Canadian Slasher #3

My Bloody Valentine 1981

I'm over a month late with this entry. I should have done a post on this during Valentine's week, but for some reason I didn't. I think I was in a moral crisis or some shit. Anyway, with slasher fans it's almost universal - My Bloody Valentine is the end all of the slasher film. It's agreed upon by almost everyone that this flick is as entertaining as it is broad. And we're willing to overlook Paramount's bad cut job when it comes to the slashing sequences.

My Bloody Valentine is a film that strikes a chord with me. It's set in a small dank mining town with your typical early 80's locals with bad wardrobes and even worse hair. [I'm skipping past the awesome opening sequence that involves what seems to be a sexually frustrated miner and his female counterpart.]


TJ's father owns the mines nestled beneath the ground of Valentine's Bluffs - That small dank mining town I mentioned earlier. A gray Canadian haze settles itself over the town like a blanket. TJ has since went out west and made his return upon really falling on his ass out there. He made so many mistakes and he wants Sarah back.

There's a slight problem because Sarah is now going out with TJ's best friend Axel. He explains to TJ that he went away - He didn't know where he was or when the hell he was coming back. TJ's reaction is that Axel is starting to sound like his old man and a nightly gathering at the junkyard almost turns into a scuffle.


In the meantime, the whole town is anticipating the first Valentines Day dance in 20 years. The reason there hasn't been a dance for so long is because twenty years ago, a man named Harry Warden went on a killing spree - murdering everyone responsible for leaving him and five other miners in the bowels of the mine without checking the methane level. The mine blew and here's Harry left all fucked up and eating the leg of one of his co-workers after being trapped underground for six weeks. All this just so happened on Valentine's Day and it was vowed by Harry that the same thing would happen if there was EVER another Valentine's Day dance.

Of course, the town sheriff still remembers the big mess twenty years ago and is still a little shell shocked in the pre-wake of the Valentine's dance. There's a local bartender who expels the legend of Harry Warden from his parched lips while the mining buddy cast play silly games with knives and make farting noises in light of all the bartender's serious hubbub.

There's a mood crasher when TJ's father gets a heart shaped box with a human heart in it. Without question the sheriff cancels the dance. The incident is kept quiet, but it's not long before Mabel (the dance organizer) is killed by a coal miner equipped with blue cover-alls, breathing apparatus and large pick ax. (Sort of reminiscent of Joe Zito's The Prowler)

The sheriff covers up Mabel's death [as well] after she's found stuffed in a running dryer at her laundry mat, burned to a crisp. The young cast of colorful characters are told Mabel died of a heart attack and become all sad at the cancellation of the dance, but TJ has a plan - He'll move the party to his father's mine! They'll have the party inside the rec-room! Of course, we all know at this point that Harry or someone will crash the party.

What comes next is some very good stalk 'n' slash sequences that for the most part take place inside a very atmospheric and gritty underground mine. The mine makes way for some really good scares and is a perfect place for a pick ax welding miner to hide in the nooks and cranny's thereof.

The tension between TJ and his 'best friend' Axel is halted for a bit when it's learned that someone has been killing off members of the party up top and underground. They both realize that Sarah and some others are trapped in the mine and that they better get there before Harry does.

For the first timer [who by chance hasn't read spoilers], there's a question of who the killer really is. Is it Harry Warden? There's some emphasis that the killer could be one of our main leads. There's some scenes that would give prelude to this thought throughout the whole film. It's up to the viewer to actually sift through the clues and figure it out for themselves.

Another saving grace for My Bloody Valentine are the high production values. A glossy look can sometimes hurt a film of slasher ilk, but the grimy mine overshadowed any Hollywood 'effect' it otherwise would have had on the film. The acting is quiet good to boot. Paul Kelman (TJ) is the dark haired mysterious type who could very well be hiding some sinister secrets. Neil Affleck (Axel - TJ's ex-best friend) is the blond haired blue eyed mixture of disgruntled manhood and empathy. Lori Hallier (Sarah) is the catalyst for our little love triangle amongst friends. She's a blond haired blue eyed, buxom blond who's torn between her first love TJ, and her rebound love Axel.

