delite.

More Eurotrash graphic fun, this time it's kiddies comic craziness Depredador (Predator) from sunny Spain.

Beats Arnie wrestling a vagina faced alien any day.

charity begins at home.

Dropped the podlings at school and nursery and was out perusing the local charity shops when I found these beauties for a quid each.

Bargain.

people you fancy but shouldn't (part 15).

Top funny woman Jenny Eclair. I'm sorry but I would, you would, we all would.

Twice.

Three times on a Wednesday.

lady ga ga.

Dreams do come true!

After accidentally sitting thru' Species III recently then bemoaning the fact that I hadn't yet seen Species IV you'll never guess what turned up on teevee t'other night.

God bless you ITV 2!

Species: The Awakening (AKA Species IV. 2007).
Dir: Nick Lyon.
Cast: Ben Cross, Roger Cudney, Helena Mattsson, Dominic Keating and Marlene Favela.

Unrated? unnecessary more like.

Tefal headed, blonde poppet Miranda (Mattsson, soon to be seen in Iron Man 2) is your normal everyday swotty student. Orphaned when her parents died in a bad smash she lives with her horse faced, doting uncle Tom Hollinder (Cross whose ex-wives must have been begging for extra cash that month), a professor of clever things at the local university.

Miranda it seems is getting very excited for not only are they moving to The England (that's in Europe near France for our American friends) in the summer but she's got a hot date with the gorgeous Ted Sexington that very night!

Nervously combing her hair forward to hide her massive brow, Tom looks on proudly (but not perversely, well not yet) at his niece as she takes those first faltering steps into adulthood.

Aw, sweet.

Ben Cross? I'd be fucking raging.

But this is a Species movie so it comes as no surprise when Tom wakes the next morning to find Miranda's room empty.

Where could she be?

Well, it seems that she's turned up stark bollock naked in a park, unconscious and covered in big green veins a wee bit like a lump of milky white smooth cheese.

Luckily a passing jogger (a blink and miss it cameo from the fantastic Gregg Lucas, who you may remember as the catering assistant on the Vin Diesel epic Pitch Black) finds poor Miranda and carries her to the local hospital.

At least I hope it's local cos her head must weigh about the same as a really big melon.

Fearing the worst (and anxious to get the plot moving) Uncle Tom (no, not this one) rushes to the very same hospital to see if she's there.

Whilst he sweatily drives across town it seems that Miranda has gone all green, gooey and bullet nippled, running round the wards and butchering anyone she comes across in a flurry of cheap CGI carnage.

Which is nice, if a little unexpected this early into the movie.

"Sssshhhhiiiiiimmmmooooooooo!"

Tom arrives just in time to find a sweaty Miranda, her ample arse pointing skyward lying face down in the ladies toilet. Quickly injecting her with what looks like washing up liquid he scoops her into his arms, pops her in the back of the car and drives away towards Mexico.

Where it's cheaper to film shite like this obviously.

Waking up on the back seat and confused as to why she's covered in egg, semen and blood Miranda, looking for all the world like a freshly molested kitten demands her uncle tell her what the hell's going on.

With a sharp intake of breath and wearing a face of pure fizz, Tom explains to Miranda that she isn't really his niece and that she is, in fact the last of the three alien/human embryos created all the way back in the original Species.

To be honest this could all be utter tosh because all I remember from the first film is the alien having a wet dream about Michael Madsen (haven't we all?) and the aforementioned actor wandering about with a shitty wee gun whilst sweating like a cornered rapist.

Ben farted and it smelled of egg.

As if suffering from plot point diarrhoea Tom goes on to admit that he sneaks into her room at night to inject her with his 'special serum' to keep her alien half under control but that recently it appears not to be working that well.

No shit.

Anyway, it's not all bad because Tom's old workmate, a piss stained jolly old Oirishman named Forbes (Keating from Enterprise and 80's shit-com Desmonds), may have the answers to whatever it is that's wrong.

Or something.

"Tongue oot mah mooth!"

It's not long before our duo arrive in Mexico and, after booking into a grubby hotel, Tom puts Miranda to bed and heads out into town to look for his old pal. Realising that nothing of any consequence has happened for about 10 minutes a fairly foxy if milky eyed nun (the cheesily cheerful Favela) jumps off a building and lands directly in front of Tom before licking her lips in a provocative manner and pointing her breasts in his general direction.

Tom, a little surprised by these turn of events legs it back to his hotel with the nun (whose name is Azura by the way) giving chase and, after an irritating subplot about her, an old Texan man with horses teeth and a mutant cabbie (not as amusing as it sounds I'm afraid) our hero finally tracks Forbes down to his warehouse lovenest where we're introduced to the greasy little fella as he's gyrating away under Azura whilst shouting "Oh begorah!" a lot.

Inside John Leslie's mind....again.

Finishing his sexy business and wiping his cock on a tea towel, Forbes gives Miranda a thorough once over, discovering that she urgently needs a blood transfusion from a human lady to curb her alien-ness.

Yup, makes perfect scientific sense to me.

Forbes suggests they go kidnap a woman and perform the operation right now.

After a fair amount of macho posturing and heated argument Tom gives in and heads off to the local discotheque in order to find a donor.

Dancing like your dad at a wedding and drinking sherry by the bucketful, Tom quickly pulls a pure local stunner but having about as much luck on first dates as Phil Spector does It isn’t long before she has him pinned to a wall with his trousers down and threatening to shove a steak knife up his arse.

Luckily Azura comes to the rescue, knocking the woman unconscious and carrying her back to the car ready for her to feel Forbes little prick.

Of his needle that is.

Forbes and Tom (sweatily) complete the transfusion and just like in the other Species movies, Miranda cocoons herself into a giant wet leathery testicle, waiting to be reborn.

flopping suggestively out of the heaving ballsack and covered in slime, Miranda strides confidently over to Tom and Forbes, her shoddily moulded alien cheese nipples glistening in the moonlight and demands some of the sex.

Beware the stare of Subo!

Tom flatly refuses to oblige and Forbes, not wanting to upset Azura says no too, leaving Miranda to quickly fondle Azura's breasts (wahey!) before storming grumpily off into the night for an evening of shagging and murder....

Will they find Miranda before it's too late?

Too late for what I'm not sure.

Will she and Azura go head to head in a rubber suited slimy alien lesbian shagfest?

Or will mankind be destroyed by an ever increasing army of extra terrestrial shag whores?

Admit it, even a quick titfuck would kill you.

I hate to admit it but Species: The Awakening is by far the best chapter in this whole sorry saga, gone is the cod seriousness that blighted part one and the rather unpleasant air of misogyny that permeated the second film is no more and by ignoring the continuity wankfest that was part three The Awakening comes across as more of a relaunch than a bona fide sequel, dragging the ultimately 'B' movie premise (sexy aliens want to shag and kill you!) kicking and screaming from A list land to the silicon enhanced, dirty back alleys of direct to DVD Avenue.

Right where it should be.

Everything about the film is a constant; the acting from everyone involved is uniformly bad as are the effects, fake breasts and even faker accents but in context you'd be disappointed were it otherwise. Obviously it never reaches the dizzy heights of such scifi/horror hybrids as the fantastic Contamination or even Xtro, if you have a wee boy in the family (or living nearby or even that you chat to online whilst pretending to be a 14 year old girl) this is the perfect introduction to the genre we call 'shite-fi'.

Hats of to director Lyon (who, according to that bastion of truth the IMDB, enjoys painting, sculpting, writing, music, theatre, photography, philosophy and even performance art) and the fact that he's not half the tortured artist or cinematic genius he thinks he is.

Can I just add tho', before I sign off, that although I appear to have made out that this film is in fact not too bad and, gulp, fairly enjoyable it is at the end of the week a pile of utter shite.

Phew, glad that's sorted.

sexohot!

devil gate drive.

It gives you a warm fuzzy feeling inside when people go out of the way to suggest things (other than to fuck off obviously) to you, so on the recommendation of the lovely Screamstress and the manly Mr. Dissolved I popped this little gem in my film slot t'other night.

The House of The Devil (2009).
Dir: Ti West.
Cast: Jocelin Donahue, Tom Noonan, Dame Mary of Woronov, Greta Gerwig, AJ Bowen and Dee Wallace.

I spy Norman Price's handiwork.

Button nosed and boyish hipped beauty Samantha (Donahue, last seen covered in dirt in the JT Petty classic The Burrowers) is just a normal, everyday college girl trying to make her way in life, juggling with her coursework and saddled with a man-faced whore of a room mate whilst trying to make ends meet.

But an end to her flatmate troubles may be in sight when Samantha finds a perfect house for rent. It's homely and the landlady (the fantastic Wallace in a blink and miss it cameo) is desperate to give Samantha a chance.

The only problem is that she can't afford to pay the rent.

Aw, it's heartbreaking I know.

Heading back to campus with a heavy heart (and a nice line in knitwear) Sam notices a flyer advertising for a babysitter pinned to the notice board.

It doesn't pay much but it'll help towards her dream house (note: dream house, not devil house) so Sam calls the number.

The phone is answered by the softly spoken Mr. Viv Ulman (genre giant Noonan from The Monster Squad, Manhunter and Robocop 2 amongst others) who quickly accepts her offer and arranges to pick her up so she can get acquainted with the wee bairn within the hour.

Nothing like being keen I guess.

Rushing excitedly to the front steps of the building Samantha sits and waits.

And waits.

And waits.

Being nice but dim it takes our heroine about 4 hours to realise that she's been stood up by the mysterious Mr. Ulman but being a sassy kinda gal, Samantha cheers herself up by sharing a pizza with her best bud Megan (indie chick type Gerwig who, for once is fully clothed and not playing the trumpet in a bath).

Heading back to her smelly, semen encrusted room and prepared for a night of study and soda, Samantha is surprised to find that Ulman has left her a message apologising for the earlier mix up and is wondering if she's still free for babysitting.

That very night.

It seems that Mr Ulman and his long suffering wife Tracy (Amazonian uber-MiLF Woronov) have some very important business to attend to that can only be done during that evening lunar eclipse. Their regular babysitter has let them down and they'd be more than happy to double Samantha's pay if she'll say yes.

To the job that is, not just say yes randomly on the phone.

"Hat on mah heid!"

Samantha quickly phones Megan for a lift (the Ulman's live in the middle of nowhere, what a surprise) and seeing as she has no pressing nude scenes that night, she agrees to take her pal to the Ulman residence.

Once at the house the girls are met by the peg-legged Viv who, after some stilted small talk about pizza and the price of cheese makes a strange admission.

You see it appears that when Mr. Ulman said he needed a sitting for his wee baby what he really meant was that he needed someone to sit in the house and listen out for his mother in law who, after a stroke (of the non sexual kind obviously) has been left bedridden (sort of) and occasionally requires a cup of tea taken up to her (probably).

"But don't worry" coos Viv, "you won't actually have to make her drinks because she's asleep, so you can spend the night watching teevee and eating pizza".

And on that bombshell he offers Samantha 400 bucks and a Kinder Surprise from the attic.

Beard of evil.

Hesitating whilst she weighs up the pros ($400, free pizza) and cons (this bloke's a nutter, he's insistent that Megan goes home) Samantha is finally persuaded to take the job when Mr. Ulman starts crying and jigging about on his good leg.

Pushover.

But saying that, what could possibly go wrong?

A house (of the Devil) yesterday.

Take a smattering of goodness from the frequently overlooked late 70's/early 80's Demon possession genre, mix with a smidgen of babysitter under siege and marinate with a healthy dose of video boom nostalgia and you're someway to creating something as creepily enjoyable as Ti West's horror love sonnet The House Of The Devil.

Given his previous track record (Cabin Fever 2, a movie that not even Lion's Gate can be arsed releasing? how scary is that?) I'd have usually given a film like this a (very) wide berth had it not been for the wise words of the two aforementioned folk who's choice of films (if not in Mr. Dissolved's case his choice to wear his dads grey Hush Puppies when his feet are sore) I don't baulk at.

And I'm glad I did.

Shot in a perfect copy of that stark cold eighties style, West's genuine admiration for that particular time in film making is obvious from the first frame, capturing as it does (and in perfect detail) the whole look and feel of that bygone time without once descending into kitsch or parody and with neither a wink nor nudge.

It's like a breath of fresh air blowing away the rancid belch breath of Hollywood horror.

"Is that a knife in your hand or
just a strange shaped erection?"

Starting quietly and slowly building toward it's climax, The House of The Devil is more about the nail biting tension and the uncomfortable mood created by the journey rather than the destination and whilst the pay off is somewhat obvious from the start, it's played with enough conviction by the cast as to not really matter.

"Blood in mah mooth!"

A freaky flashback to times gone by for all of us on the wrong side of 30 and a fantastic lesson in minimalist chills for all those poor youngsters force fed a diet of Hostel clones and Halloween remakes.

bonnie.

Perusing my local charity shop again today and I came across (quite literally) this for one measly quid.

Bargain!

As an aside, who knew Bonnie Langford had such a great arse?