It's official. Sam won Christmas.

Not that it's a competition, but if it was, Sam won Christmas this year. His gift to me was a bespoke  blood-red Evil Dead print, pictured below. As he said, it should offset the girly flower mural in our hallway.

You can see more of Sam's annoyingly good work at pixelsbeatpaper.co.uk, including a similar and equally brilliant typographic Smiths poster.

Photo Diary : What's that coming over the hill, is it a Santa?

Spent the day wandering around London with Sam and Jen and bumped into this. Luckily I haven't been naughty this year.

Video Nasty #40 : The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue AKA Let Sleeping Corpses Lie

Synopsis: After Edna's brother-in-law is killed by a previously dead tramp Edna's druggie sister Katie is the prime suspect. Only Edna and George, her unlikely amateur-misogynist companion, can stop the zombie uprising and prove Katie's innocence.

As a premature-climax to my languishing affair with the video nasty list last week I attended Day of the Undead, Leicester's finest zombie film festival. The event opened with The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue, a rare chance to see this classic but undeservedly lesser seen zombie film on the big screen (Props to Zombie Ed and the team at Terror4fun for organising the awesome event, even the Danny Dyer film didn't put too much of a downer on the day). I have seen the film once before in equally rare circumstances, with Matt the night before his wedding.

The film is driven by its characters, blunt embodiments of the key socio-political movements of '74, to the point of caricature. The protaganist George is a long haired post-hippy environmentalist with a healthy disdain for the man. The Inspector is the man, a proto-fascist authoritarian who hates fun, happiness and the progressive youth. 'You're all the same the lot of you' he spits at George 'with your long hair and faggot clothes. Drugs, sex, every sort of filth! '. Whilst George is convinced that the government's agricultural experiments are causing the dead to rise and kill, the Inspector prefers his equally outlandish explanation for the murders - George and Edna are devil worshipers. These two are the stars of the film and I could watch George antagonising the increasingly manic and righteous Inspector all day.

The cause of the zombie uprising, man playing god, still feels incredibly fresh, probably because its now the defacto explanation for the undead bastards. The details themselves are slightly preposterous, but no more than being bitten by the hybrid off-spring of a monkey raped by plague rats. The government are experimenting with a device that attacks insects' nervous systems and turns them into manic cannibals, effectively wiping out all vermin within a five mile radius. Unfortunately, corpses degraded nervous systems are similar to ants, hence the walking homicidal undead. In a inspired move the logic is extended to baby's undeveloped nervous systems, giving us zombie babies 30 years before the Dawn of the Dead remake.

The zombies themselves are brilliant, and due to their limited number they're given enough screen time to become distinct characters. True to Romero's vision they stumble and crawl at sub-tortoise speeds, always catching the slightly retarded scream-rather-than-run hares. They're also (according to Zombie Ed) the first zombies to much on intestines in full colour, surely a film milestone. The film's high point for gore and low point for decency has to be the infamous involuntary breast reduction, a scene that feels oddly beneath the film, added as a a concession for the gore hounds (IMDB trivia tells us that the director 'cast an actress known for having a flat chest'. If this is what you're known for you're doing this acting thing wrong).

It may be the portentous circumstances (to me, a sad film geek, a zombie film festival is a life milestone) but The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue has to be one of my favourite horror films. Unlike most efforts in the genre, it isn't really a zombie film, it's a film that happens to have zombies in it. Following Romero's lead director Jorge Grau has made a film with great acting, effects, laughs, violence, intelligence and, albeit unsubtle, subtext.

And the ending couldn't be anymore satisfying.

Video Nasty #39 : The Devil Hunter AKA Sexo Caníbal

Synopsis: When model Laura Crawford is kidnapped Peter Weston and his vietnam-vet side kick are sent to a remote South American island to bring her back, preferably with the large ransom the kidnappers have demanded for Laura's release. After the exchange goes disastrously wrong the kidnappers retreat to the jungle and straight in to the grips of 'the devil', the island's resident cannibal overlord.

Just when I thought there couldn't possibly be anymore cannibal movies on the list I find The Devil Hunter, a deceptively titled cheap horrible exploitation smear on otherwise useful celluloid. This film is so awful my laptop's DVD player rejected the disk, shaking and wailing at volume for every second it was forced to decompress, decrypt and de-interlace; as if it couldn't comprehend why its state of the art technology was being used to watch something so horribly lo-fi.

The Devil Hunter is the work of the infamous Jesus Franco, a man who has made an astonishing 160 films, mostly filth (The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein, Vampyros Lesbos, etc.). Not to renege on his reputation The Devil Hunter may as well be called 'Mr Cannibal's Sexy Weekend', as many long scenes are spent watching the afro-caribbean 'natives' and Ms. Crawford writhe in agony whilst thrusting their gyrating crotches in the direction of the shamelessly leering camera. These scenes are so long and blatantly sexualised even a pubescent 16 year old boy would find it a little too slimy to be erotic. Although one could write-off Franco's obsession with nudity as harmless, it's a little more difficult to justify the point of a casual rape scene, as the rapist's girlfriend complicity watches in a hammock ("you're a son of a bitch, but I love you". yay for feminism!).

It's not as if these scenes are required to pad the film out, at 102 minutes long the film is a chore; so much so that I had to watch it in twenty minute chunks, taking rest breaks as if I was revising for some hellish a-level. Unfortunately the promise of gorey cannibal carnage isn't really followed through; the titular devil is a naked dude with ping-pong ball eyes (literally) who likes chewing on necks and covering his victims in a weird powder-based orangey-red paint and placing a few raw sausages around their belly button. When the cannibal isn't on screen we're treated to the tiresome vaseline lensed 'cannibal-cam', complete with heavy breathing smothered in token 80's pop reverb.

That fucking reverb. Enough. It's not scary. It's shit. Stop it.

I could go on but this has just become an unhinged rant. All you really need to know about The Devil Hunter is that it's an awful film. Quite possibly the worst of the #39 i've seen so far. And i've seen Cannibal Terror.

Video Nasty #38 : House by the Cemetery

Synopsis: After Dr Peterson kills himself and his lover, it is left to Norman Boyle to continue the Dr's ground breaking research into, of all things, suicide. To pick up where his college left off Norman moves his family to the Dr's residence, a dilapidated house by an equally dilapidated cemetery. Norman soon discovers that a creepy graveyard is the least of your worries when there’s a crypt in your living room and an un-dead in the cellar...

House by the Cemetery sees Fulci returning to the Nasty List, after the impressive and gut-wrenchingly gory The Beyond. This isn’t the only connection between these two films, as they form two parts of Fulci’s ‘Seven Gates of Hell Trilogy’. Where as The Beyond is a dreamy ethereal and ultimately unremittingly bleak film, House by the Cemetery is, despite the director’s meagre efforts to suggest otherwise, a relatively straight forward monster-in-the-basement roller-coaster ride. Not that i’m complaining, of course.

The most interesting aspect of House by the Cemetery is how little Fulci relies on gore for scares. Sympathetic to the PG-13 connotations of the plot ('monster in the basement' would be the perfect title for a kid-friendly horror movie), Fulci uses flowing and lush cinematography to wring all possible tension out of some frankly hackneyed scenarios. These scene's are all horror movie staples - eyes glowing in the dark, bumps in the night, little kids being creepy and creaking door’s slamming shut to entrap a victim in the monster’s clutches. The later is particularly tense, even after its third copy-paste reprisal in the script.

Of course things don't stay PG-13 for long; in Little Monsters Fred Savage never had a knife jammed through the back of his skull or his throat ripped out (although i'm still hopeful for a director's cut). The most bloody scene of the film is unintentionally hilarious as Norman is attacked by a bat that looks like a Goonies prop reject. The bat latches itself to Norman's hand and the scene plays like a Bruce Campbell body acting masterclass, Norman running around the house desperately trying to dislodge the flying whilst decorating the house with an inhuman (or inbat) amount of blood . Purposefully hilarious or not, seeing the shell-shocked family sprayed with blood was my favourite moment of the film.

Whilst the bat is the unintentional star of the film, the monster is for the most part an un-seen entity, only revealed (as in all good monster movies) in the last ten minuts of the film. Unlike most monster movies, the undead professor is in the full flesh still as creepy as the glimpses of limbs and glowing eyes we've had through-out the film, looking like a prune with eyes (definitely not a raisin, he wasn't poncing around in shades singing 'Heard It Through The Grapevine').

If I had to criticise the film it would be that Fulci can't help but put some inexplicable mysteries into the film, as if he's worried about betraying his Giallo origins. Most are unexplained, and add nothing to the film other than confusion - why did the babysitter clean up after the monster, why did people say Norman had visited the house before?, and what was the ending all about, complete with incorrectly attributed quote? None of this stuff really matters, it's just a shallow attempt at depth that is so ineffectual it doesn't really detract from the main show. Like a plot in a porn film.

House by the Cemetery is great. If you like your monsters grim, and your gore even grimmer, you'll love it.

Video Nasty #37 : Pranks AKA The Dorm that Dripped Blood

Synopsis: Joanne and three friends are clearing a university dormitory in preparation for its demolition. Unbeknownst to them they are being stalked by a shakey-handed camera man with a full concert orchestra in tow. Can they stop their assailant before he permanently stops them? (i'm so sorry, writing a snappy synopsis is difficult).

As slasher films go, Pranks is at best mediocre. The direction is uninspiring, the script lame and acting sub-standard. It does however have a few redeeming features - an absolutely epic score, Princess Vespa from Spaceballs head popping like a balloon, and a surprisingly vicious ending.

In stark contrast to the home-movie cinematography the film's score is the work of an accomplished composer. As the camera lumbers after a chosen victim it's accompanied by plinky plonky staccatto piano, portameto timpanis, crashing cymbals, a full string section and a xylophone. Unfortunately as great as the score is (by Christopher Young, composer on Hellraiser, Drag Me To Hell & Spider Man 3), it's a little too bombastic for this small slasher flick, sapping the film of any tension the dreadful direction hasn't already wrung out of the script (Imagine John Williams scoring The Texas Chainsaw Massacre).

Despite the clunky visuals, the directors at least deliver on the absolute basic slasher requirement - inventive, original and above all else, horrible kills. Despite increasing their chance of being captured ten-fold any self-respecting slasher wouldn't be caught dead with something as dull & efficient as a gun or an, urm, atomic bomb. The best of these prolonged kills has to be Daphne Zuniga's character being knocked unconscious, dragged onto the road and a van reversing over her head (this is after the killer has murdered both of her parents, ever the completist). Although we don't see the cranium collapse, the comedy pop noise is satisfying enough. Other unfortunates are boiled alive, drilled and, in the sombre finale, incinerated.

And on that point; the ending. Through-out the film we're led to believe the killer is the local hermit; who may as well be dressed in red fish costume wearing a sign saying 'i'm a herring'. The killer is in fact Craig, one the characterless flesh-bags that has somehow managed to appear throughout the film without me ever really noticing. This makes it particular infuriating when he says to Joanne, and by extension the audience, 'Don't you understand, it was me the whole time', as if we're stupid for not spotting all the clues liberally sprinkled through out the film (of which there are none). He then goes onto explain how he executed the killings which isn't impressive or relevant, because a) it wasn't exactly difficult and b) as most of the film is unintelligible I couldn't care less. The reasons for his killing are stereotypical but nonsensical in the context of the film. The murderer was secretly in love with the Joanne, the final girl, and he killed everyone else to keep her to himself (this doesn't explain why he killed the janitor and the family who were leaving the university).

Despite this the film ends on a surprisingly sombre and unnerving note. The police arrive but are tricked into believing Craig is a victim. As they celebrate catching the wrong guy Craig carries the unconscious Joanne in his arms and bungs her in the incinerator. This is a surprisingly bold turn, and despite Craig's transformation from forgettable normo to forgettable psycho, the shot of him carrying Joanne to the incinerator is pretty creepy.

So, Pranks is a bit of a mess. Despite its inventive kills and big-budget score it's mostly a badly shot emotionless bore. The biggest problem is that for a film where characters are stalked around a building there's no real sense of geography to the place they inhabit, making it difficult to understand what peril the characters are in (surely a building of this size would have multiple exits?). Along with the poor camera work, direction, acting and cinematography the non-existant tension is completely smothered by the over the bombastic score. Sometimes silence can be scary.

Video Nasty #36 : Mountain of the Cannibal God AKA Primitive Desires

Synopsis: Susan Stevenson (Ursula Andress) has flown to Generic South American Country to search for her Husband, who hasn't been heard from since disappearing into the jungle in search of uranium. Joined by her brother and a local expert Susan heads to the jungle and unknowingly towards the Mountain of the Cannibal God.

I can't help but audably sigh when I realise there's another cannibal movie on the list that i'm yet to watch. It's a lousy genre, and one that was completely bled-dry during the video nasty hey-day. Given my love for all things zombie, this disdain may seem surprising; surely a zombie is just a really hungry angry cannibal? Well yes, it's not the monster at fault, it's the unwritten genre rules. Where as zombie movies are fun and ridiculous with a sincere yet often shallow, pretentious social-science a-level subtext, cannibal movies are about shock, animal cruelty and natives with no clothes on. (I'll begrudgingly admit that zombie movies have also out-stayed their welcome after the post 28 Days Later resurgence)

Given my contempt for the genre I was pleasantly surprised by Mountain of the Cannibal God. That is of course, a back handed compliment. To say this the best cannibal movie i've seen is like saying the best food poisoning i've ever had or the least painful kick in the nuts. The film does have all the halmarks of a cannibal movie - Unnecessary animal slaughter (an iguana being torn apart is almost a genre all-time low), casual sexism ('It's hard enough for a man, for a woman it would be almost impossible') and excessive nudity.

Despite it ticking most of the genre boxes the idiot director did neglect a few. For example there was no back of the cigarette packet script, incongruous stock footage of wildlife and a general disdain for the viewer. Mountain of the Cannibal God feels a little like Indiana Jones, albeit being released three years before Raiders of the Lost Ark. Rather than focusing on the cannibals the film is more of a jungle adventure with inventive traps, rafting through crocodile-infested water and exploring huge caves. Unlike Indiana Jones these boys-adventure elements do have a violent sting in the tail. One trap is essentially a wooden iron maiden, tenderising the victim in preparation for the cannibal BBQ and the crocodiles somehow manage to tear a guide's arm off.

Although the cannibals do pop up every so often as our hero's mysterious adversaries (looking like Naan Bread from The Mighty Boosh), they only really come into play in the final act. If there's one thing i've learnt from the previous #35 films, it's that regardless of what has come before if you can deliver a barmy ending the viewer will walk away happy (Well, unless they have to write a review and realise they've been hoodwinked). Mountain of the Cannibal God ends with some images I don't believe i'll ever see (or want to see) on film again. In the climax Ursula Andress is declared a goddess, tied to a poll and sexually abused by a cannibal. Said cannibal then has his cock cut off and amongst an orgy of masturbation and sex the film delivers its Pièce de résistance - a cannibal fucking a pig.

So it's not exactly a struggle to figure out why the film was listed. Mountain of the Cannibal God is an OK film, but its obscurity really isn't surprising. Despite the frankly childish climax the film is far more entertaining than it should be, and is put together with a confident and expert hand.

After all, even I have to admit that the man porking the pork was very well lit.