Axel is truly made a fool by TJ and Sarah. He's the fall guy for both TJ's and Saraha's riff between each other. Director George Mihalka takes John Beaird's script and does the best he can. It's a shame this movie didn't do all that well at the box office upon its initial release in 1981. This is truly a good film, even aside from the gore sequences lying on the cutting room floor.

If there was ever a war cry from slasher fans around the world, it's for an all out uncut collectors edition dvd packed with extras. Hell, if Texas Chainsaw Massacre II can get a release called the Gruesome Edition, My Bloody Valentine should be able. [I love TCM 2 btw.]



To sum it up, MBV is a film that can't be missed by slasher fans - even slasher fans of the Scream generation. Even younger fans should find something good in this Canadian slasher whether its shred to bits or not. An atmospheric upbeat slasher film that's never tedious and never boring. My Bloody Valentine is the epitome of what the slasher film should require.

Tell Tale Heart 1960

This is my favorite cinematic take on Poe's wonderful story of the same name.

A mentally unstable librarian discovers that the woman he is infatuated with has dumped him for another man - His best friend. (No spoiler here) In a fit of rage, he murders his rival, burying the body under the floorboards in his home

The murder goes undetected, but Edgar can not silence the sound of the beating heart of his victim, which echoes louder and louder, driving him insane.

Lawrence Payne gives a masterpiece performance as 'Edgar' - The shy rich man who falls head over heels in love with Betty Clare - (Played gracefully by Adrienne Cori) - [a new girl in town who moves next door to Edgar] goes homicidal on his best friend Carl Loomis. (played by the debonair Dermot Walsh)

What makes this one different than all the rest is the acting and sheer fact that for such an early year, it has one of the darker elements of the lot. This is definitely worth picking up. The Alpha Video version (on dvd) is of decent quality that may have been tweaked a hair. It was released in 2004 and probably swings for about five bucks at a dollar bin somewhere.

Hider in the House

He sees you. He hears you. He knows you. He lives with you. And you don't even know he's there.

A pre-bugged out Gary Busey is a resident psychopath, (Tom Sykes) in a very strange performance that will ultimately make you pull back the shower curtain before taking a piss. Not really, but I like Busey. I would however hide in the shower if I saw him coming towards me.

After his release from a state institution, Tom finds a cozy new place to call home: a secret place he builds in the attic of the Dryer family home. No, not Fred Dryers family. Hunter would have found him and let Dee Dee have a round or two with him with her golden vibrator.

Sykes definitely knows how to hide. As a child Tom would escape his parents violent outbursts and abuse by hiding in the most remote areas of the house - until he finally gets tired of being burned with cigarettes and torches down the house with them in it.

Now Julie and Phil Dryer (Mimi Rogers who's smokin' and Michael Mckean - better known as Lenny) have a new tenant in their newly built dream house. He's the creak when they think it's the wind. He's the noise they blame for the dad's awful farting problem. He's the rat in the attic.

By setting up an elaborate microphone system in the attic, he's able to hear every word they say. He knows more about the Dryer family than Fred Dryer knows about them. Tom is now part of the house and his obsession with Julie unleashes hidden demons trapped in a mind that's trapped in an attic.

Tom finally makes himself known to Julie after he finds Phil at a restaurant and sets up a plan to have her meet him at the same hotel he uses as a sex place with his mistress. After the fur flies and Phil gets caught in the act, Phil is told to leave. Tom strategically places himself in the middle of a schoolyard fight between Julie's son and some monkey-bar punk. Julie appreciates Tom stepping in and little by little, Tom starts to come around.

Things go a little hazy in Julie's eyes when Tom teaches her son some new defense techniques that involves viciously hurting one's opponent by means of nut blows, knees and elbows. Things are set in stone when finally, Tom shows how screwed up he his by almost refusing to take no for an answer in regards to a date with Julie.

The film as a whole deals loosely with the psychological aspect of a bad upbringing - Almost similar to a 1970's film called Bad Ronald - about a guy who lives in the walls of the house in which new tenants move in) Tom's arms are riddled with scars from cigarette burns. The conclusion of his visits to his shrink have him worried. He's afraid he'll 'loose control' again. The shrink talks nice, but isn't too keen on the notion of having him released. I wouldn't let Gary Busey roam the free world either. His teeth are too big.

What sets this movie off from the rest of the 'I'm crazy because I was abused as a kid' movies is the fact that at heart, Tom is a big old Teddy Bear. He really doesn't want to hurt anyone. His motives are pure in his own mind, but those damned old memories seem to trigger his rough temper. All he wants to do is lead an all American life equipped with a wife and kids. Tom actually is a character to be pitied. I truly never saw him as a villain until the finale.

There's not much slicing and dicing going on, but the movie as a whole has a few slasher undertones. I guess one could classify it as such. I classify Moon Pies as a great breakfast, so I don't really know.

One thing I do know is that a dog, an ill fated exterminator and Julie's friend get killed and buried. Another thing I know is that this movie is quiet entertaining. Busey gives a wonderful performance and really doesn't have to act too much because as we all know, Busey is crazy anyway. Roger's is smoking as usual and reminds me for the world of my beautiful wife.

If you're a fan of psychological horror films as well as slasher films, you can't go wrong. No masterpiece, but no pile of trash either. I'll admit - the scenario is quiet outlandish - Not many people would look over the fact that some crazy man is living in the attic, but it makes way for some good stuff on celluloid. By the way, this is/was a made for television film that debut on the USA network back in the day.

Bad Lieutenant 1992

He has survived on the streets for twenty years. He's a gambler... a thief... a junkie ... a killer and a cop. Now he's investigating the most shocking case of his life, and as he moves closer to the truth, his self-destructive past is closing in. Harvey Keitel gives us a truly searing performance an an out of control police detective on a collision course with disaster.

First of all, Abel Ferrara is a hit or miss director. Either the viewer is turned on by what's on screen, or they're completely turned off. I have been a fan of Ferrara's for quiet some time now - Ever since seeing Driller Killer at age ten. The name Abel always struck a chord with me. Who knows? It could have been the biblical reference.

Bad Lieutenant is a film that one can't help but think comes from the inner depths of Abel Ferrara's soul. If one didn't know better, they would think the film as a whole is probably an analogy of his personal life... his inner demons.

While not a horror film (in general), this movie depicts the hidden horrors that seemingly good people keep locked away. It's a commentary of the mask wearers of society - Weak people in a body of someone having authority. When one thinks of an authoritative figure, we automatically think of a self willed leader - Someone who has it all together inside and out. We never see beneath the uniform or the tough persona, and take for granted that these people are always going to be our sociological pillars.

We very rarely see past the badges and the colors. We can look into these people's eyes and seemingly look past all the cries for help, until they're finally let out of the bag and we're left disappointed and out of hope. "How could THIS person do THAT?"

The Lieutenant (played wonderfully by Harvey Keitel) is a despicable person. He's a crack addict, a heroine fiend, an alcoholic and a sex freak. He steals batches of cocaine from crime scenes and sells it to the local drug pushers. He's a gambler. He owes tons of money to a bookie who's described to have killed families and babies, yet he still manages to bet against his cop buddies on the 1991 MLB playoffs.

Throughout the entire film, Ferrara gives us deeper glimpses into The Lieutenant's life of drugs, lust, and depravity. It's not long before we stop despising the cop and start feeling sorry for him. He's truly no different than a homeless junkie on the street. If not for the badge, that's exactly what the Lt. would have been.

Again, I'm going to jump back to some hidden personal views that's obviously been thrown in by Abel Ferrara in regards to his own life. First off, the drug depictions were right on the money. For someone to capture the gritty NY lifestyle accompanied by the dirty essence of sexual depravity, they would have had to experience at least some of it. "Yeah, yeah. A good director would do some studying."

I'm not saying Abel Ferrara is a drug addict alcoholic hooked on women and gambling, but I'm sticking with my story. There's an overlapping of Catholicism that adds an even more disturbing outlook when we have the raping of a nun in which the Lt. is assigned to the case.

The whole scenario allows the Lt's actions to be completely overshadowed, giving the viewer a little time to actually take the Lt.'s side when he questions the nun about how she could forgive her attackers for what they had done to her. She actually knows the name of her attackers but won't give their names to the police.

The religious angle seems to stick hard with Ferrara. Throughout a number of his films the Christianity angle has been exploited - either showing disdain and then redemption, or redemption then disdain. I think Bad Lieutenant reflects on a man's weaknesses and how an overhanging of the 'forgiveness' alignment can allow one to feel remorse through all the drugs and alcohol.

