MANIAC {2012)

In 1980 William Lustig's American slashterpiece Maniac "warned you not to go out tonight." 
  In 2012...
the warning stills stands.

  Even for the most astute KVLT VISONARY'S life is full of a preponderance of enlightening as well as soul-shattering questions.  Why are we here?  Does true love, good and evil, actually exist?   Will we ever live to see the fabled Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash movie?  What's life like after the Shire?  What would it be like to see a film where Elijah Wood goes on a killing spree and talks to mannequins? Why have French directors been making the best horror films over the last decade? These questions and more will be answered in this article.

  Meet Frank zito, a deranged young mannequin restorer who is prowling internet dating sites and the city streets in search of the perfect woman.  Or rather pieces of the perfect woman to add to his collection.  The trophied items in this macabre menagerie also happen to be the scalps and hair of young women that he murders night after night.  He then brings the scalps home to lovingly adorn the mannequins that inhabit his home and business.  Meanwhile, a beautiful young female photographer named Anna, who is unaware of Frank's ghoulish night-time activities, notices his restoration shop and wants to use some of his mannequins in an upcoming photo shoot.  Frank obliges and immediately becomes obsessed with Anna, stalking her and murdering anyone who gets in his way in hopes of adding her to his grisly gallery. 

 Go get your haircut at the local cosmetology school, they said.  It's free and you're helping college kids gain experience and earn grades, they said. 

  So you're saying to yourself, "sounds like every slasher movie ever."  That's partly because this is a remake of the infamous 1980 video nasty original, but with an incredibly interesting casting choice of none other than Elijah Wood to play the mentally disturbed character, Frank Zito.  Then, instead of making a shot-for-shot remake, the ghastly story is told entirely through painstakingly accurate first-person POV cinematography that puts you directly in Zito's bloodstained shoes!  That's right KVLTISTS, you get to see each horrific murder in graphic detail through the killer's unflinching perspective all the way to the end of the film!  And being that this is a remake of a horror film that is over three decades old, you get a more updated modern city backdrop and hip characters to relate to just before they are slashed into bits and scalped right before your very eyes to the sleazy, pulsing, and amazingly apt, lo-fi electronic score by a surnameless French composer who goes only by Rob, that harkens back to the glory days of John Carpenter and Goblin.

Looks like Frank Zito and his lovely new date will be staying in for a romantic double feature of Mannequin and Mannequin 2: On The Move, like they do every night.  

  You may also be asking yourself, "Who are the red-handed culprits behind what sounds like a true tour-de-force of modern terror and a real contender for the best wide release horror film of 2013?"  Well, they are none other than the French film-making team behind the much-heralded modern horror classics like High Tension (2003) and The Hills Have Eyes (2006), with blessings and a producers credit from the director of the original Maniac, Willaim Lustig.  Also to be noted is that this movie actually caused test audience members in Los Angeles to faint, become nauseous, and in one case vomit.  The director took this as a compliment.  If you do decide to venture out into the world to catch a screening of Maniac in it's limited run, don't go alone, maybe consider wearing a helmet or other forms of protective headgear, afterall "He warned you not to go out tonight."

FUN FACTS ABOUT MANIAC:

Silence Of The Lambs fans will notice that Buffalo Bill's favorite song, "Goodbye Horses" by Q Lazzarus is played during one of the first murder sequences in Maniac. 

Fans of the original Maniac will notice a quick reference to the original and very controversial movie poster art in Frank's reflection in a parking lot. 

Mannequin 3: On The Prowl For Scalps

DJANGO UNCHAINED

  

  It's not everyday that a bona fide KVLT member gets the opportunity plunk down their hard-earned or not-so-hard-earned loot at the box office in exchange for a chance to see a real red-blooded gritty western on the silver screen.  Sure there have been a few notable westerns that have played theaters in the last decade with enough critical fanfare to garner public interest like The Proposition, The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, Appaloosa, Lawless, and the True Grit remake, all great westerns in their own respects, but none of them are as KVLT worthy as Django Unchained.  After seeing the red-band trailer sometime during the summer of 2011 for Quentin Tarantino's homage to spaghetti westerns, The KVLT has been, frothing at the mouth, reeling in anticipation, and counting down the days until it's Christmas première.  So saddle up KVLT compadres and lets blaze that dusty trail with Django Unchained.


