Also known as Outlaws of the Marsh and Seven Blows Of The Dragon, this Shaw Brothers movie was directed by Chang Cheh and tells the story of the 108 Heroes. The book that it is based on is considered one of the masterpieces of Chinese literature, containing many of its most beloved characters like Wu Song, Lin Chong, Pan Jinlian, Song Jiang and Lu Zhishen. It even has an influence on Japanese literature.

This movie starts by introducing nearly every single member of the Honorable 108, a group of mountain bandits who live by a code of honor and who have also pledged to return freedom to the people. This movie is just a few chapters of the overall story, so of course it can get confusing and who could remember all of those names, unless they were super invested in the source material?

This part of the story — chapters 64 to 68 of the one hundred chapters in the novel — is about Yen Ching the Wanderer and how the 108 Heroes — still the Outlaws of Mount Liangshan — comes to join and also how his mentor Lu Jun-yi gets framed by sinister fighting machine Shi Wen-gong, who is working for the Chinese government.

Two years later — it was filmed at the same time but censorship reared its head and it took some time to get all the gore past the government — the sequel All Men Are Brothers has the Imperial Court offering to erase all of the crimes of the 108 if they stop an invading army from taking over China.

Speaking of gore, Yen Ching gets revenge against his mentor’s traitorous wife Lady Chia by punching her through the stomach. After all, she got bored because her husband was such a good person and she set him up to add some excitement to her life.

The music in this movie is incredible, like some kind of prog rock organ jam out which doesn’t match the period time of this film, but when it’s this good, who cares? The opening introduction of each character is the kind of thing I watch again and again.

New World Pictures brought this to the U.S., but not before cutting a third of the movie, having the Shaw Brothers shoot an additional sex scene and recording a new narration.

Also known as A Kiss from Eddie and The Arousers — that’s a title! — this is the first film that Curtis Hanson (The Little Dragons, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Eight Mile) directed. He also wrote The Silent Partner and The Dunwich Horror.

The star of this movie, Tab Hunter, was a huge deal at one point. He was in Battle Cry, The Girl He Left Behind, Damn Yankees and West Side Story and had a music career, with “Young Love” going to number one for six weeks in 1957. Realizing that Hunter was a crossover star, Jack L. Warner banned Dot Records from working with his talent and established Warner Brothers Records just to originally release Tab Hunter records. After his career winded down to summer stock and dinner theater, he moved to France and was in a few Italian films, but his career finally came back when he was in Polyester, Lust In the Dust and Grease 2.

But at the time of this movie, he was struggling. That’s probably why he was open to being in a movie where he plays Eddie Collins, a man who can’t get aroused unless he’s killed someone and is next to their dead body, which is pretty wild for 1973. The original script had a woman being the killer, which Roger Corman didn’t get. His note on the file? It needed a reshoot because there weren’t enough bare breasts.

Hence the alternate title — The Arousers — and Roberta Collins (Death Race 2000), Cherie Latimer (Angels Hard As They Come), Linda Leider, Brandy Herred and Angel Fox billed and Hunter nowhere on the poster. That said, there was a free sexual stimulation test offered free at the theater. Corman also had Hanson shoot two more days of sex scenes just for this new cut of the film.

The best part is that Collins figures out what Hunter’s character needs. He used to peek at his mother in his teen years, so she dresses like the dead woman and just lies unmoving on the bed while Hunter strips her clothes off and molests her. Yes, if you think this is for the kids, just remember that new title.

Even better, this was called Sensualità morbosa (Morbid Sensuality) in Italy.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Barbara Peeters, who would go on to direct Summer School Teachers, Starhops and Humanoids from the Deep, came up with the idea for this movie while working as a script supervisor on Angels Die Hard. Once actress Rita Murray told her she was looking to produce, Peeters pitched and wrote this film in days. This would make Peeters the first female biker film director.

The six foot tall Dixie Peabody had been in Angels Die Hard in a small part and wouldn’t make many movies past this starring role (she’s also in Night Call Nurses and was a production assistant on Peeters’ Summer School Teachers). She plays Dag, who isn’t just a girl riding the back of the bike, but instead someone who rides for revenge on her own cycle.

As the film begins, we see her brother Dennis (Dixie’s real-life-brother Dan) get shot in the fact with a shotgun blast by a stranger (Stephen Whittaker), an event we see replayed in Dag’s head throughout the film. She grabs Jonsie (Terry Mace), Bernie (Clyde Ventura) and a gun of her own and they all head out north to kill that man, a fact lamented by her mother who realizes there’s no way she can stop her daughter. Maybe no one can.

Yet this isn’t the expected revenge film. The trio meet a witch in the desert who reveals to Dag that the revenge isn’t going to take away her grief and pain. An encounter with a hippie art teacher (Dan Haggerty) that turns into a red lit lovemaking scene which causes Dag to run rather than face up to the emotions she’s running from shows that our heroine maybe has some demons of her own. This is confirmed by the drug trip flashback she has and the ending, which drops some gasoline on the fire of this film and confirms the real reason why Dag’s brother’s death destroyed her.

Top it all off with some great songs by East-West Pipeline — their “Let It Be” isn’t The Beatles’ song but it’s super hot — and this film stands out from the rest of the biker pack. I wonder why Dixie Peabody didn’t do more, because she had the charisma to be somebody big and by that, I mean she’d be the villain torturing Cheryl “Rainbeaux” Smith or Claudia Jennings in some dank prison somewhere in the jungle, which I see as making it big.

William Burke and William Hare killed sixteen people over ten months, scandalizing Scotland when it was discovered that they had sold the corpses to anatomist and ethnologist Robert Knox for dissection during his anatomy lectures. Their story of these “resurrection men” inspired so many movies, including The Body Snatcher, Horror Maniacs, The Flesh and the Fiends, The Doctor and the Devils and 2010s Burke and Hare.

Where this movie differs is that director Vernon Sewell (Curse of the Crimson Altar, The Blood Beast Terror) tries to combine comedy, horror and lots of sex in his attempt to be different than what came before, including having nearly a sitcom theme song for the antics, which was written by Roger Webb with lyrics by Norman Newell, and performed by English comedy/musical trio The Scaffold (with uncredited vocal assistance by Vivian Stanshall).

Burke (Derren Nesbitt) and Hare(Glynn Edwards) live in filth, drinking away their days while rich doctors do the same, yet live in comfort. What they have in common are the brothels, places where they can escape duty and wives and just have no strings sex. Dr. Knox (Harry Andrews) is in need of hanging victims for his students to experiment on and for him to slice apart while he lectures. He hires the two to get these bodies and the authorities kind of let it pass, as after all society needs doctors.

When fresh bodies in their graves start to run out, the two start killing poor people that will never be missed and many of whom are already close to death. Yet the demand still is more than the supply, which means that they start killing people who just might be missed, like sex worker Marie (Françoise Pascal from Rollin’s The Iron Rose!). As if Pascal isn’t enough, Yutte Stensgaard (Carmilla herself from Lust for a Vampire) appears.

It’s not the definitive story of these grave robbers, but it’s still kind of bawdy fun. The sets look nice and man, that theme song!

When Carmine (Michael DeBartolo)the head of a crime family, is killed by a rival named Rooker (Vernon Wells), his son Grant (Justice Joslin) swears revenge. His lifelong best friend, Ray (Braxton Angle), is now a federal agent and while he wants to help his friend, he also has to keep him from going too far. To make matters worse, Ray’s dad (Michael Paré) is watching Grant’s 11-year-old daughter Jada (Tenley Kellogg) when Rooker comes calling.

When Grant goes after Rooker all by himself, this leads to the biggest worry of the movie: If Ray calls the cops, so many of them are paid off by Rooker. Best case, his friend gets arrested. Worse case, they both get killed. And the other option? He has to go up against the toughest criminals in town all by himself.

Director Hiroshi Katagiri has worked on plenty of special effects for some big movies, but now he’s directing. He also made Love Hurts and Gehenna: Where Death Lives, as well as acting as the writer on this film along with Chris Preyor. You can see some of his effects work in movies like Avatar: The Way of Water, Captain Marvel and Looper. He does a good job directing this film which seems like a welcome throwback to 90s action.

End of Loyalty is available on digital and on demand from Uncork’d Entertainment.