Plot: only one man can overthrow the evil caliph and rescue the young princess. In the gothic horror revival banner year that was 1973 and amidst the giallo boom the master of pulp peplum Pietro Francisci took on the Arabian Nights with Simbad e il califfo di Bagdad (or Sinbad
Plot: Etruscan burial site is disturbed by a spate of murders. Who’s doing the killing? The Etruscan Kills Again (or L'etrusco uccide ancora back at home, and The Dead Are Alive! in North America) is an Italian giallo that in the grand scheme of things was of
Plot: Balkan village is haunted by strange disappearances and power outages. Der Fluch der grünen Augen (or Curse of the Green Eyes, für diejenigen, die kein Deutsch sprechen - released in the English-speaking world as Cave Of the Living Dead) is a minor entry in the canon of German krimi
Plot: corporate assassin is targeted for extermination Over the years Hawaiian pulp director Albert Pyun has dabbled in realistic, non-cyberpunk scenarios to often varying results. Hong Kong 97 wasn’t the first of such ventures, but has become memorable for all the wrong reasons. With two name stars, an
Plot: pregnant woman is brutally murdered… and comes to haunt her wrongdoers. Suzzanna: Malam Jumat Kliwon (or Suzzanna: Kliwon Friday Night) is the second chapter in the ongoing Suzzanna New Generation franchise celebrating the life and work of Suzzanna, the queen of Indonesian Horror. This follow-up to Suzzanna: Buried
Plot: libertine innkeeper is looking for a few good men…. Two years after The Key (1983) bombarded Stefania Sandrelli to a sex symbol and boosted her lengthy and storied career the master of erotic arts Tinto Brass returned. Once again produced by Giovanni Bertolucci, written by Brass, photographed by Silvano
According to official sources the formation of Arise From Worms happened on the "The 2019 USA Sickness" tour that saw Morbid Angel, Incantation, and Watain sharing the stage for a month-long trek across North America. Erie, Pennsylvania-based guitarist Sonny Lombardozzi was one of the integral members
Plot: woman accused of (and killed for) witchcraft haunts her wrongdoers. Ratu Ilmu Hitam (or The Queen Of Black Magic) was another domestic box office smash for Suzzanna, and the first to gain international traction in some capacity. Perhaps it was inevitable something as universally acclaimed and beloved as Ghost
Plot: disgraced scientists feverishly attempts to cure family malady. La Loba (or The She-Wolf, and Los Horrores del Bosque Negro, or The Horrors Of the Black Forest, in some markets, para aquellos que no hablan español) is a little monochrome horror film that’s more significant than it probably
Plot: The Agency master computer is compromised. LETHAL Ladies are on the case. When is trop too much? How about now? The eleventh installment of the LETHAL Ladies franchise Day Of the Warrior, the first of two with the franchise name as a prefix and potential red herring, is a
Plot: who or what lurks within the darker bowels of the English countryside? While its roots lie in Roger Vadim’s Blood and Roses (1960) and Emilio Vieyra’s Blood Of the Virgins (1967) the European vampire film took a marked turn for the erotic (not to mention, the lesbian
Our on-and-off love affair with Piedmont, Italy-based necromancers of the ancient arts and dark metal pioneers Opera IX has been intense, passionate - if not somewhat turbulent. “Veneficium” arrives after a protracted, eight year absence while it slowly gestated in the mind of its creators. Amassing a respectable
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