Movie Review: The Bone Snatcher (2003)

by David Hayes

Set in South Africa, this independent chiller is a little more than you would expect. Ambitious story tells the tale of a Canadian researcher called into the Diamond Mines of South Africa when a team of miners disappears. The Researcher and his team of Mine Security run into trouble when they discover that the recent disappearances are the result of an ages old African legend that, in order to physical humanoid form, needs the skeletons of the people he kills. Of course, skin, muscle, fat, etc. is of little use to the creature and is summarily devoured. Bone Snatcher benefits from a location seldom seen in horror today, the deserts of Africa, great to excellent acting, nice direction, well-written story and production. The flesh eating is well done, and the title monster is more than adequate (and more than most big budget fiascos). Sadly, the only way a wide North American audience would ever see this would be to put a major star in the cast and shoot it in Los Angeles.

Buy The Bone Snatcher on DVD

Movie Review: The Christmas Season Massacre (2001)

It's Day 11 in the David Hayes 12 Days of Christmas Crap Review-a-Palooza and, thankfully, it is almost over. Almost like a Christmas miracle. Most definitely un-miraculous, though, is our entry for this Christmas Eve. Watching this film would turn Scrooge back into the awful miser he was before the ghostly visits. Watching this film would make George Bailey want to stay dead. Watching this film just sucks.

On the eleventh day of Christmas, the Head Cheese gave to me... hope, because there is only one day left.

Peer with me, folks, a scant ten years ago. Eric Stanze, he of the cutting edge independent horror (like Ice from the Sun and Scrapbook) decides to write and appear in a comedy. Right off the bat we know that this comedy will be irreverent, gory and, probably, a lot of fun. Two out of three is definitely bad. I nearly bought a bag of chestnuts to shove into my mouth and attempt suicide halfway through this film. Bear with me, true believers, as we delve into The Christmas Season Massacre.

Buy Christmas Season Massacre on DVD!

Movie Review: Cleavagefield (2009)

I knew better. I knew better. I knew better. I knew that watching a movie called Cleavagefield would be a bad idea. I knew it would suck. I knew that there would be a lot of nudity and that, my dear friends, was the only reason I stuck around. Earlier in my film career I was dealt a horrific blow. Being young, broke and semi-retarded, I flew to the beautiful shores of California to be in a good friend of mine’s feature film. We were shooting a monster movie and, in my naivety, I thought this would be the greatest film ever made. It was not, in retrospect, but we did have fun and I made friends that have lasted in upwards of a decade. Nevertheless, during the production of this epic I learned a hard lesson. I had thought, due to my participation in boobie-filled masterpieces like Shower of Blood, that nudity of any kind was not only good, but necessary. I discovered, much to my own chagrin and completely by surprise, that there is such a thing as bad nudity. I know the twenty-somethings out there just sucked in a shocked breath and the sixty-somethings, bereft of mammaries of any kind for a long time, just shook their heads in shame. You thirties through the fifties, though, you know. The pair of ‘breasts’ that graced that film were not only horrible, but resembled two fly strips stapled to Alice Cooper’s chest. The title of the film will, of course, remain nameless, but the mental scars remain. These scars were re-opened by Cleavagefield and, not content to make me go fetal and sob like Jeff at a Chinese buffet, the bastards shot salty fluids into the wounds. Aargh.

Movie Review: The Horde (2009)

There have been many zombie movies in the last decade, and now there is even been a television show that features our brain eating friends. I've seen some of them, and they all start to have a similar tone. A virus is spread, and we slowly see the takeover happen as a few ragtag survivors fight to stay alive. This theme really goes back to the original Night of the Living Dead. This is where The Horde takes a different angle.

Buy The Horde [Blu-ray] or DVD

At an officer's funeral, a woman begs a mourner not to do what she knows he's going to do. He's a fellow cop, and he wants revenge. The same goes for a few others. She makes him promise that he'll bring them all back safe, which is just about the time you know that most of them won't.

Movie Review: Triad Wars (2008)

Directed by Dennis Law
Starring Sammo Hung Kam-Bo, Simon Yam and Niu Tien
Run Time: 117 minutes
Rated: R

In the midst of a violent gang war, a powerful Triad leader is faced with losing a grip on his power. As his empire slowly crumbles from within and his trust in those closest to him dwindles, violence escalates as the Triad starts clashing with other Triads among the Hong Kong community. Faced with his only option, he’ll resort to violent ways to regain his status and reclaim the respect of his Triad.

This was a movie that for me just seemed to bite off way more then it could chew. There was nothing about the story-line itself that was disagreeable, and in fact I have a hard time disliking any type of Asian gang-war movies. I mean, who doesn't like well choreographed blood soaked sword-fights? And all those hot Asian cuties who make their way into these kinds of films? And indeed, Triad Wars offers fairly decent doses of both of those things. So what's not to like?

Movie Review: Deck the Halls (2006)

Day 8 of the David Hayes 12 Days of Christmas Crap Review-a-Palooza is here! Betcha thought I would quit before now, didn’t you? You don’t know me! Nobody knows me!

Oh, sorry. I think this project is getting under my skin. Not as much as that damn Little Drummer Boy song, but close.

On the eighth day of Christmas, the Head Cheese gave to me… four more days of crap, uugh.

I love ridiculous, slapstick comedy. Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Fatty Arbuckle are silent film geniuses. The best part of Mad Magazine was always Spy vs. Spy and Tom & Jerry holds a special place in my heart. Slapstick can be done well, it really can. Just not by Matthew Broderick and Danny DeVito. Although I can still feel the intense pain of watching the Americanized version of Godzilla starring Broderick, his turn as Ferris Bueller always had me, no matter what piece of crap I had just watched, feeling as though I liked the guy. Not anymore. Prior to this holiday travesty I felt that Danny DeVito could, quite possibly, do no wrong. He made the best choices as an actor and any project would benefit from his performance. Again, not anymore. There is only one film that could cause me to turn my back on two iconic American actors. One film that rips off, quite possibly, every other holiday film ever made in one fell swoop. Come with me, then, into the cozy little cabin. We’ll sit by the fire and I’ll tell you all about Deck the Halls… before we burn the DVD.

Buy Deck the Halls on DVD!

Movie Review: Sugar Boxx (2009)

I had really high hopes for Sugar Boxx, which after all is a brand new women in prison movie, one that doesn't just have plenty of naked female breasts but also cameos from genre names as prominent as Kitten Natividad, Tura Satana and Jack Hill. Those hopes were met, though Tura and Jack only have the briefest of speaking roles, but what I found is that it has something even stronger going for it: it's an entirely independent movie made by a fan of the genre who made what he wanted to see, not what he felt some perceived audience might want. I think these critters are my favourite films nowadays because they ring utterly true, something that becomes even more obvious when compared directly to Hollywood product which gets faker with every year that passes. The best big budget films are made by fans too and while some of them are prominent (think Peter Jackson or Guillermo del Toro), there are far too few of them working within the mainstream industry.

Movie Review: Bonnie and Clyde vs. Dracula (2008)

Silly title? Maybe, but this little gem balances camp and serious intentions fairly deftly, and mixes it all up with some visual style, effective period detail and a jaunty pace. Oh, and the acting is pretty good, too. It's the kind of thing you used to see all the time, often produced by Roger Corman, in the 60s and 70s: minor but engrossing genre films made by talented young directors eager to make their mark. The kind of thing you don't see too often anymore.

Buy Bonnie and Clyde vs. Dracula on DVD

The story doesn't waste much time with explanations and elaborate set ups. It simply follows two parallel plots which come together in the third act. Both story lines revel in genre cliches, and yet are full of surprises and are never boring.

Movie Review: Blood Creek (2009)

Directed by Joel Schumacher

Starring Henry Cavill, Dominic Purcell and Emma Booth I was actually pretty excited reading the trailer for this, Nazi's, zombies, and occult hi-jinx are all some of my favorite ice cream flavors. And when I saw that Dominic Purcell (Prison Break) was in it, I knew at least one bad guy would be getting punched in the face so I decided to give it a shot.

Buy Blood Creek on DVD

Movie Review: Sasquatch - The Untold (2002)

Based on a true story. Based on a true story. Sorry, I thought if I repeated it the sentence would make sense. You see, I just sat through Sasquatch: The Untold and, if I had my way, the entire story would have remained just that. Based on a true story my fat, hairy rear end. The only true story this was based off of would have to be the terrible, desperate tale of a man that has way too much money and needs a tax shelter. This man hires Jonas Quastel to write and direct a movie that has no chance to succeed so he can at least have the write off. That man is the executive producer of Sasquatch: The Untold and he has absolutely no idea what kind of hell he has unleashed on us all.

Buy Sasquatch on DVD!

Movie Review: Monsters, Marriage and Murder in Manchvegas (2009)

Yep, that's what it's called. Monsters, Marriage and Murder in Manchvegas. This is what Jeff and his pals sent me to review this week. MMMM for short. Worth watching? Mmmm, not so much.

