True Gore II (1989)

Don't be misled by the title and put your lube away: True Gore II (aka Empire of Madness) (1989)--M Dixon Causey's follow-up to the eponymous first entry--has virtually no true gore in it at all. Instead, the first half is a compilation of faux-snuff vignettes akin to something you'd find in a SOV horror collection like Snuff Perversions 1 & 2, Snuff Files, The Dead Files, Violations I & II, or even more recent titles like Murder Collection Volume 1. The second half is in turn a send-up of satanic panic style videos like Law Enforcement Guide to Satanic Cults, Devil Worship: The Rise Of Satanism, and countless others shat out during the 80s/90s.

The vignettes are hilariously inept to the point where it seems clear that Causey was parodying the shockumentary form; the 'intestines' stuffed into the mouth of the rotting corpse during the necromancy ritual, for instance, are clearly-visible sausage links, with no effort being made to disguise this (quite the opposite). Even the credits are a joke, mocking the seriousness with which shocku producers take themselves, crediting a 'researcher' for a film that clearly had none, and a 'visual archivist' being listed in place of a cameraman.

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1989, Gore, Horror, Shocking, Shockumentary,

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River of Death (1989) (Kino Lorber) Blu-ray

Released in May 2015

Kino Lorber have confirmed that they will release on Blu-ray director Steve Carver's film River of Death (1989), starring Michael Dudikoff, Donald Pleasence, Robert Vaughn, and Herbert Lom.

Synopsis: In 1945, with the Allies approaching, two German officers ransack a monastery in Greece and make plans to escape with the loot. However, one of the Germans is left behind by his partner, while the other escapes by submarine from Wilhelmshaven. Forty years elapse, a wealthy millionaire, Smith, hires Hamilton, allegedly an expert on the jungle, to lead him to the ruins of a lost Indian civilization recently discovered in the wilderness of the Amazon jungle in Brazil. The entourage faces giant anacondas, giant spiders, cannibalistic natives, and so on, discovering a settlement of Nazi war criminals and their descendants, living as if the Third Reich had never ended. It is soon clear that Smith's real purpose has little to do with archaeology, and more to do with revenge.

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1989, Action, Blu-Ray, DVD,

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