Vintage American sexploitation―Swedish art-house style! Retro-Seduction Cinema has combined two of their previous releases to create the Joe Sarno's Inga Collection, a deluxe, three-disc set that features grindhouse/drive-in classic Inga, its sequel, The Seduction of Inga (a.k.a.: Inga and Greta), with another Swedish Sarno offering, The Indelicate Balance, as a bonus feature. As far as I can tell, the transfers and the copious amount of bonuses used here are the exact same ones that are found in the previous stand-alone releases of Inga and The Seduction of Inga, so there's no need to double-dip if you already have those discs in your collection. It's tough to pinpoint who the exact audience would be for something like Joe Sarno's Inga Collection: younger viewers brought up on instantaneous internet hardcore porn will lik...Read the entire review

I am defeated.

It's taken me weeks - that's weeks, plural, as in pushing a full month - to trudge my way through Retromedia's three-disc, nine-movie box set "Mad Monster Rally," with each movie taking several days to complete. I thought it would be fun, a nice romp through the world of schlock, and yet these are eight pictures devoid of even the faintest So Bad They're Good quality. These movies are So Bad They're Bad. Each film is its own endurance test, and each time, I flunked out, sometimes only making it five or ten minutes before needing a quick escape and a day's rest.

The set should've been a cakewalk. It's a simple repackaging of three previously released collections. Included here are a few obscurities and some familiar titles, like the MST3K favorite "Hobgoblins" and Larry Buchanan's dreckfest "Creature of Destruction." But those movies - and many more found within - are just n...Read the entire review

Like most of Retromedia/Infinity's recent boxed sets, including their Hercules Collection and War Gods Collections, the playfully-titled Muscle Madness is a simple repackaging of previously released material. Included are Hercules Against the Moon Men, from October 2005; a double-bill of Goliath and the Sins of Babylon and Colossus and the Amazon Queen, from October 2007; and The Steve Reeves Collection featuring Giant of Marathon and War of the Trojans, from January 2008. Boxed together the set retails for half the cost of buying each disc separately, so if you don't already own them and enjoy Italian sword and sandal pictures, this is Recommended. If you already have some or all of these, there's no need to buy them again.

　

Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/36840 Fri, 03 Apr 2009 12:20:03 UTC Rent It

Retromedia's latest peplum offering, Magnificent Gladiator...plus Revolt of the Barbaians is a fairly lackluster offering of two films released at the tail end of the prolific Italian sword & sandal genre. The Magnificent Gladiator is 16:9 enhanced widescreen, which is a plus, but the film is overrun with cliches and is deadly dull; Revolt of the Barbarians is a much more interesting movie with greater spectacle but it's culled from a worn and very noisy 16mm television print that's panned-and-scanned. In the end, these "3 hours of Gut-Crunching Excitement" as the back cover tells it, are for die-hard fans only. All others beware.

Significantly, both films were originally released in late-December 1964; Revolt of the Barbarians pre...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/35842 Tue, 30 Dec 2008 14:21:45 UTC Rent It

Garak, Evil Mongol Ruler: "Well have we heard the last of the legendary man whose strength is invincible?"

Having apparently moved from Image Entertainment to Infinity, Retromedia has lined up another sword-and-sandal, public domain double-bill of dubious quality, transfer wise, Samson and the 7 Miracles of the World (1961) and Ali Baba and the Seven Saracens (1964). Samson is 16:9 enhanced widescreen, but that's the only thing that can be said in its favor. The print sourced for the transfer is heavily cut, ridden with splices and jump cuts, heavily damaged and drained of almost all its color. Ali Baba, from a 16mm AIP-TV syndication print, is 4:3 panned-and-scanned and, arguably, looks even worse though the color and sharpness are a bit better. Ironically, a batch of 4:3 letterboxed trailers, possibly sourced from PAL, look far better than either film, even when zoomed i...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/33472 Thu, 05 Jun 2008 01:21:27 UTC Rent It

Retro-Seduction Cinema has released Confessions of a Young American Housewife, another soft-core porn/imitation European drama from famed sexploitation director Joseph Sarno, in a nicely appointed 2-disc special edition. If you've seen Sarno's attempts at pushing the boundaries of soft-core porn before, then you'll now what to expect here: some fairly good (but distressingly few) soft-core scenes (which might scrape by with a PG-13 rating today), along with some decent acting (for the genre, that is) and a fairly well-thought out story (again, in comparison to most other titles from this genre at the time).

Beautiful, horny, blonde Carole (Rebecca Brooke) lives in a posh New York home with her horny husband Eddie (David Hausman). Their best friends, married ...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/22398 Sun, 25 Jun 2006 17:17:56 UTC Recommended

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Despite the success of the sword n' sandal explosion begun by Pietro Francisi's 1958 Le fatiche di Ercole -- Hercules -- the genre never attracted the reverence afforded the Italian Spaghetti Western. Sergio Leone's Dollar movies have remained top titles in every market, but his epic The Colossus of Rhodes has never been officially released on an American video format. Retromedia's Widescreen Edition presents the spectacularly muscled Steve Reeves in the film that started it all, along with a "bonus feature" The Mole Men against the Son of Hercules.

Synopsis:

Hercules (Steve Reeves) rescues the beautiful princess Iole (Sylva Koscina) from a runaway chariot and falls ...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/21051 Fri, 07 Apr 2006 23:24:34 UTC Recommended

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

When European genre filmmaking is mentioned, Italy's Sword 'n Sandal epics, Spaghetti Westerns and various styles of Eurohorror tend to lead the discussion. But Germany actually started the trend of Euro-westerns before the Italians, and they initiated a series of fanciful crime thrillers that preceded Italy's later obsession with slasher 'Giallo' pictures.

The German 'Krimi' films are plot-driven who-dunnit potboilers derived partially from the successful revival of the Dr. Mabuse thrillers and often inspired by stories from mystery author Edgar Wallace. Variety reviews tended to dismiss these films as unsophisticated 'local' fare unsuited for American audiences. Although the original soundtracks had style and polish, cheap dubbing jobs made them seem comical to English-speaking audiences.

Retromedia's double feature presents Engl...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/20887 Thu, 30 Mar 2006 02:58:04 UTC Recommended

The Movies:

Retromedia has dug up an interesting triple bill of peblum films for this release, presented as a flipper with Hercules And The Princess Of Troy and The Giants Of Rome on one side and Atlas In The Land Of The Cyclops on the other. While the presentations are weak throughout, those who grew up watching this type of stuff Sunday afternoon while munching a bowl of popcorn and sucking back a Coke should get a kick out of these ones regardless. They're hardly the best that the genre has to offer (look to Mario Bava's Hercules In The Haunted World or Pietro Francisci's 1958 Steve Reeves vehicle Hercules for that) but they manage to pack in all the required staples of the genre – oiled up muscle bound heroes, beautiful maidens, and monsters, monsters, monsters!

Hercules And The Princess Of Troy (1965):

This forty-seven minute pr...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/19592 Sat, 07 Jan 2006 19:25:17 UTC Recommended

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Roger Corman didn't plan to make the now-legendary Little Shop of Horrors in two or three days - according to star Jackie Joseph he rushed the show so filming could finish before December 31, 1959. On the next day the new Screen Actor's Guild residuals policy went into effect, forbidding Corman to hire actors on a flat buy-out basis.

Thus was born Corman's Filmgroup producing label. While other cheap-jack outfits making drive-in fare simply had to fold their tents, Corman did what any responsible producer would do and ran away to film in places where the Hollywood guilds had no jurisdiction. His first target was Puerto Rico, the Caribbean island territory of the U.S. that wasn't yet bound by guild rules. He arrived expecting to make two pictures back to back but slipped in an extra one to further amortize his costs.

Corman's indus...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/18555 Sun, 06 Nov 2005 03:39:34 UTC Rent It

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

DVD ushered in a renaissance for horror and science fiction fans - obscure Euro-horror slasher pictures are better represented than any other genre. But left behind in the rush to DVD is practically the entire Italian genre known as Sword 'n Sandal or Pepla (so-named after the pleated cotton skirts worn by Roman soldiers). Whether the obstruction is due to distribution rights problems or poor elements, almost none of the hundreds of costume dramas churned out by Cinecittá and other Italian studios are available on DVD in quality presentations, not even the two superior and phenomenally popular Steve Reeves - Pietro Francisi epics that started it al, Le fatiche di Ercole (Hercules) and Ercole e la regina di Lidia (Hercules Unchained).

This Retromedia disc collects two middling productions made past the popular...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/14449 Mon, 14 Feb 2005 08:04:02 UTC Recommended

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Following up on their rather good double feature presentation of Battle Beyond the Sun & Star Pilot, Retromedia graces us with a pair of Russian fairy tale fantasies in their altered American versions. Purchased outright by American entrepreneurs, both were redubbed and their stories changed considerably to better market them for audiences expecting more definable genres: one became a "Sinbad" epic, and the other a science fiction film.

In the early 1990s Video Watchdog magazine had a series of interesting articles on the original Russian movies, identifying their maker as Alexsandr Ptushko, a camera veteran that had worked since the 1930s. His biggest release in America was The Sword and the Dragon, a redub of a vast saga called Ilya Muromets. Althou...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/13405 Sat, 27 Nov 2004 18:19:40 UTC Recommended

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Euro horror is well represented on DVD, but the interesting science fiction films from the Soviet bloc countries have yet to make the leap onto the new medium. That leaves a score of legendary Russian space movies and an equal number of Czechoslovakian fantasies unseen in their original languages. The East German - Polish Die Schweigende Stern is one of the few available, and that's only in Region 2 PAL format.

But several Soviet space fantasies were acquired by American companies and re-cut, re-dubbed and re-titled for Western markets. This Retromedia disc offers a good transfer of the American version of a serious Soviet film about the space race, co-billed with a cheap Italian space opera that was reissued twelve years after its original Italian release, probably because of the popularity of Star Wars.

Battle Beyond t...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/10543 Sun, 02 May 2004 22:23:37 UTC Recommended

Double Feature disc
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Retromedia
1:66 flat letterbox
Street Date May 11, 2004
$19.95

In 1964 or 1965, a little outfit called Magna released this double bill of dubbed European horror films. As the liner notes on Retromedia's DVD points out, we had no idea that the pictures represented subgenres that wouldn't be fully defined until later: the German "krimi" and the Eurohorror thriller.

Retromedia is a label that sometimes puts out disappointing discs, but they've given some care to this double bill release. The prints used (Ghost 35mm, Dead Eyes 16mm) are not perfect, but they're basically intact and are transferred to look as good as possible. They're better than Reference Quality, good enough to give us a soli...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/9113 Sun, 18 Jan 2004 07:59:59 UTC Rent It

Retromedia dug deep into the vaults of AIP-TV for a pair of themed double feature DVDs slated for release this coming Tuesday. The first pitted Gamera vs. Monster X against another Japanese rubber monster flick, Monster from a Prehistoric Planet. This second pairing features In the Year 2889 and It's Alive!, and...no, not Larry Cohen's immortal (and as-yet unreleased on DVD) killer mutant baby flick. Both movies were helmed by another filmmaker with a vaguely similar name -- Larry Buchanan, whose threadbare-budgeted remakes of AIP genre films were a mainstay on late night fright shows throughout the '60s.

"That's impossible! There's nothing like that for millions of years...but it's there...it was real...alive!"

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]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/9097 Fri, 16 Jan 2004 07:27:03 UTC Skip It

"That's crazy! Gamera doesn't attack people. I don't believe you even saw him."
"Yes, we did. It's true, Hiroshi! Gamera tried to kill us. I swear to you I saw him."
"I was there too."
"It's a lie. Gamera is a friend to all children."
"He isn't our friend anymore! I hate Gamera!"

Two sorta-classic Japanese monster flicks, 1970's Gamera vs. Monster X and 1967's Monster from a Prehistoric Planet, have been compiled into a double feature DVD package courtesy of Retromedia Entertainment, using the cropped, dubbed, 'n edited versions distributed by American-International Television a few decades back. Although both movies offer kaboodles of kitschy kaiju fun, the quality of their presentations is too subpar to warrant its sticker price.

Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/8564 Thu, 04 Dec 2003 23:35:58 UTC Recommended

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

I was avoiding Retromedia discs on the basis of some bad experiences, but Werewolf in a Girl's Dormitory is a reasonably good presentation.

The original film Lycanthropus was retitled by MGM for release with Corridors of Blood in 1962. It's an okay horror thriller with a ferocious title monster and some good scenes; and if it's fondly remembered, it must be for the terrific stills that showed up again and again in Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. It's also known for a silly song called The Ghoul in School that's still billed in the titles, but doesn't show up in this print. Since I've never heard it myself, I don't know if it's missing or not.

Synopsis:

Dr. Juli...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/6115 Sat, 19 Apr 2003 05:52:34 UTC Skip It

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

This trash-level European crime film is reviewed herein only because of the curiosity value of its tenuous relationship with the incomparable Danger: Diabolik by Mario Bava. It's not much of a film, and neither is Retromedia's DVD. Reviewed for the record, as they say.

Synopsis:

Scarred, ugly Dr. Bannister (Magda Konopka) listens to her research partner talk about the dangers of trying their rejuvenation serum without further testing, but she kills him instead, imbibes the serum, and emerges a lovely young woman. The nagging side effect is evil behavior, and she wastes no time hooking herself up with a rich but crooked businessman. When the se...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/5783 Fri, 07 Mar 2003 08:52:42 UTC Rent It

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

A definitely down-grade Barbara Steele vehicle, The Faceless Monster is a hastily cobbled potboiler that appears to have been assembled from ideas recycled from the Queen of Horror's earlier pictures. The rushed and artless production doesn't manage to do much more than keep Steele on screen about 90% of the time; it is overly complicated and numbingly slow. The uncut print appears to be an excellent transfer source, but Retromedia's disc is a big letdown in terms of quality.

Synopsis:

The greedy Dr. Stephen Arrowsmith (Paul Miller, aka Paul Müller) conspires to surprise his unfaithful wife Muriel in the greenhouse (Barbara Steele) as she pursues an illicit affair with handyman David (Rik Battaglia...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/5680 Mon, 24 Feb 2003 07:46:30 UTC Highly Recommended

Short Takes

Oh! This fromage soaked Japanese/American collaboration could scarcely be a more shining example of the prototypical CineSchlocker flick! World Press reporter Larry Stanford (Peter Dyneley) clambers to the volcano-side haunt of a mad scientist (Tetsu Nakamura) monkeying with humanity's evolutionary soup. Although, he ain't so good at it, which reduces Doc Suzuki's wife into a grunting sideshow freak kept in a cage and his latest experiment just returned from a murderous rampage. Poor Larry's next. The changes are subtle at first. He starts swilling saki and manhandling geisha gals instead of filing his story and flying home to his wif...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/5628 Sun, 16 Feb 2003 21:26:16 UTC Recommended

This Retromedia Gamera double feature contains....

Attack of the Monsters (1968, aka. Gamera Vs. Viras)-

Tiny pants...

Tiny, tiny...tiny little pants.

If I were to make a list of things I don't want to see in a movie, somewhere in the top ten, wedged between lingering close-ups of Ernest Borgnine's back hair and sex scenes featuring Bea Arthur and William Hickey, would be children running around in tight little pants. Maybe it is the aesthetic visual. Or it could just be that it reminds me of growing up in the 70's and being forced into ultra-tight clothing all of the time.

Anyway, Attack of the Monsters features the duo of Jim and Masau, precocious little Boy Scouts running around in tiny shorts. And because they are so darn precocious, they stray from the Boy Scout field trip and hot-wire an experimental sub (with no regard that- oh, I don't know?- people coul...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/4976 Sun, 17 Nov 2002 21:48:23 UTC Recommended

The mysterious vampire Khorda (Robert Quarry) washes up on the shores of a California beach and makes his way to a house full of free-spirited but aimless hippies, whom Khorda soon has under his sway. Only Pico escapes and he must go back and try to defeat the guru vampire before his girlfriend is used as a sacrifice.

Deathmaster is a true sign of the times, a dated late 60's/early 70's (it was released in 72') horror film offering a counter-culture slant on the vampire genre. Tales of insane charismatic cult leaders were a dime a dozen in the post-Charles Manson world. Though not exactly genius, Deathmaster's idea of a messianic vampire was a good one because a key to the vampire mythology was the hypnotic trance and legion of followers a nosferatu could sire. This idea fit well in a paranoid confused youth culture that was horrified and still reeling from the Tate/LaBianca murders...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/4797 Mon, 21 Oct 2002 03:36:24 UTC Skip It

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Night of the Blood Beast is a good example of the souring of the monster quickie in the late 1950s. After the novelty wore off, cheap productions kept being made, but something was missing. This particular programmer shows some good actors trying to work with terrible material, and coming up with a surprisingly uninteresting show. Adding salt to the wound, Retromedia's presentation is insultingly sub-par.

Synopsis:

An isolated research station recovers a space capsule, but its occupant, Major John Corcoran (Michael Emmet) is dead. Back at the lab, his body's condition is anything but normal, and spontaneously revives. One staff member is attacked by a mysterious monster, and Dr. Wyman (Tyler McVey) i...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/4258 Tue, 23 Jul 2002 06:11:45 UTC Recommended

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Packaged as an Edward D. Wood film, The Bride and the Beast has his screenplay credit, and it can be safely said that the man's philosophy has survived intact to the final product. It's a terrible movie but possibly the best Wood film, even though (or perhaps because) he didn't direct it. Wood's signed films are unbelievably bad, with his fetishistic themes lying around totally undigested; here his irrepressable weirdness finds full espression in a show that at least has minimal production values. People who like to catalog Wood's various perversions should note that the star ape in this opus is named, 'Spanky'.

Synopsis:

Big game Bwana Dan Fuller (Lance Fuller) takes his new bride Laura (Laur...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/4240 Fri, 19 Jul 2002 18:19:28 UTC Rent It

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Ah, yes, here's one that really did belong on Mystery Science Theater 3000, even though it's nice to have it as it was originally shown in 1955. Take a look at the boxtop, folks. It's a reproduction of the poster that probably pulled in kids by the thousands - at least until word-of-mouth got around.

King Dinosaur is the very first Bert I. Gordon movie. 'BIG' Gordon was one of a couple dozen filmmakers who realized in the early 1950s that if you could make any kind of movie at least an hour long, with a beginning, middle and end, and if it vaguely resembled the attention-grabbing title and poster you cooked up for it, you could get it booked into theaters. Al Zimbalist was a penny-pinching producer from way back, and Lippert films was one of the first real independent exploitation producers to jump on the science fiction bandwago...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/2264 Wed, 04 Jul 2001 21:34:58 UTC Highly Recommended

What happens when a porno outfit tries to go legit? Well, you get Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (1987, 75 minutes), that's what. B-auteur Fred Olen Ray was given a budget of less than $60,000 by L.A. Video, and in no longer than a week of shooting, produced a bona fide classic that even debuted at the Egyptian Theatre. Part of his magic formula was bringing in the world's most famous chainsaw-wielding maniac Gunnar Hansen of Texas Chainsaw Massacre as one of the leads along side B-Queens Linnea Quigley and Michelle Bauer. But neither they or Fred ever fathomed this strange little flick would become the cult phenomenon it has.

The movie: Our adventure begins with an adm...Read the entire review

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