TYTD Reviews

If you ever wanted to know what a cocain fueled 80’s ‘adult’ take on ‘Mary Poppins’ would look like…buckle in.

The plot follows Terry, a travelling ‘marriage saver’ by which I mean she’s a sexy live in maid who helps rekindle couples sex drives by boinking them both and arranging sexy parties…Thats basically the movie. Our couple’s sex life has fallen on the rocks (seemingly because the wife doesnt give head) and Terry is bought in to jumpstart the marriage again…Their next door neighbour Dom (Ron Jeremy) becomes captivated by Terry and does everything in his power to get to her. Terry obliges. Everything gets sorted out…Oh and the house has a robot (featured in the poster art) that Terry puts a strap on onto and then has it parade around the house having sex with both Terry and the guests…

As a movie? Its fiiiine, the plots a little about the ordinary, but if it wasnt for the robot and some strangeness from Jeremy, it would be a fairly by by the numbers picture. its tonally a little campy which is nice, the pacings pretty solid, though the sex scenes themselves do go on for a little bit longer than i’d like without much of a shakeup in the variety.

Directions fine enough, they manage to capture the warm closeness that erotica requires. But while its above most of the lower budgeted efforts of the time, and it DOES look the part, it never really goes much above that which is a real shame.

The sex scenes themselves are shot professionally and have clearly been well thought out and choreographed. Apart from some pacing issues (which…I really put more down to the editing as the film is DESPERATE to make it to feature runtime) its all above board.

The cine is fine with good use of lighting, coloured gels and B-roll, the compositions are largely solid, but as mentioned the edit is a little on the sluggish side as it tries to pinch an inch wherever it can.

The performances are solid, they’re a bit more on the comedic bubbly side which is nice, and everyone seems to be having fun shooting this goofy little picture.

The only thing that does drag the film down is the score, which is TOTALLY out of tone and vibe with the rest of the film, in fact for the majority of the movie the music would imply the cast were in imminant danger or about to be victim of some kind of atrocity…which is odd or such a lighthearted picture…but there y’go.

All in all? its above average, but I wouldnt say it was one of the greats. a few moments of eccentricity on the part of the film makers isnt *quite* enough to fully win me over. But its technically proficient and the script does the job fine enough. I dont regret watching it, but I just wish they’d leaned into the campy oddness a little bit more.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/amber-aroused/

Very likely to be one of the luckiest things to happen in cult cinema history, When filming on ‘Flesh for Frankenstein’ got ahead of schedule, and it was realised that an entire second movie realistically could be shot using pretty much the same cast, locations and props as ‘Flesh’ Paul Morrissey rose to the challenge and delivered…BIZARRELY. a work that is somehow even BETTER than the film they were ACTUALLY originally sent to film.

While I personally will always lean more towards ‘Flesh for Frankenstein’ in terms of its totally mad performances and off the wall direction, cine and scripting. ‘Blood for Dracula’ feels like a much MUCH more focussed and crystalized iteration of Paul Morrisseys creative prowesse.

The plot? In essence, Dracula and his family are dying, they require virgins blood in order to maintain their lifeforce, anything less will weaken them, and if they dont find ANY blood, they’ll be dead within weeks. So…the count takes it upon himself to head out to a small town in Italy to try and court an upper middle class family into parting with one of their daughters, so that the family may feast.

Little does he realise, but Italian culture is VERY different from his own Romanian living…and that the daughters he’s trying to abduct are almost all DEFINITELY NOT virgins.

And…thats basically the plot. But its the execution of this that is honestly so mezmorising. The script, with less to process or explain than ‘Flesh’ feels SO much more foucussed and concise in telling its tale. Its a rock solid 3 acts with invisibly smooth gear changes between each act, tonally its much more paired back than ‘Flesh’ instead going for a kind of explosive intrusive dementedness, rather than ‘Fleshes’ out and out, bordering on the ‘Tommy Waisau’ levels of ultra campy over the topness.

Here, we just have unsettling weird awkwardness…But its played in such a way that its just…captivating. You’re waiting on every single scene change to find out what Udo Kier is going to do next with the character, what utterly bizarre line of dialogue is going to come out of the casts mouth…what could POSSIBLY be just around the corner.

What IS nice about this film though is that it feels much more in line with ‘traditional film making’ values. ‘Flesh’ at times felt a little abstract, like the film makers were exploring the medium itself and trying to ram as much in as possible. Here, the script is just a rock solid attempt at telling a story, and the visuals and tones delivered in the performances are what really elevate it into something really quite special.

The direction is rich, vivid, sumptuous and crystal clear in its intentions, whereas ‘Flesh’ was a little looser on nailing down exactly what it wanted to do, this films almost militant in wanting to revel in the luxurious locations, the set spaces and the surrounding villages where the film was shot. Its gorgeous, and the recent Severin films 4k release REALLY brings out all the vivid and beautiful location work to their fullest. Theres a kind of genius in the way this film is presented that really does feel like lightning in a bottle.

Same goes for the direction of the cast, everyone barring Udo Kier is clearly instructed, given a little wiggle room to improvise and seems to be really seizing the opportunity to just do something that seems quite unrestricted and fun. Everyone seems to be in lock step about what they want to do, everyone seems to know what the brief is, its as close to perfect with this kind of film as its likely to get really.

Why did I omit Udo here? Because Udo Kier here is on another plain of reality. In what is arguably the greatest performance of his career, he’s positively ethereal. Giving a performance that sincerely feels like a shapeshifting alien who isnt built to last on earth was shown a 5 minute video about early 70s culture, and then told to try and blend in seamlessly with humanity. Its unsettling, and he throws himself so totally into the role, that when you see him vomiting up blood and convulsing uncontrollably, you genuinely do begin to get a little worried that he isnt causing himself some harm of some kind. Its astounding honestly and easily one of the best performances of the era.

The cine is equally gorgeous, rich focussed. I’ve got no beef with it, shots are excellently composed, theres more than enough B-roll to go around, the sequences are expertly crafted, not one frame is badly handled. Its excellently executed.

While the cast really do nail the brief, and Udo is a force unto himself. I didnt *quite* enjoy the performances as much as ‘Flesh’ if im being totally honest. While theres nothing inherently wrong with the acting in this film. I personally do just like films that are a little more bombastic, and while this film trades in its subtlety excellently. If I had to be honest. it can get a little dry in places. Which is probably the worst thing I can say about this film really.

The scorings superb, better than ‘Flesh’…Look. Subjectively, I can only admit that this film takes what lessons were learnt from ‘Flesh’ and it builds on that experience to produce something that in almost every technical level surpasses ‘Flesh’.

HOWEVER; If I was asked which of the two i’d prefer to watch. I’d probably still go for ‘Flesh’. It’s imperfections give it the edge for me. But You’ll honestly be hard pressed to find a better vampire movie of the 70s than this. Its a mind altering experience that absolutely has earned its place on my shelf…and even though I wont be watching regulalry. When I do get a taste for ‘Blood for Dracula’ the fact that it’ll be within reach makes me feel SO much more comfortable.

Go watch this thing. Seriously.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/blood-for-dracula/

A really rather dull experience, there isnt a whole lot to say about ‘Slip into Silk’ other than ‘…yep, its a porn film.’

The plot involves a couple working at a radio station, the presenter ‘Silk’ is a smooth late night DJ who’s easily the stations biggest draw! But disaster strikes when they find out their boss is having an affair with a woman he ‘rescued from a seedy massage parlour’. He needs to give her a good excuse to keep being in the office, and she’s keen to get bedded in as his mistress. So they plan to fire both Silk and her partner/Director so she can fill the slot, and *sigh* he can fill hers… (I felt so dirty typing that…But Im a dedicated professional so we do what we must…)

Anyway; the rest of the film follows three couples, Silk and her partner, the boss and his mistress and the bosses receptionist and her partner. Largely gossiping about whats going on at the station inbetween prolongued Oral scenes. Eventually the devise a plan to film the boss having sex with his mistress and then hold him to ransom in exchange for Silk keeping her job…and thats…about…it. That’s the movie.

And honestly, I was just kind of bored by it. The script is SO basic…the most basic thing i’ve sat through in a good while, its a clean 3 acts that keep a steady meandering pace for 90+ minutes and it never gets more spicy than Vanilla quite honestly. Non of the characters have any sense of charisma or charm, the dialogue is overly blunt and not particulalry interesting. the tone is flat.

The direction is ‘of a standard’ its not unwatchable, but a good 75% of this thing is oral scenes, and the problem with oral heavy films is, you’ve seen one scene, you’ve seen the movie pretty much. The actual sex scenes themselves are often shot at quite a distance which puts a barrier between the performers and the audience, the mid sex patter is tepid. and there isnt enough creative vision here to really make this thing stand out on its own merits.

the cine is bland, basic scene building, basic but functional editing, scenes just roll on and on and on, never really rising above ‘passable’ theres very little colour use or interesting lighting…its bland.

The performances are beige as well, non of the cast bring any energy to the production, I was basically falling asleep throughout, even Jamie Gillis cant save this thing as a border sadist boss. its one of his most half hearted performances.

In fact, the only good thing about this picture was its soundtrack. It sounds really good! its got a kind of ‘Late night love’ vibe to it that I really quite liked…

If you’re into solely vanilla and nothing else, then this might do something for you. But if you value eroticism, a solid story, characters and actors who appear to give a damn and something a bit more than the bog standard. You absolutely will want to look elsewhere.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/slip-into-silk/

‘New York Ninja’ was a genuinely surprising encounter for me. The initial pitch piqued my interest, an employee for Vinegar Syndrome was on a tour of the facility on his first day and was shown a pile of film cans marked ‘New York Ninja’ with the only information the staff had about the prints at the time being that it was an ‘unfinished’ film that was acquired as part of a larger film collection from a film company that went bust in the late 1980s.

The employee (soon to be re-director and re-writer of THIS film) badgered the higher ups SO much about exploring what this thing was, that they eventually relented and let him explore the contents. And what was found were silent rushes of an unfinished film shot almost to completion in 1984, that was basically missing some shots from the end of the film, and the effects/model shots.

The audio for the rushes was long gone, as was the script. The director was famous martial artist John Liu, who by this time was long retired, living in Taiwan and not at ALL interested in discussing the project. So…With a blessing that amounted to ‘Do what you want with it’ Director Kurtis Spieler scanned the rushes in HD, assembled them as best he could and got royalty from B-movies past to bring the film back to life with a new Voiceover track that mimicked the old style Martial Arts films (I.E: The dialogue doesnt *really* match the mouth movements, but the general gist of the story is still put across) and thus, ‘New York Ninja’ was reborn in 2021!

And I had a really good time with it!

The plot follows John, a loving husband to his wife ‘Nita’, on Nita’s birthday John surprises her with some jewellrey and Nita surprises HIM by telling him that she’s pregnant. Delighted! John heads off to go and prepare a wonderful dinner to celebrate, but disaster strikes when Nita goes to try and break up an attempted abduction of a woman in the streets and winds up with her throat slit.

It turns out that huge gangs of punks (who…incidentally, look like they were rejects from a Godfrey Ho adaptation of ‘The Warriors’) are kidnapping large numbers of women for an unknown purpose…This purpose is later revealed when we meet out ‘big boss’ for the movie ‘The Plutonium Killer’ a strange man who seems to depend on keeping his body highly radioactive in order to live. He can burn people/things just by touching them, and is deathly allergic to sunlight.

He’s arranging for these women to be sold to an equally shady business partner for, unknown means. Nita got in the way of one of those abductions and paid with her life.

Johns heartbroken, but his friends and work colleagues, Journalists Randy and Jack drop by to comfort him. After pressuring the detective who’s looking into the case for answers, John decides enough is enough and suits up to fight crime himself as ‘The New York Ninja’ word spreads quickly about his work, and the gangs begin to both speed up their operations AND try to shut the Ninja down before he gets *too* close to the truth.

And I think the work done on this film is really quite remarkable. to take, what amounted to silent footage, all shot in a random order with next to no rhyme or reason and produce something thats not only perfectly coherent, BUT FUN! and really well made…well its broadly speaking unheard of.

The script is punchy, light and playful in tone, rollerskating Ninjas were something I dont think i’d ever considered needing in my life, but this film really delivers on that. Naturally, when your dealing with a situation like this where there are portions of the film missing, unshot or not really applicable, there are going to be *some* problems along the way…The biggest one I found was with the overall pacing.

So the first act opens strong! REALLY strong! really setting the audience up for a good time, the second act just about maintains itself for *most* of the runtime, but in the back end of the second act, it starts to feel a little bit like its running out of steam. It starts getting a little repetitious, sequences begin to feel like they’re being dragged out a bit and scenes just dont seem to feel as punchy as they do in the opening third. It JUST about starts to get to the point where I was beginning to drift away a bit, when it smacks RIGHT back into the action about halfway into the 3rd act, which is ultimately what saved it. But for a not insignificant poriton of this film, things did start to get a little dull.

Tonally its playing quite nicely with hammy over the top comedy moments and genuine drama and thrills. I think they nail the tone pretty solidly, and given the TOTAL lack of production reference material, they’ve really managed to give the characters a new lease of life, with almost all of them having multiple layers of compelxity and interest. they’re really good fun!

The directions pretty solid too! John really seemed to get what he wanted out of this picture and for the most part theres a strong creative vision behind the camera leading to some…pretty defining shots for this era of film making. Like…I havent a doubt in my mind that had ‘New York Ninja’ been completed in 1984, it STILL likely would have got a Vinegar Syndrome release at some point, because its just that kind of movie. With its tongue planted firmly in its cheek, its there to have fun, and theres plenty of good moments to be had.

Add to this some FAB fighting choreography with masked close contact fighting for the majority of the film, some wonderful examples of weapon play and a complexly planned, but effortlessly executed sequences result in a BIG selling point for this film, its got the old style asian martial artist ‘vibe’ put through the lens of an American action movie, and thats a taste and feeling that I very much get on with.

As for the cine, its a little rudamentary if im being honest…there are a few ‘WOW’ shots in the mix across the runtime, but broadly speaking the shots are pretty basic and it really would have been nice to have seen a bit more experimentation in play on this, as when they do go the extra mile it REALLY looks great. With some tremendous use of colour across the runtime.

