Philosophy of a Knife (2008)

Director: Andrey Iskanov

Writer: Andrey Iskanov

Composer: Alexander Shevchenko

Starring: Anatoly Protasov, Stephen Tipton, Tetsuro Sakagami, Tomoya Okamoto, Yukari Fujimoto, Manoush, Yumiko Fujiwara, Masaki Kitagava, Reiko Niakawa, Elena Romanova, Tatyana Kopeykina, Veronika Leonova, Irina Nikitina

More info: IMDb

Tagline: God created heaven, man created hell

Plot: The true history of Japanese Unit 731, from its beginnings in the 1930s to its demise in 1945, and the subsequent trials in Khabarovsk, USSR, of many of the Japanese doctors from Unit 731. The facts are told, and previously unknown evidence is revealed by an eyewitness to these events, former doctor and military translator, Anatoly Protasov. Part documentary and part feature, the story is shown from the perspective of a young Japanese nurse who witnessed many of horrors, and a young Japanese officer who is torn between his sincere convictions that he is serving the greater purpose, and the deep sympathy he feels for an imprisoned Russian girl. His life is a living hell as he's compelled to carry out atrocious experiments on the other prisoners, using them as guinea pigs in this shocking tale of mankind's barbarity.

My rating: 4.5/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

OK, so I'm settled in to my comfy couch, I pop in the DVD looking for some foreign horror knowing nothing about this except it has something to do with the infamous Unit 731, one of several Japanese centers for human experimentation (just like what the Nazis did) from 1930 until 1945.   The movie starts.  It's fullscreen and B&W.  A prisoner is in the middle of two Japanese soldiers treading through thigh-high snow.  The soldier in front is carrying a Samurai sword so you figure this is going to play a role somehow.  It does.  They stop and the prisoner is beheaded.  That's all that happens for probably 7 minutes.  Then the opening credits roll, looking and sounding very much inspired by the opening credits and music to SEVEN (1995).  So far this is the first 13 minutes of the picture and that's all that's happened.

This gal and the guy below are the two Japanese we see a lot of

and they mostly do what you're seeing here.

What follows is part documentary (I watched the English dub version and the narration is mixed too low with the music and sound effects too high, making it difficult to hear at times), part interview with a Russian interpreter, Anatoly Protasov, who lived in the neighboring town as a med student, and part docu-drama, taking us inside Unit 731 as if we're watching the experiments.  The documentary part is OK but the narration volume was an issue.  The interview with Protasov was the best part.  The problem I have with this is almost entirely with the "recreations".  Remember how stylized the opening credits in SEVEN were?  Put that in B&W and you get an idea of how the editing of these scenes are.  Writer/director Iskanov gets really involved with these scenes (and there are A LOT of them) with the editing, visuals and sound.  It might be neat for the first torture scene but this technique is used extensively over the next four and a half hours.  That's right, it's two minutes shy of 4.5 hours!  I discovered that when I hit the remote button and I was only an hour in and I saw the remaining time left.  I thought it was a mistake.  It was not.

I finished it but I cheated a little by fast forwarding through the torture scenes, stopping frequently to see if there was anything worth watching that I hadn't seen already.  The torture scenes might be the reason a lot of people seek this film out.  I was hoping for some good gore but I was left disappointed.  They're OK but there's a lot left to be desired.  It's in B&W which hides a lot of the effects when they're sloppy or poor (part of the reason I think this is shown in B&W), the editing is fast and cuts quick enough that you don't get a good look at much (which also shows the lack of talent that would normally go into making something look real), and it's all been processed to make it look like old footage when you know darn well it's not and the dirty look just adds to the list of things that don't work well enough in this picture.  There are other little things like the prisoners don't resist AT ALL until the knife enters them or they're in serious pain.  The female prisoners also wear makeup.  Really.

Maybe the Japanese issued eye liner to their female guests.  The most unusual I-haven't-seen-that-before scene is when a prisoner is force-fed disease-laced cockroaches into her vagina (and, yes, they show it).  That was different but I couldn't help but think of how cutting edge the prisoner's pubic styling was and it was so smooth around the landing strip.  Again, maybe pre-1945 Japanese were that progressive with their prisoners.  I'd always heard different.  Hmmm.  The more you know.  Anyway, between the documentary bits, the interview bits and the recreation bits, it's the interview I found most interesting.  The visual 'horror' is so over produced that it adds to the already phony looking gore.  Maybe these scenes are over produced to hide the lack of good gore and horror that should've been there. 

