birthday boy!

Happy 40th birthday to Don Coscarelli's Phantasm.

farewll to the king.

Whatever is behind the door There is nothing much to do Angel or devil I don't care For in front of that door There is you....  

Scott Walker.

nasty!

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls we present a maniacal mix of terrifying tunes, sinister samples and blood curdling beats in an 80 plus minute mix designed to take you back to the heady days of the video recordings act.

A wee bit like Sunshine Over Leith but with more buggery.

dog day afternoon.

Still recovering from the dreaded Frightfest lurgy so spent this week recuperating with a rewatch of the Jess Franco classic Devil Hunter in the hope of scoring some free stuff from 88 Films thanks to the frankly brilliant review what I wrote about it.

Anyways, the laydees were out shopping today leaving myself and Mr Cassidy home alone so I decided in a kinda sweet father/son bonding exercise to let him pick today's entertainment.*

Well he must have really enjoyed the aforementioned classic as he dove straight into the Franco-pile and chose this.

That's my boy.

Sadomania (AKA Holle der Lust, Hellhole Women. 1981)
Dir: Jess Franco.
Cast: Uta Koepke, Ursula Buchfellner, Ajita Wilson, Antonio Mayans (AKA 'Robert Foster', nope still not that one), Gina Janssen, Jess Franco, Angel Caballero and a huge, horny dog.

"Look at the dog! Look at the dog!"

Young(ish) and fairly groovy (for the west midlands circa 1974) newlyweds, Olga (pert of breast and flaxen of haired Koepke, best known for her performance as Kirstin in the classic Drei Schwedinnen auf der Reeperbahn) and Michael (Caballero from the brothel based drama L'oasis des filles perdues) are happily enjoying their South America honeymoon cum golfing holiday, which is always how these things start if I'm honest.

It's been sun, sand, huge amounts of cocaine, a wee bit of poverty and holes in one all the way so far and with a return home looming our loving couple decide to finish their vacation with an idyllic picnic.

After packing the Tizer and egg and cress sandwiches they're soon on their way, taking a short cut to the beach thru' the grounds of the ominous Hacienda Blanco, a notorious women's prison and general den of kinkiness.

As you can imagine this doesn't go down too well with the Hacienda's evil warden Magda (transsexual mega-star and Euro porn queen, the late great Ajita Wilson) who comes across the pair gobbling on some fruit.

Which reminds me of the reason I got expelled from school years ago.

Wilson: Like you'd have a choice.

After a quick telling off and a slapped wrist Michael is sent on his merry way but Olga on the other (slightly smaller) hand is charged with trespassing on private property and detained at (and for) the wardens pleasure.

Matron!

Surprisingly Michael sheepishly bids farewell and saunters off without even a hint of annoyance at the thought of having to spend the final nights of his honeymoon in the company of mother fist and her five beautiful daughters, leaving poor Olga to be (roughly) taken up the prison to be 'processed'.

Which is nice.

Arriving at the gates and with her only experience of incarceration being endless reruns of Prisoner: Cell Block H and Bad Girls, Olga is surprised to find that this alleged top security complex looks more like an end of days Butlins as imagined by a crack-fueled Robin Askwith, housing as it does around 40 women - of various degrees of attractiveness -  who spend their days sweatily toiling in fields clad only in Daisy Duke style hot-pants whilst (topless) female guards with machine guns watch them from either horseback or home made chariots.

A wee bit like your mums old school.

"Are you looking at my bra?"

Lucky for Olga tho' who to be honest isn't the sharpest tool in the tin,  the prison rules are  simple enough for even her to understand.

And they go something like this:

 If a prisoner is caught trying to escape they are given a 60 second head start and then chased and shot (unless the inflatable Crocodiles don't get them first that is).

See?

I told you they were easy to remember.

Don't worry if shooting or being eaten alive aren't your thing as there is an alternative.

For example if the local politicians wife, the luscious Loba (swallowing superstar Janssen from the Story of Q) is in a good mood, hand-picked prisoners are taken to her villa for a wee kiss and cuddle with her impotent husband Jeff Mendoza (Foster from Oasis of the Zombies and Zombie(s) Lake sporting the worlds greatest comedy moustache).

Or if they're really lucky a wee bit of sapphic sauciness Loba herself.

Now which UK political party would be brave enough to bring this bill in?

I for one would commit a dozen acts of wanton burglary if I was in with a chance of an evening alone with Scottish Conservative bawheid and original Tank Girl  Ruth Davidson.

Well I'm only flesh and blood.

"Now ladies....who fancies a wee bit o' mooth shite-in?"

It's not all fun and frolics tho' as wicked warden Magda has a strict zero tolerance approach to fighting among the inmates and anyone who breaks this rule is punished by both parties being bundled into a ramshackle cage and forced to fight to the death.

Whilst topless obviously.

And what of the winner?

Well they get the special treat of spending the night with Mendoza's (over) friendly Alsatian, Butch and a once in a lifetime chance to enjoy his own special brand of 'meat treat'.

If, for some strange reason, none of this works to break the prisoners spirits, the worst offenders (or those with the perkiest breasts) are sold to the ferret-like Mr. Jorge Lucas (director Franco himself with trademark pube beard in tow) and put to work in his brothel in order to bring pleasure to the local mine workers and various salty sailor folk that pass thru town.

Exactly like your mums old school then.

Who's best...Theresa May or Nicola Sturgeon?.....There's only one way to find out! FIGHT!

Anyway, back to the non lesbian/torture/dog sex plot of the movie (yes there is one) and poor Michael, outwardly beginning to show the faintest signs of guilt in regards to leaving his missis in such a god forsaken hellhole - but more likely just jealous of missing out on all this girl on girl action - decides it's time to mount a rescue mission (as opposed to mounting a rescue dog or your gran) and free Olga.

Yup, I know he's taken his time about it but they've got to stretch the movie out somehow.

But if he's ever to be re-united with his true love he must first face not only the wrath of Luba and her psycho-sexual perversions but the cunning wiles of the horny she-male Magda who, sick of sticking it in girls is searching for some fresh, virginal manass to corrupt.

Oh and don't forget Mendoza's dog.

Which would be quite difficult seeing as he's quite ruggedly handsome if I'm honest.

Well for a dog anyway.

Good old Jess Franco, director of such classics as Vampyros Lesbos and, well anything you can think of with the words virgin, perversion or women in the title really - oh and that cannibal one where Al Cliver loses his arm - brings this shockingly brutal and realistic tale of loose women, perverted prisons and militant feminism to the screen in a blaze of cheaply made, stiltedly acted, S/M fueled trash-o-rama Euro-sleaze in the way that only he can.

Which is for under 20 quid.

Franco-philes, as some enthusiasts like to be called - probably - claim that the great mans movies have a genuine and legitimate artistry to them as well as a strong moral message lurking behind the sleaze and violence but to be honest it's pretty well hidden here as to be invisible.

Maybe I should take a closer look as no doubt it's carefully hidden somewhere between the frankly bizarre cutaways to close-ups of a selection of wind-up tin toys when Mendoza's pup ravishes the foxy cage fighter and the bits prisoners get eaten by crocodiles.

Or maybe I'm just too thick to see past the exploitation excesses.

Most likely tho' is the fact that I really don't feel the need to over intellectualize my genuine love of saucy Euro-Trash and am quite happy to share it with anyone who'll listen.

Because let's be honest here, if I've got the choice of spending a Friday night watching Chiwetel Ejiofor being whipped by a bad man or a flee bitten Alsatian desperately trying to mount a visibly nervous Angel Caballero I know which one I’d go for.

And I don't care how hot Ejiofor looks topless and drenched in sweat.

Plus he's no Idris Elba is he?

Well, neither of them are really but that's a different topic altogether.

"Oh no! I have my woman's period".

Whilst obviously never reaching the dizzy heights of Franco's all time classic Bloody Moon (but then again, what does?), it still has much to offer the serious film connoisseur, from glimpses of how unattractive the majority of people in the 70's were when naked to a rare mainstream (sort of) performance by cult goddess Ajita Wilson, later to become Europe's highest paid transsexual porn star as well as my godmother.

Add to this the copious amounts of mindless violence coupled with the most stunning and overgrown seventies bush ever committed to celluloid and the oh so saucy hints of bestiality and you know you've got a winner on your hands.

Or at least a pitiful semi between your chubby little fingers.

You dirty, dirty boy.

What your girlfriend really gets up to on bingo night.

*By the way, before you complain to social services I was only joking about letting the wee fella watch Jess Franco movies, that would be just plain wrong (plus he's only half way thru' the Joe D'Amato back catalogue and I wouldn't want to confuse him).