Mike McPadden — who we interviewed about his book Teen Movie Hell — has a new podcast that we think our readers will love.

Here’s the first episode: “For the maiden voyage of the SS Crackpot, Mike McPadden and Aaron Lee reflect on their past as HUSTLER magazine pros with four films dedicated to the “men’s sophisticates” game: the decidedly non-obscure THE PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLYNT (1996), Steve Coogan in THE LOOK OF LOVE (2013), the documentary PORN KING: THE TRIALS OF AL GOLDSTEIN (2005), and the Don Knotts/Nat Hiken head-scratcher, THE LOVE GOD? (1969).”

Check it out at the official site and Twitter.

Get ready for two new episodes!

Episode 2: Joe and Alex travel to Louisville, Kentucky to hang out with their pal Roger Braden, who runs the Facebook groups Valley Nightmares and Spikes Pit. While they’re in town, they also hit up the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory, pop in on Colonel Sanders at the Cave Hill Cemetery & Arboretum, visit with the nice folks who run Caufield’s Novelty, and explore the Pope Lick train trestle, home of the infamous Goatman!

Episode 3: The guys head to Ohio to hang out with their friends from LegacyVerse Productions, LLC! Keith Munden and Richard Buathier give us some LV history and talk about their passions for acting and filmmaking, and fellow LegacyVerse actors Austin Rospert and Rick Davis also pop in. They also meet Chad Knauer, director of Skeleton Cop, who killed them off in his upcoming movie Murder Clown.

Hey guys!

The PR company behind Emerald Run asked us if we would run the trailer. Once I saw the cast, which includes David Chokachi (Baywatch), Yancy Butler (Witchblade, Hard Target), Chris Mulkey (Hank Jennings from Twin Peaks, First Blood), Vernon Wells (so many films, but let’s say Commando, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, Weird Science and Innerspace), John Schneider (The Dukes of Hazzard) and Michael Pare (Streets of Fire).

It’s like the old days of Italian film with all these recognizable actors in one movie!

Our friends Alex Lopez and JH Rood spent several weeks traveling across the country, checking out horror spots near and mostly far.

Starting on Saturday, September 14th, 2019, the boys embarked on a road trip of epic proportions which took them through 21 U.S. states, 4 Canadian provinces and ran up over 9,338 miles on the “Ghoul Wagon.”

Now, they’ve finished the first episode of their video series that shows all of the places that they made it to, including Pittsburgh to see Monroeville Mall and attend the October drive-in event in Vandergrift, PA. In fact, I’ve been told that Becca and I may appear in that episode.

You can even see our friend Matt Hanke discuss Bill Van Ryn and the awesome Drive-In Asylum! Matt’s movie collection makes me jealous.

This is a really fun project and I hope you’ll check it out!

Last year, the gang at Drive-In Asylum released an all-holiday issue that featured movies like The Dorm that Dripped Blood, Last Stop on the Night Train, Terror Train, Silent Night Bloody Night, Santa’s Slay, Batman Returns, New Year’s Evil, Home for the Holidays and Black Christmas.

Now, that issue has returned for a limited time! You can grab it now from Drive-In Asylum‘s Etsy store.

I created two paintings for this issue, along with reviews of Elves, Santa Claus vs. the Devil and Tales from the Crypt that are completely different from the ones on this site.

Get an issue now for the crazy film lover in your life! Do it!

We were so happy to get the chance to talk to Rowdy Herrington this week. As mentioned in the last part of our series, he’s just written a book entitled Father Christmas that will release on Amazon in the next few days.

He’s already getting all sorts of praise for it.

The new issue is out! Here’s what it’s all about:

One of the BIGGEST names in independent filmmaking, especially drive-in/grindhouse flicks, is Bill Rebane. Straight outta Wisconsin, this guy has delivered some of the most memorable low-budget flicks to date. Slashers, giant monsters, cryptids, alien viruses, demons, monster trucks — Rebane has tackled them all. The Giant Spider Invasion, The Capture of Bigfoot, The Alpha Incident and Invasion from Inner Earth are just some of his titles. We’re thrilled to present a lengthy interview with Bill in this issue about the highlights of his lengthy career.

Jack Perez is another monster movie maker, younger than Bill Rebane, but creating similarly wild films for TV networks and video. He’s our Guest List for this issue, and singles out five films that rocked his world.

DIA reviewers Lana Revok, Sam Panico, Roger Braden, Joseph Perry, Jesse Berberich, Paul Werkmeister, Donald Guarisco and newcomer Greg Hanson all serve up reviews of Devil Dog: Hound of Hell, The Legendary Stardust Brothers, Laurin, Curse of the Headless Horseman, Carnival of Blood, Curse of the Swamp Creature, Don’t Go in the House, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Blood Harvest and The Milpitas Monster.

You can get it here.

I’m really fired up about this issue because not only did I get to write about Laurin, a completely bonkers German film about childhood and vampires, I also got to paint Bill Rebane for the awesome interview that appears in the issue. Check it out!

Please order an issue! So much work goes into every single page and there’s really no other publication like this. Thanks!

Matt Frame is one of the creators of Camp Death III In 2-D, which you can check out on Amazon Prime. We interviewed him last year and he was part of our recent list of top ten slasher movies. For more info on his film, head on over to its Facebook page!

He recently wrote to us about a new project:

“Matt Frame, Director of ‘Camp Death III in 2D!’ here.

I just released a new film this afternoon called Whites of the Living Dead.

It’s a 45-minute re-edit/re-dub of the original Night of the Living Dead.

The narrative has been altered so that it takes place on election night 2020 and the zombies are rabid Trump supporters attacking those who intend to vote against him.

It’s the first episode in a new series of re-dubs/re-edits that I’ll be releasing over the next few months.”

Here’s the movie below:

My friend Paul Andolina runs Wrestling With Film, a site that celebrates the crossover between professional wrestling and movies. It’s pretty great — packed with insightful thoughts on these movies as well as interviews with some of the wrestlers who starred in them. You can also check out his Facebook page, which has even more.

This month, Paul is doing a wrestling slasher month. Here are some of the films he’s featured (along with Axeman, which he reviewed for our site). Check them out!

• Wrestlemassacre: Randy is an awkward groundskeeper who is obsessed with professional wrestling. Longing for a sense of belonging with grandiose dreams of becoming a wrestling superstar, Randy is only met with abject humiliation and alienation. A brutal shaming at a local wrestling school coupled with a bizarre encounter with a demonic stranger pushes Randy over the edge and lights the spark for his blood lust.
• Hot Blood Sunday: The owner of an ice-cream shop hires five attractive women to boost sales, and the plan works until someone starts killing the lovely ladies.
• Wrestlemaniac: A low-budget film- maker takes his cast and crew to a ghost town with a horrifying legend, a crazed former Mexican wrestler carrying out deadly pile-driving murders.
• Sleeper: Two detectives must find an escaped killer before he harms the object of his twisted affection.
• Killer Campout: Two youth counselors bring a group of emotionally troubled teens deep into the woods for a weekend of solitude and confrontational therapy. The trip turns deadly when they are terrorized by a cannibalistic hermit with a thirst for blood.
• Axeman 2: Overkill: An axe-wielding urban legend who dismembers evangelicals, murderous bank robbers and vigilantes that clash with one another in the woodsy Cutter’s Creek is in turn pursued by the town’s tough female deputy.

What slashers will come next? What wrestlers will be in them? Who will Survivor Series and what will be left of them?

Mark Gregory was born as Marco Di Gregorio, but it’s his acting — well, whatever you call it — that has made him such a memorable person in Italian exploitation junk cinema. The first film you need to watch out for is 1990: The Bronx Warriors, where he supposedly defeated 2,000 other hopefuls for the role of Trash after his girlfriend sent in his head shot.

Gregory is a strange screen presence. He walks strangely, he pouts throughout every scene and he doesn’t seem like someone tough enough to lead a gang, even if his head is all screwed up from that “Manhattan pussy” he’s been getting.

Fred Williamson has said in interviews that he had to teach Gregory how to walk and look tough. He did what he could, but follow-ups like Escape the Bronx and the utterly insane Adam and Eve vs. the Cannibals only serve to illustrate that Mark Gregory has a strange charisma all his own.

I’ve read accounts where Gregory’s “feminine mannerisms resulted in homophobic harassment from some of the extras.”  Perhaps that’s why he disappeared.

He has superfans like Lance Manley, who runs the Bronx Warriors site, who was so concerned as to where Gregory went that he actually searched throughout Italy and met with director Enzo G. Castellari to find him. The new Bronx blu rays feature “THE HUNT FOR TRASH: Interview With Bronx Warriors Superfan Lance Manley,”  a short film about Manley’s love for the films and search for the actor.

Gregory wasn’t in many movies. In fact, after the two Bronx films and the Italian exploitation version of Genesis, I thought I had seen them all.

How wrong I was.

The films this next week are every single appearance Gregory made on film. The great site Monster Hunter pointed me in the direction of some films I missed. Amazon Prime became where I found his films, except that for some, I had to search the darkest corners of the web. I’ve survived some of the roughest films I’ve ever witnessed to come back to you with the results.

Please don’t take the path I have. Be content to enjoy the more known of Gregory’s IMDB list. I wouldn’t wish War Bus Commando on you. But I’ve done it. I’ve accomplished something. And I ask you to come back all week long to read more.

UPDATE June 28, 2021: Check out our Mark Gregory Letterboxd list!

Here’s the full list of our reviews:

Adam and Eve vs. The Cannibals
The Bronx Warriors
Delta Force Commando
Escape from the Bronx
Just a Damn Soldier
Tan Zan: The Ultimate Mission
Thunder
Thunder 2
Thunder 3
War Bus Commando

And our very own R. D Francis examines the life and career of Mark Gregory, as well as his fellow apoc-warrior, Michael Sopkiw, with his Medium article, “Warriors of the Pasta-Apocalypse: Michael Sopkiw and Mark Gregory Kicking Ass in the ’80s Italian Wastelands.”

UPDATE March 20, 2022: Sadly, according to Cinema Italiano Database, Mark Gregory died in 2013. I won’t go into the sad details, only to say that I hope the actor, who has given me so much joy, has found the peace in death that he could not get in life.