THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE (1986)

 This is a very slow-moving, made-for-TV version of the famous Edgar Allan Poe mystery. It has an all-star cast including Val Kilmer and Rebecca DeMornay and features George C. Scott in the main role of a retired inspector coming back on duty to solve the titular murder case. While Scott is always great and believable as an ass-kicking tough fellow this is not the greatest place to see him do this. We do get one slightly bloody double murder, a guy in a gorilla suit and then the rest is tough to slog through as it becomes your standard mystery tale. I probably shoulda watched the old Lugosi version or that 70s one instead.

                                                              Floaty heads, aahh!!:

This title did make for a great Iron Maiden song!:

BLACK COBRA 3: MANILA CONNECTION (1990)

 The first BLACK COBRA flick is kind of a rip-off of Stallone's COBRA with Fred "The Hammer" Williamson in the role of a Dirty Harry-ish police lieutenant ridding the streets of deplorable criminals and punks. By the time we get to this third film it's mostly just another Filipino mercenaries-in-the-jungle, exploding huts action movie. In fact if you had told me this was one of those cheap-o Cirio H. Santiago films from the 80s I would certainly believe it. In actuality it's an Italian production filmed in the Philippines where blowing up lots of stuff is apparently cheaper to do.  "The Hammer", or Malone as he's called here, gets a male and female partner who run around the jungle, shoot many people and even do some almost Dolemite-level of bad kung fu. Maybe if they had sped-up the fight scenes like Rudy Ray Moore had it would have been slightly more exhilarating to watch.
 There is a BLACK COBRA 4 but from what I've read that one is basically a rehashing of clips from the first 2 movies so I might not need to be in any rush to view it.

TO CATCH A NINJA (1984)

 Unlike many of these Taiwanese movies with the word 'ninja' in the title this one actually has a ninja in it(or at least a guy with a very ninja-like outfit on), so that's something. It's also a pretty decent blend of action/kung-fu and for about the first half of the runtime it's a crime drama before morphing into your more standard kung-fu flick. There's quite a bit of variety on display besides your standard fist and foot-fighting you get gun-fu, motorcycle-fu, Frankenstein-fu, skiing-fu and even some unexpected rollerskating-ninja-fu. Muzak versions of Procol Harum's 'Whiter Shade of Pale' and 10CC's "Not in Love" play on the soundtrack which are not songs I would ever pick to be in an action-packed film, but what do I know?  AKA NINJA AND THE THIEF and TO CATCH A THIEF. The director on this is credited as Tommy Lee but I'm pretty sure it's not the drummer of Motley Crue.
 This was recut by the specialist of re-cutting and splicing cheap crappy things together, Mr. Godfrey Ho, and released the same year as NINJA THUNDERBOLT. This version is pretty similar except that you get some additional scenes of Richard Harrison to give it more appeal to those American round-eyes.

SWAMP VIRGIN (1951)

 This movie was originally released in 1947 under the title UNTAMED FURY and it was only an hour long but I guess that was too long for somebody so it was cut down to a half-hour and re-released in 1951 with the way sexier title of SWAMP VIRGIN. While I've never seen the full-length cut I don't really think I have to since from what I can tell all the action scenes are here. You get two young boys thrown into swampy lakes by their hillbilly dads and used as human gator-bait, a young lady cutting her dumpy overalls into a skimpy jean-bikini, some alligator-wrassling, a wise old black man who conveys this whole thrilling sorta-love-triangle tale to us and it all ends with some gunfire and quicksand antics. While not the most amazing thing I've ever seen at least it didn't waste much of my time.

SWAMP COUNTRY (1966)

 A slice of 60s hicksploitation that takes place in the Okefenokee swamps of Georgia. A lady is strangled to death and the law pursues the suspected murderer through alligator(and bear and bobcat!) country. Also while this is going on country singer Baker Knight plays a lazy bum who sings a couple of sweet tunes(my favorite being one called "The Misfits" which sadly The Misfits never did cover) and tries to get with the sheriff's gal pal. Also Lyle Waggoner(who I really only know from all his TV appearances in the 70s on stuff like THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW and WONDER WOMAN etc.) plays the handsome deputy who oddly enough has no love interest of his own here. There's some bear wrestling, quicksand death, mafioso scumbags and a guy who makes the odd choice of wearing Chuck Taylor All-Star sneakers to roam around in a swamp?? While this doesn't really have all that many sleazy exploitation elements which I woulda appreciated it did hold my interest if just for the groovy songs and hillbilly action.

