FUTURE-KILL (1985)

 The Hitchhiker, Edwin Neal, from THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE plays a homicidal, armor-plated, mask-wearing victim of the nuclear age in the far off future world of 1980s Austin, Texas. This movie starts off like an 80s teen-sex comedy complete with frat-boy pranks before our stupid main characters end up on the "bad" side of town where no-nuke protesting punk rockers have taken over. Things then take a turn for slasher movie territory and the whole thing sorta feels like a shitty version of THE WARRIORS as our gang of knuckleheads, led by main jerk/musclehead Steve(who's name they repeat quite a bit), have to battle their way back to the safety of the frathouse. Marilyn Burns aka Sally from TEXAS CHAIN SAW is also a member on the punk side of things. Some blood is spilled and clunky fight scenes ensue. The main problem most people have with this thing is that the memorable movie poster, and VHS cover, art by H.R. Giger is way better-looking than anything that appears in the movie but if you can overlook this it's an ok dumb 80s action/horror thingamajig with some horror legends. The other problem is that it feels almost like 2 different films shoehorned together but as a lover of genre-melding I don't view this as much of a negative. AKA SPLATTER



This German VHS cover looks a little less classy:

To further play up the Giger/ALIEN connection this was retitled NIGHT OF THE ALIEN:

LOVE MASSACRE (1981)

 I was led to believe that this movie was half a romantic drama and half a slasher flick. It's really mostly a love-story/artsy drama and then gets into the slasher territory only near the very end of it's run time. It does start out pretty crazy, a la THE DEVIL IN MISS JONES, with a suicidal sliced wrist. It's also a pretty good looking film that chronicles a descent into madness. I will also give this film extra credit for having the couple behind me at the theater walk out when the blood started to fly. I've only seen that reaction at this theater, which shows mainly artsy-fartsy stuff, once before and that was also an Asian movie, BUNMAN: THE UNTOLD STORY, but I wouldn't put this one in the same category as that violence-fest since only one kid gets slaughtered here as opposed to a whole family of children. A bit slow for my taste but it does pay off in the end and apparently it offends inner-city art-film lovers so that's always a plus!

SUPER FUZZ (1980)

 I know Terence Hill mostly for his spaghetti-western roles but he did do a few other things like this Euro/American superhero comedy with Ernest Borgnine as a pair of cops. I also know director Sergio Corbucci mainly for some great euro-westerns including the original DJANGO but he also did dabble in many other genres. This is a movie that played many times on HBO back in the 80s so I feel like it's something I've seen in bits and pieces a bunch. Having seen it all in one sitting now I find it to be an OK dumb comedy along the lines of typical American 80s comedies except there's no boobs in this. There is mostly just a bunch of slapsticky superhero hijinks resulting from Hill getting various super-powers after a getting radiated by a bomb that goes off near him and it's great to see Borgnine freaking out and seemingly having a fun time making this thing. There's also a silly soundtrack where they sing "Super Snooper"(which is the British title of this) over and over again. Check it out to kill time on a hungover Sunday morning.




                                                         "SUPER SNOOPER!":

CONFESSIONS OF A BLUE MOVIE STAR (1978)

 This movie starts out with Roman Polanski chatting about snuff movies, then the middle section, which makes up most of the movie is a German fake documentary(mockumentary?) about the porn industry(this part reminded me of one of those German SCHOOLGIRL REPORT movies). Finally everything is wrapped up and we get a post-ending sequence where a guy with a shopping bag on his head, like The Unknown Comic, tells us about how he, and a film crew, got high and made an "actual" snuff movie while some gory outtakes from LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT play to show is what a "real" snuff film looks like.
 It's such a strange idea for a movie that I would recommend this just for the oddness of it all. The middle part does drag a lot and it takes what seems like forever, with a few goofy parts to chuckle at, to get to the big finale and "THE END, AND THE END OF ALL HUMANITY" as it nicely puts it. AKA THE EVOLUTION OF SNUFF


Gong Show snuff director!:

The Japanese poster really jams a lot of stuff into one image:

and the Italian poster looks very classy!:

TEENAGERS FROM OUTER SPACE (1959)

 Some aliens who seem a lot like Earthlings and speak excellent English are on a mission to raise giant lobster-monsters, to be harvested later on for food, on the Earth. One of them is a rebellious "teenager"(who seems to be in his 30s) who runs away, falls in love with an Earth-lady(Betty Morgan) and screws everything up for them. The aliens use a cool ray gun that makes flesh disappear and leaves nothing but a skeleton behind(kinda like Tim Burton's MARS ATTACKS). Clunky acting, silly dialogue and dumb stuff abounds but hey it was still the 50s so you kinda know what to expect here.
 The lobster-monster went on to rape Divine in MULTIPLE MANIACS and some of the background music went on to be in NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.




Pretty sure this movie was the inspiration for this lovely tune although they never actually say they are from mars in the film:

THE LAST MATCH (1991)

 This is the other movie, along with THEY CALL HIM BULLDOZER, that make up the tiniest of all subgenres; the Italian football-sploitation film. This one sees a football player's daughter getting arrested somewhere in South America, sent to a dirty prison run by Henry Silva and then getting rescued by her dad's whole team, led by coach Ernest Borgnine. The crazy part is that our heroes go on this daring mission completely decked out in their football uniforms, with machine guns and kick footballs with grenades inside of them at their enemies. It's quite the spectacle and combines sports and action movie in a pretty unique way. Martin Balsam and Charles Napier show up in small parts to add an even more American-feeling to this wacky Italian flick. Despite the fact that this came out in 1991 it really feels much more like an 80s action movie so give it a viewing if you're into that sort of thing.
 In Japan this is known under the title of MAD TOUCHDOWN which seems way more suitable!

THE COSMIC MONSTERS (1957)

 The 50s giant-bug movie meets the alien invader movie and as a bonus you get Forrest Tucker being a suave mother-fucking ladies man! The alien invader here is actually a good guy who helps out our team of nerdy scientists with his raygun. On the big bug(or "cosmic monsters" if you will) side of things you mostly get a bunch of blown-up, superimposed cockroaches, an ugly spider and a lizard who scoots by for a second. This is one of the better British-made 50s sci-fi flicks and probably the least boring of the ones starring Mr. Tucker. There is one scene that really stands out and doesn't seem like it belongs in a movie made in the 50s nat all where a soldier gets his face chewed right off down to his exposed skull by one of the over-sized insect monsters! This one is worth a watch just for that spectacle. AKA THE STRANGE WORLD OF PLANET X