BIG TITS ZOMBIE (2010) Review

Directed by: Takao Nakano

Starring: Sola Aoi, Risa Kasumi, Mari Sakurai

BIG TITS ZOMBIE. The title alone is probably enough for anybody to decide whether or not they really want to watch it. Alternative titles include BIG TITS DRAGON (which confused me because there isn't a single dragon in the entire film) and OSEN ZOMBIE VS. STRIPPER 5 (still confusing because I'm certain there aren't four previous flicks). Further investigation shows that director Takao Nakano is responsible for straight-to-video films with titles such as SEXUAL PARASITE: KILLER PUSSY and SUMO VIXENS. Still can't make up your mind? Well what if I told you that more than one of the female stars also work in the Japanese adult film business? In fact I remember reading the press release for this film and it went out of its way to promote Sola Aoi, pointing out her bust, waist and hip measurements and even her nickname "Baby Face Big Tits". I swear I'm not making this shit up. Oh and to top it all off the movie was filmed in 'tittylicious 3D' which turns out to be regular old anaglyphic 3D.

I'm sure by now you've realized that what passes for plot in a film like this is pretty much irrelevant but I'll run through it anyway. A troupe of strippers discover a hidden door which leads to a secret passage which in turn leads them to find an ancient tome which just so happens to be the Book of the Dead. Maria (Sakurai) is the only person who believes in the book's power and to prove it she reads aloud a few passages which are supposed to raise the dead. At first nothing happens but soon they find themselves surrounded by zombies. Cue a lot of titties, chainsaws, katanas and digital blood. Oh and a fire-breathing vagina (see below).

Now obviously this film is aimed at the male population and the big drawcard here is the three words which comprise the title. These three words bring up three questions. How many tits do we get to see? Just how big are they? And what's the zombie quotient?
As memory serves there are only two pair of tits which probably get a couple of minutes of screen time and at one point a thick drenching of blood. They're not considerably big I suppose but you won't hear me arguing that point. The camera does like to zoom in for lots of close-up crotch and ass shots but keeping with Japanese tradition we don't see any genitals. As for the zombies there is quite a substantial number and they range from geisha zombies to samurai zombies, nurse zombies and even a dried fish zombie and some fresh sushi zombies.

The main cast may be pretty damn hot but as you would imagine the acting is dreadful. At one point these strippers put on a stage show which is incredibly boring (strippers boring?) and all of the girls look extremely uninterested. The zombie effects are pretty amateur and the film is rife with CGI blood sprays. The silver lining here is that the movie is only 73 minutes long and a lot of that time is spent showing scantily clad women shaking their sexy bodies about. BIG TITS ZOMBIE is everything you would expect it to be but in a way it may be less than what you would expect. It's not nearly as perverted or bizarre as it could be but it does deliver on the title's promise and if that's good enough for you then that's all that matters. As for me I found it to be an entertaining way to spend 73 minutes but nothing special or worth revisiting. Four big tits out of ten.

Horror Feast: Sushi Typhoon

For those who don't know, Sushi Typhoon is a Japanese production company specializing in low budget horror, sci-fi & fantasy films. A collective consisting of directors Takashi Miike (ICHI THE KILLER), Yoshihiro Nishimura (TOKYO GORE POLICE), Sion Sono (SUICIDE CLUB), Noboru Iguchi (THE MACHINE GIRL), Tak Sakaguchi (YOROI: SAMURAI ZOMBIE), Yudai Yamaguchi (BATTLEFIELD BASEBALL) and Seiji Chiba (EVIL NINJA).
If you've seen any of the movies I've just mentioned then you should have a pretty good idea of what you're in for when it comes to a Sushi Typhoon release. For those who haven't, well buckets of blood, absurd amounts of violence and cheap digital effects are the order of the day.
So without further ado, let's get into this shit.

DEADBALL (2011)

As a young child, Jubei discovers the insanely powerful force of his pitching arm when he unwittingly destroys his father's head with a baseball. Needless to say he vows never to play ball again. Cut to a few years later and Jubei is a vigilante, visiting violence upon evil-doers. He is caught and sent to a prison for juveniles which is run by a Nazi headmistress who encourages him to join the prison ball team. But their first match against the ridiculously hot and brutal Saint Black Dahlia girls reveals that this is no ordinary baseball game. Blood is what the spectators have come to see.
Exploding heads, elbow-deep cavity searches, vomit eating, Nazis and robots, this movie has it all. And the lead character Jubei (played to perfection by Tak Sakaguchi) is so awesomely cool that he can pluck lit cigarettes out of thin air any time he wants.
Sure the acting isn't great, the story either, and the special effects are cheesy as fuck, but all in all DEADBALL is a explosively fun movie with plenty of gore and humor and is very entertaining.

