Guinea Pig 2 : Flower of Flesh and Blood - Lisa's Review

*** SPOILERS ***

I type 'Spoilers' at the start of this review, but I'm sure anyone who watches this movie, will know exactly what they're letting themselves in for as its not exactly a mainstream movie known by most people.  Die-Hard horror fans will no doubt know about this movie, even if they haven't watched it.

I saw this movie maybe a year and a half ago, but watched it again this morning.  There is no storyline here to speak of.  The movie is a mere 40 minutes long and exists purely to document the kidnapping, dismemberment, disembowling and decapitation of a young woman.  This is all played out very slowly, very close-up and the camera NEVER pans away.  Disturbingly the woman is alive throughout the entire ordeal until her decapitation.

The actual special effects, while they have faults are very well done.  You watch it and find yourself wondering how they achieved certain parts of the movie.  There was a bit too much red jelly-like material for me for it to look as authentic as it could have, but the actual cuts and dismemberment look eerilly real.  Special mention has to go however to the authenticity of the removed eyeball and the yicking it caused me when the perpetrator enjoys a suck on it.  DISGUSTING!  Just as much so as the tonguing of the decapitated head....

The young woman is injected with drugs before the murderer sets to work and I don't know what he has given her, but by gawd it must be strong for what was endured without as much as a squeak from her!  I could do with me some of that for when the old back is playing up.

I could recommend this movie to carefully selected friends, but most people you would recommend this to who watched it would no doubt think you were seriously disturbed for watching it, never mind recommending it.  Never-the-less, I hand the 'recommended' award to this one, purely because I think fans of gory horror really should see it as I don't think I have seen anything like it before.

I found it difficult to watch and it felt very exploitative to me due to the close-up unflinching depiction of this poor womans demise, but you have to hand it to them, they achieved exactly what they set out to I imagine.    I'm not a squeamish person at all, but I found myself wrinkling my nose on more than 1 occasion watching this one, for that alone it deserves the thumbs up.

Blood Feast 2 - Will's Review

After being board stupid by the original Blood Feast I was, understandably, not looking forward to it's long-time-coming sequel; where the original at least had its age and relative importance working in its favor (it was arguable the first ever 'gore' movie) this sequel would have to have more going for it than a few pounds of butcher's shop offal going for it to justify its existence.



The plot is pretty much the same this time around; Fuad Ramses' grandson (Fuad Ramses III) inherits his grandfathers catering business, and is almost immediately hypnotized by the statue of Ishtar in the back room, at which point he sets too killing off young girls in order to prepare a 'blood feast' to resurrect the goddess.

This time the party Ramses has been contracted to cater is a wedding; the groom being a local police detective, the bridesmaids being the gore fodder.

From a technical standpoint, Herschell Gordon Lewis is never going to win an Oscar for direction, but it's comforting to see that he has at least improved on the 39 years between installments Although not directed brilliantly, this movie does at least appear to have been directed - the original installment looked very much like the cameras were just vaguely pointed at the actors, who were then given free reign.

Sound wise I'm guessing someone agreed to give some friends' music some coverage - virtually every scene in the movie features music, to the point where it's actually distracting.

The effects, bizarrely, have not improved at all in the almost 40 years between installments still consisting mostly of close ups of hands playing with pig-intestines stuffed into mannequins.

It would seem though, that the (very) old school gore (like the hammy acting) is a very deliberate choice this time around.

Unlike the original, Blood Feast 2 is every inch the parody. From Tip-of-the-hat in jokes, such as the names of the detectives (Myers and Loomis) to in-your-face Airplane! style sight gags.

And it genuinely is a good move; as parody, the film actually works! Like Lewis' direction, it's not going to win any awards, but it does the job.

Some of the gags are a little on the nose, others quite subtle; there was a very quick back and fourth where someone "mistakenly" identifies Ishtar as a Babylonian goddess (which she is) rather than Egyptian (as per movie cannon).

I particularly liked the recurring gag involving a character who was accidentally killed, then never mentioned again, but who's body keeps cropping up in unexpected places (and being ignored).

There are plenty of 'nudie cutie' moments too - an all woman lingerie modelling party, a gratuitous shower scene, etc. but (as with everything else in the movie) they are played as much for laughs as anything; the absurdity of them being part of the joke.

I really don't know how to classify this one; it was an entertaining movie, and I think any horror fan with a penchant for 'Naked Gun' style humor would enjoy it.

I think I'm going to mark this one as "so bad it's good" but that's not quite accurate... after the first 20 mins it becomes apparent that both the lack of quality and the humor are intentional, so I'm not sure if that does make it a "bad" movie‽


Either way, much kudos to all involved. Usually, in order to make a movie this poor, but at the same time this entertaining, one needs to be inept, but earnest. Troll 2, Plan 9 from Outer Space and their ilk are funny only because everyone involved though they were making a masterpiece. Intentionally making a "bad" movie that's still entertaining is no easy task.

In fact, screw it; I've talked myself around! I'm going to recommend this one.

Blood Feast 2 - All You Can Eat - Lisa's Review

*** SPOILERS ****

I don't quite know where to begin with this weeks movie....  When it started there was much eyeball rolling in this house, but I have to admit as I watched a bit more it was definately entertaining.  Not in the way you may think.  This movie is hilarious!

It's not funny because its so monumentally crap, but it is actually played for laughs all the way.  The whole script and every character are almost cartoon in style and everything is tongue-in-cheek.  I found the humour similar to Airplane/Naked Gun type humour but with LOTS of gore.

