Monthly Archives: February 2012

50 Essential Gore Films : #2 Cannibal Ferox

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With the film finishing just seconds ago, I know I have to write this fast, as it’s already fading out of my mind. Cannibal Ferox is the 1981 cannibal film, coming in just at the end of the Cannibal Boom ( ’77-’81), it feels like just another shock’em exploitation film.

Cannibal Ferox starts out in New York, with a junkie going to score some drugs. In his dealers apartment are two mafia members who are looking for the dealer Mike, and gun him down in cold blood. Cut from there to the wilds of Paraguay, where Judy is traveling with her brother, and slutty friend, following up on a series of articles about cannibals, trying to prove that cannibalism as an organized culture, does not exist. Along the way they come across Mike, and his dying friend, who recounts all the terrible things that the cannibals did to them.

Of course, in the fashion of cannibal movies, it is really the white man, and modern society that is the bad guy. In the case of Cannibal Ferox, Mike represents the evil of society, as it was him who attacked the tribe of ‘cannibals’, while snorting coke every few scenes. The case that society is evil is best summed up by Judy in the excruciatingly bad dialog ” What a goddamn fool I was thinking I had to leave New York to find the reasons behind cannibalism. Do you realize it’s us, the so called civilized people that is the reason for their cruelty and our superior society.” Talk about beating us over the head with the message. But the strange thing is, the tribe was peaceful, until they decide to fight back against the invaders, saying that we are in fact the ones who made them cannibals. If that’s so, then why was there multiple articles about cannibalism in these parts?

The audio in the film is quite bad, with the speaking never quite matching with the characters, I’m assuming that it wasn’t shot in English, but I could be wrong for this. Since most cannibal films are Italian, I would assume it was re-dubbed when it was brought over as ” Make Them Die Slowly”, with the tagline ” They raped and killed his sister while he watched helplessly. Now it’s his turn to Make Them Die Slowly”. Too bad that never happens in the film.

The characters are almost as forgettable as the plotline of the cops trying to track down Mike in New York, which is intercut  with the footage of the cannibal story line, it just feels tracked on, much the same way any ‘character development’ does. The characters also make some of the worst choices ever. After hearing about the evil that the tribe did, they decided to camp in the middle of the village! From the first time together the characters will be best remembered as , The scientist, The slut, and The brother, beyond that, they’re just not deep at all, and any scenes trying to deepen them, just take away from what we want out of a cannibal movie.

The gore in the film is brutal in the nature of what is being shown, but the effects themselves are quite dated, and while practical, don’t seem to pack a punch. Our villain gets his penis severed, and eaten, there’s a scene with an eyeball removal, and a scene in which piranhas eat away at some one’s leg. All of these come across as goofy, more than frightening. The best elements of gore come when Mike has the top of his head sliced off, and his brains eaten, or when a character gets hooks through her breasts. But the most disturbing element of the film is the way they use real footage of animals killing animals, and even kill a pig for one scene. The approach of using Mundo footage would worked better, if it wasn’t so spread out from the rest of the story.

The main problem with the film, comes in the form of pacing. It’s a cannibal movie with boring characters, so lets get to the fucking gore already! By the time we’re finally getting to what we want to see, we’re nearing the end of the movie, and just as it feels it’s going to push the envelope, the film ends. What the hell!

While Cannibal Ferox might be considered the second best of the cannibal films, behind Cannibal Holocaust, it’s not a good film by any stretch, leaving me to ask, if this is the second best, what’s that say about the rest of them? With such a terrible story, the film won’t appeal to anyone but gorehounds, and with gore that isn’t done all that well, it’ll be a hard sell for them. What a shame it has such a beautiful poster.

Score – D -
Gore – 10/10
Gore Quality – 4/10

Cannibal Ferox made me realize  I would have to add a gore quality rating, because the film is bloody as hell, and the things they do deserve a 10, the quality just won’t cut it for any serious gorehound.

A change in tone – Five great re-cut horror trailers.

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A trailer in essence is your film set up in a matter of clips, designed to attract an audience to the opening weekend, or to buy the dvd.  In a trailer we’ll learn from the underlying tone, and the scenes we’re treated with, what we’re getting into. So what happens if you change the tone? With a few edits, a different soundtrack, placement of scenes, you can make even your happiest family film seem like a horror film.

