Body horror

http://io9.com/5891265/this-is-the-most-gorgeous-body-horror-youll-ever-watch

Necroville

Imagine a word where zombies, vampires, werewolves, and other mortally dangerous creatures are mere pests in a world full of pests and other annoying things, like your overbearing girlfriend, drugged out boss, and overdue rent. This is the world created by Billy Garberina and Richard Griffin Of Necroville, 2007. Billy Garberina plays Jack who, with his friend Alex (Adam Jarmon Brown) take jobs working for Zom-B-Gone, a company specializing in “pest” control.

Jack’s new responsibilities push he and his girlfriend further and further apart – he hates his job with all its blood and guts, though he may be quite good at ripping a still-beating heart out of a chest, and Penny (Brandy Bluejacket) thinks he’s just having a ball out and about killing zombies and werewolves with his best friend. The audience is made to feel for Jack’s situation more than hers – she is a bitch, a bully, mean to him and he, for some reason, is hopelessly in love with her. In watching the movie, it is impossible to discern why which makes suspending disbelief a little harder.

Bad news comes to town when they learn an ex-boyfriend of Penny’s is back, and has become a vampire master, therefore extremely dangerous, with the strength of ten men. He even wears a metal breastplate so he can’t be staked in the heart. He’s so bad, he sucks the brains of babies for dinner, and this is displayed in the movie. Throughout Alex and Jack’s killing adventures, Alex has been drinking all the Holy water because “he’s thirsty.” The end features an exorbitant fight between the three of them on a rooftop, and after two unsuccessful attempts at killing this vampire (once by dropping a piano on him, and again with the failed stake through the heart) Alex finally gets an idea. Jack manages to hold him down and Alex pees on him with all that Holy water, and the vampire is left screaming, deteriorating and decomposing in a bloody pile of steaming flesh. That last part was pretty cool.

But the movie could have been so much better. I loved the concept – life going on for the most part as we know it – working, paying bills, dealing with friends, family, relationships, going to clubs, drinking, going to work again – but there are zombies and vampires and werewolves and other creatures around, and that’s considered part of life. Which is almost believable – traditional zombies you can “limp away from” as Penny eloquently states in the movie, and one can realize that a zombie outbreak is not necessarily a zombie apocalypse because they’re so slow and don’t think.

The acting was also forced – Alex and the vampire had talent and with training could become better. Jack and Penny seemed to keep the same tone of voice and expression throughout, making it look like they were just remembering lines.

The ending was very satisfactory – after killing the vampire and learning it had already “turned” Penny, breaking Jack’s heart (or so we believe) we see him next with a giant axe going into their bedroom and happily chopping off her head. He and Alex walk down the street with their weapons and her head in a bag, finally content with life as it is.

How time flies!

I have not forgotten about my fellow horror buffs, sick in their desire for more disturbing and vile goodness! I have watched many things and planned for many fun shows but at the moment, I am too intense in my work outside of home. I could write a blog about it too. It’s a psych residential facility, so…fascinating stuff, right? At least, I have many stories.

Besides that, another blogging job may be coming up for me.

Not that this blog has received much traffic, but it is close to my heart because it deals with my favourite hobby – scary violent goodness!

Hold me close to your bleeding hearts, dear psychos…I’ll return!

Can you find the spooky spooky??

Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom

I wanted to at least mention this movie, though it is not widely considered a “horror” movie. But it was very disturbing, and had one of those things I would usually consider cheesy: artistic merit.

An Italian film by Pier Palo Pasolini (who was interestingly murdered just before it was released in 1975) used the original story written by the Marquis de Sade: 120 Days of Sodom. Four corrupt and wealthy fascists, after Mussolini’s fall, kidnap 18 kids and have their friends, two middle aged prostitutes (one of whom is wearing an awesome dress) share stories of depraved and unspeakable sexual acts to arouse the men so they can sadistically torture their victims.

At first I found it a bit dry and stuffy – the scenery is drudgery, the buildings are so hollow, blank – not too dilapitated but depressing. I figured out that’s what I was supposed to feel. The level of sickness began to rise with the tales of the first prostitute, Mrs. Vacarri (Helene Surgere – there are supposed to be little dashes over all the Es, don’t know how to do that online). The four segments breaking up the movie: the AntiInferno Segment, Circle of Manias, Circle of Shit, and Circle of Blood. The tales are direct excerpts from the Marquis de Sade’s book.

Not the best picture, but awesome dress!

The film begins to escalate after the infamous scene where the duke takes a shit on the floor and forces a woman to eat it with a spoon. Later, they are all served a meal of human feces. Take note – the four men (duke, bishop, magistrate, and president) happily eat up the shit. Yay, copraphagia. Is it gore? Not exactly, but…. fuck, it is disgusting in a way blood could never be.

120 days of Sodom are depicted - 120 days of tortures, humiliations, sexual depravity, rape, and a nice touch of homoerotic sodomy between the bishop and his assistant. Afterward, the captives are betraying each other to stay alive or not be tortured in some new and horrible way – one girl is hiding a photo, two girls are having an affair, and a man is screwing the maid for which they both get shot point blank. The remaining are subjected to torturous deaths in the yard. This is the Circle of Blood: flames are held to penises and nipples, tongues are sawed out of mouths, scalps are cut off, eyes are gouged out and whippings are generous. The four fascists happily watch from their windows – voyeurs.

I did like how the movie did go into depth with issues of abuse of power, political corruption, fascism, sadism and sexuality in general – to include perversions and sexual violence. There are several scenes in which the facists discuss these things at length, and draw lessons upon their abuse of their victims. This is where another movie I want to show everyone falls short (yet I liked it more, I must admit. So much more gore and graphic violence).

This film is more subtle. It is grotesque, disturbing and cringeworthy. Though not technically scary per se, it did receive 65th place on the Chicago Film Critics Association’s list for scariest movies. It is also quite foreign, you must be able to tolerate subtitles if you are so inclined to experience some mental rape for nearly two hours. Keep in mind, the very graphic material truly occurs during the last third of the film, the entire beginning is buildup – not suspenseful but laden with layers of depravity and filth. I give props to the prostitute storytellers, they were the finest actors in the film.

So basically at first I was like meh, but then it really started to get to me. Guess what kind of music plays while sexual tortures are administered? Piano and Gregorian chants.

I would say it’s worth a view, if not because it makes you a more well rounded person. 3 and 1/2 stars.

More creepy goodness

Another one of those pics that look deceptively normal!

But are in fact very creepy when one looks long enough and finds out why.

Enjoy!

 

This is good, creepy fun

Another picture…see if you can spot it. Spot why this picture qualifies as creepy. I had to enlarge it after a friend sent it to me on facebook, and then I saw it and said “oh shit” out loud. I kid you not.

Enjoy your heebie-jeebies:

Zombie

More awesome zombie goodness!

Taking zombies back to their roots, director Lucio Fulci filmed this one in 1979, among many other cinematic works of nihilism. There are a million zombie movies out there (thank God) and they all stand out in certain, individual ways. (Because the variables making up the formula can vary so much). This film went so far as to stick to the classic zombie formula and use history and the reality of zombies as they exist in certain human cultures to form the story. Basically, in voodoo religions of the Carribean and surrounding areas, zombies are very real. One can be made into one by a curse. That person will have no self awareness but will still respond to external stimuli, thus making it much more scary to become a zombie – not necessarily run from them.

This is exactly the case as Anne Bowles (Tisa Farrow) and Peter West (Ian McCulloch) are heading to a “cursed island” to find her father who has not communicated in months. On the way there, one of the more unusual zombie scenes I’ve seen is a zombie and a shark duking it out under water. The zombie seems to be winning for awhile, grabbing at it and trying to bite it over and over, but finally the shark bites his hand off. That was fun to watch.

There is also an eye gouging scene. Chopped off heads, extreme bites complete with graphic tearing flesh all over necks, and plenty of decayed, worm-eaten zombies rising out of their graves in an abandoned cemetery.

