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Reviews
Forest of the Dead Sharks (2019)
A Brilliant, Ultra Low-Tech Satire Of Found Footage Horror Films
The title of the review just about says it all, this is a scathing piss-take on THE LAIR WITCH PROJECT and everything it spawned in the two decades since. The fact that FOREST OF THE DEAD SHARKS seems so convincing in its seeming earnestness is what makes the effect all the more devastating by the end. The Youtube link to the full film was posted to my Facebook film group, and when I started to watch it, I ended up live-commenting (I don't do Twitter) the whole thing, as if I were in a one-person watch party. Though there is no dialogue as such (no interaction between humans at all, unless one counts the audience and the narrator), there are lines of sparkling inanity, delivered by the narrator with stoic (and sometimes not so) deadpan charm, . And the sharks ... oh God, the sharks. Recommended.
Il castello dalle porte di fuoco (1970)
A TALE OF TWO BROTHERS
WARNING: SPOILERS I saw this film under the video title "Blood Castle"..this is a story about two brothers, one is real smart and knows a lot about chemistry, he is also a Count (whatever that means) and lives in a big castle in euro-horror-landia, or somewheres..unfortunately, he also has a problem - he was in a terrible accidental (?) fire and got horribly burned and disfigured, also (if you pay close attention towards the end he reveals that) apparently his tallyho was burnt off and, left without a smidgen, he is unable to, as the parlayance of the time went, "make it with the chicks". His brother, on the other hand, doesn't know much 'bout chemistry, however his tallyho is intact and functioning, and he is somewhat of a pretty-boy/ ladies' man/ lothario-type, at least compared to his crispy brother who is exiled to a supposedly "crumbling" section of the castle. Well, the two brothers come to a sort of arrangement: Ygor, the crispy chemist, will share with his brother the secrets of chemistry, in hopes that a formula can be found to restore him to a non-crispy state; Yanos, the pretty face, meanwhile, will use his good lucks and functioning johansen to go out and make it with all the local beauties. Problem is, all the local beauties keep turning up mutilated and dead just after being with Yanos, and of course he is prime suspect #1. Oh yeah, we're all supposed to think that Ygor is dead from the fire and Yanos is trying to reanimate his corpse, but since Ygor's crispy hands (and eventually face) keep showing up throughout, it's a little difficult to manage. Of course there is a beautiful young woman (Erna Schuerer) who comes to the castle as a chemist/ assistant and of course, falls for Count Yanos, as does every other female within 100 mile radius, apparently. There is some female nudity. I enjoyed this film even though it effectively removes all suspense as it goes along, rather than building it, still if you play along it is fairly entertaining, but I am surely more tolerant than some would be...