It's an ambitious film (IMDb says it was four years in the making and I believe it) and I might've given this a little higher score if it hadn't been sooooooo long but the pacing (especially that first 13 minutes where almost nothing happens, and nothing that's pertinent to the story) drags this 4.5 hour flick into endurance test territory.  It's a curiosity and i think that people who focus on the gory aspects of films might dig this a lot more but only if you don't mind the quick edits of stylized torture.  I dug the droning music.  I think it fit the film well considering the extreme length of the picture.  I watched the Unearthed 2-DVD Limited Edition set.  The first film has one extra and that's a several minute long intro from the director and two other people (the director sat in the middle and said very little).  Disc 2 has a making of documentary (45 min), A Glimpse of Hell featurette (13 min) which is a longer scene (but in color) from the film that is made to look like vintage documentary footage of nude dead bodies piled on cots in a small room, 3 deleted scenes (3 minutes), an interview with actress Manoush (13 min), an interview with Iskanov (this feature didn't work for some reason), music videos for Dead Before Born and Forgive Me, the soundtrack, photo galleries for production, map of Unit 73, Khabarovsk from 1900 to present day, trial documents and finally trailers for 7 films but not for this one.

Mark of the Devil Part II (1973)

Original title: Hexen Geschandet und zu Tode Gequalt

Director: Adrian Hoven

Writers: Michael Armstrong, Fred Denger, Adrian Hover


Starring: Erika Blanc, Anton Diffring, Percy Hoven, Lukas Ammann, Jean-Pierre Zola, Astrid Kilian, Ellen Umlauf, Harry Hardt, Rosemarie Heinikel, Dietrich Kerky, Johannes Buzalski, Reggie Nalder

More info: IMDb

Tagline: More Horrifying Than the Original!

Plot: A tribunal interrogates, tortures and murders "witches" and "heretics" during the Inquisition.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

I watched MARK OF THE DEVIL (1970) nine years ago.  That's one benefit of keeping track of what I watch is knowing when I watched what.  I really enjoyed that one.  It was fun and grisly.  I'm surprised it too so long to watch the sequel.  The internet says it sucks but I liked it.  Anton Diffring steps into role similar to Herbert Lom's in the original and the unmistakable Reggie Nalder is back as the Witchfinder General's right hand man...

That's not makeup, by the way.  Nalder was in an accident that burned a third of his face and he took advantage of that unfortunate incident.  This picture does well enough as a sequel in trying to tell its own story by keeping up with one aspect  the original did so well and that's torture, pain and suffering.  The downside is that there's not as much as the first picture and it's not as gory and harsh but there are several scenes that at least try.

Even though this picture echoes the original in many ways, it's got nice location shooting in Austria (their beautiful forests look like something from an old fairy tale) as well as a dirty, lived-in world.

I'd almost be inclined to watch it again if I came across a better print and after seeing the first one again.  I honestly don't understand the hate some films get but there are a variety of reasons and that's something that I like to discuss in person.  Stuff like that intrigues me and I enjoy engaging with other movie fans.  Don't go into this thinking it's a lousy sequel to a very good film.  Enjoy it for what it is.  I did and I'm happy for it.

The Passage (1979)

Director: J. Lee Thompson

Writer: Bruce Nicolaysen

Composer: Michael J. Lewis

Starring: Anthony Quinn, James Mason, Malcolm McDowell, Patricia Neal, Kay Lenz, Christopher Lee, Paul Clemens, Robert Rhys, Marcel Bozzuffi, Michael Lonsdale, Peter Arne, Neville Jason, Robert Brown, Rose Alba, Jim Broadbent, Frederick Jaeger, Terence Maidment, Terry Yorke

More info: IMDb

Tagline: An ice-swept escape route in front of them. A cold-blooded killer behind them. The only way out is up.

Plot: During WW 2, a Basque shepherd is approached by the underground, who wants him to lead a scientist and his family across the Pyrenees. While being pursued by a sadistic German.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again?  Probably not.

