Tag Archives: The Daily Grindhouse

12 Roger Corman Trailers

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Roger Corman in The Godfather Part II

Today we pay tribute to the legacy of Roger Corman with a special edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Film Trailers.

  1. Five Guns West (1955)

This western was the first film that Roger Corman was credited with directing.

2. The Day The World Ended (1955)

Though Corman worked in almost every type of film genre imaginable, he’s probably best remembered for his science fiction and horror films.  This was one of the first of them.

3. Not of this Earth (1957)

Not of this Earth was not only one of Corman’s better sci-fi films but this also the first film in which Corman really took full advantage of character actor Dick Miller.  (Miller, a longtime friend of Corman’s, largely improvised his role as a hip vacuum cleaner salesman.)

4. Machine Gun Kelly (1958)

Along with westerns and sci-fi films, Corman also directed several gangster classics.  Machine Gun Kelly is remembered as one of his best.

5. Bucket of Blood (1959)

In Bucket of Blood, Roger Corman gave Dick Miller a starring role and also mixed comedy and horror in a way that influence many future horror directors.

6. Little Shop of Horrors (1960)

Roger Corman famously shot Little Shop of Horrors in just two days.  The end result was a mix of comedy and horror that continues to be influential to this day.  The musical is very good but I still prefer the cheerful low-budget aesthetic of the Corman original.

7. The Intruder (1962)

Corman was an exploitation filmmaker with a conscience.  At a time when other films were avoiding social issues, Corman dove right in with challenging films like The Intruder.

8. The Terror (1963)

Corman was famous for his ability to spot new talent.  His 1963 film The Terror starred a then unknown actor named Jack Nicholson.

9. The Masque of the Red Death (1964)

In the 60s, Corman was also well-known for his Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, the majority of which starred Vincent Price.  With these colorful and flamboyant films, Corman showed himself to be a pop artist at heart.

10. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (1967)

The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre featured Corman directing a film for a big studio.  The film recreated the gang war between Al Capone and George Moran while also finding room for Corman regulars like Jack Nicholson, Dick Miller, and Jonathan Haze.

11. The Trip (1967)

Roger Corman was always sympathetic to the counter-culture, which led to the remarkably nonjudgmental nature of The Trip, a film in which Peter Fonda drops acid under the guidance of Bruce Dern and Dennis Hopper.  Jack Nicholson wrote the script.

12. Frankenstein Unbound (1990)

In the 1970s, Corman retired from directing and instead focused on producing and distributing movies.  In 1990, he briefly came out of retirement and directed his final film, Frankenstein Unbound.

The TSL’s Grindhouse: Steele Justice (dir by Robert Boris)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

“You don’t recruit him!  You unleash him!”

That’s what they say about John Steele, the man who Martin Kove plays in 1987’s Steele Justice.  John Steele served in Vietnam and he was one of the best and most fearless members of the special forces.  On the final day of the war, he was on the verge of arresting the corrupt General Kwan (Soon-Tek Oh) until Kwan suddenly announced that the war was over and the Americans were leaving.  Steele laughed, shrugged, and turned his back on Kwan and started to walk away.  Was Steele planning on just walking back to America?  Well, regardless, Kwan shot Steele and his friend in the back.  Fortunately, Steele survived.  Steele may be stupid but he’s strong.

Years later, both Steele and Kwan are now living in California.  Kwan is a prominent businessman who is also the secret leader of the Vietnamese mafia.  Naturally, his main henchman is played by Al Leong.  If Al Leong’s not working for you, are you even evil?  John Steele has not been quite as successful.  He was a cop until he got kicked off the force.  Then he got a job transporting horses across California.  Despite his cool guy name, John Steele doesn’t seem to be that good at anything that doesn’t involve killing people.

But then Kwan murders Steele’s best friend and former partner, Lee (Robert Kim).  In fact, Kawn not only murders Lee but he also kills Lee’s entire family.  The only survivor is Lee’s daughter, Cami (Jan Gan Boyd), a piano prodigy who is supposed to be 14 years old even though she’s being played by someone who is in her 20s.  Steele and Lee’s former boss, Bennett (Ronny Cox), gives Steele permission to track down the people responsible for Lee’s death.

John Steele sets out to destroy Kwan.  The film gives us a lot of reasons to be on Steele’s side but it’s hard not to notice that a lot of innocent people end up getting killed as a result of Steele’s vendetta.  Any time that Steele goes anywhere, Kwan’s people attack and a bunch of innocent bystanders get caught in the crossfire.  For example, Steele’s ex, Tracy (Sela Ward), agrees to look after Cami.  It turns out that Tracy is a music video director and, of course, she takes Cami to work with her.  The video shoot turns into a bloodbath, with even the members of the band getting gunned down.  And yet, not even Tracy seems to be particularly disturbed by that.  One might think that Tracy would at least sarcastically say something like, “Hey, John, thanks for getting the band killed before I got paid,” but no.  Tracy just kind of laughs it all off.  At no point does Steele or Bennett or really anyone seem to feel bad about all of the people who get killed as a result of the decision to unleash John Steele.  Those people had hopes and dreams too, you know.

I really like Martin Kove on Cobra Kai.  I love how his portrayal of the over-the-hill and burned-out John Kreese manages to be both intimidating and pathetic at the same time.  I’ve also seen a number of interviews with Kove, in which he’s discussed his career as an exploitation mainstay and he always comes across as being well-spoken and intelligent.  That said, Martin Kove appears to be totally lost in Steele Justice, unsure if he should be playing John Steele as a grim-faced avenger or as a quick-with-a-quip action hero.  Whenever Steele is angry, Kove looks like he’s on the verge of tears.  Whenever Steele makes a joke, Kove smiles like an overage frat boy who, while cleaning out his old storage unit, has just discovered his long lost copy of Bumfights.  It’s a confused performance but, to be honest, no one really comes out of Steele Justice looking good.  This is a film that features a lot of talented actors looking completely and totally clueless as to why they’re there.

On the plus side, Steele Justice did give this world this totally intimidating shot of Martin Kove, preparing to be get and give justice.  Recruit him?  No, just unleash him!

The TSL’s Grindhouse: Mulberry Street (dir by Jim Mickle)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Rats are the freaking worst, aren’t they?

Seriously, I can see the good in almost all of the creatures of the world but I hate rats and I hate cockroaches and I hate both of them for the exact same reason. They’re just so dirty! I mean, they are two of the filthiest animals on the planet. Look up the source of any plague that nearly wiped out humanity in the pre-modern era and rats are somehow going to be to blame. I’m very proud to say that there has never been a single rat or a mouse in any home in which I’ve ever lived. (When I was in college, however, I did once see a mouse running from classroom to classroom. Consider that. I keep my home cleaner than the average college.)

Mulberry Street is a horror film from 2006 that gives us an entirely new reason to dislike rats. Not only do they spread the Bubonic Plague but they also turn people into human/rat/zombie hybrids! At least, that’s what happens in this film. Set in New York City during one very long and very hot summer day, Mulberry Street imagines a world in which the rats get tired of hiding in the subways and they finally take over Manhattan. People are bitten. People are transformed into humanoid rats. People go crazy and attempt to infect other people. It get wild out there. They say you can see anything in New York and apparently, you can. Unfortunately, the cost of seeing is turning into a rat. That kind of sucks.

Casey (Kim Blair) has just returned from serving her country in Iraq and she would rather not be turned into a rat. Her father, Clutch (Nick Damici), is an ex-boxer and he would also rather not turn into a rat. In a world dominated by rats, what are the ratphobic to do? Clutch, Casey, and a handful of others barricade themselves inside their apartments and they try to survive the night while the rats scratch at the door.

Yes, Mulberry Street is yet another zombie film. I mean, they may be rat hybrids as opposed to being the undead but, in the end, they might as well be a zombies. However, Mulberry Street works better than the average zombie film because it was shot guerilla-style on the streets of New York City. There’s a raw authenticity to Mulberry Street, with its jittery camerawork and it’s cast of talented but unknown actors. The threat feels real. The struggle to survive feels real. The fears feels real. At no point are you confident that Casey, Clutch , and their friends are going to survive the night. Mulberry Street feels as real as any film featuring human/rat hybrids can. Even before the rats attack, Mulberry Street presents us with a New York that feels sick and dying. In the end, the rats are just the next logical step. The city has devolved to such an extent that an attack of zombie rats feels predestined.

Mulberry Street was well-directed by Jim Mickle. Mickle would go on to direct Cold in July, one of the best modern noirs to be released over the past few years. Be sure to check out both films.

Horror on the Lens: Samson vs. The Vampire Women (dir by Alfonso Corona Blake)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

If a group of vampires are determined to ruin your night, what should you do?  Well, according to the classic Mexican film Santo vs. las Mujeres Vampiro, your first move should be to call a wrestler.

What to know more?  Well, you can read my full review of the film by clicking here!

And you can watch the movie below because it’s today’s horror on the lens!

The TSL’s Grindhouse: The Amityville Murders (dir by Daniel Farrands)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Ronald DeFeo, Jr. may not be a household name but he’s someone who was indirectly responsible for a lot of cinematic schlock.

Of course, that’s the least of DeFeo’s crimes. When the 69 year-old DeFeo passed away in March, he was serving a life sentence in the state of New York. That’s because, back in 1974, the 23 year-old DeFeo grabbed a rifle and killed his entire family while they slept. When he was brought to trial, DeFeo claimed that he heard Satanic voices that urged him to kill his parents and his siblings. His lawyers tried for an insanity defense, though the prosecution successfully argued that DeFeo was lying about the voices and that he was in full control of his actions on the night that he killed his family. After being convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, DeFeo sometimes claimed that he had been possessed by the devil and sometimes said that he committed the murders in self-defense and then other times, he said that he did it because he was hoping to inherit his father’s money. Out of all the excuses that he gave for his brutal crimes, DeFeo’s claims of being demon-possessed were the claims that everyone remembered.

Years later, the DeFeo house — which sat in Amityville, New York — was purchased the George and Kathy Lutz. The Lutzes made a small fortune by claiming that the house was haunted and that they had been forced to leave their new home by demonic spirits. (Their claims were apparently supported by paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren of Conjuring fame.) The Lutzes told their story to Jay Anson, who wrote a book called The Amityville Horror. That book was later turned into a movie and the success of that movie led to a series of sequels and spin-offs. At last count, there’s been at least ten books written about the Amityville case and there have been 30 films that, in one way or another, claim to be connected to the Amityville haunting. Few of those films share much, other than a haunting and the word “Amityville” in the title. There’s not a great deal of continuity to be found in the Amityville films.

One of the latest of the Amityville films, 2018’s The Amityville Murders, deals with the actual murders that supposedly started off the whole cycle of possession and violence. (1982’s Amityville II: The Possession also dealt with the murders, albeit with Ronald DeFeo renamed Sonny Montelli. Two of the stars of that film — Burt Young and Diane Franklin — appear in The Amityville Murders.) John Robinson plays the bearded and withdrawn Ronald DeFeo, Jr. Chelsea Ricketts plays his concerned sister. Paul Ben-Victor plays their abusive father. The film covers the general facts of the DeFeo murders while trying to have it both ways as to whether or not Ronald was in control of his actions. Ronald DeFeo is portrayed as being genuinely unbalanced but, at the same time, potentially demon-possessed as well. The talented John Robinson does a good job of playing Ronald and there’s a few effective shots of his looking unbalanced but, for the most part, there’s nothing here that you haven’t seen in a dozen other Amityville-influenced horror films. As well, since you know from the start that Ronald is going to end up murdering his family, there’s really not any suspense to be found in the film. Instead, the entire movie is just about waiting for Ronald to pick up that rifle and start shooting people, including two children. It’s more than a bit icky, to be honest.

Whenever it comes to an Amityville prequel, the main question is always just how stereotypically the DeFeos are going to be portrayed. It only takes five minutes for DeFeo, Sr. to admonish Ronald with, “Oh! Watch how you talk to your mother!” Every cliché about Italian-American family life is present in The Amityville Murders, from the father hulking around in his undershirt to the mother decorating the house with religious iconography to the superstitious grandmother. Watching the film, I found myself imagining Tony Soprano watching a cheap Amityville film and exclaiming, “Oh! The mouth on this fucking kid over here, like he’s possessed by the devil or something!” The Amityville Murders hints that the DeFeos themselves may have had mafia connections. Indeed, before he decided to blame demonic possession for his crimes, Ronald DeFeo, Jr. claimed that his family had been taken out by hitmen from New York.

This film was directed by Daniel Farrands, who also directed The Haunting of Sharon Tate and The Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson. The Amityville Murders is neither as well put-together as the Sharon Tate film nor as offensive as the Nicole Simpson film. It’s somewhere in between, just another link in the endless chain of Amityville films. I will say that I personally think Farrands is a talented director and I’d like to see what he could do with a budget and a decent script. The Amityville Murders has its share of impressive shots, even if the end result isn’t exactly the last word in Amityville horror.

The TSL’s Grindhouse: Schizoid (dir by David Paulsen)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1980 film, Schizoid, is all about the things you can do with scissors.

For instance, in the days before email, text messages, and social media, scissors could be used to cut words out of a magazines.  Those words could then be carefully pasted onto construction paper and then sent to an advice columnist like Julie Caffret (Marianna Hill).  Julie is pretty upset when she starts getting the notes, largely because they promise an anonymous reign of terror and murder.  The police, however, say that the notes probably don’t meant anything.  They’re probably just a hoax.  I mean, it’s true that several members of Julie’s therapy group have recently been murdered but the letters all talk about committing murder with a gun.  Whereas the members of the therapy group are being murdered by someone wielding …. SCISSORS!  (Cue that dramatic music.)

Of course, Julie has other things to worry about.  For instance, her ex-husband, Doug (Craig Wasson), is still in her life.  He’s putting up wallpaper in her office.  Or, at least, that’s what he says he’s doing.  It’s hard not to notice that he doesn’t seem to be making much progress with the job.  Plus, he apparently sleeps in the office, which just seems odd.  Then, there’s the building’s creepy maintenance man, Gilbert (Christopher Lloyd), who specializes in making people uncomfortable on elevators.  And then there’s the fact that Julie’s therapist, is played by Klaus Kinski!

Seriously, if you were looking for a therapist, would you go to Klaus Kinski?

From the minute Klaus shows up, it’s pretty obvious that the film wants us to assume that he’s the killer and really, it’s hard not to make that assumption.  We’re so used to seeing Klaus Kinski play evil and villainous characters and, even 30 years after his death, there are so many stories out there about how difficult Klaus Kinski could be to work with in real life that our natural reaction is to believe any character he plays must have a sinister motivation.  In this film, Klaus’s character has an out-of-control teenage daughter (Donna Wilkes) who tries to commit suicide by locking herself in the garage with a running car.  When Klaus takes an axe to the garage door, we’re left to seriously wonder if he’s planning on killing her or if he’s actually trying to save her life.  That said, Schizoid actually makes good use of Kinski’s menacing persona and Kinski himself gives a performance that elevates the entire film.  Kinski actually does manage to keep you guessing as to whether or not the therapist is a monster or if he’s just kind of a jerk.

Schizoid is usually classified as a slasher film, though it actually has more in common with the classic Italian giallo films that it does with any of the Friday the 13th sequels.  The killer’s identity is masked through POV shots and, in typical giallo fashion, the killer wears black gloves while committing his crimes.  We spend a good deal of the film following the police investigation, which is a typical element of the giallo genre but which is usually treated as an afterthought in post-Friday the 13th slasher films.  Much like Fulci’s The New York Ripper, Schizoid is a violent journey into the heart of darkness, a look at a world with no morality and no safety.  Also like Fulci’s film, it’s so shamelessly sleazy that it’s easy to miss the fact that it’s actually rather well-directed and acted.

Schizoid turned out to be a better film that I was expecting.  That said, I still have to wonder why anyone would select Klaus Kinski to be their therapist.

The TSL’s Grindhouse: A Bullet For Pretty Boy (dir by Larry Buchanan)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

By most accounts, Charles A. Floyd — better known by the nickname “Pretty Boy” Floyd — was one of the nicer of the Depression-era outlaws.  Though he robbed his share of banks, he was usually described as being rather polite and sensible while he did so.  He didn’t steal from the poor.  While he did kill a few men, they were all law enforcement officers who were also shooting at him.  And while that may not sound like a good thing, with murder being murder and all, it’s still a marked contrast to Bonnie and Clyde, who were known for being as deliberately violent as possible.  Pretty Boy Floyd reportedly had a strong dislike for Bonnie and Clyde and even told his relatives in Oklahoma not to help the Barrow Gang hide from the police.

The most violent thing that Floyd was ever accused of was taking part in the killing of four law enforcement officers in Kansas City.  (This was the so-called Kansas City Massacre.)  Since one of the victims was an FBI Agent, Floyd quickly became public enemy number one and was eventually gunned down in a cornfield in Ohio.  (Some accounts say that Floyd was initially only wounded and was executed by the FBI after he surrendered.)  Most modern historians agree that Floyd was not involved in the Kansas City Massacre.  Even after he had been shot and told that he was dying, Floyd reportedly vehemently denied having had any involvement in what happened in Kansas City.  In the view of most historians, Pretty Boy Floyd was a polite country boy who just happened to rob banks.

That’s certainly the way that he’s portrayed in the 1970 film, A Bullet For Pretty Boy.  Though this low-budget movie from Texas-born filmmaker Larry Buchanan opens with a title card telling us that we’re about to see a true story, it’s highly fictionalized.  Singer Fabian Forte plays Charles A. Floyd, who goes from getting married to going to jail on a manslaughter conviction in record time.  (It was all because someone was making trouble at the wedding reception so really, you can’t blame Floyd for anything that happened.)  Floyd is supposed to serve six years but he decides to break out after only serving three and a half.  Again, you really can’t blame Floyd for doing that.  No one wants to work on a chain gang.  Eventually, Floyd ends up hanging out at a brothel, where he falls in with a gang of bank robbers and a prostitute named Betty (Jocelyn Lane) ends up falling for him.  After several bank robberies and gunfights, Floyd ends up working with an outlaw named Preacher (Adam Roarke).  Everyone does not live happily ever after.

While watching A Bullet For Pretty Boy, it’s pretty easy to see the influence of the 1967 film, Bonnie and Clyde.  There’s a lot of sudden bursts of violence (though never quite as bloody as the violence from Bonnie and Clyde) and the film is clearly on the side of Pretty Boy Floyd as opposed to the cops trying to catch him.  However, whereas Bonnie and Clyde presented its title characters as being rebels against the establishment, A Bullet For Pretty Boy is content to portray Floyd as just being someone who ended up in a bad set of circumstances and who did what he felt he had to do to survive.  As played by Forte, Floyd is good at robbing banks but he doesn’t seem to really enjoy doing it.  That, of course, is a polite way of saying that Fabian Forte is credible but slightly boring in the lead role.  He’s likable enough but he’s not exactly compelling and he often finds himself overshadowed by more energetic performers like Adam Roarke.

