Double Feature: Two Fingers, One Throat

SLAUGHTERED VOMIT DOLLS

Starring Ameara LaVey, Pig Lizzy, Hank Skinny

Directed by Lucifer Valentine

Kingdom of Hell Productions

Before I watched Slaughtered Vomit Dolls, I had a tuna fish sandwich and some macaroni and cheese.

By the end, it was all over my shirt and was now caked and drying.

I’m sure to hear that would make director (and admitted vomit fetishist) Lucifer Valentine a very happy camper indeed; Slaughtered Vomit Dolls is the first film to ever make me completely and utterly physically sick. And it wasn’t the gore—from the vivisectional dismemberments to the lovingly slow-mo eyeball gougings—oh, I could handle all that. It was the multiple instances of real on-screen puking that did me in. Yep: puking. It’s a whole new genre of film, “vomit gore”, and it was created by said director Valentine. And, as a point of interest, the scene that did it exactly, the scene the made me violently upchuck, well, it was where a guy throws up in a mug, drinks it and repeats this act ad nauseum (no pun intended). Goodbye, Kraft Cheesy Mac!

But other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?

Slaughtered Vomit Dolls might as well go on record as being a 21st century "Eraserhead" by way of Marilyn Manson—it’s more of a jarring, scarring experience than it is a movie made for entertainment’s sake. It has little to no discernible plot; instead, it’s merely a parade of strung together, oddly connected glimpses into the world of a bulimic prostitute who, after making a pact with the devil on-camera, may or may not be involved in a series of tortures and executions of various girls. The ladies are defaced in numerous horrific ways, all with a brutally unsettling realism that will have you squirming and asking for proof the actresses are still alive…they are alive, right?

Gushing geysers of vomit works its way into all of these scenarios, in the most consistently depraved ways. In one scene, a guy sticks a severed hand down his throat to induce vomiting. In another (that had me dry heaving), brains are eaten directly out of a head and then vomited back into the cranial opening. I have a feeling that Slaughtered Vomit Dolls might be “the Aristocrats” for the horror crowd, and Valentine is the winner.

But the thing that sets Slaughtered Vomit Dolls apart from other films like this—and why it earns the "Eraserhead" comparison—is that the film is so incredibly stylish. It’s an art film straight from Hell. Jumbled images, swirling sonic distortions, worn film stocks, guttural voices that can’t be possibly human and that fact that Valentine’s (and his actors) ability and willingness to put every deplorable act imaginable on-screen is a feat worthy of queasy Buñuel, a seasick Pasolini or, even better, an emetophiliac Kenneth Anger.

Slaughtered Vomit Dolls is not for everyone—Hell, it was barely for me. But the fact that it’s a rare work of art that rises above the archetypal dregs that can be the no-budget horror ghetto, that alone is worth 70 minutes of your time.

Just remember to bring a bucket. And bring a bucket I did because Valentine’s back with…

REGOREGITATED SACRIFICE

Starring Ameara LaVey, The Black Angels of Hell, Hank Skinny

Directed by Lucifer Valentine

Kingdom of Hell Productions

It has been about two years now since I first learned of the diabolical Lucifer Valentine, who might as well be labeled the official filmmaker of Satan—the Dark Lord gives you two gnarled thumbs up! His first film, "Slaughtered Vomit Dolls", left me permanently scarred, excreting an unholy slew of images that I never wanted to see into my skull, some of which I have never been able to shake. I even threw up my meal while watching the flick, much to Mr. Valentine’s chagrin, I’m sure. It sure makes for a memorable viewing experience.

So why would I want to go back into this wretched (and retching) breach again? And why would anybody need a sequel to the first “vomit gore” (his term) movie? How much further can he go into the dark recesses of evil cinema? And will I be able to keep down that tasty meatball sub I just finished?

"Regoregitated" Sacrifice is the newest and second film in Valentine’s “vomit gore” trilogy and, like SVD, it continues the story of Angela Aberdeen, a stripper/whore/teen porn star who shares a crazy cosmic synchronous tie to Kurt Cobain. Like Kurt, she has just committed suicide and the whole movie takes place in her head as she slowly succumbs to brain death. And boy howdy, what a cast of characters she’s got up in that noggin: two scantly clad, incestuous twins who act as the guardians and protectors as she heads to Hell; all of her psyches who are beaten, slaughtered and made to puke on the camera, in that order; and let’s not forget our ol’ pal Hank Skinny, back to enter the frame at random times just to cannon-blast vomit at the most inappropriate of times.

So, yes, Valentine has brought his emetophiliac fetish back to the screen (not to mention a whole handful of golden shower bits!), and while this is all wholly disturbing, I gotta admit this: since SVD, Valentine has visually turned into a master filmmaker. Between his edits, his sound and his layered camerawork, this guy, on a micro-budget, makes even the most polished of Nine Inch Nails videos look like a circa-1980s public access talk show. Valentine, stylistically and horrifically, has captured what a movie in Hell would look like and it is so beautifully intoxicating that you can’t turn you eyes away. And I wanted to. I wanted to the whole time.

High points include: a girl being gagged by her own guts to the point of pukage; a girl’s head being used as a puke goblet, wherein puke is drank, puked back into the goblet and then re-drank; and, the scene that, once again, pushed me over the edge, causing me to grab the metal Superman trash can by couch and violently hurl into it, when Hank Skinny, dressed like a demonic Juggalo, puts a dead octopus on his head as a crown, gags himself with the creatures tentacles and unleashed torrent after torrent of blood-red vomit. So did I—bye-bye meatball sub! (By the way, Lucifer: that’s TWO sandwiches you owe me and a Superman trashcan!)

How do I recommend a movie like "Regoregitated Sacrifice"? To whom do I recommend it to? Certainly not to my friends and family. I don’t want to invite anyone over to watch it. And I really don’t know if I want to be best buds with another fan of the thing. But, the truth of the matter is that Lucifer Valentine’s output goes so above and beyond the typical transgressive filmmaking that we’re used to, and is so intrinsically well-made and well-shot and, well, clean to look at, that it becomes a revolutionary new art form. An art-form for the end times; apocalyptic art-house fare that even the most jaded of viewers will have a hard time digesting, pun fully intended.

But now, the final question remains: how do you top this? One word: FECES!