EDITOR’S NOTE: This was first on the site on December 9, 2020.

Also known as Femme Dangereuse (Dangerous Woman), this Jean Rollin-directed movie is all about an Asian woman known as the Car Woman. This role was specifically written for model Tiki Tsang, who is actually Australian. Rollin worked on this film until he grew too ill to complete it, then edited it years later*.

The Car Woman kills throughout the film, leaving a toy car behind as a calling card for each murder. Literally the entire film is a series of episodes with people meeting Car Woman and getting killed, whether they are women who get an army of doomed prostitutes to help them, a boyfriend and girlfriend who end up shot and stabbed with a golden fork respectively or a photographer and her model in New York City.

You have to love that Car Woman cocks her gun every time she shoots it, which isn’t needed after the first shot. It’d just waste ammo. This is what I think of when I should just be watching Jean Rollin movies and staring at all of the women, huh?

*It was shot on 16mm and originally intended for a direct-to-video release, although it did have a brief theatrical appearance in 1993. No usable print or negative of the film exists today, so what you get on video is what you get.

There’s this school of thought that Troll 2 is the worst movie ever made.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

It doesn’t commit the cardinal sin of a truly bad movie. At no time is it expected, boring or like anything you’ve ever seen before.

It’s not a romantic comedy that you can predict from the first story beat.

Instead, I put forth the argument that this movie is uniquely from its own world and therefore worthy of praise.

Director Claudio Fragasso — Drake Floyd — is no stranger to this site. He started his directing career by working alongside one of the most underappreciated of all Italian exploitation directors, Bruno Mattei, often making two of the same genre movies at the same time on the same set with the same actors like The True Story of the Nun of Monza and The Other Hell or Women’s Prison Massacre and Violence in a Women’s Prison.

Just a quick look through Fragrasso’s resume reveals movies I’ve gone on and on about. He wrote Rats: Night of Terror, Double Target, Strike Commando, Hell of the Living Dead and Zombie 3 while directing Monster Dog, Zombie 4: After Death, Beyond Darkness and Night Killer. Again, most of these movies would appear on worst lists yet I find something magical and fun within each of them.

As you look at the names of those who produced this, you’ll see David Hills. Do not be fooled. This is Joe D’Amato, a man whose Filmirage released movies that made a buck no matter what and cut corners everywhere and I say that with utter devotion.

To realize this story, Fragrasso’s wife Rosella Drudi started the story as a way of expressing her frustration with several of her friends becoming vegetarians. Neither Fragasso nor Drudi spoke fluent English, so their script was broken up into what English they could speak. They would give the cast that script scene by scene and when those actors tried to fix the dialogue, Fragrasso would grow angry. He still gets angry and refers to the actors as dogs (Italian movie slang for bad actors; one can imagine how often Fulci used this word) who lied about their experiences.

The only person who spoke English? Producer D’Amato’s longtime friend and frequent collaborator Laura Gemser. Yes, Black Emanuelle herself.

Can you imagine living in Porterville, Utah in the late 80s and a big international production comes to town and it’s D’Amato, Fragrasso and the most gorgeous and exotic woman you’ve ever seen in your entire life? And she’s there to design the troll costumes?

Well, goblin costumes. Drudi wrote this as Goblins — that’s why Nilbog makes sense — but the American producers changed the name of the movie to try and pass it off as a sequel to Troll. Before you get angry at American capitalism, be aware that D’Amato would follow this by naming both The Crawlers and Quest for the Mighty Sword — which at least recycles one of the troll costumes — as Troll 3.

The production crew was almost all non-English-speaking Italians brought to America by Fragasso, including director of photography Giancarlo Ferrando (All the Colors of the Dark, And God Said to Cain, Torso, Your Vice Is A Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, Hands of Steel, American Rickshaw), art director Massimo Lentini (The New York Ripper, The Beyond), makeup artist Maurizio Trani (Sinbad of the Seven Seas, Cinema Paradiso, Zombi, Dawn of the Mummy, Emanuelle In America) and assistant director Alessandra Lenzi (High Finance Woman, Cop Target, Hitcher In the Dark), whose Americanized name was Alexandra Humbert and if you didn’t guess, she’s Umberto Lenzi’s daughter.

As for the American cast, they’re a mix of would-be actors, like Michael Stephenson and locals such as George Hardy, a dentist who showed up to have fun and ended up playing one of the main roles in the movie. Or Don Packard, who played store owner Sandy Mahar. He seems like an absolute maniac because, well, he is. He was on a day trip from a nearby mental hospital and had also smoked a ton o marijuana before shooting, so his performance is as real it could be.

So what’s it all about, you may ask?

What isn’t it, I answer.

Michael Waits (Hardy) has always dreamed of being a farmer, so he packs his family up and moves to Nilbog, exchanging homes with the Presents family in a pre-air bnb bit of weirdness. Meanwhile, Grandpa Seth (Robert Ormsby) appears to his son Joshua (Stephenson) and warns him of that goblins wait for him and they plan on eating him and his family. At the same time, his sister Holly (Connie McFarland) is in the midst of dance routines and insinuating that her boyfriend Elliot (Jason Wright) is gay, so he gets all of his friends, packs them in an RV and follows them to Nilbog. On the way, Grandpa appears again as a hitchhiker and tells Joshua that his family will soon be plants that the goblins will devour.

This is literally twenty minutes of this movie and it hasn’t even really become strange yet.

Elliot’s friends Arnold, Drew and Brent are all dispatched whether by poisoned hamburger or drowning in popcorn or, in the case of Arnold, being transformed into a tree by Creedence Leonore Gielgud (Deborah Reed, who went on to be in the makeup department for Dumb and Dumber) and her Stonehenge Magic Stone. She then chainsaws the tree that Arnold becomes and this is presented as a side story and not even part of the plot because the film goes on wild tangents.

As for Elliot and the rest of the family, they all barricade them in the house — after Joshua urinates on their food in an attempt to keep them from eating poisonous goblin ingredients — and have to do a seance with Grandpa Seth for the ten minutes he has left before he returns to the afterlife.

Speaking of that pissing scene, the script called for him to act possessed, jump up on the chair and start screaming. In the documentary about this movie, Best Worst Movie, Stephenson said, “On the day of the shooting, Claudio Fragasso pulls me aside, looks at the script, and says, “Ah, possessed, that bullshit, boring, you stand up, you piss on the table.” Being ten years oldII was thinking, “What?,” but Claudio says, “You don’t worry, you jump on table, you unzip zipper, we cut, piss on table.””

Troll 2 is an odd movie, one that’s about a child’s grief when he loses the first adult in his life and has to come to terms with death, but it’s also about a community of people whose ways haven’t changed for years dealing with outsiders by devouring them. It’s also a horrifying movie because if you take the ending seriously, it’s really dark.

It’s also one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen. Just the line readings like “I’m Sheriff Gene Freak” send me into fits of laughter. It’s one thing seeing it at home all alone. Seeing it in a packed theater is just the most wonderful of theatrical moments.

This is a movie where every main actor came to be cast as an extra and got a major part.

When you think about all of that, how can you say that this is a horrible movie? A movie that has brought so much joy? Get over the listicles and so bad it’s good mindset and embrace Italian maniacs running loose in America. This isn’t even Fragrasso’s weirdest movie!

Whatever side you’re on when it comes to the controversy between whether Mikey Smash or William Mouth played Smash Mouth in the sequel to Warren Q. Harolds’ 1965 slasher End Zone, you can say quite simply that they’re both better than Snead Crump when it comes to menacing Angela Smazmoth (Julie Kane). Now that there’s a restored version of this never-released to the public slasher, well, now we can all fight that same fight all over again.

And hey — whatever happened to that final half hour of this movie? Have you seen it? Did you check it out when it played with The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb and The Evil Eye?

Put together from six partial prints and a partial Italian internegative — that explains why the language changes — this is the film that didn’t just give birth to the American slasher, it also influenced movies like Let’s Scare Jessica to Death.

Shh…I like keeping up the premise that this is a lost movie, so don’t tell anyone that it works because it’s just as rough and ramshackle as those pre-78 slashers that we love so much like My Brother Has Bad Dreams and Scream Bloody Murder (which ironically nearly shared a title). I also think it’s kind of wild that in the same year we’ve had two double features based around slasher movies of the past based around football (this pairs with The Once and Future Smash; the other entry is The Third Saturday In October and The Third Saturday In October V).

With appearances by Mark Patton (Nightmare on Elm Street 2), Laurene Landon (Maniac Cop), Richard Elfman (Forbidden Zone), Mark Torgl (Toxic Avenger), Melanie Kinnaman (Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning), V.C. DuPree (Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan), Victor Miller (Friday the 13th), Marc Sheffler (Last House on the Left), Carl Solomon (Tropical Cop Tales), Adam Marcus (Jason Goes to Hell), Todd Farmer (Jason X), John Dugan (Texas Chain Saw Massacre), Bill Johnson (Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2), Bob Elmore (Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2), Lloyd Kaufman (my endless hatred), Claudio Fragasso and Rossella Drudi (Troll 2), Tim Dry (Xtro) and Dan Yeager (Texas Chainsaw 3D), The Once and Future Smash tells the story of Mikey Smash (Michael St. Michaels, The Greasy Strangler) and William Mouth (Bill Weeden, Psycho Ape), the two actors who each played Smash-Mouth in the 1970 film End Zone 2. Only Michael has been credited and the two have fought at convention after convention ever since.

As they both attend the Mad Monster Party horror convention, they learn that a modern End Zone will be made and they can both audition. That movie will start one hour into End Zone two before it retcons everything that happened after.

It’s pretty amazing that a This Is Spinal Tap documentary comedy could be made about slasher movies but that’s because we understand the genre’s conventions. And, well, conventions. If you’ve spent any time doing that awkward walk past near-empty stars of the past and the hangers-on who attempt to be important by being in their orbit, this movie will more than ring true.

Directors Sophia Cacciola and Michael J. Epstein, who also brough the world Blood of the Triblades, Magentic and Ten really know what they’re doing. This was a blast.

You can learn more at the official Facebook page.

Deaf Crocodile Films — who released the amazing Solomon King on blu ray this year — has also released four feature films by acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Shahram Mokri on demand for U.S. audiences.  The four films will be available on Amazon, iTunes and Projectr and tell the stories of aerial killers, kite flyers, vampires and arsonists who disappear into time. You can also buy the blu ray box set from Deaf Crocodile.

Careless Crime (Jenayat-e Bi Deghat) (2020): Inspired by the Cinema Rex fire in 1978 that triggered the Iranian Revolution, this movie follows three different paths: arsonists planning the fire, the students at the cinema interacting with the employees of the theater and the characters on the screen of the movie that played that night. The crime that was committed that night was so horrible that it literally burns through the reality that unites these three storylines.

The night Cinema Rex burned — one of the biggest terrorist attacks in Iran for decades — The Deer was playing. Two women attempt to play that same film in the desert in another storyline as they come across soldiers who have discovered an unexploded munition from another conflict in the past.

The theme of carelessness is carried through by so many in this, as many of the terrorists believed that the audience would just rush out and be unharmed and their message would be heard. Yet the theater manager oversold tickets to the show and his greed is just as responsible for the deaths.

This is a movie that is historical beyond true crime while also telling of the world of film. It may get repetitive and a little long at two hours and twenty minutes, but wow, those last twenty minutes make up for it. You won’t just know about what happened. You will feel it.

Fish & Cat (Mahi Va Gorbeh) (2013): In the Caspian region, students have gathered for a kite-flying event during the winter solstice. Next to their camp is a small hut occupied by three cooks who work at a nearby restaurant, a place that serves human meat on the menu. Meanwhile, the space-time loop within this film both gives away the ending and also makes it seem suspenseful at the same time. And here’s one more thing that makes this break from the pack: The entire movie is one single 140-minute take.

Director Shahram Mokri said, “I like the paintings of Maurits Escher, where you can see a change in perspective in the same visual. In my film, I wanted to give a change in perspective of time in one single shot. So the idea for the film came from his paintings.”

Consider this an Iranian Texas Chainsaw Massacre, yet one where we don’t see the horror of cannibalism yet feel it even more, if that’s possible. What a wild film.

Ashkan, The Charmed Ring And Other Stories (Ashkan, Angoshtar-e Motebarek Va Dastan-haye Digar) (2008): Mokri’s first feature was a black and white comedy about fate that, yes, has the feel of Tarantino yet establishes the director’s own voice as it tells the tales of blind jewel thieves Shahrooz and Reza; Askhan, a man who can’t quite seem to commit suicide, some cops, some hitmen, a young couple who wants to run away to get married, the boy’s angry father, art dealers, two female morgue attendants and, oh yeah, a fish on the loose and a missing ring.

Beyond Tarantino, there are moments that feel like film noir and others that reference Jim Jarmusch. Remember when Crash or Magnolia or any of those post-Quentin movies where everyone’s connected seemed to be every other movie? Sure, this is like that, but it also has an episodic nature and fun edge that makes it stand out from also-rans like Eight Heads In a Duffle Bag.

I know that Mokri made shorts before this, but it’s pretty amazing that this was his first full-length movie.

Invasion (Hojoom)(2017): I can honestly say I’ve never seen another movie like this and it was absolutely astounding.

The sales copy for this describes it as “a science-fiction/detective/vampire story, with nods to stylized 1980s New Wave-era films like Liquid Sky” and yeah, that’s almost as close as I can come to figuring out how to explain it to you.

At some time somewhere in the future, teams of tattooed athletes play a never explained sport in a foreboding and dangerous stadium where a murder has already taken place. The police have been trying to reconstruct the crime over and over again, using the vampiric twin sister of the married man in his place. There’s also a way too long eclipse and a global pandemic happening all at the same time.

I mean, this movie also has the one shot technique of Fish & Cat while also looking like a grimy 70s science fiction horror movie — Thirst maybe? — along with way too much fog and the red-eyed, face-tattooed and androgynous female vampire Negar gliding through all of this. Did Ali kill her brother, his best friend Saman? What’s up with the way he poses in front of the mirror in the beginning? What’s up with all those no gender mixing warning signs? Were Saman and Negar the same person when it comes down to it or were they really just switching lives and souls? How can an Iranian film made in 2017 feel so much like Jean Rollin or Jess Franco?

And most importantly, why did it take me so long to find this? Absolutely essential.

Vibeke Muasya, who directed and co-wrote this film with Nikolaj Scherfig (who was in the script and continuity department for Nicolas Winding Refn’s Pusher), has created a dark and intriguing film here.

Hannah (Madeleine Masson) has suffered since the death of her father and how much her mother Silvia (Karen Leigh Sharp) has started intruding into her life. Yet her issues aren’t over yet, as her boyfriend Andy (Christopher Rector) dies in a hunting accident within hours of cheating on her with her supposed best friend Raven (Lexy Ronning), who has since disappeared.

As for how much her mother helps her recover, she tells her that they have to leave town before any else horrible happens. So who is losing it? Daughter or mother?

The deaths in this movie are filled with destructive energy while the pace and animosity between Hannah and her mother slowly curls and darkens as the film moves towards an ending that you can read so many ways. I had no real expectation for this and was shocked how well made it was and just how overcast and even pitch black this became at times.

Twisted is now available on demand.

Directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield (who has a ton of PR thanks to his movie Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey; he also made The Area 51 Incident) and Scott Jeffrey (Escape from Death Block 13, Exorcist Vengeance) and writer Tom Jolliffe, Firenado starts when Devlin (Toby Wynn-Davies) learns how to control a tornado. But then, as these things happen, that tornado catches on fire and you can only imagine what happens next. Actually, you don’t have to imagine because they made this movie.

This is why you come to this site, because when I had to decide what movie to be my first of 2023, it was a movie with a tornado that’s not just on fire but one that looks like one of those neon lights from Spencer’s that you’d put in your first apartment.

You know what else this movie needs? A mob accountant, thieves breaking into his home and me wondering if there are really tornadoes in the United Kingdom. Some short research later and I can tell you that there are about thirty a year and none of them are burning.

This movie understands what it is: a great concept, a better name and a good poster. I can only imagine how many people are looking at what to watch tonight, see something with the title Firenado and fork over their cash. Well done, filmmakers.

As for me: less crime, more raving firenadoes wiping out humanity.

Firenado is available on demand and on DVD from Uncork’d Entertainment.

Shot in Magnolia, TX and based on a Cuban folk tale, director and writer Anubys Lopez’s first film finds sisters Ana (Angie Sandoval) and Sandra (Yetlanezi Rodriguez) taking a roadtrip to reconnect and going through Whispering Pines, the kind of town where even the gas station owners try to attack you when you want to fill up. Does this seem like the kind of place where you take a nap in your car? No, of course it isn’t. But you know what I always say. We wouldn’t have a movie if they didn’t make these mistakes.

There’s a bit too much arguing and way too much abject stupidity on the protagonists’ part to get me to recommend this to you, but for those that like backwoods horror, dark rituals and — you guessed it — family secrets, well, then this is certainly for you.

The one part that did work for me, however, is when they went into an abandoned house and discovered a room filled with missing posters with their information and photos on them. That’s a striking and something haunting thought, to discover your own fate in that way, and if Lopez follows that path, his next movie — Aged — will be much better.

Those Who Call is now available from Uncork’d Entertainment.

Serial killer Kyle Wheeler (Ken Brewer, who also directed and co-wrote this movie with Meri Gyetvay) and his even more murderous daughter Nancy (Kaitlin Kinner) have just walked into the park where retired San Francisco cop Matt (Doug Waugh) has just started his new retirement job. Now, he and fellow rangers Cletus (Joe D’Auganno) and Mike (Lawrence Waller) not only have to keep everyone in the park safe, they have to protect themselves, too.

What follows is a movie that’s the right length — 68 minutes — and non-stop running and slashing. It never takes itself seriously, nor does it feel any reason not to laugh at the slasher genre along the way.

What this film is missing in budget it makes up for in scenery, as the park they shot this in is absolutely perfect for what follows, a constant chase of killers against those seeking to avoid being killed. The effects are mostly practical — there are some well-done stabbing kills — and the power chord-rich metal that drives it all is a lot of fun.

My favorite part was when they hyped up the MMA fighter who goes up against Nancy and how quick the battle is. Consider this movie streaming barbecue chips — filling for a short time with some flavor that’ll make you think about it and maybe want another bite later.

Want to learn more? Visit the official site for the movie.

You can watch this on Tubi.