31 DAYS OF FRIGHT: Rigor Mortis Setting In

As some of you might know I used to publish a food and drink zine called The Hungover Gourmet. I say "used to" because the latest issue of the zine also happens to be the last issue of the zine.

There were many reasons for pulling the plug on the publication – time, money, turnaround, ennui – but the biggest reason was that I really didn't have the passion for plugging away at a print publication anymore. And I'd promised myself that when the passion wasn't there it was time to get out.

So, for the first time in almost 25 years I'm not publishing a zine. Oh sure, I've got three blogs and two websites, but no empty Quark layout on my computer staring back at me, no bulging folders of clips, article ideas, notes, found stuff and artwork just itching to make its way into print. And, like I said, no passion to make it happen.

Luckily, that passion is still out there for other publishers. I don't follow the zine scene as closely as I used to, back when zines like SLIMETIME, HI-TECH TERROR, VIDEOOZE, WET PAINT and GORE GAZETTE were showing up in my mailbox on a regular basis, hipping me to the most outer limits of the trash universe. These days, it seems like a lot of the genre mags are almost pro-zines, with their color covers, glossy paper and handsome layouts.

Which makes it especially nice when a good old photocopied horror film zine like RIGOR MORTIS lands in my hands. This is the second installment of the Baltimore-based zombie-centric publication and it's a nice expansion on the all-zombie-focused first issue. Yes, the 60-page digest is still heavy on living dead content (including a nice comparison of the two versions of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD as well as an exploration of zombie comedies or zom-coms that sadly fails to include the great NIGHT OF THE CREEPS) but there's also a look at Carpenter's THE FOG, paranormal reality shows and more.

Even our main man Klaus Kinski gets a nice nod, with a five page article on Kinski's performance in Herzog's NOSFERATU and how it compares to other portrayals of the vampire mainstay. Unfortunately, there's no exploration of the trash-tastic NOSFERATU IN VENICE.

While my passion for producing zines may have waned, I'm happy to report that my passion for consuming them – like a zombie chomping down on some brains – is still as strong as ever. Here's hoping Dread Sockett, DeadVida and Co. keep the RIGOR MORTIS fires burning.

Joe Bob Tweets About Klaus

Leave it to the one and only Joe Bob Briggs to somehow wrap the one and only Klaus Kinski into the Steve Phillips sex addict storyline. Earlier today Briggs tweeted the following:

Steve's a sex addict? / If that's true, here's my question: / What was Klaus Kinski?

Follow Joe Bob's twitter feed here.

31 DAYS OF FRIGHT: Post-Exhumed Report -- Alas, No Kinski

Got home about 24 hours ago from the 3rd Annual Exhumed Films 24-Hour Marathon and I think I'm returning to "normal". This was my third year in attendance and I have to say that while this year's rundown came awfully close to besting the first outing, it fell short ever so slightly.

Seriously, how do you beat GODZILLA VS THE COSMIC MONSTER, DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK, PHANTASM, HELLRAISER, PIECES, BURIAL GROUND, TEENAGE MOTHER, DEMONS and GATES OF HELL, just to name a few?

Still no Kinski but this year's lineup was a winner...

CREEPSHOW: after kicking off the last two years with Carpenter flicks the organizers promised an A-list flick but no JC to start the event. I hadn't seen this anthology in 20 years or so and the stories still hold up nicely. Leslie Nielsen sorta steals the show in his segment and I was impressed by how much more involved "The Crate" was from what I remembered. A fun-packed way to start the festivities.

GODZILLA ON MONSTER ISLAND: though I don't remember it a friend suggested to me that I actually had seen this Godzilla flick many years ago. Described by one pal in attendance as "arson porn" it's largely long monster mashes interspersed with some ludicrous plot about bug-like aliens taking over the earth.

THE FLY (Cronenberg): more bugs, this time in the form of Jeff Goldblum. While the program guide's clue about a "science fiction/horror modern classic" from the 80s had my hopes up for LIFEFORCE, I can't hold a grudge for showing this flick (plus I can rationalize a Halloween week screening on DVD). Great storyline, fabulous acting from the three leads, icky effects and the damn thing is paced like lightning.

THE OBLONG BOX: was one of the few flicks this year that made me feel "meh". Clues suggesting a "old school gothic horror starring two genre favorites" had me crossing my fingers for HORROR EXPRESS, but we got this AIP Poe adaptation with Vincent Price and Christopher Lee instead. Unfortunately, proper appreciation probably required me to pay more attention than I wanted to at this point. And, frankly, a lot of those British people look alike.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 4: THE FINAL CHAPTER: here's where things really got rolling. This is easily my favorite installment of the F13 series and I had a smile from ear-to-ear during this one. "Teddy, you know where that corkscrew is?" THWACK!

RAW FORCE: definitely the highlight of the weekend and this coming from somebody whose favorite film ever made closed out the event. I'd seen bits and pieces of this on VHS but never imagined I'd witness what is easily one of the craziest pieces of cinema ever unleashed on an unsuspecting public on the big screen. Cannibals, zombies, kung-fu, inane dialogue, rampant nudity, Cameron Mitchell and the Asian Hitler all team up for what can best be described as a Filipino flick made by Troma. Amazing. Needs to come out on a special edition two-disc DVD from Criterion tomorrow.

THE NEXT VICTIM (aka BLADE OF THE RIPPER): another revelation for me. A stylish and fun Sergio Martino giallo with George Hilton, the scrumptious Edwige Fenech, Ivan Rassimov (described by a pal as the lovechild of Charlton Heston and Klaus Maria Brandauer). Nicely follows some of the great Eurotrash Maxims established through the years. Such as, "If George Hilton is in a giallo, he's guilty of something".

CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD (aka NIGHTMARE CITY): not my favorite Italian splatter zombiefest, but one whose empty-headed plot plays better with a crowd than alone at home. Some great price-of-admission scenes but too much blah-blah-blah pessimism from the female lead for my taste.

HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD: a (mostly) beautiful print of this dreamy Bava flick starring Reg Park as Hercules and Christopher Lee as the villain. I'd seen this one on DVD and one viewing was probably plenty for me, but it was a nice 2 AM palette cleanser.

TRAUMA (aka HOUSE ON STRAW HILL): another first viewing, though certainly not as good as THE NEXT VICTIM. One friend informed me that the STRAW HILL cut is longer and sleazier than what we saw, which means more nude Linda Hayden and Fiona Richmond if that's possible. Too easy to figure out what's happening, especially after the challenging NEXT VICTIM. Being remade under one its other alternate titles, EXPOSE.

LADY TERMINATOR: to say I never, ever expected to see this on the big-screen would be an enormous understatement. Like RAW FORCE it's a crazoid blend of action, kung-fu and damaged creative forces, but the drawn-out gun battles are a little too repetitious to elevate this one to RAW FORCE level madness. Still, a gorgeous print of a flick I never thought I'd get to see in a theater.

THE CHILDREN: I'd have been impressed by this one simply because it had one of my buddies totally stumped for a good five minutes and he seems to know every 70s and 80s horror flick like the back of his hand. When a school bus passes through a radioactive cloud, the children are turned into murderous monsters (zombies?) who can deep-fry an adult with a touch of their hands. Though it drags a bit in spots, high marks for such a rare treat and for dealing with the taboo of subject of chopping kids' hands off!

PIRANHA: I'm a sucker for nature run amok horror so I would have loved just about anything they threw at me (GRIZZLY, ISLAND CLAWS, EMPIRE OF THE ANTS, etc.). Plus, I'd been awake for about 26 hours straight and had just watched 12 other movies so I was pretty mentally pliable. But this remains one of my favorite of all the post-JAWS rip-offs, with a great cast of genre vets, decent late-70s gore, a witty John Sayles screenplay and tight, fun-loving direction from Joe Dante.

RE-ANIMATOR: what can I say? Not just my favorite horror film but quite literally my favorite film ever made. A near flawless blend of dark comedy, relentless gore and nudity that perfectly capped a great weekend of trash cinema.

31 DAYS OF FRIGHT: Golly Mom, Don't Be Such a Pooper

It's been 20 or more years since I've watched the original version of THE STEPFORD WIVES and I've never seen any of the sequels (REVENGE OF THE STEPFORD WIVES, THE STEPFORD HUSBANDS), spoofs (THE BREASTFORD WIVES) or the 2004 remake with Matthew Broderick and Nicole Kidman. But thanks to its familiarity as pop culture shorthand, even the most rudimentary knowledge of the backstory is all you'll need to enjoy the trash-lite made-for-TV schlock of THE STEPFORD CHILDREN.