There's a scene depicting a hanging Jesus - being crucified as he screams in agony. We see him as a weak vessel, but in all actuality,(in Christianity) he's the Man in charge. It's kind of a reversal of The Lt.'s life. Here he is supposed to be the strong man in charge, yet he is so weak and despicable on the inside. We have the Jesus figure being pathetically weak on the outside, yet inhumanly strong willed on the inside. The two roads eventually meet when we realize that dying on the cross was Jesus' choice, just as the illogical sex games, drug use and gambling was the Lt.'s choice.

Throughout the film, The Lt. comments on the Catholic church calling it ''a racket''. Later on when the Lt. gets in too deep with the bookie, he enters the church in one of his drunken hazes. He calls out to Jesus and He appears. The Lt. crawls to his imagined Jesus figure. The figure stretches his arm almost mechanically the closer the Lt. crawls to him on the floor. He kisses the feet of the figure only to wake up and realize that it's the the feet of an old black woman.

In this epiphany he learns the identity of the two kids who raped the nun. In a sudden turn of forgiveness, he locates the two kids, smokes crack with them, gives them $30,000 and sends them away Scott free on a bus to an unknown destination stating their lives will ''never amount to shit in this town''- referring to NY.

It's a look at a sudden burst of redemption and self appointed righteousness. Throughout the entire film we never know the Lt's name. All he's addressed by is simply Lieutenant. He's stripped of an interpersonal identity, living life with what his outward appearance stands for - the badge, the suits. We also never learn the identity of the bookie the Lt. owes all the money to. He goes by the name Large which is also a symbolic gesture. LARGE, which is a metaphorical deity (in terms of the Lt. being at the mercy of him in regards to the large amount of money he owes him) seems to have the Lt's life in his hands. The Lt. hasn't paid up and who knows when he'll collect?

The Lieutenant's family seem to have no identity either. This is metaphorical in that the Lt. doesn't actually know his family. He has been involved with his cop lifestyle and moonlighting as a sex fiend and junkie for so long that he does the same as a typical drug user and gambling alcoholic. His mother lives with him (his ex-wife living in another home) but never speaks throughout the entire film. This is also a representation on the upbringing the Lieutenant had growing up as a child.

The ball game that we see throughout the entire running time is also somewhat of a miracle in itself - The Mets coming back after being THREE games down against the Dodgers is representative of a mini miracle. It's also metaphorical in that it's NY against NY. It's almost a simile on how NY is a city that is at odds with itself - everyone trying to beat each other - their own neighbors and friends. This could represent the eventual lack of faith not only with the games, but the Jesus in general.

What happens next one can pretty much estimate. This is certainly a film that can't be enjoyed by the subject matter. It's not a film that's pink a fluffy and round around the edges. I think one would have to have had some external form of experience with religion and addiction - whether sexual or alcohol and drugs, it would be hard to relate to this without experiencing one or the other. Rarely, a film will make me shudder at the thought of it or absolutely set me on the same shelf with it. Bad Lieutenant does the latter. (No, I'm not a raging alcoholic or heroine junky or sex freak. It's the religion thing)

A very depressing film with tons of metaphoric actions and camera-work. Abel Ferrara pulls the art house curtains, but opens them enough to let us peek through without them getting in the way. Not since Fulci's New York Ripper has the dirt of New York rubbed off on me and managed to stay for so long. Harvey Keitel's best performance as well as Ferrara's best. Not one to miss if you're a fan of emotional cinema. Masterpiece cinema.

The Unborn 1991

Brad and Virginia (Brooke Adams) will do anything to have a baby. When a renowned infertility specialist, Dr. Meyerling (played by James Karen of ROTLD fame) finally helps them conceive, they think their troubles are behind them. The husband can finally relax and tell his friends he indeed isn't a blank-shooter, but a loaded .44 magnum instead. Well, maybe a .25 automatic.

Plagued by a variety of strange symptoms as her pregnancy progresses, Virginia learns that Dr. Myerling isn't an obstetrician; he's a genetic engineer. And he's now determined to 'breed' bigger, stronger, smarter babies. If it wasn't for breeding 'smarter' babies, I'd almost swear that Dr Myerling made Arnold Schwarzenegger - but Dr. Jack Kevorkian takes all the credit for that mess.

Virginia's desperate search for answers leads to the shocking revelation that not only isn't the baby hers, it's not human. It actually belongs to Micky Rourke.

