Devil in the Flesh, Vol. 2 [2000] (REGION 1) (NTSC)

Customer Reviews:

GREAT ENDING TO AN OK FILM.......2007-10-26

Arriving at a large mansion, parapsychology group Erin Cooper, (Jane Scarlett) Ted Sturgeon, (Clark Beasley Jr.) Jack Ketchum, (Jim Coope) Joseph Monks, (David Runco) Douglas Clegg, (Aaron Clayton) and Martin Shelly, (Michael Sinterniklaas) are greeted by John Stoker, (Sergio Jones) about the house being haunted. Almost immediately taunted by the supernatural forces, they go to work trying to rid the house of it's presence. Wandering through, they each encounter a force inside the house, and are soon under attack from demonic spirits. The longer inside the house, the more violent and intense the visions become until they are assaulted by a horde of ravenous zombies. Racing to unravel the mystery of the house's history, they work to get out of the house alive before they are killed and become inhabitants of the house.

The Good News: This is one of the more surprising films out there. One of the film's biggest pluses is that there is an extreme and overloaded amount of blood and gore in this. This one doesn't skimp out at all, and really lets it fly. We get a finger into the throat, setting off a torrential rain of blood, a severed arm leaving a trail of blood on the floor from the stump, a victim tacked to the ceiling with pins in the hands, a throat ripped out, and the film's single most graphic kill, a victim has hands thrust into their stomach, playing with the entrails in the wound, followed by having his entire inner organs vomited up in slow, grisly fashion. With it being so realistic-looking, this derives a lot of pleasure from it's over-the-top feeling. Other times include a victim stumbling into the eviscerated corpse of a previous kill, which is missing everything from the waist-down and another character being completely covered head-to-toe in blood showered from above. There's really no stop to this, this is full-on all the way, and it gets major points for it. The location of the film, a giant Gothic mansion with long, dark hallways, huge rooms and decayed state provide some plentiful suspense. It's also suspenseful in it's own right, with a marvelous trick of having each character's death scene transpire by having them alone with the rest of the hallway or room completely black. A sudden noise or movement will draw them to their death, and the set-up works each and every time. The fact that the demons also appear in human form with the addition of solid black eyes is it's best trick, allowing for untold disturbances to come from it. The supernatural occurrences are pretty creepy, with voice-overs, instant appearing and disappearing, and much, much more. This has a mildly creepy atmosphere. They even look really creepy, with long distortions to the mouth and jaws and a solid, featureless face with the cold, black eyes. They're instantly memorable and look creepy. In the sleazy side of the film, there's an abundance of nudity in the film. Every major actress in this flick doffs it for the audience. Nudity is given in a rare full-frontal mode, allowing for it all to be shown. This one has a lot going for it.

The Bad News: There isn't a whole lot wrong with this one. Most of what's wrong comes from the written side. The story itself is incredibly cliché, having been done countless times before and essentially copied verbatim here, offering no real surprises at all. This could lead the film to appear to be quite predictable, since it rarely wavers from the norm. the set-up has been done countless times before and this one is no different. Another flaw in the writing is that this has to be the flat-out dumbest group of paranormal investigators anywhere. One man after another falls victim to the wiles of the ladies of the manor, who, according to their client, shouldn't even be there. They were warned about it, and they still succumbed to the hordes. Not really wanting of the group. The film's last flaw, and it's most glaring, happens to concern the nudity. There are several sex scenes in this movie, but the men keep their pants completely on, and they last all of ten seconds. The simulated sex is so clumsy that there's barely any guilty pleasure to be had. Couldn't any of the demon/woman/seductresses at least pretended to take a guy's pants off before she started humping him? That seems like a rather basic requirement for what's transpiring, yet nothing comes off except the women's clothes. However, this one is really the most noticeable due to the amount of sex in the film, and isn't anything that could call for it's ouster.

The Final Verdict: Beyond a few really harmless gripes, this one is a really good entry in the genre. It's got a lot to really like about it, including tons of gore and nudity, and would be a fine viewing for any gore-hound or zombie fan.

Customer Reviews:

Mannered, amusing, and slightly malicious.......2007-08-21

On Approval is an immensely amusing comedy of upper class British manners. It is wickedly malicious without being mean-spirited. The four leads -- Clive Brook, Beatrice Lilly, Roland Culver, Googie Withers -- play off each other flawlessly. Brook, who also wrote and directed the film, is priceless as an aristocrat who finds it entirely reasonable to take his pleasures at the expense of others. "She's not crying because I said she was forty-one," he says with perfectly enunciated logic, "she's crying because she is forty-one."

Brook is largely forgotten now, but he was a major actor in his time. He made only one movie after this, 1963's List of Adrian Messenger. At 76 he could still command the screen, even when sharing scenes with George C. Scott.

The DVD's look and sound is very good.

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