VIDEO ARCHIVES NOTES: This movie was discussed on the Patreon for the Video Archives podcast. You can hear a preview here.

Edward Dmytryk may be best known for his film noir efforts like Crossfire, Cornered and Murder, My Sweet. In 1947, he was named as one of the Hollywood Ten, blacklisted professionals who refused to testify to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), serving time in prison for contempt of court. However, in 1951, to save his career, he named names to the HUAC, which destroyed several careers. He went on to direct The Caine Mutiny, Broken Lance, The End of the Affair, The Carpetbaggers and Bluebeard amongst many other movies. The Human Factor is his last theatrically released film; he taught film school, did lectures and wrote books, including Odd Man Out: A Memoir of the Hollywood Ten.

John Kinsdale (George Kennedy) is an American NATO computer specialist with two kids in Naples, Italy. He’s easy going — he likes to play video games at work — and has a good relationship with his wife, who is looking for a new housekeeper. That night, when he gets home from home and expects to go to a birthday party. he finds his entire family killed. He nearly kills himself until he sees a story about his family on TV.

Now he wants revenge.

After the funeral, Kinsdale meets with Inspector Lupo (Raf Vallone), who is investigating the murders. U.S. State Department officers Janice Tilman (Rita Tushingham) and Mike McAllister (John Mills) are also part of the case and they have two suspects: Andrew Taylor (Tim Hunter) and Eddy Fonseca (Mark Lowell). Kinsdale steals U.S. Embassy credentials and tracks down Fonseca, learning that he’s a tourist. He uses those credentials to meet another agent, George Edmonds (Barry Sullivan), who tells him that terrorists have demanded the release of prisoners and $10 million dollars or they’ll kill an American family every three days.

Taylor and Kamal Hamshari (Frank Avianca) are the ones behind it and the government has run a computer simulation that says that Kinsdale has an 8% chance of succeeding in killing him.

Kinsdale does some detective work and discovers that the housekeeper ad in the paper bring Ms. Pidgeon (Haydee Politoff, Queens of Evil) and the killers into the homes of these families. He hides in one family’s house and is there to shoot back when a van filled with murderers arrives. He then follows clues he finds in the fake maid’s purse and tracks down Taylor, shrugging off being stabbed and using a chain to choke the man into oblivion.

Now, clutching his daughter’s doll and driven by rage, he tracks the killers down to a U.S. Embassy grocery store where he engages in a shootout with them, including a moment where an unmasked Ms. Pidgeon spits in his face. He responds by shooting her in the face and continually gunning down people, bleeding all over the place, until he finally kills Kamal and just keeps firing his gun until its empty, filling the dead man with bullets.

Peter Powell and Thomas Hunter only wrote one other movie, The Final Countdown.

I loved this, because I love George Kennedy. If you only know him as Frank Drebin’s partner Ed Hocken, this is a revelation, as he goes Bronson by the end, killing everyone that has done him wrong. Bonus points for the VHS re-release on the Sybil Danning’s Adventure Video label, as we get a great photo of her holding TNT on the back cover.

You can watch this on Tubi.

For far too long, this 1974 shocker directed by Aldo Lado has been dismissed as a Last House On the Left knockoff. Now it can be experienced as it should be, on its own merit, in UHD for the first time ever. Scanned in 4K from the original camera negative with over 5 hours of special features — such as commentary by Aldo Lado, moderated by Freak-O-Rama’s Federico Caddeo, and a soundtrack CD — this is why Severin remains one of the best physical media labels.

The sale will take place from 12:01am EST on 11/29 to 11:59pm PST on 12/2 at Severin’s site.

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.

How lucky that this comes out on Black Friday from Severin, because despite the fact that it’s so relentlessly immoral, it is, after all, a holiday film.

Much like From the Old Earth, which is also on the All the Haunts Be Ours Volume 2 box set from Severin, Gwaed Ar Y Sêr (Blood on the Stars) was produced by Bwrdd Ffilmiau Cymraeg, the Welsh Film Board. One of the first horror films in Welsh, this was another movie that was presented to children under ten years old in grade school.

Director Wil Aaron said of this effort, “The problem with Welsh films at that time was that everyone assumed they were the kind of thing that was shown in Sunday School. Did anyone consider that there might not be a little bit of sex and a little bit of fear in them?”

In a small village of Gruglon, there’s an annual concert that is always the talk of the town. This year, its been decided that celebrities like folk singer Dafydd Iwan, radio DJ Hywel Gwynfryn and rugby kicker Barry John are all set to appear. Or, well, they were until choirmaster Shadrach (Grey Evans) and his small child choir start to kill them all, one by one, their names crossed off a handwritten poster as each dies.

These kids just want to sing their holiday songs that they’ve worked on for so long and if they have to mine a football field and blow someone up real good, they’re going to do it. Look at these little angels! Listen to how they play and sing!

Without this set, I have no idea how I would have seen this. Also there’s one scene where someone is frying sausage and I am beyond hungry now.

Blood On the Stars is part of the new Severin box set, All the Haunts Be Ours Volume 2. It has extras including an introduction by musician Gruff Rhys and a cast reunion.

You can order this set from Severin.

Directed by Leonardo Favio, who wrote it with his brother Jorge Zuhair Jury, this was based on the radio show Nazareno Cruz y el lobo by Juan Carlos Chiappe.

Nazareno Cruz (Juan José Camero) is the seventh son of the now dead Jeremias, born when his mother Damiana (Elcira Olivera Garcés) wanted a son to replace the six that she lost along with her husband. Despite people thinking that he was born with the curse of lycanthropy, Nazareno grows into a happy life. Perhaps that’s because his godmother witch Lechiguana (Nora Cullen) gave him his name, which means the Nazarene Cross. Everyone in the village seems to love him and there’s been no sign of a wolf. Yet.

He’s already found true love in Griselda (Marina Magali), who stands out amongst the women due to her blonde hair. His mother and godmother try to keep him from falling in love, but once he does, he starts to transform. That’s when Mandinga (Alfredo Alcón), the devil, comes to him to promise a life of riches and never becoming a wolf. All he has to do is refuse being in love. Nazareno can’t do that and the problems begin.

One of the most successful movies ever made in Argentina, this was the official submission for the country in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 1976 Academy Awards. In 2022, as part of the Mar del Plata International Film Festival, the magazines La vida útil, Taipei and La tierra quema selected it as the 17th best movie in the history of the country.

This is a ravishing film, one that uses the beauty of nature to its fullest. Where else will you see a dog play a werewolf or a wolf-boy discover that Satan is just misunderstood?

Nazareno Cruz and the Wolf is part of the new Severin box set, All the Haunts Be Ours Volume 2. It has extras including commentary by Adrian Garcia Bogliano, director Of Here Comes the Devil and Nicanor Loreti, director Of Punto Rojo and a short film, Love for Mother Only, as well as commentary on that short by director Dennison Ramalho.

You can order this set from Severin.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Footprints On the Moon was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, January 15, 1977 at 11:30 p.m.

Alice Cespi (Florinda Bolkan, A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin) watched a strange film in her childhood called “Footprints on the Moon,” where astronauts were stranded on the moon’s surface. Now, as an adult, the only sleep she gets is from tranquilizers and she starts missing days of her life. Get ready for a giallo that skips the fashion and outlandish murders while going straight for pure weirdness.

After losing her job as a translator, Alice find a torn postcard for a resort area called Garma. That’s where she meets a little girl named Paula (Nicoletta Elmi, Demons, A Bay of Blood) who claims that Alice looks exactly like another woman she met named Nicole, who is also at the resort. Slowly but surely, our heroine starts to believe that a huge conspiracy is against her.

This is the last theatrical film of Luigi Bazzoni (he has directed some documentaries and wrote a few films since), who also directed The Fifth Cord. There are only two murders, but don’t let that hold you back. There are also abrupt shifts in color and a slow doomy mood to the entire proceedings. It’s unlike any other giallo I’ve seen and I mean that as a compliment.

Klaus Kinski also shows up as Blackman, the doctor who was behind the experiment that Alice saw as a child. He’s only in the film for a minute or so, but he makes the most of his time, chewing up the scenery as only he can. And cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, beyond working on The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, also was the DP on films like Apocalypse Now, Reds, Last Tango in Paris and Dick Tracy.

This isn’t like any of the films that came in the wake of The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and it’s a shame that its director didn’t make more films in the genre.

Here’s are two drinks to enjoy with Footprints.

To the Moon

• .25 oz. Kaluha
• .25 oz. Bailey’s Irish Cream
• .25 oz. amaretto
• .25 oz. high proof rum

1. Stir with ice and strain into a chilled shot glass.

Footprints On the Amber Moon

• 3 oz. whiskey
• Raw egg
• Dash of Tobasco

1. Pour whiskey into a glass, then crack a raw egg and drop into the glass. Don’t break the yoke or the ghost of Klaus Kinski will haunt you.
2. Add some Tobasco, do a count down and ignite the engines.