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Trailer Town (2003)
4/10
how many versions can you think of saying f***ing, d**k & c**t?
11 December 2004
Warning: Spoilers
this movie is about people living at a trailerpark. later in the movie it gets obvious that those people are out-of-work comedians, mainly old males. well, more or less they sit around the whole movie and talk about f***ing. but never there is any action, just those people talking. in the beginning I thought it's some cool perverted redneck-stuff, but after a while it got boring. I mean, how many versions can you think of saying f***ing, d**k & c**t? for sure, this can be funny - for half an hour maybe, not 80 minutes. but it was funny to watch those people trying to act. I'm pretty sure that they often were reading their text on some sheet when playing. but it does not disturb the movie, it's cool like this. because those individuals seem so poor, f***ed-up, crestfallen a***oles that the style totally fits. their wooden, helpless reading of the texts makes quite good atmosphere, I fell in love with the characters a little.

***SPOILER AHEAD*** later in the movie the f***ers do some comedy-shows (rhymes about f***ing) with just themselves as audience and imagined applause. then one gets an eviction-advice and so they decide to defend the trailer park and enter their roofs - armed with some weapons. then they got shoot. fin. sounds like action, but it's not. just some trashy home-camera takes. ***SPOILER END***

but the movie is totally consequent in it's style and I'm pretty sure it's just what the movie-maker wanted to have. it's the portrait of those f**k-ups in an groggy home-camera style with characters who can not act but seem interesting personalities so they are nice to watch. but the texts about - you know what - the whole time get boring after a while.

pretty young director who also seems an interesting person, as he played some teenager-stuff in popular movies/TV-series but now got in more horror-movies which is more his cup of tea I guess. and this, his first direction-effort will be distributed by troma now. don't know anything about a release, I got this one as an "advance screener" from this years cannes which says "for bootlegging purposes only".
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Il fantasma di Sodoma (1988 Video)
1/10
boring and senseless; interesting title
29 July 2004
definitely one of the last and very bad attempts from lucio fulci to come up to his heights in the 70ies & early 80ies. very poor, one of his poorest films. makes me a little sad because I really love this man and find movies like don't torture a duckling, the smuggler, zombie flesh eaters, the beyond, house by the cemetery & paura really big masterpieces.

the whole script doesn't fit, many things just don't make sense, no gore, no suspense, not thrilling,... - and man, this ending, just a big joke - I am pretty sure they run out of money or time, must be... but why I am commenting is because I find the title very interesting. "the 120 days of sodom" is a book by the marquise de sade and pier-paolo passolini in his similar named movie "saló - the 120 days of sodom" set the story and some excerpts of dante to the nazi-occupied salo in italy 1943 to show the continuity of sexually orientated torture in situations of superiority and dictatorship. could be that all this inspired fulci to a story of orgiastic nazi-ghosts coming back terrorising some kids with sex & violence and giving the movie the title "the ghosts of sodom".
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Unknown Beyond (2001 Video)
1/10
too modern zero-budget digital-video trash
14 June 2004
it's a real big bummer that people easily are able too make movies because of cheap digital video cams nowadays. usually I would appreciate this possibility but if you see movies like this it's just a big shame. and it's also big shame if people like h.p. lovecraft get abused by the likes of this. I rented this "movie" cuz of the drop "h.p. lovecraft" on it. and I'm a big fan of many of his adaptions, mainly those done by brian yuzna & stuart gordon. this movie has nothing to deliver! a cheap scenery on a beach and in an old wine-cellar. digi-cam effect "red light" over the whole movie. no actors, just some stupid low-grade models who have for sure no idea what they are doing, stiff as wood. and so must be the director. It's obvious that he tried to create some atmosphere. but as the whole things is so laughable it just doesn't work. and no gore-effects, just some blood in a river (you drink = you become demon) and dropping here and there. oh yeah, the story: thousands of years ago some "big old" colonised the world and took humans as slaves. then mankind got independent, so the "old ones" tried to destroy them. and now there are some survivors in a post-apocalyptic world. the only possibility to save mankind is to find the NECRONOMICON, that's where it gets to LOVECRAFT. so those soldiers fight against some undead and demons on their beach and in their wine-cellar. unbelievable - the whole thing! but as it is dubbed (german title: "Armee des Jenseits) and you can find it in most commercial video-stores it seems as if you can make money with stuff like that. I find this fact impressive.
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Museum of the Dead (2004 Video)
1/10
cheap digi-video trash
14 June 2004
again such kind of zero-budget digital-video cam trash. and again I fell into this trap cuz the title had "zombie" in it (german title: ZOMBIE ATTACK!) the story: on halloween some people visit the "museum of the dead", it's a trap, a crazy doctor wants to kill the people, everything connected to some aztec-cult. so they fight against some zombies in there.

