The Toxic Avenger (1984) [Fantasia International Film Festival 2016]

Posted on July 17, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

The character that helped build Troma in to the company we know and love it as today, is still a wonderful and fun anti-hero who finds himself dropped in to fate’s door after a mean prank pulled on him one day. In Tromaville New Jersey, Melvin is a young janitor for a local health club dominated by a pair of muscle bound bullies. By day, the bullies roam around the club taunting Melvin and hanging around with their busty girlfriends, but by night they’re vicious hit and run murderers that take joy in killing children and helpless animals. After Melvin accidentally runs afoul one of the bullies, his girlfriend invites Melvin to a private rendezvous on the condition he wear a pink tutu.

After realizing he’s been the victim of a prank, Melvin crashes through a window and falls in to a drum of toxic ooze. Disfigured and transformed in to the muscle bound Toxic Avenger, he roams the streets of Tromaville murdering criminals and rapists, and laying down the law with his handy mop. Despite the very low budget, “The Toxic Avenger” works as a simultaneous superhero action tale and monster movie. A lot like “Robocop,” Troma’s superhero gets the job done in the most violent manner possible.

Michael Herz and Lloyd Kaufman are never above being as splatterific as possible, showing off a ton of gruesome moments including Toxie taking off a thug’s nose, and tearing another’s arm clean off. Of course a lot of the movie doesn’t reserve the grue for the bad guys, eliciting genuine cringe inducing moment when Melvin is turned in to the Toxic Avenger. Even for an indie film in 1984, the sight of Melvin’s skin pulsing and bulging from the toxic waste is grotesque and you hate to see such a goofy protagonist be reduced to this monster. Toxie is kept in the dark for most of his introduction, as he begins feeling his way around his strengths and weaknesses, and realizing his mutation allows him a chance to fight evil.

He begins to take on the bigger nemesis when he realizes the local police force is run by a corrupt chief and his sergeant whose attitude is very Nazi like. Herz and Kaufman give Toxie some time to even fall in love with a beautiful blond girl, and do battle with the villains from the gym. “The Toxic Avenger” is still a fun and off the wall action horror movie with its own twist on the superhero sub-genre. Leave it to Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz to take typical superhero tropes and twist in to something wonderfully gruesome and absurd.

Geist (2016)

Posted on July 15, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

From Giant Animation Studios comes “Geist,” a magnificent and eerie animated film that explores the fall out from a tragic event and how one man comes to terms with it. Brought to life with amazing computer animation and marvelous visuals, “Geist” centers on a lone sailor who, after a ship wreck, finds himself lost in a vicious storm. When he finally finds a small cottage on a hill he seeks refuge for the night, hoping to regain his senses and warm up.

But all is not what it seems within the cottage, as someone or something else lurks in the dark crevices of the house, prompting the sailor to go looking for his watcher before it’s too late. Before long, he begins remembering his ill fated ship wreck and what brought him to the island initially. Directors Alex Sherwood, Ben Harper, and Sean Mullen create a vivid and very eerie short film that doesn’t rely on jump scares or shocks. It’s instead very reliant on the mood and blankets of darkness to keep the mystery of the unknown the most terrifying aspect of “Geist.”

The trio of directors relies on the unseen and unknown until the very end where our true view of what’s unfolded is a tragic glimpse at the concepts of fate, and destiny. I can’t say enough about the wonderful animation pulled off by Giant Animation Studios who build a very vivid world and dreamlike landscapes surrounding our character that may or may not be natural at all. Whoever says animation is only for kids and families really has never seen what indie filmmakers can do with bold ideas and complex themes about loss and death.

Most Anticipated Films at Fantasia International Film Festival 2016

Posted on July 13, 2016 by Emilie Black

Now that the full schedule is out, Fantasians have planned what they will see and bought their tickets. This year’s line-up is full of potentially great stuff and some real oddities. Personally, I look forward to being surprised. In the past, I was happily surprised by Shaun of the Dead, GS Wonderland, A Christmas Horror Story, Borning, etc.

All films I randomly went to see without much planning. So what am I looking forward to this year? Here’s a few I want to see without knowing a ton about them in advance.

Continue reading →

What The Fantasia?! 5 WTF Films from Fantasia’s International Film Festival

Posted on July 11, 2016 by Emilie Black

Fantasia International Film Festival is renowned for showcasing some of the best and weirdest of the film world. As someone who started going their second year and started seriously going for multiple screenings per week in 1999, some of the weird films I’ve seen cannot be unseen. So, just to bring some to attention and have a bit of fun, here are five of the most WTF films I’ve seen.

Continue reading →

Slasher: Season One [Blu-Ray]

Posted on July 11, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

When last we saw Katie McGrath, she was suffering a cruel and unnecessary death in “Jurassic World,” and has now entered the sub-genre of the slasher film. A skosh more entertaining and engrossing than “Scream,” Chiller TV’s “Slasher” is a very entertaining, and tense slasher film that mixes in elements of a murder mystery in the process. I had no expectations for “Slasher,” and surely enough it won me over after two episodes, working within the confines of the slasher sub-genre, while also side stepping some of the more common clichés here and there. Much like “Scream,” main character Sarah comes from a small town where everyone has skeletons in their closets.

