BRUTALITÄT IN STEIN (“Brutality In Stone”) Production: Germany, 1961 Director: Alexander Kluge & Peter Schamoni Category: Documentary/Architecture The first short film by Kluge, later a key signatory to the Oberhausen Manifesto that helped revolutionise the German film industry, is an eerie montage of structural ruins left behind by Hitler and the Continue Reading
BRUJO
BRUJO (“Shaman”) Production: Mexico, 1978 Director: Georges Payrastre & Claudine Viallon Category: Documentary/Witchcraft A powerful 55-minute documentary on shamanism amongst the Mazatec Indians of Oaxaca, Mexico, and among two groups of Mayan Indians in southern Mexico and Guatemala. Sequences show a shaman exorcising a spell from a woman by a Continue Reading
RYAKUSHO RENZOKU SHASATSUMA
RYAKUSHO RENZOKU SHASATSUMA (“Abbreviation: Demon Gun-Killer”) Production: Japan, 1969 Director: Masao Adachi, Mamoru Sasaki & Masao Matsuda Category: Experimental/Political/True Crime Produced by Koji Wakamatsu, Adachi’s film is a true underground classic, recreating the voyage across Japan of Norio Nagayama, a real-life, 19-year-old killer who murdered four victims by gunshot in Continue Reading
HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD
HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD Production: USA, 1975 Director: Allan Arkush & Joe Dante Category: Satire Posted by The Purple Gas
CALIGOLA… LA STORIA MAI RACCONTATA
CALIGOLA… LA STORIA MAI RACCONTATA (“Caligula: The Untold Story”) Production: Italy 1982 Director: Joe D’Amato Category: Hardcore Pornography/Peplum Only Joe D’Amato could make a low-budget copy of Tinto Brass’ blood-soaked and sexually perverse Caligola and come up with something even more depraved; while no match in terms of production values and acting Continue Reading
SUGAR HILL
SUGAR HILL Production: USA, 1974 Director: Paul Maslansky Category: Blaxploitation/Gangster/Zombie Posted by Lycanthrope
ADEBAR
ADEBAR Production: Austria, 1957 Director: Peter Kubelka Category: Experimental From 1956 onwards, film-maker Kubelka developed what he termed “metric cinema”, a rigid format where films were constructed using incredibly precise regulations. At one minute long, Adebar is the first of these metric films, using predetermined shot-lengths of 13, 26 and Continue Reading
L’ENFER DANS LA PEAU
L’ENFER DANS LA PEAU (“Hell Beneath The Skin”) Production: France, 1965 Director: José Bénazéraf US release title: Sexus Category: Sex-Violence One of the numerous European sex-and-violence films acquired by Radley Metzger to be edited, dubbed, and in some cases augmented with new erotic footage, for release on his Audubon distribution company. Posted Continue Reading
ANIMAL LOVER
ANIMAL LOVER Production: Denmark/USA, 1970 Director: Alex de Renzy & Freddy Hansen Category: Pornography/Bestiality Starring Bodil Joensen, the self-confessed and exhibitionistic Danish zoophile alcoholic, in various compromising positions of bestiality, including intercourse and oral sex with a horse, a dog and a pig, framed by various interviews. Bodil featured in Continue Reading
PLANETA BUR
PLANETA BUR (“Storm Planet”) Production: Soviet Union, 1961 Director: Pavel Klushantsev Category: Science Fiction With Planeta Bur, depicting a space trip to the planet Venus, Pavel Klushantsev pioneered and invented legendary special effects techniques for filming the planets, stars and weightnessless. In doing so he virtually redefined the science fiction genre, Continue Reading