In the medieval Japan that only appears in fantasy, a court astrologer foretells a great disturbance that could cause the end of the kingdom of Emperor Suzaku. The astrologer’s wife wants one of his two proteges, Doman, to take over for her husband, while Yasunori — the more idealistic of his disciples — just wants the love of the seer adopted daughter Sakaki.

This leads to Yasunori the astrologer’s wife plotting his murder, which ends up with the old man and Sakaki dead. Yasunori is blamed when he kills the woman in a rage, takes the old man’s Chinese book of secrets and runs on a journey with no destination into the woods.

Soon, he’s gone mad, but will soon meet the daughter’s long lost sister Kuzunoha, fall in love and then learn that she’s a fox in human form.

This movie has never been available outside of Japan. Get ready — it looks unlike any movie I’ve ever seen from that country.

This is a movie that combines stage play, animation, butoh dance, kabuki and expressionist filmmaking to create something truly wondrous.

Known as Koiya Koi Nasuna Koi (Love, Thy Name Be Sorrow), this was directed by Tomu Uchida, who once left Japan to be part of the Chinese Communist cause. He took the name Tomu as it means “to spit out dreams.”

This is now available from Arrow Video, who has released it on blu ray with a new Toei restoration.

DISCLAIMER: This movie was sent to us by Arrow Video.

We’ve already discussed the lunacy of Jerry Warren and his movie The Wild World of Batwoman a while back. That’s not the only bonkers movie that he’d ever make. Let’s take this movie, which is really La Casa del Terror and La Momia Azteca mixed into a new movie, along with footage that Warren shot just for this new effort. You think Puffy invented the remix? Check in with Jerry.

Warren took his scissors to all of the comedy scenes of Tin-Tan from Casa del Terror, replacing them with the Lon Chaney Jr. footage from La Momia Azteca. This wasn’t anything new for him, as he’d already released Attack of the Mayan Mummy the previous year, replacing most of that movie with newly filmed American footage. And he’d use footage from that movie to make this!

He also took two Chilean movies — La Casa esta Vacia (The House is Empty) and La Dama de La Muerte (The Lady of Death) and made Curse of the Stone Hand.

I have no idea what drive-in fans thought, thinking they’d probably seen this movie before because they totally had. They just didn’t have IMDB to look it up.

A psychic named Ann Taylor — no relation to Ann Taylor or her Loft — goes back to her past life and leads a team of archaeologists to an Aztec pyramid with two mummified bodies, one being an Aztec warrior and the other a werewolf, who just so happens to be Lon Chaney Jr., who is white and not Mexico and no one ever brings that up.

The craziest thing then happens: the Aztec warrior escapes and kidnaps the psychic. They both get hit by a car and that’s it. They’re out of the movie, never to be seen again, because they’re dead. We’re only told this fact by a newspaper that spins on to the camera.

This is the Face of the Screaming Werewolf, after all. Not the Faces of the Screaming Warrior and the Aztec Mummy.

Meanwhile, Lon Chaney Jr. goes full lycan, kills the scientist who revived him and then is stopped by Tin-Tin, who shows up out of nowhere because he’d been edited out of the movie up until now. Yes, this nameless hero just shows up unannounced and murders the werewolf with a torch, just like he did in La Casa del Terror, but now without the benefit of a lick of context.

To top that all off, two cops then discuss how there was never a werewolf at all. Yes, somehow even in the world of a Jerry Warren film, the cops can watch the truth and distort it before your eyes.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Casimiro (Mexican comedian Tin Tan) is the lazy night watchman for a wax museum, but the reason why he’s been so sleepy is because his boss has been draining his blood and using it to bring the dead back to life, including a mummy who is also a werewolf! Yes, that’s Lon Chaney Jr., flying to Mexico in 1959 to make this totally bonkers movie.

It takes seeing his girlfriend get taken and his boss killed by the werewolf to get our hero to act, at which point he kills a werewolf in the traditional way: he beats it to death with a torch and sets everything on fire.

Jerry Warren bought the film and combined fit with La Momia Azteca, edited out all the comedy, kept all the Chaney, shot some new footage and renamed it Face of the Screaming Werewolf. Movies are amazing, huh?

You can watch this on YouTube.

Rene Cardona Jr. made Survive!, a movie that gets into the cannibalism after some rugby players on Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 that had to confront the need to survive or eat their fellow players. He followed that up with this movie, also known as El Ciclon and Terror Storm. It’s also kind of stolen from Hitchcock’s Lifeboat.

An airplane goes down during a storm and the few survivors pile on to a small tour boat that is swept out to sea, where they have no food or fresh water. Will they decide to eat one another before the sharks eat them? Or will they be saved?

This movie is ridiculous and even more so because it has an all star cast, and by that, I mean a cast of people I would see as stars, including Arthur Kennedy (The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue), Carroll Baker (oh so many Umberto Lenzi films that I enjoy), Lionel Stander (from Hart to Hart!), Andres Garcia (Tintorera), Hugo Stiglitz (Nightmare City) and Olga Karlatos (Zombie, Murder Rock).

This movie takes things from bad to worse and it gets even rougher from there. I adore movies that put actors through horrible things and this is definitely one of those.

You can watch this on Amazon Prime and Tubi.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This originally ran on the site on January 1, 2019. I love this movie so much and hope that it convinces you to check it out.

My wife wants to go away on a fancy vacation. While horror films have forever enriched my life, they’ve also damaged her chances of going anywhere. The tropics? Have you seen Zombi? A resort like Sandals? I assume that Laura Gemser will show up and I’ll be boiled in a pot. And now, thanks to this movie, we can also cross Mexico off the list.

As much as horror may have curtailed my partner’s opportunity to globetrot, it’s also imparted several important lessons to me. To wit: if your mine is over a Satanic temple where left hands were severed to honor demons and every single worker refuses to go any deeper, perhaps it’s time to find a new mine. And if by chance you discover a miniature coffin with a hand inside it, just leave it where you found it. Don’t take it back to your hotel room. This is why I’ve made it forty-six years on this Earth without being possessed or dealing with a face-melting cult in the desert.

My true joy in the movie Demonoid comes from reading the review that it received when it was released in 1981 and laughing in their prose faces. How can anyone dislike a movie where a possessed man decides that old school Las Vegas is the best place to hide out? Who can dismiss a film where Samantha Eggar obviously dressed herself in some of the most astounding fashions that the early 80’s could unleash? The woman wears an ascot and oversized orange counter to explore a mine (let’s be fair, every outfit she wears in this movie are a paradox, somehow both gorgeous and ridiculous at the same time). And damn anyone who speaks ill of Stuart Whitman! This former boxer and soldier had already played Jim Jones — I’m sorry, James Johnson — in Guyana: Crime of the Century, released less than a year after that tragedy? Here, he plays a battling Catholic priest who we just know could win over Ms. Eggar if he didn’t have that pesky collar and angel on his shoulder to worry about.

Maybe they weren’t watching the Mexican cut (Macabra!), which has more dialogue, more death and a different ending? Look, you can’t please all of the people all of the time. And most of those critics, they never got pleased all that much anyways. Demonoid is worth the whole lot of them. Would they dare to feature an ending so downbeat after 98 minutes of rooting for our British heroine? I dare say no. They’d be afraid to insert so many flashing shots of a demon raising his fist, they’d be too concerned about a soundtrack that practically screams in your face and they’d sooner hide behind their film theory books than make a movie in 1981 that feels like it came from 1974.

Demonoid is why I watch movies. Samantha Eggar screaming at the top of her lungs while a mine explodes all around her? There. An appearance by Haji, she of Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, Bigfoot, Supervixens and the wonderfully titled Wam Bam Thank You Spaceman(whose real name Barbarella Catton wasn’t sexy enough for a stage name)? You got me. Overacting in nearly every scene? I’m riveted. A poster that promised nubile ladies reclining for a fallen angel carrying a gigantic sword? I might have piddled a little.

Keep your Oscar picks and guilty pleasures. I have no such taste or qualms. Give me Demonoid or give me a severed left hand!

This article originally appeared in Drive-In Asylum #13, which you can get right here!

I was wondering if I could love the sequel as much as the original and I am here to tell you that I love this movie more than is humanly possible. Vacaciones de Terror is fun. The sequel, that also has the added title Diabolical Birthday? It might be the best movie I’ve watched this year.

The niece’s boyfriend from the first vacation — Julio (Pedro Fernández — is in his own adventure, helping the daughter of horror movie producer Roberto Mondragon (Joaquin Cordero, who was in Dr. Satan and El Gato) celebrate her birthday. Of course, the witch from the first movie and comes back, gets split in half and become a lizard-like monster while possessing everyone through an evil birthday cake that bleeds rivers of blood.

What would make this movie better? What if Mexican pop star Tatiana shows up and has a musical number? Yes, this happens. It makes the movie so much better than it has any right to be.

Pedro Galindo III took over the director’s chair from Rene Cardona III and honestly, he knocks it way out of the park. I mean, the witch is oozing sores all over the place and launching fireballs at people at a kid’s birthday party on Halloween while a longhaired singer and another singer do battle against her.

The moment that Tatianna — playing Mayra Mondragon — sings the song “Chicos,” I lost my mind. Seriously, my dog is a chihuahua and I think he must have some instinctive Mexican heritage because every single time I play this song — and trust, I’ve watched this movie double digits in the last few weeks — he goes absolutely loco. Watch it for yourself.

There’s also a moment where Studio Mondragon has a Cocktail poster up and you wonder, “In the strange Mexican universe that is this film, did Roberto Mondragon produce a Tom Cruise movie? Or is so unprofessional that he has a poster of a movie he didn’t make up in his studio?”

Have you ever watched Troll 2 and wished, “I wish someone made this in Spanish and added musical numbers, but also crazier special effects and strange Mexican sorcery and baby dolls?” Have I got amazing news for you. This movie has all of that and so much more.

I went into Mexican Horror Week with the hopes of enjoying some films. I have somehow discovered a movie that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Known in France as L’Amérique Insolite, or Unusual America, this film is all about the 18 month journey that Francois Reichenbach, who shot the video for Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot’s “Bonnie and Clyde” as well as parts of F for Fake) took across America.

With a script by Chris Marker and narration by Jean Cocteau and June Richmond (Paul Klinger did the German version), this is a playful look at America before the many changes that the 60’s would bring. From prison rodeos to Miss America, Disneyland to a town of twins, this film captures the eccentric side of America, including a shocking moment where a rider continually pushes a horse to greater heights, diving into a small pool of water. While this image is upsetting, the dialogue juxtaposed with it is uplifting: “The golden age is the only time when magic is called by its proper name. It’s the only time when you need to believe in miracles. When pigeons fly, horses fly. Angels fly. Man flies.”

While this film was released two years before Mondo Cane, make no mistake. It is a mondo film. That said, this is the gentle side of mondo, a movie given to the celebrations of small dogs at play on Fire Island. It’s utterly charming.

This has just been released by Arrow Video with new English subtitles and a 1080p presentation. I totally didn’t expect to fall in love with this film, but I did. You can get it right here.

DISCLAIMER: This was sent to us by Arrow Video.

I’ve spent around half my life as a pro wrestler. So when a movie comes out about a man who takes his wrestling knowledge and becomes a killer comes around, I’m going to do what i can to find it and watch it and share it with you.

Randy (Bruiser Brody lookalike Richie “The Cuban Assassin” Acevedo) is a groundskeeper who is obsessed with being a pro wrestler like his father (who is played by Nikolai Volkoff). When he decides to try out at “Boogie Woogie Man” Jimmy Valiant’s wrestling school, he gets treated like a green boy and goes off the deep end, wiping out anyone he can get his hands on and making a belt out of human faces to defend against all manner of scum.

This movie is packed with real wrestlers, like The Sandman and Tony Atlas as mob goons, Manny Fernandez as one of Randy’s lawn technician friends, NOAH Global Tag League co-winner Rene Dupree and more.

What I loved about this movie was that all of the fights have completely worked wrestling punches and holds, yet body parts fly through the air, blood gets sprayed non-stop and people still sell damage like a comedy match.

Sure, this is a digitally shot low budget movie, but it has plenty of charm and a completely out of nowhere ending that amused me way more than I thought possible. As the dirtsheets say, ****.

Our friend Paul Andolina watched this as well, so you can check out his thoughts on his site.

You can learn more at the official Facebook page. Wrestlemassacre is now available on DVD and on demand from Wild Eye Releasing.

DISCLAIMER: This movie was sent to us by its PR company.

This movie actually played in the U.S. as a bad translation — but one more apt to get people into the theaters perhaps thinking they were seeing another film — The Body Snatcher. It was inspired Universal’s Frankenstein and was an attempt to take as much of that film as possible while avoiding any potential lawsuit.

Between this film and El Vampiro, Fernando Mendez was able to usher in what many see as a golden age of Mexican cinema.

Police Captain Carlos Robles has a problem. Someone is killing Mexico’s greatest athletes and he doesn’t know that it’s scientist Don Panchito. Turns out that Don is slicing the heads of these sports stars open, plopping in an animal brain and conquering death itself. Who knew it was so easy?

Robles gets pro wrestler Guillermo Santana (Wolf Ruvinskis) to act as bait. There’s a great wrestling training scene here that shows just how hard hitting 1950’s lucha was, probably due to how much harder the rings themselves were.

The plan goes wrong and Santanta is now transformed into an ape. So Evil Don does what mad scientists in Mexican movies do best: he sends him to the wrestling arena with a mask on and tells him to kick some culo.

Don’t ask how the monkey brain keeps his personality or why he’s wrestling, just go with the flow.

Santana goes wild, breaking free of his programming somewhat to kill Don, kidnap an old girlfriend and lead police on a chase across the rooftops of Mexico CIty before his best friend has to gun him down.

This is 80-minutes of sheer delight. You really owe it to yourself to track this down, because it’s an absolute blast.

Not to be confused with Beaks: The Novel, this movie is also known as El Ataque de los Pajaros (The Attack of the Birds), Birds of Prey, Evil Birds and Beaks: The Birds 2, which is some Bruno Mattei-level skullduggery.

It was directed by Rene Cardona Jr., who made King of the Gorillas after King Kong, Tintorera after Jaws and Survive! after an Uruguayan rugby team crashed in the Andes Mountain and ate one another. So what you need to know is that this is a filmmaker who only cares about entertaining you, not lawyers or the sensibilities of average folk. This is a guy who had so much fun making a film with cannibalism in it that he went back and did it again with Cyclone and got some Hollywood stars to go along for the ride.

Rene, I love your whole family. I love your father and his films. I love your son and his movies. And man, you know what’s up. I have no idea what you were trying to do here, but as a friend, I’m going to sit through it.

Michelle Johnson started her acting career leaving modelling behind and needing to meet with a judge before appearing topless at age 17 in Blame It On Rio. The rest of her career was spent in movies that I can instantly point to her being in, like Waxwork, Blood Ties, Dr. Giggles and the Andrew Stevens-directed Illicit Dreams.

She’s starring with another actor who got famous getting naked on a beach in some form of explotation magic kismet. Christopher Atkins was all of 19 when he appeared alongside Brooke Shields in The Blue Lagoon, playing cousins shipwrecked on an island who are destined to aggressively cuddle because it was 1980 and incest was seemingly everywhere (a cursory look at Pornhub says, nope, it hasn’t gone anywhere).

They both ended up on Dallas as well, with Johnson showing up in the TV movie Dallas: War of the Ewings and the rebooted 2000’s version, while Atkins played camp counselor Peter Richards for the 1983 season. He also had a singing career — “How Can I Live Without Her” peaked at #71 on the Billboard charts — and appeared in movies like Shakma, Mortuary Academy and The Little Unicorn before becoming a luxury pool builder and fishing lure inventor.

Here, the twosome play Vanessa, a television reporter, and Pete, her cameraman. They’re investigating stories of farmers being attacked by their chickens and then go to Spain to meet the survivors of similar attacks thirty years ago.

You have to give it to Cardona, because he realizes, “¡Hola, no soy Hitchcock!” and goes full gonzo, having children decimated by birds at a birthday party and a farmer and his wife killed by doves, the very symbol of peace.

Why are the birds doing this? Because they’re had enough with men and this time, it’s personal. As it always is, really.

Gabriele Tinti, who usually is in Joe D’Amato stuff like The Crawlers and Endgame, shows up here, uniting two of my favorite scummy movie worlds. Aldo Sambrell is also here, probably telling everyone at catering how many Sergio Leone movies he was in. I kid! They didn’t have a catering budget.

This movie still isn’t as bad as the Rick Rosenthal-directed The Birds II: Land’s End. That is such a small bar to trip over, however.