Looking Foward To A Ruptured 2015

I would just like to say a brief thank you to everybody who has been reading my reviews this year. Since starting Ruptured Reviews I have had a shit ton of fun, and I scenically hope you have to. You can look forward to a review packed 2015, that will hopefully be even more Ruptured than this year.

 

Ruptured Review: Surf Nazis Must Die

Country of origin- U.S.A
Year of release- 1987 
Director- Peter George
Stars- Gail Neely, Robert Harden, Barry Brenner 

As soon as the film began, and the charming and familiar sound and sight of the Troma ident graced the screen I was really looking forward to what I was about to watch. But I can imagine that any trash cinema fan would be exited at the prospect of a Troma film called Surf Nazis Must Die.

 

The film begins with a group of kids sitting on a beach receiving a lecture. All the kids in the group seem to have swastikas painted on them and on their clothes. The lecture itself is being delivered by the films main antagonist, Adolf. He is telling them that there is only one ‘pure’ way to surf, and that those who don’t surf that way are not true surf Nazis. As this the credits roll we see a montage of the aftermath of a huge earthquake that has hit L.A, it seems that law and order is beginning to breakdown and that the beaches are being ruled by ruthless gangs. As the credits began to roll I noticed the films score, which was absolutely fantastic. It is a pounding synthesizer score created by Jon McCallum, who in the same year created the soundtrack for the trash classic the Miami Connection. During the credit sequence we are introduced to the most surprising character in the film, the sharp tongued Mama Washington and her son. Mama Washington has been driven from her home because of the earthquake, and she has had to move into a retirement home.

 

After the credits we are introduced to Adolf’s gang of surf Nazis, including his girlfriend Eva, and highly entertaining Mengele who creates the surfboards for the gang, and is absolutely insane. It seems that Adolf’s little gang is in a battle for control of the best beaches with the other beach gangs, including the brilliantly named ‘Samurai Surfers’. We see many of the acts of vandalism and theft committed by the surf Nazis as they terrorize the many innocent beach goers. But things take a nasty turn as Mama Washington’s son is brutally murdered by the surf Nazis after he intervenes in a robbery being committed by one of the surf Nazi youth. Now this is where the film takes a rather surprising turn. Mama Washington decides that because nothing is being done to catch her son’s killers, she must deliver her own brand of deadly justice. Yes that’s right, half way through the film a vigilante story develops in the background, with the vigilante roll being taken by a sassy late-middle aged woman who isn’t going to take any shit from those scumbag surf Nazi killers.

To be honest I was very surprised by what this film turned out to be, from the title I imagined that it was going to be a very campy, over the top trash-fest. Instead it was often a fairly serious film with some moments of silliness, one of which was the brilliant line delivered by Adolf “I was an economics major, don’t fuck with me!” Unfortunately the blend of silliness and seriousness made the film feel a little bit directionless, and often confusing, yet enjoyable. My biggest gripe with this film however is the extended footage of surfing that keeps popping up, now I understand that surfing plays a big part in the plot, but do we really need to see long winded slow motion footage of surfing every ten minutes? All things considered though this film is pretty good, the acting is decent, the characters are great, what little effects there are in the film are good and with an 82 minute run time it doesn’t overstay its welcome. Overall I would recommend this film as being one of the better Troma films of the late 80s. I am going to give this one 6.5/10, it’s worth checking out.           

A Ruptured Christmas Special

Well, it’s that time of the year again, a time for peace on earth and good will to all. No doubt you have been bombarded with reviews for an endless stream of Christmas films, and you probably expected me to review some kind of festive feature as part of this special. Well I say bollocks to that. This blog stands as a middle finger to good taste, and an alter at which sickness and gore is worshiped. So I have decided to review a film that goes against all the sickeningly sweet rubbish that gets churned out this time of year. A film that is about as mean spirited, unpleasant and downright nasty as it is possible to be. I am of course referring to Guinea Pig 2: Flower of Flesh and Blood.

           

Country of origin- Japan     
Year of release- 1985 
Director- Hideshi Hino
Stars- Hiroshi Tamura, Kirara Yûgao

The film begins with some text explaining that the following film is a reconstruction of a real murder, this is of cause nonsense but it certainly helps give the film a very dark and grimy feel. This is assisted by the shot-on-video cinematography, which makes the whole film feel sleazy and downright disgusting. The film then cuts to a woman getting off a train and beginning to walk home at night. Soon she begins to notice that she is being followed by an unknown figure in a car. Not long after this the car begins to speed up, the woman tries to run away, but the car cuts in front of her, and the driver gets out. As the driver beings chasing the woman, the scene switches to point of view cinematography from the drivers perspective. This is actually pretty alarming, as this scene looks fairly realistic, and you get a strong sense of impending horror. Inevitably the unknown driver catches the woman and uses chloroform to render her unconscious.  

