Tag Archives: exploitaiton

The TSL Grindhouse: Jailbait (dir by Jared Cohn)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 2014, Jailbait tells the story of Anna Nix (Sara Malakul Lane).

Anna is a teenager who loves to play the cello, largely because it allow her a mentally escape from her abusive homelife.  When her stepfather sexually assaults her, Anna pushes him back and he ends up hitting his head on a wall and promptly dying.  After her own mother testifies that Anna is lying about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her stepfather, Anna is sent to a juvenile prison.

Warden Frank Baragan (Steve Hanks) has a quick smile and a dorky sense of humor and he might seem earnest and supportive when he tries to encourage Anna to play her cello at the prison talent show but he quickly reveals himself to be as much of a perv as Anna’s stepfather.  Warden Frank is willing to help Anna but only if she does things for him.  (You can guess what things.)  And, even when Anna complies, Frank makes it clear that there’s no way he’s going to support her efforts to get parole.

There’s a lot to deal with in this prison.  Anna’s cellmate, the well-meaning Genie (Jennifer Robyn Jacobs), may love her but Genie can only provide so much support.  Meanwhile, gang leader Kody (Erin O’Brien) provides Anna with protection but only as long as Anna follows orders.  (Kody even forces Anna to get a tattoo identifying her as being a part of the gang.)  As soon as Anna tries to get away from Kody, she finds herself targeted.  Anna soon starts smoking and then injecting drugs, becoming an addict who is continually sent to the dark, dirty, and vermin-infested isolation cells, where no clothing is allowed.  (Yuck!  If I was ever on one of those Scared Straight shows, all of that would be enough to keep me out of prison.)  Will Anna be able to survive long enough to not only impress the other prisoners with her cello skills but also to expose the corrupt warden?

Released by The Asylum, Jailbait hits all of the usual women-in-prison movie beats.  It’s definitely a sordid film, one of those movies where everyone somehow still looks good despite living in a filthy prison and only getting to take a shower once or twice a week.  (Occasionally, someone will get a smudge of dirt on their face but considering the amount of time that many of the characters spend locked away naked in a filthy cell, everyone still looks remarkably clean and healthy.)  That said, Jailbait was still better than I was expecting, largely due to the performance of Sara Malakul Lane, who didn’t let the fact that she was starring in an exploitation film keep her from giving a fully committed performance.  She gets strong support from Jennifer Robyn Jacobs, Erin O’Brien, and especially Steve Hanks.  (Oh, how you will hate the Warden!)  Director Jared Cohn is a veteran when it comes to directing on a low budget and he keeps the action moving quickly.

Don’t get me wrong, of course.  The film has its flaws.  I’ve read a few comments online from some people who felt that the cello scenes were not convincing.  I’ve never played the cello so, to be honest, I really wouldn’t know.  But, with all that in mind, this film is far better than I would expect any film called Jailbait to be.

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: I Drink Your Blood (dir by David E. Durston)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Put yourself in the shoes of the townspeople in 1971’s I Drink Your Blood.

Here you are.  You’re minding your own business.  Life isn’t great because of the economic downtown.  Your town is nearly deserted and is basically full of empty buildings.  In fact, it seems like there are currently more construction workers around then townspeople.  The workers are working on the dam.  Maybe a dam will help the area.  Maybe it won’t.

The sexist construction workers are kind of a pain but then, things get even worse when a bunch of hippies show up.  Led by the mysterious Horace Bones (played by dancer Bhaskar Roy Chowdhury), these are not your typical (if annoying) peace-and-love hippies.  These hippies have more in common with the Manson Family than they do with the commune folks from Easy Rider.  They are a remarkably diverse group of hippies.  Some of them are young.  Some of them are older.  Some of them really enjoy attacking other people.  Some of them are just along for the ride.  For his part, Horace is really into Satanism and human sacrifice and he encourages his followers to feel the same way.  Has anyone nice ever been named Horace Bones?

When the cultists assault a local girl named Sylvia (Arlene Farber), they are confronted in the abandoned building in which they are squatting by Sylvia’s grandfather, Doc Banner (Richard Bowler).  They proceed to beat up the kindly doctor and they force him to take LSD.  Sylvia’s younger brother, Pete (Riley Mills), get revenge by injecting the blood of a rabid dog into several pies and then selling them to Horace and his hippies.  Almost all of the hippies eat the pies and soon, they are foaming at the mouth and rampaging through the countryside, infected by and spreading rabies.  One of the hippie women ends up having sex with all of the construction workers, which leads to the rabies spreading even more.  Soon, it’s hippies vs hardhats as the fights happening across the real world are repeated in small town America.  Of course, there’s no police around to break up the fights and, thanks to the rabies, everyone is fighting to the death.  Heads are ripped off.  Electric knives are used to carve more than just food.  People are set on fire.  Blood is definitely drank.

Only one hippie didn’t eat the pies.  Andy (Tyde Kierney) was never a big fan of Horace’s Manson-like tendencies and he pretty much draws the line at human sacrifice.  Andy flees from Horace’s world and finds himself with Sylvia, Pete, and Mildred (Elizabeth Marner-Brooks), the owner of the local bakery.  The four of them struggle to survive in a world that has literally gone mad.

I Drink Your Blood was, not surprisingly, controversial when it was first released.  It was one of the few films to be given an X-rating for its violence as opposed to its sexual content.  It is definitely violent, though it’s really nowhere near as graphic as some of the R-rated horror films that have come out over the past few years.

I Drink Your Blood is a classic grindhouse film, one that takes a fairly ridiculous premise and works wonders with it.  The crazed hippies fighting the far more blue collar construction workers stand in for the fanatical soldiers in America’s cultural wars, with innocents like Sylvia, Pete, and Mildred caught in the middle with Andy.  Director David Durston mixes horror and satire with a deft hand, suggesting that the rabies is ultimately just allowing people to show their true selves.  I Drink Your Blood is an underground classic and thematically, it’s portrayal of a rabid world is just as relevant today as when it was first released.

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: Scarecrows (dir by William Wesley)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1988 film Scarecrows is one that has a very simple but also very effective premise.

Scarecrows are scary as Hell.

And you know what?  There’s a lot to be said for the premise.  Seriously, I have no problem with clowns but scarecrows definitely make me nervous.  It’s the way that they’re just left out there in the middle of a field, tied to a post and seemingly staring at the world through black eyes.  I know that some people try to make scarecrows less creepy by giving them smiles but, to me, a smiling scarecrow is even creepier than a scarecrow with no expression at all.  At night, whenever you see the shadow of a scarecrow in the distance, it’s always easy to imagine it climbing off of its post and walking towards your house, its dark eyes focusing on your bedroom window the whole way.  If you’re not scared of scarecrows, you’re not paying attention.

(Of course, perhaps the scariest thing about scarecrows is that crows don’t seem to be particularly scared of them.  I mean, if the crows have figured out that they’re not human, what’s the point of having them unless you’re going to use them to summon evil spirits?)

Scarecrows opens with a daring heist.  Five paramilitary mercenaries, people who are paid to fight and kill for a living, steal three million dollars from Camp Pendleton and then force pilot Al (David James Campbell) and his teenager daughter, Kellie (Victoria Christian), to fly them to Mexico.  However, in the middle of the flight, one of the merceneries grabs the money and a parachute and jumps from the plane.  Two other mercenaries jump after him while the remaining two force Al to land the airplane.  The plane ends up landing outside of a small farm, one that appears to be deserted except for all the scarecrows….

Now, seriously, think about this.  The majority of the characters in this film are mercenaries.  They’ve been trained in every form of combat.  They’ve got weapons and they know how to use them.  They are used to fighting and, in fact, they even look forward to it.  Not only are they mercenaries but they’ve also just successfully robbed a MARINE base.  You don’t mess with the Marines unless you’re very stupid or very confident or maybe both.  Adam Driver was a Marine.  Do you want Adam Driver mad at you?  My point is that these characters are not your run-of-the-mill horror movie victims.

And yet, one-by-one, they’re taken out by the scarecrows.  We get a bit of backstory about the scarecrows when the mercenaries stumble across a farmhouse and discover that it was owned by three Satanists who transferred their souls into the scarecrows.  But really, that’s not important.  What is important is that the scarecrows will emerge from the darkness and kill anyone who lets their guard down.  The scarecrows even talk to each other!  TALKING SCARECROWS!  AGCK!

Anyway, Scarecrows is an effective, quickly-paced, and atmospheric horror film, one that I really enjoyed when I watched it last October.  The scarecrows make for efficient and frightening monsters.  This is the film that proves that scarecrows are scarier than clowns.

Seriously, don’t mess with the scarecrow.

The TSL Grindhouse: Exterminator 2 (dir by Mark Buntzman)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Four years after the end of the first Exterminator, the man they drove too far is driven too far again….

As you may remember, the first Exterminator ended with the CIA shooting vigilante John Eastland (Robert Ginty) because Eastland’s anti-crime activities were somehow making the President look bad.  The wounded Eastland fell into the Hudson River.  “Washington will be pleased,” the CIA agent said to the gunman.  However, the film’s final shot revealed that Eastland had survived his plunge.

1984’s Exterminator 2 opens with Eastland returning to New York City.  He’s got a small apartment and a police scanner and when he hears a report that an elderly couple is being menaced by a group of thugs, he puts on a welding mask and uses his flame thrower to set the criminals on fire.  Of course, he doesn’t actually arrive in time to save the old couple from getting shot and killed.  Just because Eastland has decided to become a vigilante, that doesn’t mean that he’s particularly good at it.

The first Exterminator was a grim and gritty thriller that took itself very seriously.  In fact, one could argue that it took itself a bit too seriously.  Exterminator 2, which was produced by Cannon Films, takes a slightly different approach.  This is obvious as soon as Mario Van Peebles shows up as X, a cult leader who is looking to take over the New York drug trade.  Van Peebles, with his model good looks and his quick smile, is not exactly the most intimidating of villains.  And X is not exactly the most brilliant of bad guys.  For one thing, he drives a car with a big red X spray painted on one of the doors, which doesn’t seem to be the smartest thing to do when you have both the police and crazed vigilante hunting for you.

Fortunately, for X, John Eastland is easily distracted.  After he sets a few people on fire, he seems to lose interest in actually being a vigilante and instead, a large portion of the film is taken up with him getting a job collecting garbage with his friend, Be Gee (Frankie Fasion).  (Much like the previous film’s Michael Jefferson, Be Gree served with Eastland in Nam.)  Eastland also meets and falls in love with a dancer named Caroline (Deborah Geffner).  Unfortunately, a trip to Central Park leads to Caroline getting attacked by a bunch of X’s followers.  With Caroline in a wheelchair, Eastland has little choice but to pick up his flame thrower and transform his garbage truck into a tank of destruction….

Exterminator 2‘s production was a troubled one.  Director Mark Buntzman was one of the producers of the first Exterminator and apparently, Cannon disliked his first cut of Exterminator 2.  Director William Sachs (who was Cannon’s resident “film doctor”) was brought in to do extensive reshoots in Los Angeles.  Unfortunately, by the time Sachs was brought in, Robert Ginty had already moved on to another project and Sachs was forced to use his stunt double for any scenes involving Eastland.  (This is one reason why Eastland spends much of the film wearing a welder’s mask.)  Also because of Ginty’s absence, Sachs ended up adding a lot of scenes that focused on Van Peebles’s performance as X, with the end result being that the film often seems to be more about X and his gang than it is about Eastland and his hunt for revenge.  (Unfortunately, this also led to a lot of unresolved subplots, including one in which X orders one of his roller skating henchman to kidnap a woman off the street so she can be used to test a new batch of heroin.)  Many of the scenes featuring Ginty have a totally different feel to them from the scenes featuring Van Peebles and Ginty’s stunt double.

The end result is a film that really doesn’t have any sort of narrative momentum.  One is never really sure what either X or Eastland is hoping to accomplish.  Instead, they just kind of wander around until they have their final confrontation.  Along the way, there’s a few poorly edited fights but there’s also a lot of scenes that are just included to serve as filler.  As I already mentioned, Van Peebles is not a particularly menacing villain but Ginty also isn’t a particularly compelling hero.  Ginty’s goofy screen presence was nicely subverted by the grime and grit of the first Exterminator but, in the second film, he just comes across as being petulant and even a bit whiny.

The first Exterminator famously ended with the lines, “Washington will be pleased.”  I don’t think anyone would particularly be pleased with Exterminator 2.  As a final note, I will admit that I was so bored with this film that, when I watched it, I barely noticed when it ended and Tubi segued into showing a film called Executioner 2.  That pretty much sums up the entire Exterminator 2 experience.

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Scissors (dir by Frank De Felitta)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The plot of the 1991 film, Scissors, is not easy to describe. That’s not because the plot is particularly clever as much as it’s because it doesn’t make much sense.

Basically, Sharon Stone plays a woman named Angela Anderson. She is oddly obsessed with scissors and terrified about getting close to anyone. She’s been getting hypnotherapy from Dr. Carter (Ronny Cox) in an effort to understand why she’s so repressed but she doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere. This could possibly have something to do with the fact that Dr. Carter is continually distracted by the adulterous activities of his wife, Ann (Michelle Phillips).

Angela lives in a lonely but surprisingly big apartment with only her cat for company. Her cat is named Midnight and he’s a black cat so he automatically became my favorite character in the film. Living next door to her are two twin brothers. Alex (Steve Railsback) is a soap opera star. Cole (Railsback, again) is an artist in a wheelchair who continually paints cartoonish pictures of Angela being attacked by a man with a big red beard.

Then, one day, Angela goes out to buy some scissors. When she returns and gets on the elevator to head back up to her apartment, she’s attacked by a man …. A MAN WITH A RED BEARD! Fortunately, Angela is able to stab him with her scissors. After the man with the red beard runs off, Angela is discovered in the elevator by Alex and Cole. Alex and Angela fall in love. Cole’s not too happy about that.

Following so far?

Angela get a call about a job interview, one that requires her to go to a stranger’s apartment. Despite the fact that the film has spent nearly an hour setting up Angela as being intensely agoraphobic, she has no problem going to this apartment. However, once she enters the apartment, she finds herself locked in! She also discovers that the red-bearded man is also in the apartment. Fortunately, he’s dead. Unfortunately, it appears that he was killed by Angela’s scissors. There’s also a raven in the apartment. The raven continually taunts Angela, saying, “You killed him!” Let’s just be happy that Edgar Allan Poe wasn’t around to see this.

Trapped in the apartment, Angela has flashbacks to her past. Is Angela the murderer? Is all of this just happening in her mind? Or is someone trying to drive her over the edge?

Though Scissors is set up as a psychological horror film, it’s really more of an extended acting exercise for Sharon Stone. Stone wanders around the apartment. She talks to herself. She had a nervous breakdown or two. She discusses life with a puppet. Every single scene seems to be designed to make audiences go, “Wow, she really can act!” but, despite all of the histrionics on display, Angela is still a very one note character. By making her obviously unstable from the start, the film doesn’t really leave the character with much room to develop or take us by surprise. The film attempts to end on a bit of an ambiguous note as far as Angela’s character is concerned but that type of ambiguity has to be earned. There’s nothing to Stone’s performance to indicate that there’s anything about Angela that isn’t totally on the surface. To suggest that there was more to her than originally appeared is to insult the audience’s ability to discern hidden depths.

The film does eventually wrap up its mystery and present a solution of sorts. Unfortunately, it’s a totally unsatisfying solution and one that’s dependent on otherwise intelligent people coming up with a ludicrously overcomplicated scheme to deal with one not particularly complicated problem. It’s all pretty forgettable but at least the cat survives.

The TSL’s Grindhouse: Private Wars (dir by John Weidner)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1993 action film, Private Wars, tells the story of a neighborhood, a big evil businessman, and one drunk private investigator who likes to shoot things.

The big evil businessman is Alexander Winters (played by Stuart Whitman).  Winters is so evil that he probably spends at least three hours every night practicing his smirk.  He’s the type who will plot someone’s death and then laugh about it just to make sure that it’s understood that he’s totally evil.  Winters wants to build a new business complex but there’s a neighborhood sitting on the land that he wants to use and no one’s willing to move.

However, Winters has a plan to bring about change.  If the people in the neighborhood won’t move voluntarily, he’ll just make them flee for their lives.  Winters pays off some local gangs to create trouble in the neighborhood.  Soon, stores are exploding and windows are getting broken and obscene graffiti is showing up on walls.  Everyone in the neighborhood keeps going to the community center and debating what to do.  You have to wonder why the gangs are wasting their time vandalizing storefronts when they could have just blown up the community center and taken out every who was in their way.

Eventually, the community decides to hire someone to teach them how to defend themselves.  After auditioning a series of ninjas and other wannabe soldiers of fortune, the community hires Jack Manning (Steve Railsback).  Why do they hire Jack Manning?  Well, he’s a friend of one of the community leaders.  He’s also an alcoholic who shoots his car whenever the engine starts giving him trouble.  How exactly anyone could look at Jack — who is not only almost always drunk but also a bit on the short and scrawny side — and think that he could protect the neighborhood is an interesting question that the film doesn’t really explore.

Anyway, the community is soon fighting back, which turns out to be a lot easier than anyone imagined.  Eventually, Jack ends up in jail as a result of Winters’s corruption but fortunately, it’s while in jail that Jack meets a few guys who all have mullets and who all come back to the neighborhood to help Jack out when a bunch of ninjas try to take over the streets.  Winters may have ninjas but Jack has a bunch of petty criminals who look they’re all heading to a hockey game in Toronto.  It’s a fair fight.

To be honest, the main thing that I will always remember about Private Wars was just how unnecessary Jack eventually turned out to be.  For all the money that he was apparently being paid, he really doesn’t do much.  I guess he does teach people in the neighborhood the techniques of self-defense but the film is so haphazardly edited that it’s hard to be sure of that.  It’s entirely possible that everyone already knew how to fight but they were just hoping Jack would do it for them.  Watching the film, it’s easy to get the feeling that the folks in the community center took one look at Jack and said, “Well, shit …. I guess we gotta do this ourselves.”  Even the final confrontation between Jack and Winters is resolved by a third character.  Imagine Roadhouse if Patrick Swayze spent the whole movie sitting at the bar and you have an idea what Private Wars is like.

Private Wars is really silly but, possibly for that very reason, it’s also occasionally fun in its own stupid way.  If nothing else, Stuart Whitman and Steve Railsback appeared to be enjoying themselves.  The movie’s on YouTube.  I watched it last Monday as a part of the #MondayActionMovie live tweet and I enjoyed myself.

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Wolves at the Door (dir by John Leonetti)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I’m really not sure what to make of Wolves at the Door.

I knew the film was inspired by the crimes of Charles Manson and his family before I watched the film.  Not only was Wolves at the Door specifically advertised as being “Inspired by The Infamous Manson Family Murder Spree” but just check out the plot description that was provided by Warner Bros:

Four friends gather at an elegant home during the Summer of Love, 1969. Unbeknownst to them, deadly visitors are waiting outside. What begins as a simple farewell party turns to a night of primal terror as the intruders stalk and torment the four, who struggle for their lives against what appears to be a senseless attack.

The Manson Family have inspired a countless number of films, so that’s not really an issue.  Almost all of those films either presented Manson and his followers as being the epitome of evil or they told stories that were heavily and obviously fictionalized.

Wolves at the Door, however, is different.  Other than in some news footage that is shown during the end credits, Manson is not seen in the film.  For that matter, the members of the Family don’t get much screen time either.  Mostly, they’re just seen as shadows, creeping down hallways and sometimes materializing in a doorway before vanishing.  There’s no mention of Helter Skelter or the Beatles.  I’d have to rewatch the film to say for sure but I think it’s possible that we only hear them say one or two words over the course of the entire movie.

Instead, Wolves at the Door spends most of its running time with the victims of the Manson Family, following them as they are unknowingly stalked inside of a Los Angeles mansion.  Usually, in a film like this, you would expect the names to be changed but, for some reason, that doesn’t happen in Wolves At The Door.

So, Katie Cassidy plays a pregnant actress who is named Sharon.

Elizabeth Henstridge plays a coffee heiress who is named Abigail.

Adam Campbell plays Abigail’s Polish boyfriend, who is named Wojciech.

Miles Fisher plays a hairdresser who is named Jay and who just happens to be Sharon’s ex-boyfriend.

And, finally, Lucas Adams plays a teenager stereo enthusiast named Steven, who just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Speaking as someone who loves horror and who has defended some of the most critically derided films of all time, everything about Wolves at the Door just feels icky, tacky, and wrong.  Many grindhouse horror films have been inspired by actual crimes but most of them at least changed the names of the victims.   You really have to wonder just what exactly the filmmakers were thinking here.

(Then again, just two years ago, NBC greenlit a show called Aquarius, which could have just as easily been called “The Adventures of Young Charlie Manson.”)

It’s not just that Wolves at the Door is offensive.  In fact some of the best movies of all time were specifically designed to be offensive.  The problem with Wolves at the Door is that it’s also just a very shoddy film.  (In fact, if the film had been well-made, it wouldn’t be quite as offensive.)  Though the actors may be talented, they’re let down by a script that’s full of some of the clunkiest dialogue that I’ve ever heard.  Though the soundtrack may feature some good songs, they’re still the same damn songs that show up in every movie set in 1969.  (Judging from the movies, everyone in 1969 just listened to the same five songs over and over again.)  Though the movie itself is only 73 minutes long, it is so abysmally paced that it feels much, much longer.

Sadly, this film was directed by John Leonetti, who did a pretty good job with Annabelle.  Again, I’m not sure what exactly he or anyone else was thinking with Wolves at the Door, which I’m going to go ahead and declare to be the worst film of 2017.  I know that the year isn’t over yet but I just can’t imagine anything as bad as this.

6 Trailers Beyond Imagination

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi, Lisa Marie here!  I apologize for taking last week off but have no fear and let not your heart be troubled — I have returned and I’ve brought with me another edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Film trailers!  (And I’ve also returned with a few trailer kitties, as well…)

1) The Hunger (1983)

Tony Scott, R.I.P.

2) Aenigma (1987)

From director Lucio Fulci comes a film about psychic powers and killer slugs.  Agck!

3) Dolly Dearest (1991)

This is what happens when you build a toy factory next door to Satan’s grave.

4) Godmonster of Indian Flats (1973)

Killer sheep!

5) Rattlers (1976)

If it’s not the sheep, it’s the snakes…

6) The Lollipop Girls In Hard Candy (1976)

In 3-D! 

What do you think, trailer kitties?

6 Trailers That Will Save The World

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to another edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation trailers.

1) Psychomania (1971)

Also known as the Death Wheelers.  This is one of those trailer that can pretty much speak for itself.  (Though I will point out that co-star George Sanders committed suicide shortly after filming completed.)

2) 10 Violent Women (1982)

Not surprisingly, this movie was directed by Ted V. Mikels.  What makes this trailer memorable (for me) is the blandly cheerful narration.  I don’t know who that is providing the narration but you hear his voice a lot as you explore the world of grindhouse trailers.

3) The Twilight People (1973)

Made in the Philippines (as were many exploitation films in the 60s and 70s — I always expect to hear someone say, “Made in the Philippines — where life is cheap!” whenever I watch one of these trailers), The Twilight People is best remembered for featuring Pam Grier as the Panther Woman.  I love how the trailers for Filipino exploitation films always seem to promise us that we’re in for “blood…blood…and more blood!” like some nightmarish 1950s feminine hygiene film.

4) Cop Killers (1973)

“Do you think we killed niiiiiiine people for nuthin, maaaaan?”  This trailer plays like one of the many “fake” grindhouse trailers that every toadsucker on Youtube is making nowadays.  (And, by the way, that trend is getting increasingly obnoxious as it’s obvious that a lot of these trailers are being made by jerks who have never even seen a genuine grindhouse film.)  However, Cop Killers is a real film and this is a real trailer.  Every time I go down to Half-Price books, I come across the DVD for this movie.  They want $9.00 for it.  And every time, I end up grabbing this DVD, planning on buying it, just to then come across a movie or book that I want more.  So, I haven’t seen Cop Killers yet but I’m sure that eventually, I’ll break down and get it.

5) Convoy Busters (1978)

Feel bad for all those cops getting killed Cop Killers?  Don’t worry, the fraternity of blue meanies got their revenge in plenty of other films, including this 1978 Italian film.  Convoy Busters was directed by Ruggero Deodat0 (of Cannibal Holocaust and House On The Edge of the Park fame) and is also known as Cop on Fire.  (Apparently, it was retitled to take advantage of the international success of Sam Peckinpah’s Convoy.)

6) The Psychic (1977)

This is the (very) American trailer for Lucio Fulci’s Murder To The Tune of Seven Black Notes.  This film is actually one of Fulci’s more subtle and interesting films and, considering that it’s a Fulci film without zombies or a huge amount of gore —  it has a surprisingly large number of fans (including Quentin Tarantino).  At the time of its release, however, it failed at the box office and so hurt Fulci’s reputation that the producers of Zombi 2 were able to hire him cheap whereas previously, they wouldn’t have been able to afford him.  Hence, it can be argued that the success of Zombi 2 was directly the result of the failure of The Psychic.  (That’s what we call the circle of life.)