Not to be confused with this SASQUATCH film or this one either, this might be the worst of the Bigfoot movies from back in the golden age. It's mostly just nature footage of animals running around and then some reenactments of "spooky" Bigfoot encounters all done in that familiar fake documentary style that many of these films employed. The narration, by obsessed Sasquatch hunter, Ivan Marx, is equally absurd and sleep-inducing. Marx was in one other Bigfoot flick a couple of years later titled IN THE SHADOW OF BIGFOOT. If it's anything like this one, though, I think I can safely skip ever watching it.
Originally titled THE GHOST OF THE HUNCHBACK, in Japan where it was made, the version I caught recently in a theater was an Italian-dubbed T.V. print called SATAN'S PIT. This version fits right in with the Mario Bava and Antonio Margheriti ghost flicks made around this same time. Not only the dubbing but the plot about an angry vengeance-seeking spirit seems fairly familiar. The only thing missing is Barbara Steele. Instead of Ms. Steele we get a creepy hunchback who works at a haunted house known as Satan's Pit that comes complete with a big statue of the devil right in the entrance hall. I was interested in this one mostly because it's so obscure. Sadly the pace with which it moves is quite sluggish and whoever subtitled this version didn't bother to actually subtitle everything so that was unfortunate. The deaths are also all pretty lackluster and the intended spooky bits are pretty goofy(there is the old bulging door bit that seems to have been borrowed from THE HAUNTING which came out a couple of years prior to this). A weird oddity though.
Apparently this also got some kinda release in the U.S. as HOUSE OF TERRORS but an English version doesn't seem to exist anymore for some reason.
The subs on this Youtube version look way better than the ones I saw in the theater(which also unfortunately stretched out the image using the wrong aspect ratio setting):
So this little kid sees his dad killed right in front of him then he has his tongue(or maybe vocal chords? it's not really all that clear in this scene) injured by this same gang turning him into a mute(though luckily he can still manage to make all the expected kung-fu yells). From then on out, once he grows up of course 10 years later, it's revenge city! Some dastardly Japanese soldiers show up for variety but never seem to figure out how to use their rifles to shoot anyone. Pretty lackluster star(Fei Yang Yeh, who was billed as either Lee Yuen Hing, Yip Fei-Yang or Yuan-Hsing Lee(no respect!) depending on which version you watch and as far as I know only starred in this one film before being regulated to supporting roles) in a pretty standard by-the-numbers-deal that does everything you would expect.
One of those movies that got released as part of the Wu Tang Clan collection on DVD and gave that series a pretty crappy name among kung-fu fans.
This is one of the weirder Charles Bronson films, yes possibly even stranger than that one where he marries a 16 year old in England, and also probably my least favorite. Bronson does get a chance to actually do some acting in this since it is quite the atypical role for him. The plot deals with Anthony "Norman Bates" Perkins as a doctor who wants to get revenge on his cheating wife so he convinces his patient(Bronson), who has amnesia, to do so for him. This might be better if the movie didn't drag so much and the ending wasn't a cop out.
He's not really the bad guy, he's more of a pawn, but he does do some bad things:
Hippie cult with a Jesus-like leader vs. a nasty biker gang led by a rather violent Confederate flag toting fellow named Reb(Clint Richie, who besides this did a bunch of television stuff). Obviously my money was on the bikers up until the movie took an unexpected turn and veered off into blaxploitation movie territory by introducing another predominately black biker gang(named The Bastard Banshees!) to even things out. This gang is quite the anomaly since it's led by a tough black chick and features a rainbow of ethnicities including a couple of whities and what I think is either an Asian or Hispanic gal. Things get pretty nuts towards the end with a big brawl where peacenik hippies figure out maybe violence is sometimes the only way. A peace sign gets sharpened and used as a weapon, hippie-Jesus gets hung off a big peace symbol, people get shot right in the face and in one of the nastiest scenes a sharpened pencil gets shoved right into a guy's hand before he gets scorched with a road flare. One of the best biker flicks I've seen in a while. Highly recommended for grindhouse enthusiasts.
"It's okay, the Doctors gave you a rational explanation. You've got psychic powers"
By the late 80s Italian horror director Umberto Lenzi ends up relegated to making T.V. movies in Italy. Unlike the U.S. though these movies don't shy away from the same graphic violence you would find in theatrical release from earlier in the decade. That might be because this was made as part of a series of films for cable t.v. but I'm no expert on Italian broadcasting standards. This spook show epic deals with a group of friends who end up in an abandoned hotel that turns out to be haunted by vindictive ghosts of people who were slaughtered there by a killer(I suppose that's a good enough reason to be a vindictive ghost as any other). The standout scene might be one of the most insane things I've ever seen where a little kid gets accosted and then decapitated by a laundry dryer! There's also a creepy Buddhist monk ghost, tarantula hijinks, some more decapitations to liven things up and none of it makes all that much sense in standard 80s Italian horror fashion. AKA HOUSE OF LOST SOULS
The confusing GHOSTHOUSE series:
1. GHOSTHOUSE (1988) Dir.-Umberto Lenzi AKA LA CASA 3 which also makes this part of the EVIL DEAD series in Italy(EVIL DEAD is known as LA CASA in Italy)
2. GHOSTHOUSE 2 (1988) Dir.- Lamberto Bava AKA DEMONS 3:THE OGRE (which also makes this one part of the DEMONS series)
3. GHOSTHOUSE 3 (1989)
4. GHOSTHOUSE 4: HOUSE OF WITCHCRAFT (1989) another Umberto Lenzi T.V. movie
5, GHOSTHOUSE 5:WITCHCRAFT (1988) Dir.- Fabrizio Laurenti AKA WITCHERY and LA CASA 4(to make things even more confusing this one is also known as GHOSTHOUSE 2 in England)
6. GHOSTHOUSE 6: BEYOND DARKNESS (1990) Dir.- Claudio Fragasso AKA LA CASA 5
Fairly obscure late 80s Italian horror flick. Seems to have been inspired by Italy's early 80s output, Fulci & Argento mainly. I've only seen a version of this that played on Italian T.V.(pretty amazing from my American perspective to see what was allowed on Italian T.V. at the time(full boobs and bush and pretty hardcore violence)) and I'm not sure if this ever played in theaters anywhere. The movie deals with a town in Budapest that's run by a cult of spider-god worshiping weirdos. Some of those H.P. Lovecraft old gods are involved also I suspect. Unfortunately most of the film is a bit dull but it does liven up when a claymation/stop-motion spider shows up and there's a stand out sequence with a weird baby monster that our spider pops out of that must been seen to be believed.
I had the displeasure of seeing this in a theater full of hipster-types who laughed out loud at things that might make a 7 year old chuckle but were generally pretty typical for anyone who's seen any Italian cinema from this era(I guess straight sex scenes are hilarious to millennials?) and this brought my ranking down a bit though I doubt a re-watch would ever make me think of this as an all-time classic.
Alice Cooper was one of the biggest rock stars of the 1970s and then the 80s came along and he went into a bit of a slump. That explains how he ended up starring in this horror flick( which seems like an Italian film but was actually filmed in Spain, California and Puerto Rico) directed by the guy who brought us that beloved turd of a film TROLL 2(Claudio Fragasso). Cooper pretty much just plays his normal ominous character here except he's named Vincent Raven and he(along with everyone else) is dubbed with a voice that doesn't sound like Alice at all. The movie shifts from what we are led to believe will be an animals-run-amuck deal into a werewolf movie then becomes STRAW DOGS for a little bit before ending with a bit of confusion. This one always sorta reminded me of HUMUNGOUS probably because they both are set in a remote location where there's a bunch of wild dogs running around. Worth a look if you're a big Cooper fan, like myself, and want to see what he was up to in those in-between super stardom years when he got all new-wavy or if you just dig cheesy Eurohorror crap.
