Pre-credits disclaimer: The following feature is one of the most violent films ever made. There are at least two dozen scenes of barbaric torture and sadistic cruelty graphically shown. If the presentation of disgusting and repulsive subject matter upsets you, please do not view this film. For the rest of us, let’s watch something awesome and laugh at those babies who skipped out!

Make Them Die Slowly. With an alternate title like that, you know what you’re getting into here. You’re getting into Umberto Lenzi’s (Eaten Alive!, Spasmo, Man from Deep River, Eyeball) dark and depraved voyage into the world of cocaine-addled maniacs battling cannibals. Beware.

Considered to be “the most violent film ever made” and “banned in 31 countries,” Cannibal Ferox is packed with both simulated and real violence (the credits should probably read animals were harmed during the filming of this motion picture). It’s all about a gang of malcontents who make the dumb mistake of not only going into the jungle, but fucking with the wrong people.

In New York City, Mike (Giovanni Lombardo Radice, City of the Living Dead, Stagefright) is on the run from the mob, as he owes them $100,000.

Meanwhile, in Paraguay, brother and sister Rudy and Gloria (Lorraine De Selle, Emanuelle in America) and their friend Pat (Zora Kerova, The New York Ripper) are heading into the rainforest. Gloria has a theory that cannibalism is a myth and wants to prove it. They run into Mike and his partner Joe, who have run afoul of some cannibals. Soon, Gloria goes missing and everyone starts to look for her.

Soon, Mike’s having sex with Pat, doing coke and trying to get her to rape a native girl, as you do. She can’t do it, so Mike kills the girl as Joe reveals — as he dies — that they were responsible for making the cannibals go wild as the result of exploiting them for emeralds and cocaine. Turns out killing and torturing natives isn’t new to Mike!

After Joe dies, the cannibals find and consume his body while everyone is captured and forced to watch Mike get tortured and beaten. Back in New York City, the mobsters are still looking for Mike, along with the cops (who include Lt. Rizzo among the number, who is played by Robert Kerman, a former porn actor who also appeared in Cannibal Holocaust and Eaten Alive!)

Rudy tries to escape, but he is caught in a trap in the jungle and attacked by piranhas before the natives kill him with a poison dart.

Pat and Gloria are put in a hole while Mike is in a cage. A native man tries to help the women escape, as Pat had saved him after the virgin was killed. However, Mike fucks it all up for everyone and runs into the jungle to escape. The natives slice his hand off and recapture him. And then they show off their brains, as they tell a search and rescue party that the outsiders all died after a crocodile attack.

Gloria can only bear witness to Pat being hung by her breasts until she is dead and Mike’s skull being cracked open and eaten. The native who tried to help before now frees Gloria and they run through the desert before another trap kills him. Luckily, Gloria finds some trappers who rescue her. She tells them the same story as the natives: everyone else was killed by crocodiles.

Once Gloria returns to New York, she writes a book that supports her theory and continues the lies called Cannibalism: End of a Myth.

This movie is a fine piece of cannibal filth, but is tainted by the real animal deaths. Giovanni Lombardo Radice objected and refused to participate, leading Lenzi to say, “De Niro would do it.” Radice replied, “De Noro would kick your ass all the way back to Rome.” The stand-in who did the actual killing was cut so badly that he almost severed a main artery, which Radice looked at as karma. I agree.

Ready to puke? Then turn on Shudder and get the flesh feast started!

You can also enjoy High Rising Productions’ Calum Waddell’s documentary Eaten Alive! The Rise and Fall of the Italian Cannibal Film (2015), which is featured on the Grindhouse Releasing Blu-ray for Cannibal Ferox in the U.S. and the U.K. Blu-ray for Zombi Holocaust by 88 Films. Our much adored Umberto Lenzi, Ruggero Deodato, Sergio Martino, along with actress Me Me Lai offer their genre insights for the documentary.

I’ve often said that I prefer Zombi 2 to Dawn of the Dead — at least if I am looking for a more fun movie — because it skips the political allegory and gets right to what the zombie splatter that I really want to see.

Burial Ground (also known as Le Notti del terrore, Nights of Terror, Zombi Horror, The Zombie Dead and most confusingly, Zombi 3) raises you that lack of Romero’s restraint and storytelling, doubles down by ripping off Fulci’s work which is in itself a ripoff (but a masterful one) and piles on the sleaze. No, really. This is a film that is ready to outright offend everyone.

The film starts with a professor accidentally unleashing an evil curse that reanimates the dead. He’s instantly killed. Meanwhile, three “jet-set couples” (I’ve heard them referred to this way several times and it always makes me laugh) and a creepy man child named Michael (who was played by Pietro Barzocchini, who was 25-years-old at the time…more on that soon) arrive at a nearby mansion, invited by the professor. We catch Evelyn (Mariangela Giordano, The Sect) stealing lingerie that she found in the mansion, to which her boyfriend James replies, “You look just like a little whore, but I like that in a girl.” At that point, that creepy manchild of hers, Michael, comes in and freaks out while his mom absentmindedly just stands there, nude.

It doesn’t take long before the dead attack. A maid is decapitated with a scythe because these living dead can use tools. Why are they more evolved than Romero or Fulci zombies? We never learn.

The zombies break into the mansion and attack everyone. This leads to that young creep, Michael, becoming totally shell-shocked. Evelyn, his mother, attempts to confront him, so he becomes to fondle her breasts. As he kisses her, he tries to get his hand between her legs. She slaps him as he runs away, shouting “What’s wrong? I’m your son!” He runs right into one of the party guests, Leslie, who is now a zombie. Like a Fulci librarian, he stares at her as she makes her way toward him.

At this point, everyone reasons that they should just let the zombies into the house, because they are slow and it will allow them to escape. Sure. That always works. Evelyn goes to find her son, who has been killed by Leslie. She flips out and smashes Leslie’s head against a tub, screaming as loudly as possible all the while.

Everyone runs toward a monastery, where the film decides to become a Blind Dead film. The zombie monks chase everyone to a workshop where they kill Mark with power tools. Creepy Michael has now become an even creepier zombie. Evelyn has lost her mind and thinks it’s a miracle, so she bares her breasts for her son to suck on. He replies by eating her breast off in graphic detail.

Finally, Janet is menaced by multiple zombie hands as the film ends with the Profecy of the Black Spider. Yes, that’s how they spell prophecy. “The earth shall tremble, graves shall open, they shall come among the living as messengers of death and there shall be the nigths of terror.” And yes, they also spelled nights incorrectly.

Director Andrea Bianchi isn’t one for subtlety, which films like Strip Nude for Your Killer and Confessions of a Frustrated Housewife on his IMDB credits. If you’re looking for unrepentant gore (Fulci’s through the door eye gouge is repeated here with a window), bad special effects (the latex zombie heads are near Troll 2 in their quality), playing with guts and gore ala Blood Feast and a total lack of storyline or sense, then I’d advise you watch this one.

Of course, Severin Films is the place to grab it. They claim they are “improbably proud to present the definitive version of this gorehound/sex-fiend favorite.” They’ve even completely restored a print of the film that they found beneath the floorboards of a Trastevere church rectory. You’ll get a ton of extras, including a Q and A with creepy little Pietro Barzocchini! Plus, they made “Smells of Death” shotglasses and shirts. And the artwork — which accompanies this article — is amazing. Keep in mind, this isn’t an ad. I just love that Severin is spending more time and energy restoring and packaging these films than their creators did making them.

You can also find this on Shudder if you prefer to stream your films.

This movie is a real piece of shit. But you know, it’s an entertaining piece of shit. It’s the kind of film you can say, “But yeah, did you see Burial Ground? That one is totally insane.” And I love Berto Pisano’s atonal goofy soundtrack that blares any time the zombies show up. But if you’re looking for a movie with any class, well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Here’s a drink to enjoy during this movie.

This Cocktail Smells of Death

• 1/2 oz. vodka
• 1/2 oz. rum
• 1/2 oz. apple schnapps
• 1/2 oz. blue curacao
• 1/2 oz. Chambord
• 1/2 oz. blueberry vodka
• 1/2 oz. orange juice
• 2 oz. cranberry juice
• Frozen blueberries

1. Fill a glass a quarter way with frozen blueberries.
2. Combine all ingredients in a shaker and mix with ice, then pour over blueberries.

Some slashers take their time getting to the first kill. Others start James Bond style, with a kill or two at the beginning before settling into the formula. Don’t Go in the Woods starts with murder and never stops. There are characters you’re supposed to get behind. But mostly, there are just random people who are killed in increasingly horrific ways while comedic synthesizer music bleets and boops and at times, goes silent. It’s a crude, brutal and at times, hilarious film. It also feels like it was made by either amateurs or maniacs. Maybe both.

There is one rule in this movie: Don’t go in the woods. Every single person that dies ignores this rule, so they are to blame for whatever happens next.

A woman screams and is killed.

A bird watcher watches birds and is killed.

Four friends — Peter, Joanne, Ingrid and Craig — are traveling through the woods.

