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Courtesy of our friends at Secret Scroll Digest
Reviewed by Mike Haushalter
Tagline: True horror is simply what one human being can do to another.
A young woman named Clara is captured by a serial killer named Leonard who records his “life story” by keeping a scrapbook of his many victims. In addition to adhering Polaroid photos, scraps of clothing, and other small trophies to the pages, Leonard has forced his victims to personally write in the scrapbook about their individual ordeals. Clara is beaten, raped, starved, and locked up like an animal, filthy and naked. She is forced to write in the scrapbook, adding her agony to the pages. She soon realizes that her only hope for survival is to manipulate Leonard through her writings in his cherished scrapbook.
Scrapbook is a relentlessly bitter serial killer video directed by Eric Stanze (Ice From the Sun). It was shot on video with a look that makes it look painfully like it is Leonard’s home video. I viewed this wicked flick with three of my best viewing buddies, the four of us all veterans of years of man’s-inhumanity-to-man cinema were still stunned by the unbridled depravity we witnessed. From start to finish this very grim portrayal of a serial killer toying with his victim is unrelenting. The acts that unfold over the grueling 95 minute running time are almost unimaginable, running the gauntlet of several brutal unforgivingly graphic bloody rapes, an hot afternoon trapped with in a garbage can covered in spoiled milk, beatings, golden showers, and a toe dismemberment by farm implement. The never ending cruelty left the room silent and me numb and in the need of a shower. Unlike similar genre efforts such as The Untold Story and The Ebola Virus, which were also both brutal looks at man’s-inhumanity-to-man they both had a dark twisted humor, Scrapbook on the other hand, is painfully serious with no levity to speak of, making it much more of a brutal film.
Despite what I think of its subject matter I have to commend the cast and crew on an amazing job. Emily Haack and Tommy Biondoas, as Clara and Leonard respectively, are spectacular. They did an incredible bit of acting in what were probably the hardest most demanding roles of their-or anyone else’s-careers. Almost all the scenes were improvised on set from plot ideas worked out beforehand. For added realism, rotten food was left on the set to add to the actors’ discomfort. Also, all the physical aspects of the film were acted out no holds bared with both cast members getting bruised and battered. The results are two amazing performances. Tommy was chilling as Leonard; very cold and inhuman yet at the same time he could be the guy in the hardware store selling you power tools. Sadly, Tommy Biondoas died from a tragic accident days after the shot for Scrapbook and never saw the finished print. The beautiful Emily Haack, having the thankless job as the victim, endured every torture short of actual sexual penetration handed to her, creating one of the most painfully realistic characters ever. Holding it all together was the director Eric Stanze who pushed his cast to the limit and beyond and had the balls to make such a potent unapologetic look at pain and suffering. For me this film marks a new benchmark of cruelty and wrongness in film that I will be comparing future films against from now on.
Courtesy of our friends at Secret Scroll Digest
Reviewed by Mike Haushalter
Two ex-security agents , Argenta and Shahrokh, are former employees of a company they knew to be conducting bizarre medical experiments. What has resulted is a wave of violence committed by people turned into vicious, decomposing cannibalistic zombies. Shahrokh and Argenta escape just as the city is engulfed in chaos. They find scattered survivors - three women claiming to be vampires, a washed-up Mexican wrestler, a wounded soldier, and a scientist who knows more than he lets on - to aid them in destroying the armies of the undead. “Meat Market” was made for less than $2000 Cdn. and throws heavy doses of humour in with large helpings of gore and sex (giving the title more than one meaning)…
This is a great low budget Canadian-lensed zombie rampage from Frontline Films. Director Brian Clement overcomes shot-on-video shortcomings and typical zombie plotting with fast pacing, gore, abundant nudity and a very interesting crew of mixed genre heroes including a 6 gun toting tough gal heroine named Argenta (Claire Westby) with no doubt as to who that tribute is to, a stoic hero named Shahrokh (Paul Pedrosa) with a John Woo bag of guns, and a half-crazed masked Mexican wrestler named El Diablo Azul (The Abominator) who defeats mucho zombies with his grappling skills. He dispatches one zombie with a particularly memorable elbow drop to the skull, popping it like an egg. And last but not least a trio of hot sex-hungry, laser-gun-wielding vampire lesbos: Alison Therriault as Nemesis, Chelsey Arentsen as Tiamat, and Teresa Simon as Valeria.
The film was very well shot, with several scenes sticking out for their great complexity and construction that were very impressive for a low budget film, let alone one shot on video. Of particular note was a long tracking shot of a large rioting crowd full of cops, zombies and victims complete with several great explosions. Other scenes in public places were cleverly shot to avoid any accidental glimpses of the real world. The zombie makeup was very good with an interesting mix of Fulci, Romero and Resident Evil-style undead. The gore effects were top notch and constantly well done, with a circular saw blade dismemberment being a big crowd-pleasing highlight. The cast was attractive and enthusiastic (especial during the hetero sex scenes) but was a little rough around the edges, certainly as good as the cast of any other zombie entry and better than some in fact. All in all a balls to the walls fright fest thatÃs exciting and very adult in nature with its many gruesome deaths, unpleasant cannibal scenes and near hardcore sex scenes (I don’t think the second couple were simulating their sex) making for a very good choice for an evening of zombie gut munching.
Courtesy of our friends at Secret Scroll Digest
By Mike Haushalter
It’s a shame that every film that comes down the pike has to be stamped, categorized, and labeled in some kind of “what-shelf-at-Blockbuster-will-it-go-on” fashion. When anything original comes around marketers just conventionally shove it in whatever genre they think will sell the most tickets, be it drama, comedy, romance, horror, or what have you. That is, of course, if they don’t get the film changed to be as pleasing to as many people as possible before it is even finished. This philosophy has the (unintended?) side effect of limiting creative and original films by forcing them to conform. Such is the case, I think, with Andrew Copp’s The Mutilation Man, a brutal, violent and shocking film yet not a horror film per se. It does have some distant cinematic horror cousins such as Hellraiser, Return of the Living Dead 3, and Lord of Illusions. It’s closest relative is Tetsuo the Iron Man which is not really a horror film either, more of a metaphor but that’s a whole another review. So with genre preconceptions in mind my friends and I sat down to view The Mutilation Man. We quickly realized that this wasn’t just another plotless gore-fest gathering of special effects such as Zombie Bloodbath, Violent Shit 1-3 and Leif Jonker’s Darkness. Instead we were treated to a nihilistic thought-provoking cinematic journey of redemption.
While being almost dialogue free (this film screams for an audio commentary with Copp on DVD), Copp tells a deep multi-layered story through harsh twisted images and an intense industrial and Goth soundtrack. Terry Pucket (My Sweet Satan) is our title’s hero and deeply tormented by visions of a childhood raised by a sick abusive father, Jim Vanbebber. This is a father who both rapes and kills in front of his child and forces his young son to clean up a bloody mess and bury his own mother. He travels a purgatory-like savage wasteland. In his travails he is both tempted by hell (through a scarred succubus-Kristie Bowersock) and guided from heaven by a lovely angel (Jollie Scott). The mutilation man’s self-torture performances for the cannibalistic groupies that follow him play out like confessional, with his pain and mutilation being his penance for his father’s past sins. The film concludes in an orgy of cannibalistic fury that seems to bring closure to our hero’s fate.
The Mutilation Man is an awesome film; it is the most powerful small budget independent movie that I have ever seen. The cast all deliver strong performances, the mutilation effects are very harsh and convincing, good editing and it has great cinematography (no stagnant nailed-down shots or Blair Witch vomit vision) combining for a very solid first film.