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brettgrimstad907
Reviews
Night Feeder (1988)
Low Budget, Shot on Video GOLD
"Night Feeder" should not be as good as it is. Filmed on video by artists who previously only worked on New Wave music videos in the San Francisco music scene of the 1980s, this tale of murder, drug use and the post-punk underground drips with atmosphere, ambition and a bizarre verisimilitude that makes the gore-soaked ended all the more shocking.
The plot revolved around a series of murders where the victims have one of their eyes removed and most of their brain sucked out through the hole left behind. Somehow, a street drug and a New Wave band (both named DZS, pronounced disease) are involved in the killings.
The plot is almost secondary to the atmosphere though. Filmed in actual clubs and with actual fans, this is a snapshot of a scene that existed and will never exist again in the late 80s. An actual band "The Nuns" plays the roll of DZS and though most of the actors are clearly amateurs, even the strangest performances ring true thanks to the odd nature of the scene itself.
Lastly, the gore and creature effects were overseen by an effects designer who had previously worked on David Cronenberg's "The Fly". One of his teachers was a producer on the film, so he agreed to help out.
If you like 1980s shot on video horror, this is one of the best I have seen. The fact that it was previously only available on VHS in Poland for the last 27 years is a travesty. Thank you Bleeding Skull Video for making this amazing film finally available for everyone to experience.
Soultangler (1987)
A Lost gem of 1980s trash horror
"The Soultangler" is a very low budget film with an intriguing premise that takes a while to get where it is going but pays off spectacularly in the end. Dr. Anton Lupesky invents Anphiorum, a drug that allows the user's soul to leave their body and inhabit any corpse that still has eyes (yes being the window to the soul after all). The side effect is horrible, maddening hallucinations that kill most of the drug's users.
Though the beginning is slow going as to be expected from a lot of trash horror films of this era, the story builds nicely and has a fantastically gore-soaked climax that makes the previous 70 minutes entirely worth it. Every ounce of the tiny budget is on screen and though the actors might not be professionals and the camera-work is shaky, there is a passion and a heart to this film that movies will hundred million dollar budgets cannot match.
If you don't go in expecting constant action or thrills and accept that this is a micro-budget film determined to tell a surreal, dream-like story of science gone horribly wrong, you will enjoy it. Trust me though, stick with it till the ending and you will love this film.