The Crossing point of ALL the worst elements of british cinema of the mid 60s to the mid 70s, ‘Vampira’ (Also known as; “Old Dracula”) some how manages the triptic of being a dire comedy, a dire sex comedy and uncomfortably racist at multiple points across its mercifully brief runtime.

The plot? David Niven IS the most lethargic Count Dracula ever committed to film, gliding through scenes glassy eyed and giving the bare minimum of a performance (Some would say Dracula is a cool, dead eyed beast…I say someone needed there driveway re-paving)

Anyway; Draculas on the way out here, he hasnt had fresh blood in ages and 50 years prior to this, his wife; The Countess succumb to a lack of blood and has basically been in stasis in the basement ever since.

All thats set to change however; as a group of playboy bunnies are shipped out to his Transylvanian dwelling to take part in a sexy photoshoot. Sexy comedy ensues with all the eroticism of a wet dishcloth…

Anyway! Dracula gets his servent to take blood samples from all the girls and miraculously! One of them is a match for The Countess and can help ressurect her! But…OH NO! the blood sample has come from a black woman and its turned our porceline Countess Black as a side effect!

Cue a further 60 minutes of Nivens Dracula, The Countess and their lacky travelling the globe following the supermodels trying to find either the woman who turned the Countess black, or another WHITE woman with the right blood who can ‘Un-black’ the countess…and dont worry, theres plenty of ‘Ugh! your black!’ comments across the runtime!…Ugh…

Now I may be a simple country born progressive…But I dont like humour that basically boils down to one race being less welcome than another race and I CERTAINLY neither expected, WANTED or wished to see David Niven in ‘Blackface’. But it was enough to put the final nail in THIS coffin I can tell you.

The scripts tone is the ONE thing that kind of keeps it from completely falling over, its a campy british comedy at its heart and (when its not being racist, mysoginistic or generally unpleasent) the vibe is kind of like one of the lesser ‘Carry on’ films…That combined with some, not TERRIBLE, direction and cine is basically the entirity of my rating summed up on this one.

From the top;

The plot is not only offensive, but SO tediously dull. its just actors standing in rooms talking about nothing in particular for 80 minutes…the comedy is dire, with most of it being grown worthy, awkward or uncomfortble, I charted ONE gag in the 3rd act that stifled a smile…THAT was the absolute best this film got from me.

With it having HEAVY playboy branding, you’d think the expectation for this one would be that it was going to have some level of eroticism in it. But, you’d be wrong. all that means here is that the women in the film wear low cut blouses for most of the runtime and I believe theres 0.2 seconds of exposed boobage. So its a sex comedy that isnt funny, and isnt particularly sexy…

But adding to that, the pacing is postiviely sedementary, it crawls from scene to scene painfully, the characters are ALL one note and dont really get ANY kind of deeper range or context to work with. EVERYONE looks positively bored…When I can say confidently that ACTUAL sex films made around this time, that wernt intending to BE comedic or have any meaningful kind of plot…were funnier and DID have more of a plot than this thing. I hope it helps to clarify just how truely dire the viewing experience for this one was…

As mentioned, the direction and cine arnt ‘bad’ per se…thats one of the small mercies of this film, the set spaces are interesting, the characters are well utilized within the space and there does seem to be a little bit of a flicker behind the eyes on a creative vision standpoint…Dont get too excited though, because by that, all I really mean is they didnt ACTIVELY offend me with poor cine and direction…they just about did the job, nothing more and nothing less.

Shots are a mixed bag of half decently composed and ‘This is the only angle we can shoot from’ which is never a good thing, its a colourful film, but they dont utilize a key pallette range to help give the film a sense of distinction or identity and the edit is painful. with random cuts, slow plodding sequences. This was a half an hour ‘B-film’ and a forgettable one at that…HOW they managed to make an hour and 20 out of it, im still trying to figure out to this day…

The characters are all dull, Even ex-‘carry on’ star Bernard Breslaw cant raise the spirits of this one. Nivens on auto pilot, the rest of the cast are uninspiring, with the one notable exception of Teresa Graves, here playing the black incarnation of the Countess…She’s delightful, bright, full of energy, she actually DOES bring something good to the role she plays…the rest though? eesh…

Honestly? this things so awful and dated I absolutely couldnt actively RECOMMEND it…But if you know your stuff about ‘golden age’ hollywood actors and want to see the cinematic equivilent of a multi car blood bath pile up. You’ve found a morbid curiosity in this film.

I likely wont watch this one again, and I advise that, unless you are TRUELY bleakly curious to see how dull and poor taste this thing is, you steer well clear too.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/vampira/

Something of a frustrating watch for me, ‘Late Night With The Devil’ on the whole, is a solid picture. But never quite scratches the itch I need when it comes to this kind of film making. For a bit of context, im into lomography which is the art of lo-fi film making and photography. A lot of my work is based in analogue production techniques and on top of predominantly working in the medium of analogue film making, I spend a large chunk of my time as a film critic reviewing ‘Shot on Video’ movies and films that are trying to BE ‘Shot on Video’ or ‘Found on Video’ movies.

‘Late Night With the Devil’ is an example of the ‘Found on Video’ genre. The gist of the plot is that, in the late 1970’s there was a TV show called ‘Night Owls’ hosted by Chicagos own ‘Jack Delroy’, a chat show that was on track to match or even surpass the Johnny Carson Show in terms of viewership. When, one fateful halloween night, during a broadcast unspeakable things took place and the show was quickly cancelled, pulled from listings and the final show became the stuff of legends.

That is until now, as a full studio tape has recently been recovered alongside ‘off air’ recordings of events from behind the scenes that night. And this film pieces together the footage to finally find the answer as to what happened on that fateful broadcast.

And…right off the bat, if you are a casual viewer or a horror fan who isnt *THAT* into the technical details of trying to recreate old looking TV. Then I think you’ll probably really enjoy this film. *I* really enjoyed this film for what its worth. But that nagging part of my brain that KNOWS how these things would have been shot and how this footage would have looked after being randomly missing for 35-45 years. WOULD NOT let me just settle in and enjoy the picture.

For a starters, the script itself is ‘fine’ in fact, for the most part i’d go as far as to say it was pretty good. The plotting reminded me a little bit of another Shudder production ‘The Cleansing Hour’ which had very similar plot beats and tones…but married up to the opening half of Chris LaMartina’s ‘Out There Halloween Megatape’ (Only, for my money, La Martina more convincingly replicates the feeling of a ‘talk show’ environment.)

