School of the Holy Beast is a sacrilegious blast of exploitation that combines pinky violence, nunsploitation, Bava-esque colors and some of the wildest moments you’ve ever seen in a movie maybe ever. Japan is not Christian or even Catholic, yet somehow they love to make nunsploitation films. This movie proves that they come close and may even go further than their Italian moviemaking competition.

Maya Takigawa (Yumi Takigawa, Karate Bearfighter) has become one of the sisters of the Sacred Heart Convent to learn why her mother was whipped and hung herself before in death giving birth to Maya. I’m sure you can figure out that the Abbess Sadako Matsumara (Yoko Mihara) was the one who was always jealous of Maya’s mother Michiko and that the man who was her father is the blind Father Kakinuma (Fumio Watanabe). Yet this movie embraces style — and excess — and delivers everything you come to these movies for and more, include self-flagellation, sinful nuns, a nun forced to drink salt water and be held over a portrait of Jesus to see if she’s possessed and will urinate all over it, evil nuns falling through trap doors and getting launched out windows and being impaled on a fence and a scene where the nuns all whip another with roses after she’s tied up with rose thorns and small motion petals dance in front of the camera and blood slowly makes its way, as red as any fake hemoglobin that Mario Bava committed to screen against the lush green of the vines. Has blasphemy ever looked so gorgeous?

It all ends on Christmas night, as the priest makes love to his daughter — he didn’t know until its too late — before being stabbed with a crucifix by the ghost of Maya’s mother and then the camera spins and sails into the ceiling to show him dead in the shape of an upside-down cross

Norifumi Suzuki is definitely going to Hell but at least he left this behind to corrupt more souls who will join him in eternal torment. He made fifty more movies, including the incredible Hoero Tekken,and Karei-naru tsuiseki as well as another movie filled with sleaze, Sex and Fury.  Suzuki also directed the ten-movie Torakku Yarō series in which Momojiro Hoshi and Kinya Aikawa race around Japan in dekotora or highly decorated trucks. I need to watch everything he made. He often worked with his co-writer on this movie, Masahiro Kakefuda.

Imagine if an Italian Gothic horror film, a giallo and a nun film all got together, got high and talked about the issues behind everything man has endured. That gives you a clue of just how wild this movie gets, except it may even defile — not a typo for defy — your expectations so much further.

You have to love a heroine who literally destroys an entire convent and then just walks the street of the city, away from this secret world and back in the world of the living, no one knowing the things that she’s seen or what she’s done.

The last Animagic movie by Rankin/Bass Production, this is based on The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum and is not tied to any of the continuity of the other Rankin/Bass specials such as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town, Frosty’s Winter Wonderland, Rudolph’s Shiny New Year and Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July.

I can only imagine how this movie — made in the middle of the Satanic Panic — went over. It starts with the Great Ak telling the Immortals the story of Santa Claus so that they will keep him alive forever. Yes, Claus was once an abandoned baby given to the lioness Shiegra before he was stolen by a wood nymph named Necile.

In the world of humans, Claus tries to spread joy but has to battle the dark Awgwas who make children do bad things. Eventually, the Angwas attack Santa so many times that the Immortals get involved and destroy them, even telling Santa that they have perished. This is a show for kids. To bring that point home, this ends with Santa on his deathbed, asking his friends to decorate a tree to remember him, just as the Immortals decide to allow him to join them.

Baum introduced the Forest of Burzee in his short story”The Runaway Shadows or A Trick of Jack Frost” before using in The Life & Adventures of Santa Claus, “A Kidnapped Santa Claus,” “Nelebel’s Fairyland” and Queen Zixi of Ix. Burzee is in the same universe as Oz. Some examples include Queen Zurline of the Wood Nymphs and Queens Lulea and Lurline of the Fairies probably all being the same person and in The Magic Cloak of Oz, embassies between these universes are created and Santa becomes the ambassador to Oz.

It may also freak you out when you realize that most of the cast of this comes from Thundercats, so yes, Santa has the same voice as Mumm-Ra — Earl Hammond — possibly the most Satanic of all 80s cartoon characters.

Common Sense Media said, “Of possible concern for the youngest viewers are the several mentions that Santa’s going to be visited by the spirit of death, some mildly scary monsters and a sad scene in which Santa talks about his mortality fading and that he wants decorating Christmas trees to be a kind of memorial to him. Fantasy violence includes a battle with magical powers to defeat the monsters once and for all. The ending is happy and safe, but be prepared to offer reassurance and answer questions about death and immortality.”

Who is going to do that for me?

The translated title for this movie is Look at Me. It’s a Mexican horror film — yes, you will need to read some subtitles — that just debuted on Tubi.

Lalo (Axel Alpuche) is having issues with the death of his father. His mother has already packed away all of his dad’s possessions and shipped him off to Mexico to live with his grandmother Elena (Leticia Huijara). The only thing he has left of his father is his wristwatch and he has to adjust to a new school where he becomes the bullied outsider.

If only the real world was all he had to deal with, as Lalo finds that the watch is showing time backward and he also begins to see the ghost of a young girl everywhere he goes. He starts to worry that she wants to take him into the realm of the dead but he feels like he can’t escape her.

While he gains a friend named Rana (Regina Reynoso), he worries about telling her what he’s seeing. When he learns that a girl from their school has also gone missing, he starts to search for her, which brings him closer to not only solving the mystery but potentially being the next victim.

Lake Xochimilco, which was once part of five lakes that were drained to prevent flooding, features into this story. Today, it is mainly used as part of large urban parks in Mexico City, with beautifully decorated rafts called trajineras carrying people through the canals. It presents an otherworldly look that is so different from movies made in the U.S.  Xochimilco is also home to La Llorona and Isla de las Muñecas, an island made from thousands of broken dolls, created by Don Julián Santana Barrera, who found a drowned girl there and for fifty years, he would pay respect to her ghost by decorating the island.

Mirame is directed by Pavel Cantu, who started his career as a storyboard artist, and who wrote this with Veronica Angeles Franco and Ernesto Murguía. It has a great look but I wish that it went deeper into the legends of the area instead of just using them for scenery. That said, for an early effort — he has mainly done recreations for documentaries like TV documentaries and a short — this feels quite confident. I’d love to see what happens next for him.

This movie begins with the words, “Facing the unknown can be terrifying, but you cannot live it any other way.” This could speak to the occult or it could also be about dealing with loss. It seems like we can’t live through the loss of people and while we are changed, we must go through it in order to grow. We have no other choice.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Ethan (Ethan Randall who would grow up to be Ethan Embry) and Hallie O’Fallon (Thora Birch) want their parents Catherine (Harley Jane Kozak) and Michael (Jamey Sheridan) to get back together. Ethan has a plan, Hallie has Santa Claus (Leslie Nielsen). To keep mom from marrying Tony Boer (Kevin Nealon), it will take mice, an ice cream truck and help from Stephanie (Amy Oberer).

With appearances by Lauren Bacall and Andrea Martin, this was directed by Robert Lieberman (Fire In the Sky) and written by Thom Eberhardt (Sole Survivor, Night of the Comet and the original director for this movie) and Richard Kramer, who has mostly worked in TV.

This feels like The Parent Trap. Maybe the parents aren’t right for each other, you know?

Roger Ebert really disliked this movie, saying “All I want for Christmas is to never see All I Want for Christmas again. Here is a calculating holiday fable that is phony to its very bones — artificial, contrived, illogical, manipulative and stupid. It’s one of those movies that insults your intelligence by assuming you have no memory, no common sense and no knowledge of how people behave when they are not in the grip of an idiotic screenplay.”

Leslie Neilsen was Santa in more movies than I knew. In addition to this movie, he was Santa in Chilly Beach and Santa Who? 

On Christmas Eve, Alex Torme (Mitchell Anderson) watched with his brother Jack (Xander Berkeley) as their parents were killed by his father’s business partner Norman Perkins (Duane Whitaker) who was wearing a mask made from the fur of a fox. The man then kills himself but for years, Alex has dreamt of being chased by him.