A tourist is thrown over a waterfall, landing near our heroes having a splash fight (they don’t notice). Our intrepid foursome set up camp for the evening as two honeymooners in an RV are killed, followed by an artist being offed and her daughter kidnapped.

Of note here — it seems like the couples should be boy/girl, but through a combination of outfits and hairstyles, it is truly up to you to determine the non-binary combinations that they may be.

Two more campers get killed, then Peter watches while a fisherman is slaughtered, finally revealing the antagonist, who is a wild man covered in rags and fur with a big spear, known only as Maniac in the credits. He runs to warn his friends, but the Maniac follows and kills Craig with a spear.

Peter and Ingrid finally find the Maniac’s cabin, but accidentally stab a hitchhiker they believe is the killer. Our two heroes — minus the missing Joanne — make it to the hospital where they alert authorities, including the Sheriff (Ken Carter, a career rock ‘n roll DJ), who might as well be the cousin of Troll 2‘s Sheriff Gene Freak.

Peter feels guilty about leaving Joanne behind. As for her, she wanders into the Maniac’s house and is killed via multiple machete strikes. The killer doesn’t stop, beheading a man in a wheelchair, before Peter and Ingrid find him and go full on crazy, stabbing him numerous times while an entire crowd of lawmen watches.

Meanwhile, that kidnapped baby everyone forgot about? She’s up in the woods with an axe, all alone and ready to grow up to be the next Maniac.

Whew. This movie is a whirlwind of dubbed dialogue, bright red ketchup made with BBQ sauce and red food coloring, all shot on $400 worth of film stock (look for light bleeding through at numerous times).

Director James Bryan is a jack of all trades, having worked as an editor, a production manager, a post-production supervisor, a director of photography, a production assistant and more. He even filmed the pick-up shots for Lemora: A Child’s Tale of the Supernatural! Plus, his resume includes films as diverse as The Executioner, Part II and sex films like Sex Aliens and The Hottest Show in Town.

Should you watch it? It depends. Are you willing to endure some of the worst dialogue and outfits in the history of film — all non-ironically created, mind you — and enjoy a story that makes no logical sense? Then yes. You should watch this on Shudder!

After all, how can you dislike a movie that ends with a song like this?

Post-Carrie, we’ve seen so many films where people turn to the Devil to help them fit in or fight back against bullies. But let’s face it — when you dress up Carrie White or Sissy Spacek or Chloë Grace Moretz, they end up being attractive. But Clint Howard? There’s really no dressing up Clint.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the man and his many, many contributions to film (Balok from the Star Trek TV series, Carnosaur, Apollo 13, Rock ‘n Roll High School and so much more). But you can totally see how he fits his role as Stanley Coopersmith in this movie.

Evilspeak starts in the past, where Satanist Father Esteban (Richard Moll, who ends up in these reviews a lot, thanks to films like The Nightmare Never Ends and The Dungeonmaster) and his followers are exiled from Spain and denied the grace of God, unless they renounce Satan and his evil ways. We wouldn’t have a movie if they gave in, right?

Fast forward to the 80’s. Stanley Coopersmith is an orphan, a poor kid who has been allowed into a military school alongside the children of some of the nation’s richest and most powerful people. Everybody — including the teachers — pretty much use Stanley like a punching bag. While cleaning the church cellar, he finds Father Esteban’s room, which is filled with black magic books and a diary. Stanley uses his 1981 computer skills to translate the book and learn more about Esteban. My words will not translate how great Stanley’s Apple II’s computing power is.

The next morning, Stanley’s classmates tie up his clothes and unplug his alarm clock, which leads him to be punished. As he cleans the stables, the school secretary finds Esteban’s diary. As she plays with the jewel’s on the cover, pigs attack Stanley. He returns to his room to find all of his belongings destroyed and his book gone.

Sick of running out of computer time, Stanley steals a computer and sets it up in the basement. He’s only missing a few ingredients — human blood and a consecrated host.

That evening, the cook takes pity on Stanley and gives him Fred, a puppy. Seriously, this is the only person in the entire film that treats our hero with an ounce of respect, unlike Coach Collins in Carrie, who tries throughout the film to treat her well.

Stanley gets the Eucharist he needs and notices Esteban’s portrait. As he begins the ritual, students in masks and robes attack him. Stanley’s woes are compounded when the caretaker accuses him of being a thief and attacks him. He yells for help and the computer starts up, revealing a pentagram. Suddenly, the caretaker’s head is spun around, killing him. As he hides the body in the catacombs, Stanley finds decapitated skeletons and Father Esteban’s crypt.

The secretary tries to pry the jewels out of the black magic book, but bleeds all over it. As she takes a shower, demonic boars attack and eat her. This scene is gratuitous as fuck. It is also incredibly awesome, because the movie is just about to stop torturing Stanley and go off the rails.

Stanley gets attacked by his soccer team, who tells him that if he tries to play in the big game, they’ll kill Fred the dog. After seeing him get beaten, the principal kicks him off the team. And it gets worse. As the team goes out drinking, they break into his hidden room and kill his dog.

At this point, I was screaming at the screen for Stanley to do something. It was if he was listening. He steals another piece of communion and kills a teacher who follows him in by throwing him into a spiked wheel. The ritual begins and Father Esteban takes control of Stanley’s body, taking up a sword and attacking the church service above.

What follows is a near orgy of destruction. A nail from the Crucifix goes right into the brain of a priest. Wild demon boars emerge while Stanley levitates above them and starts chopping off everyone’s heads in gory, bloody geysers. The lead bully runs, only to meet the zombie caretaker, who rips out his heart. Then, Stanley burns the church to the ground.

I’m not understating this — this is literally five or six minutes of pure Satanic destruction. Everyone that did anything to Stanley for the past running time of the film gets it good. It was enough to get this film classified as a “video nasty” in the UK and there were even more gore scenes, but they have supposedly been lost forever after MPAA cuts. The final UK release had none of the Black Mass text and none of the gore at the end — what a loss!

If the film ended here, it would be the best movie ever. But no, producer Sylvio Tabet was a devout Christian. That’s why he added a Khalil Gibran quote in the prologue and ended the film with a caption that states that only Stanley survived the attack, but went catatonic and is Sunnydale Asylum. That said — Stanley’s face shows up on the computer in the basement and promises, “I will return.”

I discovered a great article that discusses just how Evilspeak was allowed to be shot in a Catholic church. Another urban legend of the film is that upon refurbishing part of the church, an aged priest saw the “new church” and dropped to his knees to thank God. I hope he never saw the film, one that Anton LaVey believed explained the Satanic faith (it appears on the approved films list of the Church of Satan’s website and Magus Peter H. Gilmore, High Priest of the COS stated that the film is Satanic because it depicts “a fellow who is treated unjustly gets revenge on his cruel tormentors. But of course, there are some nifty jabs at Christian hypocrisy along the way…”).

UPDATE: You can watch this for free with an Amazon Prime membership.

Fear No Evil, the 1981 directorial debut of Frank LaLoggia (who would also helm Lady in White and Mother), is all about Andrew Williams, a high school student who turns out to be Lucifer. That sounds simple. But this movie is anything but.

First off, nearly every other student in this film is a complete miscreant. Andrew (Stefan Arngrim, Barry from Land of the Lost) is a weird kid that gets good grades and is well-liked. But again, you know, he’s the Antichrist.

Let’s go back to the beginning. Father Thomas arrives at a destroyed cathedral to fight Lucifer (producer Charles M. LaLoggia discovered the Boldt Castle in Alexandria Bay, NY and told his director cousin that this would be an ideal location for a horror movie), whose defeat only puts him into the body of baby Andrew. His parents constantly battle over his origins and the fact that even his baptism didn’t go right. Yeah, the water all turned to blood. You know how that happens.

But that’s all well and good, because on his 18th birthday, Andrew’s powers create an accident that paralyzes his mother and leaves his father a drunken mess.

If someone can make the Antichrist’s life hell, it’s Tony Indavino and Mark Landers. Tony is near relentless in his abuse of Andrew, where he calls the young man gay and they have what I can only refer to as a kiss fight. Another shocking moment, as full frontal male nudity is still verboten today and this scene is full of it. It makes the shower abuse in A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2 seem tame by comparison. During his second attempt to kiss Andrew and repeat this action, he suddenly grows breasts!

Meanwhile, Father Thomas and two angels — who in their human form have rambling dialogue between one another at all times — are preparing to wipe out the Antichrist before he can assume control of the world. One of them teams up with Mark’s girlfriend, who gets holy powers after Andrew kills her lover.

At this point, Andrew has gone full on demon after drinking the blood of a dog. He starts looking like more of an 80’s glam rock icon than what we’d expect Lucifer to look like.

Meanwhile, the town has a Passion Play with Hollywood level production values. Andrew attacks it, killing the Jesus in the play and then sending his army of zombies (which is the only reason Avco Embassy distributed the film) after the rest of the town.

The soundtrack to this film features more recognizable songs than you’d think, given its low budget. Patti Smith, The Rezillos, Talking Heads, Ramones, Boomtown Rats, The B-52’s, Richard Hell and the Sex Pistols are all featured — I had no idea going in and was continually shocked by each new song.

