Originally known as L’etrusco Uccide Ancora (The Etruscan Kills Again), this film comes to us from Armando Crispino, who made the quite enjoyable Autopsy and the fabulously named Frankenstein Italian Style. It’s based on a novel by Bryan Edgar Wallace, the son of the man who gave inspiration to both the krimi and giallo genres.
It was released in Germany as Das Geheimnis des Gelben Grabes (Mystery of the Gold Diggers), in France as Overtime and as El Dios de la Muerte Asesina Otra Vez (The Death God Kills Again) in Spain.
Two young folks are looking for a place to load the clown in the cannon, but while they’re aardvarking they are murdered within an Etruscan tomb. Oh, if only that tomb hadn’t recently been violated by Professor Porter (Alex Cord, Chosen Survivors) and his team of archaeologists!
Because of how the bodies are positioned, it seems as if they were sacrificed to the ancient Etruscan god Tuchulcha. The bodies soon pile up, but soon, as the title says, the dead seem to be alive. This is a giallo, but more on the supernatural side of the genre. If you’re looking for a movie that makes sense, you know — you’re watching the wrong kind of movies.
Samantha Eggar (Demonoid) shows up as Cord’s ex-wife, as does John Marley (who woke up with a horse’s head in his bed in The Godfather) as her rich new husband, as well as Wendi D’Olive from The Bloodstained Butterfly. Riz Ortolani makes it all better with his soundtrack, too.
The nice thing for non-hardcore fans of giallo is that this movie has the actual dialogue by the original actors, so it doesn’t suffer from a bad dubbing. It also has plenty of great locations and 70’s fashion, which makes it feel pretty fun once it gets past its initial slow going.
Italy and Denmark unite for a film made in the wake of Dario Argento’s landmark The Bird With the Crystal Plumage. Just look — there are crimes right in the title and some vaguely associated animal name! Actually, a black cat does kill some people in this, so the name makes sense.
Originally titled Sette Scialli di Seta Gialla (Seven Shawls of Yellow Silk), this movie was written and directed by Sergio Pastore.
Several fashion models are killed by a murderer — think Blood and Black Lace — by a black cat that has been alerted to them by gifted shawls laced with chemicals. Such a strange way to kill someone, but hey — we’re in the psychosexual world of the giallo, so why worry?
Paola, the first victim, had been dating Peter Oliver (Anthony Steffen, who was Django in Django the Bastard and also shows up in Play Moteland The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave), a blind composer who believes that he’s heard the killer. He and his butler (Umberto Raho, Enter the Devil) are on the case, tracking the cat down to its owner, who is killed before she can reveal who has been taking care of her cat.
Much like the aforementioned — and superior — Bava film, Francoise (Sylva Koscina, Steve Reeves’ love interest in Hercules and Hercules Unchained; she’s also in So Sweet, So Dead and Bava’s Lisa and the Devil) was killing the models to cover up another killing. That’s because Paola was sleeping with her husband and certainly had to pay.
So yeah. The movie is a Bava remix with a lead character taken from another giallo, Argento’s The Cat O’Nine Tails. And the killer’s method comes from Bela Lugosi and The Devil Bat. Don’t let all that copy and pasting get in the way of your enjoyment of this movie. It’s still fun — the fashions are inordinately loud, the zooms are wild and the music is out of control. There’s a vicious shower kill than leaves nothing to the imagination. And it’s still better than anything out there today.
You have to love a movie that starts with a mechanical digger tearing a man’s head clean off his body before female voices singing the film’s Ennio Morricone composed theme over blood red title cards.
An unsolved case of kidnapping and murder has led to a series of seemingly unconnected deaths that Inspector Peretti (Hilton) must put together. All he has to go by is a drawing that a little girl made, but giallo films have been solved with less clues.
While this movie stays more on the police side of the equation than many giallo, it still has some kill scenes that stand out, such as a grisly circular saw murder.
This film was written by Roberto Leoni, who also wrote Sergio Martino’s Casablanca Express and Jodoworsky’s Santa Sangre. The end of this all feels more Agatha Christie than Argento, but that’s fine. It’s certainly a different feel for the genre.
You can get this for yourself at Vinegar Syndrome, as well as the first volume, which has León Klimovsky’s Trauma, Killer Is One of 13 and The Police Are Blundering in the Dark.
A combination giallo and spaghetti western? Sure. We can do that.
Mario Bianchi directed Satan’s Baby Doll and the mondo Africa Sexy before using the pen named Nicholas Moore, Tony Yanker and Martin White to make adult films.
Known in Italy as Hai Sbagliato… Dovevi Uccidermi Subito! (You Were Wrong…You Had to Kill Me Immediately!), this is all about federal agent Alan Fields, who is working undercover as Jonathan Pinkerton, acting as an employee of Lloyds of London to get to the bottom of a bank heist gone wrong, as two of the criminals are dead and the third has taken the money and their lives.
He’s played by Robert Woods, who was in all manner of Italian films like The Sinister Eyes of Dr. Orloff, Lucifera Demon Lover and His Name Was Sam Walbash, But They Call Him Amen.
A strange mix of genres, of course, but one that stands out in neither of them. Then again, I prefer my giallo to have jazzy music and mid-century modern furniture. But your mileage may vary.
You can watch this on Amazon Prime or on YouTube below.
With a title like that, you might be forgiven if you expect The Devil Within Her or The Devil In Ms. Jones style antics here. Instead, this is a slightly erotic gothic romance.
In his book Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1970-1979, Roger Curti spoke to the cast and they really can’t get any of their facts straight. Rosalba Neri (Lady Frankenstein herself!) claimed that director Paolo Lombardo “couldn’t stay awake for more than two hours” and “looked as if he was near his end, from the way he walked and moved around. I think he must have been very ill…” That said, Lombardo was only 31 at the time that he made this movie.
To top that, Robert Woods (Kill the Poker Player) — who plays Helmuth in this film — claims that he was hired to finish the film and received no credit. While assistant director Marco Masi was adamant that Woods didn’t direct any of the film, he can’t remember anything about making it.
Edmund Purdom (Pieces) is also in here — as Satan — so if you’re trying to fill out your Edmund Purdom Letterboxd list like I am, you’re in luck.
Rosalba Neri’s is Helga, who takes her two girlfriends to visit a remote European castle that is supposedly owned by Satan himself. After she sees a painting that resembles her, she starts having visions of maniacs living in caves, vampires, the inquisition and a hooded swordsman who can vanish at will.
You’d think an Italian erotic horror film with Satan, zombies and Ms. Neri wouldn’t induce slumber. But man, how wrong you would be.
Roger Corman wasn’t happy with the end results of this film, which was shot in the Philippines, but man, he has no idea. This is my kind of insane movie, where a movie leaves his woman for, well, a cobra woman who keeps him alive by pimping out his native lover who draws venom from the men that she kills.
Andrew Meyer only wrote and directed one other film, The Sky Pirate, which is a shame because this movie is pretty much insane. It has snake murders, an air of filth and women ruining lives. Is there anything else you can put in a movie?
How about Joy Bang? You know and love her from Messiah of Evil and she’s here, looking gorgeous. She’s the former girlfriend of Stan Duff (Roger Garrett, who got a poultry infection while making this movie!), who has now found love in the arms of Lena (Marlene Clark from Ganja & Hess, Beware the Blob and Switchblade Sisters), the cobra woman herself.
Vic Diaz, who was Satan in Beast of the Yellow Night, also shows up. Quentin Tarantino would refer to Vic as the Peter Lorre of the Philippines, a title he earned in appearances in movies like Beyond Atlantis, Black Mama White Mama, Superbeast, Daughters of Satan and Raw Force.
Based on Kurt Vonnegut’s classic 1969 novel, this tale of time travel and alien abduction finds Billy Pilgrim (Michael Sacks, The Sugarland Express, The Amityville Horror) finds himself unstuck in time. Traveling back and forth to random points within his existence, Pilgrim experiences his life in scattered fashion, such as what it was like to grow up, the firebombing of Dresden and a surreal adventure on a distant planet named Tralfamadore at some point in the future.
Praised by Vonnegut himself, Slaughterhouse-Five was directed by George Roy Hill (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, Thoroughly Modern Millie). The author would say, “I love George Roy Hill and Universal Pictures, who made a flawless translation of my novel Slaughterhouse-Five to the silver screen. I drool and cackle every time I watch that film, because it is so harmonious with what I felt when I wrote the book.”
For horror fans, keep your eyes open for Gilmer McCormick as Lily Rumfoord (she played Sister Margaret in Silent Night, Deadly Night), Roberts Blossom as Wild Bob Cody (he was Ezra Cobb in Deranged and Old Man Marley in Home Alone), Sorrell Booke as Lionel Merble (he was in Devil Times Five as well as more famously playing Boss Hogg on The Dukes of Hazzard) and Kevin Conway as Roland Weary (he’s Conrad Straker the Funhouse Barker in The Funhouse).
Plus, Valerie Perrine plays the Hollywood starlet Montana Wildhack, along with Perry King (like I need an excuse to mention TV’s Riptide) and Holly Near (The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart) as Pilgrim’s children.
Although Vonnegut’s renown refrain, “So it goes”, appears over a hundred times in the novel, it does not occur, even once, in the movie version. However, he did base the story on his own experiences as a prisoner of war during the Battle of the Bulge while a battalion scout with the 106 Infantry Division on December 22, 1944. Vonnegut also lived through the bombing of Dresden, an experience that informs the entire first part of this movie.
The character of Howard W. Campbell Jr. in this movie is also the subject of another Vonnegut novel which was turned into a movie, Mother Night. Nick Nolte played Campbell in that movie. Also, the character Elliot Rosewater, who Billy’s mom talks to in the hospital, is the title character in Vonnegut’s 1965 novel, God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, and would be played by Ken Hudson Campbell in 1999’s Breakfast of Champions.
This is a film that I’ve always wanted to see, so I really appreciated the opportunity that the new Arrow Video release afforded me.
Their new blu ray release features a brand new 4K restoration from the original camera negative, produced by Arrow Video exclusively for this release. Plus, you get audio commentary by author and critic Troy Howarth, an appreciation from author and critic Kim Newman and interviews from Perry King, Rocky Lang, Robert Crawford, Jr. and film music historian Daniel Schweiger. Obviously, Arrow puts astounding care into everything they release and this is no different. You can order it right here.
DISCLAIMER: This movie was sent to us by Arrow Video.
Oh René Cardona. Here you are remaking the lucha libre movie you did back in 1962, Las Luchadoras Contra el Medico Asesino, or The Wrestling Women vs. the Killer Doctor or Doctor of Doom, as it was called in the U.S.
While this was made in 1969 as La Horripilante Bestia Humana, or The Horrible Man-Beast, this one didn’t play in the U.S. until 1972. With alternate titles like Horror y Sexo and Gomar – The Human Gorilla, this is a fine blend of ladies wrestling with apes and, well, human heart surgery footage.
Rene is also known for his films Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy, the incredibly baffling Santa Clausand Survive!, a movie all about plane crashes and cannibalism.
Female masked wrestler Lucy dresses like the devil and wrestles at the arena — dare we say Arena Mexico? — every Friday, where she often knocks out other girls who dress like cat girls. She wants to retire for a life of leisure — and less stress — with her cop boyfriend.
However, Dr. Krellman (Jose Elias Moreno, who was Santa Claus in the aforementioned film where he battles Patch the demon) wants to cure his son from leukemia. So he does what doctors have always said would work — he puts him a gorilla heart inside his boy. As we all know from health class, this turns his son into a deformed and murderous man-ape with the craziness of the organ donor to boot.
You won’t be bored, what with the nudity, real open heart surgery and rampant murders. A monkey man that rips off dudes’ faces and the clothes of girls? Si, muchacho.
This made the Section 1 video nasties list, probably because its VHS cover art was had a bloody surgeon’s hands holding a scalpel with the words “Warning: this film contains scenes of extreme and explicit violence.”
J. Lee Thompson had wanted to be involved with Planet of the Apes since the original film, but scheduling conflicts had kept that from happening. For this, the fourth film in the series, he shot much of the film like a news broadcast, influenced by the many civil rights changes over the past few years.
Screenwriter Paul Dehn thought that this would be the last movie in the series and saw this as the closing of the circle that began with the first movie. For inspiration, he also went back to the original novel, where apes took over as pets.
After a 1983 pandemic that wiped out all dogs and cats, humanity has taken on apes as slave labor. In fact, if it feels like slavery, that’s kind of the intention of the film. By 1991, the world has almost become a police state, which was foretold in 1973 when Cornelius and Zira came back in time.
However, their son Milo — now Caesar and played by Roddy McDowall — has evaded capture by being raised by Armando (Ricardo Montalban, returning from the last film) as a horseback riding performer. Almost a father to the young ape, Armando warns Caesar not to be upset at what he’s sees and definitely not to speak. However, the young ape can’t contain his anger.
While his “father” goes to jail, Caesar is sold into slavery and bought by Governor Breck (Don Murray, Bus Stop), where he is put to work by the African-American chief aide MacDonald (Hari Rhodes, Detroit 9000), who is against the slavery of the apes.
Armando is interrogated by Inspector Kolp (Severn Darden, who would help form Second City and was also in Saturday the 14thand comes back for the next Apes film), whose machine The Authenticator can get out any truth. Rather than cause the death of his son, Armando leaps out a window to his death.
Caesar loses faith in humanity and begins to teach the apes how to fight. He’s even captured and nearly killed — MacDonald saves his life — before escaping and inciting his revolution. He sets fire to most of the city and his apes murder nearly every cop that tries to fight them. He marches into Breck’s command post, kills nearly everyone and marches the leader out to be killed.
MacDonald begs Caesar not to become as bad as humanity and asks hm to spare his former master. Caesar howls back: “Where there is fire, there is smoke. And in that smoke, from this day forward, my people will crouch, and conspire, and plot, and plan for the inevitable day of Man’s downfall. The day when he finally and self-destructively turns his weapons against his own kind. The day of the writing in the sky, when your cities lie buried under radioactive rubble! When the sea is a dead sea, and the land is a wasteland out of which I will lead my people from their captivity! And we shall build our own cities, in which there will be no place for humans except to serve our ends! And we shall found our own armies, our own religion, our own dynasty! And that day is upon you NOW!”
This is where the movie splits, depending on what version you watch.
In the theatrical version, as the apes raise their rifles to kill Breck, Caesar’s girlfriend Lisa becomes the first ape other than our hero to speak, yelling “No!” The apes lower their weapons as Caesar says, “But now… now we will put away our hatred. Now we will put down our weapons. We have passed through the night of the fires, and those who were our masters are now our servants. And we, who are not human, can afford to be humane. Destiny is the will of God, and if it is Man’s destiny to be dominated, it is God’s will that he be dominated with compassion, and understanding. So, cast out your vengeance. Tonight, we have seen the birth of the Planet of the Apes!”
After a negatively recieved preview screening, the producers reworked the film, even though they did not have the budget to do so. After all, this film had the smallest budget of any of the Apes films.
Seriously, this was made on the cheap. The jumpsuits worn by the apes saved on the cost of fake fur and were leftover costumes from Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Other props and sets came from The Time Tunnel, City Beneath the Sea and Land of the Giants. Finally, Breck’s throne at the ape auction came from Taylor’s spaceship in the original film.
After all, the Apes were keeping 20th Century Fox in business after flops like Cleopatra, Star! and Hello, Dolly! They kept doing so even with lower and lower budgets.
So how did they accomplish this new ending? Roddy McDowall looped in a new speech, which was done through editing tricks — notie that you only see Caesar’s eyes — and the guns are raised back up by playing the footage backward. The blu ray release of this has both endings. Obviously, I prefer the one where the humans get what they deserve.
This is the only film from the original Planet of the Apes series without a pre-title sequence. That’s because that scene — where a night patrol kills an ape and learns that his body showed signs of abuse — was too much for the MPAA. All of the other movies had been rated G, after all. So this scene — and several others that were quite bloody — were all axed.
As we wrote about back when we covered Dream No Evil, John Hayes began his career producing and directing short subjects and even appeared an actor in movies like The Shaggy D.A. and his own End of the World.
The movies he directed included The Grass Eater, Five Minutes to Love, the incredibly named Jailbait Babysitter, the adult movies Pleasure Zone and Hot Lunch, and even more crazily titled movies like All the Lovin’ Kinfolk and Up Yours – A Rockin’ Comedy.
This is probably his best known film. It starts with a warning if you’re worried about watching baby vampires drink blood. With that, you know that you’re in for something completely bonkers.
Years after his death by electrocution in the late 1930s, Caleb Croft (Michael Pataki!) rises from his grave as a vampire, where he’s a brutal and completely unromantic bloodsucker. After assaulting Leslie Hollander, she becomes pregnant with his son, who grows up to be James Eastman (William Smith, who played Conan’s father in the original Arnold version).
His goal in life is find and kill his diabolical father while repressing the vampiric bloodlust that is his birthright. Now, daddy is known as Professor Lockwood, a much more refined version of the murderous beast we saw before. He teaches an occult class and one night, after he hosts a seance, James and his dad finally throw down.
This movie presents a very modern take on the vampire. Well, as of 1972 modern, that is. It’s definitely not the suave and sophisticated vampires that the world had come to know thanks to Lugosi and Lee.
If you don’t have the Pure Terror set, you can watch this one for free on Amazon Prime. Or you can go for the bloody gusto with the Scream Factory blu ray.
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