KIDS GO TO THE WOODS... KIDS GET DEAD - A contemporary SOV indie slasher homage - this kind of filmic move seems very popular these days. KGTTWetc. distinguishes itself slightly by referencing the whole degraded VHS tape thing which has become an underground staple in recent years - witness 'Trash Humpers' for this phenomenon's mainstream variant, or else countless YouTube 'hypnagogic pop' videos. Basically, a tongue-in-cheek slasher flick is cut in with said video edits and scraps of late night TV horror presenter 'Candy Adams' to create the feeling of something ripped from TV in the early hours. This 'film as object' thing is quite interesting and calls for further exploration than the superficial treatment given here, but this is micro-budget cinema with an imagination, something I'm totally in favour of.
HELLMASTER - Wow. What a special, special movie. Definitely could form part of an unholy f*cked up late eighties trio with 'Hellgate' and 'The Vineyard'. Feels like an average B-movie of its era mixed in with rip-off Italian horror stylistics, then edited into oblivion until all sense is lost. I can't think of many films where the dream-like atmosphere is down to sheer film-making incompetence as much as the conscious deployment of creativity in action, Maybe this is the only one. Certainly the only one featuring David Emge, John Saxon and Ron Asheton from The Stooges!
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