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

Sacrilege Slaughter Sounds: Death To Metal (2019)

Death To Metal (2019)
Rating: **1/2

Starring: Alex Stein, Grace Melon and Andrew Jessop

I guess you could say that despite not being a complete fan of the music genre, I'm at least tolerant towards heavy metal, even having my share of fave metal bands both real and fictional. (Hello, Lordi. Hello, JP Ahonen's Belzebubs.) As for Rocksploitation slashers, though, I'm a tad more finnicky; aside from a selective few faves of mine like Rocktober Blood (1984) and Hard Rock Nightmare (1988), a good lot of these Heavy Metal massacres like Terror on Tour (1980), The Choke (2006) and Deadtime (2012) just doesn't cut right for me, may it be due to the lack of likable characters, interesting kills and/or overall quality of the direction and story.   

Death To Metal (2019) is another contender for the Rock and Roll hack'n slash gig, more or less promising your typical round of head bangers getting sliced and dicked with a kinda intriguing twist that it doubles as a religious horror flick. Heavy metal clashing against Bible-thumping, what can go wrong?

The film opens with throat growling vocals playing while a trio of metal heads corner and harass a young Catholic boy named Milton by forcing him to watch his precious Bible get pissed on. Forward ahead to the present and we see Milton have grown up into a hateful priest with a short temper and a Fire-and-Brimstone outlook towards his religion, a fact that rightfully concerns his church's head priest into suspending Milton from churchly duties until he seeks professional psychological help.

Feeling betrayed, Milton goes on an alcoholic bender wherein he proceeds to break into the head priest's office to trash it, murder an unfortunate janitor who catches him and tops it all off with a high speed car crash that ends with him lying heavily wounded in a creek. Unbeknownst to our vitriol-spewing Bible-thumper, the creek also happens to be the dumping site of some highly toxic animal feed that, according to the litterbugs, made "hulked-out hogs".

Now deformed, mutated with super strength and gone completely nuts, a more monstrous Milton murders his way to a big metal show where a down-in-his-luck former band lead Zane and his normie bestie Mariah will witness the priest's savage cleansing of all things he deems unworthy of God's love and glory, one sliced up body at a time. 

Going about the messy slasher bits of Death to Metal (2019), I would say it's serviceable enough; the story is easy to follow and the idea of the villain being this very angry priest undergoing an extreme mutation to become even more of a monster fully embraces the silliness of the plot and I love the movie for it. Andrew Jessop is just awesome as Milton Kilborn, with a scowl meaning business and line deliveries that genuinely reflect his character's mental and emotional state as a holy man who gave up on forgiving sinners and fully dedicated his life to the Old Testament style of brutality as divine intervention. Heck, one scene have him reacting to a story about a man brutally murdering his cheating wife by simply pointing out that adultery is a grave offense in the Bible, overlooking the fact that multiple murders were committed. Chilling, indeed.

On the other side of the maniac coin, Monster Milton, played by Trent Johnson, took on a fairly simplistic look of a lumpy, cancer-filled monstrosity hidden underneath a hooded cloak, wielding a wooden cross as his main weapon. Can't say I'm a big fan of the design, especially when I cannot even get a good look at most of the make-up effects done for this aberration, but so long as the gross mutant juggernaut is still spewing judgmental holiness and dishing out a gnarly kill or two, I can dig it on a level. 

And speaking of kills, not gonna lie that despite the large count, a lot of the murders hardly stood out (offscreen kills, ugh), but when they do dip into the gory stuff, they do deliver from nasty bisections to fetuses being ripped out from wombs. Sadly, the rest of the movie certainly felt lacking; for one, a deal of the acting here felt stiff, especially when it comes to our two leads Alex Stein and Grace Melon as Zane and Mariah respectively, which is a darn shame as their characters were written quite nicely, adorably relatable even. For a supposed horror-comedy, the jokes mostly fall flat due to dull delivery and lack of substance and/or solid punchline to back it up, odd considering how chaotic metal music is, you would think there would be more than a punch of energy here. Some scenes also dragged a little longer than it needed to be, hobbling the momentum of the story especially around the middle act, yet regardless of these flaws, I genuinely still find Death To Metal (2019) an admirable stab at Rocksploitation bodycounting done within a low-budget production. 

Keeping it freaky fun with good gore, approachable characters and even a few warm messages about heavy metal music and religion (This is the last film I expected to have a genuinely sincere discussion about religion being about compassion and forgiveness, not hellfire and punishment, but here it is!), Death to Metal (2019) a silly B-flick that's made to be entertaining and I say it done enough to be a good time! Aimed for fans of heavy metal and cheesy bad horror movies, what else is there to say but rock on, little slasher!

Bodycount:

1 female gutted with a knife (flashback animation)

1 male found mutilated (flashback animation)

1 male strangled, later seen impaled through the jaw with a mop handle

1 male sliced in half with a wooden crucifix

1 male had his throat cut with a knife

1 female murdered offcamera, later seen knifed in the chest

1 male had his neck snapped

1 male had his leg broken, force fed with bleach

1 male strangled to death

5 males slaughtered offcamera

1 male stabbed with a wooden crucifix

1 female stabbed in the ears with broken drumsticks

1 female had had her unborn fetus torn out from her gut

1 male stabbed in the chest with broken beer bottles

1 male gets a thrown cymbal to the chest

1 male dragged away, killed

1 male dragged away, killed

1 male dragged away, killed

1 male dragged away, killed

1 male dragged away, killed

1 male dragged away, killed

1 female dragged away, killed

1 male dragged away, killed

1 female found dying in the killer's hold

16 victims seen murdered in a piled

2 males slaughtered inside a van, blood and gore seen splashed around

1 male had his eyes thumbed  

1 male stabbed in the chest with a wooden crucifix

Total: 48

The Troublesome Production of Harry Penderecki: Brutal Massacre: A Comedy (2007)

Brutal Massacre: A Comedy (2007)
Rating: ***1/2

Starring: David Naughton, Brian O'Halloran, Gerry Bednob

Many a times I cover slasher movies that lean on the comical side, but had I ever cover comical movies that lean on the slasher side? 

Brutal Massacre: A Comedy (2007) is a mockumentary centered around low-budget horror director Harry Penderecki (An American Werewolf in London (1981)'s David Naughton), who hasn’t had a hit since his last opus, I'll take the ring back... And the finger, too!. Itching to make a real name for himself, he sets out to do Brutal Massacre, a backwoods slasher that's going to be his "big one" given everything goes smoothly. Big emphasis on given.

A satire comedy about low-budget horror movie productions, Brutal Massacre's just a real treat from beginning to end as we follow the scenes behind one supposedly infamous (for the more absurd and often hilarious reasons) horror director and his close-knit crew's days of filming, tackling every sorts of mishaps from finding the perfect shooting location and encountering creepy drunk house owners (one of them looking a whole lot like Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)'s Gunnar Hansen. Unless...), to getting the right gore effects guy and surviving workplace hazards. (i.e. firing ranges and the occasional runaway knife) On a lack of a better term, these guys are just screwed with just so much bad luck and bad press that their misfortunes in this one project are simply chuckle-worthy, something the movie wears proudly with its snarky yet kinda intelligent dialogue and a good lot of talent involved.

Aside from the aforementioned David Naughton doing his silliest as an inspired yet very down-on-luck director whose self-praising and over-analyzation of his own shlocky projects bring forth plenty of laughs, we also have the likes of other horror icons like Ken Foree (Dawn of the Dead (1978)) and Ellen Sandweiss (The Evil Dead (1981)), and too familiar faces of comedy like Brian O’Halloran of Clerks (1994) and Gerry Bednob from the Steve Carell comedy The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005) gracing the screen as assorted friends and/or crews just doing their best to get through the filming in one piece and their sanity intact, with or without the cost of their own frustrations, stupidity or, for some people, both. There are some genuine moments of chemistry and timing among these crowds so when a joke hits, it hits the right way. (running gag Gunnar Hansen anyone?) When a joke misses, however, it's pretty darn noticeable at how distractingly "hard" it wants to be (Yes, the rich Texan is funding this movie because he wants titties. Anything else?), but seeing there are more hits than misses here in my book, I'm willing to overlook these flaws for what's really no more than a fun comedy-of-errors that doesn't completely take itself too seriously.

Perhaps the factor that gets me on a really forgivable stride towards this movie is that despite being played for laughs, it is still a caricature of low budget filmmaking; Brutal Massacre is structured like an actual process, one that revels on highlighting a lot of possible issues one might meet during movie projects and as a horror fan since youth, I have a growing sense of fascination of what goes behind the camera and I kinda admire all the hard work these production crews put in making a single movie to cinematic life. Of course, there's nothing that much insightful going on here save for one or two apparently deep moments, but the matter this movie brought up problems like lazy and inept crew members, obnoxious locals and budget restraints and found ways to make it subtle yet funny earns modest points for me.

Yes, it's lowers its bar a bit due to some irregular jokey moments and sometimes questionable writing, but I'm committed in my words when I say Brutal Massacre: A Comedy (2007) is just in it for the laughs and I understand and appreciate that. It mostly knows the darkly funny side of low budget films and I like that it approached a different angle to exploit. If you have an itch for an independent mockumentary comedy about the happenings during that one shooting of a shlocky $1.99 slasher movie you can pick up at a bargain bin, then go get yourself a copy of this and watch out for short Indian cameramen with anger issues. Apparently they have a tick for the term "shot-on-video"...

Bodycount:

1 male accidentally killed by a tossed knife

Total: 1

Seriously, this dude looks like Gunnar Hansen.
Hmm...