Like nearly every other genre director in the Old Country, Amando De Ossorio had a possession movie in him and if their films feel purer than their American counterparts, it may be because they’re all true believers, raised in countries that had way more religion in their blood than the freer — and yet often more repressed — New World.

Our titular demon witch child is possessed by a witch named Mother Gautère (Kali Hansa) who starts this movie off by destroying a church, stealing a chalice and killing herself in the name of Satan by jumping out of a police station window rather than revealing where the baby she’s kidnapped is, telling the forces of law and order that the child would be dead by the time they found it. Meanwhile, young Susan (Marián Salgado), the daughter of head inspector Barnes (Angel del Pozo) is given a pendant that instantly begins her possession. Avoid all gifts from hippies as you would tanis root from old Hollywood actors.

Perhaps she can be saved by Father Juan (Julian Mateos), the priest who left behind love and condemned a good woman to a broken heart and a life on the streets? Or maybe the maid Anne (Lone Fleming) can get through to her. Well, no on either account and young Susan neatly slices off the penis of Anne’s lover and presents it to her in a napkin, along with crawling the walls like a prepubescent Dracula.

What strange coincidence that when The Exorcist came to Spain, Salgado was the voice of Linda Blair.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Happy holidays to a movie that wants to ruin your season. This was first on the site on January 10, 2021.

This Aldo Lado-directed piece of Italian grime also went by the names Night Train Murders, The New House on The Left, Second House on The Left, Don’t Ride on Late Night Trains, Late Night Trains, Last House Part II and Xmas Massacre, depending on the whims of fate (and Hallmark Releasing).

Margaret (Irene Miracle, who was also in Midnight Express, Inferno and Puppet Master) and Lisa are set to take the night train from Germany to Italy, but the train is full and they have to sit in a long corridor. They help Blackie (Flavio Bucci, Suspiria) and Curly (Gianfranco De Grassi, The Church) hide from the ticket taker as they board the train and hide from the cops. Of course, instead of saying thanks, they end up decimating the two girls, along with the help of an upper class blonde (Macha Méril, Deep Red) who has already turned the tables on Blackie’s attempts at assaulting her by seducing him. The two thugs really have no idea what they’re in for, because this mysterious blonde is more dangerous than both of them put together.

The whole time the girls are being victimized, murdered and forced into suicide, Lisa’s parents are hosting a Christmas dinner party where her doctor father speaks on the ills of a more violent society.

Later, when they arrive at the station to get the girls, they are worried when they don’t arrive. If you wonder, “Will they end up taking the people that killed them home?” then yes, you have seen your share of revenge movies. The most shocking thing is that the blonde may be the only survivor of the evil trio, as her fate is left open.

This video nasty is the kind of movie that I don’t put on when people come to visit.

While some decry the bumbling cop comedy in Craven’s film, this one jettisons any attempt at levity, adds some 1975 Italian style, gets a soundtrack from Morricone and gets way, way dark.

Lado also made Short Night of Glass Dolls and Who Saw Her Die?, two of the more original and downbeat giallo to follow in the wake of Argento. Even when he’s ripping someone off — not that Craven didn’t also rip off The Virgin Spring, so there are no innocents here — he can’t help outdoing his competition.

Shot in Florida and pretty much forgotten until Garagehouse saved it, this movie was made by Chris Robinson (Stanley from, you know, Stanley) for $25,000 and the locations were free thanks to Yvonne DeCarlo and Mickey Rooney impressing the owners of the house they filmed at.

Several people have come to this house — Rooney was the boat captain that got them there — because Henry Peterson is going to give them the money they deserve. Or kill them. Maybe both.

Somehow, that budget also paid for Ted Cassidy and cinematographer Jack McGowan, who shot Zaat, Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things, Deathdream, Deranged, Mardi Gras Massacre and King Frat. I mean, look at that resume.

There’s a great reveal of the killer as lighting explodes on the coast. That looks way better than the budget of this film would suggest. Imagine A Bay of Blood except shot in a Florida swamp by actors who also would show up on Love Boat or Fantasy Island and man, how do you not want to see that? How can you not love that?

EDITOR’S NOTE: I’m winding down Cannon Month 2 with the films of 21st Century before Menahem Golan got the company. This was originally on the site on May 26, 2021. 21st Century got this movie when they bought out the original Dimension Films and re-released it on a double bill with Cheering Section in 1981 and then on VHS under the Continental Video label. 

“She’s a vixen — watch her operate.”

Dr. Carol Evans (Edy Williams!) keeps having these short affairs but they leave her unsatisfied. She’s just dumped her latest boyfriend (William Smith!) but ends up injuring two kids — David (Harvey Jason) and Brian (Randy Boone) — who somehow end up falling for her. There’s also the bulldozer death of her husband to deal with and a blackmailer as well. And yeah, Smith is not pleased at all that she’s sleeping with a teenager.

But yeah. Most people just watched this to gawk at Edy Williams.

Director Howard Avedis loved making movies about older women deflowering teenage boys. This is also 1975, so get ready for a bleak ending! I think by the 80’s, Avedis figured out how to make thrillers that really thrilled. But here, he’s doing what he can to entertain the audience.

Dr. Minx was Avedis’s follow-up to The Teacher (1974), which starred Jay “Dennis the Menace” North. He also released the Adam West-starring The Specialist in 1975 and followed that with Connie Stevens in Scorchy (1976).

EDITOR’S NOTE: I love this movie so much. So much that I have a pull quote on the back of the Severin blu ray. 21st Century re-released this in 1980 and their poster says “a congressman lies rotting in the corpses of the jungle” which totally is to remind you of Jonestown, adding even more scum to this already somewhat odd movie. This was first on the site on August 2, 2017.

Whenever someone asks — and they often do — “What’s the craziest movie you’ve ever seen?” I usually respond with Suicide Cult. I’ve never had to pick my jaw off the floor more, as watching it felt like the little people I am certain live in my TV were putting on a magical play just for me, using the things I love best. The 1970s. Carnivals. Satanism. Biorhythms. Astrology. Government conspiracies. Religion. This is one film that honestly has it all — and then some.

Man, let me see if I can sum it up:

A government organization called INTERZOD, led by Alexei Abernal, uses technology and astrology to discover threats to the world. One of them is the cult leader Kajerste, who is wanted for crimes in three different countries. And how do they find these people? By determining their individual zodiacal potential for response to environmental situations and stimuli, that’s how.

The movie smash cuts into a ton of locations and ideas within the first ten minutes, spinning your head, before we meet Alexei’s wife, Kate (Monica Tidwell, the November 1973 Playboy Playmate of the Month who was the first Playmate to be younger than Playboy magazine itself), who sees her adviser Mother Bogarde, surely based on Madame Blavatsky. The young girl is possessed, so she must be stripped and put in a robe. Alright — we also learn that she doesn’t even know her own birthday or may have had it changed at Alexei’s command. Seems he’s a crazy husband — he has security watching her, she isn’t allowed to leave all that often, he doesn’t introduce her to anyone and he lies about what he does. They’ve been married for five months and haven’t had sex! But it turns out that she might be the new Virgin Mary, which makes perfect sense once you start watching this. Turns out she even had an Immaculate Conception at one point and gave her baby to the Catholic Church.

Now, INTERZOD wants to kill off Kajerste with tranquilizers and videotapes and doubles and the help of a Congressman — who gets killed by the cult and this movie came out three years before Jonestown, so imagine. In fact, the cult wipes everyone out and everyone else close to Kate.

But hold on…I want to warn you now. This movie is pretty much all talk about religion and the zodiac. It introduces some insane ideas that could be awesome and then does absolutely nothing about it. In fact, just when it seems like there might be some resolution to the film’s many plots, it just ends with no resolution!

Can a film be both boring and not boring all at the same time, packed with ideas but so frustrating because you wish you could see the movie that it could have been? Oh yes, that would be Suicide Cult. It’s a movie that could have only been made in 1975. I wonder, if you take enough mind-altering substances, will this film make sense? I am willing to go into a sensory deprivation tank with just this film to find out, Ken Russell directing me.

This film is also called The Astrologer, but there’s another film with the same title that could be even stranger. Made by director, producer, psychic to the stars and actor Craig Denney, it’s a movie about an astrologer who goes on an adventure to find jewels, then becomes a major star so big that he makes a movie about himself called The Astrologer that he watches within the film The Astrologer, then he goes into diamond smuggling, finance and killing people. The entire soundtrack was stolen from the Moody Blues, who get credited for the film! And it’s only been released on VHS and played once on the CBS Late Movie but it’s out there on the web and well worth hunting for.

People also ask me, what movies are you excited about this summer? I always answer, “NONE OF THEM!” Not when bursts of pure unknown crazy can still be unearthed from four decades in the past about psychic killers or astrologers who become giant stars that murder people! I beg you Hollywood! Let maniacs take over your films again!

