Nightmare Concert (A Cat In The Brain)

Some of you zits and zombies prefer horror offerings from other countries-Germany, France, Japan, China and even of Spanish areas where Bloody Moon and Pieces come to mind. So do I. Any and all of these outer countries have films that are memorable and surprisingly gory, but Italy most of the time (for me personally) takes the cake. Unless were talking about Germany or France of course. Then we would have to mention The Burning Moon or High Tension. But that's not what were here to focus on right now. Were here to focus on a definitive splatter-fest from one of Italy's finest. Lucio Fulci's Nightmare Concert. Or Cat In The Brain. Which ever title you prefer, the film stays the same-and it's a grandiose tapestry of blood, gore, Fulci loosing his mind, a woman getting strangled with piano wire and a cat literally in a brain. But it's much more than just a bunch of very violent events all strung together. It's about letting your work get to you. It's very healthy for your physical and mental state to have time away from whatever it is you do for a living, and I think Lucio did a great job presenting that in this film. Even though it is somewhat out of the context of reality, there have been many times in my work life where I felt like I had a cat in my brain, and it never seemed to go away. Two tickets for Key West? Hell yeah, let's get out of here. 

Well, there's a cat-and it's in a brain. So it's already lived up to it's title and it's only been the first two minutes. Bravo.

In the mood for cooked, seasoned flesh? Anyone? Ah, you vegan bastards.

Sadistic cannibalism is such eloquently messy work.

The buzz of a chainsaw can get to you after awhile.

Damn, Italian women are sexy. That's why I married one.

Fulci, you're losing it man. Keep it together.

Everything these actors are doing has to be real.

I never thought I would see the physical embodiment of a, ehem... "pocket pussy".

Bitch slapping must be an Italian tradition.

Dead women love hitching rides on merry-go-rounds.

Cock blocked by some jackass across the alley. Getting laid can never be easy, can it.

Letting your work get to you mentally is something I think that happens to pretty much everyone. And if it can happen to Lucio Fulci, than it can happen to you. I didn't watch this as a warning, I watched this because I knew it was going to be a thrill ride full of gore, violence and Italian angst-and that's more than enough to deflate any of my personal aggression I may or may not have against my employer. Even as an artist there are still throes of depression and frustration, and I believe that Cat In The Brain was Fulci's outlet for such feelings. As a fan and reviewer I can say without a doubt that sitting through this film is basically like listening to one of your favorite metal albums-headbanging and destroying anything in your path for some normalcy. Except in movie form. It all happens in your head, and that's where it should stay. I also need to mention that I'm somewhat allergic to cats as well. So this isn't going to work. Guess I need a larger supply of Benadryl next time. This dander is killing me.      

Cellar Dweller

There are many great examples of midnight monster cult classics, but Cellar Dweller is one that I pretty much never hear or read anyone talking about. C'mon guys, get with it. Right when I placed the dvd in my player and saw Jeffrey Combs on the screen drawing some comic book frames, I already knew that this was going to be an enchanted ride full of dark magic, attractive women and a decent helping of gore on the side. The make-up, costumes and special effects are amazing as well and sucks the viewer right in. Now the print I have on dvd is pretty dark in some spots and makes me wonder if Scream Factory just used a transfer from a beat up VHS of this film they had just lying around-I am also aware that this has been put onto blu-ray, so hopefully the transfer on there is cleaner and brighter so you can see everything the way it was meant to be seen. Basically, J. Combs plays the famous comic book cartoonist Colin Childress who ended up burning up his home and his studio in an attempt to kill off the Cellar Dweller whenever he used the book of magic he had to make it seem more real or authentic. Some-odd years later, the property is transformed into the strangest art institute and the cellar where he did his work is closed off because it's "haunted by Childress' spirit". That's where Whitney comes in. That's where you come in.

Man, Jeffrey Combs is everywhere.

Being a comic book artist would be killer.

Heavy is the axe we wield against the foe of daily life.

Concierge's always creep up on you.

Dark art is still art. Art is still dark. She doesn't get it.

Angst? It looks like you took some water colors and slopped them on a piece of printer paper.

What the hell kind of art institute is this?

I have more fun drinking than screaming at the wind.

Never seen a mop wetter.

"I'll hang you up by your eye lids and wrench out your fingernails one by one." Damn, that's some brutal shit.

Give me a break, give me a break-break me off a piece of Amanda's arm!

Cellar Dweller is for sure a great entry into the horror genre from the late 80's. It's a tad lighter on the gore side of things (there still is some, just not as much as you would expect) and probably one of the best scenes in here is when the cellar dweller just outright smacks one of the art institutes students heads off. Great fun. There's the annoying Phillip played by Brian Robbins who, somehow becomes the love interest of Whitney by the end (why do the annoying, ugly guys get the hot chicks?) and the arch enemy of Amanda. Her and Whitney have a past and there is a sub-plot of her and the woman that runs the art institute are trying to ruin her reputation by way of making a fake tape of her plagiarizing Amanda's art. Even though she's not a comic book artist. Once this boiled head stew finally simmers down, you get a pretty fantastic 80's monster flick that warrants the cult following that it has garnered. There's always a cellar to be a dweller in-except killing people, I'm just going down to get some wine. Bring the cheese and crackers. This party is going to be out of control.           

Camp Blood 4

There's a segment of my brain that kind of just wants to melt down because of movies like Camp Blood 4, and then there are other ones that just bubble up in frustration, pure hatred and anger because somehow these fecal shit-shows make it past the planning stages of film making. I don't get it. And what makes me laugh manically even more is that the Camp Blood franchise has 6 or 7 entries in it, and I can only imagine each one being just as crap-tastic. Let's put it this way zits and zombies-Camp Blood 4 isn't a movie. It's what happens when someone with a camera wakes up one morning, turns it on and just starts pointing it at everything and anything to make themselves feel like they are making a movie. That's really all there is to this film besides the thickest film padding I've ever seen, which consists of the main females in this picture combing their hair, doing their make-up and walking around the area they live in for huge chunks of time. Probably 20 minutes or so, at least twice. Every scene drags the viewer through the mud waaaaaaaaaaaayyyy longer than it should and I actually paused the movie probably 3 or 4 times in between to see if this vomit bag had finally dried up.

Oh man. The opening is very similar to Loony in the Woods. I already want to castrate myself.

  How could you run over a hot chubby chick like that? Unacceptable.

Dear God, a clown mask.

Shawn C. Phillips?! The almighty Coolduder? Hell yeah!

It's so damn dark-I can't see anything! Why is the screen so fucking black?

I hope all of this padding will amount to something.

 Holy dog turds, is anything ever going to happen in this fucking movie?!?!?!

What is up with the print of this movie? Every other scene is so goddamn dark you can't fucking see anything.

If this asshole with the clown mask is the killer, he's so damn lame. There is nothing intimidating about this guy.

Besides being an absolute mess, I never actually saw Shawn C. Phillips any where in this movie. So that was a huge let down for me. Without having what little star power it was said to have, I conclude that this "film" shouldn't be called Camp Blood 4. It should have been titled "Watch young women go thrifting after combing their hair and putting on their make-up". Quite literally the first two acts of Camp Blood 4 is just that-random chicks combing their hair, doing their faces and going shopping at random locales. I'd rather masturbate with hot bacon grease straight from the pan than ever acknowledge that this anal evacuation ever existed. Am I afraid of clowns? After watching this, I don't think I'm afraid of much of anything anymore.  

Things (1993)

As an avid Bleeding Skull! fan, when they first posted the review of a film called Things, I initially thought it was the Canadian disaster from 1989. But no. I have since found out there are multitudes of horror flicks with the title Things from different years, and they are all completely different. How was the one from 1993? This question is always left up to the viewer, but I will spew my opinions. By any and all stretch of the imagination, this is not a good movie. It just isn't. But I was entertained, and that's all that matters. There are many elements that make up Things (1993)- cute 80's girls in lingerie, a jackass with a hat that calls himself "The Black Mayor", domestic abuse, plenty of violence and gore encased inside one of the absolute worst wrap-arounds for an anthology film I think I've ever sat through. This film is pretty mean spirited when you look at it from afar, but that really doesn't make this difficult to watch. It's for sure a picture you can absorb because of how utterly absurd the two stories are. If I chose which story I liked better, I would lean more towards "Thing In A Jar" just because there is more gore and more of a bizarre tone to wade through than the first offering. 

Ha, ha, ha! Dean Cain's fucking fruity brother!

These chicks are stuuuuuuuuuupid.

I can't describe how lame and awkward these guys are. I just can't.

Dingy rooms for dirty girls.

"What a fucking dump."

Who cares about Tulip-Daisy is damn hot!

Mayor Black isn't black, but he has a black hat so therefore he's Mayor Black.

A piece of shit with teeth.

Why was looking in the fridge supposed to be scary?

The Mayor bites it!

Does Leon have a tattoo on his ass?! 

If you are into SOV or just garbage horror in general, Things (1993) will whet your whistle. These are the dreams that trash cinema are made of, and this particular piece of celluloid was both highly entertaining and extremely pointless at the same time. There was absolutely nothing to pull away from this film, but these types of movies are just there to kill brain cells. They don't exist to win awards. Although this one could get one for "the most domestic violence in the span of twenty minutes" but that would just be insulting and amateur. And we don't want that. We want hot 80's girls in their underwear getting eaten by a burrito you ingested and shat out yesterday that somehow grew teeth and can crawl on the floor. That's the level we are at. That's the level we want to stay at. I want eggs and hash browns for some reason. Breakfast for all.