A bizarre low budget creature feature that seemingly wants to be anything BUT a creature feature. Theres a VERY clear reason why the ‘Godmonster of Indian Flats’ was a mainstay of the ‘Something Weird’ Library for so many years.

It’s plot, a bizarre mesh of 66% a somewhat ‘wicker man’ esq thriller about a rich businessman rocking up at a small previously abandoned town in the Indian flats thats been restored back to it’s 19th century ways by an eccentric land owner with intentions to buy the area. Only to then find out that theres devious goings on just under the surface and the town may not be all it seems.

Mashed together with a 34% plot (and I swear im not making this up) around a shepard who wins it big at a casino on his first ever attempt completley by chance, ends up attracting the attention of some of the folk who LIVE in the 19th century throwback town on the Indian flats, they take him back to the town and rob him, and while drunkenly returning to his flock, he gets hit with an extraterrestrial show of lights and gasses that mutates one of his sheep into a hideous blob of congealed cells.

This attracts the attention of some scientists who wish to study the creature as they work in cellular research. So, they incubate the specimine and within a couple of days, the blob has mutated into a hideous goat monster.

SOME HOW, these two plots connect and intertwine, but i’ll be damned if I know for sure how…But the results are QUITE far from dull it’s fair to say.

The scripts totally inconsistent, the main plot of a black businessman rocking up in an all white town and meeting the prejudice and weirdness that comes with that has it’s more racially motivated tones softened by the other subplot around the shady dealings of the town and of course the GIANT WALLOPING SHEEP MONSTERS larking about and…well not really doing very much. I honestly feel for the guy in the monster costume. wearing 100lb’s of wool in the desert is absolutely not worth the paycheque.

Despite the uneven pacing and strange plot structuring of this thing, I find it offers a unique texture that I can honestly say I havent really seen before in cinema. It’s kind of like a mash up of ‘Sssss’ and ‘2000 Maniacs’ it shoulnt work, it DOESNT work. and yet, I felt totally compelled to see this thing through to the finish to see just exactly how weird this thing would get (and the answer is VERY weird).

The directions nothing particularly to write home about, its a bit flat and aimless, theres no sense of a personal touch present and apart from the occasional flourish on the cine front it doenst particularly show itself to be a film that utilises the multiple aspects of it’s production particularly well. I can absolutely say it just about does the basics. But thats not really anything worth shouting about.

Same goes for the cine really, theres a couple of interesting uses of practical effects here and there, but compositions seem to be largely shot for function and barring literally 2 scenes in the 3rd act of this film which DID seem to get a bit of a bump in terms of production quality, the majority of the film could best be described as lifeless, bland and fairly by the numbers on a technical level. it’s not good, but there was nothing that jumped out at me as truely awful.

Sequences are edited together quite loosely, this thing could have easily been 10 minutes shorter, the lack of the actual Godmonster for most of the movies runtime is dissapointing and with so much going on, producing a cohesive edit that manages to tell the story effectively and coherently was always going to be a struggle.

as for the performances. TOTAL HAM. everyones playing it goofy, as well they should! But I do feel theres a certain lack of animation from most of the cast and the ones who do put the effort in, never really get the chance to really truely go out there.

It also has to be said that, while I absolutley sympathise with the guy in the Goat costume who was basically steamed alive for the half a day he filmed for. He doesnt really animate all that much, and he spends at least 2/3rds of this movie sat unmoving, in a tank. it would have been nice to have had a bit more of a lively creature and…y’know…the vibe that this creature feature ACTUALLY WANTED to have a monster in it wrecking up the place.

Mix in a score thats oddly melancholic and string arranged and you have a shonky but mesmorising feature that I didnt hate, didnt love, but I could absolutley see myself watching again. Your milage may absolutely vary on this thing. But if you like your cheesy movies, this thing would be prime MST3K fodder and is absolutely worth trying at least once i’d say.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/godmonster-of-indian-flats/

After a few years of hearing nothing but good things I decided to finally give ‘Rad’ a try. I figured that kids films can be kind of hit or miss, but with enough positive endorsements, I put this one expecting a pretty cheesy but enjoyable time…and thats pretty much what I got. No more, No less.

Its a basic tween/teen plotline…In a world in which bikes and stunt biking IS the be all and end all of living, a local business man with alterior motives sets up a 10k biking challenge to anyone who fancies themselves a winner. inviting several pro cyclists to take part in the challenge. But when a plucky local boy whos SO good at BMX’ing rocks up and wants to take part, well the powers that be will try everything in their powers to stop bikey man from biking a bike to win 10k to spend on a bike…or something.

