sin-sational.

A brand new yeare but the same old shite in my DVD glory hole.

Well, I might as well start as I mean to go on.

Which by the looks of things will be hunched over a keyboard frantically cracking one off to dodgy sixties soft core porn but there you go.

The Girl from SIN (1966).
Dir: C. Davis Smith.
Cast: Jackie Richards (AKA Joyana) , Barbara Kemp, Bob Oran, Carol Evans, Mary O'Hara, June Roberts and others.

Panda eyed and pendulously breasted villainous vixen Poontang Plenty (AKA Agent 0069, played to pouting perfection by Richards, the star of such hits as Dominique in Daughters of Lesbos and She Came by Bus) is crime syndicate SIN's top terrorizing tottie who, alongside SIN's pot bellied leader, Dr. Jeff Sexus (mega man breasted producer Oran), plans on taking over the world from inside the local Chinese restaurant using only the power of 'the sex'.

Oh and professor Charlie Drake's (director Smith) invisibility pill obviously.

Yup, using only an old fridge, some spark plugs, a Mickey Mouse Club torch and the fuse from a discarded vacuum cleaner the nutty professor has managed to create the ultimate covert accessory.

Totally by accident of course.

You see he was actually working on a pill to cure hemorrhoids but his plain-Jane secretary, in a blind moment of panic after seeing a mouse scuttle across the lab floor took the pill to calm down thinking it was a tranquillizer.

Sounds legit.

Being a clichéd film inventor Charlie is hoping that his invention will benefit all mankind (in what way is never explained tho') but SIN it seems have their own immoral ideas.

Ideas that involve all manner of gratuitous tit shots, moldy back room massages, shoddy seduction techniques and craptacular kung-fu fighting.

But ain't that always they way?

He looks pretty pleased with himself at the
moment but just wait till the fisting starts.

Anyway it's back to the plot where the producer has realised that there might not be quite enough mileage for skin with all these spy shenanigans so the movie takes a quick detour into suburbia where we're introduced to henpecked hubby Henry - a character so wet and inconsequential that the actor isn't even credited.
Henry by the way is a greasy balding fuck suffering from penile dysfunction caused, in part by pock thighed, lard arsed wife insisting on doing everything from knitting to cooking naked.

Just like your dad.

And don't forget that dysfunction is hereditary.

You're welcome.

Henry tho' has a dark secret that no-one, not even his spotty spouse knows.

Can you guess what it is dear reader?

Yes, Henry collects model ships and boats.

It's only the 9th January and I'm already losing the will to live.

Attending a 'model auction' one day, Henry ends up inadvertently bidding on a big trunk he thinks contains a huge model of the Bismarck constructed entirely from the teeth of dead tramps but after returning home and excitedly open the box he's disappointed to find not and enamel warship but Drake's diary and invisibility formula.

Henry suddenly realizes that this could be the answer to all his problems.

You see, his local GP has just written him a prescription for adultery in the hope of curing his limp dick so the by now very horny Henry decides to use the invisibility pill in order to spy on his hot neighbour Ginger.

The only problem is that whenever he sneezes he reappears.

Seriously you couldn't make this shit up.

Your mum in the outfit I got her for Christmas.

How will these plot threads collide?

Will Poontang Plenty keep her clothes on for longer than ten minutes at a time?

Will there be any more frankly disturbing scenes of her giving a toe job to a really sweaty man with bunions?

And more importantly will any of the cast actually speak?

All round odd job man, disciple of Dame Doris of Wishman and part-time director (and I use that term lightly) C. Davis Smith's pervy panto of heavy petting is a sensationally skuzzy piece of no-fi nudie trash from the age that cellulite forgot that's about as erotic as catching your Nan blowing the dog and as funny as a cancerous cock.

And that's being kind.

Too cheap to have a dialogue track, the entire sordid tale is told in a monotonous voice-over supplied by Smith himself, filmed on location in somebodies shed and populated by a cast of has beens and never weres seduced from the aforementioned Wishman's regular bunch of actors with promises of cheap booze and crisps.

Standing out (well actually just standing about if I'm honest) amongst this Thespian forest of MDF mediocrity are big Bob Oran, all high waist silky Aladdin trousers, hairy shoulders and a face like a bulldog licking piss of a broken bottle whilst the single syllabled, double barrelled Joyana is a vision of milky thighs and wobbly sixties breasts topped off with the face of a council estate scrubber, he black rimmed dead eyes not unlike those of a hungry shark.

She's the kind of girl you can imagine sharing a kebab (alongside bodily fluids) with, the grease dripping down her neck as you rut like beasts against the piss covered wall behind the taxi rank on a particularly drunken night out.

Exactly like your mum if you're honest.

Ask your 'Uncle' Jack if you don't believe me.

Germs.

