Alien Terror (1980) - review

Alien Terror

1980

Starring: Belinda Mayne, Marc Bodin, ‘Michael Shaw’ (Michele Soavi)

Cave explorer Thelma (Mayne) has been invited to appear on a TV talk show to discuss her experiences. At the same time, a space shuttle is due to return to Earth. Thelma is asked about the most recent cave she and her friends have visited, but as she begins to speak, she receives a telepathic warning to stop her from revealing the location of the cave. The space shuttle lands in the ocean, but there is no trace of the astronauts who should have been on board. Thelma meets up with her friends (who, in a laughable attempt to appeal to the American market, have names such as ‘Jill’, ‘Cliff’ ‘Bert’ and ‘Roy’, are hanging out at the local bowling alley, drinking sodas and prone to using such sayings as “far out!”), who are planning to return to the cave which Thelma was prevented from discussing. On a beach nearby, a little girl wanders away from her babysitter and finds a weird blue pulsating rock. She picks it up and soon after, the babysitter finds her with a bloody, mutilated face. En route to the cave, the explorers find a similar blue stone, and decide to take it with them.

They arrive at their destination, an immense network of tunnels, and split into small groups. The stone, which Thelma has been carrying in her backpack begin pulsating; it explodes and a red gooey thing flies onto Jill’s face. She falls into a pit and one of the guys goes to help her. When he is doing so, the ‘thing’ breaks out from under Jill’s face (a great gooey effect) and attaches itself to the guy’s neck, gorily decapitating him. The film then goes into body count mode as the others try to escape; the splattery highlights including Bert’s face being eaten off and Cliff’s entire body exploding. Thelma and Roy manage to find the exit and they head back into town, however it is entirely deserted. In the film’s one genuinely eerie scene, they return to the empty bowling alley to find the equipment operating by itself. Roy disappears and Thelma soon encounters the mother alien – rendered by a shot of the creature’s gaping mouth). Thelma, the town’s only survivor, runs out onto the street, and the film ends with the el cheapo caption ‘You may be next!’

This unashamed Alien rip-off (released as Alien 2 in some territories – this is actually the title that appeared at the beginning of the Australian VHS release!) is as corny and cliched as hell but it’s also a lot of fun. The gore effects are surprisingly good, and the caves, though not visually outstanding, are quite effective, full of stalagmites and stalactites. The film has a generally more upbeat atmosphere than most Italian horror films, with its use of bright sunshine, dumb humor and pleasant Guido and Maurizio De Angelis (under the pseudo ‘Oliver Onions’) title track. On the downside, Ippolito wastes far too much time on unimportant shots, padding out the movie’s running time with endless scenes of people driving around in cars. Ippolito’s direction is routine, with his main intention (in the Italian tradition) to cash in on the latest Hollywood blockbuster quickly and cheaply. Switch your brain off and enjoy!   

The Jekyll and Hyde Portfolio (1971) - review

The Jekyll and Hyde Portfolio

1971

Director: Eric Jeffrey Haims

Starring: Sebastian Brook, Mady Maguire, Rene Bond

The pre-cert Intervision VHS release of THE JEKYLL AND HYDE PORTFOLIO is well-known amongst collectors to be one of the rarest Australian tapes around and even back in the golden age of video this was never an easy title to find, due to an extremely limited release. A near-mint copy showed up on Ebay a couple of years ago, pocketing a cool $2000 for its lucky owner. Unfortunately that, and the fact that it’s evidence of the dumping ground Australia was in the early 80s for obscure trash rarities, is the most interesting thing about this exercise in tedium. In the 19^th century, a professor, under the influence of ever-changing multiple personalities and the zodiac sign he was born under, goes on a murderous rampage. Filled with headache-inducing Milliganesque bad camerawork, bad editing, bad lighting, bad acting, bad plot, bad effects, bad sex scenes. And no, none of this is in the 'so bad it's good category'. Somehow I don’t see a Blu-Ray or DVD release in the near or distant future, thank Christ...

