Nemesis 4: Death Angel (1996) Movie Review

Nemesis 4: Death Angel (also known as Cry of Angels) is a 1996 sci-fi action movie written and directed by Abert Pyun. The film is the fourth installment in the Nemesis film series and is the last one to have Pyun involved at any capacity. It stars Sue Price, Blanka Copikova, Andrew Divoff, Nicholas Guest and Norbert Weisser. Made in Slovakia about two years after part two and three were shot, the film is loose on continuity because Nemesis 3 didn't sell very well, so more nudity was added. Shooting was done in between the filming of Adrenalin: Fear the Rush, another film by Pyun shot in Europe.

In this entry, Alex Sinclair is a professional cybernetically-enhanced assassin in a world where humans and cyborgs have had a ceasefire. Her skills are top notch but she tends to be a bit messy and things get real bad when she kills Carlos Jr, the son of a crime syndicate leader. She also gets visions of a woman in black with a distortion VFX who haunts her, probably an angel of death alluding to how death gets closer to Alex because every bounty hunter is after the muscular killer now. 

This one is a sort of reboot of the series in the sense that very few things are brought back, only the fact that Alex is a genetically modified human and some plot points that are honestly not that noticeable at first. Don't expect a concrete continuity. The production values are still on the lower end and the limitations are apparent, but the very pretty european setting carries a good amount of the weight and gives the movie a rich amount of locations Pyun works with quite well, just as he did with the desert and industrial locations in the last two.

A lot of the movie features uncensored nudity from Price and others, surely an attempt by the makers of appealing to the direct-to-video crowd who wanted softcore stuff. A curious thing to point out is that this is probably one of the few times a brawny female body has been eroticized and treated the way more normative bodies are shot in such films and turned seductive in sexual sequences. A nice refreshing sight. Because of these scenes, the unreal and surreal vibes are back due to the playful way Pyun uses lighting and takes advantage of his new shooting locations, as mentioned above, and also because of the outlandish and bizarre deaths. The more out-of-this-world storyline with apparitions and strange occurrences are further proof that a great deal of changes were more out of the director's desire to touch upon particular themes and ideas.

The film mostly unfolds as a sexy thriller with some sci-fi components but things are mostly kept tight and intimate, the camera mostly stays in closed spaces and does close ups of the actors. Every performer does a very decent job and all retain their charm, especially the leading lady. After a rather vague and understated resolution we see what I can only assume is a tribute to Sue Price as a montage sequence of stock footage put together with some of her highlights appears on the screen, followed by her screen credit. A very worthy and awesome goodbye to the series, at least that's what it was until 2017 but that's another story.

Totally recommended for the DTV scavengers who enjoy this very B-level series and are also eager to see a lot of muscular nudity. This one should satisfy with its intriguing plot and solid cast.

Blood Widow (2014) Review

Blood Widow is a 2014 horror slasher movie that sets itself apart from the normal slasher flick by having a female serial killer being the one doing the butchering. It was directed by Jeremiah Buckhalt, who decided to make his feature film debut with Blood Widow right out of college. His company, Arcani Pictures, has only made one feature film. This one. 

Female killers in slasher movies are nothing new, in fact, the genre was practically born with Jason's mother, Pamela Voorhees, in the original and iconic Friday the 13th film in 1980. Other movies followed in that vein, but even before them we had killer ladies in Giallo films from Italy and some proto-slasher movies like the so-called “Hag horror” or “Psycho-biddy” movies like Strait-Jacket (1964) featured older ladies as serial killers or attackers, and there's some true crime flicks here and there as well, but they are still not necessarily as common in recent horror cinema, so Blood Widow is slightly more interesting than some other slasher movies because of this.

The film is about a couple who just bought a house away from the city. They have parties and invite some people over, but what they don't know is that the neighbor’s house seems to be inhabited by a deadly presence, a psychotic woman with a black full bodysuit and a white mask. Armed with a sickle and other weapons, the deranged killer stalks and mutilates anyone she finds. 

This is nothing more than a serviceable slasher flick with all the faults and trappings of the genre. There's a bunch of young people having parties and looking around a creepy house and they get killed, those are the best moments, predictably.

It’s a well shot and competently executed film in its most general aspects, it's difficult to shake the low budget aura but some might find that charming and likable. Visually, it’s a little crude but I enjoy the rawness and limited resources in B horror movies. It’s also somewhat well lit, with scenes that alternate between well composed and framed, and too darkly shot to make out exactly what’s going on. Part of this gives it a rather creepy vibe at times but other times it just makes you wonder if you are missing out some good gore or maybe it was intentionally kept under the shadows to hide the low production values. 

I did notice how exaggerated the violence was in this movie, every death was way too easy for the killer. I know it's normal for killers to butcher people in a quick manner, people getting their head cut off clean in one swing of an axe is an example of these unreal deaths, but the killer in this movie slices hands and heads with a weapon as small as a sickle, people also get their bones broken with one simple fall in a way that feels too over the top. It's heavily stylized and cartoonish. 

But those are small nitpicks to be honest, it's part of the course when it comes to horror movies like these, it always happens, and the gore effects themselves are top notch, really good work by the FX creators. The prosthetics, fake blood and fake limbs are all solid. So it’s ultimately not a bad thing to show off these effects, even if it slightly messes with the realism.

The look of the serial killer is actually pretty cool, it could have been pretty iconic if they did more sequels and featured the character more in the picture. That's another problem I have, they don't tell us much about the killer in order to make her more interesting, she is kind of generic because of her lack of engaging lore, something that certainly wasn't missing when it came to Freddy, Jason or Michael. She's played by Gabrielle Ann Henry, who has very few other credits, a shame because she did some solid work here with her body language and stunts. 

Gabrielle Ann Henry, the deadly slasher of the picture.

Can't say I cared much about the characters, most of them were either annoying or just flat, but since most of them ended up in the slaughterhouse it was kind of worthwhile to sit through their dialogue scenes and such. It’s barely 80 minutes, so it never overstays its welcome. The ending is brutal, the film is far from positive and doesn't care about softening things up, it’s raw and unforgiving.   

The performances are not the worst, the cinematography looks decent for a low budget picture, the directing is satisfying, the story and characters are not awful or annoying and it delivers the goods as a slasher film. Because of those reasons, I can recommend Blood Widow if you are looking for a fast and cheap picture this Halloween season. A female killer is also always appreciated, so that´s relatively refreshing, we need way more of those.

There are plans for a sequel but nothing has materialized so far. Would it be a good idea to make it ten years after the original’s release? Who knows how it will turn out. I am looking forward to it though.