They're coming to get you!

Today on Screaming Streaming, let the invasion begin! ALIEN ABDUCTION INCIDENT IN LAKE COUNTY is on.

Here is the film.

This film originally aired on UPN in 1998 and claims to show the footage that the McPherson family recorded on Thanksgiving that documents a home invasion by aliens. It's an early found footage film.

But....

It's scary as hell.

...or at least it was to me the first time I saw it.

As they are enjoying their holiday, the power goes off so they go outside to investigate. There they see a transformer popping and exploding, accounting for the power outage. As they wander further from the house they witness an alien craft down a ravine with the occupants doing something to the cattle. When the aliens spot them, they bolt for the house and try to convince the family of what they saw, to the expected reactions.

They stop the camera to show them the footage they just recorded and in the next scene the family is all visibly frightened. But their night is just beginning because these extra terrestrials are pissed off and begin assaulting their home.

Yes, of course we all know this is fiction but it plays the scary alien card wonderfully. It preys on our fear of a home invasion with a scarier twist. But when the film was aired, many people were confused and some thought it was a real home movie. Remember that this was before the boom of found footage and even before the Blair Witch was scaring up audiences. It is actually a bigger budget remake of an earlier incarnation also available on YouTube but I have yet to watch this one.

Wikipedia has an extensive article about the film. For more information on it, click this link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Abduction:_Incident_in_Lake_County

Sunday screams

As I ready to head out and make a horror film of my own, I'm going to quickly toss a movie your way. So here it is.

                            It's AXE aka CALIFORNIA AXE MASSACRE aka LISA, LISA.


                                   

                                                                                Here is the film. Enjoy.

                                                         An alternate poster for the film.

AXE is a film released in 1977 that follows three killers. After doing their thing across a small town they decide to descend upon a farm house inhabited by a young woman named Lisa and her paralyzed grandfather. After being abused by the trio, Lisa goes on a rampage and gets even with the dickhead psychos.

AXE was yet another film targeted and prosecuted as a Video Nasty in 1984. If it wasn't for that designation, it would have been long forgotten and probably would never have ended up here.

It's not a bad film actually as many of the films on the list are far less entertaining than this one.

And you thought your work week was tough?

So today begins a long weekend for me. Jetting off to Seattle for the day and returning the same day. Then it's a movie shoot bright and early Sunday. What a weekend! Oh, speaking of which........

Today's Screaming Streaming is SAVAGE WEEKEND from 1979.

Here is the film. I don't have much time this weekend, but maybe you do and need something to watch.

Plot wise there isn't too much to say about SAVAGE WEEKEND. It's about a group of friends that head out for the weekend to watch a boat being built but they get picked off by a psycho in a ghoulish mask. But how about this?

That is William Sanderson, who is better known as Larry from NEWHART. But in the 1970s he was known for a variety of less likable characters, such as in the Video Nasty, FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE. He is equally scumbaggish here in the role of Otis, a piece of shit local.

The one thing SAVAGE WEEKEND has going for it is actually it's complete ineptitude. Make a drinking game from it. It's fun. Take a drink each time you see the boom mic!

Well I know it's a short blog today but I really have to get my feet up and moving. Have a great weekend. And have a SAVAGE WEEKEND on Screaming Streaming.

The legend lives.

Beware of the Madman Marz, because today we're marked for his wrath.

MADMAN

                            

                                                    Watch it here. If you dare!

This film probably needs no introduction but you never know. Even though MADMAN is considered a cult horror film, it still gets missed by a lot of people. So since it is widely known, there's no need for a long drawn out plot description. Plus I'm lazy.

So these campers are gathered around the fire when one of them tells the story of Madman Marz, a local farmer that killed his family with an axe, got his nose lopped off, was hanged but broke free and then vanished. The legend says never to say his name above a whisper or he'll get you. To which this asshole.......

mocks the tale and calls out to Marz and then throws a rock at his old house. Oops. Bad idea. Now it's on, bitch!

