Demons

DEMONS Directed By Lamberto Bava Starring Urbano Barberini (1985)

Reviewed By Goat Scrote

                If a scary guy in a creepy-looking metal mask (infamous director Michele Soavi) ever offers you a free ticket to a movie, here's what you do. You go home and cuddle up on the couch with your favorite fuzzy, feathery, or scaly domesticated critter(s) and/or your sweetie(s). Have a bag of microwave popcorn or some corn chips, watch some b-grade garbage on the internet or whatever, and have a normal, boring, apocalypse-free night. Forget you ever got that ticket. Free movie tickets are nothing more than bait for demon traps. People are suckers for free stuff. The demons know this.

Suckers!

              "Demons" primarily takes place in a movie theater, and during the first part, the action in the movie they're watching mirrors what's happening in the theater. This set-up would have really lent itself to some William-Castle-style gimmickry in theaters. You could send some people in demon masks running through the aisles at key moments to get everyone in the proper mood.

Did I do that? (In Urkle voice)

                One of the visitors is scratched by a metal demon mask that's on display in the lobby. The same thing happens to someone in the movie-within-the-movie later on, which triggers a demonic transformation both on screen and in the theater. The wound starts pulsing and swelling and I smile in fond remembrance of pre-CGI horror. Latex bladder effects rule! The big pus-blast about 22 minutes in marks the real start of the party. Yes, it's true: Acne is spawned from the depths of Hell. 

                The trapped theatergoers don't need very long to figure out something is going terribly wrong, but when they batter down the doors to escape, they find a wall of concrete has mysteriously appeared. What the...? Things just sort of happen in this movie, and there's really no payoff for thinking too hard about it. The point is that they are now sealed in. They scatter through the theater in utter panic, looking for a way out, and one by one they get gruesomely torn up. The demon plague is spread from person to person through scratches and bites, so each new victim becomes possessed by a demon.

Nevermind the Clearasil get a priest!

                Some of the theatergoers decide that the film must be making all this happen, so they break into the projection booth to put a stop to it and find computerized projectors. Once again, a warning to the modern world! This digital projector craze is a soul-corrupting ploy to put demons in our cineplexes. I'm sure there's something about this in the Bible! Stopping the movie doesn't slow down the rampage, however.

                There's a hilarious visual pun at 43:30... a quartet of "punkers" outside the theater snorting cocaine out of a Coca Cola can. Ha! Okay, I thought it was funny, but I'm easily amused. Didn’t I see that in Return of the Living Dead, or am I high? I’m way too lazy to go look it up. (it didn't happen in the film. Ed.) Also, I am craving junk food. Anyway, the punkers, now on the run from the cops, find a back door into the theater and hide inside. Meanwhile, one of the demons sneaks out and scratches up the police. Containment has been lost! The demons are free, free to spread havoc and hellish misery across the face of the world, mwahahahahaha!

                Right about here I almost feel sorry for the demons. They were having so much fun in the theater, but boy, are they in for a disappointment when they see that we have pretty much already done their job for them in the outside world. Desolation? Mutilation? Despair? Senseless mob violence? Bloody mayhem? Plague? Rivers of boiling feces? Welcome to planet Earth, ya jerks. You’ll fit right in.

Howdy Folks, I'm Murray the "bacne" demon

                There are some cool bits and pieces of imagery, like the demon transformation at 30 minutes in and the glow-eyed demons climbing backlit stairs at 1:01:00. There's a pretty nifty scene at 1:07:45 when a full-sized demon climbs its way out of the back of one of the infected like she's a living doorway to Hell. The slimy, gooey, bloody old-school special effects are definitely part of the fun, with blasts of yellow and green pus, demon puke, stretchy latex, and plenty of fake blood.

Don't worry bro, I'll take down your insurance info later!

                There's a dirt bike and a samurai sword displayed in the lobby so that later the "hero" can drive through the theater chopping up demons with an 80s metal soundtrack blasting in the background. Our hero is not a very charismatic guy, but he gets to live the dream here... until he gets scratched and then crashes the bike. Oh well.

