Ruptured Review: Zombie Genocide: Legion of the Dead

Country of origin- USA
Year of release- 2006
Director- Gary Ugarek
Stars- Dave Cooperman, Gary Ugarek, Michelle Wright

As I’m sure most of you will have gathered by now, I like to give a brief outline of some of the plot of a film before giving my thoughts on it. This is a standard formula that is used a great deal. However, in the case of Zombie Genocide: Legion of the Dead (aka Deadlands: The Rising) I feel a break from the norm may be in order. Firstly because this 62 minute long film has almost no plot of any interest or value, and secondly because if I spend too long discussing the details of this film I may suffer a stroke. So to briefly give you some idea of what this bucket of mess is about here is the “official” synopsis. “A biochemical weapon explosion causes a freak chain of events and brings the dead back to life. It is up to five people to make a stand for survival against an ever growing army of the Living Dead”. Now correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t sound like about a thousand other zombie films? In fact it’s the plot to the film Code Red which I enjoyed, and the reason I enjoyed it more than this film is simply because Code Red had people involved in it that actually gave a shit. Which is more than can be said for this film, which provides about as much energy and excitement as a box of dead moths.

Now don’t get me wrong I like to see people with a very limited budget making horror films, because some real gems have been created that way (Night of the Living Dead for instance). This however is no gem, it is just another example of why you should never give a camera to a pretentious fanboy who has managed to convince the population of his home town to have terrible zombie effects painted on them. Frankly trying to find a redeeming feature in this film is like looking for a well-made Fred Olen Ray film, it isn’t easy. The acting is terrible, the effects are dull, the cinematography is poor and the plot is as lifeless as Kevin Costner film. Overall this is one to avoid at all costs, don’t be a sucker like me and be drawn in by the cool title, it isn’t worth the soul crushing monotony that awaits. This gets 2/10 from me, a knee to the balls is frankly preferable.               

Bootleg African Movie Posters

This is a collection of hand painted African posters for some well known films, these are generally made to promote the film in a travailing cinema or movie show, the likes of which are pretty common. Some of these posters are fun and creative, and some are just shit.        

Yes, that last one is supposed to be Terminator 2. I honestly wouldn't have known if it wasn't written on it.     

Ruptured Review: The Butcher

Country of origin- South Korea 
Year of release- 2007
Director- Kim Jin-won
Stars- You Dong-hun, Kim Sung-il

The film begins with a POW shot of a man pissing against a filthy wall. This pretty much sets the tone for both the look of the film, and its general attitude. This is due mainly to the fact that 95% of this film is told in a fairly shaky POW style that is pretty different from most found footage films, although it isn’t as well executed as the POW cinematography of Hotel Inferno. After the guy zips up his flies, he begins to walk through what is quite possibly the most broken down and decrepit, abandoned slaughterhouse I have ever seen, the building is so unpleasant I almost wanted to see the pissing again. He arrives in a small filthy room, where a young man, a young woman and a married couple are sitting ball gaged and chained to the floor. From here on in the rest of the film is told almost entirely from the POW perspective of the married man. All of the gagged and chained victims have cameras mounted to helmets on their heads, hence we see almost everything from their perspective. Shortly after this ‘The Director’ arrives to inspect the victims. He casually discusses their soon to be horrific fate with his cohorts, while the terrified victims beg for mercy.

Soon after this The Director gets a phone call from his mother, and a surreal scene ensues as the two of them have a perfectly ordinary conversation about going to church, all while the four terrified victims look on. Eventually the young woman and the young man are dragged away and a genuinely alarming scene follows in which the married couple hear their tortured screams and the revving of a chainsaw. Eventually the time comes for the married couple to be dragged away to meet ‘The Pig’, and this is where things get very unpleasant.

Considering this film is a 75 minute Hostel cash in, with a real time POW snuff gimmick I was surprised at just how well executed everything was. The POW cinematography was both engaging and immersive, the acting was good considering it mostly consisted of blood curdling screams and the effects were practical and nasty. However I felt that the psychological based horror of the first 35 minutes of the film was more interesting to watch than the extreme tortureploitation that rest had to offer. Although the second and third act of the film actually contained some of the most intense stuff I have seen in while, including a hideous rape, seen from the perspective of the victim and some brutal chainsaw torture from the pig masked lunatic seen on the poster. Overall this film is a vile and extremely intense experience that will likely shock and disturb most people, I give it a 6.5/10 for its sheer unrepentant ferocity and brutality.                                 

Ruptured Review: The Rope Maiden

Country of origin- UK
Year of release- 2013
Director- Guy Pearce
Stars- Katsuhiro Chigira, Tomo Ishii, Spencer James

The Rope Maiden is one of those films that exists mostly as a whisper, or a dark rumour circulated online, it was a long time before I discovered where and who it came from. As it turns out it is the product of the brilliantly deranged mind of British writer/director/actor Guy Pearce. The film is essentially a bizarre mixture of an 80’s instructional video, and a snuff movie. The main focus of the films plot is a man called Guy (Played by the Director) who tells the audience that they are about to watch one of his home movies, and says that your welcome to “play along” at home. Guy then begins to explain that the object of this video is to show you how to create your very own rope maiden. This of course will involve an unwilling young woman, some rope, and somewhere to suspend her from. After this is achieved in what can only be described as a darkly comic festival of what the fuck, the real fun begins.

At only 17 minutes in length this short manages to pack a considerable punch with one or two scenes of fairly convincing pseudo snuff, some very black humour and a bucket load of gore. Overall I struggled to find a fault with this one, it certainty will not be for everyone because of its extreme subject matter, and its grimy no-budget delivery. Not to mention less than 300 copies of the film where ever made, so trying to find a copy could prove to be a little tricky. Overall this short acts a perfect homage to such underground pseudo snuff gems as Flowers of Flesh and Blood and Tumbling Doll of Flesh aka Niku daruma. I am going to give The Rope Maiden 8/10, if you ever get the chance to see it, do so at your own risk.