Hidden Gem: Blood Tide

Howdy readers. So racking my brain on what to view and I just decided on a coin toss and a RETURN TO PUBLIC DOMAIN. Yes the Public Domain roulette can be deadly to one's sanity or it can entertain on many levels. Did I reach in a septic tank and find a plum? Well it wouldn't matter. The hygiene and health issues alone sound too awful to begin to speculate. What do you get with a Playboy playmate, the voice of Darth Vader and a sea monster? This is Blood Tide

Right now she is thinking, "I should have jumped Marko's bones.

Writer/director Richard Jefferies (Bloodtide, 14 Going on 30, Scarecrows, The Vagrant, Man of the House and Cold Creek Manor) is an English director, filming in Greece with American actors. Should be fun. This film just boast treasures, adventures, a monster and sacrificing innocent virgins and wonder of wonders, it is a Also Known As with alternative titles like: Blood Tide, Demon's Island, The Red Tide and Demon Island.

With a booming voice over, we know now that thousands of years ago life was an eternal struggle for good and evil. A creature haunted the Aegean Sea. Only with the sacrifice of virgins, appeased the beast. Guess Hercules left this part of Greece alone to keep chucking attractive women to an sea beast. You suck Herc!  Treated like an everyday occurrence, they sent out on a small raft like a buffet conveyor belt from an Automat; and are given a coin in the mouth to bid farewell to the mortal realm and Lord Charon, ferryman of the dead safe passage to the other side. Worry not sexist pig types that read this, the sacrifices are at least topless.

Not the best transition as we don't hear a blood curdling scream or see blood spraying the caves but modern time (well for 1982) as a speedboat makes some chop in the water, a happily newlywed couple Neil (Martin Kove of Last House on the Left, Death Race 2000, The Karate Kid, Rambo: First Blood Part II, Cagney & Lacey, Black Scorpion, Black Scorpion Returns and Revamped) and Sherry (Mary Louise Weller of Serpico, Kojak, Hunters of the Reef, National Lampoon's Animal House, Starsky and Hutch, Supertrain, The Bell Jar and Vega$) Grice, vacationing on their honeymoon. A pleasant enough synthesizer intro for our couple and their 80s hair has been coifed just so. Think it's freeze dried from all the mousse. 

Nero the Hero vacations!

 They're stopping off to look for Neil's sister, Madeline (Deborah Shelton of of Fantasy Island, The Fall Guy, The A-Team, The Yellow Rose, Body Double, Dallas, Nemesis and Silk Degrees) as she has been missing or simply out of contact for four months. Neil and Sherry seem to be in a constant state of next to no clothing on. This is pre-boner pills so maybe they have to work more at it.

Wise old man/mayor Nereus (Jose Ferrer of Cyrano de Bergerac, Moulin Rouge, The Great Man, Dune, Seduced, Covenant, Blood & Orchids, The Love Boat and Newhart) is the voice of the movie similar to Donald Pleasance's portrayal of Dr. Loomis in Halloween, and similar to another Donald Pleasance film; Land of the Minotaur, the villagers are next to useless for Neil's questions.  I was waiting for Greek Crazy Ralph to appear and scream about death curses and how all was doomed. Hey I am just thrilled night shots are actual night shots and not that horrible day for night filter.

Neil encounters Shakespearean spouting, hard drinking and wealth obsessed Frye (James Earl Jones of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, The Great White Hope, Claudine, The Greatest, Star Wars: Episode IV- A New Hope, Exorcist II: The Heretic, Paris, The Flight of Dragons, Conan the Barbarian, Soul Man, Coming to America, Field of Dreams and Star Wars: Rogue One) and by encounter I mean he gets a butcher knife drawn to his throat and a look of a man willing to slash another from ear to ear. Y'know, a warm fella.  Did appreciate the Othello quotes though.

This is CNN...

Big sister seems barely lucid one moment and a bit snarky the next. Could be a dark and ominous portent or she could be high as a kite. Who can say. Embrace the possibilities.

Overtly jiggly and giggly Barbara or "Babs" (Lynda Cornell of Steel, Bloodtide, The Dukes of Hazzard, Too Close for Comfort, The Love Boat, Hotel, T.J. Hooker and Hunter) is giving the text book definition of dumb blonde. Turns out Frye is working to build up a substantial treasure find but those pesky kids he hired disturbed the ancient slumber of the beast.

With the whole town in a panic, Nereus speaks of the old ways of dealing with the creature. Yeah the lobbing virgin girls to the beast idea.

