Unholy Rollers (1972)

Some things are definitely worth waiting for and this is one of them.  I have been after this flick for a number of years and have finally seen it and the more I think about it, the more I love it.  This was the breakout role for b-movie legend Claudia Jennings and you can see why she has earned a place in movie history.  She shines as the take-no-shit Karen Walker who decides to take out her frustrations in the roller derby and quickly becomes a star after taking the crown from current star Mickey (Betty Ann Rees from "Sugar Hill").  Success comes with a price as Karen is screwed around by men, ostracized from her jealous teammates, and berated by her bosses and coaches for not 'following the game plan'.  There is lots of great roller derby action, sex, nudity, a tattoo, cars getting smashed, guns being shot, mini golf, and buckets of attitude culminating in a destructive spasm of an ending .  It is interesting that the familiar plotline follows the same structure as "Showgirls" in many respects and it is sad that the life of Karen seems to mirror some aspects of Jennings' life in retrospect.  Overall, this is a fine example of what we know as a 'drive-in classic' and should be required viewing for fans of b-movies.  I wish this was more accessible but with recent rumours of Roger Corman's retirement, it may be a long time before this sees the light of day as Corman produced the film.  Maybe someone (Quentin are you listening) will pick this one up and give it the DVD release that it deserves.  Martin Scorsese was the supervising editor and co-stars include Joe E. Tata (Nat from "Beverly Hills 90210") as the boss' son and Roberta Collins ("Death Race 2000", "Caged Heat") as Karen's best friend.  Director Vernon Zimmerman went on to make "Fade To Black".  

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

What a kick ass movie!  As one who is usually violently opposed to remakes (especially in today's movie climate), this was an absolute surprise.  Add to that the fact that Michael Bay produced this and I feel like I am living in some weird dream world.  Fortunately for me, I am not dreaming and we are given a balls out, dirty, gory, suspenseful, and violent horror picture with no comic relief.  I often think of remakes like cover songs: if you don't change it at all, there is no point and if you change it too much, why not just do something new.  This remake falls into that perfect place where it takes the idea of the original, respects it, and puts enough of a new spin on it that it results in a new experience that complements the film it is remaking.  Although the original TCM will always be the superior film mainly due to the fact that it is still scary and has a cooler 'family', I am proud to have this retelling in my collection as well.  Who'd have thought that director Marcus Nispel could go from a resume of music videos for mostly cheeseball artists (with the exception of Faith No More) to this nasty little piece of work.  The actors all did a great job, there were some nice surprises, the make-up effects were juicy, the sets and locations were all beautifully creepy, and we even get John Laroquette narrating again.  Cinematographer Daniel Pearl also shot the original.

Village Of The Giants (1965)

After going to the theatre and sitting through a predictable piece of poo called "Taking Lives", I figured I needed to see something different to remind myself that there are still plenty of great movies to be discovered.  This was just what the doctor ordered as I was hooked from the opening scene involving a car accident, go-go dancing, tight clothes, and teenagers rolling around in rain and mud to some groovy 60's music.  I couldn't believe what I was seeing and was very excited for the rest of the movie.  Tommy Kirk (the kid from "Old Yeller") plays Mike, a sensible young man who is about to get lucky as a mudslide has prevented his girlfriend's parents from returning home.  Unfortunately, the girlfriend's nerdy brother Genius (future director Ron Howard) is making potions in his basement laboratory and comes up with some 'goop' that makes living creatures grow to huge proportions.  While Mike is not going to get laid, we can see the dollar signs in his eyes as he tries to get Genius to make more of the stuff.  The 'goop' is fed to some local ducks and soon the whole town is aware of the discovery when the giant ducks literally shake their tailfeathers at a local hangout where the Beau Brummels are playing.  This scene goes down in movie history as the only scene that intercuts between hot 60's chicks and giant ducks showing off their dance moves.  The mud bathing hooligans from the beginning of the film decide to find the 'goop' and exploit it themselves and in a silly display of peer pressure all decide to eat the goop.  The result is the six giant bad kids taking control and the good people of the town trying to cope with the situation.  As you have probably gathered, this was a lot of fun and was loaded with campy humour, great music, lots of dancing, cheesy forced perspective effects (including a giant dog and spider), and a light tone.  There was even a scene that reminded me of the Imperial Walker sequence from "The Empire Strikes Back".  Look for Toni Basil (singer of the 80's hit "Mickey") as the go-go dancer named Red, Beau Bridges as the main hooligan, and Joe Turkel (Tyrell from "Blade Runner") as the sheriff.

