Vampyros Lesbos (1971)
Dir: Jesus Franco
"A psycho-sexadelic horror freakout!"
So tonight I'm mixing a cocktail using Bacardi's new "Maestro de Ron" top-shelf white rum, so I figured I'd showcase some top-shelf exploitation. Pour a stiff one, and journey with me across the pond as we once again explore the world of Jesus Franco in Vampyros Lesbos!
This atmospheric little softcore gem begins in a castle/nightclub (the sort of establishment that existed ONLY in Europe in the 1970s), where a dancer (the gorgeous Soledad Miranda, Franco's Count Dracula and She Killed in Ecstasy) performs a strange act involving a mirror, a candelabra and another woman who alternately stands mannequin-still and moves like she's doing The Robot. This act is viewed lustily by patron Linda (Ewa Stromberg, The Zombie Walks, Virgin Wives), who begins having erotic dreams about the dancer that cause her to finger-blast herself to orgasm in her sleep. This drives Linda to consult a therapist, as its damaging her relationship with fiancee Omar (Andrea Montchal). The shrink blames sexual frustration, but as a viewer I REFUSE to believe that Omar isn't taking care of business in the bedroom, as he rocks a mustache that's positively Selleckian in it's majesty. Clearly, the problem is elsewhere. Anyway, Linda, who works as a lawyer, is called away on business to the island of Countess Carody in Hungary. Upon arrival in Hungary, Linda is warned not journey to the island by the locals but does so anyway and meets up with the Countess, who, of course, turns out to be a dead-ringer for the dancer at the beginning of the film. After a brief introduction, the two ladies take the opportunity to strip down and frolic on the beach while a rockin' Europop surf-instrumental plays. Once the ladies stop admiring each others' birthday suits and get down to business, Carody reveals that she is, in fact, the widow of one Count Dracula (yes, this movie exists in a universe in which Bram Stoker does not, ensuring that Linda doesn't bat an eye when the name is dropped), and he has left her a sizable inheritance. As you've no doubt surmised, the two wind up fucking, and Carody drinks Linda's blood. Linda escapes, and winds up in a mental hospital under the care of Dr. Seward (Dennis Price, Kind Hearts and Coronets). While Omar's mustache shows up to comfort Linda in the institution, Carody plots to initiate Linda into vampirism, a plot she relates to her silent manservant (director Franco, in some truly fantastic, giant 70s shades). Will Linda succumb to Carody's feminine wiles, or will she find a way to defeat the vampiress?
This one has it all, folks, and is well-deserving of it's (classic) reputation. In fact, I think the whole sleaze-minded family could gather 'round the "idiot box" to take it in: two great-looking female leads who are naked A LOT for the bishop-floggers, JUST enough blood to satisfy the gorehounds AND Franco gives it his all in the directorial department, filling each frame with lush reds (symbolic!), whites, greens and blacks-perfect for the art house crowd! This has been called Franco's best film, and, while I haven't been exposed to enough of his work to wholeheartedly agree, it certainly gets my endorsement.
Enter...If you dare!
Big thanks to "Diamond" Dave Wheeler for the bitchin' logo!
Friday, May 22, 2015
Sunday, May 17, 2015
Entry 52: Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Dir: George Miller
"The future belongs to the mad."
Tonight is a big milestone, as I venture out of the dank of the basement and into the cool darkness of the multiplex to return to a world in which the most valuable commodities are a fast vehicle and a tank of high-octane gasoline...
SPOILER ALERT: this is the first time I've written an entry on a film while it's still in it's initial theatrical release. As such, I'm going to go as light as possible on the plot spoilers, but if you want to experience Mad Max: Fury Road fully unspoiled, stop reading this, get your ass to the theatre and get back here. Hell, I'll get two page views out of you that way!
As the film opens, perpetual drifter Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy, Bronson, The Dark Knight Rises, taking over from original series star Mel Gibson) is captured by marauders from the citadel of despotic Immortan Joe (Hugh Keyes-Byrne, who also played the villain Toecutter in the original Mad Max). Max's arrival happens to coincide with the treasonous departure of Joe's top enforcer, Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron, Monster, Prometheus), who has absconded with the dictator's five enslaved young brides in an attempt to spirit them away to freedom. As Joe and his army of thugs set out in a convoy to intercept Furiosa and retrieve the fertile young women, Max finds himself dragged along due to a delightfully bizarre circumstance I won't spoil here. Eventually breaking free, Max decides to throw his lot in with Furiosa and the brides, while also being alternately helped and hindered by confused, near-death "Warboy," Nux (Nicholas Hoult, X-Men First Class, TV's The Walking Dead).
