Blastfighter

So back again. Thought this time we would head back into exploitation. This time around we hit Italian Action under the helm of Lamberto Bava (Devil Fish, Demoms, You'll Die at Midnight, Demons 2, Delirium and Turno di notte) Son of cinematographer/director Mario Bava (also known as the Godfather of Giallo movies). Today's film follows a revenge story of a ex-cop going to completely sick house on the men that wronged him. This is Blastfighter a.k.a. Force of Vengeance.

Pew!  Pew pew pew!!

Former officer Jake "Tiger" Sharp (Michael Sopkiw of 2019: After the Fall of New York, Devil Fish, Blastfighter, Massacre in Dinosaur Valley and Bad Dog and Superhero) has been released from prison after murdering his wife's murderer. 7 years served and Jake is sprung. FYI, the credits are bonkers. They shift all over screen during stoic no conversation car ride. His buddy Jerry hands an ex-con a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum and Spas 12 shotgun. Um not sure if Italy is as severe as the states are with allowing violent ex-cons with firearms but it is a big no-no stateside.

US wise, this shotgun became infamous or deemed cool in Sci-Fi/Action thanks to the 1984 James Cameron film, The Terminator during the police station massacre. To follow-up the pump action or semi auto shotgun, this thing has been equipped to launch mini rockets, dragon's breath (magnesium phosphate rounds), rubber loads, AP (armor piercing) and standard 12 gauge double ought. WHAT THE HELL??!!!

That's far enough, Three Dog Night!

Contemplating bloody murder for the attorney that sent up the river, Jake has a last minute change of heart to pass on being sent back and gives in to the idea to make his way to the Appalachian mountains. Fun tidbit, no follow-up to the whole revenge on the attorney subplot. Yeah! Just dropped like a steamy elephant turd and on his way. Blastfighter! The Waffler!

Perhaps the fresh air and cabin life in the wilderness might calm his urge to kill. Unless his porridge is just right then at least three bears will bust in the door, eat his porridge, crap on his floor and mock him profusely.

The composition sounded so familiar and that's when it hit me. Gotta be Fabio Frizzi (Godzilla, Zombi, Contraband, City of the Living Dead, The Beyond, Manhattan Baby, Pieces, The Scorpion with Two Tails, Devil Fish, and Tentazione) the go-to composer for Lucio Fulci, Bruno Mattei, Lamberto Bava and Claudio Fragasso. So that's a good thing...I think.

Getting back to our story you'd think being 7 years in the jug would have sent him woman chasing for at least a solid week. Again, just my realm of thinking if I had to go without sex (not excluding attempted bad touch in the prison shower) with a girl.

Hey, that's not Bronson!

Stocking up on supplies at a general store, I swear Jake passed a grown up version of the banjo playing hillbilly kid from Deliverance. Hoyt Pollard that is.

Attempting to make some semblance of a normal life, Jake has his very strained daughter Connie (Valentina Forte a.k.a.Valerie Blake of Cut and Run, Body Count, Arrivederci Roma, A Wonderful Family, Il giardino dei ciliegi, Mi manca Marcella and I ragazzi del muretto) come and visit him. Seriously man from one Jake to another; invite some girls out and burn off some...aggression?

Well as man plans, the gods do laugh because trouble is up on the ridge as Jake's deer get shot and taken. These inbred hillbillies threatened his life and told him off. Another fine example of civilized men. They have bagged at least 8 deer which any ranger worth his salt is giving them so many citations it's going to cost them into the thousands.

Jake gets hip to a Hong Kong poaching ring that uses the parts for Chinese herb remedies and are cleaning up. Didn't realize powdered deer penis went that great but folks got allergies.

Naturally hillbilly gun nuts are considerate to Jake's feelings, family life and overall health. Oh wait, no they are not.

Feeling like a mixture of Death Wish and Straw Dogs, Jake has his hands full with some poachers that just got to prove their might by popping deer. As if that wasn't enough, the leader of the poacher ring, Tom (George Eastman of Anthrophagus, Absurd, Cannibal Holocaust, 2019: The Fall of New York, Warriors of the Wasteland and 2020 Gladiators) who looks like a hybrid of Kenny Loggins and Nick Nolte is the man with the plan. Yup the crap hit the fan and it was on high.