He's a misfit!!:

                                                     

                                                               On glorious VHS!:

Mobsters!:

STRYKER (1983)

 Having just seen director Cirio H. Santiago's FUTURE HUNTERS in a theater recently, a film that starts out as a ROAD WARRIOR-rip-off and then moves into modern-day 80s action flick, it was interesting to see this earlier film of his where he goes full-blown post-apocalypse epic. Not that the movie is all that interesting. You've seen it all before, the Earth's freshwater-supply is all gone for some reason that's never explained, people dress like punk rockers and souped-up vehicles explode a lot.  Similar to FUTURE HUNTERS there's a gang of midgets(did Cirio just keep these guys on his payroll?) and an all female troop of amazons(who of course wear super-skimpy short-shorts because that's so functional in a desert wasteland but I'm not really complaining). The main hero here(Steve Sandor) is also pretty dull. I did find it interesting that there's a poster referring to this as MAD MAX 3 and if I had to choose my favorite between this and that stupid THUNDERDOME movie it might be a toss-up.

DRACULA (THE DIRTY OLD MAN) (1969)

 Dracula, or Alucard as he's called here gets himself a Wolfman, or a Jackal-Man as he's called here, servant to get him some ladies for his blood drinking and sexual needs. So it's sorta like that Bela Lugosi movie RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE except this is way more of a softcore porn situation where our vampire villain has sex with, aka rapes, naked gals while still completely dressed using some weird, rarely seen vampiric powers. Also it's dubbed to make it a comedy giving Drac a very Jewish accent and also strangely giving one of the ladies here an old grandma voice.
 Apparently Woody Allen's first movie WHAT'S UP TIGER LILY?, made a few years earlier and similarly dubbed except a bit wittier, was enough of a hit that this was made along the same lines. It is pretty humorous for about half the movie then it starts to get a bit monotonous but still worth a look for lovers of obscure weirdness. Tits are bitten, Irving Jackal-Man gets in on the raping, women are insulted(or fat-shamed as all the sensitive types call it now) and it ends in a monster brawl.

ART!:

SWAMP GIRL (1971)

 A girl is raised in the Georgia swamps by a black fellow she calls "Pa" after being left there by her mom with an old doctor who drops dead. This slice of hicksploitation doesn't turn into a female version of Tarzan like it would have if it was made back in the 30s or 40s but instead just concerns itself with some local yokels and a couple on the run from the law who can't leave our poor "Swamp Girl" alone. There's some long stretches of not much going on. Country singer Ferlin Husky stars as the swamp ranger and sings us the title track and snakes mess people up with their fangs. This was rated PG(or GP as it was called back then) so nothing very lurid happens despite what you might expect. Watchable but not really a 70s exploitation highlight for me.


Fun for the whole family!:

FUTURE HUNTERS (1986)

 OK, so this movie starts out in the future year of 2025 where it's a cheap-ass ROAD WARRIOR rip-off. After about 15 minutes or so of that the hero(Richard Norton) jumps back in time to the current day of 1986. We meet our new replacement heroes(Linda Carol and Robert Patrick(the T-1000 from TERMINATOR 2 in his first movie role)) and some Nazi villains. Then we travel to Hong Kong and meet up with Bruce Li where the film becomes a kung-fu movie for awhile. From there it's off to the Philippines where there's Mongols that look like they rode out of the 13th century, a village of midgets who look they are from the stone age and finally a tribe of Amazon women who like to feed people to their hungry alligator pets.  Directed by crap-meister Cirio H. Santiago this is clearly not the best-made action movie you could watch but I do love his kitchen-sink/running-the-gamut approach to filmmaking on display here and this might be my favorite(and the easiest to stay awake for) of his movies I've viewed so far.

