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.

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.

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?

hungary like the, um, snake?

From 1987, the first part of the Hungarian bootleg Cobra comic adaptation.

Enjoy!

Obviously it helps if you speak Hungarian.

yellow peril.

Another year, another Argento film released to mild audience apathy and a hostile reaction from the critics.

Unfortunately my 'press credentials' (a cut out Daily Bugle card stuck in the side of a trilby and a cardboard box painted up as a camera) weren't enough to get me in to see it at it's Edinburgh premiere earlier this year, so I've had to wait with baited breath for a screener to arrive.

Well, was it worth the wait?

Giallo (2009).
Dir: Dario Argento.
Cast: Adrien Brody, Emmanuelle Seigner, Elsa Pataky, Valentina Izumi, Linda Messerlinker, Taiyo Yamanouchi, Giuseppe Lo Console and Byron Deidra.

The cosmopolitan city of Turin, where two foxy girls about town, the teeny tiny Keiko and her man chinned pal Marjorie are enjoying a (fairly stilted) night at the opera.

Realising that this is an Argento movie and that watching a fat bird sing is, in this situation a fair way to get killed (or at the very least shat on by crows) they decide to bid their farewells and hit a local discotheque instead, hoping to find some hot tunes and even hotter men.

Fat chance of that seeing as the place is full of greasy haired, tight t-shirted 80's throwbacks dancing badly to cheesy Europop, including one poor sod wearing a t-shirt with a suit and bow tie printed on it.

If anyone in this movie deserves to die then it's him quite frankly.

Nice legs, shame about the imminent face cutting.

When Keiko manages to pull the only bloke in the place under fifty, Marjorie reckons she'd have better fun with the wobbly plastic pal she keeps under her pillow so decides to head back to the hotel.

With brightly lit rain pouring down in that heavy, Suspiria fashion and Marjorie having a high, hairsprayed bonce, she quickly flags a passing taxi and jumps into the comfy back seat, little realising that the cab driver is a notorious kidnapper and mutilator of fit young birds.

Arse.

"Teeth in mah mooth!"

It's not long before she's being taken down a deserted alley (which is, I must admit better than being taken up the casino) and jumped on by the driver.

Which is nice.

Tho' not as nice as the beautiful catwalk (as opposed to Airfix) model Celine (Beyond Re-Animator's Pataky), who is counting the hours (and pretty frocks) till she can head home to see her older, harsher sister Linda (Mrs. Roman Polanski, Seigner), recently arrived from America on a visit.

Wouldn't you know it tho' but on her way back to her apartment, Celine has the bizarre misfortune of hailing the same taxi as poor Marjorie, soon finding herself injected in the face with drugs, her expensive shoes stolen and a final indignity waking up in a dirty, egg stained, spunk encrusted basement owned by a Mister Tony Yellow.

A moon faced slobbering beast of a bloke so named because of his yellow jaundiced skin.

Before we move on I'd just like to point out that Mr. Yellow is portrayed by one 'Byron Deidra' (which could be an anagram of the lead actors name if I'm not mistaken) in a frankly magnificent tour de force performance the like of which hasn't been since Lord Udo of Kier fondled a sheep's innards during Flesh For Frankenstein.

Showing us all just why he won nine awards (including an Oscar) for his heartbreaking turn as Wladyslaw Szpilman in The Pianist, Brody (wearing a fat suit, dirty vest and a Bo Selecta! Mel B. mask) brings a truly subtle sense of realism to Yellow. Whether he's mumbling profanities at various chained women or simply having a sly wank whilst staring at photographs of his victims, the performance is truly terrifying.

No, really.

It's as if that Brody, for a giggle during rehearsals decided to do a drunken Robert DeNiro impression to amuse the crew and, not wanting anyone to steal his crown as the giallo joker, Argento called his bluff and told him that it would be a perfect way to play the villain.

Obviously neither of them wanted to admit defeat so the performance stayed in.

"Laugh now!"

Anyway back to the plot.

When Celine fails to return home, a worried (I think she's worried, tho' she does spend a fair amount of the film frowning) Linda heads over to the local police station, where she ends up interrupting an important pizza delivery much to the annoyance of the desk sergeant who hurriedly sends her off to the cellar, hang out of the maverick no nonsense inspector Enzo Avolfi (Brody).

Moody, mysterious and armed with a sexy beard (and with a great line in 1980's blouson jackets), Avolfi is a cop on the edge, haunted by the death of his mother at the hands of the bald bloke from Do You Like Hitchcock? and obsessed with finding the maniac responsible for this recent spate of murders.

"Wahey! Stop starin' at me tits mon!"

"Kiss kiss no more... wakey wakey!"

But time is running out for Celine and as more and more bodies begin turning up in the city, the only clue to the killers identity is a word whispered by a dying Japanese victim....

"kiiroi".

"This is the most extreme case of
mooth shite-in I have ever seen!"

After the cinematic abortion that was the final ten minutes of The Third Mother and the pantomime villainy of The Card Player you'd be forgiven (by some people but not me) for thinking the the master of the home haircut, Mr. Dario Argento had lost his mojo.

I say lost but from the evidence it seems more likely that it was violently removed from his chest with the same rusty nail scissors he cuts his fringe with.

I'll be the first to admit that the performances veer wildly from the kite flying, crack fuelled excesses of Adrien Brody to the almost narcoleptic lows of Emmanuelle Seigner and yes, the labyrinthine Argento plots of old have been replaced by characters randomly shouting out facts for no other reason than to get the story done and dusted but what the Hell I loved every minute of it.

Coming across like a cut price, lobotomised version of Tenebrae, it's true that it lacks that certain 'something' that made Argento's earlier such a joy but how much of that is down to the director and how much is down to the well publicised studio interference?

"I can see your house from here Jesus!"

But come to the film with the right mindset (or a head full of red) and there's plenty to enjoy.

Including the earlier mentioned masturbation scene, which is well on the way to becoming the greatest cinematic wank since Harvey Keitel cracked off a Barclay's in The Bad Lieutenant and, on a more serious (if less sticky) note, Frederic Fasano's lush cinematography coupled with the Danny Elfman-esque score from Marco Werba.

Guilty pleasures don't come better than this.

spider (non)sense.

No idea why but it made me chuckle.....