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Gli incubi di Dario Argento (1987)
Worth watching for Argento fans
Gli incubi di Dario Argento (Dario Argento's Nightmares) was a TV series created and directed by Dario Argento that was part of the RAI TV show Giallo by Enzo Tortora. He's probably most famous for the show Portabello that had viewers call in to buy or sell things, present ideas or try and look for love. And if they could get the parrot who was the show's namesake to say his name, they would win a prize. He was also arrested in 1983 and jailed for 7 months as it was thought he was a member of an organized crime family, the Nuova Camorra Organizzata. It was a case of mistaken identity and he got out of ten years in jail thanks to the Radical Party. They offered him a candidacy to the European Parliament, which he won in a landslide. He was cleared of all charges the year this show ran and brought this show - on which he discussed unsolved murder cases - and Portabella to RAI.
The main draw of these episodes are nine new mini-movies made by Argento. They're three-minute shorts shot on 35mm that show off some wild effects but one of them, Nostalgia Punk, so upset viewers that it has rarely been shown since. The stories are:
La finestra sul cortile (The Window on the Court): This is Argento's tribute to Alfred Hitchcock and Rear Window. After watching the film, a man named Massimo watches his neighbors fight. He runs down with a knife to stop them, but falls on his own weapon and is blamed by the police for killing the woman. If you recognize the music, it's part of the Simon Boswell score from Phenomena.
Riti notturni (Night Rituals): This is also missing from some online versions of the film, but has a maid conspire with a voodoo coven to murder and devour the couple that she works for.
Il Verme (The Worm): A woman who goes by the name of Bettina is reading Dylan Dog (the comic book that Cemetery Man comes from) when she overhears a story about parasites that go from cats to humans. As she explores her nearly nude body in a mirror, she notices a worm has grown out of her eye, which she stabs out.
Amare e morire (Loving and Dying): Set to Michael Jackson's "Bad," this story has Gloria assaulted and left for dead. As she recovers, she believes that the man who raped her is one of three neighbors. She sleeps with each in an attempt to learn who it is and get her bloody revenge.
Nostalgia punk: The most controversial segment, this has a woman's water become poisoned. She begins to vomit multicolored liquids and then parts of her body before she finally tears her own body to pieces and her organs rain out of her destroyed carcass. It got so many complaints that Argento was told to settle down in future segments.
La Strega (The witch): Using Morricone's score from The Bird With the Crystal Plumage, this has Cinzia's party guests playing a game called "The Witch" that ends with children screaming and holding a bloody head.
Addormentarsi (Falling asleep): A man is possessed by a demon just before he falls asleep and then devours his dog. This uses "Anarchy in the UK" by the Sex Pistols.
Sammy: Sammy is a young girl who is frightened when Santa enters her room. Then Santa removes his face and reveals a monster. It's simple but it really works.
L'incubo di chi voleva interpretare l'incubo di Dario Argento (The Nightmare of the One Who Wished to Explain Dario Argento's Nightmare): A young man comes to REI to be part of this series and when he stays at a hotel, he soon learns he's in a room with foreigners who steal everything he has and then threaten to kill him. It turns out that it's all a set-up by Argento.
At the beginning of every episode, Argento appears, often with Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni (Demons 2, Il Bosco 1, Opera) all gothed out and acting as his starry-eyed assistant.
Argento also created another segment for Giallo, Turno di notte (Night Shift), which was about what happens to cab drivers at night. Episodes were also directed by Lamberto Bava and Luigi Cozzi. He also shared how he filmed several big moments in his most famous movies, such as the Loma camera sequence in Tenebrae; the bird attack in Opera, the transformation scenes in Demons 2 and how he directed Goblin to create the score for Suspiria. These scenes are worth watching and also appear in the Luigi Cozzi-directed Dario Argento: Master of Horror.
While this is by no means necessary watching for those with a passing interest in Italian horror, for devotees of the form and Argento, it is required viewing. It's the chance to basically get nine new stories even if they are very short.
TMZ NO BS: Conor McGregor (2023)
MMA
Directed by David Thies (Prince Fatal Secrets, TMZ No BS: Cardi B), this TMZ No BS installment is all about former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Featherweight and Lightweight Champion - the first UFC fighter to hold UFC championships in two weight classes simultaneously - Conor McGregor. He's the biggest PPV draw in MMA history but his career hasn't been without controversy, which is where TMZ comes in.
Born in Dublin, McGregor started boxing to defend himself from bullies and then started training for MMA when he met Tom Egan. He debuted in February 2007 for the Irish Ring of Truth promotion, beating Kieran Campbell by TKO. By 2013, he was signed to UFC. Two years later, he defeated Chad Mendes for the UFC Featherweight Championship at UFC 183 - and he came to the ring with Sinead O'Connor singing him out - and then defeated injured champion Jose Aldo in 13 seconds - the fastest knock out in UFC history - to prove he deserved the belt.
He lost his first match at UFC 196 to Nate Diaz but defeated him in a rematch at UFC 200 and he would beat Eddie Alvarez for the UFC Lightweight Championship at UFC 205.
After taking most of 2017 off for the birth of his son, he crossed over to boxing and lost to Floyd Mayweather Jr. In the 10th round of his first pro fight. Despite two losses to knock out and saying he would retire several times, McGregor is due to fight Michael Chandler at UFC 303.
But the controversies! Like going wild in the cage on a show he wasn't on, Bellator 187, not to mention throwing things at a bus Khabib Nurmagomedov was riding in before UFC 223 and a fight with Nurmagomedov at UFC 229. He's also attacked people in pubs, allegedly punched Italian musician Francesco Facchinetti, been investigated for sexual assault and even knocked out the Miami Heat's mascot Burnie.
Between all that - and the new Roadhouse - TMZ certainly has a lot of ammo to deliver on McGregor and an entire hour to do it. Here's hoping he doesn't track down Harvey Levin and throw a beating on him.
Furia asesina (1990)
Furia asesina
Furia Aesina (1990)
Posted on June 10, 2024 by bandsaboutmovies
June 10: Junesploitation's topic of the day - as suggested by F This Movie- is Sharksploitation! We're excited to tackle a different genre every day, so check back and see what's next.
Of all the movies that came in the wake of Jaws, I may be most fascinated by Tintorera...Tiger Shark. Based on the book by oceanographer Ramón Bravo (who discovered the sleeping sharks of Isla Mujeres and is also the underwater zombie in Lucio Fulci's Zombi), it's as much a shark film as its a softcore movie concerning the three-way relationship between its heroes. It's also the only shark movie I've seen with full frontal male nudity.
Made 13 years after he made Tintorera, this is directed by René Cardona Jr. Mostly, it's about ecological-minded scientists devoted to solving the riddle of AIDS by studying sharks and taking their antibodies. As you can imagine, this makes the sharks more murderous, if that's possible. The film follows one of them and it beeps repeatedly, every time the camera gets close to it, as the Jaws theme plays. I don't even think Joe D'Amato or Bruno Mattei had balls big enough - cojones maybe - to do that.
There's also a BDSM serial killer on the loose, taking one of the scientists and tying her up. All with a Casio demo track synth soundtrack, filled with spandex and butt shots, shot on video and a release straight to home video. Also, Gerardo Zepeda, who plays Pariente in this, had quite the career, appearing in everything from El Topo to Sorceress, Dr. Tarr's Horror Dungeon, Caveman, as the monster in Night of the Bloody Apes and as the Cyclops in Santo and Blue Demon vs. The Monsters.
It's not as good as the original, but the fact that it exists and that I found means so much to me.
What Happens in Miami (2024)
What Happens In Miami
After a spring break vacation to Miami, three friends -- Maika (Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut), Taylor (Rachel Leyco) and Shay (Jada Elena Wooten) are blamed when the fourth member of their squad, Autumn (Annalisa Cochrane) goes missing. As she is a social media influencer, the story becomes picked up by the media and it puts the girls even more in the spotlight.
As told through flashbacks, we learn that at one point, Autumn was the girl who pushed the others to be wilder and go after the boys and girls they were interested in. But as the story unfolds, we soon discover that perhaps she wasn't the best friend to everyone. Meanwhile, Maika's father Zion (Derek Roberts) tries to coach the girls through what they should say to the police, triggering Shay as she remembers Autumn doing her makeup and revealing that she knows that she has a drug addiction.
Autumn also has a new guy by the name of Cameron (Christopher Collins) and his OCD is so bad that he does everything in three, keeps all of his clothes and records footage of his house that he watches over and over. He's also a drug dealer and treats them to hard seltzer and cocaine. He also tells Detective McAvoy (Lauren O'Quinn) later that he thinks that before she disappeared, Autumn had a fight with Maika.
That's when Maika gets a text from someone named "I Know Who Killed Me" saying that she knows what she did. Whoever it is, it also posts a photo of her and Julian (Zachary S. Williams) to make her look bad and anger her boyfriend Brandon (Phillip Patrick Wright). Taylor thinks that Cameron is the one behind the account.
Autumn is always getting into other people's faces, as well as using her friend's issues against them and going after the boys that they're interested in. But they've all known one another forever and generally, you stay friends with people like this, at least in high school.
But then they find Autumn's body and Cameron flips out, thinking that he's going to jail. This brings up the past again, as Autumn posts a photo of Maika and Julian as he tries to kiss her. Back to our time and "I Know Who Killed Me" is accusing everyone of the murder. It all leads to the girls using the media to try and clear their names.
Directed by Tim Cruz (The Final Rose) and written by Jackie Logsted (Deadly Secrets of a Cam Girl, Rush for Your Life), this has two major twists left that change the entire story. That said, you're going to have to watch it yourself to see what happens next. This another example of Tubi originals getting better and having stories that make you stick with them.
Dr. Cook's Garden (1971)
Decent TV movie
Originally a play by Ira Levin - A Kiss Before Dying, Rosemary's Baby, Deathtrap, The Stepford Wives, The Boys from Brazil and Sliver to name a few - this is only the second dramatic role for star Bing Crosby, who took over the part that Burl Ives played on Broadway, Dr. Leonard Cook.
He's the center of Greenfield, Vermont, responsible for the fact that there is hardly any crime and so much happiness. The man who is like a father to, Jimmy Tennyson( Jimmy Converse), comes back home and wants to be a doctor as well, but Cook is against it. This is his town.
Cook's assistant Dora Ludlow (Abby Lewis) tells Tennyson to keep working on the older man, who has heart problems, as he needs an assistant. The young doctor also glows close to a former love, Janey Rausch (Blythe Danner). He soon figures out that all of the deaths in town are Dr. Cook pruning his garden of those who aren't morally right for his small bit of heaven.
Originally airing on January 19, 1971 on ABC, this was directed by Ted Post, who we all know made The Baby and Beneath the Planet of the Apes. Writer Art Wallace worked on the Planet of the Apes TV series, as well as She Waits and being one of the creators of Dark Shadows. This is a really effective - and quick - movie. You'll see the twist coming, but the end is so moving and Crosby is so good in this role, you'll be along for every step of the ride.
Karate baka ichidai (1977)
So much goodness
Karate for Life (Karate Baka Ichidai which means A Karate Crazy Life) is the third and final movie in Sonny Chiba and director Kazuhiko Yamaguchi's series of movies about Kyokushin Karate master Mas Oyama. They're based on the Karate Baka Ichidai manga that was drawn by Jiro Tsunoda and Joya Kagemaru and written by Ikki Kajiwara. That comic book and the anime led to a karate boom in Japan and the artwork inspired the Street Fighter series and definitely is why you fight a bull in Karate Champ.
Chiba plays Oyama in all three movies and he has the belief that his martial arts is better than what he calls "dance" kung fu. There are some wild ways the movies prove this, as Chiba battles a bull in Kenka Karate Kyokushinken, which means Fighting Karate Kyokushin Fist. It was released in English speaking countries as Champion of Death and Karate Bullfighter. Not to be outdone, the sequel - Kenka Karate Kyokushin Burai Ken which means Fighting Karate-Brutal Ultimate Truth Fist - has Oyama literally battle a bear. Or a man in a bear costume, but what did you expect? That's why it's called Karate Bearfighter here.
Chiba actually studied for several years under Oyama - who has a cameo in the second movie - and achieved the rank of 4th Dan in the style. You can see his love for his master and the art in this movie, which mythologizes the abilities of Kyokushin Karate to somehow even more superhuman levels than the first two movies, minus the animal versus human battles.
This film is bookended by Oyama battling a karate school that he believes is inferior. He enters the school at the start of the film and battles nearly a hundred of their students, decimating them, before they cover the floor with oil to ruin his balance. It barely matters as he destroys even more of them and then plucks the eye out of the sensei, who follows him for the entire movie, waiting to attack, before Oyama fights him in a hall of mirrors as if this were a Japanese by way of Korean hero Enter the Dragon and climaxes with Oyama launching that man off a cliff.
In between, looking to make money to help street children, Oyama becomes involved with pro wrestling, which is used to entertain U. S. troops occupying post-war Japan. Despite giving up plenty of size, Oyama again obliterates everyone he faces and refuses to throw matches for the Yakuza organized crime figures that run it all. However, after he saves the life of a prostitute named Reiko (Yoko Natsuki) who is planning to kill herself after being assaulted by soldiers. Needing money to save a friend after they become sick, he finds himself coming back to wrestling but now he's in death matches - ala the Tiger Mask manga and anime - that are real battles to one person being killed. Of course, as you expect, he absolutely crushes everyone.
There's a lot to love here, from a hero that says, "Justice without power is nothing. Power without justice is just violence" which is kind of like Chiba renaming himself JJ Sonny Chiba and the JJ was for Japan Justice to pro wrestling scenes that have the names of each hold dynamically appearing on screen as if they were Shaw Brothers secret techniques, I was on the edge of my seat throughout.
Speaking of pro wrestling, this has Mr. Chin in the cast. According to a biography I found online, Mr. Chin was born Yuichi Deguchi and was a judo style martial artist who started his working life in the Hyogo prefecture's riot police unit before becoming part of the "Pro Judo" International Judo Association that was founded by Tatsukuma Ushijima as a way for judo fighters to make money putting on bouts and touring before the rise of Rikidozan's JWA.
After that, Deguchi joined the All Japan Pro Wrestling Association, an Osaka-based promotion that was the first to air pro wrestling on Japanese television. Mostly American soldiers were used as heels other than a man named P. Y. Chong, AKA Harold Watanabe, AKA Memphis legend Tojo Yamamoto (which makes sense to me finally as to how Phil Hickerson got his Asian name latter in his career, Py Chu Hi).
After being part of JWA's interpromotional Japan Championship Series in October of 1956, Deguchi joined Osaka locals Michiaki "Fireball Kid" Yoshimura, future famous All Japan Pro Wrestling referee Kanji "Joe" Higuchi and Hideyuki Nagasawa in joining the JWA. He became Mr. Chin and dressed in Chinese clothes and became one of the first wrestlers to use the poison mist as well as being one of the first native heels.
Chin feuded with Giant Baba, who took him out of wrestling for two months with one of his big boot kicks. After time in the hospital and encouragement from the nurse who would become his wife, Mr. Chin returned and in one match bit Baba in the chest, giving him a scar that he would carry throughout his career.
After stomach issues, Deguchi did some acting and came back in 1970 for IWE. He traveled to the U. S. for several years on an excursion, reforming his team with Yamamoto and using the name Mr. Kamikaze. He returned in 1976 as a gaijin heel by the name of Mr. Yoto and would later become part of the Independent Gurentai Army with Goro Tsurumi and Katzuso Ooiyama as their managing, taking back his Mr. Chin name. Just before IWE went out of business, he would lose to Hiromichi "Samson" Fuyuki by DQ on the final show at a playground.
As for the IWA, when they went out of business, Masao Inoue, Ashura Hara, Tsurumi and Fuyuki would join AJPW and their biggest star Rusher Kimura would take Isamu Teranishi and Animal Hamaguchi with him to New Japan Pro Wrestling for the first invasion angle in Japanese wrestling history, one that would later inspire the battles with UWFI and the NWO. Meanwhile, IWE founder Isao Yoshihara would become one of NJPW's bookers. As for Goro Tsurumi, he would run a local indy by the name of IWA Kakuto Shijuku, in which he was the only star and battle masked locals and other indy journeymen like Shoji Nakamaki and Yukihide Ueno.
But what about Mr. Chin? After IWE went out of business, he worked all over the world - even the Middle East - he would eventually debut for Frontier Martial Arts Pro Wrestling at the age of sixty in 1993. He was a comedy match character who would open shows, often wrestling young trainees like future ECW star Masato Tanaka. He also feuded with GOSAKU (who I once wrestled in WMF when he used the name Biomonster DNA) who was using the gimmick name of Undertaker Gosaku and Mr. Chin was Jinsei Chinzaki, taking off from Jinsei "Hakushi" Shinzaki. Sadly, Yuichi Deguchi died of chornic renal failure - after a life dealing with diabetes - in 1995.
Speaking of Japanese actors who would be famous and yet unknown to American audiences, Toshiyuki Tsuchiyama is in this. He's better known for the mecha suit he wore as Johnny Sokko.
There was a two-part remake of this film, Shin Karate Baka Ichidai: Kakutosha, directed by Takeshi Miyasaka and released in 2003 and 2004. The second film has pro wrestlers Keiji Mutoh, Masakatsu Funaki and kickboxer and former K-1 referee Nobuaki Kakuda in it.
Super Legend God Hikoza (2022)
Fun!
If you liked Monster Seafood Wars, director Minoru Kawasaki (Executive Koala, Earth Defense Widow, The Monster X Strikes Back: Attack the G8 Summit) is back with another kaiju movie, this time with a mecha that is created by scientists Tadao and Takaho to battle a gigantic sturgeon.
Also, if that sentence made you laugh, you will like this.
Many years ago, the human race worked with the Godness aliens to create Super Legend God Hikoza and defeat Shachihokon. But now the alien monster has escaped his prison and possesses a salary man to get his revenge on humanity.
UISAS (Ultra Institute Space and Astronaut Science) find a small doll that allows them to change places - like Marvel's Captain Marvel - with Super Legend God Hikoza when needed. The team must learn to work as one and find the arms and legs of the giant robot to save everything.
I kind of love that in order to appeal to the people of Earth, the superhero gets to be part of a tokusatsu/sentai live action show for some children. I also love that the UISAS also studies space archaeology which seems to be something all governments of the world should be doing. We should also be building gigantic robots, but no one will listen to me about that.
War of the Worlds: Extinction (2024)
Sequel
At the end of War of the Worlds: Annihilation, General Skuller (William Baldwin) is taking spaceships into space to colonize - attack - other planets after the planet Earth - destroyed by years of pollution - comes after the planet Emios. He sends Alice (April Mae Davis) through the wormhole that connects the two planets and has her use the Terra Modus to destroy our homeworld by creating a series of natural disasters.
Earth's defenses are led by General Alfaro (Michael Paré), who coincidentally has an ex-wife named Sybil (Kate Hodge) and a daughter named Jill (Jessy Holtermann) who are studying that very same device. Yes, it's the battle we've always wanted: Baldwin vs. Paré! Where does Eric Roberts stand in all of this?
Directed by Christopher Ray (Fred Olen Ray's son; he also directed Mercenaries, Almighty Thor and Mega Shark vs. Kolossus) and written by Marc Gottlieb ( Time Pirates) - and produced by The Asylum - this really makes you wonder who the heroes and who the villains are. Maybe there aren't any when it comes to war? Maybe we have no real choice over who are leader is going to be because both options are the worst possible? Is The Asylum making a deep point for us to consider? No, of course not. They just want to use disaster footage from other movies and have another series of movies to make money from. There's nothing wrong with that. That's what exploitation is all about.
Miami Supercops (1985)
Miami Supercops
Seven years ago, after a daring bank robbery in Detroit, FBI agents Doug Bennett (Terence Hill) and Steve Forest (Bud Spencer) were only able to arrest one of the three criminals, Joe Garret (Richard Liberty, yes, Dr. Logan from Day of the Dead). They never found the other two thieves or the $20 million they stole. And as soon as Garret gets out of jail, he shows up in Miami and even sooner is dead. Doug has stayed an agent, but Steve is now a flight instructor. This is the chance to solve the one case that they never did, so they disguise themselves as police officers and go to Miami. Well, Doug wants to solve the case. Steve wants left alone, but Doug tells him their old boss Tanney (C. B. Seay) has been killed. It's a lie just to get him to go.
Miami Supercops is the last non-Western that Hill and Spencer would be in together - 1994's Troublemakers is their last movie - and it's an attempt to stay current and be like Miami Vice while reminding their fans of 1977's Crime Busters. But yeah - Miami Vice - and we all know how much Italians not only love to rip off pop culture but to go to Florida to make movies. This doesn't have as much of the humor as their past films and way more guns than slaps. Oh yeah - this also has some Beverly Hills Cop in it and has the 80s synth that you want it to have as a soundtrack (Carmelo and Michelangelo La Bionda, who also did the Antonio Margheriti movie Virtual Weapon that teams up Hill with Marvin Hagler, Who Finds a Friend Finds a Treasure and Super Fuzz, are the composers).
Bruno Corbucci made the journey from writing two of the most violent Westerns ever - Django and The Great Silence to name two - for his brother Sergio and ended up making movies like this, Aladdin and multiple movies with Tomas Milan playing Inspector Nico Giraldi. He wrote this movie with Luciano Vincenzoni, who also was the writer for Raw Deal, Orca, A Quiet Place In the Country and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
I kind of like the character of Annabelle, a larger woman played by Rhonda Lunstedt, who was a pro bodybuilder and one of the touring American Gladiators. Her only other acting role is in an episode of Miami Vice - that came in good here, you know? - and in Sergio Martino's wild Uppercut Man, a movie I keep trying to get people to watch. Italian-American character actor Buffy Dee is also in this. You may remember him as Barney the club owner in Mako, the Jaws of Death. He was also in Nightmare Beach, the Hill and Spencer movie Go For It and Lady Ice.
