Shanty Tramp (1967)

Here's another sleazy one from the director who gave us the Olga movies (Olga's Girls, Olga's House Of Shame). The film follows Emily, a local Shanty Tramp with a bad overbite. Right from the opening credits we the audience knows its going to be a good one. We have a long freeze frame of our tramps back side in a tight 60's dress and When The Saints Come Marching In is obnoxiously blaring.

The Saints song will be played repeatedly throughout the film and is bound to be one of the lasting memories from the film. The song sort of suits the picture because Shanty Tramp has a anti religious message that clearly runs throughout the film. We have a traveling priest who brings his mobile church from town to town, giving midnight masses and looking for money and women. I found this interesting considering many of these exploiteers traveled with these movies in the same manor. David Friedman (The Defilers) always related it to a traveling circus and to me Shanty Tramp points the finger at the exploitation of god. Aside from the Saints song. Shanty Tramp has a decent theme song that pops up from time to time. We first hear the Shanty Tramp theme in a scene where a biker gang called the Rats pull into a local bar for some kicks "I'm so dry, I could drink Rootbeer". Of course the gang really shake the place up with bad dancing and a bit of violence. Emily does some ultra-goofy dancing with the leader of the Rats, all the while making really bad faces.

Emily takes off with our bad-boy-biker for a bit of loving but instead she gets a bit of the rough stuff in an attempted rape scene. Emily is saved by the only black man in town and she repays him by showing him a bit of tit. Emily played by Lee Holand has never done anything before or since and it probably has something to do with the embarrassing faces she makes throughout this film but she does serve a purpose since she is rather large in the chest area and being the pre-silicone 60's she is the perfect candidate for a Roughie/Sexploitation film.

Emily gives her hero a roll in the barn and when her father catches his daughter with the black man, Emily cries rape. "You are the black devil". Our black devil takes off running and the angry biker gang get their revenge by killing the black devil's mother. Emily gets a good whipping from her drunken ole father and she eventually stabs him to death with a kitchen knife. Emily runs off with the priest to do the work of god (or collect money).

Shanty Tramp is yet another example of a a exploitation flick where there really isn't any good guys. I suppose the African American or "The black devil" was the only character with any good values but he is a dead man anyway and really wasn't to bright to begin with. Everyone else in the movie is a piece of garbage and I suppose that is part of the beauty to these films. Check it out for some silly dancing (complete with funny faces), some bare breasts (complete with funny faces), violent whippings (complete with violent stabbings and funny faces), some racism, some blasphemy (complete with money hungry, pervy priests), exploding moonshine smugglers, and some really funny dialogue.

Candy Stripers Part 2 (1985)

This follow up to Bob Chins classic 1978 film comes around almost ten years later with a cast that consists of the one and only Ron Jeremy and the hideous Karen Summer who I remember best as the younger sister in Kirdy Stevens, Playing With Fire. I always call Karen Summer the down syndrome porn star and her character in this one is as dumb as can be. Maybe she really is retarded...?
Anyway Candy Stripers part 2 is okay for what it is. Its pretty polished for a XXX movie from this era. Its got a few funny characters and a few funny lines. "I feel like horny shit! How is it possible to feel horny and like shit at the same time?". We get threesomes, foursomes and bigger orgies. Ronny uses his rocket like a pro in this one but doesn't produce any good money shots. Actually the film doesn't really offer any good nut-busting, which I found really weird. We have a blowjob on a ski lift, rats fucking and then we have a typical scene where a man in a full body cast gets his fuck on. There is also a Three Stooges homage that runs throughout with three doctors named Dr. Howard, Dr. Howard and Dr. Fine which I found interesting cause some of my favorite Three Stooges shorts are the doctor ones.
The director of this thing (Larry Revene) did the cinematography on a personal favorite of mine called Doom Asylum. He also directed Candy Stripers 3 which I have not seen and he went on to do Deep Throat 2 which is claimed to be unwatchable by some.