I've seen this movie twice now, and I'm still struggling to find the proper words to describe it. After decades in self-imposed exile in kiddie movie land (the Babe and Happy Feet films), Miller has returned to the genre he defined to orchestrate a ballet of post-apocalyptic vehicular mayhem unlike anything put on the screen before. My first time through, I couldn't take my eyes off the screen and had to pick my jaw up off of the filthy floor at the end of the film. This is a relentless, riveting, non-stop piece of entertainment, a wholly-singular work by a mad fucking genius and, to date, the absolute defining achievement of it's genre. HOLY SHIT! I'm not kidding; go now! Much has already been made of the mostly practical effects and stunt work (only an over-the top sequence involving a huge sand storm and portions of Joe's enormous citadel show obvious signs of CGI work), but it bears repeating here: you've NEVER seen so many REAL vehicles on-screen at one time orchestrating such dazzling (and really fucking dangerous-looking) stunt work and slamming into each other in such beautifully explosive collisions. Credit also needs to be given to Miller's astonishing camera work. I didn't notice until my second time through there's deceptively little editing going on in the action scenes; instead, Miller keeps his camera prowling over the action, dipping, weaving and turning sharply when necessary to follow the action. As to the actors, Hardy does fine work as Max, though he doesn't quite have the same charisma and presence as the young Mel Gibson. Hoult is excellent as the confused, side-switching Nux, who gets perhaps the films strongest character arc. This is, however, Theron's show; it's her Furiosa who drives the action of the film and her performance is impeccable, perhaps the most memorable female sci-fi asskicker since Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley. There's been a lot of talk about where this film fits into continuity with the other three films in the franchise (Miller himself has said that he sees it as both a sequel and a reboot)...Take my advice-don't fucking worry about. It's not as if there was a whole lot of connective tissue between the first three films, anyway. Bottom line, if you've never seen any of the previous films, you can go into this one without worrying about being lost. If you're a long-time fan, this could work just fine as a sequel to Thunderdome (only the re-appearance of Max's destroyed V-8 Interceptor and the gender switch of his dead child from male to female cause problems, and those can be pretty easily justified). Oh, and if you're worried that a mega-million dollar budget and A-list stars might cause Miller to tone-down the weirdness that permeated the original three, don't! This is a hard-R picture chock full of striking, grotesque imagery.
If you're interested enough in this type of film to be reading this blog, for fuck's sake, see this one. See it now, see it today, see it in a goddamn theatre.
Dir: George Miller
"The future belongs to the mad."
Tonight is a big milestone, as I venture out of the dank of the basement and into the cool darkness of the multiplex to return to a world in which the most valuable commodities are a fast vehicle and a tank of high-octane gasoline...
SPOILER ALERT: this is the first time I've written an entry on a film while it's still in it's initial theatrical release. As such, I'm going to go as light as possible on the plot spoilers, but if you want to experience Mad Max: Fury Road fully unspoiled, stop reading this, get your ass to the theatre and get back here. Hell, I'll get two page views out of you that way!
As the film opens, perpetual drifter Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy, Bronson, The Dark Knight Rises, taking over from original series star Mel Gibson) is captured by marauders from the citadel of despotic Immortan Joe (Hugh Keyes-Byrne, who also played the villain Toecutter in the original Mad Max). Max's arrival happens to coincide with the treasonous departure of Joe's top enforcer, Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron, Monster, Prometheus), who has absconded with the dictator's five enslaved young brides in an attempt to spirit them away to freedom. As Joe and his army of thugs set out in a convoy to intercept Furiosa and retrieve the fertile young women, Max finds himself dragged along due to a delightfully bizarre circumstance I won't spoil here. Eventually breaking free, Max decides to throw his lot in with Furiosa and the brides, while also being alternately helped and hindered by confused, near-death "Warboy," Nux (Nicholas Hoult, X-Men First Class, TV's The Walking Dead).