My goal is to watch all the Hill and Spencer movies, as they always fill me with joy. Also: There's a new video game, Slaps and Beans 2, that is somehow available in the U. S. I feel like it's been made only for me.
Tales from the Crypt: Deadline (1991)
Non-horror
Charlie McKenzie (Richard Jordan) was a reporter once. But now, he's a drunk that can barely survive. Then he meets Vicki (Marg Helgenberger) and one night of love with her has him fixing his life and trying to get his job back, even if his boss Phil Stone (Richard Herd) and sister Mildred (Rutanya Alda) don't believe that he can ever get back off the booze. Even his bartender wants him to stop drinking.
"So, what'll it be, stranger? Can I interest you in a mai die? Or would you prefer a rum and choke? Or maybe you'd like something a little stronger. I've got just the thing. It's a nasty little snootfull about a newshound named Charlie who needs a murder story and a drink. But not necessarily in that order. Ah, what some people won't do for a good stiff one. I call this little eye-opener "Deadline.""
Charlie has to bring in a murder story. He finds it in a diner, as Nikos Stavo (Jon Polito) argues with his unseen wife in the kitchen. Charlie runs in for his story, only to learn that the woman who is getting him back on his feet was just sleeping with drunks to upset her husband. So our protagonist kills her and calls in his story, ending this episode in a sanitarium.
This episode is directed and co-written by one of Tales from the Crypt's producers, Walter Hill. It's as good as you hoped it would be. He wrote it with his assistant, Mae Woods, who would go on to be a producer of movies such as Streets of Fire, Red Heat and Crossroads.
This episode is based on "Deadline" from Shock SuspenStories #12. It was written by Al Feldstein and William Gaines and drawn by Jack Kamen. This episode feels like it could run along with "Mournin' Mess" as they are so close to each other.
The First Omen (2024)
Such a surprise
This movie - the sixth film in the series and a prequel - has no right to be as good as it is.
Yet here we are.
It starts with Father Brennan (Ralph Ineson, so great in The Witch) learning that the Catholic Church is planning to bring the Antichrist to our world to encourage people to come back to the church. An older priest - Father Harris (Charles Dance) - tells him all of this, gives him a photo of a baby with the name Scianna and is then killed when a pipe graphically lands in his head and down his spine - this scene seems so much like how Brennan dies in the first movie - as stained glass rains down.
I was already sold.
As Margaret Daino (Nell Tiger Free) arrives from America to study at the Tanz Akademie - err, I mean, to become a nun at the Vizzardeli Orphanage - in the middle of the Days of Lead. As protests swell around her, she meets Cardinal Lawrence (Bill Nighy), who has been in her life since her birth, along with Father Gabriel (Tawfeek Barhom), Sister Silva (Sônia Braga), a strange nun named Anjelica (Ishtar Currie-Wilson) and her roommate and fellow student Olga - err, again, I mean Luz (Maria Caballero).
Margaret and Luz bond, deciding to go to a disco where the inexperienced American girl dances with Paolo (Andrea Arcangeli). As the rooms begins to spin, she passes out and wakes up back at the orphanage.
She soon becomes concerned about a girl named Carlita (Nicole Sorace) who has been confined by the nuns as she is said to have evil thoughts. At one point, Carlita shows Anjelica a drawing that disturbs her so much that she sets herself on fire, jumps off a ledge, hangs herself and falls through a window.
Brennan (yes, the same character played by Patrick Troughton in the original film, even if he's said to be a Satanist in that movie) and Margaret believe that Carlita has been picked to be the mother of the Antichrist. When she sees Paolo one night, he tells her to look for the mark just seconds before a truck pins him to a wall. When she tries to hold him, Margaret walks away holding half of his body in an astounding moment.
Soon, she learns that she was impregnated by a demonic jackal - unlike the female one in The Omen - and is rushed to an abortion by two Catholic priests, which is as sacrilegious as it gets. Another car slams into them and she emerges from the car and suddenly she becomes Isabelle Adjani from Possession, seemingly now ready to give birth as she writhes in the filthy street.
Cardinal Lawrence watches over the birth of two children, a girl and a boy - the moment state his sex, the Jerry Goldsmith theme takes over - but Margaret is able to stab the priest and nearly kills her male child, but can't. Luz stabs her and the conspiracy leaves, sending the entire place up in flames, the jackal burning and screaming. Carlita saves her and we see the two living in the mountains, just as Brennan finds them and says that she will be hunted down and that her son is named Damien and that he has been adopted by Robert Thorn and his wife Katherine.
Directed by Arkasha Stevenson, who wrote the script with Tim Smith and Keith Thomas, this film feels like it takes parts of Rosemary's Baby, Suspiria and the aforementioned Possession while being its own unique film. Stevenson directed the "Butcher's Block" season of Channel Zero, which is a neglected series that more people need to see. I'm so excited that more people are getting to see her work with this film.
Stevenson understands that the real horror - more and more these days - is that women's bodies are being taken from them. She told SciFiNow, "Do you remember that scene where Gregory Peck is holding Lee Remick in bed and she says "I think I need you to call me a doctor because I think I'm going crazy." That is what I remember more than anything. Even as a kid, that terrified me because it first introduced the concept of people dislocating from reality and not knowing what's real and what's not real. That scared me as a kid but continues to scare me even now. Especially as a woman. I think a lot of our life is deciphering what's a threat, and what's not a threat."
From the paintings in the orphanage resembling the ones that Bugenhagen finds at Yigael's Wall to a young Father Spiletto running from the fire, foreshadowing his death in The Omen, this film has something for the fans that love the original but new viewers don't have the need to see every film in this cycle of movies.
This is such a unique moment, as it's not just a sequel but a prequel that feels like it adds to the original while being able to have the quality to be judged on its own. I'm still just shocked by it and how much I loved every moment.
La rebelión de las muertas (1973)
What I need
Released in Spain as La rebelión de las muerta (Rebellion of the Dead Women), this León Klimovsky-directed and Paul Naschy-written movie was also released in Italy as La Vendetta dei Morti Viventi (Revenge of the Living Dead), in Germany as three titles - Rebellion of the Living Dead, Invocation of the Devil (blame The Exorcist) and Blood Lust of the Zombies in 1980 to cash in on Dawn of the Dead - and after playing double features in the U. S. with The Dracula Saga, it returned - like a zombie - from Independent Artists as Walk of the Dead, complete with a "Shock Notice" before every murder.
I can't even imagine what people who saw this expecting Romero thought. It's closer to the 40s zombie movies mixed with some giallo, as a serial killer is murdering gorgeous women, all of whom are brought back to life by a mystic named Kantaka (Naschy), who is building an army of, well, sexy female zombies. He also has a brother, Krishna (Naschy in a second part) making people feel good about themselves and enlightened. Naschy even gets a third role as Satan!
At the heart of the movie is Elvire (Rommy, The Killer With a Thousand Eyes), the kind of ravishing redhead that seemingly only lives in Eurohorror movies. She's just lost her father and butler. Kantaka wants to add her to his growing group of sensual and sultry walking dead.
A lot of people say bad things about this movie but they are closed minded folks who can't grip the fact that a surrealist Spanish horror film with a fuzzed out jazz score, Paul Naschy, Mirta Miller (Dr. Jekyll vs. The Werewolf), María Kosti (The Night of the Sorcerers), lots of slow motion, plenty of stock footage and the kind of feeling that even Naschy said felt drug-induced can be what movie watching should be about. I could care less being into what's the hottest and parroting the words of film Twitter. Nope, I'm happy watching an absolutely battered copy of this, so excited that Rommy is in a cover version of an Italian gothic by way of an American zombie movie, diaphanous white gown and all. This movie is made on location in its own world and we're all the better to spend just a few minutes within it.
Most Famous Murder: The O.J. Simpson Trial (2024)
Not bad
O. J. Simpson died on April 10 of this year and it made me reflect. This movie asks the viewer to remember where you were when you saw the Bronco being chased by the police. I was in a raucous bar in Beaver, PA which was usually so overwhelming loud and it was super quiet. People suddenly had to realize that they were watching history and one of the first major moments of the 24 hour news cycle. It's difficult to explain what it was like to live through the years of O. J. being arrested, the trial and what came after to someone who wasn't alive for it. It was a TV show that we all lived through every night.
In this documentary, we hear from Kato Kaelin, Alan Dershowitz and Christopher Darden - as well as many others - as they talk about what it was like to be in the middle of this trial and the surrounding fervor. Even though we are so many years removed from this time, it still feels so real and like it just happened.
The really interesting part is when one of the people interviewed speaks about how O. J. claimed for years that he was above being black or white and wanted to transcend race, just being known as O. J. Yet when the trial was happening, he quickly embraced his blackness to gather the support of the community. It was also a truly tense time to be in Los Angeles, as after the Rodney King trial and the riots, it felt as if anything could set the whole place on fire.
If you have any interest in this trial and this era, you probably have seen everything there is to see. I mean, we did an entire podcast about the American Crime Story O. J. season. That said, it's here for you if you need it.
Realm of Shadows (2024)
There's something good in this
Directed by Jimmy Drain, who also appears in this movie and co-wrote it with Robert Bieber and Lewis Leslie, Realm of Shadows is an anthology horror film that boasts appearances by two pretty famous talents in Tony Todd and Vernon Wells, as well as Richard Tyson (Kindgergarten Cop) and Harley Whalen (Ash and Bone).
The connecting story -- all horror anthologies need them! -- is about a group of priests -- Bishop Lucian (Mel Novak) and Brother Charles (Michael S. Rodriguez) -- battling a coven of witches led by Nalum (Erika Monet Butters) -- there's even a Ouija board! -- over a dagger that was used to stab Jesus in the side. Their battle brings the stories to life, several of which are based on tales that have actually happened.
The stories are:
Mallick's Dreamlady: A man named Mallick (Drain) is able to pick up his dream girl (Leah Saxon) after help from a bartender (Mike Apple) who may not exist. This story was originally a short film directed by Drain and written by Tim Keller that was made in 2009.
Hike: The same man (Drain) keeps waiting to propose so long than his girlfriend (Morgan Weaver) leaves, which makes him loses his sanity. This is another short that Drain directed and Keller wrote in 20111.
Abashed: Jane and Thomas (Cassie Kelso, Mark Mook) have a bad break-up but when black magic gets involved, it turns out that true love may be the only enemy of evil. This is the short Abashed that was made in 2020.
The Initiation of Professor Kimmer: A new professor named Daniel Kimmer (Drain) is seduced by a student named Starr (Luba Bocian) and could lose his happy world with Jamie (Emily Absher). Starr wants more than just lovemaking. She may want his soul. But perhaps that soul is already owned by Jamie and her coven. This is taken from the 2011 short of the same name, directed by Drain and written by Lewis Leslie.
Cadaver: Peggy (played by Jodi Lynn Thomas, voiced by Ashe Medina) finds one of those witchcraft dancing schools we've all seen in movies, this one owned by Beedham (Caustic Scifidelic, who also did the score). It may cost so much more than money.
Meet Michael: Gaylen (Mara Davala) is a five-year-old girl so afraid of monsters that her parents hire an exorcist. This is from the 2017 short of the same name, directed by Brian McCulley and written by Drain.
Finally,Fate Upside Down has the witches and priests fight it out for the dagger, which brings in Father Dudley (Todd) and his son Robby (Drain). This has animation and werewolves, as well as the characters from the first two stories, plus a last second appearance by Wells soon follows.
Realm of Shadows is a lot better than most streaming anthologies. It seems to have a central idea about love and evil, as well as moments of experimentation, even silent movie elements. It definitely looks way better than its budget would suggest and I'd love to see where Drain takes this in the sequel that is built by the ending.
Surviving the Game (1994)
Pretty fun
How awesome is it that Ice T has played both the hero and the villain in movies that are remixed versions of The Most Dangerous Game? He started here as Jack Mason, the homeless man hunted by the rich and powerful and just three years later, he would be Vincent Moon, the crime overlord who has gathered a hundred of his best killers to, well, kill one another in Mean Guns. It's as wild as the journey that took him from singing lyrics like "I got my twelve gauge sawed-off, I got my headlights turned off, I'm 'bout to bust some shots off, I'm 'bout to dust some cops off" to playing Detective Fin Tutuola for a quarter of a century on prime time cop TV.
Ernest Dickerson has made a cool path in his career, too. Starting as the cinematographer for several Spike Lee movies, as well as John Sayles' Brother from Another Planet, Robert Townsend's Eddie Murphy Raw and James Bond III's Def by Temptation, he directed some really interesting films, including Juice, Demon Knight and Bones. He's since directed episodes of The Wire and The Walking Dead.
But back to the most dangerous game
In just a few days, Jack Mason has lost his dog and his only human friend, another unhoused man named Hank (Jeff Corey, who was blacklisted and became an acting coach before returning to acting and being in movies like Jennifer and The Premonition). Between that, being on the streets of Seattle and never dealing with the loss of his wife and daughter, he decides to kill himself. He's saved by Walter Cole (Charles S. Dutton, a powerhouse of an actor who nearly spent his life in prison) who runs a soup kitchen and refers him to Thomas Burns (Rutger Hauer), a man who runs hunting parties and needs someone who knows how to survive to guide a party that includes CIA psychologist and hunt leader Doc Hawkins (Gary Busey), Texas oil tycoon John Griffin (John C. McGinley) - who is also grieving over a lost daughter - and wealthy Wall Street trader Derek Wolfe Sr. (F. Murray Abraham) and his son Derek Wolfe Jr. (William McNamara)
Of course, the hunt is to kill human game. And his time on the street has taught him how to be more ruthless than any of these evil people or even the ones who have been led to be part of this group. You know, kind of like Hard Target without the splits.
Writer Eric Bernt also was behind Virtuosity, Romeo Must Die and then you see that he also wrote Highlander: Endgame and the remake of The Hitcher and you want to be nice but man, really?
That said, I kind of love this movie because the cast is pretty great and I'm all for Ice T snarling nearly every line of dialogue that he has.
TMZ NO BS: Vanderpump Rules "Scandoval" (2023)
TMZ
I know nothing about Vanderpump Rules, but just looking at Reddit comments for this made me filled with joy: "People that have not watched all the seasons and all the episodes don't really know all the layers going on in this scandal. They are looking at just the affair happened. Not that it was going on for a year or more. How Debbie Desperado was preaching at Lala, James, Katie, Oliver, Charlie, us on national television for months.. while she was actually doing Tom at the same time. It was demented.. she really is the most stupid demon."
Anyways, Vanderpump Rules has been on Bravo for eleven years and I've never seen an episode. If you haven't either, it's the first spin-off from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and is all about Lisa Vanderpump and the staff of her West Hollywood restaurants SUR (Sexy Unique Restaurant) Restaurant & Lounge -- yes, she has restaurant twice in the name -- as well as Pump Restaurant and Tom Tom Restaurant & Bar.
According to this documentary, the show was about to be cancelled before cast members Tom Sandoval and Ariana Madix broke up after Madix found out Sandoval had been having an affair with Raquel Leviss, all of which was filmed for the show. On March 7, Leviss filed a temporary restraining order against another member of the cast, Scheana Shay, alleging that she had punched her after learning of the affair. During the show's reunion, Shay and Leviss had to be kept 100 yards of one other.
Vulture said, "The stakes of this drama feel higher than those of any other reality-TV couple, and these people, whom we've followed with hungry, shallow interest, are acting intensely in character."
Man, these guys had secret Instagram love symbols. What am I missing not watching this? I mean, this would totally cut into my watching of movies no one cares about. It's good that I can at least watch this and get it all in one place, even if I have to hear TMZ people scream at one another.
The Lincoln Conspiracy (1977)
Love Sunn Classics
I'm obsessed by the true fact movies that Sunn Classics and Schick Sunn Classics released in the 1970s. There's Peter Graves telling the world about The Mysterious Monsters, Rod Serling narrating The Outer Space Connection, the religious strangeness of In Search of Noah's Ark and In Search of Historic Jesus, The Amazing World of Psychic Phenomena, near-death experiences in Beyond and Back and Beyond Death's Door, the snuff disasters of Encounter With Disaster and two that I had never been able to find. One is pretty much lost, The President Must Die, and the other is today's movie, The Lincoln Conspiracy.
"Ladies and gentlemen, everyone sitting in this audience has been exposed to the traditional story of the assassination of President Lincoln. For over a century history books have taught us that the murder was committed by a crazed actor named John Wilkes Booth. The history books go on to say a few southern rebels helped him and no one else. The motion picture you are about to see will shock you. Because the true story of President Lincoln's assassination can not be found in any history book. It is a story of corruption, treachery and cover-up. It is a story every American has a right to know."
With that opening, we're off and running with this movie, which was based on the book of the same name by David W. Balsiger and Charles E. Sellier Jr. If that last name sounds familiar, he's the man behind so many of these movies. He has a wild life story, starting as a Cajun Catholic, converting to Mormonism and then to evangelical Christianity. He also wrote The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams and founded Sunn with Rayland Jenson and Patrick Frawley. They were the kings of market research and four-walling, a process in which they bought space at a theater and did all the ads, then collected all the ticket money. They realized that there was a Christian audience that wanted G rated movies on one hand and paranormal ones on the other. Sunn was ahead of its time when it comes to what is on basic cable today.
It made the movie look better to be based on a book. Schick Sunn Classic Books started to put this out, which is a genius movie that exploitation masters since Kroger Babb have used to make money. The main idea of the book and the movie is that historians and have been part of a big cover-up. This all started when President Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, Union spy Lafayette C. Baker, Senator Benjamin F. Wade, Senator John Conness, other congressional Radical Republicansm and a cabal of Northern bankers and speculators all wanted to capture the President and keep him hidden until they cold impeach him. The reason? Lincoln wanted to unite the country after the Civil War and they were upset that they would lose money.
Baker found out that actor John Wilkes Booth wanted to kidnap Lincoln and was brought into the plan. After he failed several times, he was told to stop and instead, he decided on his own to kill Lincoln on April 14. He had a diary that incriminated several of the men who paid for him to do the plot and they were panicked. A Confederate double agent James William Boyd was killed and the trial that followed and the autopsy were altered to make it appear as if Booth was killed, while sympathetic people got him to England.
Maybe. You know how speculative history is.
The book and film's theories and perhaps not all that well researched use of source material* made historians lose their minds. But weren't they covering it up?
The movie casts Robert Middleton (Even Angels Eat Beans, amongst many other movies) as Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, John Dehner (who was an animator on Fantasia and was a radio actor before a long acting career in movies and TV) as Colonel Lafayette C. Baker, Bradford Dillman (Bug, Piranha, The Swarm) as John Wilkes Booth, Ted Henning as Robert Campbell, Whit Bissell (a scientist in Creature from the Black Lagoon and I Was a Teenage Werewolf), Ken Kercheval (Dallas), as John Surratt, James Green (One Hour to Live) as Capt. James William Boyd, Len Wayland as Ward H. Lamon, Edmund Lupinski as Edwin Henson, Greg Oliver (the killer in Scalpel) as Rep. George Julian, Frank Schuller as Lt. Everton Conger, Patrick Wright (Track of the Moon Beast) as Major Thomas Eckert), Sonny Shroyer (Enos from The Dukes of Hazzard) as Lewis Paine, Wallace Wilkinson (who was in Cannibals Apocalypse, Invasion U. S. A. And The Visitor) as Dr. Samuel Mudd, Mimi Honce (who was also in Scalpel and Asylum of Satan) as Mary Surratt, Ben Jones (yes, this movie has both Cooter and Enos in it) as Samuel Arnold, John Anderson (the car salesman in Psycho) as Lincoln and Sunn's narrator in nearly every movie, Brad Crandall, who also was the voice of movies and shows like the "The Curse of Dracula" parts of Cliffhangers!, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and the Wizard on the early 80s Spider-Man cartoon.
Basically, it's a Southern all-star low budget cast.
Director James L. Conway went from Sunn movies like their Classics Illustrated TV movies such as Last of the Mohicans to Beyond and Back, Hangar 18, The Boogens and episodes of shows from Hardcastle and McCormick, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Charmed to The Orville and The Magicians. He also produced Charmed and created the series Burke's Law and University Hospital.
As always with Sunn, I loved every minute of this, no matter how fake the beards looked.
Want to watch it? It was just released by Kino Lorber.
*The movie ends with this: "The story you have just seen is true. It has been authenticated with the following documents: Lafayette Baker Papers; James William Boyd Papers; Chaffey Shipping Company Papers; Andrew Potter Papers; National Detective Papers; Rep. George Julian's Diary; James V. Barnes Papers; Ray A. Nef Papers; Paine-Powell Papers; Michael O'Laughlin Testimony; Edwin M. Stanton Letters; John Wilkes Booth Letters; Richard D. Mudd Papers; Dr. Samuel Mudd Papers; Col. Julian Raymond Papers; Larry Mooney Papers; John Wilkes Booth Purported Missing Diary Papers; "Web of Conspiracy" by Theodore Roscoe; "Mask of Treason" by Vaughn Shelton; "Why Was Lincoln Murdered?" by Otto Eisenschiml; "In the Shadow of Lincoln's Death" by Otto Eisenschiml."
TMZ NO BS: Chris Brown (2023)
Chris Brown
It's yet another TMZ doc on Tubi that I watch and learn all about a celebrity that I had basically no knowledge of. This time, it's Chris Brown, who Wikipedia reveals is called the King of R&B by some and has even been compared to Michael Jackson.
Brown became the first male artist since 1995 to have his debut be a #1 song - Coolio's "Gangster's Paradise" would be the last song to get that debut success - but within a few years, his albums were failures, all due to the fact that he pled guilty to the felony assault of his girlfriend Rihanna.
Brown began dating actress Karrueche Tran and yet Rihanna and Brown released remixes to their singles "Turn Up the Music" and "Birthday Cake" that really made it seem like they were dating. Brown announced that he broke up with Tran and the day after, he released a video "The Real Chris Brown" where he said, "Is there such thing as loving two people? I don't know if it's possible, but I feel like that." So he started dating Rhianna again, but they broke up a year later and he got back with Tran, who dumped him when another woman gave birth to Brown's child.
Brown's life has been filled with controversy, like a fight with Drake in which San Antonio Spur Tony Parker got glass in his eye, a battle with Frank Ocean over a parking spot, a hit and run, a rehab stint and him being kicked out of rehab and having to go to jail. Two years later and he was sued for assault, false imprisonment and battery by his former manager Mike G. Supposedly, Brown took the man who he had hired to fix his image and locked him in a room where he punched him four times in the face and neck.
Worldwide, he has sold over 217 million records and 94.5 million digital singles, but has had times in his life that he did so many drugs that his security had to check to see if he had overdosed and wasn't sleeping.
If you want to know more form the TMZ crew, this doc has you covered.
See, I learned something.
You gui zi (1976)
Oily Maniac
Inspired by a 1950s series of Malaysian movies*, this film is about Sheng Yun (Danny Lee, The Killer, Thunder of Gigantic Serpent/King of Snakes, Infra-Man), a man who has risen past the handicap that polio dealt him to become a lawyer. He tries to helps a man, Lin Yang Ba (Ku Feng), who has killed a criminal to protect his daughter Yue (Chen Ping) and his coconut oil business. Before he is hung, Lin Yang gives Sheng Yu a black magic spell that transforms him into an oily maniac.
The real problem is that Yue is really in love with Chen Fu Sin (Wa Lun) and wants nothing to do with him. That means he goes on a rampage, wiping out all manner of criminals, like a plastic surgeon, a woman who accuses men of rape and a blackmailer. Look, if someone asks you to look at the magic spell on their back, lie in a hole in your yard and cover yourself with oil, I guess you do it.
Some people think all the Shaw Brothers did was martial arts movies. Oh man. I hope you know that they made movies like The Boxer's Omen, Human Lanterns and Corpse Mania. Somehow, director Meng-Hua Ho (The Cave of the Silken Web, Black Magic) and writer Lam Chua made a movie that feels like The Heap, Man-Thing and Swamp Thing with a bit of Toxic Avenger except, you know, in 1976.
You would also think that because this is a superhero movie that it would be for children. Well, no. Not with the near-constant nudity and threat of sexual violence in every scene. It's so strange how the goofy costume of the creature is juxtaposed against the sheer depravity on display in this movie, including scenes where a woman reveals her burned breast and the Oily Maniac attacks an abortionist mid-baby killing.
*According to IMDB, this is based on the Malaysian legend of the orang minyak (oily man), a creature that comes to life out of crude oil and is fueled by the hope for revenge by those who have been done wrong. There are also three Malaysian films - Curse of the Oily Man, Orang Minyak and Serangan Orang Minyak - as well as two modern movies, Orang minyak and Pontianak vs. Orang Minyak, which has the oily man battle a vengeful ghost woman.
Zombi New Millennium (2000)
A good start
What do you watch when you've seen nearly every major zombie movie?
You hunt.
Directed by Alex Visani, who wrote the script with Tom Larini and Dan Sabatta - who also appear in the movie - Zombi New Millenium is all about Daniel (Sabatta), a black magic user who has created a new zombie virus that can be spread by mobile phones and television screens (Demons 2, you know?) and the zombies all look a lot like, well, Demons.
Daniel's plan was to become rich and immortal, using his theory that there are three dimensions: Earth, Hell and the internet. He believes that demons gain their power through humans, so by using a computer programmer, he's made a subliminal virus that will allow him to have power over the demons, but of course they take over the programming and spread their virus everywhere, creating demons and zombies that spread their infection and destroy humanity.
Visani has moved on to make movies like Born Dead, Blades In the Darkness, Stomach and Mind Creep. This is obviously an early effort, but even here there are some interesting moments, like the idea of phone calls causing transformations and people tearing their faces off. I mean, if I made a movie when I was young, I would have ripped off the intestines eating from Antropophagus and been indebted to Luigi Cozzi and Lucio Fulci too. I mean, I still would if I made a movie now.
Don't expect much more than a grainy videotaped film that is indebted at once to Italian splatter and Japanese ideas. But hey - greater things were in the future. Everyone starts somewhere.
Sorority Girl (1957)
Mean Girls
1957 was a big year for Roger Corman. He directed Naked Paradise, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Not of This Earth, The Undead, Rock All Night, Teenage Doll, Carnival Rock and The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent. Playing with Edward L. Cahn's Motorcycle Gang - a remake of Cahn's earlier film Drag Strip Girl - this was distributed by those masters of teen drive-in films, American-International Pictures.
Susan Cabot was a contract actress for Universal that appreciated getting to play roles she'd never get to play otherwise thanks to Roger Corman. She's also in The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent, Carnival Rock, War of the Satellites, Machine-Gun Kelly and The Wasp Woman. She had a rough life, as she was raised in eight different foster homes - and abused in several of them - which led to late life PTSD. Her mother was also institutionalized and she may have inherited some of her mental illness. She married her first husband before she was 18, just to escape, and eventually came to Hollywood where she would act in many a Western and date King Hussein of Jordan. Later in life, as she fell in mental illness and hoarding, even her psychologist would say their sessions were emotionally draining. One night, she woke her son - who had dwarfism and suffered pituitary gland problems - and attacked him with a scalpel and a weight lifting bar. Confused, he took the bar from her and beat her to death. He originally told police she was attacked by a man in a ninja mask as no one understood mental problems in 1986. Eventually, he was put on probation after being in jail for two and a half years.
Back to happier things.
Written by Leo Lieberman and Ed Waters for AIP - Corman didn't like the script - it has Cabot as Sabra Tanner, a rich girl who feels like her mother doesn't care about her. She can't help herself as she hurts everyone around her, like trying to steal her friend Rita's (Barboura Morris') boyfriend Mort (Dick Miller) and forcing a heavier pledge named Ellie (Barbara Cowan) to do situps in order to be thin. When Tina doesn't listen, she paddles her and yeah, this is exploitation so not only does Sabra love it, Tina just may as well. And when Mort won't give in, she finds a pregnant waitress named Tine (June Kenney) to blackmail him.
None of it ends well, as must happen in so many teen movies. Sabra is a psychopath - as if the opening credits didn't spoil this - and at the end, all she can do is walk into the ocean and drown. Today, she'd probably get over all this and be a CEO or something.
There's nothing I love more than a woman destroying people. I've had it done to me more than a few times. Now, I just watch it in movies.
Not of This Earth (1957)
Not of This Earth
At 67 minutes, this movie was made to be shown with Attack of the Crab Monsters. Its stars Paul Birch as Mr. Johnson, a man quite literally not of this Earth because he's an alien from Davanna with blank eyes that can burn right into your brain. If you start to like him, remember that he starts the movie by removing the blood of a teenage girl with some tubes that he keeps in his attache case.
Davanna is dying from the end of a nuclear war which has turned everyone's blood to dust. Now, as he waits in Los Angeles, Mr. Johnson is attempting to solve the issues with his peoples' blood. He has a houseboy named Jeremy (Jonathan Haze) and hires away nurse Nadine Storey (Beverly Garland) from a man he has hypnotized, Dr. F. W. Rochelle (William Roerick).
The police are wondering who the vampire killer is, but Mr. Johnson is just trying to stay alive. And look out anyone - like Dick Miller as a vacuum salesman - who comes to his home. Soon, another alien (Anna Lee Carroll) shows up but her blood becomes laced with rabies. She's not the last as even though Johnson perishes in a car crash - a police siren is too much for his alien hearing - another alien that looks just like him shows up at his grave.
Director Roger Corman and Charles B. Griffith (who wrote the screenplay with Mark Hanna) worked together quite a lot. Griffith said of the story, "It started all this X-ray eye business. Most of Roger's themes got established right in the beginning. Whatever worked, he'd come and take again, and a lot of things got used over and over. During the production of Not of This Earth, I was married to a nurse, and she helped me do a lot of medical research. I remember how we cured cancer in that script. Somehow the film was a mess when it was finished."
Birch had no fun making this, as he had to wear the painful contacts all day as Corman wanted to shoot whenever with no prep. The actor was so upset he left before filming was done, so in some shots, that's not him. Luckily, he has on a hat and sunglasses often, so he was easy to fake Shemp in this by Lyle Latell. Before he left the set, he said, ""I am an actor, and I don't need this stuff... To hell with it all! Goodbye!"
This has been remade twice, once by Jim Wynorski with Traci Lords as Nadine in 1988 - Wynorski made Roger Corman a bet that he could remake the 1957 film with the same budget and schedule thirty years later - and in 1995, directed by Terence H. Winkless and part of the Roger Corman Presents series.
If you watched this on TV in the 1960s (or any time), there are three more minutes that were added by Herbert L. Strock right after the credits. A voice intones "You are about to adventure into the dimension of The Impossible! To enter this realm you must set your mind free from earthly fetters that bind it! If the events you are about to witness are unbelievable, it is only because your imagination is chained! Sit back, relax and believe.. so that you may cross the brink of time and space.. into that land you sometimes visit in your dreams!" If you're wondering if a scene or two are repeated, they are so that the movie fit into TV schedules. There were also three scenes that were extended in some theatrical prints: the scene in which Johnson speaks with the courier, him chasing Nadine and when Harry chases him.
Destroy All Neighbors (2024)
Great!
William Brown (Jonah Ray) is stuck. He wants to be a prog musician and that's not something that's going to make you rich but it might make you creatively fulfilled, as long as you realize that no one else is going to get the music you play. He's working at a studio for Scott (Thomas Lennon), engineering a session of druggy Caleb Bang Jansen (Ryan Kattner) and being berated for everything he does. At least he has his old videos of Swig (Jon Daly, a yinzer) to inspire him.
Home isn't much better. While his wife Emily (Kiran Deol) is supportive, he also has to deal with his landlady (Randee Heller, Alice from Soap and Daniel LaRusso's mom) making him fix the fuse box, a rampaging Daryl the pig (played by Kosher the pig) and a new neighbor named Vlad (Alex Winter), who won't stop blasting music, moving furniture and screaming. It's enough to push him to do something insane.
After failing to make Vlad stop being so horrible - he calls the cops at one point and his wife ends up liking the old man - he tries to talk to him. It ends up in a fistfight and Vlad is accidentally impaled. That's when William starts hearing the voice of Swig, telling him how to get rid of the body, which ends up being more than one body. It ends up being a lot of bodies.
Yet despite becoming a mass murderer, the good news is that William finally finishes his album and becomes a success. Well, he's in jail. But you get to see a torso with guts hanging out play drums and some of the craziest prog instruments ever.
Director Josh Forbes comes from music videos and that's a good thing. He's working from a fun script by Mike Benner, Jared Logan and Charles A. Pieper and some wild effects by Bill Corso and Ben Gojer. Plus, seeing Alex Winter in a movie makes me so happy and he makes the most out of both of his roles.
This is the kind of movie that doesn't need overthought and just is out to entertain you. It succeeds beyond expectation.
Freaks Out (2021)
Freaks Out
Originally known as Freaks Out, this Italian film is directed by Gabriele Mainetti (They Call Me Jeeg Robot), who co-wrote it with Nicola Guaglianone (The Legend of the Christmas Witch). It's heroes are the stars of the Mezza Piotta Circus: the albino insect commanding Cencio (Pietro Castellitto), human magnet Mario (Giancarlo Martini), super strong wolfman Fulvio (Claudio Santamaria), the electric Matilde (Aurora Giovinazzo) and their ringmaster Israel (Giorgio Tirabassi).
A Nazi ringmaster named Franz (Franz Rogowski) - with twelve fingers - has seen visions of the circus under the influence of drugs and wants to take them. The first step is sending Israel to a concentration camp, then making them work at his Berlin Zircus. He believes that they can stop Hitler from killing himself and saving the Third Reich.
This movie is totally up my alley, because it is all at once a war movie, a superhero film, a movie about sideshow performers and filled with magical realism, as well as strange moments like Franz playing Radiohead's "Creep" and Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child 'O Mine" nearly half a century before they were released. Well, he can see the future when he huffs ether, as in his drawings at the end, you can see the Jeeg Robot, a movie that both Mainetti and Guaglianon created together.
It's also overloaded with both ideas and running time, clocking in at around two hours and twenty minutes. That said, Mainetti is a creative force, someone who is at once an actor, writer, director and composed. And he even made a Tiger Mask-influenced short, Tiger Boy. This movie may be kind of all over the place but it looks amazing and I'd love to see these characters return.
Tales from the Crypt: Split Second (1991)
Timber
"Sometimes, life can be such a grind. Know what I mean? That's why I like to get out every now and then and swing a little. So much for his family tree! Tonight's tale concerns a young woman who's about to do a little swinging of her own. She wants to prove that a good man is hard to find, but easy to get rid of. I think you'll like this little chopping spree I call: "Split Second.""
Liz Kelly (Michelle Wilson) is stranded in a logging town, working in a bar to earn enough money to get a bus ticket. The camp manager Steve Dixon (Brion James) saves her from Banjo (Tony Pierce), a loud and rude drunk, and she ends up married the much older man that very night. They seem to have a good marriage until his men see her all dressed up and he reveals just how jealous he is. That only increases when a new lumberjack named Ted Morgan (Billy Wirth) appears and takes over his wife's imagination.
Liz is a horrible person, to be honest, and she just doesn't want to be bored. That ends up costing her life, her husband's and Ted's vision. Steve was such a nice guy before all this or so his men say. But now they're killing him, so there's that. You have to love an episode that doesn't just have a blind man saw two people to death but has the Crypt Keeper chainsaw Joel Silver.
Directed by Russell Mulcahy (Highlander, The Shadow), written by Richard Christian Matheson and filmed on the sets of Twin Peaks by cinematographer Rick Bota (who would go on to direct Hellraiser: Hellseeker, Hellraiser: Deader and Hellraiser: Hellworld), this is a pretty good episode.
It's based on "Split Second!" from Shock SuspenStories #4, which was written by Al Feldstein and William Gaines and drawn by Jack Kamen.