New Pilgrims to the West is based on the Chinese 16th century book Journey to the West, which is about the legendary pilgrimage of the Buddhist monk Xuanzang. In spite of great danger, he traveled to the Central Asia to discover the Buddhist sacred texts. A combination of Chinese folk religion, Chinese mythology, Confucianism, Taoist and Buddhist theology, the lessons in this book are still being meditated on today.

The main characters are Sun Wukong the Monkey King, Tang Sanzang, Zhu “Pigsy” Bajie and Sha Wujing. Perhaps you’ve seen The Forbidden Kingdom, in which Jet Li plays Sun Wukong, Stephen Chow playing the role in A Chinese Odyssey or the 1960s series of Shaw Brothers movies that include Monkey Goes West, Princess Iron Fan, Cave of the Silken Web and The Land of Many Perfumes.

It’s low budget, yes, but director Chun-Liang Chen also made the incredible Child of Peach and the unofficial movie Dragon Ball: The Magic Begins, so there’s still some magic to be found in this story of Sun Wukong and Pigsy as they journey to the west.

I am of the belief that props don’t have to be expensive, sets don’t have to be perfect and even the quality of the print that I see decades later doesn’t have to be 4K quality. Magic can be found anywhere.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Released under so many names — Matching Escort, Fury of the Silver Fox, Wolf-Devil Woman 2, Wolfen Ninja, Venus the Cavalier, Venus the Ninja and Venus: Wolf Ninja — some of those are due to director, producer and star Pearl Chang, who was also the auteur who made Wolf Devil Woman even if this was made a year before. Chang is amazing because she was making her own kung fu movies in Taiwan and as a woman in the early 80s and that’d be a big feat even now. To add to the odd charms of this movie, it was written by the man who would unleash a hundred or more ninja clones, Godfrey Ho.

Wronged by the warlord who killed her family — and seventy-four other leaders — Chang is a princess who trains in an underground cave filled with neon-hued colors and homemade skeletons prepping for the final battle with that very same final boss, a man who has a Nintendo Power Glove seven years before the rest of the world and knows how to use it to break swords and shoot out on a long metal coil. He also has on a sparkling costume that looks like Frank Brunner drew it.

Pearl Chang’s movies probably won’t be getting a high end blu ray release anytime soon — the fact that I missed out on the Gold Ninja Video microrelease kills me — so the ultrabright colors and hyperkinetic wirework is lost in multiple transfers as this movie moved from the East to the West.

Here’s just one reason why this movie is so great: as a child, the princess had to wear concrete boots. That way, when she grew up, she’d be used to be weighed down and as an adult, she can run so fast that she can walk on water.

The final battle is filled with spraying blood every few seconds before the good guys take out the eyes of the evil warlord. It’s super graphic and very fake at the same time, which is actually perfect when you think about it. Sometimes, people get stabbed so well that blood sprays ten feet directly upward.

Movies have never been more magical.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Monkey Wars is a sequel or at least connected to New Pilgrims to the West and has Monkey, Pigsy and Sandy coming up against some Taoists and their ally a spider-woman who has created a base within the caves.

Director Chun-Liang Chen also made Child of Peach, Spell of Magic and Magic Warriors, so you know the kind of lunacy that this will soon deliver to you. What you may not be prepared for is the final part of this movie which has the taoists joining up with bat people, some of whom use hang glider wings and others that are humanoid bats and there’s a battle in the sky. Truly, this is exactly what I was looking for.

Seriously: this movie has a human monkey fighting flying bat people when he isn’t growing so large that he can walk to Heaven and urinate all over his enemies. Can you imagine a movie that while being made, the filmmakers said, “Human spider people just aren’t enough. What else can we do?”

This movie cost less than what some Hollywood movies spend on plastic sporks at craft services. Yet somehow it has a wealth of ideas that you won’t get to experience anywhere else in the universe.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Golden Buddha Against the Snake Phantom AKA King Kong vs. the Snake Phantom is a Thai movie with just this description to go by: “A tribe of snake-men are out to wreak havoc on a Miao minority group. Old Chang is not only the witch-doctor of the Miao people, but he and his two sons also help defend them against the intruders.”

A woman gets impregnated by a snake at one point and Buddha himself strikes her down. There are also fire-breathing snakes that destroy a village. Monks can teleport, bad guys can turn into snakes, Buddha grows gigantic and has a battle with an equally huge snake man.

Director Chih Chen was in Bruce Lee’s The Big Boss and also was an assistant director on that film. I wouldn’t look for anything from that movie to influence this one. What you will notice is a lot of distorted voices and a fuzzed out soundtrack that got me into the movie drugs space that I love so much.

There is no King Kong.

The filmmakers also needed gold snakes so they either have a rubber one painted that color or, as I suspect, they straight up painted some real snakes gold. Also some chickens get killed by snakes, so I should probably warn you about that.

Watch this on YouTube and see if you can understand as much as I did.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Superman 3 was not produced by Cannon, but they did release it in Germany on the Cannon Screen Entertainment label.

I always wonder, what was the exact moment where people went from thinking The Great Train Robbery was some kind of black magic and the train was going to kill everyone in the theater to watching a movie and saying, “That was boring.”

For ten-year-old Sam, it may have been this movie.

Just four years earlier, I laid on my stomach in the back of my parent’s station wagon and pretended I was flying the whole way home from Superman.

So what happened?

This movie sucks is what happened.

Sure, it’s written again by husband and wife team David and Leslie Newman and Richard Lester, who took over from a movie nearly already shot by Richard Donner in Superman II, directed. But I have no idea why this movie is about what it’s about. I was a hardcore Superman reader as a kid and I kept thinking, “Will Brainiac be in this? The Parasite? The Atomic Skull? Would Dudley Moore play Mister Mxyzptlk?”

How about Richard Pryor?

Gene Hackman and Margot Kidder were said to have been angry with the way the Salkinds treated Donner, with Hackman retaliating by refusing to reprise the role of Lex Luthor. This is a rumor and Hackman has denied it, but he definitely refused to return for the Lester shot scenes in the second film. And when Kidder gave interviews about how the Salkinds treated Donner, she was written out of this movie for the most part — the cover story was that the Lois and Clark relationship had been “played out” in the first two film — and was replaced with Lana Lang (Annette O’Toole).

The other big bad is the rich Ross “Bubba” Webster (Robert Vaughn). He keeps trying to take over the world’s supply of needed elements, like coffee and oil. Superman keeps getting the best of him and he finds that August “Gus” Gorman (Pryor) is good with stealing money through complicated computer systems — Office Space was inspired by his big plan — and uses him to destroy Superman.

Huh?

Superman ends up getting seduced by Lorelei Ambrosia (Pamela Stephenson) who somehow gets him to destroy an oil tanker and then Ross’ sister Vera Webster (Annie Ross) ends up being a cyborg and oh yeah, Superman ends up splitting into two halves after a nervous breakdown with one side being a dark Superman and a good Clark Kent. They fight in a junkyard and Superman comes back, only for a supercomputer to learn how to make kryptonite and man, I hate this movie.

I absolutely hate this movie.

You know when Marvel fans complain about so much comedy and She-Hulk twerking and the Snyder cut? Let them have this movie. Ten-year-old Sam was beyond mad, the kind of mad that doesn’t go away. Ever. In my lifetime. I mean, a rumor that Tony Danza was going to take over shows that this movie could have been even worse.

This is a movie where evil Superman rights the Leaning Tower of Pisa and blows out the Olympic flame.

Oh no, Superman. How will we recover?

Then again, Brad Wilson, the rival of Superman for the affections of Lana, is Gavin O’Herlihy and just three years later, Charles Bronson would shoot him with a rocket launcher.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Amityville II: The Possession was not produced by Cannon but was released on VHS in Germany by Cannon Screen Entertainment. Want to know more about every Amityville sequel? Click here for that exploration into the possessed world of 112 Ocean Avenue.

It doesn’t matter to me whether or not The Amityville Horror is truth or fiction. The truth is that the original film isn’t all that exciting. But the sequel? Holy shit — the sequel is pretty much everything you want in a movie — if you love movies filled with horrifyingly sick moments of glee.

Damiano Damiani, whose 1960’s and 1970’s western and crime output were marked by a streak of social criticism, directed this film from a screenplay by Tommy Lee Wallace (who not only played Michael Myers in the original Halloween, but would go on to direct Halloween III: Season of the Witch and the original version of It).

The film is actually a prequel, telling the story of the Montellis, who are based upon the DeFeo family. Anthony (Burt Young from Rocky) is the father of this brood. He’s rude, ill-tempered and ready to abuse everyone at a moment’s notice. If you’re looking for any family values — in fact, any values at all — you’re watching the wrong film.

He’s married to Dolores (Rutanya Alda, Carol Ann from Mommie Dearest), his long-suffering and very Catholic wife. They have four kids — Sonny, Patricia (Diane Franklin, Monique from Better Off Dead, as well as TerrorVision and Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure), Mark and Jan. Even from the very beginning of the film, the family is on edge. Every single interaction between them is marked by weirdness before we even get into the occult portion of this film.

Things get worse — much worse — after a tunnel is found in the basement. This leads to doors knocking all night long and demonic messages showing up in the youngest kids’ room. Turning to the Church, Dolores tries to have Father Frank Adamsky bless the house. That lasts for all of ten seconds before Anthony flips out and throws the priest out.

When he gets to his car, the door is open and his Bible is torn apart. Clearly — all is not well. Again — the family is a mess before the Devil even gets involved. Dad is overly strict and abuse, mom clings to the Church and Sonny and Patricia yearn to have sex with one another (seriously, their first interactions define the word creeptastic).

While everyone else goes to church, Sonny stays behind and is taken over by a demonic force. The film nearly descends into body horror as we see the creature take root inside him. Soon, he’s playing fashion photographer with his sister, a game that quickly turns into sex. Instead of her being upset, Patricia instead tells him that she loved it. Keep in mind these are pretty much the two main protagonists of the story, so the tale takes a very Flowers in the Attic turn.

As Sonny becomes more demonic, Patricia decides to confess to Father Adamsky, but breaks down before she can. At Sonny’s birthday party — a scene where this film layers on the insanity — he goes full demon as she freely tries to give herself to him. She decides to call the priest and confess everything, but Father Tom (Simon himself from Simon, King of the Witches, as well as the original version of The Town that Dreaded Sundown) takes the phone off the hook so the priests can go skiing (!!!).

That night, Sonny fully becomes possessed and murders his entire family with shotgun blasts as a voice tells him to “kill them all.” Father Adamsky blames himself and even after the church refuses to allow him to exorcise the demon, he still makes an attempt. The demon goes from Sonny into his soul and the Amityville House is put up for sale…setting up part one.

If you think this is a rough little movie — and trust me, it is — it was even worse in its original cut. Test audiences were assaulted by scenes where Anthony anally rapes his wife Dolores and where the incest is on graphic display (versus being hinted at with an “after the loving” quick cut). Damiano stated that he wanted to really upset viewers. Well, he succeeded, with those scenes going the way of the dodo. A very depraved dodo.

Originally, this film was to be based on John G. Jones’ book The Amityville Horror Part II, but producer Dino De Laurentiis, in conjunction with American International Pictures, decided to be inspired Hans Holzer’s book Murder in Amityville. George Lutz, whose family’s 28-day residency at the haunted house led to the original film, sued and got a disclaimer on the posters for the film stating “This film has no affiliation with George and Kathy Lutz”.”

Even better — Ed and Lorraine Warren, the demonologists who are the basis for The Conjuring series of films — served as the demonology advisors. One only wonders how they felt about the tremendous amount of blasphemy on display here.

This is a film where no traditional structure can save anyone. The family unit is a joke. The Catholic Church does not care. And the police only exist to pick up the pieces at the end. It’s a grimy, gory, gross little film that has more in common with the grindhouse than its major studio origins would suggest.

Long story made short: I love this fucking movie.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Frances was not produced by Cannon. It was, however, released on video in Germany by Cannon Screen Entertainment.

“In her false witness
I hope you’re still with us
To see if they float or drown
Our favorite patient
Display of patience
Disease-covered Puget Sound
She’ll come back as fire
To burn all the liars
Leave a blanket of ash on the ground”

Nirvana biographer Michael Azerrad wrote that Francis Farmer was the “patron martyr” of Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love, as they saw parallels between her mistreatment by the media and their own struggles with the press. Cobain told the writer of the song, “I guess that’s my way of letting the world know that bureaucracy is everywhere and it can happen to anybody and it’s a really evil thing. The story of Frances Farmer is so sad and it can happen to anybody and it almost felt at a time that it was happening to us…but it’s mainly just exposing the Frances Farmer story to people.”

In her book Will There Really Be a Morning?, Farmer said that while being keptin Western State Hospital she “was raped by orderlies, gnawed on by rats and poisoned by tainted food. I was chained in padded cells, strapped into strait-jackets and half-drowned in ice baths.”

Directed by Graeme Clifford (Gleaming the Cube, Ruby Cairo) and written by the team who wrote The Elephant Man Eric Bergren and Christopher De Vore as well as Nicholas Kazan (Patty Hearst), Frances stars Jessica Lange as Farmer, who from a young age was defiant and the world felt the need to make her behave. Harry York (Sam Shepherd) tells most of the story for her, as she moves from acting on Broadway to a career in Hollywood to being institutionalized and finally appearing on This Is Your Life. The character is not a real person and was invented by the screenwriters to prove that they came up with the story. That’s because a lot of this movie came from William Arnold’s book Shadowland, which fictionalized a lot of Farmer’s life. Arnold sued for copyright infringement, claiming the film’s screenplay stole those fake parts that he came up with. He lost.

From 1958 to 1964, Farmer hosted Francis Farmer Presents on WFBM in Indianapolis, interviewing celebrities and showing old movies. That kind of makes me happy instead of sad. She refers to herself as a faceless sinner at the end of this movie and looks forward to life slowing down. I’d like to think she found some peace.

The film closes with this in the credits: “In exchange for the use of certain facilities and per agreement with the California Department of Mental Health, the producers have agreed to the following disclaimer: Since the 1940s there have been major advances in the care and treatment of the mentally ill. The reprehensible conditions experienced by Frances Farmer are not typical of mental health treatment today.” Supposedly, medical professionals from Western State Hospital at the time Frances Farmer was there denied that she was ever lobotomized or operated on.

To achieve that effect, director of photography László Kovács shot that scene with no eyelights.

What gets to me is that the scene where Farmer is arrested in the nude only lasts three minutes but took four days to shoot due to the door not working properly, believe it or not. Supposedly, Lange began to feel as abused as Farmer by the end of the scene.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Fake-Out was not produced by Cannon. It was, however, released on video in Germany by Cannon Screen Entertainment.

Did Matt Cimber make this movie just for me?

First off, Cimber has led a crazy life. He went from doing plays in Vermont to Broadway, where he directed the revival of Bus Stop and met his future wife, Jayne Mansfield, who he made Single Room Furnished with. Under the names Gary Harper and Rinehart Segway he directed Man and Wife, Sex and Astrology and The Sexually Liberated Female then made The Black Six, Lady Cocoa, The Candy Tangerine Man and The Witch Who Came from the Sea.

Cimber also teamed with actress Laurene Landon to make Hundra and Yellow Hair and the Fortress of Gold. He also was one of the co-creators behind the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, serving as executive producer and director of the syndicated television program — Mark Maron played him on the Netflix series — and his career is often a mix of exploitation and female empowerment, but it can get kind of murky. Seventies murky, you know? It has to be sexy, but women are still dangerous but yet need to be naked a lot of the time.

Another actor that Cimber teamed with twice was Pia Zadora. Have I not revealed how much I love Ms. Zadora in these digital pages? Well, Cimber made Butterfly and this movie with her. Financed by Pia’s then-husband Meshulam Riklis — he also paid for The Lonely Lady and perhaps her Golden Globe Award as New Star of the Year — it’s the tale Bobbie Warren (Zadora), a gangster’s moll who everyone thinks is going to snitch, so they plan her demise.

Written by John F. Goff (Drive-In Massacre, C.B. Hustlers, The Capture of Bigfoot) and Cimber, this movie was also called Nevada Heat and places Pia into the Lola Falana role from Cimber’s Lady Cocoa. She’s been arrested and doesn’t want to deal with jail — I mean, she does teach an aerobics class but then she has to deal with a sapphic shower assault — so she turns state’s evidence and is protected by a cop named Clint Morgan (Desi Arnaz, Jr., who once teamed with four of horror’s greatest stars in Cannon’s House of Long Shadows) and Lt. Thurston (Telly Savalas), a boss officer with a gambling habit and the need to end every sentence with the word baby.

I honestly believe that Telly is playing himself.

My favorite Telly story: He lived for twenty years in the Sheraton-Universal Hotel and would just come down to the hotel bar — which was renamed Telly’s — in his slippers and watch games and shoot pool with normal non-celebrity folk. One of his friends said, “He could be eating a sandwich, you know, putting something in his mouth and someone would come over and slap him on the back and say, “How ya doin?” He’d say, “Delightful.””

Delightful.

Man, I love Telly. I love that he’s in this movie.

This whole thing is set at the Riveria Hotel in Vegas, which Riklis owned at the time and one imagines that he forgave Telly’s debts if he just showed up for a few minutes in his wife’s movie. It even ends with an ad for the casino, saying “The production is indebted to the Riviera Hotel for its many considerations and extends you a cordial invitation to visit and enjoy its newly remodeled facilities.”

How’s the movie? Pia once said, “I threatened to commit suicide if Fake-Out was released.”

But it’s not horrible as long as you’re the kind of person who loves to see Larry Storch and George “Buck” Flower — who made Takin’ It Off Out West with screenwriter Goff, Taylor St. Clair and Julie Strain — show up in films.

You will also love it if you’re also like me and give Pia a pass no matter what she does. You can also enjoy her work in Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, Voyage of the Rock Aliens, Hairspray,  Troop Beverly Hills, Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult and of course Butterfly and the The Lonely Lady.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Evil Under the Sun was not produced by Cannon but was sold on videotape by HBO/Cannon Video. 

Guy Hamilton is probably best known for directing four Bond movies — Goldfinger, Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun — but he also directed two Agatha Christie adaptions (this one and The Mirror Crack’d) and Remo Williams.

Screenwriter Anthony Shaffer worked on most of the 70s and 80s Christie adaptions like Murder on the Orient Express, Death On the Nile and Appointment with Death, as well as Hitchcock’s Frenzy, Absolution and The Wicker Man.

Peter Ustinov would become the defining Hercule Poirot and this was the second time he’d play the role.

A dead woman strangled on the moors, a missing diamond ring and a trip to the summer palace of the King of Tyrania to confront the woman that may have stolen it — Arlena Stuart Marshall (Diana Rigg) — start the mystery.

That’s where Arlena is on holiday with her husband Kenneth (Denis Quilley) and her daughter Linda (Emily Hone). But they aren’t alone. She’s been flirting with Patrick Redfern (Nicholas Clay) to the displeasure of his wife Christine (Jane Birkin). Her husband is sick of her as well and has been confiding in the owner of the palace, Daphne Castle (Maggie Smith). If that’s not bad enough, the villainess has ruined the financial affairs of Odell and Myra Gardener (James Mason and Sylvia Miles) by walking out of the play they produced. And speaking of plays, playwright Rex Brewster (Roddy McDowall) had been hired to also write a tell-all on Arelena’s life, but she refuses to allow him to use the interview she gave him. Then there’s the man whose heart she broke — and potentially stole his diamond — Sir Horace Blatt (Colin Blakely).

Is it any wonder when she ends up strangled on a beach?

“The sky is blue, the sun is shining, and yet you forget that everywhere, there is evil under the sun.” I love movies that have a scene that reveals the title. And I have found that I am pretty into these Christie films. While this one doesn’t boast the big celebrity cast as others, it’s still entertaining and who doesn’t enjoy seeing Poirot gather everyone to work out the solution?