Saturday, March 18, 2006

Virgins From Hell – 1987

     You’ll notice if you stick around any length of time that I’m a fan of foreign films, provided their over the top. Indonesia provides lots of over the top entertainment, and this movie is a prefect example.

First off, it’s a blending of several genres. In the end, it sticks with the WIP genre (one of my personal favorites, right up their with sexploitation, nunsploitation, and zombie). The only real problem with this as a WIP movie is that the requisite shower scene doesn’t exist. There’s a tub scene, but the women are wearing the exact same colorful clothes they’ve worn the entire rest of the movie. Guess they figured they’d bath and wash their clothes at the same time.

A fun thing to do on these movies is to spot the places where they steal from western sources. For example, in this flick, during one of those full-clothed sex scenes, there’s Knights in White Satin by the Moody Blues. It actually fits pretty well, but I’m betting that Justin Hayward didn’t get any royalties from Rapi Films.

And just when you think that this is just going to be a boring WIP rip-off, something happens to wake you up, like the guy that goes all bubbly after being injected with something. Its significantly gory (I loved it!) and kinda out of the blue (which makes it more shocking since there’s been virtually no gore up to this point, so it really takes you by surprise).

Another example of wild stuff that comes out of left field to freak you out is the amazing “Shoving a snake in the bullet hole in a thigh to bite out a bullet”.

Mondo Macabro released this movie as a two disc set, with the second disc being filled with 70 minutes of trailers from Indonesia. Great stuff and I actually added a couple of movies to my queue.

No subs, no commentary, but there’s a text article about the history of the Women In Prison genre. It’s a pretty interesting read, especially if you like WIP.

Three beers out of five.

The People Under The Stairs – 1991

     This movie is from a time when,  IMHO, Wes Craven has really lost his edge and has slide into mediocrity. He started off so strong with Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes, and A Nightmare on Elm Street, but by the time we get to TPUTS, he’s in free fall. Actually, when he started doing TV Movies, and did that reprehensibly bad Invitation To Hell, the decline was actually free fall.

This movie had a lot of potential, with good actors playing creepy roles. It’s just that nothing really happens. It’s all shotgun blasts and screams. The cannibalism is so downplayed it would be easy to miss entirely. A part of what makes a movie like Last House or The Hills so affective is that its entirely self contained and believable. You never get that with TPUTS. Primarily because that house is way-ass too big. The way they run around, it would have to fill an entire city block.

And don’t even get me started with the ending. The explosion just happens to shoot the money out the chimney, without setting it on fire? How exactly does that work? And how about that proto-rap music? Spare me, please!

Subtitles, but no other extras whatsoever. Typical cheap Universal release. They do so much of their library that way. Guess that keeps the DVD business profitable, even if only collector’s like myself get it.

Two beers out of five (a little gore or more cannibalism might have brought this up a step)