The film has some decent twists and turns, its got a bold direction in terms of where it wants the film to go, tonally it mixes dark comedy with some pretty gnarley horror moments. The pacings relatively solid. If I were to nitpick. I think the film overplays its hand at the ending. I dont feel its spoilers here to mention that in the third act the film cuts to a ‘Technical difficulties’ sign once or twice, and I feel like one of the latter instances of the ‘Technical difficulties’ postings would have been the perfect ‘out’ for the film, leaving it open ended and down to audience interpretation as to what they saw…

Only; the film continues on past that…for 10 whole minutes longer…in which it explains EXACTLY what happened in PAINFUL detail, then ends with a bit of a contrived closer that *tries* to leave it open ended again, but it doesnt feel NEARLY as naturalistic or belivable as the station just cutting broadcast once things got a bit intense.

The characters are all pretty solid, but I think the supporting cast arnt really played to their fullest ability. They come across as a bit one note throughout, and while thats fine for the most part given that everyones *Supposed* to be playing up to the cameras. it did begin to get a bit annoying when certain personalities in the film continue to double down and double down on beliefs that have clearly been disproven by that point.

Outisde of that though, the scripts solid, fun for the most part, sets up several points and I feel pays them off quite well. its good!

Which leads me to the thing I dislike the most about this film, The Direction. The biggest problem I have with this film is how it approaches its subject. Bearing in mind, this is supposed to be a ‘recovered media’ film. So you’d expect a studio tape sat in someones attic for 35-45 years wouldnt exactly be ‘fresh’. But here, the film’s clearly been shot in HD and then cropped into 4:3 and had a low grade ‘VHS’ filter slapped over it. the glitch effects throughout, are digital effects, and they barely use those digital glitch effects except for when it wants to add to the atmosphere.

It would have LITERALLY cost $20 to run this film onto a VHS tape, degrade it a few times and then capture it back into a computer. and it would have looked ten TIMES more realistic and believable than whats here. They could play around with distortions, they could really sell the idea that this thing has been moulding away somewhere and is all we have of that night.

Secondly, they help smooth over some continuity issues and give the audience context via ‘behind the scenes footage’ that was supposedly ALSO captured on the night AND was supposedly ALSO lost until now. This is show via black and white cuts that happen whenever a commercial break happens on the film.

and…this is quite confusing on a few levels, because the footage is presented in widescreen instead of 4:3 and is pretty much crystal clear. but a lot of the starting points for these shots are either 1:1 from the stuido camera shots, or they’re just off to the left or right of the studio camera shots. The footage is pristine, so im assuming they dont want us to think that it’s feed from the studio cameras (and given those studio cameras in the 70s were HUGE and weighed a ton AND had meters upon meters of cabling trailing them, when these cameras glide down the gants and behind the studio walls for an intimate moment between the cast members. It reallly ruined the illusion for me)

The next guess is that they could be 8mm or 16mm cameras maybe? but if its supposed to be 8mm, its WAY to clean for that, and I dont think they’d let intimate conversations be captured on huge 16mm cameras. so I dont honestly know what they expect me to think this footage is supposed to be recovered from…its equally quite cinematically shot when it does go to the behind the scenes stuff…which again, really kind of threw me given the static nature of the studio footage.

Taking a step back from THAT even though, theres no attempt to rough up ANY of this work out of the aforementioned glitches…as anyone who’s watched studio tape footage will tell you, VERY rarely does a FULL studio tape complete with crystal clear sound turn up in immaculate condition. theres usually regular audio drop out. there’ll be moments where the camera just,wasnt pointing at the right thing. there’ll be focus issues while the cameras get into position for the next shot. if its a multi cam setup there may be moments where no camera footage exists because it was captured by a seperate mobile camera that has lost footage.

It would have been easy to manufacture a bit more tension/atmosphere here by simply roughing up and cropping the behind the scenes footage, having visual or audio drop out periodically where the footage doesnt survive. Maybe cut to a few shreds of ‘off air’ recordings from viewers at home who filmed their TV sets where theres gaps in the footage. distort the audio and video to make really make the footage feel like its had a history…but they just…dont. As such the film feels WAY too sanitized for me, its too clean. I really appreciate what they’re trying to do here, and honestly, most of it works fine…But the presentation really felt quite half hearted (and thats not mentioning the whole AI debarcle) and it really made me wish they’d got a lomographer onside to help with the editing and post work on this because as it stands, to me? this is ACHING for a fanedit to do what is a pretty great idea justice.

The cine is a similar problem to my thoughts on the direction. They absolutely nail that late 70s aesthetic, the studio footage feels real with a 3-4 cam studio setup on rails. it feels believeable in that regard, compositions are mostly solid, but again, I feel would have benefitted from some grit thrown into the mix. The behind the scene footage broke the flow for me, I think with some work (ala: Cannibal Holocaust) to rough the footage up a bit, it could have been implemented better. But again; its too clean and cinematic to really feel like someone handheld freeshooting covert footage of the studio during the downtime. Oh! and also as mentioned. i’d have ended the film about 10 minutes earlier than it did. because that last 10 minutes is visually TOTALLY different from the hour and 20 that preceeded it and really threw me out of the movie unecessarily.

The edit in an offline sense is great, pretty solid it looks and feels EXACTLY like a late night show from the 70’s should! The online work is problematic for me, but…as I said at the top fo this thing, if you cant tell the difference between REAL VHS and filter VHS…Do NOT let me get in the way of your fun.

The performances are delightful with David Dastmalchian absolutely making this film his own as Jack, he’s one of the ONLY complex characters in this thing and he bounces between a wide range of emotions effortlessly. he’s really quite superb. Theres good in the supporting cast too, particualarly Ingrid Torelli and Laura Gordon as June and her adopted test subject Lilly. again they bring a solid performance to the fray and Torelli in particular REALLY sells her horror scenes. Shes probably one of the best ‘possessed’ actresses i’ve seen in a good while.

Unfortunately; the supporting cast do get stifled a bit by the narrative. they have to stay in performative character for most of the runtime, which makes it difficult for them to get any kind of nuance into their roles…they’re fine…they’re just a little overbearing in places.

