Devils Possessed (1974)

Written by and staring Spanish, horror icon Paul Nashy and directed by León Klimovsky (Werewolf Vs. The Vampire Women, The Vampires Night Orgy). This Medieval period piece tells the tale of a power hungry madman (Nashy) who terrorizes the land from his castle. Nashy loses all morality or at least close to all of it while under the spell of his vindictive, evil queen. Together they kidnap young virgins and sacrifice them in witchcraft rituals. This is until a old friend of Nashy's comes back to town and starts a renegade army to bring the evil ruler down once and for all.

This one is a little bit to {PG} for me. If it weren't for select scenes of violence and torture Devil's Possessed could almost be a made for television movie.

The highlights of the film are dancing midgets, decapitation (complete with rolling head), a child is stabbed for no apparent reason, torture by branding, torture by stretching, a eyeball is poked out in a joust match and a man is filled with flying arrows. In one of my favorite moments we see a rotten corpse mounted like a scarecrow with a sign on him that says "He didn't pay his taxes".

Surprisingly we don't get any bare breasted women and nothing to overly gory. We get tons of sword-play and lots of cheesy characters. Devil's Possessed has limited replay value and is really only worth a watch for hardcore Paul Nashy enthusiasts. Not my top pick of Nashy flicks but none the less a decent time passer.

Scream Of The Wolf (1974)

There are a lot of bad Werewolf movies out there, The Werewolf Of Washington, My Mom's A Werewolf, The Howling Part 7 : New Moon Rising. There are so many bad ones that its hard to pick the worst. I'm not really sure if Scream Of The Wolf is any worse then the others mentioned above but none the less its pretty shitty.

This posterless, 70's made for television piece of crap is nothing more then a time waster and a bad choice at that. I suppose if I were flipping through the channels in 1974 and this one happened to be on, it might be slightly more interesting then whatever else might be on but that is still a stretch.

Scream Of The Wolf stars Leslie Nielsen look alike, Peter Graves. Which is actually kind of funny cause the two worked together in Airplane. Anyway, Peter Graves plays a author/hunter who is trying to track down the beast that has been killing the local town's folk and leaving very strange tracks. He calls upon his fellow hunting buddy Byron, who has some very weird, philosophical ideas on human life. When Byron refuses to help, Peter Graves and the locals start tooling with the idea that perhaps Byron is a Werewolf.

Due to the fact that this is a made for t.v. movie, we don't get to see any of the murders but the least they could have done is show the monster. Well sorry to break it to ya but they don't! Reason being... There is no monster. Byron is just a sick fucker living out his philosophy. He uses a pet wolf with a thirst for human blood and built some sort of a contraption that leaves abnormal footprints in order to create mass hysteria.

All in all we have a very predictable and weak plot but the end is slightly entertaining. It involves a showdown between Peter Graves and Byron. Oh and the wolf of course. Scream Of The Wolf is a ripoff as far as Werewolf flicks go and you wouldn't be missing much by skipping this one all together.

The Tell-Tale Heart (1960)

This take on Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart stars Laurence Payne as (You guessed it) Edgar. Edgar likes to play Peeping-Tom from his bedroom window and watch the new girl in town strip down to her corset and thigh-high stockings. Naturally Edgar wants to meet his hot, strip-teasing neighbor in person. The couple go on a few dates but Edgar is left broken hearted (or is it just jealousy) when he learns that his best friend, Charles and the girl he loves are secretly having an affair. Naturally Edgar's first resort is murder. Edgar smashes in Charles achy-breaky skull with a fire poker and buries him under the floorboards in the house. Edgar's guilt sends him into a world of madness and trippy hallucinations. He is haunted by the sound of Charles pounding heart.

Laurence Payne (The Crawling Eye) does an excellent job of playing the role of Edgar. Perhaps slightly overacting at times but as a whole his portrayal of a man losing his sanity is amazing. I also couldn't believe how much Laurence Payne looks like Anthony (Psycho) Perkins in this movie. If it wasn't for opening credits I would have thought it to be Perkins through the whole movie.