The Shining ( Happy Version)

We all know The Shining, the classic 1980 Stanley Kubrick adaptation of Stephen King’s novel of the same title. It’s the tale of the Torrance family’s time spent at the haunted Overlook hotel, and Jack Torrance’s decline into insanity. But change the soundtrack to be upbeat, and add some narration over top, and suddenly you got yourself a fun little family film about a man and child’s bonding.

Scary Mary

Mary Poppins is the 1964 Walt Disney musical about a magic nanny coming to help out an unhappy family, that won five of the thirteen Oscar nominations it had. Mary Poppins is in no way a scary film, but this trailer would give you a different idea. Using music made for the film ” An American Haunting” with Mary’s own singing over top of it, it looks like a genuinely frightening film.

Willy Wonka – Recut Horror

Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory is one of those films everyone needs to see at least once in their life. I personally watched it every day for years growing up, and will return to view it once every couple years. Gene Wilder’s performance of Willy Wonka captures the essence of a boy trapped in a man’s body, who’s realizing he’s growing old. It’s a sad, and happy film all at the same time. But if you put the twist that Willy Wonka is delusional, the film takes on a tone of malevolence that’s chilling. At least now the tunnel scene fits in.

Toy Story 3 Trailer ( Horror Re-cut)

Toy Story 3 is regarded by a lot of people as the best of the series. My own opinions aside, the film is indeed as touching, and as deep as the first two, touching on themes of abandonment, love, and the meaning of friendship. In this re-cut trailer, the film takes on a much darker tone, and while it only works in a few of the scenes, the audio coming from Rob Zombie’s Halloween trailer, and presenting it’s self as a Zombie film, makes this one a good laugh.

Forrest Gump As A Horror Movie

Forrest Gump, is the story of a challenged man’s life, as boy in love with Jenny, to a man in love with Jenny, the struggles of his life, and love. While in the film, it’s played as both sad, and honorable the love Forrest has for Jenny, if you just put a dark tone on things, the same scenes take on a whole new meaning. Too bad this wasn’t what ‘Obsessed’ was.

From Beyond (1986)

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Stuart Gordon and Jeffery Combs, back at it again, a combination that never does wrong. Once again their back to do a modern, reinterpretation of an H.P Lovecraft story,  of the same title. One year after they came together to make the classic Re-animator, do these two still have what it takes to pump out horror gold?

From Beyond is the tale of Dr. Crawford Tillinghast, here-on referred to as Combs, the assistant to the twisted Dr. Edward Pretorius, a sadist scientist with an unhealthy addiction to S&M. Together, the doctors are working on a device called The Resonator, which vibrates the Pineal gland, allowing you to see into a realm that is always around us, but never seen, and in return, never sees us, filled with weird flying warm like creatures. While testing The Resonator, success turns to terror as Dr. Pretorius has his head bitten off, an act which ends Combs in a insane asylum. Willing to take the risk to see if Combs story about another realm is true, Dr. Katherine McMichaels gets permission to take Combs back to the house it happened, with the help of  Bubba Brownlee, played by the always excellent and often underrated Ken Forbes.

The first two acts of the film are an absolute blast, upon recreating the experiment, we learn that Dr. Pretorius is now some form of super-being in this other realm, who’s form changes and molds as if made out of wax. Great effects, reminiscent of Re-Animator, as well as the body horror entries of David Cronenberg. Things quickly turn bad, and characters, mainly Barbara Crampton in the role of Dr. Katherine, start to make terrible decisions and choices. During this time it’s nice to see Ken Forbes playing the voice of reason, something often missed in horror films. Dr. Pretorius’ evil manner makes for a great backdrop to the spot on acting of Jeffery Combs, and they play off each other very well.

The third act of the film we start to see the story go downhill a bit. We step away from the house, and away from Dr. Pretorius and start to look at the effects the experiments have been having on the characters, and the downhill slope it leads them on. While interesting in it’s own right, it doesn’t quite feel right when compared to the rest of the film. When we finally get back to the house, we get an ending that I personally didn’t see coming when I first saw the film, not so much in it’s conclusion, but in how we get to it.

The film is beautifully shot, with a fantastic color scheme. The film is very bright, with lots of purples and shades of pink and red. It has the feeling of an episode of barney through the eyes of a demented killer on acid. Where most horror films tend to use a dark palette, working off of shades of grey, and crimson, it’s nice to see something up the color, but be able to keep the gore, and he scares with it.

From Beyond is a great film, and while the second collaboration with Combs, it’s far from the last, as they return together for such classics as The Pit And The Pendulum, and Castle Freak. It’s a good look at the earlier points in these two horror legends career, with a great character provided by Ken Forbes. If you haven’t seen From Beyond, what are you waiting for, get out there and vibrate that pineal gland!

Score – A
Gore – 8/10

Horror Daily’s top Ten horror movie endings.

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A film’s ending can do a great deal in deciding how you feel about the movie. It’s often that a great movie has a crappy ending, it can leave a bitter taste in your mouth, much like the Invaders From Mars, and The Slumber Party Massacre, ‘it was all a dream’ style endings, to the just plain bad, ‘Head in microwave’ ending the remake of Last House On The Left gave us. Some times, a film can be redeemed from it’s ending, much like Martyrs was for me after the third act took a nose dive, and let you leave the movie feeling alright with it. But other times, you get an ending that borders on perfection, leaving you just about as satisfied as you can be. This is about those endings, in no real order. SPOILERS.


1. Funny Games (US)

Funny Games is a shot for shot remake, directed by Michael Haneke, who directed the original 1997 Austrian film of the same name. Starring Tim Roth, and Naomi Watts, as a couple who along with their son, are mentally fucked with, and forced to play sadist games, by two of cinema’s most entertaining protagonists,  Funny Games is a brutal film that doesn’t let up on the tension and atmosphere.
So why’s it on the list? The fact that the good guys don’t win. The kid gets shot, the father killed, and Naomi Watts is tied and pushed off a boat in the middle of a conversation, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. To top it off, it ends where it begins, with the killers approaching a new family. Dark, unrelenting, and very nihilistic.


2. Insidious

James Wan’s ghost story about a family who’s child is haunted, is a terrifying, and effective ghost story, that relies on equal parts atmosphere, and jump scares, that rises to the ultimate crescendo. The third act, in which the father, via asto-projection, goes into the further to bring back the soul of his son, is a chilling example of WTF-images, great jumps, and the set up to a great ending.
Upon returning from the further to the world of the living, the son and father wake up, and it seems like it’s going to be a happy ending. Until after having his picture taken, the father proceeds to wrap his hands around Lin Shaye’s throat, and choke her to death. It’s shown to us, via the camera, that the ghost who had been after him as a child, has finally gotten what it wanted. His body.


3. The Mist

The Mist is the adaptation of the Stephen King novella of the same name, with an ending that King himself said he would of used if he had thought of it. The story takes place in a supermarket, the day after a storm, as people from around the small town come in for supplies. A man comes running into the supermarket screaming about monsters in the mist, the people in the supermarket close it off, and it becomes a struggle of power, religion, and fear.
Near the end, we have the father and son who’ve we been following most the movie, the love interest, and an elderly man and women, escape from the supermarket, make it to a car, with the intention that they will just drive, and drive, as long as they can. Then they run out of gas. They’re still in the mist, they know whats out there, and they know there’s an easier way out in the gun they have. But there’s only four bullets, so it’s decided that the father will find his own way out. As the rumbling in the distance grows louder, he pulls the trigger on his friends, love interest, and his own child, leading to a break down of epic proportions, as he stumbles out of the car, crying and screaming for them to get him. But instead of the monsters, the army comes through, with the survivors from the supermarket….


4. Otis

Otis is an interesting film, part torture porn, part comedy, and all together a great time. The film centers the Lawson family, who’s daughter was kidnapped by Otis, the kidnapper, who just wants to take Riley Lawson to the prom. As the film builds, Riley escapes, and the family decides on their own brand of justice, by torturing Otis to death for the rape they believe, wrongfully, was inflicted on Riley.
The family tortures some one alright, but it turns out they got the innocent, yet major asshole, brother of Otis, who they put through hell, until the last breathe left his body. Upon realizing that they killed his brother, they all panic, worrying about what Otis is going to do to them in return. That is until Reed, Riley’s brother, decides to order pizza, from the company that Otis works at. Otis comes to the door, rings the bell, and without even opening the door, takes the full force of a shotgun blast to the chest. Problem solved.


