An INCREDIBLY unispiring offering from José Mojica Marins. ‘Hellish Flesh’ is distinct to me in the sense that its the moment that I feel José finally got left behind in terms of creative influence and progression.

Throughout the 70s Josés work went from strength to strength visually. While I was always hesitant to praise his written ability (I always found his work a little overly simplistic and a bit ‘first year philosophy student’ for my taste personally) It cant be denied than from the early 60s through to the mid 70s, as a director and visual creative, he explored strange new spaces, pushed the boundaries of the censors and decency and while his later offerings would lean on sex and nudity as a crutch to help a weaker plot just about hobble over the line. There was almost ALWAYS SOMETHING in the way he chose to present his works that always endeared me to him.

The same cannot be said unfortunately for ‘Hellish Flesh’.

A film which feels like a yawn and a splutter manifest. ‘Flesh’ is essentially the key beats of the original ‘House of Wax’, ‘The Mad Magician’ and ‘The Abominable Dr. Phibes’ ran through Marins exploitation-esq filtering to produce a film that, by 1977, felt thoroughly uninspiring and like a director on the ropes.

The plot? A scientist (played by José) who’s developing an acid that (and I quote) ‘Can dissolve a big arm in seconds’, has been neglecting his wife, who has decided to commence an affair. After a while the man she’s cheating with can no longer carry on with the affair due to the guilt he’s feeling. So she hatches a plan to get rid of the husband by using his own ultra strong acid on him, before getting her lover to burn his laboratory to the ground with him still inside it.

Fortunately, our scientist survives (though heavily deformed due to an acid wash to the face and being burnt alive) and he swears distant vengence on the pair by slowly shadowing and haunting their waking moments.

And…thats the film. The scripts BEYOND derivitive for most of the runtime with only a few brief twinkles of originality dotted sparsly across the runtime. 90% of the movie is either Raquel (our scientists wife) guilt gushing about murdering her husband, or shadowy seedy softcore and nudity. Thats all this thing is. VERY rarely we cut to José, leering in the shadows, OR! we cut to graphic surgery footage and tortured screams…Thats the movie.

The pacing is SO slowburn as to be exhausting, it takes a third of the films runtime to even get going, and at least 6 minutes of this 82 minute film is just static opening title cards.

Its a repetitious watch and fairly mind numbing to say the least. scenes will cut between two locations for extended periods of time, and NOTHING will be happening in either of them! Which is insane. Im not kidding when I say a good chunk of the opening of this film is just José in a generic ultra low budget lab set just looking at beakers for 5 minutes more or less silently.

The act structuring is airey to say the least. This film feels more like a grab bag of assorted scenes than a coherent 3 act work. and tonally, it cant quite seem to commit to whether it wants to try and be a throwback to the universal monster movies and early 50s horror. Or an sleazy 70s exploitation flick. As such, it falls between two chairs, achieving neither and disspointing on both counts.

Non of the characters are particularly well written, most of them are either one note (see Raquel…the guilty, but stubborn wife) OR! they’re monosyllabic and basically just grunt their way through whatever lines are put in front of them with next to no feeling or passion.

The direction and cine feels phoned in as well, I’ve praised Josés work across all the films i’ve seen of his for pushing the envelope for better or worse and his determination to find his voice and style as a film maker…But this things DEATHLY dull for most of the runtime. Everything feels like it’s been a chore to put together for the people involved…Where once was moody and intricate lighting, here? is just low lit sets with little thought put into them. Where once was technicolour absurdist takes on hell and the underworld? here is filled with stock footage and people lounging in hotel rooms.

The most exciting scene in this entire film is simply a combination of the half a dozen or so half decent shots from this entire films runtime, quickly cut together into flash edits during the opening of the third act. and even that feels like a lazy way to make the film look sharper than it is because its essentially recycling.

In fact, the only original thing this film DOES manage to do well, is it’s FINALLY ditched off the old warbly, tinny and unpleasent operatic/classical score that’s been a staple of these films since the mid 60s. Here its still classical sounding orchestral stuff…But its cleaner, sharper sounding and a bit more interesting and kind on the ear. I welomed it…I just wish it was under better circumstances.

‘Hellish Flesh’ to me felt like a director, tired of the treadmill but unable to do much of anything else. A year after this film came out, ‘Halloween’ would release and redefine horror for the next 20 years (at least) and as such, its hard not to look at this film and feel its really quite dated.

I feel like José has been coasting since about 1972, developing a strong indentity, but within an increasingly creaky format. I suppose in modern terms it would be like finding someone who’s REALLY good at making Marvel movies…Its an era thats had its time and is thoroughly done…but our guy continues to plumb away at it, despite increasing redundancy.

‘Hellish Flesh’ is a slow, creaking offering that offers very little in the way of the innovation José was developing some 10 years prior. It feels tired. and I feel with one more ‘contemporary’ film to check out from this period of Josés filmography, things arnt going to get much better…

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

Few words can really truely describe the electrifying love that I felt the first time I watched ‘Forbidden Zone’, and now im a half dozen watches into this thing…Even to this DAY. I STILL fall head over heels for it all over again with each rewatch.

The plot, revolving around a large and strange family who purchase a house with a portal to the sixth dimension and all manner of bizarre oddities housed within sits pride of place on my film shelf and I hold it largely responsible for rekindling my love of film and cinema as an art in recent years, after a long draught of mediocre ‘direct to video’ flicks and idle cult fodder.

The scripts razor, CONSTANTLY challenging conventions, CONSTANTLY snarking and sniding its way across EVERY line, EVERY scene and EVERY frame. This isnt a film that takes itself seriously, but it’s passion in what it DOES want to say and show shines BRIGHTLY against the overly acidic and comedically bleak overtones.

Not a film to skirt controversy, this film pretty much targets every minority AND majority. its characters are simultaineously dim witted, but wittily charismatic. expect PLENTY of nudity, humping, on screen drug use and racist charicatures THROUGHOUT. It kind of reminds me a little bit of ‘The Evil Dead’ in the sense that that too was a film that skirted controversy, but was largely given a free pass due simply to how utterly absurd it really truely is.

And I cannot stress that poitn enough, this film. is NUTS. absolutely off the wall art house experimental fleisheresq cinema at its absolute finest.

The direction is simple, but highly effective, with purposfully low budget sets intermixed with ‘Gilliam-esq’ animations and hyper manic WAY over the top hammy acting. Richard Elfman helps bring this film to life in a ‘Lightning in a bottle’ moment that is seldom seen and even less likely to be executed well…and yet, somehow he pulls it off.

The cine too is simplistic, but the mixed media approach combined with a HELL of an edit results in a simply delightful mix that oozes charm and works lockstep with the manic script to deliver something really truely unique…in the best way possible.

The performances are campy, over the top and utterly delightful. There isnt a single dissapointing performance here…and I really mean it, everyones firing on all cylinders, and for some here its quite literally the performance of their respective careers.

AND as if this thing couldnt get any better. The entire score is written by most of the folk who would go on to form the AMAZING new wave band ‘Oingo Boingo’ so expect PLENTY of pop punk instrumentals, unique twists on vaudville classics and even a dusting off of some archive recordings for comedy effect.

In short, there is VERY little I dislike about ‘Forbidden Zone’ there are a few unfotunate choices that are quite problematic these days (see: the excessive use of ‘Blackface’ a commonality in Fleischer era cartoons…VERY unnacceptable both then and now.) But the films so silly and clearly non malicious while simply stewing in its own scathing juices…I just cant find any reason not to absolutely love it for just being SO different and fun.

I found this WAY too late, and not a day goes by where I dont regret checking this thing out 10 years earlier than I did. Dont make the same mistake I did, Watch ‘Forbidden Zone’ today!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/forbidden-zone/2/

A harrowing picture, ‘Dead Mans Letters’ (better known as ‘Letters from a dead man’) is a striking russian anti nuclear film that is essentially the soviet unions answer to ‘Threads’.

The film follows a scientist desperately trying to find his wife and son who were seperated from him duing a nuclear attack. What follows is his travels through the wastelands encountering frankly devestating horrors that come from nuclear disaster.

I was BEYOND impressed with this one, and VERY surprised that it really isnt more well known. the script is powerful, emotive and interesting, the direction and visuals are intense, unforgettable and distressing in places. the atmosphere, near perfect.

Frankly the only thing that stopped this for me from being a 4 and a half star ‘Must See’ is the decision to present the film using ‘tinted’ film stock over colour or black and white. I found it a little distracting, and given that this film isnt readily available in the west (I watched a 360p subtitled copy on youtube tonight with my discord posse) It really diminishes the overall power of this work.

DEFINITELY worth your time. and the PERFECT double feature with ‘Threads’, ‘Letters from a dead man’ presents the anti nuclear stance from beyond the iron curtain…and I think at this time more than any other, its must see cinema.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/dead-mans-letters/

The concluding feature in the ‘Kino Lobor’/’Something Weird’ Nudist/Forbidden Fruit series sees us faced with a dilemma. What do you do when you have 40 minutes of relatively freshly shot footage of nudists larking about in Florida, and a seemingly desperate Sammy Petrillo in your phone book on speed dial. Well…You get ‘Shangri-La’ a 1961 attempt at comedy.

