Unhinged (1982)

Short (1:16). Open-matte 4:3. Nice synth score. Perky shower scene. Atmospheric rain. Car crash. Mrs Penrose is American Gothic spooky. Some weird dialogue ("Next time...") that goes nowhere. Mother doesn't like to be kept waiting... wooo! A Northern version of The Glass Menagerie's Amanda Wingfield in a wheelchair. An awkward dinner. Piano and dominoes. Peeping Tom. A rogue tooth under the bed! Nocturnal orgasmic heavy-breathing. Onanistic double-perky shower scene. Why haven't we seen the third friend? Walking on your own through a wood when you're a supporting actress is a bad idea. Don't go in the shed! I told you not to walk through the woods! Back-story. What is it about the salt-cellar that's so freaky? Mother is reminding more and more of the Wicked Witch of the West as time passes. Piano but no dominoes. Peeping tom again! More rain and thunder and heavy breathing. Our heroine investigates. A gun, a knife and some toys. Tom makes his bug-eyed appearance. More back-story. Missing girls? The third friend makes her re-appearance. More heavy breathing. The third friend leaves us. Searching in a thunderstorm. Don't go in the shed! Eew, body parts and jars of eyeballs! Running and screaming. The gun. What the fuck? No, this is a knife! Raining blood.

I know it won't be everyone's cup of tea and not a great deal happens until the end but I really liked this film's feeling of Northern Gothic decay and its crazy ending.

Nope-Tober: Random Shit for an Ill-disciplined Mind

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Burial Ground (1981)

Burning zombies, awful dubbing, Michael, scantily dressed ladies, terrible dialogue, Michael, maggots, icky body fluids, zombies with tools, rampant canoodling, intestine munching, Michael, a completely nonsensical plot, incest, Michael, decapitation, climbing zombies, inappropriate breastfeeding, zombie monks, Michael.

As wonderful and skanky as the rubber-masked and latex encrusted zombies are, they pale into insignificance once you've met Michael! A man-child so weird and spooky that the term 'uncanny valley' just doesn't do him justice. He's at the bottom of an uncanny crevasse, deeper and darker than the Mariana Trench!

At the 30 minute mark, you're thinking "how the fuck can they keep up this pace for another hour?" but it just keeps on giving! Could this be the perfect Italian zombie film?

I'm left with a migraine-inducing amount of questions but...

1) What the fuck was a bear-trap doing in the garden?
2) Why is green paint so flammable?

Fucking bonkers!

"You're getting a raise from me all right, but it has nothing to do with money."

Nope-Tober: Random Shit for an Ill-disciplined Mind

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42nd Street Memories: The Rise and Fall of America’s Most Notorious Street (2014)

A little repetitive but great fun and very interesting. Veronica Hart is a sweetie!

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Zombi 3 (1988)

Silly, great, funny, ridiculous, illogical, wooden, hilarious, amazing, cheap, gruey, fast, inept, terrific, stupid, bloody, foggy, slow, slimy, putrescent, trashy, wonderful, insert adjective here.

"I'm feeling better Patricia, but I'm thirsty... for your blood!"

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Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man (1976)

I watched the 88 Films Blu-Ray in Italian with English subtitles.

Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man is great title but will the film live up to it?

Directed by Ruggero Deodato (Cannibal Holocaust, House on the Edge of the Park), with a screenplay by Fernando Di Leo (Milano Calibro 9, The Boss) and starring Marc Porel (Don't Torture a Duckling, The Psychic) as Fred and Ray Lovelock (Almost Human, The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue) as Tony; a pair of plain clothes police officers who belong to "The Special Squad". They don't care about the rules and if anyone at city hall doesn't like it, they can swivel! Backing them up is their boss Adolfo Celi (Thunderball). How's that for an exploitation pedigree!

There really isn't much of a plot. There's a basic storyline in which our two heroes try to take down the local kingpin who, meanwhile, is trying to discover their identities. That's not really very important as it's all about how they get to that end point. It seems that there's a shoot-out, car/bike chase, punch-up or sex every 10 minutes.

The film starts with Lovelock (in full-on Robert Redford mode) getting a "backy" from Porel on his motorbike to some groovy sounds. They both look so clean cut. It's almost like a younger and more handsome Ratso giving Joe Buck a ride. This is a real pair of handsome fuckers! However, this no ordinary bike ride and the dynamic duo foil a nasty mugging and take off after the scumbags and into what is probably the best vehicle chase scene in Italian cinema history; impressively chaotic and destructive. No cardboard boxes or sheets of glass were harmed although a poor guide dog doesn't fair too well.

From here on in the film is a wild storm of sex and guns.

Often compared to Dirty Harry, to me Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man is more like those boy's own, buddy cop movies and shows from the 1970s: Starsky & Hutch, The Professionals, The Sweeney, and the freeze-frame ending was straight out of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I've also read about the homoerotic subtext, but I believe that the two leads are more like two little boys who just never grew up. The women in the film treat them as boys and not men. The city is their playground where they play "war" against another gang of boys (note the target practice scene in the quarry at 01:12:00). When you think about it, most of these type of films follow the same pattern of men as boys and I don't think that there's anything particularly wrong with that at all. Fred and Tony may be sociopathic boys, but boys nonetheless.

Yes, there's a fair amount of chauvinism but this is tempered quite brilliantly by the attitudes of the women. During one scene they ask their boss's secretary with which of them she'd like to sleep; she replies with an unexpectedly brilliant comeback. A little while later there's a scene where both Tony and Fred are screwing a suspect's sister, the woman is dominant throughout and exhausts the men. Finally, their libido's nearly gets them killed. Most progressive and un-Italian!

The performances are terrific with a real chemistry showing between the two leads. There's a cool and funky soundtrack that's all full of horns, Rhodes keyboard and loads of groove. The film is immaculately shot with really impressive camera-work during the action scenes and some excellent gore effects with loads of Humbrol red blood. The dialogue has a natural touch and doesn't sound at all forced. It's also nicely witty in places.

The 88 Films Blu-Ray has an excellent picture and sound. The subs are pretty good and seem to follow the dialogue with only the occasional spelling or grammatical error. The only extras are a trailer and some stills, but both English and Italian soundtracks are included.

Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man has high octane thrills, handsome fuckers with guns, bike chases and explosions. It's loud, crude, funny and energetic. One of the finest buddy/cop movies ever made.

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