Blood Bath (1976) - review

Blood Bath

1976

Director: Joel M.Reed

Starring: Harve Pressnell, Jack Somack, Curt Dawson

Acclaimed horror producer and actor Peter Brown is holding a dinner party in his “New York horror film studio” for the cast of his latest movie. The table conversation revolves around superstition, the occult and Satanism, and each guest tells a “true” story of how someone they know has come to a bad end, with no other explanation apart from  supernatural forces. The first is about a hitman getting a taste of his own medicine via a series of uncanny coincidences; the second a meek husband escaping his domineering wife via a magical talisman which transports him back in time into one of Napoleon’s wars; the third a money-hungry loan shark being trapped in a safe with the vengeful ghost of a man he’d ruthlessly stood over for money years before; and the forth a hedonistic kung-fu student who betrays the masters he studied under by selling secret martial arts techniques he learned there for cash. However the student pays the ultimate price when the masters seek revenge.  And finally Peter has his own tale involving a pact with Satan’s daughter and a murderous Devil’s spawn but that won’t be told until after his guests have left...

Before directing the notorious BLOODSUCKING FREAKS, Joel M.Reed helmed this comparatively tame horror anthology (mild enough for the MPAA to rate it a PG). The segments move along at a decent pace and the amateur cast doesn’t take itself too seriously, which allows for a few funny and engaging moments. However, the postage stamp-sized budget stifles any further potential BLOOD BATH could have had. Much of the movie seems to have been filmed in dank, dark, cluttered New York basements, the effects consist of stock footage and mannequin limbs, and the music score sounds like it was cobbled together on a toy keyboard. A fitfully entertaining curio, BLOOD BATH is definitely not the worst no-budget film I’ve seen, but certainly not the best.

My Reviews column at Cinefear Video

Recently I've began reviewing product for Keith Crocker's Cinefear Video (a legendary mail-order outfit mentioned in an earlier blog post). All my reviews can be found at the Cinefear Blog - my column is also called 'Chelle's Inferno', as a 'companion' to this blog. So far there's write-ups for GUYANA: CULT OF THE DAMNED, GIALLO IN VENICE, SHADOW OF ILLUSION, ABBY and SEXORCISMS and coming soon detailed reviews on Crocker's own memorable contributions to horror/exploitation - THE BLOODY APE and BLITZKREIG: ESCAPE FROM STALAG 69. And while you're there do yourself a favour and check out my fellow reviewer, author Allen Kupfer's column 'Cupfuls of Kupfer', who enlightens us on everything from CARNIVAL OF BLOOD to BLACK EMANUELLE, WHITE EMANUELLE.

http://cinefear.blogspot.com.au/p/chelles-inferno.html

The Crisanti Connection

The late 1970’s-early 1980’s was a golden era in Italian horror cinema as directors such as Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci and Ruggero Deodato were setting box offices on fire with the most famous/infamous movies of their careers. At the same time, producer Gabriele Crisanti, noting the success of his fellow countryman, sensed an opportunity and jumped on the bandwagon.  Along with a small stable of regular collaborators, Crisanti quickly churned out almost a dozen low-grade potboilers which gave the target audience exactly what they wanted – blood, boobs and bush in spades. His works from the period – MALABIMBA, GIALLO IN VENICE, PATRICK STILL LIVES, BURIAL GROUND and SATAN’S BABY DOLL – all share a number of common factors. Plots take a back seat in favour of cheaply executed but bloody and graphic jack-in-the-box gore scenes, gratuitous sex and nudity  (often juxtaposed with sexually violent deaths), and an all-round grimy, sleazy atmosphere. The characters are often unlikable bickering oddballs who are hacked up off one by one – set to occasionally recycled locations and music. Crisanti’s productions are also notorious for going where even seasoned genre practitioners wouldn’t go – incest, female masturbation and genital violence are all filmed in lingering close-ups.  Now for a closer look at Crisanti and his key collaborators Mario Landi and Mariangela Giordano.

Gabriele Crisanti began his career as a production designer before turning to producing in the late 1960’s. Always astute of the marketability of his product, Crisanti rapidly turned out film after film of whatever what was in vogue with audiences at the time, hoping to Xerox the profit of the trend’s pioneer titles.  Beginning the 1970’s with decameroticons, he then veered to erotic comedies in the mid 70’s, before winding up the decade by venturing into the horror market.

Crisanti’s first production in this field was an exorcism/nunsploitation cash-in, MALABIMBA (1979), the sordid tale of an innocent young girl becoming possessed by evil spirits after a séance gone wrong and embarking on a sex-fuelled rampage, with her father, uncle and the family nun amongst her depraved targets. Crisanti’s girlfriend at the time, Mariangela Giordano, played the role of the nun, and subsequently went on to act in all of Crisanti’s horror projects.

An elegant looking but uninhibited actress with classic Mediterranean features, Mariangela Giordano participated in some of the most unforgettably shocking scenes in Eurohorror history throughout her filmography with Crisanti (a poker entering her vagina in close-up and exiting via her mouth in Patrick Still Lives; her nipple being bitten off by her zombified, incestuous son in Burial Ground, to name just a few...) Unlike other Italian exploitation starlets, Giordano was a capable actress, often injecting a wide range of expressions and emotions into one-dimensional characters initially solely written in as eye candy and/or cannon fodder. Her obvious dedication to her craft and willingness to appear in such extreme scenes has a simple reason – because of her devotion to Crisanti. “Looking back, I shouldn’t have done them. But I was in love with Gabriele. I would have done anything for him. Now I can see how the increasingly gruesome ways in which he had me killed in them was a reflection of the breakdown of our relationship. PATRICK STILL LIVES is the worst instance of how shocked I was in retrospect by something I’d done on film. That poker scene is so disgusting, so terrible, only Gabriele could have sweet talked me into actually doing it! It took two days to film that scene, and because the poker had to keep thrusting between my legs before it came out the top of my head, it got more and more painful as we kept going. And it was cold and freezing. I don’t know why Gabriele always insisted on making these movies during winter.”

Giordano was also not exempt from a ultra-gruesome demise in Crisanti’s next venture, GIALLO IN VENICE (1979), a grubby, brutal giallo choosing to up the ante on explicit sex and violence rather then the stylish flourishes that usually punctuate the genre. The plot involves the murder of a young couple, a subsequent investigation uncovering the kinky sex-and-drug fuelled lifestyle of the pair, and a killer on a bloody rampage, thus providing the filmmaker to pack in its 91 minutes masturbation, buggery, voyeurism, prostitution, rape, whipping, double rape...and Giordano the victim of the most sadistic killing – having her leg messily sawed off after being tied nude to a kitchen table.

GIALLO IN VENICE was directed by Mario Landi, a former television director who had filmed a number of successful dramas for that medium in the 1960’s. Keen to return to feature filmmaking (he had helmed a couple of low-budget melodramas in the early 1950’s), Landi approached Gabriele Crisanti with treatments of GIALLO and his next effort, PATRICK STILL LIVES (1980). Recognising that the projects had moneymaking potential and could easily be shot in his quick, economical trademark style, Crisanti signed on Landi, who’s functional, workmanlike static direction is all too obviously much more suited to a TV studio; this is painfully obvious in the endless unprepossessing close-up shots of the title character’s zombie-like face (and flaring nostrils) in PATRICK STILL LIVES.   



PATRICK STILL LIVES, an unauthorised ‘sequel’ to the much more sedate genre sleeper PATRICK (1978), bears little resemblance to its predecessor. Aside from the title and the titular character possessing psychic powers, any similarities end there. Using their tried and tested formula, Landi and Crisanti instead chose to push the exploitative angle to the limit and tack the threadbare plot together with bloody creative kills and extraneous nudity. A blink and you’ll miss it pre-credit sequence shows Patrick and his father, Dr.Herschell, waiting for help on a roadside as their car has broken down. A liquor bottle thrown from a passing vehicle hits Patrick in the head, resulting in him being left in a permanently bedridden, comatose state. Three years later, Dr.Herschell, the head of “Herschell Wellness Resort” invites a handful of seemingly random people to stay there as all-expenses paid guests – a politician and his wife, a prostitute and her drug-dealing pimp, and an athlete. It soon transpires that the doctor is hell-bent on getting revenge on whoever was responsible for ruining his son’s life, and he has narrowed down the list of suspects to the group he’s invited to his retreat (not exactly the most sympathetic bunch – they spend much of their time bitching, griping and slapping each other around). In addition, Dr.Herschell has been cultivating Patrick’s psychic abilities to assist with his murderous vengeance. Patrick’s brain has been wired to those of a trio of hardened criminals, and the criminals’ evil ‘energies’ are sent through to Patrick. The doctor commands Patrick use these energies to kill off each guest one by one – everything from boiling water to decapitating car windows to crotch-grawing German Shepards comes into play here. And as mentioned earlier, a highlight/lowlight is the long suffering Mariangela Giordano having a self-levitating poker rammed up a certain orifice – a scene which was not in the original script. Gabiele Crisanti included it after a particularly bad argument with Giordano to teach her a lesson apparently (!!!) However Patrick has something other than murder on his mind when tended to by his father’s stunning assistant Lydia, He wills her to strip, hump a bedpost and masturbate (in a lengthy and graphic sequence). The film concludes abruptly (i.e. Landi and co CBF’ed including a proper ending) with Patrick suffering a crisis of conscience as to his actions as he is in love with Lydia, and after more murder and mayhem, Patrick and Lydia are the sole survivors, presumably to live happily ever after. Yes, PATRICK STILL LIVES is as stupid and ridiculous as it sounds – and the oft-repeated 1950’s standard effect of Patrick’s bulging eyes superimposed on the screen as a “warning” of impending danger and corny theremin ‘sci-fi’- sounding music just add to the ludicrousness, but if you’re in the mood for ultra sleazy, ultra cheesy fun, you can’t go wrong.

