Pigs!

 (imdb)

PIGS-1973-A woman named Lynn (Toni Lawrence) kills her father after he rapes her. She's committed to a mental hospital. While a doctor and nurse are having sex, she somehow gets out of her padded cell and escapes. While she wanders around, a pig farmer named Zambrini (Toni's dad Marc who also wrote, produced and directed) is feeding people to his pigs. Sheriff Tom (Jesse Vint) investigates when townsfolk go missing. Lynn goes to work in Zambrini's diner. When a doctor from her hospital comes to take her back, she kills him. 

Terribly made regional horror film with some of darkest filmed scenes ever (even in the daytime). Do it all veteran character actor Lawrence had to take out a second mortgage to finish the film. Aka DADDY'S LITTLE DARLING.

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Cannibal Camera Work

 

 (imdb)

CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST-1980-After an expedition disappears into The Green Inferno, a jungle in the Amazon rain forest, Prof. Monroe (Robert Kerman) wants to find them and hires a guide named Chaco. After they discover the remains of the missing expedition and Monroe eats some human intestines, the story abruptly cuts back to NY (?) where the professor has returned to civilization and plans to broadcast a film the doomed expedition shot. But before that Monroe interviews many of the victims' relatives. In the found footage, the group butchers a live turtle (worst scene). Their guide dies and they avoid a caiman attack. Then they discover a tribe killing animals and drinking blood. Other animals are killed. Then to get some sensational footage they burn down a hut with women and children in it. They become quite callous and superior and rape a local woman. Then the natives have had enough.

This is pretty much a sickening piece of exploitative bs, made basically to disgust rather than horrify with animal killing, rape, male & female frontal nudity and disembowelment but the found footage scenes are very well done. Better executed than most of the found footage dribble that became well known 20 odd years later. 

The musical score by Riz Ortolani is excellent. Director Ruggero Deodato had made LAST CANNIBAL WORLD in 1977. Top billed Robert Kerman acted on Broadway and TV in the US and was in other Euro productions including Umberto Lenzi's EATEN ALIVE! (1980). He also had a small role in Lenzi's CANNIBAL FEROX (1981). In the late '70's, he used the name “R. Bolla” and appeared in “over 100” porno films. He gave up acting in the mid-'80's but returned in the role of a tugboat captain in Sam Raimi's SPIDER-MAN (2002). He passed away in 2018.

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Wilde In The Future

 

(IMDB)

NO BLADE OF GRASS-1970-When a mysterious virus nearly wipes out England's agriculture and pollutes the water, a man, John Custance (Nigel Davenport) and his wife Ann (Jean Wallace) and two kids along with their friend Roger (John Hamill) head for a farm in the country. Along the way they pick up the violent Pirrie (Anthony May) and his flirty wife Clara (Wendy Richard). It doesn't take long for the group to descend into killing and stealing. The wife and daughter are raped by 3 creeps and their cars and goods are taken by a town. Meanwhile the government has fled and the world is descending into cannibalism. Things don't turn out like they planned and there's a wild fight with a motorcycle gang. They make it to the farm but problems arise with David (Patrick Holt) John's brother. 

Basically this treats a future calamity in pretty depressing chilling dog eat dog terms (more so then say PANIC IN THE YEAR ZERO which at times GRASS imitates). Where as Ray Milland's character worked against a breakdown in society, John readily accepts it's kill or be killed and might makes right (especially in the climax). There are a few lapses but overall this is an ahead of its time feature directed and co-written by actor Cornel Wilde (he and a lead actress Wallace were married in real life) especially with the world situation today.

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Jack Town

 JACK TOWN-1962-In Michigan lay about dullard thug Frankie (Richard Meade) lives with his parents, won't get a job and pulls petty crimes with his dimwit juvenile delinquent friend Vince (Russ Paquette). His mom thinks he's "a good boy" but doesn't like him listening to that "awful rock and roll". After he has sex with a fourteen year old waitress he's convicted of statutory rape and sent to prison even though Vince made a threatening phone call to the girl's mother and got the charge dropped. He's sent to the state's largest prison nicknamed "Jack Town". Suddenly the film turns into a into a documentary about the 1952 Jack Town prison uprising. When it gets back to Frankie he's being harassed by some inmates because he's a rapist. Meanwhile his buddy Vince is shot and killed by the police after he robs a grocery store. 

