Some quick thoughts on Ironmaster (La guerra del ferro - Ironmaster) (1983)

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The elders of a primitive tribe that speak near perfect English wring their hands over who will be the heir to their leadership, either the strong Ala (Sam Pasco) or brash Vood (George Eastman). During a battle with rock slinging mud savages, Vood sees his opportunity to take the reigns by braining the leader with a stone axe. The brutal act is witnessed by Ala who confronts the murderer. In the ensuing fisticuffs, Vood inadvertently kills the oldest member of the tribe and is ran off for his crimes. 

Upon his exile, a great volcano erupts and Vood comes across a crude iron blade from the ashes created from the event. The vengeful mortal realizes he wields the greatest weapon on Earth, conquers his previous tribe, and starts overthrowing all in his wake with the new implement capable of shattering both wood and rock. Ala becomes the new exile and must find a way of stopping Vood, despite befriending a defenseless pacifist clan.

Umberto Lenzi's Ironmaster is awful, even for a cheap sword-and-sandal, but worth seeing for the endearing off-kilter stupidity baked into its era's parasitic Italian cinema. Sam Pasco's Ala, in his only screen credit (outside of gay porn), looks like a bodybuilder version of The Room's Tommy Wiseau with blond locks. Joe D'Amato regular George Eastman as Vood might be featured more here than the hero and wears a horribly unconvincing lion head killed upon first retrieving the blade. Genre scarlets Elvire Audray (Amazonia: The Catherine Miles Story) and Pamela Prati star as Ala and Vood's women respectively. Audray exhibits the fact that even neanderthal women wore mascara and lipstick. Prati is sluttier, and even though there's no intentional nudity, she wears such a skimpy halter top that her boobs pop out every time she tries to run (well, prance). There's even an instance of continuity of the actress beginning to run with them bouncing out and later still "revealed" upon reaching her destination. A defeated William Berger appears as the pacifist tribe leader looking a bit like Bruce Glover.

Then there's a bunch of little instances you'd only see in a Lenzi film. The morning after the volcano, Vood digs into what should be molten Earth at ground zero and snatches up the iron hunk that should also be flesh-meltingly searing with all the heat reaction of a freshly toastered Pop Tart. The basic skill of ironwork and sword forging seems "ironed" out literally overnight as Vood's brotherhood cranks them out with the unexplained convenience of modern blacksmith tongs.

The humans battle against groups of hairy man-apes that unfortunately don't wear anything--even underwear. Some grotty cave-dwelling plague victims with open sores also attack Ala and that's about as far as the blood quota pushes aside from a few badly executed slashes. Then there's the requisite stock footage of lava eruptions and high school science class volcano miniature. Guido and Maurizio de Angelis provide an unusually throwaway score with the main theme sounding like a cross between spaghetti western and Egyptian-tinged barbarian dirge. Strangely, the bulk of the feature was shot in Custer State Park in Custer, South Dakota. That explains the inexplicable presence of buffalo herds. Perhaps Lenzi thought the audience would mistake bison for mammoths? Finally, animals lovers be warned, Lenzi can't help himself, a boar and lion appear to have given their lives for this masterpiece.

So Ironmaster definitely doesn't live up to its disproportionately fantastic artwork, when do they ever, but it's good for a chuckle or two. The twenty-five-year-old American National Enterprises/Prism Entertainment VHS is colorful but cropped to full screen from its original 1.85:1 ratio. It's watchable with the compromised framing only evident in a few shots. A good ten minutes of A.N.E. video trailers, including Ironmaster, run before the feature.

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The Beyond (L'aldilà) (1981) - 2000 Grindhouse Releasing/Anchor Bay VHS

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Demon Queen (1986) - 1987 Mogul Communications VHS

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Since this tape sold on eBay earlier (and my meager bid toppled), I dug out my MOGUL of Donald Farmer's DEMON QUEEN, with cover art from Umberto Lenzi's Nightmare City (1980), from the catacombs. While a healthy number of these early '80s shot-on-video gore bombs made the transition to disc, Farmer's debut remains extremely obscure on video. As you can see, some asshole rental joint, "Backstage Video" to be exact, chopped down the studio's puffy clamshell-sized cover to shoehorn it into a small plastic case. Bastards.

This tape is ridiculously rare and one of the rarest of MOGUL's fantastic releases. Harder-to-find than Fury (1978) or The Icebox Murders (1982). Consorting with fellow VHS fiends on Facebook, I've learned that SOV madman Mario Dominick of Critical Condition and Horror Society only knows of two or three others besides himself that own this tape and the mangled copy on eBay is the best condition he has seen this in thus far. I haven't watched my copy due to the cassette being a large reel T-60 (notice how the auction copy appears to be a regular T-120). My current VCR has "hunger" handling issues with such tapes. Here's a very knowledgeable review by "capkronos" (get a blog man!) on the IMDB:

"During the video boom era of the 80s, distributors were so desperate for new product to add to their catalogues they'd release just about anything they could get their hands on. Foreign films and made-for-TV movies were popular acquisitions, but thanks to access to affordable consumer grade camcorders, a whole new generation of "filmmakers" came into the picture with various no-budget releases. Johnn Wintergate's awful-but-hilarious BOARDINGHOUSE (1982) was the first notable camcorder effort to turn up on home video (on the short-lived Betamax format under the title HOUSEGEIST), though it apparently was also shown in theaters first! There was also SLEDGE HAMMER (1984), a slasher from David A. Prior, followed by Christopher Lewis' BLOOD CULT (1985), which proudly claimed to be the very first movie made specifically for the home video market. Just one year later, director Donald Farmer fired up his own trusty camcorder and gave us his first of many attempts at horror - DEMON QUEEN (1986), which was shot in both the Miami, Florida and Nashville, Tennessee areas and involves a seductive vampire-demon-succubus. I won't lie, this film is truly terrible in every sense of the word. Sloppy continuity errors, sound that frequently cuts out, opening and closing credits with misspelled words, actors grinning when they shouldn't and badly flubbed lines of dialogue are all allowed to pass into the finished product. It's also very badly padded out. If you cut out the opening and closing credits, the film runs just 46 minutes! There's also a pointless dream sequence of the the demon queen ripping out some guy's heart. That whole sequence lasts a gruelingly long 8 minutes.

Uncut MOGUL vs. butchery

The story centers around Jesse (Dennis Stewart), a lowly drug pusher in an unhappy relationship with bitchy, strung-out girlfriend Wendy (Patti Valliere). Jesse owes dwarf coke dealer Izzie (Ric Foster) six-thousand bucks and when Izzie has his henchman Bone (Cliff Dance) come to collect, a sexy and mysterious female in shades shows up to save the day. Jesse, who was temporarily knocked out, awakens to find Bone dead on the ground, his throat ripped out, and the woman who did it - Lucinda (Mary Fanaro) - in need of a place to stay. Jesse figures he owes Lucinda at least one favor since she saved his life and lets her come crash at his pad. Naturally, Lucinda turns out to be some kind of evil demon-succubus-vampire monster who likes to seduce men, rip out their hearts and then rub them on her bare breasts. Some of those killed by Lucinda return as flesh-eating zombies. To pad out the thin storyline, we get a succession of victims in random scenes getting stalked and killed. To pad out the thin storyline even more, there are several scenes that take place at a video store, where the horror-loving owner talks to a couple renting MAKE THEM DIE SLOWLY, and deals with a bitchy customer who only wants to rent Barbra Streisand movies.

Fanaro, who has some screen presence, is one aspect of the film they did manage to get right. She's tall, thin, has an alluringly husky voice and a short, spiky hairstyle that reminded me of LA FEMME NIKITA star Anne Parillaud (who got to play a sexy vampire herself in 1992's INNOCENT BLOOD). Fanaro went on to some other roles in higher-profile movies and television shows, and also got to star in Tim Ritter's TRUTH OR DARE around the same time. The less said about the rest of the cast the better. 

