Utter insanity

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 Bloodsucker Leads the Dance (1975)

It’s 1902, in Ireland, and a group of actresses are invited to stay at the castle of Count Richard Marnack (played by Giacomo Rossi-Stuart). He is especially attracted to Evelyn (Patrizia Webley) because she reminds him of his dead wife. Or maybe she’s missing. Something. Oh yeah, there’s a curse in the Marnack family bloodline where the men go crazy and cut their wives’ heads off. I think that’s what it was. Anyway, it isn’t long before members of the group start turning up with their heads cut off. Ugh, I can’t even summon up the energy to describe this bag of crap.

Man oh man, this is one busted-ass Italian cinematic nightmare. I’ve seen many gialli with weak plots, tepid scripts, awkward actors, painfully over-the-top performances, cheap gore effects, listless direction, bland sets, unimaginative lighting, lame dubbing, and a complete lack of suspense. However, all of these factors rarely occur in the SAME DANG FILM! Alfredo Rizzo, I’m calling you out! The curiously (and severely misleadingly) titled The Bloodsucker Leads The Dance is one dreary movie experience. If you can even get through the longest 89 minutes on Earth, you’ll wonder why you did.

As to why these actors ever showed up to work everyday… Well, it must be some kind of a miracle. Giacomo Rossi-Stuart of The Night Evelyn Came Out of Her Grave and Death Smiled at Murder has certainly been much better in other films. I can’t really blame him for sleepwalking through this one. Krista Nell (Night of the Devils) seems to be the only one having any fun as Cora, the slutty actress. Redhead hottie Femi Benussi (Strip Nude for Your Killer) seems utterly confounded as to the “complex” nature of her role as Sybil, the maid. Shhh, she’s got a secret love for Count Marnack! God help poor Evelyn, played by the beautiful Patrizia Webley in her film debut (ouch).

Comic relief comes from Leo Valeriano as Samuel, stagehand and manager for the actresses. No, wait. I actually have no clue what this duder’s purpose is. Anyway, this sad schmuck is ridiculed by the ladies throughout the film. They refer to him as being “half a man” (?) and never miss an opportunity to remind him that they think of him as a eunuch. As an actor, Valeriano is awful but he does manage to put some of the most bizarre and hilariously inappropriate facial expressions I’ve ever seen into his performance.

The plodding pace of Bloodsucker will destroy your happy thoughts. As for the film’s “finale”, um… no. The big reveal goes off like a wet firework. For those of you brave souls out there who insist on seeing every Italian horror movie ever made and for those that will ignore my warnings about the unfathomable suck that is The Bloodsucker Leads The Dance, here is the only reason to watch this film: sex and nudity. Oh yeah, and there a couple of really pathetic and cheap severed heads. Dang, this may just be the worst giallo ever made. Yeah, don’t watch this… unless you want to.

“The world is a stage but sometimes it isn’t.”

Night Angel

Night Angel (1990)

The newest model at Siren Magazine just happens to be Lilith (Isa Jank), a man-devouring demon. Despite the fact that the leading men at the magazine office are being killed in horrible ways, a new romance springs up between Siren reporter Craig (Linden Ashby) and jewelry designer (and boss’s daughter) Kirstie (Debra Feuer). Soon, Craig and Kirstie discover that everyone at Siren Magazine has become obsessed with Lilith and are becoming increasingly deranged and violent. The two are approached by Sadie (Helen Martin), an old mystic whose husband was devoured by Lilith many years ago. Sadie vows to destroy the demon before she breaths her final breath. When Kirstie is kidnapped by one of Lilith’s zombie-like followers, it is up to Craig and Sadie to send her back to Hell.

Oh, Night Angel, where have you been all my life? Probably at the video store. This film is one of those forehead-slappers I should have checked out ages ago. Directed by Dominique Othenin-Girard (Halloween 5, After Darkness), this very odd film goes the distance with strangeness, trashiness, as well as some eye-opening gore and special effects sequences. The writing is decent enough despite some thinly conceived characters and wince-inducing dialogue. Camerawork by David Lewis (Night of the Demons) is excellent with some tricky editing (read as: pointless slow motion) from Jerry Brady (also Halloween 5).

The acting isn’t great but it’s serviceable considering the material. Isa Jank gets pretty hot and heavy (well her blatantly obvious body double does anyway) in her role as the evil Lilith. Linden Ashby (of Mortal Kombat fame) is here to play our hero-ish guy, Craig. Debra Feuer is suitable as his love interest, Kirstie (yawn). Ken, the resident nerd, is played by Doug Jones (Hellboy) who grows quite creepy after he is enslaved by Lilith. The wildly prolific cult actress, Karen Black (Trilogy of Terror, The Pyx), turns in an outlandish performance as Rita, editor of Siren Magazine. Then there’s sassy Sadie, played by Helen Martin who’s been in everything from Death Wish to “Good Times” to Repo Man to 50 other thankless bit parts.

What amazes me about Night Angel is just how outrageous it gets. Subtle it is not! Just when I thought things were starting to slow down, the film goes bonkers. There’s a nightmarish bondage orgy-like scene with poor Craig looking awfully disturbed as all kinds of monstrosities are rolled out merely for the sake of some sweaty soft-focus weirdness. There is a gifted (well endowed, that is) young actress named Susie Sparks (of Smothering Tits 1 and 2) who plays a character called “Woman with Faces under Breasts”. Mm-hmm, you get the idea. Don’t listen to all those knuckleheads on IMDB, this one satisfies all your deepest darkest desires of late 80s horror (or early 1990s horror) and then some.

“Oh my gosh, would you look at the rib melons on this babe!”

Hollywood’s New Blood

Hollywood’s New Blood (1988)

An actors’ seminar at a remote house in the woods is interrupted by a series of murders. Legend has it that many years ago, a movie crew got drunk and accidentally blew up a house belonging to the Glouster family. The bodies of the three brothers, Emil, Jeb, and Lou were never recovered. That’s because they weren’t really killed. No, no, no, no, no, NOOOOO, it’s not true. The Glouster boys just got burned real bad and now they are killing the actors one by one.

Sometimes when a store is liquidating their VHS stock, people get hurt. I am one of those people. Hollywood’s New Blood may have cost me only a dollar on that fateful day but what I was really losing was much, much more. My sanity, my dignity, the respect of my wife, and even my ability to have children (lawsuit pending) were all things I lost when I sat down to watch this monotonous slab of death-cheese.

Director James Shyman, in league with the devil, brings us 10 minutes of plot in a 77 minute film. Thanks, fucker. Punctuating nearly every line of dialogue are endless shots of the forest. The editor (some joker from L.A. Video-Grams) is brilliant. One of his finest juxtapositions comes when he superimposes the image of one of the actors roasting marshmallows with that of the burned face of one of the Glouster brothers. That shit is chilling, yo.

Okay, so what else is wrong with Hollywood’s New Blood? Well, I’ll tell you! There are inappropriate and totally unnecessary jungle sound effects for the forest. Is this the most generic musical score ever composed for a horror film or is it a keyboard factory farting and dying? I can’t decide. The makeup effects are pitiful with the un-menacing Glouster boys shuffling around in hobo clothes with paint and strips of latex hanging off their faces.

Instead of sending the actors to a real acting seminar, Shyman decides to put these incompetent fools in a movie together. This ensemble cast really comes into their own when they are all sitting on the couch and staring at the fire. Our hero, Brett Standish (played by Bobby Johnston), is a real stick in the mud with his little ghost stories but don’t worry, he’s gonna save the day after almost everyone is already dead. Brett is also really dreamy with that hot mullet of his. Why did it take Liz so long to fall for this super-hunk?

The final needle this movie jabs into my eyes is a clip show at the end. Because Hollywood’s New Blood obviously did not make the required amount of footage for a full feature, the fuckers in the editing room completely recap the whole dang thing after the story ends. For the next ten minutes, I am treated to the theme music of Hollywood’s New Blood (lyrics below) and a quick run through of scenes, both major and minor (they’re all minor), that I may have missed (or slept through). If anyone is reading this, I implore you, please don’t watch this movie.

“The dishes are dry. Why don’t we get wet?”

Lyrics to the Hollywood’s New Blood theme:

Yes
Hollywood bows to the flood of new blood
The new blood won’t survive
Hollywood’s New Blood
New blood stays alive
Hollywood’s New Blood
New blood

 

Death Warmed Up

Death Warmed Up (1984)

In order to continue his morally questionable experiments on prolonging human life, Dr. Archer Howell (Gary Day) decides to eliminate his colleague Dr. Tucker (David Weatherley). Dr. Howell brainwashes Dr. Tucker’s son Michael (Michael Hurst) into killing his parents with a shotgun. Michael is put into an insane asylum and after his release, seven years later, is looking to kill the mad doctor. He travels with a couple of friends to Dr. Howell’s huge island medical facility. It is here where Michael discovers that the mad doctor’s test subjects have become violent mutants that only Dr. Howell can control.

Okay, so now I think New Zealand is the weirdest place on Earth. This wonderfully cheesy, oddly disjointed, and completely manic sci-fi horror flick comes from director David Blyth (Red-Blooded American Girl). Death Warmed Up is an action-packed and splatter-filled romp through Kiwi country with great stunts, lots of wet gore, and plenty of imagination. The cinematography by James Bartle (The Quiet Earth) is excellent and the synthesizer-infused soundtrack fits the film perfectly. I can’t help but dig on those wild sets and fierce lighting schemes.

On the down side, the script leaves much to be desired as the dialogue is very silly and there are way too many confusing moments in the film. The loose ends and logic lapses make it feel like the movie was a 2 hour epic that someone sliced up. I’m not saying the film would be better with more footage. After all, one of the highlights of Death Warmed Up is its dizzying pace.

Although actor Michael Hurst’s intensity is appreciated, it reaches comic proportions in some points. And yes, his character, Michael, is written rather poorly. From his declaration of love for Sandy (Margaret Umbers) to his nihilistic ramblings at the end of the film, I’m just friggin’ lost. Also, if he is on a quest for bloody revenge against Dr. Howell, why the hell did he bring his girlfriend and another young couple along? Thank God for Spider (David Letch), his mutant rival, who is clear, concise, and deadly.

When I told my friend Nafa about this New Zealand-born horror film, he said “Oh, is Bruno Lawrence in it?” I laughed because it seems like the superbly talented Lawrence (The Quiet Earth, Utu) was in every flick from New Zealand until his death in 1995. Then, while writing this review, I noticed that Bruno Lawrence is indeed in Death Warmed Up. He plays Tex, one of the original mutants in Dr. Howell’s experiments but is almost completely unrecognizable. Yep, awesome.

When all is said and done, I found Death Warmed Up to be a lot of fun despite its downer ending and confusing story. The film is visually arresting, surprisingly gory, and determined to get your attention with its outlandishness. Wait, was Dr. Howell trying to cure death or was he trying to create an army of mind-controlled mutants? Your guess is as good as mine. Just beware of the sexy and evil Kiwi nurses, okay?

“I’ll get you! I’ll get you, bastards!”

Kibakichi

kibakichi

Kibakichi (2004)

Ryuji Harada plays Kibakichi, a swordsman and werewolf who is constantly under attack by bounty hunters while traveling through the countryside to escape his past. Kibakichi discovers a village of Yokai, monsters like himself that have assumed the personas of human beings in order to survive. The Yokai are working on a deal with the yakuza to give them a place to lead their lives as they want to. Kibakichi warns the Yokai not to trust humans and just as he is about to leave, the yakuza, led by Yomaji (Mubu Nakayama), betray the Yokai and launch a violent assault on their village. Caught in the crossfire, Kubakichi uses his superior sword-fighting skills and his powers as a Yokai to defend his kind.

Director Tomoo Haraguchi brings this wild and explosive horror fantasy film to life. Kibakichi superbly combines traditional Japanese monsters with action movie bravado resulting in a jaw dropping experience. The choreography in the sword fighting scenes and the stunt work in the film’s finale are excellent.

The special effects are simplistic but ambitious. The Yokai, taken straight from Japanese lore, look great and there is plenty of blood and gore (both red and blue) spilled throughout. Various filters are used to dowse the film in gorgeous earth tones, giving Kibakichi its own unique and proto-classic look.

The streamlined plot revels in its traditional “lone swordsman” storyline but removes all traces of subtlety to keep in step with the director’s crowd-pleasing style. The action just keeps on coming rarely slowing to allow any audience to lose interest. Even the film’s message is trite: human beings ruin everything.

The actors in Kibakichi perform with a very representational acting style making the film feel like a bizarre theatrical production. This style complements the film’s script, which is laden with melodrama and moments meant to tug on the viewer’s heartstrings. Ryuji Harada is perfect as the stone-faced and deadly Kibakichi.

Kibakichi is one hell of an ambitious and truly weird film. It breaks all the rules of its multiple genres (just check out the yakuza’s arsenal) and yet still captures the conventions that make samurai films so memorable. Most viewers will find it difficult not to be blown away by the sheer bombastic audacity of the film’s climax. Followed by a crappy sequel.

Evil Cat

evilcat

Evil Cat (1987)

A construction crew unwittingly frees an evil cat spirit when they move an ancient stone tablet. Master Cheung (Lau Kar-Leung), the descendant of the mystics sworn to fight the cat, shows up to try and destroy his enemy once and for all. Things look bad as the cat spirit invades the bodies of unsuspecting people, gives them supernatural strength, and then uses them for evil until it casts off their bodies in an explosive spray of body parts. Cheung enlists the help of loser limo driver Ah Long (Mark Cheng), whose boss was possessed and destroyed by the cat spirit, to help him put an end to the evil feline.

This is just what I needed! While it is far from a groundbreaking film or an essential Hong Kong genre classic, Evil Cat is perfect for shaking out the cobwebs. From director Dennis Yu (Beasts, The Imp) comes this wild and fun blend of supernatural horror, slapstick comedy, kung fu, and explosive action. Oh man, some of those stunts looked pretty painful. And yes, this flawed beast also comes loaded with goofy special effects, ridiculous makeup, shrill female characters, stupid cops (and security guards), tame sex scenes (it’s only a Category II after all), ideas lifted from a dozen other films, and a wicked cheesy synthesizer score.

The lunacy of Evil Cat works thanks to some great performers. Lau Kar-Leung is excellent as Master Cheung, a man who has waited fifty years for his chance to prove himself against a supernatural foe. Mark Cheng (Peking Opera Blues) is perfectly cast as Ah Long, limo driver, wannabe playboy, and reluctant hero. And the very silly Jing Wong (Tricky Brains) is awesome as the main source of comic relief: Inspector “Handsome” Wu. Not much can be said for actress Lai-Ying Tang who plays Master Cheung’s daughter. She brings a bland performance to an even blander character.

Folks looking for some really weird and energetic entertainment will dig on Evil Cat. Don’t expect a life-changing experience, just enjoy the ride. The bloody rampage in the police station, the pursuit through some labyrinthine tunnels, and the surprisingly downbeat ending are all highlights of this eccentric flick. Watching this film with Ngai Kai Lam’s The Cat, an even more insane horror-action-sci-fi-whatever film, would make one hell of an amazing double feature.

“No lady will like you. Go back to your working place.”

Night of the Devils

nightofthedevils

Night of the Devils (1972)

A man suffering from amnesia (Gianni Garko) staggers out of the woods, injured, and catatonic. He is brought to a hospital where a doctor (Umberto Raho) runs tests which determine the man has suffered a terrible shock that has reduced him to this agitated and paranoid state. The only person who can identify this man is Sdenka (Agostina Belli), a lovely young woman who claims she met the patient a just few days ago. She identifies him as Nicola, a business man from Italy, but then disappears after the very sight of her drives Nicola into a frenzy.

The film then flashes back to a few days before to the events that drove Nicola mad. While purchasing lumber for his company, Nicola’s car breaks down in the middle of nowhere and he seeks help from a family returning from a funeral and living in a nearly abandoned village in the woods. Jovan (played by Roberto Maldera) agrees to help Nicola but it must be in the morning because there is said to be a blood-drinking witch who prowls around at night. This turns out to be true when the patriarch Gorca (Bill Vanders) returns from attempting to kill the witch but is now a vampire himself. As each member of the family falls prey to vampiric forces, Nicola tries to rescue the lovely Sdenka, the lovely daughter of Gorca with whom he has fallen in love with.

Night of the Devils kicks in with one of the most attention-grabbing opening scenes in Italian horror. Gianni Garko (or Sartana to you spaghetti western types) comes stumbling out of the woods into a clearing. He passes out near a stream and wakes up in a hospital where he is being examined by doctors. During his tests, we see into his mind where he is tormented by horrific visions of rotting corpses, a woman’s face getting shot off, ghoulish figures ripping the flesh from a naked woman’s body. This sequence is spell-binding. Its cheesy for sure but it is impossible not to wonder just what happened to this guy. Curiosity = piqued? You know it.

Director Giorgio Feroni (Mill of the Stone Women) remakes the ‘Wurdulak’ segment of Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath but makes it his own by amping up the sex, the gore, and the cackling madness of the vampires. The soundtrack by Giorgio Gaslini (So Sweet, So Dead) is great with its haunting vocal pieces and tense and minimal freakouts. Spanish cinematographer, Manuel Berenguer, keeps things nice and claustrophobic. While the countryside is nice, it is never pretty. Instead, the entire film is very somber and cast in shadows (without being overly dark). When there is a brightly lit scene, it screams danger and madness. If I have to find faults with this flick then it would be that the pacing is a little slow and the gore effects are looking a bit gamy.

Oh, this cast is great. Gianni Garko is always good. The lovely Agostina Belli of Holocaust 2000 and Scream of the Demon Lover is excellent as the sweet (or possibly evil) Sdenka. You might remember Roberto Maldera from The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave where he played the very unlucky groundskeeper. The luscious and hypnotic Teresa Gimpera of Crypt of the Living Dead gets ripped to shreds in this one (and it’s not by the critics). The always dependable Umberto Raho who usually plays police inspectors gets to flash his skillz by playing a doctor! And then there’s Maria Monti as ‘The Witch’. This is a truly eerie performance from an underused actress who had a small role in What Have You Done to Solange? I also have to mention young Cinzia De Carolis who grew up and played the freaky jailbait who tries to seduce John Saxon in Cannibal Apocalypse.

Night of the Devils is one of those forgotten masterpieces and a genuinely gore-soaked relic. This is the kind of cinema that drives me nerdily on. This film proves that if you think you’ve seen every last scrap of Italian junk, chances are there is one more title out there you need to see. Creepy, sleazy, bloody, melodramatic, nasty, and, as an added bonus: mind-fucky! The somber tone never lets up for a second and you just know that this ain’t gonna end well for our deranged hero. This is good stuff, y’all.

“Television? Now that’s something I’ve never seen!”

Viva

vivadvd

Viva (2007)

Barbi (Anna Biller) has everything that the typical suburban housewife could ever want. She has great friends, sexy Sheila (Bridget Brno) and swingin’ Mark (Jared Sanford), and a manly husband, Rick (Chad England). But this is 1972 and the sexual revolution is calling. With their marriages on the rocks, Barbi and Sheila become call girls in order to find themselves. Renaming herself Viva, Barbi’s journey leads her into a decadent world of sex and drugs. Jumping from one strange bedfellow to the next, Barbi finds that the pursuit of pleasure may be even more complicated than she ever realized.

Viva comes bounding into our world like an errant transmission from a campy and kitschy parallel universe where 1972 never ended. Writer, director, and star Anna Biller loads her subversive and surreal film into a happy shotgun and shoots it point blank into our smiling, slack-jawed faces. This lavish indie production has excellent camerawork, eye-popping set designs, fantastic costumes, and a sickly sweet lounge soundtrack.

The cast of Viva keeps things nice and artificial. This gang delivers the raunchy soap opera dialogue like it was going out of style and handle the inexplicable situations and ferocious stereotypes with ease. Special awards go out to all for keeping straight faces delivering such insane dialogue (and a few extra stars for keeping it together during the riotously ridiculous hippy nudist camp sequence). I refuse to play favorites here because everyone is so totally committed to making this bizarre world work that I could go on forever.

Ah 1972, when men were men and women were their doormats. Biller’s delirious version of the sexual revolution is delightfully ironic. Taking cues from Playboy and other men’s magazines of the age, the world of Viva is a fever dream of a bygone era that never really existed. With commercials for liquor and tobacco written into the script, it’s a trash mag (equal parts hilarious and disturbing) come to life!

Imagine Beyond the Valley of the Dolls soaked in kerosene and set afire with a flame thrower and you might have an idea of what Viva is like. Saturated with sex and nudity, this delirious film even has musical numbers and a trippy animated sequence that would have been right at home in a sleazy softcore romp from the early 70s. With a dedicated cast and a director with an unshakeable grasp on her vision, I can’t help but wholeheartedly recommend Viva to anyone with a taste for excessive camp or even just a perverse sense of humor.

“You’re not just dirty, Barbi, you’re abnormal!”

Jack Be Nimble

jackbenimble

Jack Be Nimble (1993)

Abandoned by their parents as children, Dora and Jack are put up for adoption. Dora (Sarah Smuts-Kennedy) goes to an upper class couple full of love for their new daughter and grows up stably yet unhappy. Jack (Alexis Arquette) is taken in by a couple of abusive country bumpkins with four evil daughters and he is constantly tormented. Both of their lives become unbearable when Dora is pushed off a cliff but a bully at school and Jack is whipped with barbed wire (!) by his adopted father.

When Dora wakes from a short coma, she discovers that she has developed psychic powers and her connection to Jack is even stronger than ever. With the help of her lover and fellow clairvoyant Teddy (Bruno Lawrence), Dora finds Jack but all is not well. In his spare time, Jack builds a machine that hypnotizes people which he uses to get his evil parents to kill themselves. The brother and sister track down their real parents to find out why they were sent to the orphanage. But this ain’t no episode of “The Locator” especially since Jack is now violently psychotic and his four evil sisters are hot on he and Dora’s trail.

Is it okay to be afraid of New Zealanders? The answer is yes. Once again I underestimated a flick from that distant and wonderful place and once again I was totally blown away. Director Garth Maxwell creates a dark and feverish fairy tale world where everyone is completely insane. Jack Be Nimble is both dreamy and nightmarish with exquisitely fluid camerawork and moments of surreal and bloody glory. My only complaint about the film is that the melodrama overtakes the story in some scenes and it gets a little embarrassing to watch as the actors scream and cry at each other.

The always reliable Bruno Lawrence (The Quiet Earth, Death Warmed Up) is in the cast and is very good as Teddy, Dora’s lover (and overly smug psychic) who probably shouldn’t have lent her his car. Alexis Arquette (Bride of Chucky) is awesome as Jack, the brooding, sexy (ooh, someone’s got a man-crush (on someone who used to be a man)) and frightening son of a bitch who has been pushed too close to the edge and can never come back. I really like Sarah Smuts-Kennedy. This odd actress puts everything into her performance of a woman haunted by her past and (as an added bonus) the voices of the dead and I couldn’t help but be fascinated.

While not a perfect film, Jack Be Nimble is a truly original and hypnotic masterpiece of New Zealand horror cinema and is easily one of the strangest films I’ve ever seen. Every character is suffering in his or her own way and either pain or death (or both) is always just around the corner. This film also contains that indescribably Kiwi thing. It’s an aura of quirky madness and total unpredictability even when you’re pretty sure you think you know what’s coming next.

“Do you hear me? You know me. I’m in your head. Drifting in the same sea, you and I, drowning together.”