body horror

The Queen of Black Magic

The Queen of Black Magic (1979)

A wedding party falls under a black magic curse. The bride has horrific visions and the entire ceremony is in shambles. The groom, Kohar, took Murni’s virginity and then spurned her for his new woman. Now he accuses her of casting the curse upon his fiancé. Kohar encourages the villagers to capture Murni, set her mother on fire, and then throw her off a cliff. She is rescued from death by a witch doctor who teaches her the arts of black magic. Murni uses her newfound abilities to get vengeance on Kohar and the people who tried to destroy her.

Obviously not big on women’s lib, Murni (played by the lovely Suzzanna) is first manipulated by the man she loves and then becomes a pawn of the evil sorcerer. Thankfully, Kohar, the unrepentant prick gets what he deserves. Permana, the holy man, comes preaching that prayer is the best defense against black magic and he’s right. The ignorance of the villagers and their refusal to pray will spell out their doom.

The Queen of Black Magic has excellent direction and pacing. The movie flies by as we are treated to one wild scene after another. Somebody please, buy me this soundtrack! The score for The Queen of Black Magic is some wild synthesizer action mixed with a killer string section and awesome percussion. It’s freakin’ great!

The gore effects are simple but gruesome with some wicked splatter moments. One evil bastard is killed when giant blood-filled boils appear on his body and burst all over the place. Another choice scene comes when someone rips his own head off. The head starts flying around and bites a strip of flesh off the leader of the village.

This was my first foray into Indonesian horror and it will not be the last. The story reminded me of a 70s Shaw Brothers gore flick but more conservative like an Indian horror film (just without the musical numbers). Other than the crazy gore and Murni’s wacky training montage, the most outlandish aspect of The Queen of Black Magic is a totally unnecessary melodramatic twist at the end that just makes the story a little more confusing and a little more strange. Overall, this is a fun flick that folks with a taste for international horror will go bonkers over. Highly recommended!

“All men are traitors!”

The Frankenstein Syndrome

The Frankenstein Syndrome (2010)

Elizabeth Barnes (played by Tiffany Shepis) is quite the young upstart in the field of stem-cell research. She takes a job working in a secret laboratory for the infamous Dr. Walton (Ed Lauter). Walton is trying to develop a serum that will cure every known disease, perhaps even cure death itself, and he has gathered a crew of brilliant physicians together to make this happen.

The reason for all the secrecy is that his group of scientists is illegally obtaining their materials from homeless women willing to sacrifice their bodies for science. Elizabeth immediately takes flack from Dr. Victoria Travelle (Patti Tindall), the team’s leader, who sees her as a threat to her position. After David Doyle (Scott Anthony Leet), the head of security, is killed, they use his body to test the serum and resurrect him but the results of this experiment are less than ideal.

This film delves into the sub-genres of medical horror and mad science and comes out all nasty; coughing up black bile, spraying blood, and flinging chunks of bodies and stuff. The Frankenstein Syndrome has a cool look and boasts some nice camerawork and lighting. It’s hard not to come away from this film feeling cold and slightly depressed. This is not the feel-good splatter flick of the year!

The cast is where The Frankenstein Syndrome really succeeds. One of the horror genre’s sexiest go-to gals, Tiffany Shepis, is excellent in her role (she also gets a producing credit on this film) that is complex and fascinating. The incredibly prolific and always dependable Ed Lauter has a good, smallish part and Louis Mandylor is perfect as the cold and calculating, Marcus, one of Dr. Walton’s lackeys. I really enjoyed Patti Tindall’s ice queen act that only melts when things get really fucked up and it just makes her character even more disturbing. Scott Anthony Leet completely caught me off guard and puts in an extremely dynamic performance.

While The Frankenstein Syndrome isn’t breaking any new ground, the film is full of some cool, if heavy-handed, ideas. I won’t spoil any of those ideas here because they are part of what makes this film unique from your average straight-to-video horror flick and might be possibly spoilerish. Let’s just say there is some immoral and profoundly dark shit going on and leave it at that. Director Tretta and crew make the most of their modest budget and great cast to pull off something horrifying, smart, gory, and quite bleak. If you happen to stumble across this indie horror film or go seek it out, you won’t be disappointed.

Baptism of Blood

Baptism of Blood (1996)

Beautiful film actress Matsuko Uehara (Risa Akikawa) goes into hiding after she develops a disfiguring skin disease. She and Dr. Edmond Meredith (Tatsuya Go) plan to use his brain transplant machine to give her a younger body. Fifteen years later, they finally have the perfect specimen: Matsuko’s teenage daughter Sakura (played by Rie Imamura). As if Sakura didn’t have enough problems what with her lecherous piano teacher, Masahiko (Chihiro Tago), she now has to deal with her mom’s body-snatching? Geez!

