Cannibal Ferox, also known as Make Them Die Slowly, is a 1981 Italian exploitation film written and directed by Umberto Lenzi. Upon its release, the film’s US distributor claimed it was “the most violent film ever made”. Cannibal Ferox was also claimed to be “banned in 31 countries”, some of which lifted their bans only recently. It can be considered one of the ‘unholy trinity’ of superior Italian cannibal films, alongside Jungle Holocaust and Cannibal Holocaust.

ferōx m, f, n (genitive ferōcis); third declension

1. wild, bold, gallant
2. warlike
3. defiant, arrogant

In the jungles of the Amazon, brother and sister, Rudy (Danilo Mattei, Anglicised as Bryan Redford) and Gloria (Lorraine De Selle, (Emanuelle in America, House on the Edge of the Park) and their friend Pat (Zora Kerova, appearing here as Pat Johnson, also seen in the likes of The New York Ripper and Anthropophagous) are on a mission to prove Gloria’s assertion that cannibalism is a Western myth. Alas, their jeep breaks down and they encounter drug dealers on the run from New York; Mike (Giovanni Lombardo Radice, aka John Morghen, House on the Edge of the Park, City of the Living Dead) and Joe (Walter Lucchini). It transpires that the pair’s busman’s holiday has developed to bothering the local tribes for cocaine and jewels, not to mention enraging them further by torturing and killing their local guide whilst Mike was high on drugs. This ‘misunderstanding’ has led to the cannibals attacking and leaving Joe badly injured. Regardless, Mike continues to push his fellow travellers to the limit, seducing Pat and killing a native girl for kicks. The locals take exception to this and begin to hunt down the Americans in an avalanche of cruelty from hooks slicing through breasts to castration to good old-fashioned brain chomping. Only one person survives but what state will they be in when the horror is over?

Director Umberto Lenzi (Almost Human, Nightmare City), a stalwart of Italy’s genre films, bookended the cannibal film era, beginning with Man from Deep River in 1972 and essentially closing it here in 1981 (though had helmed the tamer Eaten Alive in 1980). Ferox, incidentally, was re-titled Woman from Deep River on its Australian release. Ferox was pretty much the last word and left the genre with no body part or animal left to mush up. Though remaining one of the most debated films of the sub-genre, there can be little argument that Ferox lacks the cerebral qualities of Holocausts both Jungle and Cannibal, quickly dispensing with the unnecessary introduction to the characters and moving swiftly on to breathtaking scenes of brutality and depravity. Though fully deserving of their demise, the intruders in the jungle are wildly dislikeable (though Radice steals the entire film with his wide-eyed performance – his seduction of Pat includes the touching tribute of her being “a hot-pussy whore”) and it’s difficult not to root for the natives.

As with Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust, accusations of cruelty being meted out on the local fauna were undeniable – a monkey and a pig in particular coming in for some rough treatment. Radice was less than impressed, refusing to take part in the slaughter of innocent animals. It is alleged that Lenzi attempted to convince the actor to join in the killings by asserting that “Robert De Niro would do it” – Radice responded that ”De Niro would kick your ass all the way back to Rome”. Though now dismissive of his part in the film, it is to Radice’s credit that he really throws himself into the role, acting his co-stars out of the rather sparse jungle. It would be reasonable to say that their predicament is far from a jolly holiday, but De Selle and Kerova are incredibly annoying, simpering and gibbering all the way through. Robert Kerman (also known as R. Bolla when appearing in porno films) also appears, briefly, securing his place in exploitation movie history by starring in both Ferox and Cannibal Holocaust.

Whether flimsy of plot or moral fibre, the effects are superb, the work of Gino De Rossi, an effects designer who had begun his career on the likes of Return of White Fang and Napoli Spara! but progressed through the grime of Zombie Flesh Eaters and City of the Living Dead to work on mainstream films such as Casino Royale (2006). The music is regularly credited to Budy Maglione – in fact, it is the work of two people; Roberto Donati and Maria Fiamma Maglione. Donati had worked through the 1960′s in several different pop and R’n'B bands as a singer and guitarist but branched out into soundtracks a decade later. His works include scores to Assault with a Deadly Weapon (1976), Eaten Alive (1980) and Daughter of the Jungle (1982). The brassy, flares-wearing New York theme seems more at home on a poliziotteschi but the main Ferox theme is a doom synth classic – a poor relative of Fabio Frizzi’s glorious melodies but still a fondly regarded one.

Filmed in the jungles of Leticia, the southernmost city in Colombia, the film somehow lacks the feeling of the characters actually being very far away from civilisation – you rather suspect there’s a Pizza Hut just around the corner. Ironically, Radice wasn’t the only person onset to express his disappointment with the film – Lenzi too felt it was one of his lesser works, only a ‘minor film’ – however, his best years were already behind him and this was one of only a few efforts by the director in the 1980′s, all of them being shadows of his former genius.

Ferox is a silly film but it is difficult to have sympathy with anyone finding serious fault with a cannibal film – people get chopped up, animals get a rough deal, we are left with a tacked-on philosophical message – ’twas ever thus and no-one is pretending this is Ben Hur. It is, however, hugely entertaining, perhaps not always for the intended reasons but this is a trivial matter. Ferox is rightly hailed as a milestone in exploitation cinema.

The ‘Banned in 31 Countries’ tagline is an odd one, not least because it is likely to be far higher. The film inevitably suffered at the hands of the censors over the years – the various British release incarnations are listed below, courtesy of the indispensable Melon Farmers website.

Replay first released an uncut version in August 1982. In September 1982 the BBFC unofficially approved an ’18′ video version cut by 6:51s . It was listed as a video nasty in July 1983 and both the cut and uncut versions were successfully prosecuted. The uncut version stayed listed throughout the panic so became a one of the collectable DPP 39′s. However the cut version was eventually removed from the list.

This 18 version pre-cut by 6:51s was submitted to the BBFC in 2000 who insisted on another 6s of cuts for animal cruelty.

Current UK status: Passed 18 with extensive cuts

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

While Intervision’s Ozploitation Trailer Explosion is ostensibly a companion piece to Severin’s Aussie horror Blu-rays, it’s real connection is to 2009 documentary Not Quite Hollywood – they’d make a great double package, if not double bill. If you were intrigued by that documentary and keen to explore Australian exploitation cinema of the 1970s and 80s – the country’s dirty little secret as it tried to convince the outside world that it was all Picnic at Hanging Rock and My Brilliant Career – then this will be the disc to either further that desire or immediately cure you of it. Certainly, while the documentary made all those movies look great, the 65 trailers included here are less persuasive – there’s a mix of movies that look astonishing, and movies that seem dull even when reduced down to 3 or 4 minutes of boobs and belching. At their worst, Ozploitation movies made German lederhosen sex comedies seem like Oscar Wilde plays.

The compilation is split into three sections: the first is sexploitation and ‘Ocker’ comedies, and this is probably the hardest work. After a little while, the relentless parade of movies where some charmless, ugly bloke is relentlessly perused by half-naked women all seems to blur into one nightmarish celebration of oafishness and awfulness. These are the films that rarely made it outside Australia and made no effort to have international appeal – even more ambitious globe-trotting movies like the Barry McKenzie films are little more than a series of crude nationalistic gags and laughing at foreigners. Other films, less well known titles like Plugg, The Box, The Great McCarthy and Stork seem even more painful, sometimes taking their cues (but seemingly none of the charm) from the likes of Brit schtick Confessions of a Window Cleaner, others going out of their way to appeal to ‘real men’…

More interesting are the sexploitation titles. Felicity was very much the Aussie Emmanuelle and is made to look astonishingly dull here, but odd VD drama The Love Epidemic (only in the 1970s could sexual disease be erotic), the bizarre glam rock film Oz, pseudo documentaries like The ABCs of Love and Sex Australian Style, American shot semi-porno movies like Fantasm (the trailer for which memorably opens with John Holmes getting out of the pool naked, which certainly made my viewing companions splutter) or the deranged looking Centrespread – combining science fiction and softcore – are all well represented. It never quite fails to impress when you see a trailer chock full of nudity, and there’s more flesh on display here than you’ll see in more trailer collections.

