PANCHO VILLA (1972)

 Uneven little Spanish historical/action/comedy/western mix that doesn't really work very well as any of those things.  Telly Savalas stars as the title character who doesn't seem one little bit Mexican but I guess no one noticed while filming.  Chuck Connors plays an American Colonel who plays it even more over the top than Savalas.  The filmmakers just don't seem to know exactly what they were trying to accomplish with this one.  As an historical epic it isn't very accurate at all, as a comedy it isn't very funny, just sorta goofy at times and even the action scenes are just so-so with nothing particularly spectacular or memorable besides maybe the scene where two trains collide head on in a blaze of stupidity.  Anne Frances from FORBIDDEN PLANET shows up in a few scenes that add nothing to the plot.  You also get a delightful tune sung by Mr. Savalas himself at the silly climax.  I would say skip this one unless you're a big Telly fanatic.

                                            Who loves ya baby?

AMER (2009)

The filmmakers call this an homage to Italian giallo movies of the 70's, I call it a boring student art film stretched out way longer than necessary or humanly tolerable.  If you took an actual genuine Argento or Bava horror movie from the 70's stripped away the plot, characters and most of the dialogue, what do you have left?  This thing right here.  Close to being one of the worst things I have ever seen,  I wouldn't even realistically call this a movie as the whole thing plays out like one long perfume commercial or maybe a trailer for a real movie.  The two positive things I can say are that the imagery at times was cool to look at (despite the annoying quick cuts) and the music was cool.  Of course the music was lifted from other much better movies and the images are imitations of those same types of films.  Even if you love giallo flicks avoid this one at all costs unless you happen to be a pretentious art fag douche-bag and then perhaps this would be the perfect mental masturbation material for you.

SATAN WAS A LADY (2001)

Oh, Doris what were you thinking?  The final movie made by the queen of 60's sexploitation/nudie flicks is a pretty big comedown from her glory days of churning out low-budget 42nd Street material.  I sorta knew that a shot on video sex movie made in 2001 wasn't gonna have quite the same style or appeal to me as a nice grimy old time sex movie made with no sound on real film but I had to see it anyway just for historical purposes.  You just can't go back to those days when this stuff held the power to titillate.  For one thing the proliferation of hardcore porn only being a click away takes away the naughty forbidden aspect of it all.  The other problem might be the fact that this movie is filled with some really unattractive people.  Lead actress Honey Lauren isn't bad but she does sport a strange hair-do (with what I think are supposed to be devil horns?) that detracts from her looks but besides her and one stripper we see briefly (who for some strange reason starts out naked and gets fully dressed onstage???) there are just a lot of ugly people reading lines like they're in a fourth grade play.  The major problem though, I found, was the inclusion of beat-nick looking, singer/songwriter Glynn Styler who's meandering dreary songs eat up so much of the running time it's ridiculous.  Who would let a guy like this play in between strippers anyway?  The movie would probably be under an hour without having to hear every bit of his songs.  You do get  the bizarre lingering shots of a lamp for no reason that spotlight Ms. Wishman's unique style of directing so that was something.  I gotta check out the original X-rated 70's version of this with Annie Sprinkle.  I have a strong feeling it will be more up my alley.

ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES (1959)

Guys in what look more like giant shiny starfish outfits terrorize a southern swamp in this early AIP cheaply-made quickie.  Produced by Roger and brother Gene Corman this one drags a lot whenever the stupid-looking monsters aren't around but at least it's only a little over an hour long.  I thought it was kinda creepy and cool that the leech/squid monsters take their half-alive victims back to their underwater cave/lair to slowly drink their blood in some scenes that were probably pretty shocking for the 1950's.  Features Yvette Vickers who plays a slut in this and a similar character in ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN, I guess it was her specialty.  This was remade in 2008 but I'm sure it was full of CGI leech-monsters and that would really blow.  Check out the original if you dig silly-ass drive-in type classics probably made in about a day or two.

Aqua-beasts!  Aaaah!:

DARD DIVORCE (2007)

 I've only seen one other movie by director Olaf Ittenbach, PREMUTOS: LORD OF THE LIVING DEAD, and although that movie was a gore-fest also, the tone and subject matter of it, with it's zombies and ridiculousness, was high comedy in comparison to the darkness of this excursion into the torture porn genre that's been done to death in recent years.  This movie is shot way better than PREMUTOS and is definitely one of the goriest movies I've seen in a long time.  You get all manner of bloody stabbings, shootings, head-crushing and the expected torture scenes including a kid chainsawed in half and a guy stuffing his own intestines back into his belly.  The story is a bit of a convoluted mess concerning a woman going through a divorce that gets uglier and uglier until it ends up in the violent orgy on display.  The main downfall of the movie is the horrible acting, possibly due to Ittenbach using his wife as the lead actress and her English skills being a little rough on the ears.  Why they would shoot this in English under this circumstance I have no idea.  The other thing that makes no sense is the way the music rises and actually drowns out the dialogue whenever a major plot point is being revealed.  What the hell kind of sound mixing is that?  On the other hand all the effects work was done really well for something obviously shot on a low budget.  I would only recommend this one to die-hard gore-hounds looking for something very juicy because in that category it doesn't disappoint at all.

THE NUNS OF ST. ARCHANGEL (1973)

 "You are judging me for corruption and cruelty. Am I more corrupt than you?"

This Italian made nunsploitation flick set in in the 16th century plays out for the most part like a typical historical political drama concerned with the appointment of a new mother superior after the old one kicks the bucket.  There are some little bits of the expected lesbianism on display but the main thing that saves it from being a waste of time is the really powerful ending complete with supposedly historically accurate, inquisition-style torture devices plus a pretty strong indictment of the brutality of Christianity of old.  It really stands out from the more common sleazy naughty nun movies of the time and is a well made piece worth watching if you can deal with the heavy plot throughout and lack of nudity or exploitation elements up until the climax.
AKA THE NUN AND THE DEVIL, INNOCENTS FROM HELL and SISTERS OF SATAN

RE-ANIMATOR (1985)

"Who's going to believe a talking head? Get a job in a sideshow"

As a general rule I hate most stupid/silly 1980's horror movies.  I mean I see them as the exact opposite of everything that was great about the 70's.  They replaced gritty realism with sitcom-ish jokes and any serious ideas were banished from sight.  They became the mainstream and the mainstream became shitty once again.  That being said I always liked this goofy 80's take on the FRANKENSTEIN story.  It is utterly stupid to the core but the performance of  Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West is so much fun to watch that the whole movie is lifted up above other crap of the decade like the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET movies or the GREMLINS flicks or any number of super popular shitty waste of time comedies disguised as horror films.  You also get a bunch of gore, great practical effects of the time, the lovely Barbara Crampton bare ass naked and getting head by a severed head, a zombified cat and re-animated corpses running amuck.  Plus the comedy actually works within the world that director Stuart Gordon created.  I'm not sure what any of this movie has to do with H.P. Lovecraft but check it out anyway for a good time.

IMAGES IN A CONVENT (1979)

"Governments like to hang a free-thinker"

What starts out as a surprisingly well done, classy-looking, very artsy type film from Italian cult film director Joe D'Amato (better known to horror fans for making low-down dirty trashy gore-classics like ANTHROPOPHAGUS and PORNO HOLOCAUST) shifts about halfway into more familiar territory of sleaze and debauchery.  The movie is indeed packed with naughty imagery in a convent and you can see why D'Amato would go on in his later years to make hardcore porn since this movie could almost be considered porn itself (there's even a rape scene with cocks and a graphic blow-job that I wasn't expecting).  Not having been raised Catholic I never had a particular fetish for nuns though hot, pent-up naked ladies spells a good time in any outfit they wanna wear or none at all.  Check it out if you dig sleazy filthy nun antics teetering on full out fuck film status.

Groping tits for Satan!:

MALIBU HIGH (1979)

                                           "I'm a hooker, not a hit-girl!"

MALIBU HIGH is, to me, one of the high points of cheaply made, dirty 70's drive-in sex flicks.  I find this sordid tale of a clearly too old to be in high-school high-schooler named Kim to be highly re-watchable for its total cheese factor alone.  At first you feel bad for main character Kim's rejection by her asshole boyfriend but my solidarity with the main character's plight shifted pretty quickly when I realized how stupid she was for making the horrible choices she makes.  Poor Kim(played by Jill Lansing who went on to do no other movies after this powerful performance) just keeps spiraling down going from angry, spurned girlfriend to teenage hooker to hit-girl for a rather hairy mobster.  It all ends in a blaze of glory set to the theme of THE PEOPLE'S COURT.  Utter ridiculous hilarity!  Featuring boobs, blood, horrible tan lines, stupid pimps and the world's crappiest looking disco.  It almost feels like what would happen if John Waters tried to make a serious drama about high school life.  Does the title refer to the height of the main actresses pants?  Perhaps.

Kim hates cleanliness!  Oh the drama:

PRETTY PEACHES (1978)

Great wacky 1970's comedy porn from director Alex DeRenzy.  It's pretty much all star Desiree Cousteau's performance as the amnesia-stricken, dim-witted Peaches who keeps the movie fun.  Probably the most memorable scene in this is where Cousteau shoots what looks like a couple of gallons of water out of her ass across a room during an enema scene gone wrong.  Joey Silvera also does a really good job as the main "bad" guy.  It's hard to remember now that there were actually decent actors in porn at one time.  It is a product of the times that certain scenes involving force and taking advantage of someone are done in such a light-hearted goofy manner.  This would never be made in the same way today.  I enjoyed it as the delightful time-capsule that it is. 

Finally, my blog has some class!:

PRIME EVIL (1988)

I've watched this movie more than once now and I'm still not exactly sure what the hell is going on in a lot of this.  It starts off with a bang in ye olden days with some naughty monks chopping heads off good monks and worshiping Satan and then we jump ahead to present day(which, of course, is present day 1980's style).  Then there's more Satan worshiping, people doing aerobics, naked perky boobies and more blood.  One of the stranger scenes has a lady being killed by having alcohol poured down her throat and I guess she drowns?  Seemed like a really bizarre way to kill someone.  Although it's all very confusing and really badly acted I found it enjoyable in a chaotic way.  Plus the fight scenes are ridiculously awesome and the devil is played by a hand puppet.  Amazing!  If you like the horror/exploitation movies of director Roberta Findlay(TENEMENT, BLOOD SISTERS etc.) this one fits right into the same mold of strange, wacky Satan-lovin' thrills.

UN CHIEN ANDALOU (1929)

The first shock film?  That's one possible interpretation.  There is no plot so nothing really makes much sense beyond the dreamlike sense that we affix to anything that we don't immediately comprehend.  This was the point though as Director Luis Bunuel was opposed to any interpretation of his work having any meaning or symbolism applied to it.  A series of random imagery, the best known being a straight razor slicing across an eyeball, that leaves the viewer feeling nothing but uneasy right from the start in the off-beat weirdness of it all.  Also features ants crawling out of a stigmata-like wound, a severed hand, dead animals, a deaths-head moth and various other odd things that randomly show up with no rhyme or reason.  Not being an expert on the surrealist movement or Sigmund Freud I can't comment on the influence those things had on this film other than knowing that all these things are intertwined here in one way or another.  There's an added creepy factor in knowing that the two main actors in this thing both ended up committing suicide.  Check it out if you have any interest in bizarre cinema.

BURNING BRIGHT (2010)

For such a simple plot this movie worked really well in building a sense of dread and suspense. What you get is a girl and her autistic little brother boarded up in a house during a hurricane with a hungry man-eating tiger thanks to her evil step-dad.  After a bit of a drawn out setup the two of them struggling to survive is pretty much the whole movie. The cool thing is that they used a real tiger for almost all the scenes with only slight cgi here and there. While not the most realistic movie I've ever seen(I'm pretty sure the tiger could have eaten both of them within five minutes) it was entertaining if not overly predictable with an ending you could see coming from a mile away.

BLACKTOP (2000)

 Cliche-riddled rip-off of Steven Spielberg's DUEL starring Meatloaf and Kristin Davis, who is one of the ladies from SEX & THE CITY(and I only know that because I was forced to watch that show at one point in my life).  There's nothing really out of the ordinary to see in this, just a big crazy guy in a big crazy truck terrorizing a woman and taking out a few other victims along the way.  I guess it would be of interest to fans of Meatloaf but not too many others.  There's practically no blood since it's really more of a thriller than a horror flick and that's not really my favorite genre.  I can't imagine this actually played in theaters anywhere, it seems like something that was made for cable to me.  Skip it.

SLASHERS (2001)

The idea of a reality/game show pitting contestants against serial killers doesn't seem too far of a stretch given the current state of what your average citizen accepts for televised entertainment today. I feel like if this movie was done better, perhaps in Japan by Japanese people and called BATTLE ROYAL 3, it would probably be way more entertaining than this. Unfortunately, although set up as a Japanese game show, this was filmed in Canada and the whole thing is just way too cheaply done and poorly acted to take very seriously in any way.  If the objective is to to convey some sort of a social message maybe making your movie seem less like a joke would be a good way of doing that. I feel like there is potential to remake this with real actors and create something pretty cool. Of course if you're gonna do that you might as well just remake THE RUNNING MAN and make way more money. I wouldn't actually recommend this or call it very good but it was at least engaging enough that I wanted to see how it all ended up.

GRAPHIC SEXUAL HORROR (2009)

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THE LEGEND OF THE SEVEN GOLDEN VAMPIRES (1974)

 What happens when you mix the all out action of a Shaw Brothers kung fu flick with the talkiness of a typical Hammer studios Dracula movie?  Well, you get this movie which is a pretty mixed-up affair.  The kung fu scenes, as expected, are awesome but unfortunately they're interrupted by long stretches of boring talky talk plot building stuff which drags everything down in my opinion.  Peter Cushing does a good job playing his typical Van Helsing character but some of the other white characters seem totally out of place amidst all the martial arts mayhem on display.  An interesting experiment in mixing two completely different genres that I don't think works all that successfully.  You do get some super bright 70's blood spilled here and there and some refried-bean-faced vampire monsters, so that's cool.  An all out fight-fest Shaw Bros. vampire flick would probably be more to my personal liking.  Check it out for something different though.

THE COMING OF SIN (1978)

Ultra-boring sex movie made in Spain.  The movie tries really hard to be very artsy with it's shots and subject matter but to me it all came off as really tedious and uneventful.  The story involves a gypsy girl who dreams about a guy on horseback attacking her and then the guy shows up naked on a horse and tries to rape her.  It eventually ends up in a sorta triangle affair with her boss and naked weirdo horseback man.  It all doesn't really make much sense in the end and ends up with some violence for no real reason.  There are really only three characters in this whole thing and seeing them all naked, while neat at first, becomes boring after a while.  The video case has a cool photo of a girl inside a golden horse but this scene only appears in a dumb dream sequence.  I think the moral of the story  is that fortune tellers are always right. AKA THE VIOLATION OF THE BITCH, SECRETS OF THE BITCH, VICE MAKES A VISIT and SEX MANIAC

                                                               Cool guy!: 

The British video box really gives away the ending!(and also makes this movie seem way more rapey than it actually is):

AFRICA SCREAMS (1949)

Thanks to my dad I was raised on a steady diet of THE THREE STOOGES and ABBOTT AND COSTELLO from a very early age and I've always loved almost all of their collective stuff no matter how idiotic. The cool thing about this classic is that you get A & C along with the great Shemp Howard from the Stooges and, even though he's probably my least favorite Stooge, you also get "Curly" Joe Besser in there and he comes off in this like he's sorta doing an impersonation of Lou Costello(although I guess they always did that same sorta act) and the two together are quite ridiculous. Of course you also get the obligatory  cheap, shit-ass gorilla costume, which is always cool and the totally non-politically correct depictions of Africans, which is probably not considered very cool nowadays, but this was Hollywood in the 40's.  Check it out if you love classic stupid comedy.

Costello meets KING KONG? Or is that THE MIGHTY PEKING MAN?:

ROAD KILL (2010)

 Originally titled ROAD TRAIN this is a tale  of  two annoying, constantly bickering couples that have to deal with a haunted/killer tractor trailer in this stupid Australian horror flick.  The truck apparently is transporting Satan's pet three-headed dogs or something silly like that. The movie just gets dumber and dumber as it goes on.  Maybe if it wasn't for all the supernatural idiocy it wouldn't be so terrible but then again probably.  If you enjoy watching people make bad decisions this would be a good one for you otherwise skip it.  This was picked up as part of some Fangoria Frightfest thing so I guess that explains the lack of quality or anyone giving a shit just like that piece of crap magazine.  If you're looking for a good killer truck movie go with Spielberg's DUEL instead.

THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN (1976)

 Based on a true story from the 1940's this is a classic proto-slasher flick from Charles B. Pierce, the director of LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK.  I love the pseudo-documentary style that Mr. Pierce uses to set everything up and just give it that general feeling that what you're watching actually did happen just like the film shows.  It almost feels like you're watching an old episode of IN SEARCH OF..., which I was a fan of as a kid.  Pierce used this same documentary-like style in BOGGY CREEK, though that film didn't work quite as well from what I recall.  The only slight downfall to this movie is the ridiculous bumbling cop scenes with inappropriate comedy bits thrown in.  I feel like the film could have been much creepier without them.  I mean imagine if in the middle of THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE some cop falls down and splits his pants while silly music plays.  Kinda ruins the mood a bit.  The Phantom Killer's sack-head look was the inspiration for Jason's fetching appearance in FRIDAY THE 13th Part 2.  Dawn Wells(Mary Ann from GILLIGAN'S ISLAND) shows up as a victim of sack-face and another lady is killed using a trombone in a pretty original way.  No where near as gory as the 80's films that came along later but way more effective than most of them in creating a well done mood of true life horror.

MANHATTAN MISTRESS (1981)

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MY SWEET SATAN (1994)

1980's Long Island was all about Amy Fisher and Ricky Kasso.  As a kid growing up in this boring suburban wasteland in the 80's Ricky Kasso was a big deal to me.  I can remember me and my best friend walking for miles just to go see the area where Ricky performed his Satanic murderous deed.  Of course we got tired, turned around halfway and never made it but I feel our hearts were in the right place.  This short film by one of my favorite directors, Jim Van Bebber, takes the story of Ricky adds a few 90's elements (white guys with weird braided/shaved hair, piercings and industrial music) and amps up the violence to make it more disturbing.  Eyes are popped out, piercings are pulled and much blood is spilled for Satan.  One of my all-time favorite short gore films although maybe that's just my Long Island nostalgia talking.

I'LL NEVER DIE ALONE (2008)

Argentinian rape/revenge flick which, of course, takes I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE as it's blueprint and amps everything up by giving us four women instead of one.  The group come across a woman who has been attacked earlier by a rape-happy group of townsfolk and from there things get nasty for everyone.  I'm thinking this town has got to be the worst place to live if you happen to be a woman.  Full of long scenes of brutality, rape, murder and ultimately some very satisfying and gory revenge sequences this is better than most modern horror/revenge movies.  This is most likely because it is not American and therefore not afraid to push boundaries.  The director has this weird thing were he holds certain shots for an inordinate amount of time which gives everything a weird/artsy feeling.  Features wanton use of a hammer in a few nasty scenes.  Not the most complex thing you will ever see but for what it is it's done well and works on the emotional level that it's going for.  This one would fit right into the 70's exploitation genre if it was made about 30 years earlier and that's good enough for me to recommend it to not overly sensitive types.

THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE (1974)

The greatest horror film of all time.  The epitome of 70's grind-house terror and reality.  All of this is accomplished with little gore and little budget.  THE EXORCIST is the film most mainstream audiences point to as the pinnacle of horror greatness from this time.  I would argue that the thing that puts this one over it is the fact that it is based in reality, a fucked-up reality full of cannibalistic, homicidal insanity but a reality nonetheless.  THE EXORCIST'S reality only works if one embraces a belief in supernatural demons.  There's no arguing that the world contains psychopaths with minds that can conjure up the horrors on display in this slice of depravity, if not worse.  A mirror into the dark soul of humanity and a comment on a decade that saw the failure of 1960's idealism.  Often lumped in with the slasher genre which came years later this seems so much deeper.  If this was accidental or not it seems debatable but either way everything was aligned just right to capture what I feel is a masterpiece of purely iconic scary film-making.  From the opening graveyard scenes up until the last shot of Leatherface maniacally dancing against the sunset wildly swinging a buzzing chainsaw, everything works in what is certainly the high-water mark of exploitation movies if not cinema in general.

TERROR CREATURES FROM THE GRAVE (1965)

Originally shown in the U.S. on a double bill with director Massimo Pupillo's other/better Goth picture BLOODY PIT OF HORROR, this is probably my least favorite Barbara Steele movie(actually SHE-BEAST is even worse!).  It starts off so slowly that it seems like a chore just getting through the dull opening scenes.  I don't feel that director Pupillo has quite the ability or style of a Mario Bava or even a Riccardo Freda.  He builds some nice atmosphere but the overall pacing of the film just seems off and Steele isn't really used enough.  Some zombies, as well as severed zombie hands, come alive towards the end but they aren't shown all that much.  Worth watching only if you want to see Steele taking a nice sponge bath in a typical Gothic castle.

8213: GACY HOUSE (2010)

Stupid, boring BLAIR WITCH/PARANORMAL ACTIVITY rip-off movie made by Asylum studios about a group of ghost hunters hanging out in John Wayne Gacy's house and Gacy comes back as a big fat clown ghost who likes to knock pictures off the wall and slam doors.  If you like shaky camera crap like those two movies this might be entertaining for you.  Personally I hate pretty much everything in the "running around with a camera" genre besides REC which was at least watchable. This thing is about as pointless as watching one of those GHOST HUNTER tv-shows except way longer.  You do get  some nice naked boobs towards the end due to a Gacy-ghost attack(which really makes no sense since Gacy was into young boys) and a guy gets his pants ripped off which makes for a funny visual.  One of the worst things I've seen in a while.  You would be better off just watching any old Gacy documentary.

WEREWOLF IN A GIRLS' DORMITORY (1961)

 The first Italian werewolf movie and you would think that a 60's Italian made werewolf movie would at least have a little skin on display but there's none here(at least not in the American dubbed print that I've seen, not sure about the original). So maybe a remake could fix that, or maybe not. The story is pretty much all right there in the title. A werewolf, who sorta looks like a bushy eyebrowed, disheveled vampire,  attacks girls at a dormitory and that's it. There's a cool theme song("The Ghoul In School") and the attack scenes are neat though not very bloody. Too bad there's not some sleazier elements in there.



Features this big hit track!!:

ENTER THE VOID (2009)

 A truly interesting visual presentation that seems designed to bring about epileptic fits or perhaps dancing about with glow sticks, I'm not sure which.  If a better director cut this down to about  90 minutes, from it's current running time of over 2 and a half hours, I feel it would be improved vastly.  The repeating of certain scenes for seemingly no reason plus the dragging out of scenes to make them seem overly important could be trimmed down easily with no loss to the central story.  Another improvement might be getting actors that can actually act.  Just a thought.  Overall though I'm glad I saw this even with all it's flaws.  Where else am I going to get a vagina's-eye view of an orgasmic penis seemingly covering the audience with it's spermy surprise?   The film also strangely works as a psychedelic, hippie-dippy, discourse on Buddhist philosophy.  So if any of that sounds interesting I say check it out.  Just make sure to pack a lunch.

Perhaps the greatest opening credits I've ever seen on a big screen:

SCORPIO RISING (1964)

 If I was to be a homosexual I would definitely be more of the gay leather biker type.  I mean the aesthetic value alone was just so much cooler than any of the other subsets of  gayness. Not that I'm an expert or anything but with saying that, I find this Kenneth Anger short a delightful trip down gay memory lane and a peak into a fetishistic underworld that I have only really experience via William Friedkin's CRUISING and creaky old time stag movies.  Plus the audio , which consists of 60's pop songs is fucking awesome just by itself!  It takes such a simplistic idea and delivers it with such artistic quality.  It's too bad that type of creativity seems to be dead in most current filmmakers.  Scorsese, John Waters and a shitload of others should send this guy a check.  Swastikas, skull-faces, James Dean, drugs, leather-clad tough-guy bikers and a whole bunch more insanity.  Jesus pops up occasionally also, which is nice for the whole family.  This might be one of my favorite films.

Check it out you art fags!: