Ilsa Tigress of Siberia

Ilsa Tigress Of Siberia, directed by Jean LaFluer, Starring Dyanne Thorne (1977).

This very Canadian entry in a series of ghastly titillation and Nazisploitation smackers involves real authentic Bitch of Buchenwald Ilse Koch, played by the icy cold busty babe Dyanne Thorne for the third time. No one else could pull off this role but this isn't the first time Koch has been immortalized in cinema. The same year Dave Friedman who was inspired by Lee Frost's Love Camp 7 to use the set of Hogan's Heroes for the unsavory purposes of this production, a Lina Wertmuller arthouse classic came out called Seven Beauties. In that film, Shirley Stoler (who looks very much like the actual Koch) aims to murder main character Pasqualino (Giancarlo Giannini) if he doesn't satisfy her sexual needs. I highly recommend this film, which I saw in my Humanities class at City College of San Francisco.

Der Weinerschnitzel, yes I'd like to order that Descendents happy meal.

This entry is just as unpleasantly repulsive as the first two, but slightly less camp this time around. You don’t need to watch them all in succession to figure out what’s happening and thankfully they aren’t as frustrating and non linear as say, the Back to the Future series.

Zemeckis tried to warn us of the Trump presidency, why didn't we listen?

The racist aspect mostly fizzled out with each sequel, so you could sort of enjoy the busty Russ Meyer babes with a clear conscience. This is the Nazisploitation genre where it’s guaranteed to cause emotional trauma unless you are a Trump-kin or a racist piece of shit 4Chan homophobe and if that’s the case go fuck yourself.

The Eurotrash look of the film is appealing to me and reminds me of those weird Swedish Pippi Longstocking dubbed movies I used to rent during the same time period as when I used to go over to my friend John’s house and secretly watch Hotdog the Movie and Zombie.

The snowy locations give it a air of a Christmassy feel and Ilsa looks just as foxy as ever in that star hat and Wampa skin fur coat. Just in the first 5 minutes we get a smushed in cherry red skull cavity, cracked open by a giant cartoony hammer. I can't imagine anyone hasn't seen all of these in order, but for those who haven't--tuck in, it gets pretty gruesome.

This reminds me of that song by Warrant.

The whole gulag is set up like a Looney Tunes cartoon with man eating tigers and chainsaw arm battles. Ilsa parties with her cossack dudes who all lust after her of course. She does a clumsy dance to Russian bear music that’s part Fonzie part Elaine from Seinfeld complete with thumbs and kicks. Then she has a yucky threesome with two beardos who look like Hugo Stiglitz stunt doubles, they play a library track from Dawn of the Dead during the porkin'. I can just see the Hari Krishna zombie peer out from over the corner.

I'M SOOO OVER THIS!

Hitler is yesterday’s news and the new fascist pin up is Stalin. They torture enough Russians to compete with the Japanese medical camp team from Men Behind the Sun. Every other dude looks like Yakov Smirnov and talks like Balki from Perfect Strangers, but they all worship Ilsa. Man, all of a sudden the ego stroking of a fascist maniacal bitch is reminding me of a needy Orange diaper KKKlown—thanks a lot movie!

Trump's peen looks more like a baby carrot than a gerkin--noted.

One dude with an Axe body spray type name has too much will against state oppression and is tempted sexually with Ilsa’s meat balloons, he becomes an important figure in the second act of the story. I like how a minute after the war is over, they torch everything, murder anyone in sight and move on. No one sticks around to see if the news was reported as hearsay or in jest.

Movie over, I think not!

We’ve got at least an hour to go.

1977 Montreal flashes across the screen I can just hear the Stompin' Tom music and taste the La Batt’s blue! The sleaziness barometer starts to increase as the lone gulag survivor, who’s been hiding out in Canada takes his two pals to a brothel. Looks like they went into the wrong whorehouse because guess who runs it?

in Canada a pearl necklace is not what you'd think.

They capture Andre and he doesn’t even say “excuse me, you can’t arrest me, talk to my lawyer”. Apparently he’s better at withstanding abuse than picking up the phone and dialing a cheap attorney.

This grimy Italian dude that Thorne’s character swindled out of his hooker biz mentions Pompano Beach, which is where I grew up!

check out the fun bags on this hose hound.

There’s more of a Russian mafia aspect to get rid of enemies than shock troopers coming in and butchering people. The methods are just as gruesome however. When I first got wind of this series I was totally appalled, that it until I watched all of them and there's more humor, albeit super dark in tone but they're more entertaining on a campy level than you'd think.

In Tigress they use the loud heart thumps from LHODES and even that same library track from Galaxina as the lone survivor from the start of the movie envisions his worst nightmare. His torture fantasy shows Ilsa as a demented version of a cast member of CATS gnawing his dick off.

The Willy Wonka on dabs plus LSD nightmare machine is pretty creative, it takes your worst fears and attacks your brain with them. Why does this computer exist, who knows but it’s pretty cool.

Oh Shit! it's a horny Phillis Diller in CATS makeup! 

The Russian embassy has a score to settle with “The Bitch” and they send over ninja assassins. One gunman who looks almost exactly like Don Steele (aka Rockin’ Ricky or Screaming Steve from Joe Dante’s cinematic cannon), gets impaled and it's pretty delightful.

This pacing on this one is pretty riveting and I highly recommend seeking it out. You can skip Wanda The Wicked Warden, unless you have a hard on for Jess Franco. 

ONLY AVAILABLE ON DVD AND VHS.

The Devil's Rain (1975)

The Devil’s Rain (1975, dir. Robert Fuest)

Review by Goat Scrote

     We imps at TOG Laboratories have been busy preparing the way to Armageddon for quite some time now. To commemorate our 666th article, we’ve summoned a slice of 70s Satanic cinema so ripe n’ cheesy you’ll think you’ve landed in one of the moister, smellier crevices of Satan’s underpants. “Devil’s Rain” is a stinker but it’s got a ridiculously excessive finale which is worth seeing just for the jaw-dropping amount of slime involved.

Mork calling Orson.

     If you don’t have the patience for the slow pacing and laugh-inducing "action" sequences characteristic of the 1970s, you should still tune in for the fun splatter of the climax starting around the 74 minute mark. You don’t need to understand what’s happening plot-wise to enjoy the best things about the finale. It's a gooey rainbow of B-grade horror silliness as eyeless cultists dissolve into puddles and a regular dude wrestles with the devil. If they’d made the slime red instead of green, this might have been an R-rated grindhouse classic. As it is, it’s a mostly-bloodless 70s PG with a lot of melting zombie-flesh at the end. The effects department must have gone through hundreds of gallons of goop for that oozing, dripping, drizzling payoff.

Insert obligatory semen joke here.

     At the high point of his career, director Robert Fuest made two psychedelically schlocky Vincent Price classics, “The Abominable Doctor Phibes” (1971) and “Dr. Phibes Rises Again” (1972), as well as a couple of other cult classics. “The Devil’s Rain” was such a rancid flop, however, that it killed Fuest’s film career deader than an unbaptized virgin goat at a Black Mass. Fuest was banished ever afterward to the land of TV. Yes, the wretched stink of this movie was so severe that it canceled out the pleasing patchouli aroma of both of the super-swingin’ Dr. Phibes films.

Don't they sell these at Spencer's Gifts?

     Then there’s the curious fact that the filmmakers consulted with the actual Church of Satan while making this film. I imagine they did this partly to stir controversy for attention, and partly to pretend that there was some kind of legitimacy to the supernatural story which the writers had cooked up. They even gave cameos to Anton and Diane LaVey, self-proclaimed High Priest and Priestess of Satan's ministry on Earth at the time. I’m sure the LaVeys were very happy to collect their paychecks and soak up the free publicity on top of that, because why the Hell not? I can't help but imagine Anton LaVey casually reeling off inane occult nonsense with his trademark grim and frightening theatrical demeanor, then laughing cheerfully all the way to the bank.

Leaked! You'll never believe who they've cast as Dr. Fate
in the upcoming Justice League sequel!

     “Devil’s Rain” has campy performances from a reasonably well-known cast which includes Ernest Borgnine, Eddie Albert, Ida Lupino, Keenan Wynn, Tom Skerritt, and extra-large douchebag in human form William Fucking Shatner. Spoiler alert, in this one Shatner gets his punk ass whupped severely, and I found that ass-whuppin’ profoundly spiritually satisfying. Is that wrong?

I love my seventies porn collection.

     Even though Ernest Borgnine plays the villain, he is the real hero for me because he seems to be the only person on screen trying to make a movie which is not boring. He knows he is making a bad movie, for sure, but he still does what he can to make it an entertaining bad movie. I like his hammy, melodramatic performance as the manipulative cult leader who can shift from politely folksy to gleefully wicked to quietly sinister whenever it suits him. It's not nearly enough to counteract all the boring parts, but any time Borgnine is chewing scenery the movie is a lot more fun.

Anyone who sold their soul for this movie
is definitely entitled to a refund.

     I've saved the biggest star for last. This pile of eviscerated sun-bloated hog bowels disguised as a film holds the distinction of debuting an unknown young actor named John Travolta. He doesn’t speak and you never even get to see his whole face, so don’t get too excited. You may also be interested to know that the set of “The Devil’s Rain” is where the larval actor had his first introduction to the cynical money-making machine which calls itself Scientology. That's two, count 'em, two separate real-life cults with connections to this movie!

Can you spot the Travolta hidden in this picture?

     The opening credits roll over close-ups from paintings by Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450 - 1516 CE) depicting vast hellscapes full of creative and awful torments. If only Bosch had made horror movies. His paintings prove that he was very good at crafting disturbing, surreal, gory, and grotesque religious imagery. He was also good at straight-up vicious torture porn. Whatever he filmed it would have been better than the shit I’m watching today, I just know it.

"Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Very, Very, Very Beginning"
A Hieronymus Bosch Joint

  The story begins with a fierce thunderstorm lashing a house out in the desert. Inside, frumpy and anxious Mrs. Preston (pioneering director, writer, singer, and actress Ida Lupino) is dressed in what appears to be a pink checkered tablecloth. Don't let her role fool you, she was one of the toughest, most determined, and smartest people in Hollywood during the 50s. Mama Preston frets about her husband, who is many hours late. Her son Mark Preston (William Fucking Shatner) returns from a search empty-handed. Moments later his father returns on his own, but all is not well.

This is what I get for adding
Bill Shatner to an overpopulated world.

  Papa Preston (George Sawaya) has misplaced his eyeballs and his face is slowly melting. He delivers a message from a villain named Corbis, who is waiting in a nearby ghost town. Corbis wants the family to turn over a book of Satanic power which is in their possession. Then Papa Preston praises Satan and melts into sludge. I wonder if they shoveled him into a bucket for a funeral later on, or if they just let his remains soak into the mud for fertilizer? The movie sort of implies the latter.

This book of alien space wisdom has cured me of gay!

     Mark is drawn away from the house by a ruse and returns to find Mama Preston has been kidnapped. The aged family retainer (TV regular Woody Chambliss, who also played old Sgt. Pepper in the 1978 Beatles film) has been tied up and beaten senseless. This character is forgotten almost immediately after being introduced.

     Mark grabs a pistol and an amulet of protection, jumps in his station wagon, and heads out to do battle with the forces of darkness. He arrives at the ghost town and Jonathan Corbis (Ernest Borgnine) pops up out of nowhere to have a friendly chat.

Borgnine starts the hoodie-and-medallion look.

     Corbis wants the book and demands to know where Mark has hidden it. They have a faith vs. faith challenge inside a creepy old boarded-up church. Within is a Satanic altar and some robed bozos chanting evil hymns to bad organ music. Cap’n Kirk prays his butt off to Jesus and friends, while Borgnine offers adulation to the ruler of the Bottomless Pit. Their competition over who can overact the hardest ends when one of the robed cultists reveals herself to be Mama Preston, now eyeless and enslaved to Satan. Mark loses his cool and shoots one of the minions. Green gloop oozes out and Borgnine makes fun of him for putting his faith in a mere weapon.

The power of Kirk compels you!
The power of Kirk compels you!

     Poor gun-happy Mark has lost the metaphysical battle, so the cultists strip him of his amulet and half his clothes, take him captive, and torture him for the location of the book. The cultists apply an extreme version of good-cop, bad-cop. Corbis torments him a while, then trades places with a seductress. She passionately kisses a willing Shatner… until he realizes that he’s actually slipping tongue to the eyeless, slime-filled, undead shell of his saggy-fleshed elderly mother! Ewwww, on so many levels... Judas Priest! I wish films and TV wouldn't have forced so many innocent people to kiss Shatner. He clearly doesn't get the basic concept and it's fucking embarrassing.

MISTER TAMBOURINE MAN!

     Meanwhile, at the lab of Dr. Sam Richards (Eddie Albert), he believes he is about to "unlock the key to ESP".  Tom Preston (Tom Skerritt) is the Doctor’s assistant and the youngest son of the Preston family. His wife Julie Preston (Joan Prather) is the subject of the psychic experiment. She has visions of bad shit going down involving the Satanic church in the ghost town. The Sheriff (Keenan Wynn) is busy with the aftermath of the big storm, so Tom and Julie are forced to investigate what happened to his family on their own.

Okay, I'll do the movie as long as I'm not in any
scenes with You-Know-Fucking-Who.

     Tom and Julie arrive in the ghost town toting a rifle. The church is dark inside except for the light from a stained-glass window which looks like a prop from a super-cheesy 80s heavy metal video. (That actually makes the window well ahead of its time, I guess?) That’s the only clue Tom needs to figure out that the whole mess is about devil worship. He's a genius. They find his brother's shirt in the church, then their car explodes in a fireball outside. When they run out to investigate, someone driving Mark’s station wagon tries to flatten them. Tom shoots at the car and it crashes, then he chases and fights the psycho cowboy who was behind the wheel.
     This movie has really unexciting action and unconvincing fights. Behold the magic of cinema.

HEAVY \m/ METAL

     Meanwhile, courtesy of Julie's psychic powers, we flash back to the olden days. A bunch of Satanists dressed like pilgrims in a Thanksgiving school play are plotting secret evil stuff. Shatner is one of the cultists. Corbis bitches about the lost book even back then, hundreds of years ago. The other cultists must be really sick of hearing about that shit by now.

Gee, honey, this B&B looks really... inviting.

     A bunch of villagers show up with torches, led by the Reverend of the town (Claudio Brook). Shatner is one of the Satanists, and his wife, Aaronessa (Erika Carlsson) has betrayed the cult to the Reverend on the condition that she and her husband be spared. The Reverend double crosses her and burns both husband and wife at the stake with the rest of the cult. Corbis is not impressed and talks Satanic smack to the crowd while the auto-da-fe proceeds. He isn’t tied to the stake, but he just dances around the pole and stays in the fire anyway. What a fun-loving kook! I don't care if he is evil incarnate, I bet Corbis is fun at parties. As long as no one mentions that dumb book.

     Back in the present, Tom and Julie take the station wagon to get away from the ghost town. On the way out Tom has a crisis of conscience. He decides to go back on foot so he can fight the magic-wielding cult single-handedly and rescue his brother. Did I write that he was a genius earlier? What a reckless idiot, that’s what I meant to write.

Driver, get me to the set of Phantasm!

     Julie drives on to fetch the Sheriff, but the mother-in-law from actual Hell takes a break from making out with her son to magically appear in the back seat. She abducts Julie with embarrassing ease.

     Night falls and the cultists march with torches, dragging a shirtless Shatner toward the altar. Tom is disguised in a cultist robe to infiltrate the evil ceremony. At the big Satanic altar, Corbis holds an evil freestyle hip-hop poetry slam. Check out his hype lyrics: “Let us behold the Father, the Ram of the Sun, the Moon, the Stars! Hail O Deathless One!”

Sucker MCs better watch their step.

     See, this is what happens when real Satanists write your Hollywood rituals for you. If you actually say that last bit out loud you could turn into an evil Satan-possessed goat-person, just like Borgnine does on camera, and just as I did many years ago. Ernest could afford the plastic surgery to cover up his mistake. I personally can't. You’ve been warned!

     Anyway, they finally break Shatner’s spirit and he turns into another eyeless goon. Tom gets spotted by his zombie Mama but he escapes to fetch more help, in the form of Dr. Richards.

This church-sponsored Easter egg hunt is a little "off" somehow.

     Dr. Richards and Tom explore the church and underneath the floor they uncover a giant Faberge egg with golden ram horns. It turns out the egg is full of souls captured by Corbis. The Sheriff appears again, now an eyeless drone, and Tom fights him hand to hand even though both men have guns. Tom wins, of course, but he and Dr. Richards are forced to hide from the other minions. One of the cultists sees that the magic egg is gone, but the heroes have left the Satanic book behind. WTF, idiots? You had one job, keep that stupid book away from Corbis! The cultist (John Travolta) runs off to give the prize to his master. The bad guys are super-psyched about this turn of events.

The golden fleece prepares to devour Oedipus,
just as it was foretold in the Necronomicon!

      The minions prepare to work their magic on Julie, but Tom jumps into the scene and brawls with anyone in a robe. Dr. Richards threatens to crack the eggy thing, which we learn is called the Devil’s Rain. Why in the world would it be called that? Zombie-Shatner gets his hands on the egg. Fortunately for the forces of goodness, Cap'n Kirk is able to overcome his Satanic enslavement and crack the Devil's Rain open.

Oh, you handsome devil.

     The roof blows out at the same moment, I guess because of the souls escaping. Actual rain, which is apparently not the Devil’s Rain, pours down from the sky. That just seems confusing, to have a movie called "The Devil's Rain" in which the only rain that falls is not the Devil's, because "rain" in this case refers to a magic blue egg full of dead people. Hey, don't look at me, ask Anton LaVey's corpse what the fuck this is about.

Give Uncle Satan a big wet kiss, Tommy!

     The rain melts the cultists and since this scene is where most of the budget went, the director spends a lot of time on the gooey, wailing deaths. Satan/Corbis is pi-i-i-i-iiiissed, but the rain melts him down even as he struggles with Tom. Then the Prince of Darkness falls into a hole and explodes because... um... reasons. Eventually the whole church explodes with no apparent provocation. It’s a sludgy mess of an ending. Then as a stinger, Julie turns out to be possessed by the spirit of Corbis and we are treated to a creepy scene of Ernest Borgnine hug-molesting Tom Skerritt.

     Whew, this movie sure does suck a lot! I still have fun watching most of Ernest Borgnine’s scenes, and of course I like the way it ends. If you're interested in this flick you might enjoy the Joe Bob Briggs commentary about it.

Should've gotten a flu shot, stupid.

Gates of Hell (aka City of the living dead)

THE GATES OF HELL (aka City of the Living Dead) Directed by Lucio Fulci (1980).

I’ve been slacking lately on writing, but decided after slugging it out in the doldrums of Japanese torture comedy porn aka The Guinea Pig series to revisit an old favorite. I’ve always had an affinity for Fulci over Argento, probably because I saw his film at an early age and it’s nauseating tone resonates with me.

The first moment I saw that crooked, sleepy eyed corpse hovering over NYC was in the newspaper when it debuted in the U.S. in 1983. I have a vivid memory of seeing it in the second or third grade and wondering if my mom could take me to watch this one in the theater, she didn’t obviously. I know now that I would’ve been traumatized for life, considering I was scared out of my skin during METALSTORM. In the theater when I took off my 3D glasses because the action was too over the top and I saw nothing but blurry double visions. Later on, I discovered that the primitive effects of multiple cameras created the optical illusion. Speaking of that early Charles Band Mad Max rip off check out William Wilson's first book on the subject of Empire, buy here.

Inbred-itor, one of those knock off Chinese He-Man villians

This was somewhere down the pecking order of Fulci flicks that I’d watched first, starting off with ZOMBIE. I remember constantly seeing this one on the video store shelves along with the Continental VHS version of NIGHTMARE CITY (with its alternate title that I always think of when I hear the re-vamped title of COTLD verses Gates of Hell). By the way, that Umberto Lenzi aforementioned flick poster art has always struck me as clunky. It has a topless, blood speckled female with her eye socket torn open and mouth agape. What kind of sickos do they want to attract with that cover, it basically looks like the aftermath of a savage gang rape. I should mention just for some context that this was written a week after Umberto died, rest in peace paisano.

Mike Pence's fav masturbatory/ flagellant cassette.

That brownish mustard colored zombie from the cover of GOH, seemed to get around in the 80’s, donning the cover of Hell of the Living Dead (aka Night of the Zombies) and inspiring a similar floating disembodied noggin on BURIAL GROUND VHS cover. The first time I recall watching this Fulci movie was on a dingy, eternally dark and almost unwatchable video tape. I think I borrowed a copy from Skunkape and still had a hard time diving into the murkiness. In middle school, I had the Bloody Best issue of Fangoria and remember seeing all the wacky captions on GATES like “kids are not exempt from undead grips from the grave.” Fango is an obvious influence on TOG, definitely the Bob Martin time period.

At least I died knowing my fans find me less irritating than Giovanni Frezza

The gaunt figure and sunken in eyes of John Morghen also impressed me and I wondered if they just found some authentic derelict on the streets to play Bob the blow-up doll carrying pervert who ends up skull-drilled to death.

The most infamous scene that highlights the spectacle is of course the one involving poor Daniela Dora puking up genuine sheep entrails and crying blood. I couldn't figure where that ghostly torment stems from but it seems like Japanese folklore to me. It's pretty obvious when she is spitting her guts out that they replaced her with a fake head and yank the offal through the open mouth. Michele Soavi, star of the DEMONS series is in the car next to her and I remember when Skunkape and I were in TV production school together, he put together a wacky comedy video that had a laugh track and Brak commenting on the carnage of that very scene. The primary source he used to put together the mini episode about Soavi for our vocational school was Deep Red Alert #2. This was years before CEMETERY MAN became a zombie classic.

The Fabio Frizzi score is my favorite, it descends into cryptic eerie tones just after the blood curdling scream. There are a lot of soundtracks that sound as if they’re based on "Heart of the Sunrise" by YES (1971). The segment in the tune with the foot pedals, then ominous keyboard sounds seems to me to have influenced this score plus Contamination-Goblin and Possession by Andrzej Korzynski. It’s all speculation on my part but I figured I would mention it, since I’ve never heard anyone else bring it up. I hate to admit it but the Yes song is used to brilliantly montage Buffalo 66.

I can only watch the last 30 mins of Brown Bunny.

Fabrizio Jovine, the actor who plays the priest looks slightly Argento-esque, which always cracked me up considering the 80’s rivalry the two film makers had. It’s pretty fascinating to me that the ghoulish priest showed up in a TV movie about Christ, which starred Chris Sarandon as the Messiah.   

Me and Glenn Benton got a bromance brewing with our matching forehead cross scars.

Mary Woodhouse (Catriona McColl) looks very greased out, as if she hasn’t slept for a few weeks. During the séance, she froths at the mouth and as the dead erupt from the ground and it triggers an instant heart attack. Enoch, a magical book is yet another Lovecraft influenced text like the Eibon from THE BEYOND. This is pure coincidence but Mary Whitehouse, the ultra -conservative dingbat who spearheaded the Video Nasty witchhunt and Woodhouse are very similar sounding surnames.

I'm glad nobodies gonna watch these furshlugginer' shit flicks, oh wait!

There are demonic flames that belch up from the floor, every time I see this part, it makes me think of Skunkape’s wacky trailer for GOH. That crazy monkey had the flame ring float up and down incessantly until it looked comical, adding moans and wails while it looped.

The infamous John Morghen shows up in one of his first roles as Bob the pervert. The Blue Underground DVD really enhanced the entire viewing experience, it’s just so much more satisfying than getting an instant migraine trying to pick through the visual refuse. Here, you get to see every slithering worm feasting on a disgustingly bloated body (make sure not to eat anything during this flick or you might blow chunks so hard they will get caught in your remote buttons). When Bob’s blowup doll springs to life on its own, it reminds me of Otto, the autopilot from AIRPLANE.

Dunwich is the spookiest town ever, it’s pretty lame how “Junies” the only place to drown your sorrows in this sad sack dump is infested with zombies, ghosts and demons.

Nobody's drunk enough to tolerate an interdimensional pathway to hell splitting open and letting in the unholiest of ghouls.

stripper cake mishap!

Janet Agren (DOOMED TO DIE), who needs all the psychological help she can get is being treated by the afro-ed dude you’ve seen in other Italian horror classics like MANHATTAN BABY and TERROR EXPRESS.

Chris George (THE EXTERMINATOR, ENTER THE NINJA) bumps into two grave diggers, one Deodato aficionados will know as Perry Pirkanen or the guy with a giant blonde mustache making scary faces by a mutilated turtle foot. Both actors chomp their sandwiches and forget to swallow as they talk.

I felt so guilty about killing that giant turtle, I decided to move in with this tortoise douche.

Pirkanen is a guy who according to IMDB was uncredited in practically all of his films (CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, this and CRUEL JAWS). There’s gotta be an easier way to collect a paycheck!

Catriona gasps and claws her fingernails till the velvet is drenched in her blood. I’ve always been disturbed by the way she ferociously tries to break out of the coffin. The Fulci motifs are all present, like narrowly missing a fatal blow from a weapon or the extreme eyeball close-ups.

I like how right after Mary erupts from a coffin, instead of going to a hospital to see if there was any damage from being asphyxiated, they all stare into the camera and chat over tea and coffee about “Dunwich” and how the Gates are gonna bust open. Talk about pushing the panic button! You can just feel the grottiness as the haunted priest shoves a fistful of slithering worms into Bob's unusually attractive gal pal's mouth. Why do these babes hang out with him anyway, is he their only weed connection in this fucked up corn pone town?

just mash the keypad to dial Papa Johns

Next is the most iconic money shot, if you’ll excuse that term, but it’s a scene that basically framed Fulci’s entire legacy and especially his vile treatment of women, you know where I’m going with this—Daniela Dora mouth pooping out her entire intestinal tract! This is just beyond repulsive and brilliantly creative as a ghost power. Who comes up with this shit, well I can answer that it was one of the greatest Italian horror screenwriters Dardano Sachetti, who we've mentioned a lot in previous years. He's scripted everything from Macaroni combat flicks to Amityville 2, Iron Master and has worked for almost every giant in the Pastaland exploitation scene.

Larry the Cable Guy is a dick, this Prilosec removed my entrails instead of fixed them!

The bartender at Junies resembles Sachetti. John-John the whiny moptopped kid almost shits his feety pajamas as Emily (Antonella Interlenghi), his sister returns from the grave. She wasn’t even that long gone on the slab but her face managed to get completely shredded and maggot eaten.

GAWD somebody drive me to the mall to get some moisturizer!

Everyone is in a panicky frenzy in this town, especially the extremely sharp cheek boned Janet Agren. I like how her paintings have odd looking rhinos and waves.

Now most kiddies today can dial the drill brain scene on Youtube, but It always resonated with me as iconic and connected to Chas Balun/ Deep Red Magazine because his artwork captured that moment when a long assed drill enters John Morghen’s brain bucket and erupts from the other side of his temple. It’s just as shocking today as in 1980 and given the fact that he receives this punishment for getting high with a cute girl and being blamed for her death. It’s just a crime that it happened at all!

Oh yeah and she comes back as well as one of the undead, I mean someone should’ve strapped her down ROTLD wagging spinal cord lady and sequestered her at least.

Julie Hagerty's finest role.

Like the Gwar song goes- “Maggots are falling like rain” and strategically attaching themselves to people’s cheek bones. The scene where each actor you know and love gets blasted with real mealworms and wrigglers is pretty fucking nasty and also they used real vermin.

Once they are all down in the blueish rocky caverns, Morlock style zombies show up to wobble around in place. Up until this moment, these bug-eyed beasties are super easy to destroy, I mean they might as well be made of tissue paper! You don’t even have to shoot them in the head either, just pick up a random 2X4 and clumsily push it forward--problem solved.

My favorite mistake toward the end, shows a guy in a full fire retardant suit and gas mask under the flames. It’s nice that they didn’t actually burn anyone alive, right? There’s also that crackly cartoon ending that caps off into an ambiguous and confusing way. We'll return with more Fulci shenanigans pretty soon, until next time watch more coherent films if you can.

The Don't Go in the House guy literally was struck by boogie lightning!