Septic Man (2013) – Plex

From the country that is about to bring you The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man (Canada), comes another scatological extravaganza — Septic Man! From the writer of the excellent ‘Pontypool’, this is an origin story, although I’m not sure if they plan to make any more.

Jack is a sanitary worker who has been tasked to discover the cause of an entire town’s poisoned water. We know the water is poisoned because the very opening scene involves a poor woman spurting from every orifice in the filthiest bathroom you have ever seen. With the tone set, the film proceeds to trap Jack in a disgusting septic tank, surrounded by bodies, and slowly mutating due to the toxic whatnots in the water.

This septic tank is the dumping ground for a psychopathic serial killer called Lord Auch and his Lemmy-sized accomplice, Giant, and they make Jack’s predicament even worse. There’s a subplot about a shady government worker (Julian Richings), and Jack’s pregnant wife, but it all disappears into the murk in favour of showing us Jack’s futile escape attempts and regression into a turd-slurping monster.

There’s some attempted social commentary regarding government cover-ups and the gulf between companies and their workers, but I’m not here for that. Bring on the poop and gore!

This is a truly disgusting film, and if the sight of sewage, bodies in sewage, sewage getting into wounds, and sewage getting everywhere else turns your stomach, then tread carefully — not to mention the tremendous gore care of the psycho’s chainsaw and sharpened teeth. It’s messy, mucky, and strangely compelling — a more serious take on The Toxic Avenger.

Recommended for poopyheads.

7/10

Harold’s Going Stiff (2011) – Plex

Harold, an older gentleman, appears to be patient zero for a bizarre new affliction called ‘Onset Rigors Disease.’ This condition, which only affects men, may or may not be linked to the over-consumption of an addictive sausage product, but whatever the reason, victims are slowly getting less mobile, then developing sores, then are prone to violent outbursts including biting.

It’s referred to as ‘zombification,’ but these are far from your traditional zombies. nd its all rather depressing. For some reason, Harold hasn’t yet become violent, so he is the subject of intense study in the hope of a cure. Into his life comes Penny, his home nurse who is there to loosen up his joints and help him look after himself. Penny is a trained nurse and a kind soul, plagued with IBS and a string of tragic dates as she searches for a fella.

The two form an unlikely relationship, and bring out the best in each other, although don’t expect a happy ending. Thrown into the mix is a gang of vigilantes who hunt down and kill ‘zombies,’ and it’s their mission to locate and destroy Harold for ‘1000 points.’

This is a low budget, incredibly British affair, directed by Keith Wright, and he has attempted a mockumentary style in the vein of The Office. It’s occasionally successful, but I think it would have been better as a traditional narrative — however, this style is a regular cushion for low budgets. The humor is a bit hit and miss, ranging from farcical to dark, but the relationship between Harold and Penny is wholesome and you can’t help but root for them both.

Worth a look if you’ve never been to Grimsby and don’t believe how grim it could be ‘oop North’.

7/10

The Daughter of Dr. Jekyll (1957) – Tubi

We made it to the halfway point with this mess of a cheese-fest.

OK, pay attention.

Janet Smith (Gloria Talbott) and her fiancé, John Hastings (John Agar), arrive at an English manor house she is set to inherit, and meet her guardian, Dr. Lomas (Arthur Shields). Lomas explains that she will inherit even more, and when the couple accidentally find a hidden laboratory, he tells her that she is the daughter of Dr. Jekyll.

We then learn that Dr. Jekyll used to turn into a werewolf, and could only be killed by a stake in the heart. I guess the producer was hoping to hit all the demographics.

Janet has dreams of women being killed by someone, and keeps waking up with dirty hands and blood on her nightie. This turns Agar to jelly, and he begs Dr. Lomas to help his betrothed.

Naturally, there’s more to this than meets the eye, and (spoiler alert) it all gets resolved at the end.

It’s all a bit laborious and half-cocked, but I like the miniature manor house, and the eventual transformation is actually rather well done. Ultimately though, it’s as sleep-inducing as Janet’s nightly warm milk and brandy.

5/10

Lisa Frankenstein (2024) – Prime

Kathryn Newton  is fast becoming one of my favourite genre actors. With great turns in Paranormal Activity 4, Freaky, Abigail, and now this, she has the dramatic range and comedic chops to make all of her roles memorable, and she’s perfectly cast in this 1989-set coming-of-age horror comedy.

She plays Lisa (named for the computer in Weird Science), a ‘strange and unusual’ highschooler who prefers the gothic solitude of the local graveyard where she talks to the tombstone of a long-deceased young man, instead of hanging out with the usual high school tropes at kegger parties. Indeed, when she does finally go to one of the parties in the hope of getting to know a crush, she is drugged and then assaulted.

Lisa wishes that she could be with her dead beau, but due to a fun mix-up, the dead man rises from the grave to be with her instead. Lisa must now hide the living corpse from her family, while trying to replace his missing parts. Hijinks ensue. The ch-ch-change that gets this film into my list isn’t what you might expect though — it’s not the transformation from moldy stiff to dashing boyfriend (Cole Sprouse, excellent), but the transformation of Lisa from church mouse to swaggering goth vamp. Newton eats it up in various demonic Madonna fashions, and it all leads to an inevitable conclusion.

Diablo Cody wrote this one, and if you like her stuff then you’ll love this — there’s some zingers in her script that made me laugh out loud — and it’s the directorial debut of Zelda Williams, Robin’s kid, who knocks it out of the park with a confident eye for effective composition. The film looks gorgeous, all 80’s pastels and early grunge, and the supporting cast, especially Carla Gugino and Liza Soberano, are perfect for this nostalgic-tinged horror comedy.

Recommended for fans of Heathers, Zapped, and Stranger Things.

9/10

Swallowed (2022) – Prime

Got suckered in by a film description that called this ‘body horror,’ which it isn’t. However, if your idea of body horror is someone having to put his vaselined hand up his friend’s bum to extract something ghastly, then maybe it fits (the genre, not the hand).

Best friends Ben and Dom (Cooper Koch and Jose Colon, both excellent) are in the throes of a final night before before Ben leaves for L.A. to find work in gay porn. At the tail-end of the evening, Dom explains that he has to do an errand for a friend, and they visit Alice (Jenna Malone), who promptly forces them to swallow a bunch of lumpy condoms to smuggle into the next county. They both need the money, plus Alice has a gun, so down the packages go.

Unfortunately, during a quick pitstop, they are attacked by a homophobic redneck, who punches Dom in the stomach, causing something inside to rupture, and it all goes rapidly downhill from there. There are plenty of excellent revelations, which I won’t spoil here, suffice to say they weren’t smuggling drugs.

The rest of the film takes place in a cabin, where they are met by Rich, a flamboyantly queer villain played brilliantly by Mark (Freddy’s Revenge) Patton, and things get menacing and goopy before you can say ‘drop your pants,’ which they do, a lot. Seriously, if you’re a fan of winkles, this is the film for you.

Despite its lack of true body horror and/or transformation, I’m going to allow this one, because there are enough buttock-clenching moments to make it count.

7/10

Mad Heidi (2022) – Prime

One of the perks of babysitting your nephew is when their dad has Paramount+ – so I was able to finally catch up with this little beauty.
As a former European child, I am well versed in the Heidi stories, and it was a delight to see all of the beloved locations and characters reduced to dystopian depravity in this ‘Swissploitation’ film.

It’s a revenge flick at its core — Heidi (Alice lucy) loses her family, her love, and her beloved hamlet to a fascist regime, led by ‘Very Swiss Leader’ President Meili (Casper Van Dien). President Meili loves cheese, and hates the lactose-intolerant, to the point where they are executed. He is also developing a secret ‘ultra’ cheese, that reduces its consumers to brain-dead automatons, and mutates their bodies into dairy-filled meat bags. Heidi is captured and thrown into a terrible women’s prison, where she must endure abuse and hardships, until she breaks out, trains with some warrior nuns, and exacts bloody revenge.

It’s a grindhouse flick through and through, complete with occasional racism, homophobia, nudity and gratuitous violence. To give you a sense of the ridiculousness of the whole affair, one guy is water-boarded with fondue, and then finished off with a Toblerone, while one of the tyrannical villains, Kommandant Knorr, is voluntarily violated with a mustard-slathered knockwurst.

Alice Lucy is gorgeous and kicks all manner of arse, Van Dein is wonderfully over-the-top and really funny, and the film looks really good — saturated colors, ‘grindhouse’ grain, and splatterific practical gore effects. Get drunk, eat some chocolate, and watch it.

8/10

Previous Murky Movie surveys from Neil Baker include:

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes, Part I
Monster Mayhem
It’s All Rather Hit-or-Mythos
You Can’t Handle the Tooth
Tubi Dive
What Possessed You?
Fan of the Cave Bear
There, Wolves
What a Croc
Prehistrionics
Jumping the Shark
Alien Overlords
Biggus Footus
I Like Big Bugs and I Cannot Lie
The Weird, Weird West
Warrior Women Watch-a-thon

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Neil Baker’s last article for us was Part I of Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes. Neil spends his days watching dodgy movies, most of them terrible, in the hope that you might be inspired to watch them too. He is often asked why he doesn’t watch ‘proper’ films, and he honestly doesn’t have a good answer. He is an author, illustrator, teacher, and sculptor of turtle exhibits. (AprilMoonBooks.com).