(1991)
Dir - Hervé Hachuel
Overall: MEH
The second of only two full-length films directed by producer Hervé Hachuel, Immortal Sins, (Veil of Dreams, Vengeance with a Kiss), is a contemporary set throwback, set in a Gothic location and involving a long condemned witch who works her mojo on any men in her accuser's family line. These kind of formulaic tales write themselves, and Thomas McKelvey Cleaver and Beverly Gray's screenplay has nothing clever to add to a long-established cinematic mythos of unsuspecting city folks moving out into the European countryside only to get besieged by supernatural forces that are beyond their control. There are some steamy nightmare sex scenes between Not-Wings Hauser Cliff De Young and Shari Shattuck, the latter playing the scheming succubus lady who is posing as an interior decorator because she has to pose as something. This was one of many B-level productions from Roger Corman's Concorde-New Horizons to be shot overseas and with a local crew, and the "anything to save a buck" approach captures some of the remote Spanish countryside, not to mention the dark, fire-lit castle setting. The film is atmospherically on point, but the story is a snore and it only comes alive within the last five or so minutes when we get some hearts being ripped out, some monster make-up, and a pool of water erupting into flames.
(1992)
Dir - Paul Naschy
Overall: MEH
If one wanted to be kind, they can see Paul Naschy's penultimate directorial full-length The Night of the Executioner, (La noche del ejecutor), as a fun action revenge parody, but it is more likely that it is simply a hilariously out-of-touch and ridiculous vanity project from a man who has done far better. This is Naschy's low-end version of Death Wish, and it is presented in an identical style to his films from a decade and some change earlier, dating it right out of the gate. Scenes start with zoom-outs, characters sit around talking in boring wide-shots, there is hardly any atmospheric lighting or cinematography, expository dialog is never disguised as anything but, and it has a lackadaisical pace that the early 90s were hardly on about. Besides an unflinching rape and murder scene in the beginning to get things going, the rest of the action is clumsy and downright embarrassing, with Naschy usually just slowly shooting people instead of coming up with outrageous comeuppance kill scenes. Playing a rich doctor, Naschy gives himself a humdrum training montage, learns how to throw knives and use guns with pinpoint accuracy in a manner of hours or days, literally walks headfirst right through a goddamn glass window, and picks off the criminals one at a time in order for them to formulate a plan and murder more of his loved ones. There is plenty of other nonsense like cars exploding from a single gunshot yards away and badly-hung Nazi flags because evil, but if one can withstand how sluggish the majority of it is, there are definitely some things left over to laugh at.
(1996)
Dir - Alberto Sciamma
Overall: WOOF
A loud, aggressive, disgusting, and insufferably obnoxious trash "comedy", Killer Tongue, (La lengua asesina), is the first full-length from music video director Alberto Sciamma, and you can tell. Edited at a dizzying rate, (coherence be damned), it cruises along like a jackrabbit on a drug-fueled quest towards self destruction. An alien life form, (or something), crashes into the dingy home of ex-bank robber Melinda Clarke, who is awaiting the release of her lover from the clutches of Robert Englund's "prison" which is just him screaming at a couple of inmates in the middle of the desert where he makes them do torturous amounts of manual labor. Clarke's body gets overtaken by the killer appendage of the title that turns her into a Goth rock dominatrix and makes her act like she is about to self-combust. Oh, and the tongue talks, turns her dogs into drag queens, and a nun shows up with supernatural powers while more people scream, piss, fondle each other, and scream some more. It is such an alarmingly hare-brained mess that its filthy, violent, profanity-ridden, bizarre, and gross-out trajectory has to be intentional. What audience this dung heap could possibly be for is another question since it goes so hard and so fast in so many wild directions that it seems more like a parody of grimy exploitation movies than one that has any clue as to what makes some of those movies enduring.
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