Townies (1999) – Wayne Alan Howard.

'The Captain of America would NOT approve!!!'

Wayne Alan Howard's Low-fi indie schlock-com presents the appreciably grungy, quirkily off-beat antics of the multiform nutballs that populate dog-fart Schlarb, Ohio. There's a jolly good reason polymath film-maker Howard didn't call his eccentric, morbidly-inflected comedy Normies, as these entertainingly maladjusted misfits would require their very own ward at Bellevue! My tolerance for films like Townies has been greatly tempered by early exposure to John Waters, Lloyd Kaufman, Nick Zedd, George Kuchar, Andy Milligan, and Richard Kern etc. Is this a good thing? I have absolutely no idea. While I'm not completely in love with all the tweaker-jackanapes presented herein, it is entirely safe to say that Townies Psychotronic credentials are bona fide! Are monochromatic indie flicks artier than their more garishly technicoloured brethren? I tentatively believe, yes, yes, that could well be the case. Slacker-schlock lore suggests that if you film a posterior on video it appears despicably porny, but the VERY same sit-upon, when exposed to Super-8 is mythically transposed into hot-shit cinema verite, dude! Ultimately, I dug most of this, but I'm a remorselessly listless chode who still believes Tiramisu is Latin for a baby Tsunami. Final thoughts, husky dreamcake Caduceus (Shane Koltnow) got me in the mood for some enthusiastic oral gymnastics, Dickie's (Toby Radloff)isolation made me feel horribly sad, as I could manifestly feel his pain, and The Licker (Jeremy Maes) had erotic potentialities worth investigating!

 Schoolgirl Apocalypse (2011) – John Cairns.

Plucky Japanese schoolgirl Sakura (Rino Higa) must protect her picturesque village from the devastation of rampaging males, armed only with bountiful chutzpah, Kyudo, English textbook and muchas Kawaii kick-ass charm. Like a multitude of others, I see a battling sailor suit siren, and I'm all over it like monster testiculi on a prize bull! Not to disparage the Kawaii hero genre, but one expects plentiful fisticuffs, syrupy sentimentality, an evil villain/Villainess, stoic, blood-spattered combat, plus an endearing smattering of bespoke Asian kookiness, happily, Schoolgirl Apocalypse mostly adheres to type. All I can say is, when the world inevitably descends to hell in an AI-adjacent handbasket, one very much hopes there's an army of warrior-caste, sailor suit champions on call to protect us all!!!! Schoolgirl Apocalypse is a zesty, Sci-fied roller-coaster ride that shares a similar (ish) concept to Stephen King's Cell. Sakura is proper adorable, making for a feisty, sympathetically angel-faced, straight-shooting hero. Bucolic small town Japan has an immensely aesthetic appeal, providing an appealing contrast to all the seemingly inexplicable mayhem suddenly unleashed by their sinisterly zombified menfolk. Having an archer saviour perhaps references Greek mythology (Artemis), and the fun, pulpy plot extrapolates into a gonzo Lovecraftian climax!

 Hallucinations (1986) – Mark Polonia& John Polonia.

'This place is freaking out!!!

The feted, and deliciously fetid S.O.V impresarios initial foray into the fungoid arena of cheapnis, analogue schlock provided an oneiric, lysergically loopy extravaganza of unexpectedly cinematic magnitude! Three cracked brothers of questionable competency arbitrarily experience a debilitating series of macabre, sinisterly surrealistic mind-farts during the prolonged absence of their beloved mother. If I loved my mutti with the ardour of the Polonia Brothers, and reacting to her catastrophically neurosis-inducing absence, I might also succumb deliriously to an equally terrifying torrent of tormenting waking nightmares. Sadly, I don't, so I never enjoyed the giddy fortune of experiencing such a kooky kaleidoscope of garishly demented, low-tech brain-spazz. Much like the humble breakfast Weiner, the excitable Polonia bros moorishly pack in a prodigious excess of primitive satisfaction within one plasma-packed hour, a heroic feat of invention, that many other less mutti-orientated film-makers are unable to replicate in thrice that. Expect gut-buckets of Karo-syrupy splatter, menacing inquisitor monks, plasticine phantoms, wispy moustaches, gory gastrointestinal misadventures, phallic fear-figments, nauseating wallpaper, and a shrilly episodic mise-en-scene. To eschew narrative continuity, and aestheticism with such a bravura disregard for the viewer's psychological well-being proved incandescently winning, as 40 years on, stand-alone S.O.V schlock-hammer Hallucinations still walks disturbingly among us, be afraid...BE AFRAID!!! This cautionary S.O.V tale warning prospective mothers over the inherent dangers of neglecting your children's welfare in the selfish pursuit of the almighty dollar feels like a hellacious bumfight betwixt a bargain binned Bunuel and Doris Wishman, Wishman wins!!!YAY!!!

 Brutal (2017) – Takashi Hirose.

'Let's do some love experiments together!'

Takashi Hirose gruesomely presents the twisted existential malaise of ruthlessly opportunistic maniac (Butch), who fatefully meets his (love) match, in the equally maniacal guise of Asami. This explicit examination of contemporary love presents the desires of the killers, juxtaposed with metropolitan normies, intercut with juicily Cat III levels of extremely graphic, sexualised violence. Can naturally born killers experience naturally born love? If such a quandary proves intriguing, Takashi Hirose's bleak snuff romance should satiate those with excessively morbid interests. That being said, it is not only our feline chums who succumb to an unchecked curiosity! It is interesting to note that historical, real-life slayings have filtered through the ether and formed the baseline for many gore-blasting psycho-slashers! Blunt, and a little cold in its execution, Brutal provides a viciously viscous stew of suburban slaughter.

An undeniably sordid, unapologetically bloodied Grindhouse exploration of mass murder in an increasingly plasticized reality without meaning. While many murders are committed in an unsuppressed moment of anger, or by those intoxicated, but it is the enigmatic thrill-killings of serial killers that often provides grisly grist for the more engagingly warped splatter films. Some folk kill because of a tweaked yen for taboo fun, also lending them a fleeting sense of power they manifestly do not enjoy in their otherwise unremittingly grey existence. The woman's excruciatingly penetrative M.O. proved thrillingly wince-inducing. Not a profound observation, but it remains exceptionally rare for any two individuals to discover another that they are uniquely compatible with. I must just say, while I appreciated all the hectic stabby-stabby, Brutal's macabre, metaphysically maternal climax was positively peachy!

 Little Corey Gorey. (1993) – Bill Morroni.

'I wouldn't be caught dead with a 9nth grader'

Following the tragedy of losing his father in a fatal car accident, Corey finds life in new house with vile elder brother Biff, and equally toxic stepmother increasingly intolerable. This rapidly escalates into absolute Gorey mayhem after boorish Biff score's with Corey's dream girl. Morroni's ludicrous suburban splatter anomaly clumsily combines grislier slasher excesses with a hyperbolic, wickedly warped John Waters-inflected dissection of a Divinely dysfunctional Proletarian family. It is this absurdly crude conflation of lurid exploitation tropes that endows Little Corey Gorey with its continued watchability, through plainly way past its sell-by date! Little Corey Gorey is a little match girl until he sees the light and maniacally initiates his gore-blasted revenge, it's like the Antichrist of John Hughes took a bloody ice pick to Ringwald's face, and ritualistically smeared the warm crimson icky all over the silver screen, and thus, a little Corey Gorey is born. What's doubly delicious is how terribly awkward it all is, there's absolutely no chemistry, assisted or otherwise, between any of the characters, the dialogue is purest sludge, and irritant Corey has all the appeal of flesh eating bacteria. At times the levels of rampant suckage becomes intolerable, but if you squint, think happy thoughts, and pretend you're watching The Toxic Avenger, baby Jesus will still love you. If you happen to know someone who REALLY digs this, it might be best to check their snuggest orifices for hamster skeletons before initiating coitus. All that having being said, Morroni's Little Gorey Corey and Flesh Eating Mothers would make BEAUTIFUL music together!

 South Mill District (2018) – Joe Meredith.

Secret military experiments attempting to combine an alien species with human subjects yields an unexpectedly monstrous arachnid hybrid. This grotesque bipedal mutation proves unviable, part-alien, part human, and seven shades of grody!!! The aggressively mutagenic results are gruesomely examined in two doomed inhabitants of the derelict South Mill District. This bravura, low-fi splatter-punk Gore-blaster provides a winningly gory testament to the inventiveness of creative film-makers working on a greatly restricted budget. Expect lugubrious pacing, inane chat, bodaciously splattery practical FX, creepy stop-motion arachnoids, a skeevey preoccupation with vomitus, dinge-oid synths, and a slinky Skinny Minnie (Cidney Meredith)with awesome tresses! South Mill District is a sterling S.O.V Sci-splatter short, the macabre antics of the twitchy spider brainiacs herein spookily recalled 'The Brain Eaters', which is no bad thing at all!

 One-on-one (2014) – Kim Ki-duk.

Following the abduction, and brutal slaying of a high school student, the seven shadowy suspects are individually tracked down by members of a cunning vigilante group. Definitely not one for the squeamish, as this brutalist underground cell administer an especially ruthless form of justice. One-on-one is a visceral examination over the terrible effects of totalitarianism, can you nullify evil with equal acts of reciprocal violence? I found the premise to be unusually compelling, while an inevitably complex issue, I ultimately sided with the unrelentingly vengeful vigilante leader (Ma Dong-Seok), at some point, ugly as it is, those who enact their will by acts of brute force can only be dealt with by enforcing even more extreme levels of violence. National Socialism wasn't stopped by philosophical discourse, their obscene reign of terror came to a justly bloody end due to a courageous rebuttal of catastrophic military might. While not suitable for all tastes, there are those born who can do such unpalatable work, but if you don't have the stomach for it, the psychological effects of unthinkingly following orders can be most severe. It's been quite a while since I last watched a film that forced me to consider my own personal views on the morality of meting out extreme justice for extreme acts of criminal maleficence. Kim Ki-duk is an exemplary film-maker, and I greatly appreciated his Bad Guy (2001), 3-Iron (2004), Moebius (2003), and the equally compelling Real Fiction (2000) no less so than the brilliantly intense One-on-one.