Behind the Couch

1990 Dir. Frank Henenlotter When his fiancée Elizabeth (Patty Mullen) is decapitated in a freak remote control lawnmower accident (!), medical student Jeffrey Franken (James Lorinz from  Street Trash ) sets out to build her a new body made up of parts from Manhattan prostitutes, and zap her back into life... These broads are tough cookies though, and the only way Jeffrey can get what he needs is by using his latest invention, Super-crack: a lethal cocktail of drugs designed to make the user explode (!). In case that synopsis leaves you in any doubt, Frankenhooker  ( very loosely inspired by Mary Shelley's classic novel) is a sleazy, trash-fest of splashy splatter effects, ludicrous body-horror, gratuitous nudity and cartoonish violence. In other words, it’s a damn good time. Prior to Frankenhooker , Henenlotter was responsible for such cheap and cheerful grot-fests as Basket Case 1 and 2 , and Brain Damage ; scuzzy, low-budget exploitation flicks boasting freakish, ...

1980 Dir. James Glickenhaus After returning home to the US from fighting in Vietnam, a traumatised soldier attempting to rebuild his life turns vigilante when his best friend is paralysed by a group of thugs. While it may unfold as a brazenly violent, exploitative and at times trashy revenge fantasy, Glickenhaus’s The Exterminator is also at times a strangely thoughtful commentary on the difficulties of ex-military reintegration, post-war trauma and government corruption. The socio-political subtext about the plight of Vietnam vets and how their own society and justice system failed them on their return home, isn’t just a front for the exploitative violence – the film does make some genuinely stark points – some of which, particularly those about the ordinary working man’s dissatisfaction with greedy, corrupt governments who make us pay for their mistakes – have never been more prevalent. John Eastland (Robert Ginty) fought because he felt he would be protecting the ideals of ...

2002 Dir. Rick Rosenthal Four years after mistakenly killing a man she thought to be her brother (really, Dimension Films? Really ?), long-suffering Laurie Strode is eventually hunted down by her actual not-really-dead brother, the murderous Michael Myers. Making his way back home to Haddonfield, Myers discovers the crew of an online reality show has taken over his house (!) to broadcast a Halloween special featuring a group of teenagers dared to spend the night in the infamous house. Naturally he goes on yet another killing spree. And it's all caught on camera and broadcast online for all to see. Yes, all of this actually really happens. It really fucking happens. The silent stalker of the original Halloween is a distant memory - Myers is now the reluctant star of an internet reality show.  Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later did not warrant a sequel. It was initially intended as a twentieth anniversary celebration of John Carpenter's classic chiller . It also broug...

2010 Dir. Paul Ziller When Jacob Glaser (Misha Collins), a renegade astrophysicist and underground radio host, is alerted to unusual electromagnetic energy fields occurring throughout the globe, his initial investigations lead him to Stonehenge. Somehow, the stones have begun to move independently and are building up enough energy to vaporise anyone who comes within a certain range. Jacob’s theory is that Stonehenge is a key part of a massive alien terraforming machine connected to other historical sites around the world...  Meanwhile, in the US state of Maine, a former colleague of Jacob’s has discovered an underground pyramid linked to the ongoing events at Stonehenge and is actively working towards the destruction of mankind in the hopes that he and his followers can survive the coming apocalypse and be the rulers of the next era of life on earth. When Jacob discovers the existence of a key that he believes is capable of switching off the doomsday machine, he sets about ...

2010 Dir. Declan O’Brien An eeevviiiil, egotistical bio-geneticist, along with his reluctant daughter, develops a hybrid half-shark/half-octopus for the US military (!). Code-named S11, the creature has been designed as the ultimate weapon in aquatic attack and defence. But when its control unit malfunctions during a test run, the S11 is accidentally unleashed and sets off in the direction of a popular tourist resort. Oh noes! Can our intrepid heroes - egotistical bio-geneticist’s daughter and a hunky ex-employee-turned slacker-mercenary - track down and capture the mutant killing machine before it snacks on a buffet of oiled-up, dressed-down holidaymakers?! Can they heck!  Half Shark. Half Octopus. All Killer. With a title like Sharktopus , let’s face it, one really ought to know what to expect. A goofy, tongue-in-cheek monster-movie romp, the film has already been garnering a sizable cult following for its deliberately trashy, B-movie campiness. Add to this the fact tha...

1970 Dir. Freddie Francis After the discovery of a prehistoric troglodyte in a cave in primmest, properist England, Dr Brockton and her team of anthropologists attempt to communicate with it. The local townsfolk however, are not happy about a potentially dangerous Neanderthal residing so near to their quintessentially quaint English village. A botched plan to get rid of the creature results in it causing all sorts of havoc and mayhem in the local village. Can Dr Brockton put a stop to Trog’s antics before afternoon tea? Can she heck! Trog is significant because it marked Joan Crawford’s last ever big-screen role. Hollywood had (and arguably still does have) a problem casting older women. Ageism and sexism were normalised, meaning Crawford and other actresses over 50 were considered too old for leading roles. In her later career though, Crawford obtained memorable leading roles in a number of horror films (including What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? [1963], Strait-Jacket [196...

1975 Dir. Andrea Bianchi When a fashion model dies during surgery to perform an abortion, a slew of violent murders ensue, starting with that of the doctor who tried to cover up her death. The killer’s victims are all connected to a fashion modelling agency where the dead woman worked. As the body count rises, a couple of scantily clad amateur sleuths try to discover the killer’s identity before they too are struck off. “ I feel too hot to be a corpse, baby .” To describe Strip Nude For Your Killer as trashy and exploitative would really be a fantastically obvious understatement. Hey, with a title like that, one should really know what to expect. Of course, there are films with truly exploitative, titillating titles that can never hope to live up to the lurid promise their monikers suggest – Strip Nude is not one of those films. It does exactly what it says on the tin. The surprising thing is that it is actually pretty enjoyable, in a trashy, campy, exploitative and deliri...

2009 Dir. Ron Carlson AKA Pear Blossom New Year’s Eve, 1969. Brooke (Sophie Monk) and her girlfriend Rhea (Anya Lahiri) are at a totally swinging party in LA. The evening’s glitter ball-bedazzled festivities are cut short when Brooke stumbles into the bathroom and interrupts Hollywood A-lister Warren James (Justin Shilton) attempting to assault a young fan (Scout Taylor-Compton – Halloween, Halloween II ). Brooke stabs the would-be rapist in the throat. Escaping to the desert in their car (“I just wish I could let the top down and let this warm desert air cleanse my body”), Brooke and Rhea then encounter God herself (Angela Lindvall), who offers to turn the pair into immortal, vampiric angels of death, destined to sexily wander the earth destroying evil wherever they find it. Cut to forty years later. Brooke and Rhea are resurrected from their desert tomb to begin their divine mission. This naturally involves a shot of them strutting along a moonlit desert highway in ling...

Just when you thought it was safe to rummage around in the bargain bin of your local video shop, the latest ‘mockbuster’ offering from The Asylum raises its shameless head from the dank depths of straight-to-DVD hell for a brief release on the big screen. Mega Piranha features a plot involving a mutant strain of genetically modified giant piranha (!) that escape from the Amazon and make their way towards Florida, leaving a trail of cheap and cheerful destruction in their wake. Poor CGI, copious explosions, absurd pseudo-science, baffling technical jargon, 80s popstar Tiffany and much mindless entertainment ensues.  Head over to Eye for Film to read my full review.

Isle of the Damned  (2008) wears its Video Nasty influences on its badly dubbed, deliberately amateurish and bloodily soiled sleeve, lovingly parodying the European exploitation flicks that inspired it. I recently had the pleasure of catching up with its director, the elusive Antonello Giallo (aka Mark Colegrove) to have a chat about his tongue-in-flayed-cheek movie, Italian gore cinema, and the challenges of low-budget filmmaking… How did the idea for Isle of the Damned come about? Had you always conceived it as a parody? What inspired it? It was definitely a parody from the get-go, inspired by all the old Italian cannibal films. We knew that if we were to try to do a serious Italian cannibal film on our budget it would have ended up unintentionally hilarious. A serious film really wouldn’t be our style anyhow. The script was written by Mark Leake, and we had done one previous film together called Pleasures of the Damned , which is the prequel to Isle… Jack Steele is the main ...

1963 Dir. Herschell Gordon Lewis A bushy-eyebrowed caterer messily murders various women in order to resurrect an ancient Egyptian goddess. Several inept detectives attempt to track him down and put a stop to his nefarious deeds.  Produced by exploitation guru David F. Friedman, and economically directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis, Blood Feast abounds with an impish glee and carefree abandon. With not a shred of decency or taste in sight, inconveniences such as plot and story are flung aside in favour of shoddily staged scenes of carnage and makeshift mayhem. Hurrah! This title holds the dubious honour of being the first ever ‘gore movie’ or ‘splatter film’ – films centred around gory special effects and scenes of depravity and sadism. Back in the early Sixties all this was new and subversive and naturally horror audiences thirstily lapped it up as they clambered to catch a glimpse of what would become a milestone in schlock cinema. Anyone who has seen Blood Feast will know...

1987 Dir. Michael J. Muro A dodgy liquor store owner flogs bottles of out of date ‘Viper’ at discount rate to the local homeless community, unaware of its true properties: it causes its consumers to melt. Very graphically. Fred and his brother Kevin, two young drifters, find themselves up against the effects of the toxic brew, as well as having to contend with the junkyard overlord Bronson, an unhinged war vet… When a film opens with a slapstick chase scene in which a tramp steals liquor and money from various people, full frontal nudity, fart gags, a man falling out of his wheelchair and some completely random and absurd violence when a man is pulled from his car by a hulking shell-shocked hermit and hurled through his own windshield, you just know you’re in for an utterly depraved splurge of a treat. Dearest reader, may I present to you the gloriously perverted and truly outrageous schlock-fest Wes Craven once said made John Waters look like Mary Poppins: Street Trash ! Leave y...

1977 Dir. John Hayes When Professor Andrew Boran (Kirk Scott) decodes messages received from deepest space that coincide with recent natural disasters, his investigations lead him to a spooky convent where the inhabitants are not what they seem. They are actually aliens attempting to destroy earth because it has become too polluted and diseased. No, really. Dearest Reader – allow me to present the deliciously entertaining schlock that is – End of the World. Mysterious messages from the cosmos! Parallel dimensions! Cloning! Laser beams! Christopher Lee! Nuns from outer space! Well, strictly speaking the nuns aren’t really from outer space – they are clones of nuns inhabited by the forces of an alien race who are desperately trying to leave earth and return to their own planet… And even though they have effortlessly mastered the concepts of inter-stellar time travelling and stuff, they still need the help of a mere mortal human scientist to assist their attempts to leave earth. You...