when cosplay goes bad (part 7).

This doesn't need the words....

comic relief.

A few more snippets of gory, Eurotrash graphic-ness.

Don't have nightmares.

spunky monkey.

Young Cassidy has taken an interest in my old Mego Planet Of The Apes figures at the moment (tho' they've yet to depose Shatner as 'king of toys') so I've been trying to find some suitable simian based cinema for him to enjoy.

No other choice really.

Tanya's Island (1980).
Dir: Alfred Sole.
Cast: D.D. Winters, Richard Sargent, Don McCleod, Mariette Lévesque, Donny Burns and a monkey.

Olive of skin and dusky of eye model Tanya (Winters, AKA former Prince plaything and born again Christian Vanity) is looking to make it big in the film business. She has the attitude and the looks but alas, not the time keeping skills needed seeing as she's continually late on set due to her unhealthy obsession with power walking whilst listening to lush, sub Jerry Goldsmith style music.

For her big haired producer Kelly (French ex popstrel and star of the fantastic Sex in the Snow, Lévesque) this is the final straw, warning Tanya that her personal life (and her constant jogging) has to take a back seat if she wants to make it big in the business they call show.

If that wasn't enough to ruin her whole week then the fact that her bushily bearded beau Lobo (unfortunately not the Tor Johnson character from Bride of the Atom but bit part legend Sargent) has decided that this will be the best day to dump her might just clinch it.

Not too surprisingly a bloody big argument ensues, ending with poor Tanya storming (well jogging) back home to gorge herself on chocolate and watch a true life drama on Movies 24 (she is female).

Curled up on the sofa with congealed snot and melted Hagen Das all over her face Tanya begins to hear a strange grunting cum groaning sound from her bedroom (tho' it may be the sound quality of my ancient VHS) and in best Nancy Drew manner, tiptoes upstairs to investigate.

Upon opening her bedroom door she's shocked to find not an asthmatic intruder but hundreds of flickering candles leading to a soft core title sequence featuring Vanity rubbing her breasts whilst mouthing "Come to me...."

Which is nice.

...and her breasts, her frightening
bush and shiny flat tummy.

Waking as if from a (wet) dream, Tanya finds herself on an idyllic island paradise alongside hunky Lobo and a big white horse (did someone say symbolism?), where they apparently live a simple and carefree existence; Lobo spending his days painting and catching fish whilst Tanya idles away the hours riding around topless on the horse.

So far so erotically charged.

Probably.

After what seems like days of soft focus shots of Tanya jiggling on a pony in slow motion whilst Lobo looks on lustfully in his big white, homemade nappy our titular heroine, whilst exploring the jungle finds herself being pelted with fruit from the bushes.

Thinking that there may be a local shop just over the horizon (and needing some hairspray) Tanya decides to go take a look.

Stumbling sexily thru' the undergrowth she soon comes across a dark, forboding cave which she cautiously enters.

Could this be a metaphor?

Well we've no time to think it thru' because no sooner has she popped her head around the corner that she meets the caves owner.

A huge, man breasted Gorilla with an 80's soft rock mullet.

Tanya, frightened by the hairstyle on show runs away in terror but realizing that it's the first interesting thing to happen so far in the movie returns to the cave to let the big ape put flowers in her hair whilst stroking her fingers in a saucy (for a monkey) manner.

Tanya names the ape Blue on account of his bright blue eyes (luckily she hadn't seen his bright pink arse yet) and decides he's a far better conversationalist and not to mention a much less messy eater than poor Lobo whom she soon abandons to his fish.

The poor guy is distraught at the thought that his girlfriend may be secretly seeing someone else (you can tell he's in emotional turmoil because their frequent and unnecessary love making scenes have gone from loving slo-mo beach frolics to cum face close ups of him taking her from behind in a tent) so decides to follow her on one of her daily jaunts and discover the truth.

Vanity, up the casino, 1980....Yesch!

Lobo, doing what any sane man would do when faced with such a dilemma, builds a huge bamboo cage and traps Blue by constructing a scale model of Tanya out of bananas to lure him inside before banging the walls and slapping him with a stick whilst singing Daydream Believer.

Tanya is, not too surprisingly, upset by these turn of events and also a wee bit scared of Lobo's almost animalistic rage.

Tho' this may be a sign of discomfort and sore knees due to the constant shagging she's having to endure as he exerts his manliness.

Bored with spanking the monkey, Lobo insists that Tanya accompanies him to the other side of the island, as far away from Blue as possible so that they can carry on their simple life as before, but with the rougher sex obviously but Tanya refuses (her knees are red raw) and late one night frees Blue.

Lobo is furious, popping a saucepan on his head as a makeshift helmet before locking Tanya in the cage and dancing around like your dad at a wedding.

You can tell it's only a matter of time before someone's going to end up dead can't you?

Lobo is big leggy.

Blue who, up until this point has been the very model of decorum, has had enough of all this man-based mentalism thinking fuck you all before violently throwing loads of coconuts and mango's at the pair, forcing Lobo to hide in the cage too.

Who is the real animal?

Clue: that'll be the monkey then.

Will Lobo and Blue learn to share?

Will it all be a dream?

Or will Blue kill Lobo before chasing Tayna into the jungle howling, only stopping to jump on the poor girl before taking her up the arse whilst she screams in blue tinted slow motion?

And then it all be a dream?

Go on, guess.

No need.

Tanya's Island is a film that really needs to be experienced first hand as no amount of musings or reviews can ever hope to encapsulate the sheer ludicrousness and clumsy sixth form artistic pretensions on display.

Producer Pierre Brousseau's minimalist script comes across like a youth theatre version of Walerian Borowczyk's The Beast but without any of that arthouse cum sleaze epics genuinely erotic qualities, nightmarish visions of female sexuality and, more importantly minus it's fantastic 13 inch ejaculating rubber cock.

The film clumisly lurches from one scene to the next like some crippled drunk staggering home after a night on the tiles, director Sole (who made the fantastic Alice Sweet Alice) mistaking blurry shagging and lip biting for artistic erotica and deciding that a man in a monkey suit (scarily designed by Rick Baker and Rob Bottin on what must have been a slow day) wrestling a bearded bloke in a pair of dirty Pampers would be the subtlest way to show an audience that civilised man is but a savage beast at heart.

Sir, I salute you.

Which is more than I'd do to the cast, seeing as it's much like viewing three large pieces of plywood stomping around a garden centre with the subtlest performance being from a piglet that unfortunately gets killed less than halfway thru.

Sargent is all big kneed, pube permed and shouty whilst Vanity only seems to have been cast due to the fact that her breasts look not bad when sprayed with fake sweat and that she has no shame when it comes to feigning horror whilst being forcibly shagged by a gorilla.

Somehow she never mentions this movie in interviews and appears to be less embarrassed by the fact that she let Prince put it in her.

It's a strange old world.

davie says: warbeck, hide yourself.

L’Ultimo cacciatore (AKA The Last Hunter, Hunter of the Apocalypse. 1980).
Dir. Antonio Margheriti
Cast: David Warbeck, Tisa Farrow, Tony King, Sir Bobby of Rhodes, John Steiner and Margit Evelyn Newton.

The time: 1973, the place: a wee drinking club somewhere in downtown Saigon where the suave and sweaty Colonel Morris (horror god and almost Bond, the late great Dame David Warbeck) is spending his time drinking warm booze and watching a bored Vietnamese whore trying to dance in an erotic manner (and failing miserably, poor cow) whilst attempting to calm down his young male 'friend' Steve, who appears to be heading toward a tearful wank based Pot Noodle breakdown due to his missis leaving him and the fact that the prostitute lying across his bare chest keeps wanting to stroke his hairy man breasts.

We've all been there.

After resigning himself to the fact that it's gonna be his job to clean up all the sweat, egg, semen and blood stains later whilst poor Steve dribbles in a ditch, you can imagine Morris' surprise when his forlorn pal suddenly sobers up and shoots some random GI in the face before offing himself.

And if that wasn't enough to ruin our heroes Saturday night somebody then decides to firebomb the club.

War it seems, is indeed hell.

Luckily for us (and for the film in general) Morris quickly legs it before the whole place goes up in cheap gin and piss soaked flames, watching in horror (or with mild apathy, I couldn't really tell) as everyone else is burnt to death.

Warbeck: You would
(tho' he'd probably not give you a choice).

There's no time for tears tho' because the top brass are sending Morris behind enemy lines.

His mission?

Jump out of (what looks like the BBC outside broadcast) helicopter into a small pond, meet up with the hard as nails bastard squad, led by the badass Sgt. George Washington (king, from Cannibal Apocalypse and The Atlantis Interceptors) and his pal Carlos (the legendary Rhodes), then traipse thru' the directors garden in order to 'silence' (they may mean blow up) a radio tower broadcasting evil propaganda messages telling the American soldiers to go home.

So far so Apocalypse Now.

Narrowly avoiding a rubber snake (or was that a real snake and a rubber Warbeck?), Morris manages to find Washington and company only to discover that they're dragging top lady reporter Jane Foster (Farrow, the slightly sleazier - not to say considerably more ginger sister of Mia) around with them for no other reason than that she must have been shooting another film nearby at the same time.

Which is fair enough I guess but does make you keep wondering when the zombies are going to attack.

Farrow: harsh.

Taking time to go the scenic route (and fill out the movie's running time) our motley crew come across a small village populated by tiny, machine gun wielding Vietnamese woman with a nice line in exploding babies to shoot at.

Unfortunately Washington is wounded in the ensuing firefight meaning our heroes have to retreat into the jungle or face getting beaten by girls.

Cue twenty odd minutes of rotting corpses falling from trees, Tisa Farrow's sweaty nipples becoming more and more visible thru' her vest top and various members of the team getting pinned to trees by big spiky boobytraps.

But alas still no zombies.

Or even cannibals for that matter.

But this lack of flesh eater action is the least of Warbeck's worries, seeing as the base camp (well base cave really) he's has to report to on the final leg of his mission seems to be run by the scary bloke from Sparks (skinny legged Argento regular Steiner) and that all the soldiers under his command are off their tits on drugs.

To show how stoned they actually are (and how the horrors of war can warp a man) the entire camp start rubbing themselves up and wolf whistling when Tisa Farrow turns up.

I'd just like to point out that I'm in no way saying she's not attractive but she's standing next to a wet David Warbeck clad only in a vest and too tight combats....and that's enough to turn anyones head.

Luckily for Tisa, Major Sparks despite being camp as pants and having little thin rubber legs, is a nice man and at the first sign of any John Leslie style behavior from his troops is quickly stamped out by sending them pole vaulting behind enemy lines to fetch him a coconut or two.

"Look! a telescope with a mouse in it!"

But this jolly japery can't last forever and it's not too long before 'Charlie' (a character we never learn the true identity of) attack the cave system, kidnap Tisa and machine gun everyone inside (except for Morris and his buddies).

Escaping to the local boating pond, Carlos is cruelly killed whilst stealing a junk whilst Washington clumsily trips over a corpse and snaps his leg in half, giving him and Morris a wee chance to discuss the futility of war and stuff.

After a series of meaningful glances Morris jumps overboard (either to continue his mission or because he can't stand anymore of the incredibly stilted and frighteningly cliched dialogue), leaving Washington at the mercy of the Viet Cong machine gun nests serendipitously hidden around the next bend.

"Aya! Mah BCG!"

With a look of grim determination (or constipation, it's hard to tell) Morris continues further into the jungle, alone and armed with only a kids spud gun and a sweat mottled pair of man breasts, determined to complete his mission before heading home for tea and crumpets.

Nice as this idea is it soon all goes tits up when he's captured by the ever present Charlie and dumped shoe-less in a rat infested water cage with only a man with a melted cheese face for company.

Can anyone help our hero?

Well Tisa's sitting sipping rice tea in a holiday chalet overlooking the prison (and the rent) so hopefully she'll get up off her fat arse and finally add something to the plot....

But will she be able to waddle down to rescue Morris before the rats begin to nibble on his man bits?

"Hey Tisa, according to this article your
brother in law's been shagging Mia's weans!"

Genre busting genius Antonio (Bed of a Thousand Pleasures, Cannibal Apocalypse, Yor, the Hunter from the Future and Code Name: Wild Geese amongst others) Margheriti's The Last Hunter has everything Apocalypse Now! should have had (including a considerably shorter running time) and much more.

Except zombies unfortunately but you can't have everything.

It's pedigree is second to none featuring as it does star turns from Fulci faves David Warbeck and Tisa Farrow aided and abetted by a top cast of Italian icons including Bobby (Demoni) Rhodes, John (Tenebrae) Steiner and Margit Evelyn (Zombie Creeping Flesh) Newton. Behind the scenes it has cult composer Franco (everything from Black Demons to music featured on the Death Proof and Ren and Stimpy show soundtracks) Micalizzi's sexy synth sounds and craftily crude special effects from the Philipino Savini himself Apollonio Abadesa.

"Fuck me! a wasp!"

And although Margheriti's entire career seems to have consisted of making cheap knock offs of bigger, more famous movies the director didn't seem to mind, giving his all and making the most of the motley assortment of the cliched characters and situations in evidence.

From the hard bitten soldiers to the snatches of inappropriate nudity via scenes of extreme violence, Margheriti also manages to fill the movie with just enough cod "war is hell" speeches to almost convince you that you're actually watching something worthwhile and meaningful as opposed to just sitting eagerly awaiting the next over the top death scene or the chance of a quick look at Tisa Farrow's (admittedly) rather shapely breasts.

And if that doesn't get you salivating then I don't know what will.

day of the dead.

It's just been pointed out to me that in this month's 'stiffs' column I inadvertently printed a picture of teevee funnyman Simon Day instead of the dead, alcoholic ex-chat host Simon Dee.

Apologies to Dave Angel's wife who was called by the Daily Mail yesterday morning to inform her that her hubbie had died.

Sorry for any confusion/hurt caused.

Day: Not dead.

Dee: Dead.

beard of evil.

Esta Noite Encarnarei no Teu Cadáver (AKA This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse, Tonight I Will Make Your Corpse Turn Red, Tonight I Will Paint in Flesh Colour. 1967).
Dir: Jose Mojica-Marins.
Cast: Jose Mojica-Marins, Tina Wohlers, Nadia Freitas, Antonio Fracari, Jose Lobo, Esmeralda Ruchel, Paula Ramos and Tania Mendonça.

Following on from À Meia-Noite Levarei Sua Alma:

Mad as a bag of spanners undertaker Zé Do Caixão (AKA Coffin Joe, played by director Marins) having pissed off everyone is his home town with his constant raping, killings and eating meat on holy days has run away to the local cemetery after being chased by ghosts (are you getting all this?) and, after hiding in the crypt of his murdered (by Zé obviously) best friend ends up scared shitless by the spirits of his victims.

The pursuing townsfolk arrive to find him lying in a pool of his own urine, all googly eyed and dribbling like a wean.

But, incredibly, still alive.

Still having to answer for all those killings (and rapes and mutilations) what he's done, Zé is placed under arrest to await his trial.

Luckily for him (but of no surprise to anyone who's seen the first movie), the authorities have no hard evidence and have to let Zé go free.

Heading back to his (newly acquired) castle with his (recently hired) hunchback assistant Bruno (Lobo, not the DC Comics character) our undertaker pal quickly resumes his mission to find the perfect woman to give him a child.

But being the wacky outgoing guy that we all know and love, Zé forgoes the normal dating channels (such as the internet, lonely hearts columns and the like) and decides that it'd be easier to just send Bruno out to kidnap the five best looking birds in town.

Well, four best looking and their lopsided mouthed pal.

OK if I'm honest he kidnaps the five actresses least likely to complain about having to show their nipples whilst wearing huge black pants.

"Fuck me it's Fred Titmus!"

Always the gentleman, Zé waits till they've all calmed down and settled in before explaining his plan and eventually torturing them with big hairy spiders, threatening to let Bruno shag them and finally dropping the ladies into a pit filled with large, possibly phalic snakes.

I say possibly because I'm never too sure about that kind of thing, which is why I stick to films with killings in them.

At the end of all this general badness only one woman is left standing, a wealthy, blonde and scarily buxom widow named Marcia (Freitas) who is more than happy to oblige our hero in his quest for an heir.

Which begs the question why he didn't just ask the ladies politely to begin with?

"We've got some great photo's of you without the
hump showing but the bad news
is that we can't get the album shut".

Everything is going swimmingly for Zé and his new squeeze until one day, when our hatted hero is out picking flowers and stuff he bumps into the dark eyed and bullet breasted Laura (Wolhers, star of the underrated Amantes, Amanhã Se Houver Sol) who not only happens to be the daughter of a prominent town dignitary but is as completely fruit loops as Zé is.

Love is indeed in the air.

And from the look of the fog surrounding Zé's home so are a number of eggy farts.

Not too surprisingly her dad and family are furious (tho' not as furious as Skinny John) and, after being knocked back by the Jeremy Kyle Show (obviously for not being inbred dole scum pikey bastards), decide to take matters into their own hands hiring some bad men to 'duff Zé up'.

Don't worry tho' because as we all know by this point Zé's nothing if hard as nails and ends up killing them instead.

"Don't forget Zé, Graham and his
team are waiting backstage to help
you with your anger issues should the DNA results
reveal that the beard isn't yours!"

It's only a matter of time before Laura falls pregnant giving Zé an excuse to go into town, get pissed and hand out exploding cigars to everyone but whilst enjoying his new found status as daddy to be he discovers that one of the women he's offed earlier was pregnant and not just portly as he'd mistakenly believed.

The thought of killing a child sends Zé into a fit of guilt and rage that not even a tearful wank and a Pot Noodle can cure culminating in dreams of being dragged to Hell by a big, naked black man to witness the horrors that befall cursed souls.

Oh, and a load of buff, thong wearing muscle men with their arses painted red.

Inside John Leslies mind.

It's at this point that things start to go from bad to worse for our coffin carrying chum as Laura loses the baby, causing Zé's somewhat tenuous grip on reality to slip even more whilst the local law enforcement folk start to put two and two together (finally) with regards to all the killings and general badness that's been occurring in the local area since Zé moved in.

There's only one course of action left to the top hatted terror and that's to scarper into the swamp....

But has Zé's luck finally run out?

"Tonight I will make your corpse turn red, but
not before I've turned your
mooth a shitey brown colour!"

The second part of Jose Mojica Marins 'Coffin Joe' trilogy offers more of the same mix of violence, philosophy, nudity and murder but on a much more polished scale. Like a Marvel Comics re-imagining of the character of Joe, the movie adds a hunchback butler and spooky castle to the mix giving our anti-hero an almost Doctor Doom feel and the plot, whilst an almost carbon copy of the first movie, seems bigger and brasher expanding to a point where the character of Joe moves from being 'just' an evil bogeyman figure to become the whole reason for the films existence.

And the horror genre is all the better for it.

Everything about Esta Noite Encarnarei no Teu Cadáver is so unique and different from anything else being produced at the time, from the juxtaposition of the hand scrawled animated credits flashed over a frantic display of images against the classic gothic look of Coffin Joe himself, it becomes obvious that you're experiencing a film created by a true visionary and a master of storytelling.

And if any director deserved recognition outside his chosen genre then it's Jose Mojica-Marins, that brilliant yet utterly bonkers Brazilian eccentric, loved and hated in equal measures in his homeland where he's viewed as either a god or an living breathing incarnation of his on-screen personia.

The church to this day still vigorously attack his anti-religion stance and his ongoing theme of ethical beliefs and religious principles, and at the centre of this we have Coffin Joe and his quest to cement his ideal of man's place in the hierarchy of heaven and hell, violently confronting and challenging blind conformity and ultimately to prove man's superiority over God himself.

Hey Joe, where you going
with that bun in your hand?

Tho' Marins would quite possibly say I was talking utter bollocks and that he just makes the wee horror films to scare the weans shitless.

If this is the case then fair play to him, but I really do believe that we need directors like Marins working in our beloved genre.

And that the world in general deserves a character such as Coffin Joe, today more than ever.

rainy wine house.

Been re-arranging the shelves here to make way for even more of those faintly terrifying Littlest Petshop toys that our twin terror Midwich Cuckoos have become obsessed with of late. The Cassatron was quite happily minding his own business, playing with his new Devilman action figure when he dragged this out from behind a pile of Shaw Brothers VCD's.

It was then I realized that he's managed to turn three without ever seeing a Jean Rollin movie. A situation that needed remedying straight away.

Emily: Really knows her stuff, allegedly.

Luckily this one has a train in it so it's a wee bit like Thomas the Tank Engine.

Only with better looking breasts obviously.

Tho' Emily does have really kissable lips.

Les Raisins de la mort (AKA Pesticide, The Grapes of Death, The Raisins of Death. 1978).
Dir: Jean Rollin.
Cast: Marie George Pascal, Felix Marten, Serge Marquand, Mirella Rancelot, Patrice Valota, Patricia Cartier, Brigitte Lahaie, Olivier Rollin and what looks like Noel Fielding.

Button nosed elfin-esque cutie Elizabeth (Pascal, previously seen as Carla in the fantastic I Am Frigid... Why?) is taking a rail holiday with her blonde haired buck toothed pal thru' the quaint French countryside. Taking in the scenery and giggling like a pair of schoolies, the couple are having a wonderful time until a strange French bloke (is there any other type?) with a half chewed caramel for a face bursts into their compartment and kills Elizabeth's plain friend.

Which is lucky seeing as I don't think Cass could've bared to look at such a freakish woman for ninety minutes, I mean he's only little.

In an action sequence that would make Bond proud Elizabeth quickly jumps off the (slow moving) train and runs like buggery along the train tracks toward a small village she noticed a few miles back.

Will she be safe?

Well it wont spoil anything to say that upon arrival she finds herself surrounded by a whole community of chewed faced Frenchies brandishing pitchforks in one hand and bottles of cheap wine in the other so I guess the answer is no.

But thinking about it it would have made for a really short movie had she turned up, told the local copper and had Mr. Melty arrested, which is probably why my scripts end up unsold.

"Can you smell petrol?"

Deciding the best thing to do is hide till everyone in the village is too drunk to walk, Elizabeth dunks into a ramshackle cottage only to be accosted by a melted faced mentalist who, without even a hello (or a sleazy chat up line) tries to kill her.

So that's the secret of the Frenchman's success with women.

Running away (again - it's a good job she's a fit lass) Elizabeth ends up hiding out in a deserted hilltop ruin where she comes across a strangely attractive, gingery blind girl (the fluffily pillow breasted Rancelot, obviously auditioning for a part in a The Beyond tribute act) who, it turns out used to live in the village before all the crazy stuff started.

"Eye hen".

After swapping make up tips (as women do) the pair decided to head back to the village for a nosy about.

Which is when things start to get really freaky.

And I don't just mean the distinct lack of nudity (or the presence of a plot) which is normally an alien concept in a Jean Rollin.

Or the fact that seemingly out of the blue former porn star Brigitte Lahaie turns up, all tight shirted and bouncy haired in order to crucify then behead poor Rancelot leaving Elizabeth no choice but to (you guessed it) run away.

You see, it turns out that someone has been spraying an experimental pesticide on the grapes used to make the local wine, turning most of the French populace into scab faced, violent tempered loons.

Please note how I resisted adding a witty comment here.

Wandering around the barren hilltops looking for help, Elizabeth discovers the most disturbing thing all all regarding the infection when it appears that not everyone contaminated is affected in the same way. Yes there are those odd few that stumble around, arms outstrecthed as the lurch toward their victims but then there are others that are still able to think rationally about their condition, even going as far as feeling remorseful at what the infection is forcing them to do.

Elizabeth however has no time for touchy feely French types and usually just runs away screaming before they start crying on her.

Or try to run her thru' with a pitchfork obviously.

"Le cheap French Vino in mah mooth monsieur!"

Fearing accusations of being an anti-monster bigot, Elizabeth also takes to screaming at any uninfected folk that she comes across too, which always seems to alert any passing madmen to their presence, meaning that these unfortunates usually end up on the wrong end of some pointy farm tool wielded by a dribbling sponge-faced foreigner.

Tho' luckily not the band.

After what seems like days of (non nude, non lesbian vampire filled) wanderings, she eventually meets up with a couple of high waisted, wellie wearing farmers who've amazingly managed to avoid the infection because, gulp, they hate the taste of wine, prefering beer instead.

How's that for luck?

But just as it seems Elizabeth’s luck is about to change and she's excitedly looking forward to a hot, dribbly sausage or two inside her, a bizarre series of coincidences and obvious plot twists happen, bringing her into contact with her (until now) unseen boyfriend.

Will he save the day (and our oh so cute heroine)?

Look to all intents and purposes this is a zombie movie, so what do you think?

Fuck me! It's Noel Fielding!

No matter how threadbare or cheese ridden his movies are, you can't help but love Jean Rollin. He's like the comudgenly old uncle you only saw at Christmas, you know the one that always gave you Victorian Erotic postcards instead of birthday cards and, after he'd got you to admit how attractive you found the breasts on show would laughingly inform you that it's a picture of your Great Granny.

Second only to the incredible Zombie Lake, Les Raisins de la mort is Rollin at his most accessable and audience friendly, owing more than a nod to Jorge Grau's fantastic Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue and Romero's The Crazies rather than his Night of The Living Dead.

When it does feel the need to steal from Romero's classic however it uniquely does so in reverse, whereas Night's cast are trapped inside a farmhouse fighting for survival, Raisins Elizabeth is stranded on the windswept hilltops of rural France, the long lingering shots of Elizabeth alone and frightened make a startling counterpoint to the claustrophobic close-ups of the infected shuffling slowly from various dilapidated houses as the sun sets.

Some grapes (of death) earlier today.

Above all else tho', Les Raisins de la mort is not only classic Rollin but classic Eurohorror to boot, pre-dating (and pissing on from a great height) modern virus based shockers like 28 days later by almost 30 years and finally proving that Rollin was (and still is) capable of making a damn fine horror movie without having to resort to scantily clad, small chested lesbo vampires with dirty feet.

Tho' I'll be the first to admit tho', there is something warm and tingly about seeing them occasionally.

Especially if it's this pair:

Be seeing you.

august stiffs.

A fairly quiet time for the grim reaper last month (tho' i've probably missed a few deaths seeing as I was a wee bit busy) but the ones I did remember included director, producer, writer and all round cinema God (I will always be in his debt for introducing me to the ginger joys of Mollie Ringwald) John Hughes, the man behind such classics as Ferris Bueller's Day Off; Weird Science; The Breakfast Club; Some Kind of Wonderful; Sixteen Candles; Pretty in Pink; Planes, Trains and Automobiles; Uncle Buck and Home Alone, who was joined in the big cinema in the sky by the uber-cool Shingo Yamashiro, one of the stars of the Babycart series (as Lord Kurdoa Naritaka), Battles Without Honor and Humanity and the Graveyard of Honor series amongst others.

Checking out of the Crossroads Motel one final time was John Bentley, famous for playing Hugh Mortimer, owner Meg Richardson's ill-fated husband and his appearances as Chief Inspector Paul Derek in African Patrol.

Ed Reimers, the stentorian-voiced announcer for Warner Brothers television series such as Cheyenne and Maverick and the gravely Admiral Fitzpatrick in 1967 in the Star Trek episode The Trouble with Tribbles beamed into the final frontier no doubt to be interviewed by the right honourable Cyril Nicholas Henty-Dodd (better known by his stage name Simon Dee), the Bruce Wayne like British former television interviewer and radio disc jockey who also shuffled off this mortal coil last month.

Phew! a smaller list than usual thankfully, tho' I did fail to mention the sad loss of a huge bit of bone/root removed from my jaw earlier in the month.

It will be missed.