"Fauci Crudeli aka/Cruel Jaws"(1995)d/Bruno Mattei

In the midst of a spell of hermitdom that would see New York's "Mayor of Cold River City" bow in the wake of mine own introversion,I've been lining up genre classics for examination all the while maintaining a healthy personal level of shittiness on the party front.Needless to say,I found myself venturing out on a much needed caffeine supply run at five in the morning(in Mountain Dew pajamas and Vans,mind you)as the zoot of the night before began to finally subside after spending the midnight hour carousing the thought provocative,less-wordy(which is always a good thing after a liberal dose of the Wop),extremely tit website,If It Makes Me Happy It May Make You Sad (which I've added to the blog list at the bottom of the page for those goobers too lazy to click the hyperlink I threw in just now.)maintained by Carole,an uber-rad chick on ALL fronts,indeed.It'll quickly become one of your favorites,too,if you're anything like me(Gods help you).Oh yeah,so I've decided to start the "Say No to November" movement,as being a choice vessel of Mediterranean blood I have to say,this cold weather is for the fucking birds.Onward.
Almost two years have passed since we last took a look at an Italian Jaws ripoff,when Castellari's embarrassing L'ultimo Squalo(1981) floated to the surface of the cinematic shitter like the inept turd it is.Fourteen years later,never to be out-stunk himself,Italian crapmaster Bruno Mattei under the pseudonym William Snyder(though there's little mistaking one of Bruno's deuces),finally got off the pot himself,adding his own preposterous pile of shit to the shittiest cine-shark sweepstakes,and it certainly places as number one or two,depending who you talk to,in said competition.With a storyline(and entire scenes) ripped off equally from Jaws(1975)and Jaws 2(1979),typical over the top Mattei dialogue delivered by actors with the screen presence of a dead flounder over ice,gloriously hokey icthyology,embarrasingly bad day for night shots,and the signature stock footage Bruno delights in pasting into his trainwreck movies(and even footage unbelievably cut right out of Squalo,to boot),it's hard to go lower on the limbo stick of bad movies than tonight's review.According to my mate Nige(who runs the excellent Italian Film Review site,and knows a thing or three about good bluebeat forty-fives from the sixties,as well),it'd make a killer double bill with Squalo.Yeah.If you hated yourself that much.

It is my scientific analysis that this man was mutilated by a locomotive with butcher's knives for teeth.
In the Sunshine State of Florida(where thick New York accents are abound),a Hulk Hogan lookalike(with less acting chops) named Dag Snerensen(Richard Dew)runs a Sea Worldesque aqua-zoo/water park where his invalid daughter,Heartstrings...err,ummm Susy,plays with the dolphins all day.Dag's young oceanographer pal Matt Hoo-ummm,Billy(Gregg Hood)and his selfish cunt girlfriend Vanessa(the always alliterative Norma Neisheim)pay him a visit just in time for the autopsy of a nasty bit of beachkill,which after a once over by the fish specialist,yields the following:"There's only one shark that could have done this."Huh?Tiger shark?What the fuck about the other three maneaters?Bull,Oceanic Whitetip,Great White?I'm only saying,due to the abnormally large amount of Great White stock footage we've been subjected to thus far,and zero Tigers.The mayor,with the assistance of super capitalist Sam Lewis(who Dag owes back rent to,who the mafia is putting the squeeze on,and whose daughter is romantically tied to Dag's son Bob,mind you),influences the coroner to change the death to boat propeller accident to avoid a panicked populace with the upcoming regatta scheduled(sound familiar?).Then there's the sheriff,who can leap a minor handrail in a single awkward bound with extremely dated eighties muzak piped into the background.Let's see Chief Brody pull that off.When the sheriff asks Billy what sharks are,he delivers the following classic professional evaluation:"They're locomotives with butcher's knives for teeth that swim,eat,and make baby sharks."Wait,it gets worse.

Cue the Miami Sound Machine soundalike,we're shooting the handrail stunt!
Lewis' son Ronnie,who's pissed that his sister is involved with Bob,ratpacks the guy with his two Italian new wave buddies,then has the nerve to try and poison Dag's dolphins,who thrash the water with their tails afterwards,calling Dag to come running to the scene of the crime,where he picks up a fish,smells it,and automatically knows it's poisoned.Once the mayor finally caves and puts a bounty on the killer rogue's head,Lewis's son and Vanessa eat cartillagenous streamlined death,spurring the sheriff on to fish for the shark from a helicopter dangling a hunk of hooked meat on a winch rope over the water.You know,exactly like in L'ultimo Squalo.Guess what happens.Billy then ties the shark to a nearby Navy wreckage,surmising out of the blue that the shark was captive-bred and trained to attack the enemy.The mafia henchmen go fishing for the beast themselves and get chewed up like Courtney Love's pussy.Finally,Billy,Dag and Bob(What,no Quint?) embark on the voyage to plant dynamite around the wreckage that,according to the icthyologist's "territoriality" theory,the shark calls home.While the boys dive to plant the charges,Dag stays aboard the ship,randomly firing a pump shotgun at stock footage of great whites and culled clips from Jaws.In the end,they blow the menace sky high(more direct shots from Jaws),Dag wins the reward money,gets to keep his water park,and everyone laughs as a seal pushes Lewis into the pool.All's well that ends well.

With a well-placed fish sniff that day/night,Hulk Hogan surmises that someone's poisoning the dolphins.
It must've taken Bruno ten years to release this gem,as I swear the soundtrack music is comprised of dated generic eighties pop that would make Gloria Estefan blush.Footage from Spielberg's Jaws series,Castellari's L'ultimo Squalo,and Massaccesi's Deep Blood blatantly re-appears here with no apologies given for the theft.I could understand ripping off Spielberg,but Massaccesi??Claudio "Up 'n Down" Fragasso provided the over emoted screenplay full of golden dialogue like "Dick brain! Dick brain! Dick brain!","Be careful!That shark was trained by the navy!""That's alright,I was a marine.",and "You're staying up here UNTIL! THIS! THING! IS! OVER!".Not nearly as piss-yer-pants funny as Castellari's movie,but still impressively rotten,just the same.It boggles my mind that a director could be so lazy as to shoot scenes into a film just so he could incorporate footage stolen from other movies.But that's Bruno Mattei for you.Hunt down a bootleg or pal dvd and see for yourselves.One terrible-good Wop.

Hey Bruno,Enzo called,he says he wants his hokey footage back.

"Freaky Farley"(2007)d/Charles Roxburgh

I get a wide variety of interesting e-mail in my inbox through the site,and whether it's a person curious about one of the titles I'll look at under the wop-roscope,or a company looking to advertise their latest goodies,I answer them all,because I love the interest people show towards the genre movies that I've built the site around.If I can turn you on to a movie that ends up being one you've enjoyed,or even merits a place among your favourites,then I've done my job here,for sure.One such e-mail came very recently from someone who enjoyed my take on Lew Lehman's 1981 sleeper,The Pit,and that somebody turned out to be Matt Farley,the star/producer of tonight's entry,an original little slice of regional indie filmmaking that harkens back to the bygone days of d.i.y. splatter,as well as co-writer of a series of genre film review books you might want to look into at their Shock Marathons site,if such subject matter grabs you(and,of course it does,so go pick them up!).
So I receive a screener in the mail yesterday,with an impressive dustcover full of praise from genre staples like Shock Cinema and SCREEM,and thus,was very eager to slip it in for a viddy with me trusty headphones on,once the lovebirds took to the sack tonight.I can't put my finger on exactly what it is,but there's an atmosphere about tonight's review that reeks of the mid-eighties heyday of video rental.Maybe it's the fact that the entire production was shot on film,maybe it's the casting of amateur friends and family members,maybe it's the synth score.Whatever it is,I felt like I grabbed Farley off the shelves at General Radio in Wilkes-Barre in 1985(along with,I dunno,Nurse Sherri,Boarding House,and Des Morts),and that's a good thing,indeed.Immediately,it becomes apparent that the filmmakers have a deep-rooted love for that era,and for low budget horror flicks of that period,but the movie,for all its paens to late seventies and early eighties horror,has an innocent feel that most of those titles lack.Campy fun.Fear Freaky Farley,indeed.

