Also known as Sundance and the Kid and Sundance Cassidy and Butch the Kid, an attempt to win the audience of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, this movie was directed by Duccio Tessari, who wrote A Fistful of Dollars and would go on to direct A Pistol for Ringo. Its story comes from Ennio Flaiano, who wrote ten movies with Fellini, and has a screenplay by Tessari and Giorgio Salvioni (The Tenth Victim).

In the U.S. version, everyone gets an American name: Giuliano Gemma is John Wade; Nino Benvenuti becomes Robert Neuman; Sydne Rome is Karen Blake and director Tessari is called Arthur Pitt.

Country mouse Ted Mulligan (Nino Benvenuti, a former boxer) and city mouse Monty (Giuliano Gemma) inherit $300,000 if they can live together for six months.As soon as Ted arrives, he insults local tough “Bad Jim” Williams (Robert Huerta) who responds by burning down his brother’s house. Soon, the two of them are doing odd jobs, including robbing banks and kidnapping Rossella (Sydne Rome, What?, Some Girls Do) who they both fall for.

It’s all rather goofy and really a predecessor of the sillier Italian westerns that were soon to come riding into town.

Yet another Kommissar X film — there were seven of them and this one was originally titled Kommissar X – Drei grüne Hunde — this entry features the team of Tony Kendall and Brad Harris. They were the Terence Hill and Bud Spencer of their day. Here. Tony is Joe Louis Walker, aka Kommissar X and Brad is New York Police Department Captain Rowland.

Rowland has traveled to travels to Istanbul to bring a shipment of LSD for the U.S. armed forces — MK Ultra anyone? — but the Green Hounds steal the shipment.

Olga Schoberova (The Vengeance of She), Christa Linder (Dracula in the Provinces) and Samson Burke (The Three Stooges Meet Hercules) are all in this.

Also known as Death Trip, this Eurospy film was directed by writer Rudolf Zehetgruber and Gianfranco Parolini (God’s Gun, Three Fantastic Supermen).

According to Michael Callari — who posted the YouTube video linked below — Film Ventures International began using a legal loophole while releasing movies on VHS in 1989. They took several films and created their own opening and closing credits using footage from a different movie, then claimed that the movie in between was just a clip.

Nine of the FVI movies that aired on Mystery Science 3000 used this magic trick on the legal system. They include:

• Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster
• Cave Dwellers (Ator the Blade Master)
• Pod People (Extra Terrestrial Visitors)
• Stranded In Space (The Stranger)
• Master Ninja I (The Master)
• Master Ninja II (The Master)
• Space Travelers (Marooned)
• City Limits
• Being from Another Planet (Time Walker)

Gamera Strikes Back, which FVI released on home video, also has this alteration, basing their credits off of scenes from Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster. Of course, they didn’t own that footage, so who can even say how this really was legal.

As that footage is impossible to find, Michael made this version of what he thinks it looked like:

Now, on to the movie.

Also known as War of the Monsters in the U.S. thanks to its English-language dubbing by American International Television, the second Gamera film has twice the budget of the first and realizes what they should have known all along: Gamera isn’t the villain. He’s the good guy and ready to defend children against more dangerous kaiju.

Those dumb scientists and their Z Plan rocket didn’t count on a meteorite letting Gamera escape and come back to Earth. Meanwhile, three ex-soldiers invade a cave — a scorpion kills one and treachery another — before bringing an opal to the surface. And that jewel? It’s an egg. And it’s hatching.

It becomes a lizard called Barugon, who can breathe freezing gas and launch rainbow rays from the seven spines on its back. These are all weapons that can do great damage to our turtle protector.

How do you defeat an undefeatable monster who freezes our hero again? Mirrors and drowning. Yes, Gamera straight up holds Barugon’s head under the waters of Lake Biwa.

In Germany, they screwed up the translation and call Gamera Barugon and Barugon Godzilla. Those versions are titled Godzilla, der Drache aus dem Dschungel (Godzilla, the Dragon from the Jungle), Godzilla, Monster des Grauens (Godzilla, the Monster of Horror) and Gamera vs. Godzilla.

You can watch this on Tubi and Vudu. You can also download it from the Internet Archive.

Also known as Blood Ceremony, The Female Butcher, The Bloody Countess and Ceremonia Sangrienta, this Jorge Grau-directed (The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue) Eurohorror film is a real classic.

The people of 19th century Europe aren’t ready to let go of their fear of vampires just yet, so they head out into the night and conduct trials over the graves over those who have recently died and are rumored to the undead.

As for Countess Erzebeth Bathory (Lucia Bosè, Fellini’s Satyricon), all she cares about is her quickly fading beauty and her husband’s lack of attention. But there are methods to bring her looks back and him back to bed which involve the dark practices of the ancestor she shares a name with. Blood is the secret and shockingly, her husband is only too willing to get it for her.

Where you’d expect a film awash in blood and gore, this is a movie more about how women deal with aging and men that only see beauty in youth. And yes, there’s still plenty of bloodbathing along the way.

Ewa Aulin (Candy, Death Laid an Egg) is also in this. Sadly, Aulin didn’t enjoy acting and was done by the age of 23.

If any film earned being a video nasty, it would be this one, a movie that has a man who was abused as a child growing up to be a serial killer obsessed with burning people alive. There is no one to root for or cheer for, only mayhem, malice and murder.

In short, the kind of movie that Gene Siskel would have a conniption over.

When Donald (Dan Grimaldi, a math professor who also played Philly and Patsy Parisi on The Sopranos) was a kid, his mother would use a stove to burn the evil out of him. Now fully grown, he seeks out women that remind him of her and kills them with a flamethrower in relentlessly graphic detail.

While the killer tries to confess his sins, he can’t stop. Even a simple double date ends with him smashing a candle over a woman’s head. And get this, it even has an ending very similar to Maniac, another movie that offers no easy answers or way out.

This is also a definite disco slasher. A truly mean spirited blast of sheer degeneracy — and therefore everything wonderful about the slasher form — Don’t Go In the House has songs like “Boogie Lightning,” “Dancin’ Close to You,” “Straight Ahead” and “Late Night Surrender” playing in between moments of women being set ablaze and a mother rotting somewhere in a house that has an impossibly huge torture chamber in the basement.

You can watch this on Tubi or buy the blu ray from Severin.

Director Pasquale Festa Campanile is back, along with writers Marcello Coscia and Ottavio Jemma with a story by Lina Wertmüller, to tell the story of the cavemen from When Women Had Tails and the cavegirl, Filli (Santa Berger) who has joined them.

Ulli (Giuliano Gemma) and Kao (Lando Buzzanca) don’t return, but there’s a new cave person named Ham (Lando Buzzanca) to pal around with Grr (Frank Wolff), Maluc (Renzo Montagnani), Put (Lino Toffolo), Uto (Francesco Mulé) and Zog (Aldo Giuffrè) along with other new people like Pap (Mario Adorf) and Katorcia (Fiammetta Baralla).

All of the cave people live inside the skeleton of a dinosaur and life is good until someone figures out what money is and then, as you would figure, things get rough.

Filli has obviously watched The Flintstones as she uses a bird as a kitchen tool. And in the middle of what should be a funny Italian sex comedy, there’s a gay caveman who is so upset that he doesn’t have a mate that he tries to pay someone to kill him.

At least they used the Ennio Morricone from the first movie, right?

Note: You can read another take on The Power here.

The Power has a great poster, a wild ending and isn’t that enough?

Directed and written by Stephen Carpenter (the creator of the TV series Grimm) and Jeffrey Obrow (The Dorm That Dripped Blood, The Kindred), this is all about an Aztec demon called Destacatyl who possesses people in the form of a doll.

There’s a near-maniac professor — who is obsessed with the doll — who goes by the name of Wilson (Stan Weston) and he’s given to dreams of killing off his students when they don’t listen to his speeches on the Aztecs. As if this needed more, Julie (Lisa Erickson), Tommy (Chad Cowgill) and Matt (Ben Gilbert) all go to a cemetery with a Ouija board and the doll — which is of course the idol that the Aztec demon is inside — his parents got him on their vacation. Did he learn nothing from the Bradys trip to Hawaii? And then there’s Jerry (Warren Lincoln), the first person to grab ahold of it, which vexes everyone. And Sandy (Suzy Stokey), a reporter of the paranormal who wants to know more about…The Power.

There’s one really scary moment in this. Sandy leaves her bedroom after a nightmare and we can clearly see a bearded crew member in the mirror on her door.

I’m kidding. The ending is actually really awesome and worth you watching the rest of the movie. I love that it rambles a bit to be honest.

Here’s a drink to enjoy during the movie.

Destacatyl

• 1 oz. tequila
• 1 oz. 99 Bananas
• 3 oz. orange juice
• .5 oz. lime juice

1. Pour all ingredients into a shaker with ice.
2. Shake it up and pour over a pyramid of crushed ice.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Directed and written by Murray Mintz, Cardiac Arrest is about a serial killer who is surgically removing the hearts from his victims. It feels like a TV movie and that’s not a bad thing.

Clancey Higgins (Garry Goodrow) and Wylie Wong (Michael Paul Chan) are the cops, Leigh Gregory (Max Gail) is the man whose wife Dianne (Susan O’Connell) needs a heart transplant and a famous doctor (Ray Reinhardt) just may be running a black market for hearts.

There’s even a part for Fred Ward, who always makes me happy when he shows up in a movie. But wow, the box art for this is so amazing that I was hoping that the movie that was inside the packaging could live up to it. It doesn’t, but there’s some charm in Goodrow and how he plays his role.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Keep telling yourself: She’s just a child. She’s just a child. She’s just a child. She’s just a child. She’s just a child. She’s just a child.

Also known as The Cursed Medallion, this Italian ripoff was directed by Massimo Dallamano (What Have You Done to Solange?).

Richard Johnson (The Haunting and Dr. Menard from Zombi 2) is a BBC filmmaker working on a documentary about demonic images in paintings. His daughter Emily (Nicoletta Elmi, Who Saw Her Die?, Deep Red) is having nightmares about how her mother died in a fire.

Edmund Purdom (2019: After the Fall of New York) advises him to bring his daughter along to Italy for some bonding time, along with their governess Jill, who is love with her boss. But then so is Joanna (Joanna Cassidy, The Glove), the producer of his movie. It also seems like Emily is in love, like real love, with her dad too. Was everyone incestual in 1970’s horror?

Michael meets Contessa Cappelli, an expert on satanic paintings. She warns him not to use a painting in his work. It depicts a child — wearing a medallion just like the one his daughter has been wearing — watching her mother burn. Is it any wonder that demonic possession soon follows?

This movie looks gorgeous. You can see the difference when a real director takes on a ripoff and decides to make it his own movie instead of aping The Exorcist directly.

I’m shocked that more people don’t discuss this film. It really fits into the genre of 70’s occult film quite well.

Also known as He’s a Legend, He’s a Hero, this Hong Kong film stars Bruce Li — note, this is not Bruce Lee: The Man, The Myth, which also stars Bruce Li AKA Ho Tsung-Tao — in a somewhat made-up story of the life of the recently deceased Bruce Lee.

Directed by Singloy Wan and written by Yi Kwan and Song Hsiang-yu, this starts as all martial arts movies should, with the star doing his moves while a disco song plays. More of this, people.

Bruce goes to Hollywood to become a star and finds racism waiting. He goes to Hong Kong and becomes a huge star, then gets married to Linda (Caryn White), fights with an American boxer — who even comes the whole way to Hong Kong to fight him in the set of Enter the Dragon — and then has sex with Betty Ting Pei (Su-Chen Chen) which has a lightning storm, a filling up coffee pot and ends with an earthquake and his death, but not before Bruce says, “Life is just so damn short. I always feel like I’m running behind – like time is running out on me.”

That said, nearly everyone says stuff like, “Life is short” and “It seems like Bruce isn’t going to live for long,” like all foreshadowing but is it foreshadowing if we already know the ending?

That said, I could watch every single Bruce Lee fake life story movie. And I feel like I have and then I find another.

You can watch this on Tubi.