5. Dead Snow

Dead Snow is the Norwegian film about a group of Med students on vacation in the snowy mountain side, who come across a box of treasure, hunted after for decades by zombie nazis. When the film starts off, it doesn’t seem it’s going to be overly great, but as it gets rolling, it’ll have you laughing, and screaming along with the characters, and cheering for your favorites.
But Dead Snow doesn’t hold back, and your favorites won’t last long. This fun, laugh filled zombie film goes against the current of most zombie comedies, and we’re left with only one survivor left at the end. He sees the zombies reach down for a piece of treasure dropped from the body of his freshly departed buddy, and books it back to the ashes of the cabin they were staying at, finds the box of treasure, gives it to the zombies, and escapes with his life down to the car. As he’s trying to find the keys, the piece of gold his girlfriend slipped into his pocket falls to the ground, and as the camera pans back up, there’s a nazi right in the window. Cut to black.


6. Deadgirl

Deadgirl is the dark story of zombie rape, to put it bluntly. To explain what it is really about, will take much longer than I’ve got here. To sum it up briefly, it’s a coming of age story, a film about friendship, and the lines between fantasy and reality. Rickie and J.T are two best friends, and social outcasts from the town, and school they live, and attend. Skipping school one day to go hang out at the local closed asylum, they have some beers, break some shit, and stumble across a deadgirl chained up in the basement. What follows next blurs the lines of friendship, trust, sexually misadventure, and love.
After some twists and turns, the film gets Rickie, and the girl he’s in love with, JoAnn, J.T, and his raping buddy Wheeler, and the deadgirl together in the asylum. The deadgirl gets loose, kills Wheeler, and starts to feast on J.T. In the end, the deadgirl gets away, and J.T, while dying, managed to Stab JoAnn in the back. As she’s dying, Rickie tells her he loves her, he’ll save her, and she responds with ” Fucking grow up”, which may be my favorite line of the film. While this is going on, J.T is trying to convince Rickie to let him bite JoAnn, so he can keep her forever. The film ends with Rickie coming to see JoAnn, tied to the bed the same way the deadgirl was.


7.The Thing

John Carpenter’s The Thing is a film that needs no introduction. The film about an alien life form in the antarctic, that can take the form of any living being, is one that breathes tension, and paranoia, straight out of the film cell. From the get go, we don’t know who’s human, who’s infected, when it got them, how, etc. All we know is that if this reaches the world, mankind as we know it, is over.
As the film reaches it’s end, the base has been blown up, with the huge alien creature inside it, we’re left with two characters, both standard outside in the freezing cold, with just their jackets to keep them warm. One asks ” What do we do now?” and the answer received is ” Why don’t we just wait here awhile…see what happens”. Us as the audience, we don’t know if either are infected, if they will live, if they will spread, we are left to wonder what happens next, in one of the most understated endings in horror history.


8. Inside.

Inside is part of the French extreme horror wave, that has been leaving a dark crimson mark all over the horror industry. The film starts with a baby inside the womb, we hear the sound of breaks, and the baby violently smashes the camera. Cut to Christmas Eve, as Sarah, the pregnant mother is alone for the night, her husband dying in the crash, very pregnant, ready to burst at any moment. That night a person, known only as The Woman, comes to Sarah’s door and asks to use the phone, is turned away. As the film progresses The Woman breaks into the house, attacks Sarah, who holds up in the washroom, and kills everyone who enters the house, leaving the place a bloody messes that travels from the front door, to the upstairs, and every room in between.
The beauty of Inside, is it does everything you think it won’t do. Near the end, we learn that the baby we saw at the start, was really The Woman’s, who lost it in that crash, and has blamed Sarah for it ever since. Wanting one of her own, she came to the house with the purpose of using her over sized scissors to cut the baby out of Sarah to keep it for herself, and in one of the goriest climaxes to date, that’s just what happens.


9.  Sleepaway Camp

Sleepaway Camp came out in that hayday of slasher films, 1983, when everyone and their mother was getting some money together and finding interesting ways to kill off teens. The film follows a handful of kids off at summer camp, including Angela and her cousin Ricky, as a series of brutal murders keeps taking place around them. Sleepaway Camp would easily have been forgotten about in the mainstream view of slashers, where only the people truly in love with the sub-genre would be talking about it, if not for it’s ending, which has been said many times, to be the most shocking ending in horror film history.
So what’s the big shocker? Angela’s got a dick! That’s right, a big ol’ hairy piece of man meat. As it turns out, Angela was born a man, but when her father and brother died in an accident when she was younger, we was taken from her fathers gay lover, and forced to live with her Aunt, who always really wanted a girl, and decided she’d raise Angela to be one. Funny side note, the actor who got out there to show his slong, was nervous as hell, so in that scene, he is absolutely tanked, since as we all should know, it’s easier to remove your clothes if your drunk.

