Jackass Forever introduces six new cast members: Jasper Dolphin from Loiter Squad and his ex-convict father Compston “Dark Shark” Wilson; Eric Manaka from Knoxville’s film Action Point; Zach Holmes from Too Stupid to Die; stand-up comedian Rachel Wolfson and Sean “Poopies” McInerney. They take the place of Bam Margera, whose leaving had to be a strange thing I’m certain for the cast to endure, as well dealing with the COVID-19 conditions that they filmed this under.

What emerges is a film that’s filled with the joy of stupidity in the best of ways. It’s a difficult film to review from an objective point of view. You either get it or you don’t. And I get it. I love this stuff and there’s nothing funnier than seeing someone do something completely ill-advised and failing. It makes me nearly pass out with joy, as does the obvious camaraderie of the Jackass crew who truly seem to love one another.

This is a movie that starts as a kaiju film with Chris Pontius’ penis painted to look like a monster and ending with a snapping turtle biting him right in the cock head. Most films would end there. This is where the madness gets started.

They’ve been doing this for two decades. I have no longer how much longer they can keep it up. But I’m here for whatever comes next.

You can get Jackass Forever on digital and blu ray, with the disc edition coming with forty minutes of new stunts that did not appear in the theatrical film:

Jess Franco never wanted to claim this movie.

In Jess Franco: From the Margins to Auteur Cinema. Analysis of the Cinematographic Story, he said “I started doing a movie that was titled Gente del Rio, in which appeared Mengele who was hidden there, and was wonderfully played by Howard Vernon. Gente del Rio was a film about some fishermen who live in a town in Central America and know that Mengele lives there, but nobody dares to come up to him. Until some of them attempt to catch him. The movie is their fight to get hold of that bastard. And they get him. It was based on persons I met in Brazil, former Nazis who lived like gods on some fucking rural estates, and what I wanted was to show the clash between these people and the humble people of the river. But the producer wanted to give more importance to the character of Mengele, but in Andrea Bianchi’s shabby action movie way. I did not want to do that with that character, who is a sinister and sordid type, but who must be given another treatment, not as if he was a street whore. So I abandoned the film, and in the end I left it. I did not finish it, nor did I want to finish it, because it was wrong, and I did not want it to appear out there on video. Almost all the material that I did with the Italians is like this, they did me a thousand dirty tricks, everything went wrong, and that’s why I have never admitted the film as mine.”

Nazi hunters Aaron Horner (Jack Taylor) and Marc Logan (Antonio Mayans, who was in nearly all of Franco’s later movies) have hunted down the escaped Nazi war criminal Dr. Josef Mengele (Howard Vernon) to South America, where he and his assistant Gertrud (Shirley Knight) have created a Fourth Reich, which mostly seems to involve experiments that created a monkey man and starting an army trained by crippled Vietnam veteran Wolfgang von Backey (Christopher Mitchum). Luckily, Horner and Logan have an army that includes kung fu experts, a crossbow shooting soldier, an acrobat named Mr. Agility and a female spy named Eva (Suzanne Andrews) already on the inside.

So yeah, while Franco wrote and started this, the aforementioned Bianchi (Burial Ground) finished it. It has little to none of the sleaze you expect from Jess Franco making a movie where soldiers face off against neo-Nazis who experiment on humans. Even Fernando Rey showing up for a cameo can’t make this any better and that’s a shame. This is being sold on the Franco name and it isn’t a Franco film.

The name Commando Mengele is better, though. I also feel that Jess Franco is like pizza or sex. Even if its bad, it’s still pizza or sex.

You can watch this on Tubi.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A.C. Nicholas, who has a sketchy background and hails from parts unknown in Western Pennsylvania, was once a drive-in theater projectionist and disk jockey, Currently, in addition to being a writer, editor, podcaster, and voice-over artist, he contributes to Drive-In Asylum. His first article, “Grindhouse Memories Across the U.S.A.,” was published in issue #23. He’s also written “I Was a Teenage Drive-in Projectionist” and “Emanuelle in Disney World and Other Weird Tales of a Trash Film Lover” for upcoming issues.

In the world of horror films, there are the great directors who spent almost their entire careers in the genre, like George Romero and John Carpenter. And then there are directors who worked in a variety of genres and, when they dabbled in horror, produced masterpieces. Sometimes just one masterpiece, like Britain’s Michael Powell with Peeping Tom. Or two, like Spain’s Narciso Ibáñez Serrador with The House That Screamed and Who Can Kill a Child? But someone who has three horror masterpieces in his filmography—and is one of my favorites—is the great Italian director Pupi Avati.

Avati has been directing films in different genres for over 50 years. A jazz musician, he even directed a biopic filmed in Davenport, Iowa, about early jazz trumpeter Bix Beiderbecke. I’ve heard him referred to as the “Stephen Spielberg of Italy.” But for me, his three horror films, The House with Laughing Windows (1976), Zeder (1983), and Arcane Sorcerer (1996), stand as some of the least-seen, best horror films ever made. All are slow burns with little violence and action but with the most pervasively chilling atmosphere you can imagine. Perhaps someday folks will recognize Avati as the natural successor to Mario Bava, a director who could create atmosphere with the simplest of things, like the sound of the wind or the movement of a shadow.  I dare you to walk through a cemetery at night after seeing a Pupi Avati horror film.

In Arcane Sorcerer, his third film in the genre, Avati does a couple of striking things. First, he sets his film in rural 18th century Italy. And second, he manages to make a wholly original film, while combining and expanding upon his two previous genre entries.

Without giving much away, the plot concerns a young seminarian played by Stefano Dionisi (Sleepless) who, to avoid prosecution by church authorities for a huge scandal, hides out. He takes a job as the secretary to a defrocked monsignor, a perfectly cast Carlo Cecchi (The Red Violin and Stealing Beauty). The monsignor, who practices the black arts, is a scary figure to the local villagers. Indeed, he lives in isolation in a castle with a huge, foreboding library and does weird stuff like sending coded letters to dead people. Through the course of the film, the young man will see a lot of disturbing things, including a twist that fans of Avati’s work will surely recognize.

Everything about Arcane Sorcerer is first rate. The production design is terrific (love that chandelier in the library), the cinematography is gorgeous, the score by genre favorite Pino Donaggio is spot-on, and it’s all put together with intelligence and loving care. (There’s a memorably creepy scene featuring a long-dead body that must be moved to consecrated ground.) But what impresses me the most is how writer-director Avati scored yet another personal triumph. He has this uncanny, preternatural ability, like Bava, to make the smallest things terrifying. And he makes it all look easy. I have yet to see another living director pull off what he does. (Robert Eggers came close with The VVitch.)  It’s Avati’s special gift, and I’m glad that we have his three horror films. He’s now 83 years old but still working, so I can dream of one last masterwork from this still relatively unknown master of horror.

Apart from a screening at the Toronto International Film Festival, I don’t believe Arcane Sorcerer ever had an official release in any English-speaking territory. Indeed, I only recently tracked down a DVD rip in Italian with dreadful English subtitles loaded with typos. Avati’s The House with Laughing Windows took years to find its U.S. cult following. Arcane Sorcerer would find its cult too if Vinegar Syndrome ever released a Pupi Avati box set. It certainly deserves it.

Professor James Anders (Edward G. Robinson) is an American teacher in Rio de Janeiro who grows tired of working every day, so he retires and puts together a team to pull off a diamond heist during the Rio Carnival: Gregg (George Rigaud) the safecracker, Jean Paul (Robert Hoffman) the playboy, Agostino (Riccardo Cucciolla) the electronics expert and Erich (Klaus Kinski) the military man.

Standing in their way is the Grand Slam 70 security system, an alarm that uses microphones to detect any sound. Can they successfully seduce the girl (Janet Leigh), get the key, rob the safe and get out alive? And what if one of them isn’t willing to share the loot? How does Adolfo Celi fit in?

The only other film by director Giuliano Montaldo I’d seen before was the Closed Circuit. This caper film moves quickly and has a great closing scene. It was written by Mino Roli, Augusto Caminito and Paolo Bianchini along with Marcello Fondato, José Antonio de la Loma and Marcello Coscia. It took more writers to do the script for a caper movie than crooks to pull the caper!

The Kino Lorber blu ray release of Grand Slam has commentary by Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson and a trailer. 

First off, the cover art for this film echoes a Bruno Mattei film, so instantly my heart is filled with love and joy. And I’m happy to report that the movie inside — yes, I have a physical copy and you can get yours from SCS — lives up to that aesthetic while also shambling one undead foot into allowing the Eurohorror synth play loud and images to take over the aesthetic, shifting this into absolute movie Fulci territory by the end.

A virus from New Guinea has transformed the streets of Los Angeles into a feeding ground for the walking dead, which gives convicts Warren (Robert Allen Mukes, House of 1000 Corpses)  and Trapper (Ken May, Hollywood Werewolf) make their way to the Valley Relics Museum — an amazing place that collects, preserves, interprets and presents the history of The San Fernando Valley through the objects that it has created, such as BMX bikes and neon signage — to kidnap Mary (Jennifer Nangle, who is also Malvolia the Queen of Screams) and Heather (Traci Burr). As the undead begin attacking outside, they soon find themselves joining forces in an attempt to stay alive.

Director and writer Dustin Ferguson puts out a movie every time you type his name, but that’s a good thing as he actually improves with each film of his that I watch. I love that he has a steady crew that he works with (Lynn Lowry appears as Mary’s mother and Mel Novak is Governor Patrick Adams), as well as nice hints of his inspirations by naming one character Dr. Mattei and having a bar scene that reminds one of City of the Living Dead.

At just around an hour runtime, this movie also doesn’t overstay its welcome. It’s got some decent gore, neat video effects and yeah, that music is toe tapping. Here’s to more wildness from Dustin. Can’t wait to see what he makes next!