WEIRD WEDNESDAY: The Bees (1978)

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Alfredo Zacarías made Demonoid, and we should thank him for that. He also took advantage of the sheer terror that ensued when the Africanized honey bee was on its way to America. Initially used in Brazil to increase honey production, 26 swarms escaped quarantine in 1957 and spread throughout South America, incredibly defensive and angry bees that supposedly can chase a person for a mile. These bees have killed a thousand people, with many of their victims being stung over and over again. Just imagine six-year-old me watching this on the news every night as we were told repeatedly how close these bees were to us and how doomed we all were.

I also blame the exploitation film industry, which seized upon this and made so many killer bee movies, as they had all the news doing their advertising work for them. There was the 1974 TV movie Killer Bees, The Swarm and this movie, ads filled with just bee after bee, and I’d watch when I was outside, sure today was the day I’d be stung to death.

Jack Hill went uncredited on this as a writer, as he was supposed to direct it, but life didn’t work out that way. It’s the story of South American killer bees who haven’t just been smuggled into the country for experiments, but have also mutated into even smarter than your average bee and use that to kill humans.

It all happens when Dr. Miller (Claudio Brook) is trying to crossbreed the aggressive bees with a much calmer species to make more honey. A local tries to break in and steal the bees, which leads to his angry family and friends burning down Miller’s house, and the bees escaping. Meanwhile, Miller’s wife Sandra (Angel Tompkins) takes the queen to her uncle Dr. Sigmund Hummel (John Carradine, of course) and Dr. John Norman (John Saxon), who have the same goals as her husband, except there’s a honey spy ring trying to make more money off the bees and that means murder.

There’s a scene where Carradine falls to his doom, and I won’t lie—I watched it nine times, and with each rewatch, I loved this movie even more. Also, John Saxon speaks to stock footage of the UN.

You can watch this on Tubi.

WEIRD WEDNESDAY: The Baron (1977)

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Jason (Calvin Lockhart) is trying to make his auteur — or vanity — project, a movie about Baron Wolfgang von Trips. But the studio wants to buy the project and replace him as director and actor. And then the connection to the studio dies, leaving Jason holding the. bill for the mob who was really paying for this. They send Joey (Richard Lynch) to collect the money as Jason gets hired by The Cokeman (Charles McGregor) to service Old Hollywood actress Joan Blondell, who is playing Mama Lou. As you can expect, his girl Caroline (Marlene Clark) can’t understand. Neither can I. That’s Ganja herself! What are you doing, Jason?

Somehow, in the middle of all this, Gil Scott-Heron did the music.

Also, Calvin Lockhart said, “There’s no stopping what can’t be stopped, no killing what can’t be killed,” in Predator 2.

Director Phillip Fenty also wrote Super Fly, and co-wrote this with his wife Linda and  Nelson Lyon (the writer/director of The Telephone Book!?!). It’s something—a movie past the blacksploitation timeline but with elements of it, Lynch chewing the scenery, dropping sexist, racist and just plain evil dialogue on everyone.

You can watch this on YouTube.

JUNESPLOITATION: Sugar Hill (1974)

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June 4: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Blaxploitation!

After Blacula and Scream, AIP had already combined Blaxploitation and horror. Now, Diana “Sugar” Hill (Marki Bey) is using zombies to get revenge on mob boss Morgan (Robert Quarry in his last film for the studio) for the death of her man, nightclub owner Langston (Larry D. Johnson). She goes to Mama Maitresse (Zara Cully) and together, they call on the Lord of the Dead, Baron Samedi (Don Pedro Colley), for his assistance.

Unlike the post-Romero zombies, this is calling back to the zombies of movies made in the 1930s. The preserved bodies of slaves brought to the United States from Guinea, they only cost Sugar her soul to get the vengeance she needs. By that, I mean feeding bad guys to pigs and saying, “I hope they like white trash.”

This is the only film directed by Paul Maslansky, who also produced Castle of the Living Dead, Death Line, The She Beast, Damnation Alley, Race With the Devil and, perhaps most importantly, the Police Academy movies. Writer Tim Kelly also scripted Black Fist and Cry of the Banshee.

There weren’t enough mixes like this, but there’s also Blackenstein, Abby, Ganja and Hess, JD’s Revenge, Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde, Petey Wheatstraw, Bones, Def by Temptation, Hood of Horror, Black Devil Doll from Hell, Tales from the QuadeaD Zone, Killjoy and the Tales from the Hood series.

JUNESPLOITATION: Circle of Iron (1978)

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June 3: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is David Carradine!

This movie is fantastic bullshit.

Bruce Lee originally was to write and appear in this, saying in the intro he wrote, “The story illustrates a great difference between Oriental and Western thinking. This average Westerner would be intrigued by someone’s ability to catch flies with chopsticks, and would probably say that has nothing to do with how good he is in combat. But the Oriental would realize that a man who has attained such complete mastery of an art reveals his presence of mind in every action…True mastery transcends any particular art.”

Working with James Coburn and screenwriter Stirling Silliphant, Lee didn’t just want to make the first Western movie about martial arts. He tried to make a movie that would introduce audiences to the philosophy behind martial arts; more than fighting, more about mastering the self.

Coburn and Lee eventually got frustrated by one another—small stuff, like Coburn getting a better hotel room and treatment than Lee, be like water indeed, or Lee nonstop humming pop songs until Coburn screamed at him—and Lee went to Hong Kong to make Fist of Fury, become a star and die.

Lee had intended his movie — you know, the same one that would teach Eastern theories of the martial world — to have  Thai, Cantonese, Arabic and Japanese dialogue, explicit Tantric sex and scenes of genital destruction.

A few years later, Stanley Mann rewrote it, added comedy and brought on board a bunch of the finest all-white actors—some of whom could do martial arts. And that’s how we got this movie, which is ridiculous in all the best ways.

Cord (Jeff Cooper, who played Kaliman in a few Mexican movies) is a fighter who is undisciplined and kicked out of the temple by Roddy McDowall. Yet he still wants to find The Book of Knowledge, which is held by Zetan (Christopher Lee). The man sent on the quest instead of him, Morthond (Anthony De Longis, Blade from Masters of the Universe), has been nearly killed — and demands help to die with honor — and it seems like a fool’s errand. Then Cord meets the mysterious Blind Man (David Carradine) and starts his own quest.

Carradine also plays Death, a Monkey Man and Chang Sha, who uses his wife Tara (Erica Creer) to seduce our protagonist before leaving him behind and her crucified. Cord also runs into Eli Wallach, who has been sitting in a pot of boiling oil for a decade in the hopes that his penis falls off. I did not make that up.

Also known as The Silent Flute, this has director Richard Moore (his only full-length, but he shot the underwater footage for Thunderball and was the cinematographer on The Wild Angels, Devil’s Angels, Myra Breckinridge, The Stone Killer and Annie) making a mix of a king fu movie and a Zen koan that feels more Holy Mountain than Enter the Dragon.

The flute Carradine plays in this is the same one from Kill Bill: Volume 2.

So yes, this movie is complete bullshit but it’s wonderful bullshit. None of the people other than Carradine seem to know how to do martial arts, and I couldn’t care less. With Lee, this would have been a classic, perhaps, but as it stands, it’s this majestic attempt at something, a movie with dialogue like this:

Blind Man: A fish saved my life once.

Cord: How?

Blind Man: I ate him.

The sound of one hand clapping? You’re watching it.

You can watch this on Tubi.

SEVERIN BLU RAY RELEASE: High Tension: Four Films by Lamberto Bava

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Severin has a fantastic new release coming. Let me quote them here:

“In the late ‘80s, Lamberto Bava agreed to direct a four-part anthology series for Italian TV under the title High Tension. But when executives saw the completed features’ extreme themes and graphic violence, their broadcast was blocked for nearly a decade and they have only existed as grey market bootlegs since. Severin Films now presents their Official Worldwide Blu-ray Premiere: Tomas Arana stars as a horror director stalked by evil forces in The Prince of Terror, written by Dardano Sacchetti and featuring grisly FX by Sergio Stivaletti. In The Man Who Wouldn’t Die, adapted from a short story by poliziotteschi novelist Giorgio Scerbanenco, the survivor of a home invasion seeks vengeance. Daria Nicolodi stars in School of Fear, which is about a student academy with a dark secret. And in the giallo shocker Eye Witness, Barbara Cupisti stars as a blind woman who sees a murder. All four films are scanned in 2K from the original camera negatives with Italian and first-time ever English tracks, plus over 5 hours of Special Features and a Soundtrack CD curated by Simon Boswell featuring music from High Tension, The Mask of Satan, Demons 2, Delirium and more.”

