THE HAND THAT FEEDS THE DEAD (1974)

 The main reason I took a chance on this Italian horror flick is because it stars the great Klaus Kinski in the lead role of a mad scientist. I guess technically he's the mad-scientist's assistant, but since the original mad-scientist(named Ivan Rssimov in some kinda weird tribute to the Italian actor with that same name) is dead before the film even begins he gets promoted and gets himself a new assistant in the form of a demented, rape-happy hunchbacked fellow(Erol Tas, who mostly appeared in Turkish cinema). Things pretty much follow the EYES WITHOUT A FACE path with some fairly gory operation scenes of skin transplants and a body with it's face peeled completely off. Kinski, for his part, is fairly restrained here which is unfortunate and drags the movie down a bit. There is some lesbianism thrown in which is nice. Worth at least one watch for Eurotrash-cinema people but probably not something I will ever revisit.
 Also in 1974 director Sergio Garrone made another movie with pretty much the same cast as this, very similar character names and reused some of the same footage called LOVER OF THE MONSTER. I might need to see if Klaus is any more lively in that one.
 Released on DVD as EVIL FACE(which I guess is a good description of Mr. Kinski)


                                                           Knee gore!:

ALIAS THE CHAMP (1949)

 The only movie starring legendary pro-wrestler Gorgeous George. It's mostly just a story about mobsters trying to infiltrate the wrasslin' business though and focuses on a detective(Robert Rockwell) trying to stop this and solve a wrassler's murder. This might have been due to George not being the greatest actor in the world(outside of the ring anyway). A few other real life wrestler's show up including Sammy Menacker and the great Tor Johnson, under his Super Swedish Angel moniker. Sadly Tor is only in one big brawling scene but he would go on to meet Ed Wood and the rest is crap-movie history. The film overall is pretty simple but it breezes by in just 1 hour so check it out for some old-timey grapplin' action.
 I can't help but believe that this was an influence on those later Mexican Santo films since it basically follows the same blueprint without the comic-book super-heroics and monsters that they would throw in to help spice things up.

                With bonus pro wrestling short SCRAMBLED LEGS!:

DEMONS 2 (1986)

 Like many sequels this one, by the same director(Lamberto Bava), is just a crappier version of the first movie. It replaces the cool theatrical setting with an apartment building that our demons get to run amuck in. Asia Argento makes her film debut at 11 years old, a monster from GHOULIES shows up at one point for no reason and not much of what happens makes  a whole lot of sense. It's still the best of the DEMONS sequels and that's mostly due to the great Bobby Rhodes returning, except instead of playing a pimp this time he's a personal trainer which is not quite as cool. The blood and gore is present but not in as copious amounts as DEMONS. If you're really into the original though I'm sure you've at least seen this one and it's a good place to stop with the sequels.

GATOR BAIT (1973)

 Got a chance to check this one out at a recent theatrical showing. Having never seen it before, but having viewed directors Beverly and Ferd Sebastian's earlier THE HITCHHIKERS just a few days before, I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. Luckily this one was way better than their previous film. It had a real I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE feeling to it all in that special way only very rapey 70's cinema can. Of course it never gets quite as lurid as I SPIT... but there's still s shotgun to a vagina, lots of swampy gun-fu and tons of revenge. So if sister-humping Cajun rednecks are you're thing give this a look.
 Star Claudia Jennings, who is amazing in this, her greatest role, went on to be in a  bunch of 70's exploitation films and various T.V. series, apparently even coming close to being in CHARLIE'S ANGELS, before being tragically killed in a car crash.
 There is a sequel that didn't come out, on video, until way later in 1988. I hear good things about that one though shot-on-video is not a tempting phrase at all.

PREMUTOS: THE FALLEN ANGEL (1997)

 One of the goriest things you will see outside of one of those early Peter Jackson films. This is a German gorefest zombie flick directed by Olaf Ittenbach, a fellow who's made a career at creating disturbing imagery on film. I've only seen 3 of his films so far, THE BURNING MOON and DARD DIVORCE, and this one is definitely the goofiest of that trio. It's the story of some time-traveling demon who's brought back once again thanks to some corpse-reviving elixir. The plot is not all that important though because the spectacle of exploding heads, chainsawed limbs, crushed testicles and tons of other monstrous acts of violence are the main draws here. The hilariously awful dubbing is also a plus. A convenient body count tally at the end puts the kills at 117 and that's good enough for me. The onyl downside might be the burnout you will feel around the 80 minute mark from all the zombie killing. This could have been edited down a bit from it's girthy 106-minute running time and it would probably leave you feeling more satisfied. Still a good watch with some friends and some booze. AKA PREMUTOS: LORD OF THE LIVING DEAD

SLAYGROUND (1983)

 This is one of those VHS boxes I recall seeing a bunch in the video store as a kid but never felt the need to actually watch it until just recently. It's definitely not a necessity but has a few interesting twists to it.  It starts out pretty straight-forward with some criminal-types who mistakenly kill a little girl making their getaway from an armored car robbery. It then becomes revenge city but not in the way you would expect. Our sympathies throughout the film are with the head criminal, played by Peter Coyote(who I'm not too familiar with but I love his name), because the assassin that is hired to track him down seems like a way worse person. The film ultimately seems a bit far-fetched in spots but there are a few cool set-pieces here and there. Fairly middle-of-the-road stuff.

THE HITCHHIKERS (1972)

 Not much of a plot to this one. It tells the story of this stupid hippie chick who gets pregnant and then runs away from home and then runs into a group of criminal hitchhikers. The group seems to be vaguely influenced by The Manson family though there's no murder or Helter Skelter going on and it's all pretty lighthearted outside of numerous armed robberies. There is one rape scene but it's over pretty quickly and not particularly gratuitous. It's all very leisurely paced and the editing lingers in a lot of weird places. Probably only worth a look for hardcore 70's aficionados that just wanna watch some hippie frolicking. Maybe the weirdest thing about this one is the songs which are basically just a folk singer narrating what we are seeing on the screen while playing his guitar.


 

THE PHANTOM KUNG FU (1979)

 This Taiwanese kung fu flick starts out playing it straight with the Mings vs. the Qings in a rebellion situation. Then they introduce the goofy-ass bumbling comedic character and then to top that we get a guy who looks like a monkey and does monkey-style kung fu who's named, naturally, Drunken Monkey. This one had potential with it's mixing of horror elements(a ghost keeps showing up, but is it really a ghost or is our main bad guy just going bonkers?) and martial arts but it's never really all that exciting. Too much exposition early on and the goofy second half make for a pretty disjointed viewing experience. Also the ending, involving quadruplets is really absurd. The bad guy has a cool moustache though. AKA THESE HANDS DESTROY (this is in reference to the bad guys "death palm" technique where his hands smoke before he gives you the deadly "palm strike of death"!) and MANTIS IN THE MONKEY'S SHADOW

CRACZY HORSE & INTELLIGENT MONKEY (1981)

         

                            "You get your ass out of here or we'll beat the shit out of you!"

 No, that's not a typo up there in the heading, that's the actual onscreen title of this kung fu flick. How they managed to spell the word 'intelligent' correctly but not 'crazy" I'm not sure. I guess proofreading was not big in Hong Kong at the time.
 So there's these two nitwits and one of them is good at kung fu. The other one, Kwok Choi Hon, is a skinny little weirdo that sorta looks like an anorexic Popeye with a very new wave haircut. I recognize this fellow from a bunch of small roles in various kung fu movies as he has a rather large filmography.  This is one of the few ones were he's one of the main characters though as far as I can recall. They go on various adventures and end up learning horse and monkey-style kung fu respectively in order to get revenge for a murder mom. There's not much that stands out about this one besides our little monkey dude flopping around and some weird dubbing full of saucy language.

DRUNKEN TAI CHI (1984)

 This comedy kung-fu flick is the first Donnie Yen movie and might also be the only kung fu movie that has a tai chi master train his pupil by playing basketball(with a yin/yang colored ball no less). It's a very cartoonish film with people getting blown-up by explosives and just ending up looking like Elmer Fudd after he gets shot in the face.  While I've never been a big fan of Donnie Yen this first role might be my favorite of his starring vehicles. You get puppet-fu, bicycle-fu, the aforementioned Basketball-fu, drunken-fu and fat-lady-fu among other oddball touches. Director Yeun Woo-Ping, probably best known nowadays for his stunt-directing work on KILL BILLand THE MATRIX, does a decent job of keeping the action moving along nicely. Definitely one of the better fu flicks I've seen lately as I work my way through an ominously large box set of similar films.
 Apparently there's a Taiwanese cut of this film with a couple of different scenes including one with some chicken-fu!


                                 Weird game of paint your opponent's face:

REAL SOULJA (1984)

 More commonly known under the way better title of THE VIOLENT BREED this might be the worst movie directed by Fernando Di Leo that I've seen so far. It starts off like a typical euro-war flick set in Vietnam and then turns into the story of a CIA agent(Harrison Muller) on a mission to take down his old buddy from the war(Woody Strode) who is now a drug-running gangster still in Southeast Asia. There are a lot of exploding huts but Mr. Muller doesn't make for the most compelling action hero and the ending is pretty underwhelming as is the plot. Muller does look a bit like Jesus though so that's something.
 The old VHS tape I have of this makes Woody Strode out to be the star and REAL SOULJA(whatever that means) but that's sadly not the case and he's only the main bad guy. The great Henry Silva is wasted only really doing anything exciting in the first few minutes of the film before being regulated to the talky scenes. This really made me want to stick with Di Leo's 70's films.

                                              No Strode on the Cannon VHS box!:

TAI CHI SHADOW BOXING (1979)

 This old dirty kung fu master forces a couple of derelicts to become his pupils in order to get revenge on this Buddhist monk-looking killer(who use the dreaded Buddha's palm strike) and his Mr. Clean-looking master. This one veers from comedic kung fu to super dramatic death scenes and boy is it jolting. Jackie Chen(not to be confused with Chan) is one of our stars but he's not all that exciting to watch. They do steal the main theme from the Lee Van Cleef spaghetti-western DAY OF ANGER which they play over and over. It's an exciting tune but not really cool enough for me to sit through this ever again. AKA TAI CHI DEVIL DRAGONS

TROG (1970)

 I caught this one years ago in a theatrical showing, where much laughter ensued, and then revisited it more recently on glorious VHS. This might be my personal favorite Joan Crawford film. Obviously that BABY JANE film is the superior film but how many laughs are you gonna get from that epic? The story here involves a caveman, who lived in dinosaur times but somehow survived for millions of years, that is found in an underground cavern. Then he's tamed(sorta) by Ms. Crawford until he is riled up and goes on a killing spree about town which includes hanging a guy on a meathook just like in THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE.
 The sight of this screen legend shooting a man in an obvious rubber caveman mask with a tranquilizer gun might be one of the all-time cinematic joys there is. Sadly ol' Joan felt this was the most embarrassing thing she'd ever been in and it was the last theatrical film she would appear in. If only she knew of the enjoyment it would bring to future generations.
 ENCINO MAN is the movie that I always think of as the 90's equivalent of this except that was meant to be a comedy and it was crapped out in the 90's so I've avoided it like the plague.

HEAVY METAL (1981)

 One of the all-time greats when it comes to animation that's not made for little kids. There's nekkidness, decapitations, general sleaze, comedy, drug abuse and lots of assorted violence. Sadly there's not much in the way of any actual heavy metal tunes aside from a Black Sabbath but that doesn't really detract much from the sheer joy I get from watching this 80's midnight movie favorite. Other music that stands out includes Cheap Trick, Sammy Hagar and Devo(who even get an animated band, that doesn't really look like Devo very much, to portray them). The anthology genre, held together by the presence of a killer glowing green orb in all the stories, works great for this and works in reminding me of reading an issue oh HEAVY METAL magazine(which this was based on).
 There was a sequel to this in the cinematically dreadful year 2000, appropriately titled HEAVY METAL 2000, which I did view once and then quickly erased it from my mind as not to tarnish the original volume.

5 PATTERN DRAGON CLAWS (1983)

 This is one of the few films credited to director Godfrey Ho that isn't a hodge-podge of 2 or 3 other films mixed into one and follows a fairly coherent story line. Apparently that was due to it being co-directed by some Korean fellow named Kim Si-Hyeon who worked with star Dragon Lee on a few films. It's all pretty simplistic stuff here about a Buddhist temple being taken over by an evil fighter who uses a lightning kick to beat his opponents. There's some backstabbing and a lot of Buddhist monks getting offed before the big final battle. One weird scene has a guy wearing what appears to be a Mexican wrestler mask for a little bit, besides this not the most memorable outing. AKA THUNDERING FIST
 MARTIAL MONKS OF SHAOLIN TEMPLE is another film from this same year directed by these two with a very similar cast and plot that seems to get mixed up with this one often.