THE MUTATIONSProduction: UK, 1974Director: Jack CardiffCategory: Science Fiction/Freaks/HorrorA great cinematographer, Cardiff proved how bad a director he could be with the monumentally tedious Girl On A Motorcycle. The Mutations on the other hand is in monumentally bad taste, using real freaks to embellish a repulsive tale of human experimentation set in Continue Reading
Freaks
UHAW NA DAGAT
UHAW NA DAGAT (“Evaporated Sea”) Production: Philippines, 1981 Director: Celso Ad. CastilloCategory: Island Exploitation/Freaks The most bizarre of all the films made by “alternative cinema” director Castillo, set on a remote tropical island where three sisters live. This paradise slowly turns to nightmare with the advent of various intruders, most notably Continue Reading
CAPERUCITA ROJA
CAPERUCITA ROJA (“Red Caperucita”) Production: Mexico, 1960 Director: Roberto Rodriguez Category: Fairy-Tale/Freaks This attempted kids’ movie is a surrealistic atrocity, suffused with an innate Mexican grotesquerie which makes it unsuitable for its target audience but affords some sick fascination for jaded adults. Promotional picture cards showed Little Red dressed like Continue Reading
SCHNEEWEISSCHEN UND ROSENROT
SCHNEEWEISSCHEN UND ROSENROT (“Little Snow-White And Rose-Red”) Production: Germany, 1955 Director: Erich Kobler Category: Fairy-Tale/Freaks Perhaps the most grotesque of all versions of Grimms’ fairytales (this is not to be confused with the same Snow White story that Disney covered), featuring a truly malignant dwarf who is trying to rob Continue Reading
PAT, UNA DONNA PARTICOLARE
PAT, UNA DONNA PARTICOLARE (“Pat, A Peculiar Woman”) Production: Italy, 1982 Director: Alberto Cavallone Category: Hardcore Pornography/Freaks One of two horror-tainted hardcore porn movies shot back-to-back by Cavallone after his extreme experimental films of the 70s – inspired by Sade, Lautréamont and Bataille – saw him a virtual outcast from the Continue Reading
BRAIN OF BLOOD + 1
BRAIN OF BLOOD Production: USA, 1971 Director: Al Adamson Category: Horror/Science Fiction WASP WOMAN Production: USA, 1959 Director: Roger Corman Category: Science Fiction Probably produced by Corman to cash in on the then-recent success of The Fly, Wasp Woman is a cheap, inferior effort, lacking the flashes of pulp brilliance that elevated some Continue Reading
LA DONNA SCIMMIA
LA DONNA SCIMMIA (“The Monkey Woman”) Production: Italy, 1963 Director: Marco Ferreri Category: Freaks Based on the real-life story of “Gorilla Woman” Julia Pastrana (born Mexico 1832), a hypertrichosis (excessive body hair) sufferer whose corpse was mummified by husband/promotor Theodore Lent and toured around Europe in a glass coffin. Posted Continue Reading