BEHIND CONVENT WALLS (1978)

 Director Walerian Borowczyk made the amazing and bizarre film THE BEAST in 1975 and this artsy nunsploitation flick in '78, and, yeah, I know he made a bunch of other stuff also but these are the only two films of his that I've seen so far.  This one is based on a novel which seems strange since there doesn't really seem to be much of a story at all. It's more of a collection of pervy scenes involving naughty nuns. I was hoping it would be a but more insane than that but it's pretty standard stuff for this sleazy subgenre. There's a dildo carved out of wood with Jesus face on it, lots of nude yoga and the expected lesbianic romping. Besides this though it's just artsy nunsploitation. I have to say I'm more of a Bruno mattei fan when it comes to the sleaze flicks so this one didn't really dazzle me much but if you like naughty art give it a watch. AKA WITHIN A CLOISTER and SEX LIFE IN A CONVENT

SHE SHOULDA SAID 'NO!' (1949)

 This one's kind of similar to (but not as good as) the classic anti-marijuana flick REEFER MADNESS with depictions of how the evil weed with roots in hell (WILD WEED and THE DEVIL'S WEED are alternate titles) can turn a good gal (Lila Leeds) into a bad gal ("bad" by 1940's standards anyway). Of course it's all really silly but good for a laugh or two. Probably my favorite scene is when our main gal's goody-goody brother hangs himself in the garage because he can't deal with the shame of his sister smoking the wacky tobacco and hanging out with "dope-fiends".
 More interesting than the actual film is the story behind it. It seems Miss Leeds was arrested for smoking pot in 1948 along with Robert Mitchum and due to this gained some dubious notoriety which resulted in her doing time, while Mitchum got away pretty much scott free, and ending up in this exploitation quickie which also ended up being her last film. This is pretty unfortunate since she seems like she coulda been great being the low-budget B-movie version of Marilyn Monroe but alas this was not to be, but we will always have this slice of silliness to remember Hollywood's hypocritical double-standard towards women at the time.



Original title:

Looks like this played with legendary exploitation producer/distributor Kroger Babb's MOM AND DAD:

and for the nice price of 65 cents you could hear Lila tell her own sordid story on stage!: 

WITCHCRAFT THROUGH THE AGES: HAXAN (1922)

 On a purely visual level this is one of the most amazing films ever made. It's a documentary of sorts explaining medieval beliefs towards witches, demons. Satanism and that sort of stuff. The director(Benjamin Christensen) appears as a very spooky-ass Devil and old ugly women cast crazy spells and kiss him on his demonic ass. This is also the most expensive DVD I ever purchased so I would have to say I'm a pretty big fan. It also might be the classiest of art films to appear on this entire blog.
 Since this was made in 1922 it was obviously originally a silent film but in 1968 there was narration by William S. Burroughs added(this version also has a shorter run time since there are less inter-titles) and this is the version I've re-watched many times over the years. A pretty cool jazzy score was also added to this version replacing a more classical score and I thin that it works really well with the strange visuals. I've seen this one a couple of those films to see before you die list and it's hard to argue with that if you're any sort of cinemaphile. AKA HAXAN, THE WITCHES, THE WITCH and HAXAN: WITCHCRAFT THROUGH THE AGES

In English:

Original recipe:

TEASERAMA (1955)

 The iconic Bettie Page dances around and introduces some other burlesque dancers. The large breasted Tempest Storm is the most famous of these ladies. In between this some really bad jokes are told. Joe E. Ross from CAR 54 WHERE ARE YOU? is one of the horrible comedians who pops up. Whenever I see these old pre-porn risque-type films I imagine that jerking off musta been much easier back in the old days if this is what people got off to. What's on display here isn't even any actual nudity but the most innocent of teasing and jiggling. This level of explicitness you could see on TV now and not even think twice about it but it does give a glimpse back in time to a very different mindset and works as a goofy novelty and is thankfully only a little over an hour long. Good for weirdos into kitschiness but not so good if you're a horny pervert looking for something sleazy.

"A daring riot of color, music and laughs!":

THE HORROR OF PARTY BEACH (1964)

 This movie has got to be the peak of 60's teenagers vs. monsters on the loose films for me. You get a surf-rock band(The Del-Aires) doing tunes like "Zombie Stomp", quite a bit of blood spilled for a film from 1964, a stereotypical black maid who seems like she stepped right out of the 40's, overacting drunks, horrible jokes, girls at slumber parties, bikers and most importantly a bunch of rampaging beasts on the loose seeking human blood. Now these monsters are quite a sight to see, they're described as zombies(original working title= INVASION OF THE ZOMBIES) throughout but are really more like CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON-rip-offs with what looks like a pack of hot-dogs stuck in their mouths which must make it difficult to suck blood but somehow they manage. A Mystery Science Theater 3000 favorite that you can actually watch without those silly robots. Good times!



There was a sort-off comic picture-book put out for this flick which looks awesome!:

Director Del Tenney(whose name also sounds like it should be a surf band) shot THE CURSE OF THE LIVING CORPSE at the same time as this but unfortunately it's not nearly as fun and energetic as PARTY BEACH. They both played together often:

The Del-Aires song Zombie Stomp was eventually released in 2012 on a single(about time): 

Monster surf-rock meets punk-rock!:

Meanwhile in Mexico it was Bikini Beach:

STREET TRASH (1987)

         "Fuck you. Gimme a bottle of booze, here's my dollar, suck my dick!"

 STREET TRASH basically feels like a Troma movie that Troma didn't make except better than that. It exists in a world(1980's Brooklyn) populated by disgusting bums who will knife you over a bottle of cheap booze. The lowlife population are so caked with filth that they often appear to be more zombie-like than human. There's the crazy Vietnam casualty who seems to be the leader of all these creeps named Bronson in an inversion of ol' Charlie's heroic persona and there's also a couple of halfway decent bums to even things out and add some drama. The main villain here though, pushing things over into the goopy/melty 80's horror movie genre started by stuff like EVIL DEAD in '81, is a case of Viper-brand hooch which when consumed turns folks into very colorful piles of what looks like various flavors of toxic ice-cream left out in the summer sun. There's some amazing standout scenes like the surly black gentleman who none-too-subtly shoplifts at a supermarket by jamming chickens and whole melons down his pants, there's a castration scene where an absurd game of keep-away breaks out involving his chopped-off cock, a rape scene that gets the mob involved with the plot turning it momentarily into a mafia flick and all sorts of bum-fighting ridiculousness. Probably as close to the perfect exploitation as the goofy-ass 80's got.

GREAT DEADLY MONSTER BATTLE: DAIGORO VS. GOLIATH (1971)

 Since, as far as I know, this was never dubbed into English it might be the most obscure Japanese monster flick(at least in America). Also since this is a straight-forward children's movie it might be the stupidest. Even the most child-like Godzilla or Gamera movies at least had a couple of scenes of ugly monsters fighting or some drama thrown in. This film instead has goofy slapstick and a very annoying fat alcoholic man in addition to gangs of kids constantly yelling stuff.
 The story has to do with Daigoro, who is a giant hippo-looking thing made from an old re-designed monster suit from the Ultraman show that is kept, after his long-haired mama-monster is killed, on the beach where Japan has built him his own giant toilet. Then Goliath, who's an electrical outer-space monster with a horn on his head, shows up and they fight it out. It's all very stupid but if you like extremely dumb rubber-suit monster movies check it out.
 The movie was a combo-production between Toho studios and Tsuburaya productions so at least the FX look pretty decent for what it is. AKA DAIGORO VS. GOLIATH

WILD IN THE STREETS (1968)

 A young rock singer(Christopher Jones), who has Richard Pryor playing drums for him, rallies the youth to make himself the youngest President in U.S. history. From there everyone over 30 is forced to retire and then sent to internment camps where they are dosed with LSD. Having been made in the 60's this is obviously a metaphor for the turbulence of the civil rights and/or women's rights movements(or I guess any big social movement of the time really) and also a commentary on the generation gap between the baby-boomer hippies and the old folks of the times. Having been made by AIP it also has that familiar exploitation movie vibe which makes for a strange combination. It kinda made me think about what something like BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS woulda been like if Roger Corman produced it. Shelley Winters is given top-billing as the mom of our young rebel but doesn't really have a whole lot to do unfortunately. So to sum it up, it's mostly disjointed  and probably only interesting as a curiosity piece from the era it was produced. On the positive side there's some cool 60's tunes like "Shape Of Things To Come" which were created for this film.

SEEDING OF A GHOST (1983)

 This fits right in there with BLACK MAGIC and THE BOXER'S OMEN as another awesome and crazy Shaw Brothers Hong Kong horror flick. This one is the tale of a taxi-driver(interestingly some musical cues from TAXI DRIVER feature prominently here) whose wife ends up cheating on him(lots of full nudity on display in these parts) and then getting raped and murdered. From there on it's all about the revenge which he goes about getting with the help of an old witch doctor. The movie features lots of insanity but things really get amped up for the last 15 minutes or so when a corpse gives birth to a monster that reminded me a lot of the one from THE DEADLY SPAWN and things get very EVIL DEAD-like with the blood and gore splashing about. Some of the weirder things that happen here: a guy gets run over by a cab but is then magically OK, an undead lady corpse rapes a a guys spirit, a guy sets up an IV so that an evil monster baby can feed on his blood, there's an homage to the ALIEN chestburster scene where a Doctor Wang gets his face hugged and then ripped off, Three Stooges sound effects are used when a head gets bonked and monster-tentacles are wrestled. Good strange fun!
 AKA BLACK MAGIC 5

EBOLA SYNDROME (1996)

 As far as actors go Anthony Wong has to be the king of sleazy Category 3 Hong Kong flicks. This movie along with THE UNTOLD STORY(both directed by Herman Yau) show Wong portraying the most vile and disgusting of characters. In this one Wong plays a maniac named Kai who has a bit of a short fuse that is initially set off when his boss catches him banging his wife. This leads to bloody murder and severe trauma to a little girl. From here we move the setting to South Africa where the titular ebola virus shows up. At this point the film becomes equally funny, disgusting and violent. Bodily fluids fly around all wily-nilly, frogs get chopped up while still alive, this really weird autopsy takes place and a few rapes happen. There's also cannibalism, lots of puke and of course various people melting from the inside out thanks to the ebola running rampant. I think the whole thing works great as horror and totally black comedy so check it out unless you're a squeamish type then stay far away.

KILLER BARBYS VS. DRACULA (2001)

 I had been wanting to see this one for a while since I really liked the original KILLER BARBYS movie from 1996 which felt like Jess Franco's version of a SCOOBY-DOO episode, and I've rewatched it a few times over the years, so I figured this sequel would have to at least be halfway decent. Unfortunately it really isn't. By the 2000's Mr. Franco was stuck shooting super-duper low-budget shot-on-video stuff that really doesn't convey his artistic visions very well. I probably coulda saved a bunch of time and gotten just as much enjoyment out of watching a couple of Killer Barbies music videos since all the stuff wrapped around their performances is pretty pointless. There's a bald Nosferatu-type Dracula, Lina Romay runs around doing a Transylvanian accent and it's all played for giggles. Also this is one of the few Franco movies that doesn't feature graphic nudity or sex in it. You do get a few scantily-clad ladies including the lovely lead-singer Sylvia Superstar, lots of Eurotrashy rock music and a bunch of people getting bitten in the neck that you don't really care about. Stick with the first one for better sleazy Franco thrills.

 

MESSAGE FROM THE FUTURE (1981)

 I haven't seen that many films from Israel but I can't imagine they're all as strange as this one. The story, as far as I can figure out, is about a man from the future(or maybe he's an alien?) who comes back to the 80's to speed up World War 3, which I guess will then spur on technological advancements. The whole film is really disjointed and odd. A naked lady pops up every now and then, we get some full-frontal male nudity, there's karate robots who just look like regular karate guys and the whole movie has weird musical breaks in it featuring new-wavey/futuristic-disco-sounding stuff. There's parts where different people from around the world speak various undubbed/unsubtitled languages, there's a spoof? of news broadcasts and I suppose there's some political message in there somewhere but I'm not exactly sure what the hell it could be. I can't say this movie is actually good unless you are just a fan of the totally offbeat and bizarre and in that case check it out.