Perfect there's that chopper I ordered

                Then, with no warning, a helicopter comes crashing through the roof of the theater. This is by far my favorite moment. It makes absolutely no sense, and no explanation is ever offered. Just go with it! The two survivors use the helicopter as a weapon against their unholy enemies. And would you look at that, the chopper is also equipped with a grapnel hook gun and a winch. I’m sure if they’d kept looking they would have found a jet pack or a flamethrower, too. Anyway, hey, presto, they make it up to the roof the theater to face off with the original metal-faced ticket distributor, who is presumably the bozo responsible for this whole mess. The heroes do a reversal of the standard Italian-horror eye impalement kill, and this time it’s the bad guy getting a piece of rebar shoved through his brain. The good guys emerge victorious... only to discover that the city has already plunged into anarchy and chaos, with demons running loose all over. They're rescued by an extremely well-armed family in a jeep.

part machine part movie usher

                Now, even though we know the male lead was scratched by demon claws and we're expecting him to turn at any moment, it's the female lead who becomes a demon and has to be put down. Luckily this family seems able to take care of themselves. When the demon apocalypse arrives -- which should be any minute now, according to my sources -- we're all going to be wishing for those high-capacity assault rifle magazines, mark my words!

WATCH HERE

OR BUY ON DVD

Street Trash

Street Trash Directed By Jim Muro. Starring Bill Chepil (1987).

   Street Trash is such an overly reviewed classic that I wanted to combine all the best sources I could to give this a decent review, not just one I slopped together, cut and pasted from other writers. I respect it in the same league as other influential 80’s gore masterpieces like Re-Animator, Evil Dead and Basket Case. The way I see it, the filmakers were influenced by the gross out antics of Lloyd Kaufman and the ethics of Italian Neo-realism, am I giving them too much credit? The influences are difficult for me to ignore, there's poverty, oppression,non-professional actors and shit ton of ultraviolence. 

I Ain't No Artfag!

   My first experience with the film was through Fangoria, as soon as I saw those insanely impressionistic, punked out, revolting multicolored pictures, I was on a mission at 13 years old to find this bastard and check it out. My friend Seth and I found The Lightning Video clamshell tape at El Cheapo Video (which had a logo of a broke Charlie Chaplin on each video and the front door). I still have my dubbed copy from the early 80’s. I suffer from a VHS fetish and have a hard time upgrading, so it took me a few years before I saw the uncut version on Fandor and I recommend you chuck all inferior butchered versions and only see the unrated one. The Synapse Films one available now is the definitive version (click the link below). 

         The same David Witten, who invented the Mark of The Devil barf bags and “It’s Only A Movie” brilliant marketing campaign was now in charge of publicity at Vestron Video. He helped seal the financial deal for Roy Frumkes and Jim Muro’s bum-sploitation masterpiece. Muro later became James Cameron’s steady-cam operator and made Street Trash when he was just nineteen years old. The film’s ugly sense of humor uses comedy devices like castration, necrophilia, alcholoholism and gang rape all Troma staples of hilarity. There’s a truly bizarre moment when a man is castrated while pissing and his dick is tossed around like a hacky sack in what Chas Balun referred to as shot in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey style with extreme close-ups.

Arthur C. Clarke is spinning in his grave

   When I first saw Street Trash, I thought of it in the same vein as Class Of Nuke em High and The Toxic Avenger and was not exposed to Art house fare or independent film at all as of yet.

         Street Trash took Fangoria, Gorezone, Deep Red and the splatter film genre by force. It caused a huge impact among drooling gorehounds, who found their latest fix. Lackey, Frumkes and Muro took the independent and neo-realistic film tactics and placed them in a Troma infected wasteland.

         The basic concept of melting winos, erupting in a hail storm of multicolored sinew and organ meat because of poison booze is taken to highly entertaining lengths. These desperate souls are searching for the cheapest rotgut they can ingest for only a dollar a bottle, the infamous “Tenafly Viper” and just trying to make it through their miserable lives. A grouchy liquor store clerk finds the overly expired bottles in the cellar and unleashes the plague. He delves out the contaminated booze like death rations to the needy. The hobos are the main protagonists and are never pitied or despised (to quote Ed Wood psychic Criswell).

Wizzy is pissed or happy, can't tell.

         The locations are centered around a junkyard, a police station, mafia owned restaurant and sometimes in bombastic Vietnam. The film is legendary for some of the most appalling and beautiful surrealistic spectacles of grisly FX courtesy of Jennifer Aspinall (Toxic Avenger, SNL). As the bums choke down the blue-ish poison liquid, they immediately die and explode, becoming impressionistic new wave death graffiti. 

Coke and a full toilet, SFX secrets revealed

   Is this Reagan’s plan to spruce up the Bowery by killing derelicts while simultaneously painting the city in the process? This way an influx of art and commerce will arrive by way of human multicolored organ grenade casualties. It’s just a theory of mine that’s pretty highbrow for this flick, after all this is Street Trash, you scumfuck!

Reagan's plan to spruce up the city

         Bill Chepil is an amazing actor and not since the days of Italian Neo-Realism has there been a stellar non actor performance of “Bill” the Cop. Brilliantly and naturally executed by our next subject, today on "Frank Talk" with Crankenstein (wearing a skinned mask of James Lipton).

         Mr. Bill Chepil who after beating the shit out of a scumbag, kicks his head in a million times and shoves it into the bottom of a urinal stall and then punches his sausage fingers down his gullet and upchucks all over the poor victim’s bashed in head.

too much?

   This is the only credit for Mr. Chepil, who went back to doing what he does best, playing a bad ass cop in real life. Had he made another film, I believe he could’ve rivaled Jon Voight in tough, but sensitive charisma. But alas it was not meant to be. 

   Other favorite characters of mine are Wizzy and Bronson. Wizzy is another working class slob of a non-actor with rubbery features. He’s always giving my least favorite character Hippy Fred (Mike Lackey) shit. Fred and his brother Kevin are the lead characters you are supposed to sympathize with, but I’ve always found them detestable. Fred looks like a human version of Hippy Skippy, a Garbage Pail Kid card. His younger brother Kevin looks like a soiled lesbian version of Ralph Macchio. There’s also Pat Ryan as the Junkyard manager Frank and his Asian punk secretary Wendy (Jane Arakawa). Wendy has a soft spot for the younger brother Kevin and defends their illegal squatting to her lecherous boss. They give you these wretched characters to identify with, but I only liked the mean ones the best like Bronson and Bill The Cop. 

I'm gonna puke again!

         Vic Noto plays Bronson, he’s fucking insane as the menacing, femur bone wielding, junkyard lord and is a genuine Vietnam veteran. He’s haunted by flashbacks of bloodsucking VietCong and eradicates boredom by stabbing yuppies in their cars waiting for the traffic light to change. He carries his diaper-wearing wench Winette (Nicole Potter) around like a ratty, mentally handicapped stuffed animal. Her death later resembles “Dali’s Persistence of Memory” with a pained face attached to a dripping clock. She howls like a feral cat in heat and is jealous of any woman trotting around in the purview of Bronson’s twitchy eyeball.

Zach Galifianakis took too many steroids

   James Lorinz (later the star of Frankenhooker) plays a mouthy doorman who witnesses Mafia boss Nick Duran’s (Goodfellas and Sopranos actor Tony Darrow) puking girlfriend leave with Hippy Skippy (Mike Lackey) on her way to an uninvited gang rape. The gang rape scene is the most disgusting moment of the film, there’s not a shred of likeability to this ugly scene at all. Burt (Clarenze Jarmon), the black man wearing a gasmask has a hilarious moment in the supermarket, similar to the one with Belushi in Animal House where he stuffs lunch items and raw chicken down his pants.    

I contracted botchalism thanks to you

   The political context is subtle, but cannot be avoided, certainly the Reagan era of shutting down mental hospitals and slicing the underclass at the knees by taking away social programs and food stamps from the truly desolate and feeding it into an already over-bloated military gave the film a social political standpoint. It all ends with an inspired moment of a gargantuan CO2 cartridge flying at top speed that removes head and shoulder meat along with it. I urge you to re-watch this film because it still holds up, Fandor currently streams the completely unrated version available from Synapse and the DVD is worth buying because of the incredibly entertaining interviews and extras (with some that didn’t appear in previous DVD versions). Also available to stream via Fandor.com

check out the short version on Youtube

Natural Enemies

Natural Enemies Directed By Jeff Kanew. Starring Hal Holbrook (1979)

   I'm reviewing this forgotten flick because Kris Gilpin mentioned that it had an orgy scene and Elizabeth Berriage from Tobe Hooper's Funhouse. It's got two people that later worked together in Creepshow and it was directed by the same guy who made Revenge Of the Nerds. I plan on showcasing different non-horror films that he mentioned for later reviews, but don't worry gore freaks, there's still most ghastly nightmares to be reviewed.

   Paul Steward (Hal Holbrook) is a mentally unstabled prick who says all men think of killing their families and he has a definite plan and a loaded rifle. He methodically loads his rifle, why is he suicidal? He lives out in the country in a pretty cottage and the location and film stock reminds me of that quarry rock cereal commercial from 70's SNL. So why do down Charlie Brown? 

