Fantastic Factory Boxset

To make things easy, I’ll review the movies individually; bearing in mind they were available this way on May 9th 2011. (Wayfarer)

Faust: Love of the Damned

Starring: Mark Frost, Jennifer Rope, Jeffrey Combs, Andrew Divoff

Synopsis:

John Jaspers (Mark Frost) watches as his girlfriend is tortured and then killed. When he decides to take his own life, he is offered the opportunity to avenge her, by a mysterious figure called M. Not caring about his fate, Jaspers makes the deal unaware that he will be taken over by a bloodlust that can never be satiated. Lured into making a confession to the attractive Dr Jade De Camp (Isabel Brook), he makes her sought after by M, whilst Detective Lt Margolies (Jeffrey Combs) takes an interest in the grisly proceedings.

Review:

This movie was based upon a little known comic book, amongst the mainstream but not amongst the lovers of hardcore horror and sexual thrills. When I learnt that a movie was to be made, I couldn’t see how justice could be done to it. Yuzna gives it a good old go within the constraints of cinema, but ultimately and understandably cops out at fully realising the comic book’s content on screen.

At times, though, the movie is handled so clumsily you’d be forgiven for thinking that the comic book has a 40 year old history behind it, but you’d have been wrong. Yuzna throws plot points at us like a scatter gun with little interest on how it would hold together. There seems to be a need to make a movie as nihilistic as the source material but it’s not quite enough and not far enough away to be something else entirely.

Jeffrey Combs is typically watchable despite a dodgy accent. Mònica Van Campen is certainly watchable as the buxom femme fatale Claire. Isabel Brook tries hard in her role as Dr De Camp. Andrew Divoff makes for a convincing, twisted M. What Mark Frost as John Jaspers was trying to achieve is anyone’s guess. He interprets the full on nature of the character with a manic glee normally reserved for Charlie Sheen when high and delivering a podcast. His acting in his hospital scenes alongside Brook are bizarre. When this style really works is when he is the demonic Faust. We go from strange looney tune to a mad demon that comes out with quick quips. Frost’s approach is easier to appreciate here and I found myself enjoying his performance far more.

The convoluted plot lets the movie down and I wonder what could have been made with a bigger budget; one that could lengthen the movie and explore some of the themes lacking in detail in the completed movie. Yuzna has proved that he has a grasp on storytelling, evident in both Society and Return of the Living Dead III; both mini-masterpieces in my view, especially compared to this.

Verdict:

The name of the game in this movie, like the comic book before it, is excess. There’s plenty of it. It’s s3xualised but seems tame by today’s standards set by TV shows like True Blood, and Game of Thrones. It’s one of the better movies in this box set for the very fact that it is so very over the top. Not a great movie but a great stab at converting a “perverse” comic book into a screen adaptation.

6 out of 10

Beyond Reanimator

Starring: Jeffrey Combs, Jason Barry, Elsa Pataky, Simon Andreu

Synopsis:

13 years after the events in Bride of the Reanimator and Herbert West is in jail and still continuing his obsession with bringing the dead back to life, aided by Dr Howard Phillips. In their pursuit of the perfect reanimation, all hell breaks loose.

Reanimator was a must see, on VHS, in the eighties. Even the UK edited version that left out the infamous “giving head” scene, it was a tour de force of pathos and zombie action. For a low budget, Reanimator sure looked like it was a bigger film than it was. I think this was why I was disappointed with Bride of the Reanimator. The sequel did nothing for me, although it is lauded in some horror fan circles. Anyway, on to the second sequel, which is a more satisfying take on the story and includes some kick-ass effects to liven things up.

It begins with an interesting flash-back to events from Bride of Reanimator. This sets up the minimal plot and leads us into the credit sequence which is a clever riff on the original movie’s credits. Yuzna uses a few tricks in the movie to evoke the feeling of prison isolation and claustrophobia. Sadly, the dialogue leaves much to be desired

Jeffrey Combs is, over course, the main draw in this movie. Not only does he play a more mature Dr West, the actor himself had become a veteran of both low budget movies and mainstream sci-fi television. I don’t’ think there’s a single incarnation of Star Trek that he’s not been in except the Classic Original Series, of course. The supporting cast are ok, but Combs inadvertently shows up their lack of skill. Jason Barry plays a fairly lacklustre part that serves only to highlight just how insane West really is. Elsa Pataky is an attractive woman but doesn’t excel in her scenes as journalist, Laura Olney. Whilst he is the typical cliché Prison Warden, Simon Andreu puts everything into his performance, raising it above the standard.

Beyond Reanimator continues Yuzna’s style of over the top gory fun, as it does not take itself at all seriously, evident in the final credits alone. The last 30 minutes or so are wild as you’d expect from a movie of this type and from this production team. Unfortunately, some poor use of CGI let’s the movie down. These movies are far better served by mechanical effects but this is the modern take on filmmaking.

Verdict:

Not a classic splatter movie but nonetheless, an entertaining splodgy prison horror. Jeffrey Combs fans won’t be disappointed with his third turn as H.P. Lovecraft’s “hero”. Horror fans who aren’t too discerning will enjoy the movie for the outlandish effects set pieces.

6 out of 10

Arachnid

Starring:Alex Reid, Chris Potter, Luis Lorenzo, Ravil Isyanov

Synopsis:

A plane transporting two ex-Marines alongside a couple of scientists crashes on a tropical island inhabited by a monstrous alien spider.

Arachnid looks like a homage to the 50s movie Tarantula! With a budget that would pay for a day’s catering on a big budget Hollywood tent pole release. Apart from a dodgy CG spacecraft, the creature effects are down the old fashioned way, which is a big plus for the movie. This Spanish production is not the best of this box set. The screenplay belongs to an old Grind house mentality in that the men are men and the women are there to be manhandled or talked down to. Dialogue between the characters is painful. It appears that although the characters don’t know each other it’s ok to be disrespectful and downright rude. This grates and detracts from the main point of the movie; there‘s a giant spider on the loose and it’s multiplying.

You may have seen Alex Reid in the Channel 4 show Misfits and The Descent and The Descent II.

Verdict:

In every collection of movies, there is always one that doesn’t quite hit the mark. In this boxset, it’s Arachnid. It’s not totally awful, but I doubt it’d sell much as a single release. It’s a bit disappointing to me as I like Jack Sholder’s movies from the early eighties; Alone In The Dark (which is a bona fide classic), The Hidden, and Nightmare on Elm St 2.

Romasanta: The Werewolf Hunt

Starring: Julian Sands, Elsa Pataky, John Sharian

Synopsis:

An uproar is caused when some mutilated cadavers are discovered, giving way to the legend of the "Werewolf of Allariz". A traveling vendor rolls through the forest in his old wagon. A woman from every village on his route faithfully awaits him. He's attractive, intelligent, charming.... But he's also the monster feared by all. His most recent prey, Barbara will soon become the one who hunts him down. The film is based on the true-life story of Manuel Blanco Romasanta, the traveling vendor, who confessed to the murders of thirteen people, using their body fat to make soap. Romasanta was tried in Allaríz in 1852 and avoided capital punishment by proclaiming he was a werewolf. Barbara was the lone survivor of four sisters.

The title of the movie sounds like one of those mystery games for your home computer, directed by someone that sounds like an LA shopping Mall. That aside, this isn’t a bad movie. It’s not an action movie; think of it as a crime drama, and for that reason runs at quite a slow pace. Whilst the movie is a bit short on plot, too, it is very stylishly directed and features a competent performance from the mainly reliable Julian Sands. The attractive Elsa Pataky is far better in this movie than she was in Beyond Reanimator. I put this down to the fact that Romasanta is more grounded in reality than the other movie and Pataky perhaps saw it as a more worthy project to get into.

Romasanta is actually more entertaining than most of the historical creature dramas (although whether or not Romasanta is a werewolf is left open, thankfully) like the recent Wolf Man remake and the older Van Helsing, with Hugh Jackman. There is a bit of dark romance about the story that appeals, too. The story mainly deals with the myth behind the murders so anyone expecting a movie like Dog Soldiers or The Howling is likely to be disappointed or just pleasantly surprised by the different take on the subject. I doubt that the film is historically accurate but it appears that the filmmakers have made an effort to try to be as true to the source material whilst making it as interesting as possible.

The big irony in this movie is Julian Sands playing a Spaniard. Bearing in mind that it is a Spanish production, you’d expect a Spanish actor in the role.

Verdict:

Out of the four movies in the Fantastic Factory box set, this is the most technically, professional looking of the lot. Intentionally slow, it’s less a horror movie and more a study of lust, betrayal and murder. It’s more a serial killer movie than a creature feature and I feel that it’s all the better for it. The production is quite high quality with only Faust nipping at it’s heels amongst the collection.

If you’re watching all four movies, save this – the best – until last.

8 out of 10

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