Highway to Hell (1990): Mass-murderer Toby Gilmore (Benton Jennings, who also wrote Reanimator Academy) has broken out of prison and is hiding in the desert, where he’s been picking people off. Officer Earl Dent (Richard Harrison) has wanted to kill Gilmore ever since the scumbag assaulted his daughter. As for Fran Thomson (Blue Thompson), she’s in the wrong place at the wrong time, constantly chased and taken by the maniac, a pawn in his plans of, well, killing everyone around him.

Directed by Bret McCormick, written by Gary Kennamer (who directed the second movie on this Visual Vengeance release, Redneck County Fever) and shot on 16mm, this and Recneck were made after a conversation with David DeCoteau about making lean movies that could be turned out quickly. Despite the budget, shooting this in rural Texas gives the film a character it wouldn’t have otherwise. 

The film doesn’t just take place in the desert; it feels born from it. The choice of 16mm film is crucial here. Unlike the clean, sterile look of modern digital indies, the grain in this production acts like a layer of silt over the lens. It heightens the isolation of the rural Texas landscape, turning every rusted gas pump and sun-bleached cactus into a potential tombstone. It captures a “weat-and-exhaust aesthetic that makes the viewer feel dehydrated.

Greg Synodis, who also composed the music for Reanimator Academy, is responsible for the score, which ramps up the tension as Fran’s life gets worse by the minute. 

Sure, this feels like a much, much lower budget The Hitcher, but we don’t hold that against Hitcher In the Dark either. It’s a great example of what McCormick learned from his early films and how he took the knowledge of keeping everything lean while never letting up on the intensity. Plus, while some say he was phoning it in, I saw Harrison as having a weary, end-of-the-rope gravity in his role as Officer Dent. This isn’t just a professional manhunt for him. It’s a personal exorcism and provides the moral stakes that anchor the chaotic violence.

Redneck County Fever (1992): Directed and written by Gary Kennamer, this has two stoners whose car dies in the middle of the same rural Texas we just drove through in Highway to Hell. While McCormick’s film treats the Texas landscape like a graveyard, Kennamer treats it like a playground of the absurd. The choice to feature two stoners as our heroes immediately deconstructs the tension established in McCormick’s film.

Imagine Bill and Ted in Texas, having adventures that last sixty minutes but may feel much longer. Such is this film. It’s nice to have it as part of the Visual Vengeance Blu-ray release as a companion piece, and to wonder how many of the same crew worked on this. You can see the same dust, the same grainy 16mm textures, and likely the same craft services table (if there even was one). 

Putting scream queen Michelle Bauer on the cover when she doesn’t appear in a single frame is a hall-of-fame don’t believe it by its VHS cover marketing idea. It captures the desperate, hilarious hustle of independent distribution, one in which selling a goofy SOV stoner comedy means making it seem like something it isn’t.

Shot in rural Texas, Highway to Hell stands as a prime example of the regional, low-budget filmmaking that fueled America’s video boom of the 1980s and ’90s. Originally released on VHS via Rae Don Home Video, the film showcases director Bret McCormick (The Abomination, Repligator), a key figure in the Texas exploitation underground, whose raw energy and ingenuity turn poverty row resources into a fast-paced, sun-baked thriller that captures the true spirit and grit of independent genre cinema. This is released for the first time ever on Blu-ray, just like the bonus SOV feature film, Redneck County Fever. Made from an SD master from original tape elements, this has a commentary and interview with director Bret McCormick; interviews with Blue Thompson, Richard Harrison, Gary Kennamer and Tom Fegan; an image gallery; a commentary track and interviews on Redneck County Fever with Bret McCormick and Gary Kennamer; Visual Vengeance trailers; a “Stick Your Own” VHS sticker set; a reversible sleeve featuring original VHS art; a folded Redneck County Fever mini-poster and a limited edition O-CARD featuring original poster art. You can get this from MVD.

This is the title it plays as on Cultpix, but it’s also known as The Now People, Tell It Like It Is, and The Irv Carlson Show. 

Directed by Anthony M. Lanza, who also made The Glory Stompers, The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant and Squezze Play (I did spell that correctly), this stars Don Forio as Irv Carlson, who hosts a talk show called The Beautiful People. Probably the most gorgeous of those people would be Leslie McRay, who was Cleopatra in Death Race 2000 and also showed up in Girl In Gold Boots, The Female Bunch, Blood Orgy of the She-Devils and Wonder Women. 

Carlson’s show is supposed to showcase the glamorous and the famous, the movers and shakers of the “now” generation. Instead, it mostly becomes an excuse for the movie to bounce from guest to guest, gag to gag, and occasionally wander into strange satirical territory that feels like a variety show beamed in from an alternate universe.

The screenplay comes from none other than Arch Hall Sr., which should already tell you what kind of ride you’re in for. Hall is one of those figures who could only have existed in the wild west era of regional exploitation filmmaking. If there were a camera around and a chance to put his son in front of it, he would make a movie. This is the same man who gave us Wild Guitar, which was essentially a homemade rock-and-roll star vehicle for Arch Hall Jr.

Hall Sr. also appears in the film as Morrison Whales, which is about as subtle a parody name as you’re ever going to get. Whales is, of course, meant to be none other than Orson Welles, and Hall goes after him with a kind of weird, personal venom that feels almost surreal. Remember, we’re talking about the guy behind Citizen Kane, widely considered one of the greatest movies ever made, being dunked on by the director of Eegah.

The film even shows fake clips from supposed Morrison Whales movies, as if Hall is trying to prove—visually, no less—that this Welles stand-in is a complete fraud. The whole thing has the strange energy of a grudge that somehow turned into a screenplay.

You can watch this on Cultpix.

Lager SSadis Kastrat Kommandantur isn’t the kind of movie you put on for your mom, unless your mom is Eva Braun.

Blame director Sergio Garrone, whose career went from Westerns like If You Want to Live… Shoot! and Django the Bastard to the Kinski giallo/mad scientist/krimi movies The Hand That Feeds the Dead and Lover of the Monster, and a very late in the game — 1981! — giallo starring Corinne Clery and George Lazenby, L’ultimo harem.

But most people will remember him for his two Nazi movies. He made this at the same time as SS Lager 5: L’inferno delle donne AKA SS Camp: Women’s Hell, and they share many of the same shots. Same idea, I guess, as the war is almost over, but this camp wants to perfect the master race before time runs out. 

How rough does it get? Even the ads for this movie started the UK video nasty era. 

Helmut (Mircha Carven) is, I guess, our hero. He’d rather read than pal around with his fellow SS officers and soon falls for Mirelle (Paola Corazzi, who really ends up in the most horrific of Italian exploitation and remains gorgeous no matter what) while everyone else works on mating women with the officers to try and fix Col. Von Kleiben’s (Giorgio Cerioni) decimated balls, I kid you not. Yes, we see a flashback where a Jewish woman once bit them clean off. How do you fix a problem like Von Kleiben’s balls?

Matilde Dall’Aglio, who was one of the people watching the snuff movie in Emanuelle In America, is in this, along with Agnes Kalpagos (not her first or last Nazi movie), Mara Carisi (who is in the somewhat classier Salon Kitty), Inga Alexandrova, Giovanna Mainardi and Patrizia Melega, who goes for it as the sapphic doctor in charge of most of this. 

Do you like long surgery scenes? How about shocking people in electric chairs until they piss themselves? Want an unhappy ending? This has all of that and more, a movie that is like Salo but has no redeeming social commentary, just people doing a woman in prison movie with fascist uniforms. Unlike WIP films, this has women boiled alive and also frozen, so if you’re seeking that, good news. This will deliver.

The 88 Films release of this film has a new 4K remaster from the original negative. It looks great, and watching blood-boiling and electric-chair-pissing in ultra-high definition is an experience that will make even a seasoned grindhouse veteran blink. Extras include audio commentary by Italian cinema experts Eugenio Ercolani and Nanni Cobretti; interviews with Sergio Garrone, Pierpaolo De Sanctis, Eugenio Alabiso and Maurizio Centini; there’s also the Italian opening and closing titles; a trailer; a reversible sleeve with censored and uncensored art and a book with articles by Tim Murray and Rachael Nesbit. You can get this from MVD in UHD and Blu-ray formats.

