Ruptured Go Fuck Yourself Christmas Special

Well it’s that time of year again. Make sure to put on your paper hat, crack open the eggnog and force a smile while trying to display emotions other than hate and lust so that your family think you’re a normal human being. It is of course Christmas, the perfect time to settle down with your loved ones around a cosy fire and enjoy a good film, preferable a light family orientated affair. Bollocks to that I say. The endless stream of sugar coated garbage (modern cinema) that gets stuffed down our throats at a rate that will probably give us diabetes is the reason I am writing this shit, as a rejection to normality. So allow me to introduce you to an alternative Christmas film that will have you and your family fucking dead people within minutes.

 
Country of origin- Spain

Year of release- 1994  

Director- Nacho Cerdà            

Stars- Pep Tosar, Jordi Tarrida, Ángel Tarris 

 

Aftermath is a 30 minute long short film that features no dialogue and an awful lot of dead people being molested. The films short plot follows a pathologist who seems to have an unhealthy obsession with his job. This ultimately culminates in a horrifically long and savage scene in which the pathologist strips, mutilates and has sex with the body of a female car crash victim. This prolonged scene gives the viewer a palpable sense of emersion into the sick and demented world of clinical necrophilia that this deranged pathologist lives in. The pathologist seems to take out what can only be described as fury upon the cadaver, going so far as to enact the Cannibal Corpse song, Fucked With A Knife before climbing on.

The whole film has a cold clinical feel to it that is greatly helped by the grim and authentic setting, along with the near constant silence expect for the occasional insertion of a classical score or the pathologists heavy breathing, and of course the stunning practical effects. The effects in this film really are amazing, the attention to detail and the incredibly realistic look make the cadavers look like something from a shockumentary rather than a well done effect. Overall it’s hard to find a better film to watch at Christmas. Aftermath has it all, romance, classical music and best of all necrophilia.

So there you have it folks another shitty Christmas special and another year of sick perversity on this rancid littler corner of the internet, all I can say is, I hope you hated it, and I love you all. See you in 2016 and don’t fuck too many corpses over Christmas.                

         

Ruptured Review: The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears

Country of origin- Belgium/France 

Year of release- 2014 

Directors- Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani           

Stars- Klaus Tange, Ursula Bedena, Joe Koener  

The film follows a husband who returns from a long business trip to find that his wife has gone missing from their apartment, leaving it locked from the inside. The rest of the film is focused upon him searching for his missing wife in their apartment complex, and that’s literally it in terms of plot. You may well be thinking that this rather simple plot has a great deal of potential to create a claustrophobic mystery thriller or even a psychological horror feature, and honestly you would be right. This plot, on paper anyway, is good, and if it wasn’t in the hands of the buffoons that made this pile of shit it could have created a very watchable film, however in the case of this film, that is not the case.

The film is made up of a series of unengaging and purposefully incomprehensible tangents that provide the viewer with nothing but frustration, and boredom. The characters within these tangents are nothing but a collection of moody/whiney cardboard cut outs trying their upmost to appear ‘dramatic’, while providing nothing in terms of performance but an urge within the audience to kill. The films script was clearly written during a break in a third rate art lecture by some Giallo fan boy who thinks their being outre by writing scenes and dialogue that have literally no purpose with or without context, and have tits, blood and knifes in them.

But to be honest, these issues almost pale in comparison to the huge elephant in the room when discussing this film, and that is the editing of Bernard Beets. The only good feature of this film is its stunning cinematography, which is brilliantly crafted and shows true dedication and artistry on the part of Manuel Dacosse, and this majesty of visual art is ruined by the editing. This film has some of the most sickening, choppy and pointless edits I have ever seen. The endless amounts of meaningless hard cuts and swirling visuals gave me an actual headache, and could easily trigger a seizure, so be warned. The editing try’s to appear as artistic, instead it, like the rest of the film just comes off as an empty soulless attempt by a pretentious art student to emulate the great Giallo directors of years gone by.

My final issue with this film is its desperation to try and be a 1970’s Italian Giallo film such as The Girl Who Knew Too Much, or my personal favourite The Bird With The Crystal Plumage. This film so desperately wants to be one of those films, but what it fails to realize is that those films at that time were made great by something this film totally lacks, tension. The great Giallo films of the 70’s were generally fantastic at creating atmosphere, something that is lost on this film as it ignores that and just tries to be an aftershave advert made by an art school dropout who can probably tell you what the inside of his own colon smells like. Overall, this is a dull, empty and obnoxious film that in its attempts to emulate classic Giallo films, simply cheapens and pollutes their artistry and legacy. I am going to give this film a 2.5/10, and I am only giving it that much because of the superb cinematography that is totally wasted on this trash.            

Ruptured Review: Madman

Country of origin- USA

Year of release- 1982  

Director- Joe Giannone

Stars- Gaylen Ross, Tony Fish, Harriet Bass 
   

The film follows a group of teens and immature over-sexed camp counsellors who are spending one last night at a generic and nameless woodland based summer camp. We are introduced to the group as they sit around a camp fire telling scary stories, eventually a story is told by the camp’s manager about the local legend of Madman Marz. Marz supposedly hacked his entire family to death with a hatchet, before being mutilated and lynched by local rednecks for his crime. Apparently however Marz will appear if you shout his name while in the woods, so he is basically the slasher equivalent of an inexperienced dogger. Of course it isn’t long before one of the “counsellors”, who just happens to look 40 but acts like he’s 16, decides to shout for Marz, just for the purposes of being a massive moron I assume. This inevitably ends with the legend of Madman Marz being a little more than a scary story as people begin to turn up with a distinct lack of a head, and a certain hint of being extremely dead.

Considering just how well known within the slasher genre Madman is, I was fairly excited to finally get the chance to see it, oh how I was disappointed. It really doesn’t take very much to please me when it comes to slasher films, all I want is some good kills, an imaginatively styled killer and some horny teen fodder, it’s not much to ask, but apparently it is far beyond anything Madman could muster.

Let’s just list off the basic issues with this steaming turd: The kills are repetitive, dull and have no tension. The killer is a fat hick in a discount mask and brown wig who spends most of the film dodging around in bushes more than a glitchy version of Duck Hunt, all while we get close ups of his grey rubber feet. But worst of all, is the characters and the script they have to “read”. At no point in the film do we meet a likable or reasonable character, as it seems everyone in the afore mentioned woodland camp of generic bullshit seems to be able to construct a sentence that wasn’t written by a drunk ten year old. There are numerus scenes in this film where the 35 year old teenagers who are the main excuse for characters in this film talk, and it feels as though you are suffering a stroke form an overdose of cringe. This lake of likeable or even tolerable characters makes it very difficult to care even the slightest when the equally dull Marz kills then off, thus rending the film a complete clock watch from almost the opening credits, as there is nothing else to save this film.

I would have forgiven this film a little bit if it had supplied some gore or even some decent technical ability, but sadly all we get is some badly light poor blood and gore that really makes me wonder why this film still holds an 18 certificate here in the UK. This brings me onto my final point. I purchased the recently released Arrow Video restored Blu-ray edition of the film with the intention of watching it for the first time, and for this review. However after seeing just how inexcusably awful the film is I have to wonder why did Arrow bother to restore and release it? Why waste time and money putting together a 1080p release with bountiful extras, of a film that has literally no redeeming features to anyone other than the most anal slasher completest, or the most newbie horror fan with no genre experience. There are so many great films desperately crying out for a restored, uncut or even first time UK release, Cannibal Ferox, The Devils Rain, Battle Truck or even Inseminoid are all far more deserving of a snazzy release than this stunningly poor excuse for a slasher film. Madman gets a 1/10 from me, it is in need of obscurity.

