Was Film Ventures International fighting Cannon for the rights to show Israeli movies in the U.S.?

Directed by Rafi Bukai, this was the Israeli entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 59th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.

“Forward people, towards redemption. Red Flag, Red Flag. Red Flag will triumph. Long live communism and freedom.” This Italian song, “Bandiera Rossa,” is also called “Avanti Popolo” after the first words in the song, which mean “Forward people.” That song is sung by the soldiers in this movie.

This is set on June 11, 1967, just as the cease fire of the Six-Day War starts and two Egyptian army men, Gassan and Haled, make their way through the Sinai desert to reach home. It feels like they have entered another planet as they seek any way to survive.

Finally, the protagonists meet and befriend three Israeli soldiers who should be their enemy. The war means nothing to them, other than something to live past. Tell that to the Swedish soldier, dead in a Jeep filled with high end alcohol or the British reporter who wants to see even more violence.

Chip (Vincent Van Patten) and his friends Stephanie (Susan Pratt), Brian (Robert Weaver), Angela (Robert Weaver), Sal (Cosie Costa) and Dianne (Randi Meryl) just wanted to head out to the desert, get drunk and probably have sex. Then they crashed their van and have to walk through the hot sands to get help, running into Kandaris (Peter Graves) and Professor (Ray Milland), who seem like good guys but nope, they’re not. Everyone is in trouble. You are too, because that poster looked so exciting and then this movie just seems like it’s grinding you into pure ennui.

Yes, Larry Spiegel directed and wrote this (he also made Evil Town a few years later) and you start to feel like this is the kind of movie that they keep on hand for when you have panic attacks and need to calm down and finally get some sleep. Maybe I’m letting you in a bit too deeply into my life. And I hate writing about a movie just to tear it down, but this film has Graves and Milland in charge of a Mexican drug gang while some kids just want to have soft swinging while camping in a van.

Oh yeah — Spiegel also produced Death Game, so that’s where I recognize him from.

I wish I could report this was better than it was. But…it isn’t.

If there’s a hicksploitation hall of fame, Shelley Winters should probably be in it. She’s in one of the movies that defines so many of the genre’s themes, The Night of the Hunter, as well as some of its best — and most exploitative examples — films, such as Bloody Mama and Poor Pretty Eddie. She also plays a housekeeper Katy who has also had a space baby sometime in the past in the astounding 70s blast of odd called The Visitor.

Somewhere in the Deep South, this is all about barefoot farmer’s daughter Ellie (Sheila Kennedy, Penthouse Pet of the Month for December 1981 and the 1983 Pet of the Year) getting revenge for her father’s murder at the hands of her stepmother (Winters) — who killed the kindly old man while she chowed down on fried chicken.

She only has one weapon. Her body. And she knows how to use it.

George Gobel, Edward Albert and Pat Paulsen all show up, but the main thrill of the film is its rampant nudity. Somehow, this movie is also a version of the Greek myth of Elektra, if you can wrap your mind around that.

Director Peter Wittman was also behind exactly one other movie, Play Dead, where a woman kills with her brain and her dog. It’s not great or even good, but it’s the kind of movie that you stayed up to watch on a Friday night on Cinemax. If you never did that, you’re probably going to hate this. If you did, you have a near-limitless capacity for enduring boring films. Not that I would know or anything.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Alley Cat has three directors. I have no idea why, but Victor M. Ordonez (who is in Nine Deaths of the Ninja and Hellhole), Ed Palmos and Al Valetta (who is in Sole Survivor, Runaway Nightmare and Hollywood’s New Blood) all had their hand in this movie, leaving Robert Waters, who also wrote Fighting Mad, to write the actual story.

Billie (Karin Mani, who was also in Avenging Angel) is our heroine Billie. She starts the movie by stopping some scumbags from stealing her car. They go their boss Scarface (Michael Wayne), who decides that he’s going to turn this tiger into an alley cat, a plan that starts by putting her grandmother in the hospital and beating her grandfather something fierce. The one good thing that happens is that she falls for a cop named Johnny (Robert Torti), who ends up having to arrest her with his partner Boyle (Jon Greene) when she defends some joggers from the very same criminals and has a gun without a permit.

When Billie goes to court, she pays twice the fine of the rapists, whose victims are intimidated by Scarface and never show. Billie reacts like a manaic, gets charged with contempt of court and turns her movie into a WIP film for a little, complete with requisite shower moment.

This is the only women’s revenge movie — yes, Billie gets out and gets said payback — in which the lead character eats at an Arby’s. The old Arby’s, before they had the meats and all they had was that giant beef hat on the sign. And oh yeah — while she’s in jail, her grandmother dies and Billie is robbed of those last moments, so even though her boyfriend wants to legally deal with Scarface, you will be hoping that she shoots him right in the dick.

