The daughter of a lawyer, Ripa di Meana opened a fashion boutique in Piazza di Spagna, Rome soon after she finished college. The shop was a place where influential women of high society shopped as a result, Ripa di Meana became involved with the leading figures of the day, whether they be political, artistic, diplomatic or in the media. Famous for her political beliefs about animal cruelty and environmentalism, she was a frequent guest on TV panel shows and even acted in one movie, the sixth chapter in the Nico Giraldi film series that starred Tomas Milan, Sergio Corbucci’s 1979 film Assassinio sul Tevere. She never did again, as she hated being commanded, or so she said.

Beyond being a gossip columnist, she also wrote 14 books including four autobiographical books, I miei primi quarant’anni (My First Forty Years), La più bella del reame (The Most Beautiful in the Realm), Invecchierò Ma Con Calma (I Will Grow Old But Calmly) and Colazione al Grand Hotel (Breakfast at the Grand Hotel). The first two of those books were made into movies starring Carol Alt. The first was written and directed by Carlo Vanzina, who also made Nothing Underneath and the second was directed and written by Cesare Ferrario, who made The Monster of Florence.

When she directed and wrote this movie, it was pretty controversial, as she received public funds from the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities, allegedly through personal friendships. That’s one of the reasons why it tops Italian lists of the worst movies ever. Wired Italy listed it along with Robot Monster, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, Frankenstein Island, Disaster Movie, Cross of the 7 Jewels, Box Office 3D, Alex l’ariete, Plan 9 from Outer Space and Troll 2.

Writer Gabriel Nigla said, “Ripa Di Meana ‘s debut (and only film) as a director is a rambling product, the result of those who not only don’t understand how narration works, but have also seen few films in their own lives. History of women, violence and feminism makes all possible mistakes. A sampling of bad examples.”

Eva Grimaldi (Obsession: A Taste for Fear) is a recently divorced woman named Alma who falls for a male exotic dancer named Brian (Brando Giorgi) whom her friends have hired for her twenty-fifth birthday. She also has to deal with her ex-mother-in-law Milli (Anita Ekberg) who thinks that she has ruined her son’s life and now she wants revenge. Alma and Brian decide to jump on his motorcycle and get out of town,  but they’re soon followed by his jealous ex-lover Marilyn (Florence Guérin, Profumo, Too Beautiful to Die).   They try to hide out with Brian’s sister  Esmerelda (Apollonia Kotero) but now so many people are following them.  that it starts to feel like Benny Hill does giallo because Brian is soon killed and the hunt is on for a new man for Alma.

What blows my mind is that the cast for this movie is filled with talent. Were they worried that Ripa di Meana had some dirt on them? Why is Burt Young in this?  How about Debbie Lee Carrington, Thumbelina from Total Recall? Most importantly, at least to my state of mind, is how did Kid Creole end up in so many movies, particularly two incredibly strange Italian films of this era? He was also in Obsession: A Taste for Fear around this same time. Stranger still, Kid Creole did a song “Not Yet” with Grimaldi five years after this movie.

This movie makes no sense and you should only watch it if you’re obsessed with Italian genre films and movies that somehow unite the weirdest casts.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Sergio Martino made four movies in 1983: two comedies with Gigi Sammarchi and Andrea Roncato (Acapulco, prima spiaggia… a sinistra and Se tutto va bene siamo rovinati), the post-apocalyptic 2019: After the Fall of New York and this movie. The title would be the ingredients for a witch’s spell: Eye, evil eye, parsley and fennel. Each of the stories star one of two comedy starts, either Lino Banfi or Johnny Dorell.

In the first story, “The Hair of Disgrace,” Altomare Secca (Banfi) owns an appliance store and plenty of problems, from a wife (Milena Vukotic, Andy Warhol’s Dracula) that has no interest in him and a daughter (Gegia) marrying a man that he hates. Then, one day, Corinto Marchialla (Mario Scaccia, the faith healer from The Antichrist) moves next door and Altomare believes that the man is the cause of all that has gone wrong in his life. His wife tells him to visit the King of the Occult (Franco Javarone), who advises him that he must take the hair from Marchialla’s wife Ludovica (Dagmar Lassander) to remove his bad luck.