Shown on TV and with presumably edited out boobs as DEADLY QUEST. Here's a promo:

THE RED LIGHT BANDIT (1968)

 Based on a real life house invader/rapist/murderer from the 60s in Brazil but don't expect to get too many facts about him from watching this because it falls squarely into the dreaded "artsy-fartsy" genre of film making. You get crazy weird-angle camera-shots, quick cuts and a lot of intentionally anarchist nonsense. Kind of how modern-day action movies are shot minus the cgi.
 It starts off with some voice-over narration that seems more like a trailer for a movie than an actual movie itself. This sort of reminded me of how a couple of Russ Meyer's films start out except instead of then following giant-boobed ladies you get a side-burned and snazzily-dressed crook going about his nefarious business. There's an off-screen rape, gun-murders, nudity and tons of political and social commentary which I'm sure worked a lot better for Brazilians at the time it was released since they were dealing with a military dictator. There is a very chaotic feeling to the whole thing which I can certainly appreciate so maybe check it out for that or just as a goofy comedy.

THE BLACK COBRA 2 (1989)

 Fred "The Hammer" Williamson is back in the second chapter of the BLACK COBRA series. This time he's sent to The Philippines and has to protect this lady from some bad dudes. So it's basically the same as the first movie but in a new setting. Along the way Fred gets to show off some of his karate moves in addition to all the gun-fu going on and he is getting a bit up there in the age department(51?) so some of these action-packed scenes move little bit slower than might be optimal but I do still believe "The Hammer"(or just Malone as he's called here) has such a strong bad-ass persona that it sorta works. Also he gets a partner who is played by that guy(Nicholas Hammond) who played Spider-Man on that crappy live-action show back in the 70s so that's something.  The ending of this has our dynamic duo infiltrating a building through an elevator shaft which made me think of those stupid DIE HARD movies and how glad I was that I wasn't watching one of them so I think that qualifies this as a feel-good movie.
 A lot of the reviews I've seen of this make a big deal about how horribly-dubbed the little boy is in this movie but if you've watched as many shitty Italian movies as me it's not all that shocking.

NEVER TOO YOUNG TOO DIE (1986)

 Gene Simmons plays a hermaphrodite-villain named Velvet Von Ragner in this and his insane over-acting is really the only reason to sit through this. That is unless you are obsessed with Uncle Jesse(John Stamos) from FULL HOUSE and want to see him as a martial-arts(is gymnastics really a martial art?)-using action-hero avenging the death of his father(George Lazenby). Robert Englund shows up as an evil sidekick and Vanity acts sexy. It all moves along at a brisk enough pace but the stupidity(Stamos' Asian nerd friend builds a goofy bazooka and all the bad guys think they're in THE ROAD WARRIOR) and terrible music might be too much for those not obsessed with those wacky 80s movies(aka anyone older than their 30s).


Known in France as STARGROVE AND DANJA:

BLACK COBRA (1987)

 Keeping with the long-standing tradition of Italian cinema ripping off successful American films this is their version of that Sylvester Stallone movie COBRA which I only vaguely remember enjoying when I was a kid. It also seems to want to be DIRTY HARRY because it poorly paraphrases the old "do you feel lucky punk?" bit. Our star here, who is never actually called Cobra by anyone, is Fred "The Hammer" Williamson and while I wouldn't put it up there with his more classic 70s blaxploitation films it's still cool to see Mr. Fred kicking ass into the late 1980s. His enemies are a group of bikers who dress like THE TERMINATOR and who are trying to kill a photographer lady that he gets the job of protecting. Pretty basic action movie plot follows and it's not the most exciting Eurotrash film you will see, mostly due to it's obviously low-budget, but it does have some OK scenes and it did spawn 3 sequels so I guess someone liked it way more than me.

