Raiders Of Atlantis

 

Rambo Shandling

Raiders Of Atlantis (Atlantis Interceptors) Directed By Ruggero Deodato (1983)

            Miami 1994! is the Future in Raiders Of Atlantis, notorious cannibal maverick Ruggero Deodato’s mentally retarded ripoff of The Warriors. There’s some choice Miami Vice/48 Hours style banter between two interracial pals Mike and Washington/ Mohammed. In this film Deodato carries the “anglicized” moniker of Roger Franklin and he has reason to be embarrassed.

            Oliver Onions (a fake Goblin style band) does the infectious theme song Black Inferno! (covered here incredibly by the accomplished Youtube musician Islandrocks). In Deodato’s universe, Italio-Disco is still relevant in the future!

Oliver Onions still playing to packed houses in the future

            Tony King (the black cannibalistic Nam vet from Cannibal Apocalypse) plays Mohammed/ Washington and Christopher Connelly is his wise cracking pal. Connelly looks like a Super Marionette version of Gary Shandling to me and played Hotdog in Bronx Warriors (the first exploitation theft of Walter Hill’s comic book gangland fable).

            They shoot at balding dealers and old people and answer to a guy in a limo named The Colonel (who won’t show his face, a Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget imposing like figure)! The other Deodato filmed in parts of Miami classic is the superior Cut & Run (one of my all time favorites)! This is the weaker of the Florida related films. All the ingredients for something highly entertaining is here, but this film is dull and lifeless, shockingly two years later Cut and Run would come out and the screenwriter involved with Raiders; Vincenzo Mannino also penned House On The Edge Of The Park! So what happened? Not sure, but this is more watchable than Deodato migraine inducing garbage like Dial: Help or BodyCount!

Cheech & Chong meet your replacement: Mike & Mohammed

            Ed Mannix (Al Cliver’s voice actor) dubs Ivan Rassimov this time, he plays Mike’s other pal Bill Cook. Ivan's imposing presence is wasted here are a side character that just tags along. A Nuclear physicist finds Mayan artifacts and a magical skull tablet and a cuter version of Lorraine De Salle (Cannibal Ferox, Wild Beasts) named Cathy Rollins is an archeologist who goes along for the ride on the expedition. All the workers in a lab yell at Russian submarine footage as a crystal skull mask is found in a vault.
            Mad Max/ Warriors/ Drednought type bikers mysteriously show up and wreak havoc, their appearance coincides with giant tidal waves that strike! Mike and Mohammed get tossed out to sea on their vessel. Washington/Mo makes Chewbacca like grunting sounds during a sonic wave alert. They show up on a fake Matool like island as Manuel one of their crew members goes ape shit and threatens to kill them. He soon dies by arrows slung by The Warriors type gang in bad makeup and Mohawks. One dude gets his head cut off by a wire and another looks like a Samoan Solomon Grundy. They find some hogtied sailors and a bunker with an arsenal of weapons. From this point on in the film it turns into an Intellivision videogame, as they blast away gang members and go through mazes, waterfalls and battle lazer robots (I’m realizing this sounds way better than executed in the film)! The gang leader wears a glass skeleton mask and stares menacingly; the heroes fight back with Molotov cocktails and napalm. The echoey death cries are extra loud and later on the voices get sped up. 

He Man your fate is sealed

             The team finds some coked out party goers that tell them about the mystery gang, they are called The Interceptors (a crew so lame they couldn’t even hang with Skeletor or The Orphans)! The pitiful gang slowly rides around in a huge Cadillac and threatens to execute all except one (Cathy the scientist, who later wears Kabuki Makeup and contacts the leaders of Atlantis). The party people seem to show up just to be killed in various creative ways. The film puts zero effort into futuristic special effects and everything is either too dark or nondescript. The gore makeup is slim or nonexistent, which for this director is unforgivable. There’s one single decapitation, which was copied from She Devil’s On Wheels. The Cult of Atlantis need Cathy the scientist to bring them to the surface for some unknown reason and they sort of resemble The Heaven’s Gate cult or the endless screens from Zardoz! You also get an irritating was it all a dream non-ending! Raiders Of Atlantis is a tedious, but fun ride and seems more of an Enzo Castellari post apocalypse film then a Deodato one. Slightly Recommended, make sure you have tons of beer!

I think the acid just kicked in

Die crustacean biker scum

Decapitated Fish Biker

WATCH HERE

A Chat with Happy Goldsplatt

Let's get "Happy"

Happy Goldsplatt is the comedic zombie partner of Nick Pawlow. The two starred together in the greatest trailer compilation video ever, Mad Ron's Prevues from Hell. That was in 1987. Happy has returned in 2012's Celluloid Bloodbath: More Prevues from Hell. He's back in the spotlight and the "living" here at Theater of Guts got in touch with the little brain muncher to ask a few questions and to pick his brain for a change!

Happy and Nick

 #1 How did you meet Nick Pawlow? Fate, that's the only word I can muster up. I reside in a cemetery that borders a wooded area that spills out onto a winding road. I try to find food in the wooded area, nothing fancy, possums and other nasty living crap. Anyway, this particular night, I see this dorky bald guy changing a tire by the side of the road, I start a conversation with him through some bushes, don't want him to see me. As things go. one thing lead to another. I'm workin on a book that spills the whole story. Will keep ya posted on that later.

 #2 Are you ever tempted to eat Nick? No, I would never eat Nick, he's done way too much for me. I never bite the hand that feeds me.

#3 What is your favorite prevue in Mad Ron's archives? That's really a tough one, I don't have a single favorite, but the ones that I really love are - I DRINK YOUR BLOOD/ EAT YOUR SKIN, UNDERTAKER AND HIS PALS, CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS, TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, BLOODSPATTERED BRIDE/I DISMEMBER MAMA.

#4 What is your favorite zombie movie of all time? No question, original NIGHT of the LIVING DEAD.

#5 And worst zombie movie? Way to many that suck. REVENGE OF THE DEAD? Great poster, no rating, and a big pile of nothing.

#6 Are you a fan of the Walking Dead series? If so who is your favorite character? Well yes and no. I like the series but, way, I mean way too many zombies bite the big one in the show.
I don't have any particular characters that I like since they are all living persons, how can I love a show when none of the zombies return in future episodes?

#7 You made a comeback in Celluloid Bloodbath, are you working on any upcoming projects? Did I mention that I'm working on a book, yes I did mention that earlier. I have a website www.happythezombie.com but I need to bring it up to date, but check it out, I do have a blog page on the site, but I post mainly on facebook.

 Addition to question #7 I'm also trying to do personal apperances, I was at the Oct. Chiller Con, I had a blast, I'd like to do more of those.

#8 Trailer compilations are all the rage right now. Synapse has the "42nd St." series and Alamo Drafthouse has released "Trailer War" Would you say that Mad Ron's PFH was way ahead of it's time? Well in a way it was, we had trailers that had never been seen before. Now these trailers are readily seen every where. We used the video THE BEST OF SEX AND VIOLENCE as a template, well actually producer Jim Murray said that. I know , I know the humor does not hold up now, come to think of it, it didn't hold up to well then either. I had no say in the script, I only did what I was told, when you are out numbered by the living, you don't make waves. Realistically, we were learning as we worked on it. I don't have a time machine to go back and fix the damn thing. I think it was wonderful of the trailer that you made with the laff track and cricket sounds, every time I watch it, I crack up, we should have done that originally, then EVERY ONE would love the whole video!

#9 In Mad Ron's PFH we learned that your weenie is missing, Did you ever find it? No, I said the end of my weenie was missing, Nick wrote that line and it was taken right from our stand up comedy act, yes we worked at comedy clubs doing "live shows", we still do once in a while.

#10 Please share your fondest memory of making Mad Ron's PFH or any funny stories during the shoot. Well I was actually kind of scared because, there I was, a zombie among the living. I had to play "dummy" I pretented to be a puppet, of course Nick was in on it. I can't think of any thing special, when I was not being filmed I was in a suit case. The only thing that I remember was that Nick kept forgetting his lines and messing up. We did have some sound recording problems, If you have seen the video, then you know what I'm talking about, so we had to dub voices here and there. Also I had to wear a green mask for the shoot, the producers thought that I was not scary enough!!! This greenface that I have has been my trademark look for the past few decades, but it's not my real face. See my website for the truth.

