Dir - Alvin Rakoff
Overall: MEH
A borderline confounding British/Canadian co-production from director Alvin Rakoff, Death Ship has an unintentionally goofy charm that occasionally jives "well" with its seriousness. The premise of a haunted freighter that was once a Nazi torture vessel or something is quite solid and the earlier moments spent upon it contain some effectively creepy atmosphere. Gradually though, the wheels start to come off when consistently clumsy editing and a mostly aloof performance from George Kennedy undermine the intended spookiness. While the third act gets positively nonsensical, that is also when viewers may be prone to the most chuckles with scenes like a woman comically thrashing around in a shower that is pouring blood on her, a room where a projector keeps playing Nazi footage that causes one character to somehow teleport to an entirely different party of the ship while the other character collapses while holding his ears, and Kennedy ranting, raving, and getting crushed by machine equipment. All pure nonsense of course and poorly executed, yet it is also occasionally amusing.
(1987)
Dir - Peter Jackson
Overall: GOOD
The full-length, splatter-fest debut Bad Taste from Peter Jackson is a delightfully disgusting triumph of very low-brow, DIY cinema. Jackson produced, shot, stared, directed and co-wrote an alien take-over/action parody where bulbous extraterrestrial beings disguise themselves as humans in order to harvest people's flesh to use in their intergalactic fast food chain. It is hard to go wrong with a premise so sublimely silly and even from his humble jumping off point here, Jackson had an undeniable skill for kinetic pacing and laughably clever set pieces. Several of the cast members, (including Jackson), take on multiple roles and admirable mileage is gotten out of the paper-thin budget where gross-out, cartoon-level violence is the star attraction. The effects work is undeniably primitive, but it has the same cheapo charm that Sam Raimi's Evil Dead helped popularize and the squishy sound effects certainly enhance close-up shots of blood, drool, guts, brains, puke, and animal feces. It is all done in a deliberately shock-worthy fashion and as the title clearly suggests, the movie is not for all tastes. Furthermore it is probably not for MOST tastes, but those who want a ridiculous, wretched laugh at borderline ingenious, amateur filmmaking will have plenty to munch on.
(1988)
Dir - Olli Soinio
Overall: MEH
The sloppy, one-note Finnish horror film The Moonlight Sonata, (Kuutamosonaatti), is a backwoods redneck/isolated in the woods mash-up that fails to pull off whatever the hell it is trying to pull off. Writer/director Olli Soinio makes a number of standard blunders. The plotting is borderline terrible, none of the characters are remotely fleshed-out, the structure is entirely monotonous, and the sinister musical score plays throughout almost all eighty-six minutes which undermines the intended humor. In the lead, Tiina Björkman spends all of her scenes bouncing between two facial expressions, (angry or unsettled), while her on-screen brother says maybe five words and literally only affords ONE facial expression, (unsettled). This leaves their mountain man pursuer to just grin like a pervert and very lazily try to either molest, flirt with, or murder them depending on his random mood. Mostly though, it is just an awkward and boring ordeal that goes in seamless circles, retreading the same lackadaisical, cat and mouse set pieces that advance absolutely nothing story wise. There sure are a lot of scenes of characters making faces without talking though.
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