Lifechanger

I see a good amount of screeners. Not as many as I would like, but I'm very happy that I got into the "Screener Club" - especially when I get to see films like LIFECHANGER and I'm able to give it some positive press!

Fans of THE HIDDEN and INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS will want to check this film out for sure. This is writer/director Justin McConnell's first feature film and it's a fantastic offering.

And, as usual, no spoilers.

We're told the tale of a creature who is basically a life stealer. It "INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS" up a person's body and memories, then moves on. However, unlike Invasion, the effects of the change are wearing off faster and faster with each change. In years past, it seems like it was months before the creature had to jump bodies. Now, it's hours. But, what's the endgame here?

I loved the film. We have a being who is just trying to stay alive. To be alive. And the "room" is shrinking on it hour by hour. It was a fantastic metaphor for life at times. "I'll just do this to buy myself some time. And this....and this...and this other thing..." all the while you are running around trying to stay afloat. Stay alive. The film nails the feeling and manages to do it in a way that doesn't come off as over emotional or "emo". And that's all because of Justin McConnell's direction, his writing, his actors, and Sasha Moric's cinematography.

The cast does an amazing job playing two roles for the most part - pre-creature and post. However, it's never over the top and "BIG BAD" unlike some of these body swap offerings. The creature here is very human in it's thinking and life seeking. It never comes off as alien or robotic. I think that helps to sell the tale. There are some grand performances in the film. I was entranced. Sad to say, Bill Oberst Jr. was in the film only as a voice. I would have loved to see him as one of the characters.

The film is beautifully shot and the lighting is grand. I'm always thrilled when these films present a great story, with awesome acting, but also manage to nail the cinematography and lighting as well. The results are always winning, in my most humble opinion.



AND PRACTICAL EFFECTS!!!!!!!   Dear LAWD!!! Thank you! hehehehe  

Not only practical, but really good. The balance of story and shocks play together very well. We dip into some dialogue and plot depth, but moments later something really horrid happens and the energy is picked up again. Loved it.



I'm going to wrap up there because I don't want to go to "fan boy" on this film, but suffice it to say you should seek the film out and give it a shot as soon as you can. It's super solid and presents a very interesting perspective on love, life, guilt, and human suffering without being too heady or preachy about it.

WELL worth a viddy.   ON DEMAND JANUARY 1ST, 2019!!!! 

FANTASTIC work from....

Cast overview, first billed only:
Lora Burke ... Julia Wilson
Jack Foley ... Robert
Elitsa Bako ... Emily Roberts
Rachel VanDuzer... Rachel
Steve Kasan ... Detective Freddie Ransone
Sam White ... Sam Richardson
Bill Oberst Jr. ... Drew (voice)
Peter Higginson... Andrew
Adam Buller ... James
Brian Quintero... Tommy
Uche Ama ... Jen
Mark Rainmaker... John
Ry Barrett ... Richard
Michelle D'Alessandro Hatt... Mary Richardson
Daniel Faraldo... Bill

Bloody Ballet

Ok, I'm going to come out and say the one "flaw" that I had with BLOODY BALLET (2017) - the plotting was strange and confused. I was scratching my head through the whole film. "Wait...we're back at this guy? But...ok....  Oh...and now we're back with her? Gees...ok..." :::sigh::: That being said...I really enjoyed everything else immensely!

The aforementioned plot revolves around a woman in the ballet and a man doing...ghost research? ANYWAY...people start dying in horrible ways. Don't get your hopes up for a bloody ballet - there isn't one. And, if you choose to give this a watch, stick with it through the one of two parts where it seems to be running off the rails. They get back on track rather quickly. Moving on!

I'm not 100% sure they were going for this (though, if they weren't, they nailed it like a blindfolded bullseye!) , but they nailed the "70's girl think she's going mad as people die around her in horrible ways at the hands of a creepy killer" film style that I love. They really hit many of the marks.



She visits her psychiatrist trying to work out answers.
She keeps getting reports that her friends and fellow ballerinas are dead.
And, she wonders if her past is playing into all of it - the gruesome murder of her parents at the hand of an unknown killer.





It's 70s Italian thriller style perfection from this American thrill. The film also slips some wild synth score nuggets into the mix that drives the vibe home expertly.

And they go for it on the gore front as well. They really go for it. There are some nasty little bits and some creepy crap scenes that really made me smile.  Bloody Ballet manages to slip through several genres rather expertly - the main thing that held my attention all the way through the film.  Slashers, ghosts, some gialli love...all twisting around a little psychological horror. It was a lot of fun!






