ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST - After feeling a bit uninspired I turned to this, which I always find enlivening with its mild sleaze, cartoon splatter and general air of ludicrousness. You can't really argue with a flick that opens with dead blunt credits in red over a bad still of Manhattan whilst Throbbing Gristle style synths pulsate menacingly. Probably second only to "The Nights Of Terror" in the Italo-trash-zombie era stakes.
BLOOD CAMP THATCHER - Forgot how much I like this one. I love the way the main villain is called Thatcher just because everyone basically hated M T... full of hard boiled badness and villains who look like they should've been in a Martini advert from 1981 (and possibly were). Eccentric details like one of the fascist hunter guys having a sort-of werewolf sidekick for no reason whatsoever appeal to me to this day.
TOE TAGS - Thanks to Dem for mentioning this a few weeks back. Micro budget horror, with its inevitably shitty shot-on-video look, isn't everyone's cup of tea but generally I like that kind of stuff, particularly when it gets weird. Despite its generic cops-on-the-tail-of-slasher plotline, this manages to feel quite eccentric, mostly due to the director's insistence on using totally irrational camera angles all the time. The acting may be toe curlingly bad but 'Toe Tags' is a lot of fun, all the more so for not necessarily being played for laughs. 'Branded' by the same director is similarly baffling and entertaining.
NECROMANIAC - Another American Indie, this time of a more transgressive kind. Follows a degenerate low life who apparently kills at the behest of his companion, a dummy, and constantly spews vile racist, misogynist and homophobic rants, all of which offend my basic core beliefs and values but remain riveting none the less due to the absolutely crazed performance of the lead and the generally bizarre nature of the movie as a whole. As grimy as it gets, but too cartoon to really get under the skin in the manner of, say, 'Maniac'... mesmerising though, and almost seems to approach weird video / performance art with the demented soloing of the main character. People are probably very divided over Ron Atkins, but evidence suggests he may be a twisted genius.
GOBLET OF GORE - Quite dizzying awfulness from Andreas Schnaas. Through the years, a cursed goblet is... well, I can't be bothered, but there's lots of skanky shagging and gore. Then suddenly it gets weirdly powerful during the end section, which has an old man confronting his Nazi past. Whoever did the Eurotrash-style dubbing must've had fun. The credit sequences last about half the length of the movie. A crazed beacon of badness, but probably for German hard-gore freaks only.
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