Splatter: Naked Blood and Botched

Splatter: Naked Blood (1996) is about a young scientist who invents a new kind of painkiller. The first problem with it is that it works by turning pain into pleasure. The second problem is that he tests it on unsuspecting women undergoing a clinical trial on an experimental birth control. Things go horribly awry, and the women begin systematically mutilating themselves. One of the women enjoys food, so she deep fries her own hand and eats it. Another woman enjoys jewelry, so she adorns herself with homemade piercings made out of knives, crotchet needles, and forks. But things really take a turn for the worse when director Hisayasu Sato sabotages his own film by trying to make it an artsy David Cronenberg-style meditation on the hybrid nature of eroticism and human flesh. Or something like that. Unfortunately, in Splatter: Naked Blood, this involves one of the women having what looks like virtual reality sex with a VR goggle-wearing cactus. Words alone cannot describe the freaky strangeness of this scene. Sadly, I sent my copy of the DVD back to Netflix, so I was unable to provide a screenshot of said cactus. However, after spending literally hours sorting through images on google, I finally found a rough approximation. Another problem with the film is its long and tedious setup. We learn that the young scientist has abandonment issues, and his father committed suicide by drowning himself in the ocean, and that he’s living in his father’s shadow, and he feels alone in the world, and none of this really matters. I could always rent Bergman’s Persona if I want a film that explores the emotional wreckage of our inevitable human disconnect. What I wanted from Splatter was more splatter and less chatter. And no cacti.



Splatter doesn’t work because all of its terrific special effects and old-fashioned, stomach-churning fun is ruined when Sato tries to employ a highbrow auteur theory of film making to a genre of film that really can’t accommodate it. And this is why I highly recommend Botched (2007). Unlike Splatter, it has no pretenses of exploring the complexities or exotic corners of the human condition, but instead knows its own limitations and opts for the simple ambition of having fun. A professional thief (played by Stephen Dorff, who’s terrific in this role) is forced by a powerful crime boss to steal a religious artifact from the penthouse of a Moscow skyscraper. He’s accompanied by sidekicks who are equal parts bloodthirsty thugs and clumsy Marx brothers stooges. They manage to steal the artifact, but things go badly when the elevator gets stuck on the building’s 13th floor. They’re forced to take hostages, including an alpha-male security guard who has learned all he knows from soldier of fortune magazines, and an icy corporate vamp. Then things go from bad to bizarre when it turns out that they’ve stumbled into the lair of a pair of murderous twins, one who fashions himself after Ivan the Terrible and claims to be his descendent, and the other a crazed prioress complete with a posse of evil nuns. Ivan dispatches the unlucky hostages with deadly, blood splattering booby traps and by decapitating them with his sword in a spinning, spiraling move that looks like a combination of ballet and disco-dancing. Other scenes involve Ivan chasing his victims through the maze of corridors on the 14th floor in a mockup of a Benny Hill sketch. Reviews of the film have tended to describe it as 1/2 comedy, and 1/2 Hostel, but I don’t see the comparison to the latter. It’s a squishy, gloppy, bloody, fun mess of a film, more along the lines of From Dusk ‘Til Dawn, with absurd combinations of the horror and heist genres, and with a little history, and even a love story thrown into the mix.

Horror DVD Releases – Week of March 17th, 2009

what an absolutely crappy week for horror dvds. last week’s pick of the week was let the right one in — and now i’m reduced to having to pick twilight? really? if the other two didn’t look so unpromising, i certainly wouldn’t have chosen it… but honestly, it looks like it’s the only thing remotely worth giving a look this week. of course, i’m a cinematic masochist, so i’ll watch all three. but my recommendation would be to give dvds a pass this week and just play resident evil 5 or house of the dead: overkill until this all blows over.



(descriptions from netflix)

Dark Reprieve (2008)
With no idea how they got there, Kate (Janelle Bartosek) and Matt (Shawn Storer) awaken in an abandoned jail where they’re pursued by hideous creatures. Meanwhile, on the outside, police question a model (Sarah Jackson) about five brutal killings that may be connected to Kate and Matt’s ordeal. As the duo endures an endless nightmare, the interrogation follows an eerie parallel to the terror raging inside the prison walls.

Walled In (2008)
Young engineer Sam (Mischa Barton) is hired to oversee the demolition of a remote building. However, she learns that the architect, in a perversion of Egyptian mythology, buried people alive in the walls. As Sam works to unravel the mystery behind this awful place, she is haunted by the spirits of the victims — and the discovery that she may be next to die. Cameron Bright and Deborah Kara Unger co-star in this eerie thriller.

Pick of the Week

Twilight (2008)
Based on Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling novel, Twilight follows the saga of Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), who moves to a small town to live with her father. At school, she meets Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), a mysterious classmate who reveals himself to be a 108-year-old vampire. Despite his cautions, Bella falls in love with Edward, which endangers her life when a coven of bloodsuckers arrives to challenge Edward and his family.

James & Nathan Make a Porno plus Zombie Product Placement

james gunn (slither director and dawn of the dead (2004) scribe) has taken to creating porn films – minus the porn. pg porn is a film series of pornos that is heavy on the bad acting and light on the s-e-x. the first episode features buffy and firefly alum, nathan fillion — see it above (i love the point he does towards the construction site). check the pg porn site for more episodes.



who has the umbrella corporation teamed up with now to bring the zombie apocalypse upon us all? avon, apparently. avon’s new creepily named ANEW Clinical Derma-Full X3 Facial Filling Serum bears a striking resemblance to the t-virus from the resident evil films. throw in the fact that the original t-virus was being engineered as a rejuvenating skin cream to prolong life, and this is too big of a similarity to be mere coincidence. personally, i welcome our new undead overlords and their surprisingly soft, supple skin.



in other zombie-related liquids news, a new red wine is being released – return of the living red. no exact details on pricing are available, but something in the $70 range seems likely, so this may be a bit pricey. it may be worth it, however, as i saw it received a 4.5 out of 5 in a wine tasting journal and, even if it tasted like dish water, the packaging is quite extraordinary. each bottle comes with an aged police folder with hints and supposed suppressed information on an apparent zombie infestation at a local vineyard. how frickin’ cool is this? pretty damn frickin’ cool, i say.

His Name Was Jason Contest Winner

a few weeks ago i promised to give a free copy of the friday the 13th documentary his name was jason to the person who sent me the best friday the 13th related… anything. well, all the ‘anythings’ have been read, viewed, puzzled over, eaten and/or poked at — so it’s time to announce the winner. and the winner is…

a guy named patrick!

to secure his win, patrick sent in the following story which had me giggling for days and wishing my father had owned more power tools.

When I was about 12, I started getting into horror movies. After catching several Fridays during a late night showing hosted by Joe Bob Briggs, I had some new favorite films to rave about. After continually telling all of my friends about them, my parents were kind enough to let me have a bunch of buddies over for an all night Friday the 13th movie marathon. I distinctly remember my dad asking me in the truck on the way over to the video store if there was much nudity or violence in these films. “Nah, I don’t think so.” I sure pulled one over on him!

So we came back with 2, 4, 5 and 6. As we were all young guys, we huddled up in the basement living room with a lot of popcorn and soda to take in all of the blood soaked tits that we could. We made it through just about all of the movies but we started fading about half way through 6. Just as we had all fallen asleep, I hear a loud cranking noise and an engine roar. We all bolt up to see a fucking chainsaw cutting through the wooden door. Wood chips are going everywhere. After slicing the door in two, it’s kicked in and Jason comes walking in with the chainsaw blaring and smoke shooting everywhere.

He turns off the chainsaw and takes off the mask to reveal my dad. We’re all screaming uncontrollably and he’s cracking up. As we start calming down I look over at my buddy Jason. There’s no nice way to put it, but he pissed and shit all over himself and was crying. What none of us knew was that Jason wasn’t allowed to watch TV at his house growing up, so not only had he never seen a horror movie before but he had never seen anything like this. Looking back on it now, it was safer than it seemed at the time (my dad had moved the TV to the opposite side of the room that evening for reasons I hadn’t understood, there was a bunch of furniture between us and him, my mom had scoped us out beforehand through a little window in the room, etc) but it sure seemed crazy at the time. They had wanted to remodel the room anyway so tearing it up a bit didn’t matter when it came to scaring the crap out of us. My folks had told most of my friend’s parents they were going to scare us, and all were fine with it. Jason just told his parent’s that he was coming over to hang out and strangely enough he never came back.