There really hasn’t even been a movie like Fear No Evil. Sure, a lot of it is taken from The Omen and Carrie, but those films never went off the deep end like this one does. It’s definitely worth tracking down and watching for yourself!

The Howling is a movie in love with movies. Watching it, one comes away with the purest of joy, a celebration of past horror movies to come without ever talking down on the past, unlike post-modern teardowns like Scream. In a werewolf packed year that also gave us the seminal An American Werewolf in London and the near-forgotten Wolfen, it still stands out as something unique and different while whore heartedly embracing the past.

In Los Angeles, KDHB news anchor Karen White (Dee Wallace, The Hills Have Eyes, E.T., Cujo, Critters, Popcorn, The House of the Devil) has become the story, as she’s being stalked by Eddie Quist (Robert Picardo, Legend, The ‘Burbs, Innerspace), a serial killer who leaves behind a smiley face as his calling card. Cooperating with the police, she agrees to be part of a sting operation to catch him inside a scummy, scuzzy, 70s porn theater. He forces her to watch a video of him raping and killing a girl, then makes her turn to face him. Whatever she sees freaks her out so badly, she blocks it out of her memory, PTSD-style. Just before Quist can kill her, the police open fire, killing him.

Karen’s therapist, Dr. George Waggner (Patrick Macnee, John Steed from The Avengers) has a private resort named The Colony where he sends his patients. She and Bill, her husband, schedule a visit and meet all manner of interesting folks, like Erle Kenton (John Carradine, star of more movies than this article will ever be able to catalog), an old man who keeps yelling that he wants to die, and Marsha Quist, a sex maniac who tries to seduce Karen’s husband. When he tries to run away from her feminine wiles, a wolf attacks him.

Karen’s had enough, so she calls in her friend Terri (Belinda Balaski, who has appeared in nearly every one of director Joe Dante’s movies), who connects Eddie Quist to The Colony. This isn’t the best detective work. After all, his sister is there.

Later that night, Bill returns to meet Marsha in the woods and fully transforms into a werewolf. She does too and they make hot, hot, hot werewolf love next to a fire. For budgetary reasons, this scene is animated and looks fake as fuck when compared to the fine effects work that Rob Bottin did on the film.

The next morning, a snooping Terri is attacked by a werewolf, but she chops its hand (paw?) off with an axe. She calls her boyfriend, Chris (Dennis Dugan, 1973’s The Girl Most Likely To..., to later direct almost every Adam Sandler movie, such as Just Go with It), but before he can save her, she’s attacked and killed by a full werewolf version of Eddie Quist. Her boyfriend hears all of this and heads to The Colony, armed with silver bullets, arriving just in time to save Karen, who has, in turn, throw acid into the face of werewolf Eddie.

Just as they kill off Eddie, everyone else in The Colony transforms into wolves. Karen and Chris respond by burning it down. She resolves to tell the world about the werewolves during a live news broadcast. How does she do it? By transforming on live TV before Chris shoots her. I always wondered about this — why exactly does he kill her? She seems perfectly in control of her wolf powers. Maybe he just can’t deal. Maybe after his girlfriend got bitten in the throat by Eddie, he hates all werewolves. It just always makes me question this part of the film.

After all that, the public doesn’t believe any of it. It had to be special effects. Even worse, the bad guys kind of win, as Marsha escapes the fire to do more evil.

Based on Gary Brandner’s novel, John Sayles worked with Dante to provide a script that is as self-aware as their previous film Piranha. It starts like a grimy 70s cop drama and then transforms, mid-film, into a monster movie, then takes you back into the sensational world of local news before its tragic ending.

The film is also packed chock full of great character actors of the past, like Carradine, Slim Pickens and Kevin McCarthy (the human hero of Invasion of the Body Snatchers). Plus, there are some awesome cameos, like Roger Corman and Forrest J. Ackerman.

As I mentioned before, this is a film that adores the horror films of the past. From the photo of Lon Chaney Jr. on Dr. Waggner’s wall to the fact that almost every character is named for a director of a werewolf movie, this film is filled with trivia.

Seriously, here are the character names, what director they reference and the films they are famous for:

George Waggner: Lon Chaney Jr.’s The Wolf Man

Roy William Neill: Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man

Terence Fisher: Nearly every major Hammer movie, including Curse of the Werewolf

Freddie Francis: I could go on and on and list Freddie’s finest work, like Tales from the Crypt, Tales that Witness Madness and Trog, but for this movie’s sake, his name references 1975’s Legend of the Werewolf. PS — Francis would go on to be the noted cinematographer of Glory and The Elephant Man.

Erle C. Kenton: 1945’s House of Dracula, which mixes all the Universal monsters, including John Carradine as Dracula, Chaney as Lawrence Talbot, Lionel Atwill as Police Inspector Holtz and — thanks to footage cut from different films — four actors playing Frankenstein’s monster (Glenn Strange, Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr. and Eddie Parker).

Sam Newfield: The Mad Monster is his werewolf movie, but he also directed some insane films like I Accuse My Parents, Queen of Burlesque and 273 other films — the dude was so prolific that he used two other names so audiences wouldn’t notice how many movies he made in one year!

Charles Barton: The silly part of me would consider The Shaggy Dog as the reason Dante selected his name. The realist knows that its for Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, which features Chaney again as Lawrence Talbot.

Jerry Warren: Face of the Screaming Werewolf, which features Chaney as “The Mummified Werewolf.”

Lew Landers: The Return of the Vampire and Cry of the Werewolf would both qualify him.

Jacinto Molina: Who we all know and love much better by his real name, Paul Naschy. Naschy played werewolves — who were often named Waldemar Daninsky — in Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror, Assignment Terror, La Furia del Hombre Lobo, The Werewolf Versus the Vampire Woman, Doctor Jekyll y el Hombre Lobo, Curse of the Devil, Night of the Howling Beast, Night of the Werewolf, The Beast and the Magic Sword, Licántropo: El Asesino de la Luna Llena, El Aullido del Diablo, A Werewolf in the Amazon and Tomb of the Werewolf.

The coroner also tells about the case of Stuart Walker, which is the same name as the director of the first American werewolf movie, Werewolf of London.

Much like Famous Monsters, this film is in love with puns. from Ginsberg’s book Howl at the phone booth, Slim Pickens eating a can of Wolf chili, Bill reading a Thomas Wolfe book and the Big Bad Wolf chasing Porky Pig in a Looney Tunes cartoon. There’s even a clip from The Wolf Man during the closing credits!

All of this detail doesn’t get in the way of a great story and awesome effects. Bottin does a great job here with the transformation sequences, even though some of the final ones had to be done inside Dante’s office in super close up, as they had totally exhausted their budget. Rick Baker was originally assigned to the film, but left to do An American Werewolf in London. I wonder if there were any bad feelings as a result.

Of course, there are around 90 sequels to this movie. And I’m certain I’ll cover at least two of them — at least one with Sybil Danning — soon. But if you haven’t seen this film…you should. Like now.

You can watch this on Shudder or grab the blu ray from Shout Factory.

Following the success of Dawn of the Dead — and the cottage industry that it brought to Italy with the near insta-sequel Zombi 2 and many lesser rate retreads — George Romero made another play to escape the horror genre with an incredibly personal film — Knightriders.

Inspired by the Society for Creative Anachronism — one need only drive near the Pittsburgh Zoo on a Sunday to see them practice their swordplay — Knightriders is a retelling of the Arthurian myth with several forks in the road along the way. It’s also about the search for love, a topic dear to Romero’s heart at this time, as he would take a break from filming to marry his second wife, Christine Forrest.

King William (Ed Harris, The Right Stuff, The Abyss, Creepshow) leads a group of knights that follow the ideals of King Arthur and chivalry while jousting on motorcycles (Samuel Z. Arkoff is the one who got Romero to trade horses for bikes in he film, which truly sets it apart).

While not a horror film, Knightriders holds true to one of Romero’s main tropes: the struggle to maintain the values of the past against the realities of the modern world. William struggles to lead the group. While constantly injured, he keeps himself front and center. And his dreams are haunted by a black bird.

Bontempi, a new promoter, has new ideas for the traveling troupe. Even after Billy spends the night in jail for refusing to pay off the local cops, several of the knights want new leadership. Even William’s queen, Linet, admits that her love for him isn’t why she stays with the group.

Turns out Morgan, the leader of the bikers who are dissatisfied with William, wants the crown. As played by Tom Savini, Morgan chews the scenery with raw sexuality and menace, versus the kindly king that William embodies. Morgan isn’t afraid to push that air of danger further, fighting unruly crowds after his wins (Stephen King and his wife appear in one the movie’s crowd scenes as he was in Pittsburgh writing Creepshow with Romero at the time).

William finally meets the black bird — a rider has the black eagle crest of his chest plate — defeating him but becoming more injured in the process.

