Wednesday, January 30, 2013

NAKED MASSACRE (aka BORN FOR HELL) (1976) movie review



Naked Massacre (aka Born for Hell) (1976) d. Heroux, Denis (Germany)

Luridly titled shocker loosely based on the 1966 Richard Speck murders of seven Chicago nurses, effectively relocated to war-torn Belfast. Matthew Carierre (sporting a Speck-like “Born for Hell” tattoo) tenders an effectively chilling performance as an embittered, unbalanced and misogynistic AWOL Vietnam vet terrorizing and killing a houseful of attractive ladies one by one.


Far from the cheap thrills of the ’80s slashers to come, the situation is played deadly serious here, and the tangible emotional and physical suffering of the victims—combined with the dark, grainy photography—ups the sleaze factor considerably. (Unfortunately, the dialogue doesn’t always synch up, which can prove a little distracting, but in some ways it provides a welcome disconnect from the onscreen nihilism.) Strong stuff with a true heart of darkness, a killing cousin to flicks like Last House on the Left, Night Train Murders and I Spit on Your Grave.

3 comments:

  1. Dude, this is totally bizarre! Today (like literally a few hours ago) I was flipping through John Stanley's book and saw this title. Had never heard of it and thought I should check it out. Then I click on your blog and see this!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, here's how that happened. (I love that John Stanley book by the way, even if I rarely agree with his opinions.)

      I'm currently reading this kickass book on Canadian horror films called THEY CAME FROM WITHIN. In the process, I came across the name of French-Canadian director Denis Heroux, whose brother Claude was a prominent producer during the infamous tax-shelter years. Anyway, Heroux directed THE UNCANNY, one of those Peter Cushing flicks I've been meaning to catch up with for years. As fate would have it, it was available on YouTube. I decided to see what other films the director had done - turns out he'd only done one other horror flick, NAKED MASSACRE! And I had a copy of it on the Mill Creek CHILLING CLASSICS set.

      And well, since the Kryptic Army assignment this month was to find two films by the same director that we hadn't seen before...

      So, there you go. (Why aren't you doing the Kryptic Army, by the way?)

      Delete
  2. Ha! That seems to be exactly how my movie mind works sometimes.

    As for joining the Army, it is weird because my viewing moods never seem to be set. So I can't really force myself into watching specific things during a time period. Weird, I know.

    ReplyDelete