Rospo Pallenberg, the director of this film, is probably better known for the movies that he collaborated on with John Boorman, like Exorcist II: The Heretic, Excalibur and The Emerald Forest. This is the one and only movie he ever directed and sadly, it’s mostly known for being one of Brad Pitt’s first roles.

Brian Woods (Donovan Leitch, son of Donovan, the man who sang about smoking bananas in “Mellow Yellow”) has just been released from a mental hospital after his father was killed suspiciously. He quickly falls in love with Paula (who can blame him, she’s played by Jill Schoelen from Popcorn), but she’s already dating the big jock in town, Dwight (Pitt, who met Schoelen on set and got engaged to her at the end of filming). For some reason, the school’s principal Mr. Dante (Roddy McDowell!) is also in love with her. Once we get that all settled, a bunch of murders start happening and any of Paula’s suitors could be the killer.

I mean, how can you not love a movie where Paula’s district attorney dad (Martin Mull!) gets shot by arrows and spends the entire movie stumbling around and trying to get rescued?

The kills in this movie are ridiculous: one teacher is killed on a Xerox machine and every kid gets a copy of it. Another is having way too good of a time on a trampoline before a flag gets put under it.

It all ends with Dwight’s head in a vice and Brian making him choose between the two men. Paula screams, “Stop fucking with my emotions!” and literally sends a claw hammer into his brains and slicing him in half with a circular saw.

Seriously, this movie is just weird. It has no set tone and usually, that’d make me hate things, but it works here. Also, if you like Wall of Voodoo, they and lead singer Andy Prieboy are all over the soundtrack.

You can get this on blu ray or 4K UHD from MVD. Each includes the 2018 4K restoration from the 35mm original camera negative, as well as interviews with Jill Schoelen and Donovan Leitch, an R-rated cut and a trailer. There’s also a DVD without these extras.

Mark Rosman started his directing career with The House On Sorority Row before working with Hillary Duff on Lizzie McGuire and directing two of her films, A Cinderella Story and The Perfect Man. He was the original director of this film, before his vision clashed with producer Edward L. Montoro.

Yes, Edward L. Montoro, the man behind Film Ventures International, the same guy who brought you movies like Grizzly and Day of the Animals before taking a million dollars out of the company and disappearing forever.

Mutant is one of the reasons why Film Ventures International was failing, which is why Montoro bounced forever. No one even knows if he’s still alive.

Taking over the directing duties of this film would be John “Bud” Cardos, who broke in to Hollywood as a result of his father and uncle managing the Graumann’s Egyptian and Chinese theaters. He started as a child actor in Hal Roach’s 1940’s Our Gang shorts,  was a rodeo rider and a bird handler on The Birds before he began appearing in biker and exploitation films like Hells Angels on Wheels, Psych-Out and Satan’s Sadists before directing his own films like Kingdom of the Spiders, The Day Time Ended and The Dark. Ironically, he was also a last-minute replacement on that movie, taking over for Tobe Hooper.

He’s kept working in Hollywood, even appearing in credits as a driver on films like Memento. You can see him in the recently reviewed Danger God.

When brothers Josh (Wings Hauser, looking and acting bonkers throughout) and Mike (Lee Montgomery, the full-grown star of Ben who is also in the made-for-TV blast The Midnight Hour) are run off the road by local rednecks — it’s Josh’s fault — and forced to spend the night in a small town.

Bo Hopkins — who has been in so much of our redneck favorites like White Lightning and What Comes Around, where he played lookalike Jerry Reed’s brother — plays the local sheriff.

Cary Guffey, the child actor from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, is also here, but unlike most movies that keep the kids safe, Mutant truly does not care. The scene where he’s taken over by mutated children is pretty harrowing and I’m glad I saw it as an adult.

Jennifer Warren, who played the wife of Paul Newman in Slap Shot, gets a special appearance credit. Man, Mutant looks like such a stain on her resume, considering other films she was in like Sam’s Song and Ice Castles. 

Somehow, this movie has a score that was recorded by the National Philharmonic Orchestra. It was composed by Richard Band, the brother of Charles Band.

It’s pretty interesting to me that the fortunes of Montoro’s company rested on this film, which is probably why directors were replaced and the title was changed from Night Shadows.

To be perfectly blunt, this movie is a mess. It never even gets its footing before it starts killing off characters left and right, unsure if it wants to be a redneck movie or a zombie film. That’s OK. I kind of like it just the same.

You can watch this movie on Tubi.

Yes, now I can say that I have seen all four Deathstalker movies.