Lighting is a little underused here, a lot of the film is lit pretty flat, which was a bit of a dissapointment, as it would have been nice to see maybe coloured gels, neon, even a touch of chiascuro maybe worked into things to help styalize it a bit more…But…it’s a 1984 low budget ninja movie…sooooo…I guess I shouldnt expect TOO much from it.

The editing work on this is astounding. Miraculous speaking as an editor. I’ve seen some film maker recycle unused footage into a totally different movie a couple of times in the past with mixed success, but THIS thing…if you didnt know it was a ressurected film, you’d think it was made at the time. they’ve absolutely nailed the tone, pacing, cut styles and transitions of an early 80s cinema production and it looks and feels GORGEOUS and barring ONE shot where they had to put a CGI explosion in (you’ll know where when you see it) that DID throw me out of the movie a bit I think it does a superb job for the vast majorityu of the runtime…With lots of lovely cutaway footage and a solid pace to the edit structure. its amazing.

I wont go too much into performances as its a bit of a split production, the on screen actors are all fine, a little over animated and hammy in places, but I like my martial arts movies when they do stuff like that, the VO work is a B-movie celebrity smorgesboard. With the likes of Cynthia Rothrock, Michael Berryman and Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson taking up key roles. Again, for the most part they absolutely nail the assignment. But there were one or two ‘cameos’ on the V/O front where it did wobble a *little* bit for me…not because the performances were bad at all…but rather…because the character on screen is in there late 20’s to late 30’s and the VO actor is clearly in there 60’s and 70’s and has been chain smoking for at least 20 years. It only really happens with a couple of characters…but it was noticable enough to throw me off a bit…which was a bit of a shame.

And the score…good lord, its perfect. Voy3ger (Voyager 3) provided this one and its as good an 80s synth score as your likely to get in the 21st century. Its pounding, heavy rocky poppy goodness and I ABSOLUTELY regret not nabbing the vinyl of this one when I had the chance.

All in all? ‘New York Ninja’ as a standalone work? is a fun and interesting movie that does more than enough to keep an audience engaged for the most part, but does sag a little in the middle and has a few production problems here and there…but as a reconstructed work with ZERO reference materials to work with? its nothing short of amazing.

While I do wonder just how successful this film would be today had it HAD a release in 1984/85…The sheer fact that Kurtis and the VS team ACTUALLY persevered with this and turned out a DAMN enjoyable movie will never not be beyond impressive to me. Absolutely worth your time to check out. If you arnt watching the ‘New York Ninja’ this weekend. What the HELL ARE you doing!?

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/new-york-ninja/

A VERY unusual picture tonally, ‘Joy’ is an adult feature that left me with more questions than answers quite honestly…and im still not entirely sure how I feel about it even now…

The plot wont *really* sound like anything new or fresh to anyone who’s seen more than half a dozen of these older features. But its the execution thats left me headscratching.

The film follows ‘Joy’ a god fearing christian virgin girl who’s ‘Going steady’ with a boyfriend, but saving herself till marriage. The film opens with her and her boyfriend falling out because she wont ‘put out’. But all of thats about to change as, once Joy gets home, she finds her mothers away and she gets a knock at the door. On opening it, 2 men burst in to her mothers apartment and rape her. At first she’s repulsed and horrified. But as it goes on, she begins to really get into it…and I mean REALLY. get into it. as she chases her attackers off demanding more sex that they really cant provide.

So…she heads out into the streets engaging in a string of sexual assaults against men who, are established as having libido issues, until Joy sexually assaults them…at which point they’re miraculously cured, and dont want to press charges!

The Police however are forced to treat crime as crime and Lt. Hardcock is put on the case of tracking Joy down and locking her up before anymore attacks occur.

Thats pretty standard porn plotting. But what I wasnt expecting, was for the 2nd act of the film to essentially turn into David Cronenbergs ‘Shivers’ as news of Joys assaults hit the mainstream news, HOARDS of women suddenly become empowered to LITERALLY go out into the street, knock men to the ground and ‘take’ what they want…Hell, theres even a border parody of ‘The Birds’ in which a cop becomes trapped in a phone box while a group of women hungrily try to get in.

And…to try and keep it as simple as possible. this really is a game of two halves.

The scripts a total mess. Putting aside the fact that this is pitching itself as a ‘comedy rape movie’…Which…thats a loaded opening gambit right there. It seems to REALLY struggle to nail what kind of tone it wants to go for. The initial apartment rape is harrowing, and the subversion is interesting but not surprising. I was expecting the film to veer off from here into a kind of ‘Girl Gang’/’Post Roughie’ era picture of Joy forging a girl gang to go and maraud the streets.

