Man Si Sun (Cherie Chung) is an illegal immigrant who has escaped from mainland China. Kong Yuen Sang (Alex Man) is a drifter looking for fame as a kick-boxer. Directed by Clifford Choi, this drama about being an outsider in a new country is very appropriate to the time that we’re living through. It also proves that Shaw Brothers made more than just wuxia and kung fu films.
There aren’t many choices for our heroes: Die in Hong Kong while trying to make a better tomorrow or go back to China and, well, die anyways. Maybe love won’t be enough to save them.
This is an appropriately named film, as Hong Kong could very well be one of the stars. The city lures people into its arms with the promise of more and yet at times, it also chews them up and spits them out. Maybe we can’t all identify with a champion kick boxer, but we can empathize with people with a dream, those that are exhausted by life yet refuse to give in.
The 88 Films Blu-ray of Hong Kong, Hong Kong is a great release that again, reminds us that Shaw Brothers hit so many genres and even made award-winning films like this. Extras include commentary by David West, a stills gallery, a poster and a trailer. You can get it from MVD.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Sharky’s Machine was on the CBS Late Movie on March 10, 1989.
Man, when I was a kid, the only movie that I think HBO had — besides The Car — seemed to be Sharky’s Machine. I never watched it back then and I totally should have, because it would have changed my life.
Based on the book by William Diehl, which was sent to the film’s director and star, Burt Reynolds, by Sidney Sheldon, this was Reynolds’s chance to move away from the funnier movies he’d been making. He told the Boston Globe, “I figured it was time to get away from Smokey. I’d been doing a lot of comedy in recent years, and people had forgotten about Deliverance.”
Reynolds wanted to make a movie like his favorite film, the noir masterwork Laura, and he wanted John Boorman to direct it. However, he was busy with Excalibur.
A bust gone wrong has moved Tom Sharky (Reynolds) from drugs to the vice squad, the worst occupation a police officer can have. Working under Frescoe (Charles Durning), our hero discovers a high-class prostitution ring that includes a thousand-dollar-a-night girl named Domino Brittain (Rachel Ward) who is connected to governor candidate Donald Hotchkins, who is owned by Victor D’Anton (Italian star Vittorio Gassman).
One evening, while conducting surveillance and falling for Domino, Sharky watches her get blasted in the face with a shotgun by the evil William “Billy Score” Scorelli. Let me tell you, if you think Henry Silva was great before, this is perhaps the best I’ve ever seen him. He’s a force of complete terror and mayhem in this and I couldn’t love him any more after the ending of this film, which features the highest free-fall stunt ever performed from a building for a commercially released film.
As everyone thinks Domino is dead, she suddenly shows up and tells Sharky that it was her friend who got blasted in the face. Now, she could bring the entire conspiracy down if everyone could just stay alive.
Tough cop movies only wish they were a sliver as good as this movie. I mean, you’ve Bernie Casey and Brian Keith as cops, you’ve got bad guys slicing off Burt’s fingers, and you’ve a Doc Severinsen-orchestrated theme that Tarantino took for Jackie Brown.
Supposedly, when Clint Eastwood made Every Which Way but Loose, Reynolds said, “Clint, you’re getting into my territory and if it’s a success, I’m going out and make Dirty Harry Goes to Atlanta!”. When this film went into production, Eastwood sent a telegram to Reynolds saying, “You really weren’t kidding, were you?”
June 30- July 6 Puke Week!: Throwing up isn’t very funny, but making your internet friends watch a puke movie is!
The Cavalcade of Perversion is run by Lady Divine (Divine) and Mr. David (David Lochary) and it has everything you’d want to see when it comes to getting grossed out, like a Puke Eater. At the end of every show, Divien robs people, but now she’s moved on to wanting to murder them.
“Yes folks, this isn’t any cheap X-rated movie or any 5th rate porno play, this is the show you want! Lady Divine’s cavalcade of perversions, the sleaziest show on earth! Not actors, not paid impostors, but real, actual filth who have been carefully screened in order to present to you the most flagrant violation of natural law known to man! These assorted sluts, fags, dykes and pimps know no bounds! They have committed acts against God and nature, acts that by their mere existence would make any decent person recoil in disgust.”
One night, when she gets home to her daughter Cookie (Cookie Mueller) and her Weatherman Underground boyfriend Steve (Paul Swift), she learns — from Edith Massey! — that Mr. David is cheating on her with Bonnie (Mary Vivian Pearce). Divine races out to confront them, but gets assaulted by glue sniffers. Then, Bonnie joins the show.
Then, the Infant of Prague (Michael Renner Jr.) leads Divine to a church, where she has a religious experience, during which Mink Stole describes the Stations of the Cross while inserting a rosary into her. This leads to a war between Mr. David and Bonnie versus Divine and Mink, which ends with Divine being overcome by bloodlust and killing everyone in her way. She’s assaulted again, this time by a giant lobster, and like a kaiju herself, Divine battles all of Baltimore before being shot in the streets by the National Guard.
Hope you aren’t offended easily!
Inspired by Two Thousand Maniacs!, this ends with Divine seizing. her power, shouting “I’m a maniac! A maniac that cannot be cured! O Divine, I am Divine!”
Throughout the movie, Divine taunts Mr. David with the idea that he is responsible for the Manson murders. At one stage of filming, this was to end with Divine being responsible.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Dr. Phibes Rises Again was on the CBS Late Movie on January 31, 1975 and January 2, 1976.
The fact that this movie exists gives me hope. There are moments when life gets me down, when I wonder about my place in this world and if humanity is essentially horrible. Then I remember that great films like this exist and it makes me feel a lot better. You should do the same thing if you ever find yourself in an existential crisis.
Dr. Phibes is back, three years after he lay down in the darkness next to the corpse of his beloved wife. Now, however, he has learned that the secret of eternal life, held by a centuries-old man, is in Egypt. I don’t care why he’s back. I’d watch Dr. Phibes go grocery shopping!
Dr. Anton Phibes (Vincent Price) has been in suspended animation in a sarcophagus alongside his wife Victoria Regina Phibes (Caroline Munro). When the moon aligns with the planets in a way not seen for two millennia, he returns, summoning the silent Vulnavia (thus confirming to me, at least, that she’s really one of his robots as she died in the last film; furthermore, she’s played by Valli Kemp, who took over for the pregnant Virginia North) to his side.
Phibes plans on taking his wife’s body with him to Egypt, where the River of Life promises her resurrection. As he emerges from his tomb, his house has been demolished and the safe that contained the map to the river lies empty. That’s because the map has been stolen by Darius Biederbeck, a man who is hundreds of years old thanks to a special elixir. He may also be every bit Phibes’ equal.
Darius is played by Robert Quarry, who American International Pictures was grooming to be Price’s replacement. There were tensions between the two on set, including a moment where Quarry was singing in his dressing room and challenged Price by saying, “You didn’t know I could sing, did you?” Ever the wit, Vincent Price replied, “Well, I knew you couldn’t act.” Quarry would have already played Count Yorga in two films for AIP and would go on to appear in The Deathmaster, where he played the hippie vampire Khorda; however, the AIP style had already fallen out of fashion. He’s also in numerous Fred Olen Ray films, such as Evil Toons, where he provides the uncredited voice of the demon.
Biederbeck wants eternal life for himself and his lover Diana (Fiona Lewis, Tintorera…Tiger Shark). Phibes and Vulnavia are on his trail, immediately entering his home, murdering his butler and stealing back the map. Everyone connected with Biederbeck comes to an ill end — Phibes places one inside a giant bottle and throws him overboard. That murder brings Inspector Trout back on the case, as he instantly recognizes that only one man could do something like that.
The rest of the film’s murders are based on Egyptian mythology versus Biblical plagues. Hawks and scorpions, rather than his weapons, along with gusts of wind and bursts of sand. Phibes has also brought an army of clockwork men with him the desert to do his bidding.
Phibes finally exchanges Diana’s life for the key to the River of Life. As he floats the coffin containing his wife down the water, he beckons Vulnavia to join them. As his lover tries to comfort him, Biederbeck begs Phibes to take him with them. He begins to rapidly age and dies as Phibes loudly sings “Over the Rainbow,” which might be the best ending of any movie ever made.
There were plans for many more of these films, and the fact that they were never made saddens me to this day. I’ve heard that a third film would Phibes fighting Nazis. I’ve also heard that it’d be about the key to Olympus. Or Phibes is Dr. Vesalius’ son. Or Victoria Phibes herself coming back, just as sinister as her husband. There have been titles thrown around like Phibes Resurrectus, The Seven Fates of Dr. Phibes and The Brides of Dr. Phibes. There was even a thought of Count Yorga facing off with Dr. Phibes, a fact which delights me to no end.
There was also a pitch for a TV series and what appeared to be an animated version, with Jack Kirby himself providing the pitch artwork.
Other ideas included Dr. Phibes in the Holy Land, The Son of Dr. Phibes (which would have pitted the doctor and his son against ecological terrorists), Phibes Resurrectus (which would have David Carradine as Phibes battling against Paul Williams, Orson Welles, Roddy McDowall, John Carradine and Donald Pleasence. The mind boggles at the thought, let me tell you!), a 1981 Dr. Phibes film where the WormwooInstitutete would have destroyed his wife’s body and then their strange members, including transvestite twins obsessed with economics and nuclear weaponry, fail to match wits with Phibes) And finally, Phibes was almost a role for Peter Sellers in a Pink Panther film where he’d also play Clouseau and Fu Manchu. You can learn more about these at the Vincent Price Exhibit site.
