31 Days of Horror 2023 Day 30 Beyond the Door III AKA Amok Train

 

TITLE-Beyond the Door III AKA AMok Train

SOURCE-Joe Bob's Last Drive In on Shudder

So this years season of the Last Drive In was the first one since I got Shudder that I watched NONE of the episodes as they aired. And each week when I would go look see what was aired it was either stuff I have seen 100 times or stuff I didn't give a crap about.

Months back had been slowly working my way through each episode,and man some of them were rough,and started up Beyond the Door III. Yea I had heard about this late 80s Italian film. Not connected at all to the previous 2 Beyond the Door films. Thinking I saw this years back when a pile of us were working our way through the local mom and pop video stores horror sections. Remember nothing about that viewing. And from my research some releases of this movie in the US cut out most of the gore. Which would make this movie fairly forgettable.

College kids in Eastern Europe run into trouble. Hop a near by train to get out of the country fast. But this train is possessed and can so shit like leave the tracks to run over someone in a boat in a lake!

This is just pure 80s Italian gore and insanity. With that gore cut out the film is lacking the punch it needs. Acting is  pretty lackluster. Bo Svenson is the biggest name and he is barely in the film,as a teacher to the college kids. The plot is all over the place and doesn't really make sense. The films fast pace and the crazy gore are what makes this film so appealing.

Oh and that gore. Yea most remembered is when the one lady's head starts to split open then all her skin slides off. Which is a great practical gore effect. For me the two that stand out the most are when the train decapitates the lady in the boat on the lake. And when the one dude is hanging outside the train and gets impaled on a board hanging off a watertower.

If this had had the gore in it in that viewing decades ago,thinking it was 96ish,it would have been a hit. the 5 to 10 of us that would gather often to drink and watch b-horror loved gore and just heckling the hell out of movies. This would work for that perfectly.

The DVD is still easy to find for not a bad price,but seeing reviews claiming the picture is not great. The Blu Ray is OOP and a bit pricey. What Shudder has is the Blu ray.

Give this a watch on Shudder if you like Euro Horror and Gore.

Beyond the Door III gets a B-

31 Days of Horror 2023 Day 25 Cannibal Apocalypse

TITLE-Cannibal Apocalypse

SOURCE-Kino Lober Blu ray

This infamous Cannibals in Atlanta Italian made fiim. And I finally got a good copy.

Start off with John Saxon over in the Nam War. His troop slaughters some enemies fleeing a cave. Then they find two PWOs. One who is Jonathan Morgan. 

SKip ahead and Saxon is back stateside. In Atlanta. Morgan calls him wantiing to go get a beer,but Saxon says he is busy. So Morgan wanders off to see a movie. Which is a Nam War film made by the same director as this film.

In the theater Morgan starts having flashbacks,and we are left to wonder if the movie's war scenes or the couple in front of him making out,trigger all this. Morgan freaks out and bites the woman in front of him on the neck.ANd boom we got cannibals on the loose in Atlanta Georgia.

Pretty sure first time I heard of this movie was on a list of Video Nasties. And I got vague memories of seeing this off a vhs. Which I am betting  was the cut for US version. Then next time I saw it was uncut in a not so great looking copy on youtube. This Kino Lober Blu ray looks great. So good that the Nam stock footage in the beginning really doesnt match up with the footage of Saxon and his platoon.

There is a commentary. An almost hour long documentary on the film. Plus some interviews. And trailers and stuff.

Really a loaded release for a film that I feel has been forgotten in favor of Ferox or Holocaust.

Cannibal Apocalypse gets a B.

31 Days of Horror 2023 Day 14 Ghosthouse aka La Casa 3

 

TITLE-Ghosthouse AKA La Casa 3

SOURCE-Shudder streaming service

Ahh Italian made horror. How I have loved you since I was a kid. At Video Showboat and no Jason films are in,not in the mood for the newest Elm street,so I grabbed whatever cover caught my eye. 

Ghosthouse is a late era Italian made horror. From 88,it was made in the States. But feels soo so Euro Horror. The score,the nonsensical plot,the school play level acting and the GORE!

House is haunted. People goto house. They get kilt in bloody ways. 

Come on people it's Italian horror that is what you get. 

So La Casa 3? What is that about? Seems films get renamed for Italy. Like how The Horror Show is known as House III in most non English speaking countries,which is why in the US and UK there is no House III. 

Those out there that speak a bit of other languages know Casa means House. So Ghosthouse is another film that can lay claim to being House III.

While they aren't as good as the 70s Italian horror I do enjoy the various later 80s ones I have seen. This,Stage Fright and others have  a feel to them that I can't get from US horror.

Now I am betting this is a film that is out on Blu ray,and maybe 4k,from some Boutique label. Where you gotta pay 30 bucks to get the movie,10 of that for the fancy slipcase. Don't do that. Pay 6 bucks for a month of Shudder,watch this and other stuff. 

Ghosthouse aka La Casa 3 gets a C+

31 Days of Horror 2022 Day 11 Demons 2

 

TITLE-Demons 2

SOURCE-Anchor Bay DVD

First off thank you to CodyLL for sending me this DVD. Pretty sure when this release came out a long ass time ago I bought it. But it appears to be one of my DVDs that came up missing when I moved in 2007.

Spring of 1986 in Italy work began on this sequel to the surprise hit film Demons. Demons had done ok at the US box office and became a cult hit on home video and cable. Both films are produced by Dario Argento and directed by Lamberto Bava. Lamberto is the son of famous Italian director Mario Bava, and in the 80s Lamberto got a reputation for making wildly gory films usually with pretty good soundtracks if you are into 80 hard rock and metal.

Speaking of the soundtrack just look at the line up for Demons 2. The Smiths,the Cult,Art of Noise,Dead can Dance and Love&Rockets. That is a good line up of goth rock/alternative rock and just oddball stuff of the era.

Like the first film we get a group of people stuck in a building while they slowly one by one get turned into Demons,usually in bloody gory ways. I love how the pimp from the first film,he was a favorite of mine and my friends back in the day watching that old rental vhs of the first film,is back in this film playing pretty much the same character.  Also you get a young,has to be 10 or so,Asia Argento in what I think is her first acting role.This time instead of being stuck in a theater while a demonic film plays,the cast is stuck in a huge apartment building while this demonic film plays on TV. Causing the demons to come out of the TV screens,I wonder if Ringu was inspired by this.

Yea I know there is blu ray releases of this. But honestly while I do enjoy the first Demons film enough that I will one day get one of the Blus of it,part 2....it isn't bad. But nothing about it screams "HEY GO DROP 30 BUCKS TO HAVE THIS ON BLU RAY!" I will be happy with this DVD.

The DVD looks nice and the dubbed dialogue ain't bad. Pretty sure this is the same dub I saw a long time ago on VHS. Anchor Bay has a commentary on the film. It is OK. One draw back is Lamberto Bava either isn't fluent in English or isn't comfortable talking in English for long periods. So there is parts where Bava says something in Italian and somene else translates for him. Besides that tiny thing the commentary is worth checking out. It has so few blank spaces and gives a decent amount of info.

So if you want to see a above average mid 80s Italian gore flick track down a copy of Demons 2. I bet it is streamiing on  some service. 

Demons 2 gets a C+

31 Days of Horror 2021 Day 26 Inferno

 

TITLE-Inferno

SOURCE-Airing on Starz

Usually once a week I will go thru the Dish Network guide and see what films are airing late at night on Starz,Encore and TMC. Sometimes I will find stuff I have been wanting to see for years so will set the DVR. It was back in early summer that I saw Starz was airing Dario Argento's second installment in the Three Mothers series of films. Then Inferno sat on the DVR for months before I took the time to watch it. Mostly cause there is only one TV in the house with the DVR and I get maybe 6 hours a week to watch stuff off that. Because that TV is in the living room and is usually being used by the others I share my house with.

Released in 1980 until the late 90s this was one of the harder to find Dario Argento films. It rarely aired on TV. It had a very limited theatrical release. And it's lone VHS release,on Key Video,was hard to find. 

Which made Inferno a film that I heard a bunch about for years. For years I would read about how this was a somewhat sequel to Suspiria. And how it had amazing visuals and sound work. Being a huge Argento fan,I had seen Suspiria and the US edited version of Creepers,I just had to see Inferno.

 It was at Coast Con in 1993 that I got my first chance to see the film. Like most cons back then there was a dealer with a table full of grey market/bootleg VHS. You know the guy that would have a table full of laserdisc rips on VHS. The guy that would sell ya a 10 generation dupe of the Star Wars Holiday Special for 30 bucks. Well this dealer was a guy who the year before I had bought a few tapes off of. I asked him if he had Inferno and got told not only did he have it but he had a letterboxed version that was uncut and from a Japanese Laserdisc. Back in those days Japanese Laserdisc rips were considered top of the line. I asked him how much,cause he never had prices on his tapes. Got told it was 35 bucks. Checked my wallet and I had 25 bucks in it. So I told him I would be back. Ran out to my car and drove super fast to the nearest branch of my bank and got money out of the ATM. Get back to the con and learn the dealer had sold the tape while I was gone. He offered "well tell ya what kid how about you give me the 35 bucks and your address and once I get home I will make ya a copy and mail it to you." I didn't do it. Mostly cause I was sure he would just take my money and not mail me the tape.

So it wasn't until Inferno got a region 1 DVD release that I got a chance to see it. The day that DVD came out I went to Best Buy on my lunch break and bought it. I think it was 35 bucks. And the next 4 hours at work felt like 12 hours. As soon as I got home I put the DVD in and watched Inferno. And felt let down. Maybe it was cause I had been hyping the movie up for close to 20 years in my head. Doesn't matter I was mad that this movie I had been wanting to see forever and one that I had been told by many people was great wasn't catching my attention.

Skip ahead to 2012 I was introducing my lady to Dario Argento. Before then all she had seen from Argento was his Phantom of the Opera film. After watching Suspiria she wanted to watch Inferno. I warned her that the film was disappointing. But she didn't care. We watched it and this time the movie worked for me. I loved the movie now. And as soon as we finished watching it I got her to drive me to a nearby movie store and bought a copy of Mother of Tears,which is the third film in the Three Mothers series.

A poet living in NYC buys a book from an rare book dealer. This book tells the story of the Three Mothers. One of whom we saw in Suspiria. And another,Mater Tenebrarum AKA the Mother of Darkness is living in NYC. And the poet is pretty sure she is living in the same building Mater Tenebrarum lives in.Following clues in the book the poet tries to find Mater Tenebrarum and sends a letter to her brother ,who lives in Rome where another of the mothers lives.

While not the most compelling plot in an Argento film,the visuals and sound in this movie are some of Argento's best. Plus the second unit stuff was directed by Mario Bava. Who is another great Italian director.

It wasn't until 2007 that Argento managed to get the third and final film in this series out. Mother of Tears is that film. And it is a film that either you love or you hate. I love it. But also understand why people would hate it.

If you like Argento's films and enjoy Italian horror cinema Inferno is a film you must see. And I'm glad that I didn't get to see it until DVD. Cause I bet seeing this on a shitty VHS dub would have hurt my enjoyment of the film. 

Inferno gets a B.

31 Days of Horror 2021 Day 19 House by the Cemetery

 

TITLE-The House by the Cemetery

SOURCE-Joe Bob's Last Drive In airing on Shudder

Some how this Lucio Fulci classic escaped me. Never found the VHS for rent or for sale. Never saw the DVD for sale. And after a bit I just forgot about it.

Skip ahead to near the end of winter in 2004. My wallet was flush with cash from my recent income tax return. After stopping at a near by Mom&Pop electronics store,bought a 42 inch Samsung Plasma tv,I went across the street to the local mall. Figuring I would buy a few DVDs to watch on my new TV. At a FYE I saw they were having a big sale. Spend 40 bucks and get 2 free DVDs out of their clearance bin. After grabbing a few wrestling DVDs and a couple of comedies I was over the 40 buck threshold. Went to dig into the clearance bin and saw.

I knew that Horror Rises from the Tomb was a Paul Naschy film. And after seeing Fury of the Wolfman and Werewolf vs the Vampire Women I was interested in seeing more of his films. I had no clue what the other 3 films on this set was. Plus since it was 2 discs,flippers with one movie per side,FYE counted it as 2 DVDs. I thought Fuck it! It's a Paul Naschy film I had never seen so I picked it as my free DVDs.

After I got home and hooked up the new TV,this set got place on the ever growing "To Be Watched"pile. And there it sat for a few years. When I moved again in early 2007 we went a few days without cable. So that To Be Watched pile shrunk some. This is when I learned that Zombie Hell House was just a retitled version of Fulci's The House by the Cemetery. 

From what I can find online Zombie Hell House is a UK retitling of the film. I'm guessing Brentwood,who put out the Horror Rises from the Graves set,just assumed this edit of the film was Public domain and released it.

After watching House by the Cemetery I saw why it was loved and hated. You start off right with a nice kill

With a knife to the back of a lady's skull. I wasn't prepared for the next scene though. We got another place. And are introduced to Bob....

As soon as he appeared on the screen I realized two things. First I had seen this same actor before in Warriors of the Wasteland,a great Mad Max Italian ripoff with Fred Williamson and George Eastman. And secondly once Bob spoke  I saw why everybody I knew that saw this film talked about how bad the dubbing for Bob was. He sounds like a 40 year old woman trying to do a young male kid's voice. It is so bad that the actor that plays Bob has at conventions and in interviews apologized for the dubbing.

Bob and his family move into the house where we saw the woman get knife to the skull. And shit just gets weirder. For example a bat comes into the house and attacks them. The dad manages to kill it in a fairly bloody way.

It being a Fulci movie I expected gore. And I'm a bit use to Italian horror films not always making lots of sense. This film has piles of stuff that just doesn't fit or make sense. Like when the mother comes into a room,sees the nanny cleaning blood off the floor. And after being told the nanny had just made coffee the Mom never mentions the big blood stain!

From what I have read an early home video release of this film got a couple of the film reels out of order. So you would see people die,then later on they were back alive. Which I'm sure back in the day people just chalked up to Italian horror not always making sense.

This isn't top tier Fulci horror. But it isn't his worse. The best way to watch this is with a group. And never ever try to figure out what the fuck is going on. Treat it like a nightmare and allow the dream logic to just flow.

The House by the Cemetery gets a C+.

31 Days of Horror Day 08 Anthropophagus

Title-Anthropophagous
Source-Midnight Video VHS

Also known as The Grim Reaper,Anthropophagous is an infamous film from Italian director Joe D'Amato. It is a movie that has suffered from being censored many times in various countries. In the States the first release ,known under the title Grim Reaper,was heavily cut. I had heard for years about all the stuff that was cut.

Then in the mid 90s at a con I found someone selling copies of Midnight Video's full uncut version of the movie. Midnight Video used many sources to make what was the first fully uncut version in  English. The main source was a Japanese VHS release.So lots of the film on this VHS has Japanese subtitles on the bottom of the screen. But even that Japanese VHS was missing two scenes. The first is a pre-credits of a couple being attacked on a beach,which sadly is in French with no subtitles. The other scene is from near the end of the film. It is the famous ending shot of the killer eating his own disemboweled intestines,which supposedly was only ever released on a hard to find VHS that came out in Venezuela. The only other scene in this version that wasn't in the Grim Reaper release is when the killer kills a pregnant woman then eats her fetus.

A group of young adults are on a cruise in their yacht during the summer. They agree to take a young American woman to a Greek island. They get to the island and there is no one there. And the telegraph line has been cut. Our young adults leave the pregnant member of their group on the boat and go explore the island.

On the  island they find a young blind girl. Who keeps telling them about an evil presence on the island. One by one the leads are attacked and killed by the title killer. Played by George Eastman aka Luigi Montefiori. Who is the son of a wealthy family. He got shipwrecked on the island.Becoming a cannibal after eating his wife and son.

It seems Midnight Video spent right at 3 years assembling their cut of this movie. Most of this version is made up of footage from the previously mentioned Japanese VHS. For some reason that VHS had audio in French. So the people at Midnight Video took the video from the Japanese VHS and married it with a English soundtrack. I admire all the work they did back then. In the days before we had easy to get audio and video editing software doing stuff like that was very hard to do and very very time consuming. Of course since this VHS came out there has been a few DVD releases. All of which now make this VHS look like crap. But back in the mid 90s this was the best you could do.

Honestly Anthropophagus is worth seeing if you are interested in late 70s/early 80s Italian gore movies. And thanks to Youtube you don't have to spend a bunch of money on the movie. I paid IIRC 30 bucks for the VHS. And I bet the DVD was about that price when it came out.

Here is the trailer. It isn't safe for work. But it does give you a good idea of what the film is about.

                                     

Anthropophagus gets a C+.