This is the most comedic movie by director Jess Franco that I've seen yet. It's also the only comedy that I know of that's based(loosely) on a short story by Edgar Allen Poe. The goofy plot concerns a couple(Lina Romay & Emilio Alvarez) on their honeymoon who get mixed up with some criminals and secret agents looking for a lost treasure. Not as graphic in the sex department as most of Jess' sleazier works(Lina does sport the world's skimpiest bikini at one point though). Worth a watch if you want to see the light-hearted side of Franco.
This film was lost for about 40 years until just being rediscovered a few years ago.
This sci-fi film was originally released in Europe in 1960 as THE SILENT STAR. 2 years later it was brought to the U.S., dubbed, given a new soundtrack and edited down(removing around 13 minutes) which tweaked the storyline a bit and re-titled FIRST SPACESHIP ON VENUS. If you're looking for a cheesy b-movie this really isn't it since things are more in the serious department which can be a bit boring. Does look like they spent a lot of money on this for the time and the FX work looks really good. It also seems to kinda predict stuff like 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. The full uncut original version is probably the way to view it if you're interested in this genre at all.
Director Jim Van bebber has made some great stuff over the years including an awesome short about Long Island killer Ricky Kasso. This short though is not quite up to the quality of that and is a pretty dull look at some stoned fellows in the 90s. Perhaps more entertaining if you're very high.
I can see where this might have spooked out some British children back in the 90s if they saw it with no context, watching it for the first time over 20 years later though it's a pretty tough sit. Made to look like an ordinary TV programme of the day it's quite dull. I suppose it would also help if you had any belief in the supernatural or demons or whatever you're supposed to think is haunting the people on display. Might be good for a few chuckles but mostly just good to take a nap to. It's also probably a better choice to watch any of a number of documentaries that talk about the circumstances around the initial showing of this than the actual movie itself.
That dude from RED DWARF(Craig Charles) plays one of our intrepid reporters.
Based on a true story, what we get here is kind of a SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT-situation(which was made this same year) but instead of smuggling beer our hippie anti-heroes(played by brothers Don and Bobby Watson who seem to not really be actors having appeared in only this) are transporting marijuana for some unlikeable mobster types. Much of the dialogue reminds of that mush-mouthed southern stereotype-guy on the KING OF THE HILL cartoon which makes it a bit difficult to decipher. The element that is true to life involved a large weed-filled plane that landed on top of a highly-wooded mountain in Georgia. Not exactly a great movie but the stunts are pretty amazing to see(especially since it seems, as well as no real actors, no real stuntmen worked on this film either!). You get a semi-truck running right through a house, our to leads hanging off of a helicopter and many automobiles totaled. Definitely a good watch for fans of THE DUKES OF HAZZARD. Also known under the way cooler name of POLK COUNTY POT PLANE.
The highlight for me in this documentary about the history, picking, cultivation and smuggling of marijuana was the scene where a dude just swims from Mexico to a beach in California with two giant plastic bags full of high quality weed. It sure was a lot harder to get the good stuff back in those days. Pretty leisurely-paced(stoned?) film that reminded me of a 70s TV show like IN SEARCH OF... but without bigfoot ever showing up. There is some cool tunes thrown in and a sweet animated bit that looks like it escaped from FRITZ THE CAT or something.
Caught this in a theater as the opening film in an all-day marathon of marijuana-influenced cinema and it certainly worked well in that capacity.
There is another ACAPULCO GOLD that came it 3 years later starring Marjoe Gortner which is not a documentary but deals with the same subject.
This feels like the American version of one of those Mexican wrasslin' women movies, but since it came out a decade before those I guess this actually set the blueprint. Of course it's really a mobster movie with a whole bunch of wrestling scenes thrown in. Not exactly the sexiest spectacle but this was way before the days that porn became widespread so I guess you took whatever thrills you could get back then. This has a few aliases including THE BLONDE PICK-UP, PIN-DOWN GIRL and WRESTLING RACKET GIRLS. Another MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 watch and it's undoubtedly better that way.
Great character actor Jack Elam is once again great in this playing(as he normally did) the big creepy heavy who keeps creeping on a local innocent waitress(Joyce Meadows, who is not related to Audrey Meadows of THE HONEYMOONERS as I had initially suspected). Sadly most of the movie does not focus on our googly-eyed villain but is basically a love story about a couple of drifters(one of which is Brett Halsey who would go on to be in a bunch of spaghetti-westerns among other Italian flicks) who end up in a crappy little town where they lynch people on some very flimsy evidence. I've only seen this on MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATRE 3000 and I think that's good enough.
John Carradine as a mad scientist attempting to reverse the aging process but really just creating a bunch of zombies and monsters that resemble the half-animal people in ISLAND OF LOST SOULS. The legendary Tor Johnson is his henchman that keeps his captive guests in line waiting to be his next subjects of medical-experimentation. One of these includes THE 50 FOOT WOMAN herself Alison Hayes! Clunky but fun 50s junk.
Originally released on a double-bill with that giant grasshopper movie THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
Similar to how they filmed a Spanish-language DRACULA this here, translated as THERE WERE 13, is the Spanish version of CHARLIE CHAN CARRIES ON made on the same sets but with a different cast and crew. It's also one of the CHAN films that was thought lost until a print popped up. It's interesting to watch since for almost the first whole half there's no Chan at all until a fellow named Manuel Arbo appears as the famous detective for the one and only time. It's also of note being the only Spanish version of a CHAN flick made because they figured out dubbing shortly after this. The English version starring Warner Oland(his first in the role of Chan) doesn't seem to exist anymore thanks to a fire.
The plot deals with a jealous ex-lover getting revenge. Pretty typical stuff for this genre.
The 7th CHAN film starring Warner Oland. There would be over 30 to follow featuring a couple of different folks taking over the role. This one involves a knife-throwing trigger-happy killer who's trying to cover up for a bank that's selling fake bonds. If you've seen any of the films in this series you pretty much know exactly what to expect. This chapter is historically important as being the one to introduce Chan's #1 son(Keye Luke and actual Asian!) who would go on to be a regular.
This was considered a lost film until one remaining print of it was found in the 70s. There are still 4 other CHAN films that are missing.
This Italian murder mystery starts out with a bloody bullfight and that's about the most gore you're gonna get out of this fairly slow-moving giallo by director Umberto Lenzi and starring Carroll Baker. This is the 4th movie these 2 made together and probably the worst of them all. There's a hippie junkie, Snoopy shows up in necklace form and of course lots of red herrings. It's almost saved by the ridiculous twist ending which might be the only thing I will remember shortly after watching this.
The 3 other Lenzi/Baker films(which are also said to be a kind of trilogy):
It's kinda weird seeing 70s Pam Grier in ancient Roman times but compared to some of her fellow female gladiators here she does come off as the most kickass of the bunch. This is overall an odd mashup of 2 different genres, the Italian peplum(complete with many scenes directed by Joe D'Amato himself and featuring Rosalba Neri, Paul Muller, Salvatore(THE BEAST IN HEAT) Baccaro and many other familiar eurotrash cinema faces in big roles.) and the Roger Corman(who produced this) women-in-prison flick with Grier and Margaret Markov(who had previously been paired up in the classic BLACK MAMA, WHITE MAMA). There's also some clear inspiration from SPARTACUS. You get lots of sword-fighting and female-on-female violence. Decent time-wasting midnight movie. AKA GLADIATOR WOMEN(re-release title) and NAKED WARRIORS(re-edited cut video title).
1989 was not exactly the best year for Italian horror(or sci-fi) films and this one really doesn't stand out all that much besides featuring a really bizarre giant monster that consists of a giant claw attached to what might be an alien in a space suit? It's kinda hard to decipher exactly what the creature actually is. In addition to that you get Charles Napier of RAMBO-fame as the main bad guy, quite a bit of gore and an homage to the final scene of ALIENS. AKA ALIEN FROM THE ABYSS
I recently watched director Chang Cheh's earlier, similar kung-fu epic FIVE SHAOLIN MASTERS which is on the same Blu Ray disc as this and while that one was OK I think I preferred this one a bit more. It had some similarities to MASTER KILLER, which is one of my all-time chop-sockey favs, due to all the training montages. You don't just get one hero in this though there are a whole slew of master fighters brandishing a variety of weapons and fighting styles. The cast includes a bunch of classic Shaw Brothers stars in top form including Alexander Fu Sheng, Ti Lung, David Chiang and others. A little lengthy at over 2 hours but that is what makes it all so epic. AKA DEATH CHANMBER
This 80s sword & sorcery epic is seemingly influenced by CONAN THE BARBARIAN which came out only a year earlier but I saw it before CONAN and it was in fact the first movie my family rented back when we first bought a VCR in the 80s. Full of boobs, butts, rape and quite a bit of gore this is clearly not a family movie but as a young teen I sure dug it. Not having seen it since those days I must say it really holds up as a great example of 80s exploitation brought to us by Roger Corman's New World Pictures. You get a pig-headed warrior, evil wizardry, arms ripped off, multiple decapitations, mud wrestling, a fight-to-the-death tournament and lots of hot ladies showing off the goods including Barbi Benton.
There were 3 sequels with the last one being in 1991 and I don't remember anything outstanding about any of them. There are also various movies which used scenes from this in them because that's how Corman rolls. The 2 BARBARIAN QUEEN films with Lana Clarkson are also kind of sequels to this except the character she plays has a different name. A remake of this was recently announced which is supposed to simply be titled BARBARIAN.
This Norwegian VHS gives us the title STALKER: THE WARRIOR KING and features a totally different character on the box cover!:
Jess Franco gives us a comedic spy movie here starring Eddie Constantine who was famous for starring in Jean-Luc Godard's ALPHAVILLE a few years earlier. This was before Franco delved into the more sleazy/exploitation portion of his career which is really the stuff I love best so this one is not anywhere near the top of my personal favs. Might be of interest to fans of 60s James Bond and spoofs of that sort of stuff but I don't think the action is anything near what you would want from your standard spy flick of the era.
Not the best Italian giallo flick in the world. Late in the subgenre, I think this one is mainly known because it contains one super gory bit where a ladies nipple and genitals are mutilated in very close-up detail. Beyond that though it's pretty dull experience. Also the fact that it's based on a true story where they never found the killer doesn't lend itself to the most satisfying conclusion I've ever seen in one of these sort of films. While some 80s gialli(ARABELLA for one) can be amusing due to the ridiculous fashions of the time this really isn't one of those.
Known some places as THE MURDERER IS STILL WITH US:
Hong Kong version of a superhero movie that teams up 3 of their big actresses of the 90s Michelle Yeoh(as The Invisible Girl), Maggie Cheung(as a tough biker chick known as The Thief Catcher) and Anita Mui(as Wonder Woman). They face off against an evil baby-snatching demon and his henchman played by Anthony Wong. Even though this isn't quite a Category III film which is what I mainly know Wong from, it's still Hong Kong so you get a bloody scene where a baby ends up getting impaled on a nail and several cannibalistic children wetting themselves while being murdered. Prime comic book action for cult movie fans. Director Johnnie To would go on to make a bunch of cool action/thriller movies over the years.
There was a sequel, where it suddenly becomes a post-apocalyptical scenario, which came out the same year.
Lina Romay(billed as Candy Coster) and 3 of her topless dancer co-workers go on vacation and end up at a spooky deserted hotel where horror ensues. This starts off as a pretty fun romp with plenty of lesbianic antics which is director Jess Franco's specialty and then turns into a sort-off rip-off of TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD with some hooded skull-faced Satanic killers running around. This is actually the 2nd movie I've seen that is a kinda "homage" to the BLIND DEAD, the first being NIGHT OF THE SKULL which this is certainly a step-up from. Drags in places but worth a watch if you're a sleaze-monger like myself.
This hunter(Bryant Haliday) kills a lion in Africa which unleashes the "voodoo curse" of the title although I don't think anything that we see counts as actual voodoo. Really dull British horror which mostly consists of our main character hallucinating about African warriors. I'm sure it's considered very racist by today's standards. AKA VOODOO BLOOD DEATH
Released in America on a double bill with the cheezier but more watchable FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE SPACE MONSTER:
Big fan of director David Cronenberg but his first horror film here has never really been my favorite. It's kind of a zombie movie except these zombies are really horny! Oh and they're actually controlled by a parasite that sneaks around like a slug and crawls into people's orifices(including the great Barbara Steele in a bathtub). Lynn Lowry gets naked for no reason and we get lots of orgy scenes to go along with the murderous rampages. Still an impressive early movie clearly made on a low budget with ideas that would be more fleshed out in years to come. AKA IT CAME FROM WITHIN and THEY CAME FROM WITHIN
While watching this I couldn't help but think about how the early 60s might be one of the worst times for cinema. I mean they're not as bad as today, or anything post the year 2000 with all the CGI nonsense, but given that they were preceded by the kitschiness of the 50s and then followed by the grittiness of the late 60s and 70s they were pretty awful in comparison for the most part and here's a prime example of that. Some fishermen find an abandoned boat and then get involved with some gangsters and that's pretty much the whole plot! Not exactly the most action packed film I've ever seen and what pisses me off the most about this is that they snuck it into a DVD set of biker movies which this is clearly not. Supposedly shot in 5 days which I can certainly believe. Roger Corman coulda done better!
