69 EsSINtial SWV Titles (September 15 – 21): Klon, who came up with this list, said “This isn’t the 69 BEST SWV movies, it isn’t my 69 FAVORITE SWV movies, my goal was to highlight 69 of the MOST SWV movies.” You can see the whole list here, including some of the ones I’ve already posted.
Known as Samson vs. the Vampire Women in the U.S., this is one of four Santo films that were dubbed into English and released north of the border. Blame K. Gordon Murray, a distributor of Mexican films whose movies mainly played children-friendly weekend matinees or late night TV thanks to American-International TV.
A coven of vampire women awaken in their crypt after two centuries of sleep. Their leader, Queen Zorina, just wants to go back to Hell with her husband Lucifer — man, I love this movie — and to get here there, Tundra makes a vow to take the granddaughter of a woman who escaped her evil grip.
The only person that can save her is Santo, as his grandfather once saved the day all those years before. To get there, he’s going to have to fight a werewolf and then all of the vampire women, who decide they need to see Santo’s face, but the fun comes up and they all explode into flames. The silver masked man jumps in his convertible and drives away, satisfied with killing monsters for today.
69 EsSINtial SWV Titles (September 15 – 21): Klon, who came up with this list, said “This isn’t the 69 BEST SWV movies, it isn’t my 69 FAVORITE SWV movies, my goal was to highlight 69 of the MOST SWV movies.” You can see the whole list here, including some of the ones I’ve already posted.
The Oumi Kingdom is in shambles after General Daijo Yuki (Bin Amatsu) and his ninja Orochimaru (Ryūtarō Ōtomo) kill Lord Ogata (Shinichiro Hayashi) and his wife. Soldiers loyal to Ogata have succeeded in helping his son Ikazuchi-Maru to escape but Orochimaru transforms into a serpent and tries to kill him. Luckily, a giant eagle flies in and saves Ikazuchi-Maru.
Trained by Dojin Hiki (Nobuo Kaneko), Ikazuchi-Maru grows to become a ninja who specializes in toad magic. One evening, Hiki is attacked by Orochimaru and it’s revealed that the old man once taught the evil ninja and was also the eagle that saved our hero, who arrives too late — along with Tsunade (Tomoko Ogawa) — to save him. Now out for revenge, he goes after the ninja while Tsunade follows, given a spider pin by the spider woman who saved her.
Ikazuchi-Maru renames himself Jiraiya and becomes friends with Saki (Yumi Suzumura) and her little brother Shirota (Takao Iwamura), saving them from Daijo Yuki’s men. But oh, the twists and turns, as it turns out that while she loves our hero, Tsunade is also the daughter of Orochimaru! And there’s still a battle between the ninjas in their toad and serpent forms to follow.
Man, I absolutely loved this movie. It combines the martial arts movie with kaiju and has so many strange things about it. People hopefully loved it too, but I bet so many people who watched the American-International TV versions just thought it was dumb. Not me!
AIP also redubbed the monsters, so the Orochi-Maru Dragon sounds like Godzilla and Gaira from War of the Gargantuas, the Ikazuchi-Maru/Jiraiya Toad roars like Rodan, the giant eagle is Mothra and Sunate’s giant spider now sounds like a metallic monster and also has the voice of Kiyla from Ultraman. They also removed the opening and closing songs and replaced them with basic instrumentals. The toad also was used on the Toei series Kamen no ninja Aka-Kage.
You could almost see a lot of Star Wars in this movie. An evil magic fighter orphans a young boy who is destined to have great power who is saved by an old man and raised in the ways of the very same magic. He becomes friends with the daughter of that enemy — Leia is, after all, Darth Vader’s daughter — and he finally becomes strong enough in magic that he can fight back and the evil magic fighter becomes briefly good before his heroic sacrifice. Sure, we can all get behind that Joseph Campbell Hero’s Journey, but sometimes, things get a little ripped off.
