Sunday, April 10, 2016

April Exploitation/b-movie Challenge 2016 - Days 8 and 9


The last 2 days each featured a pair of movies. Day 8 started off with THE SINFUL NUNS OF ST. VALENTINE. I think a bit of Nunsploitation was overdue for this challenge but unfortunately I didn't pick a great one. The film revolves around an unsolved murder and one of the girls at the convent is accused of it. It starts out entertaining enough with a good bit of lesbian and naked nun action but before too long the plot starts to run thin which causes the film to drag. There's bit and pieces sprinkled throughout that I like but in the end it tries too hard to replicate the madness and beauty that Ken Russell's The Devils perfectly captured a few years earlier.


That was followed up by one of my favorite viewings of the month - WILD BEASTS. Franco Prosperi, director of Mondo Cane takes his penchant for staging shocking violence in the world of Mondo films and uses them to create an awesome killer animal flick as a European city is under siege from the animals who have escaped their zoo cages after drinking PCP contaminated water making them highly aggressive. Nobody is safe from the tigers, lions, rats, elephants, cheetahs and bulls. The deaths are bloody and gruesome and the movie is immediately one of my favorite killer animal films of all time.


Day 9 started with a big disappointment. The old west slasher A KNIFE FOR THE LADIES sounded like it had to be entertaining. A Jack The Ripper style slasher set in the old west... It had to be ripe with gory murders, shootouts, and the sweaty, dirty desert, right? Ha. Haha. No. No it wasn't. The murders are all off screen, letting us only see the aftermath, the acting aside from the top two or three characters are laughably bad and it's unfortunately predictable.


BIGFOOT VS ZOMBIES finished day 9. This is a new indie movie released by Wild Eye Releasing. This movie is incredibly low budget, with a cheap Bigfoot suit (somehow not the worst I've ever seen) and really poor zombie makeup. It's actually the simpler zombie makeup effects that look better than the cheap attempts at masks that hang off the actor's face. As you can imagine this movie is intentionally campy and has its tongue planted firmly in its cheek. Movies such as this can go one of two ways: They can be charming or they can be down right awful. I found BVZ to be charming with a good sense of humor that had some genuinely funny jokes and scenes. The acting was better than expected for the most part and it was fun to see Bigfoot, who seemed to barely crack 6 feet tall, get into it with some undead ghouls. Bring the beers for BIGFOOT VS ZOMBIES and enjoy the silliness.

Today's Rundown 
The Sinful Nuns Of St. Valentine - 5/10
Wild Beasts - 9/10
A Knife For The Ladies - 3/10
Bigfoot vs. Zombies - 5/10

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