exFest III Wrap-Up: From Borgnine to Theodore

Somewhat up and at them after yesterday's packed exFest III from the fine folks at Exhumed Films. 8 movies, no trailers and nothing more than 5 minute breaks between flicks to gather your senses and maybe hit the potty before the next flick began. Here's the lineup...

SUNDAY IN THE COUNTRY (1974)
Ernest Borgnine is a controlling grandpa who lives on a farm with his college age granddaughter. When some bank robbers (including a cackling Michael J Pollard) come a calling he decides to teach them some lessons. Not so much a revenge flick as it is a portrait of Borgnine -- who acts his ass off -- going off his rocker all the while thinking he's striking a blow for decent folks.

RADIOACTIVE DREAMS (1985)
Albert Pyun's offbeat post-apoc rock opera stars Michael Dudikoff and John Stockwell as refugees from a nuclear shelter who dress and act like they're from the 1940s as they try and keep various factions from getting the keys to the last remaining nuclear missiles on the planet. I remember feeling kinda "meh" about this when I saw it back in the 80s but it has held up way better than I ever imagined and comes off like a demented STREETS OF FIRE.

THE WITCH WHO CAME FROM THE SEA (1976)
Totally offbeat and surprising psycho thriller about a waitress who deals with her history of sexual abuse at the hands of her alcoholic father by gruesomely killing football players and actors she picks up. A disturbing portrait of a descent into madness complete with some of the best side characters in trash cinema history. Millie Perkins' performance in the lead role rivals Susan Tyrell's captivating turn in NIGHT WARNING.

VIGILANTE (1983)
William Lustig's gritty urban actioner starring Robert Forster as a blue collar worker whose happy family is shattered when a gang kills his son and mutilates his wife. Supportive pals like Fred Williamson help him deal with his grief and anger issues (not to mention a stint in the joint for contempt) by taking revenge on the gang members. Bloody good fun with Steve James, Joe Spinell and Carol Lynley in small roles.

LIGHTNING SWORDS OF DEATH (1972)
Talky, kinda draggy third flick in the Lone Wolf and Cub series with our disgraced shogun executioner and his son wandering the landscape encountering mercenaries and yakuza. The big battle against a massive army is sort of fun but the climactic swordfight is a total letdown. Martial arts in general isn't my cup of tea so this may have been the lowlight of the event for me – which ain't bad at all.

GET DOWN AND BOOGIE (aka DARKTOWN STRUTTERS, 1975)
A Colonel Sanders doppleganger has invented a cloning machine and is kidnapping members of the black community for his own political aspirations. Which is far too normal a description for this wildly un-PC blaxploitationer featuring Roger Mosley, Otis Day, Stan Shaw, Dick Miller and many other familiar faces.

PICK-UP SUMMER (aka PINBALL SUMMER, 1980)
Nearly plotless Canadian teen sex comedy with two pals getting into hijinks during their summer vacation. The "plot" ostensibly concerns a pinball competition at the local arcade but the running time is largely an excuse for D-grade gags, a lot of shots of topless babes, curvy butts in cut-offs and bikini bottoms, and a soundtrack (which I *must* own) filled with power-pop knockoffs. In other words, I loved it.

GUMS (1976)
Limp porn parody of the blockbuster JAWS in which an orally-fixated mermaid blows her way through the dumpy schlubs of a resort town. Brother Theodore adds some madness to the proceedings in the Robert Shaw role as Carl Clitoris, a Nazi who pilots the SS Cunnilingus into the waters looking for the mermaid. Robert Kerman (EATEN ALIVE, CANNIBAL FEROX, CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST) co-stars in the Richard Dreyfuss role as Sy Smegma. I'm glad I shipped off the recent DVD release to somebody else for review... I think one was definitely enough!

Overall a pretty great lineup that harkened back to the first exFest's trash potpourri, though I still think that installment may win out over this one slightly thanks to REDNECK MILLER, NO WAY OUT and THE FACE WITH TWO LEFT FEET.

"He Will Not Be Gentle": AMOK TRAIN (aka BEYOND THE DOOR III)

I think I added AMOK TRAIN (aka BEYOND THE DOOR III) to my Netflix streaming queue within days of getting my Roku three or four years back. I'm just bummed that I finally got around to watching it just days before Netflix's license for this – and many other MGM titles – expired.

Beverly (Mary Kohnert) is a crazy-eyed virgin loner with a GIANT goat horn-shaped birthmark on her belly who looks like a busty Calista Flockhart. When she and some college classmates head to central Europe to meet up with a professor (Bo Svenson) to view a passion play that pre-dates Christianity, well, there are some signs that things are not on the up and up. Like the professor tossing out a telegram informing Bev that her Mom has died in a car "accident" and some locals setting fire to the hovels where she and her fellow travelers are bunking.

Eventually most of the students end up boarding the titular train, which barrels through the countryside. Attempts to stop the train in order to rescue a couple who got left behind prove fruitless and usually end in the death of one or two students.

Pretty soon Beverly comes to realize what we've known all along... she has been promised to Lucifer to be his bride and "he will not be gentle".

BEYOND/AMOK is a gory, atmospheric and occasionally trippy ride complete with decapitations, impalements, wandering locals, mouthfuls of maggots, disintegrating faces, a freaky "gipsy" woman (who seems like she wandered in off the set of EVIL DEAD 2), crushed heads, a talking train (and I don't mean Thomas!), college students ripped in half, and Satan in a cube... not to mention a fakey fake fake train set that gives HORROR EXPRESS a run for its money!

Hurry... it's still available on Netflix till May 1. All aboard!

AMOK TRAIN is available from Amazon.

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Wait. What? I Actually Like Argento's DRACULA?

"Thank God I had enough garlic for one bullet." 

I'd sworn off Argento after the recent CAT O' NINE TAILS/STENDHAL SYNDROME borefests but had to give DRACULA DI DARIO ARGENTO (in non-3-D) a spin when it landed in my lap. 

Sure, some of the CGI is a little dodgy. Okay, so Rutger Hauer phones in his role as a world weary Van Helsing to a brutal extent. And, yes, Claudio Simonetti's heavy-on-the-theremin score borders on giggle-inducing cheese every time it oooo-weee-oooo's its way into the proceedings. 

But I'll be damned if this isn't actually a pretty fun spin on Dracula, though it has about as much to do with Stoker's source novel as one of those Full Moon SUBSPECIES movies. 

Dare I say it? Don't buy into the hatred... it's probably Argento's most entertaining movie since OPERA. 

Full Disclosure: I'm neither a big Argento fan nor a Dracula purist so I didn't spend any time ringing my hands about "what happened to the guy who made SUSPIRIA?!" or fidgeting because of the wholesale changes to the source material.

In other words, your mileage may vary but the flick never bores, there's a hot redhead vampirella, Thomas Krestchmann (who, ironically, is starring as Van Helsing in NBC's upcoming DRACULA tv series) reminds me of a cross between Liam Neeson and Aaron Eckhart, and Argento packs in enough gore to make me forget recent duds like GIALLO, THE CARD PLAYER and THE MOTHER OF TEARS.

DRACULA DI DARIO ARGENTO is available from Amazon.

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Eurotrash Weekend Viewing: ALIEN CONTAMINATION and CAT O' NINE TAILS

Busy weekend of painting the kitchen here at Casa Taylor, but I did manage to squeeze in a couple Eurotrash views.

While trawling through the Amazon Prime streaming listings on Friday night I discovered Luigi Cozzi's ALIEN CONTAMINATION, a favorite from the 80s rental store era. I still have fond memories of sitting on my buddy Lou's living room floor, stashing empty beer cans under the sofa as we heard his dad come in from a night on the town. Rather than head to bed he proceeded to drop into a chair and relentlessly bust our balls about how a bunch people sit in a room in Italy coming up with movies these two goofballs in New Jersey will rent.

Even though it was the cut US version distributed by Cannon, it's still a funky and fun explodey sci-fi/horror/action hybrid. No matter how many times I see it that exploding lab rat always gets me and when it veers into the mind-control cyclops territory, well, I'm all in. Would make fun double bill with LIFEFORCE.

After watching the first half hour of CAT O' NINE TAILS on Saturday night I was able to polish it off on Sunday evening, and as ER contributor John Grace opined at the ER Facebook page it is "creaky and dull". It starts off nicely enough with Karl Malden as the blind puzzle lover overhearing bits of blackmail talk and other audio clues, but then it turns into the James Franciscus show with him running around as a hot shot reporter trying to solve the rash of mysterious murders and what they have to do with the break-in at the genetic research facility.

Malden's character disappears for long stretches and the audio-centric REAR WINDOW riff concept sorta gets tossed out the, er, window. Long and drawn out, the flick has a few fun moments and Argento stages several strangulation murders as brutal affairs, but the whole thing left me feeling very "who cares?".

I've come to the conclusion that I enjoy the period of Argento flicks from SUSPIRIA through OPERA but everything before or after that era sorta leaves me cold. I still have to work my way through some 90s and early 00s titles like SLEEPLESS, TRAUMA and STENDAHL SYNDROME (not to mention, shudder, DRACULA) though I'm not even sure why I'm doing it at this point!

What did you watch this weekend?

ER #52 Call for Contributions!

The recently-relaunched Exploitation Retrospect: The Journal of Junk Culture and Fringe Media is currently accepting submissions for our Fall 2013 issue (#52).

We are especially looking for:

• reviews of horror, sci-fi, exploitation and low-budget cinema available via DVD, Blu-Ray, VHS and streaming formats;
• interviews with non-mainstream actors, actresses, directors, producers;
• articles in the 1200-2500 word range (can be career overviews, genre explorations, etc.);
• comic, magazine, zine and book reviews.

In addition to our usual lineup of horror, sci-fi and exploitation cinema the issue will also feature the debut of our new ASSIGNMENT: ACTION! section featuring reviews of men's adventure novels of the 70s/80s and beyond, action cinema, remembrances of memorable action series and characters and so on. If you dig Remo Williams, The Chameleon, The Penetrator, ABLE Team, The Executioner and their ilk we are definitely seeking contributions from you!

Deadline for submissions is August 1, 2013 with an anticipated publication date of mid-October. All contributors will receive a complimentary copy of the issue. (Please note... this is a hard deadline in order to make our print date and any submissions received after this date may not be included in the issue.)

If you have ideas for interviews, articles or other contributions please contact me via e-mail before embarking on anything.

Not sure contributing to ER is right for you? Feel free to explore this blog, check out our long-running website or order a copy of ER #51 (still available from our website... now in its second printing).

WELCOME TO SPRING BREAK! (aka NIGHTMARE BEACH)

Normally this is the time of year when I'm packing the car, putting work on hold and heading south for a week to soak up some sun, play a little golf, eat way too much and drink beers with lunch.

Unfortunately, my daughter's new school has their break after Easter which poses some conflicts that will postpone a jaunt to the land of Krystal and Mickey Mouse for a couple months.

So, with work piling up around me and a weekend of college hoops staring me in the face I decided to spend a little spring break with Umberto Lenzi's WELCOME TO SPRING BREAK! (1988) an oddball kitchen sink slasher with a little bit of everything: an electrocuted biker who may (or may not) be back from the dead; a motorcycle-riding killer with a penchant for electrocution; a sleazy motorcycle gang (with the DEMONS logo on their jackets); a hooker posing as a poor college student; a peeping hotel worker; and breasts, lots of breasts on 80s girls with giant mall hair and big sunglasses.

What's that? You say the only thing missing is a famous college football player who blew the big game and gets mixed up in the murders when he investigates the disappearance of his horny buddy (who is also head of the Beaver Patrol)? Oh okay, we'll throw that in, too.

And while I'm at it would you like John Saxon in his dickiest role ever as an S&M-loving dirty cop who lives in a trailer and gets off on crime scene photos of bound college girls? What about some bonus Michael Parks as a flask-sucking coroner (naturally) who it's insinuated is passing prescription pills to "pretty beach boys"?

Yep, Lenzi pulls out all the stops (there's even a prison breakout, a wet t-shirt contest, the stereotype jokester who keeps faking his own death and an unresolved plotline about an annoying pickpocket) yet WELCOME... (aka NIGHTMARE BEACH) really never comes together. Is it a "mean bikers messing with spring breakers" movie? A vengeful slasher (easily ID'd) offing naughty college kids flick? Is it The Adventures of Ronnie and The Beaver Patrol? Unfortunately, it's a little bit of all three and the constant jumbling of murder, mayhem, plot and spring break shenanigans occasionally conspire to make things draaaaagggg a bit.

Despite those complaints, it's still 90 sleazy minutes of electrocutions (with effects by Carlo Rambaldi's son), boobs, bikers, big hair and Saxon at his teeth-grittingestly finest all set to a super-cheesy 80s rock soundtrack and music by Carlo Simonetti.

In other words, I've had worse spring breaks.

WELCOME TO SPRING BREAK is available from Amazon.

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Widescreen CREATURE!!

Been a little quiet here of late thanks to my BIG annual catalog project that keeps me busy for the first few months of the year. But I actually held a copy of the printed product in my hands today and breathed a big old sigh of relief.

We'll be back with more reviews and news soon, but I had to share this tidbit... our pals at Diabolik DVD just announced that they have the self-released, widescreen director's cut of William Malone's CREATURE (aka TITAN FIND) in stock!

If you've never seen it (or have only seen the full-frame versions that have been around on dollar DVD labels for years) this is a fun ALIENS rip-off with Kinski as Hans "Rudy" Hofner, a lounge lizardy alien explorer with lines like "zoom kind uv collactive intelligence" and the awesome "THIS CREATURE IS SLY!"

I can't wait to get my hands on it and see it properly presented for the first time as well as enjoy what I'm sure will be illuminating commentary from Malone!