Directed by John Stuart Wildman
I was a little hesitant when I saw the trailer for The Ladies of the House. Was that....Belladonna in the trailer? Err I mean not that I watch porn or anything but I do watch pornstars in horror movies. And from past experience, it usually turns out kinda eye gouging horribly bad.
But let's not judge a movie by its cover or even by its trailer. Hence watching Ladies was and odd horror-copia of 50s style, misogynistic men getting some comeuppance and an imagining of what would happen if the We Can Do It! woman in this wartime propaganda poster decided to become a sadistic, serial killing cannibal.
The Ladies of the House is a rockabilly feministic-horror movie that somehow injects some colorful cinema with an exploitation vibiness that I've never seen before. And when you can show me something I've never seen before, that's a damn win in my book. Though plot and pacing are classed in a whatever, it makes it up in gore and some Chainsaw Massacre cross gender switching. Say what? Keep reading then.
Awesome Review-O-Matic
Wildman's directorial debut is full of Edward Scissorhands/Pleasantville rainbow colors that for an indie horror movie, you have to give it props. The gore and splatter are in the same boat. It's clearly expensed and the FX are old school proper.
Solid performances by the troupe of strippers turned cannibal marauders that stereotype a genre of female archetypes. Melody Sisk as Getty is ripped out of that propaganda poster while Lin, her lesbian lover is head of household. Brina Palencia as Crystal is Dexter wacko. Our male lambs are slightly forgettable so I really won't talk about them. What you have in terms of characters and plot become blurred in a weird way. A way that can confuse the typical horror fan.
Clearly we have evil on both sides as plot wise our bumbling male horn dogs do some dumb shit resulting in dumb shit that are now Leatherfacey femme vixens need to get revenge for. Everybody deserves to die if you think about it logically. LOTH somehow doesn't want to get bogged down in your rooting interest but instead wants to flip the cliches upside down. As I thought about it, it's like the equivalent of a jock wearing red cowboy boots. Does it work?
Sorta. A feministic horror movie seems like an oxymoron. Can you really make your killing femme fatales into revenge served cold slasher hunters? And with gratuitous nudity and lesbian strippers? Like I said, now that's something I've never seen before...and now I have.
The Ladies of the House is a clearly a new type of indie horror exploitation. It's clearly smart, gory and wicked. It's not your typical horror and that's what I liked about it. At a solid 90 min, there's clearly an hour of good shit in here. Some inter spliced foreshadowing seemed out of place in my opinion.
John Stuart Wildman seemingly has a whole new sub genre with The Ladies of the House. Horror fans need to inject something new into their diet. There is meat on the bones with The Ladies of the House and its damn tasty.
Nude-ipedia
Shower boob
Lesbian boobs
Gore-ipedia
Butchery blood and guts
Slice and dice
WTF moment
Crystal's room
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
It was called Stripped the movie at one point. I like the the title now. Check out the trailer below and the Facebook page.
Its funny. Every now and then I'll check my stats and realize this post "Top 5 Cannibal Movies Of All Time" will get some traffic. It's an old post, the videos don't work anymore but it still resonates with people searching for the exploitation of old. The cannibal genre.
I've been itching to see The Green Inferno ever since I heard Eli Roth was making of it. I knew this genre was in good hands as Roth knows the people who made the genre what it is. He's well aware horror mavericks like myself will compare it to Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust and Uberto Lenzi's Cannibal Ferox. But he preambled the NYC premiere of The Green Inferno by saying that it was a different kind of cannibal film and that we need to put what we know of those films in a vault and take The Green Inferno as it is.
And what it is, it's an Eli Roth cannibal film. And it's fuckin awesome.
The Green Inferno is a buffet of modern day exploitation and wicked satire with a heaping spoonful of blood, guts and splatter. This is probably the best movie Roth has ever made. His other films only touched on fleeting fears, but with The Green Inferno, his scathing critique of slacktivism is smart as it is millennial. Generation Y is in the crosshairs and Roth scalps them cleanly by using every tool in his horror arsenal. It's a fun romp seeing good-doers face ultimate terror by the people they are there to protect. The cannibals are unleashed and make no apologies for who and why they are. It's fuckin brutal and fuckin glorious. What we have here jaded viewers is a perfect game within the horror exploitation trope. This is as good as it gets.
Boring Plot-O-Matic
A group of student activists travel from New York City to the Amazon to save a dying tribe but crash in the jungle and are taken hostage by the very natives they protected.
Awesome Review-O-Matic
If only our slacktivists had read this list, they'd probably be alive.