Section two features horror and thriller films, and it arguably the best part. Some of the trailers – Wake in Fright (as Outback) and Night of Fear in particular – are amongst the grubbiest, sweatiest you’ll see. Unsavouriness drips out of these trailers. There are promos for Patrick, Nightmares and The Survivor that make the movies look a lot more exciting than they actually are, while other well known films like Long Weekend, The Last Wave, Road Games, Harlequin, Snapshot and Dead Kids also turn up. There are some dull trailers for dull films (The Killing of Angel Street, Heatwave, Inn of the Damned) and oddball entries long overdue a decent release – Jim Sharman’s The Night The Prowler, for instance.

The final section features Cars and Action, and these might be the Aussie films you know best. There’s no Mad Max for whatever reason, but here you get the likes of Dead End Drive-In, Stone, The Cars that Ate Paris, Stunt Rock, BMX Bandits, Mad Dog Morgan, Midnite Spares and The Man from Hong Kong. More than horror or sex, big action films, usually taking advantage of the Australian landscape and featuring insane stunt work, are what most people might associate with Ozploitation, and with good reason. Stone remains the ultimate biker movie – the only one to match the delirium of the New English Library biker novels of the 1970s – Aussie car quake films remain impressive for their sheer verve, action levels and – in the case of films like Fair Game and Turkey Shoot – extraordinary moments of gleeful offensiveness.

By their very nature, trailer collections are always inconsistent, but this themed collection is a must, even if not every trailer or every film is any good. While there are some odd omissions, this is nevertheless a thorough and as definitive as you could hope for collection of Ozploitation. A film history lesson in a box, in fact. Any self-respecting exploitation movie lover should be snapping this up.

David Flint – Strange Things Are Happening

Buy Ozploitation Trailer Explosion DVD from Amazon.com

In 1972, Poor Albert and Little Annie was advertised by Europix distributors in the US with the huge tagline: “Don’t Open That Door!”. This low-rent film became better known by its 1974 re-release come-on title, I Dismember Mama, but the “Don’t” warning was already unleashed…

Meanwhile, (perhaps alluding to the scene where Nurse Beale finds the bloody corpse of Dr. Stephens?), S.F. Brownrigg’s 1972 Texan-shot sanatorium insanity The Forgotten, was retitled Don’t Look in the Basement by Hallmark Releasing Corp and released via American International Pictures, the granddaddies of exploitation.

Hallmark were, of course, the unsubtle and gloriously gore-fiend purveyors of movie mayhem who had promoted Tombs of the Blind Dead and Mark of the Devil with vomit bags! The infamous “To avoid fainting, keep repeating, it’s only a movie…” tag line used for The Last House on the Left and deliberately generic artwork was already being exploited by this point.

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is a 1973 TV movie that built up such a cult following it was eventually remade by Guillermo Del Toro in 2011. The film focuses on a young housewife, played by Kim Darby, who unleashes a horde of goblin creatures from within a sealed fireplace in the Victorian mansion that she and her husband are restoring.

Don’t Look Now is Nicolas Roeg’s 1973 beautiful yet tragic story of guilt and the psychic fear of a murderous dwarf. Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie are superb as the grieving parents and the alleyways and canals of Venice have never seemed so daunting.

Don’t Open the Window was an opportunistic, yet pointless, US re-titling of Spanish director Jorge Grau’s 1974 Let Sleeping Corpses Lie aka The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue. The film’s intended American audience would perhaps have been more ‘open’ to a title that suggested a sequel to Night of the Living Dead, from which it was clearly and – agreeably – inspired?

Don’t Ride on (Late Night Trains) was a VHS sleeve retitle for a 1974 Italian locomotive-driven rehash of Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left. Aldo Lado’s Night Train Murders is slicker and in some ways even bleaker and nastier than its inspiration, yet it lacks the intensity the former’s low budget brought to the proceedings. And let’s face it, there was only one David Hess!

Don’t Go Near the Park (also known as Curse of the Living Dead, Nightstalker and Sanctuary for Evil) is a 1979 American horror film (released September 1981) directed by Lawrence D. Foldes. The film gained notoriety when it was successfully prosecuted in the UK and placed on the video nasty list. It was the fourth “Don’t” film on the list. It does feature some rubbery cannibalism scenes and has the no-no of scenes showing children in peril but its general air of goofiness perplexed hardcore nasty fans looking for full blooded horror shocks. Apparently it was also trimmed to avoid an ‘X’ rating for its US theatrical release.

Don’t Open the Door was a 1979 re-title of S.F. Brownrigg’s third film – “a murder-mystery that’s a little less stifling than his prior work” – which had also been know as Seasons for Murder, The House of the Seasons, and somewhat ironically, as Don’t Hang Up.

Don’t Go in the House (originally titled The Burning, apparently) is a grim yet intense Psycho-inspired piece that also seems to vaguely question the validity of the 9 to 5 week-in, week-out existence amidst “mother”-influenced pyromania? It’s a thoroughly grubby yet rewarding slow-burner…

Don’t Go in the Woods (or – as on publicity material - Don’t Go in the Woods… Alone!) is a 1980 backwoods Bigfoot-style low-budgeter that revelled in cheap gore, leading it to appear on the British moral panic video nasties list. Cheap but thoroughly entertaining, this is the kind of over-the-top movie that trash fans still watch over and over, whilst the supposed terrors of hyped horrors such as The Blair Witch Project have faded into history.

Carlo Ausino’s 1982 Italian supernatural shocker La villa delle anime maledette was retitled Don’t Look in the Attic for it’s Stateside VHS release by Mogul.

Don’t Go to Sleep (1982) is another surprisingly memorable TV movie. A young girl begins seeing the ghost of her sister who died in an accident a year earlier. A good cast headed by Dennis Weaver, Valerie Harper and Ruth Gordon (Rosemary’s Baby) ensures that this creepy film still elicits unease.

Don’t Open Till Christmas is a sleazy British stalk ‘n’ slash entry that took more than a couple of years to complete before its 1984 release to a largely indifferent world: A murderer is running loose through the streets of London, hunting down men dressed as Santa and killing them all in different, and extremely violent, fashions. Inspector Harris has decided to take on the unenviable task of tracking down the psychopath, but he’s going to have his work cut out for him.

A year later, Dick Randall and Steve Minasian returned with another Ray Selfe concoction. Don’t Scream It’s Only a Movie! is a documentary tracing the history of horror films from the silent period to the splatter films of the 1980s. Introduced by genre icon Vincent Price, segments include ‘terror torture’ and naked fear. Naturally, this schlocky effort includes clips from many Randall productions: Crocodile, Pieces, Queen of Black Magic and, of course, Don’t Open Till Christmas.

Don’t Panic is the international title for the 1987 Mexican mayhem written and directed by Ruben Galindo Jr. A bizarre supernatural slasher the film throws in elements from 80s Elm Street hits and the ouija board trend that proliferated at the time. The shameless kitchen sink approach ensures that whilst viewers may be occasionally baffled, they are never bored.

Of course, the ultimate acknowledgement of this genre fixture title was Edgar (Shaun of the Dead) Wright’s comic trailer for a non-existent movie titled Don’t, as seen in Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse:(2007):

Winning first place at the 2010 Splatterfest Weekend of Mayhem short film competition, Joe Grisaffi’s Don’t Look in the Attic was created in a mere 54 hours. Very much like the 48 Hour Film Project, teams were given a character, a line of dialogue and a murder weapon. Grisaffi commented: “Ours were: A taxi cab driver, “This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship” and a saw”.

In 2010, Vincent D’Onofrio’s Don’t Go in the Woods depicted an American rock band being offed in various ways. In an interview with Edward Douglas of Shocktillyoudrop.net, D’Onofrio spoke of how he had wanted to “make an absurd slasher musical”. Anyone watching this $100,000 oddity will wonder why the director and cast bothered to make anything…

Aforementioned 1973 TV movie Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark was remade in 2011 with a budget of $25 million by Guillermo De Toro and a cast of famous names such as Katie Holmes and Guy Pearce but this special effects laden effort failed to capture the charm of its cheap inspiration and so garnered mixed reviews and audience indifference.

Don’t Move is an intense Evil Dead-influenced 2013 British short directed by Anthony Melton and written by David Scullion. Don’t Move is the 8th slice in Bloody Cuts’ anthology of short horror films, made by a young team of UK film-makers on low budgets.

Adrian J Smith, Horrorpedia

[N.B. Please let us know of any other uses of Don't, so we can expand this brief overview…]

We are grateful to the many people who have selfishly posted their non-copyrighted images for us all to share on the world wide web but especially Basement of Ghoulish Decadence. Big credit to Silver Fox for the lovely fake Don’t poster designs. If you wish to repost any images (or any of our own text) from Horrorpedia, please feel free. We’re grateful for a link tho…

Gwar is a horror themed metal band formed in Richmond, Virginia in 1984. The band became notorious through their outrageous stage show, which involved extravagant costumes and eye-popping sets that featured monsters, mutilation and mayhem. Each of the band members played a different larger than life character within the band, and they were as much a performance art act as a musical group. The stage show, combined with the band’s extreme lyrics – often satirical and mocking – would make the band a target for censors, especially in the UK, where inevitably, MPs who had never actually seen or heard the band called for the band to be stopped from performing in the UK.

Gwar was formed by Dave Brockie (stage character Oderus Urungus), vocalist and bassist with punk band Death Piggy, which used crude props in their stage show. He met Hunter Jackson (Techno Destructo) and Chuck Varga (Sexecutioner), both attendees of Virginia Commonwealth University who had set up “The Slave Pit”, a production space for Scumdogs of the Universe, a movie they intended to make.Brockie had an idea to use the costumes made for “Scumdogs of the Universe” and have Death Piggy open for themselves as a barbaric band from Antarctica, playing nonsense songs while sacrificing fake animals. The name of the joke group was “Gwaaarrrgghhlllgh”. Inevitably, the new band proved more popular than Death Piggy, and eventually took over, the name shortened to Gwar. The new band would have constantly changing line-up over the years.

The first Gwar album, Hell-O,  was released in 1988 under Shimmy Disc Records, and was a mix of punk and metal styles. This was followed by Scumdogs of the Universe released by Master Records. 1990 also saw the band’s first home video,  Live from Antarctica. The band were soon picked up by Metal Blade Records.

1992 saw the release of  America Must Be Destroyed. During this period, Gwar was (temporarily) banned in North Carolina because Brockie was wearing his “Cuttlefish of Cthulhu” codpiece, which led to his arrest. The album was accompanied by the movie Phallus in Wonderland, which documented the main concept and contained music videos for the album.

This Toilet Earth was released on 1994, to moderate success. The album received additional attention due to controversy surrounding “B.D.F.”, a song that graphically refers to taboo subjects such as sodomy, necrophilia, pre-natal rape, pedophilia and mutilation. This period would see Gwar gaining some mainstream attention, with appearances on Beavis and Butt-head and the film Empire Records.

In 1995, Gwar released Ragnarok, which had less success than previous records, possibly because of its more experimental nature. This experimentation was expanded on two years later in Carnival of Chaos. 1999 saw the release of We Kill Everything, a more punk inspired album that  is the band’s least favorite album.

Violence Has Arrived, released on November 6, 2001,saw the band returning to their thrash metal roots. but ironically was the last recording for Metal Blade. This new, more serious metal approach resulted in the forming of side project, the Dave Brockie Experience, which aimed to continue the more satirical and experimental sounds that Gwar had toyed with while allowing the main band to be more focused.

War Party was released in 2004 on their new record label, DRT Entertainment. That same year the band released Live from Mt. Fuji, the band’s first live album.

In january 2006, Gwar opened a gallery show called “The Art of Gwar” at Art Space gallery in Richmond to display the many props, costumes, cartoons, paintings produced by The Slave Pit, Gwar’s art and effects studio. A month later, the band announced theor next album, Beyond Hell,, and in the summer of that year, they released the Blood Bath and Beyond DVD , containing  behind the scenes and vintage footage of the band.

In 2009, Gwar celebrated their 25th year as a band. Their eleventh studio album, Lust in Space, was released  that year, through Metal Blade Records. On November 9, 2010, Gwar released their twelfth studio album, Bloody Pit of Horror.

On November 3, 2011, guitarist Cory Smoot, who had portrayed Flattus Maximus since 2002, was found dead by his fellow band members in the band’s tour bus as they prepared to cross the border into Manitoba, Canada from North Dakota. The Cause of death was a coronary artery thrombosis brought about by his pre-existing coronary artery disease. On November 4, Dave Brockie officially announced that the character of Flattus Maximus would be retired out of respect to Smoot.

The frontman of the band, Dave Brockie died on March 23, 2014. The band is currently on hiatus until further notice. His death was confirmed by band manager, Jack Flanagan reading “It is with a saddened heart, that I confirm my dear friend Dave Brockie, artist, musician, and lead singer of GWAR passed away at approximately 6:50 PM EST Sunday March 23, 2014. His body was found Sunday by his band mate at his home in Richmond, VA. Richmond authorities have confirmed his death and next of kin has been notified. A full autopsy will be performed. He was 50 years old, born August 30, 1963. My main focus right now is to look after my band mates and his family. More information regarding his death shall be released as the details are confirmed.”His death leaves Gwar without any founder members and the future of the band is uncertain.

Wikipedia

When the horror compilation Terror in the Aisles proved to be an unexpected theatrical hit in 1984, it was unsurprising that several imitations sprung up, and this 1985 production probably the most disreputable of them all – quite an achievement in a world where Terror on Tape exists.

Produced by the infamous Dick Randall and Steve Minasian, the film is directed – if that is the word to use – by Ray Selfe, a veteran of the British sex film (hardcore and softcore) and more recently a film archivist who owns a vast collection of public domain material. Some of that turns up here, but mostly it’s a mix of Randall and Minasian productions / acquisitions and films that have almost certainly not been copyright cleared.

What imitations like this fail to understand about why Terror in the Aisles worked is because it wasn’t just a random selection of clips – instead, the film skilfully intercut scenes from several movies, using an original score, to help build a sense of tension. It also worked as a study (however basic) of the genre. This film, however, is too scattershot and messy, and simply presents rather lengthy clips from assorted films with little or no context.

For his linking scenes Price sits on a throne in a black room, as the camera zooms in and out wildly, and introduces a series of clips that often have only the slightest connection to what he’s saying. “These days, special effects are much more believable” says Price at one point, as the film cuts to the ludicrous ‘flying head’ scene from Filipino shocker Queen of Black Magic.

Christopher Lee is cheekily made to seem like a co-narrator, thanks to randomly selected clips from the 1975 documentary In Search of Dracula. “Here’s Christopher Lee”, says Price as though he’s a news anchor handing over to a reporter, and we get a couple of scenes that appear to have been taken from different prints of the movie. Price tries a similar schtick by having ‘conversations’ with Boris Karloff, courtesy of Black Sabbath clips.

The editing is terrible – we often cut back to Price when he’s mid-word. The sourced clips are in various aspect ratio, meaning that the 4:3 film frequently has heavily letterboxed scenes, and they vary in quality too.

So what does this badly edited, shoddily produced rip-off have going for it? Well, sex and violence, mainly. If you fancy Randall’s Don’t Open Till Christmas but are unsure about sitting through the whole thing, this is the movie for you, as all the best bits are compiled into one digestible chunk (and the footage here is actually much better than most versions of the film currently circulating), and you’ll get to enjoy the legendary “chainsaw elevator” scene from Pieces again.There are nasty bits from Slaughter High, Mark of the Devil, Last Cannibal World, Bay of Blood and Mother’s Day, as well as clips from Cannibal Man, Friday 13^th 1 and 2, Crocodile and Tombs of the Blind Dead. Most of the clips seem to have been selected on the sound basis of how much nudity and gore they contain.

But also thrown in are scenes from Devil Bat, The Lost World, the silent Phantom of the Opera, White Zombie, Scars of Dracula (the blood puking bat!), Nosferatu, The Thirteenth Guest, Who Killed Doc Robbin and The Ape, presumably because they are either public domain or taken from copyright-free trailers. Most bizarrely, there are clips from Paul Hart-Wilden’s short Horror Film.

Trashy as this outrageous scam is, there’s no questioning that it’s an amusing time waster. Perhaps inevitably, it was never commercially released but is now available via Youtube.

DF

Lost Valley of the Dinosaurs is a 1985 board game designed by Julian Courtland-Smith. It was manufactured by Waddingtons in the UK and also issued by companies such as Australia’s Crown & Andrew. Described as “the epic 2-4 player game of adventure and fear for all the family.”  This slightly complicated game includes six “vicious” dinosaurs, a swooping pteradon bird (with moving beak and wings), sixteen ‘old school’ explorers wearing pith helmets, a volcano cone and thirty plastic ‘pieces’ of lava. Plus, there is a swamp monster that resembles Nessie…

The objective of the game is to fearlessly strike forth to claim gold coins and then take them back out of the treacherous valley:

You have discovered an ancient chart to a lost valley. It shows that once the valley was occupied by a fierce tribe of natives who had collected a vast wealth of treasure and used vicious dinosaurs to help protect it.

No humans inhabit the valley now and the chart shows that the ‘treasure’ is still hidden in a temple at the top of the valley but the dinosaurs are still there!

The secret of the valley and its treasure have been stolen and you know that other expeditions are currently journeying to discover the lost secret of the valley.

As your party enters the valley a volcano which has been dormant for centuries rumbles and threatens to engulf the valley in lava.

The race is on, who will win the fabulous riches of the temple and who may die?

Nice touches include the fact that the six mini plastic dinosaurs included are hand-painted – in China, of course – so each one has it’s own ‘character’. Unfortunately, in the game we purchased one of the dinosaurs has slightly displaced so he/she keeps falling over. Thus, we have permanently retired this infirm beastie to its ’lair.

We recently bought this game up from a local Mind charity shop for a mere three quid and have since discovered it online for as much as £60! According to my nine year-old son, “it’s a great game. You can have lots of fun”.

Adrian J Smith, Horrorpedia

We are grateful to the following websites for images: Board Game Geek, Dice Maestro (Images are copyright Dice Maestro)

La momia nacional (which translates as “The National Mummy”) is a 1981 Spanish horror sex comedy directed by José Ramón Larraz (Vampyres, Scream – and Die!, Rest in Pieces, Edge of the Axe) from a screenplay by Juan José Alonso Millán. It stars Francisco Algora, Quique Camoiras, Azucena Hernández, Carlos Lucena, José Jaime Espinosa, Lili Muráti, Trini Alonso, Paloma Hurtado, Mabel Escaño, Pilar Alcón. 

This film was a domestic release that does not seem to have been sold outside of Spain except perhaps in some Latin American countries.

The IMDb‘s plot keywords include: werewolf, female nudity, brothel, prostitute, vampire, governess, erotica, political comedy, mummy, severed arm, sex and insane asylum, which all sounds like good/bad fun to us… although the song that plays over the opening credits is appalling, so perhaps this is one comedy horror that deserves to remain in Spain?

IMDb | We are most grateful to No, hija, no for some of the images above.

The Adventures of Taura: Prison Ship Star Slammer (the onscreen title) is a 1986 science fiction/women-in-prison/monster film more commonly known as simply Star Slammer. It was co-produced – with Jack H. Harris (The Blob, Equinox) –  and directed by Fred Olen Ray (The Alien Dead, Scalps, The Tomb, Evil Toons) from a screenplay by Michael D. Sonye. The film stars Sandy Brooke, Susan Stokey, Ross Hagen, Marya Gant, Aldo Ray, Dawn Wildsmith, Richard Hench, Michael Sonye, Lindy Skyles, Bobbie Bresee, John Carradine.

The film incorporates recycled footage from John Carpenter’s Dark Star (1974), Battle Beyond the Stars (1980) and re-uses the many-toothed monster from The Deadly Spawn (1982). Other minor horror elements include a skull that smokes, a hand being hacked off, torture with leeches (one of which the warden eats!) and implied torture with a red hot poker.

Plot:

Far into the future. A war rages on a distant, desolate planet. Taura, an Amazon-like woman, finds herself mounting a battle against the forces of evil when she tangles with Bantor, a sadistic government official. Soon she is sentenced to hard labour aboard the prison ship Star Slammer and must prove herself to her young female cellmates before earning their respect and leading them in a daring prison break. With every turn, Taura faces new danger as she must outwit the sex-starved warden, out-tough the tyrannical trustee, and battle jagger rats, astro zombies and alien monsters.

Reviews:

” … another of Fred Olen Ray’s cheap and cheesy science-fiction bimbo films. Olen Ray readily sources various other B science-fiction movies of the past (as he usually does in his films) – there is a planet named Arous after the legendary Z movie The Brain from Planet Arous (1957) and the film even comes divided into chapter titles just like a serial. All the elements of the film come with a tongue-in-cheek silliness – the warden wears V-neck leather bondage costumes and an eyepatch while wielding a whip…” Moria

“Women in prison films were not know for being quality productions, and Star Slammeris probably one of the worst examples of the genre. This film has little to no redeeming qualities in the sci-fi department as it is terribly dated looking even for low-grade 1980’s trash, and the exploitation elements of the film offers little more than one actress losing her top but only for a few seconds, some cleavage and butt shots…” Couch Potato Movie Reviews

“But be warned, it’s probably not as exploitative as you’d expect. Yes, there’s some weird girl on girl hazing and a pointless “change in front of the group” scene, but you’re also treated to a score that rips off from Star Wars extensively as well as some Jawa clones that make the goblins in Troll 2 look like Tom Savini put them together. It really is not a great movie, but then you get treated to a fight scene between two women space prisoners and a children’s show host who looks like Venom’s ugly step child.” United Monkee

IMDb | We are grateful to Wrong Side of the Art! for the main poster image.

Moonstalker (aka Predator: The Quietus) is a 1986 British horror film directed by Leslie McCarthy from a screenplay by himself and Cliff Twemlow (as Mike Sullivan). Twemlow also stars along with Cordelia Roche, Darryl Marchant, Mark Gover, Paddy Ward, Arthur Willman, Maxton G. Beesley, Abigail Zealey, Mark Heath, Sarah Fallon, Brian Sterling, John Simpson, Michelle Norfolk.

Review:

The late, great Cliff Twemlow was a true working class renaissance man who – until his death in 1993 – tried his hand at everything from stints as a nightclub bouncer, library music composer and horror paperback writer (The Pike, 1982), finally settling on a dual career as an actor and DIY filmmaker. Twemlow’s best known film G.B.H. (1983), the violent story of a Mancunian nightclub bouncer – autobiographically played by Cliff himself – was a fondly remembered good time rental from the early days of British video. Its ballsy claim to be “more brutal than The Long Good Friday”, non-stop action and one-liners worthy of Gene Hunt himself, easily winning audiences over, despite G.B.H.’s humble, shot on videotape origins. 

Stories about the so-called “Beast of Exmoor” proved to be the inspiration behind this 1986 effort which adds horror elements to Twemlow’s tried and tested G.B.H. formula. “The Beast” was all over the papers in the 1980s thanks to constant tabloid speculation that a high amount of sheep deaths were the result of a giant, panther like cat being loose in the countryside. Clearly not even this angle was sensationalist enough for Twemlow, nor Moonstalker director Leslie McCarthy, who instead use the film to posit the theory that the beast was in fact a werewolf!!! 

Given such a spin on the story like that it’s no surprise that a New York newspaper dispatches ace reporter Kelly O’Neil (Cordelia Roche) to a little village in England to investigate the apparent werewolf attacks. The paper also hires big game hunter Daniel Kane (Twemlow) in order to provide the back-up brawn to her brains. Clearly taking no chances, Kane arrives in the UK carrying with him machine guns and “an image that’s as wholesome as sewerage”. The fact that you are not really allowed to run around the English countryside tooled up like Rambo is cheekily dismissed by a line claiming that Kane has been granted a special permit to bear arms by the Freemasons!! “Charles Bronson eat your heart out” wisecracks one character. 

Kelly’s initial scepticism starts to crumble when Mr Rooney and Mr Clancy, a pair of old Irish drunkards, start feeding her stories about the werewolf’s exploits. The drunken duo’s merry demeanour and habit of injecting exclamations of “bejesus” and “Mary, Mother of God” into their conversations quickly endearing them to Kelly. “That’s real Irish charm” an easily impressed Kelly tells Kane. Kelly inadvertently gives Rooney and Clancy a flash of inspiration about how they can settle their bar tab when she mentions the cash reward on offer for the werewolf’s capture. Setting into motion several attempts to find the werewolf by the ‘Oirish’ double act, whose well pissed antics provide the film’s idea of comic relief. 

The werewolf itself occasionally surfaces to polish off livestock and a few minor characters as well as scare a pair of randy teenagers off having a quickie in a field. Just to add to the village’s problem of having a lycanthrope on their doorstep, a local biker gang have started throwing their weight around – as well as the odd Molotov cocktail – too. Sporting names like Weasel and Badger, and looking like they’ve escaped from the set of Death Wish 3, the motley bike gang are naturally destined for a run in with a certain big game hunter. After Kane beats up all of Badger’s gang, their leader sneers “not bad with boys are you old man, how do you make out with men”, only for Kane to shoot back at him the film’s funniest line “I don’t, my scene is with women, but I respect the preferences of others”.

