This movie was actually on the Fox Movie Channel last night. The trailer’s better.
2) The Tenement (1985)
As this trailer makes clear, this film is also known as Slaughter In The South Bronx.
3) Enter The Ninja (1981)
It’s Franco Nero!
4) Eat My Dust (1976)
It’s Ron Howard!
5) Beatrice Cenci (1969)
Before Lucio Fulci devoted himself to making zombie films, he made this one. It tells the true story of Beatrice Cenci, an Italian noblewoman who, in 1599, conspired to murder her abusive father. Fulci considered it to be his second best film. I’ve never seen it but I hope to do so someday soon.
6) The Slams (1973)
Finally, let’s conclude this edition with Jim Brown in … The Slams!
Hi there! If you’re a mom, Happy Mother’s Day. And if you’re not, you better go do something nice for your mom or else run the risk of being given back to the gypsies that she got you from. (Incidentally, there’s no shame in being a gypsy adoptee. According to my sisters, I was left in the backyard by a wandering gypsy band and just look at me now…)
I’ve featured this trailer before but I figured that since it’s Mother’s Day…
2) The Bloody Brood (1959)
Yes, this is the same Bloody Brood that I reviewed on this website a few days ago.
3) Operation Kid Brother (1967)
Come October, we’re going to be reviewing every single James Bond film ever made here at the Shattered Lens. Until then, why not enjoy this trailer featuring Sean Connery’s kid brother Neil?
4) Lightning Bolt (1966)
Much like Operation Kid Brother, this appears to be another Italian attempt to make a Bond-style film. Apparently, Neil Connery is not featured in this one.
5) Avenging Angel (1985)
Awwww…this movie was released the year I was born. 🙂
And finally, let’s close things out with a film that’s become such a classic and is so influential that film snobs tend to forget that it’s essentially a very well-made grindhouse film…
First released in 1959 and filmed in moody, noir-ish black-and-white, The Bloody Brood tells the story of a low-level drug dealer and aspiring beatnik named Nico (Peter Falk). One night, while hanging out at the local coffeehouse and listening to decadent jazz, Nico witnesses a man drop dead of a heart attack. Intrigued by the man’s sudden death, Nico and his nervous friend, a tv director named Francis (Ron Hartmann), decide that they want to experience what it would be like to deliberately kill someone. Before you can say “Leopold and Loeb,” Nico and Francis are feeding a random stranger a hamburger laced with ground glass. That stranger, a hard-working telegram delivery man named Ricky (George Sperdakous), later dies of an intestinal hemorrhage.
Unknown to Nico and Francis, Ricky has an older brother named Cliff (Jack Betts) and Cliff doesn’t believe that his brother’s death was an accident. With the covert help of Detective McLeod (Robert Christie), Cliff starts to investigate his brother’s death. Cliff eventually meets Ellie (Barbara Lord), a disillusioned woman who has fallen in with Nico and his murderous crowd.
The Bloody Brood is an unexpected surprise, a genuinely entertaining B-movie that more than overcomes the confines of its low-budget and limited running time. While Peter Falk is the obvious center of the picture and steals every scene that he’s in with his coldly charismatic style of evil, the entire film is well cast and well acted with Hartmann and Betts both bringing unexpected nuance to their roles. However, the real star of the film is director Julian Roffman who gives the film a shadowy and threatening noir-look.
In many ways, The Bloody Brood represents everything I love about the low-budget, often sordid B-movies of the 50s and 60s. Working with limited resources and a small cast, director Julian Roffman managed to create a genuinely memorable movie. Films like The Bloody Brood continue to serve as proof that you don’t need millions of dollars to make a good film. You just need a strong creative vision and the imagination to make that vision a reality.
Last summer, I decided to watch and review all 50 of the films to be found in Mill Creek’s Chilling Classics box set. Mill Creek, of course, is a company that’s best known for releasing box sets that seem to primarily feature low-budget films that, for whatever reason, have now found themselves in the public domain. If you’re a fan of old school B-movies in general, then you probably know just how fun it can be to read the back of a Mill Creek boxset and discover what obscure films are waiting inside. The thing that I especially love about Mill Creek is the fact that — in the best grindhouse tradition — they describe every film that they distribute (whether it’s George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead or something like Las Vegas Bloodbath) as being a “classic.”
So, anyway, I started to watch and review the films in the Chilling Classics box set but, as 2011 drew to a close, things got rather hectic and busy here at the TSL Bunker. In between covering the Oscar season and keeping the world supplied with weekly trailer posts, I had to set aside my plans to review the entire boxset for another day.
Well, I’m happy to say that day is here! Last night, I dug out the old Chilling Classics box set and I watched a South African slasher film from 1981, The Demon.
The Demon actually tells two separate but connected stories. In the first story, a teenage girl is kidnapped from her bedroom by a masked killer. Her distraught family calls in a tormented psychic who quickly proves himself to so superfluous and useless that you’d forget all about him except he’s played by the late Cameron Mitchell.
If you’re a fan of old school grindhouse and exploitation films then you’ve undoubtedly seen a handful of films featuring Mr. Mitchell. A former “legitimate” actor who, early on in his career, appeared in things like Death of a Salesman, Mitchell eventually became better known for appearing in low-budget exploitation films. Mitchell could always be counted on to shamelessly overemote and, regardless of the film he was appearing in, he was always a lot of fun to watch. If nothing else, Mitchell always seemed to be rather amused by the films he found himself in. It’s a shame that Cameron Mitchell died before Quentin Tarantino could engineer a comeback for him.
In The Demon, Cameron Mitchell spends most of his limited screen time standing on a rocky cliff while staring down at the ocean below and having psychic visions that don’t really seem to have much to do with anything else happening in the film. Actually, visions is the wrong word. As Mitchell says, “Sometimes…I get these feelings. Vibes, as the kids would say.”
And the kids are in a lot of trouble because our nameless killer has moved on to the city where he spends his time hanging around outside of a place called Boobs Disco and stalking two teachers named Mary (Jennifer Holmes) and Jo (Zoli Markey). This is the film’s second storyline and it mostly consists of Mary spotting the killer out of the corner of her eye and Jo pursuing a relationship with the most boring man on the planet.
Like quite a few films that seem to pop up in various Mill Creek box sets, The Demon is technically a pretty bad film but, once you accept that fact, it’s also an occasionally entertaining mess that delivers a handful of effectively creepy moment.
The scenes featuring Cameron Mitchell are entertaining for exactly the reason that you think they are. These scenes are such obvious filler and were so obviously added as an excuse to get a “name” actor to join the cast that it’s impossible not to admire the nerve of the filmmakers. They weren’t going to let a silly thing like narrative cohesion get in the way of producing a 90 minute film. Playing the world’s worst psychic, Cameron Mitchell delivers his lines with such a truly unfocused intensity that I actually spent the first half of the movie convinced that he was the murderer. The final fate of Mitchell’s character is truly shocking (if just because it kind of comes out of nowhere) and Mitchell plays his final scene as if he’s starring in a dinner theater production of some lost Shakespearean play.
If the scenes featuring Mitchell are mostly entertaining for being so bad, the scenes in which the nameless killer stalks Mary and Jo are actually pretty well done and the final confrontation between the final girl and the killer is handled surprisingly well (though I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at the fact that the film contrives to have the final girl fight for her life while topless). The killer’s lack of personality makes him all the more intimidating and both Jennifer Holmes and Zoli Markey are likable and believable in the roles of Mary and Jo. If nothing else, The Demon proves that even a really poorly produced horror film can be partially redeemed (if not saved) by a likable cast of potential victims.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, The Demon — like many forgotten exploitation flicks — serves as a valuable time capsule of the society that produced it. To offer up just one example:
Hola and happy Cinco De Mayo! I’m not sure if Cinco De Mayo is as big a deal up north as it is down here in the Southwest but today is going to be one of the few Saturdays that I don’t go to the movies. Instead, I will be observing this day with friends, family (I am a fourth Spanish), and cerveza. But first, here’s the latest edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Trailers…
(Be warned: Some of these trailers are a tad bit more explicit than some of the other trailers that I’ve featured as a part of this series. Watch with caution.)
1) Tombs of the Blind Dead (1971)
This is one of the first of the great Spanish horror films.
2) Return of the Evil Dead (1973)
The Blind Dead returned in this gory and violent sequel. One of my prize possessions is my Blind Dead box set, which was released (in the shape of a coffin, no less) by Blue Underground.
3) Vampyros Lesbos (1971)
This is the German trailer for Vampyros Lesbos, directed by the infamous Jess Franco. Just try to guess what this film is about…
4) Oasis of the Living Dead (1981)
In a career that has spanned over 500 films, Jess Franco has dealt with not only lesbian vampires but zombies as well…
5) Night of the Bloody Apes (1969)
From Rene Cardona comes this surprisingly bloody films about what happens when an ape’s heart is transplanted into a normal human being. Fortunately, there’s a wrestler around to save the day…
6) The Werewolf Vs. The Vampire Woman (1970)
Finally, let’s end things with a Paul Naschy film, shall we?
Hi! I apologize for being a day late with this week’s edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Film trailers. In the future, I may just start regularly posting these on Sunday morning as opposed to Saturday. But that’s something that can be decided in the future. For the present, the trailers are the only thing that matters…
1) Witchboard (1986)
This trailer is short but effective. The guy with the beard scares me every time.
2) Jennifer (1978)
Guess which earlier movie inspired this one?
3) Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965)
When you’ve got a named like Dr. Terror, you might as well get a house of horrors.
4) The Hand (1981)
Continuing on a theme that was introduced in the previous trailer, this film is apparently about a disembodied hand creating mayhem. It was directed by Oliver Stone who later gave the world Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps.
5) Death Smiles At Murder (1973)
This film is from the infamous Joe D’Amato and apparently, it features a cameo from Klaus Kinski. That’s how you know it’s good. Plus, I love the title.
6) Evil Toons (1990)
Wow, this looks terrible, doesn’t it? Still, I have to include it because it’s just such a purely grindhouse trailer, featuring everything from a gimmick to a somewhat reputable actor who obviously was having trouble paying his rent back in 1990.
Now that I’ve finished reviewing the Friday the 13th series, I can finally take the time to make a few comments about a film that I’ve been meaning to review for a while here on the Shattered Lens: Herschell Gordon Lewis’s 1967 film Something Weird.
How to describe Something Weird? Well, I could tell you that it was one of the first films to realize that ESP, witchcraft, and LSD made for a potent combination. I could also point out that everyone’s favorite company — Something Weird Video — took their name from this film. However, I think the best (and maybe only) way to tell you about this film is to simply tell you what happens.
The film starts out brilliantly with ten minutes of vaguely connected and disjointed images. We start out with a close-up of a pair of legs that apparently belong to someone being chased down a city street.
Cut To:
Two guys practicing karate. One of them we will never see again. The other one is a doughy-faced guy named Alex Jordan (William Brooker). The one we will never see again explains to Alex that he’s not actually that talented when it comes to the martial arts. Alex looks annoyed.
Cut to:
Alex is fooling around with a blonde that we’ll never see again and who will never be mentioned again for the rest of the film. “You’re electrifying,” she tells him.
Cut to:
Some random guy is electrocuted by a downed power line. Cronin “Mitch” Mitchell (Tony McCabe) runs over to help him and gets hit in the face by the same power line. He falls to the ground while a group of random people wander over. “Has anybody called an ambulance yet?” someone calmly asks.
Suddenly, there’s a man in a suit kneeling down by the two bodies and apparently, he’s some sort of medicine man because, while looking at the first man, he says, “I’ll have to call the coroner on this man.”
However, Mitch is still alive so he’s put into the back of a station wagon and driven to the local hospital. As we watch Mitch being pulled out of the back of the car, the camera pans up to the cloudy sky and suddenly, a narrator comes out of nowhere and starts rambling about “the sixth sense, ESP!” The narrator is also nice enough to let us know that Alex — the guy from the Karate lesson — is apparently a government scientist who is in charge of figuring out how to use ESP against America’s enemies.