That said, I enjoyed A Bullet For Pretty Boy.  Certainly, this film is better than the typical Larry Buchanan film.  There aren’t any slow spots and the film does a good job of capturing the feeling and atmosphere of rural Texas and Oklahoma.  (Undoubtedly it helped that the film was directed by a Texan who actually knew something about the communities that he was portraying.)  The shoot outs and the bank robberies are just well-staged enough to hold your attention and that’s really the main thing that one can ask from a film like this.  A Bullet From Pretty Boy doesn’t exactly make a lasting impression but it’s entertaining enough while you’re watching it.

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Circus of Horrors (dir by Sidney Hayers)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

About 15 minutes into this film from 1960, Donald Pleasence gets mauled to death by a dancing beer.

Pleasence plays a character named Vanet.  Vanet is an alcoholic who, circa 1947, owns a circus.  He also has a daughter named Nicole (Yvonne Monlaur), whose face is scarred as a result of wounds that she received during Germany’s bombing of London.  When a plastic surgeon named Dr. Bernard Schuler (Anton Diffring) operates on Nicole and manages to “take away” her scars, Vanet is so thankful that he signs over ownership of the circus to Schuler.  Vanet then promptly tries to dance with a bear and gets killed.  Poor Vanet.

It turns out that Schuler is a brilliant plastic surgeon but he’s also kind of insane.  He and his associates (played by Kenneth Griffith and Jane Hylton) are on the run from the police.  However, even with the cops after him, Schuler has to experiment.  His plan is to use the circus as a front.  He’ll recruit scarred criminals, operate on them, and then require them to perform in his circus.  That plan doesn’t really make much sense but I guess a fugitive plastic surgeon has to do what he has to do.  Still, it’s hard not to be amused by Schuler describing his plans for the circus as if he’s just come up with the most brilliant plan ever as opposed to just a bunch of gobbledygook.  At no point do any of his assistants point out that his plan makes no sense so I guess he must pay well.

Anyway. the film jumps forward twelve years and what do you know!  The plan worked!  The circus is a hit!  People from all over Europe come to Schuler’s circus.  The circus is famous for featuring the most beautiful women in the world.  The circus is also famous for several mysterious and fatal accidents.  INTERPOL thinks that it’s possible that Schuler is intentionally killing his performers for the free publicity.  When Schuler makes plans to take his circus back to the UK, Scotland Yard is given a call and a heads up about what Schuler’s been doing.  A nosy reporter investigates while the murders continue unabated….

Circus of Horrors is odd.  It’s as if someone reached into a bag and pulled out random cards that read, “Circus,” “plastic surgery,” and “Word War II subtext” and then did what they had to do to construct a plot out of those three elements.  Of those three elements, the World War II subtext is probably the most interesting.  The majority of Schuler’s patients were scarred as a result of the war (which Europe was still recovering from in 1960) and Schuler is played by German actor Anton Diffring.  It’s easy to see Schuler, with his German name and his love for medical experimentation, as a stand-in for Nazi fugitives like Josef Mengele and Klaus Barbie. Schuler and his circus move across Europe and, in the end, it’s going to take Europeans working together to stop him.  The shadow of World War II hangs over every scene.

Beyond that, Circus of Horrors is a flamboyant mix of horror and soap opera.  The colors are bright, the blood flows freely, and the melodrama is definitely embraced.  It’s like a Hammer film, just without a Hammer cast.  Unfortunately, Anton Diffring is a bit bland in the role of Schuler.  One could imagine an actor like Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing working wonders with the role but Diffring often seems to be bored with the whole thing.  As well, the film sometimes get bogged down with footage of the circus performers doing their thing.  For instance, do we need to see the clowns and the acrobats when what we really want to see is the murderous knife thrower?  Circus of Horrors has its moments but, while watching it, it’s hard not to think about how much more fun it would have been if it had been a Hammer film.

