Ever wonder what a movie like “The Bad Seed” crossed with “The Belles of St Trinians” and seasoned with more than a heaping helping of “Psycho” just might be like if it were done with an all Russian cast? Well wonder no more…. From the land of Borsht and Vodka comes “Yulenka: Deadly Lessons”. Neko’s been aware of this one for some time now, but it’s taken me a while to hunt down some decent English subtitles…. until now.

The simple synopsis goes: “Professor Andriy Belov moves to a small town from the capital, and from his university to a woman’s high school, so that his wife can get the treatment and air she needs. After a short time a the school, he begins to notice strange things happening to his students. The students in the fifth class don’t play with dolls, they delight in making a toy of human lives.

One day he finds a note reading ‘Save Us,’ and he begins to take action. As he investigates, his life degenerates into a nightmare, and his only hope is a lone little girl, Yulenka….. or does something evil hide behind her innocent eyes?”

This is another of those odd little films for which your Favorite Catgirl ends up spending her odd hours searching high and low for subtitles when the original DVD lacks them. Sometimes I find them right away… other times it take a while… sometime it takes an excruciatingly looonnggg time. These ones required me to delve into some fairly odd places in the former Soviet Union, but my perseverance has finally paid off, and so now…. with some fairly accurate fan-translated subtitles in hand and a copy of the Region 5 DVD…. “Yulenka” is finally mine!!

Was it worth all my silly efforts (not to mention a fair amount of Bablefish translation of Cyrillic Russian)? Guess you’ll have to “Read On” to find out!!

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This time out our “Halloween Review-athon” takes us on a trip way, waaay back to your Favorite Catgirl’s misspent youth for a “Lil’ Kitten Classics” look at when Giant Killers Pigs roamed the desolate Australian Outback in search of human prey… at least in the movies…

Giant Killer pigs from down under? Yep… back in 1984 this one snuck out of the “Land down Under” and tried it’s best to convince us all that crazy man-eating wild pigs were scary. If my memory serves me right, I was a wee impressionable girl of 11 the year this one hit video, and naturally…. when it was my turn to pick a film for family movie night, one look at the cover convinced me there could really be no other choice. I can still hear Grandma now…. “Miyuki!! Giant pig movie not good!! Little girls not to watch these things! You need to pick better movie.”

But nooooo!! Lil’ Miyuki would have none of that… so we did indeed spend an evening watching Gregory Harrison save Australia from the “Giant Pig Menace”….. much to my poor Grandma’s dismay. I thought it was great…. and my dad sorta liked it too…. but Mom and Grandma took it as another sign of just how American I was growing up to be despite their best efforts to make me into a proper lil’ Japanese girl.

It’s out on DVD… and I was lucky enough to score the Region Free PAL formatted Australian release for it. So…. the only question remains, “Is Carolyn ready to share this treasured childhood memory with me?” Hehehehe…. I sure hope so, ’cause ready or not, here comes “Razorback”!!

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Well, thanks to some shopping waaaay out in the hinterlands of the Internet, your Favorite Catgirl Princess has her first Ukrainian horror movie review for you all. “Shtolnya” which I’ve been told translates to mean “The Pit” in Ukrainian, but this lil’ Catgirl’s gonna have to take their word on that one…

Yep…. Neko-chan doesn’t have that many Region 5 goodies, so when I chanced upon this one, it took only a little bit of research to confirm that, yes… it was a horror film, and yes, it actually has English subtitles!! Could I bear to pass it up? Not on your life.

The synopsis reads like this: “They were the students of archaeology who ought to serve their academic internship. Their task was to search. Incidentally the students find the lost entrance to the pit which was a myth among the scientists. Disregarding evil omens they meet, the students decide to descend underground and discover its mystery. But they don’t know there are things one shouldn’t search…”

OK…. Well, I’ve bought movies from far away lands with less information available on them than this… So let’s dig in find out what “Shtolnya” is really all about, shall we?

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It’s amazing what you can get from Thailand…. their own DVD’s these days are almost completely without English subtitles for reasons and logic that just escapes this lil’ Catgirl.

However, be that as it may,… it actually is a pretty good place to get Russian or European films with English subtitles that somehow missed receiving them in their own country.

My latest such acquisition is the Russian Sword & Sorcery epic “Wolfhound”. I watched it just the other evening, and so now it’s time to wade in with my review….

Our synopsis reads: “The last remaining member of a slaughtered tribe escapes his enslavement and grows up to become a fearless warrior. As he pursues revenge against all odds for his family’s murder, his quest intertwines with a princess’s larger war against a brutal tyrant who would destroy everyone in his path.”

Hmmmmm? It sounds all “Conan-ish” alright, but do the Russians know didddly about that whole barbarian ethos thingee? Will we get sufficient sword swinging testosterone fueled vengeance to satisfy our need for bloody and vicarious thrills? I guess it’s up to your Favorite Catgirl Princess to find out!

So… whatcha waitin’ for? “Read On”, o’ gentle reader!!

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Another new Turkish horror film, almost missed by me in the rush of new stuff out this year although I’ve had my eyes peeled for it. I knew that it had finally arrived out on DVD, but had been led to believe that no subtitles for it had been included on the disc…. (Boooo…Hissss!!!)

But…., apparently, although the Region 2 PAL release makes no mention of them on the packaging, they are indeed there, and so naturally this goofy lil’ Catgirl wasted no time in snatching herself up a copy once I’d been assured of this through intensive Internet research.

The synopsis goes like this: “Suat (Burak Özcivit) and Nurcan (Bigkem Karavus) are two young people born and grown up in the same village and they passionately love each other. They decide to get married. But, when they take this decision, they find themselves “haunted” by a great trouble. A creature from other world causes unfathomable events around them and affects the entire life of this couple. Now, neither their life nor love is as before. The dark incidents affecting them and their environment develop in an inexplicable manner.”

Hmmmm… Well it sounds like Neko’s kinda film, but there’s only one way to find out if my guess is right. Yep… it’s time to “Read On”….. Betcha saw that one coming.

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Every once in a while something odd pops up on this lil Catgirl’s radar…. and “Semum” is just such an example. Surprisingly enough, I actually do miss a few films now and again…. but not this one… Hehehehehe!!

So… anyway… “Semum” is the new horror film from “D@bbe” director Hasan Karacadag. Neko managed to catch that one, and although I’d heard about this new film, it sorta slipped past me on it’s way to DVD.

Then I heard it was out but… gasp… there would be NO English subtitles available for it. That sorta put it on the back burner for me, as I knew I’d find some subtitles for it eventually if an english friendly release didn’t come along first. But it seems the rumors were wrong…. “Semum” is available on Region 2 PAL formatted DVD and the ever so nifty English subtitles are along for the ride too. Yay!!!!

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A movie about a gigantic killer crocodile stalking and eating tourists lost in the Australian outback….. Oooooohhh! That never gets old!

Would your Favorite Catgirl movie geek miss this one? Nope…. not a chance…. Will she wait for August to get her lil’ paws on the Region 1 release? Nope…. not when it’s already out in Australia on Region 4, you silly people!!

This one appears to be the big budget answer to last years lil’ sleeper hit “Black Water” which also deals with the very scary… and very real menace, to be experienced when dealing with the local wildlife of Australia’s Northern Territory.

Neko-chan picked up that one, and was scared silly by it, despite it’s low budget and small cast. Can Greg McLean, who made a splash among horror fans in 2005 with his ultra gory debut film, “Wolf Creek” pull off another hit with “Rogue”?

Let’s “Read On” and find out!!

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Just so you all get to know that your favorite Catgirl Princess doesn’t just watch Asian films….. here’s a look at the recently released direct to disc “Left For Dead” an Argentine Spaghetti Western/ horror film of all crazy things….

Remember….. if a film’s got zombies in it… this lil’ Catgirl has trouble NOT watching it. Will zombies actually improve a Spagetti Western? Let’s find out, shall we?

(C’mon… you know by now you reeeeallly wanna “Read On”…. admit it!!)

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This review brings us to exotic and mysterious Turkey…… and the slice of movie horror that is“Gen”….

The plot for this one is easy…… “Young, idealistic Dr. Deniz has just started working at an old mental institution waaaaay out in the mountains in the proverbial middle of nowhere which is being closed down shortly. Why? Because her mother suffers from a mental illness so she wants to help others who are in the same state of condition. Unfortunately, there might not be many patients left to treat when a serial killer shows up and starts offing the patients one by one. The police manage to show up in the form of an overweight Police inspector and his young assistant, but then the roads are cut by an landslide, trapping them without phone or assistance while the masked killer prowls the hospital grounds killing patients and staff at will. Is it one of the weird, creepy staff….. or is it the mysterious, and admittedly homicidal patient in supposedly in secure confinement in the padded cell in a wing of the hospital isolated from the rest of the patients?”

Ooooh!! Sounds like we might just have a winner here! Let’s “Read On” shall we?

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