REVIEW: Hitch-Hike (1977)

Title: Hitch-Hike

Also known as:

"Autostop rosso sangue" (Original title)

"Death Drive" (UK) (video title)"

"Hitchhike: Last House on the Left" (USA) (video title)

The Naked Prey" (USA)

Year: 1977

Genre: Crime / Exploitation / Thriller / Road Movie

Language: Italian / English (dubbed)

Runtime: 104 min / 82 min (Canada) / 98 min (UK)

Director: Pasquale Festa Campanile

Writer: Peter Kane (novel), Aldo Crudo (screen treatment), and more.

IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077188/

Plot:

A woman and her angry drunk husband is on a road trip cross the country when their vacation soon turns to a nightmare on wheels. They pick up a hitcher (played by David Hess), who at first seems like a charming young man, but as time reveals, he's a sex obsessed robber on the run who needs transport to Mexico.

Our thoughts:

Of course I had to check this film out when I heard of it. I'm a fan of road movies, 'cause they usually guarantee a fun time, or atleast some kind of entertainment, and from what I had heard, this was one of the better out there. Why would this be so much better?

"Hitch-Hike" is in many ways a very ordinary hitcher film, but it's more of a exploitation and sleaze film than I would say that "The Hitcher" is. The terror starts out as any other, but with David Hess being the villain, we're already expecting some nasty rape. The film takes alot, and I mean alot of turns through-out, and most of them are expected, but we are, however, often thinking "Wow, they actually pulled that card". Sometimes the turns work really good, even though they tried hard to make us surprised. The turns bring alot of extra to the film, since it never becomes "the same old". We have a fantastic car chase, great nudity, David Hess rape scenes, villains vs. villains, and anything else you could wish for in a road film.

It's not a gory film but it has one particularly good head shot. It does satisfy in terms of nudity though. The woman is very good looking, and we're excited every time we get to see her showing off her boobers.

It might not be as harsch as it's prequel "The Last House On The Left", or even as scary as "The Hitcher", but as far as entertainment goes, this film packs a car full. Being a sequel to "The Last House On The Left", I would say that you shouldn't expect the same kind of film here. "Hitch-Hike" is, in all it's obvious twists and sometimes silliness, a very brilliant film, and you can't find a more fun ride if you're looking for a great road movie.

Positive things:

- The mix of hitcher film and exploitation film.

- David Hess.

- The girl is purdy.

Negative things:

- Some twists are silly, but to be honest, they do work.

Rating:

Gore: 3/5

Nudity: 0.5/5

Story: 3/5

Effects: 3/5

Comedy: 3/5

We bought this movie from:

Videodrome.se

Reviewed by:

Ronny

This review was brought to you by FilmBizarro.com. For more reviews visit:

REVIEW: Razorback (1984)

Title: Razorback

Also known as: Kampfkoloss Der Hölle (Germany)

Year: 1984

Genre: Horror / Animal / Thriller

Language: English

Runtime: 95 min

Director: Russell Mulcahy

Writer: Peter Brennan (novel) & Everett De Roche (written by)

IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087981/

Plot:

Jake Cullen lives in the Austrailian outback and one night his house is attacked by a giant Razorback boar and his grandson is carried away with it and he dedicates his entire life to track that boar and kill it. Years a

fter this horrible event, an American TV-reporter falls victim to the very same boar, but no one knows what has happened to her. Her husband gets there to find the truth behind the death of his wife, and eventually joins forces with Jake Cullen and Jake's daughter to kill the huge bloodthirsty pig.

Our thoughts:

Horror movies about big animals.. We've all learned not to expect anything out of the ordinary from them, because most are bad. Doesn't matter if you find enjoyment in them or not, you can't say that the majority of them are good movies. There are of course a couple golden movies, most of them which are very famous, like Jaws and Jurassic Park, but I can't hide from the fear I get every time I'm gonna watch one I haven't seen. Razorback is a

movie that I've heard close to nothing about, I've only heard of it from a few people I know, and they all had very good things to say about it. This doesn't help my fear, but it made me interested in seeing the god damn thing. There is a slight chance that I only got interested because it was about a big swine though.

The plot itself might not be extraordinary, but but it actually didn't feel very cliché, even though we have our obvious bad guys who are "worse" than the monster (in this case, the Razorback), a vengeful old man no one believes, a man looking for answers on a missing person, and so on. There's also the obvious faults where the creature is way too smart, but if things like that annoy you, then you should never watch a horror movie again. The movie is set in the Austrailian outback, which makes it feel almost post-apocalyptic

at times, especially the scenes with the Baker brothers (the "bad guys") who dress odd and act barbaric. Yes, dressing odd can almost be considered a trademark of post-apocalyptic movies. That plus desert equals post-apocalypse. The movie has very beautiful visuals with wide open deserts, good use of different colors and interesting sets.

I saw someone was complaining about the acting in this film, and I have no idea why because I think it was pretty good, or even very good. Either it's just me who's been watching too many shitty acted and shitty overall movies like TrashHouse, or maybe I'm just better than those other people.

The special effects are great here, and that's something I always pray for in a

creature movie but rarely get. We only see glimpses of the Razorback and all of them look amazing. After all, we're talking about a big angry badass hog here, so there was a big chance that it could look like shit, but it didn't. I think it looked good enough to be shown alot more than it actually was, but it adds a tension and mystery to the film when we only see some parts at a time, much like with Jaws. There wasn't that much gore in the film except some dead animals, which is fine by me, and atleast that gore looks splendid. I think the death of the boar could've been alot more graphic however. A few special effects they could've left out was the lightning and the electricity charges towards the end. They didn't look good.

I was very surprised by this film, I did not expect to see one of the best animal horrors ever made when I put this in the DVD. It should be seen by any horror

fan, especially fans of the animal horrors. It's not a straight out horror movie though, it has alot of things that only should be called "thriller". It has clichés, but it uses them with perfection. It has great special effects, it's beautifully shot and it's never boring. Check it out.

Positive things:

- Jake Cullen. Badass old fart.

- Coolest movie with a big pig ever made.

- Wonderful special effects on the pig. If this was made

2008 it would be CGI and I'd prefer diarrhea over that.

- Uses the clichés in the best ways possible.

Negative things:

- Not that gory.

- Why don't I hear about this film every day?

- The death of the Razorback should've been more graphic.

- The lightning and the electricity charges.

Rating:

Gore: 1/5

Nudity: 0.5/5

Story: 3/5

Effects: 4/5

Comedy: 1.5/5

We bought this movie from:

Darkdisc.com

Reviewed by:

Ronny

This review was brought to you by FilmBizarro.com. For more reviews visit:

REVIEW: The Dark (1994)

Title: The Dark

Also known as: N/A

Year: 1994

Genre: Horror

Language: English

Runtime: 87 min

Director: Craig Pryce

Writer: Robert C. Cooper

IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109551/

Plot:

A wanted scientist and a retired FBI agent are both looking for the same thing. An underground creature, currently living under a graveyard. The scientist needs the creature alive for research and the FBI agent wants to kill it for revenging his dead partner. When the creatures starts to pull down gravestones and steal the coffins for food, the people working at the graveyard starts to take notice of the being, and the hunt of the creature begins as soon as the two looking for it arrives. The biggest problem is that they have to go into the monsters dark tunnels to find it.

Our thoughts:

I had this film on VHS when I was a kid, and I remember that it went under the name "Mörker" here in Sweden. Many years later when I tried to find the film again, I thought the title would either be "Darkness" or something totally different (let's face it, sometimes countries translate titles into the weirdest things). Eventually I found the film under the title "The Dark", and was sad to see that it only had a VHS release. This is the second film with Robert C. Cooper as writer that doesn't have a DVD release, and the other film is "The Club" (another childhood film that I recently reviewed)

The film is full of clichés, typical flaws, obvious actions and consequences, and the plot tries harder than it has to. Two men looking for a creature for different personal reasons, and innocent people coming between their rivalry and the monster. I wouldn't have needed the revenge plot of the FBI agent, because it didn't really bring anything interesting to the table, so the scientists plot would've been just enough. In the film we also have two graveyard workers, and two cops (one who dies early on, and the other one being Neve Campbell). The monster was interesting enough though. It always stays under ground, and I liked that it stole coffins to eat the bodies inside. The film definitely should've focused alot more on the monster and not as much on the reasons why they are looking for it, if you ask me. We don't have too much creature action until towards the end, which is a huge minus here.

The creature looks very good, I was surprised by the effects, because they were alot better than I remembered, but it's also because IMDb has a picture of the wrong film, and the monster on that cover looks really stupid so I was kinda expecting that one. Anyway, the monster looks like a big rat-ish beast, resembling the aliens from "Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey" (I think that's the one they were in), except more dangerous and evil looking. The creature looks good enough for me to be a bit angry that they don't show it that often, and when they do it's usually in the dark.

We're not talking about a flawless film here, which I think you understand by now. It has many negative parts, not too good of a plot, and small flaws that can annoy. Like "Where are all the light sources in the dark underground tunnels coming from?". These are things that makes this film anything but extraordinary, but it's worth checking out if you want to watch an unknown monster film with decent FX, because there can never really be enough of those. There are so many worse films out there, and you're better off spending time on this than on most shithole movies coming out of Hollywood lately.

Positive things:

- Neve Campbell. Let's face it, she looks pretty good.

- Cool monster.

- Good monster effects.

- I like the idea of the monster living under the graveyard.

- "Gotta love the smell of death in the morning."

Negative things:

- Not on DVD.

- Far from perfect.

Rating:

Gore: 0.5/5

Nudity: 0.5/5

Story: 2/5

Effects: 3.5/5

Comedy: 2/5

We got this movie from:

N/A

Reviewed by:

Ronny

This review was brought to you by FilmBizarro.com. For more reviews visit:

NEWS: The Driller Killer to be remade

Abel Ferrara's 1979 film The Driller Killer is going to be remade by UK based production company Masterplan Films Ltd and Urban Way Productions.

Conflicting reports have informed me that The Driller Killer will be remade either by British filmmaker Andrew Jones (whose film The Feral Generation was greeted with mixed opinions) or it will possibly be remade by another British filmmaker named Jed Shepherd. Shepherd is also responsible for writing Slashed, a horror film featuring Dave Grohl from Foo Fighters, Chris Martin from Coldplay, Moby and the band Ash. It is reported that this new version of the film will also feature many unusual cameos and an original musical score.

It also looks like David Hess (also seen in Last House on the Left and Last House on the Edge of the Park) will be playing Abel Ferrara's character Reno Miller.

According to sources, the film will be released in 2010.

NEWS: Sam Raimi talks 'Evil Dead IV'

Sixteen years ago, writer/director Sam Raimi appeared to have forever closed the book on the Evil Dead series with the third installment, Army of Darkness. But like Ash's encounters with the recurring Book of the Dead that just can't seem to stay shut, the saga appears to be back for another bite.

In an interview with Empire, Raimi finally updated us on the status of the project we've been hearing about for some time. Be prepared to be shocked, horrified and maybe, just maybe, pleasantly surprised. "We've got nine pages so far," Raimi says. "Every time I'm with my brother Ivan, we write another page of it. It's in Detroit and in my garage."

Raimi is looking no further than Bruce Campbell to reprise his role as boomstick-wielding Ash. Although not yet deep into the plot, Raimi describes the little he has so far, saying, "There's some dialogue. Ash being an idiot. Ash taking some abuse. Some character stuff and then some structure of Act Two. Just other possibilities for things that could happen. It's ideas, jokes, things we'd like to see."

IMDb sets the release for Evil Dead 4 for 2011, but with it being so early with so little complete, it's hard to say when this chapter will come to fruition. In the meantime, check out Raimi's next film, Drag Me to Hell.