The Unholy (1988)

The Unholy was a film that had an awful lot of good going for it, but like the teenage boys who have rented this back in the day, it blew it's load all over the floor after the hot redhead shows up naked in the first minute of screen time. Me, I'm a sucker for any film that deals with possession, the catholic church and priests. I guess it was my upbringing, but nothing terrifies me more than the thoughts of demonic possession or exorcisms.

Unfortunately, the only terrifying thing here is how poor a director Camilo Vila is. We start of with a priest praying at the alter of his parish church, only to be confronted by some hot demon in the form of a naked redhead. We get a good peek at her pubes n' bubes before she rips the horny priest's throat out with her bare hands. Cut to a few years later, and young father Michael (Ben Cross, looking very suspiciously like HP Lovecraft...hmm) is brought in by police detective Stern (Ned Beatty) to try and convince a rooftop jumper to come down. Somehow, this guy turns out to be possessed and throws Father Micheal out the window.

By some miracle, Father Michael wakes up in hospital without a mark on him. The local Archbishop (Hal Holbrook, really slumming it here) decides that this is the priest he has been looking for to re-open the church after the last priest was murdered. Father Michael isn't here long before some strange shit starts to happen in the church, and he himself is seeing visions of the naked redhead, and being drawn to investigate things further.

To spice things up, we get scenes in a 'satanic' nightclub, where Father Micheal meets probably the worst actress in this film, Millie, (Jill Carroll). She may somehow be connected with the past murders, or is it her bizarre boyfriend/boss, William Russell? I won't bother trying to piece together the plot of this one for you, suffice to say it ends up in a pretty fun monster mash in the church, as Father Michael finally battles 'The Unholy'!

The Unholy has two glaring problems from that start. A terrible, nonsensical script, and direction that's flatter than Paris Hilton on her back. Some scenes are so badly directed it's hard to tell if the cuts between two actors talking are actually between two people in the same room! Events happen with no real tension, and drift off the screen just as lazily. We do get some gory and sexy goods in the opening scene, but then it's a full hour before anything else really happens. We are just left to watch legendary actors like Hal Holbrook and Ned Beatty stumble through poor dialogue whilst Ben cross looks like he slipped into a coma for most of the shoot. As I mentioned, Jill Carroll's performace gets a standing ovation for laugh out loud moments. Some scenes (especially when she has a breakdown and starts shouting 'no!daddy no! don't touch me again!') might of had some weight to them if directed properly, but I get the feeling director Vila was too gobsmacked by the hysterics to do anything but let the camera roll on her for five minutes.

Ok, enough complaining, because The Unholy isn't without some merits. Firstly, it supplies several hooters and a bit of bush, which is always a good thing. The only actor to get props from me here is William Russell, who gives a thoroughly entertaining performance as the pimpish boss of the nightclub. He also gets a pretty sweet death scene, which is one of the few great moments in this film. Also, when the demons finally get pissed in the last twenty minutes and appear, some good shit goes down. who would have thought that one of Satan's top demons has midget monsters as part of his entourage? Well, now you know. The demon or 'Unholy One' himself is pretty mean, if not a man in a badly articulated rubber suit. The fx are by the guy who did the Hellraiser fx work, but here, he is let down by too much bright lighting and poorly set up shots. Probably not his finest moment. We also get some random flashes of gore that have nothing to do with the film, but were added by the producers looking to get the blood hungry crowd in. Fun times.

This is the kinda flick most of you will never bother hunting down, unless you saw it years ago on VHS and are looking for a stroll down memory lane. As I said, there is some fun to be had here, I just wish the actual filmmaking didn't suck so hard.

(((((((((((((((Face the Future)))))))))))))))

Anyone who reads here knows that I dont post that regularly. My initial reason for starting this blog was to have a record for all the garbage I watch, be it good, bad or ugly, with the intention of moving to a website based review format eventually. I also planned to have other horror writing intermingled in the reviews, to create a more rounded horror esperience. I just didn't know how to approach that aspect of it.

Lately though, I'm finding it hard to get time to watch and review many films, and with the summer rolling in, I guess it probably won't improve. When I first started, I was managing about 16 reviews a month, now I'm lucky to get half of that. I guess my inspiration is drying up for it at the moment, who knows. There are a lot of cool folks out there writing reviews too, so the desire to keep at it is waning.