As if the film didn’t have enough support characters to be going on with, we also get to meet the delightfully named Wilbur Sledge (Darryl Marchant), a strange young man who appears to know more about the werewolf than he is letting on. Wilbur serves as a mouthpiece for a surprisingly poetic and philosophical side to Twemlow’s screenwriting, and his script offers Wilbur plenty of opportunity to wander about the countryside delivering eccentric soliloquies about trees (“You are such a statuesque tree, proud and mighty, why did you anger the lord of lightning?”), passing rabbits, and even the werewolf itself (“The beast is lonely… it needs my friendship”). An utterly unique presence in the film played an equally unique looking actor – imagine a Gary Numan lookalike and a Roddy McDowall sound alike, dressed as a farmer and delivering dialogue that suggests Twemlow trying to channel the spirit of Edgar Allan Poe, and you have Mr Wilbur Sledge. Such a character would make for an incongruous presence in pretty much any film, and stands out even further here thanks to having being dropped in amidst such quintessential 1980s action film stables as a gun totting mercenary and a bike gang. The fact that Darryl Marchant looks to have never been troubled by the acting world before or since, and as far as I can tell remains a one film wonder, only adds to his and the his character’s mystic. Every moment Marchant is onscreen you are completely captivated by him and left wondering “what the fuck was his story?” and “where on earth did Twemlow find this guy?”

Initially built up as a likely werewolf suspect, Wilbur instead ends up taking on a friend/spiritual adviser role to Kane. After Kane gets injured by the werewolf, Wilbur even volunteers to stitch him back up with a needle and thread, a scene that acts as Moonstalker’s only real stab at gore. It probably would have been advisable for Kane to have just gone to hospital, but as it turns out Kane is impervious to pain anyway having mastered “jungle law”, so that’s alright then! An impressive werewolf finally takes centre stage in the expected Kane vs. Werewolf climax. Even if it is all slightly bungled by post brawl revelations that first suggest a Scooby-Doo type explanation for the werewolf, only to then take it all back and opt for a genuine ‘monster on the loose’ explanation instead. Presumably sparing Twemlow and Co the wraith of any believers in the real life Beast of Exmoor in the process. 

Moonstalker gives the impression of having a greater amount of money and ambition behind it than the average Cliff Twemlow vehicle, with shooting on film instead of the usual videotape. The film makes a decent attempt at bamboozling the audience into thinking its opening scenes were filmed in New York. Thanks to some NYC stock footage and shots of actors pretending to be junkies and roaming what in reality were the mean streets of the North West of England rather than the East Coast of America. Yet for all of the upgrade to film and illusory ‘overseas location’ work, Moonstaker still retains all the recognizable hallmarks of Twemlow’s small scale, but enthusiastic film work. His eye for action scenes and ear for brilliant, tough guy movie dialogue are on fine form. Little known areas of Twemlow’s beloved North West are predominantly what are offered up as background scenery, Moonstalker being partly filmed in the sleepy village of Chipping and an off-season scout camp in Worsley. The cast includes such Twemlow regulars as Maxton G. Beesley and Brian Sterling-Vete, adding to the strong sense of a close-knit filmmaking troupe at work. 

Peek in at any stage of Cliff Twemlow’s life and career and what immediately strikes you is that here was a man who gave his all to whatever offbeat path life was pointing him in the direction of. His career as a nightclub bouncer, documented in his autobiography ‘The Tuxedo Warrior’, saw him pay multiple visits to the hospital over the years, his stint as a library music composer resulted in ‘two thousand’ pieces of music, and his 1970s fitness regime drove him to attempt 400 push-ups, 100 sit-ups daily, and three mile jogging sessions (with lead weights tied to his legs – according to local legend). This drive and determination was clearly the central force behind his film career, and the fact that he even had one and was able to carve out a mini-film industry for himself in 1980s Britain, was perhaps his most remarkable achievement in life. While even seasoned low-budget filmmakers like Norman J. Warren and Lindsay Shonteff struggled to get film projects off the ground during this decade, Twemlow was highly prolific in comparison, and seemingly doing what he did purely out of a love of making movies rather than for fame or money, since neither came his way on account of his film work. In fact, G.B.H. aside, his films were so invisible to the general public while he was making them, that it is really only now, years after the fact that we’re discovering later films like Moonstalker exist at all. By rights Twemlow should be an inspiration to all low-budget filmmakers out there.

Behind the scenes stories about Moonstalker further add to the idea of Twemlow as the sort who’d jump through rings of fire in order to see a film get completed, and at times threaten to rival the onscreen incidents in terms of entertainment value. According to one cast member the production was plagued by weird, supernatural occurrences and an actual ghost can briefly be seen in the film itself (although if this is true I’ve failed miserably to spot it every time I’ve watched the film). Given such hair-raising production troubles, a quick title change at the last minute (the original title Predator: the Quietus being unusable when it emerged that Hollywood was about to unleash a Predator of its own) must have been a comparatively minor problem for Twemlow.

Another moment of low-budget ingenuity saw the auteur talk a local Fiat car dealer into providing transport for the production in return for some obvious product placement. A handshake that resulted in poor Kane having to search for a werewolf in a Fiat Panda, a less than macho mode of transport that characters unconvincingly insist is a Jeep. In the event the miscast vehicle fits in conveniently well with Twemlow’s penchant for giving his characters quirky traits that go against audience expectations, generating intentional laughs in the process.

In G.B.H., Twemlow had shown his hard as nails bouncer character sharing a bed with a giant teddy bear, and in Moonstalker he makes Kane a strict teetotaller. Resulting in a priceless onscreen moment when Twemlow- a man built like a brick shithouse- goes to a restaurant and asks for “a glass of orange juice, please”. Scenes that illustrate Twemlow’s ability to gamely take the piss out of himself in a way that the egos of far bigger Hollywood action heroes would never have allowed. In spite of Twemlow taking on roles as the film’s male lead, writer, co-producer and fight arranger, there is an egolessness on display here, with the majority of his co-stars given a respectable amount of screen time and moments to shine too, a generosity that also extends to non-acting performers, witness the routine of a nightclub singer (“Jade at the Meridiana restaurant courtesy of Mr John Leyton” according to the end credits) being crowbarred into the film. 

Twemlow quickly followed Moonstalker with 1987’s The Eye of Satan, a similar hybrid of gung-ho action and horror that once again saw him playing a mercenary who answers to the name of Kane. Quite whether The Eye of Satan was conceived as a direct sequel is a moot point though, since Kane sports rather different characteristics in his second outing. Namely an allegiance to the devil and glowing green eyes! 

Perhaps this was just as well, since while The Eye of Satan was afforded an obscure video release and a few satellite TV airings on the HVC channel, a dispute with a film developing lab initially resulted in Moonstalker being left on the shelf. In the early 1990s the rights to the film were acquired by Hemdale Film Corporation, a company that had been set up by the actor David Hemmings. When Hemdale went bankrupt in 1995, the Hemdale library ended up the property of the Hollywood giant MGM. The sensible money would have been on MGM regarding the film as a low-priority and burying it, however to everyone’s great surprise they have in fact recently chosen to re-master it in high definition, subsequently broadcasting a HD version on American television in 2010 and making it available on Netflix. Quite an achievement for a previously unreleased film starring nobody anyone in America will have ever heard off, and featuring locations and accents that are equally obscure to a US audience. An unlikely happy ending to the previously sorry saga of Moonstalker, and one which offers hope that all the other lost, forgotten or barely released horror films currently out there gathering dust may one day emerge from the vaults and have their day too. 

Back in the UK, Moonstalker had its belated British premiere – nearly 25 years after it was made – as part of the 2010 Salford Film Festival. In true Cliff Twemlow fashion the première was held above a pub located just outside of Manchester City Centre. If the true litmus paper test of a film’s entertainment value is how it plays before a live audience then the film passed with flying colours. Proving a real crowd pleaser, the audience laughed along with its knowingly implausible storyline, cheered when Cliff’s face first appeared onscreen, while even the slightest hint of an upcoming action scene was greeted by wrestling match like shouts of “Go on Cliff!!”. Methinks Mr Twemlow would have approved.

Gavin Whitaker – Gav Crimson

IMDb

The Pike is a 1982 British horror novel, published by Hamlyn, written by former bouncer and film library composer Cliff Twemlow. Emerging amidst the glut of nature-strikes-back horror movies and novels that swept across the world in the wake of the phenomenal success of Jaws and its sequel, there is nothing to distinguish The Pike from the likes of Piranha, Tentacles, Orca – Killer Whale and other fishy tales except it’s so avowedly British and it also led to a doomed film adaptation…

Back cover blurb:

FIRST VICTIMS -
A screeching swan…
A fisherman overboard…
A drunken woman in a dinghy…
One by one, the mysterious killer in Lake Windermere claims its terrified victims. Tearing off limbs with its monstrous teeth, horribly mutilating bodies.

Fear sweeps the peaceful holiday resort when experts identify the creature as a giant pike … A hellish creature with the strength to rupture boats – and the anger to attack them.

But for some the terror becomes a bonanza – the traders who cater to the gathering crowds of ghouls on the shore. And they will do anything to stop the divers finding the killer. 

Meanwhile the ripples of bloodshed widen…

Comment:

A brisk 160 pager, and all the better for its brevity, Twemlow’s to-the-point novel is set in the Lake District, specifically Lake Windermere. Our human protagonist is Mike Watson, a tabloid journalist on an unlikely break to escape his failed marriage and faltering career. When an angler has half his face bitten off, the troubled journo realises that the ensuing “scene had STORY written all over it” and so his investigative instincts soon kick in. Class divisions don’t stop our intrepid reporter from bedding the granddaughter of a local Major before a team is formed to hunt down what has soon been identified a twelve foot killer pike.

From hereon, Twemlow swiftly introduces character after character to make up for the fact that the pike itself clearly hasn’t got much to do. A sozzled socialite foolishly goes onto the lake in a dinghy in just her “bra and pants” but Twemlow doesn’t make much of this inevitably tragic beauty and the beast encounter. Of course, as in Jaws, there has to be an expert marine biologist on hand and Ulysses Grant (!), a Scottish longbow expert to remind us of Quint, plus a local big event – in this case Miss Lakeland – to present the fearsome fish its biggest potential human meal. The vogue for skinheads in British pulp fiction is nodded to as three menacing thugs are introduced and promptly warned off by the Highlands Hulk. When it comes, the double twist ending is… well you’ve seen the likes of one times before in a hugely popular Saturday morning cartoon, and the unravelling of the swift mystery is perhaps the most satisfying bit of this fisherman’s tale. It will surprise no-one that Ulysses is left to ruminate: “Aye, he’s a canny yin”.

So, how did this innocuous minor novel become a movie project with the likes of Joan Collins, Jack Hedley (in Lucio Fulci’s infamous The New York Ripper  the same year) and TV hostess Linda Lou Allen in tow? Perhaps it can only be explained by Cliff Twemlow’s tenacity at getting such unlikely films as Moonstalker green lighted? Sadly, The Pike movie was never completed, although we do have documentary evidence of it in production.

Adrian J Smith

Thanks to Vault of Evil for the main cover image.

Related: Frankenfish

Death Screams (also titled House of Death and – possibly - Night Screams) is a 1981 (released 1982) American horror film directed by actor David Nelson from a screenplay by Paul C. Elliott. It stars triple Playboy cover star Susan Kiger, Larry Sprinkle, Andria Savio, David Lenthall, Martin Tucker, William T. Hicks (Tales of the Third Dimension), John Kohler, Jennifer Chase, Jody Kay, Kurt Rector, Josh Gamble, Hanns Manship.

Director Worth Keeter III (Wolfman, Rottweiler: Dogs of Hell) provided the special effects.

Plot:

Two teenagers are murdered by a mysterious killer. They are reported missing but their bodies are not found. Two weeks later, locals are celebrating the last night of carnival but the machete-wielding maniac is lurking nearby and when a group of youngsters  decide to camp overnight by the river, they soon become victims…

Reviews:

” … solid slasher movie fun. It’s true that it spends far too much time on the incidentals (we really don’t need to spend quite so much time at the fair for a start), but this is forgivable as the central cast is pretty likeable and are certainly having a grand old time. The film itself is pretty well shot; it’s obviously aping Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) and has some nicely evocative shots. It’s a shame, though, that apart from the exciting finale the director doesn’t seem capable of (or even particularly bothered about) conjuring up and sustaining suspense…” Hysteria Lives

Poor lighting, poor quality sound, low levels of logic from key characters, a weak script, a nonsensical reason for the killing spree, underused locations (such as the fair and graveyard) and more House of Death holds multiple examples of how not to do a Horror film. The graveyard scene is, however worth a mention. One victim falls into a grave, then, whilst attempting to climb out, one swing of the machete removes both hands from the target, leaving him to collapse, stumps gushing blood, back into the pit.” The Robotic Patriot

“Standard slasher flick … Cinematographer Darrell Cathcart also worked on Final Exam (1981) and a bunch of Earl Owensby films. Susan Kiger was a Playboy ‘Playmate’ who had also worked in porn. Monica Boston, who plays one of the teenagers in this film, represented North Carolina in the Miss World-America pageant in 1980. Hicks was in A Day of Judgement (1981). Brian Albright, Regional Horror Films, 1958 – 1990

Buy Regional Horror Films, 1958 – 1990 from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Wikipedia | IMDb | We are grateful to the Grindhouse Cinema Database for the main image, plus Critical Condition.

Terror on Tape is a gore-filled 1983 American horror video compilation of scenes from a selection of movies owned by Comet and Continental Video, with direction credited to Robert A. Worms III (although this is almost certainly a pseudonym). Cameron Mitchell (Maneater of Hydra, Nightmare in Wax, The Toolbox Murders) plays our host as the macabre clerk at the ‘Little Shoppe of Horrors’ video rental store. He presents ‘highlights’ from a number of horror titles for the delectation of a wimpy would-be tape renter, a macho builder and a sexy gothic lady (Michelle Bauer).

Clips include: The Deadly Spawn, Vampire Hookers, Bloodtide, Cathy’s Curse, Madhouse Mansion (Ghost Story), Frozen Scream, To the Devil a Daughter, Eerie Midnight Horror Show (The Sexorcist), Nightmare (Nightmares in a Damaged Brain), Kidnapping of a President, The Slayer, City of the Walking Dead (Nightmare City), Alien Prey (The Prey), Color Me Blood Red, 2000 Maniacs!, Scalps, Blood Feast, Night Creature, Suicide Cult, Ruby.

Reviews:

“Terror on Tape is excessive, degrading, harsh, sleazy and decadent. In other words, it’s exactly what you want.” Brett H., Oh, the Horror!

“One of the finest moments is the soliloquy that Mitchell delivers regarding movies and horror. It’s the telltale sign that although Terror on Tape had an advertising goal, it was also made with love by people who love horror as much as the fans do. It may be reassuring to tell you that many of the films featured in Terror on Tape have been restored in some digital format, some on Blu Ray. It insures their longevity even if takes away from your own VHS obsession.” The Liberal Dead

John Carradine, in Vampire Hookers: “Doesn’t anyone understand poetry anymore?”

IMDb | We are grateful to The Liberal Dead for images above

American Nightmare is a 1981 (released 1983) Canadian horror film directed by Don McBrearty (The Haunting of Lisa) from a screenplay by John Sheppard (Mania, Never Cry Werewolf) based on a story by John Gault and Steven Blake. Ray Sager – who played Montag the Magnificent The Wizard of Gore – produced. It stars Lawrence S. Day, Lora Staley, Neil Dainard, Lenore Zann, Claudia Udy, Page Fletcher, Michael Ironside (Scanners, Visiting Hours), Larry Aubrey, Michael Copeman, Bunty Webb, Tom Harvey, Paul Bradley, Peter Lavender, Martin Doyle, Don MacQuarrie, Alexandra Paul (Christine), Nancy Oliver.

Plot:

Wealthy pianist Eric Blade (Lawrence Day) tries to locate his missing runaway sister Isabelle in an unnamed city [actually Toronto] with the help of her roommate. He uncovers a sleazy trail of sex shops, strip joints, prostitution, drug addiction, incest, blackmail…and a serial killer. The police aren’t really interested in a missing hooker until they find out she is the daughter of a wealthy businessman.

Reviews:

“Overall, it’s more of a thriller than a straight-ahead slasher flick; it also bares more breasts than blood. But American Nightmare is interesting as a hybrid of slasher and giallo with a couple of key characters (Staley, Zann) who make you care about what’s going on, and a thoughtful subtext (that’s right, you heard me) that adds meat to the mystery.” Dave Stewart, Retro Slashers

Buy American Nightmare on DVD from Amazon.com

“Despite its title, American Nightmare is a uniquely Canadian perspective on the depravity of our southern neighbors. While the message may be a tad too pessimistic, and the overall feeling of the film may be gritty, dark and depressing, it is nevertheless a quality motion picture. The giallo film in Europe was a way for filmmakers to comment on the physical and moral decay of its city streets, and McBrearty has done something brave in reviving the fundamentals of the genre to offer a similar critique on America. If Canadians have to make American-based movies, they may as well flavour it with a little homegrown pessimism. American Nightmare, indeed!” Rhett Miller, Canuxploitation!

“Where it lacks in an engaging story and consistent acting, it totally makes up for with working with the uglier side of the underbelly of city life, specifically the red-light district. There are lots of street scenes with skin-flick marquees and sex shops, as well as some footage shot inside an actual sex shop. The female lead is a stripper, as are her friends, and they all show their stuff, resulting in a few prolonged strip teases to pad the movie nicely.” Todd Jordan, Rock! Shop! Pop!

Choice dialogue: “You come to a funeral to apologise?”

Wikipedia | IMDb

Doom Asylum is a 1987 American comedy horror film directed by Richard Friedman (Scared Stiff, Phantom of the Mall, Dark Wolf) based on a screenplay by Rick Marx (Tenement, The Coven 2). It stars Patty Mullen (Frankenhooker), Ruth Collins (Prime Evil, Lurkers, Witch Academy), Kristin Davis (later in Sex and the City), William Hay, Kenny L. Price, Harrison White, Dawn Alvan, Farin, Michael Rogen.

Plot:

A demented disfigured coroner uses autopsy equipment to kill off the teenagers who trespass on the long-abandoned asylum he inhabits…

Reviews:

“Obviously meant as a satire on the slasher scene, the rubbery-made up killer (Michael Rogan) constantly spurts wisecracks, delivering such lines as “I hate rap music” when devouring a hip-hopping teen. The gore effects are for the most part too over-the-top to be effective, but the scene were an electric drill is jammed into the forehead of a geeky baseball card fanatic is worthy of Lucio Fulci.” George R. Reis, DVD Drive-In

“If the killer fails to impress with the quips, then at least Doom Asylum delivers with the splatter. Admittedly, some of it is pretty hokey (the acid bath victim looks like mannequin dipped in oatmeal), but a particularly well executed (pun intended) drill to the head shows you can sometimes do wonders on a tiny budget. The fact that the movie was shot on film also gives it a sheen that belies the lack of money spent on it. As far as suspense goes there’s pretty much zero – characters split up and wander off on heir own in time-honoured tradition, but the action regularly draws to a halt with lengthy sequences of the killer watching old Tod Slaughter movies on TV…” Justin Kerswell, Hysteria Lives!

“Although there are a few minor annoyances, and sometimes the movie just seems to get so caught up in its own fun-momentum that it forgets that it’s supposed to be going anywhere at all with the story, in the end this doesn’t really matter because Doom Asylum is just so damn charming and entertaining.” Reel Bad

“Doom Asylum is the best cheesy slasher of all time, and it’s not even a close decision. Essential!” Brett H., Oh, the Horror!

IMDb | Thanks to the following for images: Critical Condition

The following is just a selection of the Hindi comic book covers posted by Aeron Alfrety on his Monster Brains blog. Sadly, we have no details regarding the historic nature of these often surreal images or the artists themselves.

Please visit Monster Brains to enjoy more Hindi comic books images and much more besides!

Centipede Horror (original title: Wu gong zhou) is a 1984 Hong Kong horror film directed by Keith Li (Vampire Kids) from a screenplay by actress Suet Ming Chan (Red Spell Spells Red), who also has a leading role. It stars Hussein Abu Hassan, Chu-kwong Chan, F.C. Chan, Chok Chow Cheung, Szu-ying Chien, Wong Ha-Fei, Li-fen Han.

Plot teaser:

A crazed evil wizard uses his powers to take revenge on beautiful women by making them vomit up live centipedes, which then proceed to eat their victims…

Reviews:

“Centipede Horror isn’t particularly gory or sleazy but it is pretty gross. I mean these are giant ass bugs here. We’re talking over 6 inches long and an inch wide, crawling all over folks. They certainly look nasty to me. We even get a great scene of live centipede vomiting. Seriously, how eager to make a film do you have to be to be willing to put several giant live centipedes in your mouth?!” Toxic Graveyard

“Not for the squeamish. There’s a lot of live centipedes and live scorpions running around in this movie, accompanied by a really over-emphasized skittering sound effect. Above and beyond the screaming myriapod nightmares that crawl unceasingly through this film, it’s none-too-shabby, with a nice little mystery-solving plotline and weird magic going on.  Far from the gruesome centipede-fest I’d been expecting, it’s actually a little bland on the grue-front, plus it threw in some surprise gratuitous nudity.” Bill Adcock, Radiation Scarred Reviews

“While far from the nightmarish vision many would have you believe it is, Centipede Horror is a relatively interesting, occasionally successful, and unarguably weird take on the black magic theme popular in the Hong Kong cinema of the time.  It’s a pity Keith Li didn’t direct more than the few films he did, as I quite enjoyed myself with this one.  While not recommended for the squeamish or bug-fearing, fans of the genre are encouraged to indulge.” Kevin Pyrtle, Wtf-Film

IMDb | Image thanks: Backyard Asia

Neon Maniacs (aka Evil Dead Warriors) is 1984 (released 1986) American horror film directed by Joseph Mangine (cinematographer on Alligator and Alone in the Dark)  from a screenplay by Mark Patrick Carducci (Pumpkinhead; Buried Alive). It stars Clyde Hayes (Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter), Leilani Sarelle, Alan Hayes, Andrew Divoff, P.R. Paul, Victor Brandt, Marta Kober (Friday the 13th, Part II), Jessie Lawrence Ferguson, John Lafayette, Solly Marx (Silent Madness).

Plot teaser:

In the heart of San Francisco, the legions of the damned lay waiting beneath the Golden Gate Bridge. As night falls, they are unleashed upon the city to carve terror into the souls of the innocent. But when one young woman named Natalie (Leilani Sarelle) escapes a bloody teen slaughter, she cannot convince anyone that a rampaging army of psychotic ‘monsters’ has mutilated her friends. Now haunted, hunted and having a hard time in high school, Natalie must arm herself and her classmates for one final bizarre battle against the horror of the neon maniacs…

Review:

“Some sequences work beautifully and some of the action set pieces are exciting, but the disjointed nature of the film and lack of focus are painfully obvious resulting in a movie that is made all the more worse in that the script had an enormous amount of possibilities. It’s definitely a time capsule movie in that it there is no way anyone would mistake it being made in any time period but the 1980′s. The entire movie reeks of the decade from the clothes to the music. Not necessarily a bad thing, it just depends on ones point of view.” Cool Ass Cinema 

“Boasting a strange ambiance from start to finish, Neon Maniacs is like no film I have ever seen before. Everything from the staging of the murders to the dramatic pacing seemed off somehow. Chalk it up to sheer incompetence or a total lack of inexperience on the part of the filmmakers, but whatever they did, it repeatedly ended up being the correct course of action. For example, the decision to use that sinister sounding synthesizer flourish whenever the Maniacs would appear on-screen was the epitome of correctness.” House of Self-Indulgence

“Now, on to the negative. That would include the direction, writing, editing, music, sound, most of the acting and pretty much everything else … The mutants are just there without purpose or reason; killing people, again, for no reason. Seeing how they went to great lengths to make each of the mutant designs so distinctive and elaborate, you’d figure they’d set aside a minute or two to provide them with an origin, an explanation or a mythology to make them, you know, actually interesting.” The Bloody Pit of Horror

“If Alejandro Jodorowsky somehow wound up working on a movie for New World Pictures in the 80s, this is probably what would have happened. I can’t for certain credit artistic ineptitude, or even the interference of censors or the studio for this film’s end result. All I know is that watching this must be very close to experiencing brain damage by way of fever dream. Is something missing, or am I missing something?” Joe Dropout, VHS Summer

Wikipedia | IMDb | Image credits: The Bloody Pit of Horror

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Cannibal Terror (original title: Terreur Cannibale) is a 1980 French/Spanish horror film. It was directed by porn specialist Alain Deruelle [as A.W. Steeve], Olivier Mathot and Julio Pérez Tabernero (Sexy Cat; Las alegres vampiras de Vögel; Hot Panties) from a screenplay by Tabernero and H.L. Rostaine. Jesus Franco was also apparently an uncredited co-writer. It stars Silvia Solar (Eyeball; Devil’s Kiss), Pamela Stanford (Lorna the Exorcist; Sexy Sisters), Burt Altman [Bertrand Altmann] (Zombie Lake; Devil Hunter), Stan Hamilton, Gérard Lemaire, Olivier Mathot (Revenge in the House of Usher; Maniac Killer), Antonio Mayans and Sabrina Siani (Ator, the Fighting Eagle; Conquest).

