Bikini vs. The Undead

Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad, based on the insanely popular Japanese video game by the same name (I forget what that is), stars Aya, an insanely hot Asian zombie hunter who wears little more than a tight bikini, a cowboy hat, stylish leather boots, a feather boa (to accessorize), floor-length coat (which comes off easily) and packs a magic sword to keep the undead away from her swimsuit area.

And speaking of, the zombies, scientifically created by the D3 Corporation, have all but taken over the world, most of which is now in ruins, with cities looking like half-finished meals. These zombies, however, have martial arts skills, can reason, form gangs and don’t have a single reason to use a toothbrush.

Aya, along with a fat-ass assistant Katsuji, make coleslaw out of the dead, using her trademark flips and spins and ricochet reflexes to separate head from neck, shirt from pants. Showing up to assist is Reika, another hot Asian gal in tight clothes who has blazing guns skills, which are also used to aerate zombie brains. Aya and Reika don’t really get along and even fight amongst themselves, but their skills are too evenly matched, so nothing is settled. (Might I suggested a “winner takes all” hot shower battle scene?)

Aya, though, is on an unstoppable mission: to find the killer of her father: her sister Saki (the girl, not the delicious rice wine that makes you throw up when you drink 12 shots). When Aya and Saki (dressed in a fetching schoolgirl outfit) converge, high-flying, sword-clanging action ensues. This is the part of the movie that looks more like the video game, using the same digital tornado effects and red and blue flaming swords. I didn’t care as much for this as Aya’s bikini made me hold my breath during the fight scene in anticipation of it suddenly being sucked off by the whirling wind tunnel the two girls battle to the death inside of without their hair getting messed up.

The first half of Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad has great bloodspill moments, but too many emotional segments distract from opportunities to model THE BIKINI. (I.e, Katsuiju finding his zombie little sister and having to kill her, Reika failing to protect another little girl from the undead and having to shoot the pre-teen face-eater like she did her own daughter, blah, blah, blah).

Because of this, I’ll only watch it three or more times.

Demons: Then And Now

In 1988, a bunch of law-disregarding teens break into the abandoned Hull House Mortuary to have a Halloween heavy metal vomit party. This was the scene where the Hull family was murdered by an unknown something or rather. Creepy, yet ambient.

During a seance (made probable with alcohol and vomit), a demonic entity was released from the crematorium’s corpse BBQ furnace. One by one the party ’tards, who have split off to have pre-marital relations in coffins and other acts of kindness, are possessed by the double-evil spirit. Anyone left standing is submitted to relentless peer pressure to demon-up before the break of dawn sends everyone back to Heck.

The movie’s other points of interest are original scream queen Linnea Quigley’s “lipstick-into-the-boob” scene, a ground-breaking moment for all of mankind.

In 2010, a bunch of college idiots throw a Halloween party in the Broussard Mansion, where eighty years earlier six people disappeared without saying goodbye. The mansion’s owner, Evangeline Broussard, hung herself there, giving the plot a reason to do something other than watch a bunch of dumbass people get drunk and even more stupid.

The police arrive to arrest everyone for acting poorly. But seven (hmm — that sounds familiar) decide to hide out and continue the festivities. As it happens, demonic entities need seven “vessels” in order to break free of the curse that put them there. Possession and graphic face-ripping ensues. But the most shocking moment comes when they discover their cell phones no longer work. (You’re shuddering in fear already, aren’t you?)

The Night of the Demons remake, with about 10 minutes of thought going into the plot, is not without a bit of horror pedigree. Eye candy screen savers Diora Baird (as Lily) previously starred in Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006); Monica Keena (as Maddie) was in Freddy vs. Jason (2003); and Shannon Elizabeth was in the Thir13en Ghosts (2001) remake and the lunch-recycling Cursed (2005).

All of this, however, pales in comparison to the original Night of the Demons’ Linnea Quigley, the Goldie Hawn of Horror, who appeared as Suzanne, a slutty sexy party girl who takes off her clothes and shows everything, even her zip code. Mind you, she’s done it before in such pant-stiffening horror classics as Return of the Living Dead (1985) and Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (1988) to Dr. Alien (1989) and Mari-Cookie and the Killer Tarantula in 8 Legs to Love You (1998). Linnea’s score card: over 100 movies, 25 scary movie documentaries, and countless appearances in everything from soundtracks to film magazines. And some even feature her WITH clothes.

A note to Diora, Monica and Shannon: You’ve got a LOT of underwear to drop before you can step into the, um, panties of one of horror’s all-time greatest — and sexiest — scream queens. And you’re waiting why?

