CategoryForeign
International horror: J-horror, European extremity, Latin American shocks and the films Hollywood keeps remaking.
901 stories
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsShort Films
The Uncanny Art therapist Zouzou (Marie Laurin) takes the suicide of one of her charges quite painfully, leaving her job and moving to a new area in The Uncanny. Her new home, initially unbeknownst to her, is filled with past traumas and no small amount of dread. Her neighbors and new acquaintances can’t help but notice her increasingly strange behavior, which is caused in part by recurring visits from a young girl. The Uncanny doesn’t offer shocks and gratuitous gore; rather, director Clara Gabrielle — who cowrote the screenplay with Laurin, her mother — focuses more on the drama regarding grief, loss, depression, and the slow decline of sanity, which are heightened here by supernatural forces. The third act does serve up a decidedly eerie set piece, though. Laurin’s hypnotic lead performance is something to behold, with solid assistance from the sizable supporting cast. Gabrielle does an impressive job at the helm, crafting a feature that should give aficionados of
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviewsThriller
Those delightful devils have become criminally minded and have gathered five of director’s Umberto Lenzi’s (Nightmare City, Cannibal Ferox) crime flicks, all featuring actor Tomas Milian, and eleased them in one handy-dandy box-set aptly called Violent Streets – The Umberto Lenzi /Tomas Milian Collection. Things kick off with 1974’s Almost Human: Giulio (Milian) is a bank robber who gives zero fucks when it comes to being a murderous lunatic. It’s that last bit that finds him kicked soundly from his bank robbing gang straight into his girlfriend Iona’s (Anita Strindberg) abode. Human Sponge is super effective! Soon Giulio spies comely Mary Lou (Laura Belli), a girl that comes from a Richy Rich type of sitch with Daddy Dearest owning the company Iona works for no less, and gets the brilliant idea to throw together a lil’ gang and kidnap the heiress in the hopes of collecting a giant ransom. There’s a huge fuckin’ fly in the ointment however as Inspector
Continue reading →
ForeignIndieMoviesReviews
Snake venom drinking, ex-Vietnam prisoner of war Sam Wood (Brent Huff of Cop Game, which I reviewed right here) spends his days… well, he seems to just sleep a lot and piss people off merely by existing… oh, and he looks like a Bayou Billy cosplayer, which given the difficulty of that game would go along way to adding towards the hostility leveled against him… Anyway, Sam is hired by documentarian Maryline Kane (Mary Stavin) to head back to the camp he was brutally tortured in for a series of interviews in exchange for which he’ll be paid an ass-load of cash. Once there Maryline’s crew is immediately attacked and killed by Vietnamese soldiers, and Sam finds out he was played like a chump and Maryline’s real goal is to rescue her military father who has become a P.O.W. as well… the same general that refused to rescue Wood’s comrades in ‘Nam. The promise of more money smooths that shit
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
P.G. Kelly (Mel Gibson) is the leader of a small group of special forces operatives charged with rescuing survivors of a downed plane located on a heavily Japanese occupied island during World War II. These are grim motherfuckers one and all, and they certainly aren’t above getting their hands very, very dirty in order to complete a mission… even if the blood they spill is from one of their own! As the men soldier on in their quest they take up with local farmer cum resistance fighter Lin (prolific Taiwanese actor/director Koo Chuan Hsiung) and his daughter Chien Hua (Hong Kong actress/singer/director Sylvia Chang) who prove to be valuable allies in a place where they are in short supply! Will Kelly and his men complete this seemingly suicidal mission, or will they succumb to the menace of the Japanese troops that surround them on all sides? Attack Force Z is a strange picture… Well, not strange in it’s narrative… this
Continue reading →
ForeignIndieMoviesReviews
After a slew of assassinations against military personnel, the boys in camo do the only thing they possibly can; namely call in beer guzzlin’, male model-type/ex-commando Bob Ross (Tarzan the Ape Man/Ator the Fighting Eagle‘s Miles O’Keeffe) to create happy little accidents of extreme violence on those responsible! The only problem with that request is that it stands in the way of his primary life goal; namely retrieving his son from Vietnam, where he was forced to stay after the war… a goal he has attempted to fulfil by blowing shit sky-high with a rocket launcher fired from a helicopter. Fortunately for the narrative, Ross is soon convinced (i.e. forced) by the asthmatic, and ludicrously named, Senator Blaster (Halloween‘s Donald Pleasence) and his own personal Col. Trautman, Col. Waters (Mike Monty) to undertake the assassination investigation back in his old ‘Nam stomping grounds, a task he has five days to complete or he’ll be left to rot! The job totally
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsShort Films
Two Sisters Italian short Two Sisters is a period piece horror with folk horror elements. Set in the late 15th century in the Lessini Mountains of Verona, writer/director Diego Carli’s film involves the titular siblings (Jenni Tatani and Marianna Caporalito in marvelous performances) being pursued by a group of men hunting for witches. The teen girls have good reason to hide, and they do so using magical powers. When they come under attack, a horrifically violent event occurs, and the two sisters find their close bond being challenged. Carli invests his short with incredible detail, from researching facts around that time period’s height of witch hunting to costumes and recreating authenticity of the sets and outdoor shots on display. Cinematographer Edoardo Olivieri beautifully captures the proceedings, with Luigi Maria Mennella’s score providing perfect musical accompaniment. The Mean Spirited Codirectors Jack Archer (who wrote the screenplay) and Joseph Archer deliver a very special work with their U.K. short The Mean Spirited.
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsShort Films
Family Night Writer/director Alan Dunne serves up an absolutely harrowing experience in the Irish horror short Family Night. Eoin Quinn gives a riveting, unnerving performance as a father whose unpredictable behavior has his wife (Denise McCormack), teen daughter (Molly McLoughlin), and preteen son (Flynn Gray) walking on eggshells, fearing angry outbursts that could happen at any moment. Dunne builds the suspense expertly, leading things to a jaw-dropping climax. This one is a true chiller that viewers need to go into as cold as possible. It’s virtually impossible not to be shaken up by Family Night. You can watch the trailer at https://vimeo.com/688022245 Sonar One of the most beautiful looking genre shorts I have seen in recent memory, director James Hughes’ U.K. film Sonar finds a young woman (Amy Marie Campbell) swimming in a pool at night when she hears a sonar sound. She submerges into the deep end of the swimming pool to investigate, and finds . . . well,
Continue reading →
ForeignIndieMoviesReviews
Do you dig on hard rockin’ tune-age playing over non-violent b-roll stock footage of the Vietnam War? It doesn’t matter, Bruno Mattei’s Cop Game kicks things off in exactly that way! Following that, we begin our tale in the final days of the war… which appear to have stretched on all the way to the late ’80s if the clothes, hairstyles, and vehicles present are to be believed. Into that anachronism steps macho mother fucker Morgan (Strike Commando 2‘s Brent Huff) and his equally match-oh pal Hawk (Max Laurel, whom you may remember as the creature Zuma from the 1985 film of the same name) who are called into service to investigate the assassination of a high rankin’ military man by a gang of heavily armed and masked soldiers. Said investigation sends our heroes into a world of slow-motion gunfire-based destruction (and a shit-ton of it too), overly-long nightclub dance routines, car chases involving no actual cars (more on that
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
Dig this; ’round about a decade ago horror scholar/author Kier-La Janisse released her legendary tome; House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films, the title of which alone let’s you know that she is the perfect person to curate (and provide intros for) a box set full of lunatic ladies various and sundry! Severin’s House of Psychotic Women set contains four films spanning the years 1972 – 1985, and in a move bound to shock and excite I’m going to feast my putrid peepers on each in good ol’ chronological order! We begin with 1972’s The Other Side of the Underneath… A woman is pulled from a lake and takes up residence in a dilapidated asylum filled with an all-female roster of patients… some of which may or may not be a theater troupe that push our heroine trough one nightmare after another that gradually explores her life as a schizophrenic and the
Continue reading →
AdaptationForeignMovies
In a near Olympic-level of horniness, Mistival (Paul Muller) practically gives his daughter to the comely Marianne (Maria Rohm) in exchange for a lil’ of that ol’ sexual fucking. Now Marianne has plans for that daughter, Eugenie (Marie Liljedahl) by name, which include spiriting her away for a stay at her family’s remote island estate with Marianne’s half-brother Mirvel (Jack Taylor) in tow. Before you can say “Surely, things will not turn sexual in this scenario.”, things turn sexual in this scenario as those sinful semi-sibs introduce our naive heroine to all manner of kink biz six ways to Sunday! Why are they doing all this? Why to prepare Eugenie for the arrival of that Pervert’s Pervert; Dolmance (Christopher Lee)… will she retain a shred of innocence after this ordeal, or will she give in to every dark desire? Taking the original tale Philosophy in the Bedroom, penned by the legendary Marquise de Sade in 1795, director Jess Franco along
Continue reading →
More from Foreign
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsShort Films
The Uncanny Art therapist Zouzou (Marie Laurin) takes the suicide of one of her charges quite painfully, leaving her job and moving to a new area in The Uncanny. Her new home, initially unbeknownst to her, is filled with past traumas and no small amount of dread. Her neighbors and new acquaintances can’t help but notice her increasingly strange behavior, which is caused in part by recurring visits from a young girl. The Uncanny doesn’t offer shocks and gratuitous gore; rather, director Clara Gabrielle — who cowrote the screenplay with Laurin, her mother — focuses more on the drama regarding grief, loss, depression, and the slow decline of sanity, which are heightened here by supernatural forces. The third act does serve up a decidedly eerie set piece, though. Laurin’s hypnotic lead performance is something to behold, with solid assistance from the sizable supporting cast. Gabrielle does an impressive job at the helm, crafting a feature that should give aficionados of
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviewsThriller
Those delightful devils have become criminally minded and have gathered five of director’s Umberto Lenzi’s (Nightmare City, Cannibal Ferox) crime flicks, all featuring actor Tomas Milian, and eleased them in one handy-dandy box-set aptly called Violent Streets – The Umberto Lenzi /Tomas Milian Collection. Things kick off with 1974’s Almost Human: Giulio (Milian) is a bank robber who gives zero fucks when it comes to being a murderous lunatic. It’s that last bit that finds him kicked soundly from his bank robbing gang straight into his girlfriend Iona’s (Anita Strindberg) abode. Human Sponge is super effective! Soon Giulio spies comely Mary Lou (Laura Belli), a girl that comes from a Richy Rich type of sitch with Daddy Dearest owning the company Iona works for no less, and gets the brilliant idea to throw together a lil’ gang and kidnap the heiress in the hopes of collecting a giant ransom. There’s a huge fuckin’ fly in the ointment however as Inspector
Continue reading →
ForeignIndieMoviesReviews
Snake venom drinking, ex-Vietnam prisoner of war Sam Wood (Brent Huff of Cop Game, which I reviewed right here) spends his days… well, he seems to just sleep a lot and piss people off merely by existing… oh, and he looks like a Bayou Billy cosplayer, which given the difficulty of that game would go along way to adding towards the hostility leveled against him… Anyway, Sam is hired by documentarian Maryline Kane (Mary Stavin) to head back to the camp he was brutally tortured in for a series of interviews in exchange for which he’ll be paid an ass-load of cash. Once there Maryline’s crew is immediately attacked and killed by Vietnamese soldiers, and Sam finds out he was played like a chump and Maryline’s real goal is to rescue her military father who has become a P.O.W. as well… the same general that refused to rescue Wood’s comrades in ‘Nam. The promise of more money smooths that shit
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
P.G. Kelly (Mel Gibson) is the leader of a small group of special forces operatives charged with rescuing survivors of a downed plane located on a heavily Japanese occupied island during World War II. These are grim motherfuckers one and all, and they certainly aren’t above getting their hands very, very dirty in order to complete a mission… even if the blood they spill is from one of their own! As the men soldier on in their quest they take up with local farmer cum resistance fighter Lin (prolific Taiwanese actor/director Koo Chuan Hsiung) and his daughter Chien Hua (Hong Kong actress/singer/director Sylvia Chang) who prove to be valuable allies in a place where they are in short supply! Will Kelly and his men complete this seemingly suicidal mission, or will they succumb to the menace of the Japanese troops that surround them on all sides? Attack Force Z is a strange picture… Well, not strange in it’s narrative… this
Continue reading →
ForeignIndieMoviesReviews
After a slew of assassinations against military personnel, the boys in camo do the only thing they possibly can; namely call in beer guzzlin’, male model-type/ex-commando Bob Ross (Tarzan the Ape Man/Ator the Fighting Eagle‘s Miles O’Keeffe) to create happy little accidents of extreme violence on those responsible! The only problem with that request is that it stands in the way of his primary life goal; namely retrieving his son from Vietnam, where he was forced to stay after the war… a goal he has attempted to fulfil by blowing shit sky-high with a rocket launcher fired from a helicopter. Fortunately for the narrative, Ross is soon convinced (i.e. forced) by the asthmatic, and ludicrously named, Senator Blaster (Halloween‘s Donald Pleasence) and his own personal Col. Trautman, Col. Waters (Mike Monty) to undertake the assassination investigation back in his old ‘Nam stomping grounds, a task he has five days to complete or he’ll be left to rot! The job totally
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsShort Films
Two Sisters Italian short Two Sisters is a period piece horror with folk horror elements. Set in the late 15th century in the Lessini Mountains of Verona, writer/director Diego Carli’s film involves the titular siblings (Jenni Tatani and Marianna Caporalito in marvelous performances) being pursued by a group of men hunting for witches. The teen girls have good reason to hide, and they do so using magical powers. When they come under attack, a horrifically violent event occurs, and the two sisters find their close bond being challenged. Carli invests his short with incredible detail, from researching facts around that time period’s height of witch hunting to costumes and recreating authenticity of the sets and outdoor shots on display. Cinematographer Edoardo Olivieri beautifully captures the proceedings, with Luigi Maria Mennella’s score providing perfect musical accompaniment. The Mean Spirited Codirectors Jack Archer (who wrote the screenplay) and Joseph Archer deliver a very special work with their U.K. short The Mean Spirited.
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsShort Films
Family Night Writer/director Alan Dunne serves up an absolutely harrowing experience in the Irish horror short Family Night. Eoin Quinn gives a riveting, unnerving performance as a father whose unpredictable behavior has his wife (Denise McCormack), teen daughter (Molly McLoughlin), and preteen son (Flynn Gray) walking on eggshells, fearing angry outbursts that could happen at any moment. Dunne builds the suspense expertly, leading things to a jaw-dropping climax. This one is a true chiller that viewers need to go into as cold as possible. It’s virtually impossible not to be shaken up by Family Night. You can watch the trailer at https://vimeo.com/688022245 Sonar One of the most beautiful looking genre shorts I have seen in recent memory, director James Hughes’ U.K. film Sonar finds a young woman (Amy Marie Campbell) swimming in a pool at night when she hears a sonar sound. She submerges into the deep end of the swimming pool to investigate, and finds . . . well,
Continue reading →
ForeignIndieMoviesReviews
Do you dig on hard rockin’ tune-age playing over non-violent b-roll stock footage of the Vietnam War? It doesn’t matter, Bruno Mattei’s Cop Game kicks things off in exactly that way! Following that, we begin our tale in the final days of the war… which appear to have stretched on all the way to the late ’80s if the clothes, hairstyles, and vehicles present are to be believed. Into that anachronism steps macho mother fucker Morgan (Strike Commando 2‘s Brent Huff) and his equally match-oh pal Hawk (Max Laurel, whom you may remember as the creature Zuma from the 1985 film of the same name) who are called into service to investigate the assassination of a high rankin’ military man by a gang of heavily armed and masked soldiers. Said investigation sends our heroes into a world of slow-motion gunfire-based destruction (and a shit-ton of it too), overly-long nightclub dance routines, car chases involving no actual cars (more on that
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
Dig this; ’round about a decade ago horror scholar/author Kier-La Janisse released her legendary tome; House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films, the title of which alone let’s you know that she is the perfect person to curate (and provide intros for) a box set full of lunatic ladies various and sundry! Severin’s House of Psychotic Women set contains four films spanning the years 1972 – 1985, and in a move bound to shock and excite I’m going to feast my putrid peepers on each in good ol’ chronological order! We begin with 1972’s The Other Side of the Underneath… A woman is pulled from a lake and takes up residence in a dilapidated asylum filled with an all-female roster of patients… some of which may or may not be a theater troupe that push our heroine trough one nightmare after another that gradually explores her life as a schizophrenic and the
Continue reading →
AdaptationForeignMovies
In a near Olympic-level of horniness, Mistival (Paul Muller) practically gives his daughter to the comely Marianne (Maria Rohm) in exchange for a lil’ of that ol’ sexual fucking. Now Marianne has plans for that daughter, Eugenie (Marie Liljedahl) by name, which include spiriting her away for a stay at her family’s remote island estate with Marianne’s half-brother Mirvel (Jack Taylor) in tow. Before you can say “Surely, things will not turn sexual in this scenario.”, things turn sexual in this scenario as those sinful semi-sibs introduce our naive heroine to all manner of kink biz six ways to Sunday! Why are they doing all this? Why to prepare Eugenie for the arrival of that Pervert’s Pervert; Dolmance (Christopher Lee)… will she retain a shred of innocence after this ordeal, or will she give in to every dark desire? Taking the original tale Philosophy in the Bedroom, penned by the legendary Marquise de Sade in 1795, director Jess Franco along
Continue reading →