There are topless scenes from the leading lady and another actress (who is killed in the bathtub), as well as a couple of OK ripped-throats-gushing-blood effects. The succubus in her demon form is only seen in a few brief flashes but looks like a torched Muppet. One hilariously botched effect occurs when the main actor is struggling with one of the zombies at the very end. Obviously he was supposed to reach up and tear off the zombie's skin to reveal a skull face underneath. Unfortunately, the layer of skin he grabs doesn't come all the way off on the first try, so he casually has to reach up a second time and pull the rest of the way off! To supplement the Casio Keyboard soundtrack, there are also several original cheesy pop-rock songs that I happened to love. They're sung by a female vocalist. One of them goes "Let me be your angel fire... Let me be your one desire..." and is listed as "AngleFire" in the end credits. Ha! You gotta love this kind of stuff, right?"

Street Warriors Part II (Perro callejero II) (1981) - 1987 All Seasons Entertainment VHS

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ASE's titles are rare, but this is one of their more obscure selections. The studio also released the first Perro callejero with similar unrelated tailored promo shots. Unlike earlier big box releases, this is in a slipbox with a closed bottom and opening right side flap. Gotta love FOREIGN NUDITY!

Aliennators (Shocking Dark / Terminator II) (1990) - Caution Video Japan VHS

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Gave this another whirl last night with the real Japanese tape instead of a DVD-R of said release. My previous negative thoughts mostly stand, this particular sci-fi/action ingredient thieving certainly isn't Mattei's finest hour. If anything, you're left wondering how in the world the financiers were convinced this would sell given its obvious likeness to Cameron's Aliens. We have Ripley and Newt clones in all their usual follies. Badass marines headed by a butch Geretta Geretta, dubbed the "Megaforce", in motorcycle helmets and flared shoulder pads. Melty monsters that look like the Humanoids from the Deep with a bad case of acid flesh. The Paul Reiser character revealing himself a tinfoil Terminator with one-track taunts about his poorly exhibited indestructibility. To its credit, the final twist does show a spark of last resort originality. My beef isn't with its lack of a brain, this is Bruno Mattei after all, but all these parts don't homogeneously come together like others in the filmmaker's merrily unoriginal forte.

Much like Mattei's final Hail Marys into the Italian horror abyss, Island of the Living Dead and Zombies: The Beginning, Mattei proves the familiarity of his country's genre forays doesn't change regardless of time. So Shocking Dark, despite my apathy, feels like could have been easily made a decade earlier which would have been quite the feat if attempted intentionally. That's what both blissed and doomed Mattei and his pasta lovin' brethren into obscurity. The actual tape's picture quality is much more bearable than the disc's shockingly dark playback. The Killians also assisted and this time managed to pull a few chuckles out of dialogue so cheesy the actors probably had to keep breath mints handy for the entire production. For the fact alone Bruno had the balls to call this Terminator II, it's hard to resist the temptation of seeing this one at least once.

 

A Fistful of Dollars (Per un pugno di dollari) (1964) - 1982 20th Century Fox Video Betamax

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Picked up this "slipbook" box Beta not two blocks away this morning at a yard sale and don't get the choice of (colorized) stills on the back. Why would Fox not choose to feature Eastwood on the back like common sense would dictate? You would think by the time of this tape's release the importance of this milestone to both its genre and Clint's career would have warranted that much. Hell, I can't even find production stills that match. Although, this is Fox we're talking about...

The Rue Morgue Massacres (Hunchback of the Morgue) (1973) - All Seasons Entertainment Big Box VHS

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Mad Mad Mad Mad Movies has just started their Paul Naschy Blogathon and you'd be well advised to scope it out...

Fragile: A Ghost Story (機械じかけの小児病棟) (Frágiles) (2005) - 2007 Shochiku Home Video Japan HD DVD

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HD DVD never really was given much of a chance by the public and ultimately the major studios picked the winner of the high def disc war. Warner's Blu-ray exclusivity announcement was the Toshiba-backed format's death kneel. Despite defending the underdog to its collapse, I'm not particularity bitter since most of the doom-and-gloom of a Sony-controlled home video market hasn't materialized. Blu-ray's DRM scheme offers complete access for studios to do what they wish with the intrusive software, instead of HD DVD's unified structure that only authorized changes after the controlling committee agreed. Complete region free-ness also rocked.

