HORRO R FILM REVIEW: LIGHTS CAMERA BLOOD

LIGHTS CAMERA BLOOD REVIEW

Mr Mandalor (Alan McKenzie) makes horror movies, or to be more accurate horror movies which are so bad that they are unintentionally funny such as 'Rabid Babies from Outer Space'. Mr Gelstein (Scott Cranwill) of 'Gorrific Pictures' is a producer/distributor who is tired of Mandalor bringing him such dreadful films and tells him not to bother unless he can produce something actually horrific.

With the best of intentions and minimum capability Mandalor attempts to make another movie, ably assisted by his Igor-voiced cinematographer Rodney (Dan Baker-Moor: The Jogger). Things start off badly as an actress does a remarkably poor job of acting out her lines, so bad that Mandalor loses his temper and beats her to death with a telescope. His moment of madness continues with him instructing his cameraman Rodney to keep rolling, and his dim-witted mono-browed undertaker's assistant and lead actor Gustave (Kris Scoran) to do everything written in the script, only this time for real, on the corpse of the actress.  Amid much maniacal laughing from Mandalor everyone keeps working on what is a truly revolting scene.

Mandalor returns to Gelstein with the new footage, and Gelstein loves it as it is finally something in line with what his company is all about, little does he know that what he is watching is actually a snuff movie. On the basis of what he sees he offers Mandalor a contract for many more films as long as they are equally realistic. Mandalor sets about recruiting actors to appear in his latest offering so that they may play the main part of the role, but when it comes time for the characters to die Mandalor has recruited look-alike vagrants whom Gustave slaughters for real.

Things take a turn for the worse when Rodney meets a waitress called Anne (Heather Russell), whose boyfriend Rex (Tim Gray) is an actor, and it's not long before Rex is before the cameras for a very final take. When Anne returns to collect Rex, Mandalor tells her that Rex went for a walk, she doesn't believe them when Rex doesn't show up for work the following day. Anne tells Detective Bakeman (Shawn Kowalkie) (He's a detective) about Rex vanishing, so Detective Bakeman (He's a detective) investigates.

Mandalor's films soon become the toast of tinsel-town, legendary for their realistically gory special effects, and Mandalor thrives, getting more maniacal as things progress. I'm very tempted to go into details about what happens in the end, but to be honest I wouldn't want to ruin it for anyone who chooses to watch this. What I will say though is that the ending was unusually well thought out with one of the most original murder weapons I've seen in a long time.

There are some genuinely disgusting moments and a large dose of intentional humour which works so well with the retro look of the movie. It's a very clever idea which is truly made the most of in a film which reminds me very much of the low-budget video-nasties of the late seventies and early eighties.

A fun film with ripe dialogue, the deliberately over-the-top acting and overall style is well intentioned and at the better end of the scale for this sort of production. Written, Produced, Edited and Directed by Kevin Doherty at Magic Toaster Films I can heartily recommend this to anyone who likes a good laugh and plenty of cut-price gore.

REVIEWED BY JOE YOUNG