Kyonyû doragon: Onsen zonbi vs sutorippâ 5 (The Big Tits Dragon) (2010)

Part of the oddly popular "stripper vs zombie" sub-genre (which also includes Zombie Strippers! (2008) and Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! (2008)),  Kyonyû doragon: Onsen zonbi vs sutorippâ 5 - also known by a multitude of increasingly offensive titles - may originate from the manga Kyonyū Dragon by Rei Mikamoto, but it's obviously heavily influenced by the recent slate of ultra-violent low-budget Japanese exploitation films like Machine Girl and Tokyo Gore Police, as well as Quentin Tarantino's Grindhouse and Kill Bill whose attempts at a modern exploitation rebirth are echoed in the spaghetti western references of the soundtrack, and in its deliberately aged and scratched opening credits. With a title like this you probably know what you're in for, and thankfully director Takano Nakano (who also helmed the wonderfully titled Sexual Parasite: Killer Pussy (2004)) seems to feel obligated to deliver the goods. 

We begin with a grammatically iffy lift of the title card from Sergio Leone's For a Few Dollars More, and you could be excused for beginning to grow concerned about the quality control already on display. Thankfully such concerns are pushed to the wayside as we're thrown into an immediate bloody fray between the chainsaw wielding Lena Jodo (Japanese AV star Sola Aoi) and a hoard of zombies of surprisingly varying quality. We very quickly get an idea of what we're going to be in for over the next 73 minutes - lots of CG-assisted splatter and flying limbs in the mold of Troma films, and with a winking sense of humor lest you get concerned that a film also known as Big Tit Zombies might get a bit too dark.

The plot follows Lena - newly arrived back in Japan after a booze-fueled trip through Mexico (she carries a sombrero and some obvious Spaghetti Western undertones) - as she gets a job stripping at the Paradise Ikagawa Theater, along with former criminal Ginko (AV star Risa Kasumi), Gothic Lolita Maria (Gravure idol Mari Sakurai), money obsessed Dana (Io Aikawa) and the older Nene (Tamayo). After a temporary closing due to lack of business, the five find themselves incredibly bored and begin working at a local Spa to make some extra money. Thankfully they manage to find a secret door in the dressing room which leads to a room that includes both a Well of Spirits and a Necronomicon, which Maria (who is constantly quoting Shakespeare and Rochefoucauld) wastes no time in using to bring the dead to life. These are the shuffling, bite-one-and-you-become-one type of zombies, and soon the town is overrun.

Dana gets eaten rather quickly, but while Lena, Ginko and a newly bitten Nene attempt to escape, Maria gleefully accepts life as a zombie queen. We soon discover that Ginko holds a horrible secret involving her time in prison, while Nene develops a fire-spouting vagina - quelled by a quick gun blast to the head. Lena and Ginko decide to seal up the Well of Spirits, but they'll have to contend with Maria, the puppet head of zombie Dana (simultaneously both the film's worst and most enjoyable effect) and a slew of zombies. Oh, and as expected they lose their tops a couple of times each as well.

It might be excessive to mention that the film's proceedings take place with tongue pressed firmly through cheek, but I was actually impressed with some of the sharp writing on display - particularly in Maria's ridiculous Lolita character who takes time to explain the political themes of Romero's Night of the Living Dead, and refers to a severed hand as an "ultimate wrist slitting" (Maria is earlier shown to be a cutter, and her Goth love is a constant source of amusement). There are purely bizarre moments: zombie sushi, eyeball ping-pong, battling an extended zombie tongue with wasabi paste, but they all contribute to the unhinged, anything-can-happen atmosphere. 

While slow to get going - at least after the opening scene which nearly repeats in full at the film's end - the pace builds nicely to an impressive final half hour, even as the quality of the special effects starts to get a bit sketchy. Visual effects are by Tsuyoshi Kazuno, who also worked on Machine Girl, RoboGeisha, and similar projects, and if you've seen the copious ridiculous visual effects in those films you probably know what to expect. As a director Nakano is inconsistent, though he's obviously willing to accept his limitations and manages to fit in a few moody shots when he's not zooming into his cast's cleavage. This is obviously quick and dirty filmmaking, though has a similar anarchic spirit to earlier film's like the Guitar Wolf starring Wild Zero.

Acting awards go to Sola Aoi in the lead - she brings a lot of charisma and energy to a role that demands it - and Mari Sakurai who brings a fun twist to the villain role. Risa Kasumi is attractive, but is a bland performer and looks uncomfortable and stiff during her action scenes. She's also saddled with the only thing resembling drama in the film, but unfortunately doesn't exude the toughness needed for the role. Watch out for comedian Minoru Torihada who pops up briefly at the film's end.

I should mention that this film was also released in a 3D version, though I've read only a handful of short sequences that take advantage of the format - with a countdown that appears on the screen when necessary. I doubt you'll be missing much watching this in 2D, but if you want to get the full Big Tits Dragon experience you'll need to pony up for that edition.

An intentionally goofy and gleefully rough around the edges gorefest, Kyonyû doragon: Onsen zonbi vs sutorippâ 5 wraps the requisite amount of laughs, breasts and blood into its brief run time. While obviously saddled by budgetary limitations and the casting of porno actresses in some of the lead roles, there is enough demented chaos on display to keep all but the most jaded viewer from cracking a smile. At the very least it delivers exactly what it promises, and there's certainly nothing wrong with that.

Bloody Nightmares #22: Burning Dead (2004)

Sick of zombies yet? It wasn't that long ago that genre fans were clamoring for films featuring the walking dead; when the idea of another George Romero zombie film seemed like some sort of beautiful dream. Flash ahead a decade and - after 28 Days Later, the Dawn of the Dead remake, Shaun of the Dead, Land of the Dead, Zombieland and the literally hundreds of tributes, sequels, remakes, and reimaginings - you would be excused for perhaps being a little burnt (ha!) out on the genre.Well, thankfully while Burning Dead certainly features zombies - and plenty of them - the film stays far enough away from traditional z-word material that it's able to tell a story that is (wait for it) fairly original. Combine this with some committed performances and an ability to work inside its limitations, and you have an effort that manages to rise above other no-budget living dead efforts.

Returning to his home town after a decade away, a guilt-ridden Jim Reed (D. Vincent Ashby) finds himself suffering from nightmares prominently featuring zombies blaming him for starting the fire that devastated the town (and killed his parents) when he was a teenager. Even worse, Jim has started to see these visions while awake and worries that he's starting to lose control - a theory supported by him wandering into his nephew's bedroom and trying to kill the kid with a hammer. When Shelly, an old flame (ha!), shows up Jim begins to wonder if his dreams might really represent some deeply hidden memories of the fire. His search for the truth leads to some uncomfortable, and supernatural, secrets being revealed.

Much credit for the minor success of Burning Dead must be given to D. Vincent Ashby who, despite some shaky moments, is obviously giving everything he has to make this role work. His Jim is a tormented soul, who has a habit of losing himself in flashbacks and is almost comically solemn when speaking about nightmares or his own disturbed memories. Ashby is asked to perform a lot of dialog - and even occasionally emote - and does so surprisingly professionally with the proper amount of brooding to give the often silly material the proper weight. The supporting cast are also a step above most other shot-on-video efforts, with Jon Russell as Jim's childhood friend Bill Nash doing a fine job on comic relief.

Unfortunately director George Demick doesn't give Ashby or the rest of the cast as much support as they deserve. While Demick wisely stays away from many visual tricks, his camera work tends to be rather stationary which makes some of the longer dialog scenes interminable. Image quality varies significantly, with daytime shots looking clear and underlit night shots forcing me to squint to make out any details. There's plenty of digital artifacting as well, but that could be the result of the mastering of the disc, so I won't blame Demick (or Director of Photography Tracy C). I will blame him for some bizarre sound issues that pop up throughout where all dialog comes from one audio channel, with background music coming from the other. It's needlessly distracting, and draws a lot of attention to edits - which are sometimes accompanied with a sudden switch to the sound coming out of both channels. Pretty inexcusable.

Still, Demick deserves credit for an often intriguing script which takes a few surprising twists near the end. Much of the first twenty minutes deals with whether Jim's hallucinations are actually occurring, but the film doesn't dwell on the suspicions of the people around him, instead focusing on the mystery of how the fire occurred and why Jim is being held responsible. While the actual content isn't always perfect - Bill's explanation of his wife's death is certainly rather odd - it all does add up to a rather neat climax and the film doesn't waste time getting to the end once things start to speed up. 

Remember what I said about working within its limitations? Well, that goes for make-up and special effects as well as Demick trades in gore for some decent (and plentiful) zombie make-up and LOTS of fog. The burnt flesh on the zombies actually looks quite good, and while there isn't much blood to be found, these really are not the gut-munching sort of zombie. There's only one scene featuring nudity, but it's actually rather effective - intentionally bringing to mind a rather famous scene from The Shining - and it's a slightly more mature woman as well which is definitely a rarity in this collection.

Burning Dead is presented in a full-frame presentation, and is obviously shot on digital video. As mentioned, the digital artifacting is atrocious during the night scenes, but it's generally very watchable. There are a few random digital glitches, but those are par for the course at this point.

This is part of the Bloody Nightmares collection, and therefore has absolutely no extras. Not even chapter stops. I can't imagine why that is.

An enjoyable no-budget sorta-zombie film that manages no to tread the same old ground, Burning Dead takes an original concept and some willing participants and manages to create a perfectly decent 90 minute horror film. It's not very scary, and the technical problems would likely scare away those used to bigger budgets, but there's plenty to appreciate here and it's a shame that it seems to be nearly completely unknown - it doesn't even have an IMDB page! You could definitely do a lot worse.

The Beyond (1981)

It's no secret to informed movie viewers that Lucio Fulci's The Beyond is both adored and reviled in almost equal measure. Beautiful, surreal and revoltingly grotesque the film retains the ability to shock with its series of nasty set pieces, while remaining consistently frustrating for its incoherent plotting and inconsistent performances. For patient viewers in the right state of mind, however, The Beyond is the ultimate haunted house nightmare, crafted by a master of the genre working at the height of his powers.

We begin at the Seven Doors Hotel in Louisiana way back in 1927, where an accused warlock named Schweick is captured and crucified in the basement by an angry mob which, oops, happens to open one of the seven gates to hell. After the opening credits we flash to the present (aka 1981) where the young Liza (Catriona MacColl) has inherited and begun to renovate the crumbling hotel. Soon, however, strange accidents begin to occur around the property, including a painter falling off a scaffolding after witnessing some ghostly eyes inside. But it's when Schweick's body is uncovered by an unfortunate plumber that hell begins to (literally) break loose. Liza is helped by the blind, mysterious Martha (Veronica Lazar) and by the skeptical doctor John McCabe (David Warbeck), but things begin to rapidly spin out of control as hell starts to spill out of the gate.

Got that? Good. Now ignore it. Because if you're looking for this film to make a lot of narrative sense you're going to be sorely disappointed. What Fulci has on the menu is a series of surreal visions of hell on earth served up in no particular order, but with a very simple goal: keep the audience in a constant state of uneasiness. Eyeballs are mangled, faces are melted, and brains are splattered everywhere. Scares of spiders? Heights? Darkness? Zombies? Ghosts? Hospitals? It's all grist for Fulci's mill, and attempting to enjoy it on this level - as something designed to tap into your basest fears - is really the only way to understand its devoted cult following.

Anyone even peripherally familiar with Fulci's oeuvre won't be surprised to hear that the level of violence on display is truly astounding, even by modern standards. But this is no simple exercise in grand guignol. Fulci constructs his scenes with a master's touch, doing the very least necessary to create sympathetic characters before immediately thrusting them into the worst imaginable situations. When the plumber's wife visits the hospital to dress his corpse, it's only minutes till her face is being melted horrifically (and confusingly) by acid, her skin popping and bubbling in a revolting rainbow of colour. In many ways these are the cheapest kind of thrills, but they are thrills nonetheless.

Which isn't meant to discount the actual suspense that Fulci and his collaborators bring to individual scenes. Fabio Frizzi's creeping, Goblin-like score wring operatic tension throughout, and Fulci makes great use of his New Orleans locations. Certain images linger in the brain long after watching, particularly the shows after Liza and John mistakingly open the gates of hell and rush out the hotel, the camera lingering as the silhouetted zombies rise up in the windows. Much has also been made of the film's final shocking minutes which build wonderful and effectively without the use of gory effects. With Fulci the destination is rarely in doubt, but his obvious skill makes the journey one well worth travelling.

Previously better known as 7 Doors Of Death (in a severely cut form), in the 90s The Beyond was restored and enjoyed a brief theatrical release thanks to Quentin Tarantino's Rolling Thunder Pictures and Grindhouse Releasing. The Anchor Bay release of The Beyond is presented in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio in a clean and colorful print featuring only minor print damage, and this uncut presentation will be a revelation to those used to the shoddy VHS versions. The sound options are extensive, with English tracks available in Dolby Digital Surround 5.1 and the original mono English, as well as an Italian language track. Like with most Italian films of the time, The Beyond was filmed silent with a mixture of English speaking and Italian actors who then dubbed their voices in post-production. In this case, where even many of the Italian actors are mouthing broken English, the English options are likely the best.

Available previously in a limited edition tun (which included lobby cards and a booklet on Fulci and his films), Anchor Bay has included some extensive special features which shed a little light on the film's worldwide fandom. Most substantial is a feature length commentary which features stars David Warbeck and Catriona MacColl. Recorder shortly before Warbeck's death from cancer - he references his sickness several times throughout - the two are nonetheless humourous and relaxed, relating anecdotes about working with Fulci (who could apparently be a bit of a terror on set) while poking fun at the film's shortcomings. It's a refreshingly honest commentary and very entertaining.

Images From The Beyond is a 16 minute grab bag of special features, including a collection of posters and marketing art, behind the scenes photos, and some short interview segments with Warbeck, MacColl and Fulci himself. Three trailers for the film, including the U.S. re-release, International and German trailers, are available but all of them contain significant spoilers so viewers should be aware going in. There's also a forgettable video for the song And You Will Live In Terror by the thrash band Necrophagia (directed by Deadbeat At Dawn's Jim Van Bebber) which features gory clips from the movie interspersed with lousy shot-on-video footage of the band performing.

Also interesting is a full color version of the film's pre-credit sequence taken from its German release. Stripped of the sepia tone used in the standard version, the scenes of Schweick getting whipped with chains and melted with lime are even more unpleasantly gruesome. With a little bit of digging there are also two neat easter eggs: a trailer for Fulci's film Cat In The Brain, and the alternate opening credits from the 7 Doors Of Death version of the film.

As expected, chapter selections and optional subtitles round everything off. I should also mention the wonderful menus which take great advantage of Frizzi's score.

Those new to The Beyond often end up wondering what all the fuss is about, and it would be unfair to pretend that the film doesn't have some serious flaws. What makes the film work is a willingness to go to some seriously dark places and the increasing sense of dread which connects it. It's certainly not as stylish as the works of Bava or Argento, but there are truly stirring images here which trump both. Not a masterpiece, but as close as Fulci ever came.

Bloody Nightmares #15: The Dead Live (2006)

"If you want to know how to make films, then just go out and do it." I hear this (or a variation of this) all the time in interviews with established filmmakers, and it's an ethos I strongly agree with. We thankfully live in an age where digital video and editing suites are available to the average person regardless of talent or ambition, and thanks to the distribution options available via the internet there are literally hundreds of films in circulation that are basically training exercises. They are fascinating in their own way, but an interested viewer must keep their expectations in check before delving in. However, there are also times when even these lowered expectations seem to be beyond the filmmakers abilities. I introduce you to The Dead Live, a zombie film that is completely inane, totally wrong-headed, and somehow still completely fascinating.

After a credits sequence over static, we're introduced to our protagonists in one of those awful fake newscasts which have become a regular feature of this collection. Front and centre is Alex Travis, an ambitious female reporter covering a SWAT team hostage situation which ends with a shambling attacker biting one of the SWAT members. Following the story to the local morgue, with a requisite bawdy coroner and some surprising full frontal nudity, Alex and her cameraman are attacked by a corpse and find themselves at the mercy of a group of the living dead.

Now, at this point you may be excused for thinking that this film could actually be fairly entertaining - and you would be right, though certainly not because of the quality of the plot. Literally everything about this production is deeply flawed, from the acting (amateur), sound (alternately quiet or totally incomprehensible), sets (the coroners office is a treat), special effects (sometimes achieved by what appear to be MS Paint filter effects overlayed), and often baffling writing and direction where characters enter and vanish into the plot at random. And all of these, and plenty more, are already evident in the first 15 minutes.

Back to the plot: After her cameraman is bitten, Alex is rescued by Evans (Mike "Joe Joe Little" Jones), an undercover police officer. The two soon run into Lucas (Tom Hughes), a threatening redneck, and the shy Dawn (Brandy Patterson), before the four head toward an abandoned church and hide out in the basement. The group have to make their stand against a rampaging hoard of zombies, while dealing with infighting and a series of secrets amongst them.

Director Darrin Brent Patterson obviously has a love for zombie films, evidenced by rather transparent references to (George) Romero, (Tom) Savini, and (Sam) Raimi, but this reverence unfortunately doesn't stretch to borrowing plot structure or character development from their films, and his work here ranges from barely adequate to bafflingly bad. While i'm sympathetic to the budgetary limitations, the constant issues with sound - which mostly seem to be the result of using the built in camera microphone rather than a boom mic - are simply inexcusable. I had to constantly be changing the volume simply to be able to make out what was being said.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg. The acting is uniformally terrible, with Mike Jones likely being the best of a bad bunch, though he doesn't make a very convincing police officer. Continuity between shots is a real problem, with clothing and background noise changing on a constant basis. The zombie attacks are often incomprehensible, with choppy editing making the action very difficult to follow.

Let me take a moment to discuss the film's special effects and make-up, which reach a new depth of incompetence. Zombies range from having a few minor appliances (with blood around their mouths), Halloween masks, or often no make-up at all. There are a few identifiable zombies, including a cheerleader and schoolgirl, but they exist almost totally outside the plot. Gunshots are produced by obviously superimposed muzzle flashes, and head-shots are done in a similarly unconvincing way, or out of frame. One attempt to create a car explosion is just ridiculous.

After the film's closing credits there is, in my opinion, a rather tasteless and pretentious dedication to those who died in the World Trade Centre on September 11th, 2001. Yes, it's a zombie film - from 2006 no less - dedicated to the victims of a horrific terrorist attack, with a rather unfortunate comparison of the zombies to the terrorist attackers. I'm sure the motivations were admirable, but it's baffling in practice.

Coming from a DV source, the film shows a surprising amount of artifacting, particularly when there is any significant movement onscreen. Even the opening credits are garbled by the movement of the static, though I doubt that blame should go toward the filmmakers in this instance. There are also dropped frames and other various video problems which make watching the production an extended chore.

I can only imagine that Darrin Brent Patterson learned a ton in the making of this truly awful film that would hopefully help him in any future film productions. There are so many gaffes, weaknesses, and mistakes that his next effort, if it ever comes, would have to be infinitely better. If that's the case, then good luck to him in the future. I would hate to have The Dead Live be his final word on film.

Cemetery Man (Dellamorte Dellamore) (1994)

Here’s what movie fans need to know about Cemetery Man: the director, Michele Soavi, was the assistant director to both Italian giallo-Master Dario Argento and Monty Python alumni-turned-auteur Terry Gilliam, and Cemetery Man sort of looks like a film designed for the former and filmed by the latter. And that alone makes it terribly interesting.

For anyone to whom those names mean nothing, this is what Cemetery Man is about: Francesco Dellamorte (Rupert Everett) is the caretaker of an Italian cemetery, a position which would be fairly simple for him if it weren’t for the fact that the dead have a tendency of coming back, newly endowed with a taste for human flesh. And so it is Dellamorte’s job to kill them by breaking their skulls. Dellamorte lives in the cemetery with his Igor-like assistant, Gnaghi, and ensures that these “returners” rest eternally.


The odd thing is, the zombie storyline only goes so far, and then seems to sputter out about half or three quarters of the way through. Instead, the film focuses on Dellamorte’s fixation on (and connection to) “She,” a woman played by the gorgeous (and often topless) Anna Falchi. “She” enters Dellamorte’s life again and again, in at least three incarnations: first, as a sexy widow, then as various girls he encounters, and even as some sort of uber-zombie.

So, is she a doppelganger? Or is her recurring appearance merely an affect of Dellamorte’s obsessed mind? I, for one, couldn’t tell you. I can tell you, however, that the whole thing drives Dellamorte mad, and he ends up causing more chaos than any of the zombies ever did. Meanwhile, Gnaghi seems to be having more luck with the ladies. He cuts off the head of the mayor’s (recently deceased) daughter and stashes it in his broken TV set, and soon the two are a happy couple (her brain not being destroyed, she is free to live on, and even take a few bites at Dellamorte in the process).


Soavi certainly learned a few things from working with his quirky masters, and it isn’t hard to see a bit of Gilliam in some of his better-composed shots. This is what a Terry Gilliam horror movie would look like--and what The Brother’s Grimm (which Soavi also worked on) probably should have been. In fact, the main reason you should watch this film is for its stunning visuals, which you often don't expect in a horror film.


It must be said, though, that some of the special effects are fairly transparent (though they’re all conventional effects, which is something I appreciate). Especially bad is a scene in the cemetery with floating balls of blue flame … each of which are visibly tied to strings which lead them around. However, the viewer should be quick to forgive this--it’s so obvious that if the shot had worked it would have been beautiful.

One of the biggest detractors to Cemetery Man is the film’s overly enthusiastic fans, who have been known to speak of the film as though it were less a horror-comedy and more a philosophical treatise on love and mortality. And it isn’t--not unless you think the same thing about Bazooka Joe cartoons, at any rate. But it doesn’t have to be. It doesn’t have to be deep and intellectually stimulating. It just has to be a fun movie. Which it is. So stop thinking so hard and see it.