Blood Diner

Two brothers open a vegetarian diner (well, it serves vegetarians, often to other vegetarians) after exhuming their sorcerer/serial-killer father and transplanting his still-living eyes and brain into a jar in order to guide them in their virgin-mutilating (and sewing back together) quest to reincarnate the five-million-year-old goddess Shitar.

Quite a mouthful, eh? And I didn't even mention the zombie-rock concert finale!

This film truly has everything. A must-see, and see-again.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Blood Diner (IMDB)

Wince : [***__]
Flinch : [***__]
Retch : [***__]
Gape : [****_]

Beerequisite : [****_]
Pornability : [**___]
Obscurity : [****_]
Explicability : [**___]

Reality Check: Wait, the human race is HOW old again?

Character Most Likely to be Reborn as a WWF Star: Little Jimmy Hitler

Things I've Never Seen Before: Did he just cut off his own penis and threaten to use it as a weapon?

Other Notable Moments:
* Ouch! Killed by a deep fryer in the most horrible head-battered fashion!
* Who is manning that ventriloquist dummy?
* Topless Aerobics! Yay!
* Another Hitler?
* It's the build-your-own-cheerleader store!
* "The killer was last seen with a knife in one hand, and his genitals in the other."

The Peeping Tom

Are you a peeping tom? Well, you're going to feel like one at the start of this movie! The opening sequence is from a camera focussed on the legs of pedestrians. From there the film moves on to the obligatory woman-masturbating-in-a-shower scene, then the girls undressing scene, and so forth. Really puts you in the right frame of mind for what follows: fixating on women's legs is normal, right?

What makes this movie work is the serial killer himself: a delightfully sociopathic performance. The teashades, the cut-here dotted lines drawn on victims with a sharpie, the total disregard for -- well, for just about everything.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Chik juk ging wan (IMDB)

Wince : [****_]
Flinch : [***__]
Retch : [***__]
Gape : [**___]

Beerequisite : [***__]
Pornability : [****_]
Obscurity : [***__]
Explicability : [**___]

Black Christmas

The original "the calls are coming from inside the house!" slasher movie.

Black Christmas is an unexpected delight, a nearly perfect horror film. The killer is never seen directly, only in silhouette with the occasional creepy shot of his eye peering out of the shadows. There is no justification for the killer's actions, no backstory to explain his crazed Billy and Agnes rantings on the phone, and no attempt at all to pretend he has been killed or caught at the end.

There is no need to explain the plot -- serial killer breaks into sorority house and starts doing his thing -- but some of the characters are quite noteworthy. Barb steals the show as an alcoholic broken-home sorority girl with an acerbic wit. Jessica puts in a good performance as the Empowered Woman who argues to her boyfriend that yes, by damn, she will have that abortion because there is still a lot in life she wants to do. Finally, Mrs Mac, the matronly lady in charge of the girls and guardian of their morals, has more bottles hidden than the guy from Lost Weekend.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Black Christmas (IMDB)

Wince : [**___]
Flinch : [**___]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [**___]

Beerequisite : [****_]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [**___]

Broken

Truly the most brutal and savage wife training video on the market. Even covers how to handle trading in your wife for a younger, more attractive, and more talkative model.

This is pretty much a standard serial killer film. An opening shot gives some insight into the fate of the victims (buried alive with a razor blade sewn into their stomachs, allowed to escape, clubbed unconscious, then hung by their neck and given a second chance to escape).

Cut to the victim du jour, a single mom on a date who inexplicably awakes in a coffin the next day. After various attempts at begging and escaping, she decides to earn the trust of the killer before getting her revenge.

Well done, a must-see for any serial killer movie fans, but not very original or surprising.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Broken (IMDB)

Wince : [*____]
Flinch : [****_]
Retch : [***__]
Gape : [**___]

Beerequisite : [**___]
Pornability : [**___]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [**___]

The Hamiltons

A family of blood-swilling serial killers has moved to Petaluma, and are just trying to fit in.

This movie really has a lot going for it: the pacing is good; the acting is, well, good enough; the story unfolds nicely. Its greatest asset is probably its ambiguity: throughout the film, you are uncertain as to who is a sympathetic character, or even what the nature of the movie truly is. I was struck by the way the film shied away from gore, which is a staple of any serial killer film, but by the end I could understand the decision.

I think the directors took the film a tad too seriously, especially with the whole "we could be living next to you right now" narration at the end (not to mention the handling of Lenny), but on the whole it was a decent film.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

The Hamiltons (IMDB)

Wince : [***__]
Flinch : [**___]
Retch : [**___]
Gape : [**___]

Beerequisite : [***__]
Pornability : [**___]
Obscurity : [***__]
Explicability : [***__]

Favorite line even though I saw it coming: "Here, kitty kitty!"

What I would do different: Shot the entire thing through the younger brother's video camera, keeping the slow buildup but providing it the kind of 'found object' feel that Blair Witch tried for and making it much more personal.

Badlands

A young Martin Sheen steals a younger Sissy Spacek away from her father Warren Oates and goes on a killing rampage up through the Dakotas.

This is a slow, easy-going serial killer movie with some very good performances: Spacek's withdrawn narration, Sheen's good-natured surrender.

Undoubtedly provided the fodder for Kalifornia and Natural Born Killers. And yes, in the background there you can hear the inspiration for Tarantino's True Romance soundtrack.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Wince : [**___]
Flinch : [*____]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [*____]

Beerequisite : [***__]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [***__]

Mad Cowgirl

Thursday's feature flick.

The fragmented and moving tale of a lovelorn meat inspector, her love of (western) kung-fu movies, her exposure to BSE, and her subsequent killing spree. A film for the most jaded palate, this one has everything: beef, leering priests, more beef, incest, cannibalism (or was that still more beef?), even a flying guillotine!

I'm sending a copy of this to every vegan I know.

* * * R A T I N G * * *
Mad Cowgirl (IMDB)

Wince : [****_]
Flinch : [**___]
Retch : [***__]
Gape : [****_]

Beerequisite : [****_]
Pornability : [****_]
Obscurity : [****_]
Explicability : [*____]