As a small, fat and large glasses-wearing child, I was obsessed with Ultraman to the point that if I ever saw any Japanese tourists on vacation, I would try to leave with them instead of my family in the hope that they would bring me east and all I would have to do is watch monster TV shows and never have to go to school.

I’m 52 now and I want the same.

Anyways, Mirrorman was made in the wake of Ultraman except that it has the king of all kaiju movies, Ishirō Honda, directing it. Its also Tsuburaya Productions’ — the home of Ultraman — first non-Ultra show and was pretty dark for the first 26 episodes before the TV network said to make it for kids.

Set in the far future of the 1980s, this has the Invaders coming to Earth with all of their evil kaiju. The leader of the Science Guard Members, Professor Mitarai, has a foster son named Kyotaro Kagami, whose last name means mirror. He has a secret, that his father was an alien and his mother was human. His father may be dead after a fight with King Zyger , but his mom has been taken by the alien monsters. To top all that off, he is actually the son of a superhero with has the same powers and is known as Mirrorman. He doesn’t want to be Mirrorman — come on, dude — but when he stands in front of a reflective surface, holds up his pendant and says, “mirror spark” he gets his powers.

This short was released in Japan on March 12, 1972, where it was distributed by Toho as part of the Spring 1972 Toho Champion Festival along with Godzilla vs. Gigan, Pinocchio: The Series, Hutch the Honeybee: Hold Me, Momma and The Genius Bakabon: Night Duty is Scary.

After episode 26, this became more like Ultraman, as Mirrorman would have a bomb put in his heart by the Invaders that will kill him if he uses his powers for too long. Why didn’t they just kill him? Unlike so many robot heroes, he actually lives at the end of his series, as his father also survived and they go to the second dimension to fight the Invaders.

In 2010’s Ultraman Zero The Movie: Super Deciding Fight! The Belial Galactic Empire, Mirror Knight is Mirrorman. Well, inspired by him.

The kaiju in the first episode, The Iron, has a hug attack and a tail that seems a lot like an evil penis. Young me would never have consider this.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Martha Peters and Mary Davis noticed that women weren’t making many horror movies in the 1960s, so they wrote this, which would be directed by Tom Moore, who  produced Horror High, The Town That Dreaded Sundown, The Norseman and directed, wrote and produced Return to Boggy Creek.

As for Peters and Davis, only Davis would work on another film, writing the script for S.F. Brownrigg’s Scum of the Earth.

This starts like Black Sunday, as a witch (Marie Santell) is being put to death after having been betrayed by her coven. As they take her to the gallows, she says that she will come back for revenge on the family of MacIntyre Stuart (Robert Elston), who is why she has been charged.

Three hundred years later, Professor Mac Stuart (Elston) is dumb enough to have a party and invite his swinging hippy students over to his place, where Jill (Anitra Walsh) steals one of Mac’s books, the Red Book of Appin, and soon becomes possessed by the witch after she, Sharon (Barbara Brownell) and Harry (Jack Gardner) — her boyfriend Alan (Darryl Wells) doesn’t want to play with evil — conjure up the evil woman, who ends up killing all of her friends to become the ruler of our world.

Pretty simple, but also pretty awesome, as 1972 was a way groovier place than 2024. The strangest thing is that instead of, you know, just killing Mac, the possessed Jill asks him all about telephones and coffee while a Moog synth soundtrack dibble dabbles. Man, could we all just live in this?

You can watch this on YouTube.

Directed by Cheng Kang and Shao-Yung Tung, this starts with Commander Yang Tsung Pao (Chung Wa) near death and almost ready to concede defeat. He sends his most trusted generals, Chiao Ting Kuai (Fan Mei-Sheng) and Meng Huai Yuan (Wong Chung-Shun), back home to inform his family that he has died and to send more troops. There aren’t any, as all of the men of the family have been killed in battle. Matriarch She Tai Chun (Lisa Lu) gathers the titular fourteen women and heads off, along with her teenage grandson (played by Lily Ho, but it’s no surprise that he is a she) to win the war. As for why Lily plays a boy, everyone must follow this line of thinking, as she will be the male heir for the kingdom.

Each of the women is capable and a dangerous fighter, including Mu Kue Ying (Ivy Ling Po) and Yang Pei Feng (Shu Pei-pei), who is celebrated in stories beyond this. This also has one of the most outstanding sequences, as when the bridge across Death Valley is destroyed, She Tai Chun orders her troops to form a human bridge that everyone trust falls into action, as the army uses them to cross and continue their revenge.

Also: So much violence and the evil Mongols have Santa Claus-like outfits on, making this a perfect holiday movie of women sword-slashing evil St. Nicks and tossing them off cliffs. Sure, there are hundreds of characters to keep track of, but this movie was made to amaze you. I saw one Letterboxd review that said, “There are supposed to be whole armies and I only see fifty people.”

This is a film of blood and sacrifice, of strategy and resolve. So if you have nothing nice — or smart — to say, just watch something else and let us enjoy.

The Arrow Video Shaw Scope Volume Three box set has a brand new 2K restoration of The 14 Amazons as well as commentary by Jonathan Clements, author of A Brief History of China; interviews with stuntwoman Sharon Yeung, film historian Bede Chang and film critic Law Kar and a trailer.

You can get this set from MVD.

Ainu (Lily Ho) has been kidnapped and stolen into slavery by Madam Chun Yi (Betty Pei Ti) and her Four Seasons brothel. Madam Chun is rough — she’s already killed one of the kidnapper for taking the virginity of one of her girls.

Our heroine and her owner don’t get along at all — at first — as Ainu keeps getting locked away for her insolence and her back whipped into a bloody mess that — of course — Madam Chun licks.

The rich noblemen who gather to take Ainu’s virginity get her drunk and then abuse her, over and over again. After stopping her from hanging herself, the pain of this event awakens a memory in a mute servant boy. Remembering a love he once lost, he tries to help her escape, but is easily killed, and Madam Chun tells Ainu that “I could easily kill you now.” Instead, Ainu starts to comply and becomes her mistress’ lover.

One by one, Ainu starts to murder the men who abused her, using her job as a courtesan to get close to them. Madam Chun is so blinded by her lust for her that even when her most trusted men tell her that Ainu is a killer, she refuses to believe it. It gets to the point that she even helps Ainu free all of her women and destroy her brothel, killing all of her loyal henchmen. When she’s struck down, she confesses that she loved Ainu, but she tells Madam Chu that it was all a lie, that she used her to get revenge. Of course, she misjudged how evil the woman is, as she’d hidden a poison pill in her mouth in case she ever needed to use it. With their last kiss, she kills her enemy and lover.

Amazingly — well, maybe not, Shaw Brothers stole some wild music for their soundtracks — this has Pink Floyd’s “Come In Number 51, Your Time Is Up” and “Heart Beat, Pig Meat” in it.

If you’re looking for a female revenge movie, Shaw Brothers style, this is it. Of course, being that it came from this studio and director Chor Yuen, don’t expect it to end either clean or happily.

The Arrow Video Shaw Scope Volume Three box set has a brand new 2K restoration of Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan and extras like two commentaries — one by film critic and historian Tony Rayns and the other by critic Samm Deighan — as well as alternate English credits and a trailer.

You can get this set from MVD.

So this is kind of cheating, because Sbatti il mostro in prima pagina is more a drama or crime movie than a giallo, but it has enough elements of the form to warrant being included in the company of black gloved killers.

Il Giornale is a newspaper that may remind you of some other media sources in 2021: it has a strictly conservative and fascist audience and seeks to discover the right wing way of looking at every issue, no matter how silly they are, while ignoring the real issues that people are dealing with every single day.

Then a young woman is assaulted and killed, so the bullpen goes all in screaming for the return of the death penalty and actually goes so far as to get involved in the investigation. They believe that an idealistic student protester is behind the sex crime, which their readership is only too happy to get behind.

Gian Maria Volonté plays the editor who gets the fires burning. He always ends up in the more mindful and socially conscious giallo that don’t really fit the standard ideas of what makes one of these films, like Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, Todo Modo and, well, this one. Plus Laura Betti (A Bay of Blood, Hatchet for the Honeymoon) and John Steiner are in this if you’re looking for familiar faces. Plus there’s an Ennio Morricone soundtrack.