ultra cheap scenery: some corridors with black tape on it. a few dilettantish drawings and a few skulls as you can find them in every fun-shop. no actors, just low-grade models waking around with absolutely no idea what to do. no effects. laughable make-up, your local hobby-make-up-zombie-fan will do it better, some time it looked as if they had not enough money for enough colour, otherwise they just could not do it like this, man, they have to realize the looks of their "zombies". some laughable martial-arts fights with the zombies, slow-motion. just, when the director wants to have it scary he uses some standard digital-video-cam effect where everything is flackering. unbelievable! 0 out of 10!
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4/10
competent and completely irrelevant tv-flic
29 March 2004
well, not very much more to tell then, yes, it's a modern adaption of oscar wilde's classic "the picture of dorian gray". competent and completely irrelevant tv-flic, nothing which makes it worth to watch it or even rent or buy. it's set nowadays within the professional model scene where a manager discovers a new talent. and one of the first pictures he takes of him is this "picture of dorian gray" which ages instead of him. "dorian" makes this pact with the manager who seems to be the devil or something. and when the picture gets destroyed he dies, yeahyeah, you know the story I guess. nothing really to mention about this movie except that it is not really boring, o.k. if you have ABSOLUTELY nothing to do and they screen it on t.v. oh yes, malcolm mcdowell has some cool & evil facial expressions (but always repeating the same) and the director allan a. goldstein also did "death wish V" with charles bronson - and this last comment was for the nerds, hehe...
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7/10
martial-arts- and swordsplay-professionals, who also knew how to develop a storyline and built some great atmosphere
25 February 2004
I remember watching this movie as a kid and being quite impressed because I found it so bloody. I often remembered this movie and so I was really happy to find this now in a second hand video store after all those years. Of course I'm not that impressed nowadays - but it's still a very cool swordsplay-movie. I has a lot of great fights with some splatter pleasure like extremities being chopped off. Ohh, and it's no kung-fu- or karate-movie, don't know why they named it "Karate Exterminators" or "Lightning Kung Fu", maybe this was more popular at it's release-date. My german video-release is called "Der gnadenlose Vollstrecker" which is a title that totally fits. Really outstanding is the atmosphere. You have fights in pitch black, in the water and marsh, with fire and so on. And there is a lot of rain. You know, rainy, dark atmosphere, desperate and already injured heroes with long wet hair in the face standing counterpart ready to die. - Cool! And the hero is no real hero because he's a total cold-hearted, bougeois executioner. But there's some development with his character during the story which is quite realistic. And the end is very surprising and radical. So, the movie-makers are not just martial-arts- and swordsplay-professionals, they also knew how to develop a storyline and built some great atmosphere. For me this movie is a hidden treasure of all those kung-fu and swordsplay-movies of the 70ies & 80ies. 7 out of 10.
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7/10
italian exploitation at it's best
22 February 2004
Wow, this is italian exploitation flicks at it's best. Guess this one came because of the post-apocalyptic hype after "Escape from New York" and "Mad Max", and got stuff like "Rollerball" also in it. Of course it's an awful movie full of missing links. But here is simply no need for explanations, this question would be stupid. It's the full atmosphere of 80ies italo exploitation thrash: good explosions (gas!gas!gas! - nothing digital! I reminisce in nostalgica), crazy overacted characters, some bare breasts, a setting full of cheap dirt. Those movies are so honest in their cheasiness and roughness, I love 'em. - And the eighties were best! Italy full ahead! A pitty the video-market got down and what is left is filled by the majors with hollywood-cheapos exploiting themselves with their own cheap ripp-offs which have no life of it's own; a pity, no good exploitation-scene nowadays...

