WITCH STORY (1989)
Letterboxed print.
This gory modern day horror film is set in Boston and features a beautiful blonde witch who returns from the past to exact her bloody revenge on the town who, centuries earlier, had her burned at the stake. Directed by Alessandro Capone (scriptwriter of Deodato's BODY COUNT).
WITHOUT APPARENT MOTIVE (1974)
Jean Louis-Trintignant, Carla Gravina, Laura Antonelli
A french thriller starring Jean Louis Trintignant as a cop who goes to extreme measures to discover why members of an acting troup are being picked off by a sniper. The cast includes Carla (THE ANTICHRIST) Gravina, Stephane Audran and a young Laura Antonelli. This is great little film
DINNER WITH A VAMPIRE (1987)
George Hilton
Four young people head to a gothic castle to audition for a horror film being produced by famous director Yurick. Turns out that Yurick (played by George Hilton) is really a vampire who traps people and gives them one to kill him before he vampirizes them. A slick piece of entertainment directed by Lamberto Bava with a score by ex-Goblin member Claudio Simonetti.
DISTANT LIGHTS (1988)
Tomas Milian, William Berger
This is an extremely unsettling film, like an Italian version of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. It centers on the recently widowed Tomas Milian whose son claims he has been playing with his dead mother. Soon after Milian catches glimpses of her and others who have recently died. They have no knowledge of their recent past lives and refer to themselves as lights who come from faraway. William Berger also stars as a father who will do anything to restore his dead daughter back to life.
EXPULSION OF THE DEVIL (1972)
Francoise Prevost, Gerard Depardieu
In French with English subtitles, letterboxed print.
Now here's a Hell of a sleeper! Director Juan Bunuel (THE LADY WITH RED BOOTS), has made a great little horror film with elements of THE HAUNTING. A couple and their 2 children move into a beautiful old house in the country. Almost at once they are under attack by an evil ghost or spirit. It gets so bad they move out and bring a group of experts to discover what is going on. When a school bus full of young girls show up and they become possessed by the evil, all Hell breaks loose. A young Gerard Depardieu co-stars as well as Francoise Prevost. Shocking violence and nudity make this a terrific experience. Trust me on this one.
GIMLET (1995)
Jose Luis Acosta
Angela Molina, Viggo Mortensen
In Spanish with yellow English subtitles, letterboxed print.
Yes sir! Here's a high octane horror thriller from Spain that I highly recommend! A woman (Angela Molina) finds a human heart in her Bar. She's being secretly videotaped by a deranged serial killer who violently does away with anyone close to her. The cops put several men on the case to protect her but the killer is too smart and finally gets her alone. Will he make her his final victim? Viggo Mortensen co-stars and the film was directed by Jose Luis Acosta
HELL'S GATE (1988)
Giacomo Rossi Stuart
In Italian with English subtitles, letterboxed print.
Umberto Lenzi directs this Horror film about a group of zombie monks who are revived inside a cave and are soon killing off a group of archaeologists and their helpers. Barbara Cupisto, Giacomo Rossi Stuart, and Gaetano Russo star.
HOUSE OF LOST SOULS (1989)
Letterboxed print.
Back in 1969, a crazy motel owner murdered unsuspecting travellers. Twenty years later, a group of teenagers take refuge in the long abandoned lodge and begin to be massacred by the original murdered tenants. Directed by Umberto Lenzi with a score by Claudio Simonetti, the film contains decapitations and other gruesome deaths
HOUSE OF WITCHCRAFT (1989)
Sonia Petrova, Andy Forest
Letterboxed print.
Horror films about witches always creep me out (Damiani's THE WITCH is by far the best in that respect) and here's a good one by Umberto Lenzi. A young man (Andy Forest) is having nightmares about a house out in the country where a cruel witch boils decapitated heads. He and his wife are not getting along and so they decide to spend time out in the country. Turns out the house is the same one as in his dream and so you just know that old witch is going to show up sooner or later. Sonia Petrova co-stars.
HOUSE ON THE OUTSKIRTS (1980)
Alida Valli, Silvia Aguilar
In Spanish with English subtitles.