Mercifully, you dont SEE Sammy’s Petrillo in this film, but thats about as merciful as it gets here. The film follows Sammy as…Sammy…a bellboy in jail with a gorilla named Pinky (LITERALLY the gorillas only here because Petrillos last film was ‘Bela Lugosi meets a Brooklyn Gorilla’ and im assuming the film makers thought it might help people remember who Sammy Petrillo was given that it’d been nearly 10 years since Petrillo had last been on the big screen…)

ANYWAY! Sammy the bellboys in the clink, and a friend has come to bail him out, but not before Sammy tells him of this AMAZING adventure he’d recently been on…in which he stalks two women…intensely…and finds out their nudists…and then stalks them around the nudist Coloney…Even when they go to a kids playground and start playing with naked children…something he seemed…OVERLY interested in…

Not content with the stalking charges and accusations of ‘Diddling’ our bellboy decides to go one step further, flying down to Florida to follow the girls to a HUGE nudist camp, infiltrating it as a potential member and wrangling your way into a soft position of power within the camp as host and celebrity judge of a beauty contest!

*Ugh*…

This was PAINFULLY poverty row film making. We’re talking 40 minutes of stock footage, about 2-3 days filming with Petrillo on a single set thats redressed 2-3 times…and thats it. Petrillo gets to do his stand up here for a chunk of the runtime, his hit rate isnt great…his Jerry Lewis impersonations starting to wobble a bit too…

I just…I didnt feel too good about this one at all…Like…technically, the stuff that isnt archival or stock footage was fine enough, the tone is okay…but there are just moments in this that felt icky, WAY sleazier than a lot of the nudist films of this time period.

Petrillo, I feel, isnt strong enough to lead a picture, and the supporting cast really didnt help by being SUPER dry, to the point they were actually quite painful to watch.

The whole film just reeks of ‘We have these elements to play with, lets throw something together to make a buck’ and VERY little else.

I…I dont really have much more to say about it honestly…there are worse poverty row features out there…But not by much. This BARELY scrapes by and the whole scenario of Petrillos Bell boy stalking naked women and children for an extended chunk of the runtime REALLY didnt sit well with me. ESPECIALLY when its married up to a screwball comedy tone…it felt odd. and not in a fun way.

I’d only recommend this as a curiosity piece for someone who’d just watched ‘Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla’ and wanted an answer to the question of ‘If Duke went off to make Mobster movies, what did Sammy do?’ the answer is a LOT of nightclub work, and every 5-10 years or so, he’d turn up in porn.

Not recommended, avoid.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/shangri-la-1961/

The second feature in Kino Lobors/Something Weirds ‘Nudist’/’Forbidden Fruits’ boxset is a little more sincere in its efforts than the first film ‘Nudist Life’ But even while moving in the right direction, it still kind of failed to muster much enthusiasm.

This was made in the early to mid 50’s and feels less like a sensationalist piece aiming for an excuse to show svelte aphrodite women playing bouncy sports, and more an attempt to actually educate the viewer (in a somewhat midguided way) about nudism and its various iterations around the world.

As such, this kind of feels like 3 different movies stitched together, with a third of the film showcasing how Germany handles Nudism…a third showing France’s efforts and a third showing how New York does it.

With this being the early to mid 50s the censorship laws at this point are still a little iffy…Which means large swathes of the film have the nudists wearing what can only be described as napkins or nappies to skirt any issues with showing full frontal…Which was a bit odd honestly, but ultimately a welcome addition.

Like many nudist films, this one largely focusses around the day to day activities of the nudists in their home countries and the variations in socialising. This means a warm and friendly narrator talking us through in patronizing detail the activities we’re seeing on screen, while tentatively encouraging the audience to go out and explore nudism themselves.

Having just come from ‘Nudist life’ (1961) I realized immediately that that film stole a LOT of footage from THIS film to help pad the runtime…But then, at the same time, I noticed THIS film steals a lot of footage from OTHER nudist “documentary” films from the 30s and 40s. So…at this point im wondering whether only 6 nudist films were EVER shot, and the following 30-40 years of their popularity was just recutting those six over and over again.

What this film DOES have the edge over ‘Nudist Life’ with, is its cine and direction. Theres some genuinely rather lovely and quite artistic shots feautred in this film, the one that caught my eye was a woman spinning in front of a sunset, perfectly sillouhetted, but positively glowing in the evening suns rays. small moments like that just about managed to take the edge of this thing for me, making it altogether a bit more palettable.