                                

 

                    

Ruptured Review: Caged (aka Captifs)

Country of origin- France

Year of release- 2010  

Director-Yann Gozlan 

Stars- Zoé Félix, Eric Savin, Arié Elmaleh
 

The film begins with a flashback to the childhood of main character Carole (Zoé Félix). In this scene the film establishes Carole’s fear of dogs, as we see her nearly mauled by a rabid Belgian Shepard soon after discovering the savaged corpse of her friend. The film then cuts to modern day Kosovo, where Carole is an aid worker at a hospital, working alongside her are two other Doctors Mathias (Eric Savin) and Samir (Arié Elmaleh). The three of them have finished their service at the hospital and are going home. When the group begin their long drive back, they are stopped at a military checkpoint and delayed due to a risk of landmines. However Mathias thinks he knows an alternative route and beings to take them along a dirt track for a ‘sort cut’. It isn’t long however before the group’s car is ambushed by armed and masked men who force the three doctors into a cage in the back of a van, before drugging them unconscious. Carole wakes up locked in a sparse and dirty cell with Samir. It isn’t long however before Carole realises to her horror the horrific reason the three were kidnapped. As one by one Carole sees people dragged away screaming, only to be stripped of their valuable organs for sale on the black market.

Considering this film only has a run time of around 80 minutes and could have easily ended up as a very standard horror affair, it is nice to see that the writers tried to do something at least a little different, and succeeded in some ways. Carole’s fear of dogs is the most interesting point of the plot as throughout her time in the cell she can hear the sound of dogs barking every time one of her kidnappers appears, thus equating them to savage animals. The fear of dogs (or cynophobia for all you pretentious assholes like me) element of the film also leads to one very tense scene in which Carole must pass within inches of a pack of snarling dogs in an attempt to escape. This scene along with much if the films climax is very atmospheric and very tense as Carole desperately tries to escape from her captors.

The film is also technically very proficient as it manages to create a very closed in, claustrophobic environment with its tight cinematography and low key lighting. However despite the films many good points it does have some issues. The key problem with Caged is its slightly rushed, and very predictable plot that never manages to feel completely natural or even that smooth at times. This leaves much of the film feeling badly paced and this inevitably negatively effects just about everything else. Much of the plot itself is very reminiscent of Hostel, as we see outsiders being kidnapped and murdered in what can only be described as a murder compound for the purpose of making money. Despite this films similarities to Hostel it is very hard to compare the two as much of the horror in Caged is psychological as opposed to guts n’gore.

I think that overall however this is worth a watch despite its plot issues, as it does at least try and do something with its cynophobia element and despite its short run time tries to develop characters beyond a 2D cardboard level. It is not the best example of modern French horror, but it’s worth a look for more dedicated genre fans, I will give this one a 6/10.                          
                        

Ruptured Review: Schramm

Country of origin- Germany 

Year of release- 1993  

Director- Jörg Buttgereit

Stars- Florian Koerner von Gustorf, Monika M., Micha Brendel

The film follows Lothar Schramm, a polite, lonely taxi driver and track runner who appears to suffer from a form of borderline schizotypal personality disorder. Lothar is also plagued with near constant urges to self-mutilate, all while being mentally tortured by horrific paranoid delusions and hallucinations. Lothar is ultimately driven to a life of murder when the constant rejection of a prostitute (played by Monika M. of Nekromantik 2) whom he loves drives him to go beyond mere fantasies as he begins to kill, photograph and eventually rape victims who he invites into his home.

This is the generally considered by most to be the last great film of iconic director Jörg Buttgereit (Nekromantik, Der Todesking) and it may well be his most experimental and possibly his most shocking feature work to date. This film could accurately be described as Nekromantik meets Angst, as Schramm draws greatly upon the nihilistic masterpiece that is Angst all while delivering stunning music and visuals that only Buttgereit could truly pull off. One aspect of this film that did take me by surprise was the use of truly unpleasant body horror imagery that is used throughout the film to track the rapid mental decline of Lothar, one of these scenes in particular could very well be the most revolting thing ever condemned to celluloid by Buttgereit.

The character of Lothar is very interesting, he seems to be driven to his crimes by sheer social and sexual ineptitude, part of the cause for this is a possible incestuous relationship with his mother which is hinted at during the film. He is also plagued with many visions of him having a false leg, or even an amputated leg, thus representing his feelings of being trapped in the very grim and lonely place he finds himself in. He is also fuelled by ager and jealousy towards the clients of the prostitute he loves, as he is forced to listen to them have sex with her in the next apartment while he desperately seethes.

