PANCHO VILLA (1972)

 Uneven little Spanish historical/action/comedy/western mix that doesn't really work very well as any of those things.  Telly Savalas stars as the title character who doesn't seem one little bit Mexican but I guess no one noticed while filming.  Chuck Connors plays an American Colonel who plays it even more over the top than Savalas.  The filmmakers just don't seem to know exactly what they were trying to accomplish with this one.  As an historical epic it isn't very accurate at all, as a comedy it isn't very funny, just sorta goofy at times and even the action scenes are just so-so with nothing particularly spectacular or memorable besides maybe the scene where two trains collide head on in a blaze of stupidity.  Anne Frances from FORBIDDEN PLANET shows up in a few scenes that add nothing to the plot.  You also get a delightful tune sung by Mr. Savalas himself at the silly climax.  I would say skip this one unless you're a big Telly fanatic.

                                            Who loves ya baby?

AMER (2009)

The filmmakers call this an homage to Italian giallo movies of the 70's, I call it a boring student art film stretched out way longer than necessary or humanly tolerable.  If you took an actual genuine Argento or Bava horror movie from the 70's stripped away the plot, characters and most of the dialogue, what do you have left?  This thing right here.  Close to being one of the worst things I have ever seen,  I wouldn't even realistically call this a movie as the whole thing plays out like one long perfume commercial or maybe a trailer for a real movie.  The two positive things I can say are that the imagery at times was cool to look at (despite the annoying quick cuts) and the music was cool.  Of course the music was lifted from other much better movies and the images are imitations of those same types of films.  Even if you love giallo flicks avoid this one at all costs unless you happen to be a pretentious art fag douche-bag and then perhaps this would be the perfect mental masturbation material for you.

SATAN WAS A LADY (2001)

Oh, Doris what were you thinking?  The final movie made by the queen of 60's sexploitation/nudie flicks is a pretty big comedown from her glory days of churning out low-budget 42nd Street material.  I sorta knew that a shot on video sex movie made in 2001 wasn't gonna have quite the same style or appeal to me as a nice grimy old time sex movie made with no sound on real film but I had to see it anyway just for historical purposes.  You just can't go back to those days when this stuff held the power to titillate.  For one thing the proliferation of hardcore porn only being a click away takes away the naughty forbidden aspect of it all.  The other problem might be the fact that this movie is filled with some really unattractive people.  Lead actress Honey Lauren isn't bad but she does sport a strange hair-do (with what I think are supposed to be devil horns?) that detracts from her looks but besides her and one stripper we see briefly (who for some strange reason starts out naked and gets fully dressed onstage???) there are just a lot of ugly people reading lines like they're in a fourth grade play.  The major problem though, I found, was the inclusion of beat-nick looking, singer/songwriter Glynn Styler who's meandering dreary songs eat up so much of the running time it's ridiculous.  Who would let a guy like this play in between strippers anyway?  The movie would probably be under an hour without having to hear every bit of his songs.  You do get  the bizarre lingering shots of a lamp for no reason that spotlight Ms. Wishman's unique style of directing so that was something.  I gotta check out the original X-rated 70's version of this with Annie Sprinkle.  I have a strong feeling it will be more up my alley.

ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES (1959)

Guys in what look more like giant shiny starfish outfits terrorize a southern swamp in this early AIP cheaply-made quickie.  Produced by Roger and brother Gene Corman this one drags a lot whenever the stupid-looking monsters aren't around but at least it's only a little over an hour long.  I thought it was kinda creepy and cool that the leech/squid monsters take their half-alive victims back to their underwater cave/lair to slowly drink their blood in some scenes that were probably pretty shocking for the 1950's.  Features Yvette Vickers who plays a slut in this and a similar character in ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN, I guess it was her specialty.  This was remade in 2008 but I'm sure it was full of CGI leech-monsters and that would really blow.  Check out the original if you dig silly-ass drive-in type classics probably made in about a day or two.

Aqua-beasts!  Aaaah!:

DARD DIVORCE (2007)

 I've only seen one other movie by director Olaf Ittenbach, PREMUTOS: LORD OF THE LIVING DEAD, and although that movie was a gore-fest also, the tone and subject matter of it, with it's zombies and ridiculousness, was high comedy in comparison to the darkness of this excursion into the torture porn genre that's been done to death in recent years.  This movie is shot way better than PREMUTOS and is definitely one of the goriest movies I've seen in a long time.  You get all manner of bloody stabbings, shootings, head-crushing and the expected torture scenes including a kid chainsawed in half and a guy stuffing his own intestines back into his belly.  The story is a bit of a convoluted mess concerning a woman going through a divorce that gets uglier and uglier until it ends up in the violent orgy on display.  The main downfall of the movie is the horrible acting, possibly due to Ittenbach using his wife as the lead actress and her English skills being a little rough on the ears.  Why they would shoot this in English under this circumstance I have no idea.  The other thing that makes no sense is the way the music rises and actually drowns out the dialogue whenever a major plot point is being revealed.  What the hell kind of sound mixing is that?  On the other hand all the effects work was done really well for something obviously shot on a low budget.  I would only recommend this one to die-hard gore-hounds looking for something very juicy because in that category it doesn't disappoint at all.

THE NUNS OF ST. ARCHANGEL (1973)

 "You are judging me for corruption and cruelty. Am I more corrupt than you?"

This Italian made nunsploitation flick set in in the 16th century plays out for the most part like a typical historical political drama concerned with the appointment of a new mother superior after the old one kicks the bucket.  There are some little bits of the expected lesbianism on display but the main thing that saves it from being a waste of time is the really powerful ending complete with supposedly historically accurate, inquisition-style torture devices plus a pretty strong indictment of the brutality of Christianity of old.  It really stands out from the more common sleazy naughty nun movies of the time and is a well made piece worth watching if you can deal with the heavy plot throughout and lack of nudity or exploitation elements up until the climax.
AKA THE NUN AND THE DEVIL, INNOCENTS FROM HELL and SISTERS OF SATAN

RE-ANIMATOR (1985)

"Who's going to believe a talking head? Get a job in a sideshow"

As a general rule I hate most stupid/silly 1980's horror movies.  I mean I see them as the exact opposite of everything that was great about the 70's.  They replaced gritty realism with sitcom-ish jokes and any serious ideas were banished from sight.  They became the mainstream and the mainstream became shitty once again.  That being said I always liked this goofy 80's take on the FRANKENSTEIN story.  It is utterly stupid to the core but the performance of  Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West is so much fun to watch that the whole movie is lifted up above other crap of the decade like the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET movies or the GREMLINS flicks or any number of super popular shitty waste of time comedies disguised as horror films.  You also get a bunch of gore, great practical effects of the time, the lovely Barbara Crampton bare ass naked and getting head by a severed head, a zombified cat and re-animated corpses running amuck.  Plus the comedy actually works within the world that director Stuart Gordon created.  I'm not sure what any of this movie has to do with H.P. Lovecraft but check it out anyway for a good time.

IMAGES IN A CONVENT (1979)

"Governments like to hang a free-thinker"

What starts out as a surprisingly well done, classy-looking, very artsy type film from Italian cult film director Joe D'Amato (better known to horror fans for making low-down dirty trashy gore-classics like ANTHROPOPHAGUS and PORNO HOLOCAUST) shifts about halfway into more familiar territory of sleaze and debauchery.  The movie is indeed packed with naughty imagery in a convent and you can see why D'Amato would go on in his later years to make hardcore porn since this movie could almost be considered porn itself (there's even a rape scene with cocks and a graphic blow-job that I wasn't expecting).  Not having been raised Catholic I never had a particular fetish for nuns though hot, pent-up naked ladies spells a good time in any outfit they wanna wear or none at all.  Check it out if you dig sleazy filthy nun antics teetering on full out fuck film status.

Groping tits for Satan!:

MALIBU HIGH (1979)

                                           "I'm a hooker, not a hit-girl!"

MALIBU HIGH is, to me, one of the high points of cheaply made, dirty 70's drive-in sex flicks.  I find this sordid tale of a clearly too old to be in high-school high-schooler named Kim to be highly re-watchable for its total cheese factor alone.  At first you feel bad for main character Kim's rejection by her asshole boyfriend but my solidarity with the main character's plight shifted pretty quickly when I realized how stupid she was for making the horrible choices she makes.  Poor Kim(played by Jill Lansing who went on to do no other movies after this powerful performance) just keeps spiraling down going from angry, spurned girlfriend to teenage hooker to hit-girl for a rather hairy mobster.  It all ends in a blaze of glory set to the theme of THE PEOPLE'S COURT.  Utter ridiculous hilarity!  Featuring boobs, blood, horrible tan lines, stupid pimps and the world's crappiest looking disco.  It almost feels like what would happen if John Waters tried to make a serious drama about high school life.  Does the title refer to the height of the main actresses pants?  Perhaps.

Kim hates cleanliness!  Oh the drama:

PRETTY PEACHES (1978)

Great wacky 1970's comedy porn from director Alex DeRenzy.  It's pretty much all star Desiree Cousteau's performance as the amnesia-stricken, dim-witted Peaches who keeps the movie fun.  Probably the most memorable scene in this is where Cousteau shoots what looks like a couple of gallons of water out of her ass across a room during an enema scene gone wrong.  Joey Silvera also does a really good job as the main "bad" guy.  It's hard to remember now that there were actually decent actors in porn at one time.  It is a product of the times that certain scenes involving force and taking advantage of someone are done in such a light-hearted goofy manner.  This would never be made in the same way today.  I enjoyed it as the delightful time-capsule that it is. 

Finally, my blog has some class!:

PRIME EVIL (1988)

I've watched this movie more than once now and I'm still not exactly sure what the hell is going on in a lot of this.  It starts off with a bang in ye olden days with some naughty monks chopping heads off good monks and worshiping Satan and then we jump ahead to present day(which, of course, is present day 1980's style).  Then there's more Satan worshiping, people doing aerobics, naked perky boobies and more blood.  One of the stranger scenes has a lady being killed by having alcohol poured down her throat and I guess she drowns?  Seemed like a really bizarre way to kill someone.  Although it's all very confusing and really badly acted I found it enjoyable in a chaotic way.  Plus the fight scenes are ridiculously awesome and the devil is played by a hand puppet.  Amazing!  If you like the horror/exploitation movies of director Roberta Findlay(TENEMENT, BLOOD SISTERS etc.) this one fits right into the same mold of strange, wacky Satan-lovin' thrills.

UN CHIEN ANDALOU (1929)

The first shock film?  That's one possible interpretation.  There is no plot so nothing really makes much sense beyond the dreamlike sense that we affix to anything that we don't immediately comprehend.  This was the point though as Director Luis Bunuel was opposed to any interpretation of his work having any meaning or symbolism applied to it.  A series of random imagery, the best known being a straight razor slicing across an eyeball, that leaves the viewer feeling nothing but uneasy right from the start in the off-beat weirdness of it all.  Also features ants crawling out of a stigmata-like wound, a severed hand, dead animals, a deaths-head moth and various other odd things that randomly show up with no rhyme or reason.  Not being an expert on the surrealist movement or Sigmund Freud I can't comment on the influence those things had on this film other than knowing that all these things are intertwined here in one way or another.  There's an added creepy factor in knowing that the two main actors in this thing both ended up committing suicide.  Check it out if you have any interest in bizarre cinema.

BURNING BRIGHT (2010)

For such a simple plot this movie worked really well in building a sense of dread and suspense. What you get is a girl and her autistic little brother boarded up in a house during a hurricane with a hungry man-eating tiger thanks to her evil step-dad.  After a bit of a drawn out setup the two of them struggling to survive is pretty much the whole movie. The cool thing is that they used a real tiger for almost all the scenes with only slight cgi here and there. While not the most realistic movie I've ever seen(I'm pretty sure the tiger could have eaten both of them within five minutes) it was entertaining if not overly predictable with an ending you could see coming from a mile away.