Seems that I’m still on a Martial Arts kick here at the ol’ Litterbox… so this time out it’s a look at the 2014 Korean “Charlie’s Angles” inspired period Action/ Comedy, “The Huntresses”. Fierce, pretty, and totally spunky ladies playing at Martial Arts and bounty hunting in Josean Korea? Yeah… I’m definitely up for some of that. My assumption is that there are probably a lot of you regular Gentle Visitors who might just agree…. ;)

Our synopsis goes like this here: “Three intelligent and talented beauties, the amazing swords-woman Jin-ok, housewife and deadly fighter Hong-dan, and the rebellious young tomboy Ga-bi, are the 17th century Joseon dynasty’s top bounty hunters, and they never fail to capture a target, no matter the criminal or the crime. Together, they set out on a secret mission commissioned by the king of Korea to search for the stauroscope, and in doing so, prevent a dastardly group from gaining absolute power and overturning the royal family on behalf of the evil minions of the Qing Emperor of China.”

OK then… sounds pretty straightforward. Warrior Princess Neko is always up for almost any movie featuring plucky Martial Art heroines whupping the snot out of slimy villainous bad guys and saving the day for Truth, Justice and Love so it’s fairly certain from the Trailer that I’m probably exactly the audience they were shooting for with this one. ;) So… hey… without any further adieu, Gentle Visitors, let’s frolic off to 17th century Korea and check out all the fun.

Our movie gets going in one of those little “Intro” bits, like the ones at the beginning of a James Bond film where a small scene is played out that really doesn’t have much to do with the rest of the story. It’s just there to give us all a feeling for the characters, the overall “feeling” of the script and a chance for some neat action stuff to get the ball rolling. It’s quite the goofy opening too… as our ladies try to snatch their latest quarry off the streets and end up running afoul of their bounty hunting competition. There’s a cool wire-fu fight with a killer yo-yo… and a breakneck chase scene that let’s the girls do all the cool anachronistic video game inspired stuff that tell you right away that any hope for an accurate portrayal of Josean Korea is something probably best left for a whole other movie. ;)

And that’s not a bad thing really. “The Huntresses” is, for the most part, a much more lighthearted film than most swordplay stories, letting things move along briskly with a wink and a nod, and more than a little bit of comedy to water down the violence. A few minutes into it, and you’ll recognize it’s biggest inspiration immediately… the 70’s classic TV show “Charlie’s Angels”.

Yep… our feisty trio of ladies are most definitely the “Angels”… deadly sword-fighter, genius inventor and master of disguises Jin-ok (played by Ha Ji-won) is the leader of the group, backed up by the mercenary bored housewife and fighter Hong-dan (played by Kang Ye-won), and rounded out by the “chip-on-her-shoulder” rebel tomboy Ga-bi (played by Son Ga-in of the Koren K-pop girl group Brown Eyed Girls). And our story’s “Charlie” ? Well filling that slot is the goofy and generally inept ex-constable Mu-myeong (played by Ko Chang-seok). When the story begins, the girls appear to be employed by Mu-myeong to do all the actual dangerous bounty hunting stuff while he collects the lion’s share of the money acting as their agent and arranging things through the contacts he still has as an ex cop. However… once the girls discover just how much of their hard won money always seems to disappear into his split, they determine to cut him out of the latest deal he offers them. A simple snatch and grab of some low level crook with a suspiciously high bounty on his head.

Little do they know, this seemingly unimportant “nobody” is in fact actually a secret envoy in the service of the Korean King, intrusted with the delivery of a fancy doodad called the “stauroscope” which contains a map of the deployment of the Qing Emperor’s Manchu army that has kept Korea from gaining true independence from China. Sounds like something people would kill to lay their hands on? Oh yeah…. :)

Naturally that will pit our beautiful trio against rival bounty hunters thirsting for that juicy payday… evil mercenaries in the pay of the Manchus… and a treasonous Korean noble with aspirations to the throne. Oh yes… plenty of bad guys for our ladies to fight… and even perhaps fall in love with. Yes, yes… of course there’s just gotta be some sweet, sweet romance somewhere in a story like this… and a little tragic melodrama too.

That melodrama is all about Jin-ok… who in her own tragic backstory watched her father die at the hands of her own childhood sweetheart… a servant boy named Sa-hyeon…  in an effort to save her from being killed instead by her father’s enemy. She thought he died that night too, only to discover that he’s all grown up and now the chief henchman of that same villainous noble Kim Ja-hun (played by Choi Seong-min) now plotting to usurp the throne.

Naturally they run into one another on one of those dark and rainy nights as the girls try to make their getaway after first finding the prize… and naturally that reunion isn’t a happy one. Shockingly, Sa-hyeon (played by Joo Sang-wook) nearly kills her, having no idea who she is, since he completely lost his memory after striking his head on that terrible night all those years ago. Really? Amnesia? Yep… hey… I guess it’s a classic old cliche worth one more trip around the track, Hehehe!!

Thankfully our other budding romance is less fraught with the constant and imminent possibility of death. That would be the kooky and inexplicable attraction between violent lil’ Ga-bi and hapless undercover policeman Song (played by Song Sae-byeok). She’s a feisty little spitfire more at home beating people up than kissing them, and he’s probably the worst investigative officer alive with some sort of idiot savant skill at camouflage. He’s supposed to just follow them around unobserved hoping they’ll lead him to the stauroscope, but despite his uncanny ability to fade into the background, he keeps getting spotted by the girls. Ga-bi finds him annoying at first, but something about the hapless boob soon has her heart beating all pitter-pat. Sigh… he’s just got that same sort of silly clueless puppy quality that you take one look at and can’t help but fall in love with.

It’s easy enough to guess that by our film’s climax Jin-ok will manage to reawaken Sa-hyeon’s memories of their young love just in time for the shit to hit the fan. There’s one more big “twist” to come as well, but Neko’s not going to spoil things for you by giving it all away. ;)

It is safe to say that the evil Manchus blow it… the villain gets his just reward… and out heroines manage save Korea and make some well deserved loot. C’mon… as if there was ever any doubt.

So all in all, how did it work as a movie? Well here my sweetie Carolyn and I disagreed a wee bit. She liked that action, the comedy, the crazy anachronistic “steampunky” feel of it all, but found the romantic melodrama of Jin-ok and Sa-hyeon a bit toooooo darn dark and complicated, not to mention being a little hokey. Now me… I’m more than a bit used to the somewhat overblown way Asian films love to ladle on the melodrama and work it for all it’s worth… so I wasn’t bothered by it the way she was. She felt that the seriousness of that particular subplot wasn’t all that compatible with the lighter moments that dominated the film. If you aren’t the Asian film junkie that a certain wee Catgirl is, you just might agree. For me, taken as a whole, it worked well enough and gave a bit of meat to what would have otherwise been just a fun and fluffy film.

What was disappointing though… at least for Warrior Princess Neko… was the painfully obvious lack of any real martial Art skills on the part of our lead actresses. Clever wire-work and good fight  and stunt choreography along with skilled film editing can work wonders… and they do here.. but they are still no substituted for the real thing. (Oh well… I’m probably still on a adrenaline high from “The Raid 2″.) The acting is pretty good, and I can say I enjoyed seeing Ha Ji-won doing another swordplay film. It’s been a while since “Duelist”… and this suited her so much better than her role in “Sector 7″. I could stand to see her at it again sometime.

With that, I’d say it’s safe to give “The Huntresses” a firm 3 out of 5 “Meows”. It was a fun film, with plenty of goofy stuff to enjoy and a group of female heroines that were both likeable and sympathetic, if a wee bit cardboard. The DVD? Well… the original Korean release actually came out without English subtitles… something nearly unheard of, so I had to snag the region 3 Malay release. It was both widescreen and letterboxed with accurate enough English subtitles, more than adequate for my needs. About the only goofy thing was the way that the Malay subtitling constantly and consistently substituted the word “witch” for what I’m assuming actually was supposed to be “bitch”. I’m guessing that it was done in much the same way Hindi discs always seem to weirdly change profanities into something less accurate. Who knows? In any way… that minor change doesn’t affect the translation enough to be a problem, so I can let it slide. The nice thing is of course that the Malay DVD is sooooo much more budget friendly than a Korean one would have been. It’s available for right around 10$ US most places you’d expect, and if you’ve a mind to give this one a try, it ought to do nicely for you too.

With that than, I’m off till next time… however… naturally there’s just enough time to squeeze in a Trailer for those of you still curious enough to want a quick look-see of your own. ;)

Another “Movie Nite” for my sweetie and I and this time we actually made an evening out for it with a trip to our local cinema to see the latest entry into the Marvel Comics superhero franchise, “Guardians of the Galaxy”. Now… admittedly, and perhaps surprisingly… superhero films aren’t really something this wee Catgirl has ever really liked compared to some of the other fantasy films I usually watch. However, the chance to actually get out to the movies with Carolyn usually means watching something a bit more in line with her tastes compared to an evening in with some of my crazy foreign film choices, so a movie like this one is about the closest we come to satisfying both of us. Hehehe… and in any really good relationship it’s all about finding those areas of common ground… ;)

Our synopsis? How’s this then: “In 1988, following his mother’s death, a young boy is abducted from Earth by the Ravagers, a group of space pirates. Growing up in the vastness of outer space, some twenty-six years later on the planet Morag, brash adventurer Peter Quill finds himself the object of an unrelenting bounty hunt after stealing a mysterious orb coveted by Ronan, a powerful villain with ambitions that threaten the entire universe. To evade the ever-persistent Ronan and his army of minions, Quill is forced into an uneasy truce with a quartet of disparate misfits and criminals–Rocket, a gun-toting raccoon; Groot, a tree-like humanoid; the deadly and enigmatic Gamora; and the revenge-driven Drax the Destroyer. But when Quill discovers the true power of the orb and the menace it poses to the cosmos, he must do his best to rally his ragtag rivals for a last, desperate stand–with the galaxy’s fate in the balance.”

Not being a big comic book geek, I honestly didn’t know a thing about these characters, but when my sweet Carolyn said, “Now, honey, I just know you’ll like it… it’s got a killer green assassin woman, a walking talking treeman, and an intelligent  smart-ass homicidal gun slinging raccoon in it. Trust me… this is definitely your kind of movie.” Honestly… how do you argue with logic like that? She just knows me too well…. ;)

Mind you… I was a bit worried that this might just be “one of those movies”… you know the ones I’m talkin’ about. The ones that are seemingly made for a very specific fan base of people already fully aware of the characters and the story, that is just soooo darn chocked full of vague references to things they just assume you already know, that for an outsider the whole thing ends up being a fairly incomprehensible plot you just can’t get into. That was definitely something I never enjoy. Add the fact that this was another of those interconnected Marvel Universe things, and I was dreading the notion that it would be chock loaded with cameos from their already existing superheroes from all those other movies that I haven’t watched. I seriously worried I’d be pretty darn lost by the second act… Thankfully… I’m here to say… that’s not the case at all.

We start off with a flashback to the 1980’s where a young boy, Peter Quill, waits in a hospital where his mother is dying of cancer. It’s a miserable unavoidable death that he’s in no way ready for… and when it finally comes, right before his eyes, it proves more than he can stand. Running out of the hospital into the night, his world in shambles, he’s abducted by aliens and carried away to the far reaches of space where ultimately he grows up among those aliens… the Ravagers… to become a smart mouthed loner, part-time pirate, and full time Lothario.

Next… our story gets going some 26 years later in a very “Raiders of the Lost Ark” inspired sequence, as the grown-up Quill, (played by Chris Pratt) travels to the abandoned planet Morag, to hunt through some ruins and recover a valuable artifact… the “Orb”… worth big money to a big time intergalactic fence with an anonymous client anxious to acquire it at any cost. Of course he’s not the only people interested in the Orb, and right after finding it, he runs afoul of a group of vicious mercs lead by Korath (played by Djimon Hounsou), chief henchman to the fanatical Kree renegade warlord, Ronan (played by Lee Pace). There’s a pretty cool chase scene through the storm wracked ruins and surrounding desolate terrain before our hero manages to get to his trusty spaceship and make a quick escape… at least for the moment.

It’s a really neat intro… with our hero listening to his vintage 80’s music on the same Sony Walkman he had with him as a child when he was abducted. The funky 70’s anthem “Come And Get Your Love” a fun contrast to the grim, monster infested ruins he’s boogieing through on his way to find his price… so darn cool and irreverent. And his near capture by the mercs… I loved the whole idea of him giving himself a nickname…”Starlord”…. that absolutely none of his opponents has a clue about, much to his disappointment. And… to top it all off… at the climax of his escape, discovering that he’s come on this deadly treasure hunt all while forgetting that his latest alien bimbo “one-night-stand” is still sleeping away her hangover in his bunk aboard his spaceship. Oops. Yeah… our hero “Starlord”… he’s just that kind of a-hole. ;)

But then pretty much all our heroes in this one are a-holes. It’s just that kind of a story. So if anti-heroes with a heart of gold are your thing, then “Guardians” ought to tickle you just as much as it did me and Carolyn. Oh yes… there are no deep meaningful dramatic sub-plots here. The good guys are… ummm… well… “not-so-good” guys after all. And the villains, well now those guys are some really evil pieces of work. Which in a simple story like this works pretty darn well.

It isn’t long before Starlord figures out that having the Orb is a bad thing. Really bad. Warlord Ronan wants it bad enough to kill anybody he thinks might have it… might lead him to it… or anybody he accidentally runs across while trying to lay his hands on it. That’s a whole lot of people…. It would be nice to have someplace to hide out while the heat is on, but you see… he’s also already double-crossing his space pirate buddies to cut them out of the deal with the fence, leaving him no place to hide and even more enemies to dodge. But hey… it can’t get any worse, right?

Wrong. So… so… wrong. Yeah, see the leader of the Ravagers, Yondu Udonta (played by Michael Rooker) took his betrayal pretty darn badly and put a bounty out on his butt. Naturally that attracts the attentions of two freaky bounty hunters looking to cash in on that potential score. Did I say freaky? Oh yeah. How about a gun totting talking raccoon named Rocket, and his partner, the anthropomorphic treeman Groot? Weird enough?

Ok…Ok… well what if Ronan worked for some crazy super powerful Space God guy? Not just any Space God, but one named Thanos (voiced by Josh Brolin) with aspirations to destroy the entire Universe? And… what if our Warlord sent the galaxy’s deadliest female assassin, the sexy green Gamora (played by Zoe Saldana) to personally sort out the recovery of the Orb from our hero? So that would be pretty bad? Right? Only one way to make it worse. Have them all find him at exactly the same time and unleash the shitstorm to beat all shitstorms and get them all arrested and sent to prison. Together. Yep… and nothing makes for quality bonding time between folk like some time spent in prison. ;)

Here’s where all the “bonding” takes place… Yep. All our mutually paranoid, distrustful, and sketchy anti-heroes find out that if they are going to escape from that maximum security lockup and ever have any chance of a life where most of the various power players of the known universe don’t all want them dead, they are going to have to put their various grudges behind them and team up to fix things.

Doing that brings them into contact with the last lil’ member of the team, the mountainous Drax (played by WCW wrestler Dave Bautista) a huge hulking tattooed warrior guy who’s been itching to get his hand on sexy Gamora for having killed his wife and child some years earlier… Oh yeah, that’s gonna be a hard grudge to forget…. But then it wouldn’t be much of a story if somehow they didn’t manage it.

So… what in heck is this “Orb” thingee anyways? Ah ha…. apparently that is one of those things linked to all those other Marvel movies of late. The Orb is just some sort of alien “pokeball” made to contain the “Infinity Sphere”, a glowing ball of pure infinite energy that lets a wielder do just about anything… if you are bad-ass enough to actually hold the Sphere without it disintegrating you… like blow up a planet or wipe out the Universe. Sigh…. why couldn’t one of these mega-widgets just end up being the key to World Peace, or at least the cure to male pattern baldness? Life would be so darn much easier. ;)

Why does mysterious goofy Space God Thanos want this thing? Why that whole “destroying the Universe” idea… although exactly why he’d want to do that is pretty vague and unexplored here, especially given our hero, Starlord’s keen observation when asked why the team should even give a crap. “Why should I want to risk certain death to stop the destruction of the entire galaxy? Cause I live there stupid…”

We really don’t have to worry too much about Thanos though… he’s just here to look all ominous and set himself up for whatever Marvel movie he’s going to appear in next. No.. our real villain is Ronan. The Kree Warlord is all ticked at the Nova Corps, some sort of major space empire police force that recently signed a peace treaty with his people the Kree. He’s definitely not the peaceful type and despite that treaty, still wants badly to wipe out the Nova Corps… or at least their homeworld, Xandar. Eventually he gets the Orb… and he’s certainly bad-ass enough to survive touching it… so it isn’t long before our heroes find themselves trying to stop him and his battlecruiser from carrying out his plan to destroy Xandar right at the climax. Do they manage it? Hmmmph… as if you even have to ask… ;)

Movie-wise… how does all this stuff actually play out for the potential viewer? Not too darn bad actually. This one is not ultra realistic hard sci-fi rooted in plausible future tech and real space travel. Nope… this one is “Space Opera”. It’s wild and crazy and filled with plenty of “Flash Gordon” and “Star Wars” plot elements seasoned with more than a big helping of Anime influenced comic book sensibilities. Star travel just works… just don’t ask how… Wanna fight people? Then ray guns and kung fu are the ticket. Aliens? Mostly humans that are funny colored or have some make up plastered on, but there are a surprising number of startling CGI ones too, to mix things up. Ridiculously overpowered individuals who are more than a match for a small army? Hey… C’mon… it’s based on a superhero comic book…

Seriously though, it’s all pretty darn fun for the most part. There’s no deep meaningfully message here, it’s just a bunch of unruly losers doing all the fairly stupid (and usually illegal) stuff all us regular folk only wish we had the guts to do if we weren’t so darn law-abiding and ordinary. It’s a movie where the underdogs have their day, beat the odds, and impossibly come out on top. People always like that. Paint it all in the most colorful and fantastic of broad strokes and it’s hard not to enjoy. Just don’t question the logic and plausibility of any of it…

The acting is fairly good. Chris Pratt manages to tap into his inner “Han Solo” while giving Starlord just enough of a big dose of annoying “Animal House” frat boy to make his Peter Quill exactly that kind of smart-ass loser you’d hate if you actually knew him, but will love as the hapless hero in a story like this. Zoe Saldana…. as Gamora she’s smoldering, exotic, and sexy… she’s green… she’s that violent “Xena, Warrior Princess” femme fatale every story like this needs for it’s potential love interest. Our two CGI characters? Well, Rocket the Raccoon is just about the craziest hard-to-swallow notion in this whole film, and as God is my witness…. somehow it actually works. Our walking talking treeman, Groot? A bit underdeveloped… and definitely the “Chewbacca” character for this story, but despite being more potential than realized idea, is an acceptable addition to the team. Biggest surprise… wrestler Dave Bautista. Sure he’s playing the big muscular hulk, but he does it with a flair throughout that shows there just might be a pretty good actor somewhere under all those muscles. Our villain Ronan? He’s sort of the bastard lovechild of Darth Vader and Conan all rolled into one, and Lee Pace does his level best to make him a credible threat, but somehow he’s just a bit toooo darn cartoonishly evil to be taken seriously. A bit better in the evil department is Gamora’s “sister” the blue alien psychotic badgirl Nebula (played by Doctor Who’s Karen Gillan) but despite the great melodramatic potential of her “sisterly” rivalry with Gamora, pretty much ends up being tragically underutilized this time out.

There’s no faulting the special effects. Space, the final frontier, never managed to look both as raw, gritty, and pretty all at the same time. The action scenes and fight and stunt choreography are top-notch Hollywood at it’s best. The delicate balance of drama and humor are just about right, with just enough of a nod to the Marvel faithful looking to mine this one for connections with all those other films without losing an audience… like a certain wee Catgirl… that really just wanted a gee-whiz old fashioned Space Adventure. Overall I’d say this wasn’t a bad introductory romp for another movie franchise I’d watch a few more of. Both me and my sweetie like this one a lot… and it’s given the cosplay fanatic in me lots and lots of ideas for Halloween futures… and I still have quite a lot of green body paint. Hehehehe…did you hear that, o’ sweet Carolyn? ;) I therefore give it 4 “Meows” out of 5. Not for being the best film ever made, not for anything other than understanding exactly what it’s job was movie-wise and doing exactly that with every minute of it’s run time. Nowadays that’s a rare thing. Trust this wee lady.

Oooohhh! Did somebody say Trailer? Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten. Here you go!! ;)

Hmmm? Time for another Review, and this time something a wee bit different than my usual Asian flavored films with a trip to scenic Finland for a look at director Joona Tena’s 2011’s psychological horror/ thriller “Syvälle Salattu” aka “Body of Water”.

My synopsis goes like this: “Environmental lawyer Julia Mannerla is tasked with reluctantly returning to her childhood home to help stop hydro-power developers from flooding the town and displacing the residents. Still dealing with her recent divorce, she and her young son Niko soon discover that a local folk legend about a water spirit in the lake is somehow deeply connected to old memories Julia had buried away in the back of her mind from all those years ago… and that the open hostility of the residents might not be the biggest danger they face by returning to Lake Hallow.”

Evil mermaid? Yep… seems to me this one plays on the myths of the Rusalka, mermaid sirens from old Slavic lore that lived in lakes and rivers and often lured the foolish or unwary to a watery doom. Yep. Sounds kinds creepy and fun… Then, of course, this wee lady likes all sorts of ghosts and spirits and odd folklore, and I’m super afraid of the water myself, so I’m certainly thinking this one has the possibility of entertaining me while completely scaring me silly. Want to know how it all plays out? Then you know what you gotta do, o’ Gentle Visitor!! ;)

Somehow I missed this one when it first came along back in 2011. Not really surprising, I’m much more in tune with Asian film releases than I am European ones. Luckily for lil’ ol me, I do routinely run Google searches for genre films from various places, and when I ran one for Finland not too long ago, this one popped up. A bit of research later, and I found a Trailer… which got me interested enough to track down and source a DVD and thanks to Amazon, pretty soon a nice Region 2 Finnish DVD was all mine for the watching. Gosh, what a wonderful age we live in…. ;)

Yep. While this one sounds like a straight up “horror” film, it was marketed as a “thriller”… and I ran into the words “psychological” and “hallucinatory” quite a few times in my search for it. Now… those are pretty much the subtle hint that this was probably going to be one of those “horror movies that end up not being supernatural”. You know the ones… Like when the dreaded Crimson Phantom ends up being old man Jenkins in a rubber mask on “Scooby Doo”. Sigh… Goodness how I really dislike that tired old “reasonable explanation for everything after-all” plot. Sure it was sneaky and worked once…. but this lady likes her scary stuff to be all creepy and supernatural and not just some result of mental illness on the part of our heroine.

With this in mind, I popped this into my DVD player fully expecting that very same old plot to be served up yet again, but at least I hoped it would be a fun ride getting there.

We started with a nice little narrative history explaining the folktale of the Water Spirit of Lake Hallow. Seems that in olden times she made bargains with those down on their luck to bring them wealth in exchange for their first born child given to her to take deep beneath the lake never to be seen again. The ultimate “get rich quick scheme”, eh? Well… it’s that very story that lies at the heart of our little film as recently divorced lawyer Julia Mannerla (played by Krista Kosonen) makes her way to the village along Lake Hallow to serve as legal adviser to some environmentalists opposing the proposed power development planned for the area. She gets stuck with this job because she grew up in the town years earlier before she and her parents moved away to Helsinki. It’s not a job she really wants. For one thing, it’s timing couldn’t be worse, falling as it does right in the middle of a promised holiday with her son Niko (played by Viljami Nojonen), still confused and bitter about his parents splitting up and not at all happy about being dragged to the middle of nowhere to be bored while she ignores him to deal with the details of the whole thing. Yep. There’s going to be some tension there. A quick visit with her parents doesn’t help either. All that means is that Niko has to make nice with catatonic Grandma who just plain creeps him out. Mind you, once Grandma hears where they are headed she comes out of her vegetative state and has a fit and gasping out that cryptic warning that tells you Lake Hallow is probably not a good choice to promote mother/son bonding bliss.

Oh yes…. and most of the locals? Not exactly sympathetic to the conservation efforts to save the lake either. Most of them feel they are stuck in a dying backwater town with no future. Most are happy with the whole idea of getting compensation for the flooding of their land and maybe some new jobs at the power plant. That alone soon makes Julia just about the least popular person in the area. However, while this element could make for some nice “red herring” stuff to “muddy the waters” so to speak, nothing really gets done with that possible plot entanglement.

It isn’t long after taking up residence at the old school that was her childhood home, that Julia starts experiencing those odd things that make both her… and those of us watching… start wondering if maybe… just maybe.. those old folklore stories about the Spirit of the lake might be more than just quaint folklore.

There’s odd noises in the old house… problems with the plumbing… and then the death of her son Niko’s loyal dog early on… by drowning in the nearby lake of course… to have her questioning reality. Add to that some disturbing dislike of her father by some of the older locals, stories that paint him as a young man completely without means who now seems to have it all financially for reasons nobody can adequately explain. Did he make some supernatural deal with the Lake Spirit when she was a girl?

Hmmmm? Maybe he did. Seems Julia’s also beginning to remember other things from waaaay back then…. right around when her mom went all crazy and catatonic… disturbing things. Like the fact that she once had an older brother, Juhani (played by Max Vannasmaa)… a “first born son” like in the old stories… who tragically drowned in the lake “accidentally”. Something so terrible that she’s blocked out his very existence in her memories ever since. Was he sacrificed by her father to gain his wealth? Worse still… would he do it again to his own grandson Niko to gain even more?

That paranoia drives the suspense for the latter third of the film as Julia struggles to protect herself and her son from forces she finds herself beginning to believe in despite all rationality. Is it the Water Spirit who seeks their lives? Her father? The hunky schoolteacher who seems perhaps a wee bit toooo obsessed with those old legends to be trusted? Or…. is poor really Julia just losing her mind?

Neko’s not going to tell you. So there. :-P But basically it is fair to say that the story sticks pretty close to a tried and true formula that will have almost anybody in the audience fairly certain of just what’s what and who’s who by the time the climax rolls around. So really… no surprises are in store, “twist ending” or no “twist ending”. Ooooohhh…. and remember… our DVD dust jacket never promised us a real horror story…. ;)

But hey, it’s not always the most original stories that work the best. All in all I’d have to say this one wasn’t actually too bad a lil’ thriller. The acting is good, and Krista Kosonen does an admirable job making the character of Julia both believable and sympathetic without relying on too much heavy melodrama. The effects work, and the idea of the Rusalka as a supernatural menace was certainly different from my usual passel of ghosties and ghoulies. Your favorite Catgirl likes learning creepy new folklore from places far, far away and “Syvälle Salattu” certainly  fit the bill nicely.

With that… it’s fair to give this wee exercise in “Scoopy Doo” story telling a firm 3 “Meows” out of 5. It was an enjoyable lil’ thriller… and my sweetie liked it as well, so I’d call it a winner all round. The Region 2 DVD was nice, presenting the film in the original Finnish audio with English, Swedish, and Norwegian subtitles along for the ride. It’s available for right around 28-35$ US as an import here in the good ol’ USA, but a much more budget friendly Region 1 release is available too for right around 15-20 $ US under the English title of “Body of Water”. Whichever way you choose, it’s a solid bet for an evening’s movie watching fun if crazy foreign ghost stories tickle you as much as they do this wee Catgirl. ;)

What’s that? A Trailer? But of course! ;)

Oooohhh! If there’s one thing more than films with zombies, ghosts, and ghouls that this wee Catgirl always loves, it’s a movie with feisty sword wielding heroines, and recently my sweet Carolyn found for me a collection of classic Japanese swordplay films on DVD…. specifically the entire 4 films in the “Blind Swordswoman, Oichi” series by Shochiku studios from back in 1969. I’d heard of them before… but never manged to find copies readily available for myself. Luckily for me, my loving wife keeps her eyes peeled for the opportunity to snag such things for lil’ ol’ me… she’s not always successful, and I can’t tell you how many times she’s bought a nice lil’ bargain only to discover I’ve long since acquired a copy for myself. Still…. when the price is right… she’s willing to take the risk, and sometimes it pays off. Just like this time ’round. Yay!!

Our film’s synopsis? How’s this grab you: “A young girl Oichi, cruelly abandoned by her mother, is struck by lightning and blinded during a thunderstorm. Alone and unable to care for herself, she is taken in by an old man and raised to womanhood as his own. When her guardian is mysteriously killed by old enemies, she learns the art of swordplay from a traveling “Ronin” so she can travel the lonely roads of old Edo alone to seek both her mother and her revenge.”

Sound a bit like the famous  “Zatoichi” movies? Well, that was most definitely the idea when Shochiku decided to create a series of their own to cash in on the success of Daiei Studios successful series featuring Shintaro Katsu as wandering blind masseur, gambler, and swordmaster Zatoichi. Making their lead character a woman only seemed a natural choice to grab some audience at Japanese cinemas.

So… is Oichi up to the task? Can she rival the great Zatoichi in thrills and excitement? Guess you can all find out by continuing to “Read On”…. ;)

So how did this one play out? Well… first and foremost… you have to first consider that this is a Japanese film from waaaay, waaaay back in 1969. That means of course that by today’s standards, the storytelling is probably going to feel a bit dated, and having watched it I can definitely say that is indeed the case. Stories back then tended to be heavy on characterization and weaker in the action department. Especially when your lead actors aren’t really up to the task of the levels of martial arts swordsmanship that a film like this needs. Yôko Matsuyama as our lead character Oichi is fine in the acting department, but the few scenes in this one where she needs to step up and show her stuff, swordplay wise, are disappointing. Part of it can be the way old chambara period films portrayed such deadly skills. Unlike Chinese wuxia swordplay battles, Japanese ones don’t expect lengthy drawn out fights between opponents. No sir…. Usually a fighter and his opponent will cross swords only once, exchanging but one single stroke to decide a battle, no second chances, mere wounds, or the like. It’s sorta just how they rolled…. In that kind of situation there isn’t a lot of stuff for a viewer to “Ooooh!” and “Awww!” over. In many ways it’s more like those climactic gunfights in old westerns where all the tension and drama come in those moments before the decisive encounter. The closeup of steely eyes… the determined grimaces… the slight twitching of muscles itching to move. Yep, that’s the ticket here.

However… you can still tell just how uncomfortable Miss Matsuyama is just holding her sword. It’s a slight quibble from somebody who’s seen a whole lotta swordfighting films… and I’m happy to say her skills and confidence improve over the course of the series… but here in the first film, it’s very evident.

She’s much better in the acting department though, and gives Oichi a certain “something” that raises her above being just another “Zatoichi wannabe”. She’s pretty in that porcelain doll sort of way that most of us Japanese women can be when dressed in period kimono. It’s easy to see why my sweetie mistook her for a “geisha girl”. Unlike gruff, homely, blind masseur Ichi, our heroine always likes to appear impeccably dressed with nary a hair out-of-place. Like Ichi however… it’s her curse to have her deadly skills with the sword, and not her sightless eyes, be the one thing that will always keep her from gaining the simple life and love that any normal woman wants. Naturally it’s that futile quest that keeps her on her lonely road, always looking for happiness, but always finding it just out of reach.

This first film gives us most of her backstory, about how she was abandoned by her mother for the love of a faithless gambler and left to fend for herself, about the loss of her vision in a terrible thunderstorm and near death by lightning strike, and all about the kindly old farmer who took her in and raised her as his own before his tragic and mysterious death. Ahhh…. and naturally all about the ronin who taught her the art of swordplay, awoke those warm feelings of romance in her heart and who then susequently left her without word as to why…. Melodramatic? Yeah… maybe just a touch… ;)

The bulk of the film is spent showing us Oichi’s softer side. She’s drawn into one of those overly entangled plots in which her feelings of sympathy for this wandering excaped convict who aches to somehow reconnect with his estranged daughter end up bringing her up against the very same villians that killed her foster father. Seems he was really not just a simple farmer afterall, but this infamous burglar who was one of only a few people who could identify this master killer to the authorities. Oichi’s new friend is yet another of these guys, so you just know he’s going to die at some point. His poor daughter? Well she basically gets sold into slavery by none other than Oichi’s long lost mom, who’s now making her living as a madam at a yakuza brothel. Then she’s cruely raped and then murdered before she even ever knows her long lost father had returned for her. Oh yeah….. that’s gonna piss our heroine off and give us the climactic bloodbath of revenge, right?

Yes, yes…. eventually. But not until the story wrings a bit more melodrama out of it’s plot and not with the sort of boss battle you’d want for such a climax. Heck… the most interesting opponent, a woman gambler with this crazy bullwhip, isn’t even around by the time our film is ready to wrap things up. Nope… she just plain dissapears right around the mid point of our story after a couple of dust ups with our Oichi with very little notice or fanfare. Say what? Yeah… I kid you not.

Basically that’s the biggest problem with our film. It has a very “thrown together” feeling, that made me think that possibly some of the footage was missing. At only 88 minutes in length, I though certain at first that that was definitely the case. Research later convinced me that instead, the odd continuity problems and “missing bits” were just clumsy filmaking on the part of the film’s director and editors, in a big hurry to crank this one out and get it to theaters to make a quick pile of yen back in the day.

That’s a shame too. The basic idea behind our heroine has real merit and promise. A definite B film, it still has a lot of great little bits scattered throughout, and Oichi herself… very feminine, very vunerable and emotional, made a really connection to this wee Catgirl, and while her debut feature leaves a lot to be desired, it’s still one that made me want to watch the other films as well, hoping for more improvement and more of her character.

All in all, I can really only give “Crimson Bat, The Blind Swordswoman” a mediocre 2 “Meows”. It’s a very interesting film… but not a very good one. Still, the widescreen faded technicolor is sooooo nostalgic, and Oichi herself a striking character worth sooo soo much better a film to inhabit. I honestly can’t bring myself to say I truly liked it, but also I just can’t hate it. And…. it was such a sweet gift from Carolyn…. so it’s always going to have a special warm spot in my heart any way I look at it, I suppose. If any of my Gentle Visitors decide to give a copy a watch, you might find that your movie watching experience may differ, Hehehehe!!

Unfortunently, I couldn’t find a Trailer for this one out there… a rare thing… However, there was one for it’s sequel, and so I’ll leave you with that. ;)

So begins this year’s Halloween movie festival at the ol’ Litterbox with a look at the recent 2014 Turkish horror film “Muska” aka “Talisman”. Witchcraft… possession… spirits returning from beyond the grave… Yep. Sounds like a winner to me… ;)

Our synopsis for it goes sorts like this: “When a newspaper columnist is forced to find new lodgings after the ugly end of his relationship, he ends up at a rundown old house with a room for rent. Hesitant to take lodging in the dilapidated home, he changes his mind when he meets the beautiful woman living next door. Soon he finds himself enveloped in a nightmare from which there will be no easy escape.”

Yep. We’ve got a creepy boarding house with a creepy landlady, the standard moody and troubled child, a seductive siren living just down the hall, and witches…. oodles and oodles of witches. All with moody atmosphere and that all pervading sense of dread that Turkish movies love to ladle on to seal the deal. So then, Gentle Visitor, whatcha waitin’ for? Let a certain crazy kitten tell you all the gory details… you know you wanna…  ;)

Now writer/ director  Ozkan Celik’s “Muska” gets going by introducing us to our protagonist Celal (played by Sezgin Erdemir) and letting us know just what sort of person he is. What kind of guy is he you ask? Well… plainly put… he’s a misogynistic womanizing a**hole. Ironic considering his job at the newspaper is writing a romantic advice column if you can believe it…. Yep. We start off the film with his latest meaningless fling with some nameless blonde bimbo being interrupted by the unexpected return home of his girlfriend Selin. That gets him thrown out of his current apartment… well not his apartment, apparently… and results in his mad scramble to fix up some sort of new living arrangement. His best friend Engin (played by Taylan Güner) is reluctant to let him crash at his place given that his current girlfriend finds Celal to be about as appealing as that gunk you find growing behind a toilet in a gas station. Wanna know something? So did my sweetie Carolyn… and so did I….. :(

I’ve always said…. you usually need a character in a Horror film to be somewhat sympathetic if you want an audience to become involved enough to actually care about them and hope they survive the terror to come. Like I said… you usually need that connection. But there is another way to tell such a story…. just make your main character sooo darn detestable that your audience gets a guilty thrill wishing them to get their just deserts and “Muska” goes down that route all the way to its conclusion. Poor Celal… Neko, kind-hearted Catgirl that she is, almost feels sorry for you. Almost… (No… not really… ) ;)

Without any help from Engin, he tries to worm his way into the apartment… and bed… of sexy co-worker Melis (played by Meric Aral) but gets shot down almost immediately. He’d rent another swinging bachelor pad for himself… if work was actually able to pay anybody for their job. Even his mom can’t bail him out, since he’s already drained that well dry with previous leeching. So what’s a down-on-his luck Lothario to do? Well… when all else fails there’s always some horrendous flophouse for people in his position. Luckily for him, Engin knows just such a place.

The boarding house is a horrendous mess… run by a creepy landlady named Mrs. Aliye (played by Tanju Tuncel). She’s a seemingly harmless old hag with one white cataracted eye and a spare room for rent. Cheap. Plainly put… it’s a dump. Even Celal isn’t desperate enough to want to stay there. Until that is, he catches a look at Aliye’s only other tenant, his prospective neighbor down the hall, the sexy dark-haired Yasemin (played by Asli Sahin). That immediately gets him thinking naughty thoughts the like of which got him into this mess to start with and pretty soon he’s falling all over himself to take the room. Grrr…. idiot. Neko soooo wants you to suffer….

And he does. Fairly soon he’s having those crazy nightmares you’d expect if you’ve taken up residence in a witch’s house. Hallucinations, dreams where he witnesses the hooded witches attending to this crispy critter corpse guy and praying away in some forbidden evil language… His room gets chock loaded with little paper talisman charms hidden here and there… in his pillow… under his bead… on top of his cupboards… and he’s oblivious to each and every one of them, the unobservant doofus. Sigh…. both misogynistic and stupid. Celal is soooo soooo doomed.

By now… he’s really in trouble. Little by little he’s starting to look like hell too. Let’s just say, he’s have much more luck scamming the ladies if he wasn’t starting to look like a plague ridden homeless guy. Somehow though, he’s managing to get closer to pretty Yasemin… who by now we all just know is the sweet lil’ poison apple in this trap… and dumb Celal sooo wants a bite.

He struggles to hold onto his sanity… getting shakier every day he stays at the boarding house… and tries to understand the visions and dreams he’s being visited by. But as you watch, you just know he’s not gonna make it.

So what the heck is going on? Why Mrs. Aliye is trying with the help of her coven to bring the soul of her dead son… the crispy critter guy… back from beyond the grave so it can possess Celal and steal his body for its own. Seems he’s tired of his eternal torment as a barbecued ghost and wants to live again and return to his widow, Yasemin. Yeah, yeah…. told you she was in on it. No big surprise there, so it’s not really a spoiler. Now, mind you… there is a neat lil’ twist at the end of the film that Neko’s not gonna ruin for you by giving it away. That one caught me by surprise, although knowing how well liked Celal is by all who know him well, it’s hardly something beyond the bounds of plausibility.

Yeah… it’s also no big surprise that Celal doesn’t make it to our films end either. I wish I could say his fate was worse than he deserves, but I’d be lying. Celal is a butthead. I hated him… trust me… watch “Muska” for yourself and soon you’ll hate him too. We all will celebrate his demise….

So, if there’s no hero to root for… no innocents to worry about… and no character you’ll in any way feel sorry for, is “Muska” worth a look? Surprisingly, I’d still say yes. As Turkish horror films go, this ones got craploads of moody dark atmosphere to go around and lots of creepy bits that are effective and well filmed. The acting’s not too bad either… even Sezgin Erdemir as Celal does a pretty darn good job, especially since his character is written to be such a loser. The story? Well… it’s simple and easy to follow… a nice thing given how convoluted Turkish horror can be at times. Even my sweetie got it without too much help from the reasonably excellent subtitles. Definitely a good start for this month’s Witchcraft Theme here at the ol’ Litterbox. I give it a well deserved 3 “Meows” out of 5 for doing its thing and doing it reasonably well.

DVD? Nope… didn’t manage to catch this one on DVD. I don’t think it’s even available in Turkey yet. Instead, I found this one was available for streaming… with english subtitles… free in its entirety over at IMDb while I was looking for information on it. Yep. Free. I kid you not. So if you’ve never seen a Turkish horror movie… and you want a look, then this could be your chance… all without even needing to hunt down that elusive Region 2 Turkish disc. So what the heck are you waitin’ for? Go for it! ;)

To get you in the mood… I did link over the Trailer…. simple and easy. Take a peek!

It’s not the “Witching Hour” quite yet, o’ Gentle Visitors, and although your Favorite Catgirl Princess is woefully behind things hereabouts, we’ve still got time for some Halloween Movie Festival Reviews. This time out… a wee peek at a classic from yesteryear, 1942’s witchy romantic comedy “I Married A Witch” starring the lovely Veronica Lake and Fredric March. Definitely a change of pace from my usual creepy fare, but it’s a Catgirl’s prerogative to shake things up now and again… ;)

Our synopsis? How’s this then? “As she burns at the stake, 17th century witch Jennifer, places a curse on her accuser, Jonathan Wooley, cursing all the future men in his family to suffer bad luck in love. When a lightning bolt strikes the tree she was killed on some three centuries later, she returns from the beyond and pledges to make the latest in the Wooley clan, Wallace, fall in love with her and torment him as none of his ancestors ever was. The only problem is that she accidentally drinks the love potion intended for Jonathan and swiftly proceeds to fall in love with him! But it is forbidden for a witch to ever feel love… curse or no curse.”

Hehehe…. sweet romance and a little witchy mischief. Just the thing for a “Movie Nite” with my sweetie. Sound like it could be your idea of Autumn movie fun as well? Then let’s all “Read On” and share the vintage movie memories….

If you grew up, like a certain wee Catgirl, in the late 1970’s and early 80’s, then you remember the syndicated reruns of TV series like “Bewitched”. Seems TV was inundated with stories of magical ladies finding love in suburbia…. but then they’d been doing that long before there was TV. This particular film from the early days of Hollywood is probably the original inspiration for most of those romantic comedies, and with this month’s festival theme of “Witchcraft”, seemed an appropriate choice for a recent romantic double feature evening at home along with the equally classic “Bell, Book, & Candle”…. something my sweet Carolyn would enjoy as a change from my usual foreign film fare. (And hopefully something to throw a bewitching love spell to help put my sweetie in the mood for a little post-movie “sexyfuntime”…  <3 ) I’d seen it before… waaaay, waaaay back when TV actually showed these old Black & White movie classics, but it had been sometime since it had made an appearance anywhere on my TV. Thank goodness I’ve got a DVD player…. ;)

This one is definitely a slice of period movie making, and pretty dated by modern standards, but remarkably it holds up relatively well given its vintage age. Our story starts back in the 1700’s as two witches, Daniel (played by Cecil Kellaway) and Jennifer (played by Veronica Lake) are burned at the stake on the testimony of Puritan Jonathan Wooley (played by Fredric March). We don’t actually get to see Daniel or Jennifer… just the smoldering ashes of their execution pyre… but there’s a reason for that which we’ll learn later. In any event, poor Squire Wooley takes this time to clue us in on the particulars of Jennifer’s vengeful curse. Seems he… and all his descendants to come… are cursed to suffer disastrously bad luck in all affairs of the heart. They’ll make poor choices in love till the end of time, never knowing wedded bliss for her revenge. As the scene fades, we get a few peeks at various Wooley men suffering just that all the way to the present day… 1941. It’s then that fate intervenes and the old oak tree planted above the forgotten witches pyre to trap the spirits of the two witches is struck by lightning freeing them from their imprisonment to wander again in the world of mortals.

As luck would have it, the current Wooley, Wallace (still played by Fredric March) lives nearby and is celebrating his expected victory in his upcoming run for governor along with his soon to happen nuptials. Wallace is a good-hearted chap, trapped into a marriage of convenience with the shrewish daughter Estelle (played by Susan Hayward) of newspaper magnate J.B. Masterson (played by Robert Warwick), his biggest political backer. Sounds like Jennifer’s curse is still going strong after all these centuries…

Floating around all ghostly in the form of two columns of smoke, our two witches visit the party long enough to witness poor Wallace’s miserable existence. You’d think that seeing him suffering like that would satisfy them, but Jennifer really wants to see our hero squirm, and it isn’t long before she gets the idea to return to mortal form and trick our hero into falling in love with her, all the better to ruin his political and personal life up close and personal.

For that of course she needs a body… and to do that, her father needs to burn down the Pilgrim Hotel so that she may be “reborn” into the world. Naturally, this happens right as our hero is driving his fiance home, and being the decent stand up fellow you might expect, is easily lured to the rescue of a “damsel-in-distress” trapped in the blazing building. It’s fun lil’ meeting… and from the beginning, it’s not hard to see why Veronica Lake was chosen for this role. She’s very comfortable in the role of wicked lil’ Jennifer…. lovely and petite with her trademark long flowing blond hair, it’s hard to imagine anybody not wanting to come to her rescue.

It’s a funny scene, as Jennifer delights in her newfound form, teasing and embarrassing Wallace with her scandalous nudity (Having been just recently “reborn” in fire after all….) and resulting in her rescue wrapped in a luxurious fur coat for the newspaper photographers to capture as they exit the burning building in the nick of time. Mind you… it’s a 1940’s movie so there’s no real flesh on display, just the artful suggestion of titillating scandal done in that clever way that old movies managed to do. For a fun and frolicsome film like this, that’s more than enough… ;)

Pretty soon, the story follows the course you might expect. Our hero finds himself between a rock and the hard place as he tries to dodge the amorous advances of Jennifer and somehow keep her secret from his obnoxious bride-to-be Estelle all the while digging a deeper and deep comedic hole for himself. Fredric March is surprisingly…. well… blah… in his role as the hero here. He’s well outshined by his costar who steals practically every scene they share. There’s no real chemistry on his part, although Veronica Lake takes her somewhat predictable role as naughty vixen and by film’s end manages to make Jennifer both sexy and likeable, despite her character’s fairly wicked beginnings.

Eventually our witchy temptress gets hoisted by her own petard…. mistakenly drinking a love potion intended for Wallace and then falling head over heels for him ending any notion of vengeance on her part. Wallace falls for her too, despite finding out she truly is a witch…. dumps his shrew of a fiancé and marries Jennifer. After aiding him to win the election with her spells, she decides to renounce her witchcraft, abandon her powers and live a mortal’s life forever by his side. This doesn’t sit too well with evil daddy dearest though, and he strikes back to kill the body she now possesses and send Jennifer’s spirit back to her prison beneath the oak tree. Awwww! Noooo!!! :(

Don’t worry. It’s a romance story…. silly. In those, Love always conquers all, and Wallace manages to use the kiss of True Love to bring her back to life just in time to trap her daddy’s smokey form in a liquor bottle and then live happily ever after with a loving devoted wife, two boys…. and a suspiciously mischievous lil’ daughter who’s the spitting image of her mom and perhaps a wee bit tooooo fond of broomsticks, if you know what I mean. ;)

Sigh…. Not a bad little ending if I do say so. How does it shape up then, movie wise? Well, as I’ve said, you probably really have to enjoy classic old movies (and luckily I do… ) to truly enjoy this one. It’s definitely dated, with a narrative style that is seriously stripped down to the basics. Character development is pretty absent, with most roles being the stock character ones you’d expect. Nothing special there. The cinematography is competent, for the time, with seriously primitive optical special effects. But… for the most part, they actually work in a quaint old school way. The standout in the entire film is, of course, Veronica Lake. There’s just no denying it. Somehow, she’s just got “it”. Charisma… charm… all wrapped up in a very sexy persona you just can’t deny. I’m aware of her somewhat troublesome off-screen reputation in the period and the later sadder incidences in her real life, but here she’s the way a movie starlet of the 40’s would want to be remembered, and luckily for her, it’s that way that she’ll be remembered. I give this one 3 “Meows”…. maybe not the greatest film of all time, but certainly one I’ll always warmly remember.

It’s a film that’s easy to see too, if you’ve the notion. Available on DVD from most places at a truly nice price, you might just want to take a peek for your ownself, if there’s a romantic streak to your spirit. ;)

Trailer? Well… it’s an oldie, but surprisingly, there’s actually a Trailer available for you viewing pleasure, so enjoy!!

Just when I thought all the witches were hiding this Holiday season and I’d have to rely on doing reviews of older films to fill out things here at the Litterbox, Spain comes to our rescue with the release of 2013’s “Las Brujas de Zugarramurdi” aka “Witching & Bitching” on Region 1 DVD. I’ve known about this one for a while, but given that the original Spanish DVD lacked subtitles, I’d resigned myself to a long search for the subtitles or a release that actually had reliable ones. And you know how those searches can be…. Luckily, somebody must have decided this wee lady needed her Halloween Treats early this year…. ;)

Our synopsis? Well it goes something like this. “When your marriage has you on the brink and your bank account in the red, it’s time to throw all common sense to the wind and rob a “Cash-for-Gold” shop. That hasty ill-conceived decision made by a group of desperate guys leads them into danger as they try to make their getaway to France in a hijacked cab whose route takes them through the impenetrable forests of Basque Country, home to legends of ancient covens and witchery. As fate would have it, they run head-on into a horde of crazed women who hate all men and feed on human flesh. Trapped in their mysterious mansion on the night of the greatest witches Sabbath in a century, our hapless heroes must pull together and win the ultimate “Battle of the Sexes” to save civilization as they know it from the cannibal coven and their ancient Goddess of Evil.”

Slapstick oddball comedy… goofy criminals… vengeful ex-wives… crazy cannibal witches… ancient giant fertility goddesses run amok… a sprinkling of sexy witchy shenanigans… and maybe even some subtle smart comments on the nature and problems of modern “gender relations”. Sounds like we’ve got it all. Wanna know how it all plays out smooshed together? Then ya know what ya gotta do… ;)

This one is an odd lil’ bird of a movie. But then coming as it does from Spanish director Alex De La Iglesia, that really comes as no surprise. His 2010 film, “Balada Triste de Trompeta” aka “The Last Circus” was about the weirdest look at the Spanish Civil War I’ve ever seen, so naturally making a movie about the village where the greatest Witch Hunt of the entire Spanish Inquisition took place wasn’t going to be your everyday exercise in filmmaking.

But all horror and comedy elements aside, “Las Brujas de Zugarramurdi” is also a surprisingly wry bit of commentary on the always awkward ways that Men and Women struggle through as they try to understand the essence of the opposite sex. Pretty deep stuff for a movie that mostly features a plot about hapless doofuses running for their lives from cannibal witches…. ;)

Our story gets underway as a desperate group of unemployed guys pull an elaborately planned heist of a “Gold-for-Cash” shop in central Madrid. Our hero José (played by Hugo Silva) has been driven to this by a combination of Spain’s recent economic crisis and the unreasonable demands of his ex-wife Silvia (played by Macarena Gómez) to come up with three months worth of alimony and child support for his son despite his unemployed status. And he absolutely has to get that money. Otherwise Silvia threatens to take away his visitation rights with their son Sergio (played by Gabriel Angel Delgado). What’s a devoted dad to do when faced with a situation like that?

Why commit a crazy daylight robbery dressed as a statue of Jesus Christ with Sergio right along for the ride. Hey… it’s not his fault the day of the planned crime fell on his visitation day. Once Jesus, and his buddy, one of the green army soldiers from “Toy Story” get inside, they snag a big ol’ bag of gold wedding rings… some 25,000 of them to be exact… and make a getaway filled with gunfire and car chases with the Madrid police rivaling the best cop movie you’ve ever seen. Well…. OK… maybe the best cop movie you’ve ever seen where “Spongebob Squarepants” goes down in a hail of bullets. (Something I know oodles of you out there have actually dreamed about once or twice… ) Yeah. That sounds right. :)

Anyways… given how the robbery goes soooo sooo wrong, it isn’t really surprising to have only José and his son Sergio along with ” Green Army Guy” Tony (played by Mario Casas) make it out. Even so… they just barely escape the cops, given that Tony’s girlfriend shows up to drive away with their getaway car just before it all goes down. Minor hitch…. right? One hijacked cab later though and it’s back to the plan…. with a fast exit across the border to nearby France. This adds cabbie Manuel (played by Jaime Ordonez) and a frightened passenger to round out our little group and get us ready for when things go from bad to scary worse.

As our guys drive towards the basque country along the border, they all share their frustrations and problems with women. Each and every one of them seems baffled and confused and just plain sick of dealing with all the ladies in their lives. It’s not that they don’t love or desire women…. it’s just that to these poor fools, we might as well all be completely alien entities with secrets and agendas they’ll never be able to fathom. Once they start exchanging stories, it isn’t long before cabbie Manuel decides to throw in with these guys in the spirit of shared misery. Oooohhh! Now we’re ready for the witches to show up….

And show up they do. You see as it happens our getaway route to France takes the boys right through the center of the picturesque Basque town of Zugarramurdi where in 1611 the Spanish Inquisition held the largest purges of heretics and witch trials in Spanish history. (Really… No kidding… just check Wikipedia. ;) ) Yep…. and guess what? All these centuries later… the witches are still here. Oooohh… and still pretty darn determined to overthrow a world dominated by the misogynistic Church of the “One True God” and return their primal Goddess to her rightful place as ruler of the Earth.

A whole village of crazy cannibal hags? Yep. Once the boys get there we discover the witches have been waiting for them. Seems an ancient prophecy has told them that little Sergio is some sort of “Chosen One”… the one male who could survive being devoured by the Goddess and pooped out alive and whole to lead the witches and betray all the men of the world heralding their return to power. Awwww crap…

Think it can’t be worse? How about if Silvia comes after José to retrieve her son and leads a couple of goofy Madrid police detectives to the village right on the night of the biggest Witches Sabbath in 300 years? Oh yeah… you just know that’s gonna be trouble.

Anyways…. we get the usual bits of screaming and running around in terror… the expected cannibal hijinks… even some frisky sexy witch action in the form of Eva (played by Carolina Bang), the youngest of the witches in Zugarramurdi. Sure she’s a sexy psychotic punk motorcycle riding “Bad Girl” harlot… sure she’s a wicked cannibal witch with unholy powers… but gosh darn it… for some reason José just makes her heart melt into a gooey mess with his helpless puppy act and his unwavering love for his little boy. Yep. It’s love at first sight. A shame wicked witches aren’t supposed to fall in love…

There’s lots of fun to be had at this point in our movie. We get oodles of wall crawling witches… flying witches… crazy clawing hungry cannibal witches… more running and screaming. You name it. These girls certainly could have been comfy alongside the coven in “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters”, no doubt about that. Overall this part of the film feels like a Looney Tune cartoon melded with “Van Helsing”, but loads funnier. Even though it’s in Spanish, my sweet Carolyn followed things along easily and enjoyed the silly story just as much as I did.

Ahhhh…. and just when you think there’s no way to go bigger and crazier, we get that huge Witches Sabbath and the actual arrival of our nameless Goddess of Evil. All CGI and as big as King Kong with the massive bloated form of a Neolithic Fertility Venus statuette all that was missing was some other Kaiju to give us an apocalyptic monster battle…. :)

So? Do our hapless lads survive? Does little Sergio become the “Anti-Christ” and lead the witches to war against all Mankind? Does José end up back together with his shrew of an ex-wife or find the proverbial heart of gold beating beneath Eva’s wickedly naughty bosom? Guess you’ll have to watch the movie to find out!! So there!!

Gotta say… treading that same basic “Men versus Women” battle-of-the-sexes plot idea as “Doghouse” and “Lesbian Vampire Killers”, “Witching & Bitching” manages to be both funny and entertaining without resorting to lowering itself to sophomoric levels of frat boy humor like both of those earlier films did. You actually end up liking most of our unlikely hopeless heroes and as things unfold both Carolyn and I found ourselves rooting for them to win the day. The humor is black at times, but always done very tongue-in-cheek, and for the most part works dead on. About the oddest thing was the romance plot between Eva and José…. I mean Eva is pretty darn evil and… ummmm cannibalistic… for a love interest, but in true melodramatic fashion manages the tricky transition from “Bad Girl” to… errrr… ummmm… well… “Less Bad Girl”…. with sufficient style to make the ending work. But it’s still an oddly unlikely plot notion… I guess it’s just more of that crazy “Addams Family” feeling that creeps in here at times to make some of the more ludicrous horrific things seems almost funny and kinda… errrrr… endearing? Yep that’s the feeling it has. With that, I feel pretty darn good about giving this one a firm 4 “Meows” out of 5. Can’t explain it… it just kinda grabbed me that way. Just remember though… this lady likes her movies a bit crazy…. your experience may differ. ;)

The Region 1 DVD is great. I’m glad I waited for it as oppossed to the somewhat sketchy Region 3 “Chinese” release I located and sniffed around for a month or so before this one came along. It’s presented widescreen in the original Spanish audio and with excellent selectable English subtitles. There’s some “Making of” stuff and a few other extra too, also subtitled for those so inclined. Definitely a good choice for our Halloween Festival and one I’m thinking many of you Gentle Visitors might want to give a try.

Yep, as always we end with a Trailer just to get you in the mood for some of that ol’ Black Magic…. ;)

Well, for our next foray into crazy horror films, we go from Halloween witches back to a perennial favorite here at the ol’ Litterbox… the zombie… with a look at the Region 2 UK release of “Zombeavers”. Ummmm?… Zombie beavers? Nope… your favorite Catgirl kids you not. ;)

Our synopsis goes like this here: “A group of college sorority girls having a “girls only” weekend together at a rural riverside cabin are menaced by a swarm of deadly zombie beavers created by an accidental spill of toxic waste. A weekend of sex and debauchery soon turns gruesome as the undead beavers close in on the girls and their party-crashing boyfriends. Isolated and unable to escape, the kids are soon fighting for their lives in a desperate attempt to fend off the hoard of crazed mutant beavers that attack them in and around their cabin.”

Yep. You’d be right in betting this one doesn’t set the bar tooooo high, plot wise. Sounds pretty much like a quick exploitative story with crude trashy humor, nudity, very little real coherent plot, and probably more bad “beaver” jokes than any film truly needs. So… not expecting greatness, let’s take a peek at the result and see if “Zombeavers” sinks or swims, shall we? At least I can tell my sweetie it’s an English language film…. ;)

After our last “Movie Nite” I’m thinking Carolyn might just have thought there couldn’t possibly be another crazy horror movie in my pile just waiting to be watched. You think she’d know better by now. ;)

This one’s been floating around for a while now. I expected a low-budget exploitative film like this to slip right to DVD without any chance of a theatrical release and in that I was right on the money. But I sorta was expecting a domestic Region 1 version to hit the stores first before it cropped up anywhere else. In that, I was soooo, soooo wrong. Nope. The first chance to catch this one was on a UK Region 2 release. Ummmm? If you are a suspicious person… like a certain movie watching Catgirl princess… then you just know that’s not a good sign. But hey… when has common sense ever slowed me down before when it comes to hunting down these admittedly “craptastic” bits of celluloid storytelling? Afterall…. I might get lucky and find one of those rare “so bad that it’s good” examples of goofy exploitative filmmaking that’ll end up being a fondly remembered cult hit for years to come.

Sigh…. I really wanted to have this one turn out that way. Honest I did. But sometimes a turd is just a turd….

Our story gets underway as two hapless brain-dead guys driving a truck full of toxic waste do that whole “Pulp Fiction” thing…. you know swapping those witty and gritty stories all done in amazingly wry and funny dialog as they head through the woods to wherever it is you drag toxic waste for disposal. Except that these two guys make Beavis and Butthead look like geniuses. Ohhhh… and the dialog is neither witty nor clever…. just crude and sophomoric. Naturally they whack a deer with the truck and toss a big honking can of glowing green juice into a nearby river so it can be delivered downstream to our unlucky beaver friends. Yep. We’ve all seen where this is going…

Next… three sexy sorority girls are driving out to the woods for a “girl’s only” weekend of female bonding designed to heal the broken heart of one of them who’s discovered her boyfriend has been cheating on her with some unknown other woman. Our main character, Mary (played by Rachel Melvin) is the one who put the whole trip together to show some support for poor Jenn (played by Lexi Atkins). Along for the ride is their supposed BFF and inseparable sorority sister Zoe (played by Cortney Palm). It isn’t long before both Carolyn and I saw the biggest flaw in the whole film…. These girls. They just aren’t friends. Not even close. Almost immediately you figure out Zoe is just a selfish crude horny bitch, resentful of having to come along at all and listen to Jenn whine about how much she loves the guy who’s been cheating on her… pissed off that having no guys means she has to go a whole weekend without sex… and constantly crying that she can’t get service for her phone. So what about Jenn? Well… she’s had her heart torn to bits by her jerk of a boyfriend, but seems to resent the fact she can’t text or phone him and is completely unthankful that Mary has gone to the trouble of giving her a weekend away to get her thoughts sorted. And Mary herself? She seems nice at first… if a bit controlling. You figure she’s going to be our one heroine that we’ll all want to like and see make it through the wacky horrors to come. You really want to think that. Goodness I really wanted to.

Problem is… once the boyfriends Sam, Tommy, and Buck (played by Hutch Dano, Jake Weary, and Peter Gilroy respectively)… show up, she’s as quick to hop into bed with hers as is Zoe leaving Jenn all alone with her jerk. That’s particularly annoying once you learn she’s the other woman sexing it up with Jenn’s boyfriend. Grrrrrr!!! So all these girls turn out to be nothing more than amoral backstabbing “frenemies” afterall. Mary’s main motivation? Not to really support Jenn… but to wean her off the guy she’s inexplicably hot for so she can cheat on her own boyfriend with him. And the guys…. sheesh! They are all just one dimensional sickeningly annoying fratboy stereotypes the like of which pissed me off back in college and which years and years later I still find repugnant. So…. that means I pretty much hate the entire cast. Doesn’t bode well for my movie experience….

We don’t get much better luck with our only other real character, local good ol’ boy trapper Smyth (played by Rex Linn). Rather than being that downhome “Crocodile Dundee” wilderness guy with all the woodland survival skills and beaver lore you think we’d need in a story like this, he’s just a mysogynistic redneck gun nut waiting to become beaver food. Grrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!

Well…. that means if I’m gonna enjoy myself, my only hope is to root for the zombie beavers. They won’t let me down. And for the most part… they don’t. Our frisky undead semi-aquatic rodents are done with some fairly low tech  practicall effects…. (that means zombie beaver hand puppets for those of you unfamiliar with old-school “special effects”) and are augmented throughout by some well utilized CGI for when there’s any swimming to be done. Yes… yes… all very crude, but effective to tell the tale and nostalgically fun in a “Killer Shrews” sort of way.

Basically… in a perverse “Looney Tunes” take on “Night of the Living Dead”, the bulk of our story follows the whole “siege” plot, with our college kids holled up in the cabin and our zombie beavers trying their darnedest to chaw their way in. No surprises… Well… OK… maybe one surprise. Seems being bitten by a Zombie beaver means you also turn into a zombie. Not just any Zombie either…. a half human/ half zombie hybrid. How’s that for screwy?

Well. I’m not certain any of you out there will want to rush right out and watch this, but your Favorite Catgirl won’t spoil the ending for you just in case. But I’m telling you… if you had to pick something to watch on DVD, “Sharknado” would probably be a better “Movie Nite” choice. I’m just saying…..

I now know why this turkey had to turn up on a bare-bones budget DVD released anywhere but here in the good ol’ USA where it was made. I give “Zombeavers” a paltry 2 “Meows” out of 5. With it’s cast of unsympathetic unlikeable characters, it’s unremarkable plot, and unfunny attempts at lowbrow comedy, I just can’t recommend you rush out to find it. That’s really saying something coming from this bad movie watchin’ lady. I just know I really…. really…. owe my adorably sweet wifey big time for making her sit through this one…..

Oh my goodness, yes… there just has to be a Trailer, right? Well here you go, just in case you still need convincing that it’s a real movie.. take a peek. Trust me… it’s waaaaay better than the film itself. :)

We’re off to exotic sunny India again for some Hindi styled horror goodness with a look at the recent DVD release of “Creature 3D”. Been a while since we watched a good old-fashioned monster movie, hopefully India knows what we’re lookin’ for. In any event, it stars the beautiful Bipasha Basu as our heroine, and I’ve always liked Hindi films with her so chances are pretty good I’ll enjoy this one too.

Our synopsis goes like this: “Pretty Ahana Dutt takes out a loan to open a hotel in Glendale, deep in the jungles of Himachal Pradesh after greedy land developers drive her father to suicide and steal away her family home. At first, the place seems to be a paradise, and the perfect place for her to make a fresh start and forget the tragedies of her life. Soon however, a new menace starts to stalk her and her guests, a terrible beast bent on feeding an insatiable hunger and one which seems poised to destroy her new life and all her dreams. Torn between a desire to run away yet again or stand and fight for life and love, which will Ahana choose?”

Yep. This one seems to have it all. Singing and dancing…. sweet syrupy romance…. and a hungry lizard monster/demon thingee. Looks like a certain crazy Catgirl’s gonna be one happy lil’ lady with this one. So what the heck are we waiting for? ;)

After the disappointing snoozefest that was “Zombeavers”, I wasn’t really sure my adorable wife was ready for another of my admittedly goofy foreign horror goodies… and I still owe her a movie she’ll like (Hopefully that’ll be taken care of once we get a chance to watch Disney’s “Maleficent” which popped into the mailbox over the weekend… I’m pretty certain that’ll be more her kind of film). But I’d been eagerly awaiting this particular DVD and luckily for me, it finally arrived straight from India on Saturday, just in time for a little mindless movie watching fun on Sunday evening. We had an absolutely hugely busy weekend at the restaurant, but with an evening off and about zero ambition for going out to do anything together, a nice night on the couch watching TV with Ting-ting and Carolyn seemed the perfect thing to relax and finish out the weekend. Well… that and catch the latest episode of “Walking Dead”…. gotta have your priorities. ;)

And I have to say… this one actually made a pretty good lead-in for that too. Although I had read some pretty disparaging reviews in the Indian media about it, I’ve rarely let most of those stop me from giving any film a try for myself, and this time out I’m glad I didn’t.

It’s a simple story. In fact taken as a whole its a pretty good modern version of a 1950’s or 60’s classic monster movie just like a certain wee lil’ kitten used to watch on TV back in the day. You remember those… you always get a hero, a heroine, some disbelieving local cops, and a brainy scientist guy along with a vicious hungry critter snarfing down all the poor innocent victims it can get its grubby talons on before being trapped and killed to restore peace and tranquility once more. Yep. That’s our game plan this time out too. The Indian press seemed to feel this made the film too “old-school” and too out-of-touch with a modern audience…. not all shiny and filled with complicated plots where good and evil are tough to sort out. Well. To heck with all that rubbish and nonsense. There are times when simple and uncomplicated work just fine, and “Creature” is one of those sort of films.

More importantly…. and surprising to me at least… “Creature” has Bipasha Basu in a role as our main character, heroine Ahana Dutt, that is actually a good strong female heroine for a change. Yep… something that I rarely encounter in a Hindi film. Yes, there is a male lead in this one too… it’s a Hindi film after all and almost all Hindi films are romance films at their heart… but rather than center the film on our Heroine and then steal her thunder away by having the male lead constantly doing all the hero stuff because she’s too weak… too emotional… just plain too “girly”… to get things done without him, here our Heroine needs no saving at the last moment. Nope. She’s got this. Just get the heck out of her way while she kicks monster butt!! Yay!! :)

Sure our Heroine has had it rough. Evil land developers drive her father to suicide to start with… she’s aware of her desire to shrink from further conflict… to wrestle with the same feelings of dread that drove her father to death. Still she perseveres to open her dream resort and make her life better… even if that means making a deal with slimy bankers that are smiling when they lend her the money only to wait and plot to take everything away from her at the first sign of weakness on her part. She finds new love and romance with Kunal (played by Imran Abbas Naqvi) only to find out his real reason for coming into her life… that he’s actually Karan Malhotra, the son of one of those evil land developers and he’s ashamed of the way he ruthlessly acted in causing her father’s suicide. Awwww crap… and he was pretty darn hunky too, but this just ruins any chance for further sexy flirty time. Then the monster shows up… killing her employees, her guests, threatening to bring everything in her life to ruin yet again.

Nobody offers to help her. Not those bankers… not the Wildlife Authorities… and she’s determined not to accept help from Kunal once she knows his real identity. There’s a scientist…. Professor Sadanand (played by Mukul Dev), with all the folklore about the monster, but somehow you know he’s not gonna last long once the going gets rough.

So what sort of monster do we have here anyways? Well, it’s a critter called a “Brahmarakshasa”. That’s a mythological monster created when the God Brahma the Hindu god of creation, curses a wayward priest to become a half demonic creature with no salvation, unable to enter either heaven or hell but instead eternally condemned to roam on earth and suffer an unending hunger that can never be sated. Ummmm? Wait a minute? Wander the Earth? All freaky and monstery and …. hungry for meat… any kind of meat? But…. but…. doesn’t that mean Brahma has just unleashed an unstoppable killing machine on the rest of humanity? Sounds like a pretty stupid way to curse one guy if you endanger all those people who didn’t break Brahma’s rules…. Carolyn picked up on that right away as did yours truly and it’s kinda the hardest part of this movie to swallow. (Psssst! Any of you out there with some notion of the folklore behind this… if there is really any mind you… feel free to enlighten a confused kitten here… ;) )

In a practical sense what we get for viewing pleasure is a big honking 10 foot tall CGI lizard/ demon thing with  crazy sharp talons, that runs like a cheetah, climbs around like spider on any surface, and likes to rip people into manageable bloody bits for easy snarfing and snacking. Oooohhh!! Oooohhh!! And it’s also bulletproof… immune to being run down by a car… and mostly unkillable. Hmmmm? Well… wait a minute… it is crazy afraid of fire. You know, just like Frankenstein’s monster was. Sounds pretty darn useful, but for some unfathomable reason throughout the whole movie nobody ever tries to use that as a way to kill it. I mean… it lives in a big ol’ cave out in the woods near the hotel, so I have to scratch my head and wonder why nobody just backs up a truckload of gasoline up to that, pump it in, and just burn our freaky monster out. Heck… nobody even tries to whip up some Molotov cocktails to fend it off. Come on guys!! It’s worth at least a try…. ;)

So what the heck can our Heroine rely on to stop its rampage and save the day? Well it seems decades back, the villagers tell of a stout-hearted hunter who showed up and killed just oodles of these wicked monsters. Come to find out his son still knows exactly how he did it. With a gun that fires bullets dipped in the Holy waters of the temple pond of the Brahma Temple in Pushkar, the one and only temple of Brahma in the world. But this is effective only if they are dipped into the pond on the night of Kartik Purnima, which is ten months away. Too bad the bankers plan to seize Ahana’s land in less than ten days….

Still, there’s a slim hope. The hunter’s son still has his father’s old rifle… and seven holy blessed bullets for it. Guess they’ll have to do. One thing that truly sucks…. it’s this crazy single shot muzzleloader…. not exactly what you want to fight a frisky monster like we’ve got here.

That leads to our climax, as Ahana patches things up with Karan temporarily to face the monster with the help of the Professor and Inspector Rana (played by Bikramjeet Kanwarpal) the only trustworthy guy at the Wildlife Bureau. Naturally not everybody is going to survive…. it’s a fairly standard notion in these sorts of monster movies. The final battle leaves only Ahana and Karan… and much to both Carolyn’s and my own surprise, she’s the one to finally kill our horrid monster! But… but… seriously…. Hindi Heroines never get to be soooo fiesty and spunky! I’ve seen oodles of Indian movies and it’s just always the case that they end up relying on a man to save them. Not Bipahsa!! I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed that for a change! So…. maybe this movie is a little silly…. maybe it’s got some glaringly questionable plot ideas…. but having a strong female hero in an honest-to-goodness Hindi film who saves the day is just such a breath of fresh air that both of us ended up happy as heck with this one! Bipasha… you go girl!! :)

So… our Heroine saves the day, finds it in her heart to forgive Karan for her father’s death and shares her new life and love with him in the jungle paradise of Glendale Hotel. Sounds like a wrap. Roll those credits!

Yep both Carolyn and I really liked this one. I give it an enthusiastic 3 “Meows” out of 5. It’s a slick, modern film with the feel of an old 1950’s creature feature. It’s got a feisty competent Heroine who shows us how it’s done when the chips are down. The CGI might be a bit lacking at times…  especially when we see our monster doing long scenes like running or the like.. but is mostly adequate for the task at hand. Also both Carolyn and I felt they revealed our creature a wee bit toooo early in the story… but hey… I wasn’t expecting the suspense of say “Jaws”. Nope… things here are definitely more “Jurassic Park”. The Hindi DVD is presented Widescreen and All Region, with the excellent English subtitles I’ve come to expect. Oooohhh!! And there’s no blurry stupid 3D either!! Yay! Way to make a Catgirl happy! Don’t know if any of you Gentle Visitors are into Hindi film the way this nutty lady is, but if you were to run across this one you could definitely do far worse than give it a try for some nostalgic old school monster fun. Try it… :)

So that it. Naturally there’s also a Trailer, and here ya go, o’ Gentle Visitors!

Time for another Review, and this time out, I’m taking a peek at a fairly mainstream choice with the Disney live action fairytale reworking of 1959’s animated classic “Sleeping Beauty”,  2014’s “Maleficent”. Fairy tale? Why certainly!! Your favorite Catgirl loves fairy tales…. and luckily for me, so does my sweetie, so this one was a no-brainer pick to give her a “Movie Nite” she’d like filled with magic and wonder and that proverbial “happily ever after” ending that leaves you feeling warm inside. :) Mind you though…. this one promised to be a wee bit darker… a wee bit more wicked… but c’mon… it’s a Disney film, so there’s gonna be a happy ending…

Our synopsis? How’s this? “A beautiful, pure-hearted young fairy princess, Maleficent has an idyllic life growing up in a peaceable forest kingdom of the Faefolk, until one day when an invading army threatens the harmony of the land. Maleficent rises to be the land’s fiercest protector, but she ultimately suffers a most ruthless betrayal at the hands of her one true love – an act that shatters her spirit, destroys her belief in love, and turns her pure heart to stone. Bent on revenge, Maleficent wraps herself in hatred and evil and battles with the invading king’s successor, her unfaithful lover, and as a result, places a curse upon his newborn infant Aurora. As the child grows, Maleficent realizes that Aurora holds the key to peace in the kingdom – and perhaps to Maleficent’s true happiness as well.”

Yep. This time out it’s not Sleeping Beauty who is center stage, but the Evil Queen…. who maybe isn’t as irredeemably evil after all. With my years of watching melodramatic Asian films where villains can be just as honorable and heroic as the heroes of a story, this certainly sounds like a story this wee Catgirl can get behind. Sound intriguing to you too? Then let’s get right to it shall we? ;)

If you’ve seen 1959’s “Sleeping Beauty” you certainly remember Maleficent…. Tall… regal… darkly evil in that stylish way wicked Queens can be when they really want to. Outside of being pretty darn pissed off at King Stephan there wasn’t really all that much explanation of her motivations or back story way back then. She was just the villain and for those innocent days, that was enough for audiences. Nowadays however… in world more accustomed to less simply “black or white” stories, where perhaps the more interesting ideas are those hiding away in those little shades of grey, that character was perfect for a little “what if” re-imagining….

So it’s “Spoiler Alert!!” time o’ Gentle Visitors… and perhaps if you haven’t already given this one a look-see you might want to skip down aways to see my rating and general impressions. Yep… can’t really pick this one apart without ruining things a bit.

Anyways… it’s time to be up-front about the story. If you expected Princess Aurora, “Sleeping Beauty” herself… to be the major focus of things you are going to be sorely surprised. I mean… she’s in the story… she’s certainly important to the story… but she’s definitely second fiddle to our film’s real Heroine, the fairy Maleficent. This is her story from beginning to end. Got it? Ok then… let’s proceed. (Wait a minute… this shift in focus does lead to one minor quibble that this lady has with the film. It’s our fairy queen’s name. Maleficent. In the old 1959 film, that name was cooked up for a villan… coming as it does from the Latin “maleficentia”, generally translating as “evil doing” (malus, “bad, wicked, evil” + ficens, past participle of facere, “to make, do”). Hardly the sort of name that should have been bestowed upon the innocent little fairy girl from our 2014’s movie’s beginning. She should have been given a real name…. a name worthy of the gentle innocent spirit she was in the start. It would have made so much more sense for “Maleficent” to have been a nickname forced on her by the greedy humans angry over her defiance of their attempts to overrun the homeland she battled to protect, and a name that she embraces later in an attempt to become the cruel and vicious thing they’ve always believed her to be. I’m thinking that would have made so much more sense… but no. Why didn’t the writers go that way? Who knows… but I wish they had. :( )

But then nobody is quite what you expect if you remember the old animated version… Mostly the human characters are the real villains. That starts with Stephan (first played by Michael Higgins), a young orphan boy who foolishly enters the fairyrealm of the Moors one afternoon to steal himself a gem. Caught by the treeman guardians, he’s saved by the intervention of young Maleficent (first played by Isobelle Molloy), last of the Fairyfolk who once ruled these lands. She feels sorry for Stephan and after getting him to surrender the jewel he stole, leads him back to the border and safety. They have an almost instant rapport… and we see an odd friendship grow and develop as the years pass and Stephan (played as a teen by Jackson Bews) returns again and again to visit her. Naturally that friendship grows into love… at least on Maleficent’s part (played as a teen by Ella Purnell), and it’s that love that ultimately leads to her tragedy.

The problem is, the human kingdom that shares a border with the Moors is ruled by greedy King Henry (played by Kenneth Cranham) and he wants to conquer that realm and banish the faefolk into history. He makes an attempt at invasion… an invasion thwarted by now grown up Maleficent (now played by Angelina Joli) and the Fae Hosts who destroy the invading army utterly, driving them back to the human lands and mortally wounding the King.

That’s when the real trouble starts. The dying King decides to pick a successor… and that man shall be the one who can kill Maleficent and get his revenge for him. Stephan (now played by Sharlto Copley), by now a grown man, is stupidly driven to use his old friendship with Maleficent to give him the one chance that will allow him to fulfill his childhood ambitions.

He goes to her…. and uses her love and trust to trick her and drug her. He thinks to kill Maleficent as she lies helpless, but ultimately finds he can’t bring himself to do it. Instead… he uses a cold iron chain to saw off her beautiful wings as the trophy he’ll need to win the throne. Ahhhhhgggg!!! What a f*cking bastard!!! I can’t tell you how utterly angry this scene made me…. even now, days later… it brings my blood to a boil. I hate him!! Soooo damn much it makes me tremble with seething desire to see him killed in some brutally appropriate fashion!! There are other movie reviewers for this one that I’ve read who say that this idea is intended as some version of a symbolic “rape”… and seeing Maleficent in those first moments when she awakens it’s fair to equate this in just that way. It’s painful and ugly and hateful in a way that has no words. All I know is that if the story needed a betrayal… something so terrible it could poison her soul and drive her to Evil, then this would be it.

In the human lands, Stephan becomes king…. while in the Moors, Maleficent’s pain and soul wrenching agony at being crippled and denied the freedom to fly along with the realization that her love for Stephan was nothing more than an illusion, drive her to become the poisoned heart of a realm turned to darkness. She broods and lurks and waits… and knows that someday she will have her revenge.

That comes about once Stephan and his queen have their child… the Princess Aurora. At her christening, we get that scene you’ll remember from the old 1959 animated story. For some reason that makes little real sense… those three fairies show up to bless the child… kind of stupid given the xenophobic hatred Stephan and most of the humans in the story have for fairies. It’s then that Maleficent chooses to make her grand entrance…. and pronounce her curse, “that on her sixteenth birthday, she will prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel, which will cause her to fall into a deathlike sleep forevermore”, with the added bit that “the curse can be broken by true love’s kiss” just as in the original. Now we are in business. ;)

With the help of her one loyal companion, a shape-shifting crow named Diaval (played by Sam Riley), she spends the next 16 years secretly watching over Aurora as she grows up in the care of those three stupid fairies. She kind of has to…. I mean the fairies are so darn horrible at being mortals and caring for a human infant that without Maleficent working behind the scenes they probably would have accidentally killed the poor girl in the first week or so. Again…. that whole notion of Stephan giving these three his daughter to hide away and raise till her 16th birthday…. is totally stupid as written. He absolutely hates fairies…. in a “nuttier-than-a-fruitcake” paranoid kind of way. So why the hell would he trust these three? It makes no coherent narrative sense and is probably the weakest element in the script. Oh well…. can’t let common sense get in the way now, can we?

Here’s where the neat lil’ twist starts. Maleficent has to spend soooo much time protecting Aurora from secret, that little by little Aurora’s naive sweet innocence and genuine goodness starts to sneak its way past the darkness that surrounds her heart. Eventually they encounter one another face-to-face as Aurora approaches her 16 year… and Maleficent is surprised to find that the princess has always felt her presence and that she has come to believe Maleficent is her “Fairy Godmother”… a lifelong protector and benevolent “surrogate mother figure”. Now that they’ve finally met, Aurora and Maleficent become friends…. despite the hatred and pain Maleficent still feels for her father. That culminates in Maleficent trying in vain to renounce her curse…. but sadly she had foolishly pronounced that “no power on Earth can change it”… and so not even her own magic can alter what is to come.

Meanwhile… King Stephan, after the loss of his Queen, locked away and brooding in his castle has been plotting and scheming for the day he has come to dread. Aurora’s 16’th birthday… and they day he knows Maleficent will return to finish him at last. But all fairies…. and Maleficent in particular… have a secret weakness he knows only too well…. the burning touch of cold iron. A weakness he intends to exploit…

So then…. what about the Prince? Yep it’s a Disney “princess movie” so there’s always a Prince, right? Right indeed. Right on schedule Aurora and Prince Phillip (played by Brenton Thwaites) meet one day before her birthday as she plans to leave the three dizzy “aunts” she’s been living with to run away and live with her “Fairy Godmother” in the wondrous realm of the fae. The two of the have instant sparks…. although pretty Aurora has been living a lonely life in the woods since she was a baby, so by now any hunky guy would probably catch her eye. Maleficent… catching them together… thinks that Phillip might just be the key to avoiding the tragedy to come, even if in her wounded heart, she still believes that the idea of “true love” is nothing more than a romantic lie.

But Curses and Fate are not to be avoided. As Maleficent swore all those years before, our Princess finds herself right on schedule at the castle on her birthday after discovering her own true identity and the truth of who Maleficent really is… she finds the long locked cellar room with the remains of the shattered and burnt spinning wheels and pricks her finger right on time. Yep… cue our young Aurora to become “Sleeping Beauty”.

She’d stay that way too… but Maleficent just can’t let the young girl she’s become so attached to suffer for the evil deeds of her father the king, and with the help of Diaval sneaks into the heavily guarded castle with a magically unconcious kidnapped Prince Phillip in tow to try to break the curse. Naturally… crazy King Stephen and his army are ready and waiting for her…..

So in our climax, we get some serious battles… a shape-shifting dragon…. the real truth of the meaning of “true love”, and an ending to all the darkness, hate, and fear once and for all. We even get our “Happily Ever After”…. just not quite the way you’d probably expect. I could tell you all about it… but I’ve spilled enough beans already…. and you are going to want some surprises to discover for yourself… ;)

Yep. That’s our story in a nutshell. Outside of a couple of niggling quibbles that I’ve mentioned, it all works pretty darn well too. Heck it had me angry in all the right moments… happy in others… sad at times… and even a little teary eyed by the end. Most of that can be laid right at the feet of Angelina Jolie (who really is the eerily spitting image of that old character come to life) carries this film from start to finish and who is Maleficent. You buy it… in every scene. Somehow she takes this cardboard fairytale villain and captures all the malevolent evil of that original animated character and invests her with a sympathy and depth to make her into someone you’ll want to be the Heroine of the story. Bravo!! Elle Fanning is good here too… with a sweetness and vulnerability that are well suited to the character of Aurora, who remains important… but definitely secondary… to the overall plot. Both actresses play well together with real chemistry in the scenes they share. It’s not a perfect film…. and there could have been more effort to try to work out some of the more questionable plot ideas in ways that made better narrative sense, but still it’s a pretty good “What if?” story seen through a lens darkly…. Mind you though… this one’s a pretty grim story at times, and unlike the original 1959 movie, probably definitely not a film for the kiddies….

So with all that said, your Favorite Catgirl gives “Maleficent” a solid 4 “Meows” out of 5. I liked it… Carolyn liked it… and if a Westernized “Bride With White Hair” meets “Wicked” take on an old classic Fairy tale is your idea of fun, then you’d probably like it too. The Region 1 DVD is pretty darn easy to find, and for those of my Gentle Visitors elsewhere in the world, it’s available in a multitude of foreign release formated DVD’s in your neck of the woods too. Haven’t seen it yet? You might want to rectify that lil’ oversight…. ;)

We’ve a Trailer…. one of just oodles of choices in Trailers… and this one captures the overall feeling of the story without really giving it all away for those of you who want it that way… ;)

With the snow blowing fiercely around my windows here at the apartment, this time out I’m back to sunny Thailand for some ghostly scares with a look at “Project Hashima” aka “ฮาชิมะ โปรเจกต์”, director Piyapan Choopetch’s 2013 “shaky-cam” horror hybrid. “Shaky Cam” horror? But… but… “Miyuki”, you say… “You really hate those, don’t you?” Ummm… well… OK… perhaps “hate” is too strong a word. It is fair to say I do think these kinds of movies have been pretty much done to death of late, but since I don’t get many Thai horror films these days, I was willing to take a chance on this one. Who knows? Maybe it would have some new novel idea to make that genre of horror a little easier to take… or at least easier on my poor eyes. I live in hope…  ;)

Our synopsis? “Hashima Island in Nagasaki of Japan is well-known as one of the scariest haunted places in the world, after coal mining on the island was closed down and the inhabitants abandoned the it. Now a group of Thai teenagers, fresh from film school, who have become popular for their YouTube ghost video clip are asked by another paranormal investigating film group to scout out this creepy ghost island for a new video. Once on the island, it seems there is nothing much left, but horrible things are still waiting for people who dare to come.”

Yep. Sounds like a pretty standard plot. Jaded disrespectful 20-somethings who will mess about somewhere they shouldn’t, disturbing things best left alone, leading to horrible hauntings and death. Got it? Good. So without further adieu, lets give this one a look then, shall we?

So. Luckily for lil’ ol’ me, having watched this one, it seems this one is less of a “shaky cam” film than I had been led to believe. It has elements of that in some captured footage moments of the story, but I can thankfully say that “Project Hashima” is really more of a movie about people filming a video… and we do see bits of that in the film… but it tells our story in the usual tried-and-true third-person fashion. Yay!!

And what story is that? Well, our protagonists are a group of young film students recently graduated and making the rounds trying to find jobs in the industry. They are, of course, full of youthful exuberance and the usual big expectations that come with it, only to run smack dab into the sad reality of working life. Yes… so many hopeful people all with the same faith in their talent and just a few jobs to go around. That’s a hard pill to swallow. So what do you do to get noticed? Why do a quick lil’ indy “ghost hunting” video to showcase your talent and post it up on YouTube for the multitudes to “oooohhh” and “awww” over . Hey… and what do you know? That can actually work sometimes.

After a million or so hits, our lil group comes to the notice of another YouTube paranormal “reality” video group “Ghostland”. They call them in and offer them a deal… an all expense paid trip to Nagasaki, Japan where they can do the location shooting on haunted Hashima Island for an upcoming broadcast to be called “Project Hashima”. It’s just the break they’ve been hoping for, so naturally they seize it without so much as a peep about being asked to go to what our story describes as “the second most haunted place on Earth”. (Not surprisingly… even though Hashima Island is indeed a very real, and very creepy place, in reality it’s not known for any connection to the supernatural at all…. Guess that made filming this one that much easier for the real film crew…)

Filled with creative zeal, our lil’ group heads to the island to make their movie: Off (played by Alexander Rendell), his girlfriend Nan (played by Apinya Sakulkaroensuk), her BFF May (played by Sushar Manaying), Nick (played by Pirat Nipitpaisalkul), and the prerequisite weird guy Dog (played by Mek Mekwattana). Each of them fills one of those stereotypical roles for bright young things in a Thai horror film, and naturally each has their own lil’ bit of drama to create the tension and melodrama that you just know lurks right beneath the surface of such a group of so-called “friends”.

Even with the help of a local Thai speaking guide, named Mr. Sato there to keep them in line, basically you just know that somehow these people are going to manage to piss something from the “Great Beyond” off enough to bring down some supernatural bad karma on them but good. Yep. It’s a given. That would be the ghost of a suicidal jilted wife named Miko (played by Shô Nishino), who’s burial urn of ashes gets broken during the visit, and who’s spirit decides to visit vengeance against them all after Off steals her wedding ring behind the other’s backs.

This part of our film is prehaps the best, as the crew actually did shoot on Hashima Island itself… and the deserted island really is just about one of the decidedly creepiest looking locales you might ever really want to see. No seriously… this wee Catgirl kids you not. A place of desolate concrete ruins simply abandoned to the elements, at one time it boasted the almost unbelievable population density of 216,264 people per square mile crammed into its tiny overbuilt surface during the height of the coal mining operations there. It’s an eerie locale that rivals the ruins of Pripiyat from “Chernobyl Diaries” as almost a character itself… and it’s well worthy of a horror movie, even if it isn’t really supposed to be haunted. But don’t take my word for it… check out the real details at Wikipedia.

Anyways… once our group finishes filming their footage… narrowly surviving a nasty earthquake that almost buries them in a building collapse… they return to Thailand where the ghost begins ruining their lives, one by one. You know the details…. hallucinations… odd visions and noises…and oodles of general bad luck that drives each of them to nasty ends. Off gets special attention as Miko spends extra time torturing him regarding the thief of her wedding ring. Stupidly, he actually wears the ring at first. At least until Miko makes his finger start to rot off and forces him to sever it to get the darn thing off. He can’t throw the ring away… can’t even have it stolen from him by the gamblers he owes money to after they bust into his apartment and rape poor May to intimidate him into paying the debt he owes them. At least the ghost does us all a favor by seeing those scumbags get good and dead for trying to take the ring…. a “guilty pleasure” this wee Catgirl admits to enjoying.

There’s May’s grief and suicide…. Dog’s crazy “death-by-crickets”… and then, thanks to some of that near forgotten “found footage”, Nick and Nan discover what really happened back during their time on haunted Hashima… our story’s big climactic “Twist”. Not a bad plot ‘twist” either…. and one I’ll not spoil for you should you want to see this one for yourself. ;)

Generally I’d have to say this one goes pretty much by the numbers though… Outside of that one clever ghost folklore bit, it doesn’t really struggle to raise the bar very high, story wise. It’s a standard Thai horror offering, which means we do get some fairly nasty gory bits at times, but again, nowhere as over-the-top as Thai films can occassionally go. Nope. It’s mostly a middle of the road offering with a really neat location and some good general ideas that are servicably done but hardly new or surprising.

I did enjoy this movie, but I still can’t say it’s a great film, just an adequate one. Your favorite catgirl gives “Project Hashima” a mediocre 3 “Meows” out of 5. The HK Region 3 release is much like the movie itself. Adequate for the task at hand and fairly easy on the pocketbook should Asian horror movies be your thing. It’s presented Widescreen, letterboxed and with good accurate English subtitles to accompany the original Thai audio. All for right around 15-17$ US should you locate a copy. And that would be that. :)

As always, I leave you with a Trailer… this one nicely subtitled into English for those of us not fluent in Thai. Enjoy! ;)

Brrrrr!!! The wind is certainly blowing the snow fiercely around my windows with some serious fury as I prepare for another “Shared Review” with our blogging friend Stephen over at his blog, Gweilo Ramblings. “Winter… why, o’ why do you seem to hate this wee lady so?” ;)

Anyways… This time out we’re going to be taking a peek at the recent Hong Kong/ Malay production, 2014’s “Hungry Ghost Ritual” directed by and starring Nick Cheung. As always, it’s a pleasure to welcome Stephen here to visit me at the Litterbox to share his opinions on the films we both love so well. :)

As always Miyuki, the pleasure is mine. As I know you love Ghost stories so much, I was hoping this one might be just up your street.

Ooooh! Ghost story? Yep, I’m soooo there! ;) So what’s the score with this one then? Well how’s this for our synopsis: “Prodigal son Zong Hua, the long absent son of a modestly successful opera troupe leader, returns to his family after more than a decade in China on the eve of their Hungry Ghost Festival performance. His personal and professional life in tatters, Zong tries desperately to fit back into a life he’s never really been a part of. No sooner has Zong arrived, however, when a series of bizarre, supernatural occurrences start to take place. Zong’s younger sister Jing Jing starts acting up, and all the stress and pressures begin to wear on Zong’s father bringing on a heart attack. With the inexperienced Zong now in placed in charge, the rest of the troupe turn against him and are quick to blame his lack of understanding for their rituals and traditions for their problems. Problems which soon escalate into creepy and unexplainable horror for them all…”

Ahhhh… now that all sounds sort of familiar, doesn’t it? Looks like we’re in for a pretty much by-the-numbers exercise in Chinese horror, but hey… sometimes one of these films goes in surprising directions, so with my fingers crossed… and the popcorn popped… let’s settle down and give it a watch, shall we Stephen?

Indeed we shall. I’ll cross my fingers too, even if it makes this Super-Size Cola hard to hold. :)

So… if you’ve spent as much time watching Asian ghost story movies as a certain crazy lil’ Catgirl, then you are already familiar with the hungry ghost festival, a traditional Buddhist and Taoist festival held in Asian countries in the seventh month of the Chinese calendar. It’s a time similar to other festivals around the world… the Catholic “All Souls’ Day”, the hispanic “Día de Muertos” and the like. In general, it’s a time when the living pay homage to their deceased ancestors, who during such celebrations are also believed to visit the living. For good…. or for ill. Naturally that can also be a perfect backdrop for some creepy horror movie ideas….

I agree, it is certainly a trope I am very familiar with, an easy setup maybe, but sometimes that stops a bunch of awkward scene setting…

In “Hungry Ghost Ritual” we are introduced to the particularly Chinese notion that the living don’t just honor their dead ancestors during that time, but may also seek to placate them as well… in this case by throwing them a performance to entertain them and keep them occupied rather than roaming about causing ghostly havoc. Our hero… Zong Hua (played by Nick Cheung) returns to the opera troupe that his family has managed for generations after a particularly nasty failure in his personal fortunes. His ill-fated business venture in China has left him financially ruined and destroyed his chances of moving up and away from his father Zong Tian’s (played by Lam Wai) desire to have him follow him in managing the family troupe. It’s humbling and embarrassing for him to return… being viewed with nothing but contempt for it by his step-sister Jing-jing (played by Singaporean TV actress Cathryn Lee) and nearly everyone else in the troupe. When the stress of it all proves too much for Zong Tian and he suffers a massive heart attack, Zong Hua is thrust into the ill-fitting role of manager as the ensemble prepares for their annual traditional show for the Ghost Festival.

This brings on a lot of old resentments and quite a bit of strife that has the dramatic potential to make for a reasonably acceptable drama without any of the ghostly elements that get slathered on top of things to make our film. In a way… perhaps that’s the real problem with this film. It didn’t need to be a ghost story at all…. and when it goes there, it really doesn’t do anything particularly novel or new with the plot to distinguish itself from any other reasonably made horror film.

Yes… yes… the horror elements do work. They just didn’t surprise or shock me in any novel fashion. We get all the usual ones… sister Jing-jing gets possessed by the spirit of another opera performer from 40 years back karmically aching to relive the horrible tragedy that killed her and her own troupe of actors all those years before in a terrible fire. There’s a love interest for Zong Hua in the form of Xiao-yan (played by Annie Liu) who spends much of the film wavering back and forth between possible lover and possible friend and almost certainly possessed herself by one of those doomed ghosts from long ago. Throw in some flashbacks to that earlier group of actors where we get ageing opera diva (played by Carrie Ng) struggling to keep her place as leading lady from being stolen away by a younger sexier starlet both on stage and in the manager’s bed. It’s all pretty much a “been-there-done-that” kind of story. Well… the ghostly stuff herein is pretty good… if a bit uninspired… although if you are waiting for our present day troupe to meet their end in a fiery climatic inferno, you’ll be somewhat disappointed….

I have to agree. I actually thought all the horror stuff was very well done, and I enjoyed the way the film mixed up some of the classic Asian style ghostly goings on with some more modern Western Horror influences. But as you say, it doesn’t really offer up anything particularly new. As for the flashbacks, well to me they mostly felt like they belonged in a totally different movie. There’s a balance between giving the viewer enough to understand what is happening, and then simply failing to explain things on any level. You might get away with it in something more art-house, but not in a simple genre horror flick.

While the cinematography… done almost completely in Malaysia… is competent and very well done, I’d have to say the acting is mostly underwhelming with fairly poor chemistry between the leads here, particularly in the case of the romantic sub-plot between Nick Cheung and Annie Liu’s characters. Most everybody else hits their marks in what are very stereotyped roles written in very cardboard fashion. All in all, this one is a bit of a murky muddle that teases but ultimately… at least for this wee lady… fails to deliver.

I thought the film looked fine, Cheung clearly has hired people that know what they are doing. The acting however is fairly dire. The lack of chemistry between Cheung and Liu is painful at times. This isn’t helped by the script which is forcing her character in particular to flip-flop around.

With that, I supposse I’d give this one a 2 “Meows” out of 5. Sad, but true. I wanted to like it more, but once all is said and done, I really couldn’t. Oh well…. they can’t all be winners now can they? The HK Region 3 DVD is acceptable as usual with well done English subtitles and a nice 10-16$ US pricetag for anyone wishing to give it a look-see, but basically I’m thinking you could just as easily wait to catch it when it hits a release in your particular part of the world…. and it will. It’s easily digested and just the sort of bland uninspired film that always seems to get a wide release while other, more interesting and edgy films don’t. Sigh….. :(

I reckon 2 out of 5 is about right. Maybe I liked it a touch more than you because it wasn’t utterly horrible, and my movie watching can be a little more encompassing than yours (it did the basics of what a horror film should do for me, and I didn’t get angry about anything). Actually the HK DVD is fairly nice, with a whole extra disc of extra features. I’d be surprised though if it makes it outside the Region 3 world.

Ahhhh well. I guess that’s pretty much it. Perhaps Stephen and I will fare better next time out. One can always hope. But… as always, it’s been nice to share my lil’ space here at the Litterbox and until next time “Meow, Meow!!” :)

Our hunt goes on for the ultimate Miyuki and Stephen movie, one which both of us can raise more than a “meh” to. Still the company and the invite are the important thing, so here is to next time!

Ooooh!! And before I forget… there’s always the “flipside” of things, so to speak, with a peek at Stephen’s deepest thoughts on this one HERE!! Take a look for all the stuff I might just have missed… ;)

Yep…. wouldn’t let you all go without a Trailer o’ Gentle Visitors! Here ya go!

My mailbox got a visit from the FedEx guy with another big ol’ package of goodies from Malaysia just the other day and naturally lil’ ol’ me couldn’t wait to give a watch to one of them on Movie Nite with my sweetie last evening. With a well-earned day off today, that means I’m free to tell you all about the creepy Witchcraft story that is “Nasi Tangas”. ;)

Our synopsis goes like this: “Hairi and Fatin are close childhood friends who co-own a small food stand together. Mira, who is also Fatin’s best friend, admits that she likes Hairi. Fatin helps them to unite and get married. As time passes, Mira becomes jealous of Hairi’s close friendship with pretty Fatin. Mira’s wicked mother persuades Mira to use the witchcraft of “nasi kangkang” in order to compel and enslave Hairi to obey her as she has with Mira’s father. To achieve her intention, Mira is even willing to sleep with the evil shaman who instructs her in the forbidden spells.”

Now from what the Trailer showed… and a little research I did… I soon discovered the idea behind this one is a pretty gross bit of Malay folklore in which some sort of love spell can be cast by tricking a guy into eating… errr… ahhh… umm… a rice dish made out of vaginal secretions, menstrual blood, and feces. Eeeeewwww!! Yep, I kid you not. Somehow I just know this one’s gonna be nasty. Still wanna hear all the icky evil details? Then… if you’ve a strong stomach and a liking for odd Asian horror… just “Read On” o’ Gentle Visitor and let this wee Catgirl tell you all about it.

Now as I’ve mentioned before, this lady loves her creepy Asian movies… especially when I get to see some new little bit of odd folklore included in the package. Sometimes it’s a new kind of ghost… maybe a unique monster legend… often a bit of superstition or witchcraft peculiar to that part of the world. I’m an insatiable little dweeb when it comes to learning neat screwy silly things like that. “Nasi Tangas” is all about that sort of thing…. in this case a particularly gross bit of witchcraft as practiced in Malaysia by desperate women to seize control of wandering husbands. As with all such primitive magical traditional practices, it’s a big no-no in Islamic Malaysia…. and really, really, gross and icky to boot… so naturally it’s a perfect idea for some low-budget exploitative horror filmmaking. Just what a certain Catgirl ordered… :)

So what’s the deal with this one? Ok, ok… now it seems there’s a shamanistic black magic spell called “nasi kangkang”… or “crotch rice” according to Google Translate… in which a woman is told to lovingly prepare a delicious rice bowl that she may then squat over during the full moon while chanting some magic words as the steam condenses on her…. well… ahhhh… ummmm… “intimate bits”… and then drips back down to…. errrr…. ahhhh…. “flavor” the dish. Sometimes, as in this particular film, she’s instructed to add other… shall we say… “special herbs and secret spices”. Like her own feces, or hair clippings, or toenails. Then she feeds this to her boyfriend or husband to cause him to become madly and completely enslaved to her and her alone. Yep. Seriously stomach turning and nasty, right? O_o

Anyways…. that’s the basic idea here. Apparently there’s a downside to all this gross stuff too, and that’s the horror element that forms the central part of our story. What’s that basic story about? Well we rapidly get introduced to two old childhood friends Hairi (played by Azwan Kombos) and Fatin (played by Shima ). They’ve known each other for like forever and are that sort of male/ female “BFF” couple that know each other so darn well that they hang out constantly, have fun, and never seem to ever let romantic ideas get in the way of being the closest of companions. They get along so well they even run a business together, one of those little open air restaurant stalls you see in lots of Thai,  Malay, and Indonesian films. Hairi has a girlfriend of course… Mira (played by Adiba Yunus), who despite being his one and only steady love interest, is constantly annoyed by just how darn close Hairi and Fatin are. Hairi eventually marries Mira… but that doesn’t end her smoldering jealousy and suspicions that Hairi and Fatin are secretly more than just best friends. Which they aren’t… but hey when has truth ever gotten in the way of “obsessive crazy”?

Pretty soon she finds out that her mother Mak Ton (played by Delimawati) has secretly been using the evil black magic ritual of nasi kangkang on her own husband, Pak Bakar (played by Den Wahab) to punish him for his gambling and vicious temper. It isn’t long before her own jealousy has her following her mother’s wicked example and employing the same evil magic to both control Hairi and terrorize and punish Fatin.

We get the usual sorts of witchcraft stuff along with the particularly icky details of this particular practice as Fatin struggles to save herself and her old friend from suffering the fate of Mira’s father and becoming nothing more than a shambling somnambulist slave to Mira, who naturally turns more and more towards evil as our story progresses. It’s a definite that this one wants to slather on the exploitative sensationalistic gross-out subjects to sate that portion of the audience drawn to such material for the sake of sheer grossness and vulgarity. Being a Malay film, it’s done in a much tamer way than you’d expect in, say, a Thai film where just about any taboo goes, horror-wise. But still…. for a Malay film, it’s pushing it.

This one uses its story to tell a basic morality tale the way Malay film usually does. You know the lesson by now… “Witchcraft is Evil and the almighty Allah will forsake all those who traffic in it or use it”. There the expected climactic bit where our trusty Islamic ustaz shows up to put the Holy whammy on Mira and end all the evil and terror. Not as flashy as in some other Malay films, but effective nonetheless. They hit all the usual themes… even having Mira commit adultery with her bomoh teacher Embah Senu (played by Herman Tino) as payment for learning the “Ultimate Nasi Kangkang ceremony”…. weird given that all this was supposedly to keep Hairi faithful and save their marriage. Guess it’s more of a “Do as I say, not as I do” kinda thing… ;)

In general, the movie works, although I have to say both Carolyn and I were suitably grossed out by the whole  story and the unsavory stomach turning folklore on hand. That says a lot, when you remember that this lady has seen her fill of cannibals, freaky incestuous mutant freaks, fetishistic sexuality of practically every form and flavor imaginable, and the slimy excesses of some of the Shaw Brothers Cat III film catalog over a long movie watchin’ career. Maybe it’s because I’m a cook by profession, but this one had me really, really…. REALLY…  queasy by about the mid-point of the story. Horror wise, there’s not a whole lot going on that hasn’t been done better or before… and the gross factor only carries you so far.

With that I suppose it’s fair to say this one scores 2 “Meows” out of 5. I just can’t say I liked it all that much. I’d like to be able to say it’s a fun, naughty lil’ romp through some queasy taboos that also scared me, but…. sigh…. I just can’t when all is said and done. Sorry Malaysia, I hope you enjoyed this one more than me.  Maybe next time….The DVD is the usual nice simple Malay release…. supposedly Region 3, but secretly All-Region, the film is presented widescreen and letterbox with good understandable English subtitles on board all for right around 10$US in the usual places for the enjoyment of all the foreign Malay horror fans out there. That’s right, Gentle Visitors… Neko knows who you are. :)

As always, there’s a suitably nasty lil’ Trailer for those of you so inclined… Enjoy!!

Time to get back to some reviews! So how about a look at another of the Malay horror goodies from my last big DVD spree in Malaysia? “Kelibat”, another creepy exercise in ghostly haunting terror.

The synopsis goes like this: “The story follows failed businessman Kamal and his wife Kalin, and three children, Azhari, Azalis and Azmeera, who move into a new house out in the rural backcountry one step ahead of vicious loan sharks seeking repayment of their money. Unfortunently for them, the house is haunted by a mysterious supernatural figure known as Kelibat. Kelibat did not just haunt the family physically but also emotionally and spiritually.”

So what the heck is a Kelibat anyways? Darned if this wee lil’ Catgirl knows but the Trailer makes it look pretty darn scary.But I’ve been teased before… and the last couple of Malay offerings I’ve seen have been somewhat tepid at best… Will I get any luck this time around? Only one way to find out… ;)

Well then. Our story gets underway as we are introduced to our main characters, a Malaysian family whose upscale life in Kuala Lumpur is coming to a rather nasty financial end. Kamal (played by Fauzi Nawawi), the father, has to uproot them all as the bank forecloses on their home forcing them to leave for the rural boondocks. Good thing too, especially since they skip town before the loan sharks Kamal’s been forced to deal with move in to make things all messy and uncomfortable for everyone but good. Not that the family knows anything about that…. They are all just in shock to discover their comfy life is gone for good, and all very pissed at daddy for being the “big loser” who let it happen. Grrrrr!!!

Yep. Right off the back your Favorite Catgirl’s not feeling the love for these characters. Poor Kamal comes across as a relatively nice guy… but a nice guy forced into a bad place by the unrealistic materialism of his two eldest spoiled children Azhari (played by Nizam Zaidi) and Azalia (played by Atikah Suhaimie) and a wife Kalin (played by Ellie Suriaty Omar). They are written as such selfish, self-centered and downright disrespectful people that I took an immediate dislike to them all. Whatever the “Kelibat” was… I sooooo wanted it to hurry and show up to punish them but good.  Not a good sign when the only character in a film that I can have any sympathy at all for is the not-too-bright henpecked husband of a group of snobby pretentious overindulged people like that.

Anyways… Kamal has scraped together enough money to put them up in an old house in the countryside while he tries his darndest to find a way to make ends meet, keep them all fed, and maintain a low profile to throw off the vicious loan shark’s goons while he figures out a way to get a new source of income. The house…. Whoooo! If this is where you go to live when you are flat busted broke in Malaysia, then by goodness, a certain crazy Catgirl would like to join you. It’s an amazing wooden mansion nestled in the jungle near a gorgeous lake… with a footbridge at the front, all these open verandas and several floors of furnished rooms. There’s oodles of vintage gingerbread woodwork trim, and even an indoor pool right in the living room!! I soooo love it!! Our “happy family”? They absolutely hate it! Say what?

Yep. I kid you not. Eldest boy Azhari is pissed that he’s stuck in the sticks with no cell service and forced to eat “kampung” food (Apparently that’s “down home” country cooking… Malay style. Looked pretty darn yummy to me, but what the heck do I know?) instead of the “western” stuff he’s used to back in the city. Eldest daughter Azalia? She’s equally disdainful of all things “kampung” as well… and also pissed that rural Malaysia could care less if she’s got decent internet or cell service. The house? Why…. my goodness… there’s no maid service!! Yep. There’s no way she’s going to do something as “demeaning” as dispose of the odd dead rat or do housework to help out around the place. So, you can see… all in all… these people don’t get it. Their father’s doing his best to keep them afloat… something that you know from the start is probably going to fail… but he’s literally giving it his all. For them. As if that matters to them… at all.

Only this youngest daughter, adorable lil’ Azmeera seems to treat this rambling old house like a new adventure, even when bad stuff starts happening. Which it does pretty quickly. It’s not long before all the standard haunting stuff starts happening… and it’s worth paying attention to all this stuff, as it becomes clearer and neat once the “big reveal” happens and you know what’s really happening to our lil’ dysfunctional family.

With all the strife… and the utter lack of cooperation and understanding on the part of his family, Kamal’s attempts to make things right are doomed. The family unity simply disintegrates until the final insult to him, when his wife decides to abandon him, take the children and leave, presumably to crawl back to her own parents and throw herself on their mercy rather than stick things out with her husband. So much for “for better or worse, in sickness and in health”… maybe the Malay wedding ceremony doesn’t cover that. I’m just still in somewhat of a shock, given how most other Malay films I’ve watched have portrayed a much more solid family unit as the norm. There might be witchcraft… infidelity… and any number of other things might be going on, but you could always expect a Malay family to show basic respect to the family patriarch. Sure you might murder him… and that happens in some stories… but by goodness you show him respect while you are doing it. Here Kamal gets none of that. He’s insulted, verbally berated and abused, even emasculated by his own wife in front of his children. Basically he’s everybody’s whipping boy.

So… (and it’s “Spoiler Time” o’ Gentle Visitors)… when our film finally reaches its climax, it’s no real surprise that Kamal just snaps. Driven to the extreme edge of abject failure, killing them all in one bloody night seems his only choice to end the pain and failure. First he stabs Kalim as she gives him the cold shoulder in bed. Then it’s off to smother whiny Azalia in hers before heading downstairs to drown his disrespectful eldest son Azhari in the pool. Even poor lil’ Azmeera has to die, receiving the kindest death he can give her… a quick poisoning and a father’s gentle loving embrace amid her favorite toys till she’s gone. One vengeful backstabbing later by the dying wife he thought already dead and a fatal neck snapping fall from the roof, and they are all gone to the “Big Sleep”. Then we get our prerequisite “twist” reveal… you see, apparently all this actually happens really early in the film, and remember all that “haunting” that was going on? Seems it was always them… They were apparently unaware they’d died so miserably, and were actually reliving this final scene over and over, perceiving themselves as the ghosts in echoes of what happened in the few days leading up to the murders. It’s sort of neat once it happens… and then all those earlier scenes suddenly make all kinds of sense… although both Carolyn and I sorta saw this idea coming about midway along. But hey… it actually works and in a very simple and easy to grasp way that even us foreigners understood. ;)

Strangely enough, this one ended up being a pretty nice watch for us… even though I absolutely hated most of the characters. That’s a new one for me. Took a few days to sort out exactly why I ended up liking it so well. Much of it has to be the way “Kelibat” itself was filmed. The cinematography is excellent… and the setting… that house deserves a quiet “old school” haunting to make it complete. Seriously. If my sweet wifey and I ever lose it all and hit rock bottom, I know just the perfect place for us to sneak away to for a fresh new uncomplicated life of quiet serenity living on modest means in the warm lovely jungle climes. Even if it does come with the soft whispers of the unquiet dead lingering just out of earshot. ;)

I surprisingly give “Kelibat” 4 “Meows” out of 5. Yep you read it right, o’ Gentle Visitors… This one is still lingering in my mind days after watching it…. and I still can’t exactly pin down why I enjoyed it so. It’s a simple story… with a familiar old ghost story plot notion… filled with characters I didn’t like… but in the softest way, it’s crept into my mind and refuses to leave. It’s just got “something”. Even if I never did figure out just what a “Kelibat” actually is… (Google Translate was no help at all… it tells me that it’s some sort of Indoneasian canoe paddle… :? .)

The DVD? It’s a Region 3 Widescreen formatted disc, with good English subtitles… even for the “Making of” featurette. You should be able to score a very budget friendly disc for yourself right around 10$ US or so at all the usual places. Should you? Hmmmm?…. Surprisingly, I’d say yes, if quiet old ghost stories that are more about the haunting stuff and less about the gore are your thing. Of course… if they aren’t exactly your cup of tea, you are probably reading the wrong silly Catgirl’s Blog, Hehehe!!!

What’s that? Our Trailer? But of course! ;)

Time for another spooky ghost story… this time from south of the border in sunny Mexico with a look at 2013’s crowdfunded independent horror film, “El Eco Del Miedo” aka “The Echo of Fear”. Mexican ghost stories? Sure… your Favorite Catgirl can roll with that. :)

The synopsis goes like this: “A young woman in the middle of an economic crisis, a little girl who is facing a new environment, and a loyal dog that will work as a link between both, all have to spend two nights in a big old house that is falling into ruin. Strange sounds at night and shadows accompanied with threatening echoing noises emerging from darkness are constant in the house. Will they be able to undergo the situation and solve the weird enigma that surrounds the presence that still inhabits the house?”

Creepy old house… pretty young woman waaaay over her head… boyfriend’s cute daughter from a previous marriage with a chip on her shoulder… and loyal dog to protect them both from whatever might seek to do them harm. Oooohhh!! And a haunted doll and vengeful ghostly woman in black lurking just out of sight. Yep, sounds like we got all the right ingredients for your standard horror romp. So… by goodness.. what are we waiting for o’ Gentle Visitors? Let’s all get to it shall we? :)

Crowdfunded independent Mexican horror? Yep… this wee lady is willing to try just about anything in her obsessive quest for more and more foreign horror movie goodies. So when this one popped up on my radar, it wasn’t long before I tracked down a Trailer for it and from what I could tell… low-budget or not… this one looked both scary and interesting. One DVD later and I’d find out for certain. ;)

Naturally… with such a tiny budget… a big cast wasn’t going to happen. I’ve seen this sort of thing before, and actually if it’s well written, a story can benefit from the “less is more” approach. Mind you, that usually means that a heck of a lot of the film hangs on a single main protagonist who will normally get the lion’s share of the screen time available. Have a good actor or actress and you are set… make a bad casting decision and you are sunk. So… who gets that unenviable task and daunting responsibility for this one? That would be Dutch actress Sarah Nichols as our heroine Andrea. Dutch? Really?…. Yep, but don’t worry, apparently being raised in Guadalajara, Mexico has given her perfect fluency in Spanish so she comes across as a credible Mexican local.

So our story… “Inspired by Real Events”… begins as our girl Andrea arrives at the creepy old mansion with her boyfriend’s dog and young daughter in tow. They’re supposed to wait for him there while he struggles to get his final paycheck from an employer to finance their new life together and join them in a few days. Honest… He keeps promising Andrea that: “It’ll just be tomorrow… the money’s almost mine, then I’m soooo there”. Ummmm yeah. This wee lady’s heard that old line before, and who knows? Maybe he’s actually gonna show up. Guess we’ll have to watch and find out.

So anyways. The house. It’s big and rambling and somewhat rundown… and yes… according to the helpful creepy gardener, it’s haunted by the spirit of a crazy old lady who died there. Ahhhh and there’s a story that there’s fortune of gold somewheres about too. Yep… isn’t there always? ;)

Andrea just hates this place. Hates that she’s been saddled with Michel… her boyfriend’s little girl from his previous marriage. The feeling seems mutual as our silent little waif seems pretty darn indifferent to her potential new stepmom too. Only the dog seems welcome companionship for either of them, a vibe which continues as being in the old house starts wearing on Andrea and weird ghostly stuff starts happening more and more frequently. Eventually Andrea comes to beleive the crazy old gardners stories… and the expected sort of ghostly antics pile one on another even as she slowly starts piecing together the tragic history of the old house and the “Woman in Black” who haunts it.

Now this one is a pretty short film… only 77 minutes long… so there really isn’t a lot of time to do too darn much of the “Scooby Doo” stuff, and unfortunently Andrea’s character as written is… ummmm… pretty darn whiny and unlikeable. I mean, the way she petulantly sulks about when she’s not doing the whole “ghost hunting” thing and her constant whiny phonecalls to boyfriend and his ex to basically nag at them to come and do something are indeed a grating and annoying element of our story. Your favorite Catgirl prefers her heroines to show a bit more spunk and pluck when t comes to this sort of stuff and that’s just not the case here.

However… all that stuff aside, you have to give “El Eco Del Miedo” some points for being a really well filmed movie. Cinematography… camera work… and the location all work extremely well for this crowdfunded shoestring budget that out filmakers must have had. It all looks great… and even if I don’t like the chracter of Andrea all that much, I have to admit Sarah Nichols does her best with the script she was given to invest the character with real feeling and reality. All the acting here is downright good… what little cast we have, and even though I twigged on the big “twist” plot element upon which our whole story hangs long before I was probably suppossed to, once it gets revealed it’s a satisfying wrap up for everything. So all in all, it’s 6 of one and a half a dozen of the other as to whether or not the director Sam Reyes pulled it off this time out. I’d tend to say yes… but then quiet old fashioned ghost stories without the crazy violent bloody gore of most modern films are this lady’s preferred cup of tea.

The Region 1 DVD is nice. Presented widesceen and letterboxed in the original Spanish language with excellent separate English subtitles for us gringos in the audience, you ought to be able to score a copy for right around 16-20$ US at most of the expected domestic DVD sources. I rate this one at a comfortable 3 “Meows” out of 5, mostly for being a very professionally done job on a tiny independant film budget. Try it o’ Gentle Visitors… you might like it.

We’ve got a Trailer, complete with English subtitles… enjoy the creepy hijinks!! ;)

A brand spankin’ New Year is upon us, and with the arrival of 2015, it’s time to check back in with the “Zombie Apocalypse” and see what’s up, o’ Gentle Visitors. Don’t want those flesh-eating goons sneaking up on us now do we? ;) This time out, it’s a return to Taipei with the sequel to writer/director Joe Chien’s 2012 “Zombie 108″, a little slice of Zombie storytelling titled “Zombie Fight Club”.

The synopsis goes like this: “It’s the end of the century, in the slums of Taipei in a building riddled with crime. As the Zombie Apocalypse begins, suddenly everyone in the building has begun to turn into zombies. After Jenny’s boyfriend is killed in a zombie attack, she faces the challenge of surviving in the face of adversity. In order to stay alive she struggles with lone SWAT officer Andy to flee the danger. The originally kind and warm-hearted chemistry teacher, after the chaos has broken out, becomes the zombie leader and has transformed into a cruel, vicious and selfish tyrant. His violent henchmen match prisoners against zombies in a malicious killing game, the good side of humanity has seemingly all but vanished. Now that all order is lost, how will humans create a new century?”

I’ve watched the original “Zombie 108″…. and could have sworn I did a review for it, but the Litterbox tells me it’s nowhere to be found. Hmmmm? Maybe now that I’m a crazy old Cat Lady of 42 I’m just having one of those “senior moments” I’ve heard tell of. Who knows? But, by jiminy… I’m reviewing this one, so if you wanna hear the details, then just “Read On” and find out how it all went down.

Yep. The Zombie Apocalypse has finally reached Taiwan. “Zombie Fight Club” basically replays the opening time period of the initial outbreak we saw in “Zombie 108″. This time out we follow a number of groups within one of those rundown low rent apartment buildings that seem to crop up in big cities as all the bad stuff starts to happen and things rapidly go from your ordinary run-of-the-mill day-to-day bad to nightmarish freaking horrifically baaaad. Ummmm… and it all seems awfully familiar too. Deja vu? Nope. It’s just that while making this one, writer/director Joe Chien seems to have a number of other movies stuck in his head….

Ever wonder what the bone crunching martial art police vs gangsters action movie “The Raid” needed to make it even better? Apparently this movie would have you believe adding zombies would make it even more awesome. Yep. basically that’s one of the bigger subplots running through here, as a group of SWAT guys raid the building right as the zombie stuff shows up, and of course they really aren’t here for any real noble reasons. Nope. Seems the unit leader has the idea to bust in on a drug lab within one of the apartments, kill the guys inside, and steal the huge sack of ill-gotten money you always seem to find in a place like that. Our hero, Andy (played by Andy On) is just an ordinary cop who’s not in on the plan, although how he got involved is pretty much glossed over. We just know he’s here to be the kung-fu cop hero of our movie, and end up saving our heroine while fending off his own crooked companions, the vicious gangsters, and all those hungry zombies.

So who is our heroine? Why that would be Jenny (played by Amerasian model and wannabe actress Jessica Cambensy) who is hanging out with her doofy rapper boyfriend (played by Derek Tsang) and his crew of homeboy rappers and their stripper groupies in his apartment where the guys and gals are partying like there’s no tomorrow. Which… given the sudden advent of the Zombie Apocalypse… is ironically appropriate. Sigh… Yep. Just what our movie needed. A plucky sexy bimbo with a heart of gold… and no real substance. Now… this wee lady does understand it’s an “exploitation” film…. I really do… and Miss Cambensy is awfully sexy (or so my sweetie insists… Grrrr!! Darn her and her attraction to petite Asian girls. ;) ) … but I’d have still prefered (and half expected) our heroine to have been the equally attractive messenger girl who is involved with another nefarious group in the building… a bunch of kidnappers holding a businessman for ransom. But no… she’s spunky… she’s cute… but ultimately she’s destined to be Zombie fodder pretty darn quickly once the poo hits the fan.

Jenny, on the other hand lucks out by hooking up with hunky Andy. Good thing too, especially since she seems completely ignorant when it comes to speaking Mandarin and our boy Andy’s pretty darn fluent in English. That had me scratching my head since while delivering all her lines in perfect English, the HK DVD chooses to subtitle her badly in English… Huh? I kid you not. It’s almost the funniest thing in the whole movie as Carolyn and I kept comparing what she was saying with what was being subtitled. Sorta like in a Hindi film when a character swears in English… and is subtitled with something like “Awww, golly darn!!”.

These other storylines… one featuring the kidnappers… one involving the crooked cops… and one involving a school professor and his daughter during her birthday party… keep intersecting and colliding, the body count continuing to rack up as Andy and Jenny struggle to escape the building. You get plenty of CGI enhanced gore and zombie stuff, complete with mutating zombies like in “Resident Evil” (See… more and more plot bits from other movies…). All in all… although it’s not terrifically original, this part is the best part of the film. I found the heavy reliance on CGI gore to be a bit distracting… as it’s nowhere near as seamless or sophisticated as the stuff from “Resident Evil”… but for the most part it works, and even manages to give the film the look of one of those first person shooter video games at times. Hopefully that was the intent.

However… just when we were getting comfortable with the plot, at about the one hour mark our two main characters actually escape from the building during a flashy explosion and our film lurches off the tracks to go barreling off to parts unknown. Suddenly… it’s waaaaaay later on… (or maybe a week later… who the heck knows… or even cares) and our two leads are now the captives of the schoolteacher character who’s inexplicably become the undisputed tyrant ruling the zombie ridden ruins of Taipei with an iron hand along with his gang of “Mad Max” thugs in leather butcher’s aprons and a cadre of dominatrixes in black leather. Their ultimate goal? To run a gladiatorial arena blood sport where human survivors are pitted against hordes of the undead for fun and profit. Huh? What the hell?

Damned if I know how this plot seemed a good idea… or any sort of coherent ending for what’s already been shown. It’s like there were two entirely different films that somehow got crudely sewn together like Frankenstein’s monster and then sent out to rampage through theaters for the hell of it. With not a torch wielding villager to stop it…

Anyways… Andy and Jenny now face the daily threats posed by enslavement at the hands of a madman obsessed with his dead zombie daughter (Yes… yes… just exactly like a certain really popular Zombie TV show on US cable TV… ;) ). There’s torture… sadistic sexual sadism.. and all the human vs zombie MMA cockfighting action that the title originally promised. Not all that much of it, mind you, there’s really only about 30 minutes of movie left by this point after all. So… will our leads survive? Will they somehow escape to rebuild humanity, post-Apocalypse? Do you actually really care? I didn’t… that’s for sure.

Nope. Unfortunently the first rule of “Zombie Fight Club” ought to be “You never… ever… for any reason at all… talk about Zombie Fight Club”. Your Favorite Catgirl likes trashy movies. I really…. really… REALLY… do. But I can’t say I liked this. I give it a paltry 2 “Meows” out of 5 for failing to do its job… or holding its focus… or… well… really anything with its premise. It’s a polished proffessionally made film… just not a very good one. I guess what “Zombie Fight Club” is trying best to do, is to show us all just how f*cked Taipei is gonna be once the Zombie Apocalypse gets going. Yep. I certainly plan to be elsewhere when it all starts to go south… trust me.

The DVD? Well, the HK Region 3 is NTSC widescreen formatted with reasonable… if somewhat goofy and inaccurate (as well as superfluous at times) English subtitles. You can pick up a copy easily for right around 15 $ US if for some reason you’d actually still want to after what this Catgirl’s just related…

Yep, and of course there’s a Zombie filled Trailer to give you the general notion of what’s what… so here goes! ;)

Time for a lil’ change of pace… and this time, a movie with my sweet Carolyn in mind. She’s a really… really… good sport about dealing with her goofy wife’s obsession with subtitled foreign film. Yep… it’s just sooo darn adorable how much she’s willing to put up with this wee Catgirl’s crazy movie tastes. ;) So for her, we recently had ourselves a “Movie Nite: Romance Edition”…. with a look at 2014’s big budget blockbuster Hindi film “Bang Bang!”.

Our synopsis? How’s this? “When the enigmatic Rajveer draws shy bank receptionist Harleen into a wild chase around the globe, she has little choice but to trust him when he claims that he’s the good guy, and will protect her at all costs. Meanwhile, with danger at every turn and her feelings for him growing more serious, can she truly trust the mysterious jewel thief who has stolen her heart?”

Before silly lil’ me came into her life, I imagine my sweet wifey could count the number of foreign-made movies she’d seen on the fingers of one hand… now it’s a rare evening that we ever watch something made domestically, unless we’re cuddling up for some actual TV shows. You’d never know it if you ever just casually met my Carolyn… she’s so cool… so calm… so utterly no-nonsense and serious… but deep inside she’s a big softie with a secret hidden desire for romantic movies. Well… if it’s one thing Hindi films do and do well… it’s generously slather on the romance along with all that singing and dancing they usually do. Throw in some big budget action, exotic locales, a bit of comedy and I just knew this one would be up her alley… and it’s a remake of an American film she’s actually seen. Win-win if you ask me. ;) So what are you waiting for o’ Gentle Visitors? Let’s all go “Bang Bang!”…

So, this one is a remake of a big budget Hollywood film… and an authorized one at that… not surprising given 20th Century Fox’s involvement through their Hindi subsidiary Fox Star studios. Now both Carolyn and I had already seen the Tom Cruise/ Cameron Diaz version of this one, 20th Century Fox’s 2010 “Knight & Day”, a few years back. I wasn’t all that impressed with it… and I think that was my sweetie’s general feeling as well. There just wasn’t that “chemistry”… that certain “zing”… between Cruise and Diaz that could sell the story… and a Romance story is all about the “chemistry”. If it’s not there… with that sizzle and smoldering feeling of real desire… a romantic film is doomed to failure.

I have to say… when I discovered this one during one of my usual shopping sprees for Hindi horror, I almost gave it a pass. But… darn it… Indian DVD’s are just soooo dang inexpensive. That, and I’m always promising my sweetheart I’d find us some movies without ghosts, monsters, aliens, or ninjas. (You mean there really are movies without any of those? ;) ) Sigh… Given that, how could I not give this one a try?

Happily, I’m glad to say it was a risk worth taking. “Bang Bang!” ditches the ridiculous plot of the original for a much leaner, much more Hindi style story framed around the basic premise of the original… “shy ordinary “Good Girl” meets hunky mysterious “Bad Boy” for adventure and romantic hijinks”. This time out we get exotic, dark-haired Katrina Kaif as our heroine, shy pretty bank receptionist Harleen Sahani, who gets drawn into a plot involving international terrorist Omar Zafar (played by Danny Denzongpa). Violent Omar masterminds a vicious escape from police custody in the UK resulting in the death of dedicated Indian Army officer Colonel Viren Nanda (played by Jimmy Shergill) and then offers a $5 million reward for an Indian thief to steal the Kohinoor diamond from the Tower of London in an effort to stoke Indian nationalism and destroy all chances of a proposed extradition treaty between the UK and India becoming a reality. Simple, eh?

That first sequence, with its horde of evil mercenary thugs blasting their way in and out of the high security MI6 detention prison, is well done. It looks like something right out of a James Bond film and gave me the comfortable feeling the producers were definitely ready to go all out for the budget for this film, and they seemed willing to keep that impression going as the film progressed.

While all this is happening, back in India, our heroine Harleen has come to the unpleasant realization that her life… particularly her love life… are passing her by and she’s in real danger of ending up old and alone. But what’s a socially awkward shy woman to do about that? Certainly not get involved with her bank’s sleazy Lothario of a manager Karan Saxena (played by Pratik Dixit)… and the singles bar scene is sooo not her thing. Well… ummmm… So, how about internet dating?

After setting up a blind date with a potential suitor, “Vickie”, she runs into our dashing jewel thief Rajveer (played by Hrithik Roshan) while he’s hiding out from Omar’s goons after a handover of the diamond goes terribly, terribly wrong. It’s the old “mistaken identity” plot of course… with Harleen mistaking him for the date she’s arranged and Rajveer instantly smitten with the pretty woman he’s run into by accident and in need of a place to hide. We’ve seen it all before, but as is usually the case in these sorts of films, it works on that basic level to get the ball rolling.

Which it does… Naturally both the Indian Security services as well as Omar’s mercenaries jump to the conclusion that Harleen is somehow involved deeply with the roguish mysterious and quirky Rajveer. That puts her in serious danger. Luckily for her, Rajveer keeps popping up to save her… as well as get her even deeper in trouble. The chemistry is pretty good… with Harleen constantly in that state of confusion over whether or not her new mystery man really is a good guy, a certifiable nutjob, or a villain at heart. (Early on you’ll be thinking it might be all three… kind of like Han Solo meets James Bond gone off his meds, big time…)

There are the expected car chases, gun fights, globe hopping to exotic locals such as tropical Thailand, exotic Greece, Prague, and Abu Dhabi, all done with that ease that if this wee Catgirl was to think tooo much about it would have me wondering just how they manage it while being pursued by every police agency in the world. It’s best not to think about it…. the improbability of it just gets in the way and ruins the fun. Just accept it as some sort of “spy thing”…. ;)

Again… all this big action and world travel give “Bang Bang!” a look that tells you they had a big budget here and certainly weren’t afraid to spend it. The stunt work and action stuff is really good, giving Hrithik Roshan a chance to strut his stuff and he makes the most of it. He’s got a smoldering, brooding look about him with sinfully green eyes and five o’clock shadow that screams “action hero”…. Ooooohhh!! And some of the hunkiest abs this wee lady’s seen in quite a while. (Seriously!! There were a couple of times Carolyn caught me staring and gave me a playful nudge to remind me just who’s my “one and only”. Hey… I might be married… but a girl can look… ;) ) Yep, our boy Rajveer is a lean mean macho machine… and I honestly could watch him chop wood shirtless for hours… Sorry sweetie, your kitten loves ya dearly, but this guy is a serious hunk. ;)

As our couple do that dance that lovers always do in one of these stories… on again… off again… almost in love, but not quite trusting the others intentions… we eventually figure out that Rajveer is really trying to use the Kohinoor to lure Omar out of hiding for reasons of his own. I can’t really go into what those reasons are, but they end up making sense by the climax, a last-minute rescue of our damsel-in-distress, Harleen from evil Omar’s desert fortress.

So will our hero turn out to really be a hero? Will our slimy villain get his? Will the Kohinoor get returned safe and sound and India and the UK make nice again? Most importantly… will our two lovers finally work it all out before that final big dance sequence at the end? Pssssh. People..people… c’mon…  it’s a Hindi romance film. ;)

So how did this one go down for us then? Well… as remakes go… it’s actually a pretty good lil film. Certainly the romantic paring of Karina Kaif and the yummy Hrithik Roshan blows the competition away in the elusive “chemistry” department. (Sorry Tom and Cameron… but it’s just soooo true.) The story here is leaner… more “Indian”… and just a bit more simplistic… but it works better too. There’s enough really well done action to satisfy action junkies too. They keep the best bits from that earlier film and throw in quite a few of their own. Oooooh!! And I must award a special Nekoliscious “Purrr” of Happyness for the amazing waterborne chase sequence as our hero and heroine make their getaway from Thailand at one point in the story. It features this crazy bit where our hero Rajveer uses some sort of insane jet-ski/ waterboard thingee to run rings around his pursuers while doing that HK inspired “gun-fu bullet ballet” action films just love. I’m not certain if it was real… or clever CGI and wirework… or just what the heck it was, but “Boy, howdy!!”, it’s an amazing sequence that just screams “spy gadget” and would have looked perfect in a James Bond film. Bravo!!

I ended up liking this film. Certainly a whole lot better than I liked it’s Hollywood original. My sweetie did too… even agreeing, somewhat grudgingly that Hrithik was definitely the hunkiest hero we’ve seen in a long while in any movie. Both of us liked the romance, the exotic fun and flair… and even the musical interludes that wove throughout the film as spicy little nuggets of fun rather than jarring interruptions. With that… although others may be less impressed, I feel comfy in awarding “Bang Bang!” a firm 4 “Meows” out of 5 for giving us both a harmless fluffy evening of fun and romance and a couple of pretty catchy tunes. Yep. That certainly works for me. Want your own copy? That’s easily sorted, with the Region Free widescreen Hindi DVD available with those super nice English subtitles you want for right around 10$. Gotta love a bargain!

Yep… there’s a Trailer, a big loud one, with lots of reasons to explain why this one was so appropriately titled “Bang Bang!”. ;)

Whooo-hoo!! Finally an afternoon off, and time for a way overdue Review. This time it’s off to the Philippines for a look at the 2012 Star Cinema release by director Chito S. Roño, “The Healing”. I’ve had this one lurking around in my “to watch” pile for a year or so… but for one reason or another, it just never seemed to make its way into the ol’ DVD player. Well… that was awfully lazy of me, but thankfully I’ve remedied that lil’ oversight. ;)

The synopsis goes like this : “Seth witnesses a miracle when her paralyzed father is healed by Manang Elsa, a rural faith healer in the Provinces. Her neighbors, many of whom suffer from various maladies, plead with her to bring them to Elsa for the same treatment that cured her father. Jed, Seth’s perturbed son, asks his mother for help for his half-sister Cookie, her ex-husband’s daughter from his new marriage, and desperately pleads to join them as well. Reluctantly, Seth agrees, and all goes well at first, but soon after strange things begin to happen… leading to horror and death for all those involved. Feeling ultimately responsible for it all, Seth desperately seeks a way to end the curse before more tragedy can occur. But will she act quickly enough to stop the curse before it claims yet another life?”

Hmmm?? From the Trailer, this one looked to be a fusion of Catholic Faith Healing traditions with local Philippine witchcraft and ghost folklore. Don’t know exactly why I’ve waited so long to give it a watch, as it seems right up a certain crazy Catgirl’s alley. But hey… I’ve fixed that now, so if you wonder if it might also be a movie you need to hunt down, let’s get right to it and find out if it’s worth a look-see for any of you Gentle Visitors. :)

Faith Healing. Not being much of a religious woman myself, I’ve never really been into any of that sort of thing. Always sounded a bit sketchy to this wee lady… but in some places in the world they set real stock by such things. Naturally that means the whole topic is perfect fodder for a good exploitative horror story. Yay! ;)

So… you’d think Faith Healing should be a good thing, right? Making blind people see… fixing lil’ crippled Jimmy’s legs… getting rid of that nasty gross warty thing on sweet lil’ Sally’s cheek that makes babies cry and strong men vomit when they see it. Yeah… all that sort of stuff. I mean, how can something as definitely good… like healing people… end up causing all sorts of nasty horrible things to start going sooo sooo badly? Well, apparently… as with all things religiously themed… there are certain rules to be followed, and things you have to avoid unless you want problems to pop up and spoil it all. “The Healing” is about just such a no-no and the bad stuff that follows from making even the teeniest tiniest mistake.

Apparently the biggest sort of no-no is using your Holy gift to bring back the dead, something that poor Manang Elsa (played by Daria Ramirez) does by accident right before Seth (played by Vilma Santos) brings all her friends and Cookie (played by Kim Chiu) to get themselves healed. (Big hint here… if you are a certified wonder-working Faith Healer, don’t do it while you are all tired and worn out, otherwise you won’t notice that the poor heart attack guy you are healing is already dead before you work the “miracles thing”. Neko’s just sayin… ;) ) Anyways, after she revives that guy, he’s not really that guy anymore. Nope. Seems there are all sorts of nasty demonic things lurking around just waiting for the chance to grab a body. Once they do, the Healer is cursed and the demon possessed guy will keep himself alive by sending out “doppelgänger” of all the folk you heal after him one by one to kill them and everybody who gets in their way, just so he can suck up their life-force to sustain his Undead existence. Awwww crap… Couldn’t be something easier to deal with like all the folk just getting a really nasty rash or somethin’…

Well… a nasty rash wouldn’t make for much of a horror movie, but homicidal doppelgängers certainly do! It doesn’t take long for people to start getting killed by these horrible duplicates who then go on crazy homicidal killing sprees before being killed themselves and releasing all that life energy to keep Dario (played by Jhong Hilario), the guy who died from the heart attack, alive. For some reason unknown to her, Seth always gets premonitions of these doppelgängers right before they go in search of their victims. Mind you… it takes Seth quite some time to work all this out, and by the time she does, it’s too late. Manang Elsa is already dead, butchered by the possessed Dario and burned to ashes in her house back in the Province. The cops catch Dario and stick him in jail, but the Undead thing possessing him could care less… it can still work it’s evil from the jail cell where he’s being held and the cops don’t buy the whole “demon possession” angle for an instant. Worse… all her friends and neighbors start falling victim to the curse one by one as each gets replaced by their duplicate who then immediately goes on a violent murderous rampage. Plenty of chopping, stabbing, shooting, and other gory action ensues.

So what’s the solution to all this misery? Well, Manang Elsa’s brother Melchor (played by Joel Torre) survived the deady fire that killed his sister and wife, and once she tracks him down, he tells Seth that the evil cycle can indeed be broken if Dario… the Undead thing who should not be… is killed. Ok, seems easy enough. But can Seth bring herself to commit murder? Even to save those she loves? Will anybody survive? Guess you’ll have to watch it yourself to find out. ;)

All in all, this one turned out to be a fairly nice little horror story. Not difficult to follow, with some wacky folklore mashing together some Christian themes with a lot of local traditional stuff in a way that worked for the most part. Much of the story involves a bit of domestic tension between Seth and her ex-husband Val (played by Mark Gil) and his wife Bles (played by Carmi Martin) regarding her interference in his new marriage and his daughter, but doesn’t get in the way of the scares. In fact, I’m not certain why that particular plot element even existed, given that the story would have worked fine without it.

The effects are done with some well utilized CGI, which lets our doppelgängers do some crazy boogedy buggy eyed stuff to creep you out while they are stalking their victims. It’s simple, yet freaky and works pretty darn well overall. The murders? Well, Philippine films don’t do the ultra bloody stuff that Thai horror loves to slather on, but the suggestion is certainly there and as usual, less is more when it’s properly done.

With that, I’d give “The Healing” a respectable 3 “Meows” out of 5 for being a simple workable horror movie that certainly entertained this crazy Catgirl and her sweetie on a cold winter’s evening of movie watchin’. I’ve seen better but, by goodness, I’ve also seen far, far worse. The DVD? I saw this on on the “International Director’s Cut” version, although I’ve no idea what makes that version different than the Theatrical release. There’s still not much real gore to be seen in the film itself, and nothing out of the ordinary in the “Special Features” department. Still, it’s Region 1, presented in widescreen letterbox format, in the original Tagalog language with those absolutely perfect English subtitles I’ve come to expect. Can’t really ask for more. All for right around 10-15$ US too.

Yep, and last but not least… there’s a Trailer of course, and naturally your Favorite Catgirl’s got you covered… ;)

Brrrrr!!! The weather hereabouts is simply atrocious these last few weeks! Thank goodness your Favorite Catgirl can still escape the frigid miserable cold with a warm and cuddly evening on the couch snuggled under a wooly blankie with my dearest Carolyn and my kitty and enjoy some chills of a whole different sort. This time out? How about another virtual trip “South of the Border” with a look at the recently released Mexican remake of director Carlos Enrique Taboada’s 1975 horror classic “Más Negro Que La Noche” aka “Darker Than The Night”.

Our synopsis? “Greta is a beautiful young woman whose eccentric aunt Ofelia passes away leaving her a large, once opulent mansion. When Greta moves in with her friends she discovers that as a stipulation of the will, she must take care of her aunt’s prized black cat, Beker. The new residents take charge of the mansion, throwing wild parties and enjoying a fun-filled summer until they lose track of Beker – who drowns in the mansion’s pool. What was about to be the best summer of their lives quickly turns into a spine-chilling fight for their lives as eerie events from the past return to haunt them and it seems none of them is safe from Ofelia’s ghostly wrath.”

Old haunted mansion… creepy black cat… vengeful spirits from beyond the grave… Oh yes… Definitely sounds like a pretty close remake of the original, which your Favorite Catgirl watched some time back, but will this one be as creepy and neat as the original classic? Only one way to find out, o’ Gentle Visitors… :)

Yours truly has been patiently awaiting this particular one for quite some time. I loved the original by director Carlos Enrique Taboada, and with both of his earlier horror efforts, “Hasta El Viento Tiene Miedo” and “El Libro De Piedra” having gone the route of being “re-imagined” for a modern audience, I knew it wouldn’t be long before they got around to this one as well. My biggest worry? That it wouldn’t be released with subtitles… unfortunately that happened for the remake of “El Libro De Piedra” (One I’m still trying to source subtitles for… Grrrr!!) and I hoped I’d dodge that this time out. Luckily for me, this one got picked up for a Region 1 release by Lionsgate… Yay!! Heck… I even got to buy it at out local Walmart… With this lady’s crazy foreign movie tastes that almost never happens…

One locally sourced DVD later… was it all worth it? :?

Well… thankfully I didn’t have the nasty 3D of the theatrical release to deal with on the DVD, so once things got underway it was very easy to settle right into the story… pretty much exactly the same story as the original. Almost… ;)

So this time out Aunt Ofelia (played by Lucía Guilmáin) dies of a sudden heart attack at her creepy mansion and her niece Greta (played by Zuria Vega) is the one to inherit her estate… and yes, her beloved kitty cat Beker too. Greta is completely surprised by this, given that she hasn’t really seen her aunt since she was a child, but seeing as she’s preparing to get married to her long time boyfriend Pedro (played by José María Torre), it’s a nice serendipitous windfall for the couple.

So, faster than you can say “¡Corre! Más rápido!”, our Greta moves right in with her bestest girlfriends. Ummm… and here’s where things start getting annoying for me… Greta seems really nice. She’s sweet, smart, spunky, and darkly pretty with flowing wavy hair and those deep soulful eyes that suck you in. Basically the sort of girl, if she were a real person, that I could probably be friends with. So… why in heck does she have such terrible tastes in BFF’s? I mean… really?

These girls she hangs with… Mostly they are just terrible people. Her closest friend, Pilar (played by Eréndira Ibarra) is so totally unlike Greta… loud and pushy and dresses like some dance club groupie. She’s openly lesbian too… with an easily seen crush on Greta and some hints that they might just have given things a try once upon a time before Pedro came into the picture. They even have these matching tattoos… (Yes, yes. I know… But what horror movie doesn’t have its token lipstick lesbians? ;) ). But as a couple they don’t seem to have the slightest thing in common, or any chemistry either as friends or ex-lovers… I can’t for the life of me see why they are close. That hint of a previous sexual relationship (Unless Caroyn and I both read it wrong…) doesn’t even become important to the plot. But at least throughout the whole film, Pilar really is her friend or at least tries to be even when she figures out Greta and dead Ofelia are becoming one and the same. A shame you just know she’s gonna die just like all the rest….

Then there’s Maria (played by Adriana Louvier). She’s the stereotypical tortured artisté and writer of cheesy horror stories. But she’s also a whiny self-centered drama queen who seeminly hangs with Greta to have a place to stay and someone to foot the bills. Some basis for a friendship…

Last but not least, there’s Vicky (played by Ona Casamiquela). She’s nothing but a conniving backstabbing slut. Period. Her only reason for being here seems to be to try to steal away Pedro… which of course she manages without even breathing hard.. just to prove to herself she can. Yeah.. Pedro… he’s just such a “Prince Charming”…

So with this dysfunctional group of girls, what’s the best idea they can come up with when gifted with a mansion in the country? Why throw a stupid rave party and invite every “20-something” deadbeat in Mexico to come and trash the place. Yeah… that’s certainly gonna score points with Aunt Ophelia’s old family retainer and faithful maid Evangelina (played by Margarita Sanz). Sigh… No wonder your Favorite Catgirl couldn’t wait for them to start to die.

That all goes pretty much as one might expect, but here our story moves away from the original a bit. In Taboada’s 1975 version, it’s the death of Beker (or Bequer as he was named in that one) that fuels the “beyond the grave” vengeance of our dead old lady. Here the kitty also dies, killed by Maria in revenge for Beker’s munching down on her beloved pet ferret, but the rationale behind Ofelia’s hatred seems more centered around a modern “replay” of the infidelity and tragic betrayal she suffered regarding her marriage to a philandering playboy she catches in a tryst with a pretty housemaid on their wedding day. Once our stupid boy Pedro and slutty Vicky start “knocking boots” behind Greta’s back, it’s only a matter of time before Ofelia’s spirit starts possessing Greta and driving her to murder those around her to get revenge.

Here’s where the movie is at it’s best. There’s oodles of dark brooding atmosphere as well as the usual ghostly hijinks as one by one our cast all fall victim. The feelings of dread and the ghostly appearances of Beker and Ofelia keep ratcheting up and it isn’t long before you know that, unlike the 1975 original, this time out ain’t nobody gonna escape the horrors unscathed.

Although, to my mind, the old idea of “revenge over a lover’s betrayal” seemed unnecessary, it does work better I think in a modern context than the simpler idea of the ghost of Ofelia seeking vengeance over the cruel murder of her beloved pet as the only motivation here. That plot worked well in the 70’s… a simpler and more innocent time… but really doesn’t have enough “meat” by itself for a modern updating. Mind you… I have my own personal reasons for feeling a certain kinship with Ofelia and Greta throughout. Yep. Not ashamed to say it. This wee lady soooo wanted Pedro and Vicky to die. I wanted it to be messy… I wanted it to be painful… I just plain wanted it to happen. Badly. Sometimes revenge is a guilty pleasure for a movie watching audience, and I can honestly say I was feeling it with this one. (My Ex-fiancé should be soooo glad this cat loving lady has found herself happiness and moved on…. otherwise my crazy lil’ imagination could make me a very cranky ghost should I unexpectedly shuffle off this Mortal coil… Trust me… Asian ladies understand “begrudged ghosts”… ;) )

However, be that as it may, I’d have to admit that for most people you probably aren’t going to find much going on here to provoke that kind of reaction. It’s a well made film… just not the classic that the original was. The effects are good. The acting… well even if most of the characters are pretty unsympathetic and downright nasty… is respectable. Of particular note, Margarita Sanz as Evangelina captures that very “neo-gothic” characterization of creepy maid to perfection. She’d be perfectly at home in an old Hammer horror film… one of those gloriously B&W Universal monster movies of the 40’s… or even one of those garish bloody Technicolor Euro-horror exploitation films of the 70’s. Some things are timeless. ;) Heck, Carolyn first thought our creepy housekeeper would turn out to be the crazy homicidal killer behind everything if all the ghostly stuff turned out to be a big bunch of hooey.

Given that, it’s fair to give this remake a respectable 3 “Meows” out of 5. Had it actually found more for our ghostly kitty to do I might have squeaked out another few purrs, but this time out poor Beker was really nothing more than a supporting cast than a headliner. Sorry… I’m just a sucker for killer kitties… :)

The DVD? Well the Region 1 by Lionsgate does this one good. It’s Widescreen, in the original Spanish language with decent English subtitles just the way I likes them. You should be able to snag your own copy for right around 10-15$ US in the most accessable of places. Sweet. Not a classic, but definitely worth a look if you liked the original and ghost stories and tales of “Revenge from Beyond” are your thing.

And yes… there’s a suitably creepy Trailer available for your viewing pleasure. Courtesy of YouTube and your Favorite Catgirl Princess… ;)

“California: 1981 – A blazing sun beat down on the land, raising rippled heatwaves on the horizon as intrepid jungle explorer Miyuki lay in the tall grass and watched the animals drink at the nearby waterhole. To the uninspired eye, they might have seemed nothing more than a couple of stray mongrel dogs lapping away at a puddle leftover from last night’s cooling rain, but little Miyuki knew better…. Squinting her eyes, the haze revealed that they were in fact tawny lions slaking their thirst before the hunt. But there were other foes… more savage than even these… lurking amid the savanna grass… for somewhere nearby she knew the deadly warriors of the Mkombé tribe were hot on her trail, fiercely angry at her for daring to trespass onto their tribal lands in search of Professor Samuels and his lost safari…”

Yep… that’s pretty much how the Summer of 1981 went for this lady. Warm sultry days playing about in the grassy meadows on the edge of my neighborhood and nearby park, dressed in my “safari outfit” and totting around an old leather purse full of snacks and all my “jungle stuff”. Very few things can compare to an 8 ½ year old’s imagination… especially a wee girl so full of wonder and wild imagination as I had back then. While other kids played… most days I spent “having adventures”. Sometimes along with other kids in the neighborhood, but often times all alone. Back then was a simpler time, and you could actually do that without worrying about any crazy kidnapping psycho jumping out and snatching a kid away.

Those adventures were fueled by a plethora of Saturday morning TV filled with old movies, serials, and oodles of Black & White adventure stories from decades past. Along with horror movies and my afternoon Kung-Fu films, these were the things that shaped this odd lil lady into the goofy woman she is today. Once in a great while I’d even go to a Saturday afternoon movie matinée at our local theater if either my Grandma or Dad could be convinced to take me. Oh my goodness, yes… and it was the Summer of 1981 when lil’ Miyuki first encountered Indiana Jones… ;)

Recently my mind has slipped back to those carefree days and all the fond memories I have of them, so it seemed only fitting to share them all with you Gentle Visitors by doing a “Nekolishous” review of that classic adventure film…. and… to gently pester my fellow blogging friends to share their own reminiscences as well. So without further adieu, let’s get right to it! :)

It was my Grandma that got to be the lucky one to take her goofy granddaughter to the movies that week. American movies weren’t my Grandma’s cup of tea, but any time she could spend with me was time she always seemed to treasure. From the poster outside with its fedora clad Harrison Ford swinging his whip, I’m certain she had the idea we were going to see one of the Westerns my Dad favored on television. Boy… was Grandma in for a surprise…. ;)

I’d seen the ads leading up to this one, or so my memory tells me now, but even lil’ Miyuki wasn’t ready for the non-stop thrill ride that ensued once the lights went down. That opening sequence… those grimy explorers… the sweltering green jungles of South America… the creepy old Incan tomb and those crazy deathtraps!! The atmosphere of it all captured the old cliffhanging serials perfectly!! Instantly I was hooked.

The character of Indiana Jones was certainly a surprise. I wasn’t sure at first if he was going to be the hero… or if he was going to be more like Clint Eastwood’s “Man With No Name”. I mean… he was brave and daring… but he was also more than a bit of a rogue and a tomb robber to boot. Only the presence of his rival swooping in to steal away his golden idol at the crucial moment… the evil Belloq (played by Paul Freeman) clued you in… lil’ Miyuki had seen his type before in one or two Black & White Film Noir movies. Now… he was a villain. Even Grandma caught right on to that… Once he abandoned Indy to the dubious “mercy” of the Hovito Indians and their deadly blowguns you just knew who to root for. ;)

That entire sequence… while it doesn’t really have any connection to the main story other than to introduce the character of Indy… always reminds me of those nifty opening bits in a James Bond film. Neat stunts, a thrill a minute right from the start, and given “Raiders” concept as a modern-day “cliffhanger serial” helps give it that authentic feeling that somehow you are just joining into an adventure story already in progress.

The 1930’s were an era waaaay before this wee Catgirl’s time, but luckily all those old B&W serials I watched on TV as well as oodles of old war movies gave lil’ Miyuki a pretty good grasp of the period. It didn’t take long to come up to speed and once I found out there were Nazis in this one… well… now there are some serious “bad guys”. This is probably the smartest choice “Raiders” could have made. Nazis make great villains. They are about the only single group that just about anybody can agree are unrepentantly evil. Most of the other pulp fiction that inspired “Raiders” was filled with some fairly stereotypical racist notions… the “Yellow Peril” of the likes of Dr. Fu Manchu and the other inscrutable Asians of the genre… fairly unfavorable roles for blacks as jungle savages… and just about every other possible racially offensive role for other foreigners as well. But Nazis… Heck, those guys just about beg to be hated… ;)

Lil’ Miyuki wasn’t as clued in on the prize though… the “Ark of the Covenant”. I wasn’t raised in a particularly religious household. I knew most of the basics of the Christian faith, but this one was a bit obscure for lil’ ol’ me. Luckily for me and Grandma, the movie throws in a pretty quick little explanation of that icon sufficient for the needs of the story. Heck… all I needed to hear was “big old magical gold box” that the Nazis wanted. That was enough to satisfy me! After that, away Indy went, to solve all those clues and hunt it down before the evil guys could grab it.

Now… “Raiders” is also a romance story too. Something wee Miyuki was less than interested in, but at least they didn’t saddle the story with some pretty useless girl who would mostly exist to get into trouble. Nope… Marion Ravenwood (played by Karen Allen) was a surprising breath of fresh air. She was pretty… but also feisty, foul-mouthed, not afraid to get a little dirty, and more than a match for Indy at his best. She was a whole lot less of a supporting character and more of a partner in this adventure and someone I remember being very impressed with. (Although Grandma thought she was a very unladylike heroine… ;) )

Now the fun stuff got going! There were fist fights, car chases, plenty of whip snapping, some more deathtraps, lots more Nazi thugs, and…. cobras! By this time I was bouncing around in my seat so excited that my Grandma had to keep shushing me and telling me to calm down and behave. I know she wasn’t enjoying things as much as I… and plenty of scenes had her frowning and making her most disapproving face. Sorry Grandma…. ;)

By the time we got to that big climactic “Wrath of God’ ending with holy spirit/ghost thingees and melting Nazi faces lil’ Miyuki was already considering archaeology as a possible career choice. (I went through lots and lots of those phases as a little girl… to this day I think the most disappointed I ever was might have been to discover that “meteorology” had absolutely nothing to do with meteors….  :) )

So… when the lights finally went up, I’d have to say this afternoon was certainly a day well spent. Lil’ Miyuki was in movie heaven!! Although Grandma didn’t enjoy the film as much as me, I know the big hug I gave her for taking me made her as happy as she could be. It was all I could talk about for days… much to my Mom’s horror… It stuck with me too… and for the rest of that Summer, there were elements of “Raiders” that crept into my play as I roamed around the neighborhood. Occasionally a big delivery truck rolling down the street got “identified” as a truck full of Nazi soldiers… a big old gravel hole by the park became a deadly pit trap that I had to leap over at least once a day. I made a blowgun out of an old curtain rod and shot the garage door full of “poisoned” darts made from finishing nails… (Sorry Dad… ;) ) There was a brief fascination with the whip… until I managed to snap myself in the face with a length of clothesline. (Yes… yes… nearly taking an eye out… So you really were right, Mom… Just this once… ;) )

So… for me at least… “Raiders” scored a big home run, 5 “Meows” out of 5. The acting.. the stunt work and special effects… all top-notch, with a great classic story that truly captured the sense of fun those old serials had. Even now, years along, grown up me can still watch it again and again. So what if the sequels never really captured that same wild sense of thrilling adventure the way the first film did. Indiana Jones will always stand tall as one of this lady’s fondest childhood heroes. One of the ads claimed “If Adventure has a name, it must be Indiana Jones”…. They had never been sooooo right. ;)

*****

So those are the childhood memories of your favorite goofy Catgirl movie fan. In the next week or so, I’m hoping to get some more reminiscences from my fellow Blogging friends, Stephen of “Gweilo Ramblings” and Miss Novia Rozet of “Polychrome Interest” to add. It will be interesting to see how they remember this one… and wether or not they were influenced quite as strongly as me. (Hehehe… couldn’t be possible… lil’ Miyuki was just an absolutely crazy lil’ girl… ) Got any fond memories of your very own? Well then chime right in and comment… I’ll be happy to share them too!

*****

And now, the “British Experience”, courtesy of our good friend and Blogging buddy, Stephen from “Gweilo Ramblings”. Take it away Stephen!!

“Me and Mr Jones. I’d really love to say I was first in the queue in 1981 when “Raiders of the Lost Ark” came to the cinema over here in the UK. Sadly, the truth is, it would be a few years before I watched it. In 1981 I was 10 years old, and living in the deep West Sussex countryside. There were two cinemas, a visit to either would have involved outside assistance. Closest was a single screen in Cranleigh (no longer there), which was only possible if my father drove me there (Mum didn’t drive then). He wasn’t much of a movie-lover, but I do remember seeing “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Superman 2″ with him there in this sort of timeframe. Horsham also had a single screen, and could be gotten too by train, but little Stephen wasn’t quite able to make his way there on his own yet. That was the place I saw my first ever film (a re-issue of “Bambi”, and yes, I cried when the Mum got killed), and a few years later I would see the third Indiana Jones film there. So the earliest I would be able to see it was going to be Christmas 1984 when it was going to be the film premiere of the evening on ITV.

Some context for younger/non-British readers I guess is needed. Back in 1981 we had 4 Channels. The BBC has two, there was the Commercial ITV, and the very fledgling Channel 4. And none of them broadcast much past 11pm. Once you factored in news broadcasts, soap operas and various sporting events, you can see even watching a movie on TV was a rare thing indeed. So a big movie on TV? That was honestly a real event. Other than a Western or something like “Dr Zhivago” or “Laurence of Arabia” during a sunday afternoon? It was the province of the holiday season. And the big movies would take about 3 years to reach the Television set. In glorious 4:3 Pan and Scan, in Mono. But still, the Christmas movie was a big battle between BBC1 and ITV each year. And the whole family would settle down and watch it together. Except… I am fairly sure I didn’t watch it that year.

I reckon I might have seen it on VHS a year or so later, not at home (another thing our household was late to was the Home Video Market), but probably at a friends house. Thing is, there are things I remember about it vividly. The theme tune for one. I can honestly say it is my favorite theme tune of any movie. The Star Wars or Superman themes might be more famous, and the Jaws one more evocative, but when I poped on my DVD to refresh my memory the other day, I even left the menu playing for a couple of hours just so I could hear those opening few bars repeated over and over. I also remember Indy’s hatred of snakes. I probably hadn’t even seen a snake in the flesh at this point, but it was a fear I could share. That creepy Nazi guy who gets his hand burnt by the heated amulet and whose face melts down at the end? I always remember him! And to be fair, I had no idea of the saturday morning serial that the film was homaging.

One thing that struck me upon rewatching it was how utterly ropey it was in the details. In 1936, the American Government wouldn’t have given a rats ass about what Hitler was up to. The Germans would not have been able to have been in Egypt at all. The maps that are shown in the film are utterly wrong. The planes used couldn’t have made the trips they are meant to. Most of those snakes were not native to Africa. I was an annoying little pedant back in the 1980’s too, so I don’t know if I would have played some spot-the-error game with my mates.

I had forgotten that Denholm Elliot was in it. He was in a ton of American films back then. Now, just about every American film and TV show has some kind of British Actor in it. Back then? He seemed to be the only person from these shores who turned up with any regularity. And then we have Karen Allen as Marion. What a feisty little minx she was, utterly typical of the actresses of that time. Funny thing is.. this was a huge smash, and is contantly in the top 10 lists, but her career never really took off. I know she turned up in the belated 4th installment. But we don’t talk about that right?

The way the film just goes from set piece to set piece, with little character development? It’s very un-Speilberg. You can feel the script of George Lucas just leaping onto the screen. But then all the set pieces are just great. And it’s all real stunts. No CGI here. Sure there’s a little bit of time lapse photography and Mattes and so on. But this is a movie that might be nonsense and fantastical, but it really feels rather real. It genuinely looks hot where it is meant to. And cold and snowy where it is meant to. It looks like people are suffering (cue the anaecdote about a sick Harrison Ford asking to change THAT scene..). It is oddly visceral.

And Indy himself? He’s a bit of a d**k isn’t he? Everyone around him seems to die. He is an utter arse to Marion on several occasions both in the film and in the unexplored backstory. Notice also how he is given that whip as an accessory? Usually that would be a sign that he doesn’t like killing people. But no, he shoots way more people. And worse. I like Ford, but let’s be honest. He’s not a great actor. And he doesn’t really have a huge physical presence. But just like Han Solo, his charisma just makes up for it all.

All these things wrong with the film. But it really is brilliant. Sequences are utterly iconic. It rattles along at a breathtaking pace. You don’t care that the Indy actually achieves nothing in the entire film (Thankyou “Big Bang Theory”). I can’t really think of a movie that is just so much start-to-finish fun.”

Ooooohhh!! And to get your spirit of adventure fully in gear, here’s the original “Raiders” trailer…. Enjoy!!