Crisanti’s next production is his most well-known – BURIAL GROUND (1981). Quick to catch on the massive success of zombie films at the time such as DAWN OF THE DEAD and ZOMBIE, Crisanti wasted no time in securing another low-budget sleazemeister, Andrea Bianchi.  Via utilising the apocalyptic nihilism of the zombie genre and blending it in with their own misanthropic, perverse filmmaking universe, the pair created a derivative but watchably strange undead saga. Professor Ayres discovers an ancient Etruscan tomb beneath his sprawling villa and in doing so, unleashes a horde of rotten, worm-infested and bloodthirsty zombies who immediately chow down on the professor. Meanwhile, three couples arrive at the villa who have been invited as Professor Ayres’ guests so he could show them the tomb. However they have no idea of his demise and settle in, awaiting his arrival. One of the couples, George and Evelyn (Mariangela Giordano), have brought their son Michael (the legendary Peter Bark) with them. Michael is not only extremely odd in appearance (the character is meant to be about 12 years old but looks like a 40-year old dwarf with a bad toupee) but also in manner – he has a very disturbing Oedipedial fixation towards his mother, spying on her during sex and trying to feel her up all which culminates in...I’ll save this for later. The main characters frolic around the villa, completely oblivious that the living dead are creeping up all around them. Before long though the guests discover the reason for Professor Ayres’ ‘disappearance’ and are having to have to fend off the zombies, who, interestingly enough, have the ability to operate power tools, throw knives, and use battering rams to bash through doors. One by one the guests are zombified, entrails are ripped out and consumed and the body count piles up – until we get to THAT notorious scene which I guarantee will stay burned in your mind forever.  Featuring guess who? You’re right, poor Mariangela Giordano. Evelyn, one of the last survivors, is thrilled to see Michael is still apparently alive. In her delirium she fails to see he is well and truly a zombie, and when she sees him eyeing her breasts she has no qualms about offering him one to suckle “Just like when you were a baby...” But Evelyn’s ecstasy quickly turns to agony when Michael chops down on her tit, ripping the whole thing off (hmm the aftermath of another Crisanti/Giordano row perhaps?) While on paper BURIAL GROUND would sound like a unimaginative pointless, by-the-numbers zombie quickie, Crisanti’s team have worked their dubious ‘magic’ yet again.

The combination of truly rancid-looking, wormy zombies, the incest subplot, and buckets of queasy gore create a unforgettably fetid atmosphere with an effective sense of doom from the beginning, even managing to override the typically atrocious dubbing, sub-porno standard acting (with the exception of Giordano), and – again – the absolute minimum in terms of plot and characterisation).







For his final genre effort SATAN’S BABY DOLL (1982), Crisanti decided to remake his earlier production MALABIMBA, hiring XXX director Mario Bianchi (no relation to Andrea Bianchi) this time around. It’s clearly obvious by this time Cristiani had tired of the horror genre by not even bothering to imitate the latest box-office smash, but instead commissioning a uninspired reboot of a not particularly classic film released only three years previously. Bianchi himself isn’t particularly proud of the film, citing a miniscule budget as the main hindrance: “When Crisanti, the producer, called me I was enthusiastic. I never had done anything like it. But, as I said, the problem was that we were working on a very low budget. In Rome we call them ‘pizza e fichi’. We had very little time to do the shooting. You judge the results for yourself. The budget was so small that it was impossible for Crisanti to lose money on the film.”

In an ancient castle owned by the Aguilar family, young Miria Aguliar, the virginal 16 year old daughter of Antonio, a violent, jealous bully and the late, promiscuous Maria, is possessed by the restless spirit of her recently deceased mother (who’s body is kept in the castle’s crypt). Other residents of the castle are Antonio’s mute, voyeuristic wheelchair-bound brother Ignazio, Sol (Mariangelo Giordano) a comely nun who also acts as Ignazio’s caretaker (and the object of his voyeurism), and Isidoro, a strange manservant who regularly conducts black magic rituals in the basement. Maria’s death was caused by Antonio murdering her in a jealous rage after discovering Maria had been sleeping around with most of the castle’s occupants including Sol (cue pondering lesbian sex scene flashback). Maria also dabbled in Satanism when she was alive, and has the ability to channel her vengeful spirit into her daughter in order to eliminate those who were both directly or indirectly involved in her death. Under her mother’s evil command, Miria goes about seducing and killing all those around her.

Probably the least memorable title in Crisanti’s filmography, SATAN’S BABY DOLL is somewhat dull and plodding, pretty much a uninvolving supernatural soap opera, but it has enough sick/weird touches and decaying, morbid Gothic atmosphere to keep the viewer watching for its brief 73 minute running time. The usual Crisanti trademarks of odd, dysfunctional characters and incest themes still works to some extent. And for those inclined, there’s the usual extraneous female nudity and masturbation scenes. Last but not least is the killer psychedelic rock score by Nico Catanese (surprisingly his sole composing credit).

Though often poorly acted and executed, with style, characterisation and logic conveniently bypassed, the genre films of Gabriele Crisanti and his collaborators never pretend to be anything that they aren’t  - derivative trash – but at least Crisanti and co have gone out of their way to ensure that their output was entertaining derivative trash, with a shock factor that still packs a punch today. Unashamedly outrageous and audacious, utilising a simple formula (‘So THE EXORCIST and DAWN OF THE DEAD had blood and gore in them? Well we can do better that that – we’ll put ten times the amount of blood and gore in. And put in lots of hot naked women too!’), combined with typically Italianesque gothic settings and music, these films have their own unique appeal. Depending on the viewer’s sensibilities they’ll either love or hate the films. Best watched with a six pack, a willingness to forgive massive plot holes and NO politically correct expectations whatsoever!

Human Animals (1983) - review

Human Animals

1983

Director: Eligio Herrero

Starring: Carole Kirkham, Jose Yepes, Geir Indvard, ‘Larry the dog’

A little-known and long-forgotten ultra-low budget softcore sex/’arthouse’/post-apocalyptic oddity, HUMAN ANIMALS somehow received international distribution in the mid 1980’s, including much to my surprise an Australian video release via K-Tel - now a scarce tape owned by very few collectors. In my years of haunting video stores I never once saw a copy of it. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if it was placed in the ‘Adult’ section of those outlets that did stock it (ala ISLAND OF PERVERSION).  A couple of popular genre writers (the late Chas Balun and Joe Bob Briggs) drew attention to the film with very contrasting reviews, Balun giving it a ‘double dog’ rating (I believe the only movie he reviewed apart from DEATH FACES IV to receive this ‘honour’), whilst a more generous Briggs rated it 3 out of 4 stars. Since then HUMAN ANIMALS has almost disappeared without a trace, save the very occasional, usually negative review, popping up on the world wide web. Despite reading the countless bad reviews and warnings about how mind-numbingly dull its meant to be (the film is completely dialogue-free), the premise and also the Australian video trailer always kept me intrigued enough to want to see it, and finally I’ve been able to (big thanks to Nzoog Wahrlfhehen of the Cinemadrome forums).

Two men and a woman, the only survivors left on Earth following a nuclear apocalypse (rendered by use of stock footage) find each other stranded on a remote island. After a long search, the three eventually discover a part of the island where fruit trees and wild animals have somehow miraculously escaped the apocalypse. They also discover a friendly German Shepherd, build shelter and are happy for a little while with their ‘utopian’ existence. The woman becomes the lover of both men but eventually tires of their constant sexual demands. Things sour between the trio and they regress further and further into a state of primal savagery, with the woman accosted by the dog (!!), and the two men embroiled in a grunting ‘survival of the fittest’ battle.       

Admittedly HUMAN ANIMALS didn’t turn out to be the irredeemable disaster I was expecting. Though by no means a classic and with a beyond simplistic story, the overall ‘bizarre’ factor kept me watching to the end, as well as the striking Lanzarote location scenery and landscape photography, and I found the music library culled soundtrack to be oddly effective, veering wildly from classical to synth to overblown wind machine effects. Out of the three thespians, Jose Yepes (a prolific screen and dubbing actor in his native Spain) is the standout, obviously attempting his best in an extremely limited role consisting of grunting, miming, fighting and simulated sex. Worth seeing as a curio to make up your own mind...

VHS nostalgia and discovering Eurohorror in the (former) backwaters of Melbourne

Gamon Video Centre, Charles Street, Seddon, est. 1983. One of the longest surviving independent video stores in Melbourne.

My earliest memories of the video era are from the mid-1980’s, when every week my family would trek into a long-gone store called ‘Top 20 Video’, located on a dismal shopping strip in a semi-industrial area of Braybrook, Melbourne. With my parents having to adhere to a strict budget, videos provided hours of inexpensive entertainment and were still a relatively new phenomenon, so I’d always look forward to those excursions. Even though I was only around 6 or 7, I always gravitated towards the horror section, where the vivid, garish video slicks repelled and fascinated me at the same time. I recall being particularly intrigued by the covers of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (like with many others the title and artwork immediately had me convinced that it must be the most gory, bloody, frightening film ever made), Xtro, the Friday the 13^th and Halloween movies, The Brood, Bloody Birthday, Visiting Hours, Ants, and Black Roses (I vaguely recall Black Roses being featured on one of the typically misinformed current affairs shows at the time as a prime example of ‘video violence’. No doubt increasing rentals to increase for that title tenfold). I also was drawn to the ‘novelty’ covers popular at the time, such as The Video Dead’s limited edition slick featuring a holographic sticker of a zombie head coming out from a TV set and the Fright Night 2 coffin box. And of course there was the notorious ‘Banned in Queensland’ slogan (deliberately slapped on usually forgettable dreck as a marketing ploy to increase rentals), the most memorable example was walking into the store one day and seeing a massive poster for Silent Night Deadly Night, with the killer decked in his murderous Santa garb, wielding an axe, topped by huge font screaming the immortal words ‘BANNED IN QUEENSLAND’.

Highest in the queasy stakes for me was the cover of The Worm Eaters, featuring a grotesque photo of its director/star Herb Robins about to devour a slimy forkful of live worms. I’ve always had a strong stomach, but later at home upon being offered a bag of corn chips and salsa dip, unfortunately the image of Herb devouring his worm supper came back as I began to eat and I could feel my insides doing backflips. Definitely a cover that put me off my food for the rest of the night! Inevitably my family’s choices in viewing would either be horror, comedy or martial-arts movies and I was permitted to watch what was considered the more ‘tame’ horror fare (such as Poltergeist, The Gate, Creepshow 2, Tobe Hooper’s Invaders from Mars and Psycho). However with my older brother, sister and cousins always around, and my parents often preoccupied with work, household chores and family dramas, I was usually present when the older kids were viewing Evil Dead, Amityville 2: The Possession, An American Werewolf in London, Xtro, Alien, The Thing and A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Over the next few years my fascination with horror took a backseat as I became hooked on Amiga and PC computer games, but in 1994 my then best friend got bitten by the horror bug. Her family owned a video store (Gamon Video Centre in Seddon, which is still open today and is one of the few surviving independent video/DVD rental stores in Melbourne), so we had access to all the latest genre releases. Which were pretty woeful at the time (Ghost in the Machine, Brainscan, Man’s Best Friend, Buffy the Vampire Slayer ad nasuem). Horror was pretty much seen as a dirty word in the early-mid 90’s, and so apart from the occasional ‘respectable’ big-budget studio releases (Interview with the Vampire, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Wolf), horror fans seeking new fright flicks generally had to wade through a sea of direct to video flotsam.  The last straw for me was enduring a particularly excruciating pile of said direct-to-video excrement called The Club, the less said about the better.

