Frank Henenlotter’s Sexy Shockers (September 1 – 7) We all know Frank Hennenlotter as the director of the Basket Case films, Bad Biology, Brain Damage, and Frankenhooker, but he’s also a cinematic curator of the crass! An academic of the pathetic! A steward of sleaze! A sexton of the sexual and the Sexy Shocker series is his curio cabinet of crudity. Skin and sin are mixed together in these homegrown oddities, South American rediscoveries, and Eurohorror almost-classics. Your mind may recoil with erotic revulsion at the sights contained within these films, so choose wisely!

I’ve seen so many World’s Most Dangerous Games. Bloodlust, The 10th Victim, The Woman Hunt, Maneater, Long Lasting Days, Prey for the Hunter, No Man’s Island, Night Creature, Relentless Justice, Fleshburn, Pray for the Wildcats, American Hunt, Scream of the Wolf, The Beast Must Die, Death Race 2000, The Man With the Golden Gun, The Perverse Countess, Seven Women for Satan, Turkey Shoot, Tag the Assassination Game, The Prize of Peril, The Final Executioner, Gymkata, Endgame, Fair Game, Rituals, Lethal Woman, Mirage, Hunter’s Blood, Blood Games, 31, Hunt Club, Hunting Games, Army of One, Warriors of the Year 2072, Game of Survival, Violence In a Women’s Prison, Avenging Force, Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity, The Running Man, Deadly Game, Hard Target, Surviving the Game, Slashers, The Woman Hunter, Tender Flesh (Jess Franco on the list twice), Battle Royale, Mean Guns, The Jail: The Women’s Hell (Bruno Mattei on the list twice), Naked Fear, The Purge movies, Ready or Not, The Hunt, even Without Warning and the Predator films are in the same genre.

Herbert S. Altman directed one other movie, the Lenny Bruce film Dirtymouth, and co-director Robert Worms was the director of Terror On Tape. Together with writer Bill Boyd — one and done — they made what may be the strangest take on Richard Connell’s story. They go by the name Eve. This is the first time an adaptation would have a female hunter.

Actor Charles Freeman (Dick Lord), druggie Buddy (Frank Geraci) and former pro wrestler Rocco (Jake LaMotta, the raging bull!) have all been acquitted of murder — Charles killed a lover’s husband, Buddy gave a girlfriend an overdose and Rocco wouldn’t stop beating on another fighter — at some time in their lives but are now on the skids. They’re gathered by Virginia Marcus (Eileen Lord, a one and done as well and that’s a shame because she’s beyond bonkers in this), a wealthy woman who offers them $100,000 each if they can survive for one day with her hunting them throughout New York City.

None of them make it. Charles gets the acting role he’s always wanted, but it’s a set-up to be shot with an arrow. Rocco gets treated like a bull as Virginia dresses like a matador and uses the traditional bullfight weapons to murder him. Buddy gets away, but just for a few hours and soon dies, killed looking for a fix.

Those are the original 55 minutes of this movie. The other 15 minutes that were added later are nude women, added so that this could play in art theaters. Virginia is unhinged, becoming a hunter after her brother threw her dog off the roof — “I was glad when it died!” she barks at her psychoanalyst — and she ends up screaming in a straightjacket, back to being a little girl by the end.

This movie is about as wonderful as it gets.