Still hacking our way through Italian cannibal territory, Eaten Alive is another Umberto Lenzi movie about unknown Italian actors and wayward porn stars stumbling around the jungle getting raped, chopped up and eaten. Continue reading “Eaten Alive! (1980)”
Category: Horror
The Witch’s Curse (1962)
If you were impressed by Hercules’ travel agent in Hercules Vs. The Sons Of The Sun where we saw the gargantuan galoot hit the shores of South America in search of a healthy workout, The Witch’s Curse may be another vacation you wouldn’t mind taking. This time it’s fellow strongman Maciste and he’s put through his paces as he travels into hell to foil a curse put upon a town by a witch. A town in Scotland. Continue reading “The Witch’s Curse (1962)”
I Vampiri (1957)
Riccardo Freda was the director who started I vampiri, but it was cameraman and future legendary director Mario Bava who finished it after Freda got huffy and quit the movie after filming for ten days.
That might not seem like such a big deal, but Freda had made a bet with the money men behind the movie that he could shoot it in ten days! Mario swooped in and finished everything up in 48 hours, apparently “padding” the film to its anemic 78 minute running time by using stock footage and those swirling newspaper headline scenes that are mandatory in movies about a crazed killer stalking a city. Continue reading “I Vampiri (1957)”
Tentacles (1977)
So horrible on every level, it’s the sort of movie that leaves you sputtering in a laughable attempt to describe precisely what was so awful about it all.
Like the debris from the boats that the killer octopus leaves scattered here and there between bouts of eating children, the hideous aspects of this film featuring Henry Fonda (apparently warming up for The Swarm) are strewn helter skelter throughout every facet of it. Continue reading “Tentacles (1977)”
Zombie (1979)
As a Board certified expert on voodoo, I know exactly two things about our most popular horror movie religion. One is that voodoo dolls are a must for dealing with exes. And two, you never ignore stories from the superstitious natives about what the evil juju man is doing and how the dead are coming back to life!
Any four year old versed in West African religious traditions will tell you that juju and voodoo are two separate belief systems and that these two teaming up on one cursed island is the supernatural equivalent of the Tripartite Pact! But with zombies! And sharks! And topless scuba diving! Continue reading “Zombie (1979)”
Werewolf Woman (1976)
Despite the movie’s title, director and co-writer Rino Di Silvestro doesn’t seem to realize what his movie is supposed to be about, employing an ineffective kitchen sink approach that sees him mix a variety of elements with little apparent reason including reincarnation, lycanthropy, pseudo-scientific psycho-babble, horny Italians, and revenge drama. It is only once he unleashes a stuntman on us that the film becomes minor triumph of sublime ridiculousness over style and substance. Continue reading “Werewolf Woman (1976)”
The Haunted Palace (1963)
The Haunted Palace helpfully reminds us that people with birth defects should be feared and shunned instead of pitied. Other than that bit of sage advice, the film is nothing more than a cynical effort from director Roger Corman and star Vincent Price built to milk their American International Pictures/Edgar Allan Poe film series until even the viewer begins to feel the cinematic mastitis setting in. And despite the bulk of the movie being based not on a Poe work at all, but on H.P. Lovecraft’s novella The Strange Case Of Charles Dexter Ward! Continue reading “The Haunted Palace (1963)”