VHS Lives! DIARY OF AN EROTIC MURDERESS (1974)

With a title like that, you just know this film is crying out for a DVD release but so far no such luck. Given the pedigree of some of the talent involved though, it's probably only a matter of time before some enterprising DVD company adds it to their Euro-cult slate though.

Like yesterday's DR BLACK, MR HYDE (okay, it was actually two days ago - sorry), this tape is yet another NTSC copy from the USA (released, appropriately enough, by the wonderful people at Something Weird Video - a favourite company of mine), although the film is Italian/Spanish in origin.

The story concerns an old man (Richard Conte) who hires a beautiful young woman (Marisa Mell) to look after his son (Anthony Steffen). Just to make things more interesting though, the woman secretly seduces the son, the son happens to be mad, and the old guy happens to be very rich, something that the young woman is banking on.

It's got a decent cast but the stars are undoubtedly Mell and Steffen.

Steffen was the star of numerous cult Italian movies, particularly spaghetti westerns (yes, I'm a fan) but also, notably, THE NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE. I mention this film in particular because, with its blend of insanity, sleaze, a big house, a sinister woman, and a seriously mind-bending story, it's a very similar movie to this one.

Mell, a favourite of mine, has also starred in several cult European movies. Most notably she appeared in Mario Bava's classic comic caper DANGER: DIABOLIK!, undoubtedly one of the main inspirations for the AUSTIN POWERS movies. She has also graced such films as BEN AND CHARLIE (a rubbish spaghetti western which improved for the few minutes she was on screen) and several other cult classics which, rather annoyingly, I've just forgotten. Well, except for one other one, but I'll not mention that because it's going to feature in this series.

Sinister though Mell's character may be, you can almost forgive some of her actions given that she is systematically mistreated at least once by every man in the film. It almost makes it acceptable that her sole mission seems to be to get rich off the suffering of men.

I already mentioned the EVELYN connection, and it's fair to say there's a similar kind of vibe to YOUR VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM AND ONLY I HAVE THE KEY, another Euro-cult classic that boasts a suitably crazy title and totally insane storyline. The story this time round involves sex, murder, the corpses of the Templar Knights (seriously) and yes, even the titular diary, all of which brew away in a delightful cauldron of Eurosleaze, served with a side order of lounge-tastic "oooh aaaah" music and garnished with a fantastically nutty ending. Marvellous.

Oh yeah, and one more thing I just remembered. BEAST WITH A GUN. That's another cult Italian movie that Marisa Mell appeared in. Just in case you were wondering.

More VHS goodness tomorrow!

VHS Lives! DR BLACK, MR HYDE (1976)

A MONSTER HE COULD NOT CONTROL

HAD TAKEN OVER HIS VERY SOUL!

A SCREAMIN' DEMON RAGES INSIDE,

TURNING HIM INTO MR HYDE!

SUPER-STRONG! SUPERNATURAL! SUPERBAD!

INDESTRUCTIBLE! NOTHING CAN STOP HIM!

NOT BOMBS, BULLETS OR BULLDOZERS!

God, I love blaxploitation trailer voiceovers. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

It's hard to believe that in this technological age where films can be bought on DVD, HD-DVD, downloaded from the web or wired directly into your brain (okay, I made that last one up), there are still some folks out there who buy VHS tapes. I'm not talking about people who haven't joined this modern age, nor about people who refuse to - I'm talking about people like me who still find great delight in dredging up some long-forgotten classic for a quid in a jumble sale or who spend more money than they would normally spend on a new DVD buying an old cassette of something that hasn't seen the light of day since its first release.

For you see, and it'll be no surprise given some of the obscurities I've discussed here, there are still some films that have never seen the light of day on DVD and probably never will. This could be because they're terrible and there's no demand for them, it could be because there are complicated rights issues, it could be because nobody's that bothered... there are a number of reasons, and it's because of things like that that people like me occasionally still buy the odd tape. Sure, it would be nice to have some digitally remastered DVD or have the entire film in pill form (okay, I made that one up too) but there's something satisfying about coming across some VHS obscurity that would have otherwise slipped you by.