So I've made a few decisions, nohing drastic, but I hope you regulars can dig it, and hopefully it means I will up my posting somewhat, filling that void that I'm sure you all feel. Firstly, I will be doing non-review posts. Not a whole lot of them, but maybe once a week. And don't worry, it will be strictly horror related, be it from my own personal horror experiences, or just some spooky shit I feel like talking about. I also will probably be starting to talk a bit more about my own film work, and upcoming special fx shit I might be working on. A bit of variety can't hurt! I will keep it as fun as possible.

I've also been toying with doing a few interviews with some cultish filmmakers and actors I've had the pleasure of being in contact with over the years. Some you would know, some maybe not. It might be interesting to give them a voice here for a change. Once again, this might be a once a month kinda thing, but we will see how it goes.

Finally, I'm gonna do a shameless plug for another blog I have started, which you can find at . It's called The Cursed Realms of Hades. Here I will be describing my nightmares in vivid detail, and will do a 'horrortography' to go with it. A sample of my crap can be seen below. It speaks for itself really. I know that blog page has been up awhile and some have added it to their blog reader, but I just ain't had the time to start posting on it yet. I will change that this weekend, I swear.

So, there you have it. I'm setting myself a heap of personal challenges by doing this shit, so that's a good thing. I hope it works out and more importantly, I hope you guys enjoy. So, any thoughts or feedback?

Here is one of my photos for your enjoyment, I ain't a pro at this shit, so bear with me!

The Changeling (1980)

The 70's sure was an interesting time for horror. After The Exorcist managed to stomp through the box office like Big Foot on a raping spree through a school yard, it showed that the genre didn't have to be relegated to the second bill on a B movie matinee to make some serious cash. It was the perfect coupling of big budget, hot young director and a talented cast, and this formula was thankfully to repeat again throughout the decade with the likes of The Omen, Jaws, Alien and The Amityville Horror following closely on it's heels.

By the time The Changeling hit the big screen, many a 'respected' director had taken a stab at the often ridiculed genre, with Philip Kaufman turning up the chills with his Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake, and the 'other' haunted house flick of 1980, The Shining, being directed by a nobody called Stanley Kubrick. So, how does The Changeling hold up to all these heavy weight horror contenders?

Taken on it's own merits, The Changeling punches holes through the skulls of the likes of Amityville Horror like Ricky Oh pulverising a bunch of badly acted prison inmates. We get off to a grim start, with John Russell (George C Scott), a music composer, who loses his family in a freak car accident on a snowy road. Several months later he seems to be on the road to recovery, and is offered a university lecturing job in Seattle. He decides to rent a stately historical home to stay in, and hopefully start him off fresh in his new life. It's not long though before he gets woken by loud banging noises, and soon he discovers a boarded up door leading to the attic. Here he finds a dust covered child's wheelchair, and other ancient curiosities.

It seems that there is the spirit of a young boy trying to communicate with John, and the more he delves into the history of the house, the darker the past seems. How did Joseph die? and how is it connected with the state senator? Will John escape with his marbles intact? Watch it and see, yo!

What we have here is a seriously creepy haunted house slow burner. The film takes it's time to build character, and allow the atmosphere to creep up nicely with excellent use being made of the central location. The scares may seem standard at this stage, but they are well executed, and it makes a damned scary use of a seance scenario that always manages to get a bit of pee out of my willy. Another stand out scare moment involves the clinically eerie wheelchair, and scene when a younger girl foolishly wanders into her haunted bedroom late at night. Don't worry little girl, I was screaming along side you!

One of the great things about The Changeling is Mr George C Scott. He carries the emotional bulk of the film on his hefty shoulders, and really lets loose when required. It's refreshing to see an actor as established as Scott was delving into the genre and really giving it his all. To see an elderly actor cast as the lead in a horror film is quite a surprise, it's something that would never happen in this day and age. His performance really helps sell the latter stages of the film that don't work quite as well as the first half. Unfortunately the film slightly derails in the last act, after a great false ending that will remind eagle eyed horror fans of the climax of Ringu. Don't worry though, the problems are only minimal and won't ruin the film for you, it just felt a tad OTT.

