June 4: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Blaxploitation!

After Blacula and Scream, AIP had already combined Blaxploitation and horror. Now, Diana “Sugar” Hill (Marki Bey) is using zombies to get revenge on mob boss Morgan (Robert Quarry in his last film for the studio) for the death of her man, nightclub owner Langston (Larry D. Johnson). She goes to Mama Maitresse (Zara Cully) and together, they call on the Lord of the Dead, Baron Samedi (Don Pedro Colley), for his assistance.

Unlike the post-Romero zombies, this is calling back to the zombies of movies made in the 1930s. The preserved bodies of slaves brought to the United States from Guinea, they only cost Sugar her soul to get the vengeance she needs. By that, I mean feeding bad guys to pigs and saying, “I hope they like white trash.”

This is the only film directed by Paul Maslansky, who also produced Castle of the Living Dead, Death Line, The She Beast, Damnation Alley, Race With the Devil and, perhaps most importantly, the Police Academy movies. Writer Tim Kelly also scripted Black Fist and Cry of the Banshee.

There weren’t enough mixes like this, but there’s also Blackenstein, Abby, Ganja and Hess, JD’s Revenge, Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde, Petey Wheatstraw, Bones, Def by Temptation, Hood of Horror, Black Devil Doll from Hell, Tales from the QuadeaD Zone, Killjoy and the Tales from the Hood series.

June 3: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is David Carradine!

This movie is fantastic bullshit.

Bruce Lee originally was to write and appear in this, saying in the intro he wrote, “The story illustrates a great difference between Oriental and Western thinking. This average Westerner would be intrigued by someone’s ability to catch flies with chopsticks, and would probably say that has nothing to do with how good he is in combat. But the Oriental would realize that a man who has attained such complete mastery of an art reveals his presence of mind in every action…True mastery transcends any particular art.”

Working with James Coburn and screenwriter Stirling Silliphant, Lee didn’t just want to make the first Western movie about martial arts. He tried to make a movie that would introduce audiences to the philosophy behind martial arts; more than fighting, more about mastering the self.

Coburn and Lee eventually got frustrated by one another—small stuff, like Coburn getting a better hotel room and treatment than Lee, be like water indeed, or Lee nonstop humming pop songs until Coburn screamed at him—and Lee went to Hong Kong to make Fist of Fury, become a star and die.

Lee had intended his movie — you know, the same one that would teach Eastern theories of the martial world — to have  Thai, Cantonese, Arabic and Japanese dialogue, explicit Tantric sex and scenes of genital destruction.

A few years later, Stanley Mann rewrote it, added comedy and brought on board a bunch of the finest all-white actors—some of whom could do martial arts. And that’s how we got this movie, which is ridiculous in all the best ways.

Cord (Jeff Cooper, who played Kaliman in a few Mexican movies) is a fighter who is undisciplined and kicked out of the temple by Roddy McDowall. Yet he still wants to find The Book of Knowledge, which is held by Zetan (Christopher Lee). The man sent on the quest instead of him, Morthond (Anthony De Longis, Blade from Masters of the Universe), has been nearly killed — and demands help to die with honor — and it seems like a fool’s errand. Then Cord meets the mysterious Blind Man (David Carradine) and starts his own quest.

Carradine also plays Death, a Monkey Man and Chang Sha, who uses his wife Tara (Erica Creer) to seduce our protagonist before leaving him behind and her crucified. Cord also runs into Eli Wallach, who has been sitting in a pot of boiling oil for a decade in the hopes that his penis falls off. I did not make that up.

Also known as The Silent Flute, this has director Richard Moore (his only full-length, but he shot the underwater footage for Thunderball and was the cinematographer on The Wild Angels, Devil’s Angels, Myra Breckinridge, The Stone Killer and Annie) making a mix of a king fu movie and a Zen koan that feels more Holy Mountain than Enter the Dragon.

The flute Carradine plays in this is the same one from Kill Bill: Volume 2.

So yes, this movie is complete bullshit but it’s wonderful bullshit. None of the people other than Carradine seem to know how to do martial arts, and I couldn’t care less. With Lee, this would have been a classic, perhaps, but as it stands, it’s this majestic attempt at something, a movie with dialogue like this:

Blind Man: A fish saved my life once.

Cord: How?

Blind Man: I ate him.

The sound of one hand clapping? You’re watching it.

You can watch this on Tubi.

June 2: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Zombies! 

