skeleton crew. Not only have the experiments granted him superhuman strength, but he’s got a nasty tongue appendage that allows him to easily extract his victims brains straight from the skulls, which is convenient accessory that should make him a big shot at the next cannibal serial convention.

As the film unfolds, it takes a bit more of a suspenseful (and somnolent) approach that has Thor skulking about the facility, systematically picking off the rest of the survivors. What makes the forced connection to The Hills Have Eyes even more amusing is that this stretch of the film actually feels a lot more like Alien, what with Thor creeping around in shafts and whatnot. Some of the scientists even attempt to track him with a device similar to the one wielded by the crew aboard the Nostromo. Plus, Lance Henriksen is standing right there, practically inviting even more comparisons to the Alien franchise—not that Mind Ripper has any intentions of living up to it. Well, maybe it’s on par with Alien: Resurrection. Speaking of Henriksen, his presence does at least speak to the intentions of elevating Mind Ripper by virtue of the fact that any movie is better with Lance Henriksen than it is without him. And wouldn’t you know it—for the long stretch here where he’s held captive by Thor, the movie’s even more of a drag.

At this point, you’re stranded with the Stockton kids, who are admittedly not the worst company since they’re played by Giovanni Ribisi and Natasha Gregson Wagner. The former is the Troubled Teen of the bunch, and you know this because headphones blaring heavy metal are glued to his ears. He’s still sulking over all the time his dad spent in the lab instead of at home, so the sappier bits of Mind Ripper play out like a Very Special Episode of a generic monster movie. Wagner, on the other hand, is a plucky counterpart saddled with a dopey, horny boyfriend (Adam Solomon), whose sole function is to irritate the hell out of everyone until Thor mercifully puts an end to it (spoiler). If I’m being honest, Mind Ripper has a weirdly great cast, and I haven’t even mentioned Claire Stansfield emerging as the requisite Ripley analogue. She kicks a lot of ass as Joanne, a scientist that is having none of Thor’s shit.

Of course, they’re not given anything else particularly interesting to do since Thor is the main attraction here, for better or worse. Just about any monster movie lives and dies by how intriguing its creature is, and this one kind of splits the difference. On the one hand, the killer tongue appendage is a neat flourish, as is the implication that he literally needs to feed on brains to sustain himself (hence the title). But on the other hand, he looks like beefcake who should be playing bass in one of those shitty leftover hair metal bands that were still trudging along in the 90s, at least until he ditches the long locks for a mutant Mr. Clean look. Also, for whatever reason, we’re treated to one of his dreams, which unfolds as an elaborate fake-out that sees him slaughtering what’s left of the cast. It’s a really disorienting moment that honestly doesn’t amount to much in the grand scheme, and I can only imagine it’s a bizarre tribute to the dog flashbacks in Hills 2.

At any rate, Thor at least goes out in a blaze of glory—it’s not every day you see a climax as spectacularly over-the-top as the one found in Mind Ripper, though I am quite confident we shouldn’t hold out any hope about anyone ever following up on the sequel tease. At least screenwriter Jonathan Craven did get a second shot at doing a proper Hills movie with the follow-up to the Aja’s remake, though that one also ended up being just as forgettable as this effort. I really only recall the very beginning of that film, just as I’m likely to only recall the very end of this one, which is better than nothing. I suppose I’ll also remember how I stumbled onto a used DVD* copy of Mind Ripper long after it was out of print, only to see Code Red announce a brand new Blu-ray just months later. They released it under the misleading Hills title (at the behest of fans, who voted on the artwork) without providing any context—sadly, there are no extra features, not that you’d expect many for a film Lance Henriksen is reportedly embarrassed to have been involved with.

In many respects, that makes Mind Ripper a harbinger of things to come: Henriksen would go on to feature in scores of these things over the next twenty years (and counting!), while Craven’s name would become attached to films that were, quite frankly, beneath him. Then again, the "Wes Craven Presents" era did yield Wishmaster, so it wasn't a total waste.

*The screengrabs here are taken from the DVD. Code Red’s Blu-ray restores the film to its original 1.85 aspect ratio and looks quite solid, all things considered.

REVIEW OF MICROWAVE MASSACRE

From screamhorrormag.com

Surprising, when you analyse it, how many successful Hollywood names made their final appearances in forgotten horror films: Fred Astaire starred in 1981’s disturbing Ghost Story, whilst Oscar winner Jack Albertson featured in schlock masterpiece Dead & Buried the same year.  Another star was the popular, blue mouthed American comedian Jackie Vernon, who’s last screen outing was in the oft criticised 1981 black comedy, Microwave Massacre: derided at the time, it’s not difficult to see why the film is now considered a cult classic.

Driven to distraction by his wife’s incessant nagging and terrible cooking, Donald (Vernon), a construction worker, murders her in a fit of rage.  Only after inadvertently eating some of her remains, does he discover a new meat which makes him the ‘man of the hour’ with his workmates.  But where is he going to find a continuous supply of this tantalising dish to keep his – and their – cravings at bay?

You’re unlikely to have seen anything like Microwave Massacre before.  Everything from the ham performances – the stilted, over-the-top portrayal of Donald’s wife May, by actress Claire Ginsberg, is particularly bad – to the rubbery severed body parts, which wouldn’t frighten a child, let alone a restricted adult audience, are perfect examples of the ‘it’s so bad, it’s good’ school of filmmaking.  So much so that – apart from one cringe inducing scene where Donald tucks into a nice joint of tender arm, before realising what it is – you can’t help smiling at the gross theme and risqué humour of writers Thomas Singer and Craig Muckler’s over-the-top story.

At one hour, sixteen minutes, Microwave Massacre is surprisingly short.  This limited running time though, plays in its favour as the action never gets the chance to drag: no sooner has Donald cooked and shared his latest culinary delight with his unsuspecting friends, than he’s off to bed down and serve up the next bimbo unfortunate enough to cross his path.  Which is where the film’s other main preoccupation – sex – comes into play.  Panning out like a horror tinged entry in the popular ‘Confessions’ series of 1970’s British sex comedies, here Donald’s most diabolical deeds result from him getting his jollies off with a constant stream of well endowed nymphos.

Made in 1983, at a time when microwaves were in their infancy, their potential health hazards still largely undiscovered, the film instead focuses on the speed and versatility of the machine.  Here the said kitchen device is on a huge scale, big enough to cook several limbs at a time.  Its proportions however, merely emphasise the comic aspects of the film – elements which save it from becoming just another exercise in horrific bad taste, from an era which produced more than its fair share of such delicacies.

FIVE EASY FIELD TIPS FOR FLEDGLING HORROR VHS COLLECTORS
ARTICLE BY JASON FROM GHOULBASEMENT.COM

Poor Wes. The man might head up the single greatest horror news and editorial website the world has yet known, but he has tremendous difficulty in discerning shit from Shinola when it comes to the eternal hunt for VHS glory. You see, several weeks ago Wes very kindly picked up a few tapes with me in mind. After contacting me on Facebook, a package was shipped off to my doorstep and much to my appreciation three screwed-together assemblages of plastic and tape were in my grasp.  Upon tearing open the gift, I struggled with mixed emotions at the exposed bounty that lay before me. Beat-up cardboard slipboxes of Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy, Delicatessen, and The Thing from Another World. The uncaring, nihilistic, and brash collector in me would immediately laugh at these titles and cast them off as unworthy of a second glance. Of course, it’s the thought that counts, I wasn’t expecting anything truly great anyway, and I thank Wes again for his efforts.

Although to be honest, I felt more sorry than anything for our resident Master Exploder. Such a worldly thespian of exploitation should possess more skill in scoping out potentially great finds on the outmoded, clunky home video format in question. So I’ve collected five quick n’ dirty tips for digging out the cream of the magnetic crop when out in the field at yard sales, swap meets, thrift shops, or wherever you run across these delightful cartridges of sadism. These are designed to assist beginners, but I still apply them to this very day in my travels.

Sniff around for Clams and Boxes (stop snickering)

This isn’t a steadfast rule, but for the most part more interesting titles were housed in plastic clamshell cases and big cardboard boxes (also called porno boxes). “Big boxes” usually stick out like sore thumbs, but clamshells have an odd way of bending in at first glance. If you’ve ever been in the general proximity of a child you’re already aware of the clamshell. Disney seemed to have singlehandedly kept this case alive as their tapes arrived in large white “puffy” plastic cases that enclose a VHS like book. Go to any Goodwill location to locate stacks if in a pinch. The Prism release of Shock Waves (1973) to your right is in a “puffy” black clam while Imperial Entertainment’s Stagefright (1987) is in a “hard” clam. Thorn EMI’s Black Sabbath (1963) is in a small white hard clam as typical from that distributor. King of Video’s The Thirsty Dead (1974) is in an enclosed clam with the paper cover sealed within the case.

What’s the point? Well, doing a quick scan with my eyes for cases like these is the first thing I do when encountering a bunch of tapes. If there’s a one bit of advice to take from this article; remember to do this very thing, calm down, and look carefully. Most of the time, unless you hit a honeyhole, you’ll find most tapes are in the traditional “cassette-fitting” cardboard slipbox that became the overwhelming norm as VHS became affordable for consumers to actually own. That’s not to say nothing good was released in slipboxes, but they’re much more common, and a seller might have a few clams or big boxes squirreled away within their piles. Basically, gravitate towards cases/boxes that are outside the normal cardboard slipcover first. Many times they’ll end up being everyday Disney titles, but you never really know until you’ve check ‘em out. It tends to come down to that one great tape out of the whole lot.

Bone Up on History

This comes with time, but knowing the general histories and norms of old school distributors can help in snagging primo selections. Little things like knowing that MEDIA Home Entertainment started out as “MEDA” with a unique uniform cover art layout. Or that 20th Century Fox were the first distributor releasing titles under the Magnetic Video moniker. The importance of horror/cult-centric studios like Paragon Video or Wizard Video as pioneering forces in home video. The ridiculous rarity of selections from AIR Video, Video City Productions, or Sun Video. Learning what kind of cases certain distributors usually utilized and their usual logos. Getting a feel for what particular genres different companies usually traded in.

All of this helps in quicker retrieval when looking through many titles sprawled out on sheets at swap meets. Instead of taking twenty minutes to look through a small box or being that one 70-year-old guy who has to look at every cover to tell what it is. I tend to see logos before titles and know to swoop in when spotting a symbol from old distributor in a slew of more recent, common tapes. This also assists in spotting off titles you’ve never heard of. Of course, it’s obvious that the more you know about what’s out there and more titles you’ve never heard of stick out. There’s nothing like finding some weird unknown horror flick and then proceeding to dig around the ‘net trying to figure out what the hell it is. Yet also don’t disregard the classics or Betamax and be sure your eyes pass by every title…

Condition? Not So Much…

Some collectors are extremely anal about box/tape condition. I’m personally not one of them. Like any collector will tell you: the time to buy something odd or unique is when you see it. Let’s cut the shit for a minute and admit most tapes found “in the wild” range from a quarter to two bucks a piece. Most people have no idea they’re desired let alone actually valuable in some instances. So plopping down McDonald’s Value Menu cash on a tape with heavy box edge wear or a cover that’s been cut up shouldn’t break anyone financially. One really can’t do much about such situations anyway.

I’m not advocating the purchase of damaged common tapes, but one should have no qualms about picking up a well-worn copy of an obscure number. You never know when you’ll grab some mindblowingly unique despite condition and if you pass it by–it’ll probably end up lost forever in a landfill and finding another copy might take years. Hell, sometimes the bends, slices, and gashes give the tape more character…

Use eBay for the Exotic

You’ll find a constant stream of Horror VHS on eBay; yet it’s best to hold off most of the time–at least on the domestics. Aside from that surprise killer deal, with patience you’ll find, often in-person, most of the stateside tapes seen on eBay for much less than what online sellers are trying to push. I know that the waiting is the hardest part, but that only makes those eventual finds in musty boxes at some hole-in-the-wall swap meet or thrift shop that much sweeter.

eBay is best used as a supplement to your collection. Unless an extremely rare circumstance arises, one simply won’t find too many tapes from other countries trolling yard sales. This is where online auction sites come in handy. Dig and keep digging and you’ll eventually find yourself harvesting a growing selection of awesome tapes from across the globe plopped in your mailbox. Thanks to the power of the Internet.

…and finally, Have Fun!

One of the biggest thrills of collecting horror, exploitation, and cult tapes is the sheer amount out there. These types of films drove the video rental boom and witnessed the horror genre in particular at its peak of popularity. The home video landscape is much different nowadays, as distribution power has greatly condensed with most releases coming from major Hollywood studios. Back in the ’80s, countless companies sprang up along with the majors and either became huge distributors of major titles or simply vanished leaving their output scare.

There’s always new surprises, even for hardened tapehead veterans. One can also either re-visit the nostalgia of the long bygone mom n’ pop video store or get a taste of the days before Blockbuster and Netflix for the first time. In enjoying this hobby, you preserve and celebrate a very important era in the history of the films we all love. Hopefully these little tips will help you through the tangle of tape in pursuit of those more choice finds on that long dead format of yore…

APRIL 3 VHS MOVIE REVIEW : NEKROMANTIK (1987)

After reading so many positive reviews the past several years in genre publications, I finally broke down and bought a copy of this German-language, English-subtitled cult film. As I thought, I was not impressed. This grimy-looking, ultra-low budget horror film about a man (Daktari Lorenz) and a woman (Beatrice M) who like to have sex with rotting corpses is not recommended for anyone with an ounce of good taste left in their bodies. It showcases the actual killing and skinning of a rabbit (in graphic close-up), the slaughter of a cat (put in a plastic bag and repeatedly smashed against a wall) and other ghastly perversities, all shown in loving detail. The faked gore effects are quite well done but a film needs more than good effects to get a positive review from me. This film contains nothing else. Even at 73 minutes, this boring piece of celluloid moves at a snail's pace. I just don't get it's popularity. Directed by Jorg Buttgereit, who later made a sequel and other gore films that defy explanation. An early 70's sex film titled DEEP SLEEP and Straw Weisman's DEADMATE (1988) dealt with the subject of necrophelia in a much more humorous way. To see a German horror film made the right way, read the review for Olaf Ittenbach's THE BURNING MOON (1992). A Film Threat Home Video Release. Unrated. { text from critcononline.com }