Ruptured Review: Angst

Country of origin- Austria
Year of release- 1983 
Director- Gerald Kargl 
Stars- Erwin Leder,Robert Hunger-Bühler,Silvia Rabenreither

The film opens with our antagonist walking through a remote and peaceful suburb in what seems to be the early morning. He eventually finds a house that he thinks is suitable and proceeds to knock on the door. It is opened by an elderly woman, who is almost immediately shot twice in the throat by the antagonist who then walks away as if almost nothing had happened. Now if that isn’t how to kick off a film I don’t know what is.

We find out that the old woman’s killer is an extremely deranged sadist who is never referred to by name at any point during the film, and is credited at the end as “The Psychopath”, which for the purposes of this review I will refer to him as. We are also given a detailed backstory to The Psychopath, in which we learn about his torturous childhood and his bizarre sadomasochistic relationship with a much older woman at the age of 14. The backstory clearly shows him to be ever increasingly disturbed, and eventually culminates in his murder of the elderly woman. He is sentenced to 10 years in prison for the motiveless murder. The film then skips to his release from prison and we begin to hear his disturbed internal monologue, which acts as natation to his actions for the rest of the film. Immediately upon his release he walks to the nearest café and begins to fantasise about two young women who are drinking coffee. His internal monologue becomes increasing disturbed as he stares at them, but realising that this wasn’t the right time leaves the café. Eventually The Psychopath finds a large secluded house whose owners are out shopping. He breaks in, and begins to ready himself for their return all while his sick fantasies are running across his ever increasingly deranged mind.

This film is a superb example of nihilist cinema, it is harsh, aggressive and extremely bleak. The film had the potential to be fairly dull considering much of the story is told in real time, but because this film was blessed with the breath taking cinematography of the academy award winning Zbigniew Rybczynski, and the stunning acting talents of Erwin Leder who plays The Psychopath, at no point was I anything but fixated. Lefer’s physical performance lends The Psychopath character an almost animalistic quality in the way he moves and acts around others. There is almost no dialogue throughout the film, instead just the dark twisted monologue of The Psychopath which gives the film a very immersive feel to it. This film is Gerald Kargl’s only feature film, which is a real shame considering it is now often overlooked and forgotten, and certainly underappreciated. This film is however, not for everyone because of its raw aggressive nature, one scene in particular in which The Psychopath drowns a severely disabled man in a bath is extremely dark and will likely shock most people. This film is a true one of a kind experience that has to be seen to be believed, I cannot recommend this disturbing masterpiece enough and I shall not degrade it by labelling it with an out-of-ten rating, just go and watch it. 

           

Ruptured Review: Spontaneous Combustion

Country of origin- USA
Year of release- 1990 
Director- Tobe Hooper 
Stars- Brad Dourif, Cynthia Bain, Jon Cypher

The film begins in 1954, with a fairly irritating young couple called Brian and Peggy. The two of them are involved in a secret government project to attempt to develop a vaccine to protect people from atomic radiation in the event of a nuclear war. Brain and Peggy are given the vaccine and lock themselves in a bunker in order to protect themselves from the blast, but not the fallout from an actual atomic bomb that the military plan to drop almost on them in order to find out if the vaccine works. I don’t know about you, but isn’t it just a bit over kill to detonate a gigantic atomic bomb in order to test whether or not a vaccine has worked on two people? Surly they could have tested that in a lab! The test goes well and both Brian and Peggy are unharmed. Soon after the test Peggy finds out she is pregnant and nine months later gives birth to a surprisingly un-mutated boy who they name Sam. However, just a few days after the birth of their son both Peggy and Brian simultaneously spontaneously combust with much screaming and a great deal of dripping flesh. This scene is kind of expected considering the name of the film, but the way the scene played out it did catch me by surprise.

Thirty four years after his Mother and Father went up like a hot air balloon powered by Glenn Beck, Sam is happily working in a high school and is living a perfectly normal life with his girlfriend Lisa. Sam is brilliantly played by the ever underrated Brad Dourif who puts in a great performance in this one. Sam’s normal happy life soon comes crashing down around him however as he begins to realise that people he knows are beginning to spontaneously combust soon after meeting with him. Eventually Sam realises that he is the inadvertent cause of the deaths, and that he himself is at risk of spontaneously combusting as huge fire spewing sores begin to open up on his body. As Sam struggles to save himself he finds that he is in fact the focus of a major conspiracy that goes right to the top.

This film has a lot of things going for it. Firstly, Brad Dourif playing the ever increasingly frantic and paranoid Sam is perfect in the role, both his bizarre physical acting and his fun line delivery really added to the film. Secondly, this film has some very good practical effects that range from molten flesh to full body burn, all of which are pretty well executed and fun. Not to mention a laugh out loud cameo appearance from John Landis who meets a rather nasty end in this one. However the film does have some major issues. It was shot in eight weeks, and was the only feature film from Tobe Hooper after The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 until Night Terrors in 1993. It has a palpable sense of a developing lack of care as the film progresses, this is shown by its ever more incomprehensible plot and its completely out of the blue character development that is odd to say the least. It also has a number of plot holes that make the last 20 minutes drag a little. Overall considering the quality of Hooper’s previous work such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre this is a poor effort on his part. I think this is still worth a watch though, despite its problems, so I will give it 6/10 just because of how great Brad Dourif is in this one.          

