It took 45,000 gallons to set a few blocks of Montreal ablaze for this movie, which at least pushes it somewhat past being another version of The Towering Inferno. It was directed by Alvin Rakoff, who also made Death Ship, and written by Dave Lewis, Céline La Frenière and Jack Hill. That’s right — the man who made Spider Baby, Switchblade Sisters, Sorceress and Coffy to name just a few.

Mayor William Dudley (Leslie Nielsen, so associated with movie like this that Airplane! had to cast him, a role that changed his career) gets paid off an allows an oil refinery to be built right in the middle of his town. There’s no water source nearby, but nobody would ever get fired — like Herman Stover (Jonathan Welsh) — and flood the streets and sewers with flammable gasoline, right?

Meanwhile, amongst the shoddily built facilities and structures of this flaming metroppolis, we meet the players of this melodrama, liek Dr. Frank Whitman (Barry Newman) who is trying to treat the thousands of burned people, reporter Maggie Grayson (Ava Gardner) who is trying to sweat out the booze and get her name back with this story and Chief Albert Risley (Henry Fonda), the fireman trying to fix it all.

Surely, realizing disasters film casts, you must ask: “Is Shelley Winters in this?”

Of course. She’s a nurse in it.

There’s also Diana Brockhurst-Lautrec (Susan Clark, before she was the mean mother of Webster), who is dating the mayor, but also has an old fling kind of thing with Whitman and has been stalked for years by Stover. She’s seriously catnip to all these felines who dance around the fickle flames of their burning burg.

How do you escape all this? You make a water tunnel. I’m as astounded as you. Also, I’m pleased to see James Franciscus show up as Gardner’s assistant and later boy toy, because that’s how the 70s worked.

You can watch this on Tubi.

What good is being the master of a martial arts technique if you have no one left to fight? That’s the question that Yuan Ying Fei (Lu Feng), a master of the Golden Sword technique, must be asking himself. All anyone wants to do is carry a gun now and he can barely convince other martial artists to come to town for his hospitality any longer. That said, he murders them pretty quickly when they do visit, but the guy obivously has issues. He also wants the property of Guan Ah Yu (Lo Meng), who lives at home with his mother, but when he sends henchmen over to knock the guy around, the man many see as a mother’s boy destroys all of them.

Meanwhile, Feng Jia Ji (Sun Chien), He Fei (Chiang Sheng), Yang Zhui Feng (Phillip Chung-Fung) and Zeng Qiao (Wang Li) are other fighters who have fallenon such hard times that in order to eat, they allow the cooks and waiters at restaurants to beat them up.

Yuan Ying Fei gets the idea to hire all four of them to work at his estate and convince them that his rival is a villain. That way, he can marry Guan Ah Yu’s sister without her knowing that he’s the man who killed him. When these five first meet, they all come to realize that they’re kindred spirits — magnificent ruffians — who only care about practicing kung fu.

That’s when the villain sets up Yang Zhui Feng by replacing his weapon with one that explodes on contact. In practice, it kills Guan Ah Yu and he goes on the run, convinced that his friends will think he’s a traitor. Yang Zhui Feng then appears and only He Fei escapes with his life. Of course, the two surviving ruffians will come back together, there will be a final battle against the Golden Sword style and only one man will survive.

The Venom Mob and director Chang Cheh made so many films together, including two more that are in the same era as this, as hand to hand combat gives way to bullets. It’s a good film but probably not the best one of their output to watch first.

The Arrow Video Shaw Scope Volume Two box set has a brand new 4K restoration of Magnificent Ruffians, as well as an interview with star Chin Siu-ho; Rivers and Lakes, a brand new video essay on Shaw Brothers’ depiction of Chinese myth and history, written and narrated by Jonathan Clements, author of A Brief History of China; a Hong Kong audio ad for the film; a German trailer and an image gallery.

You can get this set from MVD.

You can also stream this movie on the Arrow player. Visit ARROW to start your 30-day free trial. Subscriptions are available for $4.99 monthly or $49.99 yearly. ARROW is available in the US, Canada, the UK and Ireland on the following Apps/devices: Roku (all Roku sticks, boxes, devices, etc), Apple TV & iOS devices, Android TV and mobile devices, Fire TV (all Amazon Fire TV Sticks, boxes, etc), and on all web browsers at https://www.arrow-player.com.

Monkey style master Chen (Chia-Liang Liu AKA this film’s director Lau Kar-leung) has been tricked by gangster and brothel-owner Tuan (Lo Lieh), who uses his wife to act as if Chen has become so drunk that he’s assaulted her. The punishment for this heinous crime? Death. Death or Chen’s sister (Kara Wei) giving herself to Tuan and working in his house of ill repute for the rest of her life. As if that isnn’t bad enough, Tuan ruins Chen’s hands forever. He has destroyed his family, his spirit and his ability to perform kung fu.

Years later, Chen is sober and better known as a candy seller along with his monkey Ah Mao. A young thief named Monkey (Hsiao Ho) is watching him when some criminals attack him as he performs for some children. Monkey steals the money back and brings a meal to the old man to repay him for what he has gone through. Those same crooks return and kill Ah Mao, swinging the poor monkey by the tail and smashing his little body into a tree. Chen refuses to allow Monkey to get revenge, even physically stopping him from doing so and losing all of his money again.

Monkey soon begins to train with Chen and, much like many a Shaw Brothers story, he believes that he is strong enough way too quickly. Sure, he easily defeats the criminals, but when he faces Tuan, he barely escapes with his life. The only reason he lives is because Chen’s sister sacrifices her life so that he can run away.

At this point, the training begins again with both men needing revenge and learning that together, they are the equal of anyone.

This movie is great, packed with so many training scenes of how you learn monkey kung fu, as well as a deep sense of sadness, as Chen deals with so many slights and yet remains a moral man. The monkey death is absolutely terrible to watch and makes you want revenge perhaps more than any film in Shaw Brothers history.

The Arrow Video Shaw Scope Volume Two box set has a brand new 4K restoration of Mad Monkey Kung Fu as well as brand new commentary by martial arts cinema experts Frank Djeng and Michael Worth; a newly filmed appreciation by film critic and historian Tony Rayns; an Interview with actor Hsiao Hou; Shaw in the USA, a brand new featurette on how Shaw Brothers broke America featuring Grady Hendrix and Chris Poggiali, authors of These Fists Break Bricks; Hong Kong and US theatrical trailers and an image gallery.

You can get this set from MVD.

You can also stream this movie on the Arrow player. Visit ARROW to start your 30-day free trial. Subscriptions are available for $4.99 monthly or $49.99 yearly. ARROW is available in the US, Canada, the UK and Ireland on the following Apps/devices: Roku (all Roku sticks, boxes, devices, etc), Apple TV & iOS devices, Android TV and mobile devices, Fire TV (all Amazon Fire TV Sticks, boxes, etc), and on all web browsers at https://www.arrow-player.com.

Any time you see the words Chang Chen and Venom Mob together, well, you can ignore all the words I will write after this and just run and watch the movie. I’ve never been let down and this one is really something else.

Yang Hu Yun (Sun Chien) has been assigned to safely take a cargo of gold to a poor area of the country dealing with famine, which is all the Chi Sha gang — Iron Robe (Wang Lung Wei), Brass Head (Yang Hsiung), Silver Spear (Lu Feng) and Golden Arm (Lo Meng) — need to hear. They’re taking that gold and there’s nothing that Yang and his crew — Li Chin Ming (Wei Pai), Ming’s girlfriend Leng Feng (Helen Poon), Long Axe Yang Jiu (Shu Pei Sun), Short Axe Fang Shih (Chiang Sheng) and Hai Tao (Kuo Chui) can do about it.

This movie is filled with twists, turns, poison darts, axe martial artists fighting over who can kill more enemies, Golden Arm unarmed combat so powerful he can bend weapons and shatter swords with his body, a rivlrey beween Hai Tao and Li Chin Ming, a mystery fighter called Iron Feet, flirting between Hai Tao and Leng Feng, roasting someone alive to get the poison out of their system, the gang carving their name into someone’s back, blood spraying all over the place, a spear impalement, a bad guy reconsidering his ways and a shock ending. Seriously, this is a movie filled with death, heel turns and yes, so much fighting.

It’s just as awesome as it sounds. I’ve seen some say the story is pretty thin but when there’s this much going on, I doubt you’ll notice.

The Arrow Video Shaw Scope Volume Two box set has a brand new 4K restoration of The Kid with the Golden Arm, as well as an interview with action director Robert Tai; Poison Clan Rocks The World, a brand new visual essay on the Venom Mob written and narrated by author Terrence J. Brady; an alternate continuity cut presented via seamless branching; alternate and textless title sequences; a Hong Kong theatrical trailer and an image gallery.

You can get this set from MVD.

You can also stream this movie on the Arrow player. Visit ARROW to start your 30-day free trial. Subscriptions are available for $4.99 monthly or $49.99 yearly. ARROW is available in the US, Canada, the UK and Ireland on the following Apps/devices: Roku (all Roku sticks, boxes, devices, etc), Apple TV & iOS devices, Android TV and mobile devices, Fire TV (all Amazon Fire TV Sticks, boxes, etc), and on all web browsers at https://www.arrow-player.com.

Monkey King With 72 Magic is another take on Journey to the West and as you may have learned this week, that means monsters against our hero Monkey King (Ting Wa-Chung). This one takes place before that, so you’ll learn how he was born from a large stone on the mythical Flower Fruit Mountain and tells how he led an army of other ape children.

The title refers to the 72 forms that Monkey King can transform into and you’ll see all of them — and one more because Yang Chien (Lung Siu Fei) knows 73 different arts — in a wild battle scene. There’s also a scene where the Monkey King transforms into the wackiest looking octopus ever. Thanks to Die Danger Die Die Kill, I now know that these effects come from Gozo Matsui who also made the gigantic reptilian menace in King of Snake.

Monkey goes to Heaven, steals some magical peaches and gets pursued by all manner of celestial avengers, including the wheels-on-magical feet adversary Na Cha (a male character played by female actress Liu Chuan Hua). Yes, this is a movie where a monkey goes absolutely wild and makes a mess out of Heaven and needs to be admonished by Buddha.

Taiwan, never change. I mean, you probably have changed a great deal since 1979, but I just saw a Wuxia puppet movie from there, Demigod: The Legend Begins and the art of making movie drugs martial arts fantasy movies with animal heroes and villains is still strong.

You can watch this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This originally appeared on February 16, 2021. Cannon didn’t produce this movie but did release it in Germany as Killing House on the Scotia/Cannon label. You can also read Jennifer Upton’s take on this film here.

Norman J. Warren is the kind of director that knows exactly what you want. You aren’t coming to one of his movies to learn some kind of life lesson or to go out to a salon and debate afterward. No, you’re here for all the reasons that you watch horror and exploitation movies. You want to be shocked, scared and stimulated.

What makes this one even better is that the script comes from David McGillivray, who also wrote Satan’s Slave for Warren and Frightmare, House of Whipcord, House of Mortal Sin and Schizo for Pete Walker. He is, to quote British writer Matthew Sweet, “the Truffaut of Smut.”

Also, if you’re watching this and are thinking, “Hey, Warren must have just seen Suspiria when he made this,” then yes, that’s exactly what happened.

The movie starts three hundred years ago, as we watch a witch named Mad Dolly about to be burned at the stake under the orders of Lord Garrick. She then calls on Satan to free her, setting an executioner on fire, a disembodied arm to kill Garrick and for her to rush through the Garrick house with a sword, which she uses to chop the head off his wife before cursing their descendants.

Like I said, Warren knows exactly what you want. That beginning pretty much has everything I watch movies for.

What we’ve just seen is a movie made by director James Garrick — yes, a descendent who lives in the very same house that we’ve seen and for some reason has decided to own the sword of Mad Dolly — and he’s previewing it for his friends and his cousin, Ann. Of course, he also has a mesmerist put her under a spell and she nearly kills him.

This being a Warren movie, of course Ann works at a strip club. And certainly she’s going to be stalked by all manner of ruffians, including Peter Mayhem outside of his Chewbacca costume.

This unleashes a wave of artful violence, including panes of glass chopping off heads, stabbings in the woods, perverts dropped onto spikes, lamps crushing directors and so much more. And the end, well, it’s absolutely bonkers, with levitating cars, more impalings and Mad Dolly’s sword getting used to its fullest power.

As for the Argento inspiration, Warren has claimed that he saw that movie as something freeing, telling Sense of Cinema, “It was just liberating in that you could suddenly get away with doing whatever you liked.”

Since making Bloody New Year, Warren had been promising a sequel to this movie that would be about music and dancers. Sadly, with his death, we won’t see it.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Cannon didn’t produce this movie, but released it on video in Germany on the Cannon Screen Entertainment label.

Jackie Collins gave her sister Joan the film rights to both The Stud and The Bitch for free so that they could become movies. Both were co-produced by the sisters’ husbands at the time (Oscar Lerman was married to Jackie and Ron Kass was married to Joan). Both were huge successes and brought Collins’ acting career back; when Aaron Spelling saw these movies, he knew she’d be perfect in the role of Alexis Carrington in Dynasty.

Directed and written by Gerry O’Hara (Fanny Hill, The Mummy Lives) takes place after The Stud — which Collins watches on an airplane in a meta moment — and finds Fontaine Khaled (Collins) divorced but still living that disco diva life. Yet her club Hobo is now struggling. But all that she can think about is Nico Cantafora (Michael Coby), a gambler who owes the mob big money and is using her, first to smuggle a stolen diamond. When she finds out, she’s upset, but soon lets him back in her bed.

This entire film is about her trying to save Nico from his debts and save her club, but at the end, it turns out that crime lord Thrush Feathers (Ian Hendry) now owns Hobo. This was to set up a third book and film that never came.

You know what I liked? John Ratzenberger showing up as a disco swinger.

The soundtrack, put out on Warwick Records, is pretty great. There’s the title track by Olympic Runners is solid, plus there’s Blondie’s “Denis,” The Gibson Brothers  song “Cuba,” Quantum Jump’s “The Lone Ranger” and Leo Sayer’s “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing.”

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This was originally posted on October 26, 2019. Don’t Go Near the Park was not produced by Cannon but was theatrically distributed by Cannon Releasing Corporation.

Cannibalism. Incest. Pedophilia. Yes, folks, Don’t Go Near the Park has it all. That’s why it made it to the category 2 video nasty list, a feat for a director who was just 19.

I also have no idea what Aldo Ray’s deal is in this movie. As Taft, he’s an older man who just so happens to make friends with the young Nick and takes him, Bondi and Cowboy home to live with him — and sleep half-naked while he smiles on — as special friends.

That’s the good guy! What is this movie!?!

Let’s see if we can make sense of it.

Thousands of years ago, Petranella cursed her children Tra and Gar (Barbara Bain played both female roles here under the fake name Barbara Monker while the male is Robert Gribbin under the nom de plume Crackers Phinn) to live for 12,000 years eating the flesh of humans. If one of them has a baby after that long stretch, they can live forever.

Fast forward to 1965 and the siblings are killing kids in California. Gar decides to work on the babymaking, reinventing himself as the human Mark and knocks up Linnea Quigley and has a kid named Bondi, who he cares about way more than his marriage. We see years pass in the span of minutes, which is how I’d think immortals perceive time and also really shoddy filmmaking all at the same time.

On Bondi’s sixteenth birthday, Mark gives her an ancient amulet, which finally causes his wife to leave him. Bondi runs away and is nearly raped in a van before she calls on her father to kill them with that amulet.

Bondi wanders into an abandoned house near the park, where her aunt Tra, who now goes by the name Patty, is starting to die. That’s when she makes friends with Nick and Cowboy, who sell flowers in the street and make friends — like I said before — with Aldo Ray.

There’s a whole lot of weirdness that happens — swallowed amulets, corpses rising from the dead to kill out former cave people and a twist ending that throws everything else in the trash. Little Nick is played by Meeno Paluce, who was all over the 80’s with stuff like Voyagers and appearing in the original The Amityville Horror.

I have a soft spot for this film. It’s not perfect, but I want to hug it and protect it from the mean reviewers who say things like it makes no sense and it has shoddy camerawork. What do you want? A classic every time?