Come Out And Play - Lisa's Review

This is a remake of the original Who Can Kill A Child? which we have already reviewed as part of 'Beyond Nasty'.  While we both enjoyed the original movie (read the review above for the premise), I have to say for me at least, this movie falls very far short.

Quite often you see a remake and think.... why?  What was the point in that?  Sometimes you hear a movie is going to be remade and you think... it may be ok, I'll give it a chance.  I was in the latter camp, having enjoyed the original but not having put it on some kind of pedestal, that the idea of a remake would have been abhorrant.

Sooo, why was I unimpressed?  Well the remake added nothing at all, so I struggle with the need for a remake.  As far as I could see, the only difference was a few more graphic images, which ironically were not as strong as the lack of a clear view in the original.  Images include the repeated stabbing and pelting with rocks of an elderly man who is being dragged through the street by his feet.  This ends with a rock being dropped on his head from a great height.  In the original movie, the old guy was actually used as a piñata by the kids and although the images were nowhere near as graphic, to me it seemed more sadistic and twisted to be using someone as an actual plaything.

We also see the body of a young woman which has had its faced pretty well caved in and its abdomen cut open and most of its contents removed.  The children are playing with the body and seem to have no squeamishness at all.  One girl actually wears severed fingers and ears as a necklace.


Maybe I shouldn't compare the 2 movies and review 'Come Out And Play' as a movie in its own right.  If I do that, I'm afraid, I would only find at best a pretty average movie.  Although the premise is a good one, a lot of the poignancy is lost for me with the lack of any kind of empathy inspired by the two movie leads and a pretty dire performance.   I also find it pretty near impossible to forget I have seen a much better version of the movie.  You know what they say.... what has been seen, cannot be unseen.

The original movie had its faults of course, which are replicated in this remake, like the stupidity of the characters throughout.  Decisions made and reactions seemed then, and seems in this, ridiculous.  Somehow it seemed forgivable in the first movie due to its plus points in other areas, but in this movie it's just damn irritating.

Another big negative for me about this movie is the lack of explanation or back story for the actions of the children.  In the first movie, we had the harrowing documentary footage by way of explanation as to how these children could have evolved to be how they are, but in this movie, we have no idea why they set about killing all the adults they encounter.  What before was a basis of a movie and added food for thought, here was completely missing.

In short, I definately wouldn't recommend this movie.  If you like the sound of the story, go and watch the original 'Who Can Kill A Child?'.  Don't waste your time on this sub-standard rehash.

Maniac - Will's Review

So a slasher this week - Yay! I do love me a slasher!

A very atypical one though; Maniac avoids the conventions of following a group of potential victims (a la FT13th, Elm Street) or even one stand out victim (a la Halloween), instead we follow the killer; but even for that, this isn't a "hero killer" movie, not do we understand his motives (beyond "he's crazy") for quite a while.

On the subject of his crazy, the insanity is brilliantly written and acted - this is no hammed up 'conversations with himself' insanity; this is real non-linear crazy.

As he nails each of his latest victims' scalp to a mannequin (which is his MO) he does have a habit if conversing with himself, but he switches sides of the conversation rapidly; there is no 'call and return' preformed by two distinct personalities, just a jumble of thoughts that bleed into one another. At times these little monologues genuinely unnerving, not because if any particular content, but because you could easily believe them as the ramblings of a madman.

I also found the level of remorse interesting; at times he would seem genuinely sorry for his killings, even while performing them.

It's a shame then, that the story is so straight forward, and the killings so bland; well executed (by FX maestro Tom Savinni) but dull. The only real stand-out death being when Savinni himself (appearing simply because he already cad a cast of his own head) is shot in the head, causing his head to explode in a spectacularly over the top fashion.

There are some nice quasi-supernatural parts near the end, but they aren't enough to rescue the movie.

Despite a great performance from the lead, I found the whole affaire to be a little slow; I can see why this one has been re-made.

I enjoyed it well enough, but can't recommend it due to the pace.

Maniac - Lisas Review

***SPOILERS***

Back with a familiar feel this week.  This weeks movie felt like we were back on our Beyond Nasty challenge again.  Is that a bad or good thing I hear you ask?  Well, neither kinda..... this is one of those films that pass an hour and a half and you don't think its bad enough to slate, but at the same time you're left feeling kinda 'meh' about it.  I don't want to be too unkind about this movie as it actually wasn't too bad, but I can't help but feel Joe Spinnell is more deserving of better material... unfortunate that he actually wrote 'Maniac'.

So our premis here is a middle aged, chunky, single man (Frank) living in New York.  Its shown pretty much from the getgo that he's a bit of a freak.  We are shown that he murders young women, scalps them and then places the scalp on a mannequins in his appartment.  He has several mannequins, obviously hinting that he is a seasoned serial killer.  After several nights of sleeping with his new scalp adorned mannequins.  He goes out to find a new victim.

We are also made aware that he has a bit of a mother complex.  His mum was a nasty piece of work who died in a car accident.  Frank isn't quite ready to accept mummy dearest has gone so he seems to think each of the mannequins IS his mother, having full, allbeit one-sided conversations with her.

We only deviate from his normal routine when a young photographer (Anna) takes his photo in the park.  He finds out where she lives and goes to her appartment.  Recognising him as the man she photographed, she lets them in... The women in these movies really do need a few safety & security lessons it seems.  Although he plans to murder her, he is impressed by her talent and ends up taking her out for dinner.

When visiting her at one of her photo shoots, he is rather taken by a young model she is photographing.  He steals a necklace belonging to her, so he can return it later, giving him an excuse to go to her house. This young lady needs to attend the same safety classes as Anna, as she opens the door to this complete stranger.  He of course gains access to her appartment, kidnaps her and takes her home.  She meets the same fate as all the other ladies, proving meeting Anna has not changed Frank at all.

The movie takes a bit of a quite spiral downwards after this point.  We see Frank and Anna going to the graveyard to visit Franks mothers grave.  He tries to kill Anna and ends up hallucinating, seeing his dead mother.

We go back to the appartment and he dreams of all his mannequins coming to life as the women that he murdered and piling on top of him before ripping his head off.  I was a bit unsure as to whether this was happening, but given he is seen laying on the bed bleeding from what seems to be a suicide attempt in the next scene, I am guessing he was dreaming or hallucinating.

In the final scene, 2 policemen enter his appartment, see his collection of mannequins and him laying on the bed bleeding.  Why they imagine him to be dead without checking, who knows.... they leave and Franks eyes snap open.  End Movie.

So what did I think?  Good points - One thing I would give mention to was certain special effects....  Tom Savini makes a short appearance, making out with a young woman in a car.  Frank blows his head off at close range with a shotgun.  Quite impressive effects there.  Also good blood throughout.  A close-up of the first scalping is also believable.

It wasn't a BAD movie, but it certainly wasn't a good one.  I thought Joe Spinnell was excellent as Frank, but the movie in itself was just something we've seen 100 times before.  Its not something I would recommend someone rush out and see, but I would probably suggest they check out the head explosion scene.

Silent Night, Deadly Night - Lisa's Review

*** SPOILERS ***

I'll be quick this week as we have a house full of lurgy, a migrane ridden husband and a sick child.

I'm torn yet again with what I thought about this weeks movie.  I can definately see the appeal to the masses.  It's a typical 80's slasher movie.  Young boy (Billy) witnesses a tragedy that is the murder of his parents and rape of his mother by a criminal dressed as Santa Claus (who he already has a fear of Santa anyway following a rather sinister conversation with his 'supposedly' catatonic grandfather in a home - who it turns out is far from catatonic).  This leaves him and his brother Ricky as orphans.  This already warped young mind is further twisted by nuns in the orphanage where he is placed.  Evil catholic nuns is a favourite in horrors.

