Blood Frenzy and confrontational therapy

 

Blood Frenzy from 1987 is a slasher I've had my eye on for a while now because of it's obscurity and also because it just seems like pretty much no one talks about it. The only main review of this piece I have really ever found is the one on Youtube by the vhs master himself-Paul of VhsCollector.com. I've been a fan of his for years now (ever since his slasherindex/divourtheflesh days) and he does really deep, thorough vhs tape reviews of films that others and myself would have never known about without him. Blood Frenzy is one those films. I really dig the Hollywood big-box as well and if somehow I ever ran across it in person in really great, minty fresh condition, I would honestly try to pick it up just to say that I have it. Because I'm a collector of these mostly unknown, bizarre glints into the wild world of horror, but also because who else besides Paul and I are really going to give two shits about a slasher from the late 80's that's still in it's big-box pretty much unscathed? Basically no one.

Everyone has their interests and what their into. Even sports. Yeah, sports.

Lisa Loring that played Wednesday Addams in the original Addams Family is a main character here in the form of a venomous lesbian that just outright hates men altogether. Once you get to the final act of this flick and start actually learning about everything that happened prior, you really get to understand why she ended up the way that she did. Psychology is a strong thing, and the "why" of it is downright fascinating. I can see her and her brothers situation in real life being probable, though on the extreme side. Zits and zombies, if you can find Blood Frenzy and dig mostly unknown slashers from the late 80's that encompass middle-aged adults making fun of each other like they are still in their early teens, jump on it. Just don't blow yourself up in the desert with a stick of dynamite. No one will be there to clean it up. Except for the vultures. They're always hungry.      

Return of the Living Dead 3 (Vestron Video blu-ray)

 

I've only seen the first three Return of the Living Dead films, and out of those three I really stand firm that the third is my favorite. I fucking love this flick, man. For some insane reason I always seem to forget too that this was directed and produced by the body horror legend Brian Yuzna, which when it comes to certain scenes of heavy gore and the actual body-horror itself, you can certainly tell that it was done by no one else. I'm getting ahead of myself here talking about this in the beginning of my review, but after the grandiose transformation that Julie puts herself through by basically piercing every inch of her body with random pieces of glass, metal and any other sharp object she can possibly find to quell her painful hunger, you can just feel this bizarre sexual overtone that goes along with her being cut and spiked all over. You as the viewer can't help but wanting to bone Julie even with pieces of metal protruding out all over her body. It's for sure Brian Yuzna through and through and it hurts so good. 

Before anything nutty happens, we see that some underground government experiments are going on (yeah, because this shit isn't real, right?) and they are trying to figure out how to make bio-weapons from the dead somehow as well as bringing them back to life with some sweet trioxin gas only to shoot them in the head to kill them again. Actually, I don't know if they are actually killed a second time because these government clowns shoot them with some oversized sniper rifle looking armament that freezes their heads or faces so they stop attacking people? I don't know. Severed limbs are being drilled with power drills as they move on their own and other crazy experiments in the halls of the cirque du govermental. Heh. 

Julie is a pretty sexy redhead that wants Curt to come with her to a place called "Club Kill" and let me tell you-I'll follow an attractive redhead anywhere. Even if it's a place with a name where I'm probably not going to come back alive. This is where Julie and Curt end up breaking into the government facility where his dad works and they witness a bunch of really strange experiments including the ones I've already stated as well as a worker throwing severed limbs into a cremation furnace and the bringing back of a corpse that ends up killing a few people and turning them into the living dead as well. They get the sweet hell out of there after almost getting eaten by an escaped experiment gone wrong. Then it's time they do some bang-a-rang before Curt's dad comes home. Have to release that nervous tension from being chased around by dead people all day somehow. Might as well get in bed with your hot redhead girlfriend.

Curt's dad is a douchebag government lackey that is getting transferred to Oklahoma City for his job, so he gets into a fight with him and bolts with Julie. She keeps messing with him while they are riding his motorcycle, he almost hits a semi and she flies off of his bike and dies by hitting a telephone pole. Of course, what does Curt do? Drags her to the government facility with the trioxin to bring her back to life. Zits and zombies, Return of the Living Dead 3 is fucking awesome. The special effects are superb, the gore and the kills are top notch and the pace of everything is honestly perfect. From what I understand, the rated R version is actually the cut version with some scenes removed to bring it down to that rating originally. With this blu-ray release by Vestron, it even states on the back of the case that this is the unrated version and has different material than the original cut. I waited many years until this was put out and it was worth it to see it in it's entirety with all of it's insane gore and sexual body piercing. Who needs tattoo parlors when we have trioxin.

The Evil (1978)

 

I was originally going to get back on the horse and start making videos for the Cinema Slayer YouTube channel again after I finally was past being sick and my hard drive dying and all of that business. I can't seem to get my complete focus back so instead I decided to write just a regular review here for The Evil instead of making a video for it. I will in the future eventually get around to putting a video together for The Evil, but unfortunately right now, it's just not going to happen. The energy still isn't there all the way yet. Besides that for this film, I have also decided to split my content between writing reviews on here to keep the content updated and to keep the content going on my YouTube channel as well. So I'm planning on making a list of movies to write about on here and a list to make videos for. I want to start putting a lot of time and work into this. 

With that bull-squeeze out of the way, let's get to The Evil from 1978. I have this as a Roger Corman double feature on dvd with another film from 1988 titled Twice Dead. Never seen that one before, but I will get around to soaking it in at some point. The Evil is a decently solid entry from the late 70's that is part haunted house, part paranormal and part sludge fest. The pace is well put together overall, even though it just ends up being a slug in some spots with not a whole lot going on in between C.J. and Caroline buying this huge, old, beaten down mansion that they want to renovate and turn into a clinic for mental health patients. The groundskeeper at the beginning of the film is dispatched by way of the furnace randomly turning itself on while he's peeking into it after proclaiming "there ain't nothin'!". He proceeds to burn to death in a most comical way. Other characters that populate this film's run time are also burned alive, electrocuted, have their hand sliced with a power saw. There are some pretty cool kills and injuries with some good practicals here, but they're nothing that's going to make you zits and zombies herald this as a new favorite or anything. Actually, the whole piece is like that. The Evil is a very solid watch that holds together a pretty sweet haunted-by-the-mansion's-previous-owner plot, but it's nothing that's going to rip your underpants off and give you an orgasm.

The biggest dumb moment in The Evil is when C.J. stumbles under the house where Sam (the groundskeeper) was burned alive and finds these two door handles buried in the ground that are held closed by a metal cross, and what a surprise, he opens it like a clown and let's the horrible spirit of the previous owner out. But even before that happens, there are some weird occurrences throughout the house like them finding a book that has a bunch of empty pages, a head on the wall as a decoration that randomly turns towards Caroline to look at her as they enter the house with the students when they arrive to start sprucing the place up.

At the end of the day zits and zombies, I'm going to give The Evil a half-assed recommendation. It's a pretty well constructed haunted house flick from the late 70's, but it's nothing that's going to change your horror viewing life or make you kick a movie off of your personal top ten list. It's pretty good, but it's not that good. Albeit with the decent kills, okay characters and more than one person getting burned to a crisp in two different death scenes, The Evil in my opinion at best is probably a purgatory horror flick in the realm of the paranormal.