YAKUZA WEAPON (2011)

Tak Sakaguchi once more takes centre stage but rather than being a juvenile delinquent with a killer pitching arm, here he plays Shozo the unstoppable Yakuza killing machine. Just like Jubei in DEADBALL, Shozo is almost impossibly cool. Like so cool that he can scare landmines just by glaring at them, or catch RPGs with his bare hands, or stand in the middle of a jungle firefight smoking a cigarette while bullets go whizzing past his head. That cool.
Shozo returns to Japan after 4 years abroad to avenge the death of his father who was a big time Yakuza boss. Upon returning to his family's former headquarters he learns that his father was betrayed. Violence and action ensue. But it's not until he gets a cyborg makeover that things get really exciting. A mixture of ROBOCOP & MACHINE GIRL & that special something that only the Japanese seem to possess, YAKUZA WEAPON is over the top, non-stop action with a huge body count.

HELLDRIVER (2011)

DEADBALL and YAKUZA WEAPON may have been totally bizarre but Yoshihiro Nishimura's HELLDRIVER is on a whole other level. A meteorite has crashed in Japan, releasing a cloud of toxic ash which turns people into bloodthirsty zombies (not technically zombies but whatever). Young girl Kika leads a group charged with tracking down and killing the zombie queen - who just so happens to be her crazy, homicidal mother.
Kika carries with her a chainsaw/katana hybrid; a chainsword (not sure if that's what it's called but it's definitely what it should be called). Needless to say chainsword + zombies = lots of blood and limbs flying all over the place. Other things you will see in this strange fucking movie include a car made out of zombies (seriously), lots of exploding heads, flesh eating, and of course gallons and gallons of the red stuff. What more could you ask for?

MUTANT GIRLS SQUAD (2010)

Tak Sakaguchi, Yoshihiro Nishimura and Noboru Iguchi work together to bring forth the ridiculous insanity that is MUTANT GIRLS SQUAD. It follows young schoolgirl Rin, who on her 16th birthday discovers that she is the descendant of an ancient race of mutants known as Hilko. She sees her parents killed in front of her and is rescued and recruited by a group of Hilko who train her so that she can understand her full powers. After being sent on her first mission, Rin finds herself unable to kill innocent humans and so confronts the other Hilko. Basically this is a bloody, gory riff on the X-Men, full of lowbrow humor, cheap effects and sexy mutant schoolgirls. Their 'super powers' range from claws and tentacle arms right through to titty-swords and ass-chainsaws. And the blood, oh the blood. There is tons of the stuff. It's everywhere, raining down, splattering the camera, shooting out of limbless stumps. So much blood.

THE SWEET HAND OF THE WHITE ROSE (2010) Short Film Review

Directed by: Davide Melini

Starring: Carlos Bahos, Natasha Machuca, Leocricia Sabán

Although Davide Melini's THE PUZZLE was a great little short, this more recent offering is an improvement in just about every way with a bigger budget, better production values and a longer running time than its predecessor.

THE SWEET HAND OF THE WHITE ROSE begins with Mark (Bahos) who has just had a fight with his girlfriend Mary (Sabán) and is now drinking and smoking at a nightclub. In walks Mary to confront him but Mark ignores her and leaves. Mark's narrative explains the fight with his girlfriend and the fact that the road he is now currently driving down is a familiar one. In fact he is so confident with his familiarity of the winding road that he picks up his phone, a decision which will haunt him for the rest of his life. We are then introduced to a young girl (Machuca) credited only as White Rose and are shown how her path crosses fatefully and fatally with Mark's.

Right from the beginning it is obvious that this film is a noticeable improvement over THE PUZZLE especially in regards to the budget and the cinematography both in style and quality. A similarity with the former film however is the fact that it has very few spoken lines, with most of the story told through narration. Usually I'm not a big fan of narration but I felt that in this case it actually did a fine job of moving the story along. The acting is great too with all characters playing their parts perfectly, and the atmosphere was perfect.

A couple of very small criticisms would have to be the music for one, which I thought didn't entirely suit a few scenes. The second criticism I have is to do with the English dubbing however that is probably just personal preference, I have always preferred subtitles over dubbing. But these minor problems didn't bug me for long and didn't detract from the overall viewing experience. 