Sergio Donati, who wrote the script, was the original director but he and Volonté had artistic differences. He also wrote The Weekend Murders, The Island of the Fishmen AKA Screamers, the original Man on Fire and Almost Blue. And oh yeah — Raw Deal!

Life imitates art: two years later, a real right-wing newspaper named Il Giornale started up.

The Radiance Films blu ray of Slap the Monster On Page One has a 4K restoration of the film from the original negative by Cineteca di Bologna in collaboration with Surf Film and Kavac Film, under the supervision of director Marco Bellocchio. There are interviews with Bellocchio and Mario Sesti, plus an appreciation by filmmaker Alex Cox, new English subtitles, a reversible sleeve featuring designs based on original posters and a limited edition of 3000 copies that comes with a booklet with writing by Wesley Sharer.

You can order it from MVD.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Blood Spattered Bride was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, March 10, 1979 at 1:00 a.m., Saturday, November 15, 1980 at 1:00 a.m. and Saturday, September 17, 1983 at 3:00 a.m.

La novia ensangrentada is based on Carmilla, that tale of forbidden Sapphic vampire love. Released as a double feature in the U.S. with I Dismember Mama, it even had a special trailer that had an audience member losing their marbles.

Susan (Maribel Martín) is so newlywed that she shows up on her honeymoon still wearing her gown. She’s being followed by Mircala Karstein (Alexandra Bastedo) and has waking terrors, imagining a man has come into her room to assault her. When she visits her the house where her husband (Simón Andreu) was raised, she finds paintings of all the men, but no women save Karstein, who murdered her husband on their wedding night after he forced her to commit unspeakable acts.

As her dreams are taken over by Karstein, her husband finds a woman buried on the beach. She’s still alive — well, she’s undead — and she’s Karstein in human form, seducing Susan in dreams of deadly daggers and in waking caresses. By the end, he must destroy them while they sleep intertwined in a coffin and then fulfill the wish of her thrall to shoot her in the head.

Sure, it’s a lot like The Vampire Lovers and Daughters of Darkness, but those movies don’t have their protagonist’s sexual awakening come complete with remembering that her husband uses her for sex whenever he wants it without pleasure for her, so she blows another man’s balls clean off with a shotgun.

“The good ones are those who are content to dream what the wicked actually practice.”

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Demons of the Mind was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, September 20, 1980 at 1:00 a.m. and Saturday, May 14, 1982 at 1:00 a.m.

Between Venom, To the Devil a Daughter and this movie, Peter Sykes is an unappreciated creator of early 70s scummy horror. Written by Christopher Wicking (Cry of the Banshee, Scream and Scream Again), this movie combines insanity, mesmerism, religious fervor, incest, Satanic possession and just plain British weirdness to make the kind of movie that we watch on a rainy Sunday.

Baron Friedrich Zorn (Robert Hardy) keeps his children Emil (Shane Briant) and Elizabeth (Gillian Hills) locked up and away from one another, lest they make sweet sweet brother and sister love in the name of the devil. After all, his own wife had a madness like theirs that led to her suicide in front of both of them — or maybe he just wouldn’t sleep with her any longer and she got so upset at the loss of getting some of little Friedrich that she offed herself — so they both must be constantly treated to the bloodletting that takes out the evil flowing through their bodies.

Meanwhile — if that’s not enough –women s are being murdered in the woods and covered with rose petals. The townspeople think demons are to blame and by the end of the movie, they go absolutely beyond wild and try to wipe out the cause. There’s also Doctor Falkenberg (Patrick Magee) who has a carny method of curing the evil out of the Zorn progeny; he intends to get a village woman named Inge (Virginia Wetherell) to portray their dead mother in a strange roleplaying exercise while another young local named Carl (Paul Jones, who once sang for Manfred Mann) falls for Elizabeth. And oh yeah — maybe the Baron is more to blame than anyone.

Gillian Hills was a last minute replacement for Marianne Faithful, but the early 70s were not a good time for her, as she lost her son and was dealing with heroin addiction, anorexia and living on the streets. She wasn’t able to be insured for this movie.

I’m a lover of late period Hammer, as they move away from the classics and start to make their own weird little movies. Of course, they’re often filled with lots of nudity, madness and Satanic forces, so…look, I’m weak and I love what I love.