Altomare keeps trying to remove all of the hair but the Malocchio, or evil eye, is still on him. It even causes his mistress Helen (Janet Agren, Hands of Steel) to leave him. Can he escape the spell that is on him?

The second story, “The Magician,” is about Gaspar the Magician (Dorelli), who wants to escape the life — and maybe the wife (Adriana Russo, Nightmare In Venice) — that he is in. A witch who is over three hundred years old, Marquise Del Querceto (Paola Borboni, who acted in nine decades of Italian cinema) promises him great power if he can get her pistachio ice cream. This transforms him into a magician able to even make it rain. Yet all the power has gone to his head and he has forgotten to get the witch the ice cream she asked for before her death. This story also has an appearance by Italian magician Silvan, who also performed card trucks under his real name, Aldo Savoldello, in Blonde In Black Leather.

Comedy is hard and often, Italian comedy is hard for American audiences to watch. Beyond the giallo that he was known for by American genre lovers, Martino made plenty of these movies.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Captive starts with a very simple premise: a group of hard-partying stoners — Ashley (Scout-Taylor Thompson from Bury the Bride, Getaway, Star Light, Get the Girl and oh yes, Rob Zombie’s Halloween movies), her boyfriend Luke (Michael Lovato), Crystal (Taise Lawrence), Mallory (Christina Robinson, Dexter), Claire (Katalina Parrish), Ed (Ryan Stajmiger), Alex (Alex Gopal) and Teddy (Timothy Chivalette) — break into a house where they start smoking, drinking and screwing. You know, everything else that gets you killed in a horror movie.

How much trouble are they asking for? Well, someone grabs an Ouija board and literally says, “Let’s fuck with some ghosts!”

Then they hear some noises in the basement and instead of leaving, everyone goes down to see what is going on.

Everyone should be dead by now.

I mean, we already saw a jogger (Kevin Chambers) get stalked in the beginning. We know something bad is about to happen. Do not tempt fate any more than you have to.

Or do, because otherwise, we wouldn’t have a movie.

In the basement, the gang finds Drake (Cody Frank) chained to the wall, begging to be let loose. He says that a couple picked him up hitchhiking but they took him back here and attacked him, leaving him captive inside their house. 

Only Ashley argues that they should free Drake. She wins over the group and all of a sudden, the mystery, poetry and excitement that she craved stops passing her by, because Drake is, well, if not a vampire — there’s a spoiler coming– pretty close. He quickly bites into her throat and introduces her to the ways of hunting and killing your friends for sustenance.

In the middle of all of these people getting chowed down and drank, the gang decides to throw a party. As bands rock out and bass beats wobble — or whatever it is that they do — Ashley and Drake do their best impersonation of a blood rave. Crystal and Mallory grab a crucifix and a stake, but can they defeat two undead creatures consumed with an unquenchable thirst for blood?

Look for Brendan Fehr from The Amityville Curse and Roswell in this as well as the person who owns this house.

The highlight for me was someone’s mom showing up to the party and immediately being eaten.

Best of all, this dips into The Monster Club playbook* and — spoiler — has Drake and Ashley be a strigoi, which in Romanian mythology would be a troubled spirit that rises from the grave and which was the original inspiration from Bram Stoker to make Dracula. In this movie, they have two hearts, need sunglasses during the day and aren’t stop by religious implements.

Director Gregg Simon (the TV series Blood Drive) and writer Travis Seppala have put together a quick-moving horror movie that sets you up for plenty of mayhem and delays just slightly before giving you all the red stuff. Cinematographer Jordi Ruiz Maso has a good eye for capturing the action and the addition of Bava-esque reds and blues to the credits and kill scenes ramps up the killing scenes.

There’s also a strong soundtrack with bands like WE WERE SUPERHEROES, DRAG, Chicago trumpeter Mitch Manker, Pittsburgh native Barak Shpiez, Matlock, L for Victory, Thomas Dekker (the voice of Littlefoot from The Land Before Time sequels and John Connor on the TV Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles? It seems so!), Glen Ballard (who co-wrote Jagged Little Pill), Brad Apodaca (with director Gregg Simon on one song) and Harley Poe.

For a movie that started back in 2020, this seemed to have a long path to its home on Tubi. It’s a good bite of cinematic junk food that’ll get you through a late night looking for something to watch while, well, as baked as the cast.

*”First we have the primate monsters, vampires, werewolves and ghouls – but everyone knows about those. Now pay attention: A vampire and a werewolf would produce a werevamp. A werewolf and a ghoul would produce a weregoo. A vamire and a ghoul would produce a vamgoo. A weregoo and a werevamp would produce a shaddy. A weregoo and a vamgoo would produce a maddy. A werevamp and a vamgoo would produce a raddy. If a shaddy were to mate with a raddy or a maddy, it would result in a mock (which frankly, is just a polite name for a mongrel). Just remember the basic rules of monsterdom: Vampires suck, werewolves hunt and ghouls tear. Shaddies lick, maddies yawn and mocks blow. Oh but a Shadmock, which is the result if a mock were to mate with any other hybrid, whistles – and they don’t do it very often. Now the humegoo, which is a cross between a ghoul and a human being, don’t really do anything interesting but they do have an unfortunate appetite for carrion (which they get, of course, from the ghoul side of the family). It must be noted that although monsters can mate with human beings, the results are almost always disastrous. Any questions?”

You can watch this on Tubi. You can learn more at the official site.

Directed by Matthew Thompson, who co-wrote the script with star Nicole Du Bois, Magic Carpet Rides is all about the love life — and often lack thereof — of Callie (Du Bois), a social media influencer who continually wonders why she can’t find the right guy, yet mostly goes out with guys who high five her when they get their own Uber home or who text her in the middle of the night asking for photos. One night walking home from a bar — her phone died and no one waited for her — she runs into Leo (Matthew Law), a man with no phone who lives a very different existence from her. Seeing as how this is a romantic comedy, of course opposites attract. Yet it’s getting there that tells the tale.

Callie and Leo have anything but a meet cute. She’s going to the bathroom in one corner of an alley, he in another. They even cross the streams accidentally. When his motorcycle breaks down, he has to walk home near her, which they argue over. He’s obviously a nice guy, as he makes sure she gets home safe. But he’s so different from Callie that he fascinates her.

Callie lives with social influencers, all of whom can barely talk to one another without bringing up brands they’ve been paid to promote. Leo lives on a boat, a place where he works on other ships, takes tourists out for cruises and brings home random women to give one memorable night before never seeing them again.

Both of them aren’t really ready to bring someone else into their self-centered lives. Yet maybe together they can navigate the world in a more authentic way. I say that until Callie starts streaming her love life to get followers who start to obsess over #boatguy and even cancel her when they catch them arguing.

Magic Carpet Rides has two leads that you want to see work it out, a supporting cast that offers some moments of fun and a script that sure, you’ve seen before, but it’s told in such a quick and innocuous way that you’ll end up enjoying the short time that you spent with this movie.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Mike (co-director and co-writer Acoryé White) and Ava (Augie Duke) have plenty of new things happening. to them, like a new home and potentially a new child on the way. However, a neighbor (Sandra Ellis Lafferty) offers Ava a necklace that unleashes an evil born from racism and pain.

Co-directed by White and Patrycja Kepa, who both wrote the script with Felipe Cisneros, Trinket Box reminds me that if you are in a relationship and trying to have a baby, you should never accept tannis root, artwork or jewelry from mysterious old people, especially if said old people also wondering who the black boy who has been coming around is and do you need help and you reply, “Well, that’s my husband,” and they totally change the subject. This movie would have ended a lot sooner of the white girl just said, “I don’t appreciate you and your racist ways that belong, well, never in any time in any society” and slammed the door in her face. However, she was running late for a meeting and just took the evil necklace — which we helpfully learn was part of a black guy in the past falling for a white girl and her fat dad having a heart attack over it — instead of, again, slamming the door in the lady’s face.

It’s rude, but it gets the job done. Let’s normalize slamming the door in the face of racist old people. You can also totally do it to young people, too.

My favorite moment was when the husband called all of his friends and told them he was having a baby. If I excitedly called any of my male friends and bragged that I was having a baby, I’d have to slam the door on them with all of the abusive epithets and jokes that would come my way. No man does this. Yes, I get it, gender roles should change, but this was what moved this movie from horror to science fiction.

I kid.

Also this movie falls victim to being so dark at times that I had no idea what I was looking at. I know this happens quite a lot in modern streaming shows and movies, but I feel like I need to keep bringing it up until it stops. We want to see your movie. Bring in a light or two.

Also also: This played theaters, which blows my mind.

You can watch this on Tubi.

So many times throughout the. Karate Warrior series, I have watched as the movies move away from karate itself and yet I stay with them. I blame Fabrizio De Angelis, who not only directed this but returned to write the final story. It is with great sadness that I share it with you, as I really wish there was a Karate Warrior 7.

Leo (Scotty Daffron) is the biggest moron you have ever met, yet the Karate Warrior who is Larry Jones (Ron Williams) stays by his side. That proves that he is not just a tough customer, but the kind of good person you want to lead four of six movies and a TV series in your franchise (which is the Italian exploitation version of Community‘s six seasons and a movie).

While he’s riding his bike — bike accidents are to this movie what diamond theft is to Jess Franco — he runs into the limo of a foreign leader. In order to keep his mouth shut, Leo is paid ten grand, money which he uses to take his friends Larry, Craig/Greg and Teddy to Greece because, well, why not? Maybe Fabrizio always wanted to go to Greece in the same way that surely Sergio Corbucci wanted to come to Miami and they both paid for it by making a wacky movie.

Keep in mind as I write what happens in this movie, I invented none of it. I have a great imagination, but by no means am I Fabrizio De Angelis, who I would love to meet but I am also very afraid of. The fear comes from knowing he has the power of a deranged god who makes film series that I can’t stop watching and writing about. Between this and the Thunder films, he has taken up more of my life than many of my lovers. He certainly means more than most of them. I am also not the first person who has reviewed this film that felt the need to give such a disclaimer about the veracity of what is about to happen.

After a man dressed as a mermaid is able to con Leo out of his money and the return tickets home. Leo decides to become a tour guide, despite knowing little of Greece, and scamming other people. That’s when they meet Mustafa (Rafaele Exina) who is a triple threat: martial artist, motocross racer and gang leader. He’s our new Joe Carson, who stayed back home for this final movie.

Mustafa and his young turks are menacing Elena (Gabriella Barbuti, who is also in Sergio Martino’s Craving Desire, Tinto Brass’ P.O. Box Tinto Brass and yes, improbably The Passion of the Christ), who the gangster claims to own. How does the gang solve this? By putting on a show — a karate show* — and have Larry battle Mustafa, but first, they somehow have enough money to fly Larry’s girl Betty (Dorian D. Field and his sensei Masura (Richard Goon) to Greece. Maybe Larry’s dad Lt. Alfred Jones (David Warbeck) will come too!

Before the fight, Betty says to Larry, “Make it quick. I want to go home.”

This is the fight of his life.

For this movie at least.

This movie also has a Pretty Woman makeover shopping spree at JCPenney.

How does this series end the saga? I mean, at this point, six movies in, it qualifies as a saga. Well, it ends with Leo trying to get hit by another limo when they get back home. These bodyguards, however, get out and trounce him.

That’s how a series called Karate Warrior ends.

Not with one last battle.

Instead with a chubby man comically beaten to within an inch of his life.

*Read this as Bob Odenkirk as Van Hammersly.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Five movies into the Fabrizio De Angelis-directed, Olga Peharo-written saga that is Karate Warrior and I really don’t want it to stop.

Larry Jones (Ron Williams) may have triumphed at the end of the last movie, but the odds are stacked up yet again. His enemy Joe Carson (Christopher Alan) has a double-fanged assault. He’s kidnapped Larry’s girl Betty (Dorian D. Field) and put the blame on his friend Leo (Scotty Daffron), who has joined the Extra Large Club of America with his new girlfriend Bobbi Lou. As if that’s not enough, the second part of his plan is paying off another martial artist, the monstrous Alabama Bull, who is played by Marty Wright, who one day would be known as the WWE superstar The Boogeyman (he’s also a football player in two well-remembered films, Butler in The Replacements and Beastman in Any Given Sunday).

As the movies in this series go on, there’s less and less karate. This one is no different, as much of it is spent watching Leo try and lose weight while making fun of the obese, Betty bound in a trailer and there’s our hero, training in a strip mall like he’s an indy pro wrestler.

Luckily, he gets thirty seconds of training from his teacher, Mr. Masura (Richard Goon) before he goes into final battle.

You know, there’s a TV series of Karate Warrior and they share cast and crew. Part of me thinking that they just filmed everything all at once and the TV series is just a longer version of the movies, like how there’s a six-hour cut of Yor Hunter from the Future that blows away the actual film. No, really: check out Yor’s World part one, two, three and four.

You have no idea what I paid for that TV episode. You have even less idea what I would pay for the Karate Warrior series.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Man, Larry Jones (Ron Williams) can’t catch a break.

After coming out the winner at the end of the last Karate Warrior and winning the heart of rich girl Betty Nolan (Dorian D. Field), this takes place just about the very next day. His enemy Joe Carson (Christopher Alan) has paid off another martial arts fighter, a Korean killing machine named Bruce Wang (Edward Wan) to get revenge. But it’s not going to be just physical revenge. Oh no, Bruce is aptly last named, as he’s going to seduce Larry’s little sister Julie (Katy Johnson) and steal her away from her boyfriend — and Joe’s friend — Craig. Or Greg. Look, even the dub isn’t sure.

If that isn’t enough, Larry’s father Lt. Alfred Jones (David Warbeck) is back from the war and Larry wants nothing to do with him. Only the Karate Warrior franchise could have Warbeck play not just one, but two of the lead character’s estranged fathers who I swear are not the same person. But what if they were?

Well, beyond all that, Betty’s dad (William Rothmell) is now all into Larry’s mom (Ginny Gravlin), which after the last movie was about him subsidizing her life if Larry never spoke to his wife again, the idea of cucking the son and the father seemed like a dastardly plan. And somehow, Leo (Scotty Daffron) remains the comedy relief that you wish to see get decimated again like the last movie, as all he cares about is getting rich.

Also: Miyagi figure — the second in the series, so we have two absent dads and two new father figures —  Masura comes into this when they use his restaurant to poison Larry just before the big fight. There are also more motorcycle races in this than fistfights, which seems strange when your movie is called Karate Warrior 3. What do they poison him with? The very same diet pills that Leo has been trying to sell. Poor Larry. Poor Leo. Multi-channel marketing has hit so close to home for the Karate Warrior family. Or crew. Or krew.

Also also: David Warbeck plays the not-so-great dad in Karate Rock, another Karate Kid cash-in by the very same director, the always astounding Larry Ludman, who come on, we all know it’s Fabrizio De Angelis.

And is that Ron Jeremy giving the trophy to the winner of the fight? I saw that on Monster Hunter and yes, I agree, it sure looks like the Hedgehog.

This piece of Italian magic was written by Olga Pehar, who was married to Umberto Lenzi, and also wrote Hitcher In the Dark, Black Demons and the incredibly titled Navigators of the Space.

You can watch this on YouTube.