Man, Nico Mastorakis made some crazy movies. Like this one, in which a bunch of teens on a Greek vacation discover an entirely new kind of drugs: audio cassettes that deliver orgasms via hallucination filmed music videos. No, really. What is this, The Digital Underground’s Sex Packets: The Movie?
It also has a soundtrack filled with songs by Chris de Burgh, the guy who wrote “Lady In Red,” so it has that going for it. Also, Seiko paid big money to get their Data 2000 watch into this movie, as if the people who watch Nico Mastorakis movies are looking to upgrade their digital watches.
This is a movie about an old man inside the cassettes trying to get the three heroes to find the second tape, which will weaponize the music video orgy inside. So basically Porky’s meets Videodrome but Debbie Harry never puts out a cigarette on her breast.
Yes, it’s exactly as odd as it sounds.
This is part of Arrow Video’s The Nico Mastorakis Collection and has an interview with Dan Hirsch looking back on his role in the film and a trailer as extra features.
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.
James Bryan and Renee Harmon should have made a hundred movies together and it still wouldn’t be enough for me.
High class call girl or showgirl or lady from Las Vegas Claire Delaney (Tina Louise ) is trying to get her car to the big city when it breaks down, leading to her being attacked by the Hell Riders, who are led by Snake (Ross Alexander). Harmon is one of them, Knife, and they have spiritual guidance from former priest — maybe? — Father (Frank Newhouse). The rest of them have names like an off-brand G.I. Joe knockoff like America’s Defense or The Corps: Convict (Dan Bradley), Angel (Melanie Scott) and Rocky (Shawn Klugman). None of this gang matches, either in colors, logos, costumes or even seeming like they have the same goals.
Before they break into her car, another biker, Big Ed (David H. “Dutch” Van Dalsem) arrives and breaks it up. He has them leave and makes a member of his bikers, Ben (Kelly Green), drive her back to the highway. Then her car won’t start and the Hell Riders come back and piss all over her car, beat Ben straight to oblivion and drag her behind their motorcycles.
Claire makes it to the closest town, one with a sheriff (Jerry Ratay) who doesn’t want to deal with this situation, a mechanic named Joe (Frank Millen) who probably won’t fix her car well enough and Dr. Dave (Adam West), who is willing to stand up to the bikers and be as close as she gets to a love interest. So if you ever wanted to see Ginger get hot for Bruce Wayne, well, your TV dirty dreams get close to coming true. The only nudity is for Angel, who just walks around the town unclothed while the Hell Riders smash everything up.
Somewhere in the middle of all this mayhem, the sheriff’s daughter Suzy (Chris Haramis) decides that she no longer wants to marry Joe and needs to get out of this town.
Shot at a Western themed strip mall with Harmon’s acting students and only having Tina Louise and Adam West for one day of shooting, this is about as good as you’ll get. Other than the close-ups, most of the star’s scenes are played by doubles.
I knew I was going to love this and then when the credits at the beginning listed Lee Frost as one of the producers, I was completely won over. When you have the man who directed A Climax of Blue Power, Love Camp 7, The Scavengers and Witchcraft ’70 on your team, things just have to be good.
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.
You know, there’s lots to love in this goofy little movie, from Angelique Pettyjohn being a psychic used to bring objects out of another dimension to a monster played by director Fred Olen Ray’s seven-year-old son Christopher to Aldo Ray playing a general and songs by Johnny Legend. It’s a rubber suit monster romp that really has no interest in being anything else which you have to respect.
This was released as Space Gremlins in other countries and I love that name.
Psychic Materialization, drugs, monsters, busty psychics, the military industrial complex, bad computer graphics, a comedy relief hobo in love with the E.T. poster he’s found and a shock ending that mixes blood, boobs and beasts all at once — you know that Biohazard isn’t good for you but have you ever huffed paint? Let me tell you, it’s cheap and it hurts your head for days and you know that you’ll be slowed down for a few minutes, probably unable to stand and then you realize that you’re doing way more than smoking or drinking, you’re messing with your brain for life because that rag or bottle you’re sneaking smells out of makes you forget things, sometimes for so long that you never remember them again.