Buy Monsters, Marriage, and Murder in Manchvegas on DVD

I looked up the town of Machvegas on the urban dictionary: Alternative name for the city of Manchester, New Hampshire, USA. The word was coined by combining the first part of "Manchester" with the second word in "Las Vegas," juxtaposing Las Vegas's glitz and glamor with Manchester's lack of either. Used derisively. "So are we going out tonight?" "We live in Manch-Vegas. The hottest spot open this late is Wal-Mart."

So that answers that question. And like the town itself, nothing too exciting happens here. Oh, there are monsters, lots of talk of marriage, and even a few murders. But trust me. You won't really give a damn about any of them.

Movie Review: The Scar Crow (2009)

Directed by Pete Benson, Andy Thompson
Starring Kevyn Connet, Tim Major and Michael Walker
Run Time: 87 minutes

For 300 years, European communities panic with the fear of witches living among them. The witch-hunts seek out, torture and murder tens of thousands of women. The three Tanner sisters live in fear after their mother is hanged for witchcraft. In her absence, their incestuous father is making their lives miserable and eventually takes a kitchen knife to the face as the three witches in training exact revenge for his naughty behavior. They tie him to the scare crow pole in their field but before he dies he places a curse on them all, trapping them for eternity on the farm.

Movie Review: Martyrs (2008)

Directed by Pascal Laugier
Starring Morjana Alaoui, Mylene Jampanoi and Catherine Begin

Martyrs begins with a young girl, Lucie, as she is escaping from unknown assailants who have imprisoned and physically abused her for quite some time. For some unknown reason the perpetrators are never found. Lucie is placed in an orphanage where she befriends another girl named Anna. Anna soon discovers Lucie is terrorized by visions of a horribly disfigured woman covered in scars.

Buy Martyrs on DVD

Movie Review: Headspace (Director's Cut, 2005)

Directed by Andrew van den Houten

Starring Olivia Husey, William Atherton and Sean Young

The film starts out with young Alex, his brother and parents enjoying his tenth birthday party. Soon after blowing out his candles, Alex’s mother suffers a nosebleed and shortly thereafter she begins acting very strangely. After she butchers the family dog, dad decides it might be best to pack up the boys and get out of the house. Unfortunately they don't make it out before mother comes chasing after them with a chef’s knife and dad is forced to put her down via a 12 gauge slug to the face, (great head-shot FX in this scene). On top of witnessing all this, the boys are then abandoned by their father and split up into foster care.

Movie Review: Tokyo Gore Police (2008)

Directed by Yoshihiro Nishimura

Starring Eihi Shiina, Itsuji Itao and Yukihide Benny

The sad reality of most movie-going experiences is the fact that you usually get a catchy title followed by an underachieving film. And then there is Tokyo Gore Police. A movie so gory, violent and outrageous that it completely defies description, (but I will do my best to convey the experience). Picture a film soaked in blood and covered in a thick coating of fleshy pieces and bone fragments. There are just not enough words in a thesaurus to describe what happens in this film. Think RoboCop meets Evil Dead meets Pans Labyrinth meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre meets Enter The Dragon x 100 after 10 hits of really good acid and then your starting to get an idea of what this is about.

Buy Tokyo Gore Police on Blu-ray or DVD

Movie Review: Kids Go to the Woods... Kids Get Dead (2009)

Directed by Michael Hall

Starring Leah Rudick, Andrew Waffenschmidt and Joseph Campellone

Woohoo! Now here's a movie that actually pays homage to the classic slasher’s of the 80‘s without coming off as cliche and routine. Sure, its got all the basic elements one would expect- horny teenagers(with bonus points for the lesbian couple), worthless cops, a crazed war vet and a gas-mask wearing killer, but this one is put together in the style of an old home-recorded VHS tape- complete with VHS static, fake commercials and even a horror-hostess, Miss. Candy Adams, (who's dressed like a 20 dollar hooker and spends a lot of time sucking on a Blow-pop). And what Kids go in the Woods has that most of its contemporaries don't is one simple thing....its got the “fun-factor”.

Movie Review: Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown (2008, Blu-ray, Cinevolve)

Howard Philips Lovecraft was quite a complex individual. Most brilliant people are. What H.P Lovecraft has provided in his writings for readers, current genre authors and filmmakers has been a journey into world like no other..his world. Cinevolve, the studio behind Cinema Head Cheese favorite, The Jesus Guy, have given the “Father of Cthulhu” a very welcome expose on the man called Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown.

Buy Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown on DVD

One of the first things that struck me in viewing Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown was the assemblage of talent brought on hand to give their thoughts on Lovecraft. John Carpenter (The Thing, In The Mouth of Madness), Guillermo Del Toro (Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth), Neil Gaiman (Coraline), Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator, Dagon) and others give scholarly insight on Lovecraft's work. I was most impressed with Neil Gaiman, this guy seemed to bleed Lovecraft with the way he quotes passages from his stories. As someone whose dabbled sparingly in the written work of Lovecraft, seeing this enthusiasm gives me the sudden urge read all his stories.

Movie Review: Anatomy Of Hell (2004)

There are few filmmakers that I respect as much as John Waters. Waters has made a career of shocking people and when he refers to another movie as being "shocking", you have to take it seriously. The Pope of Trash is quoted on the back of the DVD for Catherine Breillat's, Anatomy Of Hell as saying " That's one effed-up film". Sold!! Breillat is no stranger to the tactic of evoking a response out of the audiences for her films. The director's films, Romance and Fat Girl pull no punches - so what does that leave in store for Anatomy of Hell, starring porn-king Rocco Sifferedi and Amira Casar? Can she possibly top either of those films?

Buy Anatomy Of Hell on DVD!

Based on the novel Pornocratie, Anatomy of Hell follows the relationship between a curious young woman (Amira Casar) who meets up with a stranger (Rocco Siffredi) at a nightclub. After fellating Rocco's massive junk in the parking lot of a club, she gives this mystery man an offer to come back to her house by the sea for four nights. What’s this lady thinking? Rocco’s destroyed more ass than Wal-Mart generic brand toilet paper. She’s definitely daring, if not out of her mind.

Movie Review: House of Flesh Mannequins (2009)

Directed by Domiziano Cristopharo

Starring Domiziano Cristopharo, Irena Hoffman and Giovanni Lombardo Radice

It really is hard for me to sum up a movie that tries to be 5 different styles of film at the same time. It wants desperately to be an art-house movie, filled with bizarre images and undecipherable symbolism. It all too often wants to be a porn movie, indulging in acts of masturbation, penetration, oral sex and tons of nudity, (think naked masturbating clowns ejaculating on themselves and sex scenes involving blow-up dolls). There are times it wants to be a love story, a horror movie and ultimately a snuff film.

Buy House of Flesh Mannequins at Amazon.com

Now, you would think with all that juicy subject matter this flick would be over-the-top awesome, right? Well, the answer is yes(at times).....and no (most of the time). I walked away with a feeling that the makers of this film probably started out with a list of shocking images they wanted to convey and then as an afterthought tried to create some sort of story-line in an attempt to tie it all together.

Interview: Director Sid Pink

by David Hayes

David Hayes interviewed the late great Sid Pink over a decade ago. Sit back and enjoy his discussion with the cult legend.

“Might as well do this now, I don’t know how much longer I’ve got left,” jokes Sid Pink. Heralded as one of the industry’s most daring, innovative and overlooked writer/director/producers, Sidney Pink sits back in his Florida home not even hinting that the man behind Angry Red Planet (1959), Journey to the Seventh Planet (1962), Bwana Devil (1950) and Reptilicus (1961) is anything but your average retiree. As one of the first truly successful independent film producers in the United States and abroad, Sid Pink is in a league all his own.

After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh in 1936 with a degree in business administration, Pink traveled to the starry-eyed land of Hollywood. He eventually landed a job as Production Budget Manager with Phil Krasne’s Grand National Pictures. While there, Pink worked with the great James Cagney and Tex Ritter. His first production for Grand National, and with James Cagney, was Something to Sing About (1937). “I learned a great deal from Jimmy Cagney. He was an “Old Show Business” kind of guy… undefeatable. He taught me things at Grand National that I used up until my last few pictures.” When Cagney resigned from Grand National, the ship was quickly sinking and Pink found work as a Production Manager with Harry Cohn’s Columbia Pictures. Pink created the Production Budget Department at Columbia that would keep track of the production budget on every picture, with a detailed report delivered to Cohn everyday. Cohn, a notorious blow-hard that treated people like dirt, called Pink into his office one day and threw a tantrum concerning the latest budget report (that Pink had not gotten to review yet). “In my own colorful language, I proceeded to tell Cohn off. He shut his mouth and stared at me while I outyelled him. By the time I got to the second floor I was met at my office with my paycheck and my employee pass was pulled.” Pink said goodbye to Columbia Pictures and Harry Cohn over a misplaced decimal point. Pink stayed out of filmmaking until 1950, and then came back with a vengeance. He made Bwana Devil, with Robert Stack, the world’s first 3-D color movie. This would be just the tip of the iceberg for Sid Pink’s role as a “film innovator.”