THE IMPORTANT CINEMA CLUB’S SUPER SCARY MOVIE CHALLENGE DAY 8: Hellgate (1989)

October 8: A Horror Film Shot in South Africa that passes it off as America (there’s a lot)

Director William A. Levey (Blackenstein, Wham! Bam! Thank You, Spaceman!, Slumber Party ’57The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington, Skatetown, U.S.A., Lightning the White Stallion) filmed Committed in South Africa — it would come out after this movie — with Jennifer O’Neill and Ron Palillo in South Africa. Yes, people wanted to see the star of The Psychic and the beloved icon of Welcome Back, Kotter in a movie together.

That led Levey to get hired to make Hellgate, which was shot in a real abandoned town in South Africa with a cast of South African actors, even if this is said to be America.

I always talk about twenty and thirtysomething teenagers in these movies. Palillo is a fortysomething teenager in this.

He plays Matt, who is heading out to meet his girlfriend Bobby (Joanne Warde) and her friends Pam (Petrea Curran) and Chuck (Evan J. Klisser) at a cabin in the Sierra Nevada mountains. While they’re waiting for him to show up, Bobby tells the urban legend — it’s a long one — of the Hellgate hitchhiker. Yes, on a night just like this, thirty years ago, Josie Carlyle (Abigail Wolcott) — the daughter of a rich gold miner named Lucas (Carel Trichardt) — was kidnapped, assaulted and killed by a biker gang.

After her father killed all of them with an axe, a prospector found a crystal that can do magic, magic that allowed Lucas to reanimate his daughter’s corpse because he never heard that sometimes, dead is better. Maybe the terrifying giant fish they messed with should have ended all of this.

As this story is being told, Matt has picked up Josie, thinking she’s a hitchhiker, and been chased out of her father’s house when caught getting ready for spicy ghost time. Despite being warned by Zonk (Lance Vaughan), the teens all decide to go into Hallgate, where they see a ghost dance with Josie nude among them, as well as the ghost of the man who killed her, Buzz (Frank Notaro).

Before all that long, it’s just Matt and Pam, as Bobby has strangled and turned into a ghostly vaudevillian and Chuck has had his head torn right off. After all this, Matt still decides that it would be a good idea to test the humidity with the spectral Josie — to be fair, she’s stunning — just in time for Pam to shotgun last her out the window. They run from their now zombie friends and steal Josie’s car. To get out, they literally knock a building down on her dad. And now, Josie just wanders the streets.

This movie looks way better than it should and has some good effects. If you ever wanted to see Horshack nude, well, this movie is for you. I’m kind of astounded by this movie, because man, that fish scene is completely soul destroying.

2022 Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge Day 8: Midnight Tease (1994)

8. IN YOUR DREAMS: Heavy on the dream sequence, Jack.

Samantha (Cassandra Leigh AKA Lisa Boyle) is an exotic dancer at Club Fugazi and her fantasy life is even wilder, as she dreams that she’s at the center of fetish-heavy sex scenes with murder always moments away. But as for her real-life dancing, it’s the kind of performance art pretty dance that’s more burlesque than bump and grind, finding her dressed as a schoolgirl complete with lollipop or part of a BDSM wedding number. No strip club you will ever go to will have outfits and routines at this level, unless Zanzibar from Flashdance was real. It’s not, I’m from Pittsburgh.

After she starts going to therapy with Dr. Saul (Justin Carroll), Samantha learns that her dreams are her working out the incest she survived from her father and the guilt that is still harming her as she watched him kill himself. As for the girls getting killed in the dream and then dying in real life, well now you’re in a giallo. Or an erotic thriller. Or a stripper in peril film.

The other girls in this include Stephanie Champlin (Witchcraft VIIce Cream Man) as Tiffany, Rachel Reed as Amy, Ashlie Rhey (Ring of Fire II: Blood and SteelHell’s Bells) as Mantra, Melissa Dutton (Forbidden Hearts) as Satchi, Nicole Grey (Joe D’Amato’s Il diavolo nella carne) as Dusty and Lisa Collins as Whiplash. The music is, as you would expect, perfectly 90s adult club music and the repetition will destroy you.

Director Scott P. Levy also made the TV remake of Piranha, as well as House of the Damned and The Alien Within. Writer Daniella Purcell also wrote the remake of The Wasp Woman and Burial of the Rats.

While not the greatest erotic thrill of the 90s — or even 1994 — the sequel was directed and written by Richard Styles, who made Sorcereress II. It has Kimberly Kelly, Tane McClure, Griffin Drew, Kim Kopf, Antonia Dorian and the reason why I’ll watch it, Julie K. Smith.

MVD BLU RAY RELEASE: Wrong Reasons (2022)

Punk rocker Kat Oden (Liv Roush) doesn’t do much, other than get high with her lover Nick (John Enick). Then one night, a masked man (James Parks) takes her, chains her to a bad and prepares to do…something. Detective Charles Dobson (Ralph Garman) is trying to find her but she may end up loving being kidnapped a little better than real life.