With The Green Inferno, we see the pillars of the horror and exploitation genre mixed in. Our final girl Justine (Lorenza Izzo) a student at Columbia University in NYC learns about the modern day horrors of the world she lives in and feels obligated to do something (see white guilt). Her roommate Kaycee (Sky Ferriera) is like the rest of us. Her 'tude: That shit isn't my problem. When she meets some hippie radicals led by Alejandro (Ariel Levy) she self motivates herself to join them to stop the evil corporations from bulldozing the native tribes homes in Peru.
The set up is of course designed to ridicule this new Twitter world of hashtag slacktivism. Conversations in the film echo how real world change is a process instead of a viral video. Ignoring this practical advice, the group has their sights on live streaming the horror from the Amazon with hashtags and shaky phone cams. Roth alluded to the KONY video and how a like and retweet are now the methods Millennials show they are smart, pseudo activists and PC. Rarely does anybody get off their ass to do something real. Such is the world we live in and as these American kids see how the 3rd world lives it's full of full frontal irony.
These are bookends of The Green Inferno. Roth forces us to chug how we think the world should be with what it really is. But in between we get chock full of the wickedest slaughter I've ever seen on film.
The gore and splatter hit high marks all around in Inferno. You can thank Make Up Effects guru Greg Nicotero of The Walking Dead fame for some of that. The spectacular plane crash with stunning "Oh Shit!" kills to the slice and dice meals for our natives are spectacularly done. Body parts are removed, ocular and mouth trauma will make gorehounds happy and yes, we get heads on poles. Roth homages Deodato and Lenzi and if you have a keen eye (or have watched Cannibal Holocaust 1000x) you'll see them. It's cruel deaths in it's most undiluted form. It has spectacular bloody kills, even more than all the Hostel films put together.
Within this chaotic blood-o-rams are colorful cannibals that bring another dimension to the savages. They are not evil per say, but more so uncivilized which probably is more frightening to the city dwellers. Led by a queen and an enforcer, the cannibals are happy to be munching on what they perceive as the real savages. Their meals are our worst fear and though we should detest their actions, it's more of a WTF, it's who they are type attitude. The funny part of all of this is that Roth and his crew used real natives who had never seen a real film before and were even amazed by ice cubes. Lots of indie DIY filmmaking too. The realness shows here, on the faces of the tribe playing a fictional secluded tribe and more so in the children who mock and are intrigued by our gringos. Roth puts in his own touch on real animals doing real shhit but not as fucked up as Deoadato's real life cruelty.
So you'd think a movie with sharp critiques and splatter would be a straightforward horror film. But with Roth, the gags, funnies and humor all seem to find a balance in Inferno. You'll see it play out between the students, the cannibals and in the fact that somebody is getting chopped up and fuckin eaten. In this most absurd premise, Roth makes the hashtag #cannibalsgetthemunchies take on a whole new different meaning.
The performance by Lorenza Izzo is solid. You feel obligated to root for her as compared to the other hotties, they play out as stereotypical panic girls. Levy's Alejandro is tall, dark and ambitiously mysterious. Comic relief comes in the form of Jonah (Aaron Burns), some stoners and a bearded hipster.
I will say a lot of people will be surprised by Eli Roth's latest flick (it's been 6 years since he directed Hostel II). It's as good as a Quentin Tarantino exploitation homage but without the long winded conversations and alternate histories. What The Green Inferno seems to show is that the cannibal film defies any decade when done in a way that is clever, insightful and has the most gut wrenching scenes of civilization gone awry. It's a genre being introduced to the generation that should be ashamed they don't know shit about what happens in the real world, but see it filtered through tweets and posts and goddamn Instagram coloring.
Who are the real cannibals?
Probably the current generation that consumes that shit, shits that shit and enjoys it all.
Fuckers.
Nude-ipedia
Surprisingly none
Gore-ipedia
Heaping mountains of it. It's all glorious. GLORIOUS!!!!
WTF moment
Ants. Nuff said.
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
The Green Inferno will be in theaters next year. It's MUST SEE. It will probably be one of my best movies of 2014 list for sure (going to rank this when the flick gets a wide release). Oh lovely cannibals, how I love this fuckin genre.
Sorry I've been MIA. My TV was fucked up for a few weeks and I couldn't review any movies. But that lead me to watching more Internet videos then I care to admit. Surprisingly, it seems there are quite a lot of cannibal trailers, clips and ENTIRE full length flicks on YouTube.
If you're a noob who's self teaching yourself the skid row junkie world of exploitation, it'd be best to view this on an empty stomach.
