Death by Scuba: Amsterdamned (1988)

Amsterdamned (Netherlands, 1988)

Rating: ***

Starring: Huub Stapel, Monique van de Ven, Serge-Henri Valcke

One part-slasher, one part-cop thriller, Amsterdamned (1988) follows a series of murders happening around the murky canals of Amsterdam, perpetrated by someone in full diving gear. The victims are chosen by random, often pulled into the water to be savagely slaughtered before having their corpses displayed out in the open for every unfortunate soul to see. Tasked to solve this case is one police detective Eric Visser (Huub Stapel), your typical hardboiled single father-type who plays by his own rules, only to find himself constantly one step behind our killer and following leads that may or may not hit dead ends, resulting to more victims falling prey to our murderous scuba diver and putting the city in a state of panic.

Made by Dutch director Dick Maas, this serial killer horror thriller follows all the norms one would find from your usual police procedural flicks revolving around detectives diving deep into their investigations, piecing together potential motivation or maybe even a pattern from each crime scene in hopes of solving the murders before more people fall victim to it. What set Amsterdamned (1988) apart from its kin is the unique premise of the killer prowling the canals before emerging to abduct and murder their victims underwater, which means a lot of Jaws (1975)-style bodycounting that pretty much sets this film for outrageously amusing underwater slasher shlock!

Some fine examples of this include the very opening scene of the film wherein we spend a good build-up watching through the frogman killer's point-of-view as they swim the canals at night, before popping up to murder a prostitute with a stolen butcher knife and dragging the body away. The gnarly part doesn't happen until after the credits, however, when a daytime tour boat goes through the arch of a bridge only to have itself dragging against the prostitute’s dangling butchered body, smearing blood over the glass windows before falling in through an open roof, much to the absolute horror of the passengers. Another equally odd yet entertaining scene happens further into the movie where we see a random girl in an inflatable floatie chilling in the canal, getting a Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)-inspired demise as the killer sticks their knife through the inflatable before carefully positioning it to angle where they can just run it right between the girl’s thighs!

When not entertaining us with slasher murders, Maas also set up some thrilling action sequences from car chases pursuing motorcycle-riding suspects through Amsterdam's narrow streets, to this film's most highlighted sequence concerning a high-speed boat chase through the city's network of canals and bridges, filled with an unabashed amount of stunt work jumping over the top of bridges, skidding through cafes, crashing through other boats and Huub Stapel being dragged behind his running boat in the midst of the pursuit. Without a doubt, the city of Amsterdam is used to its full effect during these thrill rides, shot as beautifully as the inventive escapades themselves. 

The only drawback here is that, in order to get to these fun set-pieces, we do have to sit through some very standard slow moments like our lead detective's romantic endeavors with a widowed diving enthusiast named Laura (Monique van de Ven), whose suspiciously unamused therapist friend (Hidde Maas) doesn't appear to appreciate the fact that the ruffled investigator is getting a tad close with the lady, or the little side-plot of Visser's cheekily snarky daughter and her friend attempting to track the killer paranormally through an ouija board. It's a lot of establishing banter and quirky moments, which isn't exactly a bad thing for cheese and giggle's sake, but they have the tendency to slow things down and stretching the film's run needlessly for almost two hours.

Still, some of these little moments do tie in to the mystery nicely enough, leading to this movie's final act and perhaps its most suspenseful set-up wherein Laura believes she has entered the killer's house and does her darnest to hide away from the suspect while finding the opportunity to get the jump on them. It has some tension, a good reveal to the killer's motive that's more or less in par with what you would get from a B-grade slasher, though I do wish the finale have a bit more pep to it as it concludes rather anti-climactically. 

Amsterdamned (1988) definitely fits the bill as an entertainingly bad flick, one with a premise that sounds absolutely silly but executed with enough gusto, cheesy charm and cynical tongue-in-cheek to keep its fun factor rolling strong! 

Bodycount:

1 female stabbed to death with a butcher knife

1 male found decapitated

1 male dragged into the water, later found mutilated

1 female pulled into the water, later found murdered

1 female gets a hunting knife ran through her groin

1 male drowned inside a sinking houseboat

1 male stabbed to death with a hunting knife

1 male shot in the mouth with a harpoon

Total: 8

A Feast Fit For A God: Yellow Dragon's Village (2021)

Yellow Dragon's Village (Japan, 2021)

Rating: ***

Starring: Yuni Akino, Itsuki Fujii, Wataru Ichinose

You all know this dance: After a night of being drunk and merry, a group of eight teens plan to go on a camping trip the following day, only for their travel to be cut a little short when their car blew a tire. Fortunately, there's a nearby village they can leg to and get help, although the grounds suspiciously appear to be mostly devoid of youth and the elders living there are acting a tad strange upon their arrival. 

Any worries from all of these, however, are temporarily put at ease when the village people have the kids stay at a lodge for dinner and rest. And then comes the day after; one of the teens is missing and another gets knifed in the back during breakfast. People in masks and shrine uniforms then arrive to crash the stay and it's soon revealed that the villagers have chosen their young visitors as sacrifices to a deity centered on cannibalism. Not wanting to be the main course as anybody would, a brief struggle have our hapless group escaping into the woods, where the insane villagers proceed to hunt them down one by one. You all know this dance...

Or do you?

Clocking only for about an hour and nine minutes, Yellow Dragon's Village (2021) may look like your classic backwoods slasher set-up, but, without spoiling a lot, there's more to the story than just dumb teens getting hunted down by a cult of cannibals; For its worth, the film's horror elements are steady and effective, creepily building on growing uncertainties and dread for its scares before eventually leading to murderous cannibalism and distressing cult behaviors as exploitative set-pieces. It is around the height of the plot's madness when the film throws a curveball at us, a twist that may put off those expecting the usual blood and gut stab-a-thon all the way, but those who are willing to keep an open mind and have a good sense of cinematic cheese, expect the second half to be an entirely different movie. One that's full of well-choreographed fights, a little bit of explosions and a lot of corny dialogue! 

