Cryptz (2002) Danny Draven.

'They came for the titties, and were left in itty bitty pieces!!'

When three aspiring, not altogether convincing musical artistes elect to discover sultry stripper Stesha's (Lunden De'Leon) enigmatic place of work, they all too late discover that members are not just her ardent fangs, they are denizens of an Underworld in a rather more biblical sense! Hip-Hop-inflected horror has provided grisly gems like 'Bones', and personal fave 'Leprechaun in The Hood', it is fair to claim Cryptz has shades of Vamps, but realised on a conspicuously lower budget. The dearth of invention, and prosaic production design engenders a schlocky aesthetic, which is unfortunate, as our 3 protagonists are amiable fellows, and their terrifyingly toothsome predators remain wickedly enticing Voodoo vamps!

I wasn't hugely impressed, but I righteously dug on the jacked Kung Fu-powerlord sensei Truck (Andre McCoy) his fights were clunkily orchestrated, but he's a groovy, if somewhat over earnest, fleet-fisted Vampire snuffer. The entire cast are pretty great, with the especially beauteous ladies providing some exquisitely ebony-hued exotica, distractingly delicious Stesha proving herself to be a magnificently menacing mistress of doom! Cryptz is conventional, but certainly not without fun B-Movie elements. If the otherworldly vibes of legend Kool Keith/Dr. Octagon had been an inspiration for the story, Cryptz would have been aggressively replete with the compelling weirdness it lacked.

 Liberty & Bash Crime Task Force (1989) – Myrl A. Schreibman.

Once I had digested the film's rather unwieldy title, I then began to joyfully cogitate upon the impending enormity of an 80s cop/actioner with midnight movie maestros Miles O'Keefe and big Lou Ferrigno? That's one HELL of a beautifully screwball team up! I can't really imagine that anyone intrigued by this one will truly give a chimp's fart about the gang war plot shenanigans, bloodily unleashed upon the mean streets of Angel city. After A-1 Task Forcer Liberty's (O'Keefe) beleaguered war buddy Jesse (Richard Egan) is executed, he becomes dangerously drawn into the crossfire.

Even as an admirer of chiselled cheesecake O'Keefe, he's especially charismatic as a crusading, straight-shooting good guy, but when Liberty and Bash (Ferrigno) finally tool up and steamroller the double-dealing skells, it proved softer than I anticipated. The poster art is somewhat disingenuous, as this is manifestly O'Keefe's show, Ferrigno's appearances, while playful, are frustratingly brief. Fans of handsome B-hero Miles O'Keefe should find this golden, but those who favour his hulking co-star may, perhaps, be a mite disappointed. The action is quite bloody, usage of L. A.'s seamier-looking locales proved effective, the supporting cast are fine, with Gary Conway really popping in the noisome final act!

'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?