Saying that tho' it's still worth sitting thru' (but please skip the 8 minute silent seduction/assassination scene that opens the movie if you want to keep your sanity) especially if you're a fan of Joyana (AKA Jackie Richards, Maxine, Lorrie Saunders, Lee Taylor and your Mum probably) and her dirty bird ways.

Oh yes and if you find the thought of really ugly people having sex and dancing badly a massive turn on.

Hmmm, just me then?

bible belt.

Just thought I'd point out that this'll be a shorter review than usual (thank fuck I hear you cry) but frankly there's really not much plot here to spell out and I really wanted to use this as a warning to others.

I received this thru' the post from a pal for Christmas (thanks Hernandez) who knows I like 'the wee comic books' and thought I'd enjoy this live action version of the infamous Tijuana Bible.

I really wish he hadn't bothered tho', life is really too short.

For those of you of a sensitive disposition (or who have a life outside this seedy world of zed grade movies and general badness) here's the science part so pay attention.

The Tijuana Bible, the granddaddy of all of man's masturbation material, appeared long before the nudie cutie magazine and the stag film and usually consisted of a lewd 8 page strip small enough to hide in your trouser pocket.

If you want any more info ask your granddad.

Or better still your nan because I have a few that she modeled for.

Well way back in 1973 someone decided that what the world of entertainment needed was a living breathing version of this very thing.

God help us.

Ladies and gentlemen I give you:

Sex in the Comics (1973).
Dir: Eric von Letch.
Cast: Reggie Balls, Bella Bush, Rick Cassidy, Orita De Chadwick and Cyndee Summers.

Blonde bombshell journalist Helen Flange is preparing to interview the famous cartoonist Terry Quim about his vast body of work but, on arriving at his 'studio' (in reality some poor sods shed - it may be the one from The Girl From SIN) Quim is more interested in lecturing Helen on the history of the Tijuana Bible.

Slightly disappointed to not be getting her interview (tho' it would be a different film if she did) the artist tries his best to persuade her that the history lesson will be even more fun and, after a few minutes she's willing to let him give her one.

Replacing Michael Myers with the ghost of Tommy Cooper was the final nail in the coffin for Rob Zombie's Halloween franchise.

Cue the world renowned wobbly-O-screen effect - or it may just be a crap transfer I don't know - as the entire film reforms in a haze of marker pen scribbled, brightly painted scenery into a world populated by pointed breasted, big hipped whores and fat, skinny legged men wearing sinister giant papermache heads who spout arse numbing dialogue lifted directly from the 1930's comics.

It's like a junior school version of The Benny Hill Show with a script by an exceptionally overactive 5 year old.

But with much more (and much hairier) bush.

Obviously.

John Leslie - The park-keeper years.

But the scary surrealism doesn't stop there, it continues into the multitude of sex scenes too.

In one vignette the penis of one particularly bulbous headed men grows to such a huge size that it starts to pop in and out of an unfortunate girl's mouth, later on a porn mustached, cock nosed lifeguard (baring a frightening resemblance to one of the Chuckle Brothers) is driven into a sexual frenzy by a hula dancers erotically charged ukulele playing whilst, in my personal favourite scene some carnie bloke gets his heaving, sweaty testicles caught up in tattooed woman's overgrown lady garden.

Ken Russell's version of The Rainbow this aint.

Well, obviously not, seeing as this doesn't feature Paul McGann's thrusting buttocks.

McGann's arse: bigger on the inside.

But if all this wasn't enough to give you sleepless nights then the film's drug addled editing just might, full as it is of slash-tastic jump cuts, cat scratches and bizarre freeze frames thrown in at random intervals obviously just to scare the audience awake whilst the 'artist' delivers a - factually accurate, I kid you not - voice-over discussing how the politics and the culture of the period affected the creation, growth and eventual demise of the Tijuana Bible phenomenon.

"You want to do what in mah mooth?"

I really don't know what's more frightening tho', the fact that this ever got a green light or the fact that someone, somewhere has a wee Barclays to this on a daily basis.

Sleep tight.

forbidden fruit basket.

Finally finished the Bowie visuals so am currently awaiting a couple (any?) new contracts to appear so as a treat I was about to dive head first into the cinematic sludgepile teetering on the edge of our table when I thought, just for a change from the usual horror rubbish Rollie and myself usually end up watching (or is that enduring?) why not have a bit of a spooky space night, settling on one of the good Alien films.

This caused no end of problems seeing as my better half loves Aliens, wrongly thinking it's the best one whereas I'm one of those truly insightful folk that know for a fact that Alien3 is by far the superior movie.

After much fisticuffs, burning stuff and shouting we agreed to compromise and settled on...

Forbidden World (AKA Mutant, Subject 20. 1982)
Dir: Allan Holzman.
Cast: Jesse Vint, Dawn Dunlap, June Chadwick, Linden Chiles, Fox Harris, Don Olivera, Raymond Oliver and Scott Paulin.

"Let's go bag ourselves a Dingwhopper!"

Studly space hunk and beige clad gun for hire Mike Colby (rodent faced teevee stalwart Vint) is woken from hyper-sleep by his bucket headed, muffle moothed robot sidekick SAM-104 (voiced by FX man Olivera and played by a child in a cheap Stormtrooper Halloween outfit) to the news that a squadron of cut-throat space pirates are trying to blow them up to the score from 2001.

Not noticing that the monitors are in fact just replaying scenes from Battle Beyond The Stars our hunky hero presses some flashing buttons making random things explode whilst his plastic pal mumbles incomprehensibly.

But there's no rest for the wicked (or the just really incompetent) for no sooner have the space raiders been defeated than an emergency call comes thru' from a genetic research station located on the distant desert world of Xarbia  run by the permanently angry Dr. Gordon Hauser (Chiles, yet another teevee veteran) who in turn is aided and abetted by the one lunged chain smoker Dr. Cal Timbergen (Harris from Repo Man) and posh totty Dr. Barbara Glaser (Chadwick from 'V' with a visible pantie line that almost bursts forth from the screen, God help anyone watching this on a wall mounted plasma, tho' the chances of them getting foreign matter on the screen during the sexy bits will drop sharply).

There are a few other folk but none of them are really that interesting.

Except that is for the cute as a button and scarily shelf arsed Tracy Baxter (played to Formica perfection by the pudgy cheeked and often naked star of Barbarian Queen and Les Ombres De L'été plus former tyre manufacturer Dunlap).

Two puppies fighting in a binbag yesterday.

Arriving at the base and immediately catching the (boss) eye of the sex starved Baxter, Colby is introduced to everyone before being taken up the laboratory (steady) by Dr. Hauser to stare at a room full of dead rabbits and what looks like a big stringy shit in a Perspex box.

Colby, not too sure how to react and being slightly pissed off that he hasn't shot or shagged anyone for at least twenty minutes just looks at it in a quizzical manner.

Oh yes, and occasionally frowns.

But as Dr. Glaser breathlessly explains, this is no common or garden shit but an experimental life form that they've (snappily) named "Subject 20".

Well, it was either that or Lindsey.

"Fuck me! It's Fred Titmuss!"

It appears that the clever old science types have created a brand new synthetic DNA strain - or Proto B as it's more commonly known - in order to rid the galaxy of all famine, unfortunately tho' they accidentally impregnated one of their co-workers with it (during what I can only assume was a really drunken Christmas party) causing it to eat her whole (tho' I think they said it spat that bit out) and kill all the bunnies onboard before covering itself in bright pink faeces and falling asleep in a fishtank.

As you would.

Colby decides the best course of action would be to shoot "Subject 20", have sex with Barbara (and/or Tracy), have a quick bite to eat and leave.

Surprisingly the scientists disagree (except for the food bit and probably the sex too) and persuade Colby to retire to the mess for a bag of Johnny Onion Rings and a Pot Noodle before taking any action.

Whilst the rest of the group head off for some tuck, young Ricky lab tech is left in charge of cleaning up the dead rabbits and told, in no uncertain terms not to poke the giant pooh or get any of it in his eyes.

Or his mooth.

"Shite in mah mooth!"

It'll come as no surprise then when Ricky, bored with scraping animal intestines of a bench with a toothbrush, decides to see what happens if he sticks his head in the shit-case and give it a wee tickle.

Much screaming (and much, much more mooth and shite interfacing) ensues.

Rushing into the lab to see what all the shouting's about (and spilling curry sauce down his shirt in the process, which makes a change from the stains left by shame I guess) Dr. Hauser gets even angrier than normal when he discovers that the creature has escaped into the air-vent.

However he soon cheers up when he realizes that Ricky isn't really dead but is being kept alive by the bit of "Subject 20" that fell on him, meaning that when he recovers Hauser can give him a damn good thrashing for ignoring the rules.

Poking Ricky with a stick whilst trying not to let her pendulous breasts droop into the slimy hole that was his face, Barbara makes a horrifying discovery of her own. It seems that the mucky mutant is actually absorbing Ricky and mutating him into another creature.

Yuck.

"I wouldn't want that swimming up my arse".

With everyone upset and the food having gone cold Dr. Hauser suggests (in a rare show of humanity) that everyone should have an early night and worry about the mess in the morning, Barbara has other ideas tho' and persuades Colby to indulge in a game of hide the (undoubtedly moldy) hot dog with this choice piece of chat up dialogue:

Bubbly Babs: "I hear you're the biggest trouble shooter in this part of the galaxy".
Cool-cat Colby: "That's what they tell me".
Bubbly Babs: "Well how'd you like to see some........trouble?"

Bizarrely this movie was cruelly overlooked at the 1982 Oscars, losing out on best Original Screenplay to Chariots of Fire.

Like has anyone ever heard of that let alone seen it?

Anyway, back to the plot and whilst Colby and Babs are getting down and getting dirty, the stations head of security (Late Review's Paulin) sweatily sits back and enjoys the show.

