September Drive-In Super Monster-Rama is back at The Riverside Drive-In Theatre in Vandergrift, PA on September 27 and 28, 2024. Admission is still only $15 per person each night (children 12 and under free with adult) and overnight camping is available (breakfast included) for an additional $15 per person. You can buy tickets at the show but get there early and learn more here.

The features for Friday, September 27 are The Raven, The Terror, The Little Shop of Horrors and Attack of the Crab Monsters. Saturday, September 28 has The Beyond, Opera, Cemetery Man and A Blade In the Dark.

Mara Cecova is a diva and the star of a whole new way of performing Verdi’s Macbeth. But when she’s hit by a car as she argues with the director in the middle of the street, her role goes to her understudy, Betty. Ironically, in his book Profondo Argento, director Dario Argento claimed that the person playing the role of Betty, Cristina Marsillach, was the most difficult actress he would ever work with.

Despite her initial worries, Betty becomes an instant success on her opening night. At the same time, a black-gloved killer sneaks into one of the boxes to watch before murdering a stagehand with a coathanger. Grab your barf bags and motion sickness pills, everyone, Argento is behind the camera!

Of all the powerful shocks in Opera, perhaps the one that means the most to the viewer is that we share Betty’s torture — she’s repeatedly gagged, tied up and forced to watch the killer at work again and again as he tapes needles under her eyes. If she blinks too long or shuts her eyes, they’ll be shredded. It’s like Fulci’s wettest dream ever. In the same way, we are nearly complicit with the crimes we are forced to watch, particularly because they get more and more artfully composed.

Throw in the fact that Betty believes that the hooded killer is the same person who murdered her mother, she follows the giallo path for a protagonist and confides in someone else rather than the police. Her reason? The killer may know who she is.

Inspector Alan Santini (Urbano Barberini, Demons) is on the case, because there are so many clues, like the fact that the producer’s pet ravens were found dead after the show. As for Betty, she runs from the police and calls her agent Mira (Daria Nicolodi, Argento’s former wife and the writer of Suspiria and star of Shock) for advice.

Betty’s costume gets cut to ribbons, so she asks the wardrobe girl for help. While she works on the dress, they find a gold bracelet that they can almost read. But here comes the killer and his needles again, forcing her to watch him kill one more time. The wardrobe girl accidentally swallows the bracelet, so of course, we watch as the murderer slices her throat open to get it back.

Betty runs back to her apartment where Santini is waiting. He promises to send a detective named Soavi to watch over her (yep, The Church director Michele Soavi), but she doesn’t trust the man and leaves her apartment. That’s when her agent answers the next knock on the door by looking through the peephole. What follows is the most grand kill in the entire film — which is saying something — as we follow the bullet POV-style out of the gun and directly through her eyeball. Again, Fulci is somewhere wringing his hands.

Nicolodi had just ended a long relationship with Argento and did not want to be in this film. However, the shocking and complicated murder of her character changed her mind, even if she had to deal with an explosive device being put on the back of her head to achieve the final shot.

Betty escapes the killer again and runs to the opera house, convinced there is a connection between the murderer and her long dead and totally abusive mother. The next night, as she performs, the producer unleashes what is left of his ravens in the hopes that they’ll find the killer. Oh, they do alright — tearing his eyeball out of his head — FULCI ARE YOU THERE, IT’S ME DARIO — and rewarding you, the viewer, with POV shots that threaten you with vertigo. I’m getting dizzy even typing this.

I don’t want to give away the killer or even the second ending where the killer isn’t really dead. I just want to talk about the sheer Argento-ness of the final scene, where Betty wanders in a field and releases a lizard, giving him his freedom. Argento claims that this ending was inspired by Thomas Harris’s Red Dragon. Of interest, the director does NOT like the Michael Mann movie Manhunter. Me? Well, I love that movie. But I’d love to see Argento’s take. There’s was also a thought to another ending where Betty would fall in love with the killer.

Your enjoyment of this film really comes down to how much you like shocking amounts of bloodshed and Argento’s arty side. He based the film on his own failed staging of Macbeth, basing the role of the nervous producer on himself. And the idea of pins under the eyes? It comes from a joke about how Argento hated when people looked away during the death scenes in his films.

Believe it or not, Orion Pictures planned on releasing an R-rated version of this in the US called Terror at the Opera with eleven minutes of mayhem removed, as well as the Swiss Alps epilogue. Argento refused and Orion was losing money at a fast clip, so the movie only saw a limited video release.

Opera is something else — filled with style and brutality. I loved it, but remember my warning as to how much you can handle.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

Ebony is track star Pam Rogers (Rosanne Katon, Zapped!, Motel Hell, Body and Soul, The Swinging Cheerleaders).

