Fulvue Drive-In.com
Current Reviews
In Stores Soon
 
In Stores Now
 
DVD Reviews, SACD Reviews Essays Interviews Contact Us Meet the Staff
An Explanation of Our Rating System Search  
Category:    Home > Reviews > Thriller > Murder > Vampire > Zombie > Political > Exploitation > Colombia > Sexploitation > Gangster > Brit > Bloody Flesh (1983/One 7 DVD)/Exploitation Double Feature: Black Cobra Woman (1976)/Superbitch (1973/Apprehensive DVD)/Lost Films Of Herschell Gordon Lewis (w/Black Love, Ecstasies Of Women & Linda &

Bloody Flesh (1983/One 7 DVD)/Exploitation Double Feature: Black Cobra Woman (1976)/Superbitch (1973/Apprehensive DVD)/Lost Films Of Herschell Gordon Lewis (w/Black Love, Ecstasies Of Women & Linda & Abilene/Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray w/DVD)/A Perfect Ending (2012/Wolfe DVD)

 

Picture: C-/C- & C/B- & C/C     Sound: C/C- & C/C/C+     Extras: C-/C-/C/C     Films: C/C/C+/C

 

 

Here is a very interesting cycle of exploitation films, including a new one that inadvertently goes into that direction…

 

 

We don’t get many films from Colombia, let alone Horror genre films, but Carlos Mayolo’s Bloody Flesh (1983, presented at the time by Roger Corman and Roman Polanski) takes place in 1956 under a militant dictatorship, but an uncontrollable crisis is about to take place in part of the country as buildings are blown up, people exterminated and a hidden evil force is unleashed.

 

The supernatural force released starts to turn innocent people into bloodthirsty killers (a combination of zombies and vampires) but the military and most who live in the countryside of Cali are unaware of this.  There is also a little political subtext when incest becomes involved, though if they are possessed, does that take on a new meaning?  Needless to say some will find this film sick, but I just found it a mixed bag, intermittently effective and dull.  We have seen much of what happens here before and the political side is a bit trivialized, along with a little of the genocide, so I was disappointed at what could have shown and said more since we don’t get many films from this part of the world.  It obviously is partly an exploitation film to begin with, but Bloody Flesh could have been much more, though it is still disturbing in its own ways.


A trailer is the only extra.

 

 

Next is an interesting (and in a rarity these days, double sided) DVD with two grindhouse type films that arr worth a look, even if they are not the strongest works.  First in this self-titled Exploitation Double Feature is Black Cobra Woman (1976, directed by Joe D’Amato) with a wealthy Jack Palance dealing with deceit and sexually seductive women including the title snake charmer/stripper () in a thin script that is heavy on softcore sex over a weak plot, which is essentially the point, along with showing what was even considered then an exotic locale.  This is exaggerated, of course, but the porn chic angle is part of its dynamic (Emmanuelle anyone?) and it is amusing and worth a look just the same.

 

More ambitious and with more of a screenplay is an unusual Italian/British co-production called Superbitch (1973, directed by Massimo Dallamano) with Stephanie Beacham still in bad gal mode and not necessarily the title character (there are several potential meanings to the title) and is not to be confused with Joan Collins in The Bitch (reviewed elsewhere on this site) but also involving gangsters.  In this case, it is a Turkish drug family run by an elderly killer mother who are sadistic.  Beacham’s character is involved with shady types all around, plus cops who are a bit dirty (in the Get Carter/Sweeney mode) as other criminal activity (plus honey traps where prominent men are filmed having wild sex, then blackmailed) has many Italian actors and is well shot, but it takes on many things to be like the films of their respective country’s crime cycles and does not work out as I would like it to.  Still, it is worth a look and Beacham goes topless!

 

The film also stars Patricia Hayes, Leon Vitali, Ivan Rassimov and Cecil Linder.

 

Trailers for various Apprehensive DVD releases are the only extra.

 

 

You might expect more bloody horror exploitation from The Lost Films Of Herschell Gordon Lewis, but the three films here are actually softcore erotica including a not-so-cleverly disguised as a documentary science film called Black Love (1971, which is politically incorrect and even racist as anything) and two softcore howlers in Ecstasies Of Women & Linda & Abilene (both 1969).  All of it is an excuse for nudity and goes far for pre-Deep Throat erotic cinema, but is not necessarily hardcore, but always shady.  It is a bit of a surprise that he even made these films (even if he did not always use his name), but they are typical of where these kinds of films were at the time and show a director who wanted to go where no one else would.

 

They turn out to be the most interesting on this list and I commend Vinegar Syndrome (issuing these in a Blu-ray/DVD pack) for saving these as much as they could and issuing them because they serve as time capsules as much as anything else and should be seen again by a wide audience.

 

Extras include trailers in both format versions, plus the case has postcard-sized reproductions of charts from the film shoots and a quality paper booklet with an essay on the films and Lewis.

 

 

Finally we have a new lesbian drama in Nicole Conn’s A Perfect Ending (2012) which is a supposedly provocative, realistic tale of lesbian prostitutes and one who gets too close to a client.  The ideas are somewhat bold, but we have seen much of this before.  However, the problems here are the talk-at-each-other dialogue (which can get ridiculous at times), shrill moments of lines and shrill acting, plus a detached sense of just about everything that makes it hard to buy after about the first quarter and in never recovers.

 

Conn is trying to be artsy with editing actual art into the (or is that in between) the scenes and then Morgan Fairchild shows up as a complex Madame in the best role in the film where she essentially outacts everyone in the film, which is a real problem.  She was always underrated to begin with, but she is really good here and it is a shame the rest of this is not up to that.  The ending was lame too.

 

If a female discourse of some kind, lesbian or not, was intended, it gets lost in the mechanics of the plot.  John Heard is the other known name in the cast of this independent production.

 

Extras include an extended love scene, Deleted Scenes, Original Theatrical Trailer and a Behind The Scenes featurette.

 

 

The 1.33 X 1 images on Flesh and Cobra are from a faded film prints, though I was able to get better color when I adjusted the image, but that should be done by the persons doing the transfer.  The prints also have their share of damage, scratches and this is very soft, but we get the idea that this was well shot at the time at times.   The letterboxed 1.85 X 1 image on Superbitch is barely better with a little more definition and correct color, but the print is also on the shot side.  Sadly, the 1.33 X 1 images on the three Lewis films and anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Ending are very soft and detail challenged, so they are no better despite having less scratches and better color.

 

Fortunately, the 1080p 1.33 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on the Lewis films on Blu-ray are the clear visual champs here by default (and boy, do we mean that) showing their age and the flaws with the prints more, but you can see more detail, depth, color range and you can see how good these must have looked when they were first filmed.  A good approximation of EastmanColor stocks of the time, it may not always be demo quality, but it is easy to look at.

 

The lossy Colombian Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Flesh is rough and shows its age, plus is a few generations down with background hiss, which is what we get on the lossy English Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Cobra, Superbitch and the three Lewis films in both formats exhibiting the same issues, but Cobra is especially worn, distorted, warped and problematic.  That leaves lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Perfect we expected to be the sonic best on this list by default, but it is not as well recorded and even harsh at times in its mixing, which can collapse to mono and play too much towards the front speakers and even center channel.



-   Nicholas Sheffo


Marketplace


 
 Copyright © MMIII through MMX fulvuedrive-in.com