Trog makes me sad. Beyond the fact that it feels a lot like King Kong or Son of Kong—a doomed monster from our past that just can’t survive in today’s horrible modern world—it’s also depressing at times to watch Joan Crawford act her heart out in a film where no one else can come close to her power.

That’s not to say this is a bad film. It’s delightful and well-directed by genre vet Freddie Francis (Tales from the Crypt and plenty of other wonderful Amicus portmanteau films). It’s also quick-moving and enjoyable.

But it’s still sad.

A troglodyte (TROG!) is found alive in the caves of England. Dr. Brockton (Crawford) has had some success communicating with him and sees him as the missing link. However, her neighbors do not like her having a monster in her house, mainly after it kills a dog when it steals his ball.

Local businessman Sam Murdock (Michael Gough, who appeared in many Hammer films and as Alfred in the 1980s and 1990s Batman films) worries that the creature will negatively impact local businesses. But he really has an issue with a woman being in charge.

Meanwhile, Trog undergoes multiple surgeries, which enable him to learn to communicate. In a trippy sequence, we see into his mind, which is filled with memories of the Ice Age and dinosaurs.

The court upholds Dr. Brockton’s goal of teaching Trog, so Murdock sneaks in and lets him loose. He kills several people, including the businessman, before taking a little girl and retreating to his cave. Dr. Brockton can communicate with Trog, and the girl goes free. Meanwhile, soldiers open fire on our titular caveperson, and he falls to his death, impaled on a stalagmite.

As Dr. Brockton leaves in tears, a reporter tries to interview her. She has no comment as she wanders away.

See? Depressing.

Due to the film’s low budget, Crawford used her own clothes. And it shows. She’s a beacon of fashion in a grimy town. She stands out like no one else. And speaking of suits, the one for Trog was left over from 2001: A Space Odyssey!

This was Crawford’s final film, but I don’t believe the TV show Feud: Bette and Joan. She’d continue to act afterward, appearing in an episode of TV’s The Sixth Sense called Dear Joan: We’re Going to Scare You to Death. If you’ve ever listened to My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, that’s where the sample on the song “A Daisy Chain for Satan Comes From.”

PS: I would know none of this were it not for Bill from Groovy Doom.

I’m glad I watched Trog. But the sad ending — and thinking of Joan changing in her car during the breaks in filming — make me a little misty-eyed. That said, it’s one of John Waters’ favorite films, so there’s that.

Harold Robbins’ book The Lonely Lady is dedicated to Jacqueline Susann, who created the greatest written ode to little red pills ever, Valley of the Dolls. She had been inspired by Robbins and how he wrote, added in her crazed ability self promote and became a star. The book was his tarted up version of how he saw her life.

I discovered that book hidden on my parents shelf in the 1980’s and was amazed by it. How did they fit so much sex and depravity between its pages? And when I learned that HBO would be showing the movie adaption at 4 AM, well, look out!

Jerilee Randall (Pia fucking Zadora!) is an innocent waif living in the San Fernando Valley with a dream of being a screenwriter and a trophy for creative writing. Then, she meets Walter Thornton (Lloyd Bochner, Mr. No Legs, Crystal Heart), a famous screenwriter. She’s kind of, sort of is dating his son, but she slowly falls in love with him. But before all that, Ray Liotta rapes her with a garden hose.

You know how they say that you need to take a shower after some movies? You need to continually shower during The Lonely Lady. In fact, I would recommend putting your TV in the hallway and watching the film from the shower.

Walter and Jerilee marry, despite the protests of her mom. He gets her a job as an on-set writer, but when the one word she adds to his script (WHY!?!) improves the film, their marriage starts to fail. His penis has already failed, as he’s unable to satisfy his wife. Also: his chest hair is like a perilous thatch of salt and pepper steel wool.

Walter accuses her of enjoying the rape with a garden hose and that’s the end of their marriage (well, they stay married, but she leaves). Jerilee starts sleeping her way through Hollywood, including getting pregnant by George Ballantine (Jared Martin from Fulci’s Warriors of the Year 2072!) and then getting an abortion before falling for a nightclub owner. He lies to her all along the way, until she finds him having sex with two other women. Lost and hopelessly addicted to pills, she has a nervous breakdown in a bravura sequence.

Every single agent that Jerilee meets with wants to fuck her. Seriously, every single one. Well, I take that back. Some of them want her to sleep with their wives. Even a woman tries to take advantage of her.

Finally, Jerilee’s script is produced — and it has to star George Ballantine — but it wins a major award that is not an Oscar. Perhaps it’s the best screenplay at the legendary Hollywood Awards?

Jerilee goes off during her speech, admitting to her ex-husband that she never learned anything about self-respect and that she’s fucked her way to the top. She refuses the award and walks out with dignity to the strains of her theme song. That’s not as good as the book, which ends with her tearing off her clothes to reveal the Oscar painting upside down with his head resting inside her pubic hair.

Want to see the whole movie in a montage? Here you go…

Meshulam Rikls, Pia Zadora’s billionaire husband, spent $5 million to get this made and spent several million more for Universal Pictures to release it in the U.S. But you gotta give it to Pia — despite half of the audience being voters for the Razzie Awards who laughed throughout the film — she showed up and stayed for autographs in the lobby. I would have been right there in line, ready with a supportive hug if she needed it!

“If you watch one film where a guy shoots billiard balls at a woman’s vagina” is a horrible slug line for a poster. But it’s the one that I wrote for The Lonely Lady. And who else but Shout! Factory would put this out on blu-ray, complete with a new Pia Zadora interview?

This is a movie that received 10 nominations for the 1982 Golden Raspberry Awards,  including Worst Picture, with star Pia Zadora winning Worst Actress and Worst New Star, and Ed McMahon winning Worst Supporting Actor. But more than that — Zadora also won Best Female Newcomer at the Golden Globes for this movie, beating out Elizabeth McGovern and Kathleen Turner. Sure, her super rich husband may have flown members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association to Las Vegas to watch Pia sing. Sure, he may have bought the award. But for awhile, Pia had quite the movie career going.

That said, we’re not the kind of people to pile meanness on. Since Sam was a kid, he’s always loved Pia Zadora. She stared those elitist critics down and kept going. And she’s still going today, playing Piero’s in Vegas every Friday and Saturday, looking gorgeous as ever and with plenty of good humor about her movie past.

Is Butterfly as bad as you think it will be? Guess what? It’s worse. And it’s awesome. It’s the story of a girl moving back in with her dad who isn’t her dad but having sex with him while he thinks he’s her dad because there’s a silver mine and she wants to marry a rich guy and holy fuck there’s Ed McMahon and holy double fuck there’s Orson Welles and then her mom comes to visit only to die and then there’s a murder and then there’s a court scene and then there’s almost a rape in a bar while she dances to a jukebox and my continuity is all over the place.

Matt Cimber did more than direct the GLOW TV show and The Witch Who Came from the Sea. He also blessed us with this, well, opus is the word I’ll use. He also got Stacy Keach to play the lead, which makes me feel bad for the guy. Also along for the ride are Edward Albert (the son, from Galaxy of Terror), James Franciscus (The Cat o’ Nine Tails, Killer Fish), Stuart Whitman (The Monster Club), June Lockhart (TV’s Lost in Space, Curse of the Black Widow), the aforementioned Ed McMahon and George “Buck” Flower (Back to the Future and cameos in nearly every John Carpenter movie, including Starman, Village of the Damned, Escape from New York and The Fog).

They are all but pale shadows to Zadora, who wanders around in see-through babydoll gowns and pouts throughout. She even sang the film’s theme song, “It’s Wrong for Me to Love You.”

The truth is — it is wrong for her to love him. What’s with all these early 1980’s incest-driven films, like Flowers in the Attic? Who wanted to see this? Then again, a quick glance at any porn site will show you — lots of people.

Want to see it for yourself? I’ve really sold it, huh? Look — it’s a glorious mess and you should enjoy it for exactly that. It also feels like it’s 9 hours long. So there’s that. But it is streaming for free on Amazon Prime.

There was a time that roller derby was one of the most popular sports on UHF TV, vying with pro wrestling for ratings and attendance. And much like its cousins in the squared circle, it had predetermined finishes and storylines. Don’t blame me for breaking kayfabe — Unholy Rollers does this right off the bat, explaining how everything has to go according to the game plan and how fights and falls really work!

Karen (Claudia Jennings, Truck Stop Women, ‘Gator Bait) wants a better life than working in a canning factory, but has no idea how to do so until she discovers the glamourous and oh so dangerous world of roller derby (there was a rival film that followed a similar storyline, Kansas City Bomber starring Racquel Welch).

Unlike any other rags to riches story you’ve ever watched, Karen might be the hero, but she’s a horrible person. She uses and abuses everyone in her way. And the fact that she becomes a star by going against the script goes to her head, leading to her never listening to anyone.

Along the way, Karen battles her team’s star, Mickey Martinez (Betty Anne Rees, Sugar Hill), a tough, muscular lesbian who comes on to her. This leads to the entire team stripping Karen in a bar and her having an affair with the team captain, Nick. That affair starts with her riding on his motorcycle, shooting his gun at LA landmarks and then kicking his ass on the track and then getting ass on said track.

And the ending! Karen knows she’s on the way out, so she flips out on everyone. Her opponents, her team, the audience, cars in the parking lot and even raises her fist to the police as the credits roll.

This is a grimy, tough little movie with plenty of fun to be had. Roberta Collins (Death Race 2000, Eaten Alive) is in it and so is Joe E. Tata (Nat from the Beverly Hills, 90210 Peach Pit). It’s directed by Vernon Zimmerman, who also wrote Teen Witch and directed Fade to Black. And its editor? Martin Scorsese!

If you’re looking to see it for yourself, Shout Factory has put it out on one of their multiple movie releases. Roller derby has come a long way — with leagues and teams across the country playing actual athletic contests. But if you’re ready to see the exploitation version of where it came from…Unholy Rollers has you covered.

A rickshaw driver in Miami is protected by an Asian witch when he comes up against a conspiracy involving him being videotaped having sex with a mysterious redhead and it causing the death of the son of a faith healing televangelist played by Donald Pleasance — all directed by Sergio Martino (Torso, All the Colors of the Dark, The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh and so much more)!

This seems like the perfect union of everything I love in movies. It’s pure junk and perfect for 3 AM weekend viewing! Scott (U.S. Olympic Gold Medalist Mitch Gaylord, American Anthem) just wants to get ahead in class and help his roommate with his rickshaw business. But after that aforementioned redhead hooks up with him, all hell breaks loose. Reverend Mortom’s (Pleasance) son Jason was taping the action and Scott flips out, beating the guy’s ass. But soon, Jason ends up getting killed when the boat the action happened on is set ablaze. Soon after, a hitman (Daniel Green, in a role made for George Eastman) comes after Scott, killing his roomie with another inferno.

There’s also an ancient Chinese woman, Madame Luna, who Scott helped with his rickshaw who uses a cobra, a cat and magic to rescue our hero throughout the movie. She also wrote him a letter that he never seems to get to finish. Even after it’s been eaten by rats, her voice still plays in his head when he is near the paper.

The cops are also after Scott, thinking that he’s killed the reverend’s son and his roommate. So our hero goes to the Pink Pussycat and kidnaps the redhead — who we soon learn is Joana Simpson, the girlfriend of the dead man. I should also mention that Scott is pretty much the most moronic asshole to ever be seen as a hero in a film and that’s covering so much territory. Yet even after kidnapping Joana at gunpoint she still likes him and ends up helping him.

Throughout, Martino uses tons of crazy zooms, weird cuts that defy editing logic and everyone is constantly running and grimacing. It’s like a Rob Liefeld comic come to life. And it’s awesome. And by awesome I mean that anyone normal — like Becca — will tell you that this is a shitty movie.

However, let me make my argument. Any movie where Donald Pleasence is an evil televangelist with a warthog statue that is locked in eternal combat with a sorceress directed by my favorite giallo director is going to obsess me. There’s also a shower sex scene where our hero keeps his jeans on, confounding me even further. There’s also a magical key that unlocks the secret of the statue that burns through the killer’s hand. There is also a magical cat. Holy fuck, this movie. I have no idea how anyone would even come up with these concepts.

It turns out that Scott and the reverend’s son were both born on the highest day of the Chinese calendar — 6/6/66 — which means that when Scott says that he wears a tiger t-shirt because he was born in the year of the tiger, he is full of shit. He was born in the year of the horse and American Horse is a much shittier title than American Tiger or American Rickshaw. It’s also the title of a song by the band The Cult, but I think I’m probably the only person who knows or cares about that.

Donald Pleasence comes to attack the Chinese woman, but the cobra and cat attack him before he chokes her. Have you ever heard Pleasence do a Southern accent at the same time that he can’t shake his British voice? You will. I’d say this role was beneath him, but I can also point to so many other films that he was in that are worse.

The killer finally catches up with Scott, who runs across railroad ties and trips — he was an Olympic gymnast — before a semi takes out the killer, who suddenly has a snake come out of his eyeball! Again — this fucking movie!

Scott takes the statue back to Madame Luna, who is young again. The cops listen to Joana, who tells them that Scott is innocent. And the Reverend goes on TV and transforms into a warthog while Luna outs him to the world. Yes, you just read that correctly. Then, his wife screams that he is the devil and shoots him as everyone watches the warthog under his skin emerge. “He was the devil!” she screams as the cops matter of factly lead her away. A man just turned into a giant bloody pig. This should be a much bigger deal than the way the cops behave.

Just watch this trailer and wonder, “How could a movie like this be created and no one is constantly talking about it?” When I hear people complain that they’re bored and hate the world, it’s movies like this that I point them to.

Amazon Prime has become the video store of today, with me searching through strange cover art and discovering movies I’d otherwise never watch. You can watch American Tiger on there — and it’s complete with tracking issues! How magical is that?!?

UPDATE: Cauldron Films is releasing this on blu ray — literally its first on-disc release in the U.S. This is a full bells and whistles release, complete with a full 2K restoration, interviews with director Sergio Martino and production designer Massimo Antonello Geleng, location visits, commentary by Samm Deighan and Kat Ellinger, a limited edition slipcase and only 1000 copies will be made. Check out the link and order this ASAP. I know that I already did!