And that's the reason for today's post. Just as I've got another semi-regular series devoted to "gobsmacking cinema" and have done the occasional marathon of similarly-themed movies, I'm now instigating a new series devoted to my beloved collection of old (or should that be odd) VHS tapes.

First up is a wacky blaxploitation film from, of course, the 1970s. Just to really emphasise the obscurity, this one is not only a rather old VHS tape, it's an NTSC release from the US. Was it worth tracking down? Absolutely.

The title reels you in straight away. DR BLACK, MR HYDE is, as you'd expect, a black remake of the classic Jekyll/Hyde story. Or at least it sort of is. Actually, it's more like that's the starting point and then it veers off into other storylines altogether.

DON'T GIVE HIM NO SASS OR HE'LL KICK YO' ASS!

JUMP BACK, JACK, OR YOUR SKULL IS CRACKED!

I've long been a fan of 70s blaxploitation films, but two of my favourite aspects are the horror films and the black remakes of other films, so naturally the black remakes of classic horror tales come pretty high up my list. There are loads of them - BLACULA, BLACKENSTEIN, etc. - but now that I think about it, there are actually so many that I could write another series of blog entries just about them. So, at some future date, I will. Now it's back to DR BLACK, MR HYDE.

A great title has always been a key to success for exploitation films, regardless of how inaccurate they might be, and this one is no different. On the one hand, the doctor in the film (played by Bernie Casey) isn't actually called Black for a start. But that's not important - what I do love about the title is the fact that on some releases it was retitled DR BLACK, MR WHITE. How great is that? It really emphasises the fact that there's nothing more evil that a black man can turn into than a white man. That might sound a little daft today, but in the world of blaxploitation, it's fair game since white guys are nearly always the bad guys.

It's also appropriate not just in name but in the fact that he does turn into an evil white man. Not a proper played-by-a-white-guy white man though - nope, it's just Bernie Casey in white powder make-up, sort of like the old black and white minstrels in reverse. The funny thing is that the film actually has a make-up credit for Stan Winston, the man who would later find fame as one of the kings of make-up and special effects, crafting the iconic creations that featured in such blockbusters as JURASSIC PARK.

THERE'S A HEEL BEHIND THE WHEELWHEN HYDE TAKES HIS RIDE!

NO MAN CAN SURVIVE WHEN HE SHIFTS INTO DRIVE!

IT AIN'T NO JIVE TRYIN' TO STAY ALIVE!

The thing about the whited-up Bernie Casey though is that it makes him rather reminiscent of the villains in THE OMEGA MAN, one of whom was a black man made up with white make-up, and the comparison isn't helped by having the love interest played by THE OMEGA MAN's Rosalind Cash.

What of the story, I hear you ask?

Well, aside from the obvious bit about a doctor who takes a serum that turns him into a blood-crazed reverse-minstrel, there's a bunch of other stuff about his mother and his desire to murder prostitutes. What's a shame about this is that they could have split the story into two films and easily come up with another prostitute-murdering horror bonanza and called it BLACK THE RIPPER. See what I did there?

(So pleased with myself was I for coming up with that that I went off to do some research - turns out that there was a movie called BLACK THE RIPPER but, aside from one advert in a magazine, there isn't actually any evidence it ever existed.)

On top of the unminstrelising of Casey and the slashing of prostitutes, the story adds one more familiar element when, during the finale, Casey's monster climbs up that wirey tower thing in Watts (sorry, I'm too ignorant to know what it's called) and is eventually shot down. Not sure why he thought it was a good idea to try that, but it means that the film eventually moves from Jekyll and Hyde into Jack the Ripper before morphing into a black take on KING KONG at the finale. It's all very strange.

Everything else you'd expect from a blaxploitation movie is there - the 70s fashion, the 70s dialogue, the bad acting (except perhaps for Casey, whose performance treads a very thin line between touching and pantomime). In other words, it's a whole lot of fun and deserves a decent DVD release immediately. I, and the half-dozen other people who are interested, would be very grateful.

SHOT FULL OF LEAD, AND HE STILL AIN'T DEAD!

Join me tomorrow (yes, that's right, I'm on a roll) when I'll be uncovering another tape from the VHS pile!

Sci-Fi London; and visiting the BFI

And so, over a month later, I finally manage to finish off the rest of my London summary. What else did I do besides attend the Nightmare USA event?

