EDITOR’S NOTE: For the last two days of Cannon Month, I’m going to cover movies that weren’t produced by Cannon but which were distributed by them on one of their various home video labels including Cannon / MGM/UA Home Video, HBO/Cannon Video, Cannon Video, Cannon / Guild Home Video, Cannon / Rank Video, Cannon Screen Entertainment Limited, Cannon Classics, Cannon / Warner Home Video, Cannon/VMP, Cannon Screen Entertainment, Scotia/Cannon, Cannon International, Cannon/ ECV, Cannon / Showtime, Cannon / United Film, Cannon / Isabod, Cannon / Mayco and so many more.

Known in Holland as Gebroken Spiegels, Broken Mirrors is split between two stories. In one, Diane (Lineke Ripman) and Dora (Henriette Tol) are Amsterdam brothel workers at the Happy House Club who begin to tire of their lives. And in the other, a housewife named Bea (Edda Barends) is kidnapped by one of the johns and is slowly starved to death while her captor takes photographic evidence.

Directed and written by Marleen Gorris (A Question of Silence), this film sets forth the belief that all women are captives of men, whether that means that the patriarchy that they’ve created or quite literally the situation in the second story.

Dora explains to Diane that these men rent their bodies, not who they are, so they don’t need to give them anything more than seconds of fumbling sex. They’re supported by the lady of the house, Ellen (Coby Stunnenberg), who allows them to turn down customers and gives them a line to call for help.

Bea is in a strikingly similar situation and knows that she’s going to die. But if she does, she will only give the killer brief moments and none of the emotion that he craves. He only has her body as well, not who she is.

It’s also worth noting that we see the women’s faces, learn their emotions and become sympathetic to them, but never really see many of the men, even the killer. They are near-silent and almost always anonymous.

EDITOR’S NOTE: For the last two days of Cannon Month, I’m going to cover movies that weren’t produced by Cannon but which were distributed by them on one of their various home video labels including Cannon / MGM/UA Home Video, HBO/Cannon Video, Cannon Video, Cannon / Guild Home Video, Cannon / Rank Video, Cannon Screen Entertainment Limited, Cannon Classics, Cannon / Warner Home Video, Cannon/VMP, Cannon Screen Entertainment, Scotia/Cannon, Cannon International, Cannon/ ECV, Cannon / Showtime, Cannon / United Film, Cannon / Isabod, Cannon / Mayco and so many more.

Between the cinematography of Dean Semler (The Road Warrior, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome) and the lunatic vision of Russell Mulcahy (who was known for his music videos before making movies like this and Highlander; some of the videos he directed include “Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles, “Vienna” by Ultravox and tons of Cultre Club and Duran Duran songs), Razorback looks better than any movie about a gigantic rampaging pig should.

But not just any pig. A gigantic razorback that’s so maniacal that it eats its own young and now has the power to implicate men in the murder of their family. That kind of pig. Most of the film’s budget went to making six animatronic pigs that were used for different stunts, including a special boar made to attack cars.

As for real boars, they really are pretty tough. Can they be stabbed in the throat and keep going? I honestly don’t want to find out for myself. But hey — this is a Jaws on land film that even has “New Moon on Monday” show up on the soundtrack. And there are moments where the camerawork gets nearly psychedelic and you think, “Hey, is this art or a movie with a giant pig that eats people?”

EDITOR’S NOTE: For the last two days of Cannon Month, I’m going to cover movies that weren’t produced by Cannon but which were distributed by them on one of their various home video labels including Cannon / MGM/UA Home Video, HBO/Cannon Video, Cannon Video, Cannon / Guild Home Video, Cannon / Rank Video, Cannon Screen Entertainment Limited, Cannon Classics, Cannon / Warner Home Video, Cannon/VMP, Cannon Screen Entertainment, Scotia/Cannon, Cannon International, Cannon/ ECV, Cannon / Showtime, Cannon / United Film, Cannon / Isabod, Cannon / Mayco and so many more.

Hikmet Avedis was the director of 1974’s The Teacher. Howard Avedis is the director of this film. They’re similar films. And the same person. So there you go.

This movie is all about Jay (Eric Brown, Private Lessons), who gets caught up in a film noir-like murder mystery. And see, you thought that this was going to be all about teen comedies and not death! Wrong!

What sold me on this movie were the two leads: Andrew Prine (The Town that Dreaded Sundown, Simon King of the Witches) and Sybil Danning (Battle Beyond the Stars). They’re a married couple who want to get his mom into a retirement home, but things go wrong and she gets killed. Jay gets way too deep into their affairs, but look: if you were a 19-year-old college kid and Sybil Danning regularly rumbusticating you, chances are you’d do anything she asked.

This movie has a lot in it, to tell the truth. It’s somewhat a sex comedy. It’s sometimes a slasher, like when a hidden Santa Claus beats a woman with a baseball bat. It’s got Dominick Brascia in it, who played the candy bar eating heavy guy in Friday the 13th: A New Beginning. It’s got Alvy Moore in it, who was Hank Kimball on TV’s Green Acres. It was the best role Sybil ever thought that she acted in. And by the end of the movie, it’s become a giallo complete with a room full of horrific artwork, dead bodies and a secret sibling!

Despite the tagline, “From his French maid, he got Private Lessons. Now his English professor is giving him a REAL education,” this is not a sequel to that film. Also: I kind of hate Eric Brown, as he got to do love scenes with both Sybil and Sylvia Kristel. That’s kind of getting way too much out of your life. No one deserves that much.

Just listen to this song and remember: Eric Brown got to do three love scenes with Sybil Danning. Try not to get enraged. It gets worse: he hooks up with Sylvia Kristel in Private Lessons. You’ve just gone postal.

You can get this from Kino Lorber.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

Renee Harmon and James Bryan are kind of like two superheroes — who made movies that only I would like, it seems — who make movies on their own like Harmon’s Frozen Scream and Bryan’s Don’t Go In the Woods. Then, when fates align, they have a team-up and make Lady Streetfighter, Hell Riders, Run Coyote Run, Jungle Trap and this movie.

First off, you aren’t missing anything. There’s no The Executioner. I mean, yes, there were movies with George Peppard and Sonny Chiba with that name, but this has nothing at all to do with them. Maybe they wanted you to think this was a sequel to The Exterminator?

Lieutenant Roger O’Malley (Christopher Mitchum) and Mike (Antoine John Mottet) survived Vietnam and eventually make it back to Los Angeles. Roger is a cop, working for Aldo Ray, while Mike is an auto mechanic. Roger’s also a widower and has raised his daughter aura (Bianca Phillipi) all on his own. Now, however, she and her friends are into drugs and have started doing sex work to pay for it. There’s also a serial killer known as The Executioner killing criminals with grenades and Roger gets the job of finding him, which he does with reporter Celia Amherst (Harmon).

When Roger’s daughter gets kidnapped by The Tattooed Man, he has to not only find The Executioner, but ask him to save his daughter. Enter the man who says, “I’m your judge. I’m your jury. I’m your executioner!” And then he shoves a grenade down the pants and cut to the same explosion every time.

The music is absolutely baffling, Aldo Ray was never in the room with anyone else in this, Harmon is unintelligible, you can hear audio cues to the actors and if you told someone this was made in Italy, they’d say “It’s not good enough for that.”

Five out of five stars.

21st Century released this and licensed it to Continental Video for a double feature videocassette release with Frozen Scream. The Vinegar Syndrome double DVD is a modern version of that team-up of insanity.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

A guy in a Santa suit has sex with a woman in a filthy alley before they’re both killed by a man in a grinning see-through mask. Another Santa has his head impaled by a spear while his daughter watches. And yet another has his face grilled while roasted chestnuts on an open fire.

Scotland Yard inspector Ian Harris (Edmund Purdom, who wrote and directed this film as well as appearing in 2019: After the Fall of New York and Pieces) and detective Powell are perplexed. Plus, Harris just got a gift that says “Don’t Open Till Christmas.” They question Kate, whose father was a killed Santa, and her boyfriend, Cliff.

The next day, Cliff tricks Kate into coming to a porn studio. She storms off and he takes photos of a model dressed as Santa. A pair of police officers spot them shooting nudes in public, so he runs and the killer finds her, but lets her go. Oh yeah — and there’s a reporter named Giles digging around, too.

Things get worse. A strip club attending Santa gets knifed. The police think Cliff is the killer and the paper Giles says he works for has no idea who he is. And another Santa runs into the London Dungeon (yes, the place The Misfits sang about) and gets killed.

Even after undercover officers go after the Santa killer, they can’t find him and are killed themselves. The killer has a stripper who was there on the night he killed the Santa in her club and says that she will be the supreme sacrifice to Christmas evil. And Caroline Munro (!) is on stage in a nightclub when a Santa is chased on stage and stabbed in the face with a machete. Another Santa is castrated soon after.

It turns out that inspector Harris has no birth certificate and has gone on leave, disappearing to a mental asylum where Kate follows.

It turns out that Giles is Harris’ insane brother. Kate finds out first, but she is strangled and stabbed while detective Powell listens. Then, Giles lures him to his doom, as he electrocutes him in a junkyard.

Sherry escapes and Giles chases after her. She knocks him over a railing and he has a flashback of when he went insane: he caught his father, dressed as Santa, having sex with another woman. When his mother found out, Santa shoved her over a railing. But it’s too late for Sherry, as Giles has survived.

Finally, Harris wakes from a bad dream and unwraps his gift, complete with a card from his loving brother. It explodes, killing him and ending the film.

What I have just done is write about this film in a way that will probably make you want to watch it. It’s a slasher that even references Halloween in its opening credits. But it’s no Halloween.

According to tvtropes.com, “this utter sleazefest of a film is quite a jumbled and confused mess, and for good reason. While production began in 1982, the film remained in Development Hell for two years, due to the title of director continually changing hands; first up was Edmund Purdom (who also portrayed Inspector Harris) who walked off the set, prompting at least three or four others to fill in for him, with one only holding Purdom’s former position for a mere two days before being fired.”

This was released in the U.S. by 21st Century.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

If a slasher film can have a pedigree, which in this film’s case comes from its cast, let this be one of them. Seriously, there are some heavy hitters on hand here!

Detective Dinardo (Mike Connors, Mannix) is on the case in New York City, where those who live in a fancy apartment building are those who are dying horribly. All fingers seem to point in the direction of a doorman (an impossibly young Ian McShane), so Dinardo does what any good cop would do. He puts a rookie named Kate (Anne Archer) into harm’s way.

Other than some TV work, this was the first major acting that Maureen O’Sullivan had done in the twelve years since The Phynx. Further boosting this movies megawattage of stardom are Leon Isaac Kennedy (Penitentiary, as well as an early trailblazer of the porn leak thanks to a film he made with his then-wife Jayne Kennedy), Ruth Ford (who would know of high-living NYC apartments as her two spaces inside the Dakota were valued at $8.4 million when she died in 2009), John Heard (everything from Home Alone to C.H.U.D.), Carrie Nye (who in addition to being in The Seduction of Joe Tynan, was married to Dick Cavett), Murray Hamilton (whose resume is vast, but all you need to do is mention his work as the mayor of Amity), character actor Val Avery and Sully Boyer (The Entity, Smokey and the Good Time Outlaws).

This is Tony Lo Bianco’s only directing job, as he is better known in front of the camera, starring in movies like The Honeymoon Killers, Mean Frank and Crazy Tony and God Told Me To). Also known as The Doorman, it’s part of that subset of late 70’s and early 80’s slashers that depict the juxtaposition between the high rise and the low scum of end of the century — and the world — NYC. You can easily pair this with The Fan, Eyes of Laura Mars or even The New York Ripper.

Directed, co-written, and co-choreographed by Chun-Ku Lu, this sequel ups everything from the first movie. Yun Fei Yang (Norman Chui) has mastered the Silkworm Style and has taken a vacation with his love Lun Wan Er (Leanne Lau Suet-Wa) and is taking a break from the Wudang school. Yet old enemy Dugu Wu Di (Alex Man Chi-Leung) has returned, having mastered a new martial art called Fatal Skill that allows him to shoot laser beams. He starts to murder all of the students of Wudang just as an army of ninjas arrives from Japan, led by Mochitsuki (Chen Kuan-Tai), with the goal of destroying all Chinese martial artists. Mochitsuki uses the ultra-brutal Phantom Skill, which that controls the heart rate of his enemies, allowing hm to bear hug them and expands his chest to break their internal organs. That means that he can make people throw up their guts. Oh yeah, he can also blast laser beams out of his breasts. He can also make people just plain old explode in a big mess of blood and guts, too.

Finally, one of the students finds our hero and also introduces him to Li Bu Yi (Liu Yung), a fortune teller so deadly that he can blast toothpicks into his enemy’s eyes. There’s also a magic doctor Lai Yao Er (Phillip Ko Fei)., also known as Papa, and his enemy, Ghost Doctor Lan Xin Zu (Lo Lieh). That name proves to you how incredible this all is.

So yeah. Japanese Spider-Man versus evil Jedi versus ninja who can make people spit out their heart. I have no idea why I don’t just watch this movie instead of anything else.

You can download this from the Internet Archive.

Upon watching this again for the first time in probably thirty years, I was struck by how European the movie feels. Perhaps it’s the color tones throughout, suggesting the patina of Italian horror cinema (both Fulci and Craven cite surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel as an influence). It could also be John Saxon having lead billing. Or just that it doesn’t feel like any horror cinema that was currently being made in the United States.

The real villain of this piece is not Freddy Krueger — more on him in a bit — but the parents of Elm Street who have allowed secrets and their assumed authority over their children to do unspeakable and unspoken things. All of them are haunted by it, divorced, depressed and self-medicating with over-dedication to their jobs or their addictions.

There are stories that David Warner was originally going to play Freddy, but that’s been disproven. After plenty of actors tried out and failed to win the part, it went to Robert Englund, who darkened his eyes and acted like Klaus Kinski (!) to get the part.

The other feeling I have about this movie is that it owes a major debt — as all horror movies post 1978 do –to John Carpenter’s Halloween. Much like that film, the true horror happens within the foliage of the suburbs, with shadow people showing up and disappearing. Much of the action on the final night happens within two houses. One of the main characters has the ultimate authority figure, a policeman, for a father. And the cinematography by Jacques Haitkin glides near the characters and around them, much like the Steadicam shots that start Carpenter’s film.

The film starts with Tina Gray (Amanda Wyss, who puts the events of Better Off Dead into motion by breaking up with Lloyd Dobler) waking up from a nightmare where a disfigured man chases her with a bladed glove. I loved the way this scene looks, as you could almost consider Freddy off-brand here, as his arms grow comedically long and he moves way faster than he would in the rest of the series. Yet by keeping him in the shadows, he’s absolutely terrifying.

When Tina awakens, her nightgown has been slashed and she’s afraid to go to sleep again. She learns that her friends, Nancy (Heather Langenkamp, who left Stamford University to be in this), Glen (introducing Johnny Depp) and Rod (Jsu Garcia, credited as Nicki Corri) have all been having the same dream. To console Tina, they all stay at her parent’s house overnight. But when Tina falls asleep, Krueger is waiting. Rod awakes to find Tina flying all over the room and up the walls — an astounding effects sequence in the pre-CGI era — and he flees the scene after her death.

Soon, Rod is arrested by Lieutenant Don Thompson (Saxon), Nancy’s father. Freddy now starts pursuing her, chasing her as she falls asleep in class (look for Lin Shaye as the teacher) and later in the bathtub, as his claw raises like a demented and deadly phallus between her thighs. Rod tells her how Tina dies and now she knows that the same killer is definitely after her (Garcia’s watery eyes and lack of focus made Langenkamp think he was acting his heart out; the truth is he was high on heroin for real in this scene). She tries to find the killer, with Glen watching over her, but he’s a lout and easily falls asleep. Only the alarm clock saves her, but no one can save Rod, who is hung in his sleep while rotting in a jail cell.

Nancy’s mom Marge (Ronee Blakley, who was married to Wim Wenders, sang backup on Dylan’s song “Hurricane” and is also in Altman’s Nashville) takes her to a sleep clinic, where Dr. King (Charles Fleischer, Roger Rabbit’s voice) tries to figure out her nightmares. She emerges from a dream holding Freddy’s hat to her mother’s horror. Soon, she reveals to her daughter that the parents of Elm Street got revenge on Freddy Krueger, a child murderer after a judge let him go on a technicality. In a deleted scene, we also learn that Nancy and her friends all lost a brother or sister that they never knew about.

While Nancy is barred up in her house by new security measures, Glen’s parents won’t allow him to see her. Soon, he’s asleep and is transformed into an overwhelming fountain of blood. Nancy falls asleep after asking her father to come in twenty minutes. He doesn’t listen and she pulls Freddy into our world. On the run, she screams for help until her father finally comes to her aid, just in time to watch a burning Freddy kill his ex-wife and them both disappear.

This is an incredibly complex stunt where Freddy is set ablaze, chases Nancy up the stairs, falls back down and runs back up — all in one take! At the time, it was the most elaborate fire stunt ever filmed and won Anthony Cecere an award for the best stunt of the year.

Nancy then realizes that if she doesn’t believe in Freddy, he can’t hurt her. She wakes up and every single one of her friends is still alive, ready to go to school. As the convertible hood opens up in the colors of the killer’s sweater, she realizes that she’s still trapped by Freddy, who drags her mother through a window.

In Craven’s original script, the movie simply ended on a happy note. Producer Robert Shaye wanted the twist ending so that the door was open for a sequel, something Craven had no interest in. Four different endings were filmed: Craven’s happy ending, Shaye’s ending where Freddy wins and two compromises between their ideas.

I watched A Nightmare On Elm Street at Pigeon Share FrightFest. It’s the UK’s best, brightest, and largest independent international thriller, fantasy, and horror film festival and has three major events each year in London and Glasgow. Learn more at the official site.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Ator 2: The Blade Master was on the CBS Late Movie on August 5, 1986 and April 12, 1985.

Joe D’Amato wanted to make a prehistoric movie like Quest for Fire called Adamo ed Eva that read a lot like 1983’s Adam and Eve vs. The Cannibals. However, once he called in Miles O’Keefe to be in the movie, the actor said that he couldn’t be in the film due to moral and religious reasons. One wonders why he was able to work with Joe D’Amato, a guy who made some of the scummiest films around.

Born Aristide Massaccesi, this man of many names had his paws in everything from being a camera operator on Bava’s Hercules in the Haunted World to cinematography on What Have You Done to Solange? before directing his own films like Death Smiles on a Murderer, Beyond the Darkness, Antropophagus, 2020 Texas Gladiators, Endgame and so many more. He also worked with porn stars like Rocco Siffredi on Tarzan X – Shame of Jane before being an early innovator of porn-based parodies/cover versions of other works of art, such as Shakespeare porn (Othello 2000), mythology (Hercules – A Sex Adventure), famous icons (Scarface, Amadeus ) and, of course, plenty of looks into the deviance of the Roman empire.

This time around, Aristide Massaccesi is known as David Hills, for those keeping score.

Akronos has found the Geometric Nucleus and is keeping its secret safe when Zor (Ariel from Jubilee) and his men attack the castle. The old king begs his daughter Mila (Lisa Foster, who starred in the Cinemax classic Fanny Hill and later became a special effects artist and video game developer) to find his student Ator (O’Keefe).

Mila gets shot with an arrow pretty much right away, but Ator knows how to use palm leaves and dry ice to heal any wound, a scene which nearly made me fall of my couch in fits of giggles. Soon, she joins Ator and Thong as they battle their way back to the castle, dealing with cannibals and snake gods.

Somehow, Ator also knows how to make a modern hang glider and bombs, which he uses to destroy Zor’s army. After they battle, Ator even wants Zor to live, because he’s a progressive barbarian hero, but the bad guy tries to kill him. Luckily, Thong takes him out.

After all that, Akronos gives the Geometric Nucleus to Ator, who also pulls that old chestnut out that his life is too dangerous to share with her. He takes the Nucleus to a distant land and sets off a nuke.

Yes, I just wrote that. Because I just watched that.

If you want to see this with riffing, it’s called The Cave Dwellers in its Mystery Science Theater 3000 form. But man, a movie like this doesn’t really even need people talking over it. It was shot with no script in order to compete with Conan the Destroyer. How awesome is that?