We're back! And in Pod form!

In the words of Dr. Dre, "...I've been in the lab with a pen and a pad tryin' to get this damn label off."  So I apologize for the long break but the time has come for a big announcement:

Over the last few cuts I've found it hard to maintain the motivation to keep up with the intense schedule of watching and reviewing 5+ films a week.  No matter how I tried to restructure my work schedule for this website, it was constantly burning me out by the end of it.  In addition to that, my general life schedule just isn't allowing for that kind of madness anymore.  So once 2019 started I was a bit unsure of where to go with 30 Days of Plight.  I had some plans, but felt that I was dragging my feet too much.

With that said, I finally settled and got my shit together and we're changing formats in more ways than one.  The biggest of which is going to be that 30 Days of Plight is becoming a weekly podcast!  This website is still going to exist and I'll be linking the podcasts onto here as well as any other content I do but as far as reviews go, there will no longer be any straight up written reviews.

Right now I'm in the process of getting set up with iTunes and Sticher and everything else but for the moment I'm hosting the podcast on Podbean. Episode 0 is out right now which is just a quick intro to the podcast before I start uploading episodes in mid-February.

My plan is to release an episode every Wednesday at that point with an occasional extra episode here and there. 

So there it is!! Once again, sorry for the wait but it'll be better, trust me...

Tokyo Zombie (2005) 1h 43m

I picked this film up at the one, and only, horror convention that has happened here in New Orleans since we moved here almost seven years ago.  You would think that New Orleans would have more horror stuff but mostly it's just lame Anne Rice shit.  Anyway, Tokyo Zombie has been on my to-watch list even prior to owning it.  I just never had the chance to get a copy of it until then, and then it sat on my shelf since then as well.

I will never feel bad about my
comics ever again.

Based off of a manga, I can only describe Tokyo Zombie as a live-action anime if they were still trying to make it as anime as fuck.  The film itself is actually broken into two sections.  The first half focuses on Fujio and Mitsuo, two guys that spend most of their time fucking around on mattresses with Mitsuo teaching Fujio jujitsu.  Outside is a large pile of buried trash (and bodies) known as Black Fuji for it's immense size.  When zombies begin to come out of it and eat people our duo decides to take their work truck and attempt to flee to Russia.  Instead Mitsuo gets "bit" and throws himself off a bridge and into the river below.  We're given a brief animated segue where we learn that the world has become this strange Hunger Games-esq land of upper class and slums and the only way to gain a measure of respect was in a zombie fighting arena.  Fujio uses his learned jujitsu to decimate his zombie opponents until he finally has to face off against a "zombie" Mitsuo.  Also there is apparently some strange revolution or Mad Max style raiders that exist here too.

Tokyo Zombie felt like I was watching a Japanese game show.  There were a lot of moments where the humor tried to be too absurd and you're expected to laugh along but it just didn't reach me.  The only solid comparisons I could give would be if you take Kung-Fu Hustle and put the Three Stooges as the main characters.

Now that I've said that, I'm okay with Tokyo Zombie, but that's it.  Just okay.  I'm concerned that I came into this expecting something else though so rather than complain about how this wasn't what I wanted I'm just going to say that I plan to revisit this again at another point and give it a fair shot now that I know what I'm getting into.  So I'm going to do something different here and I'm going to suspend my rating of this film.  In the future I will re-watch it and give it an honest go.

Eko Eko Azarak: Wizard of Darkness (1995) 1h 20m

Ever since I bought this film, I continually forget that I own it.  I wasn't even looking for it when I was searching for a film to watch, it just happened to be in the same binder as tomorrow's film and I found it first.  So what does that say about Eko Eko Azarak: Wizard of Darkness, aside from that title is too long?

Eko Eko Azarak: Wizard of Darkness (or Eko Eko as I'm going to call it from now on) opens with a satanic cult using magic to kill teenagers.  Their apparent goal is to take the lives of 13 innocent teens in order to bring Lucifer to Earth to do whatever.  This film is really vague on what the end goal is here so we get: Step 1: Kill Teens, Step 2: Summon Lucifer, Step 3: ????, Step 4: Profit!  At the end of their opening ritual they get a warning about a strong witch coming that they should not make an enemy of.  Enter Misa, said teenage witch that ends up trapped in the school with 13 other students and two perverted teachers.  Her goal is to find the head person behind the killings and prevent the rise of Lucifer as this is apparently all she does in each school she goes to.

I forgot this happened.

Eko Eko had this weird feeling to it, like it never sat quite right with me.  It looks like it was just a made-for-tv-movie and its short running time (at least compared to most J-horror films) only bolsters that sentiment.  The plot is relatively straight forward and some of the set-up and magick effects look okay but you can tell that this was most likely made for a PG-13 audience.  This isn't to say that films under an R rating are bad, just that in this case it all feels a bit immature.