Well for one thing, the Sci-Fi London film festival also happened to be on that weekend, so I guess I might be in danger of losing my geek status if I didn't at least attend something at this festival.

So on Sunday afternoon I took in a double bill of THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT and QUATERMASS 2, two classic British sci-fi movies based on the legendary Nigel Kneale BBC shows.

On the one hand, they don't really offer anything different to the countless American B-movies of the 40s and 50s, but I just get a kick out of seeing the Brits do it just as well - you know, back in the day when we could make movies that just about competed with the Americans at their own game.

Both films have dated as much as you'd expect them to, but at the same time there's an undeniable charm about them. Even if people are being killed by aliens, it all seems so quaint and innocent you can't help but love them. It's the kind of attraction that only old black and white sci-fi movies seem to possess.

That night I attended a screening of 28 WEEKS LATER, the US-made sequel to the hit British sci-fi horror 28 DAYS LATER. The screening was a few days in advance of its premiere, so maybe my writing about it here would have been quite interesting were it not for the fact that I've taken so long to get round to it that the film has been and gone from cinemas in that time.

Still, I should say at least that despite some outlandish contrivances to rival Spielberg's WAR OF THE WORLDS rehash, it was a lot of fun. The film may not have been shot on video this time, as Danny Boyle's original was, but it does its best to recapture the mood with the same theme music and a hyperactive visual approach that isn't a million miles away from the energetic action of the original.

It should also be said that the scenes of deserted or overrun London were very well realised (albeit not matched by a knowledge of London geography, causing my London-based co-viewers to laugh out loud at some of it). That said, the most bizarre thing about watching this film was that I was watching it in London. Many of the deserted streets I was watching on the screen I'd actually walked through on my way to the cinema. Weird feeling.

That was all I managed at Sci-Fi London, but I still managed to squeeze in more films courtesy of the British Film Institute.

ROVING MARS 2D was a gripping look at man's attempts to study the red planet; ROAR: LIONS OF THE KALAHARI was a 3-D movie that observes the life and tribulations of a pack of lions living in the middle of an African desert plain; both were seen and enjoyed by me on a trip to the BFI's IMAX cinema.

Also at the BFI, I checked out the new Mediatheque facility, a development that must surely mark a major step forward in the quest to make the archive available to all.

The Mediatheque, for those who don't know, is a new facility at the new-look BFI that contains several monitors with access to an ever-increasing sample of material from the BFI's archive, with new material (often in themed packages) being added every month. And it's free.

The system is not without problems - evidently it's still being broken in and is experiencing some technical difficulties - but it's a treasure trove for experts and casual viewers alike. I watched THE FUGITIVE FUTURIST, a short silent film from the early days of cinema that used trick photography to show what London might look like in the future; I also watched an old BBC documentary about the slave trade.

Britain has such a wealth of quality TV in its archive - from the days before 99% of TV became unwatchable tosh aimed at idiots - and this is a fantastic way to introduce new viewers to it; to remind them what TV is capable of and that there is more to this medium than people sitting in a room insulting each other and being humiliated while viewers phone in to vote on stuff. In fact, aside from grabbing new viewers, it's also a great way to catch that programme you remember that you really want to see again but hasn't ever been repeated or released on video or DVD. For example, you can dip into the archives of the BBC's critically acclaimed PLAY FOR TODAY slot; or check out Paul Greengrass's stunning BLOODY SUNDAY, a film that is now out of print on UK DVD. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

In addition to the IMAX and the Mediatheque (not to mention a little trip to the BFI shop) I did manage to squeeze in one screening at the BFI's National Film Theatre.

That screening was DOCTOR ZHIVAGO. I confess I've never seen this three-hour epic, but if you're going to see it for the first time, it should really be in the cinema. It's a love story on an epic scale, with every aspect of production carved in perfect detail. The cast are all stellar, but particularly Omar Sharif and Julie Christie. Then again, if the film had been utter garbage, I'd still have been happy to watch Julie Christie for three hours. But I do think she's a great actress all the same.

So now I guess I need to go back to writing about regular cinema and home viewing, as that's all my recent festival shenanigans over and done with until August, when the annual fun and frolics of the Edinburgh festivals kick off.

