In case you never read the site, you may not know how much I love Bruno Mattei. Well, Severin seemingly feels the same as they’re releasing a bundle of three of the Italian maniac’s movies!
These blu rays will have the best-looking versions of these movies yet along with bonus features from Claudio Fragauso and Rossella Drudi. You can get each movie by itself or in a big fancy bundle.
Born to Fight (1989): The third time Brent Huff would work with Bruno Mattei — there’s also Strike Commando 2 and Cop Game— this time finds the actor playing Sam Wood, a survivor of a vicious Vietnamese prison camp who is talked into going back into hell with reporter Maryline Kane (Mary Stavin, the 1977 Miss World who is also in Mattei’s Born to Fight, as well as Open House, House, Octopussy, A View to a Kill, Caddyshack II, Top Line and Howling V: The Rebirth, proving that I have seen many of her movies), who really just wants our hero to help her free her father from the prison camp.
Things get more complicated when Wood learns that Duan Loc (Werner Pochath, Colonel Magnum from Thunder 3) is still in charge. Yet instead of being a film that explores the root causes and treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder, Mattei and writer Claudio Fragasso give everyone watching what they really want: violence, glorious violence.
The beauty of this film is that Mattei references Casablanca while featuring a hero who is so bored with life that he mixes snake venom into the beer he drinks all day long to escape the pain of his past.
Made pretty much hours after pretty much the same crew finished Strike Commando 2, Born to FIght has everything I look for in a Mattei Philippines war movie, which is totally a genre, thank you for asking. There’s nothing quite like a slow-motion Brent Huff unloading millions of rounds of ammunition into bamboo huts while screaming and repeatedly saying his catchphrase, “It can be done.” Maybe he was a Bud Spencer fan?
As for Ms. Stavin, she also dated Manchester United football hero George Best, who was voted the sixth for the FIFA Player of the Century and one of GQ’s fifty most stylish men of the last fifty years in 2007. One of the first celebrity football players, he was nicknamed El Beatle and owned restaurants, fashion boutiques and a nightclub called Slack Alice. Of his life, he said, “I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars – the rest I just squandered.”
Between 1982 and 1984, the fitness craze swept the UK. Lifestyle Records released a series of celebrity albums in which different somewhat famous folks sang cover songs and discussed what working out meant to them. The first two albums, which featured Felicity Kendal and Angela Rippon, sold well. Later releases, well…not so much. Beyond Isla St. Clair, Suzanne Danielle, Christina Brookes, Jay Aston, Suzanna Dando and Patti Boulaye, Stavin and Best released their album, which even had their cover of “It Takes Two” cut as a single. They also covered The Eurythmics’ “Love Is a Stranger!”
Cop Game (1988): An elite group of commando assassins — Cobra Squad! — are murdering high-ranking U.S. soldiers in the closing days of Vietnam. To stop them, Morgan (Brent Huff, Gwendoline, Nine Deaths of the Ninja) and Hawk (Max Laurel, who played Zuma in two films and Quang in Robowar) must have one another’s back against a massive conspiracy.
Yes, Bruno Mattei — Bob Hunter! — has united with Rossella Drudi and Claudio Fragrasso, headed to the Philippines and made a movie that makes little to no sense whatsoever. I don’t say this as an insult. Few of the man’s movies have anything approaching a coherent plot. Yet every single one of them wants to entertain you to the point that you are rolling on the floor in incredulity and laughter. They are everything you want them to be.
This is the kind of movie with dialogue like “When you go home, you will forget about me. But I will still be here, drowning in a sea of shit.” and “Ah, Jesus Christ, cocksucker motherfucking sonofabitch.” Nearly every line is screamed as loudly as possible, as if a twelve-year-old boy has just been allowed to stay home by himself while his parents go out and he takes advantage of the freedom by repeatedly saying combinations of swear words and never getting tired of using them until he’s hoarse by the time mom and dad come back.
It’s also the kind of film that says that it takes place in 1975 Vietnam but also has plenty of Miami Vice and 80’s buddy cop vibes, along with stolen footage from The Ark of the Sun God, both StrikeCommando movies and Double Target. I guess since Mattei made most of those, he’s really just cutting and pasting. You can’t steal from yourself, right? This isn’t a John Fogerty getting sued because his song “The Old Man Down the Road” sounds exactly like a Creedence Clearwater Revival situation!
