Im not gonna lie, the UK summertime is kicking my arse. I needed a distraction, I’d had ‘Limbo’ sat on my shelf for a year or two at this point, so I figured with a runtime of less than an hour and a promise of ‘Trippy Horror Goodness’ that i’d probably have a pretty good time with it.

The films described by AGFA and Bleeding Skull themselves as ‘What if David Lynch with Nine Inch Nails as the soundtrack?’ and…to me? thats…kind of all there is to it really. I dont know whether its the intense heat, tiredness, or just that I didnt catch this film in the right atmosphere, in the right headspace. But It just really didnt do much for me.

I’ll get the best part of this film out of the way up front, which is the direction and cine. For the most part its fine enough, but occasionally, it kicks out against what its trying to do. And when it does that it winds up producing either some of the most engaging, surreal, dream like and moody cinematography i’ve seen in a VERY long time that perfectly replicates the feeling of being on the verge of falling asleep. OR! it’s some of the worst cine i’ve seen and feels rough, shakey, underlit and unpleasent.

This is an art house SOV horror film, with the occasional bit of 8mm thrown in for good measure…and as a piece you ‘experience’ visually, I think it looks pretty good, in fact the majority of my rating is purely based on its technical style, flare and mood. It hit me almost immediately as the kind of thing you’d have running on screens in the background of a party. that people maybe catch a 10 second snatch of before moving on to the dip and doritos…But to actually conciously sit and watch it? well…thats where I hit my problems with this one.

See, the audio quality is HORRENDOUS, with most of the dialogue inaudible due to crowded location scenes, outdoor location work and even the set works mics arnt great and consistently muffle the dialogue. I watched with Subtitles on, but even so, the dialogue itself is sparse, gives little away and didnt hang together as well as i’d have liked.

I got VERY lost in the plotting on this one. I tried to follow it as best as I could, but…I dont know if I missed something…I couldnt make head nor tail of exactly what was supposed to be going on. Id say the arthouse element runs stronger than the horror element. Because I was so baffled by the production on the whole, I spent most of the time too deep in thought to actually find the horror anything other than distracting.

The characters all seemed kind of one note, and because of the very rough editing, it makes it hard to keep track of who’s doing what, where, how and why… the pacing is painfully slow burn. and, if you watching this as an art piece. I could see it being better BECAUSE of the slow burn nature. But as a work of cinema that someones choosing to sit and watch…its glacial, and not in a fun way.

The performances range from beige to aggressive, but not in a fun way. physical performances are really poor, with little to no motion unless its a set piece, at which point the film goes a bit crazy and the cast are advised to improvise flailing for a bit. Noone really stood out to me, and as mentioned, it was so hard to keep track of what was supposed to be happening that I just kind of gave up on them by about 35 minutes in.

The soundtracks fine enough. and like I say, the direction, at points, is absolutley incredible for the SOV genre. But those moments are few and far between, and what I was left with was effectively ‘Concussion Cinema’ just a handful of moments that incogherently interconnect, that probably tell a story you need to either piece together from multiple rewatches, or figure out. Or its leaving it open to interpretation…But brain tired, no room for complex high level processing.

I may well give this one another go at some point. But, even taking on board the creative technical flourishes…I was just kind of ‘bleh’ about it. Your milage may vary. But I just…couldnt really get into this one. Why watch this when I have ‘Fire Walk With Me’ LITERALLY less than one foot away from being watched instead?..

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/limbo-1999/

Well, after sitting through ‘Baby Cat’, I decided to do some research on the film, and by sheer chance, I landed on a trailer for another of Scott Hillmans films ‘Blue Belt’ and…To my absolute shock, it actually didnt look half bad! It seemed to have a decently edited together trailer, solid visual effects and the quality of the shot framings were significantly tighter and better handled…It left me curious…and, like a guy with a sore tooth, eventually curiosity got the better of me, and I hit ‘play’. and, Im actually really glad I did.

The plot follows ‘Riley’ the relative of an increasingly eccentric Italian uncle who runs a bar/pizzaria downtown in LA. Riley is a coder who uses their uncles bar as a ‘professional’ looking setting when dealing with clients, and lifes a strange and fun mix of trying interesting Pizza combinations and trying to figure out whatever the hell their uncles trying to communicate. Life is good. Then, as is always the case, The French turn up and ruin everything.

I kid, but basically a French guy turns up to the bar and politely, but firmly tells Rileys uncle that he wants to buy the bar and that her uncle should just give it up now for a good price and get it over with, because he WILL be taking it, one way or another. Riley intervenes, an altercation takes place and it turns out that Rileys actually a kung fu master!…well, they’re a blue belt. which is like…4 belts in, but thats still pretty bloody alright!

After defending the bar, our French entrepenaur returns to his ‘base’ and its revealed that a ‘Monty Python, by way of ‘The Warriors” style army of French people have massed in downtown LA, with a FIENDISH plot! they want to buy up all the neighbouring real estate, demolish it, and build a DELUXE SKY SCRAPER! Complete with community center, pool, sports bar, luxury rooms…THE WORKS!…THE HORROR!!!

After the defeat, the whole armada descend on the bar, and Riley also just about manages to fend them off. But this is FAR from the end of the story, as a shady lawyer/businessman is adamant the land will be his, and a battle of wits ensues between the small town coder, and the powers of western Europe! Complete with Park based kung fu fights, training montages, weapon play AND! they even manage to cram a little small town love story into the mix as well!

I’ll be blunt, Is ‘Blue Belt’ a revolutionary picture that shakes up the industry in big ways? No. Its a Z grade ‘Tubi Original’…But in a sea of Z-Grade ‘Tubi Originals’ this one, actually kind of stood out to me. and I think it comes down to how Scott has calibrated this production. For a starters putting Socks Whitmore in a leading role after a support role in Baby Cat was a really solid move. Socks has a great charisma that occasionally tends towards the cringe and goofy, but for the most part dances right on the cusp of that line between self aware post ironic upbeat humour (which I personally am VERY fond of) and a sarcastic dryness that again, works perfectly well here. in previous films, it felt like the cast were a little miscoordinated and that the script didnt really shape up a level lead, this film fixes that, putting Riley firmly at the forefront of the action and centering most of the confrontations and plotting around them.

The addition of an actual 3 act narrative arc here is very welcome as well. Baby Cat felt like a series of ‘happenings’ that were jostling for importance, but here? We actually have a clean plot thats established well in the first act, is built on in the second (though does seem to falter by around half way into the second act…I assume for paddings sake) before revving up for a finale that feels very in tone with the rest of the film up to that point.

Probably the biggest difference here from Scotts other films, is this one actually seems to finally figure out the balances between the type of comedy Scott wants to work in, the more serious elements and how to make them contrast and compliment each other, rather than work against each other.

Here? he’s going for farce comedy, and I think its a style that works well with him, I do feel, if anything it could have gone harder. But the absurdist humour here runs the gauntlet from dad jokes, to puns, to an army of French people seiging a bar with exercise equipement. It’s stupid humour, but it knows what it wants to be and settles into it quite well. The more serious elements of the production, by contrast, offer a nice palette cleanser. Giving the audience a moment to sympathise with the characters a bit more, and to get better awareness of their situations.

I think it works quite well because, had it just been this style of comedy and nothing else, I think the film would have become quite grating quite quickly…But just giving us those small moments here and there to break and remember that this is, for the characters, a serious situation. I also think the romance subplot, here? works particularly well, because it gives these somewhat more fantastical characters a bit more grounding and real world stakes.

The characters themselves are still quite surface level, with only Riley really getting anything resembling more character exploration. But in a way I kind of feel that this film gets a pass on that, because its farce, its silly, its supposed to be a bit anarchic, and I dont think it would have been approrpiate to really drill down into the crazy French armys more complex nuances. well…Not unless it was for humours sake…

I think my only gripe with the film from a scripting perspective is the padding in the second act, which does drag the film into a bit of a repetative thing for about 10 minutes or so, and the fact that the ending itself seems a bit TOO out of left field. Not to go too heavy into spoilers, but the finale is essentially a ‘Magic saves the day’ moment…only; the film has NOTHING to do with magic until the final moments…it feels a bit like the writer just got a bit bored, wrote himself into a corner and decided to quite literally ‘magic’ his way out to a ‘ film abruptly just stops’ style ending.

When I reviewed ‘Baby Cat’ I mentioned that I actually thought Scotts direction and cast direction skills were actually not too bad, given that he’s a bit of a one man army for the most part, he’s kind of realising his vision the way he wants it and, how do you direct a crew that consists of 1 or 2 people and the cast honestly? And…thats kind of still the case here. I think his cast directions improved a bit, and his range as a director with a vision seems to have improved a bit as well, shots are now a bit more dynamic, the cast move around a fair bit more, and given this film has several choreographed fight sequences. I was kind of impressed at just how well he’d managed to mask punches, kicks and use digital effects to make impact shots feel harder hitting. Im not kidding when I say i’ve seen ACTUAL martial arts movies with PROFESSIONAL martial artists, that didnt look as good as the fight scenes in this film. Not every one is a winner, but some of these were actually quite impressive given the limitations.

But, for my money? the thing that REALLY pulls this film up is the work and improvements done to the cine and editing. Baby Cat was a MESS. a film that felt like the edit had been assembled in a blender and presented in its roughest form. This film? is a night and day difference. Shots, for the most part are well composed, reasonably lit and graded, the digital effects are more commonplace, and for the most part actually look great. with a scene involving muzzle flashes and bullet pings looking particularly great.

Sequences are, for the most part well paced, well edited together and the whole thing holds together really rather well in my opinion. However, it does have its flaws. there are at least half a dozen instances where the effects dont just fail, but fail spectacularly. Motion tracking still seems to be a bit of an issue at this point with a scene where Scotts tried to motion track a video image onto someones phone being particularly rough around the edges. He’s also had to mask and blur backgrounds in several shots due to not getting release forms for people and to hide brand names/location signs which has mixed to poor results. There are also some points in the edit where scenes cut too late, and at least one point during a mock teams call where he had to overlay a retake over the first take to get the conversations to all synch up. leaving a weird ‘ghosting effect’ on the footage.

Like I say, this film is STREETS, CONTINENTS maybe even… better than Baby Cat on a technical level. But the flaws that remain dont half leave a blemish!

Performance wise, Socks Whitmore is absolutely ‘lead’ or 2nd lead material, so reworking them into the face of this film was actually a stroke of genius here, They have a good level of energy, and they seem to really nail the vibe this films going for bringing just the right level of self aware snark and sarcasm to proceedings, while also being able to get genuinely quite emotive when required. I thought they were a rock solid choice here and made the film worth watching just on their own steam!

But thats not all Joe Fillipone, Johnny Mask, Chris Spinelli and Shane Ryan Reid all do really well to help sell the ‘farce’ nature of the film. Much like Socks, there were moments where I felt like they maybe eeked into grating/cringey by just a smidge, but its reined back pretty quick and on the whole I think they worked as a solid unit bringing energy and a level of loudness to proceedings that I think was much needed.

I said in my review of ‘Baby Cat’ that the film felt like an anime that had been presented in Live action, but not refined to a live action environment with horrifying results. Blue Belt feels like an action comedy Anime that HAS been refined and the results were really quite enjoyable! while its imperfect, and isnt exactly breaking new ground. I really enjoyed watching this one, could absolutely see myself watching it again in the near future, and if you were to ask me to recommend a Scott Hillman film, despite it not ENTIRELY being representative of his Ouvre, I’d probably recommend this one.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/blue-belt-2024/

The answer to the question ‘What if Neil Breen, But bad.’ finds us pawing at the front door of 2023’s ‘Baby Cat’ a film by Scott Hillman that feels like it should have been a 30-45 minute anime OVA that somehow got bloated into a 90 minute live action feature in the most horrendous ways possible.

The plot follows Dana, a recently seperated, recently fired woman who’s moved to LA to start a new job doing something with Oil fields…she isnt too sure either. The film opens with her apartment hunting, and she finds the perfect apartment, in a lovely complex, with nice neighbours all for a good price…She’s about ready to sign the deal, when we’re then introduced to Lori. a fully grown woman dressedin ‘Kawaii’ style cat girl lengerie and knee high cybergoth boots who crawls up to Dana and wraps herself around her leg.

Non of the occupiers of the complex even BEGIN to bat an eye at Lori, and when Dana raises the issue of the ‘sexy cat in the room’ they all just basically shrug it off saying ‘well thats what she does…’ it almost puts Dana off signing the lease, but when the landlady offers to knock another 250 off the rent, she bites the bullet.

And what follows is a a 10 minute window where Dana and Lori get better equainted…and eventually have sex. followed by a further 60 minutes of a vicious cycle of Dana venting to various folks about her new ‘pet play’ girlfriend, getting frustrated that Lori will only communicate in ‘meows’, having aggressive sex with Lori and going to the gym.

All the while a SECOND plot is rolling following a criminal kingpin called Qulling, who’s working with a lawyer called ‘Mr. Chance’ to try and take over the city with his brand of drug pushers and a new drug called ‘Nuke’. That…that second plot is pretty much entirely unrelated to the first plot until the final 20 minutes when both worlds unceremoniously crash into each other. with mixed to poor results.

Up front? Baby cat on a technical level is atrocious. direction feels a bit aimless, a lot of the film was ‘one man army’d’ for the most part, so I dont feel I can really say ‘Scott directed this film well’ when the only person he had to direct was himself, and maybe sometimes one other guy. Whats here is fine enough, but largely unremarkable.

His direction of the cast, is pretty solid though, he clearly worked with the cast to really nail what he wanted out of the experience, and whether I think the performances were played out well or not is kind of a moot point, he did manage to get them to do what he wanted.

The cine, is garbage, and im being kind in saying that. 80% of the shots arnt locked off properly, arnt white balanced, the majority of the shots are shakey, and what isnt shakey is handheld and weirdly framed. the majority of shots dont follow conventional framing rules, use unecessary key frame trackings that cause the image to flail around. and thats just the basics.

The lighting is heavy handed and lacks any vision or purpose for being why it is, the greenscreen work is terrible, largely caused by the green screen itself not being appropriately lit, leading to haloing in some shots, brake in where the contrasting shadows on the screen cant be keyed out. random cuts in and out of green screen work. and the overlays the choose to insert into green screen’d sequences are often shakey, or full on move when the scene is of character being static.

Add to this the edit looks and feels rushed, scenes cut way to late, or way to early, they use scene ‘lead in’ to pad the runtime, which essentially shows our cast ‘out of character’ right before the cameras supposed to roll as they get INTO character. the colour grading layers dont match the scenes they’re layered onto, meaning sometimes they overrun into other scenes, then abruptly dissapear. text and visuals that are layered in havent had their motion keyframes checked so they fly around the screen randomly. the end credits and titles wernt formatted properly meaning they use mismatched fonts and run right out of the safety zone and off the screen entirely. When I can say confidently that ‘The Amazing Bulk’ handled its edit and green screen work better…that is a HELL of a damning endorsement.

Thats not even mentioning the script which, as mentioned gives you a 10 minute establishing of the characters and the core concepts, then gets locked into lesbian sex scenes, venting and gym trips for 60 minutes before wrapping the whole film up in an incredibly basic and very underwhelmign way. The characters are all very one note, they dont get any kind of complexity to work with and the writer seems to be teasing the audience by the second act by just…purposfully throwing away possible plot lines that could have ACTUALLY given these characters something to do other than bonk and share feelings.

I think the biggest problem with this film is that, had it been a shorter cartoon or animation, it probably would have worked. This film isnt a million miles off the kind of Shoujo Ecchi anime that plagued circles in the mid 2000s. it feels very much like one of those shows, but as with most anime. Translating it to a live action environement more often than not results in unexpected and horrifying results…and thats kind of whats happened here.

The performances are what ultimately save this production with Fawn Winters seems to really fully embrace the role and plays a duel character I feel rather well. While her line delivery isnt the most confident in the world, her physical performance and facial reactions I feel nail the part of Lori perfectly and she’s almost certainly a highlight.

Natalie Cotter is also more than enjoyable as Dana here. she doesnt get much range to play with, but she plays what she has well. and when bolstered with a strong supporting cast (including Chris Sandberg who I think is the standout performer here as the wonderfully dry delivery guy who, throughout the film continues to deliver increasingly bizarre items and telegrams to Dana) I think the performances in this one are probably the films strongest suit.

Oh! and the soundtrack is all royalty free music, the director said he just googled ‘Royalty free music – Cats’ and then used anything he could find. given the state of the edit, I’d be inclined to believe that given the scores just randomly thrown about here, there and anywhere with no care how its used, or even WHY its used…matched only by some horrendous ADR work that doesnt even match the actors mouths. The one redeeming quality? the on location and on set sound when it ISNT ADR’d is actually pretty well handled all things considered.

