The Other Hell:

Not sure how many Bruno Mattei films (Or nom de plume Stefan Oblowsky in this case) I've seen or reviewed. He's directed at least 8000, so it's hard to keep track. But one thing occurs to me while watching The Other Hell; I've been internally mispronouncing his last name as 'Muh-tie', when it should actually be 'Muh-tay-ee'. Such musings are sidelined when a crazed nun cuts the still bloody vagina out of a long-dead corpse within the first five minutes of the movie. Gimme that ol' Muh-tay-ee magic!

Once upon a time, disingenuous video-merchants may have tried luring you into their musty shops representing The Other Hell as a Nun-sploitation movie. Don't be fooled! Although the movie takes place in a Convent and includes intestine fondling, no nuns were harmed in the making of this movie, neither were Catholics tricked into buying many tickets. In fact, the only...Read the entire review

Beyond The Darkness:

Beyond The Darkness is directed by Joe D'Amato. That's the pseudonym of Aristide Massaccesi, the director whom, if I understood one of the supplemental features correctly, directed only one feature he felt proud enough of to put his real name on. For the schlock we like, that's a pretty high batting average. Yet D'Amato (no stranger to unwatchable trash) out-does himself with Beyond The Darkness, (AKA Buried Alive etc.) a movie that's really hard to like, but nonetheless compels cultish repeat-viewings.

The upshot is that hot sleazebag taxidermist Frank (Kieran Canter) freaks out when his bride-to-be Anna (Cinzia Monreale) dies, so he starts sucking his creepy housekeeper's breasts (Franca Stoppi as Iris in a searingly weird role) and prepping his bride's corpse for hanging over the mantelpiece, so to speak. The (living) pair, Frank and Iris, ...Read the entire review

The Devil's Rain (1975) is an unusual horror movie with a bit of a cult following, though even its fans generally don't quite grasp what it is driving the movie's strange appeal. The erratic tone is partly to blame: much of it is genuinely unnerving, even nightmarish, but it also goes overboard with Grand Guignol ghoulishness, especially during the climax. For reasons eluded to in the supplements, at one point during shooting director Robert Fuest (The Abominable Dr. Phibes) allowed several actors to camp it up. The producers weren't happy about this and ordered some of those scenes reshot, but one key scene remained with its campiness intact. Other scenes with critical exposition apparently weren't redone, resulting in a confusing climax.

Nonetheless, most of The Devil's Rain is very good indeed, similar to and nearly in the same class as both The Devil Rides Out (...Read the entire review

Director Richard Stanley is not likely a household name to the average filmgoer; while most recently he has come into the public eye again through "Lost Soul" the fascinating documentary chronicling Stanley's failed Hollywood breakthrough via a now legendarily bad adaptation of "The Island of Doctor Moreau," Stanley remains an independent auteur in every sense of the word. His early 90s cyberpunk near masterpiece "Hardware" likely remains his best work, while "Dust Devil" should be a film with more acclaim than it receives (likely the effect of massive tinkering by Miramax upon its stateside release). Stanley has another filmmaking side, one of a documentarian focused on the odd and obscure. Stanley's 2013 documentary "The Otherworld" arrives via a very noteworthy Blu-Ray release and offers viewers possibly the most calm Stanley offering in quite some time.

Running around an hour and 45-min...Read the entire review

Cathy's Curse:
Been having troubles writing this review for Cathy's Curse, a Canuxploitation potboiler of staggering import. Or not. Severin Films probably doesn't care where the movie ranks or what it is really, and maybe they shouldn't. Is it a harebrained take on Audrey Rose? The Exorcist? Or a five-and-dime take on The Omen? Is it full of artful shots and a malignant moppet? Or crappy performances and an Afterschool Special budget? Can it be all these things and more? And why haven't you ordered it yet?

Ancient flashbacks reveal a poor girl, killed cruelly in a fiery car crash. Cut to 1980s Montreal (yeah you right baby) as a cute family moves into a lovely home, more or less haunted by the girl killed in the car crash. (If you think that's a spoiler, leave the room now, please.) Soon enough, dear Cathy (Randi Allen) gets the old curse when she finds a...Read the entire review

In 10 Words or Less
A story of comics, outlaws and Judge Dredd

Reviewer's Bias*
Loves: Good documentaries, Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison
Likes: Comic books, quality animation
Dislikes: Trying to understand a thick accent
Hates: Edgy for edgy's sake

The Movie
Unless you're a hardcore comics fan, there's a good chance you've never even heard of 2000AD, an anthology that's one of England's most beloved comic-book series, but you're quite possibly aware of its biggest star, Judge Dredd, the authoritarian, violence-dealing lawman best known stateside for the awful Sylvester Stallone film adaptation and the later, far-better Karl Urban take. But the British institution is way more than just the home of ...Read the entire review

Though cheap and poorly made, almost amateurish, Black Frankenstein (1973) is not without interest. A horror movie-Blaxploitation hybrid, it was, apparently, a labor of love for criminal lawer Frank R. Saletri, who wrote and produced it for just $80,000. Saletri was by all accounts a die-hard "monster kid," a fan of classic movie monsters of the ‘30s and ‘40s, and very active in such organizations as the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror films and the Count Dracula Society, hanging out with such super-fans as Dr. Donald Reed and Forrest J. Ackerman. He had a dog named Bela Lugosi while other sources suggest he lived in one of Lugosi's old mansions. According to news reports he also had a reputation for squeezing his clients in the middle of their criminal trials, a rogues gallery of pimps, prostitutes, and gangsters. It's not surprising then that, ten years later, Saletri was fo...Read the entire review

Pre-dating both Halloween (1978) and Friday the 13th (1980), Drive In Massacre (1977) is a low budget but pretty-good-for-its-type early slasher film. All things considered, actors John F. Goff and George Buck Flower's screenplay breathes life into its surprisingly dimensional characters, which aren't the usual generic mob of horny teenagers, and the acting is unexpectedly good for such a cheap film.

Seen today, the picture also offers viewers the opportunity to soak in the slightly seedy ambiance of a real (recently closed when the film was made) drive-in theater, that form of movie exhibition on the downslide by the 1970s. For this critic it brought back a lot of memories.

Some have described this as an exploitation variation of Peter Bogdanovich's Targets (1968); both feature a drive-in theater where many are killed, but that's where the similarities end. With clini...Read the entire review

In 10 Words or Less
Obscure kung-fu previews display hallmarks of the genre

The Movie
Severin brought us Kung-Fu Trailers of Fury a year ago, a collection of previews for martial-arts films of various renown. Apparently it did well enough--and Severin found enough interesting trailers--to make a sequel, the appropriately-titled Return of Kung-Fu Trailers of Fury, which provides a peek at 35 more old-school kung-fu movies, most of which you've never heard of, but which have a certain something that makes them worth watching for a moment or two.

Whet...Read the entire review

The Survivor:
Actor David Hemmings directs the slow-burn shocker The Survivor, (1981) based on James Herbert's best-selling novel, which enjoys a tasty new Blu-ray release from Severin Films. And now you, the one who maybe saw this title sitting lost and alone on your video merchant's shelf, but refused to rent it, can enjoy it too.

A supernatural mystery, The Survivor is long on style, fine performances, and atmosphere. However, it starts out with a bang, as 747 pilot Keller (Robert Powell) is forced to crash-land in a Sydney suburb in a keyed-up, almost excruciating scene made all the more powerful due to its scale and incredibly realistic staging. Unfortunately, Keller is the only one to survive, setting off a semi-existential quest to figure out why.

Not only is Keller haunted by visions of horribly burned corpses, he's also stalked by an ambulance-chasing photographer,...Read the entire review

"Hey, look! She's not crazy; she's being chased by a cheetah!"

[click on the thumbnail to enlarge]

The Killing Of America:
The Killing Of America saw a two-week theatrical run in New York, in 1982, before drifting into the realms of the unseen. A longer, more graphic version enjoyed popularity in Japan, but for the rest of us, there were no VHS releases, nothing, until now, thanks to Severin Films, which is releasing this definitive Blu-ray edition. For scholars and lovers of Mondo Movies, this is a holy grail, and now that it's available for all to see, we can finally find out if the movie's release is worth the quest.

The Killing Of America represents something of a highbrow 'reality death' movie, graphic and unrelenting, but with aspirations to resemble a Public Broadcasting examination of violence in America. In practice, the movie is a bit like a hard version of one of those When Animals Attack FOX TV specials from the late 1990s. As though building a wall of ou...Read the entire review

Okay, so now a gaggle of zombies are shambling around some ancient, decaying tombs. Abruptly cut to a romantic picnic in the garden! Moving on, now a photographer is snapping shots of his lover frolicking by a fountain. A butler and maid look on in horror as the hideous lights in a chandelier flicker on and off before exploding. She screams hysterically! More exploding lights. Just when you think they've ran out of bulbs, there's a third, identical chandelier to go pop-pop-pop-pop-boom! So, back to zombies caked in paper maché and live maggots as they slowly lurch onward.

Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/71164 Mon, 08 Aug 2016 21:12:23 UTC DVD Talk Collector Series Doctor Butcher M.D.: The lunatics at Severin Films specialize in digging up the shabbiest, most infamous, woefully wonderful exploitation movies ever. The one-hit wonders, the also-rans, the genre equivalent of the kids who get picked last for dodge ball. These films ride the ragged edge of disrespectability; they're proud of it, and we love Severin Films for giving them an almost deserved pat on the back. Doctor Butcher M.D. epitomizes the Severin aesthetic. This 1980 coattail rider is so daft, gore-drenched and incomprehensible, it has to be seen to be believed. With all due respect, Doctor Butcher M.D. is the horror movie equivalent of the 80-year-old, mentally ill, chronically homeless person wandering downtown's deserted streets at 4am, raving about several different things at once. In New York, someone sneaks into a hospital morgue to slowly saw the hand off of a corpse....Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/71083 Tue, 28 Jun 2016 11:34:15 UTC Rent It Although their pop culture impact does not seem to have endured beyond the early 1980s, there were once a series of books about Christina Van Belle, "The Playgirl of the Western World." Christina is a sexually liberated heiress, famous all over the globe and notoriously uninhibited. Published by Playboy, the series managed to rack up 19 entries between 1976 and 1983, all published under the pseudonym "Blakely St. James", and featuring photographs of Jill De Vries as the title character. Curiously, it was only after the last book in the series had been published that legendary writer/producer Harry Alan Towers (a frequent Jess Franco collaborator) adapted the character in what the opening titles of Christina optimistically promise will be the first of several movies (in truth, this is the only movie in the would-be series). In the film, directed by Francisco Lara Polop (under the pseudonym Pa...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/70584 Mon, 28 Mar 2016 14:12:55 UTC Recommended In 10 Words or Less Come for Glory Ammen, stay for Mark Hartley Reviewer's Bias* Loves: Not Quite Hollywood, Good T&A Likes: '70s cult films, Glory Ammen Dislikes: "Erotic" films Hates: Boring movies, the idea of Australia's many poisonous creatures The Movie Not unlike most American film buffs, my knowledge of Australian cinema has always been sparse, limited mainly to the big titles, like Picnic at Hanging Rock, Walkabout, Mad Max and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (and the occasional outlier, such as Romper Stomper or The Castle/. However, after watching the amazing documentary Not Quite Hollywood, which explored the wor...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/70583 Wed, 09 Mar 2016 21:41:22 UTC Highly Recommended The Trailers: I really like trailers. They're like mini bite-sized movies that youcan watch in a few minutes, and often times they're better than thefull-length feature itself. The problem with trailer compilations isthat they often feature old, low quality print and there is a lot ofrepetition between various publishers. There are some notableexceptions, Synapse's 42nd St Forever discs are great, but Iapproach new trailer collections with caution. When Severinannounced that they were releasing a set of Kung Fu trailers, I didget excited. I've like the other discs I'd seen from the company,and they were taking the trouble to release it on Blu-ray (alongwith a DVD version) which is a good sign. It turns out any worries I had were unfounded. Severin's KungFu: Trailers ...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/70601 Thu, 03 Mar 2016 00:58:56 UTC Recommended The Sinful Dwarf: You want to get touched deeply, sonny? Move along. BUT, if you want to feel the need to scrub your eyeballs with a brillo pad, then Severin's got a deal for you, in the form of this bottom-of-the-barrel sleaze show you've read about, you've heard about, and you prayed couldn't possibly be real. Yep, it's The Sinful Dwarf; fundamentally horrific, aesthetically repellent, psychologically innocuous and figuratively the patent holder to the OTHER little blue pill, Argaiv, or the cure for the common erection. Somewhere down the line, some drunken fool was taking the piss, wondering whom he could bamboozle with this awful idea. Experience it now, but don't expect to respect yourself in the morning. Lila Lash, (Clara Keller) a scarred, drunken scumbag, has had a hard life. Her sad coping mechanism involves using her creepy dwarf son Olaf (a nightmarish Torben Bille) to lu...Read the entire review ]]>