A young girl watches her mother get murdered. Years later, she’s grown to become a famous ice skating star and is set to be married. But once she announces those nuptials in the newspaper, a stalker grows more and more obsessed with her. One by one, her friends start to die and she wonders…does she know the killer?

Also known as Amok and Blood of the Undead, this film fits into a post-Psycho and giallo yet pre-slasher world. It’s also definitely British. And it’s one of many films where exposure to sex at a young age makes you a killer. I’m not giving away anything but if you don’t figure out the ending twist within the first few minutes unless you have never watched a horror film before.

This is another Peter Walker directed, David McGillivray written film — they also worked on Frightmare, House of Whipcord and House of Mortal Sin together.

Lead actress Lynne Frederick is also in the Saul Bass directed Phase IV and became the wife of Peter Sellers at the age of 22. They had a rocky marriage but his death haunted her throughout the rest of her short life, hurting her next two marriages (she was also married to David Frost). She even had a shrine to Sellers in her home. She’s really good here and it’s a shame her life was so rough.

Plus, you get Joe Meek protege John Leyton as her husband (Meek was the producer and songwriter who pioneered space age pop), Stephanie Beacham (Dracula A.D. 1972) as the best friend (and eye candy) and Jack Watson (Peeping Tom).

It never really gets to where you want it to be, but it’s not the worst film. It just doesn’t really understand what schizophrenia is, despite the long medical introduction. Redemption has released this film on DVD and blu-ray, so you should be able to find it used pretty cheaply. I watched it on YouTube, so there’s always that, too.

This movie is brought to you by our friend Paul Andolina. Check out his website Wrestling with Film.

I stumbled upon the works of H.P. Lovecraft in a roundabout way. Back in 2006 I got a job at Game Crazy which is a video game store that used to be inside Hollywood Video locations. I would get free rentals from the video rental side and one day I picked up Beyond the Wall of Sleep directed by Barrett J. Leigh and Thom Mauer. It wasn’t the best horror movie but it was one that stuck with me for a very long time. I read the short story Beyond the Wall of Sleep, the story the film got its namesake and plot from on my old Gateway PC and dial-up internet. That was pretty much the extent of my exposure until many years later I won a contest with a few books of Lovecraft’s stories. I bought a nice leather-bound edition of his stories and it’s been love ever since. Being infatuated with cinema I decided to look into adaptations of his work which later led to discovering films with a Lovecraftian bent. Lovecraftian is a loaded descriptor, for some it simply means tentacles, fish people, and the relative weird associated with the writer. For me and many others Lovecraftian cinema means films that are either direct adaptations of Lovecraft’s stories or deal with themes prevalent in his work; xenophobia, the insignificance of mankind in the vastness of the cosmos, the inability of men to fathom and understand our reality, and devolution of man into more primitive states. 

Back in 2014 a film called Spring directed by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead came out and it really stuck with me. I watched it, completely transfixed on the utter weirdness and sheer madness of what was on display, a romance that would culminate with the end of everything civilization had ever known. This directing duo was somehow able to completely convey the attraction and repulsion to the other in Spring and I simply could not wait to see more of what these could do with film. Well, this week saw the release of another film by the duo titled The Endless. The Endless focuses on two brothers, Justin Smith played by Justin Benson, and Aaron Smith, played by Aaron Moorhead, who escape from a UFO death cult and after receiving a tape from a member of the commune decide to return.

I have not had a movie viewing experience like this in a while. I’ve been having a very hard time fully concentrating on a film lately. The Endless, however, grabbed me by the beard and demanded I watch. It was so engrossing with the atmosphere it had, the characters it portrays, the imagery it gives you to process, and the mystery surrounding it. The cult members of Camp Arcadia are welcoming yet at the same time unsettling. You really care about the brothers struggles to discover what it is they have been searching for these past 10 years since escaping the camp. If you have read the short story Call of Cthulhu and wonder what the Cthulhu cultists were worshiping down in those Louisianian swamps then this is the film for you. Heck if the Jim Jones massacre is a morbid fascination for you then you should definitely check this out. This movie plays with so many of Lovecraft’s themes that it’s practically a treasure trove of material for you to ponder. If you’re even remotely interested in H.P. Lovecraft you’d do well checking this film out. Lovecraftian cinema is really a mixed bag, although there are many films that are direct adaptations of his writings, and some that play with his thematic elements, I feel like there hasn’t been a movie that can really make you think about the themes that he wrote about so often. In fact, I believe The Endless has the most fully realized Lovecraftian universe ever put onto a screen, even more so than my personal favorite In the Mouth of Madness. In the movie’s 111 minute run time you are treated to a smorgasbord of cosmic weirdness that will leave you wanting another 3 more courses of Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s delectable fare. I for one cannot wait to see what this duo can come up with next.

If you are in a 1980’s slasher movie and have kids, never let them see you have sex. Chances are, you are either going to die or they are going to grow up to be complete maniacs. Possibly both!

Cathy (Jenny Neumann, Hell Night) is one of those kids. When she was little, she caught her mom having sex in a really weird position that didn’t look plausible. And then, her mom’s boyfriend was making out with her while they drove in the car. She tried to get them to stop. However, she caused her mother’s death in a car crash, with a piece of glass ending up in her throat.

Sixten years later and Cathy has become Helen. She’s an actress in a play called Comedy of Blood, but everyone keeps getting killed with shards of glass. There’s no real guesswork here — you can pretty much figure out the killer from the first few moments of the movie.

All I have to recommend this movie on is that Brian May did the soundtrack and that it is also called Stagefright, but you’d be much better off watching the Soavi film of the same name. It’s so much better that at the end of this movie, I kept wondering, “Why am I not watching the real Stagefright?”

That said — it’s on Shudder.

You might watch Sole Survivor and say, “Didn’t Final Destination rip this movie off?” Or you might be like me and say, “Didn’t I already see Carnival of Souls?”

TV producer Denise is the — Sole Survivor, sorry, I had to say it — of an airplane crash, but she feels like she’s constantly being chased by something. Her combination doctor/boyfriend Brian (Kurt Johnson, The Fan) thinks it’s survivor’s guilt. But Karla, a psychic ex-actress, predicted the crash and has a warning for Denise. Then, you know, everyone around her starts getting killed and turned into zombies, leading even a skeptic like David to start to worry.

Of course, the dead kill everyone. They kill her best friend. They kill her boyfriend. They even kill kids and cab drivers. Anyone and everyone could be the living dead, out to drag Denise to the afterlife. And if the Carrie shock ending is to be believed, death isn’t about to stop with her.

Director Thom Eberhardt would go on to direct the vastly better film Night of the Comet. Here, the film drags at a very slow pace. We all know where it’s going and it feels like it may take forever to get there. But hey — there’s a Brinke Stevens cameo along the way. You can grab the Code Red blu-ray from Diabolik DVD. You can also watch it on You Tube.

Three things got me to watch this film: Persis Khambatta. Donald Pleasence. Post-apocalyptic. Then I found out that Fred Williamson was also in it and I raced to find this. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so hasty.

Released as Il Giustiziere Della Terra Perduta (Vigilante of the Lost Earth) 4 years after Mad Max and 2 years after The Road Warrior, this Italian schlockfest proves why you need the right director to make a great shitty movie instead of just a shitty movie. Trust me. There’s a difference.

First, we have a long wall of words to set the movie up.

Robert Ginty (The Exterminator, TV’s The Paper Chase) plays The Rider, who has arrived on his computerized motorcycle to do something and save someone. Also — there is an AI on his bike called Einstein that is the most grating cute computer in perhaps the history of film. He is the Bob of bots.

I love that this movie sets up The Rider as this awesome hero and he dies ten minutes into the movie by crashing into the “Wall of Illusion.” Yes, the greatest motorcycle rider of his time does not know how to avoid a giant wall.

Luckily for him and not for us, The Enlightened Elders bring him back to battle the totalitarian state run by Prossor (Pleasence). Along with the help of the Outsiders, he frees McWayne, but loses the scientist’s daughter Nastasia (Khambatta).

Then, The Rider joins a ritual brawl, fighting the cast of every post-apocalyptic movie ever made: karate dudes, truckers, punk rockers, soldiers, Amazons and more. He wins their trust and they battle the Omegas and their Megaweapon, but not before his motorcycle and Einstein are destroyed.

