Demented (2021) - Horror Film Review

Demented is an indie exploitation horror that was written and directed by Nigel Hartwell (Insight of Evil, Dead by Dawn). The main draw for a lot of people not knowing anything about the film will be the iconic actors and wrestlers who appear. The exploitation genre isn't one of my favourites, I find them to be usually needlessly violent and misogynistic, but Demented does things slightly different by being surprisingly quite tame in what is shown. 

Amanda (Cheyenne Ennis - Insight of Evil, Dead by Dawn) has gone away on a holiday with her boyfriend to his remote holiday cabin. As we know from the prologue, that has the boyfriend being interviewed by a Detective (Felissa Rose - Camp Twilight, Sleepaway Camp) at a police station, things don't end well for the woman. After a wonderful evening in which she is proposed to, she inexplicably wakes up chained to a bed in an abandoned motel, at the mercy of a chainsaw wielding sicko. Unwittingly the star of her very own snuff film Amanda struggles against her fate. Meanwhile as time passes more female victims find themselves in a similar situation with the same twisted killer.

There was a screen of text at the movies start that I assumed was there just to set the scene, it was talking about the number of women who go missing each year and how some end up enslaved in the sex trade. While Demented in no way is a tenderly handled movie it does give the female victims a voice by having them in more of a pivotal role than might be expected. Exploitation usually conjures up images of over the top bloody torture and naked victims, here though in a way I found refreshing that was not so much the case. Sure, there are a lot of breasts on show, but the victims are fully dressed for the most part, rape is implied rather than shown due to both victim and attacker being fully dressed, and outside of some CG this is completely blood free. There is also the inclusion of some unexpected possibly supernatural moments that left me guessing as to what was going on.

The Vindicator (1986) / The Stepfather (1987) - Horror Film Review

This review is something a little different as rather than write about an individual film I am instead reviewing a DVD double feature that contains eighties classics The Vindicator and The Stepfather. I have often mentioned Frolic Pictures latest releases and I have liked the idea behind them. They aim to replicate the experience of going to a drive-in of old by having two classics on the one disc. Rather than that be it though the features are bookended by trailers, notifications, and even the odd cartoon to really amp up the old school experience. So, after a short Superman cartoon, and a couple of trailers it is into the first feature; Jean-Claude Lord's The Vindicator.

David McIlwraith (Vampire High TV series) stars as Carl, a scientist working for a research and development company's special weapon project. After a disagreement on how the funds are being used he is killed on the orders of his boss Alex Whyte (Richard Cox). To add insult to injury Alex decides Carl's body will be used as a test subject for a new type of super soldier. The experiment is kind of a success, Carl awakens to find his brain implanted in a robot. However, before the scientists are able to attach the device that would allow them to control him, he breaks out of confinement and flees the lab. Knowing he was murdered by Whyte, and unable to be near anyone due to his suit's automatic response that makes him kill anyone who touches him, the reborn man sets out on a path of ...vindication.

I had never heard of The Vindicator before watching it for review, but found it to be a great eighties action film. It is full of cheesy moments, and some classic tropes of the action genre, such as a vehicle immediately exploding in a ball of flame after it crashes off a cliff. This came out a year before Robocop did, yet this follows a similar style story. The biggest difference being that Carl is designed to be a tool for evil, rather than as a cop. There are plenty of great moments here, such as a sewer stealth scene, moments where Carl converses with his pregnant wife via a synthesiser, and a great showdown when Carl finally returns to the lab he was born in. Sometimes I struggled to make out what the robotic voice of the protagonist was saying, but mostly the story doesn't really matter. Some great death scenes here, including a biker getting his helmet crushed into his head, and one awesome bit where Carl crushes a man into the car he was trying to mow Carl down with! With wild eyes and a weird black suit this isn't really a character you can identify with, but has lots of stupid, yet fun moments. This made for a fun first half to the DVD double feature.