Basically, the long and short of this movie is, if you’ve seen anything like ‘Footloose’, or ‘The Wizard’…you’ve seen this movie. The scripts SUPER 80’s fueled and hits every teen ‘team sports’ movie trope its possible to hit in a 90(ish) minute runtime. Its evenly paced, slows down a little bit in the middle, but is ultimately just a fairly by the numbers team drama movie made interesting and eccentric by the bike gimmick.

It’s technically proficient on the direction and cine front, it has a mixed ability cast who range from ‘barely able to string some sentences together’ through to full blown hamtastic electric performances…It’s got a really killer soundtrack…

I dunno, I wish I kind of had more to say about this one really, I was expecting something as OTT and nutty AS movies like ‘The Wizard’ or ‘Robot in the Family’ and it just…isnt…it’s actually kind of flat all things considered…perfect riffing fodder for sure if you want to get some beers and a few friends around for a screening. But it’s not as colourful or lively as other schlocky titles like ‘Miami Connection’ outside of the biking motif, it isnt as enthralling as many other weird films from this time. I didnt hate it by any stretch…I just kind of thought it was passably okay.

I honestly dont really know what I was expecting, maybe that it’d have been a bit more styalized, or had a bit more weirdness going on, or some stranger performances…or just…something a bit more bombastic than what was presented. But as it stands…I’d absolutely check this thing out again, and if you havent seen it i’d wholeheartedly recommend it. But temper your expectations. A lot of people have billed his as ‘one of the greats’ in terms of cheesy 80s b-movies…and I feel thats a bit of a stretch. I dont really feel this thing broke new ground.

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

At the request of a viewer of my youtube channel, I ‘Hunted’ down a copy of ‘Hungting Season’ because he said he’d be interested in hearing my thoughts on the movie. And the moment I put the film in and saw the ‘Sterling Entertainment Presents’ logo, I realised that i’d been bamboozled into sitting through another incredibly dull ‘Camp Blood’ esq picture.

And im really not wrong in that assessment, this film was made the same year that both ‘Camp Blood 1 and 2’ were shot back to back (near enough) in pretty much the same location, using pretty much the same ‘stereoscopic 3d’ kit that the ‘Camp Blood’ movies used. Hell, for as much as this thing LOOKS like the ‘Camp Blood’ movies, im genuinely surprised it didnt have Brad Sykes name on it.

The plots the most basic thing i’ve seen in a good while, a young couple go hiking in the woods, they set up camp in an area known for hunting, some hunters randomly appear, seriously injure the boyfriend of the couple and rape the girl (Sarah). Sarah manages to get her boyfriend to a hospital, her and a sheriff go back to investigate the crime scene, and find the hunters permit on the ground. Leading Sarah to take up bloody vengence against the hunters who violated and assaulted them.

And that basically then leads to a 50 minute sequence of some hunters wandering around in the woods, while Sarah wanders around in the woods and very occasionally the pair meet up, have a brief dust up, before returning to montages of walking. all leading to one of the STUPIDEST plot twists in cinematic history and one of the most underwhelming endings to boot.

This is a poor POOR excuse for a movie. the script feels like the writers had a friend tell them the plot and some of the backstory to ‘I spit on your grave’ after a few beers, and without looking into it anymore than that, they just decided to try and remake it.

Hell the pullquote for the poster of this thing is ‘I spit on your grave, for the new millenium’ and that simply couldnt be further from the truth. It would be more accurate to say ‘Someone trying to remake ‘I spit on your grave’ but with almost no budget, and they dont wanna offend anyone’.

Theres no context or build up to the rape scene itself, it just happens seemingly completely at random, is almost entirely softcore and lasts for about 1 minute before we’re straight into the tamest ‘revenge’ portion of a rape revenge film i’ve ever seen. Bizarrely the film inserts a CRAP ton of nudity into the film AFTER the rape scene, but clothes stay pretty firmly on DURING the rape sequence itself. it’s almost like the films trying to overcompensate.

The pacings dull as dishwater, its a *slight* step above ‘Bigfoot vs DB cooper’ in terms of the fact that, at least this film has a couple of attempts at gore shots mixed in with the endless walking scenes. Theres not really any kind of act structuring, the cast just sort of…wander about until they’re picked off with no rhyme or reason and the plot for the film almost seems like a framing to get the characters wandering around in the woods…rather than the plot ACTUALLY having a consistent point across the runtime.

