Feliz navidad y próspero año nuevo

Estoy muy ocupao así que mucho tiempo no tengo pero me gustaría decir feliz navidad y y espero que estéis tos bien. Gracias pa las visitas y 2022 será mejor por toda la gente. Joder COVID no me ves en una mascara y la vacuna no tengo. Yo no tengo miedo de COVID 😂

Bikini Swamp Girl Massacre 2014 Review

Bikini Swamp Girl Massacre 2014

aka Hell Glades

Directed by:Aiden Dillard

Starring: Ted Vernon, Nicole Soden, Jenny Scordamaglia

Review by Luisjo González

Unfortunately, I’ve been working a lot and I’ve not been able to continue covering the Strip & Slashers for this Saturday. There’s a couple left to watch and review, but I don’t know where they’re located, so so maybe I’ll continue next year. I went for a stalk and slasher that still includes a gang of girls. Two of my favourite slashers from the peak period were Scalps and The Ghost Dance. Fred Olen Ray’s Scalps was extremely mean spirited and gory, whilst Peter Buffa’s The Ghost Dance was astoundingly brutal in places. The link between the two is that their antagonists were Native Americans. As a Libertarian, I’m definitely not WOKE, but I wonder, would the WOKE brigade allow such a film – a Native American maniac, to be released today? Interestingly, mitochondrial DNA tests show that Native Americans aren’t actually native to that land. They’re originally from regions of Siberia. What can’t be denied though, is that they were definitely in the US before us Europeans. I wonder how they got there initially? Walked? By horses? By boats? We know the Neanderthals, our ancient cousins, were mariners 100,000+ years ago, so why not tribes from Russia? Anyway, when I found out that BSGM had a Seminole assassin, I couldn’t wait to watch it. The working week really dragged with anticipation, knowing that this was going to be my Friday evening movie. I gave the Mrs some money to go out, so the coast was clear and I put the DVD on to my plasma.

This film, believe it or not, was released twice under two titles. It was completed in 2011 and then came out in 2013 as Hell Glades. The following year, it hit shelves again as BSGM. Why they unleashed it a second time I can’t say, but it’s unusual to be released two times so soon. It’s studio was Troma, and I’ve already told you how much I dislike them. Despite their flair for toilet humour and crapola, they’ve given us a large amount of slasher trash and I have to give a thumbs up for that.

On Friday October 5th 2007, during the Columbus Day weekend celebration in the USA, a group of young chicas go camping in the Florida Everglades. There they come across the spirit of a Seminole warrior named Coowahchobe. They must fight to survive against the fierce assailant.

Wow man. I mentioned Scalps and The Ghost Dance above, but in the slasher genre there’s also Camping Del Terrore, Demon Warrior and Ghostkeeper, which can be listed as Native American genre entries. That’s four titles that are pretty damn good, all things considered, so I was eminently excited about Bikini Swamp Girl Massacre. Seven attractive women including a sexy Latina, a killer armed with a tomahawk and a huge forest to slaughter the septuple within, you’d have to be retarded not to make a great motion picture out of those ingredients. I haven’t met director Aiden Dillard, but this was his last shot at direction and looking at what he put together, ‘retarded’ is me being overtly kind to him. When the final credits rolled, I sat there in silence and shock. I was dumbfounded. Tumbleweed flew across the living-room floor. I was thinking to myself, what happened? How could someone get so much so wrong? Critics often state that they were in pain whilst watching a certain motion picture as an insulting slur, but with BSGM, I truly was in agony.

Firstly, the movie started incredibly well for like 30 milliseconds. We get a great boob shot immediately, two murders straight after and the cinematography looks bright and clear. Being that I’m a slasher fan since the eighties, I dislike maniacs that converse whilst killing and things started getting silly when the assassin here kidnaps one girl and puts her in a cage whilst stating that he wants her to be his wife. If you’re going to give your antagonist extensive dialogue, then there are filmmaking rules that can never be ignored in the horror genre. A good example is the original Black Christmas and the psycho from that piece. The calls from the 1974 thriller were effective, because the guy on the phone sounded eminently deranged. Coowahchobe in this picture looks and talks like a f**ling buffoon and if we ignore the fact that a white guy shouldn’t play a Seminole warrior, it gets worse when he even starts cracking jokes. The runtime is eighty-three minutes, but the dialogue is so tedious that it felt like I was viewing an entire mini-series in one sitting and I’m not talking about The Sopranos. If you can imagine watching a conversation between a group of people that you don’t know discussing their laundry basket, then you’ll get a good idea of the pace of BSGM. The performances were as bad as you can imagine, but one or two of the actors were at least trying; and the gore effects were bottom of the barrel at best. I guess, if I had to give a plus, then I can say that there is a mahoosive body count and a lot of blood. There were also a couple of hot chicas played by Nicole Soden and Latina Jenny Scordamaglia, who both gave up on the acting dream after this catastrophe. Can you blame them? I actually thought Scordamaglia played being in agony (she was caught in a bear trap) quite well, but she wasn’t given the chance to flex her ‘acting chops’. On top of all the negativity I’ve listed above, the feature is also cack-handily edited and the nutjob has that often seen ability to teleport to whatever location the script requires with no explanation. The package description describes the killer as a ‘spirit’, yet he bleeds and dies like a normal human being, with no ghostly abilities. We get a final girl, but it could’ve been any of the female cast members. She wasn’t exceptional in the story and wasn’t given expositional scenes as would a Jamie Leigh Curtis/Neve Campbell. It all ends as stupidly as it started with the most weird, bizarre and pathetic ‘defeat the antagonist’ gimmick in the whole history of moving pictures. F**k it, I’ll give away a spoiler, it won’t ruin anything because most of you would’ve f**king turned it off by that point. The aggressor, the main reason to watch a f**king horror flick, actually kills himself!!! You read correctly, the antagonist commits suicide for no real reason…??????

Another year goes by, another sh*t Troma movie. I don’t know why that studio hasn’t gone bust already, but they’re still here as large as ever. The track record of American Indian slashers is so good, this one should be sued for destroying the reputation. F**k Aiden Dillard and F**k Bikini Swamp Girl Massacre. Take care peeps, see you next week… ¡Viva la revolución y viva Cuba!

Killer Guise:√

Gore:√

Final Girl:√

RATING:

Stripped To Kill 1987 Review

Stripped To Kill 1987

Directed by: Katt Shea Ruben

Starring: Kay Lens, Greg Evigen, Norman Fell

Review by Luisjo González

John Carpenter’s Halloween is certainly one of the most imitated movies ever released. It could, in fact, be THE most copied in motion picture history. Believe it or not, it wasn’t the only slasher movie to create a string of wannabes. Friday the 13th started all the killer in the woods flicks and it even got a straight up duplicate with 2000’s Scream Bloody Murder. 1982’s Slumber Party Massacre also had a landslide of impersonators, including Fatal Pulse, Sorority House Massacre and Cheerleader Massacre. There was another eighties slasher that inspired production teams to become magpies again and that was this Roger Corman beauty. In fairness, this itself is an echo of Murder-Rock from 1984, but it’s overwhelming success created a raft of similar themed cinematics that continued until the early nineties.

I’ve told you guys previously that as a born and bred womaniser, slashers in strip bars are possibly my favourite kind. I’m a successful businessman, but all my bosses will tell you, I put the ladies before everything else, always; – even work. Will this mindset make Stripped to Kill my all time favourite genre entry? Let’s see…

When Detective Cody Sheehan discovers the body of a stripper from the Rock Bottom dance club, she begins an investigation. Her partner, Detective Heineman, is equally involved, but the only way Cody can get the assignment from her superiors is to go undercover as a stripper at the club…

Here we have a movie that truly is 95% strip, 5% slash. With only a couple of murders until the final five minutes, calling this a stalk and slash flick is more than a bit misleading. I’m actually surprised STK was so popular because it’s true most men like watching girls strip, but most women don’t; – and it’s literally non-stop dance sequences for the majority of the runtime. The laydees featured are better than the ones we usually see in films of this ilk, because they do flips and cartwheels on stage. It can get monotonous viewing them after a while, when you’d prefer to see more slasher action and we get kind of disappointed to be stuck with the same old sh*t. We see none of the stalking sequences that made Halloween so enjoyable, the hooded killer just turns up briefly once or twice. The slaughters are creative in their MO, with a strangulation and setting someone on fire, but the director shows us no build up, so there’s no excitement or tension at all. We don’t even get heavy breath POVs or slow-mo stalking. Alfred Hitchcock said, “There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it”, but Katt Shea Ruben must not be a fan of the legendary filmmaker, because she gives us a disappointing ZERO. Whilst I was disenchanted by the lack of key genre trappings, I liked most of the characters and Lenz actually has ok-ish chemistry with Evigen. They were a couple that genuinely looked like they could be together.

The crux of the synopsis is the police investigation into the murders and we get a couple of attractive young cops that are hot on the case. Unfortunately the script doesn’t even get this right, because it’s impossible for anyone with an IQ bigger than an ant to believe any ‘constabulary of the law’ would let one of their detectives work undercover as a stripper. They do attempt to explain this later in the runtime, but once things fall into the realms of make believe, we struggle to take the feature seriously again. I guess, the best thing, was that STK certainly seemed more ‘eighties’ than usual and the spandex, big hair and mullets really took me back to the decade I grew up in. Surprisingly enough, whilst many slasher pictures from this time were undeniably cheesy, this one steers clear of being too camp, which is a shock. Whilst I was disenchanted by by the lack of slasher action, I didn’t hate the characters and Lenz gives us a final girl that we want to succeed. Director Shea used real strippers in her cast, but none of the girls here have a decent rack at all. As I said in my review of Strip Club Slasher, I’ve dated a couple of strippers and they and all their work buddies were well endowed with huge breasts. A couple of them were silicone laden, but busty all the same. I guess, because my personal taste is not the slim, sporty Keira Knightly type, I am being selfish by criticising the girls featured in this flick. If you like laydees with cero curves, you’ll be happy with the chicas featured. I suppose you could say I am a true Latin guy that likes the Latin, coca cola bottle shaped figure. I just prefer voluptuous curves to slim stick insects. In Spain we say, eres tanta curva y yo sin frenos!

Obviously I saw this many years ago and revisiting it the day before yesterday reminded me that I’ve never particularly liked STK. It’s an ok thriller with a twist that I didn’t guess, but it’s often poorly acted and as I alluded to, almost fantasy with its screenplay. Roger Corman regularly used female directors to cover up accusations of misogyny, but Katt Shea Ruben is not one of the better ones. It’s a disappointment that a film with such a huge budget couldn’t have been better, but it did lead to a number of great imitations including the wonderful almost remake, Dance with Death. I guess you can add it to your collection if you love slashers, but it’s not one I’d recommend to convince non believers. For a Strip & Slasher it falls far too short.

Slasher Trappings:

Killer Guise:√√

Gore:

Final Girl:√√√

RATING:

Strip Club Slasher 2010 Review.

Strip Club Slasher 2010

Directed by: Jason Stephenson

Starring: Sarah French, Rachel Grubb, Elske McCain

Review by Luisjo González

I’ve told you guys & gals before that I’m twice divorced. My older brother met the love of his life 20 however many years ago and they’re still married today. My younger sibling likewise is living with his mrs, leading a settled existence. All my cousins (I have 22) are in the same boat too. Me, Luisjo González, I’m a f**king nightmare. I bounce around from girl to girl, engaged to be married on nine occasions and EVERY SINGLE TIME, I say this IS the one. Within a year, I’m bored of her and already dating someone new. You must understand, this is not how I want to be, it’s just my DNA. I was born like this and I hate it, but you can’t change what you are.

Anyway, I mention this, because Strip Club Slasher caused a riff between wife number 2 and I. I was in Vegas for our first anniversary in 2011 and we went for a meal at a restaurant on the strip. My ex, bless her cotton socks, could argue with someone if she was alone in a padded cell and so she fell out with the waitresses (it’s likely because I was flirting, but I don’t recall). It all got heated in a major way and we were forced to leave (without paying 😜). Anyway, outside, in a closed shop window, I saw the cover of Strip Club Slasher. The next day, my wife swore she would not go to that segment of Vegas again, but I had other ideas. I WANTED Strip Club Slasher! It wasn’t even listed on the IMDB yet, so I rented a car and drove, you guessed it, straight back to that restaurant and went to buy myself SCS. Now you’re beginning to understand why I’m a two time divorcee.

