FLESH FOR THE INFERNO (2015) directed by Richard Griffin | Review by Louis Fowler

In a story that feels largely ripped from the headlines, a scummy Catholic priest is accused of flagrant molestation by a handful of seemingly decent nuns. However, instead of just relocating him to a different parish and hoping enterprising journalists never find out about it, said priest takes out a gun and shoots one of the nuns right in the head.

The rest of the crew he seals in a brick-strewn wall down in the basement – it's a bit more work, as he probably could've shot all of them and been done with it, but whatever – prompting the nuns to renounce God and, in a broad turn of events, accept Satan in a twenty-year bid for unholy vengeance.

And here is where the movie start to make no sense: the bloody day finally comes when a grotesque band of teens, with all stereotypes represented and overplayed, accidentally discover and get slaughtered individually by the demon-possessed nuns. The kids, as annoying as they are, really had nothing to do with the molestations of years past, so to rip them apart seems like going a little too far in the nuns' bid for revenge.

Directed by Richard Griffin (SPLATTER DISCO, MURDER UNIVERSITY), FLESH... moves from point A to point B about as well as you'd expect, more inclined to deliver a message of anger against the church than a storyline that really makes much sense; but, in light of certain Catholic crimes, I can respect that. What hurts the film more is the devilishly poor acting, but, for an ultra low-budget flick, what can you really expect?

FLESH FOR THE INFERNO, if this was 1995, would've been a great Saturday night rental. And while I'm not sure who this neo-nunsploitation is truly for these days, if it happens to cross your black path of entertainment options somewhere, don't damn it to Hell immediately. – Louis Fowler

Louis Fowler is a longtime contributor to ER and The Hungover Gourmet as well as The Lost Ogle, Bookgasm and The Impulsive Buy. 

FLESH FOR THE INFERNO is available from Amazon.

THE PURGING HOUR (2016) | Review by Louis Fowler

Found footage films – forever mingling a totally valid plot point with fourth wall-breaking budgetary concerns, natch – have replaced zombie flicks as the low-budget go-to and, while I personally am already tired of them, I couldn't be happier for hungry filmmakers on a less-than-shoestring to create their cinematic dreams.

That being said, at first glance I expected THE PURGING HOUR (2016) to be a rip-off of, well, THE PURGE (2013), instead of, well, I'm really not quite sure, but it is a found footage film, so that's something. The amount of non-existent overhead here really leads me to not only believe the film was shot in the late afternoon the one Sunday everyone had off from their jobs, but everything from dialog to the effects were made up as they went along for 80 minutes.

That's not really a bad thing here, though.

While talking heads go on and on about a vague crime, we're treated to footage of an extremely decent Latino family driving in a car on a barren road or setting up the grill in their new home. While these scenes do tend to go on for a while, in today's anti-Mexican culture where usually Caucasian writers fill us in as undocumented immigrants, gang-members or, even worse, hotel maids, I appreciated what THE PURGING HOUR (aka HOME VIDEO) was trying to do and would've loved a whole movie of it, no final ten minutes of horror needed.

And really, it's all in about the final ten minutes when the unspeakable horror takes place, an unseen force slashing throats and stabbing hearts and all kinds of heavy grue. Who's doing it and why? A few theories are expressed, including a take on la Llorona that, for the most part, peters out. Just keep guessing, I suppose.

While THE PURGING HOUR is definitely a good-enough effort by director Emmanuel Giorgio Sandoval and his crew, still, I'm kind of thinking that maybe horror isn't his strong suit the way possibly a family comedy or even drama might be. Either way, hopefully he'll continue to keep Latinos not only in the front of the camera, but especially behind it as well. – Louis Fowler

Louis Fowler is a longtime contributor to ER and The Hungover Gourmet as well as The Lost Ogle, Bookgasm and The Impulsive Buy. 

THE PURGING HOUR is available from Amazon.

THE ZODIAC KILLER (1971) Directed by Tom Hanson | Review by Louis Fowler

The sheer balls these 70s filmmakers had, to exploit a serial killer while the bodies were still warm, all under the guise of "helping" to catch the bloodthirsty deviant.

Still, with no disrespect to the actual victims, 1971's THE ZODIAC KILLER (now available on Blu-Ray from AGFA and Something Weird) is an enjoyable piece of trash, for all the wrong reasons. Starting off with a title card practically saying this film was not made for awards and, instead, in the public interest, well, you mostly succeeded.

In a particle-board California community where every single man is apparently a misogynistic pig with a "bitch" ex-wife, a woman gets stabbed in the broad daylight as young children watch. I'm not really sure if this is the startling opening of the movie or a California tourism advertisement, but it's pretty effective on both counts.

As the supposed murderer reads off a generically psychopathic litany of stereotyped weirdness, the audience is meant to perpetually guess who the killer is; running through the large list of red herrings, is it the bitter postman put upon by harridans, the divorced daddy with a shrewish ex-wife or the one seemingly normal dude with a need to rant on about his future zombie slaves from the lost continent of Atlantis or some such junk.

Like a MGTOW spank-bank come to life, David Fincher it's not.

Still, when the Zodiac does appear on-screen, clad in his remarkably clean uniform with crosshairs on the front, it's darkly chilling to know that the acclaimed killer was probably in the theater, pleasuring himself to the clumsy filmmaking on bad film stock, languishing in the fictionalized outings of his silver screen alter-ego. That's gotta be a bigger rush than a double-murder on Lover's Lane, I'd suppose.

In addition to THE ZODIAC KILLER, included as a bonus feature is ANOTHER SON OF SAM (1977, written and directed by Dave Adams), which I know sounds like a wacky summer comedy about an inept serial killer and his dog pal going on a dingy New York murder spree, but instead is an equally garbage flick about a mental patient who knows some sweet speedboat stunts.

But, for the price of admission, it also features the public domain ramblings of lounge-singer extraordinaire Johnny Charro, whose concert footage is a might scarier than both films combined. – Louis Fowler

Louis Fowler is a longtime contributor to ER and The Hungover Gourmet as well as The Lost Ogle, Bookgasm and The Impulsive Buy. 

THE ZODIAC KILLER is available from Amazon and Diabolik DVD.