EDITOR’S NOTE: This originally was posted on August 27, 2018. Alien Contamination was not produced by Cannon but was theatrically distributed by Cannon Releasing Corporation.

As a large ship drifts into New York City, you may wonder, “Am I watching Zombi?” No, you’re watching Contamination or Alien Contamination, but the similarities may be international. Both films shared the same production offices and director Luigi Cozzi (Starcrash, Hercules) was so impressed that he wanted to hire the same cast, but only ended up with Ian McCulloch.

The ship is packed with large containers of coffee, which really hide green eggs that pulsate and make droning sounds. The crew of the ship is more than just dead. They’re in pieces and the rescue team soon discovers why. The eggs tend to explode, spraying acid all over the place that’s toxic to anything human. As soon as it touches them, they explode in glorious slow motion bursts of red food color and Karo syrup.

The military soon links the green eggs with a recent mission to Mars that caused one astronaut to disappear and the other, Commander Hubbard (there’s Ian McCulloch!) to become a drunk. He joins Colonel Stella Holmes and New York cop Tony Aris (Marino Masé, The Red Queen Kills Seven Times) on the case, which takes them all the way to a Columbian coffee plantation (well, the movie was funded by Columbia cocaine dealers) and Hubbard’s old partner, who is now in the thrall of a gigantic alien cyclops (!).

Originally intended as a straight sequel to Alien, this movie enters James Bond territory at times and is not afraid — at all — to wipe out characters left and right. It also has a scene where a green egg menaces a girl in the shower, which should be frightening yet comes off as hilarious. That said, this has a loud Goblin soundtrack that makes this seem like a much better movie than it is.

But hey — who can hate a movie with dialogue like this?

NYPD Lt. Tony Aris: Jesus Christ, the whole world is going to be wiped out and all this broad’s worried about is getting changed!

Colonel Stella Holmes: Listen, Aris, if I have to die with the rest of the world then I want to have a proper dress on and clean underwear.

That’s better than the first few minutes of the film, where almost the entire dialogue is muffled. But hey — you can either choose great dialogue or awesome gore. Guess which one you get here?

Want to see it for yourself? Shudder and Amazon Prime both have this streaming and you can get the Arrow blu ray at Diabolik DVD. You can also watch Contamination with commentary from Joe Bob Briggs on Shudder.

• I can’t even explain to you the sheer madness that this movie unleashed on my elementary school. The notion of Chuck Norris fighting ninjas blew minds at a level that I believe is no longer possible.

The Octagon was distributed by American Cinema Productions, the four-wall exploitation masters who also put Chuck’s Good Guys Wear Black and A Force of One in theaters, as well as The Late, Great Planet Earth, Fade to Black, Silent Scream, Tough Enough, Dirt, Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen, Force: Five and I, The Jury before going out of business. Their final release, The Entity, was picked up by Twentieth-Century Fox.

Directed by Eric Karson (Black Eagle) and written by Leigh Chapman (Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry and Truck Turner, which she did as the pen name Jerry Wilkes) and Paul Aaron (who woud direct Deadly Force), this movie places Chuck into the role of Scott James, a karate champion like so many of Chuck’s characters who simply no longer wants to fight. Yet he can’t even take Nancy (Kim Lankford, Ginger Ward from Knot’s Landing) without getting her and her entire family offed by some back pajama wearing killers.

As trained by Katsumoto (Yuki Shimoda), the ninjas have been told that if they are ever discovered or captured, not only will they die, their entire family will also be extinguished. There must be some pretty great salary and 401K when it comes to being a ninja or maybe the job market in Japan really is rough.

To get some background on the killers, Scott turns to his old mercenary friend McCarn (Lee Van Cleef, who may know a thing or two about ninjas). He’s told, “If you are seeing ninja, you are seeing ghosts.”

Pulling a Paul Kersey, Scott immediately falls for another woman named Justine (Karen Carlson, Black Oak Conspiracy, The Student Nurses) whose idea of a meet cute is asking for help with her car, which is stuck in a ditch, and stealing Scott’s keys and driving off. How does he know where she lives? Why would he put up with that? No matter — they’re soon being tracking by some bodyguards who end up being McCarn’s men. That’s because Justine wants Scott to kill Seikura (Tadashi Yamashita, Seven, American Ninja), the ninja who sliced and diced her father. He turns her down, but McCarn is able to convince one of Scott’s friends named A.J. (Art Hindle!) to join his cause.

That’s when Scott remembers that he’s actually Seikura’s adopted brother, having been raised by the same father (John Fujioka, once again pretty much playing Shinyuki from American Ninja or Tatsuya Sanga from American Samurai) and of course, surpassing the native son with his gaijin karate abilities.

This flashback features Chuck’s son Mike as Scott and Brian Tochi — yes, Toshiro Takashi from Revenge of the Nerds, Tomoko Nogata from Police Academy 3 and 4 and the voice of Leonardo — as Seikura.

Scott decides that he has to help, so he heads off to a ninja training school run by Doggo (Kurt Grayson, once the Tijuana Smalls cigar pitchman back when cigar ads were on TV). Doggo recognizes him and forces him to fight his entire school, ending with Scott delivering Chuck Norris-sized sidekick injuries to two fighters nicknamed Longlegs (Richard Norton, once a bodyguard for David Bowie, ABBA and Fleetwood Mac before appearing in movies like Gymkata, China O’Brien and many more; he’s a 5th-Degree Shihan rank Black Belt in Goju Ryu, 8th-Degree Masters rank in Chuck’s Chun Kuk Do, 5th-Degree Black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and a 10th-degree Black Belt in Zen Do Kai Karate; he was also the fight coordinator on Walker, Texas Ranger) and Hatband (Chuck’s brother Aaron).

There’s also another evil soldier named Aura (Carol Bagdasarian) that defects to help Scott, which helps because he wasn’t joining the fight and then the ninjas went and killed Justine, who thought Aura was leaidng Scott to the side of evil and went after Seikura by herself. One poison dart later and she’s out of the movie, despite seemingly being one of the leads. McCarn’s men, Scott and Aura then kill everyone in Doggo’s army and decide to go to Mexico to face Seikura.

Before that, Aura takes what we can only imagine is a molasses 2×4 mustache ride, as she realizes that if every other woman is this movie is getting killed, she may as well enjoy some assault with a friendly weapon. Some harpooning the salty longshoreman. Finding the ranch dressing deep in Hidden Valley. You know what I mean. Respectful and mutual affection between two consenting adults.

Look — Chuck Norris went to the Virgin Islands… now it’s just the Islands.

A.J. gets taken and it turns into a rescue mission, as Scott must face multiple toughs in the Octagon — yes, scream, scream when the title is said aloud! — and then Scott faces Kyo, the magically garbed ninja also played by RIchard Johnson and good lord, this may be the best fight ever committed to celluloid. What does Scott get for winning? The chance to see A.J.’s throat et slashed, but Aura is able to convinced the rest of the bad guys to turn babyface and Scott straight up nukes his adopted brother just as he’s attacked from behind, stabbing him and bringing an end to a movie that I wish went on forever.

Somehow, this movie also finds roles for Ernie Hudson, comedian Jack Carter (the mayor from Alligator) and Tracey Walter in an uncredited part. Yes, Bob the Goon in a Chuck Norris movie.

Made for between $2.5 and $4 million, this film made $19 to $25 million — never believe these money claims when you read them by the way, obviously the figure is somewhere in that range thanks to the magic of Hollywood math — this movie gets it all right. After all, “In a world of choices, for one man there is no choice . . . he must face THE OCTAGON.”

Forty ninjas and karate fighters died in this movie. We should remember their sacrifice.

Oh man! I totally forgot that Chuck narrates a lot of the movie to himself. Doggo is not the answer…answer…answer…Oh my God! Ninjas…ninjas…ninjas…

The Kino Lorber blu ray release of The Octagon has a new 2K master, commentary by film historians Brandon Bentley and Mike Leeder as well as director Eric Karson, a making of feature, four TV ads, 4 radio ads and a trailer. Buy it as soon as you can.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This was originally on the site on October 22, 2018.

Sebastian has become possessed and now has the power to make his thoughts come true. Somehow, all that allows him to do is relive his past lives again and again.

Director José Ramón Larraz also worked in comic books, as well as helming the films Symptoms and Vampyres.

The film starts with Sebastian learning that his father has died and his mother feeling free and ready to start her life all over again.

It turns out that Sebastian was born with a veil of skin covering his face, which is a symbol of psychic power. That may be how he knew that his father was dead before anyone told him.

Also, Sebastian has issues with women. He puts off anyone who wants to be with him and gets upset when his mother kisses another man. Learning that his father was with a whore when he died, he declares that all women are whores. His mother answers by slapping him.

Sebastian and a girl who is interested in him, Marta, end up kissing but he forces himself on her until his lip begins to bleed. At confession later, a priest tells him that wishing evil is the same as doing it. What does this have to do with Marta being dead now?

An old woman named Olga remembers Sebastian from the past as he has a vision of hanging himself. Olga awakens her granddaughter Angie, sure that something bad is about to happen to Sebastian. There seems to be a romantic triangle between him, Angie and his brother Joe.

Sebastian ends up recording his mother having sex with her new lover. This upsets him so much that his shower is filled with blood and his vision of a ghost woman makes his lip bleed again.

That love triangle I mentioned above ends up with Angie and Joe having sex. Yet Olga thinks that Sebastian and Angie have an attraction too. She’s worried about the danger that he brings. While on a ferry with Angie, Sebastian sees the ghost woman again. He confesses to Angie that when he thinks of someone he hates, he makes them die and his lip bleed — that’s his stigmata. He also can see himself from the outside of his own body and he probably killed his father.

Joe confronts Sebastian about the issues that he’s having in school, so Sebastian thinks of him dying in a car crash. Angie believes that he is evil, but he says that he has no control. Once he realizes that someone is going to die, it’s too late.

Here’s where things get really bonkers: Sebastian keeps seeing the ghost woman, so he talks with Olga. She hypnotizes him and he remembers where he killed Marta. He then goes into his past lives, where he sees his sister, who looks exactly like Angie. They have sex and he awakens in a panic as his father had become angry with him.

While he doesn’t want to see Olga again, Sebastian uses tapes of her seance to calm himself. Soon, he is visiting the setting for his dreams in real life and has more visions of his past inside them. Angie comes searching for him and he shows her where people died in the building as he starts to bleed from his lip.

That’s when we go back into the past again, where he has sex with his sister again and his father criticizes him. When his sister is engaged to be married, he becomes depressed. She doesn’t even think of him any longer and he can’t forget her or stop disappointing his father.

That’s when he uses an axe to kill his parents, then starts making love to the maid. He decides to strangle her instead, then remembers many other girls that he is killed. A mirror breaks and he begins to bleed from the lip as we return to the present and he listens to the seance tapes.

I honestly had to read several sites to make sense of what happens in this movie. It’s long on style, short on substance and yet it has a unique doom feel. I was pretty forgiving of its narrative issues, but your mileage may vary. I was interested to see what would happen next and it had enough verve to keep me watching.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Raja, like his entire family, is a devotee of Lord Hanuman, which explains the H on his costume. When he was a child, his father Raghunath Rao wanted to offer the family’s prized jewels during Hanuman Jayanthi. Three thieves steal them and kill Raja’s mother and father, orphaning the family. Raja prays to Lord Hanuman for a way to achieve revenge and is gives him superhuman powers. He receives no answer, so he stabs himself in the stomach and bleeds all over the statue of the deity, which finally brings him the answer he seeks.

Over the years, Raja gets his revenge, but the hard part comes when his sister Lakshmi becomes pregnant to Mohan, the son of Maharajm who is the third thief, a man who even hires a sorceress to destroy the hero.

So yes — absolutely nothing like Superman.

This movie also has attack elephants. And sumos. And twenty karate fighters.

A Superman that kills for revenge sounds like something that Zack Snyder sails the seas of mayonnaise to, but this movie is definitely more entertaining than anything he’s ever done and cost less than an hour of his craft services.

Like seriously, Superman fights a demon and then straight up snaps the bad guy’s neck.

You can watch this on YouTube.

The third time that Death Game would be made happened not in America but in Spain.

Vicious and Nude is a cultural remix of that American film, casting Jack Taylor — whose career started on The Jack Benny Show and went from Mexican horror (the Nostradamus films) to Jess Franco films (Nightmares Come at Night, Female Vampire), giallo (The Killer Is One of 13), Spanish horror (The Ghost Galleon, The Vampires Night Orgy), Paul Naschy movies (Dr. Jekyll vs. The Werewolf) and stuff like Pieces, Conan the Barbarian and Edge of the Axe — as Juan, a married writer with a gorgeous home and great family.

Just like the first two films that inspired this movie — Death Game and Little Miss Innocent — this all changes when he picks up two young women that ruin his life. Here, however, the film is inspired by both Charles Manson and Dr. Seuss as they’re called Hippie 1 and 2 (Adriana Vega and Eva Lyberten). Even wilder is this movie takes the nihilistic ending of Death Game and ups it to challenge Thelma and Louise by eleven years.

I also further broke my brain by synching this movie up with Eli Roth’s Knock Knock remake as Cathy from Cathy’s Curse looked on with scorn.

Director and writer Manuel Esteba made mostly adult and horror films — surprise, he’s on our site — like Horror Story, the gravity disaster film Spectrum (Beyond the World’s End), Bloody Sex and El E.T.E.y el Oto, which IMDB claims is about an alien meeting Spain’s youngest psychopath.

I feel that Death Game is an essential film and while this one isn’t in the same class, I always find it so wonderful to explore how another part of the world interprets the same story. Here’s hoping you feel the same.

Nicky Marotta (Robin Johnson, D.O.A.) and Pamela Pearl (Trini Alvarado, The Frighteners) meet in a place where it seems like all hope is gone: New York Neurological Hospital. Nicky just got sent there by the cops after she wouldn’t stop playing guitar in the streets and trashed a car. Pamela is there so she can stop embarrassing her father (Peter Coffield), a wealthy politician out to clean up Times Square. They define fast friends and why Nicky has to return to see her social worker, she breaks Pamela out and they hide out on the Chelsea Pier.

DJ Johnny LaGuardia (Tim Curry, as always incredible) figures out that the missing rich girl and a regular listener named Zombie Girl are one and the same. As part of his battle against the campaign to gentrify the Deuce, he reaches out to the girls who have formed a band called The Sleez Sisters. He helps get the word out — perhaps to further his own agenda — as the girls write scathing letters to the adults in their lives, perform raucous concerts on the air and throw TV sets into the streets from tall buildings.

The rebellion and joy they find in the band ultimately pushes the two apart, as it helps Pamela recognize that she’s a worthy person while Nicky runs from belonging and safety. But the redemptive power of rock and roll can save everyone.

“If they treat you like garbage, put on a garbage bag. If they treat you like a bandit, black out your eyes!” yells Nicky at one point. Moyle was inspired by a diary that he found hidden in a second-hand couch, one that told the life story of mentally disturbed young woman who lived on the streets. He said, “This girl was burning the candle at both ends. She would go into bars — she was too young — but she would go in anyway and get arrested. She had no intention of reaching the age of 21.”

Somehow, this movie made its way to producer Robert Stigwood, who saw it as another Saturday Night Fever. He deleted the lesbian scenes — which is near impossible, as the entire movie is about the relationship between two young women. Moyle left the film before it was finished, upset that he needed to include scenes to sell the soundtrack.

Man, Robert Stigwood…

As part of her role in this Times Square, Johnson signed an exclusive three-year contract with the Robert Stigwood Organization. RSO would develop film and music projects for her and market her as the “the female John Travolta.” As her contract legally barred her from accepting offers or auditions from rival companies, she turned down work for years and worked in a bank until her contract ran out. She finally gave up on acting and worked as a traffic reporter on a Los Angeles radio station.

As for the soundtrack, it features The Ramones, The Cure, XTC, Lou Reed, Gary Numan, Talking Heads, Garland Jeffreys, Joe Jackson, Suzi Quatro, Roxy Music, Patti Smith and The Pretenders. The RSO influence comes in for the Robin Gibb and Marci Levy song “Help Me!” that runs over the credits. There are also songs by the cast: “Damn Dog” by Johnson, “Your Daughter Is One” by Johnson and Alvarado, and “Flowers of the City” by Johnson and New York Dolls singer David Johansen. The lyrics to those songs came from the film’s writer, Jacob Brackman, who also wrote “That’s the Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be” and “Haven’t Got Time for the Pain” with Carly Simon, as well as the song “Two Looking at One” from The Karate  Part II and the movie The King of Marvin Gardens.

Times Square wasn’t a success upon release, but much like Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains, the fans that it made — like Manic Street Preachers and Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre — would make their own noise soon enough.

As for Moyle, he’d go on to make two other generational films that didn’t find an immediate audience: Pump Up the Volume and Empire Records.

You can get this from Kino Lorber. The blu ray has a new HD master from a 4K scan of the original camera negative, new commentary by film historian Kat Ellinger, a second commentary track with Moyle and Johnson, and the trailer.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This film originally appeared on our site all the way back on September 6, 2018. Now, Kino Lorber has released a blu ray of the film with a new 2K master, audio commentary by producer/director Greydon Clark, interviews with Tarah Nutter, Christopher S. Nelson, Dean Cundey, Daniel Grodnik and Greg Cannom, as well as the Mike Mendez Trailers from Hell for this movie, the original trailer and new art by Vince Evans.

While other men hunt, an intergalactic hunter has come down from the stars to track the most dangerous game, invisibly hiding until it can kill them with its throwing star weaponry. The creature is played by Kevin Peter Hall. But this isn’t Predator! This came out seven years earlier! This is Without Warning!

The film opens with a father and his reluctant son hunting. In moments, they are killed by flying creatures that have tentacles that pierce their skin.

Meanwhile, four teens ignore the warnings of Joe Taylor (Jack Palance!) and decide to camp here. Is this a dangerous area? You bet. Not even F-Troop‘s Larry Storch can survive, as he is killed and his Cub Scout troops run into the woods.

Two of the teens die pretty much instantly and their bodies are found in a shack. As the survivors run, one of the creatures tries to attack them through the windshield. They go back to the truck stop and no one believes them except for PTSD veteran Fred “Sarge” Dobbs (Martin Landau, Ed Wood, Space: 1999).

Landau is great in this, as he descends into paranoia, sure that everyone is an alien. He’s a villain who is acting like the heroes of Invasion of the Body Snatchers or They Live.

It turns out that the shack is where the creature is keeping his trophy kills. Only Sandy survives, as Sarge goes nuttier than ever and Taylor sacrifices himself to stop the gigantic alien.

Greydon Clark directed this. You may know him from acting in films like Satan’s Sadists. Or perhaps you’ve seen one of his films, like Satan’s Cheerleaders.

Cameron Mitchell, Neville Brand and Ralph Meeker all show up to add some Old Hollywood to the proceedings. And then there’s a young David Caruso as one of the teens. Don’t blink or you’ll miss Cinemax late night icon Darby Hinton (Malibu Express)!

The majority of the film’s budget went to having Landau and Palance on board, as well as having Rick Baker design the creature’s head. And hey! Dean Cundey (Halloween) makes this movie look way better than it’s $150,000 budget would lead you to believe!