The Prince of Terror: I’ve made a real 180 on Lamberto Bava. Maybe it’s because the first of his movies that I watched was Devilfish. I should have really started with Macabre, A Blade In the Dark or any of his TV movies and then I’d feel a lot different. And years ago, I unfairly compared him with his father instead of allowing him to be judged on his own merit.

I am sorry, John Old Jr.

This movie pulls the Body Double fake out as soon as it starts, as you get the jump scare of a woman — Magda (Marina Viro) — escaping an RV only to see her boyfriend drown in a swamp and become an inflated zombie and begin stalking her through a swamp.

This isn’t happening.

Instead, it’s the set of director Vincent Omen’s (Tomas Arana, The Church) latest movie. He hates the script from his longtime writer, Paul Hilary (David Brandon, who was the director in Stage Fright, so dumb that he let his cast stay in the theater where a killing machine was hiding), so he gets him fired before heading out to play golf. While he’s hitting the front 9, he’s interviewed by a reporter (Virginia Bryant, The Barbarians) who asks him about the rumors that he’s much older than 37 and his public perception as the “Prince of Darkness.”

He holds up one of his golf balls, which has 666 on it. Obviously, he’s into this persona.

After he finishes playing, he goes home to his wife Betty (Carole Andre, Yor Hunter from the Future), daughter Susan (Joyce Pitti) and dog Demon. Yes, he is definitely into this demonic side. That evening, he and his lovely spouse are supposed to join his producer (Pascal Druant) and Magda for dinner. And then, golf balls explode into their home, sinister phone calls start and end only when the phone lines are severed, and their cute little dog is killed—by having his fur removed, and then he’s just thrown in the garbage—because this is an Italian movie. Then, a bald killer with a huge knife (Ulisse Miniverni) appears.

By the end of the movie, Omen gets shot, his wife gets her leg ensnared in a bear trap and his daughter gets buried alive in the basement. Plus, the toilet flushes blood and the security guard is replaced with a robot. It’s an all-over-the-place plan from Paul, the writer, and actor Eddie Felson– the bald monster — who both want to get back at Vincent.

Special effects maestro Sergio Stivaletti got a workout here, as when Vincent gets his revenge, he starts attacking people with golf balls, including one that blows up a man’s wrist and another that goes Fulci and blows up an eyeball. There’s also a good Simon Boswell score.

I wonder how much of this story was writer Dardano Sacchetti getting his scripting revenge on former friend and co-creator Lucio Fulci. That scene where he’s accused of stealing ideas and it becomes obvious that Omen has no ideas of his own, as well as a bloody script emerging from a toilet, seems to lead one to feel that way. It’s fun in a TV movie way—I love this era of Italian TV movie horror—but it certainly doesn’t aspire to the heights that Fulci reached.

Extras on the Severin release include commentary by Mondo Digital‘s Nathaniel Thompson and Troy Howarth, author Of So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years Of Italian Giallo Films and interviews with Bava.

The Man Who Wouldn’t Die: This was originally going to air in 1989. Due to concerns about the violence of these films, it didn’t play on Italian TV again until 2007. The other three aired in 1999.

Written by Gianfranco Clerici (Strange Shadows in an Empty Room) based on a short story by Giorgio Scerbanenco, this is about a gang of five burglars that art dealer Madame Janaud (Martine Brochard, Murder Obsession) hires to steal art from a rich man’s villa. Led by Fabrizio (Keith Van Hoven, Demons 3), the thieves (including Lino Salemme, who did coke out of a Coke can in Demons and Stefano Molinari, the demon in the movie on the TV in Demons 2) tie up the man of the house and his wife, then take everything they can get their hands on so that Janaud can sell them to art collector Mr. Miraz (Jacques Sernas).

The problem is that one of the gang, Giannetto (Gino Concari) screws over the gang and cuts up the most expensive thing they take, Renoir’s “After the Bath.” He hides in the villa’s garage and returns for it later.

That would be bad enough, but Giannetto attacks the husband and then assaults his tied-up wife while the man watches. He gets enraged and kicks the offensive moron in the head and kills him. Fabrizio kills both the husband and wife, then wraps the body of Giannetto in a carpet. The gang argues about what to do, so instead of killing him, they strip him and dump him in the woods. Somehow, he survives and comes back to life in the hospital. He wants revenge, but he’ll be lucky to stay alive, as a giallo killer starts to murder all of the gang, with one’s face getting smashed, another being done in by toilet—head smashing and drowning, and a smooshed head for the last crook.

This was originally to be made by Lamberto’s father, Mario, who had been working on a script with Rafael Azcona and Alessandro Parenzo. It’s not Lamberto’s best work, but the kills are very well filmed and the Simon Boswell score is good.

Extras include interviews with Bava and Dardano Sacchetti.

School of Fear: Directed by Lamberto Bava and written by Dardano Sacchetti (who wrote nearly every Italian movie that you love), Roberto Gandus (Macabre, Madhouse) and Giorgio Stegani (Cannibal Holocaust), School of Fear is part of the second series of TV movies that Bava was hired to make.

If you have children, let me remind you never to allow them to attend European educational facilities like the Swiss Richard Wagner Academy for Girls, the Tanz Akademie or the Giacomo Stuz private school. I mean, a child drowns at the beginning of this movie, and that’s moments into it.

Diana Berti (Alessandra Acciai) arrives at the school and instantly encounters problems. There’s a deformed child in the shadows, her skirts are too short for the school’s leader (Dario Nicolodi), and oh yeah, she has past traumas that the school keeps bringing to the fore. You know what isn’t helping? The last teacher in her role died by going through a plate glass window, and they never fixed all that broken glass.

The real problem, as always, is the children. They play some secret game that the last teacher — the one who took a header through a closed window — was already worried about after she learned just how frightening it can be from one of her students.

This game takes them into the abandoned parts of the school, which are haunting for adults, much less little ones. These kids, however, are borderline monsters, able to hack into video signals, showing an image of her impaled on the front gate just like the last teacher and using Diana’s past sexual assault to remind her that no one will ever believe her when she tries to expose how horrible they behave.

They’re right.

The children are from the upper crust, the school has too good a reputation, and after all, look how sweet these young men and women are as they sing in the choir. Surely they couldn’t have done all this. Even her police inspector love interest, Mark Anselmi (Jean Hebert), thinks she’s being ridiculous about it all.

This movie is absolutely worth watching. It features a classroom of kids tearfully tearing to pieces the morality and art of Pier Paolo Pasolini while a child who looks like a dwarf in a red jacket runs wild on the grounds.

Extras include interviews with Bava, Roberto Gandus and Simon Boswell.

Eye Witness: Elisa (Barbara Cupisti) and Karl (Giuseppe Pianviti) are in a department store at closing time, waiting until no one is watching so that she can steal a shirt. She’s stuck there alone as Karl runs out to get their car and while the store is closed, she sees a secretary get killed by her manager (Alessio Orano)

Or, well, she doesn’t.

Because Elisa is blind.

Directed by Lamberto Bava with a script by Giorgio Stegani and Massimo De Rita, this is a made-for-TV giallo in which police commissioner Marra (Stefano Davanzati) investigates the suspects, who include the secretary’s lover (Francesco Casale), as well as Elisa and Karl. At the same time, the manager thinks that Elisa knows who he is because he believes she can sense him.

There are moments here, when it isn’t trying to be Wait Until Dark, when the film aspires toward the giallo of the past. I love the idea of a rehabilitation center for people with disabilities that tries to get them to expand their abilities. And of course t, he manager tracks Elisa in the hopes of killing her in a scene with echoes of Tenebre and “Blind Alleys” from Tales from the Crypt mixed with some incredible POV shots and great editing.

