The Bloody Pit of Horror

... aka: Brain Creatures, The
... aka: Menta asesina (Killer Mind)
... aka: Mindkiller
... aka: Mind Killer - Halb Alien, Halb Mensch (Mind Killer – Half Alien, Half Human)
... aka: Transformator

Directed by:
Michael Krueger

Despite being the son of a study professional wrestler, nerdy, lonely library clerk Warren McDaniels (Joe McDonald) is having an impossible time meeting ladies. Usually left alone on weekends with his girlie magazines, Warren views the how-to video “The Manly Art of Seduction” and decides to try out a few of the pointers at the local bar. Unfortunately, he strikes out yet again because he always gets so nervous around women that he ends up making a fool of himself. His roommate Brad (Kevin Hart), on the other hand, has an effortless way with the opposite sex and has to beat girls off with a stick. Warren grows bitter and jealous and then starts displaying self-destructive tendencies like cutting himself and punching a mirror. Brad encourages him to just be himself but Warren hopelessly confides “I've been myself my whole life and even I don't like me.”

Warren works at the library as an archivist, along with his equally geeky pal Larry (Christopher Wade). Their asshole boss Mr. Townsend (George Flynn) brings in a new consultant, Sandy Crawford (Shirley Ross), who's been hired to help reorganize their out of date library system. Warren falls instantly in love with his new coworker. He tries to ask her to the movies but she (kindly) rejects him because of her policy of not dating anyone she works with.

Going through some old files, Warren stumbles upon an old manuscript written by a research psychologist named Vivac Chandra (Tom Henry), who supposedly died thirty years earlier of mysterious causes that also drove his own mother (Diana Calhoun) crazy. After reading it, Warren feels like a brand new man. He also realizes he now has the power to control many things using just his mind. Not only can he use telekinesis to move inanimate objects, but he can also control the thoughts and actions of others and even predict the immediate future. He helps Larry solve a Rubik's Cube, helps with a jammed vending machine, starts excelling at work, turns himself into a culinary wizard, makes his boss publicly strip down to his underwear to humiliate himself and much more. He also finds that he can use his powers to improve his love life. He picks up a blonde at the bar for “practice” but ultimately has his sights set on Sandy. However, for some strange reason, he finds he cannot control Sandy's mind so easily.

The more Warren uses his new powers, the more his personality and his physical appearance starts changing. He becomes short-tempered and irritable and starts suffering from throbbing headaches. His hair also starts falling out and he eventually becomes a bulbous-headed monster. Chandra's mother is thankfully still around (though as crazy as ever) and has left her son's lab mostly intact so Warren's friend is able to get his hands on some contraption called an “electrical conducer” that factors into the ending.

Neither great nor terrible, this is pretty typical low-budget 80s regional product made for the video market, and clearly influenced by the superior films of David Cronenberg and Stuart Gordon. On the down side, it's extremely talky and, aside from a brief prologue, the horror aspects don't really kick in until the very end. On the plus side, the dialogue is surprisingly sharp, witty and well-written at times. I was especially fond of “Care for a mint, Svengali?” and there's also a funny jab at then-president Ronald Reagan (“Third rate actors go real far in politics!”) The primary cast, especially McDonald, isn't too bad either and the male characters are atypically sensitive. There's a strange blue, purple and pink heavy color scheme and a song from Jill Sobule (of “I Kissed a Girl” fame) on the soundtrack. It was filmed in Denver, Colorado.

The director also made Night Vision (1987) and wrote and produced Lone Wolf (1988), both of which feature many of the same actors seen here. According to IMDb, he died in 1990, though it gives no further details. The special effects are by Vincent J. Guastini and Patrick Denver. Ted A. Bohus, who produced and co-wrote the cult favorite The Deadly Spawn (1983) and went on to direct Regenerated Man (1994) and Vampire Vixens from Venus (1995), was the fx supervisor and also gets a credit for additional story material. I'm not aware of any official DVD release, just a VHS from Prism (who also helped back the project) in 1987.

★★

... aka: Banbaia koppu
... aka: Haunted Cop Shop, The
... aka: Haunted Copshop, The
... aka: Haunted Cop Shop of Horrors, The
... aka: Strong Ghost Police Office
... aka: Vampire Cop

Directed by:
Jeffrey Lau

A former cop who's now a monk (well, driven to be a monk by the asshole police chief to be specific) shows up at a police station with a warning for his former boss, Supt. Chun (Fung Woo). He informs him that he's not to let a woman wearing pink into the station after midnight in seven days or else the entire area will be overrun with demons. Why? Well, because in a week it will be The Feast of Yu lan or The Hungry Ghosts Festival when evil spirits can enter this world and police headquarters just so happens to have been built upon a cursed plot of land. Back during World War II, the station used to be a clubhouse for the Japanese army. After Japan lost the war, a bunch of the soldiers committed suicide there by what the subtitles call sabuku but I'm pretty sure they meant seppuku (ritual suicide by disembowelment). Now, the officers make it a ritual to burn dolls every Yu lan at midnight (the exact moment when the gates of hell can be opened) to appease the spirits. As the officers are all busy outside doing that, there are things going on inside that they should be paying attention to...

Sneaky Ming (Billy Lau) is lured out of his cell by a woman dressed in pink. She leads him down the hallway and he's suddenly in the 1940s Japanese clubhouse during its heyday in a sequence clearly inspired by The Shining. After ordering a drink he's led to a private room where men are playing mah jong. He joins them and they somehow get the doofus to bet his life on the game. However, ghosts don't play fair and they change the tiles to make him lose. As punishment, he's forced to open a box containing the spirit of Japanese General Issei (Rico Chu) and from then on out all hell breaks loose at the police station and around town. Sneaky Ming gets bitten and turns into a vampire but is reduced to a pile of ash once sunlight hits him, though the real threat is out in the city hiding in an abandoned apartment building during the day and raising the dead at night.

After an utterly perplexing scene at a slaughterhouse where a bunch of guys drink cow blood, female police inspector Fanny Ho (Kitty Chan) is brought in to keep an eye on our bumbling heroes Macky Kim (Jacky Cheung) and Man Chiu (Ricky Hui, basically repeating his MR. VAMPIRE character). First, the guys have to prove to Fanny that there are vampires loose in the city. A trip to a morgue where a female corpse rises from the slab and attacks accomplishes that easily enough. Then, it's time to hunt down and put a stake to the evil and nearly unstoppable General. A consult with chef Uncle Chung (Kim-Wan Chan), a former exorcist, reveals the only way to eliminate the vamp for good is to find seven coffin nails and drive them into different parts of his body.

What is it about Hong Kong horror comedies? This isn't my first time, or twentieth time for that matter, watching one of these things where I felt my patience being tested the entire first half before it suddenly becomes strangely enjoyable in the second. This one suffers from focusing the first 40 or so minutes on Cheung and Hui's buffoon officers, who are not only morons but also not likable in the least. During one “comic” scene, they kill a dog and try to trick their new supervisor into eating it during lunch break just to give her bad luck. There are also a dozen or so really dumb gay jokes (pretty much on the level of “ew gay!”) plus some toilet humor and none of it is particularly funny. While most the better examples of this type of film suffer from some of these same problems, they also have some kind of grounding point (typically a major character playing it completely straight) to balance it all out. The best this offers up is the Fanny character but she's not introduced until the movie is halfway over and isn't even really present at the finale.

Director cameo!

Cop Shop does offer up individual scenes that are good. Even though it takes awhile for it to hit its stride, it's lively and fun once it does. Many of the action and horror scenes deliver the goods and, while the gags are hit-or-miss throughout, some moments are genuinely funny, like the “Eminent Star Strikes Dipper” pose. Fat Chung (a regular in these kind of movies) has a hilarious cameo as a retired ghost / vampire buster who gets to fight four of the ghouls before unceremoniously getting his arm ripped off. It was also a nice touch to actually name drop Ching-Ying Lam, even though the subs misspell his name. This movie could have used someone like him in it.

A Golden Harvest release, this was a decent sized hit in Hong Kong, grossing nearly 12 million dollars. Lau (who also has a cameo here as a gay ghost) returned with THE HAUNTED COP SHOP II (1988) the following year, which did nearly as well at the box office. He went on to make several other horror comedies like Operation Pink Squad II (1989 aka Thunder Cops) and Mortuary Blues (1990) before graduating to more 'prestigious' work. The same can be said for co-writer Kar-Wai Wong, who went on to a highly acclaimed career as a writer and director with films like Happy Together (1997), In the Mood for Love (2000) and 2046 (2004).

This was never officially released here in America through the video era and the best one could do for a long time was the 1997 VCD from Mega Star, which came with English subtitles. The newer release from Asian Crush is a restored print and also has an English subs option.

★★1/2

... aka: Der Polyp - Die Bestie mit den Todesarmen (The Polyp – The Beast with Death Arms)
... aka: Dödens tentakler (Death Tentacles)
... aka: Kæmpeblæksprutten (Giant Octopus)
... aka: Tentacles

Directed by:
"Oliver Hellman" (Ovidio G. Assonitis)

In the small coastal town of Solana Beach, California, the annual junior "yacht race" (actually a sailboat race) is just days away when something (read: a giant octopus) starts gobbling up the locals left and right. First on the menu is 10-month-old Baby Billy, who probably didn't stand much of a chance anyway considering his dumb-as-dishwater mother leaves him sitting alone by the water in a stroller while she runs off to gossip with a friend. Next up, a peg-legged fisherman disappears and his mangled corpse later turns up to stop an obese teenage girl from raping her disinterested date on a dock. (I'm not joking.) And then two divers go down to check out the status of some underwater cables and don't come back. They and other corpses are quickly filling up the morgue and all are stripped down to the bone and with all the marrow sucked out. Sheriff Rolands (Claude Akins) is at a loss what to do but he's apparently never seen a monster movie before. One should always check to see what kind of unethical corporation is in the area and what they're up to first and then go from there. In this case, it's a company drilling through the ocean floor with experimental new equipment as they attempt to build an underground tunnel.

The only thing that really separates this poorly-made, by-the-numbers and rather dull killer animal flick from others of its type is its surprisingly upscale cast. John Huston (two-time Oscar winner for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre) receives top billing playing former “big city journalist” Ned Turner, who's recently retired to the small, quiet community to work at the local paper and live with his sister, Tillie. Though Huston is rightfully better known as a filmmaker he also wasn't a bad actor, which he proves here by managing to get through the proceeding without embarrassing himself. The same cannot be said for most of his co-stars. His sister Tillie is played by another two-time Oscar winner - Shelley Winters - and while she does kind of embarrass herself (the ten gallon sombrero doesn't help matters) it's in that great Shelley Winters kinda way. She deserves some credit for at least bringing some kind of energy / entertainment value here as she camps it up as an over-the-hill barfly and nagging, overbearing single mom who starts each morning with a Bloody Mary and spends every evening trying to pick up a random stud from the local bar... Or so we hear, we never actually get to see that last part, unfortunately.

The other big name this picture was sold on the back of was Henry Fonda. It's hard to imagine watching Fonda here (he's awful!) that he'd go on to win his own pair of Oscars a few years down the line, but that's exactly what happened. His character, Mr. Whitehead, is the president of Trojan Tunnels Inc.; the company responsible for unleashing the giant octopus in the first place by using high radio frequencies “well beyond the legal limit.” Fonda has minimal screen time in this one because he was still in the process of recovering from a major heart surgery. Supposedly his three brief scenes were all filmed in a single day, which probably explains why they let a flubbed line slide through. Fonda also isn't really the main bad guy as he's oblivious to what's going on with his own company while his second-in-command, John Corey (Cesare Danova) is overseeing the entire project. Danova comes off even worse than Fonda here thanks to being the lucky recipient of a horribly wooden over-dub.

After several corpses are found, Huston's character runs off and recruits Will Gleason (Bo Hopkins), the best “marine expert” in the area. Will's clingy wife Vicky (Delia Boccardo) unsuccessfully tries to talk him out of getting involved but then expresses no opposition to her own sister Judy (Sherry Buchanan) going into dangerous waters on a snorkeling pleasure cruise with two of her male friends, including rotund Italian comedian Franco Diogene. When Judy doesn't come back, Vicky charters a ship (late at night, of course) to look for her and is killed along with the crew when the octopus crashes into and sinks their ship. After the carnivorous calamari turns a children's boat race into an all-you-can-eat buffet, Will and his colleague Mike (Alan Boyd) take two killer whales out to some caves where the monster lurks in hopes of killing it.

Mostly awful acting, terrible dialogue, a bland / entirely rehashed sub-Jaws plot, not nearly enough octopus action, poorly-directed and suspense-free attack scenes and no notable special effects to speak of sink this lame creature feature pretty quickly. The only things bringing it to occasional life are some interesting directorial flourishes, including a long unbroken crane shot that's surprisingly well executed, plus some decent underwater photography. The poorly-edited attack sequence on the kids, which features an astoundingly awkward use of freeze frames, is also memorable... though I'm not sure for the right reasons. Stelvio Cipriani contributed a bizarre score to the proceedings (which was released as a soundtrack album) and the big finale, consisting of two plastic whale dolls ripping apart a (real) dead octopus while our heroes float around and watch, is one of the least exciting endings I've ever seen to one of these films.

I beg to differ!

I bet they made a ton off of this stupid thing! Usually when I'm looking for posters for a particular film I'll find three or four different ones. For this one, I found posters from fifteen different countries and I didn't have to look hard to find them. Most places just used a derivation of the original title Tentacoli, though a few European countries said fuck it and just called it what it really is: Giant Octopus. Someone has submitted some seriously conflicting information for this one over on IMDb so I'd take what they say with a grain of salt. In the budget section for the film, they claim this cost 750 thousand and 5 million dollars (!?) to make. How a film can have two different budgets is beyond me. The trivia section adds: “The production spent nearly $1 million on a life-sized replica of a giant octopus which promptly sank when they put it in the water.” For starters, there is no way in hell this clearly low budget film with barely any real fx spent a million on an octopus model. Second, if they spent a million on a giant octopus the budget certainly couldn't have been 750K. The five million figure doesn't ring true either considering the same year's much more polished and clearly much higher budgeted (yet still kind of crappy) ORCA cost 6 million to make. So either the 750K is true but the part about the octopus model is a lie or the film cost 5 million and 4 million disappeared into the director's bank account.

The PG-rated Tentacles was released theatrically here in the U.S. by AIP and went on to gross three million dollars in America alone. After debuting on NBC TV in 1979, it became a staple late night filler movie on cable throughout the 80s and 90s. It was then well-circulated on VHS by companies like Vestron and Orion. All of the above prints of the film were cut by about 10 minutes but it was almost entirely dialogue scenes that were removed. The first full, uncut and still PG-rated version made its DVD debut courtesy of MGM's Midnite Movies line in 2005, where it was double billed with EMPIRE OF THE ANTS (1977). Finally (one can hope!), there's a Blu-ray / DVD combo from Shout! / Scream Factory, who've paired it with the Danish monster movie Reptilicus (1961). This is truly one of those titles that you couldn't avoid even if you tried to but probably wish you had after sitting through it.

★1/2

... aka: Hell Has No Boundary

Directed by:
Yang Chuan (Richard Yeung Kuen)

Cute young policewoman Wong Lai Fun (Leanne Lau Suet-Wah), or just May for short, is having a birthday. To celebrate, her boyfriend Cheung (Derek Yee Tung-Sing) takes her out to a small, uninhabited island to camp out. She hears a disembodied echo voice calling out her name, seems to know where things are even though she's never been there before and is startled out of her sleep that night by visions of some ugly green-faced ghoul. Upon leaving the tent to investigate, she's startled by a green flashing lights that chase after her, throw her to the ground and then knock her out. When she comes to, she's not quite the same girl she used to be. The following morning, when Cheung gives a few kids who stumble upon their camp sodas (I think Coke and Sprite must have co-sponsored this thing considering the amount of times the cans appear onscreen), May attacks one of them with a fork (!) and attempts to drown him in the ocean. After being shaken out of her trance, she can't remember anything she's just done. She does however finally master a Rubik's Cube in record time on the drive back home.

May returns to work at the Criminal Investigation Department, where her boss Inspector Wong (Hua Yueh) is up in arms about a serial rapist / killer on the loose in the city who's already claimed four victims. Conveniently, they get a call that the psycho is holding a woman and her kids hostage in a slum apartment building and then rush to the scene. There, May manages to shoot the killer but it requires her bullet to make a 90 degree turn to hit him. Reporter / photographer Koo (Ken Tong) from the Tin Tin Daily News catches sight of her miraculous shot from the balcony, becomes convinced she has “super powers” and starts to investigate her. Back at work, May's reckless behavior gets her in hot water with her superiors (who were about the promote her) and the sex maniac case is handed over to her colleagues Lady Killer (Chui Gai-Heung) and Dumb Sis (Si Ming). The two ladies don't have too much time to celebrate though when they're both killed in a bizarre accident falling down a shaft after the elevator floor falls out.

Whatever has possessed May has given her something of a “death glare” in that anyone who rubs her wrong ends up dead afterward. A visit to see blind priest Ban Xian (Wong Ching-Ho), who specializes in telling fortunes by feeling bones, ends with his pet bird dead, his vision restored, his face erupting in boils and him falling down the stairs to his death. When Inspector Wong tries to deny her promotion, she traps him a room with a rabid dog and a cobra, but he manages to survive. Now marked with an omen (an ever-growing black mark on his back), Wong's “seventh sister” Madam Chi (Teresa Ha Ping) attempts an exorcism. May regains her powers by drinking her own vomit out of a toilet (!) and then throws a match at Madam Chi that turns into a knife mid-air and sticks into her throat. After altering papers to get her promotion, May then decides to get back at horny police chief Peter Ho (Lo Yuen). She accompanies him to dinner and the disco then invites back to her apartment where he's castrated by a crab (!!) in the bathtub and wrapped up mummy-style with toilet paper.

Madam Chi's ghost returns to warn Cheung and to explain while all of this is going on. It involves a vengeful ghost who opts for revenge over reincarnation because she suffered a horrible death in a past life. That horrible death (shown in a flashback) occurred during the war with Japan where her impoverish mother sold her to a psycho who gets off smothering kids with pillows and then ripping out their guts (!) After her body was dumped in a field, another guy stumbled across it, dismembered it with a cleaver and then sold it as “fresh goat meat” to unsuspecting guests to his restaurant. Madam Chi gives Cheung a “Pluto Stick” that's used to subjugate evil spirits and then sends him on his way. He, the reporter and the inspector then all get into crazy confrontations with the evil spirit.

There's spiked fireballs, cannibal stew with a chopped off nose and eyeballs, a decapitation, blood drinking, maggot eating, doppelgangers, surreal hallucinations, a suicide, a guy taken out of commission by a toppled air conditioner, a blood drenched car, lots of erupting fire, a real snake and chicken killed, a fist fight, a nude nurse strangled to death in the shower, a human torch, hazy soft focus shots, spell papers, exorcisms, blue, red and (especially) green lighting everywhere and much, much more in this typically busy, fast-paced and colorful Shaw Brothers production. Unfortunately, it's also a bit much to take in and the director (who made the much more popular Seeding of a Ghost the following year) doesn't know when to quit. The amount of times this builds to a climax only to keep on going becomes tiresome by the time the last scene finally does arrive.

One thing that's perhaps most interesting of all is that a very popular later movie ripped off one aspect of this and hasn't been called on it. As it turns out, Shutter (2004) did not actually invent the ghost-riding-on-shoulders-captured-by-a-photograph bit because it was done here 20+ years earlier. The DVD from Celestial Pictures offers English subtitles.

★★1/2

...aka: Eric's Revenge
...aka: Kasvoton tappaja (Faceless Killer)
...aka: Phantom des Todes (Phantom of Death)
...aka: Phantom Nightmare

Directed by:
Richard Friedman

Good-looking, popular teen Eric Matthews (Derek Rydall) has a bright future ahead with dreams of becoming an Olympic gymnast and sweet, pretty girlfriend Melody Austin (Kari Whitman) by his side. Coinciding with Eric and his parents' refusal to leave so developers can tear down their home and build a modern shopping center in its place, there's a mysterious fire and both Eric and his parents are killed. Melody was there when it happened and spotted a strange man wearing some kind of metal religious symbol as an earring lurking about. She's positive the man had something to do with setting the fire. Unfortunately for her, her memories are hazy from hitting her head and no one believes her anyway, so the company planning on putting up the mall now conveniently get the now-vacant plot of land they desperately wanted. A year later, construction on the mall is finally complete, with sleazebag owner Harv Posner (Jonathan Goldsmith), glamour puss town mayor Karen Walton (Morgan Fairchild, who really means business with her massive shoulder pads) and other prominent members of the community showing up for the big ribbon cutting ceremony. All the while, someone is lurking around in the mall's air vents... watching... and waiting to strike.

That “someone” is, of course, Eric, who didn't actually die in the fire but was instead badly burnt and now wants revenge on the greedy developer who, of course, is the one responsible for ordering the burning of his home and thus ruining his life in the process. When he's not pumping iron or practicing his martial arts moves, Eric's having fun terrorizing Harv in a variety of ways, like using a rope and the escalator to strangle his obnoxious, spoiled son (played by John Travolta's nephew, Tom Fridley) and sending the perverted security guard (John Walter Davis) he's just electrocuted through a vent directly onto Harv's desk with a note attached that says “An eye for an eye.” Not to cause a stir or hurt business, Harv decides to hide the security guard's body and then calls up Christopher Volker (Gregory Scott Cummins), the same punk who pulled off the arson routine, to pose as a security guard and snuff out any trouble he happens to stumble upon.

To Eric's good fortune, Melody gets a waitress job at the mall so he can keep a close eye on her using stolen video surveillance equipment. He leaves orchids (her favorite flower) in her locker, steals a dress she liked but couldn't afford and leaves it in her car, plays “their” song on a jukebox, shoots a masked would-be rapist who attacks her in the parking lot with a crossbow and basically kills anyone who tries to do her harm. Eric does what he can to let Melody know he's still around, not only to protect her but also to put a stop to a budding romance she's developing with handsome journalist / photographer Peter Baldwin (Rob Estes). Because of all of the strange occurrences going on, Peter and Melody team up to get to the bottom of things. Meanwhile, Eric keeps busy decapitating and impaling victims. He also uses a flamethrower to set someone on fire and uses a cobra to take care of someone else. For his big encore, he forgoes the chandelier in favor of a bomb.

Nothing all that surprising goes down in this umpteenth spin on The Phantom of the Opera that adds a slash-happy dash of late 80s mall culture to the mix. However, this is still fun and enjoyable all the same. A big part of the film's success lies with its (mostly) appealing and likable cast. A big exception is a before-he-was-famous Pauly Shore as weird-o friend “Buzz,” who wears a “Weasels” t-shirt, claims to possess “supersonic hearing,” sneaks rubber ears and eyeballs into the frozen yogurt he sells, keeps pestering Melody's disinterested best friend Suzie (former fashion model Kimber Simmons) for a date and is already starting to perfect his annoying slow-speak slacker shtick even at this early stage in his career. One clever bit of casting is Ken Foree, from the ultimate mall horror movie DAWN OF THE DEAD, as the main security guard. Like in Dawn, this even throws in a bit of anti-consumerism / materialism humor, like when a couple of the guys discover that the owner has hidden subliminal messages (“I like to spend money!” “Shopping makes me feel good!” “Spending money makes me feel good!”) into the Muzak being pumped throughout the mall.

Using the alias “Kari Kennell,” leading lady Whitman (who is not only nice to look at but also not a bad little actress) had appeared nude in Playboy magazine as a 1988 Playmate of the Month and then appeared nude in subsequent Playboy videos, which makes the fact she used a body double for her sex scenes here pretty amusing. Some other nudity is provided by several female extras (including Brinke Stevens) in a locker room scene. For all you beefcake fans you get an ass shot from, uh, probably the last guy in the cast whose ass you actually want to see. I will say it is not provided by Rydall, who went on to star in Night Visitor (1989) and Popcorn (1991) before starting a lucrative career as a screenplay consultant and script doctor, or Estes, who went on to a busy TV career (Melrose Place, Silk Stalkings) the following decade, and leave it at that, buuuuu-ddy.

The executive producer was Charles W. Fries, who gave this a very limited theatrical release through his company Fries Entertainment and then a VHS release through his Fries Home Video. There has not been an official DVD release to my knowledge. Beware a heavily-cut 84 minute version floating around that eliminates all of the nudity and nearly all of the gore (including an entire death scene). Director Friedman also made Death Mask (1984), Doom Asylum (1987), Scared Stiff (1987) and Dark Wolf (2003), which means this is clearly his best genre film to date.

★★1/2

... aka: Las mujeres vampiro (The Vampire Women)
... aka: Saint Against the Vampire Women, The
... aka: Samson and the Vampire Women
... aka: Samson vs. the Vampire Women
... aka: Santo versus the Vampire Women
... aka: Santo vs. the Vampire Women
... aka: Superheld gegen Vampire (Superhero vs. Vampires)
... aka: Superman contre les femmes vampires (Superman vs. Vampire Women)

Directed by:
Alfonso Corona Blake

Though Santo (real name: Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta) had already appeared in supporting roles in a couple of action films made in Cuba back in the late 50s, it wouldn't be until 1961 that the Mexican masked wrestling hero would transition over to lead roles and prove to be a huge box office draw in his home country until the end of the 1970s. In addition, many of his films would be exported to a number of other countries which gave him a bit more international name recognition. With these earlier releases though, Santo wasn't known by many outside of his homeland, so he was often called something else. In Italy, he became Argos (and Santo himself was credited as “Jimmy Pantera” on the posters), in France he was Superman and here in the U.S. he became Samson thanks to distributor K. Gordon Murray. Murray was responsible for distributing a number of Mexican horror, fantasy and sci-fi films here in America. He always had them (horribly) re-dubbed, often re-edited them and added new music and always managed to successfully sell these films in both cinemas and on network TV (through AIP-TV). In other words, a whole generation of American youth grew up watching this kind of stuff. Murray's two Santo acquisitions were this one and Santo in the Wax Museum (1963) from the same director, which became Samson in the Wax Museum.