So now it's a killer in the woods ala FRIDAY THE 13th., THE BURNING, DON'T GO IN THE WOODS, and so on. Not too original but MADMAN does it right and is a creepy ass film. Plus the killer looks like this.

One of the great things about this film is also the super eerie theme song. Behold.

Here's the theme song. I love it. A lot. The legend lives. Beware of the Madman Marz today on Screaming Streaming!

Sniffing tobacco

Well that's another way of saying SNUFF.

                                                            Which is the film of the day.


                       

                                               And of course, here is the film.

This is a notorious film although frankly, it doesn't deserve it. SNUFF is also known as SLAUGHTER and AMERICAN CANNIBALS. It follows a Manson style killer family and was made in 1971 but distributor, Allan Shackleton held on to it for a few years before tacking on a new ending. This is the reason for the film's fame. He created a scene where the camera crew of the original film murders a woman on screen. It was toted as being authentic and gave rise to the term, "snuff". Obviously this new ending was fake but it was marketed as real and Shackleton even recruited actors posing as protesters for the film's release. Even after the self-made controversy had settled, the film went on to become a popular film in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. It also became a target of the Video Nasty controversy and was prosecuted as such.

The film itself is nothing too remarkable though. It's a South American exploitation film with a cheesy "real" murder added to the last minutes.

A harrowing experience

Today's film comes with a warning. If you are easily offended, upset, or shocked, please skip today's entry. Try coming back tomorrow. Because we are covering this film. I will keep the pictures as clean as possible but this film is a beast.

It's the notorious film from T.F. Mous, MEN BEHIND THE SUN.

There it is on YouTube. But be warned. I'll explain why below.

This film documents the atrocities committed by the Japanese at the secret war camp, Unit 731 during World War II. The camp was the site of numerous experiments on mostly Chinese prisoners in an attempt to develop biological weapons, study the effects of various forms of trauma, and honestly, just to torture their enemies.

Because of the nature of their acts, it's very hard to find pictures for this movie that don't outright display those horrors. But here is a sampling of the experiments and scenes you can expect to see.

A man inside a decompression chamber has his intestines shoot out of his anus.
Prisoners wired to crosses in a field are subjected to bomb drops.
A boy is vivisected and his organs removed. This scene was actually done with a real cadaver of a young boy.
A woman is left outside in the snow and ice and water is poured over her arms, freezing them solid. Then they bring her inside, dip her arms in hot water, and then the flesh is easily stripped from her bones.

But in my opinion, the worst scene involves a cat in a room where the floor is alive with hungry rats. I think you get the point there. It also looks very realistic and it is possible that it is.

The guy in charge of these atrocities is General Shiro Ishii. He treats all of the prisoners as simple logs for the fire, calling them "marutos", which means just that. They treat them as subhuman objects.

I can keep going with descriptions of this film but I don't think I need to. I will say that this film is widely regarded as one of the most extreme films in existence and therefore I feel the need to state again that this film is not for everybody. It's a realistic drama that documents historical facts. Unit 731 was Hell on Earth and the film actually glosses over some of the nastier events that happened within the walls of the camp.

When I first saw this film over ten years ago, it floored me. It took me four days to shake it off. Most extreme films fade from my immediate mind within hours but this one was a real downer that stayed with me. As the years have past, it has lost some of its power over me but I must warn newbies. This is some fucked up shit. Be warned.

Super gore!

Alas, this is going to be a bloody day on Screaming Streaming. Because we head back to dependable Germany, where gore is fact of life and you pour blood directly onto your breakfast cereal.

Presenting Olaf Ittenbach's THE BURNING MOON.

                                         

Here it is with subtitles.

I was not kidding when I said this movie was gory. That is a serious understatement. This ranks right up there close behind Braindead and Das Komabrutale Duell. It's super badass in the grue department.

So in this flick Olaf himself plays a mullet-headed delinquent teenager who shoots up before giving his little sister two bedtime stories. The first is "Julia's Love" and concerns a serial killer that stalks a woman. While the second, "The Purity" follows an evil priest that allows a groundskeeper to take the fall over the girls he is killing. In the end, he gets his. And how! Seriously, the last minutes of this story is a prolonged Hell sequence in which the viewer is assaulted with a barrage of carnage. People getting ripped apart and separated in every possible way.

This cannot be stated enough. This movie is heavy on the gore. And in a very satisfying way. In that it never becomes a bore or a chore like it does in films like MURDER SET PIECES. It still tells a decent story and the outrageous nature of the violence is so extreme that you will not be disappointed. 

I remember seeing the trailer for this one on an old VHS copy of another sicko movie that may get reviewed in the near future but I remember thinking that the trailer and the obnoxious voiceover claiming it to be the goriest movie ever to be pretty hokey. In trailers and even this review, it's impossible to really show you too much and because of that, I didn't buy into that trailer. It looked stupid. But I was wrong. This is a great gore film and my personal favorite film from Ittenbach.

Gator chow!

                                                   Let's visit a Video Nasty from 1977.

                                          It's Tobe Hooper's horror piece, EATEN ALIVE!


              

                              And now you will watch the film?

The film is about a seedy bayou hotel whose owner, a deranged guy named Judd, has a pet crocodile that lives the waters underneath the hotel porch. Judd is a violent guy with a scythe and a chip on his shoulder.

When a prostitute comes by the hotel after being kicked out of her brothel, Judd attacks her and feeds her to his gator friend. This is your basic idea of the film. People stay at the hotel and get killed by Judd, the gator, or both.

It's a complimentary piece to Hooper's THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and even stars Marilyn Burns. It also stars this familiar horror face.

                                                Robert Englund himself in an early role.

This is a fun film with a simple premise and although not super original, it was still the target of the Video Nasty mess of the early 1980s and was unsuccessfully prosecuted. 

The show must go on!

                                             And so it will with this classic piece of trash film.

                                              It's time for the BLOODSUCKING FREAKS!


                                

And now for the show! I dare you to watch it. Actually I don't care either way.

So here is some sleazy gore material from 1976! Master Sardu and his demented diminutive doofus, Ralphus run a Grand Guinol type horror theater complete with torture, mutilations, and murder all on stage. While the patrons think it is all elaborate special effects, it is actually all too real.

When a harsh critic attends the show and gives Sardu his opinions, he is kidnapped along with a beautiful balerina and subjected to some hideous and revolting acts. Sardu and Ralphus love to degrade their victims and Sardu is fond of using naked women as coffee tables and dart boards! Other fun hijinks include guillotine acts, brain drilling (and blood bubbling with a straw), and sawing off uncooperative dancers' feet!

Oh, and they also traffic sex slaves and keep a cage full of feral women in their basement.

And the Master himself likes some pain once in a while so it's all good.

BLOODSUCKING FREAKS is just an all around fun time for the whole family. That's what the review is getting at. Pretty ugly stuff but the acting and effects are so cheesy that it is hard to get too offended by it all. And if you do, well then maybe this blog ain't for you.

The green that makes you mean.

Today we're going to watch something that will put you in a haze and give you the munchies.

                                          Cheech and Chong approved, It's POT ZOMBIES!

                                                Here it is on YouTube, courtesy of Troma.

Director Justin Powers made POT ZOMBIES in 2005. The plot is simple. Marijuana that is tainted turns you into a glowing eyed zombie and then you eat people! It's not that complicated, OK?

It's a series of scenes that mix comedy and gore. And there's little animated bits too but it's not for the kids!

Here we see our old friend, Lloyd Kaufman in a small role as a "special" pizza delivery man that becomes zombie chow!

