The Walking Dead: The Game (Season 2)

This review contains spoilers.

Over the past two years Telltale has become one of my favorite developers. It all started with Jurassic Park, not necessarily a good game but certainly entertaining and you could already smell the potential of this talented team. After that came the unbelievable The Walking Dead: The Game. I had never sympathized with characters in a freaking game that much, it was brilliant. With A Wolf Among Us they proved that even with subjects I don't care about (fairy tales) they could still make magnificent games. Still, The Walking Dead: The Game Season 2 was the one that I really DESPERATELY wanted to play.

Left to fend for herself, Clementine has been forced to learn how to survive in a world gone mad. Many months have passed and she is in search of safety. But what can an ordinary child do to stay alive when the living can be just as bad - and sometimes worse - than the dead? 

In season 2 you crawl into the skin of Clementine, a character that, after you played season 1, you'll love with your life. I'll be the first to admit that it took some time to get used to the switch of bad-ass Lee to the small Clementine, but Telltale made it work. Season 2 starts off a little slower than season 1 did in my opinion but as the series continue they again manage to create the quality that season 1 had, in some episodes they even outclass season 1 (something I thought would be impossible). Again you'll sit on your couch shocked when one of the characters dies, again the action is intense, again you can just feel the emotion and again you experience Clementine's troubles like they're your own. 

Episode 4 and 5 achieve a an almost unearthly level of storytelling. There are only a limited amount of people that you can REALLY trust in this game. When you're not looking some of them will stab you in the back (Die Mike and Bonnie, Die). Also during the game you have to ask yourself how far you'll go to protect and back someone up who is definitely losing it and is a potential threat to your group. There are multiple endings to this season that all vary a lot from each other. I myself arrived at Wellington with AJ and Kenny (I just couldn't kill the poor bastard, he's not a bad guy, just really fucked up by his past). But I decided to leave along with Kenny and AJ when Wellington mentioned that they only took in children. I'd rather live ''on the road'' with a somewhat crazy but always protective friend than live ''safely'' inside some walls and act like it's still the normal world. 

Telltale keeps making quality games, they prove it once more. Some choices will be even harder than in season 1, if that's even humanly possible. Every episode Clementine emerges more and more into a grown up, while always keeping Lee's advice in the back of her head of course. Telltale already confirmed a season 3 (FUCK YEAH!), and I'm not even going to go speculate about what I want and what I don't want. I fully trust Telltale to make another classic. Just one thing though: Please do not let us wait another year until we can play again, Please! Ah well, I guess Game of Thrones, Tales from the Borderlands and a possible season 2 of The Wolf Among Us will keep us entertained until we can get back into the world of the undead.

 

Trip with the Teacher (1975)

The 70's obviously were THE years of exploitation movies that didn't fear anything. Whether it's gore, nudity or rape, most of' 'em showed it all. In 1975 Earl Barton directed 'Trip with the Teacher', an interesting movie that was clearly inspired by The Last House on the Left (1972).

A pretty young teacher and four of her pretty students take a minibus to some Navajo ruins, little suspecting another kind of ruin awaits. A trio of bikers begin to flirt with the gals, and when their bus breaks down, they helpfully tow the vehicle to a deserted shack. The chief biker, Al, chews up the scenery, kills folks, and rips off the teacher's clothes before raping her. The poor schoolgirls are also in for their share of abuse.

The tagline ''How far should a teacher go to protect her students?'' sounds promising and should make for a good movie. In Trip with the Teacher this subject unfortunately isn't fully exploited altough it does play around with the idea every now and then during the movie.

The movie has got a pretty quiet build up though it strangely enough does feel kind of tense. This is because of the bikers who are a little too obsessed with the schoolbus filled with teenage chicks. When the bus breaks down on a dirt road it's the bikers who pass by and 'help'. This is the point from which the tension starts to rise. 

The most psychologically unstable guy of the group is Al. Zalman King manages to portray the creepy, insane, unpredictable Al amazingly. Soon Al and his brother Pete murder the busdriver. Only then do they realise they now have to kill the remaining passengers, who eye witnessed the murder, too. What follows are multiple murders and mildly shown rape (although the build up to the rape of the teacher was pretty hard and a little shocking). 

Eventhough I thought Trip with the Teacher is a strong, convincing movie, there still are some things that are implausible. Take for example the house where Al and Pete keep the girls. It's an old house with busted windows. You'd think multiple escapes through the shattered windows would follow, still only one girl actually manages to escape that way. The worst thing is the return of Jay to kill the hostage takes though. Just hours before his rescue Jay drove his bike off of a cliff and landed on the rocks. Still a couple of hours later he shows up without even a scratch on his face, let alone multiple bone fractures. For that matter you have to take Trip with the Teacher a little lightly at some points.

Overall Trip with the Teacher is a good little movie. It has got a threatning vibe, some murder, rape and above all an amazing acting job by Zalman King. I do wish they made it a little bit more of a shocker though. It's still a bit tame for a 70's exploitation movie.

Don't Go in the House (1979)

On a budget of 250,000 Dollars director Joseph Ellison made Don't Go in the House. The movie itself is very similar to Psycho (1960) and especially Deranged (1974). Not coincidentally both of these movies were inspired by 50's serial killer Ed Gein.

Donny Kohler is scarred for life (literally and figuratively) by his deranged mother, who he grew up with. After the death of his mother Donny goes completely insane and brings girls to his home to murder them violently.

Don't Go in the House has a pretty long build up which itself is pretty uninteresting as well. Even back in 1979 the whole 'Going crazy after mother died' was done multiple times before this movie, and because of that the story just doesn't feel really original. Luckily after about half an hour maniac Donny manages to get a girl into his house. The kill that follows is pretty good and actually very barbaric. Fully in screen we see how he ties up the naked woman in a steel room in his house. He pours gasoline over her body and then fires his flamethrower causing the woman to burn to death, still shown in full glory. Sicko Donny himself is wearing an asbestos suit. It's a suit that had the potential to become iconic in the horror genre. Unfortunately it didn't because the frightening looking suit is used much too little in the movie.

After this first kill the quality of the movie decreases rapidly. That's pretty much the only thing that goes rapidly in this movie 'cause after the kill the tempo of the movies goes back to being terribly slow. This slow, boring tempo lasts until the very decent disco scene. The scene is followed by a good showdown in the house of Donny. The house by the way looks like a horror house from the outside but unfortunately the creepyness of the house isn't shown very well when shooting scenes in the house itself. Anyway, during the showdown Donny finally puts his asbestos suit back on and again it is followed by a good looking burn kill. What's especially creepy is the ending scene in which Donny is going so insane that he thinks all the burned bodies, that he kept in the house, come back to life to muder him. An impactful ending that does look a lot like the ending of Maniac (1980). 

The music score is ofter very weird sounding and is sometimes supported by funky disco music. Dan Grimaldi grows into his role of Donny as the movie continues. The supporting cast is actually pretty decent, especially Robert Osth who plays the role of Donny's best friend. According to IMDB this was Osth's only movie role on his CV. 

Either way Don't Go in the House turned out to be a disappointment. It had potential, that's for sure. Killing your victims by burning them to death is macabre enough to make for a good horror movie. Unfortunate those scenes are pretty scarce. The tempo of the movie sucks at times and the asbestos suit had to be used MUCH more. The good last +- 15 minutes saved this movie from being a total let down.

Fun Facts (Source: IMDB) 

Dan Grimaldi kept the asbestos suit he wears in the movie.

Night of Fear (1972)

Night of Fear was originally titled 'Fright' and was actually the pilot of a new tv-show. Shocked by the nature of the pilot the series was quickly cancelled. It was later released in Aussie cinemas as a feature film.

A young woman accidentally drives onto a dirt road after nearly crashing with a truck. The woman continues to follow the dirt road, not knowing that it is under construction. It doesn't take long before she drives her car into a big gap in the middle of the road. Not soon after a crazy hillbilly appears and continues to terrorize the trapped woman.

Australia was shocked after the release of this film, and when you watch it you'll get why. It's not necessarily the violence that does it, gore was shown more explicit prior to this movie. It's mostly the sinister, creepy, almost sick atmosphere that this movie has that does the trick. As for the setting, atmosphere and art-direction It's very comparable with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). I wouldn't be surprised if Tobe Hooper got a lot of inspiration out of this Australian shocker when making his own masterpiece. In addition main character Carla Hoogeveen not only looks A LOT like Marilyn Burns, she also acts in the same, almost hysterical, way. It's almost as if Hooper directed Burns to act like Hoogeveen does in Night of Fear.

The movie itself is a little weird to say the least. In the beginning of the movie we see multiple people who you figure are going to be leads in the movie only to disappear seconds later and never to come back. Then we cut to Hoogeveen who crashes on a deserted dirt road. For the remainder of the movie she is chased by an axe wielding mentally disabled madman. oh yeah, the movie doesn't have any dialogue at all, it's just weird music playing. You'd figure that this would get boring after a while but surprisingly enough it doesn't. The movie only lasts about 50 minutes which is perfect for a movie like that. Also I have to say I was kinda glad not to hear any dialogue in order to just experience pure horror.

The movie is VERY frightening but does suffer from some downsides. The editing was often done very amateuristic. But obviously the biggest downside were the insanely dumb mistakes by our leading actress (every now and then you wonder who really is the one who is mentally disabled). I've seen me some idiot moves by hunted victims in slasher movies but this was of a whole other level. Also the abrupt ending and the lack of answers and explanation about the killer and the killings is kinda disappointing.

Overall Night of Fear is a very, very entertaining exploitation movie from down undah. Actually it's more than that. It's sinister, creepy, dark and terrorizing. It's a movie you must have seen as a horror fan. Even if you turn out not to like it, it still is a hell of an experience.

Fun Facts (source: IMDB)

To promote this movie, lead actor Norman Yemm walked down the Pitt and George streets of Sydney wearing a sandwich board advertising this film and with an axe over his should embellished with fake blood. 

This movie's initial theatrical release in November 1972 in Australia was delayed because the film had been banned by the Australian Censorship Board. The film was not released until March 1973 where it was released uncut after appeal.  

This was the first theatrically released horror movie of the new wave of Australian cinema during the 1970s.

Mangiati Vivi! (A.K.A. Eaten Alive!) (1980)

Mangiati Vivi! is Umberto Lenzi's second cannibal movie after making Man from Deep River in 1972. He gathered a cast of people experienced in Italian (horror) films. Robert Kerman had experience with Ruggero Deodato's shocker Cannibal Holocaust. Janet Agren had been playing in Italian movies for years and later went on to star in Italian B-movies like City of the Living Dead and The Rat Man. Don't forget about Ivan Rassimov who had a lifetime of experience in Italian movies like Jungle Holocaust, Shock and multiple Emanuelle films. Supporting these stars were for example Me Me Lai and Paola Senatore, names that should ring a bell for veteran Italian movie geeks.

A woman goes deep into the jungle of New Guinea to find her sister who moved there to join a religious cult. The cult is evil but it's not the only thing that's dangerous. The jungle happens to be filled with cannibals looking for a nice lunch. Together with a hired help named Mark they must try to fight their way to safety.

Mangiati Vivi might be less known than Lenzi's Cannibal Ferox (1981), it certainly DOES reach its level of entertainment. Of course writer and director Umberto Lenzi had to come up with an idea again to get some western people deep into the jungle. This time a woman is looking for her sister who joined a cult, think of Jim Jones' Jonestown, who are based deep in the jungle of New Guinea.

Like in so many Italian cannibal movies animal cruelty is featured in the film. This time it's about five scenes of cruelty towards animals. This time most of it (I even believe all of it) is stock-footage from other cannibal movies like Lenzi's Man from Deep River and Mountain of the Cannibal God. Like in all the other movies the violence towards animals is nauseating and completely unnecessary as it adds absolutely NOTHING to the story. My advice, hit the fast-forward button when you see a small alligator being dragged by it's tail by a native and do the same when you see a huge snake and a small squirrell monkey. Those are definitely the sickest ones in this movie. The alligator death even comes close to the turtle's death in Cannibal Holocaust.

The reason this movie still manages to be so entertaining is mainly due to Robert Kerman. Kerman has the perfect appearence for a worn-out Vietnam veteran and does really well in his bad-ass role, it has to be said. The rest of the, interesting, cast consists of female beauties like Janet Agren, Paola Senatore and Me Me Lai. Their acting surprisingly enough is actually reasonably decent. More important though, all three of 'em lose their clothes multiple times!

The movie manages to be quite exciting and the tempo, when in the jungle, is quite good. Every time the movie starts to get a little boring Lenzi throws in a nude or gore-scene and he has our attention again. The gorescenes, that are less brutal than Cannibal Holocaust and Cannibal Ferox' gore, are mostly 'borrowed from other cannibal movies. Luckily I had not seen any of the cannibal movies that Lenzi borrowed from yet so it all was very new for me. And although the gore never gets really shocking there are still some very entertaining scenes. Think for example about the scene where Senatore and Me Me Lai are literally being cut into pieces and eaten while they're still alive.

Not a bad movie at all from Umberto Lenzi. It's trashy, sure, but it's the good kind of trash. We got cannibals, hot naked women, gore, a great performance by Robert Kerman and Ivan Rassimov in a dress pretending to be Jim Jones. Fuck yeah!

For an interesting Robert Kerman interview by the way, hit the this link.
http://www.therialtoreport.com/2013/06/02/r-bolla-adult-films-method-actorpodcast-12/
He talks about his time in adult films, the making of Cannibal Holocaust and his depression that got him into using drugs after he was screwed over by his agent. Very intersting stuff so check it out if you're a Kerman fan like me.