THE PROTECTOR (2005)

  So elephants are really big in Thailand. This Thai fight flick(Muay Thai in this case) is all about revenge for this dude's(Tony Jaa's) elephants being stolen by some evil gangsters(including that big guy from MUAY THAI GIANT). It's all very basic but the combat/action scenes are all very spectacularly done so if that's your bag, or you just really like seeing elephants on film, give it a watch.

The American, badly-dubbed, release is missing about 30 minutes and has a hip-hop soundtrack. I went with the original cut even though it's almost 2 hours long. 

 Star Tony Jaa's first big film here in America was ONG BAK so maybe I shoulda started with that one. I imagine it's pretty similar though.

SHADOWZONE (1990)

 This is some stupid bullshit about a shape-shifting interdimensional monster that pops out of people's dreams in a lab. You get a SCANNERS-like head explosion and some gory autopsy subjects but most of this is pretty sleep-inducing. It's also really dark(at least the VHS I watched was) so that doesn't help much. Louise Fletcher is a long way from her Academy Award winning role in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST and spends a bunch of time applying Chapstick for no reason. This is a Full Moon Studios production so I wasn't expecting much. At least there were no puppets in it and on the positive side you get a totally naked lady with perfect boobs throughout the entire film(yeah she's asleep for most of that but it still counts).

HALF HUMAN (1958)

  So this movie started off originally as the 1955 Japanese film JIN YUKI MAN. It was director Inoshiro Honda's follow-up to GODZILLA and is basically a variation on KING KONG. The monster here is a large bigfoot/ape/abominable snowman creature who along with his son comes into contact with a couple of skiers resulting in some deadly encounters. Just like with that film when it was brought to America it was re-edited to include a bunch of scenes with American actors(most notably John Carradine). The bits off original movie that are left, about a third of the original film, are voiced-over by Mr. Carradine which gives everything a weird silent movie vibe that really drags things down. Luckily all the monster mayhem is on view and at just a little over an hour(the Japanese film is 94 minutes long) it moves briskly enough. 

 The original version apparently is not something the Japanese are very fond of due to how it depicts the natives and it hasn't been released on any home video format there.

50s Twin Terrors Thrill Show!

CURSE OF THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN (1972)

  So these hippies are hanging out at a ranch and some deaths ensue. No this is not another Manson Family-inspired 70s horror flick. This one is a headless horseman-inspired 70s horror flick. Well sort of anyway. The headless dude here just seems to like flicking his decapitated noggin towards folks and splattering them in blood. This usually results in them freaking out and ending up dead by some weird accident. It was really hard to keep focused on this one since it's filled with endless rambling dialogue that goes nowhere in between anything remotely interesting happening. 

 Director Leonard Kirtman made CARNIVAL OF BLOOD 2 years before this, which I recall at least having some cool H.G. Lewis-esque gore bits. Aside from these 2 outings he stuck to directing porn exclusively which may have been a wise choice. 

Ultra Violet, who was part of Andy Warhol's group of weirdos, shows up with a neat Superman lunch box.

                               This shitty artwork seems way more appropriate for this film:

Teamed up with Kirtman's other horror attempt:

NIGHTMARE BEACH (1989)

 This is a pretty entertaining slasher flick from late in the slasher game. There's actually not much slashing going on since the killer mostly uses an elaborately souped-up motorcycle to electrocute his victims but there's lots of burning/melty head gore to go around. Also doesn't skimp on the boobs since it takes place at Spring Break in Miami Beach(hence the alias WELCOME TO SPRING BREAK). My favorite aspect of this is the biker gang named THE DEMONS(complete with jackets emblazoned with their name in the same font as the classic Italian gorefest) who kinda go from being complete scumbags to accidentally becoming almost heroic by the films conclusion. John Saxon also puts in a great performance as a real shitty cop. To top things off we get a fairly metal soundtrack and a stupid surprise ending. 

 Strangely enough Italian director Umberto Lenzi was supposed to be the director of this(it is technically an Italian-produced film even though it seems very American) but he apparently had some problems with the producer. He still has a writer credit though. 

YOUNG THUGS: INOCCENT BLOOD (1997)

  Japanese director Takashi Miike has made some enjoyable extremely violent films that I've enjoyed like FUDOH and ICHI THE KILLER and then there are the weird films(VISITOR Q for one) that I found interesting even though they seem pretty pointless beyond just being weird. A film reminiscing about youth in Japan with tumultuous relationships is probably not exactly what I would want to see from him. It is mixed with the usual hyper-violence so things don't fall too much into the romantic chick flick mode  but still one of my least favorite Miike films so far. 

 There was a follow-up to this called YOUNG THUGS: NOSTALGIA the following year, which is actually a prequel, but I'm in no hurry to see that one. There's also s 1996 film titled BOYS BE AMBITIOUS which is supposed to be part one except it takes place in the 70s and wasn't helmed by Miike.  

THE PRODIGAL SON (1981)

  Sammo Hung directs and acts in this kung fu tale of 2 affluent kids whose paths cross. There's a pretty convoluted plot here that takes all kinds of twists and turns including a bloody massacre that involves necks being slashed left and right and then jumps right back into goofy-ass comedy bits with Sammo and his fat fu antics. If you can handle the jarring narrative jumps it's a pretty entertaining martial arts flick and even though it's over 100 minutes long it moves pretty breezily. AKA PULL NO PUNCHES

DOOM ASYLUM (1987)

  Did they mean DUMB ASYLUM? This is one of the stupidest things I've seen in a while. The "plot" deals with a car-crash victim who somehow comes back alive on an autopsy table and becomes a psychopathic zombified killing machine. This was filmed inside of an actual abandoned medical facility so they make the most of that. There's a female punk band led by a Wendy O. Williams wannabee(Ruth Collins who allegedly was paid $100 for showing her boobs here) that sounds like Diamanda Galas when singing. There's some decent gore FX including a drill in the head and a saw to the cheek that look convincing enough. There's also a bunch of sad attempts at humour that makes things pretty cringey. 

 This film is notable as the first features for both Kristin davis(who would go on to be one of the main gals on SEX AND THE CITY) and Patty Mullen(who would go on to star in FRANKENHOOKER, a slightly better stupid movie.)  

ORGAN (1996)

  Well this a gross Japanese gore movie directed by and starring a Japanese lady(Kei Fujiwara). Puss, blood, puke and other various bodily fluids are the main features of this tale of a couple of cops trying to infiltrate a organ harvesting syndicate run by a perverted brother and sister duo. The plot is a bit hazy as to what the purpose of anything is so I assume the sole purpose of this film is to just be extremely goopy and gooey. Also I wasn't too sure why these detectives don't bother to have any backup before barging into a crime scene, but whatever. Check it out if your idea of art is a bloody pap smear. 

 The Japanese theatrical version of this was cut down(which was probably an improvement since it's almost 2 hours long!).

 The DVD I have of this contains a bunch of scenes allegedly from ORGAN 2 but I don't know if that was ever completed.

                            Gross trailer with dumb 90s techno!:

THE SWINGING STEWARDESSES (1971)

 If I've gained nothing else from watching a bunch of Swedish/Swiss sex films recently I now appreciate the beauty of Ingrid Steeger more than I ever did before. She's really the main draw of most of these films and this one is no exception. Not really any sort of a plot to speak of here. Some stewardesses get naked and get laid. Most of the movie doesn't even take place on a plane so it's really just the most basic standard soft-core sex flick that's a series of sexy scenes strung together. Has a bunch of AKA's including STEWARDESS REPORT, SWEET SENSATIONS and NAKED STEWARDESSES

          Rated X when shown in America but this was still before X was hardcore and explicit:

SUPERSTITION (1982)

 What we got here is a Canadian-made 80s supernatural slasher flick. Since it's supernatural, dealing with a witch coming back after almost 200 years to get revenge for being executed, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. If you just want to see a few cool kill scenes though this does deliver those goods. You get a flying sawblade death, various killer inanimate objects(including a microwave, an elevator and a window) and an old decrepit witchy monster with long-clawed fingers. There's unfortunately also a couple of stupid kids but luckily this movie isn't afraid of kid deaths, so that's something. Overall a pretty dumb flick for slasher fans that have seen everything else already.  AKA THE WITCH

Goofy-ass trailer that I think is narrated by Brother Theodore:

Known in Italy as THE HOUSE OF MARY:

CARNIVAL ROCK (1957)

  This one's a pretty early Roger Corman-directed teen epic involving just what the title says, a carnival that has some rocking' acts play. The Platters are the biggest names featured but being a big fan of rockabilly myself I really dug seeing Bob Luman & His Shadows. The film itself is a weird mix of highly melodramatic scenes dealing with the owner of the carnival(David J. Stewart) losing his business along with his girlfriend and boppin' parts with teen dancing and bands tearing it up. It's all really drawn-out for such a shallow story so unless you really dig 50s music give this a pass. 

JAIL BAIT (1954)

  Ed Wood, after directing GLEN OR GLENDA and before doing BRIDE OF THE MONSTER, would give the world this film-noirish tale of a young man(Clancy Malone) who's led into the criminal underworld. His dad just so happens to be a plastic surgeon that's forced to do some facial reconstruction work to fool the coppers. Complete with stupid twist ending. Steve Reeves would get his start here before going on to become Hercules and other muscular hero-types in a few films. Wood's galpal, Dolores Fuller, returns from GLENDA in an equally clunky role. Despite the not so great acting a good slice of 50s crime melodrama.

This doesn't have anything to do with alluring underage gals so I'm guessing that term meant something else at the time. The posters make it seem that the female characters have much bigger roles than they actually do in the film itself and before viewing this I always thought it was one of those girl-gang epics.

 The VHS I own of this cuts out a blackface sequence for being politically incorrect, which is pretty lame but they did restore a striptease bit which is nice of them.  AKA HIDDEN FACE