Quarry Cereal film stock

   His wife is Nurse Ratchet or Louis Fletcher, she O.D's on ritalin and says romantic shit like "did you enjoy the sex, while I was asleep"? The narration is all Holbrook talking trash about his rotten family that he can't wait to murder (and apparently wants to screw his daughter played by the Elizabeth Berriage from Tobe Hooper's Funhouse). He says the family slaying will take the same amount of time as an orgasm. His silent family has no lines and just watch cartoons as he secretly talks smack about all of them. The media violence and monotony is pushing this unstable jerk to the breaking point. His negative introspection and hatred toward himself and his family make him a perfect candidate for psychotherapy. He blames his marital entrapments and anger toward himself on his children and wife's mental illness. All the melancholy and depressing shit made me feel better about my life.

   

I'm still depressed

   His life has lost all meaning because he has to care for his mentally ill wife (why doesn't he hire a nurse)? Holbrook is a magazine publisher, who acts like an amateur psychiatrist as he talks to holocaust survivors and astronauts. The survivor tells him what the audience is thinking "why don't you just divorce your wife". Since he's fantasizing about the murder of her and his children, he should check himself into a psychiatric hospital, instead he visits a whorehouse! He has an orgy with five girls and then later subjects them to more of his dime-store psychology. The whores even mention "why doesn't he talk to his wife"? The film flashes back and forth to moments of his wife's insanity, why they sleep in separate beds and when they both really checked out on each other. 

Boo Hoo, I'm still sad

Speaking as someone who's completely anti-gun and not wanting to bother to get preaching on here, insanity and guns don't mix and people that hate each other should get divorced, no matter what, especially if there's no shred of compassion or intimacy left. This film hates marriage, but it does have a good point about divorce (just leave don't prolong it or have fantasies about murder). Later on the holocaust survivor tries to change Hal's mind, who says nothing matters "because we're already dead" and quotes Nietzsche, if this were the 80's, Hal would be wearing eyeliner and have Robert Smith hair!  Viveca Lindfors shows up and argues for a nuclear war! Which is funny because growing up during that time period with Reagan that's all I feared!     

The 70's bleakness and isolation reminds me of The Ice Storm (although that was fake 70's). The resurgence of that alienation is happening now, but there's wonderful advancements in psychiatric medicine, ha! Gun nuts are more present then ever (or have they always been lurking around)? I guess things are still basically just as shitty! The film is really fascinating, thought provoking and grim, but has no connection to Deep Red, it comes off more like a lost tv movie. I wonder if George Romero saw this when he casted Creepshow and thought, "too preachy, needs a crate monster and a zombie who wants a cake".This whole film in a nutshell is like that Patton Oswalt breakfast treat joke about marriage. Breakfast Joke Link. I would have been more satisfied if all the violence was shown instead of implied and its definitely overly talky.

WATCH HERE

Hitchhike

Hitchhike (Autostop rosso sangue, Death Drive) Directed by Pasquale Festa Campanile. Starring David Hess (1977)

   Sometimes I wonder who’s taken more cinematic abuse John Morghen or Franco Nero? I mean sure Morghen has been mutilated, castrated, tortured, drilled through the head and had his brains eaten out by savages, but I ask you readers which is more humiliating? To die a memorably horrific death or constantly being bitch smacked, pummeled, betrayed by fake friends (in Street Law) getting your hands smushed by horse hooves (in Django), butt fucked (in Fassbinder’s Querelle), having your wife slowly raped in front of you, while tears stain your giant frankfurter mustache? Nero is constantly suffering and getting humiliated and the torture never ends as he is forced to push all the trauma down into his intestines until it turns into cancer and destroys from the inside out! I’ll admit it’s far fetched, but how else can I pad my review of Hitchhike?

   David Hess gets picked up by Nero, whose wife convinces them to stop, they drive around, then he abducts him and his attractive wife played by Devil’s Honey and the Story of O’s sultry babe Corinne Clery and berates and insults the couple, who’s marriage it on the rocks. That’s an understatement, because just before, scumbag Walter secretly had his wife in the crosshairs of his rifle and teetered on the edge of blasting her in the face and throwing her in the back of his truck! Maybe he deserves all the punishment after all!

what is this salty discharge emitting from my eyeballs?

   The premise is that Walter Mancini (Nero) is an alcoholic writer, bored to shit by his dull marriage and while on a roadtrip with his wife, makes a stupid mistake and picks up a sociopathic hitchhiker that affects both of their lives in a shitty way. David Hess (playing Adam Konitz), is always great in the gleefully sadistic heavy role, it’s almost like he just shows up and delivers slight variations of the Krug character, especially in all of these Italian exploitation films. He turns it up full throttle in House On The Edge Of The Park, but in this film it’s sort of a level 7, irritating and deadly, but nothing compared to what you’ve seen before. The emotional and mental games are inflicted more than bloodshed. Here’s a nice interview with David Hess (R.I.P.) http://www.terrortrap.com/interviews/davidhess/02/

OK which one of you farted?

