Category: Italian Cinema

Mr. Superinvisible (1970)

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Mr. Superinvisible is a landmark in the world of cinema chiefly because it proves that co-starring with Sandy Duncan and a duck in The Million Dollar Duck was not the nadir of Dean Jones’ career! To his credit, Dean at least did the honorable thing and did what so many of our other Silver Screen heroes of days gone by did when in need of easy money – he went to Italy!

And easier money was never to be had! Since this a flick where Dean plays a guy who turns invisible, he doesn’t even have to appear in most of it! Just a few days on set to humiliate yourself by wearing a dress or hiding your nasty bits with palm fronds and a couple of hours in the audio booth dubbing dialogue so bad even the regular crew of Italian dubbing masters couldn’t be persuaded to do it and BANG! Another six hundred bucks to pay off that 1970 Fiat 124 Sport Spider! Continue reading “Mr. Superinvisible (1970)” →

Curse IV: The Ultimate Sacrifice (1988)

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When you find out that Catacombs sat unreleased for a couple of years before someone retitled it Curse IV: The Ultimate Sacrifice, you can’t help but wonder what sort of theatrical tragedy is heinous enough that it was thought the film could be enhanced by pretending it was the third sequel in a movie series that was marked at once by both its obscurity and its progressively worse unrelated tales of killer meteors, radioactive snakes and African witch doctors.

And as soon as you realize it’s the sort of movie where Salami (Timothy Van Patten) from The White Shadow plays a priest battling a demon in the basement of an abbey, you quickly understand everything, and thank whatever benevolent god you choose to worship that Satan was never allowed to release a Curse V: The Really Final Ultimate Sacrifice. Continue reading “Curse IV: The Ultimate Sacrifice (1988)” →

Curse II: The Bite (1989)

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Vacations are a funny thing. Depending on the circumstances they can go from awesome to disaster and back again with little warning. For example, when I was a kid in Chicago, my parents threatened each other with divorce while we stayed in some flea bag motel, but then my sister had to ruin all those good vibes when she threw a tantrum at the Field Museum.

Likewise, for Lisa (Jill Schoelen only two years removed from The Stepfather and her greatest success) there are break ups and screaming that mark her cross country holiday with her boyfriend Clark (soap opera legend J. Eddie Peck). Of course those involve Clark mutating into a snake, eating her pet birds, and worst of all, going on a murderous rampage and not killing Jamie Farr’s character. Continue reading “Curse II: The Bite (1989)” →

The Curse (1987)

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Something is terribly wrong with the cabbage! And the tomatoes have gone freaking postal! As if Frances didn’t face enough horror in the bedroom when Claude Akins rebuffs her advances thus sending her into the hideously hirsute arms of the local handyman, now she can’t even make a salad without being infected with an extraterrestrial element that turns her into a pus-oozing demon!

How in the world is she going to save the family farm and help heal the rift between her son Zack and his hyper-religious step-father while she’s so crazy she starts to sew her own hand? That’s easy! She’s going to disintegrate into a tarry black pool of bio-ick while Zack runs “you’re not my real dad!” Nathan through with a pitchfork as the entire house is collapsing around all of them! This is my favorite evil crashed meteor ever! Continue reading “The Curse (1987)” →

Rats: Night of Terror (1984)

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The year is 225 A.B. The A.B. stands for “after the bomb” and the world is a different place than the ones we’re used to in Italian gore movies. Gone are the cities infested by zombies, gone are the grottos infested by vampires, gone are the oceans infested by various Jaws rip offs. All that remains are buildings infested with rats!

But not just any rats mind you, but rats that look suspiciously like guinea pigs with a nice bronzer applied. It’s all because of the radiation and the accompanying mutation you understand. It makes you wonder what guinea pigs look like in this new world! Continue reading “Rats: Night of Terror (1984)” →

2020 Texas Gladiators (1982)

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How did I know the post-apocalypse portrayed in this movie was really, really post-apocalyptic? It wasn’t all the raping or the killing or even the leather-clad freaks on dirt bikes. That sort of stuff happens in every run-of-the-mill Mad Max rip-off scenario.

And all the ugly people fighting it out at cheap locations such as a refinery and rock quarries? That just means you woke up in either a Filipino or Italian-lensed no-budget trashageddon.

What really drove home the point that this was some serious apocalypse happening here? The characters’ names. Continue reading “2020 Texas Gladiators (1982)” →