Ultimately; ‘Late Night With The Devil’ is a fun film, that I feel is just missing that final coat of realism. When your into the action heavy finale and all I can think is ‘I hope this film gets a physical release so I can rip it and fix all the stuff they couldnt be arsed to get dirty doing themselves’ you know somethings gone a bit amiss…

Non the less, while I didnt ‘love’ this film (I’ll stick to ‘WNUF’ thank you very much) I did appreciate what it was trying to do, I did enjoy it, I would recommend it to anyone into horror or analogue horror. Theres a lot here to like…I just wish it was shorter and better researched….

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/late-night-with-the-devil/

Had I known what this film was ACTUALLY about, i’d have watched it a day earlier in line with the Easter celebrartions. But ‘The End of Man’ once again see’s the work of José Mojica Marins edge EVER closer to becoming something really truely remarkable.

I’ve mentioned while reviewing his previous works that I have a great amount of respect for Marins as a director and cinematographer. But I almost always feel let down by his written works. They always strike me as semi pseudo philisophical, which (to me) is annoying, while the ACTUAL plots of these films are simultaineously overly basic in the plot they’re trying to tell and overly complex in the way they frustratingly drop dozens of characters into the narrative, have them continuously talk in an indirect and philisophical way that seems to serve no other purpose than to try to make the film ‘feel’ smarter than it is and to pad the runtime.

Here, with ‘The End of Man’ we get a lot closer to a more cohesive vision than his previous works since his ‘Coffin Joe’ films. (at least…in my opinion.) and I feel a bit of context is needed to understand why this film is a little bit more controversial than it would appear at first glance.

So the plot is a (at this point thoroughly ‘done’) take on ‘The Second Coming’ as José plays a character who’s only identified by a name given to him by a priest, ‘Finis Hominis’. Initally he enters the film by washing up completely naked on a beach, before heading into town and using ‘mysterious’ powers to help the downtrodden, heal the sick and in one instance, ressurect the dead. Leading to slow but growing cult following, and condemnation, with many accusing him of just being a lunatic who’s gotten lucky a couple of times in particularly difficult situations.

The main reason for the controversy (Apart from Marins casting HIMSELF as a messaianic figure in a film HE wrote and directed) is obviously down to the fact that Brazil is a HEAVILY religious country, so theres multiple levels of blasphemy on display here. from the surface level depiction of the second coming itself being offensive, through to the casting choices (getting a man whos renowned for playing a molesting dirty old man with demonic connections to play a christ like figure was ABSOLUTELY going to raise some eyebrows) through to the debate on whether this christ like figure is a deity or if he’s just mentally unwell…

Its a much less obvious controversial issue, but to do this at a point where the grip religion held over the public was having a strong resurgence AND to do so 2 years before the likes of ‘The Wicker Man’ and ‘The Exorcist’ would REALLY cause the religious fundamentalists to PROPERLY kick off…well…it was always going to be an interesting time.

And there is exploitation elements here at play, but this is absolutely a much more subdued offering than previous entries. Its not particularly an anthology film, its a main plot that has several subplots running through it, but the plot elements are consistent, its reasonably placed, has some solid and clear act structuring. The tone of the piece is largely serious, but it does play with a little bit of campness here and there to offer a welcome contrast. The dialogue isnt particularly great, and I cant particularly praise the film for its originality. But it does what it does about as well as it could do. and the end result is just a fairly solid script that delivers on the brief and leaves enough unanswered so as to encourage post film debate…I respect that.

The direction and cine here do unfortunatley take a hit on this one. Its not so much that its BAD cine and direction, quite the contrary…its pretty solid! its just that…well, it doesnt exactly push the envelope in the same way all of Marins other films have up to this point.

This film is shot in a mixture of colour and black and white (its open to interpretation, but I believe the colour footage represents ‘Believers’ and the black and white footage signals ‘non believers’. The black and white stuff looks great, with solid moody lighting, decent composition and excellent shadow work.

The colour footage is fine, but the majority of it is naturally lit. which means…while we do get a richness in the colour work, there isnt much scope for interesting lighting. Composition work is excellent, but theres not really a whole lot of B-roll, which makes sequence building a bit of a slog as we hang WAY too long on some shots, where it would have been nice to have a little more variety.

The perforamances are pretty much the same calibre as previous films,
José seems to be working with a stable of actors at this point. Which in some regards is good because I’ve enjoyed the physicality of the team in the last few films…But at the same time, I dont think the performances in these films are amazing…just, okay…and sometimes quite fun. Which left me really hoping that the net is cast a bit wider in future films.

‘The End of Man’ is probably my favourite ‘non coffin joe’ film so far by
Marins. Its imperfect, but it does feel a bit like a step in the right direction, while I lament the loss of the more absurdist and interesting visuals, trading toning that down for a script that ACTUALLY managed to fully hold my attention for most of the runtime, I see as a trade worth making.

I think if you’ve seen the two ‘Coffin Joe’ films, if you go into this one with the question ‘What if Coffin Joe put his faith in heaven and kindness rather than hell and Mans own desires?’ You’ll probably come away similarly happy.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-end-of-man-1971/

Its a rare situation Im increasingly finding myself in with Author, Dreamweaver, Visionary + Actor, José Mojica Marins. The man known primarily for ‘Coffin Joe’ is (in my opinion) a VERY talented director and cinematographer. But Im SO badly struggling with his writing ability here, and his 3rd film to feature ‘Coffin Joe’, while an improvement over the last film, is still kind of faltering.

For a starters, there needs to be a bit of a context warning for anyone going into this film blind. José at this point had been slowly bringing his ‘Coffin Joe’ character to mainstream prevelance for the better part of 6 years. And at this point? ‘Coffin Joe’ was basically to Brazillian mainstream culture, what Freddy Kruger was to mainstream 80s culture.

Coffin Joe was EVERYWHERE, Comic books, lunchboxes, local appearences. TV…José both in and out of character would give interviews about the character, anecdotally mothers would threaten there children when they misbehaved by telling them that Coffin Joe would come and ‘get’ them. He was quickly becoming a household name, and a controversial one at that.

The reason I mention this is because ‘The Awakening of the Beast’ kind of…transitions Coffin Joe away from the character we knew, and into something a little more nebulous. In ‘Midnight’ and ‘Possess’ we see that Coffin Joe is pretty much just a regular guy who, through communicating with the spirits of hell has been given enhanced strength and agility. and the mission to preserve his bloodline by having a son by an equally perfect woman. He has a few campy ‘evil’ moments…but he supernatural factor is minimal.

