Wednesday, February 29, 2012

The Five Rules of Ninja Dixon




1. Just because the masses thinks a movie sucks, it doesn't mean it sucks.

2. The only taste you can trust is your own.

3. The only bad movies are the boring ones.

4. Country, language, budget, genre, digital or film - this doesn't mean nothing! Storytelling is everything.

5. It's just movies, nothing else. Chill down.


Jenglot Pantai Selatan (2011)

Rizal Mantovani is back with yet another silly monster-romp from Indonesia. The last one I saw was Taring, a jungle-style version of The Descent that was quite OK but mostly an excuse to show supermodels in peril (which happens to be one of my favorite genres, some day I will write an article about that!). Jenglot Pantai Selatan is more or less an eighty minute long excuse to show a lot of cleavage. Or to be more specific, an eighty minute long excuse to show half-naked people being killed by the most bizarre monster I’ve seen in a long time: the Jenglot!

So what the heck is a Jenglot? First of all, it’s a mythological creature that’s very popular in Indonesia. Just google it and you’ll see the legend is very much alive up to this very day. To make it simple, it’s more or less a supernatural pet to magicians who practices black magic. It’s a small deformed version of a human, often with long claws, sharp teeth, skin like a newborn rat and quite hairy! It also has a tail and human ears. Cozy!

In this cinematic masterpiece we follow a bunch of twenty something kids who goes to a hip beach party to drink, dance and maybe get some action. And the girls shows their cleavage and the guys show their fit torsos. But this time they have bad luck, because a gang of Jenglots – belonging to a weird, smoking, bearded man who can be invisible to some people – decides to eat everyone that gets close to the water and yeah… everyone near the beach!

I would lie if I claimed Jenglot Pantai Selatan to be a masterpiece, because it’s not. Like Taring it’s a cheap monster-movie with sexy women and cute guys getting attacked eaten by very strange monsters. It’s not even that gory, but bloody and show some gory aftermath. The most gory scene is when one of the Jenglots burst through the chest of one of the characters. But don’t let this stop you from enjoying this piece of trash, because it’s fun trash.

The monsters themselves are cheap and strange, and I think they even put either a monkey, or a cat or a small dog inside the monster-suits in a couple of scenes. They have big human ears, pig-noses and looks god damn ugly – but fun! They also have long tails with something that looks like a human hand on the end. I mean, wtf?

It starts kinda slow, but like in every good SyFy production this also has at least one killing every tenth minute and when there’s not monsters it has half-naked people to look at instead. It’s cheap, shot on digital video – but it looks professional – and sometimes like a better soft porn flick – but uses the low budget in a creative way. I hate low budget movies that don’t show anything when the only thing they can offer is blood, monsters and nudity. Jenglot Pantai Selatan at least tries to give us as much as possible and only that makes it worth watching.

It’s nice to see that Indonesian genre cinema still lives. Give it a try!

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Saturn 3 (1980)

“In space no one can hear you moan in ecstasy”

I never really cared for sci-fi. Let me explain. Star Wars was something I liked when I was a kid, but sooner or later I got bored by it. And that’s it. I just feel it’s too hard to connect with something that’s so extremely distanced from the reality we live. This includes fantasy of course. All these big budget extravaganzas just made me feel alienated, cut-off from the story. When everything is fake in a movie (I’m not including animated movies here, because they are…animated. A different thing) it’s just boring. Saturn 3 might not be a masterpiece, but I feel more attracted to this movie than, for example, Star Wars. Mostly because it’s not mega-super-duper budget and has that cheap-expensive look that makes it much more charming (another movie like this is Flash Gordon) than productions that’s calculated to be blockbusters. Give me a Roger Corman-produced sci-fi quickie or Uwe Boll’s In the Name of the King before Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, seriously.

To fully appreciate Saturn 3 you have to accept that it was out of date already when it was released, and the odd casting of Kirk Douglas as the virile scientist Adam is something even I (and I’m a big fan of Kirk) think is weird. Or maybe it’s more weird that he has a relationship with Farrah Fawcett and they both walk around in velour pants! It of course gets more edgy when crazy psychopath Benson (Harvey Keitel) arrives, after killing a colleague of his to be able to work on his super-robot at the space station in peace. Soon it’s revealed that the robot and Benson more or less is the same person, connected through the brains – and Benson is very eager to make sweet love with Fawcett, which also means that the robot wants to do the exact same thing! Manly man Kirk won’t allow this and he even dares to wrestle naked to protect his woman!

So what we have here is a horny killer-robot in space trying to fuck with Farrah Fawcett and Kirk Douglas in silly pants. Yeah, that’s it and if you expect more than so you will be very disappointed. But the movie itself is quite good-looking and sometimes the sets have that stunningly cool seventies vibe that seemed very hard to stay away from during this time (the mother of all movies like that is the awesome Logan’s Run of course). Plagued with problems from the beginning, a Kirk Douglas who really wanted to prove to everyone that he wasn’t 64 years old and a slightly confused Farrah Fawcett. The only one taking his role serious is Harvey Keitel, which make him seem to appear in a completely different movie.

Even if Saturn 3 has aged pretty badly it’s a movie that’s close to my heart. It’s big budget trash, but with a story who belongs in a seventies porn-parody. Kirk Douglas is of course great, but there’s an air of desperation around him – like he knows that he’s an old fart and that this won’t work out in the end. I think this is the last time I’ve seen him play young-at-heart macho guys, after that he understood his age and took more fitting parts. The aura of not so hip sex oozes from Saturn 3, but never becomes annoying or too adult. The violence is more graphic, which surprised me after all these years – for example a chopped of hand, a character being sliced to thousands of pieces and a quick look at a robot wearing a human head!

I’m not gonna hype it, but I like it. Live with that, biatches!

Monday, February 27, 2012

The Island of the Fishmen (1979)


It took me a few years to actually watch Sergio Martino's Islandof the Fishmen, but when I finally took the time it was well worth it. Maybe I was a bit sceptical after Martino's disastrous The Big Alligator River and the generic and uninspired Mountain of the Cannibal God, both from the same time - but this fishy tale had such an interesting look and feeling, almost like on of Kevin Connor's adventure movies with Doug McClure mixed with a healthy dose Island of Dr Moreau and Lovecraft. Can't go wrong with a combination like that!

Claudio Cassinelli is Lt. Claude de Ross, a doctor working on a ship that just sank - so we're meeting him and some of the surviving crew fighting for their lives in the stormy ocean. Some of them find their way to an uncharted island where a crazy fucker named Edmond Rackham (Richard Johnson) prances around pretending to be some local king. He's having some kind of romantic relationship with the young and hot Amanda Marvin (Barbara Bach), the daughter of a crazy scientist, Professor Ernest Marvin (Joseph Cotten), who's the unofficial prisoner of Rackham. Everything could be quite normal here, but under the damn island is the remains of Atlantis and it's habitants is fishmen who worship Amanda like a queen! Everything so that Rackham can have them bringing up gold and other treasures from the ruins! Our hero, de Ross, wants to the girl and run - like always with those darn heroes - but it will be harder than they both thought!

This is a very old-fashioned movie, almost family-oriented (almost, because I'm sure some kids could be scared by it and the violence is intensive without getting bloody and gory) and somehow I can understand how it flopped in the US, even under it's other title of Screamers ("Be Warned: You will actually see a man turned inside-out!". It's a lot of story and it just takes time to get going. But if you can get through that first half hour this is a damn fine adventure movie! It has everything I want from this genre, from secret temples and a hunky hero to monsters and a volcano.

Talking about heroes, Claudio Cassinelli - what a man! It's interesting how his career never generated the hype among cult movie fans like it should have a long time ago. Especially here, a brilliant and convincing performance, handling both the action and the action like a pro. It's a damn pity he left us some years later during the shooting of Sergio Martino's Hands of Steel. A tragic helicopter accident that took his life way too early. The other actors is great also, especially the always wonderful Richard Johnson - here more or less playing a fresh and mentally stable version of his crazy doctor in Zombie Flesh Eaters. Joseph Cotten is frail and old, but do what he's suppose to do. Barbara Bach was always a welcome sight during the seventies, and I think she's a very underrated damsel in distress.

The Island of the Fishmen was a lot better than I expected it to be, though I could have wanted some gore and blood - just for the fun of it! We're talking fishmen here, not teddybears dammit!

Sunday, February 26, 2012

The Last American Soldier (1988)


After Rambo: First Blood Part II the world craved cheap imitations and the Italians churned them out like there was no tomorrow. These movies where often shot in the Philippines and created a lot of jobs both for the locals, and for expats who was looking for something to do while not sitting in a bar drinking themselves to death. I guess that was how Craig Alan was cast as Roger Craig in The Last AmericanSoldier. With a bland look and an unfit body he ruled the business for two years and then disappeared like so many others of his kind.

The story is nothing special. Roger Craig is an ex-vietnam veteran who sees his whole village getting massacred by evil Evil EVIL Russians and in the end also witnesses the murder of his wife. He takes some mercenary buddies and takes revenge. That's it.

The Last American Soldier, also called Commander, was produced by still hyperactive Pinoy company Regal Films. Probably financed by Italians, because this has a lot of spaghetti-eaters involved - from director Ignazio Dolce (who had a very long career as a second unit director in Italy, from Peplums in the sixties to Antonio Margheriti-flicks in the eighties) to legendary soundman Nick Alexander (but I didn't hear his voice this time, which was a pity!). But the feeling is more of crazy, over-the-top Filipino action movie than the usual Italian business. This movie has a LOT of action. Lots of it. American expat Mike Monty, known from a lot of Mattei- and Margheriti-movies also has a small part.

We're talking tons of shoots-outs, explosions everywhere, slow-motion falls from guard towers, more explosions, a well-made helicopter chaser and maybe most important of all: bloody squibs! Yeah, this is not one of those lazy movies that skipped the blood and went for silly stuntmen pretending to get shot - the blood spurts in slow-mo and splatters all over the place. Love when that happens - in movies.

The odd thing with watching this movie is that it was on blu-ray! Who the f**k releases an ultra-low budget jungle action movie co-produced by Italy and the Philippines on BD in this day and age? The Germans of course! And I'm sad to say that they could have skipped the blu in this case, because the quality is at the best a very good DVD. So the quality is excellent for being a movie like this, but we're not talking BD quality. Not even close.

If you want bloody jungle action with a lot of explosions and some cool stunts, The Last American Soldier could be something for you. Get the German BD for best possible quality or just turn to the nearest flea market and dive right into their pile of old VHS tapes and you will have ninety minutes of excellent entertainment.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Death Smiles at Murder (1973)


I'm not really sure what's going in Death Smiles at Murder, but what I can figure out it's a complex mess of reanimation and a romantic threesome. That's the short version of the story and I think I'll keep it that way. Like the good Alex Bakshaev once said (today on Facebook, that is), this is one of those movies together with Fulci's City of the Living Dead where the narrative is forced to step down to the superior visual extravaganza that unveils in front of your eyes. 

Death Smiles at Murder is just something so pure as cinematic poetry. A macabre, Poe-esque poem about love, death and reanimation. The story is very abstract, almost in fragments and it's rarely that I can see how the story comes together in a logical way. If you focus on the details you will miss the most important part of this movie: the big picture. Yeah, it's in front of you the whole time and to be able to fully appreciate this work of art you have to take a step back and watch it from a distance. It's not until then you will understand it.

There's not secret that Joe D'Amato, or Aristide Massaccesi, was an expert cinematographer. He might have directed a lot of trash, some really lousy crap to, but most of it looked like a million bucks. Death Smiles at Murder looks so good that I can't even imagine why this movie isn't more popular. It's up there with the best cinematography I EVER seen! This is combination with a very poetic and beautiful story makes this something very special, a masterpiece. Maybe I'm alone comparing it to Picnic at Hanging Rock - both regarding style and visuals, but also the almost dreamlike fairy tale atmosphere.

As a pure genre movie I guess is a frustrating experience for the causal ordinary German gorehound with an Emo girlfriend. D'Amato uses his talent to film boobs more than once, in very tasteful ways I should notice, and it's a violent movie with some gory/bloody scenes - cheap effects, but works fine within the frameworks of the rest of the story. There's reanimated dead people, but to call this a zombie movie is going too far. Joe tries a little bit harder, and together with Zeder this is probably the most unique living dead-movie made in Europe (I could include The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue there to).

It also have a very fine cast with Ewa Aulin being excellent in the lead. Kinski has a small part (and I'm sure he got a really good salary!) but makes his performance edgy and intelligent. Even the traditional bore, Giacomo Rossi-Stuart, is good enough to entertain me. Which might be the first time he succeeded with that mission.

Death Smiles at Murder is up there with the best of Jess Franco and Jean Rollin. I wonder what would have happen if D'Amato had gone this route instead of the road he chose in the end? Well, we wouldn't have enjoyed Anthropophagus, Absurd, Endgame, Beyond the Darkness and... eh, Porno Holocaust. Not to forget the Ator-films!

Friday, February 24, 2012

Bad Inclination (2003)


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Crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap Florinda Bolkan is great!

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Crap crap.

Jack the Ripper (1976)

Last week Lina Romay passed away, the iconic actress and partner of director Jesus Franco. It became official yesterday. For me, and for many others, this came as a shock – I had no idea Lina was battling with cancer and I can’t even imagine how Uncle Jess must feel now when his soulmate has left him after so many years. One of the first movies by Franco I saw was Jack the Ripper, the Erwin C. Dietrich-produced thriller from 1976. Hardly a historical correct retelling of mystery of Jack the Ripper, Franco just takes the basic idea of a brutal murderer of whores in London and tells it from Jack’s point of view instead.

Klaus Kinski is Dr. Dennis Orloff (a relative of The Awful Dr. Orloff maybe?), a doctor popular among the poor and freaks in society. He’s very kind and wants to help those who can’t afford to take of their health, but he’s also a sadistic killer of prostitutes and showgirls. Hot on his trail is the ambitious Inspector Selby (Andreas Mannkopff) who also dates a dancer, Cynthia (Josephine Chaplin) – and believe it or not, soon our good old ripper gains interest in her…

Jack the Ripper is not the most loved of Franco’s output in the seventies, and I wonder why? Sure, it’s a bit too talky – but I think that’s only main drawback with the screenplay. I guess Dietrich wanted something serious, something with class – not just gore and nudity – maybe glancing at the more serious Edgar Wallace-thrillers out there or even Hammer. And Franco did what was expected of him. The weak spots is the police procedure, which never gets especially interesting. But every time the story jumps back to Klaus Kinski and his inner demons this becomes a super-classy and original production. Kinski, as the master-actor he was, uses his favorite form of telling his characters story – less dialogue, more acting. He never goes as far like in Count Dracula, where he has not dialogue at all – but here it’s kept to a minimum and it works out very fine.

When watching it now I realized I totally forgot how Kinski is tormented by a former victim (or is it his abusive mother?), who haunts him in his house and makes him feel guilty. His relationship with the lobotomized maid is also excellent, and gives us a great performance from a very convincing Nikola Weisse. But why I first watched this movie again was the presence of Lina Romay. Here she has a minor part – but probably the most spectacular – as a showgirl getting stalked and killed by Kinski. And boy, she’s probably most unlucky victim I ever seen in a Jack the Ripper-movie: she first gets repeatedly stabbed in the guts, then brutally raped and finally carried home to the good doctor and getting chopped up in pieces while still alive! Romay has not much to do except looking sexy, getting scared and then die – but she’s also shows a lot of comedic talent when she performs her dance number, strutting around pouting her lips and having a ball with the scene.

It’s a violent movie, but much is off-screen – but when it’s onscreen it’s bloody as hell and graphic in the cheap way only Franco could do it.

Jack the Ripper is an underrated movie with gorgeous cinematography by Peter Baumgartner and excellent directing from Jess Franco. And if you don’t like those things, watch it for Lina Romay.

Rest in peace, Lina. You will be missed.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Sektor 236 (2010)

I consider myself I kind person. A man who can't hurt a fly and very rarely writes a bad word about the movies I watch. Some people mistake this for a complete lack of taste, but the fact is that I see a lot of CRAP that I just never care to review. What's the point of writing about something you dislike? I'm not one of those that like to waste my energy on stuff like that. Until now. Sektor 236, "the Swedish Predator", is by far the worst movie ever produced in Sweden. I admire that they've done the movie because it's rare with genre productions in this country, but why the f**k couldn't they have done it good?

Some silly time hole/dimension crap has opened itself in the north of Sweden and makes people disappear. A bunch of "young folks" goes out for a hike armed with an ouija board and a complete lack of acting talent and gets sucked into the dangerous situation. Good for them that another gang of worthless "actors", playing military, is going up there to close the whole and rescue the world from a little girl with a monster mouth. Or something.

It's not really the basic idea of Sektor 236 that's bad - I've seen worse stories turned into great movies. It's the concept that someone took a camera, some actors, wrote a script and decided to make a movie without the basic knowledge of how to tell a story. Storytelling, A and O of movies. You can make a movie about everything IF you can tell the story. If you can't - don't quit your day job. It's not enough with pointing the camera at the action, the pointing needs to be made with a thought. Why am I pointing the camera a these moronic kids playing with a damn Ouija board out in the wilderness? Is it to just find a cool angle or is it to make the shit scary?

You won't find any storytelling in Sektor 236. It's just good ol' camera-pointing. After squirming in the sofa over how the more experienced actors made fools of themselves, nothing could prepare me for the utter lack of talent the non-actors showed. I know it's a nice thing to make a movie without money and let everyone involved do something - but was it necessary to put them in front of the camera? During one scene a girl is telling an old story about how she and some friends got scared once. This sequence is THE worst acting I've seen in a Swedish movie. Sure, it could be because the monologue is so badly written my mother could write better in her sleep, but when the poor girl - who probably is very talented at something else - starts to force herself through the text the only thing that comes to my mind is Leena's monologues in Joe Sarno's Fäbodjäntan!

And why an Ouija board on a forest hike? And why complain about cell phone connection when you're in the middle of the wilderness? And why do that other girl scream like a pissed of drug addict everything she gets upset? And why not use an external microphone inside the military compound? It sounds like shit!

Oh, and hey, why did you let a retarded five year old kid make the pre- and end-credits? Just an honest question? Which reminds me of the DVD itself, in terrible quality and non-anamorphic - which makes a crappy movie even crappier. Some of the actors have some interest for cult movie fans. A.R. Hellquist starred in several of Mats Helge Olsson's productions from the eighties and Lars Lundgren - still talking lousy English after 40 years in the US - did a lot of stunts in everything from Planet of the Apes and They Call Her One Eye to Total Recall and License to Kill. Tintin Anderzon is the daughter of the talented Kim Anderzon who starred in Language of Love and The Lustful Vicar, among other Swedish classics.

