April Exploitation/b-movie Challenge 2016 - Days 8 and 9

The last 2 days each featured a pair of movies. Day 8 started off with THE SINFUL NUNS OF ST. VALENTINE. I think a bit of Nunsploitation was overdue for this challenge but unfortunately I didn't pick a great one. The film revolves around an unsolved murder and one of the girls at the convent is accused of it. It starts out entertaining enough with a good bit of lesbian and naked nun action but before too long the plot starts to run thin which causes the film to drag. There's bit and pieces sprinkled throughout that I like but in the end it tries too hard to replicate the madness and beauty that Ken Russell's The Devils perfectly captured a few years earlier.

That was followed up by one of my favorite viewings of the month - WILD BEASTS. Franco Prosperi, director of Mondo Cane takes his penchant for staging shocking violence in the world of Mondo films and uses them to create an awesome killer animal flick as a European city is under siege from the animals who have escaped their zoo cages after drinking PCP contaminated water making them highly aggressive. Nobody is safe from the tigers, lions, rats, elephants, cheetahs and bulls. The deaths are bloody and gruesome and the movie is immediately one of my favorite killer animal films of all time.

Day 9 started with a big disappointment. The old west slasher A KNIFE FOR THE LADIES sounded like it had to be entertaining. A Jack The Ripper style slasher set in the old west... It had to be ripe with gory murders, shootouts, and the sweaty, dirty desert, right? Ha. Haha. No. No it wasn't. The murders are all off screen, letting us only see the aftermath, the acting aside from the top two or three characters are laughably bad and it's unfortunately predictable.

BIGFOOT VS ZOMBIES finished day 9. This is a new indie movie released by Wild Eye Releasing. This movie is incredibly low budget, with a cheap Bigfoot suit (somehow not the worst I've ever seen) and really poor zombie makeup. It's actually the simpler zombie makeup effects that look better than the cheap attempts at masks that hang off the actor's face. As you can imagine this movie is intentionally campy and has its tongue planted firmly in its cheek. Movies such as this can go one of two ways: They can be charming or they can be down right awful. I found BVZ to be charming with a good sense of humor that had some genuinely funny jokes and scenes. The acting was better than expected for the most part and it was fun to see Bigfoot, who seemed to barely crack 6 feet tall, get into it with some undead ghouls. Bring the beers for BIGFOOT VS ZOMBIES and enjoy the silliness.

Today's Rundown 
The Sinful Nuns Of St. Valentine - 5/10
Wild Beasts - 9/10
A Knife For The Ladies - 3/10
Bigfoot vs. Zombies - 5/10

Grindhouse Trailer Classics (DVD Review) - Intervision

Color/129 Minutes/Not Rated
Region FREE
Release Date: August 12, 2014

The Film
For the exploitation, horror and various other genre films of the 60s and 70s the trailer was the only thing to draw in an audience aside from having an appealing title. This would be 30 seconds to a minute and a half of footage from the film promising the most exciting, nerve shattering, blood curdling and adrenaline pumping action you've ever seen. Often times the trailer was better than the movie itself and sometimes the trailer showed every single exciting part of the full film.

Creating an exciting trailer that will captivate audiences and get them to shell out their bucks to buy a ticket to see the full film is an art form in itself and the trailers for the films that would play in seedy theaters in cities such as Chicago, San Francisco and along the Deuce in New York City featured an energy that has never been recreated. GRINDHOUSE TRAILER CLASSICS features 55 trailers from films stretching the gamut of exploitation genres. A few included trailers are the horror films House Of Whipcord, and Don't Open The Window to the exploitation classics They Call Her One Eye and the Ilsa films. There's even a giallo or two included.

The Audio & Video
Intervision releases this DVD with an anamorphic widescreen transfer and original mono audio. The picture and audio quality fluctuates from trailer to trailer as you'd expect. The best trailers look and sound fantastic with little background noise and minor dirt or damage to the print. The trailers in lesser condition still maintain pretty good quality. There aren't any trailers that are excessively beaten or battered.

The Extras
-"Bump 'N Grind" - a 15 minute featurette with Emily Booth and she discusses the history of the grindhouse theater and the films they showed.
-Gallery of poster art

The Bottom Line
These trailer compilations are a lot of fun to watch in their entirety or to throw on before movies during a movie night with friends. Pick a few random trailers to watch before your main feature and you'll have even more fun. GRINDHOUSE TRAILER CLASSICS has some of the best trailers from the era and you won't be disappointed with this disc.

GRINDHOUSE TRAILER CLASSICS is available HERE

Love Letters Of A Portuguese Nun (Blu-ray Review) - Ascot Elite

Switzerland/1977
Directed By: Jess Franco
Written By: Erwin C. Dietrich
Starring: Susan Hemingway, William Berger, Herbert Fux
Color/90 Minutes/Not Rated
Region FREE
Release Date: March 25, 2014

The Film
When a corrupt priest sees Maria flirting with a boy in the forest near her home he brings the girl to her mother and orders the mother send Maria to his convent to become a nun as penance. Of course there is a fee to be paid to the priest and the church for such a service. Maria is sent, but not before her mother belittles her in front of the priest for leaving her penniless. While at the convent Maria is stripped naked, left in solitude, tortured, seduced by other girls, tortured more when she falls victim to a fever and hallucinates and did I mention she was tortured? All in the name of the lord, of course. And when she sees the priest and Mother Superior worshipping the devil she is accused to being a witch and sentenced to burn at the stake.

LOVE LETTERS OF A PORTUGUESE NUN is a fine and really unsung example of the Nunsploitation genre. Franco fits in a bit of psychological and hallucinatory horror elements to go along with the inherent sleaze that comes along with this genre. Lesbianism and Satanism run rampant in LOVE LETTERS and it makes for a damn entertaining 90 minutes of Jess Franco greatness. 

The Audio & Video
Ascot Elite gives LOVE LETTERS its Blu-ray debut with a transfer that is largely very nice. There are a few instances where colors fluctuate or the picture is a bit soft but the majority of the film is sharp and filled with vibrant colors and natural healthy looking skin tones. There's no edge enhancement or excessive DNR noticeable. The English 5.1 DTS-HD audio track sounds great and has no background noise. It is crisp and mixed perfectly so that dialogue and soundtrack compliment each other. German 5.1 DTS-HD and 2.0, Italian 5.1 DTS-HD and Spanish 2.0 tracks are also availabel with optional English or Japanese subtitles. 

The Extras
 -Featurette featuring Jess Franco, Lina Romay and Herbert Fux
-Audio interview with Jess Franco
-Trailers
-Still gallery

The Bottom Line
Franco tackles the Nunsploitation genre with great success. LOVE LETTERS features Franco's signature style, a bit of sleaze and weirdness and more than enough entertainment to recommend to genre fans and Franco fans alike.

LOVE LETTERS OF A PORTUGUESE NUN is available HERE

The Demons (Blu-ray Review) - Kino Redemption

France, Portugal/1973
Directed By: Jess Franco
Written By: Jess Franco
Starring: Britt Nichols, Anne Libert, Howard Vernon
Color/118 Minutes/Not Rated
Region A
Release Date: April 29, 2014

The Film
In 1971 Ken Russell released his masterpiece The Devils on the masses. Viewed as disturbingly sexual, violent and obscene it was banned or faced tight censorship just about everywhere. Russell's film was heavy with commentary on the Catholic church and organized religion as a whole, filled with images of naked nuns, harsh violence from church officials and general insanity. It didn't take long for other filmmakers to capitalize on the attention being given to The Devils and make similar films. Jess Franco did just that in 1973 with THE DEMONS.

During a witch hunting craze, an accused witch who is being burned at the stake accuses the head with hunter and his followers of being in with the devil. This sets off a crazy chain of events, where nobody is to be trusted. A series of tests is given to the accused which will point out the witches. These tests are of course designed to be passed (rather, failed) by everyone they're administered to. The manhunt for the accused goes wide when the witchfinder falls in love with a nun who ran away to escape persecution but there will be no shortage of people being burned at the stake. Or nudity. Or witchcraft.

It goes without saying that based on the title and a short plot synopsis that Jess Franco knew what he was doing with THE DEMONS. He was making a sleazier and more self indulgent film for the exploitation crowds to love on the back of Ken Russell's noteriety. This isn't a new practice and one that hasn't shown any signs of slowing down. Franco's film is wildly entertaining, there's sex, torture, violence and bizarre witchcraft that turns people into skeletons! It has none of the social commentary or expert filmmaking that Russel's The Devils has (that isn't to say it is a poorly made film because that isn't the case). It is simply a exploitative ripoff of a true masterpiece of cinema and is a film worth viewing in its own right.

The Audio & Video
Kino Redemption has done a fantastic job with their release of THE DEMONS. The 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer features a crisp and largely very clean transfer. Detail is strong with the period clothing and set pieces and the plentiful amount of skin on display is warm, and natural. Everything looks great and there is no edge enhancement or DNR on display. The French (with German) 2.0 audio track features optional English subtitles which are flawless. The sound itself is perfectly mixed, and free of any background noise. 

The Extras
-An interview with Jess Franco by David Gregory
-Six minutes of deleted footage
-A pair of theatrical trailers
-Trailers for more Franco films

The Bottom Line
Jess Franco has made a highly entertaining piece of nunsploitation with THE DEMONS and this gorgeous Blu-ray is the only way to see the film from now on. 

THE DEMONS is available HERE

Flavia The Heretic (1974)

FLAVIA THE HERETIC is a film that has been on my radar for some time now, but until today I had never gotten around to seeing it. The nunsploitation genre is one I find every bit interesting as I do entertaining. So it was quite a joy to be able to pop in the Synapse DVD of one of the most notorious films in the genre.

Gianfranco Mingozzi directs Florinda Bolkan (DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING, LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN) as the title character who is a nun in an Italian convent in the year 1600. After the convent is invaded by the Cult of the Tarantula who defile the alter with orgies, and other general blasphemy and insanity, Flavia begins to hallucinate and can no longer bare the Religious oppression that church life, and Christian life has forced upon her. She flees the convent and rebels until she is captured and punished for her sins.

That in a nutshell is FLAVIA THE HERETIC. You really do need to see it to get the full picture however. There are all the staples of the exploitation film- gore, copious amounts of nudity, taking a subject matter and using it in contrast to how it is normally viewed. FLAVIA goes deeper. It is obvious Mingozzi has something to say about feminism, more so the dominant status of males in the world and religion, and the inherent oppression that organized religion has always had. It is a well made film, with something to please many crowds. Gorehounds will have their bloody fun, the midnight movie crowd gets some surrealism and the arthouse crowd gets a film with deeper meaning. It really struck on every level with me, personal feelings towards any commentary the film had aside. It was successful in getting its message across, but most importantly it was successfully entertaining. What good is a message in a movie if you don't give a shit about the movie itself?

Everything works for this movie from the acting, to the direction, the set decoration is superb and the score is top notch (as expected from a future Oscar winner). I would say it gives Ken Russell's THE DEVILS a run for its money on best nunsploitation, but it does fall a bit short of that landmark film.


9/10