Ivory is Ginger Douglas (Colleen Camp!) is her enemy on the track, a rich girl who is the scion of a supermarket empire.

Jade is Jackie.

They’re all She-Devils in Chains — the original title — trapped after being kidnapped at a Hong Kong track meet. Director Cirio Santiago is working with a bit more budget and a PG rating here, which leads to this being way less sleazy than the prison movie that you think it is going to be.

One of the bad guys is played by Rocco Montalban, which is one of the best acting names I’ve ever seen.

A Dimension Pictures film, this was bought by 21st Century. It was released by Wizard Video as Foxforce — hey Quentin — before 21st Century licensed it to Continental Video as American Beauty Hostages.

Speaking of Tarantino, the back of the box — The Unknown Movies has the entire text and it’s so good — refers to this movie’s protagonists as “3 spittin’ kittens on a roaring rampage of revenge!” That’s the same phrase used to describe the bride’s vengeance, a “roaring rampage of revenge,” in Kill Bill.

September Drive-In Super Monster-Rama is back at The Riverside Drive-In Theatre in Vandergrift, PA on September 27 and 28, 2024. Admission is still only $15 per person each night (children 12 and under free with adult) and overnight camping is available (breakfast included) for an additional $15 per person. You can buy tickets at the show but get there early and learn more here.

The features for Friday, September 27 are The Raven, The Terror, The Little Shop of Horrors and Attack of the Crab Monsters. Saturday, September 28 has The Beyond, Opera, Cemetery Man and A Blade In the Dark.

What can you say about Fulci that hasn’t already been said? I wonder that as I begin writing this in the middle of a rainy night. This isn’t a post that’ll change anyone’s mind about his work and the relative artistic merits (or total lack of them). But it’s one of my favorite films and I’d like to opine on it for awhile. Please indulge me.

The film starts in flashback — 1927, Louisiana, the Seven Doors Hotel. A mob is convinced an artist is a warlock, so they crucify him, opening one of the Seven Doors of Death — allowing the dead into our world. Coincidentally, Liza — our heroine from New York City — inherits the hotel and her renovations reopen the door.

From there on out, Fulci says, “Cazzo la tua realtà” and embraces his worst impulses. The only way I can fully explain the craziness of this film is if I just list each insane moment in one long paragraph. Joe the plumber — not the political one — discovers a flooded cellar and gets his eye ripped out (if you’re playing a Fulci drinking game based on injuries to eyes and women, prepare to be the most inebriated you have ever been). A blind woman, Emily, and her dog, Dickie, inform Liza that she should stop. Joe’s wife and daughter try to claim his corpse, but the mother has her face slowly — “Sempre così lentamente!” I can hear Fulci yell from his director’s chair — burned off by acid and her daughter becomes one of the undead (zombies appear, drink three times) until she is shot by a bullet that sends her entire head spraying all over the screen in one of the most shocking scenes in pretty much all of film. Emily tells Liza to never enter room 36, but she does and discovers the ancient book Eibon and the still-crucified artist. Oh hey — Emily isn’t real — she’s trapped in the past and reaching out to us now, but her dog goes bad and tears her throat out. A dude falls off a ladder, gets paralyzed and the slowest death ever — a face eaten by spiders — occurs. Joe the plumber rises from a bathtub in a shot that rips off (pays homage to) 1955’s Diabolique and pushes a woman’s head through a nail, her eye being destroyed as a result (twice in one movie!).

Whew — so much happens that you may feel like you’re in a dream. That’s the way I see this film — a voyage from one terror to another, as one experiences nightmares that don’t seem to end. I see a lot of similarities to Jodorowsky in Fulci’s work. There’s no nuance — it’s all eyeballs popping, faces exploding, death upon death — but it’s there.

Fulci saw this film as having the closest to a happy ending that he would film. I’m not certain I agree — but it certainly is memorable. And if you haven’t seen it, why should I spoil it for you? I was ready for 2016’s The Void — a movie that could be a spiritual successor to this film — to end exactly the same way.  There’s also a reference in 2015’s Fulci loving We Are Still Here, as the handyman who unleashes the evil in the house is named Joe the Electrician.

This film was butchered — irony? — for years, with a heavily censored version playing in the U.S. as Seven Doors of Death. It wasn’t until the efforts of Grindhouse Releasing that the uncut version was finally shown in American movie houses. Fun fact — Grindhouse’s Bob Murawski is a film editor who used a shot from the spider bite sequence in the spider bite dream sequence of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man.