The cinematography is fantastic and the production quality is grand. The acting is solid and fights through the storyline flaws managing to make the film work even if there are some odd holes and disjointed story connections. I totally get what they were going for and by the end I did find myself nodding and shrugging like, "Why...they got there..." , but there were some funny WTF moments in there for me.



All in all, BLOODY BALLET was a lot of fun. It felt like my VHS days. Well worth a viddy!

Oddly, I couldn't find it on IMDB.

Lullaby (2018)

Well well well....I found a little nugget of gold called LULLABY.

I don't want to say too much about it. I have to pick my words wisely here.

We have a postpartum drama here with some fantastic acting, beautiful cinematography, and disturbing visuals as our fantastic lead, 19 year old Chloe van Heerden (Reine Swart) and her mother Ruby(Thandi Puren) battle through depression and paranoia after the birth of Chloe's son.

Now, the film isn't on a mainstream horror budget here, but the intensity of the subject matter and the fantastic acting really take it to a special level. I had put it on figuring I'd watch while doing other tasks, but by the 20 minute mark I had to stop it, make some lunch, and just sit and watch it through - focused and eager to find out what was going to happen next!

And, as a parent who's gone through the madness of bringing a being into the world, into the house, and into playing a major part of sleep and rest and the lack of both, I totally felt Chloe's pain! And the way things play out creates a fantastic sense of dread and totally had me wondering if what I was seeing was real or just in the poor things head.

LULLABY is a fantastic watch that Director Darrell Roodt and writer Tarryn-Tanille Prinsloo should be very, very proud of. Seek it out!  Theater and VOD in March! 

CAST/CREW INFO
Director: Darrell Roodt
Cast : Brandon Auret (Dr. Timothy Reed), Reine Swart (Chloe van Heerden), Thandi Puren (Ruby van Heerden)
Screenplay: Tarryn-Tanille Prinsloo
Music composed by: Alun Richards
Producers: Andre Frauenstein Snr, Samuel Frauenstein
 
THEATERS 3/2/2018 :
Phoenix - Valley Art
Los Angeles - Laemmle Music Hall
Philadelphia - PFS Roxy Theater
Chicago - Facets Cinematheque
Atlanta - Plaza Theater
Dallas - Texas Theater
Cleveland - Cedar Lee Cinemas
San Francisco - Roxie Theater
Miami - Cinema Paradiso
Denver - SIE Film Center
 
VOD 3/2/2018: 
All Platforms

The Visitor (1979)

What the HELL did I just watch?1 heheheh 

Mel Ferrer...Glenn Ford...Lance Henriksen...and the super adorable Joanne Nail...all in this weird little science fiction film that looks like the lovechild of THE FURY and THE BAD SEED.  This super creepy film (creepy because of all the inappropriate and strange child scenes) tells the tale of a bad space eight year old who's inherently evil. Luckily, Mel Ferrer is on the case, making sure the creepy eight year old and the evil folks on her side don't get poor Joanne Nail pregnant with a little brother for her.

The movie just keeps bringing on the bonkers.

Surprise gun gift madness. 




SHELLY fucking WINTERS cast as the "magical negro housekeeper" (it's a thing, look it up) role and inept bodyguard - providing wisdom during the...maybe one day she was on set shooting.  hehehehe 





Ice skating battles. 

A pigtailed 8ish year old kid delivering lines like, "Do you want to know where it is? UP YOUR ASS!"

The most bald people assembled for a film since THX1138. 

High aspiration green screen shots that are...magical. 

Secret Evil Businessmen around a large table...making evil plans.

A score fit for....maybe the 1972 Olympic Games opening ceremony throughout. 

Funhouse mirrors?

A LOT of bird attacks.

AND....Franco Nero as Jesus Christ. Yes...Jesus. 

Just...strange. Good old Italian strange. And long feeling. At an hour forty-eight minutes, it feels more like 2.5 hours or so.

However, I was all in on the film. It has enough in it to make it interesting. And they manage to make some things happen in the film that look kinda cool. Like this silver mirror effect on ole creepy kid's eyes when she's....alien-ing out.

This is a must see for fans of strange, Italian films. It's all in there and packs enough entertaining oddness in to keep you going. If you're a pot smoker, you might want to plan on being REALLY high when you watch this. I'm a whiskey man, myself, but I don't know if any amount of whiskey could get me spinning enough for this film to make sense. hehehehe

Check it!

Blade of the Ripper

Blade of the Ripper aka The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh is a 1971 giallo film directed by Sergio Martino and staring the fabulous....Edwige Fenech. :::sigh:::

Ok, now that that's out of the way. :::grin:::

When the film started, I had a bit of an eye roller moment. A woman is killed horribly with a razor and I wasn't sure I wanted to see another TORSO-like hack and slash film. This film was directed by Sergio Marino of TORSO fame, so I wasn't sure if it was in the same arena. Then, poor Edwidge gets slapped around and her dress ripped off and I did another eye roll. However, once that business is out of the way, things started getting rather interesting.

Edwige plays Julia Wardh - the wife of a diplomat. They get along, but are not fab together. Not as well as she gets along with George Hamilton - her lover George Corro. She plays the game of being the good wife and even better lover, going from one man to the other in a kind of dance. When her old lover resurfaces, she's scared of just what he's capable of. As more murders happen around her, she starts to think that one of these men may be madman with the blade. But, which one?

I don't want to say much more about the plot here. It would be rather easy to spoil.  Suffice it to say that this is a great offering and well worth a watch. It's shot well, there are some fun set pieces, and there is a lot going on.

This film really turned around for me. I was half paying attention through much of the first act, but as things start to shift, I got a happy little smile on my face. "Ahhhh...I see what you're up to, movie. I see." I loved the shifts through the film and it's definitely a new gialli fave.

The Fox with the Velvet Tail

The Fox with the Velvet Tail aka  In the Eye of the Hurricane was another film I went into blind. I love doing that because it really is a wonderful surprise to watch things play out. I really enjoyed this film. The overall look and feel was interesting and beautiful and the story itself was very interesting. There were so many little twists and turns that I stayed engaged through the whole of it. The actors were a lot of fun to watch as well. Beautiful men and women doing awful things to each other. heheheh   NOTE: Little to no gore.

If you like romantic mysteries and complex relationship based storylines, you're going to want to check this film out for sure.

Now, this film review needs to be a little spoilery, so if you don't want to know anything more about it, move along. Move along. :)

Still with me? Good.



Ruth and Michel (or Miguel, evidently, depending on the translation) are going through rough times. Ruth wants a divorce and Michel wants to try and hang on, but Ruth wants nothing more to do with him. In fact, she already has a new man - Paul. She decides to get away and Ruth and Paul escape to her seaside villa. Everything is wondrous. Kissing, making love, and exotic gifts abound. Then, things start going wrong, putting Ruth in harms way more than once. Ruth suspects her ex, especially after he appears at their door one night. Paul invites him in and things start to get even more complicated. And, who's that lovely woman who is hanging around the villa? And who is the man that Paul knows from his army days who seems to be a crack shot with an interesting past?






At first, I thought this was going to be a rather run-of-the-mill "if I can't have her, no one will!" kind of plot, but it's SO much more than that. Things just keep getting more and more complex and cruel as the film rolls along. Analía Gadé Ruth character seems rather lost and Jean Sorel plays the perfect Prince Charming. As characters were woven in and out of the story, I became more and more interested in exactly what was going on. I love the way things kept shifting and changing all the way through to the film's final credits.

This is a fantastic little romance mystery that is a must watch. Especially to see the fantastic 1970's eye camera zooms! :)  Check it out!

Death Double Feature: Death Walks at Midnight / Death Walks on High Heels

GIALLOCTOBERFEST 2017 continues! 

I did a Luciano Ercoli DEATH DOUBLE FEATURE this week - DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT (La morte accarezza a mezzanotte ) and DEATH WALKS ON HIGH HEELS (La morte cammina con i tacchi alti ) . One I loved and one...not so much. This was particularly interesting to me because it's the same director and much of the same cast, but one resonated with me far more than the other. It might have been the writer lineup for the screenplay and story. MIDNIGHT had this grouping...

Sergio Corbucci     ...     (story)   
Ernesto Gastaldi     ...     (screenplay) 
Mahnahén Velasco     ...     (screenplay) (as May Velasco)

And HEELS had....

Ernesto Gastaldi (screenplay)
Mahnahén Velasco (screenplay) (as May Velasco)

I think the addition of Corbucci might have sweetened the spices Midnight offered. He wrote the wacky, super police officer story SUPER FUZZ back in the day and I loved it. Midnight had more flavor and buzz with a plot that I found to be more interesting and engaging. Let's talk about it.

Now, don't get me wrong - I liked DEATH WALKS IN HIGH HEELS well enough. The plot is relatively simple. A woman's Father is involved in a diamond heist. He's out of the picture, but the diamonds are missing. Does his daughter know where they are? Maybe. And someone - a masked killer with striking blue eyes....wants her to tell where they are...or DIE!

Classic.

So, all that's working for me here, but honestly, the characters bored me to tears and the pace made me shake with desire to fast forward....which I did.

The lovely Nieves Navarro (or...Susan Scott as she was known)  stars in both films. Here, she's a exotic dancer named Nicole Rochard with a penchant for wigs and elaborate costumes...including a "black face" nubian number that was truly cringe-worthy! hehehehe  The shot and line below....wow....

And, Ms. Nieves Navarro is NOT a good dancer, so the first part of the film was rather painful for me there as well - watching this woman jerk around like she's having a seizure.

We're treated to some good bully acting from Luciano Ercoli, the Director of both of these films AND Nieves' real life husband, as I found out. Rather cool.

Here he's the boyfriend of Navarro and not 100% sweetheart. Sweethearts don't toss knives at their girlfriends.

When the mysterious masked diamond hunter comes after Nicole and demands to know where the diamonds are, she decides that the advances of an admirer from the clubs she's performed in - a Dr. Robert Mathews (Frank Wolff) - seem pretty great and she runs off with him without a word to anyone.

They have a grand time and Nicole is treated like a Queen as the Doctor buys her dresses and dinners and the two seem like they are made for each other. The Doc whisks her away to a cottage he owns in a small town and Nicole pretends to be his wife as they live life to the fullest - happy and content.

Sure, the small village is filled with gossips and nutty people...including a strange man missing a hand, but I'm sure everything will work out for them.

Again, all of that was great for a story perspective, however the pace made me CRAZY. We see them shopping....eating....exchanging cute banter with a local fish seller....making love....saying they'll miss each other when the Doctor has to fly back to London for a while, but it all takes WAY TOO DAMN LONG to deal with. There's just not enough story to support the run time for me. I felt like I was being dragged behind a very slow pony.

Ercoli's direction is great and the film does manage to wrap very nicely in true giallo style, but it just took to long to get there for me. And the exposition at the end.....whew. Pretty funny, really. "Let me explain everything I did and why I did it...."   DEATH WALKS ON HIGH HEELS might require me to re-watch at some point in the near future, but I'll start it in the middle for sure.







Now, DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT was a different viewing for me all together.

From IMDB:
Valentina, a beautiful fashion model, takes an experimental drug as part of a scientific experiment. While influenced by the drug, Valentina has a vision of a young woman being brutally murdered with a viciously spiked glove. It turns out that a woman was killed in exactly the same way not long ago and soon Valentina finds herself stalked by the same killer...

Now this film really hit the mark for me. The pace, character interactions, and visuals were interesting, engaging, and fun. Nieves Navarro as Valentina is strong, confident, and doesn't take any crap from anyone.  Simón Andreu is this magazine guy  (always get him and Luciano Ercoli mixed up!) who manages to get Valentina fired from her job and exposed to the murdered after backing out on his promise to keep her masked and anonymous for this wacky drug experiment that kicks this who plot off. Their chemistry is fun to watch as they snip at each other and fight. 

Suuuuuuure, the main catalyst for the plot - a vision of a killer while under the influence of a drug - falls right into the WTF?! gialli plot nuttiness for sure, but it's really just used to get things rolling and get us involved in this murder situation. After that, it's cat-and-mouse with the killer (who we see right away)  as he tries to silence Valentina.

And....we have J&B references! 

I loved watching this film. The banter was grand and natural, the characters were well rounded, and the pace was clipping right along from set piece to set piece. And, the mystery was interesting and really had me guessing. I'll watch this one again for sure.

So, I plan to watch Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion to break this Luciano Ercoli tie. :::grin:::   I loved one of his films and wasn't so happy with the other. We'll see what PHOTOS has to offer. (also on Shudder U.S. at the time of this posting)

Have you seen these? The SHUDDER reviews put HEELS in a far better light than I've placed it - hence the planned rewatch. I'd love to hear what other people have to say about these films.

Am I missing something? LET ME KNOW!