Lima

Another masterpiece by PIXAR, I had more fun with it than with the overrated Shrek. Great animation, an original and funny story and the voices of Buscemi a John Goodman on top of that.

It has no plot, it is "just" a mere sequence of visual fantasies, accompanied by symphonic music. The question is why the lords of Disney released it in cinemas at all (is it some kind of anniversary?), but if you have a relationship with films like this, you won't get bored, it's very nice to watch.

After some horrible reviews I was expecting a really big dud, but it wasn’t – though barely. It’s pretty much the same, with a surprisingly more impressive visual stylization than in the first one, some traps and kills are interestingly sophisticated, but unfortunately the final impression is spoiled by a horribly botched ending – you scriptwriters really failed. I won’t watch it again because of it.

This ninety minute showcase of brutality outwardly tries to give the viewer the impression that it carries a message. In fact, this pious message – to highlight the dark side of man and the shameful commercialisation of violence – is just a mere excuse for Deodato to show us the harshest snuff ever committed against animals in a feature film (turtle lovers, don't watch this) and to portray in an extremely authentic way the filth (there's no other way to put it) that man can commit against man. The level of authenticity is so great that while watching it, I wondered if it was really just staged (but not with the animals, they're really live murders). Overall summary: a very artfully made disgusting film that pretends to be profound, but I don't buy it.

I really liked this a lot! Formally, I have nothing to fault, it has an extremely impressive horror atmosphere, solid music and some really cool scenes that hit you over the head with the impact of a meat cleaver (the scene with the drowning men, the acid in the hospital, the scene with the dog). The actors, especially the likeable lead, give, with few exceptions, decent performances. After recently watching D'Amato's B-movies, this film was a balm for me. And just for the record, a very surprising moment for me was the scene where Fulci cruelly deals with a little girl – a bold breach, I would say, of the film industry's unwritten rule about the inviolability of small children. That guy really didn’t mess around :)

A pleasantly straightforward script that retains mystery throughout, and the sombre mood is priceless. This is typical Fulci as I like it: provocative in its naturalistic depiction of violence (too detailed and disgusting for many people) and powerful in evoking a sultry horror atmosphere. And there’s also the legendary scene of the drill to the brain.

A young man cannot live without his dead girlfriend, so he decides to dig her up from the grave, take her home and mummify her. This sets off a chain of events that leads to three murders. This film is considered by many to be D'Amato's best work. Yet, or perhaps because of this, I cannot help but be disappointed. I can ignore the stupid dialogue and the awful actors, they aren’t that important in the gore genre. What's worse is that the film has zero atmosphere, the bright, garish colours don't have much of a horror feel and even the music by The Goblins, otherwise so great in Argento's Suspiria, doesn't really fit. The murders themselves are not very sophisticated, they aren’t very “gore”. In this respect, perhaps only the bathroom scene with the butcher's cleaver and the acid will satisfy die-hard gore fans. Ironically, the most impressive scene is the one that doesn’t show a drop of blood, when Amato alternates between shots of the full mouth of the dining housekeeper and the remains of a body dissolved by acid. That moment will make you lose your appetite.

If you're a fan of bad movies, you'll be thoroughly entertained. The direction is terrible in an Ed Wood kind of way, the dialogues are hammy, the performances are awful (in this respect the black actor with the artistic name Dakar stands out, in Fulci's Zombi 2 he plays the doctor's assistant Lucas, here he plays the same character, this time called Moloto). The gore effects aren't bad, there are plenty and you don't have to wait long for them. Otherwise, the resemblance to Fulci's Zombi 2 is striking: the same main characters, two women and two men, a blonde and a bearded man, the same weird doctor and his black assistant (Dakar yay!), a similar script, filmed in the exact same location, which is not surprising, given that the same producers and the same make-up and special effects artists worked on it. All in all, it was so bad that I had a pretty good time with it. More than Fulci's "little brother", although the latter is of course two orders of magnitude higher in terms of filmmaking.

Another one of those many charmingly naive Hollywood science fiction films from the golden era of the genre in the 1950s. The inhabitants of planet Metaluna invade Earth and, with the help of alien scientists, want to discover a new source of energy to help their planet avoid extinction. One of the scientists, Dr.Meacham, along with a promising female scientist, discovers the aliens' nefarious plans to take over Earth, and is abducted to Metaluna... Nothing much happens for the first 45 minutes, it's mostly conversational, but the kidnapping of the scientists really gets the film going. There are some really good visual effects scenes (for the time, of course): laser beams, a look inside a flying saucer, a hybernation cubicle, X-ray cuts through bodies, a small hint of a space battle, a look at the surface and the inside of Metaluna, charmingly naive futuristic buildings, drawings, models, frequent use of interludes. Aliens are distinguished from humans by their high foreheads and white wigs. There's even a fight with mutants. Everything is so incredibly silly and naive, but that's the beauty of it!

Yeah, those were the days, the golden 50s, when Hollywood was teeming with mutated creatures. The title of the film promises much, but there is no real threat to the world. Rather, the two monsters, which look like caterpillars but live in snail shells and leave slime, move confusedly within a few kilometres. They're not too scary, they have trouble getting through ordinary doors and all you have to do to drive them away is poke them in the eye with a paddle. But they're really adorable with their cute peepers. Admittedly, the final showdown lacks charge and is very unsatisfying in that regard, but the final "dramatic" scene from the lab makes up for it. All in all, it's awfully naive, but terribly charming. Proper 4*!