  Django, (Jamie Foxx) a former slave whose freedom is purchased on the road by a glib-tongued German Dentist named Dr. King Schultz (Christopher Waltz) who also happens to be a bounty hunter.  Dr. Schultz quickly learns of Django's skill with a firearm as well as his thirst for revenge against his former slave owners and their employees.  Django and Schultz join forces gunning down fugitives, collecting bounties, and making their way through Texas and eventually to Mississippi to one of the most infamous plantations in the Antebellum South called Candyland.  Dr. Schultz and Django arrive at Candyland playing the roles of two slave traders in order to find and rescue Django's estranged wife Broomhilda, a German speaking slave who had been all but lost in the slave trade until now.  Candyland's sole proprietor Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a brutal sadist who specializes in buying, selling, and pitting his Mandingo fighters, (the human equivalent to dogfighting or cock-fighting) against one another for money.   At Calvin Candie's side is his ever loyal head servant and hype-man Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson) who senses that Django and Dr. Schultz' plans may not be what they appear and quickly informs Candie of his suspicions.  Tensions mount and the silver-tongued Schultz tries to smooth over the rough details of his a false business proposition while Django has his hand on his sidearm ready to shoot his way out of Candyland and save Broomhilda at any cost if the deal sours. 

Here's a bit of business advice from The KVLT, Lesson 1:  Never trust a man who brings a human skull to the board meeting.

  While Django Unchained has little or nothing to do with the original Django films at all other than it's titular character and a cameo by the original Django, Franco Nero, it still packs a solid punch packed full of wild and woolly comic book styled western action and is a vast improvement on his last two films. (Inglorious Bastards and Death Proof) Like all Tarantino films to date, it's a pastiche of other cult films that he loves, in this case, spaghetti westerns like Cutthroats 9, Keoma, and the Django series and blaxploitation westerns like Boss, Joshua, Take A Hard Ride and even Hollywood's critically panned exploitation trash epic Mandingo. The acting is definitely on par with the usual trappings of the spaghetti western and Tarantino films with a few stand out performances by Christopher Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Samuel L. Jackson, but otherwise if you expected anything more than two-fisted comic book dialogue and one-liners, you may have missed the point entirely. Oh and did I mention the soundtrack? Would you believe Ennio Morricone, Jim Croce, James Brown, and Rick Ross all on the same soundtrack? It's all true and it works really well. 

  Of course with any Tarantino project there is going to be buzz, rumors, hype, and outrage and Django Unchained is no exception.  Outside of the usual complaints about glamorizing violence, explicit language, and bad taste, Spike Lee has said that he will not go to see Django Unchained because  of Tarantino's depiction of African American slavery.  Lee also had qualms about the incessant use of racial slurs in Tarantino's Jackie Brown in the late 90's.   Here are some of the comments that Lee made about Django Unchained in a in a recent VIBE Magazine interview

Dr. Schultz (Christopher Waltz) looks like he is pondering the  comments made by Spike Lee about Django Unchained. 

  So far the critics have been more favorable than Lee's take on Django Unchained.  The KVLT was a little suprised to see that it has already earned itself a rating of 8.8 on IMDB.com.  Maybe Django Unchained will be the western that will dig it's spurs into the sides of the moviegoing public for a much longer ride than some of the more recent westerns that have popped in and out of the spotlight?  But even if Tarantino's love letter to the spaghetti western is not enough to drum up a full-on revival of the western film, Django Unchained is a welcomed shotgun blast from the past with enough modern flare to dazzle new audiences who may or may not be privy to the exploitation side of the spaghetti western! In other words, don't miss it!  

Fun Facts about Django Unchained:  

During filming on location in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Tarentino rented out a local movie theater to show samurai and western movies from his private collection.

While hosting SNL, Jamie Foxx, talked about Django Unchained and said that he was, "excited to kill all the white people in the movie."

In reaction to the SNL skit, Jeff Kuhner wrote for The Washington Times: "Anti-white bigotry has become embedded in our postmodern culture. Take “Django Unchained.” The movie boils down to one central theme: the white man as devil — a moral scourge who must be eradicated like a lethal virus."

Jamie Foxx rode his own horse named Cheetah in Django Unchained

Originally, Quentin Tarentino had Will Smith in mind to play Django.  Smith declined the offer and Jamie Foxx got the part.

NEAR DARK

  In 1987 Joel Schumacher's seminal teenage vampire classic grew fangs and wings,"said hello to the night" landing at major box office success proving that the public "still believed" in vampires.  That same year Katheryn Bigelow (Point Break, Hurt Locker) had unleashed a similar gang of rebel vamps onto the silver screen in Near Dark.  Where The Lost Boys use flashy Hollywood cinematography and teenage sex appeal to tell the tale of the American nuclear family who also happen to be bloodsuckers from beyond the grave, Near Dark spins a similar yarn but with a gritty, raw, western flare, pitch black humor, and devil-may-care attitude that set it leagues apart from the usual fangfare. 

  Meet Caleb, a farmhand from Oklahoma who by day helps with the family farm.  By night, he's like any other young red-blooded American male, just out lookin' for a good time.  Along comes Mae, a mysterious and attractive young lady who has just caught the eye of young Caleb.  After a flirty introduction, they decide to go for a ride in Caleb's farm truck.  The couple lose track of time and Caleb mentions that it's almost dawn.  She panics and pleads with Caleb to take her home before the sun rises.  In a last ditch effort to finally steal a kiss from Mae, Caleb leans forward and gets more than he bargained for when Mae sinks her teeth into his neck and disappears.  The next day Caleb wakes up to find a strong aversion to sunlight, so strong in fact, that it causes his skin to blister and burst into flames.  He drives himself back to the family farm and just before he reaches his destination, he is abducted by a speeding RV full of hell-bent outlaws with Mae among their ranks who all have a similar disposition that requires them to keep out of direct sunlight and drink human blood to survive.  The gang then explain that he has been turned and like them, in order to stay alive, he must now rove the countryside at night in search of victims whose blood he needs to sustain his own life.  Caleb's reluctance to kill and his relationship with Mae cause rifts and tension within the gang, meanwhile, Caleb's father and little sister are hot on their trail in hopes of saving him.  Will Caleb become one of the bloodthirsty marauders or will his father make it in time before Caleb pays the ultimate price of living fast, like a predator in the night?

The KVLT can't imagine anyone who wouldn't want to party with Bill Paxton's character Severen in Near Dark.  ...The man has a way

  Although Near Dark wasn't given the proper promotion and wide theatrical release that it deserved, it fast became a KVLT hit thanks to home video and frequent appearances on cable throughout the late 80's and early 90's. The film breathes an air of dead seriousness that most horror films of the late 80's and even today can't hold a candle to.  To further illustrate this, Caleb, Mae, and the gang of outlaws  are technically vampires, they drink blood, ignite in sunlight, and have superhuman strength, but, the use of long sharp fangs, and the word vampire are never used in the film.  The soundtrack by Tangerine Dream and various artists, wholly embraces the isolation and of the Midwest with ironic shit-kicker blues and pop rock songs, ingeniously juxtaposed with Tangerine Dream's pulsing synth-driven dirges that help define the Faustian price of killing to live in a nocturnal world without end.  The casting for Near Dark couldn't have been any better, with newcomers like Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright, and Joshua John Miller matching the level of gravitas that genre vets like Lance Henriksen, Jenette Goldstein, Bill Paxton, and Tim Thomerson are well known for.

Nice try, Lionsgate. The KVLT knows too well what vapid and sparkly set of the vampire demographic you were marketing this re-release to. 

  In the realm of vamp flicks, Near Dark is a true diamond in the rough.  Outshined by the glitz and glamour of The Lost Boys in it's initial theatrical release, Near Dark has clawed it's way through the grave dirt of the cinematic cemetery and resurrected itself as a true KVLT force for those who haven't already offered their free arteries to the Twilight set.  Near Dark is in fact the real deal.  It's dark, horrific, hypnotic, two-fisted, ugly, irreverent, comes with strong dose of gallows humor, and best of all it makes no excuses.  All killer, no filler and definitely no sparkles. 

Fun Facts About Near Dark:

The Cramps cover of, "Fever", can be heard when the gang enters the roadhouse near the middle of the film.  

Lance Henriksen actually designed his own costume for the character of Jesse Hooker. 

For the role of Caleb, Johnny Depp, and D.W. Sweeney auditioned but Adrian Pasdar got the role. 

Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton, and Jenette Goldstein, had just finished shooting Aliens with James Cameron who at the time, was dating Near Dark Director Katheryn Bigelow.  Near Dark, being a lower to mid level budget studio picture, the pay margin was substantially lower than it was on Aliens, but Henriksen, Paxton, and Goldstein agreed to do the film because they loved the script and characters so much.

 On a theater marquee in the background, James Cameron's sci-fi action hit, Aliens, can be seen.

THE NIGHT HAS IT'S PRICE

FATHER'S DAY (2012)

  From the great white north a true modern cult clssick has awakened from the wonderfully warped, maple syrup-soaked minds that comprise the ranks of renegade filmmaking collective ASTRON-6.  Made on a budget of only ten grand procured by lifelong practitioners of the cinematically perverse, Troma Pictures, Father's Day pays credence to the grisly and sleazier side of  grindhouse and drive-in movies while pushing not only budgetary boundaries, but also the limits of bad taste, to new and often hilarious heights.


  Hot on the bloody trail of vengeance is Ahab, a loner living in the Canadian wilderness whose lifelong pursuits involve making maple syrup and training to become a hell-bent vigilante out to settle the score with a cannibalistic, dad-raping, maniac named Chris Fuchman, who raped and murdered his father when Ahab was just a boy.  Along the way, Ahab joins forces with Twink, a junkie and male prostitute who's father also met his untimely demise at the hands of The Father's Day killer, and Father John Sullivan, A Catholic priest who just wants to see an end to the madness.  Caught in this web of revenge and insanity is Ahab's younger sister Chelsea who is currently working as a stripper, but also wants nothing more than to see The Father's Day Killer receive his final comeuppance.  The group follows Chris Fuhman's path down the metaphorical and metaphysical rabbit hole into a world of reckless brutality and shocking depravity unlike anything you've ever seen before.

 Vengeance is a dish best served slathered in real homemade organic maple syrup

  Upon Father's Day inception, the Astron-6 team had to have been aware of the armchair critic's obvious comparisons to Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarentino's Grindhouse double feature as well as Jason Eisner's Hobo With A Shotgun.   Visually, the trailer for Father's Day definitely sets the tone to capture the same high color saturation, grainy, damaged 16 mm film print look that the aforementioned movies above revel in.  Also, like the Grindhouse double feature, Father's Day has fake bumper commercials for nonexistent (so far anyway) films that are mixed into the feature to give off the impression that the audience is watching a movie on late night cable.  The lo-fi, synth heavy, electronic soundtrack for Father's Day is also a large part of the film's retro fabulous ambiance, sending nods to John Carpenter, Riz Ortalani, Fabio Frizzi, and Goblin.  Stylistically speaking, Father's Day is without a doubt intentionally reaching for the same low rung on the artistic ladder that Grindhouse, and Hobo With A Shotgun, but the boys of Astron-6 go way further thematically and in terms of their own brand of overt toilet humor, subtle dry wit, and unflappable weirdness.  Over the top doesn't even begin to describe Father's Day.  Insofar as the KVLT can tell, there is no glass ceiling, top of the mountain, or end of the rainbow for Astron-6, every action sequence, gore gag, in-joke, and sexual situation get blown way out of proportion and into the solar system and The KVLT is grateful for it! 

Astron-6's Fathers Day is in some ways similar to the 1997 family comedy Father's Day with Robin Williams and Billy Crystal but with just a bit more violence, gore, incest, suicide, and dad-rape. 


