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Reviews
Ren she da zhan (1982)
Most gruesome snake-horror film ever !!!
It's very difficult to get a good copy of this film - and if you can get hold of one, the tape is most often only in Cantonese language.
During the construction of luxury apartment buildings a huge nest of thousands of snakes is discovered. Francis Chang (the boss) refuses to delay the construction and orders to kill all the animals. He is repeated warned by his wife, who had some nightmares concerning him and the snakes. They do not manage to kill all snakes and so they take revenge on the construction workers and Francis Chang. Soon thousands of killer snakes under the lead of a giant Boa invades the building an kill all the new inhabitants. Even a snake master can't stop them.
The bad thing about this trash-film is, that they kill and burn the snakes for real ... (unfortunately NO Special-FX)! On the other side the scenes with thousands of real snakes are extremely impressive. you will never forget this images and will always be happy not to be a Chinese actor in this film. A film from the days when they did not spoil everything with cheap CGI-effects.
If you like more of this strange killer-animals-horror films from Hong Kong check also "Lewd Lizard", "Killer Snakes" (DVD), "Centipede Horror" (DVD)and "Sucubare"
Part of this film was used for a strange US-production called "Serpent Warriors" aka "Snake Inferno" (1985) "directed" by John Howard.
Arahan jangpung daejakjeon (2004)
Fun, Action and Special-Effects
I had a chance to view this film during the NIFFF 2004 (Neuchatel International Fantasy Film Festival) in Switzerland. Far Eastern Films are very popular this days (at least in Europe) and offer a different way of telling stories than the big US-productions. The naive downtown policeman Sang Hwan helps the good and punishes the bad. He is discovered b a martial art master and trained to unleash the powers within him, in order to fight the ultimate evil Heung Un and save the world. This South-Korean film is combining humor, action and special effects a little bit in the tradition of Jackie Chan-films. "Arahan" is based on a Korean cartoon. 3 out of 5 *
Gagamboy (2004)
Spiderman-parody from the Philippines
I had a chance to view this film during the NIFFF 2004 (Neuchatel International Fantasy Film Festival)in Switzerland. This is director Erik Matti's second film and was rather a flop in his country, as it was considered a children film. In Europe a far more mature public is discovering this very amusing low-budget parody. During the festival this film was always sold out and everybody love it ! It's the story of Junie an ice-cream salesman, who swallows a spider and transforms into Gagamboy (what means "Spiderboy"). He has to defend the good and fight against evil (Cockroachman) and tries to gain the heart of lovely Liana. The budget was very low, but compensated with lots of humor and very ironic playing actors. The film takes itself never serious and under this point of view makes a lot of fun. Not like so many US-productions of Marvel-comics this movie has something very important: soul ! 4 out of 5 *
The Machinist (2004)
winner of the HR Giger Award "Narcisse for the Best Fantastic Feature Film" NIFFF - Switzerland
This film just won the HR Giger Award "Narcisse for the Best Fantastic Feature Film" and the "Silver Méliès Award" at the NIFFF 2004 (Neuchatel International Fantasy Film Festival) in Switzerland. The very dark story with excellent pictures tells about Trevor Reznik, a machinist, who isn't able to sleep for months (the reason for this will only be explained at the end of the film). He is exhausted and causes an accident at work, where one of his colleagues loses an arm. Slowly he becomes paranoid and strange things happen around him. In Europe we call this kind of movies "Mindfucker"-Films (in the US you would probably call it "Mind*****"-Films - but at the end it's the same...). Director Brad Anderson plays with the viewer and you never know what's real and what's not. Jennifer Jason Leigh plays a usual the white trash slut and Christian Bale's performance is troubling. To see this thin man, only being bones and skin (like a KZ-survivor) is really a "tour de force".
Leák (1981)
So bad it's good
This is the story about a woman doing research on black magic. After having learned everything about Voodoo, she travels to Indonesia to meat and great "Leak", a monster-ghost.
Nearly everything is horrible in this movie, from the special-effects, over the acting to the story. On the other side it's so bad that it becomes funny. Everybody in the movie-theater was laughing tears (what you can not say of most of the newer Eddie Murphy Films). So if you have the chance to see this Indonesian horror movie do it ! In Europe this film was shown under the title of "Mystics in Bali".
There are many strange horror-fantasy- films from countries like Pakistan, Philippines, Indonesia and even Nigeria and Ghana to discover if you are open minded enough
Braindead (1992)
blood and gore have never been more fun
some people may think everybody who watches films like this AND enjoys them must be mentaly sick. I don't have to tell you, that reality around us is most of the time much more terrifying and horrible than this kind of films. Today nobody can denie the talent of director Peter Jackson after having brought to us so different masterpieces like "Lord of the Rings" or "Heavenly Creatures". Sam Raimi's (Spiderman) "Evil Dead" was for many years one of the best - when not THE best Horrorflick of all times. Then came Dan O'Bannons "Return of the Living Dead", where gore and ironical humour were mixed. "Brain Dead" is a kind of melange between this two films. Never have I seen more blood, slime and gore in one single film - seldom have I laughed more (in a splatterfilm...). If you love gallons of blood and hundreds of disgusting (in a positive sense) special-fx you have definitively to see this film in the uncut (R-18) version. It will be very difficult to top this film in the future...!!!