Flesheater

Flesheater (Zombie Nosh, Revenge of the living dead) Directed By Bill Hinzman, Starring Bill Hinzman (1988).

If you were Bill Hinzman, the man who played the first Romero zombie ever to appear on screen, would you simply retire as a Wal-Mart greeter for the rest of your days or would you reanimate that claim to fame for 1988, when the world was begging for a gore soaked, sex infused zombie movie helmed by the original somnambulist who cracked open Russ Streiner's skull, a fatal concussion heard round the world; you'd do the second one right? Well, I know William Wilson over at The Video Junkies blog and I are ecstatic that he decided to make this film! Prepare to get your ears blasted by overly amped beer snapping and tractor partying (the foley is extremely loud, once it pours in). At first I thought I might've found the version with drunken commentary, but my ears just needed adjusting to this amount of partaayyy-ing! My eyes were bleeding from seeing this amount of denim on these forest punkers out for a good time on a Halloween hayride. If John Russo (another NOTLD alum, soiled your appreciation for guys associated with Romero with the dreadful Midnight, let this movie restore your faith in zombie filmdom.

Did you dudes get your Denim at Bugleboys or Dungeree Dons?

The credit sequence mantra about "flesh and blood turning all evil" shows up on the tomb stone of writer director, actor Bill Hinzman. His crummy grave looks like something that was just fired up in the kiln at the local elementary school. Hinzman still looks great with his silver hair and bloody maw, after biting a chunk out of an unfortunate hillbilly, the victim immediately rises from the dead. The audio clips a lot and it seems like they recorded it MOS (Italian Neorealism influence)?

Kids in this town have nowhere to turn to for fun and have sex in barns and drink on tractors (wherever this movie takes place, I'm guessing Pittsburgh, remind me to never go there). Bill the zombie gets creative with his weapons and uses a pitchfork on one dude, then plunges his fist beneath an ugly girl's ribcage and pulls out her guts! Fuck Yeah!! He makes a "Ahhhh" sound like he just enjoyed a refreshing Shasta!

It's OK, your just having a Denim hangover, lets get you some B12 and orange slices!

The denim punks want to party some more and drink beer, so they look for firewood, are they homeless? Shouldn't someone suggest a house they can all drink at, with the heater on? The bearded hick (or victim from the opening scene) is out infecting other John Deere riding goons, so more zombies should be arriving. One of the party punks gets her neck chewed on by Bill and they take her to a hospital (wait no they don't, they all suggest "Farmhouse")!  Huh? People do funny things in FLESHEATER, is that a bad thing, No! It's incredibly entertaining, I wish people would do the wrong thing all the time it would make films vastly more entertaining!

If you were Robert Frost in this situation, which path would you choose?

All the kids, who want to board up a farmhouse for protection against the living dead are Caucasion, there are no Black kids, so I guess these punkers are fucked! We all know (from the original NOTLD and Return Of The Living Dead) that black people have the intrinsic knowledge to defeat hordes of dead people out to consume guts. 

Goddamn, how am I gonna chew through all that Denim?

Of course all the zombies immediately break through the windows and attack! One of my favorite dumb teens is Julie, she incessantly asks idiotic questions (when someone gets their head blasted, she goes "did he die?") and reacts like "Eeek, I'm acting like I'm scared"!

The 911 operator looks like she's hanging out in the office of Barbizon modeling school waiting for her headshots to be developed. A Mary Steenburgen look-a-like with a very hairy bush, takes a shower (so if you ever fantasized about the Clifford, Back to the future 3 actress, Flesheater's got ya covered)!

Oh yeah, that's where I left my keys!

Bill the zombie is not above eating suburban kids and breaking up families on Halloween night, which is pretty fucked up! I mean, people are already busy x-raying candy, they don't want to have to deal with actual zombies coming to the door!In reality, it's pretty funny that the little girl he snacks on is Hinzman's real daughter Heidi.

 Even though this film is pretty late to the living dead party, it does a good job of being really entertaining and original in it's own way. It's basically the first and last Nightsploitation, done by the only man who could do that kind of exploitation justice. I might even consider it the last pure zombie flick, before all the remakes and the stupid "Walking Dull".

The fact that an original person from the film that started it all gives it a lot of credibility, despite a couple of hiccups. One sheriff character gets so bitten up that he looks like a walking meatloaf and still moves. The film then reverts to its media roots as the news anchors start reporting the same kind of dialogue you've heard in the Romero original.

not attractive enough for Foxsnews

A whole new crop of teens at a costume party show up, there's a drunk dracula (or Druncula), a guy in a chicken outfit and some sexy witches. Having sex by a bale of hay must be a Pittsburgh thing, because it happens a second time! One dopey cheerleader (who doesn't even remember her boyfriends name) humps him on some straw in a barn. All the characters at the house party have weird fake drunk lisps. There's a really cool hand through the chest gag and one zombie bites Drac's nose off! Hunters start popping up, once the media alerts the police that the plague is in full swing (some of them wear Iron City Beer hats).

Something's up with this remake of The Shining 

 I like that Vincent Survinski, the posse gunman from the original NOTLD shows up again playing the same role (he also was the production manager on The Crazies). The ending is not political as it was in the original, but it's just as infuriating (that is if you liked the dopey couple from the beginning and wanted them to live)! According to IMDB, Hinzman appeared in his zombie make-up for Goodfellas Pizza commercials, he seemed to have a great sense of humor and sadly passed away in 2012.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, AN ALL AROUND BLAST OF A GUTBUSTER!

BUY HERE

Also don't forget to buy the Rotten Cotton shirt

Vince Vince (the Pittsburgh version of Weng Weng)

NO REFUNDS!

Demonia

Demonia Directed By Lucio Fulci, Starring Meg Register (1990).

There are certain Fulci movies, I've completely avoided seeing up until now, Demonia is one of them. Whenever I hear the title, I immediately think of that Misfits song "Demonomania", which I misinterpreted the lyrics as "Demonomania, my mother was a man". I've not read anything venturing into this one, but when I first heard of it in Deep Red Alert #1, Chas seemed impressed and remarked how Fulci is back in top form or something to that effect. So here we go,a mid 90's Italian horror flick involving Catholics, possession and bug-eyed nuns puking green stuff, all set, lets go!

I should've avoided Pee Soup Andersons!

I certainly recognize the theme music that the maggot maestro speaks over from my Fulci best of CD, so that's getting me amped up for some debauchery. You can't really call this a "Nunsploitation" film because it does have nuns, sure, but non of the usual things associated with that subgenre. The script is really half baked and could stand a few revisions--I mean when the lead actress transforms into one of the cloistered ghouls featured on the box cover, there's no real explanation, what gives?
   

In the opening scene, a gaggle of nuns are viciously crucified as a Lauren Hutton type blonde (Meg Register) passes out at a seance ala-Catriona Macoll (Gates of Hell style). When she comes to, she is met by her professor played by Bret Halsey, he warns her not to fuck around with black magic and that she'll be getting extra homework for disobeying his advice (well not quite, but you get the idea). 

There are some "Beyond" elements floating around the ether of this film, but this is in no way related to that superior film. Liza (recognize that name?) is on an expedition with her teacher Paul (Halsey) on an archeological dig. A rotund mayor type named Buscemi stirs up a little trouble, I wonder if he'll show up later, because that name is just too funny for me to not mention.

I'm thinking so hard right now

Al Cliver shows up (sans his dubbed voice, which seems almost as if he forgot his pants)! He mentions how the villagers will never let them continue with the dig and sees them as outsiders gutting their monastery and culture. One gaunt actor named Lino Salemme (who I've seen in Sweet House of Horrors, a film so stupid, that I'd like to forget it), tries to warn fake Lauren Hutton again, but its no use. She get her pickaxe out and starts cracking monastery walls. I like how the actors in the film are more freaked out and scared than the viewer is, this kind of illogical balance can only work in a Fulci flick.

