Change Your Image
KREEPY
Reviews
Gorgasm (1990)
Like a fine wine!
When I first saw this film, maybe 15 years ago, I was "meh." But having recently re-watched it, I was super impressed! It's like a fine wine, Gorgasm has aged well! I wish someone would release this on DVD, so much fun! Heck, I wish someone would release all THREE films in the "Gore Trilogy!" And the crazy killer chick ain't bad on the eyes either! And THAT theme song! I was humming the damn tune for days! A really weird, fun film, and a real time capsule of SOV filmmaking! I really miss these wacky DIY old shot on video horror films. I really wish more were readily available on DVD. Fingers crossed! That would be an awesome Christmas wish come true!
American Grindhouse (2010)
Sooooooo boring, for absolute beginners only (if even)...
I suppose if you know absolutely zero about exploitation/genre films, this might be a somewhat decent primer...for middle school film class. Sort of a "Genre Film for Dummies" type film, lots of talking heads and deadly dull interviews, etc. Very disappointing film filled with regurgitated information easily found in a million books, magazines, Google searches, etc. A waste of time. Just buy "The Psychotronic Encylopedia of Film," "Nightmare USA," "Grindhouse: The Forbidden World of "Adults Only" Cinema," and "Sleazoid Express: A Mind-Twisting Tour Through the Grindhouse Cinema of Times Square" instead if you're really interested in exploitation film and you'll be good to go. This doc was amateur hour all the way. Blah.
The Dungeon of Harrow (1962)
If you dig 60's horror comics, ala Creepy and Eerie, or regional horror oddities, this is pure gold!
This film just screams cheap-jack 60's horror comics ala Creepy and Eerie, and I mean screams with a capital S, and no surprise really, being director Boyette was a well-known horror comic scribe/artiste. Where "Creepshow" failed in really capturing that "EC-vibe", "Dungeon" succeeds 100% in getting that surreal budget label Charlton Comics thing down to a tee! I say, turn it on, shut down you brain and just soak in the oddness, and this film is way odd, dreamlike really, and best watched while slightly groggy after 1 AM (it has a similar dreamy quality akin to the classic poverty row noir "Detour" in this regard, call me crazy)...that said, though, I really only recommend it to hardcore genre fans, regional horror obscurity weirdos (like myself, especially fans of Texas-lensed regional oddities), and retro horror comic fans, so if this sounds like you, Dungeons is pure gold. Now, if someone could please find Boyette's lost film "The Weird One's" my life would be complete.
El precio de un hombre: The Bounty Killer (1966)
The enemy is within...
Given a free reign in New Chacos, the town in which he was born and where his Mexican parents were murdered when he was a child, Jose Sanchez (Tomas Milian) does what he knows best - breaks the law. But like anyone who has received love, affection and moral guidelines in their infancy, Jose has moments of lucidity when he realises that he is doing wrong. The problem is that crime and the inherent ease with which Jose can take whatever he wants have become an addiction; an addiction which has eaten away at his moral fibres so much that even the townsfolk who have helped to free him from the gun of bounty killer Luke Chiltern (Richard Wyler) are treated by Jose with contempt.
If there is one scene which compounds the extraordinary acting range of Tomas Milian into its unique whole, it occurs in this movie. Much of the action in The Ugly Ones takes place in the tavern of New Chacos owned by ex-gunman Novak whose niece Anna Eton (Ella Karin) helped free Jose from the law. In an intensely studied scene Milian portrays Jose as torn between obvious glee and tears as he contemplates robbing a young drifter who has just left the tavern. As he is emotionally torn in two his henchmen watch him. He is obviously a strong and charismatic leader to this gang of thuggish cut-throats, but there is a definite hint of caution among his gang in dealing with his schizoid personality. Finally, as if to put his mind at peace before their collective act of violence, Jose caresses, then cradles his head, on the butt of one of the gang member's guns before uttering his name, "Senor Gomez", a confirmation of his power and status.
The Ugly Ones is a very classy western indeed which transcends its black hat/white hat scenario with finesse. It's a classic "siege" western but this time the enemy is within; Jose and his amoral gang of desperadoes as one enemy and the guilt and cowardice of the townsfolk as another. "Only the rich have to fear men like Jose Gomez, not the poor. He's one of us." Their voicing of sympathy for outlaw gangs often forced into delinquency by social circumstance is countered by Chiltern's simplistic view of the situation, "Today, that child's a murderer." The film is loaded with interesting notions of why Jose has become a killer. We hear of his parents' deaths and his family's land being stolen and also that he killed a Yankee soldier in a brawl following a barrage of racist taunts. So with all this prejudice heaped on him solely because of his Mexican nationality, is it any wonder that Jose is forced to become a ruthless criminal? Why should Jose pull rank and behave himself? The answer is simply because the people of New Chacos still care for him and still remember the innocent child who used to play with Ethan the blacksmith (Mario Brega). For this reason they helped him to escape Chiltern and for this reason Jose holds the bounty killer captive.
But Jose spurns their affections and pathetic pleas for the violence to stop, preferring instead to drink himself into a stupor while his brutish friends engage in a particularly wild version of the "shooting and drinking" games which are as familiar to the spaghetti western as laughing Mexicans. When finally Jose and his men have stripped the town's businesses and caused as much destruction as possible it is Anna, Jose's childhood friend (and possibly sweetheart) who is brave enough to free Chiltern so that he can face Jose in a surprisingly vigorous showdown.
The exceptional location work and baroque visual touches can be attributed to Enzo Barboni who lensed Sergio Corbucci's ferocious Django in the same year while the complex analysis of Jose's criminality can probably be credited to co-script writers Don Prindle and Jose Maesso as well as Eugenio Martin. The film also boasts some of the finest supporting performances in the genre, particularly Ella Karin who, uniquely for a female in a rampantly macho genre, is the only one who will stand up to Jose's violence while it is implied throughout that their emotional ties are the strongest. But the most phenomenal aspect of The Ugly Ones is Tomas Milian, staking his claim in his genre debut as a formidable western leading man and delivering what is in retrospect, the spaghetti western's most complex and most electrifying performance, equally tormented, resentful and vicious right down to his final gasping breath.
Terrore nello spazio (1965)
Another Bava gem!
For many people the directors Mario Bava and Sergio Leone are the cornerstones of Italian popular cinema. They created estetic conventions which other, sometimes just as talented, directors followed. Bava's legacy not only extends to horror and thriller films but as this film shows also to the science-fiction film. For, Planet of the Vampires, is by any standard an important and influential entry in this genre. It is not without the faults which trouble several sixties sci-fi films, such as the occasionally silly sets, but Bava's feat is to rise above the American B-movie narration and create a tense, exciting atmosphere.
In a story which plays like a forerunner to the first installment of the Alien-series, two spaceships receive an emergency signal from a nearby planet and decide to check it out. Once they have landed all sorts of mysterious events takes place, such as the crew members starting to kill each other off. One of the crews manage to destroy themselves completely and its then up to the other crew, led by the captain played by Barry Sullivan, to find out what's going on. It turns out that the dead are being re-animated and possessed by a parasitic breed of aliens who intentionally lured the spaceships to their planet. And thus the battle for survival begins...
The film drags in places but is on the whole fascinating, mainly thanks to a clever story(co-written by the Danish cult figure Ib "Reptilicus" Melchior) and a tight direction by Bava. One of the best sequences is also the one which quite obviously was an influence on Ridley Scott's Alien(1979). The captain and a lower-ranking female officer goes off to explore a crashed space-ship, of course not before placing the obligatory "soon to mysteriously disappear" even lower-ranking officer on guard outside the crash site. The ship turns out to be very old and filled with giant skeletons of an ancient alien race - a technically stunning and wonderfully atmospheric creation from the filmmakers here.
Produced by American B-movie mogul Samuel Z. Arkoff this could easily have ended up in less talented hands and turned into a boring mess like Arkoffs similar sixties sci-fi films such as Journey to the Seventh Planet (also written by Melchior). Instead we got another Bava gem, which again shows him adept to shift his talents to different genres.