When the general public thinks of a slasher film with no redeeming value whatsoever, chances are they’re thinking about this movie. It is at the same time the best and worst film you’ve ever watched. But more importantly, it is never ever boring.

Back in 1942, a young boy named Timmy was putting together a jigsaw puzzle of a naked woman. His mother, understandably, is upset and demands he get a garbage bag to throw the puzzle away. Instead, he came back with an axe to her head and then cut her up with a hacksaw. He hides in a closet and the police send him to live with his aunt, as they believe whoever killed his mother had escaped.

This all happens within the first minute of this movie. Yes, Pieces packs more gore and strangeness into sixty records than most movies do in ninety minutes.

Cut to (no pun intended) a girl studying outside, who gets her head chopped off by a chainsaw and stolen. Lt. Bracken (Christopher George, Day of the Animals, City of the Living Dead) and Sgt. Holden (Frank Braña, Yellow Hair and the Fortress of Gold, If You Shoot…You Live, God Forgives…I Don’t!) start their investigation, meeting the dean (Edmund Purdom, Absurd, 2019: After the Fall of New York) and anatomy Professor Brown (Jack Taylor, Horror of the Zombies, Conan the Barbarian). Rounding out our suspects would be Willard (Paul Smith, Bluto from Altman’s Popeye, one of the first movies that I remember hating as a child), a groundskeeper who is using a chainsaw.

Then, in the library, Kendall gets a note from a girl, telling him to come see her at the pool. The killer reads the note first and chainsaws the girl to, well, pieces. Willard is arrested and the detectives find the chainsaw and the girl’s body…except for her torso (no, not 1973’s Torso).

Meanwhile, Dr. Hennings (Gérard Tichy, Hatchet for the Honeymoon) meets with Kendall to get a profile of the murderer. They also bring in an undercover cop named Mary Riggs (Lynda Day George, TV’s Mission: Impossible, Mortuary), who will be acting as a tennis instructor to try and catch the killer. How the killer is attracted to tennis is never explained. And according to director Juan Piquer Simón, none of the women in the movie knew how to play tennis, despite the fact that they are playing professionals in this movie. They had to hire a tennis coach for the production as a result. Why tennis figures so prominently in Pieces is one of the many mysteries of this film.

The killer then decimates a girl who just finished her dance routine — dance and aerobics are also vital points of this film — and saws her arms off. He also stabs a reporter who is nebbing about — all before the cops arrive on the scene.

One of Mary’s tennis students is then sawed in half while loud music blares on the school’s loudspeakers. The volume of this music drives people completely insane! Mary and Kendall discover the body, as well as the fact that Willard has been released. Before calling the cops, they decide to turn the music down. Bad idea — the killer steals the girl’s legs. Mary then has a nervous breakdown which is, for some, the most memorable part of Pieces.

Kendall wants to be a cop — and why not, the real cops just let college students follow them as they chase murderers — and together with Lt. Holden, they come up with the theory that the killer is on the school’s teaching staff.

Surprise! The dean has changed his name, which used to be Timmy. Mary has figured this out as well, but Timmy/the dean has drugged her and is sawing of her feet to see if they fit into his mother’s shoes. The cops and Kendall arrive to stop him, shooting him the head.

Everyone is joking around, about how Kendall should be a cop now, when a bookshelf is triggered and they discover the human jigsaw puzzle of body parts wearing Timmy’s mother’s dress. It falls on Kendall, who screams his head off and is traumatized.

Finally, as the cops and Kendall leave, the corpse comes back to life and squeezes Kendall’s nuts so hard that blood pours out of his jeans. Why is the body still alive? Why is it after arguably the hero of the movie’s twig and berries? Oh, the questions you will have when you watch Pieces!

Any film with the tagline, “It’s exactly what you think it is!” is going to go for the jugular. This one also goes for the femoral vein, renal artery and the dorsalis pedis artery.

Oh man! I nearly forgot — there’s a cameo by Bruce Lee imitator, Bruce Le, in Pieces that don’t fit into the movie at all! He just shows up and tries to do karate moves on Mary, thinking she is the killer. This is all because producer Dick Randall was simultaneously some kung-fu films in Rome! Here’s an example of just how racist this scene is:

Kendall: Oh, hey, it’s my Kung Fu professor. What’s the story, Chao?

Karate Professor: Oh, I am out jogging and next thing I know I am on ground! Something I eat, bad chop suey. So long!

This film is filled with completely bonkers dialogue. Here is one of my favorite moments:

Lt. Bracken: You’ll be playing so much tennis it’ll be coming out of your ears!

And this exchange:

Female Student 1: Have you ever been laid on a waterbed?

Female Student 2: The most beautiful thing in the world is smoking pot and fucking on a waterbed, at the same time.

Oh man! I can’t forget the scene where Sgt. Holden calls a friend on the force for help and then says, “I’ll send you a box of lollipops,” suggesting that Pieces and Kojak take place in the same universe!