Eko Eko was based off of a manga from the 70's and apparently spawned six fucking sequels and a short television series.  I don't know how I feel about that info.  I would like to go back and read the manga for a comparison just to see if they toned things down or if this was always as tame as I perceive it.  You know, because I perceive the magickal murder of teenagers in order to invoke the rising of Lucifer to be a mundane task.

I give Eko Eko Azarak: Wizard of Darkness 2 I-no from Guilty Gear out of 5:

Helldriver (2010) 1h 57m

If you haven't noticed by now, this week I'm going through my J-Horror collection and reviewing those things that I bought mainly because they looked cool.  Surprisingly, I only just realized that a majority of these films that I own have something to do with Tokyo Shock (The Asiatic cinema/television focus of the larger company, Media Blasters).  It makes sense though since most of my favorites have high powered blood sprays, lots of action, and insane creature design.  So with that fresh in your brain, let's jump into Helldriver!

Kika's home life isn't ideal. She comes home one day to find her mother and uncle eating her still living father.  During her escape attempt a meteor crashes through the mother's chest but her mom pulls Kika's heart out to replace her now missing one.  At the same time, the meteor was an alien which takes over the mother and encases her in some sort of amber-like shield.  Kika is thrown to the side but not before she gets the same shielding.  The mother than shoots space spores into the air which turn those that breath it in into zombies with strange fungal antenna on their forehead (like ophiocordyceps unilateralis in ants).  Kika is rescued and turned into a cyborg (although they say android here) with a metal chest plate and a chainsaw katana.  She and a small group of sudden friends attempt to take out this zombie queen and save the world.

Look at this Silent Hill shit!

All the things I love with these Japanese hyper-gore films are present here.  There's a lot of blood, intense action scenes, absurd and nonsensical things that only work for this movie (ie. a car made out of zombie body parts), and the overall feeling of not taking itself too seriously where it would ruin the film.  If I had any real complaint with Helldriver then it would be my usual gripe about pacing.  I was about 45 minutes into it before the title card appeared which made me feel like the whole first half of the film was meant to be an intro to the latter half, and in a way it really was.  We have so much time spent establishing our characters and the world that, when we get to the heart of the matter, doesn't really need to exist.  It's like playing an RPG and you have to grind for a few hours before you're even able to leave the first section and get to the actual adventure.

Helldriver is really a niche film.  This isn't something I could just drop on a friend and tell them to check it out without advanced knowledge of their cinema tastes.  In this case, it would have to taste like blood... a fire hose of blood all yelling at you in Japanese.

I give Helldriver 2 zombie ants out of 5:

Devilman (2004) 1h 52m

Coming from the same table at the same anime convention (although a year earlier) is 2004's entry to the Devilman series.  Created by Go Nagai back in the early 70's, Devilman has had a manga, multiple films, and anime series with the most recent being on Netflix.  Though much tamer than its counterparts, let's jump into today's review.

Grandma got me a Hot Topic gift card!

Devilman focuses on Akira and Ryo.  Ryo is essentially a violent delinquent that describes himself as "pure evil."  Akira is Ryo's only friend, despite being the opposite of Ryo in every way.  Akira is the only person that can calm Ryo on his angsty rampages.  One day Ryo has Akira go with him to his father's lab where an experiment with demons and demon energy has lost control and released the dark entities to our plane of existence.  Akira is hit by a particularly nasty demon but is able to retain his humanity, while Ryo becomes angelic.  The world descends into chaos as the released demons possess bodies and feed upon humanity and only Akira can stop them while also trying to save the world from itself.  Ryo has other ideas in mind.

I've said this about other films in the past, but this is truly the center point between amazing and crap.  Despite the long time it didn't drag too much but at the same time I wish the story pacing were a bit stronger.  The CG could be a bit questionable but it works well for the fight scenes where there's a lot of action and not a lot of time to focus on the details.  I also wish the Ryo reveal was done a bit more tactfully.  We're presented with info in the second act that should really only exist for the final reveal.  Otherwise, it is a solid film.  It's just not enough for me to get behind.  I would recommend Devilman with an apathetic "you might like it."

I give Devilman 2.5 '72 anime Devilmen out of 5:

The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958) 1h 30m

You were the chosen one!  Bring balance to the force, not leave it in darkness!  Fucking Revenge of Frankenstein!  More like Rankenstein because this movie fucking stinks!

Nailed it!

We're important men.  Just look at
how tall our hats are!

The Revenge of Frankenstein is the last of our "Week of Hammer" and starts at the execution of Baron Frankenstein which is apparently at 9000 o'clock according to the church bells ringing.  Instead of losing his head he escapes and goes elsewhere in order to act as a real doctor all while continuing his experiments.  He has a new body all set up in order to do a live brain transplant and it's a success, but his patient doesn't want to be thrust into the public eye of science and the world.  He escapes and causes havoc only to begin to have his new body develop the same physical handicaps he faced with his prior vessel.  Stuff happens!

This started out okay but when there were a set of eyeballs on a stick that moved as an autonomous unit I was starting to question the quality of this film.  Don't get me wrong, there was some serious money thrown into the set designs and this was in color as opposed to most of the other Hammer films we covered this week, but in the end it was all for naught.  Not even Peter Cushing could keep me awake as this film descended from entertainment to a background lullaby as I began to doze on the couch.

We did get another actual Frankenstein Monster, but it came too late for me to care about anything.  Also, there's a fight in the lab early on which leads to tons of beakers full of shit breaking and I guess we have to assume they were all experiments on colored water as nothing bad happened.  No fires, no poison gas, just looks like someone pissed on the floor.

I give The Revenge of Frankenstein 1 Grand Moff Tarkin out of 5 only because of Peter Cushing:

The Snorkel (1958) 1h 14m

Could there be a dumber name for a movie?  The Snorkel.  Fuck you!  You can snorkel this dick!  I'm not even sure what that means but that's how frustrated I am with yet another film coming to us from the cheap as fuck Hammer Films set I got at a Wal-Mart.  You know, the land of bottomless $5 DVD bins and overpriced animated films.  DROP THE FUCKING PRICE ON HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 1 & 2 ALREADY YOU BASTARDS!

You have me confused with that guy
from Are You Being Served?

Unlike our other Hammer Films, The Snorkel doesn't start with a creeper in the bushes but the creeper is already in the house!  A man has drugged his wife to make her pass out and then tapes up the entire room (doors, windows, etc) in order to blow out the gas lamps and have her die as an apparent suicide.  Why he didn't just drug her and make it seem like that was the suicide is beyond me.  He has hooked up a mask and snorkel to outside pipes and hides in the floor to complete his elaborate faked suicide plot.  When she is found everyone assumes she did kill herself.  Everyone except for her teenage daughter who is apparently Nancy fucking Drew because she puts everything together pretty quick and then it's the step-daughter vs. the murderer for who will come out on top.

While a much dumber premise than anything I've watched recently, I was invested for no reason other than I wanted to see how the hell the girl put everything together.  She never figures out the hiding in the floor but it is given away to her at the end.  Speaking of which, always have a fucking back door, or at least an axe or something in case you get stuck.  You know, since you're hiding in floors all the time.

All in all, The Snorkel is a big bag of meh.  Once again, solid acting performance from all involved, and this film has my favorite opening credit now which is "John Holmes dog "Flush" as "Toto" because that dog deserves a fucking credit!

I give The Snorkel 1 hunky scuba diver out of 5:

The Maniac (1963) 1h 26m

I am turning this into the "Week of Hammer," fuck it!  Sticking with our Hammer Films set chock full of rapidly declining quality movies comes The Maniac!  A film with more heel turns than the WWE Network... and I don't mean just because they'll reinstate Hogan to the hall of fame but still act as if Benoit never existed!

Mustache rides: 5 cents

The Maniac, like most Hammer films on this set, starts with a creeper in the bushes.  When the local high school kids arrive home he pulls up to one of the girls and offers her a ride.  He sexually assaults her but is caught by a local man and school boy.  The creeper is knocked out with a wrench and brought back to the man's garage where he is tortured to death with an acetylene torch.  Flash forward to present day where a smooth America leaves his rich girlfriend and ends up in a small French village.  At first he has his eyes set on the young waitress but later moves from her to her mother in a "I'll fuck anything that moves" power play.  The woman's husband is in prison for the torture and murder of the creeper.  She claims that her husband will let the two of them be together if the American and her help the husband escape prison.  They do, bodies turn up, then the American finds himself on the wrong end of the torch.

This movie is just treachery everywhere.  The American betrays the daughter for the mother but then betrays the mother because she was trying to betray him by not actually helping her husband escape but another man that murdered the husband upon escaping and the two of them were going to betray the daughter as well in hopes of... I don't know.  I guess elope?  Have crazy mustache babies?

I'm really beginning to regret not shelling out the extra $10 for the better Hammer Films set.  The Maniac was just as poorly paced and boring as the last two films.  The acting was decent, aside from the couple's dance where the two couldn't look more bored with each other despite one of the characters saying "look how happy she is!"  Whatever, fucking next.  I'm over this.

