'Thugs Mugs & Dogs' aka 'Six Bend Trap'(2007) - Mike C. McCarthy.

An independently produced, low budget slapstick gangster comedy which belabours the increasingly ludicrous shenanigans of a guileless trio of Teesside likely lads attempting to train a greyhound to win at the prestigious Peterborough racing event, as portly scowling slaphead villain, Gordy (Dave Courtney) and his absurdly cackling mini-mean side-kick, Buffalo Phil (Peter Bonner) serially slap all in sundry about until the hare-racing climax. McCarthy's excitable, earnestly made, episodically amiable crime romp is both intentionally, and, fortuitously, unintentionally funny! While the noisome narrative is not always convincing, it fitfully provided a few crudely mounted moments of levity, but, overall, the dramatic elements failed to ignite. 

I believe it would be entirely fair to suggest that some of the more prodigiously warped schlock-seekers will actively relish the cheesier comedic nuggets unearthed herein, and boozier members of the 'so-bad-it's-good-brigade' may well praise the film's frequent lapses of taste! I discovered that it is injudicious to feed a greyhound an excess of whiskey-laced eggs before a race, revenge is a dish best served with mushy peas, and plucky Emmerdale alumni, Lisa Riley was a real trooper being the super-sized butt of a multitude of mean spirited jibes entirely at her expense. The game cast's 'colourful' acting performances are either competent, amateurish, or conspicuously absent. Unsophisticated, poorly edited, and undeniably silly, McCarthy's cartoonish crime caper is not entirely without skewed entertainment value.

 

 

'Rollin' With The Nines' (2006) - Julian Gilbey.

Gritty London gangster fantasy has frequent Video Nasty level carnage, gratuitously grisly gun play, brutal, psychotic Yardies, revenging street thugs, and conniving, sadistic, foul-mouthed on-the-make coppers, kinetic car chases, filthy nookie, Fubar'd drug deals, and more grubby double-dealing than a general election. This locomotive, hyperreal, uncompromisingly violent, conspicuously mean spirited shoot 'em up delivers a rush like an intracardial shot of adrenaline! Julian Gilbey's deliriously downbeat, metromaniacal thug-fest 'Rollin' With The Nines' remains an exhilaratingly gruesome gangland gut-puncher, replete with visceral action, powerfully raw performances, a bangin' soundtrack, and a fuck off climax! The hectic vibe might not exactly be subtle, but it's certainly never dull! Fans of 'King of New York', 'Dead Presidents' and 'Rise of The Foot Soldier' need look no further for their next bloodthirsty fix of super-stylised street level savagery!

'With more firepower than Blackie Lawless's codpiece...', the Squib-tastic shoot 'em up 'Rollin' With The Nines' kicks like a Howitzer!!!'- Weirdlingwolf.

 

 

'Heaven Before I Die' (1997) - Izidore K. Musallam.

Right off the bat, this is demonstratively the most singular offering from pyrotechnically-inclined action merchants PM Entertainment, as their uncharacteristically sensitive, melodramatic dramedy 'Heaven Before I Die' is an earnestly told adult fairy tale about the quirky Canadian exodus of withdrawn, physically disabled young man, Jacob (Andy Valasquez Jr), leaving behind his close-knit loving family in Palestine in the sincere hope of living a more fulfilling life in the far-flung promised land of metropolitan Toronto! With whimsical shades of 'Being There' and 'Benny & Joon', you certainly have to credit indie writer/director Musallam for attempting to imbue his film with an elegiac sense of the mystic, but, sadly, he was unable to fully suspend this viewer's disbelief.

'Heaven Before I Die' has warmly optimistic qualities, but is ultimately a frustratingly episodic experience, there's a nagging sense that some essential magical component was either lost in the edit, or, perhaps, wasn't on the page to start with. At its best, an amiable misfire, the playful indie comedy's strengths are its endearingly innocent Chaplin impersonating protagonist, Jacob, and the wonderful cast, with an especially colourful performance from, Giancarlo Giannini as the charismatic, small-time thief who takes a shine to the kindly, ingenuous émigré, drawing him into his murky world of petty larceny which the gentle, childlike, physically impaired, Jacob is profoundly ill suited for! Technical aspects are solid, rather than exceptional, while the text provides some laughs and moderate pathos, the romantic elements felt contrived, but cinema icon, Omar Sharif's final act cameo as poet Kahlil Gibran is genuinely charming.

 

 

 

'Hemoglobin' aka 'Bleeders'(1997) - Peter Svatek.

With the 90s yielding all too few bona fide horror classics, it certainly had its fair share of enjoyable oddities, and, Peter Svatek's, Rutger Hauer-starring shocker 'Hemoglobin' weaves a melodramatically Lovecraftian tale about terminally sickly, truth-seeking husband, John Strauss (Roy Dupuis) and his loving young wife, Kathleen (Kristen Lehman) whose fateful return to, John's grand ancestral mansion in a desolate, brine-lashed New England provides the grisly catalyst for a series of increasingly macabre revelations about his interbred family's grossly degenerated history, and the sinister secret lurking behind his morbidly strange cravings for embalmed human flesh!!! 

Appealingly classical in its approach, Svatek's sporadically grisly, doomily atmospheric creature feature still has much to recommend it to avid horror fans. Alongside an unusually subdued performance by, Rutger Hauer, the relatively unknown cast equip themselves energetically in this entertainingly lurid interpretation of H.P. Lovecraft's 'The Lurking Fear'. With its hateful hermaphrodites, sordidly incestuous couplings, and rampant cannibalism, John Strauss/Van Damm grimly unearths a little more than he can chew! While subterranean schlocker 'Hemoglobin' isn't quite as dynamically orchestrated as it could be, the serviceable text is by genre icon, Dan O'Bannon, and it climaxes bloodily with a rampaging, cadaver-craving coterie of satisfyingly grotesque ghouls!

'With ravening hordes of coffin gnawing, cadaver-craving cryptids running amok in this benighted New England backwater they'll soon be nowhere left to formaldehyde!' - Weirdlingwolf. 

 

 

'Mausoleum' (1982) - Michael Dugan.

Once risibly listed as a Video Nasty, Michael Dugan's entertainingly camp 80s creature feature finds buxom, emerald-eyed executioner, Susan (Bobbi Bresee), monstrously possessed by a maniacal ancestral demon. Once this misandrist entity evilly fires up Susan's loins, she wantonly flashes her pulchritudinous charms to all those she ferociously harms! Foofy-haired Hubby (Marjoe Gortner) is suitably vexed, his wanton wifey is horridly hexed, and kindly befuddled Doc Andrews (Norman Burton) is courageously called upon to X the green-eyed demon...The End!Highlights are D.O.P. Robert Barich's vivid colour palate, the rewarding frequency, and spirited manner that barracuda-lipped bombshell, Bobbi Bresee exposes her bodalicious bod, and make-up maestro, John Carl Buechler's titillating practical FX are some of the very breast I've ever seen! Low points are the film's lacklustre text, and palpable dearth of dread. While 'Mausoleum' is absurd, there's a deliciously dayglo schlockiness to Dugan's goofy-grisly, coitus-interrupting Occult shocker that draws me back inside the neon-hued, cobweb-creepy, voluptuously diabolical Mausoleum!!!!!