The Boogey Man (1980)

A middling entry in the video nasty list. I don't really know why a slasher took a bizarre detour into haunted house and exorcism territory but I'm okay with that. Great soundtrack, decent gore, well shot and it's always a pleasure to see John Carradine even if the role is not his usual crusty old doomsayer. The end seemed a little rushed but overall The Bogey Man was pretty good.

Letterboxd Review

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

Letterboxd Review

Night School (1981)

From the director that brought us Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Casino Royale and the terrible Mae West vehicle Sextette (which featured Alice Cooper).

A well-made thriller that rides the fine line between giallo and slasher. Although there are some tasty red herrings laid down, the identity of the killer is pretty obvious after the first 15 minutes.

Loved the "Is it? Isn't it?" beef stew scene :)

As usual, Rachel Ward's performance stinks to high heaven.

One thing I didn't really get was why the killer used a Nepalese Kukri when none of the clues point in that direction?

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

Letterboxd Review

Don’t Look in the Basement (1973)

Rough and raw but somehow, in the same way that watching the swirly centre of an old Vertigo Black Sabbath record is oddly compulsive, you can't stop watching!

In some way, the film is sort of accurate in the way it weirdly tracks the shift from invasive surgery to the more modern style of "talking" therapies - no matter now ineffective (or in this case insane) they may be. In fact, just like in The Ninth Configuration, the lines are blurred between the inmates and the doctors.

Watch as a double-bill with The Cramps at Napa State Mental Hospital or the aforementioned Ninth Configuration.

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

Letterboxd Review

Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker (1982)

A decent horror-thriller about small-town secrets and obsession.

Susan Tyrrell steals the show as smothering serial-nutter Aunt Cheryl and manages to out-crazy Sleepaway Camp's Aunt Martha. Bo Svenson and Bill Paxton are also worth a mention, playing a couple of really nasty fuckers. Watch out for the post through a car windscreen at the beginning, it's a beauty!

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

Letterboxd Review

The Funhouse (1981)

Why is it that the things that are supposed to fill us with joy have this weird filmic flipside of death and horror? Carnivals, clowns, ventriloquist dummies, holidays, magicians, sex, drugs, James Corden; they may all sound fun but trust me kids, they're not!

I'd love to see a British take on a funfair horror film with aging, greasy-quiffed Teds, fags dangling from their lower lips taking on tramp-stamped and Hilfiger-clad staffie walkers with crooked air-rifles and hook-a-duck poles while a distorted and stretched 30-year-old 'Now That's What I Call Music' tape plays over the PA. Starring David Essex, Alvin Stardust and Phil Daniels. Ringo Starr would die first.

10 out of 10 for the carnies, production design and puppets but the rest is pretty average and the monster is a bit shit.

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

Letterboxd Review

Madhouse (1981)

Two twins. Julia, a beautiful saint who works with deaf kids, and Mary, a deformed psychopathic killer, reunite after many years apart! But wait... there's a twist!

A slow but well-crafted Giallo-tinged slasher that can be quite unnerving at times and has a great finale - yes, I even liked the dog hand-puppet! There's a decent amount of blood with a face smashing, some dog kills, stabbings and a nice hatchet job.

Not bad at all.

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

Letterboxd Review

The Slayer (1982)

Two couples go on holiday to a remote island: Eric, a fishing-obsessed, helium-voiced irritant and his nagging wife Brooke; poodle-haired doomsayer Kay and her dull and almost invisible husband David. As far as they know, they are the only people on the island, apart from... The Slayer!

What starts off as a slow and pedestrian slasher with a few tasty kills, picks up in the second half to become an effective, atmospheric and tense thriller. Much better than I thought it would be.

Note that the score will batter you repeatedly over the head with its sledgehammer cues.

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

Letterboxd Review

The Witch Who Came from the Sea (1976)

Phantasmagoric and very, very sad with a brilliantly fractured, otherworldly and childlike performance by Millie Perkins as Molly, the Witch/Venus/Frigga/All-Mother/Valkyrie taking those oh-so-perfect heroes to the afterlife. More than a little subversive.

Kill yr idols!

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

Letterboxd Review

Visiting Hours (1982)

It's... always... a-pleasure-to... SEE... William... Shatner... in-a-non... STAR-Trek... production.

An above average, polished and progressive slasher/thriller starring Michael Ironside as a quietly scary killer with Mummy issues. Lee Grant as the stalked reporter can sometimes come over as a little shrill and Ellen "The Exorcist" Burstyn-like but she carries the moral heart of the film well. Linda Purl provides strong support as a nurse and mother.

Letterboxd Review

The Prowler (1981)

The well spaced, Savini created kills are extremely effective if, occasionally, a little uninspired - I guess there only so much you can do with a bayonet and garden fork. The shower cubicle and final kills are beauties though.

