The End of The Wicked (1999)

The End of The Wicked (1999)
Directed by: Teco Benson
Written by: Teco Benson (screenplay), Helen Ukpabio (story)
Review by: "Machine Gun" Kristin 

I discovered "End Of The Wicked" through a user made list of movies on the website, letterboxd.com. The list is titled: Atrocities, Odditites, Trash, Trippy, Religious, Tinfoil Hat, WTF, The Worst in Film & Video and boy, is it ever. haha. After sifting through over a thousand films in the list, I found some hand painted posters produced in Ghana. I recently researched these strange film posters, which are displayed and preserved in a nice space in Chicago called the Deadly Prey Gallery. There, you can look at the many different types of movie posters, all pretty much the same style, painted in oils onto hand sewn flour bags. The poster interpretations of American films (mostly action and horror) are just as strange as you may have anticipated if you're familiar with other bizarre foreign posters from countries such as Thailand or Poland. The Ghana posters are in wide, gruesome brush strokes and make some movies look way more interesting than they actually are haha. I couldn't help but be reminded of the "The Mutilator" drawing from the art classroom scene in "Ghost World".

"Oh. I thought maybe this was supposed to be your father."

The thin plotline of "End Of The Wicked" consists of a group of Nigerian shape-shifting Beelzebub worshippers with what looks like hamburger meat plastered onto their faces. Their Lord is a white face make up covered man with a hairy bloody chin and Fat Albert's voice. He commands them to retrieve enough blood to fill a lake in 24 hours, although this goal is never achieved. The dialogue is either difficult to understand through bad audio and thick accents, which ends up being really unintentionally funny. In one scene, where a group of children are being initiated into the Satanic cult, a girl is told to "blow up all electronics in your home, drink bleach, glasses and then cause fever and failure to all of the children in your home" 

 

Beelzebub's Glamour Shot

The sets look to be decorated from those terrible large shops that say "antiques", where everything is brand new, dark pink, fake period piece style chairs, and particle board entertainment systems. Bleecchhh. Or better yet, they hired the set decorator from one of those strange religious shows that sometimes pop up on broadcast TV, with the giant desks and potted ferns in the background. I'd imagine this movie is a cross between "Black Devil Doll From Hell" (which I still haven't seen yet) and "Mystics In Bali" for the absurd special effects and bizarre, super awkward perverse scenes. In "Bali", the floating head (with organs intact), eats a baby right out of the womb, whereas in "Wicked", we're assaulted with the visual of main character Chris' Satan-worshipping mother (aka Lady Destroyer) raping his wife with a giant magic penis. Fun! Even better, we're somehow treated to not one, but two scenes involving bloody crotches! Yay! I feel like I should be running down the "drive-in totals" like Joe Bob Briggs there are so many wacky things in this gawd-awful movie. In one scene (brought to life in a GIF I made below), the evil children summon a plate of inedible looking pasta on the back of some poor guy while he's trying to sleep. After they devour it with their bare hands, the man wakes up in major back pain. So gross. Later, this same man is subjected to his eyes literally popping out of his head in a dream and he wakes up blind. I'm not even 100% sure what he did that was horrible to deserve this, but he ends his life by stabbing himself to death. He definitely made somebody in this movie mad. 

"I Wanna RAWK!"

Meanwhile, our main man Chris is (unbeknownst to him) still constantly being tortured by his witch mother throughout this movie. Until he's finally transformed into a goat and his throat is slaughtered. They appear to have actually sawed a poor goat's throat to achieve this scene and it is gruesome and horrible to watch. Speaking of real life horrors, this movie was concocted by Helen Ukpabio. She appears in this film as a pastor who I guess is supposed to save everyone from evil, but that doesn't seem to happen. This film was produced by Ukpabio's company called Liberty Foundation Gospel Ministries and it's basically Christian propaganda. She's a wealthy evangelist that apparently through her teachings has influenced many to abandon and sometimes actually murder their children believing that they are in fact witches in disguise. There is a documentary on the subject called Dispatches Saving Africa's Witch Children on YouTube. There's a barrage of very negative press about her career and her bizarre teachings. She was actually banned from entering Britain in 2014 and she has sued the British Humanist Association (BHA) for defamation for basically twisting her words around. BHA's reply: 

“The fact that she is threatening to launch a legal claim for half a billion pounds over an alleged distinction between being accused of exorcising "Satan" or "Vampires" tells you all you need to know about Ms Ukpabio.”