What we is a standard creature of legend story arc, some set of family values and the cliche greedy treasure hunters. The script is fair, the action is decent and the overall performances are quite good. The padding of the film however, is a bit long. Almost feels like they didn't really know what tempo to run it at so it does drag in places.

I was a little disappointed in the monster. Even some of the creatures of Danger on Tiki Island looked more believable and the premise is a bit similar. Perhaps with some additional POV shark like shots would have helped. I couldn't say. The creature's growl or sound effects sounded like someone walking in either a vat of grapes or jumping up and down in a crate of oranges.

Overall, it was enjoyable and is only an hour and a half. The fact that it was in public domain and I hadn't heard anything of it, makes this a find.  This can be found in public domain as well as my old buddies via Mill Creek Entertainment on one of their many 20 to 100 title launches.

POV of the Damned!!!

Lucio Fulci's Sodoma's Ghost

Hey there readers. I'm still on a Lucio Fulci kick so let's dig through the archives. I found the synopsis of one film that sounded a tad bizarre and well let's face it, Fulci has created some odd flicks in his day. Not your typical hordes of darkness running their oozing fingers through human rib cages. No, this film seems a dark humor teen romp that leads to a sinister end.

This is Sodoma's Ghost.

Willy's a bit rough with the ladies.

I am trying to explain this film in my head and translate it to typing but nothing thus far can really begin to illustrate the sheer genius and vulgarity that it is.  So let's just dive in.   Deep with a little villa along in route to Paris, A Nazi and prostitute orgy is underway. These men are AWOL (Absent With Out Leave), getting pickled and plowing girls like the back 40 acres.

No wait.   This is the norm of this film.  One of these soldiers is recording this on I guess what looked like to me a Super 8mm camera but I am probably wrong.   All such revelry is brought to a screeching halt as the Allied bombs shell the villa, thus destroying it. (Cue bang jokes)  It's like the filthiest Hogan's Heroes episode ever written.   Hookers, Nazis and Death, oh my.

Cut to 1988, as those pesky teens (those damn kids that raise the dead, disturb the monster, irk vampires and make serial slashers return from the grave) are all in a van but no mysterious hitchhikers carving on themselves and no wheelchair bound Franklin to be had.  Sorry Texas Chainsaw fans. They are in fact, driving to Paris after some sort of holiday, backpacking and touring. HIPPIES!!! Sorry, sorry. Had to get that out of my system.

Hmm, they look comfortably close. wink wink. nudge nudge.

Going off the main road (which is always bad) they see the house from the opening scenes in more or less decent condition. Being naturally nosy or sensing they must heed to the call of the lemming, they get out of the van and start to teen gang investigate. Do you see what Scooby-Doo has done to so many people?

Let's meet the gang, shall we?

Paul (Claudio Aliotti of Confessions of Emanuelle, Stay as You Are, Champagne in Paradise and Sodoma's Ghost), Celine (Maria Concetta Salieri of Sodoma's Ghost), Annie (Teresa Razzaudi of Il lupo di mare, Gli indifferenti and A Cat in the Brain) and Jean (Sebastian Harrison of Love Me Lica, Bianco Apache, Classe di ferro and Betrayal of the Dove). Thank God, no Scrappy-Doo.

Naturally they treat the villa as their own in Bloody Pit of Terror fashion. I hope that means a sweaty, oiled up Mickey Hargitay in Crimson Executioner standing. They too will know the cold embrace of the Lover of Death!  Sweet Jesus I watch some truly mind warping crap.

Loving the Fabio Fritzi suspense music going into overdrive with...some minor exposition and chatter going on. Nothing is happening to warrant the suspense chase music!!!

As they explore, of course they're going to get horny.   Perfectly feasible this chain of events would happen. Willy the Nazi (yes he is credited as such) gets to solidify and pork one of the girls.  Also completely within the realms of probability that closeted lesbian tendencies will be explored in the creeper brothel of the damned here, and why wouldn't it?

Will the kids escape? Will the orgy of the dead continue? What the hell is going on??!!!

With the sex scenes in swing you'd think Jesus Franco was directing but nope. An eye gouge later brings me right back to Fulci land. I really do not know what to take away from this film.

Out of place suspense music where nothing is happening, exposition dumps from people not facing the camera and ridiculous over the top sex sequences with classical musical score.

That must be how they say goodbye in Austria.

Don't worry my sexist pig menfolk, there is full frontal nudity. This feels like a soft core porn with a plot. It almost feels like the death scenes, story arc and character development is interfering with the porn scenes.

