This is being posted from another review blog that I spent some time on as one of the horror reviewers before they focused more on podcasts, but I thought you guys might enjoy it. Here it is!

Brainscan (1994)



Brainscan is a film that I had heard of for the longest time, but never actually got around to seeing. The DVD was always appearing on my suggestions under...

The film Pink Flamingos is a 1972 cult film by John Waters.
I am studying the film for my A2 film studies course and I wanted to get people's ideas on it.

My hypothesis is:
Controversy For Controversies' Sake:
Are John Waters' films there to simply shock or do they have more to say?

What do people think? Focusing on Pink Flamingos, who thinks that Waters wants to simply shock, or who thinks he has more to say?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XFGl2zv9PI

https://www.youtube.com/user/MrRobJamesKing

Interview with Darren Ward Online!

...

When it comes to cult Italian horror films, a few notorious names instantly spring to mind. From Lucio Fulci to Ruggero Deodato, Dario Argento and Mario Bava; there’s no doubt that these directors are some of the best names in cult Italian cinema. But with Shameless Screen Entertainment’s upcoming release of one of the greatest and most atmospheric gialli, The House With Laughing Windows, what better time than now, to look at the man responsible for this eerie thriller; Pupi Avati. Having directed...

After seeing some fan made artwork for faux arrow video titles, I decided to make my own using Quentin Tarrintino's upcoming film Django Unchained (the D is silent). I used a high resolution image of the Red Scorpion blu ray cover to use as a template, and the rest rides itself. Please let me know what you think! This is my first blu ray/arrow video cover and I'd like to know any pro's or con's. The text that says 'He's a human killing machine' is from the cover of 'Red Scorpion'. The tagline I...

whilst innocently watching the culture show (checking out this Wicker Man play thing, starts at His Majesty's in Aberdeen next week apparently!) i came across M Kermode's annual "awards" ceremony, now USUALLY i agree or nod appreciatedly at his choices BUT (and zis ees a BEEEEG but) i CANNOT in all good conscience condone his decision in giving Best Film to WNTTAK...easily the most PREDICTABLE film ive seen in years, the only thing thats "shocking" about it is Tilda Swinton's...

A darkened room, the place looks a mess. Theres blood across the walls and broken furniture everywhere. From somewhere distant I can hear moaning and the crackling of fire. My friends are all in the room now, grabbing health packs and assault rifles, moving around and checking adjacent rooms.

"you ready mate" one of my friends asks.

I check my assault rifle, its fully loaded.

"lets go!" I reply.

One by one we make our...

a brief moan about the current work of some of my favourite directors.

Sam Raimi, It pains me to say this as evil dead 2 is my all time fave film but as if spider-man 3 was'nt bad enough, drag me to hell is surely his worst a spiteful , humorless, dull rehash of his back catologue

Dario Argento's mother of tears the long awaited final to the 3 mothers trilogy.
George Romero should have let the dead...

husk; utter
the frankenstien syndrome; pretty dull but twist made me laugh
alice sweet alice, also on 23rd century dvd for extravagant price of 99p , very good, very weird slasher flick still unsure if alice had'nt killed her sis at beginning of film.
Rosemary's killer; aka the prowler. they should have stuck with that title , been after seeing this for years. The killer looks cool, and savini effects are great but film a pretty lifeless slasher, and how on earth...

the taint, very very low budget horror comedy about a water supply tainted by a sex drug which turns all men into misogynistic killers, reminiscent of street trash and bad taste and of course troma, excellent 80's style soundtrack but after loving trailer the film was nowhere as near mad or as funny as i hoped but still a good piece of trash.

After the fall of new york, on the mysterious 23rd century dvd lable for the grand sum of 75p.
A fantastic italian mish mash of , mad...

Firstly just want to say on here..."welcome back dark side!"

Dark side magazine has been a rgular purchase by me since the halcyon days of rooting through cardboard boxes at car boot sales as a surly teen looking for illicit uncut thrills. A dedicated genre magazine with excellent retrospective articles on classic genre pictures, reviews, censorship watch and much more its been a part of my life. It was a real shame when last year, the magazine stopped turning up at my local...

Before you watch this, you need to understand that German splatter is basically about taking everything that is bad about filmmaking and, with the exception of Jorg Buttgereit, you’re unlikely to find any real cinematic masterpieces. I’ve suffered through various Olaf Ittenbach movies and that was basically enough to tell me I was on to something pretty awful. So, having fairly low expectations of Nikos The...

There have been some great French language films in recent years and Fabrice Du Welz’s feature length debut is no exception (despite being Belgian!). The setting here is one you’ll probably be familiar with; urbanite gets lost in a rural village and falls victim to crazy hicks, but this is hardly a braindead slasher and the film has it’s own unique little twist on things....