As an adult, for reasons best known to himself, Billy ends up working in a toy store. For a boy/young man who has such a problem with Santa/Christmas its possibly not the best choice of career.  Predictably he ends up having to stand in for the store Santa and spends the day scaring the bejezus out of all the kids.

Here Billys killing spress starts after he witnesses the girl he thinks he is in love with that he works with getting off with someone else.. another horror staple for pushing the guy over the edge.  There is plenty of opportunity for topless women, another staple.... you can see why I'm not jumping up and down about this one....

What follows is Billy killing lots of people in a variety of ways, including impaling on reindeer antlers which I suppose was one original scene in the movie.  We also have a decpaitation, knife stabbing, Axing.

We also have a little twist at the end, which is a must have in this kind of movie.  I found it hard to let this one pull me in as it was full of so many cliches and I felt like I'd watched it many times before, even though I know I haven't.  I'm not saying it's a terrible movie by any means, I know it will appeal to many people who are fans of this kind of movie.  It just didn't do it for me.  I don't feel I have completely wasted my time by watching it, yet I don't feel its one I would recommend anyone rush out to see either.  It is a typical 80's slasher movie.  I suppose there is the additional draw of the seasonal aspect, but I can't see any reason to watch this outside of December.

If you want a no-brainer seasonal horror, by all means, you could do much worse than this one.  If you want something good to watch, probably best not bother.

Twitch Of The Death Nerve - Lisa's Review

*** SPOILERS ***

My flabber is well and truely gast this week!  2 movies worthy of a 'Recommends' tag from me in 2 weeks!! What is the world coming to?  I really enjoyed this weeks movie, on pretty much every level.  I knew from the opening scene, it was very likely that this was a good 'un.   The cinematography in this movie is cracking! I loved how they used the camera, lighting and staging.  In the opening scene alone, the filming of our first victims home (from inside and outside) is just stunning.

I Miss You, Hugs & Kisses - Lisa's Review

*** SPOILERS ***

This weeks movie seemed to be keeping with the trend of sedative viewing.

I found this one hard viewing.  It was so dull and I was so uninterested in it, getting to the end was a struggle.  I still feel I probably missed half of it through mind drifting.  It is a supposed true story, but how much of this has been kept close to the actual story is anyones guess.


The movie starts with a murder of a supposedly beautiful (I say supposed as I didn't think she was) model Magdalene.  All fingers are pointing at her husband, Charles.  The movie plays out as a court room drama with flashbacks to events leading up to the murder.  As it does, it introduces possible killer after killer and uncovers new motives.

As with last weeks movie, this one had an appearance of being made for TV.  There were a few scenes which would have raised a few eyebrows from the usual viewers of this kind of dross (and they were the reasons it made the DPP list) but asides from that, I can see this alongside Columbo or Murder she Wrote on a Sunday afternoon.

What else can I say about this movie without boring you even more than I was with regards to the plot... scenes in the movie that probably led to it being placed on the nasties list??

A Chicken Slaughterhouse (all been seen before so not surprising)
Head Bludgeoning (we see the victim being bludgeoned by every suspect leaving lots of unanswered questions for the viewer... if indeed they care)
A Stabbing followed by a suggestion of necrophilia (performed off screen - This was a bit disturbing as it seemed so out of place in the movie, something genuinely nasty)
A disgruntled husbands fantasies about killing his wife (this was more humorous than anything else)


This movie is all over the place in the court room.  We keep getting more and more information and just when you think you know 'who did it', we are presented with another would-be killer.  Thing is... I didn't care who did it.  Was it the husband Charles?  After all Magdalene won't sleep with him and he is in love with another woman.  He also talks at length with his best friend Gershen (I kept seeing Bobby Ewing when I looked at him!) about ways to kill his wife.  Was it Gershen, his confidant who was actually having an affair with the victim? (naughty boy!) Was it the escaped serial killer with the penchant for sex with corpses?  (On a side note, this character seemed to have no place in the movie.  I could see a movie about him working though.) Even cops are fingered as possible murderers.