Night of the Demons 2010 sounds promising, but you really need to see the original in order to put demons, vomit, coffin sex and lipstick-in-the-boob into proper perspective.

Foreign Jaws

It may look like Jaws. It may swim like Jaws. It may chew on swimmers as though they were bleeding bubblegum like Jaws. But it ain’t Jaws. Nope, these are stunning examples of Jaws plagiarism done by the Japanese back in the late ’70s/early ’80s. Normally, we’d just bomb ’em for blatantly ripping us off like that (I believe there’s a precedent). But there’s too many cute girls over there, the food’s good (tempura hamburgers rock), and Godzilla’s cool, so all we can do is grit our jaws and give them the frowning of a lifetime.

Copying the exact same shark we’ve come to know as Jaws, the Japanese (and a LOT of other countries) rushed to cash in on filmmaker Stephen Speilberg’s 1975 phenomenal success with the most famous shark movie of all time and space. They rode the wave by naming their movies (and sequels – what f’n nerve) Jaws Attack, Jaws Attack 2, Jaws Returns, and Jaws ’98. (Yep, they kept ripping us off that long.) Then, in a stunning “up yours” to shark fans the world over, they sold ’em to cable television stations with such titles as Cruel Jaws, Monster Shark, Last Shark and Eater Shark. (OK, I kinda like that last one.)

And if that wasn’t enough to chew your legs, the plots were almost all identical: A rogue shark gets a hankerin’ for some human aqua jerky and heads into a heavily populated beach area where there are lots of screaming snack-packs waiting to be opened/enjoyed. The mayor wants to keep the beach open for tax purposes. The local sheriff is freaking over all the blood. A bounty hunter is called in to save the day. And while this is killing time, the over-sized shark is on its third and fourth course of floating appetizers. Sound familiar?

Like Dracula (1931) did for vampire movies, the global success of Jaws spawned (GREAT analogous word use as swimmy things in the water make out, or “spawn”) a veritable fishery of knockoffs. Some of the better ones came from Italy, Mexico and Germany, places where ultra-gore and no discernable plots were practically invented. They had no problem showing meaty people being savored by a great white shark, with gooshing blood so red you’d think it was fake.

Of these keepers is Murder Shark (aka, Mörderhaie greifen an, 1975), Night of the Sharks (2001), Tiburon (’70s, I think), Killer Hai (good luck finding the release date on that one), and Tintorera (1977). Yes, there’s hundreds more, but these titles have a certain something that at least strive to be a little more than a Jaws photocopy. (Tintorera has two party guys on a sailboat taking romantic turns with a party girl. One guy eventually gets jealous and tricks the other into swimming in the Chomp Zone. Guess whose waiting to chew him out?)

You can find most of these movies on video clearing house websites. (Do your homework — I did.) A lot are only available on VHS, so dust off that ’ol 8-track and get yourself some cheesy, gore-filled, low-budget plagiarism. Don’t let me be the only one.

P.S. The graphic representing Tiburon up top is actually the cover of an erotic (or “dirty”) book. I couldn’t find the original movie poster anywhere, no matter how many dirty websites I researched. The Tiburon DVD cover below is merely the Spanish version/title of Jaws. Cool, I suppose. But I like the erotico version more/better.

A Different Kind Of Zombie

A virus has overtaken an English city and 99.9% of its occupants start coughing, bleeding from primary orifices, then dying. Sucks if you fall into that group percentile. What few survivors remain hole up in a bingo hall and try to figure out what to do next. While they bitch, moan and argue to the point of punching each other in the primary orifice, the bodies, humdreds of thousands of them (the DVD cover says billions – yeah right, no one can count that high), lay rotting in the streets. It doesn’t take long for said worm hotels to get up and start walking around. These aren’t hostile zombies, nor do they go after your skin like Kentucky Fried Chicken Original Recipe™ entrees. You can put your face right up next to theirs and no surprise face-biting-off.

Several people — three guys and a chick (she has choices, they don’t) — decide to break off from the group and find a house in the countryside. The arrive at a place that has a generator in a separate garage, and, for a short time, all is well. Until the dead find them. Drawn by the sound of the generator, apparently noise angries up their coagulated motor oil blood. Turn the sound off, they go back to being docile. For now. Slowly, the dead are regaining their intelligence, like waking up after a night of binge drinking. And they’re getting more aggressive. (Didn’t anyone think about getting a house boat?)

One guy decides to drive a motorcycle back into the city to pay one last visit to his dead wife and daughter. Not a good idea. The last remaining man and chick build a fence around the house to keep the walking dead out. Good idea, though it doesn’t work. The motorcycle guy comes back (barely), and the dead, now going bat-shit crazy, descend on the house. Someone needs to change their name to bait so the other two can escape. Good idea — for two of ’em anyway.

Autumn is a slow, methodical and realistic approach to the dead coming back to life. While the “zombies” are pretty cool in all their various stages of decomposing, there’s hardly any blood, no guts, no severed limbs, and no face-biting-off. And yet it’s oddly entertaining. David Carradine makes a cameo as an aging hippie who survived the virus, but his mom didn’t. He still takes care of her, though. If you like movies about the undead, you’ll like Autumn’s um, fresh handling of the subject matter. If you’re looking for face-biting-off, keep moving.

Godzilla’s New Clothes

After the grand failure of Godzilla (1998), it was widely assumed Toho, owners of all things Godzilla, would never let Americans touch their cash cow ever again. Oh sure, it made $379,014,294 globally (I looked it up on Wikipedia, so I’m pretty sure those numbers are accurate), but G-fans everywhere cried foul over the inept handling of one of horror/sci-fi’s greatest icons.

The problems were many, starting with the Godzilla’s new look. Those poke-y things sticking out of his back were cool, but this Godzilla had a bus-shaped head, beady criminal eyes, bounced around like a kangaroo on crack, and had women competition body builder legs. And he ran away from the military. The REAL Godzilla, made large by human ’n butter sandwiches, would never turn tail from artillery. (He’s so fat, he can’t run, let alone jog.)

So it comes as a surprise that the Japanese are letting us take another crack at Godzilla, a new movie due out in 2013. And the concept art of how our favorite skyscraper-eater looks is starting to make the rounds. First impression: kick ass. (G-sculpture by Hector A. Arce.)

Godzilla 2012 looks more like Godzilla 1954, but with a thicker neck (steroids) and improved radioactive breath. He has a sleeker, more reptilian face, and looks like a modern Godzilla should – not like a mutated gecko in a Speedo that was Godzilla 1998.

And while we’re on the subject, one of the other problems of the American remake was the movie’s sub-plot, which involved a dumb blonde and Ferris Bueller. Too much time was spent on their relationship and not enough on knocking buildings over, which is why we go see Godzilla movies in the first place. And really, when you come right down to it, the only dialogue people should have in Godzilla movies is, “Aiyeeeeeee!”

This is our chance to make up for the debacle of 1998. Let’s hope the new producers have learned what not to do and will make something worthy of Godzilla’s legacy.

P.S. Please put me in this movie. Pleeeeeeeeeeeeease!

Predator Guitar

It’s nearly six-feet long. It’s 22 inches wide. It weighs 21 lbs. And it’ll cut your legs clean off if you sit down to play it.

Behold, Venator Securis, or “Axe of the Hunter,” one of the most unreal guitars ever made. And unless the Predator joins Slayer, you can actually own this thing for yourself.

Venator Securis was built over a four-month period, with artist V. Blast meticulously documenting every step of the way with notes and photos. (Over 200 to be exact.) The result is a fully functioning Steampunk-meets-Heavy Metal instrument that works as an art piece, a one-of-a-kind guitar that every Swedish death metal band will want, as well as a human can opener the Predator might use to crack your skull in half and scoop out the glisten-y insides for a snack.

The detailing is stunning, with re-shaped steel and V. Blast’s signature glyph work adorning the body. (The back is as cool as the front.) If you were to walk down the street carrying this thing, entire civilizations would bow to their knees. And children would cry and a few dogs might bark. Bottom line: you can get a LOT of respect with an axe like this slung over your shoulder. Heck, you wouldn’t even need to play it – just start ruling nations.

Venator Securis was conceived by famous Seattle artist/shock rock musician, V. Blast, a man almost as scary looking as the guitar. (Actually, he’s just a big teddy bear — with tattoos.) V played bass in the speedcore band Mace back in the ’80s and later was the lead singer for The Pleasure Elite, often performing without clothes. (Same with the rest of the band.)

Wanna buy it? Of course you do. Click HERE to see more photos of the guitar and to contact V. Blast about how much it’s gonna set you back. Venator Securis ships in a wooden case so heavy-duty, even the Predator’s dog couldn’t tear through it. V tells me, he’ll personally deliver the guitar (to save shipping costs) in a 150-mile radius of Seattle, Washington. This is good as the guitar and case weights over 90 lbs. If you’re in a Swedish death metal band, plan on adding a significant amount to ship it overseas.

Venator Securis will not be duplicated in this or any other life-time. While there is a price for this priceless guitar, you can’t afford to not own it. There are worlds to be conquered – and you can do it with…VENATOR SECURIS.

P.S. Visit V. Blast’s website HERE to see more of his other-worldly paintings and metal sculptures. And yes, he does commission work.

Vintage Monsters Eat Your Eyes

Though the printed word is nearly as dead as Dracula’s brother’s neighbor’s cousin (books are so 2004), that hasn’t stopped some people from committing publishing suicide. Take Vintage Monsters magazine for example. A German/English monster magazine overflowing with classic horror and science fiction lobby card/movie poster art, incredible illustrations, and pictures of girls without their clothes on (I totally made up that last part), you’d think people would be making bears in their pants to get a copy. And they should. (Buying the magazine, not making pant bears.) And yet with the cost of color printing combined with everybody reading stuff on the internet (the world’s biggest gossip column), Vintage Monsters has a tough straße ahead.

The first issue (or “issue #1”) is written in both German talk and English speak, and is actually pretty darn amazing, with rarely seen stills and posters from such obscure horror gems as The Black Pit of Dr. M (1959), Taste the Blood of Dracula (1974), and the freakin’ hard-to-find Planet of the Vampires (1965). Just so you have closure, Dr. M’s pit is not quite black; it’s more of a dark charcoal gray. Dracula’s blood tastes like chicken. And Planet of the Vampires is way better than Daybreakers.

So yeah, you need this magazine. Here are its stats: Vintage Monsters is published in Hamburg, Germany. Retail price for the first issue is $7.50 US/5,00- Euros. Shipping rates for one or two copies within Europe are $4.20 US/3,20- Euros. Outside Europe, airmail rates for up to three copies are $8.00 US/6,00- Euros. Order it by contacting the publishers at info@VintageMoviePosters.de

Still not sold? Then quit surfing sites like http://www.farthammer.com and http://www.thingspeopleputintheirbutts.org and check out their web page (click HERE). The site is in some sort of weird dialect, so go pick up Rosetta Stone, the language teaching software, spend several months learning how to der speak Germanese, then go back to the site and fill your mind with classic monster and sci-fi stuff.

The guys behind the magazine are Andreas Schiefler (owner of Vintage Movie Posters) and Ralf Lorenz (Gualagon, Pranke: Das Filmmagazin für Monsterfreaks). Andreas’ movie posters site has das boot load of vintage and extremely rare horror lobby cards, posters, stills — every thing you need to start your own magazine. Click HERE to see if I’m lying to your face.

All of the prices are quoted in Euros. (What a dumb name for money. They should call it Border Bucks.) So if you’re sitting on a wad of Border Bucks, consider buying me an Alien movie still of Ripley in her underwear. Just tell ’em you want the “Das Unheimliche Wesen aus einer fremden Welt” when ordering by phone. Thanks, man!

Tokyo Gore School: Class Dismissed

The title Tokyo Gore School is misleading and thereby sets itself up for a lawsuit. According to my comprehensive legal research (3 minutes on the web), Tokyo Gore School (2009 movie release/2010 DVD release) is NOT a sequel to Tokyo Gore Police (2008), and therefore should not imply itself as such. I rest my case.

Tokyo Gore School is actually a far-reaching sequel to Battle Royale (2000), a Japanese splat-fest that put an entire high school class in an abandoned school on an island so far out in the ocean, only Godzilla and/or Mecha-Flipper could get to it. The students are fitted with electric collars (good idea — they ALL should be) and told they are unwilling participants in the Millennial Educational Reform Act, or Battle Royale. The goal: be the last student standing. The rules: kill your classmates by any and all means necessary. Not sure how this is any different than the education system of today.

Tokyo Gore School, picking up 10 years after Battle Royale left off, employs the same outline, only this time pitting gangs of kids who fight each other to grisly and graphic deaths over (wait for it) each other’s cell phones. (Did someone just groan out loud?) And of course, the government is behind it all. Last one standing gets free minutes added to their “friends ’n family” plan.

Tokyo Gore Police, on the other deformed hand, is about a special female police agent who goes after Engineers, mutants that when damaged, re-grow into horrific and way cool bio-freaks. There’s more blood and body parts thrown around in this movie than a party slaughterhouse killing floor. They had the name first, so Tokyo Gore School fails and should be made to write on the chalkboard one million times, “I will not copy other people’s bloody homework.”

So what have we learned? To never trust Japan? To not get suckered by swerve movie titles that ride the coattails of other successful films? To go shopping for back-to-school electric collars for our kids?

All of the above.

Human Centipede: Mouthful of Ick

A centipede is a pencil-long wiggly anthropod with shoe-less legs that range anywhere from 20 to 300, depending on whether said bug is a freakin’ mutant.

A human centipede has six arms and six legs and is approximately 16-17 feet in length. Other distinguishing features include faces grafted to buttholes, with only one incoming and one outgoing mail chute. It is neither male nor female, yet both. So far there isn’t a can of Raid™ big enough to keep this thing from getting in your cupboards.

The Human Centipede: First Sequence is a “shocking” horror movie involving a German doctor living in seclusion who has been experimenting with creating one gastronomical tube through three human bodies. To do that he needs to sew Subject B’s mouth to the Hershey Highway of Subject A, and like Leggos™ add on another mouth to the swinging back door of Subject B, thereby becoming Subject C. (Don’t worry if you can’t keep up with all this medical jargon – the pictures will help.)

Dr. Heiter lucks out when two American college girls end up on his doorstep after their car breaks down on the way to a party where they had planned to drink, dance and get felt up by foreign dudes. Drugging their water while they “wait for a tow truck,” the country doc puts them on surgical tables downstairs where he already has a Japanese guy who can’t speak a lick of English or German, strapped down and prepped for butt surgery.

And here’s where The Human Centipede: First Sequence denies us our rights. They show before the surgery. They show after the surgery. But they don’t show us any medical procedures that would make your face shrivel up like a rotted plum. If you’re gonna do a movie about connecting people’s faces to couch cushions, then put it on the glass. Geez.

The Japanese guy is the lucky one as he has two hot chicks chasing his tail (heh). He screams and yells, but since it’s in a different language, the doctor pretty much ignores him. The girls, on the other hand, are unable to talk. That’s because it’s not polite to talk with your mouth full. (Funny, though I apologize.)

The ONLY time this movie takes us to that dark place is when the Japanese guy eats and then eventually has to go to the bathroom that is the girl’s mouths. Eeewww! You don’t actually get to see any wrongness, but you do get some sound effects and facial expressions that’ll give you the dry heaves. A couple detectives show up and see the medical abomination. This scenario ends quickly, but not how you’d expect. In the end (sorry) only one person remains alive. And it’s not who you think it is.

The Human Centipede: First Sequence is definitely shocking in nature. I just don’t understand why you’d go to all that trouble and not show the details. Everybody is wrapped in bandages, so you’re left to your own imagination. Mine’s pretty warped, so yeah, I gooned myself out. You’ll have to do that all on your own, though, if you want anything satisfying out of this experience.

The Back Side of Horror

It used to be boobs were the go-to selling point for horror movie one-sheets. And for good reason: boobs freakin’ rock, man. Just the mere sight of exposed lady lumps under a paper-thin blouse being ripped into confetti by a werewolf or robot or some sort of humanoid from the deep was all it took to get people (OK, me) to buy a movie ticket.

The trend these days is to put some shapely booty in the ads. No complaints here. In fact, I invoke the immortal words of one Sir Mix-A-Lot: “Give me a sister, I can’t resist her, red beans and rice didn’t miss her…” ( I don’t care who you are, Baby Got Back is a dang catchy song.)

The two well-rounded examples shown above are that Cloverfield chick (Odette Yustman) in The Unborn, and Sarah Butler as Jennifer in the I Spit On Your Grave remake. While that is for sure Odette’s full moon, I can’t be 100% sure if that’s Butler’s traffic-stopper on the Spit poster. I’ll need some time alone to, um, research it.

1978’s I Spit On Your Grave, a story about a woman involuntarily dated by four smelly guys, starred Camille Keaton as the gal with knife-scented perfume. A former Playmen™ playmate of the month in 1974 (back when real women didn’t do any landscaping, if you know what I mean), Camille was not featured on the movie poster, but had someone filling in as a stunt butt. Too bad – she had a fine trunk. And even though she’s now 63, she’s still got it goin’ on.

I heartily support the trend of using backs for fronts. I hope I’m not being an ass by saying that. Yes, boobs will always be great, but rear ends truly are all they’re cracked up to be. Don’t be split down the middle on this issue. Just take it in a bottle, or take it in the can.

You can tell me to stop any time now.