A Giallo Month Quick Review: Amuck (1972)

"A true showcase on just how gorgeous Barbara Bouchet is."

After seeing Barbara Bouchet in The Red Queen Kills Seven Times and Don't Torture a Ducking, we decided to check out Amuck, because come on, she's frigging gorgeous, and if she's going to be in another Giallo, then why would we not watch it?

Principles, people. You've got to have them.

And let it be known that while Amuck does contain plenty of the elements that make the typical Giallo film a Giallo, that they're sparse enough that it actually plays more like an erotic thriller than it does a typical Giallo. For that reason, we're giving the the Picturebook Review treatment.

If you're expecting an Argento-level experience here, you may well be disappointed.

The story of Amuck revolves around a hot chick named Greta who heads to a sex mansion to find out what happened to her lesbian lover who disappeared. Everyone gets naked, a few people get killed, and there's a rapey gardener who just might be a homicidal mongoloid in heat. 

GRETA ARRIVES AT FINGERBANG MANOR.

SHE'S NOT FOOLED BY ANYONE'S SMOOTH TALK. SHE WILL DISCOVER THE TRUTH!

IT SOON BECOMES APPARENT THAT FINGERBANG MANOR HOLDS MORE DANGER THAN SHE ANTICIPATED.

NEVER FEAR THOUGH, THE BEAUTIFUL ELEANORA IS THERE TO ROOFIE HER TROUBLES AWAY...

AND KISS THEM AWAY...

AND SCISSOR THEM AWAY...

FLASHBACK: NEVER SO DIRTY, NEVER SO CLEAN.

GRETA AVOIDS ANOTHER NEAR-RAPE/MURDER.

A LOT OF THIS MOVIE IS BARBARA BOUCHET STARING OFF INTO SPACE, AND WE HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH THAT.

HOW'S THAT NEW ANNE MURRAY ALBUM WORKING OUT FOR YOU?

NOTHING GOOD CAN COME OF THIS.

SHE'S TRAPPED IN A QUAGMIRE OF DECEIT AND REPRESSED SEXUALITY.

CAN SHE HANDLE THE TRUTH?

...BECAUSE SHE COULDN'T.

"WHY AREN'T YOU LOOKING AT MY BIKINI?"

THAT'S A WEIRD WAY TO SLEEP.

SHE COULD HAVE GOTTEN ON THAT TRAIN...

...BUT THEN SHE'D MISS ALL OF THE ROMANCE.

IT ALWAYS ENDS IN TEARS, DOESN'T IT?

It might not be the best Giallo that we've ever seen, but Amuck is worth the price of admission just to see Barbara Bouchet and Rosalba Neri in the same movie together. It's got FAR more nudity on display than it does gore, so someone looking for a hardcore Giallo flick might not feel satisfied here. The Blu-ray by 88 Films makes the film watchable in truly gorgeous fashion though, so if you're in the mood for some old school Italian eroticism, then you've hit the visual jackpot.

It's a fun flick, and this is the best that the film has ever looked on disc, bar none. Plus, Barbara Bouchet is captivating to watch, in any kind of movie.

C+

Amuck is available on Import Blu-ray.

Barbara Bouchet, Rosalba Neri, and Patrizia Viotti.

VOD Review: The Black Room (2017)

"I'm pretty sure this movie is supposed to be a Horror Comedy, but I can't tell."

I'm not really sure how you mix Comedy into a Horror story about an Incubus who molests and rapes women to death, but if you're going to try, you damn sure better make the comedy bits work.

Or I guess you need to make sure that you go all-out with the exploitation bits.

this movie doesn't really do either. It tries to be funny, and it gets sort of sexual (to an extent), but it kind of  dwells in that safe area between bland and balls-out crazy, when it should have just gone full-blown into "WTF" territory.

The film opens with a supernatural force molesting a hot chick while she sleeps, while the girl's Nana, Lin Shaye, yells "You can't have her!" They somehow both end up in the basement where they're both sucked into a sex vortex, presumably to get it on with the Sex Demon that lives there. Turns out that decades earlier, a wild gang of hippies conjured an Incubus (Sex Demon) in that very basement, and it's been trapped in the "Black Room" ever since.

AT LEAST THE SEX DEMON HAS GOOD TASTE.

Flash forward two years where a couple, Jennifer and Paul, have just bought the house. Everything is great at first until Paul wanders into the basement and finds himself possessed by the Sex Demon, which turns him into a horny, woman-hungry pig with no manners. Paul's not the only one who the Incubus goes after. No, it gets Jennifer to hump the washing machine, and even diddles her while she's taking a bath.

YOU KNEW WHAT THIS WAS.

No woman is safe from his carnal advances, including Jennifer's sister, their friends, and anyone else who Incubus Paul want to seduce. Can they stop the Incubus before it bangs them all to death? Will Lin Shaye save the day with her magic plate? Shouldn't there be more nudity for a movie about a Sex Demon? Far be it from us to spoil anything from you here, but the answer to that last question is a resounding YES!

HE'S OPEN FOR BUSINESS, LADIES.

First, let's cover the good stuff. The practical effects in the movie are great at times, and are definitely bizarre in a good way. The cast is great, with Retro Hotties Natasha Henstridge, Tiffany Shepis and Dominique Swain joining new age Hotties Augie Duke and Elissa Dowling for a shameless good time. And the creeper heating & cooling guy was funny as hell. 

The main problem I had with this movie was that it tried to do this odd black comedy thing that didn't work very well. It started off in promising fashion, with some spirit terrorizing a half naked girl, and then Lin Shaye showing up and doing her best "I'll banish you to the nether!" routine, but as soon as the main guy got possessed and went around sexually harassing people, it just fell flat. The guy, Lukas Hassel, just wasn't funny enough to pull it off.

Had they played his character straight, and just made him go after women to feed his Demonic urges, it may have worked better overall. It would have been way skeevier and exploitative, but it would have at least felt cohesive and effective.

And honestly, you've got Natasha Henstridge and Dominique Swain in a movie about a Sex Demon, and neither of them get naked? Not that they need to, that's their prerogative, but what the hell?

It's like the whole thing was half sexplotation, and half made-for-Lifetime drama, and it didn't really do much with either side of that coin.

LIN SHAYE MUST HAVE OWED SOMEONE A FAVOR OR SOMETHING. THAT'S THE ONLY WAY TO EXPLAIN WHAT SHE WAS DOING IN THIS MOVIE.

Once again, the practical effects in this movie are great, and they get pretty messy.

THAT'S A DEMON PENIS.

There's nudity and sexuality abound in this one, because it's about a rapey Demon.

THAT'S THE STUFF.

The Black Room isn't a great movie, but it's a shamelessly fun one, on a visceral level. It's full of hot chicks, nudity, and some great practical effects, which tend to even out the lame story, uneven acting, and bad dialogue. If you like sleazy B-grade flicks, you might just have fun with this one.

C-

The Black Room is available now on VOD.

Natasha, Augie, and Dominique. Those are totally stripper names.

VOD Review: Vampyres (2016) #31daysofhorror

"This is a very naked remake."

*SUBMITTED BY: Artsploitation Films, who sent us a handy screener.

Female Vampires are a sexy and terrifying thing to behold. They're usually gorgeous and scantily-clad, which is great and all, but knowing that they're only using their feminine wiles to lure unsuspecting men like us to some dark place so that they can drain them of their lifeblood is just terrifying. As a man, let me tell you that we're just not strong enough to resist that kind of thing. We're simple creatures.

In the 70's, there were all kinds of vampire flicks that featured sexy female vampires. They all had that spooky, 70's Gothic vibe about them, and some of them even pushed the boundaries of good taste by offering gratuitous nudity, sex, and lesbianism. Back then, that was some scandalous shit.

One of the most famous of those exploitational vampire flicks was Vampyres (1974), which featured the stunningly gorgeous Anulka as one of the Devil's whores, and maybe even offered more graphic lesbianism on film than any other movie ever had before.

Now, it's been remade. We're not sure exactly why, but it has.

Vampire lovers Fran and Miriam live in an old house in the woods where they have sex with each other, and lure unsuspecting travelers back home so that they can drink their blood. Maybe even bathe in it. When a group of dimwit campers decide to set up their tents nearby, they get pulled into the erotic and blood-soaked world of the two sapphic vampires, which doesn't end well for most of them.

I'm not trying to be vague or anything here, that's really all there is to the plot. This isn't a very deep movie.

THAT'S THE LOOK OF LOVE.

This remake of Vampyres isn't a great movie. The acting is uneven across the board, which has a lot to do with most of the movie's stars speaking English when it's not their native language, which is always distracting to me; the story, while being rather faithful to the 1974 version, drags on with a lot of exposition that did nothing for the movie; and although the movie boasts plenty of attractive ladies, none of them had that special "it factor" that Anulka did in the original. Anulka was special.

But...

This remake does boast plenty of nakedness, lesbianism, sex, and a liberal amount of bloodshed that makes it a fun watch, at least on a visceral level.

"I... I LOVE YOU?"

The vampire ladies feed on plenty of victims throughout this one, and it gets messy. There's even a scene where the two vampiresses have some lesbian sex in a bathtub, while blood pours down on them from above, courtesy of a slit throat. Felt a lot like that scene from Hostel 2...

THEY SURE ARE HUNGRY. AND HORNY.

I'm pretty sure that this movie exists only to showcase a bunch of naked girls kissing each other. We can respect that.

BLOODY HOT.

If you're in the mood for a movie with an exploitational level of blood and gore (and let's face it, sometimes we're all in that mood), then Vampyres will probably give you your money's worth.Just turn off the part of your brain that craves substance, and you'll be fine.

C

Vampyres will hit VOD and DVD on October 18th.

The lovely ladies of Vampyres.