RAMPO NOIR (2005)

A Japanese anthology film based on the works of weirdo writer Edogawa Rampo.  Each segment was directed by a different person so it is a bit uneven.  I can't say I found this all that interesting as it just seemed like something that was weird for the sake of being weird.  Sort of like an Asian version of something David Lynch would do.  BLIND BEAST was a far superior example of a film written by Rampo but that was made back in the 70's so naturally it was better.  Breaking down the segments they include MARS CANAL which has a naked guy running around which makes no sense, MIRROR HELL: about a guy who makes mirrors that I guess lead to hell or something(this one has a crazy wax-dripping bondage scene that the Japanese love to throw into a lot of their more edgy movies), CATERPILLAR: this one is probably my favorite part.  It's about a lady who chops off her husband's arms and legs making him a human caterpillar(she also whips him, slices off a nipple and gouges out an eye for fun).  This part didn't really make any sense either but it almost sorta did.  The guy was a war hero and I think there was some kinda statement about that but I may be wrong.  Then there's CRAWLING BUGS which had an itchy crazy man who kills a chick and makes her into a work of art.  At over 2 hours this whole thing is way too long to sit and watch in one sitting and far too pretentious for my liking.  It was visually pretty striking and might appeal to the more artistically inclined who don't mind the more disgusting aspects of it all.  

THE SISTER OF URSULA (1978)

Out of all the Italian giallos I've seen this has got to be the one with the most naked flesh on display.  It's chock full of euro-bush and borders on the hardcore in its display of sexy times.  On the violence side it features a killer who kills with a large dildo or "kildo" if you will and leaves their victims very dead and very bloody in the crotch area.  There's also one throat slashing but I think the abundant sex scenes make the movie seem more like a soft-core thriller than anything else.  There's also a little dash of supernatural hijinks going on.  The mystery aspect of the film isn't too hard to figure out to anyone awake but I do recommend this movie just for its sleazy appeal and very classy camera shots if for nothing else. 

CURSE OF THE BLACK WIDOW (1977)

In the annals of bizarre 70's made-for-T.V. movies this one sits pretty high up.  The basic idea is that Patty Duke(who starred in that silly show in the 60's where she played identical cousins) gets bitten by spiders when she was an infant and instead of getting super powers like SPIDER-MAN she ends up turning into a murdering giant spider-lady monster whenever the moon is full.  The monster looks like it might have been made out of paper-mache but it roars just like RODAN so that's sorta cool.  Our hero who's investigating these suspicious spider murders is Anthony Franciosa who would go on to star in Dario Argento's great TENEBRE.  It also features a bunch of other familiar television faces including the mom from LOST IN SPACE, Pinky Tuscadero from HAPPY DAYS, that guy from BARNEY MILLER, that lady from KNOTS LANDING and probably a few others that I didn't recognize.  This was directed by Dan Curtis who also did that DARK SHADOWS show that all the goth types love.  While this is not a particularly good film on any level it does work as a silly B-movie and reminded me of a 60's Roger Corman monster flick a whole lot and is goofy fun.

MINI VAMPIRE TAINTS (1987)

Apparently Brazil has made some of the world's most bizarre adult films.  This is definitely one of the weirdest ones I've ever seen.  I'm not exactly sure who thought it would be a good idea to mix a porno flick with a midget vampire movie and who exactly that would appeal to but I'm glad they did it just so I can say I've seen a Brazillian midget vampire porn.  I've only seen this in its original language so I may have missed some of the finer plot points but I'm pretty sure that doesn't matter.  Basically you get a little guy with a cape running around interrupting sex scenes and sucking blood.  Mostly vagina blood and sometimes from big old maxi pads which is pretty nasty.  Our hero is played by Chumbinho who's also appropriately known as Fuk Fuk and he is a real creepy looking little guy which works great for this role.  He's sorta like Brazils version of Weng Weng but not quite as classy as that little Filipino fellow.  This movie steals all kinds of music from stuff like ROCKY and THE LONE RANGER and it's just chock full of strange scenes like the one where a chubby guy jerks off to pictures of horses.  A penis gets bitten off in one blowjob scene thanks to our little bloodsucking perv and everyone in this seems like they need a good washing.  Check it out for some unique foreign sleaze.

THE WEREWOLF OF WASHINGTON (1973)

This is probably one of the shittiest, shit-ass werewolf movies!  Right from the start it's just a boring voice-over narration that leads into a dull story mixing all the excitement of Washington D.C. politics with a stupid looking Wolfman in a suit and tie played by Dean Stockwell who would go on to be that fucking suave guy in BLUE VELVET.  I imagine since this came out around the time of the Watergate scandal that it's supposed to be some sort of a commentary on that but it's all played pretty straight(except for one scene where our hero gets his fingers stuck in a bowling ball) that it's never really clear what the comment is supposed to be.  On the plus side there is a midget mad scientist named Dr. Kiss and midgets always make things better.  There's also a racist aide to the president who wears some killer shades that seemed like he woulda been a more interesting werewolf but sadly this was not to be.  Also disappointingly our monster never wears that stupid Uncle Sam hat in the poster.   

80 BLOCKS FROM TIFFANY'S (1979)

This is a pretty interesting documentary about gangs in the South Bronx in the late 70's.  It was such a weird time looking back at it today since we're talking about a world before rap music and the whole hip-hop culture changed everything.  Also if you ever thought that the gangs from THE WARRIORS were a complete Hollywood fabrication this film might make you rethink that a bit.  Of course you don't get any Baseball Furies type silly gangs but the two groups interviewed, The Savage Nomads and The Savage Skulls, have interracial members which is something I had really only ever seen in movies like DEATH WISH and THE EXTERMINATOR before this.  It's also extremely odd to see black and Puerto-Rican inner-city gang bangers wearing German war helmets and standing in front of swastika flags.  It's as if their whole motif was lifted from 60's biker clubs and transported to a burnt out cityscape.  The whole thing really just consists of interviews of gang members and a couple of reenactments of their criminal hijinks but it was a worthwhile look back at a time and place that I probably wouldn't ever want to be stuck in.    

PIECES (1982)

"The most beautiful thing in the world is smoking pot and fucking on a waterbed"

One of the greatest stupid slasher flicks of the 80's. Made by Spanish director Juan Piquer Simon who would go on to do one of the dumbest "animals attack" movies SLUGS. Just for those two this guy should really be in the hall of fame of exploitation movie directors right next to guys like Bruno Mattei and William Girdler. Heads roll, arms roll, a whole half a chick rolls!! You get gallons of blood spilled and plenty of boobs, gratuitous use of the word "bastard!" and  a completely random kung-fu scene that comes out of nowhere and ends just as abruptly.  Bluto from the Robin Williams POPEYE movie shows up to look menacing and give everyone the stink eye. He also kicks ass on a group of cops who can't even slow him down with a 2 x 4. Christopher George overacts like a motherfucker and Jack Taylor is his boring self(but looks as damn suave as humanly possible with his ultra manly mustache!). There's no way to convey in words the hilarious ridiculousness of this movie. A must see for true trash fiends!

WARLOCK MOON (1974)

This pseudo-slasher flick came out around the same time as the horror classic TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and is compared to that one on the DVD.  I would say that's a pretty big stretch since TCM was an all-time favorite of mine and an all around scary film whereas this is a pretty big mess.  The main annoyance I have is the fact that they cut away from every murder scene so there's no gore and very little blood to be seen at all.  I know this was the early 70's and gore wasn't as prevalent as it would become in later years but at least make your movie suspenseful or scary in place of the lack of graphic violence.  Unfortunately I don't think this movie succeeds in either one of those departments and drags out it's simplistic story of a couple spending the night in a creepy house with an old hag, a couple of murder-happy, battle-ax-wielding fellows and a lady ghost.  I think the old lady is supposed to be some sort of a witch but I'm not sure.  This was also played under the title of BLOODY SPA which is pretty inaccurate due to the lack of anything very bloody.  A 70's flick you could skip without any regrets.

I, MONSTER (1971)

If you need help falling asleep this might be just the mode of entertainment you want to watch. What you get is a super-slow moving English version of the story of DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE except they changed the names to Dr. Marlowe and Mr. Blake, which I don't think is nearly as catchy. Christopher Lee stars as the transforming doctor and Peter Cushing is a fellow scientist who gets to have the big final fight/shoving match with Mr. Lee. You also get an early scene of a kooky killer cat. This was originally shot to be shown in 3-D but from what I've read they dropped that idea halfway through filming. I don't really think that woulda helped me enjoy it much more anyway. Probably only of interest to fans of slow-as-molasses, talky English horror flicks or anyone really into the JEKYLL AND HYDE story. Amicus, the company that put this out, went on to do some cool anthology type films throughout the 70's that are worth checking out.

ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1953)

This is another of the classic A & C movies that they would show every Sunday morning on channel 11 here in New York back when I was a kid so it has that nostalgic factor working for me.  Hardcore Abbott and Costello fans seem to hate this film more than any of their other movies.  I guess the reason is that it plays out more like a classic Universal monster flick than a slapstick comedy.  Boris Karloff is great though playing a campy version of nice-guy Jekyll while uncredited stuntman Eddie Parker plays the silly monster Hyde.  The sorta weird thing is that the original JEKYLL AND HYDE wasn't even made by Universal, it was an MGM picture in the 30's, but I guess the character was sorta public domain by the 50's.  You get Costello turned into a man-sized mouse and then a fat Mr. Hyde monster, Abbott strangely grabbing his ass a lot whenever he tries to run from danger, a whole police squad of Mr. Hydes, Karloff's Jekyll confessing his love for someone young enough to be his granddaughter and a semi-feminist character who's feminism goes right out the window when she falls for our studly newspaper reporter hero(gotta love that 50's mentality!).  Frankenstein and Dracula also show up as wax figures.  All in all a pretty cool monster flick for a Sunday morning.

SOUL BROTHERS OF KUNG FU (1977)

Starting out with music from ROCKY is always a good way to start out your kung fu flick. This one stars Bruce Lee impersonator Bruce Li so you already know it's not gonna be the best thing you've ever seen but with a title like SOUL BROTHERS... you do expect a little blaxploitation action mixed in with your chopsockiness. Since this was made in Hong Kong it's certainly no BLACK BELT JONES but there is one black fellow, played by Carl Scott who appeared in a handful of these fu flicks.  Mr. Li saves our hero from getting his ass-kicked and teaches him how to be a bad mother-fucker. The craziest thing is probably how Scott is dubbed. It sorta sounds like a British fellow doing a horrible impersonation of what he thinks a 70's urban inner-city person sounds like so that's pretty damn humorous but will most likely offend any sensitive political types watching this today.  There's some unexpected nudity and even an attempted rape scene during one fight.  The alternate title of this is THE TIGER STRIKES AGAIN which is pretty fucking dull but a little more accurate to the movie since it drags for a bunch of time.  In fact whenever Mr. Scott isn't on screen, which is a large portion of the middle part of the film, it's mostly your average bland Bruce Li flick  There's also two different versions of this, one where our soul brother lives and one where he gets hung and doesn't.

"you cocky little bastard!":

EDUCATING NINA (1984)

By the year 1984 the porn industry was rapidly heading down into that shot on video sewer but they still clung onto the idea that the audience wanted a story to go along with their jerk-off material and this is a perfect example of the hybrid years that the 80's were but who knows? This one was directed by Juliet Anderson who used to act in real movies in the 70's as Aunt Peg. Anderson claims the producers messed around with her original version of this and ruined it. I'm really not sure how much better this could have possibly been from what you see here. The story is about as simplistic as possible with Nina Hartley reenacting various peoples fantasies for some kind of thesis paper. Since it's all shot on a cheap video camera the whole thing looks like shit and the only reason to watch this is to see Hartley in her first role, Anderson also shows up in one sex scene and you get to see some 80's sex toys in action and that's about it.

CHAI LAI ANGELS: DEADLY FLOWERS (2006)

A Thai-rip-off of classic 70's TV show CHARLIE'S ANGELS or maybe more accurately a lobotomized version of the 2000 CHARLIE'S ANGELS movie. Either way this is a pretty stupid example of a kung fu/action flick. On the up side you get hot Asian ladies jumping around which leads to lots of jiggling also a stand out scene has one of our heroines singing and dancing around in her underwear which was awesome. There's also unexpected violence with people getting shot in the head and bloody stabbings in between the ridiculous, slapsticky, retardo-comedy. On the down side nothing that happens makes much sense, the fighting is all pretty silly with that high-flying wire-work crap that was so big in the 90's and one of the bad guys is a super-annoying transvestite character that makes me want to punch my TV. Check it out if you like nonsensical comic-booky action with hot babes in various outfits including bathing suits and towels just don't expect much in the way of any sort of a coherent movie. Sadly since this is a martial arts movie made in Thailand we get no actual nudity. There's a sequel announced at the end where the ladies go searching for Osama Bin Laden. Not sure if that one was ever made.

PURANA MANDIR (1984)

Legendary Bollywood horror film directors The Ramsay Brothers had a huge hit with this tale of a blood-thirsty demon who curses a family for generations.  The movie played in India for many years, went on to spawn a few sequels and created a legendary monster in the demonic Saamri character that scared the hell out of little kids in India.  The formula from what I can tell is to throw every element under the sun together and something will appeal to the audience.  You get horror of course, kung fu, romance, drama, completely out of place comedy bits, and since we're in India long song and dance numbers.  Due to those the movie ends up playing over 2 hours and is a little trying on the nerves if you're not used to this sort of cinema.  The other complaint sleazy American exploitation fans like me might have is the lack of nudity in these films, though this one does have some great shots through a wet see-through bathing suit on our star actress that makes up for that.  All in all it's sort of a musical Hammer horror flick that meets a Shaw Brothers kung fu flick but with way flashier outfits than both of those put together.  Though not particularly bloody or gory it's very entertaining in it's own goofy way and worth checking out for something different. 

SEXUAL PORNO DVD TAPE WORKOUT (2011?)

This might be one of the greatest things I have ever seen!  If, like me, you find yourself asking why in most porn scenes there aren't any puppets, bald obese women, eels, ninjas, E.T. or Ernest Borgnine then this dude named Crazy Dave has put together this beautifully edited piece which brings that stuff and about 5 million other disgusting and ridiculous random elements together.  An honest look at humanity in its finest moments and it's also pretty easy to dance to.  Unfortunately I think it might cause insanity if you watch the whole thing in one sitting.  Good luck.


Sexual Porno DVD Tape Workout brought to you by Tube8

DEVIL IN MISS JONES (1973)

Only in the 70's could you start out your porn flick with a bloody, wrist sliting suicide in a bathtub while depressing music plays and get it to play in actual theaters.  I would think that back then you would have to be a true masturbation wizard to time your orgasm to the perfect scenes and not wind up orgasming to some depressing scene or whatnot.  Even if that might be viewed as a hindrance today the upside is that you get an actual story to become invested in and real characters.  So while the brainless masses of cavemen producers and their junkie whore "actresses?" continue to shit out disposable jerk-off garbage anyone who can appreciate the melding of cinema and sex is forced to look back to a time when there was at least a sliver of art involved.  Downer ending? Check! Real looking human beings? Check!  Actual actors?  Check!  If you can't at least appreciate this film you're probably a moron.  I saw this recently on a double bill with DEEP THROAT and while the two films were made around the same time and were both directed by Gerard Damiano they really couldn't be further apart in themes and tone.  THROAT is basically a hardcore comedy which is certainly more fun to watch but this one is something deeper and obviously a better made film if not one the greatest films in the predominately shit-filled cesspool that is adult cinema.

SANTA SANGRE (1989)

"Holy Blood! Holy Blood!"

If I were to rank the top films of Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky it would be HOLY MOUNTAIN, EL TOPO and then this one here. If this was made by any other director it would probably be held up as an amazing work but since I always have his earlier mind-blowing epics to compare it to it pales somewhat. Nevertheless this has so many amazing elements in it that it can be held up equally alongside many of the great horror films of the past and it surpasses them by being more than just a horror film. Since this film was produced by Claudio Argento, brother of Dario, I can't help but feel that some of the more standard horrific elements were his contributions. The film, to me, has a very Italian horror vibe to it with it's deep colors and blood-flowing injuries(arms get chopped off, throats get slashed, a penis gets acid-washed and there are multiple murders)and it does seem to straddle the line between art-house and exploitation. If you're interested in a mash-up of surrealistic imagery, religious iconography, revenge film, mongoloidsploitation and generally ultra-creepy flick this might be your scene.  You also get The Invisible Man showing up for a cameo. 

SHARKY'S MACHINE (1981)

This is sort of Burt Reynolds version of a DIRTY HARRY movie minus the right-wing political slant of that series.  Mr. Burt not only stars as tough-guy cop Sharky but directs this 80's action flick.  While I never feel like Reynolds is quite as an imposing/iconic figure as Eastwood this still works pretty good for what it is and that's mostly due to the great cast present.  You get Bernie Casie from a bunch of blaxploitation gems like DR. BLACK AND MR. HYDE as a philosophical ass-kicking member of Reynolds team of cops along with Charles Durning.  Also on the team is that guy who used to narrate all those educational Disney film strips they forced me to watch in elementary school and was the voice of Piglet who seems like kind of an oddball choice to have on a team of bad asses.  The highlight for me though is great character actor Henry Silva as the main psycho assassin character.  He was just so good at portraying a complete nutcase who you also believe is dangerous as hell.  With the look he has on his face throughout the film you're never sure if Silva is going to start crying, yelling or shit his pants but you know something bad is gonna happen.  This is totally worth checking out if you're a Silva fan like myself or if you dig those DIRTY HARRY flicks.

MOTHER'S DAY (2010)

While it's not surprising that another pointless remake sucks it's kind of surprising that they took a sorta goofy 80's backwoods survival slasher flick and tried to turn it into a typically dull modern-day SAW-like pile of crap for the Hot Topic kids but that's exactly what you get. Since the director, Darren Lynn Bousman is responsible for a bunch of those shitty SAW sequels and awful nonsense like REPO:THE GENETIC OPERA I suppose that's exactly what you would expect. This would probably appeal to trendy mainstream audiences that like that sort of home invasion/torture thing. Why this is even titled MOTHER'S DAY I'm not even sure since it doesn't have many plot elements in common with the original besides a couple of characters names. Stick with the original and you'll at least get some laughs with your blood, rape and torture.

Just because the hot chick from RISKY BUSINESS got a little older it doesn't make her a very scary villain:

THE ULTIMATE DEGENERATE (1969)

Roughie sleaze-master Michael Findley directs this sordid tale of a sick, depraved, psycho, wheelchair-bound man who keeps a house full of 60's stripper types around for sexy thrills and chills. He also stars as the title character. Throughout the movie he shoots up his house of wanton women with some magical aphrodisiac potion that keeps his ladies horny and up for all kinds of silly shenanigans. For some unexplained reason he also has a potion for creating hate and another one to paralyze you just laying around( I guess he likes to have options). There's also his henchman Bruno who likes to have his own fun which includes whipped cream money shots(which he finds utterly hilarious) and most importantly double-crossing his nutty boss and plotting his murder. While there are plenty of slow points where borderline attractive girls writhe around unconvincingly it is balanced out by a good amount of unique insanity that includes a fetish for a plate of corn on the cobs(biggest highlight to me was where a girl named Chiquita Banana gets multiple cobs inserted into her vagina but doesn't seem to really mind all that much!?!?) There's also old time dildo torture and uncontrollably clothes-pinned nipples for added fun and the film even has the balls to get all artsy on us for a dream sequence. If you dig the Findlays FLESH Trilogy or just big underpants 60's sleaze in general you should check this one out.

You also get quick glimpses at classic era 42nd Street where I'm sure this made many perverts happy: