RUN AND KILL (1993)

   One of the rougher and better Hong Kong category III movies I've seen in a while. This one features Fatty(Kent Cheng) who gets himself mixed up with not just one but 2 mobster factions that you don't want to be involved with. You get lots of violent fighting, various murders, torture and a very notorious child death scene. For hardcore Hong Kong  fans only.

 The first time I saw this was in a little art theater near me and it was hosted by the author of a book titled THE SWEETEST TABOO which was a look at child death in films and this was the very fitting film which they chose to exemplify that. 

DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK (1973)

  While I'm a bit too young to remember when this made-for-T.V. movie originally played I do recall bits and pieces of it from one of it's many re-broadcasts over the years. It's definitely one of the highpoints of television horror and despite the absurd-looking onion-headed miniature monsters here it still manages to be a creepy classic. 

 I know there's a modern remake of this written by Guillermo Del Toro but I'm not sure I want to see a big budget version of this since the original manages to pull of the atmospheric chills with very little. 

 Uncle Charley from MY THREE SONS is the featured harbinger of doom here who is sadly ignored.

THE BLACK CAT (1989)

  Luigi Cozzi gives us his version of the 3rd movie in the SUSPIRIA trilogy way before Argento gave us the official one with MOTHER OF TEARS. While I didn't completely hate M.O.T. this one is way more enjoyable and wackier watch. We get a movie-within-a-movie which is also a sequel to SUSPIRIA, a crud-faced witch who likes to puke green slime on people, a black cat lurking about(which is really the only thing this has to do with Edgar Allen Poe), Caroline Munro being her sexy self, an outer space fetus, laser beam fights, time travel, a rocking soundtrack which includes Bang Tango and a bunch of other nonsense that makes no sense but boy do I love it! 

 Released in Italy as DEMONS 6, and it has even less to do with the DEMONS series than it does Poe!

SLAUGHTER HOTEL (1971)

               

 Although the ad up there tries to make you think this will be about serial killer Richard Speck it's really more of a standard Eurotrash giallo deal featuring Klaus Kinski as a doctor at a rehab center and a mystery slasher hacking people up. I say standard but this one does feature quite a bit of nudity and sleaze thanks to Rosalba Neri and all the other ladies in the cast. There is some mass nurse snuffing towards the end though so it's not total false-advertising. 

 The original version features explicit vaginal shots which were edited out of the U.S. release to get an R rating. AKA ASYLUM EROTICA

Original Italian title is THE BEAST KILLS IN COLD BLOOD:

This ad just steals a shot from fellow sleazy Italian classic FRANKENSTEIN 80!:

VALENTINE (2001)

 Slasher movies from this time period are generally not very good and this one fits right in with the rest of the crap from this post-SCREAM/pre-HOSTEL era. To make matters worse there was apparently a bunch of blood and violence cut out the movie to make it even blander. I guess if you like really slick-looking slasher movies give it a look, I'll stick with the original MY BLOODY VALENTINE for a better V-Day thrill. 

RUSSIA 88 (2009)

  Before watching this I guess I never thought about the idea of their being militant neo-Nazi skinhead groups in Russia before but that's what we get here. I probably would have liked this more if it wasn't filmed in that found-footage/shaky-cam style. Obviously influenced by stuff like ROMPER STOMPER(which it name drops), AMERICAN HISTORY X and MADE IN ENGLAND it drags a bit and gets repetitive but is an interesting obscure oddity. 

KISS ME MONSTER (1969)

                      

 The 2 sexy secret agents(Janine Reynaud and Rosanna Yanni) from SADISTEROTICA return in this sequel. Just like that movie this was advertised in America as a horror flick which it is not. You get another goofy James Bond-inspired romp. A lot of nonsense and comedy bits ensue which is not what one usually comes to director Jess Franco for, There is one scene of a bloody surgery(only included in the English version), go-go dancing and some black hooded baddies that look like bizarro-world Ku Klux Klansmen but not much else stands out in this.