All Night Long II (1995) – Katsuya Matsumura.

Introverted, doll-obsessed youth Shunichi (Masashi Endo) is brutalized by a psychotic gang of thugs he is indebted to, a mysterious online Samaritan offers a solution, leading circuitously to an increasingly bloody series of depravities. Malign characters actively prone to eroticized mayhem form an integral part of Matsumura's ruthlessly cruel milieu. The profoundly warped ringleader's lust for Shinichi very soon turns bestial, his gross mistreatment finally making him utterly insane. These feral urban misfits are almost alien in their absolute dearth of humanity, and Matsumura's forensic examination of the devastating effects abuse has upon the human psyche is what makes All Night Long II so evilly compelling! It is chilling that even the most debased examples of graphically rendered torture in cinema are merest fripperies compared to the monstrous abuses perpetrated in day-today reality. Violent exploitation cinema is simply examining what lurks inside us all, censoring it is about as impactful as dosing a terminal Chernobyl victim with aspirin. The continued merit of Matsumura's cinema is in its unflinching depictions of orgiastic cruelty, a salutary reminder that even the most apparently benign individual is corruptible, and more than capable of the most terrible violence. The nihilistic, exquisitely vicious sequel to All Night Long more than earns its Cat III status, and those seeking lingeringly sadistic scenes of unexpurgated nastiness will not find 'All Night Long II' in any way lacking.

 Juvenile Crime (1997) – Gunji Kawasaki.

An almost numbingly graphic, wholly sleazy teensploitation shocker based upon the true crime history of the shocking Junko Furuta case. I don't imagine that this is an altogether authentic depiction of the kidnapping, but director Kawasaki certainly doesn't deny viewers a mucky, unfiltered display of utter depravity. The three teenaged delinquents are clearly avid students of the 'last House n The Left school of extreme misogynistic psychopathy. While I'm fully aware of the inanity of stating that these abject youths are mindless skells, and as mindless skells go, these are on the evolutionary level of grossly neglected toilet bowl crusts. Aesthetically, Kawasaki's film is workmanlike, rather than articulate, and yet, there's a grimy intensity to this murky video edition which heightens the impact of the profoundly sordid content, providing a verisimilitude that, perhaps, the film makers don't deserve. I dug the more basic electronic elements of the score, strangely hypnotic, a welcome distraction from the hugely irksome pixelization process, suggesting extreme torture violence is all strawberry sundaes, but we must save the fragile gentlefolk from the real world horrors of exposed male & female pudenda. I'm wholly jaded/indifferent to screen violence/depravity, others may well find Juvenile Crime case an undistinguished, base, porn-y, and ultimately distasteful work. My main takeaway from the sleazier type of Cat III shenanigans is that when the poor, beleaguered female victim says 'No!', the director says 'Yes!', and we all blithely continue watching like desensitized oafs.

 All Night Long aka Ooru Naitu Rongu. (1992) – Katsuya Matsumura.

After three young men witness the sudden, brutal, seemingly arbitrary slaying of a school girl at a railway crossing, their latterly unconnected lives become disturbingly intertwined in Matsumura explicit cult classic. From the shocking opening to the no less bravura finale, All Night Long remains a rigorous, darkly compelling example of bracingly adult Cat III intensity. Outside of the exceptionally gripping plot, I was struck with the many beautifully composed scenes, while I'm aware many fine films take exceptional care over lighting, camera movements/placement, lenses/filters etc., but every now and again, I am powerfully beguiled by a director's visceral command of the art form. Without wishing to sound trite, it really does make a film infinitely more intriguing if you people it with charismatic individuals, rather than generic cyphers (Hollywood). There's nary a dull moment in Katsuya's twisted revenge saga, but it must be strongly noted that all Night Long concludes explosively in a thrillingly cathartic fashion.

 Cryptic Plasm (2015) – Brian Paulin.

The entirely subjective notion that the film's eminently metal moniker sounded like a Voivod song title, kinda hooked me big-time! Spookily anomalous events, jerkily documented by a pair of crypto-hunters turn out to be far more sinister than they could have imagined. X-Files, Lovecraft, and E.C comics have certainly provided grist for indie horror-maker Brian Paulin's talky, low budget, but mostly satisfying S.O.V Sci-shocker. The realm of S.O.V splatter is arguably more diverse than many would have you believe, and Cryptic Plasm is more ambitious than most, and those attuned to the esoteric dogma's of UFO Files/Ancient Aliens/Alien Corridors will appreciate the Crypto-Bismal chattering, than others who are not so sympathetic to Grey-lore. Performances are okay-ish, and plainly hampered by meagre funds, Cryptic Plasm successfully manages to generate some gory, gloopily fun Creature Feature spook-outs! While some more judicious editing would have been welcome, the film makers are to be heartily congratulated on the propulsively gruesome, spectacularly slime-slathered crescendo of painfully caustic, body annihilating galactic goo in the thrillingly gruesome climax!

Worm holes are wholly innocent of any wrong doing, and I earnestly wish folk would just leave them be, and not incessantly blame them for all of life's weird, extra curricular shenanigans, Worm Holes are benign entities, and are in no way responsible for the tawdry films of Blum House, or Eli Roth. I love the delicious incongruity of the line: 'David!!!??? DAVID!!!!???? are you alright????!!!' frantically delivered to a shambling, undeniably ruinous-looking wretch who looked as though he had only just recently been violently passed through the hyper-corrosive rectum of 'the Goat of Mendes...the Devil himself!!!!' In closing, I'd very much like to believe that the astonishingly chunk-blowing sequence in the cellar was in part a loving tribute to Deadly Spawn and The Incredible Melting Man.

 Das Komabrutalle Duelle (1999)- Heiko Fipper.

A militant group of murderous thugs, calling themselves the 80s mafia unleash a brutal reign of terror, which spirals dementedly into a gruesomely retaliatory bonanza of cheapnis ultra-violence. I must hereby openly confess that I am, perhaps, one of few misguided vidiots that actively sought out additional works by egregious VHS reprobate Mr. Fipper. My continued preference for inane S.O.V splatterporn 'shot' by skinny, moustachioed Germans, over the similarly unhinged S.O.V splatterporn produced by bovine Americans is absolutely arbitrary, and can in no way be taken as Video sectarianism, each to their own, guy. If one could appreciate the hugely fanciful concept of a viciously abused public toilet seat, evolving eerily into basic sentience, suddenly discovering a creative yen to shoot S.O.V grottage, it is not inconceivable to claim that the end product might closely resemble 'Das Komabrutalle Duelle'. Copiously unleavened gore, sans narrative cohesion is a blackened itch, that I must, on occasion satisfy, I am certainly not proud of it, but needs must, ya? Fever dreams just won't cut it, as Fipper's mindless schlocker is better described as an interminable terror-turgid nightmare, refracted madly in the loveless compound eye of a cadaver fly.

The technical merits are pitifully undernourished, yet the crudely splattering plenitude of D.I.Y practical FX struck me as oddly compelling. Much more fun than Warhol, far less so than Andy Milligan, and outright inspired compared to the comatizing drudgery of anything by Eli Roth. This is the kind of meaty S.O.V dreck that you can safely watch in between meals without harming your appetite. Baba Jesu doesn't want you to watch it, but fuck Baba Gee, as pointless, unceasing cruelty is dope! The scrappy fight scenes are risible, yet the joyous eruptions of squeazy tomato ketchup gore-splatter is a riot! I laughed heartily throughout, which greatly angered Baba Jesu, making me even happier. Go on, stick it to Baba Gee, and watch Fipper's stupefying S.O.V travesty Das Komabruttale Duelle. I believe there is some argument to suggest this is the purest science fiction, and I will happily fight anyone to the squirty death with a toy chainsaw to elucidate my point. The explicit scenes of field surgery herein may have the merest vestiges of verisimilitude, since superglue was effectively utilized during the Vietnam war.

 'Yummy' (2019) – Lars Damoiseaux.

A beautiful, large breasted young woman, and her relentlessly dreary boyfriend visit a sketchy clinic for a budget breast reduction op, and he inadvertently triggers patient zero, unleashing yet another monotonous zombie outbreak. Yummy annoyingly proves, once again, that originality in contemporary zombie horror is now as terminally defunct as its worm-sodden protagonists. A half-decent scribe could have made something watchable out of the basic premise, taken a darkly sardonic look at man's increasingly grotesque obsession with vanity. Too facile, no memorable weirdness, and a slack, Trope by-numbers text, that splashy bouts of CGI-assisted gore can't remedy. A roomful of crazed Ebola monkey's, and a crippled typewriter would have come up with a better film than this. Forget the penis enlargement scene, contemporary horror-makers all need a brain enlargement procedure. Just so I don't sound like a negative Nelly, I genuinely liked the cute Gremliod in the jar, perhaps Yummy should have been about the apocalyptic ingress of vengeful Jar Gremloids? 'Shudder Original' is clearly the new 'Blumhouse'!! Oi Vey! We're all fucked!

 Savage Love (2012) – Olaf Ittenbach.

A medieval-era witch is captured, and savagely dismembered for her heresy, and upon her return in modern times, her wrathful revenge manifests itself in a demonic, thrillingly gory manner! Acclaimed, although somewhat divisive Germanic gore-master Ittenbach reveals his bloody hand early on with the exceedingly brutal dispatch of the devil's bride, and then generously provides recidivist gorehounds with a kaleidoscopic melange of grisly eviscerations, luridly realised by wholly credible practical FX. The two rather unlikeable protagonists find that their hedonistic soiree all too swiftly descends into drug-addled weirdness, polymorphous perversity, and bravura blood-letting. Did I give a toss about anyone herein? Absolutely not, but that didn't prevent me from enjoying all the fleshy, full-throttled carnage! The suggestion that Savage Love is merely splatter for splatter's sake is entirely justified, but when the FX are this juicy, who cares a jot about its recycled premise. Savage Love's noisome admixture of Demons and From Dusk Till Dawn has an abundance of OTT gore, variable acting, lewd badinage, schlocky monsters, and a conspicuous lack of subtlety. Not without limitations, Ittenbach consistently practices what he preaches, and that is to deliver a righteous bounty of extremely bloody, B-Horror mayhem! In closing, I don't think any film is truly without merit which includes a butt-naked muscular man enthusiastically getting his solo, slow-mo sweaty kung Fu on!