October 22nd

The Walking Dead 3.11: "I Ain't a Judas" (2013) directed by Greg Nicotero

A filler episode consisting mostly of people talking.  The people in the prison talk about what to do about Woodbury.  The people in Woodbury talk about the prison.  Andrea talks to them both.  Carol talks to Andrea and tells her to sex up the Gov and then kill him.  We all know this isn't going to happen even before we see the scene were it doesn't happen.  TV Andrea is terrible that way.

Cut and Run (1985) directed by Ruggero Deodato

Supposedly, the last of Deodato's "Cannibal Trilogy," except, you know, there's no cannibals in this one.  Instead, it's a fairly typical '80s action movie (90% of which, including this one, involved the drug war) heightened with Italian-style gore.  Admittedly, the gore -- in the uncensored version on DVD -- is really good.  I've never seen decapitation done quite so well, and the scene in which a man is torn in half crotch-first was massively disturbing.

Outside of the that, the only other thing in the movie I really liked was Michael Berryman.  He plays some nameless henchman of main bad guy (though completely underused in the movie) Richard Lynch.  The cool part is that he appears to have super powers.  Multiple times, he jumps straight out of river 10 feet into the air to grab some poor slob.  Once, he jumped right through the solid wooden floorboards of a cabin to grab somebody.  He's also a master of hiding in trees, and commands an army of naked natives using just a bird call.  He's a shirtless, hairless, speechless ninja and he's easily the best character in the film.

Watched: DVD from Anchor Bay.

American Horror Story 2.06: "Asylum: The Origins of Monstrosity" (2012) directed by David Semel

You know, I can't say I ever expected to see a TV series that featured a slasher killer as a main character.  That's pretty interesting.  Can they sustain Thredson's menace throughout multiple episodes?  Jason is usually dispatched after just 90 minutes of stalking, after all.  I do love the way Quinto is playing Bloody Face.  He's doing a sort of Norman Bates, but a hundred times more awkward.  Thredson's interactions with Lana, now chained to a bed, are very intense and wouldn't be out of place in a real horror film.  I completely love how he noticed her perspiration and heart rate and deduced her escape attempt.  Someone that perceptive keeping you captive is very scary.

American Horror Story 2.07: "Asylum: Dark Cousin" (2012) directed by Michael Rymer

Frances Conroy -- the maid from season one -- returns as the Angel of Death.  She's perfect.  Her gentle voice, pale skin, and jet black garb make for a striking figure.  I could understand Grace and Miles accepting this entity's help in leaving this world.  I hope we see more of her, especially interacting with the possessed Sister Mary Eunice.

I dig also Sister Jude's current arc.  Over the past few episodes, Sister Mary has engineered her complete breakdown.  Now, in this episode exactly midway through the season, Jude re-finds her strength.  I'm expecting her to go into battle against the possessed nun before the year is over.  Hopefully it will come together and we avoid any sappiness as in season one.

October 14th

Cannibal Holocaust (1980) directed by Ruggero Deodato

Despite Cannibal Holocaust's enormous infamy, I think Deodato's earlier Last Cannibal World is the better film.  World felt rawer and more real.  Holocaust feels manufactured.  It might be due to their stories.  World is about a man captured by savages and fighting to escape.  It's intimate and simple.  We identify with his suffering and cheer when he escapes.  Holocaust clunkily tells two tales, one of an anthropologist searching for a lost documentary team, then another using the footage that lost team shot.

The first never feels particularly dangerous.  The anthropologist and his team never feel out of control among the natives in the jungle.  Its purpose seems to be to give us a tour of the aftermath of the documentary team's adventures in the jungle and raise a little mystery over the circumstances of their deaths.  It's goes on too long for what it is -- it's 45 minutes before the team returns to New York with the film -- and could've been chopped down a bit.

The second is filled with a strange amount of finger-wagging at the audience.  When the film is screened, we quickly learn that the young documentarians are a group of sociopaths, who think nothing of burning natives alive in order to create a story for their documentary.  After each scene of extreme violence -- either committed by or against the filmmakers -- the film cuts back to the anthropologist in the screening room with a sad look on his face.  "Hey, you in the audience, you're sick for watching this," Deodato seems to be saying.  Hey, I ain't the one who made it...

Suffice it to say, Cannibal Holocaust did not live up to its large reputation.

Watched: DVD from Grindhouse Releasing.

American Horror Story 2.03: "Asylum: Nor'easter" (2012) directed by Michael Uppendahl
So far, I'm liking the all-over-the-place goofiness of the show.  This episode features Sister Jude getting drunk, a possessed nun running around causing mischief, a short glimpse of a huge alien, a better glimpse of the monsters the doctor keeps feeding, and unnecessary amputation.  I feel like the showrunners discovered that they were incapable of making a serious horror show -- like the early episodes of season 1 were -- and are playing to their strengths now.  Still, something like this will easily fall apart into disappointment once they begin explaining things.

October 8th

Last Cannibal World (1977) directed by Ruggero Deodato

AKA Jungle Holocaust, this was originally intended as a sequel to Man from Deep River but bears little similarity that prior film.  This is a true horror picture.  I was thrilled throughout the entire film.  It's a simple story of a man captured by "stone age" cannibals in the Malaysian jungle who has to escape and find his airplane before they either eat him or use him as crocodile bait.

I was blown away by the sequence where the cannibals capture Robert.  Wow -- sometimes you need to be reminded about how badass '70s cinema could be.  Robert awakens in cave, surrounded by screaming cannibals and tied to a large boulder.  They begin poking and prodding him as he struggles against the ropes.  Soon, they begin tearing his clothes off and poking and prodding him in even more sensitive areas.  The imagery is intense: a nude made bound to a rock, surround by howling savages.  It's hard to imagine a worse position to find yourself in.

I also can't say I've ever seen a horror movie in which the male lead spends more than half the film completely naked.  Amazing work from Massimo Foschi, who gamely runs around a jungle completely nude just to make a movie.  The bug bites that poor guy must have suffered...

If I have a complaint, it's that Robert only battled a cannibal in combat once.  For all of the chasing around the jungle they did with him, he was only truly in trouble during that one time after his escape.  And, even there, he had the massive advantage of the venom-tipped spear.  A minor quibble, though, and barely worth bringing up.

Watched: DVD from Shriek Show.

The Walking Dead 3.08: "Made to Suffer" (2012) directed by Bill Gierhart

This episode is intense in spots, but suffers from pacing problems most of the rest of the time.  Which is probably the issue with the entire series, come to think of it.  Rick's group's attack on Woodbury to rescue Glenn and Maggie is exciting and fun to watch, but it's continually broken up by cutting to the Governor and his bizarre preoccupation with preventing Andrea from finding out who the attackers are.  Why does he even care?  Plus, the confrontation between the Governor and Michonne -- which had absolutely no build-up -- was incredibly disappointing.  No fork or amputation, huh?

The mid-season cliffhanger of having the Dixon brothers surrounded by the Woodbury folks was rather tame.  Even if I wasn't already spoiled, I can't say I would've been concerned that the show's most popular character was in trouble.

American Horror Story 2.01: "Asylum: Welcome to Briarcliff" (2012) directed by Bradley Buecker

Like the first episode of the first season, this opener throws a whole helluva lot at the viewer.  Again, like that other episode, it was all pretty exciting.  There's an abandoned asylum -- the best horror setting possible -- a mad scientist, a takes-absolutely-no-shit nun with secret desires for her priest, a lesbian investigative journalist, wacky characters populating the asylum, an arm ripped off, and... aliens?  What the hell?  I was not expecting the abduction angle.  I was willing to brush it off as a cover memory in Kit's broken mind, but the scientist guy removes an implant from Kit's neck and watches it crawl away like a spider.  I know they dropped the ball pretty badly by the end of season one, but I'm already forgetting that in favor of wondering how the hell all of this stuff will come together.