MARI-COOKIE AND THE KILLER TARANTULA (1998)

  I've owned this movie on DVD for many years but never felt like actually giving it a watch up until recently. The reason for this is that it is from director Jess Franco's later cheap-o shot-on-video years and any clips I had seen from that era looked terrible. Being a Franco completist though I managed to make it through this and it was just as awful as I expected. Franco was attempting to make an erotic comedy here and since it's more annoying than funny it's a tough sit. Also the erotic part is a little hurt by Lina Romay being middle-aged by this point and not at exactly at her peak. Linnea Quigley and Michelle Bauer do help out in the hotness department but probably my favorite gal in this is Amber Newman, who I'm not very familiar with but want to be.  AKA EIGHT LEGS TO LOVE YOU(this is an homage to The Beatles film HELP! which was shot under the title EIGHT ARMS TO HOLD YOU)

Amber Newman shows her friend her butthole in the movie's most thrilling scene!:

  

THE BLOOD BEAST TERROR (1968)

 So this is sort-of a vampire movie except the blood-sucker here is actually a lady who occasionally turns into a moth-monster to feed on human victims. Apparently this is based on some old-time folklore but it seems pretty far-out here set in classy old England. Peter Cushing stars and does his best to take the role seriously. I've read that he considered this the worst movie that he'd been in but I didn't think it that far down from some of his Hammer flicks, just a bit cheesier. I found it enjoyable enough for what it was though. Tigon studios usually gets relegated to 3rd place behind Hammer and Amicus and I guess this is a good example of why.   

                                           Released in Italy as MONSTER OF BLOOD:

Played in England with this Italian Christopher Lee horror:

Played in America as THE VAMPIRE BEAST CRAVES BLOOD with an obscure Italian horror from 1962:

and at this Canadian drive-in theater with an obscure Argentinian horror from 1967 and some American drama about a priest questioning his faith from 1969:

THE BLADE MASTER (1982)

 I believe I first caught this on MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 under the name CAVE DWELLERS(which is the name of the re-edited-for-TV version). This is actually the 2nd in the Ator series, which is basically a crappy Italian version of CONAN THE BARBARIAN. The first film was ATOR, THE FIGHTING EAGLE. Both films were shot by sleazemeister Joe D'Amato back to back in 1982 and they're pretty dumb. Perfect movies to goof on though. 

The ATOR Series:

1. ATOR, THE FIGHTING EAGLE - 1982

2. THE BLADE MASTER - 1982  

3. IRON WARRIOR - 1987 (the only one not directed by D'Amato)

4. QUEST FOR THE MIGHTY SWORD - 1990 (the only one where Ator is not played by Miles O'Keefe) AKA ATOR III: THE HOBGOBLIN(D'Amato was not a fan of the actual part 3!) 

WATCH ME WHEN I KILL (1977)

  This Italian giallo  starts out with a murder in a pharmacy and then turns into a pretty dull mystery for most of the rest of it's runtime. There is a lady who gets killed by a  hot bowl of pasta fagioli and it does have a pretty interesting, if not abrupt, ending which I will not spoil because I'm not a complete asshole. It's too bad everything else is fairly generic. Also they didn't even have the decency to throw some nekkid ladies in this. AKA THE CAT'S VICTIMS ( I don't recall any cats in this!) WATCH ME WHEN I KILL is just as crappy of a title since no one ever forces or even wants anyone to see them kill at any point. 

EASTERN CONDORS (1987)

  Sammo Hung directs and stars in this version of THE DIRTY DOZEN set in Vietnam. Pretty good action packed stuff that is mostly a war movie but becomes a kung fu flick for the big ending. There's a Russian roulette homage to THE DEER HUNTER and lots of bloody squibs are on display. Towards the big finale Sammo get to chop off the hand of his future real-life wife(Joyce Godenzi)  with a machete. Weird kink!

THE MANITOU (1978)

  So this lady(Susan Strasberg) has a growth on the back of her neck and it turns out to be a Native American demon seeking revenge on whitey. Thanks to some help from Tony Curtis and an Indian medicine man(played by Michael Ansara in some red-face makeup) they do battle. This includes STAR WARS lasers and Satan himself showing up. Goofy but enjoyable mess of a film that is sort of an  EXORCIST-rip-off but unique enough to stand apart from most of those. 

 This had to be director William Girdler's biggest film given the FX work and stars involved(Burgess Meredith and Stella Stevens also show up briefly). This would sadly be his last film before dying in a helicopter crash. 

                           Known in Germany as SUPER ZOMBIE: THE BIRTH OF HORROR!:

THE BLADE (1995)

  This Tsui Hark-directed kung fu movie starts out with a dog getting caught in a bear-trap and that kinda sets the dark tone for a lot of this film. This is also the movie that made me realize that Hark is not a big fan of animals(though I guess that could be said of a lot of Hong Kong directors). Besides bear-traps there are a lot of swords in play and as a result one of our heroes ends up becoming a one-armed swordsman. It never lives up to the grandeur of that classic fu film and veers a little too much on the speedy wirework side of things for my taste. There's also a bit much in the dramatics and dumb philosophizing but it doesn't totally ruin the whole film.

JACK THE RIPPER (1959)

 So they managed to come up with a satisfactory ending to this true-life crime tale, which we know didn't actually have one. Besides that I suppose it's somewhat accurateto real life, though nowhere near as gory since this was made in England in the 50s.

 Not the first(Alfred Hitchcock's silent film THE LODGER is sort-of considered that) or last Ripper film this one plays out like a standard classy 50s mystery. 

The American release features a bloody color sequence at the climax. There's also a continental European version with actual nudity.     

FREEDOM SEEKER (1971)

 The DVD I own of this has the way more horror-ish title of BLOOD SUCKERS while the actual onscreen title is the duller FREEDOM SEEKER. The worse title might be a bit more fitting since a lot od this film plays like an action-adventure about a group of friends searching for their lost British compatriot in Greece. There is a lady vampire involved though and that leads to a bloody orgy scene/60s psychedelic freak-out. Too bad that's the really only exciting scene in the film and this never reaches the classy heights of similar Hammer Studios productions of this time-period. Peter Cushing only shows up for a few small appearances while Patrick Macnee, from THE AVENGERS TV show, has a significantly larger role. AKA INCENSE FOR THE DAMNED

Originally released in America on a double-bill with Filipino horror BLOOD THIRST:

 

                                               Known in Mexico as VAMPIRES OF TERROR!: 

THE FINAL COMEDOWN (1972)

 This early blaxploitation flick is definitely in that SWEET SWEETBACK'S BADASSSSS SONG wheelhouse where the films were more about serious social issues and not so much just action movies starring black folks. That's not too say there's not a lot of action in this one. The action consists mainly of radical black revolutionaries shooting cops and cops shooting up the ghetto. Starring the future Lando Calrissian(Billy Dee Williams) as a very angry black man and that bad D'Urville Martin this is an interesting  and artfully-shot(including many flashbacks) film that doesn't seem all that too far removed from where the U.S. could potentially be headed in the future. 

This was re-released in 1976 as BLAST with additional footage shot by Allan Arkush. That version seem a bit harder to find today.: 

SEVEN SWORDS (2005)

 This one is a very epic Wuxia martial-arts flick. While it looks great and was obviously director well by Tsui Hark I can't say it was all that engrossing and at over 2 and a half hours that can be a bit of a problem. The story deals with kung fu being banned by the emperor and then our 7 heroic swordsmen(or is it swordspeople since one of them is a lady?) have to save a village. It starts out pretty cool with decapitations and limbs flying everywhere but then settles into pretty predictable territory. I've read that it was inspired by THE SEVEN SAMURAI but I don't see much in comparison to the Kurosawa classic.