Part Asian horror flick/ part kung fu extravaganza but mostly just a stupid comedy about a demon(a blood demon!) who travels time in search of a princess and her bodyguard who have also somehow jumped ahead 200 years. There's a couple of annoying bumbling electricians, a chubby greedy dude and his sister who try and help protect them. This seems like something that will be forgotten by most people not too long after viewing. AKA BLOOD DEMON
In addition to cribbing tunes from GHOSTBUSTERS and other big Hollywood movies this film has quite the pleasant classical sounding score:
This is probably the worst thing that I've watched twice. Both of these viewings were at drunken movie nights with friends so it wasn't my choice either time. What you get here is a shot-on-video deal about a very pale demon named Hellinger who talks like he's quite constipated and, unconvincingly, rips people's eyeballs out of their heads. It's basically a HELLRAISER rip-off and a very bad one at that. There is one particularly brutal scene involving a rapist who cuts out a gal's tongue, bashes her head in and stabs her vagina a bunch of times that does stand out but most of the film is filled with boring talk about how Mr. Hellinger came to be and not-so stuff like that. They also attempt an action scene which is pretty cringe-worthy. I would avoid this one if I were you and I would have avoided it myself if my friends didn't have such weird taste in crappy movies.
My DVD has director Massimiliano Cerchi's HOLY TERROR on it also but I luckily gave it away before attempting to watch it!:
This is one of the weirder films I've seen in a while. A bit too much on the artsy-fartsy side of things for me, and they pull out that stupid tired "it was all just a dream" bit not just once but twice, which is a clear sign of a terribly written ending, but if you're into very pervy downer-type experiences maybe you will find this interesting. The plot deals with a sexually abused, by her parents, little girl who becomes a disturbed grown-up author in a wheelchair who gets revenge, I think, on her terrible rape-happy pops. Oh and she kills her mom except that may not have really happened so you can figure that crap out for yourself if you dare. Definitely for the more extreme cinema weirdos out there. You get child-molestation, a torso in a box, a terrible tranny/furry circus(that isn't actually a circus but an annoying nightclub act), chainsaw antics and a bunch of nonsensical stuff.
Director Sion Sono was also responsible for SUICIDE CLUB which I recall being equally ambivalent about back when I first saw it so I guess he's at least consistent.
This is an early 80's slasher flick that kinda feels like a T.V. movie with bloody kills thrown in. This might be because it stars Julie from THE LOVE BOAT program as a news anchor that just so happens to live very close to a rapist/serial-killer. It also features a young Jennifer Jason Lee before she went on to be in FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH. For what seems like a very mainstream film it contains some gruesome slashings that it lingers on but I guess this was the height of slasher-chic. The killer seems pretty dumb since after he knows he's been found out he just goes right on offing ladies but maybe he just didn't care about being apprehended. Heads roll(and end up in fish tanks), necks get slit and even a poor dog is not safe in this one. Well made for what it is.
Director Ken Wiederhorn's earlier SHOCK WAVES shows up playing on T.V. and a DAWN OF THE DEAD poster appears no doubt a nod to special FX master Tom Savini who worked on this.
Siskel & Ebert were not exactly fans of the gory bits!:
Here's a Universal monster flick that's pretty unheralded from the 50's. It's certainly no CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON. The monster here is just a lady who can turn into a snake seeking revenge on some dumb-ass military airmen who interrupt some sacred snake-lady ritual while stationed in India. Still it's a pretty decent thriller for the times that even throws a love story into the mix for all you romantic types.
This might make a good campy double-bill with Universal's earlier COBRA WOMAN. I'll have to give that one a watch and find out.
Fairly typical but still enjoyable slasher flick. This one is notable for having Sam Raimi, his brother Ted and Bruce Campbell of EVIL DEAD fame appear in the movie in small parts. That's all fine and good but I was more excited to see Emil "Hold hands you love birds" Sitka from The Three Stooges doing his famous line and Alvy Moore from GREEN ACRES as a bumbling cop. This is the 80's so of course it's full of stupid humor, inane dialogue and cardboard characters that get sliced up in various ways. The standout is a meat slicer through a head but you also get a decapitated head used as a weapon, a body hung on a meat-hook, eye violence and many other gory bits.
This was originally released on video, after a very small theatrical run, under the way more memorable title of NIGHT CREW: THE FINAL CHECKOUT in an R-rated version with a bunch of the gorier elements missing, then later on released in an "unrated director's cut" on DVD and there's even an unofficial work-print version that I own that's about 5 minutes longer than that.