Here though? Coffin Joe is seemingly existing in either Hell, or some kind of astral plaine, summoned as and when required. I assume its Hell based on the fact that, in this film, whenever he appears, the film turns to colour…and it only did that last time in ‘Possess’ when they went to Hell.

Assuming it IS hell, Coffin Joe is a master of the domain. able to summon the damned on command, control armies and teleport anywhere he wants and pretty much do anything (again; think the dreamworld scenes from the nightmare on elm street movies) He’s no longer just a slightly creepy molesty bloke. He’s basically a full blown demon by this point.

And thats quite the shift, as he was initially a character that believed that Mans power could outstrip ANY other power earthly or otherwise…Seemingly now though he’s accepted that demon powers are cooler.

Anyway; so this is another ‘Anthology’ entry. I found it a little bit confusing truthfully…But my understanding is that we get 3 anthology stories dealing with people engaging in lewd, debauched or hideous acts…and then the final story brings 1 character from each of the previous stories + 1 new one into a finale in which a doctor drugs them up on LSD to document what happens…and the answer is, absolute chaos and the return of Coffin Joe.

And its here really that I find my struggles with Marins work beginning to crystalize. Because; I have NO idea what ACTUALLY happened in this film. Apart from the final part of the anthology where they LITERALLY spell out whats happening. the other stories are seemingly just an excuse to get people naked and doing debauched acts such as molestation or extreme ‘insertions’.

all of this is framed around a group of doctors, psychiatrists and José himself discussing theses ‘cases’ and decrying them as perverse.

and…thats all there is, its confusing, rambly, overly long for the most part, the acts seemingly just melt into one another without rhyme or reason, most of the scenes are silent or consist of just…noises…the tone is all over the place…at one point the film basically stops to just discuss how successful Coffin Joe is (which…is a bit self congratulatory, lets be honest…)

Theres little structure in a narrative sense and it felt really quite offputting to me. But then, contrasting that…Marins is seemingly experimenting here with film, the presentation of film and narrative, and visuals broadly speaking.

and while the actual story, and its execution may be a bit naff (in my opinion) what is SHOWN on screen are the clear trademarks of a film maker finding his voice, seeking out new frontiers and crafting there own cinematic language. In that sense, this films insane and really quite impressive.

Marins continues his trend of working in Black and white film, and…once again, the directions gorgeous, its rich, creative. he really manages to capture the chaos of a bad drug trip quite well. the lighting at this point has been mastered in terms of his shadow work and how to capture the subjects.

His language and usage of film is aggressive and assertive, which is very bold and striking, especially for a film maker only 4 mainstream pictures into his career. He has a confidence around his own ability that is honestly really quite impressive.

When the film DOES swap over to colour, its refreshing, it feels like the films turned a corner and we get to see him RE-explore the medium with coloured lighting gels, more emphasis on composition and the visuals themselves rather than relying on the shadow play and more horror-centric tools to create atmosphere.

As an experimental piece its really quite incredible. Your watching a director who clearly has a keen eye for visuals and isnt afraid to experiment with the medium of film explore said medium in realtime. and for all its pitfalls, its successes payback twice over.

The performances are all rock solid here too, there some great campy/demented physical work on hand and everyones playing big, with plenty of running around and set/prop work. Even the soundtrack seems to have had an upgrade. Its definitely a step in the right direction.

Its rare that I find a director who’s SO interesting visually as José Mojica Marins…but at the same time is struggling SO much to give me a story I actually honestly care about…barring a 3rd act twist in this thing, I couldnt give a tinkers fig about the plot of this movie…I literally had ZERO investment in it. But to see someone so passionately visualise whatever plot he was trying to produce? well…its a testimony to the man that I may not like what he said, but I liked how he said it.

I live in hope that future entries garner stronger scripts…or, in a merciful world, that he gets to direct SOMEONE ELESES scripts…Because I see STRONG promise at this point in his work. I just need a A+ script to help drive it home.

Oh…and this is worth checking out if you like arthouse cinema this is basically José Mojica Marins ‘Godard’ phase. You wont have a clue whats REALLY happening. But you’ll appreciate the ride.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-awakening-of-the-beast/

I missed my chance at picking this film up on Bluray a while ago, when Severin Films had to pull their distribution of the title due to some (unsurprising) legal issues with Universal over the title and contents of the film…However, Full Moons streaming service recently added the title to their catalogue. So I figured this was probably the closest I was going to get to seeing a HD copy of the movie and…man oh man is this thing a car crash…

There are two questions you need to ask yourself going into this:

*Did you enjoy the Zombie vs Shark fight scene in ‘Zombie Flesh Eaters’?

And:
*Do you think the idea of someone NOTORIOUS for exploitation sleaze, taking a look at ‘Jaws’ and going ‘Easy m8. its nearly 20 years on. I can do that! no trouble with todays tech!’ is an inherently funny idea?

Because if you answered yes to one of both of those questions…You’ll probably really quite enjoy this.

Essentially; Its just the key beats from Jaws, slightly rearranged with all the nuance, well written characters, in depth research that went into it, the talent of Spielberg, the A+ casting…essentially the heart…RIPPED clean out of it. and replaced with stock footage of random sharks (I spotted Great white, Tiger and Goblin AT LEAST) across the runtime, and an intrinsic horniness that DOES NOT LEAVE THIS FILM ALONE.

Basically, they add a lot more semi naked ladies into the mix, they add a subplotline in involving a rich guy on the island being in deep with the mafia and the change the order in which our ‘Not Quint/Hooper/Broady’ do things…Oh! and because this is an italian exploitation film, theres OF COURSE some bizarre and unbelievable moments, such as the shark attacking a helicopter, and the shark attacking a windsurfing competition.

I will give the film this, it’s shark (in my opinion) looks better/more interesting than the original Jaws prop. Thats literally the only thing it (probably) does better. In every other regard, its a big dumb horny action movie about 3 guys (one of which looks like a dollar tree hulk hogan) trying to take down a MASSIVE shark, seemingly out of goodwill and vengence because the shark kills a few folk.

The scripts a bit slow burn until the very VERY end, theres a lot of repetition. the lack of knowledge about sharks or their habits means a lot of this film is just guys stood around going ‘we gotta get that shark!’ I mean…I know ‘Jaws’ kind of does that too…but at least they had some ACTUAL discussions about shark behaviour, WHY its doing what its doing HOW to hunt it…rather than them treating it like some kind of stray cougar thats been stealing from the dumpsters.