The BLACK COBRA series:
1. BLACK COBRA(1987)
2. BLACK COBRA 2 (1989)
3. BLACK COBRA 3: THE MANILA CONNECTION (1990)
4. BLACK COBRA 4: DETECTIVE MALONE (1991)

There is a rumoured 5th movie, THE BLACK COBRA RETURNS scheduled for release in 2017, but I'm not sure how serious those rumours are.

SPIDER BABY OR, THE MADDEST STORY EVER TOLD (1967)

 This is one of my favorite weirdo 60s horror flicks so it's hard to write anything about it that is not gushing with love. It's the most classic of director Jack Hill's output, it's the last great role Lon Chaney Jr.(who gets to reference THE WOLF MAN here) got to play before his excessive alcoholism did him in and it's just a strange enough plot that it lingers in your brain for a long time after watching it. It also seems to me to be very influential on stuff like THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE and other insane-family-type horror flicks that would explode in the coming decades. The message of this movie always baffled me a bit. I mean I assume we aren't meant to sympathize with a family of retarded murderers but, mainly due to the way Chaney plays his role, they are portrayed in a pretty sad light. The whole cast is pretty amazing in this which includes a young Sid Haig as a mute wack-a-doo and Mantan Moreland from the old Charlie Chan movies as an unfortunate mailman. I think more than anything else it's the opening of the film with the fate of Mantan, who we are so used to seeing in goofy light-hearted horror stuff from earlier times, that lets the viewer know that this is going to be a darker ride than what you might expect. A must watch for real horror fanatics. AKA THE LIVER EATERS and ATTACK OF THE LIVER EATERS

THE VAMPIRE HAPPENING (1971)

 This is sort of a way goofier/spoofier version of a Eurotrash horror flick along the lines of THE DEVIL'S WEDDING NIGHT. It's the story of a famous Hollywood actress(Pia Degermark) who travels to her ancestors castle in Transylvania. It turns out her great grandma is a vampire chick. It kind of meanders about for a while monks get bitten, sexy times are had, bad jokes are attempted and finally there's a big vampire party/orgy with Dracula(Ferdy Mayne), who uses a Batcopter to travel around and tells people to call him Christopher in an obvious nod to Christopher Lee. For a comedy it's not that terrible. Even if it's never actually funny it's also never actually that unfunny and just kooky enough that it evens itself out. While hardly an essential Eurotrash horror classic it's at least a mildly entertaining watch.






                       Known in Italy as 1/2 LITER OF RED FOR COUNT DRACULA!:

And known in Germany as BITTEN AT NIGHT?

LOCO FIGHTERS (2006)

 Documentary about lucha libre(made by Spanish folks from Spain and not Mexicans from Mexico) that features a collection of interviews with various Mexican pro wrasslers mixed with some high action-spots ranging from the big leagues of south-of-the-border wrestling like CMLL to smaller extreme-type promotions where they stupidly roll around in broken glass for thrills. It gives us the midgets(or minis as they're called), the ladies and even a couple of homosexual grapplers which is something to see. I think you would have to be really into this stuff to enjoy this whole movie and if you're not it might be a little on the long side but I found it to be an ok production even if they try and sell me on the idea that this stuff is all real and not planned out at all. It does make me want to see a more in-depth movie where they go into the history a bit deeper with the old-school favs like Santo and The Blue Demon but I guess I have to look elsewhere for that. Original title- THREE FALLS

BABY DOLL (1975)

 Not to be confused with the 1950s Karl Malden classic. This is the 70s porn version that tells the tale of young-looking(and for the most part pretty bored-looking) Candy Mason who stays at her uncle's house and screws anyone who happens to stop by. This consists of a foreign-guy neighbor, a door-to-door dildo saleslady and some other random dude. Towards the end her uncle unexplainably morphs into her dad(I guess to add to the creepy incest-factor) and they end up banging. It all ends in a hottub orgy. Pretty standard stuff that may have seemed a bit edgier at the time. I should also note that Miss Mason is clearly not underage despite her wonderful acting abilities.

FORCED ENTRY (1973)

 The combination of hardcore sex and explicit murder is the main draw here and it's a rough ride through grimy 70s New York that does sorta play like a dark XXX version of TAXI DRIVER(which didn't even exist yet). I always imagine some poor schmuck sitting in a theater desperately trying to jerk off to films like this back in the day. This one has got to be one of the toughest ones to in any way get off to. In between star Harry Reems stalking around the city you do get one straight sex scene(featuring director Shaun Costello wearing some very ugly clothes), a couple of rapes(oral and anal) and an almost constant barrage of actual footage of Vietnam during the war. If this isn't enough to melt your hard-on wait for the stabbings and throat-slashing. It all ends up with some super annoying hippie chicks tripping their asses off which turn out to be our crazed vet's kryptonite. This is a real oddity that needs to be seen just for its strangeness. I imagine no one would even attempt to emulate this today in the hypersensitive p.c. shithole we currently exist in.

HIDEOUT IN THE SUN (1960)

 As kitschy and cool as 60s nudie-cuties are most of them are pretty basic and dull affairs. This one at least has a plot and an actual character-arc in it. This starts out like RESERVOIR DOGS except with way less violence and and way less swearing and then our two bank-robbing brothers end up taking a female hostage and hiding out in a nudist camp. The one brother is a real sour-puss grumpy bastard but the other fellow gets so into this new lifestyle that he instantly falls in love with their kidnap victim as soon as he sees her bare-assed naked!(strangely enough they never kiss even after confessing their love for each other) Bickering ensues and things end up badly for our angry protagonist who ends up in a reptile center battling a snake which is not really where you would expect this movie to go. I would definitely put this up their somewhere towards the top of  60s nekkid boobie films just for it's weirdness quotient. Also important to note here is that this was Doris Wishman's first film(though apparently she had a co-director who got all the credit) and for her it's pretty well made.

THE BROTHERHOOD OF SATAN (1971)

I'll give this one credit for at least having some cool/spooky atmosphere for a lot of it's run time. The story itself though is a bit of a mess. From what I can figure out it's about a group of old people Satanists(or maybe witches?) who use their magical Devil-powers to put kids into trances and kidnap them and they also kill their parents if they get in the way also using magical forces. A couple, and their little girl(Geri Reischl, the gal who played the fake-Jan on the BRADY BUNCH HOUR show) gets dragged into the town where all this is going on and can't leave. It all gets summed up in a big dumb ending but I think Satan wins so that's kinda cool. Even though this was released theatrically it all has a very 70s TV-movie feel to it so I'd only recommend this to retro-weirdos into creepy visuals.

"Satan's baby!!":

ABAR (1977)

 The acting is so bad in this blaxploitation film that I almost doubted that anyone in this actually ever spoke English before. This is not to say this isn't a great film because, despite the inability of anyone in this thing to actually act, this is an amazing example of a zero budget exploitation movie that was made with such love and conviction that it works anyway. Our titular hero Abar(aka Black Superman(an eyebrow-less man named Tobar May)) is the dashiki-wearing militant black man who helps out our more Uncle Tom-ish character Dr. Kincade(J. Walter Smith, whose only credit is this and who reminds me a bit of the late, great William 'BLACULA' Marshall ) after the good doc moves into the most racist white neighborhood ever portrayed on film. Honkies hang out on the lawn with signs that read 'Niggers go Back to the Ghetto!', a black kid gets run down in the street and bombs are planted outside the house(which is a very sweet looking pad with it's own cave-bar decorated with red-velvet). Revenge is dealt out by a black biker gang and those no-good whities are thrown in the trash where they belong while Martin Luther King, Jr's voice is heard preaching about how we should all get along and if all this insanity isn't enough in the last half-hour a sci-fi element is introduced turning Abar into an actual bulletproof Black Superman complete with crazy elemental psychic powers that I'm still trying to figure out. It's completely insane, crazily unrealistic and one of the great cheesey movies of the 70s. A real standout in the blaxploitation genre as long as you're not looking for something very serious. AKA IN YOUR FACE

The shock ending!!:

The VHS cover featuring people who aren't even in the movie!:

WAX (2014)

