3 Excellent Resources for Collectors

A lot of you are probably wondering as to where I manage to get hold of copies of some of the more obscure films I review on this site. I’m sure some of you assume that I just download stuff online, but I have in fact never reviewed anything on this blog that I don’t own a physical copy of. This is pretty reflective of my general outlook when it comes to movie watching, I will usually only watch a film if I have a physical copy of it. I’m well aware that due to a number of reasons this isn’t really an option for many film enthusiasts. So I wanted to share with you three excellent sites that have been very useful to me when trying to find physical copies of rare, obscure and extreme films. Now before you start shouting things like ‘sell out’ and ‘fraud’ I would just like to inform you that I am not being rewarded by any of the sites featured in this article in any way, shape or form. I instead wrote this to help out fellow collectors in the UK and the rest of Europe track down the films they want to watch and own.

The first site is ZDDvm.com this has been a great resource to me over the years, and a nearly unbeatable source for a wide mix of rare titles from a huge array of genres such as Pinky Violence and Filipino action. It also stands as one of the very few sites I could find a copy of Ogroff the Mad Mutilator on. The only downside with this site is that all of there releases are printed on DVD-R’s. However they make up for this downside by adding often amazing cover art and lurid photos.

The second site is Strange Vice.co.uk this is a small Scottish based company that specialises in rare imports, special editions such as hardboxes and an array of insane and bizarre standard editions. All of there products are legitimate editions and are often nearly impossible to find elsewhere in the UK. They also sell a fantastic mix of soundtracks on all formats including vinyl. I have actually met the couple who run the company and they are as enthusiastic about the films as the customers, not to mention they are friendly and easy to deal with.

The last site I want to talk about is one most of you will probably have already heard of, and that is Twistedanger.com Like ZDD all of there stock is printed on demand on DVD-R’s, but sadly often unless you will to pay a little extra Twistedanger wont give you snazzy artwork. To be honest they are the company that out of these three I use the least. But I know that if I go to Twistedanger looking for something incredibly fucked up and bizarre I will likely find it, and about 100 things more disturbed than it.

 
Well there you go, I hope that I have helped out at least a few fellow collectors like myself to find some films that have either alluded their grasp for some time now, or just to discover new and interesting films for their collections. 
                                                  

Ruptured Review: Dead & Rotting

Country of origin- U.S.A
Year of release- 2002
Director- David P. Barton
Stars- Stephen O'Mahoney, Tom Hoover, Debbie Rochon
   

It’s not often that my shitty film spidey senses begin to tingle after just four seconds, but this was one of those rare occasions. Because as the first production credits began roll I noticed the dreaded ‘Full Moon Productions’ logo and began to break into a cold sweat. As I’m sure most of you know Full Moon is very hit and miss to say the least, although they have created some great films such as the classic Puppet Master, they have also been responsible for making such garbage as Killjoy and Evil Bong 2. If you couple this with the fact this film was made in what I refer to as the ‘Dark Age’ of horror (1995 – 2004) a period of time that most horror fans would like to forget, you have the potential for this film to be a heap of stinking shit.  

The films plot revolves around three beer swilling morons who cause the death of an elderly witch’s cat, who also just happens to be her son. The witch swears revenge on the three men and creates a potion that makes her appear young and beautiful in order to seduce them. After sleeping with all three of the men in what is a rather ugly scene, she gives birth (almost immediately) to some sludge. The witch then places this sludge and the skeleton of a baby in a pumpkin and plants it in the woods outside her home. Soon after this three hideous mutated ghouls rise from the ground to act as body guards for the witch. She then goes about kidnapping the men one-by-one and talking them to her basement to exact her revenge on them in a rather slow and gruesome way.

