Movie Review: Ravenous (Blu-ray, Scream Factory)

Reviewed By: Jimmy D.

I hate to admit this but this is the first time I ever seen Ravenous. I remember in the age of the video store that I rented this once or twice, but never got to watch it and had to return it back. Ravenous is a very atmospheric horror film that is centered on an epidemic of flesh-eating and how it empowers people once they taste the flesh. The film takes place during the Mexican-American War, Col. Ives who seems to be on the verge of death makes his way barely to an isolated outpost. Once there he goes into the fort with this story of what brought him to this place.

The story is about some travelers who battle starvation. They ate all the livestock and animals first, and then stuff like belts and shoes. When one of the people dies, they decided to eat him. Thus, they started to eat other people as well. Well the commander sends out a group to investigate this story. Ravenous is bleak, it is cold-blooded and just all out cruel. The blood and gore is only half the fun of the film, the other half is just the tremendous acting by all involved. Directed by the late Antonia Bird and starring one of her regulars Robert Carlyle, this film like her earlier film Priest really shows that she thinks outside of the box and knows how to really capture the desperation of mankind. This film has so many creepy moments and all-out surprises and revelations that I feel this film really thought outside of the horror realm and wanted to create a multi-layered film that was just more than your simple cannibalism horror film.

Movie Review: Santa Claws (1996)

It’s Day 4 in the David Hayes 12 Days of Christmas Crap Review-a-Palooza and I think I’ve really hurt myself this time. Oh the humanity!

On the fourth day of Christmas, the Head Cheese gave to me… four migraine headaches (on top of one another).

What in the hell happened to John Russo? I mean, this guy was a legend. Screenwriter for Night of the Living Dead, novelist and screenwriter for Return of the Living Dead, The Booby Hatch… even shlock like The Majorettes is fun, but something happened. I think it was the 1990 remake of NOTLD (directed by Tom Savini). I think that broke John Russo like a twig. In all fairness, it broke most everyone that watched it like a twig.

It must get tough for John around the holidays, you know? People are happy and sharing good will. John tries to keep up, a smile plastered across his face, until he gets home. He probably sits in the dark, alone, trying not to think about the huge budgets and fanbase that George Romero has… for co-writing the same movie that launched an international, high-paying career as a director. John tries not to dwell on the holiday feast that George is sharing with the large and loving Romero family while he is bending back the top of a cat food can. But then inspiration can hit! After all, it’s 1996 and he knows someone with a video camera (that someone being long-time collaborator Bill Hinzman who most people know as the first zombie in NOTLD… from 1968). John knows the holidays are upon them and everyone loves a Christmas-themed horror movie. Turning to an ancient typewriter, John feels the burn of creation once more as he single-finger taps out the title of his newest epic, the one to launch him so far beyond George Romero that Georgie’s going to have to get double Coke-bottle lenses to see John now. Click, click, click and the world is changed forever. Well, at least my world.  John Russo just typed Santa Claws.

Movie Review: The Regenerated Man (1994)

Directed by Ted Bohus

Starring Pete DeLorenzo, James Benvenuto and John Bianco

In this take on the Dr. Jekyl & Mr. Hyde theme, Dr. Robert Clark and his research team are working on a new formula for the regeneration of human tissue. Dr. Clark grows impatient with the testing procedures and decides to try the formula on himself. Soon after, a couple of his missing toes grow back, causing great excitement for the research team. Unfortunately, later that evening the lab is broken into by thugs looking for gold (huh?), frustrated with not finding anything of value in the lab, the thugs decide to play rough and administer the Dr. their own little cocktail of random chemicals from the lab counter. Apparently this doesnt agree with the Dr.'s tummy and he soon transforms into a guy in a cheesy rubber mask......uh, I mean....a powerful mutation (complete with pulsating cranium), hungry for human flesh and capable of shooting little bone darts out of his finger tips. When the Dr. reverts back to human form, he has no recollection of his transformation.

Movie Review: Premutos (1999)

Directed by Olaf Ittenbach

Starring Fidelis Atuma, Heiko Bender and Anke Fabre

Watching Olaf Ittenbach's Premutos was like taking a trip back to my childhood in many ways. Aside from the retro look and feel of it, I would compare it to walking down the aisles of a Toys R Us store as a 7 year old kid and getting sensory-overload from the sheer awesomeness of what I was immersed in. Only instead of shiny toys I was completely bombarded by shocking visual images and blood-soaked old school special effects. Premutos is a movie that reminds me exactly why I've had a love affair with horror movies for most of my life.

Movie Review: Audition (1999)

Directed by Takashi Miike

Starring Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiini and Tetsu Sawaki

Audition starts off with the main character Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi) sitting with his wife while she lies on her deathbed. She passes away and he is left to raise his young son alone. Years pass, his son is nearly an adult and will soon be leaving home, and Aoyama seems to have gotten over the death of his wife. But he is lonely and with some coaxing from his son he comes to the realization that he might be happier if he took a wife. Not quite sure how to go about this, he consults with his movie producer friend and they come up with a pretty ingenious scheme for finding him a wife. A fake movie audition, where they line up 30 women to audition for a movie that will never be made, with Aoyama choosing the girl he feels is the right fit for him. He becomes entranced by one of the girls, Asami (Shiina) after reading an essay she writes for the audition. He immediately strikes up a relationship with her and soon discovers that his deceit is nothing compared to the skeletons Asami has in her closet. What plays out is a top notch thriller that slowly builds up to a fantastic horror show. The scene where Aoyama finally gets up the nerve to call Asami on the phone is just plain creepy, the phone is ringing, Asami is sitting quietly on the floor of a run down apartment and as the camera pans out we see a large canvas sack on the floor behind her, there is something inside it, and its moving. Asami smiles and picks the phone up.

Buy Audition on DVD or Watch It Instantly

Movie Review: Horror of the Hungry Humongous Hungan (1991)

Directed by Richard Gardner

 

Starring Joseph Miller, Brenda Moyer and David Yoakam

Every once in a while you just get lucky, and this weekend was one of those times for me. While scouring through boxes of other peoples cast-off crap at the local swap-meet I found this dvd, covered in dust and what I hoped was just coffee stains. On closer inspection I saw that it was a Troma film from way back in the day, the title was brilliant and I decided to roll the dice with my last 3 dollars. The girlfriend and I sat back a few evenings later without too many expectations and were rewarded with one of the most awesomely bad movies ever made. I know awesome when I smell it and this flick was as fragrant as a freshly picked rose that was just pissed on by a rat-terrier.

Movie Review: Richie Rich's Christmas Wish (1998)

Welcome to Day 5 in the David Hayes 12 Days of Christmas Crap Review-a-Palooza. My cup runneth over with turd-like movies and I feel the need, this holiday season to, share it with all of you. Suckers.

On the fifth day of Christmas, the Head Cheese gave to me… five go-o-olden showers (or at least that is what watching this movie felt like).

When I was growing up my family wasn’t wealthy (I could spout off and talk about how rich in love we were, but you cynics wouldn’t believe me anyway).  We had food and a house and clothes and Christmas presents and all that stuff, but we weren’t filthy stinking rich. We understood that Christmas was a time of caring and sharing and, when all is said and done, you should be able to look yourself in the mirror at the end of the year and know that you’ve been a good person. When you’re the richest little barf bag in the world, though, you don’t need that mirror. In fact, you don’t need any mirrors because there are endless lines of servants ready to tell you just how good you are so you can give them a 2% raise and they can finally fix the cracked toilet seat that’s been pinching the ass of their family the entire year… uuh, sorry. I’ve gotten a little worked up after watching Richie Rich’s Christmas Wish. Anyone would.

Steal Richie Rich's Christmas Wish on DVD!

Movie Review: Santa With Muscles (1996)

Welcome to the first annual, Cinema Head Cheese Presents: The David Hayes 12 Days of Christmas Crap Review-a-Palooza! All right, Cheesers, the plan is for me to write a hilarious review of a horrible holiday movie every day for the next 12 days. We’ll see how well this works, my eyes and ears may look like a bowl of figgy pudding by the end of this, but the plan is in motion and there is no better way to kick this off than with the 24 inch pythons, brother!

On the first day of Christmas, the Head Cheese gave to me… douchebaggery.

I still don’t know how someone thought this was a good idea. There had to have been an investor to put up the millions of dollars that it took to make this. There then had to be a writer to buy into the idea. A director would then sign on. Finally, this movie signed itself a star. A great big star. A star whose light burned so brightly that not even blind people are safe from this film. Of course, I’m speaking of the former WWF World Heavyweight Champion, slammer of giants, father of the incomparably untalented Brooke Hogan and facilitator of underage drunk driving accidents. That’s right, folks, the producers of Santa With Muscles got themselves a real live superstar. The orange golem himself, Hulk Hogan.

Buy Santa With Muscles on DVD!

Ed Wood: King of Smut?

by David Hayes



Edward D. Wood, Jr. has been called "The Worst Director of All  Time" and is a winner of the Golden Turkey Award. He has made some of the most laughable, and entertaining, films to ever come out of the independent Hollywood  scene. With classics like the hastily constructed Plan 9 From Outer Space (1958) and the  surrealistically autobiographical Glen or Glenda (1953) Wood has placed an indelible mark on the art of film production resulting in a big-budget life story by movie giant Tim  Burton, titled Ed Wood (1994). There is a lesser-known sidelight to Wood's career as a  producer-writerdirector-actor, almost another career entirely. Edward D. Wood, Jr. is one of  America's most prolific short story writers and novelists.

Beginning in 1963, just to make meager ends meet for his wife Kathy and himself (insert: "booze"), Wood began to write for some of the major California smut publishers (this does not include Wood’s unpublished, 1948 novel The Casual Company, a Marine comedy that led to his disastrous stageplay of the same name). He would continue to write novels, short stories and essays for the next fifteen years, until his death on December 10, 1978. In that time, Wood, under quite a large number of pseudonyms, is known to have penned at least 80 novels, hundreds of short stories and a slightly lesser amount of non-fiction. There are more Wood-writings discovered every year, usually under another of his many pseudonyms. Publishers like Gallery, Pendulum, Calga, Pad and others would publish sex, smut and sleaze novels at a breakneck pace through the sixties and seventies, and Wood, by all accounts, was the largest on staff "producer," meaning the volume of his work was a great deal more than his fellow writers. At the same time, Wood wrote many soft and hard core porn screenplays for A. C. Stephen, Jacques Descent and Joe Robertson.

Movie Review: Apt Pupil (1998, Blu-ray, Image)

Long before Ian McKellan was playing Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings series he was marching to Adolf in Brian Singer's thriller, Apt Pupil. Image Entertainment has just recently released the film on the Blu-ray format in lovely High-Definition with a few extras to boot.

Buy Apt Pupil [Blu-ray] or DVD

The late Brad Renfro (Larry Clarks, Bully) plays Todd Bowden, a teenager with a disturbing fixation on the history of the S.S. Particularly the men behind Adolf Hitler running the concentration camps. Kurt Dussander (Ian McKellan) was employed to murder for the S.S; for decades since he has gone on with his life and just become that older quiet neighbor. Bowden wants to take his knowledge to a new level and learn more about the camps and other intricacies of this horrible time in world history. He soon tracks down Dussander, forcing him to talk. Dussander's feels cornered by Bowden with threats of him being exposed but it doesn't take him long to take the upper hand on this naive high school kid.

Movie Review: From Dusk Till Dawn / From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money (1996/1999, Blu-ray)

Quentin Tarantino's love for genre is pretty obvious in his screenplay for Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn. It seemed like a perfect match, teaming up with - at the time - upcoming filmmaker, Robert Rodriguez (Sin City, Planet Terror, El Mariachi). Together they got to create their homage to George Romero's Night of the Living Dead. This time around with vampires. Echo Bridge has just recently released the first two films in the From Dusk Till Dawn Series, From Dusk Till Dawn (of course) and From Dusk Till Dawn II: Texas Blood Money on to Blu-ray.

Buy From Dusk till Dawn / From Dusk till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money (Miramax Double Feature) [Blu-ray]

Movie Review: Hellraiser: Bloodline and Hellraiser: Inferno (1996, 2000 Blu-ray)

The Echo Bridge Blu-ray train continues to roll here at the Cheese. Today, we take a look at another double-feature pack from the Miramax/Dimension film catalog, Hellraiser: Bloodline and Hellraiser: Inferno. One of my absolute favorite directors, Alan Smithee, made what I think is the second best sequel in the Hellraiser franchise, Hellraiser:Bloodline. I've always dug Smithee's work. Hellraiser: Bloodline is high on the list though, right up there with his film adaption to Frank Herbert's, Dune. All kidding aside, if you watch and study film a little bit you probably already know when a filmmaker thinks their movie is ass they'll use the name Alan Smithee or Uwe Boll.

Buy Hellraiser: Bloodline / Hellraiser: Inferno (Miramax Double Feature) [Blu-ray]

Movie Review: Sexy Pirates (1998)

Joe D'Amato rarely loses with this viewer. Even with some of the more paltry offerings from the Italian genre hopper, I can find some silver lining. It could be a nice pair of boobs, Laura Gemser, the antics of Pedro The Horse, a gnarly cannibal eating a fetus - and depending on your taste, Mark Shannon's scrotum. Several years ago I discovered Joe thanks to the late-great writer, Chas. Balun. Balun wrote an excellent article in one of the earlier editions of Gorezone magazine that made me want to seek this director's films. First it was Anthropophagous, then Buio Omega (Buried Alive) and after that, I was in love. That brings me to Sexy Pirates (aka I Predatori delle Antille), directed under one of his several pseudonyms, David Hills. The title sounds perfect and the cover One 7 Movies uses is even more inviting. Could this be a lost D’ Amato classic or will it break this swashbuckling reviewer?

Movie Review: Ernest Goes to Camp/ Ernest Goes to Jail (1987/1990, Blu-ray, Mill Creek)

Mill Creek Entertainment brings us a double dose of Ernest in HD!

Buy Ernest Double Feature on Blu-ray or DVD

Films: 3.5/5

The Ernest films are guilty pleasures for me. I wore out my VHS of Ernest Goes to Camp due to watching it over and over again as a kid. It's always fun to re-watch flicks you loved so much all those years ago. Nostalgia plays a big part, for better or worse. In this case for better. I remembered why I kept rewinding the tape and hitting play repeatedly. Ernest flicks work so well because of the late great Jim Varney. The titular character actor made me laugh then and surprisingly still now. So sit back and dig in on my review, "Know what I mean?"

Movie Review: Uncle Sam (1997, Blu-ray, Blue Underground)

Blue Underground brings head honcho's Bill Lustig patriotic horror flick to Blu-ray. IT WANTS YOU...TO WATCH!

Buy Uncle Sam on Blu-ray or DVD

Film: 1.5/5

I love Bill Lustig flicks. The New York born director has made some highly entertaining and memorable films. Maniac Cop and it's sequels are a blast. Vigilante is a straight up badass revenge outing. And lastly Maniac is a without a doubt his crowning achievement, a film that truly makes me feel grimy . However I can't say the same for Uncle Sam.

Movie Review: The Rise and Fall of WCW (2009)

When I was a kid, my little brother and I were glued to the television every Sunday morning. No, we weren't watching the ramblings of Oral Roberts. We were watching another mouth from the South, Jimmy Hart. The likes of Hulk Hogan, "Macho Man" Savage and the Iron Sheik graced our television screen. We loved every second of the WWF back in the 80s, but there was something else going on that we didn't really follow. We really didn't have cable, so the WCW went under our radar. Years after we stopped watching, Hulk Hogan signed with the WCW and eventually joined the infamous NWO. That's when I started watching.

Buy The Rise And Fall of WCW on DVD

World Championship Wrestling was much more than just a secondary league. It was a pioneering league that was first to hit the national stage. In the early days of professional wrestling, leagues were regional. Occasionally, a star would travel between leagues. It was unheard of for an entire league to travel, but that's what the NWA did. The owners made another smart move. They partnered with superstation TBS, which was owned by Ted Turner. Turner liked wrestling's popularity and gave them a slot on his national channel.

Movie Review: The Bloody Ape (1997, Wild Eye Releasing)

Wild Eye Releasing has put out some interesting releases over the past couple years. Of course you have the outrageously sleazy doll epic Dolla Morte, Del Close's lost hippie flick Gold and one of my picks for "Best of 2010", The Electric Chair, all being released last year. One thing that may surprise some of you reading is - these guys are actually filmmakers themselves. Wild Eye owner Keith Crocker has directed a few films, one of which I've had the pleasure of reviewing today called The Bloody Ape. Crocker and friend George Reis (creator of the popular genre review site DVD Drive-in) take a stab at recreating an homage to the great schlock films of yesteryear . As a longtime fan of exploitation, this DVD got me all sorts of excited.

Buy The Bloody Ape on DVD

TV on DVD Review: 30 for 30: Jordan Rides the Bus (2010)

In mid-August 1993, the city of Chicago fell into sadness. It was an empathetic sadness. I remember it very well. I was just about to enter my senior year at Lane Tech High School. The news that Michael Jordan's father had been murdered struck like a bolt of lightning. Here was an untouchable hero, a god in the sports world, shaken to the core. His world was destroyed, and the entire city just wanted to hug him and tell him that it would all be okay. Less than two months later, the greatest player that ever graced a basketball court announced that he would retire immediately.

Buy 30 for 30: Jordan Rides the Bus on DVD

Movie Review: Singapore Sling (1990, Synapse Films)

By James DePaolo

This is the one review almost everyone who knows me knew was coming, when news broke of this finally coming out on DVD in America. First off, thank you Synapse Films for finally doing it justice and releasing it on DVD. Released in 1990, this is the film about a private detective, that is called ” Singapore Sling”. He is on the trail of the love that left his life, her name is Laura. The story is she was a suspect in a murder and he was put on her case and became so obsessed with her, and fell in love with her. That's when he found out she had a lover, he became a drunk and lost his job. Well, the film opens with Sling in a car, his story is told with subtitles and he is drunk it is a bad rainy night and he is bleeding. He is watching two women in a garden, digging a hole and burying something he believes to be Laura. This film is black and white, told to the audience at times with different characters becoming the narrator. The two women in the garden are a mother and daughter. The daughter has some issues, ranging from her sexual appetite to her mental state. The mother is not that much different. Well, as fate would have it, Sling makes it to the front door and falls down on his face passed out. The girls bring him in the house and tie him up. The things these women do not only to him, but to themselves and each other really goes from the totally off the wall to the fucking sick and bizarre.

Buy Singapore Sling on DVD

Movie Review: Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (2004)

I grew up in the 1990s, when thrash metal was really growing. There were four bands that really set the core of that genre. Those were Slayer, Anthrax, Megadeth and Metallica. Though they're my least favorite of the four, there's no doubt that Metallica is the biggest. Don't get me wrong here, I enjoyed everything up to the black album, but Metallica never seemed to feel as free or open as the other three bands. It seemed like they created more marketable stuff, especially from the black album forward. Load was terrible, and Re-Load was worse. What I heard from St. Anger seemed very effected by modern boring metal. To be honest, I would rather watch a doc on any of the other bands, but the idea of watching such a legendary band from my youth go through counseling and the loss of Jason Newsted was very intriguing to me.

Buy Metallica: Some Kind of Monster on DVD