This movie centers on a search party looking for a white goddess named Jane (Elisabeth Knowles), who went missing in the deep, dark jungles of Africa. Leading the expedition is Private Detective Hamilton Hornee (“the e’s are silent”; Buddy Pantsari)) who has been hired by the Bank of Wabash to find the lost child of explorers who were slain in Africa by natives 15 years earlier. If the child is alive, she will be 21 and inherit her father’s multi-million-dollar estate.

Hornee leads the expedition to find her, accompanied by his assistant, Jane (Julie Conners, Night of the Witches and the movie that made Lash La Rue undergo a decade of penance, Hard On the Trail). Along for the search are the cousins of the lost girl, Max and Dorris Matthews (John Alderman, who shows up in adult, 80s TV like Dynasty and The Fall Guy, as well as movies like Superstition, Malibu Express and Luanne Roberts, Prison Girls), who want to inherit the money for themselves. There’s also a zoologist looking for a legendary white gorilla named Stanley Livingston (Fletcher Davies). He has no idea that the ape is really a German war criminal hiding out. There’s also gossip columnist Tender Lee (Elizabeth Knowles, using the name Lisa Grant; she was also in Wild Riders, The Dark Side of Tomorrow and Beyond the Green Door).

Hornee hires Kenya Adler (Brainerd Duffield, who wrote The Treasure of Lost Canyon) as their guide. However, Kenya has crawled into a bottle and ends up leading them into the Meshpoka tribe, who instead of eating them end up being led by the lost girl, now known as Algona (Deek Sills; before exploitation czar David F. Friedman found her, she was Deborah Stills and living a double-life: working as a hostess at the classy Hyatt Regency by day and slinging tickets as a cashier at an adult theater by night. Friedman, always a man with an eye for talent and a tight grip on his wallet, peeled off a cool $1,000 bill to cast this gorgeous, lean blonde as Algona, the sweet, innocent, and utterly luscious white jungle goddess. She did the work, she looked fantastic doing it, and she even showed up to hit the premiere circuit in glamorous spots like Columbus, Georgia and Cleveland, Ohio. And then? Poof. She took her one perfect credit, married a guy in the record business and walked away.

What follows is an episodic, psychedelic march through the brush that shifts gears from broad, Borscht Belt-style gags to softcore highjinks without a single care for traditional narrative pacing. It’s the kind of film where the jokes land with a thud, but the sheer, relentless energy keeps you staring at the screen. You have to marvel at how a movie this proudly silly managed to get a full theatrical release back when the grindhouses and drive-ins were hungry for anything with a bit of exploitation edge.

Directed by Tsanusdi (Jonathan Lucas, who also has credits for choreogroahy on an episode of The Ghost & Mrs. Muir and directing credits for an adult film, Urban Cowgirls, a pilot for a Dean Martin-hosted series, The Powder Room and A Family Things, a special about pop group The Cowsills) and written and produced by Friedman, this was so popular that it was recut from an X to an R so that couples could see it. And at the First Annual Erotica Awards in 1977, Trader Hornee received a retroactive Award of Merit from the Adult Film Association of America and the award for the Best Adult Film 1966-1970.

Don’t think of this as you would in the adult post-VHS era. Friedman spent money on it, and cinematographer Paul Hipp (who would go on to work on Sunn Classics movies like The President Must Die and The Boogens, as well as classic exploitation fare like Devil Times Five and Grave of the Vampire) makes the Hollywood Hills look like a lush jungle vista. It helps that there are some real animals in this!

We may no longer realize that this is an adult remake of 1931’s Trader Horn, which in turn was remade three years later. The X version has more BDSM; this has the least sex of any Friedman movie, but so much nudity you won’t miss it. Truly, this is what joyous filmmaking looks like.

You can watch this on Cultpix.

Sweden, sex, Satanism, seventies. 

Many are the reasons I watched this.

Skräcken har 1000 ögon (Horror Has 1000 Eyes) was directed by Torgny Wickman and occupies a strange, atmospheric intersection between Gothic horror and the early 1970s erotic exploitation boom. While often dismissed as mere sexploitation, the film is surprisingly effective at building a claustrophobic, dread-filled environment.

The vicarage in Northern Sweden serves as more than just a setting; it’s a pressure cooker. Wickman utilizes this holy location to great effect, contrasting the stark, pious exterior of the priesthood with the simmering pagan rituals occurring behind closed doors. You can feel it in the air, a mix of religious repression and burgeoning occultism that feels genuinely stifling.

Hedvig the maid (Solveig Andersson, The Lustful Vicar)  is the undisputed engine of the plot. Unlike many horror antagonists of the era who are motivated by simple madness, Hedvig’s malice is methodical and ritualistic. Her self-mutilation (the bloody cross) serves as a physical manifestation of her rejection of Sven’s (Hans Wahlgren) religious world. I wonder, is it really her sliding into his bed or just a dream?

The tragedy of the film lies in his wife Anna’s (Anita Sanders, who was in Tinto Brass’s Nerosubianco, Fellini’s Juliet of the Spirits, Silvio Amadio’s That Malicious Age and Pasolini’s The Canterbury Tales) perspective. She wants Hedvig but has no idea why. She isn’t just fighting a witch; she’s fighting her own trauma after losing their baby, which makes her an unreliable witness in the eyes of her husband.

The Sensuous Sorceress is a quintessential example of folk horror. While the erotic elements are front-and-center, the cases of violent death and the mystery of the question marks left behind provide enough narrative weight to keep it from feeling hollow.

This is one of the few movies I know of where a man is killed by a piece of bread.

You can watch this on Cultpix.

“When a man climbs on top of a woman, she becomes ugly!“

Man, this killer really has a Madonna Whore complex, huh?

Also known as Sex Power and Target Massacre in the UK, this is a sleazy thriller in which Mike (Michael Stearns), an incel who just never makes it with the ladies. Even when Susan (Donna Young, appearing as Dawna Rae; she was in everything from The Black Gestapo to Take It Out In Trade) invites him to her home while she’s go-go dancing at The Classic Cat, he’s simply shocked at all of the sex going on around him. 

Mike, it’s 1970, and you’re in a Lee Frost movie.

He gets so upset that he drives up into the Hollywood hills and starts shooting at people while they’re balling. 

That’s the whole movie, but it’s got some fuzzed-out tunes and attractive au natural 70s ladies such as Sherill Thomas, Joan McBride and Cathy Horton, all one-and-done actresses. 

Lee Frost was a cinematic chameleon, operating with a prolific, pseudonym-heavy madness. Whether he was billed as David Kayne, R.L. Frost, F.C. Perl, Elov Peterson, or any of a dozen other aliases, the man was a one-man industry.

He cut his teeth in the trenches of sexploitation with titles like Surftide 77 and the wonderfully bizarre The House on Bare Mountain, eventually graduating to the grimier world of “roughies” with The Defilers, The Pick-Up and The Animal. He even dabbled in the dark corners of the American Mondo scene, lensing shock-docs like Mondo Bizarro, Mondo Bizarro and The Forbidden.

Much like the Italian exploitation fiends who pivoted to whichever was printing money that week, Frost was a genre-hopping machine. His resume reads like a roadmap of drive-in history:

• Westerns: Hot Spur, The Scavengers
• Biker Flicks: Chrome and Hot Leather
• Occult: Witchcraft ’70
• Horror: The Thing with Two Heads
• Hicksploitation: Dixie Dynamite
• Naziploitation: Love Camp 7
• Blaxploitation: The Black Gestapo

And then, of course, there was the hardcore stuff. But Frost didn’t just sleepwalk through a skin flick; he directed A Climax of Blue Power, a piece of porno chic designed specifically to rattle and upset anyone brave enough to hit play. Somewhere in the middle of all that beautiful, greasy chaos, he even found the time to write the satanic-panic masterpiece Race with the Devil.

Zero In and Scream isn’t good, but it’s great. It has the same feel as the Zodiac Killer: the hopelessness of being trapped in a world filled with gorgeous women who couldn’t care less about you, and the only release you have is hot lead sprayed right in their faces. It’s not pretty, but for those who love this kind of cinema, a battered print is on Cultpix.

Forget narrative. Forget logic. Forget everything your teacher told you about decency and linear progression. Fluctuations is a fever dream captured on celluloid, a 1970 sensory assault that feels like it was edited with a chainsaw by someone who spent the previous night huffing industrial glue and reading Marquis de Sade.

Imagine a kaleidoscope of human anatomy, high-contrast lighting and sudden, inexplicable violence. It’s a stream-of-consciousness bombardment where the only constant is the lack of a constant. One minute you’re watching a somber, avant-garde exploration of Sapphic intimacy; the next, there’s a hair-whipping sequence that defies both physics and scalp health. Then, because why not, the film decides it’s a Shaw Brothers flick and throws in some low-rent kung-fu. It’s a dizzying cocktail of threesomes, foursomes and bondage that blurs the line between arthouse cinema and “the kind of film found in a brown paper bag behind a dumpster.

Rumors have long persisted that the film was a “re-edit job” of multiple unfinished projects. This would explain the jarring tonal shifts from erotic drama to martial arts mayhem. Director Joel Landwehr is listed, however, and he also directed and narrated In Hot Blood. 

Among the actors, Kim Lewid is one of the few who have appeared in other movies. Using the name Kim LeWise here, she was also in The Ultimate Degenerate, Gigi Goes to Pot and The Filth Shop. 

I’ve heard the thought that the soundtrack is close to throwing silverware down the steps, which is accurate, along with a barely audible phone sex call. But mostly, dudes do bad karate and everyone gets naked, but not sexy, and I love this for that.

You can watch this on Cultpix.

Directed by Peter Perry Jr. (Honeymoon of Terror, Mondo Mod, My Tail Is Hot) — using the name A.P. Stootsberry — and written by Maurice Smith (the writer of Julie Darling), The Joys of Jezebel has Lucifer (Christopher Stone, not the one you’re thinking of), apparently running a bit low on quota, sending the infamous Jezebel (Luanne Roberts, using the name Christine Murray; she was also in Prison Girls, Bonnie’s Kids and Trader Hornee) back to Earth. Her mission? Claim the soul of Rachel (Dixie Donovan), a blonde virgin who represents the ultimate prize for the underworld.

The twist, of course, is that Jezebel doesn’t just deliver the soul. She inhabits the vessel. But as it turns out, the 20th century is a lot more complicated than the biblical era and Rachel’s life comes with baggage that even a demon queen wasn’t prepared to carry. That’s because, along with her sister Ruth (Lois Ursone using the pseudonym Angela Graves), they’ve been sold off to Joshua (Johnny Rocco) and Jeremiah (Jay Edwards).

While Jezebel is busy playing body-thief, Rachel ends up in Hell, leading Lucifer on a merry chase where he bumps into a Who’s Who of the damned, including Goliath (Jess White), Solomon (Woody Lee) and Eve. The film hits its stride when Jezebel realizes that being human—with all its sensory distractions and emotional messiness—is its own kind of trap.

This was produced by David F. Friedman, who started his entertainment career as part of the traveling tent shows of the 1930s and 40s, learning the art of the pitch. He knew that what you saw mattered far less than what you were promised. This carny DNA followed him into the film industry, where he realized that if you called a movie educational or medical, you could get away with showing things that would make a nun faint.

In the early 60s, Friedman teamed up with Herschell Gordon Lewis to invent an entirely new subgenre. Tired of the nudist colony films (which Friedman basically perfected), they decided to pivot to something even more visceral with their gore films.

Friedman eventually moved to California and formed Entertainment Ventures, where he produced everything from roughies to softcore romps. He was a gentleman in a dirty business — famously articulate, well-read and honest about his motives. He wasn’t trying to win an Oscar; he was trying to sell popcorn and fill seats.

When he passed away in 2011, the world lost its last great link to the era of the true independent roadshowman. He didn’t just make movies; he made attractions. And as long as there’s a flicker of sleaze playing somewhere, the spirit of Dave Friedman is right there in the front row, counting the receipts.

You can watch this on Cultpix.

Nutty Frog wrote this description of the movie on IMDb and man, it’s so all over the place that I had to share it: “At the Grand Hotel in Miami, Carla falls into the arms of her husband, the eminent Dr. Warren, and confesses to having seen Nick, the man he killed in New York, at the airport – Carla was a nightclub dancer. New York and Nick’s lover. Later, Warren accidentally discovered the real reason why Carla agreed to marry him: a combination of Nick, who plotted his death and the enjoyment of his inheritance. The pain arouses Warren’s thirst for blood, and strange events appear that will force Detective Andrew to intervene.”

Carla (Libertad Leblanc) has killed her pimp Nick (Carlos Piñar), and her husband and therapist, Dr. Warren (Riccardo Garrone), helps her get rid of the body. But this is a giallo, so she keeps seeing Nick, and it’s driving her insane. Or she is still sleeping with Nick, who is still alive, and they want to take Dr. Warren’s money. Or maybe he was abusing her, and that sent her over the edge. It’s never clear, but isn’t that why we watch giallo? Somehow, the giallo police — Andrew (Tony Kendall) — are so bad at solving this case that they disappear until right before the movie ends.

Shot in Miami by an Italian and Spanish team of filmmakers, this was directed and co-written by Luis Marquina. The best part is the sitcom romance Andrew has with Marta (Loredana Giustini), who, in one wacky scene, accidentally takes LSD.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Based on the 1965 novel A Fragment of Fear by John Bingham, this concerns Tim Brett (David Hemings), a former drug addict who has turned his life around and written a book detailing his experiences. He visits his aunt, who has helped criminals go straight her entire life. Sadly, one of them strangles her later, which leaves Tim alone on an island.

While he finds love with Juliet Bristow (Gayle Hunnicutt), he starts to think that everyone is against him. A woman on a train warns him to stop asking questions about his aunt’s death. A cop calls him, and when he files a report, Tim learns that no such policeman works at the station. Soon, a secret group contacts him, telling him that the Stepping Stones, a charity started by his aunt to help criminals become good citizens, has begun blackmailing those who succeed.

Soon, he starts to worry that Juliet will be killed at his wedding, which pushes him into a spiral that he never recovers from.

I was wondering, “Is this a gialli?” 

That’s when Adolfo Celi appeared.

There are a lot of complaints about the ending, in which Tim finally loses his mind, and then the idea that everything that happened was either a fantasy or a drug trip. Yet how does Tim get along with Juliet, who found the body of his aunt, and how did they fall in love so fast? 

This was directed by Richard C. Sarafian and written by Paul Dehn, who wrote the Apes sequels. If you’d like to see Hemmings in a real giallo, well…Deep Red, right?