The film is notable for the fact that it shares an amount of footage with Mondo Cannibale (also known as Cannibals and White Cannibal Queen,1980). While many sources suggest that Franco’s footage was ‘borrowed’ for Cannibal Terror, a closer examination reveals that there are more connections than this between the two films. Both films share a number of locations, cast, and even dubbing actors. Some connections that suggest more than a mere ‘borrowing’ of footage are:

Sabrina Siani is the White Cannibal Queen of Mondo Cannibale, and also appears (as a fully clothed adult) in a bar scene in Cannibal Terror. Several shots of the dancing cannibal tribe in their village are common to both films, and several shots appear only in one or the other. One actor with a very distinctive face is seen in Cannibal Terror in no less than three roles (two cannibals and one border guard) and is also quite visible as one of the cannibals devouring Al Cliver’s wife in Mondo Cannibale.

In addition are the obvious cast parallels of Olivier Mathot, Antonio Mayans, both of whom have starring roles in both films. Porn star Pamela Stanford plays Manuella in Cannibal Terror, and has the brief role of the unfortunate Mrs. Jeremy Taylor in Cannibals.

Plot teaser:

After botching a kidnapping, two criminals hide with their victim in a friends house in the jungle. After one of them rapes the friend’s wife, they’re left to be eaten by a nearby cannibal tribe…

Reviews:

“Cannibal Terror is awful, to be sure, even more so than other Eurocine efforts may have led you to expect. That’s not to say that it isn’t fun, and I found myself enjoying it a bit in spite of [or is that because of?] the criticisms above. While I can’t recommend it as horror, those looking for the next great bad movie may want to check it out. The Severin disc is excellent, and highly recommended for those looking to complete their Video Nasties collection.” Wtf-Film

Buy Cannibal Terror on Severin DVD from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

“The Pyrenees Mountains standing in for the Amazonian jungle. The flagrantly Caucasian “Indians” and their tiki bar village. The gore effects so pitiful that the camera itself often seems to be ashamed to look at them. The ludicrously inappropriate score, which makes the city theme from Make Them Die Slowly seem like the epitome of taste and sound judgement. The steadfast failure of the script to make any sense at all at any level. Yes, Cannibal Terror truly is the Zombie Lake of cannibal movies, and as such, I score it as a film not to be missed.” 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting

“You wonder when the cannibals are coming. They take the kidnapped girl to the jungle (somewhere in a conservatory in Paris, from the looks of it), when they finally encounter the cannibals – the least convincing cannibals in film – caucasians, make-up that stops at their neck, side-burns, comb-overs, potbellies. They dance. They eat pig entrails. They dance again. They threaten. They dance again. Not much happens after that.” Down Among the “Z” Movies

“What follows is repetitive mind numbing padding. People walk around the jungle and then walk around some more. The cannibals peek through the trees watching them walk around. The girl’s parents, along with some cops also… walk around. After an indefinite amount of walking around, the cannibals make themselves known and capture Roberto and his girlfriend and harbor the little girl.” Strictly Splatter

Wikipedia | IMDb

Linnea Quigley‘s Horror Workout isn’t really a movie. It’s not even a workout video. I don’t know what it is, but I’m sure glad it exists. The 1990 video begins, as it should, with a lengthy shower scene. Quigley‘s boobs make their first appearance before the opening minute is out.

The titles appear as Quigley soaps herself up to a synth-soaked soundtrack composed by John Vulich. Vulich’s score is, rather jarringly, out of time. Stepping out of the shower, Quigley breaks the fourth wall, looks right down the barrel of the camera, and screams.

With the opening titles wrapped up, Quigley settles down in front of her fireplace and discusses her career. She shows several clips from such as Creepozoids (1987),Assault of the Party Nerds (1989) and other stinkers they could get the rights for.

After a lengthy sequence of clips, the fitness workout finally begins. Sporting fishnet stockings and a metal-studded bra (“Would you want to watch me work out in a baggy sweatsuit?” Quigley asks. “No,” says I), she launches into a series of aerobic exercises, all of which showcase some part of her scantily clad body. While stretching and twisting, the 80s Scream Queen delivers sexually charged instruction:

- “It keeps me limber, so I can get out of tight places… or into them.”
- “This one increases your ability to keep your legs in the air… I can do this one for hours!”
- “This one is great for the guys… I mean thighs!”
- “That’s right stretch those muscles… not that muscle!”
- “Deep breathing will increase lung capacity… as you can see I’m a real… deep… breather.”

The routine goes on for some time. Halfway through, Quigley is interrupted by a dirty phone call, which at first offends her but then seems to turn her on. The routine wraps up at the twenty minute mark, and we cut to Quigley jogging through a cemetery. She attracts the attention of a horde of zombies, which leads to a zombified version of “What’s the time, Mr Wolf?”

Buy Screaming in High Heels from Amazon.com

The zombies follow Quigley into her house. Telling the living dead stalkers that they need to get into shape, Quigley does an aerobic dance routine with them by her pool. At some point during this ten minute sequence, something broke in my brain.

Quigley then decides she’s had enough of a workout and invites a bunch of her lingerie-sporting girlfriends over for a slumber party. Again, we’re treating to another lengthy clip parade as she and her pals watch scenes from her movies. To work off the popcorn, Quigley and Co. dive into another aerobics session that features a lot of obnoxious crotch shots.

The workout is interrupted by a power outage. Quigley investigates leaving her friends to the mercy of a Ronald Reagan-masked killer. Linnea Quigley‘s Horror Workout‘s final act is pretty fabulous. It even tosses a bit of cheap gore up on the screen.

It’s such a sadness that we live in a time where something like Linnea Quigley‘s Horror Workout could never exist. This is unashamedly gratuitous and campy silliness made with tongue firmly planted in cheek but without the eye-rolling irony of our current sneering times. And if nothing else, this makes one hell of a party tape. Thanks, Linnea Quigley, you are brilliant.

Dave Jackson, Horrorpedia guest reviewer from Mondo Exploito

Buy Linnea Quigley Grindhouse Triple Feature DVD from Amazon.com

IMDb |

Linnea Quigley on Horrorpedia: Creepozoids | Don’t Go Near the Park | Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers | Linnea Quigley’s Horror Workout | The Return of the Living Dead | Screaming in High Heels | Silent Night, Deadly Night | Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama (The Imp)

Tom Chantrell (born Thomas William Chantrell in Manchester on December 20, 1916 – July 15, 2001) was a British illustrator and film poster artist.

The son of a trapeze artist, Chantrell was the youngest of nine children. He left Manchester Art College and went into advertising, eventually starting in 1933 at Allardyce Palmer who had accounts with Warner Brothers and 20th Century Fox. In 1938 he designed his first film poster The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse. He eventually designed over 7,000 film posters.

Chantrell did not see the films he drew for; he would receive a plot line and a handful of stills and use friends and family for poses. Examples of this were taking photographs of himself trying to look like a vampire for Dracula Has Risen from the Grave. Chantrell’s posters were often produced prior to the film being made in order to raise money from investors.

Chantrell designed many posters for Hammer Films and the Carry On films. In the 1960s Chantrell was often drawing artwork for 5 different films or double bills at one time. With the move away from illustrated artwork for movies in the 1980s, Chantrell designed covers for videos.

Among the more famous films he designed the artwork for were The King and I, Von Ryan’s Express, One Million Years B.C., The Anniversary and Star Wars.

Wikipedia | Official site | The Guardian obituary

All images are copyright Tom Chantrell and are reproduced here in the spirit of publicity for his Official site