EDITOR’S NOTE: Legend of the Werewolf was not produced by Cannon. It was, however, released on video in Germany by Cannon Screen Entertainment.

No matter what you think of this movie, you have to give it up for the poster. This is truly one of my all-time favorite movie posters of all time, one that punches you in the face and says, “You’re gonna watch this werewolf movie!”

It has a different origin story than a normal werewolf film, as here Russian werewolves kill a man who has just watched his wife die in childbirth and then raise the dead parents’ son to become a human wolf.

He’s known as Etoile the Wolf Boy in the circus, but soon loses his lupine look until the full moon rises. When that does — and he kills a member of the traveling carnival — he goes on the run.

This is really the sad tale of a wolf boy — a wolf young adult, I guess — who falls in love with a courtesan with a heart of gold who keeps on entertaining her clients, who soon get devoured by said wolf young adult.

Enter Professor Paul Cataflanque (Peter Cushing). He’s a forensic pathologist, who quickly figures out that a wolf is behind all the murders. And seeing how Etoile now takes care of the wolves in the zoo, he’s going to have to deal with putting every one of them to sleep under the orders of the police.

There’s no way he isn’t going to turn into a werewolf and kill just about everyone, right?

Legend of the Werewolf is one of seven Tyburn Film Productions, a studio that tried to fill the void felt after Hammer stopped producing new movies. Their other films include The Ghoul, Tales That Witness Madness, Persecution, Sherlock Holmes and the Masks of Death, Murder Elite and Peter Cushing: A One-Way Ticket to Hollywood.

Directed by Freddie Francis, this was written by Anthony Hinds under his pseudonym John Elder. Under that name, he also wrote Hammer’s werewolf film The Curse of the Werewolf as well as Frankenstein Created Woman, Scars of Dracula, The Reptile and many more.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Ghoul was not produced by Cannon. It’s a Tyburn Film Productions movie. It was, however, released on video VHS in Germany by Cannon/VMP.

Tyburn didn’t make all that many movies. In their attempt to be Hammer after that studio stopped making movies, they put out seven films: Legend of the Werewolf, Tales That Witness Madness, Persecution, Sherlock Holmes and the Masks of Death, Murder Elite, Peter Cushing: A One-Way Ticket to Hollywood and this film.

Dr. Lawrence (Peter Cushing) was once a man of faith but now he’s hiding inside a rural country estate, keeping his son away from the world, the son who learned how to be a cannibal as Lawrence did missionary work there.

While Cushing’s wife died in 1971, by all accounts he never got over it. According to co-star Veronica Carlson, director Freddie Francis made Cushing do multiple takes during the scene where he talks about his love for his late wife, an experience that caused the actor, cast and crew to be reduced to tears. This feels like a Wiliam Castle BS story, however, as Francis would have already known this, having directed Cushing as Arthur Grimsdyke in Tales from the Crypt, a movie during which Cushing suggested that he speak to a photo of his recently deceased wife Violet Helene Beck.

Writer Anthony Hinds has just as much a pedigree for British horror as Francis and Cushing, having written The Brides of Dracule, The Curse of the Werewolf, The Reptile, Frankenstein Created Woman, Scars of Dracula, Taste the Blood of Dracula and Night Creatures. He wrote this using his John Elder name.

Veronica Carlson stars as the final girl of sorts, Daphne Wells Hunter. She also came from Hammer films like Dracula Has Risen from the Grave and The Horror of Frankenstein. John Hurt shows up as a frightening handyman, Gwen Watford as Ayah the Indian servant, Alexandra Bastedo (The Blood Spattered Bride) as Daphne’s friend Angela and Ian McCulloch is on hand years before he would challenge the bloodiest cinema Italy could create.

In the U.S., this was released as Night of the Ghoul and The Thing in the Attic. If the setting seems familiar, the movie was set in the 1920s because the sets of The Great Gatsby were still standing at Pinewood Studios.

Barry Stokes is in two kinds of movies: sex comedies and out there horror. On one hand, we have Norman J. Warren’s Outer Touch and the 1983 Fanny Hill. On the other, we have Norman J. Warren’s Prey, The Corruption of Chris Miller and bit parts in Hawk the Slayer and Enemy Mine.

Also going by the titles Confessions of a Handyman, Confessions of an Odd-Job Man and The Happy Housewives, this movie has Stokes play Bob, the hot young fixer upper of the village of Sodding Chipbury. Despite being married to Maisie (Gay Soper), he finds his way into the beds of nearly every other woman in town.

If you ever watched The Benny Hill Show, you’ll recognize Bob’s antagonist in this movie, Squire Bullsworthy. He’s played by Bob Todd, who was always the butt of Hill’s jokes. Helli Louise, one of Hill’s Angels, also shows up.

Another cast member worth checking out is Valerie Leon, who was known as the “English Raquel Welch.” She was in six Carry On films as well as two Bond movies, The Spy Who Loved Me and Never Say Never Again. She was also a reincarnated Egyptian queen in Hammer’s Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb. And hey! There’s Ava Cadell, Ava from the Andy Sidaris films!

While not connected to the Confessions of series (Confessions of a Window Cleaner, Confessions of a Pop Performer, Confessions of a Driving Instructor and Confessions from a Holiday Camp) — outside of the alternate title — this feels much like those movies. This was, however, intended to become its own series with a sequel being planned titled Ups and Downs of a Soccer Star.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the third time this movie has been on the site, but it fits into the second Cannon month as they released it across the county. This last appeared on November 27, 2020.

The Florida-based director William Grefe has brought many swamp-tinged bits of exploitation goodness — or badness — to the screen, such as Alligator Alley, The Wild Rebels, The Hooked Generation and so many more. As one of the first films made to take advantage of the shark craze in the way of Spielberg’s success, this film’s sympathetic view of sharks as victims is a pretty unique take on the genre.

Marine salvager Sonny Stein (Richard Jaeckel, who pretty much had a one-man war against nature with him battling bats in Chosen Survivors, bears in Grizzly and, well, any and all beasts with a chip on their shoulder in Day of the Animals) is given a medallion that allows him to communicate with sharks. He becomes increasingly disconnected from humanity — easy to do, everyone in this movie is scum — and uses his sharks to take out those who go against his beliefs.

One of those people is an incredibly chubby club owner who is using high-frequency sound to train his sharks, as well as kind of pimping out his wife Karen (Jennifer Bishop, Bigfoot) to get Sonny on their side. Have you ever seen a movie where strippers have been trained to swim with sharks? Who would want to see that? This movie provides the what, if not the why.

Another is a shady shark researcher that murders a shark and her pups. You will stare unbelieving at the screen while Jaeckel overly emotes as he clutches a dead baby shark in his mitts. Oh yeah — Harold “Oddjob” Sakata is also in this.

The stunt footage is pretty amazing and even gets a mention before the movie even begins. Other than the weird premise and a few good scenes, you can nap through most of this and not feel bad.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This isn’t the Herschell Gordon Lewis movie. No, instead the Dewey-Friedland Cannon released The Red Queen Kills Seven Times under this title. This originally appeared on the site on August 24, 2017.

Emilio P. Miraglia followed up The Night Evelyn Came Out of Her Grave with this giallo freakout — starring the magnificent Barbara Bouchet (Don’t Torture a Duckling) — that combines gothic horror with the high fashion we’ve come to expect from early 70’s Italian horror.

A curse haunts the Wildenbrück family once every 100 years — two sisters have always become the Red and Black Queen, feuding until one of them dies. Then, the survivor is haunted by sixth deaths, with the final death — the seventh death, referenced in the title, being the surviving sister. Kitty (Bouchet) and Evelyn are the next two sisters to be so cursed, battling even in childhood, stabbing each other’s dolls with daggers.

These catfights have continued for years, ending when Kitty, now a fashion designer, accidentally takes it too far when she battles Evelyn. Third sister Franziska (Marina Malfatti, The Night Evelyn Came Out of Her Grave, All the Colors of the Dark) and her husband hide Evelyn’s body while Kitty pretends that her sister has gone to America.

All is well and good until the Red Queen rises, wearing a red cape and white mask, killing all of Kitty’s co-workers at Springes Fashions with the same dagger that was once used to slice up baby dolls. But is it really Evelyn, back from the dead (Emilio P. Miraglia sure liked Evelyn’s that rose from the dead)? Or something much more down to earth?

Miraglia only directed six films, with this being his last one. There are some moments in here that aspire toward art, like the Red Queen chasing Kitty through her dreams, ending in a long hallway run and her superimposed form attacking like a ghost. And the film flirts between the gothic castle era of Italian horror and the fashionista giallo look — all while containing plenty of deep red gore and plenty of skin, courtesy of a 20-year-old Sybil Danning (Howling II, Battle Beyond the Stars, Young Lady Chatterley 2). It’s not always art, but sometimes, it totally is. There are the requisite twists and turns of the genre, along with some really regrettable moments — like when a character goes from rapist to rescuer across two scenes and an ending where the hero and heroine both need saving.