Findlay Week (August 18 – 24) Husband and wife Michael and Roberta Findlay made mean-spirited films. They collaborated on films like Take Me Naked, The Ultimate Degenerate, and the notorious Flesh Trilogy, plus they actually looked like criminals – walking mug shots! You expect to see them glowering on the cover of one of those tabloids next to a headline like “KIDNAPPER COUPLE COLLECTED VICTIMS FINGERS.” Instead they were pornographers which did make them like criminals in their day. A lot of the filmmakers of their era would claim they only made this kind of movie because there was money in it, but Michael and Roberta were sincere adherents. Even when audience tastes changed and the couple were divorced they continued to make their own films that mixed in elements of kink and cruelty.
Roberta Findlay knows how to make movies that entertain me and here, she takes a possession movie, sets it during the holidays and fills it with berserk set pieces and man, this movie got me through the day before all the family Christmas craziness begins and you know, Roberta has never let me down with a single thing she’s made.
Parker Brothers wouldn’t let this movie use Ouija, so there’s a stone hand that writes from the spirit world but who cares? This is so many times better than the Ouija films that got made by Hasbro years later and that’s because this is so strange. Jennifer (Caroline Capers Powers, in the only movie she ever made) and her husband Ray (Roger Neil) have moved into the apartment of a dead psychic who has left behind that fortune telling object which allows Jennifer to be taken over by industrialist William Graham who gets her to figure out who killed him.
You can’t destroy that hand. A garbage man tries and strange creatures appear all over his body and he ends up stabbing himself in a scene that kind of destroyed my mind and when Ray tries later, he literally loses his head. All this happens while Findlay shoots in the New York City apartments that could be next door to The Sentinel or Inferno and certainly have the Argento lightning style intact from that movie. Plus there’s a gender switching killer played by Pam LaTesta on the loose like a John Waters character in a Bill Lustig movie and there’s even a scene set in the legendary occult store The Magickal Childe.
I realize that Roberta hates her own movies but I won’t hold that against her. I always find something to enjoy, like how the heroine has the wildest clothes, all berets and puffed-out sleeves and even a pair of red overalls. She dresses like a lunatic and it’s frankly charming, plus she screams nearly as much as a woman in a Juan López Moctezuma movie.
There are people who will say that this movie is trash and boring and those are people you want nothing at all to do with. Yes, this is trash, but it’s glorious. It’s the kind of movie I leave on when people come over and hope they ask me what it’s all about so I can talk about it with them. Just writing about it now I want to go back and watch it again. Will you sit down and check it out with me?
Findlay Week (August 18 – 24) Husband and wife Michael and Roberta Findlay made mean-spirited films. They collaborated on films like Take Me Naked, The Ultimate Degenerate, and the notorious Flesh Trilogy, plus they actually looked like criminals – walking mug shots! You expect to see them glowering on the cover of one of those tabloids next to a headline like “KIDNAPPER COUPLE COLLECTED VICTIMS FINGERS.” Instead they were pornographers which did make them like criminals in their day. A lot of the filmmakers of their era would claim they only made this kind of movie because there was money in it, but Michael and Roberta were sincere adherents. Even when audience tastes changed and the couple were divorced they continued to make their own films that mixed in elements of kink and cruelty.
One of the few movies to be rated X for just plain violence, Tenement reminds me of exactly why I love Roberta Findlay. I’m not expecting high art. I’m expecting sheer spectacle and entertainment, which this movie overdelivers.
Also known as Game of Survival and Slaughter in the South Bronx, this movie is another that didn’t need a budget, just a Bronx high rise and a cast willing to do whatever it takes to make the movie, which involves rampant, bloody and over the top destruction of human beings.
A gang starts making their way from floor to floor of the building, acting like they’re the bad guys in a John Carpenter-style defend our home turf film. Imagine of the sad sacks in Death Wish 3 didn’t have Paul Kersey on their side to shoot people for stealing his camera.
Writers Joel Bender (Gas Pump Girls) and Rick Marx (Wanda Whips Wall Street, Warrior Queen, Gor, Doom Asylum) bring the sleaze, Findlay brings the sleaze, the actors bring the sleaze, man, everyone is on their highest volume and it just works.
The poster for this is by John Fasano, who was all over the place when it came to talent. In addition to art directing the magazines Muscle and Beauty, Race Car & Driver, Wrestling Power and OUI, he rewrote and appeared in Findlay’s Nightmare Sisters, directed Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare and Black Roses, and wrote and script doctored movies like Another 48 Hrs., Tombstone, Color of Night and the Brian Trenchard-Smith directed Megiddo: The Omega Code 2.
Findlay has referred to this movie as a revisualization of her childhood, which is beyond wild. Man, Findlay is something else, doing everything from working in adult as a cinematographer under the name Robert Norman (she worked on CJ Laing’s ‘Sweet Punkin’ I Love You…. which she also wrote), photographed Shriek of the Mutilated and Invasion of the Blood Farmers(using the name Frederick Douglass), acted in several films as Anna Riva, provided Claudia Jennings’ voice in The Touch of Her Flesh and even composed music as Harold Hindgrind and the Cosmic Seven and Robin Aden. She rivals Aristide Massaccesi for alternate names!
They will make cemeteries their cathedrals and the cities will be your tombs. With that line, you know that what you’re about to watch better be the most mind-blowing horror film possible. Good news — Demons is all of that and then some, the kind of movie that has everything that I watch movies for.
I can’t be silent or still while it runs, growing more excited by every moment. It is the perfect synthesis of 1980’s gore and heavy metal, presented with no characterization or character growth whatsoever. It’s also the most awesome movie you will ever watch.
This is an all-star film, if you consider Italian 80’s horror creators to be all-stars. There’s Lamberto Bava directing and doing special effects, Dario Argento producing, a script written by Bava, Argento, Franco Ferrini (Once Upon a Time in America, Phenomena) and Dardano Sacchetti (every single Italian horror film that was ever awesome…a short list includes A Bay of Blood, Shock, The Beyond, 1990: The Bronx Warriors, Blastfighter, Hands of Steeland so many more), and assistant directing and acting from Michele Soavi.
The movie starts on the Berlin subway, where Cheryl is pursued by a silver masked man (Soavi) who hands her tickets to see a movie at the Metropol. She brings along her friend Kathy (Paola Cozzo from A Cat in the Brain and Demonia) and they soon meet two boys, George (Urbano Barberini, Gor, Opera) and Ken.
The masked man has brought all manner of folks to the theater: a blind man and his daughter and some interesting couples, including a boyfriend and girlfriend, an older married one and Tony the pimp and his girls, one of whom is Shocking Dark‘s Geretta Geretta. As they wait for the movie to begin, a steel mask in the lobby scratches her.
The movie that unspools — a slasher about teenagers who disturb the final resting place of Nostradamus — also has that very same steel mask. When it touches anyone in the movie, they turn murderous. At the very same time, one of the prostitutes scratches herself in the bathroom and her face erupts into pus and reveals a demon. From here on out, the movie becomes one long action sequence, as the other prostitute transforms into a demon in front of the entire audience.
Meanwhile, four punks do cocaine in a Coke can and break in, releasing a demon into the city as the rest of the movie audience attempt to escape and are killed one by one. Only George and Cheryl survive, as our hero uses a sword and motorcycle to attack the demons before a helicopter crashes through the roof. But then the masked man attacks them!
I’m not going to ruin the rest of the movie, only to say that even the credits offer no safety in the world of Demons. And oh yeah — Giovanni Frezza (Bob from House by the Cemetery) shows up!
Demons is ridiculous. Pure goop and gore mixed with power chords, samurai swords, punk rockers and even a Billy Idol song which had to blow the budget. It also looks gorgeous — filled with practical effects, gorgeous film stock and amazing colors, no doubt the influence of Bava’s father. The scene where the yellow-eyed demons emerge from the blue blackness is everything horror movies should be.
This doesn’t just have my highest recommendation. It earns my scorn if you haven’t seen it yet!
Want to know way too much about this movie and everything connected to it?
The 4K UHD release of Demons is newly remastered in 4K from the original camera negative in Dolby Vision. There are two versions of the film: the full-length original cut in English and Italian and the shorter U.S. version featuring alternate dubbing and sound effects. There’s new audio commentary by critics Kat Ellinger and Heather Drain and an audio commentary with director Lamberto Bava, SPFX artist Sergio Stivaletti, composer Claudio Simonetti and actress Geretta Geretta. There’s a feature about Dario Argento producing this movie, interviews with Argento, Claudio Simonetti, Luigi Cozzi and Ottaviano Dell’Acqua, the original Italian and English international theatrical trailers and the U.S. theatrical trailer. You can get it from MVD.
Shui Erh (Fu Yin-yu) is the illegitimate daughter of a prince, yet she was raised in a brothel by Kao Lao-ta (Tan Hui-wei) and has become a courtesan. The royal prince (Tony Ka Fai Leung) learns that she is his sister and wants to use her to gain power. Yet before that can happen, another prince sends assassins to kill her. She runs from the destruction of her brothel home and finds safety in the woods, where she’s saved by a young fisherman (Tung Wei).
Directed by Cha Chuan-yi, this is the last theatrical Shaw Brothers martial arts movie for decades. It’s pretty sleazy and filled with sex, nudity and outright exploitation, as there’s a lot of sexual slavery in the plot. It also has a moment that completely rips off Romancing the Stone.
It starts with two teams of killers chasing our heroes and then settles into a shack for most of the movie and becomes a soap opera and then has an ending that blows up a lot of the Shaw sets. The male protagonist can’t fight and it ends up that his sister is one of the assassins coming to kill Shui Erh and when those two female fighters kill one another, he feels guilty and even hates Shui Erh, but soon, they fall for one another. There’s also kung fu mental powers and a downbeat ending, if you like that kind of thing. I do.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Beverly Hills Cowgirl Blues was on the CBS Late Movie on April 28, 1988.
Amanda Ryder (Lisa Hartman) is in Los Angeles to bring learn who killed one of her friends. She teams with fashionable LAPD detective Harry Wilde (James Brolin) and if you don’t think these two are going to have sex, you’ve never seen a movie before.
What surprised me is that David Hemmings shows up as Ian Blaize, the villain of this, and a man who employs a man dressed as a woman who is good at kickboxing as his henchperson. That’s big thinking today, much less 1985.
Imagine if Lisa Hartman was Eddie Murphy, because that’s what this movie is. It’s kind of, sort of Beverly Hills Cop and if you don’t believe me, the synth heavy soundtrack by Mark Snow — not yet the man who would make the theme for The X-Files — will remind you over and over again.
Director Corey Allen also made Cry Rape, while writer Rick Husky created S.W.A.T.
I thought that the villain was going to end up being Brolin, so I was happy that at the end, it seemed like these two cop lovers are going to try and make a go of it in Los Angeles. That said, their series never happened, so who knows what happened next.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Real Genius was on the CBS Late Movie on March 2, 1990.
I was lucky enough to have some teachers that cared back in high school. One of them was the only teacher who gave me a D in my entire history and believe it or not, I should thank him for it.
By ninth grade, I didn’t care at all about school. I went through the motions, I knew that I wanted to be an artist or something creative, and I couldn’t wait to escape my small town. Every decision felt like something I was committed to and just did to fit in or fulfill some set role: marching band being a major one of these decisions. One of my few joys was the computer club, where Mr. Brown would allow students to learn how to program at night, watch movies that he selected or just hang out. It’s where I first heard a dubbed tape of Metallica’s song “Orion,” which put me on a path to the music I enjoyed. And it’s where I watched two movies that I can remember — My Science Project and this film.
Mitch Taylor is 15 and already in college. He’s been fast-tracked to Pacific Technical University where the best and brightest minds develop weapons — unbeknownst to them — for slimy Professor Jerry Hathaway (all-time all-star asshole William Atherton).
Chris Knight (Val Kilmer, never better) was once like Mitch but has now become burned out on academics and would rather party. Hathaway assigns Mitch to lead his laser research team because he has fresh ideas, but he’s also hoping that he’ll kick Chris in the butt and remind him how he used to be.
The bad kids of the college — such as it is, they’re all nerds in this movie — try to beat on MItch, but Chris rallies to his aid and explains why he is like he is. There was once a student named Lazlo who was devoted to his experiments until he learned they were all being used for weapons research. He went insane and now he lives inside the walls of the college. Chris didn’t want the same thing to happen to him, so he now enjoys life more than college.
Chris and Mitch get on the same page and they form a team to get things done. Lazlo even shows up to help. Mitch even gets a girlfriend, Jordan (Michelle Meyrink, who soon left acting to be a Zen Buddhist), who became pretty much every girl I looked for from that moment on. Then I learned the truth: there aren’t many genius geek girls that look and act like Michelle Meyrink.
Hijinks ensue — as they should — with the team taking down Hathaway, including taking his assistant Kent’s car apart and rebuilding it inside his dorm room, then placing a radio receiver inside his teeth so he thinks he can hear the voice of God, which ends up being Chris. Also: the prank at the end with the laser exploding Jiffy Pop inside Hathaway’s house is truly the prank of all movie pranks.
That’s what I love about this movie — the heroes may be put upon, but never emerge as mean spirited or hurtful in their revenge. They’ve been treated badly but there’s no reason to perpetuate the pain. They just want to have fun.
This movie is packed with talent. There’s Yuji Okumoto, a few years removed from his amazing heel work in The Karate Kid Part 2. Lazlo, the man in the walls who ends up entering tons of contests and becomes rich, is another cameo star turn by the always surprising Jonathan Gries. Warhol girl Patti D’Arbanville shows up (interestingly enough, she was the inspiration for two Cat Stevens songs, “Lady D’Arbanville” and “Wild World”). Severn Darden – Kolp from the last two Planet of the Apes films — plays a professor. Dean Devlin — who would go on to write Universal Soldier, Stargate and Independence Day) — acts in this. And the Valley Girl herself, Deborah Foreman, shows up.
By the way — Lazlo’s multiple Frito-Lay contest entries is more than just a funny scene in this movie. It’s based on reality. In 1974, Caltech students Steve Klein, Dave Novikoff and Barry Megdal did the same thing to win a McDonald’s contest. They sent in around 20% of the total entries and walked away with a station wagon, $3,000 in cash and $1,500 in food gift certificates.
I also love that Lazlo has left this quote inside his tunnels: “Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain,” a translation of a quote from the German poet Friedrich Schiller. Seriously, what a strange and well-rounded character, but that’s the genius of this movie (and Jon Gries).
Between Valley Girl, National Lampoon’s Joy of Sex and this movie, Martha Coolidge sure had a great teen movie run in the 80’s. She went on to make the critically acclaimed Rambling Rose and still works today in TV.
Back to that D. Mr. Brown — that same computer club teacher — was the one who gave it to me. I was taking a programming class and didn’t study and thought because he was so friendly to us he’d cut me a break. He didn’t.
At first I felt betrayed and angry. But as I realized that I had coasted and not lived up to my full potential — and spent 6 weeks grounded with no computer and had to apply myself — I realized that he was right.
From then on, I changed out my classes so that I would take classes that would prepare me to be an artist and writer. I dropped out of band and even went to school in the summer so that I could take more electives. That D changed my life. It’s funny because I was one person away from graduating with honors and part of me could be mad about it, because I had worked so hard. But I wasn’t in the National Honor Society or graduating with the smart kids because of that D. And that was fine — I refused to peak in high school. Better things were on the way. I learned that thanks to that class, that teacher and yes, this movie.
After Inspector Ng (Michelle Yeoh) stops a gang from robbing an armored car, she learns that an assassin has killed a man who ends up being her boyfriend, Westerner Richard Nornen. As he lay dying, two pickpockets had gone through his belongings and taken what he died for, a secret microfilm that has info on all of the major gangs in Hong Kong. This brings in Scotland Yard’s Carrie Morris (Cynthia Rothrock) to find that microfilm — I love movies based on hidden microfilm, I must confess — and the two female cops take down the crooks in spectacular fights as their rivalry gives way to grudging respect.
This was Rothrock’s first film and it doesn’t show at all. While working as part of a martial arts demonstration team, Inside Kung Fu that team seeking a new male lead. Even though only one role was mentioned, the team brought their female fighters and the studio was so impressed with Rothrock that they rewrote the film for her. She was surprised as she thought this was going to be a period film and not a modern cop movie.
It’s also an early starring role for Yeoh, who was credited as Michelle Khan. Her first acting work was in a television commercial for Guy Laroche watches. She was told that it was with an actor named Sing Long. She didn’t speak Cantonese, so she had no idea that that was Jackie Chan. She appeared in The Owl vs Bombo and Twinkle, Twinkle, Lucky Stars before this; afterward, she was in Royal Warriors, Magnificent Warriors and Easy Money before her retirement, as she married Dickson Poon, who was the D in the D&B Group that made this movie. She’d come back in 1992 after her divorce for the incredible Police Story 3: Super Cop. Today, thirty years later, she’s one of the biggest stars anywhere in the world.
I think it’s kind of amazing how much of the score of Halloween shows up in this movie, almost a prophecy that one day, Yeoh and Jamie Lee Curtis would have to battle in Everything Everywhere All At Once.
Now you can get the individual release. Extras include the audio being available in Cantonese and two different English versions. There are also new subtitles, commentary by Hong Kong film expert Frank Djeng, missing inserts, trailers and English trailers. You can get it from MVD.
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