Let this be a lesson to everyone who's ever looked down their noses at Paris
and sneered as they turned back to their "freedom fries": never turn
your back on the French, especially their filmmakers...because when
they want to be, they can be just as truly balls-out fucked up as the
Japanese ever thought to be. BAXTER will be the proof of that. Don't believe me? Well, try out
the first five minutes as a kid voluntarily slams a thumb tack into his
palm. And if that doesn't freak you out, well...try the plot synopsis. Baxter, as it turns out, is an insane bull terrier who finds himself
discontented living with his new mistress, an elderly woman who's quite
afraid of him. Due to his dissatisfaction, he plans to murder her.
Continue reading "BAXTER" »
The dark side of the afterlife has a revolving door policy in the Slamdance On the Road presentation of "The Other Side". While waiting for the woman he loves, Sam North is unexpectedly
murdered and sent, surprisingly, to hell. Hell, meanwhile, is an
insane combination of childhood flashbacks and plastic wrap and not a whole lot of fire. Anyway...now Sam's in hell, or is until a few other denizens help
him, bafflingly, escape via a corrugated plastic tunnel conveniently
located not too far from where he landed in the first place.
Naturally, the management disapproves of such things--though if they
actually DID have a distaste for this kind of thing you'd think they'd
just seal up the damn corrugated plastic tunnel. I mean, come ON. Why
don't they just put up a big sign saying "This Way Out Of Hell" and
start advertising?
Continue reading "THE OTHER SIDE" »
All right, classic splatter fans--sit down, shut up, and brace
yourself as Bava and Argento bring us more eighties survival splatter
in DEMONS 2. If you're already looking askance at this piece and muttering at
your monitor: "Hey...wait a second. Wasn't the end of DEMONS basically
an 'end of the world' scenario with people bugging out to the
countryside because the cities were jam-packed with cannibalistic,
fanged, demonic subhumans hell-bent on murder, mayhem and lunching up
the populace?", you're not alone. Seriously, I thought much the same
thing. And don't worry--there's a rational explanation.
Continue reading "DEMONS 2" »