Existential question: can he still be The Rider when he has nothing to ride on?

Finally, the good guys win, Einstein is brought back and the Prossor who was killed turns out to be a clone. Yep, Fred Williamson was a traitor and they’re setting up a sequel that never came.

Director David Worth would go on to do Kickboxer, but you can really tell the difference in end of the world films when a normal person and a maniac like Fulci, Sergio Martino, Joe D’Amato or Enzo G. Castellari direct the movie. Also, this film needs a George Eastman heavy to show up and threaten the manhood of The Rider, ala Warriors of the Wasteland.

You know why Fred Williamson is awesome? Because he was already in Italy working on a movie and wanted to stay longer, so he tracked down the director David Worth and asked for a role so his work visa could be extended. He loves Italy just that much.

In case you didn’t pick up my subtle jabs at this film, I didn’t really enjoy it all that much. The poster is way more awesome than what’s inside. And if you’re going to pick an end of the world movie, we’ve already shared plenty that are way better. But who am I to get in the way of you watching a giant truck run over a beep boop robot?

If you want to watch it, there’s a Mystery Science Theater 3000 version. Or you can watch it on Con TV or Amazon Video.

Remember when we discussed Horror House on Highway 5? Well, there’s another house, this time on highway 6. There, a doctor lives in a bomb shelter and awaits the second coming of Elvis Presley. There’s also a killer armed with an axe.

Four college students are searching for the horror house and want to prove the reality of ghosts when a possessed soda machine hurts one of them. That brings them to a clinic that is really the horror house.

I think I love the original — love is a strong term, I think — because it may be amateurish, but it looks better on film. This shot on digital video film loses something as the cheese in it is way more evident. It feels more amateurish than the first, if that’s even possible.

There’s all sorts of weirdness in here, so much so that I can’t totally dislike the film. Weird symbols ala Fulci, discussions about multiple versions of reality all happening at once, random characters showing up only to get killed and an ending that approaches — but does not match — the strange close of the original.

I’m glad there’s a sequel and I’m pleased that Richard Casey is still making movies. I just wish that they were better than this one. I kind of wish he’d write the script and oversee the film with an actual crew, DP and director, as he definitely has some great themes. He just needs a team to make them happen.

You can check it out on Amazon Prime.

H. Rider Haggard’s She, A History of Adventure pretty much set the rules for the Lost World genre and presented a white goddess warrior queen named Ayesha who rules a kingdom in the middle of Africa. It’s been adapted many times for the screen, starting in 1899 with Georges Méliès’ The Pillar of Fire. Probably the best-known version is the 1965 Hammer film, She, which features Ursula Andress, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and John Richardson.

This movie? It’s inspired by She but if you were expecting something close to the book — or something normal — you’ve picked the wrong film.

This movie is a quest, or a series of quests, and it’s packed with fully realized worlds and costumes that are on screen long enough to get you invested before they go away. It’s literally a Jack Kirby Fourth World comic come to celluloid realization with none of Kirby’s storytelling panache. Sandahl Bergman (Conan the Barbarian) plays She, who is traveling with Tom and Dick (Harrison Muller, 2020 Texas Gladiators), two brothers looking to save their kidnapped sister. Shandra, She’s sidekick, comes along too.

There are werewolves who just want to fuck. Nazis who just want to kill. Communist mutants with mental powers who just want to do BDSM whip torture to She. Mummies with chainsaws. The film alludes to the fact that its 23 years after Cancellation, a nuclear war, so it’s post-apocalyptic whole also referencing sword and sorcery, yet it was made before Conan turned Italian film backlots into ancient carbon copies of Cimmeria. It is one weird film, never sure if it wants to be a comedy or an action film.

Honestly, have you ever played Dungeons & Dragons on LSD? This is how I imagine that this movie was created. They just got people in a room, got them high and gave them a few D10s and a Monster Manual.

This is all directed by Avi Nesher, who brought us the batshit crazy Doppelganger with Drew Barrymore before becoming a critical darling in his home country of Israel. Obviously, this movie is not one he’d care to bring up.

Also, this movie is packed with strange music choices, like a song from Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues during the credits, along with contributions by Motörhead and Rick Wakeman.

Have I properly conveyed just how strange this all is? Then you’re probably wishing you could see it. The gray market and YouTube are your friends. Yes, in a world where nearly everything gets a blu-ray high-end release, this one remains unreleased.

Zombi 2 has nothing to do with Dawn of the Dead, which was re-edited by co-producer Dario Argento, rescored by Goblin and released in Italy as Zombi. It was a huge success and nothing succeeds like more, more and more. As Italian copyright law allows any film to be marketed as a sequel to another work, producer Fabrizio De Angelis quickly decided that it was time to make that sequel.

Originally, Enzo G. Castellari (1990: The Bronx Warriors, Warriors of the Wasteland) was asked to direct, but he didn’t feel like he was the right director. The second choice was Lucio Fulci, who had handled violence so well in Don’t Torture a Duckling, and screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti, who had worked with Fulci on The Psychic (and would go on to write nearly all of Fulci’s most famous films).

Under the working title of Nightmare Island, the story was intended to be a mix of The Island of Dr. Moreau and classic zombie movies such as I Walked with a Zombie. What emerged was a frightful force of nature that takes Romero’s film, jettisons the political undercurrents and gives viewers exactly what they want: more zombies, more gore, more blasts of pure insanity. In short: more, more, more.

The film begins a zombie being shot in the head, letting you instantly know that this film is not going to wait around and take prisoners. That’s followed by an effective on location New York shot, as an abandoned sailboat bumps and drifts before being boarded by harbor police, who discover that only one somewhat living creature remains: a zombie who kills one officer before being shot and falling overboard.

The owner of the boat, Anne Bowles (Tisa Farrow, The Initiation of Sarah), is questioned by the police about the whereabouts of her father, who she hasn’t seen in months. Meanwhile, at the morgue, the dead cop begins to stir.

Upon meeting Peter West (Ian McCulloch, Doctor Butcher, M.D.) she decides to follow her father to his last known location: the Caribbean island of Matul, sailing there with Brian (Al Cliver, The Beyond, Endgame) and Susan. This is where the movie goes from slow first gear to pure menacing rollercoaster. It’s also where sanity leaves the production, as a zombie battles a shark, an effect achieved by feeding shark tranquilizers and having shark trainer Ramón Bravo play the zombie. This scene was created by producer Ugo Tucci and shot without Fulci’s approval by Giannetto De Rossi.

On Matul, Dr. David Menard (Richard Johnson, Beyond the Door, The Comeback) is running a hospital but also researching voodoo, leading to his wife Paola (Olga Karlatos, Murder Rock and Prince’s mother in Purple Rain) flipping out on him. But don’t get too attached to Paola, as she soon is snuffed out by a zombie in what is this film’s most celebrated and reviled scene, as a zombie sneaks up on her and smashes through a door, jamming a wooden splinter into her eye. Any other film would show this in shadow or off camera. Here, Fulci descends to his basest form and takes the window of the soul and pierces it for all to see.

Menard soon tells Anne that her father is dead before asking everyone to check in on his wife. Of course, she’s dead. But even worse, zombies are eating her corpse, a scene rendered in loving detail that seems to go on forever. They escape to a graveyard of ancient conquistadors who rise from the ground in another astounding sequence. Susan’s throat is torn out and the three survivors battle their way to a hospital where they face off against a zombie horde — a scene insisted upon by the producers.

Only Anne and Peter escape, locking the zombified form of Brian below deck. As they approach New York, they learn that the city has been overcome by the undead. We see zombies slowly walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, effectively bringing us back to Dawn of the Dead all over again.

Zombi didn’t just make money. It made more than the film that inspired it and led to a wave of 1980’s Italian gore shockers, as well as giving Fulci the cachet of the goriest director of them all.

Even the music in this film stands out, thanks to the work of Fabio Frizzi, who was influenced by Caribbean music and the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life.”

I can’t be objective about this film. I realize Fulci’s shortcomings but it’s such an effective shocker, unafraid to punch you repeatedly in the face. Loud, bombastic, brutal and ridiculous — that’s why it’s a movie that gets played in my blu ray player every few months. Just look at that ad campaign — WE ARE GOING TO EAT YOU! — and know that this is a movie made to entertain on all levels.

Look at that Boris Vallejo poster! Between that and Persis Khambatta (Megaforce), this seemed like one of those movies I had to see. Even better, it’s alternate title, Phoenix the Warrior, is awesome!

Starring Kathleen Kinmont as Phoenix (she’s also Kelly Meeker in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers) and Khambatta as the evil Cobalt, this film is all about a pregnant woman who gives birth to one of the few men on earth. There’s also a Reverend Mother who is in control of all the sperm and has a religious hold over all of the women.

Oh yeah — there are also the Rezules, who worship television. How awesome would it be that if instead of zombies, they were dressed up like characters from famous TV shows? Archie Bunker ruling the Badlands of the end times? This movie could have made that happen.

When I was a kid, I wrote a comic book called Cola War (get it, Cold War?) where there was no water so everyone only consumed soda and religiously followed the soda that they drank. It was a great idea until someone explained to me that to create soda, you needed water. None of that logical thinking was applied to this movie.

That’s one of the downsides to watching so many movies. You get yourself excited and then, the chase is, as Lemmy taught us all, often so much better than the catch.

You can catch this on Amazon Prime. For a film packed with naked women and lesbian religious gangs, you kind of wish that it was a lot more entertaining. Well, you can’t get everything, I guess.

I am in love with film. It inspires me every single day. And so does rock and roll. I have a few rock and roll rules that rule my life and I’ll share one with you: if you don’t like The Ramones, I really don’t trust you.

Sure, you can tell me every Ramones song sounds the same. And I’ll tell you that you’re an asshole — Bonzo Goes to Bitburg sounds nothing like Pet Sematary and those two songs sound nothing like Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue. The Ramones got me through my first year of advertising, keeping my sanity as I worked eighty hours a week and I will forever be in their debt.

This movie makes me insanely happy because it posits a world where The Ramones are the biggest band in the world, big enough to cause a major stir when they come to town. Roger Corman originally wanted Cheap Trick or Todd Rundgren for this, but come on. Only one band could make this work.

The students of Vince Lombardi High School are as good at driving educators insane as they are bad at actually learning. Foremost among their number is rock and roller Riff Randell (has P.J  Soles ever been lovelier?) who dreams of writing songs for the Ramones and meeting Joey Ramone.

When new Principal Togar (has Mary Woronov ever not been great in a film?) takes her ticket to the concert away from her, she and her best friend Kate have to figure out how they’ll get to meet their heroes, win true love and escape the drudgery of high school.

There’s a moment here where Riff imagines Joey in her bedroom singing “I Want You Around” to her. It breaks my heart in the best of ways — pure teen worry and angst and then there’s Joey — geeky, gangly, goofball Joey — the hero who comes to her room and there’s this pure puppy love bliss. No other band could have been in this film and communicated punk rock swagger and danger while still having this tender sweetness.

I love PJ’s clothes in this film. That may be because the low budget of the film meant that they couldn’t afford decent clothes for her, so she spent her entire salary on her outfits.

Between Don Steele, Clint Howard, Dick Miller and Paul Bartel, the only members of my favorite actors club not in this film are weirdo Italian gore icons like John Saxon, Ivan Rassimov and George Eastman to make it perfect. Fuck that — this is perfect. The end of the film, where Miss Togar snarls at Joey,  “Do your parents know you’re Ramones?” makes me get up and cheer out loud.

Talk about punk rock — The Ramones were only paid a total of $25,000 for acting in this, so they had to play shows every night to make up for it. Meanwhile, Dee Dee fought a roadie, OD’d in jail and woke up in the ER with a $3,000 medical bill. But that’s OK — Dee Dee was such a shitty actor in this that he only got two lines: “Hey, pizza!” and “Hey, pizza! It’s great! Let’s dig in!”

There’s also a giant mouse and mouse children that somehow go to this school for some reason. Who cares!

I love the end of this movie, when the school violently explodes as The Ramones rock out and Screamin’ Steve Stevens goes wild. It’s absolutely, totally perfect — and makes me wish that in my teen years, when no one in my high school knew or cared who The Ramones were, that Dee Dee would come and get me so high I’d wake up in the emergency room with one awesome story. Gabba gabba hey, indeed.