The Absinthe Diaries

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The plot in this film twists and turns all over the place and I wont pretend that at some points, it had me completely lost. The film looks great with some really good movement of the camera, notably a scene where Fenech’s character is on the phone and the camera makes a full 360-degree turn around her. The performances are fine though nothing to write home about. The thing that stood out for me was the amazing score. There’s one point in the film where the drums are just pounding away and it makes the scene we are watching, of a girl running from someone, almost unbearable. It was fantastic.

 There is style pouring from the film at numerous points, but it does lag a bit for me and I’m still a tad confused about the ending. There were two killers? I don’t even recall who one of them was and even as they sat in the car explaining what they did and why they did it, I was still al little lost. I did enjoy the film overall though and feel I’d get more from it with a second watch.

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The Case of the Bloody Iris

The Case of the Bloody Iris has all of the hallmarks of a giallo. We get the killer in gloves (though not black), topless girls and a whodunit element. It does everything as it should but it never really excels at any of it. Well apart from the girls. Edwige Fenech of course looks great and shows plenty of flesh, but I was actually a little more taken by the actress Paola Quattrini, who plays a ditsy blonde and looks amazing.

 The film has it’s fair share of ridiculous moments, with a scene at one point showing Quattrini’s character faking being dead in a bathtub where a character had recently died. When Hilton’s character sees this, he slaps her round the face and walks out. She seems to have no care in the world that a guy has just smacked her around the face and acts as if he’d just stuck his tongue out at her or something.

 The kills are fine, though nothing too sleazy, but the film did fall apart for me with the killers reveal. It’s a person I did suspect, amongst others, but I didn’t buy his motive at all. It’s almost as if the writer just picked one of the people we had previously met at random and though, yeah that’ll do.

 It isn’t the best giallo I’ve ever seen but also not the worst. It might be a good one to start on as it has all the troupes of the genre and yet there’s plenty of room to improve. And the girls are all easy on the eye too.

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The first thing that struck me with Island of Lost Souls is just how ahead of it’s time it seemed. It did not have the look or feel of a film form the early 30s at all. It felt way more modern than that. It also seems to have a much faster pace than the few films I have seen from that time period.

 The acting in the film is highlight, with Laughton giving the usual great performance, but I was actually surprised at how well Bella Lugosi fairs in a role outside of his usual ones as one of the monsters. He’s very subdued and stood out for me. The film looks great too with the island feeling very locked off from the real world and the look of the monsters was just fantastic. Again, very ahead of it’s time effects wise and very creepy. There’s a scene where a few of the monsters all get their own shot of them running towards the camera to a close up, that’s actually extremely off putting. I also loved the ‘what is the law’ scene that puts all the creatures together in one big shot. It must have been a big effects job back then.

 I’ve not actually seen any of the other Dr Moreau adaptations yet, but this one is very strong and I’d be surprised if the others can match it in atmosphere and style.

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Inframan

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Revenge of Ninja

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Crime Story

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The Uncanny

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Orca the Killer Whale

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APE

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There’s some crazy stuff going on in The Boss. Things kick off with a group of mobsters watching some porn in a cinema before Henry Silva’s character blows them all up using some explosive rounds in his rifle. Later on, one family kidnaps the daughter of a high ranking member of a rival family and Silva just kills his boss and walks right in and saves her. Talk about bad ass, though by the time he gets there, the nympho daughter is already having sex with half of her captors.

 Henry Silva is the highlight of the film by far. He takes no shit but never comes across as unlikeable. He stays cool the entire film, even when faced against a whole gang that he has no problems blowing away one after the other. The story is a little awkward and gets a bit confusing at one point. I really wasn’t sure what family was cool with the other and who hated each other. It does all come together nicely in the final scene at a cabin, though after some of the stuff we had seen earlier in the film, it is a little bit of an anti climax, but the film is still a good watch.

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Bad Girls Dormitory

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Ah Bruno. Do you ever let us down? I say no, no you do not. I can’t say there’s been a film of Bruno Mattei’s that I haven’t gotten some enjoyment from. Probably never as he would have intended, but his films are always a good time.

 With Rats, we have a gang that are roaming the post apocalyptic wasteland when they come across a facility that has food, water and is even growing plants. To celebrate, the group completely waste the food by pouring it all over each other and generally mucking about. They soon find they are not alone as the place is over run by rats and they aren’t friendly.

 The film is just ludicrous, but it’s great fun. The rats never really pose any threat to anyone. They are just running about the place, as rats do. But thankfully there are crew members just off screen who are on hand to throw rats at the actors who shriek in fear. And talking about shrieking, one of the female gang members really looses it after seeing rats come out of the body of one of her friends and she spends the rest of the film hysterical, screaming non stop. She’s even used to disarm someone at one point, when someone lies to her, telling her there’s a rat behind her so that she looses it again and runs into a guy holding a gun.

 There isn’t a great deal going on story wise here and the acting is really hindered by the terrible dubbing. But this all adds to the fun, that is until the end. The film has an incredible ending that I won’t give away. Lets just say that as soon as the final shot comes, I just wished the film would have kept going. I wanted to learn more. Mattei, you did it again.

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Watching Ghosts of Mars, you really have to wonder how it came from the same guy that brought us such great films as Halloween, The Thing and Escape from New York. It’s just a strange idea to think they would all come from him. Was there studio interference? Does he actually think it’s a good movie? To be fair, it isn’t as god awful as I’m making it out, it just makes me think how great directors make bad films sometimes.

 The first thing I noticed about the film is just how of it’s time it looks. It’s weird to think that the early 2000s had a discernable look to them, as they seem like they weren’t that long ago, but it’s there alright. It’s difficult to verbally put the look across, but its unmistakable. Having the it girl of that time, Natasha Henstridge doesn’t help in dating it. The second thing you notice about the film is that Jason Statham has hair, just. He’s really clinging on to that and it seems that he did himself a great favor in getting rid of it.

 The story is all over the place. The whole thing is told as a flashback and then it seems every character has their own flashback in the flashback. Some parts we se twice in an almost Rashamon stlye, but with none of the quality. The possessed humans look awful too. They are basically Nordic black metal band members. There’s no atmosphere or scares to be had and the whole thing is just a royal mess.

 Despite everything, it isn’t boring and it does fly by harmlessly enough. It’s just never stupid enough to be a good piece of cheese, which is what I was hoping for at the end of the day.

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Caliber 9 is a little more of a subdued Euro Crime film. There are no car chases and very few shoot outs to behold here. Ugo has just been released from prison and his old gang bosses think that he stole $300K after his last job. Ugo, who could easily be played by Jason Statham in a modern day remake, plays the whole film pretty cool and keeps his cards close to his chest. We the viewers aren’t even sure if he’s taken the money or not, even though he proclaims his innocence. He’s a fun character and certainly the highlight of the film.

 As good a character as he is, I didn’t find too much else to enjoy with this one. The story is OK, but by the final third, it’s run thin and the climax seems to come about far too quickly and then it’s just over. It’s never boring, despite the fact that now, a few days after seeing it, I can hardly recall a single scene. Certainly the worst of the Euro Crime films I’ve seen recently.

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Sledgehammer

Watching Sledgehammer made me realise one of the many reasons I enjoy these shot on video films so much. At one point in the film, a character starts to smash down a door to get inside a room. Now the same joy I may get from some giant explosion in a multi million dollar film, is equal to the joy I find in a zero budget film when someone does something like smash a door down. To me the equivalent expense is the same. In fact, the act of smashing a door in a zero budget film probably has far more financial ramifications for the filmmaker. I know Sledgehammer was all shot in director David Prior’s home and I like to think that if the door actually was smashed (it’s all but broken but I think it survives) it would stay that way for years and when people came over and asked why it was broken, he’d be able to get the camcorder film he made off the shelf and show them why. It’s maybe a bit odd to harp on so much about a broken door, but it’s these little things in shot on video movies that make me love them.

 The film it’s self is actually a bit dull. The constant use of slow motion to presumably pad the runtime, got old for me and I ended up watching the film on double speed, which was odd as this would often play the slow motion scenes at normal speed. There are some fun characters, like the guy that’s scared of having sex with his girlfriend and another bearded guy that’s far too beefed up. There’s some fun scenes too, like the over the top food fight that must have been a nightmare to clean up. But there’s little to no gore and the killer doesn’t show up until about the hour mark. I feel if the slow motion was left out and we were just given an hour long film, it could have been fun, but as it is, it’s a bit of a slog.

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Ninja III: The Domination.

Ninja III was sadly a bit of a let down for me on terms of a bad movie. It starts out great fun with a superb scene in a golf course and one ninja taking out scores of people and seemingly becoming invincible as he’s shot at by about 20 cops and yet still wont die. But it all falls apart by the hour mark and just becomes such a mess that I really couldn’t tell if there was a story at all.

There’s some great 80’s rock going on in the soundtrack and some crazy scenes through the run time, like one where the lead girl attempts to aerobic her demons away as they try and pull her into the closet. But there’s just nothing great in the last half hour and it brings the whole thing down.

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Natas the Reflection