For all things thexperiment please head to www.thexperimenthq.cjb.net , the new home for the show.


Peace and lots of love


Tim Porter

Right thinking film fans and home video collectors will doubtless by excited by the upcoming Blu-Ray edition of Michael Powell's Peeping Tom, one of the most beloved films ever to destroy a career and cause a moral panic.

Moral Panics of the kind that engulfed Powell and his...

Tina's Tampon & Condom Embarrassment

PROLOGUE

I'm sure many Cult Labs members were first hipped to the world of Eurotrash Horror, sleazy US slashers and other underground movie weirdness when the Thatcher government of the 1980s decided that, in the absence of a better bogeyman to blame societies...

Were Back! In this 90 minute edition features thexperiment's first ever special guest. In conjunction with Nucleus Films releasing of Video Nasties: The Definitive Guide (which is out on November 1st) Shawnduhast & Truckturner interviewed the producer of the film Marc Morris. Hear an insight in the mind of a morally corrupted cinephila. Hear exclusive behind the scenes information about the making of this epic set. Also find out what his favourite nasties are, his view on Censorship, The Internet...

MY RELATIONSHIP
WITH A FILM FROM SERBIA!
Tim Porter.

Back in the early days of this summer-i was eagerly counting down the days till Christmas. Well, so to speak not the celebration of the birth of Jesus, or the white bearded man Saint Nick. (Who to be honest as time as progressed freaks me out. The idea of a man breaking into your house-in the night whilst pleasing your children with toys is just creepy.) No, my definition of Christmas is attending the best place in...

In an extended edition; Truckturner this week is joined by Pedromonkey and Shawnduhast (from the Cult-Labs forum). This week hear what we think about: Cannibal Movies, Lady Gaga, Censorship, La Horde, Quentin Tarantino, Lars Von Trier, Grotesque, Andy Nyman, Larry Clark, Gasper Noe, Extended Cuts, Video Games, Anatomy Of Hell and of course this week's Main Attraction: Our Top 5 picks of French Horror/Extreme Cinema of all time. Subject yourself to the waffling torture! P.S. There are some technical...

First off, thanks again to all our listeners and the following people who have helped make this happen: Thanks to Stefan for making this all possible- you should all thank him for allowing our waffling rants internet space; and finally Sarah for the lovely comments and future promotion in her wonderful newsletters.

Now back to business. This edition is the shortest of all our episodes- clocking in a 51 minutes. You scream: What happened to the 2 hour rants? Well this edition is a...

First and foremost, me and Kyle would like to thank the 15 guinea pigs who previously subjected themselves to our painful experiment. After looking at your feedback- we decided to create a sequel. This time last week a horde of gorehounds travelled to Leicester Square for Frightfest. Myself and Kyle were part of that group. For the first time hear our thoughts and my rants on:

- The Pre Festival Controversy in regards to Censorship On A Serbian Film & I Spit On Your Grave. ...

Ed Surname's Anti-Incest BLOG http://www.laughorcrytv.com/blogx.htm

Last night, me and ILUVDVDS hooked up and went to see Piranha 3D. After both having separate views on the film- i thought it would be cool to discuss what we thought of it.

Beware! At 1 Hour 45 Mins. Prepare for an Cinematic Podcast Experiment: Presented in Drawn out Wafflevision. Are you ready for a roaring rampage of cinematic waffle. It's contains controversial content, mispronunciation of the English language, a lot of ranting and tons of spoilers!

Be Warned! If...

So here we are, on to the second review in my '30s/'40s retrospective and still no mention of Universal Studios!

Based on a short story by Richard Connell, which I'll freely confess to having never read, while on a boat trip through potentially dangerous waters, a group of friends including famous big game hunter Robert Rainsford (Joel McCrae) are busy discussing recent exploits...

No retrospective of the classics of the '30's and '40's would be complete without a mention of Dwain Esper's 'Maniac'. Esper is a legend in what can be termed as the 'Educational' movie. In actual fact, he was just a master at cheap exploitation, preying on people's paranoia of drugs, sex and whatever else he could potentially make a bit of cash from. You can achieve a small insight into the...

1972's A Smack Down on Dope Street represented a new low in the seamy world of the Grindhouse quickie as Hal Manciano stepped surefootedly over the line of acceptable taste,...

Year: 1959

AKA: The Bongo Murders / Beatnik Blast-Off

Tagline: "Squares, Straights and Cops need not apply!"

Hal Manciano had the accendent Beatnik culture firmily in his sights when he churned out Jazz-Poetry, Black Coffee and Murder quickie 'Hey Daddy-O! Don't Jive Me". A grimy story of Reefer, Scat Jazz, Rollnecks and Rumbles, the film proved a big draw in small town Drive-ins, where the flipped out, crazy sounds of the Bongo and the existential Beat-Poetry...

At the height of Porno-Chic, when uptown couples got down with the Grindhouse crowd and watching full strength Hardcore sex in a public cinema became briefly fashionable, Hal Manciano produced what some critics call his...

Hal leapt athletically onto the Post-Apocalyptic band wagon in the early 80s with his poverty stricken riff on The Warriors, Escape From New York and The Red Hand Gang, Nuclear Teens Get Wasted. It's a cheap, tatty Motel of a movie,...

Hal Manciano, as I noted in a previous review, had little time for the Counterculture, seeing the rebellious kids holding peace placards as traitors to the good old Red, White and Blue. That didn't stop him from becoming one of the leading producers...

Hal Manciano struck Grindhouse gold in 1974 with his low budget riff on James Bond movies, The Cult of the Sex Tigers. Filmed on the cheap and on the fly...

Year: 1967

AKA: Sizzle on Go-Go Street / Freak Out on Go-Go Street / Terror of the Acid Ghouls / Long Hair Shakedown

Tagline: "Even the Cops Let Their Freak Flags Fly!"

Hal strikes again, cashing in cluelessly on the prevailing youth trends and in the process producing one of the most demented of the late 60s Acid-Sploitation flicks. This is a movie that packs enough oil light effects, psychedelic trip sequences and happening beat combos into it's 80...

Hal 'Fats' Manciano was always a hack. Unlike Russ Meyer, who made Cheescake movies that fueled his own obsessions and turned a profit, Hal was only interested in the bottom...

Hal Manciano jumped on the Teen Beat bandwagon in 1957 with his spirited youth exploitation picture Motor-Teens Go Bananas (AKA Good Girls Go Ape / Burnt Rubber Hoedown).

A wry mixture of poverty row Juvie...

Just doing some research into obscure genre film makers and I turned up 'Fats' Manciano.




Above: Hal captured at the Santa Barbara Cult Cinema Expo Circa 1993


In a career that spanned almost 50 years of B movie production, Manciano produced pictures that act almost as a time line of American exploitation, as he directed and produced pictures that cashed in on teen...

SEASON 2 COMING SOON. In the meantime, all 25 webisodes from Season 1 of Laugh or Cry TV are archived on YouTube. Here's a trailer.

CLIPS FROM THIRST

...

I've been up for ridiculous amounts of hours, avoiding the sun, and nature, day quickly turns into night, turning into the next week and I've forgotten to brush my teeth!
mwhahahah The torture of the torrents on Mami Fleshfiend have just begun!!!!!!!

Movies that I've recently watched: Thirst, Evil Face(1974), Bamboo House of Dolls
They all where ****ing bad asssss!!!!
Cheers to all!

My review of the recent Belgian shocker, Left Bank, is now up over at Lovelock&load!

Go get reading and tell us what you thought of the movie!

Thirst (Bakjwi - 2009)
Focus Features

The vampire genre, as we all know, has arisen from its coffin once again – thanks, some may say, to a Mormon. Though I don’t see Twilight as the saviour of the genre, I like to think Alan Ball and his excellent adaptation of Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire series, True Blood, is the saving grace behind the re-birth. It’s the anti-Twilight in everyway, and everything vampirism should be; dark, brooding, dangerous and sexual – not sparkly...

Terror Express (La Regazza del Vagone Letto - 1979)
Camera Obscura

Terror Express is a late-comer to the rape/revenge genre that was launched by Wes Craven’s sadistic Last House on the Left, but it’s also one of the sleaziest, scrap that, possibly the sleaziest; though that really isn’t that shocking when you realise it’s from the same mind that conjured up such classy titles as Porno Holocaust and Erotic Nights of the Living Dead - Luigi Montefiori (A.K.A George Eastman)....

A young woman hitch-hiking is picked up a by a man in a 4x4, who drives her into the woods and forces her to suck his knob. She manages to call the police but before the police get there he blows his load in her face and then knocks her unconscious and plants drugs on her. She is arrested and sent to the notorious ‘Prison Island’ which is ruled over by the depraved Miss Steel (Lina Romay) and her equally sadistic guards.

In this prison women are abused, forced to urinate into bowls...

Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)
Arrow Video

The Slasher genre is no stranger to controversy, but there was one film that went a little too far with its seasonal slaughter – 1984s Silent Night, Deadly Night. Halloween had been done, Valentine’s Day had been done, Birthdays had been done, hell Christmas had already been done, repeatedly, but people didn’t seem to pay much mind to Black Christmas or Christmas Evil. Silent Night, Deadly Night however, struck a chord with its...

Tormented (2009)
Pathé

Justine is the head girl of her school, and as part of the role she is called to give a speech at the funeral of fellow student Darren Mullet; who has recently committed suicide. Jason, Darren’s only friend, is outraged as Justine didn’t actually know him and has an outburst during the ceremony and is violently tossed out by the schools PE teacher. After the ceremony the ‘it’ kids decide to throw a party, Alexis has a crush on Justine and decides to invite...

Jennifer’s Body (2009)
Fox Atomic

Megan Fox, or to be more specific Megan Fox’s derrière, is the only logical reason I can find to explain the success of Michael Bay’s Transformer franchise, it sure as shit wasn’t the clever plotting, witty dialogue and mesmerising performances that launched those movies to box-office glory; surely? Then we have Juno, a small Indie movie that contains witty dialogue and mesmerising performances, it lacked Megan Fox’s derrière but still went...

Grace (2009)
Anchor Bay/Starz

Michael and Madeline Matheson are happily married and trying for a baby. Live is good and plans are coming to fruition, when doctors announce that Madeline is pregnant the couple are ecstatic. Michael’s wealthy family hold a meal for the parents-to-be, it’s evident that his dominant mother, Vivian, is bitter at Madeline and is envious at her forthcoming motherhood. The evening ends in a fight, but worse is yet to come; on the way home the couple...

Burt (Jamie Gillis) is a creepy loner who spends his time spying on the girl in the building opposite and reading porn. One night he visits a seedy sex club where you can pay to act out the fantasy of your choice. After becoming curious about a colonic, the manager allows him to visit the room of another customer to see first hand what it is. A colonic of course is an enema. Burt is so turned on by this that he sees it as his purpose in life to administer enemas to women he feels are dirty. So off...

Cast: George Eastan, Dirce Funari, Mark Shanon, Annj Goren


A team of scientists are sent on a mission to a Caribbean island to check the effects of atom bomb tests that took place 20 years before and also find the truth behind the rumours of a beast like creature that roams the island and kills the innocent. When they reach the island there appears to be no signs of life. The split up and start collecting specimens to take back with them. Stopping for a while two of the scientists...

Let the Right One In (2008)
Momentum

Stockholm, 1982. Oskar, a bullied twelve-year-old, dreams of getting revenge on the classmates who terrorise him. One night he meets his new neighbour, Eli, outside their apartment block. She’s his age, more or less, and a friendship blossoms as they continue to meet up on the jungle gym at night. With the arrival of Eli and her guardian, Håkan, comes news of a death in a near-by suburb, the boy was found hanging upside down from a tree,...

Antichrist (2009)
Artificial Eye

A simple act of self-indulgence has shattering consequences for a middle-class couple. He (Willem Dafoe) and She (Charlotte Gainsberg) loose their young son, Nic, while they make love. While they are caught up in each other, we witness as their son climbs up onto a window ledge and walks off, falling to his death. She climaxes at the point of impact/her sons demise.

Grief stricken, She is almost on the verge of a breakdown, so...

To Be Twenty is a cautionary tale of two young, liberated, free-spirited women who spend their days looking for somewhere to crash, someone to **** and to generally act like spoilt little brats, until a run-in with a group of thugs turns this apparent light hearted tale into a nasty slice of Euro-slime – if you watch the Italian cut of the movie, that is. If you watch the American cut it’s a fun, care-free sex comedy! How can one film vary so dramatically?

The Italian cut is the...

Why do the media (and the public) love tragedy? Nothing gets the papers selling, or the viewing figures soaring, like a good ol’ siege! How about a healthy dose of genocide? Or maybe a mother who decided to murder her own children? Or the disgruntled employee who decided that enough was enough and takes his friend, AK-47, to the office one day? Each story is guaranteed to sell, sell, sell. Whatever happened to the good old days of covering cat shows and water skiing squirrels?

Johnnie...

The success of Gualtiero Jaccoppeti's, Franco Prosperi's and Paolo Cavara's Mondo Cane (aka 'A Dogs Life' 1962) inspired a whole host of imitations from around the world. In Italy Jacopetti and Prosperi's former collaborators Antonio Climati and Mario Morra directed the notorious Savage Man, Savage Beast (1975) and Savannah Violenta ( 1982 ). Exploitation legend Antonio Margheriti directed Il Pelo nel Mondo (aka Wicked World, Mondo Inferno, 1964), Alfredo Castiglioni directed Addio Ultimo Uomo (1978,...

80’s Hong Kong cinema holds a very special place in my heart. If it weren’t for this little Island my love for Asian cinema would likely be non-existent today. Back in ‘the day’ of my sweet, sweet childhood (early 90’s, which probably isn’t most peoples ‘day’ to be fair), discovering the joys of Way of the Dragon and Dragons Forever are truly some of the highlights of my younger days. Then came John Woo and the heroic bloodshed scene, I remember being blown away by Bullet in the Head, A Better Tomorrow...

