Plot: sword-wielding geisha vows to avenge the death of her father. 芸者VS忍者 (or Geisha VS Ninjas, released in the English-speaking world as simply Geisha Assassin) is a low budget chanbara (チャンバラ) and jidaigeki (時代劇) (or a swordfighting and period drama, respectively) that largely exists as a showcase for
Plot: four au pair girls come to London to work. Hilarity ensues! There’s no question about the importance of Great Britain in the history of exploitation. From the domination of the horror houses of Hammer and Tigon, to the Bulldog Drummond spy-romps following the success of James Bond,
Plot: sisters inherit a hotel and the terrible curse that it harbors. Panggonan Wingit (or Yesterday’s Place, released on Netflix internationally as the far more descriptive The Haunted Hotel) is another in a long line of Indonesian reproductions of a foreign property. While Indonesia has a proud and long
A lot of blood has been shed on these pages about the travails and musical output of Oslo, Norway-based extreme metal titans Dimmu Borgir. Most of that criticism richly deserved, some of it much less so. This scribe has been intentionally adversarial and openly hostile whether their perceived slights
Plot: art student is possessed by a malefic spirit from an olive tree sculpture. In the early-to-mid seventies a couple of interesting cycles emerged within the Italian exploitation industry. The peplum - and gothic horror revival were in full swing, there was an explosion of both hyper-stylized giallo
Plot: lovelorn man kidnaps adolescent girl for the sake of company. Now with the Hantavirus ascendant and the possibility of the next pandemic outbreak looming ominously on the horizon and the inevitability of another global lockdown etching ever closer it’s perhaps the ideal time to talk about Menina Casilda.
Plot: adventurers search for diamonds in Africa and find white girl instead. The release of West German jungle adventure Liane, Jungle Goddess (1956) and its sequel Liane, White Slave (1957) was somewhat controversial. The film’s underage star Marion Michael appeared topless and both movies coincided with the series conclusion
Plot: socially stunted programmer falls in love with sentient air doll. The cycle of otaku wish fulfillment fantasy grinds ever onward with Inflatable Lover (for once a direct translation from its native 充气情人) - another dreadful but surprisingly faithful imitation of Air Doll (2009). Next to ticking all the required boxes
While it was poet James Shirley who posited that death is the grand leveler it was Greek statesman and general Pericles who observed that time is the wisest counselor of all. For well-seasoned and battle-hardened Québecois brutalists Cryptopsy this rings more true than others. To say that the
Plot: eccentric aristocrat revives ancient mummy and bloody murder ensues. Within the annals of Eurocult at large, and more specifically within the scope of continental European gothic horror revivals of the 1970s, El secreto de la momia egipcia (or The Secret of the Egyptian Mummy) (released as Le sang des
Plot: young boy’s longing for adventure gets him in trouble. Hilarity ensues! Werner Jacobs is one of the great forces in German comedy along with Ernst Hofbauer, Hubert Frank, Franz Josef Gottlieb and to a lesser degree Alois Brumer and Walter Boos. On the production end Erwin C. Dietrich,
Plot: idyllic weekend getaway turns into nightmare for thirty-somethings. El último fin de semana (or The Last Weekend, for some reason released internationally on streaming services as Our Last Weekend) is an early fantaterror exercise from Spanish one-man bilge basher Norberto Ramos del Val that mixes up a