Even the original title of the film — …E tu vivrai nel terrore! L’aldilà (…And You Will Live in Terror! The Beyond) — is great. I’ve written before about how evangelical I can get when discussing a movie that I really love. I promise that if you ever speak to me in person about The Beyond that my eyes will get crazy and I will grow very animated and make a big deal out of a film that Roger Ebert famously derided by saying, “The movie is being revived around the country for midnight cult showings. Midnight is not late enough.”

It doesn’t matter — we cannot choose what we love. For pure atmosphere, dread and Fabio Frizzi’s incredible music, I end up watching this film quite often. Please try it for me. You can make fun of me afterward and I’ll still try to sell you on it.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

Born and raised in Fort Smith, Arkansas and making his living in Akron, Ohio and Milwaukee, Wisconsin as a preacher and dancer named Prince DuMarr before joining the Army and performing as the Harlem Hillbilly, Rudolph Frank Moore recorded R&B albums before becoming a party album pioneer and later found himself working at Dolphin’s of Hollywood record store.

That’s where owner John Dolphin created the center of R&B in the 40s and 50s, presenting live DJs and shows while customers shopped. The store hot its name because Hollywood wouldn’t allow blacks to own or operate any business in Hollywood, so this was Dolphin’s way of bringing the city to South Central Los Angeles, saying “If blacks can’t go to Hollywood, I’ll bring Hollywood to blacks.”

While working there, Moore met a unhoused person named Rico who would do toasts, or tell tall tales, for money to buy food. People loved his stories about Dolemite and eventually, Moore — who had already been doing stand-up and recorded his party albums, paid Rico in weed and wine to allow him to record and use his stories.

By the 70s, Moore was recording albums like Eat Out More Often, This Pussy Belongs To Me and The Dirty Dozens in his apartment and selling them out of his car and under the counter at record stores. These albums became famous with no airplane and just word of mouth in the black community.

At the age of 47, Moore took the money he made from those party records and decided to make his own movie, despite never having made a film before.

Willie Green (D’Urville Martin, who also directed this movie), Detectives Mitchell (John Kerry) and Mayor Daley (Hy Pyke) have all worked together to send Dolemite (Moore) to prison for twenty years. Fellow pimp Queen Bee (Lady Reed) works for what seems like years to free Dolemite with the hopes he can stop all the drugs coming into the city. The odds are against him, but how many pimps have an army of martial arts sex workers at their command? Or a militant preacher named Reverend Gibbs (West Gale) supplying him with weapons and an F.B.I. agent (Jerry Jones) supporting him under cloak and dagger

This movie is beyond amazing, as Moore is just a force. Cinematographer Nicholas Josef von Sternberg had to be covered with a sound blanket during shooting because he couldn’t stop laughing. I can’t even imagine being on set. It took seventeen 18 hours days to make this movie, but it’s worth it. Sure, it’s rough, but it feels real.

“Way down in the jungle deep, the lion stepped on the signified monkey’s feet. The monkey said, “Motherfucker, can’t you see? You’re standing on my goddamn feet?” The monkey lived in a jungle in an old oak tree, bullshittin’ a lion every day of the week.”

Anyone that refers to this movie as cheap, boring, amateur, crude or stupid needs to get fucked up. I judge people based on how they feel about Dolemite.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

Directed, written and starring Graydon Clark as Vietnam veteran Jim, this has his character run into a black gang in Watts led by Tom or Makimba (Tom Johnigarn) and saved by racist cops Sgt. Berry (Jock Mahoney) and Lt. Stans (Aldo Ray), who have the power of the badge and use it to knock everyone around.

There are also ladies showing up amidst the racial tensions, like Jacqueline Cole as Jim’s lover Nancy (she’s also Clark’s real-life wife) and Bambi Allen as Bobbi. In the short 34 years of her life, Allen was in pretty much the entire Something Weird catalog, including Space Thing, Day of the Nightmare, Sisters In Leather, The Fabulous Bastard from Chicago, The Ice House, The Erotic Adventures of Robin Hood, Miss Nymphet’s Zap-In, Terror At Orgy Castle, Hollywood Babylon, Loce Boccaccio Style and Street of a Thousand Pleasures. Sadly, she’d die a year after this movie — according to Sam Sherman — due to health complications brought about by silicone breast injections.

While Jim tries to pick Nancy or Bobbi, Makimba is blaming him for all of his problems. The fuse has been list and things are about to explode, as they say.

Some people are going to tell you that the topless pool party is gratuitous. I’m going to tell you that it was shot at Severn Darden’s house.

This was released by Dimension Pictures and also used the names Tom, The Brothers and ****** Lover. 21st Century re-released this after buying the Dimension film catalog.

You can watch this on Tubi.