If you are fans of films like The Haunting, The Innocents, or even The Amityville Horror, you need to see this. It's serious, scary, and well acted. And really, when it comes to haunted house flicks, these are the essentials. Not big, flashy special effects or gore, just straight up old fashioned chills.

The Boxer's Omen (1983)

Is there such a thing as a film being TOO much fun? I dunno, it's a thought that has been running through my head whilst watching some of my recent sicko fests. Some films may have a slow but steady build up with a wicked pay off, such as Re-Animator, Evil Dead and Braindead. These seem to get the balance right, courting the line between suspense, character, and balls out grossness with expert precision. However, if ever a film was said to be TOO much fun, The Boxer's Omen is sure to be it.

The second of my recent Shaw Brothers viewings, The Boxers Omen is somewhat simple in terms of story. So there is this Chinese kick boxer in the ring with the dirtiest Thai fighter on the block. The Thai guy cripples our Chinese hero, and his brother swears revenge on the other scumbag. That night however, the brother is saved from a gang by the spirit of a Buddhist monk, who sends him on a mission to find a special temple. When he eventually finds it, he finds that the visiting spirit is in fact his 'kind of' dead brother from a past life, and he must now save this spirit from eternal damnation as his own fate is sealed to a premature death otherwise!

In order to save the Buddhist he must battle wizards, demons, tentacled flying heads, re-animated crocodile heads, vomit eels, skeleton bats, skin a witch and THEN, kick the Thai guy's ass and travel to the Himalayan mountains! And this isn't even the half of it. I shit thee not, good brothers. Throw into that mix a fine pair of breasts being squished up against a window pane for 5 minutes and you got yourself a party.

The Boxer's Omen literally rips along at a ridiculous pace. There was so much crazy shit going on every two minutes that you will either throw your arms in the air, drop your pants and fire off several rounds of hot sticky love glue onto your remote control in pure glee, or else get extremely frustrated by the clear lack of regard for pacing and plot structure. But you know what? If this all doesn't sound like fun to you, I don't know what will. There is a good healthy heap of gore that runs non stop throughout, along with the ample nudity of curvy Chinese ladies. The boobs against the glass scene I mentioned was worth mentioning again. Simply sublime! It's also worth mentioning the eel vomiting scene again, this moment actually made me gag, which is saying something. In fact, there were dozens of vomiting scenes here, go figure.

In terms of acting, I can't really say much, I don't remember any particular performance being bad, mostly just kinda OTT in a good way. They all seemed to do a fine job. Directing wise, imagine somebody mashed up The Holy Mountain, The Evil Dead and a big pile of vomit, and you pretty much get the idea. I must say though, the film looked damned pretty for its type, and the subs were spot on. The fx are kinda hit and miss, but that won't stop you enjoying it as the sense of fun gets behind them and makes em work.

The bottom line is this, get your hands on this and Seeding of a Ghost, and have yourself a party. Invite friends over, put some beers in the fridge. Expect pats on the back for such quality entertainment. I dare anyone not to like this one. Enough said.

Who Can Kill A Child? (1976)

Right, I know I've been a slacker lil bitch lately and barely been posting, but to be honest, I got a fat wad of excuses this time! I swear! I just bought a house a few weeks ago and have been doing it up after work, meaning I've been working around the clock to get the fucker into a nice and pristine state for living. It's getting there. And then Carl over at http://i-like-horror-movies.blogspot.com/ threatened me into watching this flick last week. What a bully.

Anyways, enough gum flapping. It's been awhile since I watched anything like this, and I'm damned glad I stuck it on. Who Can Kill A Child? opens with a pretty grim montage and narration on modern war, and how the children are the worst victims of it. Que the 8 minutes of real war footage of dead babies and kids dying. We then kick into the film, which follows the happy couple Tom and the heavily pregnant Evelyn as they take a trip to Tom's favorite island that he spent time on as a kid. On arriving at the island, they notice things seem to be particularly quiet. No adults are to be seen, only the few local kids are walking about. Thinking they may be all over at a festival on the other side of the island, the couple make themselves at home in a cafe.

