Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge Day 11-12

What better way to start off day 11 than with some Bruno Mattei cheese? The man behind such cinematic gold as Hell Of The Living Dead and Rats: Night Of Terror has made some incredible fun movies. Violence In A Women's Prison was no different. This WIP flick doubles as an entry in the Emanuelle series. The beautiful Laura Gemser is once again on display in this over the top violent, sexy, piece of wonderful trash.



Later I watched Schoolgirl Hitchhikers aka High School Hitchhikers. This movie is part of the Grindhouse Experience set that I was reviewing throughout the last 15 months and more or less gave up on... sorry about that. This one was directed by Jean Rollin who is definitely more famous for his vampire films. The one thing this has in common with those more popular and better films is the hot women getting undressed. Rollin had no shortage of women willing to drop their clothes for his movies, that much is for sure. This movie is pretty hokey and not very good but there are a few laughs and those boobies.



Many of you know that I love Dario Argento. He's my favorite director and I can find something redeeming in even his worst films. I have no shame for my endless love of the Italian director. This movie evaded me for a while since it was never released over here, and was basically made for Italians only. The Five Days is a period comedic history film about the Italian Revolution. I don't know much about the history of the movie but this was actually not bad. A huge departure from his other films that isn't highly regarded by anyone, it had quite a few laughs throughout and some trademark Argento violence. Not something I'll revisit often but I'm glad I have seen it and have a copy and happier that it wasn't bad.




Next up was another Last House On The Left ripoff... The Last House On The Beach. There isn't much to say other than it's not up to snuff with LHOTL or my preferred Night Train Murders. It drags on too long and the baddies never seem to be as nasty and cruel as they should be in a movie like this. Even when they're performing their dirty deeds it just doesn't have the same impact of the better films. It does pick up steam towards the end, and isn't an awful piece of exploitation but it's certainly nothing better than a 2nd rate knockoff.



Day 12 wrapped up with Caged Heat. This was director Jonathan Demme's debut. Another WIP flick that had its ups and downs. It was rather jumpy and went from one thing to the next without much reason why but it eventually comes together. Enough sex and violence to satisfy. Look for gothic horror queen Barbara Steele as the warden in this.

Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge Day 9-10

Already 10 days into the month? Hard to believe. Day 9 had my first re-watches of the challenge. I'm trying to keep them to a minimum and so far I'm doing okay.



First was a re-watch of a movie some would call a guilty pleasure but I love this thing shamelessly and have since I was about 9 years old. Congo isn't good, but it's funny and has some okay action. Tim Curry and Ernie Hudson make the movie for me. It certainly isn't what director Frank Marshall wanted it to be but it never ceases to entertain me in all of it's cheesy glory.




Charles Bronson made his first appearance of the challenge in The Mechanic. I didn't know much about it before the remake other than the fact that it existed. I didn't really know much more after the remake came out, which I never saw... so I was pretty blank coming in. It was decent. Without Bronson I don't think it would have been as good as it was. It was a fairly thin movie, thinner than it needed to be. There was some good action and an awesome ending though.




Next was my 2nd viewing of School Of The Holy Beast. The first time I saw this movie I liked it but I don't think I truly appreciated it. It is a nunsploitation movie from Japan... but it is so much more than that. With a top notch director in Norifumi Suzuki this movie rises way above any normal exploitation fare and is in a league with the best.



I had a case of yellow fever... Giallo fever that is. Death Laid An Egg is a title I've had sitting around a while and never watched it. If writing has ever failed a movie with cool direction and attractive women it was this one. The actors are all competent, and Guilio Questi lends some wild and interesting work from the director's chair. The problem with the movie is how the script goes from nothing happening to a random twist or major event all of a sudden. It not only feels rushed but like there are major parts that were removed.



One of my biggest surprises so far this challenge has been Trip With The Teacher. While this is certainly no masterpiece I was expecting much less than what I got in this piece of pure exploitation. High school girls and their teacher are kidnapped by a pair of crazy bikers and we we get all the good stuff that the 70s had to offer- chase scenes, murder, rape, Zalman King (who was a big part of the challenge the last couple of days without me even knowing it!). Not the best, but much better than expected and something I'll certainly revisit.




Finally these 2 days ended with Night Call Nurses. The 2nd title from the Roger Corman Nurses DVD collection. This one was a lot of fucking fun. 3 attractive nurses get in to wild situations with black revolutionaries, a drug addled trucker and a weird hippie 70s doctor who only really wants sex. Hot nurses + crazy situations + regularly dropping your clothes = a recipe for success.

Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge Day 7-8

Day 7 didn't get started until late but I was still able to squeeze in 3 movies.



I was in the mood for some Shaw Bros. martial arts action to start things off and I went with Bells Of Death. I recently bought this dvd for $3 used at MovieStop that is more than likely a bootleg. The quality of the disc, aside from the awful looking menu, was good though. The movie itself was also good. A tale of revenge with plenty of action to keep the basic plot moving along. This had a very strong Spaghetti Western feeling to it. To the point where if you told me the director wasn't influenced by the genre I'd probably say someone was lying. Entertaining stuff.




Next up I decided that it was time to take the level of sobriety down a few notches and beers began to flow a bit more freely and the perfect companion was Sorority Babes In The Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama. This is a piece of 80s gold. A few girls and a couple of nerdy guys break in to a bowling alley inside a mall to steal a trophy to help the girls complete their pledge to a sorority. While doing so they open up a trophy that contains an evil imp, who proceeds to create demons and all hell breaks loose. The imp is reminded me of that Triumph The Insult Comic Dog puppet and it was hilarious. Plenty of fun and boobs and Linnea Quigley being a fucking babe. I was in the perfect mood for this and it was great.



Day 7 came to a close with Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver. If the title doesn't tip you off to what this is going to be than the fact that it's a Full Moon title should. Was it good? No. It was fucking stupid and the series had basically run it's course after the first film. I'll be Goddamned if these movies don't get me to laugh and have a bit of fun though. The beer is totally necessary for this, but if you're willing to turn your brain off for a couple of hours you can find some easy entertainment here. The opening is also a big "what the fuck is happening" moment.

Day 8 comes and goes with only 2 movies but they were good ones. First was a movie I've wanted to see for a long time, and by the time I got around to buying the DVD it was out of print. Thankfully Code Red who just switched to selling directly from it's website had 1 last copy laying around and I was able to buy it.




This would be the post-apocalyptic sci-fi/action trash movie Exterminators Of The Year 3000, directed by Guiliano Carnimeo who has had success in the SW genre (Sartana series) and giallo (Case Of The Bloody Iris). This isn't anything special or different from any other Road Warrior rip-off you may encounter but love these movies, and this one didn't disappoint.




The day ended with Blue Sunshine. If you've never seen it, you should. A well made low budget piece of horror and exploitation centering around people going mad and murdering other people from a drug they did a decade earlier. This reminded me an awful lot of Cronenberg and that isn't a bad thing at all.

Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge Day 5-6

Day 5 was dedicated to the Herschell Gordon Lewis Blood Trilogy. Surprisingly I'd never seen any of these films in their entirety, though I have seen various clips. Something Weird Video did a pretty nice job releasing these 3 films on Blu-Ray and that is how I got to view them.



First up was Blood Feast. These films were made in successive years from 1963-1965, but Blood Feast had a sequel made far more recently which I have seen and was just not impressed by. Luckily for me I had a better time with the original. HGL is known as the godfather of gore, an appropriate title. His levels of gore were extremely high for the times, and even to this day can stand up with any shitty Saw sequel. This movie is fairly light on plot but is short enough so that it doesn't matter too much. Just know that there is a lot of butchering for an Egyptian feast, and woman are on the menu.




Next up was Two Thousand Maniacs. This was my favorite of the 3. The plot is that a small souther hick town is celebrating their centennial from the Civil War and they lure a half dozen yanks to the town as their "guests of honor" and find horrific ways to kill them. The red stuff flows as you'd expect after watching Blood Feast and there is quite a bit of humor. A remake happened in the last several years that starred Robert Englund called 2001 Maniacs (it had a sequel too, which was apparently and not surprisingly total shit). I'll take the original over the remake.




Finally for this day, and the trilogy, there was Color Me Blood Red. An artist finds himself inspired by painting in blood and has to come up with the supply to paint his masterpieces. That is all there is too this one. The plot is simple but well executed and the actor portraying the artist does a fine job, probably the best acting in any of the 3 films.

Day 6 started really slow but finished with a respectable 3 movies. First up was True Story Of A Woman In Jail: Sex Hell. This film has a dvd coming out on April 10th which I reviewed. You can check out that review here




Then a friend invited me over for some beers and hanging out and we checked out a couple of movies. Fire & Ice is an animated fantasy/adventure movie that I've wanted to see for a long time. It was on his Netflix so I finally had the chance. It's directed by Ralph Bakshi of Fritz The Cat fame and it was okay. The story lacked and the pacing dragged but there was some fun fantasy battles and enough entertainment to keep positive thoughts about it. Had it been a more adult themed animated adventure movie it probably would have been better.