I've seen this movie twice now, and I'm still struggling to find the proper words to describe it. After decades in self-imposed exile in kiddie movie land (the Babe and Happy Feet films), Miller has returned to the genre he defined to orchestrate a ballet of post-apocalyptic vehicular mayhem unlike anything put on the screen before. My first time through, I couldn't take my eyes off the screen and had to pick my jaw up off of the filthy floor at the end of the film. This is a relentless, riveting, non-stop piece of entertainment, a wholly-singular work by a mad fucking genius and, to date, the absolute defining achievement of it's genre. HOLY SHIT! I'm not kidding; go now! Much has already been made of the mostly practical effects and stunt work (only an over-the top sequence involving a huge sand storm and portions of Joe's enormous citadel show obvious signs of CGI work), but it bears repeating here: you've NEVER seen so many REAL vehicles on-screen at one time orchestrating such dazzling (and really fucking dangerous-looking) stunt work and slamming into each other in such beautifully explosive collisions. Credit also needs to be given to Miller's astonishing camera work. I didn't notice until my second time through there's deceptively little editing going on in the action scenes; instead, Miller keeps his camera prowling over the action, dipping, weaving and turning sharply when necessary to follow the action. As to the actors, Hardy does fine work as Max, though he doesn't quite have the same charisma and presence as the young Mel Gibson. Hoult is excellent as the confused, side-switching Nux, who gets perhaps the films strongest character arc. This is, however, Theron's show; it's her Furiosa who drives the action of the film and her performance is impeccable, perhaps the most memorable female sci-fi asskicker since Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley. There's been a lot of talk about where this film fits into continuity with the other three films in the franchise (Miller himself has said that he sees it as both a sequel and a reboot)...Take my advice-don't fucking worry about. It's not as if there was a whole lot of connective tissue between the first three films, anyway. Bottom line, if you've never seen any of the previous films, you can go into this one without worrying about being lost. If you're a long-time fan, this could work just fine as a sequel to Thunderdome (only the re-appearance of Max's destroyed V-8 Interceptor and the gender switch of his dead child from male to female cause problems, and those can be pretty easily justified). Oh, and if you're worried that a mega-million dollar budget and A-list stars might cause Miller to tone-down the weirdness that permeated the original three, don't! This is a hard-R picture chock full of striking, grotesque imagery.
If you're interested enough in this type of film to be reading this blog, for fuck's sake, see this one. See it now, see it today, see it in a goddamn theatre.
Friday, May 15, 2015
Entry 51: Deathstalker (1983)
Deathstalker (1983)
Dir: James Sbardellati
"The might of the sword...the evil of the sorcerer..."
I'm publishing this one out-of-order; entry 50.5 is still coming, but I haven't been "in the mood" to get to it and I've grown sick of not posting.
Tonight, the Basement of Sleaze is transformed into the Dungeon of Sleaze as I take a trip back to a time before history, a land of might, magic, abs and cup-sizes undreamed of! Journey with me now to the mystical realm of the...Deathstalker!
After a slo-mo opening credits sequence in which we're repeatedly forced to watch Deathstalker (Richard Hill) nearly bear his junk while jumping over a cliff with no context whatsoever, the movie cold-opens on a medieval babe about to be raped by a foppish-looking sort wearing a gilded loincloth and headband. Said non-consentual carnal act is interrupted by a group of boil-covered warriors who make off with the damsel in distress. They're intercepted by our bicep-and-ab-bedecked hero, who kills the living fuck out of both the plague-ridden thus and the would-be rapist, quipping half-assedly all the while ("This just isn't your day, is it?"). Later, Deathstalker meets a deposed king who begs him to rescue his daughter from the clutches of the evil sorcerer, Munkar (Bernard Erhard, the voice of Cy-Kill from Challenge of the Go-Bots for my fellow 80s kids). Deathstalker gives precisely zero fucks about saving anybody, but, when he meets an old crone who informs him that he can become a king by "reuniting the three powers," which involves stealing Munkar's amulet, he decides to take up the task. On the road to confront Munkar, he meets up with, and performs some serious barbarian lovemaking on, warrior-queen Kaira (the late Lana Clarkson, who was murdered by Phil Spector in 2003; I'm not a Beatles fan, but will forever appreciate Spector for producing The Ramones End of the Century...That said; fuck the murdering piece of shit.). Deathstalker and Kaira manage to infiltrate Munkar's palace but, in the movie's most sanity-doubting moment, Munkar magically sex-changes one of his goons into the form of the princess (he moans and grasps for his missing dick several times during the process) and he/she seduces our hero, but is dispatched by Kaira in a topless brawl that also claims her life. Deathstalker manages to worm his way into a tournament of warriors sponsored by Munkar, where we see a dude get his brains splattered out by a hammer and our hero is forced to do battle with a mutant pig-man. After surviving the contest, Deathstalker FUCKING WALKS THROUGH FIRE to cast down Munkar, who is graphically drawn-and-quartered by his subjects.
My relationship with Deathstalker began when I first saw its fantastic, Frazetta-inspired VHS cover art at a rental store attached to a small-town gas station on the way to my grandparents' cabin in the late 80's. I didn't end up seeing the film for several more years and, if it didn't live up to the promise of that painting, it was still entertaining as fuck. Corman's New World Pictures churned out several low-rent, Conan-inspired sword and sorcery flicks in the early 80's, but this is the most notable. Former college football star Hill and Ex-Playmate of the Year Benton look good, but never even attempt to disguise their American accents. That doesn't really matter, though, as director Sbardellati keeps the pace brisk and brings the film to a close at an economical 81 minutes. As a bonus, he packs in enough boobs, blood, torture and swordplay to please all but the most jaded of genre fans. Best of all, this comes closer to capturing the tone and feel of Robert E. Howard's original Conan stories than any of the official Conan films have. See it!
Dir: James Sbardellati
"The might of the sword...the evil of the sorcerer..."
I'm publishing this one out-of-order; entry 50.5 is still coming, but I haven't been "in the mood" to get to it and I've grown sick of not posting.
Tonight, the Basement of Sleaze is transformed into the Dungeon of Sleaze as I take a trip back to a time before history, a land of might, magic, abs and cup-sizes undreamed of! Journey with me now to the mystical realm of the...Deathstalker!
After a slo-mo opening credits sequence in which we're repeatedly forced to watch Deathstalker (Richard Hill) nearly bear his junk while jumping over a cliff with no context whatsoever, the movie cold-opens on a medieval babe about to be raped by a foppish-looking sort wearing a gilded loincloth and headband. Said non-consentual carnal act is interrupted by a group of boil-covered warriors who make off with the damsel in distress. They're intercepted by our bicep-and-ab-bedecked hero, who kills the living fuck out of both the plague-ridden thus and the would-be rapist, quipping half-assedly all the while ("This just isn't your day, is it?"). Later, Deathstalker meets a deposed king who begs him to rescue his daughter from the clutches of the evil sorcerer, Munkar (Bernard Erhard, the voice of Cy-Kill from Challenge of the Go-Bots for my fellow 80s kids). Deathstalker gives precisely zero fucks about saving anybody, but, when he meets an old crone who informs him that he can become a king by "reuniting the three powers," which involves stealing Munkar's amulet, he decides to take up the task. On the road to confront Munkar, he meets up with, and performs some serious barbarian lovemaking on, warrior-queen Kaira (the late Lana Clarkson, who was murdered by Phil Spector in 2003; I'm not a Beatles fan, but will forever appreciate Spector for producing The Ramones End of the Century...That said; fuck the murdering piece of shit.). Deathstalker and Kaira manage to infiltrate Munkar's palace but, in the movie's most sanity-doubting moment, Munkar magically sex-changes one of his goons into the form of the princess (he moans and grasps for his missing dick several times during the process) and he/she seduces our hero, but is dispatched by Kaira in a topless brawl that also claims her life. Deathstalker manages to worm his way into a tournament of warriors sponsored by Munkar, where we see a dude get his brains splattered out by a hammer and our hero is forced to do battle with a mutant pig-man. After surviving the contest, Deathstalker FUCKING WALKS THROUGH FIRE to cast down Munkar, who is graphically drawn-and-quartered by his subjects.
My relationship with Deathstalker began when I first saw its fantastic, Frazetta-inspired VHS cover art at a rental store attached to a small-town gas station on the way to my grandparents' cabin in the late 80's. I didn't end up seeing the film for several more years and, if it didn't live up to the promise of that painting, it was still entertaining as fuck. Corman's New World Pictures churned out several low-rent, Conan-inspired sword and sorcery flicks in the early 80's, but this is the most notable. Former college football star Hill and Ex-Playmate of the Year Benton look good, but never even attempt to disguise their American accents. That doesn't really matter, though, as director Sbardellati keeps the pace brisk and brings the film to a close at an economical 81 minutes. As a bonus, he packs in enough boobs, blood, torture and swordplay to please all but the most jaded of genre fans. Best of all, this comes closer to capturing the tone and feel of Robert E. Howard's original Conan stories than any of the official Conan films have. See it!
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