THE BLACK ALLEY CATS (1973)

 This softcore grindhouse classic starts out with a group of gals getting gang-raped, then learning some kung-fu and a little gun-fu and then getting some revenge on their attackers. This part of the movie is pretty awesome and it's only the first ten minutes or so in. The rest of the movie meanders around a bit and throws in some inter-racial lesbian antics, shower scenes and the gang, who sport what might be the worst patches(a badly drawn cartoonish cat with fangs) of any street gang since the Ghetto Ghouls, rob from the rich and give to the poor. You would think by the title that this would be a blaxploitation film about a gang of tough black chicks but there's initially only two black girls in the group and they're a little on the skinny side and don't seem like they could kick much ass in reality. I can't really say the movie as a whole is very good. It's almost porn level bad, but enough wacky stuff happened to at least keep me mildly amused. Also it's filled with some very sleazy people and those are usually my favorite types of films. These slime-balls include one kinky swinging couple who drugs and rapes their baby-sitter, some pimps and even our main girl-gang who don't really seem all that righteous and are basically terrorizing folks but are the lesser of all the evils on display. This is definitely something you would only see made in the 70's and for that I give it a mild thumbs up.


This poor black man gets molested by the Cats:

TEENAGE CAVEMAN (1958)

 The great Roger Corman himself directed this story of a rebellious young caveman, played by a pretty young but not young enough to be a convincing teenager Robert Vaughn, who asks a lot of questions, which is something your apparently not supposed to do in caveman times. There's a cool twist ending that sorta foreshadows what happens in PLANET OF THE APES and unlike most movies made in the 50's it has a fairly bleak outlook on things by the end. I dug it for what it was even if it does get a little preachy in parts.
 AKA OUT OF THE DARKNESS and I WAS A TEENAGE CAVEMAN(this was used when it was originally released on a double-bill with I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF) That classic scene of an alligator with a fin glued to it's back fighting a big lizard that's supposed to be two dinosaurs fighting from JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH is used here as well as a quick shot of THE SHE CREATURE.
 This was remade(sorta) by Larry Clark in 2002 for Showtime and not personally being a big fan of that director's work I can't imagine it would be worth seeking out.



This also possibly inspired this goofy rock-a-billy tune:

ALLEY CAT (1984)

 The best way to describe this female vigilante flick is that it's basically a not-quite-as-good version of SAVAGE STREETS. Similarly to that film it deals with a chick who has a family member, in this case her grandmother, attacked by a street gang and from there it's revenge time. Pretty basic stuff. You do get a lot of nudity from our star, Karin Mani, which is always nice.  Strangely Ms. Mani didn't do a whole lot of acting besides this. She did go on to appear in AVENGING ANGEL which is another similar film. She does a fairly decent job in this although overall this feels pretty tame compared to some of the other vigilante movies that came out around this time(THE EXTERMINATOR probably being my favorite from this era). Worth a look if you really dig vigilante/revenge flicks with tough women heroes kicking ass.

TIME OF THE APES (1987)

 This is a Japanese made-for-T.V. rip-off of THE PLANET OF THE APES. You would think since it's made like 20 years after that movie the make-up would be way better but you would be wrong. I guess since this is actually made by taking parts of a 1974 T.V. series called ARMY OF THE APES and splicing them together there wasn't a very big budget to work with and they just went with cheap rubber gorilla masks. There are a couple of annoying little kids in this so it feels like you're watching a Gamera movie where Gamera never shows up. Instead a UFO pops up and bosses people around. By the time it all ends, thanks to the editing job, I wasn't too sure if it was all a dream or what the hell was going on. Probably only worth viewing if you catch one of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 versions(they riffed it twice).

C. B. HUSTLERS (1976)

 This is a very stupid soft-core sexploitation flick dealing with a group of gals, one of which is Uschi Digard, who ride around in tricked-out vans and are also prostitutes. Their main clientele consists of truckers and their pimp has a c.b. which is where the title comes in. This isn't really as much of a trucker-sploitation film as the poster promises. It's actually more of a SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT rip-off with police in pursuit of our title characters. The "jokes" here are really dumb and it's overall a pretty boring watch except for the ample naked boobs on display. You're better off watching something by Russ Meyer instead.


