Big backlog of unreviewed, so here are some sentences;
MAUSOLEUM – Eighties time capsule about someone’s show-room suburban existence being violently disrupted by a family curse and a decent flow of period effects work (which includes demon-face breasts at one point). Second viewing after a few years, and I have to say I had a lot more fun with it this time.
GRAVE ROBBERS – Groping for a descriptor and all I can come up with is ‘oddball’. It’s about a small-town necrophilia ring operating out of an evil family’s mortuary and walks a wavering line between horror and surreal black comedy. Possibly the makers had in mind an audience made up of fans of fare such as ‘The Deathwish Club’ ie its quite ‘niche’.
THE UNNAMABLE – What has this to do with Lovecraft (or Beckett, for that matter)? It’s surely the living essence of eighties teen horror with its haunted houseful of ‘Miskatonic U’ studes being mercilessly slashed by a cloven-hooved banshee demon thing. Found it as dull as I remembered it from VHS days, though time has furnished it with the undeserved glimmer of curdled nostalgia.
SILENT RAGE – This one’s got Chuck Norris losing it around a scientifically reanimated undead maniac. It’s nothing more than a lightweight slasher retread, but it’s a pretty joyous one. Even though it skimps on truly lurid content, it manages to distill something about eighties trash a la the more screwball likes of ‘Nightmare At Noon’.
THE CASE OF THE BLOODY IRIS – I don’t really like gialli, but this one’s OK. It’s got the usual plodding investigative aspect, but there’s a sleazy vibe and an array of bad-taste red herrings such as a burns victim who must be evil cos he’s ugly. Apart from that, I can’t remember much about it. Sorry!
SCARED STIFF – Was expecting it to be a bit of a yawn, but I persisted, always willing to make room for forgotten eighties junk I haven’t seen. I thought it was pretty good actually, a faintly cheesy slow burn with requisite period aspects (rock video heroin, Native American supernature) until it pulled the rug with a crazy fx blow-out at the end. Enjoyed.
KOLOBOS – Mmm, a film I’d seen two or three times over the years but didn’t have much recall of beyond a sense of “pretty good, a bit weird, Italian lighting, surprisingly gory”. Whilst that summation applies, I found myself losing patience with it this time around. The interesting aspects ultimately struggle against a flagging pace and a lack of real atmosphere.
THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT – That notorious divider of opinion, Lars Von Trier, has gifted us a slasher movie. Not really, but he does use the figure of the serial killer as a vessel for a grim meditation on the relationships between aesthetics, desire and violence. Most of this is Matt Dillon in dialogue, but the film doesn’t flinch from exploitative gore. I didn’t get into it until the last hour (it’s long), but from that point it worked for me. Prefer the likes of ‘Melancholia’ and ‘Antichrist’ in terms of his recent stuff, though.
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