I think more movies should have exclamation marks in their titles. I also believe that more movies should have Brother Theodore in them, so hey — Message Parlor Murders! is two for two.

Detective Rizotti and O’Mara are hunting the killer of numerous massage parlor workers — one of them, Rosie, often gave Rizotti the rub down — and now O’Mara is getting close to Rosie’s roommate Gwen (Sandra Peabody, The Last House on the Left, Legacy of Satan, Teenage Hitchhikers). Of course, she’s the kind of girl who only appears in movies, someone who doesn’t rub nor tug, but instead acts like an analyst for her clients. Maybe their co-pays didn’t cover therapy or we hadn’t yet worked out the mental health side of care in 1973, but going to a massage girl at the Lust Lounge for psychotherapy seems like not the best idea I’ve heard today.

Maybe the killer is a man they call Mr. Creepy. It could also be someone trying to work out the seven deadly sins 22 years before Kevin Spacey. That theory seems to work, but hey, the seventies were a downer time and perhaps not everyone makes it out of this alive.

Somehow, this was also released as Massage Parlor Hookers! with the horror parts cut out. How long was that movie, 22 minutes?

You can and should order this from Vinegar Syndrome.

NOTE: I have this in my notes as an early Cannon movie, but some lists online have it being distributed by Film Ventures International. I can’t even find a poster! Anyone have any ideas on this?

Directed and written by Vittorio Schiraldi (who also wrote Watch Me When I Kill), this was based on a novel that Schiraldi wrote.

Stefano (Joshua Sinclair), the son of Don Angelino Ferrante (Arthur Kennedy) has been shot in the back by the brutal Gaspare Ardizzone (John Saxon) — who is the start of a more violent and ruthless breed of criminal — for refusing to sell him land. Ferrante sends for a killer from America hoping for revenge.

The death of Stefano leaves behind a widow, Mariuccia (Agostina Belli), who is both protected and impregnated by a bodyguard named Massimo (Pino Colizzi). Meanwhile, Ardizzone goes to America and starts wiping out the New York bosses too and Don Ferrante still refuses to put a hit on him. Will his family and way of life survive?

Pretty much The Godfather with a different cast and some subtle changes, Family Killer still boasts an amazing Saxon performance as a total psychopath.

Also known as Tedeum, Sting of the West and Con Men, this was directed by Enzo G. Castellari, who also wrote the script along with  Tito Carpi, Giovanni Simonelli and José Gutiérrez Maesso.

Stinky Manure (Lionel Stander) and his family of criminals have inherited a gold mine but they don’t trust anyone, so they send their son Tedeum (Giancarlo Prete) to sell the mine to someone else. Being a moron, he sells it to a lawman before getting help from a holy man named Santini (Jack Palance) and Betty and Wendy Brown (Francesca Romana Coluzzi and Mabel Karin) who also have a mine to sell.

The Phantom Empire is a very meta film. Its title refers to the 1935 Gene Autry movie serial — which was kind of remade as part of the show Cliffhangers! — as well as having Robby the Robot in its cast, Jeffrey Combs’ character Andrew Paris saying that he went to Miskatonic University (the same school from Re-Animator) and vehicles from director Fred Olen Ray’s movie Star Slammer and Logan’s Run show up, as well as footage from 1977’s Planet of Dinosaurs. Maybe by referential sometimes I’m also saying cost-effective.

Ray got the idea for this film while filming Commando Squad in a Bronson Canyon cave. He wrote the script over the weekend and then started filming the day after Commando Squad wrapped, using the same cast and crew. That’s impressive but the original inspiration for the 1935 Phantom Empire is wilder. Writer Wallace MacDonald came up with the entire movie — plot, characters, their names, costumes, literally every single moment of the serial — while he was being treated with nitrous oxide by his dentist.

A cave creature with millions in diamonds around his neck emerges from a cave and rips someone’s head off before it’s stopped. A party is made of Cort Eastman (Ross Hagen), Denae Chambers (Susan Stokey), Andrew Paris (Combs), Professor Strock (Robert Quarry) and Eddy Colchilde (Dawn Wildsmith, Ray’s wife) to enter the caves and see what they can salvage.

They soon find a hidden world, Robby the Robot and a queen played by Sybil Danning, which is really why most people rented this. Throw in Michele Bauer as a cave girl and that’s why they definitely rented this.

The Weekly World News was launched in 1979 by The National Enquirer publisher Generoso Pope, Jr. as a means to keep using the black-and-white press that when that higher profile tabloid went to full color. Unlike any of the other rags you’d get at the supermarket, The Weekly World News was unafraid to wildly speculate on aliens, monsters and Elvis. It also introduced Batboy to the world and has been sadly lamented since it ceased publication in 2007 (although you can still read it online).

The Force Beyond is like watching an issue of that long lost tabloid without the smell of the pulp or getting black ink all over your fingers.

Producer Donn Davison did it all. He was a yo-yo master and a professional magician, while also a producer for Film Ventures International. He was a huckster who voiced the pitch to buy how-to sex manuals in roadshows and he ran the Dragon Art Theater in California, all before he did the voiceovers for The Crawling Thing and Creature Of Evil. Now, he’s our host, presenting the words of his wife, Barbara Morris Davison, who also was behind the movie Honey Britches. Whew!

Guess who else brought this movie your way? William Sachs, who also directed The Incredible Melting Man. Strap in. This movie is a non-stop deluge of info, where things are just thrown at you with no set order or reason. Grown men trying to make their own UFOs? Yeah, but did I tell you about the barn in Bangor that just suddenly disappeared?

Meanwhile, the soundtrack is a combination of Moog and chopped and screwed interpretations of Christian music made years before anyone knew who DJ Screw was.

My favorite part of this movie is that it’s voiced by Emperor Rosko, the son of Hollywood mogul Joe Pasternak. He started his career in 1964 on Radio Caroline, a pirate radio station broadcasting from a ship off the coast of Britain. He was joined on the air by his pet bird Alfie and would nearly rap his American-style music intros. He was also the inspiration for the character that Philip Seymour Hoffman played in Pirate Radio. He sounds like a verifiable maniac in this movie.

Honestly: this movie is one of the most ridiculous films I’ve ever witnessed, a whiplash tour through everything from Cayce to Bigfoot, Atlantis and MUFON. It’s the visual version of open calls back when Art Bell was still alive and people would call from Area 51 or the Antichrist would call in. Say it with me: “West of the Rockies, you’re now on Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell!”

You should read the above paragraph as me jumping up and down telling you that you should call off work, cancel any plans and watch this as soon as possible.

You can get The Force Beyond on Tubi.

Boot Hill (the Italian title means The Hill Made of Boots) is the last movie in a trilogy that began with God Forgives…I Don’t and was followed by Ace High. Taking advantage of star Terence Hill’s fame, it was re-released as Trinity Rides Again.

It was directed and written by Giuseppe Colizzi, who also made the other films in this trilogy, as well as All the Way Boys with Hill and Bud Spencer; Run, Joe, Run and Switch.

Hill plays Cat Stevens and Spencer is Hutch Bessy, who along with George Eastman as the mute Baby Doll are all somewhat friends and partners by the end. But to get there, Cat is shot and left for dead by a gang and nursed back to health by the circus of Thomas (Woody Strode), which includes can can dancers, dwarves and Mami (Lionel Stander), the dress-wearing manager of all of them, which ain’t easy, because when they met, it was murder.

Beyond the bad guy having the name Honey Fisher, he’s played by Victor Buono, which is quite a treat. There’s a strange dual look to this film, with the circus sections filled with color and near surrealism — they were shot by the movie’s original director Romolo Guerrieri (Johnny Yuma, The Sweet Body of Deborah, L’ Ultimo Guerriero) — while most of the film’s look is quite dark and moody.

You can watch this on Tubi.

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.