Finally the day was wrapped up with some zombie action from the infamous The Asylum. The studio that has often released rip offs of giant blockbusters before the movie they're ripping off is even out. This was called 2012: Zombie Apocalypse and co-starred Ving Rhames. It's essentially a whole lot of walking with some random zombie action thrown in and it's worth some cheap laughs. There's a lot of moments that don't make much sense but they're fun to heckle. The real winning moment of this movie, and I don't feel bad spoiling it for you since you won't watch it anyways, is when they reach their destination and for no fucking reason at all a zombie sabretooth tiger is waiting for them and mauls the group in a final showdown. Some survive, some don't but its fucking hilarious.

TRUE STORY OF A WOMAN IN JAIL: SEX HELL DVD Review

Japan/1975
Directed By: Koyu Ohara
Written By: Momoi Akira, Koyu Ohara
Starring: Kozue Hitomi, Seri Karoi, Hiromi Maya, Aoki Machiko
Color/72 Minutes/Not Rated

The Film
A new batch of females are thrown into a nasty jail for their various crimes. When they get mixed in with the hardened inmates they are soon subjected to some of the horrors of day to day life in jail. Mayumi comes up with a plan to break out and get revenge on the person responsible for her incarceration. She will do whatever or whoever it takes to get out.



TRUE STORY OF A WOMAN IN JAIL: SEX HELL is another erotic film from Nikkatsu studios. While similar to the previously reviewed DEBAUCHERY, this film came 8 years earlier and it shows. The direction is more stylish with much more flare. The soundtrack also stands out and has a cool theme sung by on of the girls that accentuates the story and what you see on the screen. While most women-in-prison films focus on sexy violence and tease us with the sex scenes SEX HELL essentially reverses the roles. There are plenty of sex scenes with our creative inmates who can make a falic object out of everything from soap to clay and only a few fight scenes. The fight scenes are well done and don't skimp on the violence at all. Everyone is involved in the sex, from the newest inmates to the doctor and guards and nothing is sacred when it comes to the violence. I'd go as far as saying the stomp scene in SEX HELL is more deplorable than the curb stomp scene from American History X. It is stomach churning. This is a fine piece of sexploitation for any fan of women-in-prison films.



The Video
TRUE STORY OF A WOMAN IN JAIL: SEX HELL is presented in a very clean and crisp anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1) 16x9 transfer. Colors are represented very naturally from the skin tones to the blood from various orifices. Dark scenes are clear and well lit so viewing them is a pleasure. The murky solitary confinement room scenes could have been a disaster but thanks to the great transfer it isn't an issue at all.



Audio
A Mono 2.0 track in the native Japanese language with newly translated removable English subtitles is a suitable audio track. Dialogue levels are good and free of any hiss or crackling. The soundtrack levels mix nicely with the dialogue as one never interferes with the other.



The Extras
The lone extra is attractive liner notes from Jason Sharp.




The Bottom Line
Impulse Pictures releases the second movie in their series of Nikkatsu Roman Porno films (yes, the spines are numbered for all of us collectors with OCD about these things) with a quality product. It would have been nice for more extras, but the liner notes from Sharp are stellar. This hidden gem of the WIP genre surely won't be hidden any longer. With enough sex and violence to please any exploitation fan's taste TRUE STORY OF A WOMAN IN JAIL: SEX HELL is recommended.

TRUE STORY OF A WOMAN IN JAIL: SEX HELL is available to order here

Disc Overview
Film - 7.5/10
Picture - 8/10
Audio - 8/10
Extras - 5/10

Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge Day 3-4

Thou Shalt Not Kill BD review here!
Debauchery DVD review here!

I started off day 3 with some Spaghetti Western action. There was a documentary done a few years back that IFC put out called THE SPAGHETTI WEST that I'd been wanting to see and I finally got my chance. For anyone newly interested in the genre this is a great watch and will shed some light on the 3 or 4 (depends who you talk to) cycles the genre had. I found it to be a little redundant with the information since it wasn't new to me but it did give me a chance to see a few video interviews with genre vets I'd never seen prior.



Naturally that put me in the mood for a SW movie. I decided to attack one I'd never seen before, so I opened my cheapie pack of 44 of them and decided to just go alphabetically. I'd only watched one out of the set (though I've seen more just not from that set). The first title on the list was 3 BULLETS FOR RINGO. Well, that just about killed my mood for westerns. It had a few good moments but overall it looked and felt more like an American 40's western than anything that came out of Europe in the 60s or 70s. I'm not a fan of those early American westerns on the whole (there are some exceptions) and I don't care for John Wayne at all. This felt all to similar to those.




Eventually I decided that I needed to watch a good western so that I wouldn't let the month slip away and only watch the one due to the bad taste it left. I got around to watching CEMETERY WITHOUT CROSSES. This was another first time viewing but one that I've been anxious to see and putting off for whatever reason. After popping in my DVD-R (Only available in a costly rare dvd from Germany) of it I realized about 15 minutes in (there isn't much dialogue in this film) that it wasn't bad dubbing but the audio was out of sync. To the computer I went. With straightened out audio what I got was a moody, well made SW that I needed. Some great acting here with subtlety and expressions rather than endless dialogue. I'm glad I finally watched it and I hope someone else will release a legit dvd of it so I can buy it.



For a change of pace I went with the Corman produced BARBARIAN QUEEN. This is sword & sandal cheese at it's cheesiest! 70 odd minutes of sword fights, beautiful women running around with barely anything on (if anything at all) and that's about it. What else is there to ask for? This isn't high art but it was entertaining.



Day 4 ended with a Blu-Ray I'd been anxiously awaiting, and then anxiously awaiting a price drop on. NIGHT TRAIN MURDERS was finally mine and I decided to save it for the challenge. This is essentially Last Hose On The Left on a train but I feel it was made better (directed by gialli veteran Aldo Lado) and is much more mean spirited. There is no forced pants pissing here, what you get is much nastier. Great stuff.

4 Days in, 12 movies down. Some mixed results but it's fun. I have no goal or anything so it's just laid back. Expect another disc review by Thursday. And the first giveaway of the month this weekend. Thanks for reading!

DEBAUCHERY DVD Review

Japan/1983
Directed By: Hidehiro Ito
Written By: Hidehiro Ito
Starring: Ryoko Watanabe, Serina Nishikawa, Mizuho Nakagawa
Color/70 Minutes/Not Rated

The Film

The Pink film is a style of Japanese sexploitation porn made famous during it's rise to prominence from the 1960s-80s. During the early 70s the bigger studios in Japan took note of the popularity of these films and jumped aboard to make their own with bigger budgets and stars. Nikkatsu, Japan's oldest film studio, launched the Roman Porno series in 1971. Nikkatsu gave their directors plenty of artistic freedom in creating these sex flicks and there was no shortage of heart and soul to go along with tits and ass. By the time DEBAUCHERY came around in 1983 much of that artistic flair had dried up and turned in to well, debauchery. The 80s seemed to do that, much like artistic value was thrown away for gore and excess in horror films of the decade, the same can be said for the Pink films.

Ami is a bored housewife who learns of a secret brothel for only wealthy customers that has worked wonders for the sex life and marriage of it's employees. Anything goes in this place and what better way to spice up a boring marriage than learning new tricks and games while making some money. Ami quickly learns that she didn't bargain for the sick and perverse fetishes of the men buying her body.



That is about as far as the plot of the film goes and clocking in at a swift 70 minutes that leaves plenty of time for all sorts of nasty sexual depravity. Anal beads, whips, gang rape. The film absolutely lives up to it's title and the only thing missing is showing the explicit "in out in out" as our friend Alex DeLarge would say. To cover that, and more so to imply that there is actual sex happening on screen an optical fog is used which is a blatant reminder on how the Japanese feel about showing the nether regions on film. That doesn't take away from the wild side of this film though, after all what would your mother think about this stuff?



The Picture
DEBAUCHERY is lovingly released by the Impulse Pictures line from Synapse Films in an anamorphic widescreen presentation with the original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 in tact. The film looks nice, with flesh tones looking perfect and the reds of the beautifully created "fun time room" popping. The direction here is rather bland but there are some nice sets and shots and this DVD capitalizes on them. This is a great looking release.



The Audio
We are graced with a Japanese 2.0 Mono track with removable English subtitles which have been newly translated. The audio track is clean and free of any hiccups or distortions and the subtitles are timed nice and read naturally. Another high mark for this disc.

The Extras
-Original Theatrical Trailer

-Liner Notes from Japanese film scholar Jasper Sharp

The Bottom Line
Impulse Pictures has released some classic sexploitation in the past several years but they're not happy resting on their laurels. This release of DEBAUCHERY shows they're ready to bring these cult films to the masses and do it with pride. The liner notes are a great Cliff's Notes into the world of the Pink film for any novice on the genre and even the experienced fan can learn something here. They're a great accompaniment to an overall fine release.

DEBAUCHERY is available to order here

Disc Overview
Film - 7/10
Picture - 8/10
Audio - 8/10
Extras - 6/10