Santo Vs. The Zombies (1962)

This 1962 black and white Luchadore film has the great El Santo going to war against a army of zombies. Its quite clear that these aren't the George A. Romero type zombies mainly because Night Of The Living Dead wouldn't come out for another ten years. So there is obviously no flesh eating and the film goes further into anti-Romero in a scene where a zombie is shot in the head by a cop, leaving a nice size hole in between the eyes and the ghoul doesn't even bother to blink.

Nope these zombies were created by a mad scientist who wears a executioner mask but the diabolical man of science and his army of the living dead are no match for our Santo, the silver masked luchadore. Santo throws a ass kicking on the undead, electrocutes our black hooded villain, and leaves the walking dead burning in flames.

Although I loved the premise and basic outline for this film I did find it to be a bit slow and boring... That is at least till the end. We have way to much long talky scenes and the action just doesn't quite make up for it.

Sure we have a decent amount of Mexican wrestling. We even have a bikini clad babe who appears out of nowhere. The we have a marvelous moment where a dead man is clearly breathing, even before he is reanimated but these moments just don't help pick up the pace until the climactic ending, where we have a burning zombie making some really silly faces. Then we have a speech about Santo and what a great hero he is.

Still from what I have seen I prefer the 70's Lucha Libre stuff like Champions Of Justice. Next on my list is Santo & Blue Demon Vs. Doctor Frankenstein (1974). With a title like that, ya just can't go wrong.

The Hole (2001)

This British thriller comes from the bowels of the same asshole that dropped that Hollywood turd on us in 2004 called Godsend with Robert De Niro. Unfortunately I tortured myself and went to see Godsend in the theaters when it came out. I still want my money back!

The Hole on the other hand has a pretty unique story about four rich, prep-school, teenagers who are locked inside a abandoned military bunker in the middle of nowhere. The movie is full of twists and turns and it is never really clear or obvious where it is going next. I personally have never been a big fan of thrillers but I suppose The Hole is okay for what it is. The story is told by two characters. One of which being the only survivor of being locked in The Hole and the other being the accused super-nerd who supposedly locked them in The Hole, leaving them to die. Both characters are telling two totally different stories and the viewer isn't sure which one is lying.

I found it all to be a bit on the annoying side and with the exception of a murder scene the best part for me was when Keira Knightley flashes her pink nipples for the world to see and for all you necrophiliacs out there she also appears naked in a autopsy scene.

The Hole also offers up some male nudity with swinging dicks and bare ass boys in the locker room for all you ladies. We also have gratuitous vomiting, some achy-breaky skull smashing over a can of coke followed by the quote of the movie "I killed my best friend for Coke". Then we have a drowning and another character is crushed to death by a heavy object (complete with a bit of blood).

This one is more for mainstream audiences and anybody who like thrillers. Although the plot was interesting and kept me guessing it really wasn't my bag of jerky.

Nazi Love Camp 27 (1977)

Here it is, the Nazisploitation flick I have been waiting for. Just when I thought the genre was starting to bore me I stumble upon a great like this. Don't get me wrong, its not Ilsa She Wolf Of The S.S. but then again there is only one Ilsa She Wolf Of The S.S.

The director of Nightmare Castle with Barbara Steele gives us this ultra sleazy version of Salon Kitty. Where the slick camera work of Kitty may appeal to the artsy-fartsy the sheer filthiness of Nazi Love Camp 27 should hold the attention of true trash-cinema aficionados.

As I just mentioned the plot is old and tired. A half Jewish, half Aryan girl is caught by the Gestapo and brought to a camp for women where she is raped and forced into prostitution to serve the horny men of the third Reich. She rebels and is sentenced to death but first she witnesses a fellow cellmate whipped into a bloody mess. She escapes death with the help of a very perverted and very powerful officer. He uses her for his sick sexual pleasure with scenes that consist of a German Sheppard & whips, a weird scene where our officer is in a dress and our heroine is in a soldiers uniform and he pretends to give oral sex, then we have some biting and some more whips and it becomes clear that the officer is falling in love with our helpless half breed. He gives her a false birth certificate and makes her the madam of a Nazi brothel where all kinds of perverse happenings go on, including a scene where a girl has the horns of a bull shoved up her vagina and yes ladies and gentlemen, we get to see it. In fact Nazi Love Camp 27 shows quite a bit of pornographic penetration. Even during one of the rape scenes. We also have some latex gloved, finger insertions in a vaginal examination scene. Pretty raunchy stuff! So even if the plot is old at least the down right trashiness of it all makes up for it. It could always be worse... We could always have another Nazi brothel on a train movie.

Despite the fact that Nazi Love Camp 27 is a total exploitation movie it actually has a more complex story line then the average movie in this genre. It even has a climactic ending with a great speech and revenge sequence that ends with a typical 70's nihilistic type suicide. When the credits roll in this one the viewer doesn't feel cheated. We get Nazi's, whippings, hardcore XXX stuff and some dead Nazi scum in the end.

Monsters & Maniacs (1988)

Scream Queen Brink Stevens (Slumber Party Massacre) is our host on this late 80's horror movie Compilation. Unlike most of the other (seemingly countless) vhs horror compilations of this time, Monsters & Maniacs is more of documentary. Its not a very good documentary but Brink Stevens goes through the history of horror cinema while clips from Universal monster movies play. She also goes into some back story and trivia facts on the films which makes this compilation more documentary then just plain eye candy.

Writer, director Ted Newsom has done dozens of these vhs docu/horror compilations and although Monsters & Maniacs is very discombobulated he attempts to follow a timeline. We have tons of Bela Lugosi footage lots of Frankenstein and Boris Karloff nostalgia. Don't forget King Kong and the countless adaptions and remakes. Then we creep into Hammer Studios and we get our share of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Of course Vincent Price has his screen time in here and George A. Romero's Night Of The Living Dead is described as the turning point in graphic horror. The brutality of Herschell Gordon Lewis Blood Feats appears and brings us into the Slasher genre but it intertwines with oldies like Hitchcock's Psycho and Francis Ford Copola's Dementia 13. The one thing that I found weird is that even huge box office hits were thrown into the mix. Movies like The Exorcist and Rosemary's Baby get screen time and I can't picture the rights being passed on due to financial issues. Either way Monsters & Maniacs is another time passer for movie buffs and monster maniacs. For a better and more gory time check out Terror On Tape (1983). Monsters & Maniacs is more for completest or anyone who wants to see em all.

The Sadist (1963)

The great Arch Hall Jr. stars as our villain in The Sadist. Those familiar with Ray Dennis Steckler's The Thrill Killers which came out one year later would probably find a surprisingly similar tone. In fact Arch Hall Jr. played the beach-bum wanna-be sex icon in Steckler's first film The Wild Guitar.

Unlike Arch Hall's earlier films he doesn't spend all of his screen time trying to look appealing to the opposite sex. Instead he plays a mean, gun wielding, dumb hillbilly with a lust for blood. He is a true Sadist and he gets his rocks off by watching helpless victims squirm.

The whole movie is basically a hostage situation with the lives of three Innocent people in the hands (at gun point) of our Sadist and his equally sociopathic girlfriend Judy. The young couple taunt their hostages and play sick games with them. Very reminiscent of the classic "Piss your pants" scene in Last House On The Left. Our juvenile baddies prove they are more then just talk when they shoot one of the hostages in the face, execution style, for no reason at all. We eventually find out that these two killers are on the run and have a body count to their names. They shoot and kill two police officers on motorcycles and empty a whole clip of bullets into another victim.

Surprisingly enough The Sadist has some smart dialogue and even some nice camera angles. It also offers up gratuitous soda pop chugging, a blue grass dance complete with skirt hiking, a roughie esque rape scene, gasoline to the eyes, pistol whippings, nasty knife play and death by rattle snakes. The Sadist is by far Arch Hall Jr's. best film and fans won't be disappointed. Check it out for a sadistic time filled with gun violence and denim clad villains.

