Brought before an intergalactic sentencing, a chaos-driven cyborg faces extreme persecution for committing heinous acts across of destruction and death amongst the galaxy, but desperately escapes on a small shuttle pod aimed directly for the planet Earth. The cyborg craves massive amounts of energy to contact others of it’s species for world domination and also needs to feed off of animal flesh to sustain. The local anarchist Dylan and her friend Eddie team up with a alien enthusiast and a provincial cop to thwart human annihilation as the cyborg assimilates the townsfolk into it’s own flesh hungry minions, doing the bidding of constructing a solar system reaching power source to create a space antenna. The world’s hope relies on a pair of anarchy subversives to stop a monstrous sheborg who believes chaos will provide for planetary obliteration.
Its Bloggin’ Evil has been around the bush a few times with director Daniel Armstrong, a name known very well here by previously reviewing two of the filmmakers films under his Strongman Pictures label, the 2015 wrestling-sploitation “Fight Like A Girl” and the slasher on blades “MurderDrome” from 2013, and there has been much appreciation for the ballistic, ass-kickin’ carnage and indie horror mayhem Armstrong is so strongly passionate about in his films. The 2016 “SheBorg” is no different as the film revels in many of the same feral totalities. The Australian writer-director favors the 80s-90s science fiction and horror cultural elements for not only his earlier works but also for “SheBorg,” cherry-picked specifically for the mechanical madness. From “Star Trek,” to “Ghostbusters,” and to “Back to the Future,” “SheBorg” affectionately homages these films through the dialogue in an explicitly melee narrative that oozes with crazy, feasts on the flesh, and gorges on heartily on dismembering and assimilating all in a path to geek fandom.
Dylan lives to subvert the establishment, even if that means derailing her politically obsessed, sorry for excuse father, Mayor Jack Whiteman, and the self-indulged agitator is played by Whitney Duff alongside “MurderDrome’s” Daisy Masterman as Dylan’s best Kung Fu knowing mate Eddie. Duff and Masterman are a solid budding duo who can expel eccentricity and calmness as a single, combative unit against an seemingly unstoppable mechanism of man killing, the Sheborg. The mechanical alien is mechanically performed by another “MurderDrome” casted and “Fight Like A Girl” actress Emma-Louise Wilson. Wilon’s robotic coldness sounds actually very Russian in performance, as if the Eastern Europeans were gearing up for war with killer, flesh eating cyborgs, but Wilson’s contrast to the uncouth Duff and Masterman tagteam is comedic bliss that symbolisms freedom over tyrannical subjection. Sean McIntyre, Mark Entwistle, Louise Monnington, Jasy Holt, and Tommy Hellfire fill in the rest of the “SheBorg” cast.
Labeled as a Neo-Pulp sci-fi, horror film, “SheBorg” encapsulates the essence of a schlocky B-horror, charmed with two-bit practical and visual effects. Yellow alien blood sprays and cascades like neon Kool-Aid, the assimilated have oversized and gaudy optical lens over one eye, and there’s also some eye popping, heart ripping, and dog eating gore to appease every facet of a modern sci-fi horror. Once titled “SheBorg Prison Massacre” and then retitled to “Sheborg Puppy Farm Massacre,” Armstrong drops the ancillaries and simply presents his Daisy Duke-cladded killing machine film as “Sheborg” that continues a trend, whether intentional and ill-conceived from selective viewings on my part, of having a heroine in the lead role, such as “Fight Like a Girl” and “MurderDrome” with the latter involving an all-woman roller derby gang. Armstrong’s seemingly trademarking his films with rebellious women, whom are at odds with the world around them, and are coming out on top hauling away being more of a kick-ass warrior than before the a nemesis made the scene.
“SheBorg” is now available on Blu-ray courtesy of WildEye Releasing and MVDVisual. The 1080p resolution in a widescreen 1.85:1 presentation release has an underwhelming image quality. Details flutter sporadically in the woodsy locale in and around the puppy farm and night scenes have coagulated blotches of the unsharp nature. A few sequences turn out brilliantly poetic like when SheBorg frightfully exits through a mist-cloaked, open aired windshield of one of her three junkers turned into a makeshift solar system communicator. The 5.1 Stereo works for the budget, but while the punk rock score by KidCrusher befitted the anarchist lead, syncing with the rest of the film was far from being symbiotic. Dialogue was clear enough and ambience was fine, even if it was slightly over-exaggerated. Bonus features include a medium-length Behind the Scenes documentary that has engrained interviews with director Daniel Armstrong and selective cast; the BTS-feature is more tell all of Armstrong’s visionary mechanics and where he pulls inspiration from. There are also music videos and trailers. Resistance is futile as “SheBorg” is a must-see cybernetics battle royal in the realm of Ozploitation.
Tag Archives: Daniel Armstrong
Put Evil Into Submission! “From Parts Unknown” review!
Charlie, the daughter of a famed pro-wrestler named Daddy Bison, witnesses the tragic and accidental decapitation death of her masked father while in the ring. Years later, Charlie labors for a video game corporation with underhanded values, but she still feels the call to wrestling, secretly competing and honoring her father’s memory in moonlight matches despite her lover’s wishes. When her corrupt employer illegal obtains Nano byte technology to engineer into their latest wrestling video game entitled ‘From Parts Unknown’ in order to financially steal from gamers, Charlie accidently becomes more involved than just being an innocent bystander. A side effect to the Nano bytes turns people into a horde of flesh hungry monsters on the cusp of being let loose and only Charlie can pile drive a stop to the infected corporate white-collar workers and vicious female wrestlers from embarking on a worldwide takeover.
It’s Bloggin’ Evil is familiar with director Daniel Armstrong’s work, reviewing the Australian born director’s 2013 roller derby slasher “MurderDrome” on the Camp Motion Picture’s home entertainment label. Armstrong’s latest horror installment, 2015 released “From Parts Unknown: Fight Like a Girl,” blends a healthy dose of wrestling into the terror folds. However, this body slamming, drop kicking horror film was produced and completed by 2009, years before “MurderDrome” hit the market, and was shelved in a period of postponement because of post-production reasons, but the Strongman Pictures team bouts with more than half a decade of delays to eventually release “From Parts Unknown: Fight Like a Girl,” a complete horror-comedy battle royal!
With a DIY façade, a talented actor pool dedicates themselves to undertake the high flying, death defying professional wrestling moves of PCW, Professional Championship Wrestling, in Australia and, I must confess, the actors looked legit. There’s an indescribable amount of pleasure and respect that goes into actors braving the chance of injury and accomplishing their own stunt work. Kudos to lead actress Jenna Dwyer for her stunt work to which in an example of her character, Charlie, is air-flung across the square ring and into a metal cage and she falls behind the ropes, landing hard on the mat below. The stunt looked fantastic. To coincide with the physical performances, Armstrong’s script uses slapstick comedy that’s heavy on the satirical undertones. Ross Ditcham’s a good character to spotlight as his role of Frank is the story’s buffoon, branded as being the best friend who doesn’t get the heroine girl of his dreams while running wildly whenever danger, or a brazen female supervisor, is hanging on his coattails.
The combination of performance and wit does hunker slightly from being overshadowed by the wonky cinematography. Every applied color of the rainbow saturates various scenes to, perhaps, wash away the dull gray and white tones of the minimalistic warehouse location or to attempt to upscale production value, but the extreme use of this method conflicts with sharp image details, leaving an opaque and blotchy picture. There’s also some odd framing from either the production or postproduction distribution that’s disrupts the clarity of the actions in the scenes. On the plus side, a solid, passable effort was put forth for the gory special effects, especially when Josh Futcher’s Misha violently implodes the head in of one of the henchwomen with a fire extinguisher, splattering upward a healthy amount of blood while Misha quoting, many times, Ash from “Army of the Darkness.” Tack on superimposed electric current superpowers, a tactical high-powered Uzi, and a little person donning a luchador mask and tights and “From Parts Unknown” tickles all the right parts of your delinquent, shameless senses.
Story wise, a loose introduction semi-torpedoes the backend of Charlie’s growth and embattlements, albeit the killer effects and various degrees of solid acting. The convoluted scenes of stealing the Nano bytes and sprinkled in segments of the Bison Daddy’s fate attempt to set up two simultaneous merging narratives that end up not meshing well or delivering the intended message. After the progression surpasses the Nano Byte mishap, the story starts to take shape, forming more coherently and appropriately to pit our lovely Charlie against an apocalyptic foe, setting up define characters, and setting the stage for an all out slobber-knocker! When Charlie and her mortal allies have the odds against them when rivaled against superhuman opponents, a clear indication that’s just more than good versus evil. Under the surface, Charlie is faced with life adversaries: her unethical boss, an advantage taking supervisor, and other female wrestlers. All of which become flesh eating maniacs and want to rip Charlie apart.
“From Parts Unknown: Fight Like a Girl” has pinned a DVD distributor with the indie label Camp Motion Pictures. The not rated DVD contains a short film “Post-Apocalyptic Chic,” “Fight Like A Girl” music video, Haunted by Humans Music Video, Demented music video, and a trailer vault. Like previously mentioned, the posterized video quality is noticeable within the confines of darker color hues and, especially, in the blacks. The LCPM 2.0 mix audio quality goes in and out with rocky levels of dialogue and ambiance. Graced with an ozploitation with great collaged cover art, Daniel Armstrong’s “From Parts Unknown” and Camp Motion Pictures are a wrestling match made in a hell in a cell! The best wrestling horror film since Mexico’s El Santo films!
“From Parts Unknown” on Amazon.com!
Evil Rollerblades Over Your Neck! “Murderdrome” review!
Cherry Skye and her all girl roller derby team, The Alamos, find themselves gravely threatened by a summoned vengeful demon named Mamma Skate, the best and brutalist skater from the MurderDrome rink 20 years ago who was viciously murdered ritualistically by a Satanic-obsessed rival. Called back from Hell by a mystical charm necklace once in her possession, Mamma Skate rollerblades through the night, cleaving her way through the roughest of roller derby girls, and seeking to possess the soul of charm’s current owner, Cherry Skye, so she may live once again!
In 2013, Australian director Daniel Armstrong had a vision. A vision that includes skimpy-cladded, brazenly jagged roller derby girls, a resurrected she-demon wielding a butcher’s cleaver, and a helluva lot of rock-n-roll! A joint effort between Strongman Pictures and a slow drip of miscellaneous funding constructs that very exact vision, originally not conceived to have been a feature length film. Writing along side Trent Schwarz and Louise Monnington, who also had a co-starring role, Armstrong’s rockabilly ozploitation is a blood diamond in the Australian under bush with kangaroo pouches full of ocker comedy and skater mayhem. However, Armstrong’s terrorizing roller-demon imagery sat on the edge of being nonexistent and his film suffers the associated consequences of financial hardships and production problems. “MurderDrome” has a vibe more akin to a music video with interjections of storyline in between various psychobilly laid tracks that’s perhaps a pure result of the film’s financial inability to fill the void, but the style’s unique outline contends strongly in independent or abstract cinema outlets. Aside from the atypical structure, “MurderDrome,” granted, has some sloppy and choppy editing that disrupt not only the opening credits, but also waters down a death scene or two and affects character motivations.
Australian accents are thick coming from an indigenous talent of actors led by Amber Sajben, a downright heaven-sent leading lady starring as Cherry Skye. With her cutesy pig tails, high-knee fish stockings, and an acute fascination with always popping bits of food in her mouth, her contrast with the dialogue-stricken antagonist and steel, chain, and blade attired roller-demon badass Momma Skate, portrayed by Be-On The-Rocks (Yes, you read that right), redefines the old phrase a game of cat-and-mouse that doesn’t quite fit the overall artistic style. When a group of rough and tough roller derby girls who elbow check others for the fun of the sport, some fight should commence without being said; instead, the characters who proudly carry the names Cherry Skye, Psych, Thrusty, Trans Em, Princess Bitchface, and Hell Grazer option to scurry without giving a second thought to bucking up to a sole skating murderess. Armstrong subsides more toward a comedy route peppered with a resilience attitude toward the situation with co-writer Louise Monnington leading the charge in her character’s crude humor, especially having Pysch, her character, note descriptively what exactly is ‘duck butter.’ Urban Dictionary has you covered if you care to look up the term. The cast rounds out with Kat Anderson, Rachael Blackwood, Jake Brown, Anthony Cincotta, Gerry Mahoney, Max Marchione, Daisy Mastermann, Dayna Seville, and Laura Soall.
Plot integrity is flimsy at best striking influentially at the development of certain characters, most importantly with villain Momma Skate. Her conjuring doesn’t go through the comprehensive ringer as the demoness just appears without establishing a connection with the charm necklace bringing her demonic lankiness above ground. Max Marchione’s The Janitor bares some importance that whizzes like air out of a rapidly deflating balloon as we learn less-by-less about this character throughout the duration of the film. The Janitor’s key mentoring role wavers, resulting in just one more confusion aspect into the blend. Remaining character developments are fairly cut and dry sans forgetting their eclectic attire, electrifying neon makeup, radical hairstyles, and overall lifestyles, but expansions upon the roles could have been more favorable for the Aussie production.
Camp Motion Pictures and Alternative Cinema skate the “MurderDrome” DVD right onto the North American market rink, providing the film’s first region one release. Extras are abundant with music videos from The Dark Shadows and other bands, a gag-reel, and a behind-the-scenes special effects featurette. The 72-minute feature is presented in a widescreen 16×9 aspect ratio that’s a bit hazy at times on the grayscale, but adds charm to the bargain bin brimstone fire and smoke computerized effects that truly defines Armstrong’s slasher as a campy ozploitation with Italian Giallo undertones and a supernatural core. “MurderDrome” rocks, literally, with great pyschobilly tracks from The Jacks, The Sin & Tonics, and The Dark Shadows to name a few of the head banging headliners on the soundtrack in the confines of a cavity heavy plot for a film more suitable as a music video than a feature flick. In the end, “MurderDrome” provides an endearing look upon horror even with all the obvious flaws, but renders some nice moments of searing barbarity overshadowing, just slightly, some of the misfires. Lastly, if you like girls in skates, who never take them off at any point, then “MurderDrome” is right for you!
Buy “MurderDrome” on DVD at Amazon!
It's Bloggin Evil! 