Special Review: Dinosaur Island (1994)

Oh Yeah, a softcore 90's boobs parody FTW. And a compilation to the cavegirls in bikini thing I did when I just started the blog. But this movie is more than just nudity. It's hilarious, and is quickly becoming one of my favorite bad movies.

So we begin with  nude women and BOOBS when a tribe of sexy cavegirls sacrifice a blonde to a woman- eating Rubbersaur! All this to the tunes of some funky jungle drums. And then suddenly we are on a plane over the Pacific, and with some American (Fuck Yeah!) soldiers. It's actually a prison transport where a grumpy old captain is taking three troublemakers home for Court Martial. The three soldiers are quite stereotypical too, one is a Trickster and womanizer, one is a nerd and the third is a fat coward. It's also funny how none of them actually look like a soldier, nor behave like ones. The plane crash into the sea, not that we actually see this, suddenly they just wash ashore on an island. We also have some retarded exposition, oh how I love retarded exposition. The acting is hilariously terribad, the lines are ingenuously dumb and cheesy, the cuts are weird and not especially smooth, the dinosaurs look like shit... THIS IS GOLD! Fun for the whole family.... wait... no...

The thing with these all female tribes out on uncharted islands though... how do they reproduce when men not happen to wash ashore on their island? How come there are sexy women from the age 18 to milf, but no old women or children? And since they obviously need men for reproduction, how come they are always very hostile towards the men who do arrive on the island and all too willing to kill them? I know they explain it with them being very long lived because the volcanic water on the island is magic, but it still doesn't make any sense. Anyway, the story is as juicy as it sounds. The soldiers are captured and are going to be killed when they just happen to convince the tribe they're the Gods promised by the ancient prophecies, however now they have to prove themselves by killing the Great One (the T-Rex). That's pretty much it. There are actually not that many sex scenes, and the few there is are actually quite good. There are a lot of nudity though through the entire movie.

It's a fun ride. The bad acting and the hilarious lines make it very enjoyable, as well as the cheesy story that obviously don't take itself seriously at all. I'd gladly recommend this one.

Lost in Translation: Tarkan and the Silver Saddle (1971) aka Moar Tarkan

Moaar Tarkan. Moar movies I don't understand what's going on in. Moar cheap Turkish escapism. Yes, once again I watch a Tarkan movie there are no English subtitles to. Once again we will enter the world of the Hunnish warrior and his dog Kurt.

Once again we open up with a map showing the Hunns arriving in Europe, but this time it zooms in at the Caspian Sea area where this movie takes place. We start with a Hunnic fortification in the desert and a man that might be Attila the Hun coming to visit it (he's in that case not played by the same actor as in the last movie). This man has a blonde woman with him, who might be his sister, daughter or wife or something, who's a sorceress. With the help of a medallion this sorceress put a hex on a Muscle Man who falls in love with her. Under her influence the Muscle Man attacks some other people's fort alone and is caught. So those other people, who I think are supposed to be Alans or something, since I thought I heard that word being mentioned at some point torture the Muscle Man and leave him in the desert to die. The Hunns find him though and somehow he become their leader. He get a wife and a newborn son who is called Tarkan. So this movie is a prequel! Telling the Origin Story of Tarkan!

About the art style of all the Tarkan movies, they are very colorful and comic bookish, in such a way it seems a little silly. Anyway, shortly thereafter the Alans are invited to a celebration by the Hunns, probably due to some diplomatic negotiations. But the Alans betray the Hunns and kill everyone at their fort, except little Tarkan who now is raised by dogs. Some years later Tarkan is a boy and together with his dog brother (Kurt!) he is caught in a village where they tried to steal some sheep. A one-armed Hun who wanders to the village recognize him though due to the Wolf medallion he wears. The One- Armed Man thus help Tarkan and Kurt escapes, and he raises Tarkan. Then an annoyingly loud narrator says something I can't understand a word of, but it seems the wars between the Alans and the Hunns continue to rage on, and the Blond Sorceress from earlier are now some kind of powerful queen among the Alans.

Tarkan grows to adulthood, and start to explore the World. We see some Hunns lead by a silly looking man who probably has escaped from the Asterix comics kidnap some girls and take them to an inn for some raping. Tarkan of course appear and save the girls and kill the Silly Looking Man. One of the girls seem to have a thing for him, but Tarkan does not get pussy tonight, because suddenly the door open and the One Armed Man stumbles in with his back filled with arrows. Tarkan is of for some revenge. Tarkan hunts down the people who killed the One Armed Man and kills them, but is several times caught himself, but his loyal dog Kurt always saves his ass. Tarkan also find and kill a man wearing Leopard Skin who was present when Tarkan's family was killed all those years ago. Soon the Blonde Sorceress tries to bewitch Tarkan too, and sends him down a road that leads to a giant. Tarkan loses against the Giant, and is caught again. Then he escapes from the Sorceress' dungeon, but is caught again in the Throne Room, where the Sorceress have him fight another man with a Wolf Medallion. Tarkan wins, but is put under a spell by a Snake medallion. Kurt saves him again, and Tarkan kills the Sorceress. It then turns out that other man with a Wolf Medallion had been under Mind Control too. However soon after the other Wolf Medallion Man is caught by the leader of the Alans, and is then killed before Tarkan can saves him. But Tarkan kills everyone of the Alans, and thus avenge his people.

I think the Alans in this movie are supposed to be some kind of Russians, considering they look like Cossacks, and seem to like to dance that Cossack dance. Another thing I realized is that the fights were better choreographed than in the last movie, which is very positive. I don't think this one was as strong as the last one, the last one was sure sillier, while this one had a revenge plot. And I think I need more of the silly than the serious when watching a movie I can't understand the language in.

B- Movie Review: El Topo (1970)

Ha! Mexican Western from 1970, with subtitles, so no more lost in translation. And it start in silence, well this is new. I miss some good tunes for the opening though. So it begins with a man with an umbrella riding through the desert, thus an Umbrella Man, and he has a little naked boy with him. He tells the boy that since he's now 7, he should bury the picture of his mother and his toy, because now he's a MAN! But why is the boy naked? What's Umbrella Man's relation to him? Is Umbrella Man some kind of pervert? All very valid questions. Anyway, then the Opening Credit start, and the text is flimsy and may give people migraine, also they talk about some mammal that likes to dig, I don't care.

So after the credits they arrive in a village that has been massacred. And out in the desert we meet three Perverts, one is in love with women's shoes, one likes to pile bananas with his sword and one just likes to fuck rock. Anyway, the Umbrella Man and the Naked Boy arrives and the Umbrella Man kills the Three Perverts, but not before he makes them tell him who massacred the village. They tell him it's a Colonel who has taken over a Monastery nearby. And at the Monastery the Colonel's men, all Pervy Stooges are molesting and humiliating the Monks. The Colonel himself is a lazy bastard, since he can't even get up or dress without assistance from his female sex slave (in this movie I have to point out she's female). Anyway, the Pervy Stooges are submissive little fuckers, because they literary crawl in the mud when the colonel arrive, and bark like dogs. Because of that the Colonel is about to share his Sex Slave with them, but then Umbrella Man appears, and the French, I mean the Stooges all surrender instantly. Then there's this weird duel with the Colonel that involves alot of staring. They have gun, why don't they just shoot each other. Anyway, then the Umbrella Man is stripping the Colonel, is he going to rape him? Apparently not, just castrating him (with the help of the Colonel's former stooges I might add). The Colonel commit suicide and the Stooges are executed, also Umbrella Man is apparently God, and will thus be referred as such. So God ditches the kid (finally) for the Sex Slave and they ride out to the desert. Then they try to find water, but it is bitter, but since he is God, it becomes drinkable.

The Sex Slave tell God that she will only love him if he kills the Four Revolver Masters of the Desert. And that's pretty much the story of the 2nd Act. The first Master is Blind Effeminate Jesus, the 2nd Master is a dude who's in an incestuous relationship with his mother and a pet lion (AWESOME, and with that I mean the lion, not the incest), and the Third Master is a Musician who lives alone with a bunch of rabbits. The theme is God cheats in all these fights to win, since they are all much more skilled than he is. God and the Sex Slave are also joined by a Woman with a Masculine voice, who kind of show them the way to all the Masters. At one point there is a cat fight between Masculine Woman and the Sex Slave which end with the Sex Slave being whipped by her and then leading to Lesbian Sex (Hooray!). The Fourth Master is a Hermit that have traded away his revolver long ago, thus unable to fight God. And here's how God lose, he can't fight the Hermit, since the Hermit lack a weapon, and also the Hermit doesn't care for his life, and thus have nothing to fight for. To prove this the Hermit commit suicide, which means he is a moron. Anyway, God goes cuckoo crazy because of this. He also prays alot to God.... wait, which God does God pray to? He prays alot in this movie, but what kind of God does God worship? This movie has some deep theological shit.

Anyway, the Lesbian Woman then shoot God in the arms and legs, because she want to get on with the Sex Slave, she then tells the Sex Slave to choose and she chooses the Lesbian Woman and shoots God in the stomach so he collapses. When God is shot in the Arms and Legs the bullet holes look like the nail holes from Jesus on the Cross and stuff, so I guess it's SYMBOLISM, or something like that. God is then found by some people who drags him to a cave where he wakes up several years later as Blond Transvestite Jesus. He says to the people in the Cave (who are all malformed thanks to generations of incest) that he's not God, which means transforming to Blond Transvestite Jesus robs you of your Godly Powers. Then he shaves and cut his hair, and thus transform again this time to a Bald Monk, and together with a midget woman from the cave they venture outside on a mission to dig a tunnel to free the malformed people back there. So they arrive in a town where slavery is practised, and where everyone is a Sadistic Fuck. They round up slaves in a rodeo, and marking them like cattle is prime time entertainment. There are also two sadistic Gay Sheriffs that seems to run the town, and there's an intense Russian Roulette scene in the town church, that involves a monk (not to be confused with the Bald Monk) who has recently arrived in town. Now I won't go in more closely on the ending, but it's quite bloody. The movie feels artsy smartsy, and you really have to be in that mood to watch through it. The third act feels like a whole different movie, and that can throw you off. I must say I'd like the third act if it was it's own movie, but in this, it felt like it didn't fit in.

But the movie is not bad, if you have nothing against subtitles, and want an artsy, but brutal Western full of all kinds of perversions, this movie just might be for you.

Lost in Translation: Tarkan (1969)

 Lost in Translation is me trying to review a movie in a language I can't understand that doesn't have subtitles in a language I understand and thus I probably miss parts of the story altogether. The reason for this segment is easily explained. I wanted to watch more Tarkan films, but only the Viking one I reviewed last year seem to have Englis subtitles. Thus I decided that I just have to watch without subs, and try to review it anyway.

This is the first Tarkan movie, from 1969. For you who haven't read my last review the Tarkan movies were cheap Turkish Sword and Sorcery movies, mainly made in the 70s about a Hunnish warrior named Tarkan, who served Attila himself. They are fun cheap cheesy action flicks, with amusingly dumb stories. Delicious low brow romps in other words.

The epic Tarkan music already begins in the opening credit, promising a good time. Then there is narration (sigh, can't understand a word) and from the maps and pictures shown I guess it has to do with the Hunns arriving to conquer Europe, but facing heavy resistance from the Romans and the Goths. Then the movie begins with Attila the Hun holding an archery competition, and none of the n00bs can beat Attila's high score, until suddenly a wanderer arrive and beat it even from a greater distance, and of course it's Tarkan. And he has his dog Kurt with him too, like in the Viking movie.