In the tradition of the It's Alive! films and others like Rosemary's Baby, we have a carnivorous baby which ultimately eats its way from its mother's womb. The mother also suffers from severe symptoms during pregnancy and takes on a number of moody personalities.

The Unborn is your typical late 80's early 90's 'horror' flick. It does have a number of good scenes, but it could have done a little more. But, not only were some scenes downright disturbing, the film as a whole has a very uneasy atmosphere that helped me stay the course.

I'm not a true fan of films like this, but The Unborn did manage to keep my interest even tho I've seen the same thing a dozen times before. I also liked seeing James Karen in another serious role. I've always been a big fan of Karen and seeing his name on the box is the main reason I picked it up. He's the ONLY reason to watch Tobe Hooper's Invaders From Mars btw.


While definitely not one of best films ever, it's certainly not a bad one. In fact, it's well worth the buck rental. The director (Rodman Flender) did a good job with the visuals. The DP also did a good job Did it leave a lasting impression on me? Well, yes and no. A scene that involves Virginia picking her disposed creature-baby out of the local dumpster in a sudden turn of guilt after her underground abortion stuck with me. Not only this, but there's the opening scene that involves a pregnant woman seemingly eating bloody meat from the fridge in one of those 'I can eat a horse' binges. The husband seems to think all is fine. *It could have been sauce*

To sum it up, The Unborn will keep your head afloat even if it's just enough to breath. For all the blank-shooters out there (I'm not poking fun, I could very well be a blank-shooter myself), don't go to Dr. Myerling. Now, I haven't heard anything on the sequel, but I'll confess - I didn't even know there was a sequel to The Unborn. Hunting it down will give me something to do between griping. It evidently made a little money or there certainly wouldn't have been a sequel. All in all, check it out.

Class of Nuke em High

Troma has put out some of the most wretched and vile cinematic 'entertainment' ever seen on film. Starting off with where the Toxic Avenger left off, we have a nuclear leak thats making its way into the local high school.

A group of ex-honor society students have been hideously transformed into drug crazed bikers with a pension for fowl language, rape, and violence. Shy young couples turn into lust crazed sex weasels. And a putrid, flesh-eating slime monster lurks in the basement. Just another day at Tromaville High!

Discipline soon crumbles, morals go out the window and mega-volt rock n roll maddness takes over the student body. As the hideous radioactive creature in the school's basement continues to grow, so does every immoral activity on the face of the earth.


This movie was a sign of the times then, but even more so today. As the threat of nuclear annihilation threatens our civilized societies, the children suffer the most. There's a general lack of hope for the world, which soon turns people into non-worrying individuals without a conscious.

The Class of Nuke Em High is nothing more but an outlandish commentary on nuclear power and the seemingly irresponsible ways it's used. I remember watching this flick as a kid. I was almost asleep when it came on, but years later, got the chance to watch it again. There's no story really. The mutated kids who were once A students run amuck and now sell radioactive weed that gives a hard on so big, it will destroy a house - It's responsible for a woman who becomes pregnant over night to some squid-like creature which eventually gets sucked down the sewer by a frantic flusher. There's your mutated 'good guy' who takes revenge on one of the goons by shoving his fist totally down his throat Just Before Dawn Style. There's Tweaked out female bikers who like to enter the boys bathroom and force them into oral sex and a good spanking. Teachers loosing their hair overnight. There's a white guy dressed and painted like someone from an African tribe that sports a bone through his nose. Kind of reminds me of a TBN Telethon.

It seems as if the main man behind the nuclear facility doesn't give a ''wet fart'' what the situation is and does away with a suggestion to shut down the school. He's afraid of all the bad publicity, but it doesn't matter that innocent children are going to be hiddeously transformed into rock n roll genetic freaks.

What can be said about this flick? Ludicrous, ridiculous, funny, disturbing, sick - Everything reminiscant of Lloyd Kaufman. If you have nothing better to do on a sunny saturday afternoon, grab a copy of Class of Nuke Em High. You'll feel funny for a day or two after, but one thing I've noticed about Troma films is that they definitely make an impression on you. Good or bad, it's an impression. I've yet to see part 2. I'm going to dig that up later. I hear it's better than the first.

