TYTD Reviews

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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/