R.I.P.: Tobe Hooper, Part IV, 2004-2017

December 18, 2017, 11:12 pm

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25 Jan 1943 — 26 Aug 2017

Like George Romero (4 Feb 1940 — 16 July 2017), director Hooper was possibly plagued by the fact that his first general release feature-film, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), was such a stylistic and influential masterpiece that there was no place for him to go but down. But for all the bad or mediocre movies he made, he still made one more masterpiece than most directors, as well as a small number of early-career horror movies of note.

Go here for Part I: 1964-1982

Go here for Part II: 1983-1991

Go here for Part III: 1992-2003

The Nightmare Ends on Halloween

(2004, writ. & dir. Chris R. Notarile)

Tobe Hooper gets listed under "Those Who Helped But Didn't Know It", along with other filmmakers whose famous killers show up onscreen, however briefly (including Wes Craven). Leatherface has about five seconds screen time at most. Filmmaker Chris R. Notarile is "a 2005 graduate from the School of Visual Arts with a BFA in animation and does a lot of "fan movies".

Madhouse
(2004, dir. & co-writ. William Butler)

Not, of course, to be confused with the great Vincent Price & Peter Cushing & Robert Quarry flick of the same name, Madhouse (1974 / trailer), poster below, or the violent Italo-slasher There Was a Little Girl from 1981 that got renamed Madhouse (trailer) upon its video release.

During the credits of this Madhouse, the director "Thanks" Tobe Hooper and David "One-Shot DeCoteau — a combination of names that perhaps an unintentional reflection of how low Hooper's reputation had sunk by 2004. (DeCoteau films reviewed here at A Wasted Life include Creepozoids [1987], Blonde Heaven [1995] and Retro Puppet Master [1999]) Director William Butler's co-scribe for the movie was Aaron Strogoni, with whom he has worked together on a number of other fun movies, including Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the Crust (2008 / trailer) and Furnace (2007 / trailer). Also an actor, director William Butler has the "distinction" of having been killed on screen by Freddy Krueger (in the TV series Freddy's Nightmares [1988-90]), Jason Vorhees (in Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood [1988 / trailer]) and Leatherface (in Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III [1990]). He also got eaten in Tom Savini's coke-fueled color remake of The Night of the Living Dead (1990 / trailer).

Trailer to
Madhouse (2004):

All Moviehas the plot: "A deadly form of madness has taken over Cunningham Mental Hospital, and it's not just the patients whose sanity is slipping in this dark thriller […]. Cunningham is infamous for housing some of society's most dangerously psychotic criminals, and when a staff nurse is murdered, newly hired psychiatry intern Clark Stevens (Joshua Leonard of The Town That Dreaded Sundown remake [2014 / trailer]) begins to sense that the staff is being held in the grip of a deadly madness. As Clark begins an investigation into the murder, his research begins to yield ominous answers that may be better left unexplored."

This movie gets mixed reactions: a search online finds as many reviews praising its "unpredictability" and "decent direction" as there are trashing its "predictability" and "bad direction". Digital Retributionis one of the yay-sayers: "I was really impressed […]. Director William Butler […] does a really good job — Madhouse is stylish and pretty scary. It's by no means a wildly original concept, but Butler injects a good bit of life into whatever's trite — the scenes in the madhouse are particularly effective. The performances are worthy of a nod too […]. Madhouse is stylish enough and scary enough to warrant your immediate attention. Seek it out!" 

Cinema Crazedis of the less-impressed school of thought: "Madhouse is less of a bad movie, and more an antecedent, a complete misfire of the potential towards its concept from beginning to end. The plot and its characters are so ripe with possibilities and writers William Butler, and Aaron Strongoni completely sidestep that in exchange for attempted style. Which is a shame because Madhouse has all the ingredients for easy-bake horror. There's atmosphere, gruesome imagery, good-looking actors, a mental institution, nutty patients, a shady staff, and a killer offing people (two total), but nothing is ever really accomplished here. Director Butler does have a knack for sheer style and atmosphere creating a setting that is both visually appealing and utterly sick. He sometimes pays homage to Barker and Lovecraft — or at least he tries, and sometimes he succeeds and this wasn't completely difficult to look at."

Toolbox Murders
(2004, dir, Tobe Hooper)


"Every year thousands of people come to Hollywood to pursue their dreams. Some succeed. Some move back home... And some just disappear."

Interestingly enough, the original Toolbox Murders, from 1978, was inspired in part by the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). Producer Tony Didio, impressed by the success of Hooper's movie, decided to make a killer flick of his own, and the final result was the misogynistic cult classic starring the great (?) Cameron Mitchell. "The events dramatized in this film actually took place in 1967"— NOT!

Trailer to the original
Toolbox Murders (1978):

So, 26 years later, Hooper helmed the "remake", which was produced by the same producers as the first version. In all truth, it is less a remake than simply a completely new movie using the same title, as the original psycho-killer plot was dumped for a supernatural-killer one. (The poster directly below is to the original film, by the way. Dunno of you could get away with a poster like that in today's prudish climate.) One notices a killer that reeks somewhat of "We hope he becomes a franchise".

Critical Conditionhas the plot: "Newlyweds Nell (Bettis) and Steve Barrows (Brent Roam) move into the Lusman Arms apartment complex, which is undergoing a major renovation. As soon as they move in, strange things begin to happen […]. Steve, who is a hospital resident, spends most of his time at his job so Nell must find out the cause of all the problems she is experiencing. When she calls the cops after hearing one of the tenants screaming for her life […], the police find nothing […] and chalk it up to Nell having a vivid imagination. More murders occur, including her new friend Julia (Juliet Landau of Ed Wood [1994 / trailer]) getting power-drilled through the head, another female tenant getting a claw hammer rammed through her chin, the building's maintenance man (co-screenwriter Adam Gierasch) getting his head cut in half at the jaw line with a portable circular saw, the doorman (Marco Rodriguez) getting his head squeezed in a vise while acid is poured on his face, and the manager (Greg Travis) getting his spinal cord cut in half with bolt cutters (after screaming, 'Kill me already!'). Nell finds an ally in long-time resident Chas Rooker (Rance Howard of Ticks [1993 / trailer] and Crack in the Floor[2001 / trailer]), who leads her in the right direction […]. It all leads to a rather rushed conclusion that has something to do with a 'Coffin Baby' (Chris Doyle), the supernatural actor who built the apartment complex and stays alive by killing the residents for the past six decades. […]"

In general, Hooper's Toolbox Murders was received better than the original, and better than any of Hooper's last couple of movies. A minor success financially, its very Halloween (1978 / trailer& 2007 / trailer) ending — i.e., the "dead" villain is suddenly gone — allowed for a sequel some nine years later, Toolbox Murders I aka Coffin Baby (2013 / trailer). Toolbox Murders was filmed at the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles, which like so many of that city's historically important structures, is no longer standing.

We admit that both the original and remake of Toolbox Murders are on our "To See" list; the former because it's a cult trash classic, and the latter because it stars one of our favorite under-appreciated genre actresses, Angela Bettis (of May [2002 / trailer], the TV version of Carrie [2002 / trailer], Scar [2007 / trailer] and more). That the babalicious Juliet Landau is there as a victim is also a plus, though we prefer her beautiful eyes when they blink.

Trailer to

The Toolbox Murders (2004):

There is rumor out there — Surprize! — that like so many of Tobe Hooper's projects, Toolbox Murders fell victim to financial difficulties, a rumor spread as fact by many, including Crimson Quill: "[…] Toolbox Murders was plagued by problems which drastically altered the end product. Once financing dissolved two-thirds of the way through principal shooting, the entire production went into the shit-can, forcing him to prematurely splice what footage he already had together haphazardly in a frantic attempt to recoup any significant losses. Essentially, the final cut is something of a hotchpotch and suffers all manner of lapses in cohesion and unevenness of tone."

But assuming the two scriptwriters, Jace Anderson & Adam Gierasch, aren't lying through their teeth during their interview with Dread Central, they totally refute the rumor, saying, "Oh, and for the record, about Toolbox Murders: the rumor that's running around on IMDB saying that the film ran out of money, and a third of the script wasn't shot — that's total bullshit. I don't know where that came from, but it's just not true." Indeed, it would seem that if the production company ran out of money for The Toolbox Murders, they would hardly have had any money for their next production, Mortuary, which was written by the same duo and directed by Hooper.

In any event, Dr Goregives the movie "3 out of 4 toolbox massacres", saying "The new Toolbox Murders doesn't waste time with a lot of blah, blah, blah. The title says Toolbox Murders, and that's what you get. Toolbox Murders is a fine film. It's top quality for a straight-to-video flick. It could have easily played in theaters."

Mortuary

(2005, dir. Tobe Hoper)

Not in any way a remake of the much earlier and relatively forgotten dead teenager film Mortuary from 1983 (trailers), poster below, featuring (Spoiler!) a young Bill Paxton (17 May 1955 – 25 Feb 2017) as the obvious killer — he listens to classical music — and Christopher George (25 Feb 1931 – 28 Nov 1983) in one of his last roles. No, here Tobe Hooper finally directs his first "zombie" film — and people generally hated it. Mortuary was to become his last feature film project directed in the US.

In their interview at Dread Central, scriptwriters Jace Anderson & Adam Gierasch say, "[…] It's Lovecraft-inspired. It used to be set in Arkham, Massachusetts. It used to be much more directly Lovecraftian and since we’ve moved it to southern California, we toned that down. It's still definitely influenced by Lovecraft. Lovecraft fans will see the influence of things like Colour Out of Space."Indeed, around 28 minutes into the movie, one sees a quote carved in the on the vault's door —"That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange eons even death may die"— which is from H.P. Lovecraft's The Nameless City.

The Tobe Hooper Appreciation Society, which calls the movie "a mess", has the plot: "Single mother Leslie Doyle (Denise Crosby) moves with her kids, Jonathan (Dan Byrd of Lonely Hearts Killers[2006]) and Jaime (Stephanie Patton), into a mold-infested house/mortuary so she can live out her dream of being a mortician (thanks mom). The house, naturally, has a past as Jonathan learns the tale of local boogeyman Bobby Fowler from romantic interest Liz (Alexandra Adi). Legend has it that deformed mute Fowler was tortured by his parents before he killed them and he still lurks the grounds of the cemetery that sits right outside Jonathan’s house. Me thinks something bad is going to happen!" 

Reelfimsays, "Mortuary strikes all the wrong notes right from the get-go, as the film, which moves at a disastrously glacial pace, doesn't contain any attributes designed to capture and hold the viewer's attention […]. It doesn't help, either, that scripters Jace Anderson and Adam Gierasch have suffused the proceedings with pointless subplots designed to pad out the interminable running time […]. Filmmaker Tobe Hooper's curious decision to shy away from overt instances of gore is, to put it mildly, rather misguided, while the horror-centric bent of the movie's third comes off as ill-conceived and kind of campy — with the loud, anticlimactic final stretch, which is rife with over-the-top performances and dodgy special effects, cementing Mortuary's place as a hopelessly incompetent and terminally tedious piece of work."

Ninja Dixon, on the other hand, has some positive things to say about a movie that he needed "four times to actually watch": "While Mortuary has some serious flaws […] it also have a lot of good stuff going on. The story, from writers Jace Anderson and Adam Gierasch, isn't half-bad. Just a bit unfocused. It's an original twist on the boring zombie-theme with some truly original and bizarre ideas. It has a lot of black comedy — my favorite being the scene where the mother is sorting out her embalming equipment from the kitchen equipment! The dialogue is witty and mostly very fun in that quirky, strange way only characters talk in films by Hooper. The actors feels a bit awkward in the beginning, but they're soon in peace with their characters and the dialogue and in the end I would say this film has some of the more interesting people I've seen in a low budget, direct-to-video horror film that everyone hates. […] How's the horror then? Hooper works hard with the little horror he has, but most of the power of the scares is let down by terrible make-up, lousy set-dressings and one of the worst final scenes I've seen. […] The lack of real gore and that final, nasty horror-punch he's usually so good at, makes a weak horror movie."

Trailer to 
Mortuary:



 Masters of Horror — 
Dance of the Dead & The Damned Thing
(2005 & 2006, dir. Tobe Hooper)

Instigated by director Mick Garris (Sleepwalkers[1992] and Riding the Bullet[2004]), the anthology series featured name horror directors doing one-hour movies, usually based on stories by genre masers. Hooper's first entry, Dance of the Dead, was based on a short story by Richard Matheson, while The Damned Thing was based on one by Ambrose Bierce; the teleplay of both was written by Richard Christian Matheson. Masters of Horrors lasted two seasons before being revamped as Fear Itself, which lasted one. 

Oh The, Horror!has the plot of Dance of the Dead, which was originally aired on November 11, 2005, and should not be mistaken with the fun teen zom-com Dance of the Dead(2008): "In some vaguely apocalyptic future, Peggy (Jessica Lowndes) works in a diner with her mother (Marilyn Norry). One day, a group of hooligans wanders in, and their leader, Jak (Jonathan Tucker), takes an interest in Peggy, which her mother doesn’t like since he's a disrespectful drug addict. Because teenage girls are invariably attracted to coke-fuelled guys in hoodies, Peggy takes off with the group to Muskeet, an urban wasteland full of delinquents and nu-metal clubs (so, basically, modern day L.A.). One of these clubs (emceed by Englund) holds a secret that connects to Peggy’s tragic past."Wikipedia, quoting a Dread Central article we couldn't find, says, "This is Hooper at his best. Gratuitous, nihilistic, and unhinged. Disengaged from whatever power that has been holding him back for so many years." 

The Damned Thing, which Absolute Horrorcalls "Tobe Hooper’s seriously bloody, but not particularly thrilling take on demons in a small town", aired October 27, 2006. The plot, according to Wikipedia: "The Damned Thing […] is the apocalyptic tale of a monstrous force that devastates Sheriff Kevin Reddle's family and his small Texas town of Cloverdale. As a child, Reddle's father goes berserk, guns down his wife and almost kills Kevin, before being disemboweled by an invisible force. Before he dies, Kevin's father says the 'damned thing' has found him. In the present day, Kevin (Sean Patrick Flanery) is now the town sheriff and insists on living in his childhood home. He has mounted surveillance cameras around the house. The mental strain has driven away his wife Dina (Marisa Coughlan), who has taken their son Mikey with her. A rash of violent deaths plague the town, and Kevin realizes the same force that drove his father to murder — the Damned Thing — is still active. […]"

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning

(2006, dir. Jonathan Liebesman)

Interestingly enough, this time around neither Tobe Hooper nor Kim Henkel get any mention for "characters" or even "inspired by", but for that they are listed among the many producers of the movie. Director Liebesman, one assumes, won the job due to his relatively entertaining if flawed horror Darkness Falls (2002 / trailer) which, admittedly, we only bothered to see 'cause we used to find Emma Caulfield a hot tamale. (We assume she still is; we just haven't noticed her anywhere.) The screenplay was written by Sheldon Turner, who, in an example of apples and oranges followed this project up with the screenplay to Jason Reitman's Up in the Air (2009 / trailer).

A prequel, it takes place four years prior to the events that transpire in [Michael Bay's] Texas Chain Saw Massacre(2003). It was also substantially less successful, critically and at the box office, than its already critically drubbed (but financially successful) predecessor.

Thrill Me Softlycuts to the chase, so to speak: "This prequel [...] starts at the very beginning, with the birth of Leatherface and the story of how his 'family' became a gruesome bunch of freaks. R. Lee Ermey returned in the role of the evil sheriff and the film has the same sun-drenched look and sadistic tone as Marcus Nispel's previous take. The four teens in the leads are just walking flesh waiting to be carved up with a chainsaw — and that's basically all that happens in this bloody, sloppy film."

Trailer to
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning:

But not everybody hates the movie. For the Love of Celluloidis of the opinion that "The Beginning is the movie that should have been made the first time around. It's nasty, sweaty, and dark in all the right places. It's really surprising that a movie this graphic even made it through the studio system. It may be an entry in an already gory horror franchise, but this is brutal stuff! Just because the film is violent as shit, doesn't mean there aren’t moments of dark humor though. These are mostly supplied by R. Lee Ermey's dialogue."

Jordana Brewster, also found in the much more fun pro-drug movie The Faculty (1998 / trailer) and seen above from Allure magazine (2015), plays the not quite Final Girl.

The Lost

(2006, writ & dir Chris Sivertson )

Based on a novel by Jack Ketchum, who is seen briefly playing a bartender. The novel was inspired by the true story of American serial killer Charles Schmid(8 July 1942 – 30 March 1975), aka "The Pied Piper of Tucson", who had already inspired two earlier films: The Todd Killings (1971 / music score) and Dead Beat (1994 / Debbie Harry).

According to imdb, both Roger Corman and Tobe Hooper are given special thanks in the credits of this horror movie, the feature film directorial debut from the director of the infamous flop, I Know Who Killed Me (2007 / trailer), who previously had co-directed the documentary Toolbox Murders: As It Was (2003), whereupon the connection to Hooper becomes clear.

Chud.comhas the plot: "Ray Pye (Marc Senter of Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever[2009]) puts Vaseline in his hair and stuffs crushed beer cans in his boots to make himself look taller. He works as a manager for his Mom's motel business, dealing heroin as a side project. The only thing that separates him from being an average, everyday asshole like most of the ones you know is that he's a killer. In a public campground on a summer evening, Ray Pye murders a girl for fun and permanently disables another, covering up the crime with the help of his friends. While the local authorities keep an eye on Pye as their main suspect in the slaying, the sociopathic greaser can't help but ignite a self-destructive and violent chain of events that ultimately shatters his entire environment."

Trailer to
The Lost:

Dr Goregives the flick "3 out of 4 Pied Pipers", saying: "The Lost is a pretty good flick. I enjoyed it. The Lost takes a while to get going but eventually delivers at the end. There is a lot of build-up between the first murders and Ray Pye's eventual transformation into a raving psychopath. Ray tries to grab onto whatever is left of his humanity but any normal woman will see right through his deceit. The Lost paints a sick portrait of a budding psycho. It's worth a look."

 

Autopsy

(2008, dir. Adam Gierasch)

Among the many names the director thanks in the credits of this, his feature film directorial debut, is Tobe Hooper. Adam Gierasch, of course, was half of the writing team that wrote Hooper's smash critical successes, Crocodile (2000), Toolbox Murders (2004) and Mortuary (2005). Indeed, he co-wrote this movie here with that other half, Jace Anderson.

If one is to believe the sorely missed Arborgast, the movie is about a girl who wanders around hallways. 28 Day Latersort of agrees: "Beginning with five core friends drinking and drugging during Mardi Gras, the film moves along to an off-screen accident, and then to Mercy Hospital, the central setting for the remainder of the film. Even with the difficulties of there being '...no cell service...', an ambulance appears out of nowhere, lights flashing, and the plotholes begin. Once this loose group of partiers make their way to the hospital they are quickly broken up, in order to create for several smaller stories with most of the camera time focusing on Emily (Jessica Lowndes) looking for boyfriend Bobby (Ross Kohn)."

Trailer to
Autopsy:

The Woman
(2011, dir. Lucky McKee)

Yes, men are scum. (Have any doubts? Lose them by looking at at Roy Moore and Trump or even Micth McConnell... and Weinstein, of course.) Perhaps the most contentious movie from director McKee, who wowed the masses with May (2002 / trailer) and impressed almost as many people with The Woods(2006). Written together with Jack Ketchum, the movie is a loose sequel to the Andrew van den Houten movie The Offspring (2009 / trailer), likewise scripted by Ketchum. Tobe Hooper is among the many people "The Producers would like to Thank".

Cine-vuehas a plot-lite version of the narrative: "In a small rural town, a family man discovers the last remaining member of a flesh-eating cannibal clan roaming the woods surrounding his home. Thinking he can cultivate this creature, he captures it and introduces her to his family, with the plan of working together to make her a respected member of society."

28 Days Latergoes into a bit more detail about what sounds like a movie about Trump supporters: "Chris Cleek (Sean Bridgers) is the head of the household and […] spends his days slapping his wife around and flirting with his secretary. […] All the women in the family fear his presence, especially the emotionally and physically abused wife, Belle (Angela Bettis). However, his son (Zach Rand) takes after him by harassing and raping the now tied-up feral women." Oh, yeah, the older daughter is (Lauren Ashley Carter) carrying daddy's baby.

Trailer to
The Woman:

The Butterfly Room
(2012, dir. Jonathan Zarantonello)

"The filmmakers wish to thank Tobe Hooper"— and some two dozen other people. And what a cast of faces and faves: Barbara Steele as one of the leads, and elsewhere (sometimes just in passing, sometimes more important) James Karen, Adrienne King, P.J. Soles, Joe Dante, Camille Keaton, Heather Langenkamp, Ray Wise, and Erica Leerhsen (OK, Erica isn't a name, but she should be).

Original Teaser:

Screen Dailyobserves that "This psycho-horror film is constructed around the magisterial presence of British-born actress Barbara Steele, who emerged as a major presence in horror in the early 1960s with roles for Mario Bava in Italy (La Maschera del demonio, aka Mask Of Satan, aka Black Sunday [1960 / trailer below]) and Roger Corman in Hollywood (Pit And The Pendulum [1961 / trailer]), though she also appeared in Fellini's 8½ (1963 / trailer). [….] Steel here has the sort of star turn venerable genre icons like Boris Karloff and Vincent Price often found in their golden years. Ann, the mad mother Steele plays, feels like the sort of ageing female maniac popular in the wake of What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? (1962 / trailer) and often found in the films of Curtis Harrington in the 1970s — and gives Steele more to chew on than her last psychopath casting, in the 1978 slasher film Silent Scream (trailer)."

Trailer to
Black Sunday (1960):

The plot, as found at Click the City: "Elderly, reclusive Ann (Barbara Steele) spends her days tending to her butterfly collection. The film documents her relationships with two young girls. The first is her neighbor Julie (Ellery Sprayberry), who finds herself neglected as her mother pursues a new beau. And the second is Alice (Julia Putnam), an eleven year-old she encounters at the mall. Ann lavishes motherly affection on these two young girls, but that love soon transforms into something darker as she struggles to keep them under her thrall."

Trailer to

The Butterfly Room:

UK Horror Scene is of the opinion that "The supporting cast are of course excellent, particularly Heather Langenkamp as Ann's daughter — if only she’d do more movies. Ray Wise also has a relatively prominent role as the apartment handyman and is as memorable as always. With the aforementioned other notables in the cast there's always a danger of star spotting dominating the movie as opposed to the actual narrative. Here though the cameos are nicely navigated and rarely get in the way of things. The Butterfly Room is a rarity as what it's done has taken the 21st century horror rulebook of predictability, ripped it up and created a sinister tale of maternal control and feverish obsession that is dripping in class thanks to a terrific central performance."

Slice and Dice: The Slasher Film Forever

(2012, dir. Calum Waddell)

Tobe Hooper appears as a talking head in this documentary celebrating "slasher cinema — from Psycho (1960 / trailer) to the present day, with a focus on highlighting many of the genre's forgotten cult classics, deconstructing how to survive a slice and dice movie and meditating upon why it is almost always a final girl and rarely a final guy... this is a documentary which is designed for both the biggest fan of 'mad maniac' movies and the person who may only have seen Halloween and Scream."

Trailer: 

The film is cut-up (get it? hah-hah) into six body parts: "How to survive a slasher film", "The genre's greatest hits", "The final girl", "Making a memorable movie maniac", "The secret of a good gore gag" and, finally, "The slasher film forever". Tobe Hooper is probably the best known of the few granddaddies of the genre to make an appearance, followed by Mick Garris and Tom Holland (Fright Night [1985 / trailer] and Chucky [1988 / trailer]), while most of the other names are from the new generations or relatively obscure. (Scott Spiegel and Intruder / Bloodnight [1989 / trailer], anyone? Or how about Dave Parker and — GAG! — The Dead Hate the Living[2000])?

Texas Chainsaw 3D

(2013, dir. John Luessenhop)

Let's whip that dead horse! Not that Tobe Hooper had all that much to do with the movie, other than to share credit with Kim Henkel for "characters".

The script was written by Adam Marcus, the writer and director of Jason Goes to Hell (1993 / trailer), and Debra Sullivan. Gunnar Hansen (4 Mar 1947 – 7 Nov 2015), the guy who played the original Leatherface, in the original TCM (1974), makes his last film appearance — and the first in any TCM film since the first — as Boss Sawyer (and, of course, in some of the archive footage). And Bill Moseley (of TCM II [1986]) shows up Leatherface's brother Drayton Sawyer, and, more unexpectedly, perhaps, Marilyn Burns (7 May 1949 — 5 Aug 2014), who played the original final girl in the first TCM, plays Granny Verna, while John Dugan, the grandfather of TCM, is there as Grandfather Sawyer.  (TC3Dwas a regular family reunion, it would see.)

Over at Bloody Disgusting, in their article Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Ranking the Films from Worst to Best!this one comes in 5th out of the seven looked at. They say: "There's a lot that's wrong with this entry in the series. That it ignores all other films and sets itself up as a sequel to the original isn't a problem; continuity has never been this series' strong point. But it does ignore all logic, like having Alexandra Daddario play what was supposed to have been a woman approaching 40. In short, Texas Chainsaw 3D is dumb. However, it's also admirably ballsy in its dumb choices. The decision to make Leatherface a sort of anti-hero is insane and the constant tease of nudity feels completely out of place here. Yet, there's a sense of fun and enough nods and cameos from the original cast that die-heard series fans can enjoy. It's a very, very flawed movie, but it's not afraid to try something completely different and have fun while doing it. Somehow it manages to nail its entertainment factor despite everything that’s wrong with it. It's the type of bad movie you enjoy watching, even when logic says you shouldn't."

To make up for "the constant tease of nudity" of the movie, here is a shot of a topless Alexandra Daddario from True Detective (2014 / trailer). The girl with beautiful eyes looks as good out of clothes as in them, it would seem. And viva la naturales.

Texas Chainsaw 3D won the Fangoria 2104 Award for "Worst Film", which sort of indicates it can't be all that bad. Indeed, the general response to the movie is summed up well by Den of Geekwhen they say, "For gore hounds and diehard fans of The Texas Chainsaw movies, there is plenty of blood to revel in and more winks to the original film than I can count.  For everyone else, Texas Chainsaw 3D will someday make for a very entertaining late night movie to laugh at with friends."

2D Trailer to
Texas Chainsaw 3D:

Plot, from Jigsaw: "Literally picking up moments after the 1965 [sic] classic, Texas Chainsaw opens with a gunfight at the ranch that sees the Sawyers protecting their own against the vigilantes seeking revenge after the events of the original and intend to leave the farmhouse with nothing less than the head of Jed, or more prominently known as… Leatherface (Dan Yeager). Fast forward several years and the sole survivor of the shootout finds herself inherent [sic] of a mansion that brings back memories for the locals but not Heather (Alexandra *sigh* Daddario). Taking the news that she was adopted badly, she turns away from her trailer-trash parents Gavin (David Born) and Arlene (Sue Rock) and heads into the homeland of Leatherface with her friends seeking her true identity..."

Djinn
(2013, dir.Tobe Hooper)

Written by David Tully, who, if rumors are correct, is currently writing the screenplay to a Dario Argento horror movie based on ETA Hoffmann's short story The Sandman to feature Iggy Pop. (The mind boggles.) His only other credit that we could find was the script to a German TV horror movie, Hepzibah — Sie holt dich im Schlaf (2010 / English trailer), directed by Robert Sigl, who way back in 1989 made minor waves with a perverse little horror movie entitled Laurin (German trailer).

Trailer to

Djin:

One wonders how problematic a reputation one has when it takes a "name" director seven years to get another project, and then the "name" even has to travel all the way to the United Arab Emirates, a monarchy in which 7.8 of its 9.2 citizens are expatriates, where women who report getting raped are jailed, flogging is an accepted punishment for criminal offenses such as adultery, premarital sex and alcohol consumption, and as recently as 2014 two women were stoned to death for adultery. But that seems to have been the case with Tobe Hooper with this UAE-financed movie, his last completed feature film.

Djin was not well received anywhere, including the UAE: according to The Guardian, the release of "the United Arab Emirates' first horror film and the eighth full-length Emirati feature to date [2012]" was delayed because "someone close to Abu Dhabi's royal family has seen the movie and does not appreciate its portrayal of the UAE, and considers the movie to be politically subversive." A revelation sharply contested by those in UAE involved in the production, but what cannot be contested is that it took forever to get released and then, after a few film festivals, it ended up pretty much being put out with the trash and, as far as we can tell, was never given an official theatrical release. Djin is, however, now available on DVD.

The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Reviewwatched the DVD and has the plot to a film they call "an exercise in tedium": "In New York City, Khalid's wife Salama (Razane Jammal) has been having emotional problems since the death of their child due to Sudden Death Infant Syndrome. A counselor they consult suggests it would be a good idea if Khalid (Khalid Laith) took a job has he been offered back in the United Arab Emirates so that Salama can reconnect with and benefit from the support of her family. Arriving back in Abu Dhabi, they are driven to their new home, the Al Hamra tower block in the desert, which is surrounded by perpetual fog bank. Salama's mother is fearful as Al Hamra has been built on the site of a village reputed to be haunted by djinn. Almost immediately after moving in, Salama starts to see things haunting her. She becomes very afraid as a supernatural force seems determined to expose the true cause of her baby's death."

But to offer a rare voice of positivism regarding the movie, UK Horror Sceneliked it: "That was great! So glad I watched it. Now it's not perfect, but dang, do yourself a favor and check it out! It also seriously blows Wishmaster(1987) out of the water! Which is the only other djinn-based horror movie I can think of…"

Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films

(2014, writ & dir. Mark Hartley)

Tobe Hooper appears as a talking head and receives a "Deepest Appreciations" credit in this documentary about the legendary independent producers Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan, otherwise known as Cannon Films. (Interestingly enough, both refused to be interviewed for the film.)

Other docs Mark Hartley has made include Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! (2008 / trailer) and Machete Maidens Unleashed! (2010 / trailer); in 2013, Hartley made his first non-documentary feature film, Patrick (trailer), obviously enough a remake of Patrick (1978/ trailer).

Trailer to
Electric Boogaloo:

2,500 Movie Challengesays, "[...] Electric Boogaloo covers the careers of Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, a pair of cousins from Israel who loved movies so much that they decided to make some of their own. After scoring major hits in their home country (Lemon Popsicle [1977 / trailer], a nudity-laced look at teenage life in Tel Aviv, is still one of that country's biggest Box Office successes), the two headed to America where, in 1979, they took control of Cannon Films, at the time a small, struggling studio. Putting the focus squarely on B-movies, the duo produced flicks like Enter the Ninja (1981 / trailer), The Last American Virgin (1982 / trailer) (a U.S. remake of Lemon Popsicle), and Death Wish II (1982 / trailer). Golan was a filmmaker at heart, and left the financial side of the business to his partner Globus, who many called the more 'reasonable' of the two. For a while, their approach worked; throughout the '80s, Cannon turned out dozens and dozens of low-budget pictures each and every year, a few of which actually made money. [...]"

Deleted segment on

Cannon & Marvel Comics:

Video Graveyardraves "Hartley has gathered an impressive array of subjects here and they offer up many stories of Cannon's iffy business practices and cheapness. [...] It was great to see cult movie goddess Sybil Danning, Cannon's always busy go-to director Sam Firstenberg [...], and even Djangohimself, Franco Nero. I also really loved the segments involving American Ninja (1985 / trailer) star Michael Dudikoff as he recalls them trying to make him into the next big young action hero and Tobe Hooper's recollections of basically flipping the bird at them by making his Texas Chain Saw Massacre sequel more of a black comedy than horror. There's just so many hilarious stories on hand and astonishing details of the studio's inner workings that this is essential viewing for anyone who remembers their anticipation when they'd see that famous logo and hear the iconic 'dum-dah-dum' music before the movie they were about to watch. [...] If you grew up with Cannon like I did you're going to adore this. Even if you didn't this should still be essential viewing if you have any interest in the behind-the-scenes workings of a company that played it fast and loose but somehow had a hell of a run. This has been my most anticipated doc since it was originally announced and I came away from it with a huge grin plastered on my face."

Leatherface

(2017, dir. Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury)

Tobe Hooper is gone, but his characters live on. He's even listed as an executive producer. The French team Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury came to the project, on assumes, by way of their previous French projects, À l'intérieur / Inside (2007 / French trailer), Livide / Livid (2011 / French trailer),  and Aux yeux des vivants / Among the Living(2014 / French trailer). And though they wrote the scripts to those three projects, the screenplay for this one came from Seth M. Sherwood.

Trailer to
Leatherface:

A prequel to TCM (choose your version), despite its Texas setting Leatherface was shot in Bulgaria, making it the first of any TCM movie to not be filmed in the US of A. The film, yet another prequel — see The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006), the existence of which this movie totally ignores. According to Wikipedia, "Seth M. Sherwood pitched Leatherface to Millennium Films as a prequel that would follow the titular character in a mentally competent state, enduring trauma that transforms him into the intellectually disabled murderer seen in the previous films. Maury and Bustillo signed on as directors after reading the screenplay, impressed with what they found to be a unique take on the long-running franchise. The film takes place in the canon established by [Michael Bay's] Texas Chain Saw Massacre (2003) and Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013), chronologically taking place before the two films."

Casey Movie Maniapretty much sums up what most people seem to feel about the movie when he says, "Been there, done that." Over at Roger Ebertinfers the same by claiming that movie has "a sleepy story that could easily be titled I Was a Teenage Leatherface". And while we haven't seen it, we can't help but notice that both the key features that made the original film so scary, the claustrophobia of the location as well as the total removal from civilization, are thoroughly lacking in what is almost a road movie. The events of the original TCM could happen because the events were done under the radar deep in the middle or rural nowhere; here, the events scream for the world to take notice.

Digital Journalhas the plot: "Jed (Boris Kabakchiev) is the youngest of the Sawyer clan, not yet inducted into their bloody traditions of torture and murder. But it's not for a lack of trying or encouragement by his mother, Verna (Lili Taylor)… the boy simply appears to have the conscience the rest of them were born without. However, when they brutally kill the wrong person, the sheriff (Stephen Dorff of Botched[2007 / trailer] and Blade[1998], seen below from Shadowboxer [2005 / trailer]) makes it his mission in life to 'save' children from familial endangerment by removing them from their homes. As a result, Jed grows up in the system before finally landing at a mental institution. The inmates are restless and desperate to avoid the doctor’s experimental procedures, so at the first available opportunity they break out. A deranged couple, Clarice (Jessica Madsen) and Ike (James Bloor), take a couple of their fellow inmates, Jackson (Sam Strike) and Bud (Sam Coleman), and a nurse named Lizzy (Vanessa Grasse) along for the ride, but it's not going to end well for any of them. [...]"

Haddonfield Horrorcontemplates,"[...] Can Lilli Taylor not find work worthy of her talents? If you solve the Lilli Taylor quandary, perhaps you can let Stephen Dorff in on the answer."

 

Blood Brothers, however, is at least appreciative of the directorial style, saying: "With their own series of modern classic horror films in their filmography [...], this French duo [Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury] were a very inspired choice for the film. Inside was one of the pioneering films of the shortly lived French extreme horror boom of the 00s and their ability to balance tight tension with malicious bursts of violence and gore was impeccable. It was a balance that would be perfect to drag the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series out of the hammy slasher hell. If there is anything that truly shines in the film, it's their visual prowess in developing tension and gutting it with intense violence. The use of lighting and iconic tones from the original film give it a classic look while maintaining a hard-edge modernity which is demonstrated through the intense special effects and gore that it splatters its audience with. This is not a film for the faint of heart and it will do its best to shock, gag, and scar you with some. [...]" 

Used in the movie —

Nathaniel Mayer's
Leave Me Alone:

Tobe Hooper — May He R.I.P.

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The Best of 2017

January 5, 2018, 8:15 am

≫ Next: Troll 2 (Italy/USA, 1990)

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(Image above from Methane Studios— check them out.)

Time for the annual roundup of the 10 Best Films viewed in 2017.

Like 2016, 2017 was a busy year during which we watched and wrote about way fewer flicks than ever before. Indeed, we only ended up writing about 18 of the movies we watched, hardly a promising number from which to chose 10 memorable movies. And, as always, the Short Films of the Month are automatically excluded from the list, if simply due to the fact that they since they were chosen as a Short Film of the Month they are also already recommended as memorable and worth watching. (Nevertheless, we do give special mention to November's  short film Ego zhena kuritsa/ Hen, His Wife[Soviet Union, 1990], September's Seduction of the Innocent[USA, 1961]), June's Love of the Dead [USA, 2011], and January's Billy's Dad Is a Fudge-Packer[USA, 2004].) 

The big problem, in truth, is that of the 18 films we ended up writing about last year, substantially less than 10 of them deserve placement on a Best-of List— and that despite the fact that we enjoyed at least ten of the movies to some extent. But, in all truth, even if we found Soulkeeper  (USA, 2001) a fun film for an evening of beer and bong hits, the movie can hardly justifiably be put on anyone's Best-of List. Ditto, Ninja Cheerleaders(USA, 2008). 

Thus, this year's list is the shortest we've ever had! Hit the linked title to get to the original review.

And, as normal, not in any particular order of preference...

El Topo

(Mexico, 1970)

"[…] an indulgent, acid-induced and visual spaghetti western art film with overt intellectual pretensions and delusions of grandeur."

A Bucket of Blood

(USA, 1959)

"Another super-low budget quickie from the great Roger Corman that defies its origins to become a truly enjoyable if minor low-budget classic."

Killer Angels

(Hong Kong, 1989)

"Killer Angels / Megaforce 1 / Urban Force 1 is a string of familiar plot elements and scenes also found in any number of other movies. As uncreative as they might be, put together in such as excess and at such a speed, they work well and are immensely entertaining."

Blade

(USA, 1998)

"When released, Blade was a noticeably successful updating, if not improvement, of the original character, not least because the filmmakers, not bound by the castrating ball and chain of the Comic Code, wisely went for an R-rating. The movie was also, arguably, the first Marvel film that really didn't look cheap shit."

Special Mention to the Biggest Pile of Shite seen in 2017

Mega Shark Vs Crocosaurus

(USA, 2010)

"The little tyke wearing the rubber suit in Fred Olen Ray's less than spectacular Biohazard(1985 / fan trailer),  Christopher Olen Ray, has grown up to follow his father's footsteps and now makes movies which, going by this Hershey-turkey produced by the lowest denominator of all contemporary low budget movie production firms, The Asylum, are even worse than anything his daddy ever vomitized."

Troll 2 (Italy/USA, 1990)

January 13, 2018, 9:59 am

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Preamble: Regular readers of A Wasted Life (assuming there are any) might already know, from the 18 July 2017 blog entry Shameless Self-Promotion, that this blog's meat-eating and lard-loving[only] contributoralso writes for Hermann's, a visionary undertaking aimed at changing the food system and the way we feed ourselves. A shift in the editorial policy of the undertaking's web presence, which now aims at innovators and the industry, has seen our offbeat entertainment and filler pieces — which generally, at best, have a very slim link to food and nutrition, past, present or future — put into the bottom drawer. This article, however, is now seeing the light of day here on A Wasted Life because what is an unneeded additive on one website is the basic food group of another. Enjoy. 

The review: After watching Troll 2, which definitely falls under that obfucious category known as "bad film," our minds couldn't help but wander to the folks at Impossible Foods, who are working hard to bring the world a viable, delicious, and visually appealing hamburger made entirely of plants. An idea whose time has come — if not due to ethical reasons, then ecological ones — and which, if successful, would make the eating of specific kinds of "meat" more palatable to many people, both carnivore and herbivore.

But probably not to the nefarious vegetarians in this surreally incompetent horror comedy, who pursue a harebrained path inverse to that of Impossible Foods: the heinous herbivores of Troll 2 want to convert a living, breathing human family into green, visually unappealing plant goo — their favorite food. (Actually: they don't just want to do it, they can.)

As inferred by the film's title, the baddies of this evil-vegetarians movie are fantastical creatures: a gaggle of green-goo-gorging goblins who, when they so desire, can take the form of the salt of America: the rural small farmer. (Duplicitous rural farmers, deformed killer vegetarians — Troll 2 was obviously made by an urban carnivore with an axe to grind and leaves viewers with no doubt: vegetarianism is evil, vegetarians are monsters, and eating food from vegetarians will kill you. Ergo: meat good.)

That nary a troll is seen in Troll 2 is because the movie was made under the title Goblins, and gained its final misleading moniker only to ride on the popularity of an earlier, unrelated fantasy movie entitled Troll (1986 / trailer). Thus, though there are no trolls, goblins appear often — and even reappear after being killed. (Face it, unlike with the rural small farmer, you can't keep a good goblin down.) There's an evil witch, too, not to mention a multitude of shiny, perfectly shaped, delicious-looking red apples even more beautiful than the one seen in Disney's Snow White (1937 / trailer)... and we all know what happened to Snow White when she ate that apple.

Troll 2 is, basically, an anti-vegetarian fairytale set in contemporary times (if one can still view 1990 as contemporary). And much how logic never plays a role in fairytales, logic is nowhere to be found in Troll 2. (So don't bother asking why vegetarians would want to convert living human flesh into plant goo — it's just what they do.) Indeed, to say that Troll 2 is simply bonkers would be a bit of an understatement, but what is not an understatement is that regardless of one's own personal nutritive proclivities, this jaw-dropping fantasy film is immensely entertaining in a so-bad-its-good way.

Which is not to say that it's a family movie. True, there's no exploitive nudity, and the blood and gore loses much of its punch by being bright leaf-lettuce green, but much like the off-screen death of Bambi's mother in Disney's Bambi (1942 / trailer), some on-screen events in Troll 2 could give an impressionable child nightmares. Non-impressionable people, however, will probably burst out laughing — we did, often, spilling our bag of 100% organic beet chips everywhere in the process. (But at least we didn't spill our 100% vegan beer.*)

*An impossibility, actually. Vegan beer, that is. Not to forget the dried fish bladder — isinglass— used to filter most beer, even when not used the legally permitted amount of aphids per serving of hops (3,500 per 10 grams of hops) guarantees that there will always be bug remnants in the batch of beer. Thus, in all likelihood no beer is truly vegan.

In an obvious nod to another more famous fantasy film, The Princess Bride (1987 / trailer), Troll 2 opens with a granddad (Robert Ormsby) reading a fairytale to his grandson (Michael Paul Stephenson). Within this sequence, we learn from the appearance of the evil goblins — i.e., vertically challenged people wearing potato sacks and cheap masks — that the makeup and effects of the movie are hilarious, and the acting truly noteworthy. The acting of the woman playing the mother (Margo Prey), for example, is so vacuous one could imagine she is addicted to Valium, while the thespianism of the previously mentioned wicked witch (Deborah Reed) transcends terribleness to become a persiflage of bad acting, something that a talented actor probably couldn't do even if they tried.

Oh, yeah: we also learn that the granddad is actually dead, and that no other family member can see him — at least, that is, unless it's advantageous to the plot that someone suddenly can.

And while the basic plot is relatively simple ("evil vegetarian vs. good meat-eater"), it is also far more meanderingly linear than it is coherent. Throughout the movie, characters are confronted with events that would cause most people to think WTF and backpedal, but those in the movie react as if it's totally normal and slog onward. Your TV suddenly starts playing a muzak variation of You Can Leave Your Hat On and shows a babalicious brunette dancing up to your trailer? Totally normal. A friendly sheriff gives you a green hamburger to eat? Totally normal. You see a girl running in terror through the forest so you football tackle her to talk with her? Totally normal. Your young son urinates all over the food on the kitchen table so you lock him in his room and go without anything to eat for 24 hours? Totally normal. You make out with a babalicious brunette and an ear of corn and suddenly popcorn floods the room? Totally normal. Troll 2 plays out in a world where about the only thing that fazes anybody, if but for seconds, is the appearance of a ghost — who, when needed, can appear with a Molotov cocktail and fire extinguisher in hand. (Like: totally normal.)

Since its initial release, Troll 2 has gained substantial cult popularity as a "bad movie." It's a deserved reputation, as seldom has there been a worse movie that flies by as enjoyably and quickly as this 135-minute-long jewel of junkiness. Produced with all the quality of a low-grade TV movie, Troll 2 is so full of thespian faux pas, inanity, and incongruent story development that on occasion it comes across like the intellectually impaired prodigal great-great-great grandson of Dali & Bunuel's surrealist short, Un chien andalou(1929).

Troll 2, of course, lacks any of the artistic, intellectual, social, religious, or Freudian insight and criticism of that classic short, but for that Troll 2 is far funnier. It is well worth noting that unlike Dali & Bunuel's film, if not most films in general, any and all positive aspects of Troll 2 are purely accidental in origin. It is one of those rare movies — like Dwain Esper's Maniac(1934 / trailer), Ed Wood's Glen or Glenda (1953 / trailer), Harold P. Warren's Manos, The Hands of Fate (1966 / trailer), or George Barry's Death Bed: The Bed that Eats (1977 / scenes) — in which the combined inabilities of all those involved coalesce to produce something almost transcendental, almost otherworldly, in nature.

Troll 2 is truly unique cinematic experience, and a masterpiece of bad, anti-vegetarian cinema. Watch it with a friend, carnivore or vegetarian: jaws will drop, laughter will ring, and a good time will be had by all.

Post-Hermann's addendum: That Trolls 2 is as superlatively awful and uniquely entertaining should probably not be all that surprising, seeing that the director and co-scripter of the fabulous freak of a feature length film, "Drake Floyd", is actually the sadly underappreciated and superbly anti-talented Italian genre filmmaker Claudio Fragasso, a man whose auteur sensibilities and filmic (in)abilities rival those of the great Italian anti-filmmaker Bruno Mattei (30 July 1931 – 21 May 2007; see: Island of the Living [2006]), a man with whom Fragasso often worked. The plethora of wonderfully questionable filmic flotsam that Fragasso has touched as credited and/or uncredited writer, co-writer, director, co-director, producer, co-producer or even as actor includes but is hardly limited to: Hell of the Living Dead (1980 / trailer), Zombi 3 (1988 / trailer), The Seven Magnificent Gladiators (1983, trailer), with Lou "Muscles" Ferrigno & Sybil "Love Pillows" Danning, Zombi 4: After Death (1988, trailer), with porn legend Jeff "The Whooper" Stryker, Monster Dog (1984, music video), with Alice "Republican" Cooper, The Nun of Monza (1980 / trailer), Terminator 2: Shocking Dark (1989 / trailer), Interzone (1987 / trailer), starring Bruce "Mr. Linda Hamilton Kathleen Quinlan" Abbott, of The Re-Animator (1985), The Other Hell (1981 / trailer),  Caged Women (1982 / trailer) and Women's Prison Massacre (1983 / trailer), both with Laura "Yummy" Gemser, Robowar (1988 / trailer), Rats – Night of Terror (1984 / trailer), La Casa 5: Beyond Darkness (1990 / trailer), Scalps (1987 / trailer), Mania (1974 / trailer) and so much more. That his likewise uniquely talented wife and regular collaborator on scripts, Rossella Drudi, also helped write Trolls 2 probably also helped make this marvelously terrible movie what it is.

R.I.P. Umberto Lenzi, Part II: 1964-68

January 20, 2018, 3:50 am

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6 August 1931 – 19 October 2017

"A mostly unsung titan has passed." The great Umberto Lenzi has left us! In a career that spanned over 30 years, the Italian director churned out fine quality as well as crappy Eurotrash in all genres: comedy, peplum, Eurospy, spaghetti westerns and macaroni combat, poliziotteschi, cannibal and giallo. A career review will begin shortly....

Umberto Lenzi — Part I: 1958–63

The Pirates of Malaysia

(1964, dir. Umberto Lenzi)

Italian title: I pirati della Malesia. The sequel to 1963's Sandokan, la tigre di Mompracem / Sandokan the Great (See Part I: 1958-63) once again starring — *sigh* — Steve Reeves. Based on the novel of the same name written by Italian author Emilio Salgari and first published in 1896.

Regarding the recent DVD release, 10K Bulletssays, "This is an entertaining but somewhat old-fashioned adventure movie which is perfect to watch on a rainy Sunday afternoon. The film definitely looks great, has fantastic outdoor locations, some memorable action scenes and Steve 'Hercules' Reeves is a likeable leading man. I don't know how it compares to Lenzi's previous Sandokan feature [...], but I prefer it over his other jungle adventure Sandok, il Maciste della giungla (1964) with Sean Flynn."

At Amazon, they say "One of the best Steve Reeves movies we've ever seen! A ruthless British general tries to force a good king to resign his throne in favor of English rule. Sandokan and his comrades intervene. Some truly great action moments follow! In particular, watch for the scene where a gang of rebels is viciously attacked by a band of wild-eyed natives. Another tense moment has a prisoner about to be thrown into the jaws of an alligator."

The cover art above is of Steve Reeves as painted by the great George Quaintance(3 June 1902 – 8 Nov 1957). Quaintance, oddly enough, downplayed the bulge normally found in Reeves' beefcake photos.

Three Sergeants of Bengal

(1964, writ & dir "Humphrey Humbert" aka Umberto Lenzi)

Italian title: I tre sergenti del Bengala. The plot of what is surely an extremely pro-Colonialist movie, as given at OC World Review: "Sergeant John Foster (Nazzareno Zamperla, also found somewhere in Dellamorte Dellamore[1994]) is placed under arrest for fooling around with his colonel's daughter. At the same time, Sergeant Frankie Ross (Richard 'Nick' Harrison) is jailed for scamming his way out of a shotgun wedding with the help of an imposter chaplain, the notorious alcoholic Sergeant Burt Wallace (Ugo Sasso), who is also imprisoned. But the Three Sergeants of Bengal are given a chance for freedom if they go on a perilous mission to save Fort Madras from the evil bandit Siki Dharma (Aldo Sambrell)."

Cult actor Dakar (of Zombie[1979], Dr Butcher / Zombie Holocaust[1980], Papaya [1978 / trailer] and more) makes an early appearance. Aldo Sambrell is known for working with the great Jess Franco and other Spanish trashmasters, while Richard Harrison, seen above nude from some early beefcake, [duh] "was a very popular beefcake model in the late 1950s. He appeared in campy science fiction films like Kronos (1957 / trailer) before heading to Europe to act in the sword-and-sandal films that were hugely popular at the time. Later, he appeared in spaghetti westerns, before transitioning successfully into a variety of film genres all the way into the 1980s. (Text, like the photo, from Male Models Vintage Beefcake.)"

Roughly thirty minutes of

Three Sergeants of Bengal:

The Italian Film Reviewthinks the movie "could possibly be the most fun Italian combat feature ever made", and says, "Those Britons who are able to puff up their chests with pride at the thought of an age when half the globe was coloured pink would surely feel a stiffening in the upper lip at the sight of the Redcoats [...] interacting with stock footage animals and Mondo-style documentary footage of natives, some clearly wearing later twentieth-century dress, before going to battle with a load of extras in poorly applied blackface. [...] By no means always played straight, Three Sergeants of Bengaldoes keep it light and in execution feels, at times, more like Carry On Up The Khyber (1968 / trailer) than Zulu (1964 / trailer). A cunning ambush plan, with a complexity to rival the boardgame Mousetrap, is executed and a retreating enemy is massacred to the sounds of heroic music as featherweight barrels and sandbags get tossed around in the mayhem of battle. Jaw-dropping yet ultimately priceless."

 

Temple of the White Elephant

(1964, writ & dir. Umberto Lenzi)

Italian title: Sandok, il Maciste della giungla. Another pro-Colonialist movie. Co-written with Fulvio Gicca Palli, who eventually also wrote the fun Italo Strangers on a Train (1951 / trailer) inspired "thriller"Designated Victim (1971 / trailer).

First 10 Minutes of

Temple of the White Elephant:

One of Lenzi's less-seen movies, it stars Sean Flynn. Who? Errol Flynn's son, Sean, an adventure-seeking heartthrob of a man whose end was tragic. As Wikipediaexplains; "Sean Leslie Flynn (31 May 1941 – June 1971; declared legally dead in 1984) was an American actor and freelance photojournalist best known for his coverage of the Vietnam War. Flynn was the only child of Australian-American actor Errol Flynn and his first wife, French-American actress/singer Lili Damita (10 July 1904 – 21 March 1994) [photo below].

After studying briefly at Duke University, Sean Flynn embarked on an acting career. He retired by the mid-1960s to become a freelance photojournalist under contract to Time. In search of exceptional images, he traveled with special forces units and irregulars operating in remote areas. While on assignment in Cambodia in April 1970, Flynn and fellow photojournalist Dana Stone were captured by communist guerrillas. Neither man was seen or heard from again. In 1984, Flynn's mother had him declared dead in absentia."

Somewhere along the way before disappearing, Sean Flynn also tried his hand at singing and released a two-sided single.

Sean Flynn sings

Secret Love:

Sandok, il Maciste della giungla is so rarely seen, the only plot description we could find was a User Review from 2001 (!) at imdb from VideoImports (videoImports@aol.com): "In India, a group of religious fanatics, the Sikkim rebels, capture an English lieutenant and the daughter of the Viceroy. The Sikkim belong to the deadly sect of the White Elephant, and are very cunning and dangerous. Lieutenant Dick Ramsey (Sean Flynn), captain of the lancers, engineers a scheme to save the two captives. After having been degraded and locked up in order to trick the rebels, he escapes, and makes his way into the jungle to find the mysterious temple. Along the way he meets Sandok (Mimmo Palmara) and Prince Dahara, who both join Ramsey in unmasking the sect and saving the two captives. This film was made right after Lenzi's similar jungle film, Sandokan, I Tigre della Malesia, so it contains many similar locales and actors. [...] This is a really fantastic adventure, with lots of steamy jungle footage, exotic locales, and enough action to make it well worth the watch."

Sean Flynn sings

Stay In My Heart:

Messalina vs. the Son of Hercules

(1964 , dir Umberto Lenzi)

 

"Contains more loin than your average cow."

Italian title: L'ultimo gladiatore. Another movie with Richard Harrison, still beefcake at the age of 29 — that's him packing the jeans below, looking like a living George Quaintance painting. Of the two scriptwriters of Messalina vs. the Son of Hercules, Albert Valentin was a Belgium-born filmmaker whose career as a director pretty much ended by the end of the 1940s, but two of the movies he made under the occupying Nazi forces, La vie de plaisir (1944) and Marie-Martine(1943), might have become classics were they not tainted by the scent of collaboration.

The German website Zelluloidhas a plot description: "41 BC. The cruel emperor Caligula (Charles Borromel of The Blade Master aka Ator 2 [1984 / German trailer] and Joe D'Amato's Absurd [1981 / trailer] and The Emperor Caligula: The Untold Story [1982 / trailer]), ruler of the Roman Empire, is waging a pointless war against Britain. When the British warrior of Glaucus (Richard Harrison) catches his eye, Caligula takes him as a prisoner to Rome, where he lets him appear in gladiator fights. Messalina (Lisa Gastoni), wife of Claudius, watches in horror as the insane Caligula makes his horse a Senator and passes ever-more insane laws. With the help of Glaucus, she plans to overthrow Caligula."

Along for the ride is Glaucus' likewise enslaved girlfriend Ena (Marilù Tolo, seen above in bed, of Django Kill... If You Live, Shoot! [1967])…

Trailer to

Django Kill... If You Live, Shoot!

Over at imdb, back in 2011 melvelvit-1from the suburbs of NYC commented: "Historical events such as Caligula making his horse a senator and Messalina's orgies figure into the story and the beefcake heroics of a chastely-clad Richard Harrison take a back seat whenever Caligula & Co. are on screen, especially Messalina. Beautiful auburn-haired Lisa Gastoni was appropriately imperious and didn't disappoint as the sadistic wife of Emperor Claudius who delights in whipping Glaucus' girlfriend and complains when she can't see the lovers roast because of all the smoke in the drastically scaled down Coliseum arena. […]"

 

Credit sequence to

Messalina vs. the Son of Hercules:

Temple of a Thousand Lights

(1965, dir. Umberto Lenzi)

Italian title: La montagna di luce. Lenzi in Malaysia again, and though the movie is based on an Emilio Salgari book, it is neither a Sandokan movie nor does it have Steve Reeves: instead, Richard Harrison (showing his tan line further below) is there for the ride playing the lead character "Allan Foster". (For some strange reason, the "Tony Randal" of the book, La montagna di luce (1902), got changed to "Allan Foster".) The flick is also notable for some pretty embaressing "brown-face".

Though Sandokan does not appear anywhere in the movie, Temple of a Thousand Lights has appeared at times marketed as a Sandokan movie.

Scene from 

Temple of a Thousand Lights:

Mya DVDseems to be the only person who's seen the film to be inspired to write about it: "La montagna di luce […] has a hero whose moral compass is dictated by circumstances and self-interest, though his fear factor is almost zero. Richard Harrison plays Alan Foster, a care-free gambler/traveler/thief/scoundrel who loses all his money in a game with the powerful Rajah Sindar (Daniele Vargas of Caltiki, the Immortal Monster [1959 / trailer], Cemetery Without Crosses [1969 / trailer] and The Arena [1974 / trailer below]). Owing the Rajah more money than he can ever hope to acquire, he must pay back the debt or face certain death. The Rajah informs him of one possibility of payment: acquiring the heavily protected 'Mountain of Light', a fabulous diamond that holds significant religious value, as well as unheard of monetary worth. The debt will be dismissed if Foster gets the diamond for the Rajah. Foster escapes from the Rajah's palace, where he was imprisoned and, seduced by the wealth the jewel represents, proceeds on a journey to try to steal the diamond for himself. Along the way he meets up with Sitama, a faking fakir, played by dance choreographer and actor Wilbert Bradley. […] 

"The two team up to acquire this coveted jewel that can bring incredible riches to its owner and guarantee a life of pleasure and indolence. […] There is a love interest that evolves later in the film [with Lilamani (Luciana Gilli)], and this is the film's weakest element, as it's one of those affairs that only is real in cinema: enduring love based on a few moments of meeting. […]"

Trailer to
The Arena (1974),

starring Pam Grier:

 

008: Operation Exterminate

(1965, writ "Humphrey Humbert"& dir. Umberto Lenzi)

Italian title: A 008 operazione sterminio. Lenzi finally leaves the jungle, not to mention ancient Greece or Italy. No more peplums for him — time for Eurospy films! (And if he can't have 007, then he'll have 008!)

According to the Wild Eye: "This was the first in a series of four spy films Umberto Lenzi made for producer Fortunato Misiano. […] Lenzi became an accomplished director of giallos, war movies and crime films, but his spy movies are generally considered to be a rather motley bunch, hamstrung by their lack of budget and original ideas. Partially, this is also because until recently they've only been available in dreadful, 4th or 5th generation dupes which look as though they've been painted over with tarmac. In recent years, however, aficionados have taken the trouble to re-dub or subtitle them, and although 008 Operation Exterminate is by no means a good film it's not as terrible as is sometimes said."

Kult Eye Bleederhas the plot: "American secret agent 008 (Ingrid Schoeller, above) and agent 006 from British secret intelligence services (Alberto Lupo of Night of Violence [1965 / scene] and Sodom 2000aka Action (1980 / scene]) start to work together to locate anti-radar device. Their investigations start from Cairo, Egypt and later takes them to Switzerland. […]"

Italian Film Reviewis of the opinion that "The plot is wafer thin. This should not really matter too much as the story […] is little more than a frame on which to hang a series of confrontations with enemy agents set against delightful scenery and involving pistols, gadgets and karate chops. […] The film […] features a female Bond figure of a lead. 008, armed with a tear gas dispensing lipstick, is played by Ingrid Schoeller and she has a male sidekick. This gender role reversal in itself sets the film apart from so many entries to the genre but the original point of reference and obvious influence is underscored as the camera homes in on a copy of Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming. […] Mod fashion, breathtaking Egyptian and Alpine vistas, and a villain (Sal Borgese of Death Carries a Cane [1973 / trailer] and Green Inferno [1980 / trailer]) who fires daggers from a prosthetic hand are just some of the delights in store. A couple of frankly crackers head-scratching twist and turns in the final minutes subvert the predictable linear narrative and add further interest to this superior Eurospy outing." 

First four minutes of

008: Operation Exterminate:

 

Super Seven Calling Cairo

(1965, writ. & dir. Umberto Lenzi)

Italian title: Superseven chiama Cairo. The plot, as paraphrased from the German website Zelluloid: "A difficult case for Martin Stevens, aka Agent Super Seven (Roger Browne of The Lone Road [1916 / trailer] and, most famously, Argoman the Fantastic Superman [1967 / trailer]), whose missions around the world are top secret and highly explosive. This time as well. Radioactive material has disappeared from a Liverpool laboratory. Who's behind it? Someone unknown managed to hide the stolen goods in a camera — which is on its way to Cairo! Agent Super Seven is on his own. With a lot of people on his heels: the Russian intelligence service also wants to get a hold of the camera. Their methods are not exactly fair, which is why Mr. Stevens should be rather careful when hot women make beautiful eyes at him — because, who knows who's paying them to do so?"

The Eurobabes of the movie include Fabienne Dali (of the great Kill Baby, Kill [1966 / trailer], seen belowbut not from this film here) and the great and Rosalba Neri (of, among many noteworthy films, Lady Frankenstein[1971] and José Ramón Larraz's  La muerte incierta [1973]).

Monster Hunter, which says "Director Umberto Lenzi […] manages to deliver a mostly dull picture punctuated by outbursts of almost laughable moments", points out the truth: "Superseven is the guy who gets the assignments that James Bond would reject as not flashy enough. Thwarting supervillains bent on world domination and equipped with monstrous secret bases is one thing, but recovering the zoom lens from a primitive video camera is something best left to a junior varsity squadder like Superseven."

German credit sequence:

 

The Spy Who Loved Flowers

(1966, writ & dir. "Herbert Humphry" aka Umberto Lenzi)

Italian title: Le spie amano i fiori. The sequel to Super Seven Calling Cairo. As Monster Hunterputs it, "Director Umberto Lenzi gets another chance to use a historical location (the Acropolis) to show us that Martin's codename should have been Stupidseven. […] For obvious reasons, this was the final Superseven adventure. For reasons much less obvious, Lenzi and Roger Browne would team up again the next year for another Eurospy effort, Last Man to Kill."

Fan-made trailer to

The Spy Who Loved Flowers:

Aveleymanhas the plot: "Superseven goes around assassinating folks who stole some vaguely defined MacGuffin. [A dildo-like device called 'The Gamma Electroscometron'.] He might meet his match running against the bad guy (Fernando Cebrián of House of 1000 Dolls [1967 / trailer]) of the title, though. Not bad, but a bit dour and listless. The dubbing is also more of a hindrance than usual (all Brits don't sound like Ronald Colman). Way too much travelogue footage and zoom throttling […]."

 

The Bad Girl of the movie, Mei Ling, is played by Yoko Tani (2 Aug 1928 – 19 April 1999), seen below looking sexy as a stereotype for a French postcard; she's also found in First Spaceship on Venus(1960 / trailer) and Invasion (1966 / trailer). The lead female, Emma Danieli (14 Oct 1936 – 21 June 1998), had an even more limited career but is nevertheless found in a much better movie than this one, The Last Man on Earth(1964).

Superseven being incompetent:
 

Last Man to Kill

(1966. Writ & dir Umberto Lenzi)

Italian title: Un milione di dollari per sette assassini. Lenzi's fourth and last (semi)Eurospy movie, once again with Roger Browne, but not as Superseven aka Stupidseven. We call the movie "(semi)Eurospy" because although the flick has all the trappings of a Europay movie, Browne's character is actually a master thief.

Co-scriptwriter Gianfranco Clerici went on to work on many Eurotrash classics and favs, including Lucio Fulci's Don't Torture a Duckling (1972 / trailer), Murder Rock: Dancing Death (1984 / trailer) and The New York Ripper (1982 / trailer), Ruggero Deodato's Last Cannibal World (1977 / trailer), a film originally intended for Lenzi), Phantom of Death (1988 / trailer), The House on the Edge of the Park (1980 / trailer, with David Hess) and Cannibal Holocaust(1980 / trailer), and other fine stuff like Nazi Love Camp 27 (1977 / fan-made trailer) — one and all better movies than this one.

To paraphrase the German website Die-besten-horrorfilme, the plot should be as follows: "The wily but charming crook Michael King (Roger Browne) has made his way to Africa, where he executes one spectacular coup after another. Due to skillful disguises, no one can identify him — but he always leaves behind his calling card, a King playing card. A wealthy businessman offers him $10,000 to locate his missing adoptive son. But King finds only his body. Now, he is given a far more lucrative offer: he should kill the murderers. The hunt is on. King tells his victims in advance that their days are numbered, and panic breaks out in the group. But King finds himself caught in a web full of intrigue and..."

Credit sequence:

Kriminal

(1966, writ & dir Umberto Lenzi)

Leaving Eurospies behind him, Lenzi turned to the Italian Fumetti neri  for his next movie. Unable to get the rights to either Diabolik or Satanik — Mario Bava filmed Danger Diabolik in 1968 (trailer), the same year that Piero Vivarelli filmed Satanik (trailer) — Lenzi turned to Kriminal, an anti-hero created by writer "Max Bunker" (i.e., Luciano Secchi) and artist "Magnus" (i.e., Robert Raviola).

Opening credits:

In the comics, Kriminal's real name was Anthony Logan, and he first turned to crime to avenge the death of his father. Dressed in a black and yellow jumpsuit with a skeleton motif and wearing a skull mask, he began his career as a coldblooded sadistic killer that would kill as quickly as spit, but over time he became a sort of semi-hero. Despite being married (to the ex-fiancée of his arch-enemy Inspector Milton), Kriminal seduces and screws (and usually kills) one babe after the other. Lenzi went for a much lighter tone in his version of the character, making him much less a psychopathic sex killer.

The Tell-Tale Mindsays, "In this particular caper, Kriminal ("Glenn Saxon" aka Roel Bos) is out to steal some diamonds, but to do so, he must con his way through a number of people before reaching his end goal and all the while evading the police and a determined Scotland Yard inspector as played by Andrea Bosic (of Formula for Murder [1985 / trailer] and Manhattan Baby[1982]). The film is packed with beautiful women, almost all of whom Kriminal must seduce in order to get the goods and what is more than a little funny about it all is that the women are just as corrupt as he is. Helga Liné (of Horror Express [1972 / trailer], Nightmare Castle [1965 / full movie], Jose Ramón Larraz's Estigma [1980] and much, much more) plays twin sisters who have stolen the diamonds from someone else and it is she that Kriminal must conquer if he is to get the diamonds he covets. While the movie begins as a more comedic effort, Kriminal trying to avoid the Inspector wherever he goes and playing with people as he would a game of chess, it soon turns into a bit of a suspenseful thriller […]. That being said, it could have been a little more exciting as those moments when Kriminal was not doing something related to his crimes were, for lack of a better word, slightly boring. […]"

Married life:

Desert Commandos

(1967, writ & dir. Umberto Lenzi)

Italian title: Attentato ai tre grandi. Lenzi enters the genre of macaroni combat with a WWII movie in which five German soldiers are the heroes (!). Added unusual aspect: former American beefcake model Ken Clark (4 June 1927 – 1 June 2009), of Attack of the Giant Leeches(1959) and 12 to the Moon (1960 / trailer), plays the film's racist Nazi fanatic Captain Fritz Schoeller, while the German Horst Frank (28 May 1929 – 25 May 1999), of  The Head (1959 / full movie) and  The Dead Are Alive / The Etruscan Kills Again (1972 / trailer), plays the less-fanatical half-American, Jew-friendly Nazi Lt. Roland Wolf.

The photo below is of a slim, naked and hairy Ken Clark, from a time when men did not shave their chests... among everything else. Contrary to what many believe, he was not an "eternal bachelor": when the notably bulging man (get a gander of that shapely outline in Attack of the Giant Leeches!) moved on to swinging Italy for the wild life of a single movie star, he left behind a wife and five kids.

Mondo Esotericahas the plot: "Parachuted behind enemy lines in Tunisia, [5 German soldiers] are disguised as British Commandos and are to make their way across the desert to Casablanca where the Big Three (Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt) are going to be meeting and there they are going to kill the leaders of these countries. [...] The mission seems to be going to plan, but the Americans seem all too aware of the group's plans and progress... "

Most people don't seem to find the movie all the good — too many plot holes — but over at imdb, Sgt Slaughterfrom St. Davids, Pennsylvania, USA, says, "Italian director Umberto Lenzi [...] begins his career in the war genre with a slam-bang suspense piece which proves to be, undoubtedly, one of the best war movies to come out of Italy in the 1960s. The story is fresh and original, and presented with unique twists from beginning to end. [...] Lenzi's film is a true example of character-driven drama at its best. Ken Clark is Captain Schoeller, leader of the unit, and he's never less than totally convincing as a die-hard advocate of Hitler and Nazism. Horst Frank plays Lt. Wolf with gusto and conviction. [...] Despite their dissension, both are dedicated soldiers who have a job to get done, and grudgingly work together to accomplish the mission. Lenzi never strays far from this central conflict of ideals, always keeping his message clearly in focus." (Message?)

Full Movie:

 

Il figlio di Aquila Nera

(1968, dir. "James Reed", aka Guido Malatesta)

The Italian title translates into"The Son of the Black Eagle". Umberto Lenzi is credited for the story to this Italian movie that doesn't seem to have ever had an English-language release. "Dick Palmer" is the anglicized name of Italo muscleman Mimmo Palmara, which he usually adopted for his spaghetti westerns. The delectable Edwige Fenech (of They're Coming to Get You [1972 / trailer], The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh [1971 / trailer], Five Dolls for an August Moon [1970 / trailer], Phantom of Death [1980 / trailer] and much more) is there as well... the photo of her below is not from the movie.

The plot, freely translated from the German website Zelluloid: "The Cossacks are involved in a battle led by Alessio Andrejewis (Dick Palmer), son of the famous 'Black Eagle', who is famous for having repelled the revolt led by General Volkansky (Franco Ressel of Blood and Black Lace [1964 / trailer] and Seven Dead in the Cat's Eye[1973]) against the Cossacks. During a heavy counter-attack against the palace of the Governor, three of the Black Eagle's men are captured and sentenced to death. During an attempt to gain their freedom, Alessio is also captured — but Captain Romanoff's niece (Edwige Fenech, seen below, not from the movie) helps them escape. Volkansky takes up the pursuit, it comes to fighting and Volkansky is killed in a duel. Now, the Black Eagle demands that the Tsar to give the Cossacks freedom and independence...."

Somewhere out there, in some German-speaking country, the movie was released with a great Barbara Cartland-style poster art.

The only other description of the movie we could find, from 11 March 2001 and by VideoImports (videoImports@aol.com), is at the imdb. It calls the movie an "action-packed costume adventure from Italy" and offers a slightly different take on the plot: "After Czar Alexander II names the vicious General Volkonsky as governor of the Caucasus, the Cossacks decide to plan a revolt. Alessio Andrejevic, a young nobleman, adopts his father's alias, 'the Black Eagle', and begins to free villagers from the terror and tyranny of Imperial Russia. This film boasts some wonderful cinematography by Augusto Tiezzi, as well as favorable roles for Mimmo Palmara, Loris Gizzi, and Andrea Aureli (the latter of whom actually gets to play a good guy for a change). This film also has a remarkable music score (by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino), and contains one of the best battle scenes I've ever witnessed! The fact that Umberto Lenzi wrote the original storyline for this film is icing on the cake. This film is simply too good to be true."

The movie,

in Italian:

 

Pistol for a Hundred Coffins

(1968, dir. Umberto Lenzi)

The Italian title: Una pistola per cento bare. Aka A Gun for One Hundred Graves and Vengeance. Lenzi does his first of only two spaghetti westerns, this one written by Marco Leto and Vittorio Salerno and based on a story by Eduardo Manzanos Brochero. Manzanos Brochero later worked on the scripts of Night of the Devils (1972 / gory scene) and innumerable spaghetti westerns; Vittorio Salerno went on to direct The Savage Three (1975 / 15 minutes), featuring the hunky bad actor Joe Dallesandro, and No, the Case Is Happily Resolved (1973 / soundtrack).

Mondo Esoterica, which says "Una Pistola per Cento Bare is a decent, but rather generic Spaghetti Western, with pedestrian direction, some average performances and a script that misses a lot of interesting potential but does at least build to a good ending," has the plot: "When the Civil War breaks out, Jim Slade (Peter Lee Lawrence) refuses to fight, citing his Jehovah's Witness faith and he is duly sentenced to two and a half years of hard labour. After the war he is released and returns home where he finds his family have been murdered and their farm looted. Decrying his pacifism, Jim sets out to track down the four men responsible, killing three of them easily — but the fourth, Corbett (Piero Lulli), is leading a ruthless gang in an assault on a small town bank and Jim finds himself drawn into the middle of the fight to defend the town, although he is hampered by the escape of a gang of axe-murdering lunatics locked up in the town asylum. […] The story […] is pretty typical Spaghetti Western stuff, the addition of the crowd of jailed axe-wielding lunatics is the only thing that really makes the film stand out, but it does seem like those scenes were simply added for that reason and […] play no real part in the plot. […] Pacing is pretty slow but fortunately the build up to the climax is strong with some clever twists and turns and the ending is very fitting."

Trailer to

A Gun for One Hundred Graves:

Though forgotten today, the German actor Peter Lee Lawrence (born Karl Hyrenbach on February 21, 1944) was a popular and busy leading man of the spaghetti western genre. His un-credited debut was only a year previously, in 1965, as the brother-in-law of Lee Van Cleef in For a Few Dollars More (trailer), but his name was already a draw by A Gun for One Hundred Graves. But six years later, on 20 August 1974, he died from one of the most aggressive cancers known to man, glioblastoma (a form of brain cancer). He was only 30 years old. And now he's forgotten and unknown.

The other headliner, John Ireland, once directed the granddaddy of the current unstoppable franchise of the same name, The Fast and the Furious (1955 / teaser), and is known for many an A and B film — the latter (including I Saw What You Did [1965 / trailer], The House of Seven Corpses [1974 / trailer] and Welcome to Arrow Beach [1974 / trailer]) being for what we remember him best.

According to forgotten actress Joanne Dru (31 Jan 1922 – 10 Sept 1996), Ireland's "staunch Republican" wife from 1949 to 57, Ireland was hung like a horse: "I got John, and he ruined me for all other men. […] John, I'm sure, had more than Monty [Clift], Marlon [Brando] and Jimmy [Dean] put together. (Brando Unzipped, by Darwin Porter.)" That's John "Long Dong" Ireland above from some western, possibly Go for Broke (1968), obviously — as in many of his movies — not wearing underwear.

Go for Broke

(1968, dir. Umberto Lenzi)

Italian title: Tutto per tutto. Aka All Out. "A minor but entertaining movie with an excellent cast of spaghetti western regulars."

Lenzi's second and last spaghetti western, once again from the pen of Eduardo Manzanos Brochero and, returning for his second Lenzi spaghetti western in a row, John "Horse" Ireland (of Salon Kitty[1976 / trailer], Satan's Cheerleaders [1977 / trailer] and Guyana: Cult of the Damned [1979 / trailer]). Ireland headlines alongside Mark Damon, who entered the acting biz a few years before his first "big" success in The House of Usher (1960 / trailer) and pretty much left it after the two cut classics Hannah, Queen of the Vampires (1973 / trailer) and The Devil's Wedding Night (1973 / trailer); he's now a super-successful independent film producer.

The blog Not the Baseball Pitcherhas the plot: "Owl and Johnny's first meeting doesn't get off to a good start. […] Their next meeting Owl (John "The Whopper" Ireland) spots Johnny (Mark Damon) being cheated in a card game and helps him get his revenge, clearing his name. In the shootout with the cheater, at the man's ranch, Johnny saves two Mexicans about to be killed. Paco Nunez (Eduardo Fajardo) and Jose Gomez (Armando Calvo) then offer Johnny a cut of a fortune if he and his gun throw in with them. The gold had been stolen by bandit Carrancha (Fernando Sancho) and his gang, then stolen by an Indian named Copper Face (José Torres) from him. […] Maria (Mónica Randall), Carrancha's girl friend pops up and offers to help them find the Indian. […] He stole the gold because Maria was his wife and had left him for Carrancha. […] And once the gold is found, well you know what greed can do […]."

Over at imdb, unbrokenmetal(from Hamburg, Germany) says "This western is a good example how to achieve a lot with very little. It's a simple story, straight violent fun, and the main characters know all the tricks of the trade. An entertaining hour and a half, nothing more, nothing less."

The eye-catching Monica Randall is also found in such fun stuff as El monte de las brujas / The Witches Mountain (1975 / full movie), My Dear Killer (1972 / trailer), Paul Naschy's Inquisition (1978 / fan trailer) and more.

Trailer to

Go for Broke:

 

More to Come….

Short Film: M Is for Masticate (USA, 2014)

January 27, 2018, 12:34 am

≫ Next: Shark Week (USA, 2012)

≪ Previous: R.I.P. Umberto Lenzi, Part II: 1964-68

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"Remember kids, synthetic drugs are all fun and games until somebody loses an ear."

Gizmodo

A short written and directed by Robert Boocheck, who was born 1 September 1976and has a killer smile. (That's not him above; that's the main character of the short.)

To simply quote the bio — minor grammar fails and all— at the website to Honor Society,"a fully integrated production company telling stories with passion, bravery, and intelligence, no matter the style, technique, or medium": "Boocheck began his film career working for director Sam Raimi. He went on to direct music videos for seminal punk and indie bands such as Bad Religion and Death Cab for Cutie. His video work garnered a ton of acclaim and was even featured as an exhibit at the MOCA in Los Angeles.He has directed campaigns for major brands such as Google, State Farm, Toyota, and Ray Ban. […] He also has a segment in the popular cult horror anthology, The ABCs of Death 2 (2014 / trailer). Aside from all that fancy stuff, he's a Dad currently living in Brooklyn who makes street artin his spare time."

M Is for Masticate is actually Boocheck's segment in The ABCs of Death 2.

The ABCs anthology films each comprise a collection of 26 different shorts, one for each letter of the English alphabet, each by a different director, known and unknown. Both the first, The ABCs of Death (2012 / trailer), and the second, The ABCs of Death 2 (2014), involved a contest for the 26th director: Boocheck was the winner for ABCs 2. (Interestingly enough, albeit unintentionally, here at A Wasted Life we chose Lee Hardcastle's Ghost Burger(2013), the sequel to his winning short of the contest for the first ABCs film, T is for Toilet, as our Short Film of the Month for September 2016.) 
A third anthology movie, The ABCs of Death 2.5 (2016 / trailer), has since been cobbled together from all the unused "M" submissions for the 26th segment of ABC 2.
Well shot and well edited, that and the on-the-spot sound do wonders to make this short film the little gem that it is. And while M Is for Masticate plays out like an arty zombie flick, it packs a nice little twist at the end that would have Sid Davis — see the Short Film of the Month for January 2017, Seduction of the Innocent(1961) as well as the one for for September 2013, Boys' Beware(1961) — proud. Enjoy.

Shark Week (USA, 2012)

February 5, 2018, 2:40 am

≫ Next: R.I.P.: Umberto Lenzi, Part III: 1969-72

≪ Previous: Short Film: M Is for Masticate (USA, 2014)

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Where to begin? With the fact that this is an Asylum movie? Or with the fact that it was directed by Christopher Ray, the same miscreant who foisted Mega Shark Vs Crocosaurus(USA, 2010) upon the world two years earlier? Both facts say a lot without even requiring further aural expression. It's obviously bad-film time. (How bad? Well, last month in our yearly "Best-of" roundup for 2017, MSvsC got special mention as the "Biggest Pile of Shite seen in 2017". This flick here is even worse.)

But as we all know, there are "good""bad" films out there. They come in many forms. Some are big-budget accidents like Showgirls(1995 / trailer) or Gigli (2003 / trailer), others are low-budget intentional ones like the Sharknado series, while the best tend to simply the WTF products of people of surreally exceptional "talent" like that displayed by, perhaps most famously, Doris Wishman (1 June 1912 – 10 Aug 2002) and/or Ed Wood Jr (10 Oct 1924 – 10 Dec 1978), who manage to truly display an appreciable if inane auteur sensibility. (Less famously, someone like Renee Harmon [8 May 1927 – 26 Nov 2006], the "mover and shaker" of disasterpieces like Frozen Scream [1975].)

For that, however, there are tons of films that are actually simply bad: too boring to be much fun, so sloppy as to be annoying. The Asylum is famous for such movies, but every once in awhile they do actually do something "decent", and often enough their less-decent product at least has a few good ideas or visuals or something to make the time pass... were they only to finally embrace gratuitous nudity, the quality of their movies would surely increase notably. (One wonders, considering how much fun Z-Nation [trailer, 4^thseason] is, if they shouldn't concentrate more on TV series than movies.) What is truly rare, even for Asylum or Troma or Full Moon, is a bad film that is so truly bad, so shitty, that it makes every other movie seen before, every other corprophiliac movie that anyone has bothered to torturously sit through to the end — if only to tear apart on a movie blog ala here at A Wasted Life— suddenly seem like the scintillating product of true talent. 

Shark Week is such a movie. It has seriously made us realize that every movie that we have hated and dissed to date is a bright light of creativity and visual pleasure in comparison. Shark Week is less a movie than celluloid shit: 99 minutes of digitalized eye-searing cancer; a bloody car wreck of an accident that makes you seriously feel sorry for anyone involved; a vomitorium of mistakes that decries any justifiable existence. It is the celluloid equivalent of the Trump presidency: too fucked up to do justice in words. And much like Trump makes one embarrassed to be American, Shark Week makes you feel embarrassed for having even watched it.

Perhaps it was written with the intention of being funny. It isn't, but it is stupid. One hopes it wasn't written with the intention of being either suspenseful or mildly horrific or interesting, for there it fails three times over. One assumes it was written (and made) as a tax write-off, for there is little other justification for its existence. At best, Shark Week functions as a sleeping pill or as an example to present at film schools of how not to make a movie. But even calling it a movie is giving too much credit. It is nothing.

The "plot" is a badly constructed attempt at rehashing any number of movies from The Most Dangerous Game (1932 / trailer) to Saw (2004 / trailer): a rich and nefarious drug-cartel couple, Tiburon (Patrick Bergin) and Elena (Yancy Butler), kidnap a variety of people that are all somehow and precariously linked to the death of their son, bring them to an island, and over a week subject them to a series of traps involving sharks, with the survivor(s) promised freedom. And let the bodycount begin...

At 89 minutes in length, Shark Week is noticeably and way too long. It is literally an exercise in how to stretch every scene, every event, to as long as possible so as to pad the running time to a releasable length. Why show the group walking down a road for 3 seconds, for example, when, with some faux artsy-fartsy editing, you can stretch to a minute? Every non-action scene in the entire movie is edited not to streamline, but to make the movie longer, and here the movie succeeds painfully.

Then there is the CGI. Wow. What little exists is pretty amazing: amazingly horrendous, about what you might expect were a one-armed, high-school-dropout, stay-home alcoholic mom given a week of CGI-making lessons by mail and then handed a movie to do. (And then, just for good measure, they cut off her other arm first.) Luckily, any and all CGI scenes are mercifully short; regrettably, more than one is replayed a couple of times.

The acting. Here, the movie is oddly conflicted. Needless to say, the fodder across the board are terrible actors. One or two, one has the feeling, could possibly blossom elsewhere. Frankie Cullen, for example, who plays Frankie, is a Julián Róis-reminiscent hunk who could probably excel in porn. He just has that aura — and, indeed, a search of the web shows that he, as seen above, not from the movie, at least has the body as well (we were less successful in finding anything out about the equipment, but we have seen smaller packages). Likewise, the actress playing the junkie girl Layla (Valerie K. Garcia) may have failed at conveying junkieness, but she did at least emote halfway successfully. Of all the wooden-boards-with-legs strolling through the movie, she at least makes the biggest impression. The final girl, on the other hand, leaves such little impression that now, one day after having seen the movie, we no longer clearly remember what she did at the end — or, really, what she looked like.

Special mention must be given to the two baddies of the movie, Elena (Yancy Butler) and Tiburon (Patrick Bergin). They play two fucked-up evil people, strung out on drugs and/or brain-addled from alcohol. Well, it could be the makeup, it could be talent, but: they really come across as two fucked-up people, not as two actors playing fucked-up people. Sort of on the level of Tim Holt in HG Lewis'This Stuff'll Kill Ya (1971 / One More Swig of Moonshine), where Tim Holt wasn't supposed to play "fucked up" but he was such a heavy alcoholic that he simply exuded total "fucked-upness". The problem is, whenever Butler and Bergin suddenly act clearheaded, they're only a tick better than the rest of the cast. So we pray they are just exceptionally good at acting fucked-up, and not actually that bad off... though their participation in a project like this does indicate a certain level of desperation. (That said, Yancy Butler — fondly remembered as hot stuff back in Hard Target [1993 / trailer] — definitely has great gams.)

Within the genre of bad movies, there are some notable names that automatically come to mind, ranging from the perennial faves Ed Wood and Doris Wishman to the Italo cult names Bunno Mattei and Claudio Fragasso, from critics' punching bags like Uwe Boll to the sorely overlooked like Neil Breen, from the truly talented like Chang Che to even the reluctant filmmaker like Roberta Findlay. With all the names just listed, for all the shittiness of what they may have made or make, their films do at least usually display an interest in what they are doing, an actual desire to make a movie, or at least an auteur sensibility that is/was so outside the norm that their film work often becomes akin to, say, outsider art. They make real movies, if contentious ones shot through an "artistic" eye that they alone possess. That is why their movies are often so craptastic, and why for all the inability displayed the movies still project more of a reverence for film than a total disinterest or disrespect for the form they work in.

This cannot be said of Christopher Ray. His work comes closer to that of, say, Sam Newfield (6 Dec 1899 – 10 Nov 1964), a director now mostly forgotten despite having been one of the most prolific movie directors of all time. Newfield was a one-shot-only director whose excess output was fueled by a full-blown addiction to gambling: quality didn't matter shit to him, the fix did.

Shark Week, when considered together with other Chris Ray movies, leaves one to suspect that perhaps Ray Jr must have some similar "problem" requiring a quick and regular cash inflow. Like too many of his movies, Shark Week reveals itself as the product of someone who obviously doesn't give a flying fuck about movies and/or filmmaking. Someone who somehow slipped into a career in which they for some reason always get enough desperately needed financial remuneration no matter how shitty a product they deliver, so they simply continue the job despite obviously having no interest in it.

In Shark Week, like normal, Ray conveys no desire to achieve anything of even the slightest quality, no wish to explore any of the field's artistic or even technical possibilities, no drive to do anything other than deliver something so as to take home the paycheck. To clarify using examples of other fields: if Christopher Ray were a plastic surgeon instead of a director, you could be pretty sure all his clients would probably look like Pete Burns (5 Aug 1959 – 23 Oct 2016, see below) after the first operation; if he were a catapillar, he would be a furry puss; if a dictator, Kim Jong-un; if a disease, penicillin-resistant gonorrhea; if a hotelier, H. H. Holmes; if a car, a pinto. And as a filmmaker, he has all the talent of the pustulant pimples on Harvey Weinstein's fat ass.

The world would be a better place were he to stop making films. Don't believe that? Then sit through Shark Week.

R.I.P.: Umberto Lenzi, Part III: 1969-72

February 12, 2018, 2:34 am

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6 August 1931 – 19 October 2017

"A mostly unsung titan has passed." The great Umberto Lenzi has left us! In a career that spanned over 30 years, the Italian director churned out fine-quality as well as crappy Eurotrash in all genres: comedy, peplum, Eurospy, spaghetti western and macaroni combat, poliziotteschi, cannibal and giallo.

Go here for Part I: 1958-63
Go here for Part II: 1964-68

Tarzan in the Golden Grotto

(1969, dir. Manuel Caño)

Italian title: Tarzán en la gruta del oro. OK, imdb and elsewhere credit the screenplay to Umberto Lenzi, from a story by Santiago Moncada and Joaquín Romero Hernández, but the credit sequence to the movie (below) doesn't support that. But who are we to say it ain't so, Joe? In any event, great soundtrack.

 

Credit Sequence to

Tarzan in the Golden Grotto:

Santiago Moncada and Joaquín Romero Hernández, the credited screenwriters, went on to write Cut-Throat Nine (1972 / trailer), while Santiago Moncada also worked on better-known movies, including Bell from Hell (1973 / trailer), Mario Bava's Hatchet for the Honeymoon (1970 / trailer), and José Ramón Larraz's Rest in Pieces (1987 / trailer). 

Upon Tarzan in the Golden Grotto's initial release in Italy, to avoid paying licensing fees to the Burroughs estate the loincloth-wearing jungle king was called Zan ("Zan", "Tarzan"— get it?) and the movie Zan, re della giungla, or: "Zan, King of the Jungle". By the time of Manuel Caño's sequel three years later, entitled Tarzan and the Brown Prince (1972) from the go, one assumes some licensing was achieved. 

The fan-website Down Memory Lane with Tarzansays Steve Hawkes is "probably the best of the unauthorized 'Tarzans'." Maybe, but the Tarzans of Tarzan, A Gay XXX Parody (2016 / full film), Diego Sans, and Joe D'Amato's Tarzan X: Shame of Jane (1994) and Tarzhard — The Return (1995), Rocco Siffredi, are far more impressive, to say the least. And uncircumsized.

Trailer to

Tarzan and the Brown Prince:

Over at the great website Shock Cinema, Steven Puchalski, who thinks that "Steve Hawkes was the worst Tarzan to ever grace the silver screen", has the plot: "Steve Hawkes […] headed up two cut-rate, brain-dead Tarzan knock-offs by Spanish director Manuel Caño (The Swamp of the Ravens [1974 / song]). […] Hawkes had the necessary physique and loincloth, his '60s sideburns, '50s pompadour, wobbly yell, and all-around lousy acting made him an easy laughing stock..."

Puchalski also has the plot: "When sultry, scantily-clad white chick Irula (Kitty Swan, star of Ruggero Deodato's Gungala, the Black Panther Girl [1968 / first 30 minutes] & Virgin of the Jungle [1967 / first 27 minutes]) is seized by an African tribe in the opening minutes, who can save her? Muy macho Zan, of course, who rides to her rescue on an elephant, takes on her captors singlehandedly, and returns this beauty to her hidden Amazon village. Soon afterward, Zan is shot by greedy, evil white hunters who're after the Amazons''yellow stones' (i.e., gold), but it takes more than a bullet to put down our studly savage. After a hard-drinking old prospector patches his wound, shortsighted Zan rewards him with gold stolen from the Amazons' secret grotto, which quickly catches the attention of our stock villains. Meanwhile, Krista Nell (Feast of Satan [1971 / trailer], The Bloodsucker Leads the Dance [1975 / trailer], The Slasher [1972 / trailer, with Farley Granger], and The Red-Headed Corpse [1972 / scene, also with Farley Granger]) plays the prospector's gorgeous daughter, who's new in town and shocked by local customs (e.g., finding a eight-foot snake in her hotel room, the chief of police wandering in while she's bathing). After Irula becomes the new Amazon Queen, their home turf is attacked, her sisters are all slaughtered, and it's up to Zan (who's essentially responsible for this massacre in the first place, by revealing the location of their gold) to save the day... The production boasts scenic nature photography and comely actresses […], but it's still a ridiculously cheap, often excruciatingly dull mess. […]"

Stjepan "Steve Hawkes"Šipek eventually wrote, directed and (sometimes) starred in a variety of no-budget regional films down in Florida, most infamously the "anti-drug, pro-Christian, turkey-headed-killer horror film" (and total trash classic) Blood Freak (1972).

Trailer to

Blood Freak:

Battle of the Commandos

(1969, dir. Umberto Lenzi)
 

Italian title: La legione dei dannati. Everyone who has ever watched The Dirty Dozen (1967 / trailer) please raise their hands. Aka Legion of the Damned, possibly to cash in the similarly entitled Sven Hassel's book of the same name, which came out the same year. Lenzi goes back to macaroni combat; among the men who cooked up the screenplay, Dario Argento.

The Movie Scene, which says that Legion of the Damned "[…] takes on a whole new level of entertainment as some of it is so bad it becomes good", has a plot description: "After his platoon was massacred on what ended up being a suicide mission against the Germans, Irish Colonel Charlie McPhearson (Jack Palance) has had enough. That is until he is asked to assemble a group of men to go on another mission as the target is an operation run by Colonel Ackerman (Wolfgang Preiss of The Mad Executioners [1963 / trailer] and Cave of the Living Dead [1964 / full film]), whose troops were responsible for his platoon's demise. Assembling a group of military convicts McPherson knocks them into shape to complete their mission, which is to defuse underwater mines to clear the way for a June 10 invasion by commandos. But for McPhearson this is personal and he wants his men not only to do what they had to do but also the job of the commandos." 

At imdb, Steve Nyland(aka Squonkamatic) from New York, USA, says "It's a film populated and made by legends or semi-legends, with the added bonus of Euro Horror siren Diana Lorys, since after all what good is an Italian genre film without some gorgeous woman to ogle. Jack Palance steals the show with a cockeyed performance highlighted by a half-Irish accent that he probably fed with a solid half pint of booze during the course of an average day's shoot. Can't blame the guy for turning it into a good time." 

Among Diana Lorys' horror films, all of which are better than this war film, are Jesús Franco's The Awful Dr. Orlof (1962 / trailer), The Bloody Judge (1970 / trailer) and Nightmares Come at Night (1972 / German trailer), Carlos Aured's Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll (1974 / trailer), and the great Fangs of the Living Dead (1969 / trailer).

Trailer to the totally unknown 1968

spaghetti western with Diana Lorys,

La ciudad maldita:

Orgasmo / Paranoia

(1969, writ & dir. Umberto Lenzi)

Starring the great Carroll "Baby Doll" Baker, in the second year of her Eurotrash phase — her first Eurotrash project being Marco Ferreri's Her Harem (1967 / trailer). In her autobiography Baby Doll (Dell, 1985), Baker writes little of her Italo-years, but she does mention that "The Italian film indusry was thriving then and I made close to twenty-four films. I'm never sure of the exact number. [...] I ended up in three different movies, all entitled Paranoia. Not only were the stories similar, but I'm fairly certain that Jean Sorel [...] was my leading man in all three." (She's wrong about the last, actually: in this Paranoia here, her leading man was Lou Castel.) According to Baker, her "three"Paranoias — though we know only of two — all had the same title "because an Italian producer didn't want to pay the title-registration-tax more than once."

Orgasmo is the first of four movies she was to make with Umberto Lenzi, the first three of which were done in a row. The movie's original title, Orgasmo, decidedly inappropriate for a land as prudish as the US of A, became her first Paranoia when it was thusly re-titled when shipped abroad. (In 1970, Carroll Baker starred in her next Paranoia, another Umberto Lenzi movie, which though entitled Paranoia in Italy was released in the USA as A Quiet Place to Kill. Confusion between the two has reigned since.)

Trailer to

Orgasmo:

In any event, this Paranoia aka Orgasmo was co-written with Ugo Moretti (who also had a hand in Emanuelle and the Erotic Nights [1978 / German trailerwith — GASP! — penis]) and Marie Claire Solleville. Orgasmo was Lenzi's first giallo film, and like many a giallo film made before Dario Argento's style-setting directorial debut The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970 / trailer), the narrative and events are less codified.

Theme to Orgasmo —

Lydia MacDonald's

Fate Had Planned It So:

A plot description can be found At the Mansion of Madness: "Recently widowed and wealthy Kathryn West (Carroll Baker) has moved from America to a lonely villa in Italy. Detached from her past and looking to live a quiet life of peace and isolation, her only form of contact and company now is her lawyer (Tino Carraro of Werewolf Woman [1976 / trailer]), a stern housemaid (Lilla Brigone), and a deaf gardener. Kathryn finds herself attracted to a young stranger (Lou Castel of Requiescant[1967]) whose motor happens to breakdown in front of her house one day and is seduced and charmed into letting the young man and his sister (Colette Descombes, seen below from the July 1968 issue of Playmen International) stay with her. Once she is hooked in, both brother and sister, and surely some other outside influence, mess with her sanity in cruel and evil ways that drive her mad."

Over at the ever intelligently written She Blogged by Night, She-Who-Blogs points out that Lenzi's gialli "were never met with the same enthusiasm as those from his contemporaries such as Mario Bava or Dario Argento, and in many ways his films are more straightforward exploitation rather than full-blown gialli."

 

She later adds, "Not that Lenzi strove for all that much beyond salaciousness with his film, mind you. Orgasmo plays more like the American erotic thrillers so popular in the 1980s and 1990s than a true giallo. The sleazy mystery at the heart of Orgasmo is pure giallo […] as is its criticism of women, especially women of wealth. There's often a frustrating double standard in gialli, movies that use the sexuality of their female leads as the primary advertising point, while condemning the female characters they play for being too sexual. In Orgasmo, this condemnation mirrors heavily the 'woman of 40' trope so popular in pulp novels, the stereotype of a woman hitting her sexual peak while at the same time, in the more sexist plots, desperate for one last sexual fling in the face of the unspoken threat of menopause." Her final judgment is: "[…] Lazy storytelling permeates Orgasmo, and is the most responsible for the film's insubstantial feel. One can't go into the film expecting true, classic giallowithout being disappointed, but when approached as a campy 60s throwback, Orgasmo can be a whole lot of fun. It's bright, colorful, soapy and silly, with just enough depth in the right places to keep you interested. This is one of the lightest, fluffiest gialli you will ever see."

Also from Orgasmo —

Wess & the Airedales'

Just Tell Me:

 

So Sweet... So Perverse

(1969, dir. Umberto Lenzi)

Italian title: Così dolce... così perversa. Carroll Baker's second movie  for Lenzi, with a cast that also includes Eurobabe faves Erica Blanc (The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave [1971 / Italian trailer], The Devil's Nightmare [1971 / music], Mark of the Devil Part II [1973 / trailer], La vendetta di Lady Morgan [1965 / Italian trailer] and much, much more) and Helga Liné (of Orgy of the Vampires [1973 / trailer], The Dracula Saga [1973 / trailer] and much, much more). 

Note: Not in any way to be confused with Corrado Farina's  Kiss Me, Kill Me aka The Devil Witch aka Baba Yaga (1969 / trailer), which, for some strange reason is not only often incorrectly credited as a Lenzi film, but is also often confused with this one.

One of the screenwriters of So Sweet... So Perverse, Massimo D'Avak, who worked on the mondo documentary Die andere Seite der Sünde / L'altra faccia del peccato / The Queer... The Erotic (music) the same year as this movie, later went on to help write Who Saw Her Die?(1972). The other co-scribe, Ernesto Gastaldi, wrote many a fun Eurotrash film, including 2019: After the Fall of New York(1983 / trailer), Torso (1973 / trailer) and Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory(1961).

Opening Credits:

The plot, according to Spinning Image: "Wealthy socialite Jean Reynaud (Jean-Louis Trintignant) leads a jet-setting lifestyle. Stuck in a dull marriage to his beautiful but frigid wife Danielle (Erika Blanc, seen below not from the film), he alleviates his boredom by sleeping with friends like the sexy but married Helene (Helga Liné). One day Jean hears a woman being assaulted in the apartment above where he encounters Nicole (Carroll Baker). Intrigued by the beautiful American woman, Jean discovers she is trapped in a sadomasochistic relationship with a brute named Klaus (Horst Frank of The Cat o' Nine Tails [1971 / trailer]). Inevitably Jean and Nicole have an affair whereupon he tries to help her escape her abusive boyfriend so they can start a new life together. But then various secrets come to light and […]." 

Tofu Nerdpunkmore or less says (in German), "Carroll Baker, Jean-Louis Trintignant, and Erika Blanc are truly good, talented and charming actors and are what make this early giallo from Umberto Lenzi watchable in the first place. Other than that, Lenzi has a few nice visual ideas, most of which are shoddily executed. The plot never really takes off, and one is used to better within the genre. You never really care about the puzzle or the different interconnections between the characters. […]"

AtHannes' Filmarchiv, however, Hannes more or less disagrees (also in German): "We are in the realm of Diabolique (1955 / trailer), but not that bad of a variation. […] But each revelation brings a reversal. As a result, the viewer's expectations are played with, and that all the way to the unusual, rather open ending. Cinematically the film is also at a high level. Accomplished visuals with thought-out perspectives and clever lighting are complemented by the actors' expressive body language."

Cinezillaalso likes the movie, pointing out that "Like many of the titles that get sold off as gialli, Umberto Lenzi's So Sweet... So Perverse is unquestionably not a giallo. And even though it has a great title, it's neither sweet nor perverse. But it is a pretty entertaining little movie that stays safely inside the thriller sphere and comes off more like an extended twist on the Boileau-Narcejac novel Celle qui n'était plus ('The Woman Who Was')." (What? You haven't read that book yet?)

The great Riz Ortolani did the score; the song Why (music by Riz Ortolani, lyrics by Norman Newell and performed by J. Vincent Edwards) also showed up later in Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (1971).

Scenes and Music from

So Sweet... So Perverse:

Paranoia / A Quiet Place to Kill

(1970, dir. Umberto Lenzi)

Lenzi's third movie with Carroll Baker, once again a movie that takes plot elements from Henri-Georges Clouzot's film Les Diaboliques (1955 / trailer) and, like so many films of its ilk, wallows in wealthy people doing bad things in beautiful environments.

The Italian title, Paranoia, naturally couldn't be used for the movie's stateside release, as that title has been previously used in the US for Orgasmo(1969), so it was instead renamed A Quiet Place to Kill. Spain got the better title: "A Drug Named Helen" (Una droga llamada Helen).

Opening Credits:

Over at All Movie, Robert Firsching offers the following synopsis to what he calls a "ludicrous thriller": "Carroll Baker plays Helen, a race-car driver who recovers from a coma and is summoned to the Majorcan villa of her ex-husband Maurice (Jean Sorel). Constance (Marina Coffa) is Maurice's new wife and wants Helen to help her kill him. Unfortunately for Constance, Helen double-crosses her and she is killed instead. But there are more surprises ahead when Constance's daughter Susan (Anna Proclemer) shows up and tries to kill Helen because she wants to help Maurice, who is revealed to be her lover. The story […] is all quite complicated, but has very little dramatic impact due to static cinematography and weak performances."

Terror Trapcalls the movie "Standard stuff, but Lenzi's creations are always fun to watch and he consistently coats his work with a dash of stylin' flavor (check out that mod, reverse-negative opener). Leads Baker and Sorel are mucho easy on the eyes; and the grand guignol type climax is a cool touch."

(Spoilers) Over at imdb, that busy purveyor of porn lorof New York, New York, also thinks "impressive visuals, merely OK thriller", but he points out that the movie actually only nods at Les Diaboliques (1955) and, rather, that "the real ripoff here is from an equally distinguished source, René Clément's Purple Noon (1960 / trailer). […] That classic Patricia Highsmith movie presented the thriller format in sundrenched, always bright & beautiful settings, probably the best such example of that approach since Leave Her to Heaven (trailer) in the '40s. Lenzi adopts the same against-the-grain (no Gothic or gloomy visuals) look and carefully imitates the key elements of Purple Noon's suspense. The murder takes place on a yacht, and the final twist of the film, the 'return of the repressed' frisson moment, is identical, as the incriminating corpse is dredged up from Davy Jones Locker not as part of the official search but rather accidentally from another search instigated by the guilty parties."

The whole movie
in under 7 Minutes:

Deadly Trap

(1971, writ. & dir. Umberto Lenzi)

Italian title: Un posto ideale per uccidere. Aka Oasis of Fear and Dirty Pictures. Lenzi's Easy Rider (1969 / trailer) in the form of a giallo— being hip was never so dangerous as in the the late 60s and early 70s.This is one of his more popular gialli, and not just because a young and beautiful Ornella Muti does a lot of nude scenes (considering her age at the time, 16 or 17, possibly done with a body double). The photo of her below is of when she was of legal age and did a photo shoot for the Italian literary magazine, Playmen.

Video Vistaas the plot: "The story is of two handsome young smut peddlers, Dick Butler (Ray Lovelock of The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue [1974 / trailer], Autopsy [1975 / trailer]), Queens of Evil [1970 / trailer] and much more) and Ingrid Sjoman (a 16-year old Ornella Muti of Eleonore [1975 / music] and Flash Gordon [1980 / trailer]) taking advantage of sexual freedoms in Copenhagen and smuggling rude material, including audio sex tapes, into other countries. In Italy they do well in the black market but live fast on the proceedings moving in a cycle of impoverishment to wealth and back to impoverishment again, always in the belief that the new era in pornography can be exploited ad infinitum. They live on their youth and when they find themselves without other resources produce dirty still shots of their own beautiful bodies to peddle on. Things take a further dip when they are robbed of everything including their camera equipment and they are forced to resort to taking nude shots of Muti in a photo booth. Incriminated in a theft in which they have played no part they become sought after by the police. Running out of petrol they steer their vehicle into a large remote property and when unable to get a response at the house steal into the garage and siphon petrol from another vehicle. The householder is in though. A jittery Barbara Slater (Irene Papas, 44 and very fetching) interrupts them and, when less hysterical and more understanding, invites them in. The sexual mischief of the young ones is attractive to her and she sleeps with Lovelock but the following morning the young couple awaken to find another game afoot. The sex was consensual and they only imbibed in what was offered but Papas seems to be setting them up for rape and robbery. Matters worsen when the newly-cautious pair find a dead body in the boot of a car. […]"

Trailer to

Oasis of Fear:

The Spitting Imageintectualizes "With Ingrid a dreamy lovechild who happily hands a kite taped with wads of cash to a impoverished child and Dick prone to spinning outrageous lies about their hippie exploits, the youngsters are both innocent and shrewd, both exploiters and the exploited. Their tendency to live life as a fun and games marks them as doomed. While they're canny enough to turn the tables on Barbara, Dick can't bring himself to commit real cruelty. The older woman has no such qualms. While not quite a long-lost classic, this evolves into an interesting chamber piece, and Lenzi delivers psychological drama and a number of tense sequences. […] While laced with intrigue and titillation, the film refuses to address icy Barbara's motivations and she wavers between pensive and hysterical. Coupled with a fatalistic streak that renders the Bonnie & Clyde (1967 / trailer)-style climax a foregone conclusion, Oasis of Fear is worth a watch but rather gimmicky and soulless."

Over at imdb, the Voidfrom Beverley Hills, England, might disagree with the last statement about what (s)he sees as a "standout giallo from Umberto Lenzi": "[...] Oasis of Fear was made while Lenzi still had a lot of respect for the genre, and as such it stands tall as one of his very best films. [...] This film doesn't adhere to the usual giallo rules and traditions, and at first it's difficult to see where it's going. Lenzi does a good job with creating his characters, however, and although the first half of the movie is all about setting up the second half, it's interesting thanks to the handling and decent performances from all concerned. When the twist in the tale comes about, it's amazingly shocking because it appears to come out of nowhere, although Lenzi does a good job of ensuring that it doesn't feel superfluous to the plot, and the change of direction certainly suits the film. Oasis of Fear benefits from a good cast [...]. The real standout, however, is Irene Papas who is handed the meatiest role in the film [...], and gets to have fun with a character who is anything but what she seems. The standout sequence of the film takes place in an aviary full of owls, and the nihilistic conclusion manages to be sad despite the lightweight nature of the movie, and overall; this is a giallo definitely worth tracking down."

As the newspaper advert above reveals, long ago, at the Grand Theaterin Paris, Texas, Dirty Pictures was shown as part of a double feature with Maurizio Lucidi's The Designated Victim (1971).

Trailer to Maurizio Lucidi's

The Designated Victim:

Knife of Ice

(1972, writ. & dir. Umberto Lenzi)

"Italian director Umberto Lenzi dispatches with his usual decadence and debauchery for an Agatha Christie-styled whodunit set in the Spanish countryside."

Italian title: Il coltello di ghiaccio. Aka Vertigine, Silent Horror, Dagger of Ice, Detrás del Silencio and The Ice Pick, the film marked Carroll Baker's fourth and last collaboration with Umberto Lenzi in a movie that some say has the hallmarks of a Lucio Fulci movie. Not necessarily a complement, though we here at A Wasted Life do usually enjoy Fulci's films immensely, even when we find them not that good. The title supposedly comes from an Edgar Allan Poe quote, "Fear is a knife of ice which penetrates the senses down to the depth of conscience," but oddly enough that attribution is only found in articles about the movie. In all truth, to us it sounds like publicity work from the days before the internet — or has anyone out there ever found exactly where Poe supposedly wrote it?

 

Trailer(s) to the Movie:

TCMhas a truncated plot description: "As a thirteenyear old, Martha Caldwell (Carroll Baker) witnessed the death of her parents in a terrible railway accident. Barely surviving the tragedy herself, Martha was struck dumb due to the shock. Now an adult, the still mute Martha lives with her uncle Ralph (George Rigaud, 11 Aug 1905 – 17 Jan 1984, of José Ramón Larraz'sEmma, puertas oscuras [1974], Juan Piquer Simón's Journey to the Center of the Earth [1976 / trailer], and the great classic Horror Express [1972 / trailer]) in the Spanish countryside. Martha's cousin Jenny (Ida Galli, billed "Evelyn Stewart", of Hercules and the Haunted World [1961 / trailer] and The Night Child [1975 / trailer]) arrives to be with the family but is quickly stabbed to death. It appears that a sex maniac is roaming the countryside; killing pretty young girls. The already traumatized Martha seems likely to be the next victim but the case turns out to be far more complicated than it would first seem."

10 K Bulletslikes the movie, saying "Knife of Ice isn't your typical giallo film as it is devoid of on-screen carnage and copious amounts of flesh on parade. [...] Lenzi's effectively uses flashbacks throughout the film to demonstrate Martha's fragile state of mind. I have seen Carroll Baker in many films through the years and for me Knife of Ice is one of her best performances of her career. The whole film relies on her performance and through her facial expressions and action she manages to bring us the viewers into her experience. Knife of Ice relies on the atmosphere that is heightened by the locations used. [...] Knife of Ice breaks away from a lot of the traditional giallo formulas, [but] still it is an entertaining film in which Lenzi manages to keep things inventive and fresh."

Ninja Dixon, who admits that Lenzi is one his favorite directors, complains that: "Knife of Ice is a very basic thriller […], but like most films by Lenzi is works pretty good even if the story hardly is unique and the production values just is a villa and some forest and nothing else than that. The story is generic and we've seen it before, but Lenzi elegant use of camera tracking and — as usual — superior editing makes this giallo stand out a little more […]. The cast is very good. […] Visually Knife of Ice is competent, but the location is boring and the story very rarely moves around outside the area, so the film seems a bit flat. Lenzi seem aware of this and tries to liven up the interior shots with smart use of the camera to a certain degree. […] Marcello Giombini's score is brilliant, the best thing with Knife of Ice."

Sette orchidee macchiate di rosso

(1972, writ. & dir. Umberto Lenzi)

Title in English: Seven Blood-Stained Orchids— and Das Rätsel des silbernen Halbmondsin German. We're not sure whether this should be considered an honor, but Umberto Lenzi co-wrote and directed this, the last of the "official" Rialto Edgar Wallacekrimis, a series that was already wheezing and on its last legs when it made its first German-Italian co-production three years earlier with Riccardo Freda's Das Gesicht im Dunkeln / The Face in the Dark (1969 / trailer). The casting of the German actress Uschi Glas as Giulia in Seven Blood-Stained Orchids was supposedly mandated by the German producers, as she was a regular in the late-stage German Wallace movies (this was her fifth and last appearance in an "Edgar Wallace" movie).

Two other German-speaking actresses were also part of the cast: Austrian Marisa Mell (24 Feb 1939 – 16 May 1992), who is also to be found in a few Wallace productions, and Petra "Miss World 1956" Schürmann (15 Sept 1933 – 13 Jan 2010), who had likewise already been in another Wallace, Die Tote aus der Themse / Angels of Terror (1971 / trailer). Seven Blood-Stained Orchids is the only Rialto Wallace that is set and takes place completely in Italy. Traditionally, London — or at least England — was the preferred location.

German Trailer to

Das Rätsel des silbernen Halbmonds:

(What are Edgar Wallace krimis? Here at A Wasted Life, see: Der Frosch mit der Maske[1959], Der Rächer[1960], Der Fälscher von London[1961], Das Gasthaus an der Themse[1962], Der Schwarze Abt[1963], Das indische Tuch[1963], and Im Banne des Unheimlichen[1968]... and/or our R.I.P. career review of Joachim Fuchsberger.)

In any event, Seven Blood-Stained Orchids was not based on a Wallace book or title, nor did it share any stylistic elements to the traditional German Wallace krimis, and thereafter the series was officially dead (though it was revived for a series of German TV films during the second half of the 1990s). For that, however, imdb states that the movie's (uncredited) inspiration was Cornell Woolrich's great novel Rendezvous in Black. It is, like all the "Italo Wallaces", a far more enjoyable movie experience if you go into it expecting a giallo and not a Wallace movie.

Trailer to

Seven Blood-Stained Orchids:

Digital Fixhas the plot: "An assassin is on the prowl, murdering women and leaving curious silver crescent moon-shaped pendants in their hands. He works fast, too. Within the space of two nights he has done away with an old woman, a prostitute and a young English artist, as well as made an attempt on the life of Giulia (Uschi Glas), a young lady who is engaged to fashion designer Mario (Antonio Sabato of Escape from the Bronx [1983 / trailer]). Carrying out the attack on board a train, our daring killer is surprised by the ticket collector and scarpers, leaving Guilia for dead. She is, however, very much alive, but the police decide that, for her own safety, it would be better for the killer to think her dead, even going so far as to stage a funeral. Mario, however, is not one for resting on his laurels, and he and Giulia decide to track down the killer themselves (giallo police are almost always incompetent). The film here gets complicated, as Giulia recognizes the crescent moon pendant as being identical to a key-ring owned by an American man she encountered at a hotel two years ago. It becomes apparent that all the victims are people who were staying in the hotel at that time, meaning that there is a grand total of seven women lined up on the chopping board. It becomes a race against time to track down the remaining targets before the killer, who always seems to be one step ahead..."

Hysteria Livessays, "All the classic gialli elements are here and the vintage is perfect — the genre was probably at its height. There's a lot to recommend this film, it's suitably twisty and the bodies keep on dropping, with the killer always being just one step ahead of the police. Riz Ortolani's loungey score is memorable and there are some especially effective suspense scenes (including one where an acutely paranoid patient in a sanatorium, played by genre regular Rossella Falk [10 Nov 1926 – 5 May 2013], finds she really does have something to worry about as the killer lurks in her room and the staff ignore her pleas for help, fed up with her previous crying-wolf tendencies). The beautiful Marisa Mell [...] puts in a memorable double performance as a potential victim-to-be and her twin sister. One of whom is terrorised by the killer with an electric drill, in an incendiary scene which not only pre-empts the power-tool mayhem of the 80s but also the gory excesses that Lenzi himself would excel in later years. But despite all the elements being in place the film, although a thoroughly entertaining one, fails to achieve anything near classic status. The requisite sleuthing, which is left to Mario (Julia staying at home like the good little woman for most of the running time), feels a little workmanlike. [...] Also, in a slightly ridiculous touch, the film recalls some of the worst cliches of older thrillers when, not once but twice, a woman faints when confronted by the killer!"

The Man from Deep River

(1972, dir. Umberto Lenzi)

Title Italiano:Il paese del sesso selvaggio. Aka Mondo Cannibal, Sacrifice!and any dozens of other names.

While Lenzi's earlier movies were always a bit exploitive, or at least had exploitive elements, this is perhaps his first true exploitation movie. The original Italian title alone reveals the depth of it intentions: translated directly into English, the original title would be "The Country of Savage Sex". And with this flick, Umberto Lenzi dove into the deep end of the exploitation realm and came up with what many people consider to be the first of the Italo cannibal genre, the most of famous example of which is arguably Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust(1980). Be what it may, this baby here is definitely not without its exploitive excesses and still packs a punch today, with or without the scenes of living animals being killed onscreen.

Written by Massimo D'Avak and Francesco Barilli, the two basically took the movie A Man Called Horse (1970 / trailer) — as in: "The Man from Deep River"— and moved the events to the cannibal wilds of Bangkok, Thailand. The very same year as this, the writing duo also wrote Who Saw Her Die?, while Barilli later directed Pensione paura (1977 / "trailer") and The Perfume of the Lady in Black (1974 / German trailer).

The movie stars, of course, the great, if wooden, Ivan Rassimov [7 May 1938 – 14 Mar 2003], aka "the jaw with bad hair", and the fondly remembered Me Me Lai, the latter of whom for some reason stop making movies after a juicy part in Lars von Trier's The Element of Crime (1984 / trailer).

2,500 Film Challengehas a serviceable synopsis: "Photographer John Bradley (Ivan Rassimov) travels to Thailand on business, but when he ventures too far into the wilderness, he's captured by a native tribe and forced into slavery, catering to the every whim of his 'master', Maraya (Me Me Lai), who also happens to be the chief's daughter. Befriended by an old woman (Pratitsak Singhara), Bradley manages to break free, only to be recaptured a few hours later. But the attempt doesn't go unnoticed; the chief, impressed by his tenacity, welcomes Bradley into the fold, inviting him to join the tribe. Though hesitant at first, Bradley soon settles in, and is content in his new life. His happiness is threatened, however, when some nearby cannibals attack, forcing him and the others to fight for their very survival."

Trailer to

The Man from Deep River:

Cool Ass Cinemasays that though the movie is "A strange blend of brutality and romance, it's not as extreme as later [cannibal genre] entries, but for historical value, it's required viewing. One of the film's strongest attributes is the capturing of the colorful local flavor and customs of the Thai people. You get a sense of both danger and exoticism in the surroundings and the culture — particularly the natives in their element. None of the other films — including Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust — managed to do this as successfully. [...] Lenzi's movie caters to a peculiarly crude romanticism built specifically around a single character immersed in a strange new world. The film isn't driven by violence alone, although there's no denying the sensationalism was the major selling point. [...] Man is the only film in this genre that makes any attempt at humanizing its savages. We live with them for 93 minutes unlike John Bradley who gradually changes from detesting his captors to becoming one of them. Like the Kuru, the cannibalistic enemies, this moderately passive tribe isn't without their share of barbarism. The difference is they have the capacity to love."

Let's have the Devil's Honeyplay the devil's advocate: "This film feels and looks more like one of those sixties jungle adventures then like a cannibal movie. Its main focus is on the native's rituals and tribal life, but in a clichéd, unconvincing way. With characters like the old friendly chief, the handsome daughter and the bad-guy medicine man, it is just too slick to make a real impact. The cannibal scenes, which play more like a separate episode near the end of the film, are on the other hand pretty gruesome, especially for a pre-Deodato cannibal film, and some were re-used for Lenzi's fun, but ultra cheap-looking Eaten Alive (1980). Most of the actors don't add anything to their clichéd roles, although Ivan Rassimov (of Planet of the Vampires [1965 / trailer], Body Count [1986 / German trailer— with Charles Napierand David Hess], L'Ossessa [1974 / French trailer], Emanuelle nera: Orient reportage [1976 / Italo trailer], and more), who is one of my favourite Italian actors, makes the most of his poorly defined character. Me Me Lai, who was pretty ok in Last Cannibal World (1977) and Eaten Alive (1980), doesn't make too much impression here, I found her sort of dumb and irritating."

Oh, yeah — the animal killings. The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Reviewfills you in about what you don't want to see: "Deep River Savages does not stint when it comes to portraying the savageries of life among uncivilised tribes. These Italian cannibal films are not exactly ASPCA-approved and there are some sadistically dwelt-upon scenes with a mongoose being egged on to savage a snake. There is also a nasty pre-Crocodile Hunter (1996-2004) scene of a native wrestling a crocodile and then gutting it while it is still alive. The most stomach-churning scene is one where a monkey is bound inside a table specially built to expose its head and the top of its skull is whacked off with a machete, whereupon the natives invite Ivan Rassimov to join a feast and eat its brains."

Gang War in Milan

(1973. Writ & dir Umberto Lenzi)

Italian title: Milano rovente. From a story by Ombretta Lanza (supposedly), and co-scripted with Franco Enna. Aka Burning City, this is Lenzi's first poliziotteschi movie, as the violent Italo-crime films of the 70s are commonly called. Strange concept: a non-Blaxploitation movie in which the "hero" is a pimp. (Get me my money, bitch.) But then, no one in the movie is all that sympathetic — sounds like real life, except that in real life, we are all prostitutes. Speaking of sounds, the jazzy but downbeat soundtrack by Carlo Rustichelli is well worth checking out if you're a soundtrack kind o' person.

Celluloid Terror, which says that Gang War in Milan"is an excessively violent film that exploitation fans will eat up", has nutshell plot synopsis: "Antonio Sabato (The War of the Robots [1978 / trailer]) stars as Toto, a Sicilian who operates a prostitution ring that is confronted by Le Capitaine (Philippe Leroy of Le Trou [1960 / French trailer] and Castle of the Living Dead (1964 / trailer]), a Frenchman running a drug ring in Milan who is interested in uniting the crime families across Italy. When Toto rebukes at his offer, Le Capitaine responds in violent fashion and quickly opens up the door to one of the most violent gang wars you could imagine. […] There are a few odd shots that linger on a random object for a few seconds that seem to be forced product placement of some sort which is a bit funny. From car chases and shootouts to genital torture, Gang War in Milan really pushes the envelope and makes up for what it lacks in story with pure excess."

Trailer to

Gang War in Milan:

At 10K Bullets, John White says that "Milano Rovente is another assured Euro-crime thriller from Lenzi. It was in fact his first go at the genre. Like his later efforts it is genuinely exciting, earnestly acted and frequently gruesome. In this film there is no real hero and the central character [Toto] is selfish, shallow and a real bastard. His only real loyalty is to Lino (Antonio Casagrande, of that masterpiece that is Fellini's Satyricon [1969 / trailer]) but he even leaves him to be tortured and is willing to ignore him by running off with his money to Switzerland with Jasmina (Marisa Mell). When Toto gets his just desserts it is hard to feel anything other than he had it coming." 

Michael Den Boer, also at 10K, adds "From a performance stand point the film puts most of the attention on its two leading men […], [but] it is two lesser characters which ultimately leave the strongest impression. And these two performances are Marissa Mell in the role of this film's femme fatale and Antonio Casagrande in the role of Sabato's character's right-hand man. His character also happens to the one whose genitals get electrocuted. Overall with Gang War in Milan, Umberto Lenzi would mark his first foray in the poliziotteschi genre with an explosive film that is highly entertaining and over flowing with exploitative elements."

