Giorgio (Renato Pozzetto, My Wife Is a Witch) has to move from Milan to Rome. In order to convince his girlfriend Candida (Gloria Guida, Blues Jeans) to come with him, he promises to find the perfect house for them — and by them, I mean her mother (Lia Zoppelli) is part of the plans — and he finds a mansion for a price that seems too good to be true.

Guida also appears in the prologue, in which she’s another Candida, who has been cursed by her witch of a mother (also Zoppelli) to marry the evil Ali Amman instead of her true love Giorgiafat (also Pozzetto). The witch turns teh young lovers into salt statues and forces their souls to wander for a thousand years and a thousand years more if Candida remains a virgin. Now, they have been reincarnated as…guess who.

There are all manner of poltergeists in this giant house out to keep Giorgio and Guida from making love, including his dog Gaetano, which somehow gets a Southern accent. It even has a scene where Giogio transforms into The Hulk.

This was directed and written — along with Mario Amendola,  Mario Cecchi Gori, Giovanni Manganelli and Enrico Oldoini — by Bruno Corbucci. Yes, the same man who made The Great Silence, one of the most depressing Westerns of all time. Look for him in a cameo as Gateano’s vet.

Carlo Ausino — Charles Austin — started his directing and writing career with La città dell’ultima paura, which he followed with Double Game, which also has Annarita Grapputo in the cast. As you can guess, it got this title when released in other countries, as it’s called La Villa Delle Anime Maledette (The Villa of the Cursed Souls) in Italy.

In 1955, two men are fighting. One kills the other with a knife, then a woman grabs the knife and stabs the killer. She runs into a cemetery where she’s dragged into a grave by a demon’s hand. This is called how to start a movie in a great way.

Years later, her daughter Elisa (Grapputo, who is also in Magnum Cop and Like Rabid Dogs) is at a seance when she hears her dead mother warn her to never go to the villa.

So she goes to the villa.

That’s because she and her cousins Bruno (Fausto Lombardi) and Tony (Antonio Campa) inherit the place and are told they can never sell it or rent it. They have to keep on the caretaker (Paul Teitcheid), and all move in. Bruno even brings his wife Sonia (Ileana Fraia, The Killer Nun), who is the first to die when she’s hit by a car. At this point, both Bruno and Tony realize that they’re in an Italian exploitation movie and decide to have sex with their cousin, who is a virgin. Not at the same time. I mean, they may be incestual, but they have some morality. Well, not Bruno, who has to have a heir and who always believed it was his wife’s fault he didn’t have a child, so he tries to assault Elisa, who has learned that she’s of the seventh generation cursed by the house, thanks to a diary.

While all that’s happening, the lawyer who read the will has a secretary who used to be his lover named Martha (Beba Loncar, Interrabang) who is also a student of the occult. When her lover Ugo (Jean-Pierre Aumont, Cauldron of Blood) dies, she also comes to the villa.

There’s also a giallo killer wandering outside, as well as lots of fog inside. I have no idea what the curse on Elisa was other than she’s in a haunted house. Then again, this has a great tagline, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust — but not for long!” As you can see, that also sounds good and makes no sense. Maybe that’s why I like this movie. It’s an Italian Gothic, which means it’s probably not going to be logical and this movie just totally overachieves on that.

I love this movie but you’re probably going to hate it.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Hu (Eddy Ko Hung) has had four men selected to transport a gift through enemy lands. They include a thief named Yao Jie (Yuen Yat-chor), Bu the dynamite expert (Fan Mui-sang), a postman named Ma (Leung Kar-Yan) and conman Fu Jun (Chow Yun-Fat). They have a week to deliver the box and must never open it. They’re joined by Guihwa (Cherie Chung Cho-hung), who wants to free her sister from slavery somewhere in the city.

It seems simple, but soon there is a ninja, masked killers on ice skates and all manner of criminals out to take whatever is in the package. Yuen Woo-Ping directed the action.

Chow Yun-Fat may be the selling point to American audiences, but Leung Kar-Yan is the hero. But I mean, ice skating ninjas. That’s worth watching.

Director Ronny Yu also made The Bride with the White Hair before coming to the U.S. where he directed Bride of Chucky and Freddy vs. Jason before going back home to make Fearless.

The 88 Films blu ray of this movie has the Hong Kong and export versions of the film, two sets of commentary, one with Frank Djeng and Ronny Yu and the other with Stephan Hammond, as well as interviews with Chow Yun-Fat, Leung Kar-Yan and Ronny Yu, and a trailer. You can get it from MVD.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Murder Mansion was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, February 2, 1980 at 1 a.m. It also aired on July 31, 1982.

Originally released as La Mansion de la Niebla (The Mansion in the Fog) and also known as Murder Mansion, this Spanish/Italian film fuses old school haunted house horror with the then new school form of the giallo.

The plot concerns a variety of people drawn to a house in the fog, so the original title was pretty much correct. There are plenty of European stars to enjoy, like Ida Galli, who also uses the name Evelyn Stewart and appeared in Fulci’s The Psychic as well as The Sweet Body of Deborah. And hey, there’s Analía Gadé from The Fox with the Velvet Tail. Hello, George Rigaud, from All the Colors of the Dark and The Case of the Bloody Iris! They’re all here in a movie that seems to make little or no sense and then gets even more bonkers as time goes on.

This was one of the 13 titles included in Avco Embassy’s Nightmare Theater package syndicated in 1975 (the others were Marta, Death Smiles on a Murderer, Night of the Sorcerers, Fury of the Wolfman, Hatchet for the Honeymoon, Horror Rises from the Tomb, Dear Dead Delilah, Doomwatch, Bell from Hell, Witches Mountain, The Mummy’s Revenge and The Witch). How did these movies play on regular TV?

There’s a history of vampires in the house, the previous owner was a witch and hey — this is starting to feel like an adult version of Scooby Doo with better-looking ladies. That’s not a bad thing. But if you’ve never watched a badly dubbed giallo-esque film before, don’t expect any of this to make a lick of sense.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Airplane II: The Sequel was on USA Up All Night on March 12, 1994 and March 4 and October 6, 1995.

While most of the cast came back and Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams and David Zucker were involved in the early stages of development, the ZAZ team decided to distance themselves from this movie and worked with Leslie Neilsen on Police Squad! instead.

The movie went ahead without their permission. They have refused to watch a single frame of it upon its release and still have never watched it.

They made the right move.

It’s not that Airplane II: The Sequel is bad. It’s that such a high bar was set that it’s impossible for any movie to be even close.

It was directed and written by Ken Finkleman, who in 1982 either had the biggest challenge or the largest balls. In the same year, he wrote not only this sequel, but also Grease 2. Again, the risk to reward was so astronomical; Ken Finkleman was flying too close to the sun on wings of wax.

That said, this movie does get more serious actors playing themselves in the way they’ve always acted but in a comedy, including Richard Jaeckel, Chad Everett, Rip Torn, Kent McCord, William Shatner and Raymond Burr while finding roles for some of my favorites like Chuck Connors, Laurene Landon and Sandahl Bergman.

It’s supposedly more science fiction based, but at no point does this movie point to the almost insane devotion to old movies that the original does. Then again, the matte painting from Logan’s Run showing up is pretty funny, as is the fact that Lloyd Bridges is in a mental hospital because his character thinks that he’s Lloyd Bridges.

EDITOR’S NOTE: 48 Hours was on USA Up All Night but I can’t find the date!

Walter Hill forever, you know?

He credits Lawrence Gordon for the idea of this movie. It was originally about the Governor of Louisiana’s daughter getting kidnapped by a criminal who strapped dynamite to her head and threatened to blow her up in 48 hours if he wasn’t paid. To save her, the toughest cop around gets the worst prisoner in jail — the one-time cellmate of the kidnapper — to save her. Roger Spottiswoode would write the script, along with Hill, Tracy Keenan Wynn, Larry Gross and Steven de Souza.

Hill couldn’t sell them on his idea of making it more of a comedy and teaming Clint Eastwood and Richard Pryor. But then something changed. Hill said, “Paramount felt that the combination of Nick Nolte and a good black actor would be commercial. What happened is very simple: Richard Pryor is now an enormous movie star, and that’s changed everybody’s mind about black lead players.”

The movie was not without issues. Gross and Hill rewrote the film until the last day of shooting, pressured to making it more of a comedy. Producers thought the movie was too violent and claimed that Hill would never work for Paramount again. Those same bosses hated dailies of Murphy’s performance and wanted him fired, but co-star Nick Nolte and Hill fought to keep him.

All of these things were forgotten when this became the seventh-biggest movie of 1982.

Career criminal Albert Ganz (James Remar) escapes from prison with the help of his accomplice Billy Bear (Sonny Landham). They travel to San Francisco where they kill a former associate Henry Wong (John Hauk) as well as two cops, Detectives Algren (Jonathan Banks) and Van Zant (James Keane). Only Inspector Jack Cates (Nolte) survives but loses his gun.

Jack tracks down Ganz’s former partner Reggie Hammond (Murphy) who only has six months left in his jail sentence. The cop gets a 48-hour release so that Reggie can help him track down Ganz and Bear. Their relationship is somewhat rocky, but Reggie impresses Jack by taking down an entire redneck bar called Torchy’s by himself, using the power of the badge, his attitude and some BS to get all the info they need to track down Billy’s old girlfriend. I mean, the guys still end up fighting one another, but that brings them even closer as they work the case.

This movie feels like lightning in a bottle, as Murphy was ready to break even bigger than just being on Saturday Night Live. Having Nolte and Hill supporting him helped and I just remember everyone being so excited about this movie. Murphy would follow this with Trading Places and from then on, he’s always be a major star.

I love Murphy. Beyond his comedic gifts, he has a deep love of all genres of cinema. He said he had no idea how to hold a gun, so he just did an impression of Bruce Lee’s face before he fought. He also said this about Rudy Ray Moore in a recent interview and I want to ask him so many more questions: “I started thinking of him like a guerrilla filmmaker. And then I started seeing different types of movies. And if you watch 8 ½ by Federico Fellini and then you watch The Holy Mountain by Jodorowsky, and then you watch Human Tornado by Rudy Ray Moore, you have the exact same reaction. You go, “What the … am I watching?””

He even got a sample from Santa Sangre — “The elephant is dying” — into his song with Michael Jackson, “Whatzupwitu.”

Anyways. 48 Hours is so raw compared to the buddy cop movies that came after. You should totally check it out if you haven’t and just thought it was like any other action movie of the 80s.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Friday the 13th Part III 3D was on USA Up All Night on October 30, 1993 and January 13 and 14, 1995.

With Amy Steel uninterested in returning to the series, the filmmakers had to reboot and figure out what made Jason tick. And that ticking was a hockey mask — three movies into the series. The original plan was that Ginny would be confined to a psychiatric hospital and he would track her down, then murder the staff and other patients at the hospital. If this sounds kind of like Halloween 2 to you, well surprise. This is not a movie series known for its originality.

He starts the film by killing a store owner and his wife just for clothes. Then, he goes after the friends of Chris Higgins: Debbie (Tracie Savage, who played the younger Lizzie in the awesome made-for-TV movie The Legend of Lizzie Borden), Andy, Shelley, Vera (Catherine Parks, Weekend at Bernie’s), Rick, Chuck and Chili. They run afoul of bikers Ali, Fox and Loco, who follow them back to their vacation home.

Jason starts killing quick, but he’s already mentally scarred Chris, as she survived an attack from him two years ago. This has left her with serious trauma and an inability to enjoy intimacy (which, come to think of it, comes in handy in these movies).

Jason takes the mask from the dead body of prankster Shelley and it’s on, with speargun bolts to the eye, heads chopped in half with machetes, knives through chests, electrocutions, hot pokers impaling stoners and even someone’s skull getting crushed by Jason’s supernaturally powerful hands.

Of course, it ends up with Final Girl Chris against Jason, who she kills by hitting him in the head with an ax before falling asleep on a canoe. She then dreams that an unmasked Jason runs toward her before Mrs. Vorhees — decomposed but with head reattached — drags her into the lake. Jason’s body is lying in the barn. For now.*

Here’s some trivia: To prevent the film’s plot being leaked (I could tell you the plot in less than a sentence, so this seems like bullshit), the production used the David Bowie song “Crystal Japan” as the title of the movie. They’d use Bowie songs as working titles during several of the other films.

There is a ton of footage that was cut from the film so that it didn’t get an X rating. And there’s an alternate ending where Chris dreams that Jason decapitates her. None of these things make this a better movie.

*Thanks to Bill Gordon for pointing out that I totally wrote that Jason was at the bottom of the lake. In my mind, Jason is at the bottom of the lake all the tinm. Or maybe, as Mike Justice said, “The killer’s body is at the bottom of the lake” is an old Pittsburgh expression meaning, “All’s well that ends well.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Invincible Obsessed Fighter was on USA Up All Night on August 31, 1990.

Directed by Kim Jung-yong and starring Elton Chong — which may be my favorite martial arts movie actor name other than Casanova Wong — this is the tale of Chuck, an expert in swords and the 13 Shaolin styles. Now, he must battle Eagle, the henchman of General Ching and the killer of his master Leon Chan.

Chong is a Jackie Chan clone, given to humorous over cranked fights and a lot of serious martial arts movies fans hate all of his movies. This also has zombies in it out of nowhere, zombies that rise out of maggots no less. Nobody really has a name, things just happen and, well, this was on third on USA Up All Night in the kind of timeslot where I can only imagine people were either post-coitus, post-drinking or the drugs were kicking in.

There’s a bad guy named Fat Ho and lots of discussion of Eight Chopper Fist as a fighting style.

You can watch this on Tubi.