The film's genius is here. Egotistical Nazis, femme boyfriends, closeted lesbians. It is obvious this belongs next to Schindler's List for its authenticity and painstaking attention to detail!! BRILLIANT!!

Our English dubbing is barely two different men and I swear the same woman for all three girls so yeah; that is confusing as Hell.

I will not be putting this up there with The Beyond or Black Cat so what I took away from this is ghosts get horny and teens will suffer for it. Buckets of blood, gore, nudity and well...the story just baffled me and I managed to muck my way through Zombie Doom. Alright, that's not true but this is Fulci!!! I should have a rough idea what's going on.

So if you need vengeful ghosts, dopey teens to twenty somethings, gobs of T & A and a few eyeballs getting violence aimed at them, than look no further.

Larry Flint's Nazi Party...with boobs.  Lots of them.

Return of the Cult Classics: The Lair of the White Worm

And we are back. Well while getting the bathroom remodeled (Not our choice at all) I thought I would get back at the week. Today's film in RETURN OF CULT CLASSICS...we skibble across the pond from director Ken Russell (The Devils, Tommy, Altered States, The Lair of the White Worm, Lady Chatterley, Treasure Island, Tales of Erotica, Dogboys and Trapped Ashes) and brought loosely based on Bram Stoker telling of the English legend of the D'Ampton Worm. Recognizing the cast from several BBC series, ranging from comedies, dramas and science fiction, it does my heart good to have a small sense of culture. Heir to the D' Ampton Estate in County Durham, John D'Ampton was said to have done battle with a giant worm that was terrorizing the local villages. So we are watching that...with boobies. This is The Lair of the White Worm.

Must be warm in her house.  Honest.

A young Scottish archeologist name of Angus Flint (Peter Capaldi of The Secret Agent, Chandler & Co, Neverwhere, Fortysomething, The Best Man, Waking the Dead, Doctor Who, Torchwood and Paddington) is excavating the site of a covenant near at the Derbyshire bed and breakfast (in spite of it feels more like a tavern) which is ran by the Trent Sisters, Mary (Sammi Davis of Mona Lisa, Hope and Glory, Lionheart, Homefront, Four Rooms, Woundings and The Double Born) and Eve (Catherine Oxenberg of Dynasty, The Love Boat, Roman Holiday TV Movie, Acapulco H.E.A.T., Treacherous Beauties, Watch Over Me and Starship Troopers 3: Marauder). An bizarre and large skull is unearthed and holds certain snake like characteristics with the flint and burial mound about it giving it a rough date of at least a thousand years ago, almost giving credit to the legends of the D'Ampton legend of the wyrm.

Dr. Ian Malcolm will have a field day with this!

In a nearby manor, the Temple House, Lady Sylvia Marsh (Amanda Donohoe of Castaway, The RainbowDark Obsession, L.A. Law, A Woman's Guide to Adultery, Liar Liar, One Night Stand, The Calling and Trafficker) returns to the region after a prolonged hiatus. At a gathering, Angus encounters Lord James D' Ampton (Hugh Grant of The Last Place on Earth, The Dawning, The Lady and the Highwayman, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Sense and Sensibility, Extreme Measures, About a Boy, Love Actually, The Rewrite and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) direct descendant of John D'Ampton who recently inherited the manor and the lands not far from Temple House. The two begin to strike up a friendship as well as their own theories on whether there is truth to the legends. The folk song of the D'Ampton Wyrm was catchy and enjoyable.

Fear the superimposed flames of damnation!!!

Shortly after this, people in the nearby villages are missing. A few at a time, raising all sorts of questions and concerns. The skull has been taken from Angus's room, The Trent sisters have their father's fob watch that was missing for more than a year with their parents discovered at Stonerich Cavern miles from the farmhouse/bed and breakfast and folks are skittish as hell. James and Angus postulate that an ancient cult was formed around the time of that land being Mercia, the Roman creation for England against the Saxons and that they may have been Wyrm Worshippers treating this ancient monster as a god fulfilling it with blood sacrifices. All this ties around the arrival of Lady Syliva...hmm I wonder if there is a connection.

Will the Wyrm turn again? Will the cult revive? Does Angus have a beef with James?

Quick bit of observation was seeing one of London's hardest working character actors, Paul Brooke. Who? Well my first introduction to him was the Rancor Keeper in Return of the Jedi.  A talented chap to be certain but not really wanting to see him without his shirt again. PC Erny (Paul Brooke of Return of the Jedi, Reilly: Ace of Spies, Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, The Kit Curran Radio Show, Mystery!: Campion, The Fool, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and Agatha Christie's Marple) Well there is a fair degree of nudity so the menfolk should be happy...unless depictions of Romans raping nuns might freak them out.   There's an issue with a stick. I have heard of a devining rod or dowsing rod if you will for finding natural water springs or even oil but um...this one detects virgin women. Yeesh. Aside from that, you do have a suspenseful ghost story/legend, the practical effects are fair minus the giant snake puppet and I felt our antagonist was revealed a touch too early.   Might want the kiddies to skip this one too. 

Blimey, another Four Weddings and a Funeral fan.

 

Edward Mannix Week: A Bay of Blood

Welcome back readers if I have any left after the cannibal/zombie showdown film of Zombie Holocaust. Trust me, I suffer its scars more than you. Unless you went out and saw it. WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT??!!!! Anywho, hows about a scary Italian horror movie? Okay stop running, it is not Bruno Mattei. I'm talking the master of the Giallo movies, the cream of the crop of scare, the building blocks that made Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci want to be directors. The one and only Mario Bava (Hercules in the Haunted World, Black Sunday, Evil Eye, Blood and Black Lace, Kill Baby, Kill, Danger: Diabolik, Blood Brides, Baron Blood, The House of Exorcism and Beyond the Door II). This is A Bay of Blood a.k.a. Twitch of the Death Nerve, The Last House on the Left Part II, The Antecendent, Bay of Blood, Bloodbath, Blood Bath, Ecology of a Crime, Chain Reaction and Bloodbath Bay of Death.

Robert Evans Italiano!

This film is better known by Twitch of the Death Nerve in the states but that's a bunch of savages that know no better. Pity them. No offense fellow Americans but A Bay of Blood just sounds soooOoO much better a title. Twitch of the Death Nerve sounds like an organ harvesting film.

Our macabre tale opens with some 360 pans and a view of the lake house. Photo phobics, it wasn't bad tracking like an Uwe Boll flick. You will be alright. A spinster wealthy wife (Isa Miranda of Everybody's Woman, The Secret of Helene Marimon, Abandoned, A kiss for a Killer, When Stangers Meet, Compact and The Avengers TV series) has met her end of days violently. The reason? Well it was either too many bedpan changing or the sick amount of money she was worth.

Hangin' out. Hangin' out with my homies..Gonna have ourselves a party.

Won't lie to you, her "suicide" is creepy from the gag for air, to her body swaying limply from hanging. With a suicide note planted by her dearly grieving husband, a mysterious switchblade is jabbed into is back by person unknown. Hmm guess this is a lot of dough offhand.

Soon family members, daughter Renata (Claudine Auger of Thunderball, Yoyo, Black Belly of the Tarantula, The Devil's Lieutenant, Secret Places, The Repenter and Love of a Woman) and her husband Albert (Luigi Pistilli of For a Few Dollars More, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, The Great Silence, Illustrious Corpses, Antonio Gramsci: The Days of Prison and Luigi Ganna detective) start poking around the lakehouse trying to make heads or tails of Renata's late mother's suicide and where has her father gone off too. A real estate agent Frank (Chris Avram of Time to Live, The Rage Within, Sentence of God, So Sweet, So Dead, Cuore, Enter the Devil, Voodoo Sexy and Emanuelle in Bangkok) is hoping to charm and swarm his way into Renata's heart for the signature on the house for some cool breezy cash for land development. He can't miss, right?

And I am told I never put up nudity. Pshaw!

Two couples zip off around the lake in what looks like Jon Pertwee's Bessie to frolic and be teens/twenty somethings...only they seemed to have disappeared...one by one.

With a bit of sleuthing, Renata seems to feel as though there may be more people involved for the land and money of her mother's. She even starts questioning whether Albert didn't have a hand in it. With this amount of dough on the table, everyone and anyone is a suspect.

Will these murders be solved? Are there still more to come? Who is to blame?

Worry not readers as Edward Mannix graces us with his insidious voice as Albert's English dubbing. Thought I forgot, didn't you? WELL ANSWER ME!!!

A quick bit of trivia, this film has had an impact on Friday the 13^th Part 1 and 2 as two of the murders in it are lifted and almost shot for shot exact as homage. Hell even the locations where the murders take place are so similar it is eerie as hell.

