Repugnant Review: 2001 Maniacs (2005) – Tim Sullivan

There really isn\’t any horror remakes that are better than the original, but if I could name one, it would be Tim Sullivan\’s 2001 Maniacs. Way back in 1964, the late and great Herschell Gordon Lewis gave us the cult-splatter-classic, Two Thousand Maniacs! A silly and gory horror film about a town full of confederate hicks who lure in northern tourists, and brutally kill, then eat them. It\’s truly a cannibal classic, and I love the work of H.G. Lewis, but compared to Tim Sullivan\’s version… there\’s no contest. I mean, finances definitely come into play, since H.G. Lewis was notorious for churning out cheap gore flicks, but 2001 Maniacs did a near-exact remake, and didn\’t skimp on anything when it came to special effects and cast. I\’m absolutely not sorry when I say 2001 is so much more superior to the original, and don\’t worry, I\’ll explain. I might be biased because I truly love this movie, but lets just go into the reasons why I find this movie to be as awesome as it is.

First of all, the cast is fucking awesome. Robert Englund as Mayor Buckman has got to be one of the greatest villains in recent years. What I love about Robert Englund, is that you can give him any role, big or small, and he\’ll just completely fall into it and give you a memorable performance. Not only is Mr. Englund in this film, you have the legendary Lin Shaye (Insidious series, Kingpin, There\’s Something About Mary), the insanely underrated Giuseppe Andrews (Cabin Fever 1 and 2, Detroit Rock City), and a bunch of great cameos from Peter Stormare, Eli Roth, Kane Hodder, Scott Spiegel, and hell, if you\’re a hardcore death-match wrestling fan, you might of noticed Kevin \”MAD MAN PONDO\” Canady play the blacksmith. Everyone gives a hell of a performance, and even though the coeds in this film were plain cheesy as shit, they were still fun too. The black biker guy and his hot asian dominatrix girlfriend were my favorite out of all the victims. They were so offbeat, and they weren\’t afraid of fucking with locals of Pleasant Valley. Honestly, one of the best casts in any slasher movie, ever, in my opinion.

The gore, was top-notch. There were even a few digital effects in 2001 Maniacs, but since they were blended in with lots of practical effects, it worked pretty well. I mean, the movie is 90% practical effects, but a great example of the digital effects in this movie is when the milk-maid forces the character Nelson to drink her \”special\” moonshine. It begins to melt through his throat and chest cavity, and when they show his chest caving in, the digital effects they used to pull it off looked pretty damn good. I\’m not the biggest fan of digital gore, but for this particular effect, it looked incredible. Other than that and other small digital effects, the practical stuff is what I fucking love about this movie. The kills are brutal, and the manner of how all of these people die are incredibly creative and downright hilarious. One of my favorites is when the gay character, Ricky, get\’s a spear shoved up his ass and through his mouth. The amount of shock and laughter that oozed out of me after watching that was insane. There were about a dozen scenes in this movie that I just kept rewinding because the kills were just so damn good.

Lastly, I would just like to talk about the humor behind 2001 Maniacs. All that I can say, it\’s hilarious. These backwood ghouls are stuck in the period they died in, keeping with them the stereotypical southern ignorance of hating non-whites, gays, and \”yankees\”. So hey, let\’s add a bunch on northern folks, throw in an interracial couple, and a guy dude, and then you got the bulk of the humor in this movie. It\’s offensive, but it\’s not at all that bad. I don\’t even think they use any brutal slurs or anything like that, but they do make silly assumptions towards certain races and sexual orientations. It\’s honestly super tame, and most of the silliness comes from the redneck confederate stereotypes. A lot of the locals of Pleasant Valley are depicted as illiterate sheep/cousin fuckers, so it\’s balanced when it comes to ripping on everyone. There are so many memorable lines in this one too, and I find my self saying them here in there. \”Son, one time I had full confidence in a fart. Shit all over myself\” and \”Frankly, Miss Pussy, I don\’t give a damn\” come to mind, and 2001 Maniacs is just one of those movies I can quote from front to back. \”PUSHIN UP DAISY\’S BY MIDNIGHT, BOYS!\”

So yeah… I recommend the fuck out of this movie. I honestly don\’t see too many flaws in this movie, and the movie is so goddamn entertaining that even if there were any, I don\’t think you\’d notice. It\’s fun, funny, gory, and and just one of the gnarliest slasher/splatter films to come out in the last 15 years. Find it on amazon, or fucking anywhere you can find it, because I know for a fact you won\’t be disappointed. I shouldn\’t leave out Two Thousand Maniacs either, so if you\’re interested in checking out the original first, I suggest that too. I think I got 2000, Color Me Blood Red, and Blood Feast all on one blu-ray from Something Weird, and it was about $12-$15 dollars, so it\’s totally worth it. Let me know what you think, because I know you won\’t be disappointed.

The Resurrection of Tics (2008) and Planned Remake

June 7th of this year marked ten years since I\’ve graduated High School. Holy shit… ten years already? Time seems to be moving faster and faster every goddamn day, and now I\’m getting hit with the nostalgia bug and looking up all the old junk I created with friends over the years. I put out a compilation of shorts I made last year, but this blog post is dedicated to the most elusive of all the shorts I\’ve worked on.

Tics is a short film that was directed by my good friend Lindsey Brodeur (Marble), and it starred Bob Brodeur, Tyler Aucoin, Wyatt Adams, and myself. I remember getting together with everyone at the old abandoned dye mill in Dudley, MA, which was about a 5-10 minute walk from all of our houses, and literally just coming up with shit on the spot. Purely amateur, but we were all 16/17/18 years old and we had no fucking idea what to do. We were also trying to make a deadline for the Shepherd Hill Horror Movie Festival that Ty and I were putting on at our high school, so it was thrown together all on the spot, but we had a hell of a time making it. Holy shit, I even remember all the stupid shots we had to keep retaking because we were goofing off so much, particularly the scene where Wyatt gets his throat cut by Bob.

Even editing it was a pain in the ass, because we swore way too much, and since this was for a school event, we had to edit out all the naughty fuck words, and we even had to edit the cut-throat scene because it was \”too graphic\”. I mean, it was cheap as shit, considering all we used for blood was ketchup at the time, and you can see Wyatt smiling when he dies in the film, but the ninny\’s at Shepherd Hill just couldn\’t handle it. The swears were replaced with duck quacks, and the bloody stuff was cut out. Oddly enough, they kept the scene in the preview they were showing in the hallway leading into the auditorium, so have no idea what was going on… My first taste of the fucked practices behind the MPAA? Definitely felt like it. The whole experience was a blast though. Just seeing something we created together as a group of friends on the big screen felt great. Tics came in second place, and then Lindsey put the full version up on Youtube soon after. This is where is starts to get fucky, because it would be years before I would ever see Tics again, up until a few months ago.

So, in the original version of Tics, we featured two songs. One from Linkin Park, and the other from Shadows Fall. Back in 2008, Youtube didn\’t give a shit about copyright, and you could literally post anything with whatever music you wanted. If the artist was pissed off about you using their music, they would contact you directly. Now it\’s 2018, and if you even feature a 5 second long clip of some popular song, your video gets hit with a copyright violation. I don\’t disagree with this, but this is what made it hard to get and watch Tics again. It was an on and off situation. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn\’t, but there was a time where the video was outright banned from being watched at all. You can actually find sites and other proxy\’s that will let you watch certain videos in other countries, but this was fucking gone. I tried emailing youtube to see if I could get it back, but there was nothing they could do, and it\’s been nearly a decade since Lindsey has touched her youtube channel. I was going to take the loss, but one day Youtube put its guard down, and I was able to watch it through a proxy server. If I was going to get it back, it was going to be now, because I had no idea when this was going to get lost again. I needed it back.

Thanks to a few \”legal\” programs I found online, I was able to rip the movie off of youtube. The only problem is that it would only capture the video, and no audio. I could listen to the audio fine, but it took me awhile to figure out what I should do. I took the harder route, because I was left with no options. I ripped the video, and then I replayed the video through the proxy and captured the audio through my phone. I then uploaded the audio from my phone to my computer, tossed the audio and video into iMovie, and then edited the audio to match the video. I took out the music and replaced it with free generic horror music from the web, and I cut down a scene where Wyatt is walking around for 2 minutes. It was an epic pain in the dick, but it was so worth it. I was able to save Tics from being lost, and it\’s the oldest piece of media I can find that I\’ve created. There were others, but those will be lost forever. After the revival of Tics, I went on a quest to find more old shorts I made, diving deep into a rabbit-hole of nostalgic goodies. You can find most of them in a \”Shorts Compilation\” article I posted here, and I\’ll link it below.

Several months ago, Bob and I were chatting about old memories, and he came up with the idea of re-making Tics. I\’ve been getting the filmmaking itch, and its been over a year since I\’ve made a short. I started to come up with ideas and for the past few months I\’ve been working on a script. When it came down to doing a remake of something we made in High School, I knew I had to go all out. I needed to flesh it out completely, add more characters, drama, and turn up the violence all the way to 11. My vision for Tics is more-so a psychological psychedelic splatter fest. I want it to be visceral, bleak, and since this version is all based around mental health, I want it to be a severe punch to the gut. As of now, the script is almost complete. I just need to do some fine tuning, come up with designs for effects, and figure out how I\’m going to pay for all of this. I want to go balls out for this, and at the ripe age of 28, I don\’t have time to fuck around with a shit product. When I make this movie, I\’m going to put my all into this, and I want to make it the best goddamn thing I ever made.

I\’ll keep you posted on updates as far as the making of Tics goes. Besides the actual movie, I have plans to make a \”Making Of\” documentary, and a couple other small clips from Youtube. Not sure when I\’m going to be able to film, but I\’m gearing for a spring of 2020 release. It\’s going to be brutal, but it\’s going to be a fucking blast too.

Related Article: A Compilation of Shorts I\’ve worked On

Repugnant Review: Anthropophagus (1980) – Joe D\’Amato

You know… Severin Films is one hell of a company. Over the past year, I\’ve purchased several of their movies, and I have yet to be disappointed. The quality of the transfers blow me away, considering a bunch of these films have been gathering dust in some storage box somewhere. Anthropophagus is an incredible example of the work that the guys at Severin put in making these films look incredible. I remember seeing this movie as a teen, in the shittiest quality on a cracked vhs tape. It was awful. I couldn\’t make anything out half the time, and everything was so dark. I guess I should note that this was most likely a bootleg, and I apologize on behalf of my high school buddy for having such a horrible fucking transfer. When I found out that Severin was releasing this on blu-ray, I had to get it… but I didn\’t. It was Christmas time, and I didn\’t have too much money to spend on myself, so I slept on the awesome sales that were going on at the Severin website. Here\’s where my awesome girlfriend comes into the picture. We generally ask each other what we want, cause it\’s much easier, so when she asked me, I immediately told her about Anthropophagus (and another Joe D\’Amato flick, Beyond the DArkness.) How fucking cool is she? Thanks to her, I got one of the most notorious Video Nasties to ever grace the world. I figured I\’d add a little personal touch to this blog, cause you know… it\’s a BLOG. Anyway, on with the review.

Anthropophagus is an Italian splatter film directed by Joe D\’Amato and written by Joe with George Eastman (who also plays the cannibal in this film.) Zombi 2 actress Tisa Farrow stars in this film, alongside The New York Ripper\’s Zora Kerova, and George, who\’s also written and starred in Sesso Nero, and Porno Holocaust, which were also directed by Joe D\’Amato. The film follows a group of tourists who take a trip to a remote off the coast of Greece, only to find that the town has been deserted, or so they thought at first. They happen to see a women in one of the buildings, but before they could reach her she disappears and leave\’s a note saying \”go away\”. They soon run back to the boat, only to find it out at sea, without anyway of reaching it. As they go back into town, Tisa Farrow\’s character recognizes a house where one of her friends live in. When they search the house, they find one of the daughters in hysterics and waving a knife around. After this girl, who we then find out is blind, calms down, she goes into a panic about a supposed mad-man running around the island. After some of the tourists go out to find supplies and more people, they start to get picked off one by one in the most gruesome ways imaginable.

When I say gruesome, I mean fucking g-r-u-e-s-o-m-e. There\’s one scene, where one of the tourists, who\’s pregnant, is strangled, and her fetus ripped out an eaten by the Cannibal stalking the island. The gore is gross and slimy, making any gorehound like myself go \”YUCK\” with a big grin on their face. The story is very interesting too, and I don\’t want to spoil too much, but when the tourists begin to discover the secrets behind the island and the cannibal, it\’s so satisfying. I\’ve seen a bunch of these Italian splatter films, and they\’re fun and all, but they lack a solid plot sometimes. Anthropophagus adds such a intense thriller aspect to the film, that makes it interesting, and the gore is just frosting on the cake to an already creepy and unsettling horror film. That\’s what I really loved about this movie. It has an unsettling vibe from the beginning, with a desolate village and a maniacal killer stalking the streets, looking for anyone to savagely dispatch and consume. George Eastman as the cannibal has got to be one of the most disturbing villains to ever be put in an Italian splatter film. That ending alone is still etched in my brain, and it\’s just so fucking iconic. You might know what I already mean, especially if you\’re into these kind of films, but I won\’t ruin it for those who want to see this.

If you\’d like to see Anthropophagus, purchase it at SEVERIN-FILMS.COM! You truly won\’t be disappointed. Check out the trailer below and let me know what you think! Also, if you have any suggestions to what I should check out next, shoot me an email at: jakethegoreguy@gmail.com

The Return of The Repugnant Playhouse Podcast!

Happy Halloween motherfuckers! lately I\’ve been putting my podcast back together, but instead of the Mystery Science Theater style I used to do, this is just straight up movie reviews. In the new episode of the revised podcast, I chat about the new Halloween film, SOV classic GORE WHORE, zombie splatter flick BONE SICKNESS, and Troma\’s latest release SLIMED. Enjoy and let me know what you think! More to follow!

CHECK ME OUT ON TWITTER AND INSTAGRAM @jakeisrepugnant

Repugnant Review: Jack Frost (1997) – Michael Cooney

Written and Directed by Michael Cooney

Starring Christopher Allport, Stephen Mendel, F. William Parker, Rob LaBelle, Shannon Elizabeth

I know what you\’re thinking… \”Jack Frost? That really stupid and creepy Christmas movie starring the great Michael Keaton?\”. Well, there\’s no Michael Keaton in the feature, but it\’s actually a hell of a lot better than that piece of shit. Jack Frost is a Christmas slasher film that came out in 1997 (a year before the shitty kids film Jack Frost), written and directed by Michael Cooney. The movie is about serial killer Jack Frost, who turns into a murderous snow man after getting into an accident with a truck full of genetic waste. Jack Frost then sets out to kill the man who threw him in jail. For watching this for the first time, I really enjoyed it.

Jack Frost is in league with the Full Moon Feature films, and what I mean by that is Jack Frost is a cheesy, hokey low budget slasher based around something as innocent as a snowman. Much like Puppet Master, the concept is really funny, but it\’s actually entertaining and pretty brutal at times. There\’s one great kill scene in this where Jack Frost strangles an old woman with Christmas lights, shoves a glass ornament in her mouth and breaking it, and then smashing her face into a box of ornaments, with the glass pieces sticking out of her mouth and face. I thought it was great, and the film is just full of absurd and hilarious Christmas themed murders.

It\’s silly, campy, hokey, whatever you want to call it, BUT… it\’s entertaining. Jack Frost is a great holiday slasher with lots of blood and campiness to satisfy any Christmas loving horror fan, and this will be part of my holiday marathon for years to come. Another great thing about this film is the appearance of the gorgeous Shannon Elizabeth (American Pie, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back) in one of her first acting roles. Michael Cooney also wrote and directed a sequel which I was lucky to find on VHS at a local flea market, Jack Frost 2: The Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman (2000). I usually do a few holiday themed reviews but it\’s been a little hectic due to the holidays, but I have more one in me. Stay tuned, and let me know what you think about Jack Frost!

Repugnant Review: ThanksKilling (2008) – Jordan Downey

You know, I\’ve been reviewing some of the greatest films that the exploitation and horror genre has to offer, so this was a good switch up for me, since this movie is just awful. Let\’s talk about the disastrous Thanksgiving themed slasher flick, ThanksKilling.

ThanksKilling is about a group of teens on their way home from college for Thanksgiving, and on the way they are stalked by a killer turkey. Apparently, the turkey was resurrected by a Native American necromancer, and every 505 years the killer turkey comes back from the dead to murder white folk. It sounded pretty funny after reading into it, but honestly, I just really didn\’t enjoy this one. I thought it was just straight up bad. Some movies can be \”so bad they\’re funny\” but this is just bad. I know it wasn\’t supposed to be taken seriously, but this did not pull off this \”self-aware bad movie\” thing that it was going for. The puns were awful, the violence was boring, and the whole plot just didn\’t make sense. Half way through the movie I almost forgot what this was about. If you\’ve read my blog before, you know I\’ve seen some questionable films, but I\’ve mostly enjoyed everything I\’ve reviewed. It was only a matter of time before I saw something I didn\’t like, and ThanksKilling just happens to be one of them.

Maybe I\’m being a little too harsh. I mean this film was made on a budget of $3,500, and based on that it\’s pretty impressive. The turkey puppet was pretty decent, so I\’ll give it that. Other than that, I wouldn\’t watch it again. For those who are interested I actually watched this for free on VUDU (with ads). The sequel, ThanksKilling 3 (yes, 3, there is no 2… THAT\’S A JOKE, PEOPLE), is also free to watch on VUDU (with ads), but I don\’t plan on checking it out anytime soon. Maybe after a few shots of bourbon and couple bong hits.

Repugnant Review: Carver (2008) – Franklin Guerrero Jr.

WHAT DO YOU GET WHEN YOU HAVE A GROUP OF COLLEGE KIDS BEING TRACKED DOWN BY AN OBESE HILLBILLY?.. Um, I\’m not sure. I could probably name a dozen films with that same premise, but CARVER stands out for me. The slasher flick written and directed by Franklin Guerrero Jr is what I would consider the best hillbilly splatter flick. I actually saw this movie way back in High School with a buddy of mine, and since then it has always stuck with me. I mean, it\’s not the greatest horror film of all time, it definitely has it\’s issues, but it\’s just a fun movie. I\’m always a sucker for extreme blood splatter and gory special effects, and Carver really hits hard when it comes to the gruesome imagery.

As I said, it definitely has its issues. The cast in particular is pretty bland, and even the killer himself is pretty boring. He\’s your typical fat redneck in a mask kind of deal, and the cast is made of the handsome dude, the whiny hero, the obnoxious couple, and the troubled female character. Sound familiar right? I don\’t want to sound to rough though. This is definitely a low budget splatter flick and I\’m assuming they spent most of the budget on the gore and effects… definitely not getting the greatest actors. Speaking of gore, Carver follows through with the blood. There are so many memorable deaths in this, and they\’re killed in the most brutal fashions. One of the kills reminds me of this not so obviously titled song, \”Hammer Smashed Face\” by Cannibal Corpse. Absolutely gruesome, and very very fun.

The story itself is pretty run-of-the-mill. College buddies on break, and attempting to camp in backwoods hillbilly territory. They add a pretty cool concept into the mix, where the rotund killer films his own little movies, and names his little snuff flicks corny slasher names. Other than that, it\’s still a decent horror film, and a very fun and entertaining slasher flick. I highly recommend this to all of the gore-hounds out there, especially for those who love outrageous effects. Blood, gore, rednecks, and torture… how can you not enjoy that? I have the Unrated: Grisly Edition, which has some of the nastiest scenes I\’ve ever seen (for those who are testicle sensitive, beware), and I don\’t think an actual rated version exists. Rated versions suck ass anyway, always go for the unrated cuts, especially when they are labeled with \”Grisly\” in the title. Check it out and let me know what you think!

Repugnant Review: SCHRAMM (1993) – Jörg Buttgereit

demanding full time job, but I\’ve been aching to come back and review some more films. What could seriously be any better than ringing in the new REPUGNANT PLAYHOUSE than an incredibly depraved yet beautifully shot slasher shocker by the same guy who brought us the disgusting duo of necrophile flicks, Necromantik 1 and 2. Schramm is the last directorial feature of Jorg Buttgereit, and it is just as brutal and surreal as his other films.

Schramm tells the story of a murderous cab driver, who has recently gotten into an accident in what appears to be his apartment. As he dies, memories of his foul past begin to flash back to him, and then we witness the horrible and disgusting acts he does upon people he has murdered, and himself. Like Jorg\’s other films, the blood and gore special effects are incredibly well done, and when you mix that with incredible 16mm camera work, Schramm makes for a very brutal, yet artsy feature. There were some moments that genuinely made me wince, especially the scene involving a hammer, some nails, and the tip of a penis… uhggg. This is a great movie, and maybe even a great movie to begin with when it comes to brutal horror films like this. It\’s gory and disgusting, but also interesting, and incredibly well made. If there is one thing that Jorg Buttgereit has always done, it\’s make a brutal shocker like this, and turn it into a gorgeous piece of art.

I definitely recommend this, but only if you\’re into extreme depictions of murder and torture. Man is it gruesome, but it\’s a very fun watch, and at 65 minutes, what do you have to lose? I\’m not sure if there is any streaming devices carrying this film, but I bought the Blu-Ray from CULT EPICS, and it comes with a ton of extras including the making of the film, the soundtrack, and Jorg Buttgereit\’s earlier short films. Pick it up today! Links to the CULT EPICS website will be posted below. Enjoy!

BUY SCHRAMM AND OTHER GREAT MOVIES AT CULTEPICS.COM

The Mass Murder – A Horror Short – Chris Latour, Tyler Aucoin

From early October to late November, I worked on and acted in a short horror film called THE MASS MURDER, a tale about two siblings who break into an abandoned lodge to hunt for the mysterious ghost of a psychopath who went postal there decades before. Directed by Chris Latour, Written by Tyler Aucoin, and starring Emily Cawley, Tyler Aucoin, and myself.

Enjoy!

My buddy Tyler also has his own horror blog, so check it out HERE

REPUGNANT REVIEW: My Pure Joy – James Cullen Bressack

Borrowed this movie from a friend of mine months ago and finally got around to watching it after making a list of things to watch. Just by looking at the cover and reading the synopsis, I was weary. Was this going to be just a low budget, cookie cutter slasher movie, or something completely twisted and unrelenting? Sadly, all I got from this was the former, a cheap, low budget, and boring mess. Don\’t get me wrong, it\’s not terrible, and I honestly thought it was going to be great after the beginning murder sequence, but it all just went down hill from there. Diologue that just runs on forever, boring actors who act terribly, and the lack of any substance within the story, defintely makes for a crap movie. Lets dig into this turd before I flush it down for good.

The movie revolves itself around it\’s main character, Adam, who\’s got serious daddy issues, and a great love for violent horror movies. He spends most of the film talking about girls and horror movies with his friends than actually killing anyone. I guess the whole point of the movie was that he\’s kind of blurred the line between reality and pretend, killing people based on deaths he\’s seen in movies. For example, one of the first deaths in the movie was based off of the infamous shower scene from Hitchcock\’s \”Psycho\”, although a much more violent version of that. I was pretty amped by this, just because I thought of the fact that paying homage to classic gory movie scenes would be kind of cool… but it totally missed the mark. The \”Psycho\” one was the only one I could really place, and the other deaths were just pretty boring. It did have that one \”shock\” scene, in which he stabs a girls pussy and shows the penetration… but you could really tell how fake it was, and the acting in general just wasn\’t convincing enough. Between all of these lame deaths, are long and drawn out conversations with his two stoner buddies. These hang out sessions would last what felt like forever, and I got sooooo bored with them. I had to rewatch a few scenes, because I kept getting distracted from the movie. It was just a boring and bland mess.

Luckily, I borrowed this from a friend, therefore I didn\’t have to spend money on the dull sack of shit. I don\’t want to be too rough, it does look like there was some effort put into this movie, but more like the effort of a couple stoners who said to themselves one day \”Hey, dude, we should make a fucking horror movie\”. It reminds me of the times I\’ve made horror movies with friends back in High School; write about how these people would die, then adlib all of the dialogue. It seems just like that. Maybe this will help the director out though, as far as getting some funds for his next movie, and maybe putting together something a bit better. Everyone has their shitty beginnings, so hopefully we see some gold come out of this.

– Jake.