Bill Viola’s Hatsu Yume (First Dream) (1981) [REVIEW] | Perchance To Dream Fish

So, i’m not gonna lie, this is kinda out of left field, because i sure wasn’t familiar with Bill Viola’s work before i decided to do some research for this review, and still don’t know much, this isn’t exactly my field of expertise, but i figured it would be interesting, it sure was one of the strangest DVD finds ever.

Yeah, someone dropped at one my local flea markets this DVD (french edition but with english text on the back of the box) release of Hatsu Yume (First Dream) by Bill Viola, had no idea what it was but for 3 bucks, sure, it looks and sound interesting enough.

Sometimes while thrifting, among the piles of shitty editions of movies you already own (and discard age old editions of FIFA or PES titles, especially here), you can find something interesting, so keep perusing, you never know.

You might find even rare old ass avant-garde American videoart on physical media.

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Shark Warning (2024) [REVIEW] | #sharkapalooza

Due to rescheduling issues i noticed Sharkapalooza was one movie short, so i figured i’d review one of my recent “sight unseen and cheap” DVD pickups, Shark Warning, from last year….

…..and it’s an Asylum joint.

I literally paused my Donkey Kong Bananza game to see this, no that i expected this movie to be good.

The odds were never on my favour, i guess this one of their generic shark films since there was no big budget shark film released that year… was it? I mean, we got Under Paris via Netflix, but this is not a mockbuster of that, and some other shark movies (like No Way Up) but nothing big budget or cinema bound for the Asylum to try make some cents out of its reflected glory.

Doesn’t matter anyway, so what kind of shark movie are we getting?

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Maneater (2022) [REVIEW] | #sharkapalooza

Some “fresh” meat from…. 3 years ago. Yum.

Another one i randomly bought new for cheap on DVD via Amazon, sight unseen, because my hunger for shark movies it’s apparently endless.

Written and directed by Justin Lee, Maneater’s plot is pretty much the usual affair when talking modern shark movies: a group of friends go on vacation, board a boat that brings them to a remote deserted island where to get their party on, shark happens and it’s one that developed a knack (leave Mark Cerny alone) for human flesh.

This time we don’t have teens, but people in the 30s that have been married or just concluded a long education path, which is something different, i guess, especially since the movie doesn’t have the asshole that fucks everything that moves, or cheating bullshit to pad out the human drama parts, with a subplot involving an old fisherman that harbours vengeance as great white sharks took not only his wife but also recently his daughter.

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Bloody New Year (1987) [REVIEW] | The Evil Dead Spooktacular Fun Fair Knock-off-O-Rama

I know i was supposed to rewrite/revise or straight up redo old reviews for the rest of January, but since i usually don’t do it due 12 Days Of Dino December filling up the slots, i’ve figured i still would write a brand new review, about one of the few “New Year’s Eve” themed holiday 80s slashers.

No, not that one, we’re doing Bloody New Year.

Yeah, it’s a cop-out since it’s almost February, but whatever, consider it a freebie of sorts, a Spooktacular Eight review but in January, if you prefer.

Regardless, yes, surprisingly this subniche of holiday horror hasn’t been mined.. at all, without doing some research i struggle to come up with any more of “new year’s slashers” that isn’t the other one i alluded to before, New Year’s Evil.

That one is far more memorable and actually features prominently the “new year’s eve” as part of the plot…. this is Bloody New Year.

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Orcs! (2011) [REVIEW] | 3 Inches Of Snooze

Time to rummage through my B-movies DVD collection and pinch one out, in this case salvaging from one of the huge ass bookcase style holders Orcs!, a 2011 direct to video monster on the loose flick with a fantasy twist of sorts.

This time around it’s not mutated bears, cocained panthers, or landlubbing sharks running amok in a place, it’s the green, Dakka loving green boyz, that threaten to invade modern society starting from a US National Park, so it’s up to the resident Park Ranger, Cal Robertson, and his sidekick, Voluntary Cadet Hobie, to stop them hordes from leaving the park.

Sound like a fun little comedy horror B-movie, the formula it’s more than proven, have monsters invade and have two or more dorkuses left as humanity’s unlikely last stand, the cast being mostly made of people you’ve never heard or seen before it’s an acceptable risk and not damning in itself.

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The Spooktacular Eight #17: Anthrophophagus (1980)

Somehow, we live in a world where not only Joe “Aristide Massaccesi” D’Amato’s Anthrophophagus has been remade but also received a “sequel” (after his “spiritual sequel”, Absurd). How lucky are we?

Yep, indeed, the infamous gore flick that had George Eastman as an amphibious cannibal going around a deserted and isolated Greek island, in this occasion stumbling upon a pregnant women, his equivalent of a double combo fast food menù, but after all, it’s called Anthrophophagus, the latin term for “cannibal”… unless it’s the theatherical US release, called Savage Island.

