Category Archives: Evil Pornography

The Home Recordings of a Pure EVIL! “August Underground: Mordum” reviewed! (Unearthed Films / Blu-ray/DVD combo)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“August Underground:  Mordum” Limited Collector’s Edition!

Uncompassionately deranged serial torture and murderer Peter Mountain is back.  Along with his maniacal partner Maggot and his depraved sister Crusty, whose also Peter Mountain’s girlfriend, the terrorizing trio videotape their exploits with no shame and with no end from no matter how mundane to no matter how gruesomely vile.  Rage and lust mix together with sociopathy and psychopathy, resulting in a dangerous combination for whomever crosses their path.  Shocking glimpses of their killing spree reflect through the lens of their camcorder, capturing every kidnap, imprisonment, confinement, rape, mutilation, torture, and eventually murder of their sadomasochistic onslaught onto every random, unlucky soul but with every moment of madness captured, their no so friendly friendship verges ever closer toward a volatile collapse when Maggot and his sister Crusty hook up from time-to-time and the perpetually aggressive juggernaut Peter Mountain is on the brink of breaking more beyond his broken mental state.

The return of Peter Mountain marks the return of shock and gore director Peter Vogel with “August Underground:  Mordum,” the 2003 sequel to Vogel’s unnervingly raw depiction of depravity and exploitation in “August Underground” released two years prior.  Not a traditionally subsequent sequel, “Mordum” is a standalone entry with only the presence return of Peter Mountain to connect the two stories together, but “Mordum” initially didn’t start out as a sequel and only morphed into a feature when Vogel was requested to shoot gruing material for the aptly named death/gore metal band Necrophagia and the band’s lead singer, Frank “Killjoy” Pucci, suggested to turn the material in a follow up film of “August Underground” with Killjoy co-wring alongside Toe Tag Picture’s Vogel, Christie Whiles, Michael Todd Schneider and Jerami Cruise.  What emerged felt like an organic chapter in Peter Mountain’s found footage mausoleum of bloodlust mayhem.  Shot in and around the Pittsburg, Pennsylvania area, “Mordum” is a production of Toe Tag Pictures under executive producer Jerami Cruise.

2001’s “August Underground” brought a terribly raw image to the independent cinema fold that house realistic depictions of the utmost evil and perversion.  So much so, a few of the cast members decided to not use their real names.  For Peter Vogel, a follow up film was like another day walking in the park as a proud papa of his villainous protagonist Peter Mountain, an eclipsingly large and laughing feverishly fiend of a man who preys on the cries and screams of his victims.  “Mordum” introduces us to two new actors into the fold with Christie Whiles, who would reprise Mountain’s girlfriend Crusty in the third Entry “Penance,” and Michael Todd Schneider (“I Never Left the White Room”) as Crusty’s brother Maggot.  It’s not exactly made clear if Maggot is a returning character, the hyena chuckling man behind the character played by pseudonym Allen Peters, or not.  In either way, Whiles and Schneider are equally as vicious on screen as Vogel but invite a whole of a hell a lot more nudity, non-simulated genitalia fondling, and induced vomiting to give “Mordum” that extra mile of stomach-churning, eye-adverting discomfort.  As the fluids deluge in scene-after-scene of massacre depictions, the triple threat come across a like-minded individual, played by the person who very much encourage and inspired for the sequel.  The late Frank Pucci, aka Killjoy, the front man for Necrophagia plays an equal with a slaughter shed full of rotting, putrid corpses, beheaded babies with maggots, and prime meat tied and lying in wait for him to butcher as his leisure.  “Mordum” offers up a slew of victims in different abattoir and snuff scenarios, casted with a rising makeup artist in a pre-crew acting role Midian Crosby (with makeup credits including “Halloween Ends,” “Cop Car,” and “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3”) and Elmo Painter in the vomit and viscera evacuation scene, Rick Kundrach and Tim Grubjesik as unfortunate junkies, as well as Chris Shaw, Shelby Lyn Vogel, Allana Sleeth, Dave Brown, Erika Schultz a few pseudonyms in Daisy, M. Kadath, and E. Jay, and with Ultra Violent Magazine editor Art Ettinger.

