Why did I watch this? Is it my OCD-fuelled need to get overwhelmed by any film genre the more I study it? Or is it because its title — translated in English as Terror and Black Lace — references one of my favorite films of all time, Mario Bava’s seminal Blood and Black Lace?

The answer is ambas, mi amigos.

Isabel is a good wife, one who stays at home and patiently waits for her abusive husband to come home and knock her around. She thinks that the next door neighbor is the polite and kind man of her dreams, but this being a Mexican exploitation movie from 1985, we all know that he’s going to be a maniac as well.

As she sits and waits for hubby — clad in black lingerie, so there’s the reason for the title — she watches said neighbor dispose of a body in a kind of La Ventana Trasera situation. The neighbor is played by Claudio Obregon, who is no relation to noted Andy Sidaris villain Rodrigo Obregon.

Actually, I was too rough by lumping this film into the exploitation world. It’s lead actress Maribel Guardia was nominated for an Ariel Award for this movie. So maybe if you come in expecting a giallo, instead you’re getting drama. Which probably isn’t what you want with a title like this, hmm?

You can watch this on YouTube.

I really like 1988’s Too Beautiful to Die, a movie that was sold as a sequel to this movie. Perhaps it’s better that I watched that first, because while I like the premise of this movie, the execution leaves something to be desired. That’s a shame, because it really sets up something great.

Oh Lightning Video, you bringers of filth and ruin. In addition to giving us VHS versions of The Wild Beasts, The House of the Yellow Carpet, the Michael Pataki-directed Cinderella, The Killer Is on the Phone, Yellow Hair and the Fortress of Gold, Necropolis, Dark August, Footprints on the Moon, Superstition and more also have us this mondo of sorts.

Billed as “a riveting expose about the personalities of murderers and their motives,” this movie covers three topics: the McDonalds’ restaurant massacre, President Reagan’s assassination attempt and serial murderer Henry Lee Lucas.

Murder porn, as they call it, is passe these days, on 24/7 in so many homes. But in 1985? Movies like this and The Killing of America blew minds.

You can watch this on YouTube:

Evil Laugh. American Drive-In. Hard Rock Zombies. These are the legacy of producer/director Krishna Shah. This movie is…well, there’s never been a movie exactly like this. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether or not that’s a good or bad thing.

Jessie, Tommy, Chuck and Bobby are Holy Moses and in order to impress a music business bigwig, they decide to go to a town that has outlawed rock and roll. Of course, these towns were everywhere in the wake of Footloose because they saw how well that went.

The town they pick — Grand Guignol is the name, which is only slightly more subtle than Nilbog — has not only outlawed music, but it’s also full of evil dwarves, sex perverts and not just Nazis, but Hitler and Eva Braun who has become a knife-carrying werewolf who lets other men have sex with her while she cucks Der Fuhrer.

The band gets killed, but thanks to the fact that their new song was based on an occult prayer, they come back to life and bring the town’s dead back from the choir invisible to kill everyone else.

Jessie is also in love with a young fan named Cassie, who is all of 12. So there’s that. And he’s the good guy.

This movie was supposed to be only twenty minutes long and appear as the movie within a movie for American Drive-In. Someone decided to spend a little more cash and finish the film.

How much do we love this movie? We also reviewed it as part of our weekly “Drive-In Friday” feature — with a second look — for a “Heavy Metal Horror Night” alongside the likes of Monster Dog, Blood Tracks, Terror on Tour, and Rocktober Blood.

You can watch Hard Rock Zombies on You Tube.

Pen Dasham wrote and produced Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and the 1980’s revivals of The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone. He often worked with John Watson, making this film and Backdraft. They wrote, directed and produced this late 80’s teen film.

Kate (Tiffany Helm, O.C. and Stiggs, Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, Reform School Girls), her brother Ricky (Robert Jayne, half-brother of Scott Jacoby who also is in Tremors and Dr. Alien) and their pals Danny, Val (Marc Price, Ragman!) and Bobbi buy an old nightclub from a bum named Leatherface (Ben Vereen).

Before you know it — and after getting past the adults in town — The Zoo becomes an overnight success.

That’s when the Donnelly Clan decides they want to take it over. They’re led by Little Joe, who is played by a demented looking Jackie Earl Haley nine years after The Bad News Bears and 25 years before he’d play Freddy Krueger.

His twin brothers are played by Glen and Gary Mauro, who were the twin vampires in Once Bitten.

How did this end up in wrestling week? Well, it turns out that Leatherface used to be a wrestler named The Winch and he teaches the kids how to defend themselves.

Some claim that this was the first movie to actually be awarded a PG-13 rating, despite Red Dawn being released first.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Once, years ago, “Skull Crusher” Johnson took on Mad Dog Joe De Curso for the title. Johnson got caught in the ropes, Mad Dog hit a dropkick and “Skull Crusher’s” head went flying into the crowd. After being acquitted of manslaughter, Mad Dog attached the judge and bailiff, went to jail and then jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge.

But what about the world title? Well, seeing as how he didn’t have a head, Johnson hasn’t defended it in six years, which is the first of many cues that this movie doesn’t understand wrestling all that well. But now, wrestlers from all over will appear in a battle royal to pick the next champ. And one of those wrestlers, The Mask, just might be Mad Dog.

We get to watch The Mask battle in a two on one match — again, this movie has no real idea how wrestling works and it’s about wrestling — against Dick Murdoch and Richard Beyer, who are billed here as the Grunt Brothers. I’m assuming that Beyer is Dick Beyer, otherwise known as Mr. X and most famously, the Sensational Intelligent Destroyer. The Mask wins this match when his valet shows her breasts to the twosome, which seems to be a way beyond early 80’s finish.

The movie episodically presents a mockumentary where we see The Mask battle against other wrestlers like El Toro (Mondo Guerrero, doing dives way before anyone else), American Starship Eagle (Dan Spivey, whose other partner in American Starship was Coyote, or Scott Hall; he went on to be Waylon Mercy and helped develop the Bray Wyatt character), Commie Warhead, Captain Carnage, “The Golden Greek” John Tolos and “Exotic” Adrian Street.

Old school — really old school — fans will recognize Victor River as Skull Crusher, Matilda the Hun from the original GLOW as Queen Kong, Steve Pardee, Count Billy Varga, El Goliath, “Irish” Pat Barrett, Bill Anderson and Pistol Pete Marquez in the movie.

Mad Dog is played by Magic Schwarz, who was Smasher in Over the Top and Poker in Stone Cold. The Mask is Steve Strong, who in addition to wrestling, was also in the Bo Derek movie Tarzan the Ape Man and Looker. Captain Carnage is played by “Man of Steel” Bill Grant, a weightlifter who is in Puming Iron.

Most interestingly, Wally George shows up. Yes, in today’s conservative Fox News-style television world, Wally is forgotten. But at one point, “Mr. Conservative” was the innovator of combat TV, which was just as fake as pro wrestling, but made for some entertaining trash. He’d go on to appear in Repossessed and A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, as well as commentary on RollerGames, the sadly abortive 1990’s attempt to bring back roller derby before it went from worked sport to real one, which is exactly the opposite trajectory of pro wrestling. George was married six times and before you say he contributed nothing of value to this world, know that he’s the father of Rebecca De Mornay.

This all came from the mind of Allan Holzman, who made the absolutely deranged Forbidden World for Roger Corman. After knowing that, this all makes so much more sense.

You can watch this on Tubi. If you need to own this for yourself — and you probably will — Scorpion Releasing is putting this out on blu ray in July.

Rod Holcomb mostly has worked as a TV director. For this film, he declined to use his name, instead going by Alan Smithee. Is it really that embarrassing? As bad as making the movie Chains of Gold, the only thing that John Travolta ever wrote?

Parker Stevenson, Geoffrey Lewis and Brian Tochi (yes, he of Takashi from Revenge of the Nerds, Leonardo the Ninja Turtle and Nagata from Police Academy 3 and 4 fame) are medical students running afoul of the administration, which would be Eddie Albert.

Robin Dearden, who would one day by Bryan Cranston’s wife, is in this. So there’s that. You learned something, even if these medical students didn’t. It does, however, have a great open where the three medical madcaps dress up as cadavers and freak out an entire class.

I can accept cops being against the rules. For some reason, I can’t do the same with doctors. I don’t know what that says about me.