Like Ira Levin's WIVES source novel (written for the screen by William Goldman), CHILDREN features a family moving to the quiet little town of Stepford, Connecticut. Thanks to the late 80s setting, the high school-aged kids are cast as new wave miscreants, complete with a (gasp!) denim vest on David (Randall Batinkoff) and giant Jersey mall hair on Mary (Tammy Lauren of WISHMASTER), who hangs with a group of "punks" straight out of a DEATH WISH sequel casting call. Fed up with the noise and crime of the city - not to mention David's need to drink milk straight from the carton! - Dad (Don Murray) packs everybody off to his old hometown where his first wife died 18 years earlier.

Initially, Mom (Barbara Eden) is on board with the plan and even chastises the kids for being so selfish and hurting their father's feelings about the move. But she's no blonde bimbo and it isn't long before things like the school's lack of a PTA and the robotic non-personalities of the town's women and children start to raise her suspicions.

Naturally, Dad is quick to reunite with his buddies in the Stepford Mens' Association, including Lawrence Danton (Richard Anderson aka TV's Oscar Goldman) and former football star Dick Butkus, cast here as basketball coach Tom Wilcox. Anderson is suitably sinister as the organization's mastermind, pressuring Dad to keep wifey and kids in line... lest we have a repeat of that nastiness from 18 years ago.

Like I said, a little familiarity with the Stepford storyline goes a long way and the first hour takes its good old time getting going. You know why all the kids are polite, robotic creeps and all the moms are cheerful sex toys for their hubbies. But once David, his rebellious galpal Lois (Debbie Barker) and Mary crash the dance and short-circuit the teen robots with their rock and roll, the pace quickens. Lois' escape from her father's clutches goes awry, a rush job on Mary's "replacement" goes haywire and it's up to Jeanie, er, Mom and David to save the day.

I wish the copy I got my hands on was of a little better quality, especially during the final scenes when Mom and the kids square off against Dad and his over-sexed cronies. The newfangled replacements being grown in the lab look pretty creepy for an 80s tv movie and reminded me more than a little of the Hank and Dean clones from THE VENTURE BROS.

I've always had a soft spot in my trash-loving heart for stuff like this. Quite frankly, the made-for-tv shlockfest is a lost art and you could do far worse than paying a visit to THE STEPFORD CHILDREN.

31 DAYS OF FRIGHT: They're Not Just Weird... They're Freaks!

Though it's getting its official DVD release from Mya in just a few weeks I thought the Halloween season would be the perfect time to sit down with my tape of Sergio Garrone's THE HAND THAT FEEDS THE DEAD starring Klaus Kinski as a kinda mad – but mostly just pussy-whipped – doctor trying to restore his disfigured wife's faded beauty. Coming out from Mya under the much better title of EVIL FACE, the flick should not to be confused with DOUBLE FACE also starring Kinski or LOVER OF THE MONSTER, a (superior) Kinski/Garrone effort filmed at the same time as this flick. Another in a long line of "facial transplant mad doctor flicks," HAND is a bewildering mess of a movie, though not without its merits.

After the death of her father in an accident, a beautiful woman (Katia Christine) who was disfigured at the same time pushes her husband (Kinski) to continue research into the field of skin grafts in the hopes of restoring her beauty. With the help of a stumbling, handicapped hulk of an assistant, the pair cut a swath through the available women in the area, arousing the suspicion of a writer who is researching a book on the dead professor's work.

Convinced that her sister met her fate in the castle – a suspicion backed up by finding her sister's ring on the property - the writer and her boyfriend set about to bring down the not-so-good doctor. Complicating matters are the arrival at the castle of a woman (also played by Christine) and her husband (Ayhan Isik). Their carriage ruined in a crash, the two accept the hospitality of the doctor and his mysterious, unseen wife, never knowing the peril their accident has placed them in until it is too late.

While I'm always happy to see a Klaus movie get a legit release, HAND is easily the lesser of the two flicks filmed by Garrone using the same sets, costumes and actors as LOVER. While that film – essentially a nastied up Hammer-esque take on Jekyll & Hyde – features one of my favorite, underrated Kinski performances, the actor only shows flashes of his usual brilliance here. Though I had previously dismissed stories that suggested Kinski was unaware that Garrone was shooting two films simultaneously, the on-screen evidence in HAND might have convinced me otherwise.

Extensive surgery sequences, which provide much of the flick's tame gore, are filmed with an obvious stand-in for the diminutive Kinski. Covered from head to toe in a surgical cap, mask and gown, "Kinski" is only shown in wide shots and in extreme close-ups of his hands as he operates on his wife and whatever unfortunate woman has landed on the other operating table. Granted, Garrone isn't exactly Hitchcock, but I'm pretty confident even he would know to shoot at least one close-up of the German Olivier's penetrating eyes. Further lending credence to these suggestions is the use of a snippet from LOVER to show Kinski's face during an on-screen attack.

Use of a Fake Kinski aside, THE HAND THAT FEEDS THE DEAD is a pretty slow, fairly tame dose of Eurotrash. Kinski sorta saves the day with a nice crazy scene with his wife's doll at the end, but it's one brief shining moment in what is largely a dog of a flick. Minimal gore and an all-too-brief gal-on-gal scene don't help amp up the sleaze factor, though the hulking assistant's perverse relationship with the disfigured wife – which conjures up shades of Paul Naschy's pervy gravedigger and the black magic countess in THE HANGING WOMAN – is a storyline that could have used more development.

I'm hoping the Mya disc proves to be a significant upgrade from the grey market version I picked up on-line a few years back. Sourced from a Turkish VHS with English subs provided by the grey market distributor, the flick has head-scratching moments aplenty, plotlines that go nowhere fast, and changes in attitude that seem bizarre even for a Kinski flick.

A full comparison of the two versions will follow.

31 DAYS OF FRIGHT: You Look at Me Like I'm Too Old to Trick or Treat

I've watched this video too many times to count and it still makes me laugh every time.

31 DAYS OF FRIGHT: What Will be Exhumed This Weekend?

Two years ago the guys at Exhumed Films, a Philadelphia-area horror film group that runs double-features throughout the year, decided to celebrate their 10th anniversary with a 24-hour horror and trash film marathon. Unable to resist the lure of such an event my buddy Bruce and I trekked up for what turned out to be a spectacular 14-film lineup featuring such classics as DEMONS, GATES OF HELL, PIECES and PHANTASM, along with the deadly dull DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN and the surprisingly awesome TEENAGE MOTHER (just released on DVD).

The event turned out to be so well-received that the Exhumed crew did it again last year and Bruce and I ended up recruiting a half-dozen like-minded horror buffs (including THG contributor, author and good pal Bryan Senn who flew in from Seattle for the event!) to commit ourselves for the weekend.

While the lineup was far more mainstream-leaning (ELM STREET, FRIGHT NIGHT, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD) it did showcase the mind-blowing WICKED, WICKED (shown in split screen Duo-Vision) which nearly brought the house down just four films into the weekend.

With two of these events under my belt I sat down last night, took a look at the lineups from previous years and put together my own "dream lineup" for 2009. The only limits I placed on myself were that I had to pick 12 flicks from the list of previous Exhumed screenings, allowing me only two "wild card" entries. I also tried to follow the rhythm of the previous lineups, with a Carpenter flick and a chop-sockey outing leading off and a triple bill of two gore flicks and a "nature run amok" classic closing out the event.

The 2007 and 2008 lists are published below with my 2009 lineup following...

2007
HALLOWEEN
GODZILLA VS THE COSMIC MONSTER
DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK
HELLRAISER
PHANTASM
PIECES
AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON
BLACULA
BURIAL GROUND
TEENAGE MOTHER
DRACULA VS FRANKENSTEIN
DEMONS
ALLIGATOR
GATES OF HELL

2008
THE FOG
DESTROY ALL MONSTERS
PHANTASM 2
WICKED WICKED
NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET
THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN
THE BOOGEYMAN
FRIGHT NIGHT
DEAD & BURIED
ISLAND OF THE DAMNED (aka WHO CAN KILL A CHILD?)
EQUINOX
TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2
FOOD OF THE GODS
RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD

2009?
PRINCE OF DARKNESS
INFRA-MAN
THE CONVENT
HORROR EXPRESS
HALLOWEEN III (wild card)
TENEBRAE
BLOODSUCKING FREAKS (wild card)
NIGHT OF THE CREEPS
NIGHT OF THE ZOMBIES
GRAVE OF THE VAMPIRE
THE WIZARD OF GORE
RE-ANIMATOR
GRIZZLY
ZOMBIE

Kinski Name Checked on HBO's BORED TO DEATH

Thanks to the so-so reviews I haven't checked out HBO's BORED TO DEATH yet. Sure, I like the stars (Jason Schwartzman, Zach Galifianakis, Ted Danson) and the pacing and comic structure sounds very Wes Anderson-esque but it has never quite made it onto my watch list.

But based on the e-mail I received this morning from good pal and Exploitation Retrospect co-founder Lou Goncey, maybe it should...

Do you have HBO? There's a show on there called Bored To Death starring Jason Schwartzman. It's an OK show, not great, but I still watch it. Last night's episode had Ted Danson (a regular) sitting with a male escort (don't ask). He's talking with the escort about how his therapist told him to experiment with the same sex in order to get in touch with his femine side (It's that kinda show). The escort all of the sudden says forget the labels man, you should read Klaus Kinski's autobiography. Ted Danson replies, "you mean Werner Herzog's muse?". It came out of left field, and I thought you should know about it.

Thanks Gonster! Along with Ethan Hawke's character Jesse reading All I Need is Love (which Lou famously reviewed before it was pulled from the shelves back in our print zine days) on a train at the beginning of Richard Linklater's BEFORE SUNRISE and Anthony Bourdain dropping Klaus' name during a recent episode of NO RESERVATIONS, this ranks as one of the oddest, most unexpected Klaus mentions in recent time!

31 DAYS OF FRIGHT: PHANTASM-Mania

I didn't see the original PHANTASM until the advent of home video but once I did I was hooked. Originally released in 1979, the flick boasts a surreal "what the f*&k?!" vibe as we watch brothers Jody and Mike and good pal Reggie battle an invasion of interplanetary grave robbers led by the mysterious Tall Man.

It would take almost ten years for director/creator Don Coscarelli to get around to helming a sequel but when he did it not only kick started the series and brought us a couple more installments but it also established Reggie Bannister (who appears in all four installments as Reggie, the shotgun-toting and somewhat horny ice cream man) as a reliable, crowd-pleasing horror icon for years to come.

Subsequent years have brought us infrequent, but always entertaining, sequels and one wonders if we'll see Reggie, Mike and The Tall Man again one of these days. Coscarelli has hinted at everything from future sequels and other types of PHANTASM-related incarnations as well as the possibility of a remake (nooooooooo!).

Thanks to it recent DVD release, PHANTASM 2 is finally available after many years out of print, making a PHANTASM Phest a reality for all. While you're collecting all four flicks in order to indulge in some PHASTASMania check out these links for a heaping helping of PHANTASM phun...

• Happy Birthday, Tall Man – LA Times interview with Coscarelli, Bannister and Angus Scrimm (The Tall Man) in which Coscarelli talks about some of the leftover footage that made it into subsequent installments
• Ice Scream Man – Reggie Bannister talks movies and music with ER
• Let's Get Phantasmed – our overview of the quartet of PHANTASM flicks
• PHANTASM Phan Phiction – want more stories about the PHANTASM crew? Here ya go!
• Make Your Own PHANTASM Sphere – evil dwarves not included

October ER Update

Check out the latest batch of reviews posted to the Exploitation Retrospect website. From slashers and mutant, backwoods families to Nazis, Fulci and Naschy we've got a little bit of everything as we head into the last two weeks of the Halloween season.

• The Hanging Woman (1973) – Paul Naschy co-stars as a pervy gravedigger in this schizophrenic Eurotrash outing
• Banned Cartoons – ever wonder what happened to some of those controversial cartoons of our youth? Here they are.
• Albino Farm (2009) – don't be fooled by the marketing, wrestling star Chris Jericho is in this one about as much as logic.
• Laid to Rest (2009) – looking for a gore-soaked slasher flick for the season? Look no further.
• Mother's Day (1980) – Charles Kaufman's horror satire still treads a fine line after all these years.
• Door Into Silence (1991) – what's it like to spend a day driving around with a bloated John Savage? Watch and learn.
• SS Hell Pack – a trio of nasty Nazi flicks deliver interesting takes on WWII history.
• Nude in Dracula's Castle (2009) – an admittedly great title for a five-hour vintage nudie compliation.
• War Victims Volume 4 – low-budget, underground Nazi softcore. 'Nuff said.

Exploitation Retrospect has been the source for junk culture and fringe media reporting since 1986. Check out our website for hundreds of no-holds-barred reviews of everything from horror classics and sleazy Eurotrash to slashers, sex comedies and more. Plus, the web's finest and ever-growing tribute to the career of the one and only Klaus Kinski.

31 DAYS OF FRIGHT: What's on and Spooky?

The best thing about the Halloween season is that horror flicks and other spooky shows are able to emerge from the ghetto they're resigned to the other 334 days of the year. But tracking down every special, movie, tv show and documentary can be a real hassle.

Count on TV Tango to come to the rescue with their list of 154 Halloween-Themed Movie Marathons, Episodes and Specials on TV between now and the end of the month. I'm glad I stumbled upon this since I've already set the timer for Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie tomorrow morning. Gotta get my daughter hooked on Halloween flicks somehow!

Happy 83rd Birthday Klaus!

The other day an old buddy and I were lamenting the fact that Klaus Kinski left us far too early.

The German Olivier was only 65 when he died in November 1991. Imagine all the things he never got to experience. And we never got to experience him experiencing... the internet, reality TV, additional volumes of his autobiography, an obscene talk show on satellite radio, countless roles in Full Moon direct-to-video flicks that would taint his cinematic legacy, podcasts, a comeback role in a Tarantino movie, quickie divorces, a series on HBO (or maybe USA) and, of course, DVD commentary tracks.

Sigh.

But rather than wax nostalgic at what could have been let us instead raise a glass and toast what was.

While you're at it be sure to check out Kimberly Lindberg's tales of stalking Klaus over at her excellent blog Cinebeats.

31 DAYS OF FRIGHT: Portrait of a Necrophile Shutterbug

Despite my long-time love of horror and exploitation I am most definitely a Johnny-come-lately where Paul Naschy is concerned. Brought up on a steady diet of 80s slashers and Italian splatterfests, I was often guilty of passing up the likes of HOUSE OF PSYCHOTIC WOMEN (aka BLUE EYES OF THE BROKEN DOLL) and HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB under the mistaken belief that they were quaint and bloodless 70s yawners, unlikely to satisfy my trashy horror hunger.

I credit pals from the Eurotrash Paradise group over at Yahoo with not only encouraging my Naschy-fication over the past half-dozen years but also with feeding me a steady diet of the Spanish horror icon's best (and sometimes worst) work. Though I probably made a mistake by diving headfirst into Naschy's eclectic filmography with the one-two knockout punch of NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST and the aforementioned HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB, I have to admit that few Eurotrash stars have brought me as much pure cinematic joy as Naschy. In fact, only Klaus Kinski comes to mind and that is high praise, indeed.

Though Naschy's role in the new-to-DVD feature THE HANGING WOMAN is only a supporting one, the flick has all the earmarks of the classic "kitchen sink" approach that highlights some of the actor/writer/director's finest hours.

Cast here as Igor – a pervy gravedigger into necrophilia, photography and stealing ladies underpants! – Naschy immediately raises the suspicion of both viewers and a pipe-puffing inspector (Pasquale Basile) after the body of Mary (Aurora de Alba of VENGEANCE OF THE ZOMBIES) is found hanging from a tree in the cemetery. (Hence, the UK/US video title used here, though it does little to explain another of the film's many alternate titles, DRACULA, THE TERROR OF THE LIVING DEAD!)

Killed by some off-screen monstrosity while digging through her father's coffin, Mary's death coincides with the arrival of her cousin Serge Chekov (Stan Cooper aka Stelvio Rosi), a generously couiffed man's man who is quick with his fists and smooth with the ladies. It seems that Mary's father left nothing more than the minimum to his black magic-obsessed trophy wife Nadia (Maria Pia Conte from IF YOU MEET SARTANA, PRAY FOR YOUR DEATH) and Serge is now heir to the family's estate.

Further complicating matters is the presence of Professor Droila (Gerard Tichy) and his beautiful daughter Doris (Dyanik Zurakowska). While Nadia uses her charms on her dead hubbie's nephew in order to convince him to unload the estate, the professor wishes to continue using his laboratory in the castle's catacombs to pursue his research into "nebular biology" or, in other words, bringing the dead back to life.

While not what I'd call a "lost masterpiece", THE HANGING WOMAN is charmingly schizophrenic and will easily keep your attention for its 95 minute running time. Naschy definitely gets the flick's juiciest role, including peeping on and bedding Nadia, professing his love to various decaying corpses, running amok after being wrongly accused of homicide, and attacking Rosi on more than one occasion. Speaking of Rosi, the flick's male lead comes off like a less dour version of genre vet Jack Taylor, dispatching villains with his fists and finding himself the object of desire from both of the film's fetching female leads.

An absolute bargain at less than $10, the new Troma DVD also includes a second feature (1965's THE SWEET SOUND OF DEATH, also featuring Zurakowska) plus an interview with Naschy, interview and commentary from director Jose Luis Merino, trailers, featurettes and a chat with Ben Tatar, the man responsible for handling the English dubbing of many European horror flicks of the 70s, including both films on this disc and HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB.

31 DAYS OF FRIGHT: Let No Good Deed Go Unpunished

I've long been a fan of the graphic novels from writers Todd Livingston and Robert Tinnell. The pair, in tandem with illustrator Neil Vokes, created the magnificent and Rondo Award-winning THE BLACK FOREST and its sequel, plus a pair of old west horror volumes aptly titled THE WICKED WEST. (In the name of full disclosure I must admit that Livingston, Tinnell and Vokes are all pals of mine.) On his own, Tinnell wrote the charming FEAST OF THE SEVEN FISHES (a departure from his horror work but no less entertaining) and SIGHT UNSEEN, a tale of Lovecraftian horror that oozes the writer/director's love of classic horror and Eurotrash from every page.

Their 2005 collaboration with illustrator Micah Farritor THE LIVING AND THE DEAD was recently nabbed by director Brad Anderson (SESSION 9, THE MACHINIST) for a big screen adaptation and the news made me re-visit this page-turning tale of gothic mystery and monsters, both literal and figurative.

Drawing its inspiration from the reel horrors of the Universal and Hammer horror films of old and the real tales of the Theatre du Grand Guignol, THE LIVING AND THE DEAD is a horrific tale filled with dual identities, murder, mayhem, sadism, incest, lust and much more.

The noble and generous Dr. Hans Schmidt – who bears more than a passing resemblance to Herbert West as portrayed by Jeffrey Combs by way of Peter Cushing – runs a clinic in a small mill town. His happy existence with his wife and son is shattered when his cousin Bettina arrives on the scene and begs Hans to tend to her dying son Julian. His hand forced by a mother's blind devotion to her dying son, Hans dredges up some of his old black magic and restores Julian to health.

As is frequently the case with such resurrections the results are a mixed bag – at best – and filled with complicated side effects. Schmidt must decide whether he wants to risk it all to protect his family (and perhaps humanity) and seek aide from an unlikely ally.

To say much more about the story's twist and turns would ruin what is a page-turner of the highest order. Savvy readers might be able to see what's coming but Tinnell and Livingston pack the story with enough clever bits to keep even the most jaded horror fan intrigued and Farritor's sepia-toned panels are the perfect companion to this devilish tale.

31 DAYS OF FRIGHT: Modern Vampire Tales

I recently blogged about The Knights Templar and how Amando de Ossorio delivered a different kind of undead horror with his quartet of flicks featuring the skeletal monsters.

Breathing new life into the vampire genre isn't quite as easy. The cliches are so shopworn that we know each and every one of them by heart. And, in the last few decades, the most enjoyable vampire flicks have been those that’ve stood the genre conventions on their heads, like NEAR DARK.

That said, I give a lot of credit to Mark Burchett and Michael D. Fox, the writer/producer/director duo that made VAMPS, an ambitious, if not always successful, vampire stripper flick. The hook in VAMPS (also the name of the strip club run by vampiress Tasha and her henchsluts Tabitha and Randi) is that the fresh meat dancer (Jennifer Huss) is a high school chum of Seamus (Paul Morris), a horror-flick obsessed priest who seems to be questioning his calling. Which would explain what the hell he’s doing in a strip joint in the first place. Once it’s established that Tasha (Jenny Wallace) wants to bring Heather over to the dark side while Seamus wants to bring her over to an entirely different dark side, it’s a race to see who gets the All-American Girl first: vampire girl-gang or horny priest.

Unfortunately, like many other stripper-in-peril flicks (Dan Golden's NAKED OBSESSION excluded), VAMPS feels like some of the folks involved have never seen the inside of a strip joint. The routines range from dull to pathetic, which explains the lack of patrons. Shit, how’re you supposed to recruit fresh meat when chunky Tabitha is up there shakin’ around like it’s a remake of ROLLER BOOGIE? Not that the rest of the cast fares much better, but at least they’ve got good bods even if they’re routines have all the passion of a cable access Christian dance show.

I certainly won’t spoil any of VAMPS’ inventive twists, but this is one genre entry I’d love to see remade with a bigger budget and maybe Ewan McGregor as the tortured priest. But keep the killer soundtrack!

Unfortunately, not all attempts at reinventing the vampire genre are as succesful as VAMPS. Take MODERN VAMPIRES for instance. Please.

I'm not a huge fan of Casper Van Dien. While his square-jawed good looks and smug overacting were right at home in STARSHIP TROOPERS, I've never found him more than, well, tolerable in anything else that I've seen (except for the awesome reality TV show that actually made him seem pretty damn likable). But with direction from cult fave Richard Elfman (brother of Danny and director of cult flicks like FORBIDDEN ZONE and SHRUNKEN HEADS), script by FREEWAY writer Matthew Bright, and special effects "consultation" by Rick Baker, I wondered how bad it could possibly be.

Oh boy. All I know is that when the flick opened with Van Dien cruising down the highway in a cool car, listening to rockabilly and poking holes in his cigar ends with his fangs I had a feeling I was in for a long, long 90 minutes.

Van Dien – also an executive producer – is Dallas, a vampire who has returned home despite having been banished by The Count (Robert Pastorelli). Once back he hooks up with his old crew, a gaggle of shameless overactors featuring Kim Cattrall (sporting an accent worthy of Sigfried from GET SMART), Udo Kier (who turns 65 today and is pictured at right with yours truly and friends), and future talk show host Craig Ferguson. He also gets mixed up with Natasha Gregson Wagner (also in the wretched vampire flick VAMPIRES: LOS MUERTOS), a rogue vampire causing problems because she's been slashing and mutilating victims.

At first I gave the flick the benefit of the doubt and thought that the filmmakers were creating some sort of alternate reality in which humans and vampires coexist. Fair enough, right? Especially since the creatures of the night have very, very obvious fangs. (Ill-fitting ones apparently since everybody has some sort of speech impediment caused by the prosthetics.) It wasn't long before I realized that, no, the humans are supposed to be shocked when the woman with giant fangs decides to rip into their neck.

It's all downhill from there as Rod Steiger bites whatever scenery he can find as Von Helsing, the a vampire hunter who recruits inner city gang members in one of the flick's few interesting twists. Frankly, it's hard to believe that this dreadful mess was written by somebody who had even seen the entertaining FREEWAY, let alone written it!

I'm not even sure what the appeal was for either the actors involved or the intended viewers. There's little original thought at work, it's not gory enough to appeal to horror fans, and the way it plays fast and loose with vampiric qualities (Wagner has tan lines, the superhuman vampires don't fight back against the mortal vampire killers) left me scratching my head while I was begging for this mess of a flick to be over.

I've seen a lot of bad stuff in my day. MODERN VAMPIRES joins THE CREEPS as one of the all-time worst, but at least that had lots of midgets in the cast!

31 DAYS OF FRIGHT: Little Piggie Should Have Stayed Home

I make no apologies for my love of slasher films. And why should I? I was 11 years old when John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN came out and around 13 when our house was wired for cable and started receiving things like that seminal work and Sean Cunningham's FRIDAY THE 13th. A VCR soon followed and, well, you can figure out the rest. To me, slasher films are horror. Forget hokey monsters like Frankenstein, slow-pokes like the mummy, or vampires, the attention-starved drama queens of the genre. I'll take Jason, Michael and Co. any day.

More than two decades later I'm still a sucker for a good old slasher flick, vintage be damned. Hell, the first thing I watched after hooking up my Roku and tapping Netflix's Instant View library? 1980's GRADUATION DAY with Christopher George. And guess what? I loved every improbable, trash-filled second.

So it goes without saying that when I started hearing positive buzz for the low-budget slasher LAID TO REST it immediately jumped to the top of my Halloween must-watch list.

Echoing shades of Lucio Fulci's GATES OF HELL, a young woman wakes up in a coffin in a remote funeral home. She frees herself but soon realizes that thanks to a konk on the head she has no idea who she is, where she is, or how she got there. Worse yet, she's being stalked by a relentless, vicious killer sporting a chrome skull mask.

Narrowly escaping her would-be killer and the funeral home, The Girl (WWE diva-wannabe and LAID TO REST producer Bobbie Sue Luther) stumbles out into the countryside and hitches a ride with Tucker (Kevin Gage), a salt-of-the-earth local who has the gruff but lovable appeal of vintage Jesse "The Body" Ventura.

A roaming serial killer who delights in and videotapes his kills, Chrome Skull (Nick Principe) is not to be denied and tracks the pair down, hacking and slashing his way through everyone they come in contact with as he hunts them through the night. In a plot twist reminiscent of SLIVER - another of the best horror flicks in recent memory – the pair find themselves holed up in a convenience store, desperately trying to stay alive until help arrives.

While LAID TO REST doesn't re-invent the genre or try to balance the horror with humor ala BEHIND THE MASK or HATCHET, I admired and appreciated the way writer/director Robert Hall dispensed with slasher tradition and injected me right into the meat of the story. The gory credit sequence is filled with top-notch and wet, wet, wet effects work and we're never force-fed some nebulous backstory about Chrome Skull's past. Nope, all we get is what we can piece together, and that is that he appears to be a tech-obsessed, narcissist with a knack for cyber-stalking.

Despite its obvious low budget and shot-on-HD-video look, LAID TO REST (partially filmed in and around nearby Anne Arundel County, MD) delivers from start to finish. Luther and Gage are sympathetic in their roles while familiar faces like Thomas Dekker (John Conner from THE SARAH CONNER CHRONICLES) and character actor Sean Whalen (LOST, Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN II) lend the flick a little extra street cred. Even genre stalwart Richard Lynch turns up in a brief role as a funeral director and TV's Sarah Conner (Lena Headey) shows up long enough to die in grisly fashion.

And speaking of grisly, the effects work from Almost Human and Asylum VFX are worth the price-of-admission alone. Low-budget butchery has never looked so real!

I recently read that a pair of LAID TO REST sequels are in the works – it goes without saying that I have high hopes for the further adventures of Chrome Skull.

31 DAYS OF FRIGHT: The Brothers Hickox

Mainstream cinema has the brothers Scott – Ridley who once gave us fun stuff like ALIEN and is now working on a Robin Hood movie with Russell Crowe and Tony, who used to deliver grade-A entertaining cheese like THE LAST BOY SCOUT and is now working on an unwanted remake of THE WARRIORS.

I'm not sure who the trash film equivalent would be, but I'm thinking the Hickox brothers – sons of director David Hickox (best known for the 1973 cult flick THEATER OF BLOOD with Vincent Price and Diana Rigg) – would have to be in the discussion.

Anthony burst upon the scene with the entertaining WAXWORK (1988), a fun blend of house of wax mischief, monster mash mayhem, and 80s schlock. Unfortunately, his post-WAXWORK filmography has been dominated by junky sequels (WAXWORK II, HELLRAISER III, WARLOCK: THE ARMAGEDDON) and good ideas gone bad like SUNDOWN: THE VAMPIRE IN RETREAT.

Set in the town of Purgatory, SUNDOWN revolves around a town full of vampires split into two factions: human-hunters hungry for blood, and domesticated creatures of the night who exist on synthetic sangre. Eventually, the schism erupts into a full-scale civil war. A good idea that should've at least been an entertaining time-waster, SUNDOWN fails almost completely because for every one good idea in the script there are about six really shitty ones.

As for the cast, it's a crap-shoot as well: Deborah Foreman (the director's then-girlfriend who was also in WAXWORK and celebrates a birthday today) is cute; Morgan Brittany is vacuous; David Carradine, may he rest in peace, is asleep; and Bruce Campbell is still on the set of EVIL DEAD II. Only Maxwell Caulfield leaves an impression of what the flick could've been. And who thought I'd ever be saying that?!

While SUNDOWN – and much of Anthony Hickox's post-WAXWORK career has been disappointing – his brother James is doing his part to add some luster back to the family name. Though he got his directing start with a straight-to-video installment of the CHILDREN OF THE CORN series (COTC III: URBAN HARVEST for those of you scoring at home), Hickox scored big with this viewer thanks to Joe Bob's holy trinity of blood, beasts and breasts and a little flick called BLOOD SURF (aka KROCODYLUS).

Bog (Dax Miller) and Jeremy (Joel West) are "blood surfers," extreme sports nuts who travel to shark-infested waters to ride a few waves. After ladling in some chum and slicing the tops of their feet, that is.

Documenting the dangerous antics of the two surfers are big-breasted camerawoman Cicely (Kate Fischer) and hat-wearing lame-o Zack (Matt Borlenghi), her producer/financier boyfriend who hopes to peddle the resulting show to a television channel.

As the foursome flies into Palm Island, Hickox hints at what's to come by having them discuss a certain blockbuster shark movie while the theme evokes just enough of the infamous JAWS score to jumpstart our memory banks, but not enough to get them sued. Then again, do you need foreshadowing when a flick is called BLOOD SURF (aka KROCODYLUS)? I think not.

Desperate to have his stars surf the waves at a notoriously shark-infested beach, Zack arranges transport with Sonny (Cris Vertido), a local who charters adventures with his wife Melba (Susan Africa) and big-breasted daughter Lemmya (Maureen Larrazabal). Had that crew bailed there's always Capt. John Dirks (Duncan Regehr) – a low-budget Quint complete with scruffy beard, crazy eyes, and theme-appropriate flashback sequences. It should come as no surprise that Dirks used to run charters around the island, too, but the last one didn't turn out so well. All his clients were eaten by, well, I think you know what they were eaten by.

Of course, I might've picked Dirks just for the presence of first mate Arti (Taryn Reif), a thin, wisp of a blonde with a predilection for shaking her tailfeather in bars and taking off her top whenever the mood strikes. Like hourly.

Arriving at their destination, Bog (who has the good looks of Dean Cain and Ben Affleck) and Jeremy don't fail to deliver and surf up a storm as CGI sharks shadow their every move. The sequence is pretty ambitious for such a low-budget outing, and can even be watched along with production storyboards on the feature-packed.

Upon reaching the relative safety of the shore – though not without a shark scare in which Zack shows his true colors, which appear to be yellow and, um, yellow – the adventurers pair off with their respective love interests: Sonny and Melba, Cecily and Zack, Jeremy and Lemmya, and Bog and The Surf. We know Bog loves The Surf because even though the waters are shark-infested and we were treated to a giant, unexplained, explosive spray of blood and sea water he's itching to ride those waves as the sun goes down.

And it's here that BLOOD SURF kicks into gear. Hickox croc-teases us through the first 30 minutes or so, placing our leads in peril, offering up glimpses of giant shadows and scaly tails in the watery depths. But, up to this point, he never pulls out all the stops and delivers the price-of-admission sequence we're all looking for.

Don't fret. By the time the script by Sam Bernard and Robert L Levy strands our crew and brings the 90-year-old, 31-foot creature designed by John Carl Buechler (GHOULIES, MINER'S MASSACRE) out of the water, BLOOD SURF hits the accelerator and doesn't know when to let up.

Several quality twists and sequences follow, including: "Big Mick" (as the croc is referred to) tossing a victim in the air like a peanut; jungle booby traps right out of a 1980s cannibal flick; use of the great "Damn you to hell!" line uttered by a dying croc-snack; explosions, suspension bridges, croc-eye closeups, female bonding, and even a little "croc-teasing" that gets the juices flowing, even in a giant, scaly reptile that's pushing a hundred years old.

If you're a fan of the science-gone-awry/big-monster flicks that clogged video store shelves in the 1980s and 90s, BLOOD SURF is a more-than-worthwhile purchase or rental. It's no surprise that director Hickox cut his teeth working on schlock like MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, WAXWORK, HELLRAISER III and WARLOCK II. The flick shows a genuine affection for the exploitation genre, complete with bared breasts, blood, guts, out-of-leftfield twists and explosions aplenty.

The ultra-cheap DVD even includes bonus materials like raw footage from the shoot and production storyboards that can be viewed separately or during key sequences. Far more entertaining than big-budget hogwash like VAN HELSING, BLOOD SURF is one of the most enjoyable B-movies I've seen in the last year.

31 DAYS OF FRIGHT: A Different Kind of Undead, Part 2

What did I tell you? Zombies and vampires are so hip and happening right now that there's even debate amongst the horror community about which poses the bigger threat. Forget vampires and zombies, I'm way more concerned about centuries-old Knights Templar corpses riding around the countryside laying waste to humanity.

Speaking of The Blind Dead, let's return to our discussion of Amondo de Ossorio's quartet of crazy 70s Eurotrash featuring the marauding monsters... like most good monsters you can't keep a good zombie Templar down – even at sea – and the knights were back in 1974's THE GHOST GALLEON (aka HORROR OF THE ZOMBIES and GHOST SHIPS OF THE BLIND DEAD) which, depending upon your mood, can be the best or worst entry in the series.

When two bikini-clad models on a super-secret publicity stunt run into a sinister-looking, decaying ship in the middle of the ocean, it seems like a monumentally bad idea to climb aboard. Naturally, that's what they do, but without the super sexy results one might hope for.

After some surprisingly lighthearted kidnapping and assault, a rescue party – including the publicity stunt's organizer (B-movie vet Jack Taylor) and a Twilight Zone theory-spouting professor named Dr. Gruber – heads out in an attempt to locate the gals. They find the ship and board it, only to discover that it contains the coffins of The Blind Dead. After the Knights attack, chase down, hack and devour various members of the rescue team, Dr. Gruber performs a makeshift exorcism designed to end the curse forever, or as long as it takes for them to get away.

Though I found it less engaging than the rest of the series, GHOST GALLEON gets bonus points for placing the Knghts in a unique setting rather than deliver another variation on the "cursed town" theme. (Think JASON X for a modern example.) Unfortunately, the premise is beyond flimsy and even this hardened horror vet found it tough to buy some of the film's more far-fetched concepts like the bizarre publicity stunt and the poor Knights shuffling around the cramped ship. And just try not to laugh when the fakiest fake-looking toy boat in cinematic history pops up on screen.

Returning from their duty at sea, de Ossorio's Knights had one last cinematic outing in them, the mesmerizing NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS. After a period opening featuring a lost couple, bared titties, a creepy frog gargoyle god, disemboweling, gut munching and even some pesky crabs it's back to the present day and time for Henry the new doctor to arrive in town. Somehow I don't think it's what he and his wife Joan were used to, especially after encountering the less-than-friendly townspeople, an old doctor who can't get out of town fast enough, and the village retard who looks like the bastard child of Arnold Vosloo and Pee-wee Herman!

Despite being told not to ask questions or go out at night, the good doctor and his wife do just that when they hear a procession heading down to the beach at midnight. While it sure looks like a sacrifice in the making to me, the new arrivals blow it off as a wacky local superstition and head back to bed.

Pretty soon the nocturnal ceremonies on the beach become hard to ignore, especially after one girl shows up at the doctor's door screaming nonsense and the townspeople come for Lucy, their housekeeper.

Hypnotic and leisurely paced, SEAGULLS reminds me of Stuart Gordon's excellent Lovecraft adaptation DAGON, which featured visitors to a Spanish town getting caught up in sacrifices and mysterious goings on with dreadful results.

Though they may not have more cinematic outings in their future, author and fan David Zuzelo is determined to keep The Blind Dead alive (?) and kicking for horror buffs. His limited edition chapbook ASCENSION OF THE BLIND DEAD pits the "beardy blind beasts" as he calls them against Silvia Perschy, a myth-busting werewolf.

So, with all the monsters of cinema and literature to play with, why The Blind Dead?

"At the risk of sounding like a total tool," quips Zuzelo, "I would do anything to write something featuring these monsters. I love de Ossorio's work and the series has given me tons of enjoyment. I tried to make sure that it would be faithful to the films and keep the Templars alive and sacrificing."

For more information on ASCENSION and to read David's uniquely enthusiastic musings on trash cinema check out david-z.blogspot.com.

31 DAYS OF FRIGHT: A Different Kind of Undead, Part 1

These days I'm not sure what it's hipper to be... a zombie hunter or an emo vampire. Seems that with stuff like ZOMBIELAND and TWILIGHT doing boffo box office, you probably can't go wrong. But despite all the glowing reviews isn't it possible that we're all ready for a different kind of undead?

If you find yourself bored with the standard issue, contagion/plague zombies that shamble along until you shoot 'em in the head, do yourself a favor, put down your copy of the Zombie Survival Guide and check out Amondo de Ossorio's quartet of Blind Dead flicks. You'll thank me later.

The Blind Dead flicks are nothing short of a revelation for the horror buff who thinks they've seen it all. And while the flicks pile on every hoary cliché of the fright genre – zombies at the window, hands clutching at victims through cracks in the door, feet caught in wooden stairs, twisted ankles, false shocks, stuck doors, creepy morgue guys and village retards – the zombie antagonists and atmospheric presentation make up for any minor shortcomings.

"While the Italians get most of the glory, the Templar films feature truly unique zombies," says BLIND DEAD expert and author David Zuzelo. "The Knights are bad enough when they're alive. Zombify them and it gets worse. We don't know what the agenda is but it's bad both in execution and results."

Known as everything from the simple and elegant THE BLIND DEAD to the needlessly cumbersome MARK OF THE DEVIL, PART 4: TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD, de Ossorio's initial foray is a haunting affair than begins poolside at a bikini-clad-babe-filled European resort. There, Betty runs into her old "friend" Virginia who is vacationing with her decorator pal Roger.

Roger invites Betty along for a camping weekend and all is well until some unwelcome flirtation results in Virginia hopping from the moving train, leading to the grizzled conductor remarking, "That girl doesn't know what she's in for." Frankly, the same could be said of this viewer who was only familiar with The Blind Dead in passing thanks to stills in horror reference books.

Though Virginia attempts to make the dingy castle she stumbles upon a fun place to camp out for the night, once the graves in the castle courtyard start smoking you know things aren't going to go well.

Seems the old castle's the burial ground for The Knights Templar, former members of The Crusades who wound up being excommunicated because of their affinity for devil worship, virginal sacrifices and some flesh munching. Once conquered, the Knights were hung until crows came and ate out their eyes, so they're dead and they're blind but as one character remarks, "that will be no handicap."

After discovering that Virginia's been killed in what police suspect is a blood ritual, Roger (who has the pompadoured, sideburny paunch of a young Gary Glitter but without the whole Asian teen molesting thing) persuades a local smuggler to accompany him to the castle and solve the mystery. Tons of illogical horror film moments abound – as well as a rape and a catfight – but they're all completely excused thanks to de Ossorio's portrayal of the sinister zombified knights.

Skeletal to the point of disintegration, you can almost smell the musty clothing and rotting flesh of these unique and bizarre zombies as they hunt their prey by the sounds they make.

Nihilistic to the point of slack-jawed disbelief, BLIND DEAD climaxes with the zombified knights descending upon a train full of passengers as snapshots capture the gory glory in a tip of the cap to Romero's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.

Two years later the Blind Dead were back and, quite frankly, better than ever in my opinion. If TOMBS is the STAR WARS of devil worshipping, virgin chomping, excommunicated knights flicks, then RETURN OF THE EVIL DEAD is THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. It's just got more. More what, you ask? More action, more death, more blood, more eyes burned out, more, well, everything!

In the film's credit sequence the Knights are not only defeated they also get their eyes burned out so they can't find their way out of their tombs and raze the town to the ground as promised. Or so the townspeople think.

Years later it's time for the annual "Burning Festival" to celebrate the victory over the Knights. Sensing an opportunity to rekindle an old flame (and maybe ditch the sweaty, gross Mayor in the process), Vivian gets her pal The Captain a gig rigging the fireworks for the event.

Murdo, the creepy hunchback who looks like Stephen King, spies the two getting reacquainted, walks us through the history of the Knights (complete with bare maiden titties, some disembowling and a bit of blood drinking) and sacrifices a virgin in their graveyard.

True to their word, the Knights return to exact revenge upon their tormentors, though they probably didn't anticipate The Captain who helps the townspeople escape and sends the Knights packing, at least for the moment. Arriving at a local a church, a ragtag band of survivors including the mayor, a bunch of his henchmen, Vivian and The Captain set up shop to wait out the zombies.

In a nod to both Hitchcock's THE BIRDS and Romero's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, de Ossorio pits the survivors against one another and The Blind Dead as they attempt to make it through the night.

Everything about RETURN is cranked up a notch or two higher than its predecessor. The script is more action packed, the characters more engaging and fleshed out. Even the stabs at comedy work, like the region's governor spending too much time oggling his housekeeper's pantie-clad ass to believe the Knights have returned from the grave. To me it's the highlight of the series, but de Ossorio and his knights weren't done by a long shot...

Tomorrow... The Blind Dead are back and they've got Jack Taylor with 'em.

Franco Friday... DRACULA Trailer and Interview

Taking a quick break from our 31 Days of Fright coverage to bring you a few Franco Friday goodies we've been turned on to.

First up, our favorite YouTube-er DocPhnoeker has posted a long German trailer for Franco's EL CONDE DRACULA featuring Christopher Lee, Herbert Lom, Maria Rohm, Soledad Miranda, Jack Taylor and, of course, Klaus Kinski as the silent, bug-eating Renfield. Check out the trailer below:



Then there's a new interview with Franco over at SoldedMiranda.com. Amy Brown was lucky enough to catch up with Franco and Lina Romay at the recent FantasticFest in Austin and chatted with the prolific director for her blog. Nothing revelatory about his frequent work with Kinski but tons of other info for the Franco-phile.

Thanks to David Zuzelo of Tomb It May Concern for the tip.

31 DAYS OF FRIGHT: Taste the Darkness

In what is supposed to be a key "dramatic" scene in Clive Barker's 1995 flick LORD OF ILLUSIONS, a magician who has been dead for 13 years is resurrected from his earthen grave in the Mojave Desert. As nice as this resurrection might be, time would've been better spent injecting some life into the dull, dull, deathly dull script.

On paper LORD seems like a fun concept, although HBO's CAST A DEADLY SPELL with Fred Ward and David Warner did it earlier and better. (Surprisingly, SPELL is nowhere to be found on DVD. Too bad.) In this case, Scott Bakula (who celebrates his birthday today) stars as Harry D'Amour, a hard-boiled private investigator from New York specializing in occult cases. During a gig in sunny California he becomes immersed in a case of occult cover-up, marital infidelity, and some good ol' creepy goings-on. Sounds okay, right? Too bad it comes off like a drawn-out episode of Tales from the Crypt or any of a zillion other post-Twilight Zone horror anthologies.

Despite the good ideas at its core, LORD's execution is wrong from just about every angle. Bakula, never a great actor in my book, is pushed far beyond his talents with this role. Every hard-boiled line or action is tired and telegraphed, and his limited range of emotion rivals that of Craig Wasson and Nick Cassavettes. Famke Janssen is nothing to write home about either, phoning in a performance as the wife deserted by her magician hubby. Frankly, it's unfair to single these two out – everyone else is either uniformly bland or under the delusion that they're in a handful of other flicks.

Barker – returning to the director's chair for the first time since 1990's underrated NIGHTBREED – fans wildly on this outing. His reliance on the ritualistic cult nonsense is tiresome and we get a Wes Craven-like overuse of the dream/reality "shock" – the single most overused horror cliche of the last 20 years thanks to A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET.

This would be Barker's last time behind the camera for more than ten years, though he'll return for 2011's TORTURED SOULS: ANIMAE DAMNATAE, based on the graphic novel he wrote for Todd McFarlane's line of horrific action figures. After the unexpectedly entertaining mix of sex, sweat and gore featured in HELLRAISER and the aforementioned NIGHTBREED I suppose I was expecting more from this blend of the occult and hard-boiled detectives genres.

31 DAYS OF FRIGHT: I'm a Sick Woman! I'm a Sick Woman!

Few words have warmed my trash-loving heart through the years like "A Troma Team Release". Seeing those four words emblazoned on the familiar New York City skyline was almost always an indicator that I was in for a unique cinematic experience, even if the actual quality was somewhat debatable. Coming of cinematic age during the last gasp of low-budget exploitation films to grace actual movie theaters, I count myself lucky to have seen the likes of THE TOXIC AVENGER and THE CLASS OF NUKE 'EM HIGH on the big screen, not to mention countless home video viewings of such Troma releases as BLOODSUCKING FREAKS and today's film for your consideration, Charles Kaufman's MOTHER'S DAY.

Oddly enough, while I've watched TOXIE, NUKE 'EM and my beloved FREAKS countless times over the years I couldn't tell you the last time I sat down for a viewing of MOTHER'S DAY. As my Roku fired up Netflix's Instant Viewing library (surely the greatest and potentially worst thing to ever happen to me), I searched for reasons why MOTHER'S DAY, with its potent blend of gore and black humor, wasn't in the same heavy rotation as the other Troma-tizing films of my youth.

It wouldn't take long before the good – and bad – parts of Kaufman's much-maligned cult classick came flooding back.

Opening with a trademark Troma jab at modern (circa 1980) society, "graduates" of the EGO or Ernie Growth Opportunity self-help class congratulate themselves and one another, sent on their merry way thanks to a hefty dose of feel-good gibberish from the course's teacher. A pair of druggy-looking Manson family cast-outs worm their way into the car of a sweet-looking little old lady (Beatrice Pons, here credited as Rose Ross) and it isn't long before Kaufman turns the tale on its head and the two would-be assailants are victimized by Mother and her boys, Ike (Frederick Coffin aka Holden McGuire) and Addley (Michael McCleery aka Billy Ray McQuade).

The vicious, pre-credit introduction of these backwoods maniacs quickly reminded me that for all its jet black humor, pop culture skewering and memorable dialogue – highlighted by the sibling interplay between Ike and Addley – MOTHER'S DAY has a meaner streak to it than BLOODSUCKING FREAKS. While that film's violence, gore and every line reading is played to a camp hilt, there's a grimness to DAY's assaults and beatings that inches it ever so slightly away from being tongue-in-cheek and plays the tale out just a tad bleaker than its contemporaries.

But what's a horror revenge flick without victims? After quickly introducing Trina (Tiana Pierce), Abbey (Nancy Hendrickson) and Jackie (Deborah Luce) as a trio of 70s-era college chums, we find that the intervening years have sent the pals on differing paths. Trina is now a jet-setting Hollywood mover & shaker while Jackie works long hours at her New York City job, only to support the latest in a long line of loser boyfriends. But that's a treat compared to Abbey's life in the Windy City, where she lives in a crummy rathole with an unseen but repellent mother who bellows repeatedly, "I'm a sick woman! I'm a sick woman!".

Given their disparate locales one would never expect the girls to encounter our hillbilly clan from the Garden State, but annual weekend get-togethers have a way of getting people in trouble in these things. It isn't long before the gals are abducted and dragged off by the hulking, punk-loving Ike and Addley, a short, muscle-bound disco buff. After a night of terror at the hands of Ma and her "little savages", the girls plot their escape only to be forced into the role of aggressors when one of them dies. Given what Ike and Addley put her through it appears she might be better off that way.

Plotwise there's little to distinguish MOTHER'S DAY from the countless other revenge-driven horror thrillers that trickled down from THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT. After a suitable amount of assault and debasement the victims are finally shocked into acting in a way they'd never imagined as they fight for survival... and a little payback.

And if that was all MOTHER'S DAY was it'd be easy to dismiss it like the controversial I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, a humorless and grim exercise that I'm still scrubbing from my memory after a single viewing 20-plus years ago. Instead, Kaufman packs the flick with jabs at society and its ills and fills every nook and cranny of the family's house of horrors with a veritable pop culture excess of toys, posters, cereal boxes, action figures, magazines and more. Scenes of the boys "training" for their escapades give the viewer a behind-the-scenes look into the world of stalker/slashers (I'm reminded of BEHIND THE MASK: THE RISE OF LESLIE VERNON) and even when their back-and-forth exchanges are about grim topics, the actors playing Ma, Ike and Addley somehow make you chuckle along.

It's hard to imagine how the remake of MOTHER'S DAY – currently filming with Darren Lynn Bousman of SAW II/III/IV and REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA fame at the helm – will play itself out. While I may joke about my proposed remake of BLOODSUCKING FREAKS starring Patrick Stewart, Peter Dinklage, Michael Caine, Britney Spears and Tom Brady, there's something about these Troma films that makes them perfect the way they are, even when – like MOTHER'S DAY – they're slightly imperfect.

31 DAYS OF FRIGHT: What's Halloween Without Klaus Kinski?

Like Jess Franco's hypnotic VENUS IN FURS (which, ironically, also features Klaus Kinski), I defy viewers to watch Joe D'Amato's trippy, but fascinating, DEATH SMILES AT MURDER and come up with a rational explanation for the events that take place. And, again like FURS, the film's existential, haunting, dreamlike quality does nothing to detract from the enjoyment of what takes place on screen.

DEATH opens on the corpse of a beautiful girl laid out for viewing. A hunchback mourner – who could be the woman's brother, husband and/or lover – grimly sobs that "they" killed her and he did nothing to stop them. Flashbacks show the hunchback chasing the woman through the woods as she taunts, "If you catch me I'll let you do anything you want… anything." But alas, poor hunchback, she has found another man.

Cut to a violent carriage crash – in which the driver gets a nice long pole through the belly in one of the flick's grossout moments – that lands the amnesia-stricken Greta (Ewa Aulin) on the doorstep of Eva (Angela Bo) and Walter (Sergio Doria), a wealthy couple who call in Dr. Sturges (Kinski) to examine her.

The examination is where we get our first glimpse that something's not quite right with the film and I don't mean Klaus's vein-poppingly intense stare as the red hot Greta (a former Miss Sweden) slips out of her dress and reveals turn-of-the-century lingerie for the good doc to get an eyeful of. No, I'm referring more to when Sturges sticks a pin in Greta's eye in one of those "wait, did I just see what I think I saw?" moments.

Pretty soon it's evident that Walter has taken a shining to Greta, much to Eva's dismay. Meanwhile, in the secret chamber under his lab we discover that the good doctor Sturges has been using the ancient formula found on Greta's necklace to reanimate corpses. (Watching this sequence one can't help but wonder what role it may have had in influencing the look of Stuart Gordon's classic RE-ANIMATOR.) After spending most of his time staring at Greta's stockings, writing jibberish on a chalkboard and jiggling test tubes in "Research Klaus" mode, we bid The German Olivier farewell in one of his trademark death scenes.

But who is the killer? And why?

From here on out DEATH SMILES gets trippier and trippier and trippier... like an episode of NIGHT GALLERY on acid. Eva tries to drown a bathing Greta, ends up having a little Euro-lez action with her and then decides to brick her up in the house's catacombs. A cop investigating Greta's "disappearance" (Attilio Dotessio) keeps showing up to stick his nose in things like it's a giallo while Greta returns from the grave at a costume party that seems like something out of one of Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe adaptations.

By the end of DEATH SMILES AT MURDER you'll surely be scratching your head and wondering what the hell it's all about as much as I was. Plotless and at times quite inane, the flick is still fun to watch. D'Amato almost ruins the mood with a few over-the-top effects sequences that he holds for a bit too long (the shotgun blast to the face and Greta's "decaying" makeup are the best, or worst, examples), but even that can be excused. After all, this is the man who would go on to make the notorious BURIED ALIVE and THE GRIM REAPER, so what do you expect? Some of the cast hairdos seem a bit out of place, more befitting a 70s porno flick than a horror film and Klaus fans will be disappointed to see our hero disappear after the flick's first reel, but DEATH SMILES is a worthwhile trip through surreal 70s horror territory.

Previously only available as a foreign import, DEATH SMILES is now available on a double-feature disc with THE TORTURE CHAMBER OF DR. SADISM.

31 DAYS OF FRIGHT: From the Cradle to the Grave

Halloween can be a tough time to be a horror film fan. Poseurs come crawling out of the woodwork, like worms from a zombie's head. Even the major studios try and get into the act, releasing tame remakes and retreads in the hopes that you'll plunk down your hard-earned cash.

With fright film fans jazzed up about the DVD release of the much hyped horror anthology TRICK 'R TREAT I thought it'd be a good time to take a look at another horror compilation you might have missed on its original release, Alex Chandon's balls-to-the-walls, depraved horror extravaganza CRADLE OF FEAR.

In the tradition of anthologies like DR. TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS and CREEPSHOW, CRADLE sets up a worthy wraparound story that goes a little like this: Kemper (David McEwen), a hypnotist/child molester/serial killer/cannibal is rotting in a British asylum. In order to enact revenge on those responsible for putting him behind bars, he has 'The Man' (Cradle of Filth lead singer Dani Filth) do his bidding. What follows are four tales of horror laced with hardcore gore and extreme violence that make most recent horror outings look like Disney flicks.

Melissa (Emily Bouffante, who also starred in Chandon's PERVIRELLA) and Nikki (Melissa Forte) are slutty Goth chicks who dress in vinyl, snort coke and flirt with the pierced guy (Dani Filth) across the dance floor. Unfortunately, that pierced guy turns out to be a little more than he appears to be on the surface and when Melissa wakes the next morning she's feeling a bit more than hungover.

Pretty soon she's stumbling around town seeing disfigured creatures taunting her and crying out, some with the most disturbingly creepy makeup this side of the underrated NIGHTBREED. By the time she arrives at Nikki's flat she's got a full-blown freak-out brewing. The rest is indescribable, but let's just say that when Chandon had me ready for some Goth-chick girl-on-girl action, I got something decidedly different.

The next tale is less gore-driven and fits more into the mold of the EC Comic tales that inspired the far tamer TALES FROM THE CRYPT. When slutty Betty Page wanna-be Sophie (Rebecca Eden) and her trampy bottle blonde pal Emma (Emma Rice) decide to rob a creepy old man's house, it has all the earmarks of classic horror… dark house, creaky floor boards, hidden money, and lots of conveniently-placed blunt objects. Mix in a blood-filled bathtub and a little eye violence, and I've been given enough evidence to never pursue a life of crime!

Our third outing feels like it would have been right at home on Rod Serling's late, lamented NIGHT GALLERY. Nick's a guy who appears, on the surface, to have it all. Hot girlfriend with a great body, smooth ride, and a posh pad with all the trappings of Brit wealth. We soon see that isn't the case – in a revelation that I won't spoil – and when he tries to feel whole again his entire life ends up spinning wildly out of control… with sexy results. Oh, no wait, that should say "deadly, creepy and vomit-filled results."

The final tale of gore and depravity is fueled by everybody's favorite technology, the internet. Richard (Stuart Laing) is the son of Detective Neilson (Edmund Dehn), the cop who put Kemper behind bars. Richard, like all good Web addicts, soon tires of finding sites that are simply twisted and bizarre and stumbles on The Sick Room, home to snuff-like sequences of torture, mutilation, and fatal violence. Never does he suspect that his fascination may become his undoing.

CRADLE comes full circle in the asylum as Nielson faces off with Kemper and The Man in an orgy of blood and mayhem. Frankly, it made me weep for those days when I'd watch this sort of thing unspool at a drive-in under the night sky and the sweet aroma of cheap beer, takeout Chinese and Junior Johnson brand pork rinds. Sigh.

Shot on high end video, CRADLE OF FEAR's look only adds to its effectiveness. The crispness of the images mixed with the UK surroundings and actors gives it the feel of a BBC series gone horribly awry, which lets Chandon lull you into a false sense of security. That security is eventually, unavoidably shattered with some of the most over-the-top violence and gore this side of EVIL DEAD 2.

As for Mr. Filth? He remains silent through much of the flick, adding a menacing presence to the stories that's punctuated with a wanton glee and blood-soaked joy that makes it hard not to love the flick and his performance. It might drag a bit at two hours, but CRADLE OF FEAR is an excellent mix of black humor and paint-the-screen-red gore.