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Brian Paulin
Special-effects and make-up man with a talent for realistically gruesome and inventive gore. A big fan of Tom Savini, owner of Morbid Vision Films, acts in his own movies, and has an unpretentious but energetic approach to making extreme and gory horror movies to show off one unique gruesome special effect after another. He started with some amateurish horror movies and shorts, but has since made a name for himself in the underground gore and horror community with a unique imagination and auteur special effects. The acting, similarly, started shakily but is improving, and the low budget isn't a problem, it's mostly his scripts that need work. The best thing about him is that, unlike his peers and typical modern extreme movies, his films are actual horror movies with extreme splatter, rather than just sicko gornography posing as movies. Mixing the strange atmosphere of a Fulci gore movie and the way-over-the-top German nasty splatter effects, this horror movie could have been a contender for one of the most gruesome movies ever if not for the weak acting and lack of a cohesive plot. A husband with a fatal bone disease and his wife turn to their friend to come up with a cure that involves corpses. After a failed first attempt that causes some nasty maggots and blood to spew out of every body orifice, they try again with a fresher corpse. Things get out of hand as somehow the dead come to life and go on a gory rampage. The climax surpasses even Schnaas with every nasty gore effect imaginable involving crushing, ripping, disemboweling, decapitation, etc. This one is gruesome, atmospheric and features superb special effects and makeup, but is otherwise lacking. Paulin continues to improve his craft, this time delivering a slower-building horror movie by way of the found-footage genre. There is more of a story to sink your teeth into in this one. But don't worry, the found-footage is actually a movie inside the movie, and there is enough horrific and inventive splatter in the last third for several movies. A cryptozoologist (monster hunter) is hired by a shady producer to make an investigative show on the paranormal, sending him to investigate different places with a notorious reputation. He finds evidence of a monster, a town that seems to have shifted to another dimension, causing a rupture in his internal biology, and a strange exorcism gone terribly wrong exposes him to a demonic evil. The last third is typically incoherent for Paulin, but somehow combines everything into a very effective nightmare that is horrifically bizarre to surreal proportions, and extremely gruesome, with splatter effects that only Paulin could think up and create, featuring bodies being mutilated, crushed, melted, torn apart in many different ways by shifting parallel dimensions and hellish creatures all at once. The acting is quite good this time, and the low budget only helps the nightmare. I can only imagine what Paulin could do with a more developed and coherent script. Collaborate on the writing next time? Paulin continues to find creative and different ways to display his gruesome special effects, but at the expense of coherency. A man loses his wife and baby in a catastrophic birth, grows distraught and insane at home until he decides to try necromancy to raise the dead. Most the movie then consists of increasingly bizarre and gruesome rituals as he gathers some humans as fodder for his magic while his visions and nightmares get worse and the rituals result in unexpected nastiness. Amongst the many gory special effects, a man is decapitated in a unique gory way, a fetus is sliced up, a woman gets ripped apart during a demonic birth, and a man stays alive while his face is ripped open from the inside. Where else would you see a scene that features a supernatural woman stabbing herself in the crotch and eating a decapitated baby's head while a man pulls bugs out of his penis, or a man giving birth through his penis while a mutated creature tries to kill him. For gorehounds. One of those movies that probably looked and worked a lot better in the director's mind, but the result is a messy amateur-hour. Metalhead drug-dealers in a gang war get converted into vampires by some angels with a plan, but demonic forces have another agenda. The movie twists and turns, trying to do a lot, from energetic gun shootouts, to vampiric feedings, complex supernatural horror, over-the-top Hong Kong style fantasy action, to an atmospheric and incoherent supernatural ending. The acting is poor, and the occasional splatter and special effects aren't as developed as his Paulin's later work, but are varied, with head crushing, flesh tearing and various weak physical transformations, and one scene of a vampire eating a lesbian nun's private parts. A post-apocalyptic zombie movie with a difference: It's made by Brian Paulin therefore it's all about the visceral and very unique splatter effects. Some scattered survivors meet, fight, share zombie-meat, or talk about their past under a slow-moving and downbeat atmosphere, while blackened, rotten zombies are sliced apart with swords. Since food is scarce, they make do with whatever meat they can find, but the bio-chemical disaster coupled with this new human digestive system and requirements produce unexpected results as intestines acquire a life of their own. Two guys meet and exchange stories of a very bizarre mutation spreading and killing everything in its path in nasty ways. The splatter becomes unhinged in the second half, and it involves a uniquely Paulin-esque approach of crunchy bone, flesh, skeletal abuse, internal body fluids, skulls, and intestines. Unfortunately, the acting is poor, the super-shaky camera work is almost unwatchable, the sound is terrible, and the scenes are often confusing, which is a pity because the splatter almost makes it worth watching anyways. A loser camera-man, his bitch-wife, and his annoyingly perverse, psychotic, jerk of a friend are trying to make a living with S&M porn movies. When they get a generous offer for a snuff film, the camera-man finds himself practically forced into it. Things take a turn to the supernatural as the camera-man is haunted by his guilt, by mysterious stalker video-tapes, a long nightmarish dream-sequence, and a vengeful spirit. In the meantime, the jerk has fun getting his piercings yanked out of his flesh, and leaving syringes in the children's playground. The infrequent splatter goes over the top, featuring various brutal dismemberments and eyeball abuse, but the horror is terribly amateurish. |
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