SWITCHBLADE SISTERS (1975)

 This one is right up there with some of the Japanese STRAY CAT ROCK movies and HG Lewis' SHE-DEVILS ON WHEELS as one of my favorite girl gang flicks ever! What makes this one so sweet is the amazing drama that draws you into the story, the over-the-top acting styles of everyone, the slick 70's outfits, Farrah Fawcett-hairstyles, overall retro feel of everything, awesome fights and an ending that looks like it might fit in a war movie better. Originally released under the not-as-exciting title of THE JEZEBELS and then switched to SWITCHBLADE SISTERS this somehow wasn't a big hit at the time and was way later on in the 90's re-released in theaters by Quentin Tarantino which is where I first encountered it's brilliance. A movie that moves along briskly, mixes in some women-in-prison, blaxploitation, sexploitation and seems like a comic-book for adults that can handle nudity and rape in their entertainment without passing out from how offended they are. A 100% all-time trash classic. AKA MAGGIE'S STILETTO SISTERS and PLAYGIRL GANG

Bad-ass Italian poster!!: 

CANNIBAL FEROX (1981)

 While CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST is clearly the high-point and most well known of the jungle cannibals sub-genre this obvious rip-off by Umberto Lenzi has it's own gory disgusting appeal and on certain days I even prefer watching it to it's inspiration. It borrows so much from HOLOCAUST that it gets pretty ridiculous; Robert Kerman appears in both(though a much smaller role here), a big-ass turtle gets hacked up in both, a giant anaconda gets to squash a cute little fury animal and of course intestines get ripped out of people dumb enough to travel into the heart of the Amazon. Everything in this one is dumbed down a bit though and if you think too hard about it all it doesn't make much sense. It also, for the most part, foregoes the moralizing and just focuses on how much grossness can be put on screen in it's 90 minute run-time. It does seem like there was a competition between director Lenzi and HOLOCAUST's creator Ruggero Deodato as to who could make the bigger gross-out with Deodato starting out with JUNGLE HOLOCAUST in '77 which is comparatively tame compared to these two and then Lenzi responding with EATEN ALIVE in '80 which is a bit gory and rapey but not super extreme. Then it's all topped by the extremity of HOLOCAUST and finally ends up with FEROX which features a couple of castrations, heads lopped off, limbs lopped off, giant grub-worm eating, severed dick-eating, giant hooks through tits in an "homage?" to that A MAN CALLED HORSE movie, etc, etc. John Morgen stands out as the best actor in this whole thing (besides Kerman who isn't really used all that much) as he portrays a sleazy murdering, native-torturing bad-ass while most of the other acting is pretty clunky but who cares since it's all about how many entrails can be munched and how much blood can be spilled and this movie delivers like a greatest hits package of depraved spectacle. AKA MAKE THEM DIE SLOWLY

WIDOW BLUE (1970)

This is definitely one of the stranger 70's porns I've seen. What makes it odd right out of the gate is it inter-cuts a straight sex scene with a gay romp featuring a couple of fellas set to some music from Walt Disney's FANTASIA. While the actual penetration is never shown between these two guys and they quite possibly are simulating that, they are sucking each others mostly limp dicks and this makes me wonder if this might be the first adult film made for a bi-sexual audience. I kinda doubt they actually had any high consciousness-raising, artistic-minded purposes with this one though and assume they were just going for as much shock value as possible since this is followed by some pretty outlandish bits. You get a meat-cleaver to the throat and a castration by teeth which also results in the biter choking to death on the severed schlong. This all features that super-bright 70's blood and HG Lewis-levels of it to boot. In addition to this we get some incest, necrophiliac cock-sucking, gay-bashing and general sordid woman-hating. Johnny "Wadd" Holmes shows up for an impromptu orgy scene and lots of very hairy folks bang or pretend to bang depending on the scene you're watching. As with many of these 70's hardcore flicks the sex scenes really drag the movie's plot to a harsh stop and makes it seem way longer than it is but for something weird that might turn on your sexually-deviant demented friends this one is worth a viewing. AKA SEX PSYCHO and THE DEMON IN MISS JONES Director Walt Davis later on reused Holmes' orgy sequence in his snazzily titled film HOW DO I LOVE THEE? LET ME COUNT THE LAYS...!

Available as part of a Walt Davis triple-feature disc from the fine people at Vinegar Syndrome:

THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD (1957)

 A giant caterpillar, that I think is also supposed to be a big snail of some sort, rips the heads off of 1950's military personnel, The great thing about 50's monster movies is that they're usually pretty short. The bad news here is this thing drags on for almost 90 minutes which is way too long for this kind of deal. Luckily heads do get chomped off with big pincers every once in a while so that's nice. Also the monster has super dumb-looking googly eyes so that's something to laugh at. Besides that though there's lots of boring dialogue and science chit-chat. Probably woulda been cooler if this caterpillar-thing turned into a giant butterfly but we have to wait for 60's Japan to give us MOTHRA for that spectacle.

VINYAN (2008)

 While I was expecting more of a CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST-type of a situation with this movie what you actually get is not quite that but an almost equally downbeat sort-of a movie experience. This French/Belgian/Australian/English film deals with a couple of parents who are searching for their lost child and end up in Burma dealing with all kinds of rip-off artists and scumbags in their journey. It's a totally somber view and not something to put on if you want to be in any sort of happy mood (and most likely even more of a downer if you actually do have kids, unlike myself). While I'm not sure if this qualifies as a true horror film or just a really intense drama and I'm also not sure if I would even recommend this to anyone it is better made and more interesting than pretty much any modern horror that's been made in the U.S. in the last 20 years. Also it does deliver on it's cannibals in the jungle premise so I wasn't mislead. I guess ultimately this feels too drama heavy for gore fans and too gory for people who enjoy made-for-Lifetime dramas so I guess it will appeal to that slim group that just wants to see something different. Just don't expect to feel very jolly afterwards.