There is a pretty clean act structuring for this thing, but its got hard ‘clunks’ in tone shifting between those acts. Its campy as all hell, with moments that genuinely left me with a bewildered grin.

The directions sloppy, largely reliant on Video quality stock footage and it seems like a lot of the decisions made in this film, were made because ‘Jaws did it’ rather than it ACTUALLY making any kind of logical sense here…for example, In the opening of Jaws the films tinted slightly blue to help emphisize the dusk footage as being night time rather than early morning. its a styalistic choice…

Here? they hard tint the footage blue at random points…its not day for night, these scenes are supposed to be happening during the day…they’re just doing it ‘Because Jaws did it’. They do the ‘close the beaches’ storyline…but whereas in Jaws they slowly build the tension and pressure cook the evacuation of the beach. here? they dont seem to understand how to do ‘slow cook’ tension…leading to a scene where a cop is BELLOWING through a megaphone for everyone to get off the beach now, and the edit hard cuts between him and shots of dozens of legs just kind of…briskly walking…it doesnt quite cut the mustard.

The cine is mixed to poor, lots of mid wide locked off shots, no clear colour or lighting choices that wernt stolen and randomly crammed in from ‘Jaws’ The edit is a HOT mess of random cuts to random footage…randomly. It feels like a rush job, and while *some* scenes do end up looking not half bad…it misses more than it hits…

The performances are ALL sickly sweet or Campy hamtasmic joy. I loved almost every line delivery in this thing and it feels very much like everyone was dialled up to 11. its pretty crazy in places.

For some reason the soundtrack keeps *almost* using the ‘Star Wars’ soundtrack…I say almost because they definitely use big chunks of it across the runtime, but it almost always crossfades into some kind of ‘soundalike’ royalty free track before the bit (most) people remember kicks in…which was weird…

I…dont know how to feel about this one. On the one hand, there are moments here that are GENUINELY hilarious, the 3rd act is some serious grade A cheese. But at the same time, the opening act and a half is SO thin on the ground in terms of plot or fun moments. It takes WAY too long to get going, and while SOME of the bad moments are genuinely entertaining and fun. There are a LOT of bad moments that are just kind of dull or there to kill time…

Im glad I caught it this way, rather than shilling out £40-£80 for an Ebay copy, if you have $4 to spare on a months ‘Full Moon Features’ subscription, I’d say it was absolutely worth that! But I think im gonna have to catch it again some time to say if I definitively love it or not. As it stands, best I can say is, I WOULD watch it again, and if you like Italian ‘knock off’ movies or Italian exploitation. You’ll probably REALLY enjoy this one.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/cruel-jaws/

After an altogether rather enjoyable time with ‘This Night I’ll possess Your Corpse’ I was raring to go to see where the next exciting adventure for Coffin Joe would go. I mean, surely the premise was rich for mining beyond just TWO movies…and the flirtation with Colour in ‘Corpse’ really opened things up to even greater possibilities when it came to gore, guts and depravity…

WELL! As you can imagine, I was *thrilled* to find out that the coffin Joe franchise basically did a ‘Freddys Nightmares’ and for the 3rd film, they became an anthology series with Joe opening the film…and thats. about. it.

Now; Im not saying that calling your film ‘The Strange world of Coffin Joe’ after your last two films prominantly featured ‘Coffin Joe’ and this film features him for collectively 2 minutes would be classed as MISLEADING…but once the SEVEN MINUTES of opening titles/60s folk bopping to christian choral music got out of the way and I realised that Coffin Joe wasnt going to be in this film AT ALL…Well, I felt a little mislead to say the least…

Im not entirely against the premise of ‘Coffin Joe’ shifting from being the lead of these films to taking on more of a horror host/curator of horrors role…But heres the kicker…the stories presented in this anthology arnt particularly good either!

For a starters, the film feels like its trying to kill time by ANY means necessary to get it up to runtime. the 7 minutes of lead in is bad enough, but all the stories in this anthology series have opening title cards as well which run for a couple of minutes a piece.

The stories are kind of dull and are basically pretty beige experiences that only really get a *bump* in quality thanks to some over the top (but brief) gore scenes.

The first story is around a dollmaker who has several daughters learning the trade, they’re all captivated by creating the perfect eyes. When a gang break into the workshop and demand protection money from the old man, they decide to take payment via his daughters (if you catch my drift) leading to an extended mass molestation sequence thats quickly brought to a close with a breif swash of gore and its onto the next story.

Which follows a balloon seller tailing a beautiful woman around the city, eventually she misplaces a parcel and the seller figures this is an ‘in’ to strike up a conversation, so he follows her…Only to find shes going to a wedding to get married…and then she dies…and he molests her corpse…but! he gets a commupence! in a gory way…

and finally José Mojica Marins stars in the final story, appearing as an ‘off brand’ coffin Joe lookalike with a ponytail whos a professor in human behaviour. Honestly…by this point i’d largely lost patience with the film…But…as you can guess, the story involved an underground dungeon, MORE molestation and a side order of cannibalism to boot.

All of the stories are SUPER slow burn and lack any kind of serious focus or draw, they all resolve in the most cliche and uninteresting way imaginable, the harsher more aggressive tone and pace of the last two films here has been watered down to, essentially, extended walking sequences with the odd bit of blood thrown in…

It feels like they had 3 short films that were supposed to play before ACTUAL films…but they couldnt get distribution for a ‘coffin joe’ B/pre-picture distribution gig…so they just shot a 3 minute or so pseudo-philisophical intro with José as Joe, stitched the 3 shorts together and called it a day.

they’re bland and plodding with poor dialogue when there IS dialogue (most of the shorts are largely silent or use minimal repetative dialogue)

Honestly, if it wasnt for the direction and cine. This would have been a really poor offering. As it stands the direction isnt as good as EITHER of the first to ‘Joe’ films…but its still VERY creative, with a good attention to detail. theres a clear vision of what is wanted to be seen, even if there isnt a clear script.

Compositionally theres some really nice shots here, the editing is SUPER slack (you could probably drop 15-20 minutes from this thing and it wouldnt touch the sides) but the sequences themselves hang together well enough and theres some REALLY nice lighting present throughout.

That being said, strong visuals do not a movie make, and some drab performances and poor deliveries only further weigh this film down..the one or two campier performances throughout (particularly in the ‘Doll’ short) are welcome, but way too few and far between.