A glimmer of hope surfaced when one day at the local library, I discovered two books which helped introduced me to a whole new horror world – Kim Newman’s Nightmare Movies and Phil Hardy’s The Aurum Encyclopedia of Horror Movies. These groundbreaking tomes introduced me to European genre aueters such as Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, Jess Franco and Ruggero Deodato, as well as key titles such as Dawn of the Dead and Last House on the Left.  Coincidentally SBS screened a letterboxed, uncut subtitled print of Deep Red at that time, and the film completely blew me away. The stunning visuals, cinematography and Goblin soundtrack left me awestruck and wanting to seek out more of the director’s output immediately.  I knew Sunshine Video Ezy stocked a few of his titles, so following an unsuccessful attempt to talk the customer service person into letting me sign up using a library card and birth certificate extract as ID (I was 14), I simply borrowed my older brother’s membership card and hired them out without any trouble (fortunately they were much more lax about things like that. As well as stocking banned dupes of the Faces of Death series in their ‘Documentary’ section, by all accounts a particularly popular rental ). In a short amount of time I’d viewed Phenomena, Tenebrae, Suspiria, Inferno, Opera and Trauma.

During this time my parents were going through a prolonged, acrimonious separation and divorce, and I was not shielded from their many bitter fights and animosity towards each other. Though I had close, supportive friends, this was not enough to distract from the feelings of sadness and loss that impacted me as a result of the family breakup. The Eurohorror films offered an escape for me, an exotic other world which I fully immersed myself into. I began renting every Fulci, Deodato, Bava and any other movies of this ilk I could find, never mind that many were cut-to-fuck and residing forlornly on the bottom shelves gathering dust and major sunbleaching (the same tapes that collectors now happily pay hundreds of dollars for). 

In the 90’s I was a regular visitor to record fairs held around Melbourne and while wandering around one held at the Royal Exhibition Buildings in early 1996, I stumbled across a stall which looked vastly different to all the others selling boxes of vinyl records – the table was covered with duped VHS tapes of uncut and unavailable horror titles in Australia, as well as imported Goblin and other Eurohorror CD soundtracks. A TV and VCR set up on one of the tables was even playing Michele Soavi’s The Church, one of my most coveted movies at the time. I had arrived at Phantastique Video, the most well-known horror/cult/trash mail-order dupe operation in Melbourne, ran by Gregg Lewis from the mid 1990’s-early 2000’s. Gregg was manning the stall that day, along with Adam Lee, who helped stocked Phantastique with its jaw-dropping range of titles (everything from uncut Fulci, Franco and D’Amato to XXX fare to at the time banned cult classics such as A Clockwork Orange, Last House on the Left and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2).  Being low on cash I was only able to purchase a copy of Last House, but I made sure to take a catalogue before I left and over the years I must have spent thousands of dollars on dupes of everything I wanted to see (seeing The Beyond and Zombi Holocaust uncut was a revelation – no jarring cuts before eyeball and cranium violence!) I also kept in touch with Adam, who boasts possibly one of the best Eurohorror soundtrack collections in Australia, including a near-complete set of Goblin and solo ex-Goblin member vinyl albums and currently runs the brilliant blog ‘Spasmo Mixtape’ (which before the demise of Megaupload contained a wealth of tracks from Adam’s collection).

Also in 1996 I discovered Polyester Books’ stash of bootlegged tapes, which gave me access to my first viewing of Cannibal Holocaust. Needless to say I was shocked and stunned by Ruggero Deodato’s brutal masterpiece – the film has lost none of its power even after at least a dozen subsequent viewings – and the tape’s nth generation quality and Venezuelan subtitles only added to its devastating effect, giving it a ‘snuff movie from bedlam’ feel.

Occasionally I’d dig up a cheap $5 ex-rental tape of interest (The Ghastly Ones, Moon of the Wolf) from long-gone outlets such as Vidz of Oz in Thornbury and The Video Collection on Elizabeth Street in the city. Or I’d venture into the odd suburban Cash Converters every now and then (the original release of Evil Dead was a regular site there). Unfortunately I had no idea of the profits old K & C, Star Video and Video Classics titles would snap up on Ebay two decades later, not to mention Evil Dead – if I did I would have taken these video hunts much more seriously and not have ignored snapping up these old tapes I’d regularly bypass!



Upon turning 18 I set about joining a number of video stores around Melbourne, the jewel in the crown for me being Video Busters in Collingwood. A goldmine for more obscure titles, the store housed a huge cult movie section and even sorted the genre’s well-known directors into categories. I was happy to regularly catch a bus, a train and a tram from where I lived at the time to get to the Collingwood outlet, always returning home with a backpack full of tapes. The store was instrumental in enabling me to delve further into the Mario and Lamberto Bava and Jess Franco catalogues, and to catch up with viewing essential ‘controversial’ titles such as The Driller Killer, Nightmare and Pieces.  As well as providing some ‘memorable’ viewings of irredeemable crap like the excruciating Christiane F cash-in Hanna D – The Girl from Vondel Park, Killer’s Moon and Dawn of the Mummy. Video Busters Collingwood is still around today, however its incredible VHS library has been sold off and the shelves are now dominated by far too many glossy but mostly forgettable big-budget Blu-Ray and DVD new releases.

Video Busters Collingwood in all its pastel-coloured glory

International mail-order outfits were also big business in the 90’s, including Florida’s Video Search of Miami. VSoM had a 60 page catalogue offering an incredibly vast range of product. I was a little apprehensive about having to initially pay a $10 ‘non-refundable initiation fee’, and the tapes themselves weren’t exactly cheap ($ 25 a pop) but figured it was worth it as I naively assumed I’d be getting, at the least, decent quality tapes. I ordered the David Cronenberg documentary Long Live the New Flesh, the Cronenberg-starring short Blue, and the ‘Argento Collectors Package’ (a compilation tape consisting of two Dario Argento interviews and a fashion show he directed for Italian television in 1986). Several weeks later Australia Post delivered the tapes to my door, and I immediately loaded up the VCR with the Argento cassette. And much to my surprise instead of the Argento programmes appearing on my TV screen I got some European porno flick instead! (I was so pissed off I didn’t bother to find out what it was). Either this was a genuine error (uh huh), or more likely someone who thought they’d get a laugh or their jollies with this pathetic stunt. Fortunately the other tapes had the content they were meant to have, but I was far from impressed. Not only with the ‘mix-up’- but with the shitty, barely watchable muddy quality of the dupes. I never expect perfect quality from bootlegs, but after paying extortion, oops a ‘membership fee’ and more than above-average prices I expected better.  Needless to say, I didn’t waste my time ordering from Video Search of Miami again.

Attending a record fair in 2000 I discovered on the flyers table an advertisement for a shop called ‘Inferno Video’ in the city on Elizabeth Street, specialising in horror, cult and exploitation movies. As soon as I could I found the address and found myself outside a door with fluorescent ‘THIS IS NOT A SEX SHOP’ signs plastered all over it. Somewhat tentatively, I opened the door and ventured up the narrow staircase that awaited me, entering a room chock-full of rare tapes. This one space contained many of the most hard-to-find and sort after VHS titles in Australia, such as The Lonely Violent Beach, Hitch-Hike, To be Twenty, Island of Perversion, Primitives, Farewell Uncle Tom and many more .....and the best thing was that they were available to rent. In the early days of Inferno, Peter (the owner) was happy to loan out his truly amazing collection but he ceased rentals a few years later.

 

Another fondly-remembered Melbourne mail-order (and subsequent online) store of note was author John Harrison’s ‘The Graveyard Tramp’ , specialising in dupes, ex-rental tapes, books, magazines, posters, and KISS memorabilia. Along with top-quality service, John always offered a consistently varying range of product, including a great mix of local and international zines.

In the Noughties and beyond, the introduction and subsequent popularity of DVD’s, torrents, streaming video and Blu-Ray discs has effectively eliminated having to leave the house or tracking down the right contacts to search for formerly elusive films, save for the most obscure titles. Pretty much everything I used to have to wait weeks for though the post, or spend years searching for, is now available within minutes online. Which of course is fantastic for accessibility and convenience, not to mention the far superior quality of Blu-Ray compared to VHS, but the sheer thrill of scouring random video outlets and discovering lonely copies of Bloody Moon, Murderock and Dario Argento’s World of Horror emblazoned with $1 Weekly Hire stickers, pouring over the goodies in mail-order catalogues, and reading about formerly mythical films not touched by the mainstream horror press like the early works of Michael and Roberta Findlay in ‘labour of love’ zines, is something that can never be replaced.