Soon, everyone leaves — Morgan and his riders follow Bontempi, as even William’s most trusted knight, Alan, leaves with his new girlfriend — who is simply using him to act out against her abusive parents. Alan must come to terms with the fact that he truly loves Billy’s queen — shades of Lancelot and Arthur.

Alan and Morgan agree — there can only be one king. After a long battle, Morgan assumes his rightful claim to the throne with William’s blessing and tears up his contract with Bontempi.

William leave the group, seeking out the corrupt cop that put him in jail at the start of the film. After besting him in a fight and giving his sword to a young boy who idolizes him, he takes off for the highway. But blood loss and his accumulated injuries get the best of him — dizzy and weak, he cannot see the truck that takes his life.

Whew. Knightriders is a complex film, packed with great performances and a cast packed with Pittsburgh drama standouts mixed in with Hollywood greats like Harris. Throw in oral storytelling legend Brother Blue as Merlin and you get quite the team in front of the lens.

Obviously, this is one of the more personal films Romero lensed, second only to perhaps Martin. William’s goal of “slaying the dragon,” staying true to his values and vision despite the promise of more money (and less control) echoes the issues that the success of Dawn would bring Romero’s way. The first film of three financed and released through United Film Distribution (Creepshow and Day of the Dead complete the trilogy, as it were), this would Romero’s golden era of independence. Romero certainly took his time making this — there is a rumor that the original cut of the film clocked in at what can only be a hyperbolic 17 hours!

On the salesmanship front, Knightriders boasts an amazing poster, with art from Boris Vallejo, that boldly places Romero’s name — ala Martin — above the title. The auteur has arrived and this is his statement. However, it seemed audiences just may not have been ready for it.

Knightriders is personal for me, as I’ve spent so much of my life as a pro wrestler — a “sport” that some would deride and heap disdain on, but one where I’ve always seen the opportunity to tell stories in a medium that is matched by few others. The fact that William cannot just be Billy and escape the character he created for himself — I’ve seen and witnessed and lived this myself. The lure of another promotion, of better money, of recognition, of wanting to work for a promoter who doesn’t constantly put himself over while building a cult of personality around himself — it’s as if Romero was part of every locker room that I have been in.

Thanks for joining us for this week of Romero films. It’s made me remember prime moments of my zombie and Pittsburgh film obsessed teen years — waiting for releases like Heartstopper and Two Evil Eyes. After a few weeks of some other films and taking a break, I can see plenty of merit when it comes into tackling the films that came after Day of the Dead, like Bruiser, Creepshow and Land of the Dead.

PS – I get very emotional about films. Just the site of this sign made me get a little case of the vapors. Hopefully it moves you as much as it moved me.

What can you say about Fulci that hasn’t already been said? I wonder that as I begin writing this in the middle of a rainy night. This isn’t a post that’ll change anyone’s mind about his work and the relative artistic merits (or total lack of them). But it’s one of my favorite films and I’d like to opine on it for awhile. Please indulge me.

The film starts in flashback — 1927, Louisiana, the Seven Doors Hotel. A mob is convinced an artist is a warlock, so they crucify him, opening one of the Seven Doors of Death — allowing the dead into our world. Coincidentally, Liza — our heroine from New York City — inherits the hotel and her renovations reopen the door.

From there on out, Fulci says, “Cazzo la tua realtà” and embraces his worst impulses. The only way I can fully explain the craziness of this film is if I just list each insane moment in one long paragraph. Joe the plumber — not the political one — discovers a flooded cellar and gets his eye ripped out (if you’re playing a Fulci drinking game based on injuries to eyes and women, prepare to be the most inebriated you have ever been). A blind woman, Emily, and her dog, Dickie, inform Liza that she should stop. Joe’s wife and daughter try to claim his corpse, but the mother has her face slowly — “Sempre così lentamente!” I can hear Fulci yell from his director’s chair — burned off by acid and her daughter becomes one of the undead (zombies appear, drink three times) until she is shot by a bullet that sends her entire head spraying all over the screen in one of the most shocking scenes in pretty much all of film. Emily tells Liza to never enter room 36, but she does and discovers the ancient book Eibon and the still-crucified artist. Oh hey — Emily isn’t real — she’s trapped in the past and reaching out to us now, but her dog goes bad and tears her throat out. A dude falls off a ladder, gets paralyzed and the slowest death ever — a face eaten by spiders — occurs. Joe the plumber rises from a bathtub in a shot that rips off (pays homage to) 1955’s Diabolique and pushes a woman’s head through a nail, her eye being destroyed as a result (twice in one movie!).

Whew — so much happens that you may feel like you’re in a dream. That’s the way I see this film — a voyage from one terror to another, as one experiences nightmares that don’t seem to end. I see a lot of similarities to Jodorowsky in Fulci’s work. There’s no nuance — it’s all eyeballs popping, faces exploding, death upon death — but it’s there.

Fulci saw this film as having the closest to a happy ending that he would film. I’m not certain I agree — but it certainly is memorable. And if you haven’t seen it, why should I spoil it for you? I was ready for 2016’s The Void — a movie that could be a spiritual successor to this film — to end exactly the same way.  There’s also a reference in 2015’s Fulci loving We Are Still Here, as the handyman who unleashes the evil in the house is named Joe the Electrician.

This film was butchered — irony? — for years, with a heavily censored version playing in the U.S. as Seven Doors of Death. It wasn’t until the efforts of Grindhouse Releasing that the uncut version was finally shown in American movie houses. Fun fact — Grindhouse’s Bob Murawski is a film editor who used a shot from the spider bite sequence in the spider bite dream sequence of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man.

Even the original title of the film — …E tu vivrai nel terrore! L’aldilà (…And You Will Live in Terror! The Beyond) — is great. I’ve written before about how evangelical I can get when discussing a movie that I really love. I promise that if you ever speak to me in person about The Beyond that my eyes will get crazy and I will grow very animated and make a big deal out of a film that Roger Ebert famously derided by saying, “The movie is being revived around the country for midnight cult showings. Midnight is not late enough.”

It doesn’t matter — we cannot choose what we love. For pure atmosphere, dread and Fabio Frizzi’s incredible music, I end up watching this film quite often. Please try it for me. You can make fun of me afterward and I’ll still try to sell you on it.

UPDATE: The Seven Doors of Death cut of this movie is streaming for free on Amazon Prime. Watch it on Shudder instead.

While Alien is by no means a wholly originally film — just watch Bava’s Planet of the Vampires — its success has begat a spawn (Deadly Spawn, too) of imitators. I’ve made it my insane mission to watch as many of them as possible — I can guarantee that at least one or two of them will be much better than the last outing — the space turd known as Prometheus.

One of the first rip-offs — I say it in a nice way — was 1981s American TV movie, The Intruder Within.

Back in the day, Starlog was hyping this film as an almost sequel to Alien. With the popularity of the film, folks were ravenous to see more chest bursters in action. That said — this has nothing to do with the original other than stealing just about every single plot point.

Instead of space, this film goes to a more terrain — yet not less remote — location: an oil rig packed with folks like Chad Everett (TV’s Medical Center, Mulholland Drive, Airplane II) as our mustachioed hero, Jennifer Warren (Mutant, Slap Shot) as his love interest and fellow rig worker, Joseph Bottom (The Black Hole) as the villain, Rocke Tarkington (Ice Pirates) and Paul Larsson (The Blaster from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome!). It’s worth noting that every conversation the characters have — pre-alien — is about hooking up. They’re far from the mainland and feeling the urge to just get it on because all the drilling is getting them hot and bothered.

I hesitate to even write the plot to this, as I could just write the plot for Alien: crew finds eggs, someone goofs about and pays the price, the monster starts stalking the ship, hijinks ensue. Again — this film is hypersexualized, as one of the first monster attacks is more rape than attack. And there’s always a KY jelly like substance leaking out of everything. It’s also pretty bleak — the raped crew member dies after she gives birth to a full-sized alien and just about everyone dies pretty horribly — if off-camera, as this was still broadcast TV.

There’s also one well-done section of the film that explains that whatever the creature is, it predates the Biblical Flood and has lived beneath the ice for millions of years — very Lovecraftian themes that are never followed up on, sadly. Plus, being the ’80s, there’s a subplot about the oil company Zortron and how they may want the creature and eggs more than the oil (again, a plot point taken straight from Alien) and some character work about cheating spouses.

The actual creature suit is pretty nice and holds up well to being in the light. It was created by James Cummins, who also contributed to House, DeepStar Six (I’ll be getting to that one), Enemy Mine and The Beast Within. It’s very Giger-influenced to the point that many people incorrectly report that Giger worked on it. That said, it’s pretty strange to see an alien climb a ladder!

For all the exposition, set-up and character development, this movie ends just when it seems like it’s picking up steam. Who knew all it takes is a flare gun to defeat an alien? It certainly surprised me! The Intruder Within got to the party early, but it’s not the best of movies — filled with blocked off TV movie direction, too dark camerawork and a short running time. That said — it still has some charm and you can find worse ways to spend 100 minutes.

Originally posted at http://www.thatsnotcurrent.com/xeroxenomorphs-1981s-the-intruder-within/