In one of the best moments Edgar, haunted by the pounding heart, rips the floorboards up and removes the heart from his dead friend with a kitchen knife. Of course we don't see the knife plunging into the chest and all that gory good stuff but we do get to see a rotting Charles and the pumping heart in Edgar's hands. The Tell-Tale Heart also offers up a scene where a man is impaled on a spike.

The viewer might even find their own heart pounding erratically during some of the suspense building moments. I found the end to be a bit of a cop out but the rest of the film was good old fashioned fun. Fans of Poe should definitely check this one out. One of the better adaptions to hit the screen. Also Anthony Perkins fans really need to check this one out just for the sake that Payne looks identical to him in this one.

The Doom Generation (1995)

Doom Generation is cheesy, mall, goth-kid delight. Its got Nine Inch Nails on the soundtracks and glorifies the leather-clad, gloomy directionless youth the max. As much as I like to put this movie down I can't help but like many aspects of it at the same time.

Sexy Rose McGowan (Grindhouse : Planet Terror) plays Amy Blue, an alienated speed-freak. James Duval (May) plays Jordan White, a brain-dead teenager with a soft side. Amy and Jordan are complete outcasts and feel smothered by a world they don't fit into. Their life takes a drastic change when they meet Xavier Red, another young waste with a much more violent and sinister side. Together the three misfits take to the road and leave a trail of dead bodies as they try to escape their own private hell.

Personally I feel the movie is a bit self indulgent and tries to be a little deeper then it really is but at the same time its chock full of senseless sex and violence. Rose McGowan looks great and puts her sexy naked body on display. At the same time there is a lot of homosexual undertones running through this movie and undertones might be an understatement. We have some really trippy sets that come to life with the help from the lighting department. We have decapitations (complete with talking severed heads), castration by garden sheers, A arm is blown off with a shotgun, A man is stabbed in the penis. We also have a psychotic Nazi gang, Orgies and some truly funny moments.

If only the characters weren't three lame goth kids, Doom Generation would have probably had a bigger appeal to a larger audience but it is what it is. "What ever"

Castle Freak (1995)

Director Stuart Gordon takes gross to a new level with this one. Ten years after his cult classic Re-Animator, he unleashes this twisted tale of a deformed freak who breaks free of his chains and his cell in the cellar of a castle where he was whipped and tortured. Now its the freaks turn to dish out the pain and take his own form of vengeance.

Castle Freak isn't a monster movie but the freak is so grotesque that its hard to remember that he isn't a monster. His bones protrude through his skinny, decrepit body, his face is torn from excessive beatings. Even his penis has been cut off and the camera shows everything in great detail. The fact that the freak roams around naked through the majority of his screen time is disturbing enough. Throw in some swinging testicles and a severed, nub-penis and it makes for a real dry-heaver.

Stuart Gordon uses Re-Animator veterans for this one. Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton (Chopping Mall) play husband and wife in a very dysfunctional family. Combs is a drunk who killed their son and blinded their daughter in a drunk driving car accident. The family inherits the castle and will fight for their life with the freak as the obstacle.

In one of the most memorable scenes a prostitute has her breast bitten off and Stuart Gordon tries to out do his controversial oral sex scene from Re-Animator. Instead of a severed, talking head the audience is treated to the disturbing visual of freak munching away at the prostitutes vagina as she bleeds to death.

A cat is killed and eaten, A thumb is broken and bitten off, A woman is beaten to death with a chain, we get stabbings, strangulation and dead cops on display. Unfortunately Barbara Crampton doesn't show off any boobage and Castle Freak may be Crampton's most un-sexy role ever. She wears suit jackets through most of the film and she plays a total bitch.

Surprisingly Castle Freak is released through Full Moon which sucks 99 percent of the time. Castle Freak is by far the best movie in their catalog and can't be compared with the other crap released by the production team. Castle Freak also has a pretty big following and name for its self and I never understood how this movie got as big as it did. Its not just gore-hounds and horror fanatics who watch this one. I remember this movie being sort of trendy in high school which even further confuses me. Trendy or not Castle Freak deserves the attention that it has gotten over the years. Its a perfect blend of classic Gothic horror and sleazy, vile Euro-trash. So chain yourself in front of the screen and torture yourself with disgusting visuals from Castle Freak. Yuck!

