SNOWBEAST (1977)

 This abominable snowman creature takes on skiers at a resort. They don't show the monster too much so he actually looks pretty decent (pretty closely resembling the Wampa from EMPIRE STRIKES BACK). He does pretty good in the murdering department also up until he runs into Bo Svenson who ends up being pretty bad-ass when he's done sulking about some athletic loss of some sort. This was a TV-movie so there's not a whole lot of blood, it's not really all that scary and it's about average for these 70's Bigfoot-type of movies but you can find it on cheap-o DVD's or online for free which makes it at least worth one viewing if you dig crappy Bigfoot romps.
 There's a 2011 SNOW BEAST with John "Bo Duke" Schneider that looks like a pile of garbage.

PAT GARRETT & BILLY THE KID (1973)

 This is not one of my favorite Sam Peckinpah movies. It's definitely no WILD BUNCH but explores some of the same themes including the old west dying off and is still an OK watch for an American western. I think one of the main problems I have with this movie is Bob Dylan. Clearly Dylan is not an actor and why he's in this I'm not really sure. Luckily he's not a main character. He also does the music for the film and even that I'm not so sure works all that great and feels out of place at times. Kris Kristofferson is good though as Billy The Kid and there's a great scene where he breaks out of jail and kills a Jesus freak in trademark Peckinpah slow-motion. Worth a look for western fans.
 There's a few different cuts of this. The originally released 106-minute version which cuts down some of the violence and sounds like a terrible choice to watch. A 1988 uncut 115-minute version, which is the one I watched and a 2005 re-edited 122-minute version that changes some of the scenes and adds a bonus scene.

BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (1970)

 This might be the most perfect movie ever made. I mean as far as musical/sex/drama/horror/comedies go this has got to be the best one. Probably also the only film that has that many elements and isn't a completely muddled mess. This has to be Russ Meyer's best made film and when I think of Meyer and Roger Ebert  I find it hard to imagine the two of them writing a story together but somehow in the faraway land of 1969 they came up with this insane tale that makes me think "what would happen if you dropped JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS in the middle of a drug-fueled, sex-crazed Hollywood?" And what happens includes decapitation, abortion, lesbianism, bloody murder, suicide, transvestism and all sorts of nutty behavior. I imagine if you don't dig 60's hippie music by bands like The Strawberry Alarm Clock this will not be as much fun but that's your problem. Pam Grier has her first role in this but it must be very small because I never even noticed her.
 I've never seen the original VALLEY OF THE DOLLS and I can't imagine it measures up to this one all that well but maybe I'll check it out one day.

BARON BLOOD (1972)

 This is not my favorite Mario Bava film but it's still an OK flick from the first master of Italian horror. It's a pretty straightforward horror flick about an evil fella who was fond of torturing and murdering folks until a posse of townsfolk kill him viciously. So of course, this being a Bava movie, one of the evil Baron's descendents bring him back from the dead as a murdering zombie-looking monster. There's also some witches and witchery involved. A lot of stuff happens that doesn't make much sense but it's all filmed really well and looks pretty great. AKA BARON VAMPIRE and THE TORTURE CHAMBER OF BARON BLOOD.




Punk rock!:

BECAUSE OF THE CATS (1973)

 This movie starts off pretty good with a gang of upper-class hoodlums breaking into a house, graphically raping a man's wife right in front of him and forcing him to watch. From there it turns into a police investigation story where this one cop becomes obsessed with bringing these spoiled rich kids to justice and that's not exactly my favorite type of movie. There's also a girl gang, called The Cats who get involved in a murder, some cats get wacked and some crazy cult stuff goes on. Sylvia Kristel who would go on to become EMMANUELLE the next year gets very naked here as do pretty much all the females in this. Maybe worth a watch but the whole movie doesn't live up to it's crazy opening bit. AKA THE RAPE, C.A.T.S. and BRUTALIZATION.
 This was based on a 1963 book that I'm guessing they couldn't film back then since it was so graphic.

Rated X in England!:

REDNECK (1973)

 I like the idea of a team-up of Franco Nero and Telly Savalas as a couple of criminal types on the run from the law but I don't think it's done all that well in this film. The main drawback is the tone of this movie, which is all over the place. It goes from hard-driving crime film where people are getting gunned down by Savalas(who's playing the title character as a real over-the-top nutjob) to an almost-slapstick comedy with goofy music playing over wacky car crashes until finally becoming basically a drama. There's also some kinda message in here, I think, but I'm not sure what it is except maybe that kids are influenced by adults bad actions. Which might be one of the most simplistic and stupid messages of anything I've ever seen. On the plus side young kids get shot and murdered which is very rare in American films. On the weird side there's a scene where Franco Nero shaves his face while standing in front of a mirror completely naked while a 14-year old boy stares at his bare ass and crotch?? So that's something you probably won't see again.
 The version I watched of this felt like it might have been cut since whenever things started to get too nasty(a possible rape scene, a dog getting shot etc.) it cut away, which I'm guessing isn't the way it originally played so the full version may be a little more disturbing.

This movie starts out in a pretty awesome way before getting lost in its psychological drama trappings:

FIVE ELEMENT NINJAS (1982)

 This is has always been one of my favorite kung fu flicks. I used to have a huge poster for it hanging on my wall and I used to watch it pretty frequently on UHF stations back in the 80's under the title of SUPER NINJAS. I was always really into it for the variety of weapons used and also the variety of different ninjas. You get metal ninjas with crazy hats that shoot knives, fire ninjas who shoot fire and red smog at you, water ninjas who use hooked spears, underground dirt ninjas who spear you in the crotch and ninjas hiding in trees that use claws. There's also some regular ninjas that use a whole slew of different things including Wolverine-claws, throwing stars and grappling hooks. Now on the TV-version I used to watch they cut out some of the more graphic scenes but in a recent theatrical viewing I finally got to see the full gore-filled spectacle which includes a guy getting ripped in half, an even more unlucky guy getting pulled completely apart, a decapitation, a guys intestines hanging out and other not so happy bloody endings. They even throw in a hot ninja gal in a fishnet body suit for some nice eye candy. Definitely one of the best Shaw Brothers flicks there ever was. AKA CHINESE SUPER NINJAS

FANTOM KILLER 2 (1999)

 When these FANTOM KILLER movies first came out there wasn't a lot known about them and they were supposedly made in either Russia or Poland. From reading a little about them there's also some suspicion that they may have been made in the U.K. except that doesn't explain why everyone speaks Polish throughout the movie? Well, wherever they're from this was just a really awful shot-on-video piece of crap. The only appeal would be that we get lots of totally nude women with fake boobs and hardcore porno fondling of vaginas. There's also this Fantom character killing women in very unconvincing murder scenes. The plot is pretty slim and the whole thing plays like masturbation material for snuff-movie fans which makes for a pretty dull experience if this kinda stuff doesn't get you off. Even though the run-time is pretty short fast forwarding from breasts to breasts is the best way to view this.
 There are 4 of these FANTOM KILLER movies, I think, and a totally porn offshoot series called FANTOM SEDUCER but I think I will spare myself from watching any of these.

BUDDHA'S PALM (1982)

 I enjoy a good ridiculous kung fu movie as much as anyone else, and probably more than most people, but there's a point where a film can go over that line from being an awesome wacky martial arts film and become an absurd comedic fantasy film with some fighting in it. This one definitely goes over that line into overly wacky territory. You get a light-saber, people shooting colorful rays out of their hands, a guy with a giant extendable foot, high-speed Benny Hill-esque running ninjas and worst of all a big muppet who looks like a Chinese version of that stupid flying dog from THE NEVERENDING STORY. On the plus side there is a kid who shoots acid out of a giant zit on his face and that is something I have never seen or even ever thought of before. Also while this feels very much like a kids movie they don't skimp on the violence with people exploding and getting bloodily stabbed pretty frequently. Check it out if you can deal with the over-the-topness of it all or you're a little kid.
 I saw this on a double bill with FIVE ELEMENTS NINJAS and while that movie also has some pretty crazy parts it's way more based in reality, not a comedy at all and is a much better overall film which made this one look even weaker by comparison.

THE CASE OF THE BLOODY IRIS (1972)

 I had this movie as part of a giallo box set(along with THE BLOODSTAINED SHADOW, SHORT NIGHT OF THE GLASS DOLLS and WHO SAW HER DIE) until it, and all the other DVD's I owned at the time, was stolen by a junkie. I still miss it since it was such a cool set with every movie being at least a decent watch but this one is definitely my favorite. I was able to replace all the films except this one but I have found it online. Re-watching it I can recall why I originally dug it so much. It starts out with a slashing on an elevator and then goes into the whole murder mystery thing involving some sexy models and a bunch of red herrings. There's crazy strip club sequences and a masked killer who dresses in total black and looks like the chainsaw maniac in PIECES. I think this one comes very close to the Argento-level of quality of films from this genre. AKA WHAT ARE THOSE STRANGE DROPS OF BLOOD DOING ON JENNIFER'S BODY?, EROTIC BLUE and SHOCKINGLY TRUE...EROTIC BLUE

MOTHER'S DAY (1980)

              

                                             "Punk sucks!" "Disco's stupid!"

  I've seen this 80's slasher dozens of times and it's always been one of my favorites. Directed by Troma's head goofball Lloyd Kaufman's brother, Charles, this is technically only a slasher movie if you consider stuff like TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE a slasher flick and I do. It also benefits from coming out early enough in the 80's that all the slasher rules weren't set in stone like they would be later on. There aren't any teenage campers here, they're all independent adult women, but it does take place in the woods and similar to that classic this features a family of wacko's who do away with anyone that stumbles across their path. This family consists of a mom and her two semi-retarded offspring Ike and Addley. These two guys are really what makes this film stand out as they bicker about important issues like punk vs. disco and get into fist-fights with each other for fun. There's also quite a bit of rape and a dummy gets decapitated. Amazingly, since this came out in the 80's, there were no sequels even though the ending does leave it open for further forest-based murderous adventures. A classic VHS-era horror.
 There was a horrendous remake of this in 2010 that starred Rebecca De Mornay that I somehow was able to watch before I realized everything new is a complete waste of my time.

LADY SNOWBLOOD: LOVE SONG OF VENGEANCE (1974)

 There's really no reason for a sequel to LADY SNOWBLOOD. The first movie is complete and nearly perfect all by itself but being that it was successful in Japan they made another chapter the very next year. And like what they did with the STREET FIGHTER and SISTER STREET FIGHTER series the sequels never measure up to the originals. This one makes the mistake of injecting a bunch of politics into the movie involving some anarchists who want to topple the evil Japanese government and, just like in real life, politics makes everything less fun. There is some eye violence and the black death gets passed around liberally but overall this really pales in comparison to the amazing original film.

INVASION OF THE LOVE DRONES (1977)

 Sci-fi porn mix that starts out with a guy doing a creepy Rod Serling voice-over, then a penis-shaped spaceship shows up near Earth and beams down some sexy ladies who bang porn star Eric Edwards who turns into a "love drone", whatever the hell that means. He goes around and turns other people into fellow drones which just means that everyone acts like sex-crazed nymphos and talk like robots. Then all this sex-energy is stored up to help make more alien-queens(a bald chick painted white who also fucks Mr. Edwards). Or at least I think that's what was going on. It's all very dumb. There's one gang rape scene that isn't very realistically shot.
 Apparently some of the sex scenes were shot a few years before this came out. AKA HEAVENLY PLEASURE GIRLS