Also known as Abbot of Shaolin, this is all about Chi San (David Chiang), who has been sent by his Shaolin masters to learn a special kung fu from a Wu-Tang priest. There, he befriends Wu Mei (Lily Li) and runs afoul of the priest’s brother Pai Mei (Lo Lieh) and nephew Dao De (Ku Kuan Chun), who support the Quin. Well, before long, those evildoers have burned the Shaolin Temple to the ground and with his dying breath, the master tells Chi San he must travel to bring the Shaolin back to life. Drunk with power, Pai Mei kills his brother and attempts to seek out our hero, who has been gathering new students and preparing to rebuild the Shaolin Temple.
Director Ho Meng-Hua gets a Shaolin monk vs Tibetan lama fight in this, as well as a giant white eyebrow villain in Pai Mei that can shut off all of his body’s pressure points, which makes him one of the unbeatable Shaw Brothers final bosses that seemingly can defeat two or more good guys at the same time.
I’ve seen the Shaolin Temple burn so many times and even another film with Pai Mei — Executioners from Shaolin— and his brother White Lotus try to get revenge — Clan of the White Lotus — but I’ll watch it over and over again. Gordon Liu even showed up as Pai Mei in Kill Bill Volume 2, so when Westerners think of Shaw Brothers movies, he may be the exact character they imagine.
Thanks to Erich Kuersten, who correctly pointed out that I confused Lo Lieh with Gordon Liu. Check out his site, Acidemic. It’s awesome.
Directed and written by Chor Yuen, this is the story of Little Flying Dagger Li (Ti Lung), who has such strong ideals that he has lost almost everyone in his life, including Lin Hsin-ehr (Li Cheng), the woman he loves, who he feels unworthy of after a rival sword fighter saves his life. Now he wanders the countryside, drunk all day, for ten years with his assistant Chuan Jia (Fan Mei-Sheng). He then learns that the Plum Blossom Bandit is endangering his homeland. When he comes home, he meets Ah Fei (Derek Yee), another warrior who is looking for a gold armor shirt that can protect its user from any strike. Seeing as how the Plum Blossom Bandit kills with darts, this vest is very important.
Based on Gu Long’s Sentimental Swordsman, Ruthless Sword, this finds its hero wine drunk and pining for someone he knows he should have fought for. Seeing as how he’s the third best fighter in the world, he has a lot to deal with and all he wants to do is look at nature and, yes, drink to numb the pain of losing the only perfect woman he’ll ever know. Even when the bad guys poison his wine, he drinks more wine to get over it.
Funny enough, Li doesn’t use a sword but a fan. The name works for him, I guess, because it sets up all those people coming to fight him up to think he has a blade and instead he whips around a metal fan, which is a pretty interesting weapon and one I figure not many people have prepared themselves for.
Chor Yuen made seven movies in 1977 and its amazing that this looks as good and works as well as it does. That’s hard working.
Director Cheng Chang-ho (King Boxer, Temptress of a Thousand Faces) moved from Korea to Hong Kong to spend several years at Shaw Brothers before moving to Golden Harvest, making five movies that were set in modern times.
Detective Lung (Shin Il-ryong) is trying to find out who killed his father when he discovers that his father was a smuggler and that his business partner was the murderer. Now hiding under a new name — Wang (Chao Hsiung) — that man thinks that he is safe from Lung. He’s wrong. Our hero quits the force and heads to Bali, ready to get revenge for his father. He’s joined by his old man’s former partner, Chang (Chan Sing), who has a love for explosives.
Even better, you get the inked up Michael Chan Wai-Man and a John Lennon-glasses wearing Sammo Hung as the henchmen that they battle. Whether they’re chasing the bad guys — well, badder guys — in cars, on foot or riding motorcycles, this is a high action fight to the finish.
The Eureka! blu ray release of The Double Crossers has 1080p HD presentation from a brand new 2K restoration of both the Hong Kong theatrical cut and English language export cut. There’s new audio commentary on the Hong Kong theatrical version by East Asian film expert Frank Djeng, as well as new audio commentary on the export version by action cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema, plus a trailer. It’s all inside a reversible sleeve featuring original poster artwork, as well as a limited edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Darren Wheeling and a collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by James Oliver. You can get it from MVD.
How weird was it when The Guyver just randomly showed up in my local video store, unannounced, bringing Japan weirdness into my 19-year-old movie rental obsession life?
When Dr. Tetsu Segawa steals the Guyver unit from the villainous company he’s been working for, his daughter’s boyfriend Sean accidentally finds it, puts it in his backpack and has it fuse with his body after he’s attacked by a street gang. That makes him a marked man by Fulton Balcus (David Gale) and his gang of Zoanoid mutants, which includes Lisker (Michael Berryman), M.C. Striker (Jimmie Walker) and Weber (Spice Williams-Crosby).
Directed by Screaming Mad George and Steve Wang, this movie has some of the wildest effects I’ve ever seen, full body suits that still look great thirty years after I first watched this. I’m also still surprised that Mark Hamill is in this, while not as surprised that Jeffrey Combs and Linnea Quigley are in this.
Based loosely on the Yoshiki Takaya manga, this takes a lot of liberties with its inspiration, but for someone in the very landlocked small Western Pennsylvania town that I grew up in, finding this on the shelves of Prime Time Video was like some kind of magic, bringing something I thought I would never see to a place that I thought I would never get out of.
The Unearthed Films release of The Guyver is amazing, putting a movie into my collection that I thought I would never have. It has a 4K restoration of the original R-rated 35mm camera negative, along with the soundtrack on CD and a book. Extras include commentary with co-directors Screaming Mad George and Steve Wang, moderated by Dom O’Brien, the author of Budget Biomorphs: The Making of The Guyver Films, interviews with Brian Yuzna and Screaming Mad George, suit tests, outtakes, a gag reel, a production and art gallery, an alternative title sequence and trailers. You can get it from MVD.
Directed and written by Albert Band, this was the last Ghoulies movie to have any involvement from Charles Band, who sold the rights to Vestron Pictures to save Empire Pictures.
The ghoulies hit the road in this one, hiding in a truck that’s carrying a dark ride for a carnival. If Satan’s Den doesn’t start bringing in some cash, the carnival is going to close. So Larry (Damon Martin), his drunken Uncle Ned (Royal Dano) and a Shakespeare quoting smaller man named Sig Nigel (Phil Fondacaro) are going to give it all they’ve got. What they don’t know is that the scares are being created by actual demons. Or ghoulies. You know what I mean.
Shot on a soundstage in Rome’s Empire Studios, this was the only Ghoulies movie to play in theaters. I kind of love that W.A.S.P. has “Scream Until You Like It” on the soundtrack. What was it with W.A.S.P. and Empire Pictures movies? Their song “Tormentor” is also in The Dungeonmaster (and Ghost Warrior, which is not an Empire film).
This movie believes in viewer feedback. After many people complained that no one was killed on a toilet in the first Ghoulies, this was fixed here.
Also: This movie got me to make a Letterboxd list of 80s horror and science fiction movies where Royal Dano plays a drunk. And a list of movies where W.A.S.P. shows up, too.
The MVD 4K UHD release of this movie has a 2024 4K (2160p) restoration of the film presented in its original 1.85:1 Aspect Ratio in Dolby Vision. It includes both the 90 minute Theatrical PG-13 cut and the restored 91 minute R-Rated Director’s Cut of the film. Plus, you get an introduction by Screenwriter Dennis Paoli, a trailer, a reversible cover, a collectible 4K LaserVision poster, a making of, an interview with Paoli and a trailer. You can get it from MVD.
Let’s just assume that the events of Demons actually happened, as this movie does. Released just seven months after the original, this movie opens with the residents of a high-rise apartment building watching a movie dramatization of the events that took place in that film. They watch as several teenagers trespass into the closed-off city that was destroyed after the demonic outbreak. Finding the dead body of a demon, one of the teens accidentally drips blood in its mouth and the whole thing starts all over again.
Sally Day (Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni, Mother of Tears, Opera) is upset that her boyfriend hasn’t come to her sweet sixteen party — or as they say in Italy, dolce sedici anni — and she decides to watch the movie. So, you know, as these things happen, a demon crawls out of her television set and infects her. She kills nearly everyone at her party and turns them into more demons, who begin to infect the entire apartment building. Little kids, dogs, cops, bodybuilders, pregnant women — no one is safe from these demons.
George and Hannah (David Edwin Knight and Nancy Brilli, who was also in Body Count) spend most of the movie trying to escape Sally so that they can have their child. She’s nearly unstoppable, plus she has a flying demon on her side.
Italian movie fans should keep their eyes open for Asia Argento, who debuted in this film as Ingrid. Plus, Bobby Rhodes (from the original, as well as Hercules and War Bus Commando), Virginia Bryant (who is also in the unrelated sequel Demons 3: The Ogre), Lino Salemme (Ripper from the first film), Davide Marotta (who played a child alien in a very famous series of Italian Kodak commercials and was also the monstrous boy in Phenomena) and Michele Mirabella (Dancing Crow from Thunder).
Originally, Hannah’s baby would become a demon inside her and claw its way out of her stomach. This scene was taken out when Lamberto Bava and Dario Argento decided they wanted a happier ending. Which is nice, I guess.
After all, this movie is more about jump scares and less about freaking you out with the sheer amount of gore that it features. Is it any wonder that it has less of a metal soundtrack and instead features new wave bands like The Smiths, The Cult, Fields of the Nephilim, Dead Can Dance, Peter Murphy, Love and Rockets, Gene Loves Jezebel and The Producers?
The 4K UHD release of Demons 2 is newly remastered in 4K from the original camera negative in Dolby Vision and has new audio commentary by film critic Travis Crawford. There’s also interviews with Luigi Cozzi, Sergio Stivaletti, Federico Zampaglione, Roy Bava and Simon Boswell, as well as a new visual essay on the space and technology in Demons and Demons 2 by author and critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and original Italian and English theatrical trailers. You can get this from MVD.
They will make cemeteries their cathedrals and the cities will be your tombs. With that line, you know that what you’re about to watch better be the most mind-blowing horror film possible. Good news — Demons is all of that and then some, the kind of movie that has everything that I watch movies for.
I can’t be silent or still while it runs, growing more excited by every moment. It is the perfect synthesis of 1980’s gore and heavy metal, presented with no characterization or character growth whatsoever. It’s also the most awesome movie you will ever watch.
This is an all-star film, if you consider Italian 80’s horror creators to be all-stars. There’s Lamberto Bava directing and doing special effects, Dario Argento producing, a script written by Bava, Argento, Franco Ferrini (Once Upon a Time in America, Phenomena) and Dardano Sacchetti (every single Italian horror film that was ever awesome…a short list includes A Bay of Blood, Shock, The Beyond, 1990: The Bronx Warriors, Blastfighter, Hands of Steeland so many more), and assistant directing and acting from Michele Soavi.
The movie starts on the Berlin subway, where Cheryl is pursued by a silver masked man (Soavi) who hands her tickets to see a movie at the Metropol. She brings along her friend Kathy (Paola Cozzo from A Cat in the Brain and Demonia) and they soon meet two boys, George (Urbano Barberini, Gor, Opera) and Ken.
The masked man has brought all manner of folks to the theater: a blind man and his daughter and some interesting couples, including a boyfriend and girlfriend, an older married one and Tony the pimp and his girls, one of whom is Shocking Dark‘s Geretta Geretta. As they wait for the movie to begin, a steel mask in the lobby scratches her.
The movie that unspools — a slasher about teenagers who disturb the final resting place of Nostradamus — also has that very same steel mask. When it touches anyone in the movie, they turn murderous. At the very same time, one of the prostitutes scratches herself in the bathroom and her face erupts into pus and reveals a demon. From here on out, the movie becomes one long action sequence, as the other prostitute transforms into a demon in front of the entire audience.
Meanwhile, four punks do cocaine in a Coke can and break in, releasing a demon into the city as the rest of the movie audience attempt to escape and are killed one by one. Only George and Cheryl survive, as our hero uses a sword and motorcycle to attack the demons before a helicopter crashes through the roof. But then the masked man attacks them!
I’m not going to ruin the rest of the movie, only to say that even the credits offer no safety in the world of Demons. And oh yeah — Giovanni Frezza (Bob from House by the Cemetery) shows up!
Demons is ridiculous. Pure goop and gore mixed with power chords, samurai swords, punk rockers and even a Billy Idol song which had to blow the budget. It also looks gorgeous — filled with practical effects, gorgeous film stock and amazing colors, no doubt the influence of Bava’s father. The scene where the yellow-eyed demons emerge from the blue blackness is everything horror movies should be.
This doesn’t just have my highest recommendation. It earns my scorn if you haven’t seen it yet!
Want to know way too much about this movie and everything connected to it?
The 4K UHD release of Demons is newly remastered in 4K from the original camera negative in Dolby Vision. There are two versions of the film: the full-length original cut in English and Italian and the shorter U.S. version featuring alternate dubbing and sound effects. There’s new audio commentary by critics Kat Ellinger and Heather Drain and an audio commentary with director Lamberto Bava, SPFX artist Sergio Stivaletti, composer Claudio Simonetti and actress Geretta Geretta. There’s a feature about Dario Argento producing this movie, interviews with Argento, Claudio Simonetti, Luigi Cozzi and Ottaviano Dell’Acqua, the original Italian and English international theatrical trailers and the U.S. theatrical trailer. You can get it from MVD.
Findlay Week (August 18 – 24) Husband and wife Michael and Roberta Findlay made mean-spirited films. They collaborated on films like Take Me Naked, The Ultimate Degenerate, and the notorious Flesh Trilogy, plus they actually looked like criminals – walking mug shots! You expect to see them glowering on the cover of one of those tabloids next to a headline like “KIDNAPPER COUPLE COLLECTED VICTIMS FINGERS.” Instead they were pornographers which did make them like criminals in their day. A lot of the filmmakers of their era would claim they only made this kind of movie because there was money in it, but Michael and Roberta were sincere adherents. Even when audience tastes changed and the couple were divorced they continued to make their own films that mixed in elements of kink and cruelty.
Man, Roberta Findlay made some incredibly scummy movies. This is just another example of her talents, a movie in which Janie (Mary Jane Carpenter, Sex Family Robinson, How to Succeed with Sex, Double Initiation) tells her daddy — who yes, she’s sleeping with — about all the people that she’s killed. After each murder, she makes love to herself as shes covered with blood.
This movie is fuzzy and scuzzy and the audio is all over the place and the music is way too loud and everything looks like a mess and yet, it’s exactly right. Roberta directed most of this, although some credit Jack Bravman (Zombie Nightmare, Night of the Dribbler and the producer of the Findlay’s Snuff).
Everyone has on outfits that Robert Crumb would be crazy for and Roberta does the borderline maniac narration for the nudie cutie gone slasher footage that we watch, where sound rarely matches up with voices. This is a dirty movie with no sex, a film that promises titilation and only delivers strangeness.
I would compare this movie to something else, but there really isn’t anything else like it. Man, Roberta Findlay inspires me more and more with each of her films I see, because she was out there in the 60’s and 70’s making mindbending pieces of trashy art even if she had to use a man’s name to make it happen.
The other night, I had a tooth infection and the only way I could sleep was to lie my face on a heating pad until it felt like it was scalding my flesh and I fell asleep finally, fitfully, and when I awoke I was totally covered in sweat and afraid from the dreams that I had. That’s exactly what watching this movie is like, so beware.
Findlay Week (August 18 – 24) Husband and wife Michael and Roberta Findlay made mean-spirited films. They collaborated on films like Take Me Naked, The Ultimate Degenerate, and the notorious Flesh Trilogy, plus they actually looked like criminals – walking mug shots! You expect to see them glowering on the cover of one of those tabloids next to a headline like “KIDNAPPER COUPLE COLLECTED VICTIMS FINGERS.” Instead they were pornographers which did make them like criminals in their day. A lot of the filmmakers of their era would claim they only made this kind of movie because there was money in it, but Michael and Roberta were sincere adherents. Even when audience tastes changed and the couple were divorced they continued to make their own films that mixed in elements of kink and cruelty.
Directed and written by Roberta Findlay, this is the story of Punkin (C.J. Laing), a country girl who works as a maid for the rich Jason Crean-Smith (Marlow Ferguson). When that dirty old man dies, Punkin gets all of his money, if not the respect of the rich people she must now be around. People like Deidre (Jennifer Jordan, Abigail Leslie Is Back in Town) and Diana (Crystal Sync, Punk Rock), who we meet as they judge who has the largest member, Russian rich guy Peter the Great (John Holmes) or Southern gentleman The Great Peter (Tony “The Hook” Perez).
The story is told by Dixon the butler (Jeffrey Hurst, The Tiffany Mynx), who is more into bread and pastries — to an absurd degree — than any of the gorgeous women around him. It all ends with Laing encountering Holmes, Perez and Eric Edwards, which is the kind of athleticism that should make you an Olympian.
Supposedly, Roberta was frustrated by lack of acting Laing did in this, but the actress famously said, “I purposely would not act. I despised the people in these films that said they were actors. I was like, “You’ve got to be kidding me! This is about fucking and sucking!”” That scene where she’s rolling around naked, covered in money? Yeah. That’s still acting.
There’s also a scene with Marlene Willoughby that is edited from a lot of versions of this. She’s an adult actress who crossed over into the mainstream, appearing in Married to the Mob, Trading Places and I, The Jury. She was married to Sonny Landham, Billy from Predator.
The music in this comes from Slim Pickins, an Allentown, PA rock band that appeared or did music for several other of Roberta’s films, including Sweet, Sweet Freedom, The New York City Woman, Dear Pam and Fringe Benefits. Speaking of Findlay and music, I’m always amazed that Sonic Youth recorded at the Reeltime Distributing Corp. studio that she owned with Walter Sear.
Directed by Josh Yunis and written by David Kirkeby, Sarah Kruchowski and Jason Romaine, Camp attempts to be a throwback to the summer teen sex comedies that I grew up with, yet with its head and heart fully aware of the changes that have happened since then.
The thing you may not realize is that this was made in 2016. So maybe it’s not as much a throwback as a frozen leftover.
Teens gather for their last summer at Camp Pearlstein, a place that even has its own twin rabbis, Jason and Randy (played by the Sklar Brothers), as well as traditional counselors like Hulk (Horatio Sanz) and Ruth (Sarah Kruchowski). Well, traditional is just a title, because they’re stranger than any of the kids they’re watching over.
The plot is what you expect: Jake (Brendan Meyer) is in love with Maya (Mychala Lee) but has to contend with Ezra (Ian Nelson), a peeping tom with a smart phone who just wants to see as many of the girls naked and in his bed as possible. And despite being prominent on the poster, Joey King is barely in this. She became a bigger star than most of the cast in the time this sat on the shelf.
I guess instead of trying to relive my memories of all the sleepover camps of my teen years — which were only experienced on the TV and through VHS — I should just go back and watch those movies. There are a few funny parts — the Sklar Brothers are pretty funny — but that strange subplot about the counselors dressing as Nazi specters is…weird. Like the movie forgets that it’s a comedy weird.
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