Well, I really wanted to see a title from Big Broad Guerrilla Monster as I went to their web site and it just looked so rebellious. I picked up this one as I could rent it locally because it was released by Something Weird Video and let me tell you: this one was great. It is so nice to see something so totally original in the 90's. D'Lana Tunnell ("Gore Whore") stars as D'Lana, a bad girl who has a tremendous crush on local music legend Johnny Tu-Note (Hugh Brooks). Soon, D'Lana is pregnant with Johnny's child and he snubs her. A group of women who hate men hook up with her and they bond throughout the movie. It all culminates in them wanting to meet their idol who is a local stripper/exploitation film star named Topsy Turvy who is also played by D'Lana. This is an extremely fun movie that just reeks of coolness with great 50's/60's garage-surf music by Impala and just campy enough performances from all of the cast members. A special mention should be made of the cinematography by Darin Ipema with his interesting choices of film stock, camera angles, distance, and color. The blending of these different aspects of the camera really works out and makes for a completely original view in today's world which seems to lack originality. Although director J. Michael McCarthy does rather obviously have great influences from exploitation films of the 50's and 60's, he makes it seem like everything was totally his idea even though the movie is at times one big homage. I highly recommend this to anyone who is looking for something completely different on your next trip to the video store.
Let's play a little word association game. I am going to say a word and you come up with some synonyms before reading on. Ok, ready? Here it is... horror movie. STOP. Think. What did you come up with? Probably words like eerie, creepy, suspenseful, edge of your seat, and SCARY! Well, that just doesn't happen anymore kids. Horror movies don't have many of these aspects anymore. "The Fog", however, has all of them. Why can't they make horror movies like this anymore? Why does everyone forget what "creepy" or "scary" are? This is what a horror movie should be. You should be worried about the characters, you shouldn't always totally know what is going on, you should have that feeling of dread at certain points of the film. If you want to see a real horror movie instead of the wannabe unscary pap that has generally been infiltrating our video store shelves, rent "The Fog" and watch it by yourself one night. Do it for yourself so you can remember the feelings a great horror movie brings out in you.
Interesting little exploitmenatary!? Is that a word? This is a documentary of sorts on Hollywood in the 20's and 30's. It shows reenactments of many of the major scandals which mostly involved sex. As this film is for "adults only", the vignettes involve mainly naked people running around and/or having sex. I thought this was quite an interesting little history lesson about the golden days of Hollywood and yet an exploitation movie at the same time. Neat little concept. 70's exploitation queen Uschi Digart is one of the co-stars and it is based on the book of the same name by Kenneth Anger. Released by Something Weird Video.
I took this one on recommendation from my new friend Kent. I didn't really know what to expect as I just met the guy through work but I thought I'd give it a shot. "The Tenant" is directed by and stars Roman Polanski who rents out an apartment previously occupied by a young woman who threw herself out of the window. He is soon drawn into the strange world of the apartment building and surroundings and slowly begins to take on the traits of the former tenant. It is a slow, well paced descent into madness. I am not too familiar with Polanski's work as the only other film of his that I have seen is "The Fearless Vampire Killers". After this one, however, I am eager to see more. I always thought that he was one of those acid-trip directors with weird psychedelic hallucination scenes that I find terribly annoying. I was being ignorant in this assumption and am looking forward to seeing more of his films. I guess I am finally going to see "Rosemary's Baby".
Ed Wood wrote this one in his later years. It is basically a soft porn flick set in a house where people go to become more sexually adventurous (or something like that). Rene Bond stars as a woman who goes to the house with her husband who can't seem to satisfy her sexually. She ends up sleeping with him, getting discouraged, and sleeping with another woman. Meanwhile, the husband sleeps with another woman as well and then he is deemed inadequate and thrown into a coffin with some sex goddess. Forgive me if this is not totally accurate if any die hard Ed Wood fans are reading this. This is simply what I got out of it. The sex scenes are fairly graphic but there is no penetration. I saw the version released by Something Weird video that is about 45 minutes long. Not much to it but it kept me awake.
This is sort of a "Indecent Proposal" ripoff with more sex and more mind games involving more people. Raalyn Saalman stars as Jennifer, a woman who wants to get married to a guy named Mark (Robert L. Newman) but he is unwilling to commit until he gets out of debt. A mysterious woman (Jenna Bodnar) soon propositions Jennifer to have sex with her husband for a fee while she watches. In return, she will pay Jennifer enough money to get her and Mark out of the hole. It turns out that the woman is Mark's ex and she wants him back and the way to do this is to set it up so he sees her having the sex with the other man. Sound confusing? Well, it's not. It is just hard to write the plot in a clear manner. The performances are decent for such a low budget flick and I can't really knock it other than it was a little boring. The biker party was mildly amusing and I have always liked Raalyn since "Attack of the 60 Ft. Centerfold". Not bad if you're not expecting much (which I rarely am).
Well, this was a nice surprise. I rented it in the mood for a Tarantinoesque evening and I figured with Matt Dillon and Faye Dunaway, how can I go wrong? I got a lot more than this as it also stars Gary Sinise, William Fichtner, Viggo Mortensen, M. Emmet Walsh, and Skeet Ulrich. On top of all this, it was directed by Kevin Spacey. By the end of the opening credits, I knew that there was no way I wouldn't enjoy the movie. Spacey has a great sense of style that reminded me a lot of Dario Argento with nifty camera angles, pans, and close-ups. Man, I haven't even gotten to the story yet. Basically a trio of small-time crooks are in the wrong place at the wrong time when one of them gets injured. They end up in a bar and take the place hostage while the police surround it thinking they are cornering another criminal. Tensions build as the three have very different personalities with Dillon trying to keep in control but panicking easily, Fichtner as a loose cannon, and Sinise as the voice of reason. The remaining principal cast members each play hostages with their own distinct personalities. Well written, well directed, and well acted, I suggest you check it out. There is also a hilarious scene with Joe Mantegna as a cop being interviewed on live television.
The soundtrack for this movie is really good. The movie is not as good as the soundtrack although it does have it's moments. I find that in a lot of the black action films of the 70's, they were either really good or they had their moments. Isaac Hayes stars as Truck Turner, a bounty hunter who is in deep shit when him and his partner kill a bail jumper named Gator. Soon, Truck has a hit on him courtesy of Gator's woman who is brilliantly and very crassly played by Nichelle Nichols. The hit is to be done by local pimp Blue (Yaphet Kotto) and his gang. Kotto is great as usual as a badass and there are some great lines in this one and a pimp funeral! Unfortunately, this is not quite in the same league as "Foxy Brown" and "Superfly".
Ever since I first heard about this, I wanted to see it. A woman with a 73-inch (!!) chest who gets revenge for her husband's death by suffocating the killers between her breasts. Chesty Morgan stars as Zsa Zsa and porn star Harry Reemes is one of this killers. Exploitation at it's best, kids, and directed by exploitation legend Doris Wishman to boot! To boot? Does anyone ever say that anymore? This one was pretty cool and very, very 70's. It has all of the tackiness of that era in your face throughout from shag carpet to tacky furniture. I may redecorate my room with this movie in mind. No, I am not being sarcastic. I love the 70's, dammit. Where else would you see a movie like this? And for it to spawn two sequels! That would never happen now. Chesty is an absolutely horrible actress who reminded me of that short spazzy chick on Saturday Night Live but who cares? I wasn't analyzing her acting too close anyways, my attention was focused elsewhere...
Beware of the cut to shit version of this cannibal chowdown which is simply entitled "Cannibal". It is a serious waste of time. If you see an uncut version though, this is quite a good little movie from one of the cannibal kings, Ruggero Deodato, who also did "Cannibal Holocaust". This was Ruggero's first outing into cannibal territory and it stars Massimo Foschi as a man who is taken hostage by the cannibals when his friends and him are stranded in the jungle after their plane goes down. He makes friends with a girl and together they hook up with his pal who also survived the crash and try and escape from the jungle. The two supporting cast members are played by Me Me Lai and Ivan Rassimov respectively both of who were in Umberto Lenzi's "The Emerald Jungle". I thought this was one of the better entries in the cannibal race but I will never get used to some of the more questionable gore scenes that Deodato and Lenzi both seem to linger on in some of their movies. If you have seen any of the movies I have mentioned, you will know what I'm saying. I will never eat alligator or turtle.
False advertising! False advertising! The goddamn box said that Marilyn Burns was one of the stars of this movie and she only had like 10 minutes of screen time. I hate that! Anyways, I feel better now and this wasn't a complete waste of time. In addition to Marilyn, another "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" co-star stars in this one as Splatter. If you remember Edwin Burns as the hitchhiker from TCM, you will barely be able to recognize him as the bad-ass cyborg out to get frat kids in this post-apocalyptic, wasteland even though there was no war or apocalypse movie. Dumb frat boys invade the turf of 'The Mutants', accidentally kill the leader, and are hunted down by power hungry Splatter and his gang for the rest of the movie. It is so funny watching loud mouthed dumb ass jocks all freaked out because their stupid frat prank backfired. The lighting could be better and the boom mike falls into frame on a regular basis but overall a good escape movie. I think I saw it as a kid and hated it though. Cover art by famous artist H.R. Giger and some really cheesy clothes and music.
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