The Driller Killer (1979)

Of all the film I covered this season, probably the film that surprised me the most was “Driller Killer”. Generally when I go into a film with established expectations I usually come away either dissapointed or bitterly angry that a films been missold to me. But “Driller Killer” actually had the opposite effect on me.

After being told by at LEAST half a dozen people that this film was a “Slog”, was “Unremarkable”, was “A one watch film” my expectations were VERY low for this thing. I was expecting 80-90 minutes of unrelenting gore, little to no plot, sub part direction. just a gory trash film designed to shock for the sake of shock.

But what I actually found was quite a nuanced film that, while not shying away from gore, manages it in a very effective way. Using it sparingly and instead preferring to focus on psychodrama and the relationship structure between our core characters. this was actually a pretty decent little drama/thriller and had it had literally ANYTHING ELSE as a VHS cover in 1984, it’d probably have flown completely under the radar and gone unnoticed.

A raw and quite powerful watch. while I think the theatrical cut is about as much of this film as I can stomach. having an extrended cut on the Arrow Bluray is a very nice touch. If your coming to this film for horror, you’ll probably be dissapointed. but if your looking for a drama with bloodier elements I’d say this is actually a pretty solid watch.

I had to use Arrows newly commissioned artwork for the thumbnail on this review. Personally I vastly prefer the original artwork. But youtube frown on thumbnails that feature a guy literally getting drilled through the head.
by tytdreviews

Best of the Best 2 (1993)

Oh how the mighty have fallen. I wanted to like this one, I really did. but honestly it’s a total nothing of a film. a totally wasted opportunity thats so forgettable, that apart from the colosseum sections and being angry that Eric Roberts got top billing despite barely doing ANYTHING for the vast majority of the runtime. I can bearly remember anything about this film.

The original film was quite a decent effort, and set the bar very high on a sequel. I didnt expect the sequel to do better than the original. but I didnt expect the quality to drop quite so quickly. This is a series where my excitement to see part 3 went from “Oh man I cant wait!” to “If I can be bothered… in less than 80 minutes.

To add insult to injury, I cant even really show you exactly whats wrong with this film as due to a spurious copyright claim by returning absolute bastard company “Lasso Entertainment” who blocked the video worldwide and abused the appeals process to make sure my review never saw the light of day. Fortunately I uploaded an audio only version, so while its not what I envisioned. at least you can kind of see where I was going (a fully uncensored version with video will be making its way up to breach.tv in the new year.)

The posters literally the best part of this movie, and is 10 times cooler than the film ever will be.
by tytdreviews

Swamp Women (Swamp Diamonds) (1956)

This was the 2nd to last review I wrote for this season and the last proper review I wrote before heading into our seasonal christmas specials for one last hurrah. And it was quite literally a review that materialised out of thin air. with us now well into the 2nd year of the pandemic, I’ve not been able to go out rooting through the various flea markets, charity shops and other various places where cheap VHS/DVDs and Blurays could be found. and after working with my backlog for about 2 year with not much new coming in I was beginning to have a bit of difficulty around variety.

Dont get me wrong, Im not short of films to review you understand, I have PLENTY of those to be getting on with. rather, I have too many of certain specific genres. I cant move for Horror, Sci fi and martial arts movies. But im seriously low on decent avante garde, experiemental and art house films. I have a MORE than decent stock of action titles, but very little in the way of strange drama or thrillers.

When it came to scheduling this season I began to notice I was a bit horror heavy and I wanted to try and break things up a bit. so I hit the public domain film collections I have from mill creek looking for something that’d hopefully help keep a nice digest of content. and when nothing jumped out to me, I let my partner choose. the only rule I gave her was to try and avoid a film with a title that sounded like it was just going to be a straight horror. I said depending on the synopsis I was open to doing a creature feature and thats when she hit me with “Swamp Women” in our heads we envisioned a kind of murkey “Creature from the black lagoon” type affair with mutated swamp women wandering around the back waters picking off their victims!

In reality, we got a super early Roger Corman film thats basically just a super slow travel log with fast talking chasimatic ladies at the healm. and while I appreciate that this is most definitely NOT going to be to everyones taste, I cant help but acknowledge that as a trash fiend. I kind of enjoyed this one. even now, some 3 months after watching it. I still think about it every now and then just for HOW slow, but entertaining it really was.

The poster is WAY more interesting than the film itself.
by tytdreviews