Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers.

This spoof parody of film noir, which was originally intended for DVD release only, has been shown at festivals all over the world and amusingly starts with the following disclaimer:

‘The Chainsaws used in this motion picture are REAL and DANGEROUSE! They are handled here by seasoned professionals (which is not true). The makers of this motion picture advice strongly against anyone attempting to perform these stunts at home. Especially if you are naked and about to engage in strenuous sex  (good advice). My conscience is clear - signed by the director’. 

With a budget of around 50,000 dollars this low budget one-take cult classic had only one print produced and was made in five days over two weekends using borrowed equipment and sets. Written, directed and produced by Fred Olen Ray who is best known for American grindhouse ‘B’ movies of which Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (1988) fits quite nicely in this genre.

 

Jack questions Mercedes.

Packed with macabre gore, buckets of blood, cracking looking young ladies who aren’t frightened to wave a real chainsaw about make this movie a guilty pleasure and one cant help feel that the cast and crew had great fun making it.

 

Samantha demonstrates the safe use of a chainsaw...

A private investigator Jack Chandler looking for a missing girl begins trailing a stripper called Samantha who he believes might know something relating to murders that are happening across downtown LA. Meanwhile Mercedes, a prostitute, is shocked to discover her new employers have a keen fetish for chainsaws and like nothing more than to sacrifice a few of their unruly customers. After Jack uncovers the sect of chainsaw-worshipping hookers, he realises they just might be connected to the recent series of murders[1].

 

....while the attentive Mercedes looks on.

Jack Chandler is played by Jay Richardson, Mercedes by Michelle Bauer a July 1981Penthouse Pet who became a well known American B movie actress and scream queen and who also appeared in a notorious porn movie in 1982 called Café Flesh. Her iconic picture decorates the front of the DVD release. Another well-known B movie actress the lovely Linnea Quigley plays Samantha. You will also spot Gunner Hanson who played Leatherface in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) as The Stranger. A film not to be missed if only for the double virgin chainsaw dance and a demonstration of how useful a Hudson sprayer can be!

---

[1] Synopsis provide by Love Film.

The Samurai (Der Samurai).

The central image of Till Kleinert debut film is an androgynous figure roaming the empty streets of a village in the middle of the night dressed in a wedding dress and holding a samurai sword! It’s an intriguing bloodthirsty fairy tale with a difference. Berlin born Kleinert not only directed Der Samurai (2014) he also wrote the screenplay. Shown at the Leeds International Film Festival it missed a general cinematic release and went straight to DVD in the UK.

This is the second German film I have seen recently involving the return of wolfs across Germanys Eastern borders. The first Wild (2016), which I saw in Berlin in April, was about a young woman who shares her appointment with a wolf and forms a relationship with the animal that crosses the line between love and lust.  

 

Something more in the darkness!

In Kleinert’s movie a wolf wanders the woods on the edge of a small village on the German-Polish border. Jakob (Michel Diercks), a young boyish and unassuming local police officer tries to befriend the animal by leaving raw meat hanging in the trees.  But while in the woods he senses something more in the darkness. When he takes it upon himself to deliver a package to a part derelict house on the edge of the village he comes across a man (Pit Bukowski), who has a wild gaze, a wiry body and shoulder length hair, dressed in what would appear to be a wedding frock. The package contains a Japanese sword with which this stranger intends to wreak havoc on both the village and its inhabitants. He invites Jacob, whose parents are dead and who lives with his aging grandmother, to join him.

 

Jacobs right of passage.

Is there a connection between the wolf and our violent transvestite? We get to witness an erotic dance scene between the two men which in it self forces the viewer to ask if these two men are a different side of the same character and have we been observing a dream sequence or are we meant to be questioning the young police officers sexuality?

 

The androgynous figure of The Samural. 

The movie has what I would describe as symbolic violence as most of it is implied and not actually seen on screen.  That is until the final scene when The Samurai appears naked, his erect penis turned on by the thought of death. A very dark and surreal DVD that was definitely worth liberating from the bargain bin at HMV.  

Away.

 

As normal with my visit to Edinburgh to catch some of the movies showing at its 2016 International Film Festival I make a point of supporting films made in the UK. The three British movies I’ve seen this year have two things in common. Firstly they all have one-word titles and secondly and far more importantly all have been disappointing. 

Probable safe to say that director David Blair is best known for his work on TV Series like Accused (2010-2012), The Street (2006-2009) right back the very well received The Lakes in 1997. But his latest feature film I’m afraid is not up to the standard of these or many of the other TV series he has been involved with. First time feature film script writer Roger Hadfield has written a story that to my mind has no real depth and does hold your attention for what seems like a never ending 110 minutes.

Starring Timothy Spall and one of movie rambles favourite actresses Juno Temple as a couple of self-indulgent people who strike up a relationship in the northern coastal resort of Blackpool. Following the death of his wife, Joseph (Spall) heads to the coastal town to commit suicide. Meanwhile Ria (Temple) also travels to Blackpool with a holdall full of drugs that’s she has stolen from her abusive boyfriend Dex (Matt Ryan) to sell to Angie (Susan Lynch) a middle-aged drug dealer who as a ‘thing’ for young addicts. Also in this mix is Ria’s care home buddy Kaz (Hayley Squires). Dex comes after Ria, will he get his drugs back? Does Ria find solace in her relationship with the depressed widower or is she looking for a surrogate father figure? Will Joseph commit suicide? You can answer these questions for yourself when the film gets its UK release on the 7^th October 2016.

Hitch Hike (Autostop rosso sangue)

Basically this over acted Italian crime film is about a couple towing a caravan through a desert type location made to look like Northern California, but actually filmed in the mountains of the Gran Sasso around the city of L’Aquila in central Italy, who get taken hostage by a sadistic escapee from an institution for the criminally insane. 

 

Franco Nero.

David Hess.

Walter Mancini (Nero) is a washed-up alcoholic writer traveling with his wife, Eve (Corinne Clery), whom suffers at his hands from abuse and humiliation. But, when they pick up a seemingly stranded motorist named Adam (Hess), their trip takes an unexpected turn for the worse. Adam, a deranged and murderous fugitive, orders them to drive him to Mexico, tying up Walter and torturing him for fun and raping Eve. Pursued by Adam's former partners, from whom he has stolen two million dollars, the trio journey through the desert as each plots their escape from one another.

 

Corinne Clery.

The movie is based on Peter Kane’s novel The Violence and the Fury and is directed by Italian screenwriter and novelist Pasquale Festa Campanile. It stars Franco Nero an actor best known for his role of Django in Sergio Corbucci’s 1966 Spaghetti Western of the same name, the French actress Corinne Clery who had the lead in Story of O in 1975 and American actor David Hess.  The film score also has a spaghetti western connection in that Ennio Morricone wrote the rather attractive score.  A movie that will not be to everyone’s taste with its graphic rape scene and bouts of violence but I thinking given the right frame of mind you may find it a enjoyable diversion.