Following the tropes of the vengeful ex-cop getting revenge and it feels like the film is just building up and counting down the seconds for the bloody rampage to happen. The thing is Tom and Jake were childhood buddies long ago and Tom really doesn't want to have to deal with Jake in the final sense.

Between the eco-system destruction, the high deer kill counts and impending bloody rampage to ensue, this actually is a decent flick. The pace is even and not as slow as I thought it would be. The only gripe I have had was the English dubbing. The translation from Italian to English is awful with swearing. I mean the poachers first meet Jake, tell him to f*ck off and turn their backs on the guy armed with a semiautomatic shotgun. He could have smoked all three before they could have spun around and leveled the rifles. 

 A quick spoiler, yes lady readers there is a rape subplot once again.  Sorry.  I could have done without it too, but I thought you should know.  In case you went to go watch it.

During the erstwhile vigilante justice, this film makes you know that it is making an eco plea. Think of it as a precursor to On Deadly Ground, a decade before. It was actually a fairly compelling story and has some solid action, so overall was a good action movie.

Maybe it's a telephoto lens?

Lamberto Bava Week: Demons 2

Welcome back boys and girls for Day 4 of Lamberto Bava Week and man I gotta say I was a bit surprised with this one. Given the reoccurring theme of shock and awe with a shoestring budget I have seen this week, imagine my surprise when a lesser sequel doesn't hold a candle to its predecessor. Seems like a very loosely connected sequel similar to A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, retooling the original work and altering the existing mythos because it is lazy writing in my opinion or just piss poor research of their own material. This is Demons 2.

Gonna pump you up!!!

So everything and everyone in the original film Demons was in fact supposed grounded into reality while this film is a movie within a movie? So we were watching a movie, watching a movie while in a movie??? Crack open your ibuprofen if you need it, because it gets odder. Our story follows pesky teens trespassing into a city that was deserted due to the demon outbreak... so does that mean in that reality, there was a demon/human war and there were severe casualties but they had plenty of time to crank out video documentaries/films about the subject matter? In the sense of it being a sequel it has demons and that is about it.

While we started off in the theater and expanded to the streets in the first film most of Demons 2 takes place in a substantial apartment building. A young couple being sweet and snuggly, a teenager having a birthday party with her friends, a family having some dinner and several musclebound jockos popping a sweat in the basement gym and thankfully the film has told us where everyone is.

Even movie titles want cake too.

A few folks are gazing at the idiot box with the show is focused on demons as the dialogue would have you belief this very thinly affiliation to the first movie and viewing this somehow releases the demons from the TV and into their really real world dimension as they proceed to go sickhouse throughout the apartment. With the athletes using a rudimentary series of makeshift melee weapons to fight, the rest of the building's tenants attempt to flee out of window washer harness, down the fire stairwell and even the fricking elevators to what avail??? Dare they try and hold back the all consuming onslaught of evil? When will self-preservation kick in?

A bit of trivia on our movie of the day.

I was deeply impressed with the practical effects of this film such as: the resurrection of the fallen demon was a wax hand melting and then the film was reversed and the demon popping out of the TV was an actor wearing a mask pressing his face into a screen of latex.

Bobby Rhodes who played Tony the pimp from Demons returned as a different character but yes I did snicker a bit. The demonic boy chasing after Hannah was actually played by adult dwarf actor Davide Marotta (Phenomena, Demons 2, A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Passion of the Christ). With a more New Wave and Punk score and soundtrack we have tunes by Love and Rockets, Dead Can Dance, The Smiths and The Cult. What shocked me was seeing 11 year old Asia Argento joins our cast of players. Guess when your dad is the Italian master of Horror, this stuff doesn't phase you. Final vote is choppy editing, far-fetched story and not a single likable character. Sorry folks but the only pro I could find here was the makeup and FX were superior than the first film and that is about it.

