In the fourth of five Stray Cat Rock (or Alleycat Rock) films, two Japanese men help a deserter from the Vietnam War escape to Sweden and fund their plan by selling LSD. But soon, rival gangs find out about the drug deal and want a piece of the action for themselves.

Meiko Kaji returns again, as does the jazzy rock and roll and elements of style established by the first four films in the series. Director Yasuharu Hasebe returns as well, filming this installment in just two weeks. It was released two months after the last one, so either they were rushing to get these out before the trend died or the Japanese public was demanding more and more girl gang group movies.

This one is a lot like the first two, other than the acid taking sequence, which has our heroes Maya and Nobu refusing to partake. Drugs were really becoming part of Japan’s culture here, but take it from someone that’s been there a few times. Thanks to incredibly strict prison sentences for even first offenders, any taking of them is kept incredibly secretive. That said — if you want to see a movie where Del Monte canned tomatoes turn into blood…

There’s also a lot of bowling in between all the motorcycle chases and go-go dancing. It just kind of makes sense, I guess.

You can watch this on Amazon Prime or get the Arrow Video box set.

Shot at the same time as the second film in the Stray Cat Rock series, Wild Jumbo, this third film has the return of director Yasuharu Hasebe. This time around, the Alleycats — led by Mako, played by series star Meiko Kaji — battle the male gang the Eagles. Look — any movie that starts with a girl versus girl knife and flashlight fight and a girl gang robbing a salaryman is worth watching.

When one of the Alleycats named Mari turns down the advances of the Eagle’s member Susumu and hooks up with a mixed-race guy named Ichiro, the gang’s leader Baron goes crazy. Turns out his sister was attacked by several mixed-race men, so he decides to take out anyone that isn’t purely Japanese. It also doesn’t help that Mako falls for another mixed race stranger.

Race relations were a big deal at the time in Japan, as many Japanese/American babies were being conceived. The film was shot near the U.S. Naval base in Yokosuka and features the girl group Golden Half, whose five members all had Japanese mothers and gaijin fathers, which was their selling point.

From the first frame, I was happy to have Hasebe as the director. This is a cool, calculated film filled with violence and themes of male impotence and the actual melting pot of races producing a better future. Like all the Stray Cat films, the women are the strong ones, with men fighting to own and control them. But they just can’t — there’s no way they can tame them.

One question I have: were Jeeps really that big of a deal in 1970 Japan? These movies have more of them driving all over the place than any I’ve seen!

You can watch this on Amazon Prime or get the Arrow Video box set.

Paul Andolina is back just in time for St. Patrick’s Day. You can also find even more movies in his website Wrestling with Film.

I can still remember catching parts of the movie Leprechaun as a kid while watching the Sci Fi channel on the play room TV. Since then it’s been a bit of tradition to watch it during the month of March. I don’t always get a chance to watch it but when I do, I always have a good time. The entire franchise is near and dear to my heart as I’ve binge watched it more times than I can remember. I thought I’d take a look at some of my favorite films from the series this week.

There is no better place to start than with the movie that started it all 1993’s Leprechaun. I imagine it’s a Saint Patrick’s day staple for a lot of fans of horror as it is shown on the SyFy channel pretty regularly during this time of year. They usually have a marathon of the entire series on or near the 17^th of March. 

Leprechaun is about a young lady, Tory, and her father, J.D. They move to a house in North Dakota for the summer not knowing that ten years prior Dan O’Grady after returning home from Ireland, rich, was met with tragedy in the same house. Dan had stolen gold from a leprechaun and the leprechaun made his way to the states to wreak havoc on O’Grady in an attempt to recover his gold. He doesn’t manage to do so though instead becoming trapped by Dan, the leprechaun has the last laugh though causing Dan to have a heart attack.

Tory and J.D. are really in for it though. The guys they have hired to paint, Nathan, his younger brother Alex, and Alex’s friend Ozzie are an interesting bunch. Ozzie, after spilling paint all over himself unleashes the leprechaun and the day takes a turn for the worst. Ozzie and Alex find the gold and J.D. is bit by the leprechaun who is hiding in a tree pretending to be a cat.  J.D. has to be taken to the hospital leaving the younger folks to fend for themselves against the evil leprechaun.

The leprechaun is played by Warwick Davis, I don’t think the franchise would be the same had anyone else got the role of the leprechaun. His makeup is as interesting as it is gruesome while his antics and playfulness bring a lot of whimsical terror to the film. The Leprechaun also happens to be one of Jennifer Aniston’s first film roles. Unfortunately, she’s not too fond of being associated with the film; it’s a shame, really, because she does a fine job in the film. I would have loved to see her in some more horror roles. The character of Ozzie is quite sympathetic as he really is more of a child than his size and age would lead you to believe. Alex although young tries to act more mature than he really is even when he seems to be scared and his brother, the older, stronger, Nathan spends most of the movie injured yet still heroic.

I also happen to love the soundtrack. Especially the little ditty that plays near the beginning that goes, “I say I need a four leaf clover, one that’s strong and won’t blow away. Won’t you be my four leaf clover?, be my lucky charm that’s here to stay.” This movie will always have a special place for me so I’m pretty biased when it comes to it. If you love creature features, practical effects, and humor than this movie will more than likely entertain you. Whether you’re just looking for something to watch this Saint Patrick’s day with your pints and whiskey or you want a unique little feature to watch all year long, Leprechaun is sure to whet your whistle.

Released only three months after the first film in the series, Toshiya Fujita’s replaces Yasuharu Hasebe for the second of five Stray Cat Rock films. No worries — they’ll split directing duties for the rest of these films. This one is concerned with five friends who come up with a plan to rob 30 million yen (about $270,000 in today’s exchange). Meiko Kaji returns from the first film, now the star and no longer the sidekick, although her character has no relation to the first film.

A group of wild young people called the Penguin Club (or Pelicans, I’ve seen it written that way in articles too) who love to play around in their Jeep shoot out the tires of a car driven by a wealthy woman named Asako. They soon set her free, but she’s already fallen for Taki, a member of the gang. She soon tells him that she’s part of a religious group called Shinkyo Gakkai and they could help her be part of a heist to make some real money.

The third entry in the series, Sex Hunter, was filmed at the same time, with Meiko Lee and the Alleycats running back and forth between the sets. That’s pretty crazy.

The Penguin Club goes from rebelling against nothing and doing stupid things like stealing dump trucks to something really foolish: digging up a stash of weapons from the end of the war and fighting the cops. The tone dramatically shifts by the end of the film. I didn’t enjoy this one as much as the first film in the series, but there’s still plenty of good parts.

You can watch this on Amazon Prime or get the Arrow Video box set.

Also known as Alleycat Rock: Female Boss, Female Juvenile Delinquent Leader: Alleycat Rock and Wildcat Rock, Yasuharu Hasebe directed this “violent pink” film, which is stylish yet grim, presenting a Japan that’s been through hell and refuses to look back. Everyone dresses well. Everyone is ready to fight. Everyone is prepared to die.

Roger Corman’s 1966 outlaw biker film The Wild Angels was a surprise hit in Japan. Toei cashed in with their film Delinquent Boss and the Nikkatsu studio went one further with this film, even aping the title of Toei’s film. Despite starting as a ripoff, the Delinquent Girl Boss series lasted for two years and give films which are fondly remembered.

Tough girl biker Ako (pop singer Akiko Wada, who was also the Japanese voice of Marge Simpson) meets Mei (Meiko Kaji!) and the Alleycats as they’re about to have a knife fight in Shinjuku with another gang of girls. Those girls have no honor and call in their men for help, but Ako helps the Alleycats to survive and becomes their leader.

Then, Mei’s boyfriend wants to join the Seiyu Group, a gang of right-wing Yakuza nationalists. To prove he belongs, he must convince his friend Kelly to throw a boxing match. However, the girls change his mind and he wins the fight. That leads to the main conflict of this movie, where the girls are on the run from this powerful gang.

Mei was just a supporting character here, but in the subsequent movies, she became the cool lead that she was meant to be. This movie is all about violence with style, as well as a girl gang that saves men instead of being saved by them. Everything is loud rock and roll, but it doesn’t feel like anyone is going to live forever.

Hasebe wanted to infuse his film with the culture of the time. He attended rock clubs and went to protests. The result was that Nikkatsu saw this movie as the new direction for their studio and moved toward more youth-oriented action films, including the sequel, Stray Cat Rock: Wild Jumbo, which was released only three months later.

The Alleycat Rock series came to an end when Meiko Kaji left the Nikkatsu studio to join Toei and become the star in the Female Prisoner: Scorpion series and Lady Snowblood. Hasebe made his mark, such as it is, on Japanese cinema with his series of even more depraved violent pink films, such as Assault! Jack the Ripper.

You can grab the Arrow box set of the entire series or watch this on Amazon Prime.

Seven mercenaries make up The Glorious Seven in writer-director Harald Franklin’s homage to Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 film The Seven Samurai.

The film has already been remade before. In 1960, director John Sturges turned it into The Magnificent Seven, which led to three sequels, Return of the Seven, Guns of the Magnificent Seven and The Magnificent Seven Ride. There was also a TV series that lasted from 1998-2000. In turn, it was remade in 2016.

The A-Team was another sort of remake that combined The Magnificent Seven with The Dirty Dozen. It was to originally star James Coburn, who played Britt in the film as Hannibal. That role went to George Peppard and Robert Vaughn, who played Lee in Sturges’ film, would appear in the final season of the show.

Speaking of Peppard and Vaughn, they both show up in another Seven Samurai reimagining, 1980’s Battle Beyond the Stars, with Vaughn playing nearly the exact same role as Gelt, down to even some of the same dialogue. It’s an intended homage, as the planet they seven defend in this film is called Akir, named for Seven Samurai director Akira Kurosawa.

That movie also features Sybil Danning, who would go on to be in yet another Seven Samurai-inspired movie, Seven Magnificent Gladiators.

The opening credits of The Glorious Seven directly reference both Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven by showing how each character in this movie relates to who they were inspired by in those films, including Yul Brenner’s Chris Adama and Toshiro Mifune’s Kikuchiyo. That’s pretty audacious and a lot for any movie to live up to.

Ex-military commander David Guerra has been hired by a crooked millionaire to rescue his wife, who was kidnapped by the leader of a guerrilla group. So he recruits six of his former special forces buddies to be part of his impossible mission.

The issue here is that the filmmakers want us to believe that this is a heartfelt homage to the films that inspired it — the aforementioned credits sequence pretty much shouts that out loud — yet the mission isn’t to protect people who can’t defend themselves. Instead, it’s to rescue the kept wife of an evil man who we’re shown is wrong in no uncertain terms.

Instead, this is simply an action movie with leanings toward being seen in the same light as the aforementioned films. It can’t live up to that, no matter how many MMA fights and bullets get fired. It’s fine at that, but when judged against to the movies that it makes a direct comparison to in the opening credits, it can’t help but suffer.

Glorious Seven is available on demand and on DVD as of March 12.

DISCLAIMER: We were sent this movie by its PR firm, but that doesn’t impact our review.

Guillermo del Toro often refers to Lucio Fulci as a director who “gets high on his own supply.” Me? I’d love to know whatever Sergio Martino started mainlining around 1979.

Starting with 1971’s The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, Martino cut a bloody path through the giallo genre, aided and abetted by the ultra adorable Edwige Fenech and the glaring eyes of Ivan Rassimov, amongst others. Just the titles of them make me excited: All the Colors of the Dark, Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail, Torso (also known as The Bodies Bear Traces of Carnal Violence), The Suspicious Death of a Minor…these are the movies that I adore.

Sergio then started jumping genres, making movies for whatever trend was hot. Sex comedies? Try Sex with a Smile with Fenech, Barbara Bouchet and Marty Feldman. Cannibal films? Sergio made The Mountain of the Cannibal God. Nature on the loose, kinda like Jaws? Here’s The Great Alligator. Post-apocalyptic film? 2019: After the Fall of New York does that.

But then, Sergio starts getting nuttier. His movies start to combine genres into things you had no idea you wanted to see. Comedy movies with tons of cameos from soccer players like L’allenatore Nel Pallone. Hands of Steel, which combines The Terminator, The Road Warrior and arm wrestling ala Over the Top into a truly baffling cocktail. Then there’s American Tiger, a movie where a gymnast battles the forces of televangelist/warthog Donald Pleasance when he’s not pulling a rickshaw or having sex in the shower with his jeans still on.

Whatever supply Sergio started getting high on around 1978 or so, I want some of it. And I want it now. Because he takes that same lunatic zeal into this movie, which combines movies about amphibians, Atlantis and cannibals into one confusing yet arresting mess. How did you do it, Sergio?

Originally released as Isle of the Fishmen in his native Italy, this movie was acquired in the U.S. by New World Pictures. Miller Drake was hired to create a new opening for the film, which features Cameron Mitchell and Mel Ferrer looking for Atlantean treasure on an island before getting messily killed by fishmen. Retitled Something Waits in the Dark, the movie didn’t do well.

Then, Jim Wynorski (Chopping Mall, Sorceress) recut and reedited the movie as Screamers, including a new scene where a man is turned inside out. Nearly half an hour of the Italian version of the film was chopped out to make room for the American footage in both movies.

Let’s get into it: In the year 1891, Lieutenant Claude de Ross (Claudio Cassinelli, Zeus from Hercules, Murder Rock) survives two shipwrecks in a row to wash up on an uncharted island in the Caribbean. Soon, we meet the fishmen who start killing off anyone who comes near them, like the convicts Claude survived with. They run into the jungle, only to meet our villain, Edmond Rackham (Richard Johnson, Dr. Menard from Zombi).

Rackham also has Professor Ernest Marvin (Joseph Cotten!) and his daughter Amanda (Barbara Bach, future wife of Ringo Starr) captive, using the Professor’s scientific abilities to create more amphibious monsters that he can control. Turns out he’s told the Professor that these transformed humans can help save the world by creating people who can live off the ocean’s resources. Sure. Whatever.

The truth? They’ve found Atlantis and these creatures are being used to steal the treasures of that sunken continent. Also: Rackham has another army, all voodoo warriors and a priestess named Shakira who keeps reading from her prophecy of the island’s destruction.

Of course all hell is about to break loose. How couldn’t it? There are so many ingredients in this stew, it just had to boil over at some point.

This movie is completely ridiculous, which is shorthand for me saying that I loved it. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, which is exactly what I was hoping for. I came to this wanting to see underwater creatures kill people and I got that, plus voodoo, Atlantis and Barbara Bach. Thanks Sergio!

Sergio Martino would come back to this story sixteen years later, making a sequel called The Fishmen and Their Queen.

You can get this from Ronin Flix or watch it on Amazon Prime.

Somebody, somewhere, probably in South Africa where this was made, thought that Space Mutiny was a good idea. Certainly, it has an all-star cast (well, for me). It has great special effects (stolen from Battlestar Galactica). And it has…well, nothing else going for it. I really can’t even fathom how anyone looked at the final results and said, “Cut. Print. Magic.”

This entire movie takes place on the Southern Sun, a generation ship that carries a large number of families on their way to colonize a new world. For over thirteen generations, it has seen people live and die who will never leave the walls of the ship until it reaches its destination.

The fact that he’ll never leave the ship and see another planet doesn’t feel right to Elijah Kalgan (Danger: Diabolik star John Philip Law!). Along with the ship’s Chief Engineer and some space pirates, he uses the ship’s police group, the Enforcers, to hijack the Southern Sun and take it toward another system. Hence, a Space Mutiny.

As all of this is happening, an important professor is about to visit the ship. He dies as his shuttle lands, but his pilot, Dave Ryder (Reb Brown, who is Yor, Hunter from the Future!) survives. For weeks, Kalgan takes over the ship while the flight deck is sealed off. But Commander Jansen (Cameron Mitchell!) has a plan. Ruder and Jansen’s daughter Dr. Lea Jansen (Cisse Cameron, whose first movie was Billy Jack) will take back the ship.

Yes, this is a Star Wars ripoff bold enough to call a female character Lea and have her look pretty much exactly like Debbie Reynolds. It’s also rife with errors, supposedly because its original director, Dave Winters, was called away because of a death in the family. Winters also directed the filmed concert of Alice Cooper’s Welcome to My Nightmare, The Last Horror Film with Joe Spinell and Caroline Munro and, of course, Thrashin’, a movie that was constantly checked out of my local video store.

For example, the engineering areas of the ship were filmed in an industrial building with very 1980’s looking brick walls and concrete floors. The bridge? That should look high tech, right? Nope. It literally looks like an office cubicle farm. And while the guys wear silver or white jumpsuits, the ladies for some reason all get to wear spandex camel toe creations.

Why should we be upset that one of the officers, Lt. Lemont, is dramatically killed off in a scene when she shows up just fine in the very next one? And be on the look out for that Lorne Greene cameo via a stock shot of the bridge! Truly, Space Mutiny is a movie above such concerns. I mean, how do you can explain a ship that is in space, but the windows show blue skies outside?

Cameron Mitchell made this one a family affair, with his daughter Camille Mitchell doing the voice for an alien named Jennara and his son Chip is in this as Blake, a mustachioed member of Kalgan’s gang.

You have to see Space Mutiny to believe it. You can watch it on Amazon Prime, or choose to see it with either Mystery Science Theater 3000 or Rifftrax commentary.