Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things

Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (Zombie Graveyard, Things from the Grave) Starring Alan Ormsby Directed By Bob Clark (1972).

Alan Ormsby and his theater buddies as themselves perform a Satanic ritual in a graveyard and pay for their idiotic mischief. I know Ormsby as the guy who used peanut butter in his stage blood recipe and worked with Tom Savini on Death Dream, he wrote and co-directed the brilliant Ed Gein biopic Deranged. I've successfully avoided this film until it showed up in HD quality format on Youtube and god damn it, if I'm not gonna check it out and review it for you faithful readers so those in the minority who haven't seen it yet can decide if it's worth watching this cult item. ((Spoiler Alert)) it's not, don't waste your time, it's a dreadful mind numbing experience--get out while you still can! Ok now that the more sensitive members of my audience are busy crocheting, what a bunch of chickens right? Now the truth about this film can be told, read on to find out.

Are We Not Devo, Nope We are A Shitty Santana cover band

If this movie hadn't involved Bob Clark and Ormsby didn't write one of the coolest Monster make-up books that I bought one year in Kindergarten at a book fair, then I wouldn't have subjected myself to this level of dullness. I thought it was great how in that book they talked about lighting and facial expressions when transforming into Jeckyll and Hyde by using red lights, shadows and Orange and Black Cherry soda as a potion-- it was inspiring. Ormsby was also the mad genius behind Hugo: Man of a Thousand Faces, the Kenner puppet that comes with a million disguises, was featured on the Uncle Floyd Show and allegedly inspired The Love Butcher.

an exerpt from Ormsby's Monster make-up book. 

This film, which flows at a draining, agonizingly slow pace has some of the cheesiest hippies imaginable to boot. Alan Ormsby with his van dyke beard, wizard cape and stripey pants looks like Gallagher's second cousin. The cast, who all appear as themselves, resemble a less scary version of the Satanic cult from I Drink Your Blood or Last House on Dead End Street for the family friendly neutered set. If you think about those two aforementioned films and the way they manage to deliver so much deep seated terror and creepiness with little to no budget, it's fascinating to me how they accomplish it. CSPWDT tackles similar situations involving evil hippies and it came out at the same time period, so why does it all add up to a lackluster and dull effort, I don't know. Ormsby is no slouch by any means and he wrote one of the best coming of age bully drama's My Bodyguard (1980) and I even enjoyed Popcorn (1991), which he was an uncredited director of. In fact this may be the lowest point of his career, but what's so perplexing to me is how it's so widely known. Another strange coincidence that makes perfect sense now that I think about it is Jeff Gillen the chubby guy with Larry Fine hair played the scary Santa Claus in A Christmas Story. 

I can't believe you tried to blame that fart on the corpse

One stand out seen in Dead Things has two gay positive characters, which was shocking for the offensive 70's when society was still very ignorant and homophobic. One of them wears a zombie mask and pops out of a coffin to scare Jeff the fat guy, causing him to piss his pants! They find a real corpse named Orville (played by Seth Sklarey) and put a hanky on his head to perform a Satanic ritual, sounds like a generic Friday night--am I right? Check out this hilarious interview with Orville the corpse from http://www.badmovies.org/interviews/sklarey/

Do you mind, I'm trying to masturbate!

Anya, Ormsby's real wife at the time, chickens out (I'm not sure why they'd exhume a corpse anyhow, perhaps they want to go all Nekromantik style on the rotting carcass). Anya hams it up like nobodies business and makes everything tense for this gaggle of artsy types. For a group of hippies there's a serious lack of beer or weed, maybe these are straight edge highbrow dweebs. As dull as this film is, it's still mildly enjoyable and I'll take these flesh eaters over the current trend of sad sack WWZ or "Walking Dull" moronic zombie trends any day. The trailer for this film which I've seen on the Mad Ron's Prevues tape is more exciting than the finished product, I'm sorry to say. The high light of the movie which doesn't really get going almost towards the end is when the corpses finally show up, their make-up is very good and they all have that cruddy Thing Maker style effects that I love.

Remember Kids, Count Chocula Cereal may cause dysentery 

Ormsby handled most of the undead effects along with Lee J. O' Donnell who also worked on Zaat (aka MST3K's Blood Waters of Dr. Z), that flick is so abysmal without Mike and the Bots goofing on it. Dead Things was filmed in Miami Florida which means it was probably sweltering but as someone who grew up in South Fl, you could never really tell on camera. If anything Bob Clark (going by Ben Clark) should get most of the blame since he wrote and directed it, but he's had such a prolific career that I just can't do it. I'm thinking this film is a 70's horror rite of passage, you see it once and that's it--you got it out of the way pat yourself on the back. I just watched Let's Scare Jessica To Death which is infinitely worse than this film and also another super famous cult item. Both Clark and Ormsby would work on better projects later considering this was what they slapped together in college, I gotta give them some credit, but yeah it's pretty lame.

No Don't make me watch it again not enough Beer on the planet!

NOT WORTH THE HYPE, VERY SLOW AND BORING!

The Anti-Christ (or The Tempter)

The Anti-Christ (Blasphemy, The Tempter) Directed By Alberto De Martino, Starring Carla Gravina (1974).