Director and writer Jordi Gigó wrote Exorcismo and wrote and directed Porno Girls, L’espectre de Justine and, well, that’s it. Other than this movie.

Countess Claire Grandier (Silvia Solar, Danger!! Death Ray, Cannibal Terror, Eyeball) and telepathic Professor Gruber (Olivier Mathot) have bought a castle, a place where they can ride horses, have lavish dinners, make sweet love and, you know, get a dwarf (Ronnie Harp) to help them create the living dead. But when they’re not doing that, they’re using the castle for fashion shows, which is how we get a bevy of Eurocult ladies to show up, turn on, tune out and get nude. Man, the fake eyelashes budget on this…

Also, the Countess hates the castle owner, Duke of Haussemont (José Nieto), whom she blames for killing her husband, taking her money and forcing her into a life of zombie making and model murdering. Yet he lets them stay in the castle as ghostbusters when they’re the ones making the ghosts or zombies.

The castle looks excellent, the flashbacks feel like a silent movie, it’s more Frankenstein than Romero, there’s full frontal nudity, poor zombie makeup, a Jess Franco feel and by that I mean this movie is beyond horny and wants you to know that, the Book of Astarov, Satanic rites, a movie that feels like an Electric Wizard song and appearances by María Silva (Curse of the Devil) and Evelyne Scott (Shining Sex), a strong undercurrent of anything can happens next and lots of fog. Some people would hate this. Those people are jerks.

The original title — La perversa caricia de Satán (Satan’s Perverse Caress or The Wicked Caresses of Satan) — is precisely why I watched this.

June 1: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Italian crime!

Milano odia: la polizia non può sparare (Milan Hates, The Police Can’t Shoot) is another reminder that Umberto Lenzi is the greatest, regardless of genre. He mastered gialli (Spasmo, So Sweet… So Perverse, Orgasmo, Seven Bloodstained Orchids, Eyeball) as well as war movies (Bridge to Hell, From Hell to Victory), poliziotteschi (Rome Armed to the Teeth, Violent Naples, The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist), peplum (Ironmaster, Samson and the Slave Queen), Eurospy (SuperSeven Calling Cairo, 008: Operation Exterminate), cannibal films (Eaten Alive!, Cannibal Ferox, Man from Deep River) and enjoyable junk (Nightmare City, Ghosthouse, Nightmare Beach, Hitcher In the Dark, Black Demons).

Throw in a script by Ernesto Gastaldi, and you have a war between Giulio Sacchi (Tomas Milian) and Inspector Walter Grandi (Henry Silva). Not everyone in their world will survive. Hell, the two of them might not even make it.

After screwing up a bank robbery and being threatened with castration, Saachi goes absolutely wild and pretty much kills everyone in his path. Tomas Milian must have heard that David Hess was coming to Italy and said, “Let me show you something.” He’s an equal opportunity maniac in this movie, as everyone is in the crosshairs. He might have a gorgeous woman like Iona (Anita Strindberg) in love with him, supporting him, and yet he comes home just to assault her at will. Then, he uses her to take her boss’ daughter, Mary Lou (Laura Belli), and ransom her life, as if life means anything to him.

His partners Carmine (Ray Lovelock) and Vittorio (Gino Santercole) aren’t ready for the drugged-up menace that Saachi is about to bring. Tying people to a chandelier and letting it spin as he plays roulette with his victims? That’s just the start. No one is safe, whether that’s old people, people begging for their lives, cops, children…even a man who Saachi forces to go down on his little Giulio while he keeps a gun at his head. They have second thoughts about being in a gang with him, but who will tell him he’s going off the deep end?

Morricone soundtrack, Silva as a cop, you’re just waiting to go insane, lawyers getting scummy crooks off with no charges, justice in the streets—this has it all. And so much more. And wow, it was so close to being a totally different movie, with Richard Conte playing the cop and Marc Porel playing the criminal, but Lenzi found the actor  “unreliable from both a human and professional point of view.”

As it was, Lenzi’s first meeting with Milian didn’t go well. Milian heard that Lenzi was an impulsive director who could go off on his actors, but by the film’s end, they realized they could work together in a love/hate way for seven films. As for how Millian got this performance, in true Method style, he drugged and drank it up before Lenzi said, “Action!”

That’s how you do it.

Over here,  Joseph Brenner released several times, first as The Kidnap of Mary Lou, then a year later as The Death Dealer and finally in 1980 as Almost Human. All hail Temple of Schlock.

