Devilman started as a Japanese manga written and illustrated by Go Nagai. A high school student named Akira Fudo absorbs the powers of a demon with the help of his friend Ryo Asuka, becoming Devilman. There was a 39-episode anime series, a year-long run of the manga and even a crossover with Go Nagai’s other famous character, Mazinger Z vs. Devilman. While the anime had Devilman turning against demons to protect humanity, the manga has the entire world end, and God’s angels come to destroy what’s left. 

And then there’s this, a movie that Beat Takeshi said was “one of the four dumbest movies ever made after Getting Any?, Siberian Express and Pekin Genjin Who Are You?, saying that “there is nothing better than getting drunk and watching this movie. There is nothing better than getting drunk and watching this movie.” In Japan, people went to great lengths to hate on this film, including comedian Hiroshi Yamamoto, whose website was filled with bad reviews.

Imagine if a major comic book became a movie and it turned out to be the worst film ever, and then add in the fact that Japan has a national identity around its culture being important, and you get some idea of how hated this movie was.

Maybe it’s because music idols, the Izaki twins, were inexperienced at best and insanely horrid at worst in this. Or perhaps it’s impossible to tell the entire story in one movie. Or could it be the special effects that redefine bad? Could it be that every fight looks like a PS1 cutscene and not actual actors? 

Well, it has Bob Sapp as a TV announcer, so there’s that. And a hilarious scene where Akira finds the head of his love, Miki (Ayana Sakai), just left for him in his house. And it ends with the moon cracked, and I wonder, is this how Thundarr got here?

Director Hiroyuki Nasu made several manga adaptations, like the Be-Bop High School movies, as well as Beautiful Wrestlers: Down for the Count and Lesbians In Uniform. I have no idea how he made this, but he died a year later, so we can’t ask him.

Some people like to discuss the worst movies, and they always go back to the same well. Trust me, there are movies that are worse than anything you can imagine. This might be one of them: a movie blankly acted by singers unable to act, special effects unable to be special, and a beloved property treated like every 1980s comic book film other than Tim Burton’s Batman. 

You can watch this on Tubi.

I first encountered this movie halfway through a showing in the middle of the night and had no idea what it was. That’s something that people that stream movies miss out on — the total confusion and need to know that arises when you discover a completely deranged movie in the middle of its running time in the small hours of the night.

William O. Brown only made one other movie, One Way Wahine. That’s a shame because I totally love what he had happening here in The Witchmaker. It’s just plain strange in the very best of ways.

Somewhere in the swamps of Louisiana, young women are being killed and drained of their plasma by Luther the Berserk, who is part of a coven of witches that has drawn Dr. Hayes (Alvy Moore, Hank Kimball from Green Acres) and his group of psychic investigators.

The coven’s leader Jessie — who appears in young and old forms — wants a member of Dr. Hayes’ group named Anastasia (Thordis Brandt, who played an Amazon in In Like Flint), who has supernatural ancestors, to join them.

There’s an interesting and probably unintended theme running through this movie, where the straight-laced older male scientists want to save the buxom blonde Anastasia and the witches and warlock just want to free her (and you know, make her a wanton woman. Can the patriarchy win out?

Six years later, this movie was re-released under the title The Naked Witch with footage that earns it that title. This is not the Larry Buchanan movie of the same name.

Alvy Moore was also the producer of this movie and would team with L.Q. Jones again to make A Boy and His Dog and The Brotherhood of Satan.

The VCI Blu-ray of The Naked Witch has a commentary track by Robert Kelly, artist, reviewer and film buff extraodinaire; a poster gallery of other notable horror films of the 1960’s and restored original trailers and a radio ad. You can get it from MVD.

From the creators of Christmas Lights, Screamityville is an 84-minute tour of some of the creepiest and most creative Halloween decorations. They claim that “It recreates the experience of driving around on a late October evening in search of your favorite decorated homes in your neighborhood.”

With music that gets you in the mood and well-shot footage, this makes the perfect Halloween movie to have running during a party. It’s a fun way to build excitement and create a festive atmosphere. And as we get further from the holiday, I turn to this to rekindle the Halloween spirit and lift my mood. There’s no narration to get in the way. Just gorgeous vistas of terrifying homes, all lit up to scare the neighbors.

If you love driving around and looking at Halloween decorations, this lets you do it anytime. It’s a convenient way to enjoy spooky sights whenever you want, making it perfect for year-round viewing.

You can get this on Blu-ray or DVD from MVD. You can learn more at the official site.

I was searching for kaiju films on Tubi and ended up finding this film, featuring Zeckencommando, ‘Lower Saxony’s most hardcore punk band,’ as they stumble into occult rituals involving Cthulu.

Kalle (director and writer Lars Henriks), Xena (Lea Ostrovskiy), Flash (Niklas Bähnk) and Titus (Phillip Spreen) mostly sit around, take drugs and occasionally play their instruments. Henriks claimed on Letterboxd that this film, “has the silliness of a Scooby-Gang-type gang of misfits stumbling into a huge adventure.”

The band learns that their landlady is selling their rehearsal space to an investor with no interest in preserving musical culture. That investor does have a lot to do with the occult roots of the Third Reich and getting Cthulu back to life. Hopefully, the band can stay together and address all their interpersonal dynamics.

Don’t expect anything other than a hangout movie, and you’ll be fine.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Director Burt Kennedy was mainly known for Westerns like Support Your Local Sheriff!, Hannie Culder and Dirty Dingus Magee, as well as Suburban Commando and All the Kind Strangers. He was supposed to direct this, but walked off the set because he was embarrassed by the script, which was written by Norman Wexler (Saturday Night Fever, Joe) and based on the book by Kyle Onstott (there are 15 of them!). What did he expect when he signed on to make the sequel to Mandingo?

With four days of planning, Steve Carver (Steel, The Arena) took over for producer Dino De Laurentiis. Several actors also left, but Carver replaced them with Pam Grier and Royal Dano (Norton and Brenda Sykes returned from the first film but played different roles; Lillian Hayman reprises her role as Lucrezia, the exact role she had in Mandingo). It was nearly a Paramount movie, but they thought it was X-rated; United Artists took over distribution.

Drum (boxer Ken Norton) is born to a white madam, Marianna (Isela Vega), who raises him with her black lesbian lover, Rachel (Paula Kelly), and claims that it’s that woman’s child. His skills as a boxer make him an in-demand slave, as well as someone that women — and men like Bernard DeMarigny (John Colicos) — want to sleep with, even if a black and white union will lead to the slave being lynched. Drum and his friend Blaise (Yaphet Kotto) find themselves being sold to Hammond Maxwell (Warren Oates, playing the son of Perry King’s character), while their friend Regine (Pam Grier) is taken as the man’s lover. This enrages his fiancée, Augusta Chauvel (Fiona Lewis), while Maxwell’s daughter Sophie (Cheryl “Rainbeaux” Smith) delights in teasing the slaves, trying to get them to touch her and then claiming to be raped.

Somehow, Drum is able to resist her, but Blaise isn’t so smart. Soon, he’s chained up and due to be castrated at a dinner party, just in time for a slave revolt. 

This movie has some…wild dialogue. Like this…

Regine: And titties! You likes big titties, don’t ya?

Hammond Maxwell: Oh, you know I loves big titties.

Or this…

Augusta Chauvet: Must you persist in being a vulgarian, Mr. Maxwell?

Hammond Maxwell: Miss Augusta, you just gotta get used to the idea that ****** fornicatin’ is what Falconhurst is all about! If my ******* stop fornicatin’, we stop eatin’!

Augusta Chauvet: Since the conversation has descended to this level, I feel I can voice my feelins’ concernin’ your beddin’ with Regine every night.

Hammond Maxwell: Well, I don’t do it every night. It’s bad for my liver.

Augusta Chauvet: I don’t think you should do it at all!

Hammond Maxwell: Now, Miss Augusta, you ain’t gonna start meddlin’ around in my poontang now, is you?

Vincent Canby said of this, “Life on the old plantation was horrendous, I agree, but movies like this are less interested in information than titillation, which, in turn, reflects contemporary obsessions rather more than historical truths.” I bet he was absolutely disgusted to have to see it. 

This tops all the racism in the film by also being wildly homophobic, with villain Bernard DeMarigny rubbing Drum’s shoulders and telling his young buck how much he will love being with a man. All in a horrible French accent! Look, I know this is an indefensible movie, but I was entertained, perhaps by how insane it was that this played not just grindhouses, but real theaters.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Also known as Desperately Seeking Yeti and titled The Beauties and the Beast, this features Uschi Digard, Susan Westcott, Colleen Brennan (billed as Sharon Kelly), and Jacqueline Giroux in its cast, all gorgeous despite how destroyed this print is. And as you’ll learn from the commentary track — which features Demon Dave from Dark Forces, Joe Rubin from Vinegar Syndrome and David Gregory from Severin, this print came from the same sale that got Severin The Mummy and the Curse of the Jackals.

Director Ray Nadeau was a post-production editor on Messiah of Evil and the producer of Fangs. This is 79 minutes of hippies being threatened by a Bigfoot when they’re not being rewarded with silver dollars by a mysterious man, playing guitar or making filthy love. But we can’t hate on this yeti, because when he stares into the window of a cabin with two girls inside, they get so afraid they can only be sated by a sapphic embrace. He also interrupts a couple mid-Chesterfield rugby, sending the man nude and screaming into the woods while this skunk ape gets down with the lady, but just fondling. That’s all he needs.

These hippies have been staying in a summer camp for kids, then leaving just before the following season. It seems to work for them, but then some criminals get involved, but that doesn’t stop long softcore scenes, which are almost full adult, but as always, hide the male genitals. 

Anyways, some people would say this is all a waste of time. I’ve made movies that are ephemeral in nature my life, so you know that I loved every moment of this, non-synchronized sound and all. 

You can get this from MVD.