  Father's Day may be The KVLT's pick for best movie of 2012 and if that doesn't tickle your fancy, just remember it's a movie made from all the ingredients that a growing KVLT kid needs like; gritty action, violent revenge, drug use, male prostitution, pitch black humor, bucket loads of gore, cannibalism, ample nudity, incest, suicide, and DAD RAPE!  Just think of all the rape/revenge movies that you've seen over the years in which the unfortunate victims have been 99% female.  Isn't it time we reboot our collective psychotronic minds and watch the boys (Dads) take one for the team?  To quote one of the greatest movie taglines in recent memory, "Sons, lock up your fathers."  Father's Day has arrived!

Fun Facts About Father's Day:

Troma pictures gave The Astron-6 team a completetion fund of ten thousand dollars after someone at Troma saw the trailer for Father's Day.  

Astron-6 is meant to be a nod to the popular 80's video company Vestron Video.

Astron-6 have another feature in the works called Fireman, and another titled Manborg. 

POULTRYGEIST: NIGHT OF THE CHICKEN DEAD

  Remember the steak ghost in Poltergeist, the skyscraper-sized killer Stay Puft Marshmellow Man from Ghostbusters, or the shrimp cocktail from hell in Beetlejuice?  How about killer culinary cult classics like Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes or The Stuff?   If the answer is no, fear not dear reader, there is always time to catch up on your fearsome food flicks. Upon writing this review, The KVLT racked it's collective unconscious for scenes or entire movies about killer food, and realized that homicidal edibles have been a staple of the horror film for quite some time, but none have stretched the boundaries of extreme tongue-in-cheek tastelessness insofar as Lloyd Kaufman's Poultrygeist: Night Of The Chicken Dead. 

  American Chicken Bunker, a fast food fried chicken franchise is about to open a new store in Tromaville.  Hordes of angry protesters gather to picket the restaurant's ribbon cutting ceremony.  Caught somewhere between American Chicken Bunker's conquest for power and local entry level employment and the collective organizers rallying outside, are two former lovers, Arby and Wendy.  Arby, is just a young man trying to make a meager living in the world working in the private sector, more specifically, at American Chicken Bunker, as well as regain the adoring affection his ex girlfriend Wendy, who is one of the protesters deadset on running American Chicken Bunker out of Tromaville.  Unbeknownst to either side, American Chicken Bunker's new location was built atop a sacred Native American burial ground and all the recent commotion has stirred their long dormant spirits.  Before you can say, "Kentucky Fried Carnage," American Chicken's Bunkers entire line of deep fried food stuffs become inhabited by the angry spirits, turning anyone who eats it into mutant chicken zombies who want human flesh added to the menu.  Oh and did The KVLT mention that it's a musical?

As the saying goes, "a zombie chicken in the hand is worth a few hundred in the cursed fast food eatery."

  In the tradition of Troma's long standing career of irreverent and over the top cinematic antics Poultrygeist: Night Of The Chicken Dead goes a few steps further than it's predecessors in providing a marathon of sick shock gags, the usual potty humor, nods of political satire, interlaced with intentionally crude yet catchy musical numbers.  Troma Films, a bastion of bad taste independent cinema for almost 40 years now, stills seems to garner a very polarized reaction when mentioned amongst film geeks.  People seem to love or revile Troma.  This could be partly due to the fact that Troma, not only makes genre-defying movies for punks, geeks, and other weirdo stereotypes, but is also a huge distributor of low budget indie films. The list of financially acquired Troma Films by far outnumbers the in-house Troma productions and in most cases lack the unabashed low budget quality, and unflappable drive that a true Troma production possesses.  Therefore, cult film aficionados assume that all Troma Pictures releases are Z-grade schlock of their own design, which is not the case.  The list of Troma's flagship features is a rather short list when you consider how long the comapany has been spitting in the eye of in the mainstream film industry.  Poultrygeist, like The Toxic Avenger films, The Class Of Nuke'Em High Trilogy, Sgt. Kabukiman, and Terror Firmer is a legitimate Tromatic effort made with the same fast-paced, unbridled insanity that made the aforementioned Troma titles cult classics.  To further illustrate Lloyd Kaufman's love for his craft, there is a featurette at the beginning of the Poultrygeist dvd explaining how and why he spent much of his 41K to have it filmed in 35 millimeter instead of on digital.  A bold move in a time when digital is the industry standard and the cost of film, film printing, not to mention editing has skyrocketed due to the shift in the technology and the demands of the modern film market.