10. May

May is Lucky McKee’s first feature length film, and to this day, I will say his best, not to take away from any of the other films he has done. May is a simple, yet weird, girl played by Angela Bettis, who is a bit of an introvert. She tends to fall in love with people, based on certain parts of their body, as is the case with love interest Adam, played by Jeremy Sisto, and his hands. After attempting to date Adam, and failing terribly, May’s world begins to slowly unravel, as shown through a growing crack in the case of her best friend, a doll her mother made.
May builds and builds, and cracks, and cracks until finally , the glass breaks, and May snaps. Bringing a man home to her apartment, he looks into the freezer for some ice to put on his nipples, and finds the corpse of May’s cat, upon freaking out at her, he takes a pair of scissors through the hand, and into the head. May than continues to visit characters from through the film, killing them, and taking her favorite parts, where it is latter shown her stitching them together. She than removes her eye with a pair of scissors, so that her creation can ‘See her’. As she’s laying, arms wrapped around this monstrosity she created, the eye rolls off to the floor. The Frankenstein-esque creation than reaches over, picks it up, rubs May’s arm, and the film ends, leaving a shiver down my spine that hasn’t gone away for the last eight years.

Runners Up : The Last Horror Movie, The Signal, My Little Eye, The Descent, Dread, We Are What We Are, Anti Christ, The Strangers, The Ruins, The Cottage.

So there you have it, my ten favorite horror film endings. As I was writing this out I noticed that I tend to lean towards the darker, and more pessimistic endings, the ones were all the struggles of the characters are for naught. Does this say something about who I am, or is it just by chance?

So Bidites, you know my favorites now, so what are yous?

50 Essential Gore Films : #1 Aftermath

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I, like many of you I’m sure, are known for buying horror magazines, such as Rue Morgue, Horrorhound, and Fangoria, so when I came across a batch of old Rue Morgue issues in my local used bookstore, I jumped on that, and fifty dollars later, left feeling satisfied. Among those issues is #83, the October 2008 issue, which inside holds a list of fifty essential gore films. I like to consider myself a gorehound, I’ll watch anything if it has good effects, regardless of the quality of the film, so I feel I owe it to myself, and more importantly to the Bidites, to take a look at these fifty gore films, and see how many are worth your time.

Aftermath is the disgusting thirty minute romp though ‘a day in the life of’ a mortician, and that’s really all it is. The film opens on a pair of autopsies, and holds nothing back from the get go, as we see the skin peeled back, and the guts are sloppily handled, leaving nothing to the imagination. The skull is cracked open, the brain removed, weighed, and everything in the end, is slowly gruesomely stitched back together.

This start really sets the tone for the rest of the film, it’s going to be disgusting, and it’s not going to stop. Director Nacho Cerdà, known for making a series of three short films, know as ‘La Trilogia De La Muerte’, or ‘The Trilogy Of Death’, with Aftermath being the middle, must think he’s achieving something powerful with Aftermath. The images we see, are made even weirder by the choice to leave out all dialog, leaving everything we know about the morticians, to be from action, and their eyes.

After the first autopsy is complete, and one of the workers leaves for the night, the movie gets darker. About as dark as you can fucking get. Our main character brings out the corpse of a young girl, twenties or so, and starts to cut her out of her clothing, and molest the body. This continues to the point where he starts to cut her stomach, trailing up, and down, more chaotically, until he full on plunges the knife inside her special parts. As disgusting as it is, it gets worse, as he sets up a camera, and takes pictures of himself fornicating with the corpse. When he’s done, he finishes up the autopsy with the same gory effects we’ve already been greeted with, but this time removes her heart, so he can take it home to fed to his dog.

Aftermath is a thirty minute adventure through some of the darkest tones that cinema can offer, while not offering anything in return. The gore is fantastic, and the choice to exclude all dialog is chilling, but that’s about as far as it goes. Aftermath doesn’t open your eyes to a world you didn’t think existed, or have some form of social commentary, it’s just a look at how disgusting we can make you feel for watching it. The only question Aftermath makes you ask, is why haven’t you turned it off yet?

Score – C
Gore – 10/10