                           

Ruptured Double Review: Blutnacht - Die Rache des Dämon & Blutnacht 2 – Die Ruckkehr Des Damon

Before I start this double review I would like to point out that I did not watch either of these films with any kind of dubbing or subtitles to assist me, therefor I had absolutely no idea who anybody was or what their motivations were. I had to watch these films in their native language because no English language friendly editions exist. So, with that said I shall now try and explain the “plot” of the first film, Blutnacht - Die Rache des Dämon (Blutnacht – Revenge of the Demon). The film follows a group of friends who meet up in order to go to a party, one of the group finds his girlfriend cheating on him with his friend and storms off into the countryside with rage. He is rather hilariously killed in a hit-and-run car accident and then re-animated by some kind of demonic force, I think. After being brought back from the dead the enraged young man proceeds to stalk through the countryside hunting down and killing anyone who gets in his way. He also seems to be followed by a white faced, black robed figure who gives him weapons to use on the poor unfortunate victims and puts black sheets over them when their dead. This bizarre death like character is very funny, every time he appears on screen, without warning the entrance music for the WWE start the Undertaker begins to play, and then cuts out suddenly.

This film is a complete mess. It was shot on a VHS camera that judging by the picture quality looks like it’s been used to bang in nails, and that sounds like it was stored underwater. I not only struggled to understand what the characters were saying, but I struggled to see where the fuck they were! This film was shot almost entirely at night, with apparently nothing more than a jar of glow fly’s to provide light, because I couldn’t see a damn thing. The film does deliver on the cheap nasty gore and splatter, the only problem is that I couldn’t see it. Frankly, this is more of an eye test than it is a film, because you spend most of the time squinting like a stoner version of Mr Magoo. This film is a total cock up on pretty much all fronts, and is woefully unoriginal, although it’s terribleness is often funny it isn’t enough to save it from being very dull. 

The sequel to this mess was also directed by Jochen Stephan and was made in the same year as the first one (2002), but thankfully it is nothing like its predecessor.

Blutnacht 2 – Die Ruckkehr Des Damon (Blood Night 2 – Return of the Demon) has a similar plot to the first Blood Night film. In this film a gore hungry demon is brought to life by a satanic ritual deep in the woods by Cradle of Filth fans. He of course begins to wander around mangling and mutilating as he goes, and eventually bumps into a very annoying group of idiots whose car has broken down on a nearby dirt road. This rather predictably leads to a great deal of splatter and bloody goodness. 

The difference between this film and the first film is that not only is the filming done with a decent digital camera that combined with actual lighting allows the audience to see what the hell is going on, but it is just far more original and far more enjoyable. Firstly, the gore in this one is insane, it ranges from chainsaw dismemberment to a guy getting chopped in half with a samurai sword while receiving a very fake looking blowjob. This film feels like an apology for how poor the first film was, as it delivers everything the first one should of, and a hell of a lot more. And by more, I mean necrophilia, death by explosive diarrhoea and a girls entrails being pulled out of her stench trench while Slayer plays in the background (although Cannibal Corpse would have been more appropriate). 

The gore scenes in this film reminded me very much of the kind we saw in Todd Sheet’s Zombie Bloodbath, and Andreas Schnaas’s Zombie '90: Extreme Pestilence that seem to go on for hours. This film does have some of the usual no-budget cinema problems, such as very poor acting, shoddy editing (which is nowhere near as bad as the editing in the first film) and some pointless drawn-out scenes that add nothing but minutes to the runtime. However this film is so much fun I am willing to overlook those issues and enjoy it for what it is, a good old fashioned German splatter fest with no taste and a lot of imagination. Blutnacht 2 gets 7/10 from me, check it out and just avoid the first film.                                

Ruptured Review: The Sister of Ursula

Country of origin- Italy  
Year of release- 1978
Director- Enzo Milioni
Stars- Barbara Magnolfi, Stefania D'Amario, Anna Zinnemann

The film focuses upon two Austrian sisters Dagmar and Ursula who are holidaying along the Amalfi coast in Italy, in the hope of finding their long lost mother in order to share with her the inheritance from their father’s recent death. Although why they think a week long holiday will help them is never really explained. The two book into a large expensive hotel run by the oh so sleazy Mr. Delleri. Soon after arriving it becomes clear that Ursula is slightly disturbed, as begins to talk of her premonitions of murder and bloodshed which are quickly dismissed by her sister.

On the night of their arrival both sisters are taken to the hotel’s nightclub by the aforementioned Mr. Delleri who introduces them to the beautiful and very badly dubbed Stella Shining, which is a porn star name if there ever was one. And the shady Filippo who Ursula takes an instant dislike to and begins to develop paranoid fantasies about. Later that night we see a masked and leather gloved man who hires a local hooker as he wants to be a voyeur while she has sex with another man, she agrees and he hides behind the curtains in her room to watch the proceedings unfold. This is the first sex scene in the film and frankly it almost goes beyond the normal standards of softcore and stands on the borderline of hardcore, this is something that corps up in every one of the many sex scenes in the film. After the hooker is finished, the masked man steps out from behind the curtains and without an ounce of mercy kills the woman. The next morning Ursula’s paranoia and premonitions worsen, and continue to do so as the bodies begin to stack up.

This film had a good deal of potential. Both its stunningly beautiful setting, which is often nicely presented by the films good quality cinematography, and the often interesting character of Ursula could have been interesting plot devices in a less self-absorbed film. But unfortunately this film has an almost perverted obsession with visual indulgence that becomes very tiresome very quickly and puts the ‘killer on the loose’ aspect of the film into a near subplot position. Whether it be the numerous panoramic views which after a while become very repetitive, or the sleazy glamour of the hotel’s interior this film wants to show it all and show it often. It may do this to try and fill out an otherwise fairly empty by-the-books plot which features mostly vapid unlikable characters that I felt nothing for as they were murdered in often nearly bloodless ways. Of course a big aspect of this film is the sleaze, which didn’t feel sleazy, yes it did often border on hardcore but I didn’t come away from the film with the same urge to wash off the grime as I did with other sleazy Giallo’s such as Strip Nude for Your Killer. All the sex scenes in this one were annoyingly long winded and generally shoddy in both acting and delivery. Although seeing the talented Stefania D'Amario masturbating with a gold chain was interesting. Overall this was a rather disappointing film that left me annoyed by just how empty it all was, unless you’re a Giallo completest this isn’t really worth your time, it gets a 3.5 from me.                     

My Thoughts On Mad Max Fury Road

Before I start I would just like to say this isn’t a review, and that isn’t because this film is somehow “too mainstream” for this blog, that isn’t the case at all. I simply believe that there are already enough reviews singing this films praises. Instead I just want to discuss a few interesting aspects of the film and of course recommend it whole heartedly.

When I left the cinema after watching Mad Max Fury Road I was instantly stuck with an urge to turn around and see it again, and I later realised that it is very closely comparable to the time I watched a real life wall of death performed live in front of me a couple of years ago. After seeing the wall of death riders preforming mind blowing stunts at high speeds on vertical surfaces, and having my eardrums nearly torn out by their engines while being blasted with exhaust fumes, I wanted to buy another ticket and watch it again straight away. Not only is Mad Max Fury Road very comparable to a wall of death performance in its ability make you want more, it is similar in that it is an incredibly immersive experience that blows you back and makes you forget everything else around. As I sat in the cinema I was repeatedly on the edge of my seat grinning like a crack addicted munchkin as the booming sounds of the incredible stunts and eye popping visuals completely immersed me in the film. It was like no other film I have ever watched, because I at no point did it feel like I was watching a film, instead I felt like I was witnessing some kind of unstoppable force of nature that had just picked me up and thrown me around like a rag doll.

The film itself is very difficult to compare to the original Mad Max trilogy, firstly because this film has a bigger budget than that entire original trilogy combined and can therefor allow the director to more accurately bring his artistic vision to life.  And secondly because this film is less focused on Max himself and more on the world and people around him, which is something that the original trilogy never did. So I think that instead of trying to constantly compare this to the original films, we should hold this film up as a separate entity completely and not have it be dragged down by its historical baggage (which for the most part I greatly enjoy).

I also think that although the two leading performances of Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron are very good and show just how much good acting can add to a great action spectacle, the film was ultimately stolen by Nicholas Hoult who provides what I thought to be the most interesting and relatable character. Hoult’s performance displays an incredible depth, and shows just how well he can act when he is given a good role, unlike the one he was given in the sack of fetid mess that was Warm Bodies.

However, putting aside the incredibly pure immersive nature of the film backed by a brilliantly simple, yet interesting story line and great performances, the big throbbing elephant in the room is the effects and the stunts. And for those of you who are going to see this film purely for those reasons, you will not be disappointed, it has quite possibly the best and most well executed practical action scenes I have very seen. Frankly the film could be called If It Has Wheels We Put Spikes On It, Then Blew It Up With A Grenade Spear and it would be perfectly accurate. The film holds nothing back on the action front, and delivers everything that it has promised.

I feel that this film should be essential viewing for fans of cinema of the kind that is well crafted, spectacular and not reliant on shit CGI or Megan Foxes arse. Everyone keenly involved in the making of this film especially George Miller should be incredibly proud of what it has turned out to be, and I thoroughly recommend you go and see this film, preferably in theatres so you can experience its full power.