What a world we live in that you can watch a most fucked up movie on your computer instead of a 4th generation dubbed VHS tape. You kids have it fuckin easy.
Enjoy!
Here are some fun facts for you after you watch the film! How about some FAQ too!
With all this talk of Eli Roth's The Green Inferno, the cannibal movie is poised to make a comeback. I mean we haven't seen an awesome full native vs white man cannibal movie since the 80s. We've seen cannibal parodies and Bruno Mattei flicks. Hopefully Eli Roth will stick to the formula that have made Deodato and Lenzi horror household names. In a nutshell the white man must pay for trying to civilize the uncivilized.
When will the white man learn he can't control the cannibal natives. Be it for TV ratings or brainwashing the population, shit always hits the fan. Leave the poor blue smurfs alone (sorry wrong movie). All your technology doesn't mean shit when you got an arrow in the knee.
2.) Brains, Eyeballs and intenstines are fuckin tasty
Don't judge the natives because they like eating human sushi.
3.) The natives win because they have home court advantage
Civilized people don't know shit about the jungle. Can they swing through trees? Fuck no. Do they know the shortcuts to the river? Hell no. Natives know everything. You can run but no way can you hide.
4.) Documentary filmmakers have short life spans
It doesn't even have to be death by cannibals. I can only imagine the malaria, flesh eating virus and other fatal things that one can get in the jungle.
5.) When you see a body with a fuckin pole through somebody's mouth, it's time to fuckin leave
I mean it's common sense.
*********************************************
Do you have others? Chime in below! What do you think about Eli Roth's new movie? Will it live up to Holocause, Ferox?
Director Drew Bolduc has informed me his awesome flick The Taint (see full review here) is now available for FREE this week. It really is one fucked up crazy flick. As I wrote in my review....
If you're inner gorehound needs to be fed and if you're inner misogynist
needs to be jerked off I highly recommend The Taint. You won't be
disappointed by this throwback 80s splatterfest.
Watch the film below and be mesmerized by exploding dicks!
Did you ever want to see the Suicide Girls take on a sea monster?
Well Australia has got you covered. Because in Stuart Simpson's El monstro del mar (translated to Monster of the Sea) you'll just see that. And that's pretty much it.
Monstro goes into the way back time machine to give us a throwback to B-movie monsterpalooza where a quiet seaside town goes under attack by 3 hot Aussie vixen pussycat kill kill killers as they battle a tentacle rape octupi.
The movie starts off as From Dusk til Dawn style as our 3 tatted up, goth femme fatales lay a Venus fly trap for some man fodder. They party hard, booze it up and sniff those lines. They meet a young girl (another Aussie hottie) and her grandfather but secrets lay deep in this beach town. Soon locals are slaughtered and much blood is lost.
The CGI monster is slightly above your SyFy original movie but the buckets of blood and gore is unrelenting. Kudos to Simpson and his team for going all out. But hell the tentacles are pure laughable as are the death scenes. It's definitely intentionally "bad", with ridiculous carnage of serpent arms vs man. But do I buy into the "it's so bad, it's good" formula? Well too a point I do. I'm all for seeing our 3 whores from hell Beretta, Blondie and the hottest of all Snowball go swimming and acting badass but without a real story or any interesting scenes of fun, it also becomes outright boring. It's fairly predictable and generic as they come.
If you want to see Aussie Suicide girls battle sea monsters, this will be your favorite movie. I liked the eye candy and the fairly cheesy monster mash gore. But clearly it's the same as watching a Skinemax action movie. Pick your poison.
I'm pretty positive Cory Udler is not a big fan of organized religion. Udler, the mastermind behind the infamous Incest Death Squad 1 and 2, seems to wage his war on it behind the camera by satirizing the sheep and the wolves who prey on said sheep. With Mediatrix, it's front and center and mocks the mockery of all that is Christianity and it's inherit beliefs.
Mediatrix is an exploitation jab at the right wing neo-conservative religious right by inserting boobs, sex and rape to get its point across. Focusing on the devious Mary Ann who is a master manipulator on all things spiritual, she seduces the minds of the ultra stupid while challenging the status quo of a priest hell bent on exposing her.
What you end up with in Mediatrix is an odd black humor exploitation comedy that has screwball characters and a pure relentless wicked streak, similar to seeing a car crash during a funeral procession. Clearly it's messed up but oddly funny in a fucked up sort of way.
But that's not to say my fun-o-meter didn't pop up. I had a few gripes on the story, characters and overall lack of cohesiveness. There seemed to be a bit of dead air scenes and a few jokes fell flat. I wanted to see a standoff between the supposed good vs the supposed evil but you got the feeling it was going to be a one sided affair.
But as atheists would say, you play with fire you're gonna get burned. (Hmmm I'm not sure atheists would actually say that)
Boring Plot-O-Matic
It is the story of Mary Ann Van Hook-false spiritualist who parlays her manipulation skills into wealth, power and even her own cult of followers.
Awesome Review-O-Matic
We meet Mary Ann (Paula Duerksen) who raised by a stereotypical spiritual mom rebels by being the town bicycle. Clearly mom and daughter are scam artists de jour but Mary Ann it seems to ACTUALLY have a phone connection to the Virgin Mary (Shannon Lark). When she meets Carrie (Kaylee Williams from 3 Slices of Life) and her husband Will Brackett, they become an easy mark for our spiritual medium. Soon she's using her "assets" to seduce up Mr. Brackett and his associates all while stealing the pastor's congregation. All this leads to a showdown with said pastor.
Mediatrix feels like an extension of IDS with some usual actors back and some new ones in the mix. It has a sense of wacky and can't really be called a horror movie but more of an exploitation attack on how the gullible become gulled. Udler has always hovered his movies in a weird in between place of realistic wickedness and black humor oddity. This has the same feel. It has an indie quirkiness but also falls victim to not knowing what it should be.
It has elements of a black comedy but also seems to be hell bent on being a mish mash of other genres as well. Mary Ann, a tatted up, foul moth, druggie seems to hard to believe. She's a wolf in wolf's clothing yet the sheep are all convinced her spirituality is from the divine. I really didn't buy it. So many religions, especially evangelical Christianity could have been easily mocked and satirized but somehow it doesn't come out very well in Mediatrix. I was hoping to see a punk rock/death metal version of Book of Mormon.
The actors all seem to play heightened crazies. Duerksen gives a glimpse of her goods as the head crazy and does a good job in the role. It'd be nice to see Lark in a lead role as she has a scream queen persona to carry a movie. Udler regulars Matt Ukena, Scott Rawson and Tom Lodewyck also make appearances. Having remembered Williams from Slices of Life, she plays a very convincing sheep.
Mediatrix has fire of wrath vibes to it and has a feel of raw energy that most movies would be afraid to cover. But it also isn't as polished and straightforwardly wicked as Udler's previous Incest Death Squad 2. It's however fueled with an indie DIY spirit that oozes of Americana fuckedupness. For that I'm giving it 2 Hallelujahs.
Gore-ipedia
Head butting
Nude-ipedia
Main character boobies WTF moment So the Virgin Mary is a hot coked up punk rock girl?
Good news today for the Soska Sisters. After getting a UK release, Dead Hooker in a Trunk has finally hit the good ole US of A via IFC Midnight. It's long overdue for these awesome filmmakers. Check out the pres release below which has my quote in it as well (yay)
Also check out my review of the film. It's funny that I remember putting up this trailer 3 years ago (as the Soska Sisters will point out, this was one of the first amounts of hype for the film :-) ) and never thought I'd ever see it. But they sent me a screener and I was blown away. Hopefully you now all get the opportunity to see this little black humor piece of grindhousey horror film and have the same feeling as I did when I first saw it.
DEAD HOOKER IN A TRUNK RELEASED BY IFC MIDNIGHT IN LIMITED THEATERS AND VOD
The Highly Anticipated Release of the Award Winning, Critically Acclaimed, Independent Hit, DEAD HOOKER IN A TRUNK!
WORLD PREMIERE -- AUGUST 3rd 2011 --
"You should check out DEAD HOOKER IN A TRUNK. They made it low budget and it's f*cking awesome. The violence is incredible and the stunts are fantastic." ~ Eli Roth, Director
After touring the film festival circuit and capturing the attention and adoration of critics and fans alike, the highly anticipated world release of the independent, cult classic in the making, grindhouse film DEAD HOOKER IN A TRUNK has finally arrived after making its UK and Australian release earlier in the year. DEAD HOOKER IN A TRUNK is being released through special midnight theatrical screenings in a limited release across the USA and Canada by IFC Midnight. Cities and theater information will be released soon. For those who can't wait to see it in theaters can see it early through VOD on August 3rd, 2011.
DEAD HOOKER IN A TRUNK, set in beautiful Vancouver, tells the story of four friends who set out on an everyday errand and end up in a fight for their lives when they discover the body of a dead hooker left in their trunk.