You can watch this on Tubi.

June 30: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Slasher! This month, I tackled a different genre every day. This is the end.

Directed by Robert Hartford-Davis (The Black Torment, Gonks Go Beat, Black Gun, my beloved Corruption) and written by Brian Comport (Girly, The Asphyx), this starts with a baptism being juxtaposed with a pretty young girl being stripped, strangled and thrown in a river. Ah, British pre-slashers, you are never subtle.

Birdy Wemys (Ann Todd) has given most of her money and home to the Brethren, a fire and brimstone church that believes that the world is going to hell. All of the religion in the home and sermons of the minister (Patrick Magee) have made her withdrawn son Kenny (Tony Beckley) into a lunatic cleaning the streets of fallen women.

Kenny uses his job as at a public swimming pool to basically yell at girls who dress in skimpy bathing suits and then at night, he’s a security guard. Meanwhile, his mother’s health is failing and the minister won’t let any of his followers take medicine. Yet she still gets insulin for her diabetes and a state provider nurse, Brigitte (Madeleine Hinde), who tells her investigative reporter sister Paddy (Suzanna Leigh) about the ministry. As she’s been writing about cults, Paddy tries to sneak in, pretending that she’s an expectant mother.

Kenny starts killing women everywhere, from a nubile teen who goes topless at the pool to ladies of the evening, leaving them for people to find stripped of their clothing and dangling from meat hooks or hanging out of cement trucks. His mother grows closer to Paddy and the minister accuses them of being a lesbians and takes her medication. As Birdy starts to die, Paddy tries to save her but is locked in the basement by Kenny who finds out too late that the minister was wrong. As his mother dies, he confesses to the religious man that he’s the Nude Killer that’s been in the newspapers. Then he crucifies the minister in his own church.

Also known as The Fiend, this has some incredible music and a great theme. I have a weakness for early 70s sexploitation horrors from England. Richard Kerr and Tony Osborne created a great soundtrack and this church, while certifiable, knows how to rock it out with their music. Maxine  Barrie sings “Wash Me In His Blood” as people start to come alive with the spirit and you know, I would never survive the 70s because I’d totally love to be in one of these movie cults.

You can watch this on YouTube.

June 28: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Westerns! We’re excited to tackle a different genre every day, so check back and see what’s next.

I love a horror Western. There’s Bone Tomahawk, The Pale Door, Death Ride In the House of the Vampires — I had to get that in there — and Grim Prairie Tales. Oh yeah, there’s also Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter, Curse of the Undead and Billy the Kid versus Dracula. Soem of my favorite Italian Westerns have a horror element to them, like Django Kill… If You Live, Shoot! and And God Said to Cain.

This movie feels like it was meant for me.

Do you want a Western with Jack the Ripper leaving England for the Wild West? And what if he dresses like a slasher killer and has talks with himself about purifying women? Wouldn’t that be awesome? Maybe more awesome than A Knife for the Ladies.

But what if Jack the Ripper battled a man named Mr. Buchinski who looked just like Charles Bronson because he’s played by Robert Bronzi, a sixtysomething Hungarian action star who was born Robert Kovacs. The man who would be Bronzi was performing in a European Wild West stage show when director Rene Perez saw his photo on the wall of a bar and thought it was from an undiscovered Bronson movie. Since then, he’s been in Death Kiss, Cry Havoc, Once Upon a Time in Deadwood, Exorcist Vengeance, Escape from Death Block 13 and this Western.

If you didn’t get the significance, Bronson’s real name was Charles Dennis Buchinsky.

A lot of the female cast of this were also victims in another movie by Rene Perez, Playing With Dolls: Havoc. Perez also made the movies They Want Us Woke Not Awake and Pro God – Pro Gun, so I have to track those down because, yeah. Wow. Also: that Havoc serial killer is also in Cry Havoc where we can answer “What if Jason fought Bronson?”

The killer might be Francis Tumblety who some people think was the Ripper. He did not look like a slasher villain but who are we to try and bring logic into a movie where a fake Bronson battles a monster in a tourist Western town? Also, the Ripper wears a mask like Cronenberg in Nightbreed.

You won’t care about anyone in this by Bronzi. Such is his power. But seriously, nobody really matters. This should have just been an hour of Bronzi shooting guns at a serial killer.

You can watch this on Tubi.