ANTHROPOPHAGUS (1980) Review

Directed by: Joe D'Amato
Written by: George Eastman, Joe D'Amato
Starring: Tisa Farrow, Saverio Vallone, Serena Grandi, Margaret Mazzantini, George Eastman, Zora Kerova

"IT'S NOT THE FEAR THAT TEARS YOU APART... IT'S HIM!"

It wouldn't truly be George Eastman Week without looking at his role in the controversial and much-hyped ANTHROPOPHAGUS (although to be honest it still wouldn't truly be George Eastman Week because that's something I just made up...). Known by an impressive array of titles including THE BEAST, THE GRIM REAPER and MAN EATER (even somehow managing to be branded as ZOMBI 7 despite containing exactly zero zombies and being connected to the previous films in no discernible way - but hey I suppose that's par for the course in Italian exploitation cinema) Joe D'Amato's trashy, sleazy slasher is only truly remembered due to its inclusion in the infamous 'Video Nasties' list. Along with CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST it's commonly referred to as one of the more nasty films on the list and much like that cannibal classic the director of this film was also taken to court in order to defend one of the movie's more gruesome scenes involving a supposed human fetus. Because people were fucking idiots back in the 80s apparently.

In a not so subtle JAWS reference the movie begins with a couple enjoying a stroll along a beach. The girl strips down to her bikini and goes for a swim while the dude lies back and listens to some atrocious electro music on his oversized 80s headphones. An underwater shot lets us know that there is something below the water (something that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever when you think about it) and within seconds the girl starts screaming as something grabs her from below. Distracted by his terrible music the boyfriend is oblivious and soon finds a meat cleaver buried in his skull.
Bikini babes, underwater predators and cleavers in heads is a great way to start off any film, and with its notorious reputation you can only imagine that things just get better from here on out. After all this is a movie which the BBC falsely reported as a snuff film, so it must be pretty fucking extreme, right?

The short answer is no. In fact ANTHROPOPHAGUS may be one of the most overblown and overhyped movies of all time. But you know what? I'm not even going to bother detailing the dubious effects or disturbing subject matter, I'm sure plenty of other reviewers have lauded this movie as the pinnacle of depravity (or conversely an overhyped horror turkey) and gone on to describe the infamous fetus-eating scene in great detail. In fact as strange as it may sound the gore is one of the less impressive aspects of the movie and the most interesting (for me at least) was the spectacle of watching George Eastman hulking around the island, his hair wild and receding, his face a valley of pock marks and scars, clutching and swinging a meat cleaver. This kind of role doesn't exactly call for award winning acting (or any real acting at all to be honest) but Eastman is a perfect fit as the insane, menacing cannibal.

The sometimes all too strong allure of forbidden fruit is what has made this movie so popular, it was after all one of the nastiest 'Nasties' and I suppose people are curious to see exactly what got Mary Whitehouse's knickers all twisted up. ANTHROPOPHAGUS also has some decent cult cred what with sleaze merchant Joe D'Amato at the helm, Eastman playing the killer, Tisa Farrow (of ZOMBI 2 fame) and also Zora Kerova (CANNIBAL FEROX) both playing parts as well. It's a hard movie to recommend due to the pretty atrocious acting, pacing, effects, characters and well... everything really. But at the same time this is a film that everybody needs to see at least once. It's a milestone in Italian exploitation and actually has some great location shots and its easily worth watching just to see George Eastman's beastly killer biting into whatever the fuck he wants to. Come for the fetus eating, stay for the lovely island backdrop.

THE NEW BARBARIANS (1983) Review

Directed by: Enzo G. Castellari
Written by: Tito Carpi, Antonio Visone, Enzo G. Castellari
Starring: Giancarlo Prete, Fred Williamson, George Eastman, Anna Kanakis, Ennio Girolami, Massimo Vanni

"DEALERS IN DEATH... EXTERMINATORS OF THE 21ST CENTURY..."

To kick off George Eastman week (don't bother looking it up it's not a real thing you idiot) I've decided to re-watch and review one of my favorite post apocalyptic flicks of all time. Get ready for some mind-blowing futuristic mayhem as we go back to the future and take a look at Enzo G. Castellari's THE NEW BARBARIANS.

An obviously miniaturised model of a cityscape stands before our eyes. Within seconds we hear the high-pitched whistling of an incoming projectile. A bright shape streaks across the sky and impacts the city. BOOM! As Claudio Simonetti's throbbing synth score kicks in the title flashes upon the screen followed by the opening credits, all the while we watch as the city is swallowed in a billowing cloud of smoke and flame.
Welcome to the future. With the city out of view the text on screen tells us that it is now the year 2019 and the nuclear holocaust we just witnessed is finally over. Civilization's remaining inhabitants have crawled out from their shelters into the relative safety of the now uncontaminated wasteland. The nuclear fallout may not be a threat but of course there are much worse things roaming the wastes.