BUUuuUuUuUURPP!!

Lamberto Bava Week: A Blade in the Dark

Hey you crazy kids welcome back for Day 3 of Lamberto Bava Week and it is time for another giallo film. Again, if you are unaware Giallo is the term for Italian thriller which usually follow gruesome murder mysteries, unlikely victims, less than likely sleuths and always a morbid back-story for the killer. Such as it was with Dario Argento's Deep Red and Tenbre, this film is no exception to graphic deaths but is vastly tame for a horror movie's standards.

This is A Blade in the Dark.

Accidents will happen in the kitchen.

Our movie opens with two darn kids daring each other to go down a creepy fruit cellar and suddenly overpowered to neither be seen or heard from again. Working well into the nights composer Bruno (Andrea Occhipinti of Congquest, Bolero, Miranda, The Jeweller's Shop and The Sea Inside) is busting his hump on his latest creation as eerie mood music for a horror movie when he decides to rent a secluded villa so he make work in peace. This manor is enormous and inhabited by many. True to giallo modus operandi, a beautiful young woman Katia (Valeria Cavalli of Bomber,The Tenors, La bocca, Blood and Dust, The First Circle and Mother of Tears) has disappeared and may have been murdered in the villa itself.

So naturally rather that bringing one's suspicions to the cops Bruno proceeds to his own investigations. He ends up dragging Julia (Lara Lamberti of Street Dance, Red Sonja, Garibaldi the General, Aenigma and A Case for Two) his girlfriend that came to visit purely for some implied sex sequences and she is convinced Bruno is putting so much time and effort into finding this girl that clearly he boinking her as well. The investigation points to the horror movie in question. Bruno composes a score about an abused child taunted by bullies that tossed his or her tennis ball down a flight of stairs leading to a darken cellar and he begins to wonder what else this movie will reveal. With a heaping helping of red herrings, dead ends and more murders, Bruno may not be the best investigator on the job, given he has no DAMN experience at it.

All I know is Chopsticks, they're bound to figure out I am lying.

A film that seems to channel Argento as much as Hitchcock the murders have a sense of flair and style as there are no two alike. The clock is ticking down and the cast is being thinned out. Can Bruno figure out who the murder is, why the need for so much blood and what was the reasons behind it all? Is he up for the task? Should he strengthen his skills by playing 221B Baker Street and/or Clue?

Just a few notations on the film now. I was surprised on the control of Bava not showing us extremely graphic death scenes similar to his mentor Dario Argento. That man likes to make a statement that he has been there and it is an elaborate and over the top death scenario. Very brief in the nudity which again I was flabbergasted with considering the incredible collection of ladies for this film. The cat and mouse game was well delivered and really allowed tension to build up. Hell the composure by Guido and Maurizio De Angelis is astounding, offering so many emotions to come flooding from the viewers as suspense builds up over and over again.

My one complaint is I felt the film drug on a bit to meet the obligational release requirement demanding that of a 90 minute or more film. Filmed in 35mm Spherical via Eastman Color, this film does give good suspense, some horrendous deaths and in general some good thrills, chills and blood spills. While I don't recommend you sit down with the kiddies to watch it, again it lack a lot of foul language, nudity or really repugnant deaths.

Green doesn't flatter me like I thought!!!

Lamberto Bava Week: Demons

Hello there, gentle readers and welcome back for Day 2 of Lamberto Bava Week. My fever is down so by God I am hobbling my achy self into a chair to watch this horror that awaits me. With a warped story penned by Lamberto Bava, produced by Dario Argento we can expect some blood, gore and pesky teen deaths toot sweet. This is Demons.

Dinner did not agree with her.

College kid Cheryl (Nastasha Hovey of Domani, Uomo contro uomo, Senza scampo, Volevo i pantaloni and Stay Lucky) is chased in the subway of the Berlin U-Bahn by a man in a mask for the length of two train stations just to give her a flyer to a newly renovated local movie theater. Cheryl convinces her friend Kathy (Paola Cozzo of Demons, Nightmare Concert (A Cat in the Brain, Demonia and Il grande fuoco) to cut classes and head to the movies.

The girls run into of all people, Carl Cabot!..um I mean George (Urbano Barberini of Otello, Gor, Opera, Gor II and Demons 6: De Profundis) and Ken (Karl Zinny of Pianoforte, Demons, Delirium, Opera, Act of Sorrow and La festa) who take an immediate liking to the girls and end up sitting with them in the theater rows. Not far from them is an elderly couple and a pimp named Tony (Bobby Rhodes of Hunter of the Apocalypse, Hercules, Demons and Demons 2) and his choice hos Rosemary (Geretta Geretta of Smithereens, Warrior of the Lost World, Rats: Night of Terror, Demons, Domino and Bloody Christmas) and Carmen (Fabiola Toledo of Big Mama, A Blade in the Dark, Demons, Brigada central, Taller mecanico and The Color of the Clouds) because Tony knows how to treat his women to entertainment. The film within the film opens with motocross bikes winding their way up to a creepy manor to the tune of Save Our Souls by Motley Crue.

Serial killer or Naruto fan?

Rosemary's face is scratched by a promotional mask that is virtually identical to the mask in the film she starts warping as the festering wound transmogrifies her into this viscous green mucilaginous demon. Rosemary proceeds to start whacking the fellow film goers and they either die or change as well. Pre-From Dusk 'Til Dawn only demons instead of vampires. The theater doors seem to be locked up and not letting anyone out as the survivors work out a way to escape before their numbers are up.

A few finer points on the film. This was shot in 35mm anamorphic widescreen. The dubbing is painful in translation alas Anchor Bay Entertainment doesn't have the film the original Italian dubbing, the soundtrack consists of the most overly used Edvard Grieg composure In The Hall of the Mountain King. Pull it up on youtube and you will be reminded several TV and movie trailers and intros.

Interestingly enough, Motley Crue, Rick Springfield and Billy Idol all added tunes to the movie to bring American audiences in to see the flick. Sadly with a paltry screening Bava did not get the love from the film until VHS rentals of which has given a well-established Lamberto Bava's cult classic following.

The prop motocross bike and sword sequence reminded me stuntman/stunt coordinator Joe Canutt from Boris Segal's The Omega Man as he goes flying up and down the aisles and stairs pinwheeling that sword around. From the impressive practical effects, the amount of gore induced story and path of the movie this was a creepy flick which ensures I get less sleep tonight assuming my cold doesn't do that as well.

My floor length skirt and I sense danger!

Lamberto Bava Week: Macabre

Felicitations to you, my readers and welcome to Day 1 of Lamberto Bava Week. Now today's movie took a bit of searching but we are not going on about it because I found it in less than a half hour. With alternative titles at the ready, different regions of the planet know a film by one title or another and so on. With a bit of luck and persistence I managed a copy that was English dubbed and not subbed. To be honest, I would have preferred the subtitles. With a simplistic yet twisted tale underway it is no wonder to this critic how Bava got a fan base. This is Macabre a.k.a. Frozen Terror.

Mmm, the pool boy has been working out.

Based in the city of New Orleans, our film is based on a true story that happen 5 year prior to its creation. An adulterous housewife (No, not Teri Hatcher, Eva Longoria or Marcia Huffman) Jane (Bernice Stegers of The Great Riviera Bank Robbery, The City of Women, Xtro, Sky Bandits, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Atlantis) is out and about when the husband is gone leaving her eldest child Lucy (Veronica Zinny of Macabre) to watch her little brother whilst Mommy gets her groove on. Being the ever observant and nosy kid that most can be, Lucy goes through Mommy's blackbook at a little apartment that is reserved for booty calls, scorns her mother and then proceeds to have a psychotic look in her eye. No sooner is Jane enjoying some heat beneath the sheets that Lucy convinced little brother to play with a sail boat in the tub... then drowns him as he is the favored child so therefore MUST PERISH!!! Yeah, not sure the moral lesson here but I also choose to not look into it.

Jane finds out her little boy has shuffled off this mortal coil, she and her man candy Fred (Roberto Posse of Nazi Love Camp 27, Eyes Behind the Wall, Rock 'n' Roll, In the Lost City of Sarzana and Trhauma) dash out the door, speed off in a mid-60s Volkswagon Bug to the traumatic setting when yammering about woulda, coulda, shoulda causes Fred to crash the Bug and decapitate himself with a rather conveniently placed guard rail not fully installed yet.

Oh, no I am not Paul McGann.

We then shoot ahead one year later to the local whacko basket...er... I mean asylum where Jane has been recovering heads back to the same apartment as it is apparent that former hubby wants NOTHING to do with the woman negligent for his daughter and dead son. Her former landlord has passed away but her blind son Robert (Stanko Molnar of Allonsanfan, Padre pardone, A Blade in the Dark, Francesco and Area gialla) is keeping the place tip-top while still writing music and longing to drill Jane.

Lucy of course makes several visits throughout the movie as both of them are still recovering from all the crazy crazy of the first 12 minutes of the film when Lucy is convinced she hears her mother talking with someone while listening to Fred's albums and gadding it up around the living room or bedroom. Though separate investigations, both Robert and Lucy know Jane has a man in her life that clearly rocks her world but have not seen hide nor hair of him. Where does he come from? What are his hobbies? Does he simply appear like some modern day incubus, takes Jane in whatever fashion he wants and then heads home?

A few things to note on this movie.

While the pace of this film is slow I felt it ratcheted up the tension, showing insanity in both the mother and daughter for different reasons but it does have the feel of made-for-TV movie in its overall execution. The topic itself is fairly morbid it does not fall into a Joe D' Amato's women in prison, cannibalistic monster feel of sleaze and schlock as it is tastefully done. The brain tends to fill in the blanks of this bizarre source material. I will warn you up front yes there is a fair degree of nudity but the most important aspect of the movie is the girl dubbing Lucy's voice you want to fricking strangle. It is the sound of Satan being castrated in a megaphone factory. I'd rather here Chris Tucker screaming in the throws of passionate sex than have to hear that young girl's voice again. Dark story matter done well and creepy as hell.

Yorick's getting some action!

Lamberto Bava Week

Well hello there readers and welcome back to the madness I churn out on the screen. Now last week we all enjoyed a fair degree of style and substantial body of work with Timothy Dalton Week.

It however is that time again... to bring to light another Italian horror director of obscurity via the states and fairly across the pond. Lamberto Bava!!! Now, before you all query,"Who??" I would point out some of the significant titles he has done such as: The MST3K beloved Devilfish, Demons, Demons 2, Macabre and many more...

Headshot of horror!!!!

To give you a bit more scope of our subject of the day, I would point out that Bava is third generation Italian horror as his grandfather Eugino Bava was a camera operator and optical effects man during the silent cinema era. His father Mario Bava cut his teeth in early special effects designing, cinematography and even directing himself. Some titles like: Erik the Conqueror, Black Sabbath, The Evil Eye, Blood and Black Lace and Kill Baby, Kill. It is on the set of Planet of the Vampires, Lamberto worked as his father's personal assistant that he got the directing bug as well but he still needed to learn the fundamentals of film making. With his father he worked in the TV movie I giochi del diavolo (The Games of the Devil) of which Lamberto wrote the screenplay and he and his father directed.

Later on both men worked with Dario Argento in Inferno and Tenebre. This allowed Lamberto the freedom to shoestring budget his own thrillers Macabre and Blade in the Dark giving him a building block background for directorial he later handled the action movies Blastfighter and sadly went on to do Devilfish as a director for hire and was not responsible for the tremendous amounts of plot holes or trying to make Italians appear as Florida natives.

By 1985, his genius was recognized with a joint effort with Dario Argento producing Demons giving him international acknowledgement and success that he has continued in his family's legacy to disturb and warp minds with vivid imagery, well-molded characters and coherent storylines. Y'know, stuff that Paul W. S. Anderson shys away from. Here is hoping we all have some fun with this week and enjoy some more Eurohorror!

Deadite Jim Carrey!!!