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Gort vs plumbing: We review bargain-basement Z-movie horror Drainiac

Commander's log, Stardate 26072013.2:

Something unusual happened with the Mothership's plumbing this week. Strange noises reverberated through the ship's pipes, causing tortured straining and screeching sounds to fill the corridors. Gort and I ventured down to the engine room to investigate and were confronted with a monstrous vision of horror - a skeletal, green-skinned demon-spawn from hell towered over us, blocking our path.


"Y'alright, Steve?" I said.

"Yeah, not too bad, just got really awful hayfever..." our Rigellian engineer spluttered out before expelling an earth-shaking sneeze that sent all the engine room's pipes rattling. I pointed out to Steve that perhaps peppering the engine room with hanging baskets of flowers had not been the best idea, but he would only sulkily respond "...but they're pretty..."

Review

We learn very quickly in the introduction of bargain-basement horror flick Drainiac that teen Julie is troubled. We know this because her spectacular eyebrows are forever knitted in consternation and she spends an unbearably long sequence jogging out to her mother's grave to sit by it gloomily. We can also assume that she is sexually frustrated since she is plagued by recurring nightmares of a phallic monster creeping up between her legs and draining the blood from her neck...


The source of her teenage angst turns out to be her widower father's PG-rated abuse, which mainly seems to involve being grumpy and muttering "bitch" under his breath constantly. His most devilish crime is refusing to allow Julie to shower after her run and, instead, driving her out to a derelict house he is renovating to help him clean it up. He promptly abandons her there to work while he heads off to a bar, which we can't help but respect in a sadistic sort of way.

"Given the budget of around 25p, the effects are downright impressive"


The teen's apparent reluctance to actually walk anywhere leaves her stranded at the house, so Julie forces her friends to bring her lunch. The vulnerable girls and their wimpy friend are followed to the shack by a rapey stalker who seems as confused about his presence there as we are. He's almost relieved when he exits the story as quickly as he appeared when his genitals are torn off and sucked down a toilet by a monster hiding in the pipes.


Another confused fellow quickly appears and declares that the house is haunted by a "water vampire" living in the plumbing. He does so with a few choice Irish colloquialisms, which is particularly odd since he keeps making reference to his home in Scotland. The kids are swiftly dragged into an amateur exorcism that goes about as well as the production has so far.


While we appreciate that the actress who plays Julie was dedicated enough to the movie to do a brief full-frontal, the acting on show in the film is about on par for a movie made by a company called Notso-Costley Productions. However, given the budget of around 25p, the Evil Dead-style practical effects work on show is downright impressive, especially a nice, eye-popping face melt. There are a raft of ideas nicked from better movies, but also some original moments, like when a naked ghost dances seductively before pulling her face off and screaming at our hero; a wailing wall of twisted, slimy demonic faces; or the psychedelic end credits featuring an equally naked burlesque dance by a woman in a skull mask. We're now very excited to check out the rest of director Brett Piper's catalogue, which includes such movies as Troma's A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell...

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