Gross Movie Reviews #518

 

Frankenstein Created Woman (DVD) – A wonderfully crafted Hammer twist on the Universal classic that stars Peter Cushing as the Baron of course. The Baron with his injured hands has an assistant who is also a doctor but feels the Baron is far superior in his thinking of the human anatomy. The Baron’s goal is to ‘conquer death’… Where have you heard that before? He believes he has come up with an invention that holds onto the soul and transfers it to a different body while the other body is being repaired. The Baron’s younger assistant is excused of murder and is to be executed by beheading. The young man’s girlfriend sees this and throws herself from a bridge both dying about the same time. The Baron of course uses this to prove his experiment works. Things are quiet afterward as the experiment seems to work perfectly fine until murders of those who are the true murderers begin to happen. This film ends on an excellent horrific climax that makes the movie for myself and I am sure many others a regular watch in their collections as I give it 4 stars.

 

From Beyond the Grave (DVD) – An anthology from the early 70s that stars Peter Cushing as an old antiques dealer who sells possible cursed objects to the public (Thank you Friday the 13^th TV series). The film feels like a TV movie of sorts that also has a who’s who of UK actors. People come into the shop to purchase an item with the wrong intentions and meet a grisly doom as I give this fun treat 3 stars.

 

Stairs (On Demand) – Just in case you go looking for this newer flick it also under the title ‘Black OPS’. A small military strike team is warned by a dying woman “Don’t go down…” but the team forges ahead anyway. With the mission done and the team returning to base things are not as they appear as they keep opening doors to the mission they just accomplished and continuing to walk stairs to nowhere. One by one each of them die but is this hell? A different dimension? Can they correct the wrong? This is one of those projects that can be tough to pull off as there are some good things here and bad. Biggest issue is the film does get dull quickly which I believe hurts a rewatch of the project as I give it 1 ½ stars.

 

Bloodfist (DVD) – Don “the Dragon” Wilson stars in this Corman produced bootleg of the popular ‘Bloodsport’. Wilson/Jake gets some bad news from Manila where his brother has been kickboxing and may have gotten in with the wrong people. Jake finds out his brother was killed by the “Red Fist” boxing club and now wants revenge but the only way for him to accomplish that is enter the “Ta Chang” or the competition that is to the death. This film did not age well and hell now looking back was not a good bootleg version of JCVD’s ‘Bloodsport’ as I give this 1 star.

 

Bloodfist II (DVD) – Don “the Dragon” Wilson returns as Jake the Kickboxing champ of the world who is trying to help out an old friend but gets kidnapped for some secret death tournament. Or as I like to call it bootleg ‘Bloodsport 2’. The action and the fights are much better choreographed for this sequel. The film is not nearly as choppy or lagged down as the first film but if you are going for early 90s action choices there is still much better to pick from as I give this sequel 2 stars.

 

Bloodfist III: Forced to Fight (DVD) – So now the series shifts away from the death tournaments for Don “the Dragon” Wilson and he’s playing a different character named Jimmy. Jimmy finds himself in prison and his cellmate is Richard Roundtree and oh yeah Jimmy just happens to be the issue of the civil unrest inside the prison. Jimmy just killed a main drug supplier inside the prison after killing a friend of Jimmy’s. Jimmy now must fight for his life around every corner as the warden likes to treat all the inmates as animals to keep them on edge. Again improvement over the first two movies as there is much more action and feels like there was an actual story here as I give it 2 ½ stars.

 

Bloodfist IV: Die Trying (DVD) – Don “the Dragon” Wilson and the lovely Amanda Wyss star in this action film about Danny repossessing cars and his 10 year old daughter not happy with it. But one afternoon after he gets a BMW back to the office his crew gets shot up by some unhappy fellows looking for Easter candy. Now Danny must find out why as he is on the run from authorities and find out why they have kidnapped his daughter? This seems to be ‘Bloodfist’ hitting its direct-to-video stride as in the early 90s you could find almost every week a new movie like this starring JCVD, Dolph Lundgren, etc., as I give the fourth entry in this series 2 ½ stars.

 

Tarantula (DVD) – This mid-50s B-movie classic is famous for two things: the giant spider attacking the desert town and Clint Eastwood making an appearance as a jet fighter pilot in the film. Anyhow a couple of scientists are using radioactive isotopes as part of their experiments that makes everything grow. After a struggle with his partner a giant spider gets loose and starts feasting on the local cattle as I give it 2 ½ stars.