In the landscape of 1980s Hong Kong Ghost-Fu movies, Wu Ma’s Picture of a Nymph stands as a beautifully rendered companion piece to the genre’s heavyweights. The story kicks off when Shih Erh (the acrobatic powerhouse Yuen Biao), a dedicated Taoist disciple, takes a hapless scholar, Tsui Hung-Chuen (Lawrence Ng), under his wing. The catalyst? A demon battle gone wrong that leaves the scholar’s house in literal ashes.

While Shih Erh and his master, Wu Men-Chu (played by director Wu Ma), attempt to shield the scholar from the literal legions of hell, the plot thickens with a classic supernatural romance. Tsui falls for Mo Chiu (the ethereal Joey Wang), a ghost enslaved by the terrifying King Ghost (Elizabeth Lee).

Picture of a Nymph features Sammo Hung’s Stuntmen Team, which means it has more action than any demon movie America will ever make. Because Joey Wang famously portrayed the lead in A Chinese Ghost Story, critics often dismiss this as a quick cash-in. However, Picture of a Nymph feels more like a spiritual sequel or a remix of the same melancholic themes.

I love the idea that Mo Chiu’s spirit hides in a painting that Tsui makes of her. I’m also a sucker for the doomed romance between those who have died and those who are still alive. 

Extras on the 88 Films release of this movie include two commentaries, one by Frank Djeng and another by David West. It comes in a breathtaking rigid slipcase with art by Sean Longmore, and includes a 40-page book and a collectible postcard. You can get it from MVD.

Ashura (Gloria Yip), the Holy Maiden of Hell, could destroy the Earth as easily as I’ll crush my next mixed drink. To keep that from going down. Some Buddhist monks trap her in a cave. She’s placed under the watchful (and often overwhelmed) eyes of Peacock (the legendary Yuen Biao), Lucky Fruit (Hiroshi Abe) and a trio of female abbesses. What follows is a surreal blend of fish-out-of-water comedy and high-octane supernatural warfare. Ashura attempts to navigate girlhood alongside her bizarre companion, Genie, while being hunted by the Hell Concubine, villains whose name and design scream 1980s dark fantasy manga (fitting, as this is the sequel to The Peacock King, based on the Kujako O series).

Directed by Ngai Choi Lam and Sze-Yu Lau, this feels like a movie kids would love, what with the cute monster, but the monster is threatened so many times in this film that I started to worry about it. Sure, this is kind of all over the place and has way too many comedic asides that derail the film, but it looks gorgeous, like Dario Argento was the substitute director for one day of Big Trouble In Little China, as neon colors and fog swirl around steel-clawed evil and giant monsters. 

The 88 Films Blu-ray release of Saga of the Phoenix has a new 2K scan, commentary by Frank Djang and F.J. DeSanto, alternate Japanese footage, a reversible sleeve with two sets of art, a 40-page book, a poster, and it all comes inside a gorgeous rigid clipcase. You can get this from MVD.

A story so amazing it can only be true.

Sure, Bill Rebane.

A small town has turned its Bigfoot sightings into a tourist destination. A bunch of people get killed, and everyone thinks the sasquatch must be behind it, so sawmill owner Harvey Olsen (Richard Kennedy) decides to hunt down the creature with the help of the people of Gleason, Wisconsin, by offering $10,000 to anyone who captures the beast. Who can save Bigfoot? Maybe game ranger Dave Garrett (Stafford Morgan)?

Maybe it’s more than Bigfoot. It could be The Legendary Creature of Arak, a white yeti that shows up. There’s a child Sasquatch, too. That’s Bill’s son Randolph.

According to the local lore, Arak is a man-like creature that protected the Arak tribe near the Lake of the Clouds.” Far from being a mindless killer, Arak was a spiritual guardian who escorted the tribal elders to the afterlife when it was their time to die. This adds a layer of noble protector to the beast, making Harvey Olsen’s mission to cage it even more villainous.

At least George “Buck” Flower is on hand with his daughter Verkina. November 1980 Playboy Playmate of the Month Jeana Keough is, too. Everyone looks like they’re freezing, because it’s always snowing in Wisconsin or at least in Bill Rebane movies.

