Simon, King of the Witches (1971)

Dir: Bruce Kessler

This wonderfully psychedelic film begins with the titular character (played by Andrew Prine) living in a storm drain and selling occult trinkets to rich scenesters. As his status among them increases, following a couple of effective spells, so does his power. He becomes convinced that if he can just perfect this one magical working, the entire universe and all the Gods will bend to his will. "Simon" is a very interesting film with a great deal of both intelligent subtext and high camp satire. It doesn't always entirely work but that's not for lack of ambition. With its genuine grasp of matters esoteric (the screenwriter was a practicing warlock), its startling imagery and its rabid lead performance - Prine is at once charismatic, psychotic, lovable, cool, irresistible, terrifying and pathetic - there's much to love here. At times it kind of plays like a cross between "Fight Club" and the Gospel of Christ, only far funnier than either. If nothing else, you've got to give that points for originality. ***

The Mansion of Madness (1973)

Dir: Juan López Moctezuma

Surreal Mexican horror (loosely based on Poe) in which a journalist named Gaston LeBlanc shows up at an insane asylum in the woods, hoping to write a piece on the methods of the famous Dr Maillard. Said methods start seeming a little unorthodox (assuming crucifixions in the basement and attempted human sacrifices are unorthodox to you) and Gaston soon suspects the inmates may have taken over the asylum. Director Moctezuma's understanding of surrealism and its power to unsettle is strong and its hard to deny the weirdness of images like a man dry-humping a skinned veal carcass or three people dressed as birds performing a scythe-toting dance of death. The film looks fantastic - so many shots are framed as things of beauty - but ultimately the thin Z-movie plotting is so predictable and generic that it lets down the overall effect (especially during a seemingly endless chase through the woods sequence in the middle). At its best, the film scales the giddy heights of Russell and Jodorowsky but frustratingly fails to sustain anything like that for a full 83 minutes. Clearly a dry run for the director's later masterpiece, Alucarda. **1/2

Vamp (1986)

Dir: Richard Wenk

Irresistible 80s comedy-horror with a trio of dorks needing to hire a stripper in order to get into the frat house of their choice. Unfortunately, they end up at the After Dark Club where the dancers (led by the inimitable Grace Jones) are perhaps a little TOO exotic. Bloodsucking mayhem (that undoubtedly inspired "From Dusk 'Til Dawn") ensues. Although she's only onscreen for maybe 15 minutes of the run time, Jones steals the show with her hypnotic dancing and jaw-dropping costumes (a dress made of wire!) but this isn't to say the rest of the film isn't worthwhile. The whole thing is neon-lit in pornographic pinks and greens that look gorgeous. The lead actors have good chemistry which helps the jokes fly high and the horror, when it happens, is full of splattery, rubbery goodness. Stylish and zippy, "Vamp" holds its own and hasn't dated as badly as many of its peers. Still worth a bite. ***

Beyond Reanimator (2003)

Dir: Brian Yuzna

Lacklustre threequel that fails to live up to its predecessors. Jeffrey Combs is back as Herbert West but this time he's in prison. The clink doc, Howard Phillips (GROAN), enlists West to help in the clinic but his ulterior motive is to produce more of West's "re-agent", the secret formula that brings back the dead. Before long, zombies abound and the traditionally splattery mayhem ensues. Unfortunately, there's something missing. Although we get everything from twitching, rat-bothering severed penises to eyeballs running around of their own volition, the "shock and awe" of the first film's insane gore is missing. Instead, the mix of comedy and brutality just jars and feels somehow gross (in the bad way) and yet very, very dull. The fact that they use endlessly convoluted pseudo-science to justify what's basically a retread of the first two films just makes it all the more tedious. The prosthetic work by Screaming Mad George is technically excellent and Elsa Pataky is always a pleasure but otherwise, there's not much here. *1/2

Machine Head (2000)

Dir: Michael Patrick Leonard Murphy (I think?)

Ultra-obscure weirdness that got released in the UK with the worst quality DVD transfer imaginable. It looks like a straight copy from a 3rd generation VHS tape that the cat sicked up on, which is a shame as the movie deserves better. In true Frankenstylee, a nerd brings a corpse back to life by attaching a lawnmower motor to its head and doing science (reversal of polarity, bouncing graviton particle beams or some other such made-up shit). This leads to a RAMPAGE! The script is surprisingly witty and poignant given the subject matter and, while it's clearly an el cheapo production, the editing and photography indicate the director at least went to film school. Some crowd scenes and impressive looking pyro also make the most of budgetary constraints. In fact, predictable storyline and some questionable acting aside, I found it hard not to warm to this. It's got heart. Even if that heart runs on petrol. Shame no one involved (seemingly) ever did anything again as it could've been the start of some beautiful careers. **1/2

Behind the Mask : The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)

Dir: Scott Glosserman

Post-modern slasher film in which a documentary crew follows a serial killer as he chooses and stalks a new group of teenage victims. Although it owes a little to the superior "Man Bites Dog", the twist here is that, rather than being a straight killer, our titular Leslie Vernon is a horror movie slasher. There are some truly laugh-out-loud hilarious sequences where he deconstructs all the familiar film tropes for the audience and explains of the difficulty of things like running really fast but making it look like you're walking. Writer/director Glosserman has obviously watched a lot of movies and his film works both as a clever pastiche and a suspenseful slasher in itself. It won't change your life but it's fun, whip-smart stuff that turns the Fourth Wall to rubble - basically the film that "Scream" could've been if it only had a brain. ***

I Sell The Dead (2008)

Dir: Glenn McQuaid

Wildly inventive period piece in which two grave robbers boost their trade by supplying a more exotic product. Sadly, once they start exhuming the corpses of vampires, zombies and aliens (!), this attracts the attention of some very unsavoury local characters. Building up slowly, this one goes from the sublime to the ridiculous quite effortlessly and while it could maybe do with a little polishing, there are enough outlandish ideas, hilarious one-liners and Abbot & Costello style japery to ensure a good time is had by all. Dominic Monaghan and Larry Fessenden make a formidable double-act and their arch-nemeses, the Murphys provide the missing link you never knew existed between Charles Dickens and Quentin Tarantino characters. A strong debut. More like this one, thanks. ***

Dance of the Dead (2008)

Dir: Gregg Bishop

A troupe of goons from the high school sci-fi society inadvertently unleash the undead on prom night. Townsfolk turn into walking wormfood quicker than you can say “they’re coming to get you, Barbara”, so it’s left to the nerds goons to save the prom, kick zombie ass and change from boys into men while they’re at it. This rapid-fire splatterfest blends surprisingly sharp John Hughes-style comedy with a phenomenal level of gore and action. There’s little that’s new or original about it (except perhaps the zombie dissection frogs from the science lab) but it’s a great example of how to stay simple yet effective. The zombies show up pretty much immediately and, from that point on, there’s barely even time to grab a beer or open a bag of chips until the next spine is yanked out, the next arm ripped off or the next brain eaten. “Dance of the Dead” is a riot. See it. ***1/2

Black Sheep (2007)

Dir: Jonathan King

Genetic experiments gone awry create a flock of mutant sheep, hungry for human flesh. If you've read any pulp novels from the 70s or 80s, you'll have heard this plot more times than you care to remember, featuring any animal from crabs to pigs and back again. When you factor in that this is a New Zealand film, the use of sheep becomes depressingly obvious. However, much kudos to first-time writer/director King for taking such a tired idea and actually making it fly. "Black Sheep" is great. The characters, although stereotypes, are fleshed out enough to make you care. The dialogue is sharp. The jokes are way more hit than miss (including one scene in a truck that had me, literally, in tears with laughter) and there's an intelligence, even to the dumbest of fart gags, that forces the film to restrain itself when in risk of going too far. Throw in some well- orchestrated scenes of tension and horror, gooey prosthetic FX and slick cinematography and you've got a winner. This low-key little movie is far closer to Edgar Wright than it is to Peter Jackson. A nice effort and I look forward to seeing what comes next from these guys. ***

Society (1989)

Dir: Brian Yuzna

As directorial debuts go, Brian Yuzna (who's subsequently failed to direct anything of interest) made quite a splash with "Society". A gooey, slimy, multi-coloured splash that you'll find hard to wipe off. Billy Warlock plays a Beverly Hills teenager who finds he doesn't fit in with his schoolmates or his family. He feels they're excluding him from something and that they look down on him. His shrink tells him that he's being paranoid and it's just teenage angst but, as the film goes on, Billy realises that the secrets behind his affluent community are more nightmarish than he could've possibly imagined. Shocking, original and seriously fuckin' weird, "Society" certainly has the accolade of being a film unlike any other I've seen. It's a little dated at times perhaps and its social satire element is hardly world-shattering, but still ... that's one Hell of an ending. Screaming Mad George's sickening special FX still make me squirm. Happy 'shunting'! ***1/2

The Eye 10 (...Infinity) (2005)

Dir: Oxide and Danny Pang

Well, the good news is that the ordinarily po-faced Pang Brothers seem to have developed a sense of humour. The bad news is that it isn't funny. This inconsistent comedy/horror sequel bears little relation to the previous two "Eye" films. A teenager purchases a useful old book called "10 Ways To See Ghosts" and tries to conjure spirits through its arcane suggestions. The tone of the movie shifts between frat-house comedy (who'd've thought that a single, well-placed fart in the spirit world could dispel demons?) to the moody'n'spooky style the Pangs are renknowned for, but since most of the scenes are neither funny nor scary, it fails on both levels. Instead we're treated to mindless shit like a five minute sequence of a girl being chased down a corridor by a supernatural basketball. There is only one joke that's funny (it involves the kid from the first "Eye" film being kicked in the face - rar!) and the rest of the movie is pure tedium. As ever, the atmosphere and photography are lush but this, to me, just says the Pangs should stick to music videos. They clearly can't write a screenplay to save their lives. Sigh. Do you remember when Asia was at the cutting edge of the genre? Seems like such a very long time ago now.

The Day of the Beast (1995)

Dir: Álex de la Iglesia

A theologian priest discovers, through extensive study, that the Book of Revelations is a cryptogram which, when deciphered, announces the birth of the Antichrist on December 25th, 1995. Convinced that this is to occur in Madrid, the priest enlists the help of a death metal record shop owner and a fraudulent TV spiritualist in order to prevent the Apocalypse by tricking Satan. Far from being as crude or exploitative as this sounds (especially when coming from the director of the raucous "Accion Mutante"), "The Day of the Beast" is strangely sensitive towards its subject matter. A 'buddy movie' with a difference, this modern masterpiece is intelligent, lively, loaded with hysterical gallows humour and a constant flow of inventive madness that never descends into schlock. The twisty screenplay is watertight and considered; the photography is breathtaking; the three leads (Alex Angulo, Armando De Razza and Santiago Segura) play their parts phenomenally so by the end, you're not only endeared to them but convinced that their insane mission is somehow bonafide. Quite frankly, this is one of the best films I've seen in any genre and a double-bill with this and "Gremlins" would be the best Christmas present you could give to someone. ****

Accion Mutante (1993)

Dir: Alex de la Iglesia

An ultra-gory, futuristic black comedy from Spain about a terrorist organisation (Accion Mutante, or Mutant Action, in English) of freaks and cripples who wage all-out war on the rich and beautiful. They plan the high-profile kidnapping of a millionaire baker's daughter but it all screws up in the most original take on the age-old 'heist gone bad' storyline that I can remember. First-time director Iglesia (under the guiding hand of Pedro Almodóvar, no less) shoots with style and verve, punctuating his brain-melting script with some of the most eye-popping visual weirdness this side of Takashi Miike (yeah, that's right - your whole head's gonna blow!). As for the humour; imagine a meaner, darker and madder "League of Gentlemen" and you're in the right area. Throw in a sprinkling of vicious social satire, some fuck-off firearms and more pint-for-pint gore than you can shake a dismembered Peter Jackson fan at, and you're in for one Hell of a ride down the tunnel of lunacy. A genuine one-of-a-kind flick and, to really cap it off, the ending is, astonishingly, rather romantic. Deranged, beautiful brilliance and a rare flash of true genius at work. You'd be madder than its makers if you missed it. ****

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre : The Next Generation (1994)

Dir: Kim Henkel

This perplexingly banal send-up of the series from its original creator pits a group of swiftly disposable teens against a bizarre new family of chainsaw-wielding murderers. That's really all there is, plotwise. Renée Zellweger runs around and screams. Matthew McConaughey runs after her and screams even more (by Christ, he's such an irritating hack actor; how on Earth did he get famous?). Some guy called Robert Jacks plays Leatherface, but he doesn't do a lot besides scream, run around and, uh, dress up as a woman. In drag, he's a deadringer for Kelly Osbourne; this is probably the scariest part of the movie. Otherwise, it's predictable, moronic stuff and devoid of thrills, gore or even the laughs it seems to be striving for with its, um, eccentric brand of black comedy. I have absolutely no clue what the ending (featuring a time-travelling Marilyn Burns cameo) is supposed to mean, but I detect it's some kind of surrealist private joke that the audience hasn't been let in on. Maybe I just don't understand the subtle nuances of Kim Henkel's Texan humour, but this is 83 minutes of my life that I will never see again and that saddens me a little. *

Sexbomb (1988)

Dir: Jeff Broadstreet

Inane spoof from the ever-schlocky production house of Fred Olen Ray. This one is an elaborate cause-and-effect farce about "I Rip Your Flesh With Pliers", a fictional splatter movie. The cast and crew seem less concerned about manufacturing onscreen violence and more into just killing one another. There are some sporadically amusing moments (the exploding horny werewolf raised a smile), weird ideas and Grade A eye candy (Linnea Quigley and Delia Shepphard being the female leads), but this can't sustain it for 86 laboured minutes. There's even a terrible musical number half way through in which 'Ethan', the plier-wielding serial killer, chases Linnea (wearing a 'VICTIM' t-shirt) around the set whilst occasionally stopping for the twist and the mashed potato. I really need to stop watching this kind of film before my brain gives out entirely. *1/2

The Abominable Dr Phibes (1971)

Dir: Robert Fuest

Cruel and unusual classic with Vincent Price in the titular role, a mad/genius doctor hellbent for revenge upon the nine surgeons present when his wife died on the operating table. He holds them responsible and is killing them off, one by one, in the style of Biblical plagues. The tone of the movie is (very) darkly comical with a vicious streak, yet occasionally it achieves a certain sublimity. Price is haunting and eerie as Phibes, the set design is lavish, beautiful and quite unlike any other film. The imaginatively bleak ending is merely the icing on an already thoroughly original cake. An obvious precursor to "Theatre of Blood", "Se7en" and the "Saw" movies, "The Abominable Dr Phibes" is essential viewing for any genre fan. It's also the only film in which you'll hear the wonderful line, "A brass unicorn has been catapulted across a London street and impaled an eminent surgeon. Words fail me, gentlemen." ***1/2

May (2002)

Dir: Lucky McKee

I passed this one by completely on release thanks to some lame, unimaginative poster art that made it look like some kind of teen telepathy flick. I couldn't've been more wrong. Bettis plays the titular character; a lonely, strange young woman who sews up animals for a living and has no friends. She becomes disastrously obsessed with a Dario Argento fanatic she meets at the laundromat (the ever-watchable Jeremy Sisto) The first half of the film plays like a quirky black comedy, charting her failed attempts to woo him, but it all goes rather dark and bloody in the second half. Where it leads is maybe not entirely unsurprising (and may or may not be directly influenced by "The House That Screamed") but it's difficult to dislike, thanks to such excellent performances all round, an endearing screenplay and a certain sadness that McKee captures beautifully. The ending, in its own strange way, is both sweet and mournful. An unusual gem that earns its "instant cult classic" tag with ease. ***1/2

Raw Meat (1972)

Dir: Gary Sherman

Mind the doors! This one's a gory old Brit-horror about a cannibal ghoul living in the London Underground system. The ever-wonderful Donald Pleasance excels himself with a star turn as a no-nonsense (or all-nonsense, depending on how you look at it) cockney copper hot on the cannibal's sticky trail. This fairly straightforward police/slasher story is made hugely enjoyable thanks to some great acting, an unusual setting, eerie photography and one almighty streak of black humour (Pleasance is side-splitting). Also it's super-cool to see the shot-on-location footage of early-70s London in all its sleazy, sordid splendour. Watching "Raw Meat" makes you wonder why any idiot would've put up money for a big piece of poo like (the verrrrry similarly themed) "Creep" 20+ years later. This one's just fine as it is, thanks. An underrated diamond. ***

Rojo Sangre (2004)

Dir: Christian Molina

Paul Naschy (who also wrote this film's excellent screenplay) stars as an aging actor, legendary in the 70s but now unable to land a role (even in TV commercials) due to the changing times. Desperate and suicidal, he accepts a job as a human statue outside a mysterious stag club called Pandora... I won't give away anything else for fear of ruining all the outlandish surprises the script offers up, but the end result is probably best described as what might happen if David Lynch and Robert Rodriguez combined forces to remake "Theatre of Blood". Naschy's script is witty and bitter - an undisguised, vicious swipe at a soulless modern film industry - and his lead performance is venomous enough to bring it to life. There's a top-notch supporting cast, lots of flamboyant art direction and it's all beautifully directed with feverish energy (not to mention what looks like a big budget) by newcomer Christian Molina. "Rojo Sangre" is inventive, bloody, stylish, clever, poignant, hilarious and colourful. I'm not sure I could ask for too much more than that. Naschy's masterpiece, without question. In years to come, this'll be the one they remember him for. ****

2001 Maniacs (2005)

Dir: Tim Sullivan

Pastiche/remake of H.G. Lewis' "Two Thousand Maniacs!" (1964) that somehow manages to lose both the menacing atmosphere and the ghoulish sense of fun from the original. The plot remains virtually identical - group of hip young things on a road trip take a detour and get gleefully slaughtered by jovial redneck sadists - but the new screenplay is abysmal. For one thing, it's dull dull dull - the pacing and structure are non-existent, replaced instead by dreary, predictable jokes, limp excuses to show off rubbish splatter FX (strangely even less convincing than the original) and brain-numbing fratboy dialogue. With its mix of goofball toilet humour and gory death scenes, you get the feeling this film was aiming for a tone similar to "Cabin Fever" (indeed Eli Roth reprises his role from that film for a brief cameo - the only laugh-out-loud moment in the entire thing) but there's no wit, verve or originality to pull it off successfully. Some star turns from the genre royalty involved (Robert Englund, Johnny Legend) and a few weird cameos (Travis Tritt, Giuseppe Andrews) fail to enliven proceedings and it even makes gratuitous nudity seem unappealing by the end. Although the budget's probably about equivalent to what Lewis worked with on the original, "2001 Maniacs" feels as joyless, cynical and vapid as any Hollywood remake from recent years and is best avoided. The nu-metal cover version of "The South's Gonna Rise Again" at the end tells you all you need to know about how much effort and imagination went into this. *