There was also a story in 2013 that Johnny Depp was going to star in a Tim Burton directed remake. That obviously Burton-directed film fits into the same Satanic themes as the original. However, you can add in a few new wrinkles. One of the Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth states, “When walking in open territory, bother no one. If someone bothers you, ask him to stop. If he does not stop, destroy him.” All Phibes wished to do was take his wife to Egypt and bring her back to life. Once Biederbeck stole from him, his fate was sealed.
Ellie (Tiffany Bolling, The Candy Snatchers) and Myra Thomas (Robin Mattson, Candy Stripe Nurses) leave behind their abusive stepfather with a shotgun blast and make their way to Los Angeles and the home of their Uncle Ben (Scott Brady), who involves the two of them in a moey-laundering scheme. But Ellie knows the score and soon takes the money for herself, instructing her sister to meet her and Larry (Steven Sandor), the mark she’s conned, in El Paso. But things aren’t going to work out for them.
Director and writer Arthur Marks’ father was an assistant director on The Wizard of Oz and spent thirty years at MGM, which is where Arthur worked in the production department. His films, The Roommates, Detroit 9000, Bucktown, J.D.’s Revenge, Friday Foster, The Monkey Hu$tle, The Centerfold Girls and Linda Lovelace for President all filled a need big studios could care less about: drive-in programmers.
Every man in this movie is scum. There’s a moment in the beginning where a whole bunch of old men get drunk, sweaty and strange, sexually harassing Ellie who responds with sheer hatred. Was I in love? You know it. This also has Eddy (Alex Rocco) and Digger (Tim Brown) as two killers who in no way were totally taken by Tarantino in Pulp Fiction. Oh, he titled a chapter “The Bonnie Situation?” Well, at least he admits it.
Making his way to England instead of Staten Island, Andy Milligan created a vampire movie in which Rev. Alexander Algernon Ford (Gavin Reed) has an entire family of vampires — a wife who doesn’t speak, three green-skinned vampire women and a hunchback named Spool — living in Carfax Abbey.
Inbreeding is destroying this vampiric brood, so he calls out to America for more family members to add to the DNA and increase their chances of survival.
To get this on film, Milligan handmade costumes and smeared vaseline all over the lens. As always, he also had everyone scream at the top of their lungs.
Spool is abused throughout the movie, even when he’s trying to do the right thing and save the victims.
Many people seem to dislike this movie, and, to be honest, maybe I have Stockholm Syndrome because I watched so many Andy Milligan movies in the same week, but I’m not seeing the same film that they have. I kind of fall into a drone dream when I watch these, letting them wash over me and take away the world that I don’t want to be in. I feel sad for others who can’t use these movies in the same way.
The first horror film in history to be shot on video, Boardinghouse is… well, there really isn’t anything else like it. Somehow, this movie seems at once ten minutes and ten hours long, taking you on a journey into — man, I’ve no idea how we got here or where we’ve been, but we really went somewhere.
Back in 1972, Dr. Hoffman and his wife — who one assumes were doctors of the occult — died in their Mulholland Drive home on the night of their anniversary, committing double suicide in front of their daughter Debbie, who had a nervous breakdown. Everyone who has lived in the house since has died. And now, a decade later, the nephew of the last owner of the home, James Royce, puts out an ad looking for single women — beautiful women with no ties — to move in with him — he plans on you know, studying the occult while they’re there — so Sandy, Suzie, Cindy, Gloria, Pam, Terri and — you know it — Debbie all move in.
To say this movie has a disjointed narrative is like saying that you’re reading this on a website.
James is also trying to get with Victoria, a singer, and shows her how she can use her own latent telekinetic powers. After a dream in which she is dragged to the grave of Dr. Hoffman, she begins to grow jealous of the women of the boardinghouse who are all potentially sleeping with the occult master that she has come to love.
Oh man, before you know it, people are throwing cake at one another, women are clawing their eyes out, Debbie revealing herself as the psychic monster who killed both her parents after sleeping with her father, Jim shows up with less clothes in every scene and the end credits look like they came from a Apple 2E.
Directed by, written and starring John Wintergate, this is the kind of movie that defies description, despite my writing so many words about it already. It has a lead actress with one name — Kalassu. And she’s the wife of Wintergate and their children show up. And then there are monsters, hallucinations and bloody showers. And the cut I watched has a running time of 2 hours and 38 minutes.
This movie was also shot in Horror-Vision, which is a swirl of color and a glove, and it’s supposed to warn you when something scary happens, but nothing like that seems to happen, and man, they blew this up on film and played it in theaters, and Wintergate must have quite the thong collection.