Things are eerie enough, but when an old man suddenly appears in the street, things go to hell. A young girl beats the old man to death with a stick, all the while laughing to herself. Tom tries to stop her, but then a gang of kids steal the old man's body and play human pinata with him. Tom soon discovers a lot of adult corpses in houses, and when he finds a man in hiding, he explains that the kids went crazy the night before, going door to door slaughtering the grown ups. And nobody stopped them? Of course not, who could kill a child?

From here on it's a deadly game of survival for the couple. The kids haunt them in gangs, and it comes down to the final decision, it's either the kids or themselves who are gonna die...

Plot wise, there isn't a huge amount to go on, but that's not what the film is about. It's a film with bigger ideas than just straight up narrative, and it dangles those moral questions for the audience nicely. That's not to say the film isn't exploitative. The opening war atrocity footage will put a wide load of fuckers off straight away, but the director, Narciso Ibáñez Serrador, does a smart thing here. He visually forces you to feel uncomfortable at the idea or mentality it takes to stand by and watch a small child die,(which we all do every day in times of war, how many starving kids have you seen on tv??), so he sets you up straight away with the gut churning feeling of dread, with your own morality telling you that killing children is wrong. Sure, it's a cheap trick, but it's highly effective.

The film builds the tension strongly until all the cards are laid on the table. The island, a once beautifully open and spacious place, soon narrows down to the streets, which soon narrows down to a room, leaving our heroes little place to run. With machine gun in hand, Tom must blast his way through the kiddies to make it to the boat, and safety. And blast he does! This one probably packs all the bullet sprayed minors and boat oar beaten kids that you will ever need! There are so many chilling moments here that I really don't want to ruin them all. One sticks clear in my head though, when Tom tries to help a woman who as fled to the village church. He finds the woman dead on the ground in the bell tower, and the kids attempting to strip her body of clothes. It's a shocking moment, just watching the cold nature of the children, doing a vile act out of what seems to be oblivious innocence. The climax is also a powerful one, and is up there with some of the great endings in modern horror cinema in my opinion.

The camera work is crisp, and the photography spot on. Some nicely unusual choices in terms of framing really help sell the claustrophobic nature of the film too. There is very little bad I can say on this one really, I did find Evelyn's character to be a tad annoying though, and keeping her in the dark on what was happening just didn't cut it with me. Other than that, I say it's a modern classic. A grim one, but one that should be seen by every real horror fan out there!

Hardcore (1979)

I decided to have a bit of a George C Scott night the other day. And seeing as I mentioned Hardcore in my Cruising review last month, I thought I would dig this one out again for a spin on the end of my weiner.

Scott plays Jake Van Dorn, a Calvinist and conservative business man who seems to have everything going right for him. That is, until his teenage daughter Kristen disappears whilst away at school in California. Cops and an eye witness speculate that she was lead off by a young man, and the detectives don't hold out much hope of finding her. Taking the advice of the cops, Van Dorn hires a private dick, Andy Mast, (Peter Boyle, sleazy as fuck) to begin searching himself. A month later, Mast shows back up with a reel of 8mm footage. What's on it? Why, hardcore pornography, of course! In it is his nubile and innocent daughter, not looking so innocent anymore.

Van Dorn understandably goes heavy off the deep end. He moves out to California and scouts the strip, harassing hookers and pimps about his daughter, to the point where he gets his ass kicked. He realises that the world of sleaze is not a place for a man like him, so he re-invents himself as Jake DeFreese, porn producer extraordinaire! He gets in touch with the local heavy hitters of the porn world, posing as a wealthy guy looking to make a porn flick. He then meets young hooker and porn star Niki (Season Hubley), and together they head off into the underworld to track Kristen down...

George C Scott gives a pretty mean performance as Van Dorn, a man with clearly high moral values thrown into a maelstrom of sleaze and profanity. the scenes where he watches the porn with his daughter is a gruesome moment. Not only must he face the decadence of the porn world, but he must also face up to certain other realities and truths. Is his hard lined faith really the cause for his daughters self degradation? And if he does find his daughter, will she be the same person she once was, or even want to come back home with him?

These questions are what make Hardcore interesting for me. Schrader almost pulls it off too, but he drops the ball a few times in terms of plotting. Van Dorn's transformation into 'porn producer' isn't entirely convincing, yet it certainly is amusing. Same goes for the discovery of the snuff reel. It was uneccessary to the plot really, and it was pretty lame looking. And of course, the finale. A bone of contention with alot of people, me included. The ending was apparently forced by the studio, and Schraders original bleak ending was dropped. What could have been a masterpiece on futility and abandoned faith gets a neat little ending, almost all tied up. Sure, it's entertaining, but unrealistic.

What works for me about a lot of Paul Schraders early films is how he paints the everyday characters so colourfully. He has a knack of writing the everyday blue collar guy in realistic yet likeable fashion. Just look at both Taxi Driver and Blue Collar for that. He creates a world you can taste, and even if his central characters are off the wall, you can relate to the surroundings in a grounded way. Peter Boyle excels as always as the sleazy private eye. Even great little cameos by the likes of Hal Williams as 'Big Dick Blaque!' will have you rolling in your seat with glee. And of course, Season Hubley, Kurt Russell's ex-wife and star of my all time favorite pimp and hookers flick, Vice Squad, for those who are interested. She does a pretty good job of portraying a lost youth, much like Jodie Foster's role in Taxi Driver. She also gets highly naked, which may be of interest to some of you. For me, all I can say is yikes!

Overall, Hardcore is a near miss of a classic. However, the film is shot beautifully, capturing the neon lure of California at night, and the camera work is truly stylish and innovative. The film also has plenty of nudity and violence to keep the casual crowd interested. Oh, on a final note, if the plot of this sounds vaguely familiar, that's because it was essentially remade as 8MM, by Joel Schumacher. The less said about that film, the better...



Final bonus Hardcore! The scene when Van Dorn interviews Big Dick Blaque! Laugh it up, yo!

Perfect Blue (1998)

I'm not much of a man for Manga or Anime to be honest. I've only seen about half a dozen or so films, and while I have liked what I watched, I generally don't go seeking for titles as I would with other genres. But saying that, if I were the kind of man to make a top 100 list of all time, including all genres, I'm pretty sure Perfect Blue would be on there somewhere, and quite possibly in a decent enough position.

Perfect Blue follows the disturbing path that young Mima's life takes after she announces that she is retiring from pop band life to pursue a career in acting. One of her managers feels it's the best idea for her, but the other, Rumi, a former pop idol herself, thinks it is career suicide. Despite all, Mima lands herself a small yet harrowing part on a TV drama. At the same time, a website starts up called "Mima's room", purporting to be written by Mima herself. Whoever is writing the online diary sure does know a lot about her life, and it isn't long that this stalker starts threatening those around her. It doesn't take long for threats to materialise into murder, and for Mima's sanity to take a backseat...

What unfolds is both genuinely disturbing and sad. Mima is asked to act out a rape scene for the show, and it is a hard scene to watch. The innocence of Mima's past life crumbles away as everyone wants a piece of her, and none seem too concerned about it's affect on her young mind. She begins to confuse dreams with reality, and the past with the present. Is her personality really splitting, and is she somehow involved in the murders? I've said too much already!

The first few minutes of Perfect Blue feel pretty much like anything you would expect a teenybopper anime to be. Lots of pop music, screaming teenage girls, and tough looking boys. But this all melts away pretty quickly after the title sequence, luring you in with an easy charm. There are very few punches pulled here. The murder sequences are short, but pretty damned brutal. The killer likes to stab the victims in the face with a screwdriver, and occasionally in the groinal area too. The rape scenes and other exploitative nudity scenes are just what you would expect from the nation of folks who eat rapes for breakfast; they are kinda uncomfortable.

What works so well is how the film is realised. I'm not sure if it would be as great as a live action film, but apparently there is one already made in Japan. The fluid camera positions coupled with the colour tones are flawless. For me, the film feels like a fucked up blend of Argento's Tenebrae crossed with Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream. Ya think I'm talking outta my hairy flossy? Just check out the scene Aronofsky borrowed for Requiem. You will know it when ya see it. He even owns the rights to this film, apparently.

Perfect Blue is stylish, dark and disturbing, but flows brilliantly and without any hiccups. This is one little flick you will want to watch more than once. Check it out, but don't watch the dubbed version!