Up jumped the devil right into YouTube and on my TV in fucking HD! Hot Diggitty-Dog! I've been chasing this horned beast for at least 5 years (why didn't you just rent it on Netflix you may ask, because every time I change my plan I get a DVD that's scratched to shit and unplayable or on save forever).
Skunkape didn't even know how much I've pined over seeing this or he might've made fun of me and warned me not to bother with this Exorcist rip off!

Right from the beginning we're plunged head first into a nightmarish baptism of sacrilicious frenzy with snake handlers, people doin' the hokey-pokey and Roman Catholic gyrating, what the fuck is happening? Slow down movie, we've got 2 hrs to go! Behind a gaudy candle lit prison is a pure white Saint with knives sticking out of her chest and Gene Simmons type dragon boots. The dialogue is in Italian but from what I can detect, religious wackos bring their handicapped relatives to be healed by the female saint with "magical" powers, but what they get instead is death and demonic possession. Someone should probably make a sign like "Stay Clear of the evil haunted witch lady who will condemn your soul to hell" or something snazzier to deter tourism.

The first victim is the scrawny Richard O' Brien looking derelict from Torso who is definitely possessed by Satan (or the white bitch saint), he spews up pea soup and hurls himself onto a rock (his super imposed image looks all chroma keyed in). Joe D'Amato actually did the cinematography-- Eccezionale!!

This will be my grand finale of Doin' The Time Warp

Carla Gravina the lead actress is very cute and sports a Rosemary's Baby style Vidal Sassoon hair-do. She plays the paralyzed demonic possessed Ippolita--that name reminds me of Neapolitan ice cream! It's like the film makers are simultaneously ganking the whole devil genre. Oh yeah and guess who plays her father, Mel "I'll appear in almost any Italian genre flick for a buck" Ferrer. I'm glad that Thunderbird puppet-looking smoe is here for some reason. Alida Valli who played the cat-haired German witch in Suspiria and the surgeon's assistant in Eyes without A Face oddly enough is a welcome sight. I gotta mention the actor who plays Ippolita's (Gravina) brother, who looks like a gay version of the Martin short evil man child character Clifford!

Are we going to Dinosaur World or what bitch?

The sets and production design are seriously awe inspiring in their over the top way! Ippolita is having anger and faith issues because her father replaced her recently mother, who was recently killed with another woman too quickly, they were involved in a car accident that made the daughter wheelchair bound. I love that she's in this strange environment where these Catholic priests all believe in therapy and want her to immediately seek para psychological help from a hypnotist, it's very unusual. The Dr. shows up at a party and automatically lies her down and hypnotized her to dredge up regressive memories. There's this reoccurring image of a crushed headless frog (that looks pretty real). The hypnosis reveals that in a past life she was a persecuted witch condemned by The Inquisition. Just like Ghostbusters mentions the underlying theme in The Tempter is "past life experience intruding on present time". This film is overtly Catholic and though it's patterned after The William Peter Blatty text it's a different take on the same subject matter and more about re-incarnation and the ghost of Ipp's former self interrupting her current one. She's also driven by the anger at her father played by Mel Ferrer who at one point has sex while she masturbates herself into another dimension (it's hard to describe, just watch to see what I'm talking about). Even though this and Abby were released the same year, neither of them really infringe on anything seem in The Exorcist that is besides demons, green vomit and gratuitous religious iconography.

Burgle Kutt makes a special guest appearance

This movie hates frogs as Gravina drifts away into a satanic ceremony, a goat headed priest squashes a poor amphibian all over her body, sticks a goat anus in her face and she licks up frog blood. After the nightmare, which also includes her being mounted by the devil priest, she seems much happier. Chas described this part in the catalog as a "Cool orgy in Hell scene with the kissing of many goat butts". There is an actual scene where they show a goat anus, I can't imagine a focus group decided that's what was missing from other Satanic horror films, SHEEEEESSSSHHH!

I'm here for my audition on Goat Butts Beach 86

I think the nightmare gives her literal cougar powers of seduction because right after she mates with a long haired geeky teen she then twists his head off like a Jeffery Combs From Beyond "Ginger Bread Man". Also the Devil makes her able to walk, so obviously everything's cool right? No, not really! At the dinner table she spouts obscenities at everyone and has green foam (that looks like Kale toothpaste) around her mouth. She eats like a ravenous animal, says "cocksucker" a bunch of times in a Mercedes McCambridge voice and can't seem to be able to swallow food (maybe this is the demon's diet plan). The levitation part looks really silly! At one point her disembodied hand strangles this poor guy who tries to evacuate them pesky demons to no avail. She even feeds him her barf and says "Lick It!" (Yuck! Don't you hate when that happens)?

EEEK, Tiny Tim's got a boner!

In the mid 70's, the race to be the first demonic possession movie was on, this came out 1 year after Max Von Sydow Linda Blair brainwarp was released and Abby came out the same year. Why all the hub bub about The Exorcist when you had your choice of head spinning Catholic hysteria films? All of them are jokey where as the William Friedkin one still has an effective grip of fear, I can't explain why but it's the reason I never re-watch it with fond memories, if anything it's a chore because it twists your emotions in a cryptic unpleasant way. Here the levitation part reminds me of the "I Love to Laugh guy from Mary Poppins. Once the Jesuit pro of this film shows up to fix Ippi, it's pretty funny that he resembles hixploitation actor Dub Taylor from Poor Pretty Eddie and Little House on the Prairie. Morricone does the unusually drab and yet pipe organ heavy score. 

It's hard to believe but the director was later responsible for MST3K fodder like Puma Man and Miami Golem. Gianfranco Clerici, the writer of tons of Fulci and Deodato films including Cannibal and Jungle Holocaust, House on the Edge of the Park wrote this. As far as possession films go this one is pretty entertaining and more original than I expected. The ending is a little too fanatical and basically God comes in and saves the day, Oh well, I guess if they went full rip-off it would've been to blatant. Check it out while it's available on Youtube or buy the Anchor Bay DVD.

Yoddo-la-ho-yodoo-la-hee hooo!

BUY HERE

Frankenstein '80

Visit bruceholecheck.blogspot.com for more great VHS pictures

FRANKENSTEIN '80
Italy, 1972
Directed by Mario Mancini

Reviewed by Michael Hauss

Remember growing up and that green dirty ass puppet on Sesame Street used to sing that song about loving trash? Well, when it comes to my choices in films, the trashier the better I always say... yes, indeed I love me some trash. Now while I ain't gonna lie and say this film is good, because it's really a piece of shit. But damn it's so trashy I fell in love with it! How do I love thee? Let me count the ways....

Gordon Mitchell is in it and his performance is downright awful, his facial expressions don't change and his body language reads, what the fuck am I doing here in this garbage.

There's plenty of blood and guts and boobs on display.

It's from Italy, the land of Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci and Mario Bava.

It's so stupid and mind numbingly bad, that it did not make me use my brain, I was catatonic with spittle running down my chin by the time the end credits appeared.

I had a hard time watching this film again, I had seen it years ago and hated it then. I kept putting it off until I was gleaming the bottom of the barrel of things to watch in my DVD collection. I was down to two films to watch, MUTANT HUNT (USA, 1987) and this film. I chose MUTANT HUNT because I had tried to watch it years ago on a shitty vhs copy and turned it off. I had purchased a DVD copy from the Full Moon website, figuring it was a remastered DVD, and what did I get? I got another freaken copy of MUTANT HUNT that was a shitty vhs transfer! I made it through five dirty, shitty ass minutes of that other film and grabbed for the DVD copy of FRANKENSTEIN '80. So I put the copy of this film in, and can you guess what I got? I got another shitty ass vhs copy, this time courtesy of the fine folks at Cheezy flicks, The vhs transfer they offered for this "Frankenflick" was not as bad as the dirty shit stained copy used on their release of the classic bad Jess Franco film OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES (France, Spain, 1982), but it was dark and murky with occasional video roll lines and blurred colors and points of the film where it was so dark it was almost impossible to see what was going on. But on the bright side ninety or so minutes of murky FRANKENSTEIN '80 shit was still much better than five minutes of the God awful MUTANT HUNT!

I know that cover is rad, but don't watch it whatever you do!

So, where was I? This film was released in 1972 and was directed by Mario Mancini (not the old school wrestler) and this is his only directing credit. Mancini was a cinemotogropher on twenty films including KONG ISLAND (Italy, 1968), FRENCH SEX MURDERS (Italy, W. Germany, 1972) and DR. FRANKENSTEIN' S CASTLE OF FREAKS (Italy, 1975).

The film is about a disgraced doctor named Frankenstein (Gordon Mitchell) who was a surgeon who killed a politician's wife during a botched surgery and after this disgrace began working in the morgue, no longer allowed to operate. Frankenstein has a secret lab in the hospital where he has patched together a monster called Mosaic (Xiro Papas) from body parts laying around the morgue, Mosiac goes out and murders people for their body parts and to fondle the women he kills, always needing a constant supply of new body parts because of the transplants he receives are being constantly rejected, but thanks to good ole' Dr. Frankenstein who steals a new serum from a Dr. Schwartz, this new serum will help Mosiac's body from rejecting the transplants. Mosaic gets a liver transplant, a new set of eyes and even a new set of testicles that he goes out and tries out on a prostitute who is shocked at his carved up body and screams and struggles as the monster shags away until he gets sick of her screaming and strangles her to death, the funny thing about this scene though is Mosiac steals money from Dr. Frankenstein to pay the prostitute with? Speaking of livers, the standout scene in my book is when Mosiac stumbles into a butcher shop and orders some liver by pointing and grunting, when the female butcher goes into the cooler to get the meat he follows her in and with huge bone in hand beats her to a bloody mess, feeling her up after killing her. Gordon Mitchell appeared in a massive amount of films, mainly as a bad guy or antagonist. His acting credits include many exploitation films and some mainstream films including FURY OF ACHILLES (Italy, 1962), REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE (USA, 1967) and BORN TO KILL (Italy, 1967).

I've heard of beating your meat but this is ridiculous!

 Thrown in, is an angle with a crime news reporter named Karl Schein played by John Richardson (BLACK SUNDAY Italy, 1960, ONE MILLION B.C., U.K. 1966, TORSO, Italy, 1973) whose sister was to receive the serum after an organ transplant before it was stolen by Dr. Frankenstein (she died). So, you have yourself a snooping news reporter and add in some frustrated detectives along with an ulcerative screaming police inspector (Renato Romano) and you have the makings of a cluster fuck that this move spirals into! We have multiple parties looking, searching for any clues that may help them solve the case and making the viewers suffer through this tedious shit.

Tor wants Sherbet!

Schein had become suspicious of Dr. Frankenstein after two witnesses smelled formaldehyde at the murder scenes and since that's associated with dead people, bingo, Frankenstein becomes a witness. Schein and the inspector go to Dr. Frankenstein's estate and of course the mad doctor denies any involvement, but Scein does meet Frankenstein' s lovely niece named Sonia (Dalila Di Lazzano) who is studying to be a doctor. Schein becomes romantically involved with Sonia and this adds to the unhealthy shit stew already brewing. After finding audio tapes in Frankenstein's office that details his transplants on Mosiac and the use of the serum, Schein alerts the police. The police with the help of Schein investigate Frankenstein' s secret lab and find a dead nurse, the head of Dr. Schwartz in the fridge and the empty bottle of stolen serum, I think there's a joke there somewhere.

This time the elephant that left his footprints in the butter crossed a line!

Mosiac eventually wants to shag Sonia and Dr. Frankenstein tries to stop Mosiac who kills him, Sonia had locked herself safely away from the hideous beast. Dalila Di Lazzano plays Sonia and is a beautiful blonde woman who gets to bare her breast and hairy charms through a see through robe, for no specific reason except to exploit her beaver--damn! Lazzano appeared in many Italian films including YOUR VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM AND ONLY I HAVE THE KEY (Italy, 1972), THE BEAST (Italy, France, 1975) and PHENOMENA(Italy, 1985).

Being slathered in tomato paste wasn't on the hooker menu

Through the audio tapes, Schein figures the monster has around 36-48 hours to live before his brain is rejected and disintegrates, speaking of rejected and disintegrating, my brain by this time was feeling those effects also. One detective tells the police inspector, they should "swear out a warrant for his (the monsters) arrest?" To which the always excitable inspector asks a warrant for what, a "monster?" The last part of the movie has the cops trying to find a disfigured creature as he rampages through some pretty public places like a Grand Prix race, where he busted some dude's head wide open against the wall in a public toilet, and a strip club, where Mosiac hid in a dressing room and after killing the stripper, felt the dead woman up. The killings keep on until the finale when Mosiac' s head starts bleeding profusely and he falls dead,  back at Frankenstein' s estate from brain rejection. Pretty shitty climax to a pretty shitty film.

No, I'm not Dick Cavett supplementing my income, you are mistaken

Do you ever write something and upon reading it back it makes little or no sense? After watching this movie and making notes of the films progress, it read back like I was a bit touched in the head. The film really was miserable all the way around, the acting was atrocious across the board, the script was stupid and the direction was a mess and it just went on and on.

Shit! I dropped the bottle of BBQ sauce again

Ok then, this all leads back to the statement I made earlier about "loving" this film. You may ask yourself, how can this douche bag say he loves it and then write it up as a boring piece of shit, right? Well love for me when it comes to this film is the love I feel for an era of filmmaking, and let's face it garbage like this is still better than most crap being made today. Admiration of a bad product is no more pronounced than affection of a good product, right? What's not to love about a film that gives a shitty conceived monster a new set of balls, a set that sent him to visit a prostitute to do some monster shagging. A shitty film, yes, but a film with Balls!

Frankenstein has balls. . . film at 11.

WATCH HERE

Terror Express

Terror Express (Horror Sex) Directed By Fernando Baldi, Starring Werner Pochath (1980).

No George Eastman or rape/revenge aficionado's collection is complete until you've seen this film. Luigi Montefiori wrote the script and also brought along the "Funky Phantom stylingz" of Marcello Giombini who Italian Horror nerds are very familiar with. Marcello scored tons of soundtracks for Umberto Lenzi (Knife of Ice), Sexy Nights of the Living Dead, Anthropophagus (Joltin' Joey D) and Beast in Space (which Skunkape reviewed in Monster #7 ).

Three train punks stir up shit, they are led by Dave (Werner Pochath from Mosquito the Rapist, the film that depressed everyone in the GUTS crew, especially Goat Scrote who we elected to review it and he still hasn't forgiven us)! His rag-tag cronies are some of the least threatening looking motherfuckers imaginable--I mean they all wear Bobby Sherman style chains and tan clothes (maybe they're supposed to be communists, not sure). Ernie (Carlo De Mejo, the actor who went onto Fulci's Gates of Hell) sports a Bob Ross fro, I mean that is tough! Rounding out the trio is Phil (Fausto Lombardi) who later went onto Rats:Night of Terror. I mean it seems as if Eastman was trying to prove a point by making these effeminate slimeballs easy to over power with silly names.

Who do we have to blow to get more champagne coolies over here?

These creeps are lucky they ended up on this train because its populated by tons of frail elderly people and one sizzlingly hot blonde prostitute played by the sultry Silvia Dionisio. Silvia was in Andy Warhol's Dracula (or Blood for Dracula), Richard Freda's Murder Obsession and my all time favorite Deodato police crime flick Live Like A Cop, Die like a Man. Here she's sort of plays a used up kleenex and isn't given a chance to really do much but get exploited. 

I'm more like a snot covered fancy hanky than a used up tissue

Zora Kerova (who a year later would viciously get her boobs punctured for Cannibal Ferox), unwillingly participates in one of the silliest gang rape scenes ever filmed. The graphic sex is all handled in a revolting manor, there's lots of male licking (Blecccchhhhh)! She bumps and grinds these limp wristed dudes almost as if she has a penis! I'm not sure who's to blame for the homo-erotic way the shots are handled but after directing tons of Spaghetti Westerns (like Get Mean, which Blue-Underground will be releasing very soon) Baldi later on really shit the bed with gimmicky 3D garbage like Comin At Ya! and Treasure of the Three Crowns!

What's your secret, how do you get your perm so bouncy?

One kimono wearing senior with a Gene Wilder bird's nest hairdo tells his daughter to strip and then humps the hooker who resembles her, there's some Freudian creepiness of the highest order, BARF! The score by Giombini is electro disco as usual and sounds like the music Eastman would play in his champagne room. It's shocking how wimpy these supposed terrorizing punks come off as. That's the most entertaining part of the film they bring it up to an unintended level of hilarity. It's almost surreal how non-threatening these punks are, the hokey Nazi ones from Night Train Murders would wipe the flour with them, Hell, the Fucking Beatles from a Hard Days Night would come off like the Clockwork Orange gang in comparison!!!

Come with me if you want to paint happy little trees!

The dark shots of the train are so shitty that it looks like they repeatedly fade to black every time it's shown. For some reason there is a record amount of male nudity, maybe this film by default should make the GLBT list of rape/revenge films. It's all extremely sleazy and tedious though and I was cackling like a madman. Gianluigi who plays a balding convict in handcuffs ended up in Burial Ground with Peter Bark the year after. Once unshackled, he tries to defend the honor of Julie the blonde hooker and ends up getting jumped by the punks who just got finished gang raping her.

I knew I'd seen Pope Francis somewhere before he became famous

There's about as much terror as a Thomas the Train episode (even with the gang rapes, so then why am I so captivated by this film), I just admire George Eastman so much and the fact that he wrote this and it's a complete misfire for some reason delights me--only in Italian exploitation cinema could this be seen as a positive. According to Mondo-Digital, Montefiori was influenced by one of my favorite subway terror films The Incident, although I don't see much of a connection. If he had starred as one of the vicious thugs that would've given it less of a cheesy vibe than it has, because none of the punks are intimidating in the least.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR THOSE WHO GET THE UNINTENDED GOOFINESS (EVERYONE ELSE WATCH THE LATEST FAST AND FURIOUS SEQUEL INSTEAD, THIS AINT FOR YOU).  

I hear that Neil Patrick Harris just signed on to play me in the remake of Mosquito!

Black Magic

BLACK MAGIC Directed By Ho Meng-Hua, Starring Lo Lieh (1975).

I've been sitting on this one for so long that I feel like a big stupid elephant roosting on an egg about to hatch that may possibly devour me "Q The Winged Serpent" style. Why I've prolonged this review for so long I have no idea, but I do remember being thoroughly impressed by the awesome crocodile attack in "Revenge of the Zombies" (or the sequel to "Black Magic") and I kept waiting for that one to return to Youtube so I could string them together, sort of how you'd reattach two ornery conjoined twins, but that never happened. Maybe I just totally forgot about the "Black Magic" series--I mean there's a metaphorical stack of flicks I have yet to watch and overanalyze like "Ruby" (a film I don't want to endure again, it's like getting your teeth pulled by Piper Laurie with zero novocaine). Don't worry Janit Baldwin fanatics, that one will be suffered through again by me ludovico style.

I rented both "Black Magic" films long ago on Netflix DVDs and enjoyed the first one less than the 2nd. After realizing however that I could either choose this or Fulci's abysmal "2072: New Gladiators", I decided to go for moo shu pork instead of Joisey infused deep dish gorgonzola. The Fulci "Rollerball" ripoff was acquired by Troma, which somehow makes it classier). 

I'm shocked to admit it but it's been a few months since I've seen or reviewed anything from Hong Kong, "Devil's Woman" was actually the last one, I always know what I'm in for when I sit thru a SB flick, pure entertainment.

A wizard named Shan Jianmi (played by Ku Feng, who wore KISS makeup in "A Bat Without Wings") is in a hut awaiting the call to put a death spell on a cheating husband. Jianmi gets the mumbo jumbo rolling by flaying a juicy piece of stomach fat and a severed corpse head, which dissolves over the credits. The Shaw Brothers selection of horror is just astoundingly fun and warped. To me it's light years above the chop socky kung-Wu Tang Clan bullshit. It's hilarious how a prologue says "Believe it or not, this story is fictional", did anyone think it was a documentary? A couple targeted by the jilted woman, dies while a voodoo doll is pierced with enough needles to slaughter both of them. Voodoo dolls always remind me of the end of Creepshow " Ready for another shot?"

Voodoo Doll only 19.99- act now and get 4 Pins absolutely free
Just Pay Shipping and processing!

Ho Meng- Hua (who years later also directed the grisly "The Rape After") is in the director chair, so you know we're in for some crazy fucked up shit! To defend positive magic from destroying the pissed off warlock, he slits his tongue with a knife and bleeds over yellow paper scrolls, while paving his walls with them to keep the powers of good magic at bay. It doesn't really go so well for the poor prick and he dies. We cross cut into a busy construction site, where they play this jaunty driving safety video style music (remember keep those hands at 10 and 2).

A dude named Xu Nuo at the construction site has a pretty boss sports car (man, how can he afford that shit?) Mrs. Zhou (or Luo played by Tanny Tien Ni) seems like bad news and has the hots for this guy, but he won't budge. She is on the prowl and seems a little psychotic, so it's understandable that he refuses her advances. 

Go Away Chinese Freddy Krueger

Lo Lieh, star of a bazillion SB flicks shows up in a state of frustration as Mrs. Zhou smashes his window in with a giant rock. The stock music is unusually fuzzed out and spacey--good stuff.

Lieh's character ventures down into the Wanloa Forrest to fix his merry pissed off widow problem, by using unsavory supernatural forces he aims to keep his lifestyle and that bitch off his back. All of these HK films involving magic follow the same kind of pattern of revenge and retribution, it almost always turns out like a bad acid trip stuffed with sorrow, vomiting and maggots. I like how we're introduced to a new wizard by the act of him milking a sexy naked girl's titty and shoving rice into her snatch. The Wiz claims he was in the process of forming a love spell, a likely story.

this titty milk will go great with my Hong Kong Freakies

The sorcerer who has the same name as the dead wizard, warns Lo that if he doesn't provide all the ingredients and payment of a skull sized piece of gold that he won't like the consequences.The pacing is steady but could be more exciting, which is why I prefer the sequel.
  

Liang Jiajie (Lo Lieh) roofies this hot chick Cosby style by drugging her drink, but when she wakes up the spell wears off and she even threatens to sic her dog on him. Sorcerers in the "Magic" series can never be trusted and are serial backstabbers. They basically take their customers wickedness and harness it against each of the partner, so that no one wins. They are also notorious pervs and for a love spell, he gives this woman a pill that produces breast milk, even though she's not pregnant and forces her to burn a corpses face off. It sort of works out for her though because she ends up marrying the poor sap (played by Ti Lung). The funniest part is when the wizard, who lusts after Mrs. Zhou and has her smell some flowers that make her hallucinate and him look attractive. His grey hair is replaced by a Beatle wig and a unibrow! Another hilarious scene shows a good mystic, who looks sort of like an Asian Wilford Brimley battling the evil one with a flute that makes his enemy's eyeballs bleed. Like most SB flicks this one is highly entertaining, the pace is a little erratic and spaced out but not as dull as some critics have complained about. Check it out and be on the look out for a review of part 2! 

   

Alright fine you caught us, I'm in love with the dog from Dog Lay Afternoon, SO WHAT?

I'll fight you with my puppet twin!

AVAILABLE TO RENT ON NETFLIX DVD.

  

Zombie Death House

Zombie Death House (State Prison, Death House) Directed By John Saxon, Starring Dennis Cole (1987).

Practically every film fan is aware of John Saxon's exhaustive career in mainstream work like Nightmare on Elm Street and Enter The Dragon but how many know about his sole directing credit with this action-sploitation schlock fest? If you look at his resume Saxon was basically a mainstream actor for 5 minutes and mainly delved in exploitation horror starting off in the 60's with Queen of Blood. He's consistently working in the trashy movie realm (The Glove, Black Christmas, Nightmare Beach) which is why I admire him so much. If anything he owes a lot to his sordid background, it propelled him into C-level mainstream Hollywood status. When I saw him in Cannibal Apocalypse, I thought what's this mainstream guy doing in an Italian genre film but little did I know that's his bread and butter.

With this Nintendo Power Glove now I'm really playing with power!

 I had no idea about this film until Skunkape mentioned that I must see it. I vaguely remember "Zombie" Death House being mentioned in Fangoria before I was aware of the film. The producers seemed to have tacked on that undead buzz word to drum up VHS bucks and it's basically a more fun version of Renny Harlin's weak-ass Prison. Anthony Franciosa plays Vic Moretti a slime ball maniac, who Dario Argento had a bitch of a time trying to control on the set of Tenebre. Here he plays a drug lord who murders his sexy blonde girlfriend by drowning her in the tub and then pins the crime on Derek Keillor (Dennis Cole).

I'm thinking of starting my own Brett Michaels style VH1 show called who wants my STD or Cole-sore

Dennis Cole, a beefy 70's TV actor who looks related to John Davidson of "Thats Incredible" and "Hollywood Squares", gets thrown in the slammer and is surrounded by an assortment of wacky inmates. Michael Pataki who you may remember from Grave of the Vampire or the voice of John K's uber patriotic nutjob George "liquor" American is here as Vic's brother Franco and he's super queer. He wears an open blousey half shirt and is pretty entertaining as usual. There are some elements of Pierre De Moro's extremely sleazy Hell Hole present, only instead of babes like Judy Landers we get overly homosexual tension, the kind you could cut with a fork. Still if you can get into the subtle cheesiness of this prison flick you'll be rewarded. The script is kind of all over the place but don't let the incoherencies frighten you away, because it's a fun time. You are required to have a high attention span though I'm not gonna lie.

Convicts get experimented on by an evil Gov. agent played by John Saxon, donning some whack-ass bifocals! He wants to create a "Bride Of The Monster Bela Lugosi" style race of atomic superman only with criminal records and rotting flesh. There warden's family spends one of the all time worst Christmas vacations ever once the prison goes under siege. I wonder if they were trying to emulate Alcatraz because many families in reality lived on the island and spent their holidays on the other side of the prison yard. There's one dude who looks like Skunkape's favorite actor Reb "Yor" Brown but it's not him. He ends up as the prison bitch and one officer even threatens to rape him, Yeasshhh! Thankfully nothing happens though.

Before you insert anything into my anal cavity just know that I'm an inferior Reb Brown

Derek Keillor is best bros with Superfly himself Ron O Neal (looking as bloated as ever). Every other character seems to have a hot trashy blonde bimbo girlfriend, is Saxon channeling Amir Shirvan--I doubt it, but yeah it's on that level of hilarity! During a deal gone sour, Derek intervenes when he shouldn't even bother and pisses off Moretti's crew.

The first test subject gets injected and whenever he screams it's too laughable to be effective. The dialogue is very over the top and silly, one Jamaican dude played by Earl Johnson goes "We Got No Bananas Here Man, Go take a walk Monkey Ass"! He ends up inflicting the most carnage once he gets infected by the zombie virus and pulls one officer's face through the bars so it crushes his skull. And that's after he was recently fried in the electric chair, I mean it just made him more aggressive!
Johnson is my favorite character in the film.

That Wascally Bushwick Bill up to his old tricks again!

If you're looking for zombie action you'll be excruciatingly bored or disappointed (they're no textbook "Zombies" they are more like controlled guinea pigs), but if they called it "Guinea Pig House" that would've been just stupid! However, if you like dumb action, terrible acting and movies where a corrupt system uses mind control on the weak and idiotic than check it out. It's on the level of a B-rate Cannon film. There's even gratuitous nudity thrown in (like a last minute wet dream with Tane Mcclure) who apparently was married to a guy in the soft rock band Journey and he wrote "Faithfully" about her. 

I'm just here to break up the gay sexual tension

Saxon's character justifies creating these prison zombies by saying "I'm a soldier and there's never been a war on American soil", these statements remind me of someone from the Bush Administration. Tane McClure as the sexy prison scientist has quite an interesting resume. She wrote the new wave disco song for The Terminator score with her band The Tryanglez (that spelling oh man!), was on Dr. 90219 (Sheeesh, take it easy on the botox will ya?) and acted in a lot of Skin-a-Max soft core. She was in Crawlspace, Death Spa and Assault of the Party Nerds 2. I wonder if she's proud of this film, I mean it's a toss up since there's so much junk in her career. If anything I'd like to read her autobiography.

I'm so happy about Xmas I could SHIT!

If you're thinking about turning it off toward the middle, don't dare until you see the Twinkie man! Also during the credits they play "Chemical Warfare" by The Dead Kennedys and I'm totally baffled as to how they pulled that off considering Jello Biafra goes ape shit anytime they use their songs. Make sure you stick it out toward the end or you'll miss out.

BEWARE THE TWINKIE MAN!

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Theater of Guts & Co. Podcast

LAST HESS ON THE EDGE OF THE PARK

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Hello,
It's your pal Skunkape! First of all I'd like to thank all those who read and support the Theater Of Guts Blog. You're beautiful people and are what keep us reviewing these fine feature films. What you see embedded above is a podcast. (sort of) After nights of drinking and talking movies Erok Hellhammer aka Crankenstein and I finally decided to speak out, we woke up early, created an outline of talking points and hit record. It's the first podcast, our cherries are popped.  We do make some points and other times forget what point we were trying to make. Cut us some slack will ya? Because more are in the works and we promise you'll be entertained. In this episode we tackle House on the Edge of the Park and some other Rape and Revenge classics. Praise Hess!

For now look for the recordings on our Wordpress Blog ---> HERE  You can download or watch on the YouTube Channel GUT's GARBAGE.

 

So listen, then comment, Give us some feedback or your 2 cents!

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MASSAGE PARLOR MURDERS

MASSAGE PARLOR MURDERS
USA, 1972
DIRECTED BY: Chester Fox, Alex Stevens
Starring: George Spencer, John Moser, Sandra Peabody

Reviewed by Michael Hauss

This film is odd. It is so unbalanced and bizarre that it jolts your sensibilities at times. It has scenes that lead nowhere, it has some good acting performances and some downright awful acting at times, badly framed and edited shots, murky camera work, but, the bottom line is it is a dirty, gritty, sleazy, funky, fun romp.

The story revolves around murders that are being committed at some New York City massage parlors, and the detectives who are trying to solve the crimes. The detectives are intertwined in the murders because they have relations, both sexually and relationship wise with two girls who worked at the massage parlors. The only women who are depicted in this film are either massage parlor workers, or the wife of Detective Rizotti who is portrayed as a cold fish and is constantly firing a barrage of bitchiness at the frustrated angry Rizotti.

Detective Rizotti is played by George Spencer ( GOMER PYLE: USMC, 1964-1969), who plays the seasoned bad cop along with his partner Detective O' Mara, who is the young inspired, good cop, played by John Moser. Detective Rizotti has a regular girl at the massage parlor and she happens to be the first girl killed who is named Rosie (Chris Jordan). Detective O' Mara goes to talk to Rosie' s roommate Gwen, whom O'Mara eventually becomes romantically involved with. Gwen is asked by O' Mara about anybody that might be a suspect and she tells him of a guy that Rosie used to call Mr. Creepy (George Dzundra), who used to leave Rosie black and blue after his massage sessions. The detectives find out where this Mr. Creepy lives and see him exit his building, they follow and eventually after a short foot chase, catch him, administer a little police brutality and tell him not to show his face around town again. George Dzundra is a prolific character actor who is also credited with being the assistant director on MASSAGE PARLOR MURDERS, his credits include DEER HUNTER (USA, 1978) and SALEM' S LOT (USA, 1979) among many others.

I suggest you try the sloppy hot salami with cigarette butts 

The murders continue and are always brutally depicted on screen, the killer is described as just an average guy, average build, average everything, the killer is given the pov treatment when he enters some of the massage parlors and chooses a girl and pays the always sleazy looking desk attendants. So as Rizotti does the violent slow burn and O' Mara and Gwen get to shagging, the killings continue. Gwen who works at the Lust Lounge massage parlor does not ball her clients there, she tells O' Mara and acts more like a shrink to these poor fellows.

There are scenes that are basically filler including an opening with a massage parlor client named Irving who is actually director Chester Fox in an uncredited role, deciding that the massage parlor was not for him, comical yes, a plot movement scene, not at all, but the cowboy wallpaper was a nice touch. Another filler scene is of detective O'Mara and Gwen at a nude indoor pool party shagging until a pervert tries to jump a woman's bones and runs from the pool with O' Mara only in a towel in hot pursuit. After a well staged and exciting car chase the scene ends with O' Mara letting the suspect go and then dies an anticlimactic death.

The film boasts good performances from Spencer, Moser and Sandra Peabody who plays Gwen, the ravishing Peabody is best known for her role of Mari Collingwood in the film LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (USA, 1972).

I can't believe I was raped, murdered, my parents killed Krug & his cronies and I never got to see Blood Sausage!

The film also includes a scene of the insane Brother Theodore ( NOCTURNA, USA, 1979, THE BURBS, USA, 1989) who absolutely rambles some inane shit to the detectives, who have visited him because a medallion that two of the slain girls were wearing had been purchased from him. Brother Theodore is a horoscope reader who is fucking stupid and offensive towards the cops, he gets punched in the gut by frustrated detective Rizotti, a well deserving punch, I might add.

I was also in GUMS but anyone who saw that film went blind from the hideous sex inserts

This film also has many scenes with voice overs, as if some scenes were possibly done illegally or non union, or the budget was not there for the onsite sound recording. The detectives are at a loss for a suspect until detective Rizotti is dragged to church by his wife and the priest is preaching about the 7 deadly sins. The light goes on in the main protagonist's brain and he springs from the church pew and yells out " the guys a religious nut." Rizotti races to pick up Detective O' Mara and they go to a book store and look up the 7 deadly sins and start to put two and two together. The killer is slaying the girls of the massage parlors because their place of employment had a correlation with a deadly sin, Mad Hatter for anger, the Everybody's Envy massage parlor for envy, and the Lust lounge for lust. The cops race to the Lust lounge where Gwen works, only to find her dead, O' Mara is devastated but has precious little time to grieve as the killer is striking again. The movie ends right back at where it began, this time though without Irving, the massage parlor girl who he refused services from is being attacked by the killer whose face wasn't shown during the film until now, she fights back and stop...No spoilers here...buy the fantastic disc from Vinegar Syndrome and find out how it ends.

New scenes were obviously shot after the initial filming had concluded, like the nude swimming pool scene and edited in by director Stevens, other later on inserted scenes show John Moser sporting a bit longer hair style. Rosie the first massage parlor girl murdered is played by the petite, perky Chris Jordan, who appeared in a number of adult films including CONFESSIONS OF A YOUNG AMERICAN HOUSEWIFE (USA, 1974), DEEP THROAT 2 (USA, 1974) and TEENAGE HITCHHIKERS (USA, 1975).

I wonder what Al Goldstein says about my horoscope?

The score was well done and had an interesting assortment of music to accompany various scenes, over blown rock n roll at times, lounge music at other times, but a nice mix all in all. The murder set pieces were graphic in nature and a bit psychedelic in scope. Some scenes are surreal at best, the one with four massage parlor girls speaking about their boyfriend's sexual hang ups are so badly acted and give you the impression they were shot on acid, it just defies description. Two of the dead girls blink which adds a bit more to the odd mix. A scene is also thrown in at a peep show of a man and a woman that I will not spoil, it made me say "what the fuck was that" to myself.

Shit! I spilled nail polish on my forehead again

The director's Chester Fox and Alex Stevens only have this co-directing credit on their resumes, though Stevens was a stunt coordinator on many films including HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS (USA, 1970), SHAFT' S BIG SCORE (USA, 1972) and SCANNERS (Canada, 1981).
The Vinegar Syndrome disc is a beauty, there are some technical issues but the film is a product of its time, cheaply filmed and edited. There is at times an audible hiss but any technical issues can be over looked just to have this sleazy film in your greasy little palms. I can't recommend this film enough as a testament to 70's exploitation film making, and a time capsule of New York City and especially Times Square from the early 1970's. The film was also released under the title MASSAGE PARLOR HOOKERS. The liner notes by Chris Poggiali are very informative, detailing the film and its participants. The Vinegar Syndrome release boast two versions of the film which include the original and the rereleased film under the title MASSAGE PARLOR MURDERS.

Vinegar Syndrome- 2 disc set. Blu Ray and DVD
Features Include:
+ Blu-Ray/DVD Combo Pack | Region Free | 1.85:1 AR | MONO
+ Restored in 2K from original camera negative
+ Original theatrical trailer + alternate MASSAGE PARLOR HOOKERS trailer
+ Rare outtakes
+ Special edition lab card
+ Extensive historical liner notes

BUY HERE