When you see the names Brian Trenchard-Smith and Nico Mastorakis listed as producers, you know that you’re probably getting into something good. Also known as Demon Island, this film was directed by Richard Jeffries, who is probably better known for the films that he’s written like Scarecrows and Cold Creek Manor. He’s only directed one other film, the 2008 TV movie Living Hell.

It’s funny, when I discussed this movie earlier today with Bill from Groovy Doom, he referred to it as “the monster movie with no monster.” That’s an apt description.

It’s also about a treasure hunter named Frye (James Earl Jones) whose underwater scavenging brings back an ancient sea monster that demands virgin blood.

Meanwhile, Neil and Sherry (Martin Kove and Mary Louise Weller, who appeared in Q The Winged Serpent the same year as this movie) have come to the island looking for his missing sister Madeline (Deborah Shelton, who also sings the song over the end credits with her then-husband Shuki Levy). Plus, Lydia Cornell stops hanging out with Cosmic Cow on Too Close for Comfort and shows up as Jones’ girlfriend.

Inexplicably, Lila Kedrova from Zorba the Greek and Jose Farrar — well, he’s less of a surprise as Jose may have been the first actor to win the National Medal of Arts, but he’s also in spectacular junk like The Sentinel, Bloody Birthday and The Being — both appear.

Arrow’s write-up promised “blood, nudity and beachside aerobics.” This delivered, as well as some great dream sequences and moments where beachfront rituals seem to go on forever. That said, I had a blast with this movie, as any film that has Martin Kove skipping around the waves holding a miniature engine while the ladies go wild and James Earl Jones yells at everyone will hold my attention.

Arrow has, as always, gone all out on this. Beyond the 1080p presentation — making this look so much better than it ever has before — they went out and got new audio commentary from director/co-writer Jefferies and a newly-filmed interview with producer/co-writer Mastorakis. The Graham Humphreys cover art is more than worth the price of this disc, too.

You can order this from Arrow Video, who were kind enough to send us a copy.

I have often commented that I sometimes worry that someday I may hit the bottom of the well, that nothing strange will exist any longer in film to delight me. That said, thanks to movies like this, which I didn’t even know existed until Arrow Video was kind enough to send me a copy, prove to me that there will always be something odder, stranger and more screwed up to watch.

Teruo Ishii made movies like Yakuza Law and Horrors of Malformed Men, but this was the sixth in his series of abnormal love movies. It’s all about the high demand for tattooed geishas and the rivalry that builds between two highly skilled masters of tattoo.

Unable to repay a local lender, Yumi is serving as a kept woman for two years, but soon learns that this is a house of pain, not pleasure. From the moment this movie begins, there’s a shocking amount of violence displayed. But the main reason to stick around is that there is so much incredible tattoo art on display, as the women’s bodies become the space where war is declared bweeen the two artists. And when the madam learns that one of them, Horihide, has noble intentions, she plans on making everyone pay.

There’s a scene in this movie where a geisha has glow in the dark tattoos that come to neon life the drunker she gets on sake. For that alone, this is totally worth a watch.

Ishii made two other movies before this that are in the same genre, Shogun’s Joy of Torture and Orgies of Edo. From most accounts, he went way beyond the bounds making this one, depicting Japan’s Edo period in perhaps the most perverse — and one assumes, crowd pleasing — ways possible.

You can get this from Arrow Video, who have given this grimy movie all the attention that Criterion would bequeath to an Oscar winning classic from the 1940’s.

DISCLAIMER: This was sent to us by Arrow Video.

Yes, there was already Jerry Warren’s The Wild World of Batwoman back in 1966, but now Rene Cardona is on the job. Yes, the same man who made Santa Claus and Night of the Bloody Apes, so you know that this movie is going to be chock full of completely baffling plot points, lots of surgery scenes and no short amount of lucha libre.

Maura Monti was so attractive that she played two alien women — too gorgeous to even be from this mudball — in Santo vs. the Martian Invasion and El Planeta de las Mujeres Invasoras. Here, she’s Batwoman.

In our reality, Batman is a rich kid with PTSD that beats up on criminals instead of donating his money to ways that would stop systemic racism and the cultural oppression that leads to crime in the first place. In the world of this movie, Batwoman is a well-to-do woman who is a high level pro wrestler who finds herself battling mad scientists who have learned how to create gill men.

I know which world that I want to live in.

This is available from VCI on blu ray, along with Las Mujeres Panteras, which you can get on Amazon.

You can also watch this on YouTube.

Poison for the Fairies was directed by Carlos Enrique Taboada, who wrote the Nostradamus series of vampire movies and also directed Even the Wind Is Afraid, Blacker than the Night and The Book of Stone. This film earned him two Ariel Awards, which are the Mexican equivalent of the Oscar, for Best Picture and Best Director.

If you’re a fan of young girls dabbling in witchcraft — and I think by now the movies that I talk about proves that this genre is beloved here — then get ready.

Veronica is an orphan that lives in a crumbling house with her near-dead grandmother and a nanny who has told her all about the power of witchcraft. Any other child would be afraid. Our heroine uses these stories to protect herself against the bullies of her school.

She finally gains a friend in Flavia, a wealthy girl who was raised to be an atheist. Veronica keeps bragging that she’s an actual witch and the cause of so much of the bad luck that this small Mexican village has been suffering through. Within days, Flavia is so afraid of Veronica that she will do anything she asks, even giving her some of her most prized possessions and obeying her every whim, even taking her on vacation with her family.

As they spend time in the country, Veronica says that she plans on making poison for the fairies, the natural enemies of las brujas. Flavia, pushed to the point of mania, locks the girl in a barn and watches it burn, ridding the world of witchcraft or, at least, one young girl who pushed her to the brink of madness.

I’ve never seen a movie quite like this. I’d say that it fits into the realm of folk horror, ala The Blood on Satan’s Claw, but filtered through Mexico’s unique co-existence of a magical realm and a very real Catholic world. The barn closing also reminds me of another film that is somewhat forgotten, The Other. Malevolent children in both of these films also learn to harness forces — perhaps more real in these examples than Veneno Para las Hadas — that they ultimately cannot truly ever hope to understand.

Alex Essoe was the star of one of my favorite films, Starry Eyes, and showed up as Wendy in Dr. Sleep. Here, she plays Michelle, a newlywed interior designer who gets snared up in the life of Linda (Precious Chong, who is great here), a woman who seemingly spends her entire day in exercise classes. Their chance meeting is something way more than it seems however, in a movie that is a social media update to Misery.

Chong and Essoe wrote the script with director Zach Gayne and there’s a real joy here in the way the actresses get to communicate back and forth. The truth serum idea, where Linda just wants Michelle to tell her the truth — and then hates every minute of it — is inspired.

Gayne also directed a movie called States that we watched last year that stood out for its dialogue and willingness to get weird. I’m excited to see what he does next, as I’ve found so much to enjoy in both of his films that I’ve seen so far.

Homewrecker will be released in select theaters on June 26. It will then be released on demand and on DVD on July 7.

DISCLAIMER: We were sent this movie by its PR company.

The tagline for this movie is “We’re gonna need a bigger board.” No matter how bad this was going to be, I knew that I had to see it. A title like this certainly takes some balls.

Brett Kelly also directed Raiders of the Lost Shark and Jurassic Shark, so it seems as if this is some kind of fetish or something for him. It takes all kinds, you know.

A group of teenage girls find a spirit board on the beach and decide to use it to, well, who knows why they decide to use it. But before you can say “blood in the water,” an ancient shark has washed up and begun to kill everyone. Hopefully, that occult specialist can get rid of this spirit shark before it’s too late.

I thought Shark Exorcist and Amityville Island were the best shark themed movie ideas of the last few years. I was wrong. That said, the idea is, as nearly always when discussing movies like this, way better than the execution. Great poster. Great title. Better tagline. Worse actual follow through.

Ouija Shark is now available on demand and on DVD from Wild Eye Releasing. We also recently reviewed Kelly’s previous outing, Countrycide, also available through Wild Eye.

DISCLAIMER: This was sent to us by Wild Eye Releasing.

Adventures In the Center of the Earth is the translation for this film, which follows a crew of explorers as they try to find the reason why a young man was killed and his girlfriend driven mad.

Director Alfredo B. Crevenna had a few Santo movies to his credit, but that did not prepare me for this sojourn, as that injured girl joins the brave band who head deep, deep into the Earth, so far down that they meet a cyclops, a spider and a giant bat that falls in love with the aforementioned Hilda Ramirez (Kitty de Hoyos, who was the villainess in the astounding La Loba).

There’s also footage that feels like it didn’t come from this movie at all — one assumes it’s from 1940’s One Million B.C. —  and all of the monsters look like they’re in a totally different room and have much better masks when they get their closeups, which only adds to the charm of this movie.

I’ve seen so many movies that go to the center of our world and they are all boring. This one is anything but, so if anyone ever says, “What’s the best center of the Earth movie?” you can confidently answer with this one.

You can watch this on YouTube to see if I’m right.