A bit of a misleading poster there since since the bad guys in this are not bikers but a gang of Nazis who ride motorcycles in like one or two scenes but mostly just do naughty Nazi stuff. There are a couple of actual bikers spotted in crowds of hippies at a love-in but I believe there are supposed to be the good guys here. The plot deals with our fascists killing a lady for no apparent reason which leads to revenge time by our hero(William Dooley). There's also a Jesus character called "The Messiah" naturally and a bizarre plan, by the chubby Nazi leader, to murder him and then rule all his hippie(and biker) followers. I went into this expecting a more straight forward biker flick so it was a bit disappointing. Still has some 70's charm and will probably give you a laugh or two at the least(especially during the fake German accent scenes that come and go). AKA ROGUE VENGEANCE and THE TERMINATORS(I'm pretty shocked to learn that this is not the name of any of the shitty sequels to THE TERMINATOR!)
French director Alexandre Aja, who blessed us with that HIGH TENSION movie back in the early 2000's when gory French horror was the in thing, gives us a tale of alligators run amok in Florida. It's a pretty well done creature feature full of expected jump scares and tension while a dad and daughter try to escape a basement full of large bitey creatures. Probably would have been better if the monsters weren't CGI and looked like floating ghosts but in 2019 I guess it's impossible to have a movie that doesn't remind any adult watching it of a video game. Even more egregious, and hard to believe, than this though is that they set the movie in Florida and expect me to believe someone built a house with a basement in a swampland. Talk about a stupid setup! Still this might be the best animals gone crazy film you're gonna find in 2019.
Unfortunately the version I have of this is a cheap bootleg DVD purchased at a supermarket a few years back that is full-frame(effectively cutting off the numerous text scrawls that pop up at the beginning of the film) and censored so that at least some of the more violent stabbings and bloody bits are missing. Even in this terrible edition though(touted on the case as being a "special limited edition") I could tell this one is a pretty amazing Shaw Brothers epic. It plays out more like a war film, but instead of bullets you get armies battling with swords, spears and good ol' kung fu. You get the always great Bolo Yeung dressed in a Fred Flintstone-esque outfit, that fat dude, Mei Sheng Fan, as a portly wrasslin' hero and one of the bloodiest Shaw films I can recall(even in this truncated cut). I really need to upgrade this one soon.
AKA SEVEN SOLDIERS OF KUNG FU, SEVEN KUNG FU ASSASSINS and SEVEN BLOWS OF THE DRAGON II(this is technically a sequel to THE WATER MARGIN(aka SEVEN BLOWS OF THE DRAGON) though viewing that one didn't seem very necessary to me to follow the plot.
There was a 2011 ALL MEN ARE BROTHERS TV series but I think that was based on the first film, which itself is based on a classic piece of Chinese literature.
There's also a 1993 ALL MEN ARE BROTHERS: BLOOD OF THE LEOPARD film which I haven't seen.
Not to be confused with the later Italian owl-headed killer giallo flick of the same name, this one is a crappy Australian slasher movie that originally went under the name NIGHTMARES. There's some bloody naked boobs, bush and terrible sex scenes. There's also a considerably high body count for such a generally lackluster experience. The whole film appears to have been edited by an epileptic having a fit and scenes that are supposed to be tense and unnerving come off pretty underwhelming. I'm gonna stick with that ol' owl-head movie for better quality stalk n' slash thrills.
The great Barbara Steele and her big anime eyes are possibly the best reasons to watch this tale of a nasty cheating wife(Steele) who plans to off her mad scientist-type invalid husband(named Dr. Hitchcock) with the help of her boy-toy to obtain his fortune. Things go awry and spooky stuff ensues. Despite things moving at a fairly sluggish pace everything does pay off by the end and there are some satisfying twists that mostly make sense.
This is director Riccardo Freda's follow up to THE HORRIBLE DR. HITCHCOCK from a year earlier and some reviews I've seen seem to think it's a sequel because of the main character having the same surname but there's really nothing else tying the 2 films together. That film is equally slow but entertaining though from what I recall after catching it in a theatrical showing many years back. AKA THE SPECTRE
One of those old creepy castle movies. Anita Ekberg is our main gal here named Malenka(hence the original title of this being MALENKA) who has to travel to aforementioned castle after inheriting it in a will. Turns out her family is just crawling with vampires and similar undead types. The sexiest of which is played by Audrey Ambert(which is actually Adriana Ambesi under and American-ized name) in a slinky black dress. The gorgeous Rosanna Yanni also appears but is a bit less alluring in this since she's not a vamp. You get some female vampire wrestling and apparently these living-dead monsters can be killed by just being poked with a torch. Director Amando de Ossorio is pretty laid back in this one compared to his 70's BLIND DEAD stuff but still worth a gander for appreciators of that goth aesthetic. AKA THE VAMPIRE'S NIECE
Part of the "Orgy Of The Living Dead" triple terror show!:
