ZOMBIES: THE BEGINNING
Some great directors die in the midst of their career and leave behind an inadvertent final film that does not reflect the quality of their larger career. Few would argue, for example, that Family Plot is a fitting capstone for the career of Alfred Hitchcock, or that Stanley Kubrick’s career was well served by having Eyes Wide Shut as his swan song or that Sam Peckinpah’s career ended well with The Osterman Weekend. On the other hand, some director’s die while working and leave behind a final film so stunningly perfect as their final statement that it seems hard to believe the whole thing wasn’t planned by some benevolent supreme being. Had the legendary Bruno Mattei’s life and career ended on any note other than Zombies: The Beginning, then truly this would have been a cruel and uncaring universe. But end with Zombies: The Beginning it did, and so Mattei departed this mortal coil via a film that is the perfect summation of everything he ever contributed to the world of cinema.

New in Brain Drops : made in 2010, but apparently just recently released on DVD, Hypothermia isn’t as chilling as its title might suggest.

It does, however, feature one of the worst monster suits (or best, depending on your fondness for rubbery monsters like those in The Alligator People or Track of the Moon Beast) in many, many years.

Lucio Fulci gets sick in the middle of a production, and Bruno Mattei and Claudio Fragasso are called in to finish the job. What could possibly go wrong? The cinematic leftovers aren’t very appetizing when it’s Zombi 3, audience zero.

DRAGON LIVES AGAIN
Dragon Lives Again is a deceptive movie. Taken in screencap form and judged only by its roster of characters, it does indeed seem supremely weird. Storywise, however, it’s actually pretty straight-forward, and the afterlife setting isn’t nearly as surreal as it could be since this movie was too cheap to shoot anywhere other than the standard issue kungfu movie restaurant sets and that rock quarry. I mean, I don’t want to undersell the silliness of a movie in which Bruce Lee teams up with Popeye to fight James Bond while banging Emmanuelle, but don’t let still photos trick you into thinking this movie is a loony as you expect it to be.

Here in the U.S., we’ve just celebrated a holiday in which people come together around a table and tear a turkey to shreds. As suggestive as that is, it’s not really the image that comes into my mind when I think about the Bruno Mattei Roundtable.

Rather, I imagine a group of friends in, say, Argentina or Uruguay, sitting in a circle with gourd and bombilla, getting together to share some traditional herbal tea and good conversation. Just as they’re heating the water, though, they find to their intense disappointment that the yerba container is empty. Alas, they can…

And now, while y’all are preparing the tar and feathers, here’s The Tomb (2004)…

With the movie Scalps, the idea of Bruno Mattei resurrecting the spaghetti western genre may not sound all that promising. Maybe that’s why Mattei allowed someone else to share the director’s chair with him. However, that other person was none other than Claudio Fragasso, who brought the world movies like Troll 2 and Monster Dog. The surprising thing is that with this dubious collaboration, the end results are not completely terrible.

I finally get around to delving into Jean-Claude’s direct-to-video action films, and it turns out I really like most of them

ASSASSINATION GAMES
Assassination Games is a pre-Expendables pairing of Van Damme and his Expendables henchman, Scott Adkins (Ninja, Undisputed 3), as two hitmen who find themselves gunning for the same target. The two hitman inadvertently foul up one another’s shots, leaving Polo’s brother dead. Now the two assassins both find themselves in the cross-hairs of dirty Interpol agents and Polo’s thugs. The only solution: an uneasy alliance and the occasional trading of one-liners.

What can I say? I’ve been in a mood lately:

Dr. Jekyll & Sister Hyde (1971), in which Hyde’s sex change is actually the least of the departures from the norm…

Dog Soldiers (2001), in which it is indeed a dog’s life in the modern army…

Maniac (1962), in which helping your girlfriend spring her husband from the mental hospital is a stupid plan…

Night Creatures (1962), in which the pirates may not have a ship, but they do have phosphorescent skeleton suits…

The Phantom of the Opera (1962), in which we see that the music business was already a den of thieves in the late 19th century…

and…

The Snorkel (1958), in which I don’t recommend trying the killer’s strategy at home.

New in Brain Drops: a quick look at Libidomania (1979) and the other Mondo/Sexy-style movies Bruno Mattei made early in his career. If there’s anything worse than a Mattei zombie movie, it’s a Mattei Mondo — and for some of the same stolen reasons.

Warning: This review has some descriptions of fake, but icky, sexual behavior. You may not want to read this one around mealtime. Actually, you may not want to read this one at all… except that it does shed a little light on the development of Bruno’s particular film-making style.

There are some kinds of brew on the shelf that you pass on by because you know nothing about them. Beer is one obscure brew by Hollywood that you should sample if you have the opportunity. It’s been crafted with care and has the pleasant taste of genuine comedy.