The warden takes pity on Frankie and gives him a job as a gardener at his house. There he meets Margaret (Patty McCormick), the warden's daughter who takes a liking to him. The warden (Douglas Rutherford) doesn't appreciate it and gives him another job as a driver. When Frankie and a guard accompany a wounded prisoner to get medical help, the prisoner tries to escape. They two have an awkward tussle and the prisoner is shot. Frankie steals a car and hightails it. Surprise! Frankie is now a kidnapper too. There's a four year old in the back seat! He reports it to the cops and goes to Margaret's place. She tries to get him to give himself up but he's an insincere creep who only cares about himself. Eventually she talks him into going back and after serving his time becomes a model citizen (well, that's what the narrator says as anyway….). 

This is typical misunderstood youth type crime drama and rather outdated by 1962 (despite the rape angle). It was written and directed by William Martin.

Rambo

NIGHTMARE HONEYMOON-1974-A newlywed couple David (Dack Rambo) and Jill (Rebecca Dianna Smith) participate in a weird hick ritual where they have to run away from their wedding while a group led by Jill's father (Pat Hingle) tries to catch them, The couple elude the party but while skinny dipping at a secluded motel they witness two thugs Sandy (Roy Jenson) and the psychotic Lee (John Beck) kill an embezzler (David Huddleson). They discover the couple, knock David out and rape Jill. The redneck asshole sheriff (Richard O'Brien) is no help. David plots revenge. He roughs up smug local boss Ruskin (Jay Robinson) and fights it out with Lee fight in the climax with Jill's life at stake. Dennis Patrick, Jim Boles and Bob Steele have small roles. 

This pretty dismal MGM production was filmed in and around New Orleans by director Eliot Silverstein (CAT BALLOU, A MAN CALLED HORSE) who's next film would be THE CAR in 1977.

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Revenge

GIRLS AGAINST BOYS-2012-A college student Lulu (Nicole LaLiberte) is dropped by her older married lover. After partying at a club she's brutally raped by some jerk she met. The police are no help so she and her friend (Danielle Panabaker) find the guy, torture him and then kill him. They kidnap Lulu's ex-lover and kill him too. Later they talk and ride around while “Hurdy Gurdy Man” by Donovan plays. She meets a dorky DJ guy but her friend kills him so she kills her friend with a samurai sword. Later she goes to a club and meets a girl who's been dumped by her boyfriend..... It was directed by a guy named Austin Chick....

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Cherry Bomb

CHERRY FALLS-2000-I've been told this is a "must see" cult film. Ok, I saw it. It's just more slasher nonsense but this time with a female killer preying on screwed up virgin teens in a small town. A stupid sheriff (Michael Biehn) tries to figure it all out and control his own teenage daughter (Brittany Murphy who died in 2009). It has to do with a girl who was raped by 4 football players years before (the sheriff was one of the players). I won't reveal the one other plot point about the killer who goes on a rampage killing teens who are having an orgy in an old house (since the killer only targets virgins it seems a good idea to have sex and therefore not be an intended victim). I guess it was suppose to be a grotesquely funny horror movie...I guess!

Jay Mohr and Candy Clarke also have roles.

The director Geoffrey Wright (from Australia) made ROMPER STOMPER before this.

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Lake Shit

"Sick minds make sick movies"....me




LAKE DEAD-2007-This begins with an old man getting shot in the head. Two sisters inherit a hotel from their grandfather. Sister number one is a foul mouthed drunken whore. Sister number two is nice and married to a construction worker. Their estranged father warns them not to go because granddad was a bad man. Slutty sis goes to the hotel herself and winds up being dunked in the lake and weighted down by a cinder block. Then nice sis and hubby take some friends up there (the more victims, the merrier). The place is run by Gloria (Pat McNeeley) a too cheerful lady who denies knowing anything about slutty sis so you know right away she's part of whatever nonsense is going to happen. The idiots decide to go camping. The stupidest part is when hubby goes for a swim underwater. He keeps his eyes closed and doesn't see slutty sis's body.  After one couple has sex two long haired dweebs attack them. The duo later go after the whole group but they escape. They ran afoul of the local redneck sheriff who's in on the plot which has to do with some hillbillys who want the married sister to help continue the hick inbred mentally deficient bloodline. 

Rape, torture and incest also figure in the screwed up plot. The "twist ending" in this HILLS HAVE EYES inspired garbage is given away early when hubby instead of killing one of the long haired geeks only knocks him out.

As of this writing director George Bessudo has made only one other movie. (keep your fingers crossed)

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NYC in the '60's

SATAN'S BED-1965-This black & white low budget craziness is actually two short unfinished films edited into one by the husband and wife team of Michael and Roberta Findley. 

The main (?) story concerns a drug dealer who's new Japanese bride (Yoko Ono) gets involved in his dirty dealings. She's kidnapped and raped by a sleazy hood (Val Avery). Meanwhile in the unrelated second story, 3 drug addicts rob, molest and kill several women (one is Roberta Finley). 

This was on the same DVD with SCARE THEIR PANTS OFF!

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Strange '60's Thing...

SCARE THEIR PANTS OFF!-1968-A woman is attacked on the street at night. She is saved by a guy who takes her home and then drugs her. She wakes up in a chair where someone in an iron mask and hood talks to her in a Darth Vader like voice. They have sex while the guy who rescued her watches from another room. When the dude takes off his mask his face looks like it was smeared with oatmeal. After the girl faints it's revealed his scarred face was a mask too. Later in a diner, the guy puts something in a woman's drink and she passes out. The guy pretends to be a doctor and somehow the woman wind ups where the previous one was. Only this time the other guy is wearing a fake wig and mustache and a toga talking about a sacrifice to their god. The other guy comes out and does a really weird dance before raping her. Later they drug another woman in a taxi and submit her to a Nazi like interrogation. 

Apparently the two idiots kidnap the women to play out stupid fantasies and then pack them in the back seat of a car send them off to The Statue of Liberty! They go off to plan their next kidnapping. The End. Most of this has the feel of a depraved unfunny comedy short. Filmed in NYC by writer/director John Maddox who also worked on the music documentary MONTEREY POP. Producer Ronald Sullivan went on to make hundreds of porno movies (sometimes under the name Henri Pachard).

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Fright

FRIGHT-1971-A college student named Amanda (Susan George) babysits a small child for his weirdly acting parents (Honor Blackman and George Cole). She gets spooked a few times by noises and a stranger hangs around the house but she thinks it's her stupid boyfriend (Dennis Waterman) who shows up and tries to frighten her with scary stories. Meanwhile we learn why the parents acted strangely. It turns out Mom is the process of divorcing Brian, her husband (and father of her young son) a paranoid nut who has recently escaped from his mental hospital. After she thinks her boyfriend has been bludgeoned to death, Amanda is “befriended” by “a neighbor” (Ian Bannen) who of course turns out to be Brian. Poor Amanda cracks up but soon realizes he's a psycho who imagines she's his wife, rapes her and terrorizes his child. Bannen really goes bonkers in the finale. 

It's a fairly good psychological drama but a little too long and a blockhead comic police officer character seems out of place. Director Peter Collinson (who died in 1980) had made THE ITALIAN JOB and later did remakes of TEN LITTLE INDIANS and THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE. 

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Seeing Is Believing

BLACK DEVIL DOLL FROM HELL-1984-Some movies really have to be seen to be believed. When I tell people about this thing they usually look at me strangely (well, stranger than they usually look at me). That's why I don't tell anyone about this..um..movie anymore. Fortunately when I first saw it , I was with my friend Tony so I have a witness. 

This shot on video insanity is about a religious but sexually repressed woman (Shirley L. Jones) who after some endless conversations about religion, dating and sex visits a doll shop and buys a strange puppet (it looks like the popular Jerry Mahoney but with dark skin and dreadlocks) that the store keeper says can grant the owner's “heart felt wish”. She buys it, takes it home and puts it on the toilet bowl where she proceeds to strip and take a shower. The puppet comes to life and watches her. He (it?)attacks her (his first works are “how do you like that,bitch?”) and ties her to a bed (some scenes of his feet and hands are obviously a little kid). She yells “Untie me, you wooden headed bastard!”. He abuses and rapes her but she decides she likes it! 

Seeing a puppet having sex with a grown woman is pretty strange. It's not a quick scene. It goes on for a while! 

The next day the puppet is gone. She searches the house (“Mr. Wonderful, where are you?”) but he's nowhere to be found. She throws her bible away and seduces a street hustler who grunts and groans but she's just bored. Later she goes to Elmo's bar and picks up a guy. They have sex but once again she is unfulfilled. She gets the puppet back and pleads for sex but the dummy is unresponsive until she tries to destroy it. A toy rabbit playing cymbals is featured in the bonkers ending. 

 While I've seen many shot on video horror films. BDDFH takes the cake. It comes right off a hand held camcorder with very little editing. The stop and start button being the most commonly used device. There's a way too loud Casio like musical soundtrack that at times obscures the dialogue. It's offensive, embarrassing and hilarious. Especially when you take time to think that adults made and acted in it! The writer/director Chester N. Turner remains a mystery man. No one seems to know anything about him except he made one other “feature” called TALES FROM THE QUADEAD ZONE (also with Jones). Rumors say he was killed in a car accident in the early '90's.

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Sleaze with Stars

 


POOR PRETTY EDDIE-1975-Leslie Uggams plays singer Liz Weatherly (apparently known for singing the Star Spangled Banner on TV). When her car breaks down in the back woods somewhere she runs into some demented hillbillies at restaurant/motel. It’s run by floozy digusto drunk Bertha (Shelly Winters) and her Elvis impersonating psycho lover Eddie (Michael Christian). Unfortunately, Bertha gets jealous when Eddie decides to hold Liz prisoner. Ted Cassidy (former TV 's Lurch) is the hired hand who they both order around. Slim Pickens plays a perverted redneck sheriff with an idiot assistant. It’s a pretty sleazy and bizarre film with the low light being the sicko scene of Eddie raping Liz inter-cut with a scenes of Cassidy and some other rednecks watching two dogs humping (while a country love song plays)! After some weird goings on Eddie wants to marry Liz. Dub Taylor plays the Justice of the Peace. Cassidy seems to die twice but manages to break up the wedding ceremony where Liz get her revenge (while "Amazing Grace" is heard).

Director Richard Robinson made other unusual movies like ADULTERY FOR FUN AND PROFIT and IS THERE SEX AFTER MARRIAGE?. Cinematographer David Worth may have been a co-director.

I really wonder about some of the casting in this movie. Pickens, Cassidy and Taylor would have done anything, but two years later Uggams played a major role the hot mini-series ROOTS. Was her singing career so non-existent that she had to do this? Winters was an Oscar winning actress. WTF??

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Galaxy of Corman

GALAXY OF TERROR-1981-Blatant ALIEN rip-off from Roger Corman's New World Pictures finds a group of space travelers send to investigate some strangeness on a distant planet. Grace Zabriskie (TWINPEAKS) is the weird troubled captain. Zalman King is Baelon, the mean, know it all in charge of the mission and top billed Edward Albert is Cabren, his more sensible rival.

Cabren's love interest is Alluma (HAPPY DAYS' Erin Moran), an empath. Other crew members include a pre-Freddy Kreuger Robert Englund (who gets to fight a double of himself), Bernard Behrens, Sid Haig ("I live and die by the crystals"...??), Ray Walston (who's more than just the ship's cook) and Taaffe O'Connell who is featured in the movie's most infamous scene as the crew member that's raped to death by a giant worm.

The team enters a strange pyramid on the planet and most everyone dies violently (Joanie's phony head is crushed, Sid loses an arm, etc.) but it all seems to have to do with an ancient alien "game" that preys on their subconscious fears. In the climax Cabren has to fight a giant slime worm in red lit cave and then most of his reanimated dead crew mates. 

Director Bruce D. Clark (from New Zealand) had made HAMMER with Fred Williamson in 1972. James Cameron was a second unit director.

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They're Not Hookers From Heaven

VIRGINS FROM HELL-1987-Outrageous out of control action film from Indonesia has scantily clad women on motorcycles battling the criminal activities of Mr. Tiger and his gang.

Two sisters who lead them want revenge because Tiger killed their parents. When the ladies launch one last siege against Tiger’s stronghold they are all captured and imprisoned. They are mostly abused by their male guards although the commander is a lesbian with a facial tattoo (“Get off me, you lesbo!”). Some are used as guinea pigs for a aphrodisiac drug Tiger is creating. In one nasty scene he whips two of the women who are handcuffed together. Despite the violence (one woman is put in a body bag with a live rat, another is roasted on a spit), gore (a guard is injected with a drug that causes him to melt) and crude subject matter it’s all quite cartoonish and funny, maybe due to the weird English dubbing and sound effects. In one gross scene a mystic sticks a snake into a gapping wound (for some reason…). Later, a martial artist/scientist (who had been force into making the drug) escapes and helps get revenge.

Director Ackyl Anwari made many Indonesia based films like this including ANGEL OF FURY with Cynthia Rothrock. (Thanks to my friend Tony for giving me this!)

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I Hope It's The Last Last House!

LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT-2009-This remake of the notorious ‘70’s exploitation is just an excuse to show graphic images of rape, murder and gore. I’m sure the director thought everyone would remember this for “the microwave finale” but it just shows that Hollywood has no new ideas and doesn’t know how expand the old ones. I loved the one end credit: “based on the movie written and directed by Wes Craven” (Craven, along with original producer Sean “Friday The 13^th” Cunningham, was one of the executive producers). No mention of Ingamar Bergman’s THE VIRGIN SPRING though.

The story is basically the same. Some scumbags rape and torture 2 girls. One is killed. One is left for dead. The scumbags take refugee at the home of the one of the girls. The parents find out and extract revenge. The best scene is death by garbage disposal. More horrifying than anything in the movie is that I’ve read director Dennis Iliadis (from Greece) is attached to a remake of THE BIRDS!

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Untold Till Now

THE UNTOLD STORY-1992-This is kind of like a Chinese IN COLD BLOOD but much more graphic, bloody and shocking. Because it’s supposedly based on a true story the film makers figured they could go all the way and show everything in gory detail.

Anthony Wong (from HARDBOILED and THE HEROIC TRIO) plays Wong, the new owner/butcher of The Eight Immortals Cafe. He’s a whacko guy who cheats at mah-jogg and is generally mean to everyone. He kills a guy who works for him and then chops him up and makes barbecued pork buns out of his flesh and guts. He later on rapes and kills his cashier and puts her through the grinder!

The Police (led by THE KILLER’s Danny Lee) suspect Wong might be responsible for the death of the previous owner and his family. The cops seem like a bunch of ignoramuses (they berate the one female officer for having small breasts) but they get it together and eventually arrest the suspected murderer. When he won’t confess they do everything in their power to make him talk. Interrogation, beatings, torture. They even put him in a prison cell with the brother of one of his victims. Eventually after much sadistic treatment he finally owes up and explains, in a blood spattered flashback, how he murdered the cafe owner, his wife and children and mother in law. This is one of the most bizarre and brutal scenes I’ve ever seen. He’s shown savagely killing all the kids. Then chopping up the bodies with a cleaver. Blood flies everywhere until there are piles of dripping limbs and heads! When he admits the ingredients of the meat pies the cops (who’d gouged themselves on free ones) all throw up. At the end he commits suicide.

THE UNTOLD STORY is a very strange film. Director Herman Yau seems to take sadistic pleasure in the pure and unadulterated scenes of shock and depravity. There seems no other reason for it’s viciousness. Few films have shown such graphic violence especially where children are concerned. His rape/killing (with chopsticks) of his cashier is hard to take.

The video box screams: “Based unfortunately, on real events” and “Horrifying because it’s true” but this is plain and simply a sick gore film trying to disguise itself as something more. Wong (who won 1993 equivalent of a Hong Kong Oscar for his performance) is very good though. He’s a pathetic, brutal psycho who’s treatment by the police almost has us feeling sorry for him (but not quite).

Unlike HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER this movie is hard to recommend. AKA: HUMAN MEAT PIES and BUN: THE UNTOLD STORY.

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