Troma visionary, Lloyd Kaufman, demonstrating that when it comes to independent filmmaking, sometimes it's really hard to save face. 

  Poultrygeist: Night Of The Chicken Dead is everything you've ever come to love about Troma, but for the new ADHD prescription drug addled, 24 hour media and internet obsessed, fast food addicted, secretly nihilistic culture that we live in today.  With it's mile-a-second pacing, wall to wall spraying of blood, gore, fecal matter, seminal fluids, fast food stuffs, it's sharp eye for political absurdities, and catchy yet dirty take on showtunes, Poultrygeist: Night Of The Chicken Dead is a peerless original, well maybe except for the Troma-funded Trey Parker and Matt Stone first effort Cannibal: The Musical.  Although, Cannibal: The Muscial does come with The KVLT's seal of approval, So if that old yellow Troma logo has let you down before, or you are still on the fence about Troma Films, rest assured, Poultrygeist: Night Of The Chicken Dead is the Troma film to end all Troma films.  Seriously, if Poultrygeist isn't your cup of cinematic tea beer, then you're probably reading the wrong blog. 

Fun Facts About Poultrygeist: Night Of The Chicken Dead:

One of the original titles for Poultrygeist was, "Good Night and Good Cluck."

A scene that ended up on the cutting room floor reveals Trey Parker and Matt Stone as Arby's parents.  

Poultrygeist's lead characters were named after popular Fast Food Restaurants Arbie (Arby's), Wendy (Wendy's), Micki (McDonalds), Denny (Denny's), Carl Jr. (Carl Jr.) and Paco Bell (Taco Bell)

When watching Poultrygeist, patient and observant Tromaphiles may spot the infamous penis monster prop from Tromeo and Juliet, and the obligatory car flip and explosion scene recycled once again.

FROM BEYOND

  What's pink and purple, Lovecraftian, covered in gore and slime, and still sexy?  Give up?  It's Stuart Gordon's science fiction/horror extravaganza, From Beyond. 

  Based on the titular H.P. Lovecraft story, a gateway between another world and the human mind has just been opened by two fringe scientists with a device of their own mad creation called the sonic resonator.  This new dimension of consciousness grants passage to ghoulishly amorphous creatures who want to rend human flesh and minds, by inhibiting the pineal gland.  Once they've tapped into the pineal glands, these beings from beyond gain total control over their human host bodies, sending them on a rampage of sex and violence crazed euphoria.  It becomes a race against time to close the portal between the two worlds and to put and end to the scientists newly acquired addiction to carnal savagery.  Which belies the real question, do they really want it to stop? 

By this creatures trendy yet peaceful hand gesture, The KVLT has to assume that there must be a hip hop scene in the dimension from whence it came.. 

  From Beyond is another jewel in the cult movie crown of Stuart Gordon who was hot on the heels of success from his 1985 zombie opus Re-Animator made for the soon-to-be infamous Empire Pictures.  With a small cast of only four main characters, consisting primarily of staunch horror icons like Jeffrey Combs, Ken Foree, and Barbara Crampton, From Beyond isn't a body count bloodbath like most of the popular slasher flicks of the 80's.  However, it is a monster movie driven by Lovecraftian proportions, the excesses of the 80's, as well as the needs of aging monster kids who sole purpose in life is to see mass quantities of blood, boobs, and beasts.  In fact, their are technically more creatures, transmutations, and inter-dimensional creatures than there are actual cast members in From Beyond's brisk 86 minute runtime.  That is not to say that due to the small cast that the carnage and bodily harm within is restrained on any level.  Instead of pandering to teen audiences by showing how fast they can dispatch of a co-ed or jock stereotype, Stuart Gordon and writer Bryan Yuzna opt for extensive shots of extreme slime covered alien forms devouring, and melding with their human prey in surreal transfigurations of twisted flesh.  Think Rob Botin's creature effects in The Thing, but on a B-horror budget and you've got a pretty good idea of what's to come.  Also, as mentioned in the opening riddle, the lighting choices in From Beyond are unlike anything The KVLT has ever witnessed in a horror film before or since.  Lurid pinks and electric purples wash over visceral scenes of the sonic resonator's corrupted and reconstituted abominations wreaking havoc upon naked human flesh seem as if they were illuminated by Prince's stage lighting crew, yet somehow strangely, it works.  Then Richard Band, brother of infamous producer Charles Band, composes a score that expertly delivers orchestrated wave after wave of dissonant strings and thundering timpani rolls that roll, reel, and wrench the tension.

