[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

HORROR HOSPITAL – Anthony Balch’s horror ‘spoof’ is always quite a lot of fun to go back to. It’s not as mental as something like ‘Psychomania’, but in a way the vibe isn’t too dissimilar. HH is more knowing and more deliberately camp as it tells of of Michael Gough’s crazed forays into brain surgery at a remote health farm that seems to thrive on a demographic made up of hippies. There’s a lot of loving old school (as in thirties / forties referencing) horror creakiness, with ‘monster in the attic’ type garnishing chucked in pell-mell. Balch being Balch, he wasn’t afraid of showing us the shock of the new either, and those drive-by decaps are always hilarious. Highly enjoyable.

KNIFE + HEART – Parisian gay porn director Vanessa Paradis finds that having a girlfriend who just doesn’t get her constant drunken tantrums makes life a bit too messy; unfortunately said life gets a lot messier when it takes on the form of a semi-Giallo homage with a dude in a mask who has a knife and a weird bird. The excellent ‘Knife + Heart’ ends up a neon drenched trip into nocturnal fantasy which places its bondage-faced killer in the midst of a whirl of near-Lynchian asides, where basement clubs host folkloric-seeming lesbian grand guignol and where young men with mutated arms talk about occult birds in the depths of forests. Despite the mind warping tinge of some of its imagery, ‘Knife+Heart’ is fairly grounded in the dramatics surrounding Paradis, who is very good here. Very highly recommended.

SKINNER – A new one on me. Somehow the pairing of Ted Raimi and Rikki Lake seems less inspired than it possibly should be, but this is certainly quite an odd film. Ted is a quiet guy who just happens to be a serial killer; Rikki manages a B&B. What works is the atmosphere of dereliction and the stylisation, which nods at ‘They Call Her One Eye’ and anything Japanese or HK Cat 3 set in an abandoned factory with lighting by M Bava. Warning, there is a jaw droppingly strange sequence during which a character ‘black’s up’ to self-evidently racist effect.

AMERICAN RICKSHAW – Weird flick made in the afterglow of Italian Exploitation’s classic era. I was surprised that it was by Sergio Martino, who has certainly has a couple of glorious moments on his CV. This isn’t one of them, and in fact when I remember most of his resume after ‘All the Colors of the Dark’, maybe I’m not so surprised. Anyway, it’s a Chinese magic themed action thriller starring former Olympic gymnast Mitch Gaylord as some dude who’s framed for the murder of an evil evangelist’s son and has to dig his way out of that hole with the aid of a stripper. Then Donald Pleasance turns into a demon pig at the end. What film could possibly deliver on the promise of all that?

HAGAZUSSA – A slow burning voyage into the life of a young 15th century social outcast. She lives on the outskirts of a European village, where she’s widely regarded as a witch. Low on dialogue and heavy, ponderously heavy, on atmosphere, ‘Hagazussa’ may not be your first choice if you’re looking for shits and giggles. But if you’re looking for a painterly, free floating drift into semi-abstraction, then I can recommend it.

AS always, HAIL.