Its now been over 24 hours since I watched ‘Baby Cat’ for the first time, and it’s basically been all i’ve thought about for at least 16 hours of that time (a mans gotta sleep) its kind of haunting me, because I feel like somewhere in the guts of this film, is something that could be genuinely engaging, a 20-30 minute ‘short’ version of this with more care and attention put into it COULD have the potential to actually be great. But somewhere along the way, the vision for this film got bent out of shape, and it just seems to have spiralled from there. If you enjoy weird cinema, and have a strong constitution for being patient. I think you may feel like me and find moments of this film quite enjoyable. But if your ANY other way, i’d avoid this one like the plague…

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/baby-cat-2023/

Watched on Sunday June 8, 2025.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/boardinghouse/3/

Watched on Sunday June 8, 2025.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/sledgehammer/5/

Watched on Wednesday June 4, 2025.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/hey-folks-its-intermission-time-vol-3/1/

Probably the definition of the phrase ‘What is the barest minimum I want out of a slasher movie’, ‘Girls Nite Out’ is, in essence a murder mystery presenting itself as a new fangled Slasher, but with a hearty dose of ‘mania’ to boot. Imagine ‘Black Christmas’ but if it had been directed and written by the guy who made ‘Sleepaway Camp’ with just the tiniest dash of ‘Friday the 13th’ and your not a million miles off.

The plot is split over two main plot lines, the first half follows a group of college students (mainly a group of serority girls) as they host a party at their serority house to celebrate a winning game for the football team. Its here that the film basically sets up its stall, establishing all the characters, their personalities and throwing a hearty sprinkling of ‘Oh! He’s got a dark/mysterious streak, maybe HE’LL be the killer!!!’ to help get peoples brains in gear (fun fact; anyone who is made out to be a killer in these movies is 99.9% of the time almost definitely NOT the killer.)

The second half of the film picks up the next day after several dramatic turns hit the sorority party, as the girls try and recover from the fun, but volatile night, by taking part in the college radio stations annual scavanger hunt. Only…the football teams mascot (a bear) appears to be on the prowl, following the clues of the hunt as well. And if they just so happen to come by any sorority girls who are also taking part in the hunt. Well…it’ll be a ‘Grizzly’ end for them!

And I think ‘Black Christmas by way of Sleepaway Camp’ is probably the best way to describe this one, but not in a good way. The film wants to have a certain heir of atmosphere and tensness. It wants to be a thriller for all intents and purposes like how Black christmas helps to build that sense of unease and isolationism…However; it doesnt really want to put any time into giving these characters the kind of depth and complexity that would allow for that unease and atmosphere to germinate. Instead, most of the characters get a personality type that they run into the ground with a kind of frantic mania. followed by a ‘twist’ personality type that the audience is supposed to infer as an attempt to make these base line characters a little more ‘extra’ than they seem.

Only, its a very lazy way to try and create uncertainty for the audience. To the point that I feel most audience members will clearly see through the attempts pretty much immediately. The mania I mentioned comes in the form of high energy comedic moments similar to sleepaway camp, but again, nowhere near as memorable and kind of jarring against the darker tones and suspensful atmostphere the films going for.

Mild spoilers also; but this is one of those kind of ‘whodunnit’ slasher films where its presenting itself as a ‘Find the killer’ film, but the ACTUAL killer in this film is barely on screen, has almost no dialogue and even on a quick watch back of the 1 or 2 scenes they’re in, gave almost NO impression that they could possibly be the killer, not to mention the big plot twist of the film is based on a photograph of the suspected killer, which you dont see properly until the big reveal of who the ACTUAL killer is. Basically; I dont think any reasonable person watching this for the first time would immediately know who the killer was without some kind of forewarning. which makes the whole core premise of the film (speculating who MAY be the killer) kind of redundant.

Outside of the above gripes, we do have a fairly solid little horror film, the pacing moves at a clip, the act sturcturing is fine, the characters border on annoying at times, but never fully go there, the comedy is VERY hit and miss, but landed with me more than it bounced. the dialogue feels solid enough given the characters are pretty much in a constant state of ‘drunk’ for 90% of the runtime.

The kills are a bit watered down, but are at least satisfying to sit through, the end reveal comes out of left field, but I felt was handled alright, if not a bit abrupt. the plotting requires a LOT of suspension of disbelief. But if you can do that, is fine.

The direction isnt out of the ordinary for early 80s horror. In fact i’d say its in the upper mid portion in terms of quality. I caught the Arrow video bluray of this, which…well, its a bit ropey to be honest, but given the films been left in disrepair for many years, the restoration work is about as solid as it can be. its clear the director was a solid pair of hands for the production, with all the various elements working quite well together to produce a film that more than holds up. My main issue is that it doesnt really stand out much (barring the mania element of the dialogue delivery) and a lot of it feels derivative of thillers and the protoslashers of this time…Id say its probably innoffensive truthfully. I liked it, I just wish it had more of an identity.

Same goes for the cine, the lighting is mixed to poor for the most part and a lot of the film is set in dark rooms or outside at night. Where it hits, its brilliant and striking with some nice moody work between ‘moonlight white’, the darkness and at most, candle light. But when it doesnt work, it makes it very hard to see whats actually going on, which naturally greatly impacts the viewing experience. Colour play is quite low, which is a shame, its hard to tell if thats how the director intended it to be, or if the print itself was just SO washed out that the higher contrast moments have paled. But in either case, it feels like, had the colours really been allowed to pop on this one, it could have been something special, instead; it feels a bit cheap and grungy…which is a shame.

Compositions are largely fine, there are moments where the croppings a bit off here and there, but on the whole this looks and feels the part for a low budget slasher flick. sequences feel a bit sparse on the B-roll front, but hang together well enough and the edit is just kind of unremarkable. Its a shame really as a lot of suspense can be drawn out of an edit, and its an opportunity that this film almost never really chooses to utilise.

Performance wise? we run the gauntlet from painfully annoying, to actually kind of naturalistic and fun. Key highlights include Hal Holbrook as the campus security officer, Julia Montgomery as Lynn, both of whome could have easily played to the gallery on this one, but chose a more serious take, which contrasts nicely against the rest of the cast. They are probably the strongest players in this, as the rest of the cast (and there is a LOT of them) range from not terrible, to horrendous, to…frankly incoherent.

One thing this film DOES have going for it though is a killer soundtrack, its essentially a 60s jukebox for the most part played directly from the campus radio DJ. Big names too! which surprised me given the budget for the film. while I woudlnt have thought it necessarily suits the 80s slasher tone. It does give the film a distinct and kind of charming aesthetic, that I wouldnt have considered. I think it works rather well all things considered.

Girls Nite out is a ‘passably’ good slasher film, given how poor this genre can get at times, its honestly pretty solid all things considered, if not missing that extra ‘oomph’ that takes it to the next level. I think this would probably pair well with something like ‘One Dark Nite’ or ‘Black Christmas’ as a ‘Sorority’ double header…Its borderline….But I think I would ultimately recommend checking this one out if your on a slasher kick and want something a bit deeper cut and off the beat and path.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/girls-nite-out/

I revisited this one tonight via Gold Ninja Videos excellent ‘Revenge of the dead’ remaster. And it’s still as daft and bizarre as it ever was! Great fun! And the work done to restore the audio and video for this release is absolutely superb!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/night-of-the-ghouls/1/

Had the pleasure of checking this one out with a friend the other night and had a pretty good time!

A little bit of a different turn for the ‘Peanuts’ specials, ‘Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown’ sees Charlie brown and the gang taking part in a foreign exchange programme, with Snoopy and Woodstock tagging along for the ride! With a brief stop in the UK, they all arrive in Paris, where a secret at an old Chataux will give Charlie Brown a MORE than memorable vacation!

And this ones pretty easy to sum up honestly, its a simple, funny and at times cute little special that, for me at least, stands out against the other ‘Peanuts’ specials. But isnt without its faults.

Probably my biggest gripe with this one is simply that its got a LOT of filler, its 75 minutes long, but could EASILY have been 45 minutes and been a LOT tighter for it. some moments here drag on and on, and while it isnt unpleasent, it does get to a point where you start wondering if the scenes ever will end.

Mercifully, the gentle comedy in this is consistent across the runtime, and is actually pretty funny for the most part. My favourite bits naturally involved Snoopy and Woodstock just palling around as they do. but that humour really is the saving grace of this one. it just about managed to keep me on side from start to finish.

I think this one would probably pair up quite well with something like ‘National Lampoons European Vacation’ as a kind of ‘travel comedy of extremes’ double header. This is a charming piece that, while a little bit flawed, did enough to ultimately win me over. It certainly made me feel like I should get out there and explore the wider world, which cant be a bad thing!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/bon-voyage-charlie-brown-and-dont-come-back/

Another round from Stephen Sayadian and the middle film in the trilogy of weirdness. ‘Cafe Flesh’ kind of feels like the halfway house between ‘Night Dreams’ and ‘Dr. Caligari’, not as porny as ‘Night Dreams’, but WAY more porny that ‘Caligari’ though, not without good reason.

The plot is set in the not too distant future (Sayadian has gone on record as saying he felt this took place in an alternate 90s.) Where the world has been ravaged by a nuclear apocalypse. This hellscape has eradicated persecusion on race,sex,gender or sexual preference basis. But instead split society as we know it into two camps. ‘Negatives’ who make up 99% of the population, who, on top of the usual post nuclear apocalypse style burns and injuries, have developed a mutation that makes them pretty much completely unable to engage in erotic physical touch with themselves or others. If they try, all parties will immediately begin to feel nauseaus, followed by uncontrollable vomiting, and eventually passing out.

The other camp, the 1%, are ‘Positives’, folks who have seemingly escaped the apocalypse unscathed and are able to have sex freely. I know which side i’d rather be on. But ‘Pozzi’s’ as they’re known have an even bigger problem on their hands, as government agencies are sweeping the apocalyptic hellscape SPECIFICIALLY looking for ‘Pozzi’s’ and on locating them, they’re rounded up, and sent to their nearest ‘Cafe Flesh’ a jumping 50s by the way of 1982 style bar where all registered ‘Positives’ are forced nightly to perform in increasingly perverted and bizarre sex shows, aimed at keeping ‘Neggi’s’ under control and subdued, as its the only entertainment in the wastes, while also regulating heavily the movement of ‘Pozzi’s’

Our film predominantly follows Nick and Lana, a couple of ‘Negatives’ who, before the war were in a loving relationship, that are now really struggling due to Nicks inability to have sex, alongside Nicks own feelings of imasculation. Lana helps arrange the shows at Cafe Flesh, and the film predominantly follows the happenings around the club, introduces us to some strange and wonderful characters and some even STRANGER sex acts…But when a newcomer arrives from the wastes called ‘Angel’ who is adamant shes a ‘negative’ the whole cafe will quickly find itself on the reciving end of investigators, hellbent on locating ANY ‘Pozzi’s’ and getting them on stage as soon as possible. With revelations that’ll turn the worlds of Nick, Lana and Angel totally upside down.

Of the first three Sayadian films, ‘Cafe Flesh’ is probably my least favourite, that isnt to do it a disservice mind, theres a lot going on in it. But I just feel like its more of a ‘stepping stone’ picture for the director than a landmark highlight. Sayadian at this point was very use to theatrical productions. ‘Night Dreams’ had been his first solid foray into film making, and this feels like a director/writer who knows a thing or two about movie making, but wasnt quite yet at his most confident.

At its core, theres a lot to love about ‘Cafe Flesh’ the plot itself has twists and turns that were both welcome and unexpected, the surrealism is really the main draw for me to this picture, with explicit imagery I dont think in my wildest dreams i’d have been able to conjure up. (ever wanted to see a 50s housewife get railed by a fully adult sized mouse dressed as a milkman, complete with dildo tail?…Or a giant Pencil fuck a secretary? This may be the film for you.)

In that sense it carries a lot of ‘Night Dreams’ DNA, and in some senses, this feels almost like the offcuts from ‘Night Dreams’ that Sayadian couldnt properly relaize in THAT film have been transplanted into this. While the absolute madness is welcome, I find the porn sequences in this film do have a bad habit of overstaying their welcome, this film clocks in at around 72 minutes, and I’d say you could easily knock 3-5 minutes off of every porn scene and it would have run ten times better.

For me? the sex scenes just, arnt that interesting. the surrealism is, but once it gets stuck into the more porn oriented moments, its just locked off mid-close shots of boning, occasionally cutting to a reaction shot from one of the cast. And it’s hard to tell at this point whether the lack of intimacy in the direction of those sequences is a choice given the topic, or if its just an inexperienced director who doesnt really know how to frame intimacy to make it feel passionate or interesting. ‘Caligari’ doenst really delve into sex as frequently as these two and seems to keep its sequences a bit tighter, so im inclined to believe its the latter.

The extended sex scenes pad the runtime quite heavily, which, to me? impacts how the actual story ebbs and flows. It feels less like the sex compliments the plot, and more like the film makers are essentially wrenching the story book from my hands to make me watch ploughing for 8 minutes, before giving me the book back for another 10, rinse, repeat.

What I will say though is, thats probably the biggest and sole issue I have with ‘Cafe Flesh’ its not committed ENOUGH to being porn to BE porn. Its not fleshed out narrative wise enough to lead with story, it feels a bit caught in the middle.

The plot elements themselves are wonderful, we have eccentric characters who all get a decent handful of moments to define themselves, Nick and Lana’s relationship is complex and explored decently, the twists and turns always kept me guessing what was coming next and the film gets into some genuinely bleak and bittersweet moments I really wasnt expecting from a film that features men dressed as adult babies banging theigh bones on high chairs in the opening act.

the act structuring feels a bit lop sided because of the extended sex sequences, but on the whole i’d say they’re pretty decently balanced out. The contrast between comedy weirdness and genuine discomfort is frankly delightful as well.

Direction wise, as mentioned it feels more like a ‘missing link’ than a fully fleshed out piece. Night dreams embraced absurdity, Caligari is set in some kind of German Expressionist by way of the B52’s void world…’Cafe Flesh’ has one foot in the surreal, and one foot in reality. and to me that feels unsual and jarring, for the most part, it weirdly works. But then there’ll just be some random scenes that really pulled me out of the space it was going for and left me feeling a little disinterested. Sayandian here is really learning the craft, so I do have to cut him some slack, but I just feel that there were moments here that, in the hands of a more experienced director (or had it been dealt with by Sayadian today) would have been much tighter and better handled.

The cine however? is basically flawless. fantastic surrealist and experimental compositional choices, crash up against neon soaked moody, smokey bar sequences. Sayadian is a director who revels in colour and you wont get much more vivid, rich and expressive than in these early films. incredibly powerful sequences combined into a tight edit with creative and interesting lighting only really further sell me on the vision on display here. I’d say just on this aspect alone the films worth checking out alongside Sayadians other work. It really is flourishing.

Performance wise, again; its pretty faultless, I had actually missed the Michelle Baur was in this playing Lana until I checked out the supplimental material (I also wasnt aware that this was only Baurs second ever ‘hardcore’ flick, which was surprising) But shes astounding in this, I find it kind of crazy that NOONE talks about how good she is in this film, playing a woman with a secret, dealing with the increasingly complex realtionship she has with her partner. Shes incredibly emotive, brings a real presence to the film and says more with micro movements and her physicality on set than the dialogue ever could.

Thats not to downplay Paul McGibboney who’s also absolutely carrying this film from strength to strength playing Nick with a strong front, but a clearly crumbling mask as he begins to realise that ‘Cafe Flesh’ may be all thats left for him. I also have to shout out Andy Nichols who plays ‘Cafe Fleshs’ host for the evenings Max. a UTTERLY slimey performance, he OOZES dislikability with every single line delivery, its incredible, his own revelations were both very satisfying and handled very well. He was excellent.

I cant even begin to go into the supporting cast and extras in this film either, who play things ABSOLUTELY perfectly. Its almost like an inverse ‘Rocky Horror’ with the majority of the patrons of ‘Cafe Flesh’ looking at the performers the same way a dog looks at a rotisserie chicken in a shop window. the eccentricities all play off each other well with explosive and interesting moments. I really quite enjoyed it honestly.

And finally, the soundtrack…which, being honest…wasnt really my jam. It had its moments, but its trying to be a 40s and 50s ‘Jazzy, but in the future!’ kind of take, but its hit and miss, where it works, I kind of dug it, where it didnt. It was grating. I could easily see why folks would like the score to this one, but I personally much preferred Caligari.

I feel my rating for ‘Cafe Flesh’ will shift in time, theres honestly a lot to like here, but it feels like a film mid transition, a necessary work to get to the logical end point, but not a ‘complete’ picture in the spiritual sense. I loved the casting and cine, but the script really struggles to shake off its ‘too porny for its own good’ vibes, which left me a bit frustrated.

I’d say its definitely worth your time, alongside all of Sayadians early works. But done expect a film that puts story ahead of sex. its very much in the midst of an identity crisis on that front.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/cafe-flesh/