Directed by John Landis, who wrote it with Mick Garris, this takes trailers of old Universal horror movies to explain why the horror genre is so amazing. While this played theaters for a limited run, I first saw it on video, back in the pre-internet days when finding movie trailers wasn’t as easy as it is now.

Jamie Lee Curtis’s scenes were filmed at Universal Studios locations like Dracula’s Castle, European Street and the Psycho House.

With clips from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Phantom of the Opera, Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Mummy’s Hand, The Wolf Man, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Invisible Agent, The Mummy’s Tomb, Captive Wild Woman, Son of Dracula, Weird Woman, The Mummy’s Ghost, The Mummy’s Curse, House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Revenge of the Creature, Tarantula, This Island Earth, Curucu, Beast of the Amazon, The Mole People, The Creature Walks Among Us, The Deadly Mantis, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Psycho, Brides of Dracula, King Kong vs. Godzilla, The Birds and The Night Walker, this also shows a lot of E.T. and trailers for Jaws 3D, Halloween 3 and Videodrome, as well as See You Next Tuesday, an ongoing Landis joke.

While you can find any of these trailers easily today, this is a great time capsule.

You can download this from the Internet Archive.

Joe D’Amato and Rosella Drudi reteamed for this sequel in name only to Eleven Days Eleven Nights, even though the character of Sarah comes back. Now she’s played by Kristine Rose and has been married and separated and given the new job of the executor of the estate of Lionel Durrington (James Jackson), one of her past lovers and the richest man in Louisiana.

Guess what? This is actually the third film in the series because Sarah was the lead character in Top Model, which is also listed in plenty of places as Eleven Days, Eleven Nights 2. Look — it wouldn’t be Italian movies if it weren’t confusing.

There are four heirs and one after another, they all get with our heroine, who will determine which one is worthy of the money based on how good they are in bed, one supposes. Sonny is the only one with no interest in Sarah, even when she danced for him at a strip club, but that’s because his last girlfriend was abused in front of him by friend of the family Alfred, who is also trying to get the money.

Because Italian films really don’t care about how insane or twisted — actually, this is what they run toward, not from — things get, Sarah disguises herself as Sonny’s old lover and goes to the impotence institute and gets a rise out of him.

By the end, she realizes that no one deserves the money, so she comes up with a plan. She’ll write a book about the family and its secrets while they split the $500 million with a mystery person. They quickly sign and yeah, the mystery guy is the man who was supposed to be dead and we have a happy ending. We also have Laura Gemser in the blink and you’ll miss it role of Sarah’s jogging publisher and Ruth Collins from Lurkers, Doom Asylum and Prime Evil show up.

For a movie about people getting naked, D’Amato has plenty of women in sweaters show up. I’m all for this.

Also: This has also been listed as The Web of Desire and Eleven Days, Eleven Nights Part 4 because Italian movies are wonderful and confusing.

88 Films has released this in an incredible slipcase with art by Sean Longmore. It also has a booklet with notes by Calum Waddel and Rachael Nisbet. Inside, you’ll find a new 4K remaster from the original negatives, audio commentary by Eugenio Ercolani and Nanni Cobretti, interviews with Mark Thompson Ashworth, Piero Montanari and  Pierpaolo De Sanctis, and Italian opening and closing titles. You can get this on 4K UHD or Blu-ray from MVD.

The lost 1934 film The Great Buddha Arrival holds a special place in film history, inspiring tokusatsu and kaiju movies, while intriguing fans and history buffs alike.

In 2018, director Hiroto Yokokawa created a modern reimagining of this story with the blessing of the grandson of the original director Yoshiro Edamasa. Yokokawa also made Nezura 1964, a reimagining of a 1964 Daiei movie that was canceled, connecting the past and present of kaiju filmmaking.

Nearly a mockumentary of the Great Buddha coming to life, this is filled with kaiju stars, including Yoshiro Uchida, who played Toshio Sakurai in Gamera vs. Gyaos; Peggy Neal (Terror Beneath the Sea, The X from Outer Space); Akira Kobu (Son of Godzilla); Yukijiro Hotaru (the Heisei Gamera movies); Yoshihiko Otsuki and Junichiro Nirasawa (Godzilla: Final Wars); Bin Furuya, the original Ultraman and Akira Takarada, famous for his role of Hideto Ogata in the original Godzilla.

While we may never see the original movie, this is still an interesting effort.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Eventually, otaku who are all into tokusatsu grow up and become perverts. This movie is for them, a Sapphic ode to sentai rangers and giant women called forth to battle kaiju and get goo all over their chests.

There’s a whole series of these Mighty Lady movies. In fact, this is not the first movie by director Ichiro Omomo that I have seen, as he also made Star Virgin. That means that when you read that paragraph above, know I am not knocking any of my fellow pervs. I get it, perhaps more than anyone.

There’s also a 1984 movie, All About Mighty Lady, in which she nails a stuffed Garfield doll to a wall.

Now I have to see it.

Thanks, Bleeding Skull!

Is this porn? Well, I found a copy on eBay, so the answer is no. It’s…I can see how some people could be into it, but it’s mostly how they did the effects. That said, there are a lot of makeout scenes and guys are kind of fascinated by that. Then again, ladies love Boys Love yaoi or Girls Love yuri manga, which is focused on same sex romance. It’s a big world filled with lots of flavors, so why limit yourself, even if you want to be stepped on by a fifty-foot-tall Japanese superhero?

Never change, Japan.

Never change, Japan.

Rina (AV actress Rina Fukada) grows big when exposed to electricity. When her father is kidnapped, she’s forced to become a kaiju woman and destroy the city. Not even tanks can stop her. But can a tentacle monster? Or a metallic lobster?

Look, I get it. These movies are weird. However, don’t you owe it to yourself, just once in your life, to see a gorgeous Japanese starlet get raw frogged by a giant amphibious kaiju?

What blows my brain out is the care that was given to the city set. We know this has been made for jerking off to, yet the city looks as good as a real kaiju movie. The monsters look better than several I’ve seen in real movies. What was the tentacle and lube budget? And ah, there’s that pixelation so that even though this is as perverted as it gets, you never see any real genitals.

The fact that this exists gives me hope.

The last Amicus film, The People That Time Forgot, is a direct sequel to The Land That Time Forgot and is based on two Edgar Rice Burroughs books, The People That Time Forgot and Out of Time’s Abyss. 

Major Ben McBride (Patrick Wayne) travels to Antarctica in search of his friend, Bowen Tyler (Doug McClure), the hero of the first movie. Along with his crew — Norfolk (Thorley Walters), Hogan (Shane Rimmer) and Lady Charlotte Cunningham (Sarah Douglas) — they make it to Caprona just in time to nearly be eaten by a pterodactyl.

They meet both the samurai-volcano-worshiping army of the Nargas and Ajor (Dana Gillespie), a cave girl who has been taught English by Tyler. As for Tyler, he’s been taken by the Nargas and needs to be rescued, but when the volcano erupts, maybe no one will survive.

American International Pictures took all the credit for this when it was released, as Amicus had already closed.

Directed by Kevin Connor and written by Patrick Tilley, this is a blast. A pre-Darth Vader David Prowse even shows up as an executioner, as does Richard LeParmentier, who was General Motti in that movie. Plus, there are several Frank Frazetta paintings.

Gillespie spoke of her costume with some humor, as she was a bit more curvy than your usual cavewoman. No complaints! She said, “Well, it’s mainly because they always seemed to give me the chamois-leather bits that Raquel Welch had discarded from One Million Years B.C. My costumes were actually much bigger than hers; she’s got the right shape for a bikini, which I clearly haven’t, really. But if you play a native girl, there’s only one sort of costume you can be put into: it’s either bits of fur or bits of suede leather.” 

Someone noticed. I love these IMDB goofs: “Prehistoric Ajor is clearly wearing eye shadow, eyeliner and false eyelashes, has manicured fingernails, tailored clothing and what looks suspiciously like a professional hairdo. – All highly noticeable once one takes one’s eyes off of her main assets.” and “After Ajor has freed them, they are climbing a hill. If you look closely, you can see Ajor is wearing modern white panties.” 

You can watch this on Tubi.