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InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead

May 26, 2013By

Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead

aka ゾンビアス Zonbiasu

2011
Written by Noboru Iguchi, Ao Murata, and Jun Tsugita
Story by Tadayoshi Kubo
Directed by Noboru Iguchi

Zombie Ass Toilet of the Dead
The horrible secret of Bush’s Baked Beans…

While normally a fan of the Japanese ultra-gore films and Noboru Iguchin in general, Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead ends up sucking ass! What is should be a bunch of fun and ridiculous scenes instead gets bogged down by far too much melodrama, and the replacement of poo for the blood splatter scenes. Which isn’t done in a creative way, and instead rely on the fact that there is lots of poo around for the laughs. Poo may be funny in concept, but in practice it gets boring really fast. While other films like Helldriver and Mutant Girls Squad mix their films with a greater theme, Zombie Ass fails to successfully do that, either. There is a vague theme of bullying that rarely comes in to play, and doesn’t parallel with the zombie tapeworm invasion tale going on. The obvious subtext of body image is barely addressed and would have resulted in a much better film. The ending battle with a flying girl versus a monster is nothing we haven’t seen before, either. It took four people to write something so bland!

Zombie Ass Toilet of the Dead
Funnily enough, this method of transportation has begun to catch on in crowded Tokyo

Zombie Ass‘s few pluses include the design of the tapeworm parasites, they have a brain on them that make them look like the creatures from Fiend Without a Face. I do not know how intentional this homage is, but I hope it was very. I will also score a point for the final monster looking like a sock puppet Jar Jar Binks, because that effect is bad enough it became funny. But besides that, I do not need a heroine who is sad all the time because she didn’t bother to save her bullied sister, nor every other character either being horrible or dating someone horrible. Most of the cast are the type of people who die first or second in a movie, and it was annoying seeing them continue to live beyond their expiration date. I was rooting for the poo to drown them!

Zombie Ass Toilet of the Dead
Meesa mutant butt zombie, okeyday!

Even the appearance by regulars Asami Sugiura, Demo Tanaka, Yuya Ishikawa, and gratuitous nudity don’t save Zombie Ass from going down the drain. You’re gonna want to flush this load as soon as it’s dropped off at the pool. This film doesn’t have much to go on, and this is no smear campaign. Zombie Ass could be more Charmin, and that’s the bottom line. Despite the brown-nosing, Zombie Ass is only a #2. You might want to log off now, these puns sure are on a roll!

Megumi (Arisa Nakamura) – Our heroine. Her younger sister Ai died due to bullying, and Megumi was unable to act to stop it. So now she studies karate all day to be strong to make up for failing to save her sister. She’s also very introspective.
Aya (Mayu Sugano) – Megumi’s good girl friend, and the only non-annoying character in the film. So you know she’s going to die. She’s dating scuzzy guy Take, whose main hobby is cheating on her with other girls.
Maki (Asana Mamoru) – Megumi’s controlling and vain friend, whose idea it is to go find some tapeworms so she can look thinner. Has no problem with getting it on with Aya’s boyfriend. Is entitled and spoiled, the perfect host for the Queen Parasite. Asana Mamoru is a Gravure model also known as Asana Kouno.
Sachi (???) – Young sick daughter of the mad scientist who is raising the tapeworms and feeding them to her to help keep her leukemia in remission. Is deranged and has a fondness for knives and for killing people. Can communicate with the Nekurogedoro due to the large amount of their chemicals in her body.
Sachi’s Dad (Kentaro Shimazu) – Sachi’s mad father who set up this crazed scheme to help her live longer. Cares about nothing but having his daughter live longer, no matter how many lives it costs.
Queen Nekurogedoro (A puppet) – The boss of the mutant parasite tapeworms dubbed nekurogedoro, the Queen resides inside of Maki until such time that she pops free to battle Megumi. Can fly, and teams up with Sachi. This puppet is my favorite part of the film. Yep.
Zombie Ass Toilet of the Dead
Okay, Star Wars Prequel Abomination, I got the cure!
Ghost Cat of Otama Pond
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Ghost Cat of Otama Pond

