Begotten (1990)

I had had my eyes on this one for a while now and this time I finally decided to watch it. Begotten is a typical love it or hate it movie. Some people praise it to be a masterpiece, others think it's a pile of shit. In this case I belong to the second group, although I don't think it's a TOTAL piece of shit.

God disembowels himself with a straight razor. The spirit-like Mother Earth emerges, venturing into a bleak, barren landscape. Twitching and cowering, the Son Of Earth is set upon by faceless cannibals.

Director E. Elias Merhige creates a strange type of movie, which I can only describe as a morbid mix between The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Cannibal Holocaust and The Passion of the Christ, with an 1800 screenfilter. On a couple of occasions you'll really wonder what the heck you're watching (did I really just see the lifeless body of god get a handjob by some strange chick!..?). The plot will be suggestive for 99% of the viewers who watch this movie without further ''knowledge'', meaning reading a plot on IMDB prior to watching it. The movie itself doesn't make clear at all what's happening. I guess it's just the viewer's job to figure that out himself.

Merhige chooses not to use any kind of dialogue or music. That's fine, but it also means that the other soundeffects to create the atmosphere have to be top notch. Unfortunately they aren't. It's mainly just singing birds that are heard in the background. A total shame because the ''gasping sound'' this strange, spastic creature occasionaly makes is creepy as hell. The movie is mainly praised for its lugubrious vibe. I'll admit that there are some scenes that are pretty weird and morbid, but most aren't. In fact, most scenes are terrible boring. The camerawork has a huge influence on this. When there's good use of the camera (like in the scene where the spastic creature gets hit in the head with the hammer), the scene tends to be very creepy. Unfortunately though most of this movie's camerawork is unclear. 9 out of 10 times you won't have a single clue what's going on on the screen. I had hoped that Begotten would be a total assault on your senses. Unfortunately it's only an extreme test for your patience, which isn't one of my stronger characteristics anyway. 

Normally I'd encourage the making and existance of projects like these, but they should have just made this a 15 minute short. A full length film, even though it's only 70 minutes, is just overkill. Definitely a disappointing piece of film, which is also burdened by some terrible pace by the way (mainly talking about the scenes where they hoist the spastic creature up the hill or the vaginal mutilation scene...snoozzzzee)

Fun Fact (Source: IMDB)

Approximately eight to ten hours of optical work - re-photographing, visual treatments, and filtering - was required to produce one minute of film. The total post-production period for the 72-minute movie was eight months.

Quando Alice Ruppe lo Specchio (A.K.A. Touch of Death) (1988)

I wouldn't call this one of Fulci's last attempts but around this time he was certainly nearing the end of his career. This translates into the quality of the movie. It's by no means a brilliant atmospheric masterpiece like The Beyond or Zombi 2 were, but it's still a very enjoyable one for Fulci fans. Only now did I notice how many stock footage of this movie Fulci used to make ''A Cat in the Brain''. Actors who had never been on set of that movie have lead roles in it. Not the only time that happened in Italy though. Fred Williamson for example never knew about the existence of Black Cobra 4. When he found out years later that the movie existed it turned out that footage from the first three movies were used to make a fourth one (obviously without Williamson getting a penny for it).

Lester Parson is a middle aged guy who dates women, only to kill them and take their valuables. He gets spooked though when a copycat seems to be interested in his work.

Brett Halsey plays the role of a murdering, and cannibalistic, maniac with a lot of gamble debts. He does a fairly decent job as well. The gore is a la Fulci again, brutal as hell. The scene where Parson smashes a broad in the face with a stick only to cook her head in an oven is absolute gold! Fulci-favorite Fabio Frizzi unfortunately was not involved with creating the music this time, which leads to a forgettable soundtrack. Even the atmosphere and camerawork have been better in many other Fulci movies. He doesn't even make use of his infamous ''zoom-in'' shots. Every now and then the movie turns painfully slapstick (including supposedly ''funny'' situations with the corpses Parson is trying to dispose).

The cast has got some familiar faces in it. Zora Kerova (Cannibal Ferox), even with hare-lip, easily is the most attractive of the bunch. She doesn't have much competition though. The other two ''female'' characters consist of a terribly annoying opera singer and a broad with a disgusting beard. Certainly some ''eye-candy'' wouldn't have hurt this movie. Another familiar face is Al Cliver, although his role is fairly small and not that memorable. The ending is very abrupt but not bad.

This certainly isn't one of Fulci's masterpieces, but that was to be expected. I still feel it's a little underrated though. It's certainly a better movie than Fulci's lazy ''A Cat in the Brain'', which strangely enough gets a higher rating on IMDB. While not a good movie, this one is still very entertaining. Not to mention the gore, which is mainly spectacular like usual. A Fulci fan should definitely NOT skip this one.

Scream... and Die! (1973)

First of all: nice Last House on the Left-kinda poster. Apart from that, this movie is a terrible English attempt to make a giallo. This movie can't have been watchable in the 70's and certainly isn't in 2015. Any form of pace is almost non-existent. After about 50 minutes you suddenly realise that you've mostly been watching main actress Andrea Allan, slowly strolling through her apartment. Believe me when I say I'm certainly not a fan of modern editing techniques with fast cuts etc. But this was just completely ridiculous.

A young model and her petty thief boyfriend find their way through the English fog to a backwoods manor in hopes of looting it. What they find instead is murder, and when the model attempts to find the house again, her efforts come to naught. 

The story itself is pretty ridiculous and the movie lacks any form of scarry build-up to deathscenes. The few deathscenes that this movie contains are poorly filmed and seem rushed. Instead director Jose Ramon Larraz focusses on useless scenes, stupid dialogue and boring characters. To keep things a little bit spicy he adds some naked female bodies. Every female actress that appears in this movie, including the beautiful Andrea Allan, gets fully naked at least once. Nice... But the director should know that a few tits here and there aren't going to change our hunger for horror scenes.

The dubbing is overly poor as well. The dialogue heard doesn't match with the movement of the actors' mouths, which is strange considering all actors spoke English on set. Not to mention that some dialogue isn't even dubbed, causing the viewer to see the actors' mouth move without hearing a single word of dialogue.

Wow, Scream and Die (A.K.A. The House That Vanished) turned out to be a disaster of a movie. I happen to find José Ramón Larraz an interesting director (I still want to see Edge of the Axe and Rest in Pieces), but with this movie he completely fails to entertain the viewer. The story sucks and the slow paced execution is even worse. The only good thing remaining is some female beauty, but that's about it.

Just Before Dawn (1981)

Just Before Dawn never really had the big spotlights on himself due to the release of Friday the 13th and The Burning in and around the same time. That's a shame, because quality wise it certainly deserves just as much praise as the former two. On the other hand it's understandable. Just Before Dawn doesn't have the iconic ''Cropsy'' or the brilliant gore by Tom Savini. It's a modest but great slasher movie.

Five campers arrive in the mountains to examine some property they have bought, but are warned by the forest ranger Roy McLean that a huge machete-wielding maniac has been terrorising the area. Ignoring the warnings, they set up camp, and start disappearing one by one.

Just Before Dawn certainly takes its time in the build up. It's not a big deal though as the characters aren't overly annoying, the setting is beautiful and the camerawork is very effective, creating a certain tension even though not much is happening. The atmosphere is great and even though there isn't much going on, you still continually get the strange feeling of ''being watchted by the unknown''. 

After about 45 minutes the two retard hicks (brilliant killers btw) continue their killingspree. It has been said before that the gore in this one isn't anything special. The build up to those kills are once again great though. It's a little unfortunate that the movie just lasts about 10 minutes too long. Sadly somewhere around the ending of the movie I got a bit bored. 

Just Before Dawn is definitely one of the better 80's slashers around. Unfortunately it was never really able to step out of the shadows of its big brothers like Friday the 13th and The Burning. It has got some great tension and frights, a good atmosphere and a brilliant setting. Enjoy the ride.

Fun Facts: (Source: IMDB)
Director Jeff Lieberman said that countless strangers showed up at the filming location on the day that the scene of Jamie Rose swimming topless was to be filmed. Lieberman said that word of this shoot had apparently gotten out among the local forest rangers.

According to director Jeff Lieberman, despite numerous reviewers who have stated that the film was inspired by The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) or The Hills Have Eyes (1977), he had not seen either film when he began shooting this film.  

Chris Lemmon was performing a truly dangerous stunt when he was shot clinging to ropes after his fall into the rushing river. Lemmon had to physically hang on to the ropes for some time as the powerful river pulled at him. Only a matter of feet away him was the top of a huge waterfall that was notorious for people falling to their deaths from it.

The Galaxy Invader (1985)

I've seen me some bad movies in my life, and this was definitely one of them. Another terribly 80 long minutes of my life.

An alien spaceship lands in a swamp area in rural USA. The locals quickly find out they can make a lot of money with capturing the alien and set out to hunt it down.

The ''alien'' is a dude in a cheap costume. I've got no problems with that. It adds to the cheesiness of movies like these. Unfortuntely director Don Dohler makes very little use of the alien. The story mainly centeres around a bunch of terribly acting local rednecks, with no charisma (apart from Richard Ruxton) whatsoever. And when a movie centers around a bunch of dusty, boring rednecks, the viewer tends to get bored...

The complete story must have been a result of a 5-minute brainstorm session of writers Don Dohler, Anne Frith and David Donoho. A plot is almost nonexistent. The fightscenes were even worse choreographed than the ones in my 5-minute, no budget, schoolproject. It's all so completely lame. The best example is right at the end of the movie, where someone slaps a person from a cliff (including a shot of a terrible looking mannequin). If you've seen this movie, you'll know what I'm talking about.

95% of the viewers would advice you to stay away from this movie, and so will I. Dohler could have learned a lot from movies like Phil Tucker's Robot Monster (1953), which manages to be one of the most entertaining movies ever without having a budget, a good story or a good monster costume. I'd only recommend watching The Galaxy Invader to either masochists or people who want to see every B-Monster Movie in the world. Althought those two things seem to be awfully close to each other.

Hatchet III (2013)

After Adam Green's excellent first two movies, BJ McDonnell, who had been a cameraman for the first two movies, was appointed to direct and finish the trilogy. And as was the case with the first two movies, it's another 80 minutes of pure entertainment.

A search and recovery team heads into the haunted swamp to pick up the pieces and Marybeth learns the secret to ending the voodoo curse that has left Victor Crowley haunting and terrorizing Honey Island Swamp for decades. 

First of all I should give compliments to the cast, which is filled with people who are perfect for these movies and who perform with a lot of joy. Zach Galligan, Caroline Williams, Parry Shen, Robert Diago DoQui, Derek Mears, Cody Blue Snider, Releah Vanderbilt, Sean Whalen, Jason Trost and Sid Haig as the racist redneck. Rarely do you see a movie with such a huge list of actors creating a huge amount of entertaining characters. On the other hand there's an unfortunate role by scream queen Danielle Harris, whose character seems a little bit too ''forced''... It's basically a lot of ''fuck you's'' and angry faces and not much more (although this clearly is more of a script issue). 

As expected, Hatchet III delivers tons of real gore (none of that CGI shit)... It's brutal, over the top and not to be taken too seriously... Just the way it should be in a splatter movie like this one. Apart from that Hatchet III is also the funniest movie of the three. We're bombarded with funny characters and one-liners (I laughed out loud multiple times), without it being too forced. 

 Hatchet III is a brilliant ending to the trilogy and is also the best of the three movies. Every now and then it's as predictable and cliche as can be (guy turns around with happy face - I killed him! - Victor Crowley slowly gets up in the background and brutallly kills the happy guy), but who the fuck cares...!? Overall Hatchet III will make splatter fans the happiest people in the world for 80 minutes.

Fun Facts (Source: IMDB)

Series creator Adam Green prides the Hatchet films on their "no CGI rule". All make-up effects are done the "old school" way with prosthetics, make-up, latex, and silicone in order to give the films their throw back feeling and tone. CGI and digital enhancement is only used for such things as wire removal or fixing any camera issues that occurred while filming, but never to create the films' outrageous special effects. This movie was no exception to this rule and Green continually challenged the make-up effects crew by writing crazy death scenes and sequences that most any other modern production would have brought in computer generated visual effects teams to accomplish. 

Actor Parry Shen has appeared in all three Hatchet films but as different characters. In Hatchet (2006), he played Shawn, who worked for the Swamp Tours. In Hatchet II (2010), he played Justin, who was Shawn's brother. Justin also worked for the Swamp Tours. In this third film, he played a paramedic named Andrew. Andrew is not related to Shawn or Justin. A joke is even made in the film about how one of the bodies they find looks like him.  

Actor Cody Blue Snider (who plays "Deputy Schneiderman") started out as Adam Green's personal assistant during the making of Frozen (2010) and then worked as a production assistant on Hatchet II (2010) before Green wrote the role in this film specifically for him to perform.

Non-Horror Exploitation: Thunder III (1988)

With this third movie De Angelis made an end to his somewhat disappointing Thunder trilogy. This movie also turned out to be the worst of the three.

A group of local rednecks destroy Thunder's native American village. Thunder then continues to harass the men until they pay for the damages.

Thunder III has got even less of a story than the first to movies had. The pace, like in the first two movies, is one of its main problems. Bo Svenson and Raimund Harmstorf didn't return for this third movie, so we have to do with a group of boring ass rednecks. The first two movies made up for their lack of pace by having a decent action scene or two. Unfortunately even those scenes disappoint in this movie. I don't even have to start on the bodycount.. It ain't there. That's right... No one dies in this movie! That's pretty uncommon for a movie in this genre. Therefore the poster of this movie is another prime example of Italian false advertisement. The crossbow doesn't make an appearance, the helicopters don't make a serious appearance and that huge ass machine gun certainly doesn't make an appearence. We do get a group of hillbilly's shooting around, but apart from two horses they don't hit anything. And of course there is also Thunder mainly waving around a shotgun, which he barely even uses.

The music, like in the first movie, was again provided by Francesco De Masi. Fortunately he did a better job this time. Nearing the end of the movie we get to see one decent chase scene (and even this doesn't hold up agains the scenes of the previous two movies). What I did think was weird was the fact that Thunder manages to jump over multiple vehicles with his crossbike when there's not even a ramp. Did he install some kind of Knight Rider jumping-mechanism?, did het get some help by those native American gods?, or is it just plainly bad writing?.. Probably option number three...

Thunder III turned out to be a very disappointing ending to a mediocre action trilogy. Mark Gregory doesn't have enough charisma to carry the movie and the remaining fat rednecks sure as hell don't either. Bo Svenson and Raimund Harmstorf are desperately missed in this one. The biggest problem of this movie though is the fact that the pace and even the few action scenes plainly suck. An explosion here and there to keep me from falling asleep, but it's still a bit of a snoozer.

Non-Horror Exploitation: Thunder (1983)

All right, I know I'm not watching them in the right order. Only one day after watching Thunder II I watch the first one. But like I said at the Thunder II review, It really doesn't matter in which order you watch these. 

A native America named Thunder returns home only to find that his ancestral burial ground is being destroyed by construction workers. He tries to put a stop to it, but the law is not only not on his side, but he is banished from town, beaten up, and left for dead. Now he wants his revenge...

Where Thunder II only ripped off First Blood at the end of the movie, this one is just a complete rip-off. The woods have been replaced by the dry landscapes of Arizona, and Vietnam vet Rambo has been replaced by angry indian Thunder. One thing is for sure. This movie is certainly not better than part II.

Bo Svenson and Raimund Harmstorf both stared in this one, like they did in part II. And again, they do a fine job. The main reason why Thunder is such a disappointment is because of the lack of fine action. Apart from a lovely chase scene the movie stays quiet tame throughout. Mark Gregory actually only appears every once in a while. We mainly just have to do with cops sweeping the area and a boring sub-plot about a pro native American reporter. The few action scenes we do get to see are mainly boring bow and arrow shots. Not really impressing.

Fortunately, like in part II, the last 30 minutes make up for it. Thunder manages to get his hands on a bazooka, and he likes using it. Finally the explosions we all desired during the first boring 60 minutes start turning up. The best scenes of the movie though appear when Thunder decides to hop in a bulldozer and bash through roadblocks and buildings.  

Thunder turned out to be a somewhat boring First Blood rip-off. There should have been way more explosive action scenes. Compared to part II the soundtrack is a disappointment too. Fortunately the bulldozer scenes manage to make up for the boring scenes a bit.

Non-Horror Exploitation: Thunder II (1987)

I have yet to see part 1, but since these films are not known for their complicated plots it's really not a big deal. Thunder II is also my first Fabrizio De Angelis movie (apart from his two other Thunder movies i'm also planning to see Deadly Impact, Mad Dog, Cobra Mission and Killer Crocodile). 

Indian sheriff Thunder is transferred to a small town in the desert. He learns that the corrupt deputy is paid by the drug mob. To protect himself, the deputy sets a trap for Thunder and gets him convicted as dealer. Thunder manages to break out of the brutal prison camp and takes bloody revenge. However he cannot sufficiently protect his pregnant wife. 

Thunder II starts off promising with a cool barfight between Thunder and a group of biker thugs. Relitively shortly after there's a very cool chase scene, in which the ''crashes'' do look pretty awesome. Unfortunately after that, the movie turns a bit dull. The prison sequences are just not interesting at all and take all the pace out of the movie. Even after he escaped the prison the movie takes a while to heat up again. I guess you could call it a bit boring. There's for example a cool scene where Thunder hangs on the bottom of a chopper. Cool stuff, but not when you continue it for literally five long minutes. 

I'm pretty surprised by the decent acting in this one. Bo Svenson does a decent job, although his role in this one isn't a huge one. It's also Mark Gregory's best role I have seen of him so far. He was too feminine in the Bronx Warriors movies. This disappeared a bit in Warbus 2, but he was still a little bit stiff. He does a pretty decent job in Thunder II though. Fortunately his pretty imposing physique is finally used properly here as well. The award for best actor in this one goes to Raimund Harmstorf though, who is brilliantly entertaining as the crooked cop. The music by the way, done by Walter Rizzati (House by the Cemetery & 1990: The Bronx Warriors), is modest but certainly does the job.

Back to the movie. After a dull middle part It finally starts to heat up again when nearing the end. A la Rambo First Blood, Thunder goes completely berserk and shoots his way to the police station, where obviously his main villain is hidden. It's a bit unfortunate that this only lasts for about 10 minutes. I wouldn't have mind another 10 minutes of exploding cars and native American bad-assery.  

So so far still no mindblowing action movie with Mark Gregory as the lead, but they are starting to get more entertaining. The somewhat dull and boring middle part of the movie is really unfortunate. De Angelis shows he knows how to do action scenes, but he doesn't do them often enough.