I brought Herpes to Sicily!

Cliver's death is very strange, a ghost with a harpoon gun shoots him in the chest and he immediately goes down. Liza has some uneventful and silly dreams (Yawn, this movie is started to get boring). For this Pastaland effort, there's a serious lack of gore, what's the deal--I did notice in the beginning credits that a different effects guy than Giannetto De Rossi is handling them, so let's all blame him. To be fair, Franco Giannini (The Last Emperor, Ratman) was out of his element on this one.
Salemme looks as if Stallone and John Morghen mated, that character's death scene is hilarious, when his giant tongue gets nailed to the floor, he looks like an Italian Garbage Pail Kid! I've got to mention the jangly campfire/ pirate music, which is worse than any Jimmy Buffett song, BLECCCHH!

Oh yeah, that's totally going on a sandwich

Two winos fall onto a pit of spikes, so far, after some tedious bullshit that was thee highlight. Fulci looks very skinny in his cameo, its kind of sad because he died a few years later. A very homely villager explains to the blonde archeologist that the nuns made a pact with Satan (I'm guessing that's why they have what looks like the Blue Oyster Cult insignia on their foreheads). During a flashback, a nun throws a baby onto a barbecue and kills it. Fulci as the detective, kind of lingers around in his cameo, sort of like that tub of Ricotta cheese that you bought too much of for stuffed shells or lasagna and it stays at the back of the fridge for months. The best effect in the film shows maniacal cats pulling out a woman's eyeballs. Demonia has many flaws, but considering how shitty 90's Fulci flicks were (excluding Cat in the Brain of course), its more fun than you'd imagine.

SKIP IT UNLESS YOU LIKE TEPID SCARES AND HAVE A NUN FETISH, MORE LIKE DEMONO (demon plus mono)!

Those dudes from Labyrinth popped out my eyes

I baked these delicious macaroons with just a hint of seasalt

Heh, Oh man I'm so high

maybe the goofiest thing I've seen in a Fulci film

Oh Shit I forgot my voice in the car!

Mistress of the Apes

Mistress of the Apes Directed By Larry Buchanan, Starring Jenny Neuman (1979).

Sometimes I feel as if I'm punishing myself by watching a film like this; wasn't this just on Dick Cheney's enhanced interrogation list of legally appropriate torture along with rectal feeding? 

It opens with a quote that reminds you that our lineage can be traced back to Africa, it's always a good sign when Larry Buchanan, the self proclaimed "Schlockmeister" and Kris Gilpin's close personal friend reminds us of something serious in a rubber ape movie, aye?

My only point of reference for Buchanan or the "Buchmeister" is his epic trash heap Creature of Destruction, which I reviewed for the Weng's Chop "Beach Party Issue", along with Beachball and I kind of hated it. I'm willing to pour a nice tumbler of whiskey and forget all about that unfortunate mishap and give Larry another shot, don't fuck up this time buddy!

Stealing our music? That's just fucked up Larry!

So, Ahem, anyway back to the review. Meanwhile in the jungle . . . Wait, I'm hearing some familiar library stock music from a certain flesh eating ghoul movie from Pittsburgh. Some morons looking for goody headache powder most likely, break into the drug supply of a busy hospital. The Romero stock music continues to play as a blonde falls off a gurney in slow-motion. The idiotic robbers shoot cops and then it cross fades into the important storyline information which has a lot to do with the island of the silly named Book-a-boo. Next, we have a saucy Teri Garr type posing for cheesecake photos with a fat galoot named David Thurston, who looks kind of like a 60'S mod style Dennis Burkley (of Sanford and Mask: the Rocky Dennis one fame).

This Cal is Bachelor Pad Cal

Paul and the blonde from the hospital show up with  suspiciously blurry slides that show a scary ape-man! Or a Pithocene to be exact (according to the script) and my fuzzy memory of an Anthropology class I took at CCSF. 

AHAHA YOU DUMB HUMAN, NO PITHOCENE'S EXIST!

They all agree to fly out to Ooga-Booga island to capture the missing link, a totally reasonable excuse for a vacation right?   

Mr. Thurston is kind of a dick toward the locals who he already knows and they are out doing jobs for him. Dennis' wife looks like Martine Beswick, but Oops it's actually Barbara Leigh, who a year before was in the Andy Sidaris film Sevano's Seven and Boss Nigger, she also played Vampirella. She actually stopped acting after this flick, I'm sure it had nothing to do with the self loathing, this movie probably brought on to her fragile psyche. 

I can't read does it say Martine Beswick?

As for this critic, I'm having a blast, this film is so horrible that it's a soothing train wreck. Sometimes the ape creature will peek through some leaves, he kind of looks like a Planet from the Apes reject. 

Jenny Neuman, the hospital blonde, shows her boobs for a few minutes, she slightly resembles Candice Rialson and was on the V TV Series and Hell Night (which I thought sucked).

I don't get the symbolism?

There's a gibberish sounding Native language that is not really offensive, just lazy research. 

I like how all the adventurers dress like Panama Jack fashion models and look totally stupid. They shoot at a topless female humanoid monkey to establish further what shitheads these hunters are.

I learned how to roofie chicks from Russ Meyer

Holy Cameos! Stuart "Russ Meyer bit player" Lancaster shows up as a warring poacher. Dave mentions that they found something as valuable as "The Peking Man" and won't let anything stand in his way. After dark, A black girl goes swimming naked while being surrounded by tons of Alligators, they spare her life, but the ape man doesn't and she gets killed by his axe.

Dave invites Stuart and his tiny sidekick to rape his wife by saying 'Hey it's cool we're all family". I didn't expect this film to take such a random Deliverance style detour, but I can't say I object! Jenny gets naked again and ends up humping the monkey man, then also finds a nude baby that she throws in front of her chest, so no one can enjoy the view!

Yes I do expect to receive a hefty sum from the Tim Burton divorce settlement! 

The apemen (that's right plural), finally show up an hour into the film and they play her funky theme song that goes "She's an ape lady, etc, etc!" The song is very catchy and after hearing it, you might have to do a "Neti Pot ear cleanse" to eradicate it from your subconscious! The hominids remind me of Helena Bonham Carter/ Michael Jackson from Tim Burton's abysmal Planet of the Apes remake. Mistress is very talky, but a total laugh riot, that is, if you have the patience for dumb movies! The most shocking part for me was during the credits when I saw that Greg Cannom and Rob Bottin handled the effects, how far they've advanced in the special effects world! I guess at the time they were the crack team of Ape creature creators and hopefully Rick Baker sent them migraine medicine while they were on the set. Bottin's talents would return later on for Tanya's Island, another monkey turd featured in the catalog.

MONUMENTALLY SPAZZTIC, FOR THOSE BANANA EATERS OUT THERE!

YAY! It's over, now hopefully we won't get paid in smokeable banana peels!

He Likes To Bite (or Bite Of Love)

He Likes to Bite Directed by Stephen Shin, Starring George Lam Chi-Cheung (1990). 

This Dickson Poon production (Haw Haw, very difficult not to snicker at that name) was entitled "He Likes to Bite" in the Deep Red catalog. I sent the feelers out into Facebook land and Jack Jensen (of Backyard Asia blog fame) and a few others in the Monster! zine crew helped me track down this HK vampire Darkman clone. It's nothing like the Sam Raimi pre-Spiderman superhero film at all however, let's clear that up right away. 

warning: this film causes explosive diarrhea

A vampire named Duke Lee has a wild mane of grey hair and a mustache, he is woken up from his coffin by his Renfield type servant, who also has strange grey hair, which looks like Donald Trump. Duke who's played by George Lam Chi-Cheung appeared in Banana Cop and also composed the music for this and something called Disco Bumpkins (man what a great title)! The servant brings his master a giant dinner tray containing a dead white girl. He rejects the cannibal feast, remarking that he doesn't bite humans. This Dracula is not like Bela Lugosi and drinks wine, he rides around in style with a horse and carriage. A girl named Anna is at her brother's party, which has dancing girls doing the "Can Can". He just got out of the hospital and wants to live it up. I know Rosmund Kwan Chi-Lam, the actress who plays Anna from Armour Of God, she's pretty good at playing a clueless idiot in this film. 

Duuuuuhhhhhh!!!!

Bite is very cutesy for a Deep Red pick, but watchable. Duke is captivated by Anna and they waltz around the dance floor, only her reflection registers in the mirror, since he's one of the undead. This Dracula clone looks more like a cheese ball magician and has a silly hair style. Anna's brother who's in a wheel chair attached to a plasma bag, does some dangerous knife tricks. One example involves a kid holding a plumb in his mouth as he tosses a sharp blade at the tyke's face (Duke interferes just in the nick of time, thankfully). The brother is played by Shaw Brothers veteran actor Norman Chu Sui-Keung, he's appeared in some of the best of that studios output, like Seeding of a Ghost and Black Magic. Sometimes English dialogue is spoken in the background by a bevy of British blondes.

A SWAT team busts in and threatens to beat on the vampire, he retaliates with some ridiculous stop motion flying effects. The little boy gets caught in the scuffle, accidentally flying out the window and lands on the ground (even though the vampire does try to help him). Duke is the most courteous and friendly vampire, he seems to care about these people--man, what a sell-out! Anna even calls him a magician and I wonder if she's so dopey that she doesn't notice he's an immortal bloodsucker. She gets even stupider because Anna wants him to bring her asshole brother back to life after he dies in an accident.

They show the Duke's array of yarn barn wigs, even though he has hair, he feels the need to wear an assortment of cheesy ones.

He then requests a bloody mary (I guess that's a subtle joke,not very funny). 

When she flashes a cross at him, he says "Why don't you believe in Buddhism instead?" This is some gentle comedy folks, not the typical raunchy and delightfully offensive, seen in most HK flicks from the catalog. Anna's brother is a serious fuckhead and has his henchmen grab the plumb eating kid  from the beginning played by Cheng Pak-Lam, in order to steal his blood for a transplant.

Don't fuck with THE WONGS!

Duke is a kind vampire and flies away with the poor drained kid (who's getting paler by the minute). The premise of twenty douchebags on motorcycles gunning for a 5 year old kid's blood is far fetched even for a weirdo hong kong film; at least to me, but that's what happens here! Anna is just as brainless as her brother and after noticing that he is a heroin trafficker she goes "Hey I'm going to the police" and is quickly apprehended by more hentchmen (who all wear white suits for some reason). 

Duke apparently is a broke assed count and doesn't have a castle, his coffin is down in Anna's brothers basement. I like the vampire and the kid's relationship, that's the most heartwarming aspect of the film. 

I need more polygrip, my dentures are slipping!

The vampire folklore is all over the place in this film, when they hit him with a bunch of floodlights to replicate the sun, it weakens him, which makes no sense!

The Duke bites the kid in order to save his life but majorly fucks up by also biting the evil brother character. He's totally irresponsible with his fangs and should have them revoked (if there were such a thing)! 

There's some maudlin Chinese pop, during a scene with Anna and Duke, this montage, attempts to give them some shared chemistry but it comes off like terrible karaoke and doesn't succeed in giving them any kind of bond.
  

The brother even chains up the Reinfield character with an ankle ball and forces him to cook them dinner. Anna watches a scene from Fright Night in a videostore window, where they only seem to have laserdiscs, pretty rad!

Tell Indy not to pick the fancy cup, that's the wrong grail!

Bite Of Love is pretty clunky and not that great, if you're a Hong Kong vampire completist than you probably need to see it. Other than that obligation, just skip it and see something with more bite (Ahem excuse the pun)! I can't figure out why this one is featured in the catalog, but there are a couple of questionable titles like a Dutch drama called Abwarts (or Out of Order) with Rene Soutendijk, who Chas calls an international sex goddess.

Don't watch it this sucks worse than Bite of Love!

Nuke baby!