GRINDHOUSE TRAILER CLASSICS (2014)

GRINDHOUSE TRAILER CLASSICS (2013)

Label: Intervision Picture Corp
Duration: 129 minutes

Region Code: 1 NTSC 

Video: Anamorphic Widescreen (1.85:1)

Audio: English Dolby Digital Mono with Optional English Subtitles 

Directors: Various

Cast: Various 

Straight from the flea-pit cinemas of 42nd and beamed directly into the comfort of your slightly less filthy home we have right here a wonderfully tasteless collection of trashy exploitation movie trailers from 70s and 80s courtesy of  
Intervision Picture Corp. Fifty-five trailers are bursting at the seams with copious amounts of sex, gore and kitsch that the actual movies they're advertising could never hope to live up to, but damn are they fun to watch. The era of the supercharged trashy movie trailer pretty much an extinct art form - you just don't seem 'em like this anymore - and that's why I love these trailer compilations. These trailer comps are capturing a specific moment in cinema history when ticket prices and b-movie thrills were cheap and laced with vulgarity. Over-the-top narration poured over scene after scene of mind warping sex and  depravity and you're getting it in it's mos concentrated form - two minutes of cheap thrills that ninety percent of the time is a far superior experience to sitting through the duration of most of these films. 

These days trailer comps are a dime a dozen and Intervision have wisely chosen to spice it up a bit with something other than just a reel of violent and smutty trailers strung together. It's not much but we do have a poster gallery and a nineteen minute feature hosted by sultry UK cult presenter Emily Booth whom offers a scripted history of the b-movie grindhouse with some great clips and tasty dialogue The piece was scripted by author Stephen Thrower and adapted from his book Nightmare USA and directed by Jake West (Evil Aliens, Dog House) whom also directed the Video Nasties - The Definitive Guide. 

I hope to see Severin and Intervision license the second volume of Video Nasties - The Definitive Guide and the other three volumes of the Grindhouse Trailer Classics series from the UK's Nucleus Films - these are fun releases. A fun watch and something I would throw on in the background at a party or as something as mundane as vacuuming the house, there's no wrong time for time form some trashy trailer fun.  Now you can enjoy over two hours of trashy cinema trailers from the safety of your own home with a cold brew in your hand. 

The presentation is a collection of widescreen and full screen trailers of varying quality though most are quite nice, not a bunch of wear and tear and that's almost a negative in my opinion - but fear not for it's grime and grain you crave both are in abundance. Some of the audio is appropriately scratchy but again not as much as you might expect. I do love the aesthetic of the release with menus that are a bit grimy and VHS is appearance with an interlaced image which gives it a decidedly analog TV feel. 

Grindhouse Trailer Classics is a fun bit of salacious entertainment loaded with cheap sex and gratuitous violence straight, a definite recommend if you don't already own a ton of these trailer comps - a list of the trailers are listed below.  
   
Special Features:
- 'Bump and Grind: Emily Booth explores the world of Grindhouse Cinema'. (19 minutes)
- Grindhouse Poster Art Gallery (29 images)

Trailers:
I Drink Your Blood and I Eat Your Skin
Blood Splattered Bride and I Dismember Mama
Switchblade Sisters
Caged Heat
Eyeball
Deranged
Big Doll House, The
Bury Me An Angel
Last House On The Left, The
Street Fighter, The
Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS
Dr. Black and Mr. Hyde
Don't Open The Window
Human Tornado, The
Caged Virgins
Ebony, Ivory & Jade
Deadly Weapons
Torso
They Call Her One Eye
Death Ship
Master Of The Flying Guillotine
They Came from Within
Thing With Two Heads, The
I Spit On Your Grave
Sweet Sugar
Girls For Rent
Toolbox Murders, The
Executioner, The
House of Whipcord
Truck Turner
God Told Me To
Doctor Butcher M.D.
Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things
Night of the Bloody Apes
Blood Sucking Freaks
Ilsa: Harem Keeper Of The Oil Sheiks
Single Girls, The
Corpse Grinders, The
Zombie
Coffy
Perils of Gwendoline, The
Legend of The Wolf Woman, The
Satan's Sadists
Disco Godfather
Let Me Die A Woman
Doll Squad, The
Secrets of Sweet Sixteen
Cannonball
Autopsy
Fight For Your Life
Love Me Deadly
Wham! Bam! Thank you Spaceman!
Shogun Assassin
Three on a Meathook

DVD Review: VIDEO NASTIES: MORAL PANIC, CENSORSHIP AND VIDEOTAPE THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE (Severin Films)

VIDEO NASTIES: MORAL PANIC, CENSORSHIP AND VIDEOTAPE THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE (2010)  3-Disc DVD Set 

Label: Severin Films

Duration: 13 Hours, 58 Minutes

Refion Code: 0 NTSC

Rating: Unrated

Audio: English Dolby Didital Mono

Video: Anamorphic Widescreen (1.78:1) 

Director: Jake West

Cast: Neil Marshall, Christopher Smith, Graham Bright, Emily Booth

It's great to see Jake West's documentary about the Video Nasties era when a few gore-soaked shockers threatened to corrupt the youth in the UK.  A threat so imminent that the Parliament brought about censorship that made it a damn crime to distribute a list of 72 movies deemed so repugnant that they might potentially endanger the moral fiber of children... and dogs! The documentary runs just 72 minutes and is quite a good watch, having read quite a bit about the Video Nasties and the films in question I didn't find a lot of new ground covered but it's damn decent watch just the same with some great vintage clips of stuffy Brits declaring war on the evils of horror cinema following the advent of VHS and the possibility of home viewing. Some of these twats had never even watched the films!

