Also known as The Surabaya Conspiracy, Stoney stars Barbara Bouchet as Irene Stone, who has a plan to recover treasure hidden in a vault under a rich man’s swimming pool.
Director Wray Davis’ only film, this movie makes little to no sense. Seriously, I’m someone who can make it through nearly any foreign post-apocalyptic or slasher film and even I had issues with this one.
Michael Preston (Road Warrior) is in this, as is Michael Rennie (Klaatu from The Day the Earth Stood Still), Richard Jaeckel and Vic Diaz (Beyond Atlantis, The Big Bird Cage and so many other Filipino movies).
I really wanted to like this more than I did. But there we have it — even a movie with Barbara Bouchet running around nearly nude can be boring.
“It’s time for your upgrade. It’s not gonna hurt.” —the Man in Black
Frank, a burnt out architect, quits his job to become a filmmaker and create a star-making role for Sara, his actress-girlfriend. Of course, she leaves him. Or did she? He did fantasize he killed his boss, after all.
Frank’s subsequent web searchers to prepare for his film (e.g., Egyptian hieroglyphs, atomic testing, surveillance) place him on the radar of a dark government project in need of a test subject for their new device—a device that results in his inner demons to physically manifest. Or have they? Is he being followed? Is the mysterious woman he met through a dating app part of the conspiracy? Is she even real? Why can Frank perceive the primary colors of red and green, but not blue?
Ambiguity and interpretation is afoot in this indie writing and directing debut by Fernando Castro Sanguino, which reminds of the low budget sci-fi introductions to the works of Darren Aronofsky with Pi and Shane Carruth with Primer, as well as the late Anthony Anderson’s VHS-obscure, Interface (1984).
Astute film lovers will notice Sanguino’s homages to Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris and Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver in the disillusioned, downward spiral of his trouble architect-cum-filmmaker, along with the ugly-truth revelations of the Coen Brother’s Barton Fink. To classify Double Riddle as a sci-fi version of the Christian Bale-starring The Machinist isn’t far off the mark, either. Personally, I’d go as far as to say Sanguino has crafted a low-budget version of David Cronenberg’s Videodrome—using the internet instead of cable television.
This hour-long experimental film is a debut that fires on all the cylinder-disciplines of writing, directing, cinematography, and acting—and worth the psychological trip. Yeah, this rates alongside and inspires me to re-watch Elisa Fuksas’s really fine The App (2020), as well as Jason Lester’s High Resolution (2019).
After a successful film festival run, Fernando Castro Sanguino released Double Riddle as a free-with-limited-ads stream on Tubi via Indie Rights Movies.
Disclaimer: We didn’t receive a screener copy of Double Riddlefrom the film’s PA firm or distributor. We discovered this movie all on our own and genuinely enjoyed the film.
About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook.He also writes for B&S About Movies.
Join Sam as he strives to keep you entertained with the end of the C’s and gets into the D’s of he and Becca’s movie collection. Thrill to multipacks! Enjoy the bootlegs! See Sam get embarrassed that he has so many chick flicks!
Henry Levin would direct the next two Matt Helm movies, starting with Murderer’s Row. He had some spy experience, having directed Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die.
This one starts off with a literal bang, as the Big O blows up the U.S. Capitol building with a heliobeam. Matt Helm better stop taking pictures of supermodels and start doing what he does best. No, not drinking. Killing enemy agents. But first, he has to fake his own death.
Karl Mulden is the main villain, Julian Wall, while Ann-Margaret plays the daughter of the scientist that Helm must recapture or kill. Camilla Sparv, who was once married to Robert Evans, shows up as a femme fatale, as does Playmate of the Month for May 1958, Corinne Cole (she used the fake name Lari Laine as her father was running for Congress at the time).
Beach movie regular Mary Hughes — she’s also one of the female robots in Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine— is here as Miss September. She used to date Jeff Beck and the Yardbirds song “Psycho Daisies” mentions here twice.
Jan Watson, another of Goldfoot’s robots and Levin’s wife for some time, is on hand, as is Jacqueline Fontaine (one-time comedy party of Duke Mitchell and one of the Outlaw Women in that Ron Ormond film) and Miss California 1964 Amadee Chabot.
Beverly Adams returns as Helms’ assistant Lovey Kravezit, James Gregory is back as his boss MacDonald and the singing group Dino, Desi and Billy — featuring Dean’s son Dean Paul Martin from Misfits of Science — make an appearance. Look out for Soon Tek-Oh (Colonel Yin from Missing In Action 2)!
The funny thing is, despite this being a spoof, the Bond movies would come to rip it off. For example, in Diamonds Are Forever, SPECTRE threatens the world with a heliobeam from an orbiting satellite. Ironhead (Tom Reese, the sheriff from Vanishing Point) the villain of this film, is a lot like Jaws in The Spy Who Loved Me. And the hovercraft chase and Hugo Drax in Moonraker are a lot like scenes and the villain of this movie.
Based on a novel by Umberto Lenzi — and directed by him — this Bond clone starts Roger Browne (The Spy Who Loved Flowers, Emanuelle in America) as Agent Superseven Martin Stevens. He’s joined by Fabienne Dali (Kill, Baby, Kill), Massimo Serato (Autopsy, The Blood Stained Shadow), Rosalba Neri (The Arena) and Paolo Bonacelli, who has the disturbing movie daily double of being in both Salo and Caligula.
A new radioactive metal has been found and its up to our hero to go to Cairo to find it. This means that he must, of course, romance the ladies and kill several people. You know what it’s like for those 1960’s spies.
Made in the dairy state of Wisconsin, this tale of a struggling family-run meat shop — which learns how to cook up human flesh to become a success — is blessed by a vocal cameo from the Godfather of Gore, Herschell Gordon Lewis.
It’s the first feature from writer, producer and director Jeff Lyon.
The Lewis cameo makes sense. This movie feels like something he would do, as it’s as much concerned with being humorous as it is with being gross. It also looks way better than most streaming features, which is another bonus. I look forward to seeing what the filmmakers do next.
Wild Eye Releasing was kind enough to send us this movie on DVD, but you can also watch this right now on Amazon Prime and Tubi.
Licence to Kill is a film of firsts and lasts. It was the first film in the Bond series to not use the title of an Ian Fleming story. And the first time that a Bond girl — Pam Bouvier (Carey Lowell) — would ever drink one of 007’s signature vodka-martini cocktails.
It’s the final Bond film to be directed by John Glen, the last to feature actors Robert Brown as M and Caroline Bliss as Miss Moneypenny, and the final Bond film for screenwriter Richard Maibaum, composer John Barry, title designer Maurice Binder, producer Albert R. Broccoli and lead actor Timothy Dalton.
As Felix Leiter has his leg torn apart by a shark and his young wife is killed on the day of their marriage, Bond has a flashback to the events of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Now, he will have his revenge — which echoes both Yojimbo and the spaghetti remake of that film, A Fistful of Dollars — in the most violent and brutal Bond film until Daniel Craig took the role.
Robert Davi is great as this film’s heavy, Franz Sanchez, Latin America’s most powerful drug lord who has been wanted by the DEA for years. After Bond and Leiter bust him, he pays his way out — Everett McGill (Reverend Lowe from Silver Bullet and Daddy from The People Under the Stairs) is the corrupt DEA man — and attacks the CIA agent and kills his wife (Priscilla Barnes).
Making this film even better is the fact that Sanchez’s henchmen — and women — are all played by great talents. Anthony Zerbe (The Omega Man and, yes KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park), Talisa Soto (Mortal Kombat) and an amazingly young Benicio del Toro excel in this film. Even Wayne Newton shows up in this!
Now, it was time for the Bond franchise to reinvent itself all over again. Luckily, there was someone waiting in the wings who was ready to be 007 for literally decades.
Sixteen-year-old Sam could not be a bigger fan of Glenn Danzig. I combed my hair in a devilock, despite it being nearly a decade since The Misfits broke up in 1983. I devoured everything Plan 9 released, still love Samhain to this day and listened to the self-titled Danzig album so many times that there was no printed copy on either side of the cassette.
Right around Danzig 4, though, I kind of stopped enjoying his output. By Danzig 5 – blackacidevil — and its flirtations with industrial, the departure of the band’s classic line-up and leaving Rick Rubin’s American Records, I was pretty much done with Glenn’s musical output. Sure, I’d check out his comics and listen to every new release, but there wasn’t much for me to enjoy any longer.
No harm. No foul. People grow up, bands change. But man — I still go back to everything before 1996 and cut Glenn Allen Anzalone a wide berth, even when he defends Trump’s policies or people send around memes of him. Because I remember when I was a kid — like Ragman in Trick or Treat — and Glenn and horror movies provided me with an escape from my small-minded hometown.
That said, after hearing about this movie, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. As you may know, I do so adore auteur projects, movies with rock stars and when things go off the rails. This film promised — and delivered — on all three.
At Chicago’s Cinepocalypse last year, Danzig claimed that he was inspired by Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath and that the movie was his vision alone. No Hollywood suits had gotten in the way of pure, high octane Danzig here.
The funny thing is, on his way to making a Bava film, Glenn ended up making a late period straight to video Jess Franco movie instead.
I leave it up to you and your sense of taste as to whether or not that’s a good or bad thing.
In the first story, The Albino Spider of Dajette, an albino man spider — he got that way when a hooker with eyeballs for nipples named Dajette cried on him — talks dirty to several more prostitutes and then he snaps their necks. That’s it, that’s the tweet as they say. Dajette is played by Ashley Wisdom, who may be better known as adult film star Rachele Richey, who has worked with Rocco Siffredi, speaking of people I have idolized since my teen years.
Scotch Hopkins, who plays the spider-man named, well, The Albino Spider, spent eight hours a day getting into this makeup. Also: everyone in this scene seems to have a French accent.
Yes, for those of you wondering even more, is that Veronica Ricci from Bright Business Girls Learn Hard Bondage Lessons? Yes. It is.
The second story is called Change of Face and it’s all about a mysterious woman who strips several times and then cuts off women’s faces and sticks them to the wall. Does she want your skull? Does she need your skull? Who can say.
Beyond the starring Rachel Alig, this segment features a cameo by pro wrestler Sean “X-Pac” Waltman, along with London May (drummer and bassist from Samhain), adult stars Bobbi Dylan, Felicity Feline, Aaliyah Hadid and Katrina Jade, as well as reality star Courtney Stodden.
I don’t tell you that there are adult film stars in this to shame them or you for enjoying this. No, I’m telling you so that you understand Danzig’s id and the fact that there are three strip club scenes just within this one segment.
Finally, Drukija Contessa of Blood has Alice Haig as, you guessed it, Drukija, who is a contessa who finds young virgins, feeds them to her wolves and eats the rest when she isn’t covering herself in their blood and spending time staring at herself in the mirror.
Amongst the virgins are — yes, adult star — Emma Hix and Caroline Williams — Stretch! — plays a peasant woman.
Doesn’t this sound like Elizabeth Bathory? Yes. Of course it does. It’s as if the box art from a Redemption film was the actual movie. Which is, I guess, exactly what it is.
If you read these accountings and say, well, surely some moments of surprise or pathos happened, no. They don’t. Much like, well, gonzo pornography, each scene exists to give you what you want: blood, beasts and babes. Is it any accident that Kayden Kross is hosting the whole film as Morella, a woman who starts the movie by stabbing out a naked woman’s eyes?
The thing is, there’s promise. Danzig obviously knows who Fulci and Bava are, can recognize a great camera angle and gives horror viewers pretty much what they want, without any of the art or good taste or cutting away from scenes when they end like a normal director would.
Was I entertained? Holy shitballs, yes I was entertained. It was like a Tim Vigil comic come to life and I felt just as weird when he asked me at a convention if I was too big of a pussy to hang a Faust spread of a deadly orgy on my teenage bedroom walls.
Obviously, Glenn doesn’t care what you or I think about this movie. Which is really how it should be. It’s better than the majority of direct to streaming stuff you’ll watch, it’s definitely a singular vision and well, it made me forget the troubles of the world. Isn’t that what movies should do?
You can order this movie directly from the Bandcamp page or get it from MVD. It’s also available on demand from most streaming services.
Thanks to MVD for sending us this movie. Obviously, their generosity had nothing to do with this review.
UPDATE: This is now available on Shudder and you should 100% watch it.
While not wholly original, this micro-budgeted, meta pseudo-sequel ended up being an entertaining work that led me to reminisce of the VHS home video days of Charles Band’s Full Moon universe when he’d converge the timelines of his oeuvre (e.g, Dollman from Dollman shows up Dollman vs. Demonic Toys, Dollgirl from Bad Channels shows up in Dollman, etc.).
Look out. I really enjoyed this movie. And in my glee I’m gonna plot-spoil it!
In addition to Mr. Band, this second indie film from writer-director John R. Walker (who debuted with 2015’s fun-to-watch The Amityville Playhouse) also harkens Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm. Now don’t get worked up. I’m not saying Ouijageist is as good as Phantasm: I speak of Walker eschewing the awful CGI effects of today’s low budget horror films for budgetary-but-effective practical (in camera) effects and homage touches. (And Ouijageist’s sometimes too loud to-the-point-of-distraction synth-piano track is no Fred Myrow or Pino Donaggio masterpiece by any means. But Argento always cranked the music on his films, so maybe it’s a Goblin homage?)
And if that celluloid reminiscing doesn’t hook you, perhaps the meta aspect will: John R. Walker returns as “Peter Sommers,” who also appeared in Ghoul (2020), Meathook Massacre 4 (2018), and Amityville: Evil Never Dies (2015) alongside Lesley Scoble, aka Karen Harper, from Walker’s The Amityville Playhouse (2015). And if the meta aspects of the film don’t entice you to hit the big red streaming button, perhaps ye curiosity seekers of classic sci-fi and horror will recognize the name of Lesley Scoble as one of the creepy village children in 1960’s Village of the Damned.
Now, if you haven’t “geist,” this is a tale of an errant witchboard, aka Ouija board, and the malicious spirits it conjures from the beyond via the stupidity of the curious (that’s not an insult to Walker’s writing; all characters in horror films are too curious and dumb for their own good, natch). Like Eddie Murphy pointed out: Why don’t white people just get the fuck out of the house? And why didn’t Tom Selleck burn the painting in Daughters of Satan? Why do Paul Naschy’s warriors of evil in Horror Rises from the Tomb wait until the third act to pull out the ancient amulet? So let’s cut young India a break, okay?
Single mum India (Lois Wilkenson, affable in her acting debut) and her baby daughter Emily have moved out of their cramped apartment into a rental home owned by a friend of her mom Karen (Lesley Scoble). And during the course of moving in, her mischievous dog digs up the ubiquitous box in the backyard (now where have I seen that before?).
Oh, before I forget: Did you know that the board was responsible for a Swiss banker killing six people . . . then disappearing? Well, that’s what you get for not paying attention to the expositional news report. Eh, that’s okay. Neither did India’s friend Becca who, regardless of the word “Witchboard” wood burned into the box’s lid, decides it would be fun to play with the board inside.
Well, that didn’t take long. . . .
Becca’s pushed down the stairs, Emily’s blocks are spelling words, Mungo the dog (Pixie) is seeing things others don’t, Emily’s boiling in the bathtub, Mungo’s been decapitated, a garden hose takes on a serpent-like quality and kills a handyman, a Phantasm-styled creature jumps out of the sink drain, and Emily’s ex Paul does a Bruce Campbell with some pentagram body boils and scares the tea bags off of some coffee house patrons. Yep, the poltershites hittin’ the fan. Nope, Emily’s isn’t swallowed by the TV. But still . . . we better call Rod Steiger. Uh, we can’t. He’s dead. Eh, Father West and Bishop Chapman will have to do. Shite, that didn’t work. Here comes The Evil Dead siege. Does anyone pull a Linda Blair spiderwalk? Nope. (That’s too expensive a homage for the budget.) Does that six-armed Kâli from the cover show up? Nope. (But since when does anything from a horror box’s cover art actually appear in the film? Case in point: there’s no ponytailed, plaid skirted schoolgirl—complete with ax and skull mask—in the frames of One Night in October, either.) Is India accused of three murders? Does she vanish like the Swiss banker? Does her landlord play his cards close to the chest? Check, check, and check (just like a Paul Naschy movie).
Writer-director John R. Walker started out as a background and day player in the late ‘90s on several top-rated British programmes (Hollyoaks, Coronation Street, Emmerdale, Doctor Who) and made what we here at B&S About Movies think is a pretty decent writing and directing debut with one of the better Amityville mocksequels, with the aforementioned The Amityville Playhouse.
While Ouijageist certainly doesn’t live up to its press release claim as a “frightening new supernatural spooker in the tradition of The Conjuring,” it presents genre homages that an Argento and Coscarelli fan like myself appreciates. Walker does a commendable job with his slight budgets and unknown actors, so it will be interesting to see what he comes up with on his currently in-development/productions Blood Bride and the Demons from Hell (great exploitive title), The Great British Massacre, and the oh-so-Italian retro zombie romp, Hell of the Screaming Dead (it’s all about the poster!).
Ouijageist made its U.S debut on DVD and VOD on April 14 via Wide Eye Releasing. You can stream it on Amazon Prime and learn more about the film at its official Facebook page.
About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook.He also writes forB&S About Movies.
Disclaimer: This movie was sent to us by its PR department. As always: you know that has nothing to do with our feelings on the movie.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This review originally ran on December 3, 2019. As part of our month of all things James Bond, it’s back, thanks to it featuring the same Nancy Sinatra song from 1966’s The Last of the Secret Agents?
It’s always intriguing to me when I look up a director and discover that I’ve watched more of their films than I realized. Case in point — Jon Amiel. As I started writing this article about The Man Who Knew Too Little, I was surprised to learn that I’d seen so many of his films, like Copycat, Entrapment and The Core.
Beyond its title being a play on Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much, it was written by British musician Robert Farrar, whose book Watch That Man was the inspiration for the movie, and Howard Franklin, who co-wrote and co-directed Quick Change with Bill Murray.
Speaking of Bill Murray…
This movie wouldn’t work with anyone else. As Wallace Ritchie, he’s an idiotic everyman that you just have to fall in love with. As he goes to London to visit his brother James (Peter Gallagher), he’s set up to be part of an interactive improv theater group. Nine years before The Game, a very similar series of events occurs.
Joanna Whalley, who was once married to Val Kilmer and was a member of the post-punk Manchester music scene, shows up as a femme fatale. And Alfred Molina is wonderful in his role as an assassin.
In a perfect world, they would have made numerous versions of this. Think of it as an American Mr. Bean.
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