I have no idea how this is a Film Ventures movie but assume they stole it like they did their films that Mystery Science Theater showed.

Rick Hill, who played Deathstalker in the first film is back (John Terlesky had the role in Deathstalker II and John Allen Nelson (Killer Klowns from Outer Space) was the protagonist in Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell) and he’s in a tournament where the queen wants to commit assault with a friendly weapon on all of the male combatants. He’s also looking for his sword, which means sleeping with plenty of barbarian women, but such is being a sword and sorcery hero.

Also, for some reason, lots of footage from the original film gets re-used.

Maria Ford (Burial of the Rats) is a major plus in this, but you know, after four Deathstalker movies, I kind of feel like just looking at the poster art and imagining a much better film. Brett Baxter Clark — Nick the dick from Bachelor Party, Bruiser from Teen Witch and Shane from Malibu Express — plays Vaniat, one of the fighters, so there’s that.

Writer/director Howard R. Cohen has some pretty decent credits, though. He wrote Unholy Rollers, Stryker, Barbarian Queen and episodes of Rainbow Brite and Care Bears, as well as directing Saturday the 14th, Space Raiders, Space Case, Time Trackers and Saturday the 14th Strikes Back.

I was hoping that the last Deathstalker was going to blow my mind, like how the Ator series suddenly becomes an insane MTV musical with Iron Warrior. That said, even the worst sword and sorcery movie fills me with happiness, so I didn’t hate the time I spent watching this.

The rest of the movies in this series:

• Deathstalker
• Deathstalker II
• Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell

You can also check out our Sword and Sorcery list on Letterboxd.

In 2013, when the Alamo Drafthouse presented the uncut version of this film for the first time in the United States, they referred to it as an “unforgettable assault on reality.” Those words best describe what is otherwise an indescribable film.

But I’m going to try.

Maybe a recipe will help.

Take Chariots of the Gods, and some of Rosemary’s Mary, then a little bit of The Omen, throw it in a blender and then pour the whole thing down the sink.

No? Maybe a synopsis.

We start in Heaven, or somewhere very much like it, where Franco Nero (the original Django) is one of those space gods that Erich von Däniken wrote about. He tells the bald children who surround him that there was once a war between two aliens, one good and one bad. The bad one — who is either called Sateen or Zathaar — was defeated, but not before he slept with a whole bunch of Earthwomen. Cue the Book of Enoch in the Lost Books of the Bible. Or cue the Scientology myth of Lord Xenu. Or Xemu, because he has two different spellings, too.

Only one child is left — a young girl — and a vast conspiracy wants her mother to have another child — a brother this time — so they can mate. The Christ figure sends John Huston — yes, the director of The Maltese Falcon and The African Queen — and the bald children to a rooftop somewhere in Atlanta to stop this plot. To do that, the children become adult bad men and dance around a lot while Huston walks up and down the stairs to triumphant music. If you think I’m making that last sentence up, you’ve never been blessed with this movie.

Meanwhile, Lance Henriksen (Near Dark, Aliens) is Ted Turner, pretty much. His name is Raymond Armstead and he owns the Atlanta Rebels basketball team that plays at the Omni and is dating Barbara (Joanne Nail, Switchblade Sisters), who of course is the woman who has the seed of the gods inside her. Her daughter Katy is 8 years old and already using her powers to help the Rebels win their games. But that isn’t all the help Raymond is getting. The rich, powerful and ultra-secretive Zathaar cult control the world and are helping his team become winners. All he has to do is marry Barbara, knock her up and let their kids fuck. Hopefully, they have a boy, or Raymond is gonna have to get in the saddle all over again.

Raymond can’t even do that right and the leader of the bad guys, Mel Ferrer (The Antichrist and Eaten Alive!) is upset and ready to quit on Raymond. Barbara doesn’t want more kids and certainly doesn’t want another child. But who can blame her? Her daughter is one creepy little girl. Her daughter knows all about the conspiracy and begs her mom to get married so she can have a brother (and this is where, in person, I’d throw in “…to have sex with” but I’d use the f word). How creepy is Katy? Well, she kills a bunch of boys with her mental powers because they make fun of her while she ice skates. And then she accidentally shoots her mother at a birthday party. Yep, it’s as if The Bad Seed met Carrie!

Then, as all 70’s occult movies must, the stars of Hollywood’s golden age make appearances!

Glenn Ford, the actor, plays a cop that Katy curses out and uses hawks to make wreck his car!