Easy there Freud, The KVLT doesn't see the phallic symbolism.  Not every horror movie is a metaphor for male sexual frustration and/or symbolic phallic penetration...  Okay, okay, maybe this one is. 

  When it's all said and done, almost 30 years later, From Beyond still delivers.  Whether you are curious to behold Lovecraft's creations come to life, scream queen Barbara Crampton violated by otherworldy creatures, or you just love a good, effects heavy monster movie, From Beyond does not disappoint. The only drawback The KVLT could see, is that it isn't the most faithful film adaption of H.P. Lovecraft's work.  But then again, making a movie about the dark, vague, and creeping things that Lovecraft himself, in an act of artistic license, chose to not clearly define, seems to lie in the double edged sword realm of filmmaking.  As far as The KVLT is concerned, the more Lovecraft in the world, in any form of media is a good thing.  So do what you must to find, stream, conjure, or sonically resonate a copy of From Beyond and let those pink and purple inter-dimensional abominations of contorted slime covered flesh into your heart and hopefully into your pineal gland. 

Scream queen Barbara Crampton pledging her devotion to heavy metal gods Judas Priest in a scene that should have been called, "Hell-bent For Leather."

Fun Facts About From Beyond:

Aside from their horror and cult film catalogs, Stuart Gordon and Bryan Yuzna also wrote the big budget Disney film Honey, I Shrunk The Kids.

The address to the house where the scientists, the sonic resonator, and it's nightmarish creatures reside is visible in one scene as 666. 

Actor Ken Foree references his character from George A. Romero's zombie classic Dawn Of The Dead by repeating the line "I used to play pro football." 

From Beyond can be classified a "body horror" film like David Cronenberg's Videodrome, The Fly, Shivers, and Rabid, as well as Shinya Tskukamoto's Tetsuo films. 

When Stuart Gordon submitted his film to the MPAA they responded by saying that it wouldn't even get a hard R rating because it had, "ten times too much of everything." 

LOVECRAFT MONSTERONI AND SLEAZE

BEYOND THE DARKNESS

  It's February and according to the television commercials advertising chocolate and greeting cards, love is in the air.  So The KVLT has decided to serve up a spicy Italian dish of post-mortem love and commitment that is sure to satisfy even the most gluttonous gorehound.  It's a tale that illustrates all too vividly, the darkest depths of unwinding madness and the pinnacle of moribund extremes.  A movie that shows that how true love is forever and that death is not necessarily a, "get out relationship jail free", card.  Dear reader, please accept this review of Beyond The Darkness, from The KVLT's blackest heart of hearts to yours, as the closest thing to a Valentines Day card we could ever muster.

  Frank Wyler was enjoying a young, married, and wealthy life in his palatial estate with his wife Anna.  That is until his jealous servant, Iris, kills Anna via voodoo doll ritual.  It seems that Iris has always lusted after after Frank and with his wife out of the picture, Iris has plans of seducing him.  Tortured and obsessed with the memory of his dearly departed wife, Frank drives to the cemetery in the middle of the night, exhumes Anna's body and takes it back to his estate.  Being an avid taxidermy hobbyist, he them proceeds to remove her internal organs, embalms, and stuffs her for future preservation.  When he is not sleeping with or fantasizing about his late wife, he spends his time stalking and viscously murdering young women.  Once Iris discovers Frank's new homicidal hobbies, she becomes his accomplice, all the while trying to seduce him.  The pair also try to prevent the authorities from the tracing the recent disappearances of young women back to their mansion turned house of horrors. 

Beyond the Darkness proves that there is more than one way to get up in them guts. 

  Given the film's explicit and taboo subjects as well as scenes of graphic intense violence, a true juxtaposition occurs in the tone in which Beyond The Darkness was lensed.  It's cinematography breathes a hazy, dreamlike ambiance very similar to what French horror auteur Jean Rollin became so well known for in the 70's, instead of settling for the harsh gritty exploitation film fare of the day.  Coupled with the lush imagery is a very jazzy and moody soundtrack by Italy's favorite cult film composers, Goblin, that focuses heavily on somber keys and subdued string swells rather than their usual bombastic "prog rock from hell", that they are known for in films like George A. Romero's Dawn Of The Dead, and many of Dario Argento's horror classics like Suspiria, and Deep Red.  The artful and overly competent handling of the morbid material within the frames of Beyond The Darkness is even more bizarre when considering that it was directed by the man-of-a-thousand pseudonyms, Joe D'Amato.  The reason for his many nom de plumes is that he usually wears multiple hats as a writer, director, producer, etc partly to have total creative control and to keep the cost of his films low.  Another reason is that Westernizing foreign names were a very common advertising ploy in the international film market of the 60's 70's and 80's.  But it's also very possible that his many alias' stem from wanting to differentiate his genre pictures from his extensive career in producing and directing hundreds of hardcore pornographic films.  Yet somehow, Beyond The Darkness doesn't come off quite as sleazy or diminutive when you consider D'Amato's legacy of smut and sleaze flicks.  

Beyond The Darkness also graphically illustrates how, "a woman's work is never done." 

  But don't fret gorehounds and shock movie aficionados.  Beyond The Darkness doesn't substitute gloss for gross.  It still tops many watch lists of the goriest and most disturbing horror films of all time for a reason.  Your patience will be will be rewarded again and again by multiple scenes of murder, fingernails being pulled out one by one with pliers, an acid bath, necrophilia, a body sectioned and quartered, eyeballs removed and replaced, throats ripped out, an autopsy and cremation scene that caused many to believe that D'Amato used real corpses and/or real footage of corpses in his film, which allegedly led to a series of investigations.

Fun Facts about Beyond The Darkness:

Alternate titles for Beyond the Darkness include The Final Darkness, Buio Omega, Buried Alive, and Blue Holocaust

Here's a list Joe D'Amato's pseudonyms:  Donna Aubert | Steven Benson | Anna Bergman | John Bird | Enrico Biribicchi | Alexander Boroscky | Alexandre Borsky | Bernard Brel | James Burke | David Carson | Lynn Clark | O.J. Clarke | Oliver J. Clarke | Hugo Clevers | Joe Damato | Joe De Mato | Raf De Palma | Michael Di Caprio | Dario Donati | Félicien Dran | Robert Duke | Oscar Faradine | Romano Gastaldi | John Gelardi | Robert Hall | Richard Haller | David Hills | Igor Horwess | George Hudson | Fred Sloniscko Jr | Kevin Mancuso | A. Massaccesi | Aristice Massaccesi | Aristide Massaccesi | Aristide Massaccessi | Aristede Massacesi | Aristide Massacesi | Aristide Massacessi | Arizona Massachuset | Arizona Massachusset | Andrea Massai | J. Metheus | Peter Newton | Una Pierre | Robert Price-Jones | Zak Roberts | Joan Russel | Joan Russell | Tom Salima | Fred Sloniscko Jr. | Federico Slonisco | Frederick Slonisco | Fédérico Slonisco | Federico Slonisko Jr. | Federiko Slonisko Jr. | Frederico Slonisko Jr. | Dan Slonisko | Federico Slonisko | Federiko Slonisko | Frederico Slonisko | Frederic Slonisko | Frederiko Slonisko | Fred Slonisko | Chana Lee Sun | Chang Lee Sun | Michael Wotruba | Robert Yip | Joe d'Amato | Raf de Palma


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