CINQ FILLES EN FURIE (“Five Wild Girls”) Production: France, 1964 Director: Max Pécas Category: Sex Exploitation Five young women, on vacation in southern France and staying at an old mansion, are led to believe that Nazi treasure is buried nearby, and try to cajole its location from Martha, a local drunk. They Continue Reading
SADISMO
SADISMO Production: Italy, 1967 Director: Salvatore Billitteri US release title: Spots In the Sun Category: Mondo Mondo movie featuring concentration camp footage, Japanese devil masks, childbirth, female nudity and other delights, focusing on torture and human sacrifice. 1967 also saw the release of Gianni Proia’s penultimate mondo, Realtà Romanzesca. Posted Continue Reading
THE DIRTY DOLLS
THE DIRTY DOLLS Production: USA, 1973 Director: Stu Segall Category: Adult/Crime This little-known X-rated Manson exploitation movie is also one of the best; a psychopathic manipulator named Johnny Feral controls a gang of nubile young girls, including his own sister, who are willing to rob and kill for him. With Continue Reading
THE BIRTH OF APHRODITE
THE BIRTH OF APHRODITE Production: USA, 1971 Director: Leland Auslender Category: Experimental A 12-minute experimental film evocation of the myth of Aphrodite, using multiple superimposed liquid images filmed with distorting mirrors and electronic soundtracking with subliminal vocal sounds. Aphrodite’s birth is paralleled with the creation of life itself, emerging from the matrix of Continue Reading
LE CALDE NOTTI DI POPPEA
LE CALDE NOTTI DI POPPEA (“Poppea’s Hot Nights”) Production: Italy, 1969 Director: Guido Malatesta Category: Sex Peplum/Farce Le Calde Notti Di Poppea, although relatively light-hearted, can now be seen as among the first in the “sex-peplum” genre, paving the way for the ultimate depravity of Tinto Brass’ Caligola and its copyists a Continue Reading
FIEND WITHOUT A FACE
FIEND WITHOUT A FACE Production: UK, 1958 Director: Arthur Crabtree Category: Science Fiction From “The Thought Monster”, a 1930s pulp magazine story by Amelia Reynolds Long, this is a twisted tale of creatures made from human thought, who assume the form of a disembodied cerebellum after sucking out the brains of screaming victims. Continue Reading
THE BOWERY BOYS MEET THE MONSTERS
THE BOWERY BOYS MEET THE MONSTERS Production: USA, 1954 Director: Edward Bernds Category: Horror-Comedy Notable mainly for a turn by gorilla-man Steve Calvert. Posted by The Purple Gas
BODYBUILDING
BODYBUILDING Production: Austria, 1965 Director: Ernst Schmidt Jr. Category: Performance Art A 9-minute film-capture of one of the seminal 1960s performance-art pieces by Vienna Aktionist Otto Muehl. Using both colour and sound, Schmidt adds solarization effects to match the intensity of Muehl’s Materialaktion, which included mummification by bandages and daubing Continue Reading
EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN
EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN Production: UK, 1964 Director: Freddie Francis Category: Horror Third in the Hammer Frankenstein franchise. Baron Frankenstein (Peter Cushing once again) is on the run from yet another band of outraged villagers when he comes across one of his earlier creations, a semi-human monster (played by Kiwi Kingston) that has Continue Reading
BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRE
BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRE Production: UK, 1958 Director: Henry Cass Category: Horror/Sadism Not really a vampire movie, as the fiend in question is in fact a deranged scientist who drains his young female victims of blood in order to carry out medical experiments. His assistant is a hideously deformed hunchback. Really notable only Continue Reading