    Adam is a bank robber on the lam, who keeps calling Mancini, Martini!(ouch those are fightin words)! His new mission besides annoying him incessantly is to force Walter to immortalize Konitz in print with a nice juicy story for his crummy novel. After Adam gets fresh with his wife, Walter punches him out, but his will to fight quickly dissolves enough later for Adam to get his way. The tension and monotony is infuriating in this flick! Hess lies Eve down by the fire and proceeds to violate her, and she doesn’t really struggle (and technically its not forced because she seems to enjoy it), as Walter helplessly watches and cries like a bitch! If that isn’t shitty enough, Adam slaps him around and giggles maniacally in his face. Franco’s arm is in a sling because in real life he punched out a horse on the set of Keoma (like Mongo in Blazing Saddles)? He also broke his nose in real life (this guy needs a better fight choreographer)! 

a more reserved and mellow Krug Stillo

Eric Estrada blown away

   Morricone is slumming it up here with this jaunty “sing songy” score that goes “Let’s fly, Let’s Fly, Let’s Fly, I smile…” The goofy contrast reminds me of “The Baddies Theme” ragtime shit in Last House! In the film however it’s played by a dopey campfire band of hippies and later used ironically. To add insult to injury, Eve grabs a rifle while completely naked and it seems like even she doesn’t want to give her husband any mercy either! There’s a good amount of tension and chemistry between the three actors and some choice gunshots during a cop shooting spree on the freeway, but ultimately a watered down effort with capable talent and enough Franco abuse to keep it afloat, for Hess and Franco completists only.   

Am I having a good time, you decide!

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Interview with Kris Gilpin of Deep Red

Howdy everyone! Crankenstien here again, doning the skinned carcass of Mike Wallace and doing my journalistic impression. Today I am interviewing another esteemed member of the Deep Red magazine crew, Mr. Kris Gilpin, the man with the spectacles and the awesome handlebar mustache! He wrote many informative articles, reviews and got to hang with horror film celebrities for DR and personal heroes like the great Monte Hellman (pictured below). Later on he ventured into the world of children's cartoons as an editor, check out his IMDB page here.He will also be included in the Xerox Ferox book by John Szpunar.Be sure to support this amazing book and all Deep Red alumni by purchasing a copy. 

Kris and Monte Hellman

1.How did you meet Chas Balun?

I can't exactly remember, but I believe I mailed him some old interviews, told him I loved Deep Red and all but begged him to let me in. He said, "Sure!" (he was an incredibly nice soul!) & that was it.

Kris with Schlockmeister: Larry Buchanan

2.What are some of the worst films you had to review for Deep Red?

 I had to check the old issues to remember them! I did see a unique play in L.A. once, Frankenstein: Playing with Fire, which I did review for DR. It was an interesting but OK play, too much talk and the scariest moment was when a character walked to a door in silence and, when he touched the knob, a huge scream came over the theater's sound system, scaring the shit out of everyone. I reviewed Autopsy for him, which was a fun, sick "Shit Flick", plus it starred Mimsy Farmer, who I always thought was lovely. & I did Nightflyers, too, which I cannot even remember now! I said it pretty much sucked though, at least it had the lovely Catherine Mary Stewart & the gorgeous Lisa Blount in it. & I said Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night 2 was bad, but Michael Ironside was in it. Chuck Vincent, who made porn, made If Looks Could Kill, an attempt at an R-thriller, I thought it sucked (so to speak) and Jaime Gillis (puke) & beauty Veronica Hart were in it. 

Mimsy Farmer in Autopsy

I reviewed The Killing Time, with Beau Bridges & Keifer Sutherland, I said it was just OK, which is why I can't remember that one now. I got Deathstalker II, too, a weak Jim Wynorski (I never liked his stuff very much) flick, John La Zar (Beyond the Valley of the Dolls's Z-Man) was the bad guy here & it had the gorgeous Monique Gabrielle in it, too. 

Z-man in Death Stalker 2

I reviewed Natural Enemies with Hal Holbrook, can't recall it (duh, guess I'm gettin' old now), I said it was a good idea but basically all talk, with an orgy scene in the middle of it & a cameo by Funhouse's pretty Elizabeth Berridge. & Steve Railsback's Blue Monkey was a forgettable monster movie. Buster and Billie was an above-average rape/revenge film, with Robert Englund in a small part. The Curse was actor David Keith's first directorial effort, a campy contamination flick with lots of maggots in it. The Rosary Murders with beauty Belinda Bauer was a bland thing. Katt Shea Ruben's Stripped to Kill was a sexy little number (lots of skin, little blood) with Kay Lenz in it. The Mind Snatchers was a good brain-manipulation thriller with a wonderful, introverted Christopher Walken & an extroverted Ronny Cox. Hunter's Blood was a worthy, good but talky Deliverance rip-off, with a rednecky Clu Gulager & some good bloodletting. Gator Bait is, of course, a sleaze classick with adorable, sexy Claudia Jennings & I was always happy to see Larry Buchanan regular Bill Thurman show up in any movie, too, this one had a shocking shotgun-to-a-female-crotch scene which caused disgusted walkouts in its day. And Night Force was a shitty Richard Lynch "thriller," a waste of time.

Claudia "Gatorbait" Jennings

3. I read your interview with Tiffany Bolling, which was great! What did you think of The Candy Snatchers?

 Thank you, so glad you like my interview (it's also online now at TempleofSchlock.Com). I loved Candy Snatchers, I thought it was great, funny, sexy, stupid sleaze. Tiffany (who was very sweet & lovely to meet in person) didn't like any of her nudie films by that time though I told her that was a fave B-movie of mine. We're both Christians & we exchanged Christmas cards for a couple years after our talk. Growing up in Florida (& fucking hating it!), the Miami Herald dogged the film out of course & I always remembered the nasty blurb above their review: "Candy Snatchers: Deaf Mute Has Best Lines!" HA!!

Candy Snatchers mute kid

4. I was exposed to The Hunting Party through the Deep Red catalog, what are some lesser known genre films that gore fans should know about?

 I wasn't interested in Hunting Party for some reason when it first opened, though I love Westerns & again, the blurb in the Miami Herald simply stated disgustedly, "Hunting Party: Blood Orgy" so I ran out to it & couldn't believe it, a great "Shit Western" with Candy Bergin (who gets her crotch shotgunned out!), Oliver Reed & Gene Hackman as a good prick. The flick's idea of comic relief (which I've always hated in a dramatic film!) was to have Reed slurp peaches into his mouth like a kid, as Candy giggles (!). Brains blown out, it was fun shit!

Hackman taking names and blowing out crotches

   Other "semi-rare" sleaze (& I use that term in my most beloved, affectionate, respectable way possible!) include these K.G. faves: Possession, Cook Thief His Wife and Her Lover, A Better Tomorrow II, The Killer, Hard-Boiled (with maybe the greatest, 45-minute shootout climax ever on film!), Black Magic Rites (great, sexy Italian sleaze!), Caligula (the only film to feature Sir John Gielgud--& a close-up blow job!!), Dogtooth and Klown (great, twisted Eurosleaze), Forbidden World, Going Places (a fave French-sleaze road film!), El Topo, Santa Sangre, the original Humanoids from the Deep, Perdita Durango (hopefully uncut), 1900, Rolling Thunder, the original Straw Dogs, Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (the atmosphere constantly drips with sleaze!), Super, Tokyo Gore Police, Suicide Club (a fave), Machine Girl, The Woman, A Zed & 2 Naughts, my fave Euro zombiefest: Zombie Holocaust, Branded to Kill, Salo, Spirits of the Dead (the Toby Dammit section), The Addiction, Blood for Dracula, Flesh for Frankenstein, Brain That Wouldn't Die, Cutthroats Nine, Combat Shock, Dust Devil (love it!), Deranged, Doom Generation (esp. uncut), Female Yakuza Tale, Heavy Traffic, Hickey & Boggs, The Mad Bomber (a fave rave!!), Sonny Boy, Stacy, The Devils, Crimes of Passion (Tony Perkins's sleaziest part ever!), Up!, Supervixen, Cherry Harry and Raquel,  La Grande Bouffe, Aguirre the Wrath of God, Sonatine, Tale of Two Sisters, The Untold Story, Visitor Q, Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, Desperate Living, Fireworks, Violent Cop, Boiling Point & You Light up My Life (O, I kid, I kid!).

Overrated? someone had to say it!

5.I heard in an interview that you think Fulci is very overrated, what in your opinion are his top five worst films?

