Rawhead Rex (1987)

Rawhead Rex (1987)

Starring David Dukes, Niall Tóibín, Cora Venus Lunny, Ronan Wilmot, Donal McCann, Heinrich von Schellendorf

Directed by George Pavlou

Expectations: Moderate.

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Like The Quiet Man before it, Rawhead Rex takes us on location to the green hills of the Emerald Isle, bonny old Ireland. Unlike The Quiet Man, Rawhead Rex is about an ancient god/devil buried deep underground that is resurrected and takes out his revenge on anyone that happens upon his path. There is seemingly so rhyme or reason to his rampage, but if you’re watching a movie called Rawhead Rex, I’m sure you’re more concerned with good horror fun and gore than character motivations and realistic storytelling.

As with Tuesday’s film Underworld, Rawhead Rex is written by Clive Barker (from his short story) and directed by George Pavlou. This film is a marked step up from Underworld in every area, but it still doesn’t achieve greatness. They even refer to the shittiness of the previous film, as a man watches it on television and sleeps soundly from the boredom of it all. Rawhead Rex has the distinct feel of a great 80s horror short story, part Universal monster horror and part gruesome violence, but the pacing is once again pretty poor. There just isn’t enough to hold together an entire movie here.

Underworld (1985)

Underworld (1985)
AKA Transmutations

Starring Denholm Elliott, Steven Berkoff, Larry Lamb, Nicola Cowper, Irina Brook, Art Malik, Brian Croucher, Ingrid Pitt, Trevor Thomas

Directed by George Pavlou

Expectations: Low.

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What do you get when you throw 80s synth rock, drug-fiend mutants and horror God Clive Barker together with just a dash of black leather? You get the fairly poor and wholly underwhelming 1985 film, Underworld. There was so much potential here for a good film, but man did it all go to waste. It goes wrong mostly in the writing and the pacing, because above all Underworld is one hell of a boring movie.

It all starts out pretty interesting though. It’s incredibly hard to figure out what the hell is going on, which might be a bad thing for some movies, but it seems to add to the mystique here. There was enough fun and unintentional laughs during this getting-to-know-you period so I didn’t mind too much that I was lost. Anyway, there’s some sort of high-class party going on. A young girl in a white gown decides sleep is better than party and lays down in her bed. This is crosscut with scenes of some crazy rock ‘n’ roll leather-clad assholes, who you know are up to no good, running through the streets. They all wear wraps around their faces to give them some anonymity and the look of half-ass ninjas. So they bust into the estate, steal the girl from her bed, beat down the butler that tries to stop them and run off into the night.