Ruptured Review: Rat Man

Country of origin- Italy
Year of release- 1988
Director-  Giuliano Carnimeo           
Stars- David Warbeck, Janet Agren, Eva Grimaldi 

 
The film begins in one of the dingiest looking rooms I have ever seen; as the camera pans around the room we hear the voiceover of Doctor Olman telling us that he has created a hybrid creature. It is half rat and half monkey, and for some insane reason the Doctor has given it poisoned teeth and claws, because why not? Doctor Olman created the creature in order to present it to the ‘International Genetics Congress’, how the Doctor plans to ship his hideous creation from the remote Caribbean island he is on I have no clue, I highly doubt that thing would get a pet passport. Unfortunately that night the Rat Man escapes his cage, and begins his flesh ripping rampage.  

The film then cuts to a swimsuit photo shoot on the beach of the same Caribbean island, already you can probably guess where the film is going from here. The photographer of the shoot (Mark) has brought three models out to the island with him to get some ‘unique shots’. After the shoot one of the models (Peggy) decides to catch a cab to a party that evening, but unfortunately the cab breaks down and she has to walk the rest of the way alone, at night, in a ‘slum’. It’s not long before Peggy is seen by the only genuinely creepy character in the film, and is chased by a faceless knife wielding lunatic into an abandoned building, where instead of finding safety, she finds the Rat Man! Soon after this the sister of one of the other models arrives on the island to see if her sister is ok, and inexplicably teams up with a writer called Fred who is played by the late great David Warbeck. The two of them decide to find out who, or what is killing the scantly clad residents of the island, but little do they know their investigations will lead them to a lot more than just a knife wielding lunatic. 

 

As a big fan of low budget, grimy, sleazy and often ridicules Italian horror of this period I went into this one with my expectations held higher than Hunter S Thomson on holiday. That was a mistake. Don’t get me wrong I didn’t dislike this film; I just didn’t fall head over heels for it. Despite the fact the film delivers buckets of cheesy horror goodness in the form of; brilliantly terrible dubbing, academy award level over acting and of course a half rat half monkey mutant ripping the throats out of all who are unlucky enough to meet it, I found myself  a little bored. Unfortunately the hilarious little Rat man just wasn’t enough to counteract the very contrived and often uninteresting plot, which meandered around like a drunken sloth. Despite the film coming in at under 80 minutes the pacing made it feel much longer, and pretty drawn out.
However, the film is not without its good points the biggest of which are the excellent Nelson de la Rosa who plays the Rat Man, and seems to spend the entire film either in a toilet, or being thrown at somebody. And the other being the laugh out loud conclusion to the film that was at the same time brilliant, and rubbish, but in a good way. Overall this film was a decent little oddity, and if it sparks your interest I would recommend it. I am giving this one a 5/10.  

The film is available to buy on DVD from Shameless Screen Entertainment             
                         

Ruptured Review: Thanatomorphose

Country of origin- France/USA
Year of release- 2012
Director-  Éric Falardeau
Stars- Kayden Rose, David Tousignant, Émile Beaudry

           

The word thanatomorphose translates in English as ‘the visible signs of an organism's decomposition caused by death’, with that in mind, lets begin.

The film opens with an extended sex scene, but don’t worry it is in no way pornographic, because this scene looks like we are viewing it through the predators mask while on acid. The whole scene is just a collider scope of loud noise, trippy colures and thrusting. After this the films first ‘chapter’ begins, and worryingly it is titled ‘despair’, which is an emotion I will have abundance of by the end of this film. Unfortunately the films main character has no name, so for the sake of this review, I will from here on in refer to her in the most appropriate way possible, by calling her ‘Dumb Fuck’. Very soon after this trippy sexual encounter Dumb Fuck begins to show the first signs of what ever horrific STD she has contracted from her earlier encounter. This for me is when the annoyance began, and continued. Her first symptoms are that a few clumps of her hair fall out, followed by the sudden loss of her fingernails in the shower. Now I don’t now about you, put if that happened to me, I would be in a doctor’s waiting room faster than Speedy Gonzales to a cheese orgy. But of course, Dumb Fuck decides rather than go to her doctor; she will just act as if nothing has happened, because that so logical!
 

 

As the film progresses the symptoms of Dumb Fucks disease become increasing worse, and she begins to spend her time wandering aimlessly around her apartment, while rotting like a week old corpse that’s been dumped in the middle of a rainforest. Even as her flesh begins to turn into a patchwork of bloody blackened oozing sores, she doesn’t even consider consulting a medical professional. All this while the most miserable, dull and depressing violin score plays, but don’t worry we don’t just get violins in this films soundtrack, we get random bursts of load noise coupled with epileptic visuals, for no apparent reason. The film continues on for what felt like a week, until it literally crawls to a halt, and falls apart.

 

There is one single good thing about this film, and that is the excellent practical effects of the highly talented Rémy Couture, and his team. They truly are something special, and are the only reason to suffer through this film. Both the acting and cinematography are nothing special, which is a shame as those two elements could have redeemed the film a little for me. This film tried to be Mermaid in a Manhole crossed with Nekromantik, and ended up feeling like a highly pretensions short student art film, that got stretched further than Cher’s face. The line between artistic and pretensions is a very vague and subjective one, but anybody who hasn’t been lobotomised can see this film has less artistic merit and less to say than King Kong VS Godzilla. I can not recommend this one unless you want to see plentiful amounts of putrefaction and goo, and even then the lighting is often so dim it’s hard to make out what’s actually going on. I give this one a 2.5/10, avoid it like an STD that makes you turn into a decaying corpse that mopes like a teenage goth at a family gathering.                                                   

              

Ruptured Review: The Orphan Killer

Country of origin- U.S.A
Year of release- 2011
Director- Matt Farnsworth
Stars- Diane Foster, David Backus, Matt Farnsworth 
                        

Like a great deal of slasher films this one doesn’t really have much in the way of plot going on, so instead of spoiling the film for you I will keep the plot breakdown to a minimum. The film begins with a woman (Audrey) arriving at a large catholic high school in order to organise some kind of play. Audrey is actually a very likeable character, and throughout the film I found myself rooting for her. We later see some of the students at the school talking about the legend of ‘Marcus Miller the Orphan Killer’. The legend goes that Marcus’s sister was adopted and he was left to the mercy of the nasty nuns in the now long gone orphanage that used to be part of the school. Throughout the film we see flash backs of the kind of punishments that the nuns dished out to young Marcus because of his attacks on other children in the orphanage. To say the nuns get a bit carried away is understating it, they whip him, half drown him and make him ware the mask that he is still wearing. Is it any surprise that with all that shit he turn into a homicidal maniac? Obviously, Marcus decides that the night of the show is a good time to turn up to the school/orphanage and kill whoever he finds, but he seems to take a great deal of interest in one specific person, Audrey.  

The film has a lot of very good things going for it, first being The Orphan Killer himself. He was the best slasher movie killer I have seen in a very long time, I really liked his character, and at times I felt real sympathy for him. An interesting point about the killer is his very down to earth appearance. He has a plain shirt, plain black trousers and his mask, this in contrast to most slasher movie killers who generally feel the need to dress like gay pirates attending a carnival. The kills throughout the film were very good, all done with high quality practical effects and a bucket full of blood thirsty imagination. We see such gory goodness as a machete through the face, a throat sawed open with barbed wire and an arm cut off with a hacksaw. Although the film was made with a limited budget both the acting (for the most part) and the cinematography were both good.

The film is however not without its problems, the first being the complete loss of momentum around half way through. The first 40 minutes of the film zipped along very nicely with good pacing, but once the film turns from a slasher to a tortureploitation movie for what felt like a very long time, it instantly losses all its built up momentum and pace. After the torture stops the film tries, but never really manages to regain its previous pace. My other complaint about the film is the handful of plot holes that do make the film a bit less enjoyable. I can usually forgive plot holes in independent horror, but I did find myself bothered by the few in this one. But overall I was very impressed by this one and would recommend it to slasher fans, and non slasher fan alike. I am going to give this one 7/10, check it out.                                           

Check out the films site - The Orphan Killer | Slasher Icon

    

Ruptured Review: Breeders

Country of origin- U.S.A
Year of release- 1986 
Director- Tim Kincaid
Stars- Teresa Farley, Lance Lewman, Frances Raines 

                        

The film begins with a scene in which a young woman has a fight with her date, and storms off. She begins walking home alone at night in what I would describe as a dodgy neighbourhood. She suddenly realises she is being followed, so she steps into a doorway and gets out her pepper spray. But she is relived to find that the person following her was in a fact a rather nice old man walking what must be the world’s smallest dog. He offers to walk with her to keep her safe, she haply accepts the offer and they start to walk away together. But suddenly the old man collapses to the ground clutching his chest in agony. He then springs to his feet and grabs the young woman with a hand that just happens to have the skin peeling off it. Eventually the old mans skin comes clean off, and the creature that emerges scoops up the young woman and runs off. The young woman is later found horrible raped and mutilated, but alive.

 

We then see the hospital in which the young woman from earlier is being treated, and we are introduced to the worst character in the film, Dr Pace. To say the acting of Teresa Farley (Dr Pace) is wooden is a gigantic understatement! It was so log-like I had to consult the forestry commission for guidance. Dr Pace also has one of the most insensitive, idiotic and downright offensive lines of dialogue I have heard in a long time. Dr Pace is working along side a scrawny guy called Detective Andriotti in an attempted to catch the young woman’s attacker. It seems that the woman who was attacked is showing strange symptoms, and instead of finding the attackers semen the doctors found strange black goo that cannot be identified.  

The film then takes an odd turn, and cuts to a swimsuit model at a photo shoot. After a while everybody at the photo shoot decides to take a break for lunch, they invite the model but she says no, and when they are gone she has a white powder lunch instead. She then proceeds to start, for no apparent reason, doing nude yoga. As you can imagine, this scene goes on for a long time, after all who needs a plot when you have tits to show. Eventually the shoots stylist walks in unexpectedly to find her doing naked yoga, this moment made me wonder if this is in fact the set up to a crap porno, but it wasn’t. But then, just like the old man from before the stylist falls to the floor clutching his chest in pain, but this time instead of just skin pealing off, we see his chest covered in pulsating lumps that sprit blood. While all of this is going on what do you think the model is doing? Is she running to get help? Is she trying to help this poor man? No, she instead screams a lot, and hinds behind a thin paper screen. So of when the creature rips itself out of the stylist, and goes over to attack the model she is of course helpless.

 

The rest of the film plays out in a very similar way, we see Dr Pace and Detective Andriotti trying to solve the case of who/what is raping these women. Then we see the creature attack a woman, and so, and so on. Now there are some very unintentionally funny moments in the film, one of which being when the creature rapist kills a human rapist in order to rape that rapists potential victim. Yes, that dose actually makes sense. Towards the end of the film we see the result of one of the creature’s attacks, in the form of a hideous half breed that looks like the Toxic Avenger crossed with a Virginia.

 

Overall this is a very entreating little B-grade sleazy sci-fi horror flick, with plenty of fun practical effects and a so-bad-its good kind of vibe. The story is pretty weak, but what do you expect? It zips along at a good pace, clocking in at only 70 minutes. I would recommend this one, with the warning that some of the monster rape scenes are a little bit unsavoury, but to be honest if you’re a regular reader here that kind of thing probably won’t bother you. I am going to give this one 6.5, it was fun, but it wasn’t without its problems.                                                                 

 

                     

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.