 I actually haven't seen a ton of Fulci, but what I've seen feel the same way to me: great gore, sloppy scripts & overrated, they're fun "Shit Flicks", but not great filmmaking. The best horrormeisters in my humble opinion are good with direction/FX/story/actors/editing, etc., the whole whole. But of course it's only my opinion, which doesn't (& shouldn't) mean shit to anyone on earth but me.

Please! for fuck's sake, turn off that Whitney Houston Song!

6. I heard that you were close with Nicholas Worth, please talk about him.

 I was working in the Universal Film Shipping dept. & I walked in one day & the boss was talking/laughing with this friendly big guy & I thought, "NO!" & when they took a breath I said, "Nicholas Worth?!" He & the boss smiled that I knew his name (& NW was a Christian), and as time went on, he was happy to talk to me for some fanzines, and we became close friends, he'd always say, "Call me Uncle Nick!" & every time I saw him would always ask how my ex-wife Mary was doing. I asked him once in an interview, "What do you say to the people who give you shit for being a Christian and a bad guy in films?" And his voice would raise & he'd say, "God has granted my prayers and made me an actor, and if I play a bad guy and have to kill and cuss, I'll be the best bad guy I can be, and my naysayers can kiss my ass!" ;-) he was a great, very sweet, fun bear of a guy (like Chas Balun) & everyone will wanna get 2013's Xerox Ferox book to read Uncle Nick's hilarious comment about Whitney Houston's screeching "And I Will Always Love You" song ;-)! & if you wanna see/hear an aged (& sadly thinner) Nick Worth as himself, watch his interview in the special features of Scorpion Releasing's (Katarina's Nightmare Theater) Don't Answer the Phone Remastered Edition DVD.

the adorable bloodthirsty electric knife wielding Lynn Lowry

7. I like your interview with Lynn Lowry (in The DR Horror Handbook) where she mentions; an actress in "I Drink Your Blood" who fluffs up her pubes, what is she talking about, do you recall?

Thanks again, buddy! I was pissed because the only actresses I couldn't meet in public to talk with were Lowry & the ethereally beautiful Rainbeaux/Cheryl Smith, who looked like an angel, what a sad, tragic life and death she had to lead! She also signed her questions to me with little smiley faces on the pieces of papers we mailed to each other, whatta sweetheart ;-)! Anyway, I don't recall which actress Lynn was talking about, but checking Mr. Skin, it would seem to be Iris Brooks, who also appeared in the sexy underground comedy with Buck Henry, Is There Sex After Death?, and Streisand's Up the Sandbox.

Mark Of The Devil

Mark Of The Devil Directed By Michael Armstrong, starring Reggie Nalder(1970)

If you hate religious persecution and enjoy watching innocent people humiliated and tortured in the name of hypocrisy then you’ve got problems like I do (because I love witchburning flicks)! This one was made in Austria by Adrian Hoven and Michael Armstrong to capitalize on the success of Michael Reeves’ film Witchfinder General. That film wasn’t gruesome enough, so Hoven and Armstrong packed it with some of the most repulsive violence against women ever committed to film. If you are a genre fan though, it’s difficult to say if this would really offend you, the violence is pretty strong though. Hallmark (the same people who created It’s Only A Movie campaign for Last House On The Left, dredged up the "V for Violence" gimmick and also the free stomach distress bags)! According to The Last House On The Left book by David Szulkin, even Ann Landers lashed out and devoted a 1972 column to the “immorality of Mark Of The Devil’s ubiquitous ad campaign”. Devil made truckloads of money according to David Whitten (the man responsible for the barf bag idea) and it secured the new box office trend of mixing sex and extreme gore in the 70’s, soon after Last House would arrive. The music in this, like in Last House threatens the contrast between cornball music placed over images of violence, resonating with inappropriateness (this one is exceptionally smaltzy)! The title song of Mark Of The Devil was recently featured in Hobo With A Shotgun.

   Reggie Nalder (Salem’s Lot, Zoltan) is Albino, a terrifying local town horndog/witchfinder, who's supremely ugly with a skull like face covered in burnt flesh and those are his real life features! 

Steven Tyler: Witchfinder

   The citizens fear him, because they too could be accused and tried as witches, but encourage the cruel punishment because they are very delighted by the medieval version of reality television (hangings and innocent people burnt on ladders) and even mention how they find the sermons too boring! These people demand entertainment! He accuses the first female victim, Vanessa (Olivera Vuca) of witchcraft because he tries to force himself on her in a bar and she refuses his slimy advances.