Things may have been different in the 80s but nowadays THE NEW BARBARIANS' view of the 21st Century is hilarious. Thugs and cutthroats roam the deserts (as you would expect) but rather than the tough, dangerous looking pieces of machinery shown so brilliantly in THE ROAD WARRIOR the villains in this future drive around in modified golf carts, reaching dizzying speeds of over 20 miles an hour. And when they're not wasting fuel (presumably a rare commodity in a post-apocalyptic world) by driving around and around in circles like douchebags, they're terrorizing innocents with their futuristic pew-pew energy weapons. Like douchebags.
Yes this is the kind of future where the bad guys wear big shoulder guards and everybody has a name like Scorpion, Shadow or One. Just think, only five more years until we see this shit for real!

The movie follows our hero Scorpion (played by Giancarlo Prete - and yes I was being serious about the names) who drives around in a car which looks like the retarded love child of Max Rockatansky's Interceptor and that car Homer designed in that one Simpsons episode. And you can tell he's a badass because he has a skull for a hood ornament.
He has a run-in with The Templars, a vicious group of dudes whose goal it is to cleanse the land by killing everybody. Probably not the best long term plan. Anyhow, turns out Scorp used to be a fucking Templar! And now that they know he's back in town their leader One (played brilliantly by George Eastman) wants some good old fashioned revenge. There are some other characters and a limp romance but basically that's the whole premise. Oh and unfortunately there is only one black person in the future, but on the plus side that one black person is Fred fucking Williamson, and he fires exploding arrows! Now that's tough.

Props to the design department whose vision for the future was to dress everybody in stupid clothes, put useless plastic domes on all of the cars and then spray-paint everything in sight silver. And I'd also like to give a shoutout to the Foley artist, I'm curious as to whether they used a blender or a vacuum cleaner to make the sound of the futuristic vehicles. Whichever it was it was fucking annoying and they probably deserve a punch in the face. And speaking of faces and punching I have to mention the young boy whose name I forget. He's supposedly a genius mechanic charged with maintaining Scorpion's car, but he also happens to have the most punchable face in the world. Even his killer skill with a slingshot doesn't detract from my wanting to pound his fucking teeth in. Thankfully his on-screen time is rather minimal.

Since this is George Eastman week let's talk a little more about him. Nobody could ever accuse him of being a great actor but he is brilliant in this flick, embracing his role as the post-apocalyptic death cult leader. Also worth mentioning is the rather unexpected scene where The Templars actually catch Scorpion and in preparation for his execution One gives him his 'initiation'. Initiation is code for 'getting raped in the ass by George Eastman' by the way. Yep. In fact One is probably the most interesting and confusing character in the movie, from his quote about books being responsible for the apocalypse (did I miss something?) right up to his idea to exterminate every living thing on the planet. Oh, why can't we all just get along?

In summary: go see this movie right now. Right fucking now.

SLIME CITY MASSACRE (2010) Review

Directed by: Greg Lamberson
Written by: Greg Lamberson
Starring: Jennifer Bihl, Kealan Patrick Burke, Debbie Rochon, Lee Perkins, Robert C. Sabin, Mary Bogle

"WELCOME TO THE CITY WHERE SLIME NEVER SLEEPS"

With SLIME CITY MASSACRE writer / director Greg Lamberson has managed to create a sequel which is also a prequel to his original film which was released a whopping 22 years earlier. A new time period (two actually) and a (mostly) new cast mark the only major differences from the original film while the rest is a familiar mix of violent, slimy mayhem involving occult leader Zachary Devon's infamous concoctions.

In the wake of a dirty bomb attack, New York City has been evacuated and its only inhabitants now are homeless scavengers (or 'displaced refugees' as they are referred to in the film). A pair of fugitives Alexa (Bihl) and Cory (Burke) looking for shelter in the part of town now known as Slime City, stumble upon a seemingly abandoned building where they run into squatters Mason (Perkins) and Alice (Rochon) who decide to let them stay on account of Cory's impressive set of skeleton keys. While scavenging for food Mason and Cory come across a soup kitchen previously run by Zachary Devon, and inside they find hundreds of bottles of the satanist's home brewed elixir and 'Himalayan Yoghurt'.
Back at their building the two couples chow down on the yoghurt and elixir, go to bed, fuck and unsurprisingly wake up covered with slime and filled with bloodlust.

A decent part of the film is also told through black and white flashbacks, showing scenes that pre-date the original movie and fill in a little of the back story of Zachary Devon and his followers. We witness his first meeting with Nicole as he 'saves' her from her life of prostitution and invites him into his soup kitchen for a meal and a place to belong. It also explains further the moment when Zachary and his followers decide to kill themselves and why Lizzie had to stay behind.
But wait, there's more! A wealthy entrepreneur named Ronald Crump (get it?) has plans to level Slime City so that he can redevelop it, but first he needs to rid it of its transient infestation. His solution? Hire a group of mercenaries to go in and shoot anything that moves. It's all very ESCAPE FROM THE BRONX, and there's nothing wrong with that because that movie rocks.

The political and religious commentaries are obvious in SLIME CITY MASSACRE. A war over oil? Check. Abortions declared illegal? Check. Rich businessman wants to cleanse the city of the bottom-dwelling lower class? Check. Incestuous religious cult? Double check. There's also a really neat STREET TRASH reference, no doubt thrown in due to all of the comparisons people have made in the past.
Almost everything in this sequel outdoes the original, the acting is better, the production values are better, the locations are better, and even the no-boobs issue from the first movie is rectified here. Fans of the original will enjoy the cameos from the original actors and Troma fans will love the trashy vibe and the brief appearance of uncle Lloyd. The only real shame is that the ending doesn't pack anywhere near as powerful a punch as that of the original movie did. But it's still fucking fun.

SLIME CITY (1988) Review

Directed by: Greg Lamberson
Written by: Greg Lamberson
Starring: Robert C. Sabin, Mary Huner, T. J. Merrick, Dick Biel, Dennis Embry

"A HORROR FILM WITH GUTS!"

SLIME CITY is a low budget trash classic that sits comfortably on the shelf beside the likes of BASKET CASE, BODY MELT and STREET TRASH. It's cheap, nasty and gory and not everybody's cup of tea but if you're a fan of Troma classics like THE TOXIC AVENGER and CLASS OF NUKE 'EM HIGH then you'll definitely find something to like here. If slime, blood and a touch of the occult are what you're looking for then you've come to the right place.

Alex (Sabin) is a quiet, sexually frustrated artist who decides to rent an apartment with the aim of getting his girlfriend Lori (Huner) to sleep over. The landlady is happy to rent him the apartment, a little too happy in fact but Alex doesn't seem to care much as long as he has his own place so he can hopefully finally get some pussy. The other tenants in the building are a collection of weirdos and it's when one of these strange neighbours invites him over for dinner that things start to get really crazy. His neighbour Roman (Embry) feeds him some green 'Himalayan yoghurt' and a strange home brewed 'elixir'. Feeling a little worse for wear Alex stumbles back to his apartment, meets the seductive Nicole (also played by Mary Huner) and they end up doing the horizontal mambo. When Alex wakes up the next morning his body is covered with a thick slime so he goes out and beats a homeless man to death, as you do. After feeding this inexplicable bloodlust Alex goes back to his regular non-slimy self.

We learn not too long after that the 'elixir' Alex has been drinking is actually ectoplasm, brewed by a Satanist  named Zachary who (along with his followers) killed himself in the building's basement. The ectoplasm is a primer to facilitate the return of Zachary using Alex's body as a vessel. Will Alex be able to stop his body being taken over by an evil dead Satanist? Will he ever get his girlfriend in the sack? Well to be honest it's pretty easy to predict how the film is going to end, but it's a hell of a fun ride along the way. There's prostitute slicing, bum bashing, some weird erotic dancing, head smashing and much more to see. Sure the effects look cheap (the guts near the end look like hotdogs and scrambled eggs) but they look great in that really trashy kind of way, and the facial makeup on Alex when he turns is actually pretty decent.

SLIME CITY doesn't really start out very strong , in fact to be honest it's a bit slow and there's probably too many talky scenes, but peppered throughout the film are some great gore scenes. One of the more memorable ones sees a mugger stab Alex in the stomach before the wound becomes a mouth that bites his hand off, leaving him with a blood-spraying stump. And even better is the finale which is by far the coolest and goriest part of the movie. The entire film is pretty much made worthwhile by this final scene.
As you might expect the acting isn't anything to rave over, the dialogue is nothing special and even the editing and photography are pretty mediocre. It's a shame there isn't any nudity (especially in a movie with such an obvious sexual theme) but there is a kind of sexy, kind of weird lingerie dance.
SLIME CITY's meagre budget is obvious but so is it's ambition and it's easy to see that the cast and crew had some fun making it. It's easy to write off as just another low budget piece of shit but for fans of cult and trash cinema this is a must see.