Category Archives: Movie reviews

SHAWGUST: One-Armed Boxer (1971)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a Golden Harvest movie! Oh well! I already wrote it.

With one arm tied behind his back, Jimmy Wang Yu had already played the One-Armed Swordsman in two films for Shaw Brothers, One-Armed Swordsman and Return of the One-Armed Swordsman. He also became incredibly popular after The Chinese Boxer, the movie that kickstarted the unarmed combat genre. Then, he broke his contract with Shaw Brothers and lost the lawsuit that resulted, which meant he needed to go somewhere other than Hong Kong to work.

That’s where former Shaw Brothers executive Raymond Chow comes in. He started the rival studio Golden Harvest in 1970 and Wang Yu became his star, writing, directing and playing the main role in One-Armed Boxer.

Yu Tian Long (Wang) is the best fighter to come out of his local martial arts school. However, when he stops the Hook Gang from roughing up customers in a restaurant. The evildoers are part of the Ching Te school, which is the most prominent martial arts academy in town. Yet more than that, they run all sorts of businesses, legal and illegal.

After being defeated in combat twice, the Hook Gang return to their master Chao Liu (Yeh Tien) and tell him that Tien and others from the Ching Te school attacked them for no reason and insulted their group. Chao heads off to the school and is easily defeated by Master Han Tu (Ma Kei).

Chao has no honor and uses his money to get revenge, hiring a group of martial artists from Shanghai that includes Okinawa karate expert Erh Ku Da Leung (Wong Fei-lung) and his students Chang Ku Chua and Pan Tien-Ching, two lamas from Tibet (Ko Fu and Cho Lung, who are the disciples of the Fung Sheng Wu Chi from Master of the Flying Guillotine, which is about him trying to get revenge for his students against Yu Tian Long), Muat Thai fighters Mi Tsu (Blackie Ko, who went on to be a car stunt expert) and Ni Tsai, judo master Kao Chiao, Taekwondo master Chin Chi Yung and yoga fighter Mura Singh. They murder every single student in the Ching Te school, as well as the Master, leaving only Tien Lung alive yet only with one arm after Erh Ku Da Leung chops his arm clean off.

Hsiao Yu, a nurse, and her father bring our hero back to health and explain a special sklill that could help him get revenge, a method that will make his fighter super powerful even with just one arm. He only has to destroy all the nerves in his arm so he places his arm into an open flame in an incredible scene that shows just how devoted he is to avenging his master.

The end of the film is an example of why I love martial arts movies. Tien Lung fights every single one of the killers in a quarry while the Hook Gang throw bombs at him. There’s blood spraying everywhere and non-stop kicking, punching and violence.

When this was released in the U.S. by National General Pictures, it was called The Violent Professionals and used the theme from The Big Boss, a Bruce Lee film that was also made by Golden Harvest. As for the original film score, it outright takes the theme from Shaft — minus the talking about Shaft — over the opening credits, which is pretty much as outlandish an act of theft as it gets.

This movie is just magical. I was on the edge of my seat throughout and was astounded by how intense the fights were and I was beyond on the side of the hero, despite how brutal and cool Erh Ku Da Leung is, a man who takes an arm when someone breaks an arm. If you haven’t gotten into kung fu yet, this is a great place to get started.

Consider this movie highly recommended.

The Sizzlin’ Something Weird Summer Challenge 2024: The Touch of Her Flesh (1967)

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Findlay Week (August 18 – 24) Husband and wife Michael and Roberta Findlay made mean-spirited films. They collaborated on films like Take Me Naked, The Ultimate Degenerate, and the notorious Flesh Trilogy, plus they actually looked like criminals – walking mug shots! You expect to see them glowering on the cover of one of those tabloids next to a headline like “KIDNAPPER COUPLE COLLECTED VICTIMS FINGERS.” Instead they were pornographers which did make them like criminals in their day. A lot of the filmmakers of their era would claim they only made this kind of movie because there was money in it, but Michael and Roberta were sincere adherents. Even when audience tastes changed and the couple were divorced they continued to make their own films that mixed in elements of kink and cruelty. 

Richard Jennings (director Michael Findlay) is a weapons book author — yes, really — who catches his exotic dancer wife Claudia (Angelique Pettyjohn) in bed with another man (Ron Skideri). Unable to handle it, he runs into the street and gets hit by a car so hard that his eyeball pops out. This traumatic incident convinces him that all woman of loose morals must die by his hand.

And so begins The Flesh Trilogy.

After watching the credits projected on a nude female body and the incident that destroys Richard’s life, we watch as he alternately views near-pneumatic New York City women, from exotic dancers to street walkers, and then kills them with poisoned thorns, a dart gun or a crossbow. It’s rough and raw and later installments would become more technically proficient while nevertheless being even more sadistic and just plain scummy. I do not say these words in a bad way.

Meanwhile, Richard is barking out dialogue like “Once a man’s locked within the hot vice of love that is their thighs, he can never escape.” and grabbing his wife’s chest before trying to kill her, sputtering “Let me see them again and feel them again before they die!” Sure, he starts as a victim and he’s castrated in a way by being trapped in a wheelchair for much of the film, sadly wheeling down 42nd Street, chugging bourbon as he exclaims stuff like “I will slash open the very core of your perversion! Your blood will be testimony of your depravity!” And then he attempts to escape the very sexual vortex of the female being, which sounds very high falutin but keep in mind that as gorgeously grungry as so much of this black and white film looks, there are also people who definitely masturbated in theaters to this.

The credits claim that this was directed by Julian Marsh,which is the name of the character in 42nd Street who is directing the show. Suzanne Marre is final girl Janet, Vivian Del Rio and Sally Farb are two of the dancers and Peggy Steffans (AKA Cleo Nova) appears. That final girl thought is appropriate, as this is as much a slasher as it is a roughie. Actually, it’s such a slasher that Richard dies at the end of it and comes back for the sequel.

Speaking of those James Bond-ish projected credits, that’s Roberta Findlay lying there. And from what I heard, this is where Claudia Jennings got her stage name, transforming from Mary Eileen Chesterton from suburban Illinois into the type of “soft pink trap” that would terrify Richard.

You can get all three of these movies in one set from Vinegar Syndrome.

MVD BLU RAY RELEASE: Terror Firma (2023)

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This is the first movie from Dark Arts Entertainment, a new label run by Brian Yuzna (Re-Animator, Society) and John Penney (Return of the Living Dead III, The Kindred).

Struggling artist Lola (Faye Tamasa, Ringworms) has nowhere to stay. She decides to visit her brother Louis (Burt Thakur), who she hasn’t seen for years, and he offers her a place to live. His roommate Cage (Robert Brettenaugh) seems strange but it isn’t for long, right? Well, that’s when the city goes into lockdown for reasons unknown. Is it another pandemic? War? And why are seeds showing up in the mail? Lola plants the seeds, which end up creating a psychedelic plant that warps her brother into another reality and makes Cage even more sinister.

Directed and written by Jake Macpherson, this is a unique feature that creates its own world for the characters, as mostly it’s Lola and Cage on screen with Louis lost somewhere in-between. The plants that grow appear otherworldly, beyond the strange happenings outside like helicopters constantly flying overhead and the TV turning to static. This feels like the worst trip to a drug buddy’s house that gets bad, you get stuck and there’s no way you can leave. It’s tense, gripping and a great first feature from this label and Macpherson.

The MVD release of Terror Firma has a director’s commentary, an extended director’s cut, a gallery of behind the scenes photos and a trailer. You can get it from MVD.

MVD BLU RAY RELEASE: Hardware Wars and Other Film Farces (1978)

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There was a time — let’s call it 1978 — when HBO first entered my life. Unlike predictably scheduled network television, many of the movies ended at odd times. In between, there were all kinds of unplanned content, like Video Jukebox, Arcade Attack, Bambi vs. Godzilla, The Mild Ones and Hardware Wars. As a kid who couldn’t get enough Jedi content in 1978, the fact that this aired every few days on our TV made me overjoyed. Every time it came on, whoever had on HBO would yell for everyone to run into the TV room and watch.

It’s a treasured memory.

