RYOMA ANSATSU (“The Assassination Of Ryoma”)Production: Japan, 1974 Director: Kuroki Kazuo Category: Samurai Ryoma Sakamoto was a notorious rogue samurai, an imperial loyalist who tried to unite the Choshu and Satsuma clans and prepared the way for the Meiji Restoration (1868). He was assassinated just before his plans came to fruition, Continue Reading
LE VIEUX FUSIL
LE VIEUX FUSIL (“The Old Rifle”) Production: France/Germany, 1975 Director: Robert Enrico Category: Nazi/Violence Enrico was not an exploitation director, but there are enough elements in this film – starting with atrocity as a man’s wife is burned alive by Nazi flame-throwers – to qualify it as being amongst the ranks of Continue Reading
CRYPT OF DARK SECRETS
CRYPT OF DARK SECRETS Production: USA, 1976 Director: Jack Weis Category: Vietnam/Horror A disturbed Vietnam vet is robbed and killed by thieves in the Louisiana bayou, but comes back to “life” with the help of Dambella, a sexy swamp witch who performs her snake-curses in the nude. A steamy conflagration of the Viet-vet, Continue Reading
AROUSED
AROUSED Production: USA, 1966 Director: Anton Holden Category: Serial Murder/Sex-Psycho From the same NY grindhouse scene as the films of Michael and Roberta Findlay, Holden’s “roughie/ghoulie” is one of the best of the period, featuring a psychopathic killer with a grudge against hookers (his mother was a prostitute who neglected Continue Reading
SZEGÉNYLEGÉNYEK
SZEGÉNYLEGÉNYEK (“Outlaws”) Production: Hungary, 1965 Director: Miklós Jancsó US release title: The Round-Up Category: War Atrocity In the desolate aftermath of Kossuth’s 1848 rebellion against the oppressive Hapsburg Austrian Empire, the last remaining nationalists are imprisoned and subjected to physical and psychological torture. Framed in stark black-and-white images of devastation, Continue Reading
THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM
THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM Production: USA, 1955 Director: Otto Preminger Category: Drug Addiction From the drug novel by Nelson Algren, the first big-budget Hollywood treatment of heroin addiction came in the wake of numerous cheap exploitation movies on a similar subject. As such, the film actually violated Industry Continue Reading
ARCANA
ARCANA Production: Italy, 1972 Director: Giulio Questi Category: Occult The third, and least known, of the unconnected triptych of enigmatic features made by Questi at the end of the 1960s/early 70s. Whereas Se Sei Vivo Spara was a horror-tinged homo-erotic western and La Morte Ha Fatto L’Uovo a perverse, psychedelic Continue Reading
NAWA TO HADA
NAWA TO HADA (“Rope And Skin”) Production: Japan, 1979 Director: Nishimura Shogoro Category: Sex/Sadism Notable as the last film starring Naomi Tani, who plays Cherry Blossom Okoma, a female gambler also giving her farewell performance – or so she thinks. It all goes wrong when she catches a local yakuza boss Continue Reading
MALICE@DOLL
MALICE@DOLL Production: Japan, 1999 Director: Motonaga Keitaro Category: Anime/CyberSex Comprising three OAV episodes – Hard Flesh, Oral Infection, and Perverted Organism – Malice@Doll is regarded as the first 3D-CGI anime created in Japan. Written by Chiaki Konaka, the film is set in a future where mankind has vanished, leaving behind Continue Reading