ERCOLE AL CENTRO DELLA TERRA (“Ercole At The Earth’s Center”) Production: Italy, 1961 Director: Mario Bava US release title: Hercules In The Haunted World Category: Peplum/Horror The most horror-oriented of the ’60s peplum craze, starring Christopher Lee. Visually rivalled only by Giorgio Ferroni’s lavish depiction of Dionysus at Thebes, Le Baccanti (also 1961), Continue Reading
Horror
IL PROFUMO DELLA SIGNORA IN NERO
IL PROFUMO DELLA SIGNORA IN NERO (“The Perfume Of The Lady In Black”) Production: Italy, 1974 Director: Francesco Barilli Category: Horror Showing distinct influences of both Rosemary’s Baby and Don’t Look Now, and bearing no relation to the 1908 novel by Gaston Leroux of the same name, Il Profumo Della Signora In Nero Continue Reading
PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES
PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES Production: UK, 1966 Director: John Gilling Category: Horror/Zombie Hammer’s Plague Of The Zombies concerns a voodoo cult at work in darkest 19th-century Cornwall, with the local squire (John Carson) creating a band of zombies to slave in his tin-mines. The film features freshly-disturbed graves, the dead walking the countryside, Continue Reading
LA MONTAGNA DEL DIO CANNIBALE
LA MONTAGNA DEL DIO CANNIBALE (“Mountain Of The Cannibal God”) Production: Italy, 1978 Director: Sergio Martino Category: Cannibal Horror Posted by Rictus-23
LA ROSE ECORCHÉE
LA ROSE ECORCHÉE (“The Flayed Rose”) Production: France, 1970 Director: Claude Mulot Category: Sex/Sadism/Freaks English title: The Blood Rose German title: Das Blutige Schloss der Lebenden Leichen (“Bloody Castle Of Living Corpses”) Promoted as the first “sex-horror” film, Mulot’s phantasy was a conflation of sex, nudity, violence, gore, and two sinister dwarfs. 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
LA FÉE SANGUINAIRE
LA FÉE SANGUINAIRE (“The Bloodthirsty Fairy”) Production: Belgium, 1968 Director: Roland Lethem Category: Experimental Horror One of the most startling arthouse films of the 60s, in which a voluptuous nude creature launches violent assaults on religion and society; the film opens with a swastika before we see the avenging fairy/angel sexually abusing Continue Reading
HUANG MAO GUI REN
HUANG MAO GUI REN (“Yellow-Haired Freak”) Production: Hong Kong, 1962 Director: Wong Fung Category: Martial Arts/HorrorPulp Cantonese cinema from the early 60s, the last and most outlandish in a series of films, which started in 1959, featuring the character of Wong Ang the Flying Heroine Bandit, who first appeared in Continue Reading
GOUHUN JIANG TOU
GOUHUN JIANG TOU (“Erotic Degeneration”) Production: Hong Kong, 1982 Director: Meng Hua Ho English title (Hong Kong): Black Magic 2 US release title: Revenge Of The Zombies Category: Horror Gouhun Jiang Tou opens with swamp scenes of a topless woman devoured alive by a crocodile, followed swiftly by the reptile’s capture Continue Reading