Unlike most giallo, we know the killer from the beginning. But that’s fine. The tension here comes from how close the killer gets to our heroine. And yes, as always, the cops are the absolute worst. Defund the giallo police, I always say.

Extras include commentary by Mondo Digital‘s Nathaniel Thompson and Troy Howarth, author Of So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years Of Italian Giallo Films and interviews with Bava and Barbara Cupisti.

You can preorder it now from Severin.

One Million Babes BC (2024)

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No matter what happens in the rest of the world, you can rely on Mark Polonia to keep making movies with awesome posters, great titles and moments where dinosaurs fart, stock animation and footage is used, and eventually, a dinosaur poops all over someone. You might wonder, “Will these cavewomen have sex with one another?” No. There’s no time for that, as we need to be inside a cave made of plastic tarps and brown paper, decorated with marker artwork.

I will not have it any other way. Other people might look at a Polonia movie and get angry, wondering who would want to watch a microbudget movie with dumb jokes and a plot that makes 70 minutes feel like weeks, but just leave the rest of us alone. The world is a rough place; people barely can get along these days, and if I want to sit in my basement and just screen movies like this and wonder what Polonia will make next, I feel like I’m making my part of the world better.

As for the IMDB user who wrote, “Despite the title One Million BC, no babes appear in the film,” you don’t have to be so rude.

You can watch this on Tubi.

JUNESPLOITATION: Devil’s Kiss (1976)

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June 2: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Zombies! 

Director and writer Jordi Gigó wrote Exorcismo and wrote and directed Porno Girls, L’espectre de Justine and, well, that’s it. Other than this movie.

Countess Claire Grandier (Silvia Solar, Danger!! Death Ray, Cannibal Terror, Eyeball) and telepathic Professor Gruber (Olivier Mathot) have bought a castle, a place where they can ride horses, have lavish dinners, make sweet love and, you know, get a dwarf (Ronnie Harp) to help them create the living dead. But when they’re not doing that, they’re using the castle for fashion shows, which is how we get a bevy of Eurocult ladies to show up, turn on, tune out and get nude. Man, the fake eyelashes budget on this…

Also, the Countess hates the castle owner, Duke of Haussemont (José Nieto), whom she blames for killing her husband, taking her money and forcing her into a life of zombie making and model murdering. Yet he lets them stay in the castle as ghostbusters when they’re the ones making the ghosts or zombies.

The castle looks excellent, the flashbacks feel like a silent movie, it’s more Frankenstein than Romero, there’s full frontal nudity, poor zombie makeup, a Jess Franco feel and by that I mean this movie is beyond horny and wants you to know that, the Book of Astarov, Satanic rites, a movie that feels like an Electric Wizard song and appearances by María Silva (Curse of the Devil) and Evelyne Scott (Shining Sex), a strong undercurrent of anything can happens next and lots of fog. Some people would hate this. Those people are jerks.

The original title — La perversa caricia de Satán (Satan’s Perverse Caress or The Wicked Caresses of Satan) — is precisely why I watched this.

Murder, She Wrote S1 E17: Footnote to Murder (1985)

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Jessica sets out to clear the name of a friend who is a prime suspect in a murder case.

Season 1, Episode 17: Footnote to Murder (March 10, 1985)

Tonight on Murder, She Wrote…

Being friends with Jessica Fletcher is like shaking hands with death itself.

Who’s in it, outside of Angela Lansbury, and were they in any exploitation movies?

Vincent Baggetta plays Frank Lapinski. You may know him from his other two appearances on this show, as well as playing cops on Days of Our Lives, Renegade, the TV movie Shakedown On Sunset Strip and T.J. Hooker.

Debbie Delancey? That’s Martin Balsam’s daughter Talia, who was also in Mad Men, The Kindred, The Supernaturals, Crawlspace and The Initiation of Sarah. She was also married to George Clooney once.

Tiffany Harrow is played by Morgan Brittany, who was Baby June in Gypsy, as well as Katherine Wentworth on Dallas and appeared in Sundown: The Vampire In Retreat, Death Car On the Freeway, The Initiation of Sarah — making this a reunion, kinda — and was Mary in Sunn Classics’ In Search of Historic Jesus. You may ask, “Why does the Virgin Mary have to be so hot?” Because Sunn Classics knew that despite their movies being G-rated four-walled family movies, they still needed something for daddy. She also did stunts for Fighting Back and The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood. I also love this credit on her IMDB. Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer James Bond Style Speedboat Commercial. You can see it here. Who knew PBR could be so fancy?

Lucinda Lark is played by Constance Forslund, who was in the remake of Village of the Damned, Uncommon Valor and took over the role of Ginger for The Harlem Globetrotters On Gilligan’s Island.

A.D.A. Mel Comstock? That’s Pat Harrington, forever Schneider from One Day at a Time. He would be in four episodes of this show. He was also the voice of The Atom and Speedy on the Aquaman 1960s cartoon!

Kenneth Mars is Helmsley Post. Speaking of voice work, he was Triton in The Little Mermaid and Grandpa Longneck in The Land Before Time. He was also the mayor in Police Academy 6: City Under Siege and appeared in the Bruce Willis cartoon—yes, he had his own cartoon in 1996—Bruno the Kid: The Animated Movie.

This time, the law is Lt Meyer, played by Ron Masak. Masak would become a regular on the series after season 5, playing Sheriff Mort Metzger.

Diana Muldaur plays Alexis Post. Did I cast this episode? She has also starred in The Swimmer, Imps*, Maneaters Are Loose! and Chosen Survivors.

Hey! It’s Mr. Brady! Robert Reed plays Adrian Winslow. If you only know him from being a TV dad, hunt down his TV movies like SST: Death Flight, Secret Night Caller, Pray for the Wildcats and Haunts of the Very Rich.

Paul Sand as Horace Lynchfield, the presumed killer.

In the more minor roles, there’s John C. Bechner (Dr. Molinaro from Gremlins) as an eye doctor, John Brandon as Ernie, Mark Harrison as an assistant DA, William McDonald as a bailiff, Michael Kearns as a reporter, Nancy Marlow listed as a lady, Bigg Yeager as a cop, Lana Schwab as a clerk, and Larry Carr, Bart Greene, Sam Haggin, Shirley Lang, Richard Niehaus, Norman Palmer, Kimberly L. Ryusaki and Roger Trantham as background characters.

What happens?

Jessica is in New York City to get a Gotham Book Award for being a crime writer. She hangs out with another writer, Horace, a downer, and Kenneth Mars, a jerk. Does Jessica have better writer friends? Are all writers total losers? Hey — don’t answer that so soon.

Horace is getting drunk, another would-be writer named Debbie Delancey keeps trying to get Jessica to read her story, and people just seem to hate one another in New York City (say that like Lazlo from What We Do In the Shadows). She has to break up a fight between some of the writers and wakes up with Hemsley’s umbrella, so she goes to return it. When she gets there, he’s dead, and Downer Horace’s umbrella is stuck in the guy’s chest.

This is where Jessica should just go home.

Of course, this is where she starts to solve the murder.

Somehow, Horace was in bed with Lucinda Lark — can you believe it? — and has an alibi. Lucinda wrote a book called Women Unleashed so we can only assume that she pegged the butt out of Horace. Or hope.

Who did it?

Debbie, who got the famous author to look at her book, was surprised when he tried to show her more than she wanted. Whoops. His death is an accident.

Who made it?

Director Peter Crane worked on nine episodes of the show and episodes of Moonlighting, Darkroom, Knight Rider and Voyagers! The Script was written by Robert E. Swanson, who assembled 87 scripts for it.

Does Jessica get some?

You would think that with her waking up with a man’s umbrella, the answer would be yes. But no. She also doesn’t dress up or act drunk, despite actually drinking.

Was it any good?

I like it when Jessica stays home, but she should get out every once in a while.

Any trivia?

Helmsley Post, the manly writer of war books, and Adrian Winslow, the nonmanly writer of historical novels, are supposed to be writers who hate one another, like Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal. Get it? Post? Mailer?

John C. Becher and Lansbury were in the original Broadway cast of Mame together.

Give me a reasonable quote:

Horace Lynchfield: Now, what I need is some cigarettes and a stiff drink. Let’s get out of here, okay?

Jessica Fletcher: Oh! At the risk of sounding like a nag, Horace, you’re gonna have to do something about your drinking.

Horace Lynchfield: Are you saying to cut back? That would be like depriving a race car of its gasoline.

What’s next?

A great episode is on the way. Jessica is forced to take refuge from a storm at a remote diner when one of the passengers is found stabbed in his seat on a bus to Boston.

JUNESPLOITATION: Almost Human (1974)

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June 1: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Italian crime!

Milano odia: la polizia non può sparare (Milan Hates, The Police Can’t Shoot) is another reminder that Umberto Lenzi is the greatest, regardless of genre. He mastered gialli (Spasmo, So Sweet… So Perverse, Orgasmo, Seven Bloodstained Orchids, Eyeball) as well as war movies (Bridge to Hell, From Hell to Victory), poliziotteschi (Rome Armed to the Teeth, Violent Naples, The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist), peplum (Ironmaster, Samson and the Slave Queen), Eurospy (SuperSeven Calling Cairo, 008: Operation Exterminate), cannibal films (Eaten Alive!, Cannibal Ferox, Man from Deep River) and enjoyable junk (Nightmare City, Ghosthouse, Nightmare Beach, Hitcher In the Dark, Black Demons).

Throw in a script by Ernesto Gastaldi, and you have a war between Giulio Sacchi (Tomas Milian) and Inspector Walter Grandi (Henry Silva). Not everyone in their world will survive. Hell, the two of them might not even make it.

After screwing up a bank robbery and being threatened with castration, Saachi goes absolutely wild and pretty much kills everyone in his path. Tomas Milian must have heard that David Hess was coming to Italy and said, “Let me show you something.” He’s an equal opportunity maniac in this movie, as everyone is in the crosshairs. He might have a gorgeous woman like Iona (Anita Strindberg) in love with him, supporting him, and yet he comes home just to assault her at will. Then, he uses her to take her boss’ daughter, Mary Lou (Laura Belli), and ransom her life, as if life means anything to him.

His partners Carmine (Ray Lovelock) and Vittorio (Gino Santercole) aren’t ready for the drugged-up menace that Saachi is about to bring. Tying people to a chandelier and letting it spin as he plays roulette with his victims? That’s just the start. No one is safe, whether that’s old people, people begging for their lives, cops, children…even a man who Saachi forces to go down on his little Giulio while he keeps a gun at his head. They have second thoughts about being in a gang with him, but who will tell him he’s going off the deep end?

Morricone soundtrack, Silva as a cop, you’re just waiting to go insane, lawyers getting scummy crooks off with no charges, justice in the streets—this has it all. And so much more. And wow, it was so close to being a totally different movie, with Richard Conte playing the cop and Marc Porel playing the criminal, but Lenzi found the actor  “unreliable from both a human and professional point of view.”

As it was, Lenzi’s first meeting with Milian didn’t go well. Milian heard that Lenzi was an impulsive director who could go off on his actors, but by the film’s end, they realized they could work together in a love/hate way for seven films. As for how Millian got this performance, in true Method style, he drugged and drank it up before Lenzi said, “Action!”

That’s how you do it.

Over here,  Joseph Brenner released several times, first as The Kidnap of Mary Lou, then a year later as The Death Dealer and finally in 1980 as Almost Human. All hail Temple of Schlock.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Sizzlin’ Summer of Side-Splitters 2025

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Last summer, I did the The Sizzlin’ Something Weird Summer Challenge 2024 posted by Klon. Now, I’m getting ready for his next summer list.

Here’s what Klon has to say:

“Use the hashtag #ssoss25 for your lists. Everyone that completes the challenge gets a free mystery zine!!

Have you ever “lightened up?” I haven’t. I’m a gloomy glower-er but my doctor and my therapist and the kid at the lemonade stand have all told me (within the last 36 hours) to LIGHTEN UP. I dunno, I must be giving off BAD VYBES. The summer is gonna be unyieldingly sizzlin here in the American south so let’s cool off, lighten up, slip on our “tea shades,” loosen our ties, kick off our shoes, have a do-si-do around the ol dancefloor, drop the kids off at the pool and have a few HAR-DEE YUKS whydontwe???

I tried to make the categories pretty broad so that you could have a list you would look forward to completing. At first it was gonna be all boner comedy categories, but I’m sensitive as shit so I figured that wasn’t fair to people with erectile dysfunction. If you have trouble finding stuff you want to see in one category then just make up your own category (except the CHUCK VINCENT category, you’ve gotta watch a Chuck movie).”

Here’s the breakdown:

  • June 16-22 SNL Week: Saturday Night Live is celebrating 50 years on the air, can NBC last for another 50 years??
  • June 23-29 Cat Week: Cats! They’re earth’s funniest creatures (sorry chimps, you’re psychos)
  • June 30- July 6 Puke Week!: Throwing up isn’t very funny, but making your internet friends watch a puke movie is!
  • July 7-13 Teen Movie Hell Week: From the book description on the Bazillion Points website: All-seeing author Mike “McBeardo” McPadden (Heavy Metal Movies) passes righteous judgment over the entire (teen movie) genre, one boobs-and-boner opus at a time. In more than 350 reviews and sidebars, Teen Movie Hell lays the crucible of coming-of-age comedies bare, from party-hearty farces such as The Pom-Pom Girls, Up the Creek, and Fraternity Vacation to the extreme insanity exploding all over King Frat, Screwballs, The Party Animal, and Surf II: The End of the Trilogy.
  • July 14-20  Vanity Project Week: “…it might be said that the specific remedy for vanity is laughter, and that the one failing that is essentially laughter is vanity.” Are these products of passionate and industrious independent filmmakers OR outrageous glimpses into the inner workings of self-obsessed maniacs??
  • July 21-27 Eddie Griffin Week: This motherfucker is funny!
  • July 28 – Aug 3 Screwball Comedy: Just imagine, the Great Depression is raging and you’re getting less than a fin a week at the rubber boiling factory but it only costs two bits to go to the movies all day so let’s watch some quick-talkin dames match wits with some dopey joes!
  • Aug 4-10  Stoner Comedy Week: I don’t gas reefers anymore, but I love it when people in movies do!
  • Aug 11-17 Whoopi Goldberg Week: She’s become a corny tv lady these days, but let’s not forget that at her peak Whoopi was one of the funniest people alive.
  • Aug 18-24 indie comix week: When I was a kid I used to read Mad Magazine and Cracked, so when I got a little older it didn’t take much convincing to pick up Eightball and Hate. I’m an OG in the “complaining about superheroes” game and my scars were anointed on the Comics Journal message board!
  • Aug 25-31 Natasha Lyonne Week: There’s a new season of her weirdo mystery of the week coming out (I can’t remember the name rn, you can look it up) and she’s been steadily delivering chuckles for decades now.
  • Sept 1-7 John Waters Best of the Year Week: To be fair, these movies aren’t ALL funny, but JOHN WATERS is funny. He’s become more of a writer and public commentator these days, but he helps keep the arthouse from taking itself too seriously with his annual top ten lists while celebrating the comically serious.
  • Sept 8-14 Sketchy Comedy Week: “…plotless satires, many of which were only excuses for drug humor or gratuitous nudity sprinkled with the cheapest of gags. The typical form was a channel changing structure which would go from one sketch to the next under the premise that this was just another night at home watching the ol boob tube. The medium is the message, baby!”
  • Sept 15-21 Mockumentary Week: “Ladies and gentleman, by way of introduction, this is a film about trickery – and fraud. About lies. Tell it by the fireside or in a marketplace or in a movie. Almost any story is almost certainly some kind of – lie. But not this time. No, this is a promise. During the next hour, everything you hear from us is really *true* and based on solid facts.”
  • Sept 22-28 Chuck Vincent Week: No one did it like Chuck! He’s the unsung king of Up All Night comedy, a queer director making the straightest romcoms but throwing in muscle studs and drag queens. His films explore the concept of romance from almost every angle – he loved love!

You can see the Letterboxd list here.