After everything has played out in the court, the jury find Charles guilty.  They are then asked to stand up as their numbers are called 1 at a time, if they agreed with the verdict... was this ever the case in reality? (Will?)

We end the movie with Charles writing a letter to Paulie (not sure if that was his daughter or the woman he was having the affair with... I think it was the daughter).  He has been in prison for a couple of years and is appealing his conviction.  The things he seems most perturbed about are the fact he's had to have his head shaved and the food is crap (so much so its brought him out in boils, lol).

Rather dull ending to a very dull movie.  Not quite as bad as last week, it has to be said, but still... not something I'll ever watch again.

I wouldn't bother with this one folks.  Nothing particularly nasty or rivetting here.

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The House by the cemetery - Lisa's Review

A nice little movie this week! Another Fulci offering. This movie is apparently a part of an unofficial trilogy with The Beyond which we watched a few months ago when we were still on 'B' and City of the living dead.

*** SPOILERS ***

Although the movie is quite dated as you would expect and the poor dubbing is irritating, I still managed to enjoy this movie. Its a good little afternoon view. I didn't find anything particularly scary, but the makeup in places is very good. Its just in shame in some other places, its so bad.

The basic premis without going into too much detail is a family (Mum Lucy, Dad Norman and young boy Bob) moving to a town called New Whitby due to the the father (Norman) having to research some old houses. The house they move into however is not as innocent as it seems.

We 'the viewer' already have this information on board from the opening scene of a young woman (topless at that... why do women never wear bras in these movies?) who is murdered via a knife to the back of the head (which protrudes from her mouth) as she is looking for her boyfriend. Also Bob keeps seeing the ghost of a young girl Mae who warns him not to go to the house.

Of course they go anyway and the inevitable happens.

They have gravestones in the garden and even in the hallway, of a family called 'The Freudsteins (on a side note, this really bothered me as they were referred to as Freudsteens in the movie, but german pronunciation dictates that with an ie or ei, you pronounce the last letter, so they should have been referred to as Freudstine!) anyways I deviate. We find out that Dr Freudstein does what all historical doctors have done in movies like this....illegal experiements. He also ends up killing his family.

We find out Freudstein is in fact still alive and in the cellar of the house as he is using parts from his victims to regenerate his blood cells. The reveal is kind of disappointing. He looks kind of like a withered ET and a scene which shows only his eyes glowing in the cellar when young Bob comes across him is just laughable.

Nothing much more to the story really. Bad stuff happens, people die.

Points worth noting in the movie are the doggedly determined, haemophiliac bat (very amusing scene), the stabbing by poker (what a horrid way to go and very good effects) and the slow decapitation by knife (again good effects, but let down by the poor severed head rolling down the stairs later).

The movie has its faults, but on the whole, it was a fun watch and something I would watch again. This one gets a 'recommended' from me.

Something I've gained from watching these movies is an appreciation of Mr Fulci!

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Don't go into the woods - Lisa's Review

So here I sit on a Sunday morning before leaving for work getting last weeks 'nasty' fitted into my schedule and what monumental waste of time. Even reviewing it seems like minutes lost that will never be recaptured. I'm trying in vain to think of something positive to say about this movie, but the only teeny tiny positives are in fact accidental on the part of the film makers.


Firstly, I thought as with a lot of these movies, it may be foreign and had the actors voices dubbed on in english at a later date, but nooooooooo. This leaves me kind of inredulous as to how on earth the worst 'after dubbing' effect was achieved by this movie. I have seen and heard better acting at a school play. Every word is in slow motion, dragged and spaced out as if trying to fit in with the mouth movements rather than sound believable. How this has happened given the movie is anyones guess.

To be very politically incorrect for a moment, the lead characters (4 of them, 2 girls and 2 guys) is almost like a group of special needs kids out for a jolly in the woods. It took me some time to actually accept none of them were meant to be retarded.

We interrupt this review for competition news: the third word you will need to enter to win a copy of "Don't Look in the Basement" is "BEING". and now, back to the review...