Lloyd Kaufman is a man of very little taste. This film as well as all his other films should be a testimony to exactly how far he has dropped on the Class Meter.

Coincidence By The Cemetery

I was watching Joyride the other day. (Paul Walker) I noticed that he and his brother's name are Lewis and Fuller. I never really paid any attention to this, but Louis Fuller was Lucio Fulci's American pseudonym. I thought that was a very cool hat tip to the Godfather of Gore. A lot of people haven't noticed this. The people who I've mentioned this to seem to think it's a coincidence.

To start it off right, this film is one of the most vile and utter pieces of Italian trash to ever climb from the cesspool of Italian cinema. The cannibal genre is a mixed array of cinematic happenings that deal with a variety of different 'types' of cannibals - Cannibal Ferox just so happens to deal with the 'jungle cannibal'.

For instance, there's your back-woods cannibal types that are depicted in such films as Cannibal Campout, Lunch Meat, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. There's your 'Brings back strange disease from the war' cannibals as depicted in Cannibal Apocalypse - Another Italian sleazefest made by the Italians and co-starring Cannibal Ferox star Giovanni Lombardo Radice and John Saxxon of all people. There's your Hannibal Lecter types - This type of cannibal is usually based on evidence from real police files. An usually articulate man with supreme taste, and an appetite for the grand. There's also your homosexual cannibals such as Jeffrey Dahmer - who ingests human flesh because they're lonely. I see no correlation between this well formed depravity and loneliness, but I'm sure there's some Freudian pseudo explanation that says there is.

Now, we refer back to the most popular form of 'the cannibal' - Your primitive jungle dwelling cannibal . Throughout the seventies and early 80's, there were two main players in the Jungle' cannibal genre that pretty much opened up a whole new can of worms, but also closed the lid some years later. Umberto Lenzi and Ruggero Deodato - Those two names should be synonymous with extreme violence, cinematic rapes, latex gut munching, but most sadistically, live animals being killed for 'shock value'. Both men claim that they never filmed any killing of live animals - and that the producers shot those scenes after their job as director was finished.Whatever the case may be, the slaughtering (or set-up of the harm or killing) of live animals for the purpose of shocking someone in a film is going too far if you ask me.

Cannibal Holocaust is probably most notorious in regards to scenes of torture and cinematic violence. But a lot of people disagree, saying they were most disturbed by Cannibal Ferox.

Ferox starts off in that typical Italian fashion. We have an Anthropology student who denies the fact that cannibalism ever existed. She's convinced that mad tales of flesh eating are just that - mad babbling folklore created by the civilized man to give the jungle a stark legacy.

Our story revolves around three NY college students who set out to the jungles of Columbia to disprove any talk of cannibalism or the practices thereof. Gloria (played by Lorainne De Salle of House on the Edge of the Park), Rudy, Gloria's brother (played by Brian Redford), and Patricia (Zera Kerowa of New York Ripper fame) get everything set and enters the outskirts of the jungle via off-road vehicle. Right away, things get off on the wrong foot as the jeep gets stuck and they're forced to foot their way through the wilds of Rio.

A few minutes later, the crew run into two small time New York drug dealers who just so happen to be lofting around the jungle floor when they're attacked by natives. Mike Logan (Giovanni Lombardo Radice - House on the Edge of the Park, Cannibal Apocalypse, The Gates of Hell, The Church) and his injured friend Joe, run into the crew and ask them for help.

Of course, the crew obliges. Little by little they learn of Mike's lust for cocaine and that there's more to he and Joe that meets the eye. It's soon learned why Mike and Joe are running from the natives. It seems as if Mike has a knack for violence - especially when fueled up on cocaine. The rape and murder of a native Indio girl by white outsiders doesn't go over to well with the villagers and it's a race through the jungle to find a way out. Not only this, but Mike is also responsible for torturing a Portuguese tribesman to death in search of emeralds. Mike's quiet the nice guy isn't he?

What follows are scenes of gratuitous violence accompanied by a sense of sexual depravity and drug induced paranoia. One by one, the crew are dispatched in some god-awful ways. To be honest, the gore sequences in the film aren't harsher than most gore films of its ilk. Where Cannibal Ferox steps foot into depravity (besides the torture and hinted rape) is the set up of actual on-screen animal killings which range from a gutted crocodile and turtle, to the feeding of a bound anteater to a very large python. If this isn't enough, we have a live pig which is gutted in bloody fashion by the cinematic hands of Mike Logan. As stated by Giovanni Lombardo Radice, a stagehand was given the job to actually slaughter the animal. He also states that during this scene, he tries to avenge the poor pig by pressing hard on a ceramic bowl that was to catch the blood - nearly severing the stagehand's wrist.