The Sci-Fi Boys (2006)

This 2006 Sci-Fi documentary runs at about 80 minutes and during that time we have interviews with cult legend such as Peter Jackson (Bad Taste, Dead Alive), Roger Corman (A Bucket Of Blood and Death Race 2000), John Landis (American Werewolf In London), Rick Baker (The Howling) and many more.

Forrest J Ackerman, the writer and creator of Famous Monsters Magazine has a lot of screen time with many interviews and footage of his ridiculously huge home collection of props and memorabilia from science fiction films throughout history. A large portion of the documentary revolves around Ackerman and just about everybody in the movie was influenced by Ackerman and his contribution to the genre fan-boys. However most of the film was about the great Ray Harryhausen and his special effects work. I almost felt that the whole movie could have just been about Harryhausen with the amount of discussion time they gave him. There are also a bunch of short films created by young Sci-Fi nerds in the 50's some of which are pretty interesting to look at. One of which involves greaser werewolves. The documentary comes to a end with c.g.i. which I find pretty consistent to what computers have done to these sort of movies in the first place.

Sci-Fi Boys wasn't a bad watch for what it is. Especially if you only pay two bucks for the dvd as I did. Check it out for a closer look at silly animatronics and stop animation.

The Atom And Eve (1966)

Not quite a Atom Age scare flick but still gets the unintentional laughs out of a modern audience. This mid sixties short film is a ten minute advertisement for the leading atomic power plants in New England America and really plays like a documentary on nuclear power. We have a girl singing and dancing and striking a pose as she models the height in fashion. We see old time televisions on display as well as air conditions. Atom And Eve is kind of boring with very few laughs. I think even Mystery Science Theater 3000 would have trouble making fun of this one with the exception of our dancing girl.

Devils Nightmare (1971)

I don't know how this one managed to stay away from me as long as it did but I am glad it finally made its way into my collection. Devils Nightmare is exactly what I have been looking for. This Belgium, Italian production is the perfect concoction of Eurotrash sleaze and Gothic horror.

This one follows seven travelers (who represent the seven deadly sins) who end up at a castle cursed by a succubus who happens to be the incredibly hot Erika Blanc from Kill Baby Kill. Erika lours the seven tourists in one by one with her sex appeal and exploits their personal vices leaving them cold, dead and without a soul. Our beautiful succubus doesn't exactly do any full frontal nudity but bears a bit of nip here and there just to make sure the boys in the audience are not losing their attention and believe me guys... you wont! Devils Nightmare also offers up a decapitation scene, a impaled cat, some sexy lesbian action complete with bare breasts, a rich woman is suffocated with gold, a lesbian meets her demise with the help of some old time torture devices, death by python snake, a man is thrown from a window and impaled on a gate, a bus full of tourists goes over a cliff complete with explosion, a priest is taunted by a hot red head in sexy lingerie, Satan himself appears as a under nourished balding man with swank white gloves and a black cape (He is oddly reminiscent of the creepy guy from Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders but perhaps the real money shot in this sleazy trash-fest is right in the beginning. A new born infant in stabbed to death in its cradle by a kitchen knife wielding Nazi and yes we do get to see it!

Devils Nightmare has it all going on. The plot gets a bit tired by the end of the movie but every time you might start to lose interest some other crazy moments pops up. Devils Nightmare is a must see for fans of trash cinema. After all how often do we get to see babies murdered on screen with giant kitchen knives?

Lets Scare Jessica To Death (1971)

This one tells the tale of a recovering nut-case named Jessica who is leaving the rat-race of New York City and moving into a new house in the country with her husband and their best friend. When they arrive at their new house they meet a long haired red head named Emily who has been squatting in the house while it was abandoned. They befriend Emily and agree that she should stay with them.

Its obvious from the beginning of the film that Jessica is not cured and is still haunted by visions of nightmarish monsters, corpses and other weird happenings or are they real? Jessica starts fooling with the idea that Emily is a sort of living corpse and the local rumors of the curse upon her new home doesn't help matters. Her husband is cheating on her with the red head hippie and her pet is stabbed to death with a kitchen knife.

The truth is that this film is very slow paced and not much of anything happens till the end but the weird and depressing tone helps the film move along. I personally really couldn't wait to find out if Jessica is truly insane or if there is some weird supernatural happenings going on. Of course in the end Jessica turns out to be quite sane and Emily is Vampire who has cursed the town for decades. When Jessica seeks out help she learns that she is alone in a town that has been completely drained of blood. She is surrounded by blood suckers and the future looks pretty bleak. We get the stabbing of a small pet mole, a nasty throat ripping, men with more hair on their face then on their head, ugly bathing suit fu and climactic ending filled with vampires and cool camera angles. We also have a creepy scene in the lake that is profoundly reminicent of Carnival Of Souls.

Lets Scare Jessica To Death probably wouldn't appeal to the average vampire fan but people who like the offbeat weird ones like Martin are sure to find a level of enjoyment out of a movie that most would consider slow and boring.

Saw (2004)

Saw is the over produced, over budgeted and overly controversial franchise of the 2000's. We have had dumb franchises in the past, Friday The 13th and A Nightmare On Elm Street and I suppose every generation needs a mindless gore film to spawn way to many shitty sequels and that is Saw for the youngsters of today.

For me these Saw movies were never overly appealing. Sure I love sick, twisted, gory, torture films but Saw isn't really any of that. The first movie although witty with interesting plot twists reminded me to much of movies like Seven which I have never been a big fan of. The murders were so elaborate that it took away any bit of realism the movie could have had. Today these movies are known as "Torture Porn" and I don't know which loser coined the phrase but I despise it. In the 70's there were countless sleazy torture films and the level of depravity went way beyond any of these silly Saw movies. Films like Blood Sucking Freaks, Mark Of The Devil and Ilsa She Wolf Of The S.S. so disgustingly brutal with their scenes of torture that they couldn't be seen in most theaters and drive ins. Yet "Torture Porn" and movies like Hostel and Saw is something new? I don't think so... They are just a watered down less offensive example of something that was far more rebellious from our past.

Saw is also remembered for its brutality level in the gore department which is also equally as ridiculous. Almost every murder in the whole movie happens off screen and leaves the gruesomeness to the imagination, which I don't have a problem with per say. Movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Scarface also have the same false reputation but the difference is how realistic and disturbing those films were. Saw shows a bit of gore in the end when a suspected suicide victim crawls to his knees and peals away his face but everything else was left to the mind. We don't see limbs being sawed off and we don't even get to see the bad guys die.

The young director of this thing went on to do other shitty killer puppet movies one of which being Dead Silence and that thing was just awful. So if you like over hyped blockbusters with a bit of blood and very unrealistic murder sequences Saw is probably for you and if you want to dig further back into the past you could check out that other piece of crap Silence Of The Lambs. I'm going to grab my cane and pull Blood Sucking Freaks off the shelf for a truly disgusting time with trashy midgets and torture devices.

Forced Entry (1975)

Not to be confused with the 1973 Shaun Costello film with the same title this Rape/Revenge flick stars Tonya Roberts from Tourist Trap as the victim of sex maniac named Carl. Carl is a grease monkey at a shit hole gas station. He has long hair, a thick Brooklyn accent, is usually covered in oil and has some serious mommy issues. He also has some very strange ideas about love. He fantasises about the perfect woman but when he meets them he usually just rapes and murders them. "Whores... I hate whores!"

A friend of mine once said that Forced Entry (1975) plays like a made for television movie with a real nasty subject matter. I could almost agree with them in the sense that Forced Entry isn't overly graphic. It shows a bit of tit and the murder scenes are really pretty quick with the exception of one kinda nasty stabbing.

The thing that makes Forced Entry so great isn't the brutality of the film it is simply the monologue. Its one of those great 70's movies where we spend most of our time inside the killers head. Similar to movies like Taxi Driver and Maniac (1980). Like Travis Bickle and Frank Zito, Carl is very disturbed but at times you can't help but laugh through some of his psychotic monologue. In one of my favorite scenes we hear Carl's thoughts on breakfast. "Every morning I eat my Puffs with some milk and it Puffs a man up in all the right places and gets him ready for his day". Even during the rape scenes we hear Carl's insane philosophy about his victims. "I can't do it right with all that screaming and crying". It seems like Carl can never do it right and despite is daily Puffs intake his penis issues usually always results in murder.

Check out Forced Entry for another rape-revenge sickie from the sleazy 70's. Its a good time with some memorable quotes and the ending doesn't disappoint.

Mystery In Bermuda (1979)

Ever wonder what happened to all the planes and boats that disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle? Well now that I finally have an print of this film in English I have the answer. Thanks to El Santo and his two Luchadores, Blue Demon and Thousand Masks I now understand that there is a under water layer filled with men in silly shiny suits. Although the film leaves off with Santo and his friends lost in the secret layer the rest of the film has a (weak yet) very different plot which really doesn't focus on the Bermuda Triangle at all.

The Lucha Libre trio is hired by the government to protect a princess against some assassins with really bad aim. Every time the assassins try to take the princes out they end up shooting the wrong person. The gullible Luchadores are fooled by some pretty women who are working for the bad guy and this gets our masked hero's into fight after fight.

Santo does some smooching with his babe and while he remains true by keeping his mask on at all times, Mr. Thousand Masks does not. We get a kissy scene where he removes his mask for some romance. We however only have the privilege of seeing the back of his head. Mystery In Bermuda also offers up a machine gun shoot-em-up scene, some straight razor slashings, a knife to the chest, grenade-fu, a female martial artist, bikini babes and some kind of social message reminiscent of Plan 9 From Outer Space about how people are going to kill themselves.

Mystery In Bermuda is one of the last El Santo Lucha Libre films and it really seems that the film makers were trying to make this one the final chapter for the famous Luchadore being that the film ends with El Santo stranded in another dimension without his mask. How do we know that he is without his mask you ask... Because it washes up on shore. Well luckily this was not the last Santo movie but I have not seen any after this late entry. All I want to know is how he gets his mask back.

Redneck Zombies (1989)

Its rare but every once and a while you get a shot on video movie that is just fucking awesome. I love thins movie. Its got everything you can ask for. A level of camp that will keep any B-Movie fan happy, tons of splatter and gore, really bad acting, rednecks and of course zombies.

Redneck Zombies is yet another Troma movie where nuclear waste is the bad guy. When the army accidentally loses a bottle of toxic waste it gets into the hands of moonshine making hillbillies and when it gets into the alcohol we have a whole town of flesh eating zombies. Kinda sounds like Return Of The Living Dead huh?

Redneck Zombies definitely knows its audience and its filled with politically incorrect jokes from racist rednecks to gay bashing. We get some tongue in cheek sexism thrown in and the best part is none of it can be taken seriously.

Ever notice how these 80's shot on video movies are filled with the worlds ugliest people? Well Redneck Zombies is no exception. Its quite obvious that this thing was just made by a bunch of genre geeks and well geeks are never good looking.
Redneck Zombies offers up eyeball sucking, an autopsy on L.S.D., gratuitous drinking & pot smoking, head crushing, a flesh eating zombie child, gay hillbillies, a guy who rides around in a tobacco truck instead of an ice cream truck who wears a Friday The 13th Part 2 type sack over his rotting face, claw hammer to head, shotgun wound to head complete with head explosion, decapitation, bare breasts complete with whipped cream and cherry's, mutilated pigs, dismemberment, split torso's, gut munching and my personal favorite Texas Chainsaw Massacre homage in any movie.

Redneck Zombies is the perfect time passer for mindless genre fans and gore hounds. After all it was "Filmed in glorious entrail-vision".

The Strangers (2008)

When I first saw the trailers for this thing I avoided it at all costs and despite the occasional positive recommendation from a few reliable resorces I still avoided The Strangers like the plague. After all the masks looked fucking silly and it stars Liv Tyler who has never had any appeal to me unless if she planned on being naked and the other star is that loser from those shitty c.g.i. Underworld flicks. Basically The Strangers sounded like fucking torture.

Well lets just say curiosity didn't quite kill the cat, it just left him in a state of confusion. I have very mixed feelings about this movie. It starts off with a bang. The tension builds and builds and it plays like a old time hunting's & ghost flick like House On Haunted Hill (1959) or something. Noises are very effectively used to keep the viewer at the edge of their seat. The tension builds so high that you just know its going to turn out to be an amazing movie. The Strangers appears to be one of the only horror films that remembered the whole point is to scare the audience and then out of no where the movie takes a drastic turn for the worse. Strangers turns out to be no more then just another modern home invasion movie and nothing is explained. I suppose some out there might like the movie for this reason by I personally was annoyed and extremely let down. The movie went from very subtle and creepy scares to silly masked characters who taunt a young couple. There is not enough characters in the movie for a decent body count and when it was all finished The Strangers is nothing more then another forgettable disappointment. I don't think I will be watching Strangers 2 any time soon.

The Champions Of Justice (1971)

Not being overly familiar with Lucha Libre or Mexican wrestling movies and this being the very first I have ever bought in English, I was very pleased with Champions Of Justice. Its nonstop ridiculousness all the way through.

Blue Demon and his "mates" are in deep shit. A diabolical, mad scientist named Black Hand is out to kill our blue masked Luchadore and anybody else who gets in his way. The evil Dr. Black Hand has a army of wrestling, caped, midget assassins with a giant M on they're chests. I suppose the M stands for Midget!?!?  but these little guys could never stop The Blue Demon, after all "Were just a bunch of useless midgets." Well not for long... Black Hand has a new device that gives these midgets "the strength of ten athletes"  and they do throw a ass kicking on Blue Demon, Doktor Death, Thousand Masks and they kidnap Black Shadow and shoot him up with a drug that puts him against his fellow Luchadores.

Things get really bad for Blue Demon and company when their girls are kidnapped and shoved into crates by the evil doctor. The masked wrestlers band together and hop on their motorcycles, silly dune buggies and motor boats and track down their enemies. In one scene they even fight them in a plane and on parachutes. When the Luchadores finally find Black Hands secret hideout its all out battle with machine gun wielding midgets and a rival team of unmasked wrestlers, The Death Brothers. They even kill a giant black man with repetitive head smashing to a table. The midgets are thrown about and its a god damn laugh riot as they fly across rooms and smash into walls and exploding electronic devices. Blue Demon and his pals (of course) win the battle by smashing Black Hands army of midgets to bits. They save their girls and enjoy a nice Mrs. Mexico show where their hot girlfriends walk around in not so hot bathing suits.

These Mexican wrestling flicks always are fun but its a whole new experience when you are able to watch it in English. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go for a swim in my El Santo mask.

Rabid Grannies (1988)

Belgium film makers have the Troma Team market and distribute they're movie and although much more people have probably seen the final product with the help of Troma, they are given this embarrassing poster. One glance at this glossy, childish poster would tell the average respectable gore-hound to stay far away. It gives the impression that you are in for the worst, shot on video, ride of torture in your life. Well this is not the case. Rabid Grannies was in fact shot in film and looks much better then most of the low budget horror flicks that were coming out of the American sewer at the time. Sure its campy but isn't that the fun in it.

A family of rich spoiled brats are called for a diner party in celebration of their great aunties birthday. Its quite obvious from the beginning that this band of yuppie scum can not stand each other and are only attending for one reason... Money! We have the two old aunties or Grannies according to the title, a rich preppy prick, a fat slob, lesbians, a priest who sits a bit to close to the children, a shy mousy type woman, a balding moron with a case of the giggles and a sexy blond who bares a bit of flesh eventually. The diner party is interrupted when a package arrives from the families black sheep, a devil worshiper who has been out of touch with the family for many years. Once the grannies open their present from their long lost relative they are hit in the face with a sort of mist and they transform into deformed, cannibalistic demons. From here on Rabid Grannies becomes a blood spattered barrage of senseless violence and crazy special effects. The film never takes its self seriously and its sure to get a laugh out of just about everyone. We get crawling hands, split faces, crazy hit and run grannies behind the wheel, faces smashed into bits, destructive children, child decapitation, suicidal priests, gratuitous drool, hands are chopped off, a bit of tit and some really funny dialogue. My main gripe with this film is it is to dark. The lack of proper lighting really keeps some of the special effects and gore for the viewers eyes and that's about as much fun as kissing grandma on her birthday. Rabid Grannies is still a surprisingly fun watch filled with gore and sleaze.

M.A.S.H.D. (1976)

This mid 70's pornographic spoof on the television show M.A.S.H. was yet another disappointment from the Alpha Blue Archives, Annie Sprinkles triple feature. The film opens up with a pretty epic airplane crash for a Porno movie but quickly slows down with one boring sex scene after another. Sprinkles first romp is a hack-job blowjob scene under neath a table. She also does a disturbing masturbation scene where she is all oiled up in a dream sequence. The only problem is that the oil on her body seems to be picking up all of the dirt and filth from the table she is laying on and it almost gives off the impression that she is covered in hair. Gross!

We do get some typically funny 70's dialogue here and there but the tired sex scenes that mainly consist of oral sex bores and never really stimulates. Then we have some gratuitous drug use and a random football game thrown in for no reason. Not much to recommend on this one and the Annie Sprinkle triple feature turned out to be nothing more then a big let down with the exception of one weird Communist scene in My Erotic Fantasies. For some ultra filthy Sprinkles excitement check out Bizzare Styles, its a fistful of fun.

Frankenstein (1931)

The original Frankenstein is as good as they come. James Whale takes on Mary Shelley's classic tale of a mad scientist who builds a human from pieces of different corpses and brings it to life. Not only does Whale give the monster a face but he gave us a film that has gone down in history and will never be forgotten.

Audiences must have been frightened half to death in 1931. Sure they had the dark horror films from the Silent era with horrible disfigured faces and freaks of nature, generally from the great Lon Chaney but Frankenstein takes dark to a whole new level. Its filled with grave diggers, hunch backs (Dwight Frye), a decrepit zombie, child murder and blasphemous undertones.

The great Jack Pierce created to look for the monster which would of course become a classic iconic image that to this day is known instantly at first glance and is still copy written from Universal Studios. Boris Karloff on the other hand, even through tons of makeup and a completely unrecognizable face gives the monster character and emotion. I remember the first time I saw Frankenstein was in elementary school. Our teacher had our parents sign permission slips in order for us to be allowed to watch the film during class. I remember most of my fellow classmates being bored which I suppose is okay for a 8 year old kid growing up in the 80's who is being subjected to a old time 1930's film but I on the other hand loved it and I remember while other kids fell asleep how horrible I felt for the monster. At a young age Karloff's performance was able to reach me and I definitely had a connection with the monster. The scene where he kills the little girl is still a powerful cinematic moment today.

I was recently lucky enough to catch this thing in the theater as a double feature with its sequel Bride Of Frankenstein and while I have always felt that Bride is the more entertaining film with added elements of black humor, upscale special effects, excellent cinematography and at times a more blasphemous tone, The original Frankenstein is still the scarier of the two. Your never to old for a good monster movie and a good monster movie never gets old. So check out the king of the zombie flicks with the number one ghoul... Boris Karloff.