Who Can Kill a Child? (1976)

Who Can Kill A Child? (1976)
Watched October 23, 2009

SYNOPSIS
A man and his pregnant wife travel to an island where the children have gone crazy and killed all of the adults.

SHORT REVIEW
"Who Can Kill A Child?" is a creepy and disturbing Spanish film that deserves a hell of a lot more recognition than it is currently receiving.

REVIEW
I really dislike writing reviews for movies that I loved. It's the second worst kind of review to write, right after movies that you just thought were alright and have nothing to say about them. Because I could spend all day raving about the movie, but that wouldn't be very fun to read. I prefer to write reviews for movies I hated, or ones I liked but had numerous flaws. "Who Can Kill A Child?" is one of those movies I loved, so I'm not really going to have much to say about it, other than the fact that it's great, and you should probably get off your ass right now and see it if you haven't already.

"Who Can Kill A Child?", also known as "Quien puede matar a un nino?", "Death Is Child's Play", "Island of Death", "Island of the Damned", "Lucifer's Curse" (?), "The Killer's Playground", "Trapped", and "Would You Kill A Child?", is a killer child movie more along the lines of "Village of the Damned" than "The Omen", because instead of just one crazy-ass kid, there's a whole town full of 'em. On an off-topic note, why does every foreign horror movie of the 1970s have like 18 alternate titles? It really makes things fucking confusing.

Anyways, these kids have apparently killed every adult on the island, and now that a man and his pregnant wife are there on vacation, they're going to have to kill them too. So these tourist types are going to have to try to escape the island, but to do so may mean having to kill children. And who can kill a child?

I quite love the idea of this movie. Children are always portrayed as so innocent, and when they're batshit crazy, it's often times very disturbing. So is the case in this film. Watching a laughing young girl playfully beat an old man to death with his cane just drops your jaw. And then there's a scene afterwards that involves that same old man that is so freaky, that if you're not surprised at it, you're an android with no feelings. And I don't like androids.

So yeah, it's disturbing, it's very well-made, has very good performances by its leads (and the ninos) and it should be a hell of a lot more well-known than it is at the moment. It's one of the best, if not the best, killer kid movies ever made and needs to be seen by you. Right now. Put it on your Netflix queue. Buy it. I don't have anything else to say. I'm dragging as it is. I give "Who Can Kill A Child?":

5 out of 5 chainsaws (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED)

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (2001)

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (2001)
Watched March 28, 2009

SYNOPSIS
The plot includes skeletons, mutants, aliens, forest creatures and science. I'm not going to expand on that.

SHORT REVIEW
"The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra" is hilarious from start to finish.

REVIEW
I like sci-fi movies from the 50s. Their wooden acting, nonsense plot and overall awful-ness just make me enjoy them greatly. "The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra" perfectly replicates those B-movies by giving us ultra-wooden acting and overall ultra-awful-ness.

A scientist and his wife go to the woods to find an asteroid made of Atmospherium. But, it appears as if they're not the only ones after the Atmospherium. A couple of aliens need it to help start up their ship so they can get back home. And, the evil guy needs it to bring the Lost Skeleton of Cadavra back to life. Who will get to the Atmospherium first? Will the Lost Skeleton be found? And what of the mysterious mutant that has escaped from the alien's ship? All of these questions will be answered in "The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra", filmed in glorious Skeletorama.

It seems like just about every line uttered in the film is quotable. And almost all of them are funny, if not hilarious. "Seriously, Betty, you know what this meteor could mean to science. It could mean actual advances in the field of science." "I'm a scientist, I don't believe in anything." "Why shake when we could touch other things... like lips?" The list could go on and on. There are so many classic lines in here, it's scary.

Speaking of scary, there's really no way this could be considered a horror film, so if you want one of those, don't see this. Actually, see this anyway, because it's pretty much amazing.

This is going to be a pretty short review, because there's nothing really to say about "The Lost Skeleton" except for the fact that it's really, really funny, almost to the point of being genius sometimes. And the film has so many jokes shoved in it that I'm sure it has a lot of replay value.

If there's any flaw in the film, it's that some jokes or scenes go on for far too long than they should. There's a scene between the evil guy and the aliens where they talk about sharing that really wasn't that funny to begin with, but then it's dragged on for another minute or two, so I was almost to the point of yelling "Get on with it!" Fortunately, these instances are far and few between, so you can get back to the hilarity pretty soon.

Ah, how I loved this movie. I might even consider buying it, and I don't buy many DVDs unless they're on sale. So, that's just a sign of how good it is. I give "The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra":


5 out of 5 chainsaws (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED)

Deep Red (1975)

Deep Red (AKA Profondo rosso) (1975)
Watched March 25, 2009
NOTE: I watched the 126-min. cut of Deep Red.


SYNOPSIS
A pianist witnesses the murder of a psychic, and teams up with a reporter to find the killer before they are killed.

SHORT REVIEW
"Deep Red" was great. This is a very short "short review".

REVIEW
I'm going to admit up front, I'm not the biggest Argento fan around. The other movies I've seen from Argento were "Suspiria" and "Opera"; I thought "Suspiria" was good, but highly overrated, and I thought "Opera" was pretty stupid. Sure, both are stylish as all hell, and "Suspiria" is one of the better looking horror films I've seen, but I could never really get into them, and I felt pretty disappointed after watching both of them. But, I'm glad to say that "Deep Red" restored my faith in Dario Argento, and I'm hoping the next film of his I watch is this good.

The film's got it all. It retains what I liked about "Suspiria" and "Opera", that being the style. It features some gruesome murders, all of which are shot well and will satisfy most gorehounds. The plot is intriguing, as are the characters.

That's not to say the film is without its flaws. There's way too much comic relief in "Deep Red". It's as if Argento felt that the film was too gruesome or whatever, so he just shot a bunch of scenes with this stupid reporter chick who is always trying to be funny. She never is. It's actually pretty annoying. Maybe the shorter cuts cut out all this BS and keep to the interesting plot, but the 126-minute cut sure doesn't. It's unfortunate, as it ruins all the atmosphere and suspense that the film builds so well.

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And the murderer is just some comic relief character who has about 5 minutes of screen time, which I thought was pretty stupid, to be honest.
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It pisses me off when I get things spoiled for me in films, so I have an alert. I hope that was obvious enough.

What is it about Italian movies and their extremely awesome music? I swear, the score for this and other Italian horror movies ("Stagefright" and "Demons" come to mind) just make me want to get up and dance. I don't know why, but that weird jazz-rock music they play is just crazy awesome. It's also quite distracting, as weird jazz-rock music doesn't quite fit with people getting their teeth smashed in. I guess it's less distracting than the ear-piercingly loud heavy metal music Argento picked for the death scenes in "Opera", but still...

On a completely different note, please don't get this film from Netflix. God damn Netflix. The DVD they gave me didn't give me the option to watch the film in Italian with English subtitles, which I prefer to do during foreign-language films. So I had to watch the English dub. But, then the DVD kept switching from English to Italian to English to Italian. It's really pretty annoying when a couple lines are in English, then suddenly they're speaking Italian. Especially when the languages switch mid-sentence, as it did a couple times. Upon further research, it appears they lost part of the English dub, so I guess it isn't really the DVD's fault. But could they at least have had better subtitles for it? Every f'ing line, there's a spelling or grammar mistake. Sometimes, they don't even bother putting subtitles! There was probably 3-5 minutes of the film that I missed every line of dialogue, because it was in Italian with no subtitles. What the hell. Get a better DVD copy.

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Not to mention the goddamn DVD started skipping right when the murderer gets decapitated by an elevator. That's just so disappointing when you don't get to see elevator decapitations. Missing elevator decapitations because of scratched DVDs make me want to decapitate people with elevators.
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Wow, I'm ranting a little bit. I guess that's my cue to end my review. I'd give "Deep Red" a 4.5 out of 5, but since I don't accept half-chainsaw reviews, because of the awesome music, I'll give "Deep Red":

5 out of 5 chainsaws (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED)