1970s José Mojica Marins - Part Two

THE END OF MAN

(1971)

Overall: MEH

 

José Mojica Marins steps away from his blasphemous Coffin Joe persona into that of an aloof messiah figure with The End of Man, (Finis Hominis).  Amusing at times yet consistently aimless in its low-budget surrealism, it is told in arbitrary vignettes instead of adhering to any sort of plot, where Marins' mysterious quasi-guru occasionally appears while nameless characters are sometimes confused, sometimes fascinated, sometimes worshiping, or sometimes seeking his willy-nilly wisdom and supernatural powers.  Marins enjoyed casting himself as some sort of revelatory prophet who could change mankind, but whereas Coffin Joe had a consistent and fully-formed agenda of Crowley hedonism in order to find the perfect woman to perpetuate his seed, here he just wanders around without saying much.  When he does open his mouth, it is nothing but brief, nondescript platitudes of enlightenment that somehow captivate the entire populous by film's end.  He disappears for large portions of the running time, and perhaps intentional, perhaps unintentionally goofy moments are interjected, like a wheelchair-bound woman spontaneous getting up and running away from his naked frame, certain scenes presented in black and white, an injured child covered in chocolate syrup blood, a woman crying tears of Vaseline while getting fucked over an open casket at a funeral.

 

WHEN THE GODS FALL ASLEEP

(1972)

Overall: MEH

 

Picking up immediately where he left off with the previous year's rambling The End of Man, José Mojica Marins's When the Gods Fall Asleep, (Quando os Deuses Adormecem), is a more sluggish and uninteresting variation of the same vague themes.  Marins is taking the piss out of much here, from institutions, to new age enlightenment, to generic hippy culture, to messiah complexes, to impressionable guru worshipers, to society's ills breeding morally vapid degenerates.  All of it is thrown into a minuscule-budgeted stew, but it comes off as a lack of vision instead of a razor-sharp satire, if such a thing was even the agenda.  Marins still only sporadically pops up as his Finis Hominis alter-ego, who we find out may just be a metal asylum escapee or the financial patron of said asylum, or both.  We are treated to long sequences of knife-happy and perverted gypsies getting down, knife-happy perverts in a restaurant except in black and white also getting down, and a Satanic ceremony where cult members writhe around eating live chickens only to proclaim that Satan is not real once Marins shows up to scold them.  Some of the set pieces are funny in their dingy sloppiness, but the pacing is horrendous, and the whole thing fails to justify its existence.

 

INFERNO CARNAL
(1977)
Overall: MEH

Not one of José Mojica Marins's better moments, the Coffin Joe-less Inferno Carnal, (Hellish Flesh), is a bizarre and above all else, repetitive snooze-fest with one of the most asinine plots that the filmmaker ever utilized.  What essentially turns out to be a long con game of infidelity comeuppance is annoyingly padded with the same claustrophobic and poorly lit montages over and over again.  For the audience's sake, hopefully you are in the mood for hearing Marins yell "Rachel" and "Why?" several thousand times.  Even working within the confines of minimal funds which was always the case for Marins' macabre movies, this is the worst that any of them ever looked, with wretched cinematography and again, so many shots that are dark enough as to be indecipherable.  The story itself is stupid and painstakingly drawn out to eighty-five minutes when eighty of those minutes could have easily been trimmed to get the exact same point across.  Even though the ending has Marins' patented gleeful cruelty, and gore hounds will get a kick out of horrendous makeup and closeup eye surgery, this is still bottom barrel stuff.

HALLUCINATIONS OF A DERANGED MIND
(1978)
Overall: MEH

By the time that José Mojica Marins had gotten to his final Coffin Joe film before he would at last retire the character for several decades, he was almost laughably scraping the barrel.  Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind, (Delírios de um Anormal), is almost entirely made up of footage left on the cutting room floor from four of his previous Coffin Joe movies.  Marin slammed all of these sequences together, inter-cut them at a frantic pace as usual, and then filmed only around thirty-plus minutes of new scenes to desperately put some kind of story together.  In theory this works in that Marins' nightmarish visuals always came off so deliriously random anyway that throwing a hodgepodge of them from different movies together does not make the presentation any less bizarre.  The problem is that we have seen all of these specific set pieces before, and the story which he frames all of his good, hellish montages around is pathetically shoe-horned in there.  It shows a level of determination on Marins' part to leave no stone unturned and to get as much out of his already filmed work as possible, but this still cannot come off as anything but a pointless hail marry effort to unleash one last Coffin Joe movie on the masses before neither the funding nor interest was there anymore.

2021 Horror Part Twenty-Four

WHEN THE SCREAMING STARTS
Dir - Conor Boru
Overall: MEH

 

Taking its cue from black comedy mockumentaries Man Bites Dog, The Last Horror Movie, Be My Cat: A Film for Anne, and Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, co-writer/director Conor Boru's full-length debut When the Screaming Starts is off to tired start from the onset.  Not to shoot it down on premise alone since how many "city family moves out to a haunted house in the country" stories have we endured over the decades, per example?  That said, Boru's concoction here offers nothing new or interesting to its niche, giving us another aspiring filmmaker who decides to follow a serial killer around in order to break new cinematic ground.  You know, how literally NO aspiring filmmaker on the face of the planet would ever do, let alone with a murderer who willingly wants their crimes fully documented.  Whereas other movies of this nature utilized such an absurd-on-paper premise to examine severe mental illness or people's inherent addiction to violence and the sociopaths who inflict it, this one just goes for straight goofiness.  No one on screen is relatable as they are merely cartoonish caricatures whose only purpose is have enough silly quirks to garnish some macabre chuckles, but it lacks the charm, inventiveness, and comedic chops of say What We Do in the Shadows, which is yet another superior film that it can be inspirationally linked to.

MEDUSA
Dir - Anita Rocha da Silveira
Overall: MEH

 

Whereas Robert Eggers remarkable The Witch shined a light on Puritan fear-mongering dogma gone awry, Anita Rocha da Silveira's sophomore full-length Medusa looks at violent Christian youth gang culture in her native Brazil with more aggressively unpleasant results.  The issues that can be found with such a film are intentionally in place, namely that both its subject matter and its characters are top-to-bottom appalling.  Yet simultaneously, da Silveira slowly unveils an agenda to break down the disgusting and hypocritical hierarchy that its female characters have willfully endured.  Groomed to be on their best behavior and to present physical beauty and godly cleanliness in order for their men to exhibit any form of violence against them or others that they wish, (when not making swooning girls watch them practice choreographed macho dance routines or have a hunky preacher expel anxiety demons from his flock), there is an inevitable primal screaming breaking point to it all.  Along the way, da Silveira takes an arhouse approach, balancing bizarre set pieces that bounce between the ridiculous, the violent, and the frightening.  Unfortunately, the movie's over two hour running time affords for it to meander with characters that take too long to garnish any sympathy for, if any sympathy is garnished at all.  It is stylish and challenging with a great soundtrack to boot, but it still falls shy of deserving its redemptive arc.

SHAPELESS
Dir - Samantha Aldana
Overall: MEH

Eating disorders are, (perhaps), oddly absent as subject matter in the horror genre, which is something that at least gives Samantha Aldana's full-length debut Shapeless an edge.  Co-written by its lead actor Kelly Angell, it is a disturbed character study that tries to capture a type of consuming anxiety where one finds themself at a loss to connect with the rest of the world as they are swimming in their own growing psychosis.  As an aspiring jazz singer with bulimia, Angell is vulnerable throughout, presenting herself at a persistent distance from her co-workers and band mates while she hallucinates various body mutations that only she can see.  This of course is a clear cinematic representation of what those who suffer such afflictions endure, obsessing over their appearance and finding unflattering faults no matter what the scale says.   Yet Angell's ailment seems to go much deeper than simply a weight issue in comparison to conventional beauty as her struggling musical career and ambitions, (coupled with jealousy), are as big of a drive if not more so.  It makes for a confused watch that is more concerned with its psychologically dark ambiguity than in anything graspable.  This is likely intentional, but despite Angell's solid performance and some artful visuals, the film wallows more than it captivates.

2015 Horror Part Sixteen

THE PRIESTS

Dir - Jang Jae-hyun

Overall: GOOD

The full-length debut The Priests, (Geomeun Sajedeul), from writer/director Jang Jae-hyun arrived the same year as his short film 12th Assistant Deacon from which it expands upon.  Bringing schlocky exorcism motifs into South Korea has a novelty to it all on its own, but thankfully Jang weaves his familiar materials into something compelling, funny, and agreeably paced.  It brings to mind the usual demonic possession movies that have endlessly spawned in The Exorcist's wake, with a little of Francis Lawrence's A-budgeted Constantine thrown in that focuses on some of the inner politics of Eastern Catholicism and the fun pairing of a rogue Father and a naive Deacon who through personal trauma, find a way to lock horns in squaring off against an ancient demon that of course has ensnared itself in a teenage girl.  The first act dishes in the most humor where Gang Dong-won's bumbling religious student gets tasked with the job; a job that he takes seriously and proves more adept at as his research deepens.  Kim Yoon-seok is equally interesting and amusing as the no-nonsense veteran who has the power of occult knowledge and unwavering faith at his disposal, all of which culminates in a lengthy final act that finally gets to the blasphemy-spewing eviction of the unwanted spirit.  It goes big at this point, but the suspense and emotional turmoil are effectively kept in check.

SECRETS OF A PSYCHOPATH

Dir - Bert I. Gordon

Overall: WOOF

At ninety-three years old, Bert I. Gordon inexplicably returned to the director's chair with Secrets of a Psychopath, though any B-movie fans who may rejoice at such news will quickly be disappointed.  That is because this digitally-shot, minuscule-budgeted sleaze-fest exist in a universe where people behave like people who do not exist in any plausible universe.  Considering that Gordon penned the screenplay as well, it is sadly a case of a noticeably out-of-touch filmmaker who has not seen a contemporary movie in decades, or maybe has not even left his house to interact with anyone younger than him in as many decades.  Mark Famiglietti looks like a typical, boyish CW hunk, playing a character who is impotent, traumatized, and in an incestuous relationship with his sister, (skin queen Kari Wuher), who just so happens to be twelve years his senior.  Every plot point is hilariously "Huh?", from overtly attractive people hooking up, (and even marrying each other), with no safety net on a dating site, the cops having no idea how to follow-up on such obvious leads, Famiglietti burying a guy in his suburban backyard in broad daylight, Famiglietti getting aggressively picked up at a movie theater by an equally good looking lady who finds his childish cackles at race cars irresistible, and every character saying words that are so ridiculous and behaving in such cartoonishly illogical ways that the script would barely have to be tweaked to work in a Larry Blamire production.  If not the worst movie ever made about a guy who bangs his sister and murders people, it is easily the most embarrassing.

 

KILL ME PLEASE

Dir - Anita Rocha de Silveira

Overall: MEH

Brazilian filmmaker Anita Rocha de Silveira attempts her own aimless answer to David Robert Mitchell's also aimless It Follows with Kill Me Please, (Mate-Me Por Favor).  Set in upper class Rio de Janerio, it follows, (nyuck nyuck), a similar shtick of adolescents existing in a hazy world where hardly any adults enter into frame, all while a serial killer or a slew of them are picking off young women around their own age.  This captivates an entire school but not in any palpable way.  Instead, these young women are drawn to the crimes either by unexcitingly gossiping, making Secret Hitler-styled games out of it, or in the case of the particularly aloof Valentina Herszage, letting them morph her persona into someone who would probably fall in line with the group of zombied-out car crash fetishists in David Cronenberg's Crash.  Sadly though, there is no rhyme or reason to what transpires here, either aesthetically or narratively.  Scenes linger on for ages and many of them could be argued as being pointless, but de Silveira's screenplay seems to thrive on such an agenda where only vaguely interesting and disturbing things are happening to young people that are going about their lives unchecked while danger is all but surrounding them.  It is a difficult movie to crack yet unlike some of the surrealist cinema that it clearly channels, there is no oddball humor or emotional connection to be found.

2018 Horror Part Sixteen

SEARCHING

Dir - Aneesh Chaganty

Overall: GOOD

 

An ambitious crime thriller in that it exclusively utilizes the newly emerging screenlife gimmick, filmmaker Aneesh Chaganty's full-length debut Searching equally, (and thankfully), boats a plot-twist heavy narrative that is infectious as it unfolds.  Though it was shot in less than two weeks, the finished project took an additional year and a half to edit all of the webcam, iPhone, GoPro, helicopter, drone, and mini dv camera footage together.  The results play out like a conventional cinematic mystery to some extents, with incidental music used and more twisty-turvy revelations than most true crime stories ever deliver.  Some of these gasp-worthy moments stretch plausibility to a certain extent, especially during the finale where the audience knows that there are twenty-odd more minutes left for another one-upping rug-pull or two to emerge.  Still, Chaganty and Sev Ohanian's script comes close to leaving no room for error and the exciting presentation as well as rock solid performances elevate what is already a heart-racing experience.

 

THE NIGHTSHIFTER

Dir - Dennison Ramalho

Overall: MEH

 

The first full-length from Brazilian filmmaker Dennison Ramalho, The Nightshifter, (Morto Não Fala), suffers from a bloated running time, yet it offers up some freaky ideas along the way.  Essentially a vengeful spirit story with a couple of familiar motifs thrown in, (supernatural activity that no one mentions to anybody else, everyone thinking that the protagonist who is suffering from most of said supernatural activity is just going crazy, etc), the tweak of Daniel de Oliveira's title character/morgue worker having always been able to communicate with the dead is an intriguing one.  The first act is the strongest, setting everything into motion where Oliveira breaks the rules apparently and uses a recently departed gang member's secrets for his own scheme to rid the world of his unfaithful wife's adulterer.  Things get more formulaic from there as the tone goes darker, even if there is a thin layer of camp permeating the proceedings.  The CGI effects are noticeably distracting and the film takes too long to deliver its message where both the haunted and the haunter are on morally disastrous paths, but the atmosphere, gore, and several of the set pieces are ideally unnerving.

MAY THE DEVIL TAKE YOU

Dir - Timo Tjahjanto

Overall: MEH

 

A diabolical cliche-fest that goes hard with the popcorn horror high-jinks, May the Devil Take You, (Sebelum Iblis Menjemput), is the first solo full-length from director Timo Tjahjanto, who had previously done segments in The ABCs of Death and the best one in V/H/S/2, as well as co-directing a number of films with Kimo Stamboel as the Mo Brothers duo.  Low on story yet nearly two hours in length, it is admirable on the one hand how unapologetically cranked-up the freakshow set pieces are as they only let up for the occasional, most bare-bones amount of character development.  The film becomes way more stupid than scary though, throwing loud, gory nonsense at the audience and more wide-mouthed demon baddies than should be legally allowed.  There is also old timey music played for chills, a stoic and largely unphased child, and some egregious "dumb people in horror movies" or just plain ole stupid plot maneuvers in the third, over-the-top act to keep things bulldozing along.  It is not enough to merely tolerate so much arbitrary mayhem in order to enjoy it; one has to crave an experience where your thinking cap is taken off from the get-go and then screaming, bloody, possessed hellspawn are allowed to bombard your eyes and ears.

1960s Foreign Horror Part Six

OBRAS MAESTRAS DEL TERROR

(1960)

Dir - Enrique Carreras

Overall: MEH

This Argentine version of American International Pictures' Edgar Allan Poe anthology movie Tales of Terror has director Enrique Carreras stepping in for Roger Corman and Narciso Ibáñez Menta filling the Vincent Price role by appearing in all three stories as well as penning the screenplay.  Obras Maestras del Terror, (Masterworks of Terror), itself was a television series that had previously run for three seasons, this full-length version being the theatrical tie-in that would also be re-released five years later in English speaking markets as Master of Horror, where it was dubbed and had the final "Tell-Tale Heart" segment omitted.  Though it is a fun showcase for Menta and features a few nice, diabolical touches along the way, it does not provide much of an interesting variation on the often-filmed source material.  The most severe issue is the two-hour running time as each installment could easily afford to lose at least fifteen to even twenty minutes, something that would obviously make for a tighter viewing experience.  Since such unnecessary padding is detrimental, perhaps partaking of the American version and then the last five minutes of the aforementioned "Tell-Tale Heart" will suffice.

 

LE VIOL DU VAMPIRE

(1968)

Dir - Jean Rollin

Overall: GOOD

Jean Rollin's debut Le Viol du Vampire, (The Rape of the Vampire, The Queen of the Vampires), established many of the fantastique motifs that he would continue to use throughout his career.  Originally commissioned as a short film by an owner of several local Paris theaters, it was expanded into a feature which explains it being broken up into two different sections and involving a barrage of characters who become increasingly difficult to keep track of.  The movie is anything but coherent, yet abstract storytelling is just one of the elements to most of Rollin's work, this one being his only in black and white as well as featuring a particularly fitting avant-garde musical score.  In addition to that, the usual components of beautiful women, evocative, on location scenery, minimal production qualities, and unprofessional actors whose awkward performances sit right at home with the surreal nature of everything else are also present.  The length is problematic at times yet despite the small budget, many of Rollin's later films would utilize an even smaller one which makes the results here somewhat ambitious, though not at all in a bad way.

EMBRUJADA

(1969)

Dir - Armando Bo

Overall: MEH

 

Depending on the source, Argentine sexploitation couple Armando Bo and Isabel Sarli's Embrujada, (Bewitched), was either released sometime in 1969 or 1976 and is one of the duo's numerous cinematic collaborations where Sarli is enormously naked throughout.  As per the course, the emphasis is on then boundary-pushing sleaze.  The synopsis has a kidnapped native woman who is made the wife of a brutal lumberyard owner that cannot get an erection, ergo sending her on a quest to have an Aryan, male baby with any man on earth that will lustfully satisfy here.  This bizarre set-up is treated as such throughout since Bo's no-budget filmmaking abilities mean that he is at the mercy of stock footage from one of his earlier movies, plus the editing is hilariously arbitrary and the look of a folkloric demon called Pombero is nothing more than a guy in wool clothes wearing a garish Halloween mask who is always shown in broad daylight to make him even less threatening.  Sarli's purpose seems to be as mouthwatering eye-candy as her character's lone personality trait is "horny", plus a significant portion of the running time is dedicated to gratuitous montages, almost all of which involve her in her birthday suit.  There is also a "blink and you'll miss it" homosexual scene that is never explained which could have been thrown in merely to rustle some conservative feathers.  In any event, this is a strange, Z-rent bit of Euro-trash if ever there was one.

2017 Horror Part Fourteen

THE CURED

Dir - David Freyne

Overall: MEH

While pessimism is often an inherent trait in horror, it becomes quite exhausting in David Freyne's debut The Cured; yet another goddamn zombie movie where the nature of humanity is thrown up against hopelessly dour circumstances.  In all fairness, Freyne's angle here is a unique one in that he presents a world where the 28 Days Later styled, aggressive "zombie" virus is actually cured, only the caveat is that the once infected are treated as lepers by the rest of the society, causing a violent uprising to stand-in for real world, "us vs. them" marginalization.  All of this sounds fine and even intelligent on paper, but things quickly become obnoxious as it is all based on shaky, illogical footing where the discrimination seems preposterously uncalled for and exaggerated.  To make matters worse, Freyne utilizes hacky genre tropes, most egregiously with predictable, deafeningly loud, monster noise jump scares and characters leaving long pauses to let each other dramatically contemplate their dialog before exhibiting asinine behavior in the messy, final act.  The presentation is heady and bleak enough to disguise its poorly thought out details with the humor kept to an almost non-existent minimum and lots of gut-wrenching crying to go about, but the whole thing collapses easily.

GOOD MANNERS

Dir - Juliana Rojas/Marco Dutra

Overall: GOOD

Imperfect yet commendable for its bold choices and unique presentation of dark fairy tale subject matter, writer/director duo Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra's latest full-length collaboration Good Manners, (As Boas Maneiras), is one of the most interesting, live action Disney homages disgusted as a horror film that one is likely to see.  Structured in two parts, it reveals its cards very slowly, unveiling more stylistic layers as it goes on which throw in everything from conventional monster movie, lesbian romance, and burst into song musical in as least likely of a manner as possible.  The first half is comparatively the strongest as it offers up the most surprises, focusing on the natural bonding between hired caretaker Isabél Zuaa and estranged-from-her-wealthy-family, mother-to-be Marjorie Estiano.  When things jump ahead, it becomes more foreseeable where it will all lead, but the emotional core at the story remains gripping, which focuses in no spoon-feeding terms on the loyalty of unconditional love.  The performances are excellent all around and Rojas and Dutra bathe the movie in vibrant colors as well as a heightened aesthetic that never becomes distracting.  Save a few minor plot holes in the end and some unfortunately terrible CGI, it is an excellent, refreshing work that has both its heart and genre admiration in the right places.

 

THE SLEEP CURSE

Dir - Herman Yau

Overall: MEH

 

It is no wonder that Herman Yau's The Sleep Curse, (Shi mian), is allegedly the movie that broke actor Anthony Wong from doing any future horror films as it is a laughably misguided mess all of the way through.  Even during the initial set up which sees Wong arguing about not being granted the funds to pursue a sleep deprivation experiment, Yau proves to be working within a schlock framework.  Yet once the narrative detours into a half-hour long flashback sequence for the second act, the momentum suffers exponentially from there as it then proceeds to bounce between two different timelines at irregular intervals.  The production values are noticeably cheap; like early 90s straight-to-video cheap except with occasional bouts of terrible CGI and modern day, screechy jump scares that would be annoying if not for how hilariously stupid they are.  Tonally, the real life World War II atrocities sit very awkwardly with whatever else Yau was going for here, especially considering that the last twenty minutes busts out cartoon level violence and preposterous shock-value tactics, though granted neither of these are new to the director's earlier gore spectacles.  We witness Wong removing a corpse's face for no reason in order to take out his brain, feasting on his love interest's arm, and most ridiculous of all, cutting a bad guy's penis off and shoving it in said bad guy's mouth before decapitating him.  At a hundred and two minutes, it is an egregious experience to sit through, but if trash fans are willing to cherry pick a handful of bloody, outrageous moments to laugh at, it at least has you covered there.

2000s Paul Naschy

TOMB OF THE WEREWOLF

(2003)

Dir - Fred Olen Ray

Overall: WOOF

Shot during the same week as Countess Dracula's Orgy of Blood and released the following year, Tomb of the Werewolf, (The Unliving), is the final entry in Paul Nashcy's Count Waldemar Daninsky series.  The fact that the Spanish horror icon got to play his most famous character one last time while pushing seventy years old is a wonderful thing in spirit, yet unfortunately the resulting film is a piece of absolute shit.  Writer/director/schlock peddler Fred Olen Ray is basically only tolerable when he is delivering his own brand of exploitative tongue-in-cheek comedy, so his attempt at atmospheric Gothic horror with worse production values and acting than most pornography is just headscratchingly embarrassing.  Speaking of porn, this is of the softcore variety with an exclusive cast made up of mimbos and naked women, save for both Hollywood Chainsaw Hooker's Jay Richardson who mostly just smirks and of course Naschy who only speaks a couple lines of phonetic English.  On the positive side, the makeup is actually decent and Naschy still has an impressive ferociousness when under the wolfman garb.  Elsewhere though, it is a typical "shot on digital video" crapfest that fairly belongs on anyone's "bad movie night" list.

ROTTWEILER

(2004)

Dir - Brian Yuzna

Overall: MEH

 

Following up Beyond Re-Animator with another low budget Spanish production, Brian Yuzna hits a creative wall with the painfully not good Rottweiler.  The concept of a cybernetic K9 hunting down an escaped prisoner is nothing to take seriously of course, but the tone here goes for riveting, B-movie action that fails to jive with incredibly lousy dialog, unfocused plotting, shit dubbing, and an underwritten story loaded with unintentional humor and schlocky cliches.  Yuzna's attempts at visual and conceptual edginess are pretty far removed from his earlier, wackier work as well.  Poor little Ivana Baquero for instance sees a stark naked guy, her mom having sex with him, her dog mutilated, and her then mom viciously murdered right in front of her all within a handful of minutes.  As opposed to the absurd yuckfest Society which was actually intelligently crafted, or even the unwatchably terrible yet gleefully over the top Faust: Love of the Damned, this is just an unremarkable, not even minimally interesting dud.  Paul Naschy plays a mysterious bad guy for a couple of seconds though so at least he made some money.