The new demon-fest, kung-fu manga-adap has finally reached our cinemas! It's just a shame it SUCKED so much! This review serves as a public warning!




BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE or BLOOD: THE LAST TIME I WANT TO EVER SEE THIS RUBBISH!





WOW! Well, what can I say about this? It was a genuinely...

A brutal drug dealer named Pinheiro controlls the 'golden triangle' in between Brazil and Colombia. Anyone who gets in his way meets a gruesome end. The U.S government is keen to put a stop to his antics but are fearful that a extradition to the U.S will have deadly consequenses. So they put their best men - Bull (Miles O'Keeffe), Karl (Milton Morris) and Paolo (Chuck Bishop) on the case with instructions to kidnap Pinheiro and bring him back to the U.S.A.

...

Round 3: Probably a bit more well known this one... Who Can Kill a Child (¿Quién puede matar a un niño?) is a definite gem in my eye.



Synopsis:
On a vacation away from their family, Tom (Lewis Fiander, of DR. JEKYLL & SISTER HYDE) and his pregnant wife Evelyn (FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD's Prunella Ransome) sail to an island off the coast of Spain that seems deserted... until its children...

From the Annals of DVDisgo (RIP) and DVDresurrections


Possession








Another film caught up in the UK's draconian Video Nasty clampdown of the early ‘80s, Possession is in fact more of an extreme art house movie than the exploitative hard gore horror films it was lumped in with on the Department of Public Prosecutions banned list.

First of all, a word of caution - viewers expecting bloody thrills...

From the annals of DVDisgo and DVDresurrections


Men Behind The Sun









The ultimate geek show movie or a harsh indictment of Japan's war crimes during the second world war? Maybe it's both but be assured, Men Behind The Sun is one of the harshest, most uncompromising films ever committed to celluloid and then inflicted on an audience.

The film open with some young male adolescents who...

From the annals of DVDisgo (RIP) and DVDresurrections


La Settima Donna









This nasty slice of Italian exploitation will please fans of rough fare like Last House on the Left and They Call Her One Eye. In fact the movie was marketed in some territories as Last House on the Beach, which should give clued in viewers an idea of the queasy unpleasantness that’s packed into this stylish but depraved little...

After being shot during a pistol duel 19th century noble woman Lilith Silver ( Eileen Daly ) is resurrected by vampire Sethaine Blake ( Chris Adamson ) and spends the centuries as a hired killer. Her recent hits have involved a sect called the Illuminati who - led by Blake - are understandably concerned and set out to put a stop to Lilith's antics.

Here's something weird; a modern (ish ) British film that is actually quite good! Director West has managed - for next to nothing - a...

From the annals of DVDisgo and DVDresurrections



Murder Rock







You've got to hand it to those crazy Italian exploitation directors, they knew how to churn out a watchable rip off of mainstream cinema's hit movies in double quick time. Conan The Barbarian inspired numerous spaghetti-fantasy movies like Fulci's Conquest and D'amato's Ator series. Dirty Harry kicked off a spate of right wing fantasies in which...

From the pages of the sadly defunct DVDisgo and the happily active DVDresurrections



La Cabina







This amazing short film was directed by Antonio Mercero for Spanish television in 1972. It's a wonderful example of efficient, lean horror story telling which squeezes in plenty of thrills and shocks in its 40 minute running time.

Essentially a European riff on a Twilight Zone style format, the film...

Another repost from... DVDisgo (RIP) and DVDresurrections



Conquest







First of all a quick warning. I am about to give a semi-decent review of a really bad film. Fulci's Conquest doesn't even register on the quality film radar in comparison to his masterworks like The Beyond or Don't Torture A Duckling. It's A-Grade, No Nonsense Trash-ola of the murkiest, most slapdash variety. So, for anyone reading this...

I'm using this blog to get all the writing I've done that's still floating around online in one place.

To this end, I'll be reposting reviews that were published first on my Myspace blog DVDisgo and also on DVDresurrections, a great Australian cult films website. Please pay them a call.


The Star Wars Holiday Special








Chewbacca is racing across space to spend the holidays with his family in...

The Uncanny





The lowly house cat; cherished pet, cute furry fluff ball, loyal companion...

Or are they part of some vicious and malignant plot to destroy humanity as they gather in hairy packs under streetlights, looking for trouble. The rather naff kids film, Cats and Dogs, put forward the proposition of a global feline conspiracy in which Machiavellian moggies plotted man and canine downfall but a small British horror anthology picture...

The Red Shoes





Not to be confused with Powell & Pressburger classic of the same name, The Red Shows is an excellent work of high drama horror, The Red Shoes continues Korea's run of quirky hits with a movie that piles on the gory shocks, sometimes to a ridiculous degree, while still focusing on character, in particular a riveting mother -daughter relationship at the heart of the movie that explodes into raw physical and verbal violence as the film moves...

