Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop  BIG BAD WOLVES – From the makers of ‘Rabies’ comes another tale of violence, cause, effect and consequence. A suspected child murderer is harassed by a corrupt cop – both are kidnapped by the raging father of one of the killer’s young victims. ‘Big Bad Wolves’ is poised between thriller, horror and black comedy but casts its net more widely than standard genre territory, echoing again the themes of the earlier ‘Rabies’, where idiocy and desperation were the conduits of ‘evil’ rather than the malevolent actions of a bad guy antagonist. Both films locate authority – the police, the family – as pretty much the source of this shitiness and reference broader social concerns ie Arab – Israeli conflict. More so than Rabies’, ‘Big, Bad Wolves’ is really quite gruelling and guaranteed to make you squirm… there is some physical violence, but it’s more emotionally tortuous than anything. See it. Draining, bleak and highly disturbing, all the more so for its deftly pitched lightness of touch.
TOWER OF EVIL – Brit pulp from the early seventies. It has one foot in the past, one in the future – a post-Hammer gothic feel lingers over leaner, meaner more exploitative material. Still, it’s hard to believe ‘Last House on the Left’ was made the same year and TCM was just around the corner. Plot wise, a bunch of teens are murdered on an isolated island. Some bickering antiques experts and a private detective (!?) are dispatched to get to the bottom of it all. There are lots of reasons for watching ‘Tower of Evil’, but in the end it boils down to a trade off between the good stuff and the bad. The good stuff includes a few splattery murders, surprising amount of skin given its provenance, whacky montages, awful stabs at period grooviness, good atmosphere and locations and a pretty cool ‘reveal’ (‘it’ should’ve featured a lot more heavily imo). The bad stuff includes the sum total of footage of people wandering around the island and having expository conversations. Sadly, the balance tips more towards the latter, but, although it often flags and maybe can’t sustain interest or excitement all that well, ‘Tower of Evil’ is still worth a watch.
WARLOCK MOON – Another trip down memory lane to the misty realms of yesteryear’s grindhouse. ‘Warlock Moon’ was made in the same era as ‘Tower of Evil’ and underscores the differences between UK and stateside product of the time. In this one, two goofball college studes investigate the mysterious history of a long forgotten and semi derelict health spa out in the wilds. A local legend suggests a past involving murder and cannibalism… but what does Mrs Abercrombe, the spa’s sole occupant, know about the sinister satanic blood cult behind it all? ‘Warlock Moon’ is a regional American indie. It has the same slippery, hard to pin down but pungent atmosphere that attracts many to this hitherto forgotten epoch of film… a kind of low key, dreary psychedelia, post-Nam depression looming through a vale of pot smoke. It’s not overt, but it lingers in every frame. ‘Warlock Moon’ partially reminds me of, say, ‘The Velvet Vampire’ or ‘Messiah of Evil’ in tone and feel (although it’s certainly nowhere near as good as the latter). I liked it, and recommend it to fans of weird seventies horror. It’s a slight film in many ways, but rewards patient viewing for those into a certain kind of atmosphere. A word of caution to interested parties, however – the Shriek Show DVD has a glitch which was later rectified for the ‘Cannibal Lunch Box’ set.
VIOLENT SHIT 3 : INFANTRY OF DOOM – Or ‘Zombie Doom’ on the version I saw. Three men are washed up on an island. They are captured by a group of warrior types wearing silver cardboard visors. They are taken to an army camp run by a mummified figure in a suit of silver cardboard armour. A scientist performs experiments on human victims in the background. Before I go any further, I’ll just mention that, for the benefit of those who would rather skip onto the next post, this was made by Andreas Schnaas. For those who consider themselves a fan of Schnaas’ work on some difficult to fathom level (ie me), read on and know that this is a completely whacked out delight, a partial triumph of no-budget brainlessness which bludgeons itself stupid with its complete lack of sense and insistence on dumb sadism. The first indicator that things are going to get lopsided is the dubbing. In the earlier ‘Zombie ’90: Extreme Pestilence’ the distributors (via the filmmakers?) went for a broadly comedic approach and left everyone sounding like either Shaft or Marge Simpson in a SOV landscape of wall to wall entrail tearing. I wasn’t all that convinced. This time, they got the dubbing right in that it teeters on that ambiguous line between “are they trying to be funny?” and “this is awful, just… awful” (which is one way of approaching the entire film). Sorry to go on so much about the dubbing, but it really is almost the invisible lead character in ‘Infantry of Doom’, and I haven’t laughed so much since ‘Mad Foxes’. Anyway, dubbing aside, there are many other highlights here, including a sleazy attack – by – action – toy scene and loads of crazy gore. It was only when things got a bit too frenetic (and comedic, a la Peter Jackson) in the second part of the film that I found myself flagging a bit. But, if you like bad films, if you like films that look like shit, if you like totally disjointed nonsense full of random ultraviolence, then ‘Infantry of Doom’ is a winner. |