Great new scary dvd realese for multiplex haters

[JussiK]

The Japanese VORTEX, also out as SPIRAL, combines accelerating Twin Peaks-style small town paranoia, ott surrealist imagery and genre traditions, and it's a must-see if you're into unsafe non-Hollywood horror. A girl returns to her small hometown and is alarmed to discover it's inhabitants are all being possessed by spiral forms. People stare at snails, perform surgery on themselves to remove circular skin formations, cloud shapes above twirl menacincly. Spirals appear on pavements and other surfaces. There are bursts of savage violence and grotesque murders. The effects are both CGEs and old skool prosthetics, all good and extremely bizarre.
The dvd is out on several region discs, get yours now and be enthralled. - Anything else out there worth screaming about?

[zeca azevedo]

Nope,

I'm not a big fan of this kind of movie, sorry. Give me THE SOUND OF MUSIC instead, please :lol:

But I can tell you this, my favorite movie of all time is a kind of a horror movie, THE BIRDS, by HITCHCOCK 8)


Peace,

zeca azevedo, the hills are alive...

[Videoskooter]

Scary movies usually don't scare me that much.

The weird movies do, like the ones from Jess Franco, "Female vampire" and "Virgin among the living dead".

Not the most spectacular effects but the atmosphere...BRRR.

(Even the naked girls in his pics give me the shivers)

Weird man! :o

[JussiK]

FEMALE VAMPIRE has a bleak, unnerving atmosphere much like Franco's VAMPYROS LESBOS. I think his best stuff also includes VENUS IM PELTZ/Venus in Furs, SUCCUBUS and especially the cool sexadelic EUGENIE - HER JOURNEY INTO PERVERSION. The latter even has Christopher Lee as a DeSade figure presiding over kinky goings-on in a secluded villa. Franco shows restraint with his zoom lens and the sets look fine, million miles from his (entertaining) bargain basement sleazefests like GRETA, DAS HAUS OHNE MAENNER. There's a good book on Franco called OBSESSION, too. He and his wife&former actress muse Lina Romay, who starred as Female Vampire and did a lot of hardcore, both recently appeared in the straight-to-dvd neogiallo Rosso Veneziano.

[Boodikka]

Jussi, what did you think of the Japanese ICHI THE KILLER?
What about THE UNTOLD STORY and HUMAN LAMPSHADES from HK?

[JussiK]

ICHI THE KILLER...In a way this is kind of throwback to the 80's, remember Fangoria magazine, people in black lining up for festival screenings of the latest Hong Kong/John Woo/Brian Yuzna/Dario Argento splatterfest. Goths foaming about The Re-Animator, The Evil Dead, Lucio Fulci. Nostalgic and cute in other words isn't it, Ichi, with it's desperate need to gross out at any cost? Not that it's a bad film and genuine unpleasantness is always interesting unless it's just too juvenile. If you ask me I liked it when it came out and played briefly, but couldn't be bothered to buy the dvd later.

THE UNTOLD STORY aka THE BUNMAN is a more serious cup of meatball soup or what, must have been a jolting experience seen in a cinema back then. I only watched it on a tape so it's impact was no doubt largely lost on me. One to watch, definitely. Hysterical screaming, creepy main character, what-kind-of-person-am-I-to-like-this kind of quilty pleasure. HUMAN SKIN LANTERNS is now out on the Shaw Bros series dvd but again, I didn't rush out to get it, too much costume drama and not enough horror setpieces, fight scenes or sheer HK category III nastiness. Should you feel a sudden need for this stuff I'd guide you towards RED TO KILL - real retards playing victims of a sadistic rapist killer, well shot, well directed, truly mortifying. Great gift idea, naturally. Or better/worse still, the absolute pits, you must have seen/heard of this: MEN BEHIND THE SUN, about inhuman experiments conducted on the Chinese during WWII by the Japanese invaders. Ignore the Laura Ashley items of the wedding list and ceremoniously hand out a dvd of MEN...instead.

But hey, there's better shockers out there to grab: HAUTE TENSION/SWITCHBLADE ROMANCE by Alessandro Aja, a lushly presented yet incredibly potent neoslasher from France, for one thing. Please please seek this out, if you're at all into the macabre you'll adore it.

The new EXORCIST film seems to have topped the US boxoffice - never mind the reviews, it may save the career of our own Renny Harlin, the Man Behind Cutthroat Island and DRIVEN! Now what's your verdict?