And hey, wow, this one has them all in it: Joe d'Amato, Al Cliver, Laura Gemser, Michele Soavi and George Eastmen. - A Fest! Gets a nerdish 7 out of 10!
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Bierkampf (1977)
10/10
Many of the mono- and dialogues are really funny as hell and also quite intelligent in a subtle and subversive meaning
22 February 2004
This movie is located at the "Oktoberfest" (bigbig, legendary and well-known drinking fest for dumb white-bread idiots) in Munich/Germany. A man who is dissatisfied with his senseless existence in his family-life and social status steals the uniform of a policeman and then enters the "Oktoberfest". - Now he is somebody, he is important, he can help, people respect him, etc. His wife, other relatives and some friends start to follow him while he gets some new acquaintances. The craziness begins! Full ahead! You cannot really say what the sense of this movie is, maybe it's about senselessness of life in general and about the relativity of common values. Amateur actors philosophize about this and that - most of them unemotional as a stone. But this doesn't ruin the movie - it's quite the contrary and supports the absurdity of the scenes and texts. There's no real storyline, it's more like a collage of sketches and clips. And it's also funny that you never know if the protagonists are actors who know they play for the movie (but I guess they do not know WHAT KIND of movie this is!!) or if they are just visitors of the Oktoberfest who happen to fall victim to a crazy-genius movie-director by chance, you know, like hidden-camera or something. - You never know. - And sometimes people get really angry by being annoyed by our false policeman out of control - and I am very sure that he'd got some punches in the face without this uniform. Many of the mono- and dialogues are really funny as hell and also quite intelligent in a subtle and subversive meaning. This movie and with it it's director was a total find for me, I must recommend this a lot, 10 out of 10!
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4/10
mediocre italo-western with a typical american family-western storyline
22 February 2004
This is the sequel to "Clint el solitario" (1967), again with George Martin and done by director Alfonso Balcázar (who also uses the synonym "George Martin" sometimes).

It's a mediocre italo-western with a typical american family-western storyline: Clint who killed the murderer of his brother in the first movie and therefore was imprisoned escapes from there and wants to get back to his family. His wife and the 2 children had to flee from their home and live on a farm in Texas now. She accepts Clint as a helping hand on the farm just if he lays down his weapons and swears off violence. But soon unscrupulous gangsters want to force them to sell their land and farm. And a headhunter is coming for Clint. So, here it goes...

If you don't like children as important characters of a movie because it often makes them childish, stay away. The acting is second stage professional, nothing special, everything mediocre... But this is more the american style of western, mainly because of the storyline. I can't stand heroes of a Western who don't have a gun on their belly all the time (better: out of their belly). And here you have this family- and farm-crap most of the time. And the wife demanding "No Violence! - or you cannot stay!" - Phhaaa!

Of course it's a trashy italo-version of it with a cheap and dirty setting, really evil and disgusting baddies, some bloody senseless killing and some good punch-fights. And there are some cool blood-red flashbacks to the first part. AND - YOU - HAVE: KLAUS KINSKI - of course he is great, the 100% uncaring headhunter, an invidious mien, but always above everything, long blond hair, smoking cigar permanently - cool as always! In this movie his character has quite a leading role. And I bought this DVD - which was released as "Ein Einsamer kehrt zurück" in Germany - because I love Italo-Western and Klaus Kinski. So it was o.k.! The atmosphere as you could expect it from an Italo-Western is nothing special, most of what you can describe as atmosphere is done by Klaus Kinski. Everything's mediocre - except Klaus Kinski of course!

I was wondering no one commented this movie as it has Klaus Kinski in a leading role and Ennio Morricone did the music.
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3/10
A quite usual trashy Italo-Western
22 February 2004
A quite usual trashy Italo-Western, stupid storyline full of clichés and lack of logic, some mediocre actors, dirty settings, lots of punch-fights and people shoot dead on a massive scale.

This has nothing to do with Django. - At least not in my German translated version, this German DVD-release is called "Adios Companeros" and has Macho Callaghan fighting against Butch Cassidy and Ironhead because their gang killed his one (he's the only survivor). Then you have Butch Cassidy and Ironhead fighting each other because they quarreled and the gang split. And you have Ironhead fighting against everyone because he's just the biggest and most greedy asshole anyway. Yeah, that's it, no more cleverness in the storyline, hehe.

A small role by Klaus Kinski as Reverend Cotton is remarkable (that's why I bought this DVD). In one scene he attempts to separate two men fighting by hitting them and screaming "I said love!" and in another scene he wins a competition in throwing horseshoes and goes nuts for a second - FANTASTICFANTASTICFANTASTIC!!!

It's also remarkable that JOE d'AMATO aka Aristide Massaccesi did the cinematography - I love this master of incompetent exploitation-thrash, so it was an "aahhh" for me.
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