The woman wakes up tied to a bed in a basement, she attempts to call for help but she has been gagged. We then see a tall thin man walk into the room with a samurai helmet on his head and traditional Japanese face paint on. He begins to examine a table covered with blades, saws and chisels. He then opens up a cage in the corner of the room, and pulls out a live chicken. He carries it over to the bed where the woman is tied up, and then chops its head off while telling the woman on the bed that this is to be her fate. Naturally the woman begins to violently struggle, which leads to the samurai injecting her with some kind of drug that will stop her from struggling, but keep her fully conscious. He then begins the agonisingly slow process of gradually dismembering the woman on the bed.                                  

 

This film is without a doubt the most well known and most ‘controversial’ edition in the brilliant Guinea Pig series. It is in fact the film that when viewed by Charlie Sheen made him believe that he had just watched an actual snuff film. But I can imagine that when you have more coke in you than a vending machine a lot of things look a snuff film. The biggest draw this film has is the extreme gore, which is the product of the brilliant Nobuaki Koga who creates squirm inducing scenes that will stay with you for a little while afterwards. Although this film doesn’t really have a story or plot, it is still very engrossing, purely because the film is so well executed and is one of the finest examples of the ‘fake snuff’ subgenera. So I would highly recommend getting the family around this Christmas, and watching what I consider to be the most un-festive film I have ever seen. It may not be for everyone, but I am going to give this one 8/10.                                                      

Ruptured Review: Black Past

Country of origin- West Germany    
Year of release- 1989 
Director-  Olaf Ittenbach
Stars- Olaf Ittenbach, Andrea Arbter, André Stryi  


 

The film begins with a pre-credit sequence set in a sleepy village in 1978. We then see a man who looks very ill, who begins to have horrible visions of him killing a little girl with a meat clever. The next thing we see is him picking up the worlds biggest meat clever, and walking out of his front door to where his young daughter is feeding the dog. You can pretty much guess what happens next.

 

After the credits roll and we are introduced to are main character Thommy who is played the director Mr Lettenbach himself. Thommy and his family have just moved into a new house, which is in fact the same house that the child killer from earlier lived in. As we begin to follow Thommy in his day-to-day life we find out pretty quickly he is a bit of an outcast and a bit of a waster. This is a fairly common character point for the parts Lettenbach plays in his early films. Eventually Thommy is sent into the attic of the house to fetch some things, but while he is up there he finds a wooden box that has been chained shut. He manages to open it and finds a diary and an old mirror, both of which used to belong to the child killer form earlier who we find not only killed his daughter, but his whole family. Thommy decides to hang the mirror on his bedroom wall, because I am sure we would all do that if we found a murders mirror. But Thommy begins to wish he had never even opened the box in the attic, as his life starts to become a living nightmare filled with horrific visions of torture and murder. And as Thommy descends deeper into his own personal hell, his visions start to become reality.      

This is film is the directorial debut of Lettenbach, and in my opinion one of his best along side The Burning Moon, and Premutos both of which I love. Although this film is a little slow to get going and at times the pacing is a bit off, it is still very entertaining. As with all of Lettenbach’s films this one delivers on the gore and then some. The last 20 minutes of this film was almost nothing but gore, and I’m not talking about your nice clean modern gore, no no no, this is grimy shot on video gore that looks like they just ripped it out of a cow. Throughout the film I was able to see some of the director’s influences, mainly The Evil Dead, Hellraiser and Demons. I personally really enjoyed this film, and would recommend it to gorehounds like myself, although the extreme gore may not sit well with some people. I am going to give this one a 8/10, it’s a fantastic watch.          

 

                 Its such a good watch she cant keep hers eyes off it. 

  

                      

Ruptured Review: Hotel Inferno

Country of origin- USA/Italy   
Year of release- 2013 
Director-  Giulio De Santi
Stars- Rayner Bourton, Jessica Carroll, Michael Howe


 

 

This film has the unique selling point of being ‘the first splatter movie in first person view’ which is honestly why I wanted to see the film. Never have I seen this type of cinematography used so well, and in such a fun way. I could recommend the film based on that aspect, and that aspect alone, but this film has much more to offer.

 

The film begins with are main character Frank Zimosa being driven to a hotel, where he is due to carry out a ‘job’ for his employer. As Frank arrives at the hotel he puts on a pair of glasses that have some kind of built in computer that allows him to talk to his employer, and allows his employer to see things as Frank sees them. After Frank puts the glasses on he gets a call from his employer Mr Jorge Mistandria. As Jorge begins to outline the details of Frank’s mission, we establish that Frank is a contract killer, who has spent some time as a solider and a mercenary and is being highly paid for this particular mission.