Women Of The World (1963)

This is my first foray into the mondo films from Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi and it was exactly what I was expecting.  Having seen the "Faces Of Death" films from the 70's and 80's I am not a stranger to the genre and I have mixed feelings about these types of movies.  On the one hand, I like the documentary angle and I am obviously a fan of exploitation cinema but I guess I don't really like seeing scenes that may or may not be true.  Aside from this bias, I found "Women Of The World" to be entertaining enough with Peter Ustinov narrating various scenes involving women of different cultures.  We see women in the Israeli army, prostitutes in Hamburg, starlets with broken dreams in Hollywood, cosmetic surgery, and more.  This was the tamest mondo movie that I have seen as many of the main staples of the genre focus on violence (especially against animals) and scenes of death.  "Women Of The World" played more like a very dated episode of "National Geographic" aside from a few small sequences including child birth and facial skin peeling.  Fans of the genre will probably enjoy this but thrill seekers, perverts, and gorehounds will be sorely disappointed.  Italian film fans will recognize that composer Riz Ortolani of "Cannibal Holocaust" fame did the score.

Contraband (1980)

Fabio Testi stars in this awesome Italian crime thriller from the godfather of gore Lucio Fulci.  Testi stars as Luca, a smuggler in Naples who gets pissed off when his brother is killed by a rival smuggler.  Luca spends the film trying to find out who did it and exact his revenge.  He teams up with another ambitious gangster named Perlante who looked like a cross between James Remar and Helmut Berger.  This character was totally fun to watch as he was cool and sleazy at the same time.  Along the way there is a groovy theme song and some nudity courtesy of Ivana Monti (who gets raped and sodomized in a nasty scene), Cintia Loditti (who tries to rape a guy), and an unknown brunette.  As this is a Fulci movie we get some great gory kills including an exploding throat, a great head shot, a great stomach shot, some disgusting explosion aftermath corpses, and a nasty blowtorch vs. face torture scene.  This was an excellent gangster movie that could only come from Fulci and clipped along with some great characters and an exciting pace.  The lead bad guy named the Margliese was played by Marcel Bozzuffi who was the hitman in "The French Connection" who Popeye Doyle chased in one of the best chase scenes in movie history.  Look for Fulci himself in a cameo as one of the older gangsters in the final shootout.  This movie is also known as "The Smuggler".

Fade To Black (1980)

Poor Eric Binford.  In this tragic tale, the lead character is the ultimate film geek with a brain full of movie trivia having watched countless movies and living in a room covered in movie memorabilia.  While Binford kind of reminds me of myself, the only problem is that Binford's overbearing mother, obnoxious co-workers, and an unhealthy obsession with a local Marilyn Monroe lookalike (Linda Kerridge) has led to Eric being pushed a little over the edge.  As a result, he begins offing those who have wronged him by dressing up as various movie characters and reenacting movie scenes.  The concept is fantastic and it is executed brilliantly thanks mainly to the portrayal of Binford by Dennis Christopher ("It").  I thought Christopher captured the innocence of the eccentric guy who lives for the movies and is surrounded by people who do not understand his passion.  Although later in the film he becomes somewhat troubled I still felt sorry for him in a similar way to how I felt for Willard portrayed by Crispin Glover.  You know these guys aren't mean spirited, they have just been pushed too far by society.  I really hope that this film isn't up for a remake anytime soon because although it works with the character being a big fan of classic Hollywood, I can't picture a character reenacting some Hannibal Lecter scene and taking it seriously.  The woman cop was played by Gwynne Gilford who is married to Robert Pine (the sergeant from "CHiPs") in real life.  This film marks early screen appearances for both Mickey Rourke and Peter Horton and you can find Tim Thomerson ("Trancers") in the cast as a psychologist trying to find a link between entertainment and violence.  

Brutal Fury (1993)

The most brutal thing about this movie was the acting.  Aside from that, we have a plot involving a vigilante sisterhood, a date-raping jock, a lesbian gym teacher, and an female undercover cop trying to infiltrate the school's drug trade.  While this all sounds like it could be a good little exploitation movie, we are given a boring plot carried by poor acting and a repetitive 80's sounding score.  The movie opens with a too-old-for-high-school jock named John Cain raping and killing a large breasted classmate by a lake.  Cain goes unpunished for his crime and throughout the movie rapes another girl and tries to do a third.  He also takes pride in calling girls 'fine bitches' and thinking he is God's gift to everything.  In the words of Chris Jericho, the guy is an 'ass clown'.  Meanwhile, a secret sisterhood of black leotard clad females are scaring students into being good by threatening them.  The most scary thing about these girls was a freaky skull mask that the leader wears when they are initiating a new member.  It doesn't take long for the obviously psycho new member named Misty to start taking matters into her own hands and going too far with her scare tactics.  This is a nutcase red head chick that was abused as a child, has no fashion sense, and swings a tennis racquet like Leatherface when she is mad.  The most interesting thing about this movie to me was the cop subplot with a female cop who is dressing like a punk chick to get in with the resident dealer (who looked a lot like a resident dealer in my high school).  This was mildly entertaining but again the acting was bad and the faux punk girl sounded like the blonde on "CSI: Miami" trying to deliver lines while distracted by a television.  You can't win them all and yet again I got duped by a misleading cover.  Damn those marketing departments!

Rod Steele 0014: You Only Live Until You Die (2002)

Who ever thought that crossing James Bond with an Italian erotic comic book by Milo Minera would work?  It seems like writer/director Rolfe Kanefsky did and you know what, it does!  Kanefsky has taken the popular "Click" series that concerns a special gadget that sexually arouses people when it is pointed at them and activated.  He puts this gadget into the hands of a Bond-like character named Rod Steele (Robert Donovan) and the result is funny, sexy, and entertaining.  Steele looks like Timothy Dalton, sounds like Sean Connery, and acts like Maxwell Smart making him somewhat like a cool buffoon.  He is on assignment to Prague to bust up the operation of a villain named Tangerina (De'Ann Power) who has an evil plot up her sleeve.  Thanks to a mix up at the airport, Steele is armed with his greatest gadget of all: the clicker that turns people on.  This becomes useful throughout the film as when evil female assassins are about to attack him, he simply points his gadget at them and they immediately disrobe and mutually masturbate on his hotel room bed.  If his partner is not cooperating in an attempt to seduce a man who has information, Rod points the gadget at her and she gets naked and literally pounds the info out of the informant in bed (in a number of positions).  Even as a Bond spoof alone, I thought this flick was great with everything from the title sequence to the casinos to the one-liners incorporated and all quite funny.  On top of all this we get a number of gratuitous sex scenes that I actually thought were kind of sexy which featured a number of b-movie regulars including Jacqueline Lovell (as Pussy L'Amour), Gabriella Hall, Kira Reed, as well as a couple of porn stars (Stacey Leigh Mobley and Tammi Fallon).  Also look for John La Zar (Z-Man from "Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls") as the scientist who developed the gadget.  This movie was like a Surrender Cinema movie that you don't want to constantly fast forward.  There have been a number of other movies based on the Minera "Click" comics including the "The Turn On" and "The Ultimate Attraction".  This is the only movie where I have ever seen a woman get tortured by being orally pleasured by a snake for an extended period of time.

Fight For Your Life (1977)

I cannot recall seeing one man spew as many racist slurs in 90 minutes as William Sanderson ("Blade Runner", TV's "Deadwood") does in this movie.  This guy makes Ed Norton's character in "American History X" seem like Barney.  Sanderson stars as Jesse Lee Cain, a murderer who escapes from custody with a couple of other inmates when their police transport van is involved in an accident in New York City.  The terrible trio steal a pimp's car and make their way to Canada killing and stealing along the way.  Before they reach the border, they take a young black girl hostage and proceed to her house where they hold the whole family at gunpoint.  What follows is an onslaught of trash talking and humiliation as Sanderson and his cronies make the family cook for them, dance for them and sing for them.  They also manage to fit in an attempted rape, a completed rape, and a couple of murders (including one that is more disturbing than usual).  You can see by the cover and the tagline that this is going to be a revenge movie so you probably can figure out where this is all headed.  I am surprised that Sanderson managed to get work after playing such a despicable son of a bitch but the guy is still getting roles nearly 30 years later appearing in a variety of genres.  Actor Reginald Bythewood, who played the boy Floyd, directed 2003's "Biker Boyz".  Overall, this movie was quite brutal from a dialogue point of view but I felt could have been much harsher had the filmmakers wanted to go there with the torture and degradation.  Nevertheless, this is probably not one to watch with mom and dad after Sunday dinner.  This is to blacks what "I Spit On Your Grave" is to women. 

Death Valley (1982)

Here I was expecting a freaky "Hills Have Eyes" knock-off set in Death Valley but was instead treated to a predictable thriller set mainly in and around Death Valley hotels and tourist attractions.  I was quite disappointed as the thought of being pursued by a psycho in the unforgiving heat of the desert with the nooks and crannies between rocks as your only sanctuary so long as you don't run into a scorpion or rattlesnake planted quite an image of a thriller in my overactive mind.  Alas, this was not the case as we have the little shit from "A Christmas Story" giving his mom's new boyfriend a hard time and snooping around in abandoned campers.  He is also a mild kleptomaniac as he steals a necklace from a camper that happens to belong to a local murderer (Stephen McHattie).  This ends up getting our little brat in trouble when a local waiter with the same necklace sees him fiddling with the find.  Soon, the kid finds that getting your tongue stuck to a pole is small potatoes in the scheme of things as he is stalked throughout the movie by our nutty waiter while trying to bond with mom's new man.  To say this movie was predictable is an understatement but it managed to keep me awake.  Looking back, I don't really know how and when a character is so stupid that they decide to hide in the back seat of the killer's car, I begin to think that some characters deserve to die.  There was a slightly funny scene involving a fat babysitter (also seen in "H.O.T.S.") who can't stop eating.  I bought this movie for Stephen McHattie as he was so great in the Canadian cop show "Cold Squad".  It's odd that he has a twin brother in real life.  Catherine Hicks who plays the mom also played Andy's mom in "Child's Play".

The Eye (2002)

It takes a lot to scare me these days.  Sure, a cheap jolt will always make me jump but to actually scare me and have me worried about what may suddenly appear in a corner of a room is a rarity.  "The Eye" has managed to do that for the last two days since I have viewed this story.  Not only does it have me worried about what I might see but it also brings to mind all of the things that may be around me that I can't see.  I am happy that it is daylight as I am writing this and I can easily say that this is one of the best horror movies that I have seen in the last few years.  The Pang brothers (who are twins) bring us this tale of a blind woman who receives a cornea transplant.  Although she is now able to see, she also has the displeasure of seeing ghosts as well.  I am not going to get into details with this as the plot is quite clever and I don't want to reveal any of it's many twists.  I will say that it contains elements of "The Sixth Sense", "Final Destination", and "The Ring".  It also freaked me out more than all three of those films combined thanks in part to the sound editing. I also thought the the score was brilliant alternating between peaceful soundscapes that reminded me of Vangelis' "Blade Runner" soundtrack and jarring industrial sounds and thumping drums.  This music really adds to the frightening scenes as does the fact that you are immersed in the lead character's uncertainty and you only know what she knows.  I was very happy that my friend Darren called me the first time I was watching this alone as I had to turn it off that night after about 20 minutes.  After seeing the movie in it's entirety a few nights later with my girlfriend, I know now that if I had had watched the whole movie by myself that first night, I would not have slept.   Anyways, go and seek this out before the Tom Cruise-produced Hollywood remake comes to you local multiplex.  

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