In some catacombs beneath an old house, a dehydrated female priestess named Tundra emerges from her coffin and calls forth her equally rotten-faced vampire sisters. Their goal? Well, for starters to get enough virgin blood to resurrect “Queen of the Vampires” Thorina, who's been taking a 200-year-long slumber and now needs to find her successor so she can “return to the depths of the dark dominion” to be with Satan. The women pray to “The Lord of Darkness” and some being in the sky called Celine to give them both protection from the sunlight and restored beauty so they can more easily fulfill their tasks. The ugly Tandra then transforms into the beautiful and voluptuous Ofelia Montesco, who then raises a bunch of muscular zombie servants from the dead that also take on human form. This same group had tried two centuries earlier to find Thorina's successor with a pure and innocent girl named Rebeca but failed in their task. Now they have their sights set on another replacement named Diana (María Duval), the daughter of the incredibly dumb Professor Rolof (Augusto Benedico).

Diana's birthday's coming up and at her masquerade ball she's expected to announce her engagement to boyfriend George (Xavier Loyá), whose idea of sweet talk includes saying things like “Pretty soon you'll be using my name and I'll give the orders around the house.” Sounds great, George. Professor Rolof knows his daughter is a target of evil but doesn't want her to know that, so he asks his policeman buddy Charles Andrews (Jaime Fernández) to keep a close eye on her. According to some ancient family parchments the Professor has, Tundra will seek revenge on one of the female descendants of Rebeca (that'd be Diana) and she'll be initiated into the cult of vampire women on her 21st birthday (that'd be tomorrow). Diana also has a bat shaped birthmark on her shoulder that marks her as being the chosen one. After both Tundra and one of the zombie men pay a visit to their home and frighten Diana, the Professor hops on some silly looking contraption with a giant video monitor, a walkie talkie and an audio reel and sends a message to wrestler Samson that he needs his help.

Samson, however, is in the middle of a tag team match where he and his partner Black Shadow (Alejandro Cruz) are up against Caveman Wellington and Rod Mendoza. The match turns out to be none-too-exciting as it's all filmed from outside the ring and goes on for an excruciating 10 minutes, though Santo does get to show off one rad move leaping off the ropes and sending his head into an opponent's stomach. While they're busy fighting, Tundra and her boys beat up a cop and then ambush a young couple. The guy is knocked out, she's bitten and they're both dragged back to the ghouls' mansion where she joins the legion of vampires and he has his blood drained into a goblet that's used to restore Thorina's (Lorena Velázquez) beauty. The remaining blood is then shared among the other vampire sisters and they too become hotties in white togas instead of hags in rags.

Tundra and her undead henchman Igor (Fernando Osés, who also co-wrote the story) attempt to snatch Diana at the party but Santo arrives in the nick of time to beat them up and force them to turn back into bats and fly away. Thorina is getting fed up that her crew cannot even manage to kidnap one girl and threatens to turn them all into dust if they're unsuccessful in their next attempt. Since the vampires seem to be targeting patrons of a nightclub, the cops decide to use Diana as a decoy, sending her there with her fiance and the inspector to watch some guy warble at the piano. As that's going on, Samson / Santo is at the arena wrestling. Igor sneaks into a dressing room, kills a wrestler and then steals his identity as “The Black Mask.” In the ring, Igor uses karate on Santo and attempts to kill him, but Santo rips off his mask to reveal he's been wrestling a werewolf the entire time! Igor is shot three times by cops, but does the bat routine and flies off. Diana's finally kidnapped and Santo must then rescue her from the vampire's hideout.

This is all, of course, extremely silly and childish but it's not too terrible for a juvenile action / horror / fantasy film. I'm sure with its wide variety of creatures and dark tone, this both fascinated and freaked out little kids who caught it on one of those Saturday matinee showings. Big kids who also happen to be fans of Gothic horror will enjoy the art direction in the vampire mansion and crypt and the various make-up effects, which aren't bad at all for the time. However, whenever this strays too far from its horror elements, it tends to drag and sadly that's a bit too often. This isn't helped any by the fact the dubbed dialogue in the English version is diabolically awful, plus the print itself doesn't look so hot, which robs this of a bit of its atmosphere. (If I can find a better quality print in its original language with subtitles I'll reevaluate this.) Harming the film most of all, however, is that it's filled with so many action scenes throughout that it forgets to save any energy for its disappointing finale, which comes and goes without generating any real excitement.

Released in 1962 in Mexico City and in 1963 in Spain, this is actually the seventh Santo film. It played in U.S. theaters in a Spanish-language version courtesy of Azteca Films in 1963. After being dubbed, it was then in regular rotation on American TV starting in 1964. Hollywood Home Video and Something Weird Video both offered the dubbed TV version on video, and then there was a DVD release (also taken from the dubbed TV print) through Beverly Willshire / Telefilms International.

Many of the supporting roles are filled by real-life wrestlers like Guillermo Hernández (“Lobo Negro”) and Nathanael León (“Frankenstein”). Víctor Velázquez (Lorena's father) appears in one role as a coroner. Blake also made The Woman and the Beast (1958) and the very fun THE WORLD OF THE VAMPIRES (1961).

★★

... aka: Escape
... aka: Escape from Hell
... aka: Hell Females
... aka: Hellfire on Ice, Part 2: Escape from Hell
... aka: Hell Prison
... aka: Les évadées du camp d'amour (Escapees of Love Camp)

Directed by:
"Tony Moore" (Edoardo Mulargia)

I've owned a copy of the Linda Blair vehicle SAVAGE ISLAND (1985) for quite some time now and put off watching it after learning it's mostly made up of footage from two other Italian / Spanish women-in-prison exploitation movies; this one and Orinoco: Prigioniere del sesso / “Orinoco: Prison of Sex” (better known by the title HOTEL PARADISE). Both Escape and Orinoco were shot back-to-back by the same director for the same production companies in the same country using the same sets and featuring the same actors. In fact, the two are so similar that for the longest time they were listed as being the same film in most reference books. So I held off on watching the Blair version until I acquired the other two films just so I could map out the chronology of how one shoot produces two films and then two films become three films and about how three films can then be released under about thirty different titles between them. Anyway, I now have all three so expect to see a one-two-three punch of W.I.P. crap in your near future.

This genre of film basically exists for one reason: To show scantily-clad / naked females being raped, abused, tortured and degraded in various ways. Having a mostly female cast trapped in a prison setting is pretty much the ideal exploitation premise because it means more shower scenes and more lesbian scenes which means more flesh on display. A tropical prison setting is even better. After all, hot = less clothing and hot also = more showers needed. Most of these films attempt to justify what they're doing by applying a “girl power” angle and allowing the ladies to either outsmart the corrupt staff and escape or turn the tables on their oppressors and get bloody revenge. Of course that usually happens in the last ten minutes or so. There are far more pressing things to take care of first!

To its credit, Escape from Hell clicks not only all of the expected boxes, plus also a few unexpected ones. Things open with a group of ladies dressed essentially in ripped, stained t-shirts doing their hard labor for the day and getting pushed, kicked, whipped and berated by laughing, leering guards the entire time. A girl named Ann attempts to escape but she's caught, gang raped and murdered. Lead guard Martinez (Serafino Profumo) tells everyone else she's been killed and eaten by a jaguar but most of the women know better. Things are about to get even worse for the prisoners with the arrival of the new warden (Luciano Pigozzi), who's an asshole germaphobe that claims to be a stickler for law and order but isn't above torturing the prisoners when they do something he doesn't happen to like. He's also so uptight that even his room cannot be dusted to his satisfaction. As it turns out, the Warden is under contract to clear a path through the swamp and I bet you can guess who gets to work their asses off even harder than usual to accomplish that.

Along with the new Warden, a new batch of prisoners are brought in, including the pouty Vivienne (Cristina Lay), who's set to serve 10 long years. She's introduced to her three cellmates; Mary (Maite Nicote), a former prostitute, Zaira (Ajita Wilson), who's serving 20 years for unpremeditated murder for accidentally shooting her partner in a circus act gone wrong and blonde lesbian Katie (Cintia Lodetti), a lifer who rather casually mentions that she killed her girlfriend as if were nothing to her. Katie is also the Queen Bee of the prison and insists that whatever she says goes and whatever she wants she eventually gets... including the new arrival. Vivienne resists her advances at first and is slapped in the face. She eventually caves in but Zaira also has eyes for the newcomer and gets into a nude cat fight with Katie (“You black bitch!” “White trash!”) over her.

The girls are called things like “swine,” “rats” and “fucking whores” and are fed nothing but a steady diet of snake meat because it “gives them zip.” For punishment, they get strung up by their wrists, are forced to run around in a circle carrying heavy bags, are whipped bloody or get shot dead. Mary, who's been screwing one of the guards for special favors (“I prefer to buy you like a whore than take you by force!”), is busted with booze and cigarettes so she ends up getting buried up to her shoulders on the jungle floor and is killed by a giant python. Having had enough torture, rape and slave labor to probably last them a lifetime, Vivienne, Zaira and Katie, along with their new cellmate Lucy (former Miss Italy Zaira Zoccheddu), decide to attempt an escape and even have an ally on the inside...

Classical music loving drunk Dr. Farrell (Anthony Steffen), the only halfway decent person who works at the camp, has seen enough himself and decides to help the ladies out. He gives them a potion that will make them erupt in red soars and puke up blood in hopes that he can convince the Warden they have the plague. It works and he's given permission to take the infected girls a few miles away from the camp until they recover. Farrell decides to kill the Warden before they take off, which ends up biting them in the ass once his body is discovered. What follows is a Most Dangerous Game-style forest hunt with the doc and the girls trying to elude armed guards whilst also trying to survive the elements during their 10 mile trek to the river. There's death by snake, leeches, dehydration, quicksand and gunfire, plus an out of nowhere fantasy striptease from Wilson, which is wedged in because the film had gone (gasp!) a whopping 15 minutes without gratuitous nudity beforehand.

Also for your viewing pleasure, you get a snake having its head bitten off, a crazy woman “dog lover” who supposedly has a sexual relationship with the resident canine and a voyeuristic mute servant who's had his tongue removed. There's plenty of torture violence (though this isn't quite as sadistic as the Ilsa movies) and full frontal nudity in shower scenes, soft core sex scenes (both straight and girl-girl) and cat fights and one long and rather graphic rape scene including spread eagle shots that would have gotten this slapped with an X here in America had they not been cut out. In other words, you get everything you could possibly want from one of these things and then some with this dumb but lively piece of Euro-sleaze. The version I viewed ran 89 minutes and does not appear to have been cut, though some sources claim there's a 93 minute version out there.

Wizard Video first released this in the U.S. in 1984 under the title Escape, which managed to actually beat Savage Island to theaters so some people saw parts of the same film twice. In 1990, the obscure label Hurricane Pictures then reissued it under the name Hellfire on Ice, Part 2: Escape from Hell (the *other* Hellfire on Ice was actually 1972's Sweet Sugar). It was then picked up by Troma and Shock-O-Rama for DVD distribution. The UK version titled Hell Prison was cut by about 5 minutes. In Germany, it was released as part three in a bogus series entitled Die Schwarze Nymphomanin / “The Black Nymphomaniac.” The first two Black Nympho releases (all of which starred African American post op transsexual Wilson) were Queen of Sex (1977) and Erotic Passion (1981). It was also released in Germany under the irresistible title Die Liebeshexen vom Rio Cannibale / “Love Witches of Cannibal River.” This is much easier to find that its companion piece.

★★1/2

... aka: Haunted Cop Shop II, The
... aka: Haunted Copshop II, The
... aka: Haunted Cop Shop of Horrors 2, The
... aka: Haunted School
... aka: Maang gwai hok tong

Directed by:
Jeffrey Lau

This immediate follow-up to THE HAUNTED COP SHOP (1987) went into production after the first became a modest hit in Asia. Like its predecessor, it also did pretty well in theaters (earning just 1.5 million less than the first) but there were still no further films in this particular series. That's not necessarily a bad thing if I'm being perfectly honest. Abiding by the smart strategy “Don't change a winning team,” this was made by the same director, writers (Lau and Kar-Wai Wong) and producers (Alan Tang and Golden Harvest), brings back all of the original film's main actors (some reprising their originals and others in different parts) and sticks by the same bumbling policemen vs. ghostly vampires horror-comedy template.

After a nightmare / flashback sequence that utilizes footage from the first film, this throws us right into the action with a long action-horror-comedy-horror set piece in a high rise office building. While a meeting of professionals is going on about what to do with a recent outbreak in vampires / ghosts (should they be eliminated or treated like normal citizens are have to pay taxes?), a bloodsucker sneaks into the building and causes another outbreak. Supt. Shun (Fung Wu) of the Hong Kong Police Department puts his most experienced officers; Kam Mark (Jacky Cheung) and Man Chiu (Ricky Hui), in charge of taking down the vampires but all anyone really does is try to run away from them. Kam Mark skates around the office when buckets get stuck on his feet while Man Chiu is forced into having sex with a horny female vampire (which is captured by security cameras and later accidentally broadcast on TV) to keep her from biting him.

Seeing how their current techniques haven't been all that effective, the mayor has Shun start a special new “Ghost Buster Team” of the force specializing in snuffing out the supernatural. Gee, that sounds awfully familiar. The new unit's full name is the Hong Kong Royal Police Monster & Special Crime Research and Action Unit, or the H.K.P.C.D.U.K.L.M.E. for short. Don't ask how that works out but I think it's supposed to be funny. Kam Mark and Man Chiu are forced to assist Shun like it or not. The ambitious Little Bald (Chan Fai-Hung) joins only because he thinks he'll be getting a raise and promotion if he does. Over-the-hill wannabe ladies man Romeo (James Yi Lui) asks for a change of department after discovering the severed head of a serial killer's victim inside a basketball but insists big breasted Hung Dai Dai aka Big Mimi (Kitty Chan) be reassigned, too. Sick of helping a shrink talk suicides off of jumping off rooftops, Little Witch (Prudence Liew) thinks she can do better. Miss Bad Luck (Sandy Lam) causes injury and misfortune to anyone so much as in the same room with her so she's thrown into the mix. And, finally, Lazy Bone (Billy Lau), twin brother of one of the first film's victims, joins up looking for revenge.

Around the campfire, Little Witch pulls out a book her grandfather gave her that explains the different type of vampires one can come across. What kind of vampire one becomes depends on how frightened they are prior to being bitten. There's even a type of werewolf vampire (no fur or claws, just wolf-like behavior and one fang instead of two) that only lusts for blood on a full moon but is normal the rest of the time. Little does anyone realize, but Man Chiu actually suffers from the latter condition after getting bitten during his earlier tryst. The gang do an obstacle course that includes running through tires, scaling a wall and trying to stake a target white it spins. Other than that, they spend nearly an entire day trying to charm a chicken so it'll lay eggs. After much goofing off, everyone eventually has to deal with two female vampires; one dressed in red and the other in white, who conveniently live near the training groups in some underground lair.

Not quite up to the middling heights of the previous entry, this comes off like some unholy mix of Ghostbusters, Police Academy and Mr. Vampire. Don't get me wrong, this movie really does try hard, it's just that most of the time the attempts at humor aren't the least bit clever (though a dig at the hopping vampire genre made me laugh) and this has even less horror and action than the first. Even worse, the mostly unlikable characters talk a mile a minute, never seem to shut up and are constantly mugging and looking directly at the camera making goofy faces. There's a pretty good scene in a bathroom where one of the girls tries to elude a vampire that rises from a tub, and a decent final twenty minutes or so of action in the vampire lair when an army of zombies show up but that's about all this has to offer.

★★

... aka: Damned House of Hajn, The
... aka: Invisible
... aka: Invisible Man, The
... aka: Uncle Cyril

Directed by:
Jirí Svoboda

Peter Svejcar (Emil Horváth) started from humble beginnings as son to a poor couple (including an alcoholic father) but lucked out (well, sort of) that a senile old man took pity on him and wanted to pay for him to get a better education. He did and made a decent life for himself working as an engineer until he was fired. Now middle age and out of work, Peter has hooked up with the lovely and much younger Sonia (Petra Vancíková). He'd perhaps like to marry her, and has bought her an expensive ring made of her moonstone, but first he needs to get a family blessing and accompanies Sonia back to her family's huge mansion in the small town of Jesenice for an extended stay. Things are extremely odd right off the bat, with everyone, family and staff alike, behaving strangely and secretively. Sonia's mother is said to have abandoned them, but her father Hugo (Radoslav Brzobohatý), who runs a soap factory, lives there along with his rude, elderly great aunt Caroline (Valérie Kaplanová) and the staff. Over dinner, Auntie makes an odd comment that poor Sonia has had “bad luck with suitors” in the past but doesn't elaborate on that.

Also occupying the house is Uncle Cyril (Petr Cepek) aka the family shame. He's a laughing, maniacal, voyeuristic, cat-hating madman who lives in the attic and paints creepy abstract pictures on nearly everything he comes into contact with. Cyril used to be a brilliant academic when he was younger but one day out of the blue he suddenly started to believe that he'd become invisible. After spending six months in an asylum and (supposedly) being mistreated there, the family took over custody of him and brought him back home to live out the rest of his days. Now everyone plays along and pretend that they can't see him either.

The family, who actually hired a private eye to learn all he could about Peter prior to him even coming there, soon start trying their future son-in-law's patience. Auntie makes rude comments about his impoverished upbringing and confesses she lives for the past, reading and then burning one letter from a male admirer every evening before bed. The home is one of an underlying suspicion about Peter and his true intentions. Does he really love Sonia or is he only marrying her for her money after having fallen on hard times? Peter ignores flirtatious servant Katy (Evelyna Steimarová) when she warns him that he should run away while he still can, and goes through with the marriage. The two move into a separate wing of the house (yes, it's THAT big) and can't even get through their honeymoon without Uncle Cyril spoiling the consummation with his peeping tom routine.

Peter goes to work in the factory making scented soaps but Cyril's strange behavior is having a psychological toll on Sonia. Peter promises her they'll move out but when Hugo gets wind of it, he threatens to bequeath everything to a local orphanage and downgrade Peter to a grunt position if he takes Sonia away. With Katy's help, Peter gets his hands on some of Cyril's paintings and perverted scribblings, which show he has incestuous designs on his niece. Even that's not enough of a red flag. Nothing is done and one day he manages to get in her room and rapes her. Perhaps it's not the first time. Katy catches them and pulls him off. Against Catherine's wishes, he's finally put into a straight jacket and hauled off to the nuthouse... but someone else is about to take his place as the household's resident crazy.

Traumatized from the event, Sonia starts going insane. She alternates between going on crazy, teary-eyed, screaming rants and jovially skipping around the mansion grounds, plays the same song at the piano over and over again and refuses to sleep in the same bed with her husband, let alone have sex with him, which prompts Peter to take Katy (who also occasionally sleeps with Hugo) as a lover. When it's revealed that she's pregnant, she's convinced that Cyril is the father and the baby is going to be invisible, too. She ignores the baby's cries, hides him all around the house, feeds him bread so that he chokes, bites him, bruises him, etc. and also believes an invisible Cyril has escaped and is still lurking around the house. Eventually, she must be quarantined in a room in the house and kept away from the baby.

Really (and I mean really) beautifully photographed by Vladimír Smutný with constant use of lots of rich, saturated colors. This is one of those films where you can tell that great care has gone into the look of every single shot and how it is staged, dressed, lit and photographed, with nice use made out of things like stained glass, mirrors, fog and fans to make it look even more opulent. In addition, this throws in some wacky camerawork that would make Bava and Argento envious with shots prowling the outside of the house, swooping out of trees and descending upon people and so forth. There are strong performances across the board and fairly well-defined, albeit highly unpleasant, characters. The plot is interesting but seems of secondary concern next to the visual presentation.

Based on Jaroslava Havlíčka's novel Neviditelný (or “Invisible”), which is essentially a negative critique of the greedy bourgeois way of life, this does honor the novel by touching on the corrupting influence of wealth and trying to maintain a certain stature within a community. The director was a graduate of FAMU and later taught film, TV and media arts there. He was also heavily involved in politics in his home country (and was a former member of the Communist party) and unsuccessfully ran for the Prague Senate in 1996 as an independent.

★★★

... aka: Lady Vampire
... aka: Miss Magic
... aka: Miss Magic Spirit

Directed by:
Fung Hak-On

At a small film studio, a director (Teddy Yip) and crew are shooting some kind of period action / horror / samurai swordsman epic. When they're not busy gambling away their pay, some of the immature extras play a prank on obnoxious fellow extra and "fatso" Billy Tung (Billy Lau, doing his usual mugging routine) by pretending to be hopping vampires, leading him to humiliate himself by confessing that he's never had a woman (“I'll shoot you with my virgin pee!”) Unbeknownst to any of them, but a real ghost (Lau Chin-Dai), a nice, friendly one at that, is actually haunting the grounds. Studio janitor Uncle Fok (Fat Chung) knows about her and interacts with her. Earlier, he'd found her bones in the mountains behind the studio and had them buried. However, even a proper burial hasn't brought her peace and she's still hanging around. The ghost girl idolizes the studio's star actress Jenny (Petrina Fung), but encounters with the starstruck ghost, brief and innocent as they may be, drain Jenny of her energy so Uncle Fok frowns upon it.

A frequent presence on set is Wong-Ngan (Pauline Wong Yuk-Wan), who's married to studly film star / martial arts expert Wai-Keung Chiu (Norman Chu); a man who has a bad habit of (really) beating the shit out of the extras during action scenes. Wong-Ngan is just a wee bit insecure in their marriage, paranoid he's fooling around behind her back and had previously tried to kill herself by drinking antiseptics and slitting her wrists multiple times. Wai-Keung, who's doing an all-night shoot, promises to be home at 8am so they can have breakfast. However, there is no overnight shoot. He just wants to go out with his buddies to get some drinks. Wong-Ngan catches him there, slaps Jenny in the face, is slapped back by Wai-Keung and angrily storms off. When a drunk Wai-Keung returns home later that night he discovers his wife has hung herself. The fact she put on a red dress beforehand means that she'll be back.

After the funeral, Wai-Keung doesn't seem the least bit upset (“Wives are like clothes... I can buy new clothes.”), but he soon will be once his former wife's vengeful spirit returns to settle the score. She doesn't waste any time taking over Jenny's body and sends her out to try to kill him. The friendly studio ghost opposes her and Uncle Fok, who's not just skilled as a janitor but also at exorcism and swordfighting, expels the ghost from her body. Jenny is taken to the hospital, while Uncle takes Wai-Keung to an old lady spirit medium (Chan Lap-Ban) who does some kind of ceremony with incense, spell paper and eggs with faces drawn on them that allows the angry ghost to speak to her husband through her. Convinced he and Jenny were having an affair, the unreasonable ghost proves herself to be immune to reason and promises to kill them both.

Wai-Keung attempts to appease the spirit by putting some of her favorite things around their home but when that doesn't work he goes to “ghost buster” Priest Troublesome (Peter Chan Lung) for help. They rig up his apartment to trap the spirit inside (using “magic powder,” a spell paper lamp and contaminated perfume) and then Wai-Keung's left alone to stab her with a magic dagger. None of that works and she ends up attacking him in the parking garage (by starting up and moving the cars herself) and then blowing up his car with him inside. But now that he's gone to join his wife in ghost world, she still won't be content until the innocent Jenny is dead, too. Uncle Fok comes up with a plan to get her soul out of her body and trap it in paper so that Wong-Ngan thinks she's dead. He can then return to the spirit to her body once the ghost is gone.

After successfully separating Jenny's spirit from her body, Fok prepares Billy and four of his pals to do battle with the ghost but their trick backfires. Wong-Ngan gets into a heated battle with both Fok and the good girl ghost from the movie studio, which ends with one of the guys (Tai Bo) being forced to eat Jenny's spirit paper containing her soul (otherwise it'll be burned and she'll be dead for good), which makes him pregnant. Wong-Ngan leaves but she'll be back so Fok sends for reinforcements. Ghost expert Master Wong (Bill Tung Biu), who's “sometimes” crippled and in a wheelchair but only when he wants to be (?), and his little apprentice Wai (Ho Kin-Wai, from the Mr. Vampire sequels) show up to help during the final battle.

This movie is the poster child of a 5 out of 10, or a C grade, or a 2 out of 4 as my ratings go. Nothing about it is terrible but there's also not much about it that really stands out either. While it does an admirable job balancing the comedy and action, the plot and all of the ghost fighting techniques are overly familiar, right down to a strange infatuation with virgin urine. We are even shown the little boy pissing into a bowl so it can be poured down some poor guy's throat to drive out the evil spirit at one point. (The boy is the only virgin left in the room after Billy gets raped in a coffin by a horny old female ghost in a cemetery). Also setting things at a film studio and not using that platform to take a few humorous digs at these kinds of films seems like a wasted opportunity. The best this really has to offer are some surprisingly well-executed special effects of spirits splitting and hopping in and out of bodies.

The director, who passed away earlier this year, is best known as an actor (he directed just four films but acted in over 150) and is the son of screen veteran Fung Fung, who also acted, directed and worked as a stuntman and action choreographer during his long career. The leading lady is Fung's daughter / the director's sister, who was a popular child star in the 1960s and likened to Hong Kong's answer to Shirley Temple. Despite receiving top billing, she doesn't really get much to do here and is covered with a sheet during the entire finale.

Currently with just six votes on IMDb, this isn't the easiest of such films to find nor is it really worth the effort. There's no DVD release anywhere to my knowledge but there was a subtitled VHS from Ocean Shores back in 1988 and likely a VCD release also.

★★

... aka: La morte viene dal passato (Death Comes from the Past)
... aka: Neun Gäste für den Tod (Nine Guests for Death)
... aka: Nine Guests for a Crime
... aka: Un urlo nella notte (A Scream in the Night)

Directed by:
Ferdinando Baldi

Here's yet another murder-mystery obviously inspired by a novel you may have heard of written by an author you may have heard of. The name Agatha Christie ring a bell? We'll just call this one Nine Little Indians. This actually has quite a bit in common with Mario Bava's earlier giallo / mystery 5 Dolls for an August Moon (1970). Both are set on an island in a swank house, involve a bunch of rich, backstabbing types, feature money as a primary driving force of the characters and feature a killer amongst them bumping everyone off. While not completely awful, 5 Dolls was one of the worst films Bava ever made. We'll see how this one fairs. Things open with a rather intriguing flashback as four guys (we only see their legs and feet) spy on a couple making love on the beach. The men then startle them, shoot the guy multiple times (including once in the face) and bury him alive in the sand. After they leave, the victim's hand emerges from the sand and his fingers twitch before a frame freeze, which could mean either he's just taken his last dying breath or perhaps he has somehow managed to survive the attack.

We then meet a group of nine people aboard a yacht who are heading to an uninhabited Mediterranean isle for a two week vacation. On the island, almost hidden among the rock cliffs, is a large stone vacation home owned by the old and filthy rich Uberto (Arthur Kennedy). Uberto's much younger trophy wife Giulia (Caroline Laurence), his sister Elisabetta (Dana Ghia) and three of his grown children plus their spouses are the “nine guests” of the title... and seemingly none of these people can stand one another!

Son Michele (Massimo Foschi) has a wife named Carla (“Flavia Fabiani” / Sofia Dionisio) and sums their relationship up best by confiding to Giulia that “Aside from being frigid, she's also stupid.” Michele and Guilia are actually lovers themselves; something both the father and wife seem to know about yet never mention. Youngest son Lorenzo (John Richardson) is saddled with a nasty piece of work named Greta (Rita Silva), who parades around naked and uses her husband's impotence against him by screwing pretty much anyone available and then flipping it all around on him because he's not a “real man.” Finally, daughter Patrizia (Loretta Persichetti) is a drunk, an all-around Debbie Downer and a shrill clairvoyant whose poor hubby Walter (Venantino Venantini) has to keep in line as she hysterically shrieks out comments like "Blood! Blood!" and “You can smell death in the air!” One of the biggest laughs in the film is her going on an intense rant about how she can hear seagulls on this bird-less island and how those are actually the souls of men who have died at sea and he just rolls his eyes and walks away.

The thoroughly unlikable characters gripe, scowl, screw around and plot against one another, little realizing that someone wearing a black diving suit has already killed the two sailors who brought them there, hidden their yacht and disabled their smaller boat, effectively stranding them. And then they start dying one by one... There's death by gunshot, stabbing, drowning, smothering with a pillow, strangulation, decapitation, being pushed off a cliff onto rocks, getting burned alive and, the bloodiest bit by far, being shot through the neck with a harpoon gun.

The best mystery movies keep you guessing, provide unforeseen plot twists that are plausible within the film's narrative and manage to undermine your expectations and surprise you by the end. This one does none of that. It's one of those movies where everyone potentially has a motive to kill (as is usually the case when an inheritance is involved) yet one possibility seems so obvious from so early on that you're positive that's not where they're going... until they do. Predictability ends up relegating this mostly to the travelogue category as this features some breathtaking scenery in Sardinia. Any time the action moved outside I found myself more interested in looking at the water and rocks than reading the subtitles.

This also has a decent amount of T&A with every actress (aside from the older aunt) doing at least one nude scene, sometimes multiple ones. I've seen comments from some reviewers noting that the male cast members are fairly well known yet the females aren't. I think that all boils down to this being shot at the tail end of the giallo cycle. Most of the actresses who'd made a name for themselves in the 60s and early 70s were now (gasp!) over the age of 30 and thus likely deemed “over the hill” for a film that insists on romantic pairings of men in their 40s with women in their 20s. I guess it at least makes some sense when shallow rich guys go for a young gold digger who only wants money, but seeing how the rich daughter picks for herself the oldest guy of the bunch, this is just another case of cinematic daddy complex.

Aside from working as associate producer / unit manager on Bava's excellent THE WHIP AND THE BODY (1963) and directing the sleaze-fest TERROR EXPRESS (1980), this was the only time the director ever dabbled in the genre. His biggest success of all was the 3D western Comin' At Ya! (1981), which is often cited as the film that kick started a brief early 80s 3D craze. Baldi and his crew even got to make another 3D film; the adventure Treasure of the Four Crowns (1983), though that one flopped. I don't believe this was ever officially released in the U.S., though the German company Camera Obscura issued a DVD in 2014 with English subtitles.

★★

... aka: Argos contro le 7 maschere di cera (Argos vs. the 7 Wax Masks)
... aka: Samson in the Wax Museum
... aka: Santo Contra os Monstros do Museu de Cera (Santo vs. the Wax Museum Monsters)
... aka: Santo in the Wax Museum

Directed by:
Alfonso Corona Blake
Manuel San Fernando(U.S. version)

Strange things are underway at El Museo de Cera Dr. Karol (Dr. Karol's Wax Museum). And by strange things I mean most of the same things that had already gone down in such classics as Mystery of the Wax Museum (1932) and House of Wax (1953). A young couple arrive there just in time to take part in Dr. Karol's (Claudio Brook) informative tour. They see wax figures of actor Gary Cooper, Mexican revolutionary hero Francisco “Pancho” Villa, French serial killer and real life “Bluebeard” Henri Désiré Landru, Gandhi, Joseph Stalin and others. Joseph-Ignace Guillotine is also shown with what the doctor calls his most famous invention, which he adds he also became the first victim of. It's a good thing Dr. Karol has his other talents because he'd make for one lousy history teacher (Guillotine neither invented nor died by the guillotine). Dr. Karol notes that he has a “special process” to make his figures but, just like the Colonel's 11 herbs and spices, he ain't telling anyone. He will however show you what's cooking in his showroom...

Karol takes the tour group down a long flight of stairs into a dark cave where he keeps his all of his spookier star attractions. These include Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the Phantom of the Opera, the Frankenstein monster, a werewolf “bitten by the Abominable Snowman in Tibet” and Quasimodo. The public isn't so interested in the historical figures and want more monsters... and who is Dr. Karol to let them down?

Photographer Susana Mendoza (Roxana Bellini) shows up asking to take pictures of the figures for a magazine article she and writer Ricardo Carbajal (Rubén Rojo), who also happens to be engaged to her sister Gloria (Norma Mora), are working on. Dr. Karol agrees but asks her to return later on to do the follow-up questions and take more photos. Susana does just that but when she arrives she's startled at the doctor's odd behavior and makes a quick exit. On her walk back home she's attacked and kidnapped by a facially-scarred man who was first seen snatching up a male in the same spot in the opening sequence. Gloria and Ricardo become concerned when Susana doesn't return home. After an old woman returns a camera she'd dropped in the park they know something is up and get in touch with the cops. The police chief (Jorge Mondragón) assigns Inspector Fernández (Víctor Velázquez) to the case, but I think we all know who's ultimately going to end up saving the day.

Considering Susana isn't the first person to disappear after visiting the wax museum, the Inspector goes to see Dr. Karol, who insists he's innocent. Karol even has his professor friend Armando Galván (José Luis Jiménez) call his good buddy Santo in to help. Santo's (of course!) busy wrestling, but he eventually shows up and becomes convinced that Dr. Karol is innocent once he thwarts an assassination attempt. A look into Karol's past reveals he was a concentration camp survivor and, after he relocated to the U.S. in 1950, survived a murder attempt when someone attempted to kill him with acid, hideously scarring his hands and body in the process. Maybe it's the same guy trying to kill him again? Well, actually, nope. It's all a carefully orchestrated plot by the doctor to cover his ass because he's up to the usual mad doctor things... Like dreaming of creating a world of physically deformed beings to reflect the anguish he feels inside.

In Karol's hidden underground lab he's working hard at creating some real "monsters" by disfiguring people one of his two faithful henchmen (Fernando Osés and “Leon Moreno” / Nathanael León) have kidnapped for him. For those who get in the way or threaten to expose him, a large smoking cauldron of acid wax awaits. As for all of the creations in his downstairs monster exhibit, they were once human and they're all actually still alive but kept in check with an injection that freezes them in place. He's holding Susana prisoner there in hopes of eventually turning her into (shades of Dr. Moreau) a “Panther Woman.” Oh yes, and Karol hasn't seemed to age over the years for some reason. Maybe he uses the freezing solution on his face. Maybe he invented Botox in his spare time. We're never really told.

I had a bit more fun with this one than I did with SANTO VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMEN (1962). It could have a little to do with the fact I was able to find a decent print in its original language with English subtitles, or it could have to do with me being a sucker for wax museum movies but either way I found this a bit more enjoyable. There's probably nothing here you haven't seen before but it's all good, clean, old-fashioned fun. Unlike with Vampire Women, which had several painfully long wrestling bouts interjected in, this one features three wrestling matches but at least this time they're shorter (2-3 minutes apiece instead of 10). In the strangest one, Santo wrestles a prissy Frenchman with powdered hair who prances around and is laughed at by the audience!

This is technically the eighth film featuring Santo and was released theatrically in Mexico City in the summer of 1963. Spain got the film a year later and it played theatrically in the U.S., too, as a Spanish-language-only release distributed by Azteca Films. In 1965, it was dubbed into English and sold with a package of other foreign films to TV by K. Gordon Murray and AIP-TV. A third Santo movie, Santo contra los zombies (1962), was also English dubbed and released to American TV under the new title Invasion of the Zombies. It was distributed by an obscure company called Television Entertainment, who also handled the U.S. release of the Mexican Neutron series.

★★1/2

... aka: Crime au cimetière étrusque (Etruscan Cemetery Crime)
... aka: El asesino del cementerio estrusco (The Killer of Etruscan Cemetery)
... aka: Etruscan Mystery, The
... aka: Il mistero degli Etruschi (Mysteries of the Etruscans)
... aka: Murder in an Etruscan Cemetery
... aka: Scorpion
... aka: Scorpion with 2 Tails
... aka: Scorpion with Two Tails, The

Directed by:
"Christian Plummer" (Sergio Martino)

Joan Barnard (Elvire Audray) is haunted by nightmares of a smoky ritual sacrifices, including people getting their heads twisted around backwards. The delusions even start bleeding over into her waking life as she looks at some photos of an ancient tomb and then envisions them swarming with maggots. Meanwhile, Joan's archaeologist husband Arthur (John Saxon) is off in Europe studying ancient crypts and Etruscan culture. He calls her late one night relaying information about the important discovery he'd made: A hidden tomb inside a cave that's been “untouched since Tutankhamun.” Joan describes the crypt to him. It's the same one she's been dreaming about. Arthur insist Joan's rich father Mulligan (Van Johnson), who's been sponsoring his expedition, send him a telex so he can ship out some crates but before the two can continue the conversation any further, someone sneaks in and gives Arthur's head the ole 180. Distraught, Joan insists on going abroad to investigate despite her father plea to not get involved. Her scientist friend Mike Grant (Paolo Malco), who has a major crush on Joan, accompanies her on the trip.

Upon arrival to a small Italian village called Volterra, the duo meet up with a police inspector and then mysterious Maria Volumna (Marilù Tolo), a countess with an interest in Etruscan artifacts who Arthur had been staying with while there. Arthur's American colleague Heather Hull (Wandisa Guida) and her driver / gopher Nick Forte (Jacques Stany) show up as well. No one seems to know anything. Joan skims through Arthur's journal, which has mysterious notes like “There are Twelve!” and the name of a jeweler in town. She goes to visit the jeweler and he shows her one of Arthur's findings; a gold scorpion with two tails. She claims she'd never seen it before but feels like it belongs to her for some reason. Then it's off to an old Etruscan site where Joan has visions of a couple of ancient Romans and maggots, plus another psychic premonition, this time involving Nick facing a similar fate to her father. Naturally, he's soon found dead in that exact way.

Meanwhile, in New York, a bunch of crates full of Arthur's findings arrive. Unfortunately for Joan's father, who seems to owe someone something, there's only eleven crates and the twelfth is the one containing what he was really after, which turns out to be a shipment of heroin. Three hundred pounds and a 700 million street value to be exact. Yup, pops is a drug trafficker. In Italy, Joan leaves her hotel to follow a man playing a flute to the cave tomb she's been having nightmares about. There she finds the twelfth crate. Her father flies in, explains himself and then Joan's forced into revealing the whereabouts of the drugs or else they'll both be killed. This leads to a massacre at the cave, where another faction wanting the drugs shows up and shoots a bunch of people. Joan goes into some kind of trance, spouts some gibberish and causes a bunch of rocks to crush the bad guys. She's shot herself but miraculously manages to be the sole survivor of the ordeal and is rushed to the hospital.

Once Joan recovers, she and Mike decide to continue trying to unravel the mystery of Joan's dreams. They meet archaeologist Paolo Domelli (Claudio Cassinelli) and his colleague Professor Sorenson (Anita Laurenzi), who are in the midst of deciphering some ancient Etruscan text above a painting of an ancient queen who looks exactly like our heroine. They become involved with a photographer named Gianni (Franco Garofalo), who has “the stones of life” in his possession and had helped Arthur on his initial tomb raiding activities. More heads are twisted, more hallucinations are had, more maggots wiggle and more trite dialogue about anti-matter, anti-gravity, being the guardian or so-and-so protecting a treasure and a bunch of other confusing shit is trotted out at the finale.

Written by genre vets Ernesto Gastaldi and Dardano Sacchetti, this is plodding, muddled and dull in the extreme... and at one time it was going to be of epic TV miniseries length! Somewhere along the line that plan was scrapped (maybe after someone saw how fucking boring it was) and the film was edited down to be a feature instead. Good call. An hour and half was about all this viewer could stand. Scorpion tries to be too many things at once and pretty much fails on all counts. It's part of a wave of early 80s horror films about ancient tombs that was likely prompted by the extremely popular The Treasures of Tutankhamun exhibit that toured the U.S. from 1976 until 1979. Afterward, we got The Awakening (1980), The Curse of King Tut's Tomb (1980; TV movie), Sphinx (1981), this one and numerous others. I don't know if a single one of these was really worth a damn!

I noticed a lot of people picking on the lead actress in their reviews, but she's the last person to blame for this project's failure. For starters, she's been horribly dubbed. Second, she's really no worse an actress than others who'd filled these same type of roles the decade prior, who were also almost always poorly dubbed. Third, it's not her fault this film itself is boring beyond belief. I also find it somewhat sexist to pin the blame on her instead of the men behind the camera. I suppose these comments are coming from fans of the director (who hid behind a pseudonym) and / or the writers looking for some kind of scapegoat. Some of the art direction and the fact Audray is at least nice to look at are about the only two thing of any merit here. Fabio Frizzi provides a pretty good score as well but it sounds almost identical to his CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD (1980) score.

The DVD from Mya Communications includes a handful of scenes that were cut, including one with Saxon whose role in the English-language version is reduced to about five minutes. A set of French lobby cards under the title Crime au cimetière étrusque also show stills from other cut scenes, including some nudity not in the English version.

★1/2

... aka: Blood for Liberty
... aka: Hotel Paradis
... aka: Hotel Paradiso
... aka: I'm Coming Your Way
... aka: Orinoco: Paraiso del sexo
... aka: Orinoco: Prison of Sex

Directed by:
"Tony Moore" (Edoardo Mulargia)

Filmed back-to-back with ESCAPE FROM HELL (1980) by the same director, producers and crew on the same sets and featuring most of the same stars, this women-in-a-jungle-prison sleaze-fest features more of the same only with the accent placed more on sex and action than sadistic torture, though there's no shortage of that here either. This one doesn't waste any time getting right down to business as there's a group shower scene a whole three seconds after the opening credits conclude and then a sex scene a few minutes after that. At this particular South American prison camp, the ladies are all volunteer prisoners who don't know how bad it really is there until it's too late. They're used for slave labor and the people who own it are having the government foot the bill as they force the girls to work from dawn to dusk digging around for emeralds. Warden Jordan (Luciano Rossi), who's not quite right in the head, is stressing out because he's been unable to locate many jewels as of yet and his crop of girls are becoming weak, fatigued and unproductive from how hard they're constantly worked. After blowing off some steam with his female guard Margo ("Agota Gobertina" / Gota Gobert), he sends for a new crop of ladies to be sent in to help out.

Meanwhile, a group of revolutionaries led by Moreno (Attilo Dottesio) are plotting to overthrow Jordan's prison camp to “free our country from all tyrants.” Moreno sends his main man Laredo (Anthony Steffen) and some others in his group on foot through the dangerous jungle. All but five get gunned down by guards during an ambush but they continue on regardless. At the same time, a few other guards and four shady hired guides led by Orinoco (Stelio Candelli) are escorting a handful of new prisoners, including slutty murderess Maria (Cristina Lay), who was arrested for “strangling an old bastard,” level-headed former nurse Lorna (Maristella Greco), shy and innocent Maise (Maite Nicote) and tough girl Frieda (Adelaide Cendra) to the camp. The two groups eventually cross paths and Laredo and his men kill the guards and get the upper hand. Now their numbers have suddenly increased as both the guides and the ladies decide to work for the revolution's cause.

Back at camp, the prisoners (all decked out in super short skirts so they're always exposing something) are shown slogging away in the mud pits looking for stones as guards whip them, berate them, push them, kick or slap them and occasionally rape or kill them. There's a cat fight (“You must have been brought up by the virgins of the Salvation Army, you dyke!” [lol, wtf?!]), one “fatso” keels over dead from heat exhaustion and another attempts to hide emeralds inside her cooch but has them ripped out and is then tied up and left outside overnight. Prisoner Muriel (Ajita Wilson), who's black so she knows all about voodoo, talks to the “good spirits” who haunt her cell and foresees “lots of blood” in their future, but also freedom. Once the revolutionaries arrive, they easily ingratiate themselves into the camp. Maria is put in a cell with Muriel and the two almost immediately start lezzing out. Lorna, with her nursing background, is put to work improving the infirmary. Orinoco, Laredo (now posing as a guard) and the rest of the guys are invited to stick around for awhile to rest up until they're ready to transport a bag of jewels back to the city.

While we're waiting for the good guys to get their shit together and finally do something we're treated to a bunch of sex and torture scenes. Three of the girls attempt to break out on their own, which ends with two of them shot dead and third strung up by her wrists. When Masie and Frieda reject the sexual advances of Jordan and bisexual Margo, one of the girls is held down and raped with an iron bar. They're then forced to spend the night in “the hole” and are taken out, tied to two bamboo poles and viciously whipped. Crazy Jordan even has his main guard Cesare (Franco Daddi) gun down one of his own men after he threatens to quit. Once the breakout finally does occur, we get lots of gunfire, explosions, chicks lurking around with gardening tools and Marie running around topless lighting sticks of dynamite with a cigar and tossing them at guards. Dead bodies are hilariously lying all over the place by the end. This is pretty much the epitome of good, dumb trashy fun.

There are many different cuts of this movie circulating around. Seems like Britain got it worst of all, where it was cut by over 30 minutes (!!) for an early home video release. It also played theaters there as I'm Coming Your Way on a double bill with some Mary Millington “blue” movie. Though I'm not aware of ANY U.S. release for this one aside from the butcher job that was SAVAGE ISLAND (1985), which uses some footage from this, some footage from Escape and then added new footage featuring Linda Blair, the videos issued in most other countries ran between 80 to 85 minutes.

The most complete cut to my knowledge is the 94 minute version (currently distributed by Njutafilms out of Sweden), which is also the XXX version featuring a handful of ugly, dark and pointless hardcore inserts that do nothing for the film as a whole. Unlike many other films that had bits of hardcore added later on by others so they could play as adult features, the scenes here were obviously shot on location by the same director to prepare for such a release. Several scenes clearly use doubles, but there are a few where the original actors apparently agreed to do them. Wilson is involved in both an explicit lesbian scene and an explicit masturbation scene with a joint (?), though that's not so out of character for her. Biggest shocker of all is that the otherwise mainstream Luciano Rossi (a veteran of many spaghetti westerns) is involved in not one but two explicit scenes and it's very clearly him performing in at least one of them as his face is visible while it's going on. The cast includes Zaira Zoccheddu and Serafino Profumo, who were both also in Escape from Hell.

★★1/2

... aka: Die Alptraumbraut (Nightmare Bride)
... aka: I död och lust (In Death and Lust)
... aka: La fiancée (The Fiancee)
... aka: Mariage de sang (Blood Wedding)

Directed by:
Terrence O'Hara

One of the most important and influential films when it comes to the development of the modern day psycho-thriller is undoubtedly Fatal Attraction, which became the #2 highest grossing film of 1987 and was also showered with awards, including six Oscar nominations. The film focuses on happily married breadwinner Dan (Michael Douglas), who has a casual weekend fling with the mysterious Alex (Glenn Close), who then refuses to go away and begins to terrorize both him and his family. Many intellectuals dug deep beneath the surface of Attraction to find an offensive underlying subtext where a sexually aggressive single career woman is demonized and ultimately punished while the loyal, forgiving, stay-at-home wife prevails. Nevertheless, the movie struck a chord with audiences and became extremely influential in developing the “psycho bitch” branch of the psycho-thriller, leading to other highly successful films like Basic Instinct (1992), The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992), Single White Female (1992) and many others. For every theatrical release, there were probably 50 that went direct-to-video or cable. The Perfect Bride is one of those.

Stephanie Peters (Sammi Davis), she of the lovely golden locks, dimpled smile and refined British accent, wants nothing more than to have the perfect wedding and then perfect marriage to the perfect man. Unfortunately, there's no such thing as perfect and when things don't go as she wants, she murders the disappointing fiance and moves on to greener pastures. (For the record, this is the exact same set-up as The Stepfather right down to her changing her appearance and name.) A nurse by trade so you just know she's must be caring and compassionate, Stephanie now has her hooks sunk into nice guy Ted Whitman (Linden Ashby). The two met in Denver at a hospital after he had a skiing accident and got engaged after a brief three month courtship. The wedding is to take place in Ted's hometown, so he brings Stephanie back to Ohio to meet his friends and extended family and prepare for their big day.

Though Ted's oblivious father (John McLaughlin) doesn't seem all that interested in the upcoming nuptials, his mother (Marilyn Rockafellow) really throws herself into it. She instantly takes to her future daughter-in-law, appoints herself the organizer of the entire wedding and can't wait for her to become a new member of their family. A void has been left by the death of her other other daughter, Catherine, who was killed in a bicycling accident after she swerved to avoid hitting Ted's other sister, Laura (Kelly Preston). Laura, blaming herself for the accident and never the favorite child anyway, moved away and barely kept in contact afterward, but now she's back per her brother's request to help get things in order.

It isn't long before Laura suspects something is off about Stephanie. She's extremely clingy, insecure and possessive, insanely jealous about other women and proves herself to be a pathological liar who can't keep her various stories straight. After watching her go off on a bridal shop employee and hearing a caterer comment that she looks exactly like another woman she worked with whose fiance mysteriously died the night before the wedding, alarm bells start going off. Against her mother and brother's demands she not to start trouble, Laura begins looking into matters and is soon at the library feeding change into a microfiche reading through old newspaper clippings. She also tries to bait Stephanie to catch her lying so that everyone else will see what she does but it always seems to backfire on her. However, being the black sheep with failed relationships in her own past puts her at a disadvantage since she's written off as merely being jealous.

While Laura investigates, Stephanie goes around town murdering anyone who threatens to expose her, giving potassium shots directly into the jugular of a reverend, the old lady caterer (after a hilarious stunt double cat-fight) and others so they have heart attacks. Wearing a black wig and glasses and doing a terrible American accent, she intercepts a disgruntled ex-girlfriend (Cheryl Arutt) of one of her earlier victims at the airport, who ends up as easy prey in the hospital after being run over by a car. Will Ted go too far at his bachelor party with former fling “The Delectable Deirdre” (Tamara Clatterbuck)? Well, considering Stephanie stops by and sees a shirtless Ted and bathing suit clad Deirdre wrestling on the ground, I'd say that's affirmative. And God forbid if you mess with her precious music box! It's all because as a little girl Stephanie saw her mother slit her wrists after being abandoned by her fiance on their wedding day.

Though this is derivative, unoriginal and destined to fill 2 hours programming slots on channels like Lifetime, Bride still manages to avoid the subtext trap the aforementioned Attraction and many of its clones fell into by presenting a psycho bride-to-be who's glamorous, beautiful and mannered countered by a single Plain Jane who, more than anything, strives for acceptance and connection with a family she already feels on the outs with. By the end of the film, the Laura character has her mother irate and both her brother and his cop best friend (Ashley Tillman) convinced she's losing it. Preston is miscast in her role as the “mousy” sister and giving her a plain / baggy wardrobe, straight dark hair and (sometimes) glasses doesn't make her look any less beautiful, but it's still pretty impossible not to take to her determined character. The highlights of the film are undoubtedly her catty dialogue exchanges with Davis, who has great bitch-face.

Whoever cast this movie must have also been a big fan of 50s sci-fi and horror flicks because small roles are played by Louise Lewis (Blood of Dracula) as an aunt, Jered Barclay (WAR OF THE SATELLITES) as the reverend and, best of all, John Agar in a delightful performance as the senile old grandpa, who usually says things that make no sense whatsoever... but not always. French-Canadian producer Pierre David also backed countless similar thrillers and psycho bitch films. This was his first of many with "Perfect" in the title. Later came The Perfect Nanny, The Perfect Tenant (both 2000), The Perfect Wife (2001), Her Perfect Spouse (2004), The Perfect Neighbor (2005), The Perfect Marriage (2006), The Perfect Assistant (2008), The Perfect Teacher (2010), The Perfect Roommate (2011), The Perfect Boss, The Perfect Boyfriend (both 2013), The Perfect Girlfriend (2015) and The Perfect Stalker (2016)!

There were numerous VHS releases for this one and it strangely got an R rating despite having no nudity, no graphic gore and minimal swear words (Preston does say “Fuck you!” to hell bride at one point). The DVD release is perfectly watchable, though it's full screen and uses the video master.

★★

... aka: Panic

Directed by:
Julián Soler

We first see a nameless young woman (Ana Martín) staring blankly out of a window. She hears her baby crying, goes to the bassinet and pulls back the sheath to reveal that there's no baby there. This woman is clearly not right in the head, something further illustrated by the fact she thinks a baby doll is the real thing. As she's holding it, she's startled by a strange woman (a very intense Ofelia Guilmáin) in a purple dress staring her down from the side of her house. She drops her baby, it breaks and then she stuffs the remains inside a pipe and flees into the woods with the madwoman in hot pursuit swinging a knife around. As the frightened young woman keeps going, she spots three men standing around and either fantasizes about or flashes back to a time when she was gang raped. A baby doll rises from a pool of blood but she can't pull it out. The camera keeps panning up and down trees and doing 360 degree swirls at the sky. This almost entirely dialogue free 17 minute experimental piece (titled "Pánico") has some effectively creepy moments and several good startles and is a fittingly bizarre opening to this above average but seldom-watched three-story anthology.

Story #2, "Soledad" (or “Solitude”), opens with two men; the emotional Carlos (Joaquín Cordero) and his more level-headed friend Abel (José Gálvez), just finishing up burying the latter's wife (Susana Salvat). Unlike most of the rest of their village, they didn't get out when they should have as the yellow fever struck. Although it's too late for the wife, the men decide to take off down a stream by canoe to put as much distance between themselves and the plague as possible, eventually hoping to find a town that's not been effected. During their long and exhausting trip, both men have flashbacks. Abel only has bad memories of his wife and how she was stripped of her beauty as she lay on her deathbed. Carlos, however, remembers her being both beautiful and passionate. Probably because he was having an affair with her behind his Abel's back that his friend still has no clue about. While the two are lost in thought, their canoe capsizes and is washed downstream. Now they're forced to camp out and walk.

The swamp they're stuck in is rough and unforgiving terrain, something the gruff and hard-working Abel is accustomed to but not so much the weaker and more guilt-stricken Carlos. Carlos becomes paranoid they're going to die there, finally admits his affair, starts hearing his dead lover calling to him and soon is begging Abel to put him out of his misery already. Instead, Abel's the one who gets a knife in his back after a scuffle in quicksand. Carlos buries the body and now is left all alone in the jungle trying to survive, which isn't easy considering he's not only falling apart mentally but physically as well thanks to very likely being plague-infected himself. And there's the small added issue of Abel's corpse not wanting to stay buried.

Running 40 minutes, this is bleak, dark, slow and moody, with an outstanding central performance from Cordero, several effectively chilling moments and excellent use made of sound, setting and natural lighting. The solitude of the title, as well as the grim situation both men find themselves in, is driven home by filming this in a heavily-shaded forest where speckles of shadow heavily intrude into every frame as if constantly closing in on the protagonists.

After two completely serious and depressing tales, the third segment (“Angustia” / Anguish) finally offers up a bit of humor and levity. Having worked tirelessly for three long months, scientist Tiberius Hansen (Carlos Ancira) has just created a powerful, long-lasting narcotic that would make for an excellent surgical anesthetic. With just a few drops of this potent stuff, a patient can be put into a cataleptic state and have their bodily functions slow to a death-like rate while still retaining their cognizance. Just imagine what it'd be like taking even more of the stuff! Well Tiberius is about to find out since his pesky lab cat has knocked an entire beaker of his formula over onto his coffee mug. Soon after drinking it, Tiberius keels over onto floor. Hearing a noise, his wife Melody (Alma Delia Fuentes) rushes into the lab only to find him motionless and unresponsive.

A doctor (Aldo Monti) is called in, does an examination and pronounces Tiberius dead. He doesn't even give the body a chance to get cold before signing the death certificate and trying to get Melody to make burial arrangements. Seems like he, as well as Tiberius' good friend Elias (Eduardo MacGregor), are secretly excited there's a sexy new single women on the market. But there's something strange about the corpse. His eyes won't stay closed. The doctor chalks that up to rigor mortis, but Melody's cousin Vilma (Pilar Sen) would rather be safe than sorry and recommends they slit his wrists. Melody passes on her suggestion. After all, she doesn't want her hubby's corpse to be desecrated. Tiberius (whose thoughts we hear as a voice-over) is certainly relieved. However, he may end up being buried alive if the drug doesn't wear off in time.

An amusing spin on Poe's The Premature Burial, this features some very funny moments, a rather morbid (yet amusing) conclusion and clever camera shots, like a “corpse” POV as various characters unsuccessfully try to close Tiberius' eyelids. Even more cleverly, it traces the scientist's slow awakening period through his cat, which has fallen into a similar dead state after lapping some of the formula off the floor. However, unlike the scientist, it managed to crawl under a table and hide to avoid detection.

A nice surprise, this obscure anthology manages to pull off what few other horror anthologies have: Presenting numerous stories that all work about equally well while each offering up something different content-wise, visually and tonally. Even most of the more famous films of this type can't say that. The first story, albeit somewhat predictable, takes an arty, imagery-based psychological approach. The second, while perhaps too slow going for some viewers, is all about creating mood and atmosphere. And the third is a black comedy that doesn't completely forget the genre during its final act. Clearly filmed on a very low budget and it often shows, but Soler and screenwriter Ramón Obón put real care and imagination into this one and the actors put in solid if not exceptional work.

IMDb currently has this listed as being released in 1966, though a date on a tombstone (and numerous other more reliable sources) says in was made in 1970 and played in theaters in 1972. It was released on VHS here in the U.S. in 1987 on the Esco-Mex label.

★★★

... aka: Che jau
... aka: Curse of Evil
... aka: Jinx

Directed by:
Chih-Hung Kuei

A narrow alleyway leads to the Shih Public Shrine. An old mansion lies at the end of the alley, where the descendants of Shih live. Up until twenty years ago, they were the wealthiest family in the area. That all changed after a group of bandits broke into their home, robbed them and killed thirteen family members. Only the mother and son managed to survive. The bodies of those slain were then dumped in a dry well near the house and ever since the family has been hit with bad luck and one inexplicable tragedy after another. Rumor has it that the corpses being unceremoniously disposed of disturbed the “Dragon King” spirit and the family is now cursed. That becomes pretty evident during Old Madam Shih's 50th birthday celebration when her son Guozhong keels over dead during dinner and his heartbroken wife passes away soon after. The wheelchair-bound Madam Shih (Lang Wai) is then entrusted with the care of her two young granddaughters; Yumei (Lily Li) and Yulan (Tai Liang-Chun), and raises them to adulthood. Fifteen years after her son's death, Madam's brother (Leung Tin) and his wife (Angelina Lo), plus their grown children; no good son Jinhua (Ai Fei), a stepson from the mom's previous marriage, and whiny daughter Ming-Ming (Lau Nga-Lai), also move in to “help” her as her health deteriorates.

Yulan is now a student studying ancient texts under Mr. Xu (Eric Chan), Yumei is very dedicated to taking care of the madam of the house, Ming-Ming is a spoiled brat and Jinhua is not only a disrespectful thug who stays out late every night but a pervert / sex predator who peeps into the girls' bedrooms, wants to marry (and even tries to rape) his cousin and uses a silver medallion to hypnotize the maid so he can have sex with her. To appease the Dragon God, everyone must pray and make offerings at a different time than everyone else, on the 1st and 15th of every month. On those two days, everyone who occupies the home is susceptible to something very bad happening if they're not careful. Since the new arrivals are bringing some bad karma to the household, and may be up to some scheming involving getting their mitts on the estate, some very bad shit starts happening.

The servants get a small taste of the curse when old Quan (Ching-Ho Wong) has his prayers interrupted when a dead gutted bird falls on his head and maid Qiao (Yau Chui-Ling) gets splattered with chicken blood while preparing dinner and catches herself on fire. Then, some nasty critters show up. First, there's a bunch of small mini-monsters called “the bloody frogs” who try to bite whoever's within reach with their steel teeth. Second, a big, horned lizard creature with a mutant face, human torso and a snake-like bottom half that's covered in pink slime comes crawling out of the well. While Jinhua is attempting to tie up a maid so he can rape her, the slimy lizard shows up to rape Yumei (rivaling the ick factor of the alien slug rape scene in Galaxy of Terror) and then rips her face off when it's done. Now one of the only descendants left of the Shih family line, Yulan has an even larger target on her back and needs to figure out her screwy family dynamic before its too late.

While the evil daughter-in-law and her equally awful son are trying to find ways to bump off the old woman (like pouring sulfuric acid on the floor of her lift) so they can leech off her estate until Yulan turns 20, someone else is feeding leftover meat to a bunch of mutant frogs living at the bottom of the well, staying up late at night sewing something in the attic, slipping poison into chicken soup, unleashing the army of flesh-eating frogs on bound and gagged victims and, eventually, slashing the cast to death in all manner of grisly ways. A police inspector (special guest star Jason Pai Piao) shows up a few times to snoop around but doesn't really have much to do.

Did Chih-Hung Kuei ever make a truly bad film? Not based on what I've seen thus far. While this is slow to get started, has too many characters to keep tabs on (leading to a bit of confusion early on) and doesn't quite reach to heights of crazy, colorful, gruesome lunacy as some of his better films like BEWITCHED (1981) and THE BOXER'S OMEN (1983), this still manages to come through in a big way by the end. It's clear someone saw the bizarre 1953 horror-mystery THE MAZE (an obscure and random source to crib from if there ever was one!), and decided to do an updated version of it by adding gore, slime and sex to the mix. Kuei did pretty much the exact same thing with HEX (1980); a version of the French suspense classic Les diaboliques (1955), which began as a rather routine updating of the original before going its own crazy direction.

Though I can't give this too high of a rating because of its uneven nature, rest assure your patience for enduring the rocky first half will be rewarded and then some by the final reel, which features two decapitations, eyes ripped from their sockets, Pepto Bismol colored blood, multiple rapes (monster and human alike), numerous hand puppet frog attacks, metal fangs ripping off chunks of flesh, a pit of skeletons, cool underground catacombs, a mummified baby, full female nudity, enough eye close-ups to make Lucio Fulci jealous and much much more. It all builds to a busy and utterly priceless climax with one wacky plot twist after another (plus a flashback) trotted out. The cast is pretty good, too, with especially memorable turns contributed by vets Lang Wai and Ching-Ho Wong, who shines as the household's longtime butler. Of course a lot of this is completely and utterly ridiculous, but that's all just part of the fun.

According to some sources, Curse was actually started by Shaw Brothers regular director Fung Wong but finished by Kuei. Judging by the end results, this has Kuei's stamp all over it so Wong couldn't have directed too much of this. Unlike most other SB films, this one's never been officially released on DVD. As a result, it's one of their harder horror titles to find. What is currently available is a substandard, though watchable, print with English subs.

★★1/2

... aka: Aimilia, the Psychopath
... aka: Bloody Emily
... aka: Emily the Pervert
... aka: Emily, the Psychopath

Directed by:
Pavlos Parashakis

Conservative middle-aged music teacher, wealthy widow and philanthropist Aimilia (Gisela Dali) is giving lessons to a few orphan children when three older folks arrive at her home. They're there because they want money to keep an institute open and to suggest she sell one of her many estates to help them with funding. Against Aimilia's wishes, one of her guests sees an armed man breaking into a home next door and immediately calls the cops. The burglar, Nikos (Dimitri Aronis), happens to already be well acquainted with the homeowner but he's there to collect money owed to his boss. After getting him to confess he has the money and getting him to open his safe, there's a fight and Nikos shoots both the guy and his girlfriend dead. Just then, the police arrive and Nikos flees into the night. He manages to duck into another home to hide out... Aimilia's home. He then overhears her and her guests having a conversation with one of the cops.

After the guests and cop leave, Nikos decides to hide out there until the police finish scouring the neighborhood. To kill time, he spies on Aimilia and watches as the woman he had seen all buttoned up doing the repressed, uptight act is living a dual life. Aimilia strips off her dress, showers and then changes her appearance, throwing on a sexy, short dress, heavy makeup and a blonde wig. She then leaves (giving Nikos a brief chance to use her phone to call his boss to tell him what's up), goes to a seedy area of town, picks up a guy and brings him home. After calling him a “male hooker” and slapping him in the face, he slaps her back and then the two jump into bed. She whips out a knife hidden under a pillow and then stabs the guy to death in a murderous frenzy that also puts the camera guy into a frenzy because it's impossible to see anything. Uh oh, Nikos has wandered into the home of schizo. Frequent flashbacks show that as a child Aimilia saw her hooker mother (also played by Dali in a black wig) get stabbed to death by one of her male acquaintances.

Aimilia soon run across the intruder and unsuccessfully attempts to kill him but, before you know it, she's crying on his sympathetic shoulder. Well, maybe she's not such a bad lady after all (other than the occasionally liking to stab horny men to death bit). Nikos manages to get home the following morning in one piece and learns from his girlfriend Kaiti (Lyn Fotopoulou) that his boss has been apprehended by the authorities. She begs him to run away with her but he has other things he needs to take care of first. Kaiti's mother Helen (Jenny Stefanakou) is heavily embroiled in the criminal lifestyle herself. Her husband and son are both in jail and she wants the money to hire lawyers to help get them out. She also warns Nikos that if he tries to do something foolish like split with all the money (which he hid behind some books at psycho woman's home) before delivering her cut then there will be hell to pay.

Nikos runs into many problems trying to retrieve the cash. For starters, Aimilia found it and hid it some place else. Second, Aimilia is an unpredictable, unreliable psycho so who knows what'll happen if he goes back. Third, police already have their eye on Aimilia and have posted guard outside her home. Four, his girlfriend's backstabbing mother cuts a deal with thug Joseph (“George Pliver” / Giorgos Plivouris) to split the cash 50/50 and cut Nikos out of the deal (by killing him). Kaiti overhears them making plans and pleads with Joseph to leave them alone, but he says he only will if she'll sleep with him. After they have sex, he instead goes right over to Nikos' and attempts to shoot him.

While out trying to find another victim, Aimilia stumbles across Mr. Paris (Manos Destounis), one of the guys who was begging for money earlier. Mr. Paris was also acquainted with her mother, who used him, teased him and mocked him. After she gets him home, he confesses to being the man who murdered her mother but is still willing to have sex if she'll have him. I'm sure you can guess what happens to Mr. Paris. Nikos is dragged into the police station and put in a lineup but Aimilia refuses to identify him as the shooter. It all leads to “tragic” consequences for pretty much all concerned after Aimilia clubs Joseph over the head with a candlestick and then puts on her seductress charms for Nikos when he finally shows up to get the money.

I only had the chance to view an old VHS release of this one, which is in pretty awful condition and also appears to have been cut at certain points to reduce nudity. That said, I don't believe the current running time of 95 minutes as given by IMDb. The cut I watched ran 77 minutes and the story didn't appear to be missing any key plot points plus the only abrupt soundtrack jumps occurred during sex scenes. Even so, this is a rather poorly made film. The camerawork is bad, the acting is bad, the story is all over the place, some cheap kaleidoscopic effects pass for style and there are loads of zooms in and zooms out used in place of proper editing cuts. I also found myself only really interested in what Aimilia was up to (at least at first) and not the dull crime stuff with Nikos and his lowlife friends or the dull scenes with the cops poking their noses around.

As far as Greek remedies for psycho-sexual problems are concerned, I'm not sure what's worse: The nut cured of his impotency by finally being given the chance to anally rape a woman in HOSTAGES OF LUST (1973) or a frigid female's murderous psychosis being cured by finally getting laid properly as in this film. Sheesh. Despite being from two different directors, both this and Hostages are filled with tinted flashbacks explaining how someone was turned psycho by the antics of a heartless female sexual tease. That's right, ladies. Always put up or shut up or else you'll end up with blood on your hands!

★1/2

... aka: Deviazione (Deviation)
... aka: Ghost of Terror
... aka: Specter of Terror, The

Directed by:
J.M. (José María) Elorrieta

Imagine this. You're walking down the street when you hear menacing footsteps trailing behind you. The footsteps get faster and faster and faster to the point where you have to run away from whoever it is that's chasing you. You then fumble around with your keys as the footsteps rush toward you getting louder with each step. Eventually you get your door open, get inside your apartment and close the door. What do you do then? If you answered strip down to your panties and lie down in bed casually reading a magazine, you'd end up on a slab in the morgue right next to the bimbo from the opening sequence. Our next potential victim is a stewardess named Maria Preston (Maria“Pechy” / Perschy), who thankfully has a little more common sense than our friend up above. As soon as she gets to the airport parking garage, notices her car won't start and spots a strange, ugly man staring her down, she high tails it the hell out of there. Maria's busybody roommate Elena O'Hara (“May Oliver” / Maritza Oliveras) isn't much of a shoulder to cry on as she's always so busy with work and guys (especially guys... seemingly any guy), so Maria finds herself going to see a psychiatrist to try to get over her terrifying ordeal.

As Maria and shrink Dr. Palacios (Sancho Gracia) start getting more “friendly” (hey, isn't that against the rules or something?), Maria begins to suspect she's being stalked by the strange-looking man she saw earlier, who she likens to an “espectro.” That turns out to be an apt name considering he disappears without a trace soon after she has an encounter with him. Either the man truly does exist or Maria has created him in her mind because she's going crazy. After the man breaks into her apartment and tries to paw at her while she's sleeping, she's found hysterical by the night watchman and hospitalized for a spell. But it's soon made clear the psycho does indeed exist so why they decided to work that angle for a whopping 20 minutes is anyone's guess. When the nutter in question, Charly Reed (Aramis Ney), isn't stalking and murdering women, he's working at a dyer at an industrial laundry company.

Charly is haunted by voices and war trauma flashbacks (he's a Nam vet), sexually harasses one of his female coworkers, sneaks out with his camera to photograph legs, burns himself with lit cigarettes, makes out with and then twists the heads off of dolls and does other odd things. He goes to a nightclub and meets go-go dancer and single mom Nicole (Betsabé Ruiz), who's willing to go home with him so long as he pays her. When he gets her back to his rented farmhouse he makes her dance for him and, in lieu of sex, strangles her to death with a scarf and then dissolves her body in acid. At a bar, one of Charly's jerk co-workers brings up a war crime he was accused of committing (killing a woman... shocker!) and mocks him in front of two girls, so he ends up smashing his face into the bathroom mirror.

While in town, Maria conveniently spots her stalker out and about moving a large chest with his latest victim's body inside. She follows him home and waits for him to leave before sneaking in to look for evidence. There, she finds ripped up photos of herself, dolls hanging from nooses and the hand of a corpse sticking out of the acid bath. Before she can get out of there, Charly shows up and locks her in a room while he goes back out to finish up some dirty work. He first goes after the shrink because he's been working with a police inspector (played by Paul Naschy film regular Víctor Alcázar). After running him over, he locates her roommate and strangles her to death with the telephone cord in a phone booth. He then returns home to deal with Maria...

Sometimes you'll run across a movie that, while not really very good, has one major redeeming factor good enough to help it skate by. This has that in actor Ney, who really throws himself into his part and is genuinely creepy as the killer. His intense performance is nicely accentuated by cinematographer Pablo Ripoll and the lighting designer, who shoot him in the most unflattering ways possible to constantly make him look like a hideous, intimidating, greasy train wreck. Their efforts somewhat go in vain though due to the mundane fashion in how the character is written. Making him a war vet has been done to death and already had been done to death even as early as 1973. Constantly adding in various wartime sounds (gunfire, bombs dropping, explosions, etc.) to illustrate that he's a war vet has been done to death. Playing gentle lullaby-style piano music after he does horrible things has been done to death. Since they're not given much personality and the actors cannot play them in the same go-for-broke manner as Ney can, the other characters come off even flatter.

Considering how generic this one is, it's not too surprising that it never saw the light of day here in America, nor in many other countries. It did play theaters in Italy (under the title Deviazione), Mexico and Spain but I could find no evidence it was ever legitimately released to home video anywhere. The only cut that's currently available (via bootleggers) is a censored 73 minute version taken from a TV broadcast, which has all of the nudity removed and some pretty raggedy cuts throughout. Director / writer Elorietta also made FEAST OF SATAN (1971), which is even worse than this one, and The Curse of the Vampyr (1972), which I'm now going to be in no hurry to watch.

★★

Directed by:
David Michel

This obscure 80-minute adult video is divided into two parts and is rather atypical as far as these things go; featuring more story than sex and casting two lead actresses who don't participate in any of the scant hardcore action. I'm including it here because of its first story, which involves an Invisible Man. Up first is Double Heat, which takes up roughly half of the running time. At High Tech Industries, dull and uptight scientist Linda (Alexandra Day) is “on the verge of making an important discovery in the world of physics.” However, she's so involved in her work that she's become antisocial, frigid and an uptight bitch in the process. The fact she won't settle for anything less than someone she deems her intellectual equal doesn't help matters either. Linda's roommate / colleague Julie (Tamara Longley) doesn't have that same problem and keeps herself busy with another coworker named Tony (Robert Bullock) and tries to encourage Linda to put down the science books, loosen up and find herself a lover.

Unbeknownst to her, Linda does have a secret admirer in Ray Stavinski (Richard“Steele” / Karle). Unfortunately, he's about the polar opposite of what she thinks she wants. He's fat, balding, works as a janitor in her building and passes the days sitting in a room flipping through Polaroids of her saying things like “Oh, I love you. I love your hair. I love your eyes. I love your nose. I love your lips. I love your hands. I love your feet...” Ray agrees to work late one night for a coworker and ends up walking into a restricted area of the lab. He enters a glass pod, the doors close, the machines start up and he ends up making himself invisible. He then uses his invisibility to break into Linda's apartment, where he spies on her and causes other problems, especially since he can't keep his hands off the object of his obsession.

After Julie sets Linda up on a blind date with a sleaze ball named Allen (Lee Anthony), Ray cock blocks him by removing a photo of Allen's wife and kids from his wallet and sticking it to his forehead. Since she's already been kissed and touched by someone not even there, Linda eventually just goes along with it and Ray becomes her invisible lover. She goes to see psychotherapist Dr. Kinerd (H. Chris Cristano) to tell him about what's been going on and he recommends she pick the least likely candidate from work to date so she ends up with Ray, anyway. The end. There are some cheap special effects of the invisible man flipping through pictures, pouring himself a drink, etc. plus a scene of Day lying in bed nude writhing around while making love with the air. Strangely, there is just one hardcore scene between Longley and Bullock in front of a fireplace, which is stretched out over two scenes.

Under the name Lindsay Freeman or just "Bibi," the British Day began her career with a January 1976 spread in Penthouse magazine titled “Free as a Breese.” The fact she looked so young in her centerfold and wore a jersey with the number 12 on it caused something of a controversy at the time after Bob Guccione encouraged readers to write in and try to guess her age. Turns out she was actually 19 years old when she took the photos. Still, she used her jail bait notoriety as “Baby Breese” to land other modeling jobs (including the cover of For Men Only with the headline “I can't help it people insist I'm 12!”) and small parts in films like Young Lady Chatterley and Fairy Tales. In the 80s, she dyed her hair blonde, began professionally using the name Alexandra Day and became an even more in-demand men's magazine model plus landed a handful of other roles, including the lead in the original SOV horror BOARDING HOUSE (1982) and a bit in Brian De Palma's Body Double (1984).

Double Heat Part II, which also runs 40 minutes, is next. This segment has no credits but most horror fans will instantly recognize its female star as being none other than Scream Queen Michelle Bauer. Professional gambler Dice Whitaker (Dick Howard) goes to a stable to visit his favorite horse Lucky Star and ends up literally bumping into female jockey Susan O'Maly (Bauer). Though he's a smooth talker and popular with the ladies, Susan's the daughter of the stable owners and is spoiled, snobby and already has a rich older lover who takes good care of her. Not one to give up so easily, he later approaches her having dinner with her parents, makes a 100,000 bet with her father and gives Susan a 1 dollar lottery ticket before heading off. He goes to play poker with some friends, where he loses out on a bet with Jerry Butler to bed cocktail waitress Rita (Lois Ayres), then hits the Vegas casinos with Kimberly Carson to “blow some steam off.” These are the only two hardcore moments in this segment and both are brief and last only about 3 minutes apiece.

Lucky Star turns out to not be so lucky after all and Dice finds himself 78,000 short of being able to pay Mr. O'Maly. He also discovers via a newspaper that the lottery ticket he gave Susan is the winning ticket. Desperate to get it back before she realizes she's won, he breaks into her apartment and starts rummaging through her things. She returns home and he hides under the bed as Mrs. Bauer (who looks just stunning in this one) treats us to some gratuitous nudity as she strips off her clothes, jumps into the shower and then applies makeup in front of a mirror. An intruder breaks in and wrestles Susan onto the bed. Dice assumes they are having sex so he falls asleep. When he wakes up he finds Susan's been bludgeoned to death. This leads to a predictable twist.

Double Heat plays out more like a cheap B movie than a porn. They actually used a script, shot in many different locations and even attempted to do special effects and stylish lighting. If you removed all the explicit shots you'd still end up with a 70 minute movie so maybe at one time it was intended to be released in two different forms. By mainstream standards this isn't very good but by hardcore standards it's fairly ambitious. There are two men who appear mostly in the background in both stories and I assume they are probably the director and producer Dax Anthony, who also made a few other films around this same time with many of the same actors. I'd love to know a bit more about the background of this weird production. There was one VHS release, from L.A. Video in 1986, but that's it to my knowledge.

★★

Mind Killer (1987)

Meng gui chai guan (1987)

Tentacoli (1977)

Mo jie (1982)

Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge (1989)

Santo vs. las mujeres vampiro (1962)

Femmine infernali (1980)

Meng gui xue tang (1988)

Prokletí domu Hajnù (1989)

Ling huan xiao jie (1988)

Nove ospiti per un delitto (1977)

Santo en el museo de cera (1963)

Assassinio al cimitero etrusco (1982)

Orinoco: Prigioniere del sesso (1980)

The Perfect Bride (1991) [copyright 1990]

Pánico (1970)

Xie zhou (1982)

Aimilia, i diestrammeni (1974)

El espectro del terror (1973)

Double Heat (1986)