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.

Edward L. Montoro, the man who was the heart and soul of the main era of Film Ventures International, only directed one other movie — Platinum Pussycat — and wrote two others — again, Platinum Pussycat and Day of the Animals — other than this movie.

Heaven (Marie Marceau, which is hilarious, because who else would mistake Uschi Digard with that body and accent?), Sin (Jennie Lynn, who played four roles on My Three Sons before this) and Karen (Phyllis Stengel, who was in tons of early adult, like Ed Wood’s Take It Out In Trade) are out to become movie stars, even leaving behind Heaven’s cop man Bernie (Scott Cameron).

This leads him to Mr. Salacity (Miles White), a Hollywood producer who gets them on the casting couch. It’s pretty much what you expect, except for the fact that the men never show anything while the women show it all. There’s also a scene where Uschi gets a cold and to heal herself, she has one of her friends cover her breasts with Vicks VapoRub. I love Vicks so much, so this scene meant a lot to me, particularly when you realize that it takes two gigantic tubs of the stuff to even get close to covering the pride of Saltsjö-Duvnäs, Sweden’s 48 F bosom.

I mean, you kind of have to see that, you know?

“In 1957 The People of North Carolina Feared Two Things…The Mountain Chain Gang And A Man Named Seabo.”

If that doesn’t work for you, how about “First there was Cool Hand Luke then Billy Jack, but there has never been anyone like Seabo.”

Earl Owensby had already made four movies — Challenge, The Brass Rings, Dark Sunday and Death Driver — before making this, a movie he’d pretty much remake six years later with Chain Gang. 

Starring in this and producing it, Owensby knew the kind of movies that people in Southern drive-ins wanted to see because he was one of them. His E.O. Studios was run smartly: he’d star in these movies, they’d hire local semi-pro actors and shoot most of the movies off the soundstages.

Seabo (Owensby) — get used to that name — is a half-Native American, half-white bounty hunter who is set up for a murder he didn’t commit and faces off with prison guard Jimbo (Ed Parker). He eventually gets freed if he hunts down some escaped prisoners and joins forces with another bounty hunter named Red (David Allan Coe, who also recorded some of the songs on the soundtrack including one song, “Bounty Hunter,” that sounds a lot like “A Boy Named Sue”).

This movie feels made to order for what people were looking for at a drive-in with Owensby as a star that doesn’t look all that much different from the people sitting in the cars drinking beer and flashing their headlights at the screen.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Willa (Camila Banus), Hailey (Jasmine Shanise), Kenzie (Shonte Akognon), Flynn (Virginia Ma) and Liev (Justin Chu Cary) used to be a gang that robbed banks. But on their last job — and just before Willa gave birth to her daughter with Liev — they miss one armed guard who shoots Liev and sends the girls on the run.

Now, many. years later, Willa’s daughter Sophia has a heart condition and the only person who can give her the lifesaving donation she needs to survive is Liev. Except he’s just been put into a coma after standing up for other prisoners and meeting with a reporter.

That means that the gang has to get back together — and deal with Willa and Hailey hating each other because they both loved the same man — to break in, rescue their old friend and save a sick young girl.

Directed by Ted Campbell, who wrote the story with Richard Pierce, this finds the gang — who hasn’t seen each other for years — coming together to gather the needed tissue from Liev with the help of a surgeon turned butcher named Toth (Andy Umberger). They also find a way to get the word out about the abuses in the prison by Warden Locke (Tim Abell).

The end of this gets tense and that’s appreciated. It speaks to the continuing quality of the movies that Tubi is picking for their original films. As the girls race to get the heart tissue out of the prison, they find themselves facing the same situation that the movie started with, as several of their gang find themselves shot and near death. Should they leave them behind or can everyone make it?

You can watch this on Tubi.

Directed by Jaira Thomas and written by Briana Cole (The Marriage Pass), this finds Brandon (Asan N’Jie) and Andrea (Savannah Steyn) going on a vacation to the UK to try and fix their marriage. He’s a workaholic and it seems like whatever got them together is long gone. Even when they make their way to their resort, he’s answering work calls.

Things change when they meet Percy (Solomon Israel) and Chanelle (Adwoa Akoto), a married couple who encourage them both to get what they want. For Brandon, that may be a watch and standing up for himself. For Andrea, it’s finding what she feels is lost from the marriage. After a night of getting their groove back on, they’re shocked when Percy calls them to his room. He’s killed Chanelle and needs help getting rid of the body.

From that giallo-esque beginning, Played and Betrayed finds two couples switching the dynamic, going from innocent to role player and getting Brandon and Andrea closer while they deal with something they never thought they’d ever get into and emerge as people — and a couple — they never thought they were.