The shooting locations had no woods to speak of, so Bava waved several different tree branches in front of the cameras to give the illusion of a run or romp through the woods. According to Laura Betti, it looked so silly to view this, the cast and crew had a hard time not laughing at the simple yet brilliant solution to a lack of woods in the area. Yeah a dude waving sticks at the camera would have made me chuckle too. Hell the tracking shots are so steady and smooth, you would swear they are dolly tracked but no. Turns out Bava with years experience in cinematography shot these amazing images with...get this. A frigging kid's wagon. Yeah the little red wagon saved the day. The camera was mounted on a pole, surrounded by sandbags to reduce any wiggle and just rolled along. Awesome right?

Because of its intensity, unearthly vibes, good story presentation and decent casting a lot of folks consider this a precursor to the slasher genre and I am inclined to agree. I mean Black Christmas, The Town that Dreaded Sundown and even Halloween have to tip their hats to their grandfather of macabre. Still love Last House on the Left Part II title considering Craven released the original a year after this flick but who needs nutty things like timelines and consistency?

Hold me closer, Tito Fuentes...

Edward Mannix Week: Zombie Holocaust

Welcome back to the week. Yeah last week was crazier than rats trapped in an outhouse after four alarm chili but I am still in the process of a move. This week we focus on Edward Mannix. "Who in the nine hells is that?" you ask. First off, very specific swear there, gentle readers. Secondly, I am not referencing Mike Connors' Mannix. All my fifty plus readers may have just laughed. For you younglings, eh what some Nick at Nite if that is still a thing or Netflix it. I speak of the unsung voice actor of no less than 106 film projects ranging from Umberto Lenzi's cannibal films such as: Cannibal Holocaust, Cannibal Ferox, Eaten Alive to popular Anime English dubbing for Ninja Scroll, Castle in the Sky, Macross Plus and Artimage III.

I'm pompous, white and well-armed.

Oh FYI, for those of you that think that is the Tobe Hooper's Eaten Alive, that came out in 1976. Umberto Lenzi's Eaten Alive came out in 1980 and involves cannibals and animal mutilations on film. Important to know the difference for viewing pleasure. Today's voice over dubbing hails from Italy so next to no censoring and I probably won't find a trailer without some boobage but I am game to check. A mad scientist operating out a small island in the Moluccas or East Indies is doing experimentation on corpses.. Oh no. This is Zombie Holocaust a.k.a. Island of the Last Zombies, Zombie Inferno, Zombie Death Cult, Zombie Cannibal Ferox, Doctor Butcher and Dr. Butcher, M.D.

Danny Devito sheds a few pounds.

Yup, fell for another zombie flick under an alternative title. Oh well. The Zombie Cannibal Ferox title makes no sense as that isn't even directed by exploitation director Umberto Lenzi but on with the review. No huge drama just right into the title cards and some eerie ass synthesizer music courtesy of composer Walter E. Sear (US version of The Beyond, Prime Evil, Blood Sisters and Lurkers) and a pair of feet moving around a morgue as a little late night organ harvesting is underway. Guess daylight corpse violation is still out in this little island.

Dr. Chandler (Ian McCulloch of Zombi 2, Survivors, Contamination, The Ghoul, The Nearly Man, High Road and Diamonds) is not your typical M.D.and if he was, malpractice suits would be in the billions. I'm teasing, he is actually part of an expedition alongside Susan Kelly (Sherry Buchanan of Emauelle and Joanna, Tentacles, The Heroin Busters, Escape from Galaxy 3, Seagull Island, The Secret of Seagull Island andCrawlspace), Lori Ridgeway (Model and Eurohorror scream queen Alexandra Delli Colli of Catherine & Co., Marche pas sur mes lacets, Zombie Holocaust, The New York Ripper, Onl'apple Catastrophe and Fratelli d'Italia) and bunch of othe guys I don't care about. Their quest to find a lost cannibal tribe that worship Kito, the cannibal god. So now we have a hybrid of Ursula Andrews' The Mountain of the Cannibal God and Zombi 2??

Ah, the uncommon bacon wrapped zombie.

Unbeknownst to our plucky explorers they happened upon the same island where on Dr. Obero a.k.a Dr. Butcher (Donald O'Brien of The Train, Grand Prix, Run, Man,Run, 2020 Texas Gladiators, Ghosthouse and The Devil's Daughter) a radical scientist is performing his experiments on the dead. Worry not gentle readers as he has been re-dubbed by the basso tones of the one and only Edward Mannix. So what we really have an exorbitant amount of half naked, mud crusted Filipino young men ripping around getting "finger foods" and zombies shuffling about in the jungle waiting for flesh as well. Some decent gore effects and even the cannibals are wary of zombies roaming about.

Will the expedition make it out? Will they be zombie snacks or cannibal stew?

The film wasn't released uncut until 2000 due to almost following under the UK's Video Nasty Obscene Publications rule. Most of the sets where our opus was filmed was oddly enough the same sets as Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2. A further bit of trivia, Edward Mannix voiced for Fulci's Zombi 2 as well but that time around only titled character "Boat Cop". There is a lot of complaints about the gore and mostly the nudity and I agree. I was not prepared to see that many naked Filipino men! Or and Alexandra Delli Colli gets stripped down, painted in flower child patterns rather than some ceremonial hunter/gatherer paints and was quite perky. SO YES, DON'T let the kids see this particular zombie movie. You stick to your zany I, Zombie viewings!

Mmm, Grog tastes good.

The Original: The Wicker Man

Oh God the bees!!! Yeah we will not be sitting through any deleted scenes made famous via Youtube. I could not endure that at all. Today's film was made superior thanks to its remake with Nicholas Cage in what felt like a picture by numbers story telling. Instead we have an eerie film wrought with danger, suspense and the unknown. This is The Wicker Man.

The summer stock play of George Orwell's Animal Farm.

Made in 1973 and directed by Robin Hardy (The Wicker Man, The Fantasist and the Wicker Tree) and written by screenwriter Anthony Shaffer (Frenzy, Sleuth, The Wicker Man, Death on the Nile, Absolution, Evil Under the Sun, Appointment with Death and Sommersby) our strange little tale begins with the disappearance of a young girl named Rowan Morrison (Gerry Cowper of Bachelor Father, Frenzy, General Hospital, Telford's Change, Two People, Little Lord Fauntleroy, The Bill and EastEnders). Assigned to the case is one Sergeant Howie (Edward Woodward of Sitting Target, Callan, 1990, The Equalizer, Over My Dead Body, Common As Muck, Crusade, CI5: The New Professionals, Hot Fuzz and EastEnders) as he received an anonymous letter so he heads to the Scottish isle of Sumerisle. Being a devote Christian, this island seems to take in pagan rituals of the early Celtic gods which apparently include making love in open fields, celebrating the Summer solstice with May Day traditions dancing, singing and placing toads in the mouths of children to cure sore throats.

Dear, stop whistling to the Hymns.

If he wasn't weirded out by all that going on, Howie seems to be hitting a brick wall with the islanders as no one seems to know of any Rowan including her own mother May (Irene Sunters of This Man Craig, Five Red Herrings, The Camerons, High Road, Shadow of the Stone, The Steamie, Taggart and The Crow Road) is either misdirecting him, interfering with his investigation or just in general behaving absolutely loony. Staying at the Green Man Inn, The good sergeant notices a collection of photos on the wall celebrating the annual harvest always with a young gilr referred as the May Queen. The most recent celebration's photo is oddly enough missing. Howie questions the landlord Aldar (Lindsay Kemp of The Vampire Lovers, Savage Messiah, The Stud, Sebastiane, Valentino and Jubilee) who gives the all too quick response of the picture frame broke and he has been meaning to replace it. To throw Howie further off the scent, the landlord's daughter Willow (Britt Ekland of The Night They Raided Minsky's, Get Carter, The Wicker Man, The Man with the Golden Gun, Fantasy Island, Erotic Images, Love Scenes, Fraternity Vacation, Beverly Hills Vamp, Cold Heat, Superboy and The Children) clumsily tries to seduce Howie but he spurns her advances. Not to be detered from the truth, Howie speaks with the island's leader and spiritual guide Lord Summerisle (Sir Christopher Lee of Horror of Dracula, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The City of the Dead, Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace, Horror Express, The Three Musketeers, The Man with the Golden Gun, Gremlins 2: The New Batch and Sleepy Hollow) and it is at this point Howie's danger sense should be kicking in.

Be honest.  This isn't my best wig, is it?

C'mon dude! This cat is 6'5", with a baritone voice and was Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, a Sith Lord and Saruman!!! Bad juju ahead!!! Howie may have been distracted with the likes of the local librarian played by Ingrid Pitt (Where Eagles Dare, The Vampire Lovers, Countess Dracula, The House That Dripped Blood, Doctor Who, The House, Bones, Underworld and The Asylum) running around ancient stones buck bare but this is only an educated guess.

Will Howie get to the bottom of this?? Is the entire island completely crackers?? Can you trust a land ruled by Christopher Lee??

From music, production to performance, this is a genuinely creepy film and its remake is a pale comparison. It is almost as if the original source material was slightly glossed over but we will make an island ran by women and the menfolk NEVER rise up and fight?   Whereas this story, the entire town seems off, mysterious and downright just spooky as Hell. A fair degree of nudity, horror erotica and creepy ass dream sequences, so you may want to skip letting the kids watch.

Keep in mind this is one of the better Horror movies I have seen in a while. The plot is solid, the story disentangles at a nice leisurely pace and the orchestral music sends shivers up and down your spine. Spoiler! There is no CGI bees added into cleaning up the print. I know. I too was disappointed.

You takin' the piss, Guv?

The Original: The Legend of Hell House

Greetings gang and welcome to the week. Now I know the "Random Goofy" was a terrible title and the reviews were however enjoyed minus that horrible tagline with them so this time around I decided to watch several of the original versus their remakes. Some of the remakes in question were highly enjoyable and unbeknownst to me were in fact, remakes. This marks to be a wonderful exercise in comparison but I promise to not harp on the remakes and remain as objective as humanly possible. Today's film I saw the remake in 2009 and was not that impressed. The film in question was Hell House and turns out aside from its title had no real direct relation with today's movie but apparently a 2017 remake of the original is on its way. This is The Legend of Hell House.

Sex more than once a year? You must be mad, dear.

Now it would appear that the blanket name "Hell House" has been used as an alternative titles as far back as 1982 so you can understand my confusion. With Next of Kin in 1982, Carnage in 1984, The Haunting of Sorority Row a.k.a. The Deadly Pledge in 2007, Hell House in 2009 and finally Hell House LLC in 2015 you can begin to grasp my confusion. On with the film.

Millionaire Mr. Deutsch (Roland Culver of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Dead of Night, Thunderball, The Uncanny, The Greek Tycoon and Saint Joan) hires physicist Lionel Barrett (Clive Revill of Galileo, Pinocchio, The Great Houdini, The New Avengers, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Zorro: The Gay Blade, Alvin & the Chipmunks, Snorks, C.H.U.D. II: Bud the Chud, and Star Wars: X-Wing) to do an in-depth top to bottom shakedown of the Belasco House, a home reputed to be the end all, the mother load of haunted houses once owned by a perverse millionaire and alleged murderer Emeric Belasco (Michael Gough of The Man in the White Suit, Horror of Dracula, Count of Monte Cristo, The Protectors, Doctor Who, Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever and Batman & Robin) this towering 6 foot 5 mountain of a man. (FYI, Michael Gough is maybe 5'11") Deutsch is obsessed with the idea of proof of life after death that the house becomes his focal point as the stories of the house being haunted by the victims of Belasco's sadistic pleasures of torture and murder. Yup, that sounds like a vacation spot to me. Guy could have saved a ton of scratch and just called the Ghostfinders via Simon R Green.

Kitty doesn't want milk. Kitty wants your soul!!!

Barrett arrives with his wife Ann (Gayle Hunnicutt of Marlowe, Scorpio, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Return of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Philip Marlowe, Private Eye, Target and Dallas)as well as two mediums, one a psychic Florence Tanner (Pamela Franklin of The Innocents, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, And Soon the Darkness, Barnaby Jones, Trapper John, M.D., and Fantasy Island) and a survivor of a disasterous attempt to review the house prior 20 years ago, Ben Fischer (Roddy McDowell of Robert Montgomery Presents, Matinee Theatre, Midnight Lace, Batman, Night Gallery, The Planet of The Apes, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, A Taste of Evil, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, McCloud, Battle for the Planet of the Apes, Planet of the Apes TV series, Funny Lady, The Martian Chronicles, Fright Night, Fright Night II and Batman: The Animated Series) as a physical medium sensitive to the supernatural.

Yikes, the quaaludes kicked in something fierce.

Naturally Barrett doesn't wish his wife to accompany him after the event where Fischer was the only one to live but Ann insists to join him. Fischer seems to be keeping his head down and his psychic shields up. He is strictly in it for the pay day. The curious quartet must spend the winter week in isolation, discover the mystery of Belasco House or Hell House if you prefer and survive its madness.

Writer/novelist/screenwriter Richard Matheson (I Am Legend, Die! Die! My Darling!, De Sade, Being, Duel, Night Gallery, Circle of Fear, The Night Stalker, Hell House, Trilogy of Terror, Dead of Night, Jaws 3-D, What Dreams May Come and Stir of Echoes) is no stranger to horror but the intensity of his novel had such an impact with its graphic violence and more excessive sex scenes that he had to water it down for the screenplay to give the movie more of a brooding or foreboding ambience.  FYI, this was eerie as hell so I am now curious to read the book.

The music really sets the atmosphere of dread and things to come. It is almost a character in of itself driving the story along. It has always been hinted that this story is loosely based on the occultist/alchemist/writer Aleister Crowley. There is a fair degree of nudity, psycho-sexual dreams and bizarre practical effects for this film so I wouldn't recommend it for the kiddies. 

Guess the spirits didn't care for the place settings.

Giallo Journeys: Strip Nude for Your Killer

Greetings and welcome back to Giallo Journeys Day 4. We are back with exhibitionist sexploitation lady extraordinaire Edwige Fenech (Blade of the Ripper, Desert of Fire, All the Colors of the Dark, The Case of the Bloody Iris, Naughty Nun, Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, Sex with a Smile, Taxi Girl and The Schoolteacher Goes to Boys' High) and helmed by erotic horror and macabre director Andrea Bianchi( Cry of a Prostitute, Confessions of a Frustrated Housewife, Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror, Exciting Love Girls, The Seduction of Angela, Maniac Killer, Massacre and Fleshy Doll) portrays the tragedy or parable of a killer brought to madness due to a young model dying on an operating table while having an abortion...so clearly others must perish too.   This is Strip Nude for Your Killer.

Evening ma'am. Interest you in a copy of the Watchtower?

Doctor No Harm gives our young model a mickey to cover up this illegal activity so she died other circumstances. The sly and cold doctor meets his fate as even his English dubbed voice cannot pull him out of his impending date with death. Our murderous misanthrope is decked out with a motorcycle helmet and leathers and SPOILER, clearly a female build. Meanwhile at the Albatross Modelling Agency...yeah they chose Albatross as their name for an agency. No irony there at all.

Momma Mia!  More penetration that Mario wants!!

 Two photographers Carlo (Nino Castelnuovo of Rocco and His Brothers, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The English Patient, Una donna per amico, Vittoria di vinti and Nando dell' Andromeda) and Magda (Edwige Fenech of Blade of the Ripper, Desert of Fire, All the Colors of the Dark, The Case of the Bloody Iris, Naughty Nun, Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, Sex with a Smile, Taxi Girl and The Schoolteacher Goes to Boys' High) are in a heated affair whilst photographing all these delectable bit of totty male and female alike. Could have done without Carlo's bun hugging swimming shorts that is just enough fabric to NOT be a Speedo so I guess there are worse things.

Oh we can't have a threesome on a ladder. It's bad luck.

With this agency having couch casting, men that clearly should have sex pervert laser coded on their foreheads and that sweaty Maurizio looking like a genetic crossover of Buddy Hackett and Peter Lorre, you would think there would be countless lawsuits going their way. A simple re-print with ease means our killer has a group photo of all those that worked with model Evelyn. Omni-sexual Mario (the photographer not Mario Mario) gets a visit from killer to give said group photo and then is knived in the kidneys. Gisella (Lia Amanda of 2 samurai per 100 geishe, Il compromess... erotico, Prouesses porno, Sarabande porno, Supersexymarket and Il viziaccio) owner of the agency is grilled for hours by the cops because of Mario and the rest of the staff are nervous about what could happened to him and what motif could there be.

Maurizio attempts to plow Doris (Erna Schurer of Le salamandre, The Battle of the Last Panzer, La bambola di Satana, Blood Castle and Erotic Exploits of a Sexy Seducer) because Gisella won't sleep with him and he's...premature, cries and makes an ass of himself. Yup I did not need to see a portly fuzzy guy fail miserably in seduction. Worry ye not, gentle readers. Our killer dispatches fuzzy wuzzy with another round of kidney stabbings. With Gisella being badgered by the cops, Carlo and Magda start to wonder who this maniac is.

The pace between sex and death scenes span minutes from each other. It is almost as if the director was trying to establish risque link-ups lead to brutal murder. Clocking at 98 minutes, our sleaze fest tries to make you feel some semblance of sorrow or empathy for those slain. This movie does operate on controlled lighting, at least 9 sex scenes tastefully done but overall aside from the copious T & A and gore effects, it doesn't offer anything of originality. Not a bad film but I have seen it better done by Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci and Dario Argento so "A" for effort but a B- for completion.

I'm not too forward, am I?