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Shan kou More at IMDbPro »

5 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
"entertainment" has many faces, 13 January 2005

Author: fertilecelluloid from Mountains of Madness

There's plenty to like in Dennis Yu's vicious little shocker. You can cite many references (DELIVERANCE being one), but my guess is Wes Craven's THE HILLS HAVE EYES influenced Yu most.

I love stuff like this -- the nastier the better. I'm not apt to whine if the film rolls around in its own filth like a fat, bloated pig. I'm not prone to taking issue with gloriously violent, misogynistic behavior if the only reason given for it is the inherent badness of the characters.

"Entertainment" has many faces, and the face of this putrid piece of vile celluloid is slashed with a sh*t-eating grin.

In THE HILLS HAVE EYES, Craven used the deformed Michael Berryman as the face of savagery. In THE BEAST, Yu casts an equally disturbing, ugly, toothless actor who grunts and screams and lashes out at every obstacle like a venomous snake. He perfectly embodies Yu's vile little world.

A small party of men and cute women are attacked by some local miscreants ("beasts"). One of the women is brutally raped and the police are called. The miscreants, referred to as "disco boys" by one observer, are rounded up by the inept cops, but the cops fail to make a case against them. A local man, upset that justice has not been served, decides to exact his own (in deep scarlet)

Although some of the film's scenes of graphic violence are a little sloppy, there are enough cinematic atrocities on parade to forgive Wu his occasional aesthetic misstep.

Again mirroring HILLS, two ferocious dogs make an appearance in THE BEASTS -- this time, however, they're on the side of "evil".

The atmosphere of sleaze and dread is well maintained and encouraged by Yu. The climax, taking place during a vicious rainstorm (at night) is surprisingly effective and beautifully shot by Bob Thompson.

Editing is tight and Tony Au's art direction is vivid and gloriously ugly.

A murder with a rope tossed to a drowning man is a showstopper, as is a scene where a character plunges head first into a box of rusty blades.

If you have a soft spot for the Nasty Miscreant genre, you'll find a place in your heart for THE BEASTS.

4 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Great HK rape and revenge shocker., 4 October 2006

Author: HumanoidOfFlesh from Chyby, Poland

Five teenagers head into the woods on a camping trip and are stalked and terrorized by five locals who rape one of the girls and brutally murder her brother.The girl is so traumatized by her horrifying experience that she is sent to a mental hospital and is unable to testify at the trial,leading the judge to release the men for lack for evidence.The angry father of the insane girl and murdered boy goes to the woods and kills rapist killers one by one via homemade traps."The Beasts" aka "Flesh and the Bloody Terror" is obviously influenced by "The Hills Have Eyes","Deliverance" and "I Spit on Your Grave".The film is fast-paced and violent enough to bring the smile on the face of any self-respecting exploitation fan.The rape scene is pretty nasty and painful to watch.The acting is convincing and the guy who plays Snake is truly creepy.Give this rather obscure rape and revenge shocker a look.

2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
great rape revenge flick, 15 July 2006

Author: Scott-from-Modesto (andrea_yates_clogged_drain@comcast.net) from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Dennis Yu is the man behind a few horror films I haven't been too impressed with, most notably the over-rated The Imp. His The Beasts is an altogether more vicious animal and that is definitely welcome, but it also hones the director's talent of creating a good atmosphere for terror which is something I have admired despite what I consider to be his missteps. The Beasts wears its influences on its sleeves--I Spit on Your Grave, Last House on the Left, Deliverance, probably even Mother's Day--but it is a nice exercise in cruelty that I believe to be excellent in its own right.

An outdoor outing near a small village leads to a mixed group of friends being troubled by a group of ugly, savage young fugitives who keep their fat and dim-witted companion in tow. A girl, Ling, is accosted and raped and when found shortly after, her angry brother Wah goes after the attackers and ends up in a pit of punji stakes and is finished off by the leader of the misanthropes.

The aftermath of the incident leaves Ling scarred and left in an asylum where she punishes herself by brushing her teeth with toilet water harshly and to the point of bleeding. Her father is destroyed, his life collapses and he withdraws--he stops answering calls to his door. When he can't bear living with his incredible sadness anymore, he takes on a vendetta and sets out to destroy the thugs that damaged his daughter and killed his son. From here on in, it's a full-tilt descent into First Blood mode with the old man placing traps in the woods for the bad guys and offing them one by one. Revenge is gruesome and he solemnly carries out his tacit duty--each death is a great stalk and slaughter scene. The ending is an unrepentant downer and marks a dreary end to this misogynistic and mean-spirited exploitation film.

The Beasts is not nil on sleaze or gore, but that is not necessarily its strong point either. Think of the end of the Hong Kong horror spectrum that brings us such tasty and stylish morsels as Human Pork Chop, Subway Murder, and Her Vengeance--although The Beasts is sufficiently uglier, more unnerving, and more violent than any of those--the inclusion of a snake-faced thug confirms my "uglier" remark at least. The first scene is the thugs gruesome sticking of a pig and there are plenty of quickly edited but effective bits of blood, gore, and animal violence throughout. The rape scene itself is quick and doesn't linger too long, but is nonetheless a garish and sadistic visual statement. Save for one crass but of female flatulence, there is no air of comedy here--that's a pitfall which mars the efficacy of many a Chinese horror and exploitation film. The Beasts is just a good, hard nasty time and insatiable exploitation fanatics are sure to devour it.

For more cinematic diversions where bad boys do bad things to good girls, check out Class of 1984, Savage Streets, and Angel Guts: High School Co-Ed. If you've already seen those, The Beasts is just the next logical step in the direction you've been going in. Quality stuff-9/10.

2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
Rarely seen Hong Kong variation of American rape & revenge movies, 26 May 2002

Author: Bogey Man from Finland

Beasts aka Flesh and the Bloody Terror (1988) is directed by Dennis Yu, who has made also other films like Evil Cat. The film is reportedly written by the guy, who plays the revenging father in this film. The film is about a bunch of teenagers who go into woods for a trip in order to stay there for couple of days and have fun. They go and put up tents and so on, but soon we have a clues that some retarded and Deliverance like local idiots are there and once they discover the beautiful and sexy girls, all mayhem lets loose and things continue like in I Spit on Your Grave and other films of its kind. A brutal rape takes place and then it is time for a merciless revenge...

This is surprisingly effective film, but totally brainless and serves only as a piece of violent exploitation cinema. The father just starts to kill the local rapists without any moral and makes nasty traps and acts very primitively. The murders are bloody and shocking and they include a box filled with erected nails in which one character is dropped head first with bloody result and incredible reactions by his fellows. When the victim is suffering with the nail box in his head, the others ask things like "Does it hurt?" or "What's wrong with you?" !! These kind of dialogue can only be found in Oriental (exploitation) cinema, like this. There are also other gross out moments which made me almost cringe. As the rape victim spends time in hospital, seriously mentally damaged, she has a very nasty tooth brushing habit and the puke-o-meter may rise too high for most of the viewers. Only Hong Kong cinema can deliver something like this! Also, if the viewer scares snakes, DON'T WATCH THIS!!! There are hundreds of slithery creatures in here and one scene is very disgusting with blood and live snakes. I have nothing against snakes (I think I consider them fascinating) but couple of scenes were almost too much for me, too! So keep these things in mind, if trying to track down the film, which is actually very obscure and rarely seen, as IMDB ratings and comments (almost non-existent) show.

There is absolutely no piece of any morality in this film and it is pure violent and sicko cinema without any brains required. But that's okay, if one thinks these films are fine and nice to watch. I am also interested in exploitation cinema because they have also very often something "noteworthy" or even artistic to offer. Beasts is not an exception and has couple of extremely atmospheric scenes and gorgeous photography in the forest. Weird camera angles and plenty of fog. So this is not total non-sense even though most of the people consider these pure trash and sh*t. But the main point here is to shock and offer violent imagery, but it is great that the film is stylish too. These kind of films could also be far greater, but Beasts is definitely not as bad as they could be. One has to be a fan of Eastern (sicko) cinema in order to enjoy this and others of its kind.

7/10 as an exploitation "classic" and it is fascinating to watch these forgotten and unknown gems, and it is great that these have been released on VCD in Hong Kong. Flesh and the Bloody Terror aka Beasts is marginal cinema and B horror cinema almost at its greatest!

PS! I've heard from one fellow and cult cinema enthusiast that there is a version of this film with brief hard core sex inserts in the rape scene. In my VCD, there were no such scenes, even though the scene was pretty graphic. If someone knows more about these different versions, you may e-mail me freely and tell me about it! Also, it would be nice to know, what is that other film "The Beasts" (from 1980) directed by Dennis Yu, because IMDB lists two (The) Beasts in its database and Yu's filmography?? Is it only a misunderstood or are there really two different films? So if anyone has any info to offer, contact me freely!

2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
Nasty early 80s Hong Kong thriller, 9 January 2001

Author: eegah-3 (eegah@hotmail.com) from Minneapolis, Mn

This film is a Chinese variation on violent American films like DELIVERANCE and SOUTHERN COMFORT. A group of teenagers on a camping trip meet up with a group of backwoods degenerates (referred to as "disco boys" in the subtitles) who rape one of the girls (watch her brush her teeth with toilet water in the hospital) and impale one of the guys on bamboo spikes. One of the locals fingers the gang who then take revenge on the guy by getting him drunk and burying him in a shallow grave. Another guy finds him and takes violent revenge on each of these drooling idiots. This is grim and bloody stuff but frenetic enough to pinpoint this as a Hong Kong film. Having one of the gang be retarded was lifted right out of I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE. One entertaining element was the wholesale unauthorized use of early 80s American pop music by Supertramp, the Police, Styx and others.

1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Noteworthy Pre-CAT III HK Rape/Revenge Film..., 22 March 2010

Author: EVOL666 from St. John's Abortion Clinic

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

THE BEASTS is an entertaining (depending on your idea of 'entertainment') rape/revenge entry from Hong Kong that draws definite parallels from all the other 'rednecks vs. city- folk' films that came before it. 

A group of young-adults takes a camping trip into some backwater hell-hole, and is harassed by the local inbreds. One of the female vacationers is raped and her brother killed. When the hicks are let off the hook because the daughter is too traumatized to testify-her dad goes batsh!t and hunts down the clan of scumbags one-by-one...

Although completely derivative in almost every sense-I still quite enjoyed THE BEASTS. The storyline may not be original, but is pretty fast-paced and throws an Asian styling onto what could otherwise be considered a pretty tired concept. The group of rapists are suitably odd-looking, and are cast well for the subject matter. While by no means 'graphic' by today's standards-the sleaze is sleazy and the gore is gory-especially for a film that pre-dates the CAT III movement where ultra-sleaze became the norm in Hong Kong by a full 7 or 8 years. Although I can't rate this one too highly (mainly because I've just seen too much of this sorta thing...), I would say that THE BEASTS is as good or better than many of it's CAT III spawn-and though not technically a CAT III film itself-I would definitely suggest it to those that enjoy those types of films. Oh-and the (assumingly) lifted soundtrack featuring The Police, Genesis, and many others-along with the absolutely comical subtitling and some other oddly comedic moments, round this one out quite nicely...7.5/10     

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