Sorry of all the negativity, but I needed this. Sometimes a movie is just too crappy to be ignored.

Santo vs. the She-Wolves (1976)


Now, ladies and gentlemen, you will read a review that's far from objective. It's actually shamelessly subjective, more than usual - believe it or not. Some days you find a movie that's so gritty and dirty, non-polished and dark, but still possesses that fantastic feeling of "having fun". Santo vs. The She-Wolves is one of those. I haven't seen many Santo movies yet, but this one differs in several ways from the flicks I've seen so far - and I just love what the director(s) did with this 47th movie in the saga about Santo, el Enmascarado de Plata!

Shit is about to hit the fan when a village of werewolves chooses their new werewolf queen. They have more or less one thing to do before they can take over the world and that's to kill the last remaining man who's immune against the werewolf-illness. And that man hires Santo to stop the werewolves once and for all! Which... is easier to say than actually do, and Santo probably meets his toughest opponent EVER!

This Santo adventure is very far from the comic book adventures I've seen before. Gone is the colourful sets and the feeling of a kiddie matinee. This is more closer to Spanish horrors of the seventies, but even grittier and down-to-earth. The movie itself looks cheap and everything seem to be shot on real locations. There's a lot of hand-held camera and more than ever shadows is important to the visual approach of the story. The fights are a bit bloodier and more rough around the edges and the traditional sequences of arena wrestling is more or less documentary footage from real fights!

So Santo vs. The She-Wolves isn't for kids, but this is a Santo flick for us older who wants something more. It's more horror than ever and in at least two sequences it feels like a awesome werewolf-zombie movie. The first one is when the werewolves attacks a dance - first turning of the lights and then butchering the guests (until Santo saves the rest) and the other is a fantastic scene when a bunch of kids and two grown-ups is trapped inside a car being attacked by werewolves from all sides while driving through the wilderness. This is insanity, illness, made to look like a werewolf-movie.

The only time I laughed was when Santo was attacked by a pack of dogs and - believe it or not - needs to call for help to be able to survive! I never thought I would see that, but it also makes him more human - which I always felt is the strength of Santo. He's not a traditional superhero, he's just an awesome wrestler who wants to do some good for society, blonde women and kidnapped relatives.

Santo vs. The She-Wolves might not be for everyone, but for me it's a minor masterpiece!

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Daughter of the Jungle (1982)


Just when I thought I've seen it all, Daughter of the Jungle falls down in my lap. A jungle-comedy directed by Umberto Lenzi and written by his nemesis, the actor Giovanni Lombardo Radice! I wonder how this movie came to be? Radice and Lenzi never liked each other from the beginning and here they're doing a comedy together? And it feels even more bizarre after watching Lenzi's gruesome jungle-horrors he made earlier. But the question is of course if it works as a comedy? Yeah, I would say so. Silly, but with a few laughs here and there.

Butch and Ringo are two morons from New York who goes to the jungle for vacation. They hire a boat and gets lost directly out in the jungle. They befriends a tribe and not long thereafter a blonde woman, Luana (played by blonde bombshell Sabrina Siani) who crashed with her family when she was three years old and now is the female Tarzan (with her own monkey, Shita). But the evil Dupré (a very funny Sal Borghese) and his clumsy henchmen is also out in the jungle hunting for rubies - and they think that Butch and Ringo also are after these stones! Cue hilarious adventures.

I've seen a couple of Italian comedies before, so it's not a surprise that Daughter of the Jungle often relies itself on cheap sex-jokes, nudity and a lot of slapstick - often someone getting something funny in the head and makes a funny face or two. But I also have to admit that I laughed more than one time and much of the dialogue comes in such a frantic pace that it's hard not to be charmed by the characters or giggle at people falling on their asses. This is not big art, but it's entertaining - and I guess those who like Sabrina naked will be happy with what they see.

Much have been said that this is a spoof of Lenzi's cannibal-movies. I would have liked to say so myself, but it's just a comedy set in a jungle - and that doesn't make a self-referential spoof of any kind. But maybe the countless hours in the jungle inspired Lenzi and Radice to make a comedy in an environment that just caused pain? A sort of a catharsis. Anyway, how the hell should I know? It's hard to read in anything deeper in Daughter of the Jungle. It's a comedy with actors who has good chemistry together and a naked chick. That's what you get, nothing else and it's quite funny.

Ah, it's for the first time in the world out on DVD - from Njuta Films as usual. They have an OK looking widescreen-print, far from stellar and quite grainy, but I guess it beats a lot of the earlier VHS-releases out there.

Over and out.

Dark Reel (2008)


I'm always fond of horror movies set in the movie business, or related. Nick Marino's Bloody Movie is a fun, violent and sentimental slasher set in the house of a silent movie star, The Back Lot Murders from 2002 is a gory slice 'n' dice flick set in a movie studio and Scream 3 and the Australian murder romp is also set in the adventurous world of b-movie filmmaking. I've been aware of Dark Reel for quite a while, but I never got around to see until today - and it was a nice surprise. Not perfect, but a lot more ambitious than a lot of other DTV horror movies out there. My main interest in it was of course Lance Henriksen, an actor I love and admire since childhood - but he also have a tendency to be a bit bored when making too much movies at the same time. I'm happy to say that he's doing fine here!

Nerdy and nervous horror movie fan Adam (Edward Furlong) wins a walk-on in a new pirate movie from the legendary low budget movie company Spotlight Pictures. The company is run by the cynical Connor Pritchett (Lance Henriksen) who demands boobs and bloods within two minutes of each scene. Adam and the star, Cassie Blue (Tiffany Shepis), takes interest in each other - to the anger of hip director Derek Deeds (Jeffrey Vincent Parise). But someone, dressed in a nasty mask and a blonde wig, is starting to kill the female cast - can it be the ghost of old movie star Scarlett May, out for revenge after being brutally murdered in 1958? Soon Adam is the main suspect, at least that's what Detective Shields (Tony Todd) and Detective LaRue (Rena Riffel) thinks...

I'll admit that Dark Reel is a little bit too long and the illusion of a movie inside the movie being shot never really works, but it's also a great-looking movie with a fun cast and some witty dialogue and that kinda saves the whole project from being just another slasher film. After the atmospheric black & white noir-beginning, a flashback to 1958, it never leaves that feeling and stays faithful to mysterious femme fatales and red herrings even when it's set in a contemporary Los Angeles in world of b-movies. While some of the supporting actors comes off as a little bit amateurish, the main cast is very good - and even Edward Furlong (who look tired and edgy as normal) seems to have a lot of fun with his part. Veterans like Lance Henriksen and Tony Todd is great and Rena Riffel is surprisingly funny.

In a way it feels like a spin-off from Scream 3, with Lance reprising his part from that movie, which I think is a fun idea. And even if I enjoy the Scream franchise, I think Dark Reel better handles the same concept better than Scream 3 (a movie who they had to make lamer because of the backlash regarding movie violence because of the Columbine massacre). It dares to be darker and violent, which never is wrong.

But in the end Dark Reel is a slasher, just disguised with some supernatural elements and a more ambitious vision. So how about the murders? The gore? Not bad actually, and not that much. But all the murders are graphic and bloody, including a couple of throat-slits, stabbings, a chopped of arm etc. The effects are well-made and old-school.

Don't expect a masterpiece, but Dark Reel is a nice horror movie with a good cast and some nice gore. Well worth buying!

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

077 Bob Fleming - Vår Man i Casablanca (1966)


I'm sure Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli had no idea what they did when they unleashed the first James Bond-movies on the world. Oh, I'm sure they expected to earn a lot of money, but they also more or less gave all the small-time producers a good reason to make their own quick bucks. I'm not even sure it's possible to count all the spy movies being made in Italy with different hunky actors pretending to me someone who could compete with Sean Connery. The great Antonio Margheriti directed Killers Are Challenged (077 Bob Fleming - Vår Man i Casablanca in Sweden) sequel to Luciano Martino's The Spy Killers and one year later it also got another sequel, the cool Fury in Marrakesh.

Like always, the story is weak. This time a crime organization wants to take control over a formula that would make every kind of poisonous energy unnecessary (gasoline for example) and their last person to kidnap and kill is Dr Coleman. But of course, the US government doesn't want this to happen (which is kinda ironic, because nowadays they do everything to get their hands on the oil!) and sends Bob Fleming, their top spy, to take over Coleman's identity and stop the sinister plan! He travels to Casablanca and meets up with Coleman's wife, and the rest of the movie is more or less one long excuse to show him avoid getting killed by different henchmen! Gotta love the Italians!

The biggest problem with these low-budget Bond-rip off's is the obvious lack of budget. Because of the money-issue they could never afford to have big action set-pieces like the real Bond-movies and the locations are few (but one is often very exotic) and everything just looks less polished and a lot cheaper. But what to without money? The question is very simple:

Fistfights. Lots of them.

And if there was something Margheriti could handle like a master it was action an the fights he directed in this one ranks among the best I've seen. The two highlights are first the hotel-fight which looks gorgeous in this nice widescreen-DVD from Njuta Films and also has some awesome spectacular moves. The second one is the most famous, a looooong and Spencer/Hill-esque bar-fight - filled with crazy stunts, slapsticks (which is funny for once) and lots of people bashing each other in the heads with chairs, bottles and everything else they can find in the scenery. It also has a "funny" dwarf, which just adds to the absurdity.

The third highlight with the movie is the always excellent casting of Richard Harrison in the lead. He was during this time a very handsome man, sexy and hunky - and with that perfect tongue-in-cheek approach to the material. He's also a great action-man and knew how to look good in a slim tie, an expensive suit and beating the shit out of a baddie at the same time. He never became the same heavy as Connery, but he's still one of the best Bond-imitators in the biz.

The DVD from Njuta Films looks grainy, but very watchable. It has English soundtrack and in glorious widescreen! Get it!

Monday, February 13, 2012

Santo in the Wax Museum (1963)


A couple of weeks ago I saw my first Santo-movie, the excellent and fun Santo & Blue Demon vs. Dracula & the Wolfman (love titles like that!). I loved every second of it and the next morning I ordered a couple of them. The first one to arrive was Santo in the Wax Museum, in a nice English DVD release. A sharp fullscreen print and in Spanish! Lovely! It's hard to find any deeper meanings in a movie like this. Santo has his mask, someone gets kidnapped, he's trying to solve the mystery and then there's a lot of wrestling, off and on the arena! Like good old Mr J once said, it's like a Godzilla - you know exactly what you get!

The sinister Dr. Karol (Claudio Brook) has just opened a ultra-realistic wax museum in town. Everyone from Gary Cooper or Stalin is portrayed and down in the basement there's a classic horror dungeon with all the classic monsters. But Karol has more plans than just entertain people with his wax figures, he also wants to take over the world with the help of four pig-men (and a couple of the standard henchmen also of course)! He's suspected in the disappearances of several locals, and to divert the suspicions he hires Santo to try to solve the case - but soon Santo knows who's the real bad guy is and has to use all his wrestling skills to save the world!

Oh, this is goooood stuff. The story is mix between every House of Wax-movie made before this one and with a nice dose of The Island of Doctor Moreau and as usual it's a thinly disguised excuse to put Santo in wrestling fights with Dr. Karol's evil henchmen and the colourful opponents inside the ring. My favourite enemy of Santo in the ring is a French blonde bastard who acts like the stereotypical Frenchman - the nose up in the air, a bit feminine and using a lot of foul play.

The only disappointment was that Frankenstein's Monster, Jack the Ripper, Dr. Jekyll, Stalin and Gary Cooper never came alive, because that would have been almost too cool for school. Instead we get these four ugly pig-men who mostly acts like zombies and can't fight! But don't worry. There's enough fights for the whole family and good one's too. I love the form of fights which is close to acrobatics, but never goes into The Three Supermen-territory. The stunts are painful and spectacular and  it looks quite dangerous most of the time.

The gorgeous black & white photo makes the movie even more great to look at and it keeps the old school horror atmosphere but still mixes in a lot of "modern" Mexican wrestling. You won't get bored watching Santo in the Wax Museum and the R2UK DVD is well worth getting if you can find it. It might be OOP by now. I hope to watch and review a lot more Santo-movies in the future, because I think I struck gold here regarding movies I love and care about!

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Army of Valhalla (2003)


Look at that cover? Let that title roll over your tongue and feel it: Army of Valhalla! Feels good, yeah? I'm a pro when it comes to understand the deal behind a cover and this is no exception. The original title is actually the easy to remember "Stara basn. Kiedy slonce bylo bogiem", a Polish historical drama from famous (and old) director Jerzy Hoffman. His speciality has always been epics, war movies and depictions of the Polish past. I'm a sucker for these kind of melodramas and I'm happy to tell that Army of Valhalla is one of his better offerings during later years.

The story is quite simple. An evil king, Popiel (Bogdan Stupka) wants to keep the throne and he'll do everything to get rid of opponents. He suppresses the people to that degree that they want him dead. But he's a clever little male-bitch and befriends the Vikings! They help him if they can loot the villages and rape the women, and of course he agrees. But the opposition is growing bigger... and the actions against him even more violent!

No, this is not a movie that breaks any new ground. Instead it's a standard story with a few stand-out ideas. For example, the Paganism is seen like something good and wise (even if director Hoffman throws in a text in the last frame before the credits that tells us that the new kings grand-grand-grand-grandson introduced Christianity in Poland - which feels quite silly to bring up, it's extremely unimportant for this story) and even some real supernatural stuff thrown in for good fun.

But what about that giant Viking on the front waving a huge motherf**king axe at people? Not so much of that, but they Vikings do their job for half an hour or so, until they loose the tiniest little battle EVER - and decides to take suicide while screaming "Odin!". But Vikings, battle and death always means violence and Army of Valhalla is a quite violent and graphic movie. Blood sprays everywhere, some chopped of heads, stabbings and just a lot of people getting killed everywhere. It's hardly Hollywood, but the realistic atmosphere and smaller settings makes it feel powerful and brutal. Not bad at all.

Don't expect anything special with Army of Valhalla, but it's a decent movie with a lot of bearded, dirty men screaming at each other, waving swords and worshipping ancient gods. That's actually enough for me.

Revenge of the Stolen Stars (1986)

In the year 2000 I was working for a shady distributor in Stockholm. Or working might be a exaggeration, I got no pay and slept on a foldable bed in his office. Yeah, I was young and stupid and had nothing else going on anyway.  This distributor was also an ex-producer and he invested money in such classics as the huge flop The Hills Have Eyes part II, The Ninja Mission (the movie that more or less created New Line Cinema) and maybe most important, Ulli Lommel's The Devonsville Terror. I like that one, and I think it's one of Lommel's few really good American movies. 

Anyway, one day Ulli Lommel showed up at the office together with his girlfriend. He looked like someone directly from a film noir with a long coat and a hat down over his eyes. We chatted a little bit, nice guy and he was obviously there either to sell some movie rights to the distributor or trying to find money to make The Boogeyman 3 (I still have the script somewhere in my basement). He later met a friend of mine, asked if someone sold weed in Stockholm and the girlfriend who claimed to be a lawyer turned out to be a secretary to a lawyer. Lommel is an odd man, but my respect for him as a person has always been bigger than my respect for his movies. He do what he want to do and ignores what the critics say. In the interview on the DVD of Revenge of the Stolen Stars he's honest and radical and reminded me of what an interesting man and filmmaker he really is deep inside.

Revenge of the Stolen Stars is the result of Lommel being forced to make a third movie for a company. They wanted a movie like Romancing the Stone, and Ulli hated that. So he gave them what they asked for, but took the time to ridicule the genre and some of his old movies at the same time.  Like he says himself, "I'm kinda self-destructive", so he just didn't care how the movie turned out in the end. The biggest mistake was to hire Klaus Kinski to play an important character. Tricked by Kinski's agent that the actor had calmed down over the years and Kinski's behaviour at their first meeting fooled Lommel, but chaos started directly on the first day with good old Klaus acting like a madman, demanding to shoot each angle in a different position, refusing to have lights aimed at his face, couldn't stand the presence of the boom operator etc etc. Lommel and his crew shot everything they needed with Kinski in 30 hours and got rid of him after that.

The shooting was a disaster, the budget was low and the script turned to ashes after Kinski's decision to rewrite every scene he was in, but still there's an interesting atmosphere in the movie. I'm sure Lommel knew exactly what he did. This is very far from Romancing the Stone or Indiana Jones. The budget was too low to shoot action scenes with and it could never have that expensive, gorgeous look that an adventure movie should have. What we have here is instead something similar to the old serials, Sax Rohmer or hell, yeah even the noirish jungle adventures from the forties The characters, especially the bad guys, are cartoonish and over-the-top, there's funny European accents and shadows of slow-moving fans playing games on the walls. Lommel decided to fuck Hollywood once again and make something much more interesting. If you turn of the colour on the TV while watching Revenge of the Stolen Stars you can almost imagine Sydney Greenstreet sitting an puffing on a cigar, dressed in a white cotton suit and plotting evil schemes to finally get rid of Humphrey Bogart.

To be fair, Revenge of the Stole Stars is quite entertaining. Don't expect anything big and spectacular. Most of the actors are quite OK and Barry Hickey is likable hero with good comic timing and Suzanna Love is surprisingly good in the scene where she pretends to be a man! The scenes with Kinski feels chaotic and out of place, but worth the cost for the whole DVD.


Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Succubus (1968)


I won't even begin trying to tell you about the storyline of Succubus, because it's virtually impossible. There is an outline for something - a nightclub, a producer (Jack Taylor) of nightclub acts, a beautiful woman (Janine Reynaud) who can't see the difference between reality and fantasy, and that's about it. Succubus is so far the most surreal and abstract Jess Franco movie I have seen, somewhere between Bunuel and Jodorowsky and his own work. The story goes from scene to scene, with odd dialogue taking us further and further into a very hallucinogen saga.

But Franco stands with his two feet very steady in the pop culture he always embraced and there's constant talk about authors, filmmakers and musicians. The idea of movies being outmoded even before they are released is interesting, but on the other side - like one character talks about - when we experience the movie it feels modern again, up-to-date if we want it so. In a dream-sequence (or is the whole movie a dream?) several horror characters is referenced, including Godzilla, which is a fun detail for a Kaiju-fan like me.

This is a chance for Franco to discuss in the form of a movie everything he likes. From movies to music (Succubus is of course filled with jazz) and not being forced to into telling an ordinary story. I would call Succubus experimental pop-art with a high dose of improvisation. According to Uncle Jess there was never a proper script and he wrote the scenes the night before every shoot to make it feel fresh and original. Some stuff is genius and some stuff - like the stereotypical symbolic (for what? I have no idea!) dwarf and dancing transvestite is less fresh - but as a whole Succubus is a minor masterpiece in surreal cinema.