A WEREWOLF IN THE AMAZON

(2005)

Dir - Ivan Cardoso

Overall: MEH

Nearing the end of his performing career, Paul Naschy got to check one last iconic horror character off from his list of many, this time playing none other than Dr. Moreau in A Werewolf in the Amazon, (Um Lobisomem na Amazônia), a barely sequel to H.G.Welles' source material.  It would be unfair to expect anything that profoundly examines "man playing god" themes within the bottom-barrel, purposely goofy presentation here from Brazilian filmmaker Ivan Cardoso.  A comedy/horror hybrid that even randomly detours into musical terrain for a single scene, there are topless Amazon women, sex scenes that fade to black as soon as they begin, about four sets to shoot on, day for night scenes via obvious digital manipulation, no animal makeup for any of Moreau's monstrous creations, and every single dialog dump is littered with nothing but exposition.  In many ways this fits right at home with much of Naschy's low-budget work, though it is a plus that the sleaze factor is played exclusively for campy chuckles this time.  The tone is quite appropriate for the moronic material and Naschy actually seems to be enjoying himself as the one-note villain, giving his scant few werewolf appearances a sufficient jolt to go out on.  A better movie overall certainly would have been preferable to hang his lycanthropian hat on once and for all, but this is harmless silliness that is at least watchable for fans that are hip to its existence.

2000s Foreign Horror Part Fifteen

GONE
(2007)
Dir - Ringan Ledwidge
Overall: MEH

A frustrating outback thriller from director Ringan Ledwidge, Gone is low on momentum, null on convincing characters, and loaded with dopey plot contrivances in place in order to keep things crawling to their unsatisfying conclusion.  The film barely qualifies as "thriller" at all until the last fifteen-odd minutes when Scott Mechlowicz' calmly shady and unlikable American decides to become a raging psychopath, which presumably would have happened much sooner and with more agency.  Such a finale is not only undeserved and clashing, but it makes the movie's other two characters appear like easily-duped idiots; characters who have gone alone with Mechlowicz' behavior which is more odd than charming.  The problem largely lies within the premise itself as we have seen countless variations of the "new friend who clearly isn't up to any good" story before, so the viewer can guess what is to come long before the dim-witted victims can. Ledwidge is attempting drawn-out suspense here by unveiling his cards so gradually as to make the frightful jump in the closing moments seem both inevitable and surprising at the same time.  Instead, the movie could have leaned into its jealousy and paranoia, pulling off a nifty psychological trick by skipping such a whimpering bit of violence to close things out, but oh wait, never mind; probably bad guy was just an actual bad guy the whole time.

 

EMBODIMENT OF EVIL

(2008)

Dir - José Mojica Marins

Overall: GOOD

José Mojica Marins's blasphemous swan song Embodiment of Evil, (Encarnação do Demônio), is a diabolically absurd note to bow out on.  Returning to and ending the Coffin Joe series after forty-one years, (and the first directorial full-length from Marins in twenty-one years), it is a proper sequel to This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse and sees the infamous Zé do Caixão character getting released from prison after decades and having killed an additional thirty-men while incarcerated.  Naturally, he gets right back to business which is exclusively torturing people in a hell-bent quest to spread his wicked seed to any willing woman that is a third of his age who can survive his nihilistic spell.  While it is at first unnatural to see a much older and thicker Marins in the Coffin Joe garb without the youthful zeal of his earlier appearances, he certainly delivers on anyone thinking he could not keep up with modern day gore and nastiness.  Coming from a man who rather single-handedly championed such exploitative cinematic tactics so long ago, this in fact should not be surprising as Marins proves that "he's still got it" in the most classic sense.  Ridiculous, disgusting, heinous from front to back, and in on its own ungodly charm, this is an appropriate final chapter to Brazil's most maverick voice in underground filmmaking.

 

SPLICE

(2009)

Dir - Vincenzo Natali

Overall: MEH

If Vincenzo Natali's Splice was intended to be a bold, tonally bulletproof dark comedy, than its highly baffling aspects make some sort of "sense" on paper.  One of the most curious mad scientist romps in many a year, there is something persistently off throughout the entire film where so much illogical and inconsistent behavior, slapstick level goofiness, daft plot points, half-baked themes, and exclusively straight, committed performances combine together in something that is virtually impossible to make heads or tails of.  It seems to be saying a lot at once about corporate bio engineering, childhood trauma, nature meddling, infidelity, offspring attachment, Freudian psychology, "man playing god" whateverness, and who knows what else.  None of these concepts are properly explored though, with most being merely alluded to as a part CGI mutant/monster/human/baby/girl/man thing with a tail and wings is distracting everyone both on and off screen.  Natali deserves some recognition for such an unorthodox combination of thematic and genre components and the end result certainly leaves an impression unlike what anyone could expect.  Whether or not that is a bad, good, confusing, irritating, hilarious, or fascinating impression, (or a fusing of each), is definitely left to the more adventurous and forgiving of viewers to decide.

2000s Foreign Horror Shorts

WARD 13

(2003)
Dir - Peter Cornwell
Overall: GOOD

 

The debut from Australian filmmaker Peter Cornwell, (The Haunting in Connecticut), Ward 13 is an amusing, dialog-less stop-motion nightmare that finds an unwilling patient trying to desperately escape the rather unwholesome hospital that he has found himself in after a car wreck.  The claymation is slightly crude, but it also benefits the movie's somewhat amusing tone; a tone which is enhanced by macabre things like disturbing looking medical instruments, a nurse in a Jason Voorhees mask, and one patient being turned into a Cthulhu monster.  There is also a nod to a Simpsons gag with a dog with two heads and a cloned sibling with two rear-ends.  Cornwell's direction is moody, funny, and rather suspenseful, unfolding more like a Looney Tunes cartoon than anything else.

 

GREEN VINYL

(2004)

Dir - Kleber Mendonça Filho

Overall: GOOD

 

This stylized, spooky short from Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho was based off a Russian folktale called "Green Gloves", here modernized somewhat to Green Vinyl, (Vinil Verde).  Told over narration and still photographs, it follows a mysterious, fairytale like logic which is more curiously compelling due to the film's contemporary setting.  A central theme is eventually revealed of passing one's own fears and eccentricities down to your children and the very stark, singular presentation makes the journey to get there more mesmerizing and eerie than downright frightening.  Expertly moody and quite rewarding because of it, it is a unique and memorable quasi-supernatural short film to take proper notice of.

 

THE LOST SPIDER PIT SEQUENCE

(2005)

Dir - Peter Jackson

Overall: MEH

 

During the making of his own gargantuan-budgeted remake and for shits and giggles, Peter Jackson and his special effects team decided to recreate the alleged "lost" spider pit sequence in the original King Kong.  Splicing together footage from other films that used the same models and going off of artwork and a script that detailed the segment, the split-screen work is a bit rough, but otherwise it rather seamlessly fuses with the 1933 version.  Considering that the stop-motion, prehistoric monster bits from King Kong are arguably the most enduring besides the iconic Empire State Building finale, Jackson's work here is a nice, gruesome addition.  Still, it is primarily of interest to cinephiles and just a minor curiosity on its own.

 

THE TORCHBEARER

(2005)

Dir - Václav Švankmajer

Overall: GOOD

 

The third short from Václav Švankmajer, (son of filmmaker Jan Švankmajer), is an ambitious piece that took five years to make and combines medieval fantasy and steampunk motifs, quite memorably at that.  The Torchbearer, (Světlonoš), seems to detail the perpetual rise and fall of power as an unnamed soldier withstands the trials of a mysterious castle where female statues test his wits and determination.  The film is visually captivating, almost exclusively composed of stark reds, bone, marble, stone, and metal with grinding gears, backwards whispers, some beastly cries from rats and a dragon, and a very subdued musical score by Ondřej Ježek as its only audio accompaniments.  It stretches its length a bit at times, but otherwise it is an excellently moody, mystical, and impressive bit of stop-motion animation.

THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF MISTER HOLLOW

(2008)

Dir - Rodrigo Gudiño/Vincent Marcone

Overall: GOOD

This chilling and effective collaboration between Rue Morgue magazine founder/filmmaker Rodrigo Gudiño and web designer/illustrator/Johnny Hollow member Vincent Marcone, (the band of which also composed the eerie soundtrack), takes a very deep look at a single, old-timey photograph with quite a lot becoming more apparent therein.  The Facts in the Case of Mister Hollow, (which sounds like something Edgar Allan Poe or H.P. Lovecraft would write, no doubt intended as such), stretches its premise for an acceptable amount of time, revealing numerous, sinister details before abruptly ending with plenty of questions still left on the table.  Mysterious and clearly occult-themed in nature, it is quite creepy and intriguing.

ALMA
(2009)
Dir - Rodrigo Blaas
Overall: GOOD

The only non-television, directorial effort from Spanish Pixar animator Rodrigo Blaas, Alma is foreseeable yet still impressively done.  A dark fantasy film where the doomed title character innocently writes her name on a stonewall only to be then immediately captivated into a mysterious doll shop right across the street, the viewer is hip to the story's outcome rather quickly.  The beauty then may be in how Blaas makes the predictable narrative still enchanting to watch; the animation is very clean and efficiently rendered and its secretive setting could wield a slew of intriguing options if further expanded upon.  On that note, a full-length version of Alma is one of a handful of projects stuck in development hell that Guillermo del Toro has been attached to executive producing, so who knows if we will ever get any proper answers as to the secrets withheld here.

2011 Horror Part Six

HARD LABOR
Dir - Juliana Rojas/Marco Dutra
Overall: MEH

This uneven, highly tranquil feature-length debut from Brazilian filmmakers Juliana Rojas and Marcon Dutra, (arriving after over a decade of the duo producing a number of shorts), barely qualifies as a horror movie or anything remotely entertaining at all.  At first, the tone is so lackadaisical as to be refreshing with all of the characters dialed down just a notch or so above zero, barely any music anywhere, and the story itself spending about an hour on what would otherwise have been just an initial set up.  It is unmistakably about the class system and economic hardships faced in contemporary Brazil, but just how its infrequent, strange and/or supernatural elements play a role is barely touched upon, let alone explained.  If there are even such elements present in the first place.  This is precisely because the film never seems to get going and it rather abruptly ends just as it begins to finally wake it's audience up.  The last scene is also remarkably out of place and seems to paint the whole thing as a comedy, making it more of a practical joke than giving it a frustrating, ambiguous climax which would have even been far preferable.

THE THING
Dir -  Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.
Overall: MEH

The word "pointless" is assuredly the most accurate to describe the inevitable remake, reboot, prequel, premake, preboot, repre, quelmake, makeboot, or whatever the fuck 2011's The Thing is.  The creative team involved have gone on record as desperately trying to defend its existence in the first place, saying it pays homage to John Carpenter's seminal 1982 version and calling it a companion piece that retreads the same themes of paranoia and isolation.  Which is all a very polite and respectable way of saying they really like John Carpenter's movie and wanted to make it themselves because having one movie that already did all this stuff is not enough apparently.  This argument can be made for every film that is not left to be its own thing, (pun intended), in the past, but this The Thing is so deliberately derivative of the last one that it not only cannot hope to possibly compare to such a lauded and beloved movie, but it also cannot NOT be compared to it.  In this regard, it cannot be viewed on its own terms by its very design.  It does not attempt to one-up its predecessor thankfully, but just exists parallel to it with less memorable characters, less memorable special effects, less memorable directing, less memorable music, Mary Elizabeth Winstead in place of Kurt Russell, and interchangeable everything else.

THE SKIN I LIVE IN
Dir -  Pedro Almodóvar
Overall: GOOD

Described by Pedro Almodóvar as "a horror story without any screams or frights", The Skin I Live In is a cross between the often influential Eyes Without A Face and well, pretty much every other Pedro Almodóvar movie.  The renowned filmmaker's fascination with sexual kinks, the female body, and how complex his emotionally-driven characters are finds an ideal environment to thrive here under the umbrella of Thierry Jonquet's novel Mygale from which this is an adaptation.  It is also the first pairing between Almodóvar and Antonio Banderas in just over two decades and the actor predictably excels in the very non-textbook, mad doctor role here.  Speaking of pleasant predictability, the film is as wonderfully photographed and meticulously designed as any of Almodóvar's works and the way that the plot deliberately reveals its intentions is something that could have fallen into utter nonsense in the hands of a lesser director.  The audience is taken to uncomfortable places so gradually and in such a controlled fashion that the way Almodóvar succeeds in making something so bizarre and downright horrifying also so engaging is one of the reason's his films are routinely talked about and admired in the first place.