I don’t know if I totally believe the changes that they go through in just a few weeks, much less the way they bring in the story of how Percy and Chanelle helped Tia (Lola Wayne) kill off her horrible husband, but I guess when you go so far down the path, you have no problem doing some dark deeds and being just fine with it. By the end, it seems like our protagonists have become our antagonists.

You can watch this on Tubi.

I get it. This movie isn’t a giallo. But what is it, really? It was sold under so many titles, from the more horror-centric Cauldron of Death (complete with completely insane poster) to the more crime-oriented Gangland, the great Italian title Un Tipo Con una Faccia Strana ti Cerca per Ucciderti (A Guy With a Strange Face Is Looking for You to Kill You), The Dirty Mob, Mean Machine and even O Exolothreftis (The Terminator) in Greece.

It was written by Jose Gutierrez Maesso, who wrote Django and was an uncredited writer for the magical Pensione Paura. He’s joined by Santiago Moncada, who wrote A Bell from Hell, Hatchet for the Honeymoon and The Corruption of Chris Miller, along with Mario di Nardo (The Fifth Cord, Five Dolls for an August Moon). Directing all of this mayhem is Tulio Demichelli, who made the utterly insane Assignment Terror, as well as The Two Faces of Fear,  Espionage in Lisbon and the well-named There Is Someone Behind the Door.

Make no mistake — this is a movie awash with exploitation, gore, aberrant behavior and no real heroes. In short, it’s exactly the kind of movie you come to this site to read about.

Rico Aversi (Chris Mitchum) has just got out of jail, two years after Don Vito (Arthur Kennedy, the inspector from The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue) killed his father. Everyone wants Rico — notice that his named is spelled completely unlike the title of the movie — to kill the boss off, but Rico just wants to enjoy life outside of prison.

Malisa Longo (Cat in the Brain) plays his girlfriend — and who used to love Rico’s woman — and she enjoys sleeping with the hired help, which gets one unlucky member of the workstaff castrated in shocking detail. Then, his John Thomas gets shoved in his mouth and he’s dipped into acid and turned into soap. This movie is not interested in being unoffensive. Plus, you get Paola Senatore (Eaten Alive!) as Rico’s sister, whose death sets him finally on the path to revenge.

Robert Mitchum is one of my favorite actors ever, so it kind of pains me to admit this his son kind of slumbers through this leading role. But then again, everyone else in this movie is going to seem boring next to Barbara Bouchet, who pretty much sets the screen on fire, dances on the flames and sets it ablaze all over again in this movie. Anyone could show some leg to get the attention of some criminals. Bouchet goes all in, dancing nude on the roof of a car, covered in fog, giving her all no matter how grimy this scumfest gets. Without her, this movie would be passable. With her, it’s transcendent.

So yeah. It’s not a giallo. But man, if you’re coming in looking for bad behavior, gorgeous women and great clothes, it has all of that covered.

Gary Graver was many things — a film director, editor, screenwriter, cinematographer and as Robert McCallum, the director and cinematographer of 135 adult movies. He’s in the Adult Video News Hall of Fame for his work, which includes Amanda By Night, Coed Fever, Suzie Superstar and Unthinkable, which won the AVN Award as Best All-Sex Video of 1985.

But what he’s best remembered for today is his work as Orson Welles’ final cinematographer, spending most of his life working on the master’s long unfinished film The Other Side of the Wind, the story of which was told in They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead.

In 1970, Graver made an unannounced pitch to work with Welles, who told Graver that only one other person had ever pitched him in that way — the legendary Gregg Toland who he worked with on Citizen Kane. To quote Variety, “From that day forward, Orson Welles was the central figure in Gary Graver’s life: more important than his wife, his children, his bank account and his health. For the rest of Orson’s life (and his own) Graver belonged to the great director.”

In fact, Welles even edited several of Graver’s adult work — so that Graver could get back to the business of working on his films — including a scene in the movie 3 A.M. which shows all of his genius, albeit in filthy lesbian romp.

Graver’s career is all over the place. Sure, he worked on movies that the arthouse could swoon over like John Cassavetes’s A Woman Under the Influence and Welles’ F for Fake, but he also has grindhouse pleasing fare on his resume like The Toolbox Murders, Trick or Treats, Mortuary, They’re Playing with Fire and Satan’s Sadists.

Originally, this movie was going to be a serious drama entitled The Boys, but the producers demanded that Graver re-edit it into a comedy. Those producers were Film Ventures International, the people who brought you Beyond the Door, Grizzly, Day of the Animals, The Dark, The Visitor, The Incubus, Pieces, Great White and so many more amazing films. They also released Antropophagus as The Grim Reaper and Bava’s Shock as Behind the Door II. Seriously, the list of films that they released is absolutely incredible and I haven’t even got to stuff like Stunt Rock and The Force Beyond.

By 1984, the company was almost bankrupt due to Universal suing them over the similarity of Great White to Jaws and the poor box office performance of Mutant. Montoro responded by taking a million dollars from the company’s bank account and vanishing, never to be seen or heard from again.

I told you all that to tell you this, the story of Texas Lightning, one of the most confusing movies I’ve ever seen.

Karl Stover (Cameron Mitchell!) is a macho truck driver who feels like his son Buddy is too soft, so he takes him on the road. The fact that his son is played by his real life child Cameron Jr. only adds to the gravitas of this movie. Also — you’ve never lived until you’ve seen cowboy Cameron in a shiny gold shirt.

Buddy soon falls in love with the first girl he meets, a barmaid named Fay, played by Maureen McCormick from The Brady Bunch. This isn’t her first redneck go-round, as she played one of the Hammer sisters in Moonshine County Express opposite John Saxon as a kung fu fight stock car driver.

Keep in mind when you’re watching this movie that none of the painted characters on the poster are actually in this film. This is probably the best movie I’ve seen where Cameron Mitchell punches the hell out of a truck stop bathroom while trying to explain the facts of life to his son.

Seriously — if you watch this hoping for some trucking and womanizing, you’re left with a pretty downbeat drama, despite Graver’s re-editing efforts. I assume this probably ran second or third in drive-ins, so nobody complained.

Mitchell Jr. ends up going back to his hotel with the barmaid, who cons him out of money for her sister’s operation before they start making out. This gives his father’s friends the license to smash down the door and assault her, which leads to the son to want revenge. Somehow, this movie has a happy ending montage and was still intended as a comedy. How can it be funny when we have Mitchell holding and hugging and crying over his son while a bunch of cowboy hat-wearing, sweat stains having gang team up on Marcia Brady? Your guess is as good as mine.

This was produced by Jim Sotos, who directed Sweet Sixteen and Forced Entry, which is also known as The Last Victim. It’s an R-rated remake of Shaun Costello’s adult film of the same name, substituting Tanya Roberts and Nancy Allen for Laura Cannon, Ruby Runhouse and Nina Fawcett. The latter two were two transient hippies who let their loft be used for filming as long as they could be in the film. They ended up so high on mescaline that their scene took five hours to shoot. Of all Harry Reems movies, it’s the only one that he claims to regret making.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Note: You can read another take on this movie here.

Chuck (Chuck McQuary) has decided Hooter College isn’t for him so he starts managing a band with three of his classmates in it. The Splitz are lead singer Joan (Patti Lee), guitarist Gina (Robin Johnson, making her first movie after the three year Robert Stigwood Organization contract after she made Times Square) and drummer Susie (Barbara Bingham, Beyond Darkness). The Splitz are having a tough time playing dives and Chuck wants to get them onto bigger stages.

Funny thing. One of those dive bars is CBGB.

He also wants Gina, who he takes home one night and meets her mobster father Vito (Raymond Serra) and sex-crazed uncle Vinnie (Dom Irrera).

There’s also a sex comedy plot where Dean Hunta (Shirley Stoler, Martha Beck from The Honeymoon Killers) decides that the Phi Betas will lose their sorority house and works with Sigma Phi’s Lois Scagliani (Forbes Riley, Splatter University) and Delta Phi’s Fern Hymenstein (Tara King) to make it happen. Seeing how the girls are being treated, The Splitz join the Phi Betas.

There are a lot of shenanigans during the three games that the sororities play, including the Phi Betas getting a caveman-like coach named Warwick (Tom McCleister), The Splitz blackmailing the dean’s husband and said dean being hypnotized and nearly stripping on stage before the big show.

The soundtrack is a mix between some interesting 1982 bands and doo wop. So you get “Heart of Glass” and “One Way Or Another by Blondie along with Del Shannon.

Director Domonic Paris also made Dracula’s Last Rites and the mixtape films Film House Fever and Bad Girls In the Movies. He wrote it with Bianca Littlebaum, Harry Azorin and Kelly Van Horn, who went on to produce The Day After Tomorrow and Eight Legged Freaks.

There’s a fun music cameo in this, as a chef is played by Bobby Pickett, who we all know better as Boris, the man who unleashed the “Monster Mash.” It was, as they say, a graveyard smash.

This movie promises to be a sex comedy yet it is rarely sexy and never all that funny. That said, I love the band and want so much better for them.

You can watch this on Tubi.