There was another title for this film — The Night Has 1,000 Screams — but I prefer Pieces. It’s a grimy, scummy, goofy, strange film that will find it’s way into your heart so that it can cut it out and stab it several times, then saw it up and throw it in a garbage bag.

You can watch this with and without Joe Bob Briggs’ commentary on Shudder!

I’ve recently been reading the book Satanic Panic: Pop Culture Paranoia in the 1980’s and reminded of my own misspent youth. In sixth grade, a teacher knew that I was religious and thought I could warn my fellow classmates about the dangers of evil music and movies. He gave me a mimeographed sheet of heavy metal (and non-metal) bands to study and by the time I got to Black Sabbath, my soul was sold to rock and roll.

By eleventh grade, I was squarely in the devil’s camp in the eyes of my teachers. My love for bands like King Diamond and Danzig, along with my predilection for drawing Leatherface in class, marked me as a subject of interest. Obviously, I was doing drugs and black mass rituals — I could easily discuss Dungeons & Dragons, too. I was to be more feared the dead-eyed athletes who would soon realize their lives were peaking at 17 while mine hadn’t even started yet.

It’s to those times in my youth, when I wanted to escape my hometown and sat in my room blaring Samhain’s “November Coming Fire” and reading Fangoria, that this movie perfectly fits in. It is disgusting. It is unrepentant. It has no moral or social value. It is filled with the kind of gore than makes churches throw VHS tapes into a blazing bonfire. In short, it is everything amazing and wonderful and metal about horror movies.

The movie starts with two Germans exploring a beautiful Greek beach. Someone emerges from the ocean and murders them. Meanwhile, five travelers are joined by Julie (Tisa Farrow, who some may know as the sister of Mia, but we all know her as Anne from Zombi 2), who asks for a ride to the island. However, Carol (Zora Kerova, Cannibal Ferox, The New York Ripper) uses her tarot cards to learn that something bad will happen. No one listens to her.

The pregnant Maggie (Serena Grandi from Delirium) stays behind on the boat and is abducted by the killer, who quickly beheads a sailor.

The island is in ruins and completely abandoned, except for a woman in black, who writes go away in the dust. Upon finding a rotting corpse that has been eaten, everyone runs back to the boat, which is floating unmanned, then goes to the house of Julie’s friends. There, only the family’s blind daughter Henriette has survived.

The young girl panics and attacks Daniel, but when she is calmed, she tells everyone of the maniac that is stalking the island. Daniel is wounded and needs medicine, so Andy and Arnold head to town. Meanwhile, Daniel flirts with Julie, which causes Carol to run into town and Julie to follow her. While all this drama is going on, the killer rips out Danel’s throat.

Everyone travels to a mansion that belonged to Klaus Wortman, who died along with his wife and child in a shipwreck. This caused his sister, the woman in black, to lose her mind. And to hammer that point home, we soon see her hang herself.

Everything seems like its going to get better when a boat rifts to shore. On board, Julie finds Klaus’ journal. It turns out that he is alive…and the killer! Soon, Maggie is confronted by him and we learn that it’s George Eastman, who is in so many awesome Italian movies, such as Baba Yaga, 2019: After the Fall of New York, The New Barbarians, Blastfighter, Rabid Dogs, Hands of Steel, 1990: The Bronx Warriors, oh man! So many amazing films! This is his star-making role though and he really goes for it. He has a flashback where we learn how he accidentally stabbed his wife while trying to convince her that they should eat their dead son to survive. After eating his family, he went insane. Soon, Klaus breaks out of his flashback reverie, stabs Arnold and rips out and eats the unborn baby inside Maggie’s belly. Holy fucking shit, this movie!

I wish that those teachers who thought I was a Satanic terror in 1988 could see me now, jumping up and down with glee at 2:44 AM on a school night screaming “GEORGE EASTMAN!” while drinking a beer and holding a small dog.

What follows can’t really top that, but fuck it if Eastman isn’t going to try, including eating his own intestines after Andy hits him the stomach with a pickaxe! That’s a commitment to your role!

The American version of this film, The Grim Reaper, has 35 cuts in an attempt to get an R rating. That’s correct – nine minutes are missing, including the baby being devoured and the killer eating himself. It just ends when he is stabbed in the stomach. It also replaces the electronic Italian score with the music from Kingdom of the Spiders.

Director Joe D’amato and George Eastman would return in a spiritual sequel called Absurd. If you want to see this,  grab the insanely awesome Severin Video rerelease or watch it as The Grim Reaper on Tubi.

BONUS: Here’s a drink to go with the movie.

Tasty Baby on a Greek Beach

• 1 oz. rum
• 1 oz. Southern Comfort
• 1 oz. vodka
• 1 oz. grenadine
• 2 tbsp. lime juide
• 1.5 oz. orange juice

1. Mix and serve over ice.
2. Watch over your shoulder for Klaus Wortman.