liudragon Reviews

Praey (2005)

A little budget can go a long way...Excellent

[10/10 · 5 May 2005]

I travelled across the country to the NY Independent Film Festival and caught this amazing little film there. Made on a shoe-string budget, this proves how a lot of imagination, talent and creativity can make a great film even without pie-in-the-sky Hollywood budgets and ultra CGI effects. The plot may seem familiar, with elements of THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME (1932) and perhaps traces of EVIL DEAD (1981) woven into the story of a woman on the search for her kidnapped daughter; but director/lead actress Tiffany Sinclair takes what might seem rote and turns it into a compelling affair. Some might nitpick that it runs a little too long but whenever Sinclair is on the screen you will be riveted. I wish there was a complete cast list on the IMDb because I wanted to note the great supporting performance by the guy who plays Baker - the "john" who takes Sinclair's Sara on the ride of her life (or death). With a great performance by Sinclair and spectacular camera and editing work, PRAEY should be a film that will delight horror and suspense buffs for years to come either on DVD or late night television. Please try to find this film when it goes into distribution.

Prison-a-Go-Go! (2003)

The way they should make films that never should have been made

[1 August 2004]

There's no reason at all for a film like "Prison-A-Go-Go!" to exist. Let's just be thankful that it does. It's pure fun and exploitation. Not a single raison d'etre to worry about and not much of a plot so you can keep your mind on vacation and just sit back and enjoy the raucous goings on. Whenever Mary Woronov is in the cast you have to sit up and take notice. A little longer in the tooth than you might remember from "Eating Raoul" or "Rock-n-Roll High School", she remains the premiere female thesp of high comic villainary. If you thought Rhonda Shear's career disappeared when she was replaced by Gilbert Gottfried on television, "Prison-A-Go-Go" will surely remind you why she used to keep you up all night. Lots of pretty girls, lots of gratuitous scenes, lots of laughs. You may not find this on your local vid store shelf but pick up a copy somewhere whenever you can smoke one out.

Kárate a muerte en Torremolinos (2003)

Short on budget, long on humor

[1 August 2004]

What you lack in budget can often be made up for with big doses of humor and inspired direction. Newcomer Pedro Temboury makes a big splash with silly zombies, a portly villain, a rubber monster, stock footage and clever cameo appearances by cult director Jess Franco and actress Lina Romay. Big baddie Paul Lapidus plans to take over the world with karate trained zombies so of course he starts by attacking that vital town of Torremolinos. Call in martial arts champ Oliver Denis to the rescue and see him knocked off almost immediately. The jokes are smart the acting is way above what you'd expect from such a low budget film and Temboury's direction keeps things going at a pace that always keeps your interest. Don't let the subtitles scare you away. Maybe One Shot Productions, who Temboury's worked for in the past, will release this in on USA DVD in a dubbed version. In joke lovers will take note of the same green goblin that stalked the Spanish countryside in "Les Psycho-Lettes."

Evil Night (2002)

Zombies for Kiddies. Blood and Fun

[10/10 · 28 July 2004]

Julian Lara shows what you can do with a $1.63 budget, some grade-school special effects and a little bit of imagination. This short film won't make you forget The Night of the Living Dead but it will probably inspire a whole new generation of filmmakers to go out there and give it their best shot. A group of kids go into the woods to make camp and soon find themselves turned into zombie fodder. Not all that original but the performances are crisp and fresh and the five-and-dime effects only add to the fun atmosphere. You can find this on some DVD copies of Jess Franco's Vampire Junction as an extra. It's subtitled and that might be a drawback to some fans but as a horror fan I can think of worse ways to spend a half-hour or so. And there's no sex so you can invite the kids in to watch the bloody mayhem!

The Rockville Slayer (2004)

Uninspiring but interesting. Worth a look.

[1/10 · 28 July 2004]

I saw the premiere of Unaware and I'm not sure if they had the final print ready. That might explain some of the problems. The editing was kind of choppy and the story made very little sense. Too much went unexplained or inferred and it veered unsteadily between a slasher film and a Lifetime weeper-film. There's a killer on the loose and the local townies are too busy talking and practicing self-introspection to do much about it. The action sequences are good and definitely some of the performances are clearly much better than the story deserves. The two girls Nicole Buehrer and Amy Brown gave the best performances. The supposed pros in the cast didn't bring their A-game I don't think. Buehrer is a dark beauty with a bright future and Brown is the gal next door with bucket fulls of talent and a nasty knife in this instance. Might be worth a night's rental to see Linnea Quigley again and it future does seem to be in straight-to-video.

Severe Injuries (2003)

Better than Middlin'

[2/10 · 28 July 2004]

Came across a bootleg DVD-R copy of this & it is, IMHO, the best of Amy Lynn Best's productions. Though I'm still not a fan of this type of forced comedy, the overall effect here is much better than her other films. The haunted or cursed house atmosphere gives some added punch to the story and the acting is generally a step or two above what I've come to expect from the usual list of suspects. And any excuse to see Debbie Rochon on tape again is worth the price of admission or the cost of a convention bootleg. I like Lilith Stabs and Debbie Rochon and I look forward to the perfect teaming of this pair. In the meanwhile, Severe Injuries is certainly Amy Lynn Best's best so far. I hope she keeps trying because I think there is going to be at least one very good film coming from her.

Death 4 Told (2004)

Not bad at all

[28 July 2004]

Having seen a lot of the promotional material for this film I was enticed by the presence of Margot Kidder. When I finally finagled a way to see Death 4 Told, I was pleasingly surprised by the sure performance of Ms. Kidder and the effervescent presence of Alicia Goransen. It's not on the level of the Amicus anthology classics and there's not many surprises in any of the 4 short stories that you can't see coming a mile away but you will still enjoy each of them because the acting is pretty good and the mood holds up pretty much throughout. After watching it once I wanted to watch it again the next day so that's a pretty darned good gauge that it's a better than decent film.

SpiderBabe (2003 Video)

lack of Effort, poor results

[28 July 2004]

Supposedly someone at EI came up with the great idea of aiming their cameras at Misty Mundae, think of s supposedly funny ripoff of a popular movie, take off Misty's clothes and you'll come up with a classic video. Time after time they are wrong, wrong, wrong. Misty's fun to look at but her acting has never improved enough to make her into a credible performer. This whole affair is amateurish and the poor camera-work and direction make this into another disappointing outing for EI and the unamusingly named director Johnny Crash. (Would that be funny to a 3rd grader?) A sexy farce of Spider-man is a good idea but let's let someone else with imagination and talent take a shot at it next time.

Weregrrl (2002 Video)

Amusing idea

[4/10 · 28 July 2004]

This movie has a great premise: a girl cursed by a gypsy turns into a lesbian instead of a werewolf. But the execution is too amateurish to make it into a cult classic. The acting is erratic too with Lilith and Debbie very darned good and the rest of the cast not quite so good. The Zucker Bros. approach of trying to make a joke out of every line only works when the jokes are good and most of the ones in Weregrrl are not good at all. They should have sold the script to a producer and director who could do it properly. It looks like they got an idea and went out a called their friends, bought a camera and shot the movie that afternoon. It needed more thought. It has some entertaining moments and it is not exploitive at all. Good marks for that. A solid attempt is Weregrrl. I would like to see more from this camp.

Angel of H.E.A.T. (1983)

Not a classic but a lot of fun

[28 July 2004]

Combining Marilyn Chambers and Mary Woronov into one film was a great idea. Woronov is one of the most underrated actresses in modern times. She's pretty funny when she wants to be and she's really got a killer body. The whole story is sort of convoluted like most of the 70s & 80s spy films. Other than Chambers and Woronov, the rest of the cast is full of period character actors and X-rated film stars doing some mainstream on their weekend off. There's lots of silly intrigue and excuses for Marilyn and Mary to take off their clothes. Maybe it should be a classic now that I think of it. It's out now and DVD and definitely worth watching.

Fantom kiler (1998 Video)

Why filmmakers must police themselves

[1/10 · 21 April 2003]

The embarrassment of "Fantom Kiler" runs in a straight line from the poor viewer who has wasted his (or, God forbid, her) few sheckels to see the film right back to the pitiful director/producer who hides his shame behind a pseudonym and refuses to admit his cinematic crime by denying that he's the responsible party from his nickel & dime magazine shop in merry ol' England. But, then again, he has every reason to hide his shame because the film and its sequels are talentless and insipid. The target audiences won't find anything to keep their attention for more than a few seconds and the non-target audiences will be lucky if they just fall asleep. The plot about a psycho who stalks and kills women is hardly unique and the various naughty bits that have all been stolen from far better films or stories are amateurishly performed here. This British film hidden behind Polish names and a false claim of Polish origin is an broadsided insult to all Polish people and they deserve an apology from all Britons if the producer himself doesn't have the dignity to do it. "Fantom Kiler" is not watchable. It's not even barley watchable.

Helter Skelter (2000)

Franco steps to the back of the class

[9/10 · 21 April 2003]

Using new footage and out-takes ripped from his other One Shot Productions films, director Jess Franco attempts to make a Marquis De Sade anthology but somehow manages to cobble together incoherent bits of sexiness, crassness, ugliness and tedium. Quite obviously the least effort amongst his One Shot Productions films, it's widely understood that this is the one film Franco made for his American company that had no real involvement from his new producers - and it shows. Without the steadying hand of producers Peter Evanko or Kevin Collins, Franco is left to his old devices of zoom lenses on flabby butts and repetitive loops of images and sounds. There's no story, just images set to music that apparently was supposed to suggest a mood. Instead it merely suggests that now is a good time to take a nap.

Director, heal thyself. Viewers, stick to either the old Franco classics or to any of the other One Shot Productions films from his oeuvre.

Broken Dolls (1999)

Franco gets maudlin with happy results

[10/10 · 21 April 2003]

It would seem that director Jess Franco has flourished over the past few years since he began associating with the American production company One Shot Productions. They have attempted to tighten his film productions without taming his unusual flair for crackpot cinema. In "Broken Dolls" Franco has his characters populating a one-time island paradise that is being slowly decayed by encroaching civilization (personified rather simply as approaching oil tankers). The island's clan is headed by doddy old Don Martin (Paul Lapidus in a wonderful performance) who once was a vaudeville performer and who may or may not have buried a treasure somewhere on the island. With their days on the island obviously numbered, Martin's slapdash family tries to race against his onsetting insanity to find the treasure and perhaps escape from paradise to someplace that at least has TV reception.

Actress Lina Romay names "Broken Dolls" as her favorite film performance and credits One Shot and producer Kevin Collins for bringing this film to life. "Broken Dolls" is one of Jess Franco's very best films ever and certainly a film to be recommended to Franco's fans and to his detractors as well - it might change everybody's mind about him.

Blind Target (2000)

Franco tackles political drama - he fumbles but recovers

[10/10 · 21 April 2003]

Utterly peculiar Spanish director Jess Franco is famous for his horror films and his erotic takes on many unerotic subjects. In "Blind Target" he tackles the world of political intrigue by dispatching Rachel Sheppard as a nubile political writer into the Latin American country of San Hermoso. There she quickly gets involved in plots of kidnapping, torture, assassination and lesbianism. (Hey, it's a Jess Franco film, there's got to be some lesbianism.) Admittedly Franco's tired camera work does drag the proceedings down from time to time, but the story is untypically dense and complicated for him. Strangely enough, the dialog spoken by most of the characters is compelling and witty, moreso than in the usual Franco film. Perhaps this is due to the contributions of producer Kevin Collins of One Shot Productions, who reportedly tweaked Franco's script to make it into something worth filming. Linnea Quigley is especially fine as a TV reporter and Lina Romay is terrifying as the mad doctor working for the San Hermoso political regime. She'd have fit in right nicely in one of Hussein's torture chambers. For a Franco film with a flair for difference, "Blind Target" is walk on the wild side.

Mari-Cookie and the Killer Tarantula (1998 Video)

Madcap antics from one crazy director

[10/10 · 21 April 2003]

Jess Franco is known the world over for either making the most unusually intoxicating films ever or the worst films ever. It all depends upon your point of view. A lot of people get pleasure out of trashing anything Franco ever makes. However, intelligent viewers can decide for themselves if they are entertained by naked men singing from their prison of spider webs, kookie madwomen conjuring up sex-potions made from monkey balls, a beautiful sheriff who dresses in a black hat, smoking jacket and g-string, etc. If you can find humor in cavity searches and cats flattened by passing cars, then MARI-COOKIE AND THE KILLER TARANTULA is the movie for you. Just seeing Michelle Bauer in her sheriff's outfit and Linnea Quigley in her barely-there bathing suit is definitely worth the price of admission.

Vampire Blues (1999 Video)

Unusual, inexplicable but mesmerizing

[9/10 · 21 April 2003]

Now this is pure and unadulterated Jess Franco! The director is perfectly teamed with his new One Shot Productions staff and together they have created one of the coolest and most unusual vampire films ever made. The cast consists of Euro diva Lina Romay, one of the most underrated actresses of the last quarter century, and relative unknowns Analia Ivars and Rachel Sheppard. Sheppard is terrific as the gal from New Joisey who encounters a sexually active vampire during her vacation in Spain. The English dub is the best on any Franco film in the last 10 years and the music on the American version is perfectly chosen by One Shot Productions. It's moody and visually spectacular. Definitely one of Franco's best later efforts and not to be missed if you are a fan of occult films or vampire cinema.

Lust for Frankenstein (1998 Video)

Sexy version of Frankenstein saga with morbid overtones

[10/10 · 21 April 2003]

While plump untalented "critics" with a personal ax to grind might rail out against Jess Franco from their sofa beds, intelligent viewers with open minds will understand that Michelle Bauer, as the Frankenstein monster, is not supposed to playing the prom queen. She's the monster and she's darned good in the role too! Director Franco twists the Shelley tale into something unrecognizable yet oddly compelling. Lina Romay, who plays the plain and unattractive daughter of Frankenstein, gets her revenge on the world by manipulating the Bauer monster into killing her father's enemies as well as a few of her own. At the same time, she allows the monster to go on a killing spree so as to extract lifeforces from her victims to prolong the monster's vitality. It's all utter nonsense but it's done with the typical depravity of Jess Franco and that makes it all worthwhile when the day is done.