 Spanish horror films back in the 70s used to be pretty stylish and artistically made for the most part. This being created in 2014 they throw all that out of the window and make what looks like another Full Moon direct-to-video ugly-looking time-waster. The plot is a HOUSE OF WAX-inspired one where our main villain, Jack Taylor(who does a decent job with what he is given to work with), emulates Vincent Price with some modern-day torture-porn elements thrown in because that's what modern horror fans seem to think is scary. If that isn't bad enough we also get the lame-ass found-footage elements here. Sadly this is considered Paul Naschy's last credit even though it's just his voice that is used and he had been dead since 2009. Charlie Chaplin's granddaughter, Geraldine Chaplin also has a role as a reality TV-show(another thing I despise) producer.
 Clearly the filmmakers have some reverence for the history of Spanish horror just for using Naschy and Taylor, which is nice, I just wish they woulda made a film that reflected what made the classics so memorable.

What an ugly unappealing trailer:



                          Full Moon, the symbol of not-so greatness:

MAD FOXES (1981)

 Being a big fan of the Mexican biker flick INTREPIDOS PUNKS I had to check out this Eurotrash biker flick that looked very similar from it's trailer and luckily it was. We trade  out the Lucha-Libre masks for Nazi armbands but we get a similar gang of evil bikers looking to cause trouble, My personal favorite amongst these fine fellows is a big George Eastman-looking guy named Stiletto(Eric Falk) who gets down with the raping and some balls-ass naked kung fu moves. This film has everything a sleazy grindhouse-loving fan could want in an exploitation flick. The dubbing is absurd(giving people weird lisps like Daffy Duck), the violence is insane involving everything from grenades in toilets to castration to deep-throating hedge-clippers. Mothers and fathers are gunned down, kung fu massacres occur and somehow the police never show up to spoil anyones fun. The one strange thing about this is how totally unlikeable the "good-guy" character is. I mean the guy seems like a spoiled rich-kid who basically starts off the rollercoaster of revenge by murdering one of the bikers with his snazzy sportscar so I'm not sure how much we are supposed to sympathize with him. It does all end with one of my favorite types of endings, which combines nihilism and explosions, so I highly recommend checking this one out.  


                   
                           German poster??(if so Germany was pretty cool in the 80s!)

THE FILTHY RICH (1980)

 This is one of those old-school pornos that I first saw in a softcore-version on The Playboy Channel when I was too young to be watching such smut. For this reason it holds a special nostalgic place in my mind (and crotch) and I probably rate this higher than most porn perusers do. Vanessa Del Rio is the main draw here in her over-the-top stereotypical Latina-maid role as Chili Caliente and a close second is Lisa DeLeeuw whose character has one of the greatest porn names ever, Magnolia Thunderpussy, the nymphomaniacal, Texan, sex-toy saleslady. Nothing too crazy happens except for some leather-daddies who show up towards the end and get with the s & m action but still this one is good for a few chuckles along with all the explicit humping and sucking. Also since there is an actual plot to this it's better than any porn that's been made in the last 30 years.



There is band that took their name from this fine film(or maybe from the old-timey burlesque dancer.) They kind of sound like a crappy version of The Dead Milkmen but at least they have a sweet name:

STING OF DEATH (1965)

 One of the most ridiculous-looking monsters highlights this William Grefe monster flick. Shot in the Florida everglades this is the story of a man who is bullied so much that he turns to jellyfish as his only friends and eventually does some experiments that result in him turning into a jellyfish-man. This monster outfight, with it's big bulbous, trash-bag-looking head, is something to see. While this doesn't top my favorite Grefe film STANLEY, it's still a great goofy gem and there's even some go-go dancing while Neil Sedaka sings about "Doing The Jellyfish" which is a classic Youtube-worthy scene.
 I got to meet (and even have dinner with!) Mr. Grefe over this last weekend and he was a sweet fellow. I need to check out more of his crazy classics.

A classic cinematic moment!!

