'Help Me I'm Dead' aka Die Geschichte Der Anderen (2013) – Andreas Bethmann.

Grisly haunted house Nazisploitation from gore-master Andreas Bethmann, with righteous splatter FX by Olaf Ittenbach, plus a lively performance from legendary Jess Franco alumnus Antonio Mayans?????? Baste my regenerative organs in honey, and let the fucking dogs out! I'm in!!!! As a sweet, disabled psychology student Jennifer (Margarethe Von Sterne) collects thesis material about the differences between individuals that specifically chose the countryside over city life, her growing curiosity about an abandoned property with an especially dark history culminates in a terrifying night of relentless torment.

Bethmann successfully engenders palpable intrigue over this singularly spooky domicile, and one has enormous sympathy for his physically, and emotionally fragile protagonist. While there are jump-scares, the onus is on slowly encroaching malice, as Jennifer becomes a magnet for the house's increasingly unsettling supernatural machinations. 'Help Me I'm Dead' benefits hugely from its macabre J-Horror influences, but the raw, exploitative material provides an additionally lurid patina of Grindhouse satisfaction. Frankly, it's not all that often that a haunted house trip delivers such a charge of old school video nastiness!

 Vampire in Venice (1988) – Augusto Caminito.

Eminent scholar, and stalwart vampire hunter Professor Catalano (Christopher Plummer) is called to a baroque abode in picturesque Venice to root out, and destroy nemesis itself, Nosferatu (Klaus Kinski). While somewhat formal in execution, and prone to theatricality, Caminto's atmospheric Vampire in Venice is voluptuously steeped in Gothic doom-scapes, an enjoyably camp supernatural Euro-creeper with exceptionally fine actors. Many sequences are exquisitely composed, enveloping one in a sinisterly compelling fantasy of forbidden erotica, being drawn deliciously into the bloodiest boudoir of Gothic fiction's most profane fornicator.

Having Herzog's iconic Nosferatu playing Caminito's Nosferatu is, perhaps, a no-brainer, but Kinski manifestly exudes the malign gravitas that so many actors who don the immortal cape pointedly lack. Absolutely NONE creep through crepuscular, cob-webbed catacombs with quite the same appreciable level of ill-omened portent as dirty Onkel Klaus! While Christopher Lee remains the reigning Prince of Darkness, Kinski's evilly libidinous creature is a magnificently dissipated wretch, a degenerate blood-fiend, sinisterly stalking his appetisingly fleshly prey through the spidery back-alleys, set deep within Venice's decaying grandeur. Seen today, it might seem a tad fruity in places, yet Vampire in Venice remains a toothsome terror treat for Gothic romantics.

 Violent Shit II: Hold My Hand Mother. (1992) – Andreas Schnaas.

Savage sequel to Teutonic terror titan Schnaas's immortal S.O.V splat-pile Violent Shit delivers an equally indefensible largess of scintillatingly lo-fi body-rupturing carnality. An investigative journalist takes an interest in a series of vicious killings, whose profane MO is disturbingly similar to those committed in the 70s by a notorious cannibal killer. This altogether brief interlude of non-Ultra violence is certainly not emblematic of Violent Shit II's generous, and prodigiously plasma-packed perfidy. If luridly limb-lopping lunacy be your cup of meaty malarkey, then drink up hearty, as Schnaas's Violent Shit II: Hold My Hand Mother is a gallon drunk of audacious gore! ALL slashers owe EVERYTING to Mario Bava, whereas Andreas Schnaas flicks are solely indebted to his own blissfully errant mind! I appreciated the fact that the lumbering sadist Karl proved to be a dutiful son, providing highly nutritious, farm fresh body flesh delicacies, taking especial care to extract the vitamin-rich brain juice for his darling mutti!

While Violent Shit II takes a rather cavalier approach to its profound dearth of plot, it compensates most zealously with a tremendously exhilarating cornucopia of carnage! If you conjoined Riki-Oh and Violent Shit II, you might very well have the very best that bloody genre cinema can provide. Gratuitous gore ingloriously captured on standard VHS, for me, has an immediacy, a sordid intimacy, the glossier features pointedly lack. Much like the scratchy 16mm capture of war's gross inhumanities, D.I.Y splatter is more satisfyingly voyeuristic. Once violence is overtly stylised it loses much of its impact. Like punk, bands with only a rudimentary grasp of music theory still wrote hugely impactful songs, far more relatable than the virtuosic noodling of 'real musicians'. Horror is certainly no different, I'll take D.I.Y cheapnis schlock over Hollywood's burnished, repackaged silage any fucking day.

 Shrieker (1998) – David Decoteau.

'For he who hears the creatures blood-curdling shriek is DOOMED!!'

Penurious students squatting an abandoned Hospital, are oblivious to the building's dark history, as it hides an especially sinister secret; the murderous, pan-dimensional banshee, 'The Shrieker'. Once again summoned from the stygian depths, this rampagingly evil, twin-headed monstrosity noisily gives our querulous collegiate squatters a MAJOR f'n headache! Life-sized creatures have proven less popular Full Moon protagonists than their diminutive, franchise-building death-dealers, and, sadly, Shrieker was to be another admittedly creative, stand-alone project that unfortunately failed to find an audience. Shrieker is not poorly made, much like an artisan, non-alcoholic ale, it's eminently quaffable, but the fun part is missing!

On paper, this cosmically eerie, Lovecraftian, occult creature feature looks viable, perhaps, suggestive of another 'Lurking Fear', but, as is so often the case, much, if not all, is lost in translation. The squeakily youthful cast are fine, if a little dull, Mark Williams bold creature design is winningly lurid, desolated Hospitals are innately creepy, but Decoteau's Shrieker often feels undernourished, as it never truly takes flight. Unlike Rawhead Rex, Shrieker pointedly lacks visceral incident, fizzling out like a Goosebumps, supernatural gee-whizzer, sleepover romp. The energy is wrong, the Shrieker should be a genuinely WTF netherworld nightmare to be absolutely feared. Shrieker colourfully reiterates the inherent dangers of allowing the little head to rule the bigger one!

 Dead Space (1991) – Fred Gallo.

Dead Space is one of the more relatively obscure 90s Sci-actioners from Roger Corman's beloved Concorde Pictures. Set upon an isolated research facility, a devastatingly mutable virus is monstrously unleashed, ultimately producing a far less schlocky variant of the original mutation seen in Forbidden World. Dead Space remains a breezy blast of retro DTV Sci-splatter for the more avid B-freak/Corman-addict, but it may prove tame if compared to the infamously exploitative source material.

Fred Gallo's remake is a fun, far-flung spacer adventure, with serviceable practical FX, decent production design, a whip-crack pace, and a solid cast, manfully headed by sinewy sexpot Marc Singer, plus an early, absolutely credible performance from Bryan Cranston. Singer's drily sardonic demeanour, making him a compelling, more than capable combatant for the rampaging monster. The palsy rapport between Krieger (Singer) and his loyal Cyborg companion Tinpan is endearingly maintained throughout, perhaps, their empathy for one another appearing more concrete in Dead Space, than the original?

 Forbidden World (1982) – Allan Holzman.

'We've created a little monster, I'm afraid!'

On planet Xarbia, researchers create Subject 20, an artificial lifeform that runs bloodily amok in thrillingly lurid 80s Sci-splatter gem Forbidden World. A kinetically edited intro, wherein cryo-resurrected Jessie Vint bosses a deep space dog fight, dynamically sets the scene for cosmic, chunk-blowing cult classic Forbidden World. I'd like to claim my zealous appreciation is largely down to Susan Justin's pulsingly urgent electronic score, but Forbidden World's free-spirited preponderance of explosive gore, and tantalizing nudity had me transfixed like a tractor beam directly from blastoff! And who couldn't appreciate a prodigiously gloopy B-flick that features the aces line 'What's the gooey stuff?' While the narrative is routine Sci-pulp, it's of on especially rich consistency!

I don't wish to sound trite, but one should NEVER, under ANY circumstance, leave the door to the metamorph's cage open, I haven't done much in my life that I'm proud of, but I felt it was my citizenly duty to reiterate this pertinent fact. If one relates to Forbidden World as an off-world slasher, with an especially mutable killer, it plays better than simply being just another creature featured Corman romp. This lascivious metamorph can't quite keep his multitudinously oozing proboscis off the scintillating ladies! I've said this many times before, but clunkily expository dialogue is better digested when delivered by two absolutely nude, exquisitely lovely women! The salient question remains, which is greater, Cozzi's Contamination, or Holzman's Forbidden World? I shall leave that up to future Siskel & Ebert's to cogitate over!

 The Terror Within II (1991) – Andrew Stevens.

One approaches sequels gingerly with palpable distrust, as more often than not, genre/B-sequels zealously appropriate the credo of 'more of the same, with added cheapnis!' My continued curiosity over sequels to forgotten films, or those that sank without trace is not one that I am especially proud of. Right off the bat, hunky B-legend Andrew Stevens bossing out Osama bin Laden's ripped brother look got me, bang to rights, guy! and I ventured expectantly forth into this DTV dystopian wasteland until the bitter end (of days). Stock characters in mothballed boiler suits do their upmost to impart post apocalyptic tension with terse outbursts of equally mothballed dialogue, their meagre numbers gruesomely depleted by a deadly virus, and besieging hordes of ghastly-looking mutoids!

David Pennington (Andrew Stevens)has a wicked cool dog, perhaps a nod to Sci-fi icon A Boy and his Dog, or, I desperately need to permanently flush out all this movie crud from my head! I know it's terribly shallow, but after Stevens trimmed his beard, exposing his signature studly demeanour, I lost a minim of interest. Shot in the 90s, The Terror Within II has an appealingly 70s vibe, partially due to the recycled dramatic scenarios, bombastic Hollywood score, rudimentary FX, and the conspicuously fake-looking gun-fights are straight out of Rocket Man! This is no spoiler, merely pragmatic advice, NEVER, under any circumstance bring a severed, grossly mutated scavenger's finger into the home, much less a covert subterranean military facility! Fans of Shadowzone and Inseminoid could do a lot worse than checking out Andrew Steven's action-packed The Terror Within II.

I give it 3 grimly mutated placentas out of 5!