Hand me that trademarked airsickness bag

   Christian (Udo Keir) and his henchmen disapprove of Albino’s abuse of power, but soon a more heinous and intimidating presence will show up in the form of Herb Lom (Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Pink Panther) who plays the impotent Lord Cumberland. He is more hypocritical then Albino, basically because he hides behind religion. All the levels of hierarchy and throat cutting religious hysteria is the part I find most intriguing about all of these films. Udo and his relationship with the accused witch Vanessa is similar to the one in Witchfinder General, but the film is slightly more sadistic, but not a complete rip off, it stands on its own as a good euro trash exploitively unpleasant film. According to IMDB, Reeves was supposed to direct this, but unfortunately died and his assistant Michael Armstrong took over.

   The notorious scene with an overly beaten and abused girl's (Gaby Fuchs) tongue being ripped out by the roots with pincers is ordered by Lord Cumberland, very nonchalantly, almost like he’s ordering off the dollar menu at Wendys! 
   Mark Of The Devil gives the audience the impression that all men are corrupt power mad, sexually frustrated rapists, who enjoy inflicting torture, with a calm demeanor in the name of religion, saying "never weaken when doing the Lord’s work". Or just drooling morons following orders. Udo ends up sending his witchy girlfriend to the torture dungeon (sorry it’s nothing personal) and says if she is proven innocent by God, then obviously she won’t end up burnt alive! Ha! There is an underlying political context as Albino talks about how they really use the guise of the witchfinder job as a means of getting laid and robbing people, their true nature is a seething lust for blood and power. This film conveys the ignorance of authority by showing a few henchmen visiting a children’s puppet show and arresting a puppeteer and his whole family for witchcraft! They give the puppeteer the Chinese water torture treatment as one of the oppressors tries to invent a puppet out of popsicle sticks and string tied to a rabbit! The hypocrisy concerning law boils down to whoever is guilty, must be tortured until the maniacs holding the wrenches and pliers have gotten off enough to end with the innocent deaths of all who’ve been charged of heresy. This is the only film where I can tolerate Udo Keir’s anglicized voice (he’s been dubbed many times). It's been sampled by many 70's doom metal style bands like Cathedral, Electric Wizard and other Sabbath tribute bands. Highly Recommended for those with a strong stomach (but in just in case, there's that handy-dandy barf bag to use)! Available through Fandor.  
  

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Who ordered the free range organic tongue sandwich

LSD from The Producers water torture cameo

Death Smiles On A Murderer

Death Smiles on a Murderer Directed by Joe D’Amato (1973)
   D’Amato is such an awful director that he’s perfect for softcore nonsense like Laura Gemser’s Emmanuelle films. The gore (and snuff) elements help sleaze up an all ready bloated bounty of flesh. Death Smiles is a semi Giallo, and I find at least 90% of those to be seriously dull.
   In the first half of the film I actually started doing chores  and walking in and out of the room. I came back in to see a woman being shot in the face with a raw hamburger gun (they really had a crack FX team handle this one). I think it was the same people who handled the chop meat coconut smushing effect on Porno Holocaust! There is some kind of incest subplot with an over sized baby man with play-doh colored hair, he sort of resembles a humanoid version of Jimmy Wichard from King Of The Hill! His dead sister Greta Von Holstien (Ewa Aulin from Terry Southern's Candy), keeps coming back to life and when her face rots she resembles a Mercer Mayer monster character.

 This is Joe's attempt at Poe like imagery (there is a walled up tomb and a black cat even escapes the wall). D'Amato's sloppy effort to get classy, comes off pretty stale and flavorless! He's tried to branch out many times and tackle other genre's, but always falls back on his career as a pornographer and is great at it! So why change? Keep in mind a few years later he would re-invent the Emmanuelle series, but before that he directed Emmanuelle's Revenge with his trusty work horse/main star George Eastman.  Death Smiles is one of his early films and he wasn't yet the big time slimeball of porn/gore yet, but he would soon make a name for himself! The DVD has a double feature with The Torture Chamber Of Dr. Sadism (which to me is incredibly more entertaining then this dreck)!
  Klaus Kinski was one of the main reasons I thought it might be fun to watch, but he barely sticks around. His character acts like Bunsen Honeydew from The Muppets as he mixes vials of colorful liquid. Toward the end of the film an audible record needle is heard for at least 20 minutes and doesn’t let up. This would be some kind of film recorded embarrassment for anyone else, but for Joe it's a mild achievement! just chalk is up to art for arts sake? you figure it out. Skip this and watch the other film on the DVD.There's a link on Youtube to watch this, for insomniacs only who need some rest!

pardom moi, have you seen my assistant Beeker?

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