THE BASEMENT

Wow, this is a pretty awesome package for anyone who has a penchant for (a) cheap, cheesy 80s gore films, and (b) novelty packaging. In fact, if you still get stiff at the notion of horror films on VHS, you are positively going to cream over this latest offering from Camp Motion Pictures...

The idea is this: lump together 5 of the goriest, most insane no-budget films of the late 1980s and release them in one oversized box-set containing – wait for this – three DVDs and one red plastic VHS videotape! It’s retro heaven, so long as your VCR (if you still own one) can handle NTSC playback.

So, without further ado, the discs:

Disc one has but one film to offer: the rather wonderful THE BASEMENT.

Shot on Super-8, it looks like crap but writer-director Tim O’Rawe maintains a steady grip and good lighting as a quartet of strangers wander into a strange-looking basement and bump into a ghoul known only as the Sentinel (Scott Hart, who also provided the film’s rudimentary but game FX).

When they ask where they are, the Sentinel advises these people that they’re all sinners – and the basement is about to act as a "confessional". Without further ado, we’re taken into four short stories designed to show us how these folk went wrong in life – and what their comeuppance is going to be.

The first yarn is hilarious: an unfaithful wife who hates her pool-loving husband ("I’ve had better sex with myself"; "I hope he drowns, that fucker!"). It’s marvellously shit, especially when it takes on a supernatural bent.

As is the next story, an incredibly amusing tale of a young man who refuses to enter into the spirit of Halloween – to his eternal regret.

Zombies and haunted houses complete the episodes, all of which have (predictable) twists in their tales. Nothing looks good, everything’s badly shot and voices are never synchronised with the audio. But who cares? This is utter trash, and it works just perfectly as that.

Billed as a cross between TALES FROM THE CRYPT and CREEPSHOW by O’Rawe, it’s neither – and yet, you’ve got to see it. It’s awful, it’s brilliant. At 69 minutes, it’s anything but dull.

You get a nice animated main menu page on this disc and some worthy extras too:

Best of all is an audio commentary track from cinematographer (and DVD producer) Michael Raso, and John Fedele – who can’t quite remember what his involvement in the film was. They sound friendly enough, but you get the impression they haven’t seen each other for some time. Fedele in particular hasn’t seen the film before and seems to know nothing about the film. But Raso gives a good report on what went on and who was involved.

7 minutes of outtakes for THE BASEMENT are grainy as fuck but hugely appreciated. You won’t see these anywhere else.

A 6-minute TV news report from Paul Rose on the filming of THE BASEMENT is absolutely priceless, with O’Rawe explaining to mulletted Rose how the film is intended to have DAWN OF THE DEAD-style gore, and almost apologises for it being shot in Jefferson.

We also get three episodes from "The Meadowlands Showcase", which was apparently a cable TV program produced by Raso and Fedele in the late 80s. You can imagine how vital they are.

Probably the nicest additions to this disc are two short films from O’Rawe: SAY NO TO DRUGS (which is really atmospheric, with Gothic visuals and dramatic piano-led score, I must say) and VENGEANCE – a 4-minute silent feature that, nevertheless, also evidences that O’Rawe had/has potential as a filmmaker.

To accuse disc two’s opening film, Gary Cohen’s CAPTIVES (1987) of being terrible would, I feel, be missing the point. By a country mile.

The opening pop track, complete with that horrible 80s synthetic drum sound, sets the tone perfectly (lyrically too, "revenge is sweet" ...). And, is it coincidence, or does this opening sequence really recall the first few minutes of Ty West’s celebrated THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL?!

Anyway, a soft picture with ugly framing and fairly bad camerawork won’t stop this one from scoring quite highly in terms of cheesy entertainment.

The story begins with a likeable wife (Lisa Cohen) who waves her bearded hubbie Gary (Gary Cohen) off to work and prepares to spend the day with her infant son Zach, only to fall foul of three escaped convicts – she should’ve been listening to her radio as it blasted in the background earlier, as she was clearly warned ...

The real kick here is that one of the convicts is Gary’s ex-wife, who was put away for allegedly causing the death of her child in a house fire. Now she wants to prove to his current wife otherwise, by way of home videos (yawn). Things get even more complicated when Gary’s mother turns up mid-afternoon ... This is surprisingly sombre stuff at times, with an air of cruelty about it that recalls the best bits of the original THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT. These are, however, offset by some really cack-handed attempts at humour, and highly questionable performances.

Gore is minor in comparison to the two VIDEO VIOLENCE films Cohen directed (see below), but there’s still an agreeable exploitation kick to the final third of this slightly overlong film once Lisa resolves to get revenge upon her aggressors.

Most excitingly, the film’s never been available on DVD before. And it comes here, uncut, with an engaging commentary track from director Cohen.

The full-frame picture is soft but fair, considering its video-to-DVD conversion origins, with decent colours and blacks. Likewise, the English mono audio is good throughout. 18 remote chapters mean you can zip through this one quite swiftly if needs be, even without the benefit of a scene-selection menu.

The second film on disc two is the entertainingly rum CANNIBAL CAMPOUT.

Student lovers John (Jon McBride) and Carrie (Carrie Lindell) plan a weekend camping trip in the woods near the remote town of Redston, along with another couple - Chris (Christopher Granger) and Amy (Amy Chludzinski). John's friend Ray (Ray Angelic) warns him that a family went missing under mysterious circumstances at Redston a short while ago. John's unperturbed and sets off on his vacation. Which is unfortunate, because while Ray's story was part of an elaborate hoax, it ironically could have scared the four youngsters into avoiding a whole heap of trouble ...

Trouble which starts when they run into a couple of hillbilly brothers who threaten to kill the boys and fuck their girlfriends. John manages to curb any nastiness by driving away as it all kicks off - but the quartet are shaken by the altercation and begin camping gingerly, aware that they may run into the brothers again at some point. What they don't realise is that the brothers are joined by a third sibling - a mutant given to permanently wearing a motorcycle helmet to hide his ugliness - and are watching the campers from within the surroundings trees. Now, as they watch John and company, it's only a matter of time till they find their stride and pounce ...

CANNIBAL CAMPOUT is another ultra-cheap shot-on-video production from 1988. All lighting is naturally sourced, so it helps that the film is set almost exclusively during the daytime. The handheld camera moves fluidly, and the editing is surprisingly sharp - but nothing can rob CAMPOUT of that distinctively no-budget video look. The score, by Granger, is sometimes very effective indeed. Especially during the film's darker scenes. In the more lucid moments, it resorts time and again to a horrid piano-led dirge that soon starts to grate.

The acting is generally good, considering the lack of experience from all concerned. Everyone plays their roles in suitably deadpan fashion - which aides McBride's knowingly derivative premise greatly. The cannibals are played with demented enthusiasm - with top honours going to the goggle-eyed Richard Marcus. He gets all the best lines, with some deliciously obscene dialogue from scriptwriter John Rayl.

At times the wacky humour (bad gags, asides to camera etc) seem at loggerheads with the film's finale which degenerates largely into mean-spirited nastiness and cheap gore. But at the end of the day this is a backyard production from a novice filmmaker who, in his own words, simply wanted to "prove you could just go out and do it yourself".

We get a solid presentation of the uncut film in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. The video source is not perfect and as a result some image clarity dips are present, but it's generally a decent job. The mono audio is similar - mostly loud and clear, with occasional background hiss that proves to be not too distracting.

The only extra for CANNIBAL CAMPOUT is an interesting commentary track. Mark Polonia (a no-budget filmmaker of dubious standing) interviews McBride over a telephone line - really - and, against the odds, it works. McBride is not only proud of his film but has excellent recollections of the shoot, so there's some good stuff to be heard here.

On to disc three, which is home to VIDEO VIOLENCE 1 & 2.

VIDEO VIOLENCE opens with a prologue in which a woman walks into a clothes shop and is shown to a changing room. As she removes her top the two leering clerks watch her on a hidden video camera. Suddenly one of them takes a baseball bat into the changing room and bashes the woman to death. Welcome to Frenchtown.

Steve (Art Neill) has recently moved to Frenchtown with his wife Rachel (Jackie Neill). Steve owns a video store, with the help of Rick - a wayward teen who's recently returned to the town following his father's death.

One morning a tape is returned to the store, and Rick notices it is not one of the store's. Curious to see what type of home footage the weird town's inhabitants would shoot, he and Steve watch the tape. To their alarm, it shows the killing and dismemberment of the town postmaster.

Steve locks the store with Rick and the tape in it, and rushes to tell the police chief (William Toddie). The chief doesn't believe Steve's story - he says the postmaster moved away a couple of months earlier - and when they visit the video store both the tape and Rick are gone.

But we learn early on that a couple of unhinged locals called Howard (Bart Sumner) and Eli (Uke) are recording their own home movies in their cellar, where they take victims up there and kill them on camera, all the while laughing like maniacs.

VIDEO VIOLENCE is slower and darker in tone than the cover and its title suggest. If you're expecting comical violence and goofy characters, then don't. Performances are largely restrained and the script tries to keep things as plausible and lacking in sensation as possible.

The film feels quite laborious in pace, although it never detracts from its central plot and when the gore finally arrives it's handled with aplomb.

Indeed, the gory elements of the film are almost complete opposites to the rest of the movie. Suddenly characters are manic and overplayed, and the cheesy bargain-basement FX seem to be at loggerheads with the more serious outlook of the more plot-driven portions of the film.

Still, there's plenty of the red stuff on offer. We get a bloody decapitation, a nifty arm hacking, Eli carving his name into a woman's bare chest ... all filmed for the camera by leering goons, in a disturbing manner that foreshadows the AUGUST UNDERGROUND movies.

Compared to other shot-on-video efforts of the time, VIDEO VIOLENCE is one of the very best I've seen. Its sequel, subtitled THE EXPLOITATION!, is nowhere near as good.

It too opens with a prologue, this time showing off its improved production values with a stylish vampire movie set, wherein an irate director stakes his lead actress through the heart - for real.

A newscaster then appears on screen (director Gary Cohen in a cameo role) to advise us that Eli and Howard have scrambled cable TV signals, and now host their own talk show on cable TV on which they invariably slaughter innocents live on air. The FBI is trying to trace the origins of the show, we're told, but in the meantime we're invited to sit back and enjoy the latest episode ...

What we get for the next hour is pretty tiresome. Bad jokes from Eli, crappy mock infomercials, short films "submitted by viewers", gratuitous nudity, and a twist ending that was presumably written while shitfaced. Gone is the sombre tone of VIDEO VIOLENCE. Its sequel boasts better FX but a complete lack of respect for anything resembling storyline or characterisation. Lazy, lazy.

Both films are presented in their original 1.33:1 aspect ratios, and are fully uncut. The images are very bright, colourful and sharp - mastered from the original source elements. Occasional flickers onscreen are not too distracting, and are a result of damage to the original video.

The English mono audio track on each film is as good as can be expected for SOV efforts from the late 80s. Dialogue is loud and audible, while there is a little hiss to be heard upon closer inspection.

Static menus allow you to select either film, or peruse the extra features. There are no scene selection menus, but the films can be navigated through your remote - Part 1 has 11 chapters, while the shorter Part 2 only has 8. Of the extras, the audio commentaries on both features are by far the most substantial.

Cohen is joined by FX artist Mark Dolson, Mark Kwiatek, Art Neil, co-writer Paul Kaye, David Christopher and Uke for both talk-tracks. What we get are informative, frequently comical and occasionally sexist banter from the group. It's a little hard to hear at times, and there were moments where I couldn't fathom what they were actually laughing about, but these are decent tracks in the main.

A 14-minute onscreen interview with Cohen follows ("Violence On Video!"), and shows him as a likeable and enthusiastic individual. He basically repeats stuff from the commentary tracks though, regarding financing, the inspiration behind the original film (amusing) and so on.

There are also trailers on the disc for both VIOLENCE films, plus WOODCHIPPER MASSACRE, CANNIBAL CAMPOUT and GHOUL SCHOOL. The disc also opens with an enjoyable 99-second promo reel breathlessly highlighting all that is good about Camp Motion Pictures.

The videotape, as mentioned earlier, is NTSC compatible and features THE BASEMENT feature film only. But it’s a really nice touch by Camp Motion Pictures to even include it here.

Another nice touch is the oversized video-style cardboard box that this set comes in, complete with cheesily graphic cover art that bests the work that Rick Melton does for Arrow. Nice stuff.

For fans of retro horror, and retro packaging (even though it’s totally scary to refer to 80s horrors and video as "retro" – but I suppose it is 2011!), you’ll get a kick out of this terrific package.

Review by Stuart Willis