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Blood Rage (dir by John Grissmer)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Filmed in 1983 but not released until 1987, Blood Rage tells the heart-warming story of two twin brothers, Todd and Terry Simmons (both played by Mark Soper).

In 1974, young Todd and Terry go to a drive-in movie with their mother, Maddy (Louise Lasser) and Maddy’s boyfriend.  (It’s suggested that Maddy has had many boyfriends over the years.)  The twins fall asleep in the back of the station wagon but, when they wake up, they discover that Maddy is making out with her date.  This inspires Terry to sneak out of the car, grab a nearby hatchet, and walk from car to car.  When he comes across another couple making love, he hacks the man to death and then watches as the man’s naked date runs into the night.  Realizing that he’s about to get in a lot of trouble, Terry hands the hatchet to Todd and then rubs blood on his brother’s face.  As a result, everyone assumes that Todd is the murderer.

Nine years later, Terry is living with Maddy at a secluded apartment complex called Shadow Woods.  Todd, on the other hand, is stuck in an asylum and not very happy about it.  On Thanksgiving, Todd escapes from the asylum and heads off to Shadow Woods.

Here’s where things get strange.  Everyone assumes that Todd is heading to Shadow Woods to get revenge.  That’s certainly what I assumed when he first escaped.  But it turns out that Todd, despite all he’s been through, is still a gentle soul.  He just wants to be free and to see his family.  However, when Terry learns that Todd has escaped, he sees it as a perfect excuse to go on another killing spree.

So, while Todd is sneaking around the complex, Terry is killing Maddy’s latest boyfriend and all of their neighbors.  Everyone who sees Todd asumes that he’s Terry and almost everyone who sees Terry assumes that he’s Todd.  It’s an intriguing premise that has a lot of potential.  Unfortunately, Blood Rage never gets as much mileage out of the idea as it should.  It’s not until the last few minutes of the film that it really digs into just how messed up Maddy and her sons really are.

Every by the standards of an 80s slasher film, Blood Rage is brutal.  Hands are hacked off.  Heads are separated from necks.  One unfortunate victim is chopped in half and spends what seems like several minutes feeling around for the lower half of her body.  As opposed to emotionless killing machines like Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers, Terry Simmons seems to get real kick out of what he’s doing, which makes him all the more disturbing.  Interestingly, it’s not just the killing that Terry enjoys.  Terry also seems to enjoy knowing that he’s specifically going to get Todd in even more trouble.  He’s the ultimate bad sibling.

Mark Soper plays both Todd and Terry and he does a good enough job in the role that you can tell the two twins apart.  Occasionally, Soper does occasionally go a bit overboard as Terry but then again, most murderers aren’t known for their subtle personalities.  The film is pretty much stolen by Louise Lasser, who gives a memorably eccentric performance as Maddy who is, in her own way, just as unstable as her sons.  Some of the performances from the surprisingly large number of victims are inconsistent but, in the end, everyone dies convincingly and that’s what really matters in a film like this.

As I mentioned at the start of this review, Blood Rage was filmed in 1983 and sat on the shelf for four years.  Apparently, several different versions of the film have been released.  There’s a version called Nightmare at Shadow Woods that has almost all of the gore cut out.  The version that’s on Shudder is apparently uncut but it also opens with a title card that reads Slasher.  Blood Rage is a bit of a generic title but it is appropriate.  There is a lot of blood and there’s a lot of rage.

In the end, Blood Rage is an effective, if uneven, slasher movie.  Though the budget was undeniably low, the gore effects are convincing and the whole twin subplot allows from some unexpected moments.  The low-budget look of the film actually works to Blood Rage‘s advantage.  The grainy images occasionally give the film a rather dream-like feel.  At its best, it looks like a filmed nightmare.  At its worst, it just looks like another low-budget slasher flick from Florida.

