The sequel to The Naughty Stewardesses, this was supposed to be a 1940s throwback, which is why the Ritz Brothers — well, Harry and Jimmy as Alan had died — as well as Yvonne De Carlo, Don “Red” Barry and Robert Livingston are all in the cast. It was supposed to star the Three Stooges — which would have been Moe Howard, Joe DeRita and Emil Sitka — but Moe was too sick to be able to be in it.
It was going to be called The Jet Set before Blazing Saddles came out and the film became a Western, even if it’s also been released under the titles Cathouse Cowgirls,Texas Layover and The Great Truck Robbery.
At least the girls from the first movie — Debbie (Connie Hoffman), Barbara (Marilyn Joii) and Lori (Regina Carroll) — are back. They take a vacation at the Lucky Dollar Ranch, which is run by Brewster (Livingston), who is also playing the role he had in The Naughty Stewardesses. Masked riders soon appear and attack. There’s also a brothel that’s owned by Honey Morgan (De Carlo).
Would you enjoy watching the Ritz Brothers eat a really big sandwich from an entire movie? Then this is for you. That said, they were really influential among comedians if not successes in Hollywood. They also are in Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood.
After committing an impulsive, vicious crime while searching for his missing daughter, Tom (Luke Bracey) goes on the run from law enforcement. He’s trapped in his truck, trying desperately to reach his daughter Ruby (Martha Kate Morgan), dealing with calls from his ex Terri (Alex Malone), having hostage negotiators call and most frightening, talking to The Associate (Toby Jones), a man who asks him how far he’ll go to save his child.
Directed by John Curran, who wrote this with Jesse Heffring and Christopher Lee Pelletier, this film asks a lot of Bracey who more than overdelivers. He’s the only character on screen for so much of this and we’re trapped inside the same space that he is.
Shot on a virtual set, we never really see much of what exists outside the inside of the truck. And that’s perfect. When so many movies give everything away, this is one that remains ambiguous, even at times frustratingly so. Yet I see any limitations as positives, as this feels like an experiment and a director and lead trying to do something different. A man is falling to pieces and he can’t stop driving, trying to fix things that can’t be fixed. Now that’s a movie.
Horror star Malicia Tombs (Linnea Quigley) mysteriously dies after leaving the set of her latest, now unfinished, low budget shot-on-video shocker. Soon, an unseen masked killer is chopping and hacking his/ her way through the cast and crew as punishment for Tomb’s death.
Let’s get meta. This super obscurity was shot in 1998 by indy horror stalwart Brad Sykes, and finally finished in 2002. Just like how Linnea’s character was in a lost movie, this itself was a lost film for some time but now it’s been released by Visual Vengeance.
After she left the set of director Eric Orloff’s (Jarrod Robbins, Evil Sister 2) Scream Queen, Malicia died in a car accident. As Detective Hammer (C. Courtney Joyner, the writer of From a Whisper to a Scream, Class of 1999 and Prison as well as the director of Trancers III) can’t find out who killed her, the entire movie just goes away, taking down several careers.
Or so it would seem, as Orloff and the cast and crew — special effects guy Squib (Bryan Cooper, who also worked on this movie’s effects), Christine (Nicole West), Runyon (Kurt Levee, Evil Sister), Jenni (Emilie Jo Tisdale, Escape from Hell) and Devon (Nova Sheppard) — are invited to a mansion by Malicia, who is not only alive but able to pay everyone as long as they don’t leave the set.
Is she a ghost? A demon? Or did she fake her death and is trying to find out who was trying to kill her with the bomb in her car? And who is the masked killer taking out everyone? And hey — how about Linnea singing “This Chainsaw’s Made For Cutting” in this movie?
The first movie by Brad Sykes (Plaguers, Hi-Death) and it may be shot on video, but you can already see the promise of his work. Make sure to check out the interview I did with Brad too!
Available for the first time ever on blu ray, Scream Queen has a new director-approved SD master from original tape elements, as well as commentary with director and writer Brad Sykes, behind the scenes documentary, the producer’s cut of the film, new interview with Linna Quigley and Mark Polonia, imagery galleries, script selects, a trailer, six-page liner notes by Tony Strauss of Weng’s Chop Magazine, a limited edition slipcase by Rick Melton and Series 2 video store rental card, a Linnea Quigley mini-poster, a “stick your own” VHS sticker set and a reversible sleeve with the original art. You can get it from MVD.
Kill Butterfly Kill: Years after being assaulted by five men, Tang Mei-Ling (Juliet Chan) — or Donna, depending on the language you choose — hunts them down one by one, joined by Richard, a retired hitman (“Tattooed Ma” Sha) and several of her girlfriends. She’s spent six years to get bloody revenge and she’s going to take her time getting it.
The wild thing is that there are times that this is a rape revenge movie, other times when it’s an action film and then moments when it gets surreal. Fog rolls in, neon lighting takes over and Tang Mei-Ling becomes a female demon, purring that she wants to kill. The entire screen itself gets taken over and moves and bends and distorts as we become part of her destruction of these evil men.
Also known as Underground Wife, this is a Taiwan black movie that shares exploitation themes and action with socially conscious themes. That said, these films never forget that they are scummy.
American Commando 6: Kill Butterfly Kill: IFD is a company that you probably know. They had Joseph Lai, Godfrey Ho and Thomas Tang make hundreds if not thousands of similar titled ninja movies that combine other films with hastily shot gunplay or martial arts battles.
It’s like watching two movies that only have one moment where they meet.
Three years ago, special agent Aaron Nolan (Mark Miller) broke up the Garvino gang. But now the brutal Garvino (Mike Abbott) is on the street again. Aaron and his partner Rick Hammet set out to neutralize him. Meanwhile, Donna is a nightclub owner who is their only ally in the war against Garvino, spurred on because years ago, five of his men raped her. Now, teaming with Richard, she’ll get the revenge she needs while Arron goes after his target.
This feels like the two movies are nearly decades apart, much less the quality of the film stock, so in no way does it ever appear to be seamless. And isn’t that how we want it?
If you know IFD movies, you know that the music is always stolen from incredible places. This one features “Arca” by Richard Norris, “Divine Particles” by Takkra and “Oxygene Part 1” by Jean-Michael Jarre. IFD loves some Jean-Michael Jarre.
The Neon Eagle Video release has a new 4k restoration from the best surviving elements of the export English language cut of the film prepared by IFD Films. It also has the Mandarin edit — Underground Wife — and a 4K scan of the IFD remix American Commando 5: Kill Butterfly Kill.
All of these various versions of this unique film are here making their official U.S. home video and worldwide blu ray premieres.
Extras include audio commentary by Kenneth Brorsson and Paul Fox of the Podcast On Fire Network for Kill Butterfly Kill and — worth the price of the entire thing — an IFD trailer collection.
Directed and written by Bingjia Yang, this is the story of blind swordsman and bounty hunter Cheng the Ghostkiller (Xie Miao). With each kill, he gets closer to being able to pay for an operation to give him sight. Yet he also wants justice to exist and he helps Ni Yan (Gao Weiman), a bride accused of murdering her own brother after being assaulted at her wedding, for personal reasons.
Obviously borrowing from the Zatoichi series — which also inspired Blind Fury — this movie looks gorgeous and has some great visual style when it comes to the fight scenes. You may wonder if a blind swordsman should look so good when he’s slicing the competition into ribbons, but these are not the things you should think about. You should sit back and enjoy the seventy-seven minutes of fast action and a plot that actually is pretty decent.
This movie was successful enough that there’s already a sequel.
Al Adamson made two movies about air hostesses in the same year, this one along with Blazing Stewardesses. It follows the Roger Corman nurse style and was inspired by movie that Hemisphere had, The Swinging Stewardesses, which was making big business. Sam Sherman couldn’t find another so they made their own.
Debbie Stewart (Connie Hoffman) is a new stewardess from Kansas City who rents a room with three other stewardesses. She’s dating several people, including Cal (Richard Smedley, whose wife Lana Wood angrily came to the set thinking he was making an adult movie) and the much older Brewster (Robert Livingston).
Shot by Gary Graver, the girls include Barbara Watson (Marilyn Joi, Cleopatra Schwartz from The Kentucky Fried Movie and someone who was in one of the real Corman nurses movies, appearing as a topless dancer under her other name Tracy Ann King in The Student Teachers), Margie (Donna Young, who shows up in Blacksnake and The Black Gestapo), Jane (Sydney Jordan, whose only other role is in the documentary White Buffalo: An American Prophecy) and Diane (Sandy Carey, using the name Mikel James; she’s also in Cries of Ecstasy, Blows of Death; Deep Jaws; Wam Bam Thank You Spaceman and plenty of adult). There are also roles for Susie Ewing (who also used the name Susan McIver for movies like Girls for Rent and her appearance as Hot Pants in Smokey and the Bandit) and, of course Al Adamson’s wife Regina Carrol, here playing a plane passenger with a dog. That’s also Gary Graver’s Sean as a young perv on the airplane.
A movie that unites directors Al Adamson and León Klimovsky, Mean Mother actually is a mash-up, as Adamson takes footage from Klimovsky’s El Hombre que Vino del Odio and adds in his own blaxploitation movie and makes something new.
Beauregard Jones (Clifton Brown, who is really singer Dobie Gray) and Joe (Dennis Safren) run away from Vietnam. Jones gets to Spain while Joe ends up in Rome. They both get into crime — and some ladies — before meeting back up in Canada.
To say this movie makes no sense is senseless. It’s two movies that in no way work together forced to work together, a slow European crime movie and a quick American cash-in on black-fronted films. The fact that it even attempts — and that people were, well, hoodwinked into seeing it — is why I keep coming back to the films of Al Adamson.
You know how Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups old commercials used to go? Well, the makers of this movie got a real smart idea. They took the two big trends of the early 70s — blacksploitation and martial arts — and made one movie with both of them.
Stud Brown (Timothy Brown, a former NFL player who was also on M*A*S*H*) and Larry Chin (Alan Tang) unite to battle drug dealers and find Chin’s brother Wei (James Hong). They’re up against a corrupt cop named Detective Burke (Aldo Ray!) and the disappearance of our hero’s brother may not be as tragic as it seems.
What makes this movie worth watching is the dream team of director Al Adamson and producer Cirio H. Santiago. Lovers of truly bottom basement movies see these two names and feel a certain twinge, the kind you get when you remember young love or holidays gone by.
Another important thing for lovers of 70s exploitation cinema to notice is that the deaf mute love interest Sarah is played by Carol Speed, who is known and loved as Abby. And don’t forget to check out other Karate Blaxploitation reviews with Force Four, Velvet Smooth, Devil’s Express, and The Black Dragon’s Revenge.
Donna Taylor (Susie Ewing-McIver) is a sex worker recruited by the Syndicate to blackmail a politician by taking him to a motel room, drugging him and taking some photos. Yet she soon learns from Sandra (Georgina Spelvin, The Devil In Miss Jones) and Erica (Rosalind Miles, Friday Foster) that she’s actually poisoned the man and they’ll kill her if she goes to the authorities. She heads to Mexico but her car get stolen by a hitchhiker, which means she needs a ride, which she gets from H. R. Stringham (Robert Livingston) who wants him to make love to his developmentally challenged son Ben. He’s more child than grown-up, at least in his brain, so she runs and steals a car. She’s saved by David, the man that she turned down for a ride before and they have sex.
While that’s going on, H.R. and Ben have met Sandra and Erica. Sandra is the one to be Ben’s first and she follows up that act by blowing his brains out and then shooting his dad. If this was a Hollywood movie, Donna and David would get away, but this is an Al Adamson movie, so Erica kills her and David tracks her down — he’s already murdered Sandra — and kills her.
After two men assault one of her girls, Margo (Regina Carrol) finds him and whips him. In between this movie being Screaming Eagles and tough women in foreign prison movies getting hot, this was reshot and re-edited to make it fit into the changing world of exploitation. Another thing that changed was while movies had been shot by Al Adamson at the Spahn Ranch for a while, now the specter of the Manson Family hung over everything. So when cult leader King (William Bonner) makes life tough for the bikers and also controls the ranch’s owner Parker (Kent Taylor), you get taken out of the movie and wonder how much of this is based on things Adamson and his crew actually experienced.
Sam Sherman told Filmfax: “We even had some members of the Manson gang in it, people who had been hanging around. I don’t know if they were killers or not. What happened in this instance was one of those things you can’t imagine or even predict.”
Ross Hagen is the hero, as much as anyone in a biker movie can be the hero, is the lead.
Also known as Commune of Death, a title that leans into the Manson parts of this movie, this is a film that ends with Hagen dropping his motorcycle off a cliff and onto a car, which inexplicably explodes.
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