Similar to the first film, “Mordum” has no plot in it’s a series of found footage flashes in the day in the life of a serial killer.  This approach makes what you’re having to behold for 70-minutes that much more plausible and realistic and what you’re seeing is quintessential gore porn.  “Saw” wasn’t the basis of the coined term.  No, my sanguine licking friends.  Fred Vogel pioneered that course three years earlier with his sick and twisted show of seminal underground.  The only reason why Vogel wasn’t at the top of the gore porn list was because none of his films had mainstream theatrical runs.  However, literally, “Mordum” contains that borderline porn element of exposed and molested nudity, the below the waste naughty parts that don’t see a tone of skin-to-skin action, and there’s certainly enough gore to go around and around and around and around again.  Some of those smaller gore elements were real, such as skin cutting.  Another element that makes “Mordum” effectively morbid is the special effects work by Vogel, Jerami Cruise (who has gone on to do major studio films from his extreme horror indies), and the late Ryan Nicholson (director of “Gutterballs” and who also was a special effects supervisor on a wide scope of studio and indie films) who provided many of the dismembered and grimed up dummy props framed through a standard definition, commercial camcorder for the Necrophagia music video.  If no story arises, one hell of a damn good show must come out of the horrific footage and Peter Vogel and the Toe Tag team achieve diabolical decadence with stomach content-emptying pizzazz.

Unearthed Films and Toe Tag Pictures have teamed up to release limited edition releases of Peter Vogel’s “August Underground” trilogy.  “Mordum” receives the royal physical release treatment with a 2-disc, Blu-ray/DVD, Limited Collector’s Edition.  The Blu-ray is an AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD50 can only be so detailed with a shaky, consumer cam but the image could not look any better, or gruesome.  Presented in a pillarbox framed 1.33:1 aspect ratio, RGB color model leans more toward warmer reds, yellows, and greens so you don’t get an authentic color scheme on objects or skin tones.  Darker scenes render nicely enough despite the MiniDV magnetic tape’s e-interference compression artefacts and some tracking lines onto digital recording that makes the image jittery/jumpy, but all the in-your-face closeups, low-quality picture quality adds to “Mordum’s” rancid-sensing realism.  The English PCM 2.0 audio track has copious clarity for its unrefined, raw built-in mic recording that comes with some crackling and echoing if the decibels rise during screaming or shouting and the built-in can’t handle the received input. Depth is lossy with the range of the recording and range doesn’t factor into play as dialogue pushes through whereas the low-budget constraints leave the action audibility left to the imagination. Subtitles are not available on either format. The limited-edition regurgitation of the sequel warrants a ton of special features in its inauguration to the mainstream masses. Both formats share most of the extras but the Blu-ray features many more. Brief Dave Fogel touchpoints on certain aspects of “Mordum’s” obscure longevity Mordum Lives!, the climax’s most disturbing visuals The Most Disturbing Scene, and an ode to Necrophagia’s front man Remembering Killjoy dive into those specific nuts and bolts of involvement, a new interview with Michael “Maggot” Schneider A Family Affair of Love and Hate which also includes The Ravenous music video from Necrophagia, offering some more cut scene insight, a sit-down interview with between Unearthed Film’s Stephen Biro and Tog Tag’s Jerami Cruise on the gruesome special effects work on a budget of literally what was lying around, Necrophagia’s promotional video of Rue Morgue Disciple, a new Rue Morge Disciple Behind-the-Scenes gallery, deleted and extended scenes that prolong the violence of the most graphic, extreme scenes and add another level of behind-doors sexual deviation to near pornographic heights, the U.S. premiere from 2003, a brand new extensive photo gallery, original animation work, and trailers while the Blu-ray includes these features, also on the hi-def disc is a new interview with Ultra-Violent’s editor Art Ettinger and Allana Bleeth who both have small roles in the film, a new interview with Zobo With A Shotgun’s Zoë Rose Smith interview director Fred Vogel, filmmaker Dave Parker interviews Vogel as well, Severed Cinema interviews Vogel too in Snuff Purgatory, a new mockumentary and its trailer for Sickcess: A Necrophagia, and a Zombie Demo from Flashback Weekend circa 2004. On top of the special feature filth, the physical aspects of the release come in a clear and traditional Blu-ray snapper case housed inside a cardboard slipcover showcasing the infamously disturbing scene. The same scene is also illustrated on the Blu-rays cover art with reverse cover art providing a rough-and-ready composition alternative of the same scene. Both disc arts are pressed with camcorder blurry images of depicted carnage. The region A/Region 1 locked Unearthed Films combo set has a runtime 91 minutes and comes, obviously, not rated. If looking for the original 3 from Hell, Peter Vogel’s “August Underground: Mordum” assembles three monsters to ever savage the screen with their horrible, unspeakable acts of sadism. The unabashed Unearthed Films rightfully doesn’t lubricate our hole of curiosity, sodomizing our prurience with the metallic taste of blood and madness.

“August Underground:  Mordum” Limited Collector’s Edition!

When the EVIL Novice Becomes the EVIL Master. “Assault! 13th hour!) reviewed! (Impulse Pictures / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Assault!  13th Hour” on DVD from Impulse Pictures!

A gas station attendant is beguiled by the culpable bad boy antics of a serial rapist in a red jacket. As the attendant becomes more enthralled by the sociopath’s life-altering school of assault and apprenticeship, he attempts a solo flight to turn his women victims into loving his deplorable acts of sexual misconducts. His emulation of sprouting a decadent rape fantasy fails as the connective alternative sexual experience between the powerful and the powerless only induces complete fear. Curious to how the connoisseur of forced copulation gets away with women paying him for ravishment again, the novice learner of lechery aims to seek as much knowledge as possible without hesitation and without question but a homosexual gang hunts down his master in the crimson jacket for an unspecified act that warrants retribution. Caught in the middle, the gas station attendant must fight for his life if he wants to continue the legacy of violation.

Better known as “Rape! 13th Hour,” Yasuharu Hasebe’s “Assault! 13th Hour” is a perhaps a more marketable film for many western distributors with the world rape kicking off as an exclamational in the title. One of Japan’s well-known exploitation and pinku filmmakers, having directed a slew of films with a combination of action, crime, and sexual dysphoria and kink with the Stray Cat Rock film series (“Sex Hunter,” “Delinquent Girl Boss”) as well as “Rape!,” “Secret Honeymoon: Rape Train,” and “Raping!” Yeah, I would say Hasebe had a deviant fantasy for the subject. Released in 1977, “Assault! 13th Hour” comes from the same mind of “Hausu” screenwriter Chiho Katsura and Toshiro Masuda’s “The Perfect Game,” a Criterion release film, screenwriter Yoshio Shirasaka. Now, the 73-minute narrative rapt in the idea of women throwing themselves, as well as their yen, at the attacker in a twisted reaction to forceful violation with a greenhorn being trained-to-inherit the practice is by no means as surreally horrifying as “Hausu” or as complicatedly thrilling as the gambling-gone-awry “The Perfect Game.” Still, an underlying, nagging feeling of the patriarchal power that is deeply engrained into Japanese culture can be digested with this pinku-production under the company eye of Nikkatsu Corporation, releasing the film under its pinku eiga subsidiary, the Nikkatsu Roman Porn banner, with Ryoji Ito (“Cruel High School Girls: Sex Lynch”) producing.

Now, whether “Assault! 13th Hour” is a sequel to either Hasebe’s “Rape!” or “Assault!” is not clear from this reviewer’s eyes – I have yet to see either one of those particular previously films – but there lies one commonality between all of them, Akira Takahashi. A lifer in the pinku eiga industry, Takahashi has collaborated with Hasebe on a number of films that run the gamut of exploitation. For his role of Crimson, a serial rapist and delinquent who sports a red bomber jacket, the principal predator is more mysterious in not only his actions but his backstory involving the homosexual gang boss and his two equally sapphic goons and this is where I suspect “Assault! 13th Hour” might be a follow up film as Crimson’s historical transgressions don’t come to light. Hence, the gang’s manhunt never fleshes out to a warranted chase down and the unsuspected sexual tension that produces from it between Crimson and the gang boss. Takahashi brings a confident and suave creep to the lead but doesn’t necessarily have the charisma to make Crimson stand out on his own as a memorable character. Crimson’s accomplice, and the story’s perspective primary, played by Yûdai Ishiyama (“Izo”), fits snuggly into the part of curious in his character who takes uninitiated baby steps into wanting to be a part of this cabal of beastly baroque bedfellows that can persuade Stockholm syndrome upon their victims before they zip up their pants. Ishiyama’s role provides more depth as a low-end gas station attendant with a pent-up perversion and who’s better to exploit and nurture his willingness more than his equivocal new best friend, Crimson. The story’s unpublicized character list provides the story with a nebulous pall to make a statement that this can happen to anyone and can even happen to this cast list of Yuri Yamashina, Tamaki Katsura, Naomi Oka, and Rei Okamoto.

I’m still wrapping my head around the plot’s sudden drop into mid-story without a callback to Crimson’s sordid history that weaves between his seemingly magical persuasion of perversion and his tumultuous involvement with the homosexual gang who want more than just to beat him to pulp. The chance stance Hasebe has to fashion into a comprehensible story, based off the script’s limiting section of a whole, is turned into a wildly suitable and often alternate universe viewed milieu where corruption and immorality goes without proper attention or justice. There are no detectives tracking down the rapists’ rampage or even the display of just a single police vehicle at the aftermath of the crimes. Judgements are contained within the confines of the criminal underworld from a twisted perspective of vigilante justice and, you know, it works! The one-sided standpoint immerses the viewer into a filthy, degrading, and perversely fantastical sea of immorality where lawlessness is the law, but as far as pink films are concerned, “Assault! 13th Hour” is a tame entry that doesn’t shockingly exploit the senses. Likely, that reserved jolt from the jarring material stems from decades of repetitive similar films of the same genre and/or nature and we, those fans drowning in fascination of the pink film category, might feel a little numb to its debauchery though the ending’s infringing necrophilia onto nearly every possible orifice on the victim’s body can be an eye-opener, or an eye-closer depending on your level of comfort and intrigue. Assault! 13th Hour” explores a trade far less trodden in its unusual master and pupil dynamic and subjugates any ambiguities over the blurry line between heterosexuality and homosexually with a slightly biased preconceived notion that heterosexual assault leads to viable passion whereas the counter only offers brutality and bloodshed.

Arriving onto DVD from Impulse Pictures, the XXX and erotica sublabel of Synapse Films, is the Nikkatsu Roman released “Assault! 13th Hour!” The anamorphic 1.85:1 presentation renders a respectable transfer of the 35mm film despite the noticeable age and wear of the warm, inferior negative stock that often appears dark and detailed indiscernible, unlike the stylish use of high contrast. The Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 dual channel casts a better-than-expected dialogue track and general ambient score albeit the overplayed audio bytes for cars revs and screeching tires. The constant low whir never goes above a whisper, leaving alone the dialogue to remain clear and free of obstructions and that also goes for the absence of pops and hissing. The newly translated and removable English subtitles pace well, display without typos, and are synchronously consistent. The 1977 Japanese erotica and roughie is a feature only release for Impulse Pictures with no bonus material included. The tight and taut, rough and dirty, “Assault! 13th Hour” is a tinderbox of ferocity as well as a tender box of far out fantasies that makes this dichotomy of sexuality and violence an interesting slice of Japanese erotic cinema.

“Assault!  13th Hour” on DVD from Impulse Pictures!

A Single Spool of Film Can Make the Filmmakers EVIL Enough to Murder. “Naked Over the Fence” reviewed! (Cult Epics / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Naked Over the Fence” on 2-Disc Blu-ray and CD set!

Rick, who runs an arcade business and is a pigeon enthusiastic with a dovecote on his building’s rooftop, attends his friend’s Karate competition with another good friend, a schoolteacher and his tenant, Penny.  Learning that his Karate friend, Ed Swaan, has developed a romantic relationship with Netherland pop-singer Lilly Marischka and will have a small role in an upcoming movie with the star, shooting in building adjacent to Swaan’s Karate studio, Rick doesn’t think twice about it until Penny catches glimpse of naked photography happening in the very same building.  Rick is sent that night to investigate, and witnesses Ed and Lily uncomfortably being persuaded to take part in a private viewing porno and nearly escape with their lives when they rescind their participation and are chased by two low-life goon twins.  Ed and Lily’s nudie film now threatens them with scandal and as Rick pokes his nose into the production team’s business, innocent lives pay the price to keep the film in the blackmailing and profit seeking hands of the filmmakers. 

A cult comedy-thriller for the ages, “Naked over the Fence,” aka “Naakt over de schutting,” is a murder-mystery monkeying with spirited jest from the Amsterdam-born filmmaker Frans Weisz. The screenplay treatment comes from Weisz familiar writers Rob du Mee and the late Rinus Ferdinandusse, who penned the novel of the same Netherland title from which the story was adapted and who had passed away back in July of this year. Both writers have worked with the director on respective projects, such as “The Burglar” and “A Gangstergirl” before “Naked Over the Fence.” Set in and amongst the close quartered housing of Amsterdam and along the river of the Amstel, Weisz very much incorporates the intertwining the compact of the brick-and-mortar and the expanse of a widened landscape flow of the surroundings into tongue-and-cheek situational micro comedies that sometimes has you forget your watching a rather cynical and entangling murder mystery involving shady pornography, blackmail, and murderous foul play. Parkfilm and Cinécentrum N.V. are the production companies behind the film with Rob du Mee producing and Gerrit Visscher as associate producer.

Initial previewing presumptions about “Naked Over the Fence” might fall along the lines of being a highly erotic comedy because of not only the film’s suggestive title and the half-naked actors halfway over a fence on one of the original poster artworks, but also the fact that Sylvia Kristel as one of the principal stars.  Kristel is far and wide known for her continuous provocative performances as the lusciously licentious title character in the erotically charged “Emmanuelle” mega-series that has expanded decades since the 1970s.  “Naked Over the Fence” is not that kind of movie.  Not even close.  There are moments of skin, conservatively from Kristel, and subtle and not so subtle scenes of sensuality coursed throughout but the Weisz film notes as one of the Netherlands’ actress’s first films of her career before “Emmanuelle,” exploring her range as a scared pop singer backed against into a career stemmed quid pro quo before becoming an embedded typecast of the erotic genre. Kristel perfectly complements as a beautiful, delicate, yet reserved in strength starlet alongside arcade owner and staunch friend Rick (Rijk de Gooyer, “Rufus”) and her new beau, a large karate dojo owner Ed (Jon Bluming, Paul Verhoeven’s “Turkish Delight”). As much as an odd couple as they’re describe, Gooyer and Bluming are greatly well-received on screen as a dynamic duo attempting to outwit shady porno makers, blackmailers, and merciless murderers as if the contest to the film reel is a game with that swashbuckling, self-assured attitude as two amateur sleuths. The one character I thought was a little out of place was Penny, played by Jennifer Willems as a schoolteacher renting a room in Rick’s arcade building but is also a good friend of both men. Penny feels solely like an object used to force the hands of Rick and Jon when trouble arises and never actually does any leg work in tracking down the film reel. Willem performs to the best of her extent in a role that doesn’t obtain much action until the unique action chase at the end. Willem, Gooyer, and Bluming have all worked with previously with director Frans Weisz on “The Burglar,” alleviating beforehand any undue first meet jitters and that translate tremendously on screen. “Naked Over the Fence” has an ensemble cast of color characters, each one more interesting than the next, that include Jerome Reehuis, Tom Lensink, Adèle Bloemendaal, Jerry Brouer, and mustache and curly perm identical twins Lodewijk and Hans Sijses as a pair of cronies.

“Naked Over the Fence” might be a pulp novel coursing loosely as a glib tongue in cheek but the complexities the film assume merits cult-worthy cachet. The adaptational flow of a novel story, its wildly entertaining and diverse performances, and its bold direction deserve accolades upon its accolades. The very beginning sets the tenor of the film on the Amsterdam rooftop with tracking shots that are simply amazing, smooth, and precise toward the working up of Rick waiting for his named pigeon friends to return, the Ferenc Kálmán-Gáll cinematography and Ton Ruys editing is remarkably accomplished as the intercut composite between Rick peeping through the fence and the boiling-to-conflict back-and-forth conversing of the pre-setup porn scene that lead up to the film’s title of Ed and Lily hopping climbing over 6 to 7 ft wooden fence is tip-top execution, and the extended tram chase is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced in a bird-dog chain of scenes as the two trams zip down the engrooved track lines on the streets of Amsterdam while making it whimsical and parlous with excitement. there’s real production money financially backing the uncontained and mutable story and it shows right from the get-go to the very end with only a handful of key instances where the digression of the certain level of high-dollar antics can only be done at a lower quality and that drags down Weisz’ flair quite a bit. An enjoyable romp of Dutch cinema, “Naked Over the Fence” ossifies friendship, loyalty, and morality over the forces of tit-for-tat evil.

Proudly continuing their restored release of Sylvia Kristel films, Cult Epics presents “Naked Over the Fence” onto a 2-disc, region free Blu-ray home video set with a newly restored high definition 4K transfer from the original negative. Virtually unscathed by time, the original negative beams with vitality in its showcased 1.37:1 aspect ratio, upgraded into an improved compression rate to hold all its detailed wonders for the full 91-minute runtime. The stable picture and natural, unwavering coloring persists with a consistent color palette. Other than complimentary natural grain of the stock, there’s no obvious instances to fault the image quality that’s above exemplary. The Dutch language tracks come with two audio options: a LPCM 2.0 and a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Both render audibly clear and emphatically enough with the DTS providing a little ambient and dialogue boost with a cleaner track of the dub Dutch language. English subtitles are included and don’t have an apparent errors and synchs well with the pace. Special features include an audio commentary by biographer Harry Hosman, a 15-minute behind-the-scenes featurette of unpolished footage of scene takes and director Frans Weisz at work with his cast, a 2014 Dutch audio interview with Frans Weisz that includes English subtitles, an interview with composer Ruud Bos from 2015 that includes performances with the B-Movie Orchestra, a promotional gallery, Sylvia Kristel trailers, and a 2nd disc, included only in limited edition, 1000 copy sets, of the exclusive compact disc Soundtrack by composer Round Bos. The physical bonus material with the limited-edition release is cardboard slipcover and a reversible cover art that includes the original poster art and a list of the score’s 16 composed track list. I adore the quirkiness and relish in the story’s transgressional diegesis and now with this stellar new and improved Blu-ray release of the Netherlands’ “Naked Over the Fence,” the perfect movie does exist.

“Naked Over the Fence” on 2-Disc Blu-ray and CD set!

Catalepsy EVIL Blended with Japanese Folklore! “Snow Woman” reviewed! (Darkside Releasing / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Beware the “Snow Woman!”  She Just Might Just Leave You With the Cold Shoulder!  Amazon.com

Trekking up a mountain side are three male villagers hauling up a wooden casket.  Inside the casket is thought to be the malevolent Yuki Onna, the urban legendary beautiful snow woman spirit who roams the snowy landscape enticing men to their death.  Found seemingly dead and half naked amongst the village at the bottom of the mountain, this will mark the second trip up to the crag with her corpse that suddenly comes back to life.  Feared by the men, her casket is left abandoned and stranded atop of the icy, cold mountain yet the thing inside the casket isn’t a ghost, but rather a shunned woman, Yuki, with a thought supernatural evil power that’s actually a death-trance condition where her intense sexual climaxes render her unconscious and not breathing for long stretches of time.  Lodge owner Hyubei discovers her predicament firsthand after bedding the strange woman and the two use her condition to feign the killing of the “Snow Woman” when other persecuting-seeking male villagers coming calling for her head.

Many unusual, but still erotically stimulating, pink films have come across my desk for a professional review and for personal viewing.  Shintaro Sasazuka’s “Snow Woman” might be the goofiest, nonsensical one, and threadbare storied one yet.  Based off the Japanese folklore of Yuki-onna, various versions of Yuki-onna revolve around the freezing harm or death of children as well as succumbing those near the child to an icy grave.  For Sasazuka’s “Snow Woman,” the 2009 released adaptation follows more closely to the Ojiya region of Niigata Prefecture where a beautiful and mysterious woman sought out a man to marry for her own sensual desires only to dissipate into frozen droplets when forced into a bath.  While there’s no forced bathing in the film, the writer-director does pull inspiration of a woman immediately eager to please and marry the first man who doesn’t expel her permanently from companionship upon her climatic death-trance and is, in fact, more inexplicably inclined, aka an inkling of amorousness, to keep her around despite her unsettling disorder that locks their genitals together until she awakes from her stupor.  “Snow Woman” is produced by Takeyuki Morikakuo (writer of “Rika:  The Zombie Killer” and producer of “Legend of Siren XXX”) and is a production of the AMG vintage erotic catalogue.

“Tokyo Gore Police,” “Grotesque,” and JAV model actress Tsugumi Nagasawa stars in the folkloric titular role or Yuki. Nagasawa’s a bit all over the board, which is usually the case with all Japanese pink films, with her misjudged ghostly “Snow Woman” that loses all the pizazz when much of the mysticism is removed almost instantly when the immediate revelation of her sexual catatonic disorder renders her into a rigor mortis like state. Nagasawa doesn’t exactly sell the ethereal quality of the folklore of a presence able to float above sheets of snow without a trace left behind or burst into icicles surrounding heat. Yes, yes, I know pink films are strapped with very little cashflow, banking on the nudity and the bump-and-grind of exploiting popular and historical culture. Takishi (listed as Takashi on other platforms) Okabe opposites Nagasawa as the lonely lodger Nyubei who saves Yuki from an icy death by trying to charge her warmth and shelter. Okabe and Nagasawa fail to bring any kind of chemistry to the screen, romantically or sensually, that render themselves far short of saving this pink’s film vitality rebound on the home video market. The villagers who are seemingly more interested in destroying the Snow Woman as well as contemplating speculative conjecture on whether having intercourse with a monster is better than having intercourse with a woman who eats a lot is better. That whole section of the dialogue arc to the portrayed monster in the story, the Snow Woman, and when the virginal deft villager sees the Snow Woman for the first time, he immediately ravages her in a rape-eseque moment to prove no matter how monstrous she is he’s going to conquer by way of copulation. The other villagers round out with a cast in Takehisa Futagawa, Daisuke Tamaru, Horiken Fumio Yamamoto, Tetsu Teraoka, and Nami Uehara.

As mentioned, “Snow Woman” is considered a pinksploitation parody of a well-known folklore and as stated, the film’s financial support leaves much to be desired in the finish product to the point that there’s really not a story here to be told. Ostentatiously goofy without a morsel of A-for-effort lore or supernatural suspense to call a foundation, the struggle is inherently real to get through the entire film, a film that’s only approx. 1 hour long. The humor doesn’t stick and that would have flipped “Snow Woman” to a more advantageous experience coinciding with the one-on-one action that’s puts pink films on the erotica map. “Snow Woman” ultimately is a double flop on both fronts with the humor missing marks in its ultra-dry deliveries and miscued moments to the romping that’s not stimulating, titillating, or satisfying in the positioned choreography or character heterogeneity as a basic setup and cycle that inches toward only a chip of difference between the sexual scenes by adding the accompaniment of villagers with only the usual outcome results. The scenic views are actually pretty and breathtaking in see the snow-covered landscape with plenty of long and wide shots to capture Japan wilderness and while the location becomes only important in its aesthetic beauty, the b-roll footage never becomes important to the storyline as should with any Snow Woman themed media adaptation. I, personally, just wanted the characters to vamoose the lodge, or rather the overly large hut, that kept becoming the place of Yuki’s catalepsy trances because the location is the only interior location and gets old really quick.

For the first time, Shintara Sasazuka’s romantic-pink-comedy, “Snow Woman,” has a North American release from Darkside Releasing and distributed by MVD Visual. The region A coded Blu-ray release is an AVC encoded BD-R 25 presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio. There are two versions of “Snow Woman” available for viewing: the vintage version retains the Japanese orb of censorship around the nether regions and a newly restored version that basically means the removal of the those said orbs. Both transfers are identical in a clean and free from blemishes and damage eyesores. However, banding is a real issue that creates visible clear lines across a shade washed picture. The Japanese language Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack renders over quite well with discernable and clean dialogue, but the English subtitles are slightly out of synch and have at least one error that I saw. Special features include the original “Snow Woman” trailer, an erotic trailer reel that contains erotica and horror from select Italian productions, and a pink trailer reel that includes classic and modern pink films from PinkEiga. I guess in a world where pink films are outrageously perverse and can be downright sleazy and horrific, a necessity for balance would come in the form of goofy-romanticism and that’s what “Snow Woman” offers humbly by exemplifying passion and compassion as a cure for the mobbing disorderly and the ones with misunderstood disorders.

https://vimeo.com/441935425

Beware the “Snow Woman!”  She Just Might Just Leave You With the Cold Shoulder!  Amazon.com

Prepare Yourself for the Side-Splitting EVILS of Adultery. “Sex and Zen” reviewed! (Umbrella Entertainment / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

A Must-See, “Sex and Zen” is highly erotic and highly funny.

A wealthy educated man is arranged to marry the beautiful and sexually naïve daughter of a high scholar.  After persuading her sex being a cornerstone to a healthy marriage, she quickly concedes to his insatiable desires.  Yet, the man wants more and decides to venture out into world seeking passionate sexual escapades and when he happens upon a distinguished scoundrel, who’s good at swordplay, martial arts, and as a carnal adviser, the man is schooled about his insignificant manhood needing to be the size of a horse’s.  The obvious thing to do, transplant his penis with a horse’s.  The comical insanity pursues from then on out with the man falling for not only the brutish fabric maker’s wife, but also a bisexual noblewoman with a jealous lady lover.  When the scholar’s secret is found out, the jealous lover imprisons the man’s stay-at-home wife into prostitution, spearheaded by the seduction of the vengeful fabric maker posing as the house’s new gardener.  

Attuned to the same idea as war and peace, “Sex and Zen” is a delicate balance of control between the two and the dire consequences suffered if the sanctity of matrimonial fidelity is not respected.  Hailing from Hong Kong under the infamy of the Category III rating and with surprising staggering budget of approx. 4 million USD, director Michael Mak’s artfully erotic 1991 sex-comedy is by far one of the most entertaining of its genre ever to be produced into the world.  Michael Mak, the director of the three sequels following the “Long Arm of the Law” after taking over the franchise from his brother Johnny Mak, helms a script penned by “To Be Number One” writers Alexander Lee and Ying-Chiet Lee, based loosely off the drama-tragedy novel “The Carnal Prayer Mat” by Yu Li.  While definitely not a mirror dramatization of Li’s novel, “Sex and Zen’s” melodrama is in full-frontal effect with outlandish sex organ transferring and fiendish-flings and betrayals that make this slapstick an absolute riot.  Raymond Chow’s Golden Harvest (“Game of Death,” “The Man from Hong Kong”) and Michael Mak’s brother’s company, Johnny Mak Productions,” build “Sex and Zen’s” luxurious sets and wardrobe, bright with colors and backed by phenomenal talent. 

“Sex and Zen” is only as good in its absurdity as it’s actors and actresses and, fortunately, Lawrence Ng and Amy Yip, and amongst the others, infuse and imprint themselves to the carnally comically characters with pleasure.  Ng (“The Underground Banker,” “Madame Q”) plays the travelling sex alcoholic husband Mei Yeung-Sheng to “Erotic Ghost Story’s” Amy Yip character, Huk-Yeung.  Huk-Yeung is an in the closet nympho taught to be disgusted by sex from her father’s puritanical stance.  Though Ng. and Yip’s scenes are few, they sizzle as explorers of each other’s bodies with Ng portraying shameless lust for the flesh against Yip’s innocent purity.  When Mei Yeung-Sheng ventures out into the world seeking erotic flings, that’s when Kungfu superstar Lieh Lo (“Fiver Fingers of Death”) enters the fold as the famous masterful thief Choi Kun-Lun who not only steals from the rich and gives to the poor as a Robin Hood-esque martial arts bandit but also becomes the sexual advisor to a hapless Yeung-Sheng and his itsy-bitsy trouser snake problem.  Lo’s hilariously cavalier and unpredictable in his performance that offers a divergent against the constant yearnings to follow the graphic depictions of pornographic picture art.  The scholar becomes entangled with an abused fabric seller (Japanese-born actress Mari Ayukawa, “Groper Train Hurry Up and Come”) and, in consequence, the fabric seller’s husband Wong Chut, a ultra-physical ruffian played vigorously intensive by Elvis Tsui (“The Boxer’s Omen”), who has a vendetta against the scholar and has an affair with the scholar’s wife that leads to prostitution, frail health, and immense guilt in an parable about the misconduct of unchecked sexual liberties.  “Sex and Zen” rounds out with a solid cast in Hong Kong comedian Kent Cheng (“Dr. Lamb”), Isabella Chow (“The Nocturnal Demon”), Carrie Ng (“Angel Terminators”), and Feng Tien (“Fist of Fury”) as the Sack Monk who warns about lust-induced karma that pulls the story into a full arc.

“Sex and Zen’s” mighty price tag is beyond being obvious with elaborately detailed set designs and structures, equally elegant and era appropriate wardrobe and makeup, elevated stunt work that blends highflying Kungfu with softcore eroticism, a physical and omnipresent choreography, and a few complicated shots, especially the one involving the back-and-forth editing of above and below the surface of a steamy hot tub sexual assault-to-fantasy fornication.  The inexplicit story can be difficult to follow at times without much being conveyed to what the characters are doing, especially in the first act that jumps from a licentious Mei Yeung-Sheng debating with a temple-residing Sack Monk on the principles of polyamorous relationships, to the scholar fulfilling his engagement to and the slow deshelling into wanton exercises of the aristocracy daughter, to finally his sudden departure from her as he ventures out into the world for untamed carnal delights with strange women.  From that point, “Sex and Zen” becomes a little more cohesive and coherent, building upon the scholars need for a bigger penis at the suggestion of his newfound friend Choi Kun-Lun and bedding the wife of a loutish fabric maker while paralleling a forbidden lesbian love affair of two stepsisters without the meddlesome of man in the mix.  As Mei Yeung-Sheng and the lesbians’ paths collide, stiff and unforgiving karma catches up to each and every one of them with the welting sting of tit-for-tat cuckolding.  Yet, Mak’s depiction of the story is wilder than the slapstick and melee humor with a stark contrast of, or maybe a complete overshadowing all together of, the perversion of foreign sex toys.  From the hilt of a scroll brush to both ends of a golden flute (I’ll let that visual sink in), the women of “Sex and Zen” have a knack for insertion talents in this Hong Kong Cat III sideshow of debauchery and comedy. 

Coming in at #2 on Umbrella Entertainment’s Sensual Sinema label, “Sex and Zen” lands on a sleek Blu-ray home video from the Australian distributor. Presented in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio, the “Sex and Zen” Umbrella Blu-ray has impeccable full high definition, 1080p quality that pops right off the screen. The original 35mm transfer has a healthy amount of good grain and the colors lavishly seize control over every scene with a full-bodied range of hues. Blacks are inky and unaffected by any major artefact issues and the skin shades are poor-riddles and hair-laden in every since of the detail spectrum. Umbrella’s Blu-ray offers two audio options with a Cantonese 5.1 DTS-HD master audio with optional English dub or a Cantonese 2.0 Dolby Digital stereo with optional English dub. The dubbed-dialogue overlay is slightly asynchronous with the image, but there’s robust dialogue amplification centralized out of the five channels coinciding with isolating individual ambient sounds, such the swooshing of the swordplay or the chains clinking during acrobatic coitus. Special features are a little slim and of yore for a second title on a new sublabel, but the release offers an achieved, English-subtitled interview with director Michael Mak diving into the budget, working with the actors, and creating certain scenes. The theatrical trailer is also available on special features. The hot pink Sensual Sinema cardboard slipcover has a retro impression with various posters of the film on the slip and the snapper case surrounded by also a hot pink border. The film is listed as region B coded but played on my region free player without issue, runs at 95 minutes and is rated R+ for high level sex scenes. “Sex and Zen” is, by far, one of the best and most fetishized sex comedies ever produced and though a notorious Hong Kong CAT III production, the film is absolutely riotous and one-of-a-kind, deserving of praise from hedonistic crowds around the globe.

A Must-See, “Sex and Zen” is highly erotic and highly funny.