Bloody Flick – Page 8

October Horrorshow: Mountaintop Motel Massacre

It’s clear by now to regular readers that Missile Test is a big fan of regional cinema. It’s hard to overstate the stranglehold that large media companies have over the artistic content of the country. Sometimes the consolidation of media becomes so egregious that even the federal government gets involved to stop it. Not nearly enough to make an actual difference, but that’s a story for another day, perhaps after Disney makes a bid for DC or Image. Anyway…

Mountaintop Motel Massacre is regional cinema from Louisiana. Directed by Jim McCullough Sr., from a screenplay by Jim McCullough Jr., Mountaintop Motel Massacre filmed in the fall of 1982, or the spring of 1983, depending on the source. It then showed in some theaters in the south under the title Mountaintop Motel, before being picked up for distribution by Roger Corman and New World Pictures. They insisted on reshoots, including a new ending, ‘Massacre’ was attached to the end of the title, and the rest is history. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Mountaintop Motel Massacre”

Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Torso, aka I corpi presentano tracce di violenza carnale

Viewers of gialli would be hard-pressed to find a film that ticks more of the genre’s boxes than 1973’s Torso, from writers Ernesto Gastaldi and Sergio Martino, with direction by Martino. It has copious amounts of gratuitous nudity, a killer who stalks women, a final reveal of the killer’s motivations that makes little sense, and enough blood and guts that the film bleeds over into the slasher horror genre.

In Perugia, Italy, a killer sets his sights on lovely female students of a local university. The women are stereotypical free spirits of the age; into drugs, sex, and nude sunbathing. They stand out amongst the stodgier parts of contemporary Italian society, not least because their miniskirts reach nowhere close to the knees. Martino seems to take glee in showing the clash between the prudes and the debauched. Continue reading “Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Torso, aka I corpi presentano tracce di violenza carnale”

October Horrorshow: The Lake (2022, Thailand)

There haven’t been many films from Thailand here in the Horrorshow, despite there being a nice little industry for the horror genre in that country, going back decades. Ghost and supernatural films seem to be de rigueur. Today’s film, though, is a monster flick that was done in by its storytelling and some bargain basement dubbing.

The Lake, from writer/director Lee Thongkham, tells the story of a pair of monsters that emerge from a lake and begin terrorizing the surrounding village and city.

In the opening scene of the film, audiences see some villagers out on the lake at night, and a big monster appears. It’s not kaiju-sized, but it could give a real life Tyrannosaurus fits. But, that’s not the only monster. The next day a more human-sized scaly biped emerges from the lake, and that’s the beast that wreaks the most havoc. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Lake (2022, Thailand)”

Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Madhouse, aka There Was a Little Girl

New Orleans has been a popular filming location for horror flicks. Parts of that town have the patina of age and dire history that make it perfect for the genre. Don’t sleep on Savannah, Georgia, though. Its historic district is packed full of edifices built by the southern gentry of ages past, and all the baggage that implies. Just like every other American city in the 1970s and ’80s, decay and deterioration only added to the area’s horror bona fides.

Take Kehoe House, a Queen Anne mansion commissioned in the 1890s by immigrant industrialist William Kehoe. Not quite one of the Gilded Age piles that lined 5th Avenue in New York, it’s still an imposing structure that fronts an entire short block of Columbia Square. It’s a well-rated historic inn these days, but back in the early ’80s, it was rundown — close to being a wreck, and the ideal location for Madhouse, from writer, director, and producer Ovidio G. Assonitis. Writing credits were shared with Stephen Blakely, Roberto Gandus, and Peter Shepherd. Continue reading “Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Madhouse, aka There Was a Little Girl”

October Horrorshow: Zombie Island Massacre

Zombie Island Massacre plants its flag very early on. The funky James Bond-type intro, instead of going with the silhouettes of scantily-clad women, just shows us a transparent breast, instead. The message is clear. This flick is going to be trashy, and you will like it. Then, the very first scene features a nude Rita Jenrette showering and lathering up her buxom body. What a start to a Troma-distributed film. Knowing their tastes, and then seeing the title of this film, this is just the start of a raucous ride. Only, it isn’t. This scene is the high point of the movie. Afterwards, this flick is all promise, and little reward. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Zombie Island Massacre”

Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Cannibal Ferox, aka Make Them Die Slowly

Cannibal Ferox movie poster …And then there’s Cannibal Ferox. Released a year after Cannibal Holocaust, in 1981, Cannibal Ferox tries to succeed as a film by taking the most exploitative moments of Holocaust, and wrapping footage around them. Writer/director Umberto Lenzi did not seem to realize that what made Cannibal Holocaust a successful movie was not the animal slaughter or the graphic violence. Those are, arguably, essential parts of the package, but Holocaust is indeed a package deal. It succeeds because most aspects of the film are well done, including story, acting, cinematography, music, etc. Without all those things working together, viewers get, well, Cannibal Ferox.

Cannibal Ferox stars Lorraine De Selle as Gloria Davis, a doctoral student in anthropology from New York, whose thesis is that cannibalism in tribal cultures does not really exist. Rather, it was a lie fomented by Conquistadors and other Europeans to justify genocide in the New World. In order to prove her thesis, she travels to the Colombian Amazon with her brother, Rudy (Danilo Mattei), and friend, Pat (Zora Kerova). They’re hoping to locate an isolated tribe and do some anthropological stuff.

Not long after going off the beaten path into thick jungle, they begin to see disturbing signs that something is amiss, culminating in the discovery of bloody corpses. Then, a pair of unexpected New Yorkers like themselves pop out of the jungle, one suffering a grievous wound. They are Mike Logan and Joe Costolani (the recently-deceased Giovanni Lombardo Radice and Walter Lucchini). Those two fled New York after ripping off a heroin supplier, in a side plot that takes up far too much of this film’s time. They somehow ended up in the Amazon jungle chasing down emeralds. Continue reading “Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Cannibal Ferox, aka Make Them Die Slowly”

October Horrorshow: Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan

See that subtitle? The one that reads ‘Jason Takes Manhattan?’ There’s a lot of promise in a subtitle like that. New York City is a big place. It’s an assault on the senses like nowhere else in the country. It’s loud; it’s packed full of smells, strange, pleasant, and offensive; no matter where you are in the city, there is always something worth looking at. It’s a city that begs to be experienced every day one is there. It’s also an expensive place to film, so when writer/director Rob Hedden had his Friday the 13th sequel greenlit by the studio, they told him there could only be two days of filming in the Big Apple.

So, that subtitle? It would have been more accurate if it had read ‘Jason Takes a Pleasure Cruise’ or ‘Jason Visits the Alleys of Vancouver.’ Hedden was crushed by the studio’s decision, but soldiered on, delivering a movie that he knew disappointed fans, because it disappointed himself just as much. That’s the bad news. The good news is, after a string of films with loosely-connected plot threads and uninteresting premises, the Friday the 13th franchise returns to a more basic slasher formula, and one that works better. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan”

Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Cannibal Holocaust

This one’s a tough watch, folks. Cannibal Holocaust, from director Ruggero Deodato, was not the first Italian cannibal horror flick, but it is the most notorious. It’s the most disgusting. It’s the most disturbing. It’s the most alarming. It’s the most guilt-ridden for the viewer. Its portrayal of death was realistic enough that Deodato was briefly charged with murder upon the film’s release in Italy. It has earned every bit of its reputation. It’s also one hell of a movie.

Cannibal Holocaust tells the story of four NYU film students who head to the Amazon jungle in Colombia to shoot a documentary about local tribes that practice ritual cannibalism. When they go missing, a professor of anthropology, Harold Monroe (Robert Kerman), heads to the jungle to see if he can find out what happened. He’s joined by guides Chaco (Salvatore Basile), and Miguel (possibly Ricardo Fuentes — the credits don’t say and the internet is divided). Continue reading “Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Cannibal Holocaust”

October Horrorshow: Deadly Manor

The late 1970s into the early ’90s was one of horror cinema’s golden ages, and that success was built on the slasher flick. The names of villains are iconic. Michael Myers. Jason Voorhees. Freddy Krueger. Chucky. But, most slasher flicks didn’t have larger than life villains such as these. The grist mill was running too hard and fast. The VHS boxes were piling up in the back of the video store. The mantra was to take the familiar slasher tropes, throw some new, young faces into the mix, and let loose. Most slashers ended up being one-offs, with no hope for a sequel. Some, like Maniac or My Bloody Valentine, became iconic in their own right. Most were crap, though. Like Deadly Manor. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Deadly Manor”

Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Massacre in Dinosaur Valley, aka Nudo e selvaggio

Massacre in Dinosaur Valley movie poster There are good Italian cannibal horror flicks, and there are bad Italian cannibal horror flicks. Besides the plot elements they all share and steal from one another, the other thing they have in common is that they are prime exploitation cinema. Massacre in Dinosaur Valley is one of the more exploitative of the bunch, and it has nothing to do with animal slaughter and mutilation, or graphic depictions of bodily injury. This flick is about the nudity. It’s right there in the Italian title of the movie.

“Nudo e selvaggio” translates into English as, “Naked and wild.” The English-language distributors must not have thought much about that title, which would probably have frightened off more than a few theater owners back when it was released, so they titled the film Massacre in Dinosaur Valley. It’s just as descriptive and accurate as the Italian title. There is a massacre, and it happens in some place called Dinosaur Valley, but I have to admit that, going into this film blind, I was disappointed that there weren’t any dinosaurs. Meanwhile, had the film just been called Naked and Wild, my expectations would have been satiated. Anyway…

From 1985, Massacre in Dinosaur Valley is a joint Italian/Brazilian production, written and directed by Michele Massimo Tarantini, with some uncredited script work by prolific screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti. The film stars Michael Sopkiw as Kevin Hall, a mercenary paleontologist who roams all over South America in search of fossils. Continue reading “Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Massacre in Dinosaur Valley, aka Nudo e selvaggio”