The identity of the killer was a little obvious but overall the Prowler ticks all the right slasher boxes. One question: where does Rosemary's killer keep his roses?

Letterboxd Review

Frozen Scream (1975)

Frozen Scream does have an odd, trippy atmosphere in places but beware of an awful script, jarring edits, terrible performances and dialogue, killers who look like Rowan Atkinson and Marty Feldman with porn moustaches, and the loudest and most inappropriate voice-over ever. Low on gore, high on crappiness, Frozen Scream will only be of interest to those of us who like shitty, low-budget films or are trying to complete the video-nasty list and have found this at the bottom of the pile.

You know how, sometimes, bands cover a song and then change the lyrics a little to avoid copyright and paying the subsequent royalties? Well, Frozen Scream has some of the worst I've ever heard, played during a totally pointless dance scene: "there's a whole lotta shakin' goin' on" becomes "we're goin' to try to get it on" and "We're goin' to rock around the clock tonight" becomes "We're goin' to jack around the shack tonight". Fucking hilarious!

The picture and sound quality on the Vinegar Syndrome DVD is not great but still bright and very watchable.

Letterboxd Review

The Ghastly Ones (1968)

The first 30 minutes are a little dull but things soon pick up and we get: Melodrama! Exposition! Cramped camera shots that try to fit in as many people as possible! Terrible dresses! Colin! Director's instructions heard on camera! Great gore! A film that screams exclamation points!

Letterboxd Review

The Werewolf and the Yeti (1975)

As there is still no legal release of The Werewolf and the Yeti, I watched a very good quality bootleg DVD with a dubbed English soundtrack.

On a trip to the Himalayas to search for the yeti, Waldemar is separated from his party and turned into a werewolf by a pair of half-naked, vampire-witches! Will Waldemar find the yeti? Will the characters realise that hiking the tallest mountain range in the world in nothing but ski jackets and slacks is not a good idea? Will Wandesa's (a Vapirella clone) dress fall off?

Okay, onto the werewolf design. Yes, it is just a man with a hairy face and fangs but at least it was better than the yeti, which reminded me of a partially-balding, meowing, teddy-bear. It wasn't even white! Paul Naschy's transformation into the werewolf was old school, stop-motion, which was fine. There is still the problem of a werewolf wearing clothes, although I can see why they did this: the costume is cheaper and there's no need to re-clothe a naked man after every transformation, which would be an issue in the Himalayas where shops, washing lines full of clothes and small children with a handy collection of balloons are pretty rare. No matter how poor the yeti was, I'd still like to have seen more of it and the final fight between werewolf and yeti was pretty funny - it looked more like two Care Bears cuddling than a pair of ravenous beasts tearing each other apart.

The Werewolf and the Yeti was nowhere near as bad as I was expecting. The photography was good with some nice lighting. Performances were fine, if a little hammy, with Naschy doing his usual hirsute man type of werewolf. The dialogue was okay (favourite line: "You're not an ordinary woman, you've got personality!"). The score was discordant and threatening when required although it was a little loud. There is a reasonable amount of gore including an impaling (a la Cannibal Holocaust), a flaying and some slashed throats - nothing too nasty. The film is pretty well paced with regular action sequences and at 80-odd minutes it never really outstayed its welcome.

As I mentioned at the start, I was watching a bootleg DVD and the quality really surprised me. The picture was clear and bright and the sound was excellent with a little background crackle and hiss. This was obviously not a VHS rip and if there's such a good source available then why doesn't someone do a proper release?

A decent, low-budget werewolf film that's worth an hour and a half of your time.

Letterboxd review

The DPP Section 3 Buying Guide

I've added a new Buying Guide for the titles on the DPP Section 3 list. The page is a little on the large size and I did consider breaking it down into smaller chunks, but I think I'd rather wait a little while and have everything on the one page rather than flipping back and forwards between tabs.

You'll find a link to the Buying Guides in the "Pages" section in the right-hand column and I've also included a link in this post that goes directly to the DPP Section 3 list.

I hope you find it useful and if you spot any errors or know of better releases, please let me know.

DVD & Blu-Ray Buying Guides

I've just added the first in a series of DVD & Blu-Ray Buying Guides. These guides should help take the hassle out of sorting through the various releases for a film. At present there are guides for the DPP Video Nasty list, which I've separated into two lists: The DPP 39, for the prosecuted films, and The DPP 33 for the non-prosecuted films.

In future I hope to add guides for the DPP Section 3 list, individual directors (Argento, Bava, Fulci spring to mind) and genres (Gialli, Poliziotteschi).

You'll find a link in the "Pages" section in the right-hand column and I've also included a couple of links in this post.

I hope you find them useful and if you spot any errors or know of better releases, please let me know.