As my dad used to build giant mechanical monsters for haunted houses at the time, I should have expected something like that. So, while standing in line for the midnight showing of the new Friday the 13th last night, I was reminded of Jason the pansy and how crazy awesome my dad was.

congrats, patrick! your 2 disk set of his name was jason will be mailed out shortly. even nph and elmo are excited for you…


i want to give a shout out to two other notable entrants…

  • bloody mary outlined her earliest experience with the franchise, which she also posted at her blog, bloody mary’s movie revue.
  • emily sent in a very detailed argument for why jason takes manhattan is the best film in the franchise. she is, of course, wrong — but made a valiant attempt to persuade fans never-the-less, and i applaud her for it. her blog, the deadly doll’s house of horror nonsense, was just launched this year, so please stop by and give her some horror-blogging community love.

Zombie Girl: The Movie

just heard about this documentary today — cannot wait to see it. trailer below and more info at zombiegirlthemovie.com.

while the documentary is not currently on dvd, the film that it chronicles (pathogen) is. you can order it for the bargain price of $8 at cheesynuggets.com. how many zombie movies currently on your shelf can you claim were directed by a twelve year old girl? five, maybe ten at most?

Horror DVD Releases – Week of March 10th, 2009

Prometheus Triumphant: A Fugue in the Key of Flesh (2009)
Banished from his plague-ridden village for his controversial experiments in reanimating dead tissue, iconoclastic Dr. Janick retreats to the woods, where he tries to resurrect his beloved Esmeralda, who has succumbed to the disease. Shot in aging industrial locations in Western Pennsylvania, the moody, Gothic silent film features a rich symphonic score.

Stash (2007)
In the backwoods of Kentucky, Bud (Kevin Taylor) operates a marijuana-growing operation from his house. When he catches a pair of crooks trying to make off with his valuable stash, Bud forces them into a dangerous game they may not survive. Debbie Rochon, Billy W. Blackwell and Chris Begley co-star in this highly disturbing horror movie about drugs, kidnapping and brutal torture. Jacob Ennis directs.

Crowley (2008)
A botched experiment in virtual reality transmits the soul of infamous British occultist Aleister Crowley into the body of shy professor Haddo (Simon Callow), whose life quickly descends into a maelstrom of sex, violence and depraved behavior. Eager to foil Haddo’s satanic efforts is handsome physicist Dr. Joshua Mathers (Kal Weber). Iron Maiden vocalist Bruce Dickinson co-wrote the screenplay for this supernatural thriller.

Dark Reel (2007)
When B-movie fan Adam Waltz (Edward Furlong) wins a walk-on role in a low-budget thriller starring scream queen Cassie Blue (Tiffany Shepis), his ticket to fame suddenly becomes a ticket to terror when the chaotic set becomes the scene of a real-life murder. Lance Henriksen and Rena Riffel co-star in this Josh Eisenstadt-helmed tale based on the unpublicized crime scene footage of the 1958 murder of actress Scarlett May.

Hallettsville (2009)
Tyler Jensen (Derek Lee Nixon, who co-wrote the script) and his pals in a tiny Texas town enjoy hanging out in Tyler’s new digs. That is, until said pals start mysteriously dying. Tyler must act fast if he wants save himself and his girlfriend. Gary Busey co-stars as the wily Sheriff David Ketchum, who presides over the mayhem in this supernatural thriller, which also stars Logan Patrick Brown and Katie Fountain.

Dead By Dawn (2008)
Dead by Dawn is a ghost story, about identical twin sisters. Eight months after one is brutally raped and murdered, the grieving twin and comforting friends leave for the cottage to celebrate their high school graduation. The minute the step foot in the cottage strange yet puzzling things begin to happen. Tanya begins to see horrifying visions and hears voices she can’t ignore. As the night wanes only Tanya remains as she unearths the truth into the long buried secret of her missing twin sister.

Pick of the Week

Let the Right One In (2008)
Twelve-year-old Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant), the constant target of bullies, spends his time plotting revenge and collecting news items about the grisly murders plaguing his town. Things change for Oskar when he meets new girl Eli (Lina Leandersson), a misfit vampire who steals his heart. As a serial killer continues to prey on teen boys in the small village outside Stockholm, Sweden, Eli helps Oskar find the courage to stand up to his tormenters.

The Innocents and Who Can Kill a Child?