Blood Rage may not be a masterpiece but it is a good film for the Halloween (and, given the film’s set-up, Thanksgiving) seasons.

 

The TSL’s Grindhouse: The Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson (dir by Daniel Farrands)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last year, I was one of the few people willing to defend The Haunting of Sharon Tate, which I felt was an effective film despite its rather icky premise.  I thought that the film managed to maintain a compelling atmosphere of dread and I also thought that, though somewhat miscast, Hilary Duff gave a good performance in the lead role.  Finally, I felt that, despite the exploitative nature of the film, the film was firmly on the side of Sharon Tate and the other victims of the Manson Family.  Though the title may have been offensive, the film itself was better than it had any right to be.

I really can’t say the same for The Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson, which is from the same production team as The Haunting of Sharon Tate and which imagines the final days in the life of another famous homicide victim.  Mena Suvari stars as Nicole Brown Simpson, the ex-wife of football player OJ Simpson (played, in a hyperactive manner, by Gene Freeman).  The film follows Nicole as she deals not only with her abusive ex-husband but also with shady friends like Faye Resnick (Taryn Manning) and slightly less-disreputable friends like Kris Jenner (Agnes Bruckner).

In the film, Nicole also has a short-lived affair with a handsome but unstable drifter named Glen Rogers (Nick Stahl).  In real life, Glen Rogers is currently incarcerated in Florida, where he awaits execution for a series of murders.  Rogers has confessed to killing people all across the country, though there’s some doubt as to whether or not Rogers was being honest when he did so.  (Rogers later recanted the confession.)  Rogers’s brother has claimed that Glen confessed to murdering Nicole Simpson and Adam Goldman, saying that he was actually hired to do so by OJ Simpson.  (Technically, Glen Rogers said that Simpson hired him to steal some jewelry but also gave him permission to kill Nicole if he felt that it was necessary.)  The film presents Rogers’s story as being fact, complete with a scene of OJ meeting with Glen shortly before the murders occur.

Other than making the case that Glen Rogers murdered Nicole and Ron, the majority of the film is just Mena Suvari walking around Los Angeles and talking to her friends about how she has a feeling that something terrible is going to happen.  Whereas The Haunting of Sharon Tate was willing to challenge the audience’s expectations by, at least briefly, changing history and presenting an alternate version of what could have happened that day in 1969, The Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson is pretty much a grim march towards death, with each scene bringing the audience closer and close to the night of the actual murderers.  If the film actually presented Nicole as being a fully-realized character as opposed to just a doomed victim, the story’s fatalistic atmosphere would work on an existential level but since the film doesn’t seem to care about who Nicole was before she died, it all just feels very sleazy.

Towards the end of the film, there’s an odd scene where an unseen force suddenly starts to violently throw Nicole across her bedroom, sending her against the walls and, at one point, pinning her to the ceiling.  It’s a weird scene because it comes out of nowhere and it’s never explained whether it really happened or if Nicole was imagining being attacked.  It doesn’t belong in this film and yet, it’s also the only moment when this film feels in any way unpredictable.  Is the film trying to suggest that death, as a paranormal entity, was stalking her even before the night of her murder or was the scene just tossed in to liven up what is otherwise a rather slowly paced movie?  Who knows?  Again, if the film had really explored the issue of whether or not fate is predetermined and inevitable, it would have made for a far more interesting story than the rush job that this film appears to have been.

Mena Suvari and Nick Stahl are two actors who probably deserve better than this.  Stahl is especially effective as the creepy but handsome Glen Rogers.  Visually, the film is full of Hollywood glamour and ominous shadows.  It’s not a bad-looking film, at all.  Technically, The Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson is well-made but, at the same time, it’s all just so astoundingly pointless.  The memory of Nicole Simpson deserved better.