This all happens in the first 10 minutes of the film and, unfortunately, the remaining 70 minutes of the film struggles to live up to the surrealistic brilliance of this little montage.
Anyway, Mitch is alive but now he’s got both a scar on his face and the ability to see the future. As one of his doctor’s puts it, “He’s a different man since the accident … cynical. Maybe even morbid!” Once he’s released from the hospital, Mitch takes to wearing a black bandana over the lower half of his face and becomes a professional psychic.
He finds a little success but, as we’ve been told, he’s now “cynical…maybe ever morbid!” However, things change for Mitch when he’s approached by a grotesquely ugly woman with a blue face and a cackling laugh. She explains that she’s a witch and she’s willing to restore his face but only if he takes her as his lover. Mitch reluctantly does this and his scars suddenly vanish.
Soon, Mitch is a celebrity, appearing on television. Everywhere he goes, the witch is on his arm. The rest of the world sees her as a beautiful woman named Ellen Parker (Elizabeth Lee) but whenever Mitch looks at her, he sees her in her true blue-faced form.
Meanwhile, there’s a serial killer preying on the woman of Jefferson, Wisconsin and the chief of police (played by Lawrence Wood, the man who gave the infamous “fire sale” monologue in Lewis’s Scum of the Earth) invites Mitch and Ellen to come help with the investigation. The government meanwhile sends Alex (remember him?) to the town to investigate Mitch and perhaps recruit Mitch into the service of his country.
Alex is, at first, skeptical of Mitch but then he sees Mitch exorcising a disgruntled spirit from a local church and he starts to think that Mitch might have some psychic abilities after all. Mitch might just need a little help and Alex is there to provide it.
Meeting with Mitch in the police chief’s office (and with the entire police force looking on), Alex produces two white pills from his pocket and says, “I have a drug here — LSD. Ever hear of it?” Alex proceeds to echo many real-life MK-Ultra conspiracy theories as he explains that LSD will increase Mitch’s psychic abilities to the extent that he’ll be able to catch the killer. Mitch replies, “I’ve never taken the drug before but I’ll be glad to, doctor.”
Well, needless to say, the LSD produces the typical cinematic red-tinged, desert-themed trip but it still ends with Mitch figuring out who the killer is. It also allows Mitch to understand that the killer is sane “98% of the time.” However, there’s a problem because now that killer is out to kill Mitch and Alex has fallen in love with Ellen, the blue-faced witch…
To be honest, Something Weird is not one of Herschell Gordon Lewis’s best films. Even by typical Lewis standards, the plot doesn’t make much sense and the acting is incredibly bad. Whereas other Lewis films (like Blood Feast) featured performances that were deliberately over the top, the cast of Something Weird comes across as if they were as confused while making Something Weird as the audience would later be while watching it. (However, it should be noted that Elizabeth Lee at least seems to be having fun in the role of the constantly cackling witch.)
However, I still love Something Weird because, unlike so many other movies, it actually lives up to its name. This is a movie that promises to be weird and that’s exactly what it is. There’s just so much to love in this film. Check out the way that Mitch’s “facial scars” never look the same from scene-to-scene. (At one point, the scars cover his entire face but, in the next scene, they can be easily hidden by a bandana.) Watch in amazement as the same set is used and re-used for almost every scene in the movie, with just the furniture occasionally being rearranged depending on whether the scene is supposed to take place in an office or a hotel room.
Ultimately, my love for this film comes down to the little details. I love how the ambulance at the start of the film is just an old school station wagon (complete with wood paneling) with a siren on top of it. Even better is how the police captain’s office is decorated with a faded pictures of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln that literally appear to have been ripped out of an old history textbook.
In the greatest tradition of the grindhouse, there is no other movie like Something Weird and, for that reason alone, it’s worth watching.
“Charlton Heston IS the Omega Man!” This movie is the second of three film adaptations of Richard Matheson’s classic novel I am Legend.
2) Last House On Dead End Street (1977)
This film is reportedly one of the most purely grindhouse films ever made. It’s also next to impossible to see. The Trash Film Guru has seen it and I’m insanely jealous. As for this trailer, it’s short but rather effective. It’s also perhaps the hundredth trailer to feature the “It’s only a movie” tagline.
3) Deranged (1974)
“A man so obsessed with death that he became…DERANGED!”
4) Equinox (1970)
I own the Criterion edition of this film. It’s actually kind of fun in its own silly way.
5) Vengeance of She (1971)
This is a Hammer film. I love how increasingly excited the narrator gets as he talks about vengeance.
6) Endgame (1983)
Finally, let’s end this entry with yet another look at a post-apocalypse future. From the iconic Italian director Joe D’Amato, it’s Endgame.
Hi there and welcome to another edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation trailers! Today, we bring you 6 trailers specifically made to appeal to audiences made up of hard men and the women who have to put up with them.
1) Phantom Soldiers (1988)
Let’s start things off with this trailer from the Philippines. I never thought I’d see a trailer as violent as the trailer for Massacre Mafia Style but then I came across this one for Phantom Soldiers. “You’re a hard man…but the answer is no.”
2) Megaforce (1982)
This appears to be the family friendly version of Phantom Soldiers. I always love how these trailers for obviously terrible movies always claim to be bringing “the greatest spectacle ever” to audiences. Myself, I want to find and slap whoever thought it was a good idea for the bearded guy to wear a powder blue headband while talking about how the good guys always win “…even in the 80s!”
3) The Junkman (1982)
I guess if families weren’t watching the bearded man in the skin-tight outfit and the blindingly blue headband, they were witnessing the “chase thriller for the 80s…JUNKMAN!”
4) Terror in the Midnight Sun (1959)
I’ve never seen this film nor had I ever heard of it until I came across this trailer on YouTube. But I think that our readers who happen to be creature movie fans will enjoy this one.
5) The One-Armed Executioner (1983)
All this exposure to grindhouse and exploitation films must be getting to me because I kept expecting someone to go, “That’s not my arm, baby,” as I watched this trailer. Agck!
6) She-Devils On Wheels (1968)
After all that, it’s time for some girl power, don’t you think? From director Herschell Gordon Lewis, who also directed the Gruesome Twosome. “This picture is not for children…”
Hi! I hope everyone had a good St. Patrick’s Day because I know that I had a great time honoring the Meehan side of my family. I danced so much that I am quite literally hopping about this morning. It was a lot of fun but now, it’s the day after St. Patrick’s Day. And that can only mean that it’s time for another edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Film trailers! Now, admittedly, these trailers might not seem to have much to do with the Irish but look closer and you’ll see that they do have at least one thing in common … they’re all totally awesome in their own unique and special way.
1) Playing For Keeps (1986)
“The new Hotel Majestic … FOR KIDS ONLY!” You can tell this is a good movie just by the way that the title is introduced all Ten Commandments style. Marisa Tomei is in this trailer for a split second. The film itself was directed by future movie moguls Harvey and Bob Weinstein.
2) The Forbidden Dance Is Lambada (1990)
I just like this one because it’s not just about dancing but it’s about a forbidden dance! Passion, by the way, has a rhythm all its own…
3) Lambada (1990)
In fact, the dance was so forbidden that apparently a totally separate movie was made about it at the exact same time as The Forbidden Dance Is Lambada. This one looks a lot less fun, to be honest. “This is the 90s, man, kids got a right to choose…”
4) The Chicken Chronicles (1977)
Judging from the previous trailers and the title of this film, you would be justified in expecting this trailer to be about a bunch of dancing chickens that open up their own hotel. Sadly, this is not the case. However, this trailer does continue the theme of “the right to choose” and a school divided.
5) Coach (1978)
Hmmmm…I wonder how this film ends…
6) TheSister-In-Law (1974)
Like Coach, the Sister-in-Law is available in a few of those cheap-but-oh-so-fun Mill Creek box sets. Unlike Coach, the Sister-in-Law is actually a pretty good film. By the way, I’m built for love and trouble…
Through the Shattered Lens 