Luckily for us (and the station's cleaners) he's disturbed mid-stroke by a strange grunting noise coming from the cargo bay.

Like all good security types he decides to investigate.

Alone.

As you can probably guess, it's not long till his dying screams are heard throughout the base causing everyone to wake up in a startled manner but more importantly causing Colby to shoot off early, covering Bab's knees with space spunk.

How will he explain that to his Nan?

"Laugh now!"

The next morning Colby puts his fantastic monster catching plan into operation.

This involves him skulking around the base in a very suspicious manner whilst pointing his gun at stuff.

Well they did say he was the best of the best.

By some strange coincidence he just happens across Tracy whilst she's enjoying a naked steam bath and it's not long before she's persuaded him to get naked too.

How the fuck does he manage it?

Unfortunately for Colby (but fortunate for those of us not turned on by old man cock) just as he's about to stick it in Tracy the monstrous mutant drops out of an air-vent and waves it's flaccid, KY Jelly encrusted tentacles in a vaguely camp manner.

Tracy's ear bursting screams bring the rest of the crew (including a really angry and by now ready to explode with sexual frustration Barbara) running in just in time to see the beast scuttle away into a nearby airlock before bobbing away across the planets surface.

Realizing he's not going to get a proper shag till the thing is dead, Colby suggests that the men folk head outside to hunt it down whilst the ladies make a nice strong cuppa or something.

How your girlfriend manages to pay for all those expensive birthday gifts she gets you.

Decked out in sci-fi head scarves, a couple of second hand gimp masks and some Wellington boots our luckless band (and Sam the robot) wander aimlessly around the studio backlot before coming across what looks like a giant paper mache testicle hanging from a rock.

Sam - being jealous of not having man-parts - shoots it Whilst Dr. Hauser screams something about having much to learn from it and how we should all be friends and stuff.

Before he gets too annoyingly preachy the beast turns up and bites his face before darting back into the airlock with his still twitching body.

Heading back inside (and thus filling the movies meager running time with lots of corridor shots) Colby and co. are just about to explain what's happened when Hauser reappears, all melty faced and dripping shit for every orifice.

As is the way in these situations, he falls on poor Tracy getting her all slimy and sticky meaning that she needs to take a bizarro sonic shower straight away.

Oh yes, and she needs Barbara to join her so she can make sure all the slime is washed off.

No. Need.

It's during this completely non gratuitous and important scene that Barbara realizes that she has the solution to the monster problem.

And no, it's not have slimy tentacle sex with it unfortunately but instead the pair of them decide to don arse revealing bathrobes, head on down to the lab that it's hiding in and have a friendly chat with it.

What could possibly go wrong?

Within minutes Babs is bent over a computer desperately trying to communicate with the beast whilst hoping (in vain) that the cameraman can't see what she had for lunch.

Deciding to ask "What do you want?" the creature pauses for a moment to think of an intelligent answer before replying (in the movies most erotic scene) by shoving one of it's tentacles right up Barbara's arse and out of her mouth.

Tracy runs away screaming, her breasts bouncing like a couple of playful beagles in a bag as she goes.

With only Colby, cough-pot Timbergen, Tracy, her aforementioned breasts and ample arse left alive the chances of anyone surviving to the films end looks bleak.

But Timbergen has a secret weapon and the only thing that can possibly kill a beast capable of instantly adapting to the DNA of its victims.

Other than a nuclear bomb or a big fire obviously.

Yes, you guessed it, he's going to feed it his cancerous stomach tumour.

The only problem being that it's still inside him and Colby is the only person not shot too much to fuck to cut it out.

But as Colby prepares for the operation, the beast slithers ever closer....

With everyone from Luigi Cozzi (the egg-tastic Contamination), Norman Warren (Inseminoid) and Harry Bromley Knight (Xtro) picking over the corpse of Sir Ridley of Scott's big budget seminal sci-fi shlocker Alien, it was only a matter of time before king of the B's Lord Roger Corman got in on the act, first with the James Cameron designed Galaxy Of Terror and then (using the same sets, costumes, etc.) with Forbidden World.

Galaxy of Terror: Slimier monsters, faker breasts.

Directed by the former (and latter) editor Allan Holzman - best known for his work on Crazy Mama and Battle Beyond The Stars - after winning a bet with big Rog that he could shoot and edit enough rough footage in a day to make a coherent scene (that actually ends up as the films opening), Forbidden World may be cheesier than a tramps feet and cheaper than your girlfriend but it possesses a trashy heart (and neck of pure brass) that raises it above much of the competition.

The fact that it features some of the lamest excuses for nudity ever and a monster that the seventies Doctor Who production team would knock back as being too cheap doesn't do it any harm either.

"Put it in me!"

Shamelessly ripping off everything from Star Wars to 2001 via Silent Running along the way, Forbidden World proudly wears it's influences on it's sleeve, almost boasting how it had (metaphorically) bummed Alien for a fiver then stolen its shoes, in equal parts enjoyable, laughable and as entertaining as watching your Dad drunkenly fall down the stairs whilst pissing himself.

Plus it has the audacity to cast big headed, baby doll Dawn Dunlap as a scientist and expect us not to laugh.

With balls of solid steel and a budget of less than a fiver Forbidden World delivers more scares, shocks, bare arses and laugh now moments than any other film with the same title plus it has slightly more natural breasts than the frighteningly pneumatic pair on show in Galaxy of Terror and for that we should all be grateful.

oi! donald!

I think I've found your hackers......*

*With thanks to ‏@PulpLibrarian

gorgeous gorga.

The kids are still on holiday and this is what they've chosen as todays viewing pleasure.


They must really hate me.

The Mighty Gorga (1969)
Dir: David L Hewitt.
Cast: Anthony Eisley, Megan Timothy, Scott Brady, Kent Taylor and a huge monkey.

"Oh, Mighty Gorga! I know your thirst for the blood of young maidens is great! But I pray you, leave our village in peace! Soon! Soon the invaders will be upon our plateau and you can destroy them! And then once again I will summon you to our Altar of Life and you can once again drink the blood of the maiden."

Our tale opens somewhere in a mysterious corner of the Congo where spooky music plays and scary plastic skulls sit jauntily atop a variety of odd sized sticks.


Did I say the Congo cos it sounds just like Dudley on a Friday night if I'm honest.

But unlike my home town it's soon revealed that the skulls aren't just there to scare away peg-selling gypsies but are actually part of a hastily constructed sacrificial altar to which a buxom 'native' girl is tied, wriggling and writhing to free herself as a huge hairy shadow looms overhead.

Which does indeed beg the question as to how a shadow can be hairy.

Must be dust on the print.

"Grraarrrr!!"

Meanwhile in the good ol' US of A, Mark Remington (Eisley - star of The Wasp Woman and Journey To The Centre Of Time amongst other classics, oh and Knots Landing) the devilishly handsome, hard drinking, chain smoking - but not too surprisingly with those vices skint - owner of a circus needs money quick if he's to save his business.

Believing that only a fantastic new exhibit will wow the kids back under his big top (sounds rude) he uses his remaining cash to finance a trip to Africa in the hopes of being able to 'hook up' with world famous trapper - and owner of the best porn name never used - Tonga Jack (Brides of Blood's Taylor).

You see Tonga has recently written to Mark regarding a legendary giant ape thing that lives in the Congo (but not on Um Bongo) reckoning that it might just be the attraction he's looking for.

Unsurprisingly Mark plans to capture the beast using a bag of bananas and a huge mousetrap and pop him in his circus clad in a top hat and revolving bowtie.

What could possibly go wrong with this plan?

On arrival in Africa Mark first decides to visit a local zoo - giving the director ample opportunity to pad out the film with grainy stock footage of wild animals - to 'study' apes in their natural habitat (because we all know that they really enjoy living in tiny concrete cells) before heading out into the jungle to meet up with Tonga so they can start the adventure - and by default the film - good and proper.

Tho' it makes you wonder what the animals, carnies and dwarves he's left back home are living on seeing as he's spent all the cash on what appears to be a holiday.

"Fiona where's mah lunch?"

Arriving at Tonga's jungle pad Mark is dismayed to learn that the trapper is missing following an ill-fated trip to Aldi for supplies and that his stuck up daughter April (busty Brit Bettie Page-alike and star of Confessions of A Sexy Super Vixen Timothy) is now in charge of the trapper empire.

Being a mere woman and not knowing anything about manly pursuits like trapping and the like it turns out that she's spent all the money on pink fizz, make-up and scratchcards so her business is in financial trouble too.

Arse.

"Meow!"

If that wasn't enough strife for one film it turns out that a rival trapper, Dan 'no nickname' Morgan (Sheriff Frank from Gremlins himself, Brady) is obsessed with getting his dirty-nailed sausage fingers not just on Tonga's compound but on - and in - poor April too and will stop at nothing to achieve these aims, including setting fire to the animals kept therein.

Which does beg the question as to why he'd want to buy a burnt out, animal-less building in the middle of the jungle but each to their own.

Mark, being a smooth talking kinda fella - and desperate for some lovin' -  offers to split the cash he'll get for capturing the massive monkey with April if she'll help him, subtly mentioning the huge bag of gold guarded by the ape during the conversation too.

What a guy.

Jumping for joy (luckily she's wearing a good bra) at the thought of all that cash  and no doubt at the thought of massive monkey cock - c'mon she has needs too - April decides to join the adventure so armed only with a cap gun, aided by three extras from the Black and White minstrel show and using a crayoned map made by her missing dad the dynamic duo head off into the jungle.

"Where are those fucking Chewits?"

Unbeknown to our heroes mental Morgan is in hot pursuit.

Making their way further and further into the dense jungle (OK, the park behind the directors house) Mark is - fairly - surprised when he stumbles across a towering plateau populated by dinosaurs.


Tho' to be honest how you can just 'stumble across a plateau' really confuses me.

We've no time to think about such trivialities tho' as April has come across some giant eggs and wanting to prove herself to be a real woman to Mark she's decided they'd be great boiled and served with toast.

Whilst attempting to find a pot big enough to pop them in Mark and April are shocked when the mummy dinosaur, returning from the shops after buying nappies decides to attack them.

Our hero lets rip with his cap gun firing at what appears to be a child's toy held up close to the camera whilst a bored technician goes "Grrarrr!" a lot but all seems lost when they discover that plastic dinosaurs are impervious to bullets.

Luckily the Mighty Gorga arrives in the nick of time and in a scene as ludicrous as it is insane (especially on this budget) wrestles the scary Tyrannosaurus to death.

"Put it in me!"

Eying up the beast (as in Gorga not April) Mark formulates a plan.

He plans to drug - the 40 foot high - gorilla then roll him down the mountain on bumper sized discarded kitchen roll tubes onto a waiting airplane before flying him back to the States and his circus.

Let's be honest it really is a crap plan but a plan never the less.

Fuck me it's Fred Titmuss!

Will Mark's plan succeed?

Will a scary tribe turn up wanting to sacrifice April to the monkey?

And will she find her dad?*
There's only one way to find out cos if I had to sit thru' this then you can too.

Usually this is the bit where I go into the films background, it's director, cast etc. but I really don't have the words to adequately sum up the experience of watching The Mighty Gorgo, it's easier just to list five main reasons why it must be seen.

1. They could only afford the top half of a gorilla suit so you only see Gorgo from the waist up.

2. According to this movie there are only three real black people in Africa - everyone else is a white person covered in gravy browning.

3. A man in (the top half of) a gorilla suit fighting a kiddies toy dinosaur toy held shoddily close to the camera.

4. Anthony Eisley's quiff.

5. Megan Timothy's eyebrows and arse.


Buy it now or more realistically just watch the trailer on Youtube even tho' if I'm honest that requires way more effort than this film deserves.








































*In case you really can't be arsed the answer is yes and yes to the last two by the way.

the ghost man always rings twice.

Spent the majority of the holidays mixing visuals and making animations for a David Bowie tribute event (see? It's not all blood and boobs) so thought I'd celebrate their completion with a good movie

Unfortunately this was the first thing that came to hand.

Until Death (AKA The Changeling 2, Brivido Giallo: Per Sempre. 1987).Dir: Lamberto Bava.
Cast: Gioia Scola, David Brandon, Giuseppe Stefano De Sando, Roberto Pedicini, Marco Vivio and Urbano Barberini.

Professional brunette bad-lady Linda (Scola from the fantastic Raiders of Atlantis) has decided, along with her horse-cocked (yet scarily rodent faced) lover Carlo (Stagefright's Mr. Serious Brandon) to off her baw headed boring hubbie Luca (Pedicini best known for his voice work in Dellamorte Dellamore, looking like a human/frog hybrid and emptying our bins) and set up house together whilst running their homely seaside bed and breakfast cum restaurant cum boat business like some murderous Basil and Sybil Fawlty.

But obviously without a Spanish waiter with a pig ugly, attention seeking whore for a granddaughter.

And not just because he's sadly dead.

As in it's a shame he died not that he was sad about it.

Tho' he probably was.

Just checking the facts surrounding his death I've just discovered that he died of dementia so he was probably unaware of his impending demise anyway.

I'll admit tho' that any of these scenarios would have added a certain something to the movie.

Namely enjoyment.

But I digress.

Ballie's: more custard than cream.

Anyway, enough character background - and looking back at that paragraph butchery of the English language - let's get back to the story which begins good and proper with the aftermath of Luca's murder and the deadly duo about to dispose of his still fresh corpse in a nearby swamp.

But he's not properly dead and with his last vestige on strength tears one of Linda's huge market stall hoop earring out.

Of her ear not his own obviously.

Hitting the poor sod on the head with a large pizza tray to finish him off our loving couple head home to settle into their new (if rather fraught) lives; baking, shaking and raising Linda's muppet like poppet Alex (AS Roma fan Vivio, who seems to have had the biggest career out of anyone else on screen).

Aw, sweet.

Eight years down the line the couples idyllic - yet it has to be said, fairly paranoid - existence is disturbed by the unexpected arrival of ruggedly raffish traveler (OK, hobo), the hunk-tastic Marco (Sam J Jones alike Barberini from Opera, Demons, Casino Royale and your Aunties bed).

I'd get that seen to son.

After checking out his cooking skills - and it has to be said frankly magnificent arse - Linda and Carlo hire him on the spot to help out in the restaurant.

But it's not long before the pair begin to notice Marco’s frightening familiarity with their home-life, business affairs and even where Linda keeps her clean undies.

He also has an almost unhealthy fondness for lil' Alex but most disturbingly for Linda, he knows all of her secret family recipes.

Nice to see she's got her priorities right, no doubt she'll leave him babysitting next time her and Carlo pop out for tapas.

"Hey senorita! You fancy a little mooth shite-in?"

All this insider knowledge begins to play on Carlo's barely hidden paranoia, leading him to surmise that Marco is working with the police to trap the couple for murdering Luca.

Obviously Italy have a special 'head-fuck' department specially recruited to play with criminals minds.

Or something.

Linda however is way too busy fiddling with herself whilst lusting over Marco to  jump to such bizarre conclusions and poor Alex is too shot to fuck by his recurring dreams about arms bursting thru' his bedroom walls and trying to goose him whilst soggy tramps attempt to crawl out of swamps to care one way or t'other.

"Laugh now!"

Is Carlo reading too much into the situation?

Will Linda get her end away with the hunky bum?

Will Alex get touched up by the nightmarish ghouls?

Will the movie end with a blazing inferno?

But most importantly will Marco steal all of Linda's recipes and pass them off as his own, getting his own teevee show in the process?

If you really are what you eat then he must have eaten a warty testicle.

Only a director of Lamberto Bava's (albeit slightly tarnished) reputation could take the plot of The Postman Always Rings Twice and re-imagine it as a psychological horror tale before turning it into a cheaply made teevee movie and still make it moderately successful.

Under no circumstances to be confused with the 2007 Jean-Claude Van Damme cop caper of the same name (tho' if you did I reckon you deserve all you get), Until Death is, bizarrely enough one of Bava's most subtle and successful movies, returning to the promise he showed with his first feature Macabre then subsequently pissed up the wall with every movie since (Demons being the obvious exception).

"Ooh Alex come and have a wee nibble of your mums nice hot pie!"

It's nicely acted, stylishly shot and features the best line in denim fashion wear this side of Brokeback Mountain.

Or your dad going to one of his classic car weekends.

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your alcohol levels) it has one of the most idiotic and shlocky twists ever committed to celluloid.

More fun than Graveyard Disturbance but nowhere near as sexy as Blade in The Dark (or your sister), Until Death is still worth owning.

Especially if you have a wobbly table that needs straightening.

stage shite.

New year, classic movies, same old catchphrases.

Welcome to 2017.

Finally caught up with this gem last night (yup we really know how to celebrate Hogmanay here in Unwell Towers) so thought I'd share.

I wont give to much away tho' seeing as from what I can gather only about six people have ever viewed it.

Yup it's that good.

The Killer Reserved Nine Seats (AKA L’ Assassino ha riservato nove poltrone, 1974).
Dir: Giuseppe Bennati.
Cast: Rosanna Schiaffino, Christea Avram, Eva Czemerys, Lucretia Love, Paola Senatore, Gaetano Russo, Andrea Scotti, Eduardo Filipone, Luigi Antonio Guerra, Howard Ross and Janet Agren.

"It looks like Dracula's Summer house!"

During a birthday bash for cheese-chested silver fox Patrick Davenant (Star Odyssey's Avram), one of the guests (doesn't matter who - it's all back story) suggests that it'd be a good laugh if they all drove to a deserted theatre in the middle of the English countryside (fantastically played by a country road somewhere outside Rome) for some reason or other that isn't worth mentioning.

I mean come on we've got killings and lipstick lesbianism to get to.

Accompanying the birthday boy on this merry jaunt is his harsh-faced fiancé Kim (genre regular Agren), his sister Rebecca (Czemerys who doesn't appear to be wearing any pants) and her lover Doris (evil pixie Love), his frighteningly ginger daughter Lynn (Senatore) alongside her creepily camp - tho' that just may be the dubbing - boyfriend Duncan (Russo), the sexily bearded Doctor Albert (Scotti) alongside his wife (and Patrick’s former flame) Vivian (council estate Faye Dunaway Schiaffino) and the big-haired bastard Russell (Werewolf Woman's Ross, looking for all the world like a childs photofit picture of Robert Davi).

But what would a giallo be without a mysterious man in a Nehru-collared suit  and a massive 'world of the strange' gold medallion?

Probably a wee bit more entertaining - and a lot less clichéd but heyho.

This nameless man (portrayed with all the charisma of a shoddily constructed wooden sex toy by the Lego-haired Eduardo Filipone) seems to have been to the theatre before, being as he is quite familiar with his surroundings.

And all this despite the fact that the place has been closed for a century.

The cast really should have figured out things were going to go tits up when he announces in that deadpan way reserved exclusively for cut-price Eurohorror actors "I spent a night here once.....100 years ago."

Being the way in these movies the rest of the cast just shrug their shoulders and cut daggers at each other.

Me?

I'd have given him a round of applause for delivering the line with such a straight face.

I didn't give him this....but I did give your mum a pearl necklace on Christmas Eve.

Tho' to be honest when he turns to camera and slyly announces that "The actors are present and now the play may start…" I was all set to punch him in his smug supercilious face.

Right on cue a pair of black gloved hands drop a large piece of wood from the rafters that almost kills Patrick setting in motion a series of terrifying events and random breast shots as the cast of almost-weres and has beens are bitching, kissing and cursing their way thru a variety of more and more elaborately style murder set pieces.

In between bouts of uncomfortable lesbianism, big panted perving and - thanks to an impromptu performance by Kim - a wee bit of Romeo and Juliet as she acts out the heroine's death scene.

Who says horror movies can't be educational too?

Decked out in a handy Edwardian bodice Kim gives it her all during Juliet's death scene before slumping to the ground with a dagger in her back.

Which makes a change from her usual habit of taking it up the arse from all comers.

Allegedly.

As our frightened friends crowd round Kim's prone body (obviously hoping for a wee bit of boob spillage) dykey Doris spots a black-clad figure running  backstage and heads off in hot pursuit.

Well as hot as a 70's style middle-aged, polyester clad secretary can be I guess but each to their own.

...And there it is.

Whilst Doris plays Nancy Drew the rest of the of the cast are beginning to panic.

Not only have they discovered that no-one save the director is getting paid but also that the theatre's doors have all mysteriously locked from the outside leaving them trapped.

And in Lynn and Duncan's case desperate for a quick shag.

Tho' given the choice Lynn would rather it be her dad sticking it in her.



Cue ten minutes of uncomfortable nipple nibbling and scary stroke faces as Rebecca gazes lustfully at her niece from a nearby cupboard.

Meanwhile Doris has caught up with the killer and in an attempt to stop him killing her decides to flash her tits at him whilst purring like a cat.

Temporarily blinded by the glare from her milky white chest the killer stumbles giving our man-haired maiden time to escape.

Unfortunately she soon trips over one of her nipples and is  quickly dispatched by the mysterious mentalist via a sliding door cum storage box.

With the surviving cast - and let's face it the audience - at a loss to what the fuck is going on Patrick helpfully explains that the theatre is cursed.

Which is nice.

You see exactly a hundred years ago this very night a group of party-goers visited this very spot for a wee bout of shits and giggles only to find themselves locked in and, when the doors were finally opened they were all found dead.

And mutilated.

And covered in egg, blood, sweat and semen.

Well probably not the last bit.

Dog blanket.

As the body count rises our groovy group realise that there may be more to the curse than meets the eye and that a painting found in the theatre library (?) depicting the horrific events of the night before they happen - and in glorious Crayola colour to boot - may hold the key to the mystery at hand.

Tho' not the mystery of how the fuck this thing got greenlit with such a threadbare and nonsensical script.

Don't worry too much dear readers as the fairly graphic killings (well one of them) and the copious amounts of flesh on show more than make up for it. 

Probably.

From Writer/director Giuseppe Bennati - the man who directed the TV movie adaptation of Italo Calvino's BattleToads and the teen temptress teasing Red Lips, The Killer Reserved Nine Seats is an oft overlooked late entry into the Giallo cycle that blatantly steals the basic plot of Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians before hitting the bottle and introducing more and more wildly bizarre plot twists and turns -  everything from spooky ghosts, family curses to incest and luscious lesbians are randomly throw into the mix in the hope that some of it will stick to the (paper thin) walls of the plot and cover the cracks.

And scarily it almost succeeds.

Let's be honest you know a film is doing something right when you're more concerned whether Eva Czemerys is wearing underwear beneath her frankly terrifying togs than if the plot makes sense.

And for this alone we salute your courage Mr Bennati.

If not your sanity.

Eva Czemerys - Feeling a little horse.

And what the film (admittedly) lacks in logic, cohesive plotting and convincing performances it more than makes up for with its fantastic location and set pieces which no doubt went some way to influence the setting of Dario Argento's Opera and at least one of the kills is copied wholesale inMichele Soavi’s Stagefright.

Sure on reflection the films plot makes absolutely no sense but who cares when it looks as lovely as it does thanks to Giuseppe Aquari's lush cinematography.

Kudos too to composer Carlo Savina for his groovy score that bravely replaces normally expected shock cues with a rumba beat and wah-wah chase music.

As an aside it was Savina's - stock - scores that were used for the majority (79 episodes) of The Phil Silvers Show which is bizarre in itself.

See? You wont find nuggets like that on the BFI site.

But their well written articles about films that folk actually care about probably makes up for it.

Pants.

Worth looking out for just to impress girls with the knowledge that you've seen it, The Killer Reserved Nine Seats deserves to find a wider audience than it currently has.

As a bonus I've set 2017's bar so low that I'll be surprised if I'm disappointed by any movie this year.