Lead by a sexy, impulsive Badass, her distant Geek twin sister, their bible thumping, Jesus loving Goody Two Shoes friend, and a chaotic, rock star Junkie pal, the group has to put aside their differences to dispose of the body before they're next. Thrown into their own personal purgatory, they face off against persistent police, a sleazy motel manager, chainsaw wielding triads, and a brutal serial killer. All the while they are followed by a mysterious Cowboy Pimp who wants to claim the corpse for his own.
Will they uncover the truth behind the body and be able to stand up to their demons? Buckle up and get ready for the ride of your life filled with gun fights, extreme violence, blood, guts, gore, and goats.
DEAD HOOKER IN A TRUNK is the debut feature film by Canadian Twin Filmmakers, Jen and Sylvia Soska, that has set the independent horror scene ablaze with excitement. The film and the filmmakers have captured the attention of Hostel director Eli Roth, Fangoria, Gorezone, Twitch Film, Rue Morgue, and many other profound voices in horror.
“Watching Dead Hooker in a Trunk is like having the best bare backing sex of your life while hopped up on junk with a fugly prostitute in a seedy motel room on the wrong side of town” ~ TWITCH Film
"Seriously, f*cking wow. I was totally hooked by the dialogue and the sheer where-the-f*ck-is-this-going-ness" of it all." ~ Gorezone
"A cult classic in the making and a hidden gem in indie film making." ~ The Jaded Viewer
"Wild, psychotic, funny, bloody, and strangely sexy opus." ~ Arrow In The Head
DEAD HOOKER IN A TRUNK has earned a substantial cult following and named onto several "Top Horror Film Of 2010" lists making it one of the most hyped and blogged about independent films of the year.
"Nearly every actor and actress who appeared on screen in DHiaT also served the film in other areas, from camera operators and stunt coordinators to editors and cinematographers. This film is a work of art, and it's a labor of love. Love from fans of horror, and of film in general, who took that love and put it to work, creating a film of their own. And the love and respect that these men and women have for the the genre, as well as for movies as a whole, is very evident throughout the entire film. This is how a movie is supposed to look, sound and feel!" ~ D'Ment'D Cinema
Twisted Twins Productions is co-owned by film makers Jen and Sylvia Soska who bring you edgy dialogue, gore~geous effects, beautiful cinematography, and memorable characters, all for your viewing pleasure.
Their debut smash hit, DEAD HOOKER IN A TRUNK is only the beginning and the two are busy at work on their next project, AMERICAN MARY.
I've been looking forward to checking out Mark Hartley's latest documentary Machete Maidens Unleashed for a while now. After checking out the trailer, I was salivating to see the history of Filipino exploitation films as I was too young to know what these films were and how they were made. Thanks to the New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF2011) my dream is now a reality. Hartley, who last made Ozploitation a household name (that's Australian exploitation flicks) with Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! takes on the world of exploitation films created in the jungle depths of the Philippines and interviews the bejesus out of everybody who ever made one.
Machete Maidens Unleashed is an awesome in depth look into a period of filmmaking history where anything went, labor was cheap, the blood poured and the boobs, well they were real and they were spectacular. Hartley takes the footage, the gimmicks, the taglines and interviews from the likes of Roger Corman, John Landis, legendary Filipino director Eddie Romero and others to tell the story of what it was like to film mutated creatures, hot women in prison, blaxsploitation and rebellious war flicks. It's a fast paced doc, getting a soundbyte here while simultaneously flashing boobs in your face and decapitating an arm.
What you gain is a clear understanding of filmmaking via New World Pictures (Corman's company) and the people under him. It's nostalgic, funny and mesmerizing to watch. And it's clearly one of the best movies of 2011 in my opinion.
Boring Plot-O-Matic A fast moving odyssey into the subterranean world of the rarely explored province of Filipino genre filmmaking. Awesome Review-O-Matic
The movie is broken apart via the different genres filmed in the Philippines. These include:
Blood Island series of films
Women in prison films (eg. The Big Dollhouse, Black Mama, White Mama)
War/Revolution films
Blaxsploitation films (eg. Savage, TNT Jackson)
Hollywood parodies (eg. Weng Weng)
Apocalypse Now history
All the sections are really interesting in their own right. The Philippines was a haven for Corman and his directors to shoot low budget films that look like big giant blockbusters. They flew in beautiful actresses including breakout star Pam Grier and just had them kick ass and get naked. With the blessing of dictator Ferdinand Marcos and the Filipino army and stuntmen at their disposal, New World Pictures was able to make popular genre films for what seems like less than a buck and make millions.
It's just crazy interesting to look back at real exploitation films and see how they were made. These days, "exploitation films" via the Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino are big budget spectaculars. But seeing the original bizarre plots, bad acting, gratuitous nudity and unreal stunts and how it all came to be is something Generation X,Y and Z never really had a chance to experience.
The interviews, though rapidly short are full of one line soundbytes and moments of WTF. Roger Corman gives you accounts of his library of films filmed in these islands. Joe Dante and Allan Arkush give you an insight look into how they cut trailers where the trailers were made to sell the film with gimmicks and non existent plot lines. I loved the interviews with the Filipino directors which included Eddie Romero and Cirio Santiago. They were Filipinos who made American movies. Romero's take on his experience with Corman is one of genuine admiration. He strived to make Grade A movies and never thought he was making B movies. Santiago directed so many classics such as Savage and TNT Jackson. To think a Filipino director made blaxsploitation blows my fuckin mind. Just freakin fascinating.
The film was originally suppose to be Hartley's attempt to profile Weng Weng, the midget who made James Bond spoofs. There is a section here in Machete Maidens Unleashed on Weng Weng and it's also a hoot. We even get an interview with Filipino film historians, critics and other film luminaries about this universe of crazy filmmaking.
But the documentary's proudest moment has gotta be the endless boob shots. The women in prison movies then women in chains turned revenge flicks is the money shot of the documentary. Beautiful women and their breasts are endlessly looped to show you that these may have been the first films where women were leads and played action heroes. Is it total exploitation or a glimpse into 70s feminism? Thinking about it hurts my head. We get interviews with the actresses and it's just absolutely wild to see what they look like now compared to their hotness decades ago. Pam Grier is still freakin hot.
Machete Maidens Unleashed! is a manic albeit short look into the world of guerrilla filmmaking. There have been other docs profiling Corman and his flicks but none gets you sweaty, bloody and stiff like this one does. It's got me checking Netflix to see if I can watch some of these films in their entirety.
We use the term exploitation film so loosely these days. Anything that resembles something that might be a reboot of a genre from the 60s, 70s or 80s is given that label. But true exploitation films are exactly that. They exploited the audience's perceptions and desires. If the audience dug gratuitous nudity, you made a film that had tons of it. If the viewers wanted blood and guts, you cut off an arm. If you wanted to see a naked black woman kick ass with her boobs all bouncy, you made that happen. Those films were true exploitation and we'll never have a "golden" age like that again. Machete Maidens Unleashed! is your chance to see a history of filmmaking that is the epitome of WTF movies.
And also who doesn't like seeing a hot topless girl fire machine guns.
Gore-ipedia
Tons!
Nude-ipedia
Tons and tons and tons!
WTF moment I question why I haven't seen more women in prison films
Director Drew Bolduc dropped me a line to let you all know that you can now watch his and Dan Nelson's flick The Taint for FREE....yes for freakin free...until the end of June.
I reviewed the film earlier this year and I gave it 3 out of 4 spinkicks. You can read my entire review here.
Here's a quote from my review.
"The Taint is the next evolution of the Troma movie. I think Troma has lost touch with it's extreeminess but directors Drew Bolduc and Dan Nelson have spawned a new genre of low budget horror comedy. The American WTF movie. That's what The Taint is. It's got a mild plot, some easily identifiable characters and lots of WTF. I've never seen so much WTF in my movie viewing history. That and a lot of penis. Yes folks, this movie has more penis shots than a Playgirl pictorial."
I've been dying to see Machete Maidens Unleashed, the documentary by Mark Hartley (Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!) about Filipino exploitation flicks. Most of these flicks were filmed in the Philippines and ranged from blaxploitation to kungfu. I remember my dad having some of these flicks on VHS and they were horribly cheesy. But my dad let me watch these flicks and as an impressionable tween, I got to see some partial nudity and random acts of violence.
Now years later, looking back at these flicks I realize now my interest towards all that was weird and edgy is probably due to the 80s action flicks of Cannon and Filipino exploitation. My dad should be proud he let me watch. Now all I do on this site is reminisce about these films :-)
So here's a taste of my childhood, in all its bad kungfu, gratuitous nudity, horrible acting and incoherent plots.
the jaded viewer says: Raw Force. It's pretty much the pinnacle of Filipino exploitation.
the jaded viewer says: One Armed Executioner: He scores the white chick and kicks ass with one arm. He's Handi-armed and dangerous!
the jaded viewer says: For Your Height only. WengWeng is legen...wait for it....dary!
the jaded viewer says: TNT Jackson. She'll kungfu your ass while her titties be bouncing sucka!
the jaded viewer says: Black Mama, White Mama. Women in Prison 'sploitation! Stars Pam Grier and Sid Haig and directed by Filipino vet Eddie Romero. Probably the awesomest premise ever.
