A rambling wander through Horror cinema, often with an exploitation twist, and definitely with more than a few guilty pleasures (Originally published in Craccum 22, 2008)

Anthropophagus (1980) (aka The Anthropophagus Beast) is a Joe D’Amato film which became one of the most infamous of the so-called Video Nasties. A group of tourists is slowly hunted and eaten by a disfigured cannibal. Memorable for the scene in which the cannibal seemingly extracts a fetus from a pregnant woman and devoures it. Some claimed this was actual snuff at the time, although the effect was achieved using a skinned rabbit. The other “high” point is at the end when the disemboweled Anthropophagus dies chewing on his own intestines. Followed by a pseudo-sequel Absurd (1981) (aka Rosso Sangue) in which the Anthropophagus, lacking the scarring from the first film, is now endowered with “super blood clotting healing power” and a nemesis in the form of a priest.

Bad Taste (1987) and Braindead (1992) – New Zealand’s own, from  that guy who then sold out to do those crap commercial films about short people and jewelry. The birthing scenes from both films are most excellent, and the lawn mower scene from the second is perhaps the bloodiest scene in the history of cinema.

As a sub genre the Horror area of Blaxpotation was mainly filled with comedic retellings of traditional Horror films, resulting Blacula (1972) and its sequel Scream Blacula Scream (1973), Blackenstein (1973) and Dr. Black and Mr. Hyde (1976). However AIP’s Sugar Hill (1974) is a somewhat original blaxplotation where a woman takes revenge on the local gangsters by making a deal with the Voodoo Loa Baron Semedi and gains the power to summon Zombies, thus combining some of the best exploitation narratives.

Blood Car (2007) is set in the future where gas is $40 a gallon, a vegan wheatgrass juice drinker discovers his car can run on human blood rather than petrol. 

Blood Feast (1963) is the original “gore/splatter” flick. Directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis, this ultra-low-budget film was his attempt to find a new market after the nudie films started failing. Features a mad, machete-wielding Egyptian caterer who kills people for ingredients to use in his meals and sacrifices. Atrocious acting and B-movie direction abounds. Loosely part of the Blood Trilogy (with Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964) and Colour Me Blood Red (1965)). A box set containing all three is available in NZ from Something Weird Video.

Cannibal Holocaust (1980) is the high point of cannibal cinema. Ruggero Deodato weaves multiple narratives together in a pseudo-documentary style which rebukes the traditional racist elements of cannibal films by making the white characters so horribly offensive and primitive in their behaviour that their fate is well deserved. The film, somewhat infamously, blends scenes of faked human mutilation with actual animal mutilation resulting in the former becoming more confusingly realistic. The film employed tricks similar to the Blair Witch Project, including the idea of “found footage”. The cast were driven out of contracted hiding in order to testify that the film wasn’t snuff, and the film’s producers were required to demonstrate how the signature impalement special effect was achieved.

Charles Band is the man behind the popular 80s Puppet Master Horror franchise, featuring murderous puppets. His exec production credits include such films as Ghoulies II (1987) and From Beyond (1986), as well as over 200 other predominantly Horror/exploitation films. Still active today, his Full Moon Productions company is producing Puppet Master sequels, and more importantly these days, a new franchise – The Gingerdead Man – featuring a murderous Gingerbread man (voiced in the original The Gingerdead Man (2005) by Gary Busey). The 2008 sequel featured the best subtitle ever for a movie (Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the Crust). The new installment (due next year) is Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver.

Children Shouldnt Play With Dead Things (1972) is a Zombie movie which features one of the most obnoxious performances in screen history (by Alan Ormsby). Once again a group of rowdy partying teenagers start messing around in a grave yard. A joke attempt to raise the dead goes horribly wrong and actually works, but only after the characters decide it would be fun to dig up a corpse, named Orville, and proceed to use it as a party prop. Director Bob Clarke went on to direct the Porky’s films and Alan Ormsby thankfully decided that being behind the camera as a writer was a better option.

Demons (1985), directed by Lamberto Bava (and some say also by the co-writer Dario Argento), is almost Lovecraftian in its approach to the Zombie genre. A group of people are trapped in a cinema after attending the premier of a film that opens a gateway to another dimension. What follows is their struggle to get away from the demonic Zombie horde. The true highlights are the WTF?!!! moment involving a helicopter falling through the roof of the cinema (suddenly and for no apparent reason), and a delightfully apocalyptic ending. Followed by a sequel, Demons 2 (1986) which is basically a rehash with the setting changed to an apartment building. Demons 3: The Ogre (1988) is a made-for-TV movie which is a sequel in name only, and concerns the mother in a family being haunted in her dreams (and eventually reality) by an Ogre. Black Demons (1991), sometimes also named Demons 3 but again not related, is a fairly dire Voodoo/Zombie film from Umberto Lenzi.

Evil Dead (1981) was Sam “Spiderman” Raimi’s first feature and introduced the world to the chin that is Bruce Campbell. A Zombie/demon film set in an abandoned house in the woods, its gore effects and brutal tree rape scene resulted in it finally being released uncut in the UK in 2001. It was followed by Evil Dead II (1987), which offset the gore with slapstick and in many ways is a more polished remake of the original. A third film, Army of Darkness (1993), is even more of a comedy and is heavily influenced by A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.

Flesh for Frankenstien (1973) aka Andy Warhol’s Frankenstien featured Udo Kier as the oversexed Dr Frankenstein trying to create the master Serbian race. Taking necrophilia a step further, the good Doctor likes the have sex with the open wounds of his female creation-in-progress. This leads to the magnificent quote “To know life Otto, you have to fuck death…in the gall bladder!” Much of the team reunited in Blood For Dracula (1974) which featured Udo as a pathetic Dracula, desperate for the blood of a “wergin” only finding that all the local girls are decidedly unvirginal. Udo is simply magnificent in both films.

Gestapo’s Last Orgy (1977) aka Caligula Reincarnated as Hitler is probably the nastiest of the Nazi Exploitation genre. Crossing over into the Italian Cannibal genre, the evil Nazis in this film don’t just use their prisoners as sex objects or to perform medical atrocities upon… they also eat them and, in at least one scene, their babies.

The Guinea Pig films were a series of Japanese ultra-gore pictures that came out during the 1980s. In the West, scratchy late-generation VHS dubs were frequently passed around with claims of them being snuff. Charlie Sheen laid a complaint about the second film, Flowers of Flesh and Blood (1985) being snuff, which got it investigated by the FBI. As with Cannibal Holocaust, the film makers had to demonstrate how they achieved the special effects. Most titles have been released overseas on DVD, complete with behind the scenes footage. The clarity of DVD format does not help the realism as much as bad tracking and they are far more recognizable as film production. 

Halloween (1978) from genre maestro John Carpenter in many ways became the mold for the modern teen-kill slasher, complete with masked villain and signature theme. Made for a paltry US$325,000, it went on to gross US$47 million worldwide, and spawn 5 sequels and a remake by Rob Zombie. Halloween III – Season of the Witch (1982) is notable for not really being a sequel, but rather a different stand alone story. 

HP Lovecraft was an American author of fiction from the early part of the 20th century.  Some of the better film adaptions of his work include Re-Animator (1985), From Beyond (1986) and Dagon (2001) – all by Stuart Gordon. The Resurrected (1992) is also an excellent adaption, and a rumoured Director’s Cut may eventually make it to DVD. The Curse (1987) is an uncredited average version of Lovecraft’s Colour Out Of Space.  Guellermo Del Toro is constantly promising to adapt the epic At the Mountains of Madness, but seems to be forever tied up with other lesser projects involving short people and jewelry.

I drink your blood (1970), part of the best named exploitation double ever (I drink your blood/I eat your flesh), features a young boy obtaining revenge against Satanist hippies by feeding them meat pies laced with rabid dog blood. They proceed to then go an a homicidal rampage. Definitely the better of the two in the double billing.

Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1974) is one of the progenitors of the Nazi exploitation scene, featuring the staples of the sub genres such as sexual degradation and medical experimentation/torture. A Canadian film apparently filmed on the sets of the recently canceled Hogan’s Heroes. The memorable and OTT performance of Dyanne Thorne as Ilsa, the sex-mad evil Commandate of the camp, resulted in two official sequels (Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks and Ilsa, the Tigress of Siberia) and an unofficial one (Ilsa, the Wicked Warden, directed by Jess Franco).

The Incredibly Strange 24 Hour Movie Marathon is the highlight of the year for exploitation and bizarre cinema fans in New Zealand. An eclectic mix of films from the vaults (including some that should have remained in there) and premieres, the event is almost always mid-blowing. This year’s non-stop 24 hour movie madness is taking place at the Hollywood Cinema on the 6th of December (4pm) and goes through to the Sunday at 4pm. A week later, it’s Wellington’s turn (December 13th). Tickets are available from Ticketek. Starting November 15th on the MGM Channel will be Incredibly Strange Television, featuring uncut, uncensored, unfiltered and of course uninterrupted selected cuts from exploitation pioneers like Russ Meyer, HG Lewis, Joe D’Amato, Jesus Franco and the extremely rare and utterly messed up Shaw Bros Horror films from the 80s. The series will contain – graphic gore, cheesy monsters, 60s dancing, giant robots, insane dialogue, sick buggers, tough chicks, stupid men, huge breasts, big cocks, loin cloths and space stuff, every Saturday night. See www.incrediblystrange.co.nz for details on both. 

It’s Alive (1974) from Larry Cohen (Q the Winged Serpent (1982), The Stuff (1982) and the astonishingly awesome God Told Me To (1976))  played on the concerns over reproductive rights from that decade. The story centres around a couple whose new-born turns out to be a vicious mutant killer. Followed by two sequels (It Lives Again (1978) and It’s Alive III:Island of the Alive (1987)) and an utterly unnecessary remake this year.

Jean Rollin is a French director who has made films that also vary widely in quality and genre. Les Raisins de la mort (1978) aka The Grapes of Death is often billed as the first French gore film, and is a surprisingly watchable Zombie film in the style of The Crazies and 28 Days Later. In a very French turn, people are turned into crazed Zombies by consuming poisoned wine. Another Zombie movie directed by him under the name J.A.Laser, Zombie Lake (1981), is a truly dire masterpiece of exploitation. During the underwater shots of the lake in question, sides of the swimming pool it was filmed in are clearly visible. Halfway through the lumbering narrative, an all female-sports team pulls up to the lake in order to go skinny dipping. Featuring awful Nazi Zombies, including one who is attempting to help his descendent in the local village.

Jess Franco, a Spanish film director-writer, also directed a dire Nazi Zombie film. The slow plodding Oasis of the Zombies (1981) concerns a treasure hunt to find lost Nazi gold in a desert oasis, which they discover is protected by the Nazi Zombies. Unlike Zombie Lake, there is nothing really mentionable about this film aside from how slow it feels. Franco has had a prolific career spanning everything from women-in-prison (99 Women (1969)), lesbian vampires (the aptly named Vampyros Lesbos (1971)), cannibals (Mondo Cannibale (1980)) and erotica (Eugine (1970)).

Joe D’Amato was a cross-genre explotaition director who did everything from porn, through Horror. His Beyond the Darkness (1979), aka Buio Omega, features a rich young man digging up his dead lover, stuffing her and keeping her in his bed while he attempts to audition her replacement. Together with Antropophagus (1980), they are probably two of his better works. He was also prone to making quick knock-offs of other films. Examples include his Conan clones Ator the Invincible (1983) and Ator the Blademaster (1987) and the non-official sequel Caligula 2 (1981). The less said about the hardcore sex scenes in the misnamed Erotic Nights of the Living Dead (1980), the better.

Katakuri-ke No Kofuku (2001) aka The Happiness of the Karakura is infamous and prodigious Japanese director Takashi Miike’s remake of the Korean film Chouonghan Kajok (1998) (aka The Quiet Family). A genre twisting black comedy about a family whose attempt to open a guest house in the mountains goes horribly wrong as the guests start to die. Features musical numbers and dancing Zombies.

Lair of the White Worm (1988) is Ken Russell’s fun adaption of the mediocre Bram Stoker novel and the only Hugh Grant film worth watching. Featuring a giant worm monster and Amanda Donohoe as an evil vampire priestess wearing a ceremonial strap-on. It even crosses briefly into nunsploitation at one stage, an area Ken Russell had previously ventured into with The Devils (1971). 

Before Wes Craven started making parodies of parodies (Screams 1-3) he used to be a cutting edge Horror director. His debut Last House On the Left (1972) is as powerful and uncomfortable to watch today as it was when it came out. A roving gang of escaped convicts kidnap, rape and kill two teenagers and then seek refuge with the parents of one of the children (a very bad move). Sharing similar revenge themes with I Spit On Your Grave (1978) and I drink your Blood (1970), they show a 70s obsessed with the dangers posed to the status quo by hippies, criminals and rednecks. Wes Craven went on to direct the original two The Hills Have Eyes (1977 and 1985), A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), the much underrated The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988) before succumbing to pretension with New Nightmare (1994) and the Scream movies (1996, 1997 and 2000).

Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (1975) aka The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue is a Zombie film where the dead are reanimated by a new experimental pest control system (making it the first Zombie movie with an eco-theme?). It is perhaps the only highlight in the Zombie field between Romero’s first two Zombie outings. A low-key slow build up leads into a gorefest, ending including a painful breast mutilation (which possibly inspired a similar effect in the awful Burial Grounds (1981)). It should be noted that the Manchester Morgue only has a brief occurrence in the film. 

Lucio Fulci was another Italian director of genre films and is often reffered to as “The Godfather of Gore”. Highlights of his long career include Zombi 2 (1979) featuring the only ever cinematic Zombie shark wrestling, and the dream/nightmare-like HP Lovecraft influenced The Beyond (1981). Both ended up on the UK’s video nasty list, in addition to the slightly scrambled The House By The Cemetary (1981). He also directed giallo films such as the bizarrely titled Don’t Torture A Duckling (1972) and The New York Ripper (1982). The latter of which is still only available in a cut form in the UK and is memorable for the gore and the Donald Duck-like voice of the serial killer.