THE YOUNG MASTER (1980)

 This was the second film directed by Jackie Chan, who, of course, also stars, right after he did THE FEARLESS HYENA. You can really tell this because it's quite the showcase of some amazing fights scenes. While these might seem a tad overly long to the average viewer they do come off as pretty epic as well as having that comedic touch that Jackie is known for. The plot is not all that complex and involves Chan and his older brother, who were orphaned, taken in by a kung fu school and getting into various mishaps. Highlights include Chan having a bench vs. bench fight, fighting dressed as an old man and then wearing a dress. Really seems to be geared for hardcore martial arts fans but apparently that's a lot of people in Hong Kong because this was a box-office money record breaker there at the time of release.

Original Hong Kong version(which looks a hell of a lot better than the old crap VHS version I first viewed of this!):

GIRL SLAVES OF MORGANA LE FAY (1971)

 I thought this was going to be some sort of horror flick. Mainly because the DVD I have proclaims this "A classic of erotic horror". They did nail the erotic part as this does contain tons of nudity and rollicking lesbianism on display. Unfortunately the horror aspects are pretty minimal. I would really classify this thing as more of a sexy fantasy art film. The plot deals with a couple of young ladies who run afoul of the sorceress lady of the title in the woods and are held in her castle for a while. There they are treated to all sorts of pretentious lesbianic pleasures, but they can't leave so I guess that's the "horror" part. Shot exceedingly well and probably a bit shocking back when it was originally released, this thing moves at a fairly slow pace and sorta reminds me of, fellow French director, Jean Rollin's work, sadly minus the vampire chicks though. Come for the bare French boobs and asses just don't expect anything very scary. Also try and ignore the rather unpleasant midget servant fellow running around unless this is some weird kink of yours.

                                            The soothing music video:

                                         Known in Italy as THE SHE-DEVILS!!:

WAY OF THE BLACK DRAGON (1979)

 So the first forty minutes of this Hong Kong kung fu flick doesn't really feature much kung fu(outside of a kickboxing match) but what it does focus on is a really sleazy prostitution and drug-smuggling ring of gangsters treating women like garbage. There's a bunch of really goofy dubbing that leads to some hilarious scenes of heavy-handed pimping and one goofy rape. Then after all this the guy who's featured on the poster(and my VHS tape), Ron Van Clief(credited as Ron Van Cliff?), shows up and the ass-kicking commences in a pretty straight-forward fashion. Maybe if they mixed these two elements up a bit more it mighta been a more entertaining film. As it is I found the sleazy parts fun and the revenge bits pretty standard and overall a fairly forgettable affair.

THE KILLING KIND (1973)

 This is a pretty weird slice of 70s dramatic horror. Our main character(John Savage) gets forced to participate in a gang rape, which is a hell of a way to open your film, and then goes to jail. When he gets out he gets his revenge on society by offing various ladies, including Cindy Williams(best known as Shirley Feeney of LAVERNE AND SHIRLEY fame) who we get to peruse in her underpants. While this obviously makes him a very unsympathetic fellow to follow around when you meet his overly loving mother(Ann Sothern), who likes to get those "good" on-the-lip  kisses from her boy and to take photos of crazy boy's nekkid ass in the shower, it almost makes this psychopathic creep's messed up brain misfirings understandable. It also fits into that "creepy family" genre of horror flicks(best and probably most famously exemplified by THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE) that I love greatly. I only just heard of this one recently and I'm glad I did because it's definitely worth a look for 70s horror fans who've seen everything else a zillion times. Probably also good for lovers of chocolate milk since it seems to be featured in every other scene. Maybe not so great for animal lovers though since a rat and a cat don't fare very well in a couple of scenes.

Don't watch this clip if you dig rats!:

THE DRIVER (1978)

 I really love Bruce Dern in all those old biker flicks from the 60s and 70s that he did but in this one he plays one of the biggest unlikeable douchebag cop characters I've seen in awhile. I guess that's why they call it acting and this is a great film to see a lot of top-notch acting by everyone involved, including Ryan O'Neal as the titular getaway driver. As you would expect the chase scenes are incredible, equal to those in the way more famous FRENCH CONNECTION. Director Walter Hill's very next movie was the highly regarded  THE WARRIORS but that seems very cartoonish in comparison to the gritty realism on display here, not that that is necessarily a bad thing, but if you wanna check out something a little more based in reality this might be the ticket. Too bad, for some reason, it's not more well known these days.
 There have been a few recent films which this was purportedly the inspiration for, including DRIVE and BABY DRIVER, but since these are probably full of cgi car stunts I have very little interest in ever watching them.

SEXWORLD (1978)

 

                                        "Between my thighs is where my rhythm lies"

 The porno version of WESTWORLD(and FUTUREWORLD). This one doesn't really have much of a plot but does consist of some really well-shot filth and attractive porn stars acting out various fantasy scenarios. One of these includes recreating BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR with Johnnie Keyes donning his outfit from that smut classic and playing himself. Though I guess technically he's a robot version of himself, though the sci-fi angle is never really played up all that much beyond just the set-up for lots of humping. An entertaining and sexy mix(also the chicks seem to dig this one, so watch it with your lady friends).