Cop Game also has an all-star cast and by that, I mean actors that ony I care about like Romano Puppo (Trash’s dad in Escape from the Bronx), Candice Daly (After Death), Werner Pochath (Colonel Magnum in Thunder III), Robert Marius (Mad Warrior), Massimo Vanni (Robowar), Ottaviano Dell’Acqua (who is the “We are going to eat you” undead face on the poster for Zombie), Roberto Dell’Acqua (Nightmare City), Jim Gaines (Zombies: The Beginning) and a Brett Halsey cameo.
Mattei made movies in nearly every junk film genre. I can honestly say that I have loved every single one of them and if you want to hear me ramble on about something, ask me about them.
Double Target (1987): You know, if John Rambo hadn’t gone back to Vietnam and gotten the chance to win that time, we wouldn’t be blessed with an entire video store section of films from around the world. Rambosploitation?
My mother told me that after he came home from working late in the mill, my grandfather would watch war movies at ear-shattering volumes, loudly laughing and enjoying himself while the entire family would be awakened by the cinematic combat echoing through the paper-thin walls.
Forty or so years later, I realize that I have inherited his vice.
After several American and British military personnel are killed in suicide attacks throughout southeast Asia, the U.S. government starts thinking that perhaps — just perhaps — the Vietnamese government isn’t the ally they thought they were.
There’s only one man to call when you need the truth.
Bob Ross.
No, not that Bob Ross. I’m talking Miles O’Keefe, the very same man who was Ator, now transplanted to the ninth circle of Southeast Asia, seeking the son he has never known, going up against the most sinister of all Russians and backed up by exactly no one.
Seeing as how this is a Bruno Mattei film, you just know that all manner of absolute celluloid cutting and pasting is going to happen. Well, it goes both ways, because Mr. Mattei was an early adopter of recycling, doing his part to keep his scummy cinema carbon footprint small. That shark that shows up? Yep, it’s taken directly from The Last Shark. And since he went to the trouble to lens all this jungle footage, it also shows up in Cop Game, Robowar and Shocking Dark, while the musical score ends up coming back in Interzone.
This movie unites so many of my film favorites, like Donald Pleasence as the incredibly named Senator Blaster, a man who is either coughing or screaming at everyone around him. And look! There’s Bo Svenson as the nasty Russian Colonel Galckin, a man so evil that he puts a gun into Ross’ son’s hands and explains to him exactly how to blow his dad’s brains out.
Kristine Erlandson kind of made a name for herself — well, with video store weirdos — by being in movies like this, Trident Force, Saigon Commandos, Vengeance Squad, Warriors of the Apocalypse and American Commando. She’s joined by Ottaviano Dell’Acqua*, the rotting zombie from the infamous “We are going to eat you!” Zombi poster, Massimo Vanni** from Zombi 3 and Luciano Pigozzi*** (Pag from Yor Hunter from the Future).
Man, this movie tugs at the heartstrings. Ross had a kid over in ‘Nam and never knew his wife, who was taken into a re-education camp, where she died and his kid ended up hating him. Or course, this was filmed in the Philippines, but let’s not argue.
Mattei used his Vincent Dawn name on this one and co-conspirator and potential co-director Claudio Fragasso went as Clyde Anderson in the credits. Speaking of American names for Italians, let’s answer those little footnotes:
*Richard Raymond
** Alex McBride
***Alan Collins
You know, this movie entertained me beyond belief, but I’m beyond a Mattei apologist. If he was still alive and needed a place to live, I would move him into my basement and cook every meal for him.
To learn more about any of those movies, click on the link to see the articles we shared this week.
Admission is $10 per person each night (children 12 and under FREE with adult guardian). Camping on the premises is available each night and that includes breakfast.
Advance tickets are available online at the Riverside Drive-In’s webpage.
This October, the Kino Cult linear FAST channel streams deep cuts of cult horror titles as thematically-paired “midnight movie” double features throughout the month all free with ads.
Kino Cult is a free ad-supported streaming destination for genre lovers of horror and cult films, Kino Cult also has hundreds of new and rare theatrically released cult hits, all presented in beautiful high definition. Additionally, Kino Cult offers an ad-free subscription plan for $4.99 per month.