Overall this is a superb and shocking look into a truly disturbed mind all set to a typically brilliant score from the highly talented Hermann Kopp who was also the composer for the film Nekromantik. If you want an arthouse film to shock and disgust then this is the one for you, I give Schramm 8/10.       

        

 

Ruptured Review: Rubber's Lover

Country of origin- Japan 

Year of release- 1996  

Director- Shozin Fukui

Stars- Nao, Norimizu Ameya, Yôta Kawase
      

This is an extremely difficult film to summarise in a traditional manor due to the complete lack of traditional plot structure, or structure in general, but here goes. The film follows a group of utterly insane scientists who believe they have found a way to create the perfect super human with psychic capabilities by injecting captive human guinea pigs with ether and subjecting them to metal torture. The whole project is riddled with problems however as one of the scientists becomes hooked on the ether, and the projects investors want to shut them down. It isn’t long before the scientists last shackles of sanity are completely shed in what can only be described as a pus drenched industrial orgy of noise and death.

Like many of the Japanese cyberpunk films of the 1990’s, Rubber’s Lover focuses upon themes of transhumanism and explores it through ideas of post-human sexuality, fetishism and death, all set against a grimy industrial noir background. This film focuses much of its manic energy upon the characters obscene relationship with both drugs, and the fetishist machinery they use to administer and enhance them. The film uses this to explore the fragility of the human mind, and does this not only in substance, but also through the films bizarre, trippy and often disgusting aesthetics.

Much of the films power comes from its cinematography, which will leave you feeling as though you’re the one on hard drugs as it dashes, twists and darts at the characters, but be warned it does come with a seizure warning. Alongside the films twisted cinematography, the sound design and music add a great deal to the films frantic and disjointed atmosphere, especially as every scream (and there’s a lot) seems to be ten times louder than everything else in the film, giving it a certain cold sharpness.

The only thing that really lets this film down is the very over the top, almost anime like acting that we see in certain scenes, this does detract from the film in some moments. However, getting hung up on an issue like acting in a film like this is kind of missing the point. This can be viewed as just another weird gory trip-fest that doesn’t have much to say beyond screams. Or it can be viewed as an interesting exploration of the human mind, and our increasing reliance on technology to stimulate it. Or it can even be viewed as some very strange fetish porn. No matter what you get from this film at the end, I can assure you it will be worth the experience to get to it. Although definitely not for everyone this is a stunning film that will stay with the viewer for some time to come, I highly recommend it in all its arthouse glory with an 8/10.

                 

Ruptured Review: Hard Rock Zombies

Country of origin- USA 

Year of release- 1985  

Director- Krishna Shah

Stars- E.J. Curse, Geno Andrews, Sam Mann 

    

Trying to explain even a small portion of this film will be a substantial challenge as it is nearly indescribable to people who are not under the influence of strong narcotics, with that said, here we go. The film follows Jesse and his hard rocking metal band as they tour small town clubs in a hope of one day getting the big record deal they have always wanted. While the band are traveling to their next show in the small hick town of Grand Guignol (a clever reference to the Parisian theatre that is the birth place of shock horror) they pick up a gorgeous hitchhiker who offers them the chance to stay at her family’s backwoods mansion. The band happily accept the offer, but soon begin to question their decision when they are introduced to the bizarre collection of individuals that live in the mansion, which somehow includes Adolf Hitler, and an elderly werewolf Eva Braun along with a demonic dwarf! Things soon get worse for the band as they are hunted down by the insane demonic Nazi hick family, only to be brought back from the grave to seek their vengeance with the power of heavy metal.   

How this film manages to include a sex scene with Hitler and a scene of auto-cannibalism is beyond my puny mortal brain. This is simply an indescribable piece of insanity that flitters from one stroke inducing scene of bad gore and over the top hair metal to another without the slightest regard for quality or even constancy, and that’s why I love it. Hard Rock Zombies is a special blend of self-aware horror comedy and inept film making that makes for a grin inducing shambles that just happens to have Himmler with strimmer.

From a purely critical point of view, this film is rubbish, the acting is worse than poor, the cinematography looks like it was done by a chimp and the lighting in some scenes makes it almost impossible to make out what the hell is going on. But yet, all these normally crucial points are easily overlooked, when you have Hitler in a fucking dressing gown electrocuting a rock band on his porch! And yes, that actually happens. Why you are even still reading this review is beyond me, you should at this very moment be pulling on your pants and grabbing your car keys to go out in search of this masterpiece. Frankly for me to even try and give this a rating would do the film a great disservice, just understand this, you see Himmler kill people with strimmer, what the fuck more do you want from life?!                

                      

Halloween Speical? Blow It Out Your Ass!

A lot of you good people will probably know by now that I am a miserable party-pooping asshole who talks shit about garbage can cinema on the internet. You therefore probably expected to be assaulted by a Halloween special, of the kind that every Blog and YouTube channel does at this time of the year. But I am happy to inform all you lovely people this is not going to be the case, and here is why.

Firstly, I live in the UK, and Halloween has never really been a big event in this country, so growing up I never went trick or treating, or ever really saw very much in the way of decorations or celebrations. This led me to essentially disregard Halloween and its consumerist bull.

Secondly, it seems as though this is the one time of year when every signal solitary person claims they love horror in all its many forms. This type of fickle temporary fandom of the horror genre really raises my hackles, because we all know these people who say shit like ‘I’m such a big horror fan, I watch the Grudge remake every Halloween’ couldn’t give two hoots about it come the first of November. This attempt to try and fit in with the herd’s current trend is exactly what horror as a genre should oppose. Horror should never be a safe little fad that everyone pretends to love once a year, it should stand as a giant middle finger to society’s norms and expectations that doggedly plants itself in a dark and dingy corner.

Don’t let horror be reduced to a handful of ‘specials’ every year, all that achieves is to cheapen it and allow it to become some kind of hipster fad that makes us true lifelong fans look like idiots. 

Thanks for reading this short rant, normal service will resume shortly.    

Ruptured Review: The Living Dead Girl (La Morte Vivante)

Country of origin- France 

Year of release- 1982  

Directors- Jean Rollin
Stars- Marina Pierro, Françoise Blanchard, Mike Marshall
  

The film begins with the illegal dumping of chemical waste underneath an abandoned castle, which may sound like the plot line to gothic giant shark movie, but thankfully it isn’t. Once the guys dumping the waste have finished they decide to do a bit of casual crypt robbing, as you do. The men soon discover the perfectly preserved body of Catherine Valmont, who is played by the late great Françoise Blanchard. Suddenly, a strange earth tremor courses a spill of the recently dumped chemical waste on the other side of the crypt, which causes a toxic gas to wash over the body of Catherine. As Catherine begins to stir from her deathly slumber one of the grave robbers gets a bit too close and has his eyes gouged out by the long fingernails of the now very much alive Catherine. It isn’t long before Catherine begins to wonder the rooms and corridors of the castle that was once her home, driven with a desire for human blood.

Catherine is soon reunited however, with her lifelong friend Hélène, played by Marina Pierro. Hélène, desperate to help the friend she had thought she had lost, begins to bring unsuspecting locals to the castle for Catherine to feast upon. It soon becomes clear however that Catherine does not wish to exist in such a horrific manor, and as her victims begin to build up, so does her wish to return to the grave from which she came.

This is one of the many vampire films made by the late Jean Rollin, and it is actually one of his best. It takes what could have been a by the books sleazy vampire gore fest, and turns it into a darkly gothic story of friendship and existentialism, with a well-crafted erotic undertone. Yes, the film does feature plenty of strong gore, but it isn’t the entire point of the film, it is instead used to highlight the ever deaerating mental state of Catherine. This leads to the films oddly sickening, and extremely downbeat conclusion that is perfectly executed, along with much of the surprisingly good dialogue that also leads up to it.

The films only downside however is its tedious subplot about a holidaying couple who happen to take a picture of Catherine soon after her resurrection as she crosses the castle grounds. This ultimately leads to ham fisted scenes of Carina Barone trying to solve the mystery of her sighting of Catherine, all of which feel clunky, slow and out of place with the rest of the film. Putting aside the films one let down, this really is an overlooked gem of avant-garde gothic horror with a modern twist that has something to say, and is pretty damn well made. I highly recommend this one, and most of Jean Rollin’s other work for that matter. I give The Living Dead Girl (La Morte Vivante) 7.5/10.

                       

Ruptured Review: Microwave Massacre

Country of origin- USA 

Year of release- 1983  

Directors- Wayne Berwick
Stars- Jackie Vernon, Loren Schein, Al Troupe
 

You know a film is of stunning quality when the very first shot is bouncing tits, shortly followed by a view of the same woman’s ass as she walks down the street. This cleverly crafted series of shots really helps add tension and momentum to the overall story, it also gives me a chance to shamelessly add a picture of breasts to get traffic, in the same way the film added them to get ass’s on seats. 

The Microwave Massacre follows a hen pecked construction worker called Donald, played by the half pickled Jackie Vernon, who is fed up with the foul and bizarre culinary concoctions his wife May makes him eat. His wife makes every meal in a giant microwave that is probably the most expensive prop in the entire film. One night Donald returns home after drinking his sorrows away at the local bar to find that once again May has prepared something truly rancid, only this time Donald just can’t take it anymore. He snaps and batters his wife to death with an oddly penis shaped salt grinder. Later that night, realising what he has done Donald comes up with a plan to get rid of May’s corpse, he decides to cook it in the microwave that she loved so much and eat her piece by piece. However Donald’s cannibalistic desires soon develop into a lust for new, and younger victims, thus begins the microwave massacre.

Considering just how fucking terrible this film could have been, it comes as a pleasant surprise that this is oddly enjoyable. Right from the get go it is clear that this is by no means trying to be serious, instead it plays out rather like an extremely cheap shot-on-video comedic Troma knock off. The jokes are stunningly corny and judging by his background in stand-up comedy were in some part probably written by Jackie Vernon himself. Although the majority of the jokes are face palm worthy, some are in fact pretty damn funny, including a scene in which we see Donald spreading butter on one of his victims with a giant butter knife before encasing her in a giant piece of bread. This scene along with some others in the film seem to be at least a little inspired by a very Monty Python style of humour, and yet these scenes didn’t feel out of place, even alongside the trash acting and general grime.

Overall, if you’re wanting to be intellectually challenged by a thought provoking piece of neo-realistic cinema, don’t watch Microwave Massacre. However, if you want to see a man who looks like a toad chop up hookers while cracking one liners and eating microwaved human flesh this is the film for you. I am going to give it a 7/10, it does what it says on the tin, and it doesn’t linger.   

Get the film here             

                       

Ruptured Review: The Nail Gun Massacre

Country of origin- USA 

Year of release- 1985  

Directors- Bill Leslie, Terry Lofton
Stars- Rocky Patterson, Ron Queen, Beau Leland

What do you call a film with gangrape in the first 60 seconds? The Nail Gun Massacre. Yes that’s right folks, this film throws us straight into the deep end with a rather grotty gangrape scene that is presented with no backstory or context just to make completely sure your instantly cringing once you sit down to watch this bizarre low budget 80’s slasher.

Directly after the rape scene we see possibly the hairiest man ever to grace a backwoods cabin shouting at his wife about his dirty shirts. This pretty quickly leads to him having a rather penetrating encounter with a motorcycle helmeted madman who seems to have stolen Robert Ginty’s head gear from The Exterminator and Richard Harrison’s ninja suit from Ninja Terminator. After this we see the credits roll while we hear the strange and distorted laughter of the nail gun wielding killer. From there on in the film revolves around poorly portrayed cardboard characters being killed off in surprisingly quick succession in often hilarious ways by the wise cracking nail gunner, all while a hick sheriff and a cowboy doctor pretend to look for the killer, while really not giving a shit. The film eventually reaches its predicable climax after 85 minutes having only just explained the significance of the opening rape scene.