The actors is the highlights, from the stunningly beautiful and charismatic Janine Reynaud to the cool and handsome Jack Taylor (without moustache) in his first movie for Franco. Howard Vernon, always brilliant, has a small role as an admiral who sits by a bar where a nude male bartender is making him a drink (must have been a dream for Vernon!) until he's stabbed to death in the eye and surrounded by crying old women in a weird funeral rite.

I'm not sure how to interpret Succubus, and I'm not sure if that's really necessary. It's not made to analyze and dissect, it's made to experience and probably smoke a lot of weed while watching. Succubus is a highly original piece of work from Franco, not for the beginner - but don't leave it to last either. It's a movie to breath and feel while you still have that fantastic groovy sixties feeling inside you.

Love live Franco! 

Blödaren (1983)


Never has 80 minutes felt soooooo long. So drawn out and boring. But still, Blödaren, is unique because it's probably one of the first shot-on-video slashers (Sledgehammer came the same year, but I haven't seen it yet - recommended?) ever made - and also the first (I think) slasher ever produced in Sweden. That doesn't mean it's good - actually, it's the total opposite in every f**king little detail. "Directed" and produced by publisher Hans G Hatwig, who also used his extremely popular magazine OKEJ to promote the movie. The story? Well...

An all-female rock band, Rock Cats, is out on a tour through the Swedish countryside. After a not-so-spectacular concert at something that looks like the smallest park (we call it "folkpark" in Sweden) ever they hit off to the next destination - but of course their van breaks down and they're stuck out in nowhere! Lucky for us, because they're a crappy band, a crazy killer, Blödaren, takes care of what we all want to do - and kills them one by one!!!! Surprise!

Yeah, Blödaren is one of the most primitive slashers ever made - Mats Helge's Blood Tracks is a damn masterpiece in comparison. It's shot on cheap-looking video with just the classic point-the-camera-at-the-actor and nothing else approach of directing. To be fair, the locations are nice and I would have appreciated the movie a lot more if it just was a cheap vintage documentary about a crappy girl band. But no one can act and the complete lack of gore and blood makes it a quite boring mess to watch. The killer, played by talented drummer Åke Eriksson, acts like he's in an amateur movie shot by some school kids - but I guess he didn't get much direction to work with anyway. He more comes off like someone who really doesn't want to do the part and have a problem not laughing in some scenes.

So isn't there anything good with the movie? No, not really. But I still think the girls has some charm and it's fun to listen to their improvisations, which rarely sounds realistic - but is fun if you appreciate non-acting for such a long time. Blödaren (which literary means "The Bleeder") could have been much more fun if the director didn't want so act serious and skip the gore and blood. When making a simple slasher movie it's never smart to pretend to be Alfred Hitchcock.

To boost the interest of the movie Hatwig started to spread the rumour that Gene Simmons was the guy playing Blödaren, which he also used in his magazine. I found these two scans from Farbror Punk's blog and I decided to steal these for your viewing pleasure. The first is about the Gene Simmons rumour and then about the real actor, Åke Eriksson.



Thank heavens Blödaren isn't commercially available with English subs, but I guess that if you want to you can find it. But don't blame it on me please, don't shoot the messenger - shoot the movie makers instead!

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Dr. Orloff's Monster (1964)


There's no Dr Orloff in Dr. Orloff's Monster, but still the sinister Dr Fisherman (Marcelo Arroita-Jáuregui) delivers a new diabolical experiment for our pleasure. Many years ago he found his wife in bed together with his brother, and he killed his rival and transformed him to a Karloff-esque killer-zombie/mind-controlled freak! Why? I'm not sure, but probably some kinda revenge and to kill helpless showgirls in the nearby villages! One day his daughter in law (Agnès Spaak) comes to visit. She's never seen her father, but soon understand that's something is terribly wrong in the spooky castle mansion and the now constant drunk wife of Dr Fisherman, Ingrid (Luisa Sala), clearly wants to tell her the truth... if she's not stopped first!

Except a crazy scientist this has nothing to do with the Orloff-mythology, but the story and settings - and more or less everything - reminds us of Orloff. The only thing missing is Howard Vernon as our favorite antagonist and instead the competent, but less charismatic, Jess Franco-veteran Marcelo Arroita-Jáuregui and his huge beard puts in a good performance as the crazy doctor. He's showed up in more than a few of Franco's work from this time, but often in smaller parts - and I'm not totally sure he works 100 % in such a big part.

The script is well-written and works fine, but is a bit too generic and never comes up in the earlier levels of craziness Franco and Orloff. Hugo Blanc as Andros, the mind-controlled zombie gives us an excellent performance and is eerie and spooky and even looks kinda scary with his static movements and plastic-looking face. With his black polo the comparison with Karloff as Frankenstein's monster isn't far away and the fact is that Andros is a more complex character than I first could imagine. I especially like his interactions with his daughter, which is very tender and beautifully shot.

Ah, and Uncle Jess is in the movie also, as usual - this time in one of his favourite parts, a piano player, this time blind and getting killed by the monster!

In a way Dr. Orloff's Monster is one of those less personal movies from Franco, even if it's very similar to earlier works. Almost like the producers, Eurociné (called Eurocineac in the credits) in this case just made an order of an Orloff-like movie and Franco never put his whole heart into the projects.

But it's a well-made thriller with some surprisingly graphic nudity and nice set-pieces when the zombie is killing showgirls and creating havoc in a club. The cinematography, direction and editing is as usual top-notch. It's just the passion that's lacking.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Flesh Gordon (1974)


Rick Baker, Dave Allen and Dennis Muren - three special effects legends that has created some of the best effects every in cinema history. But one movie that I will forever remember them for is the fantastic, charming and talented soft porn comedy romp Flesh Gordon. Made during a time when freedom was at it's height in the US and filmmakers experimented and created some of the best movies ever - and this of course made even the sex-movies impressive for a couple of years.

A sex-ray hits earth and makes everyone in it's way sex-crazed horny maniacs! During a flight Flesh Gordon's (Jason Williams) airplane is hit by the sex-ray and he and a gorgeous blonde, Dale Ardor (Suzanne Fields) flees the death trap with parachute and lands close to the lab of Dr Flexi Jerkoff (Joseph Hudgins). He makes them come with him out in space with his penis-shaped rocket ship to fight the Emperor Wang the Perverted (William Dennis Hunt)! It will be an adventure they never will forget, with Penisaurus around the corner, the dangerous Beetleman and of course the Rapist Robots!

Flesh Gordon is one of the funniest, silliest and charming sex-comedies of the seventies. Made with a passionate love for the old serials and comics and with a witty script that goes beyond just normal sex-jokes - this is silly sex-jokes! It's very clear that everyone in this movie enjoyed themselves, from the enthusiastic actors (Jason Williams is way better than Sam Jones in Mike Hodges Flash Gordon) to the impressive low-budget production value. The sets and designs looks good, but cheap, and has some very stylish moments. The sex-scenes never takes over the story, but it has plenty of genitalia, hairy buttocks and raunchy jokes to please everyone. Personally, of course, I like the positive way the gay forest people are shown. But Flesh Gordon is also a movie that never would treat anyone badly it seems.


The most impressive thing with the movie is the special effects, some of them among the best I've seen from the people involved. The fight between the Beetleman and Flesh Gordon is one of the finest moments from Dave Allen, up there with the skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts. The Penisaurus is also very impressive and the spectacular ending starring the Nesuahyrrah (read it backwards) reminded me of all the peplums that always had city destroyed by natural disasters.


Flesh Gordon is a great exploitation movie, made with a lot of love and talent. I really like Mike Hodges Flash Gordon, but I personally think that Flesh Gordon is closer to the original source - and it has much more action and adventures! A recommended purchase for everyone who's not so shy watching naked people doing... naked stuff.

Exorcism (1979)


Eurociné, a name that can induce fear in even the most hardcore sleaze collector - mostly because the extremely uneven quality and movies that often dares to be so boring that it's hard to understand without having seen them. It takes some time to get used to their slow pace, cheap sets and non-existent scripts - some once in while they strike gold and Exorcism is one of those surprisingly complex and interesting projects. Without a doubt one of the most personal movies Jess Franco ever made, so personal it could be a double bill together with Bo-Arne Vibenius 1975 classic Breaking Point, a movie that shares a similar gritty and nasty atmosphere. But where Andreas Bellis Bob Bellings just is an office rat who goes over the boarder of insanity, Jess Franco's adult author Mathis Vogel has been there for a very long time...

Bored upper class is enjoying a simulated black mass including a human sacrifice. Something for the rich and famous to tickle their boring lives and hopefully tickle their sex-lives even more. But in the background the defrocked priest and now adult author Mathis Vogel (Uncle Jess himself) is slithering around taking detailed notes about the masses. He's still a strong believer and wants to save these poor women from Satan - and the only way to do it is to slaughter them as a sacrifice to God!

When I first saw Exorcism many years ago I found it to be a cheap-looking and sloppily made soft porn thriller - and it still is! But now the flat cinematography and cheap lightning actually gives the story an aura of even more sleaziness, a realistic tour de force for Mr Franco and his woman, Lina Romay. In almost every Franco-review I write I always comes back to the fact that Franco is a great storyteller, especially if there's a story he cares about and then it doesn't matter at all of the budget is ultra-low or the sets is falling apart in the background. In Exorcism he uses the backstreets of Paris, old basements, run-down hotel corridors like very few others. It's hardly beautiful and the focus is, in many cases, somewhere else than on the main goal - but the story works and Franco, who never been a brilliant actor - but very special, fits perfectly in his tightly buttoned coat and sleazy haircut.

The hook in Exorcism isn't really the serial killer story, which is very well-made and nasty, but the look into the minds of the bourgeois who's tired of their pathetic lives and seeks excitement in live sex-shows with blood and S&M. The movie starts with one of those shows, but we're not told directly and when we start to understand that it's just a show we're also understanding that we're in the same boat as the bored rich - we seek pleasure, but Franco tells is it just fake and he wants to tell us the real story behind it all - the madness of Christianity.

I understand that Exorcism isn't for everyone, but if you can look beyond the exploitation you'll find a very interesting serial killer drama, a showdown from Franco's point of view with the people he most of all like to poke fun at: the fakes and hypocrites, the cowards who chooses the simulated dramas instead of the real deal.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Aatma (2006)



Deepak Ramsay, Hansana Ramsay, Kavita Ramsay, Tulsi Ramsay and Gangu Ramsay. With a crew like that you know it's the famous Ramsay clan that's out to scare you again, and here's a slightly forgotten very late entry in their impressive list of horror movies: Aatma, a ghost movie with some elegant splashes of exorcism and eroticism. Not bad at all actually and only three damn euro's on play.com! Get it! Even if you don't like it, that's cheaper than cheap - and it includes shipping!

Some dude is killed by his gangster brother and he wants revenge from beyond the grave! First he forces himself upon a nice doctor and his girlfriend, and wants them to tell the world about the murder - but they are mostly scared of this ghostly beast and the dude turns his revenge towards his brother and the people behind him and tries to kill them and everyone else he sees!

Like most movies from the Ramsay clan Aatma is a very simple movie. Characters getting chased by a supernatural entity, black and white magic is used and people die. That's more or less what I need from a movie, at least some evenings when I want to turn of the brain and just relax without feeling depressed. Aatma is a gorgeous flick and it's odd how I didn't know about it until last week, when I found it and ordered it without even reading any reviews. Come on, it's a movie from the Ramsay family! Can't be bad!

And Aatma isn't bad at all. It was released in 2006, but the style and atmosphere is more from 1986, including a spectacular kung fu fight, a colourful exorcism and some very light gore (including a graphic autopsy, a throat ripping and a fun exploding head). The visual effects are well-made and we're talking both new computer generated effects and old-school, and both fit very good together. Even including the fashion, this is more an eighties or early nineties production than something from the last few years. It's not important for me, the past is just another way of claiming something that was bad then is good today. If the movie works, no matter how simple storyline, that's the most important thing.

I just have been prepared because of the names involved, but Aatma is also more sexy and "graphic" (graphic the Bollywood way) than many other Indian movies I've seen. There's actually kissing and rolling around in a bed, not to mention a lot of not so well-dressed ladies poking around in darkly lit corridors. Could be good to know for those interested.

My boyfriend, who watched part of the movie, also informed me that most of the music was "borrowed" from a computer game called God of War - and it's a damn fine and powerful soundtrack, very bombastic and classic and fits the movie very well.

Aatma is very cheap to buy on DVD and the UK release looks excellent in anamorphic widescreen and with good colours and sound. Well worth those three Euros including shipping it cost me.