The Parkway Theater has always and will continue to show films from local and Hollywood independent filmmakers representing a wide variety of viewpoints. Raising consciousness about film and its relevance to modern life and culture and integrating that understanding into community offerings to educate people about the possibilities for gaining a positive voice for change through film and the arts are mission goals of the Community Reel Arts Center.
And this October they have some great films! The Parkway is in Pittsburgh’s McKees Rocks neighborhood at 644 Broadway Ave. You can learn more at their official site.
Bodies, Bodies, Bodies (2022): When a group of rich 20-somethings plan a hurricane party at a remote family mansion, a party game goes awry in this fresh and funny look at backstabbing, fake friends, and one party gone very, very wrong.
It’s playing 9/25 – 3:15 pm, 9/29 – 7:00 pm and 9:00 pm, 9/30 – 7:30 pm and 10/2 – 4:00 pm.
Pearl (2022): Filmmaker Ti West returns with another chapter from the twisted world of X, in this astonishing follow-up to the year’s most acclaimed horror film. Trapped on her family’s isolated farm, Pearl must tend to her ailing father under the bitter and overbearing watch of her devout mother. Lusting for a glamorous life like she’s seen in the movies, Pearl finds her ambitions, temptations, and repressions all colliding in this stunning, technicolor-inspired origin story of X‘s iconic villain.
Pearl is showing on 10/14 – 7:00 pm; 10/15 – 5:30 pm, 7:30 pm and 9:30pm; 10/16 – 1:15 pm and 3:00 pm; 10/20 – 9:15 pm.
Deep Red: Also known as The Hatchet Murders, this is a 1975 Italian giallo film directed by Dario Argento and co-written by Argento and Bernardino Zapponi. It stars David Hemmings as a musician who investigates a series of murders performed by a mysterious figure wearing black leather gloves.
Cult Epics presents on blu ay & DVD Just Jaeckin’s The Last Romantic Lover in a brand new 4K transfer, supervised by Oscar-nominated cinematographer Robert Fraisse, fully loaded with a plethora of new bonus features such as commentary by Jeremy Richey (author of the book Sylvia Kristel: From Emmanuelle to Chabrol) and interviews with Jaeckin and Dayle Haddon.
The editor-in-chief (Dayle Haddon) of a New York women’s magazine is organizing the “Last Romantic Lover” contest to find out if men still have a sense of romance. One of the winners is a circus lion-tamer (Gérard Ismaël), whose prize is to spend 10 days with her.
September has some great movies on Kino Cult. The free ad-supported streaming destination for genre lovers of horror and cult films, Kino Cult also has hundreds of new and rare theatrically released cult hits, all presented in beautiful high definition. Additionally, Kino Cult offers an ad-free subscription plan for $4.99 per month.
September 1: Jess Franco’s Strange Obsessions
Vampyros Lesbos (director Jess Franco): The “ne plus ultra: of Jess Franco erotic horror, Vampyros Lesbos is a sublime ’70s spin on the lesbian vampire mythos.
Sinfonia Erotica(director Jess Franco): A nobleman and his two lovers – a teenage boy and a runaway nun – plan to kill his wife.
September 8: A Date With “Angel”
Angel(director Robert Vincent O’Neil): In one of the most notorious of the ’80s grindhouse classics, a high schooler goes undercover as a streetwalker to try and snare a serial killer.
Avenging Angel(director Robert Vincent O’Neil): Molly, a former prostitute, returns to the streets as Angel to find her lieutenant friend’s killers.
September 15: Pete Walker’s Genre Busters
The Big Switch (director Pete Walker): Playboy John Carter is implicated in a murder and is forced into posing for pornographic photos.
Moon (director Pete Walker): Also released under the title Man of Violence, Pete Walker’s Moon is both an homage to the British crime picture and an attempt to expand it into something more groovy.
September 22: Colonialists’ Nightmares
Mamba (director Albert S. Rogell): Recently rediscovered (and restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive), Mamba is an early color film in which British and German colonists in East Africa are overwhelmed by an indigenous uprising.
Zulu Dawn (director Douglas Hickox): Cy Endfield atoned for his xenophobic Zulu (1964) with this prequel, in which a tribe of warriors takes arms against their British oppressors in 1879 South Africa.
