The Adult Version Of Jekyll And Hyde (1972)

All the tasteless motivation was here to make a great sexploitation film but somewhere along the line this one falls short.

Dr. Jekyll steps into a junk shop with his bride to be. He notices a book on a shelf and quickly rushes his girl out of the store like a true weirdo. Latter that night he stops back at the junk shop and kills the owner and runs off with the book. With a private dick hot on his trail Dr. Jekyll reads the book and puts together a concoction that will transform him into a sexy big breasted blond. Naturally the first thing to do is masturbate and secondly go on a murdering and rape filled rampage. In one of the best scenes the female version of Dr. Jekyll or Hyde if you will... hooks up with a violent sailor. Does this make him gay? Anyway I guess the sex wasn't all that good or maybe the Dr. knew he couldn't live down the fact that he fucked a man because Mrs. Hyde chops off the mans willy with a pocket knife.

Speaking of male nudity The Adult Version Of Jekyll And Hyde comes complete with what might be the worlds smallest penis in 70's cinema. Yep our main character bares it all and when I say all well, lets just except it for what it is. To make up for this pornstar Rene Bond does a lot of fucking and I suppose that makes the film a bit easier to sit through. She treats us to shower scenes, lesbian scenes and basically any other excuse she can find to take off her clothes.

This one comes complete with strangulation, violent roughie style whipping scenes, a fire poker to the vagina, achy breaky skulls are smashed in with blunt objects, suicide window-leaping in true Reefer Madness fashion, castration and plenty of male and female naked bodies.

Only for the true roughie/sexploitation audience. Very slow but trashy enough to keep the attention of demento's!

Asylum Of Satan (1972)

I remember the first time seeing this loony-bin, devil worshipping cult flick. I was with a bunch of drunken friends and everybody in the room hated it. That is everyone except for me of course. I have always loved asylum movies even though this one barely fits into that category. Now I realize why I liked this one so much. The reason being that it was directed by the great William Girdler.

Girdler has a way of making some very unpolished and many times inadequate films but for some reason his work always appeals to me. Even movies like Day Of The Animals which most would consider unwatchable, seems to drag me in and hold my attention.

I like everything I have seen from the director. Sheba Baby, The awesome blaxploitaion exorcist rip Abby and of course 3 On A Meathook. William Girdler is an important name in the exploitation world as far as I am concerned and while he may not have a body of work as big as Herschell Gordon Lewis : The Godfather Of Gore or David F. Friedmen his brand of art still needs to be seen. I always relate William Girdler to Jeff Lieberman (Squirm, Just Before Dawn, Blue Sunshine) as far as the feel that their films give off and the fact that they just haven't done as many movies as they should have.

Asylum Of Satan is in fact William Girdler's first film and I think it has much more replay value then some of his later stuff like Day Of The Animals.

A woman wakes up in an Asylum. The last thing she remembers was falling asleep at general hospital and now here she is. The asylum is filled with weirdo's, cripples, mutes and a blind woman who some might remember from 3 On A Meathook. The doctor is a weird controlling kook and his right hand man... I mean woman... well his nurse seems to be a man in drag. Nobody will let our main character know why she is being held in the asylum but she starts to put things together when she sees "patients" in white cloaks praying to Satan, hence the brilliant exploitation title Asylum Of Satan.

And speaking of Satan, This movie is one of the few in the genre where Satan is actually present. That's right guys, we actually have the privilege of seeing the devil first hand in Asylum Of Satan.

The film is of course filled with plot holes and it all could have been resolved easily if there was a character with half a brain in their head but lucky for us its not a very long movie. It clocks in at 80 minutes which really is the perfect runtime for a movie like this. If they cut out the filler which comes in the form of driving scenes I suppose the film would have fell somewhere around 70 minutes which is borderline to short. During the 80 min. of Satan-action we are treated to a grizzly severed head, death by poisonous gas, death by spiders which will remind you more of This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse rather then Lucio Fulci's gory-as-hell The Beyond. We also have a weird monster roaming about the asylum. We see a man fall to his death and my personal favorite scene shows a woman in a pool who meets her fate by killer snakes. The snakes bite into the woman's face (complete with gore) and it really makes for a creepy scene. All these murders are of course sacrificial rituals in the name of Satan and when the devil appears lets just say he is not very happy.

This one is for the real exploitation-freaks. Quentin Tarrantino "Grindhouse" kids should stay away. P.S. the grain is real, Yuck!

Horror Of Dracula (1958)

The British horror Hammer Productions have never been something I was all that interested in. I find the films to be a bit slow with not enough sleaze-factor. I am also very partial to Vampire movies in general with the exception of the ultra trashy or just totally bizarre ones.

With that being said you would think that Horror Of Dracula would probably find its way into my nearest garbage can. The truth is I kind of dig this one. First off this was the first of Hammer vampire flicks and we all know that the first is almost always the best. This Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee combo was originally titled Dracula and was intended to be taken as a modern retelling of the classic Dracula (1931) with Bela Lugosi. It would be latter retitled The Horror Of Dracula in the United States which I think was a wise decision. I mean it is unoriginal enough to make yet another Dracula film but the least you can do is give it a different name.

For some reason in this British take on the evil vampire, Dracula's castle is located somewhere in Germany. Transylvania is never mentioned. It all starts off pretty slow with the oh so familiar tale of Johnathan Harker slowly being drained of life from the evil count but Harker finds the underground sleeping place of Dracula and his bride and drives a steak through the vampiric brides hart. Harker falls victim of Dracula's fangs and Christopher (Dracula) Lee takes revenge by making Johnathan's wife his new vampire bride.  This is where the film gets moving... Peter Cushing plays the part of Van Helsing and teams up with Michael Gough (Horror Hospital, Legend Of Hell House) and they track down the count and battle it out in an awesome climax.

The end of the film makes it all worth while with a really cool vampire melt down. The special effects may not be the best but it still makes for a fun watch. The Horror Of Dracula offers up a tid bit of blood here and there with steaks through the heart and of course throat biting. One thing I noticed is that Christopher Lee doesn't seem to be a neat eater because he always has blood running down his cheeks, even in his sleep. Somebody should get this guy a bib.

Check it out to see where it all started in Hammer studios. The director would go on to do a shit-load more of these Hammer horror flicks including Dracula : Prince Of Darkness which is a cool follow up. Brides Of Dracula and The Revenge Of Frankenstein.

Seven Blood Stained Orchids (1972)

Seven Blood Stained Orchids is another black gloved killer Giallo flick from the 70's. Italian director Umberto (Cannibal Ferox) Lenzi is responsible but regardless of what you think he holds back on the blood a bit and relies much more on the story line and plot.

Don't get me wrong. The violence is still there. There are three exceptionally brutal scenes but it all pales in comparison to films like Ferox and Nightmare City which the director would become so infamous for with the over the top gore and bloodletting.

One of the nastier of scenes shows a hooker having her achy-breaky skull smashed in with a pipe. We do get the red stuff and to top it off she is nude and not to bad to look at. Then we have another naked beauty being slain but this time Lenzi creates a bit more of an artsy-fartsy vibe with a camera angle that would give Dario Argento an erection and he mixes the blood with some paint that was laying around for a very strange outcome.

Then we have my personal favorite kill. Naturally it is the most gory of the lot and involves power tools. What we get here is an early example off a drilling-killing. Might I state that Seven Blood Stained Orchids came out in 1972 and the cult classic Abel Ferrara Driller Killer would not come out till 1979. Toolbox Murders was 78, Last House On Dead End Street in 77 and even Peter Walkers cannibal gore-fest Frightmare wouldn't come for another two years. To my acknowledgment Seven Blood Stained Orchids might be the first power drill killing sequence to hit celluloid. I'm sure I will rack my brain long enough and come up with an earlier title but as of now Lenzi is holding the original title for this type of bloodshed. The scene comes complete with bright red-orange Dawn Of The Dead style blood and boy does it spurt!

But as I mentioned this one has a bit more substance then your average American slasher. We get a very thick plot and while some very minor hints may be dropped as to who the killer is, my guess is that the average viewer would not guess it right.

I will say that Seven Blood Stained Orchids is a typical Giallo in some senses of definition. First off we get a black gloved killer and secondly there are a bunch of priests in the movie. I will not go into who the killer is but I will tell you that it was a well thought out script with lots of dead ends and gear shifting.

This one is really for the die-hard Giallo fans. If you are looking for lots of gore you might as well skip it and just rewatch one of Fulci's flicks.

Hell Night (1981)

This early 80's slasher uses the oh so familiar (House On Haunted Hill) plot. With a group of people who make a bet to stay in an old abandoned mansion until sun up. Naturally people start dying.

This time around its a group of four sorority pledges who dare to stick the night out in the old house. Just like House On Haunted Hill the old mansion has a violent history of murder. The former family was executed by the man of the house. He strangled his wife, smashed his oldest sons brains in with a fire poker, impaled his daughter with the same poker and then hung himself. Unfortunately he forgot to kill his oldest son who of course witnessed all the mayhem. It is believed by some that the oldest mongoloid son still lurks the hidden tunnels and dark corridors of the old house. Again just like House On Haunted Hill the house is full of booby traps and practical jokes to scare the new pledges. Hologram ghosts appear, hidden speakers let out blood curdling screams and senior sorority members run around with silly masks on.

Despite all the corny gags the legend turns out to be true and a mongoloid monster-boy starts killing off the college kids. The best murder shows a machete to the throat (complete with decapitation) in a scene that reminded me of 3 On A Meathook. We also have strangulation, some shotgun violence, people impaled on pointy fences, death by sickle, necks are snapped and twisted completely around in true Exorcist fashion and speaking of The Exorcist, Linda Blair plays the main character here. Her acting is not exactly what I would call good in this one but then again were any of her 80's movies acted out all that well? Hmmm remember Grotesque?

The director was responsible for a bunch of cult flicks. His first flick Terror In The Jungle is a personal favorite of mine but he would also go on to do such trashy delights as Reform School Girls and Chatterbox!

Hell Night is your basic 80's slasher with nothing all that exciting to offer. Its still a good time passer as are most of these stalk and slash flicks. The monster looks a bit like Lon Chaney in Phantom Of The Opera which is kinda cool I guess.

The three things that could have helped this movie move along a bit better would have been a bigger body count, more gore and bloody mayhem and of course some female naked flesh. We do get a guy who runs around in little shorts and says "radical" every five seconds. So maybe that's something for all the ladies who are stuck in the 80's. Other then that we get some girl who looks a bit like Nancy Allen (Dressed To Kill and Carrie) who walks around in lingerie but that's about it for the female sex appeal. The best way to watch this one is with some friends and some beer. Not to be taken very seriously!

Matango : Attack Of The Mushroom People (1963)

This 1960's Japanese monster flick comes from the director who gave us the original Godzilla. The man was also responsible for a shit-ton of Godzilla sequels including King King Vs. Godzilla, Mothra Vs. Godzilla and many more. Not to mention Rodan and Destroy All Monsters. So you know this one has got to be good.

The truth is this one starts off a bit slow with seven yuppie, losers on a private yacht enjoying a nice cruise and singing really shitty songs that would remind you of something you would see in one of those 60's beach movies. Things start to get interesting when these rich bastards are T-boned by a relentless storm that leaves their ship destroyed. They have no choice but to hit land and seek shelter. Well they find shelter in an abandoned pirate ship but there is little to no food on the island with the exception of mushrooms... Giant mushrooms at that. The high society crew goes the longest they can by eating grass roots and other delicacies of the land but eventually some of them give into their starvation and take a chance with the fungus which is among us. Fortunately for us our group of seven starts decreasing in numbers when they start turning against each other and that's not all they are turning into... Those who feast their hungry stomachs on the seemingly endless supply of mushrooms start to transform into mushroom people, hence the title. This thing is also known as Curse Of The Mushroom People, Fungus Of Terror and a few others.

There is some talk of radiation and warfare thrown into the mix but Matango almost seems to have some other metaphoric meaning which is never clearly spelled out or at least I couldn't decipher what it all means. Naturally being an American cultured loser I have ventured into the psychedelic depths of mushroom hallucinogens and this is undoubtedly happening withing this 60's film as well. Who says the Japs were not part of the hip generation? These cats enter their own state of euphoria through the cursed mushrooms. Where I come from we call that a trip and a trip we go on when we venture into a world of mushroom people.

Naturally we get the mushroom monsters that we are promised but this movie holds some other charm beneath the surface that can't really be pin pointed. Some of the other treats that this one has in store is a bikini clad Japanese babe, some gun violence and the cross between survival instinct and greed. A sort of early version of Cabin Fever if you will. Check it out for fun with fungus and starvation but don't try to make any sense out of the final scene. Its just fucking weird!

World Of Death (1994)

World of death is your basic Mondo Film but not from the good ole days of Mondo movies like Mondo Cane or Africa Adio instead this thing is an obvious offspring of more modern shockumentary type stuff like Faces Of Death etc.

World Of Death is typically depressing but not quite as gruesome as these videos usually are. Its focus is on war and all the lovely things that come along with it. It is broken down into three segments. The first being the Serbians mass genocide against Bosnia. Then we take a trip over to Rowanda and witness mass starvation. Last but not least we end up in Liberia and watch the execution of government officials.

World Of Death may be disguised as a documentary but it is very uninformative to say the least. However it does exploit the atrocities of war which I'm sure would not make the average, healthy person feel very good. It also has all these religious undertones that run throughout the film which is fired at us through narration. Funny how a movie has the sack to show the evils of man and the politics that drive these men to kill but can stand up for something as evil as religion. I think somebody should check the history books next time before they make a movie about murder and then defend Christianity, Muslims and Jews. A dumb movie made by dumb people. Only worth looking at if you want to be really depressed. Unless of course you're one of those sick corpse-fuckers!

Hitch-Hike (1977)

If you took Rabid Dogs and crossed it with Last House On The Left we would end up with something like Hitch-Hike. Of course in Mario Bava's Rabid Dogs, George Eastmen is our main source of violence but this time around we get David (Last House On The Left) Hess as our violent protagonist.

Italian cult icon Franco (Keoma) Nero is on the road with his wife Eve when they stop to pick up a Hitch-Hiker played by Hess. Picking this bastard up was the biggest mistake of the married couples life. They are held hostage at gun point by the criminal/killer hitch-hiker.

Hitch-Hike is a pretty miserable movie. Franco Nero and his wife are far from happy even before they pick up the hitch-hiker. The film opens with a shot through the scope on Franco Nero's riffle. He zero's in on his wife and holds the cross hairs directly between her eyes. Nero decides to shoot a deer instead of Eve. They spend most of their time arguing and fighting and Nero likes to rape his wife at least once or twice a day.

Things get worse when the king of rape joins the couple across country. Of course David Hess does what he does best and adds some more rape-happy hi jinx to the mix.

Nero is forced to watch his wife being ravaged by another man but he doesn't seem to care much about Eve's feelings instead it seems that his manhood and "Latin pride is hurt" and to make things even more twisted it almost seems as if Eve might like the abuse a bit but it is never clearly stated. "My wife is what you call a bit of a whore".

David Hess and Franco Nero are great together. We get a pretty cool fight scene between the two actors and Hess claims in an interview that Nero really broke his nose in that fight.

Its awesome to watch Franco Nero doing a fight scene in a cast because his hand was broken on his previous film Keoma, a Spaghetti Western classic where Nero apparently busted his hand from punching his horse!?!? Ya gotta love a man who openly admits to punching his horse so hard that he breaks his hand.

Hitch-Hike comes complete with a Franco Nero nervous breakdown that is to funny to describe, Two dead cops complete with a brutal blood spraying squib, of course all the rapey stuff, some homosexual undertones, a vicious hippie motorcycle gang, crash and burn car scenes, shoot-em-up scenes, full frontal female nudity, a sing along Manson family type song and a really downbeat 70's ending.

The Shining (1980)

When it comes to mainstream horror movies, they really don't get much better then this axe swinging classic.

The cast is perfect. Jack Nicholson acts his heart out as the axe wielding psychopathic family man. Shelly Duvall is perfect as the annoying wife and even the child actor is great. Scatman Crothers shows up as the psychic with the heart of gold. Scatman can brighten up any movie, even one as grim and scary as The Shining.

Of course the acting performance was brought to its height from master director Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick makes The Shining the memorable classic that it is with beautiful angles and sexy camera work. Every shot is framed to perfection and if you broke The Shining down into still photos I'm sure that every single frame would make for a nice picture in your home.

The Shining has been analyzed and many times even over analyzed bore boring self rightous sophisto-cats. I am not about to go down that bumpy road but what I will say is that this film remains one of the creepiest ever made and it doesn't matter how many times you go back and look at it. It still manages to scare the socks off ya. From the heart pounding chase scenes to the eerie images that pour onto the screen like the corridors of blood (not to be mistaken for the Boris Karloff flick) or infamous furry blow job scene. I remember when I was a kid seeing this movie for the first time I jumped right from my seat at that moment.

It still amazes me to this day that Stephen King despises this film because it is clearly the best adaption from any of his novels that has ever hit the screen. Sure I understand that it isn't true to the writers book but who cares... Its still a cinematic masterpiece. Then in 1997 some asshole had the audacity to remake the film which played much more like the book reads. Naturally it is an awful fucking disgrace but of course Mr. King liked it. I don't know if I can listen to mans opinion on movies when they claim the best horror movie ever made to be Toolbox Murders. (Which was also remade and completely destroyed.

We even get a bit of tit and bush in a steamy bath tub scene. Well lets just say it starts off steamy because things definitely cool down quick with the next image to follow. We are treated to a naked senior citizen woman covered in mold and decaying on the screen. Its a pretty nasty sight. Yuck!

For those who grew up under a rock and have not scene The Shining my first suggestion would be to have your head fixed. Jack Nicholson plays Jack Torrance a writer who took on the obligation of looking over The Over Look Hotel for the winter. The hotel has a very violent past with a former caretaker who chopped his family to bits with an axe and then blew his own brains out with a gun.

Since the hotel is fucking enormous we follow Jack Torrance in and out of bizarre rooms where some not so nice things have happened. We also follow him into his decent of madness and mad he is. In fact he is crazier than bat-shit and its not long before Mr. Torrance is chasing his own wife and kid around the Over Look with an axe of his own. 

The Shining manages to hold some what of a touch of comedy to it as well. It is not overbearing. Just the right touch to relieve tension from the insanity that we surround ourselves with for 146 minutes.

The Shining is one of the best. So don't chop your kids up with an axe tonight. Instead take em to see this immortal classic.

Tarantula (1955)

When it comes to 50's horror and sci-fi flicks Jack Arnold's name is one of the first that comes to mind. The director is responsible for such classics as Creature From The Black Lagoon and The Incredible Shrinking Man. He would release this giant spider flick the same year as Revenge Of The Creature. Needless to say the director was very busy at this time.

We have a deranged scientist experimenting with a new serum on animals which results in mass growth. Of course he originally had good intentions with a goal to help feed an over populated world but naturally he sinks into the depraved depths that all of these scientists sink to in these movies and continues with his experiments even after it has been the death of his companion and best friend. In the early part of the movie we get to see giant guinea pigs, giant rats and of course an abnormally sized Tarantula but we also have some human mutations and while not in size (after all this is not The Amazing Colossal Man), when people are injected they look a little more like something from Jack Arnold's other film Monster On The Campus.

When the scientists lab catches fire most of the over sized wild life is killed and burnt to a crisp. That is with the exception of the Tarantula. The giant spider makes its way out of the front door and heads out to the desert mountains. Its not long before the Tarantula is on its murderous rampage, taking out horses and other farm land treats. Naturally the spider becomes to big to ever walk through another doorway. Instead it knocks houses down and causes avalanches in the mountains.

50's monsterama cult icon John Agar (Revenge Of The Creature, The Mole People) is the first to catch wind that there might be a "giant insect" roaming about in the desert and he is the first to try to blow the thing up.

John Agar gets the not so willing police to help him track the thing down. Armed with "sub machine guns" we are treated to the death of two cops who meet their fate in a sexy 50's car that conveniently doesn't start. Its not long before the whole town joins in on the war against the giant bug. They try to take the thing out with a bunch of dynamite but this doesn't faze something that walks through and knocks over electric towers and telephone lines. Nope... This looks like a job for the army, or the air force for that matter. We get a pretty fun climax with missiles and even napalm... Nice!

Tarantula is a bit slow going at times and a bit to talky but it all speeds up eventually and offers up one hell of a climax. Check this creepy-crawling classic out for fun with giant venomous spiders. Oh and the sex appeal comes from a girl named Steve!?!?

Terrifying Girls High School : Lynch Law Classroom (1973)

This is a very strange Pinku film. Its basically a women in prison movie with a school for delinquents instead of an actual prison. It is extremely violent and holds no punches however it suffers a bit in the plot department.

From the director who gave us the amazing Pinku sleaze-fest Girl Boss Guerrilla we get more of the expected female delinquents on motorcycles but this one plays a less like a Yakuza film then it does a horror movie. There are definitely elements from the American Roughies with gratuitous nudity and of course torture. The story tells of three new delinquents who will be attending the "School Of Hope" where the punishment consists of horrible torture and even murder.

Luckily for us actress Miki Sugimoto from violent epics such as Zero Woman : Red Handcuffs, Criminal Woman : Killing Melody, Girl Boss Guerrilla and many more plays our lead delinquent Noriko and is on yet another path of vengeance. When Noriko learns that a fellow gang member was tortured to death in The School For Hope she swears to kill the group of fascist bitches who were responsible. We are treated to plenty of naked Japanese women and of course all the violent stuff that is expected from a Pinku Violence film. In one of the most disturbing scenes a girl has a red hot light buld shoved up her vagina and is forced to do push ups. Another one offers some humiliation and public urination in the same vain as Last House On The Left which came out one year earlier and I'm sure influenced this Japanese flick. We also have a political statement going on about the corruption of Japanese politicians and mainly the police. I find it amazing that one of the most disciplined countries is able to release such rebellious art. In the films climax we get a revolution lead by the high school girls. They take over the school, run amok and go to war with the police.

Terrifying Girls High School suffers a bit with the numerous subplots. We have a greedy reporter trying to blackmail the school board and politicians. This really doesn't add any depth to the film. In fact it hurts it in a way and takes away from what is really going on. Still it is a fun watch and well worth the buy for anyone who is into this brand of trashy Japanese cinema.