Silver





Takashi Miike is capable of producing some extremely flawed cinema alongside his works of cultish genius like Audition or Full Metal Yakuza. But, even though Silver is among his least effective movies, in Miike world even the lesser work is still mildly entertaining. Drenched in bloodshed and perversity, Miike Amoral visions may have got a little fuzzy with Silver but as a comic book orgy of smutty sexual weirdness and sickening violence it's...

Duel Project




A unique Japanese film experiment, The Duel Project features two movies, both made under strict rules given by the two films producer. The films were to be shot in a single location, feature no more than three actors, one of whose character had to die. The budgets had to be small and a maximum eight days of shooting was allowed.

I've always been intrigued by filmmakers imposing strict criteria on their work; Lars Von Trier's work...

Round 2: Probably going to be controversial this one, but another horror film that I consider gem material is Home Sick.



Synopsis:
Bill Moseley (Rob Zombie's Halloween, The Devil's Rejects) stars as a smiling maniac named "Mr. Suitcase." With a briefcase full of razorblades, he crashes a homecoming get-together for Claire (Lindley Evans) and forces the partygoers to identify people...

A team of archeologists venture into some deep caves to look for their friend who has disappeared while trying to break the world isolation record. Once inside they stumble across an old crypt with a strange Latin inscription on the wall. It tells them that in 1291 seven monks were executed for heresy will rise from their graves 700 hundred years later and seek out and kill seven heretic's. Unfortunately for the group it is now 1991;exactly 700 hundred years later!! At first they are not worried...

Nosferatu





Werner Herzog's late 70s sound and colour remake of the classic silent horror Nosferatu.

Starring well known thespian lunatic Klaus Kinski as the hideous vampire and lord of the rats, this is an arty take on vampiric lore that might at first alienate straight ahead horror fans but stick with it...it's a moody atmospheric piece with some vivid imagery. One scene that springs to mind is of a formerly well to do family trying...

Okay then blog fiends, let's rock.



!!!!

Lucio Fulci and Umberto Lenzi were commsioned by Reitalia Television to direct two movies in a tv series called the House of Doom. They were nver shown because they where deemed to violent. The only release they got was a vhs release in Japan. In 2003 they finnaly got a UK release from Vipco in the House of Doom collection:

The House of Clocks - Dir: Lucio Fulci,

This film is about a group of youths who plan to rob a large house that is owned by two elderly people....

The Xtro Franchise





Sold as an adult version of ET on it's release in 1983, the first of the series is a British made cheapy about a family man who is returned to Earth by his alien abductors after three years. The unfortunate man is now in possession of ungodly powers...

Appearing briefly on the Nasties list back in the 80s, Xtro has a few shocking scenes such as a pregnant woman who dies giving birth to an adult male, a trick Takashi...

Boy Meets Girl





Mid 90s low budget horror that caused serious controversy and even suffered bans on it's initial release.

In a seedy bar, Girl is looking for a victim and Boy wants to get laid. Soon they are back at Girl's flat where she gives him wine and they watch porn. The wine is drugged and soon Boy is feeling...a...little...woozy....

Boy wakes up. He can't move. The room is dark. Boy is strapped to a dentist's chair....

The 1974 Black Christmas was a hugely important film for horror cinema, with its bleak forboding atmosphere, unseen assassin, grisly kills and knockout of an ending it set a high standard for other slasher films to follow. I first saw the original on Christmas Eve 2000 and it made a huge impact on me after waiting years before then to finally see it. The video was seemingly unavailable whenever I searched for it and I was curious to see a film with such a bizarre title as that. Of course when I...

Fright Night





After the early 80s slasher cycle in which mysogynistic murder scenes and extremes of gore were the name of the game, the latter part of the decade saw comedy-horror ruling the video store roost with even Freddy Kruger lapsing into corny one-liners. The fact that Kruger became almost cuddly as the numerous sequels took their toll on his sinister reputation always annoyed me. Did no one ever ask whether producing cuddly toy versions of a...

Medusa Touch





A forgotten classic starring Richard Burton at the height of his late 70s hamming, it combines the horror and disaster genres to great effect and then hits the viewer with a killer downbeat ending, as was the fashion for horror flicks at the time.

Burton plays Morlar, a man who is recovering in hospital after being battered round the head in his home. The police are investigating the assault and also how he may be implicated...

Witchfinder General





Michael Reeves only directed three films before his tragic death from an overdose of downers in the late 60s. Luckily he left us with some fantastic films including a great late Boris Karloff vehicle, the Sorcerers, but of the three, Witchfinder General is his masterpiece, a slice of harrowing 17th horror that's a million miles away from the campy fun of it's Hammer contemporaries.

Vincent Price dropped the melodramatic...

Scum





The daddy of British youth crime movies and based on an instantly banned BBC production, Scum is a brutal portrayal of the harsh conditions in a Borstal, an archaic youth offenders unit that sort to brutalize prisoners into conforming to societies rules but instead turned out a generation of hard case psychos who'd had the humanity beaten out of them. Rife with racism, male rape and violence, Scum is not an easy watch, even by today's more liberal...

Black Mama White Mama





Queen of 70s black cinema, Pam Grier (Cleopatra Jones, Coffy, Jackie Brown) stars in this "Chicks-in-chains" rehash of the Classic Tony Curtis/Sidney Poitier prison escape film, "The Defiant Ones".

Two women prisoners, one black, one white, exist in a hellish prison where bullish lesbian guards hound them. During transportation an uprising from their fellow inmates allows our pair to escape into the jungle, joined...

House of Fear





In Drearcliff Manor a society of aging men live in a weird commune called The Good Companions, where each is heavily insured and the other members are the beneficiaries. The foreboding housekeeper hands each an envelope containing an ever-shrinking amount of orange pips before they are murdered in grisly fashion. The corpses are found mutilated, living up to a look legend that no one leaves Drearcliff in one piece...

Holmes...

Dementia (Daughter of Horror)





A real oddity, Dementia (also known by it's alternate title, Daughter Of Horror), started life as a 10 minute short before Director John Parker expanded this essentially silent movie into a 60-minute feature.

The movies only real dialogue comes from a narrator, a trick used in a lot of sleazy sex pictures in the 60s such as the Olga series of S&M movies. He welcomes us in the horrific depths of a fractured...

If





Malcolm McDowell (Clockwork Orange) takes on the establishment in this allegorical tale about the horror's of the British Public school system. Made in 1968, when popular culture seemed to be questioning everything, If... mirrored the global explosion of youth rebellion and it presents an educational system for the sons of the well off that seems designed to brutalize and beat the will out of young boys.

Directed by Lindsay Anderson...

Rosemary's Baby





"This isn't a dream... This is really happening!"


Mia Farrow stars with John Cassavetes in Roman Polanski's timeless chiller about Guy, a jobbing actor, and his elfin wife, moving into an old fashioned apartment building in New York City*. The filmmakers used the Dakota Building, which became infamous later on as the place outside which John Lennon was shot. The loving couple soon become friendly with the apparently...

Terror





A very young Jack Nicholson stars in this Roger Corman cheapy in which a young soldier in the Napoleonic wars chases a mystery women into an old, and of course creepy, castle occupied by a frail Baron, played by Boris Karloff.

The Baron is a deeply troubled man as a twisted old witch is trying to drive him to suicide and the strange girl that Nicholson followed is in on the plot...With Nicholson trapped in the eerie castle, all...

Odean issued some the Something Weird DVD a while back and, although the discs weren't as special as the extra packed R1 editions, it was still great to see these bottom shelf oddities in UK stores. Republishing this review gives me an excuse to post up some really odd trailers...



She Freak / Taste of Blood







A candy coloured 60s remake of Todd Browning's Freaks, She Freak is cheap drive in movie dreck that...

I thought that I would start my blog with a topic that is very close to my heart: Obscure, but excellent (in my eyes anyway) pieces of horror film-making available on DVD, that may have escaped the radar of even the most keen eyed movie hound.

The DVD market is saturated with obscure horror DVD’s nowadays thanks to the disappearance of the BBFC’s iron fist on censorship, growing demand from a wider fan base, and great DVD labels who are prepared to invest in movies, and who believe...

The Yellow Teddybears

The early 60s saw censorship slowly slipping and UK producers cashing in with a series of controversial (by the standards of the day) movies that pushed the sexual content envelope to it's limit.

Tony Tenser, later of UK horror specialists Tigon Pictures, was behind this 1963 movie which was packaged as an exploitative and pervy look at burgeoning sexuality among teenage school girls but was in fact a message movie about the perils of pre-marital...

Its the year 3000 and the earth has become a desolate wasteland. The seas and rivers have all dried up and humanity is on the brink of extinction. An underground settlement knows the whereabouts of an underground spring that contains enough water to save the human race. But in order to reach it they must travel across dangerous territory contorolled by ' Crazy Bull' a sadistic barbarian who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. After a convoy from the settlement comes under attack from CB the...

Wild Style





Before the Hollywood exploitation of the New York Hip Hop scene saw the entertaining but totally camp and clueless Breakdance movies rake in the dollars, the originators of the worlds most popular music collaborated on a scrappy, badly acted but riveting look at New York street life, which brought together the four elements of the culture, B-Boying, Graffiti writing, rapping and DJing, into a strange hybrid of drama and documentary.
...

The Honeymoon Killers





A raw low budget classic from 1970, the Honeymoon Killers is based on real events in which a couple united by their outsider status go on a murderous rampage. When When Raymond and Martha meet through a lonely-hearts club they seem like a match made in heaven; she obese, obsessive and needy and he weak, slimy and deceitful. Together they hit on a vile scheme where he poses as a lonely guy who takes women from the dating club out...

Thirst





Deep Red and Blow Up actor David Hemmings stars in this amusing late 70s Australian vampire offering that predates the Blade movies in it's portrayal of blood drinkers as a well organized society, building human farms for harvest.

Returning readers may have read about my love of Near Dark, which portrays vampires as trailer trash predators in contrast to the high born sophisticates of most vampiric cinema. Normally, I'd side with...

Aenigma





"All her enemies will be eliminated... but first they will suffer!"


When a girl is rendered comatose following a cruel prank played by her school friends, she takes revenge from her hospital bed by possessing a new pupil at the exclusive boarding school she once attended. Soon the haunted newbie is setting about extracting a horrible revenge for the cruelty meted out to her possessor...

Director Lucio Fulci...

Massacre At Central High





Massacre At Central High is at first glace a typical slice of mid 70s exploitation, mixing as it does all the lurid violence and leering nudity that was required by Drive-in promoters and Grindhouse owners to keep their audiences sated. But beneath the usual trappings is a much odder movie that seems to have influenced later films such as Heathers in it's look at the corrupt malignancy that can lurk beneath the exterior of an...

Rocketship XM





The Future Is Coming!


A cheap B&W movie rushed into to production to beat the groundbreaking "Destination Moon" to the cinema screens in the early 50s, Rocketship XM sees a group of plucky astronauts veer off their chosen route to the moon, landing instead on mars in a mind numbing piece of unscientific anti-logic that sets up the rest of this odd slice of B-movie madness.

On arrival the crew discover...

Cabinet of Dr. Caligari





Enjoy the movie!


An asylum inmate reveals the story of Dr. Caligari, who has a sleeping walking slave called Cesare who is murdering the townsfolk of Holstenwell. Is the tale a product of one mans twisted imagination or the grisly truth...

A vital entry both in the history of horror cinema and film as a whole. Made in Germany in the 1920s, the film is a surreal masterpiece. Cabinet... is...

Get Christie Love






Get Christie Love is a TV movie spin off from the blaxploitation movies of the early 70s that featured ballsy afro queens who didn't take any crap and meted out justice with a Kung Fu kick and a mean one liner. Think movies like Coffy, Cleopatra Jones or Foxy Brown. The film was successful enough to spawn it's own shortlived TV series.

Following the usual path of female lead black movies of the time, Christie...

I Bury The Living





Robert Kraft is starting a new job as the chairman of a committee overseeing the running of a massive cemetery, a graveyard so huge that a map is kept in the office, displaying every grave. Pins are used, black for filled graves and white for sold plots that have yet to be occupied by the deceased.

When Robert makes an error and places a pair of black pins on the wrong grave site causing the young couple who paid for...

Attack of the Giant Leeches





From The Murky Underground Caverns...


When a drunken trapper reports that giant monsters are lurking in the local swamp, the townsfolk don't believe his inebriated ramblings until people start disappearing...

Welcome to 50s monster movie heaven in this basically awful but entertaining piece of tinpot cheapness.

The trapper turns up later, extremely dead and sporting great...

Teenagers From Out Space





Ultra low budget 50s drive-in nonsense for fans of kitzch camp and Sci Fi aficionados. It's Martian invasion time as the pesky aliens invade Earth in order to use our planet as a breeding ground for their food creatures (or men in rubber suits...you decide!) The Gargons!!!

One Martian becomes attached to an Earth woman, Betty (Are all women in 50s America called Betty?) and must now fight his own race to save...

Reefer Madness! (Tell Your Children)




Enjoy the whole movie!


A moralising cult classic from the 30s, designed to exploit fears of drug abuse while masquerading as a educational film in order to get shots of ladies showing their stocking tops past the stringent censors, Reefer Madness is a delirious riot of a movie in which we learn that smoking weed can lead to an interest in "Race" music (i.e. Jazz) played by wild haired dope lunatics...

Black Fist





"The Big Bad Black Dude of the Streets... He'll bust you up, slam you down and blast you into pieces!"


With a tag line like that how could I resist! I love blaxploitation movies. It's the music, the fashion, the hair and the ghetto kung fu action. I got sucked in by seeing Shaft at a young age but it's the less well known, cheaper and generally more exploititive ones that hold my interest now. Their more violent and...