Now grown, Jack has taken over the family business. Alex is having issues; he’s convinced his friend Danny (Thom Babbes) has been wearing a fox mask to upset him and his girlfriend Maggie (Juliette Cummins) has been lying about her dance company, which his brother figures out and accuses her of trying to take their money. The truth is that she’s really with Jack and the two of them are trying to make Alex lose his mind so that they can get all of the fortune. Danny figures it out but is killed by them.

Jack and Maggie hire a fox-masked hitman to chase down Alex, eventually tying him to the hood of a car like he’s a deer. She shows no emotion when his throat is slit. And spoiler warning, she’s really the daughter of Norman Perkins and has been lying all along, using Jack to get to Alex and then gets someone to murder him. Now, her father has his revenge.

Director Kristine Peterson was a member of the staff at Zoetrope Studios for the filming of Apocalypse Now. She was on second unit for movies like Chopping Mall and Tremors before directing Body Chemistry, Critters 3 and Redemption: Kickboxer 5.

Writer Thom Babbes came up with the story after taking a trip to Vermont during the wintertime. He based the character of Maggie on an ex-fiancee, so…maybe that was a good relationship to get out of.

In the video store that is Tubi, you will find shelves that you did not know existed. Way in the back of the store, hidden from most, past the holiday section are movies like this, strange films that seemingly have five minutes of plot and endless scenes of people just talking about nothing that has anything to do with the movie. Anyone can make a movie today and get it online. Should they? I mean, I watch these, so they’re for someone. They’re for me.

Director Glenn Miller made Zoombies and Aquarium of the Dead and writer Anna Rasmussen wrote Shark Side of the Moon. That means they are the people to create a movie where Santa (John P. Fowler) encounters three little cats — Patches, Mittens and Hairball — who create an allergic reaction that nearly ruins the holiday until the kittens jump in the sleigh and fix things. All because Julia (Nicola Lambo) wouldn’t let her son Tommy (Ezra James Colbert) keep them.

There’s also a story about how obsessed Santa conspiracy believing neighbor Marcus Bramble (Evan Boymel) grew up with Julia but another cat-inspired encounter with Santa caused them to never be friends again. Marcus looks for a video tape to copy over to prove Santa exists and nearly uses his copy of Sharknado. This is because Asylum made this movie.

There’s a moment where one of the kittens is in danger and it kind of upset me. I watch Italian cannibal movies all the time and I worried about the cats in a Christmas movie.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Somehow, The Day of the Locust is one of the few movies where William Atherton isn’t the villain. Well, he’s not the nicest guy, but he’s not the main heel here, not that anyone is the hero.

Tod is a recent Yale graduate Tod Hackett, who has just come to Hollywood to paint backgrounds in movies. He settles in the falling apart San Bernardino Arms, an apartment building that houses those at the start or the close of their Hollywood dreams.

There’s actress Faye Greener (Karen Black), her dying vaudevillian father Harry (Burgess Meredith), Adore Loomis (Jackie Earle Haley) whose stage mother (Gloria LeRoy) is pushing to be a movie star, the always angry Abe Kusich (Billy Barty) and his girlfriend Mary (Lelia Goldoni) and accountant Homer Simpson (Donald Sutherland). Everyone is in love with Faye but she only wants to settle for a rich man, even if she plays with the hearts of Tod, Homer and stuntmen Earle Shoop (Bo Hopkins) and Miguel (Pepe Serna).

Homer and Faye try to save her father by bringing him to be healed at a church led by Big Sister (Geraldine Page) that is based on the ministry of Aimee Semple McPherson. For a few moments, being in front of the crowd gives him a surge of adrenaline and he’s able to do one of his old routines before dying that night.

Faye moves in with Homer but she tells Tod that it’s a sexless relationship. At a party later, Homer watches helplessly as every man there makes a play for the woman he gives everything to. She screams and calls him a spy and launches a vase at him. Later, Tod catches her making love to Miguel, as does Earle, which leads to a fight.

The film closes as the entire cast is near the premiere of The Buccaneer. Tod tries to speak to Homer who just stares into the void. The only thing that brings him to reality is when Adore throws a rock at his head. He loses his mind and chases the boy through the night, finally catching him and repeatedly stomping him to death as the entire crowd watches. This unleashes a horrific riot that takes over the premiere, thought to be mania over the movie but instead feeling like the end of the world as Tod sees his paintings come to life and chase him into the night. He leaves Hollywood behind and the film closes on his abandoned apartment and Faye crying as she sees the flowers he left inside a crack in the wall.

I didn’t even mention that William Castle is the director of the movie within the movie!

Directed by John Schlesinger (Midnight Cowboy) and written by Waldo Salt (Coming Home) from the book by Nathaniel West, this is one of the most depressing and nihilistic movies that I have ever seen, one that shows that all of these characters are lost, their dreams are meaningless and the moments of connection that they have mean nothing to them other than sheer biological impulses. The only one of them that will be remembered is Homer and that will be as a child murderer.

The Arrow Video blu ray of The Day of the Locust has a brand new 2K remaster by Arrow Films from the original negative. Extras include a new oral history audio commentary conducted by writer and film historian Lee Gambin, featuring assistant directors Leslie Asplund and Charles Ziarko, production associate Michael Childers, actors Grainger Hines and Pepe Serna among others; an appreciation of the film by critic Glenn Kenny; a discussion with film historian Elissa Rose; a visual essay on the film’s themes with Gambin and behind the scenes image galleries. It comes inside a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Colin Murdoch and has an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Pamela Hutchinson. You can get it from MVD.

Go Nagai created Cutie Honey, Devilman, Mazinger Z, the first erotic manga with Harenchi Gakuen, Getter Robo and Violence Jack. At one point, he was drawing and writing five weekly manga publications at the same time.

He also created the characters and did the designs for this movie, Lion-Girl, which is directed and written by Kurando Mitsutake (Maniac Driver).

Meteors hit the Earth and one out of every thousand people survived. Only Japan wasn’t sunk — an inversion of Submersion of Japan and the parody The World Sinks Except Japan — and as war rages endlessly, the meteors transform humans into demonic hybrids known as Anoroc that kill humans, all while a new Bushido code emerges and samurais rule the lawless lands.

There is a hero and that is Botan (Tori Griffith). Her parents died from being transformed into Anorocs on the day of her birth and she was raised by her Uncle Ken (Damian Toofeek Raven) to defend the weak. She’s also Lion-Girl, the rebel who Shogun Fujinaga (Tomuki Kimura) wants to destroy.

Botan and Ken are asked to deliver Herbert (Matt Standley) and Mayumi (Shelby Lee Parks) to a safe area where Ogi Agan (Stefanie Estes) will protect them. Joined by the cybernetic Marion (Joey Iwanaga), they battle Anorocs under the command of Kaisei Kishi (Derek Mears, who has played Swamp Thing, Jason and a Predator).

I have to confess that I totally loved this movie. I realize that it’s a mess and the CGI is goofy but it feels like reading a whole bunch of manga all at once while you’re on drugs, which I think was the idea, and it just hammers you with ideas, fights, blood, nudity — male, female and trans — and even some moments of humor that made me laugh out loud, such as when Lion-Girl stops the exposition and says, “We’ll get into that some other time.” There are also some definite mentions of the pandemic and Trump, which this was made during.

If they made another of these, I’ll definitely watch it. It’s long but I split it across a few days and ended up looking forward to each section even if the story makes less sense, but sometimes, you just go with it when you have a heroine with a gold lion mask going all scanner — they literally call the battles scanning and reference Buckaroo Banzai’s “Wherever you go, there you are — instead of being hypercritical. Don’t let yourself get in the way of a good time.

The Cleopatra blu ray of this movie has a director’s commentary, an introduction by Go Nagai, a making of and footage from the premiere. You also get an image gallery and a trailer. Get it now from MVD.