May 24, 2013By

Ghost Cat of Otama Pond

aka 怪猫 お玉が池 aka Kaibyo Otama-ga-Ike
Ghost Cat of Otama Pond
1960
Written by Jiro Fujishima and Yoshihiro Ishikawa
Directed by Yoshihiro Ishikawa

One of the oft-repeated tales of Japanese ghost stories (or kaidan if you’re nasty) is the haunted cat tales. Possibly dating back to Segawa Joko III’s 1853 kabuki play “The Story of the Cat Monster of Fair Saga” (Hana Saga neko mata zoshi), a depiction of which can be seen here. These tales are called kaibyo, and generally feature cats that drink the blood of their murdered masters, return for revenge in a ghost story manner. Many kaibyo films feature lakes and haunted mansions, and some borrow other elements from similar famous Japanese ghost tales, like Yotsuya Kaidan. The amount of kaibyo films is in dispute (at least one source quotes over 100, though how correct that is I don’t know, and how many of the older kaibyo films are lost to time I also don’t know. Thanks to a great overview of some of the films by Spectacular Optical, I can tell you that the first known screen adaptation was 1910’s The Night Cherry Blossoms of Saga. Enough of the kaibyo films were made that actresses sprung up who specialized in playing the roles of the vengeful cat spirits.

Kaibyo films can seem repetitive, and the many films are less of a lesson in having a story than about telling it well. Director Yoshihiro Ishikawa filmed at least one other kaibyo film, The Ghost-Cat Cursed Pond, and besides writing that one also wrote Black Cat Mansion and Yotsuya film The Ghost of Yotsuya, so he is familiar with the classical tales. I hope to track those other kaibyo films of his down and compare them to see how he made each one different and how he didn’t. Ghost Cat of Otama Pond is based on a tale by Sotoo Tachibana. Ghost Cat of Otama Pond was screened as part of a Shintoho Film Festival that is making the rounds in the US, it was screened in San Francisco on a double bill with Vampire Bride at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and I attended the screening along with duriandave of SoftFilm.

Ghost Cat of Otama Pond is a color production (rare for a first-time Shintoho director), and really makes use of the colors for atmospheric effects. The lighting and design borrow from the kabuki roots of the ghost tales, with green being the most prominent color for supernatural elements. The ghosts are all let with a spectral green, and green lighting on the wall denotes when something creepy is going on. There is also a shadow of a cat’s head that is projected on the walls repeatedly as the ghost cat is enacting its vengeance. The ghost cat’s greatest weapon is the evilness of its targets, who begin to turn on each other while the cat pulls the strings.
Ghost Cat of Otama Pond

Vampire Bride
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Vampire Bride

May 22, 2013By

Vampire Bride

aka 花嫁吸血魔 aka Hanayome Kyuketsuma
Vampire Bride
1960
Directed by Kyotaro Namiki
Vampire Bride
Vampire Bride is female melodrama turned into a revenge creature horror film. The beginning is very different from the usual tale of murder and revenge, or a woman scorned. Forget all those rape and revenge tales that have driven the genre since the 1960s, the villain that drives the plot here is female jealousy. Women that are angry with the main character for various reasons – be it her looks, her career, or which man has her attention – conspire to take her out of the equation. They leave her battered and broken and reap the benefits of life without her. But those benefits are bittersweet, and they made the mistake of not killing Fujiko off. For she returns, returns to haunt their lives, and to stalk and end their lives. As she returns as a vampire beast, and it’s dinner time!

The Shintoho Film Festival this is a part of was originally curated in 2010 as part of the Udine Far East Film Festival by Mark Schilling. The films have finally made their way on tour across the US in 2013, and have stopped by San Francisco at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, who has been kicking butt lately with awesome Asian film retrospectives. Vampire Bride played a double bill with Ghost Cat of Otama Pond, and I had the pleasure of attending the screening along with good buddy duriandave of SoftFilm. The Shintoho films are a great cross-section of exploitation cinema, as well as creative outlets from filmmakers who were doing amazing things that just weren’t appreciated by the right people at the time.

Vampire Bride stars Junko Ikeuchi, who was a Shintoho star due to her clean-cut good girl image. But she ran off and got married, then had to come slinking back after that marriage quickly ended in disaster. Shintoho studio boss Mitsugu Okura wasn’t about to let her back that easily, and cast her in this revenge tale, where her beautiful face would transform into a hideously ugly monster. Like Ikeuchi, her character Fujiko’s suffers a fate of things not working out for her. What is to be a good career and a good married are tarnished by betrayal, and she can only look longingly at the life she would have had.

Vampire Bride was the one film I wanted to see most of all, both due to the promotional picture of the Vampire Bat Creature, and an iconic shot also used in promotional material of the three deformed characters staring into Great-Grandma’s magic cauldron (which I can’t seem to find in digital form!!)
Vampire Bride

InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Area 51

May 17, 2013By

Area 51

aka 51

2011
Written by Lucy Mukerjee
Story by Kenny Yakkel
Directed by Jason Connery

Area 51
Aliens just can’t make Jello correctly…

Area 51 is a more unique SyFy offering. Instead of the usual CGI effects chasing our heroes around, instead we have monsters made of largely practical effects and makeup mixed with CGI. It actually rules, because it’s so unexpected. The effects work is pretty good, the various monster costumes are full costume props, some of them being large wearable puppet constructs. The only alien costume I didn’t like was the one for Patient Zero, because it looked too much like a guy in a full body suit. This reminds me of the Don Dohler films, which was some nice nostalgia. And Area 51 is better than many of those!

Area 51
You think this is crazy, guess what they got in Area 52!

By far not the first flick to feature Area 51 or aliens fighting people in Area 51, Area 51 does give us a variety of creatures causing a variety of problems. The different stories sort of weave together, but have a bit of trouble trying to find a narrative whole. The different creatures with their own different agendas gives them more characterization than usual in a SyFy style flick. The fact that not all of the monsters are mindless killing machines was a great touch that needs to be used more in other creature features.

Area 51
Suddenly the alien thinks he’s Neo!

The basic story is the press are being let into Area 51 for the first time as part of a media transparency thing, except they are only going to get to see a tiny part of the base and nothing cool. Until things go wrong… Alien killing spree wrong!

Colonel Ronald Martin (Bruce Boxleitner) – The guy in charge of Area 51 who leads the tour and the eventual attempt to clean up the monster massacre.
Claire Fallon (Vanessa Branch) – A rabble-rousing muckeraker blogger who is famous all over the world. Takes up the fine tradition of Lois Lane-style female journalists (a trope that predates Lois Lane back to at least the Torchy Blane films) in that she fights the system and doesn’t put up with bullies. Even alien bullies
Sam Whittaker (John Shea) – A famous news reporter who is inside the system, sort of like Ted Kopple. He is also on the Area 51 tour along with his camerawoman.
Sgt. Hannah (Rachel Miner) – One of the guards on the base, a decorated war hero who is uncomfortable with the recognition because she doesn’t feel she earned it. Becomes the de facto commander of the guards tasked with not letting any of the aliens escape from the underground compound after everyone of higher rank is slaughtered.
Aaron “Shoes” Schumacher (Jason London) – Shoes is one of the guards who believes in the alien conspiracies. Can’t handle combat and shot himself in the foot to avoid it. But when aliens are attacking he managed to find courage to be under fire. Helps his friend Sgt. Hannah contain the situation.