The movie follows on from the original Blood Feast (released several decades earlier and on the DPP list) and has the original character Mr Rasmes's grandson Mr Ramses the 3rd, follow in the footsteps of his grandfather after he is possessed by his grandads statue of the Egyptian god Ishtar.  He sets to murdering lots of attractive young women, who just happen to be bridesmaids for a wedding that he is catering for.  His plan is to do what his grandfather didn't manage to do and make a 'Blood Feast' for the wedding with parts of his victims.

Surprisingly the gore is actually not too bad either in places.  You can tell this movie didn't have a big budget to play about with and true, there are some effects that are awful, but I found the appearance of the internal organs, intestines and brain to be very authentic.  There were places that made you cringe and I was quite surprised the camera didn't cut away in a lot of places, but that seemed to be what this movie did best.  Showed you the bits other movies don't.  We see a partial decapitation which goes on way longer than I thought it would.  Another scene shows a young woman have her face peeled down and her de-skinned face is still screaming.  The murderer then proceeds to saw off the top of her scalp and play with her brain in an way which would imply he was getting some kind of sexual arousal from it. This is also shown from his fingering of the holes where eyeballs used to be (removed with a little melon scooper) and the sliding of fingers into what I think was a liver?  I'm not sure...


It all sounds a bit gruesome but it is ridiculously over the top and almost comic book in style.  From the cold, opinionated, nasty mother of the bride to the innocent, cute, endearing bride.  From the young bumbling stupid police officer who vomits at every crime scene to the older, even more stupid fat partner who never stops eating EVER through the movie, even when looking over the remains of victims.  The only person in the movie who seems to have a brain cell (apart from our murderer of course) is the secretary in the police station, who of course is your stereotypical beautiful woman with hair all scooped back and glasses on.  We get to see her shake the hair down, take the glasses off and get the bits out in one of the policemans fantasies... I didn't see that coming AT ALL!

Another section of the movie shows all the bridesmaids deciding that a 'lingerie party' would be an excellent idea, so we get to see them all strip down (in a way that no woman every strips unless its for a mans benefit) to their very sexy underwear.  Similar to the needless shower scene where there is much posturing about by the nubile young woman who wears her towel around her waist man style for all of about 5 seconds when she exits the shower.

The murders are all pretty gruesome but like I said, the movie isn't to be taken seriously and is actually genuinely funny.  This is one that would probably be quite good fun to watch with a group of like-minded mates.

I struggled with whether I should recommend this one as I did enjoy it, but I decided not to as the vast majority of people would think this was absolutely dire.  I would imagine though that Will quite enjoyed this one too.

Salo - Lisa's Review

*** SPOILERS ***

I'm at a bit of a loss this week as to how exactly to review this movie as I have no want to give a blow-by-blow account of it, thats for sure.  The fact I am feeling more than a little ill today also would make me want to avoid even thinking about it, never mind reviewing it.

So, what can I say.  Having read a bit about the movie, it seems that the absolute and utter depravity we see on screen from start to finish is in actual fact a very political message about facism, with the 4 main characters (a bishop, a president, a duke and a magistrate) representing different sections of our society.  The bishop - religion, the president - political leaders, the magistrate - the legal system and the duke - nobility.  Well that was all very much lost on me I'm afraid.  To me it just appeared to be an excuse to be shocking, to show as much depravity as possible and get away with it under the usual screen of proclaiming it as 'art' with an important message.  Bollocks!  It truely felt to me, like a few people sat in a room and wrote a list of what they could get away with depicting onscreen.



Now before I go into the small amount of detail my stomach permits today, I will say, although I hated this movie and really wonder why anyone would WANT to watch it nevermind enjoy watching it, I realise every movie has its audience (it would be a very boring world if we were all the same), so I don't think the movie should be banned, I am amazed however that it is not.  As Will stated to me, Human Centipede 2 has similar (yet nowhere near as shocking) scenes which were cut and the movie was banned under the obscene publications act... how is this possible?  It seems with the 'art' umbrella you can get away with an awful lot.

So to the movie... well the story itself is minimal and quite hard to follow.  The 4 main characters I already detailed make an agreement to marry each others daughters as a start in the quest to make real whatever perversions they can imagine.  The movie which follows is basically those perversions carried out.

We have sexual torture, scalping, eyeball gouging, burning of genitals with candles, defecation, urination in mouths and on faces, rape, torture, general degradation.... what more is there to say really.

In one noteworthy scene a wedding is taking place between a young boy (bizarrely dressed as the bride) and one of the perverts.  The young women have been ordered not to defecate for some time before the feast as they are to perform on the day for everyones delectation... Several young women walk out with silver platters piled high with faeces which everyone proceeds to get tucked into (some with a lot of gusto it has to be said).  This in itself is repugnant, but the scene of the young women beforehand who was reprimanded for having a poo in her chamber pot a day early as she 'couldn't hold it' was just twisted... they even examined her and realised she'd had the audacity to clean herself after!!  What AM I watching?

In another scene a young girl is forced to urinate on someones face and in their mouth... okaaaaaay.

An idea of the degradation is shown where a group of the naked young men and women (they are all naked throughout the movie) are shown kneeling down, bums in air, head on the ground to be examined by these perverts by way of a torch being shone where the sun aint supposed to shine to see who has the most beautiful backside!

Nearing the end of the movie we are shown scene after scene of torture and mutilation is shown through the eyes of the 4 perverts who are watching through binoculars at what they have created.  I was just a bit in shock that this movie has been passed at all!  It is without question, the sickest piece of movie making i have had the misfortune to sit through.

The political message was lost on me completely.  It just appeared to be a load of shock elements using the guise as 'art' to get away with as much as they could.

I can't recommend this at all.  In fact I have no idea why anyone would have a desire to watch this or would sit through it all if not for the purpose of a challenge or review... AVOID!