Budweiser does taste a lot like panther piss!:

REWIND THIS! (2013)

 Pretty decent documentary that covers the history of the video entertainment world. It also deals with the nerdy collectors who are obsessed with VHS boxes and their distorted sense of nostalgia. Some of the more famous talking heads in this include Elvira(in her civilian disguise of Cassandra Peterson), Lloyd Kaufman, Charles Band and Frank Henenlotter. There's also a bunch of people in this that are only interviewed because they have hoarded a bunch of old VHS tapes. I'm not sure how being a delusional pack-rat makes a person qualified to speak on anything but OK. Maybe if this was more of a psychological look into 80's obsession it would make more sense but it never really gets that deep. There's a few other VHS-related docs that have come out recently including ADJUST YOUR TRACKING and VHS MASSACRE which I have not seen and I'm not really sure if the world needs that many interviews with 80's kids patting themselves on the back for paying hundreds of dollars for something you could watch online for free but if you dig old dusty video tapes check them out.

MAID IN SWEDEN (1971)

 Christina Lindberg, best known from the classic rape/revenge flick THEY CALL HER ONE EYE, here, in her very first film, plays an innocent young schoolgirl who goes off to visit her swingin' sister in the big city who lives in sin with this dude. She gets naked a lot and learns about sexy stuff from various people she runs into. Most of this sexy stuff includes getting molested and basically raped which, as occurs in many sex films of the 70's, turns consensual midway through the forced humping. Despite what the title tells us she is not a maid, I think maybe they were going for a more acceptable way of saying "made in Sweden". The plot here is mostly non-existent and this is a pretty basic sexploitation film but you do get lots of naked Christina which is always nice. AKA THE MILKMAID(she's not a milkmaid either)

THE IMAGE OF BRUCE LEE (1978)

 The image of Bruce Lee that I have in my head is pretty bad-ass. The image of Bruce Lee in this movie is that he's a cop trying to bust some jewel thieves or something. Bruce Li is our imitation Bruce here but I don't think he's supposed to be playing the real Bruce since no one ever calls him that except for this one time a chick tells him he looks a lot like Bruce Lee. It starts out with Li trying to save a suicidal guy from jumping off a roof while music from the TAXI DRIVER soundtrack plays. Right off the bat he fails. This is some way to introduce your hero. After this Bolo Yeung is introduced as the heavy(credited here as Yang Szu). Bolo, as always, is awesome in this. I'm still trying to find a movie where Bolo plays a Schwarzeneger-esque action hero but I'm really doubting that exists. In this he's a total criminal/crook/scumbag but there is one scene where a group of fellow evil-doers gang up on him and I think we're supposed to root for him here. This might be the closest I will ever get to fulfilling my dream. Most of this movie is pretty dull but the filmmakers were nice enough to throw in a couple of nudie scenes involving a shower and some skinny-dipping. Recommended for Brucesploitation-completists only. 

KICK OR DIE (1987)

 This was released on VHS by AIP studios, but not the Roger Corman AIP. This is the crappy direct-to-video AIP company. I'm not sure if this particular title ever got any kind of a theatrical release but I doubt it was a very big release if it did. It's probably the whitest martial arts film I've ever seen with the exception of a couple of black thug characters. There are no Asians at all in this which seems strange to me while watching a kung fu flick but this was made in South Africa so I guess that explains it. The fighting might be some of the worst I've ever seen and the plot, involving this waitress who sings terrible songs and wants to be the next Madonna, is really stupid, but overall this isn't a complete waste of time. What saves it, besides the cool title, is that it features a rapist running around a college campus getting rapey and an absurd biker gang which were both very exciting. Plus I saw this in a theater with a crowd of kung fu fans who were very into it, which helps quite a bit. On the negative side the hero of this movie, Kevin Bernhardt, is a complete dorky nerd who drinks milk and is very hard to root for and the version that was shown looked like a blurry bootleg. Probably more negatives than positives with this one but if you can get a bunch of crazy martial arts fans with low standards together check it out. AKA NO HARD FEELINGS(they say this line a few times throughout the movie)

THE ALLIGATOR PEOPLE (1959)

 Probably the coolest thing about this movie is Lon Chaney Jr.'s performance as a hook-handed, swamp-dwelling molester. It's gotta be one of Chaney's sleaziest performances since he almost rapes the female lead(Beverly Garland) until ol' scaly-face breaks up his attempt at love-making. Besides that you also get an alligator-man(The title sorta lies since there is really only one full-blown alligator person. Everyone else just has some scaly skin-problems) who wears pants but for some reason never chomps anyone's head off but enjoys wrestling real alligators. A pretty groovy 50's monster flick just for the ridiculous monster.

THE SUSPECT (2013)

 Caught a free showing of this Korean action flick last night. While I'm not the world's biggest action movie guy this was OK and being free always makes things a little better. This is about a spy from North Korea who defects to the south and gets accused of murdering a politician. From there it's a bunch of standard chases, fights and gun-play and double crosses. This has a pretty big cast of characters from different groups with competing interests with a kinda complex plot that left me a little confused at first but everything wraps itself up pretty logically by the end. The one complaint I have with this and pretty much every modern action film is that the fight scenes are shot and cut in such a way that you can't really tell what the fuck is going on during most of them. Also, as is typical of most current Korean films, it's a little long at over 2 hours but is probably worthwhile for fans of movies where a lot of stuff happens at a quick pace.
 There are a lot of comparisons with this movie and those Bourne films but since I generally detest new films I haven't seen any of those. 

THE GETAWAY (1972)

 
 This is probably my least favorite of all the Sam Peckinpah films I've seen so far. I suppose if you're a big Steve McQueen fan this would be a much better watch, but outside of THE BLOB, I can't really say that I am. This is pretty much all McQueen and the title refers to a bank robbery that goes wrong and his attempts to avoid the law and some fellow criminals that are on his trail. There are some interesting supporting actors, as usual in a Peckinpah film, including Sally Struthers(Gloria from ALL IN THE FAMILY) as the easily manipulated wife of Jack Dodson(Howard Sprague from THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW). These two have a couple of very uncomfortable cuckold-type scenes together with Dodson being tied to a chair while his wife is used by a large hairy man with a huge sweaty gut. Peckinpah regulars Bo Svenson and Slim Pickens also show up briefly.
 There was a remake of this in 1994 but I'm gonna assume that, like almost everything made in the 90's, it's not something any human being with half-a-brain should bother watching.

THE BIG BUST-OUT (1972)

 This Eurotrash cinematic epic starts out like a women-in-prison flick but that's only for like the first few minutes. Then it becomes all about the escaping from imprisonment. This involves run-ins with angry rapist/murderer Arabs and other assorted bad guys including Gordon Mitchell. There's also a kidnapped nun who ends up helping out the gals and in the process becoming more violent as the movie goes on. It's hard to compare this to your standard women-in-prison kind of deal because it's pretty different then those. It does have the naked boobs, a catfight and tough chicks kicking ass so there's that. I've definitely seen worse things out there.


"Chained to a prison of passion where lust is a lifestyle!":

A NUN FOR THREE BASTARDS AND SEVEN SINNERS or something to that effect: 

THE MANSTER (1959)

 This Japanese/American co-produced monster movie starts out with a kind of DR. JEKYLL & MR. HYDE story involving a Japanese mad doctor who injects this American fellow and has him turn evil and start murdering people but then it goes off in a crazy direction which starts out with an eyeball popping out of the guy's shoulder, then for a bit he turns into a two-headed freak and finally splits into two beings, one all ape-like, hairy and bad and the other his regular old good self. This split-being thing was done similarly in ARMY OF DARKNESS but this movie is no comedy and has some pretty dark moments mostly involving our mad doctor who uses his brother and wife in some pretty horrific experiments turning them into mutated, melty-faced monsters. The two-headed thing was done a few times in the 70's with THE THING WITH TWO-HEADS and THE INCREDIBLE TWO-HEADED TRANSLANT but this was done way before those so it gets extra-credit. I really like most of the early Japanese horror flicks I've seen so far and this is another interesting one. AKA THE SPLIT, THE TWO-HEADED MONSTER and NIGHTMARE




Originally played in the U.S. on a double-feature bill with the re-titled EYES WITHOUT A FACE:

BOWERY BLITZKRIEG (1941)

 The sixth of the East Side Kids movies. Even though the title sounds like it, there are no Nazis in this movie at all. Instead it's about Muggs(Leo Gorcey) becoming a boxer and there's also some gangsters involved. It introduces Huntz Hall and he, along with Gorcey, would become the main two characters in the rest of these films. Keye Luke, Charlie Chan's son from the Charlie Chan series shows up here also. This is a pretty typical cheapie 40's comedy/drama. It goes by fast enough but I think I dig the kid's/boy's monster flicks like SPOOKS RUN WILD just a bit more.

BLOOD OF THE DRAGON (1971)

 This is a pretty generic kung fu flick about an evil government and some rebels. Jimmy Wang Yu plays the hero, there's quite a bit of blood spilled and there are some super long fight scenes that happen. The one thing that really stands out to me about this is the opening credits on the English-dubbed version which has some Pink Floyd-sounding 70's rock music by a band called Flood. AKA BLOOD OF THE NINJA(even though there are no ninjas in this) and DESPERATE CHASE



Opening credits jam:

KUNG-FU: THE PUNCH OF DEATH (1972)

 This kung fu flick starts out with a strange scene where guys are betting on a cricket fight. How you train crickets to battle each other I have no idea. The fellow with the losing cricket demands compensation for his loss! I don't know how much a cricket is worth in Hong Kong but where I live you can buy a whole bag full of crickets for 50 cents and if you're too cheap for that you could just go outside and look under a rock. As expected this bizarre scene leads to a big fight. From there it's your basic revenge tale where a guys dad gets killed by some thugs and he does some training. Now they kill his dad because this young fellow accidentally knocked-off one of their students so the revenge is kinda unjustified ultimately but I guess we're not supposed to think that deeply into this. Before the big revenge happens he does get his ass kicked multiple times, once so badly that he cries tears of blood which I'm pretty sure isn't biologically possible but cinematically a neat thing to see. Another of a thousand fairly generic martial arts films. AKA THE PRODIGAL BOXER(This is a generally unremarkable film without anything spectacularly memorable that happens in it so it's kind of surprising that there are two sequels under this title but maybe it was a hit in Hong Kong at the time for some reason or maybe they just liked to reuse the title)




                                                          One very odd double-feature!:

THE NEANDERTHAL MAN (1953)

 So this mad scientist guy cooks up a formula that sends animals and people back to their prehistoric forms. He's trying to prove how similar our current brains are to our ancestors or something like that. There's what's supposed to be a sabre-toothed tiger, portrayed by a regular modern day tiger, running around and a guy with a pretty awful rubber-mask playing the titular neanderthal man. This whole movie is pretty dumb but there is one part where these two "monsters" fight each other which probably sucked for whoever was under that mask. Also there's blood at the very end of the movie on a guy's shirt which is pretty rare to see in a 50's American horror movie.

 Neanderthal Man hates a picnic:

THE BAT (1959)

 

 So The Bat is this dude who dresses like The Shadow but has claws and likes to rip out people's necks. Of course this was made back in the 50's so there's never any blood to be seen. Also the film is more of a mystery than a horror flick so if you're into those check it out. Vincent Price is pretty suave here and naturally is the #1 suspect of all these murders going on. Darla from The Little Rascals has her last appearance but it's only a small role. 
 This is actually the third remake of this story on film. It was originally done as a silent film in 1926 and then in 1930 as THE BAT WHISPERS. Before those it was a Broadway show.

THE EVIL WEEKENDS OF COUNT ZAROFF (1976)

 This movie starts out like it's gonna be another MOST DANGEROUS GAME-clone but then turns into something else. It's the story of this very disturbed creep who's obsessed with this dead chick and kills a few folks throughout the film. At least I think he kills these people since much of this movie could possibly just be taking place in his mind. Technically this is a sequel to the original MOST DANGEROUS GAME as the Count Zaroff here is a descendant of the one in that film. It seems like a weird choice to make a Eurotrash sequel full of naked ladies to a classic American film, but OK. Howard Vernon is pretty good as the almost equally maniacal servant of Zaroff. The whole thing reminds me very much of a Jess Franco flick and is decent enough although by the end things start to drag along and get drawn out pretty badly.
 Supposedly this was banned in France but I can't really imagine why unless there's some rule against portraying a crazy person there since it's not really all that super graphically violent or anything. AKA SEVEN WOMEN FOR SATAN


This chick here pretty much deserves to die for not being smart enough to run behind a tree: