Sin Reaper

Hey there, gang! I'm back with a horror film to review. Yes I know, I do lapse into this a little too often but this particular flick is produced and distributed by the one and only, Fangoria Magazine. 

For those that aren't warped and eerie from so many slasher films or whatever fits the holy rollers' current criteria, Fangoria Magazine has been in print since 1979, started as a quarterly issue and it wasn't until the 7^th issue did it venture solely into Horror genre. In 2015, the magazine was ceased and unlikely to be back in print but had a huge internet following and the fans spoke out. Film producer Dallas Sonnier of Cinestate acquired the magazine in 2018 and also sunk fangs into podcasting, film production and novelization under the Fangoria flag.

FYI, films produced by Fangoria is as far back as 1990 with Bruce and Bill Campbell's Mindwarp so the magazine is no stranger to Horror distribution. Back to the movie now.

Today's flick is about a young woman with continuous nightmares or visions of a past she isn't certain is hers. After consulting with her shrink, she takes his advise and makes her way to Germany, seeking her ancestral roots. This is Sin Reaper.

Did I get top billing? Damn straight I did!

Heeeeeyyyy...her shrink looks an awful lot like an android. Yup that's Lance Henriksen, character actor extraordinaire!

The young woman is Samantha Walker (Helen Mutch of Lunar Girl, All in the Game, You're Fired!! Lycanthropy Gardens with Red Roses, The Village and Sin Reaper 3D) whose nightmares are about a disturbing cowled monk with a four sided ax? Maybe a flail? A mace? Need a SCA member to wage a guess. She converses with Frank Black there and sees what can be done. While Samantha has been with a loving family, she is adopted and knows next to nothing about her birth parents. Her artwork is vivid and she has a few medications but not quite the bevy I have seen. Doesn't seem to be on any anti-psychotics, her artwork is still being channeled.  Using her own drawings, Lance find Wallhausen monastery and sets her on her path to this remote, isolated area of Germany and find out if there is any truth to her dreams and must confront them head on. How very Dr. Phil. Hope she's paid up for sessions.

MICHELLE!!! FLEDGLING!!!

Among ze Germans, most of the cast sounds like they learned their English lines phonetically and I am having Troll 2 flashbacks already. You don't piss on hospitality, boy!

We find the garb of said monk is reminiscent of ones found with the Crusades and I am immediately wondering if he or she is connected to the Knights Templar. It is a popular connection for Horror. Amando de Ossorio's Tombs of the Blind Dead quadrilogy is prime examples of such. The music score is reminding me of Ted Nicolau's Vampire Journals. Prep the vampire orgy scenes!  No?  Huh, I mean that's fine. Didn't wanna see those anyway, whatever. Instead our killer monk seems to be gacking men and women of the Roman Catholic faith. So the Protestants can breathe easy I guess.

Okay before I go further, I must warn you that you are not getting your Lance Henriksen fix from this film. His shrink character has about three scenes and then he's out of the flick. I know, I would have loved it if he went with Samantha on this intrepid journey into her bloodlines' past but it was not meant to be. Or they simply couldn't afford him. Low budget has to put their money where they can in all of the project.

Got a little grape jelly on your neck there.

Moving on, Samantha finds herself at the very monastery of her dreams of bloody murder. That's..uh that's not necessarily a good thing. The monastery itself is vast and a character all to its own. Provides great atmosphere and frankly I'd shoot a flick horror wise here as well. Proper mood and darkness spreads over the courtyard and you will be easily creeped out.

Samantha almost immediately bonds with another tourist Sasha (Patrick J. Thomas of Son of Morning, Going Global, Sin Reaper 3D, Million Dollar Matchmaker and Megan Nicole: Checklist) and I think it may be due to her dreams of blood or possibly she just doesn't get out in the dating scene that often. Hell I don't understand women enough to psychoanalyze them. Just felt rather sudden. The guy's pretty enough but Samantha is practically salivating.

The caretaker of the monastery gets all shady and foreshadow like hinting this may not be the safest idea, so naturally our gaggle of one-dimensional teens have to go back in the night and start screwing around or screwing each other. When will these pesky teens to twenty somethings ever learn?!

Lord be praised!  *WHACK!

Interesting enough, one of the tourists Jenny (Hazuki Kato of Ballistica, The Forest, The League, Sin Reaper 3D, Shi, Muppets Most Wanted, Falcon Rising, Atomic Eden and Grisse) speaks perfect English buuuuuut has done something her voice that either sounds like nails on a chalkboard or a Yoko Ono album. Whichever is more painful for you. I think it was the director's choice, I will look further into young Kato's filmography and make a more informed decision.

So one by one they are stalked and now we have slasher elements and for this film, that's okay. What puzzles me is the whole 3-D angle because our kills didn't get the graphic edge I was expecting. Figured innards and entrails would fly at the screen or a head would bounce down a flight of stairs but yeah it was really wasted. Loved how the staff of the tourist spot there attempts to be nonchalant but FAILS at even a hint of subtlety. The performances were workable and decent. Camera, lighting and sound all quality and just again shows that low budget can create just as easily as the A-List.

Not a bad concept using a religious persecution as the basis of your Horror movie, it has been done before but this was executed well. Director Sebastian Bartolitius (Another Slice of Life, Die Reise des Jacob Crane, Coppelius and Passage 33) made this unfold well but some of the less than subtle responses made it feel awkward in scenes. At the end of the day it is good work.

Few observations at this time. Lot of handheld work. While that can create suspense if done right I guess they didn't have the ability for a dolly track from scene to scene. Some real jarring zoom up shots and weird pans, made me wonder how much work these cameramen had prior but overall some solid work. Not trashing the cinematography. Just made me start thinking of early 90s Charles Band flicks like Subspecies. Again not a bad thing and easy enough to get used to.

STOP MENTIONING THE WAR!

New Rotten Reelz Reviews Audio Review #25: Zombie Doom

So this is what I busted my ass on yesterday.  It is very adult orientated and a bit on the graphic side.

Enjoy and you have been warned. Zombie Doom Audio Review

Andreas Schnass: Nikos the Impaler

Howdy all and brace yourselves, for we are about to embark on the impossible. We shall journey together through an Andreas Schnaas film. What's that? You've never heard of this gore enthuasitic director of German horror? Well a few highlights before we go into the fray then. Andreas Schnaas (Violent Sh!T, Violent Sh!t 2, Violent Sh!t 3: Zombie Doom, Violent Sh!t 4.0 Carl the Butcher Vs Axe) is a gore fanatic but not really what you would call a well rounded director. Most of his characters last about 15 to 20 seconds worth of dialogue hastily thrown together and then a gore gag happens to them so this could also be translation issues but I kinda doubt that. Now it has been on the request of some of the readers that I tackle this guy and so I thought his American release would be easier than anything else. This is Nikos the Impaler a.k.a. Violent Sh!t 4 a.k.a. Nikos a.k.a. Survival of the Dead.

I got yer Angela Baker right here!

Okay first off this was very difficult for me to find. The local DVD shops including the fricking 5 dollar bins didn't seem to have it. Hell, I even went to Wal-Mart and Target to see if they had alternative title copies (Which is pretty damn common) but no such luck. So yeah I had to Netflix this movie. Not exactly thrilled about that but let's get on with the film itself. Nikos (Andreas Schnaas) is a Romanian (Transylvanian at this time) barbarian in well, hiding out in either a natural cave or a catacomb is been persecuted and ended for his evil deeds. Apparently, a thousand years ago raping and pillaging was frowned upon as a bad thing. He claims he will rise again like some D&D wizard/warrior then flails about in his own entrails.

The armor is a bit tight in the crotch. Just saying.

Cut to Professor Frank Heller (Joe Zaso of 5 Dead on the Crimson Canvas, The Bloody Ape, Addicted to Murder 3: Blood Lust, Rage of the Werewolf, Demonium and Virus X) giving a riveting lecture to his students about this very timeline, its occupants and the general behavior of the time. The lovely fellow professor Sandra Kane ( Felissa Rose of Taken Alive, Bloodhounds II, Dinner and Driving, Daybreak, Nikos the Impaler, Zombiegeddon, The Drone Virus and Satan's Playground) and Frank having been dating and dragging her to Violent Sh!t 3: Infantry of Doom is a date movie!?! No seriously, she says if I can handle that I can handle an art exhibit of ancient Romanian butchery and violence.

Grandma Rotty!?!  NOoOoOoOoOOooo!!!!

Observing an exhibit of Romanian art and ancient tapestries Daisy (Brenda Abbandandolo of Nikos the Impaler and Under Surveillance) has the horrible task of being the know-it-all expert in this ancient history and given some of the doofiest lines imaginable. We have a stereotypical conservative gay couple disgusted at the the rending and depictions of violence on the canvas that I got a slight chuckle out of that. This film is 2003 so really there are ways of people watching and observing a culture you know NEXT TO NOTHING about. Thank you writer Ted Geoghegan (Demonium, Barricade, Don't Wake the Dead, Sweatshot and The Disco Exorcist) you insensitive wanker. Moving on, this drags a bit until a botched attempt to steal some of the antiquities results in a fellow getting his carotid artery opened up and dribbling all over the mask of the late Nikos and viola! Instant resurrection in full armor. He then proceeds to waste the museum patrons and stays in the damn place for more than an hour!!!

He finally journeys out into the streets of New York and yeah that could draw attention one would think. Smashing up a cab with his...really painful CGI effects and then bringing characters from other Schnaas films to life he conjures up a succubus, Hitler, ninjas and Eva Braun?? Nikos trashes a lesbian bar, a movie theater and a video store.  Hmm, art mimicking life??   A metaphor?  NAH!!!

Will Nikos be stopped!?!  Can Frank and Sandra bring Nikos down??   Is this Bat Gag ever get tiresome??

Felissa delivers the epic line after seeing the impossible made possible "Ninjas, sure. Why the f*ck not."

This film is intended to be gore gags and a somewhat developed story. It brings a bit of T&A courtesy of soft core erotica horror and sci-fi actress Darian Caine (Mistress Frankenstein, Gladiator Eroticvs: The Lesbian Warriors and Lust for Dracula) decapitations, gutting and mutilations that well...kinda lack believably but so did a similar lumbering undead guy in the form of Jason Vorhees via Friday the 13^th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan. The difference there is they didn't take their flick so damn seriously, they had better lighting and probably didn't shoot on 16 mm and expect digital to clean that all up.  The film looks grainy and like a daily print.   Thank God the boom mic, shotgun mic on the camera and the personal mics were functioning or I wouldn't have heard the lines dubbed or otherwise.

Maybe it was my copy but I think they may all look this way. I did laugh seeing cameos of Troma's own Debbie Rochon and Lloyd Kaufman. Interesting how our Romanian barbarian is followed around the streets in his bloody warpath by death metal music as a personal soundtrack. This is a goofy gorefest and if that is up your alley then have at it. It is certainly not the worse movie I have sat through so...there's that.

Are we gonna get graded on this?