The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh (1971)
Sergio Martino’s directorial efforts have run the gamut — from straight exploitation (Mondo Sex and Mountain of the Cannibal God, which features Stacy Keach and Ursula Andress, as well as real animal mutilation which we’d never endorse) to horror (Island of the Fishmen, which in addition to starring Barbara Bach and Joseph Cotten, was re-edited by […]
The Visitor (1979)
In 2013, when the Alamo Drafthouse presented the uncut version of this film for the first time in the United States, they referred to it as an “unforgettable assault on reality.” Those words best describe what is otherwise an indescribable film. But I’m going to try. Maybe a recipe will help. Take Chariots of the Gods, […]
The Nightmare Never Ends (1980)
Have you ever seen Night Train to Terror and wondered — what would one of that film’s portmanteau sequences be like if they were expanded to an entire movie? Good news! Well, maybe. Your wishes have come true. The final story of Night Train, “The Case of Claire Hansen”, was really a film called The Nightmare Never […]
Manhattan Baby (1982)
Reviews call this film one of Fulci’s worst films, using phrases like “an impenetrable mess” and “uninspired.” Even the liner notes on the Anchor Bay release say that the film “doesn’t add up.” Woah boy — that would put off anyone else. But me? I’m excited to dig in. Get it? Dig in. Susie Hacker […]
Phenomena (1985)
A monkey. A girl who can talk to bugs. Donald Pleasence. All directed by Dario Argento. If you don’t immediately say to yourself, “I’m in,” you’re reading the wrong website. Within the movie’s first two minutes, you realize you’re watching an Argento film. A tourist misses her bus somewhere in the Swiss countryside before she […]
Drive Angry (2011)
I have a real soft spot for Nicholas Cage. Sure, he’s been in some shit movies, but he’s our generation’s John Carradine, taking role after role because he’s a working actor. Who else could give us the magic of “No, not the bees?” Directed by Patrick Lussier, who edited all of Wes Craven’s later films and […]
DANGEROUS WOMEN: Don’t Torture a Duckling (1972)
Known in Italy as Non si sevizia un paperino (Don’t Torture Paperino, because Paperino is what they call Donald Duck) and La Longue Nuit de L’Exorcisme (The Long Night of Exorcism) in France, this was what Fulci considered his best work. It’s a giallo, which if you don’t know, is an Italian movie tradition — kind of like a detective story, […]
DANGEROUS WOMEN: The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (1972)
Emilio P. Miraglia followed up The Night Evelyn Came Out of Her Grave with this giallo freakout — starring the magnificent Barbara Bouchet (Don’t Torture a Duckling) — that combines gothic horror with the high fashion we’ve come to expect from early 70’s Italian horror. A curse haunts the Wildenbrück family once every 100 years — two sisters […]
DANGEROUS WOMEN: They Call Her One Eye (1973) AKA Thriller A Cruel Picture
The poster says it all: “The movie that has no limits of evil.” When people talk about grimy, evil pictures, this is the one they’re talking about. Quentin Tarantino called this “the roughest revenge movie ever,” and that’s including I Spit on Your Grave and Last House on the Left, one would suppose. After all, Elle Driver […]
DANGEROUS WOMEN: Vampyros Lesbos (1971)
Sometimes, when you watch a horror film, you’re lied to by a title which promises you something that the film cannot or will not deliver. Not so with Jess Franco’s Vampyros Lesbos. Franco promises you lesbians and vampires and he delivers. He also delivers plenty of late 60’s style and a space age jazz soundtrack that threatens […]
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