Kenichi Yoshihara directs Baptism of Blood, a film that is proof that sometimes things are obscure for a reason and your directorial debut can also be your swan song. Okay, maybe I’m being a little hasty here. Yoshihara hasn’t made a film in 21 years but after this one, I have to say he’s probably done. Anyway… What Baptism of Blood lacks in plot, acting, and pacing, it (nearly) makes up for in all out kookiness. The film sports a low budget (except where gore effects are involved) and ultra-minimal sets that actually work in its favor.

There are these weird moments when the planets align and this film actually kicks out the jams for a moment or two. The scene where Sakura (with Matsuko’s brain in her body) threatens Kazuyo’s baby carriage (with her baby inside it!) with a minivan is amazing. There’s also a beautiful bitch-slap session when Matsuko pummels one of Sakura’s friends for accidentally scratching her perfect face. Reverse Oscar for everyone involved! Do they make Academy Award statues sitting on a little gold toilet? Boy, I’d love to hand those bastards out!

If you have an unequivocal love of Japanese horror films then Baptism of Blood will either stretch it to the breaking point or kill it completely. You will be as astounded by the absence of an even remotely mediocre ending as you will by the audaciousness of the phallicized brain switching machine. So that’s where the money went! Straight to the big black penis apparatus! Thank you, thesaurus.

Oh, if only the plot have held out we might have a minor bad classic on our hands. The film is quite kinky and sometimes just plain wrong. The whole thing with 15 year old Sakura (with Matsuko’s brain in her body!) sleeping with her piano teacher… No comment. The clunkiness of the script, the not-so-subtle perverse themes, the unintentional hilarity, and some nasty gore scenes make this an interesting viewing experience to say the least. I’m going to go out on a limb here and actually say that I actually really like this one but please, please understand how terrible this is before you muster up the courage to face the misleadingly titled Baptism of Blood.

Baby Blood

babyblood

Baby Blood (1990)

Yanka (Emmanuelle Escourrou) works in the circus along with her abusive husband and is terribly unhappy. One night, a parasitic monster bursts out of a recently delivered leopard and goes looking for a new host. Yanka is impregnated by the creature and the next day, she flees from her husband, stealing all of the circus’ money. As the weeks go by, Yanka’s child begins to speak to her telepathically. It tells her that it needs blood to survive and it forces her to kill using the threat of pain and death to spur her on. Before long, Yanka begins to enjoy killing for her baby and finds that she is becoming more and more careless and violent in her pursuit of blood. As the time of its birth comes closer, the creature tells her that she must take it to the ocean. Yanka then makes a bloody b-line for the sea leaving a path of gore and destruction in her wake.

Okay, where did the hell did this one come from? Think of Baby Blood as a shorter and less cerebral Possession (1981) and instead of Isabelle Adjani you get Emmanuelle Escourrou. This ain’t art but somehow it works. Director Alain Robak really has it in for the viewer with this one, pouring on the gore and blood liberally while filling the film with some of the most brutish and unattractive dudes I’ve ever seen. Not to mention the repulsive sensuality (?) of our leading lady. More on that later. The plot is quite chaotic and simple but builds up quite nicely to its explosive conclusion. The cinematography by Bernard Déchet is gritty, grimy, somewhat sleazy, and workmanlike but captures all of the action perfectly.

Emmanuelle Escourrou’s performance as Yanka (mother of the year) is quite a bold and dynamic one. She is willing to strip for the camera frequently, get covered in blood, put the pillow under her dress, and wholeheartedly take part in one of the most unflattering roles I’ve ever seen. Thankfully, the rest of the cast takes Baby Blood as seriously as the lead keeping the film from getting out of hand (too late) and campy. And did you ever wonder who the ugliest man in all of France is? Well, it might just be Jean-François Gallotte who plays Richard, the ex-clown “ladies’ man”, who has the brilliant idea of attempting to start a relationship with Yanka.

As it moves erratically along, Baby Blood becomes madder and madder in its willingness to shed more and more blood as well as become even more outlandish with each scene. The very literal male-bashing becomes quite shocking as Yanka’s own bloodlust surfaces out of her child’s need. Clearly, our voluptuous gap-toothed vixen has some issues. Is Baby Blood a sloppy, slippery, and chunky feminist manifesto? You make the call, duder.

I have to put Baby Blood way up there in my top 10 Eurohorror flicks of all time. It’s also a must see for anyone who doubts the French’s ability to make quality horror. I have been infatuated with Yanka (ewww, now I feel dirty) and her grisly Cronenbergesque journey since I first caught the censored cut of this on VHS a while back as The Evil Within. Expecting mothers beware, this is a trashy tale of body horror with a serious mean streak. Baby Blood will make you feel all warm and fuzzy (and squishy and squirmy) on the inside shortly before it asks you to kill for fresh male blood but only because it wants to be born. But isn’t that what we all want?