Reviews

This is, as the title suggests, indeed a sequel, although You're Next Parts 1 and 2 are short films that are included on the DVD release of Part 3. This tiny trilogy includes two early horror movie efforts of a tiny Twin Cities, Minnesota-based group of film makers called Not For The Squeamish Productions.

You're Next (Part 1) is just one scene. A woman is home alone, she gets a strange phone call, she stands to close the basement door, a guy in a mask sneaks up behind her and cuts her throat, the killer washes the knife and puts it neatly away, roll credits. It's about two and a half minutes long.

You're Next, Part 2 is also a single scene, featuring the killer in the same rubber mask. In this "sequel," the killer shows up randomly when a woman's car stalls in the woods and hacks her to death with a pickax. Again, it's about two and a half minutes long.

You're Next, Part 3 features the same killer in a rubber mask, this time wielding a pair of saw blades attached to a large wooden pole (yes, I know what I just wrote). So the credit as an "Axe Wielding Madman" is somewhat misleading. Also note that said madman, played by horror author Joe Knetter, does have a shower scene, displaying his non-existent buttocks. Don't say you weren't warned.

On the plus side, b-movie horror "actress" Elske McCain does give the audience full view of her enormous assets. Young blonde hottie Scarlet Salem also prances about in something silky, although she doesn't show her goodies, to my knowledge, until Terror Overload (another NFTS production).

The loosely-defined plot consists of the two ladies eating ice cream and watching the popular public domain flick Night of the Living Dead, while wearing their nighties and exchanging dirty banter. After they poke each other in the cleavage with their ice cream cones, one girl gets naked and takes a bath. After some more dirty banter, the killer shows up and hacks them to bits.

Despite the low production values and the porno-level dialog and acting, this is actually a reasonably entertaining little flick. The technical aspects are competent enough in terms of sound and lighting, and the synthesizer score is just about perfect for a movie of this nature. In many ways, this reminds me of a number of the shoestring-budget Direct-To-Video horror flicks that used to adorn the shelves at the local rental store back in the early 1990's.

As far as I know, the only way to get this movie is through NFTS's web site. I personally purchased it at a horror convention they were attending. It's worth picking up if you're a fan of cheesy, low-budget independent horror.

Like many of the movies I've been writing reviews for, Blood of Dracula's Castle is part of a twelve movie boxed set from Mill Creek, a company that deals in very cheap (and sometimes public domain) films. The transfer isn't great. In fact, when I first started watching this, the screen was so completely covered with green lines (from wear) that it reminded me of The Matrix. Personally, though, I believe this adds to the aesthetic of the movie; something about the apparent age of the film makes it that much more enjoyable to watch.

In some ways, this movie reminds me a bit of a 60's version of The Addams Family, as it features a sophisticated, middle-aged couple that lives in a rented castle and are quite open about their vampirism (or their being "the living dead," to be grammatically correct). In addition to a standard manservant (George, played by the great John Carradine), they also keep around an orange-skinned feral guy named Mango around, who roams the surrounding wilderness, hunting and capturing the bikini-clad young women who, for some reason, seem to be in abundant supply in this area. The young hotties are collected and contained in a dungeon, where they are harvested for their blood. Occasionally the charming vampire couple also let Mango have one of the babes for his own purposes, which are thankfully never shown or fully described. They also have a younger friend, Johnny, who is an open and quite charming serial killer who goes nuts when the moon is full.

Enter into the picture a young couple, the incredibly condescending Glen and his fiancé Liz. They enter the scene because Glen has inherited the castle from some relative, and the two stumble around in a manner not unlike Scooby-Doo and the gang, slowly discovering the danger that surrounds them. It's actually very cute, in a campy sort of way. The dialog between the spooky castle residents and the innocent young couple is so corny, it could have been penned by Ed Wood himself.

Okay, so the whole premise of this flick doesn't make a lick of sense. And the print the DVD was made from is terrible. And the crazy man-beast that everyone keeps talking about is named after a tropical fruit which does, of course, prevent him from ever being taken as a serious threat to anyone. It doesn't matter. What matters is this is good, cheesy fun for the whole family, if your whole family is plenty drunk.

The titular Razor Eaters are a gang of Australian hooligans who decide to terrorize civilization and film their exploits, loosely based on a similar gang that rampaged through Melbourne. Their crimes are cruel and brutal. They kill without mercy. They burn people alive. And they even have official t-shirts.

Perhaps half of the movie focuses on the Razor Eaters, and the other half follows the hardened cop, Detective Danny Berdan (Paul Moder), who is trying to track them down. As with Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers, both the detective and the nation itself follows the activities of the gang through the video tapes they leave behind. While many are terrified of the gang, others support their activities, in part because many of their crimes are committed against other criminals, although they use a very broad definition of the term criminal to include people they just don't like. For example, they promise to target drug dealers, but end up killing people for driving like idiots and having loud car stereos. They've also got issues against the media and those who create it, but by the end of the movie it becomes apparent that they are very much enjoying being a part of that media.

It should be noted that, while the actual segments that were filmed by the gang have a documentary feel to them (with the camera moving around all over the place), most of the movie is not shot this way. Personally, I think this gives the movie a more "realistic", true-to-life feel without rendering the entire film unwatchable.

I bought this movie as part of a four-movie set out of the bargain bin at a local department store, along with two other independent movies of the 2000's (and, for some reason, Night of the Living Dead, a movie that gets tacked on to just about any "horror" collection as filler). This is probably the best of the set. Honestly, I think it's worth watching for virtually everyone, but those fans of extreme cinema living down under should definitely consider checking it out.

I purchased this movie sight-unseen at a video rental chain that was going out of business, so I can't complain as it probably cost me about a dollar. It is, of course, a very low-budget independent horror film. I've seen a number of movies that fall under this category, so I'm no stranger to incompetence and utter crap when it comes to movies.

First, it should be noted that from a technical perspective, this was a reasonably well done movie. I've seen independent horror flicks where the creators couldn't even figure out how to get the sound and light done right. Even the acting here isn't terrible; the leads do, at very least, seem to have some training in the art.

Okay, so now I've just written two paragraphs that amount to my telling any reader that this movie could be much worse. Make of that what you will.

Doug Bennett (Mark Aiken) is trying to move up in the business world, and finds himself an aggressive agent, Sarah Tierney (Kristi Clainos), to place him into a higher salary. He starts a new job on the graveyard shift and, well, that's where it gets weird. The only people he comes across in the way of coworkers is some guy who just yells and runs at him, then vanishes without a trace. There's also some mysterious voice on the intercom and the agent (actually a headhunter, or so they say) gets naked and seduces him for some reason. Like I said, it does get weird.

Doug later discovers that Sarah is some sort of ghost or other undead beast (complete with a little full-frontal nudity) and she's trying to use this late-night office job as a means of coming back to life, or something like that.

Really, the biggest weakness of this movie is the script. Most of the criticism that I share with many of the other reviewers is that this was not well written. It sort of reminds me of the type of movies that get played at two in the morning on basic cable stations. It's a good movie to make out to, but not as good as Schindler's List.

Two brothers somehow sucker a bunch of young people into believing they're part of a reality game show in which they do whatever challenge the mastermind comes up with. Eventually it becomes apparent that the stakes are life and death, and the contestants start getting killed off, sometimes by each other.

Perhaps the craziest part of this movie is Edward Furlong as the lead, Philip Markham, who overacts at every turn as he screams at the contestants from his control room, where he chain smokes and eats gas station food. His performance is not one of his finest, but given that he appears to be past his prime at this point, he does deliver something that is, at very least, entertaining (not always for the right reasons, though).

As others have pointed out, Markham is a fairly lazy killer. Mostly he just yells a lot. It is often up to his simpleton brother, Claude, to carry out the dirty work for him.

The big question is whether or not the flick is worth seeing. Well, for me, the movie came with four others in a small package that was located at the bottom of a bargain bin. Given what I paid for it, it wasn't too bad.

This is a movie that slipped under the radar, and now appears to be trying to gain some notoriety because it stars Jeffrey Donovan of the TV series "Burn Notice." I have to admit, it was a selling point for me, although the version I own came from a four-movie set that was sitting in a bargain bin.

The story follows a young woman, Dina, who is unexpectedly pregnant and schemes, with her boyfriend, to sell the baby to another couple over the internet and, well, take the money and run. She tells her story to an older man who drives her to an unknown destination and tries to sell her "Jump to Conclusions" mats.

Naturally, the plan does not go well, and most of the action takes place in one location--the home of the richer, more successful couple.

The acting and action in this movie is actually pretty good for such an obscure find. Jeffrey Donovan is both intense and funny, and despite his natural smugness, he comes off as the most reasonable character.

I bought this movie as part of a 12 movie boxed set from the dump bin at the local department store and gave it a try. At first, I wasn't sure if it was one of the many sleazy 70's exploitation flicks featuring explicit sex, rape, and full-frontal nudity, or more reminiscent of the much tamer teensploitation ventures from the 60's. Right around the time the first nipple made its appearance, I realized the former was true.

As the movie opens, we are introduced to two groups of people. First, we have a (short) bus containing the driver, a very young teacher, Miss Tenny, and four female students, all heading out to Los Angeles through the desert for an educational field trip of some sort that is never fully elaborated upon. Second, we meet two brothers who are either on the run from the law or have been recently released from prison (again, no further elaboration), who have had the misfortune to wind up with motorcycle problems. The brothers, Pete and Al, are visited on the side of the road by nice guy motorcyclist Jay, who decides to stop and help them out, then join them to make a trio. As it turns out, they're heading the same direction as the bus full of hotties, and they all end up fueling up at the same gas station. It is, at this point, that we see the nature of the three bikers--Jay is the nice guy, and Pete would like to be, but Al, his brother, is completely f**ked in the head. We learn this after Al intensely crushes a handful of stamps then kills the gas station attendant by lowering a car on the poor old man.

Shortly after the encounter between the two groups, the bus breaks down and Marvin, the bus driver, has no idea how to fix the problem. While doing this, the four students have a fun little conversation about sex, which leads to a rough and dirty cat-fight between the easy girl and the Bible-banger. The three bikers then encounter the bus again, and seem about halfway willing to assist--although crazy Al starts showing his true colors to the teacher while flirting with Bobbie, the feisty and logical slut of the group. While Miss Tenny would prefer to have the three leave and never come back, Pete and Jay, trying to be civil, offer to help the group out and Al, snickering mischievously, agrees. Having precious little choice, the school folks allow the bikers to tow them (yes, three motorcycles are shown towing a short bus), but Al doesn't take the bus to safety. Oh no. They take the bus to isolation, and the mayhem begins.

This flick does have a few extreme situations, including rape and murder, and a bit of female nudity as well. It also has a distinct but thin story to go along with it--although characters aren't well developed and we never do find out the background of either the protagonists or antagonists. This movie is genuinely a product of its own time--I say this because, for example, it does portray the dominance of a group of five women by two men after the male hero, Jay, is incapacitated. I dare say that if this movie were to take place only ten years later, the five women would have knocked Pete out and beaten Al's skull to a bloody pulp. Hell, there was at least one scene when the lone Al was writhing on the floor in existential anguish while three of the young women stood and watched--if only one of them had the fortitude to boot him square in the head, the movie would have been over at that point. Let's face it: modern audiences would never tolerate that sort of weakness being portrayed by characters for no other reason than their gender.

This flick isn't for everyone, but when it comes to cinematic sleaze, there's always going to be an audience. For those expecting something along the lines of Wes Craven's THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, prepare to be disappointed, as TRIP WITH THE TEACHER isn't nearly as extreme. Overall, it's really a minor entry into the exploitation genre. It's worth watching if part of a cheap boxed set, but I honestly could not see hunting this down.

This is definitely a forgotten piece of cinema from the early 90's if ever there was one. I found Brain Twisters as part of a recent Mill Creek DVD boxed set and, while the twelve-movie sets aren't nearly as daunting as those with fifty, when I purchase a boxed set I watch them all, no matter how painful.

In all actuality, this is not as bad as the other reviews would suggest. That's not to say this is a good movie, either; it just doesn't have anything especially interesting going on with it to fall into that So-Bad-It's-Good category. It does have some blood, but it could have used some more meat and maybe an exposed breast or two.

The basic premise is this: a college professor named Dr. Philip Rothman (Terry Londeree, in one of his only film roles--his acting is even more wooden than Keanu Reeves) is working with a private company to develop a mind-altering software, and uses his own workstudy students as lab subjects. The testing consists of the subjects watching some colorful four-bit graphics that look like they were made on a Commodore 64 or some other piece of hardware that was outdated even by the standards of the early 90's. Very pretty, yes, but in this case the colorful squares also turn the subjects into vicious killers. Sometimes they kill themselves, depending on the needs of the script.

Most of the story revolves around the life of one of Rothman's students, Laurie Stevens (Farrah Forke, who actually did go on to get some decent work on television). She's not exactly a "final girl" in any sense, though, just to note--I noticed other reviewers calling this a Slasher film, which it is not by any stretch of the imagination. Laurie is just a lead character, but she is written very thinly; she is, for example, apparently able to resist the mind control aspects of the pretty lights, but that is not very well conveyed through either script nor acting.

Behind the poorly executed plot is a conspiracy involving a video game developer (I think) that is (for some unknown reason) using the pretty light software to put into commercial games with the intention of making kids go crazy and kill people (I guess). There's also this uncomfortable romantic sub-plot with Laurie and a cop (Frank Tun, played by Joe Lombardo, whoever that is). Really, the whole thing is one big mess.

I honestly can't recommend this flick for anyone, but it was moderately amusing, if only because it was so bad.

Perhaps because of the success of ROSEMARY'S BABY (1968) and THE EXORCIST (1973) and, to a lesser extent, THE OMEN (1976), the 1970's were a time in which the genre of horror in film was saturated with movies about evil Satanic cults, demonic possession, and incarnations of the big cheese Satan himself. Dozens, if not hundreds, of very low-budget movies revolving around this theme were made in the western world during this era, some with more success than others. It is within this period that SATAN'S SLAVE (1976) was made as a pleasant little contribution from England. While the budget is not as microscopic as that of some of its peers, this flick did not have the sort of funding possessed by the more successful examples of the genre.

This movie is not, by any stretch of the imagination, the worst of its type. It has a reasonably interesting story, attractive characters, at least one sleazy psycho guy, and plenty of nakedness and blood. Since its about an evil Satanic cult, there's also a few cool ritual scenes with daggers and baphomets and robes, along with an attractive young blonde being offered up to the dark lord. What more can a viewer ask for, right?

One of the coolest parts of this movie is the opening sequence, if only because of the eerie off-key piano music and bizarre artwork--there was a certain look attributed to Satanism in the 1970's, and this movie definitely gives the audience that feel. It then transitions to an outdoor scene with a bunch of goat-headed cultists performing the sacrifice of a naked blonde woman upon the altar for the generic reasons that Satanic cults typically do such things in movies of this nature.

From there, we are introduced to Patrick Bateman's wealthy British counterpart, Stephen Yorke (Martin Potter), who romances a young woman. Things are going well for our anti-heroic psycho and it looks like he's about to score a bit of crumpet (if you know what I mean) when suddenly his companion changes her mind for some inexplicable reason. He isn't about to give it up, however, and suddenly clothes are torn and rape seems almost imminent. She does flee the immediate scene, only to have Stephen smash her skull in the doorway before she can exit the manor.

Finally, we meet our heroine, pretty Catherine Yorke (Candice Glendenning), who has spent the night with her long-term lover John (Michael Craze). The two discuss the trip she is about to make out into the country for a week with her parents, to visit a long unknown uncle. Oh yes, and we also find out that Catherine is psychic. No specific psychic powers, mind you--just the generic extra-sensory perception that operates as the plot deems necessary.

Catherine leaves London with her mother and father and they travel by car into the countryside. As they approach her uncle's estate, her father has a flash headache and steers the car directly into a tree. When Catherine is sent for help, the car explodes into a fireball, incinerating her parents and leaving her in the care of her uncle Alexander (Michael Gough).

From there, things go from bad to just plain weird. While Uncle Alexander remains the cool center around which everyone else revolves, his "secretary," a young woman named Francis, does everything she can to maintain Stephen's affection and attention despite the fact that he only has eyes for his cousin. Catherine, meanwhile, has repeated psychic flashes of witchcraft and other assorted Satanic activity around the area, only to end up falling in love with the cold-hearted Stephen and having incestuous relations with him.

Eventually the secrets of the evil cult are revealed, much to the surprise of Catherine but not so much to the surprise of the audience. There are a few twists, but given the age of this movie, expect numerous clichés.

This is a super-cheap movie and there's absolutely no reason you should be paying full price for it. I personally got mine with one of those Mill Creek boxed sets in the dump bin at a local department store. It's not too bad for what it is, all things considered.

I guess I can't complain too much, because for all intents and purposes, I got this movie for free. It came with a 'freaks' boxed set through Something Weird video, along with, among other movies, the classic 80's cheesefest BASKET CASE. At the time, purchasing BASKET CASE in this boxed set actually cost less than it did alone, so hey, a good deal is a good deal. And since I bought it, I gave SHE FREAK a day in court and watched it. Unfortunately, it isn't nearly as interesting as BASKET CASE. It's really only slightly more interesting than watching paint dry.

SHE FREAK is, near as I can tell, the 1960's remake of the classic freak film FREAKS, directed by Tod Browning. Unlike Browning's movie, however, SHE FREAK contains almost no freaks at all. The biggest problem with this movie is that a grand majority of it contains stock footage of carnivals being set up and taken down, shots of random people on rides, and other such mundane images of fair grounds and carnies.

What little story there is revolves around Jade Cochran (the late Claire Brennan), an average-to-homely woman who begins the movie as a coffee shop waitress with high aspirations. After getting fired from her job for not being appreciative enough (if you know what I mean), she finds work at the local carnival, becoming good friends with one of the strippers. She eventually meets and seduces Steve St. John (Bill McKinney) and marries him, although it's made very plain that she's a bit on the easy side, as prior to the marriage she has a little bedroom bam-bam with Blackie Fleming (Lee Raymond), a man egotistical enough to decorate the walls of trailer with his own name in spray paint.

Steve St. John, Jade's new husband, is in charge of the freak show, something that deeply disturbs Jade. See, Jade is a bit on the shallow side, thinking more about the material advantages of marrying a man with money and less about the human side of his work trying to make a life for people who might not otherwise have one. Since Steve isn't the most attentive of husbands, Jade's little fling with Blackie continues despite the marriage. Then, one night, the only freak in the movie--a little person named, appropriately, "Shorty"--sees Jade getting it on with Blackie, and while he says nothing, he makes his dislike of Jade as clear as this script is capable of making it.

Things escalate (so to speak) from here, with Jade becoming increasingly open about her dislike of the unseen freaks. Unfortunately, as an actor, Claire Brennan was as talented as she was attractive, and when she expresses her disgust she does so with a smile that she holds back with painful difficulty. Soon, Steve St. John catches Blackie after one of Jade's indiscretions, the two of them have a fight, and Blackie stabs Steve to death in a very brief and tame fight scene. Jade then inherits the freak show, and runs it with a cold heart, in contrast to Steve, who considered the freaks close friends of his.

Anyway, eventually the freaks catch up to her and deform her in ways that are only possible in the movies, and she ends up becoming the bizarre and twisted creature shown in the SHE FREAK trailers and posters, and the movie ends. That's it. And believe me, this review is far more interesting than the actual movie itself, which should tell you something.

This is an obscure little low-budget exploitation flick from the mid-70's. Just how obscure are we talking? Well, this review will be number six here at IMDb. Only three actors are being credited for this movie, if the cast list is any indication. This flick is so unheard of that nobody involved with it even bothered to track down the five or six other actors that appear in this movie. That's saying quite a lot, really. I personally acquired this on a triple-movie DVD set along with two other Nick Millard movies, CRIMINALLY INSANE and its sequel. I have no idea what the other options are in terms of availability for SATAN'S BLACK WEDDING.

This movie was released during a time when horror often dealt with Satanism and the rise of the devil himself. It very much rides the coattails of popularity from similarly-themed movies such as ROSEMARY'S BABY and THE EXORCIST and even lesser-known titles from the drive-in movie circuit. SATAN'S BLACK WEDDING was definitely a bandwagon-jumper, and not an especially good one, at that.

First, the good things about this movie: as other reviews have mentioned, the atmosphere is very dark and spooky, in a way unseen in later horror films. The opening shots of a Goya painting, coupled with creepy, off-kilter piano music, certainly set the stage for a genuinely disturbing movie. The score for this movie was very well placed, as were many of the sets and locations.

On the other hand, this is a very cheap movie, and finding professional actors must have been rather tricky. Many of the actors, most of whom are not listed on IMDb, were pretty wooden. The special effects aren't much to write home about, either. The bright red "70's blood," as I call it, is to be expected, but the vampire teeth used for the undead Satanists looked as though they were purchased out of one of those 25-cent vending machines seen in the opening walkways at your local department stores--the kind you might have used as a child while completing a Dracula costume for Halloween. It's hard to be scared of creatures with those plastic monstrosities sticking out of their mouths.

The plot is pretty basic. Mark, a young actor and Elvis Presley lookalike, arrives in town to investigate the mysterious death of his sister. As he continues searching, he finds that she was involved in a bizarre underground cult of devil-worshippers who, through some sort of dark rites, are able to reanimate the dead as some sort of Satanic vampire things that bite necks and suck the blood from the living.

This is a fun movie for those who enjoy cheap horror flicks that virtually nobody has ever heard of. I can honestly recommend this for that crowd. For those who prefer a higher-budget flick or something that had a little more talent behind it, I'd suggest steering clear of this one.