Death Ship (1980)

If there is one thing I am a sucker for, it's really good movie cover art. Death Ship is one of those films that had me at hello. What I can't believe is that I never heard of this film before until this year after finding a post about it on Instagram. 

The cover art of this film is quite atmospheric, unique, and downright eerie. 

Our synopsis is this: A cruise ship sailing in the night is struck by an unknown "ghost ship" causing the ship to sink in minutes. The captain along with some crew members, a family, and small handful of passengers survive and manage to make it onto a life boat in time. After paddling their way through the ocean they find an ominuous black ship drifting about in the ocean. To their surprise, the ship is completely vacant of a crew or passangers but instead is full of nightmares.

Trouble starts as this mystery ship takes on a life of its own. Things move on their own causing fatal freak accidents. The surviving captain of the cruise ship becomes posessed by the ghost ship and it's original nonexistant crew. Once the survivors discover dead bodies in torture mechanisms, skeletone remains, and a freezer of corpses along with Nazi memorbilia and film reels, we learn that they are in fact on an abandoned Nazi ship in which a lot of people were killed on (both before and after the original nazi crew were aboard). 

The horror content offers a good variety..posession, hauntings, ship wrecks, and Nazism (Is this even a real word?)  The technical effects of the film aren't exactly the best. We have rough cuts, lack of footage of the actual cruise ship sinking, no footage of how people got from point A to point B... From what I heard, they also took external shots of the ship from another movie. But lets be real...if you want a "ship wreck" movie, you watch big blockbusters like The Posiedon Adventure, Titanic, etc. This is a low budget horror flick, so you can't expect big budget effects, only cut corners, which I think could have been done a little more smoothly. The film had a lot of innovative concepts, so I feel that dealines and time restraints got the best of some of this movie. 

This film however does present amazing cinematography using menacing angles from below, making our ghost ship even more eerie and threatening. My favorite shot is when the survivors on the life raft arrive to the front point of the mysterious ghost ship as it menacingly floats almost directly above them from behind. Some other note worthy scenes were the blood shower which used some unusual angles, and also the ship deck funeral in which a body was thrown off the ship to a watery grave. The shot of the body bag being dropped from the side of the ship and making a big splash I found to be a little unsettling and effective. 

I am really glad I got to see this sunken treasure of a movie (get it?).  It offers a lot in only 90 minutes. What you see on the movie cover is what you get. 

Blood Beach (1980)

I remember seeing the poster of this as a child at a local video store down the street from my house. It must have been the early early 90s. Even then, this film was considered old. I was always intrigued by the cover, but never got around to watching it until the other day. As much as I am in love with the movie poster, I still had my reservations.

I thought the concept of the film was basically people falling into quick sand. I mean, we have films about killer sharks, twisters, volcanoes, any natural disaster/phenomena, so why not quick sand?

But oh no, it's not really quick sand, it's an ugly over sized monster thing that lives under the sand and sucks people up. After 35 minutes into the film I lost interest. The only good parts were when people would sink in quick sand. I am always amazed by how that effect is done in film.

This film does have a side story, a lame one if that. Our leading male is reunited with an old love through the death of her mother (who was eaten by the quick sand monster). If it takes a quick sand monster, and the death of a mother and family pet to reunite a boring couple, then clearly it was meant to be.

I am happy I finally saw this film, but I think it would have been more interesting as a slasher. Perhaps an ex life guard who throws people who litter on the beach into the quick sand. Just a thought.

They Call Her One Eye... (1974)

The title says it all...

If you love revenge, guts, and 70s porn....this film is for you! This Swedish pulp/horror/porn flick begins with our main girl, Frigga, both eyes intact...Frigga is basically mute because of emotional trauma of being raped when she was younger. She misses the bus to speech therapy classes, and catches a ride with a rich, suave, handsome gentleman, Tony. He takes her out, drugs her, and keeps her imprisoned in his gorgeous home...similar to an Ikea catalogue. He forces her to be a prostitute for him, and drugs her with heroine so she can become an addict and dependent on him, hence making it even more difficult for her to leave. After scratching her clients face, Tony teaches poor Frigga a lesson by taking out one of her eyes. After finding out that Tony had written a fake letter to her worried parents stating that she hated their guts and was never coming home, both parents committed suicide and then finding out that her prostitute friend was killed by Tony, "One Eye" decides to get her revenge.
Saving up every penny she earns she secretly takes courses in offensive driving, martial arts, shooting, and more, until she becomes confident enough to whoop some pimp daddy ass.