Throw in the same warbling soundtrack from the last movie (presumably as a cost saving measure) and you have a picture that looks pretty…But thats about all there is going for it. a REAL step back in my opinion, I can certainly see the potential in developing this format…But, to me? its a really quite poor first attempt…

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-strange-world-of-coffin-joe/

‘At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul’ was an imperfect introduction to the strange world of ‘Coffin Joe’. While it was a visually delightful piece, the script had a LOT of inconsistencies and it felt (to me at least) a bit like we were watching some kind of extended prologue to the ACTUAL story…rather than it being a story in its own right…

Well! 3 years later, we’re back with ‘This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse’ and…while broadly speaking, this is VERY much a step in the right direction, its…still kind of struggling a little to properly define the point of all this.

The film picks up IMMEDIATELY after the events of the previous film, Joe somehow SURVIVED having his eyes gouged out and being frightened to death by his undead victims and after 2-3 years recovering in hospital, he returns back to his village to once again pick up the mission of siring a ‘perfect’ son to continue his bloodline and grant him immortality.

Which…here involves murdering a load of ‘imperfect’ ladies, before finding his ‘true’ vision in the form of a local girl called ‘Laura’, with whome he begins working towards his goals…But the town havent forgotten about Joe and his malevolence. and now they’re convinced he’s in league with the devil. It’ll only be a matter of time before Joes past catches up with him.

And…It feels a bit like we’ve had to make some trades in quality here to end up with this production, but I DO ultimatley feel like it’s a step in the right direction.

The scripting side of things gets a BIG boost over the previous entry in my opinion. the script is much better structured, DOES have a clean 3 act structure that transitions between the acts nicely. its shed a LOT of the baggage and continuity issues from the first film. its now established Joe IS in some form of communication with the devil. Because a couple of years pass between the first film and this one, the town having a bit more of a fearful ‘legend’ status for Joe doesnt feel *quite* as artificial. a TON of new characters have arrived in the village since the first film which helps smooth over the issue of people simultaineously acting like Joes behaviour was longstanding AND a new development.

They play down the fact that he’s an undertaker…theres much MUCH less footage of him overseeing funerals and more focus on just allowing Joe as a character grow and develop. In that sense its a much more solid picture.

I like that they actually give Joe a bit more of a complex situation to deal with here, they build on his ‘fundamentals’ that were established in the first film, and…while I will say the 2nd act is a bit sluggish compared to a fairly well paced first and third act, his developing relationship with Laura and the villages reaction had me thinking of ‘The Bride of Frankenstein’ for the most part.

Tonally, the film feels a bit bleaker, and even though it isnt quite as gory as the first entry, theres still more than enough horror present to really help give this thing a decent edge.

The direction feels tighter and higher quality, but the peaks of this film dont *quite* feel like they surpass the peaks of the previous film. theres a strong creative vision behind this one, and they even experiment with mixing colour and black and white footage, with an extended colour scene in Hell thats actually quite phenominal.

But theres nothing here that quite matches the incredible finale of the last film, it gets close…but a lot of this is actually kind of safe, or just retreading old ground from the first film…which is a bit of a shame.

Direction of the cast also sees a big improvement with a much more confident cast, getting more involved with their set spaces and the props within them. There’s a LOT more work with a LOT more animals here which really helps make this film feel a LOT bigger budgeted. deliveries are very well handled and the dialogue itself feels a lot tighter and more naturalistic than previously.

The cine DOES have some astoundingly good moments, such as the aforementioned ‘Hell’ sequences, or the finale. But outsiide of that…its just kind of ‘okay’…Like, it does the job, its technically sound for the most part…But it doesnt seem to have quite the same amount of heart tha the first one had…which is a shame, theres less creative light play, the colour sequences are great! but a little scattershot. its…alright…but the sequence structuring is a little messy.

Obviously on the performances this is José Mojica Marins baby and he REALLY seems to have FINALLY nailed Joe as a character here. a distinctly malevolent presence who believes in himself and the power of being a man. they’ve narrowed down his interestes, but in doing so they’ve also opened him up as a character for a more complex discussion about WHY and HOW he believes what he does and how that impacts his life goals. I havent seen anything past this film, but if this is further developed across the rest of the series. I could easily see Joe developing into a VERY nuanced horror character, someone quite a bit more interesting than the US comparatives…

Aaaand the soundtracks a bit jankey…they mix and match choir music with some orchestral instrumentals…its fine…but does feel a bit haphazard and a lot of it has a heavy warble…which did put me off a bit.

‘This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse’ is absolutely a step in the right direction, but it’s just a bit of a shame that in order to firm up the really struggling elements of the last film, they seem to have decreased the quality of other areas to pick up the slack.

I personally prefer this one to the original *JUST*…but I do wish there were more ‘iconic’ moments here…just moments in the cine and direction that really helped cement it as something truely unique and interesting as, outside of the hell sequences…im already struggling to remember what was in this film and what was in the first (and I only finished watching this film about 20 minutes ago as of the time of writing)

Honestly? if I were looking to get into this franchise? I’d be inclined to start with this one, THEN go back and watch ‘At Midnight’ and treat THAT film as a prequel to this one, rather than treating this film as a sequel to that one. I think the two films would flow better in that order truthfully…In either case, this ones recommended. its a solid, entertaining and interesting work that sags a little in the middle…but IS clearly showing development.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/this-night-ill-possess-your-corpse/

A frustrating picture to say the least, ‘Red Lips’ is a mid 90s SOV flick that has a kernal of a good idea at its heart, that gets consistantly undermined by excessive needless nudity, simulated sex scenes and the limitations of the medium of SOV.

The plot follows Caroline, a down on her luck grunge head whos resorted to donating blood to make ends meet. One fateful day however, while lamenting how much she’s been payed for this months pull, the doctor working at the center mentions that her blood grouping is unique and that, if she wants to make up to $100 a day, theres a secret experiment that Caroline can undertake. though…it’s strictly off the record.

Naturally, she agrees. But quickly realises that she’s let herself in for more than she’s bargained for, when the experimental serum she’s been injected with completely rewrites her biology, making her desperately and hopelessly addicted to blood. without it, she becomes frail and seizes up. and she has to feast AT LEAST once a day to avoid that.

