MANSON (1973)

 Probably the spookiest and most entertaining documentary about ol' Charlie Manson came out pretty quickly following the sentencing of "The Family". How much of this thing is actually true or not I have no idea but at least the people spouting off all the tales of madness and murder and drugs seem to be pretty convincing and if some acid-head freak believes Manson can bring dead animals back to life, who am I to argue? Appropriately creepy weirdo hippie tunes(thanks to a couple of former "Family" members) fill the soundtrack and we get some great soundbites(mostly from Squeaky Fromme and Charlie himself) where chaos and murder is promised if you don't get your shit together man!! If you're ever feeling too happy about life throw this on for what's sure a downer of a ride through a messed up time. AKA MANSON AND SQUEAKY FROMME (reissue title after Fromme made headlines for attempting to assassinate President Ford)



There was a sequel/follow-up film made by the same director using some of this same footage in 2007:

THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2 (1986)

 I saw this movie when it first came out back in 1986, which was kinda hard to do since I was only 15 at the time and it was released unrated, but despite this struggle it instantly became one of my favorite things in the world. I could quote entire scenes from memory(especially any scene with Chop-Top in it!) and figured no movie could ever match it's insanity, gore and absurd humour. As I've gotten older it's gotten harder to ignore some of the obvious flaws with this film. The main thing is there's really no reason for a sequel to what is the greatest horror film ever made and if you were going to make one, maybe making it an over-the-top black comedy isn't the best choice. I can see why director Tobe Hooper wouldn't want to try and top the aura of the first movie but it woulda been interesting to have seen him attempt something at least a bit scarier. There are really just jump scares here and there and the rest is all gore and dumb 80s jokes but if you were in your teens or 20s in the 1980s or if you just wanna see a really goofy cartoonish version of Leatherface then this might be the best thing ever for ya.
 There are 2 more sequels after this in the 90s which ignore this movie and in comparision make this movie look amazing! There's also a complete dogshit 2000s remake and a retarded prequel and finally another sequel(in 3D this time!) which ignores all those movies and somehow has people traveling through time or curing the aging process or something since it makes zero sense.

THE ASTRO ZOMBIES (1968)

 I've met director Ted V. Mikels before and he's a really cool guy with a sweet moustache. I kinda wish I enjoyed his film more. This one is cool almost solely because it's the other movie that the great Tura Satana stars in and just like in FASTER PUSSYCAT, KILL, KILL she kicks ass here. Executing her foes and really anyone who doesn't follow her orders. These parts are great but sadly there are many other long drawn-out bits where we get to watch John Carradine fiddle with knobs and perform experiments in his lab while his hunchbacked assistant snarls and leers constantly. In addition to this there's talky bits where the forces of good are trying to stop "The Astro Zombies"(really just one Astro Zombie) from murdering gals. It's almost like there are three movies going on and two of them are really dull. You do get some very small blood splatter during the kill scenes, a toy robot war and the plot does basically come together at the end. The biggest obvious flaw here, outside of the not so great acting and insane storyline, is the totally unconvincing day-for-night shots which make up a big portion of the movie towards the end. Scenes of people running around in super bright daylight while you hear crickets chirping and it's supposed to be midnight certainly spotlight Mr. Mikels shortcomings at creating any realism but the movie still has enough schlocky charm for me to recommend it to die-hard trash fans. Released on VHS as SPACE VAMPIRES.
 There were three sequels to this made in the 2000s by Ted V. but a. they're too new for me and b. they appear to have been shot digitally so I'm not in any hurry to watch those but if you're more adventurous than me give them a look.

Astro Punks!:

ONE ARMED SWORDSMAN VS. NINE KILLERS (1976)

 The original ONE ARMED SWORDSMAN came out back in the 60s, starred Jimmy Wang Yu and had a few sequels. This one is not actually a sequel but does star Mr. Wang Yu and he does fight using just one arm throughout most of the movie. Also for a "swordsman" he doesn't use a sword much at all but just fights bare-handed for the most part. To further negate the title I'm pretty sure he kills more than nine killers. There's also a big reveal at the end which negates even more of the title. Accuracy in title for these kinds of films isn't really all that important but what is important is seeing what's going on during the fight scenes. Sadly the version I have of this on DVD from some company called Bonzai Media Corporation is wretchedly cut to shit. There's parts where our hero is fighting some evil villainous fellow and before you can blink his foe magically just disappears with no clue as to what did him in. This is pretty frustrating viewing and while I can't judge the actual movie because of this it definitely left a bad taste in my mouth watching what I assume is some kinda clunkily-edited-for-TV version. On the plus side at least it was widescreen and seemed like it might be a halfway decent chop-sockey flick with some wacky elements thrown into it like a gigantic chessboard with humans used as chess-pieces, a half-woman/half-man(tranny?) person and a swordfighter who uses a sword bigger than himself to battle with. The plot here is pretty much just ol' One Arm going from fight to fight so maybe if someone could edit a story into this along with all the bloody violence I would give this a rewatch.