Almost Human

(1974, dir. Umberto Lenzi)

 

"An experience in psycho-sadism you will never forget."

Italian title: Milano odia: la polizia non puo sparare. Also known as The Death Dealer, La rançon de la peur, Skylia tou ypokosmou, The Executioner, Der Berserker and The Kidnapping of Mary Lou.

Lenzi makes another poliziotteschi movie, written by one of Italy's great unsung exploitation scribes, Ernesto Gastaldi (The Monster of the Opera [1964 / French trailer], The Murder Clinic [1966 / trailer], The Vampire and the Ballerina [1960 / trailer], Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory[1961], Crypt of the Vampire (1964 / French trailer] and The Virgin of Nuremberg [1963 / Italian trailer), and it is non-stop violence and death to the very end. When he wanted to, Ernesto Gastaldi knew how to write great trash — we have fond memories as wee kiddies of having the heebie-jeebies scared out of us by The Murder Clinic and The Virgin of Nuremberg.

US Trailer to

The Death Dealer:

When watching Almost Human, one wonders not so much why the lead anti-hero, Giulio Sacchi (Tomas Milian [3 March 1933 – 22 March 2017] of Don't Torture a Duckling [1972 / trailer], Django Kill... If You Live, Shoot! [1967 / trailer] and much more), is so psychotic and violent, but rather how he managed to reach the age he is in the movie. (Less than Human is more like it.) Actor Milian went on to work on a grand total of six movies with Lenzi.

Also there for the ride, as the Detective Walter Grandi, the great Henry Silva (of Dick Tracy [1990 / trailer] and Alligator[1980] and much, much more) in a very rare acting job as a (tough) good guy, one who decides to take justice in his own hands.

Marketed in the US as a horror movie, Almost Human is dismissed in the comprehensive German volume Das größte Filmlexikon der Weltas a "cheap and extraordinarily cynical action movie". That might explain why it is so well received by cult movie fans — but maybe the fact that it is both well made and well acted as well substantially transgressive might have something to do with its reception, too. (The "party" scene in the mansion is a make it or break scene for most who manage to get that far.)

In any event, Furious Cinema, which describes the movie as "a highly violent, furious work of Italian crime cinema", sees things differently and includes the movie on their list of 20 Furious Italian Crime Classics.

Italian Trailer to

Milano odia: la polizia non puo sparare:

The blogsite A Hero Never Dieswrites: "[Tomas] Milian plays Giulio Sacchi, a smalltime petty criminal and sociopath, despised by even his criminal associates after unnecessarily killing a cop on a job. After killing a second cop for what turns out to be small change, Sacchi has an idea for a huge score and enlists a small team to kidnap the daughter (Laura Belli) of a wealthy businessman for a ransom of half a billion Lire. The kidnapping becomes a sadistic massacre and [Henry] Silva's cop Grandi is quickly on his tail but always a step behind. Grandi becomes so angered by the case, he's determined to get his man no matter what the consequences."

Over at All Movie, Donald Guarisco gushes: "This sick yet slick entry in the Italian crime film cycle of the 1970s is an archetypal example of the form, mixing sleaze and action in a manner that is compelling and unnerving all at once. The script moves along at a snappy pace, punctuating its storyline with bursts of brutal, sometimes perverse violence, and Umberto Lenzi's direction gives the mayhem a crisp, clean visual style that one wouldn't necessarily expect from such a tale. However, the real secret weapons of Milano Odia: La Polizia Non Puo Sparare are the lead performances by Tomas Milian and Henry Silva. […] The high quality of these performances, combined with the confident scripting and direction, make Milano Odia: La Polizia Non Puo Sparare a memorable venture into Italian crime filmmaking. The end result may be too grim and chilly around the edges for some viewers but anyone with an interest in this subgenre should check it out."

Cult Reviewsagrees, raving "Almost Human is incredibly fast-paced, with super-exciting car chases and outrageous gunfights throughout the entire playtime. The script offers a lot of unexpected twists to keep you on the edge of your seat and Tomas Millian's hectic performance — his character is popped up on drugs most of the time — alone is enough to watch this masterpiece of 70s exploitation cinema, featuring a mesmerizing rock-score by Ennio Morricone. A true must-see!"

Spasmo

(1974, writ & dir Umberto Lenzi)

Supposedly, Lucio Fulci was originally slated to direct this film, but more than anything else the movie — which "follows two characters on a dreamlike journey involving murder, vanishing bodies, and jealous lovers, with dialogue and character development so random they would drive David Lynch into fits"— sounds like Jess Franco material.

Wikipedia, referencing Louis Paul's book Italian Horror Film Directors (ISBN 9780786487493), says "In the original cut, Lenzi opted to not show the murders as to add suspense and mystery about the motives and the identity of the assassin. The American producers felt the audience could be confused, so they added about ten minutes of footage displaying the murders and clarifying some parts of the plot. Reportedly, George A. Romero was hired to shoot the additional footage."

For that, Ninja Dixonthinks "Spasmo is a movie with very little violence and blood, except a grim murder-by-car, and Lenzi choose to have it that way to make it stand out from the rest of the thrillers being released. […] A movie like Eyeball would be a lot weaker without the blood and violence, but Spasmo is a very different kind of breed. […] It's a story of immoral people doing immoral stuff, but hey — that's what the world is all about […]. Bravo Lenzi! [...] In 1000 years, movies like Spasmo will still be talked about on the net — and Sound of Fucking Music (1965 / trailer) will be forgotten."

What can one say: Ninja Dixon is an optimist if he truly even thinks that in 1000 years there will be anyone left to talk about anything. We here at A Wasted Life will simply be happy if the world survives the Trump presidency.

 

But assuming someone is still there, why will Spasmo still be discussed? Perhaps, because the film is so weird. As Through the Shattered Lenspoints out, of all Lenzi's movies "none were as strange as 1974's Spasmo": "Attempting to detail the plot of Spasmo is a challenge. Even by the twisty standards of the giallo genre, the mystery at the heart of Spasmo is a complicated one. According to Troy Howarth's So Deadly, So Perverse Volume Two, even Lenzi admitted that Spasmo's storyline made no sense. Add to that, Spasmofeatures so many twists and turns that it's difficult to judge just how much of the movie's plot you can safely describe before you start spoiling the film. […] Even by the standards of Italian thrillers, Spasmo is chaotic. The film may not make any sense but it's never boring. Between the mannequins and the murders, it's pretty much impossible to follow the plot but who cares? As directed by Lenzi, Spasmo plays out like a dream, full of surreal images and memorably weird performances. […] Spasmo is a film that keeps you guessing. Whether it keeps you guessing because the plot is clever or because the plot itself is deliberately designed (and filmed) to make no sense is something that viewers will have to determine for themselves."

Trailer to

Spasmo:

For that, Mondo Digitalhas a plot description of what one on-line fan elsewhere describes as "a strange combination of Jean Rollin (the middle part in particular feels like something straight out of a Rollin film, in particular Fascination [1979 / trailer]) and David Lynch": "Our nominal 'hero' is rich kid Christian (Robert Hoffman of Naked Girl Killed in the Park [1972 / Italian trailer], Death Carries a Cane [1973 / German trailer] and the Edgar Wallace krimi Neues von Hexer / Again the Ringer [1965 / German trailer]), who hooks up one night with a cheery but mysterious blonde, Barbara (Suzy Kendall of Torso [1973 / trailer], Tales that Witness Madness [1973 / trailer], and the  Edgar Wallace krimi Psycho-Circus[1966 / trailer]), whom he had previously encountered on the beach (where she was lying face-first, apparently suffering from memory loss). After he calls her a 'sweet, sweet whore,' she offers to take him back to her place for a quick one... on the condition that he shave off his beard ('There's a razor at my place; it's big, sharp, and sexy'). Naturally he complies, but before the two can consummate, he's ambushed in the bathroom by a pistol-wielding thug (Adolfo Lastretti of The Four of the Apocalypse [1975 / trailer] and Venus in Furs [1969 / trailer]) who winds up getting shot in the ensuing scuffle. Without even bothering to see the body, Barbara accepts Christian's word and goes on the lam with him to a friend's house, a desolate villa filled with birds of prey. Unfortunately they're surprised again by a couple renting the property, but Christan and Barbara are allowed to stay the night (even after explaining why they're hiding from the police). Christian decides to elicit help from his industrialist brother, Fritz (Ivan Rassimov of The Witch [1966 / full movie], Cjamango [1967 / trailer], Emanuelle Around the World [1977 / trailer] and Mario Bava's Schock [1977 / Italian trailer])..."

The trailer further above, of course, is misleading. "The film's original trailer has always been good fun, and remains so here. 'Spasmo ... spasmo ... spasmo ...' whispers the voiceover bloke as scenes from the film are deliberately edited together in misleading fashion over the course of 3 minutes. Brilliant. (SexGoreMutants)"

Syndicate Sadists

(1975, dir Umberto Lenzi)

"Life's a hole. We are born from a hole, eat from a hole, shit from a hole, and end up in a hole."

John  Rambo (Tomas Milian)

Italian title, Il giustiziere sfida la città. So you always thought First Blood (1984 / trailer) was the first Rambo movie? Guess again — and watch Lenzi's Il giustiziere sfida la città (aka Just One Man and Rambo's Revenge and more), Lenzi's second movie project starring Tomas Milian.

OK, so it isn't really a "Rambo" movie, but prior to Stallone's interminable franchise beginning in 1982, Tomas Milian had read David Morrell's 1972 novel First Blood and tried to get a film version off the ground in Italy. He failed. But when this poliziotteschi movie came along, he had his character renamed John Rambo in honor and reference to the book. Thus, John Rambo cleans up crime in Italy instead of rednecks in the US… or Vietnamese and Soviets in Vietnam… or Soviets in Afghanistan… or Burmese in Burma.

But when speaking of literary sources, the plot to this movie has far more to do with Dashiell Hammett's novel Red Harvest than First Blood — and thus, as most film reviewers notice, the novel's various illegitimate filmic offspring of note: Yojimbo (1961 / trailer) and, of course, For a Fistful of Dollars(1964) and, long after Lenzi's movie, Walter Hill's Last Man Standing (1996 / trailer).

German Trailer to

Flash Solo:

DVD Drive-Inhas the plot to a movie that Cinema de Merde  claims has "latent homoerotic content" and which "NAMBLA members may want to rent": "The film is loaded with pulp book brutality, with lots of blood squibs, a female being mercifully battered, and a heavy being suffocated with an overstuffed bag of cocaine. The dubbed dialog can be laughable at times, but Lenzi is able to cram the 92-minute running time with enough thrills for two or three films […]. Though made 30 years ago, Syndicate Sadists is the kind of vintage effort that puts modern action flicks to shame. Milian plays Rambo as a very tough, unbeatable nice guy with morals who is especially kind to children — risking his life to rescue one boy, and financially aiding another after his father's passing. Rambo is the kind of guy who would fire a bullet into a friend sporting a protective vest, as well as racing his bike from the back of a flaming truck. Lots of great scenarios are set up for the character, including a rousing fight scene where Rambo pokes a bloke in the head with a pool stick, while another ends up knocked out on a toilet seat. […] Legendary actor Joseph Cotton […] is really good as the tragic crime boss whose physical handicap is kept a secret until the end, and Euro-horror fans will love seeing [..] blonde sexpot Shirley Corrigan (of Blind Man [1971 / Italian trailer] and Dr Jekyll and the Wolfman [1972 / first six minutes]) as a bimbo […].

Fulvue Drive-in, on the other hand, was not too thrilled by the film, saying "Syndicate Sadists (1975) does not have the edge of the previous film and feels more like a Spaghetti Western in landing one big Hollywood star and hardly featuring him. Joseph Cotton is the one who gets the paycheck + vacation this time as a high-up head gangster."

Cinema de Merde, as indicated earlier, was also not a fan and complained that although thrilled by the title and appearance of the "cigar-smokin' bearded Italian biker", that after he "watched the first ten minutes […] it took […] about three weeks to finally get through the rest of the movie."

Everyone who appears in

Il giustiziere sfida la città:

Over at All Movie, however, Donald Guarisco — who had also so loved Milano odia: la polizia non puo sparare akaAlmost Human— is far more appreciative of the movie: "Syndicate Sadists is an interesting midlevel example of the Italian crime film. Vincenzo Mannino's script is fairly pro forma in terms of plotting […], but it distinguishes itself with unique touches like having his crime boss character suffer from an affliction he is trying to hide from the other characters. Syndicate Sadists is also unusual in that it bypasses the usual tough-guy cop protagonist that these films usually focus on in favor of making Rambo a streetwise, anti-authority loner who is as likely to use his brains as a gun or his fists to outsmart the bad guys. Tomas Milian obviously appreciated getting such a unique character to play and goes to town with it, making him a character that is as sly and charming as he is deviously intelligent. Joseph Cotten (of Lady Frankenstein  [1972]) also registers strongly as the tragic crime boss. The final surprise in this film is Umberto Lenzi's slick, confident direction; Euro-cult fans used to his sloppy, erratic horror film work will be surprised how efficient his direction is here. […]"

L'assassino è costretto ad uccidere ancora

(1975, dir. Luigi Cozzi)

Aka The Dark Is Death's Friend, The Killer Must Kill Again, and The Killer Must Strike Again. Based on a novel by the Russian-Italian genre novelist Giorgio Scerbanenco (28 July 1911 – 27 Oct 1969); Umberto Lenzi — or, rather, "Umberto Linzi"— has a rare credit as producer on the movie, so who knows what his input was or to what extent.

Trailer to

The Dark Is Death's Friend:

Luigi Cozzi, though hardly the most prolific of filmmakers, is nevertheless a name not unknown to cult movie fans: he is known for his Ed-Woodian directorial talents. He's been involved with some noteworthy projects, and made some prime trash of his own — most famously Starcrash (1979 / trailer), Contamination (1980 / trailer below), The Black Cat (1989 / trailer) and Paganini Horror (1989 / trailer) — and this one here, which is known as one of his most coherent and professional projects.

Trailer to

Contamination:

Braineateris of the opinion that "The Killer Must Kill Again is a lousy name for a very good film. […] That's a shame, because is one of the best Italian thrillers, and deserves a wider audience than its clunky title is likely to attract. […]" The website, however, is shocked that the movie is as good as it is, contemplating on how one can go from Starcrash, or Paganini Horrorand "incoherent crap like The Adventures of Hercules (1985 / trailer)"*to a thriller with  "a twist this unsettling". In their opinion, "if you have the slightest reservation about seeing The Killer Must Kill Again based on Cozzi's participation, put your doubts aside and see it at once. You'll never think of Luigi Cozzi the same way again."

*We went to that film when it came out cause, face it, Lou Ferrigno had a hot body and we had sort of liked Hercules (1983 / trailer). But it became the first movie we ever walked out of — a position held until we got suckered into going to see The Scent of a Women (1992 / trailer).

The plot, as given by Cinematic Shocks: "Cheating husband Giorgio Mainardi (George Hilton) has an argument with his rich wife Norma (Tere Velázquez of Night of a Thousand Deaths [1972 / trailer]) who has wised up to his betrayal and cuts him off financially with Giorrgio owing massive debts. He tells her that he is leaving her and storms out. While out after finishing a call to his mistress from a payphone he witnesses a mysterious man (Antoine Saint-John of  The Beyond [1981 / trailer]), disposing of a woman's dead body by pushing the car that he drove her in into a canal. Instead of reporting it to the police, Giorgio blackmails the murderer to kill his wife for payment. […] When doing the job, everything goes well until the killer hits a snag. After putting Norma's body in the trunk of his car and having left the doors unlocked and the keys in the ignition, he goes back into the house to wipe away any fingerprints he might have left. While inside a young couple, Luca played by Alessio Orano (Mario Bava's exquisite Lisa and the Devil [1973 / trailer]) and Laura (the pretty Cristina Galbó of The House that Screamed [1970 / Spanish trailer] and the Italo-German Edgar Wallace What Have You Done to Solange? [1972 / German trailer]) come along and steal the car completely unaware of what they have in the boot. […]"

"You may think that a movie filled with such flawed, unlikable people might not make for compelling viewing. Well, Luigi Cozzi's superb thriller The Killer Must Kill Again is just that. A gripping joyride through an unpleasant and bloody journey, the movie ends up being one of the best of the overcrowded giallo genre. (tina aumont's eyes)"

Manhunt in the City

(1975, writ. & dir. Umberto Lenzi)

Italian title: L'uomo della strada fa giustizia. Aka The Italian Connection and/or La mala ordina and/or a dozen other names. Not to be confused with Fernando Di Leo's 1972 movie also sometimes entitled Manhunt in the City (trailer), which also features Henry Silva.

Opening Credits:

Lenzi's other poliziotteschifilm from 1975, co-written with trash-scribe extraordinary Dardano Sacchetti whose amazingly long credit list includes, among others, Zombi 2(1979), City of the Living Dead(1980), Manhattan Baby(1982), Demons(1985), Graveyard Disturbance(1987) and Per Sempre(1987).

Henry Silva — of Chained Heat (1983 / trailer), Exterminio (1980 / trailer), Thirst (1979 / trailer) and Possessed by the Night (1994 / trailer) and much, much more — returns for his second Lenzi exploiter, this time a downbeat Italo-take on Death Wish (1974 / trailer), one which doesn't quite upend the concept of vigilance justice as much as it may have intended. (Spoiler: He kills the wrong people in the end — but walks away from it.)

This movie, in any event, has a lengthy scene in which Silva manhandles — no pun intended — a transvestite, Liana (Alberto Tarallo, cowriter of Killer Nun [1979 / trailer]), to get information ("You lyin' faggot!") which, nowadays, will surely separate Trump supporters from non-Trump supporters.

Music to

Manhunt in the City:

Cult Actionhas a bare-bones plot description: "A man's daughter is killed by thieves during a bank robbery. Due to the incompetence of the corrupt authorities, he (Silva) decides to take to law into his own hands and track down the killers, a gang who sport a scorpion insignia. Revenge is the name of the game, and the manhunt is on!"

Cool Ass Cinema, which is of the opinion that the "lost" movie is "a diamond in the rough […] well worth rediscovering", says "The script by both Lenzi and Dardano Saccetti gets a bit heavy handed at times with its talk of a by-the-book police force useless in taking care of the people they are sworn to protect. Silva does the disgruntled citizen shtick well, even though he's better suited to playing hitmen and hard boiled cops. It's difficult watching him getting beaten up by low level street scum a good portion of the film. By the end, though, he's a cold killing machine."
(Are we here at A Wasted Life the only ones who wonder why Quentin Tarantino hasn't written a Silva cameo into any of his movies yet?)

Eyeball

(1975, writ. & dir. Umberto Lenzi)

Like most giallo, the Italian name, Gatti rossi in un labirinto di vetro, is rather poetic if translated directly: "Red Cats in a Glass Maze". In English, it's aka The Eye in the Dark, Wide-Eyed in the Dark, The Devil's Eye and The Secret Killer— and possibly a few other names. A Spanish co-production, it is often considered a proto-slasher. For that, however, not only are the victims a bit broader than normal for a slasher, but the black chick (Ines Pellegrini, seen below) isn't the first one to go.

And A Slash Abovehas the basic plot: "A group of American tourists head to Barcelona for a summer holiday. Almost as soon as they arrive the fun comes to an end as one of their numbers is ruthlessly murdered by a hooded killer in a red rain mac. The maniac is something of a sadist and mutilates the left eye of each victim. Could it be the mentally ill wife of one of the tourists or has someone else got a grudge against the troupe?"

Trailer to
Eyeball:

The Bloody Pit of Horrorhas the skinny on the tourists: "So without any further ado, let's meet our group. We have lesbian fashion photographer Lisa Sanders (Mirta Miller of Count Dracula's Great Love [1973 / trailer], Vengeance of the Zombies [1973 / trailer], and much more) and her model / lover Naiba Campbell (Ines Pellegrini), unhappily married couple Robby (Daniele Vargas) and Gail (Silvia Solar of Cannibal Terror [1980 / trailer], The Man with the Severed Head [1976 / trailer], La perversa caricia de Satán [1976 / scene],  and more) Alvarado, clergyman Reverend Bronson (George Rigaud), Mr. Hamilton (John Bartha) and his teenage granddaughter Jenny (Verónica Miriel of Night of the Howling Beast [1975 / French trailer]) and Mr. and Mrs. Randall and their teenage daughter Peggy. Also along for the trip is secretary Paulette Stone (Martine Brochard of Murder Obsession [1981 / trailer]), who's flying solo because she's actually fleeing from her married boss, whom she's been having an affair with. The boss — Mark Burton (John Richardson of Black Sunday (1960 / trailer) and much more) — ends up following her there anyway and she promptly informs him 'I refuse to be a plaything!' The entire group is being chaperoned by Martinez (Raf Baldassarre), a loud, obnoxious and ridiculous weirdo who likes to scare everyone with a toy spider and laughs maniacally while doing so."

Vegan Vorheesmuses, "I'm not particularly well-versed in giallo classics, but I've seen enough to spot the standard hallmarks in play: Mysterious glove-wearing killer, many-a fast zoom into character's faces as something suspicious is said, 'Americans' with Euro-accents, amusing translations and clunky dubbing. Being a pre-American slasher product, Eyeball nevertheless presents itself with more than a few 80s teenie-kill aesthetics: There are POV shots as the killer floats towards his next unsuspecting victim, boobs-a-plenty, and a short but sweet final girl sequence — with, shock, a black final girl! […] Spain is presented in lush colors and inimitable 70s fashion choices, which lends the film a pleasantly diverting quality, as if you're taking a holiday from the same-old American slasher film conventions. Nothing really lets Eyeball down, it just suffers from the ridiculousness that haunts the whole sub-genre, with a motive so whacky I had to re-watch the ensure I'd actually not misunderstood it. Otherwise, it's business as usual: The females are all super hot and super killed, while the only male victim is old and creasy-faced, and killed off-camera. The men can be slimy, sleazy, and annoying but still survive intact, which is a general motif in most Italian body-count horror."

In regards to the last, the Tell-Tale Mindsays, "There is a motive for the killings that take place, though it is sort of thin, but in the end it mattered very little as it was used to simply tie things up. Despite some weaknesses to it all, Lenzi's camerawork was one of the real highlights, bringing life to the scenery of Barcelona and really making those murders pop. Bruno Nicolai's music was also one of the better things about the film, though not exactly memorable, but it does compliment the picture quite well. Given what there was to work with, there are no real standout performances from the cast, though they do not necessarily do a bad job, but it adds to the overall mediocrity of the film. Still, Eyeball turned out to be an enjoyable feature where those looking for a little violence and a little blood will no doubt be pleased and those looking for something of a game changer being disappointed. A good film almost all of the right notes, but not a great one."

Main theme

to Eyeball:

More to come...

Christmas Evil (USA, 1980)

February 19, 2018, 3:54 am

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Christmas is already a little while back, but then we never do put our reviews online in a timely manner. The original title of this odd little film was You Better Watch Out, which is perhaps the more appropriate moniker for though the Santa-dressed nutcase does do "evil" in that he kills a few assholes, he is less innately evil than he is a poor nebbish who's gone off the deep end.

Christmas Evil is far from the earliest modern horror feature film to use the Christmas season as its setting and theme — that honor arguably goes Silent Night Bloody Night (1972 / trailer) — but with its rebranding as "Christmas Evil" the movie became one in a long series of name-day horror flicks spanning from Halloween (1978 / trailer& 2007 / trailer) to Friday the 13th (1980 / trailer& 2009 / trailer), My Bloody Valentine (1981 / trailer& 2016 / trailer) to Graduation Day (1981 / trailer) to Prom Night (1980 / trailer& 2008 / trailer) and so many more. (If, in the meantime, it hasn't yet joined most of the previously named slashers on the list of mostly unneeded remakes, it has, since its debut, been joined by an unending plethora of Christmas-themed horror movies of all sub-genres.) Of all the films just named, Christmas Evil is perhaps the most quirky, and the one that fits least to the expectations and genre traditions of a typical slasher or body-count film. Hell's Bells, it can't even be called a "dead teenager flick"'cause not single teen appears in the movie, much less dies.

Nevertheless, or perhaps therefore, Christmas Evil is an oddly popular and generally well-regarded movie, one famously enough championed by no one less than the cult icon John Waters, who once claimed it to be "the greatest Christmas movie ever made". And although Waters' recommendations can generally be trusted — Lesbian Nuns is as good of a read as he said it was — we would tend to say that he was indeed being a bit hyperbolic in his praise of Christmas Evil, which, on the whole, is indeed mildly interesting and extremely idiosyncratic, but is never scary or horrific, is seldom bloody, and, worst of all, extremely slow.

Like most horror films, Christmas Evil opens with the mandatory prelude setting up a thin motivation to the events to occur years later: here, little Harry Stadling (Gus Salud) doesn't just catch Mommy (Ellen McElduff) kissing Santa Clause (Brian Hartigan), he catches Santa Claus licking Mommy in a place most adults find fun to lick — which causes him to grow up to be an unmarried, Christmas-obsessed loser (Brandon Maggart) working as an ineffectual manager at cheap-toy factory.*

*Sixteen years later, catching mommy having Yuletide sex was also used as the cause for sending the killer off the deep end in John Russo's indefinitely far more sleazy and bloody and breast-heavy and inept slasher Santa Claws (1996 / trailer).

And how Christmas-obsessed? Well, his walls have more Christmas paraphernalia than those of college boys (used to) have Playboy centerfolds. Worse, he also has extremely and perversely creepy voyeuristic tendencies: he spends his free time spying on kids to find out who's naughty or nice, diligently recording everything in notebooks. (Although his voyeuristic tendencies are clearly non-sexual in nature, they are nevertheless oddly uncomfortable to witness — luckily the scene in which he sees one kid reading Penthouse is not taken to its possible extremes.)

It takes well over 50 minutes before Christmas Evil embraces the violence and bloody that is expected of a movie marketed as it was, but even then the deaths are intermittent and rare. More than anything else, the mostly melancholic movie concentrates on the unraveling character of its lead loser and the world he inhabits, a world populated by hypocrisy, greed, and a lack of goodness. (An early version of Trump's world, so to speak, but on a smaller level.) The expected horror or trashiness is underwhelming, lost amidst scenes that veer from character development to whimsical to arty before almost being redeemed by a WTF ending which allegedly alienated audiences at the time of the movie's original ending. The oddly ineffectual and dislikable characterization of the second most important male of the movie, Harry's adult brother Philip Stadling — who is played as an aggressive choleric in an inexplicably one-dimensional manner by the soon-to-become great character actor Jeffrey DeMunn (also found in The Hitcher [1986], The Blob [1988], Turbulence [1997] and much more) — doesn't help things much, either.

For all its arguable failings, the biggest flaw of Christmas Evil is nevertheless not its failure as a horror movie, a failure that only arises if one goes into the movie actually expecting a horror flick: to put it simply, though the movie has "horrific" elements, it is not a horror movie. Thus, if viewers instead await an eccentric and drily black comedy with occasional flashes of artiness (e.g., the snow-covered street of Christmas lights) and inexplicableness (e.g., the Frankenstein [1937 / trailer] homage), they will in all likelihood find the movie entertaining in its own right, particularly if the print viewed is a newer, more pristine one and not one of the many no-budget and mutilated DVD versions found at dollar stores across the US.

Still, while Christmas Evil does function as the black comedy it was obviously intended to be, the humor is mostly intermittent, mostly wry or dry, and usually only mildly funny. Were it not for the gloriously WTF final scene, which totally redeemed the movie for us — a filmmaker really has to have balls to have an ending like that — we would have probably labeled Christmas Evil a loser. Instead, it gets a half-hearted recommendation as a movie that tries to be different and, in that sense, succeeds.

Addendum of irrelevant facts pertaining to and not to the movie:

One of the producers of the Christmas Evil, "the mod Los Angeles stockbroker and Pop-art collector" Burt Kleiner, who also briefly appears in the movie playing Sol Wiseman, was one of the original backers the L.A. Weekly.

In Brian Albright's  Regional Horror Films, 1958-1990: A State-by-State Guide with Interviews, filmmaker Lewis Jackson, whose baby this project was, reveals that made his directorial debut in 1970 with the now-lost 16mm "comedy about sexual perversions" entitled The Deviators, the producers of which subsequently added hardcore sex scenes shot by Eduardo Cemano who, according to Wikipedia, used the stunt prick belonging to Harry Reems. (Cemano, by the way, promptly used Reems' talents again alongside those of Dolly Sharp in the early porn flick The Weirdos and the Oddballs aka Zora Knows Best [1971]).

The lost movie Jackson calls The Deviators is actually, according to the movie's producer Barry Kerr over at the Rialto Report (whence the image above comes), the now lost movie The Deviates. Kerr's memory differs from Jackson's: "[Jackson and I] both wanted to make a movie. He had more experience than me, so we agreed he would write and direct the film and I would produce it. We put a little ad in the New York Times, and these two elderly guys in suits and ties with slight eastern European accents answered it. I don't remember their names but they wanted to make a movie. Not just any movie either; they wanted to make a porno movie. [...] So they gave us around $5,000 and Lewis wrote The Deviates. It was a hardcore film but it had a plot too. It wasn't wall-to-wall sex. I don't remember who was in it. [...] We made the film, we handed it over to the two old guys, we got paid — and that's the last I heard of it."

Nevertheless, in the 12 Aug 1972 issue of Billboard, on page 66, in a small blurb about Kerr's involvement with the soundtrack to his only know directorial project, Forbidden Under the Censorship of the Law aka The Flasher (1972), it is written that "Kerr's previous film, The Deviates, grossed  $300,000." (For the full story behind The Flasher, and Kerr, check out the previously mentioned Rialto Report entry.)

Jackson's next film projects were both released in 1974 and involved producer Elliot Krasnow aka Kenneth Elliot. Perhaps the most notable is the only one still extant, a movie that perhaps could only have been made at that period of time when Blaxploitation and "porno chic" were all the rage: Jackson co-produced the world's first and probably only "black porno musical", Barron Bercovichy's Lialeh (1974). The plot, according to Jason S. Martinko's The XXX Filmography, 1968-88: "A black beauty (Jennifer Leigh) stars as a singer trying to make it big in the entertainment business."

NSFW Opening Credits to
Barron Bercovichy's Lialeh (1974):

Jackson's other project with producer Krasnow at the time was as writer and director of the now lost movie The Transformation(The Sandwich of Nightmares), the plot of which was based on a story he read in an issue of the underground comic Insect Fear. According to Jackson (again in Brian Albright's book), "The movie itself is quite mediocre because I couldn't get decent actors. I had written a lot of dialogue, and the actors were just bad."

One of the "untalented" actors of Lewis Jackson's lost The Transformation (The Sandwich of Nightmares), Les Crook, who plays Renfield in the flick, has since rechristened himself as "Les Visible" and, going by stuff found on one of his many blogs, has found a god of some sort, thinks Israel was behind 9-11, and the Holocaust never happened. He also discovered The Lost Plays by William Shakespeare. In regard to The Transformation (The Sandwich of Nightmares), a lost film that he is obviously incapable of discovering, in his mail to Temple of SchlockLes "Visible" Crook says, "That was a strange production." (Strange is a matter of opinion, one might say.)

Jackson went on to do uncredited work on porn films such as Maraschino Cherry (1978 / movie) and Barbara Broadcast (1977 / promo / movie), before finally making Christmas Evil. According to the imdb, while given "Thanks" in the credits of Rock Hudson's Home Movies (1992 / film), his last official credit is as an associate producer for the independent regional horror The Ghouls (2003 / trailer).

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Short Film: Pica-Don (Japan, 1978)

February 26, 2018, 5:34 am

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"Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!"

Donald "Size Matters" Trump

What we have here is an award-winning and forgotten animated from Japan which, much like, A Short Vision(1956), our Short Film of the Monthfor September 2015, is beginning to have possible greater relevance than had in decades. "Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it," goes the often paraphrased statement by the Italian philosopher poet George Santayana. Not a pleasant concept. 

Pika-don was made by the husband-and-wife team of Renzo and Sayoko Kinoshita, who ran their own Tokyo-based independent animation studio called Studio Lotus. Renzo died in 1997. His wife Sayokois still alive today. 

Much of the short is about the day in the life of a family in Hiroshima prior to 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945. A day like any other day….

To simply quote Wikipedia: "On Monday, August 6, 1945, at 8:15 a.m., the nuclear weapon "Little Boy" was dropped on Hiroshima from an American Boeing B-29 Superfortress, the Enola Gay, flown by Colonel Paul Tibbets, directly killing an estimated 70,000 people, including 20,000 Japanese combatants and 2,000 Korean slave laborers. By the end of the year, injury and radiation brought the total number of deaths to 90,000–166,000. The population before the bombing was around 340,000 to 350,000. About 70% of the city's buildings were destroyed, and another 7% severely damaged."

Airship Dailyexplains: "Pikadon means 'flash boom'. It refers to what those witnessing the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki saw and heard: first a blinding light, then a deafening explosion." 

When it comes to nuclear warheads, the size of one's button in immaterial.

Freaked (USA, 1993)

March 5, 2018, 12:38 am

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Every once and a while you stumble upon an unknown flick where, after you've watched it, you can only say, "What the fuck?" Even rarer, you stumble upon something that not only gets you to say "What the fuck?" but also seriously wonder, "Why the fuck is this movie unknown?"Freaked is one of those rare movies. It is, hands down, prime cult-film material — and funny as hell on top of that. How can a movie this good be so fucking unknown? Well, if you go online and do a little research, some assumptions are easy to draw: a vanity production of the extreme, it not only failed to click with its supposed post-pubescent stoner audience when first released, but the studio powers-that-be simply didn't know what the fuck to do with a movie they didn't know why the fuck they let get made in the first place.

That no one could figure out the "why" behind Freaked back then is due primarily to both the short memory of the industry and the penchant to run and take cover when a decision goes wrong, for the "why the fuck" they greenlit the movie is easy enough to ascertain. Simply, long ago but not too long before this movie, two guys starred in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989 / trailer) and, two years later, returned for a sequel named Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991 / trailer). The films made a lot of money, and the studio probably hadn't yet realized that it was the more 16 Magazine-friendly of the two — i.e., Keanu Reeves — who had a future, so when the less 16 Magazine-friendly of the two — i.e., Alex Winter — came up with this project, which pretty much looked like it was in the same vein as the earlier two movies, they dished out an 11-million-dollar budget to Winter and his two fellow cohorts from MTV's Idiot Box (1990-91 / trailer) sketch comedy series, Tom Stern and Tim Burns. Only to then get a movie that they didn't know what to do with or how to market, which bombed at the pre-screenings, and then went on to earn less than $7,000 on its opening weekend and topped out at under $30,000. 

In all truth, in our book any movie that blows an alleged one-million dollars for an un-credited appearance of Keanu Reeves (or any name actor) in a role that almost any half-way professional actor probably could've excelled at — Ortiz the Dog Boy — sort of deserves to flop. (Why use a name actor if you aren't going to use the name?) That said, even movies like that deserve eventual reappraisal or rediscovery if and when they are as surreally creative and off the wall and fun and simply out there in deep space like this one. Freaked is an unknown absurdist classic, and one even with still-pertinent social commentary. The only problem is that, as is the case when something is "unknown", no one seems to know it's out there. Yet.

The scattershot approach of Freaked is already to be discerned in its opening credit sequence, which looks a bit like something a computer-whiz and tasteless Ray Harryhausenmight have done had he dropped acid or wanted to ruin his career. (The homage is obviously intentional, as the head of the Cyclops from The 7th Voyage of Sinbad[1958 / trailer], among other pop-culture references, makes a cameo in a later transformation sequence.) Stealing all the un-filmed funny sequences from movies like Freaks (1932 / trailer) or Freakmaker(1974) or Island of Lost Souls(1932), Freaked tosses them in with everything and the kitchen sink, as well as a seemingly game casting (Mr T as the Bearded Lady? Genius!), into a blender. The result is, unbelievably enough, a socially critical movie that takes the piss out of everything, even its own criticism. Not everything hits the mark (there's an adolescent gay stereotype joke, for example, that is less funny than predictable and was already dated when the flick was released), but the sheer barrage of visual and verbal ridiculousness of the disordered insanity should keep most connoisseurs of filmic madness happy.

The plot is a variant of taking the wrong turn-off trope more common to horror movies like Tourist Trap(1979), Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes (1977 / trailer), and some thousand other films, but told mostly in flashback to the vapid TV hostess Skye Daley (Brooke Shields, of Alice Sweet Alice [1976 / trailer]). Brainless Hollywood celebrity Ricky Coogin (Winter), hired by the unscrupulous conglomerate E.E.S. ("Everything Except Shoes") as spokesman for their highly-toxic Zygrot-24 fertilizer, travels down to the small South American country of Santa Flan with his yes-man buddy Ernie (Michael Stoyanov). They are joined by the pretty activist Julie (Megan Ward of Wes Craven's Don't Look Down [1998], Albert Pyun's Arcade [1993 / trailer], and more), and make the fatal mistake of stopping off at a roadside attraction, Freek Land, run by the decidedly mad Elijah C. Skuggs (real-life whackhead Randy Quaid of Parents[1989 / trailer], Hard Rain[1998], Bug Buster[1998] and way more). Too late, they find out that he not only displays his "human oddities", he makes them.... 

At a tight 80-minute running time — the studio supposedly cut about 11 minutes — Freaked goes fast and furious with the comic jabs, absurdist humor, tasteless jokes, simple weirdness, and total idiocy. If the concept of Mr T the Bearded Lady seems too mainstream for you, how about two Rastafarian eyeballs as compound guards? Or an absolutely gross-looking and drooling & puss-shooting Ricky Coogin becoming a freak-show hit by performing Shakespeare's Richard III? Or, among the transformed freaks, a hammer that used to be a wrench? Special mention should perhaps be given to Randy Quaid, who for a change manages to play demented (and dim) without killing the movie — but then, everything is so demented in Freaked that his character simply fits in perfectly. 

Freaked — help make it the cult film it deserves to be: watch it now with some friends and spread the word that there is one wacked-out, fun movie out there.

R.I.P. Umberto Lenzi, Part IV: 1976-82

March 12, 2018, 4:31 am

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6 August 1931 – 19 October 2017

"A mostly unsung titan has passed." The great Umberto Lenzi has left us! In a career that spanned over 30 years, the Italian director churned out fine quality as well as crappy Eurotrash in all genres: comedy, peplum, Eurospy, spaghetti westerns and macaroni combat, poliziotteschi, cannibal and giallo.

Go here for Part I: 1958-63.

Go here for Part II: 1964-68.

Go here for Part III: 1969-75.

Free Hand for a Tough Cop

(1976, writ & dir Umberto Lenzi)

Italian title: Il trucido e lo sbirro, aka Tough Cop, another poliziottesco featuring Tomas Milian and Henry Silva. Co-written by Italo-trash scriptwriter extraordinaire Dardano Sacchetti. Milian went on to play his character here, the tough good-guy Sergio Marazzi (a.k.a. "Monnezza"), the following year in Stelvio Massi's Destruction Force (1977 / German trailer) and then sort of again in 1978 in Lenzi's Brothers Till We Die (1978), where he had a double role replaying (sort of) "Monnezza"and Vincenzo "Il Gobbo" Marazzi, aka "The Hunchback", from Lenzi's Rome Armed to the Teeth (1976), which we look at after this movie. In English, the "Monnezza" becomes "Garbage Can", while in the German release he's called "Makkaroni" (i.e., Macaroni).

Little known fact: Walter Hill took the basic premise of this movie as the basic premise of his 1982 hit buddy film 48 Hours (trailer): a cop who has no time to solve a problem takes criminal out of jail for assistance. Beyond that, however, there are no other similarities.

Italian trailer to 

Free Hand for a Tough Cop:

So Sweet… So Perversefinds the movie fluffy but fun: "Not too much story here, more a collection of set pieces, but Lenzi keep things going fast & funny. There are quite a few hold-ups and robberies, but it never gets too serious, with Millian basically being a comic-relief character with a terrible wig [and black eyeliner]. There are also a lot of familiar faces in this film, including Luciano Rossi (28 Nov 1934 – 29 May 2005) and Giovanni Cianfriglia." [Who?]

The plot? Well, to loosely translate the German plot description found at Zelluloidof the German release, it should be as follows: Sergio Marazzi (Tomas Milian), aka "Macaroni", is a crafty private investigator who doesn't always follow the law to the line. That's why he's in jail. Commissioner Antonio Sarti (Claudio Cassinelli) is dealing with a bunch of gangsters led by the charismatic Brescianelli (Henry Siva) which has already committed a bunch of crimes. They kidnap the young and seriously ill daughter, Camilla (Susanna Melandri), of a friend of his who needs a special medicine every 48 hours or she'll die. Because the clock is ticking, there's no time for ordinary police methods. Sarti gets Macaroni out of jail, who then infiltrates the Brescianelli's gang. What Macaroni experiences over the next two days convinces him that Brescianelli must die — no matter at what cost.

