Trailer. The Hazing, re-titled Dead Scared for its European release, came out the same year as director Rolfe Kanefsky's less successful direct-to-DVD zombie comedy Corpses and has gotten about the same amount of genre attention. A shame, really, for The Hazing is one darn-tooting fun film and really deserves a broader audience than it has had to date, for it succeeds where many a similar film has failed: To successfully tread the fine line between suspense and fun. 
Someone on IMDB describes the flick as "Evil Dead meets Scream", and the description is not all that far off, although to compare The Hazing to Scream does Kanefsky's film disservice, for his film is far less a mainstream product than the Wes Craven film. But, like Scream, The Hazing does go intentionally for horror-based laughs and also displays a postmodern knowledge of the horror genre; unlike Scream, however, The Hazing has true low budget balls and, like the true films of the Golden Age of Grime, is both willing to show tits and takes some scenes to the extreme (the Chinese Ghost Story (1987/trailer) inspired tongue scene, for example, and the mass murder in the hospital).
The basic script is less plagiarized from two "classics" of the 80s – namely, Evil Dead (1981/trailer) and Hell Night (1981) – than liberally used as an obvious homage, much like many a scene in Slither (2006/trailer), another fine homage to the Golden Age of Grindhouse. (Indeed, not only is Evil Dead referred to at one point in the movie, but as part of the hazing they even have to obtain a Bruce Campbell photo; Kanefsky definitely wanted his source known.)
As in Hell Night, a group of wanna-be pledges for Sigma Si and Delta Pi have to spend Halloween night in a deserted haunted house; and, as in Evil Dead, an ancient book of spells causes the possession and/or deaths of various protagonists as they fight to survive. But unlike the two named films from 1981, The Hazing is high on the intentional laughs. Opening with an explanation of the history of the evil book, The Hazing moves on to a scene of a sexpot student named Jill (Brooke Burke, who does don a cute harem outfit but never shows as much as she does in the picture to the left) purring to Professor Kapps (Brad Dourif, fine as always) about all that she would do to get a good grade. Obviously offended by this offer of sex for grades, Kapps, the current owner of the book, knocks her dead so as to use her to realize a spell in the book. 
Meanwhile, across town, the five students being hazed are sent out in full costume – Delia (Nectar Rose) in a hilarious but sexy bunny outfit, Marsha Glazer (Tiffany Shepis) is a silver skintight sci-fi jumpsuit, the guys in something or other but in no way half as memorably hot – on a scavenger hunt to gather a variety of objects, including Kapps' book. Unluckily, the thieving of the book goes wrong and they sorta accidentally kill the professor, fleeing the scene of the crime (and the dead bodies they found in his cellar). Later, when all are gathered at the house, the demonized spirit of Kapps manages to get the door to hell opened and takes possession of Doug (Philip Andrew). (A minor flaw in the story is that considering the power he obviously has – what, with his ability to lengthen tongues and turn people into manikins – he could more or less simply have gotten rid of everyone with a snap of the fingers; but had he done so, of course, there would have been no story left to film.) The rest of the film features a rising body count as the the wanna-be survivors attempt to defeat the body-hopping demon and survive the night. And whatdyaknow: some of them actually do so!
Plus points of The Hazing, besides the hot chicks – two of which actually show mammary glands, a rare sight in the horror films of today – include its quick pace, some better than average acting (if Tiffany Shepis's acting continues to improve as it is, she’s gonna have a long career ahead of her), likable characters with real personality, some surprisingly topnotch production values for such a low budget flick, and intentional humor that works. The hospital scene is great, as is the previously mentioned scene of tongue-fun, and the ax in the head was an unexpected surprise...
The Hazing delivers 100% pure natural boobage (perhaps Brooke Burke is an exception, but since she remains covered, she doesn’t count) and 100% low budget trash film fun, and is as satisfying as some of the best of the generation of films it pays homage to. So, crack that beer open, light up that spliff and watch it – now! And for those of you that think scream queen Tiffany Shepis is hot, wait until you see that Nectar Rose in her bunny outfit.
The plot of Una de Zombies, to abbreviate the description on the back DVD cover, concerns two "losers", Aijón and Caspas, who decide to make a zombie film but slowly find their film coming to life around them. In itself, the movie does sort of follow that basic premise, but the filmmakers are much too convinced of their cleverness and as a result regurgitate one hell of a train wreck of a cinematic accident. A low budget horror comedy with splatter elements, Una de Zombies not only verges on being laughless, but the dramaturgical confusion of the flick is also almost headache inducing and the gore interludes, though bloody, are relatively sparse. But then, the flick is actually less a zombie movie than a long-winded and confusing rumination on inspiration and the creative process couched within the framework of a zombie film. Regrettably, neither the director (Miguel Ángel Lamata) nor his co-scriptwriter Miguel Ángel Aijón – who plays the geeky Aijón – have a solid grasp of either filmmaking nor scriptwriting, which are two fatal mangles to have if one wants to attempt a low-budget, Tarantinoesque narrative that interweaves and moves across time frames and realities. That this film tied with Dead & Breakfast at the 2004 Weekend of Fear Nuremburg in Germany for the "Audience Award" can only indicate that the jury was rigged or a Butterfly Ballot was used, for Una de Zombies is probably one of the least satisfying efforts to come out of Spain in a long time, light-years from being anywhere as good as, say, 1993's Acción Mutante (which, by the way, had a substantially lower budget).
Actually, there are some nice jokes in the film – for example, the extent to which Carla (Mayte Navales) is willing to drop everything whenever she hears the script is almost finished or virtually every scene involving Aijón's interaction with his father and/or mother – but such scenes are padded by so much extraneously and strenuously narrative confusion and patently unfunny "funny" stuff that even the stuff that works almost fails. Other plus points of the film include one nude short nude scene that reveals Carla's natural charms, a secondary hot babe (who, regrettably, doesn't get naked), a blond zombie killer that deserves to be in a good film, and... and... Well, actually, that's about it when it comes to plus points.
Una de Zombies is not a film worth watching and, in turn, is not really a film worth writing about. End of review.
(Spoilers.) Sovia (Diana Radnai) is a young, beautiful and pregnant nurse in a Berlin hospital who is in the midst of losing her egoistic co-worker boyfriend Konrad (Sascha Kudella) to another nurse, the Teutonic blonde Sarah (Andrea Gerhard). A badly beaten emergency patient (Vera Hübner) dies while in emergency treatment, for which Sovia is held responsible. And, as if that weren’t enough, Sovia gets run over by a car, loses her baby and has a near-death experience during which she meets the dead emergency patient, who leaves a strange bruise upon her body. A bruise that is mysteriously passed on to anyone she comes into contact with. Relegated to the nether regions of hospital work due to the accidental death, one by one her coworkers begin to die puzzling deaths, deaths that the police are sure Sovia is answerable for. Can she stop the seemingly steady string of deaths and save herself as well?If Sovia herself does perhaps still live in the final scene, it is no solace to either her nor the viewer, for what is left of her life on earth is but a living hell, and she knows (as do we the viewer) for sure that she too will soon meet her end at the unnatural hands of the revenge driven killer ghost...
Sovia: Death Hospital is German graduate film production that has managed to get a commercial DVD release and, in all truth, when this film is compared to the average commercially filmed feature-length movie or direct-to-DVD product, director Robert Franke's initial foray into feature-length filmmaking puts a lot of so-called established professionals to shame – in spades. Well made and frightening, Sovia: Death Hospital in no way reveals its Potsdam film-school roots and, instead, comes across as a fine if restrained horror film that is just waiting to be discovered. Going by the overall quality of the production, given the chance both director Robert Franke and scriptwriter Raimund V. Tabor could possibly go places – as could more than one of the beautiful babes that not only make their feature-film acting debut in the movie but actually show acting talent. (T’ain’t it a shame none of them get nekkid – but then, Sovia: Death Hospital is very much not an exploitation film; its major influences are definitely much more the less blood-thirsty Asian ghost films and possibly even Val Lewton's mood-driven horror films, and not 42nd Street.)True, the script doesn’t really offer anything new in the ghost story department, but it does have a solid grasp of characterization, action and scares and almost never slips. Only the death of the policeman is out-of-place: The ghost is revenge driven, killing those immediately involved during the initial emergency room procedure during which she died – the policeman came onto the scene later and as such should never be targeted by her. His death is less logical than a plot device to increase the general suspicion held by others against Sovia as being the real murderer. OK, it could be argued that Sovia touched him as well and thus passed on the killer-hematoma, but if contact with Sovia guarantees eventual death, then why doesn’t the old geezer for whom she cares – or the other, younger cop – also become eventual victims?The classiness that the filmmakers are vying for is evident from the start, with a finely aesthetic title sequence of red blood squirting out into and then dissipating against a white background. Franke’s aesthetic eye remains sharp throughout the whole film, which, bathed in depressingly dank greens, blues and grays, he films in a clear but slow and quiet manner that both intensifies the suspense and increases the general sense of unavoidable doom. (Indeed, his direction is so atmospheric and deliberate that when he finally pulls a Brian De Palma and does a totally unneeded and baroque 360-degree rotation shot around Sovia at one point, the shot sticks out like a sore thumb.) Sovia: Death Hospital is a fine and frightening film that transcends its roots and is well worth searching out.
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Directed by Jack Starrett, the man who gave us such masterpieces as that infamous bikers-in-Vietnam sleaze classic The Losers (1970) and the much over-praised Peter Fonda & Warren Oates turkey Race with the Devil (1975/trailer), and who supplemented his income by acting in films as diverse as the entertaining First Blood (1982/trailer) and monstrously bad Nightwish (1989). Cleopatra Jones is Jack Starrett’s second dive into the realm of Blaxploitation, following fast on the heels of his 1972 film Slaughter (trailer), and is a silly, enjoyably laughable piece of ghetto-oriented celluloid, with heroine Tamara Dobson wearing as many fabulous fashion statements as the story has holes.
Like manyof the films of the genre at the time, it is a relatively mundane film, miles away in quality and intention from such masterpieces as Sweet Sweetback (1971/trailer), but although lacking the more exploitive aspects of other Black Babe films like Coffy (1973), Cleopatra Jones is nonetheless good for more than just a rainy afternoon. The inspiration of the more camp aspects of the James Bond films is easy to be seen in this movie—an interesting aspect when one considers that the very series that so inspired this movie ended up appropriating many aspects of Blaxpliotation in its 1973 entry, Live and Let Die. Much like all the campy James Bond films starring Roger Moore, by today’s standards both the violence and the sex in Cleopatra Jones is Saturday morning television level. 
Taller than Abraham Lincoln but much better looking, Dobson plays an ass-kicking, drug-fighting special government agent who tools around Los Angeles in a customized Corvette complete with a secret weapons depot built into its door. Shelley Winters, a few pounds lighter from her Poseidon Adventure (1972) measurements, does another Oscar-deserving performance as Mommy, the overweight lesbian crime boss determined to put Cleo out of business, while Antonio Fargas, best remembered as Huggy Bear on the original TV version of Starsky & Hutch, does an entertaining turn as the laughably vain Doodlebug, a turncoat minion of Mommy, who decides it is time to become self-employed.
Mommy, after losing a 30 million dollar poppy harvest in Turkey due to Cleo’s intervention, arranges a fixed bust at Cleo’s personal pet project, a Drug Rehabilitation Center run by her heartthrob. The rest of the movie has Cleo cruising through town decked out in furs (in L.A.!) as she tries to save the drug center, surviving numerous hit attempts, smiling as she knocks off one hood after the other without so much as breaking a fingernail or ripping a seam. The big showdown in a car wrecking yard is not all that exciting, but as always, Dobson does look fantastic when kicking butt. 
Despite her highly individual appearance—or perhaps because of it—Tamara Dobson, a former model, never had much of a career in or out of the Blaxploitation genre. She followed this film two years later with a sequel, Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold, which featured Stella Stevens as the Bad Bitch of the Season, and then had a part in Norman Is That You (1976) before disappearing into that never-never land of forgotten faces. She resurfaced again (along with Stella Stevens) in one of Madeleine Stowe’s dark secrets of the past, an unbelievably lame 1984 TV film, Amazons, in which a variety of Hot Babes set out to conquer the USA, before she once again sank into that bog of oblivion. She was probably still awaiting a call from Tarentino when she died of pneumonia and multiple sclerosis on 2 October 2006 in Baltimore, Maryland.
Trailer. The Hazing, re-titled Dead Scared for its European release, came out the same year as director Rolfe Kanefsky's less successful direct-to-DVD zombie comedy Corpses and has gotten about the same amount of genre attention. A shame, really, for The Hazing is one darn-tooting fun film and really deserves a broader audience than it has had to date, for it succeeds where many a similar film has failed: To successfully tread the fine line between suspense and fun. 
Someone on IMDB describes the flick as "Evil Dead meets Scream", and the description is not all that far off, although to compare The Hazing to Scream does Kanefsky's film disservice, for his film is far less a mainstream product than the Wes Craven film. But, like Scream, The Hazing does go intentionally for horror-based laughs and also displays a postmodern knowledge of the horror genre; unlike Scream, however, The Hazing has true low budget balls and, like the true films of the Golden Age of Grime, is both willing to show tits and takes some scenes to the extreme (the Chinese Ghost Story (1987/trailer) inspired tongue scene, for example, and the mass murder in the hospital).
The basic script is less plagiarized from two "classics" of the 80s – namely, Evil Dead (1981/trailer) and Hell Night (1981) – than liberally used as an obvious homage, much like many a scene in Slither (2006/trailer), another fine homage to the Golden Age of Grindhouse. (Indeed, not only is Evil Dead referred to at one point in the movie, but as part of the hazing they even have to obtain a Bruce Campbell photo; Kanefsky definitely wanted his source known.)
Meanwhile, across town, the five students being hazed are sent out in full costume – Delia (Nectar Rose) in a hilarious but sexy bunny outfit, Marsha Glazer (Tiffany Shepis) is a silver skintight sci-fi jumpsuit, the guys in something or other but in no way half as memorably hot – on a scavenger hunt to gather a variety of objects, including Kapps' book. Unluckily, the thieving of the book goes wrong and they sorta accidentally kill the professor, fleeing the scene of the crime (and the dead bodies they found in his cellar). Later, when all are gathered at the house, the demonized spirit of Kapps manages to get the door to hell opened and takes possession of Doug (Philip Andrew). (A minor flaw in the story is that considering the power he obviously has – what, with his ability to lengthen tongues and turn people into manikins – he could more or less simply have gotten rid of everyone with a snap of the fingers; but had he done so, of course, there would have been no story left to film.) The rest of the film features a rising body count as the the wanna-be survivors attempt to defeat the body-hopping demon and survive the night. And whatdyaknow: some of them actually do so!
Plus points of The Hazing, besides the hot chicks – two of which actually show mammary glands, a rare sight in the horror films of today – include its quick pace, some better than average acting (if Tiffany Shepis's acting continues to improve as it is, she’s gonna have a long career ahead of her), likable characters with real personality, some surprisingly topnotch production values for such a low budget flick, and intentional humor that works. The hospital scene is great, as is the previously mentioned scene of tongue-fun, and the ax in the head was an unexpected surprise...
The Hazing delivers 100% pure natural boobage (perhaps Brooke Burke is an exception, but since she remains covered, she doesn’t count) and 100% low budget trash film fun, and is as satisfying as some of the best of the generation of films it pays homage to. So, crack that beer open, light up that spliff and watch it – now! And for those of you that think scream queen Tiffany Shepis is hot, wait until you see that Nectar Rose in her bunny outfit. 
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