A few reviews

[Zaharoff]

Ultraviolet - 1998 - 8/10



Outstanding six part series of secret government alliance of church and state ops.
Tight, clandestine battle against vampires engaged in finance manipulation, AIDS research, abortion clinics, biological warfare.
Especially dark series, matched with an intricate, intelligent script.
Creators admitted Ultraviolet was a one-off and they packed every idea they had into it.
With Jack Davenport and Susannah Harker (great-great-great granddaughter of actor Joseph Cunningham Harker, whose friend, Bram Stoker, used for Jonathan Harker). Also a young Idris Elba as the hardassed Vaughan.
Definitely worth tracking down.

[Zaharoff]

The Undead - 1957 - 4/10

Roger Corman cheapie filmed inside an empty supermarket.
De-listed scientist, after having traveled in Nepal, hires a hooker (named Diana Love) to help with research.
No, not that kind of research. Hypnosis / regression into past lives.
Anyway, Miss Love drifts back to the Middle Ages and recalls she is imprisoned and scheduled for a beheading.
The “witch” accusation carries a heavy punishment.
Her “modern” soul gives her alter-ego escape advice, which results in altering the time line!
One of the best reasons to watch this flick is for “real witch” (sexy Allison Hayes) with her imp (Billy Barty).



If you didn’t get enough of Ms Hayes in Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman this has more bodacious goodies.
Acting in the modern sequences is wooden, lines poorly delivered.
Problems are less noticeable in the medieval era because everyone speaks a Shakespearean hybrid dialect.
Atmospheric score. Cheap, though OK special effects (don’t expect too much).
Mr Satan is a laissez faire bon vivant, and a cheerful pragmatic.

[Zaharoff]

Out Of Mind: The Stories Of H.P. Lovecraft - 1998 - 7/10



Satisfying homage to HPL.
Mixes several stories together, and adds typical Lovecraft themes of dislocation, time shifting, and indifferent alien presences.
Fine acting all around, with Christopher Heyerdahl a ringer for a thoughtful HPL.
The other character was the oft-played Randolph Carter.
All mood and suggestion, scant monster minutes.

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

You're right about The Undead but the good things made it more satisfying for me than a lot of other period gothics. Wish more films tried something similar, but better executed.

[Zaharoff]

Body Jumper - 2001 - 4/10
AKA - Pop Weed Sayong // ปอบ หวีด สยอง



Thai masterpiece.
Busload of students teach impoverished natives exercise to improve their wretched lives.
Malcontent wino heckles them that their village beyond help, it is cursed.
Late night, the hottest girl from the bus bathes in the haunted lake and is swiftly possessed by liver eating ghost.
Two heartbeats later, students back in Bangkok, and the once-shy girl now has an appetite for boyfriends.
Guys who soon turn jaundice yellow and die of liver failure.
More comedy than horror, comedy also silly and juvenile, though plot points are inventive.
Of course she is harvesting livers. Their backs is to her, briefs down, shortest route = the back entrance.
Add a gushy transgender, an out of place dance party, chases through ventilator ducts, a flying shaman with umbrella and magic condoms, and you have non-demanding craziness.

[Zaharoff]

Wer - 2013 - 6/10



Horror yarn of the hairy outsider.
We’re talking serious back hair here, as well as full beard, and shaggy hair.
Don’t even get me started about his king sized hands.
After a happy camping family is mauled (middle of the night, middle of woods, stupid city people), an unscrubbed mountain man - with a Romanian accent - is apprehended.
Interrogations, tests, and each night the moon gets fuller and fuller, until,
Oh, my God! There’s a full moon out! And wer is short for -- aarrggh!

[Zaharoff]

You’ll Find Out - 1940 - 5/10



Wasted opportunity in this musical / comedy / horror / mystery mishmash.
Old dark mansion, perched on a cliff over a pounding surf, under thunder and lightning skies, provide the setting for young girl’s 21st birthday party.
Kay Kyser and his Kollege Of Musical Knowledge provide the entertainment, and is also, sadly, the chief focus of the film.
Kyser and bandmates seem too old for their slapstick and silly antics. Musical numbers are unmemorable.
Plot creeps along, the humor is flat out corny.
Rather young and earnest Dennis O'Keefe (future Noir stalwart) is underused.
The three main villains, though, really shine. They steal every single scene, and effortlessly ooze the sinister, the conniving, the scheming.



No ifs - ands - or buts - the film ought to have been about this trio of old pros.

[Zaharoff]

Razortooth - 2007 - 3/10



Why do schlock studios keep making these monster craptaculars?
Because muffin brains like me spy them on the shelf and squeal with mindless glee.
A giant killer eel is loose in the southern swamps.
The eel is killing and eating unwashed, dumber than fencepost rednecks (not to be confused with articulate, well manicured rednecks).
Movie absurd beyond belief. Fellow hutong viewers began heckling me for finding this gem.
At the risk of getting a ban for this -
Wait for the moment when one of the "intelligent science students" declares the best method to deal with this creature is to find its Achilles eel.

[Zaharoff]

Vampyres - 2015 - 5/10



Faithful remake of Larraz’s 1974 “classic.”
Two female vampires hunt desolate woods and forlorn highway for fresh meat.
The “older” female lures a man to her bed and keeps him as sex pole / plasma bag.
As in the original, there is copious nudity, debauched romping, streams of red.
Slow going, however, with only the breath of a plot. The interiors are austere.
The 1974 was “Hammer” Horror (though it was not a Hammer film.
This 2015 is Euro Horror (ie: arthouse). While it does boast a third act, less is explained.
Acting is hit n miss, as are the characters themselves, meaning no one is memorable.
Female predators in both versions are a mix of carnivore and succubus, and in the latter version - torturer.

[Zaharoff]

Vampyres - 1974 - 7/10



One of the best Hammer films never actually made by Hammer.
Two beautiful women prowl a lonely road from overgrown woods.
They stop passing cars, hitch a ride, and take them to a deserted manor house.
Wine flows, bit of bedroom romping, followed by slaughter.
Gory Horror with abundant nudity, sexy and erotic.
Filmed at Hammer’s house, Oakley Court by independent Essay, which might explain why there was much more blood and flesh. Censors had a field day but current versions are fully uncut.
These are not elegant, romanticized vampires. Their savageness seems typical of the excessive 70's.



Director Larraz’s audio commentary, in his heavily accented Spanish, is as enjoyable as the film itself.
He dishes the dirt of difficult players, and how much more graphic sex and violence he originally wanted.
Money problems, tight shooting schedules, distribution issues, thoughts on American vs European styles.
The version that finally passed he termed as the Vatican edit.
Narrative drifts into incoherence at times, and he confesses a cool image was more important than plot.
Right on.