I went into this one wanting a cheap, sleazy bloodthirsty slasher film drenched in bad acting and pointless nail gun fodder, and by God did I get it. This film oozes low budget 80’s horror cheese, everything from the dialogue that sounds like it was written ten minutes before filming, to the overly loud synth music that pops up almost at random, this film has it. Now, don’t get me wrong, this film is rubbish, but it’s a very special type of rubbish that I find inexplicably enjoyable. It’s often hard to place why I like certain rubbish films and so passionately hate others, but in the case of The Nail Gun Massacre it is clear why I enjoyed it so much, the killer. This film manages to stand out from the gigantic throng of 80’s trash slashers by having a killer with both purpose and personality that is the instantly enjoyable to watch. If you enjoy slasher films that were made in some random patch of woodland on the budget of a packet of crisps then you will cream/soak your underwear for The Nail Gun Massacre. I cannot recommend it enough, that’s why I am going to give it 7.5/10.   

This film very recently got it's first UK region free Blu-Ray release from 88 Films which is well worth picking up.

 

     

Ruptured Review: Blood Reaper

Country of origin- USA 

Year of release- 2004  

Director- Lory-Michael Ringuette 
Stars- Brinke Stevens, Lory-Michael Ringuette, Bobby Macky

The film begins with an eight minute pre-credit sequence of a couple on some kind of fishing trip in a pretty remote area of woodland. The couple are individually stalked and killed by a gas masked maniac with a hunting knife. It was actually directly after this short scene that I realised that this was going to be a rather trying viewing experience, mainly because in just the space of eight minutes the film had established to me that it no discernible filmmaking talent and certainly no originality. But I digress.

After we see the couple slaughtered, the film skips to four years in the future, and we see a group of 30 year olds trying to be teenagers whilst planning a fishing and boozing trip to an area of isolated natural beauty. It just so happens that the area they are heading to has an urban legend of a bloodthirsty manic surrounding it (what a complete surprise, and total coincidence). Despite a number of warnings the group continue on and eventually reach their remote woodland cabins, but not until a slideshow of family photos of the cast members is shown for literally no reason. It goes without saying that this group of annoying idiots begins to be killed off one by one. It is a surprise however at just how little the rest of group care about the others, the general attitude towards missing people in this film is that not a solitary shit shall be given about their safety. Unfortunately, when the few remaining morons realise towards the end of the film that their being hunted, we are treated to some of the worst grief and worry related acting I have ever seen. I have seen inbred sparrows grieve more convincingly than the dumbass’s in this film. Thankfully it isn’t long before the burnt out corpse of this film is dragged still twitching into a predicable ending and eventually into a closing credit sequence, thus ending my torment.

If you look up the word generic in the Oxford English dictionary you will see the following definition “a characteristic of or relating to a class or group of things” you will also see a poster for this film. To say that this is the most generic slasher film I have ever seen is an understatement, and in some ways an insult to generic slashers. This film has nothing exciting or original to offer, literally noting. It’s so bad the film makers couldn’t even write stereotypes, instead we get treated to what I think is the actual “personalities” of the “actors” which is a pretty scaring experience to be perfectly honest. I honestly cannot recommend this to even the most hardened slasher fan, because with an almost complete lack of gore, an interesting killer or even slightly imaginative or fun kills even the most basic criteria for a slasher film are not fulfilled. I give Blood Reaper 1.1/10 yes, it really is that poor.         