Personally, I was more annoyed by all the effective misinformation spread by BD (and PS3) fanboys about HD DVD's capabilities. Hearing their bull back then, you would have thought the loser was only 720p with DVD quality audio. Currently the winning HD format is viewed a supplement to DVD rather than a dominating force, which is a good thing, Blu-ray media and player prices keep becoming increasingly competitive with the alternatives. My HD DVD players, the tank-like HD-A1 and HD-A35, are still in my racks and I haven't gotten rid of any of my discs. Plus it's nice to pick up brand-new $3 titles every once and again at discount shops. 

In the format's relatively short life, even Betamax lasted (much) longer, imports were all the rage for addicted enthusiasts. Jaume Balagueró's Frágiles was one of those and remains its only HD disc release. The 1080i/60hz transfer is encoded in MPEG-4 AVC. The format was fully capable of 1080p/24, but for some unknown reason Shochiku's few HD DVDs were natively interlaced. The dirty secret that no Best Buy or DirectTV salesman will divulge is that 1080p displays worth their salt deinterlace 1080i signals to 1080p anyway; so 1080i isn't much of a perceptible step down especially with a high bitrate encode like this release. The audio is offered in a lossy 640kbps Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 track. Again, HD DVD supported all three lossless codecs, but the studio opted to only offer Dolby's go-between. The 30GB dual-layered disc has what looks like four extras but I don't speak Japanese. I haven't opened this disc and probably never well due to its extreme rarity nowadays. Balagueró's film finally made its North American video debut with Fangoria's Frightfest DVDs this past September (check out Freddy in Space's review).  

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Underworld (Transmutations) (1985) - Tohokushinsha Home Video Japan VHS

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An ex-boyfriend of a kidnapped girl is strong-armed into finding her whereabouts under the city streets in a labyrinth controlled by drug-addicted mutants. After giving this seemingly universally damned effort the benefit of the doubt, George Pavlou's Underworld (U.S. title: Transmutations) is another '80s genre mash-up that's just plain uneventful over being unwatchable. Clive Barker was the brainchild of the story and wrote his first screenplay for the feature, but large chunks were either tossed or rewritten removing any potential the end result had. Horribly dated and "fast-forward" predictable with no self-identity or gore. The mutant "make-up" looks a half-step above busting open a Pillsbury canister and sticking lumps of dough on your face. As the credits rolled, I envisioned a world of horror and fantasy without Barker and concluded this film would probably still exist...and still blow.     

Underworld and Rawhead Rex prompted Barker to handle Hellraiser's screen translation himself and his 1987 classic only makes those two even more antiqued in comparison. At least the latter, also helmed by Pavlou, had a huge maniacal jawbeast gleefully ripping victims asunder. Visit Clive Barker Revelations for an insightful look at this debacle and Barker's unused "Pinhead" ending for the film. This fan-made trailer recaps Underworld so you don't have to waste the time. All three links are much more interesting than Pavlou's mishandled mess. Also the film runs 87 minutes; not 103 minutes like many resources mistakenly indicate.

Zombie: Le crépuscule des morts-vivants (Dawn of the Dead) (Argento Cut) (1978) - 1980 René Château French VHS

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Given this tape is thirty years old, this is probably the debut French home video of Dawn... 

Some quick thoughts on The Expendables (2010)

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Sad to say this, but for all its heft and hype The Expendables is tantamount to a Hot Topic poser when it comes to the genre it desperately wants to carry the battle flag for. In recent weeks, I've been mulling around the reasons for my love of trashier action, and after seeing Stallone's latest, applying the usual "mindless" definition to these efforts would be a mistake. Instead of deeming the "guy flick" as dim-witted, they should be viewed as models of cinematic efficiency. The best examples, albeit not what the snobbish would hail "high art", are tenacious little fuckers of staying power. Blissfully non self-referential entertainment that eventually can be found airing every weekend on some channel without fail.

During the few bloated explosion excuses in Expendables, my mind kept drifting back to a little scene in Sly's fourth return to his most famous character besides Balboa. Remember when Rambo had to hightail it through the jungle, plant a charge near an undetonated explosive in aircraft wreckage, and then tear out like no other sixty-two-year-old ever before a group of nondescript little brown soldiers became millisecond fire? Or what about Arnold suiting up beachside to slaughter a small army in Commando, Sly cauterizing a bad wound in Rambo III, or Bruce picking shards of agony from his bare feet in Die Hard? Simple slices of macho hubris more exhilarating than anything witnessed in the huge personality pile-up of Expendables. The only real showstopping setpiece is a fantastic seaplane firebombing of a long pier. The slapdash frenzy that infests the rest of the confusing action deflates much of the visceral impact.

That's the biggest problem with this supposed throwback to the glory days of Regan actioners. The summation feels more like a excuse to get these rugged physiognomies together on one marquee than a well developed action concept. Every actor on the cover gets their own specialized screen time or monologue. Rourke breaks up over a girl he couldn't save, Statham breaks the face of an ex's abusive lover, Couture talks about his fucked up ear, Li's skill in English has gotten worse, and Schwarzenegger looks barely able walk anymore in his four minutes. Crews is fun with his hotshit Armsel Protecta shotgun and Lundgren is underused (and underdeveloped) as the addict badboy of the team.

Whether this cast, regardless the project, was a good idea is debatable. Rourke, Austin, Couture, Li, and Schwarzenegger are easily "expendable" and should have never been approached. In their place, define a clear role for Van Damme, he would have been worth it, and expand Willis's turn. Maybe drop the vanilla Eric Roberts and let Bruce embody the villain. Unfortunately that's a pipe dream and in its current state The Expendables bogs down into a few obvious "acting" moments with some slopped together action segments peppered in. And yes, Al-Qaeda should have been the bad guys, not some vague South American faction, since '80s action gave a giant fuck off to topical political correctness. 

It's a shame Stallone hasn't done more behind the camera through his career. When he's not orchestrating action scenes like a post-stroke Paul Greengrass with the shakes, the ol' plastic-faced lug definitely has an eye and pulls off great use of dark cinematography. At times, this aspect was actually more interesting than whatever was happening on-screen. The film also never feels its 103 minute runtime and seemed to breeze by. In the end, I still hold hope for a sequel or a really fleshed out extended cut. The Expendables isn't so much a throwback as it is a bullet someone forgot to pack with gunpowder as they rushed it through the loading press. As for Lionsgate's Blu-ray, the video and audio quality are superlative.

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One of the most egregious VHS misrepresentations ever...

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We all know that pre-stardom work has a way of worming its way back onto shelves after its star, or sometimes supporting actor, strikes it big in Tinseltown. Usually an unrelated giant promotional 8x10 shot of the mega-luminary takes up the cover. Perhaps a new, more appealing title is slapped on the front to boot. The entire box art might even be "re-purposed" to suit the new faceshot and title.

Well, "Magnum Video" took all three updates and cranked until the knob snapped off for this example. "Short Wave" is actually the Nicole Kidman's fourth career hire in her native Australia back in 1983. BMX Bandits is the real title and the film, directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith (Escape 2000, Dead-End Drive In, Night of the Demons 2), was mostly an excuse to capitalize on the totally rad and neon-splashed fad of manual motocross of the day--not Die Hard with walkie-talkies. Too ridiculous not to share!

Rats: Night of Terror (Rats - Notte di terrore) (1984) - TDK SUPER VIDEO Japan VHS

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Imagine a band of leather-clad marauders from Giuliano Carnimeo's Exterminators of the Year 3000 taking a break from...err...marauding to take refuge in a bombed out and abandoned city. Upon discovering mauled corpses and "high tech" blinking light panels in their chosen building, they decide to stay for the night only to be overran by increasing hordes of rodents. With Italy's post apocalyptic answers to Miller's The Road Warrior still churning, it's commendable that Bruno Mattei and Claudio Fragasso totally diverged from that usual with Rats.

Maybe out of a lack of funds for action sequences, the infamous pair craft something vaguely akin to Night of the Living Dead within the sub-subgenre's "after the fall" template. There's also a lack of the obvious, wholesale Hollywood rip-off scheme ol' Bruno specialized in. Actually, the only aspect that recalls a mainstream hit is how hairy lead Ottaviano Dell'Acqua looks like Kurt Russell in The Thing when wielding a flamethrower.

Despite being Mattei's most legitimate stab at legitimacy, it's a shame Rats never has an ignition point into anything interesting. The direction isn't completely inept, just boring, giving the "toss rodents at actor" attacks zero zip or intensity. After the group's arrival during the opening credits, Rats flatlines far too quickly as the titular trash creatures begin to pick off the humans in rather unsatisfying fashion. TDK's "Super Video" Japanese cardboard slipboxes are rare, but this particular (otherwise uncut) presentation has some optical fogging to genitalia in the Lucifer/Lilith "sex" scene. I guess a fuzzy glimpse of a hotdog and an upside down triangle of pube is far worse than a couple of mice running around on fire...

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The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (TCM: The Next Generation) (1994) - The Panned Review Bootleg VHS

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I actually dared to watch this abomination again last night and my prior assessment stands. Although I couldn't resist picking up this bootleg of Columbia Tri-Star's VHS months ago upon reading the appropriately snide review on the back. Did the bootlegger even read what he threw onto the cover?

R.I.P. Ingrid Pitt (1937-2010)

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Unfortunately, this old entry has spiked in hits today for a very sad occasion. R.I.P. Blood Queen....

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) - Strange Australian(?) Bootleg VHS

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Here's an oddity fittingly bought off the tailgate of a beat-up pick-up over the weekend. It's Tobe Hooper's classic, my favorite horror film after Dawn, on a curious boot in a hard plastic case (think Thorn EMI's releases). What makes this unlicensed release odd is the use of the Australian R18+ classification. At first, I figured it was just some bootlegger slapping on a rating for added "official-looking" effect; yet no, the tape is actually recorded in the country's PAL video standard (notice the shortened PAL runtime). R18+ is the correct rating as confirmed by Refused Classification. The cover itself is also printed on high quality "stiffer" stock and done very cleanly with none of the usual grammatical gaffes.

The tip-off is the cassette looking and feeling like a modern cheap blank. The only sticker, along its spine, has the title typed out in that tacky "Creepy" word processor font. Not to mention no note of a distributor anywhere. The second scan is the authorized New Castle/MPI VHS from 1992 in a regular cardboard slipcover. Besides the art similarities, notice how the bootleg abbreviates the tagline and synopsis of the real release. Just a weird-ass bootleg, especially considering Texas Chain Saw has been readily available in both countries for years now.

Prison (1988) - Some Caps from Optimum's British DVD

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Here's a few 1024x576 screen captures (click for full size) from Optimum's R2/PAL disc of Renny Harlin's Prison which can be ordered on Amazon.uk for about $13 shipped to the States if you're region free. This film is still MIA in North America besides the initial VHS from New World Pictures with the German and Italian DVDs released before this one being of shit quality. The uncut British presentation, with MGM fanfare at start, is an example of a solid source crippled by budget DVD treatment.

The 1:85.1 anamorphic/progressive transfer shows signs of healthy grain structure, but a low bitrate on a single layer disc more-or-less destroys the benefit of its presence. For the most part, finer detail just "blocks" away as the bargain encoding fails to retain it. Still, the disc looks much better than previous video incarnations. The German disc looked ripped from a poor Laserdisc while the Italian looked worse than a tape. The only other issue about the Optimum, aside from the theatrical trailer as its sole extra, is how the framing seems too tight on the top border (as seen in the third cap below). I'm unclear if the transfer is actually "wrong", only shows up at times, or just a case of sloppy inherent composition. The exact runtime is 1:38:48 (considering 3% PAL speed-up).