I like examining zombie makeup effects, because they vary so widely from movie to movie. I have spotted corn syrup, strawberry jelly, and ketchup in zombie movies. This one used what looked like peanut butter and ash to create - inexpensively – a dead and decayed look, not a freshly eaten, bloody, reanimated corpse. Plus there was the worms coming out of eye and mouth holes.

When the two arrive at the island, they find a doctor desperately trying to figure out the scientific reasons for why the dead are coming back to life. The locals are fleeing the villages and going inland, working good voodoo magic lest they also become the dreaded zombie. As they die in the hospital, each one must be shot in the head so it stays dead. There is, as you can expect, an epic zombie showdown at that very hospital.

A little bit annoying was the corny acting and how it applied to women being chased down by zombies. Maybe chase is the wrong term – remember, these are the “classic” zombies of original lore. They are slow. They seem to have the hardest time walking, let alone running. They are just horrendous looking. And you just kinda stare at them awhile, horrified at how ugly and scary they are, but then run, dammit, run! It’s so slow, outrunning these kinds of zombies would be a piece of cake. Theoretically, one doesn’t need much for guns either – a strong axe will do the job, since you merely need to destroy the brain to destroy the zombie. That is why a real zombie apocalypse would be awesome, and I am prepared for when that day comes.

Recall 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later. Those zombies do stray from the traditional zombie formula and they are terrifying. They are faster than you – unbelievably fast -and even if you don’t get bit, a drop of their blood in your eye will ensure you become infected with the rage virus.

This movie ended with a bang – of course everyone dies except Anne and Peter. They are fleeing on a boat with a zombie locked in their galley, so they can prove what happened back in New York. Then they turn on the radio….

And I can’t tell you more because I haven’t seen Zombie 2 yet!

Raving Maniacs (Five Star Favourite!)

I first saw this movie a few years ago with my buddy Mike. He’s as into the depraved and psychotic as I am. “You’ll like this,” he said simply. He’s kind of a quiet guy.

I’ll get right into it: it’s a zombie film. (you can’t fuck that up, zombie films follow a formula and there will be blood). Furthermore, variables in the creation of a zombie outbreak allow for fantastic creative inventions of a dead monster.

Filmed in 2005, the film follows an imaginitive story – glowing pills fallen from the sky in a town in Mexico (according to legend) are the newest and hottest thing to swallow at a rave. A group of friends are on their way to party, have sex, drink, and be heathens when they almost run over this guy on the road. He’s got what look like huge cuts over his eye, and even JT, the driver (Andrew Vallenoweth) is missing half his face. Oh, did I mention this was a Halloween rave? He gets into their car and they take him to the rave. He never speaks, and moves like a phantom. He doses up the entire rave.

The film breaks itself into five sections: demand, abuse, addiction, recovery, and relapse. Weird things start happening in the club. People have not begun to wig out yet, none of the raver kids are biting off those brightly colored beaded bracelets to get to the flesh underneath. But things are weird – there are a couple lesbians making out in full view of Ed, a club hand, who is welcomed to watch. Then they start gnawing on each other, and moaning in pleasure. Ed finds his coworkers only to see they are acting just as strangely. Later, these coworkers eat a long piece of intestine together, each end in each other’s mouths.

The sickest scene makes me need to remind myself “they’re just actors, they’re just actors…” Katie and Jacob (Christine Peltier, Ryan Patrick Kennedy) have taken the pills and Katie finds Jacob in the bathroom. They make out. When we see them next, manager of the club Kieth has found them fucking and eating each other on the floor. When Katie is dead, Jacob asks Kieth, “will you help my sister?”

They are not normal zombies. They don’t quite run around in a mad spin looking for brains and guts (though it does get to that point, in an organized way, as they intend to harvest the pills that grew inside the original swallowers). These zombies can talk and eat human flesh and dance. Because they want to eat human flesh however, talking with them is extremely risky. They see you as a tasty big mac or your grandma’s peach cobbler. They are sex crazed zombie maniacs! Raving maniacs!

The excrement hits the fan and they break down the doors to the club – Benny (Willian Decoff) is a ex-marine in charge of security, and the breakout has compelled him to “contain the outbreak.” Here comes the finest piece of gore in the movie – Benny’s eye is slowly ripped out. Low budget horror films spend most of the money on their special effects makeup. Their eye could have been better, but the rest was excellently done.

There is no satisfying ending. Everyone dies. I really get a kick out of that. I mean, Kieth lives, and the dealer eats the girl he is in love with, and all he gets is a glowing pill. He takes it and is looking back and forth between it and a gun. There are gnawed up bloody bodies all over the floor. No one survived except Kieth, a latecomer to the party, and two stoners who provided the comic relief throughout the film. What kills me about this film is despite the level of violence, the mad amounts of chewed up body parts and the general depravity of the club, it ends hilariously. Don’t miss it though! – you have to wait for the very first line of credits to pass. It is only one screen, about three or four seconds.

I just watched this movie again tonight. Reruns can be worthwhile if they’re five stars.

Bootleg Edition.

The Evil Dead

DVD cover

What fun! What glorious, gory, bloody fun!

I’m talking about The Evil Dead (1981) a cult classic by Sam Raimi laden with special effects and some of the finest zombie makeup I’ve seen since Redneck Zombies and 28 Days Later.

Typically, zombies are made into such by bite, and the dead human is no longer your girlfriend or child (so kill it, dammit!) And typically, you must destroy the brain to effectively kill the zombie. Usually the zombie is created by some kind of toxin (Redneck Zombies) or a virus (28 Days Later and its awesome sequel, 28 Weeks Later, both of which are superior and different when it comes to zombie movies).

The Evil Dead deviates from the typical zombie  prescription by introducing supernatural causes, specifically, incantations from recordings and a book which give license to demons to possess human hosts. A group of friends finds these objects and other artifacts in a remote cabin deep in the woods, where the previous owner had been forced to bodily dismember his wife because he had brought on the demons. These demons aren’t fuckin’ around either – they possess the entire forest, using tree branches and twigs to prevent the first victim/zombie from escaping after the incantations are read on the tape player.

Afterward, the zombie formula holds true – while his friends are actually dead, Ash (Bruce Campbell) is forced to chop up their reanimated remains because they keep grabbing at him and hissing and shrieking in demon-like voices: “join us! join us!”

Keep your cool, man, keep your cool!

The cabin itself makes for a fun set, the woods are simply incidental. It is the cabin which housed the artifacts, the recordings, and the Book of the Dead bound in human flesh and written in blood. It is extremely rustic, old and dilapitated but gives the impression it was once cozy and nice. An annoying feature I did notice in this film is its electricity and plumbing – such a remote location would be lit by fire alone, in a realistic sense.
The film is successful in introducing suspense themes, which is more rare in zombie films because zombie films strive to be assaultive and in your face. When Ash needs shells for the shotgun and must descend into that hellish basement again, camera panning slows and special effects sounds stop. When he returns to the main floor and waits, we know a zombie or two is about to pop up and scare the crap out of him but we must still wait as he fondles a necklace given to his now dead girlfriend, muttering that he thinks this torture is bullshit.

The film is indeed low budget, because they spent all the money on a fog machine (creepy forest) fake blood (corn syrup, like from Carrie) and makeup for zombie effects. But just look at these zombie effects! I have a friend who has black and white zombie contact lenses like the ones featured here, and he claims they are quite painful to wear, as they fill your whole eye.

The ending is relentless because he must battle two zombies, not just the one escaped from the cellar. He forgot about his friend, featured above, at right. It is still more relentless because you can’t kill a zombie (or demon possessed dead body) merely by shooting it or stabbing it. When he is finally successful (I’ll let you watch and find out what he does) there is a long drawn out zombie gore scene. My eyes delighted at the sight of exploding body parts, splashing blood, hands reaching out from decaying bowels, screaming demons, and fast rotting flesh. Poor Ash gets a real dousing.

Those who know me and my extreme love of gore, horror and violence know that zombies are probably my favourite horror genre. I am pleased to report this film is available on Netflix, as well as several other fun and little known zombie films. In fact, they have quite a treasure trove of fun zombie stuff! For the Evil Dead, I give four and a half stars.