Silvia Aquilar stars as a woman who suffered a traumatic abortion years earlier and thanks to her husband, ends up back where the operation was performed. Upstairs is a crazy nurse (Alida Valli) who is now killing her former patients. Atmospheric and a disturbing watch, this horror film was directed by Eugenio Martin.
.jpg)
I BOUGHT A VAMPIRE MOTORBIKE (1995)
Anthony Daniels
A motorcycle gang slaughters a group of satanists, but don't realize one of their motorcycles becomes possessed by a blood drinking demon! Soon after, members of the gang are being slaughtered for their blood. Violent and filled with black humor (a talking turd is one of the highlights), this British film features lots of decapitations and a hilarious exorcism performed by STAR WARS Anthony Daniels.
IMPERFECT CRIMES (1996)
Dalia Di Lazzaro
In Italian with English subtitles.
Dalila Di Lazzaro stars in this new Giallo by Fabrizio Laurenti. A psychiatrist is murdered and a rich heiress (Di Lazzaro) fears her disturbed lover will be implicated as the killer. She hires an ex-lover lawyer friend to help her defend him but when he turns up dead, the lawyer realizes he's in over his head. Di Lazzaro still looks great (and has some nudity to prove it) in this densely plotted film
INVASION (1966)
Edward Judd, Tsai Chin, Yoko Tanni
Very rare B&W British Science Fiction film directed by Alan Bridges. Edward Judd plays a doctor who discovers a hit and run victim he's working on is really an alien from outer space. The alien's two accomplices want him back so they can continue their covert mission. Yoko Tani and Tsai Chin co-star in this moody low budget obscurity
KAMIKAZE (1986)
In French with English subtitles, letterboxed print.
Written and produced by Luc Besson, this is a great French horror/SF film. A TV hostess introduces a children's show when her chest explodes on camera! The police are baffled until one lone cop takes over the case. He discovers a disgruntled scientist has devised a weapon that travels through his TV set and into the camera facing the person he's watching, causing their insides to turn inside out
DEMONS OF VIOLENCE AND SEX (1974)-IN GREEK WITH ENGLISH SUBS. Director: Pavlos Parashakis, Cast: Gisela Dali, Vangelis Kazan, Rena Kosmidou. Jason just arrived from Johanesburg and visits a deserted beach house, which belongs to his best friend Mihalis. There he finds Mihalis's wife, Mary, with her sister Magda and a weird fisherman named Kosmas, that stays with them, but seems to somehow, bullying them. He decides to stay with them waiting for his friend to arrive and find him there, but also because he falls in love with Magda. While Jason is having good time with his mistress, things get complicated when he discovers that the fisherman is not what he says he is and at the same time two suspiciously looking characters appear and are stalking the young couple's, every move.
THE INVISIBLE TERROR (1963)-IN GERMAN WITH ENGLISH SUBS. MAJOR UPGRADE FROM SHITTY SINISTER PRINT! Director: Raphael Nussbaum, Cast: Hannes Schmidhauser, Ellen Schwiers, Herbert Stass. The formula works, though, as far as invisibility goes, with a guinea-pig first, then with the young scientist (Hannes Schmidhauser, also assistant director) himself. As luck will have it, there's a burglary into the factory he works for at the same minute, and, worst of all, a slaying, so that his brother (Hans von Borsody, with a greased quiff like Jack Lord in "Hawaii Five-0") has to prove the innocence of the disappeared. Elusiveness of Schmidhauser and of the story's sense go hand in hand.For complexity's sake, but rather to the filmgoers' confusion, a whole bunch of characters is introduced. Together with Swiss Schmidhauser, there are more players from the country of producer Leo Höger, namely Charles Regnier (as the leader of the burglars) and Heinrich Gretler (as the inspector, often overplaying). Of the women, blonde Nielsen is there to provide the mysterious sex-appeal while dark Schwiers is responsible for the more trustful erotic as Borsody's g.f. But it's Regnier's henchmen trio who almost steal the show: Raoul Retzer in probably his only gangster rôle, Herbert Fux just spiteful as ever, and fat Jean Thomé plays a doomsome harmonica to it all (though somewhat contrasted to Bronson's in "C'erà una volta il West" five years later). Ilse Steppat, Herbert Stass and Ivan-Desny (hyphenated in the credits) walk a fine line as major suspects.