Or the very cut down UK home video release as “The Grim Reaper”, which also contains a different score, using music from Kingdom Of The Spiders.

I’d recommend looking for the Severin Blu-Ray release of the film, as it has a lot of extras, it’s a 2K restoration that improves the video quality from previous releases notably, a previously unseen deleted scenes, if you can/want.

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Parasite Dolls (2003) [REVIEW] | Bubblegum Boomers

Wanted to get around to this for years, as i distinctly remember its cover displaying in the anime section of pretty much any video stores here in “Da Boot” back in the 2000s, and also being pretty featured or sold online. The power of anime cyberpunk and early CG.

Curiously, i’m not really familiar with the series this being a spin-off for, Bubblegum Crisis, which may sound sacrilegious to many, but i never saw as it was distributed on VHS at the time here too, but it was never pushed as much as others, at least as far i remember, i was a more casual anime fan back then and i would have been busy catching localized broadcasts of Dragon Ball, Hokuto No Ken/Fist Of The North Star and -especially – Ranma ½ anyway.

Parasite Dolls does feel immediatly like a product of the late 90s early 2000s, as in it’s not a feature film per sè, not a compilation film of 3-4 episodes, but an anthology/mini series of 3 stories set after the events of the original Bubblegum Crisis OAV series.

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Zombie VS Ninja AKA Zombie Rivals (1989) [REVIEW] | Coffin Ho

You know i don’t even need an excuse to review these old Godfrey Ho movies aside from the fact i just love to do so. But its still (technically) the spookie-ookie season, so you better believe i have some properly themed (or more spuriously-connected) reviews of garbage from the nearly infinite pile of Godfrey Ho 80s output, and we already reviewed the infamous Robo Vampire, so let’s indulge.

I’m gonna just call it Zombie VS Ninja, since it’s original title and the one it’s known as mostly, though in my UK DVD release by Vengeance Video it was retitled as Zombie Rivals on the box, Zombie Rivals: The Super Ninja Master on the disc, and “Zodiac America – The Super Master” in the actual film, which is the usual transfer from VHS, with 3 extra minutes of black nothing at the end, just so the film can technically reach 90 minutes. As usual for these.

So, we already start with some strong “Ho-isms”, not bad, and this one of the few Pierre Kirby feature entries in Filmarts/IDF catalogue, so we start off on the right foot.

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The Spooktacular Eight #9: Blood Rage (1987)

Some of you might wonder why i’m doing it now, why i’m not waiting for late november to review adequately unknown slasher flick Blood Rage, as it’s often regarded as a “holiday slasher” due to taking place during Thanksgiving, hence its lumped alongside 1981’s Home Sweet Home and Thankskilling (yes, sadly that’s not just a fake trailer anymore) as one of the very few Thanksgiving themed horror movies.

First, i’m not American so i frankly don’t care, second, this is a movie that might have had a cult following of sorts, or just be remembered a bit more if it leaded into the movie taking place at Thanksgiving, instead of just having people talk about Thanksgiving dinner in like 3 lines?

Then again, i don’t think it would have mattered much, sure, it does have people at a table eating turkey, Thanksgiving is mentioned more than once in the script, but even the fact it’s set during the aforementioned holiday… really doesn’t matter to the plot at all , which isn’t a problem per se, but seems like a missed marketing opportunity, hence it’s not surprising that not many people remember either this and the aforementioned Home Sweet Home from 1981.

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Agon The Atomic Dragon AKA Giant Phantom Monster Agon (1968-1990s) [REVIEW] Uranium Chorogon

Digging deeper into the kaiju crevices, we find a lot of minor monster flicks from the “monster factory of Nippon”, Toho, in this case being a mini-series made of 4 episodes and with a confusing release history, as it was completed in 1964, but wasn’t broadcasted on Fuji TV until 1968, after Toho realized the project involved two of their own talents, with Fuminori Ohashi (Tsuburaya’s special effects apprentice) and writer Shinichi Sekizawa, already proven for penning other kaiju classics such as Mothra, Mothra Vs Godzilla and Godzilla VS Mechagodzilla (the 1974 one), and the company was convinced that Agon didn’t directly step on the nuclear toes of their monster star.

I said a confusing release history because in mid 90s the episodes were recompiled into a feature lenght film and distributed internationally onn VHS as Agon: Atomic Dragon… and i can’t find any source that actually pinpoints when exactly it was released in the 90s, Letterboxd instead says it was in the 80s, and there’s also a japanese DVD release in 2005 by King Records.

Thankfully is not hard to find in any form, as the english subbed episodes can be found on Youtube, and you might stumble upon fansubbed releases of the feature lenght compilation version.

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