Small Town Monsters has been all over the country looking for monsters of all types but now, they’re on the way to Alaska to meet the locals and study the indigenous peoples who first called our 49th state home.

You think you know sasquatch?

Do you know Alaskan sasquatch?

On the Trail of Bigfoot: Last Frontier was shot over several months in the Alaskan wilderness, at the same time as two other Small Town Monsters projects, Land of the Missing and Bigfoot: Beyond the Trail: Alaskan Coastal Sasquatch.

One of the most frightening things about the bigfoot of Alaska is that it used the sounds of a crying baby to lure its victims into the cold snow and their unforgiving paws.

Beyond the gorgeous look at the sparseness of the cold and snowy world of a state many of us never see, this also is more concerned with gaining the oral history of its people and less with capturing a creature. Seth Breedlove and his team keep making really interesting paranormal and cryptozoological movies and I keep enjoying each and every one.

On the Trail of Bigfoot: Last Frontier is available on iTunes, Amazon Prime Video, Vudu and FandangoNOW.

Shortly after Aberraciones sexuales de una mujer casada (Sexual Perversions of a Married Woman) was finished by director Jess Franco, it was sold to Eurocine. When they released it in France new scenes were shot by Olivier Mathot, using the name Claude Plaut, set in France and featuring him as Cecilia’s uncle.

Yes, that’s right. The heroine of this movie is named Emma Fangas (Muriel Montossé) but this is really the original version of Cecilia, which is the easier version of this movie to find.

You know how people say that some films are troubling? Yeah, they are probably discussing Franco’s films, like this one in which a wife who loves to tease the help ends up getting assaulted by them and she ends up enjoying it. She likes it so much that she explores her sexual freedom but has to decide whether or not she can handle her husband (Antonio Mayans) doing the same.

Shot in a national park in Portugal and featuring a gorgeous soundtrack by Franco and Daniel White, this feels like the most well-thought-out and best filmed of Franco’s erotica in some time, possibly a height that he would not return to. I mean, the zooms are limited, there’s a dolly shot and everything is just perfectly dreamlike. It’s nearly art while not forgetting that it should be hot. It’s on the right side of erotic versus just plain slamming the camera between someone’s thighs.

Also: Lina Romay shows up on stage in an erotic cabaret and you know, I always realize that Lina is going to show up in Franco’s films and I still get excited and laughing and audibly say things like, “Oh Lina,” because the couple that makes filth together quite obviously stayed together.

If you want to compare and contrast this film for yourself, you can download it on the Internet Archive.

I love that watching Jess Franco movies teaches you all sorts of secret facts, like how this movie is not Eugenie… The Story of Her Journey into Perversion, an adaptation of de Sade’s book Philosophy in the Bedroom as this is based on the book Eugénie de Franval. They’re totally different albeit similar movies because, well, look, Franco can be difficult before you even get into him making three cannibal movies in a year that are all rather alike or remaking Exorcism in a bunch of different cuts.

It’s worth it.

Eugenie (Soledad Miranda) starts the film on her deathbed, explaining her sordid life to, well, Franco as she relates the story of how she fell in love with her stepfather Albert (Paul Muller) through the books that he wrote and how that leads her into a world of perversion. At first, that’s just, you know, incestual BDSM, but that’s never enough and before you know it, they’re taking photos of Alice Arno all tied up and killing her. But when her father demands that she kill a jazz musician, she falls in love and starts on the road to her demise.

It goes without saying that the reason why this movie works is Miranda. She’s a force of nature, someone who can devastate the lives of men and women while putting herself on her knees in front of a man who sees cruelty as love. She’s devoted to him at her own peril and yet, when the lure of the carnal darkness enters her soul, she can’t help but submit.

Don’t go into this expecting a sexy bit of froth or a good time. Sure, there are gorgeous bodies on display but there’s also an understanding that nothing good or lasting can come from the union of Albert and Eugenie. A drinking game between father, stepdaughter and hitchhiker (Greta Schmidt) is filled with menace even when it seems like it’s about to be a sex scene because even now we’re predisposed to the conventions of adult film. Leave it to Franco to break this up by making it deadly.

Miranda didn’t want to shame her parents by appearing nude so she used the name Susan Korday, a combination of Valley of the Dolls writer Jacqueline Susann and the director Alexander Korda. As this movie was made in 1970 and not released until 1973, by the time the world saw it, she was dead, the victim of a car crash. Her hold over us — not just Franco — was frozen in ember by her demise.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joseph Perry writes for the film websites Gruesome Magazine, The Scariest Things, Horror Fuel and Diabolique Magazine; for the film magazines Phantom of the Movies’ VideoScope and Drive-In Asylum; and for the pop culture websites When It Was Cool and Uphill Both Ways. He is also one of the hosts of When It Was Cool’s exclusive Uphill Both Ways podcast and can occasionally be heard as a cohost on Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror: The Classic Era podcast.

Anyone who has ever dealt with an irate person while working at a call center or other customer service related jobs should find the premise of writer/director Richard Anthony Dunford’s U.K. horror thriller Minacious highly relatable. The film starts off with a call center employee being consoled by fellow staff members because she was the target of someone who threatened to kill her. Before she can even leave work early as she was given permission to do, the enraged caller makes good on his threat. It seems that this person may make a habit of that behavior, as he (voiced by Eric Roberts) targets amiable bank call center employee Izzy (Sarah Alexandra Marks), who is working from a relative’s home, when she cannot immediately transfer money into his account. 

Minacious is, for the most part, a single-location film that depends on one on-screen actor to carry the bulk of the film on her shoulders, with assistance from a voice actor. Thankfully, Marks is well up to the task, giving a terrific performance as a protagonist who viewers can get behind. The film does spend a good deal of time showing the human side of call-center employees — it’s no easy job — but that helps make Izzy a more sympathetic character. 

Eric Roberts’ voice acting here is solid work and helps drive the film, giving Marks plenty with which to work. It’s quite obvious that the person playing the on-screen villain isn’t Roberts, so viewers will have to willingly suspend disbelief whenever that double appears.

Dunford has crafted a nifty thriller and the production values belie the film’s being shot on a microbudget. Aside from a question I have regarding the opening scene and another quibble about the climax that would give away a spoiler, Minacious worked quite well for me.

Minacious screened as part of Horror-on-Sea Film Festival, which was held in Southend-on-Sea, U.K. January 12–14 and 19–21, 2023.

I’m so excited that director Joe Badon sent me this, as I am in love with his short Blood of the Dinosaurs and am so pleased to write that this next effort doesn’t let up on the sheer strangeness of that one.

Badon describes this project as one in which Purity (Kali Russell) is dealing with her car breaks down on a dark empty street in the middle of the night when she has a chance encounter with a mysterious party host (Jeff Pearson) and hisstrange guests, which leaves her with an existential dilemma: break free of her meaningless existence or simply just succumb to it’s meaninglessness.

It’s also his love letter to not only the classic Choose Your Own Adventure novels of the 80’s, but also Starcrash, The Color of Pomegranates, The Twilight Zone and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

You got me again, Joe.

Purity may also be Marge Corn and she may be locked in starship battles with Doctor Universe or maybe she’s just talking to ger grandmother or perhaps she’s being chased through a horror movie by her evil twin dressed like Santa. Or is it all a movie? Because there’s Joe, directing Marge as she sits on the set of a science fiction movie.

If you’re not paying attention, this is not the movie for you.

While this is just the first part of this four part miniseries, I’m already along for the ride. This is beyond well made and is strange not for the sake of it and without some bigger plan, but feels like being taken on a ride with no idea where you’re going to end up or even who you’re going to be when you get there. It may not be the journey everyone is ready to take, but I say unbuckle that seatbelt and get weird.

Starting in Russia, we meet Ching Fong-tin (Sammo Hung, who directed and wrote this), who gets caught by Russian soldiers as he steals from them. They make him strip and dance for them, but then he throws their grenades into their cabin and blows them all up real good.

Ching’s hometown of Hon Sui Town doesn’t have the same luck that he does. Banks are being robbed and set on fire as everyone struggles to keep it together. But what if that new train that’s coming through town, filled with rich politicians and merchants, and if he works to derail it, everyone will have to spend their money and keep Hon Sui Town alive. And by that, I mean that he’s starting a new brothel and plans on getting rich. Yuen Biao is the fire chief, while Hwang Jang-lee, Yasuaki Kurata and Yukari Oshima are a trio of samurai with a map to the grave of the terracotta warriors and Richard Norton and Cynthia Rothrock show up as bandits dressed like U.S. calvary officers out to rob everyone on the train.

These are just facts. The reason to watch this is that it’s absolutely packed with action, like Sammo Hung found it his mission in life to entertain you and got everyone else on the same page and they were all like, “Let’s make the wildest Eastern Western movie of all time.” Then they called Bolo Yeung, Shih Kien from Enter the Dragon. Is that enough? Well, what if they got Jimmy Wang Yu and he was like, “Remember how awesome I was in One-Armed Boxer and Master of the Flying Guillotine and pretty much popularized unarmed combat? I’m here too!”

It also has a moment where Yuen Biao jumps out of a burning building two stories to the ground below and the camera never cuts as he starts delivering dialogue despite the fact that this stunt broke his leg. This kind of entertainment is dangerous, as in one scene, Hung kicked Biao Yuen so hard in the chest that the actor couldn’t breathe until he got assistance from Kar Lok Chin.

The Arrow Video blu ray set of this movie is just as devoted to being awesome as the movie itself. It has new 2K restorations by Fortune Star.

Restorations? That’s because there are four different cuts of the movie: the Hong Kong theatrical cut, an extended international version, the English export and a hybrid cut that unites every version for the most complete version of Millionaire’s Express. There’s also a double-sided fold-out poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sam Gilbey, an illustrated collectors’ booklet featuring new writing on the film by Jonathan Clements and David West and a reversible sleeve featuring original and new artwork by Sam Gilbey,

Extras include commentary on the theatrical cut by Frank Djeng; commentary on the extended version by Mike Leeder and Arne Venemam; select scene commentary from Cynthia Rothrock, moderated by Frank Djeng; three interviews with Rthrock; two with Hung; interviews with Yuen Biao and Yukari Oshima; alternate English opening and closing credits and a trailer gallery.

You can get this from MVD.

You can also stream this movie on the Arrow player. Visit ARROW to start your 30-day free trial. Subscriptions are available for $4.99 monthly or $49.99 yearly. ARROW is available in the US, Canada, the UK and Ireland on the following Apps/devices: Roku (all Roku sticks, boxes, devices, etc), Apple TV & iOS devices, Android TV and mobile devices, Fire TV (all Amazon Fire TV Sticks, boxes, etc), and on all web browsers at https://www.arrow-player.com.

If you are the heroine of a Tubi original, I urge you to never work for anyone, never meet your heroes and don’t hire any assistants or be one yourself.

After she takes a job at Immortal City Records, Drea (Mea Wilkerson) thinks that she’s finally about to make all of her dreams real. She’s getting to hang out with the artists she grew up listening to and even better, they’re actually listening to her on stage and in the studio. And she’s even getting to sing on some tracks. So why does it feel so wrong?

The label is run by a legendary rapper named Eighth Immortal (RonReaco Lee) and his wife Sapphire (D. Woods). She instantly is rude and nearly violent with Drea, but she’s able to succeed and find love with a young rapper named T Strong (Terrence Green). Yet it seems like even when Drea is enjoying fame and everything that comes with it, she’s also stuck with a rapidly losing his mind Eighth Immortal who is waving his gun around even at breakfast.

Originally titled Fear and Hip Hop, Immortal City Records was directed by Patricia Cuffie-Jones, who gets how streaming works and has directed several holiday movies along with a few TV movies. She wrote the script as well and Colin Edward Lawrence wrote the story.

If you don’t have time for all those seasons of Empire, this movie has you covered. It’s exactly why I keep watching Tubi originals: they’re like dollar store candy. I keep eating the whole bag and it’s affordable — free with commercials! — to watch another. I don’t expect gourmet chocolate and we all get along with the agreement that we have made.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: You can read another take on this movie here.

As you know, I do love a movie with multiple titles. Devil Hunter is also called The Man Hunter, Mandingo Manhunter, Jungfrau unter Kannibalen and Sexo Caníbal.

Just as much, I adore when two movies are shot at the same time, often being nearly the same films. This was made by Franco — using the name Clifford Brown — at the same time as Mondo Cannibale. 

If I were making the HBO series of the life of Jess — let me dream — this episode would be a turning point and fraught with drama, because Devil Hunter was co-directed by Franco’s muse for life Lina Romay and his first wife Nicole Guettard edited it, who Franco was still with at the time. Married men in love with someone else are quite obvious so if you’re ever wondering if Jess was enraptured with Lina before 1980, well, just watch any movie where he filmed her.

So yes, you may expect an Italian cannibal film filtered through the world of Franco and you get it. By get it, I mean there’s a gigantic jungle god with bug eyes that battles Al Cliver to the death on some rocks while said god is balls to the wind naked. Al is here to rescue Laura (Ursula Buchfellner, The Story of Linda) from being kidnapped and assaulted yet the real danger seems to be Jess and his zoom as he repeatedly finds his way directly between her thighs.

This is a section 1 video nasty and it just might be because of all the cocks flying around the place. Or maybe all the female genitals. I might be desensitized, but this doesn’t feel as violent as other movies that made that list. It’s also often confused with White Cannibal Queen, another Franco cannibal movie he made at the same time. Yes, three similar movies all made within less than a year.

Frequent Franco cast member Antonio Mayans is on hand as Cliver’s partner and this whole scheme gets set in motion by Laura’s assistant Jane, who is played by Gisela Hahn, whose career is pretty astounding. She was in wild stuff like White Pop Jesus, Contamination and Battle of the Stars but also ended up being an executive in charge of production on The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter and contributed the song “T’amo lo Stesso” to the Fernando Di Leo movie she was in, Rules of the City, which also has Cliver in the cast.

By 1972, the krimi had given way — for the most part — to the giallo. Both offshoots of the work of author Edgar Wallace — this is an adaption of his book Secret of the Black Suitcases which had already been filmed by Werner Klinger eleven years before — with this one being about a series of killings by knife throwing, followed by the corpse having a suitcase packed for them.

Also: While set in London, this was shot in Spain and yes, it’s a Jess Franco movie. He even shows up as a knife-throwing expert with a fancy hat.

Scotland Yard Inspector Ruppert Redford (Fred Williams) is on the case, along with crime novelist Charles Barton (Horst Tappert), which leads to organized crime running mescaline through the Flamingo Club and if you thought gorgeous women and jazz weren’t going to be part of a Franco movie you really need to brush up on what he loves most.

This is the last in the long series of krimi made by CCC and seeing as how they had reached the point where they were remaking past films, they probably were ready to move on. As for Franco, he’s subdued but still figures out some interesting places to place his camera. I kind of adore the late 60s and early 70s films he made, which still have a budget and weren’t yet the same movie being remade and remixed.