After the murder of a stripper, the cops close a local bar, whilst they investigate, because they think that the motivation could be the topless women. The remaining girls decide to spend the weekend together to reflect on the loss of their friend and try to keep safe. A maniacal masked assassin however is in hot pursuit.

So I told you motherf**kers in my review of Dance With Death that I was going to cover all the strip & slash movies and I’m a man of my word baby! If you pick up a film called Strip Club Slasher and there’s a busty blonde on the cover, your mind (or my mind) automatically envisions a bunch of voluptuous beauties being stalked by a masked maniac. What we ended up with is a group of average looking, vulgar tongued trolls getting sliced whenever they step outside for whatever reason. In my review of Pool Party Massacre, I criticised the level of the vomit inducing dramatics. The guys and lassies in SCS aren’t much better, but the differentiator here is, you can see these peeps are really trying their hardest. That certainly makes it slightly more bearable. There’s a moment late on, where the fat sherif (an eighties slasher trademark and he’s played by Joel D Wynkoop from all three Truth or Dares) gives a speech about the murder of his stripper sister. The credibility of the ‘performance’ is minimal, but the effort, the passion and the feeling portrayed is top class. Thumbs up for giving it your all!

Screenwriter Joe Knetter (who also plays the killer) had obviously seen his share of eighties slashers. The visual tributes are numerous and incredibly enjoyable. The final girl, played by Sarah Jensen, really includes all the classic heroine cliches, which was nice to see. In this feature however, instead of coming across as moral and brave, her attempts to be the most righteous, make her seem like a whiny bitch. I couldn’t make out whether it was poor scripting or bad acting that gave me that impression, but I didn’t particularity like Sarah, the girl left to face the assassin. I didn’t hate her though and I wanted her to survive, so she was doing something right. Just like in Dance with Death, the only babe with a fantastic rack gets killed first, which was eminently disappointing. Check out Eske McCain to see a huge and beautiful pair of bad boys. Director Jason Stephenson had the good sense to leave the best looking female to be the one that fights the antagonist in the final scene, which I won’t ruin. I can tell you that the ending is really quite ingenious and simply unbelievably cool. I don’t remember if I’ve seen a masked killer flick that terminates that way in my 30+ años of watching this sub-genre. It was a really grim and credible idea that deserves respect. Ten out of ten for the creativity. The gang here chose to do drugs, which I thought was a more realistic idea than just getting drunk. Growing up in London, drugs were key to everybody’s youth and it’s bizarre that it’s rarely seen in the stalk and slash category. The script uses acid in a really clever way. An intended victim believes it’s just the LSD that is making him see a hulking killer carrying a body. They smoke ganja and take trips, but I was screaming at the screen, where’s the cocaine? This ain’t no party 😂 I am sure that my readers consider me like the guy from Wolf of Wall Street by the things I have said over the past decade.

In my review of Pool Party Massacre, I called the film cheap. SCS has about 15% of that budget, so you know the level of what to expect. The filmmaking ability here is really amateur. I am not just talking about the acting, but the photography and direction too. I’m pretty sure that they used a handheld camera and there’s a number of shots of someone opening a door and we see the door, not the character in conversation outside, which was obviously apprentice level. The sound is really bad too and you can tell there’s no boom mic. It’s literally just the audio they picked up from the camera whilst filming. On the plus side, the videography or disc-ography is steady and not shaky throughout. Most of the killings are off screen and the effects amount to little more than fake blood, but the mask is pretty cool and the assassin stalks in typical slow-mo Michael Myers style. Interestingly enough, the bogeyman gets a blow job off of the first victim before he kills her. I’ve never seen that before and I thought it was pretty slick. Maniacal killers get on too, you know 😂! The cops found the victim with his seamen in her mouth, but they didn’t think to do a DNA test to learn his identity??? Why aren’t cops in my area that dumb?

SCS just about works in a cheap jack way. I didn’t hate the characters, a few fun slaughters, there’s some giggles to be had and it manages to reference old skool slashers without bragging about it continually. It’s certainly not fine art, but I could do nothing but smile at it. One day I would love to see a slasher movie in a strip club where the girls truly are beautiful and endowed with huge boobs. Maybe I have to make it myself in the future. Until then, this will have to do. When I was younger, I dated a Polish girl that worked in a strip club. Check the picture to the left. I got to meet some of the other dancers and they all had bras in the plus sizes. Watching slasher movies where the chicas removing their tops have nothing to show literally removes the point in going to such a place? I mean, why? I guess it all depends on taste. Different people are attracted to different things. The net result is that this was one of those cinematics that I knew I shouldn’t have liked, I cringed a few times, but I totally didn’t hate myself for watching it. Check it out. It’s surprisingly entertaining and fun.

Slasher Trappings:

Killer Guise: √√√

Gore 

Final Girl √√

RATING:

Dance with Death 1992 Review

Bailando Con La Muerte 1992

aka Dance With Death

Directed by: Charles Philip Moore

Starring: Jill Pierce, Maxwell Caulfield, Barbara Alyn Woods

Review by Luisjo González

I’m not going to repeat the same stories I’ve told you all before about watching Halloween when I was six-year’s-old and then becoming a slasher addict. However I can tell you an amusing story that relates to this picture. I was obviously hunting through my video rental emporiums for more slasher trash and I came across the cover of Stripped to Kill way back when. The back blurb seemed pretty slasher, but the problem was, my madre wouldn’t let me rent it because of the suggested nudity on the package description. Eventually, I was able to go to Stoke Newington high street with an older kid from my street, and I was able to pay a homeless guy to rent the forbidden movie for me.

Obviously I love the ladies and the eight-year old me was enamoured with what I saw during that runtime. It’s sad to think that we grew up so quick in crime ridden London and sometimes I regret not having a childhood. What does information about Stripped to Kill have to do with Dance with Death you rightly ask? Well, this motion picture is a jazzed-up remake of STK, they even use the same dialogue and it’s from the same author. DWD was one of a number of dance/strip related slasher movies that were released following the success of the 1987 Roger Corman thriller, Stripped To Kill. Some others include: Slash Dance, Deadly Dancer, Last Dance, Strip Club Slasher and The Rain Killer. Whist we’re on that subject, it must be stated that STK was not an authentic movie and was itself a rip off of Lucio Fulci’s Murder-rock from 1984.

