EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

The Forest is unlike any other slasher you’ve ever seen. Sure, it has murders in the woods, campers and stalking scenes. But it gets weirder than almost any other slasher would dare, pushing itself to the edge of absurdity while subverting anything you’d expect.

The killer — John — is played by Gary Kent, a stuntman whose work extends from his debut in Battle Flame through the films of Al Adamson and Roger Corman, emerging as the inspiration for Cliff Booth in Once…Upon A Time In Hollywood and the subject of the documentary Danger God. He’s not just a killer in this. He’s not just a cannibal. He’s a killer cannibal haunted by the wife and children that he murdered in a fit of rage.

Two couples — Steve and Sharon plus Charlie and Teddi — have decided to go into the woods for a vacation. The girls meet the ghosts the first evening, as they first meet the kids and then are confronted by their mother. If a ghost can be insane, hers definitely is.

When they were all still alive, the woman slept around on her husband to the point that he killed her, took off for the woods with his kids and watched them commit suicide, which was finally made him lose his mind and became the hermit human flesheater we meet in this film, the kind of maniac who’d feed a man his girlfriend.

The craziest thing about this movie is that Sharon ends up being the real hero — not just a final girl — and the two men are shown to be, at best, victims and at worst, total morons. Only she is capable, strong and able to survive, perhaps because she has connected to the dead children of the killer.

Even stranger, she was played by Tomi Barrett, who was the wife of Kent.

Shot in 13 days, this movie doesn’t get mentioned enough. Don Jones, the writer and director, would also Who Killed Cock Robin?, The Love Butcher, Schoolgirls In Chains and Sweater Girls — all quality films.

21st Century rereleased this as Terror In the Forest.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

American-International Pictures’ Blacula was a big success. Its director, William Crain, and AIP wanted to make more black films that were classic stories retold for a new audience. What’s interesting here that while adapting Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, the evil side of Dr. Henry Pride (Bernie Casey) appears to be a mix of King Kong, Frankenstein’s Monster and an evil white man.

Pride may be a celebrated and wealthy African American medical doctor, but as he fails to discover a cure for cirrhosis of the liver — along with his colleague Dr. Billie Worth (Rosalind Cash) — he begins to experiment on himself and others. Coming just a few years after the way our government treated the Tuskegee airmen with their syphilis experiments, this feels like not only a crime against nature, but a black man attacking his very race.

By the end, he’s killing sex workers and their pimps, leading the police to Watts Towers, where he climbs upward — again, like King Kong — before being shot and falling to his death.

This also had the working titles The Watts Monster, Hyde, Serum and Decision for Doom. Along with the aforementioned Blacula, Scream Blacula Scream, Sugar Hill, Blackenstein, JD’s Revenge, Abby, Ganja and Hess and Petey Wheatstraw, there are some other black-themed horror films from this era but not enough. Later films in the genre that I would recommend are Bones, Def by Temptation and Tales from the Hood.

How incredible is it that the South Korean VHS release of this had the Iron Maiden artwork from Killers on its back cover?

21st Century rereleased this as The Watts Monster.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

Supposedly, The Devil’s Wedding Night (AKA Full Moon of the Virgins) was all Mark Damon’s idea. After being in House of Usher, Damon had moved to Italy and appeared in movies like Black Sabbath and Johnny Yuma.

Perhaps this idea was the start of his producing career, which was more successful than his acting job. Damon was planning on selling the movie an American production company. Luigi Batzella (Nude for Satan, The Beast In Heat) was picked to direct, but most people believe that Joe D’Amato stepped in and finished the film.

I’m a firm believer in this theory because there’s a moment near the end of this movie where an otherworldly Countess Dolingen De Vries rises from a bathtub of blood and fog and writhes near nude on the screen and somehow going beyond the confines of the screen to destroy my mind. I generally try my best not to turn reviews of movies with atrractive women into male gaze spectacles, but Rosalba Neri is absoutely iconic in this moment, a perfect scene that is never discussed nearly enough.

There’s also a magic vampire ring of the Nibelungen, which is gigantic costume jewelery and therefore better than any Hollywood baubles, village girls with sacred amulets of Pazuzu (yes, really), five virgins getting sacrificed all at once in an express line of bloodletting magic, three different twist endings in a row, tripped out Dr. Who looking tunnel moments, D’Amato billing himself as Michael Holloway and going absolutely wlld capturing every inch of womanly curves and an incredible setting, the Castello Piccolomini Balsorano, the same place Lady Frankenstein, Bloody Pit of Horror, Crypt of the Vampire, The Lickerish Quartet, The Blade Master, Sister Emanuelle, The Bloodsucker Leads the Dance, The Reincarnation of Isabel, Farfallon, Pensiero d’amore, Lady Barbara, 7 Golden Women Against Two 07: Treasure Hunt, C’è un fantasma nel mio letto, Baby Love and Put Your Devil Into My Hell were all shot at.