This Youtube version is way bloodier than my DVD. Still not much of a plot though:

SWEET HOME (1989)

 I'd been wanting to see this for a while after hearing it compared to HOUSE which is one of my favorite haunted house/ghost movies ever. Sadly I shouldn't have believed the hype on this one. It does outdo HOUSE in the gore department which is cool and you get a guy ripped in half by acid of some sort, another guy completely melting down to a skeleton and then ashes and a big battle-axe to the head. Unfortunately none of this stuff makes any sense and you have stupid scenes of people running away from shadows, a burned up ghost-baby and various things happening for no reason at all illuminated by POLTERGEIST-looking lightning and whatnot. This was based on a Japanese video game which should have been my first clue that this wasn't gonna be anything great since I can't even think, off the top of my head, of one movie based on a video game that's worth a shit.
 There is a more recent SWEET HOME which is a Spanish movie about murderers in an apartment building which has nothing to do with this.

EVERY DOG HAS HIS DATE (2001)

 While romantic comedies are not something I normally watch this movie looked bizarre enough that I gave it a shot and it did indeed turn out to be pretty strange. It all starts out as a sort of Asian SEX AND THE CITY with a group of gals discussing their sex life and coming to the conclusion that all men are dogs. This theme will obviously be the main thrust of the movie and this may endear it to the more feminist-identifying members of society. From there it turns into one of those stupid Hollywood "people's-personalities-switching-bodies-movies" like FREAKY FRIDAY or something, except here it's a porn-obsessed guy swapping with our main lady's beloved dog. Then things get weird and raise a few questions. Mainly does this lady love her dog so much she wants to fuck it and would that be bestiality if he resided in a human body? Why does the dog character have so much trouble getting turned on by humans? He claims they smell awful but how can anything smell worse than a pile of dogshit and they seem to enjoy that scent on a fairly regular basis. In America, I assume, this would most likely be a kids movie but here it's clearly going for a more adult audience with it's sexual hijinks, peeping Toms and some parts where dogs are threatened to be chopped up and eaten by various folks. Who exactly was this made for besides weirdos who enjoy bizarre cinema? There's a super-fake looking dog puppet head that shows up in the movie for like 5 seconds. Why would they use that for the poster shot??? And finally why the hell is there a blue and purple dog, who don't even show up in the movie, on the DVD cover for this? These questions are sadly never fully answered and this is a pretty dumb movie overall but I will at least give it a couple of points for being unique in its dumbness.

SANTO AND BLUE DEMON VS. DRACULA AND THE WOLF MAN (1973)

 Very similar to the earlier SANTO AND BLUE DEMON VS. THE MONSTERS, this Mexican wrestlers vs. monsters flick pairs down the creatures to two big main villains. Of course there is the hump-backed Igor-like assistant that sets everything into motion, Dracula's vampire slaves and, what I found to be one of the coolest elements, a whole gang of werewolves led by main Wolf Man, Mr, Rufus Rex. Rufus not only has one of the best names for a werewolf person but he also sports some snazzy outfits including a golden shirt and very massive 70s sideburns. As a bonus he also looks a lot like Paul Naschy's Hombre Lobo which is pretty sweet. There's also a surprising amount of bloodletting, most notably when Dracula is revived by having someone's neck slit like a slaughtered pig above him, in a film that I assume was viewed by many young Mexican children at the time. While I would rank ...VS. THE MONSTERS as the king of these kooky wrassler movies this one is a close second. This does get a little bogged down in the long grappling scenes which look as though they were filmed in an empty arena in outer-space, besides this though it's good kitschy times.

Hazing is tough for wolfmen:

NINJA FIST OF FIRE (1972)

 This is really a tough kung-fu flick to get through. I think my main problem is that the fighting here is really quite lackluster. The main hero(Ming Chiang?) basically just jumps around and shoves guys and it's not just him because the main female protagonist(Ching Ching Cheung?) shows off pretty much the same technique. Also since this made way back in 1972 and not in the 80s there are no ninjas at all despite the title on my DVD and that picture up there. There is a guy who wears a vest that looks like it's covered in bananas that shoots spikes and some fire-twirling acrobats, besides this though it's a lot of boredom and sleep-inducement. Original title- THE FIST THAT KILLS

SHE-DEVILS ON WHEELS (1968)

 Whenever anyone asks me what my favorite HG Lewis movie is I can't help but say this one. Of course Mr. Lewis will always be remembered as the guy who pretty much invented the gore film with his classic BLOOD FEAST but this is the one out of all his movies that I've probably re-watched the most. The kitchiness is overflowing here and all that over-the-top ridiculousness can't be ignored. The story is basically a strange feminist inversion of the biker flick with a gang of snazzily-attired ladies called The Maneaters led by a gal named Queen who sounds like Alice Kramden while barking out orders to her gang of insatiable nutjob ladies. This being an HG Lewis film you do get some ultra-violence including a guy dragged behind a bike and a decapitation to move things along and while most of the bad stuff happens to men there is a rape thrown in. Why weren't there more female biker flicks like this back in the golden era? I guess the world wasn't ready for such amazing sights yet.

The Cramps were fans!:

WIZARDS (1977)

 Ralph Bakshi is probably best known for his X-Rated film version of R. Crumb's FRITZ THE CAT but he did a whole bunch of sorta-similar but different animated films over the years. This one has some of the same voices from FRITZ and also some of the same goofiness but it's way less porno-like(only rated PG- sorry pervs!) and more of a melding of DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS/LORD OF THE RINGS and post-apocalyptic Saturday Morning kiddie cartoon. The tone of this varies wildly from totally nihilistic downer to light-fantasy romp with the blink of an eye. I would definitely recommend this to animation fans of any type and especially if you dig stuff like HEAVY METAL which I was actually lucky enough to catch this on a double-feature with yesterday afternoon. It's probably also a real delightful trip if you do a lot of acid.
 If you have seen this movie before then you know that Bakshi throws a bunch of World War II footage of Nazis and Adolph Hitler into his movie to reinforce how very very bad his main evil wizard character is. While I found this an interesting juxtaposition with bumbling cartoon fairies and elves a couple of Hasidic Jews attending this screening apparently didn't find it quite as intriguing and quickly split at the first sight of blitzkrieg. I guess you can't please everyone.


Crazy-ass Nazi-wizards!:

SEVEN STEPS OF KUNG FU (1979)

 So is the first step of kung fu admitting that you have a problem? Unfortunately not a self-help video for martial arts cinema addicts (which is something I could probably use) this is just another crappy cheapo chopsockey flick. I think the "seven steps" thing may refer to our hero's fighting style which is sorta dance like. It's also like a not-quite-as-entertaining version of Jackie Chan's hi-jinks. There is one point where we are told a lady will be stripped of her clothes but prepare to be let down if you expect to see anything more than her bare neck. The plot is pretty standard except that instead of our main character's master getting killed he just gets his ass beat really bad before it's revenge time against the evil gang. To make the movie even more unappealing there's a part of the DVD I have of this where the audio changes from badly-dubbed English to Chinese. Luckily I did not pay for this disc so I do not feel ripped off in the least. Everyone else should maybe look elsewhere for their violent thrills. AKA KUNG FU OF SEVEN STEPS and SHAOLIN RAIDERS OF DEATH


                                                               

DEVIL'S ISLAND LOVERS (1974)

 Oh Jess Franco you've done it again! Some of my favorite insane women-in-prison flicks(BARBED WIRE DOLLS, ILSA: THE WICKED WARDEN and 99 WOMEN) were made by director Jess Franco but this one is not anywhere near any of those in terms of sleaziness, story or really even in overall quality (although the cinematography is the best thing about this whole movie). It took me two tries to watch this one since I passed out trying to figure out what the hell was going on during my first attempt. The first half hour I kept expecting a straightforward women-in-prison type deal but it takes a little while before we ever even get to the prison and then it never really even looked like a prison to me. Of course I've never been imprisoned in Spain so perhaps they just use old villas guarded by guys with machine-guns to house their prisoners there. This film is littered with a lot of nonsensical characters, including our main two protagonists who are terrible at breaking out of jail, Howard Vernon as a maniacal warden, but mainly their lawyer who is quite possibly the worst lawyer in any movie ever! I mean this guy has proof of his client's innocence and a deathbed confession by the judge who convicted them but ends up being completely ineffectual at his job by the end of the movie. On the plus side there is a downer ending so at least Franco got that part right. There's also a little bit of lesbianism and boobs to spice things up so it's not a total loss. AKA LOVERS OF DEVIL'S ISLAND
 There is a shorter version of this titled FEMALE QUARTERS which does away with all the out-of-sequence flashbacks which make up a large portion of the movie. I've not seen this version but it sounds like it may be a big improvement.

SWEET SUGAR (1972)

 I remember thinking this movie was one of the most amazing things I'd ever seen when I viewed it back in the VHS days as a young fellow. Watching it more recently I'm not exactly sure why it stood out so much to me from all the other women-in-prison flicks from this era. Maybe I just hadn't seen enough of these movies yet at that point. It's still a pretty good watch though you get all the expected thrills and blood-spills, shower scenes, cat-fights, machete-mayhem, machine-gun madness and horribly oppressed women fighting back against horrible sleazy men.
 This has a whole slew of AKA's including CHAINGANG GIRLS, HELLFIRE ON ICE, my personal favorite: SHE-DEVILS IN CHAINS and CAPTIVE WOMEN 3( a full rundown of the CAPTIVE WOMEN series is available here)

 Part of this classic VHS double-feature!: