50 Chilling Classics: DVD Box Set Review (Part 2 of 5)
Review by Rhonda Baughman
Read Part 1
Scream Bloody Murder
(Music)Score/Atmosphere: 0/5
Editing: 0/5
Story/Characterization: 1/5
Pacing: 0/5
Average/Overall Execution: 1/20
This film has one redeeming quality. One. Look for the bound and gagged, hopping through the house Leigh Mitchell.
I fell asleep during the first viewing and this was after I had a nap and a full 8 hours of beauty rest – so, hopefully this opens the Pandora’a Box on this film, since Pandora yawned bloody murder during the first 20 minutes and threatened to beat me with her box.
I mean, was this a student film? If you review the IMDB profile, people either pseudonym’d this job, went on to do nothing, or committed suicide after the project was completed. I would love for someone, anyone, involved on this film to say hello, drop by, offer an interview …
And while I’m at it … THIS is what Hollyweird should be remaking … some of the films on this box set have excellent an excellent premise and just the most mediocre of execution tendencies.
Bell from Hell
(Music)Score/Atmosphere: 2/5
Editing: 1.5/5
Story/Characterization: 2.5/5
Pacing: 2/5
Average/Overall Execution: 8/20
Actually, this is La Campana del Infierno, a Spanish film in desperate need of a remake. This is a film from 1973 with promise, so will all directors please stop typing the next remake/sequel of an 80’s film?!? Please? You’re killing me. You have an endless supply of material right here, on this box set … I beg of you …
Although I am not dropping to my knees just yet.
Yet.
Starring veteran actress Viveca Lindsfors, the film is haunting, I was shocked to find. There are genuine moments of compelling imagery, gorgeous cinematography, and visual metaphors that reeled me in, as opposed to driving me batty. A quick internet search of the film turns up this IMDB trivia gem: “Director Claudio Guerín Hill fell from the tower housing the title bell on the last day of shooting and was killed. The film was completed by Juan Antonio Bardem.” Additionally, the reviews on IMDB say it better than I can – this is top of the line Euro-Trash Cinema, only rivaling the Japanese Pinky Violence series in terms of sheer perversity.
Metamorphosis
(Music)Score/Atmosphere: 0/5
Editing: .5/5
Story/Characterization: 0/5
Pacing: 0/5
Average/Overall Execution: .5/20
An alternate title for this film might be: The Douchebag Who Keeps Inexplicably Asking People For Help.
Sweet Jupiter’s Balls – the reasons I am reviewing this movie are twofold: because my OCD personality requires me to begin a project once I start and well, so perhaps I can save you the trouble of wasting precious time. I mean, honestly: I have watched congressional filibusters and read doctoral dissertations that felt shorter than this film. And this film … if you can call it that … was obviously some film student’s abandoned opus, forgotten and discarded, whereupon late one night, years after said student dropped or failed out of film school, smoked a fat spliff and decided to finish this ode to I have no idea what, most likely because the world needed to this! It’s deep! Profound! It has fucking meaning, man! (smoke, smoke, puff … ) And it should be shared, man!
True. And let me also share this with you: this film sucks. Period. Shave it down to twenty minutes, perhaps. But at 90 minutes, I contemplated everything but suicide. I can guarantee you though, at 91 minutes, thoughts of self-immolation were not far behind. FF 5. The subject of science was stereotyped as boring, and faith, if addressed, was hidden somewhere in the monotonously insipid dialogue. Furthermore, there is only the most loose of connections associated with the short and brilliant Kafka story.
Thirty minutes into this celluloid nightmare (and really? Made in 1990? No bloody way – early to mid-eighties, maybe.) I call up Webmaster Peron, so I can vent my frustration. He understands. And then proceeds to tell me about the cool movie he is watching. So, I pretend his phone dialogue actually belongs to the movie. I kill another twenty minutes this way. I couldn’t tell you all he said – his litany was a golden song of refuge.
After I hang up, I think, so how do I stand another twenty minutes of this film? I think of death. Recent deaths, to be more precise and I mourn them, silently, while the movie continues. Andy Hallet and Marilyn Chambers, two people who wouldn’t be caught acting in dreck like Metamorphosis – such talented individuals, Hallet at 33, Marilyn at 57 – both still way too young to be cut out of the game, but isn’t that how it always works? All stars of TV shows like The Hills
If I had to recommend two scenes to simply FF to in Metamorphosis, I say skip to the llama and skip to the end monster. What was it? asked a character. Funny, I asked myself the same thing. I added a four letter word to the sentence, and in came out much more disdainful. What was the end monster? Not even Kraa!
Naked Massacre
(Music)Score/Atmosphere: 3.5/5
Editing: 2.5/5
Story/Characterization: 4/5
Pacing: 4/5
Average/Overall Execution: 14/20
Obviously, the girls are congenial to one another, barely obnoxious, and do not have woodchipper voices. Therefore, it’s easy to become emotionally involved and feel quite heinous in the tummy upon their violent demise. This film is equal parts taboo, brutal, and disturbing and does not need a remake. The first of the bunch - and the best – highly recommended to scar both hemispheres of the brain. Score!
I originally had one beef: why did the girls not fight back. A character, at the brilliant denouement I will not give away, asks the same thing. The writer and director must have had the foresight to know smart viewers would ask. Here I am, in all my 21st century boy/girl hardcore demeanor, planning strategy, thinking of fear and immobility, military psychology, CCW training and martial arts, rushing battle tactics, 7 against 1 odds … but in the end … all the women are led like mewling kittens to pot of boiling water. I’m thinking in my head, go for the kill, and depending how much you’re cracked, think of torture and revenge later. But I realized I was, and for the first time in a long time, rooting for the victims. This was no The Devil's Rejects