Continue reading →

Bachelor Games (2016)

Posted on July 10, 2016 by Emilie Black

Henry is about to marry the love of his life, so he and the guys go to Argentina for an epic bachelor party/trip. Once there, there’s booze, strippers, and drugs before a sobering hike in the mountains where they meet a mystical figure called The Hunter and things get bloody.

The film is written by Chris Hill and Sam Michell who created a believable group of friends with problems and normal lives. None of the five leads are perfect; they all have issues, giving them humanity when they could have easily been caricatures like in The Hangover series. These guys are close, or used to be, and it shows through their interactions. Of course, not all the situations they are put in are realistic given the Hunter figure but having built a believable setting with human characters, the mystical or paranormal works as well.

This script is brought to the screen by Edward McGown a mostly non-fiction director. His nature documentary eye shows in how he shoots the mountains in which the five men go on a hike. Here he crafts a movie that looks beautiful and is suspenseful once the creepy figure of the Hunter shows up. He also brings his actors together in a way that works, whether they are having fun or fighting.

The cast of Bachelor Games is good with a couple of very strong performances. Jack Gordon as the groom to be, Henry, brings many layers to his character that starts off happy and then shows conflict and worry. His character has possibly the most to lose and the most to learn in the bad situation they find themselves in. As Henry’s best man/friend Leon, Charlie Bewley brings layers of slightly off, slightly creepy, womanizing, party boy with no regrets over anything he’s done. That is until he starts fearing for his life and reconsidering what is important in life. Both of their characters have interesting arcs and their performances go with that.

The rest of the cast does well too, Jake Doolan does a convincing drug-addicted bro as Terrence, Mike Noble shows sensitivity as Roy, and Obi Abili brings us an attempting-to-be happy army man with potential PTSD. However, viewers should not be fooled by these performances as almost nothing is as it appears here. The film works as a drama and as a mystery/thriller, it even works as a horror film as it has a lot of elements of the genre in it. The Hunter figure is creepy and adds a chilling element while its design is beautiful. The film has some blood but no real gore to speak of. The blood looks really good and real, even in bright light. They do not shy away from it or hide it in darkness, the violence leads to blood as it should and is clearly shown.

Also worth noting for this film is the cinematography by Lucio Bonelli who brings extensive film experience to director Edward McGown’s documentary experience to get the film to look beautiful and creates an almost dreamlike feel to the images, particularly when in the mountains. Some of the images are a bit on the over-exposed side, but it works with the settings and with the mysterious circumstances, bringing more to them and showing that creepy and mystical creatures can be just as effective in bright daylight.

While Bachelor Games is not the scariest film, it’s well-crafted and entertaining. The story has a twist but it’s early enough to not be annoying or film destroying, it actually adds to the film. The performances are good to very good; the writing brings a potentially very basic story into a more interesting one. The film is shot beautifully and makes you want to travel even with the risks shown. The whole of the film is good and worth a watch for sure.

Bachelor Games is now on VOD.

Sinister Squad (2016)

Posted on July 8, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

Once again The Asylum tip toes all the way to the finish line to avoid copyright infringement, offering up their own third hand version of “Suicide Squad.” Relying heavily on public domain characters and concepts, “Sinister Squad” isn’t your usual terrible Asylum fare. It’s more lackluster and tedious with a lot of the cast seemingly pushed in to mirroring the personalities they saw in trailers for “Suicide Squad.”

So star Johnny Rey Diaz is so not the Joker as a green haired maniac with odd teeth named Rumplestiltskin, while Talia A. Davis is so not Harley Quinn, as the mad red queen who is hopelessly in love with Rumplestiltskin. These stock fairy tale villains are assembled by Alice (a very fetching Christina Licciardi) who is left with no choice to call upon these baddies when their own Carabosse, who is so not Enchantress, breaks out to enact her own evil scheme. She plans to unleash the evil Death (can’t copyright Death), who with his cult, wants to either dominate the world, or garner a final form on Earth to rule over the realm.

It’s never clear what Death intends to do with Carabosse working with him, nor is there a whole lot of explanation as to where a piece of Alice’s looking glass factors in. Either way, like most Asylum productions, “Sinister Squad” is set in one place, primarily Asylum’s studios, where the entirety of the movie unfolds. Every action scene, dramatic confrontation, fight sequence, shoot out, and magic battle ensues within the corridors of the warehouses owned by Asylum, adding to the bargain basement aesthetic the film tries to side step so eagerly.

Aside from Licciardi, the only cast member who really rises above the tedium is Nick Principe who has a good time adding some variety to such a broadly sketched character, and tries to turn the generally boring villain in to a memorable nemesis. “Sinister Squad” is yet another knock off from The Asylum hoping to make some quick cash from easily confused foreigners, and relatives looking for a cheap present on the way to a third cousin’s birthday party. Only the morbidly curious need apply.

Now available on VOD.