Also known as Orgy of the Blood Parasites (written title), The Parasite Murders (it was filmed under that name), They Came from Within and Frissons, the themes of David Cronenberg third film — debated in Canadian Parliament at the time of its release due to its blend of sex and violence — are still beyond relevant today.

The initial reviews were so brutally against this movie that one high-profile hit piece by Robert Fulford (writing as “Marshall Delaney” for the magazine Saturday Night) didn’t just hurt the director’s chances of getting funding. It got him kicked out of his apartment thanks to a moral cause. owing to his landlord’s inclusion of a “morality clause” in the lease.

Starliner Towers — actually Tourelle-Sur-Rive, a 1962 apartment building designed by Mies van der Rohe, who was on the same level as Frank Lloyd Wright — is where Dr. Emil Hobbes and Dr. Rollo Linsky have been working on a project that has a parasite that can take over the function of a human organ. Why are they working on something like this?

Hobbs had the belief that modern humans had become over-intellectual and estranged from their primal impulse, so he created “a combination of aphrodisiac and venereal disease that will, hopefully, turn the world into one beautiful mindless orgy” and reassert humanity’s true sexually aggressive instincts.

Hobbes has killed a young woman named Annabelle by cutting open her stomach and pouring acid into it and then killing himself, which is like taking a page right out of the works of Herschell Gordon Lewis. Whatever they made, it’s giving people stomach convulsions and making them throw up bloody parasites which they go on to infect others like an STD.

Before long, everyone in the building — including Lynn Lowrey and Barbara Steele — is infected. Unlike zombies, these creatures retain their intelligence on some level and just want to have violent sex.

Cronenberg hasn’t been shy about the fact that other movies have ripped off his film: “I have to say that some of my images like this [parasite] ended up in things like Alien, which was more popular than any of the films I’ve ever made. But the writer of Alien has definitely seen these movies, Dan O’Bannon. The idea of parasites that burst out of your body and uses a fluid and leaps on your face, that’s all in Shivers.” He said the same thing in 2015, nearly doubling down by stating: “…Alien, for example, which totally ripped off things from my movie Shivers…”

Dan O’Bannon rip something off? Hmm.

You can watch this on Tubi.

René Cardona directed 146 movies and I’ve made it my lfie’s work to watch as many of them as possible. This one stars Blue Demon and it establishes a conceit that makes a lot of sense: how can anyone tell who is under that blue mask? And what if someone else also wears the mask and starts killing people and robbing banks and jewelry stores?

It’s all the work of the evil Count and El Cosaco, a luchador with a grudge against our hero. But the cops don’t know that. I really love the fact that Blue Demon challenges his evil version to a mascara contra mascara mask and puts his enemy in a submission that doesn’t allow him to move. He yells for the detective who has been tracking him down to take off the man’s mask and prove his innocence. It’s a great way to get across Blue’s grappling skill and makes for a fun ending.

I mean, I did tell you how this ends, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t watch it. The version that’s on Shout! TV has some of the best and worst dubbing I’ve ever listened to, which is really how it should be.

Based on the novel by Jack Bickham, this was the first movie to team up Don Knotts and Tim Conway, who grew up in Morgantown, West Virginia and Willoughby, Ohio respectively, and became beloved for their goofy comedic skills. In fact, Conway was the sidekick to Cleveland’s original Ghoulardi — Eric Anderson, later the voice of ABC and father of Paul Thomas — and would even come back home to appear on Hoolihan and Big Chuck and Big Chuck and Lil’ John.

Gamber Russell Donovan (Bill Bixby) has agreed to sign for some valuables from an old associate named John Whintle. Turns out they’re three orphans named Bobby, Clovis and Celia Bradley, a bunch of kids who destroy so much that they make Donovan poor. Soon, he’s nearly robbed by Knotts and Conway, who have left their gang after accidentally shooting Slim Pickens in the leg. Hijinks ensure involving a gold mine and bandits.

Only Knotts and Conway would come back for The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again, along with Harry Morgan who plays a different character. Disney also made a TV movie called Tales of the Apple Dumpling Gang, which had John Bennett Perry in Bixby’s part, Ed Begley Jr. instead of  Conway and Arte Johnson in the Knotts role. They also made a six episode TV series, Gun Shy, with Barry Van Dyke in the Bixby part.

The second sequel to The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, after Now You See Him, Now You Don’t, The Strongest Man in the World continues the story of Dexter Riley and the students of Medfield College.

Dean Higgins (Joe Flynn, who sadly died from drowning after filming was complete; the Youngstown native had also completed voicing over The Rescuers and was a major advocate for more equitable distribution of TV residual payments) is about to be fired for financial mismanagement due to the extreme overspending by Prof. Quigley’s science class. Higgins fires the professor and threatens to have his entire class kicked out of school, but when he slams the door on the classroom, he knocks Dexter’s experiment into another student’s vitamin cereal. Then the cow — which cost so much money in the first place — eats the cereal, Dexter drinks the milk and then we have Kurt Russell gaining super strength.

This movie had to have been cast by me in a past life. Can we get Eve Arden? How about Phil Silvers? Can Cesar Romero come back? How about Dick Van Patten as the main villain?

Director Vincent McEveety was a Disney directing mainstay, making stuff like Gus, Superdad, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again and Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo.

Based on the science fiction novel by Alexander H. Key, Disney has had great success with Witch Mountain, making two movies in the seventies, a Disney Channel sequel in the 80s, a 1995 remake and a 2009 cannon sequel that was marketed as a remake, despite the fact that Tia and Tony kind of cameo and are played by Kim Richards and Ike Eisenmann*. Now, there are plans to make a new series for the Disney+ channel.

Back to the past and the original film and we find our heroes in an orphanage. They’re not like the other kids — Tony controls inanimate objects with the aid of his harmonica — yes, really — and Tia can communicate telepathically with Tony, feel the emotions of animals and see the future. They have a star map that they can’t figure out as well as memories of an uncle who saved their lives, but otherwise, they are both a blank slate.

One day, one of Tia’s premonitions saves the life of attorney Lucas Deranian (Donald Pleasence!), which he reports to his millionaire boss, Aristotle Bolt (Ray Milland), a man obsessed with the paranormal. While acting as their uncle, Lucas adopts the children, but it is only so that Bolt can study them. They run away, meet RV-driving widower Jason O’Day (Eddie Albert) and convince him to take them to their destiny at Witch Mountain, all while being pursued by Deranian, Bolt and their henchman Ubermann (Lawrence Montaigne, The Great Escape sure, but also the chauffeur in Young Lady Chatterley).

The Witch Mountain films were the result of Disney looking to reinvent itself after the death of founder Walt. They wanted movies that were a little edgy and when they saw director John Hough’s The Legend of Hell House, they knew they had the right person. Hough also made The Incubus, Twins of Evil, American Gothic and Dirty Mary Crazy Larry. The end result was a big success and they’d bring the characters back three years later for Return from Witch Mountain.

*They were so good at playing siblings that they do it again in Devil Dog: Hound of Hell.

You can check out Mark Begley’s review of this movie here.

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, Persecution, Sherlock Holmes and the Masks of Death, Murder Elite, G’olé! 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.

Released in Italy as Fango Bollente (Boiling Mud), Savage Three is a brutal example of the Italian crime and murder genre known as poliziotteschi. It stars Warhol superstar Joe Dallesandro as Ovidio Mainardi, a man who pushes buttons all day in a factory and endures a marriage that finds his wife (Martine Brochard) giving her body to her boss to get ahead. There’s a scene early on where someone in his office explains why they keep the rats in a lab divided, as otherwise they will always attack one another. And there’s always one rat that starts biting the others.

He and his co-workers Giacomo (Gianfranco De Grassi) and Peppi (Guido Di Carli) go from starting riots at soccer matches to stealing cars to acts of outright insanity, including one scene where a nude Dallesandro chases a woman while driving a forklift, impaling her against a wall. Before long, the three of them are doing pretty much anything they want, as the police think the killings are politically motivated or the acts of southern Italians, exposing the racism within the country at the time.

The film tries to explain that blame away. Much like Ovidio and his marriage, Giacomo is overwhelmed by his crumbling home and abrasive neighbors, while Peppi is trapped in a home with generations of relatives living on top of each other. The film doesn’t make them seem innocent. But it does show how the modern world has dehumanized them and force them to explode into violence in a world that simply does not care.

Inspector Santagà (Enrico Maria Salerno, Inspector Morosini in The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and the Italian voice of Clint Eastwood in Sergio Leone’s films) is a cop who has been demoted for his violent way of dealing with crime and is also a man on his way toward retirement. Only he’s able to see exactly who the killers are, which is a surprise to him, as he knows Ovidio from computer lessons he’s been taking to try to remain relevant as the world passes him by.

Vittorio Salerno only directed three other movies (No, the Case Is Happily Resolved; Libido and Notturno con Grida), but I really enjoyed this and can’t wait to track down the rest of his films. This was written by Salerno with Ernesto Gastaldi (The Whip and the Body, The Sweet Body of Deborah and more than one hundred more movies).

Savage Three is a powerful and brutal film. It’s like a fantasy-free A Clockwork Orange that could happen at any time, even today.

Savage Three is one of five movies on Arrow Video’s Years of Lead: Five Classic Italian Crime Thrillers 1973-1977. These films are great examples of the Italian poliziotteschi genre and the set includes high def versions of this movie, Like Rabid Dogs, Highway Racer, Colt 38 Special Squad and No, the Case Is Happily Resolved. This disc has an interview with director Vittorio Salerno and actress Martine Brochard about Savage Three. You can get it from MVD.

The High-School Student was released internationally under the titles The Teasers, Under-graduate Girls, Sophomore Swingers and Teasers. It’s a commedia sexy all’italiana that introduced Gloria Guida, who would appear in four out of the five films in this series. She’s also in the movies Being Twenty and The Bermuda Triangle.

She plays Loredana d’Amico, a girl for whom sex is a tool to get better grades for herself and her classmates. Otherwise, it complicates her life, as her father is cheating with a series of younger women and her mother is with another man. Despite losing her virginity to an older man, she remains unable to determine what men want other than what all men want.

One of the girls in this movie, Monica, is played by Ilona Staller, who would eventually become Cicciolina, a world-famous adult film star and Italian politician.

The tagline may be “Banned in 36 Countries. You Can See It Now Without a Single Cut!” but other than the nudity, this is a pretty innocent coming of age teenage movie, albeit one with the relaxed morals of the Italian film industry.

This was directed by Michele Massimo Tarantini, who also made Confessions of a Lady Cop, the Edwige Fenech movie Taxi Girl and Massacre In Dinosaur Valley.

“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).