"Death Scenes"(1989)d/Nick Bougas

Due to the overwhelming sales/rental success of the "Faces of Death" series, the mid to late eighties saw the release of a gaggle of direct-to-video death-related shockumentaries, most being detritus of the fifth generation ghosts variety, padded with staged sequences, stock WW2 concentration camp footage, and unthrilling primitive tribal ceremonies.That is, until Wavelength Video entered the sweepstakes at the end of the decade with its 'Death Scenes' series, and raised or lowered the bar, depending on your personal perspective of the admittedly ghoulish sub-genre.The pioneer effort enlists the persona of one Anton LaVey, of The Church of Satan fame, as host/narrator, as the camera peruses vintage crime scene/morgue table photographs from a morbid scrapbook kept by a retired LAPD homicide detective.That the snapshots are black and white does not lessen the visceral impact on the viewer in the slightest.Like a visualization of the most explicitly brutal goregrind song titles one could fathom, the worst crimes humanity could possibly commit unflinchingly pass before the lens.I gotta tell you, no matter who you think you are or how insensitive you might think you are towards real death, there are some images here that'll send your very soul running for the dry cleaners.For serious.

The Devil = Crabby Appleton.
An intro monologue about death given by host Anton LaVey, trying his best to look ominous in a foppish chapeau in front of what looks like the same stone finish wood paneling my mom had up in her kitchen in the seventies leads us into the tattered catologue of crime scene and morgue table photographs dating as far back as the 1920's and finishing up in the 1950's.LaVey kicks the tour all off with some nice suicides.One to the temple from a handgun.As we move into post-depression Los Angeles, we're shown countless shotgun headwounds(and a few where there isn't much head left to wound).Young and old alike seek refuge from the tribulations of daily life with a well-placed bullet or scattershot cartridge.We then move to hangings, both self-imposed and backwoods justice-style, as evidenced by one particularly powerful shot of a lynched black some twenty feet off the ground and what looks to be an entire town of people underneath to coldly bear witness.Then there's ritual disembowelment(Harakiri), opened veins, ingested rat poison, and starvation.Murder-suicides are examined next with several examples of crimes of passion followed by grief-stricken self-murder.Blood splashed cadavers in the bathtub.Faces blown off by point blank shotgun blasts.Bodies chucked into the ocean and drowned.Wives eviscerated by carving knives and mothers-in-law beaten to death with meat tenderizers.An ex-law officer kills and dismembers his unfaithful wife, hiding her severed head and hands in his own home to look at them whenever he liked.One woman dices her best friends up and ships the body segments across the country via train in steamer trunk and luggage(and is later released back into society, wow.)."Bluebeard" Watson kills twenty-five of his forty wives(!), douses them with flesh-eating acid and buries or tosses them into nearby rivers, and is later discovered to possess both male and female genitalia(!!), a true hermaphrodite(!!!).Death comes to the Latino community as several husbands cite marijuana usage as the reason behind slaying their wives in domestic disputes(c'mon now!).

Medical prognosis: Wind knocked out.
A woman's throat is slashed and her powerful assailant drives a carving knife into her trunk with such force, her body is nailed to the hardwood floor.Guttings by broken wine bottles.Coroners piecing together dismembered corpses.A dead pimp on a morgue slab reveals an endowment like a length of black garden hose.Axe murders.A montage of brutal violence against women.The bloodless gunshots of Hollywood westerns.Celebrity death.Thelma Todd, Jean Harlow's husband's suicide( her own death would come as a result of his vicious cane beating on their wedding night when she found out he possessed "the genitals of a small boy"!), the rasor bissection of the "Black Dahlia" murder, Marie Provost(partially eaten by her dachshund!), Lupe Velez's secanol slumber, Three Stooges straightman Ted Healy's deadly drunken brawl, and a sampling of mugshots of the day, with the crimes etched underneath: child neglect, sodomy and carnal abuse(!), "sale" marijuana(I prefer HG nuggs myself), attack "sex", and even... mental case(!).A man's entire skin found at the city dump.Bloody shootouts between gangsters and coppers.Gangland executions.Dillinger.Bonnie and Clyde."Pretty Boy" Floyd."Babyface" Nelson.Death by elephantiasis.Accidental gas leaks.Car accidents, plane crashes, and fires all see some lens time.Sex crimes and despicable child slayings.The Lindbergh baby kidnapping/murder.More unspeakably ghastly remnants of the murder of children follow.When you're sure it couldn't get more savage, the crime scenes of rape-murders are depicted.Finally, we end with the casualties of war.Phew, that wasn't easy.

The handiwork of "Steve the Ripper".Don't look at me, I wasn't even born yet.
Bougas, who dropped vocals on LaVey's 'Satan Takes a Holiday' cd(personal fave of mine), as well as copping a research consultant credit on Nikolas Shreck's Charles Manson, Superstar(1989), went on to helm the equally gross-but-far more entertaining 1992 follow up, the cleverly titled 'Death Scenes 2', which boasts(?) of color Manson crime scene and morgue table photography, frame-by-frame Vic Morrow death, and super slo-mo R. Bud Dwyer footage, as well as the third installment the year after.And if that weren't enough, a coffee table book of the same name featuring all the same grim photography was collaborated upon by Katherine Dunn and retired detective Jack Huddleston and released by Feral House in 2000.I've held the thing in my hands with intent to purchase about five times since, but the selection of dead infants and children always seems to put the kibosh on that.I've always prided myself on my titanium constitution when it comes to any type of gore, real included, but brutalized kids of any age is a fucking drag and not high on my list of favorite things to see.Still, Scenes is unparallelled in its delivery of the shockumentary goods(and bads) and remains a necessary puzzle piece in the oft-gruesome subgenre.Four wops.

Stewed, screwed, and tattooed.

"The Devil's Rain"(1975)d/Robert Fuest

Okay,dig this scenario,boys:You've got Robert "Dr.Phibes" Fuest directing a satanic cult-based horror movie,which has Anton LaVey on board as a technical advisor,a cast that includes Ernest Borgnine,William Shatner,Ida Lupino,Eddie Albert,Tom Skerritt,and an eyeless Vinnie Barbarino,you've got Ellis Burman handling the makeup effects,and "Absolutely the most incredible ending of any motion picture" as a tagline.Couple all of that with delectable sneak-peak coverage in Famous Monsters way back when,and color me a kid who'd eat the green stuff on his dinner plate AND promise not to drill Aunt Eleanor in the floating ribs with a football as she walked up the hill carrying two armloads of brown bagged groceries just to see what promised to be a horror-shocker of epic proportions.Boy,I'm glad I ultimately never gave either of those in writing after finally seeing it.
Despite the fact that much of the civilized world despises the shit out of this movie,and having taken part in it probably delegated poor Fuest to Afternoon Special-Hell,directing tele-pictures for the remainder of his career,I can straight-facedly say that I do not hate it.Sure,it's a letdown when,by "most incredible ending" the film's producers simply meant "long",but it doesn't deserve Sea Monkey-letdown status,by any means.You know,you're six or seven years old reading your D.C. horror anthology comic books and you see the ad with the lure of adopting a little pink antennae-headed family of pals,and you get sent a packet of brine shrimp eggs.Unlike the "sea monkeys",which ate swirling,metallic kitchen drain-death,this film doesn't totally blow.Just mostly.

Mark Preston(The Shat-in-a-hat) demands a kosher ham-off with Corbis(Borgnine).
John Corbis(Ernest Borgnine) is a pot-bellied,gap-toothed satanic priest,at odds with the Preston family down through the ages for their betrayal and thievery of his unholy book o'signatures.You see,Corbis can capture people's immortal souls in this bulky,watermelon-shaped vessel with an ornate ram's head thrown on top for good measure,causing them to wander about in black hooded robes,eyeless pawns of evil,but without the book o'Hancocks,he's unable to deliver them down to the despicable duke of dirty-dealings himself.He captures the father of the family,then sends him back to them,demanding his stolen property and warning them of Corbis' pissoffedness, before the patriarch melts into a puddle of candlewaxy blech.Preston's son,Mark(William Shatner) is sent off to a dusty western movie backlot to confront the foul priest,armed with a gaudy crucifix pendant the size of a miniature horse,and a handgun.The two men square off in the desolate satanic church,but Preston's overdelivered Lord's Prayer is no match for the beerbellied parlour tricks of the Devil's disciple(and some cheap trick photography),who turns the crucifix into a relatively harmless constrictor,and introduces the man to his own eyeless mother,as one of the flock.Preston vainly flees,barrelling through robed retards like a Jewish Ken Foree on a Monroeville Mall shopping spree,cowboy hat in tow,but is eventually overtaken by Mephistopheles' moonies.

"Mistuh Kottuh!You ain' gon' belie' dis.Da othah Sweathogs stole mah eyes!"
Enter Mark's older brother,Tom(Tom Skerritt),who,along with his wife and Dr. Richards(Eddie Albert as a fucking psychic researcher,by God!!!),has been searching for his missing bro.After finding the church and jacking a nifty black robe,Tom slips in unnoticed among the foul flock to bear witness to the ceremony where Mark is transformed into an eyeless goon for the anti-good guys,and Corbis changes himself into,well,Corbis with a bit of latex,crepe wool,and some ram horns on top.The all-powerful priest finally discovers the intruder(you're probably more apt to have intruders when your following all wear bulky black robes),but Tom escapes.
Tom and Richards find the book Corbis has been looking for(just under the floorboards in the living room of the house Corbis had previously turned upside down,along with poor Woody "They had no eyesssss!" Chambliss,earlier in the picture...I would think if this book was so friggin' important to the Devil himself,his right hand man might have been,I dunno,a little more thorough in searching for it?),and while searching for the means to destroy Corbis in his empty church,they stumble upon the titular Devil's Rain soul-housing whatchamacallit,but leave the book unguarded,so that an eyeless sweathog(Travolta) can return it to Corbis.Just when it looks hopeless for the powers of righteous religious persecution in the name of Jesus Christ,eyeless Mark has a moment of humanity,and smashes the container.At this point,the roof of the church explodes,and a torrential rain covers all inside,causing everyone on the side of H-E-double hockey sticks to start melting.Thoroughly.About twenty drippy,gooey,bubbling minutes worth.Seriously,like,the edited television version inserted a commercial break somewhere in the middle of the melt,and after watching some anorexic coke whores walkin' cocky with Sassoon jeans on,you were back to Goat-nine's putrid,drippy,eye-hanging face melting into a puddle of tan liquid goo.But I digress.The church explodes,and Tom hugs his wife triumphantly afterwards,unaware that it's really Corbis in one of his tricky disguises,and his wife's soul is wailing away inside a new clear satanic watermelon.Duh duh DUH!The trick ending rears its ugly head once again.

Goat-nine sinisterly proclaims,"Apart from the Burman makeup effects herein,this movie is pretty baaaaaaaaaaad!"
...so yeah,there are enough quality cheese-factor elements in place here that might make for a marginally enjoyable experience for you,the cast honorably trudges through the candlewax,Shat and Borg,excellent as always,the effects are very good for the time period(the finale's eternal meltageddon included),and somewhere in here are a few creepy moments that keep the entire production from dipping(dripping?)into worthlessness.All-in-all,an average entry that should have earned a much,much higher Wopsploitation scale rating than it ended up scoring.I guess that'd be the letdown I was rambling about earlier.And,for the record,Aunt Eleanor,I apologize about your floating ribs,wherever you are.

A.....vessel....full of....souls,you say?


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