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Don’t Leave Evil On Hold! “Serial Kaller” review
Phone sex models broadcast their televised provocatively dressed bodies over the British airways while chatting with lonely customers. During their biggest broadcasting night, all the girls and crew become purposefully trapped in the sleazy studio, making the phone sex business a dead line. Disappearing one-by-one, each model falls viciously victim to a murderous psychopath who could by one of their most disturbed and perverted fans. With the power out and the studio on shambles, the survivors attempt to escape dead air by any means possible, even if that means coming face-to-face with their stalker.
The cast full of busty beautiful women enthralled to a murderer’s maniacal impulses sounds to be a bit of good horror movie fun untamed by the restrictive harnesses of big studio conventions. Director Dan Brownlie and his producing company Brand B Corporation develops “Serial Kaller” to be the limited budget archetype of the slasher films with an inkling into the very real world of broadcasting UK’s phone sex girls or better known as simply “babe shows.” Co-writer and star of “Serial Kaller” Dani Thompson once worked in the business, and appropriately proportionately so, that sparked the idea in her for a killer loose in the bare bones, deathtrap studio of a babe show. The diminutive budget project attached some B movie talent such as Suzi Lorraine and the iconic Debbie Rochon while rounding out the cast with top heavy talent in Jess Implazzi, Aisleyne Horgan-Wallace, Suzy Deakin, and Zoe Morrell.
With all the dazzling, easy-on-the-eyes women in the cast and a sweetly promised premise coinciding, “Serial Kaller” squirms itself onto the independent slasher scene with barely a thrill to offer and a death to deem applaudable. “Serial Kaller” stands out as much as pig in the middle of a stable of horses with mediocre kills, colorless dialogue, and disjointed concept that resembles more like an unfinished thought than a complete work. Brownlie’s and Thompson’s film subtly whispers similarities to, or homages to, that of the England’s 19th century prostitute murderer Jack the Ripper, with the start of an undefinable and causeless figure stalking sinfully innocent sex workers that happen to be, coincidentally, English. Yet, somehow that hint of respect becomes lost in translation; with a title like “Serial Kaller,” one might be under the impression that phones with have a significant role in the story, such as in Bob Clark’s “Black Christmas.” In reality, the phones are just, well, phones, while the story takes a rogue route that’s far from the intentions of the title, losing the motivations and the inspirations of a modern day Jack the Killer.
The co
rrelation between the model’s baleful setup and the murderer circling nearby doesn’t jive to build successful suspense and when the moment finally comes to fruition where a model is about to bite the inevitable dust, there’s no jolt of anxiety toward the situation. The kill effects, consisting of minuscule budget practical and CGI effects, fail to heighten the murderous affairs. Probably the best kill scene in “Serial Kaller” is the electrocution through one of the babe show tech’s genitals, zapping up into the girl that’s unenthusiastically grinding his crotch with her clothes on and exploding out her eye balls. Zany death, but still kind of cool, right?
My good friends at Wild Eye Releasing brought “Serial Kaller” onto DVD, presenting the feature in a director driven retrofitted 4:3 full screen aspect ratio to give homage to once praised VHS nasties. Despite the slight lean toward a grindhouse appeal in the aspect ratio, the picture quality is clean, naturally toned, and detailed. The audio goes without hiss and is well balanced. Extra content includes director’s commentary, behind the scenes featurette, and trailers. The overall, “Serial Kaller” is the epitome of big concept packaged small and can’t quite muster a snowball effect to wrangle in the much needed thrill rush to go along with the scantily-cladded women, but Brownlie’s film redeems a little with Debbie Rochon phenomenal joker-esque performance that, unfortunately, has very little screen time.
Evil All Dolled Up! “Dollface” review!
A pair of procrastinating college students decide to make an aged old legend of a local serial killer named Dorchester Stewart, aka Crinoline Head, into their final research project, knowing that their teacher, Professor Paul Donner, was traumatically to close to being one of Crinoline Head’s fatal victims. With other invited and uninvited students tagging along, the trip to the isolated Stewart lake house grounds turns into a booze and sex filled getaway for most with an irritable and lustful female grounds keeper maintaining an ever close eye on them. As those interested in the legend of the doll obsessed Crinoline Head become closer to whether the infamous murderer still exists, students are disappearing one by one solidifying Crinoline Head’s homicidal come back.
“Dollface” is the latest all-American slasher parody film from director Tommy Faircloth and is the long awaited sequel to Faircloth’s “Crinoline Head” in 1995. Now, I’ve never experienced the first “Crinoline Head” film myself and reviewing the sequel might be challenging to undertake. Any time when solely working with sequels, portions of the sequels go unexplained because they assume that audiences are all caught up on the original premise. Tommy Faircloth really tries to put an effort into catching viewers up on the 20-year-old story with a classroom monologue told by the first film’s surviving character Paul, who is now a college professor. A backstory introduction also recounts the reason on how young Dorchester Stewart becomes the monstrous murderer with the untimely death of his doll-making and over protecting mother, but the exposition becomes boggling and doesn’t necessarily feel like enough to warrant Stewart’s homicidal tendencies.
For a campy horror-comedy slasher flick, “Dollface” comes off slightly conservative with the death scenes, leaving much to the imagination with quick scene cuts and off screen kills. Practical effects are left in the dust while the use of blood splatter becomes a hot commodity and I’m not positive how much special effects and makeup supervisor Michael R. Smith was involved except for a obvious dummy head in a crab trap, a knife planted in someone’s chest, and a cocaine snorter stuck up a strangled one’s nostril. Crinoline Head, portrayed by former pro-wrestling body guard John Kap, appears minacious enough being a giant lumbering individual in a jumper suit while sporting the half broken porcelain doll mask and Faircloth’s kill scenes seemed interesting enough in concept, but why they’re not fully developed and executed to revel in shock value is beyond comprehension.
The horror-comedy does live up to being extremely campy and stars the one and only legendary B-horror movie scream queen Debbie Rochon to headline as the raunchy and bored grounds keeper held up in an old RV, propositioning the young male students. “Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies” star Jason Vail portrays Prof. Paul Donner and with alongside Debbie Rochon, the veteran actors are sprinkled into the story to offset their rather fresh faced co-stars. However, raw talent lies within the silver lining with lead male Christian James who brought strength aspects and an even keeled mentality to the lead character David and also with Jim, David’s friend played by the naturally funny man Gunner Wills, was another character that was a joy when on screen. Despite some solid performances, the cast comes and goes to make body count and are not able to expand and develop on their characters, leaving a teetering feeling about whether the character should be liked or disliked when finally receiving the ultimate axe.
Breaking Glass Pictures and Vicious Circle Films brings “Dollface” to DVD home video in a brilliant widescreen format, providing a clean picture with only a hint of aliasing during more action scenes and one off-colored scene that went completely into a blue tone as if to convey the twilight hour, but the next scene was bright daylight again. The audio is way unbalanced with the metal genre soundtrack goes overbearing the dialogue; LFE oppresses much of the other audio tracks, causing the dialogue to be nearly inaudible and moot to the story. “Dollface” has the basic slasher attitude and gets the slack and hack job bluntly done, but it’s not pretty nor perfect when considering prior slasher parodies. Once I experience Tommy Faircloth’s first film “Crinoline Head” and get the full effect of the fictional serial killer, maybe then this sequel of the doll-faced killer will bare more inauspicious teeth. If anything, Debbie Rochon screaming, “Can you pop a fucking squat!?!?” is well worth the viewing.
Evil Wears a Clown Mask! “Blood Slaughter Massacre” review!
The sleepy town of Havenwood becomes rocked by the mass murder of some of the town’s most prominent residents attending a joyous celebration. When two local cops, James Fincher and Walter Cobb, first arrive to investigate the horrendous massacre scene, Fincher comes face-to-face with the maniacal killer known by the moniker of The Ripper and barely survives the night. Ten years later, a string of new murders fall upon young high school girls of Havenwood and Detective Fincher starts to piece together that The Ripper might back. To unravel why The Ripper’s ten year hiatus, Fincher must look into his and Havenwood’s past in order to find the answer and stop The Ripper from killing.
“Blood Slaughter Massacre” is a nostalgia driven slasher film with a convoluted and murky plot, but the Manny Serrano directed film manages to rejuvenate the 80’s unstoppable killing machine character in The Ripper. Heavily inspired by the John Carpenter “Halloween” franchise when considering the gloomy atmosphere of the town and Michael Myers-esque antagonist, “Blood Slaughter Massacre” originality is certainly unoriginal, yet there’s something to be said about enjoying someone’s, like Serrano’s, tribute or admiration work that sparks a bit of excitement and allows entertainment to be let in to the soul, especially in the third act when The Ripper’s homicidal chaos ensues and he lays waste to teenagers left and right. Also, the title lacks creativity and doesn’t help build a case of separating itself from the pack. Maybe, a simple title such as “The Ripper” would have honed into that old saying “less is more.”
However, the blood and gore effects have sheer bite. The impressive effects for the budget give The Ripper character that desired aggressive murderer persona, warning all to stay the hell out of his way. Blood flies and flesh shreds created by buckets of bloods and well edited scenes. To showcase such effects you need a pile of bodies and “Blood Slaughter Massacre” piles high the corpses. With great kills, you need a great killer and the film’s “Shish-Kabober,” The Ripper, is a memorable slasher which can only be described as a giant fellow with an old man clown mask that displays no emotion in the hollow eyes, show’s no mercy when hovering above an easy kill, and owns a supernatural ability to be at the right place at the right time, ready to stick his blade right in the heart of his prey.
The rest of the characters didn’t stand out above The Ripper and emitted low caliber dialogue and persona all around. The acting becomes terribly melodramatic within serious and tense-filled toned scenes. Matt Cody as Fincher tried to embody a Donald Pleasence Dr. Loomis character, but Cody came off a bit to desperate in comparison and Fincher’s isn’t a strong male character able to pull off cutting down the brutal legacy that is so natural to The Ripper. The female characters with exploitive nudity, even if only for a few minutes, had more practicability because, while over stating the obvious, “Blood Slaughter Massacre” is a horror slasher movie making nudity a natural being or even a minor, disposable character. Also, many of the characters show up just to be filler for The Ripper to rip apart. Not a terrible thing, but it’s difficult to care about certain characters without being able to develop into a character we care about and in the end, all underdeveloped fillers must be six feet under ground in five or more pieces.
Technically, Serrano’s films suffers major obstacles. Scenes annoying go overboard on the grayscale with a heavy gray tint switching back-and-forth from scene to scene taking away the little coloring the film had and creating a haze blanket of the mise-en-scene as if in a dream. Continuously going in and out of focus and slight blotchy posterizing are also problematic during darker. Dark scenes and day scenes also suffer from heavy digital interference. The unbalanced audio in the 2.0 stereo mix doesn’t channel the dialogue very well, making it secondary to more inaudible parts of the film. What I can positively comment on about the DVD is the detailed cover art of The Ripper. The retro 1980s or early 1990’s feel of Wild Eye Releasing’s DVD release cover shows great promise for a film that flounders during the first two acts.
Craving an Evil Appetite! “Frankenstein’s Hungry Dead” review!
A group of mischievous and detention bound high-schoolers are handed two choices: either spend the day in a classroom after school or take an educational trip to a wax museum in Salem. Instead of spending the entire day in a classroom, a trip to a wax museum seemed to be the lesser of two evils. Little do the hooligans know that the museum’s curator Charles Frank is the relative of the infamous Dr. Victor Frankenstein and Charles Frank, a pseudo name for Frankenstein, has continued the ghoulish work his elder kin started long ago. Trapped inside Frankenstein’s wax museum of horrors, the high-schoolers are pitted against Frankenstein’s flesh eating creations with no way out. What was suppose to be a fun and devious night of intercourse and dancing turns into a bloody-blood bath of unspeakable horror.
This isn’t my first rodeo with director Richard Griffin’s work. The last It’s Bloggin’ Evil Griffin review, “Sins of Dracula,” didn’t strike the right key notes and became only a shell of a honoring horror film. “Frankenstein’s Hungry Dead,” also known as Dr. Frankenstein’s Wax Museum of the Hungry Dead,” was made a year earlier than “Sins of Dracula” and reminds me more of a true Griffin film. At first, I was afraid “Frankenstein’s Hungry Dead” would dull the mood as rebellious youth have yet again landed themselves into a death trap and this scenario just seems to be regurgitated over and over again in horror cinema. Eventually, and to my surprise, Griffin digs and builds out of that redundant hole and still manages to display his ever long homage to horror and horror icons comically. The thing about Griffin is is that he relies on mashing many genres together. For example, “Frankenstein’s Hungry Dead” is a mesh of Frankenstein, the Romero zombie genre, and a little bit of naziploitation to give the film some flavor. Second and third act strengthen the film’s roots and the comedy really pops during these acts making the film comical and gross at the same time.
“Oh my God! It’s Hitler!”
Another conventional Griffin film schtick is the long-winded dialogue. I tend to get breathless just listening to the dump truck loads of exposition that seamlessly spew out of the actors’ mouths. The dialogue to death ratio just doesn’t add up and this film does get a bit talkative with a script that doesn’t quite measure up to Shakespearian work. The dialogue tends to be juvenile and obvious in a sense that every scene is laid out by description. Unless you’re Michael Thurber playing Dr. Frankenstein, there lies no reason behind other characters to have more scripted lines than there are end credits.
Speaking of Michael Thurber, Thurber has cemented himself as part of Griffin’s entourage a long with others who are also casted in this film: Johnny Sederquist, Jesse Dufault, and Jamie Lyn Bagley. However, Thurber’s versatility seems quite amazing. My first experience with Thurber was as a hard nose cop hellbent on vengeance in “Murder University” and I think he’s the best part of Griffin’s films. Thurber’s portrayal of Charles Frank combines a “Young Frankenstein’s” Inspector Kemp with a long lost, and black sheep, cousin of Hammer Horror legend Peter Cushion. Johnny Sederquiest and Jesse Default are starting to grow on me more and more with their acting styles. Their outrageous over acting is childish but hypnotically effective in humor. Bagley has been the more serious actor of the bunch, staying away from the horribly cliched parts and sticking with simple, easy to miss characters such as her breakout role as nerd girl heroine Katherine.
Overall, “Frankenstein’s Hungry Dead” is less about Frankenstein’s creature and more about the creation of flesh eating zombies and reaping hell upon meddling teenagers. Certainly a different take on the mad scientist genre and the Frankenstein legacy, but Griffin does mix things up for not necessarily the worst and I’m sure Mary Shelley would agree, if not really mind at all. The MVD and Wild Eye DVD release distributes a fairly standard unrated package that doesn’t disappoint and would be a winner in anybody’s B-movie collection.
It's Bloggin Evil! 