I really enjoyed this film. I can see how it inspired many many films such as "I Spit On Your Grave" and "Kill Bill". Even the art direction and color palettes (yellow and black) of "Kill Bill" was reminiscent of "They Call Her One Eye". One thing I can't get over is the porn sequences. Full on penises going into vaginas, and even a few love squirts. At times I forgot I was watching an actual film.

I hope one day they make a criterion collection of this.

Sleep Away Camp 2: Unhappy Campers

This has to be one of my favorite horror movies of all time. I don't know what I love more, the creative death scenes, boys in hot shorts, or the hysterical writing.

The movie takes place years after the first film. Angela, the killer from part one, is now grown up and no longer biologically a male. She returns to the same camp as a councilor, weeding out all the bad campers, which is basically anyone. Nobody knows about her past, not even her fellow staff members. One by one she sends the campers "home", killing them in ways that reflect their bad behavior.



Sleep Away Camp 2 offers a lot of variety. You can't go into this film taking it seriously. The campy slasher is supposed to be fun, giving the audience what they want to see (tits and violence). My favorite death sequence in the movie is when she kills Ally Burgess, the sluttiest camper, by drowning her in the outhouse toilet full of shit, piss, and leaches. Angela then compares her latest victim to what she drowns in. Got to love it!



I know this is no master piece, but for some reason the Sleep Away Camp films always do it for me. I give this film an 8 out of 10.

The Hunger

The first post for my blog will be about the latest film I just watched, The Hunger. This vampire flick carries an all star cast consisting of David Bowie, Catherine Denevue, and Susan Sarandon. The picture starts off with a performance by Bauhaus in a goth night club in New York City. There are stylish cuts between the performance and our vampire couple (John & Miriam) played by Bowie and Denevue as they seduce two separate people in efforts to get their blood.



Midway through the film we find out that John all of a sudden is aging rapidly, which is strange considering vampires don't age and live forever. He seeks the help of Dr. Sara Roberts played by Susan Sarandon, who is conducting research on Progeria, a disease that ages children usually causing an early death at the age of 15. However, Dr. Roberts was unable to help because her research was basically a failure. We later find out that Johns vampire wife, Miriam, has had many lovers in the past who have suffered the same fate as John. Not only that, but she collects her lovers and keeps their remains in her attic. What's worse is that we find out that they aren't dead, and that they are just really old looking and are in vegetative state, laying in coffins for hundreds of years!

So after Bowie bites the Ziggy Star Dust, Denevue finds her new love interest, Dr. Roberts. Vampire lesbian? Periods must be something to look forward to now if you're a lesbian vampire. Long story short, she uses her vampire beauty to lure Susan Sarandon to be her new love interest, turning her into a vampire, until she ages and becomes useless like all her other love interests she has collected over a span of 1000 years.



Dr. Roberts has a hunger for blood, killing her own boyfriend when he goes to Miriam's mansion like townhouse in New York to check up on Dr. Roberts, not knowing he will be her next meal. Aside from collecting lovers, she has also collected quite a sum of money. Shortly after Sarandon sacrafices her self with Miriams Egyptian pendant which is also a knife due to her guilty conscience. Soon after all of Miriams previous lovers, including Bowie, creep out of their coffins and collectively push Miriam off of the balcony on the top of the stair case of her home. Guess they should have used elevators. Once she is dead, the spell on her past lovers are broken. Their mummified bodies decompose and they finally die.

The end of the film is confusing, but from what I gathered Susan Sarandon doesn't actually die. We see her in a mystical land of curtains that is on the top of a nice apartment in a different city. Perhaps the past lovers brought her back to life? Maybe she is in some sort of after life? Regardless, I thought the ending was kind of lame.

Over all, I was more impressed with the art direction of the film. Quite often I felt like I was watching a high fashion editorial shoot in the making. I like the abrupt cuts in the editing and the colored filters used in a lot of interior scenes. Aside from the editing, I really appreciated the make up effects used on David Bowie. They did a wonderful job aging him to make him look 110. Luckily this won't be a look Bowie plans on sporting until another 50 years from now, assuming his wife Iman lets him.

If you are looking for a typical vampire film featuring fangs, coffins, crosses and blood, this isn't the film for you. However, if you are looking for an episode of General Hospital gone vamp with a creative art direction, this is a good film for you to see. I give it a 6 out of 10.

The final point I would like to make is more about the title, The Hunger, which to me has a double meaning. The obvious would be a vampire's hunger for blood, however, I also think it could be a hunger for something else, perhaps a secret hunger for homosexual sexual relations (which is explicit in the lesbian love scene between Sarandon and Denevue. They even casted David Bowie, iconic for his androgynous looks and sexual freedoms. Perhaps it can also mean the hunger we have as humans for immortality.