There's also a sequence with a hippy in a Volkswagon that gets pulled over by a cop. It doesn't end well for the cop.

You get the idea. It's pot jokes. 

I must admit this film is silly and stupid, not to diss Justin Powers though. Reviewers have been pretty cruel to the film. It's not a Hollywood blockbuster. It's a micro budget zombie film from Texas. I have a special reason to mention this film on Screaming Streaming. It was my first movie work. Some of the horrible added digital effects are my work, circa 2005 when I was still doing short movie parodies for YouTube. Justin's people got a hold of me and asked if I could pick up some of the slack on scenes remaining to be done so they sent me the footage, I threw in some eyes, smoke, crazy crap in the background, or whatever and sent it back.

Troma then bought the distribution rights from Fringe Media and the rest is movie history. Powers recently completed POT ZOMBIES 2 which I have yet to see but am looking forward to checking out. Until that time, see how it all began in this goofy little film.

Something for each day of the week.

Today we'll go after another German horror flick. From the man behind NEKRomantik.

It's DER TODESKING (English title: THE DEATH KING) from Jorg Buttgereit.


                          

                                                            Feel free to watch it here.

DER TODESKING is a bleak film. Not one of those great "invite you buddies over because this movie will make them feel nice" kind of films. Not exactly.

It consists of short stories, one for each day of the week that concerns a violent death or suicide. I won't bother going into details about each day. That would spoil the film. But you get the full deal here. Each segment is divided by this.

A body that slowly rots away during the course of the film. Tasty stuff.

As of now, DER TODESKING has not gotten a DVD release here in the States although it did receive a VHS distribution under Film Threat Video during the 1990s. As such, this might be your best way to see Buttgereit's depressing movie.

Barker's badass

                                                       Introducing the movie of the day.

RAWHEAD REX

                              

                                                  If you must, then you can watch it right here.

RAWHEAD REX is the film adaptation of a short story by Clive Barker. In this film, a man travels to Ireland to research religious artifacts. He witnesses a farmer trying to remove a stone pillar from his field. Let's just say that isn't the best idea because this thing is basically a big wine bottle cork holding down one nasty fella. An ancient pagan demon known as Rawhead Rex.

In addition, Rawhead also has a brainwashed deciple of doom named Declan O'Brien, who became insane after touching an altar and given hideous visions.

Rawhead feels fit to baptize the man by pissing on him, because that's how demons roll. Basically the plot consists of the researcher following Rawhead's trail of destruction and murder, unraveling the story behind the beast and looking for a way to defeat him.

In the meantime, the old brute rampages through the Irish countryside, maiming and mutilating the population as he goes.

I haven't watched this film in years and was surprised to find it on YouTube. My memory is rather rusty to be honest, hence the vague plot details. I may have to watch this one again myself. I recall loving it as a teenager during the late 1980s. 

Barker himself did not like the film adaptation of his story, mainly feeling that Rawhead looked entirely wrong. His creation is described as a "nine foot phallus with teeth" and later incarnations from the Nightbreed comic books seem to follow this idea. 

The future looks bleak.

I've been wanting to cover this film for a while and it is now available on YouTube so here we go.

                                                        It's IDAHO TRANSFER time.


                               

                        Watch it now, later. Maybe you already did watch it. Time travel paradoxes!

In a secret government facility near the Craters of the Moon lava fields in Idaho, a teenager named Karen is part of a revolutionary discovery. The scientists there have discovered time travel and learned that in some years, there will be a cataclysmic event that wipes out humans. They send young people ahead to rebuild and repopulate since older folks don't seem to handle the journey well and they often die.

The damn gob'ment eventually shuts down the program and traps the travelers in the future. And it is not a nice place to be.

Peter Fonda directed this film in 1973. It's more science fiction than horror but it's bleak and uninviting. It's an ugly future reality. It is a slow burn film but never the less, it is a fascinating and forgotten and unknown film now.