Not a bad trailer for such a leisurely-paced movie:
Being more of a fan of the Shaw Brothers' 70s output this one fell a little short for me. Of course there are the amazing sets and fights, and you get Gordon Liu playing an ominous bad guy, but I wasn't fond of the comedy bits thrown in, with Alexander Fu Sheng and a voodoo doll, which seemed to spoof earlier kung fu movies. It was also a bit confusing for the first quarter of the movie or so and I really couldn't tell you what was going on until it all settled down and became clear. There sure are a lot of weapons on display here though, which get their own subtitles, so that's something. It's also kind of interesting that the idea for this movie is taken from history where Chinese would practice martial arts in the belief that it would make them impervious to the bullets of invading Westerners. Spoiler alert - it didn't work so well.
Thai poster where it's known as 18 LEGENDARY WEAPONS OF CHINA:
Got to see this last night playing in a theater, which is kinda weird because it was originally only released to video. Very basic 80s werewolf movie, with some fairly decent transformation scenes, thanks to director Ted Bohus, which are inspired by AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, mixed with an almost SAVED BY THE BELL plot involving a struggling up and coming rock band and high school kids all played by folks who could easily be in their 30s or 40s. Michael J. Fox and TEEN WOLF get name checked and our mysterious werewolf gets to slashing. Maybe worth a one-time watch if you're a werewolf cinema completist.
Rather than an actual movie-watching experience this felt way more like viewing a very specific fetish video. If death metal, slasher movies and metal chicks in various states of undress all mixed together in what's basically a really long music video seem like something that might turn you on maybe give it a gander. The list of atrocities include castration, dismemberment by miter saw, death by dildo, sledgehammer, axe and other implements of destruction. The bands Soulless and Incantation(whose drummer is also our main character) are featured.
This Italian horror is about half a giallo and half a more standard horror where we clearly see who the killer is and there's no mystery at all. You get kinky s & m killings, black-gloved killer, flesh-eating foxes, a skull-faced apparition and a mystery that's pretty easy to figure out. Not the greatest example of Eurotrash cinema but capable enough and it's always cool to see Erica Blanc show up in one of these types of films. AKA THE NIGHT SHE ROSE FROM THE TOMB
Better known as POOR WHITE TRASH PART II(even though it has nothing to do with the first movie which was made 17 years before and was just retitled this in 1976) this might be one of the ultimate versions of a film portraying shitty Southern folks. You get a child bride, rape, incest, a whole family of retards, possum-eating and a maniacal axe-wielding murderer on the loose to make this a sorta-proto-slasher. A bit talky in spots which make it seem longer than it's 90 minute runtime but worth a one-time watch for lovers of real redneck hicksploitation cinema.
Director S.F. Brownrigg had made DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT a year earlier and this one is not quite on the same level as that drive-in classic.
Watching the full uncut version of this recently made me realize how censored down these Shaw Brothers movies were back when I used to watch them on TV as a little kid. There's lots of blood on show here, especially in the big final fight which is the highlight of the movie, which was not in any version I ever saw of this before. A bit on the long side at 2 hours and 14 minutes the ending really makes up for it if you can endure. AKA KILLER FROM SHANTUNG
There have a been a couple of remakes of this over the years including 1997's HERO which I haven't seen and 2014's ONCE UPON A TIME IN SHANGHAI which is nowhere near as good as the original.
Well this movie has a cool title but that's about it unless you happen to be a big fan of country singer Marty Robbins and/or watching cars drive around in a circle briskly. John Ashley plays Marty's brother even though they don't look much alike and there is a plot in between all the singing and racing about him being jealous of his big brother's success. In addition to this they also squeeze in what seems like a propaganda film for the federal government to remind us how terrible moonshine is.
I own this in a DVD set of biker movies which I was hoping this would be but was sadly letdown.
You could call this one director Takashi Miike's version of TRUE ROMANCE where you take a couple and drop them into the middle of some mobsters fighting over drugs. Miike seems to have gone the David Cronenberg route where he starts out making really strange oddball cinema and then ends up making more straight forward gangster movies. Of course Miike has made way more fims then David so he's really ventured outside of any strict genre guidelines over the years. A bit overlong at almost 2 hours but it does manage to maintain a high energy level throughout. Heads roll, arms roll and lots of gun-fu commences.