The monsters depicted on the Spanish & Mexican posters are a bit more frightening than the one in the film itself:

CIRCUS OF FEAR (1966)

 This one is an interesting watch since it blends a few different genre-types together. It starts out as a typical heist-film and then ends up in a circus where people are getting bumped-off in a very giallo-esque way. Christopher Lee, wearing a black hood for most of the movie, is one of the main suspects in these murders. Klaus Kinski plays one of the armored-car robbers. The circus scenes are mostly lifted from 1960's CIRCUS OF HORRORS. The one main complaint I have with this film is that it's marketed as a horror film when it's actually a mystery based on those old Edgar Wallace novels. Once you get past this though it's passable. AKA PSYCHO-CIRCUS and CIRCUS OF TERROR

In full color despite what this trailer shows:

The German title of THE MYSTERY OF THE SILVER TRIANGLE gives you way more of a clue to it's mystery movie  elements:

13 WORMS (1970)

 I thought I was getting an old-school kung fu flick here since the DVD I have of this compares it to FIVE DEADLY VENOMS. In actuality it's filled with swordplay which kinda makes me question the date on this since I know these types of movies were more popular in the 60s in Chinese cinema but perhaps this is just a throwback to that older style. Being more of a fan of the 70s chopsockey classics this was a big letdown. Also the film is filled with horribly grating music and I am generally no fan of musicals. Also there's a lot of goofiness with people being stabbed in the ass and screwball characters. All in all this was, for me, another example of why Taiwan martial arts flicks are normally subpar in comparison to Hong Kong's stuff. AKA 13 HEROIC WORMS

GO, GO, SECOND TIME VIRGIN (1969)

 This sleazy and bloody Japanese art movie by a director known for his off-the-wall films(Koji Wakamatsu) starts right off the bat with a girl being gang-raped on a rooftop by a gang of not-so-tough-looking Japanese fellows. From there we get a bunch of silly artsy-fartsy long shots of hallways and crap and then things get weird with a room full of people in the middle of an orgy who get knifed-to-death and then some more murder happens. On the surface you could call this a rape-revenge film but it's one of the weirdest examples of that I've seen. A sort-of love story is really the central focus of the movie and there are some messages in here that I'm not exactly clear on. The clunkiest and most humorous one has to be at the very end when the camera focuses on a sign that warns the audience of the dangers of huffing.
 The backstory of this film is that it was a reaction/meditation on the Manson murders. The main male character talks about killing people because they are pigs but you really wouldn't draw any direct connections except for the photos of Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski that pop up in-between panels depicting cartoon violence.
 This is clearly only for the more adventurous serious film lovers that like that avant-garde style.

SEX OF THE WITCH (1973)

 Great title and packed with nudity and sexy scenes, sadly this isn't a very good giallo. It crawls like a snail for long stretches and has some irritating musical cues that repeat over and over until you can't stand them. There is one scene of an acid rock band and Camille Keaton of I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE fame does a decent job as a member of a family of cursed horny wackos with a witch slashing them up one by one. It is a different sleazy take on the giallo just not done quite that well.

THE DOLL SQUAD (1973)

 I've been watching(or re-watching) a few of director Ted V. Mikels' films since he died last week. This one I remember not being very good from my last viewing. It's basically a crappy version of the TV-show CHARLIE'S ANGELS except that it came first so I guess technically it may have been the inspiration for that show. Thanks for that then Mr. Ted. It is cool to see Tura Satana, and we get her first appearance here in skimpy stripper apparel which is pretty sweet! I guess one of my main gripes with this is that Tura is not the leader of the Doll Squad since she's clearly the baddest-assed of the chicks in this. The leader we do get(Francine York) does do an OK job in some interesting funky outfits. Overall it's a mildly amusing story of karate-using secret agent gals which maybe if it was edited better(perhaps down to TV-show length) and had a better soundtrack it would be a more fun watch. AKA SEDUCE AND DESTROY.

THE DOLL SQUAD was released on video as FEMALE MERCENARIES and the 1984 Euro-trash Sybil Danning movie THE PANTHER SQUAD was released as it's sequel even though it isn't. If you look closely you will notice there are some very fake made-up credits on the box.: