DVD Reviews June, 2007.
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*NEW*The Black Belly of the Tarantula (1971)
Starring Giancarlo Giannini, Claudia Auger, Stefani Sandrelli, Barbara Bouchet
Directed by Paolo Cavara
Blue Underground

“You’re no nymphomaniac! Whore is much more like it!”

Stylish if not particularly noteworthy giallo about a killer (in the required fedora and trench coat) who paralyzes his female victims before stripping them nude and disemboweling them (this particular method gives some credence to the Bird with the Crystal Plumage-style title). Hangdog-faced inspector Giancarlo Giannini (the Daniel Craig Casino Royale) is the cop in charge of the case, which takes its toll on his confidence as the body count begins to rise. Director Cavara, who got his start on the infamous Mondo Cane, packs his movie with visual flash (lots of striking ‘70s interior design and fashion), but he fails to bring any juice to the murders or the build-up of suspense – in short, where it counts. On the plus side, however, the female cast (which includes three Bond girls – Bouchet, Barbara Bach, and Claudine Auger) looks mighty nice and is frequently naked, and there’s a eerie Ennio Morricone score that’s chock full of jangly strings and the moans of Edda Dell’Orso. Italian thriller vets will want to see this one due to the difficulty of finding a decent copy over the past twenty years or so; first timers and casual genre browsers might find the goings a bit on the snoozy side. Blue Underground’s DVD is letterboxed and offers English and Italian language tracks; a conversation with the producer’s son, Lorenzo Danon is included (in which he recalls Ms. Bouchet bidding him farewell on her last day of shooting while completely naked), as well as the original Italian trailer and a U.S. TV spot for its double bill with Michele Lupo’s The Weekend Murders (I think Ted Knight does the voice-over). – Paul Gaita

Exorcist Master (1993) DVD
Starring Lam Ching-Ying, Collin Chou, Wu Ma, Teddy Yip
Directed by Wu Ma
Image

Lightweight but enjoyable Hong Kong martial arts flick mixes broad comedy with the hopping vampire horror popularized by Mr. Vampire (1984) and its countless sequels and spin-offs. That film’s star, the late Lam Ching-Ying, is on board as a slightly feistier and funnier variation on his usual vampire-busting sifu. Here, he’s the staunchly Taoist Uncle, whose resentment of a new Catholic priest (director Wu Ma) in his town is doubled when a vampire (the former tenant of the priest’s church – and a white guy to boot) beings preying on the locals. Much of the humor is typically loud and physical, with The Matrix’s Collin Chou (as Ngai Sing) providing the lion’s share as Uncle’s dopey student Star. But there are a few clever bits that play on Lam and Wu’s unwavering belief in their own religion’s superiority, especially a dinner table scene in which each use the proper way to eat Peking duck as a means of expressing their beliefs (it’s funnier than it sounds). The kung fu is sporadic but well done, with a heavy emphasis on wire work, and horror fans will probably appreciate Wu’s nods to the movie’s Western influences, such as The Omen, Evil Dead, and the Hammer Dracula series (Exorcist fans excited by the movie’s title should be aware that the sole connection between that film and this one is a brief spit-up of green vomit). Hardcore HK nerds will probably label Exorcist Master as strictly been-there-done-that, but for those with less of a familiarity to Eastern horror, it’s a likable gasser. Besides, how can you really dislike any movie that comes with a free t-shirt (plain white tee with the DVD’s title logo on the front)? I mean, really.

– Paul Gaita

Hearts Of Fire (1987) VHS
Directed by Richard Marquand
Screenplay by Scott Richardson
With Fiona (Flanagan), Bob Dylan, Rupert Everett

Lately I'd felt like I've been losing my touch. Since it's become my self appointed mission to seek out the worst movies in the universe, what have I had to show for myself? I've been distracted from my task and all I can come up with is actual good garbage like "Shakes The Clown" and feeble dribbling re my admiration for Monte Hellman.

I needed trash, stat. And like a noxious wind, "Hearts of Fire" drifted into my life.

This truly wretched vehicle for Bob Dylan during his has been-years--go ahead, argue with me all you want on this--and shrill never-was Fiona is despicable crap that should absolutely not be missed. For the first fifteen minutes I was afraid I had merely rented a bad movie. Then the bilge really kicked in (was it Fiona riffing "Cinnamon Girl" or her Diamanda Galas envy version of "Proud Mary"?) and I knew I'd struck Garbage Island Gold.

Fiona plays Molly McGuire (a lame historical joke you can look up for yourself), toll taker by day and rocker by night. In the paint by numbers  background bit prior to the main plot, we find out Molly feels artistically and emotionally squelched in her hometown. She wants to take her sub-Richard Marx dreck on the road whereas her bandmates want to play their sub-Richard Marx dreck in the confines of Holiday Inn lounges.

Enter Billy Parker (Dylan) who acts drunk, can't tuck in his shirt and seems to be wearing mascara. This all could be intriguing in a totally different movie, here it just makes Dylan look worse than he usually does. Dylan plays the faded hometown hero who's going to take Molly to new heights musically. For some reason the masses over in the U.K. want him and he coerces Molly into going. A May/December romance is hinted at but fortunately it's kept vague.

In fact, much of the movie is totally obtuse both in terms of it's intention and execution that only bad films of this caliber can be. This is especially true in terms Dylan's performance, and he's supposed to be the big draw here. His dialogue sucks and is confusing, but no matter, because he's mumbling it to begin with. (Fiona, on the other hand, feels the need to shout out every line she has ). It's unclear
whether Dylan is obnoxious because his character is meant to be, or because he got talked into this crap. His whole role in the movie was to be that of the elder sage who tries to keep Fiona on the right rock path so she won't be could be swayed off by the glitz of the spotlight. (As portrayed by Everett, a fay wave/rocker whose jaded cover of "Tainted Love" is his contribution to the musical canon).  With a few more coherent lines and even a fractional effort by Dylan, this could have worked, and therefore given the flick a little bit of a framework. But that might have been too much like work, so what we get is Zimmerman in cranky bear mode, occasionally showing up to roar and grumble and wave his paws at all and sundry.


While Fiona isn't awful to look at, she certainly can't act. She comes from the Elizabeth Berkeley
school of Thespian-ism where she makes even day to day actions like eating and walking look wooden and forced, let alone toll-taking and rocking. Musically, her brayingly off key Heart ripoffs made me wander how she got a real life record contract in the first place.

Rupert Everett's turn as a supposedly irresistible rock god is another spectacularly bad miscast. Everett's gone onto being a justifiably acclaimed actor, proving that you can rectify almost any career mistake with a little determination. I wonder how he explains this one though. Like Dylan, it's a bit opaque what he's trying to convey in most of his onscreen time. Burnout? Drunkeness? Being English?  He mumbles too! It's a fucking nightmare when he and Dylan have scenes together. And in what surely was a pathetic attempt at product placement, Everett is wearing an obnoxious BOY OF LONDON shirt in almost every major scene.

SPOILER ALERTS:  Even without the 2007 knowledge that Everett is gay, his bedding of Fiona in possibly the least believable love scenes ever filmed. Perverts on this site may be ecstatic to know that you can see one of Fiona's nips in this nauseating display, however.

HOF takes a quantum leap into badness almost two-thirds of the way through when Colt and McGuire embark on a US tour. Therein, we're introduced to the blind girl who has followed Colt around since day one. Of course, she's the only blind groupie ever to wear Devo wraparounds and look like a Playboy model of the era, but no matter. it's symbolism! Her subsequent stalking/attempted shooting/suicide and the supposed effect this has on Colt and McGuire push HOF right over the edge...shit, did I just ruin the whole fucking thing?

An unsurprisingly surly Richie Havens shows up for a cameo, so do Ron Wood and Ian Dury. Not since I saw Chris Spedding, Dave Edmunds and Ringo Starr in Paul McCartney's similarly atrocious "Give My Regards to Broad Street" have so many talented folks showed up for a cinematic latrine call.

About midway through the movie my wife commented "I feel this borders on child abuse" as our daughter wandered around the living room, drooling, crying and screaming. Should you feel the need for some similar Janovian primal scream therapy, this one comes highly recommended.

-Sascha

Fubar (2004) DVD
Starring Paul Spence, Dave Lawrence
Directed by Michael Dowse
Xenon

Everybody has a best friend from high school. You remember. The best friend you fought the entire jock class of '97 for. The same best friend you skipped school with to go smoke dope in a dingy bowling alley parking lot, only to find yourself hiding in a dugout in a softball park while running from the police after your acid trip went sour. The same headbanger you stood hours in line for Danzig tickets with; the only other dude worthy enough to suck your girlfriend’s tits. The same best friend who held you back from obtaining any productive goals in life because all the druggie ever wanted to do was waste his liver down by the river. The very best friend you finally fucking went to rehab to stay away from. Fubar is about these types of best friends, Bangers: the best of the best, that won’t rest until your dead. The only difference is, you went somewhere in life by detaching, and Terry and Dean’re didn’t until they met this director. By the likes of him, he appears as some self-absorbed Orange Co. “Lost Boy” who dug deep into a trust fund, in order to take a gamble in these two hoots with priceless mullets. Well guess, what, it worked! Fubar is exactly the kind of lazy humor we need to sit in our recliners and hack lung fluid at. This is mere human stupidity igniting convulsive laughter in humans with enough common sense and balls to watch it. Canadian brothers of the mane, Terry and Dean’re take us through their trashed apartments, camping trips, doctor visits, bowling alley and liquor store parking lots in feverish attempt to enjoy life to it’s fullest before Dean’re gets his left nut cut off. Prostate cancer is clearly like sucking the livelihood out of any man. And these two burnouts with money to burn on hookers are here for further proof of this philosophy. If the little fella hasn’t got long to live, then stand in salutation til the end. FUBAR, in the end, isn’t a mockumentary on Terry and Dean’re, but your own lack of erection. It doesn’t take a nutsack to make a man.

“These men were made heroes, not because the way the way they died, but how they lived.”

-America's Most Wanted

-Smutstrutter

Babes in Kongland (a.k.a. Planet of the Erotic Ape, 2002/2007) DVD
Starring Jenny Wallace, Bill Randolph, Lisa Schneider
Directed by Lou Vockell
Secret Key

Your appreciation of Babes in Kongland depends entirely on how much you love sexploitation movies. If you’re a fan but can take or leave them, Babes will have you lunging for the fast forward button within the first ten minutes. But if you’re hooked on classic softcore smut, and I mean hooked, like you’d forego eating three square meals a day so you could buy every movie in the Something Weird catalog, then you’ll probably be charmed by Babes, which treads the same well-traveled path as a hundred or so nudie cuties from the ‘60s in its attempt to get you hot and bothered.

The basic premise is as knuckleheaded as it gets: idiot mad scientist George Taylor (Bill Randolph) invents a device that can pick up video transmissions from all over the universe (which pretty much sounds like satellite TV, but no matter), but since he’s both insane and a moron, the device backfires and sends him to a tropical planet. Randolph mugs shamelessly for about twenty minutes through a riff about needing to pee until one of the cavegirl-style locals (Jenny Wallace) shows up and cracks him over the head with a club. Wallace’s people – an all-female tribe decked out in plastic fig-leaf bikinis and nipple clamps – are desperate to recover their love slave, the Erotic Ape (a guy in a ratty gorilla suit), and have taken to molesting each other in their Styrofoam-walled caves out of sheer sexual frustration. After countless pages of pointless dialogue are spewed by the cast, Randolph finally takes a leak; the cavegirl queen gets it with one of her subjects, and Wallace and Randolph head out to find the Erotic Ape. The Hawaiian-shirted primate (who speaks with an English accent) explains why he deserted his post (he just wanted to be loved) before banging Wallace from behind and getting dog-piled by the rest of the tribe. The end, though a sequel is threatened before the credits roll.

If this all sounds familiar to you, it’s because Babes in Kongland is actually 2002’s Planet of the Erotic Ape, padded with some completely unrelated scenes of Suicide Girls-style kinksters Candy Doll and Addie Morton molesting each other in a backyard (hey, is that Adam Trash spying on them?), in a tub, on a kitchen countertop, and for foodsex fans, in the middle of a smooshed chocolate cake. An uncredited Julie Strain and Monique Gabrielle can be also glimpsed briefly in an online porn clip that Randolph’s assistant watches – funny how neither of these ladies wanted their names included in the film…

No matter. Time and perspective have neither aided nor harmed Babes in any way – it’s still breezy, cheesy fun or an interminable 68 minutes, depending on which way your crank turns. Extras include all of Ms. Doll and Ms. Morton’s shenanigans presented in loop format, and trailers for the rest of Secret Key’s slate of smutty fare, much of which stars Brit big tit queen Taylor Wane.

– Paul Gaita

Cannibal Ferox (a.k.a Make Them Die Slowly, 1981) DVD
Starring John Morghen, Lorraine De Selle, Zora Kedrova, Robert Kerman
Directed by Umberto Lenzi
Grindhousereleasing.com

"No, don't! It could be Rudy!"

I really don't have to give a detailed plot synopsis for Cannibal Ferox, do I?   Can I assume that by visiting this site, you have at least a passing familiarity with this Italian atrocity? And if not, well, enough ink has certainly been spilled about it since it first scarred the minds of scum theater patrons and VHS-loving creeps like Sleazegrinder and I in the early '80s, so you can get any number of descriptions and interpretations of the film that will assuredly recount the eye-gouging, castrations, limb removal, hooks shoved through naked breasts, and real-life animal slaughter in obsessive detail. And if for some reason you still aren't sure what this movie's about – just look at the title: Cannibal Ferox. Doesn't sound good, does it? Sounds Bad. Dangerous, even. And it is.

This DVD is actually a re-issue of the disc that Grindhouse Releasing delivered in 2000 – that one went OOP in about a heartbeat and a half, so if you've been craving this disc, but haven't wanted to pay the absurd collector's prices, say thank you, because here's your second chance. And if you aren't familiar with the disc at all, here's whatcha get: the complete, uncensored director's cut, with none of the Japanese optical fogging or weirdo subtitles or crappy transfer issues that have plagued bootleg copies. You also get amazing commentary by director Lenzi (in heavily accented English) and co-star Morghen (aka Giovanni Lombardo Radiche of Gates of Hell and House on the Edge of the Park fame), both of whom offer diametrically opposite opinions on the picture (Lenzi is clearly a fan of his work, while Morghen sounds like he'd rather swallow rat poison than suffer through another screening). There are also terrific galleries of posters, lobby cards and promo materials from around the world, and trailers from Italy, Germany, and the United States ("For what they've done… MAKE THEM DIE – SLOWLY!"). And liner notes by Bill (Sleazoid Express) Landis do a excellent job of summing up the movie's sledgehammer-like impact upon some of the most hard-bitten audiences in the world – the patrons of 42 ^nd Street's trash palaces.

So suffice it to say that if you want your sleaze raw and mean and potentially damaging to mind, body, and soul, yet with perfect 1:85 widescreen presentation and digital stereo surround sound, you'll get it from Grindhouse's Cannibal Ferox disc. GR is also re-issuing their uncut, double-disc set of David Durston's I Drink Your Blood, so save a few ducats and pick up that one too. Your brain may never recover, but the surviving synapses will thank you.

– Paul Gaita

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