The aliens at Area 51:

Patient Zero (Jed Maheu) – A morpher, meaning this alien can change his form into whoever he touches due to replicating DNA, and can repeat any words said by the target. This subject crashed 25 years ago and occasionally is let out to impersonate President Reagan. Is usually no trouble, except for the murderous killing spree Patient Zero goes on today. Suddenly impersonating Reagan makes sense…
J-Rod (VyVy Nguyen and Rob Steinberg – voice) – Alien Grey who lives on the base and helps his friends the humans communicate with the aliens and type up reports. Has telekenetic powers and the power to code computers while being afk. His entire belief system might turn out to be a lie… But at least he can probably get a high-paying coding job in Silicon Valley!
Lady Death and Little Devil (Ivan Djurovic and VyVy Nguyen) – alien monsters that are simply wild hyperpredators. Little Devil is Lady Death’s spawn. This creatures can’t be reasoned with and just blindly kill anyone they see.
Area 51
Time to die, Smurf!
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Sexy Assassins

May 13, 2013By

Sexy Assassins


2012
Written by Tina Hawthorne
Directed by David Nichols

Sexy Assassins
The best art protection in town!

Mainline Releasing throws down with another softcore crime film, this time taking place in the world of assassins. It’s hard to be an assassin for hire, what with the murdering of people and the fact you have constant, constant sex (which one would think would get in the way of the murdering, but don’t worry, Sexy Assassins figured an out!) But it is nigh time that these valiant sexy assassins got their due in movie form.

If Sexy Assassins is anything, it’s a low-budget film that looks a lot less low-budget than you would think. MRG does not skimp on the cinematography, and while I wouldn’t call things overly creative, it is professionally shot and lit, looking theater-quality good. The lower budget shines through with the lack of characters and the fact no one seems to go out in public. Every room is obviously a room in someone’s house, be it the office of a hotel. In fact, some parts of this house I recall from other films where people are bumping uglies. Either that, or I’m starting to merge all these giant Hollywood mansions that get rented out into one super mansion. Which could also be the case.

Sexy Assassins is just a straightforward assassins trying to figure out who the traitor is plot, and as there are only so many characters, only so many can be guilty. Besides that, it’s most notable feature is the mirroring of the beginning and ending sex scene and its violent conclusion. While Justine Joli is smothering her target during the throws of passion, she comes off as powerful and in control, taking down a man who probably deserved it. When Jason Sarcinelli does the same to Michelle Maylene in the end, it comes out more disturbing, with shades of domestic violence. Even though we know that her character Serena tried to kill both Sarcinelli and Joli’s characters. She’s guilty and has been seen doing so in the film, and possibly will be killing Sarcinelli seconds later. Yet it just feels weird, because he’s obviously so much more powerful than her. Also SPOILERS!

Sexy Assassins
Please don’t read this screencap, it is classified. Thank you.

Justine Joli’s sex is very into it as opposed to Michelle Maylene’s more laid back and talking sex enjoyment. Both of the actresses are primed to be more vocal and pornographic in their performances, which give more enthusiastic life the proceedings as things become raw passion. Sex seems a matter of life and death in importance, and it literally is!

While Sexy Assassins looks cool, the disturbing end just throws a big damper on the whole thing. It becomes more of a snuff film, or those old roughies where the sexy was usually ended with heinous violence as a substitution for sexual release. Your enjoyment depends on just how you respond to such things. Despite that, I like the Tina Hawthorne/David Nichols team (assuming those aren’t just pseudonyms for the same person!), they brought us Naughty Reunion and their films go over a bit of emotional things that other softcores don’t bother with.

Layla Clapton (Justine Joli) – A sexy assassin that is one of the few people who can wear an “Everything I kill I fuck” shirt non-ironically. Soon finds out the sexy assassin business might be a bit more treacherous than it seems. Layla Clapton, eh? Where is her sister, Tears In Heaven Domino?
Serena (Michelle Maylene) – Layla’s secretary, who claims to believe Layla’s cover story as a security consultant, but secretly knows the score, and is looking for a score of her own! Michelle Maylene can also be seen in Cougar School, The Teenie Weenie Bikini Squad, and Twilight Vamps Lust At First Bite
Max Houser (Jason Sarcinelli) – A simple messenger, or a master sexy assassin? Well, this isn’t called Sexy Messengers! Hired to kill Layla, but knows bigger things will happen if things change.
Damon (Michael O’Sullivan) – Layla’s manager who gives her new assignments and handles the business side of things. But he’s a businessman first and a loyal businessman second.
Mason (Spencer Houston Hill) – Layla’s tech guy who takes care of the computer things, does hacking,, fingerprint ID, all that fun stuff. In exchange, he does fun stuff with Layla.
Sexy Assassins
She handcuffed me and then stole the frame from the painting!
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Abominable Snowman

