69 EsSINtial SWV Titles (September 15 – 21): Klon, who came up with this list, said “This isn’t the 69 BEST SWV movies, it isn’t my 69 FAVORITE SWV movies, my goal was to highlight 69 of the MOST SWV movies.” You can see the whole list here, including some of the ones I’ve already posted.

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 Claus and 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.”

You can watch this for free on Tubi.

69 EsSINtial SWV Titles (September 15 – 21): Klon, who came up with this list, said “This isn’t the 69 BEST SWV movies, it isn’t my 69 FAVORITE SWV movies, my goal was to highlight 69 of the MOST SWV movies.” You can see the whole list here, including some of the ones I’ve already posted.

William Girdler was born on October 22, 1947 in Jefferson County, KY and this was his first of nine movies in six years, ending only when he died while scouting locations in the Philippines for his next film.

After he finished with the Air Force, Girlder formed Studio One with best friend and brother-in-law J. Patrick Kelly. Initially focused on TV commercials, Studio One eventually took on movies with this film. It later became Mid-America Pictures when Girdler’s films began making money.

According to the official William Girdler site, his “make ’em fast and cheap” directorial style was the result of a premonition that he’d die by the age of 30. Well, he made it to thirty, at least. Some say that Girdler was so obsessed with his own death that he said that he was in a race against time.

Filmed in Louisville in late 1971 for around $50,000, this is the story of concert pianist Lucina Martin (Carla Borelli) who has been abducted by Dr. Jason Specter (Charles Kissinger) and taken to his Pleasant Hill Hospital for treatment. It’s a sanitarium that she swears that she doesn’t belong in and who would want to be in a place where the doctor kills people to add to his Satanic majesty and immortality? And is Specter also the evil sorceress Martine? Because Kissinger is definitely playing both parts. He was also a horror host in Louisville known as the Fearmonger on WDRB.

It all leads up to a virgin sacrifice with our lovely piano player as the victim and Martine saying things like the fact that she “calls upon the gates of the dark realm to crash asunder” and invokes “blazing angles of the shining trapezoid.” What’s that? Oh, you know, the Order of the Trapezoid which later became the governing body of the Church of Satan.

More of that in a bit.

This being the early 70s, the ending is ambiguous, the rubber bugs and snakes countless and a Satan that looks like someone wearing a costume from a party store. You know, it might sound like I’m laughing at this movie, but I’m not. Asylum of Satan pleases me to an incredible degree, a movie made by someone who knew he was born to make movies and yet trying all he could to learn right there on the screen.

Girlder told the Louisville Times, “Other people learned how to make movies in film schools. I learned by doing it. Nobody saw Billy Friedkin’s or Steven Spielberg’s mistakes, but all my mistakes were right up there on the screen for everybody to see.”

The film was made with the assistance of local investors but the movie didn’t make enough to return their investment. Shortly before his too soon death, Girdler signed over the rights to this movie and Three On a Meathook to those original investors so that they could make back their money.

The Girdler site also has an amazing interview with Don Wrege, who clapped the clapboard for this movie. I loved every word, especially when he explains how the Church of Satan got involved being technical consultants.

“A bunch of high school girls (some daughters of investors) were dressed in virginal white, given candles and positioned in a circle around Borelli who was roped to the alter. A guy in a rubber suit. (Girdler said the suit/mask was from Rosemary’s Baby but wasn’t shown in the film, thus it was affordable and available and, of course, cool.)

There was a lot of motion involved. I think the guy in the rubber suit was on an apple box with wheels. The Asmans were on the largest crane we used the whole time, if I remember correctly. Multiple takes were done, all the time Kissinger (I think) was reciting the invocations that had been written by the satanic guy who was standing in the wings watching all of this take place. The incantation, if that’s the right word, was repeated any number of times with as much sincerity as Charlie Kissinger could muster, as multiple takes were filmed.

During one take, and at some very convenient point in the “prayer,” like “…if you’re present, show yourself…” or something like that, one of the white-draped high school daughters of an investor passed out and hit the floor. Everyone was horrified. The two people from the Black Church without hesitation ran to the girl’s limp body and began saying all sorts of weird shit, speaking in some unidentifiable tongue. The girl’s mother, who was there, TOTALLY freaked out, running to her daughter’s side screaming “You leave her alone…get away!” to the two Satanists.

The daughter came to in a few moments, and was excused for the day. Everything was really tense for a couple of hours after that. I think some folks started to wonder what the hell we were messing with. I made a mental note to try to keep track of that girl who fainted, but I haven’t had the nerve. I really don’t want to know.”

Well, that advisor was Michael Aquino, the actual writer of a lot of the rituals in the Satanic Bible and he told the Girdler site that he didn’t remember anyone passing out. Aquino later broke away from the Church of Satan and formed the Temple of Set.

After receiving his PhD in political science from the University of California, Santa Barbara, Aquino worked as an adjunct professor at Golden Gate University until 1986. The whole time, he was serving as an Active Guard Reserve officer of the United States Army stationed at the Presidio of San Francisco.

As the 80s went on, Aquino became intrigued by the connections between Nazis and the occult. At one point, he performed a solitary rite at Walhalla beneath the Wewelsburg castle which was an infamous ceremonial space used by the Schutzstaffel’s Ahnenerbe group.

He then formed the Order of the Trapezoid, which was a chivalric order influenced by a mix of Satanism, Pagan heathery and even the application of runes within magic. Aquino was often challenged in the Satanic Panic of many crimes, as well as in conspiracy circles for numerous acts of evil as he started his career in PsyOps. He even welcomed LaVey’s daughter Zeena and her husband Nikolas Schreck into the group before the inevitable break.

But I digress, as I always say.

Girdler would do so much more — again, in such a short time — but the basics of his career are here. The 70s were prime time for Satanic movies and he took advantage of it just as he would of all manner of subjects that he thought would make box office.

He was even kind of William Castle in a way here, as the press book mentions ordering “Sign of Satan Soul Protectors” to protect theatergoers from the “Evil Stare of the Devil.” That’s also Girdler’s Porsche in this and his sister Lynne Kelly in the pool with the snakes, because Sherry Steiner refused.

Here’s a drink for this movie.

Snake in the Swimming Pool

• 2 oz. Southern Comfort
• 4 oz. cranberry juice
• 1 oz. lime juice

1. Build over ice, starting with the SoCo, then followed by the cranberry and lemon.

69 EsSINtial SWV Titles (September 15 – 21): Klon, who came up with this list, said “This isn’t the 69 BEST SWV movies, it isn’t my 69 FAVORITE SWV movies, my goal was to highlight 69 of the MOST SWV movies.” You can see the whole list here, including some of the ones I’ve already posted.

Shot with new permits or budget on the very real streets of New York City, Fleshpot on 42nd Street starts with two sex workers, Dusty Cole (Laura Cannon) and Cherry Lane (Neil Flanagan in drag), trying to make it in the world. But it all gets to be too much for Dusty, who quits the nightlife and tries to move on to the straight life with Bob (Harry Reems!). But as you know — or you should — this is an Andy Milligan movie. Things have a way of not working out.

Once Dusty and Bob hook up, this movie moves from a realistic world where two sex workers rob everyone they can to stay alive while being truly honest with one another about it to another where a man comes in and seemingly saves the day but not caring about his lover’s past.

Maybe that brief respite from a tough world of fighting to stay alive every day is echoed by how Milligan felt, back from London and still making movies for nothing that hardly anyone would see on the rough streets of NYC. But even 42nd Street was about to change, going from simply dangerous in places to absolutely harrowing in the wake of crack by the end of the decade. And even in 1972, the movies playing there went from just plain old exploitation to full penetration.

If you hear some people discuss the films of Milligan, they’re either dismissive or outright mean. I don’t know what they’re looking for, but unlike his horror work, this feels authentic and true. It’s got a downer ending that 1972 Hollywood would have embraced, even if there’s no way they ever could have.

You can download this from the Internet Archive.

Dragon Art Theatre Week (September 8 – 14) Pssst. Hey…buddy… you wanna see some naked movies with your mom in em? This stuff here is premium split tail in action, my friend, straight from the vaults at Something Weird Video. It’s all the HARD X stuff on the SWV site that I could find on Letterboxd and let me tell you, when I say HARD X I mean it! These movies show it all baby, whatever sort of freaky shit you’re into, these movies have got it. Nipple clamps, ice cubes on the balls, lesbos, homos, cumshots, whips, leather, you name it! Plus we got air conditioning and the cleanest bathrooms on the deuce. Just step inside … and if you need some luudes or a lid talk to my man Shifty over at the popcorn counter. Tell him Klon sent you.

The only film by Frank Spokeman and the lone film by writers Robert Selmers and Herb Wheeler, Teenage Fantasies is the American cover version of Germany’s Schoolgirl Report and the one advantage that we have over German filth films is that our side has Rene Bond, which is a lot like having all the nuclear warheads.

Filmed at the Eugene Hotel in Eugene, Oregon, this starts with a square up scroll, in which the filmmakers want you to know that thanks to the pill and porn chic, the teenagers of 1972 finally have fantasies. And now, we’re going to get to see them re-enacted.

Most of the scenes — a teenage threeway, a girl interested in aggressive sex, the tradesman’s entrance — are your basic sex stories. Where this shines is when Suzanne Fields (Flesh Gordon) does a JOI scene a half century before internet porn and whenever Bond is on the screen, taking man after man as she introduces each segment. She’s got on fake eyelashes, blue eyeshade and looks like what I can only assume angels appear like, minus how the Book of Ezekiel described them as wheels with eyeballs all over them and four faces.

The only other performers who are not one and done are Carmen Olivera (A Clockwork Blue).

This was filmed by Andy Romanoff, who started as a production manager as Herschell Gordon Lewis’ films before shooting A Taste of Blood and Something Weird. He went on to work as a still photographer on Switchblade Sisters and The Swinging Cheerleaders, the Louma crane op on 1941, Can’t Stop the Music, One from the Heart, Wolfen, Friday the 13th Part 3, The Entity, Something Wicked This Way Comes, To Live and Die In L.A., Stop Making Sense, the Warrant video for “Cherry Pie” and Sweatin’ to the Oldies 3.

Teenage Fantasies also had its own psychiatric consultant, Dr. Roland W. Thaxter. I have no idea what he did on set.

But anyways, Rene Bond forever.

Frank Henenlotter’s Sexy Shockers (September 1 – 7) We all know Frank Hennenlotter as the director of the Basket Case films, Bad Biology, Brain Damage, and Frankenhooker, but he’s also a cinematic curator of the crass! An academic of the pathetic! A steward of sleaze! A sexton of the sexual and the Sexy Shocker series is his curio cabinet of crudity. Skin and sin are mixed together in these homegrown oddities, South American rediscoveries, and Eurohorror almost-classics. Your mind may recoil with erotic revulsion at the sights contained within these films, so choose wisely!

Not enough people talk about Pete Walker, whose movies are mind destroyers and who is all over the map when it comes to output, making giallo-esque in England films like Die Screaming, Marianne; House of Whipcord and The Comeback.

One of his obsessions was to make a movie where actors die in a themed way by those older than them. This is the first time he explored that and it’s all about a mystery producer who has gathered a cast of unemployed actors to be in a mysterious play, rehearsing them in an abandoned theatre beside the sea.

Meanwhile, a black gloved killer is murdering everyone, a killing spree that started thirty years ago when he trapped his wife and her lover behind a wall. Now, everyone is going to deal with his pain as he works it out by you know, killing everyone in the play.

This movie lives up to the flesh part of its title, as no matter how cold that theater looks, nearly every female star feels the urge to doff her bra and show the world their ample gifts. Pete Walker may not have invented the male gaze, but damn if I can’t think of someone who was in its grip more.

Parts of this movie were even shot in 3D, which makes me happier than you’ll ever know.

Here’s a drink for this movie.

The Blood Show

• 2 oz. tequila
• 2 oz. blood orange juice (or 1.5 oz. orange juice and .5 oz. grenadine)
• 2 oz. pomegranate juice

1. Shake it all up with ice in a cocktail shaker.
2. Pour in a glass and savor.

Rene Bond week (August 11 – 17) Rene Bond could brighten up even the most dreary productions, and she was in plenty of them. In the early adult scene she was one of the better actors, particularly when it came to comedy, though she could squeeze into some leather and throw the whips around when the role called for it. Bond appeared in somewhere near 100 films, thanks to her affable professionalism she worked with many filmmakers multiple times and regularly performed with her boyfriend Ric Lutze. Her career received an enhancement when she became one of the first stars to get a boobjob. She retired from film in the late-70s just as the porno chic era was dying down, but before the video era. You can find her in a ton of SWV titles, so take yer pick!

Billie Joe Peabody (Rene Bond) is gorgeous, so perfect and beautiful — look, it’s Rene Bond — that her male relatives chase her all day long, hoping to get to touch her. Breaking up these shenanigans is when Grandma Peabody (Zena Foster, The Corpse Grinders) decides she wants the entire family to get together before she dies. That family would be Leroy (John Tull, the assistant director of C.B. Hustlers, Drive-In Massacre and The Witch Who Came from the Sea), Jenny (Pamella Princess), Jeff (Mark Buckalew in his only acting job; he was a gaffer, best boy or assistant director on productions like Butterfly, Just Before Dawn, Masters of the Universe and Sweatin’ to the Oldies 2), Jeeter (Steven Hodge) and Fester (Jack Richesin), as well as Prudence (Ellen Stephens), who left the country for the big city.

Prudence ends up having a great time — the moonshines helps — and drunkenly asks the family to come visit her for a party, if they’re ever in town. Well, they soon are. And she regrets it, as she thinks they’ll embarrass her. So all her friends dress like hillbillies and the Peabody family shows up looking normal. Fester tells her not to worry, as they’re still family. He also brought the goat that she won in a chicken chase at the party.

At the party, Billie Joe meets agent Walter Wimpy, who is George “Buck” Flower doing a Paul Lynde impression, except that he’s trying to get her naked and doesn’t care about her singing career. No matter what Flower did in his career — and he did so much — he got to do a simulated sex scene with Rene Bond which has to be like walking on the surface of the moon or being able to read minds for real. His character has a bad heart and dies and you know, I’m exhausted by life and nowhere close to as old as Flower looks here — he’s 17 years younger when this was made than I am now — but if you’re going to go into sweet oblivion, how else should you leave this reality?

Director and writer Bethel Buckalew lived to be 94 and made nine movies — Tobacco Roddy, Midnite Plowboy, Southern Comforts, Below the Belt, The Dirty Mind of Young Sally, Sassy Sue, Mag Wheels (a vansploitation movie I haven’t seen!) and My Boys Are Good Boys — with most of them being filmed for producer Harry Novak.

There are so many country softcore movies and you know, I’ve seen a lot of them. I could blame Cinemax After Dark but I know that only I am to blame.