To summarize, THE SWEET HAND OF THE WHITE ROSE is a great looking and stylish film from Melini. It is an improvement over THE PUZZLE and not only is it an enjoyable film but it also holds a special message. Well worth checking out if you have a spare 15 minutes.

To check out a whole bunch of goodies including posters, stills, movies, interviews and reviews of Melini's work you can head here.

SIMONE (2010) Short Film Review

Directed by: Joops Fragale

Starring: Erin Nicole Cline, Jennifer Ward

After being impressed by DATE NIGHT the prospect of watching another short film from 386Films was looking pretty good and I'm glad to say that SIMONE actually exceeded my expectations.

Simone (Ward) wakes up disoriented and seemingly very hungover. She is naked, her makeup is smeared and there is a half full bottle of vodka beside the bed. All of these pieces seem to suggest that she had herself a hell of a good night, even though she may not remember it. But then Simone starts to feel really ill and a series of flashbacks piece together a night which did not end well at all.

Both actresses do a great job and although there is minimal dialogue the film moves along fluidly, building tension until the big reveal at the end. The cinematography is brilliant, the use of lighting and camera angles make this film engaging from beginning to end. The only real criticism I have is regarding the very final moments of the film which I felt was a little too revealing and I think it could have been left out to leave a little to the viewers' imagination. Having said that though, it really isn't a big deal and doesn't detract from the viewing experience at all. There may also be a continuity problem or two but really what film doesn't have at least one of those? Apart from those minuscule problems the film is almost flawless.

SIMONE is a brilliant short film that delivers on style, tension, atmosphere and blood and it has only reinforced my love for short films. The softcore lesbian scenes are also a bonus. And even more good news is the fact that you can purchase SIMONE on dvd with a massive 85 minutes of bonus features including a commentary by producer Michael Long and director Joops Fragale, an on-set interview, 'Behind the Bitch' featurette and much more. Highly recommended.

PRIMAL (2010) Review

Directed by: Josh Reed

Starring: Krew Boylan, Lindsay Farris, Wil Traval, Zoe Tuckwell-Smith

A group of friends take a road trip to check out some ancient Aboriginal cave paintings which apparently nobody has seen in over 120 years. One of the guys Dace (Traval) is working on his thesis and the rest of the group are basically just tagging along for some camping and adventure.
A group of friends taking a trip out into the wilderness? Could it get anymore cliché? Of course it could.
The first half hour or so of the movie introduces us to the characters who are exactly as we expect them to be. There is the couple who seemingly came along only for the chance to fuck in their tent. There is the girl with a past traumatic experience which she must overcome, there is the leader of the group, the joker and another girl thrown in with the single purpose of dying horribly.
But soon after taking a nude dip in some leech infested water, Mel (Boylan) begins a horrifying transformation. First she breaks out in a fever, starts talking gibberish and then her teeth fall out and are finally replaced by extra long pointed fangs. She reverts back to some primal, animal-like state and begins violently attacking her friends. Before long they realize that face a moral dilemma. Do they kill Mel or do they risk death themselves by trying to capture her alive?

PRIMAL reminds me of movies like The Ruins and Cabin Fever but especially the latter, with the protagonists being pitted against not only a killer virus but also against each other. I'm not a huge fan of either though and I actually have to say that I preferred PRIMAL over both of them.
The first hour or so gets pretty intense particularly after Mel's transformation, and the way the friends deal with their situation is intriguing to say the least. After Mel kills and then chows down on one of them, the rest seem to make up their mind that she needs to be killed. All of course except for her stupid boyfriend Chad (Farris) who seems to think that she's 'still in there' and that he can 'get through to her'.
Apart from the sometimes frustratingly stupid characters and the shoddy looking CGI (especially the scenes involving any kind of super-high jumping or people being thrown) I found the movie to be entertaining and engaging and it kept me intrigued right up until the last 20 minutes or so where things fell apart a little. The final scene however did get a little chuckle from me.

Despite being about as predictable and cliché as you can get and not scary at all, I actually found PRIMAL to be an enjoyable enough movie with some good action scenes, decent acting and a fair amount of blood. Veteran horror fans will find nothing new here, but casual watchers will probably enjoy it although the violence (including rocks smashing heads, teethe falling out, throats being torn open etc) may be a little too much for some.

SAINT (2010) Review

Directed by: Dick Maas

Starring: Huub Stapel, Egbert Jan Weeber, Caro Lenssen

Christmas is almost upon us. So it's time to start making a list (and checking it twice) of appropriately themed horror films to watch. SAINT (or SINT in its native Dutch) is a nasty twist on Holland's own traditional Saint Nicholas legend. This is not the fat, jolly Santa Claus who slides down your chimney at night distributing presents to all the good little boys and girls. This man is a cold hearted and cruel fellow indeed.

The film starts off in the 15th century, and portrays 'ol Saint Nick as a nasty bishop atop a white steed. He stalks through a small village with his helpers, taking what the terrified residents have left out for him. If he isn't satisfied he sets his helpers upon them. After he leaves however, it becomes obvious that the villagers are fed up and they decide to do something about it. They follow Nicholas to his ship and proceed to burn it to the ground (er.. water), with him on board.

This introduction to the film was only about 10 minutes long but it had me hooked. I couldn't wait to see what happened next.

The bulk of the movie takes place in present day Amsterdam, where everybody is gearing up for the SinterKlaas celebrations. But there is a dark legend hanging over these celebrations. A legend which says that whenever a full moon appears on December 5th (the day Saint Nick was killed) he comes back from beyond the grave to embark upon a murderous rampage. But of course nobody really believes this. Except for one man. An obsessive policeman tries to call of the celebrations but of course everybody just think he's crazy. His reasons for believing are revealed later in the film.
The homicidal bishop does of course appear along with his army of undead minions, and soon the bodies begin to pile up. The main character (a teenage boy named Frank) must band together with the cop to stop this supernatural threat.

All of the basic slasher elements are here. Attractive teenage girls ripe for slaughter, the cynical cop who nobody believes, the young hero, of course a lot of hacking and slashing, and even a big bang.
Overall I think that this is one of the most solid films I've seen this year. There was no particular element which annoyed or disappointed me. The effects were great, and even the use of CGI was well applied. As for the acting, I have to admit that whenever I watch a foreign language film I find it a little harder to judge than an English speaking movie but it seemed perfectly fine to me. There was a love interest, but it didn't interfere with the main story, it was kind of just.. there. And the soundtrack was pretty cool too, particularly during the dramatic opening sequence. There is also just the right amount of humour. Not enough to make this a horror comedy, but you may find yourself grinning once or twice.

SINT doesn't cover any new ground, but it is a really well done, enjoyable twist on the Christmas horror subgenre. Definitely something worth watching, especially when Christmas is just around the corner. And it may just make you think twice about getting too close to any open fireplaces.

MIRRORS 2 (2010) Review

Directed by: Victor Garcia

Starring: Nick Stahl, Emmanuelle Vaugier, Lawrence Turner

I've been putting off watching this movie for a while now, because I just had the feeling that it was really going to suck. I don't normally like to judge movies before I see them, but in this case I can say that my instincts were right.
I actually enjoyed the first MIRRORS film from 2008, and it did surprisingly well making almost $80 million worldwide. But I've noticed that the vast majority of horror fans really didn't like it at all. Suffice to say, if you didn't enjoy the first movie, you will absolutely hate the sequel.

Max Matheson is a young man recovering from a car accident in which his girlfriend was killed. He is in a deep state of depression and blames himself for his girlfriend's death. After one of the security guards at his father's department store 'goes crazy' and cuts himself up, his father offers Max the job as replacement nightwatchman. The department store is of course the Mayflower, but not the original store in New York. The new store is in New Orleans and is brand new from the ground up. Luckily however, they saved one of the mirrors from the original store and are now using it as a centerpiece.
Max starts his job and immediately starts seeing visions of a cadaverous woman in the mirrors. After telling his doctor, she reassures him that these visions are in fact a good thing, and a sign that his mind is ready to heal. He's not so reassured however, when he starts to see people's deaths in the mirrors. Especially when those people wind up dead.
Eventually he works out that these visions are linked to a young woman who worked at the Mayflower, but has since gone missing. He teams up with her sister to try and get to the bottom of things, and eventually everything unravels and they save the day.

I've probably said a little too much there, but honestly it's a fairly predictable film and after the first few scenes you already know what's going to happen anyway. In fact that might just be the one thing this film has over it's predecessor, it's a lot easier to follow than the first movie. A little too easy.
The death scenes were really disappointing, and other than the one involving an almost-clever glass-guillotine they were pretty boring and unoriginal. Another aspect which was both disappointing and confusing, was the fact that they changed the whole mythology from the first film. In this sequel for some reason, Max could see other people's deaths in the mirrors before those people actually died. In the first movie though, people could only see their own death in the mirrors.
If the movie wasn't titled MIRRORS 2 and the department store wasn't called the Mayflower, you could swear that while they were making this sequel they didn't even have the first film in mind.

The acting was pretty poor across the board. Nick Stahl (Sin City, Terminator 3) who played Max gave a predictably wooden performance, and the others were really not much better. Lawrence Turner (Red, 9 Dead) as Keller Landreaux was probably the most interesting character, but still showed some sub-par acting skills.
I didn't really care about any of the characters at all. There wasn't enough depth to any of them. Maybe if the film had worked on a little character development I might have enjoyed it more.

If you've seen the first film you will no doubt be disappointed by the sequel. If you haven't seen the first, then you might just enjoy this one, but I doubt it.

SHARKTOPUS (2010) Review

Directed by: Declan O'Brien

Starring: Eric Roberts, Kerem Bursin, Sara Malakul Lane

They say that first impressions are so important. And since this was my first SyFy movie experience, I think it's safe to say that I will be keeping away from them from now on.

I'm not completely stupid, I mean I didn't prepare to watch a movie called SHARKTOPUS and expect it to be a masterpiece. But even with my low expectations I still didn't think that it would be as bad as this. And not just in a couple of areas either, but right across the board. Bad acting, bad writing, bad editing, bad shots, bad special effects and so on. In fact, pick any aspect of this film and I bet you it's bad.

I knew that SHARKTOPUS was going to be horrible, but I was hoping that it would fit into that 'so bad that it's good' category. It didn't. Anyway, I'll try to stop using the word 'bad' now (it's hard) and just get on with the review.

Nathan and Nicole Sands (Eric Roberts & Sara Malakul Lane) are a father/daughter team working for a company called Blue Water, who have been contracted by the navy to genetically engineer a new kind of weapon. Somebody has had the bright idea of creating a shark/octopus hybrid or as they refer to it 'S11'.

But while testing the Sharktopus, it's control system is damaged and it goes rogue. So Nathan recruits the young Andy Flynn (Kerem Bursin) to head out with his daughter on a tiny fishing boat and attempt to catch the enormous creature.

So basically after the creature escapes it decides to head on down to Mexico and go on a killing spree. The bulk of the movie is just a series of death scenes. The Sharktopus eats everybody from beachgoers to bungee jumpers, while Nicole and Andy chase after it in their undersized boat and eventually defeat the beast.

Do yourself a favor. Don't see SHARKTOPUS. That is all.

A SERBIAN FILM (2010) Review

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THE CLINIC (2010) Review

Directed by: James Rabbitts

Starring: Freya Stafford, Tabrett Bethell, Andy Whitfield

I have been wanting to see The Clinic for a while now and I finally watched it tonight. To be honest I was pretty impressed, even though it's not fantastic it does have a fairly unique plot and the acting and writing are both top notch.

After a fairly generic opening (a couple stop off at a motel run by a creepy guy out in the middle of nowhere) the movie actually picks up fairly quickly. 

Beth (Tabrett Bethell) and Cameron (Andy Whitfield) are an engaged couple who are on their way to spend Christmas with pregnant Beth's parents. On their way they decide to spend the night at a motel in a small country town. The owner is a creep who overcharges them and seems infatuated with Beth. After Cameron returns from a restaurant he arrives back at his motel room to find that Beth is missing. He immediately calls the police and starts to accuse the cynic and unhelpful motel owner. After assaulting the owner Cameron is taken away by the police but quickly steals the cop's gun and heads back to find his fiance.

Meanwhile Beth wakes up in a bathtub filled with ice and quickly realizes that she has been cut open and her baby taken away. After stumbling around looking for a way out she faints, but when she comes to she finds herself in the presence of three other women who are all in the same position as she. This part of the film brings up the question "why have the babies been taken and why have the women been allowed to survive?"

The answer becomes apparent towards the end of the film but I can't really say much without spoiling it.

So anyway, the four women are left to solve this riddle while discovering that somebody is trying to kill them all for some unknown reason. A little confusing no doubt, but it all makes sense by the end believe me.

The film was written very well (also by James Rabbitts) and the two twists are great if maybe a little hard to believe (especially the second). One thing I liked was that the film was set in 1979 which prevents the movie from having to use the 'no mobile phone signal' excuse and other such modern film cliches.

There isn't a lot of gore really, but there doesn't really need to be for this film to work (although I love gore so I personally wouldn't have minded if there were more)

Overall it's a solid horror film with good acting, good writing and enough twists and turns to keep you guessing. The only real problem I had was with the sudden 'disappearance' of Beth's husband Cameron in the film (you'll see what I mean), whom I kept expecting to suddenly show up and save the day.