Mutant (1984)

Talk about boring poster art... Chock full of plot holes and laughable action scenes, Mutant falls somewhere between a zombie flick and a epidemic movie, similar to today's 28 Days Later. Of course this low budget, campy, 80's flick doesn't play like the polished 28 Days Later, it plays more like The Children (1980) and I couldn't help but see similarities between the two films. Mainly due to the virus being passed through the zombies hands instead of saliva.

Two brothers from the big city decide to get away from the rat race and head down south for some rest and relaxation. Instead they are greeted by hostile rednecks in a pick up truck, who throw everything from beer bottles to truck tires from the bed of the pickup at the outsiders. The hillbilly's run the brothers off the road, sending their little sports car off a bridge and into a lake. The brothers eventually make their way to the local pub, where they have yet another altercation with the not so tolerant locals.

Bo Hopkins, who I remember best from The Wild Bunch as the crazy son of a bitch who shoots the hostages and says "Well kiss my sisters black cats ass", shows up as the drunken sheriff and breaks up the fight. He sets the boys up with a place to stay and tells them to leave town as soon as their car is fixed which never happens due to a viral epidemic caused by (Yes you guessed it) toxic waste.

The small town hicks are dropping like flies, only to get up and walk amongst the dead as pasty faced zombies with slits in the palm of their hands that leak a yellow substance that looks identical to the blood in the Phantasm movies. The simple makeup is effective and fun and we also get a bunch of 80's latex-bubble-skin special effects. Unfortunately Mutant doesn't offer any gory head explossions but we do have our fair share of dead children, which is always a plus. In one of the best scenes a hot school teacher is trapped in a elementary schools bathroom stall while undead, zombie children try their best to get at her.

Mutant doesn't offer any nudity or explicit gore but for a under the radar zombie flick it serves as a decent time passer. Dead children, angry rednecks, bad acting and zombies with deadly hands. Check it out for something different.

Hack Job (2011)

Long Island filmmaker James Balsamo writes, produces and directs his first full length feature. Mind you that Hack Job is as indie as independent gets Balsamo makes the best of his lack of money in true Troma fashion.

What we have is a anthology film filled with Nazi mummies, killer brains from outer space (Not to be mistaken for The Evil Brain From Outer Space) and an extremely disjointed tale (that from what I can gather) tells the story of a man on a mission to destroy religion. This is at least until he meets Jesus... and Jesus just so happens to be a Japanese man who dances in gardens (Don't ask).

If polished budget movies is your thing you would probably want to stay far, far away from this one but if you like goofy gore flicks similar to the modern works of Troma Studios you might want to pick this thing up. Hack Job offers up bare breasts from young, swanky bitches, head explosions, eye-popping mayhem and naked Nazi sluts. We even have a scene where a spinal cord is pulled from a mans eye socket. "Is that even possible". As far as the cast goes we have members of Gwar fighting off a mutant brain with crazy tentacles, Lynn Lowry from classics like I Drink Your Blood and They Came From Within. We also get Lloyd Kaufman himself (Toxic Avenger) who goes on a rant about shitty film making and bad choice in titles such as Hack Job. Kaufman offers one of the funniest bits in a scene where he plays a foul mouthed yamaka wearing Jew. Scream Queen Debbie Rochon (Santa Claws, Terror Firmer) also shows up for a rather pointless scene. We also get some other Long Island cinemaniacs like Keith Crocker (Bloody Ape, Blitzkrieg : Escape From Stalag 69), Robert Youngren and Michael Shershenovich (Bloody Christmas).

The first two stories move along at a somewhat coherent pace and are filled to the brim with cheesy effects and nudity but the final chapter in Hack Job is a bit of a mind-fuck which seems to jump around a lot. It almost seems as if the final segment was shot as filler to keep the runtime close to the 90 minute mark and the obvious change in camera shows that these scenes were most likely shot over a long period of time. Still if crazy low budget, schlocky cheese-fests are your thing, be sure to pick yourself up a copy which is available Here.

Rabid Dogs (1974)

Italian horror master Mario Bava (Twitch Of The Death Nerve, Baron Blood, Blood And Black Lace) takes on a crime flick and adds elements of Last House On The Left and Alfred Hitchcock's Rope.

Four criminals one of which being George (Anthropoghagus) Eastman take on a robbery at a local pharmacy. Things go violently wrong and one of the criminals is shot down. The three survivors kill a few Innocent civilians during their escape and take three hostages.

Rabid Dogs takes place almost entirely inside a car and its a game of cat and mouse between the hostages, the cops and the bad guys. The fact that Bava is able to make a highly interesting movie from the restrictions of a car puts the man (in my opinion) in the ranks of Hitchcock and reminds me a lot of Rope.

The hostages consist of one man, one woman and one sick child. The fact that a young kid is thrown into the violent mix makes Rabid Dogs that much more tense.

As the minutes run by the criminal become more vicious. We have a scene reminiscent of the "Piss your pants" scene from Last House On The Left and we have our fair share of brutality. One of the criminals uses a switchblade as a weapon of choice. He stabs a man to death, slashes another woman's throat and sticks the blade through another females neck. George Eastman gets a bit drunk from some excessive J&B guzzling and gets a bit rapey with his female hostage. This comes to a end when Eastman is shot in the head and left in a zombified state. "He's more dead then alive. Let him croak in peace". Eastman hangs on a lot longer then expected and just makes Rabid Dogs all the more intense. We get a nice amount of gun violence and a twist ending that I didn't see coming.

Rabid Dogs also known as Kidnapped was left unfinished when Mario Bava died and the slack was picked up by his son Lamberto Bava but for once in history the shorter version is better. The "full uncut" version is nothing more then a few added scenes from Lamberto but they only end up hurting the film in its finished product. To keep a nice runtime some of the scenes were cut down from the original Bava shoot. It just so happens they were excellent scenes of violence and style. Skip the Kidnapped version and stick with Rabid Dogs. You wont be disappointed. Fans of this movie should be sure to check out Hitch-Hike

Evil Brain From Outer Space (1965)

Apparently The Evil Brain From Outer Space is a reedited version of a Japanese television series staring the Japanese super  hero Super Giant or in the American version Starman.

Starman or Super Giant is played by Ken Utsui (A Super Giant veteran) and he is as ridiculous as they come. If you think the Mexican Lucha Libre movies are silly just wait till you get your hands on a copy of this movie from mars. Starman doesn't wear his cape on his back. Instead he has two miniature capes, one under each arm. He also has a stupid looking antenna on his forehead and his martial arts is atrocious. In other words The Evil Brain From Outer Space is fucking awesome! Well at least it can be if you have a sense of humor. This is pure Mystery Science Theater 3000 material and although I am not sure if MST3K has ever taken a stab at this one, it would be the perfect candidate.

Starman returns to planet earth to save mankind from a (Yes you guessed it) Evil Brain From Outer Space that controls weird looking monsters on a mission to kill all of the world leaders and destroy man once and for all. The unique monsters really add a whole other level to the madness that is The Evil Brain From Outer Space. One of them looks like a sort of rat in a spandex suit. He comes complete with long finger nails and giant teeth. According to the shitty voice over just one swipe from those claws can leave a man dead. Then we have this weird witchy monster with crazy eyebrows in a sort of Geisha girl dress. There is also a whole army of spandex wearing villains who give something very similar to the Nazi salute. Starman drops these clowns like flies but he has a much harder time with the rat-monster.

The Evil Brain From Outer Space also offers up a bit of blood in a heist scene in which a Innocent woman is stabbed in the neck. The bad guys also chase down two little kids with some child murder in mind but the children get away with the help of starman. We get a bunch of secret doors and a scientist who walks around with a parrot on his shoulder.

This one will either put you to sleep or it will have you laughing your ass off. I am personally happy to have my first instalment in the Super Giant genre added to my collection. If you can bear through Asian man-package poking through dumb spandex costumes and badly dubbed over voices I would check this one out some time.

Casablanca (1942)

Wanna get sappy for a change? Well there is no better movie then Casablanca to get all watery-eyed to. Filled with memorable lines, a great cast, excellent cinematography and a story that you can't help but love, Casablanca tells the tale of two lovers who were separated in Paris while on the run from the Nazi's. Years later they meet in a swanky saloon called Rick's Cafe and to rekindle that old spark seems hopeless due to the war and other opposing circumstances.

Humphrey Bogart plays Rick, the bitter owner of Ricks Cafe. Tormented by his love for Ingrid Bergman, Rick shows nothing but contempt for the people around him. His choice in friends are the likes of a Peter Lorre, who plays a pick-pocket criminal, Claude Rains (The Invisible Man, The Wolf Man) who plays a witty corrupt police officer and a African American piano player/ lounge singer named Sam. Rick's future seems rather bleak and he gives off the impression that he is waiting to die in Casablanca. That is until Bergman enters his life once again but this time with a husband "Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine."

Aside from the misery that most of these characters seem to carry with them Casablanca also has a very humorous side, especially from Claude Rains character. His smart-ass remarks helps Casablanca move along at a nice pace and offers up some chuckles even in some very dramatic moments.

Bogart and Bergman eventually reach a level of understanding and some things just aren't meant to be. Bogart changes his philosophy of "I stick my neck out for nobody" and helps the love of his life escape Casablanca along with her husband. Casablanca is a true classic with a sad yet uplifting ending. Emotionally its to good to ignore and there is only one thing left to do... "Play it Sam".

The Wolf Man (1941)

Ten years after Universals classic monster movies Dracula and Frankenstein the studio slams out another timeless classic. Lon Chaney Jr. plays Larry Talbot who is bitten by Bela Lugosi and transforms into a Werewolf on the next full moon and terrorize the neighborhood.

The Wolf Man isn't the first Werewolf movie but it certainly is the most important Werewolf flick ever made. Lon Chaney is emotionally torn and questions his sanity. Nobody believes that he is a monster and he fears the next full moon.

Claude (The Invisible Man) Rains plays Chaney's father and although it isn't very convincing that these two iconic actors are actually father and son, we get an excellent performance from both. In the following year Rains would go on to do Casablanca which he is remembered for by most but for me it is these Universal Pictures that I will always identify him with.

There are certain things that seem a bit silly by today's standards. For instance a Werewolf sees a pentagram in the palm of his next victims hand. Naturally it appears in the palm of loved ones. We also have a scene where Bela Lugosi is transformed into a wolf and Chaney kills him with a silver plated cane. When the authorities get to the scene of the crime and Lugosi is laying cold and dead he has his clothes on except for his shoes. The wolf clearly wasn't wearing any clothes so my question is, who was dressing Lugosi's dead body? The Wolf Man also chooses to strangle victims rather them maul them with teeth which I always found a bit funny but then again these minor continuity problems just add the the fun of these old monster movies.

An American Werewolf In London (1981)

American Werewolf In London is one of the best Werewolf movies ever made. The Howling would come out the same year and both films have about an equal amount of notoriety. Unlike Joe Dante's more serious movie, John Landis throws much more humor into his werewolf movie.

Landis blends horror and comedy perfectly with this one. Between the ground breaking special effects with the Werewolf transformation and the gory bloodletting the movie stays fresh all the way through. The comedy never takes away from the story and just when you might be getting tired of laughing a decapitated head might roll across the screen.

Like the title says, two Americans who are back-packing across Europe get attacked by a Werewolf in England. One of them is killed and the other terrorizes London.

American Werewolf In London offers up a Nazi Werewolf home invasion, complete with child murder and splattery throat slashing, mangled zombies (not the flesh-eating type) who "walk the earth in limbo as the undead", a porno theater massacre, male and female nudity, decapitation, dismemberment, punk rockers, and plenty of homage to Lon Chaney's The Wolfman. "Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolf bane blooms and the Autumn moon is bright". Rick from the Young Ones shows up and has a pint in a pub scene and we also get a decent soundtrack.

I watched this recently at a local screening and it was nice to hear audience members shout out "Fuck CGI during the transformation scene. American Werewolf is a true classic and has stood the test of time. This is more then we will be able to say for movies like Underworld.