1970s José Mojica Marins - Part One

AWAKENING OF THE BEAST
(1970)
Overall: MEH

Continuing with his use of Coffin Joe into more experimental terrain, José Mojica Marins' Awakening of the Beast, (O Despertar da Besta, O Ritual dos Sádicos), suffocates under its own self-indulgence and is only mildly amusing in the process.  The first hour of the movie slogs as it follows a handful of zombie-like characters being high, horny, and weird, (not zombie-like in a macabre sense, but in a visibly bored sense), and then a bunch of panelists argue about pretentious nonsense on what is revealed to be a TV show at the end.  Marins is one of these panelists, playing himself and mostly remaining silent and smug as everyone else prattles on about whether or not he is a genius.  Then random scenes go by that enhance what little narrative there is, and the last half hour switches to color so that Coffin Joe proper can show up to spout his usual brand of wicked monologues.  Marins' weird visuals take over here, including yet not limited to a bunch of people with faces painted on their asses.  While stepping outside of a conventional story formula is fine, the pacing is laborious and Marins' fiendish strengths are not utilized enough to elevate what is a ninety-odd minute, psychological venture about LSD and depravity or whatever, just with a handful of ghoulish set pieces tossed in there to wake us up.

THE BLOODY EXORCISM OF COFFIN JOE
(1974)
Overall: GOOD

Going meta again with the Coffin Joe character while actually utilizing a plot this time, The Bloody Exorcism of Coffin Joe, (Exorcismo Negro), finds José Mojica Marins growing ever more ambitious with his blasphemous formula.  The movie takes a liberal amount of time getting to its final showpiece of utter debauchery and madness, but Marins sprinkles enough bizarre and unholy scenes before the third act to keep most viewers from growing too impatient.  The narrative concerns the Brazilian filmmaker playing himself and ultimately confronting his infamous cinematic counterpart as he struggles with writers block for his next film as well as with the concept that his creation is more famous than he is.  While this is an interesting be it elementary angle that is nevertheless appreciated, being a Marins movie, it is generally about the strange and evil atmosphere, as well as the bizarre visuals that he can bombard you with.  In that regard, this is no disappointment as Marins shows as little restraint as ever and continues to push his hedonistic vision into engaging terrain.

THE STRANGE HOSTEL OF NAKED PLEASURES

(1976)

Dir - José Mojica Marins/Marcelo Motta

Overall: MEH

The Strange Hostel of Naked Pleasures, (Estranha Hospedaria dos Prazeres), is somewhat structured as an Amicus horror anthology, minus the actual anthology part.  Which is to say that it presents a scenario where José Mojica Marins/Coffin Joe can act as host to a bunch of damned souls; characters who have all sinned to various degrees and are oblivious to their doomed fate or current state of existence.  It is a perfect premise for Marins to utilize, but it is also unfortunately lackluster in its finished form.  Utilizing the help of co-director Marcelo Motta, it is still unmistakably a Marins movie with the usual cacophony of sounds, fractured editing, and drug-fueled visuals that all of the man's films were unrelentingly full of.  This time though, it plods along with large chunks of the movie going nowhere, and despite the opening being the strangest sequence in the movie, it takes forever for anything interesting to transpire after that.  When it does, it is more confusing than anything as Marins seems unfocused at best, and the ghastly, optical elements that would usual cover for such a problem are more forgettable than usual.

2014 Horror Part Eight

LATE PHASES
Dir - Adrián García Bogliano
Overall: MEH

Though certainly worth its merit in several respects, Spanish director Adrián García Bogliano's first English language venture Late Phases, (Night of the Wolf) does not quite overcome its noticeable obstacles.  There are definitely benefits to using practical effects, especially nowadays where CGI often looks as terrible as ever.  Yet when said makeup effects look more like a guy in a Halloween costume and you frame nearly all their shots in a very well lit manner as to notice, bad move.  Instead for Bogliano to have kept his monsters in the shadows and only in quick closeups, (as several better films have shown to work, namely An American Werewolf in London), this cinematic boo-boo could have been avoided.  Elsewhere, some of the acting and dialog is a bit stiff and it is a rather ridiculous pill to swallow that the law enforcement are so quick to pass off monthly murders in a retirement community as simple animal attacks and never investigate any further.  They only happen in this area and every month?  Christ, how many old people have to be picked off over how many months to get any cops to pay attention?  All that said, Nick Damici, (under a good amount of aged makeup, begging the question why they did not just hire a much older actor in the first place), is actually fantastic as the blind, ex-Nam vet protagonist and his entire arch is still engaging to witness.

QUANDO EU ERA VIVO
Dir - Marco Dutra
Overall: GOOD

Brazilian genre director Marco Dutra's adaptation of Lourenço Mutarelli's novel A Arte de Produzir Efeito Sem Causa is his follow-up the joint, Juliana Rojas collaboration Hard Labor from 2011, representing his first solo full-length.  Slow boils can go disastrously wrong just as easily as anything else anything utilizing the opposite approach, yet Quando Eu Era Vivo, (When I Was Alive), assuredly benefits from taking its time.  The script by Dutra and fellow filmmaker/writer Gabriela Amaral Almeida is incredibly thorough with its details.  There are a few moments that at first seem rather sloppy, (particularly how our sympathies towards protagonists Marat Descartes and Sandy Leah are perverted and shifted), but they all got cleared up along the way, proving that the time and dedication was taken to make all the narrative components fit.  Even as things get continually ramped up, a lesser director could have easily ventured into campy terrain, but Dutra keeps things on the straight and narrow.  Now when it comes to crystal clear closer, that is not something readily present here, nor should it be.  It is a very intelligently done bit of psychological horror that makes its actual lack of much overt "horror" itself pleasantly forgivable. 

COOTIES
Dir - Jonathan Milott/Cary Murnion
Overall: WOOF

When half of the writing team for Cooties is Leigh Whannell, the guy behind the truly abysmal work of James Wan, (Saw, Insidious, Dead Silence), may the viewer be seriously warned.  Going full horror comedy, this is a blunder in every direction it turns.  Though it is loaded with an exceptional cast, (including revered comedic actors Rainn Wilson and Jack McBrayer), the movie is about as intentionally funny as anything in the Saw series.  Meaning not at all.  From a zombie outbreak/people trapped in a single location trying to escape framework, the film is as textbook and boring as any of the hundreds of other movies with an identical premise.  This means all of the over-the-top, splatty gore is completely wasted on such an uninspired, commonplace setup.  What really sinks the ship though is how it is trying way, way, way, way too hard.  Every plot point and ounce of dialog is incredibly forced to make an audience chuckle at utterly random character quirks like Leigh Whannell's teacher who continually yells at everyone to be quiet when no one is talking, plus 80s action movie motifs like a suiting up montage, moronic one-liners, and a bunch of adults murdering hoards of kids in the most "badass" fashion possible.  All of which will warrant cricket noises instead of waves of hysterical applause.  The insultingly illogical "oh wait he's not dead and is here to save us at the most convenient time possible" ending comes when all of this stuff has groan to such an obnoxious pitch that it transforms just a dull, stupid, failed attempt at a self-aware genre parody into something just odious in all the wrong ways.

1960s José Mojica Marins

AT MIDNIGHT I'LL TAKE YOUR SOUL
(1964)
Overall: GOOD

The seminal Brazilian horror villain Coffin Joe was first brought to life in At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul.  Shot on non-existing sets with hardly a budget to be noticeably seen and using actors of the lowest revere, José Mojica Marins' first of several staring ventures for himself as the despicable, nihilistic, blasphemously hedonist undertaker Zé do Caixão is laudable for a few reasons.  As an independent film made in a country with virtually nothing in the horror camp preceding it, Marins was taking on uncharted terrain and the lack of restraint he shows makes At Midnight one of the more violent and uncompromising genre works of the day.  There is a determination on display to go beyond making just an offensive exploitative drive-in movie, especially considering the fact that such exploitation films were not really a thing yet in 1964.  Marins vigorously attempts something more cautionary in a comeuppance way, but also pushes the boundaries by having such a vile, remorseless protagonist.  There is good ole spooky stuff and plenty of cliches present, (two fourth-wall breaking introductions, a cackling gypsy witch, fog ridden cemeteries and crypts, gruesome deaths, superstitious villagers), but the themes are more profound if still presented in an amateurish yet fun way.

THIS NIGHT I'LL POSSESS YOUR CORPSE
(1967)
Overall: GOOD

For round two, (produced three years after At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul), José Mojica Marins returns with an apparently larger budget and the standard, "go bigger" sequel approach with This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse.  Taking place immediately where Midnight wrapped up, Marins is Coffin Joe again, gets his eyes miraculously fixed because movie scripts, and then sets up shop in presumably another town with a hunchbacked/burn victim assistant and limitless resources for some reason.  These are the kind of details that are deliberately glossed over to make way for gruesome set pieces and what Marins seems to be setting up as Coffin Joe trademarks.  Amping it up from the very no-budget preceding film, instead of just one woman and one spider, several are tormented with many.  Also, Marins' nails are even longer and more ridiculous, plus there are snakes, a slow moving stone/head crushing, a swamp that acts as quick sand, and Zé do Caixão gets lucky with a willing lady to take his seed.  Marins portrays his top-hat wearing, Nietzsche-quoting bad guy with a hint more anti-hero qualities, (he has a less-creepy soft-spot for children), but his diabolical tortures are even more over the top and remorseless, even with a Catholic influence overtaking things at the end.  Everywhere else, he incessantly denies all delusions of his guilt ridden visions, including the best scene in the movie, being a nightmare hell quest in color no less.

TRILOGY OF TERROR
(1968)
Additional Dir - Luis Sérgio Person and Ozualdo Candeias
Overall: MEH

Teaming up with two other Brazilian directors for an anthology film consisting of three stories adapted from the TV show Além, Muito Além do Além, (Beyond, Much Beyond the Beyond), José Mojica Marins handles the final "Macabre Nightmare" segment which is the most straight-laced horror outing of the bunch and ultimately the most rewarding.  Marins' "favorite" on-screen representations of squeamish terror, (rape and spiders), find a home here again and the director shows a consistent knack for notable visuals.  Unfortunately, the sum of all the parts bogs the film down  as the other two portions are either dull or very baffling.  Luis Sérgio Person's "Procession of Dead" is filler-level forgettable and has the absolute worst "day for night" sequence ever filmed, (unless its sudden jump from an unmistakable broad daylight midnight to pitch black was intended).  Though Ozualdo Candeias' opening "The Agreement" rides the line of being so oddly overblown that it comes out good, it is also messy and impossible to follow.  Out of the three stories, this inadvertently makes it a disastrous one to lead with as it sets the later two up on very rocky footing.  Still, this is an unusual yet somewhat recommended Brazilian horror vehicle that often gets buried under mountains of more noteworthy works.

THE STRANGE WORLD OF COFFIN JOE
(1968)
Overall: GOOD

Another anthology outing from José Mojica Marins, (this time handling every story himself from the director chair), The Strange World of Coffin Joe has a misleading title in that it is not part of the Zé do Caixão saga.  Marins' famous character only appears in the film's introduction, spouting more rambling, "true nature of fear and man" nonsense.  Every story quite typically varies in quality and they all continue Marins' fascination with mankind's vileness.  They also all feature rape, which is unfortunate from an "entertainment" level yet perhaps necessary for Marins' depraved, religious transgression message.  The filmmaker's insistence on depicting his villains as diabolically over-zealous degenerates is certainly intentional, but the extent to which he skews the moral message to the point of often having the bad guy "win" is not something for everyone's tastes.  Speaking of taste, this is the most nasty of Marins' 1960's works, the ending segment "Theory (Ideologia)" acting as a sadist horror fan's wet dream.  The middle "Obsession (Tara)" is rather pointless really, only serving as a silent, macabre breather and the opening "The Dollmaker (O Fabricante de Bonecas)" is a rather predictable excuse to have more women get manhandled.  This whole is considerably captivating though and definitely worthy of the word "Strange" in the title, as is most of Marins offbeat, stylized work.