Released as Toho’s 55th Anniversary Film in 1987, this movie is based on The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, a 10th-century Japanese fairy tale about a girl who comes from the Moon and ends up as a baby inside the stalk of a glowing bamboo plant. Directed by Kon Ichikawa, who wrote it with Shinya Hidaka, Mitsutoshi Ishigami and Ryûzô Kikushima, it begins with bamboo cutter Taketori-no-Miyatsuko (Toshiro Mifune) finding Kaya (Yasuko Sawaguchi) inside that tree. She looks like his recently deceased daughter — who died because the family had no money to pay for her care — so he takes her home just in time for her to quickly grow into an adult.

She’s beyond gorgeous, so every man wants her. She decides to put them through a series of trials to even get close to her. Two of the men are unworthy, and when the third tells her that he failed but is honest, she plans to marry him. Instead, she is called back to space. If this reminds you of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, you won’t be alone. And hey, there’s a sea monster!

You can download this from the Internet Archive.

Directed by John Landis, who wrote it with Mick Garris, this takes trailers of old Universal horror movies to explain why the horror genre is so amazing. While this played theaters for a limited run, I first saw it on video, back in the pre-internet days when finding movie trailers wasn’t as easy as it is now.

Jamie Lee Curtis’s scenes were filmed at Universal Studios locations like Dracula’s Castle, European Street and the Psycho House.

With clips from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Phantom of the Opera, Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Mummy’s Hand, The Wolf Man, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Invisible Agent, The Mummy’s Tomb, Captive Wild Woman, Son of Dracula, Weird Woman, The Mummy’s Ghost, The Mummy’s Curse, House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Revenge of the Creature, Tarantula, This Island Earth, Curucu, Beast of the Amazon, The Mole People, The Creature Walks Among Us, The Deadly Mantis, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Psycho, Brides of Dracula, King Kong vs. Godzilla, The Birds and The Night Walker, this also shows a lot of E.T. and trailers for Jaws 3D, Halloween 3 and Videodrome, as well as See You Next Tuesday, an ongoing Landis joke.

While you can find any of these trailers easily today, this is a great time capsule.

You can download this from the Internet Archive.

Joe D’Amato and Rosella Drudi reteamed for this sequel in name only to Eleven Days Eleven Nights, even though the character of Sarah comes back. Now she’s played by Kristine Rose and has been married and separated and given the new job of the executor of the estate of Lionel Durrington (James Jackson), one of her past lovers and the richest man in Louisiana.

Guess what? This is actually the third film in the series because Sarah was the lead character in Top Model, which is also listed in plenty of places as Eleven Days, Eleven Nights 2. Look — it wouldn’t be Italian movies if it weren’t confusing.

There are four heirs and one after another, they all get with our heroine, who will determine which one is worthy of the money based on how good they are in bed, one supposes. Sonny is the only one with no interest in Sarah, even when she danced for him at a strip club, but that’s because his last girlfriend was abused in front of him by friend of the family Alfred, who is also trying to get the money.

Because Italian films really don’t care about how insane or twisted — actually, this is what they run toward, not from — things get, Sarah disguises herself as Sonny’s old lover and goes to the impotence institute and gets a rise out of him.

By the end, she realizes that no one deserves the money, so she comes up with a plan. She’ll write a book about the family and its secrets while they split the $500 million with a mystery person. They quickly sign and yeah, the mystery guy is the man who was supposed to be dead and we have a happy ending. We also have Laura Gemser in the blink and you’ll miss it role of Sarah’s jogging publisher and Ruth Collins from Lurkers, Doom Asylum and Prime Evil show up.

For a movie about people getting naked, D’Amato has plenty of women in sweaters show up. I’m all for this.

Also: This has also been listed as The Web of Desire and Eleven Days, Eleven Nights Part 4 because Italian movies are wonderful and confusing.

88 Films has released this in an incredible slipcase with art by Sean Longmore. It also has a booklet with notes by Calum Waddel and Rachael Nisbet. Inside, you’ll find a new 4K remaster from the original negatives, audio commentary by Eugenio Ercolani and Nanni Cobretti, interviews with Mark Thompson Ashworth, Piero Montanari and  Pierpaolo De Sanctis, and Italian opening and closing titles. You can get this on 4K UHD or Blu-ray from MVD.