Amuck! (1972)

One of my favourite ways of storytelling is putting a bunch of people in a secluded area and make things happen. I adore good writing, and because of the setting and very few actors, the writer has to make it interesting during at least 90 minutes. Amuck is one of those movies, even if it has some scenes set in more populated areas, but most of the time it's just three actors playing a mind game with each other on a small island, motherf**king wow what a good little movie this is!

The lovely Barbara Bouchet plays Greta, a secretary hired by the wealthy author Richard Stuart (Farley Granger). He lives with his wife Eleanora (Rosalba Neri) on an island with just a few locals living on the other side. A perfect place for an author who needs peace and quiet to write his masterpieces. But Greta is not only there because she needs a job, her best friend Sally (Patrizia Viotti) worked for Richard earlier, but has now disappeared without a trace and Greta wants to find out what's happen to her. She slowly realizes that Richard and Eleanora lives a special life, a very "open-minded" sexual life, and when she sees Sally in an home made porno she understands that something has happen on the island, but who is behind the crime?

Amuck is a perfect example of a simple yet very effective storyline. With the concept director and writer Silvio Amadio gets the opportunity to show us an effective chamber play with everything from mysterious flashbacks, home made sex movies, the always reliable idea of what's fact and what's fiction, murder and paranoia. It's not a bloody movie by any means and the body count is very low, but the impact of the story is so good that it's impossible to stop watching it. Intelligent use of red herrings makes the movie good and not absurd and in the end it unfolds in a very satisfying way.

Former American movie star Farley Granger had a nice career going for him in Europe during this time, and gets here a chance to play a complex character in a very rewarding on-screen relationship with the talented Bouchet and Neri. You never know where you have him and the idea of him and his wife having such an open relationship feels actually very fresh and modern, with no visible jealousy. Another excellent idea is that the flashbacks is told like Richard is writing a book, with maybe not that realistic re-enactments of what could have happen - so basically the flashbacks is the imagination of Greta's mind!

Teo Usuelli composed the music and this is the first time I've noticed his work, but what a fantastic score it is! Erotic, atmospheric, almost dreamlike, often with the same tones pulsating heavily in the background, almost like it's something from behind the walls - like the neighbours is having an orgy or something.

Amuck (or Amuck!) is out on a bootleg from the since long dead company Eurovista. It's a fullscreen VHS-rip, but the quality is OK - especially the sound, and except a few damages on the tape it looks fine. I hope this Giallo will get a good release sometime, because it's worth reaching a wider audience.

Esmeralda Bay (1989)

After a series of hardcore movies and obscurities that never seem to have seen the light of day Jesus Franco was on the go again with several movies with bigger budgets and bigger stars, Faceless, Fall of the Eagles and finally Esmeralda Bay. Eagles and Bay is typical Eurociné productions, but with a more ambitious feeling. Maybe they had a richer financer in the background somewhere, who also demanded more for the money. I know "real" Jess Franco fans tends to dislike Franco's more commercials projects, but I think they are excellent proof for what an excellent storyteller Franco was. Sometimes mainstream is needed to show us that part of a filmmakers talent.

It's actually quite similar to Fall of the Eagles, but set in the fictional country of Puerto Santo. We follow businessman Wilson (George Kennedy), who deals weapons with the local rebels and Robert Forster as Madero, the leader of the military police on the island. In the middle is the good-hearted banana republic-president Ramos (Fernando Rey) and the rebels, among them Ramon Estevez and Brett Halsey, all fighting for their own cause. The Americans want the military crushed and have planted their own under cover agents in the middle of this little war, and everything leads to the battle of Esmeralda Bay...

I have to admit that it's a bit boring in the beginning, but as soon as the intrigues starts Esmeralda Bay becomes an involving thriller-drama with some nice stock footage action at the end. In smaller parts we have Lina Romay (and she's excellent as the pathetic mistress of Madero), Antonio Mayans and Daniel Grimm, all doing great jobs with the material they have. George Kennedy is a pro, and so also Forster (who works together with his name-nemesis, "Robert Foster" - aka Antonio Mayans) who have a lot fun and energy has the intensive military leader.

Franco is an obvious hired gun here, to lead the ship to harbour in time (which he also does in the movie, in a cameo as captain of a boat) and make the producers happy. But with the time and money he had, and a great cast, he also delivers a good - if a bit generic - war drama with gorgeous cinematography and - for once - real squibs (Eurociné have a tendency to prefer non-squib shootings in most of their movies). There's really no depth in the story, but it's easy to see where Franco put his talent - in the drama parts. Few other movies can have so boring dialogues and still be interesting to watch.

Esmeralda Bay is out on a good-looking Spanish DVD, fullscreen and with English dub. It's cheap and worth buying.

"The Killer Elephants is about fucking shit up"

"The Killer Elephants is all killer and no filler. There isn't a moment that goes by in the film that could be considered boring, it moves at lightning speed and works with maximum efficiency, leaving exploded cars and building in its wake. There is some semblance of a plot about good guys and bad guys and a good cop who got framed and some drugs and some other stuff, but it isn't about all that. The Killer Elephants is about fucking shit up. Whether that shit is a jeep or a house, it doesn't matter. Blow that mother fucker up!"

Yeah, another amazing review, this time from Twitch! Read the whole text here!

And I will be back with reviews soon, it's just been a very busy week with other things. Just keep your eyes open, I think I can feel a Jess Franco coming up sooner or later...

The Killer Elephants - now at Diabolik DVD!

Yes, now it's possible to buy the Attackafant Entertainment DVD of The Killer Elephants at Diabolik DVD. Get it here!

Prepare for trashy fun! Just watch the trailer!

You wanna read about Mark Dacascos and exploding helicopters?

Then I suggest you head over to Exploding Helicopter ("Celebrating the cinematic art of helicopter explosion") and read my guest review of DNA, the amazing DTV-classic starring Mark Dacascos and Jürgen Prochnow... and Pong Pong. Read all about it here!

The Coroner (1999)

Many years ago I was hanging at a video store in my old home town. I knew the owner and also a lot of the nerds running around there. One of the movies that the nerds talked about was a little production called The Coroner they said it was incredible bad! I never saw it, but a couple of years ago I found Shadowbuilder (with Michael Rooker ya know) on DVD in the bargain bin at my local supermarket. It was one of those ultra-cheap discs with several movies on, and one of them was The Coroner. So today I actually decided to watch it and it more or less lived up to the legend of being bad: it's very bad. But still kinda enjoyable in a freaky way. But it's hard to write about movie that's so incompetent, so empty and so stupid. What could I do? Well, I did what every normal person would do: grabbed my copy of The Satanic Bible by Anton LaVey and consulted The Nine Satanic Sins, and here's what I came up with:

The Nine Satanic Sins

1. Stupidity
- Oh, stupidity is the biggest sin in The Coroner. I love how the police department refuses to investigate a suspect just because he's THE coroner in town, even if there's tons and tons of physical evidence against him. This is just a small stupidity compared to the whole movie, but I need to choose something.

2. Pretentiousness
- The Coroner is guilty of pretentious flashback-moments, and use of even more pretentious flashforwards.

3. Solipsism
- The whole movie is based on solipsism, that the only thing that counts it's the main characters own experiences, reasons and opinions. She hits a person in court just because she think he's wrong, she also - someone tells us - once called a dog to the witness stand because the dog is a better witness than a human. She's bitch, to use a more frank word.

4. Self-deceit
- The Coroner, because of it's pretentiousness actually think it's an important piece of thriller. A good thriller, a good drama with some intelligent satire. Eh, it's not. And I guess self-deceit also includes not noticing how the concrete wall bounces around like a cheap whore when someone is banging a head in it.

5. Herd Conformity
- Yes, following the mainstream is a good thing sometimes. But not when you complete lack talent to do your own Silence of the Lambs and Seven.

6. Lack of Perspective
- Obviously a film team that forgotten than they can't make movies. They just don't have "it". Very painful, indeed.

7. Forgetfulness of Past Orthodoxies
- They made bad movies 100 years ago. Why make a bad movie again?

8. Counterproductive Pride
- Pride made the makers of this movie continue, and it destroyed them in the end. Sure, it's nice that the movie was made - not many people make a movie - but why didn't they realize no one involved had any kind of talent?

9. Lack of Aesthetics
- The Coroner is so ugly. SO UGLY. And no one involved seem to understand it. SOOOOO UGLY!

The Coroner was actually distributed by Roger Corman's New Horizons, but I doubt he ever saw the movie itself. The director, Juan A. Mas, was a long-time collaborator with Corman, mostly as second-unit. Maybe he should have stuck with filming inserts of feet getting out of cars, close-up of hands and those exciting scenes of airplanes landing and taking off that someone always need to shoot for ever darn movie.

Many words about a crappy movie. But I'm unemployed and kinda borded, so I'll blame it on that.

Frightmare (1983)

Non-graphic murders in horror movies like strangulation, drowning and gassing should be forbidden. A badly executed graphic murder scene is still a graphic murder scene. Frightmare does not have any scenes involving drowning, but are still guilty on all accounts of skipping gory deaths. This is of course a sin as big as any other cinematic sin when it comes to making a genre movie less attractive for a bloodthirsty audience. It's a pity, because Frightmare is quite good and ambitious compared to others in the same sub-genre.

Ferdy Mayne (what kinda name is that anyway, Ferdy?) plays Conrad Radzoff, an aging horror star stuck in crappy TV-commercials and making appearances at film festivals and conventions. That don't stop him from suffer from extreme megalomani. After collapsing at a university, during a Q&A, he retires to his home and decides to take revenge on his old director, and then he dies. A couple of the students from the university attends his funeral and decides to kidnap his corpse and party with it all night long, which is of course a very bad idea. With the help of some black magic Conrad Radzoff comes alive again and starts hunting down the kids having fun with his dead body!

Director and writer Norman Thaddeus Vane creates a good-looking movie with a story similar to the better and bloodier 1987 oddity Bloody Movie. In one of the parts we see a very young Jeffrey Combs, who got cast because he had the same hair-colour as the fake head being used in a not so interesting decapitation later on in the movie. It's easy to see that he got himself a long career, charisma all the way and a lot of talent on display.

I love movies, especially horror movies, set in the world of horror movies. It's always a pleasure and gives the filmmakers opportunities to make references to good movies, actors and other filmmakers. I guess that was the plan with Frightmare and Vane really makes a good job with the visuals and some sly in-jokes. Conrad Radzoff seem to be based on the legends: Cushing, Lee, Karloff and Price and Mayne makes a good job both spoofing and celebrating their careers and personas. The scenes are filled with fog and smoke, spooky staircases, a big mansion, graves and nicely lit night scenes - but something is missing. First of all, it's hard to understand why Radzoff wants to take revenge. He might be crazy, but obviously has some sense of humour and would probably never be that angry if someone stole his body. The other thing is the lack of creative kills.

I never understood the point of making a bloodless slasher. Why the f**k would someone want to do something like that? Even of the murder-set-pieces are nicely done, they are weak and has no power at all. A tongue-ripping is obviously cut and the decapitation is sloppily edited and filmed in complete darkness. The rest is non-graphic kills: strangling, gassing, someone getting hit by a coffin and dies that way, etc etc.

With some gore and blood Frightmare would have been a lot better, a lot more entertaining. Because you can never fool fans, slashers aren't high art - they are Grand Guignols of teen angst.