Disc one contains the documentary with an  extended menu screen with an extended Video Nasty inspired clip starring the seductive and dark Emily Booth. Bonus features include a nearly hour long video ident compilation which is sure to inspire a bit of VHS nostalgia in UK viewers. The Park Avenue ident is a particularly smutty and wonderful bit of video. The last feature on disc one one is gallery of vintage Video Nasty VHS sleeves, all salacious and wonderful and I'm sure these videos are worth a pretty penny in today's retro-VHS market. . 

The doc is a great watch but for my money the real value here is contained on disc two and three of the set. We have the trailers for the complete 72 films that were declared depraved Video Nasties. Split into two discs we have the thirty-nine titles that were successfully prosecuted in UK courts and deemed liable to deprave and corrupt and then we have the thirty-three titles that were initially banned, but subsequently removed from infamous list.  Each trailer receives a brief introduction from many of the talking heads from the doc who are a bit more animated and  interesting when speaking about the specific films, each espouse their love and admiration for each of the titles as well as pointing out how ridiculous and absurd many of them truly are. You have the option to watch with introduction or without as a straight-up trailer reel, don't skip the intros. 

Very pleased to see Jake west's doc get a North American release from Severin Films - it's a damn decent doc and turns out to be one of my favorite trailer reels sets of the year - of which there have been quite a few. A fantastic collection of depraved and gore-soaked trailers with the bonus of a decent doc about the Video Nasties and some great intros for every depraved slice of Video Nastiness. Nearly fourteen hours of classic Video Nasty hysteria spread out over three discs, this is a fantastic watch. 4 Outta 5

DVD Review: Doghouse (2009)

DOGHOUSE (2009)

“The battle of the sexes just got bloody…”


RATED: Unrated
RUNNING TIME: 89 Min.
DIRECTOR: Jake West
CAST: Stephen Graham, Danny Dyer, Noel Clarke, Christina Cole, Emily

ANECDOTAL: DOGHOUSE is directed by JAKE WEST, whom has several films under his belt, including PUMPKINHEAD: ASHES TO ASHES (2007) and EVIL ALIENS (2007), the latter of which I enjoyed quite a bit. I’ve seen none of the PUMPKINHEAD sequels and I would be interested in hearing your opinions regarding the quality of each, dear reader.

 

SYNOPSIS: A group of immature mates head to the remote village of Moodley for a weekend of fun in an effort to console their recently divorced friend. Once there they quickly discover that the peaceful village is blighted by psychotic, cannibalistic females.

DVD: DOGHOUSE is available as a Region 2 DVD. At this time there is no Region 1 release. The DVD is 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio, 5.1 surround sound. SPECIAL FEATURES: Deleted Scenes, Bloopers, a Making Of featurette, TV Spots and Trailer. The film is available through IFC’s Video-On-Demand service.

THE FILM: In this British horror/comedy a group of six friends head to the rustic village of Moodley, a town renowned for its 4:1 ratio of women to men, to engage in a bit of drinking and general debauchery. Soon after arriving in Moodley they realize something strange is going on. The films takes off at a brisk pace from there with a plot involving the military testing biological weapons on the populous and EVIL DEAD style cannibalistic-zombie/mutants. Sounds like a fun time, right? There is little in regards to character development aside from a brief opening montage, the jokes are stale, and the film relies too heavily on the creature FX to carry it along. The only actor I recognized is Danny Dyer, whom I enjoyed in the films SEVERANCE (2006) and CLOSURE (2007), he’s wasted in this film. That being said, the highlights for me were the numerous and creative creature/zombie make-up FX which are brilliant and bloody. DOGHOUSE is more a comedy filled with splatter than a horror laced with humor, and that’s where I dinged it, as I prefer my horror/comedies contain a reasonable amount of scares and a bit of character development, and at no point did I feel for the characters or there well being.

VERDICT: While it doesn’t reach the heights of RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD (1985) or SHAUN OF THE DEAD (2004), DOGHOUSE is good, shallow fun that’s light on fright, but elicited a few chuckles. Some beer and a few friends could have gone a long way towards improving my viewing of this film. I highly recommend director Jake West’s previous film EVIL ALIENS, and the superior British horror/comedy SEVERANCE featuring a great performance from Danny Dyer. *** (3 out of 5 stars)