28 Days Later (2002)

Take Omega Man with Charlton Heston and cross it with Dawn Of The Dead and you would come out with something like 28 Days Later.

Danny Boyle (Trainspotting) takes on an apocalyptic style horror flick about a man who awakes from a coma and finds he is alone after a viral epidemic has destroyed London. England has been quarantined and the the whole country has been killed off by the outbreak of violence.

The thing that makes 28 Days Later interesting is that the obstacle is not zombies. These people aren't dead at all. "They have been infected by rage". Sounds pretty silly but no more ridiculous then an outbreak of flesh eating ghouls in a George Romero flick.

Like a Romero flick the characters have plenty of depth to them and never come off as one dimensional but come on, we came here to see people die. We have a strong female lead played by Naomie Harris and she is quick for some chop-chop action with her machete. Unfortunately she doesn't offer up any nipples. The most we get is a bra shot in an attempted rape scene but the female audience is treated to some swinging dick action from Cillian Murphy who plays the main character. Aside from his penis we have the privalege of watching him push in eyeballs with his fingers and kill an infected child with a baseball bat. We also have some gun violence and some blood spewing but over all 28 Days isn't a very gory movie. Instead it relies on fast paced chase scenes and jump scares. Unfortunately there is more cgi then needed but its still a good watch.

Its sad to say but I would take 28 Days Later any day over Romero's Diary Of The Dead or Survival Of The Dead. Its been a long time since anyone has made a decent zombie flick. Maybe Boyle should try one out.

Inside (2007)

For some reason people like to relate this movie to Martyrs which really doesn't make any sense at all other then the fact that they are both French and they are both extremely disturbing. Inside is one of the most disturbing movies to come out in recent history. The subject matter is disgusting and the bloodletting is relentless.

Being lucky enough to see this gory spectacle in a theater and witness the audiences reaction was a treat all in its own. You could almost feel people cringe behind you while heads explode and hands are impaled by a pair of scissors. Personally being a bit of a gore-hound and a big fan of this movie I myself can't help but get a bit squeamish during some of the nastier scenes. I just wish that Herschell Gordon Lewis could have been there in the audience with us and maybe hear his feelings on how far gore has come since the days of Blood Feast and Color Me Blood Red. I bet the godfather of gore himself would squirm in his seat.

I suppose the only downside to this movie is that the story is a bit shallow but it really doesn't hurt the over all experience because the acting is really pretty good, especially from our female lead and the villain as well. The camera work is better then your average Hollywood flick and the score is simple but yet very effective.

Inside tells the tale of a widowed woman who is trapped in a house with a psycho womb-raider. For those of you who don't know what a womb-raider is, its someone who cuts fetus's out of pregnant women's bodies and steals the baby. The womb-raider in this situation uses a pair of scissors as a weapon of choice and goddammit she does some awful things with those scissors.

I have no idea how many gallons of blood was actually used for this movie but it must have been up there with Evil Dead and Dead Alive but unlike those films, Inside doesn't ever try to be humorous. Eyeballs are poked out, stomachs are cut open, blood spurts from neck wounds, blood pours down the stairs in a really nasty penis stabbing, a cat has its neck broken, we get achy-breaky skulls complete with flying toaster to the cranium, faces are burnt up with aerosol can to open flame. For me the most memorable and nastiest scene of them all involves a self tracheotomy (complete with ductape to the wound). Gross!

Anybody who likes splatter films needs to see this movie. They don't get much sicker then this!

Nightmares In, Red, White And Blue (2009)

This documentary explores American horror movies and its appeal to society. The docu. goes back as early as the films of Thomas Edison and his 1910 version of Frankenstein and moves into modern times with the "torture porn" genre with Saw and Hostel.

It offers up a scan through the decades and shows clips from some of the better known horror movies in each time period. We also get interviews from horror icons such as George Romero, John Carpenter, Joe Dante etc.

Nightmares works as background filler for a room full of drinking friends (as long as they are fellow genre nerds) but doesn't offer up anything new or all that much different from the millions of other horror documentaries. This thing is available in a two pack set with the far superior exploitation documentary American Grindhouse. Nightmares is worth picking up if not for anything else, the other movie. You wont be disappointed.