Who knows, maybe I'll even manage to write more than one blog entry one week as well.

The Freakpit salutes Bruno Mattei

If you're trapped in a post-nuke future overrun by rats, these are the guys to save you

I didn't quite get round to posting about this when it happened (but then, it's me, so when do I ever?) but Italian movie director Bruno Mattei died a couple of weeks ago.

If asked to name a legendary film director, I'd bet not too many people would pick Mattei. It's not like his name featured on any lists next to Huston, Ford, Leone, Spielberg, Wilder, etc. Not surprising really, given most of his output.

You see, Mattei was a hack. But as hacks go, he was possibly the greatest hack of all. His films were pure, unadulterated trash and yet they trash of the highest calibre.

Mattei often worked under a pseudonym - Vincent Dawn is probably his most well known, but one look at the IMDb reveals a significant list of them - and I'm not entirely sure whether it was to try and fool English speaking audiences (in the same way that many Italian films of the 60s and 70s featured cast and crew with American-sounding aliases) or if it was just to try and throw people off the sent that might have had it in for him.

For Bruno Mattei was more than just an ordinary hack. He was an entirely shameless one. His films were not just knock-offs of whatever was popular, they even stooped as far as using stock library footage or even stealing wholesale from existing films. One more recent example was his film CRUEL JAWS, which I wrote about last year after seeing it at the Horrorthon festival in Dublin. As its title suggests, it's one of those seemingly countless JAWS rip-offs, made long after you'd have thought the genre was dead. Not only was it a giant-shark-on-the-loose movie however, it actually recycled footage from the other movies and even stole some music from STAR WARS. It's difficult to make it any more blatant.

His magnum opus as far as stock footage goes must surely be HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD, which was released to many territories as the wonderfully-titled ZOMBIE CREEPING FLESH. This good old fashioned video nasty was a zany zombie film that took place primarily in a jungle, thus allowing Mattei to squeeze in huge amounts of nature footage and film of jungle tribes. Of course, he made sure that he integrated it in such a way that it was being observed by a topless woman jogging along the road, but that's Mattei for you.

ZOMBI 3, another of Mattei's films, was billed as a sequel to Lucio Fulci's ZOMBI, aka ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS. It was actually partially the work of Fulci (who gets the credit on the film) but Mattei ended up playing a significant part. Once again, the film offers all manner of crazy undead-related antics that just make you stare in disbelief at the screen.

He did turn his hand to plenty of other exploitation genres in his career. THE OTHER HELL was his madcap chicken-murdering entry into the nunsploitation genre - nuns behaving badly, if you will - and he couldn't very well leave the early 80s Italian post-apocalyptic genre alone either. Thus we got RATS: NIGHT OF TERROR, in which an Earth ravaged by nuclear war is overrun by rats. This film is available in both the US and the UK on DVD and I urge all trash movie fans to check it out. Not just because I love the genre or because it's Mattei at his insane best, but primarily because the ending is one of the most gobsmacking moments of ludicrous spectacle ever committed to celluloid. It's certainly one of my faves.

Even in the latter years of his life, Mattei couldn't avoid churning out more straight-to-DVD cheapo flicks from genres long thought to be dead. Cannibals, zombies, women-in-prison... it reads like a list of popular Italian exploitation genres of the 70s but no, it's a summary of Mattei's last few movies.

I'm going to guess that you won't be seeing a special Bruno Mattei tribute montage at next year's Oscars - particularly since it would be made up of several pieces of footage that he probably stole from others - but within the realms of cult cinema his status as legend is secure. His films were trash and he was a indeed a shameless hack. But movies will be slightly saner and a lot less fun in his absence.

Nightmare USA

Better late than never. Well, unless today's entry turns out to be rubbish, in which case it would probably have been better never than late. Whatever.

You'll recall that I said I was off to the Nightmare USA Film Festival in London a few weeks back. I think you'll recall it anyway. I don't know, it's so long ago that I can't remember if I told you or not and I'm too lazy to go back and check. Thankfully I doubt you can be bothered either, so let's both pretend I told you.

The story behind this festival...

You may or may not be familiar with the wonderful publishers FAB Press. If you've wandered into this blog by following a link from one of my posts in an obscure movie forum then you probably have. If you're just here because you're one of my friends reading this in order to make it look like people actually care, then you probably haven't. They specialise in terrific books on cult and horror cinema, very often huge and definitive tomes on a particular genre or director.

One of their recent triumphs is the fantastic book NIGHTMARE USA: THE EXCEPTIONAL STORY OF THE EXPLOITATION INDEPENDENTS, a gigantic hardback covering the key films and directors of the obscure low-budget exploitation films that flooded the grindhouse cinemas of the 70s and early 80s. It is of course perfectly timed to coincide with the release of Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's new filmic experiment GRINDHOUSE - or at least it would be if the film hadn't flopped so hard in the USA that it's getting split up and released over here separately, who knows when.

To promote the book, FAB Press hosted a day-long marathon of rarely seen exploitation films (indeed many, if not all, of them had never seen a UK cinema release, effectively making these their UK cinema premieres so many years later). The event was hosted by the author of the book, Stephen Thrower, who made a wonderful host, not to mention writing an amazing book. He's also the guy that wrote FAB's book on Lucio Fulci - see my disclaimer about how you found this blog to determine if you should know who Fulci is or not. He's one of my favourite directors, so let's leave it at that.

The afternoon kicked off with DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE - a lovely title for a nasty movie, despite me ripping the pish out of it in one of my earliest blog entries. The story concerns a troubled young man (Dan Grimaldi) who, following a hellish childhood at the hands of an abusive mother, develops a fascination with burning things. Especially if those things happen to be people, preferably young women that he's lured back to his house. A house in which he's installed a lovely metallic room for burning people in.

If the story sounds sick and twisted, it's because it is. That's what makes these old nasties of the exploitation world so lovable. That, and the OTT acting, which Grimaldi certainly doesn't skimp on either. They just don't make them like this anymore. Mainly because they're not allowed to.

Director Joseph Ellison and producer/writer Ellen Ellison were both on hand afterwards for a brief Q&A in which they regaled us with entertaining stories about the making of the film, including how they achieved the eye-opening special effect that dominates the film (namely a gobsmacking set-piece in which a naked woman is hung up and burned alive...). If you're of a certain disposition I guess I've really just put you off this film.

PIGS was next on the agenda, although this particular print was under its alternate title of BLOOD PEN. Call it whatever you want; I call it 100% mental. It's a very weird movie, in which the plot (involving a runaway and a crazy pig farmer among other things) is very definitely second to the pervading atmosphere of both dread and lunacy. Man-eating pigs, weird dreams and again some deliriously OTT acting (particularly from Marc Lawrence, who plays the main villain as well as directing the movie) make this an experience that once seen will never be forgotten. Think MOTEL HELL, but even madder. And with pigs.

BLOODY BROTHERS is an interesting experiment. When the two nasties that he helmed, AXE and KIDNAPPED COED made a reasonable sum of money on the grindhouse and drive-in circuit, director Frederick Friedel did not make a penny. Now, decades later, he has come up with a novel way of attempting to reclaim the films, not to mention a little cash. Playing on the fact that Jack Canon plays the lead in both films, Friedel has created a new story involving two twins raised separately but who go on separate killing sprees on the same day, a story achieved by editing together some footage from both films. Having never seen either of the originals, I can't say how they compare to this new composition but it's a noble experiment that pretty much works. I did find however that the film did drag in places, which makes me wonder just how dull the two original films must have been if this is an edited-together "greatest hits" compilation from both of them.

BLOODY BROTHERS was followed by SQUISH, a brand new Friedel short movie shot on video with practically no budget. It was gory and amusing, and was on sale at the event, as was BLOODY BROTHERS, in limited edition official FAB Press DVDs limited to 50 copies each. I didn't buy either as I wasn't crazy about the films, but I suspect opportunists will be putting them on eBay as we speak.

The penultimate film of the day was VICTIMS, playing here on a print bearing the alternate (and exceptionally tasteless) title PAULIE: DAY OF THE RAPIST. I probably don't need to tell you anything more about it.

But I will. It's another tale of a man who suffered abuse as a child, once more resulting in the by now customary mental issues later in life. While Dan Grimaldi's response in DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE was to go about burning women, writer/director Daniel DiSomma (acting under the pseudonym Tony Vorno) portrays a loony who decides the way to get even is through sexual abuse. It's the kind of depraved string of events that only happened in video nasties and drive-in trash and would probably not be recommended viewing for anyone if were not for a reasonably competent structure (playing around with flashbacks) and the performance of DiSomma. On a day dominated by barmy performances, his was the barmiest by far. Imagine a psychopathic take on William Shatner with mental issues with women, and you're halfway towards understanding why this film is actually a whole lot of (tasteless) fun instead of the unwatchable trash that it really should be.

Murder. Psychic powers. Lovely ladies. Mystic arts. Crazy dialogue, bad acting and odd facial expressions. Cheap special effects. A story that has no discernable structure and keeps having little breaks while loony non-sequiturs interject.

All these things and more are the ingredients of the final night's film, BOARDINGHOUSE, and yet even with these in mind you still have no idea of how bad (and yet simultaneously magical) this film is unless you see it for yourself. Saving this one for the end was a wise decision - most of the audience had enjoyed a few beers, and everyone was roaring with laughter throughout. If it was possible for a film to be clinically insane, this movie would be first through the doors of the nearest asylum. It might be a shot-on-video cheapie (no budget, or just ahead of its time?) but it more than makes up for its lack of, well, everything by the inexplicable lunacy that permeates the film from start to finish. Nothing I say can do this film justice, so let's just hope for a DVD release eventually. If it happens, get all your friends round one night and prepare for the maddest evening of your life.

And so ends a wonderful day. Stephen and all the gang at FAB Press deserve a lot of plaudits for both this event and the book itself. I also took the opportunity to pick up FAB Press's book A VIOLENT PROFESSIONAL: THE FILMS OF LUCIANO ROSSI. And if you're wondering who he is... well, the usual comments about how you found this blog apply.

That wasn't the only viewing I did while in London mind you; I made a weekend of it. But that's a story for another day...

Men with swords talking nonsense

Okay, slightly later than planned (what's new?) but you'll have to forgive my even-more-sporadic-than-usual blogging while I sort out some computer issues.

Let's see, where was I?

Oh yeah, before I go any further, I'm obviously not going to get round to writing an entire blog entry about it at this rate, so let me just say that the awful film I saw recently which I promised to tell you about was HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS.

It's a Spanish film doing the rounds at festivals at the moment and, bizarrely, picking up some critical acclaim. I can't even begin to fathom why.

Loosely based on the tale of Don Quixote, the film opens with Quixote and Sancho Panza sitting about in a field. It goes on like this for some time. Then they walk somewhere. Then they sit about for a while again. Then one of them might say something. And so it goes for the entire bloody film.

What we're left with is two hours of two uninteresting blokes wandering about some fields doing uninteresting things (by which I mean nothing at all), and occasionally saying something uninteresting. I know I never walk out the cinema early, but this one had me seriously considering calling an end to that rule. I felt insulted after sitting through this drivel, and to make it worse, it's not even like it looks nice. It's like some guy just decided to shoot his mates with a camcorder while they wandered about a field.

The director is kidding himself if he thinks his (glaringly unprofessional) cast or (murky and ineffective) cheapo visuals are actually interesting enough to carry this off and make it worthwhile sitting through. Avoid this film like the plague - it may have picked up some praise and drawn comparisons to directors such as Pasolini (who I'm not a huge fan of to begin with) but from where I was sitting the emperor appeared to be entirely naked.

Immediately after watching this film, I popped up the road to see 300. Again, this was another film that involved blokes with swords talking about honour. However, this one was actually worth watching.

Despite it being the kind of big-budget no-brain stuff I usually rail against, I found that 300 had enough spectacle, heart and such a sense of fun that the time flew by, the exact opposite of the pretentious guff I'd just sat through previously. It's like a historical epic in the style of SIN CITY, and if you see one film about blokes with swords waffling about honour, this should be the one. Women can admire the pumped up soldiers, blokes can admire, well, pretty much everything else in the film.

Blimey, I've just realised that I have sat and told you all about it after all. That'll do for today then. Next time I might even manage to get round to writing up that trip to London recently. If I can remember anything about it by the time I get round to writing it.