After picking off a couple of folks in random motels, and a couple of sex workers. Caroline eventually meets up with Lisa (Michelle Baur) an older woman recently out of a toxic lesbian relationship looking to find some stability, and the pair end up forming an rather unlikely alliance…but…as is the case with these things, its very rarely that easy…and VERY rarely a happy ending…

And I think my opening sentiments pretty much sum up my thoughts on the film about as well as I can put it. The base plot here is really, honestly pretty decent. It reminded me a little bit of ‘Thelma and Louise’ but with a distinctly supernatural/horror edge. and I think had it been played out like that (I.E: Two women slowly fall into a lesbian relationship by virtue of their worlds outside of the relationship collapsing in on them, leading to them going on the run and doing what they need to to survive) it VERY likely would have been SO much more engaging a watch than it is…

Unfortunately; because this is an SOV movie, and its gotta do EVERYTHING to sell. it means every other scene has our characters undressing, having sex or flirting pretty needlessly. Which really undercuts the genuinely interesting drama elements of the plot. Im not saying that they CANT have sex in this film. and its perfectly justified for a chunk of the runtime. BUT…someones naked in literally every other scene of this thing, and it quickly becomes apparent that…there isnt any reason for it. its just there because they feel like it’ll shift more copies.

I was really interested in seeing the blossoming relationship between Caroline and Lisa, I’d have been happy to see the script set the pair up as a double act, luring men and women back to an acquired apartment to ‘feed’ caroline and eventually falling foul of the deception.

But no…instead we get such thrilling scenes as ‘Caroline deciding to take an extended bath at someones house’, ‘a performance art piece at a night club featuring 2 semi naked men and a woman playing guitar who’s nude from the waist down’ and who could forget the extended scene of ‘Woman with HUGE boobs washing said HUGE boobs for 3-5 minutes straight…unbroken.’

It just…really lowers the artistic merit the film COULD have had, and kind of put me off the film honestly, the script itself has a TON of nice scenes, great dialogue moments, GOOD ideas…but it just…isnt refined enough to really crystialize the project into something more meaningful than ‘a half decent drama with a LOT of poorly shot porn inserted’.

The pacings a crawl for large chunks of the runtime, the tone cant seem to decide between a sentimental love story with a dark comedy twist and a kind of sleazy exploitation piece. the ending isnt really very satisfying and the characters depth is very much hit and miss depending seemingly on how bothered the writer was that day in adding any kind of depth.

Which leads me onto the OTHER big problem this film has, the medium. Im an advocate for VHS as a format, I believe that SOV put the power of film making into the hands of the everyday guy or gal. But I also have to acknowledge that the format you choose to shoot your film on WILL ultimately have an impact on how its percieved.

‘Red Lips’ has a LOT of big ideas, and Donald Farmer quite clearly had a strong creative vision for how he wanted this film to look. theres a strong styalization across the runtime and it COULD have looked great…on ANY other medium than VHS.

Shot on film? or even early digi beta? I can clearly see that this thing would have looked REALLY quite impressive. theres tremendous colour and lighting usage throughout and the film has a strong identity to it. But shooting on VHS washes out almost all the colour work, makes the lighting look cheap, in places the copy I watched (released by Saturns Core) had tape damage which threw the picture out entirely for a few seconds…the 4:3 aspect ratio means you lose a lot of the compositional range that a 16:9 or academy ratio picture might have offered.

Basically, a LOT of hard work went into this film…I can see that. and I ACHED through this film to see it remade in HD. Because I think with that level of high quality picture work and the same heart that went into this one. it could look INCREDIBLE…but instead, it looks cheap, washed out and awkward here…and thats a real shame.

Performances are a real mixed bag as well. Ghetty Chasun and Michelle Baur are EASILY two of the best actors in this, and I honestly think this may well be Baurs best performance post her 80s hayday. the pair have great chemestry, portray a believable relationship and have a very naturalistic presence together on screen…the supporting cast however? well; they range from not bad at all…to frankly ludicrous performances that genuinely made me wonder if these WERE actors or if Farmer had just grabbed someone from the carpark 10 minutes before rolling. TRUELY dismal, you may think the creaking you can hear in the background is the tape spindles whirring. But its actually the spines of Chasun and Baur carrying this thing.

The soundtracks a bit hit and miss too…I just…I really truely felt frustrated with this one. Its got SUCH a good skeleton on it, that I feel if it was remade on HD cameras and it paired back the sex/nudity to create more impactful scenes where the sex/nudity actually MEANT something to the narrative. this would be a 4 and a half star film for me and one i’d have on repeat circulation…as it stands its a film that I enjoyed the idea of, more than the execution. I could see myself revisiting this one, and if your getting into SOV, its one I could recommend happily…but its such a shame that it is what it is…

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/red-lips/

My first foray into the works of Cecil Howard, and im kind of uncertain how to take it. They say the line between ‘Adult’ cinema and ‘Art House’ is a hairs breadth, but with ‘Scoundrels’ I feel like, without a wider context of Howards ‘Ouvre’ Im uncertain as to whether this film is ACTUALLY TRYING to be an art house picture that just so happens to be centered around sex, or if its trying to lampoon art house cinema for the sheer amount of tropes it trips while going through its 81 minute runtime.

What I can say is, whatever it IS trying to be/do…I enjoyed it. The film sort of reminded me of ‘American Beauty’…But…y’know…its actually good.

As we follow Ron Jeremy giving a HELL of a performance here as psychiatrist Simon. Simon lives a quasi painful existence, fully aware that his wifes cheating on him with his best friend, but too gutless to ever directly address it, Simon finds himself trapped in an unloved suburbian hell. His daughter, an elder high school student, SHOULD be preparing for her finals, but instead has fallen in with a bad crowd and is experimenting with drugs and sex and falling ever closer to prostitution.

His wife? cares about him, but fell out of love with him years ago due to his total loss of passion as his work exhausts him and an affair and regular trips to the brothel form just another crust of the drudge.

The huge tangle of affairs, betrayal and lies slowly begins to boil over however as his daughters boyfriend begins and affair with his wife and Simons secretary (whome Simon is having an affair with) ALSO begins ANOTHER affair/relationship with Simons best friend who’s ALSO having an affair with Simons wife…somethings gotta give.