Cannibal Ferox is labeled one of the nastiest films of all time - and rightly so. An on-screen castration- Hooks through a woman's breasts - Hand severing - Decapitations - The rape and murder of innocent villagers - This film shouldn't be watched by anyone who is offended by such atrocious on-screen events. By this, I mean people who actually, eat, sleep and breathe.

It seems as the Italian cannibal genre grew older, the demonic imagination of filmmakers involved in the genre escalated to monstrous heights. Earlier films like Umbero Lenzi's Eaten Alive! (which uses the same music for Cannibal Ferox) also depicts scenes of animal cruelty and gang rapes, but the film as a whole isn't nearly as brutal as Cannibal Ferox. Jungle Holocaust, an earlier cannibal entry by Rugerro Deodato, is actually more of an adventure film than just a bunch of shock sequences strewn together. Personally, the adventure theme should have been the main attraction to these types of films. The jungle setting makes way for some good action sequences.

Going back to the topic of discussion, Giovanni Lombardo Radice stated to me in an interview that he regretted ever starring in Cannibal Ferox. He says that it has haunted him for twenty-five years. Being remembered as Mike Logan is a huge disappointment for Giovanni. To tell you the truth, I can't blame the guy for feeling this way. But, didn't he read the script beforehand?

To sum it up, Cannibal Ferox is a film that should be viewed at least once just to see that everything you've heard has been true. Very few films live up to their legend status, but this is one of those exceptions. I have no idea how anyone could possibly enjoy the movie. To tell you the truth, I think that anyone who even considers such a film 'fun entertainment' should be checked for mental incapabilities.

*This film boasts at being banned in 31 countries - not only on the movies cover, but also in the Guinness Book of World Records. I think Umberto Lenzi should be banned and maimed - and gutted like the animals in his films. I have no idea what the international rules were/are for the killing of animals for the sake of entertainment, but I'm sure there was hot water to follow. It's hard to imagine such a film being made today. PETA would have a field day.

When There's No More Thread In Hell.....

"I don't want to be threading around like THAT!"

A Day With Keith Richards

Sometime ago, I got the chance to sit down with Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. Not until talking with him did I realize that Keith actually died in the early 80's, but has duped the public into believing he's still alive and kicking. Keith was gracious enough to allow Lunchmeat's Bits and Pieces the opportunity to snap a few pictures. An extensive interview was unproductive because Keith's tongue kept falling off. Tom Savini was on vacation so there was no one available to apply a new prosthetic tongue. I was able to decipher a few of his words, but most of them sounded like 'Heroine'

Above is a picture of Keith's 'photo head' as he jokingly refers to it as. Mr Richards uses his spare head now and again especially for concerts and photo shoots. It's simply made of rubber, painted to look like Keith when he was forty and shoved down his neck with a stick. The whole process takes less than three minutes.


We didn't take the above pic. It was donated to us by Keith himself for our portfolio.

We had no idea the picture was over thirty years old. Since Mr Richards face isn't able to move due to the deterioration of the nerves, his personal assistant taped his lips upward as to constitute something of a smile. The tape is barely visible. *This was the same photo Keith sent Bob Clark as a casting pic for the role of Orville in 'Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things'. Since Keith was constantly hooked to a life support machine throughout the seventies, he was unable to play the role without all the machinery getting in the way. Besides, who buries someone who's still attached to a life support machine?*



Above is a picture that was taken before Mr Richards had his daily fix. Since his heart doesn't beat anymore, main-lining heroine just isn't productive. Now, he has to have it injected rectally. As you can see, Keith doesn't look too happy about it.



Above is the last picture that Lunchmeat's Bits and Pieces was able to get before Keith had his puppeteer marionette him down the hallway. This was directly after Keith learned of a tractor trailer full of heroine waiting outside the studio. Since Keith was so elated and unable to show emotion, he personally asked his personal assistant to tape on a smile. Keith looks pretty happy doesn't he?