"Dreamy slumber party girls" having a pillow fight in the middle of the afternoon.Lose the pj's,throw in a wading pool of massage oil,and I'm sold.
"Freaky" Farley Wilder(Matt Farley)is one of several neighborhood oddballs.There's a bearded hobo,a witch,and a guy in a Party City ninja costume all vying for top flake in the cereal bowl.In comparison,Farley's more the misunderstood,maladjusted type in a striped Where's Waldo shirt,considering he seems to only peep tom the town's female populace when they're fully clothed.Farley relates his tragic story to a doctor's tape recorder while chained(!)in a mental institution visiting room.After his mother's untimely death,his totalitarian father(Kevin McGee)regularly has the youngster digging ditches in the woods then filling them up,everytime he disobeys.Fast forward to adult Farley,who still dresses like a Long John Silver's cashier.He purposely ignores the wooden pleas of his pop to grow up,choosing to float down river in an inner tube rather than get a job at the phone company(after his come ons to the elderly job interviewer are unwantedly successful(!!)),resisting the juvenile teasing of his full-grown female neighbor(who wears pig tails and rides a bicycle)and the cautionary warnings of dangerous nearby Morgantown woods full o' trogs from the bearded hobo,who gaffles his inner tube in the process.

Scarlet(Sharon Scalzo)unleashes 'cutie-pie fu' on one of the town's resident nutbags.
Until he meets the daringly sweet Scarlet(Sharon Scalzo),who's writing a manuscript about all the local nutbags,and helps her new friend bloom away from the wall for a change.They steal the keys to his father's cabin and plan a rendezvous there,but when Farley's old man shows up on the scene,interrupting his son's pumpkin-carving and dropping the "yer momma done been offed by de trogs,not no car accident no how!" bombshell,he stabs his dad to death with the carving tool.Outside the cabin,Scarlet has fallen prey to the foul beasts in ghillie suits and rubber claws(I could have sworn I spotted a sneaker or two in there,as well haha)and with her dying breath tells Farley to get her manuscript published,which he translates to "kill everyone you can with that carving tool,Farley!",and goes on the obligatory apeshit killing spree,tearing foliage from trolls and stabbing up some jock throwing the pigskin around with a buddy.He's about to unleash seasonal orange metal vengeance on the annoying girl next door,when he gets bricked upside the domepiece by the fragile guy in the ninja suit,landing him in his current nuthouse predicament.Luckily for him,the mayor is at wit's end about the town's trog problem,so after hiring the witch to spook the beasts away with spells(!),he releases Farley from the mental hospital to help her for one day since he's shown prowess in defeating the foul forest-dwelling hellspawns(!!),and even thrown the ninja into the mix,since he's apparently Farley's "arch-enemy"(!!!)after the brick incident.The witch gets eighty-sixed by trogs,but Farley springs into action,tearing the creatures asunder with his bare hands(you REALLY owe it to yourselves to check out the dialogue in this portion of the film,it's rich,indeed.).Afterwards,he thumps the ninja and makes off for the radio station where the aforementioned pest next door has a show,thanks to Farley's dad.He breaks in,and slices up the station manager and his pigtailed object of hate,before declaring on-the-air,that Freaky Farley is loose.Cue some appropriately cheesy maniacal laughter here.

Hey Farley,I'll have three chicken planks,add a piece of fish,hushpuppies,and a large Mountain Dew.Hold the freaky.
For more up-to-date info on what Matt and his minions have planned next,you'll want to check out the New England based MoternMedia site,where you can access their music releases,as well as their films.Their next film project,a co-production with Goblin Universe,"Don't Let The River Beasts Get You!"(peppy title,guys.)is scheduled for a 2012 release.I've gotta give these guys a major tip of the cabbie for shooting with film,a much appreciated rarity here in the days of digital video.As always,I'm gonna repeat the mantra,"support indie filmmakers",and check out what they have to offer,which,for most of you woprophiles out there,will be a refreshing change of pace against the sea of studio-concocted CGI-driven crap that turns up on SciFi(or "SyFy",for you douchebag hipsters)more often than not.I'd place Farley right next to guilty eighties pleasures like Cannibal Campout,Splatter University,or The Ripper,low in budgetary means,but high in entertainment value.Get your hands on a copy.

What an adorable scream,don'tcha think?

"Sella Turcica"(2010)d/Fred Vogel

We'll ring in the month of November here at the Wop with good seasonal tidings and some excellent genre news for all:the unhinged motherfuckers over at Toe Tag Pictures in Pittsburgh are at it again,serving up some chunk blowing fear fodder with their latest film,Sella Turcica.If you're unfamiliar with the anatomical term(which I'm sure you aren't,as most woprophiles here blew through med school like a tsunami through shanty town,right?),it describes a depression in a bone at the base of the skull that's shaped like a saddle,hence,the "turkish saddle" or sella turcica.Fred "The Hammer" Vogel's latest ocularly offensive offering stars genre queen Camille "I Spit on Your Grave" Keaton,a grown up Jade Risser,who gorehounds will remember from Nick Palumbo's Murder Set Pieces,an excellent lead performance by Toe Tag regular Damien Maruscak,and a dramatic screenplay collaborated upon by Toe Tag head Don Moore,and Fred and Shelby Vogel.At first glance,Turcica might resemble a gore-soaked,low budget update of Bob Clark's Deathdream(1974),but I'm here to tell you,kiddies,Savini and Ormsby could have never dreamed of the splatterific splendor brought to the silver screen here by FX maestro Jerami Cruise.In fact,I'm gonna spare you screenshots of the picture's brutal finale tonight,and instead urge you to pick up your own copy of the film directly from Toe Tag's webstore,and if you don't find yourself blown away and playing back the last twenty minutes of the movie several times in a row,well maybe,you ought to be sharing tear-drenched tissues with your significant other over the latest chick flick,you Sally.

"But I don't wanna hear your boyfriend's stupid fucking mixtapes!"
The story goes something like this:Karmen Robak(Keaton) has enlisted the help of her family to prepare the household for the bittersweet return of her son,Brad(Maruscak),a wheelchair-ridden war vet,paralyzed by a mysterious accident while on active duty,though they remain unaware of the details of the accident or the severity of his condition.Upon his arrival,they're so pleased to see him that they avoid bringing up his obvious sickly appearance.Over the next twenty-six hours Brad's condition grows gravely worse,spiralling into a gruesome conclusion that will change the family forever.

Sgt. Robak(Maruscak) is a wounded war vet you'll not soon forget.
Vogel,the man responsible for the most gloriously nasty horror trilogy to ever see the light of day,focuses his camera lens mainly on dramatic tension for the first two thirds of the picture,then effectively throws the proverbial kitchen sink(if it was filled with gruesomely bloody imagery)at the viewer during the finale.Some of the acting performances feel a bit amateurish,and the dialogue is occasionally stilted(I thought I may have counted characters thanking each other for "being there" something like six hundred thousand times),with Pittsburgh rapper "Freestyle"'s turn as Gavin/DJ Gazm being pretty cringeworthy from the instant he appears on screen.You'll be plugging for him to die violently the second he opens his mouth.There's also a pug named "Fulci",and direct reference to Giovinazzo's Combat Shock(1986),if you're paying close enough attention.All in all though,it's good to see Vogel tackling projects with substance and social commentary to them,and the metaphor within tonight's review about how war can change people is well-handled,I think.It's safe to say we can rely on directors like Vogel and Nick Palumbo to consistently redefine the cutting edge of underground horror,and if features like Turcica are any indication,there are good days ahead for the genre,indeed.Three wops.

If you thought war was Hell,you should see the Robak household right about now...