MANBORG (2011)

 When I first heard of this movie I thought it might be some lost 80's relic, perhaps something along the lines of THE ELIMINATORS which also had a Manborg/Mandroid in it, but unfortunately this is new. Made by the Astron 6 company from Canada, who also did that FATHER'S DAY movie which I never saw because it is also new and released by Troma and new and Troma is a very bad combination, this is the stroy of a war between humans and Hell. Hell's forces are led by a vampire-monster named Draculon and a bunch of other cartoon monsters. I think it would help to be a big video game fan to enjoy this movie and I'm not one of those. It might also help if you like those shit-ass Hollywood RESIDENT EVIL movies since this is sort-of a less serious, low-budget version of that crap or if you just like stuff that is bad on purpose(intentionally bad dubbing and stupid dialogue). On the plus side this movie is only about an hour long and they actually use stop-motion FX for lots of stuff which is better than an all-cgi film would have been. Not my thing at all but maybe someone with exceptionally low expectations might get a chuckle out of this.

THREE TOUGH GUYS (1974)

 Isaac Hayes first film role has him playing a former cop who teams up with an ass-kicking Italian priest and tries to solve a couple of murders. So there's really two tough guys, which is also the name of the title tune sung by Mr. Hayes. The poster tries to fool you into thinking Fred "The Hammer" Williamson is also part of this group but he actually plays a bad guy in this which is pretty rare to see. He's also not really in the movie all that much. The title also seems to be trying to cash in on the success of THREE THE HARD WAY which was released the same year though I'm not sure which one came out first.
 The movie itself is pretty tame thanks to it's PG-rating and it's an Italian/U.S./France co-production so I think they missed something and went for a more straight-forward action film than anything too funky. There's way more exciting blaxploitation flicks with Hayes & Williamson from this era that you should check out before this one unless you just really wanna see The Hammer beating up and gunning down women and not giving a shit. AKA TOUGH GUYS

MANDINGA (1976)

 So this is an Italian rip-off(or possibly a prequel?) of MANDINGO which came out a year earlier. MANDINGO, from what I recall, had a lot of black folks playing slaves in it and this movie has about seven or eight black people in the whole movie rotating as various victims of cruelty. I'm guessing maybe there was a shortage of black actors in Italy at the time for big crowd scenes. Most of the film deals with the white slave-owners and it plays more like a sexploitation flick than any kind of blaxploitation thing. You do get some interracial humping, which was probably more shocking at the time, along with the more "vanilla" sexual action. Lots of whippings and some rape thrown in to for extra perv-points. Overall this film is pretty dull and shows how the blaxploitation movie was a unique style of film that was done best in the U.S. which is something I can't say about too many other genres(biker films being the other obvious exception).
 Director Maurio Pinzauti also shot another slavesploitation film titled PASSION PLANTATION back-to-back with this.

RETURN OF THE TIGER (1979)

 If you ever wanted to to see the great Paul L. Smith of PIECES and POPEYE fame smack dab in the middle of a Hong Kong kung fu flick this is the movie for you. You also get Bruce Lee-look-a-like Bruce Li starring as the hero who goes up against some warring mafioso gangs, one of which is led by kingpin Mr. Smith. There's some weird gymnastics-fu training scenes to start it all off, a fat guy named Tom who wears a shirt that says TOM on it in big letters lest he forget who he is and every-time the scene shifts to a local nightclub you get a soundtrack consisting of popular 70's tunes of the day including "Play That Funky Music White Boy" and that kind of thing. There's also an epic battle between Bruce Li and Bluto himself which is worth a look for hardcore kung fu addicts that wanna see something pretty goofy.

THE PRODIGAL BOXER (1972)

See: KUNG-FU: THE PUNCH OF DEATH

ACT OF VENGEANCE (1974)

                                                    "Thank you Mr. Rapist"

 If you took a feminist message and threw it right in the middle of an AIP 70's exploitation movie with gratuitous nudity and mixed in a few rape scenes this is what you would get. The great thing about this movie is that it could only exist in the 70's and looking back at it today it looks like the perfect combination of offensiveness, politically-incorrect as possible, stupid as hell and more entertaining than anything made in the last 20 years. It's your basic rape revenge story concerning a hockey-masked rapist named Jack(precursor to Jason Voorhees?) who has some great lines about being "the honcho of hump" among other gems. He's also a very ambitious rapist who goes after many girls and even tries to get them all together for a big rape-orgy. Also he loves the song Jingle Bells and makes his poor recipients sing it when he gets down to business since everyone knows "ballin' goes better with music". Our gang of victims here fight back though with the help of a lady karate master and there's a great scene where they take out a jive-turkey pimp named Percy and his wheels.
 Surprisingly, at a theatrical showing last night, I found out this is actually a good film to take a lady to on a first date but that may not work out as well for everyone. AKA RAPE SQUAD and THE VIOLATOR




Sweet 70's double-feature, bring the kids!:

MEAN FRANK AND CRAZY TONY (1973)

 Lee Van Cleef, outside of his more well known western persona, plays a mafia big-shot here. Tony Lo Bianco plays Crazy Tony and this film is a cool Italian crimesploitation flick that, of course, focuses on these two characters and their wacky adventures. It really straddles the line between comedy(with Tony's over-the-top idolization of Frank and some crazy car-chases and whatnot) and action flick(with Van Cleef's tough-guy bad-ass mobster character) and there's even a little horror element with some driller-killer action going on. A good film to check out if you dig the Italian crime thing. AKA POWER KILL, FRANK AND TONY and ESCAPE FROM DEATH ROW




The ESCAPE retitled/re-edited version came out after ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK and was devised to confuse the public into thinking it had something to do with that film:

THE VAMPIRES NIGHT ORGY (1974)

 There's a fine line between slow-moving atmospheric horror and snooze-time bore. This Spanish horror flick straddles that line very treacherously during it's run-time. Luckily there's enough Eurotrashy-elements to make-up for the slow draggy bits.
 Jack Taylor stars as a peeping-Tom who gets stuck in a weird town full of vampires. There's also a busload of other folks in the same predicament which supplies lots of hapless victims. There's some cannibalism going on, big hairy dude with an axe who enjoys dismembering unfortunate townsfolk and a big vampires vs. automobile showdown. It's probably way too sexy of a title for a not all that sexy movie although you do get some boobs here and there. There also might be a more naked uncut version available somewhere but I viewed this on a cheap-ass DVD so I got very little sexiness. Director Leon Klimovsky also made a bunch of the Paul Naschy werewolf films and that's pretty close to what this feels like minus El Hombre Lobo. AKA GRAVE DESIRES


The Vampires Night Orgy (1973) by bmoviebabe

THE VIOLENT YEARS (1956)

                    

     
                                     "These aren't kids. These are morons!"

The legendary Ed Wood wrote this tale of an all-girl gang of juvenile delinquents played by 30 year olds. Wood was really ahead of his time in attempting to show debauchery and the corrupt idiocy of youth, unfortunately it was still the 50's and he couldn't really get away with showing all that much. There are still some pretty crazy things going on in this film, cop-killing, a guy who gets raped by the gang, offscreen of course, while his lady-friend is stripped and hog-tied, not to mention the wanton destruction of an innocent classroom. The dialogue, as in all of Woods' epics, is snappy and absurd and we all learn a moral lesson at the end; i.e. go back to church and stop being so liberal with your kids. A great slice of 50's ridiculousness and one of Woods best films.

CONFESSIONS OF A POLICE CAPTAIN (1971)

 Most of these 70's Italian poliziotteschi, or cop dramas for you English speaking-types, are violence-filled action movies and a lot of them just rip-off DIRTY HARRY and American films and cop TV shows. This one, although it does feature a cop taking the law into his own hands played brilliantly by Martin Balsam, was released the same year as HARRY and takes an interestingly different slant on things. It's also really more of a drama than an action film although you do get some mafia hijinks including a kid tossed off a cliff and some lady-killing. Overall it takes a pretty nihilistic slant and dim view of the way society works. It touches on some deeper questions such as when servants of the law go outside the book to obtain justice should they now be viewed as criminals or heroes? How can an officer justify enforcing the law if it isn't entirely moral? Do ends justify means? etc. Franco Nero plays the opposing force to Balsam as a District Attorney who sticks to a strict code of conduct. He's not necessarily a bad guy here just a person doing their job. I like the fact that this movie isn't black and white at all, there aren't really any concrete answers given and even the ending is completely left up to the viewer to ponder the correct course of action. This will probably disappoint hardcore trash-fiends looking for heavy-duty bloodshed but if you want to see Nero acting his ass off this might be one of the best places to see that.

LA VENGAZA DE LOS PUNKS (1987)

                  "Long Live Death!, Long Live Coke!, Long Live Weed!, Long Live Alcohol!"

 It took a few years but the punk/biker/Satanist gang of miscreants from one of my favorite Mexican movies of all time INTREPIDOS PUNKS return and get their revenge in this crazy-ass sequel. It all starts off with a jailbreak and mass raping and killings which our gang is very good at. They kill a cops whole family but stupidly leave him alive which leads to some more revenge from Mr. Policia. This is where the movie takes a turn into a more sadistic type of film since our vengeful cop, who does look a bit like a Mexican Charles Bronson, doesn't just kill gang members but kidnaps them to take them home and torture them at his leisure. These scenes sorta reminded me of something like THE DEVIL'S REJECTS where they flip our sympathies from the heroes to the villains but I'm not sure if that was actually the intent here. There's some especially nasty bits with the female members which involves some whippings and fun with acid which might be a little upsetting to more sensitive viewers and gives the film an even more misogynistic tone than it already had. While this isn't as fun as the first film it is a pretty decent sequel which goes down a darker path. There's also a bit of a cop-out ending but after the way they set everything up I'm not sure how else they coulda culminated everything without making rape-happy punks the heroes which I don't think your typical Mexican audiences are ready for even today. I guess they coulda just had a slasher movie ending, which come to think of it they kinda do.

"Lord of Hell. Your sons adore you":

THE EXECUTIONER PART II (1984)

 This DEATH WISH-inspired vigilante epic starts off with some Vietnam flashback action before getting down to some Bronson-esque revenge action. You get the expected rape, stupid gangs, lame-ass mobsters and a particularly  violent hero who likes to blow people up with grenades and sticks of dynamite when he's not slitting their throats. There is no part 1 to this and it was given this sequel-ized title to confuse dumb people into thinking it was a continuation of the EXTERMINATOR series and basically what you get is a shittier version of THE EXTERMINATOR. That's not to say this is worthless though since it's actually one of those horribly awful but totally entertaining flicks that contains some of the stupidest dialogue ever written in an English movie and if that doesn't get a chuckle out of you you're probably way too serious of a human.

STRIKE OF THE TORTURED ANGELS (1982)

 The first half of this flick is an Asian women-in-prison situation. Lots of bare asses and cat-fights are contained in this part so that's good. All the gals are little Asian ladies that look about 14 years old and also don't look very bad-ass despite whatever inane dialogue is dubbed into their mouths. One of these girls is in black-face with a curly wig on her head and I guess she's supposed to be playing a tough black chick ala Pam Grier. She's also the most annoying character in the world. At one point we find out she has tuberculosis and even this doesn't make you feel bad for this asshole. I was kinda hoping she would also come down with multiple sclerosis and whooping cough before it was all over. The shitty thing about this movie is that halfway through a couple of female prisoners escape and it becomes an overly dramatic bore about family problems or revenge against someone who slept with someone's mom or something equally dull as we follow their unexciting adventures. The director listed on this is someone named Roy Rosenberg which sounds like the most un-Chinese name possible. I'm assuming this is a made-up alias since he has no other credits. Tomas Tang might be the actual culprit here but I'm not sure.
 Despite some oddball bits here and there, including mud-wrestling and pig-chasing, this one is probably something you can avoid without having missed out on much.

TEN VIOLENT WOMEN (1982)

 Cult movie specialist Ted V. Mikels brings us this tale of some female miners who pull a big jewelry robbery and get chased by some fake-looking Arabs. So the first half of this movie is a heist film. There's some mafia involvement and a guy gets stabbed to death by a ladies high-heeled shoe in a nice scene. About halfway through things go bad for our heroines and we enter the world of the women-in-prison flick. There's lots of nudity in this part, unfortunately a lot of it is rather ugly nudity involving some older and/or just not very attractive ladies. There are some very hot gals in this but strangely in many scenes they wear some very unflattering outfits. Fashion critiques aside this is a cool throwback to the times when plot and sleazy content came together in a film with enough twists to keep me interested.
 This was shot around 1979 and doesn't look like 1982 at all but I guess that's when it was first released to grindhouses and whatnots. AKA WOMEN'S PENITENTIARY I
 Other movies in the retitled for VHS release WOMEN'S PENITENTIARY series are:
WOMEN'S PENITENTIARY II= THE BIG BIRD CAGE (1972)
WOMEN'S PENITENTIARY III=  THE BIG DOLL HOUSE (1971)
WOMEN'S PENITENTIARY IV= BARBED WIRE DOLLS (1976)
WOMEN'S PENITENTIARY 5= WOMEN IN FURY (1985)
WOMEN'S PENITENTIARY 6= WOMEN UNCHAINED (1974)
WOMEN'S PENITENTIARY VII= ISLAND WOMAN (1980)
WOMEN'S PENITENTIARY VIII= FUGITIVE GIRLS (1974)
 WOMEN'S PENITENTIARY IX= THE BIG BUST OUT (1972)
WOMEN'S PENITENTIARY 10= BLACK MAMA, WHITE MAMA (1973)
WOMEN'S PENITENTIARY XI= THUNDER COUNTY (1974)
WOMEN'S PENITENTIARY XII= 99 WOMEN (1969)
and there's most likely more than this


Ten Violent Women (1982) by bmoviebabe

ESCAPE FROM WOMAN'S PRISON: A STORY OF SEX AND VIOLENCE (1978)

 I feel like I should be mad at this movie for fooling me into thinking I was gonna see a women-in-prison flick. This film doesn't actually take place in prison but technically the title does say "escape from..." and that's what you get here so I guess I can forgive it. Four women escape, take a busload of female students hostage and hideout in a judge's house. From there all sorts of degenerate hi-jinks ensue. The thing I like most about this film is the way it flips around the standard tropes of sleazy exploitation films and you get stuff like female-on-male rape where some tough broads call the shots. They even do a reversal of the famous "piss your pants" scene from LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT where our bossy bitches make a guy soil himself right in front of them for some yucks. Of course to even things out for Italian audiences in the 70's they threw in a more familiar gal getting raped scene too. Zora Kerova, the gal who gets strung up by her boobs in MAKE THEM DIE SLOWLY, is the most familiar face here as one of our hostages in her first role. A good sleaze flick to check out if you want something a bit different from your usual prison chick flicks. The DVD I have of this is about 75 minutes long but the original uncut version is supposed to be around 100 minutes. Not sure if that cut has ever been officially released on DVD though. AKA JAILBIRDS and WOMEN AGAINST WOMEN: A TALE OF SEX AND VIOLENCE



escape from womens prison by grindhouse-Horror-Movies

FOXY BROWN (1974)

                                  "I got my black-belt in bar-stools"

 Right after COFFY(this was originally intended as a sequel to 73's COFFY) this has to be my favorite Pam Grier movie. I think it was probably after seeing this in a theater years ago that I first fell in love with the blaxploitation genre. Grier goes on a one-woman revenge rampage. Highlights among the hit-list of violent acts include a lesbian version of your typical barroom brawl, a couple of guys killed by an airplane propeller, lots of bloody gun-play, a slit-throat and it's all topped off by a castration. There's an all-star 70's cast besides Grier you get Antonio "Huggy Bear" Fargas, Sid Haig, "Hard Boiled" Haggerty of HARD TIMES and Mr. Clean fame and it's all directed by the great Jack Hill. A nice slice of 70's exploitation cinema with an equally groovy soundtrack by Willie Hutch. The  original shooting title for this was BURN, COFFY, BURN! which sounds awesome!

Before there was rap there were blaxploitation trailers:

ZOOM IN: SEX APARTMENTS (1980)

 This Japanese Pink film, or Roman-Porno as these later movies are called, features some pretty amazingly gruesome violence mixed in with the multiple rape scenes. They also pack it into a movie that only runs a little over an hour which is a good way to avoid things feeling dragged out. It also seems to pay tribute to the Italian giallo genre with a black-gloved assailant. Though since there's really only like one main male character in this whole film it's not much of a mystery who the killer is. You get some eye-violence, many women are raped and then have their crotches doused in gasoline and set on fire. Our main female character stands behind her man no matter what kind of a sexual deviant he is even after raping a seemingly retarded gal right in front of her. A strange beautifully shot, typically misogynistic flick from a genre that specializes in that kind of thing. It should make you feel dirty after viewing like any good piece of art worth mentioning. The original title actually translates more closely to ZOOM IN: RAPE APARTMENTS but I guess that was an overly controversial title to slap on a DVD in these shitty overly politically correct times.

LEGENDS OF THE POISONOUS SEDUCTRESS: QUICK-DRAW OKATSU (1969)

 I have this film on a DVD as part of The Pinky Violence Collection set. Now whenever I think of a Pink film I always figure they take place in modern-day(which was actually the 70's for the most part) Japan. This one takes place back in the swords and samurais days so it's really more of a period piece but they do throw in some more typical Pink film themes like rape and attempted abortion. They also feature a couple of ladies who are in a bunch of the Pinky films from these times so I guess that's why they slip into this category. This is also way more violent than your standard Zatoichi film with heads rolling, a hand lopped-off, eye-violence, torture scenes and lots of red stuff flowing. Not as sleazy as I mighta hoped but still worth checking out to fans of the more classic samurai genre with some modern deviance thrown in.
 This is actually the 2nd part of a trilogy of LEGENDS OF THE POISONOUS SEDUCTRESS series following OHYAKU: THE FEMALE DEMON and followed by OKATSU THE FUGITIVE. I've never seen any of the others but they don't seem to be direct sequels anyway but more of a thematic thing with similar characters.

SOCIETY (1989)

 This movie is the epitome of a movie that has a good end scene but otherwise completely sucks. During the climax of this film you get to see a guy turned inside out by having his head pulled out of his asshole. This might be a cinematic first and for that bit alone this film is noteworthy. There's also a big slimy orgy, a hand shoved up another guys asshole(see a theme developing here?) that comes out of his throat and a guy who has a face coming out his(you guessed it already) asshole. So you get lots of asshole action. Unfortunately the rest of the movie is filled with assholes you couldn't care less about. It seems like they just spent every dime on FX, which look amazing for the times, and figured the plot didn't really need to be coherent or anything. Also since this was made in the horrific 80's everything has to be jokey which makes you care even less. I'm sure this will appeal to people who worship the 80's and collect Care Bears or whatever but anyone who actually likes real subversive cinema with a point beyond the most simplistic should probably stay far away or just watch the last 20 minutes or so for a cheap thrill. Luckily I saw a free showing of this or it would have been a real waste.

CONVOY BUSTERS (1978)

  I'm not exactly sure how accurate this film is but apparently in Italy in the 70's police officers could just beat the shit out of people while they questioned them. Must have been a crazy time and place to be a cop. Then again I imagine if cameras weren't everywhere these days things wouldn't be much different now.
 There were some decent Eurocrime/police-action/DIRTY HARRY-rip-off movies made in Italy throughout the 70's but I found this one kind of un-engaging. Maurizio Merli from A MAN CALLED BLADE stars here as a bad-ass cop and Olga Karlatos from ZOMBIE shows up. There's some decent shoot outs, adequately violent deaths including a slit-throat right at the beginning and ridiculous over-the-top police action but I couldn't help but feel like I would get just as much entertainment value out of watching an old STARSKY & HUTCH episode as viewing this. Check it out if it's your thing but I didn't really find anything special about this one except that the DVD put out by NOSHAME looks really sweet.

THE NEIGHBOR ZOMBIE (2010)

 
 I caught a free showing of this last night and I wasn't really expecting much since it's a new zombie movie, the trailer is kinda crappy and it has a pretty stupid title. Fortunately it's from Korea and supposedly Korea's very first zombie film and since I can't think of another one off the top of my head I'll go with that. The movie goes the anthology route and consists of six shorts stories which is a good idea since that doesn't leave a lot of time to get bored. The other cool thing about this is that each segment has a different tone so we go from bloody/comedy type stuff, to gore to action movie territory with some kung-fu fighting thrown in and you even get some more dramatic elements with a story of a lady who keeps her zombified mom chained-up in the spare room and another one about a couple of zombies in love. The movie was shot for about $18,000 so you don't get any epic battle scenes and the FX work is pretty minimal but the clear effort and enthusiasm you can see that went into this makes up for that, once again proving that if you want to see something new that's halfway decent all you have to do is look outside the U.S.