The little girl actress, Susanna Melandri, who in 1975 played Henry Silva's daughter in Umberto Lenzi's version of Death Wish (1974 / trailer), L'uomo della strada fa giustizia / The Manhunt (1975 / see Part III), also appeared in the horror flick in Un sussurro nel buio / A Whisper in the Dark (1976 / an Italian trailer) the same year as she did in this movie here, but she seems to have then left the film biz. Claudio Cassinelli (29 Sept 1938 – 12 July 1985), who died ten years after this flick in an on-set helicopter accident in Page, Arizona, while filming a scene in Sergio Martino's Vendetta dal future aka Hands of Steel aka Vendetta From the Future aka Atomic Cyborg), can also be found in Slave of the Cannibal God(1978), among other fun films. 

Claudio Cassinelli died 

for this movie:

Rome Armed to the Teeth

(1976, dir. Umberto Lenzi)

Italian title: Roma a mano armata, aka Assault with a Deadly Weapon(a re-edited version released by Terry Levene), Brutal Justice, The Tough Ones and a dozen other titles. Co-written by "Bert Lenzi" and Italo trash scriptwriter extraordinaire Dardano Sacchetti. Tomas Milian plays Vincenzo "The Hunchback" Moretto, a role he played again two years later, in 1978, with the new last name of "Marazzi", in Lenzi's Brothers Till We Die (1978), where he had a double role playing both "Hunchback" and "Monnezza", the latter from the previously looked at Free Hand for a Tough Cop (1976).

 

The slumming American actor of the movie this time around is the character actor Arthur Kennedy (17 Feb 1914 – 5 Jan 1990), a familiar face from movies such as Too Late for Tears (1949 / trailer), Rancho Notorious (1952 / trailer), The Desperate Hours (1955 / trailer) Day of the Evil Gun (1968 / trailer), The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue (1974 / trailer) and Nine Guests for a Crime (1977 / trailer), among many.

Sybil Danning's Adventure Video —

Intro to Rome Armed to the Teeth (1976):

Cosi Perversaoffers a very terse synopsis: "A tough, violent vigilante cop (Maurizio Merli [8 Feb 1940 – 10 Mar 1989]) makes it his mission to bring to justice a machine-gun-carrying, hunchback killer (Tomas Milian) by any means necessary."

 

Eric Reifschneider @ Blood Brothersraves "Rome Armed to the Teeth has everything an Italian cult fanatic wants: Great cast, great score, fast-paced action and hyped-up uber violence and sleaze provided by director Umberto Lenzi. It may not be as serious or classy as the works of Fernando Di Leo but it's perhaps more entertaining and more memorable thanks to Lenzi's adrenaline, amped-up approach."

Italian trailer to

Roma a mano armata:

Celluloid Highway, however, may call the movie "extremely enjoyable and entertaining" but was nevertheless far less pleased: "[…] Lenzi himself is never the best thing about his films. His 1976 poliziotesschi flick Rome: Armed to the Teeth is a very good working example of this. Without a doubt the most distinctive aspect of this production is its cast. The film is led by Maurizio Merli […], who by this point was a veteran of the cycle, and could do the tough-guy cop routine in his sleep. The supporting cast includes excellent turns from Tomas Milian, Arthur Kennedy, Ivan Rassimov, and Giampiero Albertini […]. The film's second most distinctive feature is the superb musical contribution of Franco Micalizzi, and then maybe… and it's a big maybe, we might put the direction of Lenzi third. [….] Its main weakness lies in a typically abysmal and nonsensically plotted screenplay by Dardano Sachetti. I have even less respect for Mr. Sachetti than I do for Mr. Lenzi; I consider him to be the architect of the some of the worst crimes against the written word in cinematic history. […] I've lost count of the number of times that Lucio Fulci, for example, has got it in the neck for misogyny or incompetent narratives, only to see the name Dardano Sachetti on the writing credits. Rome: Armed to the Teeth is almost totally devoid of plot, it's episodic and contrived; it rambles along from one violent incident to another without any purpose. The basic structure of this film is set piece in arrangement; a violent or an all too frequently sickening crime, followed by Commissioner Tanzi's (Maurizio Meril) sudden manufactured appearance, followed by a high-octane car chase around the streets of Rome, followed by the apprehension, beating up of, or murder of the culprits, followed by an interrogation depending on whether the criminal has survived Tanzi's style of policing, followed by an early release for the criminal and Tanzi's self-righteous raging at the system. This would be fine were it not for the fact that this basic structure is repeated at least five times during the film."

Violent Naples

(1976, dir. Umberto Lenzi)

Italian title, Napoli violenta; aka Violent Protection and Sudden Justice. Written by prolific Italo co-scribe Vincenzo Mannino (6 Apr 1930 – 1999), whose numerous projects include the flawed cult fave starring David Hess, House on the Edge of the Park (1980 / trailer). Violent Naples is the second of a trilogy of "cop on the edge" movies starring Maurizio Merli as the Italian Dirty Harry (1971 / trailer), Commissioner Betti. As such, it was preceded by Marino Girolami's Roma violenta / Violent City (1975 / German trailer) and followed by Marino Girolami's Italia a mano armata / Cop Hunter (1976). Mario Caiano's 1977 movie Napoli spara! / Weapons of Death (trailer), also with Maurizio Merli playing a man named Betti, is an unofficial fourth film to the series. (Marino Girolami [1 Feb 1914 – 20 Feb 1994], by the way, also directed the fun cult disasterpiece Zombi Holocaust /Dr Butcher, MD[1980 / trailer], while Marino Girolami [13 Feb 1933 – 20 Sept 2015] directed the semi-classic gothic horror, Nightmare Castle [1965 / trailer].)

Music to

Violent Naples:

Blood Brothers Reviews, who says that "Merli [...] has played this same role so many times that he could do it in his sleep", has the plot: "Inspector Betti (again surviving getting shot in the back with a machine gun at the end of A Special Cop in Action [i.e., Cop Hunter]; remember continuity isn't a large concern for Italians) gets transferred to Naples to clean out the crime that is overtaking the city. Crime is so bad that he is nearly mowed over by a mob car moments after getting off the train. His methods are violent and brutal, controversial with his superiors but it gets the job done. In order to break down the protection racket bankrupting local businessmen (Patrick Barry Sullivan [29 Aug 1912 – 6 June 1994), also of Planet of the Vampires [1965 / trailer]), Merli takes on the local mob with deadly results."

At 10K Bullets, some guy named John White says, "Violent Naples is breathless stuff. It flies along with protection rackets, rape, armed robberies, murdered informants, and breakneck chases on motorbike and even on the top of tram. Merli gets his men one by one by fair means and foul but always entertainingly. Lenzi is often at home with the cruelty and his approach to morality owes more to Michael Winner than any serious intent, but he is inventive. The killing of one informant by tying him to a bowling lane is particularly creative and the villains big and small are all characteristically repugnant. [...] This is pure exploitation Euro Crime done brilliantly with a fine script and a tempo that any director would be proud of."

Also on hand as a slimy criminal is the great John Saxon (born Carmine Orrico, showing massive pubes as a teen above) of too much fine trash to mention, including the original Black Christmas (1974 / trailer), Cannibal Apocalypse (1980 / trailer), Blood Beach (1981 / trailer), the original A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984 / trailer), and Death House (1988 / trailer), the last of which he also directed.

Trailer to

Sudden Justice:

Death Rage

(1976, dir. "Anthony M. Dawson")

Supposedly the movie was inspired by the Charles Bronson movie, The Mechanic (1972 / trailer), it's aka Anger in His Eyes and, in Italian, Con la rabbia agli occhi— another rare project on which (according to imdb) Umberto Lenzi acted a producer, so who knows to what extent he was actually involved in it.

Trailer to
Death Rage:

"Anthony M. Dawson" is, of course, the well-known pseudonym of that other unsung director of quality Italo trash, Antonio Margheriti (19 Sept 1930 – 4 Nov 2002), whose numerous other projects include Seven Dead in the Cat's Eye(1973 / trailer), Alien from the Deep(1989 / German trailer, with Charles Napier) and so much more. Death Rage is the final film made by its slumming star, Yul Brynner (11 July 1920 – 10 Oct 1985), seen below at the tender age of 22, nude, slim & defined, uncut and with hair, in a nude study by the great photographer George Platt Lynes. The other American name of the movie was the now somewhat forgotten Academy Award-winning character actor Martin Balsam (4 Nov 1919 – 13 Feb 1996), possibly best remembered as the private detective who makes it down the stairs but doesn't make it to the end of Psycho (1960 / trailer). 

Million Monkey Theater, which thinks that Death Rage is "Not bad, not bad at all," calls the movie "a fairly high-quality effort" with "a lot of bad 1970s Euro fashions and a pretty complicated and convoluted plot about revenge and honor and gun crimes." They, in any event, saw more to the movie than the Film Vault, which was so fascinated by a youthful visual encounter with "Yul's unbelievably enormous balls" (see above) and "Kong-like scrotum [that] seems to force his legs apart in the same manner a canned ham strapped to one's groin might affect a normal fellow's stance" that they were moved to say that the movie is "scroterrific!"

The best plot synopsis we could find is at Wikipedia: "A chance for revenge brings a hit man out of retirement [...]. Sal Leonardi is a well-connected American Mafioso who, while vacationing in Naples, visits a racetrack and is persuaded by good-natured tout Angelo (Massimo Raniei) to put his money on a long shot. While Angelo sometimes works around the odds at the track by putting front-running horses off their stride with a pellet gun, in this case Angelo's horse wins without outside interference and pays off big. But after Sal collects his winnings, he's spotted by Gennare Gallo (Giancarlo Sbragia), a local mob boss who holds a grudge against Sal's partners; guns are drawn, Sal and his bodyguards are killed, while Angelo, who is also a police informant, is stripped of his winnings. Back in New York, Leonardi's partners are eager to even the score against Gallo, and they approach Peter Marciani (Yul Brynner), a former hired killer who retired after the traumatic murder of his brother. Peter is persuaded to assassinate Gallo when he learns that the Italian mobster was behind the murder of his brother; Peter flies to Naples and finds an ally in Angelo, but he soon learns that there's more to this story than he's been led to believe." The mandatory love interest is supplied by the delectable Barbara Bouchet who, as the stripper Anny, falls for Brynner's big bald head. 

Film Authoritysees a quality performance in the movie, pointing out that "By 1976, he [Yul Brynner] was dying of cancer, but still puts in a serviceable performance in Antonio Margheriti's murky but effective thriller. […] While nothing new in the genre of poliziotteschi, Death Rage has plenty of punch-ups and car chases, [is] well-filmed, and anchored by an unexpectedly touching performance from Brynner. There's a weariness about his portrayal of Peter that makes Death Rage worth catching for genre fans; struggling to get himself into gear for one last job, there's echoes of another 1976 elegy for a Hollywood star, Don Siegel's The Shootist (trailer) and John Wayne.

All that leaves Really Awful Moviescold, however, for all they see "In Death Rage […] are fedoras, cigarettes, raincoats, menacing stares, fixed races (a low-level crook is in the business of shooting favorites with an air-gun), sleazy nightclubs, nudity, and great locales. There's also a nifty chase through the Naples subway. Unfortunately, that's about it. Pretty stilted stuff."

Last Cannibal World

(1977, dir. Ruggero Deodato)

"Scene of cannibalism photographed from real life." [sic]

Italian title: Ultimo mondo cannibal. Aka Jungle Holocaust, and any dozens of other names, including Cannibal, Carnivorous and The Last Survivor. We include this movie here only because it was originally conceived as a sequel to Umberto Lenzi's 1972 cannibal movie, Il paese del sesso selvaggio / Man from Deep River (see Part III), but supposedly the producers found Lenzi's demanded fee too high and retooled the movie. Nevertheless, both as Me Me Lai and Ivan Rassimov returned from the earlier movie, though as different characters.

When Lenzi was out of the picture, he was replaced by fellow genre stalwart director Ruggero Deodato, and the movie became a stand-alone project and, eventually, the first of his unofficial "cannibal trilogy", which includes this movie and the subsequent masterpiece-of-sorts Cannibal Holocaust(1980 / trailer), often referred to as the first "found footage" movie, and Cut and Run(1985 / trailer). The popularity of Cannibal Holocaust is what led to this movie's eventual rechristening as Jungle Holocaust. Interestingly (and ironically) enough, Umberto Lenzi later used Me Me Lai's death scene in this movie as the death scene of her character in his own later cannibal movie, Eaten Alive! (1980), in which she also has a starring role. Lots of animal cruelty, gore, and full frontal male and female nudity in this baby…

The 2,500 Movies Challengehas the plot: "Oil entrepreneur Robert Harper (Massimo Foschi) and his partner Ralph (Ivan Rossimov) board a small plane bound for the middle of nowhere to check on the progress of a jungle prospecting camp. With them are the pilot, Charlie (Sheik Razak Shikur), and the pilot's girlfriend, Swan (Judy Rosly). During the landing, their plane is slightly damaged, yet more troubling than this is the discovery that the entire camp is empty, with all evidence suggesting the workers were carried off by a tribe of cannibals. During the night, Swan is also kidnapped by natives, and when Harper and the others set out to locate her, he himself is taken prisoner and hauled off to the cannibal's village. Realizing his time is limited, Harper tries desperately to find a way out of his predicament, but will he escape before his captors turn him into their next main course? "

Trailer to

Last Cannibal World:

Mondo Digitalsays, "More rooted in the pulp yarn tradition than its volatile companion feature, Jungle Holocaust is still extremely disreputable by most film standards as it rubs the viewer's nose in animal death scenes (a snake and alligator this time), gory dismemberment and flesh eating, a man's damaged limb consumed by ants, and other charming atrocities. At least this time there's the distance of a traditional narrative to keep the viewer relatively secure, even if the opening does claim the story is based on true events. […] Even in cut form it enjoyed a wide release and a decent gross-out reputation thanks to frequent reissues from AIP, and relatively speaking, it's still one of the best made of its ilk. The skillful scope photography, atmospheric score, and earnest performances make this a gripping study of survival, while exploitation fans should enjoy the high levels of gore effects […]. Thematically it's also less didactic than the '80s cannibal films; there isn't any two-faced moralizing along the lines of who the real savages are. More closely akin to survival epics like Cornel Wilde's underrated The Naked Prey (1966 / trailer), this is one of the more tolerable Italian cannibal films for those courageous enough to venture onto such morally treacherous grounds."

The Worldwide Celluloid Massacrewould tend to agree, saying that the movie is "easily one of the best in the cannibal genre" and that "while it raised the bar in terms of extreme gore and nastiness, instead of just wallowing in exploitation, it was a valid attempt at portraying unflinching jungle survival and the consequences of a civilized white man's encounter with cannibals. […] One survivor slowly turns into an animal and finds himself reacting with his basest instincts. Features the expected real animal deaths and buckets of gore as well as realistic scenery and tribesmen, and brave performances by the cast. Animal lovers who like to whine can go back to eating their burgers."

The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Reviewdid a little research and points out that "Despite the film's stringent claims on both the opening and end credits that it is based on a true story and that Robert Harper was a real person, I am unable to find any evidence of reported cannibal tribes living in Mindanao. The only internet references to 'Mindanao cannibals' all come back to this film. Mindedly, the Italian cannibal film, which was operating well before the whole mockumentary/found-footage fad, had no qualms making up bogus claims that everything that happened was real."

The ballsy lead actor Massimo Foschi can be found, usually with more clothing on, in a few other "fun" films, including Lucrezia Giovane / Die Sünden der Lucrezia Borgia (1974 / scene), Nove ospiti per un delitto / Nine Guests for a Crime (1977 / trailer), Holocaust 2000 (1977 / trailer), and Pandemia (2012 / trailer).

Music to Last Cannibal World

by Ubaldo Continiello (1941 – 20 Jan 2014):

The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist

(1977, writ & dir. Umberto Lenzi)

Original Italian title: Il cinico, l'infame, il violent or "The Cynic, the Infamous, the Violent"— both the Italian title as well as the English one have a notable and intentional aural similarity to another great movie, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly (1966 / trailer) aka (in Italian) Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo.

Another poliziottesco with Maurizio Merli, this movie is a direct sequel to Lenzi's Rome Armed to the Teeth (1976) and sees Merli once again playing Commissioner Leonardo Tanzi. Tomas Milian is also there again as well, but he plays a new character, Luigi 'Er Cinese' Maietto. John Saxon, possibly still in town from working on Lenzi's Violent Naples (1976), appears as Frank Di Maggio. This trio, basically, forms the "the Cynic, the Infamous, and the Violent" and/or "the Cynic, the Rat and the Fist", though who is who could be open to discussion. 

Trailer to

The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist:

Blood Brothershas a synopsis: "Maurizio Merli reprises his role as Inspector Leonardo Tanzi except this time he isn't an inspector. It seems after the events of Rome Armed to the Teeth Tanzi grew sick of the backward legal system being 'kindhearted' to the corrupted fifth tearing apart Rome and has resigned and now makes a living writing detective novels. All is going well until one of his arch rivals known as 'The Chinaman' (Tomas Milian) gets released from prison and sets his sights on getting revenge. After a failed assassination attempt on Tanzi, the police send him away to avoid being murdered but Tanzi decides to take vengeance himself. Tanzi decides to pull a 'Yojimbo' [or 'A Fistful of Dollars', if you're more of a western fan] by setting up the Chinaman against his mafia business partner Frank Di Maggio (John Saxon)."

The Spinning Imagemay have liked the movie, but they were still moved to write: "Despite the usual rousing action sequences and polished direction by Umberto Lenzi that counters his later reputation as a talentless horror hack, The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist is over-familiar stuff. Talky, meandering and casually nonsensical, the plot interweaves Tanzi's cathartic vigilante antics with complex power-plays and counter-ploys […] because behind the scenes Merli and Milian were not exactly the best of friends. The story never really adds up but throws in the odd memorable action scene (a gunfight in a porn studio, an ambush on a subway train, a chase through a supermarket) en route to a shoot-'em-up climax that wraps things up yet proves distinctly unsatisfying. Along with his shift into blatant vigilantism, Tanzi exhibits an alarming callousness in common with his criminal quarry as he slaps Nadia (Gabriella Lepori) around, steals a car from some poor innocent woman, and teams up with a comical ex-con who 'accidentally murdered his wife' (?!) for a laughable heist wherein red string stands-in for an infra-red security web."

For that, Blue Raythinks that "The unfiltered intensity on display is the main reason why Lenzi's film works. Indeed, for the most part it mirrors the quasi-documentary style promoted by many of Fernando Di Leo's earlier poliziotteschi, but Lenzi ratchets up the action to near breaking point that quickly transforms his film into a contemporary Italian martial arts film. In other words, it is a hybrid of a film that bets even more on style over substance."

And the acting ain't bad, ether, if one is to believe Cinezilla: "Performances are tight, and well acted, Merli is great […] but the movie definitely belongs to Tomas Milian in a performance that out shines both Merli and Saxon by yards. He owns this piece with his sneering, sinister criminal who just oozes cynicism towards the law officials, the mob boss Frank Di Maggio, and even towards his once cohorts that he eliminates on his struggle towards the top of the food chain. […] Along the way there's some great supporting cast performances by Bruno Corazzari, Claudio Undari, and the man who is almost everything worth watching Fulcio Mingozzi makes yet another short appearance. It's a pretty male-dominated movie, as nearly no women hold any specific role in the plot […], although Gabriella Lepori does have a bit of importance as she brings the narrative to an important junction, and connects the pornographer's mischief to the racket Maietto has going. […] The Cynic, the Rat and the Fistis a definitive statement to the craftsmanship of Umberto Lenzi, a guy who easily gets lost as a second-rate director among the many cheesier of his movies, especially the later ones, but this one is a gem and proves that Lenzi really had the knack for putting forth tight action movies that still work perfectly to this day."

Opening credit sequence,

music composed by Franco Micalizzi:

Brothers till We Die

(1978, writ & dir. Umberto Lenzi)

Italian title: La banda del gobo. A double-starring vehicle for Tomas Milian, in the sixth and last movie he was ever to make with Umberto Lenzi. There are no slumming American names around this time. Brothers Till We Die is a sequel of sorts to both Lenzi's Free Hand for a Tough Cop (1976) and Stelvio Massi's Destruction Force (1977 / German trailer) as well as Lenzi's own Rome Armed to the Teeth (1976): in Brothers Till We Die, Milian plays both a guy that not only wears the same wig as the tough good-guy Sergio Marazzi (a.k.a. "Monnezza") of the earlier two movies but, at least in some dubs, the name of as well; likewise, he also appears again as "The Hunchback" from the last. The Hunchback actually died in Rome Armed to the Teeth, but fuck continuity: here he is again spouting such great dialog as, "When you're born with a hump, you ain't got much room for a heart."

Trailer to

Brothers till We Die:

Grindhouse Databasehas the plot to a movie that has to be seen to be appreciated: "Vincenzo Marazzi (Tomas Milian), the Hunchback of Rome, is back in town. Always on the lookout for a quick buck, he is planning a surefire coup along with three of his former accomplices. A cash transport should eliminate any worries forever. Marazzi has not reckoned with the greed of his colleagues, and to be killed on the spot. Badly wounded he can escape under the cover of the sewers. Together with his [non-humped] twin brother Monezza (Tomas Milian), he forges a diabolical plan to take revenge on the traitors."

For years unavailable and seldom seen, one of the few who have bothered to share their opinion about the flick is Unpopped Cinema, which says: "For anyone into Italo-crime films, there is plenty to enjoy here despite the lack of an American or prominent Italian 'good guy' […]. In order to carry the film, Milian truly outdoes himself playing both twins, which have typically outlandish hairstyles (both ridiculous-looking wigs) and a little too much eyeliner. Along with Giulio Sacchi from Almost Human (1974, see Part III), the hunchback (or il gobbo on Italian prints) is one of Milian's most memorable characters whose tenacity and ruthless demeanor make for great entertainment. […] As [the other brother] Pigsty, Milian ups the comedy factor […]. In a fairly impressive bit of optical work, Milian plays both Humpo and Pigsty in the very same scene quite effectively, but the best is saved for last when Milian as Pigsty actually rises above the material in a rather poignant and bittersweet finale."

The Biggest Battle

(1978, writ & dir "Humphrey Longan")

Italian title: Il grande attacco. It would seem that Umberto Lenzi himself was aware that this low-budget movie was a bit of a joke, for he chose to release it as a Humphrey Longan film (in some cuts, "Humphrey Logan"). To save even more money, he edited in scenes from his previous Italo-combat film, Battle of the Commandos (1969, see Part II), as well as Mark Robson's Lost Command (1966 / trailer), Mino Loy's Desert Assault (1969 / trailer), and Giorgio Ferroni's The Battle of El Alamein (1969 / Italian trailer) — and even supposedly has his wife Olga Pehar Lenzi on hand to play John Huston's wife in one scene. 

Il grande attacco is available in versions and under multiple names, among others: The Greatest Battle, The Great Battle, The Battle of the Mareth Line, Battle Line, Battleforce and My Parent's Marriage (just joking about the last). Leonard Maltin's 2014 Movie Guide calls this slumming-star flick a "BOMB" and "a waste of everybody's time".

Italian Trailer to

Il grande attacco:

E-Criticand Charles T. Tatumhave the (same) plot description: "The big-name cast meet at Berlin in 1936 after the Olympics. British correspondent Sean O'Hara (John Huston), German officer Maj. Manfred Roland (Stacy Keach), and American General Foster (Henry Fonda) exchange pleasantries and small tokens of friendship, denying that the three countries would ever be at war. We know better. Eventually, but indirectly, the paths of the three men cross in North Africa. Fonda's ne'er-do-well son (Ray Lovelock) is heroic there, Huston wanders around there, and Keach dies there. Trying to follow all of these paths, plus those of characters who really have nothing to do with the main plot, gets to be a chore. Samantha Eggar is Keach's half-Jewish wife. […] Orson Welles provides ominous narration to try to keep the proceedings moving along, but characters are introduced, play their little scene, and are dropped immediately."

The blogspot Good Efficient Butcherymanages to make the film sound fun by stating that "[…] from the looks of The Greatest Battle, the entire budget went to paying those actors because for the most part, it looks like how a WWII epic might turn out if it was directed by Jess Franco or Al Adamson".

Scusi, lei è normale?

(1979, writ & dir Umberto Lenzi)

Not one to stick to a single genre, Lenzi suddenly does a commedia sexy all'italiana. The Italian title translates, obviously enough, into "Pardon Me, Are You Normal?"

It doesn't seem to have ever had an English-language release (surprise, surprise, surprise), although the BFIdoes list the wonderfully P.I. title God Save the Queens as an alternative title. It is probably NOT without chance that the year previously, the original version of the international hit comedy La Cage aux Follies (1978 / trailer) had been released.

Nevertheless, the one-line synopsis at MUBIdoes make it sound interesting [Not!]: "A moralist judge declares war on pornography and on his gay nephew who lives with a transvestite."

A search of the web and computer translations of various one to three line descriptions uncovers other possible details, but the following description is given without guarantee, as many sites wrote conflicting plots: Franco Astuti (Ray Lovelock [19 June 1950 – 10 Nov 2017]), the nephew of the uptight city prosecutor Gustavo Sparvieri (Renzo Montagnani [11 Sept 1930 – 22 May 1997]), lives with a transvestite Nicola "Nicole" Proietti (Enzo Cerusico [22 Oct 1937 – 1 July 1991]), who fakes a suicide attempt when Franco falls for Annamaria Immacolata (Anna Maria Rizzoli), a beautiful girl and very good dancer Franco meets at a dance contest. Anna Maria, a diplomat's daughter who poses for an S&M/B&D magazine that Gustavo Sparvieri declares war on, decides to help Franco "become a man"… the paths of the various protagonists keep crossing.

You understand Italian?

Anna Maria Rizzoli, by the way, is a former popular glamour girl of Italy who had a roughly decade-long career in Italian movies, mostly of the commedia sexy all'italiana genre, a genre that comedian Renzo Montagnani also excelled in. As far as we can tell, however, unlike Anna Maria Rizzoli, Renzo Montagnani never released any songs.

Anna Maria Rizzoli sings

Tu Solo Tu (1979):

From Corleone to Brooklyn

(1979, writ & dir. Umberto Lenzi)

"A surprisingly well made action thriller and a highpoint of the genre during its dying days (Cult Action)." Original Italian title: Da Corleone a Brooklyn — aka The Sicilian Boss. No gender-bending here: this is another Lenzi movie featuring serious, real men. Normally, the men in Lenzi's poliziotteschi movies shoot quickly and all over the place, so much so that if bullets were sperm, the flicks would be bukkake porn. In From Corleone to Brooklyn, however, bullets spurt but not quite as many as in Lenzi's other manly movies.

Italian trailer to

From Corleone to Brooklyn:

And as perhaps fitting to both a manly man's movie and the fact that this was Lenzi's last poliziotteschi flick, the briefly appearing slumming star is no one less than Van Johnson (25 Aug 1916 – 12 Dec 2008), one of the great passing-as-straight stars of Hollywood, although we might argue that he was a more a gay-leaning bisexual than flat-out gay (Then again, just like many a hetro man can get it up for a guy, many a homo man can get it up for a gal.) But enough manly talk, let's get to the manly movie at hand, also starring (yet again) the manly Maurizio Merli of many other manly Lenzi movies, in his last movie directed by Lenzi. (If you have any doubts of just how manly Merli was, catch a gander of him in that scene in Napoli Violenta (1976) where he's shooting as he clings to the cable car: he did his own stunts.) Merli's character in this movie, however, is a bit more by the book than ever before. 

Cool Ass Cinemahas the plot to what they claim is "one of the best of [Lenzi's] career": "Italian mobster, Michele Barresi (Mario Merola [6 April 1934 – 12 Nov 2006) heads for the safer climate of Brooklyn after his chief rival is gunned down in the small Sicilian town of Corleone. Commissioner Berni (Merli) learns of his involvement so Barresi takes out a contract on the only two people alive who can put him away. One is Barresi's hired assassin (Biagio Pelligra) and the other is his girlfriend (Sonia Viviani). Unable to save the girl, Berni manages to arrest the assassin, Salvatore Scalia. The plan is to get Scalia from Palermo to New York to testify against Barresi in court. But the mafia has no intentions of allowing either Berni, or Scalia, to make it to New York alive."

The Weber Movie Countdownhas a few more details: "[...] Merli has to escort the hitman from Italy to Brooklyn — and since there's a price on his head, that means a whole lot of folks are trying to kill him! This is a pretty good road movie, and Scalia has some pretty good moments with Merli. There's even an appearance by Van Johnson as the New York police captain trying to keep them safe 'til the morning of the trial (they hide out in a Holiday Inn!). There's good stuff here and a little more character development than is the norm in these films."

Sexy Sonia Viviani, who plays (depending on which source you read) Barresi's wife / sister / girlfriend and doesn't survive long (much as in Lenzi's Nightmare City [1980, see further below]), has since retired from movies but for a while she was a glamour model who had (mostly smaller) roles in some fun movies, including: Bruno Mattei's SS Exterminator Camp (1977 / music), Antonio Bido's Solamente nero  / The Bloodstained Shadow (1978 / Italian trailer), Pier Carpi's Un'ombra nell'ombra / Satan's Wife (1979 / trailer), Povero Cristo (1976 / trailer), and more.

Franco Micalizzi's title theme to

From Corleone to Brooklyn:

From Hell to Victory

(1979, writ & dir. "Hank Milestone")

In Italian: Contro 4 bandiere or "Against Four Flags". Another macaroni war film, Umberto Lenzi's last — and not just as "Hank Milestone", the name used for the some of the international releases. Some of the war scenes were recycled from Alberto De Martino's Dirty Heroes (1967 / trailer), which, like From Hell to Victory, was also produced by Edmondo Amati (whose most-famous production must surely be The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue [1974 / trailer]).*

* For all the talk among zombie fans about fast or slow zombies, zombies that use tools or don't, strangely enough this cult fave never seems to enter anyone's conversations, despite the fact that the "zombies" regularly use things around them in a thinking manner to kill people.

Trailer to

From Hell to Victory:

From Hell to Victory is a rehash of Lenzi's own The Greatest Battle (1976), but with an arguably better cast. The plot, as cobbled together from a variety of websites, many of which couldn't count: A late-summer day in Paris in 1939: at a bistro alongside the Seine, five young friends are celebrating the victory of a canoe race — the American, Brett (George Peppard [1 Oct 1928 – 8 May 1994]); the Brit Maurice (George Hamilton); the German Jurgen (Horst Buchholz [4 Dec 1933 – 3 March 2003]); the French woman Fabienne (Anne Duperey), Rick (Jean-Pierre Cassel [27 Oct 1932 – 19 April 2007]), and the Canadian Ray (Sam Wanamaker [14 June 1919 – 18 Dec 1993]). Soon, however, World War II will send them their separate ways, and they will in part fight on different sides as enemies. They promise to meet again after the war, and though some paths cross during the following years — some even kill the other from the distance, never knowing it — only three return to one day sit together at the Seine. Capucine (6 Jan 1928 – 17 March 1990) shows up somewhere to play "Nicole Levine", and cult fave Howard Vernon (15 July 1914 – 25 July 1996) — of A Virgin among the Living Dead (1973 / French trailer below), one among ten dozens of noteworthy disasterpieces — flits by as "SS Major Karl".

French trailer to

A Virgin among the Living Dead:

Over at Sgt Slaughter, they're a bit surprised that "For all of the lack of originality, this piece still manages to be fairly entertaining". His cigar clenched between his gritted teeth, Sgt Slaughter continues to say, "Let's analyze this 'story' a little bit. Lenzi presents us with thumbnail sketches of his characters, and then jumps right into the action. Throughout, there is little to no character development; we simply follow several people through the war. [...] Fans of the director will realize that it's just a complete hack job: for one thing, Lenzi's characters are straight out of The Greatest Battle: Peppard mirrors Henry Fonda, in fact, even Ray Lovelock shows up here to play his pretty-boy son who turns into a hero (again); Hamilton is a takeoff of Giuliano Gemma, and even accompanies Lovelock on a mission to France (as Gemma did to North Africa in the previous film). Buchholz and Duperey fall in love, despite the fact that they are on opposite sides, a la Stacy Keach and Samantha Eggar… the list simply goes on." For that, he unclenches his teeth and adds, "The only strong action sequence that stands out is a shootout atop the Eiffel Tower, which has got to be one of the most suspenseful, best-edited scenes ever shot. It compares to the most memorable moments in The Last Hunter (1980 / trailer) and The Dirty Dozen (1967 / trailer) — it's just that good."

Over at All Movie, in his synopsis Hal Erickson even raves, "The internationally produced From Hell to Victory is evocative of the works of Erich Maria Remarque"— Wow! — before suggesting that Umberto Lenzi is billed as "Hank Milestone" as a possible reference to Lewis Milestone, who filmed the definitive version of Erich Maria Remarque's novel All Quiet on the Western Front in 1930 (trailer).

Nightmare City

(1980, dir. Umberto Lenzi)

Italian title: Incubo sulla città contaminata. This is perhaps one of the first running-"zombie" movies. (We say "zombie" because the infected of Nightmare City are not walking dead but infected: the infection might be radioactive-born, but it is transmittable and those infected are not necessarily dead. In that sense, they are zombies of the kind found in 28 Days Later [2002 / trailer] or  [REC] [2007].) Everyone seems to hate Nightmare City but, for that, it retains immense popularity as a cult movie. The slumming international name is Mel Ferrer, though the real star of the movie, Hugo Stiglitz, is a pretty big name himself in the Spanish-speaking Americas. He's a wooden as a board in the movie, but looks less lost than Ferrer.

For what we thought of the movie, go to our review from Thursday, January 13, 2011, found here.

Trailer to

Nightmare City:

Among the many who don't make it to the end of the movie is the attractive Sonia Viviani, also seen briefly in Lenzi's From Corleone to Brooklyn, as "Cindy". A now-retired glamour model turned actress, she had (mostly smaller) roles in some fun movies, including: Gualtiero Jacopetti& Franco Prosperi's Mondo Candido  (1975 / scene with score/ Italian trailer), and René Cardona Jr.'s Traficantes de pánico / Under Siege (1980 / trailer).

Quentin Tarantino talks

Umberto Lenzi & Nightmare City:

Eaten Alive!

(1980, writ & dir Umberto Lenzi)

Not to be mistaken with Tobe Hooper's own Eaten Alive (trailer), from 1976. Italian title: Mangiati vivi! Aka Doomed to Die. Umberto Lenzi's eye had obviously been caught by the news of Jim Jones and Jonestown back in 1978, and he came up with this cult and cannibals flick featuring the usual suspects: Ivan Rassimov (as "Jonas") and Me Me Lai; the slumming has-been, Mel Ferrer; and the Golden Age of Porn star R. Bolla, using his real name here, Robert Kerman. Bolla/Kerman was to do two Italian cannibal flicks in 1980, the second being Ruggero Deodato's classic Cannibal Holocaust (1980 / trailer); Bolla/Kerman eventually also showed up in Lenzi's Cannibal Ferrox (1981). Lenzi cannibalized other cannibal films for this one, using scenes from his own Mondo cannibale (1972), Me Me Lay's death sequence from Ruggero Deodato's Last Cannibal World / Jungle Holocaust (1977), and the castration scene and other stuff from Sergio Martino'sSlave of the Cannibal God(1978).

Trailer to

Eaten Alive:

The Worldwide Celluloid Massacre, which is in general not a fan of Lenzi movies, decries, that Eaten Alive! is "a lame cannibal entry that rips-off ideas from other movies in the genre, especially Jungle Holocaust (1977) and Apocalypse Now (1979 / trailer). [...] Pointlessly scattered throughout the movie like porn scenes is footage of real animal deaths. The acting is terrible and the mostly naked women maintain perfect makeup and hairdos while running for their lives."

In regard to those naked women, Dr. Gore, who rates the movie "2.5 out of 4 human smorgasbords", gushes: "There are also plenty of topless women as the cult hates to have their females wear bras. There's also a cool scene where the hot blonde's body is painted gold. Why she gets painted gold is a mystery although it looks good to me. Maybe that was the reason. So if you're into cannibal flicks, you'll like this one. It's worth a look."

As for the plot, the 2,500 Movie Challenge, which warns that "Eaten Alive! is a gruesome bit of exploitation so incredibly off-the-wall that, at times, you won't believe your eyes", has a synopsis: "Upon learning that her sister Diana (Paola Senatore of Salon Kitty[1976]), who had been traveling in the South Pacific, is missing, beautiful southern belle Sheila (Janet Agren of City of the Living Dead[1980]) decides to go looking for her. With Mark (Robert Kerman), a Vietnam veteran who knows his way around a jungle, as her guide, Shelia sets off for the wilds of New Guinea, where, with Mark's help, she discovers that Diana has joined a religious cult headed up by the charismatic Rev. Jonas (Ivan Rassimov), whose commune is smack dab in the middle of cannibal country. Together, Mark and Sheila somehow make it to Jonas's camp, only to find that Diana has been brainwashed, and doesn't want to return with them to civilization. Can the two adventurers convince her to leave, or will they instead succumb to Jonas's charms and join up along with her?"

AtAll Movie, Robert Firsching posits "[...] This jungle-set gore-fest is part of a mini-trend in which wealthy Europeans travel to the Third World in search of more riches, only to meet with truly nasty ends. In this one, however, cannibals are subordinated to yet another exploitative treatment of the 1978 tragedy in Jonestown, Guyana, where over 900 people committed mass suicide in the name of People's Temple cult leader Rev. Jim Jones. Indeed, in Mangiati Vivi, it can be argued rather convincingly that the cannibals are the good guys. There are Stone Age cannibals, a Jim Jones-type cult, hired assassins, and gratuitous animal slaughters thrown onscreen every five minutes just to keep the viewer awake. [...] There's gang rape, castration, radical mastectomy by knife, dismemberment, cannibalism, and even more disgusting activity. There's almost enough gore and nudity, in fact, to make one forget the ridiculous dialogue, outrageously mean-spirited sensibility, and truly despicable treatment of animals for commercial purposes. At least there is some sense of warped justice here, as hard as one may have to dig to find it. [...] In more talented hands, there could have been a real statement made with this film. As it turns out, the only statement most viewers are likely to come away with is 'yuck'."

Cannibal Ferox

(1981, writ & dir Umberto Lenzi)

The following feature is one of the most violent films ever made. There are at least two dozen scenes of barbaric torture and sadistic cruelty graphically shown. If the presentation of disgusting and repulsive subject matter upsets you, please do not view this film.

Pre-credits disclaimer

Aka Make Them Die Slowly and Woman from Deep River. In his final cannibal movie, Lenzi pulls out all the stops to transcend even Deodato'sCannibal Holocaust(1980 / trailer) in cynicism and gore. (He also pulls in two of Cannibal Holocaust's cast, Perry Pirkanen and Robert Kerman, for cameo appearances — though Pirkanen remains un-credited and in an appearance so small it would seem to be but a coincidence. Germans might want to keep their eyes open for a very young and likewise un-cedited Dominic Raacke [of the still-smelling-of-80s turkey Babylon [1992 / trailer] in one of his first film appearances as "Tim"— he's the twitchy junkie who gets shot in NYC at the start of the film, in case you have trouble recognizing him.)

Available in dozens of versions, the once-rare uncut one lasts 93 minutes. Aka Make Them Die Slowly and, in Australia, as Woman from Deep River (thus linking it to Lenzi's first cannibal movie, Man From Deep River [1972, see Part II]). A supposed later sequel, marketed as Cannibal Ferox II, has nothing to do with either Lenzi or this movie, and is actually Michele Massimo Tarantini's Massacre in Dinosaur Valley / Nudo e selvaggio (1985 / trailer) re-titled to make an extra buck.

Trailer to

Cannibal Ferox (1981):

1000 Misspent Hourspoints out that "There was an odd relationship between Lenzi and his fellow Italian schlockmeister, Ruggero Deodato, during 1970s and early 1980s. […] The two men seemed to be engaged in a sort of undeclared duel to see who could make the most disgusting movie about gut-munching stone-agers. Lenzi and Deodato were hardly alone in the cannibal arena, to be sure, but nobody else on the scene played the game with such verve, or gave the impression of taking it so personally. First, Deodato one-upped Lenzi with Jungle Holocaust (1977); then he ten-upped himself with Cannibal Holocaust a couple of years after that. Lenzi, not to be outdone, replied first with The Emerald Jungle […], then with Make Them Die Slowly. The latter movie is arguably the one for which Lenzi is best remembered today, and while some might not wish such a legacy on their worst enemy, I think it fits old Umberto quite well. Whenever anyone makes a movie as crass and squalid and pugnaciously gross as Make Them Die Slowly, that's what they deserve to be remembered for, and it's perfectly fair to say that this movie marks the culmination of everything Lenzi had been doing for the past decade at least. If you have a cast-iron stomach and absolutely no couth, it's a hoot and a half."

As Michael Den Boer points out at 10K Bullets, "Structurally this film follows the almost to a tee the blue print laid out by Cannibal Holocaust. Only this time around instead of their being found footage, there is a survivor who gets to tell the story of near fatal trek through the treacherous jungles inhabited by cannibals. The interesting addition to this film is how they incorporate two sadistic characters who are only in the jungle to exploit, cause harm, and make money from the locals. Along the way this duo, crosses paths with the group lead by anthropologist. And it is fateful meeting that ultimately puts anthropologist and those with her in harm's way. Also when it comes to said characters, they are all well-defined and their motivations are crystal clear! […] Performance-wise this is not an easy film to age, and not because of lack of character development or just plain old bad acting. It has more to do with the actors are nothing more than mere props that they director strategically maneuvers for maximum effect. With that being said, the only performance that leaves any lasting impression is Giovanni Lombardo Radice (City of the Living Dead[1980 / trailer], Stage Fright[1987 / trailer], and much much more) in the role of Mike Logan, he is one of two sadistic characters that infiltrate the anthropologist's group. To say that his performance is over the top would be an understatement, but then that is exactly why it is so memorable."

At All Movie, Robert Firsching has the plot to what Classic Horrorcalls "one of the grimmest, most harrowing horror films ever made": "This revolting horror film stars Giovanni Lombardo Radice […] as a drug-dealer who comes to the Amazon jungle from New York looking for a cache of stolen emeralds. He joins some American college students and soon introduces them to his special lifestyle, raping a native girl, then beating a young Indio senseless before gouging out his eyeball with a knife. Naturally, the local cannibals don't take too well to this treatment, so they cut off Radice's penis with a machete, gouge out his eye, then scalp him and eat his brain. Deciding that his companions are also to blame, the natives hang a young woman by impaling her breasts on meat hooks while her sorrowful companion sings 'Red River Valley'. Eventually, one woman (Lorraine de Delle, also found in Damned in Venice [1978]) gets back to New York, where she reads a dissertation on cannibalism to earn her PhD. […]" 

Classic Horroris actually one of the rare voices of appreciation, saying: "The screenplay […] draws stark parallels between the white conquerors of old, and the behavior of it contemporary characters. The cannibal's themselves are not the whopping, ape-like sub-humans of Cannibal Holocaust. Lenzi presents them as ominous, foreboding figures who take their grim retribution in a cold, almost mournful, fashion. Cannibal Ferox holds up well on its own merits. It a tight, suspenseful story that generates a serious feeling of dread. The jungle, filmed on location in South America, is not presented as lush and beautiful. Instead, it is dense, claustrophobic, and lethal. It has its odd segments, the New York sub-plot, the singing-in-the-cave scene, but ultimately it rivets you to your seat, dreading what will happen next. […] It's grisly, realistic effects were created by Gino di Rossi, son of italian make-up artist Gianetto. They are gruesome, and Lenzi lets his camera linger on them long enough to get under your skin. He doesn't rub your nose in it like the zoom-happy Fulci. He lets you get a good look at the savagery, then cuts to the reactions of his surviving victims. The effect is both repulsive and involving."

Cicciabomba

(1982, dir. Umberto Lenzi)

Lenzi follows up on his cannibal blood and guts epic with an Italian ugly-duckling "sex" comedy that is also known under the fabulously PI title, Fatty Girls Goes to New York. The movie was a vehicle for a once-popular in Italy (and completely unknown anywhere else) pop singer, Donatella Rettore.

From Cicciabomba:

Yum-Yum at the House of Self-Indulgencesaw the movie and says, "I want everyone to see what kind of lameness they would have to endure if I wasn't around to set them on the path towards righteousness. All right, now that I've done that, let's get this thing underway, shall we? It's racist, it's anti-gay, it looks down on fat people, it promotes bullying, and yet, it's totally awesome." But then, House, being a total fan of Italian disco, is probably the only person in the US who knows who Donatella Rettore is, whom she gushes looks "like Anne Carlisle from Liquid Sky (1982 / trailer) from certain angles.

Trailer to

Cicciabomba:

10K Bulletshas the plot: "An overweight young woman named Miris (Donatella Rettore) is tormented by the most desired boy (Dario Caporaso) who goes to her school. Her life is drastically changed after a chance encounter with a baroness (Anita Ekberg of Killer Nun [1979 / trailer] and Malenka, Fangs of the Living Dead [1969 / trailer]) who helps her slim down and gain confidence. Unable to forget the rejection that nearly pushed over the edge, Miris returns to Italy to turn the tables on her tormentor."

We admit to not having seen the movie, but we cannot help but feel that it is extremely odd that the "happy" ending supposedly includes the pregnant girl (Gena Gas) marrying the asshole who knocked her up and dumped her for a richer girl — but then, it is an Italian film. And Italians once thought, like many Americans still do, that your only option when pregnant is marriage.

Donatella Rettore

sings her Italo hit Kobra:

Incontro nell'ultimo paradiso

(1982 dir. Umberto Lenzi)

The Blue Lagoon (1980 / trailer), anybody? A literal translation of the Italian title seems to be Encounter in the Last Paradise, but for its English-language release the movie got retitled to Daughter of the Jungle. Anyone thinking Lenzi returned to the jungle for more cannibal high jinks will be disappointed: this is very much an Italo romantic comedy — co-written, oddly enough, by cult fave Giovanni Lombardo Radice, of Make Them Die Slowly (and much more).

The "Jungle Girls" page at Down Memory Lane withTarzanhas the plot: "Sabrina Siani stars as Luana/Susan in Incontro nell'ultimo paradiso (aka Daughter of the Jungle) Two college students [Butch (Renato Miracco) and Ringo (Rodolfo Bigotti)] take a vacation to the Amazon, where ruffians beat them up. After renting a boat and sailing down the river, they become lost. The two enter a small village where they meet a mysterious jungle female, who happens to be the last survivor of a helicopter crash that occurred years ago. She soon develops a bond with the two adventurers."

Trailer to

Daughter of the Jungle:

Ninja Dixon, who's seen a couple of Italian comedies before, says that this "comedy with actors who has good chemistry together and a naked chick""often relies itself on cheap sex-jokes, nudity and a lot of slapstick — often someone getting something funny in the head and makes a funny face or two. But I also have to admit that I laughed more than one time and much of the dialogue comes in such a frantic pace that it's hard not to be charmed by the characters or giggle at people falling on their asses. This is not big art, but it's entertaining — and I guess those who like Sabrina naked will be happy with what they see." (And who doesn't want to see Sabrina naked?)

And who is Sabrina? Wikipediais surprisingly snarky in their entry one her: "Sabrina Siani […] starred in numerous [Italian] films, mostly violent cannibal films and sexy barbarian 'sword-and-sandal' movies, and most of her films were made in a three-year period between the ages of 17 and 20. Siani retired from acting in 1989, at age 26. Her brief career included working with some of the most famous Italian horror film directors of the time, including Lucio Fulci, Umberto Lenzi, Antonio Margheriti, Joe D'Amato, Jesús Franco and Alfonso Brescia. Franco said in a recent interview that Siani's mother would always accompany her to the various shooting locations and get in the way, although she actually encouraged Franco to film her daughter naked. Franco said that Siani was the 2nd worst actress he ever worked with (next to Romina Power [of Franco's Marquis de Sade's Justine (1969 / trailer)]), and that her only real asset was her delectable derrière."

Pierino la peste alla riscossa

(1982, dir.Umberto Lenzi)

Another comedy, and one of Lenzi's more obscure projects: no one seems to have seen it in the English-speaking world and found it worth writing about online. According to Gian Piero Brunetta's The History of Italian Cinema: A Guide to Italian Film from Its Origins to the Twenty-first Century, however, the movie has an English title: Little Peiero, the Plague to the Rescue… though it seems to us to be more of a one-to-one translation of the Italian title. 

Mubimention that the movie was "Filmed in the north-west area of Rome, near the Via Aurelia, [and] the film is divided into several episodes used as a pretext to represent — through gags and jokes — more or less well-known jokes; sketches stand out on time for the triviality of eloqui and double meanings."

Credit sequence:

More to come… eventually

Mutant Chronicles (Great Britain/USA, 2008)

March 19, 2018, 6:16 am

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(Spoilers.) When we uncovered the unopened, plastic-wrapped, German/English-language DVD — "Exxklusive Sonderedition mit Dog Tag" [Exclusive Special Edition with Dog Tag] — to this assumedly obscure movie at the bottom of a pile of 50¢ DVDs at a thrift store on Mallorca, the title, headlining cast, and overall trashy look sang a Circe song that demanded we buy it. A quarter-of-a-year later we finally watched it, and what can we say: one should never trust Circe. And we should have left the DVD where we found it.

That the movie ever got a cinema release is almost unbelievable; what is not is that its cumulative gross in the USA was only $6820 — and that at a supposed budget of $25 million. OK, worldwide it may have finagled a bit more than 2 million, but that too is hardly a good return on the initial investment. (A career-killing flop, one might think, but director Simon Hunter, whose only prior feature-film directorial credit was the horror film Lighthouse[1999 / trailer], not only came back with a feel-good drama entitled Edie in 2017 (trailer), but seems to be currently working on a comic book-based vampire & zombie flick entitled Last Blood.)

In regards to where the 25 million was spent, the final product leaves one wondering. The cast surely could not have cost all that much, not even the noticeably slumming and disinterested John Malkovich, who shows up to ask for a paycheck. The special effects, maybe, though definitely not the CGI blood, which looks very much, well, like poorly rendered CGI blood. One can't help but wonder what good the 25 million could've done had it been used sensibly, like as a donation for worthy causes.

Visually, Mutant Chronicles is reminiscent of so many other green-screen-based movies ranging from Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004 / trailer) to Sin City (2005 / trailer), or The Spirit (2008 / trailer) to Sucker Punch (2011 / trailer), all of which are far more entertaining and interesting. It's aesthetics, in turn, are very much of the steampunk cum dieselpunk style found in Sky Captain, Sucker Punch, or even Dark City(1998 / trailer). So, though set in the 28th century, after the near incomprehensible introductory explanation ala David Lynch's Dune (1984 / trailer), which almost incomprehensibly sets up all the background information needed for the movie to start where it does, the story begins amidst the trenches of a WWI-style war waging against two of the four business conglomerations that now rule the Earth, in a world that is capable of building airships that can fly to Mars but coal is still used to power the said ships.

And it is during this war somewhere on the European continent that the excessive shelling breaks open some long-buried spaceship from a long-forgotten war back when men still used swords. The war between the conglomerates goes to hell when the mutants start pouring out, killing and converting human beings faster than the average zombie-bite victim becomes one of the undead. Among the many who fall, Capt. Nathan Rooker (Sean Pertwee of Dog Soldiers[2002 / trailer] and Botched[2007 / trailer]), whose heroics allow Maj. 'Mitch' Hunter (Thomas Jane of Nemesis[1992 / trailer] and Pawn Shop Chronicles [2003 / trailer]) to escape with his prisoner, Lt. Maximillian von Steiner (Benno Fürmann of Anatomie [2000 / German trailer] and Pornorama [2007 / German trailer]). And though the conglomerations join forces to fight the common enemy, all seems lost…

And this is where Mutant Chroniclesgoes all Dirty Dozen (1967 / trailer), The Wild Bunch (1969 / trailer), Nam's Angels aka The Losers (1970 / trailer) or any other film of the kind in which a disparate group is brought together for a suicide mission. Inspired by the prophesies in an ancient, holy tome, the titular "Mutant Chronicles", Brother Samuel (Ron Perlman of Sleepwalkers[1992 / trailer] and much more), the current head of the religious order that long ago vanquished the mutants, gathers a disparate group for a suicide mission. Needless to say, both Mitch and Maximillian are there, as are an odd assortment of other male and female characters whose characterization, for the most part, is established alone by sex and ethnicity or one or two lines of dialogue. (In other words: characterization is null.) The lack of memorable characterization is a flaw, of course, for as they die one-by-one over the course of the mission, no death proves to have a punch or seem to matter for no identification is ever established. (Interestingly enough, and perhaps as to be expected, the only two black characters of the movie that speak, Capt. John McGuire [Steve Toussaint] and Captain Michaels [Pras Michel], are among the earliest to die.)

Not that the lack of characterization is the biggest flaw of the movie; Mutant Chronicles is, after all, neither a woman's film nor prestige project, it is an action movie based on a role-playing game created in 1993. No, the biggest flaw of the movie, aside from its general murkiness, occasionally confused editing and excessive use of close-ups, is that it totally lacks tension and is simply never exciting. That is primarily due to the by-the-numbers, predictable script supplied by Philip Eisner (Event Horizon[1997 / trailer]), which is as full of holes as it is of lame dialogue, fails miserably at getting the viewer emotionally involved in either the action or the characters, and is all about an idiotic mission that would only be seen logical in a third-rate comic book.

And what is the mission? The group should make their way to the heart of the mutant machine to reinstall a device that may or may not be a bomb and to which the lost key has to be found somewhere along the way, but only god knows where. And which also has to be installed by "the chosen one", though who that might be no one truly knows either. Brother Samuel hopes/assumes he is the one, but the viewer quickly realizes that the savior must be Thomas Jane's Mitch, for despite his hard, fuck-the-world attitude, he does one too many good deed along the way not to be Good Guy Numero Uno.

When not dampened by too many close-ups or rendered almost incomprehensible by crappy editing, Mutant Chroniclesoccasionally proves to be a visual treat in the excessive way so many digital backdrop movies — see Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Casshern(2004 / Japanese trailer), and Immortel (Ad Vitam)(2004 / trailer) — tend to be. But the flashes of eye candy are not enough to save the movie, the script of which definitely needed a lot more polish and a few less characters.

One script mistake that sent us into fits of laughter was that of the reappearance of Sean Pertwee's Capt. Rooker — days, weeks months after he falls in the field — being dragged through underground tunnels to the mutant-making machine that lies below the field where he originally fell. This gives Rooker and Mitch time for commiseration in what should be a touching and/or shocking scene, but the inanity of the distance and timing is too hilarious to overlook: the mutants dragging him to his fate obviously really got lost along the way.

(Major spoiler — don't read if you plan to watch the movie.) About the only thing that is truly good in the movie is the last scene, a scene that tips the entire movie into pure, cynical irony. The last shot of the mutant structure hurtling through space reveals that the whole mission was basically pointless and a farce, for by actually fulfilling the mission, the Dirty Less-than-a-Dozen may have saved the planet but not the remaining human race, for all those evacuated to Mars — including the wife and daughter of Capt. Rooker, whose safety was so important to Mitch — are revealed to be doomed in the final seconds of  Mutant Chronicles.

Short Film: Lagomorph: The Destructor (USA, 2009)

March 27, 2018, 9:29 am

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Hey! Happy Easter. Here's a short film chosen not only because we find it funny and entertaining, but because it's that time of year when people think bunnies. And candy. And candy makes you fat. And this short film has a fat man and a bunny — a bunny with guns, actually. And that's a concept we find almost as good as Nude Nuns with Big Guns (2010 / trailer).

Directed by some guy named John Fitzpatrick, who cowrote with some other guy named Tyler McCoy, this version of Lagomorph: The Destructor is the "director's cut". We don't know what's up with Tyler, but John resides in Los Angeles with his wife and producing partner Sarah. (We couldn't find out the name of his wife.) 

Lagomorph: The Destructor went on to spawn a web series of short films about the Phantom Rabbit Hitman, image above, which seems to have lasted 13 episodes between 2010 and 2014. (You can watch them here.) 

Lagomorph: The Destructor is an obvious homage to that snoozer of a Michael Man film, Collateral (2004 / trailer), but better. (It also includes an homage to Psycho [1960 / trailer], actually: can you find it?) 

There's no real story in this short, if you get down to it, but it is fun and weird and seasonally appropriate — which makes it a perfect Short Film of the Month for A Wasted Life. Watch and enjoy. We did.

Zhui xiong 20 nian / Nude Fear (Hong Kong, 1998)

April 3, 2018, 2:41 am

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Nude Fear is a relatively obscure Hong Kong psychological thriller that delivers more than might be expected, were it not the directorial debut of Alan Mak, half of the team Mak and [Andrew] Lau, the duo behind Infernal Affairs (2002 / trailer), Infernal Affairs II (2003 / original trailer) and Infernal Affairs III (2003 / original trailer). Visually and acting-wise, the movie scores high, so in regards to the purely directorial chores Mal did well. But as his later projects reveal him to be a tight scriptwriter as well, one wonders why he didn't do more to fix the flaws in the intriguing but highly flawed narrative. The script, as supplied by Susan Chan (Tokyo Raiders  [2000 / trailer] and Koma [2004 / trailer]) and Joe Ma (Black Mask [1996 / trailer] and Bless This House  [1988 / original trailer]), simply has one too many holes and quick plot-advancing solutions to hold water as well as it should.

Which doesn't mean that the movie is a complete failure, but if you aim to create dankly depressing, character-driven psychological crime film in which an intellectually superior, serial-killing wacko pursues over-the-top machinations ala Se7en (1995 / trailer) or Copykill (1995 / trailer), you need to make sure all threads tie tight knots and every aspect of the story works. In this regard, Nude Fearfails, and thus as effective and creepy and icky as the events sometimes are, and as well-acted and character-driven as the movie is, Nude Fear nevertheless remains somewhat a washout.

One can't help but feel that those involved with the narrative, be it the scriptwriter or the director, occasionally had the feeling that this or that detail was "good enough" and therefore didn't bother to think just a bit more for a better solution. Sort of like the title of the movie itself: Regardless of the what the actual Hong Kong title is, the translator(s) obviously didn't see it worth their while to think twice and realize that the odd-sounding title "Nude Fear" lacks all the punch that "Naked Fear" would have — especially since "Naked Fear" is the actual idiom used in English. (Whether or not the movie really has all that much to do with "naked fear" or not is something else entirely.)

But, no: instead, the movie is called Nude Fear, and instead of a title that might make the viewer think of a situation fraught with fear, the flick is encumbered by one that makes you think of, dunno, a horror film set in a nudist camp, perhaps along the lines of Barry Mahone's trash disasterpiece The Beast That Killed Women (1965 / full film) or Ferenc Leroget's even more obscure and entertainingly incompetent mess, The Monster of Camp Sunshine (1964 / trailer).

That Nude Fear aims for higher and non-nudist sights is obvious in the first five minutes of the movie, which carries a punch and also tells a lot quickly, effectively, leanly. The cute, little pigtailed girl that doesn't get picked up from school, once all the other kids have been, finally undertakes to make her way through the busy streets of the city by her lonesome and makes it safely home, only to be confronted by a blood-drenched apartment and her raped, naked mother dead on the floor — at which point she goes into tragic, gut-wrenching denial, as if the scene were something totally normal. Cut to many-years-passed, and we see Joyce Chan Ching-yee again, now as an adult (the attractive former model Kathy Chow, of The Holy Virgin vs. the Evil Dead [1991 / trailer], Guen see sin sang [2001 / trailer] and more): a brilliant if cold detective, capable of solving crimes with a talent comparable to that of Sherlock Holmes but incapable of maintaining human relationships. And then she is called to a sex-murder scene that is one-to-one identical to the unsolved case of her mother...

Up till then, the movie does pretty good, even if Joyce's Sherlock Holmes detective skills make for a better scene than they do actually hold water. Ditto with how the movie precedes: she knows the killer will call — how come, who knows — and he does — how come, who knows — and they get their killer... or did they? Sure, they got a killer (an appropriately unnerving Sam Lee, of Gen-X Cops [1999 / trailer], Visible Secret [2001 / trailer], Bio Zombie [1998 / trailer], Cold Pupil [2013 / trailer], and The Stewardess [2002 / trailer]), and he knows all about the Joyce and her past, in detail, but he wasn't even a spermatozoa when her mother was killed.

At this point, the buildup still carries the movie, but the flaws of Nude Fear pretty quickly come to the forefront as of the minute the killer calls. And the subsequently mounting plot deficiencies sorely reduce the enjoyment of the well-directed film and most of the ensueing admittedly well-filmed shock scenes. Stones that should get turned don't, particular after the young killer does something that could only be done with inside help. And later, when a mysterious young girl shows up wandering the highways with Joyce's photo in her pocket, the implausibilities increase, one after the other, piling up like a stack of flapjacks. Do detectives normally take mysterious young girls home? Or only those that seem to have psychological baggage? Are their statements always taken as the impeachable truth? Do really so few girls disappear in Hong Kong over a 20-odd-year period? We could go on and on and one, but why bother?

OK, as inane as the character Joyce sometimes acts for an "intelligent" detective, Kathy Chow does a good job playing her and making her a solid character. And the real killer, whom we know long before she does — which allows for some tension and major ick-factor — is truly effective. And the buildup to the scene in which Joyce loses half her team is noteworthy: amazing how a few simple actions can add sympathy to a faceless character and thus up the tragedy of a death. But it is all the good stuff tucked in-between the glaring mistakes that makes Nude Fearso aggravating and disappointing at the end: the movie could have been a truly good one had the time been taken to make the script hold water. 

Nude Fear is, in the end, less a waste of time than simply a letdown. It really, obviously, thoroughly had the chance to be so much more than it is — so watch it with low expectations, and you might like it.

R.I.P.: Umberto Lenzi, Part V, 1983 – 1990

April 10, 2018, 8:05 am

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6 August 1931 – 19 October 2017

"A mostly unsung titan has passed." The great Umberto Lenzi has left us! In a career that spanned over 30 years, the Italian director churned out fine quality as well as crappy Eurotrash in all genres: comedy, peplum, Eurospy, spaghetti westerns and macaroni combat, poliziotteschi, cannibal and giallo.

Go here for Part I: 1958-63
Go here for Part II: 1964-68
Go here forPart III: 1969-75
Go here for Part IV: 1976-82



Ironmaster

(1983, dir. Humphrey Milestone)

We imagine Lenzi watched Quest for Fire (1981 / trailer) and Conan the Barbarian (1982 / trailer), and thus the rough idea of his next movie was born. Italian title: La guerra del ferro: Ironmaster. At least for the English-language release, Umberto Lenzi's Iron Age-set adventure flick was credited to "Humphrey Milestone".

The great poster above, for the German release, was drawn by the great Lutz Peltzer, (1925-2003) who probably made well over 800 posters during his career, including the equally breast-heavy German posters for Lenzi's Cannibal Ferox (1981 / See: Part IV) and Eaten Alive (1980 / See: Part IV). For theDVD cover below and most other places the art was used, the babe had body parts censored.

We haven't seen Ironmaster yet, but going by what It's A Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad Movie! says, it's our kind of movie: "This movie tries so hard to be good, and yet it shoots itself in the foot at every turn. I love movies like this — you know everyone involved was trying their absolute best to make this movie great, and yet they failed so completely that you have no choice but to laugh long and loud at their attempts. You are flogged so hard and so often with the central message of this movie ('weapons are bad') that you end up having the exact opposite opinion at the end of the movie. All in all, a near-classic."

Trailer to
Ironmaster:

Mondo Digital, which calls the movie "unforgettable", says the movie was filmed at South Dakota's Custer State Park, a location used in such movie as The Last Hunt (1956 / trailer), How the West Was Won (1962 / trailer) and A Man Called Horse (1970): "Though it doesn't have a single original bone in its body, Ironmaster still entertains mightily if you're in the right frame of mind thanks to a wild-eyed performance by George Eastman (who could really play villains like no one else), a fascinatingly unique setting that turns out to be wholly appropriate and convincing, some amusing costume choices, and a pounding, memorable score by the great Guido and Maurizio De Angelis that has yet to see the light of day in any format. Unfortunately there's a pretty big void at the center with obligatory blonde love interest Elvire Audray (girlfriend of the film's French co-financier) and especially Sam Pasco [aka Big Max & Mike Spanner & Jim Craig*], part of a peculiar trend of actors in gay hardcore productions turning up in Italian exploitation films (along with such examples as Zombie 4: After Death's [1988 / trailer] Jeff "Bratwurst" Stryker and Eleven Days, Eleven Nights' [1987 / trailer] Joshua McDonald**). It's entirely up to Pasco's bodybuilder presence to carry his role since he rarely looks like he has any idea what's going on, and the rumors about his tragic demise before the decade was out add some mystique to what is now one of the odder one-shot leading roles in Italian cinema." 

*It should be noted, his whole body was in proportion. He did a great pictorial with the legendary Bruno. In any event, if he looks like a duffus in his wig for this movie, he's nevertheless totally hot as Castro clone.
**McDonald is actually a porn film director and producer, but who's going to split pubic hairs?

To publicize the known rumors, we go to Cinema's Fringes, which says: "The back story of the film's main star — Sam Pasco — is more interesting than the film itself. He was a bodybuilder, gay model and porn star who regularly used the pseudonym 'Big Max'. Ironmaster is his only known non-porn movie credit, and it has been rumoured (although not verified; the porn industry is notoriously secretive) that he died in 1985, possibly as a result of overdosing on steroids. His co-star Elvire Audray also came to a sad, premature end as she committed suicide in the year 2000 at the age of 40."

Some sites, it should probably be added, say Sam Pasco died of AIDS — a death that would fit the generation.

Oh, wait. The plot? Let's go to Good Efficient Butchery for that: "Iksay (Benito Stefanelli) would rather hand control of his tribe off to the more well-liked and even-tempered Ela (Sam Pasco), but he never gets the chance since an impatient Vuud (the legendary George Eastman) bashes in his father's skull, a vicious act witnessed by Ela. Ela outs Vuud as a murderer, to which Vuud naturally responds by attacking Ela in a violent rage, accidentally killing Rag (Danilo Mattei) when he tries to break up the scuffle. Vuud is banished to the surrounding desert, where he encounters the duplicitous Lith (Pamela Prati) and discovers iron in the shape of a sword in the aftermath of a stock footage volcanic eruption. Believing he has found a new form of weapon beyond their customary rocks and sticks, Vuud returns to the tribe and is hailed as a god, his first act to banish Ela to six days and nights crucified in the desert as he and Lith take charge, roaming the land, dominating and enslaving every peaceful tribe they encounter. The cave people are ordered to accept this as their new normal and anyone who objects is killed. Ela befriends Isa (Elvire Audray [25 April 1960 – 23 July 2000]), the daughter of kindly tribe leader Mogo (William Berger of Django 2 [1987 / trailer], Dial: Help [1988 / Danish trailer], Dr M [1990 / opening] and so much more), who assembles his people to help Ela take back his tribe and overthrow the despotic Vuud and the scheming, self-serving Lith, his chief source of encouragement and prodding." 

Wild Team

(1985, dir. Umberto Lenzi)

Filmed in sunny Miami. Italian title, I cinque del Condor. Aka Thunder Squad. Written by Roberto Leoni, who three years later assisted Alejandro Jodorowsky on the script to that director's typically enthralling trip into weirdness known as Sante Sangre (1989 / trailer), a much better film than this one. Going by Roberto Leoni's most recent breast-heavy project, De Serpentis Munere (2017 / trailer), a labor of love that he wrote and directed, art house is his thing. God knows, his script to this movie is totally generic.

 

The plot of this very 80s action flick, as found at Comeuppance Reviews: "On the island of Manioca, an evil, 'El Presidente'-style leader named Gomez has kidnapped the son of the rebel leader, Cordura (Franco Fantasia), who is described as a 'symbol of freedom' for the Maniocan people, although they seem pretty free as it is if we're to judge by their carnivale-style antics. A group of men in suits in Miami who work for a mining operation, and are tied up in the whole revolutionary battle financially, decide they could either spend millions of dollars mounting a rescue operation to save the son, or they could do it on a budget by employing The Wild Team! So naturally they hire a man named Martin Cuomo (Antonio "Wooden" Sabato) […] and his group, consisting of Theo (Werner Pochath [29 Sept 1939 – 18 April 1993], also of Juan Piquer Simón's Cthulhu Mansion [1992 / trailer]), Paco (Sal Borghese), Marius (Ivan "Jawline" Rassimov), and female explosives and short-shorts expert Sybil Slater (Julia Kent). The Wild Team, or perhaps the Thunder Squad (they should really make up their minds), go to Manioca and shoot/blow up some people/huts in order to save the boy and win the day. But will they be successful?"

Video Vacuum didn't like it: "Wild Team moves at a snail's pace, but if you stick with it, you'll get to see a lot of bamboo huts blow up. There are also a couple of big explosions during the finale, and we also get a decent arrow through the neck scene in there as well. And while none of this comes close to salvaging the movie, it's enough to save it from getting a One Star rating."

But it's the movie's very badness that appeals to Mondo Squalid, which gushes that "this is a classic example of 'so bad it's good' cinema. There are many moments that stand out in this one including an obscenely terrific sequence where I kid you not, psychoanalysts [sic]* are used to telepathically locate where the kid is being held captive. If I didn't have a beer belly, I would have broken my jaw on the floor at how terrific that is. Another highlight for me is the absolutely terrible German accent used for Werner Pocath's character. I have no idea if the Austrian dubbed his own voice or not but either way... it's one of the most painfully awful yet amazing accents I have heard! It definitely gives the cliché Nazi evil genius voice we all know and love a run for its money. Wild Team's another one of those films where there are just tiny moments of absurdity that will have you yelping with laughter and disbelief all the way through!" 

*He means "psychics", we assume.

Interesting to note that the sleeve art for the various VHS releases around the world is far more interesting and qualitative noteworthy than the movie itself. 

Bridge to Hell

(1986, writ & dir Umerto Lenzi)

Italian title, Un ponte per l'inferno; possibly aka Commando Panther. Lenzi returns to macaroni war movie genre with this little-seen flick, the scenes of which are supposedly edited in from Hajrudin Krvavac's Battle of the Eagles (1979 / trailer) and Stipe Delic's Sutjeska (1973 / credit sequence).

Video Vaccum, which says "this one was a real bitch to stay awake through", has the plot: "Three multi-national WWII soldiers escape from a German prison camp and run into a squadron of American soldiers. They give our heroes a choice: Take part in a daring assault on a German stronghold or be labeled as deserters and be incarcerated. They naturally agree, but their real intention is to steal a cache of gold from a bunch of nuns."

Where are nude nuns with big guns
when you need them?

Monster Hunter, which raves "With Bridge to Hell […] Umberto does the unthinkable — he bores our ass off!", also says "Bridge to Hell is the sort of movie that makes the following quote possible: Director Umberto Lenzi and star Andy Forest would team up again with better results in The House of Witchcraft!"

 

Pay the Rent:

In any event, no one — and we mean no one — who has seen the movie, and saw fit to write about it online, seems to have liked the movie. 

Wartime
(1987, writ & dir Umberto Lenzi)

Not to be confused with Teddy Page's Wartime, starring Bo Severson and also from 1987, aka Movie in Action (trailer). No this Wartime here is another Lenzi Italo-Yugo coproduction which, like Lenzi's other Italo-Yugo war flicks, is justifiably obscure. Italian title: Tempi di Guerra.

Co-written by Ambrogio Molteni, who had worked on more-interesting projects in the past, including Bruno Mattei's Caged Women / Violenza in un carcere femminile (1982 / trailer), I vizi morbosi di una governante (1977 / opening credits), Enter the Devil / L'ossessa (1974 / trailer), and a little project he co-directed, Death on the Fourposter / Delitto allo specchio (1964 / trailer).

 

Wartime did make it to Germany, where it was entitled Kommando Schwarzer Panther, or "Commando Black Panther". Over at Film Fan, they even have a plot description, which we have translated very, very loosely: "The inferno of World War II is heading to its climax: Although the battle that should have brought the 'Final Victory' has been lost, SS officers, partisans and spies are taking the madness of war to the next level. Amundsen (Giacomo Rossi Stuart [25 Aug 1925 – 20 Oct 1994] of Kill Baby Kill [1966 / trailer] and The Last Man on Earth [1964]), a Swedish scientist, seems to have the key to ending all wars in his head — could he possibly change the tide of the war with a new weapon that he has already made? And if yes, for whom? Both the German intelligence officer Dietrich (Werner Pochath) and the Anglo-American spy Rosen (Peter Hooten) want to get their hands on the Swedish Professor. An undertaking that is bound to end in blood, filth and death. In the Italian Austrian Alps, it comes to the final, crucial battle with tanks, infantry, mountain troops and partisans of all colors...."

German trailer to
Kommando Schwarzer Panther:

Trivia: The mostly retired American actor Peter Hooten is the first actor to have ever played Marvel's comic character Dr Strange, which he did in the 1978 TV movie Dr Strange (trailer). Hooten, the significant other of the Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet James Merrill (3 Mar 1926 – 6 Feb 1995), retired from films after Claudio Fragasso's 1990 horror movie Non aprite quella porta 3 / Night Killer (full movie) and eventually moved to Florida, first to St. Augustine and, most recently, Sarasota. There, in the geriatric state, he has participated in two regional horror movies, John Rusnak's House of Blood (2013 / trailer) and Michael Lang's Souleater (2017 / trailer).

Ghosthouse

(1988, dir. "Humphrey Humbert")

Umberto Lenzi returns to horror with this turdberry, produced by no one less than the legendary and prolific purveyor of trash of all kind, Joe D'amato (15 Dec 1936 – 23 Jan 1999). Released as Ghosthouse in the US, in Italy it had the moniker La Casa 3 so as to ride on the coattails La Casa 2 (otherwise known as Sam Rami's Evil Dead 2 [1987 / trailer]) and La Casa 1 (Sam Rami's Evil Dead [1981 / trailer]), two movies this one has nothing to do with. But then, neither did La Casa 4 (aka Witchery [1988 / trailer]) or La Casa 5 (aka Beyond Darkness [1990 / trailer]) or La Casa 6 (aka House II: The Second Story [1987 / trailer]) or La Casa 7 (aka The Horror Show [1989 / Italian trailer]). Supposedly Ghosthouse filmed in the same house as Lucio Fulci's The House by the Cemetery (1981 / trailer). 

Go here for our review of Ghosthouse— we watched it so you don't have to.

Trailer to
Ghosthouse:

But then again, some people do like it — Ninja Dixon, for example, who calls the movie a "criminally underrated corny masterpiece". Here's his plot description: "The wonderfully stiff couple Martha and Paul (played with the enthusiasm of a couple of wax dolls by Laura Wendel and Greg Scott) pick up a mysterious message at their radio…thingie (I'm too lazy to check the English expression for what they're doing). Paul suspects it's a murder and together they manage to find the source… and meet another couple with radio-thingie as a hobby. It's their voices they heard (and recorded), but they're still alive! They're based at a strange old house, and soon something kills them off one by one!"

 

Laura Wendel, born Daniela Barnes in Munich to the German actress Britta Wendel (seen somewhere in Fellini's Roma [1972 / trailer]) and the American football player and film actor Walter Barnes (26 Jan 1918 – 6 Jan 1998, of Day of the Animals [1977 / German trailer], Pigs [1973 / full movie] and Lenzi's Queen of the Seas [1961 / see Part II], among many projects) may not have been much of an actress, and her outfits in Ghosthouse are one and all uncomplimentary, but nude and unashamed she does look good. The image of her above is not from the movie.

Primal Rage

(1988, dir. Vittorio Rambaldi)

Italian name: Rage — Furia primitive. The same year that Lenzi regurgitated the less-than-spectacular Ghosthouse, he supposedly supplied the script to this Italo-horror under the nom de plume "Harry Kirkpatrick". The director of Primal Rage, aka the son of the great Italian special effects artist Carlo Rambaldi [15 Sept 1925 – 10 Aug 2012], who seems to have made his feature film directorial debut with this movie, returned the scriptwriting favor by co-scripting Umberto Lenzi's 1989 release Nightmare Beach— which, like this movie here, was also filmed in Florida at the same time, according to some sources (the two movies even share a few of the same actors and possibly the same red scooter).

One cannot help but wonder if the name given to the virus in 28 Days Later (2002 / trailer) & 28 Weeks Later (2007 / trailer) isn't a nod to the virus in this movie... or, hell: whether the scriptwriter of 28 Days Later didn't simply rip this film off and do a better job with the concept.

Italo Trailer:

In any event, DVD Drive-In has the plot synopsis: "On a typically active Florida college campus, Ethridge (Bo Svenson, the veteran among a cast of mainly unknowns) is given funding to do research using a baboon, for reasons that have to do with restoring dead brain tissue, or something to that effect. Smiley campus nice guy Sam Ash (Patrick Lowe of Slumber Party Massacre II [1987 / trailer]) and self-labeled gonzo journalist Duffy (Mitch Watson of Rush Week [1988 / trailer]), plan to break the story and find out what this guy is up to. Duffy makes the mistake of breaking into the lab, accidentally freeing the primate (soon killed by an oncoming police car), but is bitten in the process. It seems the animal was given some sort of experimental injections and now Duffy is infected with a 'rage' disease that gets progressively worse. With Duffy quickly transforming into a diseased madman, Sam sets them up on dates with two campus cuties in the shape of Lauren (Cheryl Arutt) and Debbie (soap star Sarah Buxton). Duffy shows his first signs of intensified rage by ably protecting date Debbie from a much beefier, sexist aggressor, but later as they're smooching by the pool, his hickey infects her with the rage syndrome. Duffy later goes ape shit in a doctor's office and proceeds to kill a few innocent bystanders. Debbie becomes abducted by a trio of muscle-headed would-be rapists, but the imbeciles only manage to get bitten (and you guessed it, infected) before she easily gets away. The police rightly suspect Duffy of the slaughter and destruction, while Sam has to make a drastic decision about his buddy's well being. Sam's romance with Lauren flourishes and the effects of the spreading rage virus culminate at a campus Halloween party, providing a lively backdrop for the climax."

 

Good ol'Final Girl, it would seem, doesn't seem to have truly enjoyed the movie, and ponders: "Gee, I really love 28 Days Later but I wish it took place quietly on a college campus. And I wish the characters were fairly irritating and they'd do really nonsensical things. And I wish that there was an awful '80s soundtrack that consisted mostly of one song played over and over again. And I wish that there was really no urgency to the proceedings, even when three rage-infected rapists run around at a Halloween party killing people... basically, I wish 28 Days Later was a fair-to-middling, mildly entertaining '80s movie that doesn't capitalize on a good concept, even though it has decent enough gore!" (Tell 'em like it is, Stacy!)

House of Self Indulgence, however, truly gets down to brass tacks and says: "Every time Bo Svenson's weak-ass ponytail would appear onscreen, I found myself teetering on the brink of madness. Now, normally, I'm in favour of ponytails on men, but the one Bo Svenson (Night Warning [1982 / trailer, with Susan Tyrrell]) sports in this movie gives male ponytails a bad name. In fact, if I had a ponytail while I watched this movie, I would have cut it off in disgust the second I had the chance. It's a good thing I already went through my ponytail phase, or else we would have been... uh, I guess, cleaning up a huge wad of hair. What I think I'm trying to say is this: I despised Bo Svenson's ponytail in this movie."

Pre-Obamacare
Rage:

Cool Ass Cinema, in any event, raves (?): "Primal Rage is a terrible movie, but one that fans with a sweet tooth for crap cinema will gleefully gobble up. From the very beginning the viewer instantly knows they are in for a riotously horrible good time. In fact, you're not even sure if what you're watching is a horror movie what with sappy opening resembling a teen sex comedy than anything else. If drivel like Zombie 3 (1988 / trailer) is your cup of tea, than Primal Rage will satisfy the beast inside."

From the movie —
Love is My Mania by the (Italian) Fast Food Girls
(they couldn't sing — but with attributes like theirs, who cares?):
 


Striker

(1988, dir. "Stephen M. Andrews")

Aka Combat Force. Another Miami-made movie from 1988, this time around Umberto Lenzi wrote the script with Tito Carpi (10 July 1931 – 1998), the latter a true Italian master-scripter of filmic flotsam. Director "Stephen M. Andrews" is actually the great Italo genre specialist Enzo G. Castellari, and the movie an Italo Rambo flick, but less First Blood (1982 / trailer) than that which came later. It was followed by a sequel of sorts three years later, Project Eliminator aka Stroker (1991 / scenes). For all that, this film is obscure with a capital "O".

Nevertheless, B-Movie Bingo watched it and said, "The movie features wooden, blonde beefcake Frank Zagarino as John 'Striker' Slade, who is 'best in extraction from hostile territories'. His weapon of choice is a slingshot with a brass knuckle grip — no wonder he's considered the best! He's called upon by the US government when his old war buddy turned journalist, Frank Miller (John Phillip Law of Night Train to Terror [1985]), is kidnapped by the truth-silencing Nicaragua crime lord 'Kariasin' (John Steiner of Salon Kitty [1976]). Guided by a beautiful but deadly local woman named Marta (Melonee Rodgers), Striker infiltrates the jungle hideout of Kariasin… and beyond!"

Trailer to

Striker:
 



Nightmare Beach

(1989, writ & dir. "Harry Kirkpatrick")

"Harry Kirkpatrick", aka Umberto Lenzi, makes a cheapo American slasher in the geriatric state of Florida, taking place during the time when so many geriatrics there have heart attacks from too much visual excitement: Spring Break. That's why it's aka Welcome to Spring Break. Co-written with Vittorio Rambaldi (see Primal Rage, above) and, supposedly, some guy named James Justice. Great name.

It is hard to completely dislike a movie that features both Michael Parks (24 April 1940 – 9 May 2017, Planet Terror [2007], From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter [1999] and so much more) and John Saxon in the cast, but (Re)Search My Trash doesn't seem to have any compunctions, saying, "Nightmare Beach / Welcome to Spring Break (1988), an American production, is pretty much your standard cheap and uninteresting slasher, with Lenzi's Spartan directorial style translating into uninspired. Actually there is very little this film has to go for it, and why the American producers needed to hire an Italian director to deliver a film as routine as this is beyond me."

Italian Trailer to
Nightmare Beach:

It should be noted, however, that Wikipedia refers to Palmerini & Mistretta's book Spaghetti Nightmares for the interesting tidbit of info that "Umberto Lenzi, originally hired to direct, had a falling out with the producer just as production started and wanted to be taken off the film. […] Screenwriter Harry Kirkpatrick (also known as James Justice) was given the job of directing, and received sole directorial credit, though he convinced Lenzi to remain on the set in an uncredited advisory capacity throughout the entire production. For years, many horror film fans thought Harry Kirkpatrick was an alias for Lenzi, but Lenzi has stated in interviews that there really was a Harry Kirkpatrick who wrote & co-directed that film. He explained, 'My contribution consisted solely of providing technical assistance. Welcome to Spring Break should be considered the work of Harry Kirkpatrick.'" (Personally: The lady doth protest too much, methinks.)

Beyond Hollywood, which says "Nightmare Beach is kind of like Lenzi-light — all the bad stuff and none of the good", has the plot: "A year after a biker gang leader (Rawley Valverde) is executed for murder, teens that have turned up for spring break start to die. A supernatural figure clad in black leather and riding a bike that he uses to electrocute his victims is apparently wasting the poor partygoers. Who could the killer be? The angry spirit of the gang leader? Violent cop John Saxon? The vaguely sinister Reverend Bates (Lance LeGault [May 2, 1935 – September 10, 2012])? Who cares? Well, Skip (Nicolas De Toth) cares, and after the death of his excruciatingly annoying friend, he sets out to solve the mystery in-between drinking beers and trying to get into barmaid (Sarah Buxton) Gail's pants." That's Sarah below, not from the movie.

Ha Ha It's Burl sort of hits the possible appeal of the movie on the head when he says, "The great thing about Welcome to Spring Break is that, like only a precious few other movies, such as Final Exam (1981 / trailer), it manages to achieve a great balance of spring break stuff, like boobs and beer-drinking antics, with the wacky murder stuff! (And unlike Final Exam, it's actually pretty gory!) Put it this way: have you ever watched a teen sex comedy and about halfway through it thought 'Ha ha, I wish somebody would start killing this bunch of goofs!' Well that's exactly what happens in Welcome to Spring Break! Ha ha, I give Welcome to Spring Break two beaver hunts, mostly for mixing two genres so seamlessly! Take a look yourself, and maybe, just maybe, you'll agree!"

Monster Hunter obviously does, for he literally gushes "Director Umberto Lenzi […] effortlessly delivers another cheap and scuzzy violent video wet dream!" 

Gates of Hell

(1989, writ & dir Umberto Lenzi)

Aka The Hell's Gate. Italian title, Le porte dell'inferno— co-written with his [possibly second]* wife, Olga Pehar (8 Feb 1938 – 20 Nov 2015). Possibly dry of ideas, he and his wife hop on Fulci's idea of gates of hell (see: City of the Living Dead[1980], The Beyond [1981 / trailer] and The House by the Cemetery [1981 / trailer]) and makes a movie about the Gates of Hell. Indeed, some the DVDs of the movie go so far as to claim "Lucio Fulci Presents"— Hah Hah Hah! 

*See Lenzi's first directorial effort in Part I for the explanation of "possibly second". 

Quiet Cool, which thinks that though "the script, the acting, and the budget are working against Lenzi the whole time, [...] but The Hell's Gate is sometimes b-movie magic from an Italian master," has the plot: "Maurizio (Gaetano Russo of Island of the Living Dead [2007 / German trailer] & The Red Monks [1988 / trailer]) has been living in total darkness in a grotto for seventy-eight days and has set the world record for such inhospitable living. Above ground, Dr. Johns (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart [in his last film]) awaits his return within an hour alongside the eager press to begin a series of medical tests on Maurizio to study the effects of the long cave dwelling. Dr. Johns has three assistants: Anna (Barbara Cupisti of Dellamorte Dellamore [1994 / trailer] & Stage Fright [1987 / trailer]), Paul (Pietro Genuardi), and Manfred (Lorenzo Majnoni). Chatting with the press, Dr. Johns reveals that his team has watched all of Maurizio's movements via closed-circuit television for the whole duration. What the hell is that? Static. Shit. Anna calls off the press, and let's don our multi-colored spelunking gear and go down and get the poor bastard. Wait! Enter Laura (Andrea Damiano), a beautiful young scholar, who has been studying the ancient church on the hillside top. Laura is accompanied by the whining Theo (Mario Luzzi). Laura wants to enter the grotto with Dr. Johns and his crew, because she believes the grotto is literally and figuratively linked to the church and wants to explore. Sorry, lady, but this is an emergency. Laura's trump card is an archaeological map of the underground caverns. Okay, lady, you can come but stay out of the way. Enter horror theme: the church atop the hill might have been populated by heretic priests. [...]" 

Ninja Dixon says, "Hell's Gate is far from perfect, but still an entertaining piece of b-movie heaven. [...] Ok, I've seen this movie many times but I've never understood every detail. As usual I like to focus on the good things and except the very, very low budget this movie is quite an entertaining little flick, but far from a masterpiece. [...] It's not better than Black Demons or Ghosthouse [!!!], but I have a soft spot for this one. Can't help me, so shoot me if you want."

 

Trash Film Addict, which mentions that above grounds scenes of Hell's Gate are shot "on the same location as Lamberto Bava's Graveyard Disturbance [1987 / trailer] and Deran Serafian's Interzone [1987 / French trailer]" probably wouldn't do the last, as he is of the opinion that "If you can get over the unimaginative visual style, Hell's Gate can be enjoyable. Just don't expect fresh ideas or anything remotely frightening. Better be content with occasional gore scenes and a cameo by the one and only Paul Muller."

Spoiler — Everyone dies:

 

House of Lost Souls
(1989, writ & dir. Umberto Lenzi)

Somewhere along the way — sources are not unified regarding the actual sequence of events — but either Lucio Fulci and Umberto Lenzi approached Italian TV or Italian TV approached them about making a series of TV horror movies on the theme of "Le case maledette", or " Houses of Doom".

The result, two Fulci films, La dolce casa degli orrori / The Sweet House of Horrors (1989 / trailer) and La casa nel tempo / The House of Clocks (1989/ trailer), and two Lenzi films, this one here (Italian title: La casa delle anime erranti) and La casa del sortilegio / House of Witchcraft (1989) — the latter of which, interestingly enough, was marketed in Germany as a sequel to Ulli Lommel's (21 Dec 1944 – 2 Dec 2017) The Devonsville Terror (1983 / trailer). All four "Houses of Doom" movies were deemed too violent for Italian television, and lingered in limbo until finally being released on DVD.

Cosi Perversa seems to have ambivalent feelings about what they say is "the fourth & final film in the ironically named 'Doomed House' series": "House of Lost Souls is clearly a very silly film which rarely comes close to being scary but it has enough substance to appeal to fans who know what to expect from late-eighties Italian horror. The budget is obviously tiny, evidenced by the minimal locations, but this works in the film's favour as the longer we spend in the motel with our doomed protagonists, the more Lenzi allows the atmosphere and the environment to close in. The pace is respectably swift, and once the first head rolls the film never really lets up until the fiery finale. There are some sloppy moments however, such as Mary entering the kitchen via a set of glass doors which magically change to solid wood in the next shot, and there are even a few boom mics slipping into view (pause on 25:54)! Not to mention some truly bizarre dialogue. In my opinion it is the most entertaining of the 'Doomed House' series, despite feeling like a retread of Lenzi's earlier film Ghosthouse."

Off with his head:

Gore Press, which suggests that "if someone suggests watching this little known title, it's best to poke them in the eyes and beat them with the DVD case until they submit and allow you to choose a better film," has the plot: "House Of Lost Souls sees a group of young geologists, one of whom (Stefania Orsola Garello) suffers from ghastly visions, on their way back from a successful trip, when extreme weather conditions mean their route home is blocked. Not wanting to make their way back into town, as any sensible person would have done, they decide instead, to spend the night in a dilapidated motel in the middle of nowhere. They take to their rooms after being greeted and given room keys by the mute and surly manager (Charles Borromel) only to find that as luck would have it, they've picked the one motel that's currently haunted by the victims of the serial killer who used to run the place after he went on a murdering frenzy, offing his guests, his family and then himself back in 1969. [...]" Most die.

Unlike Gore Press, and more so than the ambivalent Cosi Perversa, Rubber Monster Fetishism has some good words for the movie: "I tend to get nostalgic from time to time, for the good old days. With that I mean all of the nice exploitation that poured out of Italy in the seventies and eighties. Those days are gone now, but now and again I find some movie from that period that I've missed and Umberto Lenzi's La casa delle anime erranti aka The House of Lost Souls is such a movie. [....] The movie starts a bit dull, and it's not helped by some really bad acting and even worse dialogue. But then, at the 35-minute mark, something magic happens. The little annoying fuck (Costantino Meloni) follows a ghost boy (Dino Jaksic) and ends up with his head in a washing machine and is wonderfully decapitated. After that, anything remotely bad was simply forgotten and I enjoyed the movie to the fullest. Yes, the acting is horrible, especially our hero who is played by Joseph Alan Johnson, writer and star of the 'classic' slasher Iced (1988 / final scene) [...]. Umberto Lenzi might not have had much of his heart in it, but even then he is still a professional and the movie looks good for its budget. The gore scenes are obviously toned down a bit and a promising scene with a chainsaw cuts away at precisely the wrong moment, but we do get a bunch of nice decapitations. Add to this a halfway decent score by Claudio Simonetti using a pseudonym and we get a cozy little Italian exploitation movie."

Before Joseph Alan Johnson retired to act at the Early Bird Dinner Theatre in Clearwater, Florida, he had some parts of various sizes in some enjoyable trash, including The Slumber Party Massacre (1982 / trailer), Il fantasma di Sodoma (1988 / full film), and Berserker (1987 / trailer).

Paura nel buio
(1989, writ & dir. "Humphrey Humbert")

Filmed in beautiful Virginia Beach, VA, co-written with his [possibly second]* wife, Olga Pehar (8 Feb 1938 – 20 Nov 2015). English title: Hitcher in the Dark. Can also be found as The Hitcher 2 and/or Return of the Hitcher, in a desperate attempt to be mistaken as a sequel to the classic road horror flick The Hitcher (1986 / trailer), which was pointlessly remade in 2007 (trailer).
* See his first directorial effort in Part I for the explanation of "possibly second".

Does the music sound familiar to you? Then maybe you once saw the Claudio Lattanzi's Killing Birds: Raptors / Zombie 5 (1987 / trailer), as both movies use the same soundtrack — probably because both movies were produced by sleazemaestro extraordinaire, Joe D'Amato. Unlike with his other US-shot movies down in Florida, Lenzi couldn't find one rent-desperate semi-name to show up for a single scene.

Trailer to
Hitcher in the Dark:

Dr Gore gives the flick "1.5 out of 4 psychotic Winnebagos", saying "Hitcher in the Dark may just be sordid enough to warrant a viewing. I can't say that I loved every second of it but it does have its seedy moments." That said, he also laments, "This movie could have been good. The problem is the acting. Since most of the movie is spent having the psycho (Joe Balogh of the what-the-fuck movie that is Revenge of the Red Baron (1994 / trailer], and Andy (12 Feb 1929 – 3 June 1991) Milligan's  Monstrosity [1987]) converse with his prey, it is imperative that the psycho be believable and, if at all possible, scary. He is none of that. In fact, he's awful. One of the worst acting performances ever. Since the camera is on him through most of the flick, he starts to wear you down with his lazy psycho routine. The hitchhiker he picks up, (Josie Bissett of Mikey [1992 / trailer]), was good."

Trailer to
Andy Milligan's Monstrosity,
featuring Joe Balogh as "Carlos":

Monster Hunter, which says that the movie "might have been a masterpiece if the producer hadn't made [Lenzi] tack on anything after the opening credits", has the plot: "[...] Forty-watt mega star Joe Balogh [...] turns it up about ten notches by adding in oversized mirrored sunglasses, a gigantic motor home, and a hilarious potty mouth for his role as hotel heir Mark Glazer. In addition to his lack of fashion sense [...], Mark's problems adjusting to his parents' breakup have led him straight into Norman Bates territory. Mark's gimmick is to drive around in an enormous, very conspicuous, and hard-to-park motor home, pick up women and make them pretend to be his mommy. Needing to unwind after a tough day of disposing corpses in the swamps, Mark goes to a bar where he refuses to take off his really big mirrored sunglasses and also refuses to talk to some chicks that are hitting on him [...]. Meanwhile, Daniela and her boyfriend Kevin (Jason Saucier of Contamination .7 / The Crawlers [1993 / trailer]) get into a fight. He gets himself slapped and she walks out on him. Later on, Mark is cruising around in his RV and she asks him for a lift to the bus station. He drugs her and takes her captive and proceeds to give her an extreme make over. This involves him looking at an 8×10 of his mommy — a middle-aged hag with a helmet haircut — and chopping Daniela's bottle blonde hair off, coloring it and sculpting it into a wig that's nastier than you can imagine. [...]"

Just to show how different the same movie can affect different people, over at The Terror Trap they say Hitcher in the Dark is a "Well-done thriller from director Umberto Lenzi. [...] Good action sequences dutifully propel the action forward, but strong performances by both Balogh and Bissett really hold the enterprise together."

 

The Video Vacuum was also impressed, but by other things: "Special mention must also be made of the great scene early in the film where a bunch of idiot white people dance around in an embarrassing manner to some truly stupid music. The shots of pasty people cavorting around the campground while shaking their groove thing and blasting their boom box will linger in your head long after you've ejected the movie out of your DVD player."

Not from the Movie —
Peaches & Herb 

sing Shake Your Groove Thang:

 

The House of Witchcraft
(1989, writ & dir Umberto Lenzi)

(OK, so this movie was made before House of Lost Souls above. Kill us.) Italian title, La casa del sortilegio, over at Amazon.com someone translated the title as "House of Shitcraft": the first of Lenzi's two movies for the aborted TV project, "Le case maledette", or "Houses of Doom". As mentioned above (see House of Lost Souls), this movie was marketed in Germany as a sequel to Ulli Lommel's The Devonsville Terror (1983 / trailer). We actually have this in our "To Watch" pile which, unluckily, is currently on Mallorca while we are in Berlin.

Why watch the movie when there's
cheap-ass trailers like this one?

TheBloody Pit of Horror has the plot: "Luke Palmer (Andy J. Forest) has been having a recurring nightmare for the past six months. In it, he encounters a grinning hag witch (Maria Clementina Cumani Quasimodo [7 Jan 1908 – 22 Nov 1995] of Nosferatu a Venezia [1987 / trailer] and Sex Life in a Women's Prison [1974 / German trailer]) after going to a large country home, and the dream always ends the same way: '...with my head boiling in that God-damn huge cauldron!' So troubling are the dreams that Luke's checked himself into a hospital for a nervous breakdown. His widowed sister-in-law Elsa (Susanna Martinková) is his doctor. She gives him a few pills and asks about how his six-month-long marriage to Martha (Sonia Petrovna) is going. Not well, he says. There's no sex and she's obsessed with the occult. Elsa tells him to stop 'dwelling on the morbid'. Luke checks out and is picked up by his wife, who has arranged one final little get-away so the two can determine whether or not their marriage is worth saving. Going by the fact they sleep in separate bedrooms upon arrival and she refers to him as 'the most abominable being in the world' at a larger junction, my advice is 'Time for a divorce!' The house Martha has rented ends up being the same large country home from Luke's nightmare. If the bad omens couldn't get any worse, Luke and Martha are involved in a car accident where the passengers of the other vehicle end up dead. She shrugs it off and demands they split before the police arrive. [...]"

But if most of people who have seen this movie — oddly enough, most reviews are in German — find it a confusing, illogical mess, Monster Hunter nevertheless gives the movie "Four heads in a cauldron out of five!"

 

Hypnotic Crescendos, on the other hand, was less impressed, though not entirely repulsed by the film: "Lenzi's second film in the [Houses of Doom] series, The House of Witchcraft (La casa del sortilegio) is, in my opinion, the worst entry of the series. The film contains little in the way of gore and its slow pacing, predictable plot and lacklustre production makes for a frustrating watch. However, as par with the course of the series, there's enough humour and the occasional unsettling Freudian-tinged moment to make this worth at least a casual watch."

And the great Paul Muller shows up again as well! (If his name doesn't ring a bell, his face should: he's the momk guy with the scissors above at Gates of Hell.)

Cop Target

(1990, dir "Humphrey Humbert")

Umberto Lenzi films a movie he didn't write! Nope, Cop Target was written by some guy named Raimondo Del Balzo (17 Jan 1939 – 22 Sept 1995), who once upon a time co-wrote Paganini Horror (1989 / trailer) and Midnight Blue (1979 / trailer). For the first time, Lenzi works together with the great Charles Napier (12 April 1936 – 5 Oct 2011); Cop Target is also the last feature film appearance for the other cult name of the movie, Robert Ginty (14 Nov 1948 – 21 Sept 2009), of The Exterminator (1980 / trailer), The Exterminator II (1984 / trailer), Warrior of the Lost World (1983 / trailer), The Alchimist (1983 / trailer), and more. Always on the sly to cut costs, sequences of the car chase scene were taken from Strike Commando (1986 / trailer), while the helicopter explosion was taken from Cobra Mission (1988 / trailer).

Trailer to
Cop Target:

According to Monster Hunter, "Napier's evil embassy character previously appeared in The Last Match (1991) so we know that the double-cross clock has officially starting ticking!" (If you don't know The Last Match yet, it's time you do.)

Trailer to
The Last Match:

Women in Prison Films has plot that they probably lifted without credit from somewhere: "I cannot fully express in words how much I love this flick so I'm rubbing my junk while I write this one-handed. Robert motherfuckin Ginty plays tough as nails, wise-crackin cop Farley Wood, don't let the name fool you he's a real man's man; we're introduced to our hero as he kerb crawls for scum and ends up helping out a transsexual in distress. No rest for the wicked tho, before you know it Wood's being packed off to a tropical island to bodyguard a dead ambassador's wife and kid. He barely has time to set his cat's automatic feeding machine but he still manages to squeeze in a quick Dirty Harry like takedown of some armed robbers at his local supermarket. Touching down on the island he takes an instant dislike to the posh bitch he's going to be protecting and a borderline racist attitude towards the locals which is handy because it's not long before Wood's called on to cull the scumbag population one bullet at a time. Ginty is one seriously relaxed actor in this one, he sleepwalks through the movie barely opening his eyes enough to make sure he won't step on the bloody cat. Every single supporting actor and extra is hilarious in one way or another. Poor Barbara Bingham's motivations are all over the place from one scene to the next; witness one of the most excruciatingly awkward seduction scenes in movie history. Charles Napier looks like he's having a fucking blast though."

Barbara Bingham, found in fine stuff like Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989 / trailer), Horror House 2 (1990 / German trailer) and Death Mask (1984, with Farley Granger) seems to have left the film biz soon after this movie. Wonder why.

More to come...

---

Cult (USA, 2007)

April 17, 2018, 8:31 am

≫ Next: Short Film: Malafafone (USA, 2017)

≪ Previous: R.I.P.: Umberto Lenzi, Part V, 1983 – 1990

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(Spoilers, not that it matters.) It's always a bad sign when less than three hours after one has watched a movie, one can no longer remember which characters lived and which died. That means, generally, that the given flick was pretty bad, and bad in a way that makes it instantly forgettable instead of eternally (or even temporarily) memorable. And far from being memorable in anyway, Cult is the kind of flick you want to sleep through and, if you're lucky, awaken briefly for the few scenes that are sort of fun to watch — scenes that make up a total of probably three minutes of the roughly 85 exceedingly sub-intelligent minutes that this poorly shot, acted and directed movie takes to play out and end.

The faux-Asian artwork which is used for the first opening narrative explaining the origin of the cult, for example, is rather nice: artistically, it exceeds anything achieved cinematically anywhere else within the movie. And the second prologue scene soon thereafter — a bit closer to but still not "the present day"— in which a bunch of sexy, shapely babes in various states of bared skin poke their eyes out and then are all killed during the course of a ritual is sort fun in that tacky-movie kind of way. At this point, the promise of tacky trash and laughs is still inferred, but after that the pickings get slim and movie becomes a dull vortex of idiocy.

The dream-into-death scene of Alex (Joel Michaelyof But I'm A Cheerleader [1999 / trailer] and Vamps [2012 / trailer]) is sort of entertaining, but more than anything his death is simply a relief because his character is so dislikable. The sudden death of Professor MILF Estabrook (Fiona Horne, seen below from Playboy) is unexpected, but the scene in which she gasps out half of some needed information before finally expiring is a laugh. The deaths of the rest, well, are forgettable.

Other failures include the narrative, which is basically all over the place and nonsensical. The origin of the cult might make the grade because, well, religions and cults seldom make sense (e.g., the "Virgin Birth", Scientology's aliens, or even the only true god, Our Holy Flying Spaghetti Monster), but everything else about the cult sort of leaves one scratching one's head. (Is Kwan Yin, the non-virginal Holy One of the cult, evil or good?)

Who sent the VHS of the bloody ceremony to the final girl Mindy (played as a whiny egoist by an oddly dislikable Rachel Miner, of Penny Dreadful [2006 / trailer], Tooth and Nail[2007 / trailer] and Hide[2008 / trailer]) is a big question mark that is never addressed, as is the quickness with which the intrepid college students find the temple where it happened. Ditto with how the evil Owen Quinlin (Robert Berson) gets all his power despite the first ceremony going all wrong, how he chooses his victims, and the "Why?" behind the followers that follow him or don't.

Unbelievably enough, even the nude shower scene is a total failure, as it is shot in way that definitely downplays the gratuitous nudity the scene screams for, but the eventual death of that actress after she enters a closed-off crime scene is passable. And is that single pot of mashed potatoes in the hands of Mindy's dad, Logan (Joey Sagal of Barb Wire[1996 / trailer]), who just happens to not only work at the same university Mindy attends but is also bonking Prof. MILF, truly supposed to feed a cafeteria's worth of college students? Taryn Manning (of Weirdsville [2007/ trailer] and Zombie Apocalypse[2011]), as the second-string female named Cassandra, proves to be the best actor in the movie, but her part gives her little to work with — though she looks hot in her bra when she changes her shirt. Her boyfriend is a boring, waffling emo who should have died — or did he? We really can't remember. And fuck those cheap-scare music cues...

Throughout Cult, one always is left with the feeling that the filmmakers are as lost as the characters and the plot, the last of which concerns, when reduced to a bare bones description, a nasty cult leader out to gain eternal life or unlimited power (both of which he already seems to have, seeing all that he does) and a group a college students that cross his way. A total snooze-a-thon, Cult isn't as anywhere near as bad as the average Christopher Ray film (e.g., Shark Week[2012] or Mega Shark Vs Crocosaurus[USA, 2010]), but it is hardly worth watching and definitely not worth searching out.

Short Film: Malafafone (USA, 2017)

April 23, 2018, 3:34 am

≫ Next: Day of the Animals (USA, 1977)

≪ Previous: Cult (USA, 2007)

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Way back in 2016, when we presented Fist of Jesus(2012) the Short Film of the Monthfor April of that year, we mentioned how "when bored, we are likely to search the web using unlikely word combinations such as 'Jesus with a boner' or 'Zombie Mohammed' (or the inverse) just to see what we discover." A penchant that we are sure is shared by many.

While the question of what "unlikely word combinations" are is naturally open to discussion, some combinations have proven, to date, as continually unsuccessful. "Zombie Mohammed", for example, has long been a nada, but for the ancient (2012) case of some guy who dressed up as one for Halloween and got attacked by a pious believer of Islam. ("Jesus with a boner", on the other lubricated hand, can bring hours of Internet distraction.) 

Ludwig Krug, Man of Sorrows, 1510-1532, engraving (British Museum, London) of Maerten van Heemskerck's Man of Sorrows, c. 1550, oil on panel. Bob Jones University, Greenville, South Carolina. Image found at WTF Art History.

When searching for new (as in: "unknown to us") blogs, the phrases "lesbian horror blog" or "lesbian move blog" have never taken us to where we wanted — as in: a [preferably horror or cult] movie blog from a lesbian perspective — especially since we tend to find probably-man-made lesbian porn a bit terra nullius. (Aside from the fact that porn without a male appendage leaves us with an inability to identify, who wants to be the third wheel?)

"Gay horror blog", however, once proved a bit more successful, as it led us to Big Gay Horror Fan, a fun little blog to which we often return. Broader in scope* and more playful than A Wasted Life, it is also pithy where we're verbose, so it's always good for a quickie, like the bushes in a certain section of Berlin's Tiergarten. And it is there (at the blog, not Tiergarten) that we found this month's Short Film of the Month.

Malafafone is very short and oddly funny in a surreally tragic way. To simply rearrange and steal what Big Gay Horror Fan says about the flick: "[The] pre-date beauty regimen of the heroine (Lesley Shannon) of writer-director Jono Freedrix's bright yet powerful horror comedy short Malafafonesoon takes a turn for the excessive. Of course, while this is presented in fun, Freedrix also makes a powerful point here about society's rigorous beauty standards and their effects on the people, mainly women of all backgrounds and types, who have no hope of truly being able to prescribe to them." (He says more, actually — check out the blogsite to see what.)

By the way: "Malafafone" is Hebrew for cucumber, a vegetable with multiple possible usages…

Malafafonefrom Jono Freedrix on Vimeo.

Day of the Animals (USA, 1977)

May 1, 2018, 12:01 am

≫ Next: R.I.P.: Umberto Lenzi, Part VI – 1991-2017 & Addendum

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Aka Something Is Out There. You know you're talking double-cheese when you're talking William Girdler (22 Oct 1947 – 21 Jan 1978), and double-cheese this film is. That man, going by his films that we've seen, seems to only ever have made cheese — but good, fun cheese. What fan of trash cinema finds no joy in savoring such movies as his hilariously wonderful Blaxploitation disasterpiece Abby (1974 / trailer), his sporadically entertaining and amazing Gein-inspired Three on a Meathook (1972 / trailer), his fun if weak Pam Grier vehicle Sheba, Baby (1975 / trailer), his classic Jaws (1975 / trailer) rip-off Grizzly (1976 / trailer), and… Hell, all of Girdler's films are fun, if you get down to it. That man simply had the magic touch.

 

And Day of the Animals is no exception: it's 100% prime cheese galore, only with the added attraction of an "all-star" cast to leave many B-movie fans drooling, most notably Christopher George (25 Feb 1931 – 28 Nov 1983) and his wife Lynda Louise Day George, the great character actor Richard Hanley Jaeckel (10 Oct 1926 – 14 June 1997), a young Andrew Stevens (The Terror Within II [1991]), Barbara Eden's ex-husband Michael George Ansara (15 April 1922 – 31 July 2013), and Leslie Nielsen (11 Feb 1926 – 28 Nov 2010) playing a total asshole who loses it. And lest we forget: the movie was produced by the infamous Edward L. Montoro,* a former producer of prime trash if there ever was one!

*Montero is a legend, like DB Cooper. Montero founded Film Ventures International and a few years later had his first success in films by writing, directing and producing the Uschi Digard vehicle Getting into Heaven (1970 / trailer), after which he moved into production and distribution, foisting an endless stream of fun trash into the grindhouses and drive-ins if the USo'A, including Italo-trash like Beyond the Door (1974 / trailer), the incoherent The Visitor (1979 / trailer) and Antropophagus (1980 / trailer, diverse Girder films, the "documentary"The Force Beyond (1977 / trailer), the damaged-Vietnam vet film Search and Destroy (1979 / trailer), John 'Bud' Cardos'The Dark (1979, see R.I.P. Tobe Hooper, Part I) and Mutant (1984 / trailer), Don't Go in the House (1979 / trailer), William Lustig's Vigilante (1982 / trailer), the boob-heavy Splitz (1982 / trailer), Juan Piquer Simón's Pieces (1982 / trailer) and Pod People (1983 / full movie), Mortuary (1983 / trailer), the ridiculously fun Kill or Be Killed (1976 / trailer) and Kill and Kill Again (1981 / trailer), Hundra (1983 / trailer) and so much more. In the mid-1980s, beset by a series of flops, legal battles with Universal Films, a nasty divorce and bad health, Montero cleaned out over one million from the accounts of Film Ventures International and literally, completely, disappeared. To this day, no one knows where he went or whether he is even still alive (he would be around 90 if he were).

But back to this movie, Day of the Animals, a cheapo nature-gone-wild flick with lots of great nature photography and attacking animals and a mildly high bodycount (if little actual blood) that flies by like an eagle, quickly and easily. Few if any of the attacks are convincing, and like so many bodycount films — a genre to which this film does, basically, belong — the often laughable plot development works towards separating the big main group into smaller groups, but all the flaws found in this movie somehow only serve to make it more fun, more enjoyable.

Unexpectedly enough, considering how old this flick is, the hole in the ozone layer is the catalyst of the plot: instead of causing global warming or even simple skin cancer, it turns animals into psychopathic, aggressive killers. But not indiscriminate killers: no, they want to kill people. And amidst a California mountainside of countless four-legged and two-winged killers — which often work in unison — a group of unsuspecting city folk is hiking down the mountain from the helicopter drop-off point for a weekend of nature. A creepy scene in which the group suddenly notices nature has gone silent is the first true sign that something isn't right, but soon the animal attacks increase, the social cohesion of the humans begins to fall apart, and the number of dead hikers grows. And finally, at least in the case of the asshole alpha-man adverting agent Paul Jenson (Leslie Nielsen), it begins to drive select people mad as well.

Day of the Animals is one of those movies where it is fun to guess who's first and who's next, but while it is often easy to do so, there are a few surprises along the way. Indeed, one true surprise comes simply when a character (Jon Cedar [22 Jan 1931 – 14 April 2011], of Foxy Brown [1974 / trailer]), having made it back to town with a "shell-shocked" child he's found along his way, opens the door to a truck and a specific dead, non-hiker's body falls out.

That said, most of the animal attacks are pretty unconvincing (the cougars never use claws, the wolf and dogs never use their teeth to truly rip), and it is funny that though some of the men have knives they never once use them to defend themselves — not even when they're doing hand-to-hand combat with a pack of "killer", tail-wagging Rin Tin Tins. But all the attacks, even when they fail with a capital "F", are fun to watch in that giggle-inducing way we so enjoy.

Personally, our favorite scenes are the rat attack and the bear wrestling one: both are true highpoints of this enjoyable slice of drive-in trash, if amazingly bloodless and, in the case of the bear attack, realistically too quickly over.

Really, though: if you were the local law and you just got woken up by a midnight phone call from your local deputy saying that the National Guard was there to evacuate the town, would your first reaction be to take the leftover chicken out of the fridge for a midnight snack? Of course it would, which is why you, just like old man Ranger Tucker (Walter Barnes [26 Jan 1918 – 6 Jan 1998], of Pigs [1973 / full movie] and High Plains Drifter [1973 / trailer]), would be confronted by rats flying through the air and attacking you. We snicker every time we remember that scene, much like we do when we think of a fully flipped-out and shirtless Jenson (Neilson) deciding to prove his alpha position to a huge bear. (Guess who wins.)

Age has been kind to the movie, assisting in making its numerous obvious flaws part of the fun instead of a detraction. And the most obvious original plus points of the production are as effective now as when the movie was made. The cast, as mentioned, is great; likewise, the cinematography, at least outside, is excellent, as is the music by the old master Lalo Schifrin. And in all truth, for all its cheesiness, Day of the Animal does succeed at establishing an ever-increasing tension (admittedly punctuated by unintended interludes of humor) and, as mentioned, occasionally even delivers a decent shock.

We here at A Wasted Life definitely Day of the Animal two skeletal thumbs up.

R.I.P.: Umberto Lenzi, Part VI – 1991-2017 & Addendum

May 7, 2018, 10:59 pm

≫ Next: The Outing aka The Lamp (Texas, 1987)

≪ Previous: Day of the Animals (USA, 1977)

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6 August 1931 – 19 October 2017

"A mostly unsung titan has passed." The great Umberto Lenzi has left us! In a career that spanned over 30 years, the Italian director churned out fine quality as well as crappy Eurotrash in all genres: comedy, peplum, Eurospy, spaghetti westerns and macaroni combat, poliziotteschi, cannibal and giallo."

Go here for Part I: 1958-63

Go here for Part II: 1964-68

Go here for Part III: 1969-75

Go here for Part IV: 1976-82

Go here for Part V: 1983-90


Black Demons

(1991, writ. & dir. Umberto Lenzi)

Aka Black Zombies, a title perhaps related most closely to the events of the narrative, and, of course, Demoni 3, although everyone knows it really has nothing to do with the fun trash that is Lamberto Bava's Demons I(1985 / trailer) and Demons 2 (1986 / trailer) — and, likewise, shouldn't be mistaken for Lamberto Bava's 1988 TV horror The Ogre aka Demons III: The Ogre (trailer).

Shot in Brazil, the movie was co-written with his [possibly second]* wife, Olga Pehar (8 Feb 1938 – 20 Nov 2015). Black Demons has the distinction of being Lenzi's last horror movie. It was also one his favorites — Ouch! — as he officially said it is "a horror film which I consider my masterpiece." (See: Winick, Margot; Spaghetti Nightmares: Italian Fantasy-horrors as Seen through the Eyes of Their Protagonists, Fantasma Books, 1996) 

*See his first directorial effort in Part Ifor the explanation of "possibly second".

Trailer to

Black Demons:

Ninja Dixon, an admitted Lenzi fan, gushes "I like Black Demons, even if it has problems. The gore is fine, the music is atmospheric, the zombies are brutal and Lenzi's directing is inspired." He also has the plot: "The story is simple but effective: three students [Jessica (Sonia Curtis of The Boston Strangler [2008 / trailer] and Soulmates [1992 / trailer]), her boyfriend Kevin (Keith Van Hoven of Fulci's House of Clocks [1989 / trailer]) and her half-brother Dick (Joe Balogh)] go to Brazil to research about black magic. Dick gets right into a black mass and somehow gets possessed by the power of black magic and brings it with him when they travel into Brazil. During the trip they meet to hikers [Jose (Philip Murray) and his girlfriend Sonia (Juliana Texeira)] who live nearby, and they visits their old house out in the jungle. Not far away is a funeral place with the graves of six black slaves that where killed by their white masters many years ago. The legend says that they want revenge. When Dick starts to play the music he recorded during the black mass he resurrects the slaves and they starts to take their bloody, gruesome revenge!"

At the imdb, way back in 2006, EVOL666 from St. John's Abortion Clinic — Hey! We were born there! — said "Kill Whitey...", and then added: "Completely ridiculous and totally fun, Black Demons is a semi un-PC zombie romp that will probably be of interest to Italian horror fans. Don't expect much in the way of a sensible or coherent storyline, and I was also disappointed by the lack of nudity — but the gore is decent, with two (count 'em...TWO!!!) wonderfully cheezy Fulci-style eye gougings, a throat puncture, and a few other 'choice' scenes... But be warned — the 'action' doesn't come till after the half-way point of the film. The zombies themselves are suitably creepy looking as well. Fun Italian trash — Black Demons is a no-brainer good time..."

Talk of Horrorsfinds the movie a bit more than merely "un-PC": "Here, three college kids, a couple and housekeeper (Maria Alves [7 Nov 1947 – 8 May 2008]) are menaced by zombies. So, what are these zombies after? Well, they want revenge. You see, they were slaves that were killed, and after being resurrected via a voodoo curse, they decide to kill six white people. Also, they still have nooses around their necks, and... My God, this movie is fucking racist. Like, even by the standards of exploitation movies, this shit is offensive, and I am a man who isn't offended easily." ("The lady doth protest too much methinks."— William Shakespeare)

Monster Hunter, on the other hand, thinks that "Black Demons is notable because it's a zombie movie where even the zombies can't act. When you think about it, that's really a hard thing to accomplish. I mean, how hard is it to shamble around with glop dripping off your face while some ugly, no-name starlet is tripping over some imaginary tree stump in the front yard of her isolated Brazilian villa? For the six guys they pulled out of the mission and dressed up in fake eyeballs, it turned out to be nigh impossible. [...] Jessica is far and away the single worst performer in the movie (or in any movie for that matter) and utters her lines with all the nuance of a Speak-N-Spell."

Dr Gore, which gives the movie a rating of "1 out of 4 eye-poppingly bad movies" sees flaws elsewhere: "Basically, Black Demons problems can be summed up in two words: NO MONEY. No money for pretty girls to run from demons. No money for nudity although I'm not sad about that since the cast was uniformly unattractive. No money for excessive zombie gore effects. In conclusion, no money for a movie yet they went ahead and made one anyway."

Lenzi himself on

Black Demons:

Death Ensemble, however, is the camel whose back has been broken, and they spit with anger: "Perhaps the most damning factor is the massive amount of unanswered questions the film poses. Is there tension between Dick and Kevin because Kevin's having sex with his sister? Is Dick really acting against his will throughout the movie, or is he just a dick? Why does Jessica worry so much for her brother throughout the film, yet seems fine upon his final fate? And greatest of all, how does a car with four slashed tires suddenly have four functional tires at movie's end, so the protagonists can escape? My answer: Lenzi and screenwriter Mrs. Lenzi Olga Pehar don't care, so why should I or anybody else? And therein lies the problem with Lenzi's catalogue. Lenzi doesn't direct, so much as he pisses all over his audience. Logic, decent dialogue, acting that's above the Quality Equator and overall quality of the final product don't mean a damn to him. He's contemptuous and arrogant, and has no right to be either, given how sloppy a director he is."

Here at A Wasted Life, we have Black Demonson our list of films to see, or course.

Hunt for the Golden Scorpion

(1991, writ. & dir. Umberto Lenzi)

Aka Caccia allo scorpione d'oro, this movie was co-written with his [possibly second]* wife, Olga Pehar (8 Feb 1938 – 20 Nov 2015). Online description, somewhere: "In the deepest, most remote part of the Amazon, a treasure is hidden! A treasure so valuable that men would kill for it, women would undress for it, and entire armies would fight for it!" Wow. That description says it all, or?

*See his first directorial effort in Part Ifor the explanation of "possibly second".

 

Kult Eye Bleederis one of the few, the brave, to have caught this super-obscure, no budget, late-career Lenzi action flick, which they say has "lots of action scenes and explosions" and is a "a nice surprise", though "a far cry from Lenzi's giallo and crime classics". They also say a bit more about the plot: "Mary Maitland (Christine Leigh) gets a message that her brother (David Brandon of Michele Soavi's Stage Fright[1987 / trailer], Lamberto Bava's Delirium [1987 / trailer] and Joe D'Amato's Caligula II: The Untold Story [1982 / trailer]) has died in the Amazon. She doesn't believe it and goes to embassy to sort the things out. She learns that the man who delivered the message about her brother's death is not even working in the embassy. She returns home. Someone has broken into her house looking for something. She gets a letter from her brother written after his supposed death. 'There are too many things that don't gel.' Mary travels to Brazil to find her brother."

Credit sequence: 

Monster Hunter, on the other hand, was less impressed with the movie, saying, "Made at the tail end of Lenzi's career and sandwiched in between two gloriously goofy cop movies (Cop Target [1990, see Part V] and Mean Tricks [1991]), Hunt for the Golden Scorpion appears as if it solely exists because Lenzi had some footage in Miami left over from Cop Target and some time in South America to kill before Mean Tricks got going. It also seems as if he rounded up whatever actors were hanging around the Bad Italian Movie union hall with passports and empty bank accounts at the ready."

Nevertheless, they also note, "Finally, when all three of our heroes run happily through the airport at the end of the movie, you can't help but note that it is a bittersweet moment. Bitter because the entertainingly prolific Lenzi would only make two more films, but sweet because Hunt for the Golden Scorpion marked the last role for both Andy J. Forest* and Christine Leigh."

* Not quite true: he made one more obscure Italo action flick, Ready to Kill (1994 / complete film in Italian), and now, as a musician in New Orleans, has appeared in a few short films and the regional feature production Laundry Day (2015 / trailer).

Mean Tricks

(1992, dir. Umberto Lenzi)

Possibly the last movie Lenzi ever directed. Italian title: Hornsby e Rodriguez - Sfida criminale. This time around, Charles Napier(12 April 1936 – 5 Oct 2011) plays one of the lead roles, "Brian Hornsby"; Rodriguez is played by someone named Stefano Sabelli, who's also found in Lamberto Bava's Dinner with a Vampire (1988 / trailer). 

Over at the imdb, way back in 2004 django-1 from south Texas (that's somewhere in the USA) wrote what we might've written, had we but ever seen this obscure movie: "I've been a fan of Charles Napier ever since seeing Russ Meyer's Cherry Harry and Raquel (1970 / trailer) at a drive-in circa 1973. After appearing in Cop Target with Robert Ginty for director Umberto Lenzi, Napier got a chance to star in HIS OWN euro-crime film for Lenzi, and this film, Mean Tricks, is it. What a treat it is to see Napier beat the crap out of various punks and mouth great B-movie crime dialogue that sounds like it could have come from one of the later Mike Shayne novels. No one can get as many syllables out of the word 'Bullshit' as Napier can. This has the flat, euro-TV-movie look of many later Lenzi films, but the man knows how to make an unpretentious genre film that delivers the goods. If the idea of Charles Napier as a hard-drinking, tough-talking crimebuster with a bad attitude is appealing to you, DO seek out this gem of a film. It's Napier at his best!"

Italian stuff:

Monster Hunterwould seem to agree: "From the absurdly spectacular slow motion shoot out on the docks that opens the film all the way until star Charles Napier (Hornsby) banters with his local partner Rodriguez and their sexy sidekick about Rodriguez marrying her despite him having heard Hornsby screw her while she was wearing a wire earlier in the movie, Umberto Lenzi's Mean Tricks is an appallingly proficient bad-ass cop movie that not only delivers every cliché you freaking demand from such films (Rodriguez's gruff captain is nicknamed Iron Balls!), but in the best Italian movie tradition invents its own along the way!"

To simply use the plot as given at Wikipedia: "Hornsby, a recently retired FBI agent (Charles Napier) goes to South America to find his old partner because rumor has it that his old partner has become a criminal. When the former partner is killed, Hornsby alters the crime scene to make it appear that his ex-partner killed the gunman himself. The rest of the movie follows Hornsby as he tries to discover who killed his partner and why. " 

Also on hand for a few scenes is another cult actor extraordinaire, David Warbeck (born David Mitchell; 17 November 1941 – 23 July 1997), of such great stuff like Trog (1970 / trailer), Twins of Evil (1971 / trailer), Russ Meyer's Black Snake (1973 / trailer), The Beyond (1981 / trailer) — image above, Pervirella (1997 / trailer) and much more.

Detective Malone

(1991, dir. "Bob Collins")

In general, Mean Tricks is considered Umberto Lenzi's last directorial job, but as can probably be expected of a gun for hire like him, there are a few subsequent films out there that are rumored to have been by his hand, if not proven by now as his. This is one of them. Aka Black Cobra 4, it is — as one might surmise — the fourth (and so far last) entry in the Italo Blaxploitation Black Cobra series starring Fred Williamson, which also comprises Black Cobra (1987 / trailer), Black Cobra 2 (1989 / trailer) and Black Cobra 3 (1990). BC4 aka Detective Malone is soooo rare that as of the date of writing this (10 Dec 2017), there is not one "External Review" given at the imdb. 

Tough to Killexplains why Lenzi probably prefers to have people think that Mean Tricks is his last movie: "They don't come much rarer than this when searching out movies from the collectors market, but once discovered it becomes apparently clear why director Umberto Lenzi chose to hide behind the pseudonym of Bob Collins! Fred Williamson may still be blissfully unaware that he actually stars in the movie, and with good reason as in reality he does not! What the production company have done is worked a short rehash of a lame story around actual scenes that do star Fred Williamson, but 'borrowed' from the original, 1987-made Black Cobra movie." 

The German website Zelluloidhas the plot: "Robert Malone, die 'Black Cobra', macht sich zusammen mit einem Kollegen auf die Suche nach einem entführten Wissenschaftler, der von arabischen Terroristen entführt wurde."For those of you who don't speak German, the translation: "Robert Malone [Williamson & his unnamed stand-in], the 'Black Cobra', joins a colleague (Bobby Rhodes, of Demons[1985]) in the search for a scientist (Gaetano Russo) kidnapped by Arabian terrorists. Little does he suspect that it isn't Arabs behind everything, but Donald "Dotard" Trump, who wants to use the scientist's stupidity serum to destroy all common sense in the United States. Trump succeeds, wins the election, makes Black Cobra his personal Uncle Tom at the White House, and then starts a war with the rest of the world." 

That's the great Fred Williamson above, by the way, from back when Playgirl was a print magazine and didn't show vein. In fact, sometimes they didn't show much more than a black man with a white pussy. (Uh... was that joke racist?)

Gaetano Russo, the scientist, can also be seen somewhere in Bruno Mattei's Island of the Living Dead(2007) and Gianni Martucci's The Red Monks(1988).

Full "movie"
in a foreign language:

Graffiante desiderio

(1993, dir. Sergio Martino)

Supposedly this Italian movie even has an English title: Craving Desire. After his cut & paste job Detective Malone aka Black Cobra 4 as "Bob Collins", Umberto Lenzi waited another two years before his next known un-credited participation in a movie: as one of those working on the script to this late-career Sergio Martino movie. (As we all know, the rent — or, as the case may be, the mortgage — must be paid.) 

Martino, of course, is a familiar genre-filmmaker name due to diverse projects such as Slave of the Cannibal God(1978), Torso (1973 / trailer), After the Fall of New York (1983 / trailer) — hard to believe that we actually caught that one in a San Diego grindhouse — Something Waits in the Dark (1979 / Italian trailer), and so much more. With the blockbuster-induced decline of the Italian movie industry, he went into TV movies, but he seems to have retired after 2012.

A few scenes from

Graffiante desiderio:

Film Affinityhas a super-short plotline that reads like a poorly written DVD text: "Luigi (Ron Nummi) is engaged to Cinzia (Simona Borioni), he has a good job and his life runs quietly. But unexpectedly his cousin Sonia (Vittoria Belvedere, on the cover of Playboy below) knocks at his door. She lived in Venezuela with her parents but they have disappeared and she came back to Italy. She is very young and beautiful and once she loved Luigi. What is he to do?" 

What sounds like an Italian take of a typical Woody Allen andropause movie is actually "drama/thriller" with breasts. And according to some sites, unlike most of Allen's recent movies, it ain't all that bad. As Cinemaretroexplains, "Although more of an erotic horror/drama hybrid than a pure giallo, Craving Desire still contains enough hallmarks to somewhat qualify as one. Overall, it is a truly dark film that leaves viewers with a distinct sense of unease. For horror fans, this undercurrent of dread has the potential to hook you up until the very final seconds." They qualify that statement later by adding, "From a creative and technical standpoint, Craving Desireisn't a very good film. At times, it struggles just to be watchable, let alone enjoyable. [...] Evidently, Martino and his producers realized all this and decided to follow an age old tradition that has helped visual media thrive for generations. Vis-a-vis: sex and nudity. Lots of it." ("Nudity = Yummy," say we here at A Wasted Life.)But Cinemaretroalso has an addendum: "All in all, the film was not this reviewer's cup of tea. So why the recommendation? Although falling short, the movie does represent something that makes it special. It's bad but different; a quality often lacking these days."

For being "different", however, the move sound suspiciously like a Fatal Attraction (1988 / trailer) retread. That said, over 10K Bullets, Michael Den Boer is likewise enamored by the movie, but sees none of the flaws that Cinemaretro does: "Is Craving Desire a thriller, is it an erotic film or is it melodrama? The answer is it is all of the above. One of the most fascinating things about Craving Desire is its chameleon-like plot that never fully allows the viewer to relax. At the core of this torrid thriller is a young man named Luigi who has a dream job and a fiancé. To stir things up a bit, the plot introduces us to his cousin Sonia who quickly injects herself into his life. Like an incurable disease Sonia slowly infects Luigi until he becomes paralyzed without her. Just like most Italian thrillers, the film's unbelievable ending features a monologue from Sonia, who explains her motive. All around the acting is very good, especially from its two leads Vittoria Belvedere in the role of Sonia and Ron Nummi in the role of Luigi. While Ron Nummi is convincing as Sonia's lap dog Luigi, the real attraction in this film is a spellbinding performance from Vittoria Belvedere. Another performance of note is Italian sex icon Serena 'Bush' Grandi [of Antropophagus (1980 / trailer)], who [as 'Marcella Fabbri'] is even given a scene to show off her more than ample assets. Ultimately Craving Desire is a tense psychological thriller that seductively lures you into its web of deceit."

Death Proof

(2007, writ. & dir. Quentin Tarantino)

Quentin Tarantino is known to be a fan of Umberto Lenzi. Here, in the worst and most boring of all Tarantino movies, the great American director — yes, he is one of that nation's best — gives "Special Thanks" to the director in the credits. One can only assume Tarantino used some music from some Lenzi film or something. What a fucking dud Death Proof is. Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terroris so much better. Both movies, you might remember, were first released as a double bill entitled Grindhouse.

Trailer to

Grindhouse:

Paura: Lucio Fulci Remembered - Volume 1

(2008, dir. Mike Baronas & [uncredited] Kit Gavin)

Lenzi enters the talking heads phase: no longer making movies himself, he still had decades of filmmaking history behind him, thus he was a perfect candidate for documentary films. And where better to start than in a video documentary on the Italian Godfather of Gore, Lucio Fulci (17 June 1927 – 13 March 1996)? 

Amazon has the product description: "Who was Lucio Fulci, director of such horror classics as Zombi 2(1979), City of the Living Dead(1980) and The Beyond (1981 / trailer) — an eccentric? A misogynist? A genius? Much speculation surrounded the life of this revered Italian director since his untimely death in 1996. Divided into three categories — Accomplices (Crew), Peers (Directors) and Victims (Actors) — the acquaintances Fulci engaged with throughout his long and diverse moviemaking career recall good, bad and sometimes ugly anecdotes by revealing the answer to one question: 'What is your fondest memory of Lucio Fulci?' Seven years in the making, nearly 90 interviews and almost 4 hours of footage a must for any fan of EuroHorror cinema, limited to only 2,500 copies!"

Trailer to

Paura: Lucio Fulci Remembered – Vol. 1:

According to the Video Graveyard, "Mike Baronas and Kit Gavin […] spent a number of years amassing this impressive collection of interviews contained in Paura that paint a relatively positive picture of Fulci and combined end up being a fitting eulogy to the man and his work. As this is a tribute piece, most of the interviews focus on how Fulci was misunderstood and how did not receive the proper respect for his work while he was alive. This ends up being quite touching in moments where people bid their farewells to the man and reflect on how he impacted their lives and careers. In the process, we get a picture of a man who was quite brilliant but who suffered greatly from the personal pain endured by his failing health as well as the emotional distress of dealing with the suicide of his wife and a series of failed relationships. […] Overall, however, we get the sense that although he may have not have been pleasant to everyone all of the time, he was an intelligent human being who had great talents in the medium of cinema." 

The documentary, however, might be stifled by its core question, "What is your fondest memory of Lucio Fulci?" As Final Girlsays, "Paura is indeed a noble undertaking, and Fulci fans will find much to love. With seven years of filming and more than 100 of the director's colleagues interviewed, the mountains of footage surely comprise an unwieldy, intimidating beast for Paura director Mike Baronas. Unfortunately, I don't [like] that this beast was wrangled in the most effective manner. I don't feel I know Lucio Fulci much better than I did before I gave the DVD a whirl. Sure, some of the anecdotes are interesting and on more than one occasion it's said that Fulci should have been more recognized as a filmmaker, but his lack of diplomacy stifled his career. I wanted to dive into that idea. I wanted to get a real idea of this curious man. The limitations presented by the format simply don't allow for this. I imagine that Volume Two may feature everyone's 'least favorite' memory of Fulci, and that will probably provide more insight into his nature. Still, the material would have been best served as a straight-up biography of the man, or perhaps a walk through his work in horror where more questions are asked and answered at once. As a companion to other, more in-depth works about Fulci, Paura is undoubtedly invaluable; as an ignoramus taking in the film on its own, however, I feel like I'm standing at a party where I don't know anyone. Like maybe they're all speaking Italian and laughing at inside jokes while I nervously sip my Riunite on ice and blankly smile. When oh when will I belong?"

German Grusel
Die Edgar Wallace-Serie

(2011, writ. & dir. Oliver Schwehm)

In English, German Horror: The Edgar Wallace Series. Lenzi in his talking heads phase: no longer making movies himself, he still had decades of filmmaking history behind him, thus he was a perfect candidate for documentary films. And so he appears as himself in this roughly one-hour-long Arte documentary on the great series of 32 (!) German Edgar Wallace krimis, which spanned from 1959, beginning with The Fellowship of the Frog, to 1972, with Umberto Lenzi's Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (see Part III). Also among the talking heads, of course, Joachim Fuchsberger(11 March 1927 – 11 Sept 2014) and the beautiful Karin Dor (22 Feb 1938 – 6 Nov 2017). 

Among the Wallace films we here at A Wasted Life have seen are: The Hand of Power(1968), the non-Rialto Wallace The Avenger(1960), The Coast of Skeletons(1964), the imitation Wallace krimi The White Spider(1963), The Forger of London(1961), The Inn on the River(1962), The Indian Scarf(1963), The Devil's Daffodil(1961) and The Black Abbot(1963). 

Director Oliver Schwehm later also shot an entertaining Artedocumentary on the history of the German train station cinemas entitled Pervy Cinema (2015); originally intended as places where travelers could waste their time while waiting to transfer trains, they eventually evolved into the German version of the grindhouse. We couldn't find a trailer online for Oliver Schwehm's documentary, but we could for "the Krimi class led by Jim Harper at the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies - London, Nov 12th 2015."

Trailer to

SHADOWS AND FOG –

The Forgotten History of the German Edgar Wallace Krimi Film:

Eurocrime!
The Italian Cop and Gangster Films That Ruled the '70s

(2012, writ. & dir. Mike Malloy)

Lenzi in his talking heads phase: no longer making movies himself, he still had decades of filmmaking history behind him, thus he was a perfect candidate for documentary films. And so he appears as himself in this documentary on the Italian poliziotteschi films, alongside other fine names ranging from Richard Harrison to Joe Dallesandro (shown below from his pre-film years), Enzo G. Castellari to Claudio Fragasso, and many more. Diector Malloy, an "expert" on the subject, has also appeared in a few films himself, most notably the contemporary Italo western The Scarlet Worm (2011 / trailer) and Gregory Hatanaka's indi Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance (2015 / trailer), which features no one else than Tommy Wiseau — somewhere. 

Daily Grindhousesays, "Malloy is helped greatly by an array of candid interviews with many of the living stars of poliziotteschi, including such genre stalwarts as Fred Williamson, John Saxon, Franco Nero and Henry Silva. The subjects are all engaged and enthusiastic to be talking about these films, and speak quite frankly about the positive and negative aspects of working with foreign crews, the increased violence throughout Italy in the decade, and the legacy of these films. I was particularly impressed with Silva,* the cold-eyed actor who has played countless villains comes off much younger than his 80+ years, and seems to be having a whale of a time reeling off anecdotes of his 70s heyday. Some of the interview subjects are less forthcoming (or, in the case of Antonio Sabato, a tad irritating), but some judicious editing keeps the pace moving."

* We here at A Wasted Life wait for the day he finally gets his appearance in a Tarantino project.

Agents of Geekadds, "The enthusiasm that Mr. Malloy displays for the subject close to his heart becomes contagious in the way Trailers From Hell can instantly make you reconsider titles that you might have previously dismissed. The original music that underscores the proceedings packs a nice authentic punch and really captures the sleaze to put you in the moment. Everything is broken into chapters and we can only hope to get a companion book to further expand on everything, after all there's only so much information you can squeeze into a feature length film." 

And, lastly, Cinapse, which calls the documentary "A love serenade […] celebrating one of the more obscure film genres on the international map of movies", says: "Originally seen as little more than second-rate imitations, these movies are gaining in respect and an ever-rowing audience appreciation. One reason, perhaps, that these movies have a new lease on life, is that they act as an alternative to Hollywood movies, both classic and current. […] Italian crime movies proved popular, in part thanks to their extreme violence, creative stunts and chases and overtly macho and chauvinistic attitudes. These pictures were primarily targeted to a male audience, and Malloy's documentary even addresses the plausible fear that these movies may have a hard time resonating with certain contemporary audiences because of the levels of violence and misogyny. […] As should be the case with any documentary about movies, this one will make you want to search out and see some of these films. After such in-depth discussions you will have to see some of these movies for yourself. In many regards, this is the highest compliment a film like this can receive." 

Interesting to note, considering Cinapse's mentioning of the genre's misogyny, despite the number of Eurotrash cult babes to be found in these films, few have anything to say in the documentary. Could it really be that Nicoletta Machiavelli (8 Sept 1944 – 15 Nov 2015), of Necropolis (1970 / scene) and Lenzi's Tough Cop (1976, see Part IV) was the only one willing to talk?

 
Trailer to

the doc: 

Bring Me the Head of the Machine Gun Woman

(2012, writ. & dir. Ernesto Díaz Espinoza)

Ernesto Díaz Espinoza is an up-and-coming genre director from way, way, way south of the border, as they say in the USo'A, where he took part in 2012 the omnibus The ABCs of Death (trailer), filming the segment C is for Cycle. As for this movie here, the original title is Tráiganme la Cabeza de la Mujer Metralleta. In the very long list of acknowledgements, Umberto Lenzi gets a his name mentioned — as does Jess Franco, Fulci, Paul Thomas Anderson, Roger Corman, Sam Peckinpah (of course), and countless other filmmakers of the kind we like here at A Wasted Life. The Chilean director was obviously simply acknowledging the roots of his taste and style. 

A blood-drenched, high-action, comic bullet ballet with a hot Fernanda Urrejola (also found in Baby Shower [2011 / trailer) and Whispers of the Forest [2014 / trailer]) as the titular Machine Gun Woman, aka "La Mujer Metralleta", Tráiganme la Cabeza de la Mujer Metralleta has been pretty well received by almost everyone who's seen it. We haven't, yet, but we expect we would like it: the scene in the trailer, in which during the middle of a big shoot out, the Machine Gun Woman takes the time to put her empty pistols carefully on the ground before shooting further, has definitely won our hearts — as if her outfit hadn't already.

The plot, as supplied by the movie's website: "Santiago Fernandez (Matías Oviedo) is an aimless young man content with spending hours on the couch playing violent video games and fantasizing about an exciting life of crime and gun fights. By night he DJ's at a club owned by a ruthless Argentinian kingpin Che Longana (Jorge Alís). One evening, Santiago finds himself trapped in a bathroom stall as Longana holds a secret meeting to make known his offer of $300 million pesos for the head of the Machine Gun Woman (Urrejola), an ex-girlfriend turned hit woman who has it out for him. When he is discovered eavesdropping on the conversation, Santiago's only choice to avoid being executed is to lie. He claims he knows the Machine Gun Woman and offers to bring her in. When he is given 24 hours to make good on his claim, Santiago's life turns into a violent video game of its own complete with missions, guns, sexy women and brutal violence. "

Trailer:

5 Second Reviewgets straight to the meat and potatoes: "You have to be somewhat of a film lover to like this movie. It's an old school exploitation film: the images are grainy, the scenes are quick, the cuts hard... With one enormous bonus: a very sexy killer dressed in a very sexy outfit. The middle of the film is maybe a tad too slow, but the rest is just fantastic fun."

Horror Honeysmight add: "Machine Gun Woman is purely grindhouse: full of film scratches and kinetic camera work. The blood flows bright and it flows plentifully. But Espinoza also frames the movie in the context of a video game, where Santiago must complete missions, and every assassin's appearance is accompanied by information about his value. At its basest level, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010 / trailer) + The Professional (1994 / trailer) = Bring Me the Head of the Machine Gun Woman."

Santiago Violenta

(2014, writ. & dir Ernesto Díaz Espinoza)

Ernesto Díaz Espinoza, the Chilean Tarantino, makes another grandhouse homage, the title of which is a direct reference to poliziottesco films like Lenzi's Napoli Violenta / Violent Naples (1976, see Part IV), so it is hardly surprising that Umberto Lenzi is among the many names give "inspirational thanks"— a list including Matt Groening and Ed Wood, Jr?

Trailer:

English-language commentary on the two movies are lacking: aside from the fact that Spanish genre films have always tended to be neglected, in this modern age of the blockbuster and the blockbuster sensibility, non-English foreign films are simply too small to truly make themselves noticed outside of the occasional film festival. 

Over at Ain't It Cool News, however, Papa Vinyard saw the movie and wrote that Santiago Violenta is "[…] in the same vein as Shion Sono's Why Don't You Play in Hell? (2013 / trailer). […] This one focuses on a group of three amateur filmmakers who get involved with some actual crimes involving actual criminals, and have to pose and bluff their way out of it. You may know Espinosa from his films like Kiltro (2006 / trailer) and Mandrill (2009 / trailer) […] and his energetic, tongue-in-cheek style is on full display here. The three leads have a strong dynamic, and the references to American and Italian gangster films come fast and heavy. The central director quite literally worships at the altar of Quentin Tarantino, and the film does a great job of unironically professing its love for that lurid, violent flavor of cinema. When real blood starts to get shed, and real bodies start to drop, the movie takes on a sort of anarchic, oh-shit-what's-going-to-happen vibe that goes a long way in making the whole experience an adrenaline-heavy, yet thoroughly sincere love letter to attitude-heavy filmmaking." 

Screen Anarchymight add, "It is an entertaining and many times funny romp with friends and not much more, and it doesn't need to be anything else than that, even as it comes to a closure and the film becomes weirder and even hard to understand, one can't help but laugh at the plot and how they end up being so involved in crime that even them can't believe how deep in the water they truly are. […] It is not a perfect film, as if at any time you start to analyze the plot itself, it makes little sense where they end up and how they started the whole ordeal, but it finally doesn't matter, it's a great time at the movies, and I guess, when it's all said and done, that's what counts.

Banned Alive!
The Rise and Fall of Italian Cannibal Movies

(2015, writ. & dir. Eugenio Ercolani)

(Co-directed by Giuliano Emanuele.) Which came first? In 2015, not one but two documentaries came out with virtually the same title on "The Rise and Fall of Italian Cannibal Movies"— this one has the main heading of Banned Alive! And, as is of course fitting for a documentary on the topic, Umberto Lenzi pops up as a talking head, not just because his presence is indispensible for a documentary on the topic, but because the documentary was made to be included in the then-new (January 2016) Blue Release of Eaten Alive! which, among other things, also featured three different versions of the main film.

Trailer to

Banned Alive:

Eaten Alive!
The Rise and Fall of the Italian Cannibal Film

(2015, writ. & dir. Calum Waddell)

Which came first? In 2015, not one but two documentaries came out with virtually the same title on "The Rise and Fall of the Italian Cannibal Film"— this one has the main heading Eaten Alive! And as is of course fitting for a documentary on the topic, Umberto Lenzi pops up as a talking head. Like most such docs, it first appeared as an extra on some DVD re-release of some cannibal movie. Director Calum Waddell also made the documentary Slice and Dice: The Slasher Film Forever (2012 / trailer), which we took a quick look at in our career review of Tobe Hooper (25 Jan 1943 – 26 Aug 2017), who appeared in that film as a talking head. 

At indiegogo, they explain, as expected, that the "focus [is] on spaghetti splatter's most controversial movie genre. Instigated by Umberto Lenzi's Thai-set The Man from Deep River (1972, see Part III), and reaching a notorious peak with Ruggero Deodato's horrifying Cannibal Holocaust(1980), the form would eventually fade from view with such lesser known romps as Amazonia (1985 / trailer) and Massacre in Dinosaur Valley (1985 / trailer). More recently, with the Hollywood-made Welcome to the Jungle (2007 / trailer), and Eli Roth's The Green Inferno (2015 / trailer), terrifying tales of meat-munching tribes have made their return to the big screen. As such, the time is ripe to share some of the true stories behind the making of some of shock cinema's most stomach turning shockers." 

At the imdb, Michael Elliott gave the documentary ***1/2 (out of 4 [amputated penises]): "If you're familiar or unfamiliar with the Italian cannibal cycle then this documentary will certainly be a must see. If you're not familiar with these controversial movies then you're going to understand why they're still popular today while at the same time being hated. If you're familiar with these films and are fans of them then you're going to get a kick out of seeing the clips as well as hearing from the movie directors. Sergio Martini, Umberto Lenzi, Ruggero Deodato and actors like Giovanni Lombardo Radice and Me Me Lai are also interviewed. Critics including Kim Newman and Shelagh Rowan-Legg are also on hand to share their thoughts on the films. […] It's interesting to hear the directors discuss and defend their work. It seems Lenzi and Deodato wants to fight one another in regards to which one of them started the genre. There are some hilarious stories told by Giovanni Lombardo Radice and he doesn't hide his hatred for Cannibel Ferox (1981, see Part IV). Some of the most fascinating stories come from Me Me Lai, who appeared in three of these movies and talks about the rough shootings, being naked, and the dangers in the jungles. […] Of course, the film's racist nature is discussed and there's also plenty of talk about the real animal violence."

Yellow Fever
The Rise and Fall of the Giallo

(2016, writ. & dir. Calum Waddell)
 

Another documentary by Calum Waddell, and once again Umberto Lenzi pops up as a talking head. We believe this doc showed up as an extra on a DVD rerelease of Dario Argento's classic giallo, Tenebre (1982).

Trailer to

Dario Argento's Tenebre:

Description found online at movieo: "Feature-length in-depth documentary by High Rising Productions chronicling the Giallo film genre from its beginnings as early 20th century crime fiction, to its later influences on the modern slasher film genre. Featuring interviews with Dario Argento, Umberto Lenzi, Luigi Cozzi, Richard Stanley, and more." 
Over at Letterboxd, Chris Kirbysays: "The documentary is […] definitely more bonus-feature material than an actual standalone film. There's a ton of great insight and information and it's just enjoyable listening to all of these individuals speak. […] Seeing as it is a bonus feature for Argento's Tenebrae it is no surprise that the discussion is very heavily focused on Argento's work. However, it is called The Rise and Fall of the Giallo, so it would have been nice if that was what they talked about... and not just Argento with a few asides." 
Other talking heads aside from Umberto Lenzi include Dario Argento himself, Luigi Cozzi (the man behind Starcrash [1978 / trailer], Contamination [1980 / trailer], Paganini Horror [1989 / trailer] and more fun trash), Richard Stanley (Hardware [1990 / trailer] and Dust Devil [1992 / trailer]), Maitland McDonagh (founder of 120 Days Books), and Ruggero Deodato (The Washing Machine [1993 / French trailer], Dial: Help[1988], Cannibal Holocaust  [1980] and so much more).

Nightmare City

(Release Date Unknown)

One of Lenzi's most contentious movies, Nightmare City from 1980 (poster below, see Part IV), is — possibly now "was"— set for a remake! Lenzi was an "associate producer", but his position as such is doubtful now. And though names have been announced, the when is unknown — hell, we're not even sure if shooting has started, or ever will. But Tom Savini is the announced director AND "special effects supervisor", so the project definitely sounds interesting to us.

The cast is rumored to include: Ray Wise, Judith O'Dea (of the original Night of the Living Dead[1968]), Gary Weeks (of Zombie Apocalypse[2011]), porn star Diana "100% silicone" Prince and, at one point, Lou Ferrigno. A low budget and self-financed production, it looks to be one more for the fans than the mass market.

Way back in 2015 — which says something about whether you should hold your breath for the project — Daily Dreadpublished the Press Release, which reveals some updates to the story: "When a mutated Ebola & Leprosy virus spreads from Haiti to Miami starts turning people into terrifying, bloodthirsty creatures, a small group of survivors must escape from the City Of The Walking Dead. Just like George Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978 / trailer), Umberto Lenzi's Nightmare City is a milestone of the zombie genre and 1980's horror cinema. Lenzi's work has had a big influence upon modern horror movies such as the 2004 Dawn of the Dead (trailer), 28 Days Later (2002 / trailer) and World War Z (2013 / trailer), and filmmakers such as Eli Roth and Quentin Tarantino, who confess to being big fans of Lenzi and Nightmare City(1980).

The remake will be directed by the King of Splatter & Gore TOM SAVINI who already proved with the critically acclaimed remake of George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1990 / trailer) that he knows how to create a dignified, thrilling remake of a cult classic. [...] Together with the best creative talents from his Special FX academy in Pittsburgh he will guarantee stunning makeup and special effects and will give horror fans what they desperately demand and miss in current horror movies — impressive practical effects and gallons of blood instead of cheap CGI effects. [...] Nightmare City won't be a simple horror movie or remake, it will be a movie with a social message, based on real life events and threats, this will make the movie more intense and more terrifying. [...] Parts of the profits will be donated to the Ebola response work of Doctors Without Bordersand to The Leprosy Missioninternational." 

IHorrorhas the plot as it was at that point of development: "After the outbreak of an unknown virus in the Caribbean the Miami Port Authority receives an SOS from an international aid ship returning from Haiti. TV reporter Dean Miller and his cameraman Charlie are sent to the port where rescue teams are awaiting the arriving ship. At first the ship appears to be deserted, but suddenly the rescue teams are attacked by dozens of deformed people. Infected by a new hybrid of two of the most deadly viruses of our time — Ebola and leprosy; their faces and bodies are covered with welts and sores and they are hungry for blood. Dean and his colleague witness a brutal massacre and return to the TV station to inform the public about the horrifying events, but the government and military prohibit the broadcasting of the news in order to avoid a panic. With the public in the dark, the virus and the number of infected people start to spread over the city, while Dean, his wife Anna and a small group are trying to escape from the 'City Of The Walking Dead'…"

Nightmare City—

Indiegogo Promo:

Addendum:

Raw Wind in Eden

(1958, dir. Richard Wilson)

In the course of putting together our 6-part R.I.P. Career Review, we stumbled upon "The Extremely Grumpy Umberto Lenzi Interview" at House of Freudstein, where Lenzi lets it drop that he started his career on an Esther Williams (8 Aug 1921 – 6 June 2013) movie as "assistant director" to Richard Wilson (25 Dec 1915 – 22 Aug 1991). This is the movie. 

First 44 Minutes:

Wikipedia has the plot: "Frustrated while having a fling with a married man, fashion model Laura (Esther Williams) is persuaded to fly in playboy Wally Drucker's private plane to a party aboard a yacht. The plane crashes near a small Mediterranean island, where a man named Moore (Jeff Chandler [15 Dec 1918 – 17 June 1961]), his daughter Costanza (Rossana Podestá [20 Aug 1934 – 10 Dec 2013]) and a couple others seem to be the only people there. Laura is unhurt but Wally's injuries are treated by Moore, a former World War II medic. Moore is vague about his past or why he is living in this solitary fashion. Laura's interest in him makes Drucker (Carlos Thompson [7 June 1923 – 10 Oct 1990]) jealous and irritates Costanza, who is herself desired by an older man from a nearby island who wishes to marry her. A beached yacht belonging to Moore is found. It turns out he was a wealthy man from North Carolina suspected of murdering his wife, who drunkenly fell from the boat and drowned. Moore gave his millions to charity and dropped out of sight. Moore must fight the other men for Laura, who then persuades him to sail back to America and begin a new life."

 

Rossana Podestá, seen above from a 1978 Italian Playboy pictorial, is also found in Antonio Margheriti's great Horror Castle(1963), aka The Virgin of Nuremberg, which is perhaps the first Eurotrash flick we ever saw as a wee child, and thus an eternal favorite. Carlos Thompson's death was suicide by gunshot to his head.

Trailer to

Horror Castle:

Back in 1958, over at The NY Times, Bosley Crowther wrote "It looks as if halfway through the shooting of Raw Wind in Eden the producers lost the script and went right on shooting without it, making it up as they went along. For it is hard to believe that any story could otherwise go as haywire and obscure as does this drama from Universal […]."

Finally, as an extra:

"Umberto Lenzi, The Last Interview"

Umberto Lenzi — R.I.P.

The Outing aka The Lamp (Texas, 1987)

May 15, 2018, 4:03 am

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(Spoilers.) Nice poster, or? The Outing and The Lamp is one and the same flick: it was entitled The Lamp for its British release, and then when it later reached the US, where it was actually filmed in that state that is actually a nation within a nation, it gained its second title, The Outing, and was made to look like a generic dead-teenager movie instead of a supernatural dead-teenager movie. Supposedly the US version was shortened, which might explain some noticeably absent special effects scenes (e.g., one guy gets cut in two, but you only see the before, hear a sound, and then see the after) but really didn't stop the hokey movie from having a relatively dull mid-section.

What's interesting and telling about most posters and VHS covers is not that some falsely infer that the events occur amidst the wild outdoors, but rather that for all images, whether for The Lamp or The Outing,  of the six "teen-aged" friends doomed to terror and/or death, only the four white folks are deemed worthy of gracing the poster. The two Afro American students apparently don't meet the standards required to get onto a poster or VHS cover — not in England, the US, or in non-English-speaking lands. (Is this an example of white privilege or white washing?) But while this typical but obvious case of prejudice is noticeable, the token Blacks of the flick are for the most part treated and killed with equality, though the N-word does fly at one point — but not at them.

The Lamp is a typically terrible dead teenager movie from the 1980s which, unexpectedly, has a few things going for it that raises it above so much of the cookie-cut product of the day, the first and most obvious being that it features a definitely different killer offing the fodder: it is perhaps the first body-count movie to ever feature a killer jinni* (a good ten years before the killer quipster of Wishmaster [1997]). Not that the jinni looks very convincing once it finally takes its latex form, but at least it isn't another childhood-scarred man in a mask wielding an axe.**

*Grammar fascist here: please note that "jinn" is plural, while "jinni" is singular. This movie is about an evil jinni, not evil jinn. The plural of djinn, however, is djinns.
** Go ahead: imagine the jinni above with thin, piss-colored hair and wearing a tie. Easy, isn't it?

The Lamp is the only feature film directed by Tom Daly (28 Dec 1947 – 2014), and he handles his directorial chores possibly even better than expected in a movie this cornball. But when watched today, aspects of this movie are truly jaw-dropping in a way also reflected in Daly's only other directorial job of note, the music video to Julie Brown's cult song, The Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun. (Julie, by the way, once played horror film fodder herself, in Bloody Birthday [1981 / trailer].)

Julie Brown's

The Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun:

In other words, times have changed. And so much of what happens in The Lamp just wouldn't find its way into a movie today, or at least not with such casual disregard. But that, in turn, is another feature of this decidedly "B" B-movie that makes it all the more fun and entertaining to watch now, especially as a group. (Note: there were even women present when we screened it.)

The body count of The Lamp is amazingly high, even if the special effects are often extremely low tech. Alone the opening scene, on a docked boat in 1893, opens with about three or four dead deckhands; and while the first "live" kill (the Captain [Ron Shotola]) happens mostly off-screen, the ketchup that splatters all over the wall is not only almost burlesque in the amount, but also viscerally lumpy. By the end of The Lamp, we counted a total 17, maybe 18, dead — in one dead-teenager movie!

From 1893 and lumpy ketchup, The Lamp jumps forward to the present day of the time (1986), and follows three of Texas's finer citizens, two male rednecks and one female, as they break into a rural mansion and, in the course of the Three Stooges robbery, not only put an ax into the rubbery-face of the old woman living there but end up releasing the jinni, who seems to have been napping since the opening scene. The three deaths that follow are all enjoyably entertaining: tacky and not all that convincing, but pleasingly funny. (Special note must be made of how the death in the swimming pool is conveyed. Inspired!) And the relatively long scene of the Texan trailer-trash woman, Faylene (Michele Watkins), in nothing but panties, her [all-natural] breasts jiggling away as she runs around in shrieking terror, is something just not found in the cheesy horror movies made today. (That's her screaming below.)

From there, The Lamp goes through a relative dry period were it not for the over-the-top "teenage" antics of the movie's two assholes, alpha-jerk ex-boyfriend Mike (Red Mitchell [1 Aug 1961 – 11 Aug 1994*] of Forever Evil [1987 / trailer]) and his enabler buddy Tony (André Chimène). (Do the math: at the time the film is set, "high-schooler" Mike was a 26-year-old teenager.) Imagine, if you can, that a high-school student were, within a few hours, to do the following and afterwards just be sitting outside the school, fuming and pouting: try to run his ex-girlfriend and her new beau off the road, get arrested by the police, show up at school and start fistfight, pull and fight with a flip knife, physically attack a female teacher, both threaten the school principal (Christopher Wycliff of Getting Even / Inferno USA [1986 / full movie]) and call him the N-word, and then tell everyone in the school hall "You're all dead meat."

Then again, maybe none of that is considered worthy of expulsion in Texas. In any event, since the two dicks are hanging out free & easy outside the school five minutes later, they too subsequently end up locked inside the local natural history museum where — and when — the jinni once again starts working on the body count.

*Seriously: in real life he died a Texas death when he drove across "a 'blind' rural railroad crossing — one without warning lights or barriers — at exactly the wrong time."

Here we must make mention of the said female teacher, Ms. Ferrell, played by Deborah Winters, who ten years earlier played the female lead alongside Zalman Kingin Jeff Lieberman's great cult film Blue Sunshine (1977 / trailer). In The Lamp, she not only plays the type of kick-ass teacher Donald "Dotard" Trump would want to give a gun, but the rubbery-faced old woman who gets axed early on (as well as a previously unmentioned woman who dies on the boat at the start of the flick). An associate producer of the movie, she sometimes looks as if she seriously has a few screws loose, particularly when she looks at her romantic interest Dr. Wallace (James Huston of Powder [1995 / trailer]). It's a shame that an actress as perky as she decided to leave the low budget horror movie biz and earn way more money as a real estate agent dealing in McMansions.

But to get back to the flick. In short, the magic lamp ends up at the natural history museum where, in search of it next caretaker, briefly possesses the final girl, Alex Winter (Andra St. Ivanyi, who's become a total MILF) and then, for no real reason other than to create a set-up for their deaths, convinces her friends to secretly spend the night in the museum for the most common of teenage debaucheries: drinking and having sex.

And you know that since they all really wanna do both, they all really gotta die. And so they do, some quicker than others, some more spectacular, some on-screen, some off-screen. In between, we see some more breastage and are subjected to a rape scene that, while cementing Mike and Tony's reps as assholes who deserve to die, really isn't needed. (Interestingly enough, the guy playing Mike must have found shooting the scene somewhat exciting, for if you freeze-frame the movie right about when the jinni twists off the head of his co-rapist buddy Tony, you can see the 25-year-old teenager sporting a noticeable if average-sized boner.)

Finally, it's up to Alex and Ms. Ferrell to destroy the jinni, and they do — though the concept that it would be written on the lamp how one can (easily) destroy the jinni is decidedly retarded, even if the language has supposedly been dead for thousands of years. That they even know that is thanks to a likeable minor pipe-sucking character, the Afro-American Dr. Theo Bressling (Danny Daniels [1 Nov 1927 - 4 Dec 2010]),* who managed to decipher the text before giving the office walls a new shade of red.

*Contrary to most sources, Daniels did not die in Inglewood, CA. Among his projects of note: Curse of the Voodoo aka Voodoo Blood Death (1965 / trailer), Prehistoric Women aka Slave Girls (1967 / trailer), Jack Cardiff's The Mercenaries aka Dark of the Sun (1968 / trailer), The Oblong Box (1969 / trailer), Cannon Film's Thunder Run (1986 / trailer) and Retribution (1987 / trailer).

Initially, we must say, we were fully prepared to hate The Lamp simply because of the obvious Final Girl: we still have a pronounced distaste, born of the 80s, of girls who wear Guess jeans and pastel, and regardless of how hot the actress playing her now looks, in the movie both her two female-fodder friends, Babs (Damon Merrill) and Gwen (Trayce Walker), look way more hickylicious and have a better wardrobe. (The guys, but for the assholes, are all pretty much generic and forgettable — why are there so few good-looking guys in the world?)

But despite all this and other major flaws — considering how much time is spent setting up the museum situation, the kills happen way too quickly; and we also really don't understand why a magic jinni has to bang his way through fire doors instead of magically appearing on the other side or simply repossessing the Guess Jeans Girl — The Lamp is bizarre and "bad" enough to be engaging. And, really: the jinni can magically make the spear impaling the guard move between scenes from the chest to the stomach, but can't move the magic lamp out of a furnace?

Yes, The Lamp is dorky and stupid and full of leaps in logic and plot holes, but it is also often enough a cheese factory of nonsensical laughs and fun. All the flaws manage to combine into the kind of amusing fromage mix that makes some movies a perfect accompaniment to beer and chips. (Weed would probably even make it more fun, as it gives you something to do during the slow spots.) And really, any movie with an opera-singing night guard can't be all that bad, or? (He even gets a post-credit scene.)

The Lamp: to enjoy it the fullest, watch it with friends.

Trailer to

The Lamp: