Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: Unsung Horrors Rule (under 1000 logged views on Letterboxd)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adam Hursey is a pharmacist specializing in health informatics by day, but his true passion is cinema. His current favorite films are Back to the Future, Stop Making Sense, and In the Mood for Love. He has written articles for Film East and The Physical Media Advocate, primarily examining older films through the lens of contemporary perspectives. He is usually found on Letterboxd, where he mainly writes about horror and exploitation films. You can follow him on Letterboxd or Instagram at ashursey.

After watching this film, I feel like I need to take a bath in Diane Lane’s open-air bathtub, but for much different reasons than her stalker did.

The year 2025 will go down for many things, some good, some bad, but as far as my Letterboxd stats go, it will be the year I discovered Karen Arthur.

The Mafu Cage, a twisted tale of two sisters starring Lee Grant and Carol Kane, completely blew my mind. Director Karen Arthur really knows how to ratchet up the claustrophobia, leading to some anxiety-inducing scenes. She also knows how to make the small feel big. The Mafu Cage was adapted from a stage play, but Arthur is able to downplay any restrictions found in a play. After watching The Mafu Cage, I had to seek out her debut film, Legacy, an adaptation of a one-woman show depicting a woman’s descent into madness. Talk about unsung, it only has 45 logged views on Letterboxd. 

After these first two films, Arthur became primarily a television director, which had a stigma about it in the 1970s and 80s. If you couldn’t cut it as a film film director, you were shuffled over to television, the perceived inferior media. If television was seen as less than, it surely did not stop her from producing the highest of quality. The Rape of Richard Beck turns the tables on the traditional rape-revenge film, with Richard Crenna earning an Emmy award along the way for his portrayal of a cop who does not play by the rules (or, actually, literally plays by his own set of rules), but finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Speaking of the Emmys, Arthur became the first female to win a Best Director award for an episode of Cagney and Lacey. While television work fills most of her resume, Arthur did have one other feature film in her, the erotic thriller Lady Beware.

Released about a month before the mother of all erotic thrillers, Fatal Attraction, Lady Beware tells the story of Katya (Lane), an ambitious young woman who does not take no for an answer, nearly demanding a place as the window dresser for a Pittsburgh department store. Katya’s displays prove to be controversial and provocative, but one person whose attention she receives is Jack, a married X-ray technician who begins an unhealthy obsession with Katya, quickly escalating from obscene phone calls to breaking and entering.

Unfortunately, the finished project did not get the approval of Arthur herself. The producers attempted to amp up the exploitative side of the film, including nude scenes of Lane that Arthur says she would not have included. She stated that she considered removing her name from the film (would that have made it a film by Alice Smithee?), but would not because the actors cannot remove their names.

Still, despite being a bit of a mess (side characters are introduced, only to be abandoned, no doubt most of their performance ending up on the cutting room floor), Lady Beware is a very interesting watch. It could have been the performance that elevated Lane from child star to adult actress. She would have to wait almost 15 years for Unfaithful to bring her the attention she deserved all along. 

Lady Beware is currently stuck on VHS, desperately needing restoration from one of these boutique physical media labels. Paging Cinematographe! I think this film would fit perfectly in that collection.

Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: J &B 

From J&B In the Movies

Las ratas no duermen de noche (Rats Don’t Sleep at Night) was released in the U.S. as Crimson, the Color of Blood and The Man With the Severed Head.

After a jewel heist, Jack Surnett (Paul Naschy) is shot in the head. His gang is smart enough to know that there’s a scientist named Professor Teets (Ricardo Palmerola) who can do some pretty wild surgeries, like a brain transplant. However, they use the brain of a serial killer named The Sadist (Roberto Mauri), going out in the middle of the evening to just chop off his head. And by this amazing procedure, Jack becomes even more violent than he was before.

Directed by Juan Fortuny, who co-wrote the script with Marius Lesoeur and H.L. Rostaine, this film features Naschy in what must have been a dream role, as every time he sees a woman, he has to make love to her. Well, not love. Violent killing maniac love. This has plenty of Eurocult goddesses in it, like Evelyne Scott (AKA Evelyne Deher, she’s also in Shining Sex), Silvia Solar (Devil’s Kiss) and Gilda Arancio (Kiss Me Killer).

More of a crime movie than a horror film, this doesn’t have much Nashy, but it does feature random dance scenes, and when he finally does show up, he’s all wrapped up. But I kind of like that it’s a gangster movie. Head transplants were a big thing in 70s!

You can watch this on Tubi.

Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: J&B

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adam Hursey is a pharmacist specializing in health informatics by day, but his true passion is cinema. His current favorite films are Back to the Future, Stop Making Sense, and In the Mood for Love. He has written articles for Film East and The Physical Media Advocate, primarily examining older films through the lens of contemporary perspectives. He is usually found on Letterboxd, where he mainly writes about horror and exploitation films. You can follow him on Letterboxd or Instagram at ashursey.

Stop the press!

I originally had a different film in this slot—Night Angel, which I ended up moving to a different category. The J&B element was not very strong in Night Angel. Just a scene where you can see a bottle on a shelf behind a bar. I realized that, somehow, I did not have a single Italian film on my list this year. When I reviewed a Letterboxd list that so kindly compiled films that feature the iconic Scotch whiskey, I discovered a film I somehow missed when I dove into Alberto De Martino’s filmography last year. Carnal Circuit, a film most definitely worthy of inclusion in any forgotten giallo set.

Alberto De Martino is probably my favorite Italian director not named Fulci. It is a hill I’m willing to die upon. He is probably best known for rip-offs of more successful films. The Antichrist is a rip-off of The Exorcist. Holocaust 2000 is a rip-off of The Omen. I guess you could say Pumaman is a Superman rip-off. Maybe his reputation for knock-offs lessens his cache among cinephiles. If so, it’s their loss. If they take it, toss it, and leave it, as Sir Mix-a-Lot so wisely said, I’ll pull up quick to retrieve it.

Carnal Circuit is an early example of the giallo. No black glove clad killer to be found here. But we do get the trope of a “common” man (not affiliated with the police) entering his sleuthing era, trying to get to the bottom of a murder mystery. In this film, Paolo (Robert Hoffman) is a newspaper reporter who gets caught up in the mystery thanks to a friend from his past, Giulio (Roger Fritz). Thugs are out for Giulio, the current face of an advertising campaign for the International Chemical corporation. But why would anyone want to rough up such a beautiful mug? Turns out that Giulio has made some enemies on his way to the top, as one does. But now Giulio has turned up dead, killed in a vehicle accident. Or was it an accident? Seems as if everyone on the International Chemical board had a reason for revenge against Giulio. But enough to kill? Perhaps his diaries give an answer, and it is up to Paolo to find them on his quest for the truth.

I do have a soft spot in my heart for these giallo films that were made before Dario Argento put his stamp on the subgenre, forever changing the way they are perceived. Carnal Circuit is similar to Fulci’s Perversion Story (or One on Top of the Other). Both films bring their story to California, although Fulci is more interested in framing his tale through the lens of Vertigo. De Martino’s film spends a good deal of its running time slowly revealing the change in Giulio (and seeing how much female flesh he can expose along the way—really putting the carnal in Carnal Circuit).

Unfortunately, the J&B component in this film was no different from Night Angel. Simply a scene where the former spokesperson for International Chemical makes a drunken display at a company party. He stands in front of a bottle of J&B before plummeting to his death out of a window (a missed opportunity for a dummy drop). 

At any rate, this film has been one of my favorite watches of the month, and another piece of ammunition in my battle to champion Alberto De Martino.