I had very high expectations for the 1976 film Who Can Kill a Child because it invariably makes it onto lists for “the most disturbing films of all time.” It begins with a very long, very strange, and largely unnecessary montage of stock footage suggesting just how cruel and hard the world can be for children. I suppose it’s intended to prepare us for the film’s “radical” dénouement that children can be just as evil as adults. This is the lesson learned by Tom and Evelyn, an English couple of the stock “way over their heads in a foreign place” variety, who decide to vacation on a remote island off the coast of Spain. To their horror, it’s been overrun by a group of vicious children who have killed off all the adults. The real “twist” in the story, I guess, is when Tom and Evelyn come to the painful, gut-wrenching, drama-inducing decision that (gasp!) they might just have to defend their lives (and Evelyn’s unborn baby) by shooting some of the little buggers. Maybe I’m jaded. Or maybe I’ve seen Lord of the Flies and Children of the Corn way too many times, but I just didn’t find this to be all that disturbing. It’s terrible, sure. A damn shame, absolutely. But it’s not nearly as subversive as the film (and the freakin’ hour long debate between Tom and Evelyn) suggests. There are far more disturbing stories featured every week on Law and Order SVU.



On the other hand, I didn’t expect much at all from 1961’s The Innocents, but it’s a smart, subtle and creepy little gem of a ghost story. Deborah, a young, prim and proper governess is hired to watch over a mansion in the remote Sussex countryside, as well as its two occupants, the recently orphaned Miles and Flora. In typical gothic fashion, it turns out that the house has a dark history, including a sordid love affair between the former governess, and a mysterious, mean-spirited valet, both of whom died under bizarre circumstances before Deborah’s arrival. Deborah soon suspects that the couple have returned from the grave to haunt the mansion and exert some sort of powerful, evil spell over the children. It’s never entirely clear whether the mansion is literally haunted, or if the children are simply playing a harmless game, or if they’re really under some sort of evil spell, or if they’re actually the ones somehow behind all the mansion’s strange occurrences, or if Deborah is simply imagining the whole thing out of loneliness and frustration. It’s hard to tell if we’re supposed to be afraid of Miles and Flora, or afraid for them. It’s equally hard to tell if Deborah is sympathetic in her role as caretaker and guardian, or if she’s so repressed and anxious that she’s projecting her insecurities onto the children. It’s a disconcerting depiction of just how ambiguous the relationship between child and adult can sometimes be. The Innocents builds a pervasive sense of dread and unease through such old-fashioned film techniques as atmospheric cinematography, carefully designed minimalist lighting, and the uncanny performances by child actors Pamela Franklin (who would grow up to star in The Legend of Hell House and The Food of the Gods) and Martin Stephens. Together, they manage to depict childhood as something both charming and also eerily unsettling.

My Bloody Valentine 3D DVD and Dogs

fangoria reports that the details of the my bloody valentine 3d dvd have been released. in addition to a commentary track with the director and co-writer and several featurettes, all versions (standard, special edition and blu-ray) will all feature the film in both 2d and 3d versions and include four sets of glasses. this will not be the real3d clear glasses used in the theater (that can’t work at home without special equipment), but will instead be the standard stereoscopic blue/red version. while not nearly as cool as real3d, this should still be quite entertaining and far better quality than the other slasher film just released on dvd in 3d. (here’s the cover art for the my bloody valentine 3d dvds.)

also, since i used a picture of a dog, that gives me a segue to be self-indulgent and post two pictures of my dogs (mulder & servo). i’ve included a prop so as to not stray too far from the topic of this blog.



MBV Special edition and F13 Uncut

this month’s final girl film club is a 2-for-1 deal of slasher classics — friday the 13th: uncut and my bloody valentine: special edition. each includes never-before-seen footage and new special features. to participate in the film club, we’re only required to cover one of these, but since there’s two of us, jon and i decided to cover them both. for my bloody valentine, jon is passing along a new poem from my bloody valentine‘s original villain, axel palmer, written to fans of the recently released remake, my bloody valentine 3d. as for me, i’ve decided to take a look at the much-talked-about new footage in friday the 13th.