September 29: Cinema du Sasquatch
Cry Wilderness (director Jay Schlossberg-Cohen): In this ’80s cult favorite, a Bigfoot-type creature befriends a young boy, who protects the creature from hunters.
In Search of Bigfoot (director Lawrence Crowley): A classic Bigfoot documentary following the search for the legendary Sasquatch, who is rumored to inhabit the forests of the Pacific N.W.
You can get the IMDB list of the films right here and buy the set from Amazon. Used sets start as inexpensive as $11, but you don’t need to buy it — you can watch nearly any of these movies on YouTube and Tubi.
Here’s where you come in — please help the site by writing about one of these movies! If you notice below that they have a link, that means that we’ve covered them before. It’s fun — no real rules other than to have your article in by the date I give you. That’s it! This gives you nearly an entire month to write!
If interested, comment below or write to me at bandsaboutmovies@gmail.com
Halloween starts early on Shudder with their 61 Days of Halloween. 11 original and exclusive movies, three new series and a Joe Bob Briggs special in October will make your holiday so much scarier.
101 Scariest Horror Movie Moments of All Time: In this eight-episode new series from the producers of Eli Roth’s History of Horror, master filmmakers and genre experts celebrate and dissect the most terrifying moments of the greatest horror films ever made, exploring how these scenes were created and why they burned themselves into the brains of audiences around the world.
Queer for Fear: A History of Queer Horror: From executive producer Bryan Fuller (Hannibal), Queer for Fear is a four-part documentary series about the history of the LGBTQ+ community in the horror and thriller genres. From its literary origins with queer authors Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, and Oscar Wilde to the pansy craze of the 1920s that influenced Universal Monsters and Hitchcock; to the “lavender scare” alien invasion films of the mid-20th century to the AIDS-obsessed bloodletting of 80s vampire films; through genre-bending horrors from a new generation of queer creators; Queer for Fear re-examines genre stories through a queer lens, seeing them not as violent, murderous narratives, but as tales of survival that resonate thematically with queer audiences everywhere.
Who Invited Them: Premiering on September 1, this film is all about Adam and Margo’s housewarming party, which goes well enough except for Tom and Sasha, lingering after the other guests have left. The couple reveals themselves to be their wealthy and successful neighbors, but as one nightcap leads to another, Adam and Margo start to suspect their new friends are duplicitous strangers with a dark secret.
Saloum: Premiering September 8, this movie has the Bangui Hyenas – Chaka, Rafa and Midnight – trying to stash their stolen gold bounty, lay low long enough to repair and refuel their plane and escape back to Dakar as well as something supernatural hiding in the shadows.
Flux Gourmet: This movie goes up on September 15 and is all about an institute devoted to culinary and alimentary performance. And you know, because it’s on Shudder, something bad definitely happens.
Speak No Evil: Two Dutch families bond on vacation, but when it comes time to try and repeat that fun, things get rough quick. Oh you Dutch families.
Raven’s Hollow: Point cadet Edgar Allan Poe and four other cadets on a training exercise in upstate New York are drawn by a gruesome discovery into a forgotten community.
Sissy: Bad memories from high school, social media influencers, bachelorette parties…this sounds like the scariest movie of the year.
Don’t have Shudder? Maybe September’s line-up will convince you. Plans start at under $5 a month and you can get the first week free when you visit Shudder.
September 2: MUTANTS! is a curated collection of films featuring the abnormal and deformed! Titles include Head of the Family, Hideous, Mutant War, Trapped Alive and Creepozoids.
September 16: Deutsche Horrorfilme is here to help you celebrate Oktoberfest in September with Sleep, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Golem and Hagazussa. Plus, you can also watch Tourist Trap, The Pit and the Pendulum, Bloody MoonandBeyond the Darkness.
September 26: The House On Straw Hill and A Fugitive from the Past.
Head over to ARROW to start watching now. Subscriptions are available for $6.99 monthly or $49.99 yearly. ARROW is available in the US, Canada, the UK and Ireland on the following Apps/devices: Roku (all Roku sticks, boxes, devices, etc), Apple TV & iOS devices, Samsung TVs, Android TV and mobile devices, Fire TV (all Amazon Fire TV Sticks, boxes, etc), and on all web browsers at https://www.arrow-player.com.
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