That being said, it’s good nature towards its subject (making it feel a bit less letchy) and some decent cine cant save this film from the unavoidable issue that its in REALLY rough shape, and even after being thouroughly scrubbed up by Kino and Something weird. Its still a fairly mangled, grainy and at times difficult to watch picture. Which really made it difficult to get into this one.

Ultimatley; this ones a bit more engaging, has nicer cine and direction and feels a bit more sincere in its efforts. If you have the patience to make it through a seriously mangled film, and are curious about nudist films…this ones pretty generic. but will give you an idea of how the genre works.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/10-days-in-a-nudist-camp/

Having picked up a triptic of nudist films from ‘Kino Lobor’ in collaboration with ‘Something Weird’ video…I was kind of hoping for something a little out of the ordinary with these releases…But at least with the first film ‘Nudist Life’ It seems it really wasnt to be.

There really isnt a whole lot to say about this one, the films trying to be a faux documentary that opens by explaining why globally ‘nudism’ isnt a new thing OR a big deal, with the second half set entirely in a Floridian Nudist Camp as we focus on some women (and men) ((but mainly women) engaging in several bouncy camp activities such as swimming, basketball, vollyball and hanging out at the beach. All the while with a warm and cheery narration explaining the activities on screen or adding fake context to justify all the nudity that we’re seeing…

The films made up of about a third to a half of archive footage dating back to the 1920s of other cultures where going topless is considered the norm, intercut with a third to a half of newly shot footage of several stunning models (and some very aged baldy men for ‘balance’) wandering around a woodland for an hour or so…

Thats the movie. thats LITERALLY all there is…there isnt really a script, its basically a 72 minute montage of scenes of women doing sports in the nip. and I can tell you, *I* was dissapointed, as I was hoping there’d actually be some kind of a story! or at least…something more than just random shots of bums and boobs for 70 minutes.

The directions mixed to poor, its intercut with VERY old and VERY badly damaged footage from the previous 40 years or so. I wouldnt say this was the most competent work in the world in terms of how it was shot, and it seems to be VERY haphazardly edited to boot.

Add to that, that it appears the full film has been lost (on film) and as such, the Kino version seems to cut between a crisp 1080p 2k scanned copy of the surviving reels, and a digitally captured ‘Nth’ generation VHS copy of the film ‘Something Weird’ made in the 90s to preserve it. That looks to be in 210p resolution and in places is basically unwatchable.

Theres a sequence near the end of the film thats been sourced from the surviving VHS of a group swimming in a lake, and Its basically just a jumble of pixels…I have NO idea whats happening in that scene.

Inoffensive, but definitely not worth actively hunting down. If you wanted an example of the ‘Nudist’/’Nudie Cuties’ era of adult film making to show to someone to give them an idea of what to expect. This is pretty much as good as any…But it is FAR from the best, and FAR from being something worth investing 70+ minutes into.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/nudist-life/

Something of a return to form for José Mojica Marins. ‘The Strange Hostel of Naked Pleasures’ is a flawed, but ultimately kind of enjoyable picture…and if anyones been reading my reviews of José’s films as i’ve been slowly working my way through them, you’ll almost certainly know what this review is going to say almost verbatim.

The plot? revolves around the mysterious and semi deranged happenings within a Hostel, and its unusual and hypnotic owner (played by José) who may know more about the unusual building than he’s letting on…

Cue 50 odd minutes of hippes dancing and grinding on each other semi-nude. an extended love making scene, a group of gamblers getting philisophical and plenty of spiders and psudo philisophical discourse from the ‘Hostel owner’.

And, as mentioned…its an improvement over ‘When the gods fall asleep’, but the same issues that have plagued my thoughts on José’s work are (while improved!) still as prominent as ever.

From the off, While I appreciate the fact that this is a self contained anthology entry over his previous anthology efforts (the film almost entirely takes place on the grounds of the hostel and deals with the various guests situations…rather than it just feeling like a random grab of short stories stitched together…or worse (in the case of ‘gods fall asleep’ where it felt like the offcuts of ‘The End of Man’ were just stitched together and released) The films still struggles to muster much enthusiasm.

Essentially this is just 50 minutes of naked gyrating married up to psudo intellectual waffle about the human condition. something José has done now for the last 6 movies…and something I personally havent gelled with for at least the last 4 of them…It was an interesting play on existing horror tropes in the days of ‘At midnight I’ll take your soul’ or ‘This night i’ll possess your corpse’ but it’s 1976 now, and whenever a reverberated overdub of José presents itself, I go glassy eye’d as I know what follows is 5-10 minutes of, what might as well be, waffle.

While this one DOES actually have a 3 act structure, an overarching story which DOES resolve and several subplots to help hold my interest. it drags HARD in the second half of the first act and for most of the second act…Only really finding it’s thread again in the third act and the finale…

The dialogues either pretentiously over worded, or reduced to monosylabisms…theres no middle ground, and everythings distorted through the viewpoint of arthouse cinema, so its hard to really get a grip of exactly WHAT José wants us to think and feel about the random chatter he’s been springing forth.

The characters are all pretty one note, José’s ‘Hostel owner’ is basically just ‘Quiet, not *QUITE* as evil ‘Coffin Joe’ Theres little variety here and it becomes quite easy to quickly lose track of who’s who and whats really supposed to be going on.

Though; this film did give me enough time to chew over a nice little fan theory, the idea that since ‘This night i’ll possesss your corpse’ all the films we’ve seen since have ACTUALLY taken place inside the psyche of a now hellbound ‘Coffin Joe’, and that all of José’s appearences in these films are ACTUALLY aspects of Joes personality, you have Pias Joe in ‘End of Man/Gods fall asleep’ Evil Joe in ‘Beast Awakens’ and Morally turmoil Joe here.

If that is the case, it helps me personally feel more comfortable with the art house presentations, given this is supposed to be the addled fantasies of an morally ambiguous plunderer. But I get the feeling that this wasnt José’s intention…STILL! if it makes the films more palettable, it’ll do for me!

As mentioned previously, the cine and direction are once again on top form. They’re a little dated visually for 1976, but I would argue that this is the nicest looking film that José has produced since ‘This Night’, we have a strong colour identity, fantastic lighting, some really moody abstract pieces, fantastic compositional choices all round, decent attempts at atmospheric scene building and the edit is probably the tightest these films have had in a LONG time. it’s probably the most professional looking film José has made in AT LEAST 10 years at this point, and it goes a LONG way in instilling the goodwill that I continue to have with him as a film maker.

As mentioned the performances are largely muted. Even José cant quite seem to muster the bombasity that has previously saved the day here, and alongside his muted performance we have a LOT of…what can only be described as ‘jeer’ acting (esentially a lot of people just making noise and writhing around) its a bit of a dissapointment, but then at the same time, in some scenes, it actually kind of helps support the mindlessness that the films trying to instill in vibe and atmosphere…so I’ll give it some credit on that front.

And the soundtrack? for GODS sake, PLEASE, someone by José a few more records. as we’re once again stuck with the dozen or so operatic choral tracks he’s been using since 1964, and they’re now sounding incresingly warped and worn. You’d think this would add to the uneasy atmosphere…But they dont. It just sounds like his cassette players slowly running out of batteries, it was annoying 3 films ago…its insufferable now.

‘The Strange Hostel of Naked Pleasures’ is really more of a visual experience than a narrative led one…if you come to this film expecting a solid story, you’ll be seriously dissapointed…But given his previous offerings, this film on a technical and creative level is largely a step in the right direction and if you can let the visuals wash over you and tell their own story. I think you’ll have a pretty okay time. My only hope going forward is that José actually begins to modernise a bit more…as while this kind of film making was acceptable at this point in time. it REALLY wont be for much longer as the 80s draws ever closer…

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-strange-hostel-of-naked-pleasures/

‘When the Gods Fall Asleep’? More like, ‘When the Audience Fall Asleep’ a somewhat mediocre offering, This sequel to 1971’s ‘The End of Man’ (Finnis Hominis) really left a lot to be desired.

While I cant really fault this film visually (I continue to argue that José Mojica Marins is a phenominal talent as a director and cinematographer) its the scripting side of things that really lets this production down. Feeling less like a coherent picture and more like a deleted scenes package assembled from offcuts of the last picture.

So, this film opens where the last film left off, our possible reincarnation of god ‘Finnis Hominis’ willingly hands himself into a sanitarium. Only…within minutes of him going in, they let him go. And so…he continues doing what he did in the last film. Wandering around, occasionally getting involved in situations where sin may be about to be committed to diffuse the tension and offer a brighter, more holy alternative.

The only difference here between this film and the last one, is its traded an ultra thin layer of comedy, for exploitation. featuring PLENTY of panty shots, naked backsides and cleavage. This films much more interested in shocking visuals than actually trying to do anything particularly interesting with its plot. The Nadier of which happens around half an hour in when we get an extended scene of ‘satan worshippers’ ripping live chickens apart with there bare teeth. Which did NOT win me over frankly…

It basically feels like they took the skin of ‘The End of Man’ and draped it over ‘The Strange World of Coffin Joe’ and the results are a marginally more interesting film narratively and visually. But a film that still doesnt really hang together all that well, and one that struggles to really muster up any kind of enthusiasm towards it other than annoyance and apathy.

The pacings pretty nippy all things considered. We do move from scene to scene with some clip, but at 77 minutes long, this film REALLY could have fooled me, because despite being ULTRA short, it felt like full feature running time AND it felt even at 77 minutes that it could have been 15 minutes shorter still and not felt any kind of pinch.

I suppose, the biggest flaw this film has really is it just doesnt really do enough to make me want to care about anyone involved within it. ‘The End of Man’ ran with a fairly solid 3 act structure that asked the question ‘what is a god?’, ‘what seperates man from god?’ and ‘what is sin?’

This film just shows us sin, then shows Jose coming in to fix the sin. It ends on a cheesy gag that fell flat in the face of a harsher tone and atmosphere. Its essentially just a more unlikeable take on the previous film.

The characters dont get developed enough to have any meaningful kind of complexity or impact, the film struggles with even basic structuring. its a bit of a mess and one I mostly yawned through.

Thats not to say its all bad! the visuals are still A+ quality, theres some nice colour and lighting usage throughout, compositional choices were a little lacklustre…and thats not to say they were bad, but im getting the feeling that, at this point in his career as a director José is beginning to run out of steam when it comes to mining inspiration from this angle. I do hope that his next attempt maybe tries something a little different.

The performances are all overly muted and kind of uninteresting, there isnt much interesting physical performance work put in here…honestly this whole things just kind of a slump. Not helped by a now creaking soundtrack which has seemingly been in situe since ‘The Strange world of Coffin Joe’ some 5 years prior.

I really enjoyed ‘The End of Man’, and on hearing there was a sequel, I was under the impression that they may have tried something a little subversive. Having established in THAT film that this ‘anti coffin joe’ chap is something of a demi god. I figured an interesting angle might have been for them to explore what could happen in a godless universe (given he’s locked up in an asylum)…But instead this film breaks its own back to try and tie up in knots an excuse to get José back out of the asylum as soon as possible…and then the rest of the movie just rides a single gear of interest for the full runtime. Never really escalating or giving me a reason to care beyond ‘You liked the previous film…so heres more of that’

Definitely not an essential watch, and I feel like if you enjoyed ‘The End of Man’ this will kind of put a dampner on things. ‘When the Gods Fall Asleep’ had potential. and turned it into a ‘Deleted Scenes’ Featurette.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/when-the-gods-fall-asleep/

As a devout follower of ‘Adult Swim’ since its VERY early days in the 2000s (and its ‘proto’ years on cartoon network in the late 90s) I’ve always had a soft spot for its unwavering dedication to trying to do anything and everything in its power to be subversive against more traditional comedies or animations.

I love ‘Tim and Eric Awesome Show (Great Job!)’, I love ‘Sealab 2021’, I love ‘Home Movies’ and ‘Space Ghost Coast to Coast’…and I LOVE ‘Aqua Teen Hunger Force’.

Back in the mists of time when Adult Swim first got air time in the UK, they pretty much played the first 4 seasons of ‘Aqua Teen’ before the network that was hosting ‘Adult Swim’ over here went bump and went off the air permanently…Leading to a long LONG history of Adult Swim being ressurected on UK television in a graveyard slot that noone can watch, where its unceremoniously dumped after a year or two due to poor ratings, the network its on dying, or both.

Its last iteration housed nothing but ‘Family Guy’ and ‘American Dad’, its current iteration, is streaming only on the UK’s ‘Channel 4’ and has barely any consistent content. but…I digress.

The ‘Aqua Teen’ movie never made it to UK shores on initial release (or at least, it didnt come to my neck of the woods) which infuriated me as a fan…it didnt really get a UK dvd or bluray release either which just made matters worse…But a month or so ago, I spotted the ‘Aqua Teen Baffler Meal’ (a 20 disc dvd set of all the episodes and the movie) was on a lightning sale, so I picked it up looking for a nostalgia hit. and I really wasnt dissapointed.

‘Aqua Teen Hunger Force’ is an oddity of a tv show in the sense that, until its 4th season, it didnt really have ANY consistent plot or character growth, and worked on a genuine level of absurdity that didnt shy away from being unappealing. These 10 minute chunks usually had a self contained plot that amounted to our main characters (Master Shake, Frylock and Meatwad) standing about in there home while something happens, and they basically discuss the thing thats happening, until the thing resolves itself…or takes out there neighbour ‘Carl’ in increasingly bizarre ways.

Not wanting to grow stale, the show prides itself on subverting itself every couple of years, while simultaineously being incredibly rigid to the core concept of ‘these are loser characters, who dont ACTUALLY do ANYTHING…But seem to find themselves in trouble quite often.’

So when it came to a movie adaptation, you’d be curious to see what a show that prides itself on subversion would ACTUALLY do with a bigger budget and a runtime almost 9 times longer than the average episode…and the answer is, they subvert expectations…

Y’see, the marketing implied that this movie was going to subvert the standard format by establishing lore, a journey, character backstory…a POINT. Instead, this film subverts audience expectation OF grander things…by just…making a really long episode of ‘Aqua Teen Hunger Force’ that has a couple of nicer graphical moments and some celebrity voice acting work from Tina Fey, Bruce Campbell and Neil Pert.

They dont UTILIZE those celebrity voices…AT ALL. they just have them turn up…and thats it…which is BRILLIANT in the same way that classic simpsons used to be where a celebrity voice appearence wasnt lauded…quite often itd be inconsiquential.

The plots as meandering and madcap as ever, with the main story focussing around the ghost of christmas past, from the future (a robot chicken) travelling to the present to warn of an imminent robot uprising in the form of a set of gym equipment known as the ‘Insano-Flex’ which will make one man SO incredibly buff, that no woman can resist him and it leads to the apocalypse and a HELL of a lot of incest.

And…the rest of the movie is watching a large group of imbiciles, comprising of the main Aqua teen gang, the mooninites (vulgar 8 bit aliens from the moon), and 2 plutonians called Oglethorp and Emery, fail to stop the exercise machine for 80 odd minutes, because…they’re simply too stupid to realise theres any danger, despite the warnings.

The one time they DO try to do some kind of BIG lore changing reveal, its great, because the lore they reveal, you realise is of ZERO importance. It doesnt matter. and our characters are all too stupid to even BEGIN to take it in. Which is great.

My review up to this point is largely incoherent and inconsistent because the movies purposfully incoherent and inconsistent. and thats kind of the charm of ‘Aqua Teen’. its incredibly hard to explain why the very dry, very simple and very stupid humour works…it just does for me.

I personally really enjoyed ‘ATHFCMFFT’ in the sense that it really delivers what I wanted from this kind of movie. something that just, did the tv show, and did it well. If you havent seen the ‘Aqua Teen’ TV series, this will be utterly impenetrable. You likely wont have a clue whats going on or why its funny. But to longtime fans, and enjoyers of ‘Adult Swims’ style of humour, I think everything you could want in a movie like this is here and present.

My honest advice? if you’ve never seen an episode of ‘Aqua Teen’ go hit youtube and watch a couple. if you like the vibe, this movies DEFINITELY for you. I really personally enjoyed it, and im a little mad at myself that I waited this long to check it out.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/aqua-teen-hunger-force-colon-movie-film-for-theaters/

I first heard about ‘Bloodbath at the House of Death’ about 15 years ago as an aside in a british horror documentary. And as soon as I heard the sentence ‘Vincent Price, Kenny Everett and Pamela Stephenson riff Hammer’ I was sold.

Unfortunatley, this films had a bit of a rough life on Physical media, a long out of print VHS and DVD fetch a bit more than I’d fancy to satisfy a curiosity…BUT! tonight it was showing on UK television. So I cleared my diary and finally decided to give this one a spin…and y’know what? it’s inoffensive…

That’s probably the best thing I can say about it, its a fairly inoffensive viewing experience, greatly lifted by Vincent Prices limited appearence and the occasional gag from Everett…and thats about it. and thats a real shame, because theres some serious comedy talent running through this thing…A script worked on by Both Everett, Stephenson and comedy legend Barry Cryer, and its directed by Ray Cameron, who was a close collaborator with Everett and basically helped nail down Everetts pioneering alternative style…I’d figured i’d be in for a rip roarer…But it feels like a work that ‘read’ better than it ‘shot’.

The plot? Several years ago a group of 18 people were staying at the perfectly titled ‘Headstone Manor’ when a group of monks broke in and butchered the lot in an aggressive and creative fashion. Now, in the present day of 1984, a group of damaged and rejected scientists turned ‘Paranormal experts’ are setting up at ‘Headstone’ to find out once and for all what caused the unusual deaths and whether there really is an army of ghost monks, or if its all superstition.

Well; it doesnt take long for the answer to reveal itself (the first 20 minutes in fact) It’s Vincent Price. He plays the lowly servent to a greater demonic cosmic being who demands blood sacrifices. The monks? are in fact all members of the local village, who Price has drafted in to help keep the myth alive and to take out any ‘unwanted visitors’.

And…The biggest problem this film has is that it just…doesnt seem to know what to do with the plot or the characters once everythings set up. The first act does a fine enough job of establishing everything and everyone…The comedies a little dated, dry and few and far between by modern standards…But it about does the job…

But around the time Everett and co get to ‘Headstone’ the action grinds to a halt as we basically just enter 40 minutes of mixed ability comedy that ranges from ‘Smirk-worthy’ to downright dismal.

This then leads to a finale with a half decent twist, that it really gets nothing to do with. ending quite abruptly, without really much revealed, tied off, or even discussed.

It feels like the constraints of the rules of film and scriptwriting have crushed pretty much all of the good out of what makes the cast and crew of this production unique.

Everett is best known as being a ‘thousand miles a minute’ true eccentric who’s lightning fast responses and reactions were what MADE him as a comedian. Here? he plays a split personality character (2 characters) both half heartedly and both with almost NON of the energy or charm that made him as popular as he was.

Pamela Stephenson at this point was still VERY well recognised as a quarter of the impeccable talent of ‘Not the nine o’clock news’ BEST known for having a VERY dry, slightly dark but wickedly funny sense of humour to her performances. Here? she’s playing a ditzy bleach blonde with a rhotacism who’s seemingly just here in a filler role and to provide the film with the 0.2 seconds of nudity required to put her semi naked on the film poster.

The rest of the cast (Don Warrington, John Fortune, Gareth Hunt, John Stephen Hill etc…) are one note. they get almost NO lines on screen, almost NO real screentime. they basically exist to say stray, one sentence, lines…and to help flesh out what would otherwise be a skeleton cast…Which is bizarre.

Price, the crown JEWEL of this film, is PERFECT. CLEARLY aware of the tone they were aiming for here, he’s clearly just having a laugh, enjoying getting to ham it up after decades of campy, but serious roles. he gets two of the biggest laughs in this thing and really was probably the best part of this movie. Unfortunately; it looks like they only had him for filming for about 2 days, because he never appears on screen with the main cast, and he’s collectively in the film for about 5-10 minutes, spread out across the runtime. Which was a real shame honestly, as I think his chemestry with Everett could have been wonderful.

The tone cant quite make up its mind whether its trying to be lowest common denominator humour, or intelligent witty wordplay humour, the horror elements are paired right back (I firmly believe the cult villagers here were the inspiration for the cult from ‘Hot Fuzz’) to the point that it barely feels like a horror film from a script perspective…

The act structurings lop sided, lacks progression or coherency…But not so much that it completely throws the film, just enough that it makes you wonder why your still watching after an hour or so.

The broader dialogues passably okay, but theres no real grand moments or quotable bits. Its all honestly a bit forgettable.

The direction feels cheap compared to the likes of Amacus or Hammer. theres multiple references to films of the time here such as ‘Carrie’, ‘Star Wars’, ‘The Evil Dead’, ‘An American Werewolf In London’ and ‘E.T’ Its got the occasional creative flourish and it never looks BAD…it just looks very low budget and almost has a ‘make do’ mentality about its execution…Which is a shame.

There are a few visual effects here that are handled rather well, ghostly interactions and the opening murder scenes were all pretty solid actually considering this was the year of the ‘Video Nasty’.

Direction of the cast feels a bit limp as well. Given the cast arnt really given much of ANYTHING to do, I imagine it was hard to make their ‘nothingness’ look thrilling…but again ‘passable’ is about as good as it gets. Everett in particular was particularly dissapointing here as a few animated gags about a prosthetic leg is about as lively as this thing gets.

The cine is pretty solid, theres a couple of ropey editing moments here and there. But I’d say how this thing looks is probably it’s strongest asset this film has going for it. It may look like cheap hammer or amacus. But it works DAMN hard to achieve that look. and, having seen some REAL bottom of the barrel, cheaper than cheap productions…I think it handles its visuals pretty decently all things considered.

‘Bloodbath at the House of Death’ isnt a ‘must watch’, I went in with relatively high hopes, and came away a little crestfallen truthfully. While it has some good gags throughout the runtime and its really trying to capture that 70’s folk horror and 50s hammer vibe. it doesnt quite have the resource to pull it off, and a script that seemingly had quite a bit of promise has ultimatley kind of been fumbled a bit.

Nevertheless, I think ‘Bloodbath’ is probably worth catching at least once as a casual watch. Maybe best viewed as a B-picture to something a bit stronger in quality.

All the way through watching this film, all I could think is that it would pair up WONDERFULLY with another Vincent Price film from this time ‘The Monster Club’. and I may well try the pair together at some point to see how they sit.

If you can find it and have 90 minutes to kill…AND you keep in mind that this isnt going to blow your socks off…you’ll probably think its cheesy, but ultimately enjoyable. but DO NOT go out of your way for this thing. There’s absolutely better out there.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/bloodbath-at-the-house-of-death/