Norman Holocaust and the Taming of Rockwell!

Santa Sangre

By Jimmy Squarejaw

Alejandro Jodorowsky’s films are absolutely fascinating to me.  They are completely original and instantly identifiable once you have seen just one. Jadorowsky’s use of color, imagery, and symbolism is brilliant and in my opinion more powerful and disturbing than Dario Argento. I wouldn’t know what genre to consider Jadorowsky’s movies in other than his own genre.  All of his movies are as nutso as Salvador Dali’s UN CHIEN ANDALOU, but Jodorowsky creates a coherent plot out of all of the madness.  SANTA SANGRE is no different than his previous films even though it is one of his last films he made and it came out over a decade after his most prolific filmmaking period when he made El Topo and Holy Mountain.

SANTA SANGRE is about the life of Fenix.  He is shown growing up and fully grown during SANTA SANGRE.  In the beginning of the movie he is seen as a young adult, held in an insane asylum.  It’s not too bad though because he has a tire swing and a giant tree that he can climb around on like the filthy monkey he is.  After eating a raw fish provided by hospital staff, the film flashes back to Fenix’s upbringing at a circus and starts to fill us in on how he ended up in a mental asylum with a ridiculous eagle tattoo on his chest.

Fenix’s Dad is a giant tub of shit named Orgo who is the knife-throwing hypnotist of the local circus.  Fenix’s mother is a very dramatic trapeze artist.  It’s evident that Orgo’s eye wanders and catches the interest of the very slutty tattooed woman and her spread, lightly stained loins.  Orgo plays knife throw with her when he’s not getting tanked on booze, and the Tattooed Lady takes the liberty of getting turned on at every throw, even giving one of the knives a nice little dose of fellatio.  Well like all Hispanic women……well most women I guess, Fenix’s Mom doesn’t take to kindly to that and proceeds to freak the hell out instead of caving in to a possible three-way.  Orgo plays it cool and lays out some hypnotism to calm her down and all is well.  I wonder if that would work in real life? 

After Fenix’s Mom cools down we learn she is a part of a cult that believes in a saint that had her arms ripped off after she was raped by a conniving pair of brothers. Well as totally sane as that may sound, the landlord to their temple doesn’t like it too much and after the local Catholic monsignor pays the cult a visit and verifies that yes, this is totally batshit, the temple is torn apart by a few bulldozers.  Great, Orgo must’ve totally shit a brick sideways because without a cult Concha, Fenix’s Mom, is going to be spending more time at the circus inhibiting the Tattooed Lady and Orgo’s sexo fiesto!

In the midst of all of the wacky drama one of Lil’ Fenix’s closest friends, an elephant, starts to get sick and dump bloody gore out of his trunk.  After the big fella’ dies a public funeral is held with a giant black casket being paraded through the streets with all the pomp and flare of a royal funeral.  After the funeral, unlike a royal funeral, the elephant’s giant casket is dumped into the city waste pit letting all of the vagrants of whatever god forsaken town this is tear the elephant apart for food.  While watching this Orgo gives Fenix the fucking terrible eagle tattoo we saw before.  Back at the circus, it was a matter of time before the Tattooed Lady and Orgo get caught messing around and Concha again looses her mind and dumps acid of both of their baby making parts.  Orgo, although reeling from wide-open sores burned into his wiener, doesn’t like this too much and cuts Concha’s arms off before he slits his own throat. 

Well, as for his upbringing you could see that Fenix might be a little unhinged and one can totally see why he ends up in a mental ward.  After the Tattooed Lady gets burned she grabs her mute kid and splits into the hub bub of the Mexican city.  Sucks for Fenix because he loved that little mute girl, even if she had really bad yellow teeth that I couldn’t get past at all during her scenes.

We now flash forward to Fenix grown up and trying to be a good lad with his other mental asylum cohorts. There is something odd about the fact they all look the same and are the same height.  Oh, they all have Down’s syndrome. This for me is a good part to end off with, there is plenty more to this movie than I’ve described but give it a watch and you will not be let down, it’s an odd one!  It isn’t a psycho-gore fest full of rape and body procurement like we usually discus on this website, instead it’s an unsettling story told with bold symbolism and unique characters that, for me at least, will make you want to watch it repeatedly to try and figure it all out.            

Blake and Jimmy’s Extreme-O-Gauge!

Realistic Gore: 2 out of 5, not very gory but there are a few good scenes for the hounds.

Rape: 1 out of 5, there is an attempt that is nerve wracking but it proves to be okay.

Animal Death: 1 out of 5, the elephant isn’t real but it’s still unsettling.  There’s also a weird abusive chicken scene.

Necrophilia: 0 out of 0

Torture: 0 out of 0

Overall Movie: 5 out of 5, I recommend all of Jodorowsky's films. This can be watched numerous times and is entertaining as fuck!

Cannibal Ferox

CANNIBAL FEROX
By Blake Redding

Anytime you get a movie with the word ‘Cannibal’ in it and it’s directed by an Italian you know you are in for some sick shit. When CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST was released it raised the bar for exploitation and gore flicks, so of course there were many directors chomping at the bit to one up it. This movie comes with the disclaimer “banned in 31 countries!” so of course I’m going to buy this piece of cinematic glory, and I didn’t even know there were 31 countries, but I might be thinking of continents and I digress. So for this week’s Sunday Snuff I scooped myself a Sriracha covered rice bowl and watched these filthy natives with a hankering for human flesh dig into some white people’s chest.

CANNIBAL FEROX begins with a group of students who head into the jungle to prove the existence of a cannibalistic tribe (they seriously never learn). The first native the students run into is casually snacking on the fattest, most disgusting grubs I have ever seen. There are no cut or trick shots here, he is just putting those live suckers in his mouth and chomping them up, making sure you see the guts oozing through his teeth. The group breathes a sigh of relief that he is eating larva as opposed to human limbs. Here is where their logic becomes quite laughable. They are carrying around a live rodent looking animal, so that in the event a larger predator becomes a threat, they can throw the rodent as a diversion and make their escape. Well, the geniuses decide to tie the little guy to a post out in the open in the middle of the Jungle. Oh look, it’s a 30 foot boa constrictor! The rodent meets a horrible fate at the mouth of the giant snake and we are treated to our first REAL animal death. Anyone familiar with the Cannibal genre is familiar with the animal death scenes, personally I would rather watch the humans get ripped apart any day but these damn Italians.

Now, there is always that one asshole that has to get all crazy on cocaine and start fucking with the natives.

You mad bro, because you just shot and killed a young topless native girl. Now the shit hit’s the fan, but before we get to the human buffet, we are treated to a live turtle being butchered and roasted over an open fire, and a monkey being attacked and eaten by a Cheetah. There is not an option in the menu to watch sans animal killings like the copy of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST I own. I’m sure animal rights groups everywhere are crying themselves to sleep because I sure as hell am.

Ok, back to the human on human action. It’s getting close to dinner time and natives are getting hungry. They quickly turn on the white devils and imprison them. For an appetizer, they tear open a man’s chest like it’s a goddamn Thanksgiving turkey and proceed to stuff their faces with his guts. It’s a good thing I was done with my red rice bowl. With their appetite curbed for now they tie up the white man responsible for shooting the young girl (played by HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF THE PARK’S Giovanni Radice) to a stake in the ground with his hands bound behind his back. Its time for some cruel and unusual punishment; castration!! The native pulls out a dull machete and cut his dick right off. Don’t worry fellas, they show everything up close and personal and they don’t even kill him after, they just let him suffer. If you are a dude and don’t cringe at this part, you are actually a chick and should see a doctor immediately.

Now don’t worry ladies these filthy cannibals have something heinous in store for your parts as well! The natives pull the blonde white woman out of the cage and rip her shirt off, just like in real life. Are they planning on having a nice little heavy petting session with her? Nope. They take two metal hooks and rip them into her tits and string her up. Now it’s a party! But wait, no party is complete without some human brains to snack on during the torture viewing. Picture this if you will. There is a wooden table with a perfect circle cut out of the middle, just big enough for someone to stick the top of their head out. Well, that’s exactly what they do. The put one of the men with his hands and feet bound under the table with the top of his head exposed. One of the natives takes his trusty machete and lops the top of his head off, exposing his brains. The hungry tribe stands around the head and eats the brains like it was a plate of nachos.

There is absolutely no shortage of blood and gore in this movie kids. All the effects are very well done which makes the kills very effective. The Italians always deliver in the special effects department.

Although not quite as disturbing as its big bro CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, CANNIBAL FEROX is no slouch. It is violent, bloody, sadistic, and just plain nasty. This is a movie the casual horror movie fan needs to work up to. Maybe have a couple cocktails before viewing to ease the pain. That’s how Jimmy and I got through CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST all those years ago!

Blake and Jimmy's Extreme-O-Gauge!

Realistic Gore: 5 out of 5, great looking special effects and things get VERY messy. 

Torture: 5 our of 5, Ouch and ouch and ouch and ouch! 

Rape: 0 out of 5, Not in this one, surprisingly. 

Animal Death: 5 out of 5, all real animal deaths. You can fast forward, it’s OK. 

Necrophilia: 0 out of 0. I’m sure those horny natives are defiling some dead bodies off camera.

Overall Movie:  4 out of 5, I prefer CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST just a little bit more.

HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD

By Jimmy Squarejaw

*WARNING*

All movies reviewed for SUNDAY SNUFF contain graphic depictions that may include rape, live animals being murdered, and extreme gore.  None of the writers condone such acts we just watch this shit. 

On my pursuit for extreme examples of horror cinema for the weekly picks on Sunday Snuff I came upon this Italian Zombie movie directed by Bruno (Rats: Night of Terror) Mattei.  I read some information about HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD (a.k.a. VIRUS and ZOMBIE CREEPING FLESH) that made it come across as a brutal film that has been edited heavily and banned at some point.  As always with Blue Underground DVD’s I was excited to see it was fully restored so I gave it a shot.  Well…..not really a stomach churning nightmare fest but I did thoroughly enjoy HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD and it did have some gross out madness that you as the reader should expect from the movies we review!

HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD begins with a toxic green gas, known as Sweet Death, being released into the air after an unfortunate accident between a zombie rat and an industrial worker for the industrial plant, Hope Facility #10.  The movie then cuts to a group of terrorists, I’m guessing in Italy, holding folks hostage and demanding all of the Hope facilities in the world shut down.  While the terrorists are ranting hippy bullshit mixed with Italian panache they get snuffed out by elite Italian soldiers who snuck into the building under the terrorist's big Italian noses.  And by snuck in, I mean strolled in with absolutely no professional method that any right wing American raised on S.W.A.T. Team movies would scoff at.  The elite Italians do such a good, BAD, job at killing the terrorists they get assigned to Papua New Guinea to take care of the situation down at Hope Facility #10.  Once on the island they rescue, KIDNAP, two documentary filmmakers and make their way through the zombie filled jungles to find out what happened at Hope Facility #10.

Now as in most Italian Zombie or Cannibal movies the special effects are awesome and totally fucking gross.  The make-up artists all seem to have thoroughly studied the stages of human decomposition and purification because all of the zombies resemble real dead folks in all forms of decay.  HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD is no different and they have plenty of gore, head explosions, and limb munching that would make any gore hound happy.  The filmmakers also mix in stock video of native funeral ceremonies that show real dead folks that adds a more macabre tone.  And for posterity the filmmakers include some additional stock footage of a few animals being gutted by tribesmen, a native eating a maggot filled eye from a corpse, later seen in DYING-LAST SECONDS OF LIFE, and a jackal chasing, killing, and eating a cute lil’ kangaroo rat.  I’m guessing this is what caused the movie to come up in my radar for extreme movies and the footage could be seen as being pretty intense to the untrained eye. 

I did really like this movie aside from the lack of brutality.  This would be a good movie to slowly introduce someone into the world of extreme cinema.  HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD along with it’s soundtrack by GOBLIN seems like a darker chapter out of Romero’s original LIVING DEAD Trilogy and if you can not focus on it being a rip off, like every other fucking review for this movie continually rambles about, I think zombie fans would really appreciate it. 

Blake and Jimmy’s Extreme-O-Gauge!

Realistic Gore: 3 out of 5, great special effects and a few horrific scenes from the real world.

Rape: 0 out of 0, kept their dicks in their pants!

Animal Death: 2 out of 5, kangaroo rats are cute you fuckin’ jackal jerk!

Necrophilia: 2 out of 5, maggots on dead people count because they have dead people in their tummies!

Overall Movie:  4 out of 5, good flick, better than the last 3 Romero movies that have come out!

Cannibal Holocaust

CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST

By Jimmy Squarejaw

One of the worst days of my life was when fellow Fun With Horror writer Blake Redding and I naively rented Cannibal Holocaust to pass a random Saturday.  We thought it was just another feature in the long line of exploitative horror movies we had grown to love.  Soon we found out that wasn’t the case at all!  Instead we subjected our psyche to one of the most insane movies either of us had ever seen involving rape, cannibalism, excessive realistic gore, and multiple animals being horribly slaughtered.  That movie fucked a fold in my brain for weeks after until I broke down and bought the damn thing.  Now we’re both huge fans of finding the most disturbing images captured on film and celebrate our love for all things extreme every week with Sunday Snuff. 

*WARNING*

All movies reviewed for SUNDAY SNUFF contain graphic depictions that may include rape, live animals being murdered, and extreme gore.  None of the writers condone such acts we just watch this shit.

Well, for week one I have to review the king, CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST.  This movie is so extreme it’s hard for me to think of clever metaphors to randomly insert into this review. The story is about an anthropologist going into the Amazon jungle to find out what happened to a documentary film crew that disappeared months before.  The anthropologist hooks up with a local guide and assistant then venture into the jungle that is also known as “The Green Inferno.”  The group witnesses a ceremonial rape with a stone by a lone tribesman and follow him back to their village undetected.  Once there they cautiously build trust with the natives who were obviously traumatized by assumed hedonistic actions from the missing film crew.  The anthropologist eventually realizes all of the missing crew is dead after finding the remains of their bodies but now he has to retrieve the missing film canisters.  He comes up with a plan to show the natives a box that contains voices (it’s a tape player stupid natives).  Astounded they hand over the film reels because they fear the anthropologist can capture souls.

Now the first part of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST was insane but the second part is completely off the charts. Once back in New York the anthropologist sits in on a viewing of the found footage that a television channel plans to air as part of a documentary about the murdered film crew.  But what they don’t realize is the story told on the recovered reels is quite horrific.  The audience realizes that the film crew basically went power crazy in the jungle.  They started killing the tribes’ animals, burned down their huts, shot a few of the tribesman, two of them start fucking out in the open, and then they rape a few of their village women.  Wow!  Eventually the indigenous cannibal tribe has enough of their shit and decides to exact revenge on the filmmakers.  I won’t go into specifics, like usual, but the movie is so graphic that the director Ruggero Deodato was arrested for obscenity and then murder after a rumor got out that people were actually killed.

CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST is still top of the heap for me when it comes to intensity, and I’ve seen a lot of horrifying shit-hence Sunday Snuff.  The combination of realistic rape, violence, and multiple animals being brutally killed on film is a lot to take in for the casual viewer but there is a lot to be said for this movie aside from the shock. Every time I’ve watched this flick I become immersed in it even though I know what happens in the movie. 

Blake and Jimmy's Extreme-O-Gauge!

Faint of heart beware!

Rape:  5 out of 5 - Multiple explicit scenes of rape!

Realistic Gore:  5 out of 5 - Could pass as a snuff film!
Necrophilia: 0 out of 0 - Dead people get eaten not humped!

Animal Death:  5 out of 5 - A lot of animals die and it’s fucking sad! They are real, not props!

Torture: - 4 out of 5 – Not a pure torture kind've movie, but a lot of brutal killings!
Overall Movie:  5 out of 5, this is the Citizen Kane of extreme movies!