I give The Maniac 0 butane torches out of 5:

Die! Die! My Darling! (1965) 1h 37m

This is turning into the "Week of the Hammer" because we've got another one here from my cheap Hammer Films Collection.  This film was what sold me on buying the set because with the Misfits song being so good, obviously the movie has to be.  Right?  Danzig wouldn't lie to me, would he?  Sure, he'd have me kicked out of a concert if I tried to take a picture of his gut but... young baby Danzy?

I made this face while watching this.

Die! Die! My Darling! opens on Patricia with her current fiancé.  She tells him that the mother of her prior, now deceased, fiancé has sent Patricia a letter and she would like to visit the mother.  The fiancé continues to London and Patricia travels to Mrs. Trefoile's home.  Upon her initial arrive Mrs. Trefoile just seems to be a still mourning mother and overly pious woman.  It's when Mrs. Trefoile's zealous nature bubbles to the surface that Patricia attempts to leave but finds herself held captive by a mad woman.  Can she escape befor she is murdered in the name of her dead ex-fiancé?

Okay, I described that much better than this film is.  Don't misunderstand me, Tallulah Bankhead fucking kills it as Mrs. Trefoile, but all of the other characters I don't really care about.  The husband and wife duo that had been Mrs. Trefoile's helpers and accomplices are just grifters and Donald Sutherland's simple Joseph serves no purpose aside from being muscle.

The film itself is a bit of a crawl.  A majority of it consists of Patricia being locked in a room and attempting to escape or Mrs. Trefoile descending further into madness.  I do like that the breaking point for her is having a stash of all her sinful items and then doing the crazy wide lipstick ring around her mouth.  Other than that, Danzig has bad taste in movies.  Actually, Danzig has taste in very slow moving films because I've watched Where Eagles Dare and it was a crawl too.  I have a copy of THX 1138 which I haven't watched yet, but if it's slow then Danzig is getting an angry tweet!

I give Die! Die! My Darling! 2 Misfits singles out of 5:

Never Take Sweets from a Stranger (1960) 1h 31m

My very first note for this film was "I made a mistake."  Never Take Sweets from a Stranger is part of a $10 Hammer Films collection I picked up from Wal-Mart not long ago.  They have a better one with better films for double the price but I wanted to have  the bottom shelf stuff.  This is certainly the bottom as I assumed I was going to get the usual Hammer lesbian vampires or whatever.  Instead I saw into the eyes of the devil and he winked at me.

Look at this fucking stranger danger!

Never Take Sweets from a Stranger opens with an old creeper using binoculars to watch two younger girls play.  When one of the girls looses her "sweets money" the other says that she knows where they can get some candy and run towards the old man's house.  Upon returning home for the evening one of the girls relays her day to her parents, not even flinching at the part where she and her friend danced naked while the old man watched.  The family is taken aback and the mother gets the whole story.  When she comes back both her husband and her mother (or mother-in-law, I couldn't tell) downplay the incident and I was losing my mind.  Eventually we get a court case where the defending lawyer rips into the small girl like an absolute scum bag.  The man is found innocent and goes free, only to later find the girls playing in the woods, stalks them, and ends up killing one of them.

I hated this movie.  I hated every fucking second of it.  Not because it was a bad film.  As far as random films from 1960 go this was more than competent.  I hated this because it showed just how horrible human beings can be.  A lot of the town had stories of that old man doing inappropriate things, the grandmother had a story of a man exposing himself to her every day as a child and she just wrote it off like that was normal.  The police, holy fuck the police in this film, pull the "You know he and his family built this town so you should change your mind..." thing and were just evil.  Then the old man's son that was just throwing around his power and influence to protect his nasty ass father.  Acting as if letting the girl's dad keep his job as principal to show that there were "no hard feelings" is anywhere near acceptable.  I've never wanted someone punched in the face as much as I wanted that guy.  I screamed it at the end of the movie but apparently no one heard me through the TV and like 58 years in the past.

A lot of the time horror films will pull the "we were the real evil all along!!!" trope but this is just "humanity is evil" from start to finish.  Don't watch this.  It's uncomfortable and somewhat depressing.   The very end of my notes say "I hate the world now," which is how you leave Never Take Sweets from a Stranger.

I give Never Take Sweets from a Stranger 0 Stranger Danger images out of 5:

The Forest of the Lost Souls blu-ray + Extras (2017: Wild Eye Releasing)

It's nice to be back with a new Saturday Screamers!  Today's film comes to us from our friends over at Wild Eye Productions.  They brought this film to the U.S. as well as hooked us up with a copy.  So thank you to them for this blu-ray!

They watched too much Daria.

Taking influence from the infamous Japanese suicide forest, the Aokigahara, The Forest of the Lost Souls places itself in Europe where a man is looking for his own patch in the woods to end his life.  While he begins to set out his personal artifacts a college age woman tells him she has already claimed the spot.  The two begin to talk and strike up a morbid acquaintanceship which eventually leads to a lake on the forest edge.  It's here that we find that the woman is really a killer.  I'm not spoiling anything as she's on the cover of the case holding a bloody knife.  We knew this was coming.  It's the fact that we find out the entire conversation was meant for her to learn about his life in order to extend her murderous intentions to those connected to him.

The Forest of the Lost Souls initially feels like it's an "artsy" film.  I use that word in quotes because there's an unpleasant tinge to it, like tasting copper on your tongue.  Around the 15-minute mark I was concerned that this film just wasn't going to be for me.  Thankfully I pressed on and the second half of The Forest... does such a great job of giving the viewer that sense of suspense and dread up until the third act hits and everything comes together.  The director knows exactly how to surprise you, at the right moments, with imagery in the background and holding it just long enough that you feel that anxious flutter in your stomach.

This movie also gave me one of the weirdest self psychological moments when the time came for me to do this write up.  The entirety of The Forest of the Lost Souls is in black and white, but for some reason I recall the latter parts of the film in color.  I actually had to put the disc back in and scene skip in order to see if I was right or wrong.  Sure enough, my memory was wrong.  I've never experienced this but I chalk it up to the set designers, costumers, and director for doing such a good job with establishing the house that I can, for lack of a better term, feel the color there.

I also want to give some love to the fact that this is one of the first films that I've seen where we get a killer spending the time to establish an alibi.  Taking selfies, making phone calls saying you didn't have service while you were somewhere the night before, going through all of this effort... it's something we don't get with a lot of horror.  Our monsters tend to be supernatural or have these character flaws that lead to them being pursued, jailed, or killed.  They're not so calculating and sociopathic as to do this extra work or, if they are, we aren't privy to those scenes.  So thank you to The Forest of the Lost Souls for having this.

EXTRAS:

Extras are slim on this as it is just an initial release.  We have two deleted scenes with director's commentary.  I really appreciate that input because these scenes were cut because they didn't fit what became the tone of the film.  Without being told that these scenes would feel confusing as to why they even filmed them at all.  We also get a short film based on a holiday in Portugal where people hit each other with squeaky hammers as a greeting.  I liked this short except I think it would've worked much better without the final shot.  Finally there is a commentary track which I would like to listen to the next time I watch this film and also a fight rehearsal which I didn't watch and may revisit.

FINAL VERDICT:

If you are someone that doesn't like subtitles (this film is in Portuguese), black and white films, or artistically done films, this might not be your thing.  On the flip side, if you don't mind any of that and want to take a break from all of the slashers, torture porn, and b-movie bloodbaths then give The Forest of the Lost Souls a try.  I may not pull this out as an option at every movie night, but when I'm with the right group of people I wouldn't definitely pull a "hey, have you seen this" and put it on.

Thanks again to Wild Eye Productions for the hook-up!

Bloody Pit of Horror (aka: Il Boia Scar Latto) (1965) 1h 27m

My version of this film came from another box set so I didn't get this cover art.  If I would've seen that this was "based on the writings of the Marquis De Sade" then I would've made a hard pass.  Not because I have anything against the Marquis De Sade but because I have a thing against anything that attempts to be "based" on his writings.  Except for Quills.  Quills is a good film.

Bloody Pit of Horror opens with the Crimson Executioner being taken to his own torture room to be killed in an iron maiden.  He apparently broke from his general executioner duties and used his own moral code to target individuals that he felt did not fit appropriately into society.  In present day, a photographer, producer, and a group of models all show up to a castle in order to do a photo shoot.  Apparently 60's Italians just showed up to shit unannounced and unplanned to do things because the castle is locked and one of the models scales the wall to drop down and unlock the door.  They stumble across the actual master of the castle and he says that they can stay but will leave tomorrow.  Accepting this generous offer the 60's Italians proceed to sneak around to try and find the wind cellar to raid it and in turn find the Crimson Executioner's set-up.  They decide to shoot photos on torture devices until one of them is accidentally killed by spikes.  This sets up a "return" of the Executioner and the eventual half-hour of softcore BDSM he inflicts of the females in the group with lots of breasts to gaze upon.

Marquis De Sade looking pissed
at all the things based on his work.

I hate that people used and still continue to use the Marquis De Sade as this shield to the fact that you just want to make some sort of safe torture porn.  It's okay to have non-conventional fetishes so long as consent exists between you and your partners and no one is permanently damaged.  It was the fucking mid-60's!  Actually I have no clue what Europe was like in the 60's so it could've been the opposite of the "free love" movement for all I know.

Bloody Pit of Horror exists as a lead-up until to the reveal and torture scenes.  This isn't so much a horror film as it is something you would catch at like 2AM on some cable channel as a young teen and you would think that you just struck stroke gold.  My copy was overdubbed but it doesn't help when there are some cinematically confusing reaction shots where the person doesn't show any emotion.  The characters in this film did nothing to bring about any concern or emotional connection to them.  Everyone was pretty much just an asshole with no respect for anyone or anything except themselves so I couldn't be bothered with them.

I chose this film because the title Bloody Pit of Horror sounds like it would be an early Misfits b-side but instead it ended up being the equivalent of some kids getting into their mom's make-up and fucking up while playing Last Caress in their parent's garage.  I saw it.  Now I will never see it again.

I give Bloody Pit of Horror 0.5 copies of Quills out of 5

The Ape (1940) 1h 2m

I'm pretty sure my friends' prior band wrote a song about this film.  It's called Ape Man and you can listen to it here.  Go bug Katie over on Werewolf Ambulance about it because she might know more about it *wink*.

Ape Man seeks only love...
and cerebrospinal fluid!!

The Ape stars Boris Karloff as Dr. Adrian which IMDB describes as a "kindly mad scientist."  In truth he is almost a precursor to stem cell research but rather than using cells he focuses on cerebrospinal fluid.  He thinks he has the right concoction to cure Frances' partial paralysis through a series of injections.  His greatest issue is a town full of people that all have this concept of "I sure don't understand it, so I don't like it" sense of ignorance and a stick up their ass toward Dr. Adrian's history.  While being the town doctor he did have a patient die under his care so everyone tries to avoid him and thinks of him as a kook.  The worst of it being the neighborhood shit kids that smash his windows with rocks and then say that he attacked them for no reason.  As a whole, I know he probably took an oath to do no harm, but he should just let this town of die of the flu or something.  That happened back in the 40's, right?  Also there's a killer ape that escaped from a circus fire.  Despite being the name of this movie, it really serves as nothing else but some subterfuge and, later, disappointment.

This movie is rated "approved" which lead me down a huge rabbit hole of learning about the early foundations of the MPAA, the Hays Code, and what is essentially a way of keeping down early women's liberation, especially in Hollywood.  I also learned that the Supreme Court ruled that films were not protected by the First Amendment and that's part of why the MPAA came to be and still exists as the shit show it is today.

As for the content, I liked The Ape.  It's a quick watch at just over an hour and despite being annoyed by the very ending of it I can't really find any faults.  Sure, the townies and kids were a pile of ignorant shit bags but I can honestly say that those "values" and views of "I don't get it, so I hate it" are still very prevalent in small town U.S.A. today.  Don't get me wrong, if my neighbor were to say he had a lab set-up where he was experimenting with cerebrospinal fluid then I would assume he was just making meth and call the cops but that's more self-preservation as opposed to avoiding the only doctor in town if I broke a bone because he's a bit weird.  I also live in a city but it's the deep South, so... kind of the same.  At least in some parts.

I give The Ape 3 oddly fitting diagrams out of 5:

Atom Age Vampire (1960) 1h 27m

Atom Age Vampire comes to us from one of the better box set of films.  Once again it's meant to be "living dead" films but this isn't really one of those cases.  Although, despite watching this film I'm still foggy on the logistics and I'm pretty sure there isn't an actual vampire in it.  Full disclosure: this was boring enough that anything and everything distracted me while watching it.

Oh god! I look like Tim Curry!
Never mind, that's not the mirror.

We open with the fastest plot development I have ever experienced in all my hears of cinema watching.  Jeanette is a singer that is so distraught by her boyfriend leaving her that she refuses to do an encore, quits her job, and instantly wrecks her car over a cliff (by accident) and suffers burns to a small section of her face despite that son bitch being lit the fuck up!  Traumatized by life and her easily covered scars, she is sought out by Dr. Levin who tells her that she can be cured with his new Derma 28.  When the supply runs out Dr. Levin realizes he has to kill people to get more crucial ingredients so he injects himself with some stuff that turns him into a monster.  His logic is that he won't feel remorse for his actions while in that form, which is really some bullshit drunk driver logic.

Despite the lightning quickness of establishing Jeanette and her story, the rest of this was a slog.  I'm glad I watched it but it's more for the right to say that I watched it as opposed to actual enjoyment.  I'm sure there is a whole intentional meaning behind the use of radiation and the fact that Dr. Levin studied the effects after the bombing of Hiroshima but I can't be bothered to find it.  Let's say that the actions were monstrous and, as such, his grotesque form is meant to represent the true creature of destruction, the white American male.  There.  I did it.  Big dick Nobel Prize winning shit there!

I give Atom Age Vampire 1 Nobel Prize out of 5:

King of the Zombies (1941) 1h 7m

When I brought up this posting to write my review it only had a single note and it said "racist."  I'm letting you know that from the start because this film had a black character that was a step above the minstrel show "why yes sir I sees it" meant to be it's comic relief.  It's fucking 1941!  Ella Fitzgerald had recorded over 150 songs by this point.  Louis Armstrong was an established trumpet player and vocalist.  Nat King Cole released "Sweet Lorraine" the year before and your'e still bringing this weak shit like you've never talked to a black person before in Hollywood?!  Suck my dick!

Fuck everything in this picture!

King of the Zombies takes place on an island where, after becoming lost in the weather, James, Bill, and their friend/maybe servant Jeff end up crashing their plane on.  They find themselves being lead to the mansion of Dr. Sangre and he tells our group that they are welcome to stay and he has no knowledge of the radio signal that would've had them find the island.  Jeff is taken to the kitchen where the "servants" are working and he is told about the zombies that roam the island.  When he encounters them he runs up to tell Bill and James but it's all written off until his second encounter.  At this point Jeff is given a sleeping set-up in Bill and James' room but wakes to find the ghostly movements of Dr. Sangre's wife as she almost strangles one of the men and then vanishes through a secret passage in the wall.  The group then try to find out what's going on all while looking for a way off the island.  This racist fucking island.

Honestly, Jeff's character doesn't even need to exist in this film.  If you took him out then King of the Zombies couldn't function just the same and just as shitty as it already is.  This is the great-grandfather of the B-movie.  It's the one that you look at now and it has been put in one of those crooked nursing homes where the family only visits it on something like Christmas or Thanksgiving and the family preps the children ahead of going in with "remember he's from a different time so some of the things he might say or do aren't appropriate."  Then the kids are horrified by the grotesque racist skeleton-zombie of a film that smells like pee and uses the n-word to describe the orderly.  King of the Zombies needs to die old and lonely with nothing but the slow beeping of the heart monitor lulling it to the grave!

I give King of Zombies 0 tiny maps of the Caribbean out of 5:

Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich (2018) 1h 30m

This one probably qualifies for the shortest amount of time sitting on the shelf before it was watched because my husband and I actually purchased Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich to watch the same night.  We already have two different Puppet Master collections in our film library so we needed the newest to round out the series.

We have to kill these puppets...
and my wife is a whore!

Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich exists to retcon every other film in the dodecalogy.  So forget everything up until this point except for Blade, Pinhead, Tunneler, and Torch.  Andre Toulon is living in Oregon after escaping from Nazi Germany as a war criminal.  Now much older, he spent his life in the U.S. making puppets and toys to send out to buyers across the united states.  When a grisly murder leads to his mansion he is gunned down by the police and that seems to be the end of he and his puppets.  Now, 30 years after that event, a convention and auction on Toulon's life, death, and his works is set to commence.  Recently divorced Edgar (Thomas Lennon: The State/Viva Variety/Reno 911) moves back in with his parents only to find a Blade puppet in his deceased brother's things.  Edgar decides to attend the convention with other ghouls and collectors that all seem to have works of Toulon as well.  Grisly bodies start to turn up in the hotel and Toulon's puppets are vanishing from rooms, all leading to a massacre in the parking lot when the con-goers attempt to escape.  Those left alive attempt to stop the littlest reich while solving the mystery.

Da'fuq is this?  Fuck this thing!

I'm torn when it comes to this Puppet Master film.  The fact that Andre Toulon has gone from anti-Nazi hero to literally being a weapon for the Third Reich is a bit hard to swallow.  Using iconic puppets such as Blade and Pinhead now has them lose some of their meaning as the former was fashioned after the Nazi that murdered Toulon's wife and the latter was based on a truck driver that smuggled Jewish people out of Germany before being caught.  We also lost Jester and Six-Shooter and had them replaced with less interesting puppets.  The addition of things like Autogyro, Junior Fuhrer, and the horribly anti-semitic stereotype of Money Lender were either annoying or left a bad taste in my mouth.

On the flip side though, as much of a fan as I am of Thomas Lennon's comedy work, I really liked him in something a bit less comical.  Sure, a film with murderous puppets has a humorous side, but I felt a weird connection with Edgar as a character due in part to Lennon's acting.  The writing has high and low moments but some of the best are when it nails the natural dialog and ribbing between Edgar, his boss/friend Markowitz, and girlfriend Ashley.  As a treat as well we are given Barbara Crampton as Officer Carol, the older version of the woman that gunned down Toulon all those years ago.

This movie is far from perfect and it also ends with a giant "To Be Continued" on the screen so if you were thinking of jumping into the Puppet Master series with this reboot then my suggestion would be to wait until you've seen at least the first four original films.  Although I'm going to warn you, they're done by Full Moon so get ready for a bunch of reused footage from the earlier ones you watch as you go along.  Even as a new start, this film is meant as a fan service.  Whether you're a fan and you hate this or your a fan and you're down with the new angle, it's meant for you to watch it.

As of right now there are no plans that I saw for a sequel to come out.  This one was done by Cinestate instead of Full Moon (although Charles Band was a producer) so who knows if they'll pony up with the other investors for it.  Mr. Band has said that Full Moon will continue making sequels to the original 12 with as much continuity to that universe as may still exist so this can be a stand-alone if you want it to be.

I give Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich 3.5 copies of Master of Puppets out of 5:

The Thirsty Dead (1974) 1h 28m

How many of these cheap horror movie collections do I own?  The answer is a lot apparently.  Coming to us from a 13 film set entitled The Living Dead we get The Thirsty Dead!  I chose this film specifically because of the description on the back of the case which is as follows:

"A stewardess, an erotic dancer, and two beauty queens are kidnapped and taken to a cave in the jungle.  They soon discover their gruesome fate: They're captives of a cult of immortals who survive by drinking blood."

That was enough to hook me but The Thirsty Dead has so much more!  Each lady is kidnapped from the city by men in red cultist robes with giant hoods.  They're taken to a boat, unbound, and paddled down to the cave.  The erotic dancer just assumes they're going to become sex slaves and she is 100% down for that, saying something like "you can make money and never leave your bedroom."  We are then shown the cultists that are dressed somewhere between original Star Trek humanoid aliens and Flash Gordon extras.  The blond female with crazy Dolly Parton hair resembles the old queen of this group and, after consulting the head in a box, they try to get her to join the cult.  Will she drink the blood potion and live forever or will she deny the prophecy and complain about just wanting to be with her "friends" the whole time?

I see you want to live forever...

There was a lot going on in this film.  The beauty queens really don't do a whole lot in this film except for complain and one eventually has a snake on her foot.  The erotic dancer exists to be hyper sexual in her comments and actions, also to have the most hilarious death which I assume was some weird 70's way of saying that having loose morals leads you to dying in a pit of bones and rats.  The cult is insane and as the film goes on more and more crazy shit get s revealed.  Initially it's just a guy in a blue tunic, then there are tons of local women, then there's a head in a box, then there's a telescope and a glory hole?  Yeah, it gets weird and stays weird. 

It probably had a decent budget as well, or at least access to old sci-fi sets to have all the matching costumes and the strange cavern lair.  Unfortunately they didn't put any of that toward the special effects make-up as the appliances are poorly constructed and blended into the actresses.  While I think of it too, for a random horror movie in the 70's I don't recall seeing any bare breasts at any point in this film.  Even when the dancer was doing her routine in a cage at the beginning she was still wearing what equates to a two-piece bathing suit.  I don't know why I'm surprised by this but it just seems like an odd staple with 70's and early 80's schlock horror to throw in some breasts.  Maybe this film thought it couldn't contend with Hammer Films and kept it covered.

All in all, The Thirsty Dead wasn't bad.  It wasn't amazing, but it was a "watch this with your friends and laugh at it" kind of fun.  My husband joined me for this watching and it definitely made the film better.

I give The Thirsty Dead 2.5 stock photos of someone drinking water out of 5:

The Black Torment (1964) 1h 25m

I don't know what was wrong with me in the past, but I definitely have made some questionable purchases in my life.  Case in point, today's film The Black Torment.  I think I acquired this under the assumption it was something else entirely and the $1 price tag from the used store ended up sealing the deal.  In truth, I feel as though I made a pact with the shitty movie devil.

The Black Torment is sent in Powdered Wig Era with Richard returning home from London with his new wife.  Upon his return a ton of people are dicks to him and there are strange rumors that he never left.  When he begins to see the ghost of his deceased first wife running the grounds and riding his horse, Richard finds himself torn between madness and the truth before all is revealed!

It is I!  You!  Now in blue!

One of my earliest notes for this film is that this is "period music and trumpets the movie."  There are some really long establishing shorts early on and they probably only exist to pad this movie to pass the hour mark.  The story isn't that bad, but in the 54 years since The Black Torment's release, the plot device and resolution is the Occam's razor standard for such a film.

This movie did lead to me learning something interesting though.  Richard's father had a stoke and would communicate through sign language.  Being curious as to if this was period appropriate I found that the first published book of sign language was released in 1620.  That's your interesting facts caused by shitty movies moment!

Unless you have a weird boner for slow period piece horror films, avoid The Black Torment.  The only thing that could've possibly saved this would've been if Richard was played by Vincent Price.  It wasn't and as such this film suffered.

I give The Black Torment 1/2 a White Zombie Black Sunshine single out of 5: