Ruptured Review: Demonic Toys

Country of origin- USA   
Year of release- 1992  

Director- Peter Manoogian                                         

Stars- Tracy Scoggins, Bentley Mitchum, Daniel Cerny

The film follows Judith Gray (played by Tracy Scoggins) an undercover cop who after a botched bust of a couple of arms dealers finds herself trapped in a semi derelict toy warehouse with one of the criminals in cuffs. It soon becomes clear that this is no ordinary warehouse, as the death of one of the arms dealer’s accidently results in the raising of a demon with the power to bring toys to life as his personal minions. I should point out however, this is not his sole power, because frankly if it was, who would really give a shit. The rather pissed off demon is searching for a body to inhabit so he can increase his powers and once again have a physical form, and it just so happens that Judith is pregnant with the ideal host. 
 

You would think by now, I would have learned my lesson when it comes to films made by Charles Band’s Full Moon Features, but apparently that just isn’t the case. Yet again I found myself watching a Charles Band film and thinking to myself ‘why am I doing this?’ it’s as though I suddenly expect that a film called Demonic Toys made the company that has brought us so many cinematic turds (such as Evil Bong 3D) would be anything other than painful to sit through.

The entire film feels as though it is the prologue to a different story, at no point are we given context, background or even a reason to care about the characters even slightly. The films throws you in the deep end of bullshit and then when it tries to explain itself it’s like being thrown a life raft made of led while drowning the aforementioned bullshit. Every attempt this films makes to do anything other than show off its fairly decent practical effects fails harder than a silent film festival for the blind. I do have to be fair however, this films does feature some pretty damn fun practical effects in the form of the possessed toys, and it also features more blood and gore than we usually get in a Full Moon film. However this are not enough to distract the viewer from the woeful plot, acting and attempts at dialogue and worst of all, humour.

If you are (as apparently I am) a fan of being mentally tormented for 83 minutes then definitely check out this film, it will reduce you to a sleepy exhausted wreck, and the only way to restore yourself will be a stiff Gin. That’s right folks, this films drove me to drink. I can in no good conscience give this pile of sewage a positive rating, but I must stress that the effects are pretty enjoyable, so maybe just fast forward to those parts. Demonic Toys gets 3.5/10 from me, it’s the cinematic equivalent of waiting room filled with annoying children.                             

           

Ruptured Review: Zombie Holocaust (aka Doctor Butcher, M.D)

Country of origin- Italy   

Year of release- 198o  

Director- Marino Girolami (as Frank Martin)                                         

Stars- Ian McCulloch, Alexandra Delli Colli, Sherry Buchanan  

The film begins in New York where body parts are beginning to go missing, and corpses are being mutilated in a hospital. Eventually a morgue assistant is caught red handed (don’t excuse the pun) snacking on one of the poor unfortunate stiffs. After cutting the corpses heart out, the cannibal employee is chased and eventually throws himself to his death out of the window, making sure to turn into a stunt mannequin on the way down of course, as no cannibal morgue assistants were harmed in the making of this film. After this bizarre incident the hospitals resident sexy anthropologist Lori Ridgeway (played by Alexandra Delli Colli, who would later go on to play a role in The New York Ripper) recognizes the cannibalism and mutilation as a custom of a tribe in the Moluccas Island. An expedition is then organised by Dr. Peter Chandler (played by the charming Ian McCulloch of Zombie Flesh Eaters fame) to track down this tribe and discover why their cannibalistic rituals have found there way to New York.

Once the expedition arrives on the island the group quickly realise they have bitten off more than they can chew, unlike the hungry cannibals and shambling clay faced zombies that are hunting them through the jungle. Eventually the group find an insane, and extremely sweaty, surgeon who is performing horrific experiments and using his army of zombies to bring him fresh subjects, and it looks like he is need of something fresh to put on his butchers slab, much to the dismay of the expedition.

I may as well get this out of the way right off the bat, I fucking love this film! This was one of the first Italian horror films of the grindhouse period I ever watched, and it is one of the reasons I fell in love with Euro horror. Despite Zombie Holocaust being a cash in on the huge success of both Zombie Flesh Eaters and Cannibal Holocaust it still stands up as a grimy little piece of gore soaked magic, in my mind at least.

The film features the typical array of cheap camera work and lighting that leaves a lot to be desired, often poor dubbing coupled with moments of very wooden acting along with a plot with more holes that Swiss cheese a firing range. But these are actually some of the reasons I like this film so much, despite having all these typically Italian problems it manages to deliver a charmingly crap array of exploitation and cheap but effectively unpleasant gore. Top that off with the brilliant Ian McCulloch blowing the living shit out of cannibals while his men get gutted and have their eyes torn out all around him and you have the majestic cluster fuck of so-bad-its-good charm and nasty gore that is Zombie Holocaust. If you are at all a fan of low budget cannibal or zombie exploitation, or even just grime filled Euro gore flicks then this is a must, a confusing must, but still a must. I am going to give this one a hearty 8.5/10 it is essentially and often over looked viewing and considering it has been released on Blu-ray by 88 Films you have no excuse not to.                          

           

Ruptured Review: Moontrap

Country of origin- USA  

Year of release- 1989  

Director- Robert Dyke                             

Stars- Walter Koenig, Bruce Campbell, Leigh Lombardi 

The film follows two veteran space shuttle pilots, Colonel Grant played by Walter Koenig (Star Trek) and Tanner played by the brilliant Bruce Campbell (Evil Dead series) who are flying a routine mission. However the two pilots soon stumble across a vast spacecraft, of which neither the pilots nor NASA have any clue or information about. Colonel Grant suits up and leaves the shuttle to investigate. He eventually finds a metal pod embedded in a huge hole in the mysterious ship’s hull. Apparently not having seen Alien Colonel Grant decides to bring the mysterious alien pod on board the shuttle. The two pilots eventually return to earth with the pod in hand and it ultimately transpires that the pod originates from the surface of the Moon, and both the pilots become eager to investigate its origins. However, when the pod opens and proceeds to build a robotic killing machine of its own accord, which then go’s on a rampage in the NASA base, the need to investigate its origins becomes a little more urgent. Once on the Moon Colonel Grant and Tanner discover to their horror that the alien pod that they brought back, has some friends, and their a bit pissed off. 

This film is a good example of what happens when a fairly decent concept becomes polluted by poor writing and a bizarre urge by the film makers to try and take from just about every other Sci-fi film. In this film we see plagiaristic nods towards 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars: A New Hope and unsurprisingly, Star Trek to name just a few. The film becomes so bland, and filled with cliché that not even the hugely energetic and fun performance of the one and only Bruce Campbell can save it. The film is also marred by the wooden performance of Walter Koenig, who seems to reflect the feelings of the audience as he becomes increasingly distant and cardboard like as the plot progresses. But hey, at least he isn’t doing a ‘Russian’ accent.

The film does have its good points however. The practical effects on both the sets and the robots in the film are surprisingly well executed despite the films noticeably low budget, which shows very alarmingly in one or two moments throughout the film. The films score is also very good, although noticeably reminiscent in parts to that of 2001: A Space Odyssey, it still manages to deliver tension.

Overall however this film is a turd, and no matter how much you polish a turd by adding Bruce Campbell or enjoyable practical effects, it’s still a turd. While watching Moontrap it is impossible to ignore the poor script, pointless scenes, misguided ‘comedy’, lack of drive and just general blandness, enough to enjoy the sometimes worthy sceptical of Bruce Campbell fighting killer alien robots with an M16. This disappointment gets a 3.5/10 from me, this is wasted opportunity at its most boring.                  

           

Ruptured Review: Blastfighter

Country of origin- Italy 

Year of release- 1984  

Director- Lamberto Bava (as John Old Jr.)                            

Stars- Michael Sopkiw, Valentina Forte, George Eastman
          
The film follows Jake ‘Tiger’ Sharp (played by Michael Sopkiw of 2019: After the Fall of New York fame) who is a former police officer who has just been released from an 8-year prison after he tracked down and killed his wife’s murderer. Tiger returns to his hometown in Georgia as he tries to pursue a quiet life and escape from his past violent past which still haunts him. However this is an Italian action film from the 80s so the chances of poor old Tiger getting a moment of peace and quiet are fairly slim. And of course it isn’t long before Tiger must step up to restore order when he gets cruelly taunted and threatened by a group of deer poaches, led by an old acquaintance Tom, (played by the great George Eastman) who are employed by a rich businessman from Hong Kong, who is using the deer’s they maim and kill to make medicine. After shutting down the poaching operation Tiger and his long lost daughter Connie (played by the always wooden Valentina Forte) are brutally attacked by the poachers. Tiger is left with no other option but to deliver blazing justice with his experimental military shotgun in a bloody rampage of vengeance. Loaded with grenades, rockets and shells that will blow the limbs off a poacher at a hundred paces, Tiger once and for all takes out the trash.

This film is a very odd combination of Death Wish and First Blood in that we get both a very strong, if all be it short vengeance plotline, along with a story of a man trying to escape a dark past only to be dragged back into violence because of rednecks who ultimately get more than they bargained for. The First Blood style plot line takes up around two thirds of the film compared to the disappointingly short vengeance plotline. To the point that this could easily be considered as an Italian exploitation response to the Rambo boom of the early 80’s. Treating this as nothing more than Rambo knock off however is to do Blastfighter a bit of a disservice, it stands up fairly well on its own shell case strewn, blood soaked ground as a fun and solid, if slightly drawn out and cheap action effort from one of the masters of Italian exploitation Lamberto Bava.

The films two major problems do set the film back a little however. Firstly, the films puts far too much focus on Tiger and Connie fleeing the poachers, this part of the film really drags and made me care a whole lot less about Connie. This brings me on to the second issue with Blastfighter, Connie. Every time she is on screen the combination of her resting bitchface, shrill voice and whiny dialogue and demeanour leaves me wanting to take Tigers shotgun and swiftly remove her appalling character from this film. 

Leaving aside this two issues the film has many strong points. Michael Sopkiw is superb as the troubled Tiger, although his dubbing is typically poor his acting is surprisingly good. The films action pieces are all very well executed from both a special effects point of view and lighting/cinematography point of view. There is also a nice amount of dismemberment and gore towards the films climax, which is made all the better by the superb synth soundtrack composed by the masterful Fabio Frizzi the whole film is set to. Overall this is very enjoyable watch despite its problems, and considering it is now available on Blu-ray from 88 Films you really don’t have an excuse not to check it out, I’m giving Blastfighter a 6.5/10.                        

Ruptured Review: The Coma-Brutal Duel (Das komabrutale Duell)

Country of origin- Germany

Year of release- 1999   

Director- Heiko Fipper                

Stars- Heiko Fipper, Mike Hoffman, Stefan Hoft  


 

Normally it is customary for me to begin a review with a short synopsis of the films basic plot and structure, however this will not be possible in the case of this film. The Coma-Brutal Duel is a feature film that was made up of several short films made between 1984 and 1999, the film makers make little attempt to try and string them together using such unnecessary adages as a story, so the whole film plays out as a series of barley connected gore scenes. Considering this is a German shot-on-video splatter film of the kind that stained the back gardens of Germanic Europe red during the 80’s and 90’s, the story isn’t that important, as directors such as Olaf Ittenbach or Andreas Schnaas have proven in the past. But there is so little effort put into even creating the illusion of a plot in this one that it does slowly but steadily begin to drag. This ultimately this is the films downfall, but the film is certainly not without its good points.

I don’t think I can recall watching a film with as much ultra-violent mutilation, torture and dismemberment as The Coma-Brutal Duel, in terms of shire amount of blood splatter, this film is only rivalled by Adam Chaplin. It is actually difficult to remember parts of this film that didn’t have blood and gore in them in some way. Some of the gore we see includes foetus crushing, limb lopping and dick shooting. The film actually features a large amount of gory gun violence as well, which is actually a nice surprise as we get to see people killed by multiple headshots, and have their appendages nearly blown clean off in some cases.

This brings me on to the most bizarre feature of the film, considering the huge amount of blood gore and general bodily destruction that we see on screen you would easily assume that it has a high body count, you would be wrong. This is because everyone in this film seems to be utterly indestructible. The films attitude to its characters being maimed is basically loose an arm, bolt it back on, bleed to death, just kick your friend in the face and walk it off. Characters in this film survive multiple dismemberments, beheadings and headshots, only to get back up out of a pool of blood and just keep on going. Weather this was due to a constraint on the amount of available actors the film makers had, or they simply decided to fuck reality and just do their own thing I will never know, but I like to assume it is the latter.

The gore and splatter effects themselves vary throughout the film, likely due to the varying budgets of the shot films The Coma-Brutal Duel is made of, we see brown blood one minute, and orange blood the next. The same variation in quality can be said for the cinematography, one minute it looks like filming was being done using a broken toaster, the next it’s not nearly as bad. If you looking for some no budget, extremely gory shot-on-video German splatter along the lines of Violent Shit or Blutnacht this is a fine watch. The makers clearly had a blast filming this (as can be heard by the laughing in some scenes and the gag reel at the end), they made it with not a lot of skill, but a whole bunch of enthusiasm, and chainsaws. I am going to give this one a 6.5/10 it does drag towards the end, but for the amount of gore and bad dialog it is hard to top it.                                      

 

                         

Ruptured Review: X-Ray

Country of origin- USA

Year of release- 1981   

Director- Boaz Davidson              

Stars- Barbi Benton, Charles Lucia, Jon Van Ness   

The film follows Susan (played by the 80s Playboy model Barbi Benton) who is attending a hospital to pick up her check-up results in what Susan thinks will be an extremely short visit, she couldn’t be more wrong however. Almost as soon as Susan enters the hospital she begins to be stalked by a deranged killer dress as a surgeon. The killer begins to engineer a situation in which Susan will be trapped within the hospital, first by killing off her actual DR and then switching her test results to those of someone with a serious illness. This eventually leads to Susan being prevented from leaving and forced to undergo one of the sleaziest of full body examinations I have ever seen. The oddly forceful DR’s and nurses eventually put Susan on a ward filled with a trio of cackling old women, and treat her though she is a Broadmoor patient and not someone who they think is possibly very ill. But as the killers plan begins to culminate Susan is forced to flee for her life amongst the old hospitals corridors, chased by a surgeon who isn’t too fond of anaesthetic.

This was a originally a The Cannon Group release, so with that in mind I was fully prepared for a sensory overload of bad 80s heir, bad acting and downright insane plot lines. But to my surprise X-Ray manages to be a little more than just the typical Cannon efforts. I am not saying that X-Ray doesn’t have problems, because my goodness it does. The acting is generally atrocious, the script is completely awful and makes Susan sound like a complete moron, and there are plot holes so vast it is possible to fit an entire other film into them. For example Susan actually leaves her boyfriend in the car waiting while she pops into the hospital for "a few minutes". Amazingly, several hours go by and darkness falls before he even comes to look for her! It is problems like this it is easy to get hung up on when watching this film, but at the same time you just have to let that stuff go and enjoy the positive elements the film has to offer.

Firstly, this film does not spend 30 minutes playing with itself while trying to ‘build tension’ in a forced and false way, instead it gets right into the action within just a few minutes, soon after this the kills begin to come think and fast. The kills are plentiful and generally pretty brutal considering we see people being dowsed in acid, beheaded with circular saws and repeatedly stabbed and hung in wardrobes. However the film doesn’t show its hand when it comes to gore, although we get a fair amount of the old crimson splatter there is a distinct and disappointing lack of gore. One surprising asset the film has is its use of lighting and cinematography to make the most of the films setting, which is an actual abandoned hospital that was partially restored for the film. The various shots of the long dimly lit corridors, and large empty rooms makes the films environment all the more effective at creating natural tension and gives the film a fairly effective nightmarish vibe.

Overall this is an extremely strong slasher that could have easily been utter garbage, but by the grace of a director that understood that what the audience wants to see is an atmospheric setting with complete human carnage and just a hint of sleaze, it was saved. I would very much recommend this one especially considering it has just received a superb Blu-ray release from 88 Films, X-Ray gets a 7/10 from me.                         

Ruptured Review: SS Experiment Camp

Country of origin- Italy

Year of release- 1976   

Director- Sergio Garrone             

Stars- Mircha Carven, Paola Corazzi, Giorgio Cerioni 

The film follows a group of female political prisoners who have just been sent to, as the title suggests, SS Experiment Camp for what can only be described as bizarre and pointless sexual experiments. Some of the prisoners are forced into prostitution for the camps built in brothel which is supposed to boost morale amongst the Nazi guards, who all seem to be more interested in lying in their Y-fronts in front of one another for most of the film. The rest of the prisoners are forced to basically just have sex with Nazi’s while a predatory lesbian makes notes, and molests one of the prisoners now and again. The film quickly loses its collective shit however, when it is discovered that the purpose of these experiments is to find the most Aryan set of balls from amongst the clearly not Aryan guards, which are then chopped off only to be transplanted to the camp commandant who, as we discover, lost his on the Russian front.

This whole film is just one giant clusterfuck. Within the first four minutes of the film we see full frontal nudity, electric chair torture, urine and a furnace for dead bodies that causes people to break into interpretive dance, don’t believe me, watch it for yourself. After this stunning opening that has about as much taste as a blind 70’s pimp, we are then treated to what I can only describe as a constant barrage of pornographic failure. The film constantly tries to be titillating, but its fumbled attempts simply come off as some kind of crude Benny Hill sketch just with more pubic hair and Nazi imagery. Even the camp itself is a joke, its more like Butlins than Belzec, the prisoners can even walk around outside at night, in their “uniforms” which are little more than old bathrobes. For the most part the oddly well fed prisoners don’t even seem to mind being there, and treat it more like a hen party than a concentration camp.

It is bizarre to think that this film was, and is still today one of the most talked about Video Nasties, and even one of the most famous Nazisploitation films of this era. Putting aside the sporadic unintentional humour the film provides, this film is downright boring. It isn’t nasty enough to be as shocking and entertaining as Ilsa, She Wolf Of The SS, and it isn’t as artistic as Salon Kitty or The Night Porter (which it so desperately wants to be) to be even remotely thought provoking. The director Sergio Garrone shot this back-to-back with another Nazisploitation sex film called SS Womens Camp which I thankfully haven’t had to suffer through…yet. Overall this is a very boring, slow, cheap and grotty vague rip-off of Salon Kitty, it does have moments that made me laugh but for all the wrong reasons, this one gets 3.5/10.