(don’t forget to take part in our ultra-fun his name was jason dvd give-away contest by sending us anything friday the 13th related. that picture of you at 11 years old with your home-made paper plate hockey mask, that story about the time you spent the night in the dryer because you were so scared after watching jason lives at a friend’s birthday party, or just a short (obviously incorrect) argument for why you think roy burns was a better jason than jason himself.)




friday the 13th: uncut corey’s ten second review

so, why am i calling this my “ten second review?” is it because this review will only take ten seconds to read? or is it because it only took me ten seconds to write it? no, either of those rationales would just be crazy talk. as it turns out, the ‘all-new uncut footage’ that has been so ballyhooed and anticipated amounts to only ten seconds of additional film (spread across four scenes). this is my ten second review because i’ve decided to only look at ten seconds of friday the 13th: uncut — those 240 or so frames in this version that we’ve never seen before.



scene 1: the killing of annie
additional time: 2 seconds

annie’s death is not only the first on-screen death in friday the 13th, it’s also one of the most startling. following the example set by psycho, there is an attempt at misdirection as we’re lead to believe that annie will be one of the film’s primary characters. pamela’s quick dispatching of annie comes as a bit of a shock and is particularly effective due to the fade-to-white that occurs as annie’s life comes to an end. the uncut edition of friday the 13th adds an additional 48 or so frames of blood spurting from annie’s throat before the fade begins.



scene 2: jack and marcie’s love scene
additional time: 2 seconds

oh, this is a fun one. in the original cut of the film, we see a brief shot of kevin bacon’s buttocks being touched. the uncut version of friday the 13th adds an additional two seconds to this shot, showing kevin’s right butt cheek being squeezed for a moment. it’s hard to imagine any film that couldn’t benefit from additional kevin bacon ass, so i definitely feel that this new cut of friday the 13th is better for it. one can only hope that these extra bacon bits will cause the film’s current 60% rotten tomato rating to jump up a few percentage points in the near future.



scene 3: the killing of marcie
additional time: 2 seconds

marcie’s death is my favorite in the film, so i’m glad it’s one of the scenes to benefit from the abundance of new footage in this special edition. staged like a magic trick, the quick cuts during marcie’s death alternately show a fake head with a real axe and a fake axe with a real head. the end result is as convincing as anything you’ll see in any slasher film before or since. this special edition adds an additional couple of seconds of marcie sliding down the wall after the axe has hit.



scene 4: the killing of jack
additional time: 4 seconds

jack’s death is one of the most famous from the film, likely because it was one of the first slasher film scenes to cause people to scream “how the hell did they do that!?!” tom savini is probably most responsible for the success of this scene, but as it turns out some of his work was cut from the r-rated version we’re all so familiar with. the new uncut scenes features an additional four seconds of footage, showing kevin bacon struggling for air a bit longer and much more blood spurting from his neck wound. that means that, of the new footage, more than half of it (six seconds) shows either the beginning (scene 4) or end (scene 2) of kevin bacon’s gastrointestional tract.






My Bloody Valentine: Special edition

Hi, I’m Axel Palmer. The REAL Axel Palmer from 1981’s My Bloody Valentine, and I want to set the record straight. It seems you’ve forgotten all about me, even though we once shared something special. The new film may be younger, flashier and have an extra dimension, but it can’t love you the way I do. Don’t you remember the poem I wrote for you? It went like this: “Roses are red, violets are blue, one is dead, and so are you.” I meant it then, and I mean it now. Forget the new film. Slasher fans, I want you back, so I’ve written another poem for you. It’s in couplets, because I think we should be a couple again. Valentine’s Day has already passed, but slasher fans, it’s not too late. Will you be my bloody valentine?


I remember the day my daddy went away
because Harry Warden made him pay
in Valentine Bluffs, the happy town
with the big, bloody heart. So it gets me down
to know my home town has changed to “Harmony.”
That’s no place for lovers. They don’t even see
the true joy in Valentine’s Day dancing.
Are you happy because Canada isn’t financing
this fake, three dimensional charade?
You know my real daddy’s dead. And I use a blade
so much better than Tom. What’s his motivation?
He’s no real slasher. Any fool can make a laceration,
but I’d chew off my one good arm and wait
all day in hell to be with you again. Don’t hate
me just because I’m two dimensional. I’m lean
and crazy, and baby, I can still splatter the screen.
I know the new film has lots of laughs and giant 3d tits,
but the original has heart, and now the DVD has extra bits
of blood and gore. Jensen Ackles has a pretty face,
but the way he prances when not on ‘Supernatural’ is a disgrace.
You know I’m the real folk singin’, axe grindin’, 80s kind of man.
You’re all gonna die. I swear I’ve got a plan.
Slasher fans, you’re breaking my heart in two,
so be my bloody valentine you bastards or we’re through.