And what I love about this film is its themes of isolation and the erosion of the self through the enforced stereotypes of the nuclear family (honestly, I thought this was just going to be comedy boobies for 80 minutes. But im SO glad it was SO much more thanb that)

The scripts WAY above the callibre of the usual ‘Adult’ film offering, presenting ACTUAL, hard hitting, real feeling drama that isnt afraid to experiement within the genre. the pacings maybe a little slow around the middle, it could have lost 10 minutes and not lost any momentum. But the plot itself is intreaging and engaging, the act structuring (barring the slowdown) is excellent, the dialogue, for an adult feature, is BEYOND impressive. the characters are complex, deep, rich and interesting, and the film ends on a curveball I genuinely didnt expect that kept me hooked WELL beyond the final shot.

The directions superb, if its a parody/homage to art house, its a bloody good one, as theres SUCH a distinct and creative vision present here. Its SO refreshing to see a film maker have such a clear drive in the message they want to deliver. and I was honestly blown away by the creative decisions present here, not only in the visuals, but in the guiding of the cast. Again, I havent seen any of Cecils work beyond this film. But he absolutely ASTOUNDED me with how he carefully curated and guided the cast through this. I wont go as far as to say they’re perfect, but they easily ALL deliver career highpoints in this thing. I honestly think this may well be the greatest film Ron Jeremy ever made (with ‘Super Hornio bros’ in close 2nd OBV’s)

The cine is clean, razor sharp, ULTRA curated sequences with GORGEOUS composition that oozes eroticism at EVERY turn. its a damn good looking picture which isnt afraid to experiment with colour and lighting. Scenes are engaging, interesting and largely enhanced with a pretty solid edit that again, isnt afraid to experiment with the genre (though to me, it does stumble a few times in terms of the cuts it uses in places and there are a few moments where the score feels noticably absent which I feel really would have helped take some of the scenes to the next level) I LOVE that they use flash cuts of the porn in this whenever our characters think to a past ‘encounter’ rather than just doing the dreary slow blur crossfade that was notorious for this era. those quick cuts fly by before you really fully process what you’ve just seen…But they leave a HELL of an impression as to what you *think* you’ve seen…its wonderful.

The soundtracks solid too, though, for me? a little too on the nose…I get that this is adult film making, and that subtlety ISNT widely considered to be a key aspect. But they really lean into pieces from ‘Pagliacci’ alongside visuals of Jeremy and his family in clown makeup. the first time it was used, I thought it was fine. But its REPEATED use across the whole runtime was what gradually made me think that maybe this WASNT aiming to be an arthouse piece, but rather a parody of an arthouse piece because…it gets kind of rediculous by the end for how much its used.

Nevertheless…I HIGHLY recommend ‘Scoundrels’ I didnt know what to expect from it, but it FAR passed my expectations and genuinely impressed me as a work. Its more than ‘just porn’, its a sincere family drama that just so happens to be graphic. and it’s absolutely nudged me to go and check out more of Cecil Howards work. Recommended.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/scoundrels/

A mid career entry for Bob Chinn and an ‘Introducing’ credit for Hyapatia Lee, ‘Lets Get Physical’ is the story of Maria and Carl. Carl, at one point was one of the countries best Ballet dancers, While Maria is an up and coming choreographer who’s hoping to make it big in a mans world!

Unfortunately; we see via flashback that Carl is unfaithful and has been sleeping with ballet dancers while being in a marriage with Maria. Maria…for SOME reason simultaineously is VERY upset at the revelation of Carls infidelity, but also still utterly smitten with him refusing to confront him over the issue. The infidelity question goes out of the window however when the pair wind up in a freak car crash that renders Carl completely unable to feel ‘sensation’ of any kind from the waist down.

We pick up with the pair as Carl has been relegated to doing the paperwork, while Maria works with her new students Renee and Scott to prepare them for a showcase that will be held in front of the new york ballet company.

While training Renee however, the pair become increasingly passionate leading to a romp, in which Carl finds the pair and immediately becomes aroused for the first time since the accident. Thus leading the group of three into a steamy adventure to get Carls libido back before the big performance!

And…this ones actually a bit more complex than your standard adult feature. The most glaring script issue I can see is with Maria as a character herself. Shes a professional choreographer, trapped in a marriage with a man who doesnt want to have sex with her (despite her REALLY wanting sex from him) who’s fantasizing over BOTH her students, and what happens? Carl gets Maria to bring Renee into a three way relationship where Carl ends up having sex with Renee OVER Maria, and the film resolves with Maria and Carl having sex once and it all being resolved with Maria not feeling AT ALL bitter at the fact that her husband cheated on her for years BEFORE the car accident, THEN stole HER partner she was having a lesbian affair with AND denied her the right to go after her other male student who…the film KEEPS hinting at them getting together, but other than a fantasy flashback, it doesnt happen.

Maria is our lead protagonist in this movie, and she gets DRAGGED. to the point that, by the end of the film I didnt feel sorry for her situation anymore, I felt angry that she’d stay with a serial cheater KNOWING he’s going to do what he’s GOING to do…Ugh.

Anyway, outside of that one plot issue I did have, the rest of the films really rock solid. the scripts a breezy hour and 18 minutes, its really well paced, the act structuring is good and solid theres actual payoffs and resolutions to whats set up. it’s not a film that just randomly inserts sex into its plotting, it lets the sex arrive naturally OUT OF the plotting. the tone is a nice contrast of lighter moments and genuinely complex darkness. (which I think is hilarious given the poster for this film)

The direction and cine is rock solid, though…a little restrained compared to Chinns usual naturalistic capabilities. here…it feels a lot more functional vs say, his work on ‘Body Girls’ or ‘Hot and saucy pizza girls’. It still does the job and is dripping with charisma and eroticism. it just doesnt *quite* feel AS charged as his other works.

Hyapatia Lee is a little stiff in this one, but its her first credit so its kind of understandable that she hasnt found her groove yet, Shanna McCullough and Paul Thompson are both professional and genuinely engaging as Carl and Renee bringing real depth and range to the characters that could have easily been steamrollered by a lesser talent.

The soundtrack is basically a soundalike of ‘Beat it’ played on a loop for the full runtime…I…dont know why, apart from the fact that ‘Beat it’ was THE song of 1982…Might as well have the ‘E.T’ theme for all the relevence it has…but its fine.

But yeh…this one was alright! a little frustrating on the narrative front, but everything else was rock solid and I understand why Vinegar Syndrome and Melusine released this as the B-picture to ‘Body Girls’ I think the two compliment each other quite nicely.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/lets-get-physical/