Meanwhile the Roman Emperor appoint a badass Gladiator to kill Tarkan and Attila (I think), and the emperor is also surrounded by two beautiful women, and I think the one with the crown is suppose to be his wife (but could just be his lover too I suppose), and I think the other beautiful woman is supposed to be a servant of the Empress (if she indeed is the Empress). Anyway it's revealed that the Gladiator is doing the Empress (not that smart), but that point don't ever come up in the story again.

Then we see Tarkan beat up some Romans who tried to rape a Hunnish girl. Tarkan seldom say much and never show emotions, but what still makes him work as a movie hero is his intimidating stare. The stare alone show his presence, and make sure everyone knows a Badass has entered the building.
After this little episode we're introduced to the Goths, and we see that their leader is a Brute who likes to kick people. Of course there is also a beautiful blonde Warrior Maiden (not that there is anything "maiden" about her) among the Goths. The weapons in this movie though... man they look plastic. I know this is an old Turkish movie made on a tight budget, but couldn't they have tried to make the weapons look more realistic? Anyway, then we see Tarkan beating up an Innkeeper for some reason, probably because he think the Innkeep is fat or something. After that he makes sweet love to the Innkeeper's daughter. Now that's a REAL MAN. Of course this ends with the Innkeeper calling in the Goths on him. Then we see that the Gladiator is staying at the same Inn and help Tarkan flee. The Innkeeper mad in his anger tries to kill Tarkan, but accidentally kill his daughter instead. Then the Gladiator leads Tarkan into a Roman trap.

So Tarkan is taken to a Roman town and made into a Gladiator, which obviously is a mistake since making him a gladiator just makes him more awesome and manly. Tarkan is then saved by the Empress and shee sleeps with him (she basically sleeps with everyone). The Emperor finally got enough of her infidelity though, and have her and Tarkan hunted by his archers, which leads to the Empress being killed. Tarkan's women dying is a central theme of this movie. After an action scene Tarkan goes to a Brothel which end with a scene where he fights the Gladiator, several Roman soldiers and the Emperor and KILLS THEM ALL (this really happens!!) But the Gladiator must have survived somehow, because he is later killed again at the Goth HQ (at least I think it's the same person, it might be another one who does look alot like him).

After the brothel adventure Tarkan is caught by the Goths. That Warrior Chick is apparently now a queen or something and has Tarkan thrown into the dungeons. Tarkan escapes and kills alot of Goths, which is enough to convince the Goth Warrior Queen to shag him. However they are interrupted when the Goth Leader return (I guess the chick just was leader in his absentia). Then the Goth Leader kills the Warrior Chick. Again, Tarkan's women die. At the end of the movie there's a battle between the Hunns and the Goths again, Tarkan saves the Hunnish girl once more, but never sleeps with her. I think it's because he really cares for her, and knows his women always die. Thus he can never have her since it would mean her demise.

After the battle Tarkan goes to a cave to see some kind of wizard. But the wizard has already been killed by a Goth. There's a battle of course. The Wizard was probably Tarkan's father or teacher or something, because his death actually triggers a slight emotional reaction from Tarkan. Then Tarkan finds Excalibur, uses the Sword of Kings to kill the Goth Leader, and then gives the Magic Sword to Attila (THIS REALLY HAPPENS). And thus this movie end.

This review might seem like just a boring recap, and in a way it is. Lost in Translation will all be about me trying to interpret movies in foreign languages, and write down the story as I understand it with what I get from what's happening in the movie, but not understanding the exposition at all. Like the Viking movie this Tarkan movie was action packed and fun. A cheesy and dumb ridiculous story and a lot of action. What's not to like?

B- Movie Review: Hundra (1983)

Hundra, sounds like Swiss word or something. Wouldn't know can't speak Swiss. Anyway this is as Sword and Sorcery movie from the early 80s (when loads of them apparently were made).

So our movie begin with the Narrator. The Narrator this time is an old woman and she tell you that the women got enough of the laziness of the male sex and moved into the forest and became nomads. That is if you believe the Narrator, usuallu they are just full of shit. I never believe them anymore. Of course with leaving all men behind the women soon faced a tiny little problem, they couldn't reproduce. So they basically went back to the men now and then for a lay, and then returned to their tribe when they become pregnant. That's actually kind of an awesome arrangement. The men get all the fun but no responsibility. Women Liberation Yay! Of course they also give up all male children. That's going to bite them in the ass sooner or later, since then the World will run out of men soon. And if you from this information guessed this is one of those fake feminist movies, you would be right. A fake feminist movie is a movie that pretend to have a feminist message while still being aimed towards a male audience.

The  main character is Hundra (played by Laurene Landon) and she is the best warrior in the tribe, and a good huntress too. She just likes to kill stuff and has no wish to make any children. One day Hundra goes out hunting and of course then a group of EVIL MEN attack. And suddenly you wonder if Hundra wasn't only the best warrior, but the only warrior, since the village seem to be undefended. Of course there are other warriors and they show up, but then it's already the middle of the raid. Where were those warriors when the raid begun? Why weren't they protecting the village? The scene where Hundra's 13-year-old sister kills several full grown bearded warriors is awesome though, of course this is followed by a less pleasant scene were said sister get raped. One thing about the raid I can't understand though. The men's plan to kill all the women is quite short sighted. With all women dead they'd never get any in the future, and that also means they just doomed the whole human race. Of course the human race would still have died since no one were raising boys, but now they just sped up the doom drastically.

So yeah, Hundra is the only survivor and this is kind of an revenge film, which of course all fake feminist films really are. But this is just kind of since the whole revenge theme get derailed later. The early fight scenes are just brutal which sits well with the tone of this movie. Revenge flicks need this merciless brutality for it to be believable. Hundra also have two side kicks, her horse and a bitch named Beat (as in female dog). But then the story get derailed, Hundra goes to see a Wise Woman who lives in the mountains, and the Wise Woman tell her she must let a man knock her up, which makes sense since she's the last woman in the world. Her first trial is to face a tribe of Midgets, led by Midget Braveheart! Perhaps the Midgets will rule the World now when the human race is doomed? NUDE RIDING scene, don't tell me this movie wasn't aimed towards young men. BOOBS!

Eventually she find the Land of the Men. Wait, there are women here... what.... I don't understand, weren't all women suppose to live in that tribe in the forest? PLEASE EXPLAIN. Anyway, the first man she finds is indeed A REAL MAN, he drinks, whores and eat and never washes! He's such a prime example of manliness that she can't handle it and instead of fucking him she end up kicking his ass., Silly woman, you won't have any children if you don't know your place. One thing can be said about that man though, he sure knows how to TREAT A WOMAN. So she end up in the city, there's a slapstick fight scene, which doesn't go well with the earlier grittier and brutal tone. She goes to the Temple to learn the womanly ways, apparently this society is lead by a priest and a  couple of chieftains who come to the temple to enjoy the young courtesans there. Hundra also falls for a fruity healer, which shouldn't be a surprise. She would want to be the dominant partner in bed after all. The bad guys are the Priest and his Adjutant, and the adjutant is fucking awesome with a lot of juicy lines.

The story is confusing, but there are a lot of strong well made scenes. The story suffers from an unclear narration in the beginning (the lying narrator all over again), and also the problem that it can't decide whether it is a hard ass brutal revenge story or a lightly themed story about a barbarian woman trying to get laid. Thus also both the brutal fight scene and the slapstick fight scene. Two different tones that don't belong in the same movie. Laurene Landon is awesome though, she plays the role well, and dominate the scenes. She has a very good screen presence and can show the right emotions for the emotionally strong scenes in this movie. And those scenes are where this movie is at it's best. it really nails them.

Jollydays over and 2013 is here

A new year means new blog posts and new reviews. I will try to be back to blogging as soon as possible. I will also try to review The Game of Thrones mod for CK 2 at some point in the future (it's awesome and it's often updated!!).

When it come to B-movie reviews I can only say, there will be quite a few of them this spring (hopefully).