It just feels really lazy and slapped together, it has no depth, no deerp contextual meanings, no subtlety, no subtext, it doesnt feel like its trying to say anything particularly, theres just…no passion in this thing, it’s dead behind the eyes, just making titilation for titlations sake…only it doesnt have the gonads to ACTUALLY try and be a bit more ‘edgy’ or creative in how it portrays what it wants to show.

The dialogues also SO stiff, awkward and stilted. It’s got no fire behind it and when married up to a cast who are ALL frankly dire. (Literally only Cindy Pena is worth talking about as ‘Sarah’ our main protagonist…and even then, she’s only ‘okay’ nothing standout) it produces a film that borders on the insufferable in places both in terms of just how dull it is, and how poor the casts performances are.

Surprisingly the cine and direction are the least of this films worries. Its absolutley not great. but for an SOV film being produced by the company that unleashed the original ‘Camp Blood’ onto the world around the same time, i’d say this was a *bit* better comparatively. Sequences do have something of a structure, they bothered to get some decent B-roll here, most of the shots have a compositional focal point, the shot lists seem to have been at least somewhat considered (it isnt just shaky handheld footage of people wandering around cut seemingly at random like with ‘Camp Blood’)

They actually use some minor CG effects here, they go a bit overboard with the gore. for SOV, this is still a pretty poor offering, but it’s absolutely not the worst i’ve seen, and in some places I was actually kind of impressed on a technical level.

Of course, this film suffers from the same issues that a lot of ‘Sterling’ productions from around this time suffer with. They chose to shoot the film on a rig that allowed the film to be presented in an early form of ‘Stereoscopic 3d’ as such, the camera sits inside a device that splits it’s frames out into two seperate fields, which; when played back using the appropriate kit, *SHOULD* give the illusion of 3d.

However…it doesnt. instead using this rig basically just means the film has multiple technical problems. For a starters, the actual stereoscopic element *WOULD* work, had they not screwed up the encode. The result is one field presents normally, but another field is jittery, pixellated and skittish. meaning with 3d glasses on, it looks almost exactly the same as with them off, only one layer is garbled nonsense for 70% of the runtime, while the other layer plays like the 2D version.

Thats another problem though, because they didnt bother to do a proper 3D > 2D downconverion…instead, they just removed one of the field layers. Meaning the image has 50% less detail associated with it, leading to a smeary, blocky, pixallated image that looks awful even in DVD quality and looks abysmal when it’s blown up on a 4k TV, so lord knows what a bluray remaster would look like.

The rig itself also causes several technical issues with the picture, the main offenders being that the ‘hood’ of the rig is constantly kreapt into the shot so theres a dark fringe that fluctuates in size across the entire film. it also has somekind of glass front to it, which has effected the colour and exposure, meaning the picture image is washed out, drab and overexposed for the most part. its just…an awful way to present the movie, and im sure with the proper time/money/consideration, you COULD do a proper 2d downconversion that looked pretty solid…but that isnt going to happen for these movies.

thats not to mention a totally forgettable cheap and nasty soundtrack thats so bland it almost vanishes into the audio mix.

This wasnt a bad film, its just a forgettable one. almost all of my one star rating is simply down to the fact that one a technical level, its not the worst for the genre and they actually did try to put a bit of effort in on a couple of scenes. But on almost every other level its either bad, poor quality or TOTALLY forgettable.

Not worth your time hunting it down, the only people I think would have a good time with this thing are people who enjoyed the aesthetic of movies like ‘Camp Blood’ and want more in the same style vein, but dont care if the plots crap.

Hard swerve, do avoid.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/hunting-season-2000/

Harrowingly compelling and extremely graphic for the time, there’s a reason that ‘Scum’ was initially banned from broadcast by the BBC in it’s Teleplay form. Undeterred however, they remade the story for film in 1979 tweaking some elements of the plot, but DRASTICALLY overhauling what was said and shown vs the TV version.

In a vibe not *too* dissimilar to ‘Threads’, ‘Scum’ is a dramatization of the awful conditions of the UK Borstal institutions. Initially formed in the 1930s as a means to seperate young offenders and first time criminals from more habitual criminals. Borstals were created with the eye of rehabilitating early offenders with the aim to educate them and eventually re-release them back into society with the skills they’d learned.

Instead; Borstals became a prime breeding ground for aspiring criminals and a direct recruitment link to bring novice offenders more into the big time criminal leagues. They were massively underfunded, incredibly restrictive on what *kind* of education inmates could study, and (if this film is to be believed, and I have no reason to doubt it) was largely supplied with inexperienced and underpaid staff members who used violence and aggression first, and solitary as an after thought. If you want an idea of how bad they truely were, 3 years after this film came out, the borstal system was decomissioned entirely due to just how endemic the corruption and violence truely was.

In ‘Scum’ we follow Carling, a first time offender on a lean sentence who’s been transferred to borstal for assaulting an officer (he repeatedly claims it was in self defense) while in there, he meets a small squad of prisoners who just want a quiet life, and Archer, who’s a bit more educated than the other inmates and has decided to dedicate his time to testing the patience of any of the ‘Screws’ who care to take him on.

Each wing of the borstal is run by a ‘Daddy’ who has something of a direct link to the goveners of the borstal, and they largely rule by beating the crap out of anyone they want, doing whatever they want and causing whatever trouble they care to want to do.

Carling isnt too impressed with all of this and after a few violent encounters with his wings ‘Daddy’ he decides to take matters into his own hands, resulting in him becoming the new ‘Daddy’ of the wing.

and what follows is a grizzly and brutal look at how the prisoners and guards work within the borstal system, it’s almost pseudo ‘documentary’ framed at times, but it does keep a firm hand on the dramatization elements at play (again, I have NO reason to doubt that this is how Borstal’s actually were)

And whats on show here is pretty fantastic honestly, the scripts a speedy hour and 36 minutes, incredibly paced, with seamless act structuring that flowed incredibly naturalistically, we had solid characters who have really firm backgrounds and are given more than enough space and time to individually grow, to the point that you really feel for them as and when misfortune finds them.

It’s a strong work from start to finish, it’s predominently character driven and the film leaves enough vagueness around the ending that you can make up your own minds as to what happend to the cast past the credits. it stunned me to the point that I spent most of the end credits in fairly deep thought about the scenario I just saw play out.

The character dialogue is frankly a masterclass in terms of both presenting a naturalistic sounded work for people behind bars in the late 70s and in giving them plenty of memorable moments that are engaging and enjoyable (if not unflinching) to watch. In fact, the only minor criticism I had with this thing is the sheer VOLUME of swearing, racism and homophobia present in this thing.

Dont get me wrong, im no prude, I appreciate that…it’s a prison-esq system in the late 1970’s, theres going to be a LOT of swearing, racism and homophobia abounding. and I was absolutley prepared and open for there to be a fair bit of it. But it got to the point where it felt like the film was bordering on parody for just HOW MUCH swearing, racism and homophobia was happening on a scene by scene basis. Like, I dont think a 2 minute window went by without one of those 3 things happening and it’s said SO repetatively, by SO many people at once, with no pause. That by the end i’d felt it’d lost all meaning.

The direction and cine are gorgeous, not in the sense that this is a pretty film (it’s cold and grey looking for about 95% of the runtime.) But rather, that it’s gorgeous on a technical level. Alan Clarke clearly understood what he wanted to make, and meticulously planned a work that feels boundary pushing for 1979 in ways that I havent seen from cinema of this era previously, grand sweeping tracking shots, long unbroken takes, really solid attempts at using depth of field to derive emphasis, its non stop experimentation for the time and something I very much was in total awe of. edited with razor precision. This film, technically is gorgeous and the muted colour palette provides a perfectly fitting (though, somewhat inevitably depressing) backdrop for this grim carnage to unfold.

The performances are equally rock solid, and WAY ahead of their time for this era. Ray Winstone and Mick Ford were clear champions here with their performances of ‘Carlin’ and ‘Archer’ respectively, they both manage the, not at all easy, feat of being able to make deeply unlikeable characters, edearing, nuanced and much more than just a 2d ‘heros and villains’ type affair. they’re incredibly well rounded, are given more than enough room to bring their own physicality to the role and I thought they were perfectly cast.

Same goes for pretty much all of the supporting cast too, there wasnt a single player here who let the side down, everyone comes across as believable, complex and brings with them their own problems, situations and narratives that we dip in and out of across the runtime.

In fact, barring the WAY overuse and overeliance of swearing, racism and homophobia to set the mood and the total bleakness of this thing making it one that I dont think I personally would be able to just ‘pop on’ on a whim. I really REALLY liked this. I thought it was a stark look at a system that has now mercifully been decomissioned for just over 40 years. A reminder of a system we must never revisit and is arguably one of the greatest british films ever made. A Powerful work that would probably play as one of the most depressing double features ever with something like ‘Threads’, ‘Scum’ is simply fantastic, and definitely worth your time.

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

If your looking for fodder to make up part of a 31 day Halloween marathon; then 1988’s ‘Night of the Demons’ is surely a solid contender. Is it an original movie? ABSOLUTELY NOT. This thing doesnt have an original bone in it’s body, basically taking ‘The Evil Dead’, ‘Return of the Living Dead’ and ‘House’ combining them together and watering down any of the more raw and impactful moments quite substantially. I can absolutely see why people would really enjoy this movie, I do somewhat stuggle to see how someone could out and out LOVE this movie.

The basic plot is that a group of fratty students are looking to party down on Halloween Night, when they get an invitation from a strange student in their class called ‘Angela’ to join her for a creepy night at ‘Hull House’ an abandoned and derelict building that supposedly contains ghosts and demons.

The gang kind of umm and ahh about going, but eventually decide that it’s better than the school organised dance, so they head over, little do they know that Angela is actually bringing the gang to the house with the express purpose of creating a little carnage. involving seances, human possession and a house seemingly out of time. It’s down to basically a bunch of horny drunk people and a clean cut virgin to figure out how to escape Hull House and survive, the ‘Night of the Demons’

and while I got on with this thing, I have to say I wasnt totally smitten by it, the scripts fine, its got even pacing, reasonable transitions between act structures, but it brings almost nothing new to the table in terms of ideas and all the way through this thing I never felt any kind of genuine sense of unpredictability or unease. The best horror movie usually are the ones where you have NO idea what direction the films going to go off in, and regularly take delight in ramping up the gore and violence when you least expect it.

This thing? I knew the ending before the opening titles even got done it was that predictable. It just, doenst have a whole lot of defining charictaristics. Theres nothing here that I can point to and definitively say ‘THIS is what ‘Night of the Demons’ is known for.’ Because every cool moment, is a somewhat neutered redo of a scene that exists in other, better movies.

The characters arnt particularly well defined or likeable, the demon action is kept to a minimum and the scenes where the demons do appear are largely played to try and create a sense of unease (which they kind of fail to do) with the few gory bits they DO show, being quite few and far between and not particularly any better than ‘passable’

The dialogues a bit cringey too in places. Like; cheesy dialogue is fun, and this film does have some great cheesy lines in it. But it also has a LOT of scenes of actors in their 30s trying to play frat boys in their teens and some of the lines they got these guys to read…eesh, I just ended up feeling bad for them honestly.

The direction and cine are decent enough, arguably some of the best elements that this film has going for itself. its a stylized film that uses colour very well and really DOES capture that ‘spirit of halloween’ vibe that the likes of ‘Trick r Treat’ and ‘WNUF’ manage to capture, it feels as much a part of the season as jack o lanturns or candy corn.

Shots are well composed, they clearly planned their sequence structuring carefully because the edit has plenty of room to breath and use B-roll effectively. the gore shots arnt the best i’ve ever seen, but are far from the worst. and I feel like Kevin’s managed here to direct the cast VERY effectively, getting several lively and animated performances out of the cast that do help bring a little more vibrance to the picture.

As for the performances themselves, well the clear standouts are Amelia Kinkade as ‘Angela’ and Linnea Quigly as Suzanne, the pair get a good meaty part of the script, bring a MORE than solid and well rounded performance to proceedings and they seem to have great fun just doing the horror thing. Which I suppose is all you can really ask for honestly.

Cathy Podewell as Judy works as best she can with the material she’s given, she’s supposed to play a bit of a ‘Vanilla’ sort who comes out of her shell more as the carnage begins. I feel she plays that part really well, though I was completley convinced of her ‘Transformation’ of character. By the end she pretty much felt the same but sadder bascially. Which isnt the kind of arc that wins me over unfortunately.

And as for the soundtrack? Well…Im not saying your horror movie CANT have a ‘punk’ soundtrack, but if you ARE going to have your horror movie feature a predominantly ‘Punk’ soundtrack. TRY not to make it sound like a dollar store soundalike of the ‘Return of the living dead’ score please? Because this thing really just felt like the ‘store brand’ version for like…90% of the runtime. and I couldnt get away from that vibe honestly, which did lower my opinions a little bit.

Despite its issues, I still thought ‘Night of the Demons’ was reasonable fun. It’s (in my opinion) by no means a ‘classic’ but Its easy to watch and digest, it doesnt overstay its welcome and the halloweeny seasonal vibes feel very sincere throughout and could easily help set the mood. I’d absolutely say it’s worth catching at least once, but after that, your milage may vary.

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

This review may contain spoilers.

Oh this thing was just delightful in all honesty, largely shot in 1964 and posthumously released a year after her untimely death agred 33 in 1967. ‘The Wild Wild World of Jayne Mansfield’ is…well sort of a travelogue by way of the Mondo craze that was picking up steam around this time.

Basically we follow Jayne Mansfield as she travels around Rome, Paris, New York and LA looking at the landmarks, sights and sounds of those cities, before also exploring the more erotic underbelly of these European locations.

And if you ever wanted to know where John Waters and Divine got some of their key influences. This movie very likely holds the answers. Its SO camp, REDICULOUSLY campy, the cheesiest, most hammy delight i’ve sat through in a good long while. Jayne narrates a good chunk of the movie (and…due to her death a Jayne soundalike was bought in to finish the movie after a certain point) but her narration is just SO goddamn cheesy. she says such strange and wonderfully worded things. I was honestly captivated by this for about 90% of the runtime.

It’s a rather speedy trip through Europe which, for 1968 I imagine would have been quite exotic for the average american looking for dirty picture movies. It’s largely tame, plenty of topless scenes and the ocasional nudie shot where the more modest areas are covered. But even so I thought it was pretty wild given how restrictive studio pictures had to be at that time.

Whats probably the most bizarre thing for this film is how it progresses across its runtime (and the thing I fell in love with the most quite honeslty.) Y’see, around halfway through the second act this thing really begins to run out of steam. After all, theres only so many topless bars and erotic dancers you can capture before it all starts to look a bit samey.

they go to a Trans beauty pageant which is fascinating given the time it was filmed. But as is the case with pictures from this time, they seem to conflate Trans, Cross dressing and Drag interchangably. Which I imagine would create some more problematic moments to a more modern audience. I understand WHY they were so vague given its absolute illegality at the time. But I could easily see some being offended by trans portrayal in this.

What REALLY stunned me was the ending, as…10 minutes off the end of the movie we go from soft shots of Jayne wallowing around nude in a bathtub to a sudden STARK bit of tonal whiplash as we hardcut to photos from the crash scene where Jayne lost her life. The narration shifts to an unknown male and the rest of the 10 minutes is basically a HARSH recounting of Jaynes Car crash, death, photos of the crash site AND her dead dog, shots of her former mansion home, SHOTS OF HER ACTUAL CHILDREN where the narrator basically tells the viewer theres uncertainty about where her children will go and what they’ll do now their mums dead, FOOTAGE OF HER CHILDREN TENDING TO THEIR MOTHERS MEMORIAL GARDEN.

Basically, the whole thing 180’s into a SUPER hard mondo exploitation flick that absolutley takes advantage of Jaynes death for sensationalism. Its disgusting seedy and the WEIRDEST way to end what was otherwise a glam romp around Europe for 80 minutes.

Despite the totally out of left field ending. I really REALLY enjoyed this one, if you’ve ever seen anything put out by ‘Something Weird Video’ or you have an affinity for mondo as a genre, this things very much OF the genre but approaches the subject completley differently to the other mondo movies out there. I thought this was great fun, I’d easily recommend checking it out if you can find a copy. it’s just…SO damn campy.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-wild-wild-world-of-jayne-mansfield/

‘Once Upon a Forest’ is a rather simplistic, but non the less charming kids movie and is a latter-day offering from Hannah-Barbera. Its an animated talking animals movie for a starters, but the basic plot of the film follows three infant animals (a mouse, a hedgehog and a mole) as they set off on a grand adventure (well…as grand an adventure as can be had in 40ish minutes) to collect ingrediants for a remedy that will save the life of one of their younger friends after a freak accident on a nearby highway releases poisonous gas into the forest killing most of the plantlife and some of the animals in the process.

And this ones kind of difficult to get a read on, clocking in at just over 67 minutes, this thing really doesnt have time to do very much in the way of world building and the whole ‘adventure’ malarky. it’s quite literally, they head off to go do the thing, they do the thing, they come home with 3 minor trials that all get resolved in fairly unconvincing ways.

I think the film makers kind of realised it was a bit too short to really be able to drive home the ‘adventure’ element, so instead they rely on the strength of the characters they’ve created and some of the other world building elements to help try and win people over on charm alone.

I think it largely succeeds with that, the characters are all for the most part pretty likeable, the film develops them quite nicely, theres a reasonable humour to this thing (maybe a little mild for me personally but hey ho) and the script structuring, while a bit *too* quick to really be able to get a sense of a well earned arc, does at least have clear act structuing, character arcs and ends about as well as these things can do.

Its not the best kids film i’ve ever seen, but it does have a personality and vibe, which immediatley puts it above many of the botched offerings the mid 80s to mid 90s unleashed onto unsuspecting kids. I came away pleasently surprised by this thing, though not totally won over.

the art direction and animation is actually pretty impressive too, theres a nice fluidity to the characters movements, scenes have a nicely detailed depth to them and theres some lovely sequences that really pull the production up and above some of the mush put out around this time. The ONLY thing I really truely didnt like (and this is an odd one)…they give the animal creatures hyper realistic human hands. they’re super fluid and just…feel SO wrong to look at. Outside of that though, while I’d say the animation was maybe not up to the calibre of other kids films from around this time such as ‘The Pagemaster’ or ‘Rover Dangerfield’ it still is a colourful, bright and solid work.

The performances arrre a little grating in places, I think thats more of a ‘me as a grown adult watching a kids film’ problem though than an actual problem and Michael Crawford as Professor Cornelius is a mixed bag, but ultimately won me over before the end #Rrrrrrrumatism.

throw in a solid enough score that helps keep the whole thing tied together and I found this thing to be okay. I’d happily watch it again, I think kids would probably still kind of get on with it, though I think this will land MUCH better with quite young kids than it would,say, kids aged 6-10. Its just a kinda sorta, good film if you’ve gone through all the classics.

Oh, and because I couldnt really fit it in anywhere here. I dont know what Squirrels did to the folks at Hannah-Barbera, but there was NO need to make them just flat out racist to Badgers in this thing. NO NEED.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/once-upon-a-forest/

What a campy little treat ‘The Corpse Grinders’ is. Dont let the name fool you this things as grizzly as a kitten in all honesty. While it’s subject matter is wonderfully dark, theres very little in the way of actual ‘gore’ here and instead we’re just…left to soak in the ambience of the films visuals and frankly strange plotting.

In a nutshell, the film revolves around 2 business owners of a cat food company who decide they can save some money and cut some corners by getting a grave robber to provide them with dead bodies that then get fed into a grinder and pulped into cat food. The only downside is, the grim ‘mystery meat’ turns out to be WAY more popular than initially expected and inadvertantly creates an army of cannibal Cats and kittens who turn on their owners looking for a second course.

The films kind of split down the middle as we follow the business owners and the grave robber as they try their best to evade suspicion and capture by the authorities (with their anxieties eventually overtaking them leading to several bloody encounters) and a young doctor and nurse who begin investigating an increase in the number of cat attacks that seem to be linked to the cat food.

This is another seedy, grimy looking 70s exploitation flick. But it’s clearly got a black comedy streak running right the way through it, you’re not supposed to take this thing seriously, you’re supposed to just enjoy it for what it is. a VERY light on detail 73 minute romp thats here to sensationalise and make people smirk.

The scripts light as a feather, it’s got a clean 3 act structure, its very rudamentary in what it’s trying to do, but i’ll always prefer a film that does ‘simple’ really well than one that tries to do ‘complex’ and stuffs it up horrendously. its a zippy little feature that despite having a lot of padding is still entertaining even in its more bloated moments. I like the tone, I think it’s quite well paced and the dialogue is SO quotable with characters who dont exactly get the *best* material to work with, and absolutely dont feel like fully fleshed out beings. But they feel right at home in this bizarre world the scriptwriters made for the 70ish minutes they’re here.

The directions pretty solid for a low budget early 70s exploitation feature. I’ve seen WAY worse from around this time, it’s nice to see they had a styalized and clear vision of what they wanted to show and despite the fact it doesnt really do anything MAJORLY standout, and the fact it’s a bit wobbly in places on the scene structuring and set design, I think it’s actually pretty passable, ESPECIALLY for the exploitation genre.

The cine too is about the same level, they try to ‘class’ up the joint by using hard coloured lighting for most of the scenes in the basement (where they keep the grinder) and that really adds to the horror moments (particularly in the 3rd act) but there is a bit of a sense of them trying to create a faux sense of styalization in these moments. again i’d rather one try and not fully convince me, than not try and bore me.

Other than that compostion work is a bit mixed…there isnt a lot of B-roll for them to work with and the effects of the cats attacking people is ABSOLUTELY laughable. But then, im not coming to a film like ‘The Corpse Grinders’ for accurate autheticity. Im coming to watch people get fed into a meat grinder and served up to cats.

The soundtrack was also kind of unremarkable…I mean, it’s fine, it more than does the job in punctuating key scenes and feeling tonally appropriate. it just kind of felt a bit generic and like library tracks for the most part. It did the job, but little more than that.

Throw in some campy, over the top melodramatic performances that arnt so much chewing the scenery, more gorging on it. and you have a movie thats manic, VERY eccentric, short and to the point that gets in, makes you giggle and gets out. I honestly cant ask for more than that. Definitely recommended, theres a lot of fun to be had with this one.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-corpse-grinders/

I had rather a soft spot for this one, shot by a ragtag group of George Romeros usual wrecking crew, ‘Effects’ is a very rough and ready production that was shot on a shoestring, largely for fun, by a group of effects aritists, cam ops and actors who were having a bit of a lull work wise and wanted to shoot a movie on the fly.

The plot of the film is that…well a film crew are shooting a slasher in the woods that deals with possession, and over the course of 80ish minutes we start to get into the crews heads as they reveal their loves and hates, fantasies and fears and eventually this melting pot of personality clashes boils over turning the set into an ACTUAL bloodbath.

Not a whole lot to say on this one honestly, I thought the script was pretty solid as a psychodrama come slasher up until the 3rd act where I feel a bit like I missed a couple of plot beats because it snaps into ‘slasher’ mode VERY quickly, almost without warning. very mild spoilers, but given the film is so special effects heavy (when you have Tom Savini in the casting and crewing, of course it will be) I kind of liked that you could never quite tell when the gory violence on screen was supposed to be part of the movie, or whether it was ACTUALLY happening in the films universe.

That did however come with some drawbacks though, as…I feel they kind of overplayed the ‘Gory thing happens, Ahhhh it was just for the movie!’ schtick, once or twice across the runtime is fine, but they overdid that pullback and reveal a little bit for me. It also caused problems for me in the 3rd act when things really started to get grizzly because I wasnt quite sure whether these were real murders or faux ones…maybe a little more distinction between the quality of the effects would have helped this thing a bit.

Outside of that though, it’s decently paced, theres clean act structures that mostly transition fine enough (barring a slightly bumpy shift between the 2nd and 3rd acts) The characters are reasonably written, feel naturalistic and believable for the time and the dialogue has a quite decent flow to it. There were a couple of dry moments and the odd scene or two that felt a little bit like padding. But on the whole I liked that this film had space to breath and didnt overstay its welcome.

The direction was pretty tight for this kind of production, it’s clear that the midnight movie craze had hit this film pretty hard as everything has a grimey rough and ready ‘run ‘n’ gun’ vibe to it that suits the tone of the film perfectly giving it a seedy and sleazy edge that really helps take it to the next level.

As such the cine is a little rough around the edges too, but that works in the films favour, allowing them to mask some of the less than perfect effects shots and smooth over some of the more gratuitous gore shots VERY effectively. some scenes really do feel quite real. sequences are edited quite frantically, but it’s clear they had a decent editor on board who knew when to slow scenes right down to let the character development bed in. I do feel that they go a little *too* manic in the final acts around the woods as I regularly lost my a way during those sequences. but on the whole, I think this looks about as good as it can do fro the circumstance and budget.

The cast are all Romero regulars, so as you can imagine theres a certain standard being adhered to. I wont say its perfect because this is clearly being made for fun, and noone heres trying to win an academy award. But i’ve seen much MUCH worse in my time, and even for goofing, these guys do a decent job of keeping animate when they need to, but knowing when to play quiet for maximum effect.

What sealed the deal for me really was the soundtrack which is AWESOME. its a synth based work and…I dunno, for lack of a better word its a ‘vibe’ unto itself. easily one of the best things about and already pretty okay movie. and one thats worth checking out.

All in all? This is a fun little movie that really seems to be functioning more as a tech demo for gore effects and ‘tape’ for a cast in between movies than anything else. Above average for slasher thrillers of this time. I’d say if you like Savinis work and 80s low budget exploitation you’ll have a hoot with this thing! it’s gore wall to wall for the most part and it reminded me a little bit of early 80s ‘found footage’ mondo movies. I’d say give it a go if you can find a copy for a good price.

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

I’ll be posting a longer form review for this one later in the year. But in short. This is one of the most tonally unusual, demented and ‘all over the place’ quality wise movies that i’ve sat through in a long LONG time.

I’ve never encountered a movie that, in one scene can look like a fairly competent softcore feature, and in the next look like the guy who made it didnt even know which way to point the camera.

Some fantastic moments hindered by a feeling of it being a bit overlong and I still havent quite decided if the constant repetition is super annoying, or one of the funniest thing’s i’ve ever seen.

Dracula vs anyone should NOT feel like two neighbours having a spat about what day is ‘bin collection’ day. and yet…here we are.

This would pair up ASTOUNDINGLY with ‘Franky and his Pals’…go double feature this and that with a bowl of nachos and forget the world exists. In that sense. I recommend this.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/die-hard-dracula/