HIERRO (2009)
In Spanish with English subs, letterboxed print.
Hierro is a beautifully shot, psychological thriller/horror from first time Spanish director Gabe Ibáñez, and the producers of Pan’s Labyrinth and The Orphanage. Loving mother Maria, powerfully played by Elena Alaya (Sex and Lucia) is taking her 5 year old boy Diego to the isolated island of Hierro for a holiday. Six months later, she is called back to the island to ID the dead body of a boy that the police are sure is Diego. But Maria rejects their claims and now she has to wait over 3 days until they can run a DNA test. As Maria explores the island, she learns that another young boy also disappeared around the same time. How much are the local police and the Islanders, who all know each other, keeping from her? Convinced that her boy’s alive, Maria conducts her own investigation, but is she chasing Diego or creating her own world or horror and insanity?
MAN WHO DIDN’T WANT TO DIE (1988)
In Italian with English subs.
Five burglars break into a mansion to steal paintings and valuable furniture. However, one of them gets seriously injured in the process and they must escape with the loot. Thinking that their bleeding partner-in-crime is going to die anyway, the criminals abandon him into a nightly forest. But the injured man doesn't die...Excellent Lamberto Bava thriller starring Martine Brochard, Keith Van Hooven, and Lino Salemme, score by Simon Boswell.
THE KILLER IS NOT ALONE (1975)
In Spanish with English subs, letterboxed print.
Affected by traumatic events suffered in childhood, a psychopath becomes a killer and decides to kill various prostitutes who cross his path. A terrific Giallo, Spanish style, the film was directed by Jesus Garcia Duenas and starring Maria Rohm and James Philbrook.
THE NIGHT OF THE CLOCKS (2007)
In French with English subs.
Newest horror film by Jean Rollin! A young woman inherits a country house of his cousin, filmmaker and writer Jean Michel. She has only seen once, but he left a very strong memory in its memory. She visits his grave at Père-Lachaise, then his house. Both are haunted by the characters and fantasies of Jean Michel ...
TURN OF THE SCREW (1985)
In Spanish with English subs.
Eloy De La Iglesias directs this horror tale based on the novel by Henry james. Eloy de la Iglesia turned back to the horror genre 13 years after his controversial 'La semana del asesino' (aka Cannibal Man' abroad) with OTRA VUELTA DE TUERCA. For this time, the man devoted to making crude films about seedy suburban characters (juvenile delinquents, drug addicts, misfit murderers) surprised audiences with a period, classy adaptation of Henry James' 'The Turn of the screw'... set in North Spain and (of course coming from him!). Worth having a look at this atmospheric, rare variant of a classic tale.
EROTIC GAMES OF A RESPECTABLE FAMILY (1975)
In Italian with english subs, letterboxed print.
One of the rarest Italian thrillers starring Erika Blanc (lots of nudity!) and Dr Butcher himself, Donald O’Brien. Very much in the vein of an Umberto Lenzi thriller, O’Brien hates his wife and kills her. Meets a hooker (Blanc), starts an affair and is soon seeing his dead wife everywhere, Is he crazy or is someone playing games with his head.
HOUSE OF 7 GRAVES (1982)
In Spanish with English subs.
Two childhood friends have grown up and evolved differently regarding how they approach their fears. Debut director Pedro Stocki uses this premise to construct his film, and adds to it an old woman who hates cats, a mentally disabled girl, a man whose behavior is truly strange, and a pig eating scene in very bad taste. An obscure Mexican horror film with plenty of sex and violence!
MURDERER STRIKES AT DAWN (1970)
In French with English subs, letterboxed print.
A young physician becomes lonely when his workaholic wife ignores him to concentrate on her professional career. He is befriended by an older female artist who is fond of hallucinogenic mushrooms. When his wife is late for their anniversary celebration, he drinks and takes mushrooms with the artist. He wakes up to find she has died and is fearful he may have killed her. By no means a great film, but a rare curiosity. Filmmaking is a bit poor, and the whole thing is a bit too gentle, too "old school", but it's a rare French attempt at a psychedelic thriller. And there's some interesting stuff in the plot. Alida Valli as an hallucinogenic mushrooms enthusiastic artist who has a borderline incestuous relation with her son and is infatuated with a far much younger man... who's himself traumatised by the bombardments during WW2 and the lack of love of his mother... Dr Freud was pretty much trendy in 1970's European thrillers. There's some good acting too and of course, there's Mylène Demongeot, who really was friggin' hot.
ON THE THRESHOLD OF THE VOID (1974)
In french with English subs, letterboxed print.
A young woman painter discovers in her rented room a strange dark corridor in which she decides to paint visions that she sees. This dark void has a strange mesmerising influence on her...Amazing French horror film by Jean Francoise Davy and starring Dominique Erlanger, Odette Duc Michel Lemoine and Jean Servais .
SANTO VS THE GHOST OF THE STRANGLER (1963)
In Spanish with English subs.