Ruptured Review: World War Dead: Rise Of The Fallen

Country of origin- UK 

Year of release- 2014/15  

Directors- Freddie Hutten-Mills, Bart Ruspoli 
Stars- Philip Barantini, Kacey Barnfield, Robert Bladen

Oh dear me, this is going to be something. This is a found footage film that follows a group of annoying and incredibly stupid documentary filmmakers who travel France to make a film about some of the mysteries of the battle of the Somme. Already this plot is simply screaming originality and creativity. Once the group arrive at the site of one of the most important turning points in the battle, strange things begin to happen, as the camera man sees some unexplained figures in the distance that quickly vanish. Later on, while the crew are filming in ‘Devil’ wood they drag the chain bound skeleton of a WW1 South African solider out of a large pond. They find a strange amulet inside the chest cavity of the skeleton, and decide to take it while leaving the skeleton unburied. As the crew are leaving the woods and heading back to their van they are attacked by a horde of flesh hungry WW1 zombie soldiers, who seem to be from both sides of the conflict which at least shows some reconciliation on their part.

I would be lying if I said I was expecting anything other than pure shit when I went into this one. Before I get into the many problems with this pile of mess, I will say that some of the make-up effects on the zombies themselves were fairly well done, and some of the cinematography wasn’t too bad. So with the positives out of the way let’s get into the negatives. The first issue and the most noticeable is the characters, a collection of moronic scum bags that frankly don’t die quick enough. The worst of the bunch is the Director played by the talentless Ray Panthaki, who comes from such a brilliant background of work such as EastEnders, and Ali G Indahouse, it’s practically Shakespeare folks.

The next issue is pretty much a general pervasive complete lack of shits given on the part of everyone involved. Everything from the script which must have been written by a five year old, and then edited by a four year old, to the plodding predictable story felt like it was pieced together without a single emotion or identifiable essence of care.

But for me the worst thing about this film is its bad taste. Now I know the shouts of hypocrite will be bellowed from the roof tops once people hear me complain about bad taste considering I generally love it, but let me explain. This film is essentially exploiting the war dead of the most horrific and devastating battle in human history, and it treats it’s exploitation of this subject with about as much finesse as a sledgehammer to the balls. And it does this on the centenary of the beginning of WW1, that decision almost transcends exploitation and becomes arrogant ignorance. I wouldn’t even encourage you to steal this film, just let it die its inevitable bargain-bin death and be forgotten. This bucket of rat shit otherwise known as a film gets a 1.5/10 from me.  

Ruptured Review: Soldiers Of The Damned

Country of origin- UK 

Year of release- 2015  

Director- Mark Nuttall 

Stars- Gil Darnell, Miriam Cooke, Lucas Hansen

The film follows the very war-weary Major Fleischer and his small squad of battle hardened soldiers on their retreat from the Eastern Front of 1944. Fleischer and his men are eventually tasked with a secret mission to escort a female SS scientist into an ancient and mysterious Romanian forest behind the Soviet lines to retrieve some kind of powerful artefact that has been requested by order of Himmler himself. Once in the heart of the forest Fleischer realises that something is oh so very wrong, as his men begin to vanish, and insanity begins to creep into the minds of those around him.

I went into this one not expecting a great deal to be honest, so it came as some considerable surprise that this is actually a pretty damn solid film. Firstly, Nigel Horne the films writer has actually written a pretty damn decant plot and has managed to avoid writing the oh too familiar one dimensional characters into that plot. I found both the story line and the majority of the characters to be fairly engaging and actually well crafted, this is certainly something that we do not see all that often in modern low budget horror cinema. To be honest the characters in this film are the most interesting thing about it, very rarely did feel as though I was being beaten over the head with stenotypes, and that is very refreshing.

However the film is let down by its low budget, which is sadly an inescapable problem this type of independent filmmaking has, although not overly used the poor quality CGI that is used dose take the viewer out of the film and leave them feeling a little disconnected from what’s happening on screen. Thankfully though when the CGI is used is doesn’t linger, and this allows the plot to run quite smoothly. The only other issue I had with the film was some of the acting wasn’t particularly good at times, although for the most part was either good, or decent, which is another pleasant departure from the carp that usually gets flung at low budget cinema fans.

Overall this is good psychological horror thriller that has a surprisingly decent war element. It may have its rough edges but I can overlook some of them because of how constrained by budget the filmmakers were. I think that with a larger budget this could have been a very good film if the poor CGI was replaced with practical effects. I am going to give this one 6.5/10, it’s well worth checking out. 

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