                                  Naughty double-bill with a Samantha Fox vehicle!:

Known in Italy as SEXOMANIA. Which is a little weird since there's a bus with SEXWORLD written on the side of it right in the movie.:

THE MAN FROM NOWHERE (2010)

 I'd first watched this Korean martial-arts flick right after watching this other Asian fight-filled extravaganza called MERANTAU. While I felt pretty lukewarm over that one in general, this MFN managed to restore my faith in more modern day cinema from the far east. While also boasting a long-ass 2 hour runtime, this never felt like a drag to me. The story, involving an innocent little girl getting kidnapped by some mobsters thanks to her shitty parents and then her attempted rescue by our highly-trained title character, moves along briskly enough to avoid boredom. The main man, Won Bin, has a sorta THE CROW/goth-rocker-vibe going on and is a pretty sympathetic fellow to side with in this violent spectacle thanks to his horrific backstory. The closest thing I would compare this to is something like OLDBOY except this is not quite as pervy as that Korean classic. I've also seen this compared to those TAKEN series of films but I wouldn't know because I try and stay away from newer Hollywood cgi-filled action crap. Speaking of which this one seems to be predominantly done the old-fashioned way with actual stuntmen and choreography and not just video-game designers so that gets extra credit in my book. Even though the posters all look very generic I would recommend giving this one a shot for some dramatic action thrills.


 

FRANKENSTEIN'S CASTLE OF FREAKS (1974)

 Made in 1974, the greatest year of cinema ever, this one doesn't disappoint in the crazy grindhouse horror category. Chock full of some great characters including a pervy little dwarf who frequently molests women ,whether they are alive or dead, a couple of neanderthal men(one of which gets turned into a Frankenstein monster named Goliath), a mad Doctor Frankenstein (of course), his assistant named Igor(played by former sword n' sandals movie strongman Gordon Mitchell) and a horny humpback amongst others. The plot doesn't make a bunch of sense(like why are there cavemen running around in the hills of old timey Europe?) but it sorta fits in with the later Universal monster mashes( if they were really sleazy and wackier anyway) and this one is always fun to me. I first discovered this movie on a fuzzy UHF showing hosted by Elvira on her Movie Macabre program. That was obviously a censored version which I enjoyed enough for it's strangeness but having discovered the raunchier full length theatrical cut I became a lifelong fan. How this thing was originally released with a PG-rating I'll never figure out but obviously it had something to do with how great 1974 was. AKA MONSTERS OF FRANKENSTEIN, TERROR CASTLE, THE HOUSE OF FREAKS and DR. FRANKENSTEIN'S CASTLE OF FREAKS

Known in Italy as TERROR! THE CASTLE OF THE CURSED WOMEN:

X-312 FLIGHT TO HELL (1971)

 Spanish Eurotrash sleaze meister Jess Franco takes a stab at directing a plane disaster film with this one. Mighta been slightly better with a bigger budget but that's not what you get here so instead we get a bunch of shaky-cam to emulate a plane crashing into the Amazon jungle. I feel like this might have been a decent start to a cannibal film but that's also not what you get and instead it's basically a jewel smuggling situation involving some bandits and some (sadly non-cannibalistic) natives/indians. You do get one sleazy scene of a foxy lady doing some nude bathing in a small lake and some lesbianism but this one is pretty restrained for ol' Jess and plays more like a low-budget action-adventure tale than anything overly erotic. Franco's usual cast appear, including Howard Vernon, but overall this one isn't all that memorable.

 

FEARLESS HYENA II (1983)

 I had seen this Jackie Chan kung-fu flick, along with part 1, many moons ago in the VHS-era when I would rent pretty much anything in the martial-arts section. The only thing I remembered about this one is that Jackie hunts frogs and snakes for food and then shoves them down his pants for safe keeping(turns out he also chokes a chicken which is pretty rude!). That's probably because most of this is pretty standard Jackie comedy schtick up until the last half hour or so when it gets a teensy bit more serious with people dying off thanks to our two main bad guys who go by the names of Heaven and Earth. There is a kinda cool scene where a guy gets set on fire while fighting evil-doers that I don't recall in anything else. There is a hodgepodge feeling to things(which is due to Chan quitting his association with producer Lo Wei's company and never finishing the film necessitating editing whatever footage Wei already had of Jackie into this thing to try and make a comprehensible whole film) . This never really bothered me too much since I guess I never had very high expectations to begin with. If you are a big fan of Mr. Chan's though this one is probably not the best example of his work and you should probably just watch the first HYENA film and stop there.
 There is a FEARLESS HYENA 3(made before this in 1980 under it's original title of FEARLESS MASTER) which has the great Bolo yeung in it which is cool. Unfortunately it also stars some Jackie rip-off fellow named Jackie Chen which is probably not so cool.



Known in Germany as SUPERFIGHTER 2( strangely enough the first FEARLESS HYENA is SUPERFIGHTER 3 and PROJECT A is the first SUPERFIGHTER):

THE PHANTOM PLANET (1961)

This astronaut crashes on a mysterious planet full of tiny little folks. So naturally, due to the gravity or something, he shrinks down to their size and winds up in a love triangle with a couple of the native ladies. One native dude takes issue with this inter-species romanticizing which leads to some conflict. Also there's some aliens that look like they escaped form a Mexican monster movie running around(played by James Bond's own Jaws himself, Richard Kiel). This one feels way more like a 50s movie than anything from the 60s but it does really illuminate how much that decade changed from the early part to the end. Pretty dumb goofy stuff that schlock mavens will probably find just mildly entertaining.



              This film was apparently popular enough to warrant it's own comic book adaption!:

GODMONSTER OF INDIAN FLATS (1973)

 Super goofy monster-on-the-loose epic. This one features a mutated sheep monster which looks like a pretty ratty sheep carcass draped over a hobbling hunchback but even through it's filthy exterior it does manage to exude a certain charm. This is mainly due to it not really being the bad guy in this tale. That honor belongs to a couple of unscrupulous townsfolk that include a greedy mayor, a lazy fatass sheriff and a clearly homosexual cowboy fellow who's supposed to be a real badass he-man type but just comes across as strangely miscast tight-jeans-wearing acting school dropout. There's some vaguely racist overtones thanks to a black guy trying to buy up property but, as with many things in this film, I'm not sure if it's intentional or not. Worth seeing just for the oddness factor.




Director Fredric Hobbs also did 3 other oddball flicks including something called ROSELAND which contains the most amazing song and dance number done to the wondrous tune of "You Cannot Fart Around With Love" that I have made many friends suffer through on various drunken movie nights. I still need to watch the rest of the movie one of these days if I can ever find it.

THE REAL BRUCE LEE (1973)

 Well you get about a half hour of the real Bruce Lee in this except it's footage from 3 old 1950s Hong Kong dramas from when Bruce was a little kid. You also get to see Bruce's dad in one part and while that's historically important it's also pretty dull footage. Then after this is over we see a couple of kung fu scenes with Bruce Li briefly and then finally it ends up with a Dragon Lee feature which is pretty crappy. So really there's way more fake Bruce Lee than real but maybe if the fake stuff was a bit more exciting I could overlook this audience exploitation but that isn't the case here. AKA THE YOUNG BRUCE LEE and BRUCE LEE: THE LITTLE DRAGON
 Working my way through a DVD set of Brucesploitation that I acquired about 10 years ago has been quite the choir!



                                I guess Bruce Li is known as Bruce Lei in Spanish??

BLOOD ORGY OF THE SHE-DEVILS (1973)

 Cult director Ted V. Mikels takes his stab(literally since he stabs people in this!) at making a witch flick. The plot deals with a Satanic witch(Lila Zaborin) who makes a deal with some mobsters and then finds out sometimes ya just can't trust gangsters when they come back and try and execute her, and her helper(who looks like Corporal Klinger from M*A*S*H* dressed in a caveman outfit). Then it's basically becomes a revenge flick with witchcraft. It gets a bit dull in places as it seems pretty dragged out for what's a pretty thin story. There's a few flashbacks(and this is where we get to see Mr. Mikels doing his WITCHFINDER GENERAL impersonation) and there's a couple that I recognize from Mikels' GIRL IN GOLD BOOTS that show up so we at least have some good guys to root for I guess. It all ends in a pretty confusing manner with what I think are a group of religious doctors that show up to lay the smackdown on everyone. Not the worst of Mikels filmography though it tries to be artsy a bit too much and I was letdown by the lack of any orgy(or even any nudity!) but I guess I woulda known if I saw that PG-rating.
 Shown on T.V. as FEMALE PLASMA SUCKERS since they didn't care for the use of the word BLOOD back in the day.




                                        The VHS cover has more nudity than the movie itself!

Triple feature with another American 70s horror and an sexy Italian shocker!:

NIGHT OF THE DEMONS (1988)

  I have avoided watching this one for 20 years now because it just looked like another stupid 80s comedy-horror flick and turns out I was correct. On the positive side you get to ogle Linnea Quigley's ass for a while at the beginning but from there on it's just cliched 80s stereotypes(dumb Italian guy, quirky black dude, "good girl", jock etc.) trapped in a haunted(or demonic I guess) house. There is one disgusting, fat punk rocker fellow named The Stooge who is at least a bit unique for the times(though even he just seems to be doing an imitation of an annoying Bill Paxton character most of the time). At least they used real fx(including the memorable lipstick in Linnea's nipple trick for no apparent reason bit) and If you were a kid weened on cartoons in the 1980s then this will probably be way more entertaining to you. I think I will stick with THE EVIL DEAD for what's basically the same movie done a lot better and with some real gore. AKA HALLOWEEN PARTY
 There were two sequels to this(part III being some 90s shot-on-video crap) but I don't think that even fans of this first one are into those.