Completely crazy! 

Watch "End Of The Wicked" (in two parts, first part linked here) HERE!

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Wilczyca AKA She-Wolf (1983)

Wilczyca AKA She Wolf

Directed by: Marek Piestrak

Starring: Krzysztof Jasinski, Iwona Bielska, Stanislaw Brejdygant
Review by: "Machine Gun" Kristin 

Boy did I want to like this one! The opening to similar to "Don't Torture A Duckling", with horrific images of animals eating one another. In this case, a bird picks at a dead, mutilated horse, that looks much too realistic. Matter of fact, there are many scenes of animal cruelty in this that are pretty questionable. Are they real? Are they not? Horses basically scream like crazy in one scene and a dog looks like he's really hurt. The rarity of this film makes it difficult to trace the origins of its creation, so we don't know for sure if there were any animals actually hurt in the making of this movie.

I chose to watch "Wilczyca" solely based on the poster artwork. I know, I know, that could totally go either way. I know I was definitely duped by the Giallo film, "Eyeball". The poster is crazy! So of course, how bad could it be? Well, it stunk! haha. I've even done a past review here on TOG for it. Here in "Wilczyca", we're in Poland, which is unusual within itself. I don't know of too many Polish horror films in particular. They certainly run the gamut on insane poster artwork though. I guess I should've let that be a hint as to the incoherent storytelling I was about to suffer through. I actually did some reading of other reviews after I watched it, which I never do because I don't want to influence my opinion of a film before I start writing. In "She-Wolf's" case, I had to because I had no idea what was going on. There is so much regional, political back story that I didn't understand the events taking place much. There's a pretty concise review on Braineater that explains the plot completely. Even so, it still doesn't save this movie.

From what I could dig up research wise, those who are familiar with the Polish language have pandered the subtitled adaption to be pretty inaccurate in some spots. I'm just thankful that there's any attempt at a translation. I've watched a few movies in the past, (such as a VHS copy of "Cristo Te Ama" which is a 1970s drug infused Mexican exploitation film), that had no subtitles at all, so I had to sort of connect the dots based on visuals only. Apparently in "She Wolf", there's a scene where he refers to somebody as a "bumpkin", which is a goofy word to use within itself, but he actually meant something more complementary than that. Pretty funny. The main character, Casper is completely unlikable, scratch that, no one is likeable! hahaha. He beats his wife Myrna, who lays dying after after a botched abortion (scandalous!) in the opening scene. Casper's been away for months and has just come back. She says that she'll die like a bitch! Whoa! What a thing to say! Turns out, she's a bitch indeed-a dog, er, werewolf! She's even clutching a wrapped up paw from a wolf! Ewww! I guess the best thing to do when your husband is an asshole that beats you and then leaves you for months at a time, is to just pick up witchcraft to pass the time. I mean, hell, it's the 19th century, what else are you going to do? In a later scene, Casper's brother describes Myrna's bizarre behavior, while they're pulling her rough looking casket in the terrifyingly snowy backdrop. Other reviews of "Wilczyca" have described the drenched in snow scenery as "beautiful", but personally it creeped me out. It seemed like the most depressing place to possibly be. While they're burying her, the older brother (I forget his name), starts whittling a wooden steak and says nonchalantly that Casper has to hammer it into his dead wife's heart. Ughhhhh.

From here, the movie draaags. They introduce some more unlikable characters such as Juliet, who is played by the same actress as Myrna. I actually did not notice that until towards the end when Casper realizes it himself. The print of this I watched was pretty grainy, so that may have been why I didn't notice. Or maybe, I just didn't really care, haha. I'm sure there's more I could say about the actors, but I guess if you can't say anything nice, you probably shouldn't say anything.

Besides the beginning scene, the steak hammering and the real or not animal cruelty, the gore in this is pretty minimal. They basically save it all for the end of the film, which is a pity, because it's hard to say if anyone's even made it that far. Thankfully the film clocks in at about an hour and 38 minutes, so it's not excruciatingly long. "Wilczyca" has received some mixed reviews from what I could dig up. People seem to either love it or hate it. I can't say that I hated it, but I don't think I'm going to be watching it again anytime soon. It definitely did its job in creeping me out, but probably not in the way that the filmmakers intended.

RATING: 👨🏻👨🏻 2 mustaches!

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Argento's "Three Mothers" Trilogy

“Suspiria” (1977), “Inferno” (1980), “Mother of Tears” (2007)

by Goat Scrote

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In director Dario Argento’s trilogy of horror films, the Three Mothers of Sorrow are powerful malefic witches who are greedy for wealth and power. They live in special homes designed for them many years ago by an alchemist, who didn’t realize their wicked natures until too late. Mater Suspiriorum, the Mother of Sighs, lives in a dance academy in Freiburg, Germany. Mater Tenebrarum, the Mother of Darkness, lives in an apartment building in New York City. Mater Lachrymarum, the Mother of Tears, lives in a mansion in Rome.

     The witches secretly rule the world from these hiding places but they are actually portrayed as quite petty and self-destructive. This begs the question, why haven't the witches used their long lives to amass material wealth and mundane political influence, instead of just going on occasional killing sprees?

  Argento’s film “Tenebre” (1982) is unrelated to the series despite the title. “Inferno” is the film which deals with Mater Tenebrarum. Exploitation director Luigi Cozzi made an unofficial sequel to the series in 1989 which has carried a number of titles, including “The Black Cat” and “Demons 6: De Profundis”. I’ve discussed it already elsewhere because it is also a fake sequel to the “Demons” series.

     If you're interested in where Argento got his inspiration for these movies, be sure to scroll down to the bottom of the article for a brief discussion of the book "Suspiria de Profundis".

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Suspiria *****

     This horror film is legendary for very good reasons. The story is flawed but everything else more than makes up for it. It’s not hyperbole to call it fine art.

SIGHT *****

     One of the most visually stunning movies ever made. The composition and camera work are beautiful and inventive. The use of lush primary colors and geometric motifs makes for an incredible viewing experience. The movie has a look all its own which has been imitated many times but never duplicated (not even by Argento).

SOUND *****

     Also one of the great film soundtracks, composed by Claudio Simonetti and Goblin. The way sound and music are used in this movie is just as important as the visuals. The sound design has an otherworldy and menacing quality which builds unease throughout.

SCARES *****

     A tense nightmarish feeling, like a fever dream, pervades the whole movie. The death scenes, although there are only a few, are unpredictable and intense. They don’t always make sense — dreams are like that — but that doesn’t stop them from being scary.

STORY **

     The plot is murky and at best adequate, although one could argue that this actually contributes to the dreamlike quality of the film. The story is set primarily at a prestigious dance academy full of sinister characters in the Black Forest of Germany. Horrible events are underway and the school is at the center. A hidden coven of witches lashes out at anyone who threatens their veil of secrecy, leading to a string of bizarre "accidents" and murders around the city. The coven is led by the evil Mater Suspiriorum, the Mother of Sighs.

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Inferno ***

     What sets “Inferno” apart from other Italian horror flicks is its visual flair. It’s not a very scary nor a particularly absorbing movie, unfortunately, but it's almost as gorgeous as its predecessor.

SIGHT *****

     “Inferno” is beautiful. Visually, it's a worthy successor to “Suspiria”. Striking colors, geometric patterns, and beautiful shot compositions create individual frames which could stand as artworks in their own right. It’s worth seeing it in the best quality you can manage because it’s all about the visuals.

SOUND ***

     The score is written by Keith Emerson. There are times when his music fits seamlessly, and other times it seems to go in its own direction and belong in an “Omen” film or a 70’s TV show. The clashing music sabotages several of the scary scenes in the latter half. Some of the characters are musicology students which offers a logical way to bring some effectively-used classical music into the soundtrack. The sound design lacks the nightmarish intensity which helped propel the first movie. Hard to rate because it is so all-over-the-place sound-wise.

SCARES ***

     It has a few very creepy scenes. The tense early scene of a woman swimming in a fancy apartment submerged underwater is particularly haunting and surreal. The few great moments like this are spaced too far apart. The scares are sometimes undermined by unintentional comedy, such as an attack by ill-tempered house cats, or a guy screaming “Rats are eating me!” as he dies. The disappointing special effects at the end seem to belong in a campy 60’s era Vincent Price film.

STORY **

     The backstory of the Three Mothers is further fleshed out and continues to make hardly any sense. The two surviving witches both commit some murders in this film. The focus is on Mater Tenebrarum as she tries to preserve her New York hiding place. For all her supposed magical power she mostly uses knives to kill people. The unsatisfying ending hinges on the inability of the mighty witch to cope with a mundane household accident.

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The Mother of Tears ***

     “Mother” tries for an epic high-fantasy scope, with many characters demonstrating magical knowledge and abilities. The attempt to top the previous two movies hinges pretty much entirely on upping the gore, body count, and sexual perversity. Argento discards the more restrained and stylized approach which made the other two films stand out. "Mother of Tears" falls far short of the grand climax to the series which it was meant to be.

SIGHT ***

     It just looks like a pretty ordinary modern horror movie sprinkled with some truly awful CGI. The palette is mostly earth tones, with lots of black. Stylistically it is jarringly different from (and inferior to) the look and design of the first two movies.

SOUND ***

     Professional and competent, with some good work by Claudio Simonetti. Nothing too out of the ordinary here either, though. It just sounds like a typical scary movie. The loud nonstop shrill laughter of most of the witches sounds too much like a stereotypical caricature of witches cackling in a corny old cartoon. This makes it hard to keep a straight face during many moments which ought to have been full of tension.

SCARES **

     This movie is a little bit boring despite waves of gross-out gore and violence that sweep across the screen. It has the bloodiest and most sadistic kills of the series. That's super, but it doesn't make up for the lack of any real suspense or chills.

STORY **

     Mater Lachrymarum retrieves an artifact which greatly amplifies her power. She summons lesser witches from all over the world to join her, and the entire city of Rome descends into madness under their evil influence. The plot is the most coherent of the three (which isn't saying much), but unlike the first two it’s mostly a chase movie. The way they show the people of the city slowly turning into homicidal maniacs in the background of the main action is a nice touch. Mater Lachrymarum's defeat is a bit of an anticlimax, unfortunately.

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Argento's Source Material

      The characters of the Three Mothers of Sorrow originate from “Suspiria de Profundis” (“sighs from the depths”), a book of “prose poems” or imaginative essays written by Thomas de Quincey (favorite subject: drugs). It was first published in partial form in 1845 and remains very incomplete. Charles Baudelaire translated parts of the work into French and quoted it in his 1860 “Les paradis artificiels". (Translation “Artificial Paradises”. Topic: drugs.)

     The specific piece of de Quincey’s work which inspired Argento’s series of films is called “Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow”. The Mothers were inspired by mythological triads such as the Fates and the Furies. For de Quincey, they were personifications of the trials and burdens which had shaped his life. Levana was a Roman goddess related to childbirth and is a fourth, distinct figure in the essay. It's quite a good piece of writing, considered a literary masterpiece in fact, and it’s only a handful of pages long. You could read it. It’s worth the time.

Blood Orgy Of The She-Devils

Blood Orgy Of The She-Devils (Female Plasma Suckers). Directed By T.V. Mikels, starring a bunch of nobodies (1973).

It begins with music that sounds like a Halloween sound FX record crossbred with intercepting Pac man chomps as two sleepy non-hypnotic eyes attempt to put us in a trance or maybe into a coma who knows? If you see Carl Zittrer, punch him in the throat for me! Then toe deep into this pool of garbage juice and sinew, an overly hammy actress who looks like the pretty version of Snow White's hag/wicked queen delivers her amateur off Broadway diatribe. Lila Zaborin, who plays the head she-devil Mara continues on and on throughout the film (she never worked again with obvious reason). 

YOU'RE GETTING A HANKERING FOR SOME DEL TACO, IGNORE YOUR BOWELS

I want to shut it off, but I've committed myself to reviewing this one after seeing it long ago on VHS and it lulling me into an ancient sleep that only an Iced Chai with espresso can revive me from. If you've read the Headpress expose about all the intricate details of Roger Watkins doe foot job/ Manson slaughter fest aka LHODES, then you know that he was on the set of this film because it was his first job out of college, he describes Mikels as an "absolute asshole" with shitty dumb people with no talent and that it was disturbing to him. 

Rocky Horror rape torture extravaganza! 

Bill Bagdad, a long nosed bearded character actor who resembles Michael Landon's sidekick Victor French if he fell off a tree and hit every branch on the way down. He's the main psychic's henchman. It cracks me up because he was also the Sheik from Head (1968) who says "Psst" and is subtitled. The same people from Girl In Gold Boots who I think of as fake Regis Philbin (Tom Pace) and busty Angelina Jolie (Leslie McRae) courtesy of MST3K, show up at a picnic. They materialize at the stormy house of the wicked witches' clubhouse. Mara screams and wails like she's trying to pass a shit brick! She does a monologue of babbling not making one bit of sense and uses magic to croak some dude. I feel like this homeless lady somehow convinced Mikels to write a shitty movie around her monotonous lunacy and he wasn't busy that weekend. 

OK, so here we are several hours later, whom ever wants to get into the cinematic brilliance of T.V. Mikels should avoid this shit all together. I gotta mention though when a Brylcreemer hit man shows up and blows entry wounds into all the horrid cast I almost stood up and applauded like Paul Mooney during Hattie "Mammy" McDaniel's Gone with the Wind speech!

Wait don't go I have so much more dialogue left!

Shit--they don't die, it turns out they're all reincarnated witches or something (I don't think even the filmmaker knows). Maybe if I take a 30 min nap something will actually happen. Regis and Angelina comeback and blab about white magic verse black magic. So far I don't blame my old self for falling asleep, even with all the caffeine on the planet, my brain can't get into this dull as boring shit! Instead of barf bags, they should've handed out smelling salts! 

WATCH THAT EPISODE OF WHAT'S HAPPENING WHERE THEY BOOTLEG A DOOBIE BROS CONCERT INSTEAD! 

nobody would bootleg this bullshit!

Death Spa

Death Spa (aka Witch Bitch), Starring Merritt Buttrick, Directed By Michael Fischa (1989).

Out of all the aerobic themed slashers like Slash Dance, Killer Workout and even Fulci's Murder-Rock, this one is pretty fun and viciously gruesome. I wonder what would be the exploitation term for that sub genre, perhaps Exerci-sploitation, Fitnes-sploitation, nah those are no good). Let's blame that vile Olivia Newton John "Let's Get Physical" music video on this trend, it should be guilty of something besides assaulting my eyes and ear holes. So, already they've set the female gratuitous nudity barometer to a new sweaty level in the first few minutes, nice going Gorgon Video! This has since been re-released in pristine format by the same snuff peddlers of the 80's who churned out all the Faces of Death volumes littering the video store shelves back in the day (The site actually offers clamshell versions of their catalog to jump on the hipster bandwagon). click here to go to the site.

I can't bash Gorgon too hard though their tapes were just as entertaining to see as the Thriller VHS or H.G. Lewis ones and it's cool to see they're back doing what they do best, churning out the sleaze.

The synthy score by Peter Kaye is unintentionally funny and blips and gleep glops all over. The naked girl that we collectively objectified in the first few minutes gets in an accident and burns her face with eye melting Chlorine. One cop played by Francis X. McCarthy describes it as dissolving her like an Alka-Selzter, now thats just some clever product placement. They give him most of the best campy lines throughout the film and his partner is Rosalind Cash, who I remember as Charlton Heston's girlfriend in The Omega Man and she was also in "Guyana," The Jim Jones made for TV movie.

Some rad fucking 80's trash cult stars are featured here like Ken Foree (sporting that same mustache in From Beyond), Chelsea Field or Teela from the shit-tastic Dolph Lungren Masters of the Universe, looking pretty sweet in a skimpy bathing suit. Perhaps the best and yet bitter sweet performance is by "Totally Tired" New Waver Johnny Slash of Square Pegs and Captain Kirk's fictional son aka Merritt Butrick. This was his last film before he died of AIDS. And as if this weren't already an over-bloated sauna of cameos, we get Hillary Banks from the Fresh Prince acting like a dirty slut.

I'm plummeting toward a swimming pool of celebrity cameos

Michael Evans, the main dude played by William Bumiller keeps having weird nightmares about the recent suicide of his ex-wife that look like a bad WASP video, taking place in a flaming desert. He's the worst actor in the film if you can believe that and spends a lot of time paling around with Ken Foree (who deserves a better role).

Hey Bro let's recreate that sexy album cover by Hall and Oats

The dialogue is pretty tacky--I mean this in the best way possible, one dude puts down Darla by saying "You're Beta I'm VHS". Down at the Starbody Health Spa, where all the madness is centered, Merritt mans the controls of the Spa's computer system. The health club has that long ass name so that a few bulbs can conveniently blow out and spell the title (ala-Motel Hell). The supercomputer, which ends up crushing the poor BETA dudes' ribs goes haywire (but it's the evil new wave nerd who is more of a culprit then the technology). I get the impression that the Encyclopedia Britannica dweeb from those horrid commercials was up for this role and lost, Merritt's character just gives me that specific creepy nerd vibe.

I'll contact The Devil with my computer and make you all pay

Michael Evens aka Helmet hair picks up his hot blonde girlfriend (who had the blinding accident in the beginning). He remains haunted by flashes of that burning desert and I'm willing to guess his late finance Catherine is responsible for the murders happening at the club, Hey I should be on CSI!

Alright! It's Black Lawless, play my jam Fuck like a Beast! 

During a scene where a redhead is melted with acid and reduced to a giant "Body Melt" style puddle of pulpy mush, she whimpers as if she's still alive, Yeesh! I'm pretty sure some of this gore was cut out of the final version and was saved for the unrated one. Nowadays that usually means unfunny scenes tacked on, but back then it meant extra meat for gorehounds like us. There's some funny outdated 80's computer messaging that keeps taunting the main character. I love that 80's mystery associated with computers as ways to fry people (like in Hello Marylou Prom Night 2) or to contact Satan (Evil Speak). My favorite part is when a frozen fish comes to life for no apparent reason and kills a cop in the walk-in freezer! The murder scenes are pretty creative and the ending is very bizarre, I didn't really understand the possession angle of Catherine and her twin brother (feel free to explain it in the comment section)! Regardless of the oddball finale it was a blast!

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! CAN TOTALLY HANG WITH OTHER LEOTARDED USA UP ALL NIGHT PICKS!

Yowch! These En-Cor Fishsticks meal are too bitey, I better call Al

When there's no more room in the schvitz, your schlong will hit the tile

I was trained by a real new waver, the fat ass sand paper masturbator from Human Centipede 2