Scanner Cop 2: The Showdown, 1995

Set maybe a few years after the first Scanner Cop film, Sam Staziak is now a detective with the police force. He is now able to control his scanning ability better with a newer form of medication that allows him to use his scanning power without the possibility of going insane like other scanners have in the past, like his father. He is given this by his friend and fellow scanner, Carrie who runs a company to help others like them manage their lives free without their minds being swamped with other people’s thoughts. Carrie has also been helping Sam try to trace his biological mother.

During this time another scanner, Volkin is on the hunt for Sam as he holds him responsible for his brother’s death years prior. Volkin while not as strong as Sam has learned while locked up how to drain the power from other scanners to make himself strong enough to exact his revenge.

Volkin stalks Carrie who has recently found out some information regarding Sam's mother. However, Volkin scans Carrie and finds this info but leaves her in a comatose state instead of sapping all her power like the other scanners he has met.

Sam goes to the hospital and manages to bring Carrie out of her state where she informs him that his mother is alive and where she is, and they both head off to try save her from Volkin. Unfortunately, they arrived too late and Sam finds his mother dying after jumping off a ledge in her care home instead of letting Volkin scan her to death.

Sam now angry goes off to face Volkin on a one-on-one battle to put a stop to his evilness...

Scanner Cop 2 is a pretty decent sequel, I would say slightly better than the first one. Sam's character has seemed to between films became less of a nerd to a rugged, seen a lot of shit veteran cop. He does not mess around and gets straight to the point when facing the bad guys and using his powers. There is a nice link to the first film, with them explaining that Volkin is probably doing the same as what Revok tried to do Vale in the finale of Scanners.

The special effects and gore scenes are fantastically done, the face tears are quite terrifying and a nice head explosion in the final showdown, maybe another nod to Cronenberg’s Scanners in particular! 

I did read that there had been plans for a Scanners remake or even a TV series. Though nothing yet has materialised and at this moment don't think they will be likely to happen. If a TV show did happen, think it would have been good, depending on how successful it would be if they brought in Staziak as a character. Maybe have him and Vale team up against a bigger threat to scanners/the world.

Night of the Hunted, 1980

Night of the Hunted (Nuit des Traquées in its native France), begins with a man called Robert driving through the countryside during the night. He sees a woman running and stops to help her though does not see the woman’s friend who is far behind her. The woman introduces herself as Elizabeth and that there are people after her. Robert sees she is confused and scared so takes her back to her apartment in Paris. On the way there he realises she has problems remembering his name or anything else.

They spend the night at Robert's place and in the morning, he has to go to work. He tells Elizbeth to remember his face and that he will be back later. Not known to Robert and Elizabeth they have been tracked by her pursuers, one that turns out to be Dr. Francis. They break into Robert’s flat and take Elizabeth back to their clinic.

It is revealed that Dr. Francis works in a clinic relating to memory loss and that Elizabeth and all those currently in the clinic are victims of a nuclear gas leak which affected everyone in the area of the local nuclear power plant. They are all suffering due to the leak to their memories slowly been taking away and will eventually leave them all mindless.

Elizabeth bumps into the woman she initially ran away with and recalls her name but that is all she can remember. They then both plan to try run away and Elizabeth gets in contact with Robert as she remembers him. Robert makes it to the clinic and confronts Dr. Francis who tells him why they are here and that their fate is already sealed as those who have already went mindless are being taken away to be disposed of.

Robert mortified that this is happening, goes to find and rescue Elizabeth but he finds he is too late, and she does not recall him or anything of her past life. Dr. Francis appears and shoots Robert in the head but does not kill him.

Robert now has become like Elizabeth due to the head injury and both he and Elizabeth walk off side by side on railway tracks in the fog.

Night of the Hunted was directed by Jean Rollin, who I've only over the past two years been getting more into his films. A lot of his films are known to be as part of the fantastique genre, a lot of his films involve vampires.

They are all wonderful films I that I have watched so far, filmed in a way that they come off as quite mystical and out there. You could say that Jean Rollin was France's equivalent to Spain's Jess Franco, though sure some would disagree with me!

This was the first Rollin film I watched, and it is a really enjoyable film, it's slightly reminded me a little of Shivers, though that was just one scene. The outside shots of the clinic at night had a nice cold feel to them which added to the bleak atmosphere our two leads would eventually face in the disused rail tracks.

Rollin never had big budgets for any of his films but what he did have was a drive to make very good films with what he had available to him. I do wonder if he was given a bigger budget to explore his ideas in more depth what he would have done? I do recommend the book, Fascination by David Hinds on Headpress, it covers all of Jean Rollin's films and a little bit of background to each.

Scanner Cop, 1994

Sam Staziak like his father is a scanner, one day he witnesses his father lose control when they have run out of medication which helps block their power to scan. The owner of the hotel they are living in gets the police involved to remove them due to Sam's father screaming in pain and hallucinating due to being able to read all in the building’s minds. In a small standoff between the police and the hotel owner, his father uses his power to throw one police officer through the wall and nearly kills the other before he is shot dead by the hotel owner. One of the police officers, Peter, after finding out Sam is a scanner and may face experiments on him adopts him with his wife.

Years later and Sam has followed in his adoptive father’s footsteps and become a police officer. During this time there is a rash of cop killings committing by people who have had no trouble with the police in the past.

Sam is asked to use his scanning power to help find those responsible before it is too late but also faces the possibility of losing his mind like his father when he stops taking his medication that blocks it.

Scanner Cop is a sequel of sorts to David Cronenberg's Scanners but has a link via director Pierre David to the original as he was one of the producers and for a few of Cronenberg's earlier films.

I enjoyed this film more than I expected, it has some really good effects when it comes to some of the gory scenes, one of the final scenes being a funny when a skull plate gets blown away! I think I assumed with it being a 90's film it may not hold up to the original but it does, maybe not a violent but still enough to hold my attention. 

Decent story although I wanted to know more about Sam's past before he was adopted, like is there a connection to other scanners from the first movie or not? Though as there is a Scanner Cop 2, I assume this may get covered in that.

It has recently been given a 4K/Blu Ray boxset by Vinegar Syndrome, who have done a great job with it. It also has the second film included. It has made me want to dig out Scanners again as been a while since I've seen that and also look for Scanners II & III as never seen them before.

Last Night, 1998

Set on the last day of Earths existence, we see how a few people who become loosely connected spend their final hours. It is not explained what or why the world ending is happening, but it is mentioned people have known for months that it is coming. The city is a mess and there has been violence, looting and rioting all the way up to the end.

We meet Patrick who is having dinner at his parent’s place with extended members of his family, he leaves to go spend his final hours alone in his home. While preparing his last hours however he gets a knock on the door from Sandra.

Sandra who had been looking for items in the city as she plans to have an evening with her husband Duncan, who has for the last few weeks, maybe months has been calling all the customers of his energy company to thank them for their custom. However, her car is flipped over by a gang and knocks on Patrick randomly to use his phone to call her husband.

Unable to get a hold of her husband, which is later revealed to have been murdered when he hears a shot outside his home, Patrick helps Sandra to get a new car and goes to meet his friend Craig.

Craig has been spending the last moments in life having as much and varied sex as he could possibly have, one fantasy being an old schoolteacher of his and he also tries to offer Patrick a bit of fun as after tonight they will all cease to exist. Patrick refuses and takes the car to which he gives to Sandra.

In the last section of the film, Sandra does not get far in the car as she is stopped by protesters who damage the car and thus, she returns to Patrick’s home, knowing she will not make it in time to see her husband.

She reveals to Patrick that her plan with Duncan was to kill themselves before the end and shows him the two guns she has been carrying around with her. She asks Patrick to join her which he does after telling her more about himself to which it is revealed that to him the world for him ended months ago when his partner passed away.

The film ended with both Patrick and Sandra pointing guns at each other temples on the roof of Patrick's building, they lower their weapons and start to kiss while a white glow slowly grows over the screen into nothing....

Last Night is a great and I suppose not widely known film. I caught this film way back in 2003 maybe 2004 and only because channel 4 was showing it in the early hours, it took me a while to track down a DVD copy from what I remember. 

Don McKellar who wrote and directed it also stars as Patrick; I believe this may have been his directorial debut for a full-length feature. I loved the pacing in the film, in that it does not seemed rushed as most end of the world type of films go. This may sound daft that I like how it is slightly slow when it is a film about the last few hours on earth and you would assume everyone would be going wild!

