The Devils (1971) Dir: Ken Russell

Ken Russell's censor baiting tale of fornicating nuns and demonic possession is a challenging affair.

The plot:
It's 17th century France, and a powerful Cardinal seeks to take ultimate control of his dominion. All have fallen before his sword save for one enclave, governed over by a decidedly dubious Priest, who refuses to bow to orders. Demanding a proclamation before he will yield authority, a ruse is plotted to topple his authority: accuse the priest of demonic possession, and all who follow him.

Ken Russell is a filmmaker who, intentionally or otherwise, courts controversy. Whether it's challenging relationship and gender boundaries in Women in Love or baffling audiences with his interpretation of Lair of the White Worm, his is a style that is most definitely unique.
The term auteur seems to have been coined for him alone.
With images designed to shock, especially when the nuns cast off their chaste and innocent shackles and set about masturbating and fornicating with some gusto, this is a movie with one clear intent: to challenge the viewer at every turn.
And it's a tough watch.
I'm not one easily offended and, truthfully, at no point was I shocked by this, but I was fatigued by the experience. As the movie progresses, so Russell cranks up the intensity to levels that Oliver Stone circa Natural Born Killers could only ever dream of.
An important movie, and one that has only recently been reinstated to it's original form and, to the best of my knowledge, one that remains banned in the UK in it's uncut state.
A film that every movie lover should see, though I suspect only a select few will find much to enjoy.

4 out of 5

Goldilocks and the Three Bares (1963) Dir: Herschell Gordon Lewis

Possibly the worst film I've ever seen.

The plot:
There isn’t one.
Well, two spectacularly arrogant and objectionable men, one a nightclub singer, the other a stand-up comedian, begin to date women who spend their spare time at a nudist colony.
We then follow their time at said colony.

Let me be clear about this:
The only reason I even glanced at this was because director Herschell Gordon Lewis was the man that brought the world The Gore Gore Girls, Blood Feast and The Wizard of Gore, films that redefined what was acceptable visually, and movies that any self respecting horror fan must see.
As exploitation credentials go, that's pretty hard to beat.
Here, again pioneering, he attempted to add an element of credibility to the 'nudie-cutie' genre which blossomed in the 60's and, whilst he may have achieved just that, as a viewer nearly 50 years hence, it is barely watchable.
Important only for Gordon Lewis completists, this is one of the very few films I wish I hadn't even bothered hitting the play button for.
Woefully awful, avoid this at all costs.

1 out of 5

Warlock: The Armageddon (1993) Dir: Anthony Hickox

Cult director Anthony 'Waxwork' Hickox serves up a silly, spooky sequel to a cult classic.
The plot:
Julian Sands returns in his role as the campest Warlock this side of Devildom, son of Satan himself and, in a quest to allow his father to walk on the face of the Earth, he must collect a series of gemstones which, once acquired, will allow him to open up a portal to Hell at the precise moment of a solar eclipse.
In his way, a family of druids and the white witch sensibilities of the delectable Paula Marshall.
And what a load of old nonsense it is, but very definitely in a good way.
Sands hams it up with some gusto as the evil one and, one for the ladies, we get a fleeting flash of his little pecker.
The special effects are trademark Hickox, with much used made of object overlay as well as some rudimentary digital effects.
With the odd moment of gore - proper physical gore, mind, not this CGI crap we have to put up with these days, and quite gruelly it is too - and a good visual style, this is entertaining schlock horror and the kind of movie which, sadly, they just don't make anymore.
Liked it quite a lot.

4 out of 5

Sucker Punch (2011) Dir: Zack Snyder

Simply dreadful.
The plot: A young woman, known only as Baby Doll, is sent to an institution by her wicked stepfather soon after the passing of her mother.
Once there, she retreats into a lavish world of fantasy as she plots her escape…
It near beggars belief that a movie with so much action, so much on screen mayhem, so much movement and chaos and momentum could be so utterly, crushingly, mind-bogglingly, stupefyingly, absurdly dull, dull, dull.
This is a movie that features Nazi zombies.
This is a movie that features relentless, emotionless cybernetic killbots.
This is a movie that features a fire breathing dragon.
That features samurai swords, a city's destruction, machine guns, biplanes and blimps. Not to mention an assortment of sexy young things wearing the kind of fetish gear with the power to make grown men weep.
And yet.
Aaaaand yet....it is so fucking boring you'll want to eat your own fingers whilst it's on.
A laser beam here, a hold-up stocking there, a slit throat here, a flash of knickers there.
Yawn, yawn, yawn, yawn, yawn.
It's like Snyder delved into every male fantasy and attempted to spunk it all onto the screen, only to find his lustful outpourings watery and weak.
Noisy, nonsensical - honestly, this makes not one jot of sense - and eye stabbingly tedious.
Sure, the girls were smokin' hot, but the movie was fucking awful.

1 out of 5

Someone's Watching Me! (1978) Dir: John Carpenter

Oft overlooked TV movie from horror meister Carpenter, released the same year as the vaunted Halloween.
The plot:
A young woman, who works as a director of live TV, moves into a swanky new apartment in L.A. Shortly after her arrival, she begins receiving telephone calls, nothing too sinister at first, but soon ratcheting into something altogether more menacing, as a mysterious man turns her life into a living hell.
As a TV movie, it is perhaps inevitable that this is pretty tame when compared with Carpenter's fully fledged cinematic offerings, but this movie is not without it's merits. Carpenter's trademark directorial flourishes are present and correct: lengthy tracking shots to convey menace; excellent use of POV shots; imaginative use of lighting to add atmosphere.
But there are issues here, too.
Firstly, the lead character is really hard to like. She's so damned perky and optimistic, whistling and singing her way through her day, even talking to herself in a really upbeat, joyful way. Honestly, it turns the stomach.
Secondly, she seems a bit dim-witted. What is meant to come across as obstinate and determined seems simply foolish as, long after the stalker has made his presence known AND made it abundantly clear that he is watching her every move, still she wanders around her apartment with lights ablaze, curtains open. At one point she even has sex right there in the window.
Made me cross.
Finally, and perhaps most significantly, the incidental music is not written by Carpenter, so we don't really have that sinister final element that really lifts most of his work, instead the score is bog standard TV movie fodder, all blazing brass and honking horns, which is quite headache inducing.
Still, as a TV movie, this weren't 'alf bad, and there were certainly signs of the greatness to come, and Carpenter's cine-literacy was evident with clear nods to Hitchcock and Argento. It could even be claimed that this would go on to inspire Craven's Scream, due to the utilisation of the telephone as the primary instrument of terror.
And heck, the villain even wore Michael Myers' trademark dark blue boiler suit!
What more could you ask?

3 out of 5

The Deadly Spawn (1983) Dir: Douglas McKeown

Set your gore radar to high alert, and settle in for a genuine feast for the senses.
The plot:
In rural America, a meteor crashes to Earth. Two young folk out camping go to investigate, and are promptly eaten alive by flesh eating beasties. Cut to a nearby town, and we meet a group of friends. We have lots of establishing scenes were we get to know them and, you know, in some ways, get to like them. All except the pompous prick in the glasses who keeps spouting on about science.
Heh, shut it, speccie, no-one's interested.
Now, little do this gang of pals know that, lurking in the basement are the creatures that crawled from the meteor....and they're breeding!
Real low budget fare, this, and riotously good fun too.
Though the pace is punishingly slow at times, primarily due to the fact that there really isn't enough story here to justify even the 78 minute run time, this matters not one jot as, interspersed amongst the drawn out scenes are reasonably lengthy spurts - and I do mean spurts - of out and out gore.
Little gribbly aliens bore into people's body cavities, others emerge from poor unfortunates midriffs midway through chewing on their intestines and, in one spectacular moment of nastiness, two worm like entities burrow out from inside someones skull, using his eye sockets as a handy exit.
The monster design is magnificent, an over the top vision of all of hell's demons, the creatures effectively a gaping jaw atop a squirming, slime-oozing torso, maws opening to reveal row upon row of Great White style teeth.
The pace will put some off, which is a shame, but for those that can endure and wait for the gore, you're in for a good time.

4 out of 5

Slugs (1988) Dir: Juan Piquer Simón

Based on Shaun Hutson's infamous schlock novel, this really should be far more dreadful than it actually is.
The plot:
Having transposed the action from the UK in the novel to the US on screen, we follow a sanitation inspectors bid to convince the local authorities that a series of grisly deaths in his sleepy rural town are the work of a new breed of flesh-eating, mutant slugs.
Inevitably, his warnings fall on deaf ears.....right up to the moment bodies start appearing and a man's head explodes in a restaurant as slugs eat their way from the inside out.....
Low budget this most certainly is, having the feel, acting wise, of one of those German porno movies where you know at any moment the woman is going to be shitting in someone's mouth but, let's be honest, you don't watch a movie called Slugs for the quality of the acting.
Though the moments of gore are fairly limited, presumably for financial reasons, they are nevertheless reasonably effective. The aforementioned head chewing scene is well worth a look, and there are several other highlights of slugs chewing their way through eyeballs, cheeks and the like. We also get plentifuol shots of the slimy little buggers writhing around over each other in a particularly suggestive manner, which could be seen as a deviantly delightful treat by some.
Not by me, mind.
Not by me.
Z grade horror this most certainly is, but worst movie ever made - as several reviews I have read claim - I think not.
Decent.

3 out of 5

God Told Me To (1976) Dir: Larry Cohen

Master of the exploitation movie, Larry 'It's Alive,' 'The Stuff,' 'Q: The Winged Serpent' Cohen here takes us on a nightmarish journey towards the Apocalypse.
The plot: A New York Detective, Peter Nicholas, attempts to talk down a sniper from the rooftop of a building. When Nicholas asks him why he wanted to shoot people, the sniper informs him that "God Told Him To," just before plunging headlong off the building to his death.
So begins a sequence of similar incidents that Nicholas investigates, each time the culprit claiming that "God Told Them To.
Drawn inexorably towards a shocking conclusion, is Detective Nicholas somehow involved?
And who is the strange, blond man, shining with angelic light that people keep witnessing?
It's odd, that's for sure, straddling the line between several genres.
There's a clear thriller influence, as well as horror and a healthy dose of theology thrown in, too.
The acting, for the type of movie, is more than acceptable and, being penned by Cohen, the script is way above the standard you would expect.
With a nice line in irreverence, and a splendidly seedy, grainy feel to the film stock used, this is a rock solid 70's exploitation classic that even the mighty Christopher Nolan invoked for the St. Patrick's Day massacre in The Dark Knight.
A genuine cult classic.

4 out of 5

Fortress (1992) Dir: Stuart Gordon

Let me confess something right off the bat: I'm a massive Stuart Gordon fanboy and, though I haven't seen everything he's made quite yet, I've seen most and am yet to be disappointed.
OK, that's out of the way, so let's get down to some serious reviewing here: Fortress is fucking brilliant.
I could end it there, sign off with that single, definitive statement and feel reasonably content, but I feel the need to justify myself somewhat as, having read other reviews of this movie, it seems I am in the minority.
So, instead of writing a usual review, I'm just going to list the reasons Fortress is fucking brilliant.
Because it is.
Fortress is fucking brilliant.
Simple.
And here's why:

1 - It feels just like Total Recall.
2 - Christof Camembert is at his mumbling best
3 - There's gore
4 - There's women in prison
5 - There are plenty of dodgy, 80's-tastic special effects, even though this was 3 years into the next decade
6 - It's directed by Stuart 'Re-Animator,' 'From beyond,' 'Stuck,' 'Dagon' Gordon.
7 - There is a torture device called an Intestinator.
8 - Robocop's Clarence Boddicker is the main villain.
9 - The cybernetic sentries are utterly useless.
10 - It's directed by Stuart Gordon. Again, yes, but worth repeating.
11 - Oh yeah. Fortress is fucking brilliant.

5 out of 5

Drive Angry (2011) Dir: Patrick Lussier

Old Horse face is back, this time sporting a spectacular mullet and an even more impressive 'Hellgun."
The plot: Nic Cage is a haunted man. Having lost his wife and daughter to a cult led my an olive skinned Lothario by the name of Jonah King, he is a man on a mission: to wreak bloody and violent revenge on those that took all that was important to him.
Coming across as part Machete, part Ghost Rider, this is cartoonesque to the point of the redundant.
Smacking as 'based on a graphic novel' even though it ain't no suj fang, this is wantonly over the top and ridiculous, each scene delivered with a knowing wink to the audience: Yeah, this is daft, but it's one heck of a lot of fun, isn't it?
Morally reprehensible - not one character portrayed has any kind of ethical standard or worth - this is excess in the name of entertainment, pure and simple and, for the most part, it works. Hands are lopped off, human femurs are jutted at the 3D screen, blood squirts hither and thither and tither and, the whole time, a vaguely doom metal guitar chugs along in the background, part Sabbath, part Danzig, all red meat.
And by all the Christ's it is violent.
Supremely so.
Utterly preposterous, utterly offensive on so many levels, this is nevertheless entertaining fare, elevated mightily by the august presence known simply as William Fichtner, a man so beautiful to look at and with such on screen charisma he would surely turn even the most homophobic of heads.
Far from perfect, far even from any good, I nevertheless enjoyed this for the duration.
Set brain cells to dormant, and enjoy

3 out of 5

D.A.R.Y.L. (1985) Dir: Simon Wincer

Well now, here we have that rarest of creatures: a warm-hearted family movie that doesn’t make you want to stab out your own liver just to cease the abundant production of bile.
The plot: A young boy is discovered wandering with no memory as to his identity. He can remember basic things like speech and blinking and how to walk around without falling over, but details of his past life are none-existent. Taken into foster care it soon becomes apparent that Daryl is not like ordinary boys. He isn't rude, doesn't swear and, by the Christ's, he's really good at playing Pole Position and baseball.
One day, Daryl's real parents show up, ostensibly to take him home but, when they actually take him to The Pentagon, it soon transpires that D.A.R.Y.L. is not just different to other boys,....he's not even human!!! A military experiment in artificial intelligence now deemed awry, the military decide to do away with the project, but Daryl has other plans and, before you know it, he's stolen a Stealth Bomber and is cruising back home at Mach 2.25......
Whilst the potential for schmaltz is pretty damned high, the director does a decent job of keeping the vomit factor turned down low. The interplay between the lead character and his young friend is deftly handled, with genuine warmth, and there's a nice line in humour, too. Not the lighting your farts on fire, sticking your dick into an apple pie variety that passes for comedy these days but, you know, proper situational mirth.
Made in '85, and looking every day of its age, this is engaging sci-fi lite that has real charm and is certainly a movie for all the family. Heck, this wouldn't even offend Great Grandma Mosefus, and she's such a puritan she won't even look at a ripened pear for fear it may provoke lustful thoughts. S
o, throw away all your grisly horror, tear up your Stephen King books, put down that DVD copy of Jenna Haze Does the 49ers, and settle back for a pleasantly retro movie with a real nostalgic kick.
Liked it.

3 out of 5

No Country For Old Men (2007) Dir: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen

Debate has raged since the Coen's won the best director gong as to whether the award was given for this movie in particular, or because it was simply their turn, almost as a lifetime achievement award. Given the quality of the movie itself, I would have to strongly dispute the latter notion.
The plot: An everyday Joe - Brolin's Llewelyn Moss - stumbles upon the remnants of a drug-deal gone bad. Corpses are decomposing whilst, in a suitcase, $2,000,000.
Moss takes the case and does a bunk.
Inevitably, when dealing with such a sum of cash, there are people who want it back, badly. One such person is Javier Bardem's maniacal, psychopathic Anton Chigurh, a ruthless killer, cold, emotionless who closes in on Moss using a tracking device placed inside the case.
With Tommy Lee Jones' useless cop in charge of the investigation into the trail of corpses being left behind in Chigurh's pursuit of the money, it seems the only question worth asking is when will Moss be killed, not if.
With stunning cinematography throughout - seriously, each and every shot just oozes class - and stellar performances from all of the leads, this is top quality cinema.
Bardem's performance as the sadistic and brutal Chigurh is one to freeze the blood, and a more menacing screen presence I am hard-pushed to recall.
Though Blood Simple or Fargo may be considered the masterpiece of the Coen's by purists, surely this one offers some fairly stiff opposition.

5 out of 5.
And then some.

The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009) Dir: Grant Heslov

An offbeat, provocative and, at times, damned funny comedy starring Ewan McGregor, George Clooney and Jeff Bridges, the title alone should indicate that you are in for something just that little bit different.
McGregor plays Bob(!) a reporter in Kuwait City investigating a rather humdrum affair, when he stumbles upon Clooney’s Lyn Skip Cassady, a name he heard a while back in connection with rumoured military experiments involving the power of the mind. After some convincing Cassady allows Bob to accompany him as he sets out to prove that Operation Jedi was in fact real and that, far from being a relic of Cold War history, the same paranormal lines of research are very much active.
Phase shifting, telekinesis, mind control, the Dim Mak and more besides are all par for the course when training a Super Soldier.
Witty, engaging and with a stellar cast, this manages that rarest of feats: being a comedy that actually makes you laugh instead of wince with embarrassment with each passing fart joke.
Though quirky, it remains constantly on the right side of the line that, if crossed, leads to the dangerous and wit-free arenas of the zany and the wacky.
McGregor and Clooney have a genuine on screen chemistry, and Bridges is magnificent in the supporting role as the hippy-tastic Drill Sergeant.
Thought provoking, relatively provocative in a ‘poke a stick at the American military’ sort of way, this is quite unlike any other movie I have seen, the nearest comparison I can draw being one of Dean Koontz's more whimsical novels.
If only more comedies were this good.


5 out of 5

Black Swan (2010) Dir: Darren Aronofsky

Just back from seeing Darren Aronofsky's latest mental-fest, Black Swan, and I am truly numbed.
It's not often a film renders me exhausted by sensory overload, blunted as I am by years of watching the most excessive, mind-bendingly hideous and depraved movies I can find, but this was a truly draining experience.
The plot: Natalie Portman plats Nina Sayers, a ballet dancer performing in a troupe at the rehearsal stage for an updating of the ever popular Swan Lake. She rehearses keenly, eager to land the role of the Swan Queen. but the director of the show Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) believes that she is only capable of performing The White Swan; virginal, vulnerable and innocent and unable to plumb the psychological depths required to capture the mentality of The Black Swan.
Nina convinces him otherwise when he makes an inappropriate advance on her, biting him and, in so doing, unleashes a previously untapped aspect of her psyche.
As First Night looms, Nina descends into a miasma of horror and fantasy as the blackened spirit now pulsing through her begins to take hold.
Beautifully shot, with a stunning central performance from Portman, this is visceral and primal, posing a simple question to the audience:
Where is the line between obsession and madness?
I am desperately trying to get through this write-up without invoking the name of Dario Argento as it seems too obvious a reference, but it is hard to deny, Aranofsky's cine-literate style clearly harking back to the Giallo-Meister's finer days, but there is more to this than mere homage as the director throws in shades of Cronenberg's body-horror, dashes of Adrian Lyne's Jacob's Ladder, and even the passing thought of Fight Club on occasion.
Whilst 'Oscar nominees' normally have me fleeing to the auditorium with relief once the credits roll, just glad to be out of there to get away from the reeking pretension, the effect here was a mirror image, the movie glueing me to the seat throughout.
Simply magnificent.

5 out of 5

Robocop 2 (1990) Dir: Irvin Kershner

Well, this is a bit of a mess, I'm afraid.
The plot: It's a year since the events of the first movie, and Detroit's police, under the control of OCP, are out on strike over pension troubles.
OCP, keen to build on the success of the Robocop project look to redevelop and introduce a new model into the market, Robocop 2.
Trouble is, all of the prototypes keep on malfunctioning.
One ultra-ambitious female scientist decides that what is needed inside the beast is the mind of a criminal, and what criminal could be better than Cain, ringleader of the notorious Nuke cult, a pseudo-religious criminal organisation that are flooding the streets of Detroit with Nuke, the most potent and addictive narcotic known to man.
Inevitably, with Cain rendered as machine, a showdown with the original Robocop can only be a matter of time.....
For a movie with Robocop in the title, the eponymous character gains very little screen time. Indeed, the character has already become something of a caricature, a fact not helped when he is reprogrammed by OCP and begins to exhibit very odd behaviour.
All of the protagonists are playing their roles with tongue very firmly in cheek, which would be fine if it were even vaguely funny but, unfortunately, it's not.
Gone is the biting satire and ultra-violence of the original, in their place knockabout comedy and elongated shoot-outs.
Lacking the class, invention and, possibly most importantly, the wonderful score of the parent movie, this flounders and flaps and ends up feeling utterly directionless.
A very poor sequel indeed, made all the more disappointing by the fact that the man behind the camera brought the world The Empire Strikes Back.

2 out of 5

TRON: Legacy (2010) Dir: Joseph Kosinski

28 years is one hell of a gap between an original movie and its sequel - I can't think of any that have had longer breaks - so, with Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner and an assortment of other original cast members still on board, would Disney make a complete binary of it?
Well, not entirely.
The plot: Garrett Hedlund plays Sam, a young man whose father, Kevin Flynn, was the head of a game design company that created the legendary Tron before his untimely disappearance.
Drawn to the site of his father's abandoned warehouse by a pager message from a number that should no longer exist, Sam is inadvertently sucked into the digital world of The Grid himself, where he must track down his true father, as well as do battle with the world and programmes in which he finds himself.
And it's a mixed bag.
The visuals are jaw-dropping, but it is just a fraction too dark, a common complaint when 3D is involved.
Jeff Bridges' is under-used, really, Hedlund as his son taking centre stage and his is a lumpen, wooden performance.
The initial set-up is intriguing but, once we enter the digital realm, it quickly descends into expositional dialogue interspersed with drawn out digital fight / chase scenes.
Crucially, though the effects have been updated, it seems little else has as all of the good ideas and impressive visual scenes were merely variations on what has gone before.
Special mention must be made of the 'de-ageing' of Bridges, which looks by turns impressive and genuinely terrifying.
Though no great fan of the original, I was interested enough in this sequel to feel a vague sense of disappointment at the end as, frankly, it was just a little dull. And by the Christ's it was too long.

3 out of 5. But only just.

Machete (2010) Dir: Ethan Maniquis, Robert Rodriguez

Robert Rodriguez's full length version of the Grindhouse trailer by the same name is as testosterone laden as the first day on set of Big Boys in Boots 4.
Danny Trujo plays the titular character, an ex-federale (Mexican FBI, I presume) turned mercenary, hired by a crime organisation to assassinate a politician running for office on the back of an anti-immigration campaign. Betrayed by those that hired him, Machete goes on a violent and bloody killing spree, intent on sinking his vicious blade into the belly of the man at the top.
With a host of semi-cameo appearances, including Don Johnson, Steven Seagal and the woeful Robert de Niro - seriously, this is one of the worst performances I have ever seen from a 'proper' actor - this is something of a fanboys wet dream, Rodriguez clearly pandering to the macho inclinations of his core audience.
With a comic tone, set pretty early on as Machete guts someone then uses the entrails to swing from a window to the storey below, this is also pretty damn violent, gaining the movie an 18 certificate here in the UK, something it is increasingly hard for a film to be labeled with.
Blood gushes, throats are slashed, men are disemboweled, eyes are blasted from their sockets, but it's all done with tongue very firmly in cheek.
If you are looking for a 'real' movie, I'd steer well clear of this, but if excessive gore to the point of black comedy floats your boat, check it out.

Cronos (1993) Dir: Guillermo del Toro

Guillermo del Toro's breakthrough movie is a strange, quietly disturbing affair. The plot: Almost 500 hundred years ago, an alchemist devised a small piece of machinery that promised the gift of eternal life.
In present times (well, 1997) the Cronos device unwittingly falls into the hands of an ageing antiques dealer, Mr. Gris. Playing a board game with his young grand-daughter, suddenly the table is over-run with cockroaches, the source of which a winged, angelic statue Breaking the statue open, Mr. Gris discovers the device, a beautiful and ornate creation, scarab-like in shape and, clutching it in his hand, suddenly the thing sprouts legs, the legs snapping into place against his hand, piercing the flesh. Slowly, a thin, nozzle-like protuberance extends from the head end of the device, this too piercing his flesh. Meanwhile, another seeks the device, a man who will stop at nothing to get his hands on it, for he too seeks the promise of eternal life and, with Ron Perlman acting as his muscle, there's every chance he'll get it, too.
Massively inventive, this shrieks cult classic with almost every frame.
It's sinister, too, the lighting of each scene evocative and disturbing, lending the viewer the need to peer into the shadows that drape the corners of the screen throughout, just in case something truly horrible lurks there.
Imaginative and visually impressive, this is a fine movie indeed.

4 out of 5

Stuck (2007) Dir: Stuart Gordon

Got to tell you, I just love Stuart Gordon.
If he'd let me, I'd drizzle him in olive oil, slap him in a frying pan and wolf him down with chorizo.
But he won’t
Whether it's schlock horror gore offerings like Re-Animator or From Beyond or his sci-fi silliness such as Fortress or Robot Jox for me, the man can do no wrong.
Stuck, a neat little exploitation piece that is as devious as it is disturbing, this is both genre-bending and fantastically original.
The plot: After a drink and drug-laced party, a young woman foolishly decides to drive home. Mid-journey, messing with her mobile phone, pissed as a judge on Easter Monday, she hits a man, recently forced onto the street after eviction from his squalid flat. The man strikes the bonnet of the car but, instead of rolling off, plunges headlong through the windscreen, pinned in place by the wipers that are now jabbed firmly into the meat of his matter.
With her hit and run victim suspended, half in and half out of her car, the drunkard must flee for home, then devise a means of ridding herself of her 'problem.'
Morbidly humorous right from the get go, this has a black, black heart, but also a natural wit that carries you through the nonsensical nature of what is actually happening on screen.
Though light on genuine gore, the odd moment of nastiness is graphic enough to make you squirm just a little, and the rapid-fire run time gives this the feel of a genuine cult movie.
Vicious, twisted and something of a morality tale in the end, this is a winner down at Smell the Cult HQ.

4 out of 5

The Hole (2009) Dir: Joe Dante

I like Joe Dante.
I tend to like his movies.
I definitely like his ethos, his cinematic knowledge and, with his latest offering, I like the fact he has chosen to scare the living piss out of very young children.
The plot: A single mother and her two sons are forced to move house yet again, the family apparently fleeing from something, though what is not made clear, at least not at first.
Brothers Nathan and Dane have a troubled relationship, the younger Nathan annoyed by his older brother's reluctance to play with him. They argue and bicker continually, right up until the moment they discover a sinister hole in the basement of their new house, hidden beneath a trapdoor locked with multiple padlocks. Once open, it becomes clear that this is no ordinary hole; it appears to be bottomless and, when no-one is looking, things crawl from its depths.
Dante is something of a horror aficionado, and here he delivers a proper horror movie, albeit toned down to allow for a 'family friendly' rating, but that doesn't stop it being creepy as hell:
The little girl, twitching as she walks, blood running from her eyes; the brute of a man, face in constant shadow, whose boots leave muddy impressions wherever he treads; the hole itself, ensconced in a proper horror movie basement.
Being a Dante movie, there are several nods to other genre films. I spotted Poltergeist (the car), The Wicker Man (an audio reference when The Man whistles), Ringu (the twitchy girl), Saw (the clown thing), House By the Cemetery (something is in the basement) and Funhouse (the fair ground) as well as more than a little classic era Doctor Who (I'm thinking The Mind Robber and The Celestial Toymaker, kids).
Accomplished, intelligent and provocative, if only for the fact the rating it got was probably a little on the lenient side, this is a real hark back to some proper, old fashioned horror movie making and, I have to say, I enjoyed it quite a lot.

4 out of 5