EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the third time we’ve posted about this movie. Sam wrote about it on September 20, 2018 and Jennifer Upton wrote a great article on November 27, 2018. Here’s her take on the film. Feel free to share yours in the comments.

Thanks to Jennifer Upton for contributing this review. An American living in London, she is a freelance writer for International publishers Story Terrace and others. In addition, she has a blog where she frequently writes about horror and sci-fi called Womanycom.

The 1970s were the pinnacle decade for Bigfoot films.

The film that kicked off the craze was Charles B. Pierce’s classic Legend of Boggy Creek, which was a huge hit on the Drive-In circuit in 1972. Derivative in style to this far superior predecessor, The Legend of Bigfoot is a 1976 docudrama that follows researcher/tracker/nature photographer Ivan Marx on an expedition to find the elusive creature. Through narration of footage shot by Marx himself, he guides the audience through a series of events that may or may not prove the existence of the elusive North American ape. Where Boggy Creek succeeds in re-creating some supposedly true stories to great (and creepy) impact, Legend wastes a lot of time on lengthy digressions that focus on the other animals that live in the creature’s habitat.

In his search, Marx travels from his home in Northern California to Alaska, Oregon, Arizona and even the Arctic Circle. Along the way, we see Musk Oxen, Moose, deer and many other animals. We see them chilling out, defending their territories, eating and basically doing what animals do. Unfortunately, we are also subjected to several scenes of what today, would be considered animal cruelty. These include footage of a cougar being forcibly removed from its den and a mortally wounded ground squirrel dragging itself to its nest to die. Animal lovers beware.

The nature footage and gorgeous landscapes probably looked great in their time, but Mill Creek’s extremely poor transfer is almost unwatchable on a modern high-resolution Television. Even a basic color correction on a home editing system would go a long way towards improving the source material. At times, it’s hard to even make out what’s happening in the darker shots.

True to the Bigfoot subgenre, Legend includes a lot of close-ups of footprints and incorporates many theories of the creature’s potential lifestyle and habits. What the film is probably most famous for is the conclusion, which features what Marx claimed was actual footage of a real Sasquatch. Spoiler Alert: It’s a guy in a gorilla suit. It was just one of many hoaxes perpetrated by Mr. Marx over the years, leaving his reputation maligned within the Cryptozoology community. Nevertheless, he released two sequels. In the Shadow of Bigfoot (1977) and Alive and Well (1982) and maintained his footage was real up until his death in 1999. All but the biggest Bigfoot aficionados would do well to avoid The Legend of Bigfoot.

It’s duller than many other films of its type and at a running time of 1 hour and 16 minutes, it feels a lot longer. In the beginning Marx opines, “You’ll never know what it is to wait…until you become a tracker.” Yes, Mr. Marx, we do know what it is to wait…for something to happen in this movie.

Released in the U.S. as Beast with a Gun, The Human Beast and Mad Dog Killer, this movie probably had more people see it when it was the film that Louis Gara (Robert De Niro) and Melanie (Bridget Fonda) watch in Jackie Brown.

Nanni Vitali is a maniac. Played by Helmut Berger (The Damned, Salon Kitty), he’s set his sights on horrifying revenge, escaping jail and killing the man who set him up,  raping his woman Giuliana (Marisa Mell, who pretty much will do anything in any poliziotteschi movie, as well as being the female patron saint of these Mill Creek sets) and then going after everyone and anyone.

Richard Harrison is the only man that can stop him, as he tries to kill Giuliana, as well as Harrison’s father and aunt. Man, you’d really have to convince me that Mell wasn’t shot for real, because her dedication in these movies is near-death match wrestler in its intensity.

Somehow, of all the Italian police movies filled with mayhem, this is the only one that made it to the video nasty list. It’s listed as Street Killers on the Section 3 chapter of that infamous list.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Yes, don’t be fooled by that title, as this is otherwise known as Yotzim Kavua, Greasy Kid Stuff or, most obvious, Lemon Popsicle 2. Yes, the film that inspired The Last American Virgin doesn’t just have one sequel, but many, many chapters to tell.

Even better, it played on double bills in the UK with Rosemary’s Killer, which we know better as The Prowler.

Directed and written by Boaz Davidson, this film boasts the same lost in translation insanity of the last one as well as twenty-two songs from the fifties. Which is weird, because while the boys have hair and clothes from the era and the music is right, the girls have makeup straight out of 1979. Maybe memory really is a fickle thing, huh?

That said, every guy in this movie is beyond a jerk. Not just in a “aren’t 80s sex comedy guys horrible” way but in a “why aren’t these young men in jail” and “why do these women keep taking them back” way. Its “heroes” Benji, Bobby and Huey are willing to screw one another over to keep screwing and one just ponders why they ever became friends in the first place.

Nobody brings anybody a bag of oranges, I’ll tell you that much.

Someone does, however, throw eggs at a child directly after making out. I am not making this up.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Benjamin Merrell lives in Seattle, WA. You can check out his blog at cestnonunblog.com and follow him on Letterboxd.

Diana ‘TNT’ Jackson (Jeannie Bell), one bad mamma jamma, heads off to Hong Kong to, I guess, tell off her brother, Stag Jackson after he didn’t respond to the letter that she sent him to, um, tell him off. “He asked me to send him some money, instead I sent him a piece of my mind. I just want to know if he got it.” I guess some “Screw you” messages have to be delivered in person. But, unbeknownst to her, brother dearest was actually killed by drug dealers during the opening credits. Now TNT is out for revenge!

…Or something like that. TNT Jackson, the character and the movie, aren’t really overly concerned with things like a logical plot progression or proper character motivations. The movie suffers from a flimsy, paper thin plot about double-crossing drug dealers that feels like it was slapped together and invented solely to give TNT something to do until she discovers which one of the drug dealers killed her brother. It stresses style over substance, but thank God the movie at least has some style.

After leaving the airport TNT takes a cab to the bad part of town. You know it’s bad because the very first thing we see is a woman getting raped in the middle of the street. On the plus side, someone does immediately come to the woman’s rescue, however his ass is swiftly kicked by the rapist, who then leaves, presumably to try and finish what he started. TNT asks around for directions, which goes over about as well as you think it will, and thus she draws the attention of a gang of muggers. TNT isn’t screwing around though. She mops the floor with them pretty easily and even has a fun fight with a mugger who likes showing off his two ridiculously massive butterfly knives.

Conveniently, one of our main characters, Elaine, (a “government agent” working undercover with the drug dealers as leader Sid’s girlfriend) happens to witness the fight and offers TNT a ride, which leads to one of my favorite dialogue interactions of the entire film. Elaine wants to know more about why TNT is in town but TNT, who has thus far only dealt with people who wanted to rape, mug or kill her since she got into town, is having none of it. “Look lady, or whoever you are…I accepted a ride to Joe’s Haven and that’s all you need to know about me.” To which, Elaine simply replies, “Bitch.”

Joe’s Haven is Stag Jackson’s last known address, a nightclub/strip club/dojo owned by Hong Kong local Joe, who TNT very unself-consciously asks, “Who’s ever heard of a Chinaman named Joe? … They call me TNT.” Joe is the one who tells her that Stag never got her “screw you” letter, and then later informs her that Stag was actually killed during the opening credits. Meanwhile, Elaine sends their enforcer Charlie to the club to check TNT out and figure out what her deal is. And since TNT is the only fly black chick with a killer afro on Hong Kong island (her afro is indeed spectacular), he immediately takes a liking to her. Little do either of them know at the time, but Charlie is actually the one who killed TNT’s brother. I’d like to say that was a spoiler, but again, this was the very first thing that happened in the movie.

We never end up finding out why TNT was angry at her brother or what was in the nasty letter she wrote him or even why exactly Charlie wanted to kill him, because the plot immediately shifts its focus to the double-crossing drug dealers. Someone in Sid’s gang is leaking info about their drug buys and stealing their heroin shipments, so everyone naturally assumes it has something to do with TNT, despite the fact that she literally just got there and has no idea who any of these people are. (Sid is played by Ken Metcalfe, who apparently also did some rewrites on the script. Was Ken responsible for making the writing better or worse? We may never know.) Weirder still, they all suspect her of being the rat, when in reality literally half the gang is working behind Sid’s back to betray him.

The other major gang figure we haven’t gotten to yet is Ming, the guy with the hookup with their supplier, whom you’re supposed to suspect is the one stealing the drugs, despite the fact that he may actually be the only loyal soldier in Sid’s gang. But we, the audience, don’t like him, because he doesn’t like how cozy Elaine and Charlie are getting with TNT. And of course to make us really hate him there has to be a scene where Ming and his henchmen corner TNT in her room and threaten her with torture and rape. TNT has to fight them off, topless naturally, clad only in her panties, so we the audience can enjoy some quality slow-motion jiggling, er, fight choreography.

There are actually quite a few fun fights in this movie, especially at the end when everyone starts Kung Fu Fighting like they’re in a Carl Douglas song. The fight choreography in general is pretty well put together, especially considering a lot of the fight scenes were shot over the shoulder, covering up for the fact that most of the Western actors clearly lack any sort of actual prior martial arts experience. Jeannie Bell in particular has a very expressive brand of chopsocky that does a stellar job of selling that TNT is a kung fu master badass, despite Jeannie obviously not having any clue as to what she’s doing.

TNT Jackson isn’t a great film, but fans of blacksploitation and chopsocky kung fu flicks can probably find enough nudity, blood, gore and most importantly fun here to keep them entertained for its blissfully short 74 minute runtime.

TNT Jackson was produced by American International Pictures and directed by Filipino Blacksploitation pioneer Cirio H. Santiago, who is probably best known for 1981’s Firecracker (seriously, check out Firecracker. It’s fantastic.) Written by Dick Miller (yeah, that Dick Miller), with martial arts instruction by J.Lo (unfortunately not that J.Lo).

Man, what a title. Better than the original one, Dracula is Dead…and Well and Living in London, which upset Christoper Lee so much that he was outspoken at the press conference that introduced the movie: “I’m doing it under protest… I think it is fatuous. I can think of twenty adjectives — fatuous, pointless, absurd. It’s not a comedy, but it’s got a comic title. I don’t see the point.”

The eighth Hammer Dracula movie, the seventh and final to star Lee (John Forbes-Robertson played Dracula with David de Keyser as the voice in The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires) and the third and last to put Lee’s vampire against Cushing’s Van Helsing (they would appear in only one more movie together, House of the Long Shadows), this is pretty much the end of an era.

Every time I think of this movie, I remember Bill Van Ryn of Drive-In Asylum excitingly saying to me — after we saw the trailer at a drive-in — “It’s not enough that Dracula is a vampire. Now he has an entire army of Satanists and he wants to rule the world and he has a plague!”

It turns out that there’s a govenment occult conspiracy that only Van Helsing can stop and he’s bringing along his granddaughter Patsy Stone, err, Jessica Van Helsing.

As the cabal prepares for the Sabbath of the Undead, their mysterious fifth member is revealed to be, of course, Dracula using the identity of reclusive property developer D. D. Denham and operating out of the very same churchyard where he died in Dracula A.D. 1972.

Somehow, this is more of a Eurospy science fiction movie than the traditional horror film, but that’s kind of the beauty of the whole thing.

Somehow, this fell into the public domain in the U.S. That’s why it’s on so many Mill Creek sets under this title and the edited TV version Count Dracula and his Vampire Bride.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: We originally wrote about this movie on February 22, 2018. We’ve added to that original article in this revision for our Mill Creek month. 

Also known as La Montagna del Dio Cannibale, Slave of the Cannibal Godand Prisoner of the Cannibal God, don’t be fooled by the pedigree of having big stars like Ursula Andress and Stacy Keach. This film may seem restrained at first, but it goes absolutely insane by the final ten minutes. I mean, when has Sergio Martino (All the Colors of the Dark, Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key) ever steered us wrong?

Susan Stevenson (Andress, the original Bond girl) is looking for her husband Henry, an anthropologist who has gone missing in the jungles of New Guinea. Along with her brother Arthur and Professor Edward Foster (Keach), they travel to the mountain Ra Ra Me, a cursed place where the authorities will not allow expeditions.

Of course, they go there. What did you expect? They’re stupid white people. The jungle thanks them with attacks from spiders, snakes and alligators. And then Manolo (Claudio Cassinelli, What Have They Done to Your Daughters?), a jungle guide, joins their party.

Bad idea. Arthur has sex with one of the native girls, who is already married, but a cannibal attacks and kills both the husband and wife. A missionary makes them leave, as they have brought nothing but sin, adultery and death to his village. Don’t fuck in the woods. And don’t bring your Western values to the jungle.

It turns out that none of their reasons for coming to the island are altruistic. Susan and Arthur have no interest in finding her husband, but are instead looking for uranium deposits. Foster is there just to find the tribe of cannibals who had taken him captive in the past so he can wipe them off the face of the earth.

On the way, a waterfall takes Foster after Arthur doesn’t save him. And they reach the mountain, which isn’t just a uranium mine. It’s made from uranium. And how do we know that? Well, Susan’s husband’s body is being worshipped as a god because the Geiger counter he had keeps ticking, like a heartbeat.

At this point, the film rewards you by going completely off the rails, descending into chaos. A native attacks Susan, but is stopped by the tribe and castrated, then his penis is cooked and eaten. Another villager has sex with a giant pig. Meanwhile, the drums build in a hypnotic rhythm as another female villager masturbates (this is from the “director’s special selection” version, there are several cuts of the film). As this happens, Susan is stripped and smeared with orange honey by two naked female cannibals before being fed her own brother. Manolo is tortured. It feels like a nightmare you can’t wake up from, one of the only moments where the Martino who delivered a quick succession of giallo a decade or so before rears his artistic head.

Then, it’s over, with Manolo and Susan escaping. I mean, one would think that there would be years of therapy after this. But I don’t know. Perhaps she can get over this easier than most.

This isn’t a great movie. It might not even be good. It is entertaining for the last section, but there’s also the problematic issue of animal torture in the film — a monkey is slowly eaten by a snake and lizard being cut apart. Martino claims he tacked on these scenes at the distributor’s insistence. I guess the cannibal audience — an outgrowth of the audience for mondo films — needed more than just Ursula’s breasts and a dummy of Keach getting killed for their kicks.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: We originally had this movie on the site on October 26, 2019. As we review the Mill Creek set, this was part of it. Its very worthy of your time, so read up and get it yourself. Then maybe you’d like to share your feelings on this one!

After seeing Joe Bob Briggs “How Rednecks Saved Hollywood,” the entire B&S About Movies team mobilize and celebrated these films, from a Letterboxd list to making our own picks for top 70’s good ol’ boys movies. But to be honest, we watched so many of these movies, where would we find something new to answer the Scarecrow Challenge for one more day?

Canada, with your tax shelters and movies that are far north of odd, remains our constant bastion and perhaps place to run to after next November.

Director Peter Carter also made a movie called High-Ballin’ and it wasn’t a porno, instead a trucking film, so we need to respect the artist coming in.

Five doctors go on vacation deep in the Northern Ontario wilderness. Every year, one of them gets to pick where they go and this time, it’s D.J. who gets to be travel agent. He takes the guys to the Cauldron of the Moon, which was a practical location that had been created by a fire a few years earlier.

According to the natives, this is where the earth collided with the moon and it hsould be a place of magic, but it’s really just a place for the doctors to get drunk and argue about their lives, their ethics and, well, just argue.

As our guys wake up for another day of cutting up, they end up getting cut up in a much different way. That’s because everyone’s boots have been stolen. I guess these guys never listened to Iron Maiden or cowboy lore.

D.J. had said, time and again, being a backup pair of boots, and he ended up being the only one that did so. That means he has to go back alone through he dangerous woods and bring back four pairs of boots. As the guys wait for their friend, they’re soon confronted by the carcass of a dead deer before they also discover a severed head. That’s a real dead deer, by the way, in case you think the Italians are the only ones willing to sicken you with autentic snuffed out animals on celluloid.

Harry (Hal Holbrook) takes charge, but it seems as if the past — and all the mistakes with it — have come back to haunt the rest of the group.

While this movie was obviously inspired by Deliverance, it’s also a proto-slasher, with a killer setting traps in the woods that predates the work of Cropsey, Madman Marz and Pamela Vorhees’ little man.

You have a lot of options if you want to see this movie. You can watch this on the Internet Archive for free. Or you can allow our friends at Mill Creek to help with either their Drive-In Movie Classics: 50 Movie Pack or Horror Classics: 100 Movie Pack. However, the best version is available from Ronin Flix, who have the Scorpion Releasing blu ray re-release of this.