19th June 2016, 10:19 AM
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 | Cultist on the Rampage | | Join Date: May 2011 Location: Leeds, UK | |
NEON MANIACS – If you're into rubbish films that wallow in their own stupidity, then you've probably already got a gold plated copy of 'Neon Maniacs' on your mantelpiece. It's about a load of monsters who live beneath the Golden Gate Bridge – don't ask me why. Don't ask the writer or director, they don't seem to have a clue either. But that's what I like about 'Neon Maniacs'. At base, it's just monsters having a go at people, no rhyme, no reason and no explanation. Their murderous exploits just seem sadistic, done for the thrill of the kill, and not driven by primeval need, unlike your average zombie / monster / whatever. Throw in some eighties shit – bad synth score, annoying teens dragged out in bad clothes, and that jewel in the crown of highschool explitation flicks, the battle of the bands on prom night, and you have, as they say, 'a winner' (but of what?). 'Neon Maniacs' feels like it was intended to be something else - maybe it was an attempt at a franchise that went wrong at the last minute. It feels like we should know more about these monsters, like they should have back stories and personalities or something, but in the end the money and the good will ran out and all that was left was the shoestring core of another bad movie. I also like the fact that the makers seem to waver between 'Neon Maniacs' being one of those eighties PG-13 homages to traditional monsterdom and a harder, 'sexier' gore flick.
KILL LIST – Along with everybody else I really like Ben Wheatley / Amy Jumps' quite singular vision of weird British cinema, which brings together the arcane with a kind of nouvelle vague kitchen sink realism. This is particularly true of 'Kill List', which starts out seeming like a slightly experimental Ken Loach film about domestic alienation in suburbia, then gradually blossoms into dark weirdness involving the occult. Just seen it again after maybe 4 ½ years, and I still really like it, but I guess it's just one of those films whose quality is obvious. Wheatley isn't afraid to be elliptical in his story telling, and at times it feels that all we're left with is shadows drawing ever nearer, something bringing the film's two protagonists to fates already decided as the dark closes in.
BLOOD SABBATH – A relic from that strange time at the beginning of the seventies, when a movie might conceivably have one foot in the 'anti-war art film' camp, and another in the grindhouse. 'Blood Sabbath' drifts by like a hippy day dream, and doesn't really give away much as it tells its story of a troubadour who comes to rest beside a river somewhere in Mexico. He discovers a village dominated by a coven led by Dyanne Thorne, then falls in love with a water nymph. Although it drags a little in places, at other times it's quite absorbing. There's something quite eerie and 'placeless' about it, as it it were some kind of fable told to you through a haze. Recommended for fans of the post-Nam, slightly trippy horror flick.
NIGHTBEAST – From the mighty Don Dohler. I must've reviewed this at least twice before, but it's the kind of film that has a definite allure. 'Nightbeast' is sort of what all those other VHS's in the video library of yore were meant to be like, but so often weren't – a collision of ultra-primitive laser effects, cringe inducing sex scenes, bad prosthetic gore and a monster in a disco outfit. The first twenty minutes or so is some kind of trash heaven, with the story bump-starting abruptly to life in a halo of practical effects conceived in someone's garage. As for the mid-section – well alright, it gets really boring, but at least there's that awful shag scene and someone's severed arm flopping on the floor. Whenever I watch it, I always come away thinking – does it ever really get any better than 'NightBeast'?
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