From that point on, Yellow Dragon's Village (2021) becomes a revenge-driven action thriller as everyone who took part on the village's macabre traditions start paying dearly for their atrocities when their own past comes back to get even. The intense dread of horror is completely gone and the tone shifts to silly and fun, high flying kicks and swordfights clashing as heroes and villains duke it out while throwing hilariously smug banters at one another. It plays on this theme of criticizing blind devotions towards tradition and the enforcement of it towards the youth, it's an idea brought upon by our protagonists often as they lay waste on their enemies, though the execution of it leans more on the cheeky side thus not overly serious and still entertaining. 

The production's small budget limit can be sensed throughout the movie, particularly the minimal gore effects and use of CG for the story's more dynamic visuals, but that did little to nothing on making Yellow Dragon's Village (2021) less enjoyable as a fun B-grade horror-comedy action thriller mash-up. If you have the chance to catch this and you happen to be in the mood for a hammy romp, I say give it a try!

Bodycount:

1 male knifed on the back

1 female shot on the head with a shotgun

1 female shot on the head with a hunting rifle

1 male shot on the head with a shotgun

1 male killed offscreen
1 male shot with a shotgun
1 male shot with a shotgun
1 female had her neck snapped
1 victim shot with a shotgun
4 victims knocked out, implied killed later

6 victims seen killed, bodies piled up

8 victims seen strewn all over

7 victims knocked out, implied killed later

1 victims knocked out with a kick, implied killed later

2 victims seen killed

7 victims mentioned killed

1 victim had their neck broken

1 male shot with a shotgun

1 female shot with a shotgun

1 male blown apart with a grenade

Total: 48

A Wolf On The Prowl: Project Wolf Hunting (2023)

Project Wolf Hunting (Neugdaesanyang) (South Korea, 2023)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Seo In-Guk, Dong-Yoon Jang and Jung So-Min

And here I thought Ricky-Oh: The Story of Ricky (1991) is the silliest, goriest action horror thriller I'll ever lay eyes on... 

After a fiasco back in 2017 in which a suicide bomber blew himself up and killed many at a publicly announced prison transport flight, the higher ups involved with an extradition deal between South Korea and the Philippines opted to try a different mode of transportation when it comes to transferring dangerous Korean criminals captured in the Philippines back to their country. This time, Frontier Titan, a seemingly normal cargo ship, will be used to escort an assorted batch of ruthless fugitives from Manila to Busan by sea, a three-day mission headed by hardened "fist-to-your-face" cop Seok-woo (Park Ho-san) and kept in check by an army of fellow police officers.

What these law enforcers didn't know, though, is that one of the inmates, vile murderer and rapist Jong-doo (Seo In-guk), arranged a job with his vicious underlings where they'll infiltrate Titan disguised as crewmates and smuggle in some high caliber weapons. It isn't too long then before the bloodshed begins as the criminals are freed and start torturing and massacring as many cops as they could, all the while the remaining law enforcers who quickly learn of the grim situation fight back in hopes of still turning the tide to their favor.

Now all of this is just the first hour of this two hour long action horror epic and it's pretty much a gorier and sea-bound version of Con Air (1997) as a transport mission becomes a bloody war between heartless criminals and law abiding officers, with the former quickly taking the advantage of them outnumbering their captors, as well as mostly having the element of surprise and a well-planned sabotage working on their benefit. Gunfire of varying calibers are exchanged, heads are brained with nailguns and bolt cutters, brutal stabbings, hatchet hackings, it's all a visceral show of unrelenting violence leading up to what could have been a climactic showdown as Jong-doo's army of miscreants would come face to face with what remains of seasoned cop Seok-woo's forces, but this is when the horror elements of Project Wolf Hunting (2023) comes into play.

You see, the whole escort mission is also being closely monitored by a shady organization who also arranged the Titan to carry a top secret cargo: an ancient bioweapon that was once a man, created all the way back in World War II when the Japanese army was experimenting with the creation of super soldiers. Codenamed "Alpha", this monster just has to pick that day to wake up from his drug-induced sedation and we're quickly treated to one heck of a killing spree as Alpha single handedly obliterated nearly all of the cops and criminals gathered in a brawl out. And by obliterated, I'm talking about people getting kicked across boiler rooms and bursting into bloody messes upon impact, limbs getting torn off to beat their owners dead, lots of throat rippings, chest stompings, head pulpings, it's everything one could have wished Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) was, especially once Alpha brutally dispatched our supposed "main bad" of the film and starts prowling the ship for remaining victims to beat down dead, all the while those who survived the killing spree so far have to stick together and figure out how to stop an undead bioweapon enhanced with the strength of five men, Predator (1987)-esque "thermovision" and the cunningness of a wolf.

From a criminal escort-gone-wrong gig to a ship-set scifi slasher, all done with a splatter film treatment of practical effects, 2.5 tons worth of fake blood and very little CGI, it is within these two acts that Project Wolf Hunting (2023) shines its bloody best as an exploitation piece where violence is the name of the game and deliver it does. Almost every minute of the film is dedicated to gore and splatter with every layout of the ship is used for the carnage and everyone and everything bound to be covered in blood and grue. It's honestly an outrageous feat of adrenaline infused, hardcore ultraviolence that mostly makes up for the film's less than noteworthy protagonists, lack of genuine scares and simple plotting, so those wanting to see a fulfilling character development out of its cavalcade of casts or a decent amount of scare factor might need to look elsewhere, but for those who find bliss in mindless entertainment centered on intense action and brutal slayings, this film is a thing of beauty.

The real big flaw of Project Wolf Hunting (2023), frankly, lies in its last act; without spoiling much, it introduced more enhanced superhumans into the plot, almost all the characters we've been following throughout the bloody affair are simply unceremoniously killed off and the film completely shifts its gear to a scifi action thriller route as bioweapons duke it out with fists, knives and gunfire ala Resident Evil movie sequel starring Milla Jovovich. In any other film, this would have been an okay turn but, after all of that build-up wherein normal humans struggle and fight to survive against an enemy that's seemingly impossible to stop, switching its focus to superpowered characters with personal vendettas and agendas simply doesn't have the same cathartic gut punch and, honestly, it wasted a great opportunity to bring a satisfyingly fulfilling final act to the table. Instead, all we get is multiple bite-sized flashbacks worth of info dump, an underwhelming villain and a so-so tragic hero beating the lights out of one another, leaving us in the end with a groaner of a twist reveal/cliffhanger combo doubling as sequel bait. It's all too overly ambitious, if I say so myself.

Still, as flawed as the finale was, I strongly recommend Project Wolf Hunting (2023) to anyone with a taste for action horror hybrids, especially ones that come with B-movie grade craziness and geysers of blood to satisfy the inner gorehound! A nonstop thrill ride of (literal) bloody proportions, tailor made for long nights of exploitation cinema and splatter movie runs!

Bodycount:

1 male killed in suicide bombing

7 victims killed in suicide bombing

1 male knifed in the neck (flashback)

1 male seen murdered (flashback)

1 male seen murdered (flashback)

1 male brained with a nailgun

1 male shot on the head with a nailgun, beaten to death

1 male stabbed to death with a switchblade

1 male shot to death

1 male shot to death

1 male bashed on the head with boltcutters

1 male throat cut with a switchblade, stabbed to death

1 male repeatedly beaten with steel cuffs, hunting knife buried into his chest

1 male stabbed in the jaw with a hunting knife

1 male shot to death

2 males shot to death

1 female seen dead from knife wound (flashback)

1 male shot to death

1 male shot to death

1 male stabbed in the neck with a hunting knife

1 male hacked to death with a hatchet

1 male shot to death

1 male shot on the head

1 male shot to death

1 male kicked across a room, crushed on impact

1 male had his throat cut with  knife

1 male had his throat ripped off

1 male stomped on the back

1 male punched to death

2 males had their throats crushed

1 male scalp torn off, stomped on the chest

1 male elbowed, brained against a gas tank

2 males shot to death

1 male had his face pulped with a punch

1 male shot to death

1 male bashed headless with a sledgehammer

1 male had his head crushed

1 male found with a ripped throat

1 male killed offscreen

1 female had her throat ripped off

1 male had his head stepped on, crushed

1 male punched across a room, head bashed against a table

1 female slashed across the face with a hunting knife, bled to death

1 male had his legs sliced in half with a hunting knife, chest stomped on

1 female pinned to a wall with a hunting knife to the neck

1 male had his chest punched open

1 male beaten to death with his own severed arm

1 male had his throat crushed (flashback)

1 female brained against a table (flashback)

1 female bashed with a skull (flashback)

1 male bashed with a skull (flashback)

1 male brained with a skull (flashback)

1 male brained to death with a skull (flashback)

1 male brained to death with a skull (flashback)

1 male brained to death with a skull (flashback)

1 male brained to death with a skull (flashback)

1 male brained with a skull (flashback)

1 male shot on the head (flashback)

1 male repeatedly stomped on, killed in elevator crash

1 male kicked on the head, neck broken

1 female shot on the head

1 female shot to death

1 male had his neck broken

1 male shot on the head

1 male expires from an experiment (flashback)

A number of victims seen dead from experiments (flashback)

1 male pushed unto a steel pipe, neck impaled (flashback)

1 male gutted offcamera

1 male crushed with a metal door

1 male shot to death

1 male shot to death

1 male knifed in the neck

1 male brained to death with a rifle

1 male beaten to death

1 male shot to death

1 male shot to death

1 male shot to death

1 male had his throat cut with a hunting knife

1 male stabbed and slashed to death with a hunting knife

Total: 87+

Robokill Bloodbath: Mikadroid (1991)

Mikadroid (Japan, 1991) (AKA "Mikadoroido", "Mikadroid: Robokill Beneath Discoclub Layla") 

Rating: ***

Starring: Hiroshi Atsumi, Sandayû Dokumamushi and Yoriko Dôguchi

From Japanese film, theater production and distribution company Toho, which many of us would know best as the producer and distributor of kaiju and tokusatsu movies, comes this relatively interesting yet clumsy scifi horror flick about killer cyborgs and mutant soldiers.

Opening in 1945 Japan at the near end of World War II, we see an underground research bunker assigned to create armored super soldiers getting violently shut down under the orders of the Japanese army. When the scientist in charge of the project retaliates and gets shot for his defiance, he spends his last moments setting two test subjects free and activating Mikadroid, the only finished armored cyborg of the project. Allied bombers eventually rain down on Tokyo and the bunker gets destroyed, burying the lab and everyone in it. Years later, a disco club is now built over the bunker's remains, unbeknownst to its patrons that Mikadroid, pretty much still alive and functional, would reactivate one night due to the club's faulty generator and starts massacring anyone that happens to get in its way. 

The history behind Mikadroid (1991) is that it's originally a horror film titled Mikado Zombie, in which an undead WWII soldier rises from his grave to continue fighting the war by pretty much killing anybody on sight. The film was only in talks when Japanese serial child killer Tsutomu Miyazaki was caught and, thanks to the shmuck's massive collection of splatter films, horror movies went through a bit of a witch hunt and production for Mikado Zombie was put to halt. The concept was soon redeveloped with more scifi outings by replacing the zombie with a war android and the resulting product would become one of Toho's lower budget films made for the direct-to-video market.

The first half of Mikadroid practically shows the story's horror origins, with the cyborg returning back to life after decades of being buried, making its way to a disco club's parking garage and killing people left and right in a manner not unlike a maniac in a slasher flick. Teens get stalked and shot down with a submachine gun and/or hacked down with a sword, with one kill going a bit artsy by having a victim repeatedly slashed with a sword until their clothes get sliced away, leaving them bloody and swirling around like a naked ballerina before ending the scene with a darkly comic sight gag. The fact that these slayings are all done by a uniquely designed killer cyborg fittingly resembling a 1950s robot adds a welcome cheesy charm to the carnage, which is fortunately balanced out by the movie's atmospheric visual direction and creepy location choices.

After a while of people getting chopped and gunned down by a manic mechanical man, the film shifts gear into a slightly more action oriented second act once the two freed test subjects, both rendered ageless by the experiment, arrive armed to the teeth to stop Mikadroid after sensing its revival, in turn saving and tagging along a young repairman and a distressed clubgoer. This is where the movie hobbled in its run as while the gunfight between the mutated soldiers and the cyborg do boasts some energetic fun with all the pyrotechnics and the underground ruins set is pretty impressive in its details down to the giant tank machine left to crumble in dust, the pacing here often lacks momentum with some characters either just standing there amidst the gunfight or them spending a good chunk of time wandering around, looking for an escape. It also doesn't help that all of this leads to a lackluster finale that may have gone way better if it didn't went a tad too far on the random twists but, little mercies, it could have done worse.

For a movie made with relatively small budget, special-effects connoisseur-turned-director Tomoo Haraguchi put a lot of good work around the production's monetary restraints, mainly utilizing odd camera work and editing to emphasize the somber yet hammy tone of the film. At most, Mikadroid's serviceable special effects managed by Shinji Higuchi of the Heisei Gamera trilogy make up for most of the film's flaws, treating us with fair highlights of an impressive looking design for the Mikadroid, savage kills and explosive firefights against a killer bot. With the film's short running time of just 73 minutes, the acting is fair and decent for most parts though really isn't much to speak of in terms of character development, a point I'm fine with considering the net result is still a fun little guilty pleasure flick that delivers grue and gunfire. All in all, an underrated yet spiffy scifi horror tailor made for lovers of kitschy fiction.  

Bodycount:

1 male shot, bled to death

1 male shot dead with a submachine gun

3 males killed in bombing

1 male shot dead with a submachine gun

1 male shot dead with a submachine gun

1 female shot with a submachine gun, slashed with a sword

1 female slashed to death with a sword

1 male beaten to death against a water fountain

2 males shot death with a submachine gun

1 male succumbs to injuries from a gun fight

1 male stabbed though with a sword, caught in explosion

1 male destroyed in an explosion

Total: 15

Weasels, Sirens and Cage? Oh My!: Willy's Wonderland (2021)

Willy's Wonderland (2021)
Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Emily Tosta, Beth Grant

Apparently, if you put Nicolas Cage inside a death house full of killers, he's not trapped in there with them. They're trapped in there with him.

 This is the case in Willy's Wonderland (2021), where Cage plays a lone, quiet and nameless drifter who sees himself driving through a set of road spikes "accidentally" left there. Just his luck, a tow truck happens to conveniently spot him and its driver, Jed, is willing to work on the ride if the drifter, apparently unable to pay for the new tires, is willing to work it off himself. So Jed calls in Tex Macadoo, the owner of the kid's pizzeria Willy's Wonderland and he has a proposition for the drifter; stay overnight to clean and fix the place up and the new tires are for free in the morning!

With a hand shake and a swift tour around the pizzeria, the drifter becomes "The Janitor" and off he goes to work. But things aren't all right around Willy's. Not when the animatronics gaze at him hungrily, their claws, teeth and weapons itching to shed blood, results of a Satanic ritual done years ago. So as night falls, the Janitor figures out (rather quickly) that he's in a rough night as the robotic menaces go after him, leaving him to fight back and spill some robot gore, all the while still cleaning up the place, taking hourly breaks for a soda and pinball game, and encounter some well meaning yet still doomed kids who decided to break in to, well, break him out.

Now, see, if you're looking for a horror movie that's rich in subtext and substance, then you're at the wrong pizza stop. Willy's Wonderland (2021) is seemingly made for two purposes; to be a bloody, cheesy, easy-going horror-comedy and to be a Nicolas Cage vehicle. There's really no deeper plot in here than Cage fighting off a gaggle of fuzzy robots and this can be easily seen with how shallow and bland most of the characters are, and too how quickly this film gets to the punching point. This said, it can get slightly tedious whenever the movie stops for a soda break and focus on the fleshy victims-to-be, only to be of slight interest when they go feed us some information to what's going on, though it's not something that elaborate or new altogether. (Basically, Willy's was founded by notorious killer Satanists and their murderous souls got transferred into the robots through a suicide pact in order to escape police and continue their killing spree beyond death, practically pulling a Child's Play (1987) gri-gri on us.) 

If you are, however, open for cheese, ham and Nic Cage shlock, then it's your birthday today because here at Willy's Wonderland, they have more than enough of those to feed your B-flick cravings. There's a strong sense of dark humor at play here and the ridiculousness of the premise just blends in perfectly with the direction and flow the movie goes by. The small army of  killer animatronics are a fun bunch by design, a little diverse in their range from talking animals to fantasy beings like sirens and knights, all tainted in grime and age which adds some uncanny creep factor. The kills are bloody at their best, may it be your typical human victims or, yes, even the possessed animatronics themselves! For those with a twisted fascination for robot "gorno", this film surprisingly finds a way to make decimating creepy kids place machines satisfyingly brutal with oil spilling like blood and metal parts crushed like bones!

And then there's the one and only Nicolas Cage, who doesn't utter an entire word in the film save for some groans and grunts. He more or less lets his fists and cleaning duties do the talking here, both being satisfying to watch, but the lack of dialogue on his part does make him too enigmatic for his own good, bordering into being questionable as there were moments where his help could have been appreciated but he chooses to ignore it, resulting to some deaths. Nevertheless, it adds to the weirdness and macabre of Willy's Wonderland and it does have Cage getting into the zone and jamming out to this film's best song while playing pinball so not a completely big dent to the movie's charm.

If you know what you're getting yourself into, then Willy's Wonderland (2021) is just the kind of junk food horror goodie bag you could ask for. Packed with creepy killer bots, an ass-kicking antihero and a gaggle lot of strangeness, find a good cozy spot in your Super Happy Fun Room and give this a good whirl!

Bodycount:

1 male dragged away, killed

1 female killed, blood splash seen

1 boy clawed (flashback)

1 male, 1 female and 1 girl killed offcamera (flashback)

6 males and 1 female seen dead from suicide, ingested tainted drink (flashback)

1 girl bearhugged to death (flashback)

1 male ran through with a sword

1 male mauled to death

1 male bitten to death

1 female mauled dead offcamera

1 male found disemboweled (flashback)

An entire family mentioned murdered 

1 female attacked, presumably killed (flashback)

2 females and 1 male seen murdered (flashback)

1 victim seen mauled (flashback)

1 female seen mauled (flashback)

1 male implied murdered (flashback)

2 males and 1 female implied murdered (flashback)

1 male decapitated with a sword (flashback)

1 male and 1 female had their necks snapped (flashback)

1 male had his neck snapped 

1 male crushed to death

1 female clawed in half 

2 males immolated in an exploding car

Total: 36+

A Massacre By Ritual: Skull: A Máscara de Anhangá (2020)

Skull: A Máscara de Anhangá (AKA Skull: The Mask) (Brazil, 2020)
Rating: ***

Starring: David Wendefilm, Tristan Aronovich, Thiago Carvalho

From tame strangle-a-thons like Shock: Diversao Diabolica (1984) to gory splatterfests like The Ritual of Death (1990) and Satanic Attraction (1990), Brazil has its fair and fun share of slasher flicks throughout the years and it appears we're given the good grace of another worthy modern entry going by Skull: A Máscara de Anhangá (2020), a supernatural slasher neo-noir!

Splitting its focus throughout many plot threads including a cop drama, a prophecy thriller and a gory monster/slasher hybrid, Skull opens with a prayer that summons Anhangá, a being depicted here as the murderous servant of the pre-Columbian god Tahawantinsupay. We then shift our attention to a prologue set in the 1940s Amazon, where a dude in a supervillain get-up beats and murders his way to retrieve a dangerous artifact known as the Mask of Anhangá, which his Nazi clients proceed to use in a military experiment involving a religious ritual. Something went wrong and the scene ends up with one guy on fire, another gutted, and another having his head explode.

Flashforward to the present and an archeological dig uncovers the Mask of Anhangá once again, now brought to São Paulo, Brazil where Tack Waelder, the shady head of a foreign company, plans on secretly using its powers for his own gains. However, before he could get his hands on the item, the mask somehow finds a way to murder a few people before eventually possessing a worthy body, unleashing Anhangá and its insatiable bloodlust under the guide of its god.

Caught in this trail of murder and mayhem is one Manco Ramirez, a simple laborer whose family happens to belong in a long line of protectors who battled and stopped Anhangá from unleashing his god to our world. With the help of his own father's mummified severed hand that directs the demon's whereabouts and the Femur of Tahawantinsupay, a blunt weapon that can harm the god's servant, he prepares himself to honor his family's duty and fight a good fight against Anhangá, even if it means his own demise.

In the midst of this, Beatriz Obdias, a detective working on a missing children’s case, sees herself looking into the increasingly bizarre and gruesome murder spree now plaguing São Paulo. Complicating this matter, unfortunately, is Waelder forcing her to join him in getting the mask back and eliminate some troublesome individuals in the way, blackmailing her with a few skeletons in her closet and promises of keeping quiet about them should she accept his proposition. With the killings getting more visceral by the day, she may have no choice but to agree with the offer, but at what cost?

A tad overambitious with the number of story lines intertwining, Skull occasionally feels like two to three different kinds of movies playing all at once, thinly interconnected through varying plot points that do little to help with the overall hodge-podged tone and pacing. One moment we're looking into a cop's dark past involving framing children for murder, the next has us watching a masked slasher raid a drug house to slice its occupants into pieces. That said, the film is still worth its while by being chaotically fun with its slasher/monster attacks, cheesy badassery and misplaced seriousness, all the working traits of a good B-grade horror and a noir crime drama that aren't far off from the ones you would encounter in old pulp fictions and EC horror comics given they have the chance to be written this exploitative and messy.

Delivering greatly a barrage of awesome practical and visual effects on screen despite its limited budget, Skull has the blessing to be full of splatter in its purest form whenever it dives into the slasher segments; with a hulking man-monster that looks like a blood-soaked Hatchet (2006)'s Victor Crowley in a skull mask, armed with wriggling tentacles that wields its bladed weapon and unleashed at an unsuspecting city, you can bet that blood flows like rivers and chest cavities are pried open in pure carnal display in what are perhaps this movie's strongest and most macabre scenes. Highlights would include a dance bar getting the nasty case of a spree killing and a priest, drawing a hidden sword from a crucifix, dueling our masked slasher to the death.

Clashing urban decay with gore-filled mysticism, Skull: A Máscara de Anhangá (2020) earned its title from the Chattanooga Film Festival as an "insane midnighter" for just how manically enjoyable it is, so long as you don't mind limping through a conjoined serving of evil businessmen being shallowly evil and tidbits of action drama, slow cooked for an attempt for originality. It doesn't always work, but the final product has heart. One that's ripped out of a fresh body just for our grim sense of entertainment which I wholly appreciate!

Bodycount:

1 male decapitated with a crescent blade

1 male had his throat cut with a crescent blade

1 male caught on fire

1 male knifed on the gut, disemboweled

1 male had his dead explode

1 female had her chest cavity pried open

1 female murdered offscreen

1 male had his chest cavity pried open

1 female had her chest sliced open with a window shard

1 male strangled with a victim's innards

1 male had his throat ripped open

1 male gets a machete hacked and repeatedly pounded into his side

1 male had his face sliced with a machete

1 girl seen shot dead

1 male hacked on the head with a machete, face peeled

1 female gets a machete to the neck

1 female gutted with a machete

1 male hacked on the head with a machete, spine torn out

1 female gets a spine stabbed into her forehead

1 male hacked on the gut with a machete

2 males and 1 female seen murdered

1 male crushed with a statue, bled to death

1 male had his head stomped on

1 male stabbed through with a wooden plank, heart torn out

1 male shot on the face with a shotgun

1 male shot on the head

Total: 28

Tough Love and Tough Breaks: Masked Mutilator (2019)

Masked Mutilator (2019)

Rating: **1/2

Starring: Christine Appino, Brick Bronsky and Chet Cole

Originally a lost and unfinished 90s slasher, unearthed and reworked with a wraparound shot and taking place in the present year of 2019, Masked Mutilator is as cheap as a multi-generational B-Grade horror flick can get, but it isn't without its good points. Reeking cheesy good points, but good points nonetheless.

The scene starts with a present day podcaster interviewing people who went through group home tragedies and he invited a few who happen to be survivors of a rather unusual yet devastating incident back at 1994 dubbed as the Home of Horror. Here we cut to the 90s where Vic Mangino (Jeff Sibbach), a rather infamous professional wrestler who went under the name Masked Mutilator until he accidentally killed an opponent in the ring, is working as a house parent at a group home, handling the rather troublesome youths with his brand of tough love and be the kind of imposing authority figure needed to discipline them to the right track.

Problems arise when the state starts to waver its support for the home despite handing Vic more kids to look after, which meant the home is steadily losing funds to support everyone staying there. No soon after, a masked man starts to show up and brutally beat the teens dead one by one. Perhaps it's Vic? Finally losing it after struggling with his own personal demons? Or maybe it's one of the kids? Tired of living under a strict household and getting their butts handed to them on a regular basis? 

In all honesty, there's nothing that groundbreaking about Masked Mutilator as a story and much of the movie's interest is from the fact that this was a forgotten film brought to life for the modern audience in a Frankenstein monster-esque fashion. Because of the way it's shot, edited and re-written, what we have here a rather short film that skips from one point to another, breezing over character development and plot details for a hammed up direction tainted in really janky acting. It can be laughable for the unintentional hilarity despite the plot dropping deep matters like the state of foster systems and its effects on troubled wards, so you could say that it is darn entertaining even if it's stumbling and missing a lot of opportunities to better itself.

Wrestling-themed slashers are a very very few bunch and observing familiar titles that fall into this category such as the equally fun Wrestle Massacre (2018) and Wrestlemaniac (2006), the running theme of this slasher breed is that they focus more on "tooth-and-nail" murders, as in they limit the use of murder weapons as much as possible and prefer to fill the kill count with more physically-inclined slayings. At that, the kills here involve a lot of beatings and smack-downs and Masked Mutilator makes it work by bloodying it all up and throwing in a few wrestling moves into the slaughter. The climax itself even packs a brawl-out that sits comfortably within vintage WWE programs, with Sibbach clobbering up a slasher who, in turn, is also ready to deliver a pile-driver or two against whoever stands against them or is in the way. Eagle-eyed wrestling fans could also spot some familiar faces from the industry such as Brick Bronsky as a buffed-up kid who likes to work out (and is also this film's director), and Doug Yasinsky as the cook of the house who suspiciously disappears around the last act.

To simply put it, if you're not looking for an overly gory, extravagant bodycounter and is simply in the mood for something silly, fairly bloody and moderately fun, then Masked Mutilator is waiting for you in the ring. Come on by and give it a round!  

Bodycount:

1 male had his neck snapped

1 male repeatedly beaten, neck snapped

1 male had his face beaten against a support beam

1 female strangled to death

1 male bearhugged to death

1 female kicked on the head (flashback)

1 male had his neck snapped

1 male strangled with a chokehold

1 male killed, method unknown

Total: 9

Chaotic Lawful, Lawful Chaotic: 10 To Midnight (1983)

10 To Midnight (1983)

Rating: ***

Starring: Charles Bronson, Lisa Eilbacher, Andrew Stevens

When Death Wish came out in 1974, main lead Charles Bronson is pretty much set to star in many of Hollywood's action titles as the staple old-fashioned rightist who deals with scum by bending the law for their own brand of justice. 10 To Midnight (1983) is one of these Bronson vehicles, pitting him as a Dirty Harry-clone of sorts against a killer who prey on nubile women.

After his co-worker at a secretarial pool rejects his aggressive advances, Warren Stacy (Gene Davis) hatches a murder plan which involves him going to a local theater and harassing a couple of girls there to create an alibi, before sneaking out through the bathrooms to drive to a nearby spot in the woods where his co-worker Betty and her boyfriend are making sweet love. To further cover his tracks, Warren strips down into nothing but a pair of rubber gloves, which proves to be an effective tactic as responding police couldn't properly pin the murder of Betty and her partner on him due to lack of evidence.

It's almost the perfect murder. Almost.

Among the officials looking into the killings are weary old cop Leo Kesller (Charles Bronson) and his young quixotic partner Paul McAnn (Andrew Stevens), and it turns out Betty was an old friend of Kesller's nurse daughter Laurie (Lisa Eilbacher), who hasn't been in touch with her old man until this case. As the three attend Betty's funeral, not knowing her killer is also lurking within the group, Kesller is made aware by the victim's father that she kept a diary which may contain some details to the identity of her killer. Warren, also hearing this, rushes to Betty's apartment no soon after to try sneaking the diary out, but not only did he find the diary missing, but he's forced to kill her surviving roommate to keep his tracks clean.

By luck, Kesller and MacAnn actually got hold of the diary first and narrowed it down to Warren due to the repeating past encounters he had with the victim. With little solid proof to go by, however, they're unable to hold Warren accountable for the murders, which got our killer feeling cocky as he starts targeting Kesller's daughter with obscene calls. Certain Mr. Stacy is the culprit they're looking for and eager to put an end to his terror as soon as possible, Kesller tampers with the evidence to frame him for the murders.

This nearly worked, riling up Warren into hysterics even, but it misfires badly when it comes to light that the evidence was planted, thus setting our killer free once more and vowing revenge against Kesller.

With the bulk of its story mostly a police drama, 10 To Midnight is only a slasher at the beginning and end of the movie, starting itself with a streaky double murder that got the plot rolling and concluding with a stalk-and-stab last act as Warren goes in the buff again to get even on Kessler by hunting down his daughter, taking along the lives of her nurse roommates in an effectively distressing home invasion scenario. These horror scenes are practically the movie's strongest points since the main meat of the plot, with all its legal talk and police procedurals, is your standard police story and courtroom theatrics copy-pasted from Dirty harry (1971), down to the questioning of lawful politics that have killers getting scoff free due to loopholes.  

This doesn't necessarily mean the crime drama aspect of 10 To Midnight is not entertaining, mind you, but it can get too bare-bone basic for its own good. Fortunately, the film still has its cheesier moments and a good abundance of sleaze to go with the murders, the latter being from the fact that Gene Davis have to go butt naked for all of the slasher sequences and that all of his victims are in various state of undress.

All in all, 10 To Midnight is a fair run of a horror hybrid that caters well to Bronson's fans, those who aren't expecting too much from their slasher flicks and those who aren't squeamish to see a killer's butt crack onscreen. It's all the makings of a classic 80s cop thriller with the right splash of teen bodycounting to boot!

Bodycount:

1 male stabbed to death with a butterfly knife

1 female stabbed in the gut with a butterfly knife

1 female gutted with a kitchen knife

1 female stabbed in the gut with a butterfly knife

1 female stabbed in the gut with a butterfly knife

1 female killed with a butterfly knife

1 male shot on the head

Total: 7

The Cuban Spine Crusher: Wrestle Massacre (2018)

Wrestle Massacre (2018)

Rating: **1/2

Starring: Richie Acevedo, Tony Atlas, Julio Bana Fernandez

(Special thanks to Jeff for sharing this wonderful trash, intentionally or not! Haha!)

Back in 2006, low budget Rey Mysterio-starring slasher Wrestlemaniac proved to us the stalk n' kill potential of wrestlers. It was fun, silly and cheesy, and I'm gonna piledriver us back to the bloody ring with yet another wrestling themed bodycounter. Cheesier and lower budgeted, yet fun in the best Z-grade way! 

Awkward groundskeeper Randy (pro wrestler Richie Acevedo) just wanted to make a name for himself as a wrestler, but life has other plans for him; not only do most of his coworkers and family get out of their way to belittle him, but he's also constantly put down and alienated by his clients save for one Becky, who showed him at least a shred of kindness. 

After finding out there's a wrestling camp nearby looking for enrollees, Randy tries out but ends up getting humiliated in a test match gone embarrassingly wrong. Making matters worse, he learns the next day that he's being let go due to him skipping work to attend the try-outs, as well as other incidents including peeping on a bathing chesty home owner. Snapped, Randy vows bloody vengeance the only way he knows how: donning nothing but boots, wrestling underwear tights and a mean attitude that somehow grants him the wrestling prowess he lacked before.

Now, there's no covering the fact that Wrestle Massacre is a low budget production judging from its undoubtedly do-it-yourself quality, but its made with a lively and hammy personality in its direction and plotting that you can't help but feel entertained on how much this movie tries, from the uneven the acting to how cartoonish the killings can get for the sake of blood and guts. 

Story-wise, the horror bits is your standard "gone postal" type, with the main antagonist going axe crazy after life pushed him too far and the film really took its sweet time getting to the juicy bits, bulking up this story is a side plot involving Becky and her partner Erwin's little loan problem for the possible purpose of developing a final girl and proposing additional bodies for the eventual kill count. This is all, again, done with feisty cheese that doesn't promise anything else but guaranteed unintentional laughs, but it does hurt the pacing since it lagged the entire movie from what could have been a serviceable seventy minute story to a hundred minute slay-a-thon with a talky first half.

Thankfully, one Randy puts on the stretchy wrestling briefs and masters the art of wise-cracking, Wrestle Massacre doesn't hold out on the messy kills. Granted, it's not the most realistic looking visceral pile and, yes, some murders can get outrageous (ones involving a spine and a scalping via eating utensil got me laughing), but its in it to be fun and I happen to be the kind of guy who can appreciate that, especially if a chunk of it is done ala rock and roll montage and with a small side of sleaze! And to cater to the wrestling theme, a high percent of the kill here are wrestling moves so there's a good share of brawls before the murder blows. 

Then, for that sweet wrestling fan service, there's also the abundance of cameos from other wrestling stars like the late Manny Fernandez, The Sandman and, funnier even, Jimmy Valiant as some sort of satire of himself and his Boogie Wrestling Camp in real life!

Ending with an out-of-nowhere supernatural twist that frankly reeks of sequel baiting, Wrestle Massacre is a fair budget horror and nothing much else. It's too little of a production to make a mark, but it's entertaining enough to worth at least a single night rental. Try it out if you're curious and get ready to rumble with the Cuban Assassin!

Bodycount:

1 male had his throat ripped

1 female had her face peeled off, beaten against a tree

1 elderly male strangled 

1 male had his back crushed against killer's knee

1 elderly male had his neck snapped

1 male killed offcamera

1 male had fingers and an ear torn off, killed

1 male bludgeoned to death with barbells

1 male tossed to a live fusebox, electrocuted

1 male killed via headlock move

1 male had his face shredded with a weed-whacker

1 female had her tongue torn out, killed

1 male disemboweled

1 female had her head stomped flat

1 male scalped with an eating utensil, killed

1 male strangled with his own guts 

1 male had his eyes thumbed

1 male had his head torn off

1 male beaten to death with his own severed leg

1 male stabbed on the throat with a garden shear

1 female had her face flattened with a folding chair

1 male had his spine ripped out 

1 male stabbed on the gut with a stake, head crushed in half with a rock

1 female had her head torn apart by the jaw, shot

1 male shot on the head

Total: 25

Eastwood vs The Vigilante System: Magnum Force (1973)

Magnum Force (1973)
Rating: ****1/2
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Hal Holbrook, Mitchell Ryan

When Dirty Harry (1971) came out in theaters back in the days, audiences saw the birth of a future pop culture icon Inspector Harry Callahan, a cop who gets assigned to "every dirty job that comes along" and handling them through means crossing professional boundaries, all in the name of his own vision of justice. In that movie, Callahan went bullet-to-bullet with an insane sniper going by the moniker Scorpio and as impressive it is as a movie (perhaps one of the best action flicks ever) it doesn't really challenges you to ponder on whether or not you should empathize with its villain.

Scorpio was a heartless, manipulative psychopath who demands money under the false pretenses that he'll stop his killings should he get his ransom, so it's no deal-breaker that we'd root for him getting the hot leaded end of Callahan's controversial yet well deserving sense of justice, but what will the inspector do should he face someone who lives by the same brand of antiheroism, set to the extreme? This is where Magnum Force (1973) comes in.

The first sequel of many following the further high caliber cop adventures of "Dirty Harry", it starts with mobster Carmine Ricca being acquitted of a mass murder on a legal technicality. Smugly driving away from the court with his cohorts, Ricca and company soon got the attention of a motorcycle cop and asked to pull over in an isolated road due to some traffic violation. Unbeknownst to them, this is all just a foil as the cop proceeds to execute all of them with gunfire.

Among the many to respond to this eventual crime scene is none other than Inspector Callahan, alongside his partner Earlington "Early" Smith. Although supposed to be on stakeout duty, the Inspectors have no qualms sticking their noses in this circus, though their superior Lieutenant Neil Briggs thinks otherwise and would rather have the two take down other baddies instead, including a couple of plane hijackers and a gang of pharmacy store robbers.

However, it seems the cop-gone-rogue is far from done being judge, jury and executioner as San Francisco's underworld continues to thin down. Hoping to end the threat as soon as possible, the city's police department have no choice but to assign Harry on homicide to help with the investigation, leading him to suspect the vigilante is someone within the department after one too many coincidences concerning the deaths and a particular new recruit.

The whole film is practically a cop drama with a small slice of proto-slasher action as the scenes involving the vigilante cop strongly resembles the stalk-and-kill style of later slasher villains, only with a handgun. The vigilante cop is shot mostly from the neck down whenever they appear on screen at the early half of the film, an obscuring technique used for plenty of horror movie killers, and the executions they bring have this focused build-up that often ends with brutal results. All of this working its way to a climactic cat-and-mouse chase between Callahan and the vigilante-type inside an abandoned harbor bay, not so unlike the slasher finales between a masked killer and the final character.

Cleverly, these scenes are incorporated into the story with a rather thought-provoking take as while the killings only target those criminal types at first, it gradually starts to include those that just happens to be in the way the further the plot goes. This gives both our main casts and the audience new grounds to cover regarding grey area characters, identifying with them regarding their goals but also questioning where exactly do we draw the line, an exceptional and intriguing position to put the likes of someone who isn't that big of a fan of the law as "Dirty Harry". Even more noticeable is that while not out riding through the city of San Francisco looking for hoodlums to kill, the rogue is a rather likable individual, particularly during the times they're just shooting the breeze in vigorous zeal with the then-unknowing Callahan.

In the midst of this, Magnum Force still doesn't forget its run-in-the-mill shoot'em up thriller roots, fortunately, so while this concept of grey shade law enforcement is tackled, the film is no short of the random misadventures of inspector Callahan thrown here and there to pad time, establish a tone and/or keep the main mystery exciting. Some of them works, others are cheesy for how odd they are, but they're there to entertain and entertain they did.

It also helps Callahan in this sequel is portrayed to be less angry than he is in Dirty Harry (1971), keeping it chill and even smiles a lot more despite getting the bad end of the stick or receiving a mouthful from Lt. Briggs or any higher officials. He takes his time to calculate his moves and even isn't shy on hinting a genuinely calm and humorous demeanor underneath his tough as nails personality.

All in all, whether you see it as an action flick or a potential proto-slasher, this is a movie that does little wrong but isn't guilty of missing an opportunity or two; some characters are introduced that could have been expanded (Harry's neighbor Sunny, who has the hots for the rugged cop, more or less just steps in to make love and almost be a victim of vigilantism) and the plot has its moments of simplicity in its approach that it's almost readable in its direction, but as a sequel, Magnum Force (1973) strives to move its predecessor further from being a sort-of fascist law enforcer flick and it succeeds to reasonable levels. Clint Eastwood shines well in this action-filled cop mystery, armed with his trusted .44 Magnum to put an end to a humongous killcount for our viewing pleasure!

Bodycount:
4 males shot to death
1 male shot
6 males and 5 females gunned down with a submachine gun
1 male shot
1 male shot
1 male shot
1 female poisoned with a drain cleaner
1 male shot to death
1 male shot
1 male shot to death
1 male shot to death
1 female repeatedly shot, crashes and falls off a building
1 male shot to death
1 male shot with a shotgun
1 male shot
1 male shot
1 male shot
1 male shot
1 male shot
1 male crashes his car through a crane, killed
1 male decimated by an explosive
1 male killed in vehicular collision
1 male had his throat beaten repeatedly
1 male tossed out of his motor bike and into a bay, drowned upon fall
1 male decimated by an explosive
Total: 38

Remember when The Fast and The Furious was about car heists and street races...?

And now we got cybernetically enhanced mercenaries working for a cyber-terrorist aiming for world cleansing via biotech virus and two action stars duking out these threats in a Samoan island with nothing but clubs, spears, juiced-up cars and whole lot of boody traps.

My how times have changed. And I love it! (Even though this is my FIRST Fast and Furious movie)

Today I Saw Alita- Battle Angel...

And, despite knowing very little about the manga and anime series it is based on, I think I found another movie franchise that I'm willing to follow through until the end! Can't wait for the next entry!