I’d like to tell six year old me that I now own a copy of it and can watch it any time that I want. This is a magical feeling, the kind of power that young me never guessed would ever be my reality.

Hardware Wars — and another HBO favorite Porklips Now — came from animator Ernie Fosselius. After making twenty shorts for Sesame Street, he wrote several screenplays that never got filmed, including a Zippy the Pinhead movie. In his career, he’s done everything from foley work on Ed Wood, Serial Mom and The Unbearable Lightness of Being to making props for RoboCop 2, being a founding member of The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo and providing the voices for the pilots in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Poggle the Lesser in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, the Rancor Keeper in Return of the Jedi, writing the song that “Lapti Nek” that the Max Rebo Band performs, contributing one of the voices of the arcade game Gauntlet, doing the “Ack! Ack!” Martian voices in Mars Attacks! and performing the voice of Trantor the Troll in Ernest Scared Stupid.

Shot in four days for $8,000, this is George Lucas’ favorite parody of his film. When it was re-released in 1997, Fosselius didn’t take part, as he didn’t see the need to add in digital effects. He was also unhappy with the 2002 re-release that saw animators take out the strings on the puppets, which was intentional.

This movie was obviously made by a fan of the source material, as even Paul Frees — who voiced the Star Wars trailer — is used, making this feel real. His voice warmly reads “Hardware Wars! A spectacle light years ahead of its time! Starring: Fluke Starbucker, intergalactic boy wonder. Augie “Ben” Doggie, venerable member of the Redeye Knights. Princess Anne-Droid, interstellar damsel in distress. Ham Salad, ace mercenary pilot and intergalactic wise guy. Darph Nader, villain.”

Yes, Fluke Starbucker (Scott Mathews) must learn to master The Farce with help from Augue “Ben” Doggie (Jeff Hale, an animator on Sesame Street and Heavy Metal), Artie Deco, 4-Q-2 (Frank Robertson), Princess Anne-Droid (Cindy Furgatch), Ham Salad (Bob Knickerbocker) and Chewchilla the Wookie Monster.

If this line doesn’t make you laugh, this isn’t for you.

Fluke Starbucker: Jeepers! What is it, Augie Ben Doggie? Did you feel a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced?

Auggie Ben Doggie: No, just a little headache.

Being a grown up is not the fun that I hoped that it would be when I was six. At least having this helps.

The MVD release of Hardware Wars has a brand new 2K HD transfer from the only known surviving element, a 16mm Reversal Release print. There’s commentary by Ernie Fosselius, a director’s cut, a prequel featurette, a foreign version, an interview and three other movies: Hardware Wars Saves Christmas, Porklips Now and Plan 9.1 From Outer Space. It has a limited edition slipcover and a collectible mini-poster. You can get it from MVD.

SYNAPSE BLU RAY RELEASE: Crocodile (1979)

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Originally made as Agowa gongpo (Crocodile Fangs), this is the story of Tony Akom (Nat Puvani) and John Stromm (Min Oo), two workaholic doctors always at odds with their wives, who are angry that they work so much. They decide to make up for it and take them on vacation, which is a major mistake, as they are dragged underwater by a crocodile mutated by nuclear testing into an unstoppable creature of wife chewing destruction. Now, they must destroy it and join up with fisherman Tanaka (Manop Asavatep) and a photographer named Peter (Robert Chan Law-Bat) to make it happen.

When the English language version of this film was created by producer Dick Randall, all sorts of cuts happened. Out was the hurricane that opened the original film. In was a new beginning shot by Randall in which a crocodile eats two naked women. This one movie didn’t have enough crocodile human feasting for Randall, who added in a scene from Krai Thong in which three kids turn into a snake. And the ending, in which Tony threw dynamite into the crocodile’s gullet was edited with Peter strapping himself with the TNT and swimming right into the giant mouth of the croc. Above all else, all Jaws rip-offs must end with the beast being blown up. That’s the rules.

What breaks the rules is that much like The Ghost Galleon, I can only imagine that some of the effects in this were created by a toy boat in a bathtub. Yet going even further, this has a reptile crawling all over it.

Original director Sompote Sands also made the aforementioned Krai Thong, as well as The 6 Ultra Brothers vs. the Monster Army, Hanuman and the Five Riders (a bootleg Kamen Rider) and Jumborg Ace & Giant.

A warning: This movie was condemned by the American Humane Association for a moment where a real crocodile is murdered on screen. This isn’t Italian, mind you. It’s from Thailand.

The Synapse release of Crocodile has an audio commentary with dearly departed film historian Lee Gambin, an  interview with original director Won-se Lee, the original theatrical trailer, and deleted and alternate scenes. You can get it from MVD.

The Sizzlin’ Something Weird Summer Challenge 2024: Snuff (1976)

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Findlay Week (August 18 – 24) Husband and wife Michael and Roberta Findlay made mean-spirited films. They collaborated on films like Take Me Naked, The Ultimate Degenerate, and the notorious Flesh Trilogy, plus they actually looked like criminals – walking mug shots! You expect to see them glowering on the cover of one of those tabloids next to a headline like “KIDNAPPER COUPLE COLLECTED VICTIMS FINGERS.” Instead they were pornographers which did make them like criminals in their day. A lot of the filmmakers of their era would claim they only made this kind of movie because there was money in it, but Michael and Roberta were sincere adherents. Even when audience tastes changed and the couple were divorced they continued to make their own films that mixed in elements of kink and cruelty. 

No matter what Charlie Sheen and Black Emanuelle tell you, snuff movies are urban legends. This movie is probably the reason why so many people think they’re real.

Starting out as a low-budget exploitation film called Slaughter — made by the husband-and-wife team of Michael and Roberta Findlay — it was filmed in Argentina for the low, low price of $30,000. Shot with no sound and concerning a Manson-like cult, it made the film’s moneyman Jack Bravman some money before it was released, as AIP paid to use the title for its Jim Brown blacksploitation vehicle of the same name.

Allan Shackleton, who produced Misty and Blue Summer, had shelved the film for four years when he released with a new ending, shot to look like actual footage, based on an article he had read about South American snuff films. This led to the film’s tagline: The film that could only be made in South America… where life is cheap!

The new ending shows the crew of Slaughter killing one of the actresses for real, with the abrupt ending and lack of credits all planned to make the movie appear legitimate. Then, Shackleton hired fake protesters to picket movie theaters showing the film. That blew up, as even though the fact that the film was exposed as a hoax in a 1976 issue of Variety, it kept getting more popular. At one point, protests reached such fervor that New York District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau investigated the movie.

The plot of this movie is paper-thin. Actress Terry London (Mirta Massa, Miss International 1967) and her producer Max Marsh visit South America. She gets pregnant by another man and a female-filled biker cult led by a man named Satan stalks and murders her.

As for the infamous murder sequence, shot in the New York production studio of adult film director Carter Stevens (who made movies for the Avon Theater chain as well as the adult film Punk Rock), it’s very tacked on. But if you’re coming to see someone get murdered, do you even care about art?

You can get the blu ray of this from Blue Underground or watch it on Tubi.

The Sizzlin’ Something Weird Summer Challenge 2024: Shriek of the Mutilated (1974)

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Findlay Week (August 18 – 24) Husband and wife Michael and Roberta Findlay made mean-spirited films. They collaborated on films like Take Me Naked, The Ultimate Degenerate, and the notorious Flesh Trilogy, plus they actually looked like criminals – walking mug shots! You expect to see them glowering on the cover of one of those tabloids next to a headline like “KIDNAPPER COUPLE COLLECTED VICTIMS FINGERS.” Instead they were pornographers which did make them like criminals in their day. A lot of the filmmakers of their era would claim they only made this kind of movie because there was money in it, but Michael and Roberta were sincere adherents. Even when audience tastes changed and the couple were divorced they continued to make their own films that mixed in elements of kink and cruelty. 

There are tons of Bigfoot films to watch. Trust us, we know. We have an entire Letterboxd list packed with the ones we’ve made it through. And we know that Scarecrow has an even larger section in the store that’s all Yeti, skunkape and Sasquatch-based.

We decided to go back to the classics and rewatch this 1974 Michael Findlay film, in which Professor Ernst Prell takes four of his graduate students — Keith Henshaw, Karen Hunter, Tom Nash and Lynn Kelly — into the woods to discover if the Yeti really does exist.

Despite a mysterious dinner the night before — their dish of gin sung is broken up by a drunken former student and his wife who loudly proclaim that the last trip to see a Bigfoot got everyone killed — everyone decides that going into the brush to find the beast is a dandy idea.

As if that isn’t enough, that lout keeps drinking and decides to cut his wife’s throat with an electric turkey knife before she responds in kind by dumping a toaster into the bloody bathwater as he tries to clean himself up.

When the students get to Boot Island, they have more gin sung, meet a mute Native American named Laughing Crow and listen to Tom strum a little tune he wrote about the Yeti, who liked that song so much that he rips Tom apart, leaving only his leg as evidence.

The professor isn’t someone I’d like to have as a teacher, as he’s willing to use that leg and the body of another of the students, Lynn, as bait to catch his white whale. Or white Yeti, you get the allusion.

That said, the reveal of this all — spoiler warning for a 46-year-old movie — is that there’s no Bigfoot at all, but a big society of cannibals looking for either victims to be fresh meat or those willing to help them consume the flesh of their fellow man.

If you’re a big film geek like me — seeing as how you’re reading about a Sasquatch film from the last century when you could be doing something much more productive, I get the feeling that you are — you’ll wonder, did the print Sam saw have Hot Butter’s “Popcorn” in the soundtrack? Yes. It did. It sure did.

In 1982, if you were lucky enough to still have a drive-in around ou, chances are you could have seen this movie as part of an event named 5 Deranged Features. Don’t be fooled by some of these titles, as you may have seen them all before! They’re Coming to Get You is not All the Colors of the Dark, but instead Al Adamson’s Dracula vs. Frankenstein. House of Torture is The Wizard of Gore. Night of the Howling Beast is The Corpse Grinders. And Creature from Black Lake wasn’t so lucky as to get a name change.

Here’s a drink to enjoy while watching this.

Yeti

  • 1 1/2 oz. gin
  • 1/2 oz. blue Curaçao
  • 3 oz. lemonade (you can make it yourself or just go off the shelf)
  • Club soda
  • Lemon wedges
  1. Combine gin and the lemonade in a glass with ice.
  2. Add blue Curaçao and top with club soda. Stir using a mixing spoon and garnish with lemon wedges.

Watch it on Tubi.

SHAWGUST: Brave Archer 3 (1981)

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The final of the three movies that adapt Louis Cha’s The Legend of the Condor Heroes, this starts with Guo Jing (Alexander Fu Sheng) and Huang Rong (Niu-niu) following Yang Kang (Yu Tai-ping) to the home of the Iron Palm Sect. Huang Rong is critically injured and a swamp woman named Yinggu (Ching Li) tells Guo JIng that only a monk named Duan Zhixing (Ti Lung) can save her.

After defeating the bodyguards of Duan Zhixing, they learn that Yinggu was once his lover. She told them to find him because to save Huang Rong, Duan’s healing powers may cost him his life. That’s because he ignored her to become a master fighter and she had an affair with Zhou Botong, which led to her having his child. When the baby was born, a masked man attacked it and Yinggu begged Duan to save its life. Now, her revenge will be having him die.

Qiu Qianren (Lo Mang), one of the best fighters in the Iron Palm Sect, was the masked man and this brings Zhou and Yinggu back together. Zhou Botong appears and explains the weakness in Qiu’s martial arts and he is finally defeated.

How crazy is it that it took the third movie to finally explain who Duan Zhixing was? Meanwhile, the characters in this movie aren’t even the titular hero, so what’s going on here? Ah, Chang Cheh, you always surprise me. Also: a baby death? That’s how you prove that someone is the bad guy. Speaking of bad guys, when is Guo Jing going to get that revenge that this series of movies is supposed to be about?

SHAWGUST: The Snake Prince (1976)

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A gender flipped adaption of The Legend Of The White Snake, this Lo Chen-directed film starts with a village running out of water and praying to various animal deities. Only the snakes answer, in the person of Snake Prince (Ti Lung) and his two snake friends, Yellow and Black Snake (Wong Yu and Ng Hong-Sang). They spy on the villagers as they sing and dance — get ready, this movie is filled with musical numbers — and become enamored of several of the ladies, including Hei Qin (Lin Chen-Chi). They’re run off by the men of the village, but when the people come to Snake Mountain and ask for water, he only wants Hei Qin to join his kingdom. He grants them access to all that water, even after they threatened to burn down the entire hillside, which would end up killing everyone.

Unfortunately, Hei Qin has a jealous sister who wants the riches of the snake kingdom and the humans left behind in the village hate the idea that a snake god is making sweet love to the most beautiful woman they’ve ever seen. So they do what they threatened, which is set the hillside on fire, and then use sulphur to smoke out the snakes, who transform into their true gigantic snake form. A ton of snakes and humans die — the snakes die for real, because this is a Hong Kong movie — and then the snakes are all killed by the humans, who set them on fire and stab them repeated times. To remind you this is a Shaw Brothers movie, Hei Qin takes the sharpened stick that killed Snake Prince and stabs herself with it, which cuts to a statue of the lovers on Snake Mountain and their ghostly giant forms staring toward the afterlife.

I told you the story but in no way will that prepare you for this film. Imagine a rock musical with funked out guitars, dance numbers with cute girls that seem like they’re in a Shaw Brothers cover version of an AIP beach drive-in movie, all with effects from Daiei (the same people who brought you Daimajin and Gamera) starring bad ass Ti Ling, who usually is fighting yet here he’s a singing snake god. Then imagine every color in the Bava rainbow being unleashed. That gives you just part of what this is about to share with you. Yet for as innocent and magical that this movie is, it ends with gore and sadness. Such is the world of Shaw Brothers.

The Sizzlin’ Something Weird Summer Challenge 2024: Blood Sisters (1987)

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Findlay Week (August 18 – 24) Husband and wife Michael and Roberta Findlay made mean-spirited films. They collaborated on films like Take Me Naked, The Ultimate Degenerate, and the notorious Flesh Trilogy, plus they actually looked like criminals – walking mug shots! You expect to see them glowering on the cover of one of those tabloids next to a headline like “KIDNAPPER COUPLE COLLECTED VICTIMS FINGERS.” Instead they were pornographers which did make them like criminals in their day. A lot of the filmmakers of their era would claim they only made this kind of movie because there was money in it, but Michael and Roberta were sincere adherents. Even when audience tastes changed and the couple were divorced they continued to make their own films that mixed in elements of kink and cruelty. 

You know, I find myself loving the films of Roberta Findlay more and more. They never have a great budget. They rarely have anything even approaching bad acting. And yet every time, I stick with them because she knows how to make a cheap exploitation movie. Isn’t that what it should all be about?

This movie has a Pieces style opening, as a young boy is called a pervert because he doesn’t have a dad. What he does have is a prostitute for a mother who lives in a big mansion with plenty of other ladies of ill repute. Moments after we process that, our friend the little boy walks in on his mom making money-assisted love to one of her johns before they both get shotgun blasted and we fast-forward ten years and change.

I’m in. You did it again, Roberta.

Now, that very same house is supposedly haunted and the girls of an Edmonson College sorority must enter it as part of a scavenger hunt. This is when, you guessed it, people start dying.

Before that, it takes a long time to get there, but Findlay pulls off that rare trick of making us learn and believe in these characters instead of rushing them into the gaping maw of death, you know? Pretty neat for a movie she made just to pay her taxes.

Amy Brentano, who plays one of the girls named Linda, also shows up in Findlay’s even better Prime Evil. Shannon McMahon, who is Alice, is also in Screwballs and Pledge Night. McMahon would go on to direct her own film, 2016’s Waking the Wild Colonial, which had Brentano in the cast.

Speaking of filmmakers, Larry is played by John Fasano, the man that made two of the most metal movies ever, Black Roses and Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare.

Of all the lessons that Findlay can teach us of how to make a great small time horror film. perhaps the best is that she certainly knows how to hire the right poster artist.