A number of killings at a local strip joint give a reporter the chance to go undercover and begin an investigation. Kelly gets a job as a stripper and begins to question the resident dancers. As she gets closer to the truth, more and more people end up dead and she looks to be next on the killer’s list…

I understand that certain people may believe that a slasher movie in a strip bar is going to have zero class and be extremely exploitive. Whilst I admit the setup is tacky, the characterisations are not. The females in the cast are all written as strong women and the heroine is a fiery reporter with a forceful will. This is a slasher movie of course, with a masked killer and all the trimmings, but at times, it’s possible to forget you’re watching a horror film. A couple of the dancers have issues that are covered, we have the journalist backstory due to the final girl’s employment and finally the owner of the club, which is called Bottoms up, is having regular issues with his employees. There are a few slaughters, but they’re not spaced close together, which makes you wonder what tone the production team was aiming for. We go from a strip scene, to a brutal murder, then attempts at humour, something of a romance between the leads and it’s all thrown at us in about five minutes. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to feel? Was I meant to be scared? In a comic mood? Or involved in the liaison?

The key element of the story of course is the mystery of who’s killing everybody. There’s a number of suspects, but I worked it out by the dialogue. It took me a while and I admit it’s not an easy one to solve, but listen to what they say closely. What’s interesting is that Bottoms Up the bar is always full, but the car park outside is consistently empty. Do they walk home at 2am? Rather them than me, I tell you. I’ve never been to a strip bar in reality, because I am not interested in looking if I can’t touch. Being a handsome guy gives me that luxury (wink wink – joke, I’m handsome but not arrogant!!)). Anyway, If I were to venture to Bottoms Up by chance, I’d demand my money back. The only girl with a decent rack, the stunning Lola (hottie Jill Pierce), is the first killed and the rest of the laydees are flatter than a pancake on my ironing board. If these guy customers are paying to watch these strumpets, they must be desperate. Go to a disco and get yourself a girl you can take home with you after.

One of the striptastic boogie queens is reported to have a drug problem and we see her laughing and then falling in to the crowd. She gets sacked for being a junkie and then if that’s not bad enough, she gets killed (brutal murder btw). It’d be nice if the screenwriters did some research when writing the dire-logue for a movie that’s going to be shown in cinemas. The only drug that makes you laugh is marijuana and it’s not so bad that you’d burst into hysterics on stage whilst working. Cocaine, crack, heroin, PCP are not giggling drugs and she wasn’t on LSD, because no one mentioned hallucinations. Whilst we talking about the script, I bust out laughing when the cop was telling some criminal sales guy that he was interrogating to go away. He said, in Spanish ‘vamos amigo’ and walks off?? Vamos means we go, not go away. What he meant to say was, vete or vaya (go away or you go). I wonder how much these authors got paid for this crapola??? Why use Español and get it wrong. My head was in my hands. 😂

I always disliked Prom Night’s balaclava, because I thought it was lazy from Peter Simpson to go for something so basic. The assassin here also sports a similar black mask, but I thought it worked much better in DWD. I guess it could be because of his height/build. Drew Snyder from Terror Eyes plays the editor, but thankfully they had more sense than casting him as a womaniser as he was in the 1981 slasher classic. I mentioned in my original review, how unrealistic that looked having the balding Snyder as a lady killer. Maxwell Caulfield is the detective and whilst he’s not a horrible actor, the way his career fell apart is a real shame. To go from a huge film like Grease 2 to Dance with Death is really disappointing. He stayed busy, but for a handsome guy, it was a big fall from the top. None of the performances featured stink the place out and all in all it’s an enjoyable runtime.

A slasher movie that allows me to see topless women is always going to be my favourite kind, so expect me to review of the rest of this type before the end of 2022. I had fun with Dance with Death. One or two brutal murders, an interesting plot, a good mystery and the chance to see topless women. If that ticks your boxes, check it out. One last question I’ll answer for the ladies… Is this a motion picture for slasherettes? I still say, yes. They won’t enjoy the female nudity (unless they’re gay), but as I said, the puzzle is good and it’s not tedious. Perhaps the biggest plus of all is the beautiful and breathtakingly stunning Jill Pierce plays the first victim, Lola. I first saw her in Darkroom, but it seems she had a boob job, because since then, she’s gone from a 32A (it looked about that) to a 34DD. That’s some enlargement in three years. She’s up there with Traci Lords, Natti Natasha, Abbie Shapiro, Christine Hendricks and Ariel Winter in the gorgeous stakes. Married and madly in love, I still 1000% would🤣. I wish my Mum moved to USA instead of England all those años ago. I guarantee that if I was working close to that set when they were shooting Dance With Death, I would’ve asked out and dated Jill Pierce. Maybe I’d have another kid with her by now haha. Peace

Killer Guise:√√

Gore:√

Final Girl:√√√

RATING:

Only Darkness 1999 Review

Only Darkness 1999

Directed by: Mitchell Morgan

Starring: Nicole Streak, Crispin Manson, Edmund Dehn

 

Review by Luisjo González

The two films I get asked about most here on a Slash above are Legend of Moated Manor and Only Darkness as they’re both on my my A-Z slasher list. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that I’ve lost count of the amount of emails I’ve received from you guys and gals about that double. Well I’m finally going to post a review of one of them and I hope that it answers some of your questions. Britain doesn’t have a great reputation with it’s output within the slasher genre, so there’s certainly a gap in the market for a decent entry from those shores. Only Darkness came out hot on the heels of Scream, but a traditional slasher movie, it’s definitely not. In fact, it’s barely a slasher movie at all, but it’s more like a giallo and even that doesn’t really describe it.

Paul Salem is a horror author who writes screenplays for slasher movies. Salem wants to write in other genres and move away from the horror stereotype, but his agent tries to convince him otherwise. One evening, whilst he is driving home, he comes across a young girl who is fleeing an assailant. The young girl moves in temporarily to the author’s house, but the maniac is closing in on her…

Out of Darkness is certainly a strange creature and it defies traditional description. It definitely does belong on this page, but it’s not a duplicate of either Halloween or Scream. I prefer silent antagonists that kill without being given a characterisation, but the assassin here has basic dialogue. Another strange thing about OD is that the antagonist flees from the hero, which totally dilutes his fear factor. This is all explained in the big revelation, but what could have been an extremely authentic twist doesn’t end up making a lick of sense. Whilst trying not to give anything away, one murder is explained in the conclusion, but the slaughter of the doctor? What about that? I’ve always said that guns don’t belong in a slasher movie because you can’t ‘slash’ with a pistol, but the nutjob here uses a beretta to murder one victim and it disappointed me. One way that Michell Morgan’s screenplay really succeeds is that it plays with the roles of the ‘final girl’ and the ‘maniac’. I can’t really say much more without giving away the twist, but the open ending leaves interesting questions. I thought it was a supremely intelligent idea to play with the rules that way, but as I said above, the screenwriter made a clear error.

This was shot on video in the late nineties when British SOV flicks were not just a rarity, they totally didn’t exist. It’s IMDB page has zero reviews and no one has even ranked it. What is interesting is that the VHS I own is not in a typical British video case, it’s one of the types of covers used in the American rental market, which begs the question was this only released stateside? A Google search reveals minimal information on this feature and it is completely obscure. It’s all put together in a fairly basic manner and the performances are competent, but not exceptional. I’ve never been able to understand how two directors are able to work on one feature film, but we get a duo in the hot seat(s) here. The pair released two more movies that actually have rankings on the IMDB, but their last effort was over twelve years ago. I didn’t particularly like any of the characters, but I didn’t hate them either, so I was intrigued to find out how it would all conclude. One thing that I loved about ther movie was that every character is seen smoking cigarettes. I miss the old days when people were real in movies. I smoked for many years, but it wasn’t cinema that made me do it. Nowadays, every person in filmland is woke, doesn’t smoke, drink too much or do drugs. Give me Wolf Of Wall Street anyday over Many Saints of Newark. In real life, people I meet smoke crack, snort coke, puff on cigarillos and I’ve met hundreds of racists at work or in clubs. I’ve received racism myself. Producers consider their audiences idiots, but most people don’t want to view fairytales.

There’s not much more that I can tell you about Only Darkness, because it’s the type of film where too much information will ruin it for viewers. It’s a giallo with a pretty small body count, but it’s not a whodunit. There is a revelation in the final scene, but it’s not what you’re used to seeing. I’ve never viewed a movie similar to this and I guess I must praise that.

Killer Guise:

Gore:

Final Girl:√

RATING:

 

Headcrusher 1999

Headcrusher 1999

aka Broken Skull

Directed by: Ricardo Islas

Starring: Stephanie Beaton, Johnny Areola, Dominic Capone

Review by Luisjo González

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!! Can you believe it? A Slash above has been online for 10 years! This is our tenth birthday. I agree, there’s been some problems. The fact that I was in hospital a lot of that time, doesn’t help matters and whilst I’m the first to admit that el tiempo usually flies by, I’ve really felt this recent decade. A lot has been lost for me and I’ve definitely changed. No one ever told us that life was going to be easy.

Anyway, the major difference between the slasher cycle of today and the boom years of the early eighties is that it’s much easier to make a movie now. If you had the budget to produce a small feature then there’s not a genre less complicated than the traditional stalk and slash flick. Many of the hundreds of direct to video turkeys that have been released post-Scream haven’t even attempted to revitalise the age old formula, which makes it enticing that a fair majority of them still make a tidy profit. Being a self-confessed avid fan of the category, it’s great to find a poorly financed effort that actually looks to have been made with the inspiration to try something different. Headcrusher certainly carries a great deal of intrigue that warrants it to be seen by aficionados like myself. Despite being one of the few Hispanic-American or Latino cycle-entries, it also boasts a gore-filled reputation and a cameo from a blood-descendant of Al Capone playing a psychotic mobster.

After the credits have rolled, we see prolific scream queen (and all round nudity guarantee)) Stephanie Beaton straddling a soldier named John Ramsey (George Orsini) in a dimly lighted room. Adultery is a bad idea if the wife that you’re playing around with is ‘married to the mob’. Unfortunately for this randy couple, her husband just happens to be a sadistic gangster – and he’s just caught them in an inescapable situation. Before the Lothario has even had the chance to zip up his flies, the mob boss has strung up his flirtatious mistress, snapped a few of her fingers and strangled the last gasp of air from her lungs. It takes two to tango of course, so lover boy gets his head squished in a vice and gives us the explanation for the choice for the movie’s title. (Great brief gore shot!)

Twenty years later, a group of builders are renovating that same room, which has now become an abandoned basement. As the rest of the workers go to lunch, Manolo Santana (Kris Haines) continues digging until he discovers a broken skull lodged behind some re-laid brickwork. As he examines his bizarre find he suddenly begins smashing his head against the wall as if a mad spirit has possessed him. His friend Miguel – who was eating his lunch nearby – rushes to help his workmate, but by the time he arrives Manolo’s head has been crushed to a bloody pulp. Sometime later, whilst being prepared for an autopsy, Manolo’s body re-animates and goes on a bloody rampage. Dressed from head to toe in army surplus garb and sporting a gore-splashed gas mask, the maniac begins killing off the gangsters that were involved with the soldier’s slaughter from the prologue. Manolo’s daughter Sol (Paola Valdes), his friend Miguel (John Arreola) and an inquisitive doctor (Nancy Adams) all begin an investigation to try and discover what strange occurrence has lead to this gruesome massacre…

Headcrusher is possibly the most gratuitous exploitation effort that I’ve seen in 2021. Perhaps you could say that it vaguely resembles the works of filmmakers like Tim Ritter and the Polonias. Richard Islas does look to have a sprinkling of talent and he seems to enjoy pushing the boundaries of what he can display. He worked prolifically after this debut, but since 2018, he’s been quiet. If I had to make a critcism of his style, I’d say that he frames shots poorly and this copy is badly lighted in a large majority of sequences. Make no mistake about it though, this is one gore filled excursion into exploitation that is literally overflowing with blood and extreme scenarios. One guy gets his ‘little friend’ bitten of whilst being ‘pleasured’ by his girlfriend in a scene that’s both painstakingly gruesome and made me cringe at the thought of it happening to me. Another fellow is kneecapped and then squished by a train, a couple of others get their heads crushed and the torture scenes in the pre-credits are fairly hard hitting in how they set a grim tone. Islas manages to get away with the cheap gore effects as they’re only on screen for an extremely brief time. He provides just enough splatter to allow your mind’s eye to grab the full extremity of his intention.

The major problem with Headcrusher is that a lot of things were thrown in wholly unnecessarily, when the feature would have probably played better without the attempts at a ‘shock factor’. There’s a gay sex scene, which seems only to have been included to incorporate homosexual antics. I must mention the Cambodian torture-vixen, who is a female character so inexplicably bizarre that she makes Elvira look like the spectacled church girl that lives next door. There’s also a brief sub plot concerning a government ‘Jacobs Ladder-type’ conspiracy that was immensely intriguing, but was left simmering on the back burner, which is a shame as it deserved a decent conclusion. I really was engrossed in that idea, but it just disappears as the runtime grew.

Although Headcrusher does feel somewhat like a petrol sports car that has been filled with diesel and never manages to hit top speed, the good points just about outweigh the bad. Watching Dominique Capone play a mob boss, when his relative was the most famous gangster in the history of the mafia was a neat touch – even more so when you see how similar Dominique looks to Big Al. Although the dramatics will never be mind blowing in a film of this level, these guys certainly tried their hardest and they deserve credit just for that. Having a Hispanic final girl, even though she wasn’t Meryl Streep, certainly made me happy. I can think of worse ways to waste eighty minutes and it’s certainly better than Don’t Look In The Cellar. I’m not sure about recommending it, because it’s the Adam Sandler of slashers. What I mean by that is, you’ll either love it or hate it. I actually like Adam Sandler, he’s a libertarian like me and knowing that made me start liking his movies, when previously, I didn’t. One last thing I must mention, Stephanie Beaton would get it if I ever met her. She disappeared for sixteen years, (probably being a mum), but I was told she’s got a few projects in the pipeline by a director friend of mine.

Killer Guise:√√√√

Gore:√√

Final Girl:√√

RATING:

Knight Chills 2001 Review

Knight Chils 2001

Directed by: Katherine Hicks

Starring: Michael Rene Walton, DJ Perry, David Borowicz

Review by Luisjo González

Unfortunately guys and gals, I’m not much of a gamer. My first girlfriend and I completed most of the Survival Horror classics: Resident Evil 1-4, Overblood, Project Zero and Silent Hill etc. I also got through Blair Witch, Carrier, Nocturne, Deep Fear and more recently Dead Space, but aside from a bit of Football Manager, video games and I don’t match. Actually sitting and playing Dungeons and Dragons with boards, dice and figures, please drop me out. My scientific mind is so against bullsh*t that I haven’t even watched The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I know that they’re reportedly amazing features and Oscar winners, but I mean, Orcs, Goblins, Dragons and the rest is just too far fetched for my analytical brain. Same with Harry Potter and James Bond always surviving, whilst bad guys die EVERY SINGLE TIME. In real life that would never happen, so why should I believe it in a movie? I’m eminently hopeful that this attitude won’t prevent me from enjoying this particular entry, which is obviously about peeps playing an RPG.

I found Knight Chills on one of those 50 horror movies for $10 packs and I learned to never purchase one again. You see, you may think 50 for $10 is a pretty good bargain, but I realised that I would’ve wasted 49 x 85 minutes of my valuable time and I’ll never get those hours back. I decided to watch this one though, because a guy in armour murdering youngsters simply screams ‘SLASHER’. For a Slash above I had to buy the original NTSC DVD for a photo of the cover picture, but $3.99 from eBay and $7 postage is not going to leave me destitute. I love knights from the old medieval days and in my review of Terror Night, I mentioned the ‘knight In armour’ killing as a favourite. I’m surprised that there hasn’t been more slashers that have used that disguise, but maybe it’s just that the costume weighs too much to be practical? Well, in this movie, we get the real thing on a horse and that’s why I decided to give it a shot…

Knight Chills is a story about role players and the games that they’re enamoured with. This takes us down a dark path and let’s us see what happens when fantasy becomes reality and a medieval knight begins stalking and slaughtering the dice throwers.

So none of the other slasher websites have bothered with this one, which leads to the question, is it a Stalk and Slash movie? If you consider a masked killer murdering people with a blade slasher-esque, then you know that as usual, I’m correct. Another thing of interest is that not only does this have a typical antagonist, but it also includes the classic ‘revenge of the bullied nerd’ synopsis that we saw in Slaughter High, Tormented, Terror Train, Evil Night and many others. The only problem with KC is that in the previous entries I mentioned, the unfortunate prank that backfires happens in the first 10/15 minutes of screen time. Here we have to wait WELL over half an hour for it to start; and getting to that point is a painstaking, arduos task. I had to watch this flick over four attempts, because I was unsuccessful in the battle to stay awake each previous time. Finally, I managed to watch the rest in the morning on a Saturday and I saw it to the end. Why was I so bored you ask? Well, as I said above, I’m not a gamer, so viewing bad actors discuss crystals, magic potions, warlocks and whatever else is not my idea of fun. Credit to the director because she spiced things up with suspense music (🤣), but maybe I can’t see tension in a group of mongrels sitting around a table rolling dice.

You know, I love female directors when they take the reins in our genre. A sub-category dominated by fellas certainly benefits from a feminine touch every once in a while, but this was Katherine Hicks first and last movie and it’s not hard to see why. Many organisers in the hot seat in low budget attempts have shown flair with their ideas, blocking, character placement and creative camera angles. Hicks literally points the camera and says action, and it’s best described as ‘pedestrian’. There are few things worse in the world of cinema than bad actors arguing. It happens here a couple of times and it’s totally wince inducing. Whilst this isn’t meant to be a comedy and it has the sense not to mix humour with horror like crap such as Slaughter Studios, Easter Sunday etcetera, I couldn’t help but giggle when one character told Laura (Laura Nixon) that two of her friends had been killed. I knew I was in for a giggle and my prediction was accurate, because I expected her to summon all of her minimal acting ability to look genuinely mortified and it was no less than hilarious 😂. It’s also pretty unbelievable that there would be two young girls playing board games. Now don’t misunderstand me WOKE readers, I’ve had my ass handed to me on Scrabble, Monopoly and Articulate countless times by the fairer sex, but Dungeons and Dragons? Really? In London and Andalucía, Role Players have the reputation of being spotty geeks that girls avoid. I obviously don’t have factual proof and I could be wrong of course, but it just seems unlikely to me that young women would spend their evenings rolling dice with nerds? If anyone knows, shout me please and I apologise if I’m incorrect.

So far, I’ve made this sound pretty sh*t yeah? Well, it does start pretty bad, but when the killer finally turns up, things drastically improve. There’s not even a millilitre of blood, but the killer looks awesome and he utilises one of my favourite slasher trademarks, a killer ‘calling card’. Each victim finds a red rose before being slashed and I certainly enjoyed the last twenty-minutes. I always hate it when producers put their kid in the movie and it especially sucks when the kid is THE WORST ACTOR EVAAAAAAAAA. Surprisingly though, I didn’t allow it to ruin the final scene. If I compare this film to Slaughter High or Terror Train, you’d have to mention that Marty Rantzen was horribly disfigured and Kenny Hampson ended up in an asylum after their school friends tormented them. John in this film got a few nasty words, a snowball thrown at him and that’s it! The entire ‘revenge of the bullied nerd’ plot-line must include a HORRENDOUS event to build up the vengeance. Here, I think the guys getting stalked got a pretty tough deal for literally NOTHING. If John (Michael Rene Walton) worked in my office, he would’ve killed us all on day two. We tear each other apart reguarly with personally targeted banter and we hold NOTHING back in our ambition to make someone feel awful.

So should you hunt out Knight Chills? Well, gamers would love it, but for the rest of us, it’s quite slow, poorly acted/directed with one of the most unattractive casts I’ve ever seen. I was thinking, if I had to compare it to another slasher, I’d go with Dead Above Ground. This is much better than DAG but the two have similar story elements and synopsises. I did really enjoy the killer guise and I certainly didn’t stab darts in my eyeballs as I did with Curse of Halloween. I’m aware I have a lot of slasher completists reading my blog, so even if it hasn’t got killer POVs, heavy breath etc, you collectors should get it. For my other readers? I guess it’s a matter of personal choice. I don’t recommend it, but I liked parts of it and I’m glad I saw it.

Slasher Trappings:

Killer Guise:√√√√√

Gore:

Final Girl:

RATING:

Pool Party Massacre 2015 Review

Pool Party Massacre 2015

Directed by: Drew Marvick

Starring: LeeAnna Vamp, Alexis Adams, Destiny Faith Nelson

Review by Luisjo González

You know what? I think too much. ‘Think too much you’re asking?’ Well, my brain is always running at 260km per hour, all the f**ing time. If I wake up in the night at 1am somehow, there’s zero chance of me returning to sleep. I’m up until morning, thinking bullsh*t. My job is mentally challenging, so my mind doesn’t wander during the working day, but outside of those hours, I’m always pondering. Stupid stuff like, what started the Avalon and Cambrian explosions? Has Jupiter’s moon Europa got life? Why did evolution create a perfect apex predator in Gorgonopsid and then go backward on itself? Why doesn’t you every woman I see strip naked and sexually assault me? How did Joe Bidden get elected? Why do people still support Tottenham? Why aren’t I a multimillionaire? It’s pretty draining to have a brain like that, I can tell you. There’s a new conundrum that’s haunted my brain just recently and that is, why is it that only slasher flicks have so many horrendous actors? No other genre of cinema makes movies with hideous dramatics as often.

PPM is one of those slashers that I picked up a few years back on Amazon, put on my shelf and then never bothered watching or paying attention to. Very recently, I was looking for a copy of Bikini Party Massacre online, because I have slasher movies stored in four different locations and they’re in three countries, so I never can be sure of what exactly is where. I typed BP massacre in Google to find a downloadable version and this popped up, available for free on YouTube. I watched about five minutes, loved what I saw and headed to my shed quicker than WOKE people get offended. (I put all my slashers there when I wasn’t updating a Slash above)

Blair’s pool party rapidly becomes a nightmare when a violent killer begins stalking and murdering the bunnies one by one…

I have to admit that PPM started incredibly well. Stupendously so. The first thing on the screen is a busty hottie (LeeAnn Vamp) and she’s saying sexual things that all men adore (unless they’re gay) to a pool cleaner. An unseen someone creeps up behind her in heavy breath POV shots, and slices her throat (fantastic gore shot) in gruesome fashion. I loved what I was watching so far and was excited to see more. Sadly, I had to turn off the TV, because I wake up at 5:10am everyday and I’m generally out for the count by 21:00 during the week.

The next evening I put the film on again and I was eminently hopeful. Only problem was, when we get to meet the rest of the characters, the amazing impetus that the film started with totally vanishes. Sadly, pathetic performances begin to take control. I don’t want to continually say the same things in my reviews, but sometimes I have to, unfortunately. The Scream generation or maybe it’s just the modern era of slasher victims are all eminently unlikeable as homo sapiens. Once again the cast is filled with conceited, shallow, plastic (and apparently rich) idiots that become painful to watch. You don’t have to be Einstein to work out that films work much better if viewers like the cast and want them to survive. I’m guessing you guys/gals are all slasher or horror movie fans. I ask, what type of heroine do you prefer? Laurie Stroud played by Jamie Leigh Curtis or I can’t remember her name… stuck up girl… hmmm… oh yeah – Nancy (Margaux Némé) from Pool Party Massacre? I admit it seemed that the script was deliberately trying to make the cast members people we wouldn’t root for, but the logic of such an approach was lost on me. What’s the sense in deliberately making the people filling your runtime unappealing? Director/screenwriter Drew Marvick attempted to try and make the aforementioned Nancy a virginal type of final girl like the old days. Somehow, he doesn’t script it correctly. We witness her drinking alcohol a lot, talking like she’s sexually experienced and I don’t think I’ve seen that previously in the movies from the period that PPM is obviously trying hard to reference.

I must take my hat off to Marvick though, because he chose actresses with decent racks (including porn star Alexis Adams) and as I’ve said here many times, that’s certainly my type. Unfortunately, the slim one becomes the final girl and she has the magic ability to go swimming and emerge from the pool in the next scene with perfect, bone dry and blow-dried hair 😂 I honestly can’t say that I wanted her to survive and I didn’t particularly like her either. I won’t ruin what happens to her, suffice to say, the only character that I didn’t hate was the guy that they were all mocking (Clay – Nicky Byer). At least he was trying to get laid and it seemed like he had a target that he was working to achieve. The rest were just ladies that I’d do my best to avoid in reality.

Ppm is a low budget movie, but it does a superb job of making itself look higher funded. The way I worked out that it was cheap was that the awesome gore shot in the opening was followed with a lot of basic blood splashing and effects that you or I could create. The entire picture takes place in only one location and whilst that’s not a major problem (entries like Slumber Party Massacre did it to good effect), the same backdrops become tedious after a while. Catching screen scaps for this review was tough, because it was always the same group of chicas doing the same things until they get killed. There’s a part where we see a pizza guy get gutted and after the slaughter, we see his intestines. Whilst the killing was ok, his bowels looked like the frankfurters that I buy from the Polish shop. Despite the bargain-bucket special fx, I still enjoyed what I watched and it totally did not ruin PPM. The killer uses a number of tools to murder the teens and interestingly enough, we get to view his tool shed/armoury. He returns each appliance after he takes out someone to grab another weapon and we learn what will be next. I thought that was a neat touch, and Drew Marvick has a bundle of superb ideas. He’s not an awful director either, and some shots were well planned and slick. I totally didn’t guess the twist, and it plays like a whodunit, with the antagonist’s face off screen. Unfortunately, it turns out to be somewhat unfair and I felt a tiny bit cheated. I can’t tell you more as it may ruin the surprise, but if you manage to guess it, you’re a better person than I am.

I watched this a day after my six-year-old daughter’s junior play at her school. I’m sure that I saw far more credible dramatics in that junior education centre there than I watched on display in Pool Party Massacre. Either Marvick has zero idea how to direct actors or this is the most talentless group put together in the whole history of moving pictures. As a slasher fan, I’m obviously used to crap acting, but this stuff was so bad that it ruined the movie in places. Time spent alone with the cast is heinous. It’s not surprising that many of them quit cinema after this one effort. After this endeavor, I doubt the role offers were rolling in. That seems highly likely.

I think, to be honest, it may sound like I hated PPM, but that’s not true. It’s got two decent boob shots, attractive females and a lot of blood. There are some great moments that I enjoyed, I would ‘drill’ all the busty chicas and I was never bored. The main issue for me was that I saw most of the things that I hate about modern slashers. Conceited and unlikeable cast members, horrendous performances and an unappealing heroine (joke 😂). If you haven’t seen Drew Marvick’s praise peace to eighties slashers, by all means check it out. It’s fun, gory and certainly worth a look. I won’t ever watch it again though, because age has destroyed my tolerance of abhorrent dramatics. I just can’t suffer them anymore.

Killer Guise:

Gore:√√

Final Girl:√

RATING:

The Tallaght Chainsaw Massacre 2005 Review

The Tallaght Chainsaw Massacre 2005

Directed by: Ken Johnson

Starring: Ken Johnson, Julio Mandeas, Frank Sinister

Review by Luisjo González

When it comes to rare slasher movies, I AM THE DADDY! If you disagree and think I’m a loser in terms of rarity in the slasher genre, I want you to write me a letter explaining how and post it to: I don’t give a s**t, lick my ballsack, goofy hijo de puta cabrón, Jupiter’s moon Europa. 666 Satan.

Are we ready to get started now? Ok. This movie is not to be confused with Texas chainsaw massacre, even though they’re both as famous as each other😂. In honesty, this one is in fact so rare, it barely even exists. Try typing it in Google or IMDB. With one of the biggest and most popular blogs in slasher cyberspace, I speak to a lot of directors and many genre gurus. I told one of the slasher ‘names’ that I’m positive you peeps know, about Tallaght Massacre and he said it didn’t exist. In fact, he accused me of making it all up. I can’t tell you more about him, because you’d know who he is.(He will know) I can say, many of you associate with him, whether it be interacting via his Facebook page or contacting him another way. Well, I know that he checks a Slash above, so I ask him, how do you feel now muthaf**ker? You’ve been tangoed! Haters gonna hate and all that.

Two youths are pursued through the forest by a masked, chainsaw-brandishing killer. They’re desperate to escape, but the maniac seems as smart as they are

When my mum and dad split up when I was a nipper and before I moved to London, we lived for a little while in sunny Ireland. It’s a country that I love very much and it’s one of the greatest nations on planet earth. Spain and Ireland have a long history in conjunction and during the days of the Armada, Españoles we’re looking for people who understood the weather of the British isles and hated the English to join them in an invasion. Ireland stepped up and many Spaniards settled in the country in the following years. The term ‘black Irish’ refers to dark haired Irishmen that hail from Hispanic heritage.

Are you aware that 62.3% of Hollywood actors have Irish heritage? Robert Dinero, Marlon Brando, Martin Sheen, Clint Eastwood, Ben Affleck, Jeremy Renner, practically every famous actor has the gene. I had a DNA test myself, thinking it’d come back 100% latin/Slavic, but I’ve actually got a tiny bit of Irish somewhere in my bloodline too. Why do I tell you all that? Well, Tallaght is a city near Dublin and this is in fact, the first Irish slasher flick ever made.

To cut directly to the chase, this is not even low budget filmmaking. This is no budget filmmaking and it’s truly a back garden project. At 35 minutes, it certainly doesn’t outstay it’s welcome, but what was truly shocking was that it actually looked somewhat professional. I was indeed flabbergasted by some of the camera placement and the scoring is really effective, sounding a lot like The 1997 PlayStation 1 game, Resident Evil. It could of course mean that they stole it from that soundtrack, but either way, it worked well.

There’s not much plot involved in the synopsis and I recall about seven lines of dialogue, but the movie is pretty fun and it packs a few surprises. There’s no gore of course, but that’s likely because the budget for this entire production was about €10. Interestingly enough, I watched this after Don’t Look In The Cellar and whilst the people in this short are indeed absolute rank amateurs, I wasn’t getting frustrated watching them as I was during the aforementioned flick.

I can’t really say much else, because it is far too short and there’s a twist that I don’t want to ruin. I understand that this might upset you because you think you’ll never be able to find it, but I did, and I recommend to keep an eye on YouTube and rare movie sites. Not a great movie, but I was entertained all the same. If I had to chose a negative, I’d say I prefer watching buxom women getting stalked, but that’s a minor and I think the whole thing worked in a very fun way. The Mrs liked it too. Why only one star you ask? Well to give it more would be criminal, but it’s not sh**t and it works for what it is.

Slasher Trappings:

Killer Guise:

Gore:

Final Girl:

RATING: