THE RETURN OF THE SWAMP THING (1989)

 Before watching this at a recent RiffTrax event I had only seen bits and pieces of it, and the first movie, on TV before since it seemed to play on cable TV quite a bit. The first film was directed by Wes Craven and featured Adrienne Barbeau. This time we get Jim Wynorski(of CHOPPING MALL fame) and Heather Locklear so my expectations were not very high. It also doesn't help that this has nothing to do with the actual comic book character and is instead just a silly superhero movie but that was pretty much the norm as far as comic book adaptations at that time went. The annoying kid characters and general dumbness certainly didn't make me want to go back and watch the original anytime soon. 

                                                       Stupid video release ad:

SLAVE OF THE CANNIBAL GOD (1978)

  This is the Italian cannibal film that has the 2 biggest stars to ever do these types of films, Stacey Keach(TV's Mike Hammer) and James Bond girl Ursula Andress. Don't worry though it's still full of all the sleazy and gross elements that you have come to expect from this gutmunching genre. Animals get ripped open and eat each other for real, cannibals get down to their usual business, there's a castration and if you watch the uncut 99 minute version(titled MOUNTAIN OF THE CANNIBAL GOD) you even get some pig-fucking bestiality, rape and just generally more explicitness. A Eurotrash classic if you can deal with all the animal stuff. 

AKA SLAVE GOD!:

Known in England as PRISONER OF THE CANNIBAL GOD!:

Known in Turkey as THE MOUNTAIN OF THE DAMNED!:

VICTIM NO MORE (2022)

  Fan-made short(40 minutes) film made by some Long Island locals that works as a tribute to the FRIDAY THE 13th franchise. Fairly well made for what it is. Unfortunately since it's made in 2022 instead of having an actual ending it just ends with the stupid "all women kick ass" message that every movie made since DEATHPROOF must be imbued with. If you enjoy dumb slasher movies with an extremely dumb ending I guess give it a look. 

DEEP SEA MONSTER RAIGA (2009)

                                                  "Your farts don't smell fishy like this." 

  I feel like a modern-day giant monster movie with a bunch of cgi-enhanced scenes is something I should probably hate immediately but having given this one a chance I found it entertaining enough for a breezey 80 minutes. Obviously this story has been done to death in Japanese cinema starting way back with GODZILLA in 1954 but this time they go the mostly comedic route with a monster who looks a lot like Big G except with some flipper hands, bigger back spikes and the ability to control lightning. I guess growing up and watching so many of these films from a young age this seemed different enough to amuse me. Monster turds, cute Japanese schoolgirls, actors breaking character and lots of stupidity are a few highlights. AKA RAIGA: THE MONSTER FROM THE DEEP SEA and RAIGA: GOD OF THE MONSTERS

 There is a sequel that came out in 2021 called GOD RAIGA VS. KING OHGA and there's a similarly titled REIGO: KING OF THE SEA MONSTERS that predates this from 2005 but I don't think that has any relation or is a comedy.

                   Very unfitting J-pop music for a monster movie trailer!:

SHOCKING DARK (1987)

 This Brune Mattei-directed Eurotrash flick was released in numerous countries as TERMINATOR II in order to fool audiences. It's actually way more of a remake of 1986's ALIENS with the android character(here named Samuel Fuller!) behaving a lot like ol' indestructible robot Arnie towards the end of the film. The alternate title of ALIENATORS is a little more accurate except it brings to mind a much more exciting movie than this. Missing much of Mattei's trademark gore and having no sex to speak of this this movie just sort of plods along from scene to scene with not much suspense at all. The goofy monsters look o.k. but just kind of stand around and grab people occasionally. Geretta Geretta plays the tough ethnic girl/Vasquez role and that elicites a few laughs but for the most part this is a fairly dull one.

                                                                             JAPAN!:

Released in germany as CONTAMINATOR:

TWICE TOLD TALES (1963)

  This was MGM studios answer to American International Pictures TALES OF TERROR which had come out the year before. Instead of Edgar Allen Poe the source material here is Nathaniel Hawthorne. Just like the earlier TALES though this is an anthology of three short stories featuring Vincent Price.  I'm way more of a fan of the AIP film since this one tends to drag for a bunch of time. The first story deals with bringing the dead back to life and restoring youth with some magical rainwater, the second tells about a dad(Price) who wants to protect his daughter from the world so much that he makes her touch poisonous to others and the third is about a family curse. Pacing is the main issue here and it's also missing the elemnt of humour that Peter Lorre brought to the other anthology. Without the excellent acting abilities of Vincent Price this might be a tough one to get through.  

HORRIFYING EXPERIMENTS OF S.S. LAST DAYS(1977)

  Best known as THE BEAST IN HEAT this is one those nazisploitation flicks that came out in the wake of ILSA, SHE-WOLF OF THE S.S. and it might be one of the sleaziest of the bunch. Macha Magall, who seems to have specialized in sleazy Italian cinema is our Ilsa stand-in and she spends pretty much the whole movie torturing various captives. This includes castration, water torture, ripping off fingernails and being eaten alive by some pretty calm-looking guinea pigs among other things. Of course the main focus is on Salvatore Baccaro as the title character who has been experimented on in order to become a raping/cannibalistic monster. His hobbies include pubic-hair eating and generally not being very nice to vaginas. There is the expected comeuppance dealt out at the end but still not the most feel-good film. Definitely memorable in it's debauchery though. AKA SS HELL CAMP and SS EXPERIMENT LOVE CAMP 2(making this a sequel to Sergio Garrone's 1976 Nazi movie)  

Video title:

HIS NAME WAS HOLY GHOST (1972)

  This spaghetti western reminded me of those TRINITY films since it's a comedy featuring a duo(Gianni Garko as the titular hero and Chris Huerta as his large bearded comapnion who bonks people on the head in a manner very reminiscent of Bud Spencer in those earlier films) and it devolves into lots of silly slapstick antics before everything is over. Luckily I like those type of films. There's not much else to say about this except that if you can deal with stupid comedies give it a look. 

                                                                   German poster: