People you fancy but shouldn't (readers special).

As nominated by Unwell follower Kitty Trundle we present M. C. Beaton's public relations professional cum quiche-making crime stopper Agatha Raisin as portrayed by Ashley Jensen.

people you fancy but shouldn't (part 60).

The tunefully tonsilled tempress behind the top pop hit Like A Bird  and (slightly) less media loving daughter of the next president of the good old USA, Ms Tiffany Ariana Trump.

 But why? I hear you cry.

Just bear with me.

You can just imagine the scene when Donald gets elected President and he stands on his solid gold T shaped podium declaring that anyone not conforming to the new "Greater America" laws he's created will be stripped of their citizenship and deported to, um I don't know let's just say Los Angeles (hopefully a huge earthquake will separate it from the mainland to make it easier).

Flash forward a few months to his unhappy daughter who, disillusioned with her failing pop career falls in with the left-wing revolutionary Russell 'Che' Brand and legs it to La taking not only the codes to the USA's nuclear arsenal but also the secret formula that gives her dads hair it's natural shine.

You know this is gonna happen.

Only question is who will he send in to track her down?

My money's on disgraced former athlete cum celebrity for hire Caitlin Jenner in a  diamante eye patch and Kanye West designed combats.

Well either her or Joey Lawrence.

shop till you drop.

On a brighter note had this sent to me a few weeks back* and thought I'd share.

For your entertainment a mega mix of musak as heard throughout the massive malls of 1970's America.

Enjoy.

*No idea where it's from but much kudos to the original uploader.

i don't (french) fancy yours much.

Been searching thru' the Arena archive for reviews of zombie movies featured in The UnDeck playing card set in order to have a handy mini-review of each of the films therein for folk who care about such stuff.

I'm not sure which is harder tho', trawling thru' pages of my barely literate ramblings or having to cut out all the mooth shite-in/laugh now comments to make them readable.

So taking a break from such endeavors last weekend I took a trip into old Glasgae toon (that's Scotland, in England near to Buckingham Palace and Europe for our American readers) to take a look around a place called 'The Barras'.

For those of you who aren't local, try to imagine a market stall version of Mos Eisley selling everything from knocked off pork to car doors and you're a third of the way there.

Whilst there I came across (not literally mind) a bearded old woman selling clothes pegs, country and western CD's and old VHS tapes.

Not being able to resist varicose veined vixens I just had to take a quick peek at her ample wares, so imagine my surprise when I found this:


Yup, a copy of tit-tastic La Revanche Des Mortes Vivantes on dusty old VHS and for only £1.

It was then that I realised that it wasn't featured in the UnDeck on account of being far too shite.

Imagine that.

Needless to say I had to buy it, unfortunately it also means I have to rewatch it and share my thoughts with you.

And possibly show my distinct lack of French language skills.

Apologies in advance.

Revenge of The Living Dead Girls (AKA La Revanche Des Mortes Vivantes. 1986)
Dir: Pierre B. Reinhard.
Cast: Véronique Catanzaro, Kathryn Charly, Sylvie Novak, Anthea Wyler, Laurence Mercier, Patrick Guillemin, Gábor Rassov and Christina Schmidt (not Christian Schmidt from Neighbours).

The time: the late seventies by the look of things, the place: a rainy, overcast road somewhere in the arse end of France, a blonde bimbette hitchhiker (wearing the cross country regulation outfit of stiletto heels, fishnets, suspenders and fur coat) is picked up by a pube haired man in a big jumper driving a milk van.

So far, so foreign porn like.

Pretending that she's sprained her stick-like ankle getting into his cab she persuades the driver to carry her to a deserted barn where our hitch hiking whore slowly lifts her skirt to see if driver Dan can see any bruises.

Whilst all this is going on a mysterious biker arrives and pours a bottle of Fairy Liquid into the milk.

Tho' God only knows why.

Fearing the audience may blow their load too early, the director sensibly cuts to a hideously decorated kitchen where an old lady is chatting to a transparent lingeried young girl who's busily glugging milk from a bottle like a bairn clamped onto it's mothers breast.

Within seconds of finishing the bottle she keels over.

Dead.

Liquid in mah milk!

This mysterious death is swiftly followed by a shockingly bespectacled, larged hipped bird in a pub and another girl who is so plain as to make her instantly forgettable.

It seems that a trio of bad men (and a bad lady) were blackmailing somebody rich (I don't know/care who) regarding the toxic waste that their evil lemonade mines were producing.

Probably.

Unfortunately the cash-grabbing plan started to unravel and given the choice of dumping the waste in a bin or pouring into the local milk supply, one of them bizarrely chose the latter.

If that wasn't enough excitement for you it now seems the very same chemical waste that killed the girls has somehow turned them into spud faced, massive bushed (yet completely normal bodied) zombies out for revenge (hence the title) and maybe, just maybe a wee bit of four way zombie girl on girl action along the way.

We can but hope.

"laugh now!"

I'm assuming the plot makes a bit more sense if you speak French, but frankly I'm too embarrassed to give it to any of my French friends to find out.

But as we all know, it takes more than gratuitous sex and mindless violence to make a great movie (well, most of the time) and frankly no number of lesbian zombies, penis munching, vagina/sword interfaces (at the moment of orgasm no less, well it is French) and scary plasticine undead babies can save this film from being complete and utter tedium from start to finish.

Yup, 'director' (and I use this term under duress) Reinhard (the man behind such classics as 'Outrages transsexuels des petites filles violées et sodomisées', 'Fantaisies anales' and 'La perverse châtelaine dans l'écurie du sexe' amongst others....ask your dad) manages the impossible by taking a plot involving nude zombie girls shagging people to death and turning it into one of the most boring film ever made.

How your mum could afford all those
holidays she took you on as a kid.

It even makes the directors cut of Oliver Stone's Alexander seem a good proposition for a Friday night.

OK, well maybe not that bad.

Featuring as it does, the most unattractive bunch of freaks and misfits since Joe D'Amato stopped making horror porn hybrids, piss poor effects, a camera and lighting crew that appear to have been blinded with sharp sticks minutes before production began and the clumsiest editing ever committed to celluloid and all of this still can't elevate Revenge of The Living Dead Girls to anything other than the motion picture equivalent of weeping arse sores.

And you can trust me when I say I know a thing or two about those.

The sexiest women in Cradley
Heath strip for your pleasure!

But is there anything about this film to recommend to fans of zombie nonsense (or even fans of Unshaved European girls?), well the aforementioned undead lesbian orgy between a prostitute (don't be too harsh, that's someones mum and she had bills to pay) and the three female zombies is unique enough to have you reaching for the remote with your free hand to rewatch it at least once and the fact that the zombies have a habit of ringing folks doorbells to gain entrance into their houses rather than just sneak in does have a certain polite charm to it but other than that it's to be avoided at all costs.

No doubt tho' that there'll be some pasty skinned, expensive shirted and novelty bearded behemian type sitting in a cinema bar somewhere loudly pointing out that La Revanche Des Mortes Vivantes is a serious study of perversion and the breakdown of common values in society, it's refusal to adhere to the shackles of linear storytelling prefering to confront the audience head on with visualisations of mankinds darkest thoughts puts it on par with Lars Von Treer's Antichrist and how the uneducated movie goer will miss these subtleties, concentrating on the sex and breasts instead.

No idea where I was going with that but it's late here and I felt like I should get it off my chest.

But in a totally non nude lesbian zombie way of course.

kiss kiss bang bang.

Frankly terrifying adverts for guns.

Enjoy.

people you fancy but shouldn't (part 59).

Emily Woodrow, no-nonsense single mother of three, waitress and
part-time church organist from Preacher as played by Lucy Griffiths.

the last rezort.

Came across this on the festival circuit last month.

Was expecting it to be shite.

But guess what?

The ReZort (AKA Generation Z, 2015).
Dir: Steve Barker.
Cast: Dougray Scott, Jessica De Gouw, Martin McCann, Richard Laing, Jassa Ahluwalia, Sam Douglas, Bentley Kalu, Claire Goose, Shane Zaza, Elen Rhys, Robert Firth, Sean Power, Rebecca James, Jamie Ward and Catarina Mira.

“Every apocalypse deserves an after party!”

Welcome to the world of post zombie apocalypse Britain, were every street looks like Glasgow on a wet Wednesday afternoon (albeit with the addition of some CGI big wheels) where a pesky virus has killed a third of the human race before bringing them back as piss-stained flesh-tearing zombies.

Just like Glasgow then.

Luckily for us (and the film's budget) the war 'tween the living and the dead has been fought and won, the virus controlled and the remaining dead contained.

Tho' it has left Europe with a massive refugee problem.

A zombie outbreak yup but Europe getting upset by refugees? Now the plot has got a wee bit far-fetched.

Anyway a pretty canny entrepreneur called Penelope Wilton (Brit TeeVee stalwart Goose) has taken advantage of the situation transforming a zombie-ridden island in the Mediterranean into a high-class holiday resort catering for people wanting to unleash their aggression by hunting the undead.

Sun, sea, sand, sex and wholesale slaughter.

Which if I'm honest sounds pretty bloody perfect.

Except for the sun bit.

and the sea.

But I digress.

Heading off to the island on the recommendation of her psychiatrist is the wistful Mel (Council estate Shauna Macdonald De Gouw from the Sky One remake of Dracula), a dew-eyed china-doll of a gal who is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after losing her family during the crisis.

I'm assuming that they got eaten and that she didn't misplace them behind the sofa or something, tho' either works for me.

Along for the ride (well she is paying) is her boyfriend Lewis (Ripper Street's McCann),  a former soldier who's swapped a life of zombie slaying for gazing longingly at his girlfriend whilst wearing a variety of sensible jumpers.

You can see why he's offered to join her on her journey of healing.

Arriving at the airport our depressing duo soon meet to meet up with their fellow travellers; Sadie - a woman who was jilted on her wedding day (the yumsome Rhys, star of World War Z and the actress voted Wales' 30th sexiest woman in 2009), some photo-fit business types, Yoofspeak spouting simpletons Jack and Mike (Ahluwalia and Ward) and a grumpy, Fred Perry clad Scotsman named Archer (Scott).

You got all that?

Good, now we can begin the film good and proper.

Thoughts of a zombie apocalypse and friends long gone or just realised that she's left the gas on....you decide.

Arriving at the resort (which resembles Jurassic Park if built by Butlins)our merry band start having fun, jigging away to a sub-techno-school disco DJ (what no Agadoo?) whilst a (power) suited and booted Wilton gives then the lowdown on the (undead) showdown as a manacled mop-haired monster snarls and snaps at her from the stage for maximum effect.

The crowd (as they say) goes wild.

Except for Mel who, if at all possible gazes at the slowly setting sun in a more wistful fashion than ever before.

"Yall nevah git ye honds ahn mah tattie scones!"

But as the holidaymakers party into the wee small no one notices save Archer (he's most definitely a canny Scotsman) when Sadie sneaks away from group and heads into the bowels of the resort and begins tampering with the islands computers before returning to her room with a hard drive full of who knows what.

Up bright and early the next morn to begin a day of shooting zombie the happy holiday folk are blissfully unaware of the panic and confusion raging below as the resorts computer systems slowly splutter and grind to a halt.

As the behind the scenes mayhem escalates our merry band continue to enjoy themselves shooting shackled zombies from a safe distance finally setting up camp atop a hill where they can enjoy a beer, a barbecue and a bit more blasting as the sun sets.

And it's as everyone is enjoying a cosy night under the stars that the inevitable finally happens.

Yup, all the security protocols, electric fences and other assorted safety measures turn themselves off.

Shit even the hot water stops working.

Awoken by the low moans (and putrid smell) of the undead as they shuffle - fairly quickly it must be said - toward the camp the gang, Archer reveals himself to be a hard as fuck killing machine to whom the zombie war never ended, standing purposely astride a Jeep as his clinically despatches the approaching hordes in a style reminiscent of sex god Paul Darrow* during a particularly kinky Blakes 7 episode as the others run around shouting "We're doomed!" whilst dropping guns on the floor.

"Shite in mah undead mooth!"

Assuming command of the group he vows to lead them to safety - or at least the nearest chip shop - but with the islands emergency protocols activated and a squad of bomb-laden jets heading their way time is running out.....

From Steve Barker who gave us the Govan-based gore-bore Outpost comes a surprisingly effective take on the zombie genre that offsets its low budget with big ideas making you think as to why no-one has attempted anything similar before.

Wearing its Michael Crichton influences on it's bloodied and torn sleeve like a badge of honour whilst throwing in knowing winks to past classics (there's a lovely Zombie Creeping Flesh reference), The Rezort is confidently directed, nicely cast and with some nicely under-stated perforrmances from the majority of the cast.

Scott is especially great in what could have been a tedious, one note role whilst  Martin McCann bravely underplays boyfriend Martin adding real depth to what is essentially a quickly sketched character.

Yes the reveal - and by default the films message - is a wee bit heavy handed but when the previous 80-odd minutes have been so entertaining you can forgive the film-makers being a wee bit preachy.

Plus when the only criticism of a movie is that you wish the cast and crew had a bigger budget to totally realise their ideas then it can't be that bad.

Elen Rhys - milky thighs not shown.

Well worth seeking out, The Rezort shows that the spirit of Nigel Kneale is still alive and kicking in these terrifying times of popcorn horrors.

*Yes Scott is really that sexy during these scenes