Night Killer

Back again oh Readers of Rotten. Yeah I am liking that tagline. Feel free to shoot a variant or simply different term to quantify yourselves, my readers. Today we haven't had nearly enough schlock in some time; so who better to go to then Bruno Mattei (Rats, Shocking Dark, Strike Commando, Robowar, Strike Commando 2 and Island of the Living Dead) and Claudio Fragasso (Monster Dog, Zombie 3, Troll 2, After Death, Beyond Darkness,Operazione Odissea and The Squad) the Mockbusters of Italy.  Is the film a Giallo?  Is it a slasher film?  We will find out.

This is Night Killer a.k.a. Do not open that door 3

Eww, your hand smell of Astroglide and pathetic tears.

Wow with in the first 8 minutes we got nudity (Yes fellas there's titty in this) and I just know this will be an international epic. We also have English dubbing that may or may not actually, possibly mimic human speech patterns. This is due to an Italian film crew needing all lines having everything phonetically translated. This is one of the many reasons Troll 2 is awesomely bad. Also question your life choices if you are considering watching Troll 2 without a drinking or riffing game.

On with the film as we see choreography on the stage. Work those calves guys and dolls. No they aren't doing a production of Guys & Dolls. The dancing is all over the stage, aerobics in the background and the play director looks like she is doubling over from bad clams. All in all a fun time clearly.  Honestly, these many uncoordinated white folk dancing brings me right back to Friday the 13^th Part 4: The Final Chapter.   While viewing Crispin Glover's character looking like he is have several myocardial episodes, I screamed at the screen offering Jason $80 to off them all.

FAME! None of you gonna get it!

One of the dancers shows up late and director well, she really didn't chew the girl out. It was tame so she is gotta get dressed for rehearsal and we got a music cue of bad guy about, with a near Freddy Krueger knifed glove and bad head? Going by the shadow, folks. An almost Radu from Subspecies hand eases the changing room door as we gander at nude blonde soon-to-be-dead. Keeping it classy, right movie?  In addition to a Kreuger knock off mask, he has Zombified, Mongoloid, Hillbilly Jason Voorhees murder strength; as he penetrates her entire chest with a slightly effeminate jab. One Punch Man could have made that strike. Also the killer's apparel is already revealed to be wearing said mask, a maintenance jumpsuit and a black trench coat.  Between Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees, those jumpsuits just fly off the shelves.

The director has a slight meltdown and by that it sounds like she is supposed to be frustrated...it came off like she forgot her lines. I could be wrong. With the PG-13 Tourette's aside, she goes for a smoke and calming down.  Ew Camels non-filtered. I think I figured out why she couldn't project loudly.   Oh in case it sounds like I don't even care about the actors dancing, there are no credits to their IMDB I could find. Yeah! That's what I am dealing with here.

Frustrated, the director/choreographer goes to give Elizabeth Ross (Yup, Betsy Ross) a piece of her mind and she bumps right into the killer; who rakes her throat with his Radu claws.  8 minutes in and we are finally getting our title cards.   A few directors still like that gag.   Finally, lead characters. Melanie (Tara Buckman of The Cannonball Run, Silent Night, Deadly Night, Xtro II: The Second Encounter, Freddy's Nightmares, and Blindfold: Acts of Obsession) sends her daughter Clarissa (Tova Sardot of Night Killer) to see her dad.  Ahh divorce but still behaved. Good call, parents.  I would also point out the striking resemblance Tara Buckman has to Linda Hamilton.   Kind of eerie truth be told.  

Suburban life of 90's coifed hair, shoulder pads in business jackets for both sexes and economy cars.  It is winter in Virginia Beach (in spite of being shot mostly in Rome) and the exposition plot dump tells the tale of the killer as he is also...a rapist. Yay. Grrr. Really need to start viewing synopsis better.

Renegotiating nudity clauses.

We know that Mel is a serious writer, because her whole den is infested with books and she smokes indoors. I vaguely recall smoking indoors. We get a red herring with her ex-lover as he drinks too much and sounds like he was voiced by a drunk Angus Scrimm (Tall Man from Phantasm series).

Melanie is attacked by said murder/rapist and she saw his face but the events are so traumatic she can't bear to think of it. A quick technical note, there was a beginning scene of Tara topless and mere seconds later, she's got a sweater on. The editor fall asleep or fall off the wagon? Your guess is as good as mine.

This masked sicko roams the streets and the cops are doing everything but yelling at Melanie for not remembering that horrible day. Yes fellas, it's all her fault your investigations turned up nothing. Jerks.

Will the killer be brought to justice? Will Melanie remember the killer, let alone who she is?

I get the vibe that Fragasso was going for an intense thriller and they snagged Bruno Mattei for the gobsmack collection of nudity and gore as he is known for. You can really tell the difference in their two styles.   The gore is definitely there, the effects are pretty hammy and the music score sounds like someone sat on a Casio keyboard.  What had the potential for a good ,psychological thriller murder mystery got dumb down for blood, guts and nudity.

So if you need implied rape and murder, see a shrink.   If you want complex story line and clever dialogue, don't watch this.   The irony is in the title as most of the murder/rapes were happening in daylight hours or really well lit homes.  Yeah well this was awful and I am out.  Please again, feel free to suggest titles for future reviews.

Shall I hold you closer, tiny dancer?

Forgotten Fantasy: The Seven Magnificent Gladiators

And we are back with another helping of Forgotten Fantasy, the Sci-Fi Fantasy that has probably fallen into the five dollar bin in Best Buy or Wal-Mart. Course if you are shopping at Wal-Mart for entertainment, you may have serious issues already. Moving along we have a heaping dish based on the brilliant work of Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. That was made into the 1960 John Sturges' The Magnificent Seven spawning two sequels, The Return of the Magnificent Seven in 1966 and The Magnificent Seven Ride!in 1972. Alas we are not going to being viewing and reviewing some bloodier Westerns but instead we will be taking yet another peak into the warped mind of writer/director Claudio Fargassio (Women's Prison Massacre, Rats: Night of Terror, Cop Game, Zombi 3, Strike Commando 2 and Shocking Dark) and director Bruno Mattei (Hell of the Living Dead, Rats: Night of Terror, Strike Commando, The Tomb and The Jail: The Women's Hell ).  Yeah you know how much I love these two asshats. This is The Seven Magnificent Gladiators.

Catfight!!!

So we open with symphony orchestral and clashing cymbals for tales of high adventure!! Also some weird title sequence with overexposure and stop motion with the stills and then a gal dressed in black with an elaborate head dress walking about the Parthenon, sorceress Anakora (Barbara Pesante of The Seven Magnificent Gladiators) and mother to the brute of the land, her son the Demigod Nicerote (Dan Vadis of Colossus of the Arena, Hercules the Invincible, Hercules vs the Giant Warriors, For a Few Extra Dollars, The Stranger Returns, The Scalphunters, High Plain Drifter and Bronco Billy) razzes the villagers after destroying their homes, slaughtering their men and taking of their women. He's a people person.

Now that is a brass band! 

With the village losing the lives of their teen boys was the las straw and Anakora reviews the mystical MaGuffin, a blade forged by the god Vulcan himself and once wielded by Achilles himself that may very well be the only weapon the defeat the mad half-god but first they must find a warrior worthy to carry it, dispatch their tyrant and give them their FreeEEEEDOOOOOoMMM!!! The maidens four must journey into Rome to find the worthy man by allowing them to grip the handle. Ole' Vulcan put in the safety feature of the unworthy get their hands scalded like they dropped their mitts directly into a boiling pot. I sense quite a few pissed off guys not going to be able to wank for a while.

I HAVE THE POWERRRRR!!!

Enter the games under the cover of night by torchlight! The reigning champion Han (Lou Ferrigno of The Incredible Hulk, Pumping Iron, Hercules, The Adventures of Hercules II, The Incredible Hulk Returns, Desert Warrior, Cage, Cage II, The Incredible Hulk 1996 Fox cartoon, The King of Queens and Soupernatural) charioteer, swordsmaster and all around grappler and defeater of men could be a good start in the maidens' quest but he is being eye banged by the Emperor's consort Lucilla (Mandy Rice-Davies of Iris, Bird of Prey, Black Venus, Nana, the True Key of Pleasure and Absolute Beginners) so he may already have his enormous hands full. The racing scene was no stabilizers so yeah that hurt my eyes. Han spares the life of Scipio (Brad Harris of Samson, The Fury of Hercules, King of Kong Island, Hercules and Falcon Crest) the other gladiator defying the Emperor as they ride away.

Yes they're real, you ass!

 The maidens encounter enough cripples, the deformed that they resemble leftovers from Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks threatening to take their valuables among other things when Han and Festo manage to show up in the nick of time and slap these poor damned souls from the pretty girls. Yes Lou just slapped about the hungry, crippled and the lame. Smooth Fargasso,smooth.

Julia (Sybil Danning of The Three Musketeers, The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge, Cat in the Cage, Battle Beyond the Stars, Hercules, Howling II: Striba Bitch, Reform School Girls and Warrior Queen) warrior maiden enters a drinking contest after losing a buttload of coin on the Han and Scipio charioteer fights,hears that the fellas have been captured but enough of that!   Oiled skimpy animal hide catfighting is the name of the game! I think a horny 12 year old Claudio wrote this film. Yes with camera angles so tight we can tell if the oils have seeped in anywhere.

I am the comic relief!

After seeing Han able to wield the Sword of Achilles, Scipio and Julia take him out to meet up with a few more friends of Scipio to round out our seven, Festo (Giovanni Cianfriglia of Banana Joe, Gunan, King of the Barbarians, Ironmaster, Escape from the Bronx, 2019: After the Fall of New York, Ladyhawke and The Barbarians) and Goliath (Emilo Messina of Triumph of the Ten Gladiators, Hercules and the Tyrants of Babylon, Badmen of the West, Web of Violence and Superargo contro Diaolikus), a strongman that Han harangued down the road and convinces him to join their quest to save this villagers from Nicerote.

With our seven warriors on the scene, one can only hope they can defeat the mad Demigod. One slight issue with Nicerote, is his outfit. While Connery wore his Zardoz outfit with more style and dignity, Nicerote is one hot mess. Black thigh high boots, a black leather pair of briefs, a bandoleer He-Man style and a flowing black cloak looking like Skeletor's gay cousin cruising and putting it out there a bit too much. Even Caligula would have told him to tone it down.

Maybe the subtitled version is superior but the dubbed version was quite painful. Dialogue had next to no inflection, emotion or even tone. With the exception of Goliath as he was voiced by the truly awesome baritone of Edward Mannix. Several of the extras fight sequences couldn't have done Dolemite prouder. A slight detour from the usual take on Kurosawa but over all with a few minor editing errors it wasn't bad and amazingly enough all the attractive women weren't strip bare for all to see. Even Sybil which is also shocking. 

I'm not nude. How strange.

 

Barely Legal Zombi Sequel: Zombi 4: After Death

Heya folks and welcome back to Rotten Reelz Reviews. Quick question... are some of you completely and utterly crackers or just without souls? I got messages begging me to review more of the unofficial sequels to Zombi and I have decided from this day forth they will be referred as Barely Legal Zombi Sequels. Catchy, right? I can just envision some horny guy snapping onto this blog only to NOT find full frontal nudity. Awww poor guy I made up but probably exists. With that in mind, the last one I reviewed was the befuddling, slapped together mismatch that was Zombi 3 or Flesh Eaters 2. Hell pick a title and roll with it.  That film was when director Lucio Fulchi had a minor then a major stroke and could no longer work on it. They claim he did 70 minutes of the film, then exploitation director Bruno Mattei stepped in, sliced it down to about 50 minutes off the original footage and he and writer Claudio Fargasso made 40 minutes of their own. Yup, nothing replaces the man that brought us The Gates of Hell trilogy like the guys behind Strike Commando, Shocking Dark a.k.a. Terminator 2, Cop Game and Troll 2. At least I had fun teasing the film about its many plot sinkholes but now I am supposed to watch this??!!! This is Zombi 4: After Death.

Dude, stop farting on the boat!!

Without any real assistance, this is Claudio Fargasso's baby and boy does it look like a turd from one of the mutants from either The Hills Have Eyes or possibly Wrong Turn 2: Dead End. Opening credits? Well okay but first cave shot lit up like either a 70s porno or an 80s music video. Pick one, they're probably using the same stock of film. Our cavern is lit by a few candles with this funky New Wave music as background with a Voodoo Priest that looks like Marvel Comics Brother Voodoo let himself go. Cut to shrieking black woman that resemble Chakka Khan as she twist and cavorts in what I believe to be interpretative dance or possibly a jazzercise video.

A group of scientists came to this remote island of who the hell knows where (maybe Haiti but really the Phillipines) to come up with a cure for cancer. Somehow whitey scientist offended Voodoo priest and he sicked his pet zombies on them and they sort look like deadites on some level. The lead scientists are killed but for the grace of plot convenience their little girl makes it off the island. Twenty years later, (And given the lack of music, slang and clothes change you really believe that) Jenny (Candice Daly of Hell Hunters, Cop Game, Heart of Darkness and The Young and the Restless) is leading a team of scientists to the SAME DAMN ISLAND her parents were eaten and devoured like so many chicken wings during the Final Four!

AHHH!!! I HATE VACATION PHOTOS!!! AHHHH!!!!

To be at the ready, the scientists hired some mercenaries probably burned out from Vietnam but apparently they couldn't afford The Expendables, so they got The Cannon Fodders. We got Rod (Nick Nicholson of American Ninja, Platoon, The House of Pleasure, Vulcan and Birds of Passage), David a.k.a. Italian Chuck Norris (Massimo Vanni ofThe Last Shark, 1990: The Bronx Warriors, Warriors of the Wasteland, Escape from the Bronx, Strike Commando, Zombi 3 and Shocking Dark), Chuck (Adult film actor Jeff Stryker of Powertool, Dirty Love, Jamie Loves Jeff, Ladies' Man and Every Which Way) and cruelly placed token black guy only known as Mad (Jim Moss of Eye of the Eagle, Saigon Commandos, Trigon Fire, The Hunted, Blood Ring, Kill Zone and Angelfist). Yessir, bunch of fine lookin' badasses we have.

Predictably they find the book the Voodoo priest was using and start reading out loud from the book. Folks, did Evil Dead not teach these knuckle knobs anything? Or Fraiser's The Mummy?? YOU MUST NOT READ FROM THE BOOK!!!!

Of course this disturbs the dead yet again and they are engulfing the island in sheer numbers. Some are fast, others shamble, Hell we even have some talking zombies because...eh. Reasons.

Will our collective ninny hammers find the cure? Will the mercs "GIT SOME!!"???

A few questions for anyone left with a brain stem. How did young Jenny ever get off the island on a raft? She had adequate food, water and protection from the sun's rays to avoid heat stroke, all the while paddled everyday into a major shipping lane? Why wouldn't she just direct people to the island rather than visit it? If you were going to visit this island, shouldn't this be a military operation with back up, support and serious boots on the ground?

The camera work is irritating, the soundtrack fades in and out at times and our characters are more dull than a wooden spoon. The gore effects are substantial and our loopier mercs kinda look like Dennis Hopper and Kris Kristofferson ,so that was fun. Yup, had me a few Blade riffs thrown in. Sorry guys, but no ridiculous out of place nudity in this film which stunned me to no end.

Tussin with remove even the Devil!!

Obscure Italian Horror: Beyond Darkness

Hey gang! Yeah I'm back for more Obscure Italian Horror movies. Say, what is more odd than a Lucio Fulchi movie? Well anything created solely by writer/director Claudio Fragasso (Monster Dog, Zombi 3, Strike Commando 2, After Death, Troll 2 and The Squad). Claudio is responsible for several Bruno Mattei films via "writing". Bringing such goofiness as Hell of the Living Dead, Guardian of Hell, Women's Prison Massacre, Rats: Night of Terror, Strike Commando, Double Target, Robowar, Cop Game, Zombi 3 and Shocking Dark has been most of the knock offs that Horror, Action and Sci-fi has flooded the market for more than 30 years.

Our odd creation today is deemed an unofficial sequel due to mass distribution of a series of every five years to having translation errors that often occur. With the titles of Ghosthouse 2, Evil Dead 5, House 5 and Horror House II, it actually is no wonder most people cannot find this even at Wal-Mart. The most common official title of our movie is found in Amazon so by God let's go with that.  This is Beyond Darkness.

Kids, stop playing with dark forces and go take your baths.

First off, IMDB's synopsis is crap as our minister turns out to be a priest so already huge separation between Catholic and Protestant faith. Secondly, since when does a priest have a family?? Yup I was a trifle baffled at this. Father George (David Brandon of She, Cave Dwellers a.k.a. The Blade Master, The Lost City, Warrior Queen, Eleven Days, Eleven Nights and The Maharaja's Daughter) gives the last rites to a serial child killer and attends her execution. She claims to have devoured their souls and thus giving her power over the world. Her wacky Satanic bible apparently effects the father making him (ALL TOGETHER NOW) question his faith.

Father Peter (Gene Lebrock of Santa Barbara, Fortress of Amerikkka: The Mercenaries, Metamorphosis, Night of the Beast and Fatal Choice) moves his family into a less than savory house. Less all white exterior like say Amityville Horror but a house that definitely defies logic and registers at least a 8 on the Weird Crap 'O Meter.

The good father and his wife Annie (Barbara Bingham of The Octagon, Splitz, Death Mask, The Colbys, Real Men, Knots Landing, Friday the 13^th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan and Cop Target) start to notice odd sounds and sights and begin to wonder if they got this house under other reasons. With a little background investigation (GOOGLE IT DAMMIT!!) we find out that the house was built on the same land when twenty witches lost their britches because all went up in flames via witch hunt and trials. 

 

Witch wardrobe brought to you by Glad bags.

It is almost as Father George's faith was the only thing keeping these maleficent spirits at bay as they are tormenting the family of which one of the children is none other than Michael Stephenson of Troll 2 and The Paper Brigade. Ahh Troll 2...what dog flop. George combines his forces with Peter and they are MEGA PRIEST!!! Actually they engage the spirits in the rites of exorcism but Mega Priest sounded cooler. Would have settled for Captain Catholic too. Can the padres duo banish the spirits?? Will their faith waiver?? Will Pazuzu of Exorcist II: The Heretic make an appearance?

Let's break it down. The practical appliances and effects aren't bad, just dated. A lot of dry ice and back lighting was used so you know there wasn't a huge budget and everyone is written like a one dimensional stereotype. Our pace is dragging so much that snails begin to lap us, the intentions and ideas behind this film clearly feel like they have been lifted from both Poltergeist and The Exorcist but poorly executed. It was said at one point, Fragasso's people tried to get Linda Blair into the project but she shot that down toot sweet. B- for effort, fellas but the lady can do more than spit pea soup. As far as DVD releases this seems to be only found as a double feature for George Eastman's Metamorphosis on Blu-ray. Yea not even a DVD release. 

Confessions of a Priest...The Behind Bars Edition!