The plotline... very loosely speaking, is several groups of people in the woods.. twitchers, swingers, hikers etc all being killed by an off screen assailant, who is later revealed and just looks like another retarded grizzly adams. The kills are all pretty standard, nothing new... impaling, stabbing, slashing, amputation, beating to death in a sleeping bag, burning in a van. There is absolutely no suspense at all and rather than care about the characters so you actually look forward to a death for something to happen and then are generally left disappointed by how crap it was. Another point about the actual kills... the screaming never changes while any character is being killed, its the same volume and pitch all the way through. I never thought a woman burning in a van would scream loudly at exactly the same pitch and then just stop.

Another point, was why they kept repeating parts of the script over' and over again... 'no, no, no, no, no', 'give me key, give me the keys, give me the keys', 'we got to keep moving, we got to keep moving, we got to keep moving'... you get the message.

The men are f*ckwits, the women are stupid (whats new there about an 80's horror) and I just couldn't wait to get to the end. It was almost like this movie was filmed as a comedy, but sadly it doesn't even have that excuse. There were a few unintentional mildly amusing bits but my lurgy is getting in the way of my sense of humour this morning so they just irritated me in their crapness.

There is no reason to watch this movie, other than to see possibly the worst acting and witness the worst script I have ever seen/heard. AVOID at all costs would be my advice!

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SHOCKTOBER SPECIAL: A cat in the brain - Lisa's Review

NOTE: In honour of Halloween, We're taking a break from the DPP list.

This weeks movie was selected for 2 reasons:

1. Although it was too recent to make the DPP list, it was banned on release in the UK, and only passed in 2003 after extensive cuts.

2. It was Written and Directed by, and stars (as Himself) prolific Video Nasty Director Lucio Fulci (The Beyond, Zombie Flesh Eaters)

So to the penultimate Shocktober Special, the very strange 'A Cat in the brain'. Having heard other peoples viewpoints on this, I wasn't expecting much, in fact I was expecting it to be one of the worst so far, in fact I found I really enjoyed this. As flawed a movie as it is in many respects, I'll tell you why I liked it.

For anyone not in the know, Lucio Fulci is a very famous Italian horror director famous for the goriest of movies. In this movie, he brings together the best examples of gore from his other movies. He manages to re-use these as he plays himself in the movie and we see how his involvement with such despicable material in his movies, slowly starts contributing to his mental breakdown. He eventually starts imagining brutal deaths and thinks he is responsible for these. So thats the premise... how did it pan out?

Ok, so the acting is dire. It says something that the best performance comes from Fulci himself and he is far from an actor. The gore isn't believable in a lot of places, the script is laughable and some of the gore is so obscene, all you can do is laugh open mouthed.. I suppose that's why we get the phrase 'Eyeball Gag' with reference to all means of horrid things happening to eyeballs... a Fulci favourite.

The good points? If you're a fan of gore, this movie has it in spades. Its like taking out all of the boring, slow bits from other movies and just letting loose with gore, obscenity and general rudeness. There are boobs a plenty in this one it has to be said, which is no doubt a plus point for the majority of male viewers. I also found that even though there are several violent scenes involving women, that have an overtly sexual nature, they didn't come across as titillating or exploitative to me at all.

This movie will appeal to some and not at all to others. I don't think its going to be one of those 'It was ok' movies. It certainly doesn't hold back, that's for sure. Among delights contained therein are: Decapitation, Disembowelling, Dismemberment, Chainsaws aplenty, Knife Stabbings, Several nasty Eyeball moments, A few horrendous beatings (very realistic too!), A psycho style shower murder (but this one is much more graphic) and cannibalism for good measure.

I won't go into detail about scenes from the movie, or give away the storyline, but I will say I really enjoyed this one. I have a penchant for nasty movies though, so if you're of a weak disposition and consider movies like 'Sixth Sense' and 'Final Destination' horror movies, then probably best avoid this one.

Deffo one for the die hard gore fan. BIG thumbs up!

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