EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

A young boy rises from a lake, fully clothed, and travels to church where a priest delivers a fire and brimstone speech about the sins of the world, in particular, six people.

Afterward, the other choir members bully the boy, even putting a knife to his throat.

Those six people have been invited to a ten-year class reunion: John, a lawyer who doesn’t care if his clients are guilty. Cindy, a promiscuous party girl. Terry, an overweight ne’er-do-well. Jane, a wealthy and immoral heiress. Roger, a vain actor. And Kirsten, a lesbian.

The event will be at their old high school, where a mysterious man arrives to kill the janitor and make a mask of his face.

None of the six people really knew one another. Yet they enjoy a room appointed with plenty of room and drink. It’s all fun and games until they find the dead body of the janitor filled with maggots and that the school is locked.

Am I really spoiling anything if I tell you that everyone dies? Terry gets his crotch set on fire with a flamethrower. Jane meets a hunter in disguise who recites poetry to her before killing her with a shotgun. Roger is killed by a magician and his deadly trick. Cindy is attacked by a clown and drowned in a sink, an attack that seems to take forever.

John meets the killer face to unmasked face. He reveals that he has lured them to the school to punish them for lives of sin, such as John being a criminal lawyer who helps guilty criminals go free. The killer is a Redeemer, one who has decided to rid the world of the wicked starting with a few sinners. They fight and John shoots the killer in the side, but he recovers and graphically shoots John in the head.

Kirsten is chased through the school and even gets the gun, but a giant puppet stabs her.

The Redeemer is revealed to be the priest, who returns to the church to finish his sermon, claiming that the six sinners will be given redemption. He then meets with the boy, who reveals that he has killed one of the boys who bullied him, as well as a Bible salesman. The boy tells him that all will be right.

The priest goes home to tend to his wounds and we notice he has an extra thumb, which disappears. The boy goes back to the lake, where he walks into the water and disappears.

The movie closes with this: “From out of the darkness the hand of the Redeemer shall appear to punish those who have lived in sin… and return to the watery depths of Hell.”

Shot in July 1976 and also known as Class Reunion Massacre, this movie is way ahead of its time. And it also seems like it wasn’t created by human beings. It’s legitimately unsettling at times and raises plenty of questions. Who is behind everything? The kid or the priest? Why are they really doing it? Why pick these exact people and this exact school? Why the masks and deathtraps?

Why ask why? This film is closer to a surrealist art film than a horror movie. Just watch the scene with the Grim Reaper costume and the Redeemer screaming and yelling, but locked outside the gates. It’s just…off. And I loved it.

21st Century licensed this to Continental Video as Class Reunion Massacre.

You can watch this on Tubi.

This is the sequel to Exit the Dragon, Enter the Tiger, stars Bruce Li and is one of the best Brucesploitation films I’ve seen.

I guess it’s a spiritual sequel as Li plays a totally different character, Chang Hung. He and his partner (Angela Mao, Lady Whirlwind) are busting up a crime empire run by Paul (Paul Smith!), taking out most of his army early and even suggesting that he just kill himself. Of course, being a gigantic evil man, Paul decides to go on the offensive and battle back. There’s also a Chinese gang that Paul is fighting for control of the heroin business, which means that our heroes are going to go all Yojimbo or A Fistful of Dollars and play them all off one another.

This movie would be incredible if all it did was steal Wild Cherry’s “Play That Funky Music” and most of the score from Live and Let Die, but it goes all the way to have an incredible ending fight with Smith remembering when he was playing a Bud Spencer ripoff along with Michael Coby as his Terence Hill in movies like Convoy Buddies. He’s a monster compared to the kung fu guys throwing flying kicks at him and it’s amazing to watch him throw them around. The way he’s finally defeated is even more amazing.

You can watch this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

Directed by Romolo Guerrieri (The Sweet Body of Deborah, Ten Thousand Dollars for a Massacre, Detective Belli, The Final Executioner), who wrote this with Nico Ducci, Mino Roli and Vittorio Schiraldi, Covert Action was known in Italy as Sono Stato un Agente C.I.A. It’s based on former C.I.A. agent Philip Agee’s book Inside the Company: CIA Diary. He eventually became disillusioned with the U.S. government’s support for authoritarian governments across Latin America and that they worked for multinational corporations and not for the good of the world. He did work with the producers, but by the end of the movie sued them over his fees and expenses.

Lester Horton (David Janssen) is really Agee, a man who has left the C.I.A. and wants to write about his time with them again, after a first book that put him on their hit list. There’s also a tape that has dirt on the commander of the Athens C.I.A. station (Arthur Kennedy), which is being kept by John Florio (Maurizio Merli), who is married to Horton’s ex-girlfriend Anna (Corinne Cléry).

The C.I.A. commits Horton to a mental ward to get rid of him, giving him shock therapy — this scene is pretty intense — while a Greek inspector (Phillip Leroy) works to discover the truth of what is happening. The spies also want to take out Florio, as his heroin addiction has led to him becoming a liability. To take him out, they send their killer, known as The Silent (Ivan Rassimov) who cooly takes the man out.

This has a great Stelvio Cipriani score, a super dark feel throughout and was Janssen’s last film, released four months after he died by 21st Century. Catherine Bach was the original lead, but was replaced with Cléry.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

When you see the names Brian Trenchard-Smith and Nico Mastorakis listed as producers, you know that you’re probably getting into something good. Also known as Demon Island, this film was directed by Richard Jeffries, who is probably better known for the films that he’s written like Scarecrows and Cold Creek Manor. He’s only directed one other film, the 2008 TV movie Living Hell.

It’s funny, when I discussed this movie earlier today with Bill from Groovy Doom, he referred to it as “the monster movie with no monster.” That’s an apt description.

It’s also about a treasure hunter named Frye (James Earl Jones) whose underwater scavenging brings back an ancient sea monster that demands virgin blood.

Meanwhile, Neil and Sherry (Martin Kove and Mary Louise Weller, who appeared in Q The Winged Serpent the same year as this movie) have come to the island looking for his missing sister Madeline (Deborah Shelton, who also sings the song over the end credits with her then-husband Shuki Levy). Plus, Lydia Cornell stops hanging out with Cosmic Cow on Too Close for Comfort and shows up as Jones’ girlfriend.

Inexplicably, Lila Kedrova from Zorba the Greek and Jose Farrar — well, he’s less of a surprise as Jose may have been the first actor to win the National Medal of Arts, but he’s also in spectacular junk like The Sentinel, Bloody Birthday and The Being — both appear.

Arrow’s write-up promised “blood, nudity and beachside aerobics.” This delivered, as well as some great dream sequences and moments where beachfront rituals seem to go on forever. That said, I had a blast with this movie, as any film that has Martin Kove skipping around the waves holding a miniature engine while the ladies go wild and James Earl Jones yells at everyone will hold my attention.