Elizabeth (Sherilyn Fenn) and Joseph (Doug Jones) have kidnapped fifty women, who will all fight to the death, or their loved ones will get shot by a sniper. The elite will watch the action, as they always do. How do these rich people build these underground empires filled with fight clubs?

Anyways, Zoë Bell plays Sabrina, an ex-military brawler, and this movie avoids what you’d expect — the women in prison things like nudity, showers and lesbian power games. Instead, it shocks you with — spoiler — Rachel Nichols getting killed off early and women who somehow learn how to do killing blows with no training at all. And this feels more like a torture porn movie than a fight tournament film.

There are some evil women, like Phoebe (Rebecca Marshall), good ones, such as Teresa (Tracie Thoms) and all in between, all fighting for, well, who knows why. Maybe because the rich and powerful, as I have learned by watching movies like this, love to watch poor people fight for their pleasure.

Speaking of Thoms and Bell, they were in Death Proof, along with Rosario Dawson, who has a small role in this.

Directed by Josh C. Waller and written by Robert Beaucage, this is pretty repetitive, with fight after fight. I can certainly suggest better rich empires having poor people fight for their twisted desires, but hey—it’s well made. You have to give it that.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Directed and written by M. Blash, this finds a fire in the woods somewhere in rural Oregon and sisters Angela (Jena Malone) and Emma (Chloë Sevigny) dealing with the death of their mother. In fact, just minutes after she dies in her home, a psychic (Patricia Arquette) calls and informs Emma that her mother will soon rise from the dead. Angela fights her on this, but Emma will not be denied. So the sisters wrap her in a sheet and close the windows in the hope that her soul will remain in the home and go back into her body.

While Angela is trying to do things the normal way—calling the coroner, starting to grieve—Emma is planting flowers in caves, decorating the home with balloons and doing dances that she thinks will help her mother come back.

But is that psychic call really a viral video joke? Is this movie even about death, or is it about navigating life? Do some families ever really get along or are we forced to? Does Angela care more about a new relationship than even dealing with her sister’s refusal to agree that their matriarch is gone?

By the end, this movie wants things in every way possible. The mother could be dead, a ghost, or have returned to life. As for the blaze outside the town just sits there, surrounding everyone but never really intruding. Somewhere between “pretentious trash,” “art film tone poem,” and “drone cinema,” this feels like a movie that some people are going to fill in themselves and fall in love with — you’re reading from one right now — or dismiss because it’s just ridiculous. I kind of love that it takes that swing.

You can watch this on Tubi.

I have been trying to do a month of Jess Franco movies — here’s the Letterboxd list — and I hit a wall at 184 out of 200 movies. That’s because several of the films on the list are impossible to find. They are:

• The Ticklers
• Claire
• Las Tribulaciones de un Buda Bizco
• Las chuponas
• Lola 2000
• The Tree from Spain
• Las Playas Vacias
• Oro Espanol
• El Destierro del Cid
• Estampas Guipuzcoanas Número 2: Pío Baroja
• A Man, Eight Girls
• El Misterio del Castillo Rojo
• El Huesped de la Niebla
• Voces de Muerte
• Girl With the Red Lips
• Sida, la Pesta del Siglo XX
• In Pursuit of Barbara
• El Abuela, la Condesa y Escarlata la Traviesa
• Blind Target
• Montes de Venus
• Lascivia

I realize so many of these are lost films, but if you have them, reach out to bandsaboutmovies@gmail.com

Then I was thinking, what else can I watch? I remembered this amazing list from Gregory Joseph on Letterboxd: Movies Jean Rollin and Jess Franco Might Like If They Were Still Alive. This seems like a great way to finish out the month.

Directed, written and produced by Josephine Decker, Butter On the Latch is the story of Sarah (Sarah Small) and Isolde (Isolde Chae-Lawrence), who meet up at a Balkan music camp in the woods of California days after Isolde calls Sarah and tells her that she is lost in a house that she can’t escape from. Once they reconnect, they drift, as they are both attracted to another person, Steph (Charlie Hewson).

Shot by a three-person crew — Decker, cinematographer Ashley Connor and sound recorder M. Parker Kozak — this takes one of the songs about dragons wrapping themselves in the hair of women and burning the forest and transforms it into the paranoia one feels when they lose a friend who perhaps has become too close when someone comes between you. How close do you have to be to a friend before they become more than one when the stories you tell one another become not tales but foreplay? Was it Isolde on the other side of the phone? Or is it Sarah hearing from herself?

Beyond having attractive women who are pretty open about their carnal encounters, this has chanting songs that feel like they’re getting you high, a woman losing her mind and moments where the film seems to blur out, obscuring what we’re watching. I can only imagine that Jess Franco would have been into every moment of that, even if this was way too chaste for him. But what wasn’t?

Directed by David A. Holcombe, who co-wrote the script with Rory Leahy and Nick Reise, this film, initially titled Yellow, draws inspiration from Giallo films. In America, it was rebranded as City of Lust, a title that perhaps doesn’t fully capture its essence. The film delves into themes of escape and identity, a journey that unfolds against the backdrop of a beauty salon.

Ariana (Margaret Grace) has a life she wants to escape, working in a beauty salon for Lyla, who seemingly abuses her at every opportunity. Her only friend is Renee (Kyle Greer), a trans woman who stands up for her and takes her to the clubs, where Ariana feels even more lost. When she returns home, the maintenance man Nikos (Antonio Brunetti) almost assaults her.

But when she gets to her bedroom, she finds escape through anonymous phone sex lines, looking for women to speak to. That’s where she meets Jackie (Jill Oliver), a woman who takes her into her bed and starts to fix her life. Well, I say fix in a way that means everyone who has done Ariana wrong shows up dead while our heroine appears near the bodies with no idea how she got there, clutching a tooth or a part of the person who has been killed. Ariana isn’t even her name. She changed it to escape her obsessed brother Danny (Derek Ryan Brummet), who has finally found her. And as you figure out how disturbed Ariana is, you also learn that he is the reason why.

This was sold as “a modern Giallo,” but besides the constant yellow lighting and a mask on the killer, it only has some of the familiar parts of the genre. I liked Grace’s acting, and I wanted to get behind her character as she gets over being closeted and gives herself over to someone else despite death being all around her. And yet the movie wants to be a workplace comedy and a slasher by the last half an hour, always unsure of what it needs to be. It knows the basic idea of a Giallo, but its heart does not beat for the genre; it’s just a tagline placed on a film to get people like me to watch it.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Starting as a YouTube series, Infinite Santa 8000 starts at the end of all things, as humanity has been destroyed. Somehow, some way, Santa Claus (Duane Bruce) and his cyborg wife Martha (Tara Henry) have survived. Instead of getting the rest he deserves, mutants and robots keep attacking, as they hate what Christmas means.

When Dr. Shackleton steals Martha, Santa must get in his sleigh, power up his robotic reindeer and make his way through whatever is left on our planet, battling monsters and even the Easter Bunny.

Created by Greg Ansin and Michael Neen, this Director’s Cut has new scenes, re-animated and retouched shots, and has been recut to match the original script. It’s not for kids — unless your children want to see a robot-eyed Santa blow away mecha bats and kill for food — but for the older amongst you, this will make a fine holiday special. It has a death count of 854 and a rough and dynamic animation style that constantly has a fight happening almost every single moment.

The Synapse blu ray features commentary with creators Ansin and Neel, the complete original 13-part web series, multiple interviews with cast and crew, original promotional trailers and two music videos.

You can learn more on the official website and buy the movie from MVD.

This film started when producer Amanda L. Manuel approached director Michael Todd Schneider to direct her first short film, which is the chapter “Manna” in this movie. Manuel had other story concepts and brought on other directors, including a few who did not appear in the final movie like Richard Stanley (who supposedly was never part of this), Andrey Iskanov (whose segment was complete but needed new sound and some new footage which was too expensive to go to Russia for) and José Mojica Marins (who left the project).

After years of this movie getting press, it finally debuted in August of 2022. There were screenings of some parts of it and the reports were that the film was no good. Yet nine years later, here it finally is.

The film begins in a Paris nightclub that houses a secret society and The Room of Souls, a private gathering place for the world’s richest and most evil people. Madame Sabatier allows each of them to tell a story and attempt to impress one another.

The first segment is “Mother May I,” directed by Anthony DiBlasi, has Sister Sylvia abusing the girls in her halfway house for sins both real and imaginary.

Yoshihiro Nishimura (Meatball Machine, Kyûketsu Shôjo tai Shôjo Furanken) brings the next movement, which is entitled “The Hell-Chef” and is a quick cut artistic tale of two young Japanese women eviscerating and devouring a man. It’s quick, to the point and well-made, even if there’s no rhyme or reason, which is the point one figures.

The third chapter is “Basement,” directed by Uwe Boll. This is based on the Josef Fritzl case, which was also made into a documentary, Monster: The Josef Fritzl Story. It’s short and well-made, shockingly among the best of the entire film. That said, if you want to watch Clint Howard have sex with his character’s daughter, well…this movie may just be for you.

It’s followed by the part I was most excited about, “Bridge,” directed by Ruggero Deodato. Sadly, it’s only three minutes long and just when it seems like it has some steam, it quickly ends.

Marian Dora, which is a pseudonym for an anonymous German creative, contributes “Mors in Tabula,” which is the same title as another Dora short. This one has a boy being operated on while his father helps the surgeon in a sequence that shows plenty of surgical nightmares over an Aryan rally soundtrack. There’s no real story, just shocks, which is pretty much the Grand Guignol feel of this entire enterprise.

“Tophet Quorom” is directed by Sergio Stivaletti (Italian special effects master and the director of The Wax Mask). It’s pretty wild and is has some incredible gore, like a jaw being ripped off, a practical werewolf transformation and an infant sacrifice. Now, as you can see from that description, this tale of a woman looking for the missing twin baby she’s just given birth to might not be for everyone — again, a running theme.

Ryan Nicholson (Gutterballs, Hanger) seems like the perfect person to be part of this and his segment “Goodwife,” in which a woman learns her husband is a killer and joins him in his depravity, might be the limit for some people. There’s no humor in this, just shock upon shock, the kind of madness that seems like someone working out more than just a horror film if it wasn’t so well shot. Apply liberally every trigger warning ever.

I loved Nacho Vigalondo’s Timecrimes, so I was excited for his segment “Sins of the Fathers.” A son has recreated the room he grew up in to place his elderly father into the same mindset he was in while the man abused him. It’s an intriguing idea that could make up its own film.

“Manna,” directed by Michael Todd Schneider goes from BDSM club to that most unimaginable — and impossible of fetishes, vore. That means that someone gets off from being consumed and what follows is a man being treated like he’s the Old Country Buffet for an entire room of latex clad women who break him down and make a meal of him.

“Amouche Bouche” is directed by Jeremy Kasten (The Attic Expeditions) and shows more human meat being prepared and eaten, which seems like how this movie should finish.

This is a movie made for extreme horror fans featuring some of their favorite directors. As such, people who think Hollywood horror is disgusting should probably stay home or keep this out of their streaming device. For those of a sicker bent — and I say that lovingly but also you never get to play with my dog — this is for you.

The Unearthed Films blu ray of The Profane Exhibit is filled with extras, such as an audio commentary by director Michael Todd Schneider, producer Amanda Manuel and Ultra Violent Magazine‘s Art Ettinger; interviews with Jeremy Kasten, Uwe Boll, Amanda Manuel and Michael Todd Schneider; a mini-documentary Ten Years Later by Marion Dora; Awakened Manna, footage from the world premiere, a gallery and trailers. You can get this from MVD.