May 10, 2013By

Abominable Snowman

aka Deadly Descent

2013
Written by Nathan Atkins
Directed by Marko Makilaakso

Abominable Snowman
Hey, guys, funny joke, now let me in!

A group of mountain climbers learn that sometimes the mountain climbs you, even if it isn’t in Soviet Russia and also “the mountain climbs you” is a metaphor for huge abominable snowmen that eat you. Sure, that joke makes no sense, but who gives a crap, we got a gigantic abominable snowman eating people, making sense is for losers!

Proud SyFy vets UFO International drop this tale of man vs. beast (Originally titled Deadly Descent), which follows a similar structure as most of the creature features, so it’s all down to details. While not being a bad example, Abominable Snowman is by the numbers, it does what it does and that’s what we got. The things to distinguish it from other creature features is not the monster, but the vast amount of skiing and snowboarding.

Every character is either active military, a vet, or going into the military. This means they drop military terms like candy at a parade. They’re also all experience mountaineers and skiers thanks to the nearby slopes, so those hobby terms are used all the time as well. I’m not experience enough at mountaineering and skiing to know if they were making sense or blabbing a bunch of nonsense, but I shall give them some leeway here. The military aspect defines the characters. They’re trapped in a small town, the only way out is to go into the army and see the world. Everyone’s friends join up, and the only jobs left is bartending for the broken vets who return. A main character Brian suffers from PTSD, as does at least one of the supporting cast. Adrian Paul’s helicopter pilot character returned from war an empty man and got into substance abuse troubles. Other characters argue about whether to reenlist, how it will disrupt their lives vs. the potential benefits and ability to do something interesting. It’s an evenhanded approach that doesn’t take sides, just shows reality. The variety of military characters as opposed to the usually cliche military nut is what I liked best about Abominable Snowman.

Abominable Snowman
Hi, we’re yetis, but usually we disguise ourselves as ellipses!

Director Marko Makilaakso helmed War of the Dead, which ran out of money and sat on a shelf for years. I haven’t seen it. Beyond that, he’s done a lot of documentary work. Writer Nathan Atkins also wrote Super Tanker and Cold Fusion, but before all this he angered a bunch of people who like a terrible movie too much when he wrote the DTV sequel, S. Darko.

The biggest disappointment is that the monster CGI just a few simple repeated movements, and beyond that we rarely see the creatures. As someone who likes lots of monster shots and shots of monsters doing things, this was disappointing. Beyond that, this ski route has seen a lot of snow bunnies slide down it. So in the end, the needle moves back to average but not terrible.

Brian Tanner (Chuck Campbell) – Obsessed Afghan vet who loses a friend hiking the same way he lost a father 25 years ago – via Abominable Snowman attack. Connecting the dots, Brian goes looking for the monster, and ends up finding him! Uh-oh! Chuck Campbell shows up in Jason X.
Nina Tanner (Lauren O’Neil) – Brian’s sister, was going to head off to officer’s training until her bro went missing. Now she has to go all Where’s Waldo and fight a monster that killed her dad.
Rick McCabe (Nicholas Boulton) – Guy sort of with Nina, which makes Brian uncomfortable because his sister is so young. Rick is a natural leader who takes charge of the search for Brian.
Mark (Adrian Paul) – Pilot and combat vet. Mark was in a helicopter crash, where he was accused of being too drunk to fly. Now drinks milk to forget and argues about his reputation.
Abominable Snowmen (CGI) – The fierce creatures of Glacier Peak, eating everyone they meet.
Abominable Snowman
I should’ve had a V8!
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