Loosely a sequel to SANTO VS. EL ESTERANGULADOR, this is in some ways an extremely odd little crime thriller. Still, from its opening credits, shown over footage of an ambulance speeding through the night, en route to collect the body of the disfigured Strangler, it's an entertaining little romp. The film opens with the recovery of the body of the Strangler (Roberto Canedo), who had died at the hands of the police, at the conclusion of the first film. The disfigured killer is taken to the city morgue for what turns out to be a brief lay-over.Reading of the killer's death in the newspaper, Tor (Gerardo Zepeda), the Strangler's assistant, heads for the morgue to recover his master's body. The Strangler, it seems, isn't actually dead...Reviving in his hideout, the Strangler vows revenge. In yet another Mexican horror film reference to the PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, the strangler is both facially scarred and spends his free time tickling the ivories on his pipe organ. At this point, the storyline gets somewhat unusual. The Strangler gets about through the use of lifelike masks. These are dutifully fashioned from the skin of his victims, by the faithful, mute Tor.
NIGHT OF VIOLENCE (1965)
In Italian with English subs.
A very rare Italian Giallo, filmed in beautiful black and white! A masked man is hunting down and murdering women throughout the city. The police set out to capture him before he can kill again. Alberto Lupo, Marilu Tolo, Helene Chanel, and Lisa Gastoni star and Roberto Mauri directs.
RAPED ON THE BEACH (1971)
In Italian with English subs, letterboxed print.
A young girl witnesses a violent and ultimately fatal act between her mother and another man and it emotionally scars her for years to come. As a young woman, she takes a vacation with a more worldly girlfriend to Sardinia, and in doing so, attracts the attention of a young man in the village. Despite her interest in the man her haunted past prevents her from developing a normal relationship with him. Carole Andre stars.
UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTERS (1994)
In Czech with English subs.
Nesmluvená setkání is the story of a group of astronauts and their cyborg worker who are assigned to jump from planet to planet in search of suitable living conditions for future inhabitants. Their mission is side tracked one day when they receive a communiqué from Earth requesting that they search and recover a team that went missing six years earlier on that same planet. That spacecraft had crash landed not too far from their current location with a small crew, including a 5-year-old boy: the pilot's son.
2 FACES OF FEAR (1972, D: Tulio De Michelli)
George Hilton, Anita Strindberg, Luciana paluzzi widescreen print
George Hilton, Luciana Paluzzi, Fernando Rey and Anita Strindberg star in this Italian thriller by Tulio Demichelli. When a prominent surgeon is murdered, suspicion falls on his wife, best friend and mistress. Rey is the cop who is convinced it's one of them but they all have rock solid alibis. So who did it?
BURIED ALIVE (1973) in Italian with english subs, letterboxed print
Director: Aldo Lado, Stars: Agostina Belli, Maurizio Bonuglia, Fred Robsahm, score by Ennio Morricone. Starring the wonderful Agostina Belli, and boasting a lush romantic score from Ennio (directed by Bruno Nicolai) Morricone. Belli, beautifully coiffed and appareled, is French duchess Christine who is victim of some really evil scheming by the villains Ferdinand (Maurizio Bonuglia, replete with mustache, but not of the twirling caliber) and older Morel (guest star Jose Quaglio). Ferdinand slips a form of poison in her drink one night, and when her lifeless-seeming body is found the next morning it's funeral procession time. the villains whisk away her body before burial, substituting sand bags in the coffin. Belli is placed in a tiny cell adjoining a water mill, where she wakes up to remain in captivity (and unknown to anyone but the baddies) for the rest of the picture. The good guys including her boyfriend and her brother (played by Francois Perrin and Fred Robsahm) eventually help out, but it is a little boy who discovers her plight and helps her, even trying to saw through the bars of her cell. Belli gives birth to a bambino (unaided -she's a plucky heroine) in her cell, the infant saved by being passed through the wide window bars to her young pal.
ACCUMULATOR 1 (1994)
In Czech with yellow English subtitles, letterboxed print.
Beautifully designed, this bizarre Czech near future SF film is also filled with nudity! A young man is slowly inducted into a cult of TV worshippers who use the device to drain a person's energy like a vampire. Definitely for those looking for something offbeat and obscure. Directed by Jan Sverak.
MEATGRINDER (1991)-IN RUSSIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBS. Directed by Victor Kostychev, Cast: Irina Kulezneva, Vera Chernova, Evgeniy Glyadinskiy. Lots of nudity in this obscure Russian horror film. Here's considered lost for a long time Soviet trashy exploitation film. It starts off like an ordinary crime movie with gang wars and in second half turns to darker territory where a distant villa is being under siege. The gang of thugs attack the villa with only one naked girl with a gun inside who kills them one by one in a bloody way. It looks like 'Home alone' for mature viewers where Kevin is replaced with naked girl. Very trashy, sometimes badly made but quite entertaining.
ALIEN FROM THE DEEP (1989)
An investigative couple, Lee and Jane, go to an island to spy on a chemical corporation and discover they are getting rid of nuclear waste by tipping it into a local volcano, which might be a mite dangerous. He is captured but she escapes and bumps into Bob, who collects snake venom. They are pursued by the company security men. Halfway through the film an alien, presumably, from the deep, turns up with a snapping claw and starts killing everyone.