acky Reviews

The Terror of Tiny Town (1938)

The best thing in the movie

[9 July 2000]

The greatest thing about this movie is in the opening credits where it is announced that the midgets were provided by "Bob Olsen's Midgets."(I think that is the name.) That and when the pert midget women sings "I wanna be loved by you."

House of Whipcord (1974)

Dark, grim allegory about justice system

[7/10 · 20 October 1999]

This movie could have been typical 70's exploitation porn but director Peter Walker turns it around and makes it a grimy desadean attack on the ruling classes. The scene in which the blind judge continues making a solemn speech well after the prisoners have all left the room is worthy of Bunuel. It's all a bit heavy handed and obvious and it seems as though this movie should have been more shocking for it too really work but the bizzare grimy sepia tone of the whole thing really makes it much better than anyone could have expected.

The Boogey Man (1980)

eerie

[7/10 · 17 October 1999]

I was suprised that this movie got such a low rating, to me it's one of the better horror films I've seen in some time. Uli Lommel allows the horror in this story to gradually build until it erupts in very frightening and disturbing and occasionally blackly comic ways. The boogeyman's appearances in the film are effectively kept very brief, he doesn't become a silly charactor of the freddy/jason mold. Uli lommel keeps the location barren and banal and uses them in inventive ways.The scenes in which the disturbed deaf brother paints over every mirror in the house is brillinat and forshadows a lot of scenes in clean-shaven.

Zombie (1979)

Not great but interesting and shocking

[12 October 1999]

This film wowed me with it's moments of sheer nastiness, The sheer third world ugliness of the island gives everything a good grim basis for the over the top gore to work. The plot is basically an excuse for Fulci to pull out his bizzare gory set pieces which are incredibly impressive and some funny low key moments like when the head of the hospital is seen getting drunk on top of a hill like some hobo. The review before got me thinking about this vs scream and I think it should be said that movies like this and Suspiria are really just as flashy and shallow as "I know what you did last summer." It's just that Fulci and Argento have a lot more style. So you can't really see them as an alternative to scream as much as George Romero or "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." which work as art with a social commentary as well as hideous style

The Last House on the Left (1972)

Unique mixture of art and expoiltation

[9 October 1999]

I'm not sure if I should bother writing a review but as we can see from the highly contrasting reviews on this site, this film still shocks and annoys people. From the starting, Wes Craven creates an effective sense of the squallid dead lives of the killers that has not been done as well until "Henry Portarit of a Serial Killer". The expolitation begins at the first rape scene which is extremely babdly done with the girls not really tring to get away very hard But the second rape scene is a shocking contrast brutal, disturbing and lyrical. Not resorting to any obvious devices such as jarring music or anoy suspense. Craven creates one of the most despairing scenes in film.

Throughout the film it switches tones between when the girls are almost figures of dubious black hyumor, when we sympathize with them and when we feel for the killers. The shocking switches of tone as well as the completely innapropriate music score add to the shocking nature of this brutal film. This film mocks the idea of making a seroius film about it's subject. It is one of the most realistic films about it's subject but yet sees it with a curious distance and nastiness as well amplifying the emotions we feel.

Phantasm II (1988)

Disappointing sequel to surrealstic, intense original

[4 October 1999]

In this weak follow up to the original terror and suspenses are replaced with big guns, naked chicks, and and an awful glossy eighties look. All the interesting parts were done exactly the same in the original. The ending is utterly predictable and dull and who the hell asked them to bring back reggie bannister the character i was gladdest to see devoured by dwarfs in the original. The dwarfs look a lot scarier in this one though.

Fear City (1984)

crappo

[4 October 1999]

Abel Ferrara has definitely done better things in his life. But I think this is just the uneasy transition point between the early gritty horror of Ms. 45 and the later high gloss of "King of New York." There are many points at which Ferara has rarely been as outrageous as such as the stabbing of a stripper montaged together with a sexy strip routine. I also think he deserves points for putting half naked women in almost every scene.

But the martial arts fighting serial killer was utterly ridiculous and in the ending fighht scene I didn't see why he had to be so tough if his aim in life was to beat up women half his size and weight.., This was made for cable by the way, they just decided not to air it.

Aileen Wuornos: Selling of a Serial Killer (1992)

Great bizzare look at tabloid culture

[2 October 1999]

The grotesque and sinister Steven Glazer leads Nick Broomfield into a frightening tabloid current affair world in which serial killers have agents, The police frame suspects in order to get movie deals, I don't wnt to spoil to much of the disturbing thins that occur but Steven Glazer has some odd advice to give to his client.

Curdled (1996)

Limp "black comedy"

[30 September 1999]

This is a very typical early 90's black comedy which menas that it's jarringly aware of it's own cleverness, shares the same faded primary colors as "Natural Born Killers" or "Freeway", and involves a serial killer. Frankly for anything like this to work it would need some basis in reality and the fact that William Baldwin kills women without using gloves avoiding touching things or even getting rid of his fingerprints immediately annoyed me. Nothing in this movie is real enough or gruesome enough to actually be funny or disturbing. The director poars on the stage blood but every murder is done in a clean emotionless tarantino type of way and all the crime scenes just contain neat little pool of blood. haven't they ever read that after a week you have to wear thigh length boots to prevent maggots from crawling up your legs or that you wear air masks when cleaning up these places or that most of it is done with an ultrapowful wet-dry vac? realistic details such as these would have helped this film. After reading that this was a short I could believe it because the entire film feels like it was very thinly stretched.

Rude Boy (1980)

Intriguing but muddled

[17 August 1999]

This intriguing film blurs the line between documentary and reality much in the way 60's classics such as "Medium Cool" do. The story (when it's allowed to tell itself) of the drunken directionless punk is sad, charming and wild. I can see why the Clash disowned the film. It shows how they merely reflect the showbiz side of the struggles of the working class in England. When Ray attempts to tell Mick Jones how much "Stay free" means to him, he is shrugged off with a " I'm watching you." We see Ray being consumed by his own nihilstic rage while the clash use it up to the point of making good pop music with it.

Darklands (1996)

shallow , trendy dreck

[30 July 1999]

Despite all of the feverish accolades on the box, I found this to be a conventional and dull film. The few scenes of the pagan ritual might be disturbing were there not some sub-portishead music playing on the soundtrack the entire time.The scenes of the gypsys living outside the power plant were grimy and creepy. I was very annoyed by the fact that this film compared itself to the great "The Wicker man." while that film was an attack on Christianity and organized religion, this film seems to just be about how bad and evil the religous cult is which I found kind of silly and reactionary.

Funny Games (1997)

Black comedy- in the most austrian way

[30 July 1999]

The odd thing about this film is how repulsed people are by it. Certainly it's a shocking brutal film but there have been few more restrained and less bloody films about the subject (especailly given that the subject has to be bloody) Funny Games shocks and horrifies people because of it's realism and naturalistic setting. Unlike the twitchy ranting performances we are used to seeing in movie serial killers, the two killers in funny games are normal, almost bland. The film is free of the moralizing and also of the exploitation we see in Natural born killers. (Spoiler soon!) the film does not dwell on violence it dwells on the psychological aspects of it which makes it much more disturbing. Consider when Georg's wife is forced to take off her top we do not see the usual flash of breasts that we expect from our slasher films. And when one of the killers shoots their son we merely see the blood splattered on the t.v. The camera is out of the room when the boy is shot. The ending is really frustrating but it's meant to be frustrating. The vengance which is stopped by the godlike hand of a remote control is ridiculous but it makes us aware of our own role in the films violence and brutality. And the ridiculousness in the tacked on vengeance that will make our sordid experience worthwile.

The Ninth Configuration (1980)

Brilliant, funny, awful and stupid film

[30 July 1999]

This is an extremely funny,brilliant and stupid and awful movie. The beginning of the movie is truly brilliant with endless brilliant speeches riddled wirth vaudeville style one liners. The gothic castle location gives an odd and eerie look to it. But after a half-hour, the one liners begin to wear on you. The films view of insanity is that of the cliched 1960's idealist who believes that people aren't really crazy, it's the system! Which is fair to a certain extent, but to truly accept insanity one must accept the real conditions of it, people attcking their nurses, masturbating in public, p***ing on the floor, the grotesque and degrading side of it as well. Of course many lunatics are brilliant but much more of them are toothless,violent schizophrenics. Blatty has basically just written one universal lunatic that blends all of them together. So after realizing this I was willing to accept it as flawed sort of comedy. But then Blatty's tone changes and the whole film becomes some sort of bible pounding drama (Spoiler coming up) with ridiculous self righteous scenes and a long and ridiculous scene involving two hell's angels. Then apparently Blatty wants us to think of Kane as Christ. But what kind of Christ kills an entire bar full of people? And why is it neccesary at the end to prove that yes, by gum, there is a heaven. I was very frustrated by the cloying sentimentalism that undermined the great atheistic first half.

Maniac (1980)

Odd, disturbing psychodrama

[30 July 1999]

Maniac is a truly fascinating film. It's unceasingly grim, brutal and sick. It relies a lot on some very cliched set-ups. But at the same timke is completely original and I don't believe I've seen another film like it. Joe Spinell is very creepy and his monologues are perfect studies in dementia. He sounds and looks like Berkowitz.(Although the killer's psychological quirks are much more like Dahmer than Berkowitz.) But it's not perfect though. The ending is rteally derivative and cheesy and I was personally annoyed by the lack of consistency in how the killer killed his victims and the ridiculous explanatory part.

The Baby (1973)

Morbid, perverse and fascinating

[30 July 1999]

This is a bizarre piece of southern gothic. It's a movie full of bright primary colors and very over-the-top performances. I can't really figure out what it's really about but it's fascinating, morbid, perverse and has one of the most shocking twists at the end of it.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1994)

A worthy folllow up to the original.

[24 July 1999]

I rented this movie and had extremely low expectations. The first Texas Chainsaw massacre is one of my favorites ever and so I am always hoping to find a movie as interesting. But after 2 (which was somewhat interesting but too over-the-top and with gimmicky "new villiais" and with some very silly acting.) But i was very impressed with this film. It manages to recapture the gritty grainy visual style of the original and also some of the frenetic sadism. The performances are all great and Henkel mangaes to keep most of the original story and adds enough unfamiliar twists to it to make this a far better follow up than 2. It is flawed in that the guy that plays leatherface while he is a good actor is very silly looking they should have spent more time making him hideous. And also the Wayne Bell score is very disappointing given his score for the original. There's no gore but there wasn't any in the original either.

Surf Nazis Must Die (1987)

Fascinating post-apocalypse feature

[24 July 1999]

I think most people hate Surf Nazis Must Die because of the whole Troma label. This is more of an interesting experimental feature closer to "The Bedsitting Room" than Mad Max. It's very well shot and the synth 80's music is interesting for a film of this type. This film should have been marketed to the Art House Crowd. It's a slow moving odd and unique film. It's a shame it fell into the hands of Troma.

Screen Two: Contact (1985) Season 1, Episode 1

Gripping, unbelievably realistic war film

[24 July 1999]

This film had almost no dialogue and almost nothing happens except for a few outbreaks of random violence. But yet it is an incredibly gripping film. Alan Clarke lets us feel both the boredom and terror of war and the film never lets up for it's sixty minutes as the steadicam follows the exhausted british soldiers as they trudge through the endless, and eerily beautiful irish landscape.

Rituals (1977)

Powerful, surreal and disturbing.

[24 July 1999]

This is a powerful,surreal and frightening film. Like Deliverance, It's mostly about the very thin veneer of civilization. Shot in a cinema verite style, the brutality and horror seems almost documentary like, unlike Deliverance where there are practically signposts saying "meaning" per 24 frames, this film allows the horror and absurdity of itself unfold itself slyly around the edge of the frame.( consider the brilliant satire of having the surgeons chant "take him apart! take him apart!" as they dance around the campfire. And the eerie shot of the forest dwelling killer standing on top of the hill, a shadow against the sun.) Wheras Deliverance was all about northern white guilt, the doctors in this film have something to be guilty about. I think "Deliverance" is great but this film reveals it's limitations, it's lack of guts, and it's prettifying of nature. Ultimately this is a superior film.

Demons of the Mind (1972)

Nasty satire of religion and science

[24 July 1999]

This film is a nasty satire of science and Religion. Peter Sykes undoes the Hammer Horror conventions in favor of a free-floating, experimetal narrative. Patrick Magee and Micheal Holdern both turn in brilliant performances. Patrick Magee as the inneffectual, sadistic psychiatrist who drives people mad to have better papers published and Micheal holdern as a wandering beggar dressed as a priest, blending fervor with madness. The entire free-floating poetic structure is ended with a brutal, grisly ending that helps this movie break from the silly hammer horror conventions most of the films suffer from. If Hammer had made more films like this they might still be relevant to modern horror.