Plus, Xiro Papas, the monster of Frankenstein 80, plays a vampiric giant.

If you’re a fan of the harder side of Hammer, then allow this female vampire to obsess you as well.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

You can call this War of the Wizards or The Phoenix but either way, this movie is astounding. It was co-directed by Chang Mei-Chun (Dynasty, Revenge of the Shogun Women) and Sadamasa Arikawa (the director of special effects for films such as Destroy All Monsters; Son of Godzilla and The Mighty Peking Man).

This played in the U.S. with a horrible dub but that doesn’t matter. What does is that this movie has fantastic visuals and seems closer to a fantasy children’s movie. I have no idea why it doesn’t get discussed at all because it’s just stunning.

Tai (Hsiu-Shen Liang) is a poor fisherman who reads all he can to become a better person. He finds the Magic Vessel of Plenty and the Bamboo Book of All Knowledge, which allows him to become a rich man, but he shares his wealth by buying his fellow townspeople food. This doesn’t impress the woman he’s in love with, Jasmine (Hoi Si-Man), who wants nothing to do with him even if he is rich and successful now.

One after another killer comes his way to take his life but end up killing one another first. He’s saved by Violet (Terry Hu) and Hyacinth (Chow Chi-Ming), who promise to protect him so he decides to marry them both. That’s stopped by two old wizards who claim that Tai is filled with lust and has no idea that fate is coming for him.

The sisters really work for an evil alien called Flower Fox (Betty Pei Ti) and Tai is going to need to transform into a silver-costumed sword-wielding hero if he hopes to break the sisters away and save his people. Then, he fights a rock monster and Richard Kiel, dressed as if he were in a Sinbad movie, which makes this movie so much better as he battles Tai with giant claws.

There’s also an incredible looking phoenix that yes, is a puppet, but who cares? Perhaps fantasy doesn’t need to look perfect to be perfect. When I read negative reviews of this, it upsets me because the people who feel that way have no joy inside them.

21st Century released this as War of the Wizards.

You can watch this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

What happens when you throw assassins in New York City, cannibals in the jungle and a Jim Jones-like cult leader into a big pot and set it to boil? You get Eaten Alive!

Sheila (Janet Agren, City of the Living Dead, Hands of Steel) is searching for her sister, Diana (Paola Senatore, Emanuelle in America)who has disappeared in the jungle. She hires Mark (Robert Kerman, Cannibal Holocaust) to help her find her way through the jungle. Oh yeah — and there are killers in the city using blowdarts. That doesn’t matter so much once we’re in the jungle.

When they find Diana — after being chased by cannibals — they learn that she has joined the cult of Jonas (Ivan Rassimov, everyone cheer when he shows up to make this movie awesome), who abuses, murders, manipulates and mindfucks everyone and anyone he gets close to. Seriously, the minute Jonas shows up, this film goes off the rails. First, he burns a man on a funeral pyre and then orders his wife Mowara (Me Me Lai, who thanks to appearances in this film, Last Cannibal World and Man from Deep River is pretty much to this genre as Edwige Fenech, Barbara Bouchet or Nieves Navaro are to giallo)to be ritually raped. Then, he hypnotizes Sheila and takes her on an altar using a snake phallus covered in venom and blood (yep, really).

Jonas preaches the Book of Isiah and pretty much owns everyone he can get his hands on, but Mowara, Sheila, Mark and Diana all attempt to escape. Diana and Mowara are overtaken by cannibals, with Diana graphically devoured while her sister and Mark watch helplessly. A helicopter arrives at the last minute to save them while the film goes into full exploitation mode, with the cult killing themselves ala Jonestown, leaving only one female survivor.

Oh man, I forgot! Mel Ferrer (The Visitor, Nightmare City) shows up as a professor!

Director Umberto Lenzi knows how to make a down and dirty film. He also knows how to keep it entertaining. Just witness other films he’s done like Ghosthouse! Plus, he’s the master of recycling, as this film re-uses the crocodile death and a woman being eaten from his 1972 film Sacrifice! (also starring Rassimov and Me Me Lai), Me Me Lai’s death from Ruggero Deodato’s Jungle Holocaust and a castration, a monkey being devoured and a man being eaten by a crocodile from Sergio Martino’s Slave of the Cannibal God. You could say he…cannibalized those movies! Sorry.

Again, keep in mind that these are rough films. They’re nearly indefensible, to be honest. I kind of wish the story of Jonas and his cult was more of the movie, with less of the cannibals. But you know, I can’t send notes back to Lenzi with a time machine or anything!

PS – Amazingly, it wasn’t until I read this review that I learned that Eaten Alive was three different movies — Jungle Holocaust, The Man from Deep River and Mountain of the Cannibal God (look for that in a few days!)  — along with some Jim Jones thrown in.

Yes, this is Eaten Alive! but it was rereleased as Doomed to Die by 21st Century. It was also licensed to Continental Video as The Emerald Jungle.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

You know, there’s lots to love in this goofy little movie, from Angelique Pettyjohn being a psychic used to bring objects out of another dimension to a monster played by director Fred Olen Ray’s seven-year-old son Christopher to Aldo Ray playing a general and songs by Johnny Legend. It’s a rubber suit monster romp that really has no interest in being anything else which you have to respect.

This was released as Space Gremlins in other countries and I love that name.

Psychic Materialization, drugs, monsters, busty psychics, the military industrial complex, bad computer graphics, a comedy relief hobo in love with the E.T. poster he’s found and a shock ending that mixes blood, boobs and beasts all at once — you know that Biohazard isn’t good for you but have you ever huffed paint? Let me tell you, it’s cheap and it hurts your head for days and you know that you’ll be slowed down for a few minutes, probably unable to stand and then you realize that you’re doing way more than smoking or drinking, you’re messing with your brain for life because that rag or bottle you’re sneaking smells out of makes you forget things, sometimes for so long that you never remember them again.

21st Century licensed this to Continental Video.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Here’s a drink recipe.

Biohazard

• 2 oz. vodka
• 1 oz. Midori
• 1 oz. Triple Sec
• 4 oz. Lemon-Lime Gatorade

1. Mix everything in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake it up.
2. Pour it in a glass and get ready for Psychic Materialization.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

A young boy rises from a lake, fully clothed, and travels to church where a priest delivers a fire and brimstone speech about the sins of the world, in particular, six people.

Afterward, the other choir members bully the boy, even putting a knife to his throat.

Those six people have been invited to a ten-year class reunion: John, a lawyer who doesn’t care if his clients are guilty. Cindy, a promiscuous party girl. Terry, an overweight ne’er-do-well. Jane, a wealthy and immoral heiress. Roger, a vain actor. And Kirsten, a lesbian.

The event will be at their old high school, where a mysterious man arrives to kill the janitor and make a mask of his face.

None of the six people really knew one another. Yet they enjoy a room appointed with plenty of room and drink. It’s all fun and games until they find the dead body of the janitor filled with maggots and that the school is locked.

Am I really spoiling anything if I tell you that everyone dies? Terry gets his crotch set on fire with a flamethrower. Jane meets a hunter in disguise who recites poetry to her before killing her with a shotgun. Roger is killed by a magician and his deadly trick. Cindy is attacked by a clown and drowned in a sink, an attack that seems to take forever.

John meets the killer face to unmasked face. He reveals that he has lured them to the school to punish them for lives of sin, such as John being a criminal lawyer who helps guilty criminals go free. The killer is a Redeemer, one who has decided to rid the world of the wicked starting with a few sinners. They fight and John shoots the killer in the side, but he recovers and graphically shoots John in the head.

Kirsten is chased through the school and even gets the gun, but a giant puppet stabs her.

The Redeemer is revealed to be the priest, who returns to the church to finish his sermon, claiming that the six sinners will be given redemption. He then meets with the boy, who reveals that he has killed one of the boys who bullied him, as well as a Bible salesman. The boy tells him that all will be right.

The priest goes home to tend to his wounds and we notice he has an extra thumb, which disappears. The boy goes back to the lake, where he walks into the water and disappears.

The movie closes with this: “From out of the darkness the hand of the Redeemer shall appear to punish those who have lived in sin… and return to the watery depths of Hell.”

Shot in July 1976 and also known as Class Reunion Massacre, this movie is way ahead of its time. And it also seems like it wasn’t created by human beings. It’s legitimately unsettling at times and raises plenty of questions. Who is behind everything? The kid or the priest? Why are they really doing it? Why pick these exact people and this exact school? Why the masks and deathtraps?

Why ask why? This film is closer to a surrealist art film than a horror movie. Just watch the scene with the Grim Reaper costume and the Redeemer screaming and yelling, but locked outside the gates. It’s just…off. And I loved it.

21st Century licensed this to Continental Video as Class Reunion Massacre.

You can watch this on Tubi.