 

Alien Presence (DVD) – In another tale of shirtless sexy males David DeCoteau brings us a story about college students brought to a government house where a young man is in a coma to be studied. What they all don’t know is the young coma patient is an alien named Wilks. A young scientist (Dr. Lyons) awakens the being and shuts off communication to see what happens or a controlled experiment. No cool death scenes, hell no one really dies but as usually if you need to fill your quota on shirtless males or unusually long shower scenes by males then this is the film for you as I give 0 stars. Sorry David I like my horror movies to have someone dying but again this is no ‘D.B. Cooper vs. Bigfoot’?

 

Direct To Video: Straight to Video Horror of the 90s (DVD) – An excellent documentary from filmmaker Dustin Ferguson who brings together an abundance of critics, actors, and filmmakers to discuss not just their films but how this whole genre got started in the 90s. They discuss their favorites and how Hollywood and media was changing at the times and yes Charles Band gets a lot of credit as I give this really cool documentary 4 stars.

 

Assassin X (DVD) – A promising action film starring everyone from B-movie fame where Olivier Gruener is Steele. Steele is an assassin that does not kill with guns or knives but his chemistry degree. First half of the movie plays out like a bad version of ‘The Mechanic’ and the second half just goes completely south as Steele tries to walk away from the business to bang a young lady that is twice as young as him and his boss is not happy. Love the cast of the film but was super disappointed in what the film was as it could have been so much more fun as I give it 0 stars.

 

Dinner With a Vampire (DVD) – A thousand year old vampire is awakened by a film crew only to be eaten by the vamp of course. Several years later the old vampire (Mr. Jurek) is a famous horror movie director who has grown old of his life. So for his latest project producers cast four new stars that is to meet at Jurek’s home to kill him. Jurek explains to the budding young stars that he is tired of the routine of being undead. The newbie stars must either kill Jurek before dawn or eventually become bloodsuckers themselves. There is some corny fun humor to the flick but be warned no one dies as I give the film 2 stars.

 

Return to Splatter Farm (DVD) – 33 years has passed since the S.O.V. classic was unleashed and we finally have a sequel that involves the Polonias again. A young woman named Bobbi has inherited the “Death Farm”. So Bobbi and a few friends head out to the infamous farm to decide what she wants to do with the property. With their presence it does not take long for Jeremy to be awaken and slaughtering young humans again. It is a fun and relaxing take on the original that doesn’t disappoint S.O.V. fans as I give it 3 stars.

Becky (On Demand) – We have two parallel stories going on in this deliciously brutal film that centers on a young girl named Becky. First, Becky and her father are in disagreement as usual since her mother’s death. Now, it is being forced upon her that dad has found a new woman and wants to be a family. Second, we are introduced to a couple of inmates who are super Neo-Nazis that have escaped transport heading to this isolated home in the woods looking for a hidden key. After another argument Becky runs off into the woods shortly after the inmates come a knocking for some bad ass mean shit to go down. The Neo-Nazis find out that Becky has the key so they try to make a deal but Becky refuses after watching her father being killed. From there we go into a downward spiral into some brutal scenes of revenge as Becky fights back. We get a sick eye gouge that requires the eye being snipped off, a new way to use school pencils, and a little girl (Becky) getting heart punched! The film is just plain screwed up and I loved it as don’t be surprised this sneaks its way into my “2020 top ten” as I give it 4 stars.

Sputnik (On Demand) – It is 1983 and two cosmonauts are doing the usually checks during their space mission when something happens. Their ship crash lands and Russian authorities find one alive and one dead. They are brought to a secret facility and a psychologist is brought into evaluate Konstantin Veshnyakov the lone survivor. But the military let the psychologist in on something Veshnyakov has brought something back with him and this is why the hero has not been allowed to go out in public in Moscow. It is a slithering being that will eat humans to survive. The good doctor intrigue by how the being and the cosmonaut are surviving she digs deeper what is exactly going on? The Russian military of course want her to figure out how to separate the two so they can use the alien being for military use. This slow burn Russian flick has its horror moments and does not go exactly the way I thought which makes this an excellent find horror fans as I give it 3 stars.

 

Tremors: Shrieker Island (DVD) – Burt Gummer is back one more time to fight Graboids as Richard Brake has brought in juiced up Graboids to hunt on a private island. When the hunt doesn’t go so well and people who are indigenous to the island are in trouble it is Gummer brought to the rescue. But the Graboids and shriekers are juiced up so their behavior is different making much more difficult for Burt including not having much in weapons. As usual a lot of fun, cool Graboids, and you can never get enough of Burt Gummer as I give the film 3 stars.

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