This movie really unites ecohorror actors. Kennedy was in Holy Wednesday AKA Fangs; his henchman Jason is Otis Young, who was in Blood Beach, and Burt is John Goff from Alligator. George “Buck” Flower was in Skeeter. Denise Cheshire went from Graduation Day to mime work where she played apes. And oddest of all, Janus Raudkivi, who plays the white creature, was security on Deadly Eyes, a movie that dressed up dogs as mutant rats. 

After the chaos at the sawmill and the final confrontation in the woods, Dave Garrett realizes the creature isn’t the monster. The men hunting it are. As the creature retreats back into the wilderness, the folk song “Life is a Journey” plays, reminding the viewer that “You’ll only find freedom the day when you die.”

You can watch this on YouTube.

Part documentary. Part dramatization. All bullshit. I say that with love. This is yet another movie of a time and place where we got obsessed over things like the Bermuda Triangle, something we could care less about today for some reason.

Director Donald Brittain mainly made documentaries and shorts, this being the lone paranormal film he worked on. He was joined by co-director Laurin Render (who also composed the music with W. Michael Lewis, who did the music for Enter the Ninja, The Killing of America, In Search Of and Blood Beach, where he wrote the club music) and writer Alan Landsburg, who created In Search Of and wrote the books that Manbeast! Myth or Monster? and The Outer Space Connection were based on.

Planes will be lost, as will the rescue ships went after them. Such is the power of the brutal Bermuda Triangle. What if it also informed us of high-profile cases such as Flight 19, the disappearance of the USS Eagle and other unexplained disappearances, as well as reports of mysterious personality changes and strange weather patterns?

Here’s one mustery I can solve: it’s cinematographer was Brianne Murphy, who also directed the movie Blood Sabbath. Her career found her doing a bit of everything, whether that meant beinga production assistant on The Gay Deceivers, a dialogue director on The Incredible Petrified World, shooting stills on the Cheech and Chong movie Nice Dreams, working in the costume department for Teenage Zombies, being a DP on In the Heat of the Night and Highway to Heaven and directing six episodes of Acapulco H.E.A.T. and the Ami Dolenz movie To Die, To Sleep. She was also the first woman to be invited into the American Society of Cinematographers.

She worked with J. Barry Herron on this and man, his career went everywhere from shooting aerial photography on Chatterbox (what did that movie need that for?) and Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo to underwater work on The Love Boat, Strange Brew, Big Trouble In Little China and Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives and being the DP or cinematorapher on The Young Graduates, In Search of Ancient Mysteries and Orca. He even directed two episodes of Airwolf and wrote one of Acapulco H.E.A.T.

Anyways, back to the BS. The idea of a time dimension or parallel world was popularized by pilot Bruce Gernon in 1970. He claimed to have flown through a tunnel-shaped”cloud (which he called Electronic Fog) and emerged miles ahead of where he should have been, having traveled through what he believed was a time hole. This story fueled the theory that the Bermuda Triangle isn’t a graveyard, but a gateway.

Some legends suggest that the pilots of the famous Lost Patrol of Flight 19 didn’t crash but were transported. There is a long-standing legend that ham radio operators in Florida intermittently eeceived the final transmissions of Flight 19 decades after they vanished, with some versions of the story claiming the voices sounded calm and elsewhere. That was further legitimzed by the fact that this is how Close Encounters of the Third Kind ends. There are also many accounts of ghostly radio transmissions from ships like the SS Cotopaxi or the Cyclops, where listeners claimed to hear voices long after the ships disappeared.

There’s also the Raifuku Maru, which was the 1925 disappearance of the Japanese freighter, which left one final message: “Danger like dagger now… come quick!”

So yeah. Maybe no one cares because scientists claim they figured it all out. Geologists and oceanographers generally point to more grounded explanations for the disappearances, like methane hydrates, which are large pockets of gas rising from the ocean floor that could theoretically sink a ship by rapidly reducing water density. The Gulf Stream is also pretty dangerous, as it’s an extremely fast and turbulent current that can quickly erase any evidence of a crash or sinking. Or Hexagonal Clouds in the triangle could drop high-velocity air bombs that create 170 mph winds.

But totally aliens, you know?

The film serves as a feature-length spiritual successor to the Leonard Nimoy-hosted series In Search Of. Produced by Alan Landsburg, it utilizes the same formula: ominous narration, grainy reenactments, and a synth-heavy score that makes even a calm ocean look terrifying.

You can watch this on YouTube.