But instead it quickly slips from Harrowing, to slapstick comedy, before kind of settling into a…not exactly comedic, but definitely lighthearted picture…which is then turned harrowing AGAIN when one of the cops catches Joy.

The women rising up and raping random men is played offhandedly, its just something that runs in the background of the movie as a way to fill out the second act, and doesnt really get resolved or even explored beyond its introduction. It would have been much more interesting to follow the women in this picture as they Martyr Joy and challenge the patriarchy…But…this film isnt about female empowerment, every scene is still written and framed from the perspective of a mans desires, with even the one token lesbian scene playing more for titlation rather than ‘Awakening’.

It ends up a little bit repetative and at an hour and 13 its a little slower and one note than I personally would have liked. The characters dont really get to develop all that much, the endings a little dissatisfying and the film has a real problem with establishing characters, then binning them off never to return.

It feels poorly structure, poorly planned out and really could have done with more of a focus than ‘Hey! what if the WOMAN! Raped THE GUY!?!’ as its only feature. There was kind of potential here to do something interesting…and they just…didnt.

Thats not to say its all bad, the film does have its moments…it’s passably one note…but just being ‘passable’ is a bit dissapointing. Sharon Mitchell is delightful as Joy and really brings an innocent energy to proceedings. Shes great in role, but it would have been nice to have seen her work a bit more range, because basically she only gets two performance styles here…’Innocent’ and ‘terrified’.

What DOES save this film really is the cine and direction. while it may not have been a complex vision. Harley Mansfield here has delivered a picture that does have some clear creative thought behind it. The direction within the scenes is relatively solid…even if it does kind of get a bit tonally lost when all the scenes are stitched together. In each scene theres a clear creative vision behind what’s wanting to be seen. and I appreciate that, especially given this is a mid to late 70s feature, and there was a not zero chance that this could have wound up looking sickly.

direction of the sex scenes is largely solid, it feels intimate and the use of close up shots and b-roll really help sell the scenes as being quite a bit more intense than they would have been in lesser hands. Theres a fixation on oral here that does seem to overshadow the other scenes in the film. I was hoping for a bit more variety…but y’cant win’em all…Whats shown here is consistent, and above average for the era. I just kind of wished they’d experimented a little bit more with camera placement, reaction shots and framing.

Shots are well composed on the cine front, colour use is a bit bland, its all a bit brown and beige…perfect 70s fodder, but a bit uninspiring, the sequences are cut together well, which makes the fact theres such MASSIVE tonal shifts on a scene by scene basis, all the more dissapointing.

The scorings a bit of a let down too. its pretty much all diagetic sound for the most part…and what tracks that ARE non diagetic are kind of ‘by the numbers’ still the audios crisp, maybe a bit more ADR during the sex scenes would have just tipped it into being something a bit ‘extra’ in my opinion…but I’ll settle for whats here.

‘Joy’ ultimately struck me as a film that was having a bit of an identity crisis, taking a controversial and harrowing issue like Rape and being non comittal as to whether it wanted to play a reversal of the role as something comedic, harrowing or seedy. It never quite finds its feet tonally and as such fumbles the one thing that really made it stand out. That being said, the direction, casting and sequence structuring is solid and the cine isnt half bad if not a little uninspired. Its a weird film. One I dont think i’ll catch again for a while…but its not bad. Not my taste, but above a lot of the tutt this era of the adult film industry was shoving out the door…Your milage may vary.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/joy-1977/

Somewhere between ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2’, ‘The Corpse Grinders’, ‘Sweeny Todd’ and ‘Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers’ lies ‘Auntie Lee’s Meat Pies’, a film that sounds good on paper, but ultimately is a little underwhelming.

The plot itself follows a manson family-esq group of young women led by the titular Auntie Lee, who’s meat pie business has gone from strength to strength in recent months with her barely being able to keep up with demand…and thats NOT just because of beef shortages.

Y’see Auntie Lee’s girls are on a mission to lure unsuspecting horny guys back to their family home, where they’re mutilated, dropped down a chute into the basement where they’re ground up and seasoned. The only male who’s in on things is Auntie Lee’s son (played by Michael Berryman) who seems to be having some psychological problems that cause him to snap into violent self harming rages.

Now…you’d think thered be enough scope there to really put together some kind of crazy, colourful over the top plotline about the ONE group of people who managed to ‘Best’ Auntie Lee…and, you’d be part right. But not in any of the ways that really count.

Unfortunatley; the script for this one seemingly didnt *quite* have the budget to really truely invest in the narrative. and what should/could have been something a bit more adventurous, unfortunately ends up being really quite basic.

The script splits the film into an A plot and a B plot. The B-plot actually lead proceedings here, as we follow Berrymans character as he’s ‘Deputized’ by the local sheriff and given the VERY important job of taking a flat tyre into to town to get it replaced. NOT realising that he has a trunk full of bones and mutilated limbs.

The A plot takes almost half the films length to ACTUALLY get going, with over 40 minutes of the film dedicated to just setting up the girls, Auntie Lees business, murdering a couple of randomers and back and forth idle chatter about life in this small backwater town. with maybe a couple of monologues from Auntie Lee about how the girls need to be VERY careful when getting up to their ‘Activities’.

The ACTUAL A-plot of the film sees a touring band breakdown near Auntie Lees house, so two of her girls usher the band in and…as you can imagine they slowly one by one find out that this isnt just some kind of sex cult.

I think the biggest problem I have with the script here is just that it idle’s for SO long on one level of tone. When it comes to films like these I really want to see the ante being ‘upped’ incrementally. It can be slow burn, but it has to build up to SOMETHING. This movie starts off by building a pace. But right around the time the main A-plot ACTUALLY kicks in, it locks itself into a steady but fairly stiff tone and then it just never really gets any better.

When I come to a movie like this, I want the 3rd act to be ‘Braindead’ levels of blood, guts and gore, I want limbs flying, heads exploding, myterious oozing fluids. I want over the top hammy weirdness. For a film like this, thats trying to do what its trying to do, I want to get to the end of it in the mindspace that I couldnt get a fix like that from any other picture.

This film doesnt deliver that. It really almost feels like two films stuck together with the opening half being the girls just picking off random drifters and criminals while their brother goes to get a tyre changed. and then the second half is the Rock band pretty much meeting the same fate while Berrymens character, a local sheriff and a new in town agent investigating dissapearences slowly start to piece things together.

Its also a film that just kind of…stops, rather than ending with anything satisfying. Which undercuts the 3rd act entirely leaving it feeling like we have a WAY overstuffed first and second act, and nothing to show for the finale.

As mentioned the tone of the thing starts of on a slow but steady burn. It builds up right up until around the hour/hour and ten mark, at which point what we have is pretty much ‘locked in’ and thats it. Its billed as a ‘horror comedy’ and…that it is. But it feels almost like someones told you a joke, but left off the punchline. the ‘Bite’ this film so DESPERATELY needs to seal the deal and make the thing memorable is painfully absent. our crazy cult girls dont ever rise above ‘getting turned on by murder’ Which…is just SO DONE by this point in film history. it’s effect is even lesser by 2024.

The characters are all kind of drab and one note Auntie Lee is the only one who gets any real depth and complexity…and even thats underplayed…That’s not to MENTION the dialogue…which is peaks and troughs pretty much throughout. Theres some decent gags and one liners sprinkled in…but not enough to really out and out win me over and some of the back and forthing between characters really is just dire.

Not to go TOO hard into spoilers, but it finishes on an open ending, and the way it ends really kind of just left me thinking ‘well…thats 100 minutes I didnt hate…but wont watch again’.

On the other hand, the set designs and direction are all wonderful, theres some really solid colour use here with block blues, reds and greens all REALLY getting used to the fullest of effect, theres clearly a strong creative vision in mind for this production and I think they totally nail the vibe of that distinct era of ’90s horror comedy thats campy but still strong on horror without just being silly’ Mixing the colour with gross out shot setups is a real nice touch. Honestly; the script may not have been my cup of tea, but I cant really flaw the visuals.

Direction of the cast however, might as well be skinimax for as intricate as it gets, some gyrations and basic ‘Enter here’, ‘say line here’, ‘exit here’ is about as involved as it gets. Its really quite dissapointing and the lack of a strong cast direction on this, causes a lot of floundering which, in a stronger directors hands, could have been used to turn things rather acidic on the comedy front.

The cine is absolutely helped by the direction, theres plenty of B-roll the colour choices really help pull this thing up, the edit is relatively nicely handled. but despite interesting set designs and colour use, there wasnt really anything that hit me and made me well and truely sit up and pay attention. sequences are all kind of just…fairly by the numbers, the kills in the film arnt really shot to dramaticize the deaths. they’re largely set up almost as ‘test shots’ that somehow made their way into the final film (a decapitation scene in which the cameras placed in a low wide angle stood out to me as being particularly poorly executed because you dont really feel like your in the action as it happens).

Its not bad cine by any stretch, its just a tad generic. Again, I feel had there been a bit more of an ambitious hand on set to push the crew. The end results may have been a bit more…adventurous.

As for the cast?…They wernt for me personally. were they hammy? yes. absolutely. Did they push that mania to the limit? no. and thats what lets this thing down for me. It feels like a Troma movie, but a troma movie where the cast have all been told to tone it back a bit. they’re stiff and unblinking, and I get they want to really sell the culty vibes. But for me? that backfires when theres no real ‘breaking point’ no moment when you realise these people are truely unhinged, theres no blood bath. they’re calm, relatively quiet and ‘straight laced’ from beginning to end. and that seems like a missed opportunity to me.

And the score was SO good that I couldnt whistle you a bar of it if you asked me to 🙂 it was THAT memorable and worked THAT well. as a backhanded compliment, It wasnt BAD enough that I noticed it either…so…win win?

Auntie Lee’s meat pies was, overall ‘Fine’. I feel you may love this one if you have a strong ‘rented from blockbuster’ style nostalgia for this particular era and genre of movie. But as someone who didnt really get involved with that side of the horror-sphere growing up, I dont really have the same feelings for it.

While the visuals are strong, and its clearly had a decent creative steerage behind it, The script ultimatley feels a bit flat to me, as do the cast and the lack of a memorable score combined with an underwhelming ending means that…while this isnt a film thats so bad i’ll never watch it again, it may well be a VERY long time before I go back to it. And…I probably couldnt recommend it either.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/auntie-lees-meat-pies/

Watched on Saturday February 3, 2024.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/deadstream/1/

Given that this film is considered the ‘B’ feature on Scream factories double disc bluray release of this film…and that, their ‘A’ feature was ‘Munchies’ which was horrible. I really didnt have a whole lot of faith when it came to ‘Munchie’…but y’know what? its not half bad! It’s not good! it’s CERTAINLY not GOOD. But it’s ABSOLUTELY not BAD.

The plot? A kid who’s life sucks (he’s a transfer student who has no friends, is constantly bullied, is failing at school, has a crush on a girl who doesnt know he exists and his mums dating a total weirdo loser who’s set to become his new stepdad) finds a mysterious trunk while out exploring the backwoods. and on opening it releases ‘Munchie’ a HELLSCAPE of a puppet voiced by Dom Delouise who has ancient magical powers and has existed since the dinosaur days.

Together the pair will have many adventures that’ll slowly turn the boys life around, and maybe teach him the true value of friendship along the way.

And…honestly? I didnt have a strong feeling either way on this one, the script is fine…it’s of the same ilk as ‘Howard the Duck’ or ‘Robot in the Family’. I thought it was a little slower than i’d have liked on the pacing and the humour was VERY hit or miss. I did quite like the self aware ‘dream’ flashes that happen periodically in which we see the kid being dead or attending a student couincil meeting thats pitched like ‘Miss world’ but some of the one liners are awful, and the physical comdy is hit and miss (no pun intended).

The tones actually not too bad, its a self aware family movie comedy, and thats basically what you get, i’d argue that it’s maybe aimed a little more at families with younger children rather than your older child/teen ‘family’. But given some of the utter dross that sits inside this genre of film making. This is a VERY strange, but ultimately harmless picture.

The directions a little madcap, and at times incoherent, but that only really adds to the sense of chaos that this thing brings to the table, I didnt really have any strong issues with it. I will say the creative decision behind the ‘Munchie’ design will haunt my every waking hour from now until the heat death of the planet. Quite why they went for ‘Fanged Baked Potato in a wig’ is beyond me…as was the decision to make his mouth flap about worse than the animatronic ‘Ninja Turtles’. It barely matches ANY of his dialogue and for the most part, they cut away from Munchie when he’s talking.

Cast direction however DID seem like it was fairly well communicated, everyone seemingly knows what kind of film this is, and delivers an intentionally overly corney and campy performance from start to finish, which I thought was a nice touch.

The cine, much like the direction is chaotic, inconsistent, but just about holds it together for a good chunk of the runtime. I wasnt totally won over by it, I feel like there wasnt much in the way of variations on tyhe compositional choices and the lack of a distinct colour and lighting style was a tad problematic for me. But again, i’ve seen worse…but this was a tad dissapointing.

The performances are all fairly lively, there are a few genuinely strange delivery choices that I thought were fun, and everyone feels animate, engaged in doing whatever they can to keep the thing holding peoples attention. Its fine.

The soundtracks hideous.

I think this is a fine enough family film to have on while the family is doing other things, but i’ll admit, by the 3rd act, my mind was beginning to wander a bit. had it been another 10 minutes shorter, it’d have lost ‘feature length’ runtime…but would have been better for it. An almost delerious watch in places…I’d say it might be worth catching ‘Munchie’ once…but your milage DEFINITELY may vary.

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

Watched on Sunday June 19, 2022.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/new-york-ninja/1/

Given world events at the time, it was seemingly all but inevitable that the ‘Jonestown Massacre’ would permeate into the ‘Cannibal’ genre eventually…While the events of Jonestown would be more fully realised in 1979’s ‘Guyana Cult of the Damned’ Umberto Lenzi would put his own skin into the game with 1980’s ‘Eaten Alive!’ a film that…doenst quite feel as powerful as his next Cannibal effort ‘Cannibal Ferox’ But in others feels a little more interesting.

The plot follows a young woman by the name of Sheila who’s sister has recently gone missing in the jungles, a string of ‘cobra venom’ related deaths brings the detectives to her door as they believe the abduction and the murders are in some way interconnected. And so Sheila is given the chance to fly out to her sisters last known whereabouts to try and locate her. On landing she finds a mercinary for hire by the name of Mark, who she promises a significant pay day to if he can help her find her sister.

While on their journey, their canoe capsizes and they’re rescued intot he care of…What at first seems like a fairly ordinary tribe…That is until it’s revealed that this is actually a pretty far gone religious cult who’s charismatic leader has been doping his congregation in order to manipulate them and use them how he wishes.

It’s revealed that Sheilas sister was taken to the cult some time ago and that she’s been held largely in a drugged out state for the past few weeks. With our protagonists facing the possibility of having to take down a large, organized and heavily armed malitia protecting the cult. It may in fact be the crazed cannibals who live on the outskirts of the village who’ll help to save the gang.

The script for this ones a bit of a mixed bag, given the proximity to Jonestown, I feel it handles the ‘cult’ element fairly well…but given this is sold as a ‘cannibal film’ I feel theres a distinct lack of Cannibalism presented here.

Of course, the tropes are all here, expect PLENTY of VERY graphic animal cruelty (ugh.) lots of very fake simulated rape scenes, gore, torture, genitle mutilation…all the stuff that appears in your bog standard Cannibal flick…its just really missing the ACTUAL Cannibals…who do get a few scenes, but really arnt the central point of this feature.

And I feel that works agains the film really as, while it is refreshing to see a ‘cannibal’ movie that isnt just ‘A load of folk get lost in the jungle and slowly get hunted down by tribesmen and tortured graphically to death’ its also dissapointing that the ‘cult’ angle they replace it with is actually quite underwhelming and doesnt really offer much.

A few rape scenes, a few fight scenes and repetative shots of people drinking mind altering drugs from coconuts alongside lengthy sermons on the mount is about as interesting as it gets and it really impacts the overall pacing of the picture for me.

The film opens fairly strong, but around the mid point (when they arrive at the compound) it basically slows down quite significantly and becomes MUCH MORE about them setting the tone and atmosphere of the creepy cult. theres a lot of ‘runaround/get captured/escape/get captured again’ moments that populate the 2nd and 3rd acts, if you know much about Jonestown you’ll spot how this ends from a mile away. Its just kind of flat in that sense.

The directions a bit of a mixed bag as well, while its a coherent picture, I wouldnt say this was anywhere near as developed as ‘Cannibal Ferox’…the gore and practical effects are lacking the rawness Lenzis Later works had. its technically on the level and does show a coherent vision…But I just feel like it really struggles to bring the energy it SHOULD be bringing to the forefront.

Direction of the cast is solid, actually probably one of this films better qualities. But there are times where I feel again like the energy thats being bought into this film is the wrong kind, going more for hammy over the topness than a more real feeling for what it must be like to be in that situation. The cast hit their marks and deliver their lines fine enough. I just wish there was a little more subtlety thrown in to help give a little more contrast against the hamminess.

The cines basic, but functional. shots are a little mixed in terms of composition. It feels like Lenzis concept of ‘filming madness’ is just to basically swing the camera around like a lunatic and chop it all together in post. Colour is a little muted here but i’d say just about does the job (its certainly not a washed out picture by any sense)

I feel its the edit that really kind of lets this one down, sequences dont feel particualrly consistent or precise. It feels at times like they’ve been cut in a hurry, or maybe need another couple of passes to really get it over the line. Its not abysmal. But it feels like a workprint that had a soundtrack slapped on it in places rather than a finished product.

Speaking of soundtrack, that IS one element this film really has going for it. The scores superb! a really solid funky 70s bob intercut with…basically a score eerily similar to ‘Cannibal Holocaust’. I liked the ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ OST…and I liked this one.

I wouldnt say ‘Eaten Alive!’ was a bad movie. Far from it. But I will say that I struggled a bit with it. Its overly long and really would have benefitted from losing about 20 minutes or so. the amount of needless runarounds and padding had me clockwatching by the 3rd act and the lack of ‘edge’ and ‘rawness’ that would later be seen in films like ‘Ferox’ and ‘Holocaust’ just kind of left me wishing this film had gone just a tiny bit harder in ‘shock factor’

The ‘Cannibal’ subgenre is notoriously a mixed to poor quality area. And i’d say that ‘Eaten Alive!’ was probably one of the better offerings out there! But its far from being a peak representative of the genre. It’d probably pair up really well with ‘Cannibal Ferox’ honestly. So i’d say, if your just getting into the ‘Cannibal’ genre, this one should probably be on your list of films to check out. If you’ve seen a few but havent got to this one yet. Its one of the better ones in my opinion and may well be worth your time.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/eaten-alive-1980/