SLAVE GIRLS FROM BEYOND INFINITY – There’s a title that could only hail from the back of a VHS rental place in 1987. Elizabeth Kaitan and Cindy Beal are on the run from a galactic prison. Their stolen space craft crash-lands on a planet where Don Scribner, who’s obviously a fan of “the most dangerous game”, lulls visitors into playing the quarry in his fatal manhunts. It’s all as throwaway as you imagine, but the script is nicely sardonic, there’s an attempt at a steamy, jungle flavoured sci-fi gothic atmosphere, there are mutants, robots and, briefly, zombies. Likeable, all the more so for being quite short.
FRANKENSTEIN REBORN – An Asylum Frankenstein update from the early noughties. This one has a bit of a bad boy Dr F who likes to indulge in bondage, drugs and sexy mind games, although the vibe of ‘Frankenstein Reborn’ is more “stilted and workmanlike” than debauched. There’s a smidge of gore, some nicely gooey monster make-up and the odd laugh out loud moment as it lurches from bad science to predictable climax. Keeps to template and never transcends the typical, but if you have a disposable ninety minutes you may be as mildly entertained as I was.
HIRUKO THE GOBLIN – Shinya Tsukamoto ditches the monochrome hell of ‘Tetsuo’ to bring us the madcap adventures of two Ghostbuster types, who chase human heads on spider legs around an abandoned school. A background story about ancient evil within a lost tomb gives rise to some cheapo HR Giger-ism. ‘Hiruko’ swings between Raimi-esque camera silliness and moments of lyrical reflection, even letting in a bit of cloying sentimentality between moments of neck spurting and head severing. Like a lot of Tsukamoto’s early stuff, it gets a little exhausting, though it’s way less frenetic than ‘Tetsuo’ and is largely a lot of fun.
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