Shelley Winters plays Barbara’s nurse who once had one of the space babies and killed it, but can’t bring herself to kill Katy! According to interviews, Winters really smacked around Paige Conner, the actress who played Katy!

Sam Peckinpah, the director (!), plays an abortionist who removes one of the space babies from Barbara after the conspiracy pays a bunch of things to artificially inseminate her. Turns out Peckinpah had trouble remembering his lines, which is why we never learn that he’s Barabara’s ex-husband! Then is he Katy’s dad? Who knows! His voice is even Peckinpah’s! They had to ADR all of his dialogue.

In response to the abortion, Katy shoves her mom through a fish tank. She also decides to throw her down the stairs, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?-style. And by throw her down the steps, I mean do it over and over and over again.

Meanwhile, John Huston is still going up and down the stairs. Finally, they HAVE HAD ENOUGH (I like to emphasize that so you get the gist) and sent their John Woo-ian flock of doves to fight the hawks. And meanwhile, Mel Ferrer and all his men show up dead with black marks on their bodies.

And Katy? Well, as Huston tells us, kids can never be evil. She gets her head shaved and goes to space to meet Instellar Jesus Christ. The title comes up as insane music blares.

Writer/director/insane man Michael J. Paradise (Giulio Paradisi) also was in Fellini’s 8 1/2 and La Dolce Vita. What inspired him to this level of cinematic goofiness? He was helped along by Ovidio G. Assonitis, whose resume includes writing Beyond the Door, Madhouse and Forever Emmanuelle before becoming the major stockholder and CEO of Cannon Pictures in 1990. That may explain some. But not all.

I know I often write things like “I don’t have the words to describe this” when I do these reviews — especially after I write a few hundred words all about said subject. But this is one time that that statement is not pure hyperbole. Just watch the trailer and be prepared to lose your grasp on normalcy!

The Visitor defies the logic of good and bad film. It can only be graded on the is it an absolute film, ala Fulci or Jodorowsky. It is something to be experienced.

You can watch this movie on Tubi.

This movie is, of course, Juan Piquer Simón’s Extra Terrestrial Visitors. The opening and end credits use footage from The Galaxy Invader by director Don Dohler.

Simón also made Pieces and Slugs, so we can forgive him for Supersonic Man, The Rift and Cthulhu Mansion (which I like for some reason). With this movie, he’s challenging us a bit.

Los nuevos extraterrestres was meant to be a frightening movie about an alien on a murderous Earth rampage, but then E.T. came out and who better than the man who made Pieces to create a clone of Spielberg’s family classic?

It starts with poachers trying to get to the alien eggs that they find in the woods and being killed in the process, as well as a rock band getting involved. Then Tommy (Óscar Martín), our child protagonist, brings one of the eggs home and ends up helping it hatch, at which point he gets a new telekinetic friend he calls Trumpy.

Maybe that name hasn’t aged well.

Meanwhile, the band — Rick (Ian Sera, Kendall from Pieces and obviously his genitals have healed well as he has a roving eye), his girlfriend Lara (Susana Bequer, who shows up in Hostel: Part II), Kathy (Sara Palmer) and Tracy (Maria Albert), along with a hitchhiker named Sharon (Nina Ferrer) they found on the way — show up at Tommy’s house and Lara soon dies with a Big Dipper symbol on her forehead, which happens after she’s attacked by Trumpy’s mother and falls off a cliff.

This movie alternates between sweet moments between alien and child versus angry alien mother killing people left and right before being shot tons of times by Rick after she kills Tommy’s angry Uncle Bill (Manuel Pereiro). The boy and alien say their goodbyes and you’re like, well, didn’t we just watch Bambi’s murderous mother get killed? Has anyone learned anything in this? Is Trumpy going to grow up and murder us all?

By the way, if Tommy’s room feels familiar, it’s the same room where Timmy was working on his dirty puzzle in Pieces. 

I have no idea who this movie is for, but I have to respect the lengths it takes to make us think that it was shot in America, as Tommy’s bedroom has tons of Boston sports pennants to the point that you question why there are so many of them and start to realize that no, this didn’t come from the colonies and no, in no way is this a sequel or in the same world as E.T., no matter what they want to tell you.

The chocolate of alien murder in the woods and peanut butter of human and alien childhood friendship does not taste that great when smashed together, but it sure is fascinating and man, Trumpy looks legitimately like an alien to the point where if you told me that he was an escapee from Groom Lake, I’d believe you.

This is being released on blu ray from Severin. It has a 4K scan from the 35mm negative, plus extras such as The Simon’s Jigsaw — A Journey Into the Universe of Juan Piquer Simon, interviews with Emilio Linder and composer Librado Pastor, a private concert with Pastor, the Pod People credits and a CD soundtrack single. You can get it from Severin.

José Ramón Larraz went to school for philosophy, became a comic book writer and then made some wild movies, like Whirlpool, which Roger Ebert negatively reviewed — I mean, I love it — by saying that it was a genuinely sickening film. It has to do with various varieties of sex, yes, but its main appeal seems to be its violence… The violence is not, however, the cathartic sort to be found in The Wild Bunch or the comic strip spaghetti Westerns. It’s a particularly grisly sort of violence, photographed for its own sake and deliberately relishing in its ugliness. It made me awfully uneasy.” He also directed the Spanish Western Watch Out Gringo! Sabata Will Return, The House That Vanished (which had so many titles, including Scream…And Die! and Please! Don’t Go in the Bedroom, as well as a campaign that made it look like Last House on the Left), Symptoms, Stigma, Black Candles (AKA Sex Rites of the Devil) and three American co-productions before the end of his career, the underrated Edge of the Axe, Rest in Pieces and Deadly Manor.

The film starts with its leads, Fran (Marianne Morris) and Miriam (Anulka Dziubinska, billed here as Anulka; a former Page 3 girl who was the Playboy Playmate of the Month for May 1973, she was once married to Soupy Sales’ son Tony, who was in Tin Machine with David Bowie, Reeves Gabriels and his brother Hunt Sales) in bed together, which was probably quite shocking in 1974, but perhaps even more shocking is when they’re machine gunned before the credits.

They’re brought back as vampires that roam the British countryside and take in wayward male motorists, draining them of more than blood before disposing of these conquests. They have a different form of vampirism than you may have seen before, making grisly arm wounds that they continually feed from, closer to cannibals than bloodsuckers.

Morris and Anulka make quite the pair; the film is in love with everything they do. Beyond the gorgeous leads, the scenery is just as inviting, as this was not around Oakley Court, which Hammer used for The Man in Black, The Lady Craved Excitement, The Brides of Dracula, The Reptile and The Plague of the Zombies. William Castle shot The Old Dark House there and you’ll also see it in films like Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny, and Girly; And Now the Screaming Starts! and perhaps most famously, it was the home of Dr. Frank N. Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. While it had no heat or running water when that movie was filmed, it’s now a luxury hotel.

This played double features with The Devil’s Rain! in England, which is my kind of night.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Sure, at its heart Vigilante is Death Wish, but both of those movies are really just westerns updated to fit the decade that they were created for. Plus, where Bronson’s film at least seems to end with some hope, this movie is a nihilistic, cynical and pessimistic journey into hell, which is really the only three ways to properly describe just such a trip.

Eddie Marino is played by Robert Forster in a rare lead role. You know how I always say that every movie should have William Smith in it? Well, let’s amend that by saying that if William Smith doesn’t want to do it, call Robert Forester. Despite living in the end of the world NYC of 1982, he has a good wife (Rutanya Alda, who between Mommie Dearest, The Stuff, Amityville II: The Possession and Girls Nite Out ends up being in so many of my favorite movies) and a cute little kid.

Sadly, he’s not in some coming of age tale or family drama. No, Eddie Marino has the bad fortune to be the hero of a William Lustig movie. And between scalp-lopping serial killers and zombified cops, every Lustig movie I’ve seen is full of tragedy, despair and a casual disregard for morality and the suffering of its characters.

Eddie’s co-workers, Nick (Fred Williamson, always a more than welcome sight), Burke (Richard Bright, Cut and Run) and Ramon (Joseph Carberry, Short Eyes) are fed up with crime, the cops and the system that keeps criminals out of jail. Now, the neighborhood tells them, instead of the police, who is behind the crimes that happen every day.

Eddie refuses to be a part of this, even when he comes home to find his wife stabbed and his son shot and killed. His wife had helped a gas station attendant who was being abused and that’s all it took for Frederico “Rico” Melendez (Willie Colón, a salsa king when not acting) and his gang to snap.

Assistant District Attorney Mary Fletcher (Carol Lynley*, The Night Stalker) tries to get him put away, but another gang member named Prago (Don Blakely), bribes the Judge Sinclair, allowing his defender Eisenburg (Joe Spinell!) to get him off with a plea bargain. Eddie flips out, attacks the judge and ends up being the one to go to the big house.

After being saved from a jailhouse assault by Rake (Woody Strode, the former pro wrestler who was also in Keoma and Once Upon a Time in the West; as if we need any reinforcement that this movie is a western), our hero does his time and emerges ready to get bloody revenge. His wife has left him, his son is dead and now, he has nothing left to lose.

While Vigilante was successful at the box office, Lustig never saw any profits from the film at all. First, Film Ventures International wanted to rename it Street Gang**. Then, as we all know, producer Edward L. Montoro ran away in 1985 with a million dollars in company money and was never seen again.

*This role was meant for Caroline Munro.

**It played in Detroit, Chicago and Pittsburgh with that title.

You can watch this on Tubi or do yourself a kindness and get the 4K UHD and blu ray set from Blue Underground. It has a 16-bit print from the original 35mm camera negative, with Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos audio, along with three different commentary tracks (Lustig and co-producer Andrew Garroni; Lustig and Robert Forster, Fred Williamson and Frank Pesce; Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson), trailers, TV and radio commercials, interviews with writer Richard Vetere, Rutanya Alda and associate producer/first A.D./actor Randy Jurgensen and a book with plenty of info on the film from Michael Gingold.

This movie is great. This release is even better.

From a story by Robert Ayre and a play by Ketti Frings, this is the tale of John Gwilt (Jason Robards), a postman who decides that he wants to become a tree. He plants himself in his back yard and waits for it to happen while his wife Jane (Sandy Dennis) tries everything she knows to get him to be normal. At the same time, John finds a sympathetic figure in librarian Estelle Benbow (Jean Simmons).

Directed and written by Pancho Kohner, who produced the Bronson movies Assassination, Death Wish 4, Messenger of Death, 10 to Midnight, The Evil That Men Do, St. Ives, The White Buffalo and  Kinjite, this is definitely a movie of its time.

You can watch this on YouTube.

With a newly made title that runs over scenes from Son of Godzilla — broken by a red border at times — this movie starts with a copyright from Film Ventures International for a movie they did not make or possibly even own — “© Copyright in video, music, editing, special effects, packaging, and design. Film Ventures International Inc. 1990”.

This movie started as a vehicle for the Japanese version of King Kong, with the title Operation Robinson Crusoe: King Kong vs. Ebirah. It was rejected by Rankin/Bass Productions, the folks who created all your favorite holiday specials and who had the rights to Kong, producing a licensed TV show — The King Kong Show — which was amongst the first original cartoons to be produced in Japan for Americans.

King Kong’s role was replaced with Godzilla under the title Ebirah, Horror of the Deep*. It’s the first of two Godzilla films — Son of Godzilla is the other — set on a South Pacific island instead of Japan.

What most filmmakers have never realized is that no one cares at all about the humans in these stories. As a child and an adult, I do not care if people find their brothers that have been lost or if the Red Bamboo terrorist group sells heavy water weapons. I only care to see the monster crab named Ebirah and our friend Godzilla fight.

Yet as an old man, I also feel for Godzilla, who just wants to hide in a cave and sleep after defeating the menace of Ghidorah. Instead, these kids make a lightning rod** and zap him to awareness before he has to kill a giant condo (which is totally a Rodan costume), knock down some jets and then set that big crustacean*** straight by ripping his claws off.

Bonus points to Godzilla to remembering that just because Mothra**** is the friend of humanity, she and he are not on speaking terms. The movie ends with another big battle, an island getting blown up real good and Godzilla going back into the murky depths. Soon, he would meet his son, but that’s a story for another day.

This one has a really lower budget and reused the Daisenso-Goji suit. At some point during filming, the head of this suit was combined with the Mosu-Goji suit for episode ten of Ultraman to create the monster Jirass. That head was replaced with a different head that shows up after Godzilla fights the Red Bamboo and is noticeable for the bug eyes and raised eyebrows.

A lizard with eyebrows. This is why I love Godzilla.

*It’s known by so many names around the world, but my favorites are Germany’s Frankenstein and the Monster from the Ocean, Poland’s Ebirah: The Monster of Magic and Holland’s Mothra the Flying Dracula Monster.

**Godzilla being powered by electricity is totally because the script was written for the Japanese King Kong, who is powered that way. It’s also why he’s so protective of Dayo, as falling for human females is a Kong characteristic.

***Ebirah’s name comes from the Japanese word ebi. That means shrimp, so he’s really one of those and not a crab, but he has crab claws, so…

****This is the last Showa-era Godzilla film where Mothra’s twin helpers the Shobijin, appear. They’re played by the same actress, Pair Bambi, instead of The Peanuts (Emi and Yumi Itô).