BLACK ROSES – Eighties silliness that takes on the whole ‘Metal is the tool of Satan’ outrage sparked by the wise minds of said decade. Needless to say, all that shite isn’t exactly dissected with a fine ideological scalpel here, it’s just a launch pad for bad metal interludes and some fairly lousy, but still satisfying and possibly even heart-warming, era-specific prosthetics. Mysterious band plays one-off gig in a small town, teacher worries about his flock… etc. Slightly odd in that it seems to be vouching for the squares in a way, contra to the ‘party-on, dude’ vibe of much light late eighties horror fare. The main draw is its oddness. The style is quite ‘off’, featuring patches of almost noirish lighting and a camera that does too many atmospheric-looking close-ups; all this wonk is amplified by some truly terrible acting and a vaguely curdled uncurrent when the high schoolers get ready to jiggy for Satan, although to be fair most of them look as if they’re in their mid to late thirties. Light on gore, heavy on trash and long on non-event, I somehow hold it in higher esteem than the slicker end of the eighties horror / metal crossover, although it may be too lame and tame for aficionados of that particular niche.
BABY BLOOD – Been so long since I last saw it that I can’t remember whether I’ve reviewed it here or not, but if I’m repeating myself (or completely contradicting myself) then I apologise. ‘Baby Blood’ is an odd French Indie horror from a time when that kind of thing wasn’t exactly commonplace, and presents a rambling picaresque in which an alien-impregnated young woman absconds from the circus, drifts through various down-at-heel slum scenes whilst feeding her squeaky-voiced unborn with the blood of admirers and assailants, then robs a mobile transfusion bank before giving birth on the run to a murderous Lovecraftian shrimp-thing. Tonally it’s all over the shop, veering from brutal to melancholy to wry to silly, sometimes all at once, often whilst bracketed by splashy gore. It’s not exactly that much of a laugh, but I was reminded of the films of Frank Henenlotter in a way, maybe just in terms of the set-up and the stabs at comedic monstrosity. It’s a film I get quite nostalgic about, remembering how Fangoria and Gorezone used to go on about it back in the day, and then it seemed to disappear. A strange slice of yesteryear, worth revisiting.
TREASURE OF THE AMAZON – Having fond memories of the inspired awfulness of ‘Beaks’, I thought it only fitting to try some of Rene Cardona Jr’s other movies, some of which were recently released by VS. TOFT tips its (arguably) ‘Indiana Jones’-derived hat to the eighties jungle adventure movies, although this distinctly low rent variant still has one foot in Italian cannibal cycle adjacents, hence the bits and pieces of bad gore that liven up the long stretches of bumbling questing and wildlife photography. If that’s not enough, there’s Donald Pleasance giving pretty bad Nazi, some bare breasted Amazons and a plethora of stilted, overplayed moments (capped by an awesome crab attack that rips-off to perfection the spider scene in Fulci’s ‘The Beyond’). The inspired bits don’t quite redeem the period sexism and the overall dullness, and it’s definitely not as satisfyingly schlocky as ‘Beaks’, but it’s worth a sit through.
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