The one good thing this film has to offer is the bizarre levels of complexity that the witches plan for revenge requires. Throughout the film the witch repeatedly shows that her powers could easily be used to capture the men with almost no problems, but instead of taking the easy solution she just pisses about for 40 minuets by raising rubbery monsters. This leads me on to the numerous problems with this film. First of all I would just like to give my congratulations to the team who was in charge of lighting and cinematography on this film. They managed to lower the bar to such an extent the only way we will ever see it again is by mining. There were whole scenes of this film that I couldn’t make out what the hell was going on because of the lack of lighting and amateurish cinematography. At times I didn’t know if they were in a house or a mineshaft. If you combine this with the poor acting, stupid dialogue, annoying characters and complete lack of either gore or atmosphere you get one of the most contrived and irritating films I have seen in a while. If you ever feel compelled to watch this one, don’t, this one gets 3/10 from me.              

                      

Ruptured Review: Midnight

Country of origin- U.S.A
Year of release- 1982
Director-  John Russo           
Stars- Melanie Verlin, Lawrence Tierney, John Hall   

  

The film begins with 17 year old Nancy running away from home after her drunken lecherous stepfather Bert tries to rape her. Bert is very well played by the excellent and sadly missed Lawrence Tierney, who puts in a great performance here. Nancy decides that the only person she can turn to is her sister in California, so she begins to hitchhike there. Eventually she is offered a lift by Tom and his friend Hank, she accepts the lift and the three of them begin their drive. After getting hassled by some racist hicks, and robbing a small supermarket of some food they arrive at a spot to camp out for the night, where they smoke weed and fall asleep.

Nancy wakes up early the next day and goes off for a leak, but when she gets back she sees Tom and Hank being held at gunpoint by two crazed rednecks dressed as cops.

After Nancy witnesses the fairly nasty murders of the two young men at the hands of the rednecks, they notice her and begin to chase her down. As Nancy attempts to flee from the crazed killers she runs into an isolated farm house. Where she makes the grisly discovery of two human bodies hacked up like fire wood, and an insane giggling hillbilly laughing like a tickle fetish fanatic. Nancy discovers to her horror that the farmhouse is home to an inbred satanic cult of death worshiping rednecks who want her as a nubile sacrifice.

 

I went into this one with a pretty good feeling, because this film is the adaption of a novel by John Russo, who also wrote the screenplay and of course directed the film. Not to mention Russo was the co-writer on the screenplay for the original Night of the Living Dead with George Romero, which gives him a big tick in my book. I have to say I wasn’t let down by this one, it has great pacing, interesting and often likable characters and at times is pretty creepy. One scene in particular that I found to be a little unnerving is when Nancy is being kept in a small dog cage by the cult, and is being treated like a dog. Couple this with a chubby constantly giggling redneck sadist and you have some pretty creepy scenes.

 

There are one or two little problems with the film such as some poor acting here and there, and some pretty strange plot holes that I am willing to overlook. If you go into this one wanting buckets of blood and gore you’re going to be a bit disappointed, there is very little blood and gore in this one, however there is just enough to keep the gorehounds happy. This film is a good example of the backwoods terror subgenre, which has died a pretty pathetic death of late, with a shed load of garbage being churned out that keeps trying (and failing) to emulate films like this one. Overall this is a fun watch that kept me entertained; I give it a 7/10.                                        

                    

Ruptured Review: Autopsy: Through the Eyes of Death's Detectives

Country of origin - U.S.A
Year of release - 1999
Director - Michael Kriegsman 

 

Despite the very shockumentary sounding title of this one it is no way exploitive or sensationalizing. If you go into this one wanting to see the kind of thing you would see in something along the lines of Faces of Gore, Autopsia, Traces of Death or even Faces of Death you will probably be disappointed. Yes this is a documentary that follows an autopsy from start to finish, and at no point does it shy away from displaying extreme gore. But the big difference between this documentary and other more well know real medical gore documentaries is that this one tries to both inform the viewer and interest them in the subject matter. The autopsy that is carried out during the film is that of an elderly woman who has died of natural causes.

The procedure is carried out by the strangely charismatic Dr Thomas Noguchi, who is somewhat well known for carrying out the autopsies on the bodies of Marilyn Monroe and Robert F. Kennedy.

 

 

Dr Noguchi is assisted in the procedure by two other men, one is a forensic pathologist and the other is an assistant. Throughout the autopsy we are clearly talked through what is being done to the cadaver, in such a way that even the most uninformed laymen would be able to understand what is going on. The film is only around 50 minutes long, and held my interest from start to finish. If this documentary sparks your interest I would highly recommend it, however this is definitely not for most people due to the very high level of real human gore it contains. I am going to give this one 8/10, it is a fascinating alternative to the common shockumentary schlock.                             

Buy the DVD here - Autopsy: Through the Eyes of Death's Detectives

Ruptured Review: The Italian Zombie Movie: The Grindhouse Cut

Country of origin- U.S.A
Year of release- 2010
Director- Thomas Berdinski
Stars- Jeffrey S. Bromley, Laurie Beckeman, Dan Grams  

  

First of all I would just like to apologise for the sudden lack of reviews of late, this is due to me being a dumbass and badly scratching my cornea, which by the way hurts rather a lot. Couple this with a suddenly very busy work schedule and the result is a total lack of reviews, so once again sorry about that.

 

I would like to preface this review by explaining how The Italian Zombie Movie: The Grindhouse Cut came to be. This film is in fact two 90 minute films cut down into one 120 minute feature. This film is the crazy inbred love child of Zombie Abomination (2010) and Zombie Atrocity also 2010 – i.e The Italian Zombie Movie Parts 1&2. As these two clocked in with a pretty hefty combined run time it was established that a new cut of the film could be made to remove some of the lesser martial these films had to offer. And so we find ourselves here.

 

The film centres around are likable hero Bruno who is a desert storm veteran. Bruno finds out that his twin brother Dario has been killed, and nobody has any idea who committed the crime. He decides to try and find out what exactly happened to his brother, and later receives a message from a Mysterious stranger who tells him that he has information about Dario’s death. Little does Bruno know but this information will ultimately lead him to Italy and to the discovery of an evil government plan that has lead to numerous deaths already, and could end the world as we know it.

 

This film is a fantastic example of what can be achieved with no budget, a crapy camera and a hell of a lot of passion for the genre. Before I get over excited with my praise for this film, I have to mention some things I disliked about it. First of all, the innumerable subplots that make up the film are at times dull, and a little confusing. I am aware that some of the subplots are written specifically with this in mind, in order to pay homage to the congested and maddening plots we all know and love from crappy 80s horror. However sometimes they simply didn’t work and that really affected the overall pacing. Secondly, the films effects are a mix of fun and cheesy practical effects, and some of the dreaded digital effects I have ranted about in the past. Now I understand that these guys had NO money to make this film so I can forgive most of the digital effects. However there were occasions where I felt that some good old fashioned cheap practical effects could have easily been used instead. My final complaint isn’t really about an issue that is the fault of the director, it’s a problem that all no-budget cinema suffers from, and that is terrible acting. Don’t get me wrong there are plenty of funny and enjoyable performances in this one, but there are one or two very poor examples of acting, and I mean Marcus Jean Pirae levels of poor.  

Putting aside my problems with the film I have to say I absolutely loved this underappreciated little gem. The first highlight of the film definitely being the crazy no budget practical gore and splatter which put a grin on my face every time it popped up, which was fairly regularly. Something this film managed to achieve what most other no budget horror comedies fail to do is to create actually funny dialogue that made me laugh quite a few times. This was a nice surprise as most of us have by now been bombarded with annoying and brainless horror “comedies” that are about as funny as knee surgery.

However, this film can boast many things including great gore and funny dialog, yet its finest point is something that exists purely as a gut feeling, and that is its passion. This film stands out as a genuinely engaging homage to the gone but not forgotten days of grimy Italian horror cinema, a genre that holds a very special place in my heart. Not only is the film accurate in its homage by having a 101 subplots packed with insane twists that contain bizarre characters (all tropes in retro Italian horror). I am willing to go out on a limb and say that this is a far better homage to retro 80s Italian horror cinema than something like Planet Terror. I highly recommend this one, little problems aside it’s a very enjoyable film that kept me very entertained from almost start to finish, this one gets a well deserved 8/10 from me. 

 

Check out the films site here