The bleakness of the ending is grim, where some films of the same genre may offer some hope for survival, this one does not. Even though you know how the outcome is as do the characters in the film, you do hope that Sandra would meet her husband and preferable before he is murdered.

It is worth tracking a copy down, though I have recently seen copies for sale for around £50/60 but that is for a UK copy on the Park Circus label (have seen one listed for $259.99!), though I guess it could possibly be uploaded on youtube to watch.

Der Fan, 1982

Der Fan is a film from (the then) West Germany about a young teenage girl, Simone played by Désirée Nosbusch who is obsessed with the popstar known as R. She eats, sleeps and breathes R and writes fan letters to him as any other obsessed teen probably would have back before the days of the internet!

It gets to the point where her obsession has taken over her life and she cannot function normally. Her fixation is enough that one day she skips school to travel to a television studio where R is doing a signing session.

She eventually due to fainting in front of R, finally gets his attention and offers to come in to the studio to see him perform and later takes her back to his place, where he eventually sleeps with her.

The next day Simone is dismayed when she concludes she has been used by R and that he does not care for her as much as she cares for him. Being to much for her to take she kills R and over the period of a few days dismembers R, cooks, and eats his remains.

The film ends with a Simone now bald after shaving her head and back at home writing a letter to R, saying he will always be a part of her and indicates that she may be carrying his child...

First time I saw Der Fan I was quite lost for words at how it ends in such a grim way, mean R does deserve his demise for being a person who would use a fan like he did! Think it may shock people with Simone being a schoolgirl and doing what she does.

I guess it highlights that no matter what year it was, famous blokes have always been arseholes when it comes to taking advantage of people. There are some scenes that are a bit hmm as I think Désirée Nosbusch was only 16 at the time she filmed this and Bodo Steiger who played R was a lot older. I read somewhere Désirée tried to stop this film coming out years later due the nudity scenes, maybe due to her age at the time but I haven’t been able to find the article I read that to add to this or confirm.

Bodo Steiger at the time was in fact a pop star and his band Rheingold did the soundtrack to the film.

Children of the Living Dead, 2001

This film is slightly all over the place, it starts off during a zombie infestation that seems to be dealt with, however one zombie seems to escape into hiding. This zombie was apparently in a previous life a serial killer named Abbot Hayes.

Years later a businessman tries to set up a new car dealership in what was a cemetery and has the bodies removed to elsewhere. Abbot Hayes recruits these bodies to be part of his zombie horde and attack the town to stop the new car dealership from going ahead...

This film should have been renamed a Cure for Insomnia, every time I watched this film I always fall asleep. The first 15 minutes or so are fairly good until Tom Savini's character is killed off!

The plot is all over, I always felt that when I did watch it I must have missed something that happened earlier in the film but never seem to find what it is I've missed on any repeat viewings I have tried.

The acting is terrible bar Savini's as I really thought the film was going to be good especially with how the first 15 or so minutes went!

There is a connection to the Romero films and not just because Tom Savini is in it. It was produced by John Russo who was involved in Night of the Living Dead. Around the time this film was made he has did an anniversary edition of Night of the Living Dead with newly added scenes (which are god awful) and that Children was supposed to be a sequel of sorts to this.

Bill Hinzman did the cinematography on this, Bill best being known for the main zombie in Night of the Living Dead. The film also has Sam Nicotero who was the uncle of Greg who was in Day of the Dead and also does special effects in other movies and currently involved with the Walking Dead TV show.

I do know the director Tor Ramsey, made a post on IMDB apologising for the film and let everyone know that from start to finish it was a nightmare to work on. A lot of the problems came from the writer of the film, Karen Wolf who wrote a piss poor script that a few directors and other writers walked off the project and then she became a bit of a diva with not wanting any chances to the script and would bully staff to get her own way. From what I read in Ramsey's apology it sounded like a right nightmare to work on.

This ended up being a straight to video release, if it had hit the big screen it would have flopped massively. I wouldn't even recommend this film to anyone, even if they enjoy bad movies and definitely don't recommend the anniversary edition of Night of the Living Dead as there is an actor in it who is so over the top not even Hollyoaks would take the fucker on!

Cannibal Holocaust, 1980

Harold Monroe, an anthropologist and professor at New York University is asked to go to South America to find a film crew that have gone missing while on an expedition to film some indigenous tribes that are believed to be cannibals in the Amazon Forest.

The first part of the movie is Monroe, travelling through the Amazon and meeting up with the tribe who know about the film crew to which Monroe is inform they are all dead and that they had caused trouble when they were there. After gaining their trust and in one scene where he himself eats part of a human hand, he recovers the film crew’s camera and film cans which he takes back to New York with him.

Monroe returns to New York and hands the film to the TV company who ask him if he would like to help with the broadcasting of what they have put together from the footage. Monroe says he will, only if he can see the raw footage beforehand. He is shown an earlier documentary made by the crew before they disappeared entitled the Last Road to Hell, to which he is told by one of the executives some scenes were staged to make them more exciting.

Upon watching the raw footage, Monroe is disgusted as the film crew purposely antagonises the tribe into a frenzy of violence towards them which leads to them capturing their own deaths on film....

Cannibal Holocaust is one of the better known video nasties and one that definitely warranted being on the list! 

The film nearly got director Ruggero Deodato jail time as Italian authorities has thought it was an actual snuff movie.

When making the film he has made a contract with the film crew in the movie that for a year after the release of the movie they could not star in anything else to make it believable that they had died. This was quickly undone when they had to be brought to caught to prove that they were alive!

Also think what also made it believable was some of the special effects, especially the famous impaled tribes girl scene. The special effects team had to show the court how this scene was achieved, which was having the tribes girl sit on bicycle seat and they hold in her mouth some balsa wood to make it look like she was impaled!

A big problem I think for a lot of people is the brutal animal deaths that happen in the film, some clearly done for the sake of it. Robert Kerman who played Monroe says in an interview he was very much against this and threatened to knock the shit out of Deodato for it. Deodato later did say he wished he never did these things in the movie and on the blu ray from Grind House Releasing you can have the option to watch with or without the animal cruelty.

One thing that made me laugh is even though it is a very violent film in parts, Deodato said if he knew Robert Kerman was a porn star (he had did a few adult films as well as plays and normal films) he wouldn't have hired him. I just find it silly that as a director who made a lot of films with blood and guts etc... someone who did adult films sort of offended him!

Cannibal Holocaust still, in my eyes, holds up to be a brutal film which some would find hard to watch. Though in these days of the internet people have access to a lot of more real life violence that has been filmed and shared, to quote Monroe in the final minutes of Cannibal Holocaust, "I wonder who the real cannibals are..."

Torture Dungeon, 1970

The plot for this film is slightly wild, the Duke of Norwich is killing and torturing anyone in his way of gaining the throne of England. One of the heirs is pregnant by her brother, another is a bumbling idiot who the duke marries off to a local girl who is later found to be a long lost princess?!

There is also a bizarre moment the duke who has been having his way with his hunchback servant, tells his other servant he has also been seeing that he is not a homosexual, or asexual but a trisexual! Which leads him to having a threesome with them both!

Torture Dungeon, I found to be a bit of a torture to watch. Even though it is on 80 minutes it felt a lot longer. I know a lot of Andy Milligan films are really low budget and campy affairs and this one isn't any different! While it does have some bloody scenes, the torture dungeon only appears maybe twice in the film! Most the murders happen away and outside from the Castle.

It is supposed to be a period horror but from the sets you can tell it's more likely been a rush job of trying to make it look medieval, I'm sure in one scene I saw electrical wires coming out of a wall!

I probably won't be in rush to watch this again anytime soon. It is an interestingly odd feature but may only appeal to hardcore Milligan fans!

Thriller – A Cruel Picture, 1973

Madeline, played by Christina Lindberg is a young girl who as a child was assaulted by a transient man. The trauma from this has left her mute. Her parents one day send her to Stockholm to see a specialist in hopes that one day she will be able to speak and live a more normal life.

Instead of getting on the bus she is charmed by a man called Tony who offers her a ride to where she is going. They spend an evening together and end up back at Tony's where he eventually drugs her with heroin and lets her know she will now be working for him as a prostitute to pay for her new addiction.

To not arouse any suspicion from Madeline's parents, Tony writes to them pretending to be her and that she is no longer coming home and that she hates them to which both her parents get so distraught over what they believe are their daughters hateful words that they commit suicide.

Madeline forced to work attacks her first client and leaves marks on his face to which Tony then punishes her by removing her eye to teach her a lesson. She makes a friend in another woman forced to sell herself as she is also addicted to heroin and that she plans to save what money they are allowed to keep, to  go to a clinic in Switzerland to get clean. This is short lived as she is eventually killed by Tony, and this sets Madeline up to plan her escape.

She slowly starts to save her money while continuing to see clients.

With the money she saves she starts taking driving lessons, self-defence and shooting lessons, while also getting a contact in the city centre to supply her with heroin so she has a bigger supply to help herself rather than rely on Tony's supply.

Once she is ready, she goes after all her client's one by one getting her revenge until the big showdown with Tony.

Thriller is probably one of the big underground exploitation films from the 1970’s and is a fairly decent movie despite the rough and raw storyline. The Swedish name is Thriller – en grym film and has the titles A Cruel Picture and They Call Her One Eye.

It is quite notorious for the scene where Madeline has her eye taken from her, rumours claim that a real eyeball from a cadaver was used. There is a story that the producers of the film also took out a big insurance policy of star Christina Lindberg as instead of using blank ammunition, live ammunition was used for the action scenes! She was also really injecting herself but with a saline solution in the drug taking scenes.

There are two versions of the film out, one at 104 mins and the other at 107 mins which has the hardcore inserts, it was released in the states in a cut form of 82 mins. The inserts don't really add to the film in my opinion, film is already grim enough without them, though these were added after the film was completed as director, Bo Arne Vibenius took advantage of Scandinavian law at the time that made all pornography legal so hired a couple to film a couple of scenes.

I did hear of a story that years after this film was out, Christina went to France to do another movie and that the director wanted her to do a real sex scene as they believed she had done this in Thriller, and she had to tell them that it was not her in them scenes. 

I think Bo Arne Vibenius may have done something similar with hardcore inserts with his other film, Breaking Point. Though I've not seen that so can't confirm.

He did try to stop Synapse's DVD release of this film years back claiming they didn't have the rights for the film. However, this failed as Synapse provided him with all the paperwork to prove they did and released two versions of it; Limited Edition (Red cover - title A Cruel Picture) which is the full uncut version and a Vengeance Edition, version without the hardcore inserts (Yellow cover - title They Call Her One Eye). I think there had been rumours that Bo was working on a blu ray release, but I doubt anything will come of it.

I really like this film, some bits I could have done without but it's definitely not a film for everyone. Mean it lives up to it's Swedish title of  "en grym film".

The Sinful Dwarf, 1973

The Sinful Dwarf is a grim exploitation film from Denmark, also know in Denmark as Dværgen and has the alternative name Abducted Bride in America.

In it a young married couple move into a boarding house ran by Olaf (Torben Bille) and his mother. Unbeknownst to the married couple that Olaf and his mother are running a brothel hidden within the boarding house.

They also smuggle heroin and use some of it to keep the girls they have addicted and to prevent them from running away. They soon take a liking to the new girl and plot to kidnap her while also getting her husband to help unknowingly smuggle their drugs for them.

The Sinful Dwarf is a bit of a rough film to watch because of its content, while also being a bit of a wild film with Olaf being childlike and playful but hiding his more devious side, hence being labelled the Sinful Dwarf. 

Torben Bille who plays Olaf was apparently in his day the sole dwarf actor in all of Denmark! I've also read that prior to doing more adult films he was a star of a children's TV show, though not seen any proof to this. He passed away at 47 in 1993 so we may never know if that was true or not.

There is a blu ray release of this movie from Severin Films which has the XXX cut of it which is only about 4 or 5 minutes longer but includes the hardcore inserts which I don't think are necessary to this film though others may disagree.

Severin did I believe try to track down people who were involved in this film but it proved difficult, either they were dead or used aliases. They did talk to someone who knew a bit about it but they stopped communicating when they saw the fake documentary about the Sinful Dwarf destroying their lives and decided he didn't want to be involved! Though again not sure how true this is.

I would say it is a film you may probably watch once and that maybe enough but it lingers in your head in a what the hell did I watch kinda way.