June 30- July 6 Puke Week!: Throwing up isn’t very funny, but making your internet friends watch a puke movie is!
I always say the one line — well, many of the lines, but this one line — when Gary Johnston throws up non-stop after he hits rock bottom. Someone yells, “You threw away your life!” and for some reason, it’s the way it’s said — more yelled — that always makes me laugh.
Directed by Trey Parker, who wrote it with Matt Stone and Pam Brady, this takes the creator of South Park into the world of Supermarionation. After watching Thunderbirds, they wondered if an adult movie could be made of it. There was one getting made, which surprised them, and they were even more weirded out that it was live action. There was a rumor that they wanted to make the script from The Day After Tomorrow, got turned down and ended up making this.
This movie took 270 puppets, which were made by the Chiodo Brothers, the same guys we all know and love from Killer Klowns from Outer Space and Critters. Stone would call this time — working with more than thirty marionette operators at a time — as the “worst time of my life” and Parker agreed, saying it was “the hardest thing they’d ever done.”
Team America polices the world. Made up of psychologist Lisa, Carson, the psychic Sarah, Joe and martial artist actor hater Chris, they are led by Spottswoode. After a mission gone wrong costs Carson — Lisa’s fiancee — his life, they have to add a new member, Broadway actor Gary. As they work to defeat Kim Jong Il and his army of terrorists, they are also opposed by Alec Baldwin and the Film Actors Guild.
Sure, that’s a basic description. There’s so much in this movie, like George Clooney being the enemy when he was the man who helped get South Park on the air. A puppet sex scene so intense that it got the movie an NC-17 (Parker said of dealing with the MPAA, “They said it can’t be as many positions, so we cut out a couple of them. We love the golden shower, but I guess they said no to that. But I just love that they have to watch it. Seriously, can you imagine getting a videotape with just a close-up of a puppet asshole, and you have to watch it?”). Celebrities being abused — Sean Penn wrote a letter signed “a sincere fuck you, Sean Penn.” — and murdered. 37 uses of the word fuck. Bill Pope shooting this with anthromorphic lenses. A Michael Moore puppet stuffed with ham and blown up. A cockroach in the body of a dictator. Man, just writing about it makes me want to watch it all over again.
Pig-masked bank robbers in Australia go up against BMX experts P. J. (Angelo D’Angelo), Goose (James Lugton) and Judy (Nicole Kidman). Yes, Nicole Kidman in her second movie.
Perhaps even more amazing is that this was directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith, who you may not pick to make a kid movie, but here we are. As they go up against The Boss (Bryan Marshall), Whitey (David Argue) and Mustache (John Ley), the kids use their BMX skills to stay ahead of the bad guys and get them arrested. The cops even build them a BMX track — not Helltrack — as a thank you.
Kidman hurt her leg doing a stunt in this — jumping into an open grave! — and her stand-in ended up being a guy in a wig. As for me, I love that this was financed by The Rank Organisation, along with that old opening of the muscular guy ringing the gong. They also financed Twins of Evil, the Carry On movies, The Uncanny and so many more movies.
You have to love this in the credits: WARNING: The Stunts in this film were performed by professional stunt riders. For your own safety, PLEASE DO NOT IMITATE.
When you see the names Brian Trenchard-Smith and Nico Mastorakis listed as producers, you know that you’re probably getting into something good. Also known as Demon Island, this film was directed by Richard Jefferies, who is perhaps better known for the films he wrote, such as Scarecrows and Cold Creek Manor. He has directed only one other film, the 2008 TV movie Living Hell.
It’s funny, when I discussed this movie earlier today with Bill from Groovy Doom, he referred to it as “the monster movie with no monster.” That’s an apt description.
It’s also about a treasure hunter named Frye (James Earl Jones) whose underwater scavenging brings back an ancient sea monster that demands virgin blood.
Meanwhile, Neil and Sherry (Martin Kove and Mary Louise Weller, who appeared in Q The Winged Serpent the same year as this movie) have come to the island looking for his missing sister Madeline (Deborah Shelton, who also sings the song over the end credits with her then-husband Shuki Levy). Plus, Lydia Cornell stops hanging out with Cosmic Cow on Too Close for Comfort and shows up as Jones’ girlfriend.
Inexplicably, Lila Kedrova from Zorba the Greek and Jose Farrar — well, he’s less of a surprise as Jose may have been the first actor to win the National Medal of Arts, but he’s also in spectacular junk like The Sentinel, Bloody Birthday and The Being — both appear.
Arrow’s write-up promised “blood, nudity and beachside aerobics.” This delivered, as well as some great dream sequences and moments where beachfront rituals seem to go on forever. That said, I had a blast with this movie, as any film that features Martin Kove skipping around the waves, showcasing a miniature engine, while the ladies go wild, and James Earl Jones is involved, will hold my attention.
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