At times this movie feels like it was made for TV and even though there were some high quality TV movies in the 70s, this isn't meant as a compliment.  Sometimes the direction and editing feel weaker than they should be and sometimes it's Micheal J. Lewis' score that feels thin.  The music could be the fault of the mixing but there's an airy quality (heavy on the high strings with little to bring any mid range or bottom).  It could also be in the recording of the score or the budget wasn't there to have a larger, fuller orchestra.  The point is, there are a few little things that add up enough to weaken the overall look and sound of the movie.  The likeliest culprit could be the budget.  Now that I've beaten that damn horse, let's move on.  The dialogue has moments of either cliche or typical Hollywood-ness to it but the actors are good enough to help move it along.  For the most part this is an OK WWII thriller with some big time stars and except for one particular thing, it's largely forgettable.  Malcolm McDowell delivers a delightfully bonkers performance as Capt. Von Berkow, the mustache (if he had one, that is) twirling evil Nazi.  He reminded me a little of Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) from INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (2009).  He's evil, sadistic and playful.  Berkow (as well as McDowell) in his role as one of Hitler's elite force, the SS.  At first McDowell's choice to play Berkow this way is a little odd because it doesn't fit with the rest of the film, like he's working on a different picture.  But somewhere along the way I just went along with it and embraced it.  That's when I saw the comedy and laughed out loud.

That scene is the apex of the picture's humor.  When he tortures a man (I'm not going to spoil it with who the victim is) in the kitchen, it's absurd and horrific.  The victim sells the shit out of it while McDowell gleefully serves it up.  Then there's the scene where he's wearing a swastika-ed jockstrap.  Once you get past the shock of his out of place performance, he's fun to watch.  The ending is wild as shit, too.  The rumor is they filmed three scenarios for the finale and used all three.  No spoilers again but you need to see this to believe it.  It's fucking glorious.  I absolutely LOVED the ending.  This is an unusual film, for sure, but it's also enjoyable in a peculiar way.  Lower your expectations and have some fun.

The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) (2011)

Director: Tom Six

Writer: Tom Six

Composer: James Edward Barker

Starring: Laurence R. Harvey,Ashlynn Yennie, Maddi Black, Kandace Caine, Dominic Borrelli, Lucas Hansen, Lee Nicholas Harris, Dan Burman, Daniel Jude Gennis

More info: IMDb

Tagline: 100% medically INaccurate.

Plot: Inspired by the fictional Dr. Heiter, disturbed loner Martin dreams of creating a 12-person centipede and sets out to realize his sick fantasy.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again? Yes.

It's been a while since I watched this and I was sleepy which means my memory is foggy on it, but what I remember was being left with a sense of disappointment and a touch of boredom.  However, the black and white photography was a brilliant move.  It helps create a darker, bleaker universe around the central character of Martin, wonderfully played by Laurence R. Harvey who doesn't utter a single word.  Creator Tom Six pulls a great move in following up his first film by seemingly setting this one in the real world where THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE (2009) is an actual movie.  I was impressed.  Like it or not, he's doing something different and I can appreciate that.  This first sequel (the final act of the HC trilogy will be released this year and the trailer has just hit) ups the gross-out ante over the first one and you get a lot more money shots than you did previously.  I liked what I saw but it seemed to go on for too long.  My sleepiness could have contributed to that which is why I'm willing to give it another go.  I'll see the third film, too, and if I like it I'll probably eventually pick up the box set with all three films.  It's a premise that feels like it's a one-joke kind of film but Tom Six is getting a lot more mileage out of it than you'd think possible.

Schoolgirl Hitchhikers (1973)

Original title: Jeunes Filles Impudiques

Director: Jean Rollin

Writer: Natalie Perrey

Composer: Pierre Raph

Starring: Joelle Coeur, Gilda Arancio, Marie Helene Regne, Willy Braque, Pierre Julien, Francois Brincourt, Reine Thirion

More info: IMDb

Tagline: The kind of film your mother warned you about.

Plot: Two young women wandering the countryside get mixed up with a gang of thieves and their stolen jewelery.  Lots of fucking and criminal antics ensue.

My rating:

Will I watch it again? No.

Is it me or did Jean Rollin do two kinds of films, arthouse and sexploitation/hardcore porn?  I've seen several of his pictures and it seems like that about sums him up.  This one is pure sexploitation.  By the way, the girls just happen upon the isolated house.  There's no hitchhiking involved, not that I'm getting picky or anything.  If you're going to watch this you're only interested in one thing...

Hostel: Part III (2011)

Director: Scott Spiegel

Writer: Michael D. Weiss

Composer: Frederik Wiedmann

Starring: Kip Pardue, Brian Hallisay, John Hensley, Sarah Habel, Chris Coy, Skyler Stone, Thomas Kretschmann, Zulay Henao, Nickola Shreli, Derrick Carr, Frank Alvarez

More info: IMDb

Plot: While attending a bachelor party in Las Vegas, four friends are enticed by two sexy escorts to join them at a private party way off the Strip. Once there, they are horrified to find themselves the subjects of a perverse game of torture, where members of the Elite Hunting Club are hosting the most sadistic show in town.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again? No.

I really enjoyed HOSTEL (2005) and HOSTEL: PART II (2007) even more so.  This third picture, the first not helmed by Roth and the first to go straight to DVD, had some big shoes to fill so it's not surprising that it falls short but it's painful because they had some great, and I mean REALLY great twists that go a long way in keeping this watchable.  There are a few bits that go on too long, or shouldn't have gone on in the first place, but boy, oh, boy are the fake outs expertly handled.  I'm not going to spoil anything because fans of the series should watch it.  What really hurts the film is the budget.  I'm assuming that was responsible for two things - it's obvious they didn't shoot this in Vegas (there are establishing shots but nothing that proves any of the cast were actually there) and the lack of gore.  The torture scenes are very brief and offer little.  There's one scene where a client cuts the face off a victim with an audience watching in comfy chairs behind glass.  We see the back of the client which obscures the good stuff.  We only see the aftermath.  What's worse is the audience (of about 20) can also view large TVs on either side but it's showing the same angle as what you see sitting directly behind the client.  It's lazy.  At least it's got some fantastic film making deceits, and for that I'm thankful.  It's a modest sequel that should have been more and I hope they keep the series going and loosen the restraints this one had.

Women in Cellblock 9 (1978)

Original title: Frauen fur Zellenblock 9

AKA: Tropical Inferno

Director: Jesus Franco

Writer: Jesus Franco

Composer: Walter Baumgartner

Starring: Karine Gambier, Howard Vernon, Susan Hemingway, Aida Gouveia, Esther Studer

Plot: A group of female freedom-fighters led by Karine (Gambier) is caught by the war-den of a women’s prison, located some-where in the South American jungle. None of them will reveal the secrets of their organization or the names of their collaborators in the cities, so they are handed over to Dr. Costa (Vernon) who, after four years inactivity in Europe, is delighted to be able to practice his torture techniques once more.  Karine fails to resist the inhuman treatments and reveals all. The only hope of saving the organization is for the girls to warn the city cell before it’s too late. They trick the prison guard into having sex with them, knock him out and break out of prison. The warden and Dr. Costa must prevent them from revealing the practices inside the prison. The hunt is on and it’s shoot to kill.

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again? Probably.

Women In Prison (WIP) films are usually pretty boring but they generally offer LOTS of eye candy and, if you're lucky, some blood and guts.  They're usually done on the cheap and are loaded with filler (hence the boring). The same can be said about an awful lot of Jess Franco's pictures, too. But then the dude directed 201 pictures and worked until he died at the age of 82 (one year ago next week).  That's fucking impressive.  If I started now I'd have to crank out a little more than 5 pictures a year for the rest of my life.  I'm getting side tracked when it should be this that tests my ability to stay focused...

Starring Ricky Gervais' sister as The Warden!

Oh, NO!  Not the Gere Run!!!

Don't mind us gals.  We're just hanging around...

and MAKING OUT!!!

Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom never had anything like this.

Look out, girls, GATORS!!!

HURRY!  HURRY!!!!!  We need you to last until the end of the picture...and not find clothes.

WHEW! That was close!

 Ahhhhhhhhh.

How about that product placement?

It's a surprisingly good picture and not just because of the gratuitous amount of nudity.  These gals spend 96% of the picture completely nude.  I honestly commend them for having to run around the jungle and in the river like that.  Honorary Oscars, anyone?  The picture's only 78 minutes long but it feels shorter.  Really.  Usually these kinds of films drag on forever no matter how short they are but this one manages to move the action (there's very little story to tell) at a nice, brisk pace. Within the first 15 minutes the girls are captured, sent to the prison and prepared for torture.  We meet all of the characters we need to know by then.  The next 15 gives us more detail about how sadistic and perverted the warden and the doctor are...

which sets us up for the torture.  That's another 15 minutes.  10 minutes after that the girls have seduced the guard and have escaped.  All that's left is 20 minutes of surviving and being chased through the jungle.  It's a very economic picture.  I'm impressed with that aspect alone.  Then you consider the fun torture scenes, evil bad gal and guy and a wonderfully abundant amount of gorgeous nudity.  That's entertainment.  And what's more, it's a good looking, nicely shot film.  Not bad for total exploitation.  This genre needs more quality pictures like this and it gives me hope for watching more of them even though I know I'm in for a world of shit...but with boobs and paper thin plots.

The Woman (2011)

Director: Lucky McKee

Writers: Jack Ketchum, Lucky McKee

Composer: Sean Spillane

Starring: Pollyanna McIntosh, Brandon Gerald Fuller, Lauren Ashley Carter, Chris Krykowski, Sean Bridgers, Angela Bettis, Marcia Bennett, Shyla Molhusen, Gordon Vincent, Zach Rand, Shelby Mailloux

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Not every monster lives in the wild.

Plot: When a successful country lawyer captures and attempts to "civilize" the last remaining member of a violent clan that has roamed the Northeast coast for decades, he puts the lives of his family in jeopardy.

My rating: 8/10

Will I watch it again? Yes!

NICE!  Watching this right after AMERICAN MARY (2012) was a sweet double bill of two films I knew nothing about and they were both solid horror, each offering up something completely different.  Sean Bridgers is hilarious, darkly so, as Chris, the patriarch that captures The Woman (McIntosh), a feral woman he finds while hunting in the woods surrounding his home.  Angela Bettis, as his wife, Belle, nails her difficult role of having to straddle the line of acceptance of what he's doing and repulsion.  McIntosh (The Woman) does a fine job but my big complaint with how her character is handled is that she's WAY TOO MUCH like a zombie with all of the hissing sounds coming out of her mouth.  The makeup effects are fantastic. The first half of the film feels a little long at times with a few scenes.  There was a point where I wasn't even sure of the tonal direction they were going in but that's all fixed in the second half which is off the chain.   And the ending!  WOW!  HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!!  I loved it.  I do have a HUGE complaint and that's the songs that were used.  The mixing was horrible.  I was constantly having to adjust the volume whenever a song played, making it very annoying.  With the talent involved with this picture it was astonishing that the picture was released with that major flaw.  Still, it's a majorly kick ass horror flick that will bring out some giggles and other reactions.  I've seen, and loved, Lucky McKee's film (based on a Jack Ketchum novel), THE GIRL NEXT DOOR (2007), and after this I'm going to seek out anything else they've done together.  This is some great shit, man!

American Mary (2012)

Directors: Jen Soska, Sylvia Soska

Writers: Jen Soska, Sylvia Soska

Composer: Peter Allen

Starring: Katharine Isabelle, Antonio Cupo, Tristan Risk, David Lovgren, Paula Lindberg, Clay St. Thomas, John Emmet Tracy, Twan Holliday, Nelson Wong, Sylvia Soska, Jen Soska, Paul Anthony, Sean Amsing, Travis Watters

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Appearances Are Everything

Plot: Medical student, Mary Mason, becomes increasingly broke and disenchanted with the surgical world she once admired. The allure of easy money sends Mary into the world of underground surgeries which ends up leaving more marks on her than her so called 'freakish' clientele.

My rating: 7.5/10

Will I watch it again? Yes.

Here's a neat little horror/thriller that I'd never heard of until I browsed Netflix streaming.  The performances are very good, and Isabelle (as Mary) does a fine job of carrying the picture.  I like that we don't know what happens to a certain someone until the end of the picture and when we see them, it's pretty fucking cool.  I really dug how Mary went deeper and deeper into this world and really found her place and enjoyed herself.  There's a brief montage of some real folks with body modification (the coolest is the woman who had her large areolas re-shaped to resemble Valentine's hearts) which brings the scant amount of nudity the picture offers (sad face).  The ending was very satisfying.  I'm looking forward to seeing this one again someday.  I can't tell if the DVD has any extras but if it does, I'll get my hands on it.  It's a stylish and fun flick that's something different than the usual kind of horror.

Pit and the Pendulum (1961)

Director: Roger Corman

Writers: Edgar Allan Poe, Richard Matheson

Composer: Les Baxter

Starring: Vincent Price, John Kerr, Barbara Steele, Luana Anders, Antony Carbone, Patrick Westwood, Lynette Bernay, Larry Turner, Mary Menzies, Charles Victor, Randee Lynne Jensen

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Until now no one has dared to film this ...... the most diabolical classic of all time!

Plot: Francis Barnard goes to Spain, when he hears his sister Elizabeth has died. Her husband Nicholas Medina, the son of the brutal torturer of the Spanish Inquisition, tells him she has died of a blood disease, but Francis finds this hard to believe. After some investigating he finds out that it was extreme fear that was fatal to his sister and that she may have been buried alive! Strange things then start to happen in the Medina castle.

My rating: 8/10

Will I watch it again? Yes.

The opening credits are outstanding.  Les Baxter's ominous music coupled with the dark and foreboding imagery really set the stage for what's about to come.  I recently re-watched THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER (1960) and, while I LOVED the atmosphere, it wasn't the home run it should have been.  It was an hour long movie forced into about an hour and twenty minutes which lead to pacing problems and ultimately boredom.  This picture is the same length and suffers from a little slowness but that builds to a wonderful climax that has a great little stinger in the last few seconds.  The differences between the two is that the other had a smaller cast and not as much story to tell.  Yeah, Price in PIT does some of that overacting he's famous for but he's also doing a great job when he's not.  He's got a surprise in the last act that had me tickled to death.  It's been probably twenty years since I saw this and it's times like this that I'm glad I have a spotty memory.  It was like watching it all over again for the first time.  The only thing that would top it is to watch it in an enthusiastically packed movie theater.

Hostel: Part II (2007)

Director: Eli Roth

Writer: Eli Roth

Composer: Nathan Barr

Starring: Lauren German, Roger Bart, Heather Matarazzo, Bijou Phillips, Richard Burgi, Vera Jordanova, Jay Hernandez, Jordan Ladd, Milan Knazko, Edwige Fenech, Stanislav Ianevski, Patrik Zigo, Zuzana Geislerova

More info: IMDb

Plot: Three young college students enter a hostel in Slovakia on the behest of a beautiful Eastern European woman... however, following a festival in the small village in which they are staying, the woman are turned over to a group that allows the highest bidder to kill.

My rating: 8/10

Will I watch it again? Yes.

SPOILERS ABOUND!!!  YARRRRR!!!

I first saw this a few years ago but I'd had a couple of drinks which meant my sorry ass was asleep before it was over and therefore never wrote about it.  Now I've given it a second spin (no booze this time) and I fucking loved it.   There's so much to like but if you didn't like the first HOSTEL (2005) then you're not likely to care about the sequel.

First of all, the story picks up shortly after the events of the first film with the survivor, Paxton (Hernandez).  We get to see to what lengths this special club will go to keep their secrets and it's pretty fucking cool and concise.  Then instead of us following three dudes we get three gals on vacation.  Then we get to see how the victims are chosen and the bidding process.  I especially liked seeing some of the behind the scenes workings of the organization.  That was delightfully interesting.  We also get to follow two of the winning bidders and spend time with them, one who's really excited about it and the other who isn't.

Now we get to the kills/torture.  HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!!  This has got one of the great kill scenes I've ever seen.  It's stylish and horrific and I loved it.

But some of the best moments don't come from blood and gore or nudity but from the unexpected.  There are a few neat character changes and plot turns that take you in directions you might not expect and there are more if you've seen the first film.  I found this picture an awful lot of fun and a damn fine follow-up to an already great, genre-making film.  The sequel is at least as good, if not just a hair better, than the first film.  It's a shame he doesn't director more movies.  It's been six years since this came out and he's finally got a new one this year, THE GREEN INFERNO (2013).  It sounds like fun and I'm looking forward to seeing it.