If you’re watching Alan Steele (Zorro contro Maciste) in this movie and wondering just where it was that he learned how to pose and wear his leather gauntlets with so much authenticity, it’s because he apprenticed under the very best in the beefcake business. Continue reading “Hercules Against the Moon Men (1964)”
Category: Italian Cinema
Heroes in Hell (1974)
Heroes In Hell gives you an up close and personal look at the lives of a group of World War II POWs. It’s up close and personal not because you get to know the characters or you are treated to a day to day examination of what life in a German prison camp entails. It’s up close and personal because most of the freaking film is shot right in these guys’ faces! And it didn’t serve to build tension or give a sense of claustrophobic suspense so much as left the viewer straining to see around everyone’s big fat skull! Continue reading “Heroes in Hell (1974)”
Car Crash (1981)
Car Crash is the single best 1970s movie of 1981! This film from Antonio Margheriti (The Ark of the Sun God, Jungle Raiders) stars two of the biggest names of the decade – Trans Am and Travolta! Continue reading “Car Crash (1981)”
Buck and the Magic Bracelet (1999)
Buck, the Canadian wonderdog who was last seen in Buck At The Edge Of Heaven returns for a final, fantastical frontier odyssey of whip-wielding broads and black guys pretending to be Indians! Continue reading “Buck and the Magic Bracelet (1999)”
Massacre in Dinosaur Valley (1985)
This Brazil-set cannibal epic from one of your off-brand Italian auteurs (Michele Massimo Tarantini) is an entry level one meaning that normal people will be repulsed by its sleazy smorgasbord of violence which includes people shot, impaled, gutted, raped, enslaved, drowning in quicksand, dying in plane wrecks, animal abuse and of course a breast scratched by a triceratops claw. Continue reading “Massacre in Dinosaur Valley (1985)”
Hercules Unchained (1959)
Truly then, the gods have smiled upon us this day when they sent forth this second adventure of Hercules. Fresh from whatever it was that Herc accomplished in his first epic film, this movie opens with him saying his goodbyes to his buddies from the Argos and preparing to journey to his hometown of Thebes with his new wife Iole and his buddy Ulysses. Continue reading “Hercules Unchained (1959)”
Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (1972)
On the surface, it’s an odd combination to say the least – a Cornell Woolrich story serving as the basis for an Umberto Lenzi film. Woolrich was the author of several stories during the fifties that were turned into such film noirs as Black Angel and Phantom Lady. Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window was also based on a Woolrich story.
Lenzi is best known as king of the cannibals for his Cannibal Ferox, Deep River Savages, and Eaten Alive films. But he was also proficient earlier in his career with thrillers in the giallo mold including Spasmo and Orgasmo so maybe it isn’t such a surprise that itt all works much better than you would suspect, resulting in an easily digestible confection of mystery, graphic violence, and Antonio Sabato. Continue reading “Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (1972)”