The Real Trailer

 The Theater of Guts' Tribute Trailer

Thank you Mr. Goldsplatt!

Interviewed by SkunkApe

Crankenstein's Full review of Man Ron's PFH here

Schock or Shock or Beyond The Door II

I think "Schock" (or "Shock" or "Beyond The Door Part II", anybody else need to catch their breath?) needs a few watches before entirely understanding everything that's going on. Sometimes films in the Italian horror, or more so "Giallos" (Italian for "yellow", or really yellow jacketed crime novels) are tad incoherent. "Schock" is surprisingly straight forward, which is I think is unusual for this type of movie. I was going into watching this movie with Lucio Fulci's "House By The Cemetary" on my mind, ready to throw a pillow over my face at the scary parts. Upon creating a "parody" picture for the TOG Facebook page using "Schock"'s poster, Crankenstein assigned me review it. Oh no, Italian horror scares the crap out of me!  Thankfully this isn't nearly as scary to me as "House", but it's pretty similar in it's portrayal of a three member family living in a strange house with a secret in the basement. There's also the parents having a young son (David Colin Jr., incidentally in the unrelated first "Beyond The Door" also), and the husband (John Steiner) always going away because of his job leaving mom, Dora(Daria Nicolodi, a.k.a Dario Argento's lady friend and Asia's mom). I always wish the mom in these movies would just leave the house and get away from the craziness, but then there'd be no movie. *wah wah* Poor Daria certainly screams a lot in this.

Don't go in the basement, kid!

There seems to be a presence in the house, that's also possessing the son, Marco. He claws at the brick wall in the basement, but you don't know why. He even starts to float after awhile instead of walking. There's a couple of disturbing incidents where he dry humps his mom and then steals her underwear out of drawer, ripping it to shreds. His personality is night and day throughout the whole movie. There's a huge twist a little past halfway through the movie, that makes you rethink everything prior to that. There's mostly one weapon in this movie, shown in the cover art even, of a box cutter. They may have chosen that based on the family moving multiple times, opening and closing cardboard boxes. We also find consistent imagery of deformed pianos (similar to "Hausu"), large white hands (real and sculpture), brick walls and furniture moving on its own. 

Frightening puppet show in the park

Blue Underground has released this DVD (I rented it from Netflix for this review, although it was once available on Instant for awhile before it expired) and included a fascinating 8 minute interview with Mario Bava's son, Lamberto who was the main writer on this film. It's too bad he didn't do a full length commentary. It seemed in the interview he was more than happy to point his many contributions to the movie besides writing it. Be on the lookout for some crazy scenes, such as about an hour and 15 minutes in when Daria's hair floats around, which Lamberto mentions. "Schock" was once found on a (now impossible to find) combo DVD pack with the rare, Andrzej Zulawski's "Possession" of all movies.  Next in the *ahem* series is "Beyond The Door 3" AKA "Amok Train", which has zero to do with this movie. I watched not too long ago and thought I did a review, but I don't see one on my old Netflix Retrieving Screen blog. You can watch that movie here until May 1st when it expires. I must also mention that the soundtracks for Beyond The Door 1&2 are incredible and must hear scores by Libra (Goblin in disguise) and Franco Micalizzi (The Chi Sei album)! (ed.)

Watch "Schock" here

Watch "Possession" here before it gets taken down for the 50th time

It would've been nice to get to know the Dad (Nicola Salerno, not to be confused with the lyricist of the same name) a little more in this as more than a suicidal junkie. He also served as the Assistant Director.

Raped By An Angel

Raped By An Angel (Xiang Gang qi an: Zhi qiang jian)Directed By Wai-keung Lau (1993)           

            The Notorious Chinese smut peddler Jing Wong is up to his old tricks, or what Theater Of Guts readers love about this unstoppable juggernaut producer, actor, writer and director!

            The Naked Killer was reviewed before and I found it to be pretty dull in comparison, I saw this one before hand (because the Naked Killer is very popular and it had a long wait on Netflix)! You can keep that Basic Instinct knock off, Raped By An Angel in my opinion is head and shoulders above The Naked Killer in demented style, quality and hilarity!

            That vile Jing Wong staple of politically incorrectness is represented with an obscene amount of rape jokes and an appearance of an AIDS Clown (I’ll try not to reveal how that one happens)!

            South Park had an episode where they proclaimed AIDS jokes as finally funny (in 2002), well in Hong Kong, nothing excruciatingly unfunny as an AIDS joke is off the table! They did it in 1993! So keep that in mind as you watch this film (or any other Jing Wong helmed vehicle).  

            Here’s a quote from Mr. Wong himself, “Vulgarity is the basic instinct of human beings. Humans misinterpret vulgarity. I change vulgarity into art as to let you enjoy it” See folks, he allows us to enjoy the slop sluicing forth out of the Wong Jing Workshop, so be grateful!

Does it come with funny shaped balloons?

         Most of the actors from The Naked Killer are back again except in completely different roles, which seems to be the standard as far as these sequels go. They just add another chapter or layer in an over bloated pile of sickness and mayhem, so get used to it! And don’t get too attached to the characters from the last film because they will all assume other roles in this “sequel”, “Hey be glad they showed up at all!”

            I wonder if these films have sequels because they can, or that they were such a box office smash that there was a demand for them! The Naked Killer has 4 more sequels as many as Death Wish! The titles are just as lurid as the content (Raped By An Angel does have alot of offensive material towards women,obviously)! That’s a given in these situations and I doubt any woman would be overjoyed to check out the next pro-rape genre film, these seem to be very popular, it doesn't add up! Then again that can be said for almost all rape/ revenge genre films aside from Savage Streets, MS. 45, I Spit On Your Grave or The Angel sequels, which are all women's castration of rapist fantasy movies. That's my favorite part about all genre films, it's an equal opportunity battlefield and a sleazy outlet for the entire human race to enact cathartic scenarios against each other.

            Chingmy Yau Suk-Ching (Naked Killer, Satan Returns) is the object of Mr. Chuck’s (Mark Cheng) unhealthy fixation, he dons a hocky mask and later a clown suit, while lurking around and penetrating various unwelcomed orifices. Yau is a fitty milk spokeswomen for an incredible commercial with dairy and machineguns! 
            Mr. Chuck enjoys rape fantasy sex with his girlfriend and has a repulsive break in and pretend you are on a date with other women style of cat burglary. He is a genuine predator and when he first meets Chingmy at a fitty milk celebrity party, he gets overly fresh with her and she calls him a wolf then pours ice water on his balls. One girl at another party has a shrieky cartoonish voice does fellatio tricks with a banana and ice cubes. Some foreshadowing occurs when they introduce a friend named Cindy who happens to have AIDS.

            Later during a rape seminar at a college, the teacher mentions Mike Tyson and JFK as 2 famous examples of rapists! Simon Yam (Dr. Lamb, Run & Kill) shows up playing an egg tart eating Triad who hangs out in a salon, getting his hair done. He is a sensitive gangster who loves his mother, Yau interviews him for extra credit at school (since she’s failing her class). Meanwhile Yau starts to fall in love with Tat (Simon Yam), the triad with a heart of gold. There is a lot of condom use in Raped, nice that they promote safe sex, but no one who watches this is looking for a positive safe sex message!

            Mr. Chuck begins to prey on all of Yau's friends and breaks into their apartments. He has that Patrick Bateman personality flaw of high-powered classy rapist and I think they are both handsome powerful men, who could get women, but instead enjoy the thrill of murder and conquest.

            Chuck cracks open about 4 condoms after brutally assaulting Man Man (who's a woman) afterwards he gets mad that she fucked up his hair and doesn't even acknowledge her shrieks of displeasure, he seems to relish them. He traps her in his apartment and forces her to be his makeshift wife. One of the mentally challenged leftovers (from Red To Kill) is led in blindfolded and gleefully assaults the same girl chained up in Mr. Chuck apartment! He also blackmails all of his former girlfriends on video (like an Asian Dennis Reynolds)! 

           A CID agent halls Chuck into court and there is a goofy courtroom scene and they all wear hilarious powdered wigs! Like in Lipstick and every other rapist convicted in court film, they are genius liars and always get sympathy from the judge and dumb jurors. In these films it’s always a nice set up for a final revenge showdown.

            I should mention that the judge is an American biker looking dude speaking dubbed Cantonese. 
           There's an unbelievable moment when Chuck uses a chainsaw to dispose of a body and it makes squeaky balloon noises (the film quality goes down a little, this is most likely a deleted scene). But it goes even further into cartoon territory when he brings Yau a present of a life-sized statue of a green haired clown. He gets trapped into contracting full blown AIDS, now that might be the sickest, mean spirited form of revenge ever committed!

Friday The 13th: The Final STD

            Jing Wong has been accused of going for the last tasteless dollar and appealing to the lowest common denominator (or the entry level human). It's all true! but why the hell not! I mean if Hollywood is pretending to champion art while at the same time wallowing in trash and misery, what's better? denial or honesty! That's why I have to say, exploitation has the full range of depraved honesty and shouldn't be judged in this light, if you don't want to see this kind of harmless filth, don't watch it! So I suggest you watch Naked Killer after this one, that way you won’t be disappointed in thinking it’s an actual sequel.

           

News Team Assemble

AIDS jokes were funny in Hong Kong in the 90's

The way to a Triad's heart is through extreme violence

WATCH HERE

There's Nothing Out There

 There’s Nothing Out There Directed By Rolfe Kanefshy (1991)

Review By Goat Scrote

                It's Sunday night. I've been working all the live long day. I’m covered in dust, and my jeans are caked with mud and decorated with the diarrhea expulsions of an unwell goat.(Seriously, Mr. Scrote actually works in the Zoo! ed.) I'm tired and I just want to turn off my brain for a while. I settle in on the couch with a steaming mug of decaf tea in my awesome "Motel Hell" mug (thanks Crankenstein!), and I start browsing the internet for something trashy to watch. I come across a random trailer for something called "There's Nothing Out There" and it looks pretty good... in a bad sort of way... so I search for the full movie and there it is. How glad I am to live in a time and place where there is high-speed internet. If you are too young to remember when “google” wasn’t a word, you probably cannot imagine how much more convenient it has become to be a geeky hermit type with a taste for obscure cinematic trash.

                Why didn't somebody tell me this movie was out there? It was released over 20 years ago, how could I have missed this? I really had fun watching “There’s Nothing Out There”. Yes, yes, the acting is horrible, and the special effects are just a notch or so above pre-CGI “Dr. Who”. The writing is uneven but cleverly takes the low-budget limitations of the film and turns them into strengths with a funny, self-referential take on 80s horror. It’s not scary, but at its best moments it’s hilarious. The "meta-horror" humor raises this movie from a pleasantly silly little wedge of moldy cheddar to a prime hunk of finely aged camembert.

 

Right from the beginning, the main character recognizes horror cliches and knows that he and his pals are in trouble: "Have you ever heard the words foreshadowing? Those kids were born to be murder victims and they just paid us a visit! Don't you realize the significance of that?" Mysterious trails of green slime show up and people start to disappear, but sadly no one will listen.

                I checked online to see if there’s any particular reason this movie isn’t more widely known, and found plenty of other reviews. Other writers have already made the comparisons to "Cabin in the Woods" and "Scream". This arrived in 1990, though, six years before "Scream". It’s also distinguished by the zany Zucker-Brothers-style jokes mixed in (think “Airplane” or “The Naked Gun”, also it's a Troma Film)!. At one point the characters openly discuss the possibility that they might actually be in a horror movie. In another scene, a boom microphone "accidentally" drops into view and one of the characters uses it to escape from the alien.

Gingivitis Lazertag

                Oh, yeah, there's an alien. Did I mention that? Yes, a creepy-crawly alien descends in a ball of light from the sky and goes on a rampage, starting with a girl who runs her car off the road. Meanwhile, five young people head for an isolated house by a lake... errr, pond... for a weekend of partying. You pretty much know the rest, as the movie cheerfully rolls along well-travelled territory. Somewhere on the way a partygoer gets his face melted off by alien digestive juice. We also learn the creature can control minds with green rays that shoot out of its eyes. The funniest parts are during the buildup, as the tentacled alien picks off the partiers one by one despite the zealous efforts of the wisecracking horror movie fan. His relentless sarcasm eventually started to wear on my nerves, but the occasional good joke and the escalating goofiness of the story kept me sufficiently charmed. The hapless survivors soon learn how to defend themselves (“Nobody likes a mouth full of shaving cream”), and discover the fiendish alien is driven to mate with and impregnate human females. In the end the humans execute a bizarre plan that involves fighting the monster with mirrors, light bulbs, and an oven. Their implausible alien deathtrap works, and they can finally escape. On the way out they encounter a confused stranger lost in the woods, the first victim of the alien, and there are signs that she is very pregnant with its slimy green freak-babies. The escapees boot her ass out of the van and make for the hills.

The movie is far from perfect, obviously… if it was a slickly polished corporate product I wouldn’t be reviewing it. Even so, I thought it was jolly good entertainment and worth a look for horror fans who enjoy corny 80s horror movies and the type of self-aware genre in-jokes that are now almost expected in horror.

WATCH HERE

Star Of David: Hunting For Beautiful Girls

Star Of David: Hunting For Beautiful Girls Directed By Noribumi Suzuki (1979)

An escaped sweaty military convict rapes a nerdy pencil pushing spineless wimp’s wife all through the night during a thunderstorm.

The film uses a massive amount amount of lurid detail and camera shots (almost like a comic book, which apparently it is)! Most graphic Japanese horror flicks are originally based on Mangas, Star Of David is based on the comic by Masaaki Sato. There are heads and plants strategically placed in front of genitals (Austin Powers Style)! 

Instead of taking his wife to the rape crisis center, this worthless piece of human filth decides to use it as a key to the door of a cavalcade of his own sexual perversion. The husband has been craving this abuse all along against his wife, but her enjoying the sexual assault is the next step toward the edge of depravity.

Oh, Shit, It gets worse, because she is pregnant with the child of the serial rapist. If you’ve read this far, be forewarned it doesn’t get any lighter or even come to a pleasant ending, so stop reading now if you are easily offended!

Good, you are still here OK! Let's delve into this loose sushi roll of fear and hatred! Meet Tatsuya a Holocaust fetishist and sophisticated junior rapist, he’s just a panther on the prowl looking for attractive girls to abduct. There are no heroes in this film, only repugnant creeps young and old and Tatsuya, a rich child of an utter scumbag gets everything he wants and is never stopped! It's so appalling! They show flashbacks of his twisted father beating Tatsuya bloody as a small child. The father rapes various women in front of his wife as punishment for her crime of enjoying the vicious assault. Tatsuya learns all this information from his father’s diary and replaces his parental figures with Nazis in his favorite book “Night And Fog”.  Inspired by the Holocaust, this mental reject decides to prey on women. Using a phony beard and lizard/monkey iron mask, he uses half of his inheritance to build a ghastly sex dungeon! 

There are so many super attractive women in this film, but its hard to enjoy them being defiled in the name of the Fuhrer! There is a lot of classical piano featured by Chopin for some reason (was he a Nazi fetishist too)? During a birthday party Tatsuya takes a break downstairs to plunge a knife into a strung up female victim and blood sprays all over his face! Then later he watches a high school girl preach a message of tolerance and peace on TV, it inspires him to abduct her and force her to masturbate while she watches the footage on the television. Star Of David has many scenes with old men forcing themselves on innocent girls in white cotton panties (a popular Osaka male driven fetish)! This is the delicate way we are introduced to Tat’s father (still up to his old tricks)! 

As sick and deranged as this movie gets, the 60’s Batman stylized lighting turns the shocking ugliness into eye-candy! Star Of David has a consistent theme of the degradation of man (stemming from Hitler’s invasion of Poland during Night & Fog). Tatsuya tells his classmate at college that he admires the power of the Third Reich (no kidding!) and even uses the Nazi book as a masturbatory device (if your jaw hasn’t hit the ground by now, you are a fascist loser)!

            Bunta Shugawara (Kinji Fukasaku’s main actor from Yakuza Graveyard and countless others) shows up in an odd brief cameo as a horny truck driver!

Tomasuya keeps a teenage slave around to cook his meals, who he humiliates and calls a lecherous pig. He drives a pop star mad, who foams at the mouth and climbs a tower in the middle of a busy traffic area. The main character is beneath contempt and Star Of David is a rough ride indeed, because the protagonist is completely devoid of any human compassion and is severely evil. There is a scene involving his father and an animal that is so wrong on so many levels that I could’nt forgive myself if I revealed it!  It all ends with on a confusing level, the director commentary didn’t solve any of my questions either! As far as I can gather, Salvation or God has no control over the lust for power and degradation that man inflicts on each other and director Noribumi Suzuki has revisited this theme connecting religion in a few others (School Of The Holy Beast uses the nun fetish angle). The religious elements in the film are confusing and deal with salvation through Christ, its vile and offensive even if you have the smallest shred of religious upbringing. Just like in The Wicker Man if you are not apart of the pagan flock you will be offended by a certain amount of confusing iconography. He also made the film Sex And Fury (Review here) and is an accomplished film maker usually working in the Pinky Violence film genre.  

 

It's Hunting Season

Just a Panther On The Prowl

You'd tell me if my Underoos looked funny right?

Just another day in the dungeon

I'm afraid to love!

Japanese Drew Carey

WATCH HERE

Rabid Dogs

Rabid Dogs (Kidnapped) Directed By Mario Bava. Starring George Eastman (1974).

   This has got to be the meanest, most sadistic Mario Bava has ever gotten outside of a horror film. He never got to finish it originally and his son Lamberto Bava(Demons) took over, because the investor died in a car accident and the film wasn't released until a few years ago! That's the reason there are two version of Rabid Dogs (which most Bava fans, me included prefer). Kidnapped, which is the version currently streaming has alot of filler and a mystery women on the phone, who also shows up at the end tacking on another story and filling in some blanks. We really don't need this portion, but to stay true to his father's vision, Lamberto used notes from the original cut.
    Two robbers in clown masks rob and stab people with knives and machine guns. One of the criminals is a totally unhinged George Eastman (Luigi Fontefiori). One stupid character named Blade (Don Backy) gets pinned to a corner and in a desperate move, stabs a woman in the throat in a parking garage with a switchblade, raising their bounty from petty criminals to vicious killers. They highjack a seemingly innocent family man with a wife and sleeping kid in the back. The manner in which the killers happily torture, children and women reminds me of Tony Mustante and Martin Sheen in one of my favorite criminally underrated films The Incident.

   Their child needs to get to a hospital, which creates a mood in Rabid Dogs that's edgy and intense, brilliantly set in a tiny cramped vehicle.They are driving around at gunpoint with no air conditioning and their child will most likely die if he doesn't get medical attention. Blade (Don Becky) seems the most reluctant criminal of the crew and 32 (George Eastman) is blissfully psychotic and a major league pervert. The front seat criminal (played by Maurice Poli) seems the most rational or unusually calm.        

Calm and Rational aye?

    There are police and helicopters tailing their every move, In The Kidnapped version, but it seems that no one can help. The woman played by Lea Lander, tries to escape to get help, once they pull over. Instead as punishment for running away, she is beaten and forced at knifepoint to urinate in front of the perverted maniacs, they giggle like retarded children and get turned on by it! They incessantly humiliate the woman (who they call Greta Garbo) in the car. Blade gets sad and erratic once his friend 32 is shot by the front seat criminal. The ending is extremely nihilistic and once you've seen the surprise, it doesn't take anything away from repeated viewings of Rabid Dogs, a very influential film.       

   The score in this Netflix version is not as good as the original Stelvio Cipriani, with its driving harpsichord beat. I'm not sure why they used this musak sounding tripe for the restored film.

Piss Your Pants

  The spear going through two people having sex scene in Friday The 13th 2 was blatantly stolen from Bava (for Bay Of Blood reviewed here). This time, Bava used the "Piss Your Pants" scene from Last House On The Left (1972) and copies it for Rabid Dogs, which is fine by me, exploitation is a free for all operation! There are various versions of the film with a different score, opening scenes and closing scenes. I must favor the Rabid Dogs cut and the film is one of Bava's and George Eastman's best efforts. Highly Recommended! 

Crucial missing scene excised from Kidnapped

WATCH HERE