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