nemod syad.

Girls are away at a dance performance so me and the boychild have a lads weekend planned where we eat crisps, drink pop and watch only the best movies.

Mausoleum (1983).
Dir: Michael Dugan.
Cast: Marjoe Gortner, Bobbie Bresee, Norman Burton, Maurice Sherbanee, LaWanda Page, Laura Hippe, Sheri Mann, Julie Christy Murray, Chu Chu Malave and Gene Edwards.

 

There's some strange shit goin' on in this house!

Like any good horror film worth its salt we open on a windswept graveyard where the young - and frighteningly dog faced - Susan (bony kneed Murray in her only film role outside those shorts she did to pay her way thru' college) is mourning her recently deceased mother as her posh tottie-like aunt Cora (Logan's Run and Swinging Barmaids star Hippe who killed herself shortly after making this movie - take from that what you will) pats her on the shoulder uncomfortably whilst offering to buy her ice cream and a pony to replace her dearly departed parent.

Why do I never get offered ponies?

Oblivious to all the bribery being offered (and wanting a unicorn probably - girls are never happy) Susan legs it and soon takes refuge in an old superimposed rainswept and spookily lit mausoleum (bearing her family name - Nemod - I'm sure her family must originally be from the village Nilbog featured in Troll2.) that is in no way at all scary or foreboding.

No seriously it's not, it actually looks for all the world like it's been outlined in Sharpie the matte work is so shit.

As a spooky fog rolls from its gates Susan pricks her finger on a crown of thorns hanging outside before entering the tomb to be confronted by a shadowy figure with unkempt nails who offers her blessed relief whilst making a passing pedophiles head explode.

Which seems legit.

I can see your house from here Peter.

 
Thru' the power of editing and rudimentary dissolves we're suddenly in the present day (which is the past now....scary eh?) where we find a now adult Susan (ex Playboy bunny Bresee in a performance that's all tits and teeth but not much else which at least means she fits in right at home here) living in a massive house albeit one filled with way too many windows and staircases than is needed and happily married to the ferret-like business bloke Oliver (Starcrash 'star', B'-movie god and once the world's youngest ordained preacher, Gortner) and obsessed with the colour brown for some reason.


Seriously, the house, her clothes, the plants - everything in this movie has the colour palette of dried cack.

Except when a demon appears then the fucker is lit up like a disco.

But I digress.

All seems normal (if you ignore everyone's stilted body language and speech patterns obviously) until that is Susan starts to act a wee bit strangely - or is that just begins to act?

Answers to the usual address.

Oliver thinks he has the perfect answer to Susan's woes so decides to take her disco dancing at the local nite spot where they enjoy (well I say enjoy but to be honest they just look dead inside tho' at least Bresee tries her hardest to look hip n' happening as she pulls a classic 'Le disco duck face') frugging away to some turgid instrumental disco track that even Mike Read would balk at for being too shit.

And he wrote the UKIP Calypso if you can remember that far back.

Luckily (for us) the whole ordeal is cut short when a drunken beardy man (who I was convinced was original Grizzly Adams star Dan Haggerty but was in fact Gene Edwards who played him in the 1990 remake/sequel) tries to molest Susan on the dance floor whilst Oliver is on the phone causing the couple to call it a night and head home.

Unfortunately the drunk bloke follows them but after a wee bit of shoving he wanders off to his car in order to drunkenly drive home, probably killing a few kids on the way.

But hey it's the 80s and no-one cared back then.

Suddenly and without warning - if you don't count the spooky score - Susan's eyes begin to glow green as she stares at the car for what seems like an eternity (thanks in part to the eye effect being animated over a still) before causing it to burst into flames, trapping and burning weirdy beardy to death inside.

"Eye hen!"

 

And from then on things go from bad to worse as poor Susan experiences angry mood swings and night sweats before turning into a full-blown psycho when she starts offering Ben the sleazy gardener (council estate David Hess, Sherbanee, who's probably been in other stuff but I can't be bothered checking) fresh cups of coffee whilst stroking her breasts then having sex with him in the garage and finally murdering the poor sod (to death) with a garden fork.

Aunt Cora is next on the death wish list, slashed to death whilst being levitated over the staircase after popping round with a cake.

Luckily no-one seems to notice until Oliver wakes up one night to find Susan sitting in a chair spouting gibberish and sporting a pair of comedy horns on her now donkey like head.

Terrified he runs down stairs and quickly calls their old friend and family psychiatrist Dr. Simon Andrews (Burton from Simon, King of the Witches which scarily is actually sitting on my desk as I type this) to ask for help.

It seems that Susan had a few mental health issues as a child due to her dad dying whilst trying to exorcise the demon that had possessed her mother.

Turns out that according to family legend a demonic curse has been passed down the female line of the Nomed family ever since some bizarre incident involving a crown of thorns (what? another one? - maybe this is important) and a sausage roll way back in 1692.

Anyway with all this demonic possession shite going around and with the movie hitting the halfway point it's time for a wee bit of comic relief so enter (roughly behind the bins) the Farrell's cleaner cum housemaid Elsie (Sanford and Son's Page who bizarrely enough at the start of her career, while performing as a burlesque style stripper in Missouri, was billed as "The Bronze Goddess of Fire" because she could light cigarettes with her fingertips*) who - in either a piece of post-modern comedy genius or ill advised racial stereotyping spends her time rolling her eyes whilst shouting out stuff like:

"There's some strange shit goin' on in this house!"
 
"No more grievin'. I'm leavin'!"

And the classic

"Great googily moogily!"

Whilst running about in high-speed effects whilst comedy 'wah wah' music plays in the background.

I'll not comment.
 

Skulk.

With time - and anything remotely resembling logic - running out, Andrews contacts an old friend and colleague of his, the boyishly barnetted Dr. Roni Logan (Mann) for help.

Which is lucky cos she knows loads about demons and the like.

Bizarrely all she does is rereads the family diary as it turns out that the way to kill the demon and Save Susan is actually written in it.

In English and everything.

Yup it appears that the pesky crown of thorns from earlier is important to the plot and all Adams has to do is place it on Susan's head whilst she's not looking.

This will in turn force the demon back to it's tomb giving our heroes time to then place it on the tomb itself locking the creature inside.

Sorted.

Andrews probably skipped that bit but makes amends by phoning Oliver to warn him that when he returns home from work not under any circumstances to have sex with his wife in the bathroom as her breasts may grow teeth and bite him to death.

Which is fair enough.

"Are you the farmer?"

Meanwhile back at the house an Hispanic bloke (Malave who scarily actually had an acting career of sorts, appearing in everything from A Force of One alongside Chuck Norris to multiple roles in the Barney Miller TV show and starring alongside the 'statuesque' Dona Speir in Fit To Kill) is delivering plants and the like to Susan.

But that's not the only thing he wants to fertilize and he's soon in the kitchen phoning his boss to say he'll be late back to the garden centre as Susan seductively flashes her ample breasts at him.

Don't worry tho' as there's no time for any more uncomfortable sex scenes as Susan has t go shopping for some shit occult based art before the movies climax so she quickly makes the guys head melt before going heading to the mall.

No really.

She actually goes shopping and steals some sub Boris Vallejo fantasy art** - she also kills a bald man by dropping him on a spiky sculpture that just happens to be sitting conveniently  on a picnic table before heading home for a well deserved bubble bath.

It's interesting to note that the mentalism and murders isn't the thing that sends Oliver over the edge but the crap art scattered around the house so to prove his manliness he storms into the bathroom to confront his wife.

"Spice Girls number one for Christmas...MONSTA!"

His anger soon subsides tho' as Susan steps out of the bath and into his arms but as the pair embrace Susan begins to change.

It seems that the demon is aware that Andrews is attempting to steal the crown of thorns from the mausoleum at end its reign of terror.

 Will Andrews succeed?

Will Oliver get eaten by the terrifying tittie teeth?

Will Susan actually put some proper clothes on?

At the height of the 80s low budget horror resurgence film maker Michael Dugan (director of the classic Raging Hormones, Youtube shorts creator and the man behind a little something called Chubby Chasers - go figure) decided what the world needed was a new scream queen to rival the likes of Jamie Lee Curtis, Adrienne King and Linnea Quigley so to that end decided to unleash the 'buxom and beautiful blonde actress' (according to IMDB) Bobbie Bresee upon the world in his second feature - after the 1976 family comedy Super Seal - Mausoleum.

Now don't all thank him at once.

A living embodiment of everything terrifying about the 80s - big boobs an even bigger blonde barnet and teeth so white they could blind you, Bresee is the main focus of the movie and Dugan structures the whole endeavor to showcase her talents as she runs the emotional gamut from happy to sad to sexy via sleepy and maybe bashful and it's her powerhouse performance that makes the movie so compelling.

Only joking.

He cast her cos she didn't mind getting her kit off.

But she's not the only one.

If there's a chance that a character can appear topless Dugan grabs it - from 'star' Marjoe Gortner pulling angry cum faces on a faux fur rug to the mightily manbreasted Norman Burton seductively taking a phone call in his bed, we're not even spared the sight of Maurice Sherbanee's sweaty pot belly being on show as he wanders around with the bottom of his shirt unbuttoned rubbing it seductively as he lusts after Bresee.

None of this nudity would be that bad tho' if any of the cast actually looked happy doing it but as it stands they all just appear nervous and wishing they were anywhere else but there.

I just sat watching hoping and praying that the director would realise that if the actors look uncomfortable pretending to have sex or being naked then maybe he'd see that we the viewer will feel uncomfortable watching.

Poor sods.

Except Sherbanee obviously - he seemed to be reveling in his new found freedom.

Creepy bastard.

"Shite in mah mooth!"

This isn't helped by the cast actually coming across as quite likeable - Gortner is his usual inoffensive self whilst Burton and the rest appear to be enjoying themselves (mostly) and Bresee comes across as a likeable enough person out of her depth both onscreen and off which means at time rather than reeling in terror at the horrors onscreen you're cringing like a parent watching your offspring mess up their lines in the school nativity.

Hopefully not whilst naked tho.

Its saving grace tho' is the fantastic make-up FX work from the late great  John Carl Buechler whose career spanned Friday 13th Part VII to Hatchet and everything in between - the gore effects (especially the head explosion and melting man) are top notch and it still gives me a warm feeling to see a full prosthetic bodysuit on screen even if at times it looks more Space Precinct than Pazuzu.

Fairly mad, sometimes bad - frustratingly so at times - Mausoleum is a harmless and fairly pain free way to spend an evening provided you have enough beer and crisps at hand plus for anyone who's ever wonder what a school disco would look like if lit by Mario Bava then the possession scenes will answer that question for you.

And there isn't much higher recommendation than that.












































* She also swallowed fire and touched flaming torches to her naked body during her act as well as appearing on Rupaul's Supermodel Of The World Album and playing Rupaul.s mum in the Back To My Roots video.



**Tho' let's be honest he did produce some utter wank himself....like this Star Wars inspired piece for example:

day of the delia.

 Celebrating the aural genius of the late, great Delia Derbyshire on her birthday (as everyone should).

may the fourth...

...be with you!

Celebrate Star Wars Day with this Sith-tastic mix of Skywalker inspired sounds remixed for your dancing pleasure. 

Caution: may contain Gungans.

bungle bonce.

Celebrating Star Wars Day by revisiting THE best sequel not featuring Adam Driver....So enjoy and...

Os Trapalhões Na Guerra Dos Planetas (AKA The Bunglers In The War Of The Planets, Brazilian Star Wars 1978).
Dir: Adriano Stuart.
Cast: Pedro Aguinaga, Renato Aragão, Carlos (The Jackal) Bucka, Wilma Dias, Carlos (The Kettle) Kurt, Tereza Mascarenhas and some other folk I've never heard of.

Opening with a huge car chase that would put the makers of Top Gear to shame, the 'heroes' of Os Trapalhões Na Guerra Dos Planetas (top urine-stained Brazilian comedy tramps 'the Bunglers') are on the run from what looks like a ton of disgruntled Pikies suffering from narcolepsy, seeing as a huge number of them appear to be driving their cars into rivers for no reason.

It seems that one of the bunglers (the oldest yet least stinky one that wears the piss yellow sports jacket and pervert hat) amusingly named Didi, has slept with the head pikies missis and his friends/family/cousins are in hot pursuit looking for revenge.

After about twenty minutes of 'wah wah' guitar and exploding dune buggies the bunglers hide behind a convenient rock and wait for the bad men to get bored and leave.

"sniff mah coat hen".

That night, whilst the bunglers are sleeping, a turtle with a candle glued to its shell shuffles thru their camp and, in a stroke of comedy genius two of the bunglers think it's a ghost!

Oh how we laughed!

But just as you think it can't possibly get any funnier, the turtle manages to set light to the third, fattest bungler!

While he’s running around in circles going "Woo! woo!" whilst slowly (and probably very painfully) burning alive a passing spaceship touches down near their campsite.

Aboard is the handsome Prince Flik (no doubt referring to his almost Farrah like locks) who tells the four comedy legends (but not the turtle) that he needs their special 'talents' to retrieve a vital part of the fabled 'brain computer' and stop an evil space tyrant named Zuco from destroying his home world.

What? were Torchwood busy? I mean it's not like the plot was too far fetched for them.

A spaceship yesterday.

Our heroes, given the choice between jail time for forcing themselves on old ladies or a trip into space quickly agree and jump aboard Flik's starship where they meet his Red Setter-like, new romantic styled co-pilot Chewbacca (or Dave, I'm not sure).

He (it?) and Flik have an in depth chat in reverse Portuguese before Dave blindly stabs at a few buttons and prepares for take off in a blaze of coloured lights and sweet wrappers not seen since the heady days of Crackerjack.

"Hello Dave?"

Touching down on Flik's home planet, they immediately encounter what looks like an army of hooded midgets attacking a group of desert dwelling Arabs outside a series of stone portaloos.

It's like Disney does ISIS but with fewer beheadings.

Possibly.

Spoiling for a fight the comedy quads rush in and beat the shite out of anyone within punching distance in hyper-slow motion that makes The Matrix 'bullet time' look like the cheap trick it is.

Every time one of our heroes kicks, shoves or stumbles the same clip is shown again and again, accompanied by a hellish 'doo doo' disco score.

It's like mind melding with Jimmy Savile.

Runner up of the Lindy England lookalike contest (ask your mum).

About three days into the slo-mo spectacular the villain of the piece, the evil Darth Zuco appears from nowhere and drags the beautifully big hipped blond bombshell Princess Myrna (who?) from out of one of the portaloos before legging it across the dunes to what looks like a waiting gold vibrator (with wings).

Whilst this is going down (phnar), the warring aliens get bored and leave but not before blowing up one of the toilets with a painted air freshener cum grenade (as in an air freshener disguised as an explosive, not a grenade filled with man yoghurt, tho' that would be interesting) possibly as a political act lost on British viewers.

"Touch my big black helmet".

What isn't lost on viewers from dear old Blighty tho' is the effect that the explosion has, causing as it does four fairly attractive (in a cruise ship entertainer way) Lycra clad ladies to come running out of the smoke like a cheap(er) version of Benny Hill's Hill's Angels.

If that were at all possible**.

The bungling buddies start rubbing their filthy hands with delight but spoilsport Flik starts shouting about having to rescue the princess.

Relax girls....they're single.
And old enough to be your granddad.

Agreeing with Flik (and obviously fancying a wee bit of manass) Didi attempts to drag the others away from the babes with a promise of letting them borrow his hat.

Seriously, why would I make this shit up?

Things get very tense before a compromise is reached and the ladies offer to go with them to the local space disco to look for clues.

Let's be honest tho'...it's still more entertaining than this shite.

Arriving at the local nite-spot (which looks to all intents and purposes like Barry Noble's in Nottingham circa 1985) the bunglers manage to persuade the DJ to stop polluting the airwaves with farty sci-fi warblings and play some hi-energy disco instead but when the alien clientèle begin to 'get down' to the hot tunes the jolly jokers start beating them up.

Just like Dudley then.

For Didi this seems a step too far, he leaves the disco to buy a space laser gun, accidentally murdering five innocent bystanders in cold blood whilst 'testing' it and blowing up Flik’s landspeeder along the way.

If that wasn't enough, in a fabulously misplaced piece of slapstick he finds he has no money to buy the gun so he shoots the salesman dead and steals it.

Ha ha ha.

A normal Saturday night in Dudley.

Now the film begins to unravel and self destruct into an almost unwatchable display of violent comedy, giant birds and poverty row effects as our merry band decide to hit the trail in search of the princess and the evil Zuco.

All manner of random threats are thrown at the group from invisible monsters to flying oranges (yep....killer fruit......oh my sides) via a badly matted 'giant' spider and the aforementioned bird beast.

"Pluck off!"

Every time they encounter a new peril everyone throws their arms in the air, jogs on the spot whooping then runs away.

And I do mean every time.

Every.

Single.

Bloody.

Time.

For around half an hour.


Eventually (and obviously bored waiting for our heroes to discover his lair) Zuco sends them an open invitation to his house to exchange their half of the computer (admit it, you'd forgotten about that hadn't you?) for the captive Myrna.

What follows is a series of bluffs and double bluffs that would confuse even a very unbluffable (is that even a word? cos it should be) man.

The outcome is that Didi ends up in a box (not a coffin unfortunately) and Flik is left holding a green painted dwarf in a frighteningly lifelike Myrna mask.

Everything is now set for the final battle.

Thank fuck.

Didi scores first blood by freezing Zuco and then spending twenty five minutes dancing with his frozen body, popping a selection of funny hats on him, booting him up the arse etc. whilst his buddies fight for their lives against an elite squad of enemy shock troops.

Seriously tho' it's not as exciting as it sounds.

Just as the good guys break thru' the enemy ranks Zuco thaws out and tells everyone that Myrna is dead.

Laugh now.

It seems that whilst Zuco's scientist were making the mask for the dwarf to wear they accidentally disintegrated her.

No seriously.

Flik just shrugs his shoulders and sighs before pointing out that under his planets laws Didi’s squeeze, the seductive Loya must take Myrna’s place as Flik’s betrothed.

She leaves Didi’s side and gets straight down to business with Flik, leaving poor Didi to travel back to with nothing to look forward to but a tearful wank and a Pot Noodle.

Which is a wee bit depressing really.

Duck off.

What can one possibly say in regard to the almost perfect example of high brow Brazilian comedy that is Os Trapalhões na Guerra Dos Planetas?

As an introduction to the many fascinating aspects of Brazilian culture the film is a Godsend, featuring as it does the countries three major obsessions; dancing badly, awful polyester jackets and fighting.

Which is three more than Belgium is famous for.

And what of the comedy greats that are/were The Bunglers? 

Well believe it or not these comedy cnuts starred in over 15,000 films in the 1970s and 1980s, becoming Brazil's biggest export (outside STD's and child labour that is) before being hunted down by the UN war crimes committee in 1997 and sentenced to death by firing squad  in late 1995.

So if you enjoyed their hi-jinks in this, their biggest grossing (and most expensive) movie and don't mind laughing at dead folk, there should be enough online to keep you going for a few months at least.

The Bunglers: They've got something to put in you.

The rest of you can sleep soundly knowing I watched it for you.

You lucky people.

*I assume this is the case from what I've heard, it's not available in Europe yet so I wouldn't know for sure, pirating is bad don't you know.








**Obviously I don't count the wonderful Nola Hayes in this blanket statement because as a 12 year old watching Benny Hill she was by far the least scary of the bunch and not at all cheap.

pleasence valley sunday.

Watched this t'other night as it was the closest thing to hand plus strangely enough I'd never seen it before or heard anything about it except for the fact that lead actress Trine Michelsen wore a lovely red frock in it.

So gotta be worth a punt then.

 
Specters (1987).

Dir: Marcello Avallone.

Cast: John R. Pepper, Trine Michelsen, Donald Pleasence, Massimo De Rossi, Matteo Gazzolo, Lavinia Grizi, Riccardo Parisio Perrotti, Laurentina Guidotti, Erna Schürer and Giovanni Tamberi.

 

“If you are very quiet you can hear the distant voices of those who are buried here.”

 

Welcome to downtown Rome where a crew of hard-hatted engineer types are digging a new subway tunnel due to the massive amounts of film crews wanting to film down there after the success of Demons or something.

 

Or was it The Church?

 

It definitely wasn't Deathline tho' cos that was shot in the UK.

 

Saying that, they might be Patrick Troughton fans.

 

But I digress. 

 

Anyway, literally just underneath where they're constructing this new tunnel, eminent Professor of old things Geoff Lasky (a visibly alcohol-oozing Pleasence wearing a dead mans cardigan) is keeping his students busy by getting them to measure various ruins whilst scoffing apples.

 

Seriously there isn't a single scene in the film that doesn't feature a cast member eating/throwing/caressing an apple, it's like the entire thing was sponsored by Granny Smith.

 

Anyway it appears that the whole subway situation has caused the Professors catacomb dig to collapse revealing a hidden tomb with the words “Whether invoked or not invoked, evil will come.” carved above the entrance.

 

Which is nice. 

 

Obviously totally ignoring the warning Lasky and his students start to investigate, soon uncovering what looks like a plaster model of a dolls face with a massive gaping mouth just big enough to pop your cock in.

 

Or a slice of apple.

 

"I love you....could it be magic?"

 

Suddenly and without warning we appear to have traveled thru time and space to a music video for Ultravox circa 1983 where a hunky (well as far as greased-haired Italians can be) young man is driving a lovely young lady (in the aforementioned frankly smashing red dress) along a deserted road.

 

Destination?

 

Love possibly.

 

Although that might be a lie and he may disappear after they park leaving her to fall into the clutches of the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

  

Which in fact does actually happen.

 

Don't worry about any girl on fish tomfoolery occurring tho' as the whole thing is actually revealed to be a scene from a video being made for Alice's new pop song "Kiss My Fishlips!" and is quite a nice way of introducing not only our film's heroine Alice (Danish model and actress Michelsen whom you may recognise from Delirium) but her boyfriend - and one of Lasky's assistants Marcus (photographer, theatre director, filmmaker and father of the sheriff from Live And Let Die - Pepper), who's just arrived on set to take her back to his for a wee kiss and cuddle.

 

Unfortunately Alice is a bit pissed of that Marcus is spending so much time digging around in the dirt with Donald Pleasence so tells him in no uncertain terms to fuck off before shouting at her director and a fat sweaty man from the NME and finally storming off to her trailer.

 

Women eh?

 

The entire 80s summed up in one photograph.

 

 

  

 

Meanwhile back at the dig Professor Lasky and his team are busying themselves trying to figure out why anyone would bury sn evil, demonic entity beneath the mausoleum of the Roman Emperor Domitian.

 

"Was it cos they is Pagans?" asks the bespectacled Angelo (De Torrebruna, like anyone reading cares) helpfully whilst Barbara ('star' of You Disturb Me - Grizi) fiddles with her hair.

We never get to hear Lasky's reply tho' as we're suddenly following the oldest group of school kids in the world - led by Strip Nude For Your Killer's Erna Schürer and a depressingly nihilistic blind guide named Matteo (De Rossi wearing Peter Bark's discarded wig) - on a day trip around the catacombs.

 

 

"Hello it's the blind man, is anyone home?"

 

 

 

It wont come as any surprise to find that two of the students, Mike (Gazzolo from Umberto Lenzi's House of Lost Souls) and his ball-faced girlfriend Maria (latter day film producer Guidotti) are way more interested in sneaking off for a wee cuddle than traipsing around a damp muddy cave with some guy who looks like Jimmy Nail off Temu, so the pair decide to take a detour through an unmarked catacomb for some 80s style kissy kissy action involving double denim and bubble perms.

 

This however is soon interrupted firstly by a lone rat, followed by a huge gust of supernatural wind and finally a collapsing ceiling.

 

To be fair they'd be fucking quids in on You've Been Framed.

 

 

"Put it in me!"

 

Luckily no-one is hurt and the pair are promptly taken away in an ambulance and quickly forgotten.

I mean, come on, we're more interested in what Alice is sporting at the wrap party being hosted by the Italian version of Trevor Horn.

 

Or is that Timmy Mallet? 

 

Because let's be honest it takes a special type of gal to pull off a Thunderbirds cum SS inspired party outfit.

 

And Alice is most definitely that gal. 

 

But unfortunately at the moment she's a fairly grumpy one. 

 

Thunderbirds sind los!
 

You see she's deciding whether she should dump Marcus because even tho' they both love spaghetti and shagging she's upset that he spends so much time at the dig.

 

As horror subplots go this one is fairly unique I guess.

 

It doesn't last long tho' as no sooner has Marcus arrived than the pair kiss and make up and decide to go home for a wee bout of "the sex" but as the loved up pair approach their car a mysteriously shoe-less hooded tramp warns them that  

 

“It’s time to leave. To run away from this rotten place. Flee the city before evil, which is tired of hiding in the bowels of the earth, decides to wake. Leave before the sinister howls of the phantoms engulfed us all!”

Before asking them for the bus fare to Queensbury.

 

Meanwhile, back at the restaurant, Trevor Horn is suddenly attacked by deadly corks bursting out of the wine bottles in the cellar before tripping over the carpet resulting in him falling head first thru a window and being garotted.

 

Ouch.

 

"Is it in yet?"

 

 

 

The next morning Marcus heads back to the dig nice and early in order to prepare himself for the first trip into the secret catacomb for over 2000 years, it's no surprise to find Lasky is fairly excited to find out what's down there but not excited (or stupid) enough to go himself obviously.

 

Which to be fair is actually a pretty sensible choice seeing as within minutes of descending Marcus has fallen into a huge hole and lost radio contact with the team.

 

This turn of events does give us time to gaze in wonder at the top of the range graphics on the Commodore Amiga that Angelo is desperately prodding to regain contact with his pal so swings and roundabouts really.

 

Luckily for those of a nervous disposition watching this whole situation is sorted within minutes and contact is soon reestablished just in time for Marcus to share footage of the massive paper mache (sorry stone) tomb emblazed with the word EVIL (in Latin so it must be legit) he's discovered in the middle of the room alongside a tiny bone and what looks like a four-pronged gardening trowel that may - or may not - come in useful for killing any monsters (or specters) later.

 

This kind of love is wrong, but you know it feels so right
Runnin' my hands across your cheeks
They're oh so smooth and white
So leave the light on baby, and unlock your backdoor
I'll be comin' through that way tonight to love you for sure.

Marcus quickly returns to the surface (it's a fairly short movie) and hands Angelo the bone (which he quickly takes to an anthropologist pal to be examined) and Lasky the trowel which he excitedly inspects before contacting the digs financier Len Gaspare (Murder Rock's Perrotti - literally what you get if you order Patrick Stewart from Grindr) who arranges to meet up with Lasky in order to criticize his lack of imagination whilst rubbing his semi-engorged member against his back and massaging the Professors shoulders just like your uncle used to when you were little.

 

Returning to his antique shop cum house cum sex dungeon (which bizarrely is connected to the tomb by an underground tunnel for absolutely no reason) Gaspare orders his leather-clad, thin lipped henchman Gino (Phantom of Death's Tamberi)  to steal the ancient trowel from Professor Lasky. 

As Gino squeaks off into the tunnels Alice is experiencing a stylish dream sequence cum homage to Nosferatu which seems at odds with the rest of the film seeing as it's fairly competently shot and quite effective.

 

 

MONSTA!

 

Whilst all this homo-erotic leatherboy/vampy dream action is going down it appears that poor Barbara has been left in charge of cataloging the stuff found in the tomb, meaning she's spending her Saturday night in a damp hole with only a bottle of wine and a copy of Photoplay for company.

 

Luckily this issue features a full page poster of Richard Gere which Barbara spends an uncomfortable amount of time caressing and chatting to.

 

No really. 

 

We don't have to put up with this frankly embarrassing fawning for long tho' as the spooky wind from earlier turns up just as Barbara decides to open the sarcophagus and a giant pair of hands burst out from the walls and crush her to death as Gino watches on in horror.

 

Or is that indifference?

 

I really don't know.

 

Or care. 

 

The unseen beast then chases Gino down the tunnel to Gaspare's basement where both men are killed (to death), Gino by bumming (probably) and Gaspare by having his head squashed against the wall. 

 

"It's CCCHHHRRRRIIISSSTTTMMMAAASSSS!"

 

Back at the tomb Professor Lasky and Marcus have arrived to find Barbara missing, the sarcophagus empty and me in total confusion as to trying to follow the plot.

 

Is it any wonder that Marcus wanders off in confusion? 

 

I mean to be honest I'd do the same if it wasn't so cold out.

 

And I was watching naked. 

 

Suddenly we're back with Alice who is interrupted recording another track for her new album when the microphone she's using turns into a massive green snake causing her to run out of the recording studio and jump into Marcus’s car, who as luck or bad plotting would have it has just turned up outside.

 

Turns out it's a really busy night, seeing as Angelo is also busy off seeing his Anthropology pal to see if he could find out anything from his tiny bone only to be killed by a dirty sink straight after calling Marcus, who himself was also busy with a tiny bone.

 

Snigger. 

 

He heads over to the anthropology lab leaving a half naked yet surprisingly relieved Alice to experience another horror film homage - this time it's A Nightmare on Elm Street as she's dragged kicking into the mattress, her smooth thighs glistening in the moonlight like a pair of shiny milk bottles whilst at the dig the evil best thing has a spooky staring contest with Professor Lasky causing him to have a heart attack or something.

As he lies prostrate in a recently arrived Marcus' arms (he's had a busy night) Lasky ominously whispers “I saw evil, I looked into his eyes.” before dying.

It's now left to Marcus to enter the catacombs, kill the demon and rescue the woman he loves before something terrible and up until now unexplained happens....

From Marcello Avallone, the man behind the spooky child-based chiller 
Un gioco per Eveline (1972) and the Mexican monster mash Maya (1989) comes this frankly bonkers and (oh so) leisurely paced demonic potboiler that despite it's shortcomings (lack of coherent plot, the aforementioned pacing, horrible trousers) is actual fairly enjoyable in a kinda slightly tipsy Sunday night way.

 

The acting is OK if nothing spectacular - which I guess is what happens when you cast the assistant director of The World According to Garp and Ghostbusters as your lead just because he speaks English - Pleasence phones in his performance whilst Trine Michelsen at least tries to do something other than frown whilst biting her lip whilst wearing THE greatest 80s wardrobe ever committed to celluloid plus it's pretty rare to see a (semi-intended) flirty gay scene in an Italian horror movie, especially when it's between an actor and human potato Donald Pleasence and the fey silver fox Riccardo Parisio Perrotti, which is at least something different.

 

It's just a pity then that fuck all of this matters as we've no idea who any of these people are and why we should invest in their story and just because Trine Michelsen has a smashing arse it doesn't mean you should base a 90 minute film around waiting for shots of it.

 

No caption required (except I've written one. Damn.)

 

It's not all bad tho' and as you're watching you can kinda tell which bits of the script were written by horror royalty Dardano (Cat O'Nine Tails, Demons, Bay of Blood, Zombie Flesh Eaters and The Beyond to name a few) Sacchetti and which bits by (journalist) Andrea Puragtori and jack of all trades Maurizio Tedesco which manages to keep you interested and while effects wise most of the budget seemed to go on a big industrial fan there are some nice practical make-up effects from genre stalwart Sergio Stivaletti including a totally underused full demon suit that only appears in silhouette toward the films climax.

 

Admittedly the face does have a wee bit of a comical underbite that screams 80s Doctor Who at you, which is why the director probably chose to concentrate on its hands instead.

 

Oh and Michelsen's bum obviously.

 

Chase me now.

 

 

The score by composer Lele Marchitelli and jazz pianist Danilo Rea is exactly what you'd expect from an Italian horror film of the period and if you're anything like me you'll already have it on your music player and overall the film is very pretty to look at but other than that it's kinda for Italian horror completists only.

Or those of you that have trouble sleeping. 

The cinematic equivalent of cuddling up on your sofa with an aging Labrador and slowly drifting off to sleep.

 

 

forbidden fruit basket.

As is the way in oor hoose, we decided to rewatch our fave movie from the Alien franchise to celebrate the annual Alien Day that takes place on 26th April (cos the planet they find the derelict on is LV426 which is kinda like this very date but in American, clever eh?).

This caused no end of problems tho' seeing as my better half loves Aliens, wrongly thinking it's the best one whereas I'm one of those truly insightful folk that know for a fact that Alien3 is by far the superior movie.

After much fisticuffs, burning stuff and shouting we agreed to compromise and settled on...

Forbidden World (AKA Mutant, Subject 20. 1982)
Dir: Allan Holzman.
Cast: Jesse Vint, Dawn Dunlap, June Chadwick, Linden Chiles, Fox Harris, Don Olivera, Raymond Oliver and Scott Paulin.

"Let's go bag ourselves a Dingwhopper!"

Studly space hunk and beige clad gun for hire Mike Colby (rodent faced teevee stalwart Vint) is woken from hyper-sleep by his bucket headed, muffle moothed robot sidekick SAM-104 (voiced by FX man Olivera and played by a child in a cheap Stormtrooper Halloween outfit) to the news that a squadron of cut-throat space pirates are trying to blow them up to the score from 2001.

Not noticing that the monitors are in fact just replaying scenes from Battle Beyond The Stars our hunky hero presses some flashing buttons making random things explode whilst his plastic pal mumbles incomprehensibly.

But there's no rest for the wicked - or the just really incompetent - for no sooner have the space raiders been defeated than an emergency call comes thru' from a genetic research station located on the distant desert world of Xarbia and run by the permanently angry Dr. Gordon Hauser (Chiles, yet another teevee veteran) who in turn is aided and abetted by the one lunged chain smoker Dr. Cal Timbergen (Harris from Repo Man) and posh totty Dr. Barbara Glaser (Chadwick from 'V' with a visible pantie line that almost bursts forth from the screen, God help anyone watching this on a wall mounted plasma, tho' the chances of them getting foreign matter on the screen during the sexy bits will drop sharply).

There are a few other folk but none of them are really that interesting.

Except that is for the cute as a button and scarily shelf arsed Tracy Baxter (played to Formica perfection by the pudgy cheeked and often naked star of Barbarian Queen and Les Ombres De L'été plus former tyre manufacturer Dunlap).

Two puppies fighting in a binbag yesterday.

Arriving at the base and immediately catching the (boss) eye of the sex starved Baxter, Colby is introduced to everyone before being taken up the laboratory (steady) by Dr. Hauser to stare at a room full of dead rabbits and what looks like a big stringy shit in a Perspex box.

Colby, not too sure how to react and being slightly pissed off that he hasn't shot or shagged anyone for at least twenty minutes just looks at it in a quizzical manner.

Oh yes, and occasionally frowns.

But as Dr. Glaser breathlessly explains, this is no common or garden shit but an experimental life form that they've (snappily) named "Subject 20".

Well, it was either that or Lindsey.

"Fuck me! It's Fred Titmuss!"

It appears that the clever old science types have created a brand new synthetic DNA strain - or Proto B as it's more commonly known - in order to rid the galaxy of all famine, unfortunately tho' they accidentally impregnated one of their co-workers with it (during what I can only assume was a really drunken Christmas party) causing it to eat her whole (tho' I think they said it spat that bit out) and kill all the bunnies onboard before covering itself in bright pink feces and falling asleep in a fish tank.

As you would.

Colby decides the best course of action would be to shoot "Subject 20", have sex with Barbara (and/or Tracy), have a quick bite to eat and leave.

Surprisingly the scientists disagree (except for the food bit and probably the sex too) and persuade Colby to retire to the mess for a bag of Johnny Onion Rings and a Pot Noodle before taking any action.

Whilst the rest of the group head off for some tuck, young Ricky lab tech is left in charge of cleaning up the dead rabbits and told, in no uncertain terms not to poke the giant pooh or get any of it in his eyes.

Or his mouth.

"Shite in mah mooth!"

It'll come as no surprise then when Ricky, bored with scraping animal intestines of a bench with a toothbrush, decides to see what happens if he sticks his head in the shit-case and give it a wee tickle.

Much screaming (and much, much more mooth and shite interfacing) ensues.

Rushing into the lab to see what all the shoutings about (and spilling curry sauce down his shirt in the process, which makes a change from the stains left by shame I guess) Dr. Hauser gets even angrier than normal when he discovers that the creature has escaped into the air-vent.

However he soon cheers up when he realizes that Ricky isn't really dead but is being kept alive by the bit of "Subject 20" that fell on him, meaning that when he recovers Hauser can give him a damn good thrashing for ignoring the rules.

Poking Ricky with a stick whilst trying not to let her pendulous breasts droop into the slimy hole that was his face, Barbara makes a horrifying discovery of her own. It seems that the mucky mutant is actually absorbing Ricky and mutating him into another creature.

Yuck.

"I wouldn't want that swimming up my arse".

With everyone upset and the food having gone cold Dr. Hauser suggests (in a rare show of humanity) that everyone should have an early night and worry about the mess in the morning, Barbara has other ideas tho' and persuades Colby to indulge in a game of hide the (undoubtedly moldy) hot dog with this choice piece of chat up dialogue:

Bubbly Babs: "I hear you're the biggest trouble shooter in this part of the galaxy".
Cool-cat Colby: "That's what they tell me".
Bubbly Babs: "Well how'd you like to see some........trouble?"

Bizarrely this movie was cruelly overlooked at the 1982 Oscars, losing out on best Original Screenplay to Chariots of Fire.

Like has anyone ever heard of that let alone seen it?

Anyway, back to the plot and whilst Colby and Babs are getting down and getting dirty, the stations head of security (Late Review's Paulin) sweatily sits back and enjoys the show.

Luckily for us (and the station's cleaners) he's disturbed mid-stroke by a strange grunting noise coming from the cargo bay.

Like all good security types he decides to investigate.

Alone.

As you can probably guess, it's not long till his dying screams are heard throughout the base causing everyone to wake up in a startled manner but more importantly causing Colby to shoot off early, covering Bab's knees with space spunk.

How will he explain that to his Nan?

"Laugh now!"

The next morning Colby puts his fantastic monster catching plan into operation.

This involves him skulking around the base in a very suspicious manner whilst pointing his gun at stuff.

Well they did say he was the best of the best.

By some strange coincidence he just happens across Tracy whilst she's enjoying a naked steam bath and it's not long before she's persuaded him to get naked too.

How the fuck does he manage it?

Unfortunately for Colby (but fortunate for those of us not turned on by old man cock) just as he's about to stick it in Tracy the monstrous mutant drops out of an air-vent and waves it's flaccid, KY Jelly encrusted tentacles in a vaguely camp manner.

Tracy's ear bursting screams bring the rest of the crew (including a really angry and by now ready to explode with sexual frustration Barbara) running in just in time to see the beast scuttle away into a nearby airlock before bobbing away across the planets surface.

Realizing he's not going to get a proper shag till the thing is dead, Colby suggests that the men folk head outside to hunt it down whilst the ladies make a nice strong cuppa or something.

How your girlfriend manages to pay for all those expensive birthday gifts she gets you.

Decked out in sci-fi head scarves, a couple of second hand gimp masks and some Wellington boots our luckless band (and Sam the robot) wander aimlessly around the studio backlot before coming across what looks like a giant paper mache testicle hanging from a rock.

Sam - being jealous of not having man-parts - shoots it Whilst Dr. Hauser screams something about having much to learn from it and how we should all be friends and stuff.

Before he gets too annoyingly preachy the beast turns up and bites his face before darting back into the airlock with his still twitching body.

Heading back inside (and thus filling the movies meager running time with lots of corridor shots) Colby and co. are just about to explain what's happened when Hauser reappears, all melty faced and dripping shit for every orifice.

As is the way in these situations, he falls on poor Tracy getting her all slimy and sticky meaning that she needs to take a bizarro sonic shower straight away.

Oh yes, and she needs Barbara to join her so she can make sure all the slime is washed off.

No. Need.

It's during this completely non gratuitous and important scene that Barbara realizes that she has the solution to the monster problem.

And no, it's not have slimy tentacle sex with it unfortunately but instead the pair of them decide to don arse revealing bathrobes, head on down to the lab that it's hiding in and have a friendly chat with it.

What could possibly go wrong?

Within minutes Babs is bent over a computer desperately trying to communicate with the beast whilst hoping (in vain) that the cameraman can't see what she had for lunch.

Deciding to ask "What do you want?" the creature pauses for a moment to think of an intelligent answer before replying (in the movies most erotic scene) by shoving one of it's tentacles right up Barbara's arse and out of her mouth.

Tracy runs away screaming, her breasts bouncing like a couple of playful beagles in a bag as she goes.

With only Colby, cough-pot Timbergen, Tracy, her aforementioned breasts and ample arse left alive the chances of anyone surviving to the films end looks bleak.

But Timbergen has a secret weapon and the only thing that can possibly kill a beast capable of instantly adapting to the DNA of its victims.

Other than a nuclear bomb or a big fire obviously.

Yes, you guessed it, he's going to feed it his cancerous stomach tumor.

The only problem being that it's still inside him and Colby is the only person not shot too much to fuck to cut it out.

But as Colby prepares for the operation, the beast slithers ever closer....

With everyone from Luigi Cozzi (the egg-tastic Contamination), Norman Warren (Inseminoid) and Harry Bromley Knight (Xtro) picking over the corpse of Sir Ridley of Scott's big budget seminal sci-fi shlocker Alien, it was only a matter of time before king of the B's Lord Roger Corman got in on the act, first with the James Cameron designed Galaxy Of Terror and then (using the same sets, costumes, etc.) with Forbidden World.

Galaxy of Terror: Slimier monsters, faker breasts.

Directed by the former (and latter) editor Allan Holzman - best known for his work on Crazy Mama and Battle Beyond The Stars - after winning a bet with big Rog that he could shoot and edit enough rough footage in a day to make a coherent scene (that actually ends up as the films opening), Forbidden World may be cheesier than a tramps feet and cheaper than your boyfriend but it possesses a trashy heart (and neck of pure brass) that raises it above much of the competition.

The fact that it features some of the lamest excuses for nudity ever and a monster that the seventies Doctor Who production team would knock back as being too cheap doesn't do it any harm either.

"Put it in me!"

Shamelessly ripping off everything from Star Wars to 2001 via Silent Running along the way, Forbidden World proudly wears it's influences on it's sleeve, almost boasting how it had (metaphorically) bummed Alien in a back alley then stolen its shoes, in equal parts enjoyable, laughable and as entertaining as watching your Dad drunkenly fall down the stairs whilst pissing himself.

Plus it has the audacity to cast big headed, baby doll Dawn Dunlap as a scientist and expect us not to laugh.

With balls of solid steel and a budget of less than a fiver Forbidden World delivers more scares, shocks, bare arses and laugh now moments than any other film with the same title plus it has slightly more natural breasts than the frighteningly pneumatic pair on show in Galaxy of Terror and for that we should all be grateful.