KIRA (1979)
Leonora Fanni, Vincent Gardenia
Enzo Castellari's only horror film is now available with English subs! Leonora (GIALLO A VENEZIA) Fanni plays a young woman who has returned to her home where her mother was accused of being a Witch. She also has this small problem, every time she has an orgasm, she dies and her stays dead until her partner has a mysterious accident and is killed. Once that happens, she returns to life (I don't know about you but she would be the last woman in town I would screw!). As if that weren't enough, this film has one of the greatest cat fights I've ever seen between Fanni and her crazy sister!! Vincent Gardenia co-stars.
KISS MY BLOOD (1998)
Anya Fischer, Nadja Rieger
In German with english subtitles, letterboxed print. Here's an excellent German vampire film with just the right mix of sex, violence and wit. A vampiress goes to the big city for a new supply of victims. She falls for a married woman whose husband is a real asshole. Guess what plans our Vampiress has for this loser?! Anya Fischer and Nadja Rieger co-star
LA MATANZA DE CANNIBALS (1993)
In Spanish only
Here's an outrageous gore movie that owes a lot to THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. Two couples out for a drive have car trouble and end up at the home of a family of cannibals. The daughter is a nymphomaniac who tears the entrails out of her victims right after screwing them, Junior is handy with a knife and cuts out the hearts for a BBQ sandwich (he's also good at beating people to death with their severed appendages!) and Papa who watches over them. It gets really gross when Jr sucks the brains out of sister's newborn child (UGH!)
LAND OF DEATH (2003)
Letterboxed print.
Since Bruno Mattei never got a chance to make a Cannibal movie like Deodato and Lenzi in the 80s, what the hell, here he comes now trying to out gross that pair!! A group of marines are trapped in the jungle and try to stay of the barbeque spit long enough to rescue a chief's daughter. Lots of gut munching and spears piercing human flesh, Bruno is single handedly keeping Italian exploitation films on the map!!
LICANTROPUS (1996)
Paul Naschy
Here's Paul Naschy's newest werewolf fim which retells his origins again in a different light. Once again he's a poor innocent guy who falls under the spell of the full moon. The makeup makes him look like Jack Nicholson from WOLF.
LONG TWILIGHT (1995)
In Yugoslavian with yellow English subtitles, letterboxed print.
A very creepy film from Yugoslavia based on a story by Shirley (THE HAUNTING) Jackson. An old woman has an unsettling experience on a bus and ends up being let off in the middle of nowhere. A couple of truck drivers pick her up and they too act pretty weird. She's taken to a small village where she stays at a motel peopled by weirdos. That night hallucinations appear and she ends up back on the bus only this time her experiences are different. What the HELL is going on?
LOST SOUL (1975)
Dino Risi
Catherine Deneuve, Vittorio Gassman
In Italian with English subtitles.
A terrific Gothic Chiller starring Catherine Deneuve and Vittorio Gassman! Deneuve comes to work at the house where Gassman lives and falls in love with him. What she doesn't know is that he has a crazy twin brother in the attic!
LOVES OF THE MONSTER (1974)
Klaus Kinski, Katia Christine
In Italian with English subtitles, letterboxed print.
Sergio (SS EXPERIMENTS) Garrone directs this excellent Gothic horror film that features lots of nudity and violence. Klaus Kinski plays a man obsessed by his late father's macabre experiments in raising the dead. He soon mutates into a monster when an experiment goes awry. Katia Christine co-stars.
DEATH INSURANCE (1987)-IN ITALIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBS. Directed by Carlo Lizzani. A scrupulous insurance agent comes into contact with a woman. Together they plan her husband's murder with scam to the company's damages. But something goes wrong. A down on his luck insurance agent is seduced by a client and coerced into murdering her husband so they can collect the insurance money. ‘Serie Nera’ was a series of French television films produced primarily in co-production with other European countries. In total there were 32 films and the series ran from 1984 to 1991 with most films based on novels by famous crime authors, in particular what the French dub ‘polar’ – or the more familiar ‘poliziesco’ in Italian. Although very popular in France, RAI only purchased 8 of the films in the library to screen in Italy which suggests they probably didn’t go down too well with Italian audiences. Based on the novel ‘Tell it to the Birds’ by James Hadley Chase, ‘Assicurazione sulla Morte’ (Lit. Death Insurance) seems to be a serious attempt by RAI to produce a homegrown polar for the Italian market, possibly enthused by the series’ success in France. It also marks the beginning of director Carlo Lizzani’s transition from cinema to television, along with director of photography Marcello Gatti. French actress Patricia Millardet was a relative unknown at the time and was personally chosen by director Lizzani. She would go on to enjoy a long period of success on Italian television throughout the 1990s with ‘La Piovra’ (seasons 10 to 20) before enduring a personal meltdown in the early 2000s. Lead male actor Giovanni Vettorazzo seems to have worked almost exclusively in television although he did make an appearance in the psychological thriller ‘In Fondo al Bosco’ released theatrically in 2015.
9 FACES OF FEAR (1995)-IN SPANISH WITH ENGLISH SUBS. Directed by Christian González, Starring: Roberto Ballesteros, Sebastian Ligarde, Carmen del Valle, Manuel Ojeda, Armando Silvestre. he story is about a TV crew filming a show inside a haunted hotel, place where in the 1950's a guy murdered some hookers and men. The TV producer is an ambitious guy, a medium is afraid about the place, a doctor is incredulous, the cameraman and his girlfriend the audio recorder are angry with the producer, a female reporter is trying to do a good job, a couple is more interested about sex than in their works as TV crew members, a guy is acting as a medium but he is a killer with regrets and finally a friar is a guest member for catholic help. Soon the friar is possessed by an evil force beginning a killing spree. The film is really gory, with good performances mainly of Manuel Ojeda, Sebastián Ligarde, Carmen del Valle and Roberto Ballesteros. The film is a classic, forgotten but with a cult following, also the director Christian González is a cult director about Mexploitation films, his wife the actress Patricia Rojas was the producer of this gem.
MARTA (1972)
Finally, this very entertaining Spanish lensed ripoff of PSYCHO by director Jose Nieves Conde is now available uncut and in English for the first time. Stephen Boyd is a mother-obsessed psycho who murdered his first wife. When her twin sisters (Played by Marisa Mell and boy does she have a lot of nude scenes here!) shows up looking for her, more skeletons in Boyd's closet are about to be revealed. Howard Ross co-stars.
MASSACRE (1989)
Patrizia Falcone, Silvia Conti, Maurice Poli
In Italian with English subtitles. Andrea Bianchi, the king of sleaze directs this gross, over the top horror film that also pours on the nudity too! We are on the set of a horror film where the cast is being graphically slaughtered for real!! Highly enjoyable and recommended! Patrizia Falcone, Silvia Conti and Maurice Poli co-star
MAYA (1988)
Mariella Valentina
A terrific exotic Italian horror film shot in South America by director Marcello Avallone. People in a small village are being ritually slaughtered by an unseen force. A woman (Mariella Valentini) from NY comes to town to identify her dead father and ends up enlisting an ex-patriot American to find out why her dad died. Not your typical Italo-horror film plot, it's a shame this type of off-kilter approach was not a success. Plenty of nudity and gore help to maintain interest.
MORBUS (1982)
In Spanish with English subs.
This one has it all: sex, drugs and flesh-eating zombies. A trio of prostitutes (who says there aren't any good roles for women in Euro-trash films!?) are invited to a client's place in the country. They are attacked by a group of zombies and escape to a house occupied by a famous writer of horror stories. Nearby, a cult of devil worshippers (which is of course an excuse to show even more skin) are next on the zombie menu as they are attacked and wiped out. Finally, the zombies stage an attack on the home of the writer in an obvious nod to NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.
