(1982)
Dir - Ignacio F. Iquino
Overall: WOOF
Largely working in the Spanish Western and erotic genres, filmmaker Ignacio F. Iquino made a rare horror exploitation oddity near the end of his career with Bloody Sect, (Secta siniestra); a nonsensical and dull kind-of Antichrist workout with more nutty things on paper than on screen. It is readily apparent that Iquino was unaccustomed to the horror genre as he has no sense of macabre atmosphere, instead leaving everything flatly shot with a handful of prerequisite camera zooms and garish gore sequences thrown in to disguise how unexciting the whole thing is to look at. The pacing is as bad as any other no budget bit of Euro-crap, resulting in lame set pieces aside from gross ones like a guy's eyeballs getting stabbed, a real live frog getting stabbed, and gynecologist exams shown in a fully-lit interior that makes it look more like a tutorial video for doctors than something out of a "scary" movie about an evil cult that artificially knocks-up a woman so that a demon baby or whatever can be born. There is plenty of nudity, laughably mugging performances, (especially from Diana Conca as a nut-job ex wife), and tedious sequences that go absolutely nowhere, so it is a mess of a film that may only please the most patient of trash fans.
(1986)
Dir - Deran Sarafian
Overall: MEH
The first credited directorial job for Deran Sarafian was the American/Spanish co-production Alien Predator, (Alien Predators, The Falling, Mutant 2); a limp and small-scale virus outbreak movie that fails to deliver on its knock-off title. Shot in Madrid, Spain in 1984 and featuring three Americans in the leads, (including Fade to Black's Dennis Christopher playing against-type as a lady's man broski), the film allegedly went over-budget and had financial issues which resulted in a delayed release, landing with a whimper on the home video market amongst hordes of better, worse, and more ridiculous genre vehicles. While some of the gore sequences are wonderfully realized by special effects man Mark Shostrom and the character's love triangle is adorable, the pacing is dreadful and almost entirely void of action save for a couple of snooze-worthy car chases and an adorable alien puppet causing mayhem. Christopher's Elmer Fudd and Martin Hewitt's Rod Serling impression could fairly be categorized as "cringe-worthy", but the performances are otherwise acceptable, even if the story line is both derivative and lackluster. The aforementioned extraterrestrial critter aside, the aliens prefer to let their presence be known by mutilating a couple of animals and people from the inside out, with the movie omitting predators entirely.
(1989)
Dir - Pedro Almodóvar
Overall: GOOD
Frequently one to play the provocative contrarian game against social norms and toxic behavior, filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar's Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, (Átame!), works as a romantic comedy satire that is bound to aggravate those who take its depiction of Stockholm syndrome adoration seriously. Actors Loles León, Antonio Bandaras, and Victoria Abril had all appeared in Almodóvar's films to varying capacities, with Bandaras and Abril continuing a partnership with the director going forward. For Bandras' part, he gets the challenging role of a kidnapper with a heart of gold or in other words, the role of a person who does not technically exist in the real world and therefor is a difficult character for an audience to fall for. Playing off of Beauty and Beast motifs which have been used in various cinematic and literature works before, Abril's abductee is gradually blindsided by Bandaras' charms, sob story, sexual abilities, and her own mental gymnastics in order to cope with her present situation in a manner that does not result in crippling madness. Almodóvar is aware of the button-pushing material that he is utilizing though, slyly letting the viewer in on the joke with a musical score that bounces between being whimsical and suspenseful, a movie-within-a-movie sub-plot that directly points out the fine line between horror and love story, the relationship commitment pun of the title, plus some sexual taboo pushing that is quirky enough to laugh at.
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