Directed and written by Josh Roush, who has made several films about Kevin Smith, this was made for almost no money and yet has a solid cast — Daniel Roebuck, David Koechner, Harley Quinn Smith, Donita Sparks from L7, Vernon Wells and Smith — who are all really fun in their roles.

Wrong Reasons has deleted Scenes, outtakes, a Q & A, commentary by director Josh Roush, co-producer Matt Rowbottom, composer Cam Mosavian and star Liv Roush as well as another commentary with Roush and executive producer Kevin Smith, an introduction by Smith, a trailer and more. You can get it from MVD.

SYNERGETIC BLU RAY RELEASE: Junkhead (2021)

This Japanese stop-motion animated science fiction film was directed and written by Takehide Hori. It has 140,000 stop-motion shots and Hori did it all — voices, sculpting puppets, lighting, camera operating, editing and the music — by himself.

In the future, man can live forever but can longer create life. As they go into decline, Parton goes underground to visit the Magarins, who provide the power that the humans need. Unlike their elite masters, they can keep making new versions of themselves. An explosion kills Parton, but his mind goes into a series of robot bodies which makes him see more of the side of the workers than those benefitting from them.

If you love strange films, science fiction or handmade animation, you need to watch Junk Head.

You can get Junk Head from MVD. It also has The Making Of Junk Head which is really great.

 

 

ARROW VIDEO BLU RAY RELEASE: The Prodigal Son (1981)

Leung Chang (Yuen Biao) has been studying kung fu without any hard work. That means that when he fights people and defeats them, it’s because his wealthy father has given money to his servant Yee Tung-choi (Chan Yung) which he uses to pay off his opponents.

Three of Chang’s friends go to see the Lok Fung Lin Chinese Opera troupe. One of them asks out the lead actress and is turned down. He gets insistent and she reveals that she is a man, Leung Yee-tai (Lam Ching-ying). The friends try to attack him, but he’s a Wing Chun expert. Chang, thinking that he’s a great fighter, wants to avenge his friend. Yee Tung-choi tries to bribe Yee-tai, but that fails and Chang discovers just how bad of a battler he is.

Chang asks Yee-tai to teach him Wing Chun but he wisely refuses, as the rich kid would just use it the wrong way. Chang’s father buys the Lok Fung Lin troupe and gives his son a job as Yee-tai’s personal assistant. Now, he follows him everywhere and begs to be taught. And by the end, another prodigal son — Ngai Fei (Frankie Chan) — will teach Chang where he was wrong.

Directed by Sammo Hung, who wrote the movie with Barry Wong, The Prodigal Son is a martial arts movie that actually has a lesson to be learned. I loved it.

The Arrow Video blu ray of this movie has so much! Start with the 2K restorations from the original elements by Fortune Star of both the original HK theatrical and home cuts, then get into extras like two commentary tracks — one by martial arts cinema expert Frank Djeng and actor Bobby Samuels and the other with action cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema — as well as featurettes on Wing Chun and Sammo Hung, as well as a double-sided poster, trailers, a reversible sleeve with art by Joe Kim and an illustrated book. You can buy it from MVD.

KINO LORBER BLU RAY RELEASE: Outrage (1950)

Directed by Ida Lupino — who co-wrote the script, along with producer Malvin Wald and her husband at the time Collier Young — this was the second post-Code Hollywood film to deal with the issue of rape. The other is after Johnny Belinda.

Ann Walton (Mala Powers) is ready to marry Jim Owens (Robert Clark) when a man who works near her starts following her, finally attacking her. All she can remember of him is a scar. Everyone is supportive, but she feels that Jim will never see her the same way again, so she runs.

She runs again when the bus she is on has a radio message play about her parents looking for her. That’s when she’s rescued by Rev. Bruce Ferguson (Tod Andrews). They start to grow close, but when another man kisses her at a carnival, she attacks him with a wrench. That’s when the reverend learns of her past and helps her to not go to jail.

Instead of giving in to her love, he sends her back home to Jim in an attempt to get back to her old life.

While the word rape could never be said in this movie, Lupino uses that to her advantage. The sad part of this is that a movie made seven decades ago still shows men to be the same as they are today, either wanting to control, own or foul any woman at any opportunity.

The Kino Lorber blu ray of Outrage has a new Paramount Pictures 4K scan and audio commentary by film historian Sara Smith.

TUBI ORIGINAL: Out of Bounds (2023)

Moriah (Karen Obilom) is in a super secret love affair with a famous basketball player for the Demon Dogs named George Carson (Sterling Sulieman). Of course, this being a Tubi movie, things probably won’t work out all that great for her.

She goes to his house for a party with her friend Rachel (Brianna Butler) and as she’s trying to find the bathroom, he tries to make out with her, right after talking about his wife and charity. Moriah decides that she should concentrate on work but all she can think about is getting slam dunked.

She signs the NDA he asks for and their affair starts, just in time for a man (David Andrew Nash) to ask where his daughter Kesha is. Bodyguard Bruno (Laith Wallschleger) gets them out of the drama and they’re off to a hotel deck to bang down low and, as the title says, go out of bounds. But is that George’s wife stalking them and getting photos from Bruno?

Oh yes. Crystal (Maxie McClintock) catches up with her in a clothing store and takes her to lunch. It seems friendly yet is laced with anger. As you can only imagine, by the end, she’s getting screwed up by drug-filled orange juice and husband and wife are into some swinging weirdness. That’s why I come to Tubi movies. For this.

You can watch this on Tubi.

VCI BLU RAY RELEASE: The Only Way (1970)

While Nazis deport the Danish Jews to extermination camps, the Danish people decide to fight them. One of the people in danger, Lillian Stein (Jane Seymour), wants to leave but her father (Ebbe Rode) wants to remain. Yet there comes a time when they must leave and it will take selling everything important to them and people giving their lives to get them away from this horror.

Directed by Bent Christensen and written by John Gould, this was Seymour’s first film and wasn’t available in the U.S. It’s a great lesson in the past and one that we should keep in mind for now, because I always believed that these things couldn’t happen any longer and today, I think that they could happen at any time. We need to study the past so that we avoid the future that is coming.

You can get The Only Way from MVD.

UNEARTHED FILMS BLU RAY: August Underground (2001)

Originally, this movie was going to be promoted by director, writer, actor and producer Fred Vogel leaving VHS tapes of this movie in random locations around the United States, such as parks and playgrounds. I have no idea what people would think when they saw this.

When he went to Canada to attend the Rue Morgue Festival of Fear in Toronto, Vogel was arrested, pending charges of transporting obscene materials into Canada for having copies of this movie.

That should tell you what you’re getting into.

Peter and his cameraman have a woman named Laura in his basement and they take their time killing her in a found footage kind of way that is never properly framed or filmed, which makes it seem real. There is no joy in what you watch, just a realistic version of what a serial killer’s footage would look like.

Sure, there’s a tour of Roadside America, one of the lost and sadly department parts of Pennsylvania kitsch history, but that’s just a short break before sodomy and hammers to the head dance as partners. Is it for you? I mean, is it for anyone? It definitely feels as real as it gets and I don’t know if that’s something I need to see.

You could also be an edgelord and be like, “I’m cooler than you because I endured this.”

This Unearthed Films blu ray release has extras including an audio commentary by actor/director Fred Vogel and Ulta Violent Magazine‘s Art Ettinger, 10 Questions with Fred Vogel, TOETAG Masterclass: From Storyboard To Screen, an interview with Vogel, three commentary tracks — Vogel, Vogel with Aaron and Ben LeBonte and one by the Killer — a location tour, a photo gallery, trailers and much more. You can get it from MVD.

ARROW BLU RAY RELEASE: Borsalino (1970)

Roch Siffredi (Alain Delon) — and yes, this is where the porn star got his name — is out of the big house and looking for his lover Lola (Catherine Rouvel). She’s now with François Capella (Jean-Paul Belmondo), another criminal, and while they fight at first they soon become partners.

Rinaldi, a lawyer who works for Marello (Arnoldo Foà) and Poli (André Bollet), helps them take over the fish market, which is fine by the rules of organized crime, but when they take over the meat market, it’s revenge time, They kill Poli, but Rinaldi is murdered by a killing machine called The Dancer. Before it’s all over, Siffredi and Capella are the new kings, but when Capella tries to leave it all behind, he’s killed. Finally, Siffredi decides that his friend had the right plan and gets out of town.

This movie happened because Delon wanted to make a movie with Jean-Paul Belmondo. By the time he was promoting the movie, he wasn’t so high on working with the actor, saying “We are still what you in America call pals or buddies. But we are not friends. There is a difference. He was my guest in the film but still he complained. I like him as an actor but as a person, he’s a bit different. I think his reaction was a stupid reaction… almost like a female reaction. But I don’t want to talk about him anymore.”

That’s because they had a deal to have their names as equals, yet Delon’s production credit came up first. There was even an agreement to split the number of close-ups.

As for the movie, Delon’s inspiration was the crime team of French gangsters Carbone and Spirito. There was an idea to have it be about them, but they were worried about using real gangsters.

The title comes from the company who made the fedoras that gangsters wore, Borsalino. Of course, when the movie was released, there was a revival of these hats.

The Arrow blu ray release of this movie has new audio commentary by film scholar Josh Nelson, features on the music, the costumes and Belmondo, a trailer, an image gallery, an illustrated book, a double-sided poster, and six art cards. You can get it from MVD.