Makes you wanna see some of these right? What exploitation flick is MUST SEE for anybody who wants to catch up on this type of stuff?
If you have an indie short, our motto at the jaded viewer is we'll review it. So our latest edition of The Shortround is a grindhouse short via Ruckus Productions called The Deadneks - Trilogy of Blood. Featuring the psychobilly sickos The Deadneks, we get a full blown exploitation homage as 3 city girls wind up in Bumfuck Hillbilly USA.
Here be the plot:
When a trio of sexy city gals picks up a broken-down hillbilly in the backwoods of Virginia – the three kittens get A LOT more than they bargained for when they accept the drifter’s invitation to a down-home barbecue. What these lovely ladies don’t know just may hurt ‘em – when they find that the menu of this hayseed hoe-down isn’t the standard ‘burgers and dogs’…
the jaded viewer says: Shot on a claimed budget of $62, Trilogy of Blood is a 27 minute long Deadneks music video with a Herschel Gordon Lewis grindhouse homage blended in. Ruckus Productions spared no expense (well maybe expenses for beer, Spencer Gifts decaped arms and blood and more beer) to give us a look and feel of an exploitation film circa the 70s. The tagline says it all:
SEE the BLOOD! FEEL the TERROR! HEAR the PSYCHOBILLY SICKNESS!!!! Experience the sensory TRIPLE-SKULL-FUCK that is…TRILOGY OF BLOOD!!!!!!!!
Damn that's alot of exclamation points.
Add in the grainy staticky footage and some Gordon Lewis homages from 2000 Maniacs to Blood Feast and you got a nice decent short with 3 performances by The Deadneks whose punk rock style is a blend of The Misfits, The Cramps and Reverend Horton Heat. I haven't heard psychobilly punk in a while since my early punk rock days and it was nice to hear some good tunes while seeing ocular trauma, smashed heads and cannibal rednecks. We even get a horrific chubby fuck, incest makeout session and a boink-o-thon on a tractor trailer.
I've never seen that before.
Trilogy of Terror is grindhouse schlock with a killer soundtrack that horror and punk rock fans should check it out. I'm not saying it's the best the grindhouse has to offer but it's got all the basics and cliches and offers nothing more, nothing less.
Boobs, blood, beer and rock and roll. If that's your poison, check it out.
The Vitals
Fun Fact: Brenna Roth (daughter of David Lee Roth) stars as one of the girls
Picked to be part of the Underground Horror Fest II taking place in March of 2011
2010 Horrorfind Weekend and Fright Night Filmfest selection
That's the lesson I learned after watching Hobo with a Shotgun, the infamous grindhouse trailer turned full frontal feature from director Jason Eisener. If this was the 3rd film in a triple feature with Planet Terror and Death Proof, I'd have to say it was the best of the three by far.
Hobo with a Shotgun punched me in the face with it's witty humor, clever cleverisms and pure blood drenched awesomeness. It's a time travel throwback to 80s Troma mixed in with Street Trash and would be a banned video nasty if this were 1985. Each scene is like a mini trailer in itself, which you could cut up and edit and make 10 more trailers out of the film.
But even though it's hilariously ridiculous and you start scratching your head with one WTF after the other, it still never loses it's power to make you laugh, make you scream and make you applaud like a pimp at a whore convention.
Hobo with a Shotgun hits harder than a cop during a riot. You're not going to get a better throwback grindhouse movie this year. And for the first time in a long time, I'm giving it the highest rating the jaded viewer can bestow.
Boring Plot-O-Matic
A train pulls into the station - it's the end of the line. A Hobo jumps from a freight car, hoping for a fresh start in a new city. Instead, he finds himself trapped in an urban hell. This is a world where criminals rule the streets and Drake, the city's crime boss, reigns supreme alongside his sadistic murderous sons, Slick & Ivan.
Amidst the chaos, the Hobo comes across a pawn shop window displaying a second hand lawn mower. He dreams of making the city a beautiful place and starting a new life for himself. But as the brutality continues to rage around him, he notices a shotgun hanging above the lawn mower... Quickly, he realizes the only way to make a difference in this town is with that gun in his hand and two shells in its chamber.
Awesome Review-O-Matic
There's not an overcomplicated story here. The movie is exactly what the title says. It's about a hobo with a shotgun. But our hobo (Rutger Hauer) arrives in Scum Town (renamed Fuck town by the locals) and immediately realizes this is one fucked up town. The town is run by Drake (Brian Downey), a clean cut evil crime boss who with his two sons Slick and Ivan (who are preppie douchebag killers) are willing to display their cruel and unusual punishment to keep the locals in line.
Did I mention the film takes place circa sometime in the 80s?
That's the first thing that makes you go WTF. Our hobo wanders the streets and we see what he sees. Boom boxes, video cassette video cameras, arcade machines and 80s jazzy clothing that makes you think we're in some Beastie Boys video. And it wouldn't be the 80s without some fuckin coke right? Cocaine is like Krispy Kreme donuts. Everybody is addicted! The town is full of low life pimps, bumfight entrepreneurs and Santa child predators. It's a fuckin shitty place.
Soon he meets a hot prostitute Abby and saves her from the clutches of our asshole preps. Abby and our hobo seemed to be both misfits in a town full of crazies but they start to form a bond. When you think HWAS would start to slow down during these non gore soaked moments, it doesn't. The conversation between our Hobo and our whore are hilarious. From talking about bears, an alternate job for Abby and to our Hobo's dream of buying a lawnmower!?!? so he can start his own business, the ridiculous and over the top conversation is as equally if not more awesome than the succeeding gore and splatter that embody a homeless man exacting vengeance with a shotgun.
Which brings us to the grindhouse and exploitation masterpiece that's been constructed by Eisener. It has a look and feel of a grindhouse films from the opening titles (Filmed in Technicolor!) to the shades of green and red tints that resemble your vintage graininess. But red is the color that dominates Hobo with a Shotgun and we get buckets of it. Your Gore-ipedia includes ripped off heads, shotgun trauma, blood splatter windows, hand splatter, neck gore and some sick slice and dice.
Once we get to the mid camp ending, all hell has broken loose. After some close calls in a battle between Slick and Ivan versus Hobo and Abby Drake brings in the big guns called "The Plague" to take down our Hobo who's been cleaning the gutter trash criminals off the street. These 2 heavily armored metal rejects slaughter a hospital staff before we get a Mad Max finale complete with a Mexican standoff.
Rutger Hauer is nearly flawless as our 100% hobo vigilante. It's like he copied the persona of one of the bumfight participants and as he yammers in his peculiar conversations you get 100% hooked. He's an old cranky man who knows shit and Hauer makes it believable. Downey as Drake plays it pretty over the top and our two preppie douchebags (Gregory Smith and Nick Bateman) give performances like they were mutated evil from a John Hughes film. Molly Dunsworth as Abby evolves from down and out hooker to an ever dedicated sidekick and does a great job looking hot and kicking ass.
Everything from Hobo with a Shotgun is viciously fucked up. It lives up to it's title because it's initial premise evolves into a full frontal assault of pure tastelessness. From vulgarities revolving orifices to maddening threats of torture, it's going to be obscene just to be obscene. Damn how I love that. I love the fact it never wavers, never says let's be a little PG-13 here or be a little tame in this scene. Nope. It goes all out to make you feel like you've been exploited for having seen this. Your going to laugh at seeing somebody get the shit beaten out of em and your not going to feel guilty at all.
Neo grindhouse has been on the up and up with remakes of 70s cult classics being assembly line made. It's refreshing to see a homegrown (in this case Canada) being made. Hobo with a Shotgun is old and new. If this was made in the 80s, it would SO be remade by now. It's because of all this that I proudly give Hobo with a Shotgun the rare 4 spinkicks.
Now give that homeless man on the street corner some spare change or you might get a hole in your chest.
Nude-ipedia
We get some titties
WTF moment The Plague battle an octopus?!?
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
I was able to see this gem during a screening courtesy of Magnet Releasing. Hobo with a Shotgun comes out on April 1st on Demand and May 6th in theaters. Here are some interesting fun facts:
Original grindhouse trailer was made for $150 and won the SXSW Tarantino/Rodriguez Grindhouse trailer competition
The Director of Photagraphy is Karim Hussain who made the cult classic Subconscious Cruelty
Producer Rob Cotterhill (with Eisener) made the short Treevenge
Only a few scenes from the original fake trailer made it to the feature
Clearly we have evil on both sides as plot wise our bumbling male horn dogs do some dumb shit resulting in dumb shit that are now Leatherfacey femme vixens need to get revenge for. Everybody deserves to die if you think about it logically. LOTH somehow doesn't want to get bogged down in your rooting interest but instead wants to flip the cliches upside down. As I thought about it, it's like the equivalent of a jock wearing red cowboy boots. Does it work?
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