 

Frank finds out he must kill a couple staying at the hotel, who are apparently responsible for over 150 murders. But Frank is told he must kill them in a very specific way. He has to smash open their skulls, remove their brains and then rip out their guts. Frank is naturally curious as to why he has to kill them like this, but he seems to being paid enough not to question much. Eventually Frank sneaks into the couples room and finds much more then he bargained for. And as the job gets ever more out of hand Frank finds himself trapped in a living hell, filled with bloated and decaying killers baying for his blood.

 

To say I had an ass ton of fun with this one is a major understatement. This film promised a tsunami of blood, guts, gore and goo, and it definitely delivered! The effects are a brilliant mix of practical splatter and digital concealment. The first person view throughout the film made me feel really engendered with the carnage that was happening on screen, and made for some very tense moments. I would say the only thing that wasn’t particularly that good was a mixture of the voice acting, which was often unconvincing, and the pacing, which was usually good but at a couple of points slowed to a crawl. But overall this film was incredibly entertaining and I would highly recommend it, this one gets 7.5/10 from me, go and check it out.   

 

                       

Buy the film here-   http://www.necrostorm.com/movies/HotelInferno/HotelInferno.html                          

                        

  

Ruptured Review: Savage Vengeance

                                 

Country of origin- USA  
Year of release- 1993 
Director- Donald Farmer
Stars- Camille Keaton, James Cochran, Bill Gatson

The film opens with are main character Jennifer driving through a deserted country road. She eventually parks at the edge of some woodland, she gets out and starts walking though the woods looking for a good place to sit down and read. At this point a second car pulls up at the edge of the woodland, but this time four weird looking guys get out. I say weird looking because they each look like they turned up to do something different. One looks like he is off to a Slayer concert, while another looks like he is here to cut the grass. Clearly the costume design in this film wasn’t really considered all that much. As the four guys begin walking though the woods, they see Jennifer relaxing. They then ambush her and after a short struggle Jenifer is forced to the ground where the four men begin taking turns in raping her. Now, in almost any other film this would be a harrowing and unpleasant scene, but because this film is made with all the subtly of a kneecapping, it comes across as silly. The fact the rapists don’t remove their trousers, or even undo their fly’s suggests they are new to the whole raping people thing. The whole scene was as ineptly made as the ludicrous rape scene in the famously terrible Cannibal Terror.  

After this gruellingly long scene, the film jumps five years into the future. And we see a night club with a woman sitting at the bar. At this point a creepy guy who looks like a homeless Kenny Everett slides up to her and asks her to come back to his place, which I can only assume is a cardboard box. She obviously says no, and while walking out of the club she meets the creepy guy again, only this time he has a knife. This is the queue for some very low budget blood and gore. 

We then see Jennifer, who is now nearly 30, and studying at college. It is then established through a crap montage that since she was raped she tracked down and killed the men who abused her. This montage is very similar to the revenge montage in the original I Spit on Your Grave trailer, and to be honest that’s not the only thing that is similar. This whole film is littered with I Spit on Your Grave references, if you took a drink every time you spotted one; you would be dead before you were half way through.

Jennifer later convinces one of her friends (Sam) to go on a short trip out to a cabin in the woods. Have these people not seen The Evil Dead?! During the drive down to the cabin Jennifer and Sam stop for petrol, and are greeted at the pumps by Dwayne, who looks like a perverted Elvis. Dwayne then proceeds to be creepy, and Sam gives him the address of the cabin, I never said Sam was the bright one. After Jennifer and Sam arrive at the cabin, Sam decides to start wandering around the woods by herself at night…once again I never said Sam was the bright one. Sam eventually stumbles upon a cabin that belongs to Dwayne, and of course, he invites her in, and with the help of previously mentioned homeless Kenny Everett, horribly abuses her. The next morning Jennifer starts looking for her friend, but finds far more than she bargained for, in the form of Dwayne.  

I actually went into this film with high hopes. Its shot-on-video which I usually enjoy, it’s got a gory chainsaw kill in it, which I always enjoy. But the thing that really let this film down was…just about everything really. The soundtrack was migraine inducing, the characters were awful, 80% of what happened on screen made no sense, and to top it all off the film is only 65 minutes long, and 20 minutes of that is just rape! I am reluctant to call this a ‘rape revenge’ film because that means lumping it in with classics like the film this is trying to rip off, which is of course I Spit on Your Grave. Also for a ‘rape revenge’ film this doesn’t seem to have much revenge, just a lot rape. I don’t recommend this one, it gets 2/10 from me, very dull indeed.