Speaking of that Hero’s Journey, this is based on a Japanese folktale, The Tale of the Gallant Jiraiya, and was directed by Tetsuya Yamanouchi (Akakage, The Ninja Hunt) and written by Masaru Igami (Prince of Space, the main writer of Kamen Rider, Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot) and Mokuami Kawatake.
The title in Japan was Great Mystic Dragon Battle, which is super metal, and it has even better ones over the entire world, like Grand Duel in Magic, Ninja Apocalypse and Monsters of the Apocalypse. If you’ve ever seen the Taiwanese movie Young FlyingHero, that feels like a remake of this movie.
69 EsSINtial SWV Titles (September 15 – 21): Klon, who came up with this list, said “This isn’t the 69 BEST SWV movies, it isn’t my 69 FAVORITE SWV movies, my goal was to highlight 69 of the MOST SWV movies.” You can see the whole list here, including some of the ones I’ve already posted.
Before he made his first movie — Troika — in 1969, Frederic Hobbs was an artist who went from the traditional to a whole way of presenting art, creating parade sculptures that took art from the museum to the people. That’s when he figured it out — to get the people to see something as art, you should hide it in a film. He also created the films Roseland and Alabama’s Ghost before this one. And honestly, nothing can prepare you for this.
Imagine if David Lynch made a 1950’s nuclear warning monster film. But before you go see it, you get in a car crash and suffer a really bad concussion. Cool. Then, someone spikes your Icee with a dose of LSD that would cripple Owsley “Bear” Stanley. You now have a very, very small idea of just how crazy things are about to get.
There are two stories happening here: a scientist is trying to crack the code on a mysterious sheep-like creature while a conservative landowner fights being bought out by prospectors. All in Virginia City, Nevada, which was once the richest city in America after the silver and gold rush. The mines went dry, the people went away and the only people left are tourists staring at a dead husk.
I have to tell you, you’ve never quite seen a creature quite like the Godmonster. At once it appears to be the most real and yet fakest creature ever seen on the silver screen. It very well could be one of Lovecraft’s ancient ones for all I know, as it saunters and stumbles and falters across the frame, scaring children at birthday parties and blowing up gas stations.
There’s also a subplot with a fake dog funeral. Don’t ask me how any of this ties together, because all of it has blown my mind sky high, like a Jigsaw song from 1975.
Imagine a movie where the creature doesn’t do a single thing until more than one hour into the run time of a movie under ninety minutes, all while the nonprofessional actors can’t act and the professional ones chew scenery like they’re the godmonsters of the fringe festival.
I get real down sometimes when I think the world could be a better place than it is. The Godmonster of Indian Flats proves to me that somewhere out there, at some time, in some corner of the cosmos — let’s say a drive-in that smells like skunk weed and MD40 — some brave souls had no idea what the actual fuck they were getting into when it started playing. That fact makes me happy, imagining people driving away before the movie even ends, telling their friends and family that they suffered their way through a movie where a lamb emitted smoke and gave his life so that an entire town could die. There aren’t enough stars in the galaxy and every reality ever to properly review this movie. I’ll have to go back to college to invent some kind of formula so that my fragile mind can try and quantify it.
69 EsSINtial SWV Titles (September 15 – 21): Klon, who came up with this list, said “This isn’t the 69 BEST SWV movies, it isn’t my 69 FAVORITE SWV movies, my goal was to highlight 69 of the MOST SWV movies.” You can see the whole list here, including some of the ones I’ve already posted.
Shot in North Carolina on short ends for $25,000 in a house that cost $25 to shoot in, Axe has risen above its humble beginnings to end up on the Video Nasties section one list. Writer-director Frederick R. Friedel dreamed of making a film by 25, despite never having been on a film set in his life. He also ended up playing the morally conflicted Billy, which was to save the expense of hiring another actor.
Originally released as Lisa, Lisa, this North Carolina regional film was re-released in 1979 by Harry Novak as Axe (it was also called California Axe Massacre in the UK and it also played as The Virgin Slaughter). While Friedel felt that Axe felt that Novak’s title didn’t have the subtlety, surprise, and irony of his intended title, it certainly sells better under that simply — and yet sinister — name.
Three thugs — Steele (Jack Canon, who is also in Friedel’s Kidnapped Co-Ed), Lomax and Billy — beat a man named Aubrey to death, but not before they make him eat a lit cigar. After seeing the carnage, the victim’s boyfriend jumps out the window. They follow this mayhem up by assaulting a shopgirl, firing a gun over her head and pouring soda all over her.
They end up at the farmhouse of Lisa (Leslie Lee, who is an otherworldly figure in this and sadly, stopped acting after this movie), who lives alone with her grandfather. She keeps them a secret even from the police and has even more skeletons in her closet, as she’s slicing herself in the bathroom when no one is watching.
That night, Lomax tries to assault her. She responds by slicing his throat open and cutting him to pieces with an axe and shoving him into a trunk. She convinces Billy to drag it upstairs and when he learns what is inside, she tells him Steele did it.
There’s a great scene here where Billy takes her into the woods and tries to tell her that he will protect her. She pulls out her razor and he thinks that she’s trying to give him a weapon to battle the more physically imposing Steele. The viewer knows better.
Steele is no match for her, as she soon dispatches him with an axe and serves his blood up as soup to her grandfather. Billy notices the villain’s ring in the broth and then the body magically falls from the fireplace, sending him running outside and into a gunshot from the cops who’ve come back.
Not a 100% slasher by any means, as we said before, the ad campaign and video nasty image of the Axe re-release give it a historic reason to include as a movie in our slasher month. This is the kind of movie where nothing happens for long stretches, only to have moments of extreme violence quickly destroy the narrative tension. It’s a really intriguing film and I wish that Friedel had made more than just four movies.
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.
Carrie (Jillian Kesner, Firecracker), Chicago (Janice Heiden) and Mitzi (June Fairchild, the jumper in Head) are going to be in prison forever after they take part in a riot. Then they get volunteered into a program being researched by Dr. Blalock (Warren Stevens). He believes that his methods can reduce how socially unredeemable criminals are by using observation, therapy, drugs and a nurturing environment. But mostly drugs.
Each of the girls is supposed to be with a set group of boys, but Carrie is fascinated by the doctor’s violent alpha male son Carter (Peter Hooten, proving that his demented line readings in Night Killer are no accident; he talks the same way here). We soon learn that the Blalocks are getting poor, so Mrs. Blalock (the girl across the hall in Eraserhead) has talked him into this study, where the girls will live in their house and be given drugs by a shady government organization in an MK Ultra’s style conspiracy. The drugs don’t calm the girls down at all. It makes them want to have sex nonstop, get into brawls and, for some reason, stay in public fountains.
Some of the therapy works. Mitzi is constantly laughing and hard to understand, sure, but she also decorates her room with penguins and wears a tuxedo t-shirt. Dr. Blalock learns that she’s obsessed with them because they remind her of the man who abused her as a child, a Catholic priest. She has this revelation that basically a penguin raped her just in time for a boy to come over that has a crush on her and knows that she loves penguins. He dresses up as one and she loses her mind and smashes his head in.
Gus Trikonis knew how to make a drive-in movie. The Evil, Nashville Girl, The Sidehackers, Moonshine County Express, Supercock and The Swinging Barmaids aren’t great movies. But they’re good drive-in movies and there’s a difference. These movies are better when you’re half awake, drinking or smoking, and maybe even making out and catching moments of them. When you pay attention to them, they fall apart. When watched when distracted, they’re exactly what they should be. You can say the same for the films that Hugh Smith wrote, like Black Oak Conspiracy, Night Creature and The Glove.
I love that Jillian Kesner’s character is so matter of fact. If anything, the drugs sharpen her and allow her to navigate the world in a way that she never has before. When the doctor comes on to her, she doesn’t react in shock or shame; she just tells him that in no uncertain terms will they ever have a relationship beyond doctor and patient. She’s the one who figures all of this out and has the tools to escape the place that fate has trapped her in.
There are a lot of people who’ve reviewed this online and really were let down by it. I have no clue what movie they saw. A science fiction conspiracy version or a Corman nurse cycle movie with fistfights, car races and a penguin-based freakout? How can you not enjoy that?
This was re-released by 21st Century as part of a double feature that had The Swinging Barmaids renamed Eager Beavers and this movie titled The Classroom Teasers.
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.
Brice Mack was a background artist at Disney before becoming a director, working on Rooster: Spurs of Death, Jennifer, Half a House and producing Ruby and Mara of the Wilderness. This movie, written by Steve Krantz (Jennifer, Ruby) feels like the perfect idea for a sitcom: a drive-in and flea market populated by wacky characters. You can just imagine the guest stars that show up to sell things or buy from the regular characters.
Also: The Farmer cinematographer Irv Goodnoff was the original choice to direct.
Ziggy (Danny Goldman, the voice of Brainy Smurf) wants to make this the best swap meet in the world, but he also wants to find love. He’s one of the many stories in this episodic movie, along with Doug (Jon Gries, who is amazing in everything he’s in, even this not all that worthy movie; beyond Napoleon Dynamite, he was also in Joysticks, Real Genius, Fright Night 2, The Monster Squad and TerrorVision), who wants to impress the ladies in car races, and his friends Buddha (Loren Lester) and Billy (Dan Spector, the voice of Robin on Batman: The Animated Series), who just want to pick up the ladies. Two of the girls include regular sellers Nancy (Ruth Cox, Jennifer) and Susan (Deborah Richter, Cyborg). When they’re not trying to get people to buy turtles, they’re at war with the obnoxious children that won’t leave their table.
Rich kid Roy (Jed Cooper) also is in love with these girls and to get rid of Doug and his gang, they destroy their T-Bird — Doug’s dad’s car — so that they can’t race against his Ferrari. They turn to Max (Danny DeVito, yes, really) to fix their wrecked car. And if you don’t believe DeVito is in this, so is Rhea Perlman as one of the mothers of the horrible kids that won’t leave our hippie girls be.
How did DeVito get in this? Well, he did it as a favor for original director Goodnoff, who he met on the movie The Van. According to the September 19, 1979 issue of Variety, DeVito “requested no more than feature billing” as Taxi was just starting when this was released. When Dimension Pictures placed newspaper ads, they put his name above the title as Danny “Taxi” DeVito, which caused him to send a cease and desist. There were no hard feelings between Goodnoff and DeVito, as the actor hired him to shoot his directorial debut, the TV movie The Selling of Vince D’Angelo.
Filmed at the Roadium Swap Meet in Torrance, CA, which is still open, this will make you miss drive-ins if all the ones in your area are gone. This played double features with H.O.T.S. and yet its VHS box said, “Starts Where H.O.T.S. Finished!” Don’t be rude, Swap Meet.
Anyways, George Memmoli from Phantom of the Paradise and The Farmer shows up, as does Beatrice Manley (The Baby), Eric Greene (Loki from Space Academy), Pigs director Marc Lawrence as drive-in owner Mr. Booth and Cheryl Rixon as Annie, the homeless sex worker who lives at the swap meet and turns tricks at night with the help of the other teenagers, which seems bleak. Rixon was the December 1977 Penthouse Pet of the Month and 1979 Pet of the Year, so she adds the sex appeal that this movie is otherwise missing. She’s also in Used Cars.
There’s also a disco theme song, “Swap Meet,” which is played in the beginning and when most of the cast goes to The Great Gatsby Discotheque Part II.
After 21st Century bought all of Dimension’s films, they re-released this.
It’s not a great movie, but if you love spotting cast members from other movies, are a Marc Lawrence or Jon Gries fan, or just have to watch every 70s and 80s sex comedy, then you’re going to like Swap Meet a lot more than every other reviewer online, who seemingly had their pets abused by this movie.
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.
There is another Asian Devil Killer movie from 1981. This isn’t that.
This was called Ninja Exterminators on VHS. There are no ninjas in it.
Let’s start over again.
In this Robert Tai-directed film, a young boy named Darky watches the town leader’s son assault a woman but is blamed for the crime himself. He barely escapes when he’s caught by Inspector Fong Sen, who soon learns that the boy’s confession was beaten out of him. Arresting the real rapist, he and the boy are killed by the man that Fong was hunting in the first place, Liu Ta Leung. Yes, part way through the movie, most of the cast — the two heroes! — get killed.
Roll the credits? No. Now, Fong’s brother and another inspector come to town looking to solve the crime. What a strange way to put a movie together and if Richard Harrison showed up talking on a Garfield phone, I would not be surprised. Also: the foley department got no budget as they have some of the most limited punch and kick sound effects that you’ve ever heard.
You hear the name Devil Killer and think, “This is going to be awesome.” And then you get…whatever this was.
69 EsSINtial SWV Titles (September 15 – 21): Klon, who came up with this list, said “This isn’t the 69 BEST SWV movies, it isn’t my 69 FAVORITE SWV movies, my goal was to highlight 69 of the MOST SWV movies.” You can see the whole list here, including some of the ones I’ve already posted.
Oh René Cardona. Here you are remaking the lucha libre movie you did back in 1962, Las Luchadoras Contra el Medico Asesino, or The Wrestling Women vs. the Killer Doctor or Doctor of Doom, as it was called in the U.S.
While this was made in 1969 as La Horripilante Bestia Humana, or The Horrible Man-Beast, this one didn’t play in the U.S. until 1972. With alternate titles like Horror y Sexo and Gomar – The Human Gorilla, this is a fine blend of ladies wrestling with apes and, well, human heart surgery footage.
Female masked wrestler Lucy dresses like the devil and wrestles at the arena — dare we say Arena Mexico? — every Friday, where she often knocks out other girls who dress like cat girls. She wants to retire for a life of leisure — and less stress — with her cop boyfriend.
However, Dr. Krellman (Jose Elias Moreno, who was Santa Claus in the aforementioned film where he battles Patch the demon) wants to cure his son from leukemia. So he does what doctors have always said would work — he puts him a gorilla heart inside his boy. As we all know from health class, this turns his son into a deformed and murderous man-ape with the craziness of the organ donor to boot.
You won’t be bored, what with the nudity, real open heart surgery and rampant murders. A monkey man that rips off dudes’ faces and the clothes of girls? Si, muchacho.
This made the Section 1 video nasties list, probably because its VHS cover art was had a bloody surgeon’s hands holding a scalpel with the words “Warning: this film contains scenes of extreme and explicit violence.”
69 EsSINtial SWV Titles (September 15 – 21): Klon, who came up with this list, said “This isn’t the 69 BEST SWV movies, it isn’t my 69 FAVORITE SWV movies, my goal was to highlight 69 of the MOST SWV movies.” You can see the whole list here, including some of the ones I’ve already posted.
Claire Brennan plays Jade Cochran, a diner waitress who hates freaks and sadly for her, she’s pretty much in a remake of Tod Browning’s Freaks but, you know, 35 years later and somehow with a lower budget. Within minutes — and just one ferris wheel ride — she’s the wife of circus owner Steve St. John (Bill McKinney) and moments after that, rough trade Blackie Fleming (Lee Raymond) is treating her how she likes being treated behind her new old man’s back and then, even sooner than that, Steve’s dead at the hands and switchblade of Blackie and Jade owns it all.
Again, if you saw Freaks, you know how this all ends, the comeuppance of it all, right? The effects are rudimentary but effective and I mean, you can’t call a movie She Freak and not have a she freak.
Directed by Byron Mabe (The Acid Eaters, Space Thing, Nude Django) with inserts from Donn Davison. Donn was the manager of Florida’s Dragon Art Theatre and one of the guys who would work four-walled theaters and talk marks into buying gimmicks. He also narrated the trailer for The Crawling Thing and Creature Of Evil.
This was written by Michael B. Druxman (who also wrote the Cannon movie Keaton’s Cop) and producer David F. Friedman, who produced this and also plays the carnival barker. He learned how to make movies in the army and when he was discharged, he sold army-surplus searchlights. His first customer? Kroger Babb, perhaps the most carny of all carnies. And this, Friedman entered the world of film, working with Herschell Gordon Lewis, making more money in softcore and retiring when hardcore took over.
Filmed during the Kern County Fair and the Ventura County Fair, She Freak takes advantage of the rides and attractions of West Coast Shows, which was such a major company that they could do five carnivals in different locations at the same time. Most of their crew are in this.
Even though Jade and Shorty (Felix Silla) are at odds in this movie, the truth is there’s a thin line between love and hate. This movie started a nine year affair between the two that was kept a secret, even when Brennan gave birth to Silla’s son.
69 EsSINtial SWV Titles (September 15 – 21): Klon, who came up with this list, said “This isn’t the 69 BEST SWV movies, it isn’t my 69 FAVORITE SWV movies, my goal was to highlight 69 of the MOST SWV movies.” You can see the whole list here, including some of the ones I’ve already posted.
Despite the size of the budget and the cheapness of the sets, Bava crafts a totally unique world, filled with rich colors and billowing smoke. And with Lee as King Lico, there’s finally a villain that feels worthy of Hercules’ bold heroics.
As Hercules returns from many adventures, he discovers that the love of his life, Princess Deianira, has lost her memory. Unbeknownst to him, Lico is responsible. Working with the forces of the underworld, he wants her for himself (and Hercules out of the way). He sends Hercules, Theseus and Telemachus on a suicide mission to steal the Stone of Forgetfulness from a small island within a lake of fire. For love, Hercules will dare anything, diving headfirst into what normal men fear.
Indulge me in hyperbole for a moment, but Bava could be seen as very much the same. He made a bet with himself on this film, “attempting to shoot it with one segmented wall containing doors and windows and four movable columns.” Facing down a challenge and attempting to outdo the past Steve Reeves Hercules films while crafting a visual style all his own — Bava exceeds expectations here.
To me, the heart of the film is the differences between Hercules and Theseus. Hercules is driven by duty, devotion and love, while Theseus is addicted to new experiences, whether they be violent or sexual. When he is turned against Hercules, you know that our hero will forgive him, no matter what. His strength goes beyond physical — it extends to his heart.
There’s a scene in the film where the Queen of the Hesperides tells Hercules this advice: “Believe only what you do, not what you think you see.” That’s a perfect thought for this film. You may see fake rocks, silly costumes and a goofy plot. Or you can enjoy this film’s simple pleasures, wild colors and otherworldly feel.
There’s always a divide in how I see movies and how others do, which often leads me to not always want to share a film. Do you know what I mean? I honestly adore a film like Holy Mountain or The Beyond, but I know that by telling someone who isn’t willing to accept some of the faults, to simply see it as a dumb movie instead of a treasured story, I’m just going to get upset. This L.A. Weekly article sums it so well. Bava was operating on a small budget, with a small script, but delivered beyond measure. A story where one of the main characters must realize that in order to find true happiness for all, he must give up his own happiness? That’s deeper than the papier-mâché boulders and wooden performances here hint at.
Within the confines of what is expected, Bava is able to move us, to inspire us, to wow us, to take us to another, better world — one filled with smoke and lava and neon and beauty. We are limited now by the fact that every film must look perfect and clean and realistic. I’ll take one Hercules in the Haunted World over every movie that will play in moviehouses this year.
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